True Transformation After Addiction | with Marcy Langlois

Michael: Marcy, welcome to the podcast. One of the things that I think about constantly in this journey are the stories of people who have just massive resilience. When I look at the world, I think to myself, there are people whose stories need to be heard. Not that everyone's shouldn't be, but they're like, sometimes you sit and I hear these unbelievably captivating moments of people's journey and I just think to myself, my God, if this person can do it, anyone can. So first, thank you for being on the show. And I'm curious if, For those who are listening today, why should they listen to our conversation? What are we going to bring to the table for them?

Marcy: Yeah. Thank you so much for having me today. Really my whole goal in mission is to reach as many people as I can possibly reach that are still struggling, that think that their circumstances and their life experiences have to define the rest of their life and their future.

Michael: Yeah. It's funny cause that's such this unbelievable shift that has to transpire, which I know we're going to talk about some of the ways you've done that in your personal life, but let's start at the beginning, obviously. You grew up in a space and time in which kind of out the gate for lack of a better way to phrase it, you have the world against you. Grew up in trauma, being born with a cleft lip and palate, this unbelievably dysregulated nervous system, chronic illness, addiction. It was just like one thing after another. When you think about your childhood, if you were to describe it in one word, what word would you use?

Marcy: The first one that comes to mind is chaotic.

Michael: What does that mean?

Marcy: It was from everything from one end of the spectrum to the other in every area of my life, everything was chaos. I never knew anything about feeling safe. What that felt like, what that looked like. There was no one around me that modeled that for me as a young person. So not only did I met my own medical issues, but our household was chaotic. My father was an active alcoholic. My mom was really young. We had no running water and no electricity for a while. It just complete chaos all the time.

Michael: Yeah. I obviously recognize with that tremendously. It's something I've shared publicly many times. Chaos is one of those things too, where you don't even know what's happening. You don't even realize it's chaos until you see a normal family and you're like, wait a second, something here is off, and I would have to imagine just the experience of that shapes you, it turns you into the person that you're going to become. Let's go into this a little bit deeper. Cause I really want to create some structure and context that I think will be beneficial for people. Growing up with abnormalities or physical disformity is, or even having them occur within childhood can really mess you up. As people know, my mother cut my finger off when I was a kid. It's discolored multiple surgeries. It's all crooked. It's an odd looking thing. And the. torturous sensation of that between having to bear witness to it on a daily basis, the bullying, the making fun of all of the things that come along with that really shaped your identity. Did you have a similar experience?

Marcy: Yeah, you know when I was young, I grew up in this really small town of literally 250 people in Vermont. So I was really isolated and insulated when I was young and I just had my cousins and my family really around me. So I didn't really know per se that I was like different, right? Cause my cousins didn't pick on me or, give me a hassle in any way. But it was for me when I went to school, as soon as I went to school, then the kids were, Taunting and teasing and bullying and name calling and, mimicking the way that my face looked. I didn't speak like I speak today. It was really slushed in slurry. I've had six years of speech lessons to be able to speak this clearly. And in addition to that, I had braces when I was in kindergarten. Just a hot mess. And the kids were constantly reflecting back to me how I was not okay.

Michael: Yeah. And please feel free to extrapolate here and go deep and elaborate as much as you care to. I'm curious, like when you have those experiences and then you head into adolescence, did that, did you have thoughts about the future? That young and the impact that those experiences would have because I remember as a kid for me, I would have those moments and this is a very truism for my story in my life. I'd like I'm going to show these motherfuckers like I just remember vividly having these thoughts and I'm just wondering if that was ever a part of your story. If you were like, you know what? I'm going to show these people and it may not be. I'm just curious if that happened to be a part of it.

Marcy: Oh, my God, you're like reading my mind. Yes, that was my life. So for me, and thank you for allowing me the permission to go deep because I'm not sure you know what people want to hear or they don't. But essentially, growing up. And having my face being deformed you can't hide that, like you, you can't get away from that. And it literally made me so insecure and so neurotic immediately. And I felt so full of shame just for being alive. Just literally for breathing there that I was breathing and I adopted all these beliefs about myself that I wasn't worthy that I wasn't lovable that no one was ever going to love me.

And that my life was going to be shit really from, now until forever is what I thought as a kid based on the way people were treating me and all of those belief systems that I adopted based on how I was being treated. I was just like you is I got to this place where I figured out that if I could just be who people wanted me to be, i.e. if I could be funny, if I could be smart, if I could be really good at sports. So basically doing all these other things to garner accolades, attention, approval, then I was in the driver's seat. So I was like, I'm going to show you. And that's been my motto my whole life. Tell me I can't do it. And I, and that's just a challenge for me.

