Welcome to this week's Close the Chapter Podcast. It's hard to believe we are entering a new year 2023. How has it been for you? I'm curious. Feel free to tag me on Instagram, Facebook at kristendboice Or on TikTok just learning how to do that at Kristen Boice and Pinterest at Kristen Boice. I want to hear how you're doing. I know we're just a few days in. And already it's been jam-packed for me. It's going to be a year of expansion of the soul of the spirit of the self of your thoughts, feelings, emotions, body beliefs, and expanding on your way of seeing things, relationships yourself people. Are you willing to be more open and expansive? That is the question What do you want more of in your life? What do you want to release? That's no longer working for you? What do you want to embrace? There's so much to be said about it. And in this week's episode, I thought it was important to talk about intimacy. And I don't mean sex. I mean, closeness and relationships. What I find as a marriage and family therapist is people are afraid to be vulnerable, close, put themselves out there speak truth with love and grace. Say how they really feel share their feelings and emotions, their heart, their fears, what's coming up for them, afraid of sharing intimately with your partner, a friendship, maybe you're in a support group, whatever that looks like, we are so afraid of being disliked.

We are so free to disconnection, not belonging, shame taking over us in the emotion swallowing us hole that we close off parts of ourselves, we mask up. We try to present to the world a version of ourselves that would feel acceptable, likeable, lovable. And it's important that we dive into why are you afraid of intimacy. And there's really six fears, themes that I see and that I also pulled from one of my marriage and family therapy, training books that goes way back, couples and treatment. And it's by weeks and treat. And they also narrow down some themes. In terms of why people are afraid to be close and intimate, even though they want it. They're afraid. And so we need to break these down, it's important that you can grab paper and a pen. As always, or if you're doing laundry or on a walk, you're in the car, maybe a train, plane, automobile, whatever that looks like for you. You can always come back, come back and listen to this episode if you'd like. It's really one of the most important pieces of this podcast is integration, exploration, curiosity and reflection. Looking at some of these topics and themes seen if these played out in your family system, and then they've impacted you and you've carried it forward into your relationships and to how you feel about yourself. And so when the pen and paper you can take notes, you can access some self reflection on what spoke to you maybe what triggered you, what activated you so let's get started. Let's start with number one. These are in no particular order. And I'm going to pull from the research here that also backs up my experience over working with couples over 20 years and individuals and therapy into my own life. So I will share try to integrate personal examples and share some of my life just so it makes it more practical and relatable. Okay, so number one fear of dependency. This is found in partners who believe it is absolutely essential to be emotionally self sufficient, insulated and independent. And extreme cases the partner exhibits counter dependency or the need to constantly remain aloof from the other as if to say they should not need the that at all. They shouldn't need the other person they shouldn't need in any form or fashion anything from the other person, but finds the partner a financial or social inconvenience. This pattern can be found in marriages which Sager and hunter in 1979 have called Parallel, these marriage, couples do not rely on each other to fulfil their emotional needs, which I do agree with, we are responsible to fill our own emotional needs, and be emotionally available to our partner. What does that look like?

