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Episode Transcript

  You are listening to the Beyond the High Road podcast with Shelby Milford, episode 108. Stay tuned. Hi. Okay. So I was actually mid jump rope workout when I decided, what am I doing? I want to actually record this episode because I have it in my brain right now. So I came in and, let's get started.

This topic, what I have to say here, I kind of am expecting that some people get pissed off and that's okay.

Um, because I know where I'm coming from is a place of like true love and care for the wellbeing of you and the wellbeing of parents dealing with alienation, you know, on the whole, I'm just going to trust that those of you who are ready to take, you who Something away from this do, you know, and if you happen to feel a little defensive during any part of this, just maybe revisit it because, or maybe that's even more reason to lean into it because this is a topic that.

if it applies to you, then

acting and feeling defensive around it and feeling irritated about it is highly likely. Okay, just know that throughout this I'm going to be sharing my own extensive experience with being in this spot. So it's not that I am pointing fingers or, um, calling anybody out or whatever. I am just, I think it's important to say, here's why My lighting just changed just for anybody who's watching and thinks that their eyes is playing tricks on them. It's not, . I just changed it. Okay. So the reason I'm bringing this up is because, I've noticed the culture of the, I can't, because. , victim mentality especially with alienated parents, and it makes sense.

Why we have developed this attitude, but it also really, really fucking harms us. And it kind of fires me up inside. it's because I've also been there. And I think I've shared throughout all of these episodes, times when I was in this very mindset. So just want to let you know, if you are here, as always, just know, there's nothing wrong with you being here.

Just as I said last week, when I was talking about the victim mentality, It's just part of your healing but the sooner that you notice it the sooner that you're able to do something about it Okay, and so I notice this i've been this is for a long time.

I see Parents who are limiting themselves and their capabilities, what they're able to create for themselves, because of what has happened thus far, and it goes into the money situation and, It makes sense, right? Because we've spent all this, money We didn't expect to shell out money. We didn't have It's understandable, But I see people struggling with it today that don't it's unnecessary, the time for the money problems has really run its course

and yet they still , can't get past the hump of being broke, Of not being able to afford, their bills, pay. Whatever it is in front of them, and it's really actually turned around and infected their lives, like, on the whole, and their attitude about other people in their lives or other people and how the world works, right?

It's a form of self pity really that happens as a result of growing up the way that you did or didn't, because you didn't have the, for instance, the guidance that you weren't able to be directed and molded in the way that you think that other kids were able to be, and you didn't go to the school that you could have gotten you, career that you wanted and then got into a relationship and that relationship held you back and then so you really didn't get to make the money that you wanted to make or maybe your husband or wife partner.

, wasn't good with money or they lost the money and it affected you and it affected , your credit, your livelihood, right, your ability to make more money. And so now you're still trying to recover from that stuff. . You're sour now and then of course all the, legal stuff came on and maybe, um, false allegations and you had to spend this money in court.

And you just feel like it's like all tied up. I talked about this, um, in a couple different episodes. One of them was back in April or in the springtime sometime when I was talking about how trauma can cause you to self sabotage, right? I was blaming the trauma of my life.

On the reason why I was the way I was and I'm same Sort of situation that I'm talking about here, but I want to take it a step further Because I see it holding Y'all back like on posts that I read clients that I Speak with you know on the on the daily and just a general on the whole attitude coming from alienated parents in The reason why it upsets me so much is because I don't care how much money you have, whether you don't have two pennies to rub together.

When you speak like this about yourself, and when you carry this attitude about how life works as though, Free things should come to you and there should be more support and other people should be supporting us more and they're not.

Now I totally think that teamwork is great and that having all the support you can is, Fantastic and absolutely necessary. But also, and that's going to be the whole point of the episode. I do think sometimes that support can hold you back from creating what you really need to create for yourself.

that's where this episode differs from the other episodes.

I'm just going to go ahead and start from me and my own issues with this, And then, of course, you adjust it, apply it to your life as you, you see fit. , just, guys, this isn't just a money talk. I mean, it is. But it's really about the problems that we create about money and money. The currency that we all use is a necessity. and it's always so hush hush.

