DOs and DONTs: Christian contexts for talking about childhood sexual abuse

[DOs and DONTs Episode] How can the values of Christianity be used by abusers, and how can they also be used by some to aid healing? Sophia interviews survivor and Pastor Chioma Alade, as she shares her journey with the church and teaches on what forgiveness actually means for survivors of sexual abuse. 

Transcript

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Welcome to Secrets Worth Sharing a series

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all about having practical and approachable

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conversations on childhood sexual abuse, but with serious joy.

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I'm Sophia a designer and survivor,

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and this episode is all about child sexual abuse and Christianity.

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And for that, I am joined by the wonderful Chioma.

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Hi. Hello.

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First of all, thank you for having me.

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Thank you for asking me.

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I feel super honored.

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My name is Chioma.

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I, well I'm a lot of things.

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I'm a lover of people.

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I love nature.

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I love, cake.

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I love my family.

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I love advocacy work.

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I also have a thing for diamonds.

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That's a whole other conversation.

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And within the local church context, I function as a pastor

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and a minister and help to discipled people and help them to be

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more like Jesus and live happier and more joyful lives.

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So that's just a bit about me

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This is the section in the podcast where we share

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really practical advice about what you should and shouldn't do.

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When trying to support someone

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who is a victim of child sexual abuse, particularly in a Christian context.

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So we each have a couple of don'ts.

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We've not heard each other's.

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But, Chioma I was wondering if you could start us off

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by sharing a couple of don’ts.

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First of all, don't blame the victim.

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I think that that is like

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common sense.

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But common sense is not common, you know?

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-Yeah. Yeah.

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Don't blame the victim.

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And also don't use

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unhelpful language to describe the abuse.

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Children don't have affairs with adults.

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Yes. Yes.

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Children don't lead on.

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Let's let's correct. Let's.

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Sexual activity with a minor is abuse because they cannot consent.

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So let's just be careful.

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They can't consent fully understanding the consequences.

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So let's just be careful in our language.

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Don't use unhelpful language.

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Definitely don't blame victim

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and don't don't support people who are also blaming the victim.

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And don't stand by while other people.

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Make the victims journey harder.

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Because some people will say oh, but it wasn't me.

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I'm like yeah but you.

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You were part of the conversations.

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You you sat there that you didn't call it out.

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You didn't call out the wrong when it was happening.

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And also like don't don't don't cover it up.

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Don't cover it up because

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you know and I've seen this personally in my own life

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that people that literally covered up the, the abuse that I

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and I realized later in life covered up the abuse.

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and knew even my ministers have seen I have seen them face

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severe consequences as a result of it in their own personal lives.

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You know, God, you know, when the Scripture says that God is justice.

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He really he really is.

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And God, God doesn't need anyone.

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You know.

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it seems that people get away with things.

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But I've come to realize that people actually

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Don't. the repercussions are there

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So, for really unrepentant people and actually even repenting or something

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does that doesn't, isn't mitigate or take away from from the past

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or your actions you can be sorry.

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but you’re still going to prison mate

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do you know what I mean like

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ok someone's sorry doesn't mean that we're not going to prosecute.

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You said something really powerful last time we spoke, which was

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you see church as a family of God.

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And the minute it starts acting like an institution, that's when it I can’t remember

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your exact words, but that's when it begins to fail us or something.

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Yes, yes, a church.

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Church is the family of God.

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It's literally like it’s the Jesus that our community sees.

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It's. It's the bride of Christ.

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It's it's it's, it's it's so much more than the buildings that we see.

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It's a spiritual force.

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It represents God's power to the world.

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But any time we behave, we begin to behave more like a corporation

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or an institution or a business.

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We see abuse. Yeah.

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Because actually what happens in institutions is

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the party line is more important than the people within that institution.

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And the moment that we begin to

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to elevate the ideals and the visions of human beings

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over God's idea

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for church, abuse is inevitable.

