Transcript:

Julie: So we have a fantastic group of people here tonight. I’m gonna have everybody give a quick introduction. Christina, do you want to go first?

Christina: Sure, yeah. Hi everybody. My name is Christina. I am in my early 40’s and I’m a public educator. I live in western Colorado, and today is number 943 without alcohol.

Julie: Very cool! And next we have Tim.

Tim: Yeah, so my name is Tim Phillips. I have a podcast that is called the Sober and Happy Podcast. You can find it on any of your podcast apps, or you can go to soberandhappy.com to find out more about me. I’ve been sober since 2011. My journey started in rehab. I did AA for awhile and found that it wasn’t aligning with what I was looking for. So after about 5 or 6 years in AA, I went out on my own path and really started discovering what works for me. And so that’s what I talk about.

Julie: Excellent. Yeah, Steve’s kind of on that same path, so I think you guys will have quite a bit in common. I have really enjoyed listening to your podcast. I will also put contact information for Tim in our show notes so you guys can check that out. And last but not least, we have Jessica back for a second time.

Jessica: Hi, my name is Jessica. I am a mom of two, I live in Connecticut and I work as a paralegal. I have been sober since August 12, 2022. So it’s been 6 months. And yeah, I don’t know if there’s anything else.

Julie: Awesome! You just hit six months, congratulations! That’s a big milestone.

Well thank you guys all for being here tonight. If there’s one topic that comes up more than any other in nearly every sober conversation I’ve been in, it’s self worth. A lack of self worth seems to be at the base of so many of the reasons that we drank. From letting people walk all over us to perfectionism, to not creating the life that we want, to believing that we deserve a life in recovery, low self worth can hold us down forever, if we let it. So how have you struggled with self worth, what has that looked like in your life? What are you doing to increase your self worth, and how has that manifested in your life in recovery? It’s kind of a big topic. I don’t think we’re going to cover everything that could be said about it.

Christina: I think for me… you mentioned that self worth bubbles in up almost every conversation. I think boundaries do, as well. Self worth and boundaries are peas in a pod for me. The longer I’m sober, the more I notice what I will and will not tolerate. When I was drinking, I thought I deserved the bad things that came my way, so I just rolled over and took it. Now that I’ve got some sober time and some reflection, I can stand in my own strength and say, “Actually, that’s not okay with me.” That wouldn’t have happened if I hadn’t had the clarity of sobriety and the time to reflect. I’m also a very firm believer in “fake it til you make it.” (laughter) Especially in those early days, when you’re like, “Oh God, am I going to make it until 9 pm?” And you do, and you pat yourself on the back, and wake up clear headed without a hangover. And then you fake it all again the next day! I think the same thing can come for self worth. And of course we’re talking about sobriety today, but if you’re exploring a new career, or looking into a new relationship. Whatever it is, if you just know that failing doesn’t absolutely mean death, that you can ease your way into it and learn from your mistakes. The nice side effect from that is some increased self worth.

Julie: Yeah, the fear of failure thing came up for me when I was thinking about this topic. For me, even when I was a little girl, if I failed in some way – if I got a bad grade on a test, if I made a friend mad at me or disappointed my parents or whatever it was. Even all the way back then, that directly affected my self worth. And that has carried on into adulthood. The fear of failure has kept me from doing… even quitting drinking. Right? I was so afraid that I was going to fail that I would never tell anybody I was quitting because I was so afraid I was going to fail. That would make me look like a failure, and everybody would know. It dragged into everything. I think just that fear of failure is a big piece of the self worth struggles that a lot of us go through.

Steve: You say the one thing there, Julie. “Everyone’s going to know.” Like it matters so much what everyone else things. My self worth hinged on that so much. So much. What is everyone going to think? Everyone is going to think this. Or somebody’s opinion, right? I just hung off the affirmations of others. I needed the affirmations of others just to make me feel like I was good, or that I had…

Julie: Worth?

Steve: Yeah, that I had value. And it always came from the outside. From doing something crazy or making someone laugh. There’s that little hit of dopamine, “Ooh, I did it!” But it always was so short. It was so short lived. And then you’ve got to do it again and again and again, only to end up feeling empty at the end. Because it never came from an authentic place. It never came from within. I never stood up for myself. You talk about that, and then saying no. And saying sorry with intention. And certain things where saying sorry for something I wasn’t responsible for, and not saying no is complete self abandonment. There goes all of my worth with it. Because I’m handing it over to someone else that I’m expecting to treat the way I needed it treated without having communicated it whatsoever.