And if we talk about it, then it's we're either too capitalist or too greedy or too consumerist or too Entitled even there's so many judgments on money talks and I think it's bullshit because money makes the world actually go round. Yeah, we could all give and be loving and have great relationships But in order to create freedom in your life to do the things that you want to do or need to do even You need to have money, You need to create value to make the money, right? So I don't know why it's this such a taboo

And I'm hoping that it's going to help y'all quite a bit. I feel so passionate about this because I see a lot of people giving up way too soon on their goals and on their life. And, um, themselves basically, because they're limiting themselves.

They're telling themselves that they can't do it without the help or the, because their childhood or alienation happens that now their life is fucked and they'll never be able to do the things that they can do. And that is just so wrong. Like you're, you're quitting on purpose ahead of time. So what's the fucking purpose of any, all of this.

And I just think You're doing it at your own hand, and if this is you,  I get it, I understand it because I've been there like I've really truly been there for a very long time, multiple times throughout my life, right, like periods of blocks of time in my life years.  So, okay, anyway, so yeah, I'm gonna explain what happened with me when I was a kid.

I had mixed signals about money and about what I was able to create. my mom came from a very poor, they were either quote unquote rich or poor because her dad Was never really taught how to spend money, or save money, which I don't think back in those days people did, you know, they work paycheck to paycheck, most, most people, right.

 So mom came from an unstable financial background.  and then my father did not. it was stable but it wasn't necessarily so well to do. He was like upper middle class or whatever. It doesn't, it doesn't matter, but it does. I got mixed messages when I was a kid.

I grew up in the embassy, living overseas, as you guys have heard me say and it was very big back in those days. And I don't know if it was my mom, actually, if it was just my reality that it was very big or if it was everybody, but I kind of feel like it was a mixture of both. You just don't talk about money, it's not diplomatic.

It's not. proper to talk about money, right? But money was an underlying theme in everything everybody does, but especially in our house, because, my mom didn't know what to do with it. that's my assessment when it came to me and what I was able to create, like going, let's go into high school and college and what have you.

I got very mixed messages. The message from my father was. You need to be able to create your money, your own money, and not have to rely on anybody else. He said that a lot, a lot. But the problem for me was,  it was very vague , there wasn't a consistent messaging on how I was supposed to get there.  he wasn't very big on, and it's okay. Like I'm not faulting them right now, but I just want to share with you guys so that you understand where I'm coming from and maybe you can relate to it or whatever, but so I didn't understand really how I was supposed to do that because he didn't really follow up with me on like homework or whatever.

He just expected me to do it . I had a lot of freedom growing up, especially when I was living with my dad and not with my mom.

Like he never checked up. He didn't, wasn't, didn't play a big part in helping me to succeed, academically. Right. It's okay. It's fine. I think that that's where I was missing stuff as a kid and I also had been through the trauma that I had from my brother, my half brother, and also some other stuff.

And so I was all over the place, right? I didn't have a anchor. And so when high school ended, actually I dropped out, um, and nobody, it was fine, right? It was not like, no, you're staying in school. They were like, okay. And so I was just told to figure it out, you know, fine and dandy too. Many people have survived this way, thrived this way.

Like I right now coming off the top of my head is like Gary V and all of those, um, entrepreneurs and coaches who are like multi multi multi millionaires and never went to college or whatever. I ended up going back getting my GED and going to college, but that was a rocky road to begin with anyway. My point is, and I know I'm sharing a lot, is that from the get, I was told that I was supposed to be self supportive and never rely on anybody.

But when push came to shove, my dad was very quick to

be like,

he wanted to relinquish responsibility, of me, right. Financial responsibility. So he was very happy to sound like I'm getting ready to say that there was like a dowry or something. But mirroring me off, he was like, Oh, great.

You can be his problem was kind of the way it was. And so I never really knew my own like ability capability to create value. I didn't know what I was good at. I didn't know, I didn't know how to get there. You know what I'm saying? And I think that many of you share similar experience, you know?

So. even though dad was saying one thing, he also was doing another

and

in my mind, I didn't know this back then, that told me that I didn't really have anything to offer, right? And that I should always Rely on somebody else for that and so there's more details to it, but it doesn't really matter for this discussion.