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Because it stops being about God.

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Yeah.

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So it's not surprising when these things happen,

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when we decide to operate a church

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as if it's an institution and not the family of God

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for sure.

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You also said something about

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Jesus flipping tables, which I want us to slot in somehow.

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Yeah. I mean,

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we have this idea that Jesus is always this,

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soft and, you know, and

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and that God is I think we we miss understand.

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We miss,

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we really downgrade,

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actually, the anger.

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of God because the bible says that God is angry, he’s a jealous God, and that he won't have

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us serve anything or any other purpose apart from him and his house.

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And, you know, in the New Testament, we saw Jesus walk into the temple and they

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they basically made it a den of thieves and were selling things and they were

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I mean, they were profiting off people's sacrifices to God.

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And they were literally like,

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they had litterally turned it into a fanfare

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and Jesus literally takes all these temples and the market.

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They made it and like, literally flips them like carries them and flips them

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and was like, you are supposed to be worshiping God here,

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but you've made this place a business, like a marketplace,

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like you've completely desecrated God's intention

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for places of worship.

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And we see that today.

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Every time,

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every time someone decides

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that the appearance of a church is more important

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than someone that's been wounded in the church.

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We see that every time

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and God isn't afraid to flip the tables.

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And they often like wonder.

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You know we're having so much exposure and things happening now.

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Is that why all these people being exposed.

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It's an attack on the church is not an attack on the church.

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I think God is dealing with in the whole world abuse actually right now.

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And as they are really beginning

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to destigmatize and I think something need a stigma for a reason, right?

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As they're really trying to destigmatize minor attractive persons

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and advocate for minor attracted people.

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I believe that as always God sees what's coming

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and so he’s dealing with the church first

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so that we’ll actually be able to talk to the world on this aspect.

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But until the church gets its act together,

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we’re hypocrites to the rest of the world.

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And so

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what's happening now is he's exposing it for us so that Christians

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can understand the need to be concerned about this topic. -For sure.

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And again, it it's moving on from that passive to that active.

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My don'ts I'm very interested to hear what you think about them.

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So my first one is quite obviously don't force forgiveness.

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I think I'm still very much on that journey and very much on the early parts

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of that journey. And, you know, maybe I'll get there.

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I'm not sure.

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But you can't treat forgiveness like a ticking time bomb.

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And if you are someone with faith and you are trying to use that

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because you have reached a point in your life

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where you have reached forgiveness, that's great.

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But do not use that to force on other people.

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If anything, you're just going to drive them further away. -Yeah, Yes.

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And especially for all the reasons we talked about today, there are so many

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very intricate, complex layers as to why forgiveness and religion

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and abuse are very

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It's going to take a long, long time.

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And you're not only reaching that forgiveness for yourself,

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but you're also trying to understand what forgiveness means

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to so many different people in your life.

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So yeah, just don't force forgiveness.

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It's something that you can help someone with.

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Yeah.

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I was also just going to just quickly add that when people start

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forcing forgiveness,

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I don't what they really mean is they want a force reconciliation.

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Because a biblical forgiveness journey actually means

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acknowledging what someone saying is wrong.

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Yeah, I think we slap the word

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forgiveness on processes that enable us to go back to things as normal.

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It’s not really

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forgiveness really.

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Which I

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You know what? Truly, I did not know until today.

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So thank you for that. -You’re welcome

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And my second don't

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don't just pray for them.

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What I mean by that is and you hear it in so many things.

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For example, when someone's got a child who's terminally ill

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or someone who is the victim of a violent crime

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or someone in a domestic abuse situation,

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or as we're talking about in the child sexual abuse situation,

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a lot of the time it's

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a very and I see it it’s meant from a place of goodwill.

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People say, I'm praying for you.

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I'm thinking of you.

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When when the action of support is just prayers,

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it can be very, very difficult for the person to understand

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how you're supporting them, because at least the way I see prayer

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is that it should be something that's an action as well.

