Growth at the Speed of Safety

Why This Solo Conversation Matters

SPEAKER_00 0:22

Welcome to Real Talk with Tina and Ann. I am Ann. I really felt that I needed to do a solo episode again. So welcome. Today I want to talk about something that I don't think that we talk about enough. And the reason why I wanted to do this was because my memoir is out. And um it's called Loving Differently. And the children's book is out, The Little Bird Who Flew Differently, and also my companion workbook is almost ready to go for uh loving differently. So I'm very happy about that. I cannot believe that I would have even thought to do my memoir without this companion workbook. And I'm not doing it for sales. I swear. I really do believe that this workbook is it's helped me put it together. You know, it's it's helped me as I put it together. Uh, I'm growing as I wrote the memoir, and I'm growing as I write the companion workbook. I'm very excited about it. So today I want to talk about something that I don't think that we talk about enough when we talk about trauma. We talk about healing, we talk about moving forward, we talk about resilience, we tell people, you know, come on, let it go. Move on. Don't let your past define you. And I do believe in moving forward. If you've listened to the show for any amount of time, you know how we are always turning pain to purpose. But here's what I think that we're missing.

When The Body Still Survives

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And I live this every single day, so I know. What if your mind wants to move forward, but your body still thinks it needs to survive? I lived that for like, oh my gosh, several years after the trauma happened, way longer. I mean, I allowed myself because of the trauma that I had gone through, I allowed myself to get into situations that repeated and repeated trauma. And um, even though I felt like, and I I'm not gonna lie, no, I didn't feel strong. I felt pretty weak, but I did want to move forward, but I didn't know how. What if intellectually you know you're safe? You're now you are safe, but your nervous system hasn't gotten the message yet. It takes a while for the nervous system to get it. And what if some of the things that you've spent your entire life criticizing yourself for aren't really character flaws at all? Maybe they were adaptations, maybe they are things that you learned because at some point in your life you needed them. That's what I want to talk about today. Because I've been writing the companion workbook, like I said, and in chapters 27 and 28, uh, I talk about this. Progress looks different after trauma. It just does. Growth is at the speed of safety, not just real safety, perceived safety. And it has to do with permission. And the more I worked on these two chapters, the more I realized they belong together. And because first you have to understand what your nervous system learned in the threat. Then you have to give yourself permission to teach it something different. And that second part was very hard for me. One of the things I wrote in loving differently is trauma changes the math. I love that. And why I wrote it was because I think that we spend so much time comparing ourselves to people who aren't solving the same equation. We are not linear beings. We look at somebody else and we think, why can they do that? Why am I so exhausted? Why am I overwhelmed? Why can't I just let this go? Why am I reacting like this? Why am I still struggling with something that happened 20 years ago? But we're comparing the outcome without looking at what it costs each person to get there. For someone who has experienced significant trauma, showing up can cost more than it appears. Resting can be difficult, trusting can be, being still can be scary. Even having something wonderful happen can be difficult because trauma doesn't always change what you remember, it can change uh what you expect. And I think that that's an important distinction. For years I thought trauma lived permanently in my brain. And it was the story, it was what happened, it was the things that I remembered, the emotions, the flashbacks, the things that I couldn't forget. But I've come to understand my own life differently. Trauma can also show up in the way that we brace. It can show up in the way that we scan a room, the way that we prepare, the way that we don't completely relax and the way that we immediately think, okay, now what? For me, the message underneath so much of it was stay ready. I lived probably at least, at least 40 years of my life always being ready for something. Stay ready because something could happen, because things change quickly, and you never know when or how. Stay ready because safety isn't necessarily permanent. And when you've lived like that long enough, you don't necessarily realize

