Welcome Meghann Perry to the Peripeteia podcast. I am so grateful that you're here. And I just told you before we hit record that literally every time I get to be in your presence, I'm, I'm moved to tears typically. So your story is so powerful.
Parapatea means a curve ball or a change in events. When I started this podcast, I mean, there's nobody I could think of that embraces that. Um, curveball, turnaround, transformation, more than you. So I was lucky enough to hear you speak your story at the SheRecovers conference in Chicago. And then I just became a fangirl, followed you around.
I know we met at a recovery conference in Denver and I was able to take your storytelling class. Storytelling is just like so important to me. Your class was transformative for me. It was so hard for me as a writer to not. Right. But speak, speak my story. I felt so vulnerable here. I am this like award winning sober coach and being in a virtual room of people sharing my story.
Just I had a lump in my throat the entire time, but ultimately came up with something pretty beautiful. So, um, I see how you've changed lives of others and I see how you've changed the life of your own. And I'm just so, so grateful to have you here. So thank you. Heather, I love being amongst, uh, just people who help change other people's lives.
And so, to hear you say that, I'm like, yeah, but you do that too. Oh yeah, you can see it in one, you can see it in, it's like a mirror, right? Yeah. It's just, we have such an amazing, you know, it's, it's easy to get focused on what is hard or bad or whatever, but, but when I think about how many amazing people like yourself that I get to just to be in space with and be in connection with who are doing incredible work, um, helping others in whether they mean to or not, right?
So a lot of the times we're just helping ourselves, but we're helping others. Uh, and sometimes just sharing our story is helpful without any credentials after our name, right? Except for somebody who's had a lived experience. Absolutely. And all of what I do comes from things that I either did do or do do that helped me.
And so, you know, all of my work with storytelling was like, Oh my gosh, I discovered this amazing thing. Come on, everybody like come do it. Let's do it. Well, yeah, yeah, I was sold. I was sold for sure on that. And it's, it's such a powerful way to share and help yourself and help others by speaking it out loud, right?
There, there's the quote about, um, shame hides in dark corners, right? In secrets. And when we say it out loud, it releases us. From a lot of that shame and that's what we're going to talk about today, you know, this journey of self compassion, embracing your whole self and coming home, you know, and it's not a simple story when we originally talked, it was like, you have this, I mean, you have this like made for TV movie comeback story.
And in fact, I wanted to share, I have my mother in law's hand me down people magazine here and, um, in it. Is your daughter, the literal centerfold of People Magazine, is your daughter, um, Sophie. And instead of reading your bio, I was going to just read a brief, um, paragraph that they have here. And I thought that would be kind of a good jumping off point for us.
So this story is called, um, Born Dependent on Drugs. These kids are unbelievably resilient. In this corner section, it says bonding with mom starting at age four, Sophie Perry Stewart began living in foster care and with relatives while her mom, Meghann Perry, sought treatment for addiction through Meghann's health and legal struggles.
I never gave up on getting better. She says. Six years later, she and her daughter moved back in together. Meghann's recovery has been a cornerstone of their relationship as it is healed. We are a team these days, Sophie says, and like any family, we do our best to take care of each other.
That's going to bring us both to tears right from the beginning. Yes. And, um, yeah, it's so complicated. Like it's already complicated just hearing you read that because I'm, I'm in a time of difficulty in my relationship with Sophie. And so, um, just the complexity of, of all that we are today and all that we have been, and, you know, 23 years, she's 23.
And. So much has happened and good things and not so good things and just challenges and struggles and things we've overcome and things we still, um, face every day as challenges and it's, it's hard to hold all of that together in one, you know, people article is, oh, just one tiny slice of all that has happened.
Um, and it's, and it's, it's interesting. It's. I just want to say that it's weird. That people have people magazine and they're like, I saw you, you know, people magazine or because it and to have you hold that up and sort of read it because it's this weird meeting of my personal world and this exterior world.
I have no control over. Um, in terms of how people see me and people know who I am and all of that and. So it's just feeling very complex in this moment to have you share that, that article and think about where I am with my relationship with Sophie, where I am personally, where I am in relationship with my stories.
And I think that's, you know, that's the heart of my work is, is being in relationship with my stories and therefore in relationship with all of the selves who navigated all of that. And, you know, all of the people that I've been in that 23 years, And all of the people that I was in the 28 years before that, um, it's a lot to hold.
It's a lot to hold.
Yeah. I think of self as the Russian nesting dolls, kind of, right? Like each of our previous selves lives inside this current shell that we're in. Holding, um, and we may act and behave in this way or be this age with these experiences, but all those previous versions are there with us. Do you see yourself in that way?
Absolutely. And, oh my goodness, I've learned so much about that with, with the storytelling work and, um, like right now I'm in the season of sadness that I'm really dealing with some very just acute sadness and grief and Partly it's the time of the year. I find, you know, it's the holidays right now and I find that really challenging.
Um, part of it is that, you know, I'm going through some challenges in my relationship with Sophie. Uh, part of it is that I'm doing some writing and I'm digging deep and I literally dig, dug deep in my basement to find old records and photos and everything of, of my past. And, um,
And I think that when I think about that sadness, I think that there are many selves of me who are bringing that sadness to this moment. So, as I sit with this sadness and I try to honor it, I try to, you know, which. I don't know if that's, that's kind of a, it feels like a cliche these days to like I'm going to honor my feelings, you know, but I don't want to dismiss.
