Welcome to this week's close the chapter podcast. Each and every week, I join you and I just am filled with gratitude. So thank you for joining me for this episode. This is a particular an episode that impacts everyone. And what do I mean by that? How many of you have kept a secret? Any kind of secret? And I we have different forms of secrets? And what has that done to you? Have you really even thought about it? Or have you tried to bury it so deeply, and lock it away and never think about it again. And perhaps you think the secret doesn't really affect you, or bother you or impact you in some way. Today's episode is one that can bring up lots of emotions. So I do want to give you the heads up that we are going to be talking about secrets, and the impact of secrets. And I think it's a topic that needs more attention. Because we don't know the impact that secrets have on you, personally, and relationally. So I really want to invite you today to take a deep breath, you can always come back to your center. Anytime you might feel shame or guilt or feel activated or afraid of something, what I want you to practice is coming back to center, what do I mean by that, taking a big breath in through your nose. And pull your belly into your spine. And then release with a sigh out your mouth.

And demonstrating that for you. So your brain will take the cue to breathe. And then I want you to notice your surroundings. So look around, see what's in front of you orient yourself to the present moment, the here and now the past is over. And we are now in the present moment. And so you can always come back to your center and reground you can always come back. When you feel like you're going into what we call dissociation where you're leaving your body, you can come back into your body or nervous system, come back into this present moment and know that the past is over. So I want you to practice that as you're listening to this episode. And in the hours and the days to come, I want you to think about coming back to center. When we get in our heads and we get into rumination or looping thoughts, we can lose our connection to our body and our spirit self, our wise self that gives us the answers when we're present to listening. They it gives us guidance. I like to call it the Holy Spirit. You can call it whatever you want, God universe, or self, adult self, whatever works for you to access this. But when we had the tools to learn how to come back to center, get out of our head, get out of our fear, come back into our body and come back to this present moment. You start with the breath. And I know this sounds easy. It takes practice, connect to your body. orient yourself to the space notice the objects what's in front of you. What's in front of you describe it shape, size, color. And the reason I'm going over this at the beginning, is because we can feel a lot of shame and guilt when it comes to secrets. And so I want you to be very gentle with yourself and compassionate. And maybe someone has held a secret from you. Or maybe someone has asked you to hold a secret that felt so overwhelming and lonely. Secrets are a lonely place to be. And you might have heard the saying that secrets can make you sick. And the reason why that sane is on the forefront is because your body and your nervous system respond to the burden and the suppression and the repression and pushing down and trying to lock away the secret. And it takes a toll on you. Your body will tell you no more. Your body will give you the indicator. I can't do this anymore. Because we rationalize we minimize and we try to protect ourselves and we're going to be exploring family of origin. We're going to be looking at a trauma. We're also going to be looking at how this plays out. relationally so you're going to want to listen to the whole episode I invite you to grab pen and paper wherever you are. And as always, I will reference other episodes so feel free to binge listen to For the episodes, and listen over and over and again when you need them the most, because let's face it, going through growth and working through our trauma, our secrets, our fears, is not easy. And at any point in time you need support, please do not hesitate to access a therapist right now we have a new number that has launched here in the United States called Nine Eight, where you can dial 988, and it's a mental health. Suicide Prevention Hotline, it also is for anybody in crisis. It's kind of like 911 is for physical crisis. Now we have 988. So you can text that number two, you don't have to just call it and at any point you need support, please know, it's so important to know there is help available out there, whether it's a therapist 988 A support group. There's so many options. So please don't try to do this alone. Okay, let's dive into today's episode. And let's define what secrets are. And I'm gonna read the definition of a secret. It's not known or seen or not meant to be known or seen by others. That's the adjective version. The noun version is something that is kept or meant to be kept unknown, or unseen by others. And let's talk about what is considered a secret. Real, really, anything that we want to hide or is hidden,