Survival Behaviors Misread As Flaws

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that you're doing it. You just don't, because it's just every it's just who you've been. And I really didn't even know because I had always been that way. I want to say something interesting here because you know we all have personalities, but what if sometimes our personality looks like survival? That is our personality. That's how people perceive us, our personality in survival. This is where I think we misunderstand trauma survivors so often. We see the behavior without asking what might be underneath it. And someone withdraws and we call them antisocial, someone avoids something and we say they're unmotivated, someone shuts down and we call them lazy. Someone reacts strongly and we say they're overreacting. Someone refuses help and we can call them stubborn, but sometimes we're looking at protection, sometimes withdrawal is conservation, sometimes avoidance is self-protection, sometimes shutdown is a nervous system thing, and it's just saying that I have nothing left. I do have somebody in my family that we are all fetal alcohol here, we're all autistic, neurodivergent to the max in this house. And I have one in particular that goes to school and can't do one more thing after they get get get home. They just can't do one more thing. They've had a lot of trauma in their life. They also have been, their brain has been very affected by alcohol before they were even born. They don't have the tolerance to be able to do one more thing after school. That individual's body reacts so extremely to anything. I do want to say this though, sometimes what looks like an overreaction is the body's nervous system reacting to everything that happened before. And sometimes it can be an overreaction to learned consequences. And they can also be, you know, very scary. And it doesn't mean every behavior is automatically healthy. It doesn't mean we never have responsibility for what we do, though. It does mean that we should become curious about what's underneath it. That's something that I've learned to do with my kids. I've had to learn to do it myself, do it with myself, instead of immediately asking, what's wrong with me? I mean, I can go there very quickly. I can ask, what is my body trying to do for me right now? And that's a little different approach. That question really does change everything. There's a sentence in chapter 27 that I talk about. It's probably one of the most important things to me. One, there's so many. But I said there were seasons when I stayed in the trauma, not because I wanted to stay, but because I had not learned how to leave. I had not learned to escape. I mean, that's profound to me, even now. Every time I think about that truth in my life and how much time I wasted because I was unable to leave the trauma that was no longer there or trauma that I was in that was controlling my every waking moment and sleeping moment, but I didn't know how to escape. I just didn't. People from the outside can say, Why didn't you leave? Why did you tolerate that abuse? Why did you stay so long? Why didn't you say something? And you know that behavior is saying something. If somebody is shutting down, it's saying something. Somebody can say it in their looks, in their fear reactions. But if you know a person in their one way, and then out of nowhere, everything about them changes. You might want to look into why. And I do want to say that if somebody does say something, you need to listen and you need to believe them because that happened to me. And you have to read the book to know what I'm talking about. Nobody needed to blame me for staying too long in a trauma or in a an abusive situation. Nobody needed to do that. I was already beating my own self up because I couldn't figure out a way out. Why didn't I fight back? Because I didn't know how. I didn't know how to say no. I didn't know how to get out. And when you are neurodivergent, living in a place that is extremely abusive, your nervous system can't access the things that it needs to access to get free. And we can't judge somebody for that. Sometimes you don't know because the thing everyone else recognizes as abnormal feels familiar to you. And abuse was what I knew. So when I got into a situation where it was abusive again, it was what I knew. I didn't come from an environment where abuse was absent. It was very, it was my life. So we can find ourselves in situations like that again, unfortunately. I learned how to survive inside of it. I am also, unfortunately,