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So it should be supporting the person and all of that.

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And so when you just say I’ll pray

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I’ll pray for you, I'll slip a line in after our fathers or whatever it is you are,

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you are

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very much greenlighting the passiveness

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and ultimately fueling the silence that that person has lived through.

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That's almost allowed that abuse to happen in the first place.

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I just don't find it a very helpful phrase.

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I think, first of all, I find you probably don't think

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it's a very helpful phrase when people are actually praying for you.

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It's actually it can be helpful, okay, but you probably don't find it helpful

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because most people when I say they're praying for you, actually aren’t. Thats the truth

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it's like, oh, I'm thinking of you I’m praying for you.

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No you’re not, let's be real.

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Like I’ve been there

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you know, when I've been ill, wherever.  They’re like I'm going to pray for you.

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saying to me you know that girl has not prayed for you.

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But you know that's a lie, right.

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I don't have to confirm that's a lie, right?

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Like ok cool because when people actually are praying, praying

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is it doing word. You know, as you said, it's an action, right?

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When you're praying for someone

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you know, God isn't a liar and he's also not a dead god, right?

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He's a living, breathing God.

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And when you're praying for someone, God will drop in your

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what most people will call your consciousness.

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The Christian might call it their spirit right

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things that that person actually needs

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And that's that.

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That process is how you know that prayers are doing work because God will tell you

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about things to pray for and ways you can show up for them.

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Practically.

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And make them

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feel like you're there for them.

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You know what I mean. Yeah.

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So prayer is prayer is most often followed up by action

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whether, the behind the scenes or in a way that someone can see.

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So I think, you know, I think also as Christians, Catholics, whatever,

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we need to be careful about just slapping a label on something

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just to make someone feel like we're doing something.

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When we’re not. And actually see. -Yeah. 

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Love that, love that realness

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Shall we move on to some more positive things.

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So the do’s

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My first one was do offer

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to understand the person who's abused stance on religion and try and meet them there.

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It’s for vwey similar reasons that I said the forgiveness is a ticking time bomb

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kind of thing.

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I think

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we have to acknowledge that for some people,

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when they've gone through abuse, their faith is at a weak point,

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as you said,

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like you questioning why did this happen, why did God allow this to happen.

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And if your faith is stronger and you see that there might be a way

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that you can support them through it,

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you have to be so careful about how you're meeting them with that knowledge.

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Because, for example, if someone if someone

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doesn't have the faith or has a different faith or whatever,

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I personally wouldn't dream about going to try and convert them

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or whatever it is, but there could be an interesting meeting place between

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two people with beliefs that have quite similar cause

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or but the the but they are practiced in different ways.

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Like.

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I guess that's what I

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mean by it's like still help them on a journey

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that that journey has to start with the person who's been abused.

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And so for me, that feels like meeting them where they are with religion.

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Yeah.

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God meets us where we are.

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So that's where we which is what we should do as Christians.

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Yeah.

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And I remember when I first when everything first came out,

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my parents were like, wow, kind of like your husband.

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This makes so much sense now.

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And one of the things is that for we've had a lot of bust-ups

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about going to church,

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and I was very much adamant that I, I just didn't want to go for a while.

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And that caused a lot of hurt. Of course it did.

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And I did.

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I wasn't really saying

00:14:07:18 - 00:14:11:16
like some of the reasons why that was, because nobody knew at the time. And

00:14:13:00 - 00:14:13:13
I think

00:14:13:13 - 00:14:17:19
if someone had taken some care to kind of meet me where I was, and they did in

00:14:17:19 - 00:14:22:20
a lot of ways to just kind of say, okay, that we understand all faith is a journey

00:14:22:20 - 00:14:26:22
we understand as parents, it's our duty to kind of encourage you.

00:14:26:22 - 00:14:29:12
But like, ultimately the decision is yourself.

