Peg: 0:00

hello, Heather. It's so nice to see you today. You look lovely. Sister,

Heather: 0:06

sister, from another mister.

Peg: 0:10

sisters of sobriety, right?

Heather: 0:13

Yes.

Peg: 0:14

we were going to talk today about overcoming challenges in daily life and those ankle biters that can be so annoying because life is very daily. And, we were going to share some tips and insights for overcoming those obstacles. every day because they come up. I learned that in recovery, especially early on that life really was didn't change. It was life. We learned how to live life on life's terms one day at a time. And that took a huge monkey off my back because The acceptance piece was important, but also that there was a somewhat, there was another entity in charge that had my best interests at heart. And I truly believe that. And it's taken me a long time to truly embrace that because that meant letting go of control and trusting. And those didn't, those attributes didn't come easily for me.

Heather: 1:21

And I was going to say that when you're, when I'm thinking about early recovery and I'm thinking about my recovery today, I mean, I still today, it is, it's one day at a time, but every day there's always something. And, it's a choice that I make on how I'm going to respond to it. Am I going to react to it or am I going to pause and respond to it with a more sensible, focused, kind way, a way that doesn't harm people. I think a lot of the first year was, learning how to work with life's challenges and not, and actually have to endure the feelings around The challenges, the frustrations, the annoyances, and I think a lot of what my strategy of addiction was, it was to not be annoyed and not be feel those things. And so, I would quickly use that kind of firefighter strategy where I would just like pour water on whatever's going on and it could be the simplest thing. It could be a flat tire going out to my car as a flat tire that could just ruin my whole entire day. But if I have a flat tire today. It's a flat tire

Peg: 2:28

bet you can change it.

Heather: 2:29

yeah, that she can change it. But back then any of those little things. And so I feel like the first years were like the first experiences to really be given the opportunity to, use tools, to really, to create change behavior because we always talk about like people just can, you can eliminate it. Lets, in my case, alcohol. And I can just still have the same behavior and be, an awful person in many ways. Or, which would lead me back to drinking. And thats, I think thats the thing thats, its hard to understand we really have to have a complete revamping of how we behave. experience our life and the challenges in our lives. Yeah.

Peg: 3:16

That's right. Recovery, the whole enchilada. All of it, all the layers of it.

Heather: 3:22

And so, so oftentimes I mean, it was very, I don't know why in the beginning, my, sponsor and mentors and people were always like, well, how do you start your day? And I was like, well, I wake up and I, my first thoughts are usually, There's a comedian that says this first thoughts are either wrong, selfish, criminal or wrong again. So when I wake up in the morning, I have a a dialed up anxious nervous system and I used alcohol to, to dial me down. And so now that I didn't have that anymore, When I would wake up, I would be really ramped up. I would go from zero to a hundred the moment I opened my eyes up. Worried, obsessive, thinking, anxious. So I had to do things. I had to do some things, fundamental things every day to move away from that anxiety and try to move towards that serenity and learn to comprehend actually what the word serenity really means because I don't believe I had any idea what serenity meant. Serenity to me was a blackout drunk. That was serenity. I didn't have to think anymore. I could be completely gone. So learning how to start my day took a lot of different, I tried a lot of different things. Get up, go walk, get up out of bed, put my shoes on, just go walking. And I think I did that for several years. First thing, just to get myself going, to get that anxiousness out of me. Then come back. Make my bed. Do a reading. A wise reading from a 24 hour book, whatever, or a 24 hour day book, or a daily read. Something to shift my thinking. I used to listen to a lot of tapes, a lot of speaker tapes, just not only just speakers from the rooms, but wise speakers, wise teachers the Carolyn Macy's. It's the Marianne Williamson's the Peter Levine. I used to listen to psychology, everything. I was always trying to move away all the voices that were kidnapping me and taking me hostage that were in my head.

