But when we feel we don't feel good about doing that, and we also don't know whether that's the right thing, it can be really hard to stick with it.

Huge.

There's so much in what you said there.

It's huge.

One, let me even go to what you said about limits and boundaries.

The parenting course that I run, it's a six-week course.

There's like three different ways that people can enter into it to hopefully make it as affordable and accessible.

How would you respond to that? What are your thoughts on that?

Yeah

... and for children that have been denied their autonomy in so many ways, and have been abused, and are, and are in a system, and have such trauma.

So the, the level now of consistency is going to matter in a greater way than the level of consistency in a parent-child.

And I don't want to minimize that, right? Because if we're talking about a parent, a child growing up in a healthy enough environment-

Mm-hmm.

I'm gonna be inward and say, "What do I think of you? What do I think of you when you come into my house?" And if you judge me and say, "Oh, jeez.

You didn't do much today, did you?" What do I think of that? Mm.

How do I experience you? Are you, like now, if anybody's watching this [laughs] on YouTube, can see that you've ...

How did it develop in that way and how did you end up where you are now, I guess? Yeah.

I think I've always been quite a good listener.

I feel like that was quite a natural ability, I suppose, I had even in my job's pre-law, like I worked in a call centre.

So I was never terrified of the phone when I actually started my traineeship, which I think astounded people.

And again, with that, you were listening to people on the phone, you were sorting out their customer service issue, whatever it might be.

And then even just working behind a bar.

you were speaking to people you were engaging with people and there's almost that recognition that from quite a young age that people just wanted to be heard and that I kind of naturally had that ability to kind of hold that space even before I knew what holding space was and when I think back to making my decisions for university there wasn't really much in the way of career guidance where I grew up and it was very much you've got very good grades you can either become a lawyer or a doctor or an accountant.

no

Yeah, yeah

... or maybe we can check it.

Um, so there is no def- uh, definition of that, but what I, um, think the wounded healer is, and what you are, uh, talking about and describing so accurately, is somebody that is helping from the place of that wound, is somebody that is their whole value system and identity is to be in servitude to somebody else and to be in service.

And on the surface, that sounds healthy, and this is actually, when we're talking about healthy communities, this is really important, that we are not so individualistic and locked away, and that we actually are giving and have reciprocal relationships.

But when you're talking about a wounded healer, you are talking about that they are solely giving, and you're talking about burnout, that it's constantly giving.

But that there's a lack of awareness, it sounds like, what, when you're talking about where this is coming from.

Yeah.

It's not a diagnosis.

[laughs]

... and dragged me kicking and screaming into playing Lord of the Rings Online, which I've been playing for many years, and I was hooked.

I swore I was going to play the game for A few hours.

I was going to try it out.

I certainly was never going to pay for it.

And once I was in the game, diving into Middle Earth, looking at this 30,000-foot view that they have, the way they fill in everything, the love and detail that they have for Tolkien's works, it, it was contagious.

I couldn't help but fall in love with Tolkien's works too, and all of a sudden I was at Half Price Books every weekend grabbing-

... what was it that, that made you decide, "I'm gonna go from understanding this and seeing this as, you know, a, a, a thing that ought to be done for the fandom to I'm actually going to do it"? Like, what made you decide to turn this into a reality, and then where do you see Bree Crossroads maybe five years down the road?

What would you say to somebody who's in that situation? position?

Firstly, I would commend them for recognizing their needs.

Because if you are craving something, you're able to identify your needs.

So that's a really healthy thing.

And one of the things in a narcissistic family, it's really hard to have your own identity.

That's going to be something that you are going to have to actively work on as you are an adult.

Because Again, those developmental steps will be thwarted or annihilated and punished because there's only one right way.

Mm hmm.