is kind of hiding something from someone else or from other people is considered a secret. What prompted me to do this episode? Here's what prompted me to do this episode is I have so many clients that have been betrayed by secrets, and or they are keeping a secret. What kind of secrets do I hear in the therapeutic room, I hear of secrets of sexual abuse, because the shame, feel so great to reveal that you've been sexually assaulted, sexually abused, touched and appropriately violated in some way. It can be even physical abuse, it can be incest, it can be any type of childhood trauma that was not wanted. And many people have shame over well, I didn't say anything. And I said absolutely. Because that's the conditioning you receive. Fight, Flight freeze, or fawn. We are can, those are our survival responses, and we flop. And so those survival responses, try to protect you. And there is an article on the pathways to healing counseling website that was recently published by my supervisor when I was going through school, lowest Bushong. And she wrote why people don't speak up about abuse. And it's so powerful, and I recommend you can go and we'll link it in the show notes. It is so good. Because we're conditioned out of having a voice. And in childhood, it wasn't safe for many people to have a voice. So a way to protect yourself. And you might not even know that you are keeping a secret and might be something that you are threatened with. Maybe someones said, no one's going to believe you or I'm going to harm you or your family. There was some threat made or some punishment that was going to happen if you told and so you learned that to stay safe. I I can't tell I cannot tell or someone's going to die or get hurt, or there's going to be pain involved in so that was a survival mechanism. And so we work a lot on all the compassion and tenderness towards the little soul that was threatened and didn't have a voice. Other secrets people keep our baby identity that they're struggling with identity because they feel like they'll be shunned, they will be judged they will be prosecuted, ridiculed, bullied, disowned. And this happens if they tell the truth, and the pain that they carry is so deep and so great. They don't want to be shunned. They don't want to not belong anywhere. They don't want to be judged. They don't want to be rejected, prosecuted persecuted, and so it feels safer to carry the secret. Other secrets are of betrayal. You many times because I'm a marriage and family therapist. I have dealt with so many betrayals of affairs, whether it's emotional, physical, sexual, There's so many forms of affairs where there's a violation of trust, there's lies that are told, repeatedly, there's people that have double lives that have, you know, they have another relationship while they're in an in a marriage, or in a committed relationship. And they are, they have children, they have other lives. And they've led this lie. And they're afraid to give it up because they want both. They want both parties. And sometimes it's gambling issues, addiction issues that are so profound, that seems so scary to reveal. There are other types of lies that people hold, it might be who someone's parent is, it might be somebody has held on that they had an affair, and somebody else is the parent to their child. And years later, it comes out, I've walked many, many people through that. And it may be lies on you know who the biological parent is, if there's a step parent involved, they think it's their biological parent, it's really the step parent or it's the product of an affair, or maybe an adoption, they weren't told that they were adopted early enough, and there was an honest transparency.

And the list of of secrets is deep and wide, we're not gonna be able to cover every single secret, it's impossible. There's many different types of secrets, there is childhood secrets, that you might have had a very rough childhood, a traumatic childhood, and you haven't shared that with your partner, maybe you, you had some form of rape or abuse of some sort, and never shared that with anyone, maybe you had an abortion or a miscarriage, and never shared that with anybody. And I'm here to tell you, it's okay. It's okay. You didn't do anything wrong. And I am going to share with you the truth about secrets and what they do. Because if we don't have this conversation, we may never know that there's freedom and liberation on the other side. And you have to decide what's best for you. I want to make sure we're really clear on that you have to check in you have to know what is best for you, because no one else can know what's best for you. The answers lie within you. So please know that the answers are not. Right, wrong, good, bad, black and white answers. They are a rumbling within yourself. So I will give an example of a secret that was not meant in a harmful way. And there's different types of secrets. So I'm going to tell you a secret that wasn't meant in a harmful way. It was meant to protect me. And at the same time, it was a painful secret for my teenage self to keep. So my parents are divorced. They divorced when I was eight. My dad got remarried. He was single for a while he got remarried. Two or three, two years later, maybe. And my stepmom was younger than him and wanted children while my dad had a vasectomy. And so he had a reversal. And I've shared this on the podcast a few times about my mom and her. God loved my mom. This is nothing to pick on my mom this is just to illustrate relatable examples. My mom felt very threatened by my stepmom even though my mom wanted the divorce. She had a hard time she was she felt like my stepmom was going to replace her which is impossible. And this is what I work on with a lot of clients. And I could digress on that's another podcast episode. Because a parent is always a biological parent can't replace that. There's just different forms of relationships anyways. And so my dad had a reversal. So they could I have a kid. Well, we my dad had taken me to a on vacation for spring break. And he had a few too many cocktails. And I was 17 at the time and he said Jill's pregnant, she's going to have a baby. And I thought, okay, I was excited. I was like, Oh, that's great. And he's like, No, don't tell your mom. And the reason he said don't tell your mom, which I agreed with because my mom would have not handled that well at all. And he didn't mean to tell me and give me that secret, but obviously I was gonna find out.