That looks like connecting to my own emotions and then holding an open space for me to hear, see and understand what you might be feeling as well and offer empathy. This type of marriage is characterised by emotional distance with each leading separate lives. The fear of dependency often stems from early parental influence parents, usually, it depends on the primary caregiver back in the day, they would really say, the parent, the father figure really was kind of the caretaker historically in the home, meaning the money bringing in the money. And they share the importance of being able to stand alone in the world without really having to rely on anyone, they have to be the provider, the protector. During childhood, children who grow up to fear dependence are pushed to be on their own, with little, if any guidance or support from the parent was this you? Were you told you how to do it by yourself. Were you told just deal with it. I am not going to take care of you if you're on your own. And I know some in some cases, the parent literally wasn't there. And they were on their own. And that is such deep, deep loneliness, abandonment, sadness. And so you learn I've got to do it on my own, I can't depend on anybody. When these children do need help, they're told they're weak, and that they should be able to do it alone, you should be able to take care of yourself, they're told you should be able to handle this, which is not true. We are not as children meant to handle adult situations. We are developmentally our brains do not have the capacity to handle adult situations and it breaks my heart when this has gotten passed down. Or maybe there's been a loss of another parent and the other parent can't handle life. And the child ends up carrying the pain body ends up carrying the pain that the the part that the parent didn't deal with. So if there was a loss of some sort, and the parent didn't deal with the loss guests who inhabit that loss. The parents lost, they take that on, they feel responsible. And they don't get to have their own process of that loss. And it can get passed down father to son, mother to daughter, it can get passed down just generationally. As I'm just speaking of historical, generational trauma, and the fear of depending on somebody else can paralyse people, they they're and there's no connection in that when you feel like you have to do it on your own, which is something I've battled is I am afraid to depend on someone else, which is going to lead into not our next one. But I'm going to get to that we are afraid we're going to be too much we're going to be a burden we're going to be perceived as weak. And so when we didn't have a parent there for us, we then become hyper dependent, hyper independent, not hyper dependent, become become hyper independent. And that's a trauma response. So ask yourself, Am I afraid of being too dependent? Am I afraid of dependency another person depending on me or me depending on them? Okay, let's get to number two fear of intimacy is the fear of feeling feelings. I cannot tell you how many times I deal with with individuals and couples, they feel like they're gonna get swallowed up in their feelings. And they have a hard time accepting emotions because as children, they weren't given the space to say it's okay to have all the feelings including the big ones anger, rage, sadness, joy, all of it was welcome at the table. That's not most of us. Most of us did not have that experience. And so we're afraid that we're going to be consumed in the feelings. So we don't want to feel it because it's too painful, too hurtful.

And expressing intimacy involves sharing a feeling with another person sin, that is what creates intimacy. Vulnerability creates the intimacy and that scares the heck out of a lot of people. Some partners have learned to fear their feelings. The feelings they fear are not specific ones necessarily. It's all of them. But they may be afraid of feeling hurt, rejection, abandonment, but in general, they fear all the feelings. It is true this general fear might be related to fear of specific feelings originally. Unfortunately, the specific fear has generalised to include expressing any feeling, especially in a romantic partnership, we get afraid to express a feeling because if the person isn't going to like us love us, it's going to push us away, abandon us reject us. And it scares us. So we learned in childhood that feelings create disconnection, feelings are not okay, I'm not acceptable. I'm not lovable. And I'm defective. If I share my feelings, which isn't true, but this is what we're taking then into romantic relationships. Partners, let's break some of these down that might be more helpful in case you're dealing with a partner, maybe with some more traumatic and I look at some of these things that are outlined in this book as trauma responses from childhood. partners who have obsessive compulsive personality structure use their defences to avoid feelings. And indeed, these individuals seem devoid of feeling if you're looking at it on the surface, okay? They hide behind rationality, intellectualization and a rigid sense of what they believe to be right. Virginia Satir, who was really a pioneer in the family, marriage and family therapy world, said this in 1967 refer to these types of partners as computers because of their mechanical non feeling approach to others. Computers think rather than feel, think rather than act and stay detached from others, in order to avoid having their own feelings touched. Being so devoid of an emotional life of their own, they sometimes enter into relationship with a histrionic partner histrionic partner is somebody that didn't get their needs met. And so there is a lot of, quote unquote, drama and intensity, and on the surface, they act as if the other partner were sick or crazy but unconsciously did they derive some gratification. The feelings of obsessive compulsive partners find uncomfortable may be projected meaning put on to their partner, so that they can deal with the feeling in the other and not in themselves. Individuals reared in families where feelings were out of control might also learn to avoid their own feelings and situations where child abuse or alcoholism were prevalent. Or if a parent suffered from depression, or manic depressive, bipolar disorder, reaction or was emotionally unpredictable. The child might fear being overwhelmed by feelings and losing control or going crazy. People are always afraid that be the therapist is going to think they're crazy. Because they have been told they're crazy. They have felt like their family's crazy. And they don't want to be perceived that way. And I'm pausing because it's such a deep emotion for people and fear, to be perceived that way. And these partners minds, the idea of feeling is synonymous with craziness. The same dynamic may also occur in individuals who have suffered from long term depression. In several cases, men with long untreated depression felt that allowing any feelings is the same as inviting an occurrence of depression. And Terry real, wrote a book on male depression called I don't want to talk about it. I highly recommend that to any men that are struggling with depression

because it's an older book, and it gives language and starts a conversation that it's okay for you to feel.

