From Addiction to Self-Acceptance with Tom Coderre

Releasing the Self-Judgment around Addictions & Compulsions that Blocks our Best Life

This episode of Refractive Podcast features Tom Coderre, Acting Assistant Secretary of SAMHSA, the Federal Agency overseeing Mental Health and Substance Abuse. He describes his path through addiction, his fall from the ambitious life he had crafted, and the road to redemption and self acceptance. Tom shares the lessons he learned about himself that help him to turn the volume down on self-judgment and find the loving care he deserves.

Tom Coderre had painful secrets. Growing up in a Catholic, political family in Rhode Island, with aspirations of elected office and a life in the spotlight, there seemed no room left for one major aspect of his life, a part of him that refused to sit quietly in the corner: his homosexuality. Balancing his outer world with his inner reality caused him a great deal of pain- a pain Tom managed through alcohol and other substances. While on the outside Tom’s life looked ideal- he was a Rhode Island State Senator at 25, then the Chief of Staff for the Rhode Island Senate President, this denial of his true nature brought his career crashing down around him, leaving him with no home, no career, and not even a will to live.

Through the world of 12 step-based recovery, Tom relaunched his life and today focuses both publicly and personally on helping others who are running from themselves and their problems with the aid of alcohol and drugs. By being willing to look inside himself and make peace with what he found, Tom opened the door to a more serene way of life and a life-long adventure of self-acceptance.

Join Johnny G and Tom in this important discussion around how to look in the mirror- and really see.

Links to materials referenced in this episode:

Daily Beast web story on the Call Me By Your Name monologue: https://www.thedailybeast.com/the-call-me-by-your-name-monologue-leaving-audiences-in-tears

Click Here for Spiritual Teacher Byron Katie’s website.

Here is the link to the book Call Me By Your Name by Andre Aciman. I get neither money nor any other benefit from this link.

For similar content, try these episode of Refractive Podcast: Making Peace with our Dark Side or The Ancient Truths of Acceptance & PLINKO

Visit www.RefractiveCoaching.com and www.RefractivePodcast.com for more resources. More content to support you in living your most authentic life, including the video version of this episode, can be found on the Refractive YouTube Page at https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC6y-HQ1_9-xMnZyq7dhRl4A

Episode Transcript below, compiled via automated software service. Please excuse any wrongly-identified words or punctuation errors.

Speaker 0 00:00:03 Ever since you can remember, you felt something in your chest that tells you to move to love, to speak, to try day after day. You pretend you don’t hear it calling, or maybe you dismiss it as silliness or worse, but it’s there and it will wait for you as long as you need. My name is Johnny G and I invite you to join me on a journey of awakening as we dare to embrace our light. This is refractive.
Speaker 1 00:00:40 Hi everybody. And welcome to refractive podcasts. I am Johnny G and I have a guest with me here today. Mr. Tom Coderre. Tom is currently a regional administrator with SAMHSA. That is the federal agency that works with substance abuse and mental health issues. Before that he was a senior advisor to the governor of Rhode Island and going back into his history, he was a member of the Rhode Island Senate. He was also chief of staff for the president of the Senate. So Tom, welcome. I’m so happy to have you join us on refractive.
Speaker 2 00:01:13 Thank you, Johnny. It’s great to be here. I know we’ve been talking about this for a while and I’m excited. The day has finally come.
Speaker 1 00:01:19 Yeah, we’re good friends. You and I, uh, for the listeners out there, Tom and I have been in the same circles in Washington DC for several years, even though he’s moved back to Rhode Island, you know, we’ve still maintained a pretty close friendship. And because I know some of his background, as I was thinking about potential topics and podcast guests, he was on my short list. And so Tom, you and I, we decided that something that might have some good meat to it was talking about self-acceptance. And so, uh, why don’t you fill us in on some of the, maybe some of the aspects of this that you and I have reflected on?
Speaker 2 00:01:56 Well, before I know we’re going to talk about self-acceptance and gut got a whole podcast to do that, but before we begin, I’d love to share a short story with your listeners. Is that okay? This one is about a man who, by the time he was 30 years old, uh, was pretty successful by most people’s standards. He came from a good loving family and he had many friends. He had been employed in nonprofit management and development for many years, and he had risen in his career to become the executive director of a large nonprofit agency.
