Episode 4

In this episode, Marlon reflects on his habit of self betrayal and how it cost him his sense of personal safety as well as those he loved the most.

Episode-4

Podcast: Rising From the Shadows

(0:08 - 0:32)

Welcome to my podcast, Rising from The Shadows, building self-love after narcissistic abuse. My name is Marlon, and I'm privileged to have you join me on my journey of healing and self-discovery. In each episode, we'll dive into the challenges that I faced, the lessons I learned, and those pivotal moments along the way that led me to the profound realization of self-love.

(0:33 - 0:50)

My hope in sharing my story is that you too, like me, will start taking bold steps towards living the life that you were meant to live, and living it on your own terms. Thank you for joining me on this deeply personal journey. Let's begin.

(0:58 - 2:17)

When you find yourself at a crossroad in your life, and you don't recognize the circumstances you are in, you don't recognize the person you've become, how much you've lost of yourself, it's really shocking. It's a really shocking phenomenon to have had a certain level of, I don't know, belief in how your life would turn out, and now that's not it. I find it very helpful for me to reflect on the past, to honestly answer the question, how did I get here? How did I get here? Today, I want to discuss how over time, I systematically cut off my connection with my own intuition.

(2:20 - 3:05)

You may have heard the term, it's kind of, I mean, it was invented in the 1940s by psychologists, but it certainly, I think, is more common in our daily conversation now, and that's codependent. Well, it's certainly accurately described the first 36 years of my life. Some common signs of codependency include having a deep-seated need of approval from others, having self-worth that depends on what others think about you, having a habit of taking on more work than you can realistically handle, not only to earn praise, but also to lighten a loved one's burden.

(3:06 - 3:39)

It's a tendency to apologize or take on blame in order to keep the peace. It's a pattern of avoiding conflict, a tendency to minimize or ignore your own desires, excessive concern about a loved one's habits or behaviors, a habit of making decisions for others or trying to manage loved one's moods. It also means that the mood that you may have reflects on how others feel rather than what you're feeling in your own emotions.

(3:40 - 4:03)

It's guilt or anxiety when doing something for yourself instead of for someone else, doing things you really don't wanna do or simply to make others happy. It's idealizing partners or loved ones often to the point of maintaining relationships that leave you unfulfilled. It's an overwhelming fear of rejection or abandonment.

(4:06 - 4:46)

In the past three episodes, we talked a lot about my family of origin and my early beginnings. Throughout all of that hurt and dysfunction, there was always that little piece of pride of myself knowing that I knew who I was internally and I just didn't have the space to be that person authentically because I was a child living under my parents' roof. But the one thing that's always been consistent about me is that I've always been a truth teller specifically or beginning in my family of origin.

(4:47 - 5:53)

And that ruffled the feathers of my abuser. Of course it did, made him look bad. Early on, I was labeled as sensitive. And for those of you who are vocal about standing up against mistreatment, standing up against abuse, standing up against the poor behaviors of others, you too may have been labeled as you're sensitive. You can't take a joke. But I was. And it certainly wasn't a compliment to me then that I actually now hold it as. I am proud to be sensitive. I am proud to be empathetic. I'm proud to care about justice. I'm proud of these things now. But it was derogatory to my family of origin thrown at me.

(5:54 - 6:36)

The truth is that I was consistently calling out bad behavior at the hands of my caregivers and I refused to be silenced. What was extremely hurtful for me that in my late teens, early 20s, that somehow along the way, my brothers also fell in line with labeling me as sensitive Marlon. And knowing that the people closest to me who went through the same horrors of my childhood were aligned in this way with our abuser, this was the ultimate betrayal.

(6:36 - 7:08)

And it was so confusing too, right? At that point, I truly didn't care whether I maintained a relationship with my parents because what they did was so unquestionably horrific. I didn't have, I had little if any cognitive dissonance about wanting to essentially cut them off from access to my life. But my brothers, these are the people that I survived with.

