CP. Sunrise, what is going on? My family,
you know, from sun up to sundown, we rise
and in this community that we are building together.
Holy crap. We talk about some amazing things. We talk about hard things.
Uh and we bring the real when it comes to
uh talking about our lives with cerebral palsy.
So I'm super excited for today because we are starting a brand new series.
We are talking about sex.
Yep.
I said it people, we're all adults here. So,
you know, sex is an important thing.
You know, oftentimes in life, people think that uh
us as people with disabilities, we don't think about sex. We don't have sex.
Sex isn't just part of our life. And there's so many things that come along with sex.
One of the most important things we thought was
having an expert come and talk about that.
And the beautiful thing about our expert for the next three
weeks is she is someone who also has a disability.
So I think we are gonna have a great talk. I'm happy to see you.
And with that, I will introduce doctor Michelle Feyen
to you.
All right,
Michelle
Hey, everyone.
I'm doing so well. I'm so happy to be here.
I love hanging out with you and talking with you.
So this is gonna be a great time and I've been looking forward to it.
Yeah, I'm, I'm super excited and as you heard,
I mean, we're talking about something that
is a little bit taboo. It's taboo
whether you have a disability or not, but especially when you have a disability,
people often think it just doesn't exist
in our world.
Um So can you tell the audience a little bit about yourself and
kind of how and why this topic is so important to you?
Mm Yes. So
I, I have a disability myself.
I have osteogenesis, imperfecta,
which is a brittle bone disease and I was born with it
and because of that disease, I had
35 plus broken bones. I was in a wheelchair all throughout my young adult life.
And then of course, back in it every once in a while as I have some injuries that occur.
Um But
with that, I would say
personally, I found that the biggest part
of my life that my disability really affected was my self esteem,
the way I viewed myself as someone worthy of
love someone that would be good in a relationship.
So it,
it really impacted me in that way.
And because of that,
um I really didn't believe that I could be in a relationship.
Um There was a lot said to me or not said
to me.
And really, it was mostly my perception if I go back and, and think about it
a as far as how,
how worthy I was of being in a relationship because of my disability.
So that's really why I dove into
becoming a relationship coach getting my phd in clinical sexology.
It was something that I've done this work now and I,
I really want to be able to help other people who feel the same way.
And I see in the chat box that's being asked, is this live now? Yes, friends.
We're alive right now.
We're hanging out.
Yeah, everybody's used to us coming on at different times.
So yes, we are live right now coming to you. And yes, we are talking about
what you're hearing us talk about. So don't change the channel.
We want to uh hear from you. You, we want you to be a part of this conversation
because the beautiful thing is we all have our own stories with that.
And so Michelle, one of the things you just touched on
was the idea of esteem, right? Self esteem.
And so
I just wanted to kind of dive into that a little bit. I think it is so huge.
You and I had to talk about this
um when we did a podcast together about
actually being worthy, feeling, uh worthy of love and that all comes down
to self esteem.
But um
what would you say self esteem is from your perspective,
to me, self esteem is just
your perception of yourself, you know, and
our self esteem is very much so shaped by society. It's shaped by
our culture,
um different religion,
our, our parents,
the people that we look up to as
Children too,
we have a lot of outside influences that really can shape our self esteem.
And I think that for
people with disabilities,
that,
that ability to
separate how society feels about disability in general
and to not internalize that
um can be a really difficult thing, you know, like
society is not comfortable talking about sex,
they're not com comfortable talking about disability.
You put the two together and it's like minds are just being blown here.
We are making people super uncomfortable
but are they uncomfortable with us? How do we not internalize that? Right.
So our self esteem is just how we view ourselves. Um are we confident
or are we not?
And, and just looking at that continuum of where we may fall on that line?
Yeah. Right. And it is a, a continuum.
So it's always about asking the question of where am I?
And some days you're gonna be higher up, let's just say we go to 10. 10 is our max.
Some days you're gonna be closer to that 10 and
some days you're gonna be over here at that one.
Yeah,
depending on where we fall. It's about how do I get to the next number.
Not how do I go from 1 to 10
but how do I go from 1 to 2 or 1 to 3?
I think oftentimes
we get very good at
just looking at the extremes,
we get stuck.
We don't realize there's a lot of room in the middle
to play with and it's ok to be in the middle.
So
I
love that.
I love that and I think that's a very like we do get stuck in that black
and white thinking and John in the in the chat box says low self esteem kills,
especially when it comes to close interpersonal relationships.