00:14:29:12 - 00:14:32:10
I think that that was really helpful and I'm very grateful to them

00:14:32:10 - 00:14:35:23
for all for just like letting me make up my mind on decisions.

00:14:36:08 - 00:14:41:17
I think the problem is when other people try and be like, why are you like this?

00:14:41:23 - 00:14:45:03
God will help you just forgive or just

00:14:45:21 - 00:14:48:12
start going back to church and you'll see that everything's better.

00:14:48:12 - 00:14:50:18
It's not necessarily the most helpful message

00:14:50:18 - 00:14:54:06
that you can give to someone in such a moment of vulnerability.

00:14:55:13 - 00:14:57:20
Yeah, I would agree.

00:14:57:20 - 00:14:59:19
I was so interested to see what you thought about that.

00:14:59:19 - 00:15:02:00
So. -Yeah.

00:15:02:00 - 00:15:05:00
And then the other one was,

00:15:05:06 - 00:15:07:19
do you take the time to find peace

00:15:07:19 - 00:15:12:12
and comfort throughout the process and look at active ways

00:15:12:12 - 00:15:13:12
that that can play out?

00:15:13:12 - 00:15:16:08
So I guess it it's almost the reverse of what I was saying.

00:15:16:08 - 00:15:18:09
Like in that prayer is in action.

00:15:18:09 - 00:15:21:09
So do you remember that prayer is an action

00:15:21:09 - 00:15:26:16
and finding peace and and solace and helping that person on a journey

00:15:26:16 - 00:15:32:05
of finding that inner comfort and support should be your first and foremost goal.

00:15:32:12 - 00:15:35:12
And so if that plays out in terms of

00:15:35:16 - 00:15:40:04
would you like me to come, come with you while you're making a statement?

00:15:40:13 - 00:15:43:20
Or I always give this example because I think it's

00:15:44:06 - 00:15:47:12
one of the most beautiful examples of allyship that I've ever seen.

00:15:47:19 - 00:15:51:06
My ex-boyfriend knew for six years

00:15:51:14 - 00:15:55:10
that before anyone else knew that I was being abused.

00:15:56:09 - 00:15:57:08
And I

00:15:57:08 - 00:16:01:13
beg it, he's a Christian as well, and I've begged him and I was like,

00:16:01:13 - 00:16:05:02
please, like you are going to be invited to family parties.

00:16:05:02 - 00:16:06:15
You're going to be coming to see my family.

00:16:06:15 - 00:16:10:19
It's so many things like you cannot out me, you cannot speak to anyone on behalf.

00:16:10:19 - 00:16:13:19
I know you're angry, but you have to please keep it

00:16:14:03 - 00:16:16:17
within you and.

00:16:16:17 - 00:16:18:12
And he did he found it so hard

00:16:18:12 - 00:16:20:24
And I remember it was Christmas.

00:16:20:24 - 00:16:22:05
And we do this thing or we do this thing

00:16:22:05 - 00:16:23:10
there’s so many of us in my family

00:16:23:10 - 00:16:26:01
instead of buying presents, we all do a Secret Santa.

00:16:26:01 - 00:16:29:04
And I remember the first year I was entered into that Secret Santa,

00:16:29:22 - 00:16:32:21
my abusers name got pulled out and I was like, fuck!

00:16:32:21 - 00:16:35:17
And then he went, I've taken care of it.

00:16:35:17 - 00:16:37:14
I've gone down the charity shop.

00:16:37:14 - 00:16:41:11
I bought him a present, like literally didn't think about it twice.

00:16:41:12 - 00:16:42:03
It's wrapped.

00:16:42:03 - 00:16:45:03
It's says, like, you do not need to think about this.

00:16:45:12 - 00:16:48:12
And I just think that for me is true.

00:16:48:24 - 00:16:51:15
Showing up and prayer by action and supporting someone.