Speaker 1 00:02:29 Oh, I thought you was talking about me for a second, but that’s not what we’re talking about. Okay.
Speaker 2 00:02:34 This man was also very involved in his community and he had a love of politics. Uh, he got elected to the state Senate when he was 25 years old on the outside. Everything about this man’s life looked normal, some might even say perfect. However, on the inside he was tortured. So he turned first to alcohol and then to other drugs cope with the stresses that he was experiencing underestimating the power of these substances and not understanding the neurological consequences of taking them. He quickly became addicted and his life, well, his life started this downward spiral. As his life began to unravel. He started to lose the things that were most important to him. When his family and friends tried to help, he resisted their help. He pushed them away. This caused him to lose them. Um, he lost interest in politics. He lost his job and eventually his position in the Senate, his health deteriorated he’d lost his apartment and became homeless.
Speaker 2 00:03:36 He lost his spirit. He lost his freedom in the end. He lost pretty much everything. Even his desire to live this man’s life, which at one time was so full of hope, became hopeless. And I know this story pretty well because as some of you may have guessed it’s mine. And fortunately I was able to get the help that I needed. And today I’m a person in long-term recovery, which for me means I haven’t used alcohol or drugs since May 15th of 2003. And my life has gotten a whole lot better. In fact, uh, being in recovery has not just enabled me to create a better life for myself, but it’s also been able, I’ve been able to create a better life for my family and ultimately my entire community because, uh, recovery, uh, does that for people, everything about you changes when you get into recovery, it’s not just about stopping the use of alcohol and other drugs.
Speaker 2 00:04:29 It’s about creating that better life. And so that’s kind of, I thought would be helpful to frame things, Johnny, so that your listeners knew kind of the perspective I was coming from. I want to let you know that one of the reasons that I used alcohol and other drugs was a lack of self-acceptance and it was a lack of self-acceptance, uh, particularly around sexuality. Um, I was attracted to men and I was confused by that. I was, I was raised a Roman Catholic and I was part of a political family. My mom was also involved in politics. So I learned to suppress, uh, my sexuality and those feelings that I had for men at a young age and pretend that they didn’t exist. You know, when I realized that my alcohol and drug use was getting out of control, right. And I tried to reel it back in and, and get into recovery, I failed because I was riddled with fear and afraid to expose that part of myself.
Speaker 2 00:05:33 Uh, so I continued to struggle and I knew if I was going to be successful on this journey, I needed to face my fears, as they say in recovery, right. Uh, fears are either like, um, freak everything and run or face everything and recover. So I had to face everything and I started sharing this for first with my counselor and treatment. I shared it in psychotherapy, very slowly started to share it in 12 step meetings. And, and, you know, I was doing spiritual direction at the time I was doing everything I could to kind of be additive to my recovery process and to make a very long painful story short. What I came to find out in the end is that the only one that had a problem with me being gay was me. And, uh, you know, and that the sooner I could figure that out, that the easier it was going to be on this journey of life, not just of recovery but of life and that there’s an, I could get self-acceptance around it. The more freedom I would gain in my own personal life.
Speaker 1 00:06:38 It’s so powerful to come to the conclusion that you did, that the only issue is inside yourself. It’s one of the major signposts of spiritual growth. And I know that you’ve gone through this and I’ve certainly experienced it. That the problems that we perceive are from our own ego centered fears, you know, that really is the reality that we project and create and manufacture and the people around us sensitive energy beings that everybody is, they give us exactly what we ask for. You know, I mean, it’s, it’s, uh, it’s fascinating to realize that the power was inside the whole time, right? Like th th the authority to drop the pain was within you. It’s like, Dorothy, like you’ve had the power the whole time. You just weren’t ready for it. You know?
Speaker 2 00:07:34 Exactly. Well, it’s funny that you say that too, because, you know, I think about my family, like my family, and I still don’t talk about this. And, and the reason we don’t talk about it is because I’ve made it very clear to them. Like through that energy, never, never spoken, but through that energy that I don’t want to talk about it, that this is like a topic that’s off limits. And it drives me insane because I really probably should be talking. I mean, like, that’s probably next on my list of things to tackle in this process 17 years later, um, is to, is to actually get honest with them and say, you know what, this is who I am. This is what I’ve gone through. Um, you know, they know they already know, but I’ve just made it, and I’ve invited them to things where I’ve talked about it.