Absolutely. And
when we're saying, oh, I have low self esteem,
I mean, there's such a negative context to even saying that right?
But if we're able to sit with that without judgment and just look at it for what it is,
that's really when those shifts starts happening,
you know, the shifting starts happening so that we can move from 1 to 2 like you said,
and then 2 to 3 with maybe the goal being 10.
But how do we get from, from there? From 1 to 10? That's the tricky part, right?
Yeah.
And I think
the other part of this
that uh you and I
we've not talked directly about this, but we're diving into this today,
we're talking about a different type of
self esteem, right? Which
uh we're gonna talk about how
are they the same. Are they different? Uh We're gonna dive into that but
um you teach and coach a lot into sexual self esteem.
So we've got
self esteem and then sexual self esteem.
So
uh why is it important to make the distinction between the two?
Mm
I like that.
So
the two are actually just v very separate and I can share
an example of why I believe that and it's a
little bit about just my own story that may resonate.
Um I personally found that when it came to identifying as
a woman with a disability
and what I wanted ultimately, which was to be in a relationship, right?
So that was like my main goal and I really did not even know if it was possible.
So I started really doing that inner work.
Um But I didn't know that I was doing it. What I really was doing was
I'm gonna brain my way through this. I'm gonna figure out exactly how to get the guy.
I'm gonna read all the books, I'm gonna study, you know, just
male energy in general and I'm gonna figure out exactly what I need to do.
And I tried to
like
brain my way through it as a researcher.
Just kind of like, all right, I'm just gonna figure this out. It's gonna be great.
Um
But
until
I recognized that the two things were very different,
I was not successful in attracting the love that I wanted
so you can try to figure it all out.
But if, and, and b this like version of this
person who,
you know,
knows that they're a sexual being who can identify as
that and attract people to them because of it.
But if you don't have the self esteem part,
people feel that,
you know, it becomes a performance
as opposed to you showing up as your authentic self, which is ultimately where
the magic happens, right? When we show up authentically as who we are,
that's where the connection can really occur,
man. Yeah, that's so powerful. Just the idea of,
you know, I love peas, right? I love.
So you hit
the performing aspect of it and that's,
that's so real like you're performing because you've read all the books
and this is what the books said to do.
But
at the end of the day,
the question is,
did you actually believe
what you were putting out into the world or did you see it as a performance?
And when you're performing
that can be really, really tiring, at least from,
from my experience because it isn't you,
you're trying to be someone or something that you aren't
because guess what, again,
something we touched on earlier, those expectations that society has for you
and that turned into your expectations for yourself,
started uh weighing in on who you needed to perform
as or who you thought you needed to perform as.
So
I love that. Let's see, we got a comment coming in.
Yeah, let me put this up here.
Your perception of yourself affects the view that
you can really reach levels of conversation.
Yeah, I, I would agree with that. Your,
your view of yourself,
it kind of is, is a
limit in a way because if you don't think that you are capable
of connecting or if you truly don't think that you're going to have a relationship,
then that door is closed off
that you're, and you've closed the door yourself,
right?
So I agree with that, Ben. Thank you for that.
So,
all right,
we've now figured out that these are two separate things,
the the types of self esteem are two separate things.
So
how do I bridge the gap
so that
it becomes a lot easier to
be who I wanna be in both areas of my life,
right?
So,
and, and there is a bridge that can occur, right? Because we're talking about
self esteem
and, and that is also part of sexual self esteem, right?
And
a key word in both of these topics is, is the self. So we have to start with our self,
a lot of our views of ourselves is shaped externally, right?
By like I said, society, religion, culture, other people.
So we really have to take a good look inward
and, and start there with self love.
And that is really
the space where you begin to find that
you can
use that fake it till you make it
practice
to get going.
But it's only gonna get you so far
because
until you really hit
a level of self love,
that is almost like that key to that door that you have already closed, right?
So you hold the key
and it's just a matter of finding
how to get through that door, but you got to find the key first and,
and self love is certainly
a tool that bridges the gap there um
to connection and, and eventually getting the love that you want
and not doubting if the people who you now are talking to
love you
because you've performed, right? Because if we, if we get that
out of the way,
we also eliminate self doubt,
we, so we're eliminating performing, we're eliminating self doubt
and it all really begins by loving ourselves in the way that
we deserve to.
Yeah.
And I think uh John has a great comment here and
I'm gonna put that up and I'll share from my own
personal experience kind of
like I think I resonate with this so hard because what it made me think of is
being in high school,
right?