00:16:51:15 - 00:16:55:14
And that was, that was, for me, like the most amazing Christmas gift

00:16:55:14 - 00:16:57:06
someone could ever have given to me.

00:16:57:06 - 00:17:00:10
And I'm to this day so grateful to him for that.

00:17:02:01 - 00:17:04:23
Yeah, I love that he is also a Christian.

00:17:04:23 - 00:17:08:20
You're like yes, rep represent -A good ambasador

00:17:10:20 - 00:17:12:04
He is he is wonderful.

00:17:12:04 - 00:17:13:15
He's he's great.

00:17:13:15 - 00:17:16:14
Yeah, I love that.

00:17:16:14 - 00:17:18:12
That's a really powerful one.

00:17:18:12 - 00:17:21:00
I think. I agree with everything you said.

00:17:21:00 - 00:17:23:11
I think that's really, really helpful.

00:17:23:11 - 00:17:27:06
Just supporting people in their own journeys I think is so important.

00:17:28:07 - 00:17:29:23
Should I do mine? -Yes.

00:17:29:23 - 00:17:32:20
Do you get to know God for yourself

00:17:32:20 - 00:17:36:24
and not through the lens of other people's behavior who call themselves Christians?

00:17:37:08 - 00:17:38:13
That's great.

00:17:38:13 - 00:17:40:03
That's a great

00:17:40:03 - 00:17:42:08
do to get to know that for yourself.

00:17:42:08 - 00:17:45:11
One of the questions that people always, often ask me is,

00:17:46:07 - 00:17:49:02
what books do you,

00:17:49:02 - 00:17:50:08
recommend in the Bible?

00:17:50:08 - 00:17:53:08
It's a massive, massive, massive, massive one.

00:17:53:16 - 00:17:55:05
I love the book of John.

00:17:55:05 - 00:17:58:05
I think the gospel of John, you know, John also,

00:17:59:18 - 00:18:00:23
he was a beloved one, I think.

00:18:00:23 - 00:18:03:23
I think he also felt that he was Jesus’s favourite

00:18:05:18 - 00:18:07:08
I think you see the

00:18:07:08 - 00:18:11:08
you see the love of God in that, in that I then the book of Psalms because,

00:18:12:08 - 00:18:14:11
David went through like, wasn't

00:18:14:11 - 00:18:17:11
a perfect man, himself actually,

00:18:17:17 - 00:18:22:01
and was actually punished for abusing actually which is really interesting.

00:18:22:18 - 00:18:23:04
Yeah.

00:18:23:04 - 00:18:25:12
So that's another interesting one in Scripture.

00:18:25:12 - 00:18:28:12
But, and also a reminder to us that God doesn't take abuse

00:18:29:02 - 00:18:31:22
lightly at all.

00:18:31:22 - 00:18:33:22
But we see in the Old Testament, we see people

00:18:33:22 - 00:18:36:22
go through depression, sadness,

00:18:38:01 - 00:18:39:09
we see in the book of,

00:18:39:09 - 00:18:42:12
in the story of, of has there, you know,

00:18:43:08 - 00:18:46:11
God asks him to love a woman that's a prostitute.

00:18:46:22 - 00:18:51:04
and she goes back into prostitution three times.

00:18:51:18 - 00:18:55:04
And he he he goes and rescues her every time.

00:18:56:09 - 00:18:57:10
And we still

00:18:57:10 - 00:19:02:05
see all these amazing stories of people who really struggled

00:19:02:05 - 00:19:06:03
with their faith and came to realize that God loves them.

00:19:06:13 - 00:19:08:04
So important.

00:19:08:04 - 00:19:11:22
So, yeah, get to know God outside of other people's, like,

00:19:12:09 - 00:19:15:09
honestly, bad behavior.

00:19:15:17 - 00:19:17:13
Can I just add something?

