Special Edition: Finding Voice and Vision in the Thicket of the Past
Apr 13, 2024Season 3Episode 11
Shireen Botha/Tanya Scotece
Have you ever felt the weight of the world on your shoulders, only to discover that the burden was a story from your past, desperately needing to be told?
Our chat takes us through the profound journey of healing, unraveling the tangled threads of childhood that shaped her adult life. This month on Friends from Wild Places, we share an intimate conversation with a woman who, on the cusp of her 40s, is bravely confronting the silence that once defined her. Her narrative, rich with vulnerability, sheds light on the unspoken struggles many carry and the transformative power of self-discovery.
Join us, as we wade through the emotional landscape of our lives, reflecting on the pivotal role of therapy in lifting the veil on the long-suppressed memories. Recounting the pivotal moments that brought clarity to years of self-doubt and protective behaviors, offering insights that resonate with anyone who has ever felt unheard or alone. This episode is a heartfelt testament to the idea that it's never too late to face your past and embrace the journey toward healing and wholeness.
Listen in for an unforgettable exchange that promises to touch your heart and inspire your spirit.
Have you ever felt the weight of the world on your shoulders, only to discover that the burden was a story from your past, desperately needing to be told?
Our chat takes us through the profound journey of healing, unraveling the tangled threads of childhood that shaped her adult life. This month on Friends from Wild Places, we share an intimate conversation with a woman who, on the cusp of her 40s, is bravely confronting the silence that once defined her. Her narrative, rich with vulnerability, sheds light on the unspoken struggles many carry and the transformative power of self-discovery.
Join us, as we wade through the emotional landscape of our lives, reflecting on the pivotal role of therapy in lifting the veil on the long-suppressed memories. Recounting the pivotal moments that brought clarity to years of self-doubt and protective behaviors, offering insights that resonate with anyone who has ever felt unheard or alone. This episode is a heartfelt testament to the idea that it's never too late to face your past and embrace the journey toward healing and wholeness.
Listen in for an unforgettable exchange that promises to touch your heart and inspire your spirit.
Tales from the Wild, stories from the Heart A journey into the mind and soul of fired-up business professionals, where they share their vision for the future and hear from a different non-profit organization every month as they create awareness of their goals and their needs. Dive into a world of untamed passion. As we join our host, Shireen Botha, for this month's episode of Friends from Wild Places.
Tanya Scotece:
You know so as a younger person, you know, growing up in South Africa, what were some of maybe the core beliefs about whether it has to do with one specifically that you're talking about maybe not being heard in grammar school or primary school, or you know yeah, I mean it's you.
Shireen Botha:
I mean it's quite interesting. I've been going through a very hot time with my therapist. So there's been quite a and it's been amazing, this journey that I call mana, because I've really gone through some major healing. And here I am heading 40 and I'm still having hot times with my therapist. And I call them hot times because everything will be going smoothly, with my therapist chat, saying, you know, dealing with normal day-to-day things, and then all of a sudden, something will just hit it and it's like a regurgitate and all of this just comes out of me and a whole box gets unlocked, pressed down, suppressed, forgotten about, not you know, and it comes out. And it comes out and shows me all the reasons why I did this and this and this and this, and it makes sense. And at the point after I mean it's very draining, but afterwards I go, oh my gosh, that makes sense.
Shireen Botha:
That is why for so long I just thought I was crazy. I just thought I was. You know, just something was wrong with me. I always just thought something just seriously, seriously wrong with me and I've always thought that. I've always thought something is just up here hasn't been 100% correct with me for many, many, many years, and as these boxes get opened, certain behaviors get explained, and so it's been a hell of a ride and a really good one, but a very hard one, very emotional one, and so, you know, a lot of my core beliefs have been have been messed up, have been messed up, and I think a big part of the reason why is because not a lot of things were like communicated to me in the sense of this is how you can get through something like this. And also I didn't talk about it because in my mind, in my little mind as a girl, it wasn't. You don't talk about things like that. So there was because of that thing in my mind, I never spoke about a lot of different things that I was going through as a little girl and a lot of things that were happening to me. And by me not talking about it, I got into the mindset of, okay, I'm not allowed to talk about this, but in the same breath, I have to figure out how to deal with this. So, therefore, shareen little girl mind had to figure it out on her own. So I felt very alone. So, because of that and having to deal with that on my own and having to figure it out on my own.