I don't want to put aside. I don't want to negate. I want to hold, um, sadness, which is not fun. Um, but in that sadness, it are the voices of all of those. Girls and women that I've been who have experienced the things that create the sadness and bring this grief. And so there's a beautiful aspect to the sadness too, because I can hear them talking to me.
I can feel them with me. And as I'm in a season right now of writing, which, you know, I primarily work in verbal storytelling right now. I'm writing and I'm writing the past. Um, and so those characters. Those selves of me are very, they're really speaking right now. They're very present with me,
which is, it's like that hard work that, you know, is healing. It's that hard work that you're like, you know, I know this is going to be good for me. It feels really hard right now to try to bring all of them together. I have been so many different people and I think about my past selves. That I just continually, continually reinvented myself to meet the next occasion.
And I've had a life of epic twists and turns of huge paradoxes. Uh, but at its core, for as long as I can remember, it's been survival. It's just been, how do I survive the next thing that's happening to me? And so the selves that were cast aside were the ones that didn't help me survive. And so that's a lot of beautiful people that got left behind, um, the little girls and the teenagers who dreamed of big things and the, you know, the early twenties of realizing those.
Dreams were gone and were never going to happen and kind of facing this new reality as somebody with a really, really chaotic and problematic relationship to substances that was causing profound harm and putting me in very dangerous situations and Who did I have to become to walk through that. And when I think about just how many things have happened over the course of my life that have been challenging and I have demanded that I survive, find a way to survive in some way.
I feel the loss of, of so many of those beautiful selves that had to be abandoned in order to get through the next situation,
you know, and that's just, it just. You know, a lot of that sadness is, is those girls speaking as those, um, those voices and those people that I have been clamoring for my attention, wanting to be seen, wanting to be heard, wanting to be understood and known, and really wanting to become one with me.
I think the greatest thing that I could do in this And so my first sort of self journey is have everybody be home with me. Yeah. All come back home. I have this
sort of imagery that I go to of, you know, when I, I had a lot of trauma. And I've done a fair amount of trauma work. And so in EMDR, then EMDR, and the first task is create that safe place. So my safe place is this meadow. It's a beautiful meadow and it's summer and there's. Lots of wildflowers and trees and running water and bugs and birds and, you know, it's just this beautiful place and I have my dog Ruby with me.
She's um, she's, she's right here behind me. She's just a big white oaf. It's just a very gentle, loving dog and she was kind of my safe person. Uh, to be in the meadow with me and then
I picture these girls, the four year old, and the seven year old, and the nine year old, and the fifteen year old, and the twenty two year old walking into that meadow and being seen and recognized and welcomed. And that if I keep going and do the work well, all of us will be in that meadow together. And how are they walking individually in.
Oh, and who are they being welcomed by current you. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And Ruby. I need help. I need to support somebody so that's Ruby who, because the challenge has been I don't love them and in fact I've soundly rejected them most of my life. And I've resented them. And I've even hated them at times and different ones at different times for different reasons.
But I think I, you know, I blamed myself for a lot of the circumstances I found myself in across my life. And so I blamed that girl or that woman that I was at the time for putting me in that position because you had done wrong because I, yeah, something I did wrong or I was inherently bad. And that's why these things happen to me.
So, you know, you're missing. Yeah. Like all of the, all of the really harmful interactions with men, right. My own, I mean, two moments are allowing myself, allowing myself to be treated certain ways or being harmed in certain ways or other dangerous situations. Um, you know, I've had guns to my head. I've had, I've been in the middle of, of, uh, gang beefs, like.
I've been in such profound danger so many times and I always thought it was my fault. This is, I made the decisions that got me here. And so I would reject the girls who were so vulnerable or weak to have allowed a man to do that to me, or who were so stupid to put myself in that situation, uh, to be at such high risk and have a gun to my head or, you know, that I, it's my own terrible decision making.
And so I just. Rejected and rejected and rejected those so that critic is trying to be your protector right thing if you're not if you were so stupid in the past. Don't be so stupid now. Right. Mm hmm. Yes, and just that I deserved it. Mm hmm. I deserve it. You know, um, and, you know, reconciliation with them and with that rejection of them is hard work.
It's hard work, but it's yeah, it was your protection and survival. I can see that to shut them down to not be them to not welcome them to. Exit them from your life, show them the door and be somebody different, somebody smarter, somebody who didn't make those mistakes, somebody who didn't put themselves in those situations, right?
But now at this point in your life, you are going excavating for them is what I'm hearing. You are going to find them. They've been put to pasture and you're going out to the meadow to call their name and bring them back in. They've been lost. And you told him to get lost. Right? And now you're saying come here four year old Meghann and seven year old and nine year old and 20 year old and um, you are welcome here.
I want to know you. So with this, I would, and this is like hard work, like you said, it's, it's bringing a lot of sadness and doing it. Why go excavating for this? Why do this? Why now?
Why now? So why now is harder to answer than the why. I think that, you know, in my own healing journey, Uh, I've always been a storyteller of, of some kind, you know, I went to school for theater. Um, I was always a writer and I've always been most fascinated by myself. So, you know, personal narrative, uh, docudrama, that kind of thing, you know, I've always loved the most.
Um, because I think I recognize the healing and the power that comes from a really. Knowing the meaning of what has happened to me and be able to talk about it and, um, and so I think I've been on the search for meaning. I've been on the search for how to figure out, you know, uh, trying to figure out how did all of this happen to me?