Peg: 5:21

I do. I didn't know what it was called, but the dysregulation was a pretty constant state for me growing up. And I didn't, it was just installed as a survival mechanism growing up. And, when you're that. young, you're doing what you can to take care of yourself, which is pretty brilliant when you're seven and eight and nine years old, and you're able to do things to take care of yourself. But as you get older, those defense mechanisms don't work in adult life. And I had to learn as you did, these anchoring behaviors when I, when I woke up and throughout my day and it involved Making my bed and meditation, which I do as regularly as possible because it makes a, it makes the difference in my life, for sure, because it affects my mental well being and my nervous system. And I do some reading and I make a shake with healthy stuff in it and, play with my dogs. And. Try and start my morning as positively as I can. So I'm much more aware of, for the most part, my thinking and what direction my thoughts are leading in because our brains are wired to protect us from negativity, right? To protect us in general. And so we have a negative bias. And so there'll be times I'll wake up and I'll be like, Oh, I wonder if this or that's going to happen. It'll just be this narrative that my, nervous system very agitated and I realized that, okay, I'm doing this. My thinking is causing this response. It's not anything that's outside of me. I'm the one causing it. And that brought a lot of, freedom because I could change my thinking. And it seems so obvious. But it really isn't to those of us that had a difficult upbringing and making the bed and doing, having a routine that I could anchor myself to and having some structure with some freedom built in, not so structured that it's rigid, but structured that it feels safe and and then going into my day and then dealing with other humans, which can be challenging sometimes, do you find that to be the case?

Heather: 8:08

Absolutely, everywhere, in the early days, because I think, I feel like the early days I was just trying to keep myself afloat, I felt like I was I was back to being the 15 year old girl who had no tools, who didn't know how to socialize, I brought young, Childlike responses to mature adult situations. I mean we'll just throw that word out. I was an adult child, and I didn't know, I didn't know that when I first started drinking. As time went on, I think a lot of the growth is becoming more mature I had lots of teachers in my life, like my children I, remember making such a big deal when they would spill something, or kids, or they would break a glass and that's how I was raised, that my mother would just have a, she would make it it was the worst thing that ever happened on the planet that I spilled milk, let's put it that way. And I just repeated that, but now I'm sober and my children their eyes looking at me like I'm freaking out about the milk. And I was like why am I responding this way when it's not effective? It's just spilt milk. And I, and so, so there's so many, things now because I didn't have the, fogginess and the, of hangovers and the blurriness and dizziness of being on alcohol that now I had to like really see what was going on out there. And I was able to really, change the way I did things, especially because of the a lot of the ways I did, a lot of things I did were very hurtful to others, but I didn't mean to be. I was just rude. I was, I had to be first in line. I was just it was just, I was like I'm, I know more than you do. I'm going to tell you what to do. Oh, that, like that do you want to be at peace or do you want to be, you want to be right? I wanted to be right all the time. There was just so many fascinating the universal characteristics of people that use the strategy of addiction. We're just. It's so very self absorbed, aren't we? We

Peg: 10:07

We are.

Heather: 10:09

don't

Peg: 10:09

And

Heather: 10:10

we are.

Peg: 10:11

I say that in a loving way to, to those that are joining us today and are in, yeah on this, recovery journey. And it it started with putting down my drug of choice. And then it started putting down my need to please others, to feel like I was whole and worthy. And then it put down,my low self esteem And there were all these behaviors that I had to look at that worked. To help me cope as a young child and teen and did not work in terms of working with others. Well, when I became an adult and I learned that in the workplace and I know we'll talk about career down the road, a few episodes, but I really learned a lot in my working life. And you mentioned what your children is your teachers. Our teachers come to us in very different packages, right? And the people that have taught me the most about myself are the people that have caused me the most pain, whether that's a family member or a partner or a friend. And I, often didn't know that as it was happening, that pain, it was always in retrospect and in hindsight. And it'd be like, Oh, I get it. That's why that happened. Okay. And this is how it helped me. And when you have a few of those under your belt, then you're able to start looking at these exchanges a little bit more from an emotional, emotionally neutral place, because someone would say something or do something or not say something or not do something. I would create this story in my head about what it meant to be a I would attach a meaning to it. So if someone canceled plans or if someone cut me off in traffic, or if there was a long line at the store and I was having a problem with it, I was number one, having the problem. And number two, I thought it, it meant that. The universe was conspiring against me, and this was well into sobriety. So, though when we heal in layers, it's about getting to those places where I needed to heal my thinking. And I wasn't, I certainly wasn't able to do that. By myself, you know that I got a lot of help, a lot of help from professionals and from a higher power and from people like you who live a gracious life. And you've taught me and many others in recovery have taught me we can meet life's challenges with grace and Neutrality and not take it personally. So I, don't take things as personally today. And that has eliminated a lot of shit the day for me. It really has.