00:19:17:13 - 00:19:18:12
Go on

00:19:18:12 - 00:19:21:08
As you were talking, I realized that whenever I'm

00:19:21:08 - 00:19:24:08
in a situation where I need to pray, I pray in Vietnamese.

00:19:24:23 - 00:19:26:07
And I've been thinking for a while.

00:19:26:07 - 00:19:28:23
about why that is, Vietnamese is my second language.

00:19:28:23 - 00:19:31:23
I'm very much not fluent in it in the way that I'm in English.

00:19:32:04 - 00:19:35:22
I think it's the it's a comfortable degree of separation for me

00:19:36:03 - 00:19:40:03
because it's like it's chanting, you know, it's chanting.

00:19:40:03 - 00:19:44:01
I don't have to think as deeply about the words I see it as grounding within

00:19:44:01 - 00:19:47:05
my cultural, that part of my cultural heritage, all of that.

00:19:47:23 - 00:19:52:11
When you were speaking, I realized, wow, like, actually, so much of my religion

00:19:52:11 - 00:19:56:06
is what I've been taught, and I've just accepted it for true.

00:19:56:07 - 00:20:00:03
For fact, and maybe I also need to like, figure out what that means for me as well.

00:20:01:05 - 00:20:02:10
Yeah, there's a lot of

00:20:02:10 - 00:20:07:18
colonial mindsets that have crept into our understanding of Christianity.

00:20:08:09 - 00:20:11:09
The kind of like when people say to me as a black woman, oh well Christianity

00:20:11:16 - 00:20:12:16
is a white man's religion.

00:20:12:16 - 00:20:15:21
And I'm not like Christianity was was like there were Christians

00:20:15:21 - 00:20:17:04
that would people like that were missionaries.

00:20:17:04 - 00:20:21:09
And those Christians in in Africa way before anyone came with a sword

00:20:21:09 - 00:20:22:21
and a Bible

00:20:22:21 - 00:20:26:08
like slavery and the Christianity like Christianity existed

00:20:26:08 - 00:20:30:12
like hundreds and hundreds of years before those guys turned up in Africa

00:20:32:04 - 00:20:35:16
And Scripture also says, that every tribe and tongue will praise him,

00:20:36:08 - 00:20:41:11
and it might be that, you know, God has an intention in your culture

00:20:41:12 - 00:20:44:24
and who you are and where he decided that you would fit in the world.

00:20:44:24 - 00:20:47:04
It's not an accident that you feel more comfortable.

00:20:47:04 - 00:20:48:20
Praying in Vietnamese.

00:20:50:07 - 00:20:53:20
If that's the way that you feel, then do it.

00:20:54:19 - 00:20:57:19
It's not better in English.

00:20:57:24 - 00:20:58:10
Yeah it is.

00:20:58:10 - 00:21:00:21
I guess it depends what part of me is

00:21:00:21 - 00:21:03:03
coming out in that moment, but. Yeah.

00:21:03:03 - 00:21:04:14
Sorry I interrupted you.

00:21:04:14 - 00:21:06:21
So you'll- -No it's fine.

00:21:06:21 - 00:21:10:01
I’m thinking about what my other do’s are. Don't allow

00:21:10:01 - 00:21:13:01
anyone to make you feel less than because you have sexually abuse.

00:21:15:06 - 00:21:17:08
Do you remember that

00:21:17:08 - 00:21:20:08
sexual abuse is not a sexual experience?

00:21:20:09 - 00:21:21:17
That's great.

00:21:21:17 - 00:21:22:23
That's really great.

00:21:22:23 - 00:21:27:03
Like, if someone said to me today, who was the first person you had sex with,

00:21:27:09 - 00:21:31:06
I'd say my husband because I hadn’t had

00:21:31:06 - 00:21:35:23
I had never had any consensual experience apart from my husband.

00:21:36:12 - 00:21:40:14
And that's not to say like, oh my gosh, it's like virginity again

00:21:40:14 - 00:21:43:22
And, you know, I'm trying to like, restore some kind of idea of my virginity.