Knowing, OK, this is, this is what's supposed to like.
I, I wanna date, right?
And then
the outside perception of what it
means to or meant at that time for people to
date somebody with a disability from my point of view.
Um
I got treated like the little brother
all the time. And so
I totally resonate with what you're saying there, John about.
It's hard to deal with when you haven't had a lot of success.
And so
I'm curious
if you're talking to somebody,
maybe they're coming in for the first couple of times with you
and
you're talking to them about self love.
Like what's
one of the first things that you would have us do to
start to rep out that practice and build that muscle.
You know, before we even go there though,
I think there's
so much to what John said,
right?
Because you know, I I briefly shared, I didn't think love was in the cards for me. No,
I felt
at a visceral level in every cell of my body that
th this was never going to happen.
So John, when you're saying like it's really hard to deal with
when you haven't had a lot of successes and then
you also feel like you're running out of time.
So
I feel that
and so no, you are so not alone in that.
And at times when someone is talking about,
oh you just need to love yourself.
I remember hearing that and it did not resonate with me
at all
because I was like, I,
I love myself, OK?
And it was, it was extremely um
it was almost like it's OK, honey,
like just love you and then everyone's gonna love you too.
And they'll see. No,
that's not where we're at.
In fact, you called yourself little brother.
I used to call myself the mayor of friend.
I was everybody's friend,
never anybody's girlfriend.
And it, and again, if you hear even the way I'm talking,
I can tap into how I felt. It's that all or nothing. Right.
Always a friend.
Never a girlfriend.
I feel it. So I feel you John.
And
so that's the space that I was in
until you're able to process
where you currently are at.
You don't get to love,
right? So it's not like we start with self love.
We have to see where we're at on that continuum for self esteem.
Am I
down at one or am I at a 10?
Right? Self love is that bridge from maybe,
maybe like the nine or 10?
Because we wanna be realistic with our expectations, right?
Yeah.
So that's that bridge.
When we're going from self esteem, we're taking self love then
and getting us over to sexual self esteem as well. So there's that
um
and I, I love the conversation. I tell
you
what man, I think everybody that's in the chat right now.
They were in our meeting when we were talking
about what we were talking about doing for this because
everybody's leaving some great stuff.
I wanna throw Jamie's stuff up here because I think that that's
important
like step one dating.
Yeah, absolutely. I think it is important that.
Um
First, like you said, figure out where we are, right?
We have to have an awareness of where we are.
And
it's like the idea that
oftentimes if, if you're at a one,
what you think that is, is bad,
like people think that that's bad,
it's not good, it's not bad.
It just means you're at a one,
you get to decide what that means. But oftentimes we let
the expectations
that have been built by society and then accepted by us,
uh create the meaning of that. So
I think figuring out where you are,
if it's a one, great, it's a one
but, and Bill said it too,
you have to know what you want.
And so when it comes to the dating, do you want to date?
What do you want?
Right.
That's important.
Are you looking for
a life partner? Are you looking for something casual? Are you just looking for sex?
Let's be clear on exactly what it is that we're looking for
because
until we know
what we're looking for, we're not going to find it.
We're gonna be using the wrong map.
You know, it's like you're trying to get here but you're using a map to get you here.
So we really wanna make sure that
we align
those things as well. Um And Ben, I just feel you so much, Ben's like this is me.
I've been down about this really bad.
You are
not alone. This is why we're having this conversation
because we've been there.
And I think also it's very easy for us to see different
people in our lives that are getting what we want and,
and it can be disheartening.
But if it's something that we know about having disability,
it's that we don't do things on
the, the scheduled timeline,
it may look different for everyone and just because you're a one now
doesn't mean it's gonna take you extra long to get to a 10.
It may,
you might find someone that's out of four and they
will stay there for the rest of their lives.
But if you are a one
and you're willing to dive deep and do this work and it's work,
you could, you could get to attend too.
So I, I really just want
everyone to know that and, and Jamie said, yeah, you have to be ok with some failure.
And I think that as a community,
we may be super gritty when it comes to some
things like maybe bouncing back with our own health.
But then maybe when it comes to dating,
we haven't yet learned how to apply that gratis to the same to, you know, in,
in that arena of our lives.
Yeah, and that's, that's so powerful. Um
It made me think of. So you and I met on, on Clubhouse,
we sure
did.