Heather: 13:33

That's probably one of the greatest growth steps, is to realize that, hey, it's not about, it's not about me anymore. This is on you. This is your stuff. But you're having a reaction towards something I said. I'm going to look at my part and go, I don't think I was just being honest. And I think I was very kind the way I delivered this message. And this is the thing we have to learn how to communicate more effectively. I think that's why it's so great to have groups that you talk in. It's so great to I'm going to go outside of these groups and go to restaurants and, or and, do fun things with, you actually let people get to know you and then you are become very transparent. You become very honest. I think the number one thing that I think shifted with me was my devotion to honesty and I didn't, I, I think that's why when I would wake up in the morning and I felt so vulnerable and I didn't want to reach out, I would reach out to somebody and say, listen, I'm feeling I'm really anxious this morning. I'm feeling really vulnerable and I just need to say that I'm scared and to be able to say that, miss me, who was so bravado and so I was just such a very strong force in the world and you would never think that I would ever have any vulnerable moments like that, but I was just I'll tell you this is the best definition, and this was said to me, tell I was actually told to memorize it. Memorize what the definition of an alcoholic is, what I was told. An alcoholic is someone who suffers from low self-esteem, offset by perfectionism, and an inability to ask for help. And I thought, I broke it down into three parts for, my journey. How do I have better self esteem? How do I face these, a lot of these challenges, these ankle biters really wrecked my self esteem because I handled them so poorly. I mean, it could be a computer issue and I'm screaming at a person on the phone and that is so ridiculous. I mean it's uncalled for. So, I mean, just trying to build self esteem try to, do things, try to conduct myself in a way that's, kind, a kind person in the world. The second thing is that perfectionism. And that is a, that's a, was a driving force for me. I, always felt like I had to be perfect in the way I looked, my weight, perfect in my grades, perfect as a mother, perfect as everything in my life. And it just. And if I wasn't, I had a, another part of me that would take over and she would be the F it person like, Oh, you weren't perfect, so you might as well just F it and just give up. So I was swinging like a pendulum with my perfectionism. And then the last part. Which is, what saved my entire life, is this ability to ask for help, and this is something I talk about with a lot of people that I work with. I say, I want you to reach out for connection, rather than, retract from it because that's all you've done your whole life is you've isolated and retracted yourself and moved away from connection. When you're feeling that, I don't want to be with people. I want to be around people. I don't even like people. This is when we have to shift it over to, I have got to ask for help. I have got to reach out to people. This is how we heal from the strategy of addiction. It is through this help and service of other people. So in the early days, I was told, reach out to somebody in the program, even if you don't know them and just, we didn't have texting. We didn't have text phones back then but as time went on, it's much easier to do it this way. But I text at least sometimes three or four people. Good morning. I hope you have a good day. I'm thinking about you get out of myself, reach out to other people, send them a smile. And that's it. This is what I do. And I used to do that in the earlier days. I'd call on the phone and get a voicemail, say, a voice machine, we didn't have a voicemail, an answer machine, and just leave that on the answer machine.

Peg: 17:32

You would just call and you left a message. You'd done that for me a couple of times. And, It really felt, I felt connected to you. And I also felt cared for like I mattered. And I think those little gifts and they're, there. I believe they've been planted for us ahead of time, even before our day begins. And it's that mindfulness and that awareness to to look for them and to expect them. I think when we expect them to happen, they happen. It's those little. Drops of magic through the day and getting a voicemail from you, just saying, Hey, love thought about you this morning. I hope you have a great day. Love you. Easy peasy. You have done it for me. I think I even saved it. And that is it. That's very I think most of us want that validation. We want to be seen. We want to matter and we want to feel like we have some value. And for me, I didn't have any of those things when I was using. feel like I had any value. I didn't feel like I mattered. I didn't let anybody in. And that was a very lonely place to, to be. And I use the word lonely a lot because this is a disease of loneliness.

Heather: 18:59

really

Peg: 18:59

And it is a disease of relationships. And we're herd animals. We need each other. Or we're going to get eaten by the tiger. It's in our DNA to build a community and love one another, even if it's one or two people. But we cannot do this by ourselves. We're not an island unto ourselves. And, I know I thought I was for a long time, because if I showed any chink in my armor, then I was going to be judged or punished or shamed. And so I built this really thick armor of protection around me. It helped me growing up. It didn't help me in my adult relationships as an adult. And, I loved what you said about taking what we've learned and what we've learned in, the rooms or in therapy or in our own work and bringing it out into the world. Even if it's one voicemail at a time one smile, when you see a stranger and you just smile at them, I believe those are, planted for us in each of our days if we look for them. Those little gifts.

