At Peace with Anna Maria DiDio

[00:00:02] Hello everybody, welcome to another episode of the Thriving Adoptees podcast. Today I'm delighted to be joined by Anna Maria DiDio. That's how I pronounce it right? That's correct, yes. I did do some sleuthing to make sure that. So I tried to avoid having to ask you the question. Anna, now I said it once, I'm fine. I'm not going to refer to it at all, so we're done. It's just Anna Maria from now on.

[00:00:33] So, listeners, Anna Maria is a mum. She's got two daughters, one of whom joined a family through adoption from South America. Mexico. And she was six. Almost seven, yes.

[00:00:50] When she joined your family. And she's also a great author, created some great books to explain adoption to kids. And delightful illustrations. I'm guessing that you use the same illustrator each time, right? For the three children's books, yes. Yeah, yeah. Okay. Because there's a recognizable style. Yes.

[00:01:18] It's great. So I'm looking forward to our conversation today, Anna Maria. Thank you, yes. Thank you so much for having me. You're very welcome. So, thriving. What does thriving mean to you?

[00:01:33] Thriving, really the ability to be at peace with yourself, happy in the place where you are, enjoying the things you enjoy, and looking forward to the future.

[00:01:52] And what have you, I love the breadth of it, that definition. You talked about peace and happiness. Are you meaning, and you put those two words next to each other. Do you mean by happy, do you mean more of a contented?

[00:02:23] Yes. Rather than the kind of ecstatic, that would be kind of more in line with the peace. Well, self-acceptance. Yes, self-acceptance. Self-acceptance. Self-acceptance. Self-acceptance. Just that you're comfortable with yourself. Yeah. Okay. And what, because different people mean different things by self.

[00:02:49] And I find that fascinating, right? So there's the, like, self-esteem, which is presumably something about pride. Self-awareness is something about being aware of our behaviour. And when we're out of kilter, where we're acting from our inner child, shall we say.

[00:03:17] And then you've got people like, we often name check Richard Schwartz from IFS, which is a therapy modality. He talks about the uppercase S, self, the one that is, that essence of us that is untouched by our trauma. So what do you mean by self?

[00:03:46] Kind of a combination of all of those things. I mean, when I think of self, I'm thinking of my natural state, my contentment that I spoke of, and the ability to look forward into life with anticipation and happiness. Yeah.

[00:04:17] Yeah. So you talked about natural state. So you're talking about our nature. Is that how you would say it? Our nature. Yes. Yeah. Yeah. So how do you see what trauma does to that nature?

[00:04:36] Well, I see trauma so deeply embedded in self that many times it's not even recognised.

[00:04:53] And this is really what prompted me to write the books because my daughter had behaviours that I was not quite understanding until I understood a little bit more about trauma.

[00:05:11] And some of these behaviours, I think, began so young and started at so deep a level that they've been maintained through many years, even into her adulthood. And it's been my life challenge to understand them, cope with them, help her and be there for her as she navigates life.

[00:05:41] Yeah. Had she been, it was an orphanage. Is that right? Yeah. If I remember correctly. So, yeah. So had she been in the orphanage for quite a long time? Since she was a baby. Yes. Wow. And what, so this is, I know both, you said one of your daughters is just turning 30, there's 31.

[00:06:08] So this is Mexico in? 1995. 1995. 1995. So what, what, what sort of state, what sort of state was the orphanage in? What sort of level of care? Yes. Was she enjoying or not enjoying? What, what was it like? What, paint us a picture of the orphanage. Yeah, that's a, that's a very good question because I had, you know, anxiety over that.

[00:06:37] What was this environment going to be like? So we visited the orphanage several times actually through the years, but initially when we visited, we were struck by the level of care that was given to the children. Now there were like 30, 40 children. So I'm not sure the staff and child ratio, but my daughter was particularly close to one caregiver.

[00:07:04] And they referred to the caregivers as Tia's and this, this Tia loved, loved, loved my daughter and was just so captivated by her and really, really took care of her. So I was not really, I think that's where she, she, she learned about love at a very young age because of that.

[00:07:31] But then the separation and ultimate relocation to the United States at seven, you know, rocked her world for the second time. And, and, and, and, and, and, and then, yeah.

[00:08:00] And then the relocation to the, to our family, which, you know, approaching that, of course, I had only good thoughts and wonderful thoughts. And, and just, this was the completion of our family. This is what I had dreamed about. And when her behavior told me the opposite story, I really began to delve into this concept of trauma. Yeah. And so ever since. Yeah.