00:21:44:04 - 00:21:44:23
It's not that.

00:21:44:23 - 00:21:48:17
It's just that I don't count sexual abuse as sexual experience

00:21:48:17 - 00:21:49:06
because it's not

00:21:50:07 - 00:21:51:16
rape or molestation.

00:21:51:16 - 00:21:53:17
is not sexual experience.

00:21:53:17 - 00:21:57:21
It's it's actually a robbing it was robbing off my body.

00:21:59:07 - 00:22:02:07
I don't allow anybody or any culture

00:22:02:12 - 00:22:05:10
or even any ungodly mindset

00:22:05:10 - 00:22:10:07
that someone else might inflict on you, because of their personal opinion

00:22:11:03 - 00:22:14:04
to make you feel like what happened to

00:22:14:04 - 00:22:17:07
you was your fault, or you do it in any way, shape or form.

00:22:18:06 - 00:22:18:22
Yeah.

00:22:18:22 - 00:22:22:17
And all the actions you've talked about today in the family of God

00:22:22:17 - 00:22:28:05
that you've, that you're part of has really spoken to the fact that

00:22:29:07 - 00:22:32:01
when you start with that thinking,

00:22:32:01 - 00:22:36:08
your actions follow and they become survivor first, victim first.

00:22:36:21 - 00:22:40:05
And we see the type of Christianity that I think survivors

00:22:40:05 - 00:22:41:12
want to see in the church.

00:22:41:12 - 00:22:43:08
Yeah, I think we do.

00:22:43:08 - 00:22:46:11
God cares about victims of abuse.

00:22:47:07 - 00:22:49:15
You know, the Bible says that when the spirit of the Lord is

00:22:49:15 - 00:22:51:05
that's freedom, right?

00:22:51:05 - 00:22:53:16
Jesus came for the broken vessel.

00:22:53:16 - 00:22:56:16
He came for, you know, he didn't come for the like.

00:22:57:07 - 00:22:59:01
Well to do, right? And the ones who

00:22:59:01 - 00:23:00:00
don't need a Saviour.

00:23:00:00 - 00:23:06:02
He came for he came for people in that in their their lowest and their lowest state.

00:23:06:03 - 00:23:07:09
He came for all of us.

00:23:09:00 - 00:23:09:22
And he really

00:23:09:22 - 00:23:13:02
cares about people that are wounded, like, really cares.

00:23:13:02 - 00:23:16:14
And I just, I wish, I wish that was

00:23:16:20 - 00:23:19:20
I wish that was better understood.

00:23:21:03 - 00:23:24:13
I think that is a beautiful ending note.

00:23:24:13 - 00:23:27:03
Thank you so much, Chioma, for coming on.

00:23:27:03 - 00:23:29:00
I've I've learned so much.

00:23:29:00 - 00:23:32:15
Truly, I feel like you've started another part of my journey.

00:23:32:15 - 00:23:34:14
So thank you for that.

00:23:34:14 - 00:23:35:00
Maybe.

00:23:35:00 - 00:23:35:22
And maybe

00:23:35:22 - 00:23:38:10
in a years time I'll be in a completely different place with it as well.

00:23:38:10 - 00:23:40:02
So that'll be interesting.

00:23:40:02 - 00:23:41:21
No, thank you so much for having me.

00:23:41:21 - 00:23:43:17
This has been such a great conversation.

00:23:43:17 - 00:23:47:15
And it's also had me, you know, thinking and actually reminiscing

00:23:47:15 - 00:23:51:12
so much on a lot of my healing journey

00:23:51:12 - 00:23:54:22
and why it's so important to start no matter how hard it is.

00:23:54:22 - 00:23:56:07
So thank you so much.

00:23:56:07 - 00:23:58:23
Oh my God, my. Pleasure, my pleasure.