Tools For Success With Amanda Angell

[00:00:02] Hello everybody, welcome to another episode of Thriving Adoptees podcast. I'm delighted to be joined by Amanda, Amanda Angell. Looking forward to this conversation. Me too, thank you. So much. Angel, what a great name and I pronounced it wrong. I'm glad I checked it before we introduced you. So Amanda, what does thriving mean to you?

[00:00:26] Oh, thriving. When I think of thriving, I think of having all the tools you need to be successful. Having a tool belt filled with skills and community resources and people that you can lean on when you need to deal with something and you need to be able to move forward.

[00:00:52] So what are you going to do? You've got some things ready to pull out and at a moment's notice and deal with the situation. To me, that is what thriving looks like. Yeah. So by tools, you mean kind of strategy stuff or can you give me an example? Sure. I think the first thing that comes to mind is like internal tools. How do I speak to myself? How do I keep myself regulated? If I'm feeling threatened or afraid in a situation?

[00:01:21] How do I deal with that? What's the next step? Knowing yourself enough and also knowing how can I approach this situation in a way that's productive and helpful and not destructive to myself? Yeah. And self means so many different things, right? What does it mean to you? What? I'm sorry, repeat the first. What does self mean to you? Not knowing yourself.

[00:01:46] Yeah. I think it's really easy to assume that you understand yourself. In today's world, we have so much information coming at us. Did this personality type and this thing, what are your strengths? Take this quiz.

[00:02:07] There's all of these ideas that you can really know yourself very easily and the computer is going to tell you exactly what you can expect of yourself. But to me, knowing yourself is taking the time to pause and reflect. So having those moments, those breaks throughout the day where you can check in with yourself, like even just asking yourself, you know, you have a response to something.

[00:02:37] Maybe you're proud of the response. Maybe you're not. But just pausing for a moment and saying, what was that? What drove me there? You know, my kid, I peeled the banana wrong and my kid freaked out and, you know, I puffed about it. Why did I do that? Just kind of being curious about who you are and about what drives you to respond the way you do. You know, I think you can find out a lot about, well, I don't know.

[00:03:06] You know, I don't know why that irritated me so much. Maybe it was this. And then you ask why again. You just continue asking why about yourself and you can really discover, you know, the roots and the pieces of what drives you to be and behave the way that you do. Yeah. So kind of like emotional intelligence stuff. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I jumped on this. I jumped on the self question.

[00:03:31] Right. Because there is this amongst adoptees identity. Identity is a, is very, well, it can be very confusing or it can be very simple. And it also can be, I think, for everybody, it can be everybody, all human beings. Right.

[00:03:56] Right. So when you talk about, when a lot of people talk about self-awareness, they're, they're, they are, they're looking at behavior. Yeah. They're looking at behavior. They're looking at response.

[00:04:15] And so we'll say, uh, that person's not very self-aware because they flip their lid, uh, in a, in a, in a situation where I would have kept calm. Right. You know, that, that person should be more self-aware or I'm working on becoming more self-aware, which would be like, I'm, I'm studying my, I'm looking at responses, reflecting. So self-awareness at that level seems to be about behavior. Right.

[00:04:45] Um, well, you know, but I, I think of self-awareness as, you know, like the, I don't know if you, if you noticed that the thriving adoptees logo is a diamond. Yeah. So I, I'm talking by self-awareness, what I mean by self is our diamond nature. Mm. Right. That, that is. That is. Yeah. So it, it's about, uh, knowing who we are. Yeah. Yeah.

[00:05:15] Is, is, is the, is the diamond, uh, but that often is covered over. Mm-hmm. Our trauma. Yeah. So that, and that came to me. I love a metaphor. I see myself as an apprentice metaphor maker. I love it. I love a metaphor. Love a metaphor. Um, what's your favorite metaphor?

[00:05:43] Oh, I couldn't tell you because I'm making them up on the fly every other minute. It's like, I live in a constant metaphor. My brain thinks. So as you're talking about this diamond, I'm imagining like excavating, you know, what is the process to excavate and find your diamond qualities? And I think curiosity. So being curious about yourself in a nonjudgmental way is kind of what that process looks like,

[00:06:09] at least in my mind, you know, just those, those open-ended questions that aren't judgmental, but, you know, Hey, what was that response? Or even when it's something wonderful, like, um, I don't mind speaking in public. And I actually really enjoyed that presentation. I, I just gave, why, why is that? What is it that makes me, you know, uniquely suited to enjoy this?