Speaker 2 00:08:26 Like I’ve had different ways to kind of express it to them. Um, but I’ve kind of also at the same, it’s one of these things where we do this, you know, I want you to come closer, but stay farther away. And like you said, that’s an energy that we set up with them. And, uh, I got to break through that in some way. And I got to breakthrough through it with like, I’ve, I’ve been able to break through with it with friends I’ve been able to break through and recovery circles. I’ve been able to break through even in the workplace where I’ve had some really uncomfortable, but important growth opportunities to talk about this. And I’m glad I, I, at the end of these conversations that I have with people, I’m always happy. I’ve had it. I’ve never been I’ve, I’ve never like regretted having the conversation. So I don’t know why that doesn’t inspire me to just do it more, but, but it’s that fear. It’s that fear?
Speaker 1 00:09:19 What do you, if I can, if I can ask this, what do you assume their willingness and openness to, to talk about this with you is like, you know,
Speaker 2 00:09:31 It’s, it’s, that’s hard to say, but, you know, I think it might behoove us to kind of like, turn the clock back a little bit. Right. And to talk about kind of where the, where that was, where the fear was rooted, because I kind of mentioned growing up a Roman Catholic being part of a political family, societal norms, being what they were at the time, like people didn’t talk about the sixties, seventies, seventies, and eighties were what I grew up. And, and it was, um, it was during those, you know, those decades that I learned these behaviors and anybody who was gay, hit it, and didn’t talk about it. And even the sexual experiences I had early on in life, it was like, it was wrong. It was like hush, hush. Like it was anonymous. Like it was like all, all these clues that, that I had was like, no, you don’t talk about this.
Speaker 2 00:10:33 You don’t talk about it. You don’t dress it. You pretend like it goes with, and, and I even dated women. Um, so too, I mean, part of it was because I was confused, like I said earlier, and I was trying to figure that out, like, okay, can I actually kind of actually have a sexual attraction to a woman? Can I actually have kind of do, can I perform right. Um, in, in that way. And, and I was, and so then I was like, well, maybe I’m bisexual. Uh, but then thinking about, you know, the emotional connection that we bring to relationships, I, I wasn’t able to make those same kinds of emotional connections with women that I was with men. So that’s how I ended up, you know, and I had conversations with people that people were like, you gotta pick, you know, you just got to pick one.
Speaker 2 00:11:18 And I was like, well, that’s a little, that’s a little simplistic maybe, or cause, and I don’t think the generation today thinks that way either right generation today. I mean, they have a different, they’re growing up in a different time where, where things are different back then, you know, you really, the, all the cues were that you, you didn’t talk about it. Things were not fluid. You were one or the other. And, you know, if you accepted one, your life was going to be somehow you were going to be ridiculed and you were going to be an outcast and you were going to have to really fight for yourself every single day. And I was like, not interested in doing that. Plus I had these plans to be, you know, to, to run for elective office and to, and to be, you know, this upstanding member of my community and how I would, how in God’s name was I supposed to, uh, reconcile those two things. Right. Um, and so, yeah, so this is what ended up forcing me to push that part of myself further in to myself. And, uh, and I regret that, you know, I, I, I regret that, but I don’t live in regret today because I realized, you know, my human experience was exactly the human experience I needed to have at that time. And it was okay. And, uh, today I have awareness around these things, um, that I never would have had. Um, had I not gone through those experiences,
Speaker 1 00:12:45 I don’t know about you, but when I look back at the times where I abused alcohol, I often really appreciate the role that alcohol played for me, because I feel that if I didn’t have those moments of feeling free of that crippling, crushing fear that you talked about, if I didn’t have those untethered moments where alcohol made me able to see a future that could feel free, I’m not sure, I’m not sure I’d be alive. I think I would have killed myself, you know, and in that, in that sense, I really do appreciate the role it played for me. What was that like for you? Well, I’ve never really,
Speaker 2 00:13:35 What about it that way, but that makes a lot of sense to me, of course, because I had those same experiences. Right. So, um, I used alcohol to, um, lower my inhibitions and because I lowered my inhibitions, I was able to experience things that I wouldn’t have experienced otherwise. So yeah. Then I could, that was kind of the experimental part of like, do I, do I like being in this situation with this, with this person or these people? Um, and can I, you know, can I survive in that, in that time kind of dynamic and, and you’re absolutely right. And I wouldn’t have known that if I had not had that, that, that helper, so to speak.