And then when he did tell my mom, she asked if I knew. Did you know why knew tell me it was kind of an interrogation. And the time that I kept the secret from when she found out, I was so scared, she was going to find out and just she was going to lose it no matter what. So he was trying to prolong her getting upset with me. So the final straw was, he found out she got really upset. But for me to have the anxiety. And this was, again, he was trying to protect me, the anxiety of carrying the secret was a lot. And for children to carry secrets, is very harmful. It's very harmful for them to be the secret keeper. And another form of a secret is I've had many clients walk in while their parents had an affair or found something of the affair partner with their parent. And they then became the secret keeper because they were afraid to tell the other parent, they didn't want to hurt the other parent. They didn't want to break up the family, the burden that they carried, is heavy. And it does play out in their current relationships. Will you say how, why? Because trust is broken. For that person. I mean for that child to experience or find out, and they're the ones that found out about the affair. They're the ones that have to keep the secret. It's extremely painful. And if you watch TED lasso, I'm kind of behind this, the see a behind the eight ball on this. Because it's been out for a long time, I just am at the scene, there's a scene in there where the owner of the football team, she found her father having an affair and never told her mother, but her mother already knew. And she was angry. She said, I'm so angry. And the mother said I understand. And she said I'm angry at you, mom for staying. And she said I'm I'm glad you're angry at me because I thought you didn't care about me, you seemed like you just didn't care. So for you to be angry with me knows that you care about me. And she just broke down crying, the daughter who kept a secret. And her dad had passed away he had died. And she was able to finally finally share the secret. And I am a permission giver for people to share secrets, to be liberated, to share it because research I'm going to break some of this down for you because it's important we look at the the research on this. Because we do know secrecy is associated with lower wellbeing, worse health and less satisfying relationships. And it's research has showed a link between secrecy and increased anxiety, depression, symptoms of poor health, and even more rapid progression of disease.