[00:06:32] You know, that self-reflection, I think probably didn't do service to the idea that self-reflection should be both about positive and maybe your negative experiences, both the same. Just being curious about yourself. So we continue playing with the metaphor, right? So what, what do we like metaphors are, it's metaphors, diamonds, diamonds are buried deep. Deep.

[00:07:02] Yes. Right. Diamonds are buried deep under strata, different strata of rocks. So what does, what, what are the strata of rocks? How, how? Yeah, I love this. Um, like I said, we can live in this metaphor all day, but you know, especially for adoptive kids, you know, you've got trauma, you've got self-talk, the way you talk to yourself.

[00:07:29] You've got, um, all of your experiences and your history. You've got society. What does society say about you? What have your teachers told you? You know, growing up where you told you were good at things, where you not told you were good at things. We build through our experiences, the, the, the cave or whatever it is that confines these truly exceptional pieces of ourself, um, through our childhood.

[00:07:55] For the most part, we've, we've created this encapsulated, you know, treasure of, of our own being. And you've got to be able to, to see that underneath all of this stuff, good, bad, or ugly, whatever is something really beautiful. And it's worth doing the work to pull it out. So what's the work?

[00:08:24] I think that's just it. Uh, getting to know yourself and paying attention, being willing to, um, engage with resources. Um, you know, if you discover, let's say you've discovered trauma triggers about yourself. Okay. Let's engage curiously. What does it look like to ask someone for help? Um, what does it look like to approach? I'm in that same question I was talking about earlier. What if I approach this problem as if I believed I wouldn't fail?

[00:08:54] What if I knew I could, I could get, I knew I could get through this thing that I've, I've carried with me my whole life. What would I do then? Um, so finding, you know, community supports, uh, resources, uh, whether it's coaching therapy, um, professional coaching, uh, or, you know, finding community supports, uh, whatever it might be spirituality for a lot of people.

[00:09:22] Um, what is it that helps you kind of pull at those pieces of stuff that have buried part of who you are? What do you think? All of that. Um, all of that. I, I like to think of it in a layer of consent, concentric circles, but using the diamond is

[00:09:51] probably more like strategies. So if I was going to go through the different strategies, uh, sorry, the different strata, right. If it was going to go to the different strata, um, I would be, I'd probably be looking at, um, behavior, then, uh, then, then feelings, then thoughts, then thoughts about our self.

[00:10:21] And then the diamond, uh, the, the, the, the diamond itself. So mine's a bit more left brainy. Yeah. Mine's a little more left brainy. Yeah. I see that. You've got a structure to yours. Cause I've played with that metaphor before. I, I've seen it in concentric circles. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. When I've been looking at self, but now we're using the diamond metaphor, I'm, I'm shifting

[00:10:50] from concentric circles to strata. Right. But your, your, your, your list is far more, well, as you say, you're making it upon, you're making it on the fly. It's, it's far more, it's far more creative. It's far more right brain. It's far more, uh, expansive. Yeah. Far more expansive. So what is it that we're looking?

[00:11:16] What, what do you think that we're looking to do as we're doing that digging? What is it, what is it that we're looking for? You know, I think it would be easy to say, you know, you're looking to get rid of all this stuff that's in the way of the diamond. And of course, in a way you are, you want to excavate those pieces of yourself and bring them into the light so that not only you can enjoy those beautiful things, but so can the rest of the world.

[00:11:46] But at the same time, um, as you're doing that work, I think it's so important to acknowledge each layer, um, because those, those layers also make up a huge part of who you are, um, and bring incredible value to, you know, your experiences, the things that you've done, chosen to do, not chosen to do, or were done to you.

[00:12:09] All of those things, um, make up you and are part, you know, in a way, as you pull it out, they become part of the diamond. Um, it's, it's understanding why they're there and what put them there and, um, claiming them as your own and, and pulling back that power from, from all of it and say, you know, these

[00:12:36] things affect me, but now they also belong to me and I can use them. They're for, they're for me. Um, even if they were negative, I can re I can hold this a different way. I can carry it with different handles. Um, it might be the same ugly mess, but I can choose how I carry it. Yeah. What's coming to me in the weakness of my own metaphor, right?