When Success Starts Feeling Dangerous

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loyal to a fault, and I can stay with people much longer than I probably should. You know, I can think, maybe if I do this differently, maybe if I explain it differently, maybe if I give it another chance, and eventually I have to understand that endurance isn't always strength. Sometimes strength is leaving, sometimes strength is saying no, sometimes strength is choosing safety. This was 100% true in my life. This is what allowed me to be able to do this podcast was my children changed my life. They really did. Suddenly, my decisions weren't only about me. It wasn't about what I was able to tolerate. I started seeing the world differently. I had to think, is this, and my kids, by the way, were never in this environment, but I I needed to be healthy for them. I also had to find my voice because I was able to fight for my kids. You know, I can advocate for them now. I can walk into a meeting and ask questions and push back. Trust me, they will say yes, you can push back. Uh, I can say no, this isn't working. No, this isn't right for my kid. I want something different. No, you're not understanding what's happening here. Um, and really question authority people, but learning to advocate for myself, that was a completely different step and layer. It's been harder. My kids have taught me that too, and they've taught me that needs aren't weaknesses, accommodations aren't weakness, boundaries aren't weakness, and needing safety certainly isn't weakness. When success doesn't feel safe, we have to evaluate what is happening because there is another realization that I had while writing, loving differently, that surprised me. And I started looking at the major moments of my life when my dad died. I was at the peak of swimming, I was competing and traveling and winning. And one of my last memories with him was my 11th birthday, and I was at a swim meet at a restaurant, and they called me up to dance, and I did, and it was just a magical moment. And I spent the weekend at a swim meet, and I won. And it was just like I said, it was just magical. Shortly after that, my dad was gone. I always made the association between his death and success. I quit swimming, I never went back, and I kept myself from success. And sometimes I still fight it. Right after he died, I won. And they told me to go get my medal. I refused it. And that was the beginning. I couldn't even probably at 11 years old have told you why I refused it. I just said, no, I don't deserve it. I don't even know why I said that, but that's just so crazy to me. When I graduated from high school, we couldn't even have my graduation party and have, you know, a normal celebration because my aunt died. And that was actually the same day as her funeral. So celebration became grief. And I got married as another example, and my biological family did not come. I actually had my brother was supposed to walk me down the aisle, and my biological mom refused to bring him and said no. So then I had to last second grab my adopted mom, who then walked me down the aisle. You know, those are the kinds of things that where associations are made in somewhere along the way, without consciously deciding it. I think that my body started learning. When something good happens, watch out, because something bad might be next. That's an incredibly powerful thing to recognize because you can want success consciously while another part of you doesn't trust it, always waiting for the other shoe to drop. Have you ever done that? I mean, something's going really well, and instead of enjoying it, you think, okay, what's going to happen? When is this going to fall apart? When is somebody going to leave? When is something bad going to happen? I do that with movies. It's going really great. Okay, I'm waiting for the plot to change. What's gonna happen? I mean, that's what we do in life. Don't get too excited because um it's not gonna go well. Don't get comfortable, stay ready. That's survival talking. And I've had to challenge that because good things have happened in my life, beautiful things, my adopted kids, and then I adopted again and again. And I started this podcast with Tina. This little thing that we started grew into something that was reached, that has reached millions of people. People trust us with incredibly personal stories. I wrote a book, I published it, I'm writing the companion workbook, and I have had to learn I am allowed to experience something good without preparing for its destruction. That's part of healing, too. I've also made incredible connections, and I just have to give a shout out to Deborah Weed, who, you know, she was on the podcast, and she's become a very personal friend of mine, and she is in the midst of doing Paisley the musical, and she's getting it out there. And because I had a connection to somebody who could write the score for it, somebody that um is a savant, I call him. And I know he doesn't want me to tell his name, so I won't, but I I helped them make the connection, and you know, it's just taking off. And she called me last night, and she's just bubbling with joy and enthusiasm. And when I'm listening to her and I'm able to tell her about what's happening with my book and successes and the podcast, it's just a great place to live for a little while and not have to worry about anything else, and to allow ourselves to live in that moment. You know, I am a success. And this was huge for me to write, you know, the book and to even write down the words. I am a success. Let me say that again. I am a success. Not because everything worked out perfectly, because trust me, it hasn't, not because I don't. Struggle because I do every single day. And I have real struggles going on in my family right now. Not because I've healed everything, because I am far from that. But because what happened to me doesn't get to decide everything that happens next. Let me say that again. Because what happened to me doesn't get to decide everything that happens next. I have built a life. I have found my voice. I've built workarounds for my neurodivergent brain that works so differently than a lot of people. I have fallen down, I've gotten back up, I've changed, I've learned and survived things that I didn't understand when I was surviving them, and I am still growing. That counts. Maybe we need different definitions of progress, don't you think? I mean, what if progress isn't how much did you accomplish today? Maybe it's did you listen to yourself today? Did you recognize that you were overwhelmed before you completely shut down? Did you say no when you normally would have said yes? Did you rest without spending the entire time feeling guilty? Did you leave a situation you once would have endured? Did you ask for help? Did you recognize a trigger? Did you stay present? Did you celebrate something without immediately preparing for disaster? Did you give yourself grace? That's progress. And maybe nobody applauds because all this is invisible. But you know, your nervous system knows. It does. And this brings