Speaker 1 00:14:19 Yeah. So how did you move from this, I guess this period of fear and frustration with what your insides were saying to a new way of processing life? Yeah,
Speaker 2 00:14:38 Well, as I spoke about in telling about my story, you know, it became a survival, you know, a requirement for survival, right? Um, I almost died as a result of my addiction. I got into recovery, I was 132 pounds. Um, you looked into my eyes, you wouldn’t think I had a soul. I was on this declining pathway. Right. Um, that, that I could have, I could have died from my, from my disease. So when I got into recovery and I knew I had to address this like alcohol and other drugs were, but a symptom of my problem, those were things I used to change the way I felt or not to feel. And so I realized without those things, I was going to have to feel again, and from a survival perspective, I was going to have to deal with that. So I started, um, like I said, sharing this, you know, with my counselor and treatment, who, who validated my, you know, my experience and who said that was okay to feel that way.
Speaker 2 00:15:39 I ended up getting, going to 12 step meetings. They have 12 step meetings who that are specific to LGBT people. And I met people there who were just like me, and I heard their stories, what were just like mine. And, you know, people told my story at the meeting. I got a sponsor who was gay, who had those experiences, who I could talk with about mine, you know? And I just kind of plowed through, it’s kind of like that old saying, they have that courage is not an absence of fear, but it’s what we do in spite of it. You know, you have to kind of summon the courage to kind of plow through these issues, to address them, like, to actually show up at that first meeting, as uncomfortable as that felt inside. And as I was walking up the pathway to the door, as I put my hand on the door to push it, to go into that meeting, I had second thoughts and I was like, I’m not, I can’t do this.
Speaker 2 00:16:37 And I had to push forward again and say, well, if I don’t do this, I may die. And so I did, I did that work and then it’s never really become easier. I want to say that too. I’ve just gotten better at plowing through, right. I’ve gotten stronger and able to power through, but I still get those same feelings that the butterflies in my stomach, I remember I took a Dale Carnegie course when I was in my twenties. And the instructor, Dale Carnegie courses are about learning how to be a better public speaker. Typically. I mean, there’s a lot of other stuff that go along with them, but that’s why I took it. And one of the, my classmates in the class raised her hand one night and she asked the professor, she said, every time I get up to speak, I have these butterflies in my stomach.
Speaker 2 00:17:27 She said, when will they go away? And he thought for a moment. And he said, I don’t, they don’t go away. What we do is we learn to, to, to teach them how to fly in formation. And I thought that was beautiful. And I’ve kept that with me for all these years. And I think that’s the same kind of experience I have about, uh, about dealing with my sexuality or my lack of, um, it’s not, it, it never becomes comfortable for me. It’s always uncomfortable, but I’ve taught those butterflies to fly in formation. So that gives me the strength to kind of move forward. It’s like, okay, I felt this before. I know what this is. This is fear. Um, this isn’t something, you know, this is a momentary feeling. It’s not a fact it’s going to go away. I’m going to get to the other side of it.
Speaker 2 00:18:10 I’m going to feel a lot better when I get to the other side of it. So I’ve gone out and I’ve, um, I’ve shared at conventions now. Uh, there’s a convention down in Florida called the rainbow convention where I told I spoke for an hour, told my whole story. I told them things that I never thought I would share publicly. Uh, and, and here I am sitting in a room of 500 people sharing my story about that. I went to the world convention of the fellowship that I’m, that I’m a member of in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. And at the world convention, I got asked to lead the LGBT workshop and shared a lot about my experiences dealing with this as well. So yeah, so these experience has, have, have also, it’s not like I’m some expert in this and that I’m able to then share about it. It’s that I’m going through it right now. Like I’m in the middle of it and I’m going through it. And I share about what it’s like to go through it. Um, the other piece is, is like, when I share about it, whether it’s today or any of the other times, I do a little preparation, right. I get prepared for those conversations. And that is an opportunity for growth as well. For me, where I’m able to then, uh, dig a little deeper, like scratch a little bit more beneath the surface.
