[MUSIC PLAYING]
Today I want to talk to you.
I want to have a heart-to-heart with you.
If you're somebody who is struggling with depression
and anxiety and emotions that sometimes you can't even name,
if you ever feel like giving up, I want you to consider this.
I want you to consider what would
happen if you grew up knowing that you were always enough.
I want you to consider what would happen
to you right here, right now.
How would you be feeling right here,
right now if you had somebody in your life
pushing you to become the best that you were supposed to be,
pushing you every day to believe in yourself, believing in you,
looking into their eyes and knowing that they see greatness
within you?
How would you show up every day of your life
if you knew that you had somebody on your back letting
you know that they were there for you,
encouraging you, nurturing you?
How would you go to school?
How would you go to work?
How would you approach life if you
knew that you had that type of support in your life
every day-- someone that you could count on no matter what?
What if you knew that with every soul of your being
that you were enough?
What if you knew that no matter what
you did that you had somebody in your corner
that believed in you?
What if you grew up having people and maybe even
a family that supported you, that
encouraged you, that said to you, yes, go out?
Follow your dreams.
Yes, that's awesome.
You can do this.
You can really do this.
What would happen to you in your life
today if you had that kind of encouragement from day one?
Look, here's the problem.
If you grew up like me, you didn't have those types
of life experiences.
I'm going to let you in on a little secret.
I grew up with a father who told me I was ugly.
I grew up with a mother who told me
that I was a bad little girl.
I grew up with a mom who called me selfish every time
I couldn't figure out what she needed
or how she wanted me to show up.
And I felt bad about myself.
I carried shame with me every single day of my life.
And it showed up in school.
It showed up in the playground.
It showed up on my tests.
It showed up in the way that I lived my life every single day.
The song my father used to sing went like this.
You is an ugly child.
Who could your poppa be?
If I was your daddy, I would go jump in the sea.
My father thought that that was funny.
He didn't think that he should raise competent children.
And you know what?
He got his wish.
He raised insecure children, codependent children,
love-addicted children, emotionally scarred children.
All three of us-- my brother, my sister, and I-- all
struggled with food, with eating disorders,
with clinical depression, asthma, migraine headaches,
you name it.
Our minds suffered.
Our bodies suffered.
Our souls suffered.
We grew up never feeling good enough.
And it was like cancer.
When I was 12 years old, I decided that I
was going to kill myself.
The world was just too damn cold.
It made no sense to me that I was on planet Earth.
And I was in so much pain.
And I love these people, and they couldn't see it.
They couldn't connect to me.
The only thing that kept happening
was more pain, more rejection, more abandonment.
And I never could see a way out.
Going to school.
Reaching out to teachers.
Having them look at me like I was crazy.
Having them not pay attention to when the boys were hitting me.
Having them ignore the snot that was on my desk because somebody
thought it was funny to put snot on my desk.
Having them ignore the nasty pictures that were scribbled
on the top of my desk.
Having them ignore when I was being bullied
when I would cry in the corner.
Having them absolutely ignore all of that was going on only
made me feel worse and more abandoned.
I grew a tough skin, or so it looked.
I went to school with a chip on my shoulder.
It was my defense mechanism.
I thought that if I showed up tough,
then people would leave me alone.
But it didn't work.
Inside, I was soft.
Inside, I wanted to be that little girl that
could put a bow in her hair.
Inside, I wanted the boys to like me.
Inside, I wanted the girls to like me.
But on the outside, I had this tough exterior,
while on the inside I was collapsing and begging
for someone, anyone, to reach me.
The day came when the boy that I loved
humiliated me in front of all the kids in my class.
And as he stood in the doorway calling my name,
cursing my name, calling me every disgusting
name in the book he could think of, every system in my body
went on overload.
But oddly enough, I felt like I was shutting down.
And the one thought that got me through that afternoon that
prevented me from jumping out of my skin
and crying and falling apart in front of all these kids
and the teachers there was this idea that, I know.
I'm going to go home, and I'm going to kill myself.
I know it sounds crazy.
But that one thought that, oh, soon this will be all over.
This will be done.
I don't have to face my mother.
I don't have to face my father.
I don't have to fight with my brother anymore.
I don't have to listen to the screaming and the yelling
and the put-downs.
I don't have to pretend that my house is happy
and it's sane when it's not.
I can just leave.
I don't have to put up with being bullied and being
chased from the park anymore and having people hound me.
I don't have to do this anymore.
Yes, I'm going to kill myself.
I went home.
I got my father's gun.
And I stood in my mother's bedroom mirror.
And for a moment, I caught a glimpse
of the little girl that was in so much pain.
For the first time in my life, I found empathy for myself.
Very bizarre experience, but it changed my life.
Looking at myself, looking at the reflection of me
in the mirror and watching the tears stain my Catholic school
uniform, this amazing thing happened.
I could see the little girl that was in so much pain.