And a final pattern of fear occurs in those individuals who are emotionally discounted or told how to feel by their parents. being emotionally discounted means the parent would ignore, criticise or punish the child for having feelings, because emotional discounting is a verbal process and less severe than other types of abuse. So called this is what they say it's so called less severe, which it's not emotional abuse registers the same on a PET scan, as is physical or sexual abuse. And just want you to know the truth of this. It's often overlooked though people just have a hard time calling it abuse when they're emotionally abused. Repeated emotional discounting can have several long term effects adults, we have treated believe their partners will discount them should they attempt to express a feeling they learn to ignore, minimise and rationalise their feelings? The pattern is further complicated, because these clients do not share their feelings with the therapist, giving the impression that everything is satisfactory. So it's important that you're getting underneath your own minimization, rationalisation, denial, avoidance of your own feelings and diving into why are you avoiding your feelings? Why are you afraid to feel you got to dot the line back I know, to your past, to your growing up years, and I'm not to blame our parents, but we have to have some insight. Otherwise, you're going to repeat the patterns unconsciously in your romantic relationship and with your children. This is a plea to look within. So you can heal and learn the truth that intimacy has to be built through vulnerability and expression of emotions in a healthy way. Okay, let's look at number three. And this dives into maybe you have a fear of anger. So let's unpack that some more. And, again, kind of looking at is this one of your fears of intimacy is anger. The fear of anger may manifest in two ways. First, partners may fear the anger they have towards others. They may fear that getting too close to another person may elicit or release this hostility, aggression and anger or rage. Individuals with this fear keep their distance from others. They realise anger is inevitable in a close relationship. So they rationalise that the only way to avoid it is not to have close relationships. Several types of familial environments may create this type of fear and an individual and one type of family that child may be parental fide and there's a whole slew of episodes. But there is an episode on parental education prenta fied children are asked to assume responsibility far beyond their capacity. This is not their responsibility to take care of their parents, they must act like pseudo adults, adults often cast in the role of taking care of a parent. The loss of a child's sense of security, the excessive demands and the pent up feeling of anger that is not allowed to be expressed builds up over time. Many partners who are prenta fied carry deeply buried resentment and the anger that is displaced onto their current partner. That's why it's so important to explore if you're a parental FIDE child, because anger goes along with it because it wasn't meant for you to be your parents parent. And it's okay for you to feel angry about that. It's okay for you to feel grief. And it's important that you acknowledge it and allow it some space to be tended to dealt with processed and nurtured another family situation that generates fear of anger is one in which anger pervaded the system. The child or spouse abuse may have taken place the child witnesses how anger got out of control, and how members of the family got hurt. And an effort to never repeat this pattern the adult partner tries to suppress anger, the partner believes anger can only have destructive consequences. As a result of the mild model set by the parents, the opposite type of family environment can have the same effect. And these families the parents are reported to have never been angry or in conflict. And this really messes people up. They think they're bad. If they feel anger, I wouldn't say messes people up but it really impacts them negatively. In a way that they don't. They really struggle with feeling like they're going to blow up. At any point in rage and anger. The parents implicitly transmit the message that anger is bad, unacceptable, destructive. And many of these families children are told directly it is not nice to be angry, or that something is wrong with them if they feel anger. In other cases, partners simply may not have the skills to deal with anger. As a result, angry feelings never get resolved and build up. Over a period of time. The feelings may escalate to the point of violence, scaring themselves and their partner so much they vowed never to be angry again. Of course this effort is doomed to fail, but the fear still remains The major manifestation of the spheres that being the recipient of angry feelings, these individuals are very feel fearful that their partners will become angry with them. They will go to great lengths to placate the partner in order to avoid anger. I've talked about placation that is also an episode on the closer chapter podcast you can go back and listen to placation of marriage and how it harbours and leads to resentment placation leads to resentment in romantic relationships every single time. They will go to great lengths to placate their partner which we talked about that and just as the this