Trusting Myself Again: Paul’s Breakthrough After 26 Years of Narcissistic Abuse

What does it take to finally trust yourself again after decades of gaslighting, manipulation, and emotional abuse? In this powerful episode of The Healing Lounge, I sit down with my dear friend and fellow survivor, Paul, to explore that very question.

Paul spent 26 years married to a covert, passive-aggressive narcissist. Like so many survivors, he spent much of that time questioning himself, taking the blame, and desperately trying to “fix” what was never his to fix. Therapy sessions left him labeled as the problem. Friends and family pulled away. Isolation, self-doubt, and destructive patterns became his daily reality. And yet, deep inside, he knew something wasn’t right.

When Paul stumbled across the term DARVO (Deny, Attack, Reverse Victim and Offender), everything began to click. Suddenly, the chaos wasn’t random — it was a predictable system of manipulation. For the first time, he had language for what he had endured. And once he saw it, he could never unsee it.

In this conversation, Paul bravely shares how he moved from denial to awareness, from isolation to community, and from doubt to a new, unshakable trust in himself. We talk about:

• How trauma bonds and survival mode kept him stuck for decades
• The moment he realized he deserved more than breadcrumbs of love
• Why DARVO is one of the most insidious tactics of narcissistic abuse
• How community support and safe groups became his lifeline
• The inner child work that helped him finally release guilt and shame
• What it means to hold someone accountable without losing yourself
• And the courage it takes to say: I know what it feels like to be loved — and this isn’t it.

Paul’s story is raw, emotional, and incredibly validating for anyone who has ever doubted their reality or felt like they were “the problem.” His vulnerability is a gift to every survivor who listens, and his breakthrough is a reminder that healing isn’t just possible — it’s worth it.

If you’ve ever asked yourself, “Am I crazy? Is it me?” — this episode will show you that you are not alone, and you are not broken. You are capable of reclaiming your peace, your power, and your truth.

• Learn more about DARVO and how to protect yourself in my DARVO vs. P.E.A.C.E.™ Mini-Course .
• Ready for deeper healing? Join my signature

For 30 years, Marcia Williams lived in silence inside a marriage with a narcissist. In her powerful memoir GROOMED: Life Married to a Narcissist and How I Overcame Narcissistic Abuse, she shares the raw truth of that journey and the courageous steps she took to reclaim her peace.

This book is more than a survivor’s story. It’s a message of hope, resilience, and empowerment for anyone trapped in the cycle of narcissistic abuse. 

Transcript

Marcia Williams (00:03)
 Hey there and welcome back to The Healing Lounge. Today I am bringing you a very special conversation with someone I am honored to call my friend and fellow survivor, Paul. Paul was married for over 25 years and spent decades questioning himself, stuck in destructive patterns and feeling like he was always the problem. But through education, community and doing the deep inner work,
 he found the courage to reclaim his truth and step into healing. In our conversation, Paul shares his powerful journey of recognizing the patterns of narcissistic abuse, discovering the concept of Darvo, and learning how to trust himself again after years of self-doubt. We talk about what it really feels like to break free from denial, the importance of community, and why healing can't be done alone.
 
 Paul's story is raw, real, and so relatable, and I know it's going to inspire you to keep moving forward on your path to freedom. Let's jump in.

Marcia Williams 

I am so excited to talk to who I call my buddy, Paul. I am so happy to have you here, Paul, because you and I are on the same journey, the same healing journey. I am so thankful to have been a part of your healing journey through our support groups, through Passage to Peace, so thank you for being here.

What helped you realize that something was off in your marriage and that it wasn't just communication issues?

Paul (00:26)

So I've seen seeing these patterns over the years. I was married 26 years with this person 27 years, an extra year before we got married and kept seeing these patterns. We were in therapy for seven years, And even in the therapy, I kept being the bad guy.  So once I started seeing this, once I started actually educating myself, I started going to YouTube and looking at, people like Les Carter and Dr. Romani and a number of other people on there who were just the best people. They are so compassionate and so knowledgeable about this. And I highly recommend people that resonate with you, those are the people that resonated with me that gave me information. I started to notice things about my life, patterns that I had been repeating.