So basically my entire young adult life and actually up until, just a few years ago when I went through all the alienation stuff and afterwards in the last six, seven years. Have I started to change my whole view about this and have you really my view about myself. So I think because I was kind of always struggling sort of fluttering around like I talk about not really sure where to go or what to do or how to provide value, I usually found a guy that I really liked or even loved, and he supported me, but when things went bad because I came from trauma and kept choosing guys that were abusive.

I had to break up with them, you know, and I had to get out of the situation, then I was stuck right back where I started. Right. Without really any money. I was living paycheck to paycheck and, I was a personal trainer and there was a period of time there where I did pretty well.

I was doing all right for myself. Um, but then. I would get into another fucked up relationship again and lose everything and then I'd be back to square one again. And at some point throughout that, cause my dad is kind of a cleaner in that way. He comes in and he, um, would fix things, help to fix things for me.

Like instead of, Where he could have put in the time back when I was a kid and really invested in me, uh, time wise right then and helped to raise me basically. Then I wouldn't have necessarily needed all this, but afterwards I didn't know what to do with myself. And because he does like to clean messes up, he would come and financially help me.

But what this did was built a reliance. On him. Okay. And I don't think that he meant to do this. This was not I do think that he likes to feel needed, but I know also he feels like it's a nuisance. And so he was very quick to do it. Help me in the time of need because he felt bad. I'm sure there was some guilt there.

And then it got to be a maintenance thing, right? Where I was relying on him for the help, because in my brain, I couldn't do it without somebody's help. And so it created this reliance. And then as soon as he saw a sign, like if I was going to be like, I got together with somebody else, dated somebody else, he would try to move all responsibility over to them and be like, yeah, yeah, yeah, you should go with them, even if that person was abusive.

Does that make sense? So it was this whole, like, Pass the buck thing that was happening in my reliance on him and then getting this message, reinforcing this message that I needed a man, if not him, somebody else in order for me to support myself that I couldn't do it alone. Does that make sense? Okay. So that mentality was.

Put into me at a very young age because also to my mom was that way with my father. And then she was never really good, that good with money. I know guys out there. I know that this is probably not an issue for you, but just hang tight. Okay. Cause it will get to that point. If you've been any financial blinds because of situation of alienation, then this will get there for you.

So my beliefs around me and what I could create and how I could support myself were jacked, right? I was very reliant, even though I didn't want to be reliant. I didn't know how to get out of it. there were times where I can remember, whenever I married the guy after my daughter's father, I knew that things weren't right and I shouldn't, but in my mind, I was already too far in and how was I going to support myself?

This guy was so abusive. He was abusive even on the night before our wedding, like bad, like it was not good. And I kept myself in it because I didn't want my dad to feel the burden of me, of like having to pick up any of my pieces, even it was a big mess. And so I. went through and married him, even though he had just broken my

My sternum.

 It was a big, big mess. You guys, it was, I'm such a different person than I was back then. I feel so bad for that version of me. But, um, when we got back from the honeymoon, I would refuse to move in with my now ex, because I knew that if I were to move in, that I would be out of a place to live within days, weeks, months, you know, it was not a stable environment.

He was not a stable person. It was a very, very volatile, weird, weird relationship. and so I needed to keep my home, But my dad kept urging me to sell that home, the one that I ended up selling for, to go back to court.

He wanted me to move in with this other guy, but he also knew that this other guy was abusive. Like I told him and he was, it was, it was a very, things were weird. So I refused to do it. I stayed there for as long as I could. And then finally ended up selling that house and, renting from then on. And then it ended up costing us so much more money in the long run.

But, for so long, I blamed. I blamed my father. I blamed my ex. I blamed my daughter's father. I blamed, everyone that was supposed to teach me how to

go to school, how to, how to follow through with simple tasks that I didn't learn that stuff as a kid because I was too busy being in freeze mode, I didn't know how to follow through. I think too, that. ADHD and trauma so much mimic each other, like the symptoms I would always blame things on ADHD, but really a lot of the time it was trauma.

And I could have, think back about it now, and I could have, gotten some more assistance back then with, Processing through all this stuff I did. Okay. I'm not just trying to share all about me, but I'm, wanting to get, make the point here that I was very, very reliant, in fact, almost entirely reliant on somebody picking up pieces of my financial life for most of my life.