Redefining Progress After Trauma

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me to chapter 28 in my book. I want to talk about that because it has to do with permission, because understanding all of this is one thing. Actually, allowing ourselves to live differently is another. And this is where I have struggled. This is one of the reasons I even wrote the book. I can understand everybody else. I went to college for psychology and social work, and I took every class I took. And I even got a master's degree in behavior. So I get it. My favorite class was abnormal psychology. I studied people. I've always been fascinated by why people do what they do. I can sit somewhere and people watch forever. I want to know what makes that person tick, why did they respond that way? What happens underneath the behavior? Give me somebody else's story. And I will love to dig into it. I think that that might be one of the reasons I did become a journalist. But turn that microscope around. It took me a long time to allow myself to do that. During my master's program, we had to do mock counseling sessions. And immediately I was like, nope, mm-mm. Nope, not doing it. I'll help you. You don't need to help me. You know, that reaction is still in me in every way. If I get hurt, no matter what it is, if I need help, it's an immediate stay away. Don't touch me, don't hug me, I can do it. I got this. But eventually I decide. Okay, maybe you can come in. Maybe I'll ask, but it's still going to be from a distance. Maybe I'll tell you what I need, but it still will be very in a very careful, cautious way. Um, I decide when, how, who, and that movement from get away from me to okay, I'm considering possibly going to you for help, um, is enormous for me. It it really is a huge deal. I saw this, and it just keeps coming to my head all the time when I think about my finger injury. I recently, and I'm just gonna say a family member was helping me put a chair together, and I had my finger in the base of the chair as I was trying to help position it, and this person just slammed it down and took off the tip of my finger. Yep. It I just screamed, it's gone. My finger is gone. It was. We I grabbed napkins, about a hundred of them, to put on my finger because of the bleeding, and everybody was trying to be like, come on, let me see, let me see. I have to help you. We have to go to the emergency room. I was like, no, nobody's touching me. I am not going to the emergency, everybody is leaving me alone. I got this. Yep, we ended up at the emergency room and I needed help. Um, we have to give in sometimes. We just have to. Even at the emergency room, when I first got there, I said, I don't like to be touched. I'm neurodivergent. I don't want you to touch me. They had to touch me. It just, you know, how can you put a finger back together if you say you can't be touched? It's not possible. You know, this is it. Sometimes the place that hurts needs to be touched. And that's the place that you don't want to be touched the most. I know it is for me. I'll be very transparent here. Healing doesn't mean everybody gets access to you, though. It just doesn't. You get to choose, but you do need to choose. It doesn't eliminate boundaries, it doesn't mean you tell everyone everything. And as a neurodivergent person, once I start talking, I just say everything. And I have a very difficult time knowing what to say and what not to say. So you might get the whole story, even if I don't know you very well. Plus, I run a podcast where that's my job is to tell all. And the other person on the other end who might be standing across from me and they don't even know I do a podcast might wonder, why is she telling me all of this? Well, probably for a couple reasons. So, but I do want to

Letting Safe People Help

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say, you know, there are moments when healing requires allowing someone safe into the place that you are hurting the most, where you have spent years protecting and keeping everybody away. You know, awareness, I can analyze myself all day long. Vulnerability up close is a different story. Awareness is not the finish line. I used to think, okay, I understand why I do this. Great, we're done. I figured it out. Except apparently that's not how healing works. Awareness was the doorway, it wasn't the finish line because after awareness comes practice and repetition and doing something different when every part of you wants to do the familiar thing. I mean, I can know I push people away when I'm hurting. Okay, great. Now what? Can I let someone safe stay with me when I'm hurting? That's harder. I just it it happened actually a few months ago or longer even, um, where one of our family members was really struggling. And I ended up um in a room, and there were lots of people who were trying to help this individual. And I was in a room, and somebody came and sat with me for five hours while it happened. That was a big deal for me to let that person in. I had to trust them, and they knew that I needed help, and they knew that I did trust them. It's a big deal. There is something I really want people to understand. Trauma doesn't just hurt you, it trains you, it teaches responses, brace, protect, leave, fight, freeze, don't trust, don't need anybody, handle it yourself, stay ready, don't get too comfortable, don't let somebody close enough to hurt you. Those responses may have made perfect sense when they developed, but eventually I had to ask, do I still need them? And that's a hard question because sometimes armor becomes so familiar that taking it off feels more dangerous than carrying it. Healing for me has always required permission. Permission to regulate, repair, safety, sit down without feeling guilty, leave a room when I'm becoming overwhelmed, permission to say no without writing an entire dissertation explaining why I'm saying no. Anybody else try to explain why they need a break? And say no, and then immediately think, wait, I need to explain. Here's why. Here are the 17 reasons why I needed this. And here's supporting documentation. Here are the references. I mean, no, sometimes no is just no, and that's it. I've had to learn to stop treating my regulation like an inconvenience. This is a really big one. I had to stop treating it like it was a problem. Think about that. How often do we know exactly what we need? And then we refuse to give it to ourselves. Quiet. I need quiet. But I keep going anyway. I need space, but I stay. I'm overwhelmed, but I push through. I'm exhausted, but I feel guilty if I sit down. My body says enough. And I answer, not yet. Why? We wouldn't necessarily do that to somebody that we love, but we do it ourselves constantly. So I've had to learn to listen, not to everybody else, but to myself and what my nervous system is saying. What do I need? What is my body telling me? Do I need quiet? Do I need space? Do I need to take a walk? Do I need to write? Do I need to stop talking? Do I need someone with me? Do I need nobody with me? What do I need? And sometimes we have to ask ourselves and stop in order to figure out what we need and then give yourself permission that it's okay to have it. There can be grief and safety. And this part, when you finally become safe, there is grief. Because when you're surviving, you don't