And then as I learned more and more, I, started looking at what was going on in my life with my relationships with my, my spouse, my relationships with her family, and I started seeing the pattern there as well. Again, very disturbing, very off-putting, very unsettling, that come to terms with all this, like, am I crazy? Is it me? All those are typical questions that we ask ourselves when we start noticing that. And then finally, I did notice, I just saw it. I just saw it. And as we say, in our recovery, once you see it, you can never unsee it. It's there and every time because it's so plain and obvious to anyone who knows what they're looking for. And by then I did know what I was looking for and I come to trust my own gut. I've come to trust my own truths. I come to trust myself for the first time probably in my life, you know, instead of like always feeling wrong, like I was the bad guy, like I was like not worthy of having a healthy relationship or whatever. And always doubting myself, I started trusting me. And I told now my ex-wife, I told her, this is the words I said to her when I told her I wanted a divorce is, I know what it feels like to feel loved. And I know what it feels like to feel cared for. And I know what it feels like to not feel loved and to not feel cared for, to be manipulated and used. I know what that feels like now. And so I want a divorce. I know that I'm in a relationship and have been, where I had always given and the other person had always taken. And I felt like for me to be worthy, that's what I needed to do, just keep giving.

And as long as they were willing to take what I was giving, then I was passing the bar, But that didn't leave anything for me. And then once I saw it, I saw it. And I continued to doubt myself. But every time I would go into that self-doubt, I would run this reality check of, Is it real? Is it not real? Am I making this up? Am I crazy? all these things that we go through, right? And every time I would run that reality check with what I was feeling, my truth, I came to the same conclusion. I mean, I think maybe it's healthy to run a reality check because we are, we are self-reflective. We are able to reflect on my projecting or am I overthinking or am I because we have all those qualities, right? So it's probably keeping yourself honest, what am I projecting? Is that about me? Is that about is that actually about this person? There are the layers.

You have to peel back, get a lot more involved, that becomes more to do.

You have to go through it get to the other side of it. And those are things you give yourself, gifts you give yourself by going through it. And that no one can take away from you. No one can, it's you, it's who you are. So that's definitely worth it. But it's not pleasant getting there most of the time.

Marcia Williams (04:10)

And that's what keeps us in denial because the unknown and the discomfort of that, we're already familiar with this. We know them so well. We don't even know we're playing the game, but we're playing the game. And we've just learned to live in survival mode. And so to come out of that and explore what's on the other side of that, it's lonely, it's scary, it's uncertain. And that sometimes or oftentimes is what keeps us stuck is avoiding that.

Paul (04:47)

Yeah, definitely keeps us stuck. keeps us in just self-destructive patterns. I was in self-destructive patterns, addiction. My whole life I've been that. it's very difficult to do, but until you do it, you're gonna be stuck, you're going to be stuck in those patterns and you're not going to be happy. you know, eventually, gradually, you get to a place where you can trust yourself, you can trust your gut, you can trust your heart. I mean, that's really when I when I joined your first group, because that is saved my life. Now I'm going to get emotional. But I just, you know, have to tell you that once you get in that group and you start hearing stories from people. the situation might be a little different and everyone is, has their own journey, but you're hearing your story. You're hearing your story of how you were isolated, how you were made the bad guy, how you were smeared by the flying monkeys, how they say one thing, they act nice to your face, and they go behind your back… as highly sensitive people, we can feel that. We can look at people and people who don't call you anymore, people who don't email you, people who don't say how you're doing, they just drop out. And that's fine. I mean, it bothered me in the beginning, but you actually end up feeling way lighter. You have more energy for yourself.  And you have more energy for the people that actually do care about you. So, it's actually a blessing.