Speaker 1 00:19:29 What do you mean by prepare for it? So
Speaker 2 00:19:31 Well, I’ll, you know, I’ll be like, Hey, I really love to share this part of my story today. You know, am I strong enough to do that? And what does it involve? So I have to go back and think about that part of my story and think about like, okay, how, how did that occur? Why did it occur? What made me like that? And so I’m scratching beneath the surface to, you know, the origins of where these feelings come from and what experiences I had, some of the experiences, which I’ve, like I said, stuffed down so deep inside of me that it’s taken years for them to emerge again. But that preparation brings those things up and helps me and helps guide me. And then kind of takes me to the next level where, you know, so that’s what growth is, all the great growth doesn’t happen. You don’t go from here to here, right? You go from, you go from here to here and then to here and then to here and then here. So the part of growth that happens, it happens by, for me, it happens by doing those kinds of having those kinds of opportunities and following through with them.
Speaker 1 00:20:40 Yeah, because you know, not everybody is a gay man from a blue collar state part of a Catholic political family. But you know, everybody through these formulative years gets told by society that there’s something about them. That’s not good enough. Right. It’s just a part of growing up in our culture that we get pushed down due to the fears of other people, right. Due to other people’s need to feel that they’re okay. And so I just, you know, not everybody who’s listening is going to walk into a 12 step meeting tomorrow and be able to dig deep and scrape this up and share it. But there are ways that if someone is like in the, in the 12 step community, we say honest open-minded and willing. If someone is honest, open-minded and willing, there are ways to go inside. You know, I tell my clients that the answer is always, always any answer is always in the stillness.
Speaker 1 00:21:47 And whether that is through journaling, through talking with a trusted friend or a religious advisor or a therapist. Yeah. Meditation that’s right. Like to go inside and look at what’s there, because one of my favorite Tom, one of my favorite spiritual teachers, her name is Byron Katie. And I mentioned her on almost every episode because she’s just so fantastic. She talks about how the root of all suffering is believing and uninvestigated story. And that any time we feel pain, because we feel we’ve lost something, lost someone we’re not good enough, we’re believing something that we weren’t born believing that we came to accept as truth. But that if we were to stop thinking about, we would stop feeling the pain and the minute we go back to thinking about it, we feel the pain. And therefore it’s the uninvestigated thought that is the cause of the suffering experience. You know, it’s arguing with what is real. So as you live your life today and being more honest open-minded and willing to kind of walk through that, self-examination what does that look like for you in your current life?
Speaker 2 00:23:15 Yeah. Thank you for asking that. And you know, it looks, it looks like a lot of different things, but election day was a couple of days ago and we had an election here where the speaker of the house lost his election. And then there had to be an election for a new speaker of the house and the new guy that got elected, uh, speaker of the house. Um, they did a profile on him and on the front page of the local paper here. And, you know, as I reading through the paper, now, I always suspected this gentlemen was gay, but I hadn’t, I had never asked him about that or didn’t know it for a fact. Uh, and as I read through,
Speaker 1 00:23:56 Because in your circles, you inter like you, because in your political world, like you,
Speaker 2 00:24:01 Yeah. I interact with them, we’re friends. And, um, but I only interacted with him in politics. I don’t interact with him socially. So I wouldn’t know that part about him, but in the profile, um, the reporters
Speaker 1 00:24:14 Square dancing group together,
Speaker 2 00:24:22 We have reminds me of the pride parade together with our, with your back. Um, so I’m reading the profile in the, on the front page of the paper and it, and it buried matter of faculty says Joe lives in Warrick with his partner, Steven and, and period, that’s it. That’s all it’s. And I’m like, what? Number one? That’s that’s the first time I’ve seen in print that Joe has a partner, number two, they didn’t make a big deal about that. Like, like five years ago, or maybe 10 years ago, the story would have been, Joe is gay and it wasn’t even, they didn’t even say that they just said he lives in Warrick with his partner, Steve. So for me, I was like, wow, we’ve made a lot of progress. Secondly, I’ve seen, obviously Hollywood has done a really good job for us too. Right.
