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Good morning, Path to Warren. This is Matt Warren It is Episode 21, and it’s a beautiful Monday morning, July 27, 2020. I am walking along the main road here of Islamorada, Florida. We’re in the Keys. I’m here with my wife and our eight year old little girl, Maddie and my in law, and just finished my quiet time, did some pray, praying and meditation and some reading. And now just a little walk to reflect, get some exercise. I want to elaborate a little bit more on the healing the inner child work that I’m doing and just try to explain the feelings and the thoughts that are going on and what’s happening with that because this is such a new thing for me. It’s a new route in my recovery that I’m taking, and I want to make sure I’m processing it and sharing about it so that hopefully one day it can help somebody. It’s a pretty big deal. This is some serious stuff here that I’m uncovering. What’s crazy is I’m 36 years old, and when this meditation, healing the inner child. When I’m sitting there closing my eyes this morning doing some meditation on healing the inner child, it asked me the question like, where does your mind take you? And it wants me to walk through my early childhood home. It says, go there, meet your young inner child to meet this child that’s probably anywhere between age five and nine, but it could be upwards of early teens, like eleven or twelve years old. It says, go to that home of your childhood and grab your child’s hand and walk through the house. Walk through the rooms. Can you navigate through the hallways between rooms? What are the feelings that come up when you go there? Who else was asking me this morning in my meditation? By the way, there are hundreds of meditations on YouTube that are titled Healing the Inner Child or Inner Child Healing Meditation. I found that thanks to somebody else, they gave me the recommendation of go on YouTube and just search Inner Child Healing Meditations. And there’s a ton of them. So I’ve chosen a couple of them and listen to them by myself, just closing my eyes and meditating, focusing on my breathing and listening to the words that they’re saying. It’s quite amazing. How can I come back. How can I be 36 years old and have memories of certain places that were traumatic and certain events that were traumatic to me when I was growing up? It’s mind blowing. It really is. So here I am. It says, what rooms did you go into? Did you go back to your childhood home? You walk up the front steps, where did this memory take? You go with it, don’t fight it, go with it. And then it asks, who shows up in the memory? So was it my sister? Was it my brother? Was it my mom? Was it my dad? It wants me to go back and remember those people and try to how old were they? What were they wearing? What were they doing? What I’ve learned is there’s obviously several memories of this childhood home. We were living in Irmo, South Carolina, in a house that was in a neighborhood called Sheffield, and that was where I did most of my growing up. Like, from age eight or nine, we moved there. That would have meant my brother was like 14, 15, 16. So I was there around 9 or 10, 11. So from nine years old all the way to the time I went off to College. That was my house. That was my home. So many pivotal things happened during those years that really defined me. Everything prior to that is kind of a blur. I don’t mean to blur in a bad way. It’s just when I was I do remember. And I shared this in the last podcast about in second grade being in Mt Holly, North Carolina. We were only there for a year, so there’s a little bit of trauma in being uprooted and relocating during such a formidable time in my life. But when we moved back, I realized, I think that move had relationship issues were developed. I was kind of, like, didn’t want to get too close to people because I realized that I’m either going to move, they’re going to move, something’s going to happen, and they need to get too close to people. I think that was ingrained in me around second grade, during those moves, I did get close to an eight year old little girl named Hillary Hall. She was my little girlfriend at the time. We didn’t really call each other boyfriend girlfriend, but that’s what we were. We exchanged Valentine’s Day gift right before I was getting ready to leave to go back to Irmo. My parents were moving, and it was Valentine’s Day, and I brought her a card, and she brought me a box of 100 Crayons in a nice metal tin. And all I had was a little card. I was devastated. I felt like I was not worthy to be her boyfriend. I’m laughing about it today, but it’s very real. That really affects me. Why didn’t I think of getting her a nice gift? Why didn’t it cross my mind to get her something nice for Valentine’s Day. I don’t know. Let’s fast forward when I’m doing this inner child meditation work. What’s amazing is my mind instantly