And my ex was a covert, passive aggressive, emotionally immature narcissist.  So I see it very clearly.

Marcia Williams (06:22)

And that's what's so freeing about it is that DARVO gives us validation for what we've been experiencing. You know, we were seeking validation. Then you do start doing some research and then you find Dr. Romani and all of the experts who thank God for them because if it weren't for their voice, we wouldn't have found or be finding our voice. Before you had the language and you came across the term DARVO because you have embraced DARVO in a way that is going to help other people see how important it is to know and understand DARVO and then practice the tactics or techniques to protect ourselves from it. So how did coming across the term DARVO help you validate your experience?

Paul (07:07)

So it put it all into a system, a predictable system that happens over and over you're interacting with the true narcissist. If you're interacting with the true narcissist, a person who has no empathy, who's unable to self-reflect and who is always the victim in any situation. And what they do is they violate your boundaries or they don't care about your boundaries. It's just about what they want.

DARVO, which is, defend attack and then R- VO is reverse victim offender. So, someone violates your boundaries, you try to hold them accountable, they deny it, and then they attack you. And then all of a sudden, they violated your boundaries not boundaries they didn't know about, boundaries that they knew full well they were violating. And so all of a sudden, because you said something about it, now they're the victim and you're the oppressor or the offender.

And that will happen in my case with my ex, 100 % of the time. There's never a time that there's some form of that did not happen. And being a passive aggressive person, I had to really try to navigate that passive aggressiveness, right? my ex has lived with me for 26 years. She knows when she piles the dishes, full in the sink, so you can't even wash anything, that that's something that I've complained about for 26 years, that that's one of my pet peeves, you know. Don't do that. You don't do that. You don't leave the big mess for other people to clean up. And so she would continue to do it. And then when I would get upset about it, then she would be the victim.

So there were all these, I mean, she went out of town for 10 days. I was the home trying to get the house ready to sell. When she came home, I had worked my butt off getting everything ready that the realtor wanted so we could list. The house was immaculate, ready to show, And the first thing she does is she comes in and, fixes her something to eat and there's food all over the counter. You know, and she just walks off and leaves it. I kind of know what's going to happen when I say something. And she's just like, why don't you leave me alone? But that's DARVO. And knowing that people don't do that to each other.

Marcia Williams (09:23)

And knowing that it's your pet peeve. If you respect someone, if you appreciate someone, if you value someone, so that action, and this is such a great example, because we're talking about dishes and food left out after you've cleaned up. Someone might say, well, just tell them to put the stuff away. But it's so much deeper than that, especially when we've seen the pattern.

Paul (09:34)

It doesn't work because DARVO is what is the mechanism, the predictable mechanism. Doesn't matter what you say, you could say, “Could you get your clothes?” Because they're going to employ this DARVO, they're going to become the victim because that's what they have to be in order to,If you're not going to self-reflect and take accountability, then you have to be the victim because it has to be somebody else's fault.

Marcia Williams (10:00)

Right. And that's why it happens 100 % of the time, because you're not going to take accountability. So they will always see themselves as the victim and you the offender, because they can never see themselves as the problem.

Paul (10:07)

You're always the problem because what they're doing, my opinion, right? Is they're projecting on you. They're projecting. And what I found that they're projecting is contempt. I'm a good person. And that's what I really had to come to. I'm a good person. I'm not perfect, but I have a good heart. I don't treat people badly. So that's the thing about the people who are the empaths We would never treat anybody like that. And if we did, it would be a true accident. And we would say, “I'm sorry, Let me go correct that”. But we would never go around and be cruel to people.

And for myself in the beginning, that was one of the biggest feeling, that sense of betrayal. Like, how could you treat somebody like that? How could you say you love somebody and then treat somebody with such contempt? and then make them responsible for your contempt.