(7:09 - 7:34)

So, for them to also subscribe to the concept that I'm too sensitive was certainly a betrayal. And I didn't have the language then, back then, to describe it as such. All I knew was that my brothers were the only people in my life who knew me and the only people who could possibly understand where I was coming from.

(7:34 - 8:09)

And instead of us standing together to create a healthier family unit with us, I had to stand alone in asserting that there was no way that I could be in relationship with our abuser, especially when he refused to take accountability for his actions. The truth is it was deeply injuring to watch them engage and maintain relationships with him as if nothing happened at all. God, that was really hard to see.

(8:13 - 8:42)

You know, unfortunately, if the important people in your life submit to the triangulation of the narcissistic abuser, and then they begin to repeat their messaging, you know, the narcissist messaging, it's easy for you to start internalizing the lies. I knew that I was worth more than what life had given me up until then. And that I would never accept that type of brutal physical and verbal abuse.

(8:43 - 9:30)

But because I was so conditioned to believe that I was defective and I was too sensitive by my dad and subsequently my older brothers, in my adult life I became hypervigilant about appearing, or should I say I became hypervigilant against appearing overly upset about situations that were legitimately upsetting. In fact, I so believed that I was defective that I spent my late teens and early 20s trying to shed the, oh, here's some Mean Girls pop culture for you. He's the weird homeschool jungle freak moniker to rebuild what I felt should have been present in my childhood.

(9:31 - 10:05)

And maybe then I would find a group of people who would accept me. So, one of the things that I would do, I would spend full days at the library. First of all, shout out to libraries and librarians. You know, God, the public library saved my life. I have a life today because of my love of reading and because of the public library that I had access to. You know, Hatboro Public Library in Pennsylvania, Warminster Public Library, spent so many hours there.

(10:06 - 10:41)

And then also when I went away, when I was at community college, I spent tons of time in the library just learning. But I would spend full days at the library in their audiovisual room just watching movies, watching shows that came out during my childhood that I didn't have access to in my childhood, but I was consuming it now as 18-year-old and later on in my life. So, I would also listen to popular music that I would have listened to if I had exposure to the outside world.

(10:43 - 11:21)

I remember just sneaking to listen to the radio when I could. This was the era of Bad Boy Records and all that crew. I remember listening to Missy Elliott. I remember listening to Lil' Kim and all the like really classic hip hop and R&B songs in the 90s. But what happened was like I sped myself up. I tried to catch myself up to speed to all the pop culture references, the shows, the movies, things like that, just to not look weird.

(11:23 - 11:45)

You know, I did this, so I had something to add to social interactions besides, oh, the trauma of my childhood. I so desperately wanted to be able to seamlessly integrate with a friend group and a new family unit at some point. I attempted to shed the shame of the reality of my upbringing and bridge out.

(11:45 - 12:46)

I wanted to make sure that I wasn't overreacting to new people I met and like exposed myself as being essentially, you know, for lack of better words, a whiny little bitch as I was pretty much been told by the people in my life because I thought that at that point, a sign of maturity and being empowered was nothing ever bothering you and me being able to take a joke. And because I was still looking externally for validation that I was a good person and my feelings were reasonable, I stayed silent on a lot of issues, right? Because up until then, my world view was that Marlon's not okay and other people are more okay or Marlon doesn't have the answer so I have to go to others for the answers. This is how I began to betray myself.

(12:49 - 13:31)

If there is a consistent theme of myself betrayal, it has been me taking the emotional responsibility by sparing people from the negative consequences of their words and their actions. This 100% destroyed my ability to trust my intuition and find safety within myself. I wanna talk about some key memories that I have of me betraying myself and my betraying and ignoring my intuition.

(13:33 - 14:20)

It really starts out with how I interacted with my father specifically after I was an adult, after I was no longer living under his roof. As I mentioned before, my other siblings were still hanging around him, having quote unquote family time that we actually never spent as a childhood but now that my dad had a new wife, a new family or what have you, all of a sudden, we're pretending to act like this normal family unit. And what I didn't want was to be away from my brothers.