[00:08:28] And you, you, you, you mentioned on your website, um, did you say rocked by infertility? I'm not sure exactly what did you say devastated by infertility? How, how, how was that trauma? How do you, how do you kind of capture that trauma? How do you sum up that?

[00:08:51] Well, when I first became aware of my infertility issues, I sank into a bit of a depression. And that led ultimately to, uh, my divorce and, and, uh, wondering if I would ever have a family. So then, you know, years went by, I met my now husband and the infertility continued, but then the treatments continued.

[00:09:19] We ultimately were successful and had a beautiful baby girl, but then adding to the family at that point was by then I was, you know, in, in my forties. So it was not going to happen again. Yeah. Yeah. So what did you learn about, uh, what did you learn about yourself through the, presumably there was some,

[00:09:47] did you undergo some training before you adopted your daughter from Mexico? You know, yes, we did, but I will describe the training as, you know, just very surface. And again, it was only after seeing her behavior that didn't match what we had, had been promised in the training. Yeah. I thought, you know, what is going on here?

[00:10:14] And when I became familiar with primal wound and some of the other literature around trauma, I saw the exact description of my daughter's behavior just, you know, listed, listed in these books. And I, I was, um, I, I just, uh, for me, it was a relief because it was not, and this is something I've been struggling with for many years.

[00:10:41] It's, it's not really some of the, the, the, the things that happened in our family or my daughter's reactions to things or her, or her disassociation with the family was, was really a lot of trauma speaking to us. And I tried not to take it personally was, was the issue. Yeah. I think I've, I've heard other, I've heard other, um, adoptive parents say the same thing.

[00:11:11] It's the, the idea is the central idea is really, really hard. And, and it's exactly what you just said, not, not taking our kids trauma personally. Yeah. It's, uh, yeah. Um, I felt a relief reading the primal wound as well.

[00:11:33] Um, and then it, it, it, it morphed into, it morphed into something else where I, I, I kind of saw it as a doom, doom laden thing, like a life sentence, actually, if you were like, and, and that would be at, at complete odds with your definition of thriving, which included this looking forward.

[00:12:02] Well, when I, when I read the primal wound after the initial relief, I wasn't, I, I, I, I wasn't looking forward to a life sentence. You know, I had a life sentence and I kind of thought I was, I thought I was stuck with it until I realized that I, that I wasn't. Did you read the follow-up book? Uh, skim the follow-up book.

[00:12:31] It was, it was, it was very intensive, uh, intensive research. And I, I, I had moved into, uh, kind of a, another direction and, and started reading more memoirs and more personal, uh, stories. Yeah. Okay. Because the, the, the first book seems to be far more popular than the second one. Oh, yeah.

[00:13:00] And, but the second one's supposedly about healing. I mean, I, I, I find it, I, I did read it. Um, I find it, I found it fiendishly complex and totally, totally psychological.

[00:13:20] And when I, when I look at the number, but I, you know, like, I don't know what the numbers are in terms of sales for those two books. But, but I can deluse that, I, I think there's something, I might have the numbers wrong here, but the number of reviews for the first book, let's say they're a hundred.

[00:13:50] The number of reviews for the second book is something like five. It's a one to 20 ratio. So it's something like that. And I might be off and I should have be, I checked my facts. But I think that, I find that fascinating because if we thought the first book was so good, which is about describing, defining the trauma.

[00:14:18] And then she comes up with a book about healing the trauma. Surely everybody that liked the book, first book so much would have bought the second book. And I, and I, what, why, why are the ratios so different? These are, these are some of the strange questions that I, that I asked myself.

[00:14:43] Well, you, you are, you answered it though, in terms of the, the presentation of the, um, of her, of her theme of healing is presented in such a complex way that she, that she lost her audience.

[00:15:01] And I think that, you know, parents in their search for understanding this very complicated topic, the primal wound, uh, the logic of the primal wound made so much sense. And then in, you know, your, you know, your, your, your, your brain was anticipating something to counter that. And the book presents, you know, pages and pages of her complicated research.

[00:15:29] And that's really not where parents heads were. Yeah. And so, you know, I transitioned to reading more about, uh, resilience and understanding how that's, how that can be applied or how, how key that is to healing.