Uh We've been in a lot of these conversations and
that grit somebody else talked about that. And they're like,
when you talk about sex,
when you talk about dating and you talk about relationships oftentimes it's messy.
It's
not pretty.
It is gritty. It's grimy. Uh,
and I was like,
man, he, yeah, that's absolutely right. And what he said in that moment was,
you know what?
That's beautiful because a
lot of what we deal with on a daily basis is gritty, grimy.
Like we figure out how to make the adaptations.
But again, I still think it comes down to what do you want?
I think that's the most important question from today
is
what do you want?
Where are you at on that scale?
And then
along the way here, we're gonna be building
tools,
we're gonna help you rep out some of that stuff
so that you can start to move along the line,
uh, and get where you wanna be. Let's see, we've had some stuff come in here.
Yeah. And, and just as you pull that up and hey, Scott, good to see you
as, as you mentioned, just how things are messy, right?
I, um, a shift that happened for me and I talk a lot about shifts because
that's what we're essentially doing. We're shifting our mindset here
so that we can shift up that continuum from maybe a one being.
I'm, I'm not feeling that great about myself when it comes to being a sexual being.
Um, and then to attend it is,
it's messy and
but as a community, we have this ability to adapt. Right. And to find ways and
because of that,
and I've said this now and I, I really believe it more and more every time I say it
that people with disabilities can make the hottest lovers ever.
Yeah, I just said it
loud and loud and proud. I'm saying it because
with the ability to be open to that and open to just working with what is in front of us,
we find our ways in our around things, we find a way, right?
And I think the more that we're able to
settle into that superpower
of
navigating some uncomfortable or awkward situations,
the more we can realize like
that's pretty sexy,
having grit like that, that's hot,
you know, Nathan and I, we had a great conversation about what,
what's sexy
that is not like a physical attribute
and,
and we had such a wonderful conversation about that. How confidence is sexy, how
grit is sexy, how someone
handles themselves or shows up or is kind
can be
such a hot and sexy thing.
And
you know, in some ways disability can,
can make us better at those things than other people who have not
been, been presented with those challenges that they've had to learn.
Um So
that's just my plug for people with disabilities being hot and sexy and I believe it,
I do.
Can you feel it? Uh
Everybody I can feel it.
Uh that's why I moved it to the single screen there because it,
it was so powerful and coming through
and
man, uh
we, we hit with a lot of stuff really, really quickly here.
I've, I've been loving, watching everybody come through
and share their experience. I love here.
What uh John said here about
that he would, he would date a woman with CP for a number of reasons. And I think
this comment
goes back to again
knowing what you want, right? And,
and
the more you know, that
the more you can find the person that's meant for you, that relationship. And
um
when
Michelle and I first talked on no label live, one of the things we talked about,
we had a lot of car
um
analogies and one of the things you said was
um
it may not mean that only one car is meant for you.
And I think that's important to realize too
that
uh it goes back to the self esteem. You may know what you want. I think often
we can get caught in the idea of,
hey,
somebody showed me some attention.
So
I'm gonna choose that person because they're
the first person that showed me attention.
And so
I think
for me, that's what
is important in knowing what you want.
Knowing who you are, is knowing where your boundaries are
and not,
not sin,
not
going below what your standards are for what you want.
100% and,
you know, I think that
there's a beauty to the thought of being in a
relationship with someone who really gets us on that level,
someone who maybe has the same diagnosis, there would just be
a level of understanding that
well.
Right.
Um,
and I, I think that that would be a beautiful thing. So I would not discredit
being with someone who has my disability,
but the only thing that I would invite people to sift through
on their own and it's gonna look different for every person is,
have you been told that because you have a disability,
you have to be with someone who has a disability.
You can only date
other people who have disabilities
and, and for a long time, you know, you know,
I believed that to be true
and I would go to these conferences and I'd be like, oh,
I guess this is where I'm going to find my husband.
This is the only place and it's a biannual conference.
So twice every or once every two years, I have the ability to find them.
No pressure though. I'm going to be totally normal in all conversations.
And I hate the word normal because that's just the setting on the washing machine.
But I digress
what that did was it shaped the way I showed up in those conversations too.
Um
So it's important that we do this type of self reflection
and I would encourage it to be done. With people
who can hold a safe space for you, for the stuff that bubbles up
because it bubbles up and we do a really great job
of hiding the things that we fear.
We operate 95% in the unconscious realm of just those
tapes playing in the background and we're unconscious of them.