Why did all of it happen to me? And what do I do with it? And I think for myself, you know, I've spent the last 10 years working in the addiction recovery space. And really being about helping others and, and, and that only goes so far
when it's the work I need to do is, is on me. Damn right. Don't tell me that my ears. It's so helpful to help other people live their lives, you know, their best lives and heal their trauma about that. I don't need a mirror. Thank you very much. I'm fine. So evolved over here. Yeah. And my life has to mean more than just that I went through this to help others, because there's so many people in recovery define themselves sort of, it's like we have to earn our wellness.
We have to earn our recovery and we don't deserve it unless we're working hard and we're giving it away. And, um, Oh, it's our, it's our new codependency, it's codependency in a new way. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And it's just on a deep level for me. It was. I, I don't deserve this unless I'm like saving lives on this noble mission.
Well, I can't save anybody's life. Let's just get that out of the way. It did move me to tears, but we all are in charge of saving our own lives for sure. Yeah. But that I can't, that fuel runs out. I can't run on helping others to earn my life. Uh, it, it, it's so, it was repentance. It felt like repentance. For you, and this is interesting because you've been in the prison system, so almost like you've been conditioned, I mean maybe just in society in general, conditioned that if you do bad now, do your community service.
I don't know if you grew up Catholic, but maybe then you'll be saved, right? Then, then, then there's a spot for you in heaven or something. And how different our lives could be, I know mine for sure, if I believed that I deserved a good life. I did not have that belief system at all. And I'm just getting there.
Oh. So, were you born, your previous thinking born not deserving a good life, or because of the poor choices you made, you didn't deserve a good life, or you couldn't recover from the things you had done that were bad and wrong? I was raised to believe I had to earn it, and then I really messed everything up.
If you're a good girl, if you do these things, then you deserve enlightenment and inner peace and stuff by your behavior. And then look what happened. Look what I did. You really fucked it up. You blew it up, let's be honest. You don't get to People Magazine without it, okay? They need this story. My only deserving was earned by my righteous mother.
And my redemption story and my saving the world was the only way that I could reconcile my worth and that I deserved this new life that I have. And, and so I weird, you know, I put myself very, very close to a real serious mental health crisis trying to do that. And. Even, uh, you know, and I stepped back from my work.
I was a recovery coach and I stepped back from direct service work because it was, I couldn't, I, I was giving way too much away. Um, but I just came to a place where I realized how hollow I, I was, I guess, like I, how it, it, I had rejected all of those. Parts of me. And when I take away the, the hero that saved everybody, then you take away the hero and whoa, there's like nothing there is what it felt like.
There's nothing left here and how painful it is to recognize. Um, that I don't, I don't have my own self worth and my own, um, sense of deserving a good life. Like, who am I if I'm not all these other things? So I had stripped away the What I used to call the addict, the felon, uh, the, the, you know, um, the person who's in house, the person who's violent, who's, uh, you know, uh, and then I, and then I became a hero and then I stripped away, I'm still trying to, oh my goodness, but once I started taking that away.
What was left? Not very much. Oh, you're saying that, you're saying that because there's nothing left for the ego. Let's say that she recovers speaker and top storyteller and paid, you know, keynote or whatever. But what I see is what's left is you. Just you, all of you, not that ego, and you have always been a little bit fascinated with yourself.
You mentioned that in theater. So this journey to self love, from self blame to self love, is, that's the most powerful.
You know, I can tell you intellectually that what was left was this good, wonderful, beautiful, perfectly designed, imperfect human, but I couldn't tell you that from in my heart or in my belly. So, you know, the shell that was left, had to figure out how do I rebuild or how do I reclaim. And that's where the storytelling came in, because it's true I have all these external accolades and people magazine and keynotes and everyone knows I, you know, you know, You know, I'm, I'm in a pond, so I'm not that, you know, big fish in my little pond and whatever, you know, all this external accomplishments and, you know, people telling me I'm wonderful and all of that, but underneath that, that was only, I'm only wonderful for those things.
And it doesn't matter, the external doesn't matter if you're not, if you don't feel it from within, from in your belly, right? So that's the work. And that reclaiming of self has been for me done through storytelling. And so yes, to answer your original question, yes, I am very deliberately going out. And when I started this, I didn't know that's what I was doing and a fascination with myself was.
Is really just this, um, I mean, we all have a fascination with ourselves. It's ego driven and it's actually a normal primal survival strategy. That's built us. So there's nothing wrong with that. No. And also as babies were fascinated with our own reflection, like we should be, like, I think that's beautiful.
I don't think that's arrogant, you know, like we should be fascinated. Our dogs are fascinated with their own reflection, right? Like this is like. We should be fascinated with ourself. I love that. Yeah. Well, here I am just counting it a little because I don't want to, you know, like that ego check. It's like, yeah, complicated, but.
Oh, why not be in love with ourselves? I would love to. Yes. Working on it. Working on it. And so, yeah, for me, it was just, I need to write and I need to storytell to make sense of myself to myself and to understand who I actually am without all of that other stuff. And my early storytelling was feeding that external stuff.
And I've gotten to a point over the last few years, I honestly doing some trauma therapy. I did a year and a half of like a group. drama therapy process with three other women and an amazing counselor. Um, and that really shifted things to me starting to storytelling in a much more authentic way and for not so much an ego driven way, but for myself, like really, really for myself.