went to a situation where my brother and I had twin Labrador retrievers. I had a Golden Lab. He had a black Lab. And I felt like prior to that I had a dog. There was a yellow Lab. His name was Ace and I loved Ace. He was my first dog I ever had. I got it for Christmas right when we moved in. I think it was one of the first Christmases when we moved to Irmo area from Mount Holly. I’m pretty sure it was one of the first Christmases I wanted a dog so bad. So I got a dog and named him Ace. He came in a cardboard box and was delivered by Santa Claus. The box was put in our living room and I never forget going down there and hearing the little puppy yelping. It was love at first sight. I had a little puppy after Ace. I had them for a couple of years and I’m not sure exactly what happened as to why I had to get rid of Ace. But I got two new puppies and I learned a lot from the first dog. But the two new puppies were we named them Ace and my brother named his Trophy. His was the Black Lab. Mine was the Golden Lab. I read books on how to train dogs to retrieve and hunt. I read books on them. I worked with my dog daily. Every day I would take him out work with him. He was very trained in how to sit, stay, fetch. He would retrieve a dummy like we were duck hunting or something. And he listened. And he didn’t bark much because I feel like he was pretty happy. But as I grew older and my dogs, our dogs were about teenager years or so. My brother never took his out to play with him much at all. And I’m talking like once or twice a week he would take him out, whereas I was trying to take him out every day. And every time I would take my dog out, it got to a point where his dog would just go crazy. I mean, barking, barking, barking. I mean, neighbors were complaining. It got really bad. So when the neighbors started complaining to my parents about this dog barking being pretty annoying. My parents knew exactly who it was. The next time we went to get dog food at Mill Creek, they had on the counter that we could rent a bark collar for $3 a day. So my parents paid for it. But my brother brought home this bark collar. Excited about being able to put this on his dog. Well, the bark collar set on our kitchen counter for like three or four days. And around the three and a half to four day Mark, I just got so sick of this. Here I am every day taking my dog out and training them. And my brother couldn’t even put the bark collar on his dog. It was like he was so lazy. He couldn’t even put the bark collar on his dog. It’s like, hey, here’s a quick pill. Like going to the doctor and getting a quick pill. It’s like, here, you don’t have to do the work. Just take this pill. Don’t work on yourself. Don’t go train your dog. Just take this pill. You’ll be fine. That’s what works. As bad as that sounds, it’s the truth, he would not go work with his dog. So finally, day three, day four. This collars just sitting there on the counter in our kitchen. I take it as I walk down the back deck to go down and get my dog out like I do every day, and take it for a walk. I’m walking down the steps. I go into our six by ten kennel. I take my dog out. I put the collar on Jason’s dog, close the gate behind me. As I’m walking away, the dog barks like it always does. But this time when it barks, it gets shocked. It gets shocked, it squeals. I mean, it goes on this cycle of the most horrific, brutal squealing and barking and squealing and shocking and squealing and shocking. It goes on and on for a good three minutes or so. I was already walking up the driveway. I was trying to get my brother out of the house to come work with his dog and also to put the bar collar on his dog and start working with him. But instead, what I got was just mutilation. He laid into me yelling and saying mean things that I don’t really remember exactly what they were. But I was shaking, and I just walked on up the driveway. He was like, what are you doing? What did you do? What did you do? As he ran down the steps down to the dog lot to take his dog out. Finally, that incident, something happened. I realized this five year old brother of mine, this love thing, it ain’t real. It was like, we’re brothers. Yeah, by blood. But something’s not right. Something ain’t right in this relationship. The point where he would just do that and say all that mean stuff to me after I was trying to help train his dog so I didn’t get in trouble for it. I don’t remember ever getting punished or scolded or anything. But what’s even worse is that my brother never got scolded for not training a dog. I don’t know if it was because he might have had other stuff going on because he just didn’t care or because they knew he was lazy or sloth like behavior and not going to get out there and work with his dog. I don’t know the answer, but it traumatized me. And that was the first place that my mind took me when I started working on this inner child healing that was the first