Michael: Yeah. And same, it's funny because that place, I remember one time, I don't know if I've ever told this story on here. One time there was this kid who was like the most popular kid in school. And, I was in high school at the turn of the millennium and there were these Jan sport backpacks. And so they were everywhere. It was like the thing. And even though we're in the hood, like we still had some kids who had money and it was always strange to me and it was Jordan's and Jan's sport backpacks and we were poor. Same, we had no running water at this point. I was living at home with my grandmother who was in a coma. Like it's a whole fucking thing. And I just was like, you know what? This cool kit. Cause this is my perception of reality as a teenager. I'm like in order for me to be cool, I have to go get a gym sport backpack. And those things might've been like 40 or 50 bucks. I don't remember. We didn't have 40 or 50 bucks. So I went and stole one and I went to school and it was the same color as this kids. Who's the most popular kid in school. And all my God, I got roasted for this, like destroyed. And it was just like, It was so abundantly evident to everyone but me that the thing that I was doing was pretending to be everyone else. And I think that's this incredible byproduct of the trauma and abuse that we go through where you mentioned it and you didn't use this word, but I'll place this word. It's we become caricatures of ourself in the hope that people like us when you were going through that and in this base of people pleasing and trying to be what people wanted you to be. And then also excelling at the same time. How did that translate later into life, into your teens and into your twenties, like what, what started to transpire out of your need to be seen, to be witnessed, to be a person.

Marcy: Yeah. Things just really got tougher for me, honestly. So I, I. It became super clear to me sometime between kindergarten and like second grade. I don't know exactly. And this was in the 80s. That I definitely was not in the societal norm. I definitely was attracted to girls rather than boys. At a really young age and in my family, we didn't have time to talk about feelings, thoughts, or any of it, right? It was survival and no one had the capacity for my stuff, nor did I feel comfortable saying anything to anyone about what I was thinking and feeling. So it was just like, for me, that was like a gas bomb on the fire, right? That was already fueled of self hatred, self loathing. And all of these things. And so I'm trying to deal with the way that I feel. But again, this constant belief system of I'm not enough. I don't matter. I'm never going to be loved. All of these things are going on and I'm not safe to be who I am. It's not okay. I'm not okay. And so all of this is going on. So I found my place in sports saved my life for a really long time. And I was super committed as an athlete until I found drugs and alcohol. And when I found drugs and alcohol, I started dabbling with it, like in middle school. But by high school, I really. Was like, okay, this is my thing. This alleviates me in a way that I never knew was possible. And I didn't even really, I couldn't name that I was needing to be alleviated. But boy, when I took my first drink, I was like, Oh my God, this is why my dad's a drunk. This makes perfect sense. Why he goes to the bar instead of comes home. It all just made sense for me. And I'm like, this is great and he's doing fine. So I'm going to do this. And that's what ended up happening, but I continue to excel in terms of, I made the varsity basketball team my freshman year and I did well in school and, really half ass my classes and all of those kinds of things, but I was still always hustling for love. Always. But the other really interesting thing, and I'm, I wouldn't be surprised if you can relate, is that I wanted people to come close. Like I wanted relationships and validation, but at the same time, I didn't want you to close. Like it was so intimidating for me to have any sort of intimacy with anyone. I don't think I ever experienced it really until probably in the last five years of my life, honestly.

Michael: Yeah. For me, it was, I think just being in connection with people is just a byproduct of existing. I didn't care one way or another. In fact, I will say this, I was so emotionally shut off as a kid and in my teens and even into my early twenties where, you could attempt to get close to me, but I was just a ghost. And I think the big part of that wasn't just growing up in this abusive household with drug addict, alcoholic parents and all of the physical and neglected Things that happen, but it was also as looking at life as who cares? Like I really didn't care. And I didn't care if I lived, I didn't care if I died. My favorite things in the world were just partying and being the life of the party. And when I was lucky enough to work for this fortune 10 company in my twenties, I spent all my money on other people to make them like me, this codependent thing where I'd go buy the bar, spend 1, 000 a night, no problem. Wouldn't even think about it. You're like, that's stupid, but you don't know that when you're like longing for this thing, but I remember very young and like you experimenting with drugs and alcohol when I was in middle school, by the time that I was in a high school, I was high all day, every day. Like I, you would never see me not high. And I'm curious when you had that first experience, and you had that moment of Oh, so when my dad goes to the bar, did that make you feel more connected to him.