(14:20 - 15:01)

Like I didn't wanna lose my brothers. In my mind, the only family, real family that I had. And so, I remember betraying myself in sticking around, hanging out, although I would never hang out one-on-one with my dad but as long as my brothers were there, I would spend time. I remember feeling forced to hug him even though my body rejected every single second of it. I hated it. I used to, spending time in his presence was so oppressive.

(15:02 - 15:24)

It used to take me, not used to, I mean, I don't spend time anymore but when I was, it would take me the full three days to recover from a few hours in the afternoon from spending time with him. And when I mean recover, I mean I'm exhausted. I'm lying in bed.

(15:24 - 16:20)

I can barely get up to shower and feed myself. It was fully oppressive but because I was still latching on to the external validation of others and just so desperately wanting to have a quote-unquote normal life and to be viewed as normal and not this pathetic person to be pitied because contrary to some people, I know who think that this whole project is about people pitying me, I actually have such great pride about where I came from to where I am today. I don't feel pity for myself about those things.

(16:20 - 17:01)

They are just parts of my story and I didn't want others to look at me and hear my story and think of me with pity. What I always wanted was to people to be like, oh wow, like how amazing this is who you are from that. But people have emotions, people have feelings or what have you and invariably, if you hear a story like mine that has such violence in it beginning as young as four years old, like you got to feel something if you have empathy so I get that.

(17:03 - 17:44)

But it was very disempowering for me when I would observe people's reaction to my story as not a reaction of like, wow, look at the power of hope, look at the power of resilience, but more like I'm so sorry that happened to you. For me, it was like, wow, this made me who I am today, this made me the warrior that I am today, this gave me the confidence that I can get through anything that I set my mind to. But invariably, people would react in the other direction to me.

(17:44 - 18:33)

I remember as my ex and I were planning our wedding, I was gonna say we had to, like no, we didn't have to, I went along with it and again, this is like another point of the self-betrayal, but we did a parent, quote unquote, parents meet and greet. At that time, my parents were divorced. My mother had made the choice not to come to my wedding because it was on a Saturday and her words were that I clearly didn't want her to be there because I didn't plan it on a day that she could come.

(18:33 - 19:11)

For her, it was like a religious observance thing that she didn't wanna come on Saturday. And then, which I shot back at her, it's like, wait a minute, you went to my cousin's wedding in Montreal and that was on a Saturday, what changed between 2016 and 2017? But anyway, so she made the decision that she wasn't going to attend. And so here I am stuck with my dad and my stepmom as being the parental representatives for me.

(19:12 - 20:05)

And I've known my stepmom my entire life, she's my oldest brother's mother, but we didn't have, my parents were married for 21 years, okay? So, this was like a new relationship, this was like a new old relationship for my dad and my stepmom. She was never a parental figure in my life and I was extremely resentful of the way that my dad and my mom broke up, divorced, whatever you wanna call it, because it was an affair, he had an affair. And so, I was very much not, I did not view my dad and my stepmom's relationship in any respectful lens, for me it was an anathema.

(20:09 - 20:55)

But I didn't, previously up until then I had, I've always been honest and disclosed to, at that time my future in-laws about my background and kind of the complexities about my relationship with family members. And this came up kind of naturally in conversation because you get to know someone, you ask them what they do, what kind of special things their families do, what do they do for the holidays, et cetera. And my answer is always nothing, nothing, nothing because we didn't grow up celebrating holidays, we didn't grow up celebrating our birthdays, we didn't grow up doing any of these like close family unit things.

(20:56 - 21:21)

And that's just the way it was, growing up in a cult. But for whatever reason, they never seem to get it that my family of origin weren't my people. Like besides my relationship with my brothers, like my dad, my mom, they weren't my people and they couldn't get that.

(21:21 - 21:45)

And I was so exhausted in trying to be like, hey, see me fully as a person. I know this is not what you're used to in your reality but this is my reality and it was our wedding. So, I wanted to make sure that it went smoothly and it was a good experience for everyone.