Jessica: I feel like the whole concept of self worth is such a big part, too. For me it was a huge part, it was a cycle. When I was drinking, I would do things or say things or just feel horrible and not be the kind of person I wanted to be. And then I would feel so bad about myself that I would just do it again the next night. Because, why not? I felt horrible, so I’m just going to keep drinking because there’s no point in trying to do better because I’m going to fail at that. And just feeling like I didn’t have any sort of healthy outlet. I didn’t have any hobbies. The kids take up a lot of my time, but I recently started doing Crossfit and that’s something I channel my energy into so much now. I feel like it’s for me. I go to class at 6 am so it’s just my time, it’s me, it’s before the rest of the family is up, and it helps me to feel a sense of self worth. I couldn’t have done that when I was drinking, I couldn’t have woken up. Even if I went to a later class, I would’ve been hungover. I always felt terrible. So choosing to stop drinking is a slow process, but it has given me the ability to find things that build up my self worth and that make me feel better.

Steve: Quitting drinking was you showing yourself that you were worthy. That’s the first step in doing it.

Tim: So when I listen to you guys talk… I love stories. I’m a big story teller, and one that came up to mind… there’s this story of the Golden Buddha. So in Bangkok, there’s this Buddha statue that’s nine feet tall. It’s worth over a million dollars just in its weight in gold. But for two hundred years, the monks in that monastery did not now that the Buddha had that much value because two hundred years prior, when they were being invaded, some of the monks to try to hide the value, covered it up with a lot of clay and broken pieces of glass because they didn’t want the army to see it’s true value. So what happened was, when that army came through and killed unfortunately all the monks in that monastery. No one knew the true value. So they were about to relocate it, two hundred years later, and the clay cracked just a little bit, and one monk saw the value shining through. So the reasons why I love that story is 1) I think we all have a Golden Buddha inside of us, and I think that’s a lot of things: That’s our self worth, that’s our value, and like Julie talked about, a lot of the layers that get covered up starts when we were a kid. It’s good, loving people that we have in our lives often, that are applying their limiting beliefs onto us. And it may be well intentioned, but what it does is it starts breaking down our self worth. If you think of a little kid, they’re not born with low self worth. You watch a kid trying to learn to walk, when they fall down they don’t get up and say, “You know what? I suck and walking and I’m never going to try again.” They get back up, they try it again. That’s what we’re born with. And then especially like what Jessica was talking about, when we come into recovery, most of us have a whole bunch of things that we come into that we’re ashamed of, things that we did. And so often, we focus so much on those things that we don’t actually see our own true value.

So the things that we need to do is 1) recognize those cracks. Whatever it is that you can be proud of about yourself today, focus on that. I work with a lot of guys that say, “I’m a horrible father.” And I say, “Okay, what do you think a good father would be? Write down those qualities.” And as they do it, they start to notice that they actually do possess a lot of the qualities that they consider a good father, but they are so focused on the mistakes that they don’t recognize those good qualities that they do possess. And then, you need to start cracking away at those layers of it. So what are the other qualities that you want to possess? Start working toward it. Like Christina said, fake it til you make it. It’s a lot of things that you can do like that. And I know a lot of people don’t like the term fake it, because they think we’re faking it. So if you don’t like the term, don’t focus on that. Believe it til you achieve it. Find a term that you like and just move on and start working toward it. And then the last thing about that is that we need to find people like that monk that saw that one crack in it, and decided to keep chipping away. So a lot of times we have people in our lives that may not be the most supportive when we’re trying to change. They want to keep pointing out the back things that we did in the past. And it could be for several reasons. Maybe they’re still angry. Maybe they’re insecure that we’re changing and growing and that’s shining the light on some of their deficiencies. So it’s real key and I know Christina is the one who talked about how important it is to set boundaries, and that’s what I had to do early in recovery. The people who wanted to continue to point out my faults and my past mistakes, I had to have a conversation. I said, “I’m changing. I’m becoming a new person. I know I’ve made mistakes in the past, but that’s my past and it’s not who I am today. So I need you to love and support and not remind me of that.” And if they’re unable to do that, I had to just move on from them. Because we kick ourselves enough while we’re down. We don’t need help from other people.