And that has, um, really helped me. Uh, go back and reclaim and rediscover and incorporate, um, as well as always creating new selves and new versions of myself to meet the new moment, but the new moment, thank God. Isn't the most recent arrest. The new moment is not another overdose. The new moment is not, um, uh, you know, losing custody of my child like the new moments are some epic adventure.
We're challenging work situation that I signed up for because I love to be challenged and I love to take professional risks. Or whatever, or in my, you know, I am in a relationship now, an intimate relationship, which is like, what? What? I was single for six. I had a lot of opportunities for learning. Yes. Oh my goodness.
Yeah. To long term disastrous. Deep love, but both of us being very, very unwell, uh, relationships and then I was alone for six years in recovery. And, um, yeah, so now being in a relationship with another person and, you know, as long as the recovery is. Such a learning. I'm learning so much about opportunities for development here.
But these are the moments I get to meet with new versions of myself today, you know? Yeah. And I feel like the question to ask yourself over and over again, to test the strength of self is like, Is that the most honest in your storytelling to you? Is that the most honest version of the story? No. Okay, write it again.
Is this the most honest? No. Maybe the third time you're starting to actually tap into something, right? The truth of your truth, right? I want the truth I can find. And that's where the shift has been in my speaking. How honest can I, can I really be with myself? Yeah. The purpose of, um, honoring myself, having, being in integrity with my own self, uh, and with, um, you know, trying to be the truest version of myself and with trying to discern meaning and, and, and understand things in a way It is true because I know that I, you know, the story that the stories that I tell myself are just the stories that I tell myself.
They aren't necessarily true, right? I have to work at them being true. And I think that that process of going back and saying, okay, that's just the bullshit. That's just the bullshit I've been saying for 15 years about this thing. What is actually. The closest I can get to the truth and when we re author that's narrative therapy right and that's that's the work that I do with others is, is, is essentially a narrative therapy process of saying.
And I'll give you an example. And so one, the story that most people know me for, which is partly what was in People Magazine, but I was, um, 28 and, uh, I found out that, um, I was on methadone. I'd stopped using heroin. Right after that, I found out that I was pregnant. My husband and I were having a baby all of a sudden.
And, um, five weeks after we found out that I was pregnant, the, the drug enforcement. administration came to the door with a felony indictment for trafficking heroin for something that had happened three months before I got pregnant. And so I found myself, um, incarcerated at five months pregnant. Um, my husband at the time was an undocumented immigrant and, uh, was, you know, using and, and, you know, really struggling and not super able to, to, to support He was fighting his own battles and I had no bail and I, you know, they wanted two years for this felony trafficking charges my first offense of any kind, except for like a small teenage thing, and
I found myself in that jail. So full of self loathing, so aghast and unbelief, disbelieving of the circumstances I'd found myself in and completely blaming myself. And I thought that I was a terrible, terrible mother. I had no right to be a mother. And I was totally destroying both my own life and my daughter's life before her life had even begun.
And, um, basically I was just Straight up fucking everything up, not just for me, but for my job, and I told the story that way. I was simultaneously both a terrible victim, like, such a victim that should be pitied and also a perpetrator of everything that was happening to me.
And that's how I told the story for years. Because that was the story I needed to tell myself at the time to sort of protect me and find a way to make things make sense or be okay or something to reconcile that somehow of how I was in that situation to myself and to others. And it served me to get try to get my needs met and so it was it was this whole concocted story piece together in in during the time of the greatest trauma of my life.
And so that became the truth. And that's what I told. I told that story for over a decade, and I told it publicly. I got into recovery, I started doing advocacy, and I'm at Harvard Law School, I'm on a CBS News documentary. Uh, I'm in all of these, you know, very public spaces telling a story from that perspective.
And as I got a little deeper into the craft of storytelling, I started Understanding that that wasn't the truth and seeking that truthier truth and going on that expedition back to see what's really what really went on, and who I was really I think who I was. I found out that that was all bull. That was all crap.
That was not the story at all. Uh, the story was much more something like this. I was doing the best that I could to, um, uh, uh, stop using the substances that were the most chaotic for me. I was taking medication to help me do that. Um, I ended up pregnant because. I had gone years without even having a menstrual cycle or anything.
I had no idea that I even was capable of getting pregnant. Um, and that the, you know, what happened with the DEA and the charges is, it just is what it is, the system is what it is, but when I found myself in jail, the truth is that I wanted desperately to be a good mother. I, I wanted the best life for my child.
I desperately wanted out of the life that I had been living, uh, and I really, really wanted to change.
And so all of a sudden there's this compassion that came in. There's this self forgiveness that came in. There's this, this self love that entered the story that had not been there before. And as I started to sort of live in that story. Um, it could soften towards myself, I get there was a softening there was a letting go there was a, a love that came in that I haven't had before.
And so that was a game changing moment for me of when I started to understand. That I could re rewrite those stories and re narrate them to myself and profoundly change who I am now by changing who I know, knew myself to be and know myself to have been then. And that's when it was like the light bulb really went off and that's really been the primary work that I've done since is doing that for myself and we're continuing to do that.
And helping others do that and I'm writing right now about that time in my life and that was the digging deep in the basement was defined. I have my whole record from the methadone clinic from that time, which and I have my entire all the court documents and police records from that time. And I'm discovering these crazy things that I had no idea were true.
Um, you know, and kind of piecing back together and trying to go deep and, um, really see her and, and piece it back together again. So this is yet again, a newer version of this, a newer, uh, a deeper understanding and a truthier truth that I'm coming to now, um, 23 years later.