[00:15:49] And as I watched my daughter grow through the years, who kind of through no fault of her own has also experienced trauma as, as she grew and developed. And just watched her amazing resilience and ability to cope with these other things. And maybe you didn't ask this question, but I'll answer it.

[00:16:15] That she is, she has that resilience and has not anywhere near accepted her, her, her life sentence and has moved on to just wonderful and great things in her life. Yeah. So what, what does, what does resilience mean to you? What, what, what have you learned about resilience? Cause you, you went down that.

[00:16:42] Well, from, from what I've seen, resilience is just the tremendous ability to take stock of a, of the current situation and that where you, you find yourself. And, and again, I'm thinking of some of my daughter's experiences and then call upon the skills you, you know, you have the skills, you know, you've practiced the skills that your loved ones are supporting you.

[00:17:10] And, and, and meeting those, those challenges, meeting that, that state head on and getting to live another day, succeeding at whatever your, your, your trial is and, and moving on with, with, with hope. And I'll, I'll say happiness, but. Yeah. But we're, we're, we're talking about peace and contentedness rather than ecstatic joy. Right.

[00:17:36] Um, so what, uh, what, what did you learn? You know, you talked, mentioned briefly, uh, uh, depression. What did you, what did you learn about your own resilience through depression? Well, I, I've always known that I'm very goal oriented and focused.

[00:18:01] And the, um, well, I'm, I'm, I have a corporate, uh, HR background. And for many years, I, I've done employee training in, you know, leadership development and all those things. So I'm a very big believer in controlling the controllables. I'm sure you've heard that.

[00:18:20] Uh, there's many variations of it now, but, and, and just doing what, what is within my control that I can do to further the goal that I have. And I've, I've done that with every single part of my life and have achieved the things that I've set out to do that I, you know, have that goal. I, I, I've achieved, I mean, there's, there's certain things I would love to do.

[00:18:50] Um, but I know it'll never happen. And, uh, but things that, where I can, you know, break that down to a set of achievable goals. I've, I've completed those things. So it, I mean, depression means different things to different people. I remember looking at, I remember looking at, uh, a diagnosis for depression and it was 10 different things.

[00:19:19] And all of them were stacked full of, uh, vagary. But vagary, it was, it was completely vague. Like, and, you know, I think anybody on a bad day could take five, six, seven of them, you know, like it, so I think depression looks like, I think, well, there's a thing, they call it clinical depression.

[00:19:49] Um, what, what did, what did your depression manifest like? It was stuck. It was stuck. It was stuck in mud, stuck that I would never get out of this situation. Uh, I was faced with many obstacles. I didn't know where to start. And it, it, it, it just was a long process of taking each one of those things and, you know, listing them and tackling them.

[00:20:18] Uh, my marriage, my job, my ability to get pregnant. Um, who I loved, what, what I wanted to do with my life. And, and so all of that kind of came crashing in when, uh, when I had my first miscarriage and just realized my whole world needed to change. Yeah. Because people mentioned infertility a lot in terms of, in terms of trauma.

[00:20:49] And I've, I've, I've, I've not, you know, I, I've not experienced that myself or, or my wife hasn't experienced that. Uh, but we have had friends that have had miscarriages.

[00:21:08] And it seems to me like, you know, the, the, the, the, the, the, infertility may be one thing, but a miscarriage is totally blows that out of the water in terms of how it seems to me to be. It, it, it, it, it's a, it's a big, it's a big, huge deal.

[00:21:34] The, the world, the word infertility doesn't ring loads of alarm bells for me, but the word miscarriage clearly, clearly does. So you talked about being, uh, you talked about being confused and then, uh, and then you're also talking about controlling the controllables and, and this, uh, uh, this, this action focus.

[00:22:05] Can you put those two things together for me? Cause it, it seems a bit of a, the challenge is challenging me a bit to, to see those two things in the same chapter of your life. Well, because I felt so stuck, I started to, you know, take inventory of the things that would get me unstuck.

[00:22:27] And that began with, well, first I was in a therapy with my ex husband, then husband, but now ex-husband. Yeah. First we were thinking first we were, is this, is this marriage, what's happening with this marriage? What are, where are we going? What are we doing?

[00:22:43] And so, I mean, these things took time to unravel, but I approached kind of each one of them with, with a goal of, you know, getting my, my head straight and devoted time and energy into, you know, my marriage. What, uh, what, what I was going to do, um, uh, in terms of that.