Steve: We definitely don’t need help from other people. It’s interesting that you say that. There are so many times that you do ten things that are good, you’re having the greatest day. And then one thing, and all ten of those get erased. It’s the one thing, and it doesn’t even have to be a big thing. Sometimes it’s the smallest thing. And all good disappears behind the bad. I guess one of the most beautiful things about sobriety is that now the good overtakes the bad. There’s the one bad part, but that one bad part is just the lesson that I get to figure out what I’m going to do next with, or what to figure out. It all blends in with the good instead of the other way around. Because the good always disappeared into the bad, regardless, before.

Tim: And it’s hard to focus on the positive. Because like you were talking about, a lot of times we look for outside reassurance that we’re a good person. So you could see someone do something good, they’re excited about it, they post it on Facebook or Instagram. They could have fifty comments about, “Oh wow, you’re amazing.” And then one person could comment that, “Oh, you’re just being good because you’re looking for attention.” And all of a sudden, it takes away all of the joy that they got from that.

Julie: That’s so true.

Steve: One of the things I thought about when I was on my way here was, one of the things I needed when I first got into sobriety was I needed the affirmations from everyone else to see what I couldn’t see. And then as soon as I started taking that in, I had to learn that I didn’t need that anymore, because I am actually that reflection. And now we’re at the point where we have a podcast. I’m on social media, the likes are coming in, and it’s like, what is the value of the thought that I just put out there? How many times was that viewed? And I can get wrapped up in that and then hold the value of the thought to the candle of how many likes and views were given to it. So it was one of the conversations that I actually had with Julie. It made it as far as the message needed to go. So it made it to the person who needed to hear it. And that was it. That’s the way I’ve made this okay with me. If it has one like or two likes, it made it to the person that needed to hear it. And I think that’s really helped me be okay with just, this is my thought. I like it, it means something to me. I get to share it now.

Julie: You guys have sparked a couple of thoughts for me. So when Tim was talking about the Golden Buddha, that also makes me think of authenticity and how we cover up who we really are with all of these different masks and good deeds and fancy Facebook posts and Pinterest-perfect houses. And we cover up everything that’s actually inside. Authenticity, for me has been – and I’ve talked about it before – it’s been the foundation of what recovery is for me. I was trying so hard to be everything I thought I was supposed to be because I didn’t have any value in who I really was. And like Steve was saying, it means so much in the beginning, when you show up in the recovery community and people do give you those words of affirmation. The difference for me was that I showed up as me. As broken, and flawed, and hurting and all of those things. And I just let that show. When it was just me, raw, nothing pretty on the outside, not pretending to be anything, and then people still had things to say to me. Positive things, affirmations. That was really meaningful, because I was allowing myself to really be see. I think authenticity goes a really long way in our self worth. When I was doing the perfectionist mom thing for like, you know, my whole mom career, all of those nice words that people said weren’t about me. They weren’t about the authentic, real version of me. They were about this persona that I had created. And so all of those nice words, I kept working for them and working for them because they felt good for like a minute, but they never really hit home, they never hit my core. I had too many walls up and too many masks on to let those have any value. I think until we really get in touch with who we really are and start letting people really see that, our self worth is probably still going to struggle and suffer, and that part is really scary.

Steve: If you show up fake, the affirmation that you get with it isn’t real, either.

Julie: Exactly.

Jessica: And I don’t now how it is further into recovery. I’m only 6 months in. The days ebb and flow. Some days are great, I feel like, “Oh, I’m doing great! I got it together. Everything’s great!” And then some days, are just not good days and I just feel like, ugh. Like I’m just not performing at my full potential. And I know, because I’ve seen the good days and I know what I’m capable of now. I mean, even on my good days I’m not perfect, obviously, but it’s good enough for me. So having those bad days, it just makes it hard and it brings me back to that feeling that I had when I was drinking. I’m wondering, will it get to a point where I feel better more often? And then I think about… I think it was John that said, it’s not realistic for him as an individual to feel super happy all the time. It’s just not him. And that resonated with me, because I’m kind of a depressive person. I always have been. And I don’t think that there’s necessarily anything wrong with that. That’s just part of my personality so maybe I’m just trying to attain something that’s just not feasible for me personally. You know, there are really bubbly, happy people. I’m just not. I don’t operate at that level. I’m just…. I’m down here.

Julie: And that’s authenticity.