And so the harms are pretty deep. And the concealment and the vigilance of concealment can be exhausting. So new research suggests that the harm of secrets doesn't really come from hiding after all, which is very interesting because hiding, we think hiding is the issue. But the real problem with keeping a secret is not that you have to hide it, but that you have to live with it and think about it. So the concept of secrecy might evoke an image of two people in a conversation with one actively concealing from the other. Yet such concealment is actually uncommon, it is far more common to ruminate and ruminate on our secrets. It is our tendency to mind wander to our secrets that seems most harmful to well being. Simply thinking about a secret can make us feel inauthentic. Having a secret return to our minds over and over can be tiring. It can make us feel isolated and alone. So here's what's interesting to better understand the harms of secrecy. There was a research study done and they found that 97% of people have at least one secret at any given moment. And that could be something lighter, like a surprise party. Or maybe it's something you bought, and you lied about it. Maybe it's you've shopped a lot. And you didn't want to tell your partner how much you spent. I mean, there are different forms of secrets. And they said that, on average people have an average of 13 secrets. So a survey of more than 5000 people found that common secrets include preferences, desires, issues surrounding relationships and sex. So you're not being transparent about what you like what you don't like cheating, infidelity, and violation of others trust. So across several studies, they asked participants to estimate how frequently they conceal their secret during convert sessions with others, and how frequently they thought about the secret outside of social interactions. And what they found is, the more frequently people simply thought about their secrets, the lower their well being. The frequency of active concealment when interacting with others had not. It wasn't about that on their well being was the fact that they would ruminate on the secret. So following up on this research, a new paper reveals why thinking about secrets is so harmful. Turning the question around, they examine the consequences of confiding secrets, they found that when a person can find the secret to a third party, it does not reduce how often they have to conceal the secret from others, who are still kept in the dark rather, and reduces how often their mind wanders toward the secret and irrelevant moments. So how often are they thinking about the secret? The act of confining a secret can feel cathartic and relieving. But mere catharsis is not enough. When confining a secret, what is actually helpful is the conversation that follows. This is why therapy is so powerful. I'm telling you, I've seen people just liberated from years of shame and guilt. So people report that when sharing a secret with another person, they often receive emotional support, useful guidance and helpful advice. Now, I'm going to interject here, if someone is keeping a secret, and they're not confining, or they're giving very, they're covering, they're hiding, still, they're not going to get the relief, because they're not being truthful. So for example, if I have a couple in therapy, and this happens frequently, not too frequently, because I can sniff it out pretty much in the first session, not first, but fairly quickly. And there's nothing I can do about it. What I can tell someone is afraid to tell the truth, because there's going to be a price. So if I have a couple in therapy, and we're not making any headway, then I can feel it my gut, my body will tell me the answer. And it will for the partner to if you're on the receiving end of somebody keeping a secret. If you're connected to yourself, you're connected to your body and you're not rationalizing, you're giving yourself full permission to trust your instinct to trust your vibes. The answers there,

your body will will be telling you something. And so that will happen in therapy. And I give all the permission slips I'm like, Look, I get it. It's it's, they're scared. And you're gonna feel liberated if we can get this sorted if we can get everything on the table. And when they don't, I see their lives take a complete nosedive. And I'm because they weren't transparent in their relationship with themselves, their life starts just taking a nosedive. They start not feeling great. They start having work issues. They're having relationship issues in their marriage with their children. It just starts going south because they're not liberated in in sharing the truth. So once people can share it, and I'm making it sound so easy, it's not. What happens is the healing can begin the healing can begin even if it's not what you hope for. So people report that when sharing a secret with another person they often receive, like I said, the emotional support, guidance, advice if they want it. These forms of support make people feel more competent and capable in coping with the secret. When people find a healthier way of thinking about their secret, they ruminate less on it and have improved well being. The study suggests that what is important is talking to another person about a secret. A single conversation can lead to a healthier outlook and mind Isn't that powerful. This is written by Michael. Part of what I'm talking about about the research is written by Michael Schell pIan slep i A N. So if you want to know more about his research, that is what he is talking about. So this new science of secrecy brings both good and bad news. The bad news is that even when we are not hiding our secrets, they're still very much with us and can still hurt us because we're ruminating on him. The good news is that even when we choose to still keep something secret talking to another person can make the world of difference. Secrets don't have to hurt as much as they do. I just went into digging in digging