Heather: 20:19

and this is all an evolution of getting more and more comfortable in your own skin. Some of the things I'm doing now, I could not have ever done in that early recovery. But now I am. Every single human that crosses my path, I look in their eyes. I smile. If I'm checking out, I say to the person, I hope you're having a good day. It's beautiful. I, have conversations. I'll just tell you a funny thing. Cause now I'm at the point where I'm, when I'm in a doctor's office, I I'm waiting to see the doctor. The the nurse or whatever, and I'm actually meditating. I'm actually take these opportunities to sit, do breath work. So I'm sitting there doing some breath work, left nostril breathing, which calms the nervous system. I'm doing this and I'm really very, peaceful. And so when I see the person, they, they're look, they look at me and then they walk me into the room and they go, and this has happened more than once. I go, I, don't know what you're doing, but all of a sudden I feel so calm. Being around you like, what are you, doing? I go, well I am a yoga teacher. And they go, Oh, that must be it. I go, no, I'm actually meditating and breathing but this is the thing. What we now understand is that when we do our own work and we become calmer and more peaceful and we communicate without violence and we're, we show up, we're responsible and we're honest, we have a. Energy. I wanna use the word vibration that loosely,'cause I don't wanna sound woowoo, but there is an energetic, the energetics that comes from us, that, it's called co-regulation and attunement, and that we're able to help others by our own work so that when you're sitting there feeling anxious and having a hard time and, now you've caught this person from the, let's say, my case, from the coming into the, to the nurse's office, whatever, and they're, and they've been seeing all these people and here's this one person who's just it's so neat that we can do that. So, so there's so many ways we can bring, make changes in the world by just doing. Taking the utmost care of ourself. And I think that's what I want to come back to is that one of the ways for overcoming challenges in daily life is that we really get very, what is the word I want to say? Hyper focused on our self care that we have to really take the highest care of ourselves. We really must have to start from ground zero and learn how to feed ourselves how to brush our teeth, how to brush our hair. I mean, I know it sounds. It's kind of ridiculous, but like we begin to really take the best care of all the layers of ourself. And then we begin to find out this loneliness and the separation that we have felt in the world really stems from that separation with our own selves. Our own self with a capital S self. You see, that's where the pain was that abandonment to my own self. And what's really interesting on this journey is when you start to realize that a lot of the suffering that starts to happen later on when you quit, when you've quit the drinking, and then all that. But there's other things like you said. people pleasing all the different other ways that it comes out. We, start to address those things because we start to realize that these are awesome ways that we continue to injure ourselves and I mean, because we're still caught in that low self esteem that really does come from a dysfunctional family, unfortunately, and that we have a, Critical voice in ourselves, and that we take over the work of those critical people in our lives, and we internalize it, so we become our own voice. critical parenting style and that has to leave. That's where, the whole enchilada comes into being is when we are really fully embracing our loving self has a resonant calming voice in which we talk to ourselves and in which we talk to others.

Peg: 24:31

I love that. Thank you. You know what you were saying is what I heard was when that critical parent voice comes up for me and it says, you could have done this differently. You could have done this better. You should have started sooner. You should have started later. It was a lot of shoulds and rather than take that on that voice on or take on the judgment that it wants to lay on me. I sit with it and I will ask, and this is gonna sound woo, what is it that you're trying to teach me? This part of myself, this critical part of myself, what is it that you're trying to protect me from? Because I do believe all these various parts of us, whether it's a small young part or a older, more critical parent type, that they are truly protecting us. We created these, parts of ourselves to cope. And so rather than make that part of me an enemy, it has helped me to talk to that part of myself and say, what is it you're trying to teach me or protect me from? And the more mature loving parent, and I've learned this language through my own adult child work, is the one that's that, comes to the forefront and says, thank you. And I love you and you've done a great job so far and I've got it from here. And just talking to those different parts of my psyche is very healing and it is an inside job. I looked for so many things to help heal what was going on inside of me and not going on inside of me. And the only way that was going to heal was to really get to know all of me. And love all parts of me and love my past. I didn't like what happened to me in my past, but I can reframe it today and say it happened. And it has made me someone today that I truly do respect and love. And I respect, and I love all versions of me. I had to have every single drink I had until I got sober. And I've had to go through every version of myself to get to where I am today and love every version of myself and thank them. Because they helped me to get here. And then some future part of me is going to look back on this part of me and say, yeah, thank you for taking the time to heal and, learn about us and learn about, how to better be, to be better people in the world. And give more of ourselves and not hide it away and squirrel away everything that we don't want to share with people. And it feels it is an easier, softer way for me. And I know I see it in how you live your life and how you've worked with your kids. And, we change life doesn't necessarily change. We change. And because we've changed our relationships do get better.