Permission To Regulate And Grieve

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necessarily have time to process what survival is costing you. I mean, you're surviving. You don't even pay attention. Then things get quieter. And suddenly you look in hindsight and you think, wow, I really went through that. I thought that that was normal. I really carried that much. I really was that tired and I didn't even know it. I really needed somebody and nobody came. You know, that's all grief. That's grief that is real, but grief isn't regression. It doesn't mean that healing isn't working. Sometimes being able to grieve means you're finally safe enough to feel something that you couldn't afford to feel when it was happening. So you have to have permission to mourn. So permission means I'm allowed to mourn what should have been different. I'm allowed to say, that hurt. That wasn't okay. I deserved better. I needed protection. I needed someone to notice. I needed someone to validate. I needed someone to stay. And saying that doesn't mean I live in the past. It means I stopped pretending the past didn't matter. And that's a difference. You know, I had to learn, and this is one of the biggest things for me, is I had to learn to receive love without flinching. Love, I can love pretty fiercely. Ask my kids. I will fight for the people that I love. I will advocate for them, protect, show up. Giving love has never been that big of a problem. Receiving it. That's different. Because receiving love requires a certain amount of letting go and trust. It requires believing it. It requires staying. There's that word again. It requires not immediately thinking, what's this going to cost me? When will this change? When will you leave? When will I regret letting you this close? And one of the lines that I wrote in chapter 28 is receiving love without flinching is its own kind of healing. And I'm still working on it. I talk about my kids and how my kids taught me about safe love. And my kids have been some of my greatest teachers. They didn't just need safety for me, they offered safety to me. They have loved me imperfectly, and I've loved them imperfectly. That's family. But then they've taught me something about presence. Love doesn't require perfection, it just requires showing up. It requires coming back. It requires repair. It requires letting another person be who they are. And I think parenting my children has helped me understand parts of myself that I never would have understood otherwise. Because I could look at them and think, of course you need that. Of course your brain needs that accommodation. Of course you need time. Of course you need another way. Of course you deserve grace. And eventually I had to turn that around and look in the mirror and say, Anne, why wouldn't you deserve those things too? I want to make another distinction here before I wrap here soon. But boundaries are not walls. Giving yourself permission to receive love does not mean giving everybody access to you. Safety isn't throwing away boundaries. It's actually the opposite. Safety means I get to decide who comes close, even if they're family. Who comes close? Who has earned that trust? Who listens when I say no? Who respects my space? Who doesn't weaponize something I told them when I was vulnerable?

Boundaries Without Building Walls

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Who lets me regulate instead of demanding that I perform emotional closeness for them? That's not a wall. That's discernment. That's healthy. And I can have boundaries without building walls around my entire life. I can protect myself without abandoning myself. The safest place that I've ever lived, there is a line toward the end of chapter 28 that I think captures what all of this has become for me. And the safest place I've ever lived is not a house. It's a regulated nervous system. Think about that. A home isn't only walls. Safety isn't only a locked door. There is another kind of home that we can build inside ourselves, a place where we don't constantly have to earn our right to exist, where we don't have to perform, where we don't have to stay useful so someone won't leave. Where we can say, I'm tired, I'm overwhelmed, I need help, I need space, I don't know. No, yes, stay. Please help me. I love you. I need you. And none of those statements are wrong or weak. And two tools that I want to leave with you. I've been building what I call a tool belt in the companion workbook and loving differently. And every chapter gives us something practical to carry forward. And these two chapters have two tools that I think work beautifully together. The first is grow at the speed of safety. When you're overwhelmed, ask, am I safe right now? Not yesterday, not 10 years ago, right now. Are you safe right now? So then, after that question, then am I responding to what is happening now? Or could my body be responding to something that it learned before? And finally, what does my nervous system need from me right now? Maybe it's quiet or movement or someone or space, or maybe I need to breathe. Maybe I need to stop, and you don't have to push through. And a really dear friend of mine who's been on the podcast, Nice Bard, um, a shout out to you because I we have been talks in talks about doing a podcast