So being able to
find the time and the space to do this
deeply healing work with people that can support you
is huge. And I love what um
what Scott said here
as you think.
So you shall become, if you think you're attractive, you become attractive.
And I do agree with that.
I do agree with that.
Yeah.
There, there's so much to be said for the inner game,
like
life is really all about
the inner game. Um when it comes to, to all things, the way that we
view ourselves is the way that other people are gonna view us.
And it's the same thing with um
all the things that we've talked about,
the boundaries that you set
like their, their rules that you have for your life.
And the more we allow people to abuse those boundaries,
I mean,
we are what we tolerate type of deal. That's, that's what I think. And
um
I think it is just about,
I think the success is in that middle ground.
It's about realizing that you don't have to be on either extreme
and realizing to play somewhere in the middle because that gives you room
to experience either way.
When you're on the extreme, you have nowhere to go.
Um
on both sides of it,
you can only go one way and I think you
gotta play where you have some room on either side.
I like that.
Hm.
Let's see. We've got John saying are there places where other cps are?
Um
I think you're asking if, if there are places, I mean, you're in one currently,
like how beautiful is technology that it can unite us
so much. Um Especially given this time where
some of us are still
home and avoiding going out,
you know.
So I, I think that online can be a fantastic place to meet people.
I met my husband online, actually,
I met him on match dot com back when it was like on the computer,
not even an app for your phone yet.
So that speaks to my age. That's, that's where we're at folks.
So
it, it's definitely um
and that's something to navigate too like on a whole other level.
How do we as people with disabilities
navigate online dating?
That's a whole other conversation, right?
Um Jamie says interabled relationships are great.
Don't limit your dating pool, especially if you're just getting started.
I, I agree with you, Jamie and
my, my husband does not have a disability,
but he understands me
the best he can without having my diagnosis
and
sometimes you don't necessarily need to have someone
understand that as long as they're open to learning
what that may be like. You know,
we all have our own stuff.
Yeah.
And that made me think of something that,
that we heard on the Clubhouse streets too and I think it's relevant here.
Um,
somebody was talking, we were talking specifically about online dating
and
we were talking about disclosing our, our disability. Right?
And one of the most powerful statements that I heard in that was
I tell, um, the person
who I'm dating or who I'm like pursuing to see if it's gonna be a good fit.
I tell them the information when it's relevant.
I thought that was so powerful because
some things aren't gonna be relevant at times.
And again,
uh,
you guys can tell I'm really about these extremes.
I think we take it to the extreme a lot
where we share everything
all at once.
And, uh, that can be to our detriment because then,
uh, there's no mystery about who we are even.
Mm If we share everything all at once upfront, then
I mean,
how would you feel if somebody was telling you all this stuff
like boom, boom, boom, probably like a deer in the headlights type of deal.
So, yeah, I it might be heavy in, in the beginning,
especially before someone knows us because they're still getting to know us too.
You know, I think it's so often that we're really just speaking from
our own
insecurity of like, well, I gotta get it all out there.
But then we're not considering how that might feel on the other end.
And
for those of us with disabilities,
maybe our experience has been that we've had to just share a lot
of personal information, you know,
either with doctors or just in order to advocate for ourselves.
There's this level sometimes of what even is my personal information and,
you know,
our bodies are sometimes not even personal and we can kind of lose touch with,
with that
uh because of disability and just
medical trauma, things of that nature. So
it's important for us to consider, huh? Like
does that play
a role in how, how I show up on my
dates even or even in my profile before I'm having dates?
How how does it show up for me? So I think that's important to look at too.
Yeah.
And so
as we, we start, we've talked about this a little bit,
but I wanna ask this question to you directly.
So
expectations are they getting it getting in our way?
Yes.
Do our expectations get in our way? Yes.
I think that we have to have reasonable
expectations,
expectations can get in the way a couple of different
ways. You know, recently,
if you haven't listened to Nathan's talk yet with Vera Lee,
I would encourage everyone
to check that out.
Oh,
and also follow him on Instagram because if we could kick him off to 1000 followers.
That would just be a personal goal of mine. He's five away friends,
five
friends away. I mean, he's dropping some amazing gems on there and I know that you're
probably,
I wanna get
on the clubhouse streets. Ok.
Well,
let's, let's get you there in both.
Um, but anyway, I veered off track a little bit there.
Um,
but something that you said that resonated with me so deeply was this idea that like
of the bar?
Right?
And, and it's that expectation of like
setting the bar low or setting the bar high? And
did we set this bar? Did society set this bar?