You're healing that person inside of you and you can't go back. I mean, oh my gosh, knowing what you know now you want to go back right to that cell and say you're doing the best you can. You want to be a good mom at the time. You probably couldn't even say that because that would show that you're not being a good mom.
And that would be more self blame. You couldn't get to that level of honesty, but now you can in your tenderness towards yourself. And now. Again, when you're signing up for something, that's a, it's a work risk. It's not, it's not going to keep you in or out of jail likely at this point, but you can do, I'm, I'm nervous.
Why? No one's going to like you. It's going to fail. It's going to flop. You can go, I, my heart intention is to give my best here. My heart intention is to be my truthiest version of myself and share that in hopes that that will help heal me and others. So you're taking that, carrying it with you. You're scooping up all those old selves and bringing them with you.
And you have no eyes to see now. Yeah, and it's, you know, and it's hard and it's slow and it's good. Um, and I can't, I can't help but recognize too that I'm not doing such a good job of that with my present self, right? So that compassion, I've got the retroactive, retroactive compassion work. Yeah. Right.
Right. I'm like, how if I could just apply all that to my present self, but maybe I'll have to wait for my future self to be able to be that compassionate towards my present self. Yeah, you have to go. What would 60 year old Meghann say? What would 80 year old Meghann say? Right? Yeah, midlife Meghann or whatever.
Yeah, but still, it is certainly allowing so much more space for self love in my, in my life. And I'm so much more forgiving of myself and so much more, um, compassionate towards myself. Um, and I keep writing and I keep storytelling and I keep going because I do want to be at peace. Oh my goodness. I would love to be at peace with myself.
And that's really, you don't feel like you have that yet. Have you had that ever? I don't think I've ever had it. Um, that I grew up with just a sense of longing, a sense of loss, a sense of insecurity, like instability. Um, so I don't feel like I've ever had it. Do I have, I have, you know, I've always had some and do I have a lot more today?
Oh my gosh, yes. But I'm still a relatively tormented spirit. Yeah, this theme, this theme that is coming up in this conversation that I've just, um, I have the imagery that you do, and I'm feeling it so strong as lost these little selves lost, right. And told to get lost. And you're saying that's sort of your upbringing too.
And this desire to come home, you know, everybody home and you're safe here and secure and it's a peaceful home. Yes. Yes. Because, you know, I don't want people to look at me for one minute and think and look at the work that I do and think I have it figured out. Right. I don't want people to look at me and see like, oh, these, you know, external things and, and I, I just, I would love for folks to know that I'm still just as just like you, like, I'm still kind of lost.
I'm still, uh, have a lot of grief. I still, I feel like I don't know what I'm doing. I still, um, struggle to do basic tasks some days. Like, I'm, I'm still in it. I'm still in it. But the difference is that today, I'm in it with, with an unfailing sense of, of hope and belief in my ability to navigate it. Like, you know, I'm still in it, but I know I'm okay.
Which is the big difference. I never knew I was okay. And so this work, this sort of restorative work is, is, uh, like increasing fortitude and bringing those selves home because they strengthen me, uh, because I'm so much stronger and more capable when I'm well rounded and not just one or two versions of myself, you know, it's like I have a bigger toolkit because all of those wonderful, uh, And challenging traits and people and versions and things about me or they're all here together and they're working together most most days.
Mm hmm. Yeah, you're so tender now which I can appreciate and it's not performative and in fact you I'll tell the listeners you wouldn't let me do this. Regs to riches story or before and after, you know, like, um, Oh, I was down at like the rock star story. You're like, then came the drugs and they all called them incarceration.
And now everything is shiny and new because, um, that isn't the way it is. And I, as a coach myself, it's like, I'm in the darkness with you. I've been through the darkness. I'll be in the darkness again. You know, when I, when I summit this mountain, there's another summit around the corner. Everything is impermanent.
And, um, our capacity to help and heal ourselves is our capacity to help and assist with somebody else's healing and growth as well. I do never think I'm standing at the pulpit preaching down to the people, right? Because, um, no, I'm sitting in the trenches with you or do we do this work together? You know, and I, I understand the, the pain and the challenges because I'm, I'm doing it to alongside linked arms.
So yeah, some of my favorite work that I do is story coaching. Oh my goodness. The one on one story coaching is so, um, you know, you saying that I'm tender, I like, I'm like a little bit, because that is not what I was, you know, I know I can imagine That wasn't part of the picture, um, but it is one of the things.
Um, that I don't think of about myself, but I get that feedback a lot, but then, but then when I'm story coaching and I'm one on one with somebody and I'm helping them renavigate some of the most challenging, um, things that they've been through in their lives, there is this profound, gentle, tender, loving part of me.
That comes and meets them in that moment that that is just, it's such a beautiful, beautiful feeling to be able to share that with another person, especially a person who's hurting and trying to figure out hard stuff and, and when we're able to be open. Like that, and, and, and say, you know, I can't walk in your shoes, um, and nor do I want to, and nor, nor should I, but I can just stand there with you, um, and I do know the way out, and so I will come.
Um, partway into that darkness or that challenge with you, um, and I'm going to love you in that moment. Um, and I'm not going to let it stay there for sure. It'll shine a light on the exit. It's up to them to take the step, but you can shine the light on the exit sign, right? Yeah, but it's, it's, it's. It's beautiful to be able to offer somebody else something that I was not able to offer myself for so, so, so long, but now that's the tender you that you bring when you go to that basement escapading.