Speaker 2 00:25:19 There’s a lot of motion pictures that have been done, uh, there’s shows entire shows about, you know, being gay, there’s gay characters that are now just slipped into shows. Right. Um, to kind of give that perspective. I mean, that’s really, I think helped. And so as I see all these different things, and I’d love to talk about one, cause you, you have seen the movie call me by your name. And I think some of your listeners have seen it as well. And I have the book here. I saw the book a couple of weeks. I was with my mom of all people, uh, at the Barnes and noble bookstore down where she lives. And I took her over there. This book was there and I was like, she’s like, do you want to get any books? And I was like, well, actually I want, I want this one. And she never asked, she didn’t ask any questions
Speaker 1 00:26:05 That an example
Speaker 2 00:26:07 One way. Right. Another thing like before I never would have, I would’ve like ran away from that table that that book was on. And if I was with my mom, but uh, I put it right out on the counter and bought it in front of her and she didn’t ask any questions or anything about it. She made me not even know what it was, but I would’ve been, I would’ve thought she did and would have made some assumption about it, but this moves great because I love that. They just, they didn’t make a big deal about these characters being gay or about the relationship. Um, I think it’s Andre and Oliver have a, is it Andre? Andre, I think it’s on. Um, but um, I’d love to read just a little, uh, excerpt from it if that’s okay. Would that be all right? Yeah, please.
Speaker 2 00:26:49 Yeah. So basically the story is about, um, uh, this family that, that vacations every year, it goes to, uh, Italy, I think Italy every year and they have a Villa there and they always bring somebody, um, since the father is like this, um, professor and he’s like this archeologist and he, they always bring kind of a student under study to work under the father every year. And he lives with them well, and this year, the understudy ends up falling in love with the son and they, they hang out a lot together and they, they end up, you know, starting this relationship and the story, and it becomes evident to the, to the father and the mother, although it’s never spoken about in the, in the movie, um, toward the end of the movie when Oliver has to leave, Andre is in all sorts of pain, obviously, because now he’s lost, um, this friend, this new found friend, a relationship that he’s in and the person who’s back in the States and he’s still in Italy.
Speaker 2 00:27:54 And so there’s this exchange between the father and the son, which is just so beautiful that when, you know, I like cried when I started the movie and I wanted to go back and read it when I got the book. And I just thought it’d be perfect to share today. So I, I actually am going to read from the daily beast has a, has a version of this that I really like. And I’m going to read from that, uh, the speech that the father gives to the son comes just as the film is nearly over Eliel. Oh, Leo is his name, not Andre. I’m sorry about that. Helio is nursing. How did I forget that Leo is nursing his heartbreak after Oliver heads back to the U S at summer’s conclusion and his father, mr. Perlman calls him over for a conversation on the couch without making assumptions, without making Eliel feel uncomfortable.
Speaker 2 00:28:47 And without overstepping his bounds. Mr. Perlin tells Leo that he noticed the intense connection he had with Oliver. He doesn’t judge. In fact, he wants to make it clear that he accepts it, that he encourages it, that he may even be jealous. That Leo has been able to find someone to feel so intensely about regardless of gender, you had a beautiful friendship. Mr. Perman tells Leo maybe more than a friendship. And I envy you in my place. Most parents would hope that the whole thing goes away or pray that their sons land on their feet soon enough, mr. Perlin says, but I am not such a parent in your place. If there is pain nurse, it, if there is a flame, don’t snuff it out. Don’t be brutal with it. Withdrawal can be a terrible thing when it keeps us awake at night and watching others forget us sooner than we’d want to be forgotten is no better.