Marcia Williams (11:01)

That is exactly what it is. because of that, that's what makes it one of the most insidious forms of abuse. Manipulation is an insidious form of abuse. And the insidiousness of it is that over time we are conditioned

to then do it to ourselves because this is what we've been told time and time again. This is, we faced DARVO time and time again that we learn and condition ourselves, I must be the problem. I brought it up at the wrong time. I didn't explain myself clearly enough. Me, me, me. And that's exactly what DARVO does.

Paul (11:34)

Yep, it does. then it is not just from, mean, in my case, and I think this may be true for more people than not, it's not for me, it wasn't just one person, it wasn't just my ex, it was a family system of it. so my role and because of my childhood trauma, I've always been the scapegoat role in my family. So that's what was familiar to me. Right? but those are the relationships that I went into. So if I look at the dynamics and I know you brilliantly talk about your 50-50 rule. So I can't do anything about their 50%, but I can sure as hell try to do something about my 50%. So if I look at myself and I look back on my life and reflect, then I see myself playing that role over and over and over again to get the validation or to try to get the validation I thought I could get. It was never there. I mean, maybe a little bitty breadcrumbs as we call it, but it was never what I needed. that's the loop we get into in survival mode, especially from childhood trauma and stuff like that, right?

Marcia Williams (12:21)

Exactly. I'm so glad you brought that up, Paul, because we can talk about they did this to us, they did that to us, they treated us this way, and all those things are true, but the other 50 % is what is it about me? And you have gone there so courageously, and you may not feel that way, but...so my question to you is, because this is what you're talking about, you've done so much work on healing your inner child. How has that understanding, DARVO, helped you make peace with your past?

Paul (13:02)

I can see my 50% more clearly. So I know when, like yesterday, I went to see my doctor and she was a new doctor and I was trying to open up to her about pretty much everything. what I've learned is that I keep making this mistake. And I think doctors have trained themselves not to have that much empathy because they have to make hard decisions sometimes or, And so I felt kind of depressed when I left. It's kind of like when you share too much, you know, when you were with somebody who you think cares and you share too much and then you leave and you feel disappointed because they really don't care.

So I think some of that is I just put too much expectation on other people because I'm very sensitive and I'm very empathic. And I click with those people who are also very sensitive and very empathic. So that's been difficult for me. But it's also been liberating for me to understand that about myself because it gives me a window into why my behavior, why I kept getting into these situations, right? I kept wanting that connection, but just with the wrong people.

Marcia Williams (14:00)

And how would you know that unless you were willing to go deep into yourself, into whether it's childhood trauma or wounds that we hadn't addressed or hadn't been able to make that connection. A lot of times we think we're going on with our lives and that's not affecting us until we dig and open up that compartment and see, a minute, now I'm seeing patterns.

Paul (14:27)

I'm seeing my patterns, my predictable patterns. DARVO is their predictable pattern. So I told you earlier, if you can see, if you can look at DARVO for just a predictable pattern, and just sort of step back a little bit and just sort of, but the thing is, is that we, we take it all personally. And so we get sucked into it. And that's where the B, the baiting, or the triggering, because that's the tactic they use to hook you into the DARVO, where it's a lose-lose situation for you and it's a win-win situation for them. And I'm happy to explain my view on that if you want me to, but it's what we call a double bind. And so once the narcissist gets you into that double bind, you cannot win. you're hooked, once you're baited and hooked, you will not win that exchange.

Because even if you just leave and have no contact, you still lost because now you're fuming inside. You're emotionally dysregulated inside, which is the goal of the person manipulating you. They want you to be the one who exhibits emotional dysregulation so that that reinforces them saying, look, they're so emotionally dysregulated, I'm the victim.