(21:46 - 22:25)

So, they did a meet and greet, we had brunch together and I remember just sitting on that bench just like so resentful that these people were representing me because I wanted nothing to do with how their relationship came to be and what it represented to me, it was tough. But I said nothing, I went along for appearances. At my wedding, I hated the fact that when we had to take family pictures that they were the ones standing next to me.

(22:28 - 23:23)

And that was what was on record for my people there. Another thing, another theme about self-betrayal was sharing parts of my story that I wasn't ready to share because I've always valued honesty but what I didn't know then, like I know now is that people have to earn vulnerability. There is honesty, there's no one's telling you to lie about anything but people don't need to know everything about you, right? Like especially people that you haven't ascertained that they're safe people or not.

(23:24 - 24:12)

Being vulnerable with people that are not safe people can really re-traumatize parts of you that may have begun to heal quite nicely up until then. But again, always looking for external validation so I would often find myself in situations where I was vulnerable with people that had not yet earned intimacy. And I allowed their curiosity and I would say not even curiosity about me as a person but curiosity about details about me betray my intuition was that they don't give two shits about me, they're just nosy.

(24:13 - 25:02)

And that's happened to me several times. Another huge theme when it came to me betraying myself and keeping the peace and getting along has to do with race for whatever reason, maybe it's the way I talk, maybe it's the way I dress, for whatever reason, white people have always been ridiculously emboldened to say some of the most racist shit to me and even try to position it as a compliment.

(25:04 - 25:38)

I remember there was this very well-to-do family at church and we all hung out very frequently, pretty much after service every weekend. We'd go to lunch after church and then we'd go to each other's homes and spend the afternoon and sometimes we even vacationed together. There were some really positives, some real big positives in that group but there were also some negatives.

(25:38 - 26:15)

And it was the first time that I remember feeling like a sense of community that didn't feel extreme in the way that I had experienced it. Now, looking back, I see the extremism now in the way that they forced intimacy without it being earned. There was certainly the nosiness, the lack of holding people that behave poorly accountable, the kind of sweeping things under the rug, under the guise of God calls us to forgive and to grow from that.

(26:16 - 27:13)

We heal ourself by forgiving, yada, yada. But anyway, one of the guys there, just old white guy, probably at that point, he was probably in his 70s. And he used to always say like, hey, Marlon, I don't like you. You're not like one of those regular black people. You're one of the good ones. And of course I was like, ha, ha, ha, feeling super uncomfortable because it's a weird fucking statement. You know what's interesting about me? And people, for whatever reason, don't seem to pick up on this right away. I'm pretty extremely revolutionary in my racial thinking. And I think that has to do with me being Haitian.

(27:14 - 28:09)

I have a deep sense of pride about being Haitian. And I guarantee that you won't meet any Haitian that doesn't as well. Being the first independent black nation in the world and to know our history and how we wrestled our freedom from the hands of Napoleon's army. We bested the British. We bested the Spanish. We even aided the United States in their war against the British. There is an immense, Haitian independence sparked revolution in South America, inspired Simon Bolivar. Like there's a lot to be proud of. And then also knowing how Haitians earn their independence.

(28:10 - 28:44)

It wasn't through protesting. It wasn't through saying like, oh, please, we are humans. They earned it with their blood, sweated tears at the end of a machete. That's how they earned it. It was fucking bloody. And I think there's, for me, there was always that sense of like fierce, what's the word? Like foundation of pride and sense of like, I am worthy.

(28:45 - 29:15)

Regardless of like all the other messages that told me I wasn't, but there was something special about growing up Haitian that did that for me. So, while people may have assumed, I don't know what, wanted to quote unquote compliment me for not acting what they interpreted as black, is deeply offensive. It was just something I was always very proud of.