Right? Yes. Well, I think that 1, the 1 in the basement is a big coat of armor on, but when she comes out of the basement, she can open up a little bit more, but it's a, it's still a very scary and dangerous place down in the basement. But, um, yeah. But yes, when I write and when I story ReSTOR myself, that tenderness is story.
I like that. Restore this restorative practice. This restorative, restorative and you story. When I story, I never made that connection though. I like Oh, aha. Yes. But yeah, it's a restoring. I'm retelling, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm changing the story. And that isn't deceptive or dishonest or anything. It's me going back and trying to be more honest.
And so changing my story is the power. And that's the thing that I love to do with other people is let me help you re story. I have no idea what the new story is. I have no idea what is not working for you in the old story, but I'm just here to help you guide you through. Um, re authoring that story because our stories are relationships, we're in relationship with the story, we're in relationship with the events, we're in relationship with the person who navigated those events.
Everything is relative. So restorying is a lifelong process that we get to engage in, it's a beautiful dance we can do with our pasts and, and to sort of dip in and dip back out and, um, walk alongside some of those. People and places and things that we've been through and, um, and bring them along, you know, in our new dance and it's just kind of this beautiful relationship, it's relationship, right?
Yeah. To self, to story, to others. I love it. And you definitely helped me do that. Even in your group course, I have to say I have old documents. I have, um, I can't believe my mom has this but like my kindergarten screening paperwork. Well, they have quotes for me in there. And so here I am like four years old pre kindergarten right and I'm Complaining that their crayons are garbage.
They're not sharp crayons. They're garbage crayons, broken crayons. I can't color in the lines. I can't do my best work here because these tools don't work. Like, obviously I'm a recovering perfectionist, right? Like I was four years old and like. My quotes in there as a four year old, like these are, these are not good crayons, you only have brown, these crayons are broken, I need sharp crayons, I have to color in the lines, and I have to do my best work, I'm like, barely the groundwork for a drinking problem later in life, things are not perfect and it's not my fault, like I have some tools.
It was just like, it was just like, Oh, gosh, this has been in me for so long. So when I dig a little deeper, it's like, why did you have to be perfect? Like, you know, what, what came in that was like, well, because my parents are divorced, you know, by the time I was like three. So if I was perfect, then everyone would know that everything's okay.
My dad's okay. My mom's okay. All the families are everything is okay because look at Heather. She's perfect, right? So I feel that the going back and new eyes to see some of that stuff for sure. Can you touch on forgiveness because that is a hard one. Like what does that mean and how do you really go back and how who's that person in that?
Cell that was feeling that. And the, you now the tender story re storyteller of you now, do you forgive yourself over and over again? Does it keep coming up? Does that change? Can you share any insight you have on that? Yeah. It's not a one and done. Damn. Okay, but not a one and done . I think it's degrees.
Okay. I think it's done by degrees. Mm. And I think that the more that I've been able to understand myself in that time, it whichever time, whatever it may be, right. The more understanding I have of myself, the easier it is to forgive myself. So when I, um,
you know, it's just, it's just trying to see all of the factors at play and not just my role in something. Um, and I know, you know, like if you're in a 12 step program, right, then we, we spend a lot of energy on. Uh, my character defects and how I was responsible for all the things that happened to me. And there's value in that.
And when I left, I, you know, I did that process and I, when I left 12 step, um, I found value in also going back and really seeing all the things that weren't in my control. The things that weren't because of a flaw in me or a defect or. A bad behavior or something and being able to hold a bigger picture of it of of what was going on, you know, I was, I didn't have any support.
You know, there were so many factors that contributed to me ending up in that situation. That there's no way I could say that I did that to myself. Yeah, you can kind of go, what else could be true? Well, what else could be true? What else could be true, right? And so as I look at those things, then that understanding, a greater understanding, a more, a more balanced look at it.
It wasn't just me to see that there were so many things that were going on. And so many of them weren't mine, you know, that I had no control over or they just were just how were the circumstances that happened to be and that's nobody's fault. When I stopped looking for it to be someone's fault. Is when I'm truly free from it.
So I could be, I was very angry at the criminal justice system for a really long time and I still kind of am. Um, you know, I had these rogue DEA agents who broke all the rules, stole my passport, they did all this stuff that was super unethical and they all, and they both got like demoted, fired, sued and everything later for stuff they were doing to other people.
So that was a real thing that was happening. It wasn't me. Like a feeling victimized or whatever also treated poorly and unfairly. Yeah, I was one of many people, um, and criminal justice system is flawed and all of that. Um, you know, it wasn't my undocumented husband with, with chaotic substance uses fault did some of the things he did contribute of course it did, but we both ended up with him being undocumented in the system and so it's been a, you know, I blamed him for, I blamed him for so long.
Um, for so many things. And so when I, when I stopped needing to blame anybody or anything, and I just had a level of acceptance of, well, this is just what happened, then, then that forgiveness comes not just for me, but for those two DEA agents, for my husband, for my parents. for all of the systems at play.
Um, I could let go of all of the hatred and anger and, um, blame and just be in a space of forgiving all of it. Now that is a very, and I just want to be really clear, that is not a one and that is not a finished process. I still have a lot of feelings about a lot of things and, and go through, uh, phases of being angry at one or another or whatever.
So it's, it's an event. Right. Radical acceptance, though, is the path to radical forgiveness. Yes, yes, because now I don't need to make it someone's fault, someone, it doesn't have to be that someone did something to me. That's a very disempowering stance to have. And when, and so there's no power in being a victim role.
