Tracy Says

Hi, Cadre. Happy. Oh, my gosh. What day is it? Wednesday. Happy Wednesday. I haven't seen you for a while, and so I'm so glad to be back. I'm missing all of you. All right, so today we're doing a session of Tracy says, and for those of you who don't know me, I'm Shannon. I'm not a therapist. I am a human who has anxiety disorder parents, a child with autism, and also has CPTSD. So I've been in therapy for the last seven and a half years, trying to figure out how to live with all those human things that make us human.

And so what Tracy says is, tracy is my therapist, who I did tell, by the way, in my last session, that she now, you know, she's famous. She liked it. She laughed. So, Tracy, size is really, like, you know, I want to share. For people who don't have access to therapy or therapists, I'd love to share my. What I learned in my own lived experiences as someone who has been in therapy consistently and been putting into practice the tools that she's been giving me. So today, what Tracy says is, hey, junk food junkie.

Good afternoon. All right. So, today, what Tracy says is that everyone does the best they can with the skills they have. And I agree, and I believe her. Why I believe that is, I've said in other lives, I believe that people are born inherently good. No one wants to disappoint anyone. No one wants to hurt anyone. That's not what we seek to do as humans. And so, to that end, people do as well as they can with the skills and the capacity that they have. So I'm going to demonstrate that thought today, that concept today, in two ways.

One is through my own lived experience, and the second is through a show, a movie that you can watch on Netflix called Maestro. Okay, so first, I'm gonna start here. This is my father. You can't really see him. His name is Dennis Wilson. My dad was a Vietnam vet. Part of why I know I have CPTSD is that my dad had a lot of. He had PTSD from the war, and our relationship, as a result, was incredibly complicated. Complicated. He didn't get, you know, mental health resources, and so he was not in my life.

He was pretty inconsistently in my life. There was a period where he left, and it was obviously traumatic. So why this matters is this last weekend, and my dad passed away. Obviously. This is his obituary. This last week, someone came to my house to spend Christmas with me, and I have this in my home. And he started reading it. My friend started reading it, and he's like, I'll read a teeny bit of it for you. He's like, wow, your dad won a lot of medals when he was in the military. He received the National Defense Service Medal, the Vietnam Service Medal, the Vietnam campaign medal, combat Action ribbon, presidential unit Citation, and good.

Can't talk good conduct medal. So as I was listening to my friend talk about my dad, it was interesting because he was talking about a person that I almost didn't know. Right. And so how this connects back to Tracy is, Tracy says people do the best they can with the skills they have. So my lived experience with my father was that he wasn't there. He was married four times. He was. He was not in my life. In many ways, he was later on in my life. And so the story that I told myself for a long time was, he doesn't love me.

He's a bad person. And all the things, right, that come when you. When I did not have the skills to navigate that situation. So why my friend reading this and calling out my father in this way was so sort of mind boggling or such a reframe in my brain was because people have multiple stories, right? People do the best they can with the skills they have. My father was actually an amazing person in a lot of ways. My experience with my father wasn't an amazing. You know, he wasn't an amazing person in how he parented me, and he did the best he could with the skills that he had.

So seeing my friend see my father with a different lens was just incredibly enlightening to me and made me think about the grace that I need to give both him as someone who did his best. He didn't have resources, and now I know that. And now I know that because I did meet my best, and in my best, I was seeking to understand. And so I did go to therapy for seven and a half years. And the only reason I can say and have that perspective of doing my best now that's a different one, is because I did do that.

So it was just this. It was honestly this beautiful moment because I was able to reframe him. He passed away. He died two years ago. And he and I had many open conversations. And so our relationship was healthy in the sense, in the way that it can be based on each of our capacities. But it was just a beautiful reframe. Okay, so now I'm gonna give you my second thing. To think about people doing the best they can with the skills they have. Hi, Jopa Joy. I'm glad you're here. The movie maestro on Netflix right now, Bradley Cooper produced it.

It's a story of a composer. A. Not a composer, a conductor. Of course. Now I'm literally losing my mind. So, Jopa Joy, junk food junkie. It's Leonard Bernstein. I was gonna say, tell me who it is. If you can remember, it's Leonard Bernstein's story. I watched it a couple days ago. What I walked away with. With the story of Leonard Bernstein, who was this amazing conductor. He was a multifaceted person. Thank you, Joe Bajoy. Thank you. Thank you. That he was a multifaceted person. And so as you follow his narrative, you will see that he marries a woman.

He starts with this woman, and he loves her. He absolutely loves her. Right? You can tell it. You can feel it. It's this beautiful love story. And later on in life, you find out that he also is involved with various men. Right? So he's gay. So he's both. And I don't want to put a name or a title. I don't want to name it anything, because I am certainly not an expert in that language. But why he's doing the best with the skills he has, and you'll see this as you watch the movie, is that he navigates it in a way that we all experience as humans, which is torturous at times, right?

Because we want to be our true selves. And how do we do that without disappointing people? It is beautiful at times in that he is seeking love and happiness, and he's seeking it in a lot of different ways. And I'm not going to get into a morality conversation, because that's not the point of this. The point is that Leonard Bernstein was pursuing his wholeness as a human, his love as a human, and it manifested in complicated and beautiful and unbelievable ways. And the way the story ends, and this is.

Sorry, friends, so I shouldn't. Ooh, I don't know if I want to spoil the end. I will say this. The story ends in a way that illustrates the incredible love he had for his partner. And it's true, and it's beautiful, and it's real. And it's followed by a scene where he also finds another part of himself and he honors another part of himself. And so why that matters is Leonard Bernstein was incredibly successful professionally. That's right, Jopajoy, you've seen it. Okay, thank you. It's just true, right?

And I remember as I was watching it, I was like, oh, my God, this is the truth of the human condition. It's complicated. It's messy. It's this and this. And Leonard Bernstein did the best he could with the skills he had. And yes, Joe Joy, his wife, did the best with the skills that she had. And she was able to say, he is a kind human being, and I'm grateful for him. And he broke my heart. And so I say all of this to say, it's hard. It's hard. This is hard. This is a hard thing for me. My father is a hard thing for me.

And I was able to sort of take this broader lens and say, and I love him. And I loved him. And in the film, which I do encourage you to watch, all the characters are able to find the love and the spots that they can based on the skills they have. Junk food Junkie says you were told by an elderly neighbor when you were a teen that hatred is taught. It's not a trait you want to have. That's absolutely right. That's beautiful. You have no. And today and to this day, you have no ill will towards others.

Yeah. People do the best they can with the skills they have. And so giving them grace, giving ourselves graves, is all we can do as humans. So. Okay, friends, I just talked way longer than I thought I was going to, but I do encourage you to watch that show. And I think, too, just if you have people in your life that are like my father for me, you know, if you have the skills and the abilities to reframe it and be open to a different perspective. It's peaceful and it brings some. It brings some, I don't know, some understanding.

So. All right, friends, so great to see you all. I will see you again on Thursday. And I'm so glad you were here. Thank you. Junk food junkie. I'm glad you're here. Joe Bajoy, I'm so glad that you're here. And we will see all of you soon here in this Cadre. Have a good day.