I, was ingrained in me. I didn't know how else to do it. it actually created this cycle. Right and reinforce kept reinforcing this very toxic cycle for me. So I had this pattern of outsourcing responsibility for my life, um, blaming it on the fact that I didn't, I didn't know any better. I didn't know how I didn't have the support from back when and then it kind of just kept like building it was like a snowball right just going downhill and then I got to the point where I would get myself into these fucked up relationships because I was just trying to get off my dad's back and relieve him.

And then. I would find myself right back where I started because of course that wasn't going to fix anything and in fact it always made it worse, right? It's always an abuse and then they would, any money that I did make would always go pour straight back into these abusive people and it was just a big fucking mess, right?

biggest problem with it all is that I was reinforcing this, belief in myself that I was never going to be enough, that I was never going to be able to create anything more for myself, even when I did make pretty good money

at a period of time where I was. self sufficient I always knew that dad would have to back me up if I got in trouble or a man would, and so I developed this sort of entitlement, like there was this self pity and entitlement that I held as an undertone to my life

so the definition of self pity is an excessive, self absorbed unhappiness over one's own troubles, I think this applies to every single one of us at some point in our situations of alienation, Pitying our own selves and feeling entitled to some other life. than the one that we're living, Like these problems shouldn't be happening to me. They shouldn't be treating me this way. I should be above this. I shouldn't be, having to struggle through this money stuff, this, lack of support and resources stuff. it's like self pity with an undertone of entitlement.

A heavy undertone of entitlement,

which then turns into. And underachieving under earning situation, because if we're already telling ourselves, like, for me, if I, when I was telling myself that I'm in a situation and look, the reason I'm here is because of all the things that have happened and the abusive relationship and the no support I had as a kid and the, uh, alienation and all of the false accusations and all of the money that's going out to these greedy attorneys and to the, , psych evaluator and all of that, I was outsourcing responsibility to all the other people.

It's all because of all of these things, this perfect storm that I'm sitting here and this isn't right. And I'm a victim. But really, if I'm being honest, I'm the common denominator. I'm the one with the money problems. I'm the one with the, relationship problems. I'm the one with the, legal problems.

True, I wasn't the one that, brought on the specifics of alienation. I wasn't the one that, hit me, or broke my arm or 📍 my sternum , right? No, I wa or abused me as a molested me as a child, you know? No, I wasn't those, and especially when I was a child, that's a whole different story. ballgame, but I am the common denominator and people has, I always share the quote from Mark Manson and I always butcher it.

Other people have the power to fuck our lives up, but we are the only ones who have the power to heal, to fix them. I wasn't ever taking responsibility and brushing myself off, standing up for myself by myself. I always used somebody else as a crutch and labeled it as, Oh, well, I need the support because look at all everything I've been through and that's where I think so many of us get stuck.

And like I said, in the beginning, there's a fine line between needing support and taking support during a time of need, , going on food stamps or public assistance that is meant to happen for a short period of time, not for the duration of our lifetime, right? Not since the alienation happened for the rest of my life, I will be on public assistance. That's not the point. Of it. In fact, I think that's kind of like abusing the system and if you're there, please understand that I understand that but I also think it would be really Helpful if you're there and you know that you are under earning and by under earning what I mean is you are capable of making more or you want to make more and you're not That is under earning Like your bills And all of the requirements that you have to pay out are such and such amount and you're not making ends meet That is under earning because if you are, like I said, capable or you want to make more to make Dan's meat, then you can find a way, you know what I'm saying?

But most of the time, it's because of the limiting beliefs that we have, the reliance on other people or other things to pick up the slack for us, that we end up staying in this cycle, this toxic cycle of under earning, underachieving, self pity, entitlement. and the reason why I think it's so important for if you're here right now And you know that you're on something stuck in my throat and you know that you're uncomfortable You know, you want things to change you desperately want things to change if you're telling yourself that things can only change when people when the support comes or when If when people start acting Right.

Or when the assistance comes in or when the GoFundMe is full or whatever it is for you, then I just want to offer that that doesn't have to be so it doesn't. In fact, the sooner that you break that cycle, relying on others, the sooner that you will find your freedom. The problem is, breaking that cycle is so scary to do.