Nobody in my life ever made me feel like they could see me.
I was psychologically invisible.
And I think that's what's so wrong in this world.
So many of us feel psychologically invisible.
Our children feel psychologically invisible.
Children who are coming from dysfunctional homes who
have no one patting them on the back being
grateful that they're home from school.
No one there to cook them a healthy meal.
No one to go to parent-teacher conference to support them.
No one checking their homework.
No one encouraging them.
Parents who are overwhelmed and parents
who are alcoholics and dysfunctional,
suffering from depression, not able
to show up for their children.
We're a world that's suffering.
And we have to figure this out.
But the only thing that we have control over is us.
We have to figure ourselves out.
And once we figure that out, I think it's up to us
to share what we learned.
You see, once I started seeing myself,
I was able to see other people.
The more I saw myself, the more I saw my own pain, the more I
was able to see my children, the more
I was able to see other people.
Now I get it.
But when I was 12 years old and I
had no one that I can turn to, the world
was a very dark place.
And I think it's up to us.
We've got to find as many ways as possible
to reach out to children who feel like they're alone.
Children don't have-- their brains are not wired yet.
They don't understand cause and effect.
They are limbic.
They are emotional.
If you are someone who's suffering, if you are that kid
and you feel alone and you feel like no one's there for you,
you might be right.
People might not be showing up for you.
Your teachers might not get it.
Your parents might be so dysfunctional or so out of it
or so dissociated or so depressed or whatever or so
aloof that they don't see you.
You're right if you feel this pain.
But don't let it end there.
That doesn't have to be where your story ends.
You can begin seeing you.
You can begin understanding that you are valid.
And it's not your fault if the adults in your life
don't see you.
I want you to believe in the light that you are.
I want you to believe.
I don't care if 2, if you're 12, if you're 22 or 52 or 102.
You have to believe that you are worthy.
You have to believe that you were divine.
You have to understand that what happened to you matters.
Who you were born to matters.
How people treated you mattered.
Whether or not you got the right nurturing
or you didn't mattered.
If you were abandoned-- that matters.
If you were adopted and you were abused
or if you were pushed around in foster care--
that matters.
If you were sexually abused by a sibling--
that matters.
If you were sexually abused by a member of the family
or a member of the clergy and how that was dealt
with in your family matters.
What I'm trying to say is, you matter.
And everything that happened to you matters.
Please, it is not your fault if you
didn't have people support you.
It is not your fault if people didn't nurture you.
You deserve to be nurtured.
And you are enough.
But I am here to tell you, as somebody
who thought she was going to kill herself that day when she
was 12, who had no one in her life
that she thought that she could turn to,
who felt extremely abandoned and rejected and disillusioned
by society, I am telling you that I was
able to turn my life around.
It wasn't easy.
It was really hard.
And many, many years came where I
had to struggle through dysfunctional thinking,
self-sabotaging thoughts, negative emotions,
negative self-talk and depression and eating
disorders.
I went through so much of it, just like so many of you.
But I am telling you, now that I am on the other end of it,
I learned to believe in my innate value.
And no matter how dark your life is, no matter
where you are in your life, you must learn
to believe that you are here.
And because you are here, you matter.
You're actually matter.
You're atomic matter.
Therefore you're matter, and you matter.
Please, if you're suffering from depression,
if you're suffering from toxic loneliness,
if you're suffering from codependency,
if you're suffering from severe negative self-talk,
know that there is a way out.
Reach out in your community.
Research and find people that you
can go to that can understand what you're going through.
You are not alone.
Reach out to the Suicide National Hotline.
Reach out to a 12-step group.
Go to a mentor.
Find someone and tell them the truth.
Tell them what you're truly struggling with.
But at the end of the day, please
believe that you were born enough
and that what happened to you matters.
You can restructure your life as long as you
understand that it's not you.
It's what happened to you that is wrong.
You are worthy, and you are divine.
If you've meant to hear this message,
then you've received it.
And if you know someone who's struggling.
Don't let them struggle alone.
Reach out.
Do whatever you can to get someone that you know
is struggling the mental health resources they
need, the support they need.
Talk to somebody.
We need one another.
And as we move forward with technology,
we're seeing what happens.
We're seeing it.
Playgrounds are emptier.
The malls are closing.
People are meeting outside less and less often.
We're learning online.
We're not even learning in school classrooms anymore.
And yet human beings are born to connect.
We need one another.
We need ourselves.
And when we feel abandoned and disconnected from,
we suffer the worst human experience ever--
loneliness, rejection, and abandonment from our own tribe.
You are a member of the human tribe.
It doesn't matter who your mother and father is.
You matter.
You're an aspect of humanity.
Please learn to believe that you are enough.
Please learn to connect to yourself, please.
And if anyone out there-- if you see a child who's
struggling and in need, please do
what you can to get that child the resources they need.
Namaste, and thank you for listening.
Bye for now.