It is often an essential part of a process. But it's not a place I want to stay. And so when I can stop, step out of that disempowered stance. And just like I think the most power is not being the perpetrator and not being the victim but being neutral. And that's where I now have the ability to see things in a way that helps me navigate things helps me understand and helps me see myself much more honestly, and.
We really just don't get anything good out of blaming ourselves for anything. Like, what does that actually serve? Do we need to get honest about some of the, in order to face some of the things that we need to change? Yes, we have to get honest about those. And so we want to, um, be true, you know, looking truly at, you know, if I continue this behavior, this, these concepts are going to continue to happen.
So I know I need to face that and deal with that. Yes. But, but to go back and look for things being my fault. It doesn't, it doesn't serve anything. No. Yeah, I'm with you. That's a really powerful thing, especially for people in early sobriety, because the thought of the things I had done, um, anything that has to do with my children, especially no bigger guilt and shame than that.
No one knows that better than you. That would have outpulled me back into drinking. Right. So, um, just the mantra change behavior is the best apology to myself. And others that was my mantra my entire first year because the only place we make changes in the now right and so I'm just gonna not drink today someday I'll figure all that out someday I'll have the strength to open that box and peel back those layers, but today I'm not going to drink, you know, and that's all I can do about everything I've already done.
Is just that drink in this moment and then the next and then the next and, um, you know, when you get some time and space, when your substance is in the rear view mirror, you start to see things with a, you know, different clarity and new eyes and more compassion and the whole story, the re story and, um, you know, it starts to look different and you have some acceptance for who you were and that's not who you are today.
Right? You don't have to reject that person. We don't have to reject them. I think we spend a lot of, a lot of our, a lot of what is taught in recovery is having to reject the former self. And I think that's a real misservice. I think that's really, uh, um, I think that's really can be damaging. And, and so we just have to see ourselves.
We don't have to reject ourselves. We just have to see ourselves for what is true. Um, you know, and that these choices or this behavior or this, you know, is not contributing to me getting where I want to be or living the kind of life I want to live. Um, but when we separate ourselves, you know, of that past bad self and this current good or better self, that's where we lose, we leave those girls behind.
That's where we, you know what I always say, I've got before and after pictures. They're not weight loss pictures to be clear. My husband lost a lot of weight when I quit drinking and I was the one with the problem, but that's another story. The before and after I say, you know what I do is I honor that girl in the before picture.
Because she was the one that started to step out of that hole. It wasn't this shiny after with a better filter and a little less bloated, less to hype happier. The lights are back out of my eyes. Obviously there's all the beautiful gifts of recovery that the insides and my outsides are now matching, but it was that sad, bloated, unhappy.
Dead eyed girl that started to take the step out of that hole that if it weren't for the before there would be no after and it was the girl in the before that did that not the one in the after the one that made it through. She's through part of our restoring process is going back and we don't tell the story of the trauma we tell the story of how we navigated the trauma.
Yeah, the big difference. Yeah. I'm not going back to rehash all the terrible things that happened. I'm going back to find all of the innate traits, the skills, the abilities, the wisdom, the knowledge that I had that had me survive that trauma and that makes me who I am today. So we celebrate, we go back to that situation and we celebrate, look at what you did.
Yeah, you made these choices or you used this skill or you kept this person safe or you kept yourself safe or you took the next step and just, just having survived that thing is really fun solutions and alcohol and drugs were a solution for a minute from that pain and from that environment or, you know, get out of your own head cause you couldn't stand what was going on.
That was meant to be a solution. Yeah. I don't get mad that. Substances were part of my life like I truly believe that I'm, I am alive because of my substance use, because I believe that I would have ended my life if I didn't have substances. And, um, and so I don't get I don't you know I don't I don't.
Blame substances. I developed a very problematic relationship with substances. Again, it's, it's about the relationship. It's not the substance. Substance is inert. It doesn't have any power of its own. It's my relationship to that substance that is up for questioning, right? And so I don't, uh, blame myself or get mad at myself that I developed that kind of relationship with the substance.
It made perfect sense. It made quick sense that who, who I was and what was happening in my life. It was a very reasonable, um, way to cope with some very unreasonable living conditions. And, uh, you know, and again, that's part of that forgiveness piece. That's part of that acceptance piece of, of, um, um, do I wish, you know, that so much harm did not have to be caused?
Absolutely. Uh, and when I think today, when I sit with the sadness that I have today. Um, it makes me, it makes me really take stock of how much of my life has been so incredibly painful. Um, and how much pain I've been in for most of my life, even in recovery. Um, I will never sugarcoat that or, or, you know, uh, it is what it is, but I don't blame the substances.
I don't blame the people. I don't. Think about, well, you know, I shouldn't have done this or I shouldn't have done that. Um, I just understand. I just understand this is what happened and these things happened because these other things happened and these, you know, these people did this 'cause they had this, and, and, and it just, it just is.
And, um,
I don't wanna forget mm-hmm . Um, and I don't wanna reject. I want to live in harmony with it and trying to figure out how to live in harmony with the life that I've had is I'll be working on that for a long time, but that's, we'll see you in season 425,
not rejecting, not denying, blaming, not faulting, but just being in harmony with the fact that this is how my life has been. It just is. And so now I'm really sad a lot. Um, I don't know. And that's just, it just is what it is, and it's okay. And I'm working on being less sad. I'm working on working the sad out.