other case we talked about, where the person's fear their own anger, these individuals may have reared and families where anger was expressed too much or too little. Most commonly, they were reared in families where the anger was explosively and unpredictably expressed Children of Alcoholics come to realise that the alcoholics anger is unpredictable, unwarranted and intended as destructive. These children then live in a state of constant fear waiting for something bad to happen to them, or to another family member. This could be a whole podcast the fear of anger. We're just touching the surface on these but we're just giving you a high level summary of why you might have a fear of intimacy a fear of being close to people, a fear of getting hurt. So let's jump into number four. The fear of losing control or being controlled. This one I hear a lot was sexual abuse or very invasive parenting, controlling parenting religious, where they may have been in a cult like religious system. So this is there's many different forms of feeling controlled. This fear has two levels of meaning on the surface that refers to the feeling that getting too intimate will result in a loss of control in one's life. This partner believes the other person will begin to take over and run his or her or their life. Essentially, it is a regressive feeling of being a child again, with another partner assuming the parental role, this becomes very much parent child dynamic. This feeling parallels what happens in the person's family of origin. The parents were over controlling did not promote competency and maturity in may have actually set the child up to fail by pushing them into tasks beyond his or her capabilities, and then withholding guidance and support. And at a deeper level, losing control means feeling engulfed by the partner. And golf mat refers to losing oneself in a relationship, the person's sense of self identity gets lost, these individuals are poorly differentiated. That's another term we're throwing out here. That's another podcast. I've done so many podcasts on these topics. Differentiation is when you're allowed to separate and individuate from your parents, you're allowed to have your own thoughts, feelings and opinions. And that starts in adolescence. And if it's not tolerated, then you're not allowed to continue on the developmental continuum to have your own sense of identity. You're not having to split off from your authentic self, you're an integrated whole self, you're you feel secure in communicating what you feel how you feel your thoughts, without placating people pleasing pretending.

All of the piece that I've talked about on other podcasts, so it's important that we define differentiation. So these individuals are poorly differentiated, and they have a poorly defined sense of self. Paradoxically, they search out others to help them complete their sense of self like you'll complete me that whole Jerry Maguire quote from that movie, or I just want to take that and go now nobody completes you, then they need to recoil from the relationship to preserve the sense of self they already possess. They tend to move back and forth searching for balance. And these individuals must search out their own identity and actively seek others who will support them and being who they are, and respecting their individual boundaries so they can have a stronger sense of self and be able to connect authentically and vulnerably vulnerably that's what creates healthy relationships. There's so much to unpack here, isn't there? Okay, let's move on to number five. The fear of exposure. This is another fear and intimacy so early on in a relationship parent partners only expose was what they choose to share. The partners only see the facade. As the relationship develops, the couple become closer and more self disclosing. This is like the honeymoon phase where you're showing people the best parts of you you're not showing your shadow sides does that brings you a lot of shame you want to be loved and liked. You want this to work out on one level, the level of self disclosure zigzags to deeper levels with partners taking turns risky more disclosure as trust builds, the question for every partner early on is how much to disclose and when, however, self disclosure may stop at the surface level out of the fear that exposing oneself will be too painful. A partner with a low sense of self worth or self esteem will not want his or her partner to know they will pretend to feel good about themselves. For these partners, the family did not provide sufficient development of self worth the partners, the parents rather may have been critical, demanding are never satisfied with the child's performance. And many of these families the love for the child was contingent on performance and not the person and who they were. The contingent love teaches the child to value only doing well and not oneself. The child learns that they are loved only when things are going well. If a problem or unpleasant feeling is expressed, the child immediately lose sight of the fact that love can be constant in the relationship in order to protect themselves from feeling of love. But they would not consider telling their partner how they feel, if it were negative, and would expect their partner to do likewise, the basic assumption of this fear is that if you really knew me, you would not like or love me, because I do not really like or