It's so scary because you're facing the unknown. You're facing the fear that, Oh my gosh, what if I don't create the money? And if I'm letting go of this, whatever assistance that I have right now, then it could be that I fail and  you're right. It is true. It could be that you do fail,  but the more you're thinking that you're going to fail. 

Guess what? The more you probably will fail.  So like, when I decided to go off of public assistance for food, I will never forget this. I remember listening to, I don't even know if, whose podcast it was. some entrepreneurial, whatever, but they were, faith based, right?

Like a Christian based husband and wife team. They were talking about creating a course or something like that they decided they were going to go all in on themselves and on their business.

And in order to do that, they had to cancel, stop getting receiving the support from. Public assistance, you know, like for food stamps and for whatever else. They had to cut that off before they even made the money. And I was like,  what? Like, what are they talking about?  And I remember it stuck with me for so long.

Like  why would they do that? Why wouldn't they wait until they made the money and then cut themselves off so that they had some insurance?  But know now why they did that is because If they had the insurance, they would under achieve and under earn knowing that they had that Net for themselves, you know what I'm saying?

And so instead they were like, no, what we need to do is fully go all in on ourselves. And that means having faith and doing the things that they need to do in order to get there. Like no matter what they were going to make it work. And there was no taking no for an answer, or there was no failing not ahead of time or ever they were going to do whatever it took to make the money in order to get there.

And they weren't going to rely on anybody else. at all in order to do it, it was a make or break time for them, basically. Now I'm probably elaborating on what they said much more however they said it, it was very slight, but I heard it and I was like,  Oh my gosh,

It broke my brain in the time that I heard it,

 and that's when I decided that's what I need to do.  That's what I need to do.

 I need to cut the strings on the nets that I've had other people hold below me all the time, This reliance on my father, on public assistance, on knowing that I could call my mom. In a time of need because always there is something in my throat Ever since I was a kid it's been like reinforced in my brain that anytime I'm in trouble, I just call dad. Even though he never really supported me, um, you know, otherwise the way that I would have liked him to, if I could think of him at the back of my head, I'll just call dad. 

Then I never had to go all in on myself.  , or whenever I was with any guy I was with, I know this is probably, I'm, I know that I could be facing a lot of judgment right now by outing myself like this, but I my hope is that you can relate to it and you know, it helps.

I judged myself for a long, long time about this. I don't know what is in my throat.

You guys. I just had a massive coughing fit

I don't know what's happening with me. So it brought on a lot of fear for me to let go of all of the resources. It brought on a lot of fear. And I'm not suggesting that you go and do something radical. If this is you whether that's financially or also, Maybe you have been sacrificing some boundaries and you've been putting up with too much in your life because you really need the support from somebody in your mind.

You're like, no, I need them to be around. So you put up with all this. Drama or all of these, , requirements that they have for you so that you can feel secure with them around you. This also would apply there too. By doing that, you actually create so much more pain for yourself because now you feel obligated to this person that you need support from.

You have to comply to what they want for you, like for them, And so it's this very transactional relationship that. Reinforces this idea that you can't handle it on your own.

But if this is you and you're doing it

with

like

money I wouldn't go Drop all your support if people are helping you pay your rent or your mortgage or whatever. I wouldn't just go drop it without having a plan set for yourself. of course, make a plan for yourself.

If you need to go on like a, weaning off program, you could do that too. here's why I say this, all of this. and this is where I know I'm gonna get hate, is I see so many people with like those GoFundMe or like on TikTok the Cash app, you know, so people can send them cash. Listen, I understand that there's a time and a place for assistance, and I'm not judging you or saying that you're wrong for having the cash app handle on your profile, but I'm also saying that by doing that, not necessarily in a time of need, like when you know that you're under earning and that you could figure out a way to make it work.  

But also to when you're in that mindset, you think that you can't make it work because of all the things that have happened to you. So it's this really slippery slope of like you limiting yourself and creating this self fulfilling prophecy of not being able to create money because you keep believing in your mind that you're not able to get past this.

