So would you mind sharing more about you and the game you're currently playing?

Yeah.

Yeah.

So that term game does not resonate with me at all.

I mean, I love games, I love board games, I love to have fun, but in terms of what I do, it's not a game.

It's serious business because, you know, I am a former like substance user, heavy drinker, people pleasing rescuer, fixer, savior, enabler, codependent to the core, never had a healthy relationship.

I thought that was only in the romance department, but when I got into 12 step recovery, which is where my transformation happened, I realized none of my colleague relationships, none of my friendships, I knew my family was dysfunctional.

Yep.

So, what was life like growing up? And how did you barely experience the shape who you became?

So what's interesting, Sakani, is the way that I would have described my childhood before I got into 12-step recovery, which is where I really had a major transformation 11 years ago.

I would have said that it was pretty decent.

I grew up in a house with a lawn in a neighborhood on a dead-end street.

There was 10 houses on the street.

Seven of them had kids in my age range.

We always had, you know, food.

should they actually start from?

Yeah.

Right.

So, you know, let's say I'm whatever.

I'm just going to make this up.

I had an overbearing father.

And my whole life as a kid, I was trying to get my dad to stop being overbearing and love me in the ways I wanted to be loved.

So then I pick an overbearing husband and I'm trying to fix the wound with my dad via my husband.

And when someone begins to recognize these mirrors and, What is a practice or approach that helps them work with what they are seeing instead of falling back into old realities?

What does it mean?

Yeah.

So internal safety is that you can rely on yourself to stop abandoning yourself, right? When you used to, for example, if you set a boundary with someone and they get upset before you have internal safety, you use their upsetness almost as an instruction or a dictate.

You've done something wrong and you need to clean it up right now.

So you don't feel safe inside.

You have all these emotions because you think them being upset with you is a threat to you.

You internalize it as a threat.

It's not safe.

Okay.

So if people, if you've ever heard of 12-step recovery, whether you have or not, you've probably heard of Alcoholics Anonymous.

Alcoholics Anonymous or AA is a 12-step recovery program.

It was developed in the United States in the 1930s.

And it was the first time in history that droves and droves and droves of alcoholics got and stayed sober and they documented it and they had a mission to carry the message of recovery to those who still suffer.

Well, the second 12-step program ever developed was called Al-Anon.

So now there's some 200 and something 12-step programs.

So, what do you think your healthy boundary is?

Am I understanding that correct, or what's the better way to frame internal slavery? Yeah,

I think the best way to describe it is to save an example, but because you mentioned physical abuse, I just was on a podcast a couple days ago specifically for women who are victims of domestic violence, and we talked about whether you were codependent or not when you got into that relationship.

You are by the time, because the abuser basically turns you into a codependent because they socially erode your...

They erode your social network, your self-esteem and all that stuff.

And because this is such an important issue, I don't want to gloss over that.

And what I was saying there is like, get out, get help, and then work on your codependence.

It's not something to be working on while you're in the relationship.

Do you talk about burnout in?

Okay.

Yeah, yeah.

I can flesh that out in a little bit if you'd like.

So about six weeks into CODA, I went away to Cape Cod, Massachusetts to visit my friends, one of whom had been an AA, Alcoholics Anonymous, for like 10 years at that point.

Every time she'd ever spoken to me about it, she just raved about how utterly transformed her life was about as a result of AA.

So I got there and I'm like, you're going to love this.

I'm going to CODA Penance Anonymous.

You remembered all of them?

I would rather do that than feel the discomfort

of making you feel bad.

Right.

right because you have internalized the message discomfort means danger so i want to talk about that for a moment discomfort does not discomfort of the growth and change discomfort does not mean danger Discomfort of dysfunction, it could, it really depends.

Are you putting yourself in harm's way and all that? But the discomfort of growth and change does not mean danger.

Now, here's why we internalize it as danger.

Number one, we are animals.

not.