[00:23:07] And that was, that was really the beginning because I was not going to stay with this person and have a child. I needed to, you know, make that decision. And the clock is ticking, so to speak. So that it was, uh, it had to be, um, the decisions had to be made. And, um, uh, at the same time, my, my company was closing. So that, that was really another thing I didn't even mention.

[00:23:37] My company was sold and I was being laid off. So, uh, I, I did get it another job. And so that was, it was time to get used to the new job. So there was, there was a lot going on. And, and then very quickly, I, I, within a year, I did meet my now husband and we became serious. And, and I knew. The rest is history.

[00:24:04] So what did you learn about yourself through that, uh, that, that, uh, transition time when everything was coming at you? Well, I, I knew that those, those strengths that had served me well all through, you know, high school, college and, and, uh, beginning my adult working career, uh, continue to serve me well. And that is the ability to focus on specific goals with an end in mind and work towards that.

[00:24:33] So, yeah, that's what happened. In the messiness, you looked for order. Yes. And progress. And when, of course, when I remarried, the infertility, you know, continued. And so the, the task became finding a, a infertility specialist, diagnosing what was wrong. And fortunately for me, I picked the right person.

[00:25:01] He, he knew immediately what needed to happen. I had surgery actually twice. And, uh, and then within, I was married in 91 and my daughter was born in 94. So it was not immediate, but it was, it was all working towards that. So the, the word that's coming to my mind is persistence. True too. Yeah. Yeah. What else? Creativity. I don't know. Problem solving.

[00:25:32] What, what other things were, were, were, were big. What, what, what other themes characterize that part of your life? Well, yeah, the, well, creativity, the resilience is evidenced by, and resilience, um, enabled with my ability to, to set goals and execute them. I think again, focus, uh, I, I've done that strengths finders test.

[00:26:00] I, you know, many times in my corporate life and the strengths for, you know, goals and focus, you know, ability to, to, uh, you know, accept change and navigate it and all those things have really served me well in, in planning out my, my family. Yeah. So, um, resilience is a bit of a pet topic of mine.

[00:26:23] And when, whenever I get anywhere near it, uh, the question for the, that goes on for me is, is it, is it discovered? Is it uncovered? Is it strengthened? Is it realized? What, what, what, because people selling as resilience.

[00:26:46] And, uh, training, training, training courses will pitch us along the following lines. Uh, well, they'll, they'll pitch us along a skill line. They'll say, I was just like you. Um, I didn't, I, I, I was struggling to see my own resilience until I was struggling with dealing with what, with what was going on in the world.

[00:27:16] Until I discovered X, Y, Z, uh, spend this money with me, spend this time with me. And, uh, I will help you strengthen your resilience. That that's, that's how the pitch, that that's the sort of pitch I've seen for resilience. So what's, what's your take on, on resilience? Is it strengthened? Is it seen? Is it realized?

[00:27:43] Well, I think resilience, the, the, the knowledge and awareness and recognition of resilience, I think comes after the fact. So it's sort of a backwards diagnosis. I think you have to have the skill sets of resilience first before you label yourself as resilient. So in order to execute resilience, you have to, you know, take complete inventory of what's happening.

[00:28:12] Again, what can you control? How have you focused on that goal? What efforts have you taken to achieve the goal that you've outlined for yourself? So, but in doing, in mapping that out and doing all those things, and then when you've achieved it, you kind of look back and say, oh, oh, I was so resilient. Look how I've bounced back and done X, Y, and Z. Well, again, it's sort of, you have to do all those things first and then you can say, ta-da, I was resilient.

[00:28:40] I don't think you announce yourself as resilient first. You kind of prove it first and then say, yeah, I did it. Yeah, I like that. I like that take on it. The bit that pops out for me is, and I totally agree, I think it's realised after the fact. We go into something worrying how we're going to get through it.

[00:29:07] Somehow we get through it and then we look back on it and it's after the fact. I totally get that and I'm 100% with you on that. The one bit that I find fascinating is, I guess it's the nature nurture thing, right? Because you said it's, you talked about the words resilient skills. So that's kind of more learnt stuff.

[00:29:31] That's a learnt, a skill is a learnt thing rather than something that's innate. How do you see that? I do see it as learnt because I will share with you some of the natural tendencies that I saw in my daughter. And she had some challenges, obviously, coming from Mexico, not being able to read.

[00:29:59] How was she going to fit in, in this 98% white school district coming from Mexico and having different... She's had a little bit of an accent, even when she forgot all of her Spanish. So... A missing tier, right? Missing the tier. That must have been my call. Yeah, exactly.