[00:13:06] It's, is the fact that feelings come and go and I'm, and I'm, I'm, I'm projecting them with this diamond metaphor. Well, I'm projecting them as a solid and historic and, and, and there. So, but, but feeling, you know, if I think about trauma driven feelings like insecurity and

[00:13:35] shame and anger and fear, those are only, only temporary. It's, it's not like, it's not like they're there all the time. Right. So I'm wondering if there is a better metaphor than the strata.

[00:14:03] You know, maybe your feelings are, are the wind that blows the dust or the water or, you know, other weather through, you know, cause even once the diamond is excavated, you're still going to experience those things. Those just natural forces of life, you know, being angry, isn't going to stop just because you know who you are still happens.

[00:14:29] So there's a certain amount of grace there, then yeah? Yeah. Yeah. Okay. So you've, you've reminded me with your weather metaphor of my, another metaphor that I love, right? Yeah. So you heard of this phrase coming out of the fog? Yes. But explain it to me in your terms. Yeah.

[00:14:58] So it's often used by adoptees when we talk about becoming aware of our trauma. So we can't remember it. We can't remember being relinquished. I was, I was, I don't, I, my mum, my birth mum had to say goodbye to me twice.

[00:15:28] Wow. Right? So, and this is what I can gather from the adoption of her. So she, she gave birth to me 4th of January, 67. I was in short-term foster care for a while. And then from what I can gather, she went, she drove to the short-term foster care family, picked me up and, and drove me to the adoption agency.

[00:15:58] Right? So she'd had to hand me over to the adopted, the short-term foster care, and then she'd had to hand me over at the agency itself, so she'd have to do it twice. So that's all I can gather. But clearly I was maybe a week old the first time and just over a month old the second time. Yeah. I can't remember that.

[00:16:25] So there's no conscious, there's no conscious memory of, there's no conscious memory in the, in the brain. Sure. It's not, there's no one can remember. But everybody says, well, it, but it's in them. It's in, in the, what's it? The issues in the tissues, as Bessel van der Gogh says, right? Yeah. Yeah. So we can't remember, we can't, we can't remember the, we can't remember the relinquishment.

[00:16:51] Coming out of the fog is when you kind of realise that the issues stem from that. Yeah. Yeah. So as, what's his name, Jung says, and, but, but, and as Jung says, until we make the unconscious conscious, it will rule our life and we will call it fate. Yes. Just something like that, right? So coming out of the fog is when you kind of realise that there was some stuff that you

[00:17:21] didn't, you hadn't, you hadn't seen the cause of it. So we come out to the fog, right? So in the fog, we can't see clearly. What happens when we come out of the fog? What do we see? Is that a question for me? Yeah. Yeah, it is. I mean, I've got, I've got an answer, but I'd love to hear your answer too.

[00:17:46] You know, thinking about it, I'm, I'm an adoptive mother and, you know, obviously. I should, sorry, listeners, I should have said that before. It's a, it's a, it's okay. And then I, I also, you know, work in the adoptive space. Um, so just from an, from an empathetic standpoint, it sounds incredibly overwhelming, um, to come

[00:18:11] out of the fog and to, to have these realisations that, my goodness, I've been, I've been carrying this my whole life and it wasn't really a choice that I made. Um, so what happens next? You know, I think coming out of the fog in, in some senses, it feels very paralyzing.

[00:18:35] You know, if you don't know what to do next, or if you don't know, if you don't have a guide to tell you where to step, you know, I, that sounds, it just sounds, it sounds like a lot. Um, I think, yeah, it is a lot. Yeah. Yeah. It's, um, and we can, uh, and, um, mood. Yes. And, and, and we can, we can make it a lot bigger or can make it a lot bigger.

[00:19:02] It's, it's, it's, uh, there's a lot of confusion about how big it is, right? Or how big it is. It's like, yeah, you can, it's almost like a scale. There might be some days where it feels massive and some days where you feel completely capable. Um, I, I think that's when this tool belt of skills that I'm, you know, that's in resources. That's, that's when I think, you know, we're made for community. We're made to do hard things together.

[00:19:32] You know, that's when you need to be with people who have, maybe people who've been there before. Um, maybe, maybe people who can just listen, um, and tell you that it sounds hard. And, uh, maybe people who can teach you something new. Um, maybe people, you can teach something to, you know, Hey, this happened to me and this, this affected me and I want to see this change or whatever it might be. Um, I think that's why we're doing the podcast.