Christina: How much value is put into being an extrovert and being bubbly and being positive all the time? And the poor introverts – I’m one of them – we get pushed and pushed and pushed to be that. And without introverts, without quiet, reflective people, we wouldn’t have the inventions that we have, right? And to circle back to what Steve mentioned, about the likes… we have to remember that most technology is designed to be addictive. So when we place our self worth in the number of likes or how many comments we get, then of course it’s going to be extrinsic motivation. You guys asked me at the beginning, am I on Instagram. No. Because I’m afraid of that kind of stuff happening to me. That really if you’re going to ask me why. Yeah, I love to look at and watch photos, cute cat videos, sure, all day. But do I want to hinge how I’m feeling on that?

One other thing on what you were just saying Jessica, is early on if I had just known that there were still going to be bad days, I think I would have been more easy on myself. I thought, “Okay, I’m sober. Everything’s going to be roses.” That was the one thing that was wrong in my life. Fixed that, everything’s going to be great. And two and a half years in, I still have bad days. But that’s that other side of that perfection. We’re still humans. We’re still going to have bad days. And just to know that, for me, was a game changer to be like, “Okay. Just because I’m having a bad day doesn’t mean I’m going to drink. It doesn’t mean that tomorrow is going to be worse. It is what it is.”

Julie: Yeah, and I think it helps to remember that people who don’t have addiction problems still have bad days. They still don’t feel like they’re performing to their full potential. They still struggle to get through a day. It’s just a part of life. I think that’s just life being life for you.

You said something Jessica that was really important, at the beginning of when you were talking. It was about on your good days, you feel like you’re good enough for you. That right there is the definition of self worth to me. I am good enough for me. There was one day, I was on the phone talking to Steve, it was kind of out of the blue. And I was like, “I am good enough for me.” And I felt that in my core for the first time ever. And that was an earth-shattering moment there in the middle of the day. Because it was the first time I could say, “I’m good enough for me.” I like the person that I am now. Also a little bit of I can forgive myself for my mistakes when I make them. Just being able to say those things has changed my life. And not to say that I don’t still struggle. I definitely still struggle. But most days now, I’m good enough for me. And if you can let that be enough, if you can find a way for that to enough, I think that is inherently what self worth is, I think.

Tim: Yeah. Jessica, I’ve been sober eleven years, I’ll let you know, 1) For me, bad days still happen. What changed for me was 1) I have less than I did before. My bad days look different to day. So if I have a bad day, I don’t think about going and drinking. I haven’t thought about having a drink in probably eight years. It hasn’t crossed my mind. But what I do with those bad days is, 1) I just did not feel it. Did I learn any lessons, did I make any mistakes that I could grow from? Did I not do something that I know makes me feel better. Like you said, you feel great about going to Crossfit. Did you skip Crossfit that day? Okay, maybe I should go to Crossfit on a day that I say I’m going to. So you can learn from it. And then some days we just aren’t going to feel it. With so much social media, I think we’ve turned into this society that thinks that we’re supposed to be happy all the time. But we’re given different emotions for a reason. And I’m not talking about huge levels of depression where you’re suicidal. I’m talking about feeling a little depressed. If I’m feeling a little depressed, it’s usually because I’m not doing something I’m supposed to be doing, or I’m doing something I’m not supposed to be doing. So for me, mild, just not feeling it depression, usually is that emotion doing what it’s supposed to do. It’s supposed to motivate me to do better, to grow, to stop making mistakes. So I can look at it and say, “Okay, what can I learn from this?” And then, if you made a mistake, be gentle on yourself. We’re going to make mistakes. We’re going to hit roadblocks. And the key is, are you still moving forward? And then some days, I just have a bad day and I don’t know why. On those days I just have to remind myself that I’ve had bad days before, and they’re not forever. So long as we have a bad day we get stuck in this permanent… we take a temporary feeling and we want to make it permanent. And a lot of times we make permanent decisions based on temporary emotions, and that’s usually where you see people relapse. Where you see… because it feels like, “Oh my God, I’m going to feel like this forever.” But you have to look back and be like, “Oh, I had a bad day like this a week ago. I woke up the next morning and I felt fine. So I’m going to push through this day, I’m going to keep doing what I know makes me feel better, I’m going to wake up tomorrow and attack tomorrow.” And just be gentle on yourself. Sometimes I have a bad day and normally I don’t go to bed until 11:00, I’m going to bed at 9:00 tonight. I’m just done with this day. I’m going to wake up tomorrow, and I’m going to start all over. And a lot of times I give myself permission to do that. Because I know I’m my hardest critic and I think most people in here could probably say the same thing. I think the level of perfection that I used to hold myself up to, and I still struggle with that today, is ridiculous. And all it does is really just keep us down.