And so you'll keep limiting yourself and cutting yourself off and then needing others to pay shit for you and send you GoFundMe. You know what I'm saying?  There are instances where I think that that is, I did a GoFundMe way back right before I sold that house. I had friends donate to that.

And that money ended up round about going to attorney's fees, but really it just. Ended up not being used in the way that I would have, if it was me contributing to that fund, I would have wanted to see being used as do you know what I'm saying?

Like, it did round about get there and go to the attorney's fees. But at the time, I think I needed to go buy groceries or something. And so it went to that. And now, wait, there are times when you all of a sudden have this emergency hearing and protective order or something like that, and you don't have the money, and you're freaking out, and you need to have representation, because in this court system, for whatever reason, civil court, family court, you, there isn't that assistance, right?

We don't get a publicappeal. somebody to represent us, defender, whatever you want to call them, um, in the court system, which I think is jacked when we're talking about. Like a pop, court hearing, emergency protective orders hearing, I'm getting off topic.

I do think that there is a time and a place for GoFundMe. So if you've ever run a GoFundMe or you're do you're having one right now. I'm not saying don't do it. I'm just saying, you know, the difference between when it's an absolute necessity and when it's not. Okay, and that when you are at home and know that you could be creating money for yourself, or maybe you're not sure yet because you haven't tried it, or like you're turning down jobs because you really want to go do this job, but you can't because the court or somebody's blocking you from doing that.

So you're just going to hold out and wait because you've told yourself in your mind, That it's wasting time by going and doing the menial job that you want the bigger job and you're not going to take anything less. And so in the meantime, you're taking cash app donations.  That's what I'm talking about.  

It's you relying on other people to. Lift you up and create the life that you know, or maybe you don't know yet, but that you are entirely capable of creating for yourself. And once you create it one time for yourself, it's something with, God forbid, the shit was to hit the fan again. You would be able to create it for yourself again.

That's the, that's the key with doing it for yourself. And not relying on anybody else. If all the shit blows up, it's fine because you already have the skill of creating something from nothing. And you can do it again, and again, and again, and again. You could keep losing all your money. It doesn't matter, because you could just go create more.

But when we're in the place that we're relying on for me, dad, and for public assistance, and for some guy. To create that stuff. I haven't developed the skill of believing in myself enough back then to create what I need to create for myself to get by. And I'm always going to need somebody to keep filling up the tank for me.

Right. And the same with you. And I just, I hate to see that for you and for, , alienated parents as a whole, because it affects us. in the fact that we reinforce this belief that we're not enough and that we need other people in order to survive now that all the bad things have happened to us, right?

It creates reinforces the sense of entitlement. People need to be there to help me. People need to give me handouts for free. Free handouts are great, but let me just tell you. When you rely on those and start to feel entitled to them, secretly entitled, you probably will never say this because nobody really wants to admit to this, but we wait around for the free stuff.

And then start judging other people for not handing out the free stuff. Then we start judging their intentions and what are they trying to get by on me? They're trying to rip me off and they're trying to whatever, listen, you can have that attitude all you want. It doesn't bother me, but it bothers me for you because that feeling sucks when you're feeling like other people are trying to screw you over all the time.

, that's what happens from this whole, Toxic cycle I was just talking about is you're always going to be like side eyeing. I'm like, what are they trying to get over on me? What are the, Oh, they're just trying to fuck people over. The attorneys are all trying to screw people over. Oh, they just want to rape me over the coals with the money.

They're just trying to get what they need and, leaving me high and dry, me. Just going there to that place and putting that on to act it right now, it felt icky in my belly. You know what I'm saying? See how you feel when you're judging or questioning other people's intentions, because you think that they're not, giving you what you believe you deserve, or giving the world what you believe that they should be giving.

When really it's not like

your business is what you give and what you do. Right. And when you focus on that, when I focus on that, Then, you know, I'm a happier person when I start getting into other people's business and what their intentions are. My whole world goes to shit, you know? So I don't know what happened to me, but I all of a sudden just developed like a full on cough.

Um, so symptoms is, so we outsource responsibility for other people. We start to feel entitled to that secretly entitled to other people helping us, right? We start questioning other people's intentions. I'm looking for handouts, right? Always looking for the free way, the cheaper way. And this is a mentality that I think a culture sort of that we have built coming from the trauma that we have, that we feel like everybody is fucking us.