place. So I know there’s something that needs to be done there. I know there’s got to be some work that I need to do with a therapist, probably. I don’t know yet. But to go there in my mind, after 25 years of nothing being said about it, of nothing being done, of course, it’s not brought up again by anybody else. Nobody remembers it. I actually shared on Thursday, Mom and I went to lunch and actually shared with her about this incident. And she remembers it to the day. She definitely remembers the exact time that I put the collar on his dog. She doesn’t remember she was inside. She doesn’t remember my brother coming out and just making me feel like crap, making me feel like I was two inches tall, putting me in my place, as you would say. She doesn’t remember any of that. And it was never talked about. Like, I think this whole inner child thing is revealing how all of a sudden secrets start to become a necessary survival tool. This is fascinating to me. And I’ve heard on a call yesterday on a recovery meeting. It’s a Zoom call, a Men’s 6:00pm meeting. A gentleman shared yesterday how he has a bottom line of no secrets. He does not keep secrets anymore today. And I thought, wow, where did it become a good idea? When did it become a good idea for me to start keeping secrets? Was it at age 18? Was it at age 25? Was it at age 35? Because when I was 34, 35, when I hit rock bottom, it’s actually age 33, 34, when I hit rock bottom. I had book bags of secrets. I mean, loads of secrets. And it’s like some of them were big, some of them were small, but I don’t know, it’s like telling a little lie, you know, when you tell one little lie, it builds and builds and builds. And all of a sudden before you know it, you got a whole book bag of lies. That’s what it felt like. That’s what it felt like with all these secrets I had about my alcohol usage. Yeah, I was drinking in front of people, but I was also drinking in the mornings, champagne and all the wine and the beer and all of that. You can’t drink the way I was drinking and be honest about it. It’s not possible. So then you got the alcohol usage and the prescription drugs and the Adderall and the Xanax. I’m not going to tell my wife. I’m on this Xanax today because she’s the reason for my stress. So now I got a secret about my Xanax usage, an unhealthy secret. What I’m learning is this inner child work was the foundation. This was the beginning. When I was a young child, some major traumatic events happened in my life that caused me to start thinking it was a great idea to keep secrets. And that’s what I’m trying to work through today. Welcome back, Path to Warren podcast. I was just describing this second situation where I was working on my inner child meditation, healing work. And I want to describe to you the second place that my mind took me so that maybe you could help me work through this and figure out what’s going on and what needs to be healed. I was describing at the dinner table that I had my dad on the right. He had come home from work. We were waiting to eat dinner. We waited, eat dinner until he came home. Across from me was mom to the right, Michelle. To my left, straight in front of me on this rectangle table, and to my left was Jason. The way we were sitting, he wasn’t directly in front of me. He was to my left. So I couldn’t really see what kind of facial expressions he had. But the leaders of the household always sit at the end of the tables. So you had Jason on the left and dad on the right. This whole superiority thing that I’m working through, actively working through, it’s so real, I didn’t even think about it until just now. The fact that I was always told the leader of the household sits at the end of the table and guess who had his seat at the end of the table? That was his mandatory seat. Well, Jason. So my mind goes back to this event and it wasn’t just one event. This was like everyday thing we set at the dinner table. And my brother was… I’ll never forget it. One day he comes home from work and he was bragging about being called the Steamroller at work. And he works in IT. He’s a manager of some people at an IT Department and it’s a pretty big company. But the fact that he would, number one, be bragging about this and being so proud of this new nickname that he had at work, it blew me away. And the fact that my parents didn’t like, try to correct it or fix it, the fact that they went along with it, I was like, oh, my gosh, how could you be named Steamroller? How could you be named Steamroller and like it. I would it be crushed? That means that you’re going through work life. You’re going through your management role, crushing people, leaving them just a pile of liquid smooshed into the asphalt. Just steam left behind you. Because you just steamrolled somebody. That’s unbelievable. That is not a compliment. That is not a freaking compliment. And here I am listening to my brother, like, laugh about it