Is there even a bar?
Does there have to be,
you know, that question that,
that you posed,
I think was so important and I'd love for you to kind
of jam out on that if you could because it was,
it was so good.
Yeah, I think um
well, first
it's all from my uh muscle motivator days, the bar and, and lifting the bar, right?
But
so, so often
my experience has shown me that
as people with disabilities,
we talk about raising the bar all the time and
we talk about raising the bar from a societal standpoint,
like society should be raising the bar
for us and our treatment.
And
in,
in reality, I think
when we get so focused on that
we lose,
we lose a bit of
potential
because again,
when we have a bar,
there's a limit there.
Right.
And already
most of the time people assume
that we're going to fail
and we are not going to be able to do something. So our bar is really low
half the time it's on the ground and we're just kicking it down the road.
And
I actually think that's a beautiful thing
because
when there's already an expectation that we're not going to do something,
why not use that to our advantage
and say, hey,
people already think I'm not going to be able to do this.
So let's try it.
And let's see what happens
because
if I want to do it,
I should try and do it. I think we get so focused on things like Nike
and just do it
right. Uh There is no try.
I, I think that's bullshit
to be completely honest.
I think it's OK to try.
I think trying is a form of doing
but,
but it's doing
without the expectations of an outcome
and half the time
in
this
realm of dating relationship, sex.
When we get focused on the doing, here's what happens. At least from my experience
we say, yeah, I, I really want to date somebody.
We get that per we find that person that shows a little bit of interest
there. It is. We're, we're starting to connect
but where did we go?
We're already married with three kids in the house and all that bullshit.
And we don't actually realize that, hey,
that person might be seeing
other people. It's not really that serious yet, but we take it to the extreme
and I think sometimes
just show up and be present with the people in front of you
and forget about,
I have to have this by this time or I have to play by the,
the schedule that society says I need to
and only do that when you start to not care that much
about the bar.
Yeah.
Yeah, I love that.
And, and I think it's important to know
two
that
this isn't something that's exclusive to people with disabilities. This is
a major mindset thing
that exists when we're looking for love just for people of all abilities. And that is
one of the biggest things that I work with people on
is this idea of
not.
Right. And Jamie says able bodied people don't have it any easier.
They struggle with the same thing. We're on the same page, Jamie. Right.
We're sharing 11
mind wave here. Brain wave.
And it's true. And I think sometimes
when we do
get,
when we do fail, let's call it a failure.
Was it, was it really because if we didn't expect to
have this happen any other way and the real reason we
went on this date was to just go on the date,
then you succeeded,
right?
And there's a level of practice that is needed
in order to show up as your authentic self.
If you, if you're not going on dates regularly,
that's an uncomfortable thing. This is new to you.
So, allowing yourself room for failing forward, I believe it was Scott said
in the chat
box. So,
yeah, Jamie says we're not as special as we like to think. And it's
easy.
It's so easy to go there right when it's like, oh,
they don't like me because of my disability
and that's something that I can't change.
Ok. But
there's, there's a level of what you can change and it ha it,
it comes from doing this self reflection,
this work. It's all hard. I call it work because it's hard
but it's all hard. So, choose your hard.
Do you think it's harder to be sitting there alone or is it harder to date?
Choose your hard?
Oh,
that's where I'm at.
Oh,
I know that probably hit somebody square in the face.
It hit me before. That's why I'm saying it. I'm like, someone needs to hear it.
That's where I was at. I would never put myself out there.
And then I was like, I don't know why I'm alone.
I would never, I was waiting for someone. We used our car, um, analogy.
I wanted a car but I was waiting for a car to
drive off of a lot and park in my driveway for me.
That's not gonna happen.
Yeah.
And
there's beauty and serendipity like you might meet on that,
like the store or whatever.
But you gotta go to the store first too.
So
it's, it's hard but again,
it's not as hard if we, if we work
on things together,
you know.
Yeah. I mean,
and that whole
waiting for it to happen. Right. I think we also get caught in the,
if I just want it bad enough
it will show up and
you have to take action for things to show up.
Even if, even if you want it, nothing's gonna happen.
Um If you just sit there and say one day,
well, one day only happens if you get off your ass and
do something about it, like, as
blunt as that is
like
nothing changes without action.
Uh
Yeah.
Yeah. Right. Jamie said it right there and I'll put it out there for everybody to see.
Yeah.
Sometimes when you're thinking, oh,
they don't like me because I've got a disability.