[00:30:24] And so I would be there supporting her as much as I could, but with, you know, again, controlling the controllables, action items. And she would be, you know, down in the dumps. I said, time to put on your sneakers. We're going to go for a walk. We're going to do this X, Y, and Z. Let me see your homework.

[00:30:48] I mean, there were a lot of things that she was very happy just to do nothing. And maybe that's a kid's nature. And she was, sometimes she was so sad. And so, you know, I wasn't trying to do any heavy duty diagnosis, but I was there a lot to, you know, be consistent with the family routine. Come up with suggestions.

[00:31:16] We cooked many things together. I tried to make her childhood favorite things. And I never quite measured up to the tea of food. But, you know, it's a matter of having someone to support you with strategies. And I can say, overall, eventually, she did these things on her own. You know, go for a run. Maybe she knew we'd be checking her homework. So she did her homework.

[00:31:46] So it was kind of a family effort, a team effort. But she knew we were there for her. Yeah. Yeah. I think, you know, you said then that your daughter didn't want to do anything. And when you mentioned about your own depression, the thing that popped into my, you know, a stereotypical view of depression would be somebody that's locked away in the room, doesn't want to get out of bed.

[00:32:15] You know, that's sort of, which is at odds with the kind of go-getter, objective-focused career person that you did on. So that's, I think, that's where I saw the disconnect. I had learned that already. Someone was there for me.

[00:32:38] I mean, I was already, by the time I had that miscarriage, I was already in my 30s and had a, what I'll call, you know, improving but somewhat successful career. I already had to be present, very present in my career and my studies. I already had my master's degree. I already, so I had learned all of those things.

[00:33:00] And so then when that, the challenge of my whole idea of a family falling apart and I had to accept, yes, you're, you have a diagnosis of infertility and you may never have a family. I knew how to, but she, you know, did not know. She, you know, it's important to have those parents involved that are, that are teaching you that. Yeah. And things can be learned.

[00:33:30] So, yeah. So you needed to model it for her. Exactly. Yeah. Yeah. Was there a, was there a point where you saw, because I was listening to a clip of your audio book on your website. And it was, it was about a fight between the, the, the, the, the, the girls.

[00:33:56] And you also talk about the younger daughter kind of miss being incredibly, incredibly homesick. It's like homesick is a complete understatement. It was bigger than that, but I'm saying word that pops into my head. Maybe you've got a better word because you're a writer, right?

[00:34:20] So if, how would you, would you have a different word to it other than homesick or was it? No, I, and I think that adequately describes it. Does it? Yeah.

[00:34:31] So was there a point at which you saw, was there a turning, was there a turning point at which you saw something starting to click for your younger daughter? You know what?

[00:34:55] I'll, I'll, I'll totally cop out here and say yes and no, because there were many small victories that I saw as significant. And in the beginning, the beginning of course was the hardest. And we tried to, we all tried to support as much as we could.

[00:35:15] And we, I was not sure if she would just continue to, to cry and, and just, you know, hate us and not cooperate in school or, but one night we got in the car. And she buckled her seatbelt and said, where are we going? And it was her first sentence in English. And it, it, and I, I just almost fell out of my, out of the car.

[00:35:44] And it was a signal to me that she was trying to learn English to be a part of this family. And, and. Yeah. We there. It was so, it was so amazing. And we, we took a little vacation together and they, the girls played in the ocean and went, you know, ate ice cream together. And it was just really lovely. So that was the very beginning.

[00:36:11] And, you know, we backtrack a thousand times from that, but there were, there were spots every once in a while that were, you know, and she began to make friends. And the, the ESL teacher that she had, they formed a tremendous bond and she really looked forward to going to school and, and doing well. So it happens so, so gradually, but those little moments were so memorable. So ESL is English as a second language, isn't it? Is that what I mean?

[00:36:41] I don't think they call it that anymore in the schools, maybe English development language or something, but it was ESL at the time. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So if, when you kind of look, look back on this, is it, is it trauma that gets in the way of our thriving?

[00:37:01] How do you see the relationship between how you describe thriving and what you've learned about trauma? Because you've clearly done your homework. Well, her, her, her trauma was her, again, embedded so deep, so deep that her communication patterns were established so early on.