Marcy: Yeah, I mean I always wanted my dad's approval and attention and love, so I'd go to the bar with my dad, right?

Michael: Kid?

Marcy: Oh, yeah, my dad had picked me up from school and I'd go to the bar with him. We at my mom Oh my god, that was like such a point of contention that me and my brother would be at the bar with my father But yeah, that's exactly what we did as kids We go sit in the bar with my dad because that's where he was so I was always vying for his attention and love and approval. And in some ways, yeah, I felt like a kinship with him because now I'm drinking right. Like he is. And so now we have more in common is so sick and twisted, in so many ways.

Michael: Did you ever drink with your dad when you were in school?

Marcy: No, my dad ended up stopping drinking when I was 15 years old.

Michael: Oh, wow. Okay. It made me think one, one of my best friends, His mom would do cocaine with him, and this was in high school, and I always thought that was super strange, except that it's far more common than people realize, right? When you're going through this, and obviously a point of contention with your mother, what was your relationship like with her?

Marcy: My mom was my end all be all as a kid. She was like my savior. She's the one that took care of me and all the medical needs that I had. I've had nine major surgeries, including 23 surgical procedures. So it started at three months old and ended when I was 18. So it was literally one long medical. Saga from the day I was born until I was 18 years old, and so she was it. She was the one, even though we had nothing, she was the one making sure that I got the correct medical care, the best doctors that we could find, like all of the things. And so she wasn't emotionally available for me because she had not done her own work, but, but she was there physically and I always knew I could count on my mom. If my mom said, I'm going to be here at such and such a time, you could count on that. If my dad said that, yeah, no, you had no idea.

Michael: It's interesting. Yeah. And there's resiliency research done where they have proven time and again, no matter how traumatic your experience is, if you just had one person who was there and showed up when they said they were going to, you are exponentially more likely to have a positive outcome regardless of what you come from. And so I love that you had that experience. You use this term that I want to sit in for a moment, because I think it's something that people deal with today. And I think it's one of those things that is so incredibly difficult to navigate because we don't talk about it enough. And while I recognize that this may not be how you would look at yourself today at a period of time, it was when you think about like self hatred. And using that term in your adolescence and in your teens and up until whatever point that went away what does that look like? Paint me a picture of self hatred. I know it's a dark question, but I'm asking it because I know that there are people who maybe they're in that place right now and they don't even recognize it. And if they can get some benefit out of it, I know the question sucks because I'm asking it. I feel it in myself asking the question, but I really think it would help people. Like what did self hatred look like for you? How would you define that in your life up until the point when it shifted?

Marcy: yeah I think that's a great question and I didn't recognize it as self hatred at the time. So for me specifically, it was I never wanted to see myself in the mirror. Never wanted to look at myself in the mirror. So it was a true denial of myself and who I was in the way that I looked. So that was really very painful for me to look in the mirror. The way, just the way that I perceive myself, the things that I said to myself, right? You're a piece of shit basically is what I would say to myself, right? You're, you don't deserve anything good. You're not worthy of anything. Anybody's love, anyone's attention, anyone's care or kindness, right? Those are the tapes that ran through my head all day, every day. Hence why when I drank it was like the tapes dulled out a little bit, faded.

Michael: Yeah, that makes sense. And there's something about that too, where it's like we convince ourself that's true and it becomes a self fulfilling prophecy. What were some of the byproducts? I think about this a lot. What are the prices you had to pay due to your own self hatred?

Marcy: Oh my gosh. For me my, so I hated myself my whole life, right? I think it's fair to say also it just in my own behavior, right? Like the way that I treated my body, what I ate whether or not I took care of myself, how I dressed, right? All of those things are an expression of how I feel about myself. And it's really clear to me that I hated myself, right? I did not take good care of myself. And so for me, where things really hit the precipice for me was when I got into my car accident when I was a senior in high school. I got into a multi fatality car accident and three people Lost their lives that day. And that's still difficult, right? That's still tender for me to say that out loud. But that was like the icing on the cake for me really is when I got in that car accident, I was not legally responsible. I wasn't responsible in any way. I didn't get a traffic ticket, nothing. The other person pulled out in front of me and never saw me, but I, because I felt responsible for everyone and everything because I was so codependent, I assign myself blame for that accident. And I woke up every day and I believed that I had killed three people. And that's what I told myself, literally, you've killed three people and you are a piece of shit and you don't deserve the air that is in your lungs. And you don't deserve anything good in your life. And that was the track that I stayed on every single day for the next 10 years until I got clean and sober. And the only way I could manage that was drugs and alcohol. I, there was no talking about it or feeling about it. Like I, I was so all the trauma I had experienced my whole life up until that point. Now you add the car accident on top of it. And the catastrophic nature of the car accident. It was just, it was too much for my body. Like it was too much for me mentally, emotionally, and physically. And I was suicidal every day. I was hoping that tomorrow would be the day I didn't wake up. And that's where self hatred led me was literally to that place, and it was dark.