 Marcia Williams (15:43)

Exactly. You know, it's funny you say that because when I went to couples therapy before I divorced, we went to couples therapy. And for me, I thought I had finally found a safe space. You know, now I'm not gonna be told I'm crazy and overreacting because we have a third party, fresh eyes, an objective clinical professional person who's gonna see my side of things. And I went into couples therapy and I just, whoosh, just vomited just, my gosh. And my ex sat there and said, see doc, see what I have to deal with? You see what I'm dealing with here? And so in my attempt to express my feelings and get help, he used even that as an opportunity to be the victim of my emotions.

Paul (16:24)

That's DARVO. I mean, that is another form of that. I mean, it all plays out the same way. They're going to become the victim and they're going to deny and they're going to accuse, accuse. mean, that would be another word for a deny and accuse because they're going to accuse you basically of the same thing that they're doing to you is what they will mirror that back to you as an accusation. You now you're crossing my boundary like because because you're trying to stand up for your own boundary, that crosses my boundary. you know, we're talking about red flags, your little lights that go off. So when that happens, and if you're always the bad guy, you know, in that whatever conversation is going on, then chances are you need to go to Marcia's website, passage to peace and take the little two part test that she has there. Because I would say, not as an expert, but just out of experience, chances are you're with a person that we would label or describe as in a predictable pattern as a narcissist. When a violates your boundaries and you sit and you tell them your truths, and if their response is not, let me think about that.

Let me see how what I'm doing, how I'm acting in ways from my 50 % that might be triggering you or baiting you. And I'll work on that. If that's not the response, then I repeat my refrain to my ex-wife. I know what it feels like to be loved. I know what it feels like to be cared for. And I know what it feels like to be invalidated, manipulated, you know, I know what those feels like. I trust myself now that I know what those feel like, right? And when you get to that point, then you then you're on your own because you can just go out and you can basically meet anybody. you have that you already have it built in. It's just that we tamp it down because we were thinking that those wounded needs, those needs that come from our childhood wounds or our wounds are more important because they have us in survival mode. Those wounds have us in survival. And so we've been looking in that survival mode, we've been looking for a way to get those wounds taken care of. 

I mean, that's a very intelligent response from your system, from your body. And as Gabor Mate says, your gut should be the number one alarm system because it's most basic and primitive part of us and it's what warns us of danger or safety. And then from there, it has to go through your heart. you got to open that heart up. And now a way to do that is to feel those feelings. That's tough stuff. 

Marcia Williams (19:00)

Face the feelings. It is tough stuff. But I love how you are speaking on this because that's absolutely the journey. That's the journey is getting back to ourself, getting back to our gut, getting back to a regulated nervous system that can protect us in a healthy way, not a survival way, but a healthy way. And it takes time to get back to that.

Paul (19:16)

It does. Well, especially if you've never done, if you don't have any practice having that, if you've self-medicated your way through all of those feelings, you know, your going through it.

Marcia Williams (19:26)

So I want to also thank you for talking about the community, because you were one of the first participants in my P2P (Passage to Peace) 7-week program. I can't wait for you to share what this community did and is doing for you because that's the purpose of Passage to Peace in so many ways is to create a community of healing because we we feel so alone until we get into that support group where it's like, wow, or we find a community that we can feel safe with and we know we're not being judged because they understand because they've been through it or are going through it as well. Talk about the support group and passage to peace and your experience in that and how did it help to validate your healing journey?

Paul (20:08)

I'm going to get emotional, but just giving you a fair warning. So this to my heart. I was physically ill, mentally ill, but I'd been moving out of that relationship, just putting one foot in front of the other, going through all of those and feeling isolated, couldn't talk to anybody about it, nobody understood, the flying monkeys were everywhere.

Relationships that I'd had for 25 years just disappeared. You know, nobody reached out. So I was completely, completely isolated, felt alone, felt crazy, but I knew I wasn't crazy. I knew I was, because I kept going back through my truth. So I kept saying, I'm going to live my truth. And if that means I'm crazy, but I guess I'm crazy. So, and I kept moving toward divorce, filing for divorce and moving forward to get out.