and brag about it. So from then on in my head and to my therapist and to my accountability partner, he’s been known as the Steamroller. So I got the Steamroller to my left and I can’t really tell a story to dad or mom and know what the Steamroller is saying or smiling or what kind of facial expressions he’s got on his face. Because I can’t talk to mom or dad and look to the right and at the same time know what he is doing or saying or smiling or not smiling or laughing. I’m just processing that for the first time, actually. So straight ahead to my left, who’s always sitting right next to mom, was my sister. She was two and a half years younger than me. My brother, like I’ve said, is five years older than me. So I’m the middle child. I’m the people pleaser, hey, why can’t we all just get along kind of guy? So my sister was directly in front of me, and she’s been diagnosed with many things, but several mental issues that they’re working through. Bipolar, manic depressive. She’s had many suicidal thoughts, and it’s not a secret because she posted it all over Facebook. I’ve had to disconnect from social media, mainly because of her and how she puts herself out there and worried about what she posts and how it’s going to affect me. It’s a bunch of junk. So I’m gotten off of all that. So she would say things at the family dinner table that I could not agree with, and I didn’t agree with. But if I said anything, it was like I was the one who jumped on because here I was. I learned really quick that I had to walk on eggshells. I learned really quick that I had to walk on eggshells with my sister. I couldn’t talk about things. I couldn’t talk about my feelings. I couldn’t talk about certain things that I needed to get off my chest as I was developing and growing up in my young between 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16. All of those years, it was like I was muzzled. So today, what’s amazing is I can see the images of this little boy being muted, not being able to speak his mind because of his bipolar sister and his steamrolling brother, not knowing what the brother is going to say to steamroll his little brother, to put him in his place, and then not knowing what I’m going to be muzzled for. What do I need to not talk about or not share? Because my sister’s bipolar. It was quite a dysfunctional household in my mind. What’s great today is to be able to see the truth and be able to share the truth in hopes that it helps somebody else’s growing up in that situation or some other parent that’s got a kid that is in that situation. So I learned to start keeping secrets. Let’s don’t share about it because we don’t want to get steamrolled. Let’s not share about it because we don’t want to disturb the bipolar. It might be a time bomb. And trust me, I wanted to walk on eggshells because I didn’t want the time bomb to go off. I’m the peacekeeper. But I learned very quickly. You say certain things or you try to correct her or help her give her advice on what to do, what to wear what to talk to boys like… I learned very quickly that junk will come back and bite you Time bomb will explode So the coping mechanisms that I learned were to keep my feelings to myself. Be quiet, stifle my emotions, run away as a little boy and satisfy myself with porn and masturbation as they call it P and M. Runaway Escape as a little boy I want to go take my dog to the pond and go fishing. Just anything to get out. Anything to escape and that’s what I’m learning is like I am an escape artist. Anything I could do to get sanity and get away I learned to do real well. So the fact that at age 34, 33. Here I am trying everything I can get my hands on to escape the reality It’s so clear to me today no wonder I would go binge shopping no wonder I would try to get loans for a bunch of money to satisfy the shopping and spending no wonder I found relief In Xanax and Adderall and working 90 hours a week no wonder I found relief in bourbon It’s a survival technique that’s what I had to do to get away let’s don’t go fix the problem let’s don’t go work on ourselves let’s just run away with the quickest easiest fix that I learned at such a young child at such a young age I’ve only scratched the surface with this but it’s so clear to me I was sharing with my accountability partner yesterday that I could sketch out a cartoon of the dinner table scene the “What Books?” scene Which I’ll share about later I can sketch a scene about all the times that I was in trauma as a child I could sketch the scene so clearly today Where I was what was said What I remember and tie it back to the trauma that I had when I hit my bottom and there’s so much clarity today. I’m so grateful for your attention thank you for listening if this podcast resonates with you or somebody that you know please feel free to share it with them It might help somebody have a wonderful day I love you and remember make your contribution thank you.