Michael: Yeah, and you hear that and you go, of course, there's at that age, at any age, obviously, but especially at that age, on top of everything you'd been through to that point, that's fuel onto the fire. That's just a whole other level. And. And in that darkness, here's the plus side of darkness. Eventually there has to be light, which I know that's something that we're going to get into, but I want to sit in this for a moment longer just cause I know how important it is. Now there's different things that happen in people's lives. And I'm not saying there has to be a car accident involving fatality. It could be something very small, right? But to, to a person listening right now could be monumental. And they hate themselves tremendously and they go down the path of drugs and alcohol and sex and all the things in the world to numb. And it's like that is a part of the human experience to find any way possible to cope and having those dark thoughts in your head. What I thought as well, as I was growing up into my teens and twenties, very suicidal and I've shared this before, I tried to take my own life for the first time when I was 14. I was just, I was at 14. I was like, I am done with all of this. And I come to find you down a bottle of ibuprofen, you're probably just going to puke all night. And that's what happened to me. And it could be just the resilience of my body at a young age to navigate it. But it was like it was constant, more drugs, more alcohol, more women, more money, more everything in excess. And it was just numbing every single day because I eventually even came on the other side of a different level of self hatred because I'm the guy who made it out. When my three childhood best friends have been murdered, a ton of my friends are in prison. Like even to this day, we're talking about 20 plus years since I've seen some of these guys and girls. And it's I had self hatred about being the one who made it out. And so I numbed and I numbed and eventually a breakthrough came from a breakdown, luckily.

When I go and I look at those spaces, I don't think anyone really would take from anyone the pain that comes along with the need to quiet those noises. When, how are you functioning is where I'm leading with this. Cause for me, the day in day out is just fuck it. I'm just going to just wake up and get stoned. I'm going to go to work. I'm going to make a lot of money. I'm going to go get drunk and then hook up with some chick and I'm just going to rinse and repeat this for seven years. That's what happened. And so were you cognizant? Cause I had some clear moments in my life where I was like, yep, I know tomorrow's plan. I'm going to get high. I'm going to go make a bunch of money. I'm going to go get drunk. I'm going to hook up with a stranger, rinse and repeat. Like I knew what I was doing. Did you have that experience when you were in this dark place or were you just on autopilot?

Marcy: Was on autopilot. So after the car accident for about four years after the car accident, there was major litigation going on, obviously, because these people had lost their lives. And so I was consumed in the judicial system, right? It just, it was unbelievable. So during that time, it was, I was not aware of anything that I was in shock. I was, for years it was like I would wake up and then after being awake for about 30 seconds, I'm like, Oh my God, this really happened. This really is my life. Oh, holy shit. What am I going to do now? Like I literally. Couldn't grasp the, how big of an event this was. So for those years, it was not aware, just like you wake up. I would not get, I would not put my feet on the floor out of bed until I. did bong hit. Like I had a three foot bong right next to my bed and I roll over, I grabbed my bong, I'd have it loaded from the night before and I just start smoking because I refuse to be awake and not be high. And cause I couldn't deal. I literally could not deal with it. And And then I go to work just like you, I'd make money waiting tables and bartending. And then I didn't hook up with people. That was one thing I didn't do because I have some sexual trauma in my past. And I was just like, that wasn't my thing. So I didn't hook up with people, but I get wasted that night on whatever there was to get wasted with. It didn't really matter. And then I go to bed and I do the same thing the next day. And I just. Did that day in and day out, and it never really changed. When it changed for me was when I met my partner now, Tracy, and she had a daughter and Brianna was only eight years old when we got together. Today, she's 31. And I raised her like my own, but for the first couple of years that I was in her life, I would pick her up from school and I would do exactly what my dad did with me. I'd pick her up. And I take her to the bar with me and that was my wake up call. One day I was driving back to the bar with Brianna and I was like, Oh, my Oh my God, I'm literally doing the same exact thing that my dad did to me. She's in the passenger seat. I've already been drinking and we're on our way back to the bar. And within 10 days, that was it. I never, I haven't had a drink or a drug since then. That was over 21 years ago.