[00:20:02] Yeah. That's your opportunity to lean in. That's why we're doing the podcast. Yeah. What can I do with it? Yeah. So let me take a step back. So play with the metaphor then, right? We come out of the fog. Um, you talked about, you know, uh, overwhelming and I, you know, I think you've like a trauma response, you know, freeze. Yeah. Fight flight is I think. Right. Fawn is it? I mean, they keep on coming up with new ones, right? But it was, it was freeze.

[00:20:29] Originally it was originally freeze, freeze, fight or flight. So you come out of the fog, um, continue in metaphor. What, what, what do we, what do we see? What do you see? You know, I'm imagining in my, in my mind, I'm imagining that you're almost in like a desert, right? So the fog clears and you're, you're standing in this space and off in the distance, you

[00:20:56] can see a city and you can tell that it's probably thriving and, and, but kind of close over here, there's, you know, a pool of water and, um, you know, you look at the city and you're like, that's, that's where I'm trying to get. Um, but you're, you're not going to have what you need to get that far just yet. And you're, you've got to turn and look to the water and think, what do I need to just

[00:21:23] get through today and to get through the next week? What supports do I need for my day-to-day life? Because this is a lot. What does it look like to just start meeting my own needs? Because I've just realized that I have far more needs than I, than I thought. And so, you know, you head over to this pool of water and gather your strength, um,

[00:21:48] before you, you head into, I, I honestly, I think people who come from hard places have some of the most incredible potential for societal change that I've ever seen. Um, because people, people listen, uh, people listen to stories and it, it means a lot. And I think you can choose from there, you know, you can choose how you want to carry it. Right.

[00:22:15] I work in an organization that serves foster and adoptive families. I bet 90% of the people who work here were former foster or adoptive kids. They've chosen to carry that into the future to help other people, um, and equip them, you know, uh, or you can just say, you know, I'm going to take this and it's going to empower me to create a better life for my family or even just a better life for myself.

[00:22:44] I just want to feel stable for a while. So what does that look like? Um, yeah. What do you think about that? I think it's great. I love the, uh, you know, what do I need to survive? Yeah. Um, and I love the idea of the community. Okay. So what do I need to survive the water? You know, who, who can help me, uh, who can. Who can help me. Somebody that's, uh, trodden the path already.

[00:23:14] Right. Somebody that's figured, figured some stuff out that may be able to, uh, to, to help, to help us, uh, figure our stuff out because we're confused and scared. Yeah. Um, and, and as I say, you know, that, that's why we're doing the podcast, right? So the whole idea of the podcast is to, is to mine the collective wisdom. Yeah. Mine the wisdom.

[00:23:39] I'm trying to mine the wisdom of the, uh, the guests in terms of what they have learned. Yeah. And, uh, and I guess the, the, uh, the, the, the, that people side is probably the biggest difference to what my metaphor. Yeah.

[00:24:08] My extension of the metaphor is. Have you ever seen, um, you know, it's where we're moving away from diamonds and at some capacity, but it's really making me think of how they mine, uh, opals. Have you ever, have you ever seen anything to that end? Well, first of all, it's terrifying. Um, but there's only, I think two places, I don't know. Don't quote me, but there's very few places in the world where you can get opals.

[00:24:37] Um, and there's only one place you can get these fire opals that has like blues and beautiful colors in them. Um, and, um, anyway, they dig these holes that are like straight down into the ground and they just kind of poke around and create tunnels between these holes. And so you'll just disappear into the hole, which is like 30, 40 feet deep. It's so deep. And then they find these veins, you know, of, of opal and they'll, they'll pull them out.

[00:25:05] And, but you'll see these fields full of holes, just desert land field holes. And underneath all of that is where you find these opals, which they're not only like precious, but they're very fragile. So you have to be careful. Um, anyway, I'm just, I'm almost imagining, you know, you've come out of one of these spaces. You're in this huge field. It's full of holes.

[00:25:33] Um, you know, you could very easily trip and fall right back into this, this pit that, that you've just worked your way out of, you know, you need, you need the guide, the local guy, the guy who's there every day. And he's not afraid of falling in the hole to, to, you know, have you jump in his truck and drive you away. Um, that's, that's at least the vision that I'm, I'm coming up with in mind of, you know, probably. We need the guide. Yeah.