(29:17 - 29:59)

But I went along. I went along like, ha, ha, ha, right? Cause I don't want to lose this community that is the first quote unquote safe space that I'm having in my early adult life. I remember a good friend of mine who's honestly, a big reason why I'm an entrepreneur is because of him. I idolized him. I idolized his relationship with his wife. It was just so, and he was good to me. They were good to me. They were so, so good to me. But I had never experienced a relationship.

(30:00 - 30:31)

I was okay to be upset about something and be like, hey, you need to stop. And this guy would casually tell his stories and throw in the n-word. Now, I don't think... You know what? I'm not going to... I was just about to make excuses for... The fact of the matter is he would casually use the n-word in humor or what have you.

(30:32 - 31:07)

It made me uncomfortable. It made me so uncomfortable. I never said anything about it because I didn't want to lose... I didn't want to risk upsetting him and losing this community that I found deeply fulfilling and, for the most part, affirming. Now, to be fair, I had no proof that if I did say something to him that he wouldn't have been like, oh, Marlon, you're absolutely right, man. I'm sorry. I would never want you to feel that way.

(31:08 - 31:40)

He could have said that. I never tried. I was so afraid of losing that I betrayed my intuition. I betrayed my needs in order to maintain. You know, I spent eight years in the Marine Corps and the Marines have the saying that, oh, Marines don't see color. There's only dark green and light green, and they say green because the color of our service uniforms.

(31:42 - 32:43)

The truth is that's a lie. Some of the most wonderful people that I've ever met are Marines. And I mean, like, deeply thoughtful, deeply caring, empathetic. Like, some of the best people I've ever met in my life were Marines. Some of the most wildly fucking racist people also in the Marines as well. But the culture of the military, certainly the Marines, is that, oh, you know, everybody's got to take a joke, right? Like, it's not that serious. Don't take yourself so seriously. If you want to integrate seamlessly, you don't cause problems. You fly under the radar.

(32:44 - 33:59)

And a really self-harming habit that I picked up was self-deprecating racial humor to come across as the cool guy. Like, oh, Marlon's so funny. He's so unserious. He's sensitive. I used to talk in this stupid, fake West African accent to make people laugh. I didn't have the language then that I do now. And I realized at some level, I could tell around certain people that my whole self was not acceptable around them. There were some people that I knew I could be so transparent, so fully me, and I felt so comfortable being that person around them. And I felt comfortable arguing with them.

(33:59 - 34:12)

I felt comfortable disagreeing with them. And never felt like it meant that I couldn't retain their friendship. I'm thinking about my friend Lucas here. A really great guy. Really great guy. Really great guy.

(34:22 - 39:58)

But most people, I did not feel that way. And because you got to remember, my world view at this point is that there's something wrong with Marlon. Not ever that there's something wrong with other people. And that, hey, maybe I just don't want to have any type of relationship with these people. And so, because I'm internalizing that Marlon's the problem and I have to fix myself, again, I'm shutting down my intuition. I'm going along.

I'm trying to make myself assimilate so everyone and everything would accept me. And it wasn't just pretty outwardly vocal racist people in my life. It was also my liberal, my liberal white friends, my progressive white friends that would use me, because clearly, they didn't have a lot of black friends, to assuage their discomfort by... They would approach me and ask me, what I would call is, in your opinion, is this racist?

Type questions. These are good people, but still so brutally unaware how offensive they could be at times. And because I'm viewing them as good people, which they are, and again, not wanting to sever any sense of closeness that we have had created up until now, even though I'd feel so uncomfortable. And in my mind, I'm like, dude, why are you asking me this?

 I'm not the black encyclopedia to answer all your questions. Ask a black guy. Ask that football dude that does all those stupid interviews. What's his name? He's a Nigerian guy. I forgot what his name is. But yeah, I never shut them down. I would always acquiesce. I was always agreeable. One of the things that when I started really getting awareness about these codependent behaviors that I really picked up how I was in meetings and interacting with people, realizing that I would smile when I didn't particularly want to, maybe overly nodding and leaning forward. I wasn't consciously doing that, but I would check in with my body and realize I'm doing all these fawning things to appease somebody, regardless if they're angry or not.