And we always deserve a deal when really in my world today, even though I may not be able to afford all the things. A lot of the things, I am happy to pay those things when I can because then it's all that more worth it for me. It's kind of like when you grow a garden, you know, and like, I remember this just brought back a memory to me with like when my Daughter was back home with me when I first garden I ever built with her.

We did strawberries and like tomatoes and basil and stuff like that. Easy stuff, right? During the kindergarten preschool and kindergarten. And she never would eat salad. But after she grew those tomatoes and the basil, she would eat tomato basil salads all the time because she grew it, you know, and it felt so good.

It's sort of the same thing. Like when you aren't looking for a handout. From other people. And when you pay that money, knowing that you want that service or that need you're happy to pay the lights when you know that it serves a purpose for you. And you're not asking for free electricity, right?

Like maybe before, when you got public assistance and people paid the electricity for you. Then it felt like awful to ever pay the electricity after a while, because you're like, but I used to be able to get this for free. Do you know what I'm saying? Then there's like this entitlement there. But when you're like, wait a second, I value having the lights on.

It's worth it to me. Everybody else pays for their electricity. It's worth it to them. I want to pay for my electricity because when I pay for my electricity, then I'm taking care and I'm paying for me. It's worth it. It's worth my own, um,

pride, That's how it should be. Like, I am happy to take care of myself. Right as a human and not continue to look for how can I get free electricity or free food? It feels good and you want to pay that it's the same thing with like services, right?

When you're used to getting those for free Then you start to not value those services as much and you start to try to only look for the deals But those deals many times Aren't going to supply you with the same kind of value and all the time you're not going to value the service the way that you would if you paid your hard earned money in order to get the service that you want.

So it's always worth it or the attorney that you want instead of just having some now, again, I do believe there's a time and place for pro bono when you really, really, it's all emergency, you haven't had time, you're trying to figure this out, you still have the, there's so many different, scenarios that could happen there, but like, I'm not hoopooing you receiving assistance at all.

I'm just saying that it feels so much better when you're able to create that for yourself and every single one of us is. If you can think it, you can do it. I promise you that. But using the trauma of your past or the situation of alienation and how you, you're out of money because of whatever they've done and the false allegations, whatever.

It doesn't feel good to blame the current state of your life on that stuff. I know it because I did it. . It feels powerless. It feels like defeat. It feels like they're ruling my life and I'm a victim. Well, sometimes let me take, go back on that. Sometimes that can kind of feel good because then you feel justified, validated, like, look, see what they've done to me.

Right. But it's not a real true long lasting, feel good about yourself. You haven't created that for yourself. You're again, outsourcing responsibility to somebody else for the current state of your life. Okay.

So the other thing that happens is you resent your situation, kind of like what I was just saying right here, is you resent the situation that you're in, but when push comes to shove, right, you're not changing it because you're still holding other people responsible for it. So it's, All, like, they've done this, look where I am because of them, and this sucks, and all you can do is just keep referring, deferring to the people that created this.

But then you stay in the stagnancy, which is great for survival brain, because survival brain doesn't want to go do anything new or scary or, anything that would cause you to grow.

But in that place, you're fucking miserable. if you feel like you are in your own personal hell and you cannot move or do anything. , go about your regular everyday life because of the alienator, that's the place that I'm talking about. You're not changing it because you're still holding other people responsible for it.

And like I said, I know that like my life wouldn't be the way it was. If it weren't for the people that I chose in my life to do those things. Right. So there is responsibility on their side. I'm not asking you to take blame for their actions. But I'm asking you to take responsibility for where you are with it now.

always feels so much better to take charge of even the mess that you're left with, than point fingers and stay in stagnancy. Can't do anything from there. And I think that we as alienated parents, we it's, understandable that we get to this place, all of us. I see, uh, like the culture a lot on Reddit and in those, the Facebook groups and stuff where people are angry and pointing fingers and it's all because of them and blah, blah, blah.