No, they don't like you because in that moment you shut up like an asshole.
Yeah. I guess people with this abilities aren't immune to being an asshole as well.
Um, but I, I wanna touch on what John said here where it's like
60 is a tough start
and I can feel that and, and I,
I can understand that feeling of like there's not enough time
and I think if any, and if any of us have dealt with
maybe
grief or loss in life,
we can relate to that feeling of, there's not enough time because
there's not enough time
with people that we care about. We, we get that sense of just how short life is
and that can really play into our, our feelings of anxiety around dating.
But what I will say is
that I've had the pleasure of working with people
who are just now starting that inner self work,
who are in their sixties, who are, who are in their seventies
who have finally,
either because they've just lived and this is their
experience now or certain people are no longer in
their life that they put a lot of pressure on that relationship and it really kind of,
they allowed that to hold them back from experiencing their authentic self.
There is always hope.
I call myself a, a hope dealer.
There is always hope
and if you don't believe that
you need to get around a hope dealer and we'll get you some because
it, it's there. I've, I've seen it
and for you to be able to
see it yourself,
I think can be extremely helpful.
And, and that comes from putting yourself out there too
because if you're sitting in that energy of waiting,
that's anxiety
that is uncontrol
or lack of control, that is uncomfortable
and that type of energy is not going to serve you.
So instead,
let's focus on the shift of
is there a possibility that there might be someone out there
who has just been kind of looking for me
or maybe there's multiple people out there
who would love to have me as a partner
and do some journaling around that.
If you struggle with the, even the thought of it, I, I feel you, I've been there.
That's when you need a coach,
that's when you need assistance.
We,
we have trouble sometimes when we have disabilities asking for
help because we believe sometimes unconsciously that this means that
we can't do it ourselves or that we're so dependent or we're a burden
and
that's a shift we gotta have too
man.
Yeah, that asking for help.
That's a whole label in and of itself. And
what if, what if that idea,
what if the idea of asking for help and not wanting to do it
is the one thing
that's holding you back from the relationship that you've always wanted,
but you don't know that it's,
it's available to you because you haven't asked for help
to get there.
I think that's huge.
I
asking for help is not a bad thing.
It doesn't mean that you can't care for yourself.
It doesn't mean that you're not independent.
Like we all need each other at some point,
we all need other people because guess what? People are on a spectrum
of experience based on
their life, based on their circumstances,
based on a whole myriad of things. We all are on the spectrum of being a human being
and somebody is gonna be further along than you where you wanna go.
So why wouldn't you ask for help?
It's gonna cut your, your learning curve down tremendously,
your ability to ask for help.
So that's, that's huge.
Absolutely. And I see Jamie in the chat box saying
lots of people have to start over as we age,
big time, big time.
And some will see that, that do over as,
uh, as a wall and that's gonna keep them from moving forward and,
and possibly having another relationship in their life.
But then there's gonna be others who see it as a fresh start.
Right.
So,
it's,
it's important for us to recognize that.
Um,
oh, John. Yes. Years of distance relationships
that need to be local. I was the, the queen of dating someone that was states away.
Not even just like a, a short little drive.
It was like a nice long distance just to make it
that much more difficult.
And, and with, as being a, a coach,
I've an therapist, I was a therapist for over a decade.
I've now shifted into relationship coaching
and in doing so,
I've,
I've really been able to support a lot of
people in making these shifts because what we,
what we look at are, are patterns.
I had a pattern of keeping people far enough away
so that they wouldn't have to actually experience my disability.
That was my pattern.
And I was able to recognize that
you drove for 10 years. Yeah.
And so if that's something you want to shift,
that's a shift that you can make happen.
Um You said, I wish I knew how to, who to ask for help. Well, we are all here for you.
We're doing this um next week as well. We're gonna be here having a conversation
and we're doing this to support this wonderful community,
especially during cerebral palsy awareness month.
It couldn't have been
a better time, right?
And then we, we will have opportunity for moving forward
if you're wanting even more help.
And I think that's important too.
Yeah, absolutely. So I put down here at the bottom, you should see it scrolling.
You can connect with doctor Finan over on Instagram or on Clubhouse at doctor
finding it's spelled out there for you and it will continue to go through.
Um
If you have any questions as they come up till our next time that we talk together,
uh make sure and just message them on the page, we will get back to you
uh as we can. Um And
the more questions, the better you guys are gonna help drive this conversation
and this isn't about me or Michelle getting on here and talking.