into this because it really was fascinating to me because the secret, the burden of keeping a secret is exhausting. It's exhausting. And people will feel stuck and alone, hopeless, helpless until they can feel safe enough to share it with someone that is safe. And so what I also thought was really important as we look at shame and guilt. And I wanted to break this down a little bit. While shame and guilt are both negative what we don't like these emotions, okay? They have important differences. Guilt is more adaptive. When you feel guilty, you can make amends or decide to do something differently next time. That's the power of guilt, it can propel us to make a positive change, where shame is more about a feeling like a bad person, it can again make us feel helpless and powerless. And those feelings of helplessness can lead a person to revisit their shame their shameful secrets over and over, rather than feeling the liberation from the secret. So while I help people work through the secret secrets, equals shame, oftentimes, it depends on if you have a personality disorder, which we're not getting into, but in general, secrets elicit a lot of shame. And the shame is what we are working on in therapy, in order to be able to tolerate telling the secret. So it's really important, when we do start sharing the secret, we will see a big reduction in shame over time. It is like when we put shame, and I love Dr. Brene. Browns work when we put shame in a petri dish, and we douse it with a little bit of darkness and keep it hidden, it will grow, the shame will exponentially grow, health will decline, your body will start screaming at you. When we bring shame to the light, which is like bringing in the secret to the light was safe people. It starts opening your soul and your heart up, you're less afraid, you're less living like you want to crawl under a rock and hide, you're less isolated,

you feel less lonely, you feel start feeling like you have some worth and some value, you start working through that shame. You start working on those inner child parts that no it wasn't your fault. Because sometimes it wasn't safe to tell the truth at home, because you would have gotten disciplined, punish, beaten, shamed, attacked. And so you learn to lie. Some people have learned to lie really, really well. Because that was safe. And they don't even they lie so much. They can even sort out a truth and a lie. Because they rationalize something so much. And they're afraid that if anyone has an adverse reaction, meaning they get upset, that they're like, See, I shouldn't have told you the truth because you're upset. It's like, that person has a right to be upset, you have zero tolerance for that person being upset because of your childhood or because it triggers something of shame in you. It triggers fear in you of not being good enough. And so you don't tolerate the other person's reaction. So you hide it. And when we lie about it, and we keep a secret about how we really feel. It never plays out. Well in a relationship. It just doesn't. I see people get sick. Whether it's I mean, the body will just break down because the body is holding the secret the nervous system is holding the secret. And going back to the research study, it's interesting because the researchers found that people felt more fatigued and more alone. As they kept pushing things down. And we want to protect ourselves and our relationship. But once we are able to confide, have social support, and you feel confident in that you feel so much more capable of tolerating someone else's upset tolerating someone else's sadness or anger. And it's important to note that in this study that it's it really highlighted that sharing secrets is often a way to build trust or closeness. Knowing which people tend to share can help to identify who's likely to build close relationships, and who might be missing opportunities to foster closeness and trust. And I think that's really important. Go Going back to Ted Lassalle, he had kept a secret. And it was to protect himself from all the pain of his dad's suicide and finding his father. And he was he started having panic attacks as a result. And this is years later. I mean, he's in his late 40s, early 50s. I don't know how old he is in the show, but he started having panic attacks during heightened points of the football game. This is English soccer. And he could not figure out why am I having these massive panic attacks. What was because he never got to process his the death of his father, and that it wasn't a secret that he intentionally was trying to keep it was he never got to process the pain, the anger, the sadness, the grief, the loss of losing his father. And so it manifested itself in panic attacks. And that's usually what goes on in panic attacks. There's something underneath driving that. And is it something that you never got to process and secrets can be tied to never having the ability to process

the secret. And so maybe you went through something traumatic, like an abortion, and you never got to process that it's really important that you take the time to acknowledge the shame, the guilt, the fear, the sadness, and I'm making these up, you might not have experienced these emotions. But if that was there, I'm just naming something that I work often with clients, or maybe it was something an affair, maybe it was trauma in your childhood, maybe it was something else that you file bankruptcy, I'm making this up, and you never told anybody. And therapy can be a great place to start. Because they're bound by HIPAA. It's a place to go to be yourself to share what's really there support groups, 12 Step programs can be a great way. Because truth is at the center of that now, they're not going to be therapeutic program. And I'd highly recommend a therapeutic program, or a process oriented group where you can share, and it's a sacred space, it's a safe place for you to come as you are. And when we can offer ourselves compassion and love and understanding for our younger self, or even your current self. It is so healing. And I offer that to every client that speaks truth for the first time. And so many people come in, they've never told a soul. Any of this in the fear it is to tell somebody, I just want to honor that brings tears to my eyes. Because we've all had decisions we've had to make choices we made and, or things that have happened to you. That weren't your fault. That wouldn't it be great if we could offer each other so much tenderness and grace and love and compassion. That's what's so healing when their secrets. And let me say something about that. If someone does reveal a secret to you, if you're, for example, if you've been in a partnership where someone had an affair, it's okay to have your feelings. It's okay to have boundaries. It's okay to be clear and what you need to do for you. In that partner, if you are the secret keeper, I just want to commend you on trying to if you are the one that tried to keep a secret for somebody or I understand you are trying to do the best you could and how painful that is. And it's okay to say I can't be the secret keeper is too much for me. I really think that you need to talk to a therapist or somebody that can help carry the load because I can't be the one that carry the secret and a few on the recipient and if someone betrayed you, because of a secret. It's important you get your own support as well. And you're able to process the pain of it. And it's okay to have your emotions to here's the liberating part of doing secret work is on the other side of it is a lightness. It's a relief in the middle of it. It's tough, it's murky, it's it's hard, it's scary, and it can create a lot of it could stir up feelings that you've been trying to repress for a long time and And when you can connect to those emotions and sit with them, tend to them, love them, welcome them, welcome them all to the table, you're going to change your life. And that's why therapy can be so empowering. I'm not saying therapy is the only way through journaling, getting it out on paper saying things out loud, prayer, meditation, exercise, I mean, I could go through the litany of things listening to podcasts like this one. Reading books, those are all healing, but the most healing thing you can do for yourself is acknowledge

the secret, then process the emotions around it. Notice your body sensations, and give yourself time and space to let the secret breathe, be seen, be nurtured, be tended to be forgiven. And take radical ownership of it. And I'm not saying what happened to you, I'm saying over just bearing it and how that has maybe manifested for you because we know if you bury things for a long enough time, I know I keep saying it, but it will manifest itself, it will manifest itself relationally because you won't trust people, it'll manifest itself because you're afraid they're gonna find out your secret and they no longer love you. Or they're going to leave you or abandon you, you. And so start with a therapist start with someone that is that you can tip your toe into the water. And the truth is, those that are meant to witness, bear witness compassionately will be the people that you're meant to be in relationship with. You will have deeper connections, you'll feel less lonely, you will feel a sense of freedom and truth is something all of us have to practice telling the truth. And I don't mean you need to tell everybody everything. It's one of those where you can be honest with yourself and bring things to the light. Because that is what opens you up to receive love and then offer love to others more fully it opens you up instead of restricts you where you're trying to protect yourself all the time because you're afraid someone's going to find out. That is a very anxiety producing place to live. Or maybe you didn't even know, like Ted last so that how much it was impacting your life until you started having a panic attack. And that scary panic attacks are scary. And what if we could create safe places for people to tell the truth? Wouldn't that be so powerful, and that is my mission? Can we create safe places for people to say how they really feel, say what they like and don't like in a loving kind way, I'm not saying be mean that they can have the freedom to trust their intuition and their vibes without having to explain everything. They could just say I just get a bad vibe about this. I just don't feel comfortable with this. And then asking yourself, if there's something there to explore. So here's my invitation for you. Write down all the things that you've been pushing down or hiding, write them all down. You can burn this if you want. You're going to you're going to pray. If you pray, you can pray over if not, that's fine, too. You're going to offer yourself compassion and nurturing. You're going to light it on fire, put it in the fire pit, whatever you want to do safely. This is again, safety, safety, safety. Do not harm yourself, you're going to do it safely, or you can rip it up, put it in a shredder, whatever feels good to you. And then make a decision of what you know if that's as far as you want to go or you wrote it out. Okay, if you want to take it to the next step and you're you want to dig deeper and find some more transformational healing. You could seek out a therapist, you could do what we call em Dr. I've done lots of episodes on that. Eye Movement, desensitization reprocessing, you can do brainspotting I would find a trauma therapist. You could do somatic experiencing. There's many different forms of therapy that are so helpful trauma therapy, and where you can feel safe to go and tell the truth. That's really what therapy is. It's a safe place to go and tell the truth and process the truth, which are your emotions, your body sensations, your beliefs about yourself, your thoughts. So you can start let go getting more into your heart and less in your head, working through fear, so you can live more securely and peacefully. Now fear doesn't just disappear, it can help you.