Michael: It's funny because, and you hear this all the time, but no one ever changes their life until they're ready to change their life. And, here's what I will say about my journey. I never felt like an alcoholic, never felt like a drug addict, never felt an addict of any capacity. I was just like, I've got to turn down the chaos. And one day I'm sitting and I'm looking at my life and, I'm 26 years old almost. Rock bottom, 50 grand in debt, making over a million dollars, 350 pounds, smoking two packs a day, drinking myself to sleep. And the one thing that was a constant was like, I just don't want to be me. And as I'm laying in bed one day, I'm watching the CrossFit games and I'm eating chocolate cake and like being fucking morbidly obese and just watching these people. And I used to be an athlete. I played four sports. I was a letterman, all those things. And I was just like, You are choosing this life and it was like such a clear moment for me and that's what I needed on top of a call with my brother telling me, don't talk to me ever again. You're not my brother. And I just destroyed my life and a lot of ways. And I sat and I remember vividly having this thought was like, you did this. And it wasn't me playing a victim any longer. Cause like the victim mentality to me is I'm going to keep doing the drugs. I'm going to keep doing the alcohol. I'm going to keep doing all these things and numb and blame the world. And it's everybody's fault. And then you go, I'm doing this. Like you just said, you're like, Oh my God, I'm doing what my father did. Here's the part people don't understand though. Of course you would do what your father did. is what you were taught. Here's where it gets interesting though. Now what do you do? So tell me about this moment. I want to go into this for a second a little bit deeper because I think people have aha moments all the time in life. I think it's just part of the story. We're off. We're often having epiphanies. Most of the time people aren't doing anything with that information. Why? Why? I guess two parts. Why actually change and then what did you do in that moment? What were the decisions? What were the thought processes? What were the shifts that you took?

Marcy: Yeah. So in that moment, I went back to the bar and kept drinking because that's what any good alcoholic is going to do. Like you said, like you have the aha moment, but it's do your, don't you take the steps to make a change? So I went back to the bar and I kept drinking, but I had, I was at the end. I had, I knew years and years before this, that I had a serious problem with drugs and alcohol. This was not a new epiphany for me, but when I was inflicting pain on another human being. and I knew how that pain felt. It was like I couldn't be in denial about that anymore. I could deny, all of these other things that I was functioning, not hurting other people, all of this nonsense. But I couldn't deny when I remembered being a little girl at eight years old, what it was like. When I had to go to the bar with my father if I wanted to see him that day. And, it, I don't, over the next couple of days, I drank more than I had ever drank. And which was nearly impossible. I don't know how you could drink more than I was drinking. ‘Cause I never stopped drinking, literally. If I was awake, I was drinking. And But I was consuming even more quantity because it was like, I knew, I knew my gig was up and I was like then I'm going out in a blaze of glory kind of thing, right? Like I'm going to ride this thing as far as I can ride the train. And, but then what happened is I physically couldn't hold alcohol down anymore and I couldn't drink water and I couldn't eat food and my skin was like a gray color. And I was like, this is it. This is it. I woke up one morning, I was supposed to meet a client in my office. It was the biggest, I was a mortgage banker and it was the biggest deal I had ever written at this point in my career. And I was so drunk still from, the days before and I had to meet this guy in my office and I physically could not do it. And I was like, this is it. And I went downstairs and this is how long ago that was. I got out the phone book and I called Alcoholics Anonymous and I have no idea why I called Alcoholics Anonymous because I don't know anything about Alcoholics Anonymous because no one's ever gotten sober in my family in that way. But I called them. And they said, there's a meeting actually right around the corner from your house. And I went to that meeting and that was the first meeting I ever went to and I'm, I still go to meetings. I go to one meeting a week and that's been my path of recovery.

Michael: It's interesting because you have to have that moment. Like you really have to have that lack of better term coming to Jesus moment where it's like here you are this is your doing and There is some truth in that thing where it's like you go a little bit harder part of it I'm curious if part of that was still in alignment with the thoughts of suicide that you had Where you're like, I'm better off not living. I'm wondering how much of those last couple of days before sobriety were trying to tip the scales of that self hatred.