Julie: I like what you said there about emotions, and I think that’s one that can be reiterated. Emotions are messengers. The reason we feel things is because they are bringing us some kind of message and it’s our job to figure out what that message is. So if you are feeling down or feeling frustrated, whatever that is, if you can stop and just look at what has happened that day, or where you’re at in your head… a lot of times it’s just in your perspective. I think there’s so much be said for that. We all tend to think that the negative emotions or the bad days or the depressive days are a bad thing. And really, it’s just an emotion coming to tell us we need to look a little deeper and figure out what’s going on.

Steve: I think it comes down sometimes just learning to sit in it a little bit. Even though you’re uncomfortable or you don’t know what it’s called, you haven’t named it. Maybe it’s melancholy, maybe you’re more melancholy than you’d like to be, but that’s just how you are. That’s kind of the way I was describing it in my head when you were saying… there’s a friend of ours, and he describes it as melancholy. And he’s an introvert too, and he talks about it in a positive way. Which is interesting, but he did some reading and said, “This is pretty much where I sit.” And it was really really cool the one time, to hear him talk about it like that in a meeting, and just be completely okay with it. And he is. It’s just really neat to see that. And he found something that he could relate to in a way where it stuck. He’s like, “Yep, that’s where I sit. This makes sense to me now.” So it’s okay if it doesn’t make any sense, it doesn’t have to. It’s more or less making the attempt. Every time you make an attempt you learn a little bit, something new, make an attempt. Failure is an amazing thing in sobriety if we just let ourselves do it. Because you’re going to inherently get more self worth by getting up and trying again.

Tim: There’s a book, if you’re struggling with just embracing your introvertedness. It’s by Susan Cain, it’s called Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can’t Stop Talking. It is an amazing book. She studied introverts and she talks about the power of introverts and why it’s important to have introverts. If the world was all extroverts it would be crazy. It talks about the importance of both of them, and how the world needs both to function. So that’s something that I would suggest because it really helped me. I mean, if you get me one on one or with a small group of people, I won’t shut up. You put me at a dinner party, that’s it. I shut down. So it really helped me embrace that part of me. It’s a good book, I would suggest it.

Christina: I think everything that we’re doing here is the sardine that’s swimming against the stream. And the introvert is pressured to feel like they need to speak more. The person at the party is pressured to drink more. We are now exploring our own inner depths, our caverns, and we have to stop and say, “Is this truly me? Or is this something that somebody taught me that I’m feeling like is me?” And that beat, that pause, is where the growth happens, of course, but then it’s also where the friction is, right? Because we are the antisociety, we are on the anti path right now. And that’s a tough road to walk every single day, especially alone. Which brings us into this community that we’re sitting in right now and the amazing resources that are available for sobriety.

Tim: One thing you said that really stood out to me was that you drank to try to not be an introvert. To feel comfortable at a party. And I think that right there takes us back to the self worth. You felt there was something wrong with you. And so many times we drink to try to make us feel better and to avoid emotions instead of facing them. And like someone said earlier – it was Steve, talking about sitting with those emotions. I hate it but my therapist tells me all the time, the only way is through. That, or out. You have to sit with the emotion. Because that’s what we do, we drink to try to avoid feeling bad. Whatever it is, whether it’s guilt or not feeling enough, that’s why we drank. So until we actually start feeling those emotions and working through them instead of trying to avoid them. Because trying to avoid them is the same pattern as any addiction. Whatever you’re using now, whether it’s social media, sitting on your phone, eating, pick any other bad habit. And I don’t think it’s a cross addiction thing, I think it’s just that people haven’t healed yet, and they’re looking for something else to cover up that emotion.

Jessica: It’s also hard to know, when you’ve been drinking for so long, and I think it just comes with age and experience. And it’s hard to know, well, it’s hard to know – who am I? Who am I? Because I drank all throughout my twenties, and I’m thirty six now. And it’s only been six months. So that’s something I’m really trying to figure out. Like, okay, who am I? I was drinking to numb a lot of really uncomfortable stuff. But now that I’m not drinking, what am I capable of? What are my interests? What sets my soul on fire type stuff? I’m still trying to figure it out because I’m really not sure. If someone were to ask, “What do you like to do?” It’s like that first date question. I would’ve said, “Drink.” (laughter) But I don’t really know. My life, I feel, for the most part is really mundane. I have two little kids and it’s just really… I go to work, and I keep them alive. And I recently started doing Crossfit which I love. But the deep stuff, I’m not totally sure who I am deep down yet.