[00:26:03] I mean, mental exercise. They, they, they, they do that. Um, if you, if you're skiing in an area where there's crevasses and avalanches, there is a guide that knows the way around, you know, that crevasse looks different to what it does this, this time last week. So don't go near there. And, and people are roped up and stuff like that.

[00:26:24] Um, the, the other, the, the other thing that, um, uh, pops into my head as a kind of back, back to the start again, is that I've actually heard of, uh, adoptive parents using this phrase too. So I don't know, have you come across a lady called Beth Syverson? Um, so she's way to the, uh, West of you. She's in California. Yeah.

[00:26:52] Um, and she's an adoptive mom and she runs a podcast too. Uh, and she's a coach. And I think it's called Adoption Unraveled. I'm pretty sure it's called Adoption Unraveled. And she adopted her son, Joey, uh, from Japan. So it's trans-racial adopting.

[00:27:13] Um, uh, and she talks about coming out of the, uh, her coming out of the fog when she realized his, the impact that the, how adoption had impacted him. So it's not just the adoptees that do that. Yeah. So there's, you know, people have been, people have been, uh, maybe the, the trauma,

[00:27:41] and maybe this is something that happened more in the past, right? Yeah. People downplayed the, the, the, the trauma, the trauma stuff was, was downplayed. And so it came as a bit of a shock, to put it politely. There is no such thing as a bit of a shock, is there? Right. It came as a shock. Um, and then it, it, it's, it's that. Yeah.

[00:28:11] It, it, it's that scare. It's that scare factor that you talked about. Mm-hmm. But actually within, um, adoptive parents. Interesting. You know, that really, really, uh, that, that resonates a lot. And I don't know statistically where you guys are, you know, in the UK, but in, in the US,

[00:28:37] we see disruptions happen, um, up to 10% of the time. And I think that's kind of the place where we've, where people are primed to do something like that. They, the, the fog is lifted and they're feeling scared and they're paralyzed. And I think that's, that's why, I mean, thankfully my organization's working towards this, but I think

[00:29:04] we all need to work towards continued support of adoptive families. Um, cause first of all, adoptive kids for sure. Um, but these families, you know, they don't, they don't know what's underneath of all of this either. And they're going to have to go on that journey with that child too. And to be a really great support for a child who's really hurting, it can be really, really hard.

[00:29:30] And, um, you know, I think you arrive as an adult and you think, okay, I should know what I'm doing now. And you've, you know, me, I've got four kids. I should have it figured out by now. And I absolutely do not. And my daughters can hit me with a question that's just floors me. And, um, I want to answer it for them well, but I don't know how. And all of a sudden I'm afraid because they've presented me with a piece of trauma, something

[00:29:56] delicate, something, something that really could play a huge part in how they view themselves and how they view the world and knowing how to deal with that. There's, you know, we're still building up a lot of supports for how to guide families in that. And that can have such a profound impact on the life of this tiny human. Um, which is, I think, you know, first of all, we need, we need more supports for kids after adoption. We need more supports for families after adoption.

[00:30:27] You know, we've romanticized the experience as if adoption is the arrival and really it's just the beginning. Yeah. Do you know when most adoptees come out of the fob? No. Middle age. Wow. Wow. That sounds really difficult. And then to, to grow up. So kids don't.

[00:30:57] So kids don't. Yeah. Yeah. Talk about confusion. Yeah. And like in the neuroplasticity you have as a child, you know, you're, you still have that as an adult, but, um, it's, it's significantly harder to, to change the way your mind is, is thinking. And so if you are discovering and trying to create a new way of doing things within yourself

[00:31:27] as an adult, that's a lot. So I heard that word neuroplasticity. Yeah. A lot, right. It fails. It feels pretty gatekept. It feels complicated and not, and it doesn't feel like something that is very possible. Yeah.

[00:31:58] That word doesn't, right. But, um, so what, what does it, what, what does it mean to you? Hmm. I have a metaphor for that. Are you shocked? I thought you might have. Um, no, I'm just being clever. Well, it's just, uh, you know, that's the way my brain works. Uh, and I've, I've even explained it this way when I've, on occasion, uh, back when, when

[00:32:27] I was teaching classes for adoptive families, I would talk about neuroplasticity and, um, you know, you, it's like, I think of, um, neural pathways. So it's, it's the way your body, your brain, you respond. Uh, you've, you've got some habits, whether or not you realize it, you know, you've got some habits in your mind. And so let's say we're back to the self-awareness piece, right? Right, right.