So when I found the first group, that was to me, I mean, I couldn't even, I was so relieved to be able to be there and be with people who were just like me. I cannot even begin to tell you, saved my life, it really did. People who were broken, but had such good hearts, such wonderful, loving, caring people. I call them my healthy family. Because, know, we're all screwed up, but we're talking about it. We're looking at it. We're going through it together. And I can tell you that from my experience you cannot do this alone. You have to do it in community. You have to do your 50%.

You you have to work on your therapy and you have to feel your feelings. But without somebody to identify with, to communicate with, to connect with in your brokenness, well, it turns out your brokenness is really your wholeness. I don't really know how to explain that except by going through, you you ask all the time in Amazing Grace Group, is being in this situation done FOR you instead of TO you?

And what it's done for me, and I think for the people that I know in the tribe, is it's taken us from brokenness to recognize that brokenness is really our wholeness. The best part of who we were, we weren't perfect, you know, but the best parts of ourselves we gave in those lives that we were in, and they were just discarded. They weren't cared about. And that's the heartbreak. You know, that's the heartbreak for me, is that we weren't good enough. Well, it wasn't that we weren't good enough. It's just that we were trying to give our best parts to the wrong people. Right? And so there has to come some wisdom and some discernment along the way. You can't just go out there and open your heart up to anybody, 

which is kind of what highly sensitive people tend to do, so you have to learn the boundaries, your own boundaries, which I think we a lot of us, myself included, never really had. know, when you're when you go through this trauma and when you're in survival mode and you're just looking for that fix, basically, it's like we talk about this being like an addiction.

You're looking for that emotional fix of being good enough, being cared for, getting those things that you didn't get as a child or whenever, those things that you've been searching for, living your life for, but to the wrong people. Because the people that want to take advantage of that are not the people that we need to be giving that to. The people who, you know, are wanting to receive and then give are the people we need to be focusing on. So it's just a question of adjusting your discernment, and but still holding your heart open. Because that's one of the dangers that I found in the passive aggressive style of relationship is that it would be very easy to become passive aggressive just like they were and go tip for tat, right? And lose yourself in the process. The hardest thing would be to look at the passive aggressiveness, acknowledge the feeling, which really sucks to be treated like that and just go, I'm not going to retaliate. I'm not going to become that.

I'm not going to let this person manipulate me into becoming less than I am. And that's difficult to hold on to because some days you don't want to go there. Some days you're just like, to hell with this, right?

Marcia Williams (24:37)

And the first thing we have to do is figure out who that is. When you said less than who I am, I first got to know who that is. And until I know who that is, I'm going to let you treat me less than who I am, because I don't even know who that is. 

Paul (24:40)

Yeah, right. Well, once I see and feel own my truth, that I know what it feels like to be loved and cared for and validated. Once I know that, I become the person who says who I'm going to let in my life and who I'm not going to let in my life. So for me, loneliness, that chronic isolation happens if you don't have that part in yourself, you know, that allows you to depend on yourself or trust yourself. Right?

And you can be lost with somebody else for 30 years, or you can be found and not have all the drama. So what I decided was, I'll just, so this has led me to other parts of growth that being in community has, because even though we got each other's back, we're also, we're bringing the hard truth, you know, to people who want to try to wiggle out of holding the other person accountable. And I've learned that I did try to get a lot of wiggling because I was trying to be the good person. And, but what I've learned is that people need to be held accountable. You know, we talk about there's no fairness. Well, there really isn't, but what's fair to me is when you hold somebody accountable, not in a mean way, not in an ugly way, not as a vengeful way, but you're looking at their behavior and holding them accountable for who they're being.

Marcia Williams (26:17)

And holding them accountable Again, that's something I'm doing. Because if I wait around like I did for 30 years for him to accept accountability, then like you said, it's gonna be another 30 years. So holding them accountable means to myself, if I hold you accountable, that means that I will not allow you to treat me this way, disrespect me this way, and the list goes on. And that's holding them accountable. What do I do with that is the question.