[00:37:29] And, and even, and even, let's start with the number one trauma, even those communication skills at the orphanage consistently prevail. And, and I'm telling you, and that is sometimes disassociation from the family, you know, pulling back just a little bit or not being, not being truthful with us about what's happening.

[00:37:56] So there's this, you know, protection mechanism that again, it is embedded so deep in her. I'm, I'm wondering if it'll ever change, but it was learned very early on at the orphanage as the kids. And I'll say in a benign way, perhaps wanted to keep their games and toys a secret or sneak away from the tears or something. So it was a different dynamic, but it has persisted for many, many years.

[00:38:24] And, and it's again, and for years I'm, I've struggled with not trying to, not taking it personally, but yeah. That I'm still getting used to. Yeah. So that we, we mentioned that at the outset, didn't we, about not taking our kids trauma personally. And it, it's one of those things that's really easy to say and a lot harder to do. What, what, what have you learned about that?

[00:38:54] That, that instinctively I still do, you know, you, but I can again, control that like, okay, no, you're, you're, you're, you're getting into some negative territory here. And what, it forces me to think about the best way to handle things and the, the, the healthiest way to respond or the way to reestablish connection or. So it's constantly on my mind.

[00:39:22] And, um, I, I'm just, I, I was want to be there and supportive and, uh, I'm, I, I continue to learn. Yeah. So it's, it's an awareness. Yes. It's an awareness thing. Um, and is it that the thing that came to me as you describing it, it was that kind of difference between, uh, reacting and responding.

[00:39:51] I, I don't know where I picked that up along the way, but the, the, the, the, so it's our, our response. So our reaction is, is often a trauma reaction. Whereas it's, it's, it's that, that, that beat, that, that, that beat taking a beat and then responding. With a little more clarity.

[00:40:21] Clarity and grace. Clarity and grace that says, you know, I know you, I see you. And I'm, I'm without, without saying it, I know you, I see you. I'm going to give you time to tell me what you really need to tell me. Or, um, think about, think about what we're doing here. And so anyway, it's a reflective thing back, back to her.

[00:40:49] If I, if I find that again, this communication mechanism is taking over our, our, uh, our relationship. What about grace for yourself? Mm. It's, it's, it's an ongoing, it's an ongoing struggle. Yeah. Always. Is that harder? Is that harder? I have the, uh, advantage of second guessing everything I've ever done.

[00:41:18] Like I go back, Oh, I should have done that. But, um, the, the, the, the key though now is I can say at 30 and 31. I mean, she, she has, both of them have achieved great, great things and are contributing to the world.

[00:41:40] Um, my, uh, my younger daughter, the, uh, or my adopted daughter is, is, I don't want to reduce things to one sentence, but she's a giver. She's a giver. She's so, um, she's worked in professions where she's given back, uh, focused on, um, others, not herself. And she's just, um, a tremendous human being.

[00:42:09] Fantastic. How has what you've learned, uh, permeated your books? Well, the, the, uh, the lessons learned, uh, I decided about five years ago that I wanted to, to write about them and, and communicate to parents because obviously trauma is not something

[00:42:39] anyone is, looks forward to, or is happy about, but I, I, I keep reading. We talked about some of the, uh, adoption, uh, Facebook groups and memoirs and, and comments and articles. And I see so many adoptees wondering and struggling with this trauma all through adulthood.

[00:43:03] And I wanted to create a space and a message to, uh, to parents of younger children without actually saying, this is trauma. This is trauma. This is trauma, but open the, the space for them to talk about allowing their child to wonder, you know, who am I, who am I really? Where did I come from? Who do I look like?

[00:43:29] What, what are special maybe mannerisms or ways of thinking that just belong to me and, and, and not to this family. And that's okay. And reinforce that and, and rejoice in it. Um, and, um, just support, support their, their adopted children in ways perhaps they haven't done. And, you know, I began the writing journey thinking about the myth of adoption.

[00:43:56] And I, and honestly, I see, this is maybe a little bit of a selfish comment on my part, but I see those books about adoption being all butterflies and, and, and, and. Uh, fairy tales being the most popular. And it's, it's really hard. My, my books focus on some of the deeper questions that children have and will continue to have

[00:44:25] about their origin story, about their identity. And those, those books are not as popular, but I, I think every child deserves that kind of conversation. Yeah. It's the same for podcasts. You, you, you, you know, you know it well. Yes. I was thinking.