Um, yeah. The capacity for sadness is the capacity for joy though. It goes on both ends. So, there is some, not to sugar coat, but there is a bigger capacity for joy around the corner when you are navigating bigger sadness. Yeah, because I don't want to be depressed. You haven't been capable of this all your life.
You couldn't even feel. You had to pour drugs on it. And look at you now, feeling sad. What a big accomplishment. Feeling sad a lot, very intensely, all the time. This is actually a big win, Meghann. It is. It's so funny. I was, uh, I was at, I'm doing this zero balancing work, which is really interesting. People go Google it.
Um, uh, to try to heal because a lot of my traumas in my body and, and trying to kind of align energy and body and release and all this stuff. I don't really get it all, but I'm, I'm signed up. I'm going, but she was like, she was like, Oh, I feel a lot of sadness. And I was like, yep. And she says, try to put it down.
And I got really angry. Like my body, my mind, like I got really angry at her for tr for trying to get me to put it down and she, you know, she had good reason for asking me that, but I was like, oh hell no. That's not, it's very heavy and I have to hold it all the time. I can't let it touch ground . Yeah. And, and also it just, and I don't wanna reject any aspect of me.
I don't wanna, I don't wanna put out. I don't know what's the opposite of really gather, you know, some of it sucks. It sucks sometimes being like this, but it's just what you said, like, I'm so grateful I can have this experience today. And I just want to, I, you know, I don't. I, I, I, I know, I think some listeners, right, like listen to this and be like, Oh my gosh, she's always, you know, I'm 13 years into having resolved my relationship with substances and I've done all this work and this storytelling and she's, and she's like, so sad.
That's, that's, that's not hopeful, but it really is because there is so much good, um, that's layered in with this. And, um, I have a friend who says like that tears of the love leaking out. And so like the sadness represents love and it represents, um, being human and being present in life and, uh, and, and just having all of what this life has to offer.
And so, um, I'm sad and it's okay. Yeah. The goal isn't to be happy. The goal is to be whole, right? Yeah. To be, and I just love that not rejecting any of your pieces and welcoming them all back home to yourself. I mean, I think the people listening. I think that's a beautiful message. I think that's what we all want.
I think that's the ultimate goal of enlightenment and inner peace is that we're not rejecting any any bit of us. And it takes work and going to the basement and some sadness to do that. But the return on investment has got to be grant. Well, it's amazing. And I really believe in restoring and I think that's the key that, you know, whether we do it naturally.
On our own, because that's just what we do as humans, or we do it in a more structured way or an intentional way of working with somebody or something like that, but it doesn't have to be the full basement to the pregnant in jail moment, right? It can be a very gentle, loving, slow process. And so, you know, people who are thinking about well, that sounds intriguing and I might want to do it, but it also sounds really daunting and scary.
Restoring is a natural thing that we do and we can do it and we have full control over, um, our stories and how we engage with them. And so if you're early in recovery or you're, um, you know, in a, in a time in your life where you're maybe a little fragile or, um, you're not in a place where you can engage with deeper work, you can still do this.
Because it is, it's just innately human. We want to be whole and healed and have love and compassion and forgiveness and like tenderness. Like these are all really natural human things that we just tend to, you know, quiet down or walk away or, you know, reject those aspects of ourselves. So it's all there for us.
It's all there for us. Um, we might need a little help getting started or figuring out what it looks like, but that integration, that self integration and the compassion for self is, it's life changing. It's life changing. And, and yes, I agree with you. It is the goal. It is my goal to live all of myself at once.
I love that. Thank you so much, Meghann, for your time today, sharing your story, your vulnerability, your tenderness, your badass toughness too. I'm not going to take that away from you. Of course. Um, if people that aren't watching the video, she basically has a red purple Mohawk, but so she's tough. She's tough and tender.
Tell, um, you know, your storytelling course, I did, I mean, I probably took like the 100 level or gave it the 100 level. Maybe I'd be ready for an even more advanced, even more honest, and even more truthier truth the next round. But how can the listeners connect with you, support the work that you're doing, follow you?
Not everybody gets their mother in law's hand me down people magazines, so where else can, can folks connect with you? Yes, probably for most people. Well, by the time you're, you know, listening, by the way, yes, yes, but there is an online version of it that you can get anywhere on people magazine. If you just Google Meghann Perry, but yeah, the best way to find me is just my name.
My organization is Meghann Perry group. My website is Meghann Perry, which is M. E. G. H. A. N. N. P E R R Y, so Meghannperry. com. I'm on LinkedIn, I'm on Facebook, I'm on the Instagrams, but I'm a little bit old, so I'm not so, uh, spend more time on Facebook like most of my generation, but, um, we have workshops every three or four months or so, and the best thing that we have is, and you can work with me one on one anytime, if you go to the website and you want to do one on one Um, spell out the contact form and I'll, I'll reach out directly and then every other Sunday afternoon from 3 to 5 Eastern time.
We have a zoom. A story gathering, which in which you can show up in any way shape or form you care to, and listen to other stories share stories if you want feedback on those stories you can get them if you don't you don't have to you don't have to share stories. It's a very warm gentle loving space in which to start to try out.
Sort of using your voice and, um, exploring your own stories and, and gently engaging in a restoring process. So that's free every other Sunday, you can find that on the website too. Awesome. We'll put everything also in the show notes. Thank you for your time. Be nice to yourselves. Every single one of them, Meghann.
Yes. Thank you. Thank you so much for letting me be here. It's been a wonderful conversation.