Speaker 2 00:29:40 We whipped so much of ourselves to be cured of things faster than we should, that we go bankrupt by the age of 30 and have less to offer each time we start some with someone new, but to feel nothing. So as not to feel anything, what a waste, that’s just a beautiful, beautiful scene in that film. And it, and it, and it’s something I think that we all envy. Yeah. Yeah. You know, just like he envied his son for being able to have that experience. I envy the relationship that they, that they have. I didn’t have those kinds of relationships growing up with people that I could turn to, that I could reach out to, that I could share kind of, uh, you know, the, the feelings that I was having and, and somebody who could help either validate them or process them, um, or just talk them through with. And I think, you know, for people today to have these examples, you know, in, and, and, and to, to see that on a big screen and as a, as a kid who may be going through those same feelings, right. Whether they be about self-acceptance around a sexuality or something else, um, to know that there, that they can talk about it and that they’re going to be okay as a result. I think it’s a beautiful thing.
Speaker 1 00:31:06 Oh, I think, I think so, too. And the idea of telling a child, follow your heart, trust your signals, and don’t worry about the wrist. Like that is, it seems so simple. That’s not that’s, and I’m not, this is not a criticism of my, of my parents, but like, that’s not the message.
Speaker 2 00:31:39 Yeah. Mine wasn’t either, by the way.
Speaker 1 00:31:41 Yeah. It’s, it’s the message. Society gives us is tame your wild emotions and signals, keep them under check all the time. Because if you don’t, you will fail in life. Like that is the message we get. And for me, when I was unable to do that adequately, when I was unable to keep my signals, that I was feeling in check, it made me feel like crap. And that is the reason that I would have turned so easily to something that would allow me to escape. Right. It could just be alcohol, it could be sex, shopping, drugs, gambling, eating, anything.
Speaker 2 00:32:31 That’s right. That’s right. And I don’t think our parents or, or the people who love us, I do that on purpose. Right. I think they’re afraid. Like he was, um, he was afraid that his son was going to get hurt, but the irony in all of this is that you get more hurt if you don’t. So, so they, the parents think that they’re protecting us by, uh, Hey, don’t, don’t go there. Don’t do that. You’re going to be, you’re going to be sorry if you did, but the truth is no, you’re going to be sorry if you didn’t
Speaker 1 00:33:05 Right. That’s right. That’s right. I look at myself as having been emotionally stunted for 15 years, where my lack of willingness, and maybe even my lack of conscious ability at the time to explore my feelings stopped the forward progression of my emotional functioning. And when my world became overrun by compulsion’s, many of them, all of the sudden, like I felt like I was learning how to emote at the same level as someone who was a teenager, because like I had never gone there
Speaker 2 00:33:58 Cause you were emotional. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Well, I feel that way too, as a 51 year old man, um, to sit here and have these conversations and to feel like some of that uncomfortability or it that’s exactly where it brings me back to, it brings me back to my youth. It brings me back to when I was sitting in classroom and the teacher was gonna yell at me or I was going to get sent to the principal’s office or, or I was going to go home and my parents were going to yell at me. I mean, it brings me back to that kind of feeling. Um, and the cues that we were were given in the response, our response to it was to shut down, right. Not to emote during those times. Um, and to, and to also to come to comply right. To, to be like everybody else and, and work. And that’s not how humans are made.
Speaker 1 00:34:50 Yeah. Do you still have areas in your life where you struggle with finding acceptance for yourself?
Speaker 2 00:34:58 Of course. You know, one of the, so the, the big thing for me has been, I have had real difficulty in, in relationships, in the area around relationships, because I just don’t know how to be in one. I don’t, I don’t know how to seek them out. I don’t know how to be a successful person in one, I was in a, you know, a same-sex relationship for like five years with, with a guy who I am still friends with today. We haven’t dated in a long time, but I probably had five years in recovery when I met him. And I started on this journey and, you know, we, our relationship was not successful ultimately, but I learned so much and I love this, uh, this thing that gets set in 12 step meetings all the time, like relationships are character defect, magnifiers, and taking, uh, a magnifying glass and putting it in with my magnifying glass right here, taking a bag of, I put it right over your, over your character defects list because everything kind of comes out, you know, and that person sees in you and then expresses, right, because you’re, you’re supposed to be in, you know, something where you’re, you’re willing to give and take in a relationship.