Marcy: Yeah. Like I said, really for me, self hatred didn't leave me until probably gosh, maybe it was when I went to the Meadows, that was 2009. That's when I, then that's when I got to the root. Of some of my stuff and I was able to let go of some of that self hatred that I had going on So I got sober in 2003 So I did that for another six years of hating myself. So yeah, absolutely. That was all tied up I never really cared if I were gonna wake up the next day or I wasn't like That was not of concern to me at all at that time because I just had so much baggage

Michael: Yeah. What were the discoveries that you made about yourself that allowed you to move through this? When I think back to my journey, I realized that so many of the thoughts that I had about why I didn't matter, why I wasn't important, why I was unlovable, all those things, Had entirely come from my parents, almost exclusively. My parents are arguably, and I say this understanding, like they had never done their work, but my God, they fucked up my family really fucked my family up is how I like to put it. And by a by product of that, it required me to do this. Deep sense of internal work and the place that I landed in two things. One, and you hear this all the time, but until you embody it, it doesn't really hold true. One, that wasn't my fault. None of the shit. My mom cutting my finger off, the abuse in childhood, the being homeless and poverty strict not on me. And then two, which is one of the things that I, even at this day that I'm still like always attacking, it's like, you can do this. And those were the two things that kind of transpired in that, which helped me shed this place of a tremendous lack of confidence to now being incredibly confident. And that's one of the biggest things that I help coach people in. It's if you're hate yourself, I can help you. Let's go. I know that world better than most, right? I know how to actually build confidence after trauma, which is the thing we're all seeking. I'm curious for you, like what were the discoveries that you were making about yourself that helped you not only navigate, navigate, but get rid of that self hatred?

Marcy: Yeah. A lot of it was becoming aware of what it was that I, what stories I was living in perpetually, right? I had, I was letting these stories from my childhood run my life. I'm not good enough. I'm not worth the, I'm not worthy. I'm not lovable. I don't deserve, right? All of that stuff. Even though I wasn't going through my day every day and saying these things out loud to myself. Those were like the windows in the background running on your computer screen, right? That was the subconscious mind telling me I'm running my life because I was still pushing people away, still making decisions. That were to really masquerade my feelings and not deal with what I was feeling emotionally even though I was going to therapy three times a week and going to a meeting every single day and doing all of these things. I still wasn't getting in there. And so what ended up happening? transpiring out of all of that is that I figured out that just like you, right? It's like you, I believe you have to name it to heal it, right? You can't, in my family, everything got swept under the rug, everything, right? It didn't matter what happened. It just got swept under the rug and nobody talked about it. And so going back and saying, No, my father was an alcoholic and by him being an alcoholic, this caused me to feel X, Y, and Z, right? And that sucks, right? But I'm not a victim of that anymore today. But that is the truth of what happened, right? So it was this whole dance of acknowledging what really happened, stating the truth for what it was instead of sweeping under the carpet. Instead, I was like in there shaking the carpet, right? Get all of that stuff out. What really happened? Name it. Assign what that means for me. And then. Move from a place of being victimized by it to being empowered like okay So you've lived through all of these things you've made it you're here, right? So it's your choice if you want to continue to torture yourself by those experiences Or if you're going to move forward and my choice is always the same. It's always to move forward always And that's what I did And it's, and it doesn't happen. It's not as simple as I'm saying, I understand that, this takes time and you've got to do the work, but if you get in there and you do the work and you uncover the beliefs, then that's absolutely where the transformation happens.

Michael: Yeah it's an acknowledgement. That's always the first step. If you're hiding from this truth, you're fucked. And they always say the truth will set you free. And it's not a thing that people say in passing, like it's real. I think about five panic attacks a day and being crippled and not being able to navigate the world and having to get high to, to offset being drunk and then having to like do all this shit just to make it through the day. And then it was like, okay, wait a second, hold on. Maybe the thing that I need to do is talk about the truth. I didn't tell anyone. Even my I had a girlfriend that I was with for almost seven years. She didn't know what happened to my finger. It's imagine that keeping that secret, right? Keeping all these secrets. And people are so afraid because of the shame and the guilt of the truth that they get trapped in it. And here's what's interesting, too. Some people are going to judge you for the truth. Some people are going to say, you know what? You fucking suck. How dare you took that child to a bar. You're just like your dad. You're a loser. Like all that, like you don't get to control people's opinion of you. Fine. So be it. But what you're in front of is this place where it's are you willing to let go? Of all the things that have kept you in this moment, because once you do that and you acknowledge it, that's where freedom begins, obviously, I know one of the big things that you've been able to do very similarly to me is transform that trauma and a triumph and actually go and be of service. Where did the inspiration for you come from to be someone who supports other people to be a mentor and a coach and a guide and a leader? And not only where did it come from, but why?