Steve: And that is okay.

Julie: That is okay. I think we could probably record an entire podcast episode or five on authenticity and learning who we are and figuring that out. I will say since we’re doing book recommendations on this episode, Rewired by Erica Speigelman absolutely changed my understanding of myself. The irst chapter in that book is all about authenticity. After you read the chapter, there’s a list of journaling questions and I spent like a solid 6 weeks journaling every single day, digging into those questions and really trying to figure out who I was deep down in my core. And I could probably go through those questions again and discover a lot more. But that was a really great jumping off point for me to at least kind of start exploring that and narrowing that down and figuring that out. Steve, I think we need to add Authenticity to our list of podcast topics because we could probably all talk about that.

Steve: We definitely do. And the way you write, Jess, the honesty in which you write, if you pick up that book and read it with the same honesty that you share with us on Instagram, you’re going to learn stuff about yourself. You just are, because that’s the way… what you write is really beautiful and it’s really authentic and it’s real. You’re not afraid to be real. And when you’re not afraid to be real, that’s when you’re going to find out who you are. So you’re already doing really really awesome things.

Tim: And shameless plug, I do have an episode on my podcast about rediscovering your identity, so check that out. But you know what, Jessica? I think the fact that you’re asking yourself who you are, I think that is so amazing. How many people are thirty six years old and has just accepted that they are who they are and they’re never going to change? So you’re asking yourself, who am I? Who do I want to be, what do I want to grow into? What kind of mom do you want to be, what type of person do you want to be? What type of person would you be proud of you being? And start working toward that. And you know what, you get to go out and try to see what you like. Try things, you tried Crossfit. You like it. You’re going to do more of it. That’s exciting to go out and try new things. Just say, “Hey, I don’t know, do I like golfing?” Try golfing. “Do I like bowling?” Try bowling. “Do I want to be in a book club?” It doesn’t matter, just pick an activity and go try it. And I know for introverts it’s a lot harder, but that’s also kind of embracing who you are. So you may find activities that are more in line with someone who is introverted. And just try different things and you’re going to figure it out. And I bet you are going to like who you find in this process.

Steve: It’s just a whole bunch of discovery. It’s the game of life, now you get to play it because you’re not blindfolded by everything. You just have to accept it the way it is and try and do the best you can with what you have and try to have some fun with it.

Julie: And let it be a journey.

Jessica: It’s kind of inspiring right, to think about it? It’s exhausting to think that, gosh, I think people should be ever changing and wanting to do better and keep learning. You do the best with what you know at the time, so keep trying to do better. But it’s like, oh my gosh, it never ends. That’s tiring!

Julie: It is. Don’t look at that. Just look at today.

Tim: When you go to Crossfit, do you get stronger every time you go?

Jessica: I hope so! (laughs)

Tim: Well, you will. And that’s the thing, that is the same thing is growing in whatever aspect you want. At first it’s really difficult, but the more you do it, the stronger you get. And then you actually start looking forward to it.

Steve: The video of Julie and I doing yoga… we both look horrible. Getting over the fear of sucking. (laughter) When you went and did crossfit for the first time, how did you feel? Probably pretty ridiculous?

Jessica: Oh, I was ridiculous! (laughter)

Steve: Exactly! And you went back and you did it again. So you over came the fear of failure. Tim, you talked about the Golden Buddha and the hidden value, I really loved that story. We talked about showing up authentically, because if you show up authentically the affirmation that you do get from that is also going to be authentic. Setting boundaries, looking at those emotions, they’re doing what they’re supposed to do. They’re telling us, like Tim explained, they’re telling us what we’re doing wrong and what we’re doing right, if we just decide to listen to them. And then self worth, the topic itself. And the one thing I think it took was patience for me to finally see it and for it to start growing. And I think that’s probably one of the most important things is it takes a lot of patience.

So I want to say thank you Jessica, thank you Christina, thank you Tim for being on the podcast tonight. We really appreciate your thoughts and really appreciate your time.