Paul (26:53)

I will not be a scapegoat for any system. That's me holding them accountable. I will not be in that system. And you don't, maybe that doesn't bother you. Maybe you can just go find another scapegoat. that's not my decision. That's not, I'm not responsible for that. So that's the other thing. I'm not responsible for what other people decide to do. I can let that go. Used to I would take, I would take that on. I don't do that. I'm not doing, not doing that today or I'm asking myself the question, am I taking on their stuff?

No, I just take on my stuff. But then we get into conversations in the tribe about, well, if they would only do this. And my answer to that is they had 26 years to do that. If they haven't done that in the first three months or the first week or the first day, they're never going to do it. And for sure, if they haven't done it 26 years, they're sure not going to do it. That's not the way they're built. Don't wait for an apology. Don't wait for them to hold themselves accountable. It's never going to happen. Or if it does happen, you know, whatever.

We want fairness. We want resolution. the only resolution is that I found where I'm at now. And as we discussed, this is a process. It's an evolution. It is to leave the things that don't support you. So I have this philosophy now of healthy boundaries. It's sort of my system. So if you meet someone and you want to develop a relationship with them, or there's a possibility that if you have mutual empathy, they're listening to you, you're listening to them, and there's a resonance there of mutual empathy, then you can have mutual respect. I can respect their truth, they can respect my truth. And from there, you can actually build mutual trust. But if you don't have mutual empathy, you won't have mutual respect. And if you don't have mutual respect, you'll never have a solid basis for truly trusting someone, you know, it really has to come back to was there empathy there? Did I feel empathy there? And if I didn't feel empathy there, then probably there's not much respect there. They're probably just acting. They're putting that mask on. They're just manipulating.

Marcia Williams (29:20)

And these are hard truths to come to because once you, like you said it earlier, once you see it, you can't unsee it. And you can't unsee it, that means, Now what do I do with this awareness? That's the hard part. And you said this before, you can't do this alone. You don't have to do this alone. And that's what the community is for.

And you've just been so generous and again, courageous in sharing with day one, even to the fact here's where community as you talk so much about community and not doing alone, As a part of my program, I created the REP, the recovery empowerment partner. You have agreed as a part of your healing journey and because you're so empathic and you know what this feels like, you've agreed because you wanna give back and help others to be a recovery empowerment partner. That's how passionate you are about this healing journey. I mean, you've just been a pivotal part of this creation.

Paul (30:25)

Everyone's in a different stage, a different phase. If someone's there and they are wondering, can they hang in there and make it with the person? I'm learning that it's taken a while, but I've learned that everybody has their journey. Everyone has their process. And all you can do is love and support people in their process. You can tell them your experience. You can tell them what you learned. Right? This is what I learned, what I went through. But I can't tell you what you're going through, I don't know. But if anything I can say can help you. And sometimes it's just, you know, saying one sentence or one word or whatever, and the light comes on, right? It's a process. It's a process of waking up and coming to your own decision, your own truths. Right? So I think that's my big, my big, sermon is that come to your own truth, you know, align with your own truths, and reflect on that. So, but I can't thank you enough. I'm going to get emotional again for being the space for the grace. I always say it was there when I got there.

Marcia Williams (31:35)

And your willingness to be so open, honest, and transparent with your feelings. You demonstrate particularly, but not exclusively to men, empathic men, that it's okay to have feelings and it's okay to express them. And I just love that about you. Yay, you. You're the master of feelings. I don't know what I would do in groups without you.

Paul (31:55)

I'm not the master of feelings!  I am the boat on the water of the ocean of feelings, actually. I'm just riding the waves.

Marcia Williams (32:05)

And you create waves in a safe way so that other people can see that, hey, I can ride a few waves. I can make my own waves and I'm still standing.