Marcy: This is a loaded question. Over the next 21 years after I got sober, I was like, I've arrived, this is amazing, right? And I thought that I had, seized the day per se, right? But the truth was, is things got a lot worse for me before they got better. And up until really three and a half years ago, they were worse because what I did is I traded out addictions. I started working and I got in a sales position as a mortgage banker and I excelled because of course I did. Because I'm going to show you right, and I'm going to show you how valuable and worthy I am. And so I excelled and I ranked in the top 1 percent in the country and did all of this craziness, right? Worked myself to death. And three and a half years ago, my body said, no more, you're not doing this anymore. And my body literally came apart mast cell activation syndrome and histamine intolerance, which is life threatening if you don't do something about it. And so I got real serious. I got the message loud and clear. I spent 40 days bedridden and it looks like I may never get to go back to my career in the business that I worked so hard and built. And it looks like my life was pretty much over. They were going to give me whatever they could give me to try to make me as comfortable and symptom free as possible. But that basically you have to live like this for the rest of your life. And again, I said, that's not an option for me. So I'm going to figure out how to heal my own body. And that's what I did in the last three and a half years. I've dedicated my life to figuring out how to heal. And what I did specifically is I dove in the meditation. I have always been a spiritual seeker, always, and have always believed in something. I couldn't name it or whatever. But I've always believed in something. And So I dove into meditation. I had been meditating for probably 10 or 12 years prior to this happening, but I got really serious and I started meditating like two and three hours a day and I used open focus meditation and I followed Dr. Joe Dispenza for a long time and then his work stopped working for me. But so grateful for the part that it played in the beginning of my healing journey but I stayed committed to meditation Several hours a day and what that does is regulates your nervous system And when you're when you regulate your nervous system, then the body feels safe enough to release that trauma So the trauma is what was making me sick in the imprints that I had left on my body I had lowered the frequency in my body enough that it was making me sick So I realized That not only did I have to, work with meditation, but I had to change my thinking. I had to change the stories that I was telling myself and the stories that I was telling myself where I'm not safe. I'm not safe. And I lived in a constant state of hypervigilance and fight or flight. And that also was what was making me sick is that my nervous system was never regulated. So I was angry, agitated, irritated. I had PTSD. I have complex PTSD, the whole thing, right? I had all these things going on. And so I had to change that I had to get out of that mindset. I had to bring the body out of fight or flight and chronic state of stress into a place of ease so I could heal. And then the third thing that I did was that I committed to raising the frequency in my body. And I did that by learning how to live from a space of gratitude and love. And that might sound really simple, but when you're a highly traumatized person, to literally change your entire life and start living from a place of gratitude and love so that you can raise your frequency in your body, That is no small task, and I've spent the last three and a half years dedicated to that, and today I have no mass cell activation syndrome, no chronic illness, no histamine intolerance, I have nothing. I take no supplements, I take no medication, nothing. And I learned that what I think and what I feel is what happens in my body. My body is listening all the time and that if I can change the messaging in my body, then I can heal my body. And that's exactly how I did it. And so I want to bring hope to other people.

Michael: Yeah, no, I love that. And what I often think about is homeostasis, right? And the natural space for a lot of people, I'm not saying everyone, but I would argue a lot of people have homeostasis from birth. They don't grow up in traumatic households. They have parents, maybe even if they have one parent, they have loving parents. Maybe it's not. As chaotic as it is for people who grew up how we grew up. And I'm speaking to the people who grew up, how we grew up, just a shit ton of trauma, high ACE scores, CPTSD out the ass, like the whole nine. You want to change your life. You have got to control your fucking body. You've got to calm your central nervous system. Got to be able to get into a parasympathetic response. Understand why your amygdala and hippocampus do what they do. Understand your prefrontal cortex, understand the physiological and somatic experiences of the embodiment of trauma in your physical body. Because when you understand that you can do something about it. For me, one of a couple of things that I have played a huge role in my life have been Not only hypnosis, but meditation, journaling, gratitude, and ultimately, it's about getting the equilibrium, right? What I'm always thinking about is this concept and idea of peace. We leverage chaos. If you are from chaos, as a marker for what you believe to be normal. But the problem is chaos isn't normal. This is why if I could, sometimes I think about it as a coach. I'm like, whenever I hear one of my clients say I thrive in chaos, I want to smack them in the face and wake them up for a second and be like, do you know how insane that is that you just. But we have become accustomed to thriving in chaos, to replacing one addiction for the next, for the hundred mile an hour days and weeks and months and years that lead to burnout and sickness and illness and eventually death depending on, and this is important. People need to understand this, depending on. Where you fall into the a survey. And if you haven't done this adverse childhood experiences, you can go to think I'm broken. com to do this survey, depending on the number of questions you answer. Yes. You're talking about 20 years off your lifespan easily because of growing up in a trauma state. Anything that you can do to get to a place of peace, equanimity, equilibrium, homeostasis, that is your responsibility. You have to be able to leverage that. I'm curious, from a coaching perspective, how are you helping people? What are you bringing to the table, and who are the people who are coming to work with you?