Heather: 28:07

I I, guess I'm just, I'm thinking about how, these obstacles more, there's a saying, more will be revealed, and they also talk about this peeling back of the onion that just keeps peeling back and peeling back is there ever an end to the onion peeling peg? I don't know.

Peg: 28:29

No.

Heather: 28:30

but but yes, this, things get and, it's kind of a really interesting way to sort of, another thing to do that I do now, I don't think I did it in the early recovery, but, I like to set like an intention for the day and and just sort of today I'm going to really focus on, I know it sounds really ridiculous, but to drink. Eight glasses of water today.

Peg: 28:56

Huh.

Heather: 28:56

I mean, just an intention like that can be as simple as that. Or today I'm going to really work hard on not saying anything negative or critical or complain today.

Peg: 29:10

Huh.

Heather: 29:11

So I've tried, I tried different practices because the longer that you're on this path of sober living, the more you have opportunities to try different things, right? What works and doesn't work. And I play around with these things. There's something that was given to me early on that I said every day for quite a long time, and I even had it on a piece of paper, and I don't know why I could, I can remember it, but, please, to my higher power, to the universe, to please don't let me, hurt myself today. Please don't let me hurt others, and please let me be of service to love to you today. And I know I think I've shared that before here, but that is so important that I started off with the first statement. Please don't let me hurt myself because you see, I believe when we start to really look closely at our life and look at what we've done, we were the ones hurting ourselves more than anybody else. both my parents were Marines and I dedicated the class to my parents and I dedicated my love, how much I love and appreciated them in the deepest way. Even though they were definitely both a piece of work and had a lot of a lot of stuff, but it doesn't matter anymore because they've left the earth and what they've left behind is me who now can be me. I think for the longest time I wanted to be what they wanted me to be. And then I blamed them cause I couldn't be that. And I had high, I had this idea that if I wasn't perfect, then they wouldn't love me. If I didn't make the grade they wouldn't love me. I mean, there was a lot of things I made up in my head, but now it's so great to actually live. This from the space that I can't blame anybody anymore. And this is a big, this is a big character. Maladaptive defense, whatever we want to call it. I don't like using the word defects, but it is, something that a lot of people in active addiction carry. They blame everybody

Peg: 31:19

Uh huh.

Heather: 31:21

And having to let go of the blame game? Whoa. And boy, would I just love to blame somebody over things at times. I'm just like, it must be nice to be able to blame somebody. Darn it. You know what I'm saying, Peg?

Peg: 31:34

I do! And if I look, if I blame someone else, I don't have to look at me. I don't have to take responsibility. And I, we just we really can't get away with that anymore. We don't have the luxury of that anymore. We don't, I don't want to do that. It doesn't feel good to me. And, if I'm short with someone and I can get short with someone, if I'm hungry, angry, lonely, tired, I can get short and I have to look and say, okay, am I hungry? Am I angry about something? Am I lonely? Am I tired? That sort of acronym helps me to sort of get into the present moment and say, okay, I got to triage this right now. I'm not feeling great. I'm feeling actually kind of moody right now. What's going on with me? And I may need something to eat or drink. I may need to take a nap or cry or talk to a friend,

Heather: 32:35

It's that part, that pause, that halt.

Peg: 32:38

Exactly.

Heather: 32:38

Let me Just stop for a moment and, another thing I do today, which I wasn't doing so much a while ago, but I'm adding this in as, we evolve and we grow. I do these inventories throughout the day of checking in on my, am I present? Am I here? Or am I, cut off from my body? Do I am I feeling my feet on the floor? Is my spine straight? Am I taking good deep breaths? I mean, I check in throughout the day. Because oftentimes, I can be just so gone. Checked out. I'm not even here. I mean, use the word dissociation lightly, but that is a big That was a great tool for, as a kid that I used. It was great. When mom was yelling, I could just look at her mouth move and I wouldn't hear her voice. I could be just somewhere else watching her yell. I mean, so these are all tools that helped us survive our childhood and that we brought them into our adulthood. And I think why alcohol was so great is because it was a great dissociator. I mean, you could just, I mean, you could just drink that and you wouldn't have to, you could just pick and choose what you wanted to hear. And anyway, but yeah. Unfortunately, came to the end of that. Now we've got to go back and figure out how to live life as we started this whole conversation on life's terms. How do we deal with daily challenges and obstacles? Well, I remember oftentimes I would run right into a group a group. meeting and talk about it or talk to somebody. I was very external. I'd go, I'd talk and talk and talk and talk That's what I did for a long time because I really wanted to cleanse myself of any, secrets, any closets that were, that had stuff in it. I wanted to get it all to the light. I was really afraid that there would be something in me that I was hidden. That was a secret that would torture me and take me back out. And that's, of the, I remember my sponsor saying to me, one of the reasons a lot of people go back out is because they weren't able to thoroughly get into those skeletons in those closets and share the secrets,