[00:44:48] The, the, the podcasts that are about stories are more popular than the podcasts that are about learnings. And I think it's, I think one of the reasons is people want to switch off. They want to be, uh, they want to feel validated by somebody else's story. They want to be distracted from their own story.

[00:45:14] Well, but, and then, but in listening to a story, perhaps if the learning comes, I'd be happy, but that's where the rub is. And I think I told you when we started chatting that, um, maybe before the podcast started that I'm, I'm transitioning into a speaking career, wanting to share our story more about our story in the hopes that some of these, you know, lessons learned can be conveyed more easily to parent and parent groups.

[00:45:44] And I hope to expand that. I'm writing a middle grade series of books now, perhaps so older kids get a chance to, you know, think about these topics and wonder, uh, eight to 12 year olds. And I hope, uh, again, transition to the speaking career and share more of my personal story to parent groups and, uh, get them, uh, uh, thinking about the topic as well. Yeah.

[00:46:10] Have you come across any of these kind of hybrid books that are, uh, by hybrid? I mean, it's, they're written by adoptees. They are kind of part memoir, part self-help or yeah, part memoir, part self-help. Have you come across any of those? I've read about them, but, um, in my author group, uh, you know, that's a very popular,

[00:46:39] you know, technique now that, that, uh, you know, Amazon's not so keen on these, on workbooks, so to speak, but the, but pairing a memoir or some sort of, uh, perhaps even a nonfiction book with like a workbook is, is a very popular thing right now. Yeah. I've seen, I haven't seen any of the, I haven't seen any of those work, workbooks in, in the

[00:47:09] adoptee space, but I, maybe I haven't looked at it that closely. What I mean was, uh, so there's a guest, uh, Danielle Godette, if you come across Danielle, adoptee, um, she has written a book and the, the first half is about this kind of like the stories and the learnings. And then the second half isn't a workbook, but it's more like a self-help guide sort of

[00:47:39] stuff. Yeah. Journal, a self-help journal. It's not, it's not a journal. It's more like a, it's more like a manual, more like a kind of like try, try this stuff manual. It's a long time since I listened to it. So, um, I apologize, Danielle, if you're listening, cause I'm doing it quite, but I, uh, justice to it. But I wonder if there's a space for that. Uh, I wonder if there's a space for that.

[00:48:06] You know, a lot of the kids, Disney, you know, Disney's films are edutainment and Pixar, you know, there's that, there's that, um, what's it inside out? Is it called like a cartoon character, um, with all the, you know, the, all the kind of the characters in the, in this little girl's head.

[00:48:28] And I think she's, I, I watched it and it's a transition point that the little girl's moving to a different state, I think with her. Um, so I wonder if there is, there is space for that, for, for teens, some, some more overt learning opportunities, self-development opportunities alongside a thing.

[00:48:58] Thank you. Uh, that's by the by, I'm distracting us. Uh, so we're kind of coming up on time here, Anne-Maria. Is there anything that you'd like to share that I have not asked you about? Uh, just that the, the writing journey for me started with a memoir and I, I entitled it Love at the Border. Uh, obviously referring to Mexico as the border, but just my, my, my image in my, when I

[00:49:27] tried to kind of conjure up those, those feelings that I had when my daughter first joined our family, her, her, her love just could only take her so far. And then we needed to get to the next border. And it just was such an apt description that, uh, I really enjoyed writing it and, uh, would love to hear, uh, reader reactions. All the information is described on my website, amddo.com.

[00:49:55] That's a M B I D I O.com. And as I said, now I'm writing a middle grade series about someone named grace. And, uh, grace is a, uh, a smart kid who moves to a new city and meets a boy who's adopted. And, uh, his parents wanted desperately to keep the adoption secret, but he sets out on

[00:50:20] a secret mission with grace to try and discover who his biological mother is. Sounds great. And as always, listeners, uh, check out the show notes. If you're driving or walking and you haven't remembered Anna Maria's website, there'll be links to that in the show notes. We always, always do that. So, um, yeah. And I haven't done this for a while, but, uh, I, it feels for some reason, it feels right

[00:50:50] to do it now. Is there anything you want to ask me? I guess I'm just curious, where are you on, on your journey in terms of, uh, adoption, healing your, your, your story about finding your, your teddy bear and some of the things I've read over the years, uh, you've, you've done a lot of, of, uh, research and talking and, and writing. And I'm just curious, you know, how are you doing?