That had nothing to do with it. Just to make them feel so good about their interaction with me that they would feel safe with me. You know, the crazy thing about being codependent, and I refer to myself as a recovering codependent, the crazy thing about that is it really does put you in such compromising situations.

I remember being terrified being around certain groups of friends that would casually use drugs, whether it was prescription drugs, cocaine, weed, whatever. Also, drinking in really compromising situations, like driving in the car with open containers. All of this stuff made me feel so unsafe because in my mind, I was like, God, I am the only Black guy in this group.

God, forbid we get pulled over. God, forbid we get pulled over. That's my ass. You guys are going to be fine. You'll be able to get a lawyer. You'll be able to, if something happens, it's going to happen to me. I remember being terrified, but I didn't want to be the killjoy. I didn't want to be the paranoid one and not cool person. And while I didn't partake myself, I still got in the car, right? I was still present all those things were happening, even though I felt so uncomfortable.

I felt unsafe. But of course, I betrayed myself in order to get along. One of my most shameful memories of self-betrayal, and the reason why it's shameful for me is because it had to do with a loved one and not just me denying myself.

(40:01 - 40:30)

This occurred at a Marine Corps birthday ball. My girlfriend at the time was there with me. She had on a beautiful, beautiful gown. Her hair was great. Her makeup was great. The gown was elegant and still very sexy, but very appropriate for the event.

(40:32 - 41:20)

I remember the husband of my boss, my staff in COIC, who I'd known and we had hung out before, made a lecherous, misogynistic, you know, locker room talk comment about her appearance. He looked down at her breasts and her curves were exposed a little bit and like ogled her and was like, oh, she looks there. And I remember being offended and being like, that's gross.

(41:21 - 42:00)

I have never been comfortable with talk like that. That's not in my practice. Do I have eyes? Of course, I have eyes. Of course, I've been like, oh, wow, she's really hot or but the level of like, oh, man, what I would do to hurt like that. That has never been. That's not me. That's not how I talk. And I remember, disgustingly, just like, instead of just standing up and saying like, you don't talk about my girlfriend like that. That's so inappropriate.

(42:01 - 42:48)

But that's what I should have done. That's what I should have done. Because that's how I felt. But I kind of like it looks great, doesn't she? Shameful. And she rightfully so confronted me about that. Rightfully so. That's what codependency does to you. That's what self-betrayal does to you. It makes you unable to protect the people you love that need protecting. It's fucking dangerous. And that was bad, right? But we're both adults. You know, technically, you could argue like, well, she could have stood up for herself, too.

(42:49 - 43:26)

But that wasn't the only time. That someone I love was hurt because I didn't stand up for them. A person in my family was telling this story. Had told me this story before. I don't even remember the details of the story. All I remember is this person, who happens to be white, used the n-word.

(43:27 - 43:52)

And the hard E-R. Okay. No one was rapping the song as, you know, lots of people like to make excuses for it. Like, it's in the song lyrics. No, he used it. Made me so uncomfortable. Never said anything. Okay. But that's just me, right? Like, that's just me. That's not hurting anyone. That's just my experience. Well, two friends of mine from back home in Philly came to visit me.

(43:55 - 45:27)

And this other family member stopped by. And I think we ate some food or just hanging around the kitchen table or what have you. And I don't even know how this story came up again. But he told a story. And he used the n-word again. And I should have at least at that point been like, hey, dude, you can't say that.

What are you doing? That's deeply offensive. But I opted to keep the peace instead of protecting the feelings of the other black person that was there that came to my home to visit me and was subjected to this. But probably one of the most shameful memories of self-betrayal was when I took my son for his first big boy haircut at a proper barber shop. Not a salon shop. A barber shops. And he was getting medium, regular fade, get some stuff off the top, looking fly.