Tools And A Closing Invitation

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on the pause and how that's still moving forward. The permission to pause when you feel yourself bracing, pushing someone away, saying, I'm fine when you're absolutely not fine, or immediately going into, I can do this myself. Okay, pause and ask, what am I protecting right now? That's such an important question. Then ask, am I actually unsafe? Or does this simply feel unfamiliar? You know, those aren't the same thing. And finally, what am I allowed to give myself permission to do right now? Maybe it really is pause. And if I get to do this podcast with Denise, I'm sure we will. Um, but why do you need a pause? And if you do need a pause, that's great. I think that you need to take it. But there is a time to accept help and ask for rest and cry and say no and need that space. But you know, if somebody wants to listen, let them. If you can, stop explaining. You don't have to explain anything to anybody. Tell somebody what you actually need. And again, sometimes the most important thing, and I say this because one of the my most favorite people in the whole entire world who died when I was 11 years old, one of the best things that we used to do together was just sit. We would just be together. That's it. No expectations, no demands, just sit. So if you're listening right now, I want you to think about your life. What did survival teach you? What did it teach you to stay quiet? Did it teach you to fight? Did it teach you to disappear? Did it teach you to take Care of everybody else but yourself? Did it teach you that needing people was dangerous? Did it teach you that success wouldn't last and it was scary? Did it teach you not to celebrate? When I graduated, I refused to go across the stage. I sat in the audience and watched my class go across. I didn't want to celebrate me. Next, did it teach you to leave before someone could leave you? And I've done that many times. Did it teach you that resting was lazy? Did it teach you that your needs were too much? Whatever it taught you, here's what I want you to know. You can rewrite how you respond. Even if you cannot write rewrite what happened, that's okay. I think for a long time I thought healing would eventually mean I wasn't affected anymore. That isn't what healing has looked like for me. Healing has looked more like recognition. I recognize the old response. I understand why it's there. And then I decide whether I still need it. Sometimes I do. Sometimes a boundary is absolutely necessary. Sometimes I do need that space. Sometimes I do need to take a walk. Whatever. But sometimes I am safe. And the hardest thing for me to do is simply let myself know that and realize that. And just say, you're okay, Ann. You don't have to brace right now. You don't have to figure everything out right now. You don't have to earn this moment. You don't have to push everybody away. You can breathe and stay and receive and be loved. And I have a feeling I'm going to be learning that until my last breath. And maybe that's what progress after trauma really looks like. Not perfection, not forgetting, not never being triggered again, but recognize when the past is trying to run the present and slowly teaching ourselves, I have choices now. I can listen to myself. I can protect myself. I can ask for help. I can say no. I can say yes. I can rest and celebrate and love and I can allow myself to be loved. Maybe healing isn't about becoming someone completely different. Maybe it's about finally giving ourselves permission to become the person that you didn't have the safety to be before. So whenever you are that in that process, remember there is no external scoreboard for healing. Grow at the speed of safety. Give yourself permission and remember there is purpose and the pain and hope in the journey. And we save that every single episode. And I am Anne, and this is Real Talk with Tina and Anne. And I really appreciate you being here today and listening to this. And if you do want to see the rest of this book and read it and be a part of it, go to ankegris.com and you can go on Amazon. It's also in the Kindle version. And honestly, the Kindle version is cheap. It is free. If you have Kindle Direct or Kindle Unlimited or whatever it is, it's free. So just get it for free on Kindle Unlimited and read it and leave me a review, please. I'd really appreciate that because those are just free things that you can do to help people that are working hard. And um I really appreciate it. And I appreciate you. All right. Until next time. And again, there is purpose in the pain, and there is hope in the journey. See you next time.