I get it. And there is a place for that, right? If we want to send a message to the public about. What alienation actually causes for us for each individuals our children and, you know, there is a place for that. But when you're actually allowing it to continue to rule your life and you're not taking charge of that, something needs to be changed.

Something needs to be looked at, that's what causes the sickness and the, like the terminal illness. You know, and poverty, generational poverty, too, that gets passed down. so if you want to stop that, it's a matter of acknowledging it, you know, like, okay, I'm here.

Sometimes it's out of spite that we don't move from the place of poverty or the place of, Relying on others or saying that we can't do anything because we need other people to change and start supporting us. And so we stay in that space out of spite for what has happened to us.

But really, the spite is only actually aimed directly at you. Or, you know, whoever is doing that to themselves. It's a huge toxic cycle and it really all begins with this. I know, like I said, people are gonna be mad, but this entitlement to have a different life than you have right now.

And I'm under the belief that if this is the life that you have right now, then this is the life that you were supposed to have. this is your curriculum. this is your challenge. You're here right now. So it has to be your challenge. This is not something to like, Yell about and bitch about, and I shouldn't be here.

And this never should have happened to me because it's only going to keep you in place of helpless and needing other people to change for you or support you in ways that they're not right now. Or maybe they are, but then that causes you to underachieve, under earn, under parent, under do at life. You're allowing other people to live that for you, which only creates less opportunity for you in the long run.

I think I've harped on this enough, but really it's that if we're sticking with the money , theme, money really creates opportunity for you. It creates choices, lots of choices. I don't know about you, but I'm down for choices. So I'm down for money and it's not about, um, being opportunistic and being, greedy or having ill intentions at all, for none of us.

And I think that's where a lot of us go wrong is we think, Oh, well, there's only so much in the world to go around. But that's actually not true. That's not even how money works. The more money people create, the more money there is in circulation. that's a lie that you tell yourself, or you say, I don't want to become some greedy person, but you only will become greedy if that's who you are you know what I'm saying, you decide who you're going to be in every single moment, money is not going to change that unless you allow that to, you know, it doesn't have a brain, you have a human brain.

And so I think it's time that, especially coming from trauma, that we start addressing the, the real fucking issue that alienated parents have with poverty and not being able to hire attorneys to help us to get our children back and not be able to feed our mouths because we're still stuck in this, in this Rightfully so, I, I understand why I was there.

This, this victimhood place where it's like, they fucked me, they fucked me. But you're pointing out here, and then you can do nothing about what's happening, pick your own pieces up. You know the alienator's never gonna come pick your pieces up for you. So then you're relying on other innocent people to pick your pieces up for you.

Like, with my dad, well, he was the one that didn't support me, he should've supported me as a kid. So what I'm an adult now. And you know what, when he supported me, he only, it didn't, it was like halfway. So I was always relying on him and always, without choices. I was left without any choices.

I didn't live life because I couldn't afford to, I couldn't afford to breathe. Right. And so it kept me in this very, very, very miserable spot, but I didn't realize that the whole thing was really created by this, Reliance that I had in my brain, like the longer that I relied on these other people to fix it, the longer that I wasn't going to do the things that took, stay in the uncomfortable place I needed to stay in, in order to, to move from it.

It's like you buffer away the discomfort of the current state of your life by relying on other people to fix it, which only provides you like partial what you need. It never really provides you with what, what you actually need. So then it affects the way that you see the world and the way people, other people operate in it.

It's a big mess. So I really, I would love to see alienated parents, um, We're all going to be in need at times because we're going through something so financially exhaustive, you know, so I completely, completely understand the need to reach out and ask for help, but at some point you've got to cut that board, you know, and start creating for yourself and again, this doesn't have to apply to, to money only, you know, to financials only, this could apply to the way that you rely on your kids or your, your significant other or other people in your family.

To support you in ways that you know that you can support yourself and should be supporting yourself, because the more that you feel entitled, the more that you also then want to look and judge others for their, their intentions, but really turn it back to yourself, because what are your intentions?

To get what you deserve, you know, um, hopefully that doesn't come off too harsh. I mean it, like with all the love I have, I just want you guys to create options for yourselves, you know, um, and to create freedom for yourselves. And that's, that's really, um, it's really it. So, okay. All right, you guys have a lovely day.

Bye.