Peg: 34:43

Slay the demons and

Heather: 34:45

Demons.

Peg: 34:47

because they don't go away.

Heather: 34:49

No, they don't.

Peg: 34:50

They do not. If anything drinking made them very big in my head. And, yeah, I think it's a lifelong journey. And, and it's a choice, like you said earlier, it is a choice how we decide we want to enter and be in our day because we live our lives one day at a time and being present. Some of the things that you'd said about deep breathing and I know you've helped your clients with other, tips and strategies that they can use to, regulate their nervous system and not feel so fight or flight ish, right? Fight or flight or freeze or fawn, I think those are the four states. And, I'm thinking let's put a little tip sheet together and we'll figure out a way to get it up on the site and people can download it and, have yeah, have some have a, few ways in which they themselves can have a, calm sense of, being in love and. Maybe also we'd love to hear some of the things that you're doing to take care of yourself and share those comments with us, because that is important to share with each other how we're living our lives one day at a time. And I know next time, my friend, we're going to be talking about wellness and self care practices, which I'm looking forward to very much.

Heather: 36:31

I do want to say something that I used recently that was something completely outside the box peg. I gotta share this with you, okay. I was trying to find the word. I, think they're called ooze balls. Have you heard of this? Ooze, ooze, they're little gel balls. Have you heard of this?

Peg: 36:47

I have. I don't know what the name, but I know what you, what, what you're describing.

Heather: 36:53

Yeah, so they're so I can't remember exactly what they're called but last week I was visiting my daughter and she was going through a lot of Challenges and I was taking care of my little eight year old grandson Which is like this is one of the greatest gifts ever is to be able to reparent as a sober person to be a sober grandmother. I can't, tell you. That's the best thing. But there was so much stress in the atmosphere that, he had this bag and they're little tiny little seeds. And he says, Mimi says, he calls me Mimi. He says, let's pour this in a, pan. I said I, looked at the directions. I says, it's only says to use one tablespoon. And then, and I looked at him, he goes, I go, but you want to put the whole thing in the pot. Don't you? And he goes, I do. So, we put the, we poured it in, and then we poured water in, and this thing came up. I'm telling you, this pie full of little tiny little jello balls that were wet and cold, and you put your hands in it, and it's Oh! So, so he was doing that, and then I was doing that, and then my daughter was doing it, and then I noticed the whole week, everybody was taking rounds and putting their hands in that pot, and that was all for a day. Dial down your nervous system sensory experience. The other thing we added to the mixture because I had brought a chemistry set down there and it showed us how to make artificial snow. So we made a little tiny little thing of artificial snow, which I had never tried before. Really done before and then he goes, can you order it on Amazon? So we did so I ordered a bag on Amazon which he wanted to of course pour in another big bowl So the next thing I know I have this much snow Artificial snow and this is so cool because you can pick it up. It's cold and doesn't stick to your hands And so anyway, I know this may seem a little strange to talk about this But these are also great ways to It's become present to feel your feet and just use your hands a very different way. So I just want to share that, that this is 2024 and this is, we tried For the first time.

Peg: 38:48

my hands in those cool gel balls. I really do.

Heather: 38:51

Yes.

Peg: 38:51

some of that. That sounds like fun,

Heather: 38:54

It's fun.

Peg: 38:54

right? Which is another thing we want to not forget to do is have fun every day. So

Heather: 38:59

Yeah.

Peg: 39:00

I love you, my friend. Thank you. And we will. Be back soon and live life on life's terms. And please do share with us of your journey. We would love to hear more from you and let us know if there's other topics you'd like us to cover. Okay. Love you, my friend.

Heather: 39:20

Love you too. And I'll just end with this. Have a great day. Unless you make other plans, Peg.

Peg: 39:27

Thank you.

Heather: 39:27

You're welcome.