[00:51:21] Well, there's the short answer. It's 18 years since I came out of the fog, as we say, you know, became aware of the trauma that, uh, we haven't seen before because it's so embedded. As you said earlier on, I thought that that was a good word for it really embedded.

[00:51:51] I started with some EMDR therapy and stuff, just as an exploration thing about two years ago, maybe a little bit less than that. And an interest, I had an interesting experience with a therapist who I'd seen a few times and

[00:52:15] she, she told me that she was thinking of packing it in, but that she wouldn't leave me in the lurch. So we booked the next slot. Um, it was just before Christmas. And then in, I booked a slot for the 4th of January, which is my birthday. So like a birthday present to myself really, but I was seeing her every couple of weeks anyway.

[00:52:41] And, uh, anyway, on the 3rd of January, I got an email from, no, a text message from her saying, um, I've enjoyed working with you, Simon, but I can't work with you anymore. And I, and it didn't bother me.

[00:52:59] So I saw that as a sign of some ongoing healing, but also a sign of complete, I'm a man of my word. If I largely speaking, if I say I'm going to do something, I do it. And I don't fob people off.

[00:53:29] I, I would never do that to somebody. I wouldn't say book a, book a meeting. But if you're a therapist, then you don't. So anyway, uh, so after that, I thought I started asking, I started thinking about this and what had led me, what was going on for me was I'd spoken to quite a few adoptees who are therapists and they say, well, uh, talk therapy doesn't work with pre-verbal trauma.

[00:53:58] So you've got to look at something like EMDR or somatics or something like that. So for the last year and a half, maybe. Yeah. I've been, I've been seeing a somatic experiencer. I started off seeing her face to face, driving an hour and a half to see her. I could only find one within an hour and a half radius of driving from me, which is interesting because there's loads of therapists.

[00:54:24] But in terms of somatic experiences, they're as rare as hen's teeth, as we say in Yorkshire and the Brit. I'm familiar with that, what you're saying. I'm not, I'm not familiar with that. Sorry? I'm not familiar with what you're saying. Somatic experiencing. Somatic experiencing, right? So you, you use the word embedded. So what I'm talking about, uh, so it's embedded in the body. Uh, soma, I think is Latin or Greek for body.

[00:54:55] So somatic experiencing is about, uh, releasing the subconscious trauma that's embedded in our body. So I've been doing that for a year and a half or so. And, uh, and, uh, and I'm enjoying that and getting a lot, uh, getting a lot from them.

[00:55:19] So that's kind of, that's kind of where I am, but I'm looking at residual stuff and I'm, I'm looking at where I'm under, I'm looking for, for me, I'm looking at where I'm underestimating it. Um, so one of the big, I saw Blanche last week, week before, um, I kind of, I was saying to her, I'm underestimating it.

[00:55:45] And she was saying, well, don't go looking for it. Let it, let it, let it come out. Let it come out. Um, perhaps I'm overestimating it. So here we are. It's an ongoing stuff. And I, I listened to podcasts and audio books a couple of hours a day when I'm walking the dog and I'm in the car. So it's lifelong learning for me, which sounded like rubbish when I heard it when I was 20, because I mean, school was okay for me.

[00:56:14] I, I didn't really like it. I didn't really dislike it. I disliked college. I thought that was, um, crap. Uh, the, the, the, the format, the lecture format just didn't, didn't suit my learning style. That's a nicer way of putting it. I liked the, I liked some of the webinar, uh, seminar stuff, but, uh, anyway, so lifelong learning on the back of what I'd learned at university, it wasn't, it wasn't going to be a thing,

[00:56:43] but, uh, I see this big, I see this big thing, right? The, the, uh, look at healing on two levels. On one level we're healing forever, learning forever. And at a deeper level, we are always whole. And, and that seeing our wholeness makes us less scared of our feelings.

[00:57:11] It makes me less scared of my feelings. Oh, great. And, you know, I also want to take a moment and say thank you because we had, I had tried to get in touch before your adoption, um, adoptee focus. And then when that concluded or when you had transitioned then to more open, uh, you reached back to me and I thought that was really tremendous.

[00:57:41] So I really want to thank you for, for doing that. I really enjoyed the conversation. I always, I follow, you know, what you do. You do. And, uh, I'm, I'm, I really looked forward to this and it really was a tremendous, uh, discussion. So thank you. Thank you. Likewise. And thank you listeners. You, you're over an hour in, you're still listening. So thank you. Um, and, uh, we'll speak to you very soon. Take care. Bye-bye.