Shireen Botha:
A lot of the certain behaviors that I adopted was because of a hardening of a protection of I had to protect myself, because if no one else was gonna protect me, I had to protect myself, and so a lot of that formed a lot of my behaviors, some being fine, no problem, and other things being not so good. And so, yeah, beliefs like I'm not heard, you know, beliefs like something's wrong with me. Yeah, also remember I didn't know that a lot of these things growing up was not normal until in my adult age as well. So now I can talk about it because I know, oh wait, you know that wasn't right, it actually wasn't, shouldn't have happened, and you know I should have spoken about it and I didn't so, but during that time had no, I mean, that's all I knew. I thought it was normal. I just carried on with life, you know, so no one could have picked it up, it was just happening and I didn't even, you know, no, any different. I just thought this was normal. I had to deal with this the best way that I could in my little brain and body. So that's when I that's what I did and how I got three lives.
Shireen Botha:
Now, looking back, I am now having to deal with oh wait, shireen, that is actually not normal. Let's deal with that and all the things that went with dealing with that. And so that's what's coming up. So, yeah, it's, it's your core beliefs. If they are untrue in any way, shape or form, you got to find what those core beliefs are and find out why you believe them, and it's so. It's. It's really important, because you won't believe how many root issues you will find that explain those core beliefs, why you believe those things. And I don't know about you, tanya, but I think there's a lot of people in this world that have incorrect core beliefs about themselves, but that's all they know and that's all they understand. Therefore, they don't think it's incorrect, and so, exactly.
Tanya Scotece:
Yeah, and, as you know, in hearing you, you you speak, sharing, like my mind, is just like racing as far as like, so there's so many things I want to like, just, you know, come to the table. So one is so like, yeah, so the core beliefs are our own, like response to our world, right? So growing up, I mean not every family has good communication. Some cultures have it, you know, like the children are to be seen and not heard. Others give the children too much importance, right to where the kids run the household, and I think that's back to Joe the nanny coming in. And then you get all these children that are now of age and going out into the real world and finding relationships and partners and spouses and expecting to communicate with somebody that has been raised in a completely different environment. So you take somebody that was, you know, given the opportunity to run the house and then you have somebody that's going to be only seen and not heard. Well, how can those two people communicate effectively?
Tanya Scotece:
It's like, and you know that's probably why, you know, people default to therapist and coaches. You know, I don't know about if this is an Italian thing, I'm just going to speak because my family is Italian is you're not supposed to air out your dirty laundry, like that's taboo in our culture. So it's almost like you know you're not supposed to go to therapist. You're not supposed to, you don't tell what's happening in the home. So if you're raised under those set of beliefs then you're like, well, who are you supposed to talk to? Right? And as we get older, you know you start maybe reading or you know reaching out or talking to different people. So I'm I'm personally a firm believer in getting objective opinion. So whether people get a therapist or coach, you know people are trained.
Tanya Scotece:
But the other conversation is just because someone is licensed in their field and credentialed in their field doesn't mean A that they're quote, unquote good or good for the individual, right? Let's just talk about, like simple things. You know women, right, we maybe get our hair done and I know a lot of women spent a lot of time with weeds and extensions and wigs and braids and color and cuts. Well, not everyone that has gone to hair styling school or is a hairstylist is good. I mean, there's ones out there that are not good, right, just like doctors and lawyers and teachers and every other type of occupation, but we don't know. So if you think that you're picking a therapist because their credentialed as a therapist, how do we know if they're the right one for us?
Shireen Botha:
Yeah, yeah and right, and it's only. Let me tell you something that is normal. That is so normal to find a therapist that doesn't suit you. And it is okay to be picky about your therapist. It really is. It's no offense to the therapist and it's no offense to you If you find a therapist that does not suit you or you don't feel comfortable or just you know not what you're looking for in needs you know someone specializing in something specific. There's nothing wrong with discontinuing with that therapist and finding a different one that suits you. And I think a lot of people might think that it's wrong that you, the therapist that you get is the therapist that you've gotten. You gotta stick with that therapist and if you want to leave your therapist, something's wrong with you, not necessarily the therapist. It's got nothing to do with either party. You just gotta find the right doctor for you. I'm sorry if we're interrupting. Please continue, Tanya.