Marcy: So from a coaching place, I do, I basically walk people through exactly what I did to be able to heal their body. And so it's, it's a long drawn out process. Obviously it takes time, but essentially. I figure out what your thoughts are. We inventory your thoughts. Which then leads to what are the deep seated beliefs that are under that are running the thoughts you have to figure out you have to start somewhere and if you don't even know what your thoughts are, then we look at what your behavior is because your behavior tells me what you're thinking, right? Like I can. I can meet you wherever you are on that spectrum. Like I don't really care where you're at, but where we got to get to is what you believe and figure out where that's at. And we got to change the beliefs so that we can change the thoughts so we can change the feelings so we can change the behavior. And we work through that and then we simultaneously work on learning how to be embodied. right? Most people are not embodied who have come from a trauma filled background. They don't even know how to be in their body. And if you're ever going to raise, regulate your nervous system long term, you have to learn how to be embodied. And so that is a big part of the practice, especially for people with chronic illness and addiction, like huge. And then self love, self care, and then how do you move forward? Like, how do you go into the world and. And do this, right? And that's basically what everything is encompassed in my package. And then who I'm looking to work with primarily are people who have been through trauma, who are still trying, who are still struggling. My ideal client, honestly, is someone who has done work. And they're still stuck. They're like, I don't know. I've been in therapy. It's not working. I've been to nine naturopaths, 500 Western medicine doctors, and I'm still sick. And I don't know why I'm still sick. That the person who's been in recovery for 10 years, but is, weighs 350 pounds. Their finances are a hot mess. They can't be in a relationship to save their lives. So it's yeah, you stop drinking, but everything else in your life is a disaster, right? Those are my kind of people that I'm looking for that I feel like I can really serve.

Michael: Yeah, because you've been that person, right? And that's the thing people have to understand. That's what I always try to tell people too. And it's funny because people sometimes ask me, why do you have other coaches on this show? I'm like, I can't fucking help everybody. There's 8 billion people in the planet. There's way more fucked up people than there's just me. And so I think about that all the time. And, And ultimately, we are as the individual and even those who are listening, who maybe they don't want to be a coach and that's never going to be a part of their journey. They don't want to be a mentor. They just want to fix their own life. I'm like, you should, it is your responsibility as the individual to fix your own life. And there are little things that you can do. Obviously you get huge benefits out of podcasts and conversations like this. You have to go work with somebody. You just do it because I promise you I never would have imagined I would have invested the amount of money I've invested in myself Have the coaches and mentors that I've had done the work that I've done if I could do it alone I would have saved a ton of money a ton of time and a ton of effort But my life wouldn't be different and that's one thing people really need to understand If people do want to reach out with you to learn more, where do they do that?

Marcy: We'll put everything in the show notes for them because my last name is part of my website and most people misspell it, so it's just easier if you look in the show notes.

Michael: Yeah. Spell it out for us anyway.

Marcy: Okay, it's L A N G L O I S. So it's MarcyLanglois.com.

Michael: Got it. Perfect. Yeah. And guys, if you care enough about your life, you'll care enough to type that in. I'm just saying with that said, my friend, before I ask you my last question, just want to give you gratitude and say thank you for being here in your journey. Obviously I resonate tremendously and I can't help but think it's this process that we're in is a very human process and we all have the power and the ability to really transform this trauma to triumph. It does not have to be what it is today, but if you don't do the work, it's not going to change my last question for you. What does it mean to you to be unbroken?

Marcy: This is such a great question. I think for me what it means to be unbroken is simply to be who I am, like fully, right? Love all the parts of myself. Living in a place of being fully integrated rather than compartmentalized or disassociated or fragmented or whatever other words you would want to use, but to be fully embodied with who I am, where I am loving and respecting myself as I am, I think that's what it means to be unbroken.

Michael: Beautifully said. Thank you so much for being here on broken nation. If this episode resonated with you. Go and copy the share link, send it to one person in your phone who needs to hear this story today, because if you do that, I promise you, you're going to help not only change your life, but the life of someone in your life.

And Until Next Time,

My Friends, Be Unbroken.

I'll See Ya.