Speaker 2 00:36:11 And you realize how selfish you are, how, you know, how you realize everything about yourself that might, that you might like to change. So I am grateful for that relationship for that. Um, cause it taught me a lot about myself, but I haven’t been in a successful relationship since. And, um, I noticed myself, uh, even in recovery, seeking other things out, like work, right. Becoming overwhelmed with work. Okay, I’m going to take these big jobs and I’m going to work all these hours and I’m going to basically put myself in a position where I can’t be in a relationship and I’m going to send, I’m also going to send those energy cues that you talked about earlier that, you know, like, don’t come too close to me because I don’t have, uh, I don’t have time for that. I don’t have, I’m not interested in that. Um, and, and it’s, it’s, it’s, it’s, it’s been painful for me because it’s led to, you know, it’s led to acting out in other ways, sexually and other kinds of things that, um, I’m not proud of, but I, you know, but they’re part of my they’re part of my story.
Speaker 1 00:37:17 Yeah. I have found over these last three years is when the bulk of my major spiritual growth has happened. Right. And it’s led me on this path and the podcast and like my current career and all of that. And what I’ve learned is that emotions are like muscles and that in order to develop, I have to stretch them and let them heal a little bit and then stretch them and heal a little bit. And for me, um, I had a, uh, I had a pretty traumatic experience in high school and it left me with like a really significant fear of groups of straight men. Whenever there would be three or four guys walking down a sidewalk, all, you know, and enjoying each other’s friendship and laughing, like I would immediately tense up and I would feel like I was a target for them. And, uh, one of the things I did as a part of this growth was to go to sports bars by myself and stand next on game night and stand next to groups of straight guys who were screaming at the television and like, just sit there and like, it’s so uncomfortable, Tom.
Speaker 1 00:38:33 Like, it just it’s so uncomfortable, but once you’ve done it, you can look back and you have evidence that nothing happened, nothing happened. And then it loses its power, you know? And so I have body insecurities where I put myself in the most vulnerable position I can and, uh, go through it and then realize after it’s done that I’m alive, you know,
Speaker 2 00:38:56 That’s right. You’re, you’re alive. You’re a human you’re. You had an experience. You got to the other side of it.
Speaker 1 00:39:03 Yeah, exactly. So, I mean, I guess as we wrap up, that’s really, I think that’s the nugget that I would, that I would want the listeners to walk away with that when something is uncomfortable, if you’re honest, open-minded and willing, you’re ready for the growth, then invite it.
Speaker 2 00:39:22 Yeah. Find a safe way to invite it. Right. So find a safe way to invite it. Um, because our instinct or, you know, our, our normal reaction right. Is to, is to retract from it and we really need to move toward it.
Speaker 1 00:39:36 Yeah, yeah. That’s right. That’s where the power is. Yeah.
Speaker 2 00:39:41 Yeah. Our, our reflexes are wrong in that, usually in that situation, uh, sometimes for safety reasons, they might be right. But if it’s safe, move toward it and find safe ways to move toward it. And, uh, and, and you’ll, and you’ll grow as a result, but that’s what this is about at the end of the day. It’s about growing personally.
Speaker 1 00:40:03 That’s right. That’s right, Tom. I’m so grateful for you to have been a part of this episode. And if your story resonates with any of the listeners, um, is there a particular email address or anything that you would be welcome to receiving correspondence?
Speaker 2 00:40:23 Yeah, sure. People can reach out to me at my name, [email protected]. Happy to chat with anybody who wants to reach out.
Speaker 1 00:40:37 All right. Perfect. Thank you so much. You’re welcome everybody. If you’ve enjoyed this episode, please go on and give it a rating. You don’t have to type a single word, just click a button for a star rating from one to five, and it does help to improve the search results, logarithms for other people to potentially access this material. And remember, as you go through your days and you face your fears, always try to, and your light, this has been refractive. I’m Johnny G. I am a personal and career coach located in Washington, DC. I worked both in person and remotely with people who are ready to look inside, tune into their intuition, discover their purpose and live the life of their dreams. If I can be of service to you, please reach out to me on Twitter at refractive life. Find me on Facebook at www.facebook.com/refractive
Speaker 0 00:41:36 Coaching. You can visit me on my website@refractivecoachingdotcomoryoucanemailmeatjohnnyjohnnyatrefractivecoaching.com. Thanks so much. And again, don’t forget. .