Tanya Scotece:
No worries, Shireen, no worries, so. But that brings me to a point, though, that when we are seeking information, right, so like, let's say, back in the day, it was probably my first marriage and going to quote unquote marriage counseling I didn't know such things Like you just you picked a therapist that maybe was covered under your insurance and that's who you went to and you were given whatever five sessions, six sessions. You didn't know if they were good, or I mean you didn't know, like you didn't even know what questions to ask, nevermind if they were a good therapist or not one for you, because you're just there asking for help. And if they stopped and they said, okay, it's a, you know you could stay in this marriage, or it's encouraged to stay, you would say, oh, it's a good therapist. If they said you have to, you know it's not recommended, or you know you discover on your own that maybe this isn't the best relationship, it's like, oh, they couldn't help, they must be a bad therapist. So I became like very judgmental, like on these so and I've been married twice, as I've shared very openly on these podcasts but sometimes we just project into the world like again from our perspective, right, and I think what you were sharing just several minutes ago was the coping mechanisms that we all do.
Tanya Scotece:
And I teach, then, anthology at Miami Dade College, which is the study of death and dying in mortuary school. You know people that are going to become funeral directors and embalmers and we learn about the children's like kind of evolution, about how they deal with stress and traumas and stressors and reactions to things in the household. And it's fascinating because usually it starts right around the age like between six and nine, people start getting the tendencies I'm gonna use the word OCD, obsessive compulsive disorders and it doesn't mean that it's a disorder, it just means that it's a way to cope with stressors so people can start having behaviors. And again, it's a spectrum, right, it's not just, oh, everyone that has OCD becomes a clean freak or everybody that OCD is a cutter. Right, there's a spectrum of OCDs, but as children, in response to our environment, whatever our environment is right, and if you believe in energy work, they say we picked our parents right. So that's another conversation for another time.
Tanya Scotece:
But whatever we are, it's like we're raised in the household or lack thereof, and some people are going through being adopted and having surrogate parents, foster parents, which is again, maybe a future podcast for a future time, but I just think it's like but we don't know. So here we are growing up in our day to day and that's normal, because who's gonna question it? We don't know anything outside of our own family, and sometimes it's a nuclear family, sometimes in its extended family, sometimes it's a blended family, sometimes it's two-parent households, single-parent households. And I finally, maybe about seven years ago or so, finally came to the resolution that parents are only doing the best that they can do with the knowledge that they have at that time. And I'm sure there's listeners out there that grew up in parents with addictions, or extended family with addictions, or people that have defaulted to substance, drug abuse, other types of things, to where, if that's what you grew up with, who's questioning that? That's abnormal, that's what you're brought into, whether you have food on the table or no food on the table, that's your reality and that's what you think is normal.
Tanya Scotece:
So then, as we evolve and we start meeting other people, and whether it's through school, and I think that's another opportunity to see other cultures, sometimes and I think I'm gonna use the word and it's a strong word sharing, but like the jealousy, comes in right, because what we perceive, maybe as a child going over somebody's home after school and I know some cultures that sounds probably absurd. Like you just stay in your own family, you don't go see other people's house, but when you do, it's like why does this person have more toys than me? Why does this person have more accessories Like their own bedroom? Maybe some people share their four kids in a bedroom. You know they have two sets of bunk beds, all these different things. But we don't know until we start exploring. But when nothing is explained, the reactions sometimes can be jealousy.
Shireen Botha:
No, right, and I think, yeah, go ahead. Say you know that's the trick, that is the trick with you. You know there are certain things the kids are going to see. The kids are going to experience as they grow up. And if you don't have someone there that's going to explain to the children as they see and experience things, they will automatically go towards. But they have to explain it to themselves. So, and most of the time the explanations to themselves can be why do they have more toys than me? Oh, that's not fair and jealousy. So it seems like if you don't guide the children's mind in the correct way of why certain things are the way they are, they will do it themselves, and many times in the correct way, in the incorrect way. Did I say that Tune in next week for part three of Friends from Wild Places?