[00:32:54] You drop your pencil and, and do you think, shoot, I'm always doing that? Or do you think, oh, oh, well, and move on, right? That's a neural pathway. That's something that you've trained your mind to do. So big, small, whatever, you've got these habits. Um, and I think of them as, as like rivers, right? Um, some of them are huge. Some of them are small. Some of them might be creeks, whatever. But let's say this water's moving.

[00:33:21] Your mind is the water moving along these pathways. And you realize that is not the best pathway for me. There's a better way, but it's over there. It's over there. And I've got to figure out how to get my, the flow of my mind to move to a different place, to arrive at a different place. So what does it look like to do that? Well, if it's a small little, a small habit, um, you're just digging a little trench and

[00:33:50] creating a new pathway. But some of these, especially that are formed in trauma, it's, it's, you know, the Mississippi river, the Nile. What do you have to do if you want to move a river like that? You've got to put in the work to, to dig a trench that's deeper than the one that's already in place. You have to, you have to form the thoughts so many times that that habit becomes more

[00:34:18] ingrained than the one that you used to have. And eventually the, the old one, the old river would dry up and the new one becomes the one where the water naturally flows. But for a season, you'll have it in both. And then you're trying to make sure you're using the one, the new one. Um, that's, that's to me what neuroplasticity looks like. It's, I can move the river if I want to.

[00:34:42] Um, I just have to put in the effort to get there and take this water, take my thought process to a new ending point. So I think of neuroplasticity as insights. Hmm. It's a change. Yeah.

[00:35:10] And I think insights come to us rather than us making them happen. Yeah. Okay. So my metaphor is bus stop. So you hang out at the bus stop for the insights. You can't, the bus has, it's got its own timetable, right? It's not an on demand. It's not like Uber. It's not like Uber, which is on demand. It's a bus. It's got a schedule.

[00:35:38] It's going to turn up when it feels when it, well, according to schedule or when it feels like, or when the, when, you know, when the bus turns up, you know, you can't make it happen. But we have to, we're having to make it. We have, we have, we, if we, if we hang out to the bus stop for insights by doing the work, we're far more likely to have the insights.

[00:36:08] The bus isn't going to turn up if we're not on, at the bus stop. It's not, it's not on demand. It's not on demand in terms of its time. It's not stopping on demand. It'll only stop at a bus stop. So we have to be at the bus stop, not halfway to it or in the garden or what you would call it. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

[00:36:33] It's, it, it releases some of the responsibility that, that maybe my metaphor. We can't think, we can't think ourselves to an insight. Right. Right. You can't, you can't force it, but you can be in the right place. We can, but we can mull it over. Yeah. And, and it's like, have you ever had that when you've been thinking about a problem, thinking about solution to a challenge or a problem for a long time?

[00:37:03] And then, then you go off and do something else or you go to, you finally go to sleep and then you wake up with the idea in the morning. Mm-hmm. So like the, the mind, the mind is the end of the search and it pops, you know, it pops out of, it pops up out of the blue, the insight pops out of the blue, but you have given it some serious thoughts. So you've kind of made yourself insight ready.

[00:37:29] You've, you've pointed your, your idea machine in the right direction. Yeah. Yeah. So maybe that's, maybe that's a way of merging our two. Yeah. Metaphors. Yeah. Cause you're right. There are times when you, when you just have an epiphany and it very easily can change

[00:37:56] the direction of how you feel about yourself or your experiences because you, you've learned something new. And I mean, that's, that's happened to me in many contexts. And so I, I think I'd kind of forgotten about that, that human experience in my metaphor. I think there are times, you know, when you're, we're planful about making a change about yourself,

[00:38:22] but sometimes it's holy cow, my whole worldview just shifted because I realized this today or whatever. Indeed. Indeed. Yeah. That feels like a good place to bring it in. Well, lovely. Such an enjoyable conversation. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you listeners. We'll speak to you very soon. Take care.

[00:38:50] Hang out at the bus stop for insights. And the place to hang out for the bus stop for insights is driving adoptees. Okay. The podcast, right? That's why we're here. I'm mine. I'm trying to mine insights. That sounded really cheesy. I've never done that before. Anything like that. Never. 540 episodes. Anyway, we'll speak to you soon listeners. Take care. Bye. Bye.