(45:29 - 45:50)

My boy has beautiful, beautiful thick curls mixed with a little brown and a little reddish here and there. Different textures depending on if it's on top or it's on the side of his head or at the back. But he's always had really, really sensitive hair.

(45:53 - 46:38)

And the barber proceeded to comb out his hair. And it was hurting. And I wanted to tell the barber to stop using the comb. Use a brush. Get some water in there. Something to make it easier on him. And I couldn't bring myself to do it. I couldn't bring myself to protect my three-year-old.

(46:40 - 46:49)

This is not a life and death situation. This is a trip to the barber shop. To the barber shop. This is how deeply insidious self-betrayal is. It doesn't just stop at you. It will touch everything that you're responsible for.

(47:22 - 48:16)

So how did I get to where I am today? Where, or should I say most recently, where I felt completely disempowered, completely subscribed or internalized that I had no autonomy, that I had no real authority over my life? It's because over the years I systematically shut down the parts of me that were standing up for me. I shut them down and completely severed my connection with the Marlon that loved me enough to keep me safe. And so, because I wasn't safe inside, I stopped being safe outside.

(48:17 - 48:51)

And people that I loved and wanted to take care of, were also not safe. It's a real mindfuck to be like 36 turning 37 and to realize that I'm not safe. And to realize like for the first time in your life that like, oh no, I get to call the shots about my life.

(48:55 - 49:46)

It's, I am not there yet, but I am working on trying to have compassion for myself about that. But to take real accountability, that that tiny small voice was always there. It was always there. I just decided to ignore it. I decided to ignore it, to keep and maintain a semblance of love, affection, safety, what have you. It was really a lack of mindset that did it.

(49:48 - 50:25)

I guess what I didn't have words then, but I'm realizing now, is that I thought this is as good as it gets. You know, like, why, why would someone like me get anything better than this? I've never had anything better than this. Don't mess this up, Marlon. Don't make people upset, Marlon. After all, they're not beating you. After all, they're not injuring you in this way and taking food away from you.

(50:26 - 51:11)

And after all, they're not doing that. Don't be greedy now. Those were the internalized messages. I'm so thankful that it didn't end that way. I'm so thankful that I was able to get back in touch with my inner self. Where I could show up for myself again. And of course, it shook things up. Oh boy, did it shake things up. But let me tell you something.

(51:13 - 51:45)

When you stand in your power, when you stand in your truth, when you release the need to hold on to things that are just not serving you, you start to see them for what they really are. Here's the thing. Anybody worth a damn. Anything worth a damn. When you show up as your full authentic self, they'll still be there. And they'll celebrate that with you.

(51:46 - 52:24)

And if they're not, it's just not worth a damn. And yes, you have to mourn. You have to mourn. These are real losses. These are real relationships had. This is real time spent. It's real. It's not fake. Just because it's no longer in your life doesn't mean it didn't mean anything to you at that time. Of course it did. Don't be one of these people that say like, oh man, you were never my friend. No, they were. Maybe they were. Let it hurt. God, it hurts. Losing that, it hurts. It hurts so bad. Let it hurt.

(52:26 - 52:54)

Let it hurt because it was important to you. It mattered to you. Don't gaslight yourself into thinking like it wasn't important. Of course it was. Of course it was. You wouldn't have tried so hard to keep the peace if it wasn't. You wouldn't have put in so much effort for other people's comfort if it wasn't. So, it's got to hurt. At least for a little bit.

(52:56 - 53:51)

You don't know how long it will or will not continue to hurt. But just take comfort that when you let go of things, it just opens you up for something better, for something fuller, for something more authentic. I'm really looking forward to talking about how I got back in touch with myself. Oh, it's so beautiful. It was such a beautiful moment. But I'm gonna stop now. And thank you for listening.

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I'm Marlon. I'm a speaker and consultant, helping recovering people pleasers and codependents return to themselves so they can live thriving lives. If you're ready to take the next step to life on your terms, schedule a Momentum Call with me today. Let's work together to turn your breakthroughs into action. https://ignitingmomentum.co