It's about having a conversation and I've really loved
where we've kind of gone today because you guys have been so invested
in the conversation.
So I think we've hit something with what we're talking about for this,
the rest of this month, the next three weeks.
Um that's very powerful. And I see before we uh close out, I see we've got people
commenting. Let's see. What did Scott say?
Oh, Ben, I'm so glad.
Yeah.
All I
know of love is pain
because you're choosing pain. Wow. Yeah.
Choices. Right. And it goes back to
like we've all made those choices and as Michelle said,
she at some point chose to keep them far away.
Um
And we're all making if we're not where we want to be.
The thing to remember is
like we're making decisions a lot of time
out of protection,
like we're just trying to protect ourselves.
So we get to
recognize that and
often I think it's because we faced
so much
rejection
in our lives in every area of our life
that this just seems like
a, an easy way to not have to deal with
the, the fact of rejection. I think that's something that
I've seen play out in my own life.
That's huge, Nathan. And I think
to Scott,
like
it,
it could be very easy to see this as yet another struggle because of my disability.
Like, oh, this is yet another way that disability has negatively impacted my life.
But
that is, that is a perception, choice.
Now, you didn't choose to have your disability,
but we choose
what we're gonna do with that.
And I think that it is freeing
to recognize that there's a choice,
but it's also important for us to be
kind to ourselves if we've been viewing it negatively
because we did, we do that out of self preservation. Like you said, Nathan,
we have that perspective for a reason.
So be kind, we have to be kind to ourselves, the kinder we can be to ourselves,
the more beautiful we can become, right?
Because then we're,
we're projecting that kindness and that's what we'll attract too.
So I think that's important too.
Yeah, and I will,
I'll get vulnerable with the group and I'll share. So
as a coach, I've got my own coach and we've talked about coaching here. And so
one of the things that,
that I've been working through that I think relates
to some of what we will be talking about
um in the future is this idea that
all the way back in
uh fourth or fifth grade,
there was a time
when, you know, I was on field day,
love field day.
Right? I, that's, that's my competitive genes coming out. But
my group, uh
we were
in the final for the tug of War
and we lost, we lost to, yeah, it had to be fourth grade because we lost to fifth grade.
And
I remember walking into the room
and
a kid coming up to me and saying, hey, you're the reason we lost.
Hm.
And that stuck with me for a super long time. And what that did
for me was tell me that I was inadequate,
whether I knew that at the time
and knew that it would stay with me for as long as it did.
I can tell you, I can remember that.
And so one of the things
that I had to work through was
ok. Well, if I'm inadequate,
and I believe that how did that
support me?
And by believing that
I didn't have to
uh deal with rejection, it just made me
not take as many chances.
But, and what I learned along that journey was what it was really trying to
like what I needed instead was love
and to show myself love.
And, um,
he walked through a,
through an exercise
and said, hey, what does this part of you need? What does inadequate EOR
need?
And it was a hug, right?
And so in those moments, we all have that
quote shadow self where
that inadequacy or whatever it is for you is gonna show up and it's about asking, hey,
what do you need from me
right now?
And who knows? Yours might be a hug. It could be something completely different,
but we have to do the work
to even recognize that that's something that's going on.
Hm,
I love that.
And so if that doesn't give you a glimpse
into the fact that Nathan is a fantastic coach,
I don't know what will, but he leads people through those same types of exercises.
And I've had the pleasure of being in rooms where he's done that and
I could kind of take off my coach hat
and do some of my own self reflection. And it's, it's, it's just, it's hard,
but it's powerful and we're hoping to do more next week.
We would love for you to reach out to us. Let us know
what, what really came through about this topic.
What were your takeaways from today?
Where do you wanna go on Wednesday? Cause we're here for you and
that's, that's why we're doing this.
So thank you so much for attending,
especially those of you who were able to make it live.
We can feel your energy. I know that's not just me. I know that uh we felt it too.
Yeah, 100% loved. Um
You guys know, I love coming in and talking with you guys all the time.
Um
Definitely Michelle love that you are
participating in this with us and providing your expertise here.
I can't wait for next week and as you see,
uh we're gonna be changing up the time a little bit for next week.
So you can join us on Wednesday at 1 p.m. Eastern Standard Time.
And if you have to watch it on replay,
it's still gonna be there. Still ask questions
uh because we're here to serve you and I can't wait
to see what we create over the next two weeks.
Good times. Have a wonderful day. Everyone. We'll talk soon.