love myself. This is so massive, because I see a lot of people that have gotten divorced or gone through a breakup. And they fear vulnerability. When the fear of exposure, it's really the fear of pulling the curtain back and saying this is who I really am. When the truth is, if you do not show who you really are at the very beginning of relationship. It's not a real true connection. You're only showing them parts of yourself. Ask yourself, what are the shadow sides? I don't want other people to see. Ask the person you're in a relationship. What are your shadow sides that you want to hide? We all have? What if we just put them on the table at the very beginning when that be so amazing. That's what me and my husband did we literally dated for two months. And I said he said I think I love you. And I said let's go to premarital counselling, he was like what? And he did you know why? Because he was willing to see if this is a go. And we put it all we can't put everything but we put all of it on the table, our childhood patterns, our shadow sides, my fears, my unhealthy patterns, his healthy patterns, his fears, and they still play out today. But we got some foundational pieces in place. And I still have trouble letting my shadow sides be seen because I feel unworthy, I feel unlovable, and that I should have it all together. So it's something I constantly have to manage, and nurture and talk to that younger part that wants to hide. And I feel like I need to be the strong one, when in actuality, we all need to let in another soul when we're hurting. When we feel alone, we feel lost. That's hard for me. Because of learning that that vulnerability was used as a weapon against me, it really was used as manipulation. If I was vulnerable, then it was used against me later on. And so I learned to kind of shut that off. And over the last 30 years of my life I've worked on opening, opening, expanding, sharing. Even recently, I had a grief burst. Because I lost my mom in October. And I'm used to doing on my own over time, especially when I'm in massive grief. Like I'll close I'll cry by myself. I won't let anyone see that. Although I've gotten better about that over the years, but this was a pretty big shame spiral grief burst. And I decided to phone a friend. I said I I cannot do this in isolation. It was a risk. It felt really risky. I felt very vulnerable. And this is what I teach clients and this is what I've done throughout my life. But this felt more heightened at this juncture. And so that was a level of feeling fear of intimacy, fear of who I'm setting myself up for major judgement, which my mom, God bless her, really struggled with criticism and judgement because she didn't feel good about herself. And that's when I'm afraid of criticism and judgement and not being liked and the perception of what people think of me. And that prevents me from being vulnerable. When I'm in my inner child, when I'm in pain when I'm in my shame spiral, and the only way through is to bring it to the light, the only way to have more intimacy is through transparency. That's it. The way to have health and all of your relationships is transparency. Truth was love and grace to be seen and let those shadow sides which are really our inner child parts that didn't get healed. Bring them to the light, I had this shame spiral, and I said, I feel like a part of me is broken open. And I'm like, I'm in the middle of the sea, and I'm on the life. I'm like, doing my no treading water, I couldn't think of the word in I'm treading water out there, and I'm exhausted. And I'm trying to get my centre back, but it's not there. And I'm just struggling. And it's okay to say that out loud. We think we have to have it this all together, or we don't want to look weak, or like a young child or whatever. And it just, it felt freeing to say it out loud. Because it's okay. It's part of grief. It's part of working through the hurt, the sadness, the pain, and it's okay, give yourself that permission, or you're gonna really struggle with building intimacy. This is gonna be a lifelong journey. It really is. And that's okay. There's no finish line. As I always say, in therapy, no finish line, even though we want there to be a finish line. It's, it's not it doesn't work like that. Okay, let's get to the doozy one, number six. This is the last one. So let's recap real quick before we get to the big, big drumroll. One, we have fear of dependency, fear of feelings, fear of anger, fear of losing control or being controlled. Fear of exposure, which is fear of vulnerability, like all of our parts being shown. And the number six is fear of abandonment, or rejection. Isn't this just the universal? For most of us the fear of being judged or rejection? If we're really honest about it, look at social media. Let me look a certain way. Let me function this way. So you think I'm beautiful, handsome, successful. Let me show you all the things. So you're like me, and you'll want to follow me and you'll want to XYZ I mean, this is just the thing. It's it's perpetual. So the more partner emotionally invest in a relationship, the greater the herd is experienced, should the relationship and the more you love, whether it's through death, or through a heartbreak, it's a risky run. But we're called to love bigger. We are called to love bigger, it is so clear to me the sheer love bigger and you have to be able to tolerate the risk in doing that.

