It's very disappointing to check into a 12:00 meeting and realize that you missed the meeting because there was a last minute time change again.

@Catherine Hickem - I am going to bare my soul here. I’m truly wondering as I’m moving through the PACT content if this program can address the complex issues within my family. I shared my concern with the onboarding individual I spoke with, and she assured me that it would. Firstly, I am separated from my spouse of 37 years due to a very unhealthy relationship I stayed with for religious reasons and was not able to leave until I was able to address religious trauma and deconstruct. My children experienced a very dysfunctional / unhealthy upbringing due to the religion. My “spouse” is very manipulative with my children, and I was labeled the “bad one” for leaving. Someone had to “stop the insanity” and chaos. I mentioned in the PACT call this evening that my daughter has been married to a Russian orphan for 15 years who has caused significant issues in our family dynamic over the years. We have shown him compassion and grace, and he has done nothing but take advantage of our kindness and patience. HIs own adopted family has not had contact with him for many years due to his behaviors. He has worked very hard to attempt to isolate our daughter from us and has had periods of success in doing so. I very much want to have a healthy relationship with her, and the request from her is “to let the past be the past”. This has been an ongoing pattern as his behavior patterns continue repeatedly, so “the past” consists of 15 years including recent events. He is resistant to treatment, and my daughter has to carry all the responsibilities, as he can’t hold a job and doesn’t work … staying home smoking weed and playing video games. She has stated off and on that she is going to divorce him and doesn’t follow through. She has done therapy and various healing modalities and continues to be manipulated by him. I have been estranged from my oldest son from a teen marriage for over 6 years now. He is an abusive man, and his children have suffered significant trauma. One of his children died due to his negligence. I have no confidence that my relationship with my grandchildren can be restored as he has turned my grandchildren who I once had a very close relationship with against my family.

Hello Missed some of the Tuesday's May 12. I was at the zoo and I will be listening there every Tuesday. How do I find the recordings ?

I'm looking for advice on The Return Contract in my situation. My 31 year old son, the oldest of my 3 children, lives with me. He had a bad concussion at 17, the winter of his Junior year in high school and his personality has not gone back to himself pre concussion. Their dad and I splitup 6 years ago and dad and I have an amicable relationship. Dad moved out of the area and keeps in touch with the kids. The younger siblings are out on their own. in 2012 when the concussion occured there was not much info out about how to handle the situation with high school sports. We ended up taking him from NYC area to Boston because that was the only place around that was doing work with that age group back then. We followed the protocols of that time. His senior year was a rollercoaster. Socially distanced from friends because of recovery, did great in economics honors class but could not write a paper in his English class. He graduated because his English teacher gave him just passing grade. After high school my son did not go to college. He tried community college but could not do the required coursework, but did great in a music synthesizer class. He drifted from part time job to part time job and started smoking marijuana to calm himself. That has continued since then. He has worked as an electricians asst over the past 5 years and recently started working full time at a new job after his previous employer died suddenly. It's not what he wants to do but continues to go to work. He declares himself depressed but refuses to get counseling or even see a medical doctor to even run blood tests. He perseverates, and blames, his lack of moving forward on a knuckle operation he had 8 years ago. He doesn't have any close friends. He plays softball with some people he knows in the area in the summers but other than that he goes to work and listens to podcasts. He really doesn't want to talk with me about any meaningful topics. He talks to his Dad about a business product he would like to get made and sell. Other than that, he's not really interested in conversing. His personality right now seems to be interested in topics for a period of time and then changes focus. Last was religion. He was into reading the Bible and going to class to get confirmed. After the Confirmation in March he hasn't been back to church. I really don't know what to do now, in his best interest, after learning and joining this community. I started in this community because of a relationship with one of my other children but seems I need to address this situation first.

Well I knew ahead of time that hearing from my oldest daughter would get me in emotional mind. I've had years of not hearing from my two daughters on holidays but my oldest has started reaching out some. My middle daughter who has passed always made a point of reaching out. Well my oldest sent "Happy Mothers Day" a few flower emojis and said she hoped that I would have a nice day. This put me into emotional mind. Hindsight was just to say thanks and wish her a happy Mother's Day. But no.....in emotional mind what came out was that I hoped she was being shown lots of love and appreciation. I added that she has quite a large crew there - (her 3 adult children and grandchildren.). After I had wrote that my day was going nicely. Hindsight shows me that my ego's agenda was to try to show her how much I loved her and that I had empathy for all she does for her children. In the past, I would have been thinking poor me being all by myself but I have moved on to really wanting joy for her. Joy for me was just hearing from her. I sense that my daughter read it as if I was feeling sorry for myself not getting a lot of love and appreciation. We made some headway last year and I think this was a step back for us. Darn! I've been replaying this over and over and not being very kind to myself. 😢 Any kind words would be appreciated.