The bottom line is when you face it, you're on the path to transformation. If you bury it, there's no hope of healing. It really, truly is no hope of healing. And I don't mean to be an all or nothing. Even if you took it just one little step at a time. But write it out, you can destroy it, whatever you want to do. That's the first step is acknowledging your pain, acknowledging but you've been carrying, then I would get the book healing the shame that binds you by Dr. John Bradshaw. Or you can get Rising Strong by Dr. Brene Brown, who talks a lot about shame if you haven't heard her. Or you could get it's not always depression by Hilary Jacobs handle. Those are some books to get started in this work. And then homecoming by Dr. John Bradshaw. So it's some inner child work and know that there is healing on the other side, I promise you, I promise you there is healing on the other side, because I've walked so many people through it, and you can unburden yourself, you can unburden yourself, and your body can start being more free. And I want to round out our conversation today with returning to center. This is an exercise you can do, anytime any place is learning to come back to your center by noticing your surroundings looking at what's in front of you, anchoring into your body. So feel your feet on the ground, a big deep belly breath in through your nose. And then let them all out like you're blowing out candles, and you want to get all the candles out.

The other component to coming back to center is saying like, Oh, my family is always like you're always sighing and like, it's not you. I'm coming back to my center. So I can feel centered, and out of my fear out of my ruminating thoughts into my centered place, so I can access the place of feeling secure. Thank you for tuning in. If you found this episode helpful, or maybe you want to start a conversation with somebody around this, I welcome you to share the episode. Because I know it's scary to start this vulnerability and you want to pick someone safe. Share this episode. Ask them if they would listen to it. Maybe you could get together and have a conversation about it, what it brought up for them. How do you both feel about it. And that could be the first step. Or perhaps you just want to re listen to this episode, or you want to go back and listen to lots of the close the chapter podcast and I the message is consistent. Stay on the path of nurturing yourself healing the parts that are hurting and facing the pain. And I give you so many ways encouraged to face the pain because I'm doing the same thing. And it's not always easy. And sometimes we need breaks and that's okay too. I give lots of permissions to wherever you are, you know what's best for you. You know what's best for you. You do other people can guide you. But the answers lie within you. Thank you for showing up being who you are, and your willingness to listen, to try to understand it and expand your way of thinking you're expanding your heart opening. And I'm so grateful for you. Thank you. And if you found this episode helpful, I would love to know you can rate review and subscribe to the episode or to the podcast. You can tag me on social media at Kristen D Boice. On Instagram and Facebook and then I just got on Tik Tok not too long ago. I've shared that don't know what I'm doing. But it's Kristen Boice. Thank you from the bottom of my heart. And I wish you all the best. And I'm here for you. So tune in next week. I will have Dr. Heather brown on and then the follow in we are talking about reality in your reality and how someone else's reality might not match up and how that impacts you. And then the following week. I have Dr. Weiss, and he and I had a great conversation about men being afraid of women. It was very interesting. And we also talked about how that impacts relationships so it got me thinking in the new way so be sure to tune in the next couple of weeks Thanks and I hope you have a good week