Not saying no have boundaries. I'm not saying I'm saying trust your gut and tab boundaries so you can love bigger partners who have been hurt in the past because others have rejected, abandon them or hurt them are sensitive to getting too close too soon or getting close at all. In more serious cases, the partner has been dramatically rejected or abandoned. This situation might have occurred through a death, divorce or a parent jumping ship. Children who have lost a parent and have not been aided in working through the loss sometimes carry a fear of abandonment to all subsequent relationships. Children who learn that they were adopted may also carry a deep sense of rejection or abandonment. This is why it's so important to have safe people therapists to talk to or support system a 12 step programme. For healthy friendships, to support you throughout the week. We all need support. Let's just be honest, why don't we talk about this more. In other cases the family of origin did not contribute to the fear. The fear may have evolved through adult relationships that were extraordinarily hurtful this may be a betrayal, a betrayal trauma affair. Gambling issues, addiction issues. In some cases, we have seen partner suddenly abandoned just Prior to a wedding without any explanation, or further contact with the person and maybe there was a death, a sudden death of a partner. These events leave the partner with a deep sense of loss, rejection and hurt. Here's the bottom line. Never getting close to another person is seen as a way to protect oneself from ever having to relive such a painful trauma. And here's the deal, it's not true. The courage to act emotionally, to feel your anger and not displace this onto another person, you have to obviously work through the anger and underneath it's a lot of trauma and pain and suppression of emotions with a professional can be helpful. And I really want to encourage you, if you most of us have many of these six. I love Harriet Lerner's work, the dance of intimacy, the dance of anger. She's been around a long time, she's a therapist, and I love her books. And I love her work. So get some of those books. I love giving you resources. And I want to leave you with several strategies on how to work through this. Number one, ask for help. I'm humbled myself, I go to therapy, as you all know, because I'm a big believer in therapy. It doesn't mean it's the end all be all. It's it's the catalyst for your healing. When you get the right therapist, get a good trauma therapist, to help work through maybe the deeper layers here. And just jump into a support system. There's a support group for everything. And I do mean that like almost everything, you can google and find a support group, give it six six goes sick go six times, and then see how you feel. Give it a whirl. I'm telling you supportive systems are imperative. Number two, get the good old handy dandy journal out some of you do not like journaling. And I want to encourage you again, to try it when you're stuck. Right for 15 minutes and 2018. There was a study on those that journaled for 15 minutes a day had a severe reduction in anxiety, depression, PTSD, and trauma. This is clinically proven. And what do I write about my journal, like I wrote about I feel lost and alone in sad, and my shame story, that I'm a bad person. I mean, just let it rip. And this is we all have shame stories of like, we think we're defective, not lovable. Not enough in some form or fashion, write that down, write down what do I need to heal. In my say, I don't know, if I let that rip. Maybe you're going to pray and let that whatever leading you get come through on the page. Maybe you're going to just write a summary of your day. Maybe you're going to get up and check in with your word for this year. That was last week's podcast if you want to listen to that. And at least commit to taking care of yourself. Because if you can't be intimate with yourself, here's the bottom line, you're going to have a hard time being intimate with another person. If you can't be intimate with yourself, you're going to have a difficult time being intimate with another person. What does intimacy with yourself look like? Acknowledging, connecting processing your thoughts, feelings, body sensations and emotions. And the therapist can help you do that. Something I encourage every soul on this planet, we're only here a short time, take care of you so you can be light in love to yourself and other people. I realised when I'm not taking care of myself, I am no good. I literally am not. I just I'm in like a pit if you know what I mean. It's like the dark abyss. I feel lost. I don't have clarity. I'm not motivated. I'm lethargic. I'm not because I'm taking care of myself. It's like my little girl wants to be taken care of, but I'm not willing to do it for myself. So it's imperative this self care umbrella. Number three, connecting to your emotions and giving yourself permission to feel it. That's where intimacy comes from. I want that for you. I believe it's possible for you. I know it is because I'm walking the walk. I'm a therapist. I'm deeply connected to my own work, which I think only helps me be able to hold space for others because I'm like, I'm not better than anyone. No, no, no. I see the pain and the hurt and the fear of never being loved or never having what you want or whatever the fear is. And I believe it's possible 1,000,000% that you can find healing, but you have to commit to ongoing self care, ongoing healing. It's not a one stop shop fast. It's not like Amazon Prime me. The fourth thing I want you to know, is that you do matter in your worth doing this work. And number five, find some laughter, find some joy, Do things you enjoy. Don't like 24/7 do this growth work or your burnout? Have some fun? Do you like to cook? Do you like to travel? Do you like to watch comedy shows? What are you like what brings you joy to be with your kids, your grandkids, whatever that looks like maybe it's none of those things. Being with your pets, do more of that. I love you. And I'm so grateful. So so grateful for you. Be on the lookout for what's coming is I want to create a community of people that are on a growth journey. So we can be the light in the world by doing facing, attending to our own pain. Jump on the the mailing list at Kristen k r i s t e n d Boice b l ice.com forward slash free resources. You will get a free journal to jumpstart you on this that you can use over and over and over that I use with clients. And then you'll get information about programmes I'm creating for this year to have us all come together and celebrate being a better version of ourselves and stopping generational trauma. Happy New Year and can't wait to spend time with you on this journey of healing and transformation. Have a good week.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai