40 - Interview with Jack W. Gregory (part 2)

[00:00:03] [SPEAKER_00]: Welcome to the Healing for Male Survivors podcast. This is a podcast for male survivors of sexual abuse and assault, whether as a child or as an adult.

[00:00:15] [SPEAKER_00]: Know that you are not alone in the abuse was not your fault. My name is Mike Chapman, I'm a certified recovery life coach, and also a survivor. Let's find hope and healing together.

[00:00:28] [SPEAKER_00]: We continue now with part 2 of my interview with Jack W. Gregory. In part 1, we had just ended when Jack shared about his near death experience after being hospitalized for nearly two months.

[00:00:42] [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, and then I got out and within a few weeks I was being baptized.

[00:00:51] [SPEAKER_02]: You know the unbeknownst to me, the son of the man that saved my life was there.

[00:01:00] [SPEAKER_02]: And I remember walking in with my partner and the kids and you know, Freddy's 10 now. He was still in a pusher. We went in and as we walked it was packed.

[00:01:16] [SPEAKER_02]: This was packed because it was like three or four of us getting baptized at the same time and Joe said to me, that fell off of there. Isn't he a doctor?

[00:01:29] [SPEAKER_02]: Wasn't he a specialist? I know an old dream and it's so good to see you. I went for a few of you come to see me and you know, it's nice to see you but I don't understand why I'm not my son.

[00:01:43] [SPEAKER_02]: Well, I was getting baptized. Now my my chosen name is Jack. My name was changed in in Christ but before I was jack I was William.

[00:01:56] [SPEAKER_02]: My Christian name was William when Christ gave me a new life to give me a new name is sometimes does that.

[00:02:05] [SPEAKER_02]: And I became jack and yes, I was baptized on that day. The time started going on. I was going to church every day. I was going to what's called alpha. I don't know if you have them in America.

[00:02:17] [SPEAKER_02]: We have this discipleship called alpha which is where we go to learn more about Christ. So through my time through the past 10 years I've done 21.

[00:02:29] [SPEAKER_02]: Alpha's most of them as a assistant leader.

[00:02:33] [SPEAKER_02]: We run them in prisons as well. I did another discipleship called Freedom in Christ.

[00:02:40] [SPEAKER_02]: Our leaders at cell this school called the school of supernatural life which is where we learn about who we true are.

[00:02:48] [SPEAKER_02]: What our identity is and what it is in Christ that we are the princess princesses of a loving king.

[00:02:59] [SPEAKER_02]: He's loving father. We're learning about spiritual gifts like prophecy and bringing word to people and prophetic gifts and spiritual gifts and things like this.

[00:03:12] [SPEAKER_02]: I've done that for the past nine years. I did the course for two years and I never left my stayed on to help.

[00:03:21] [SPEAKER_02]: Now, one of the assistant leaders there, my life is just it's gone where I never thought it would.

[00:03:31] [SPEAKER_02]: I went into this wanting to be a better mind. I did not think for one minute that I would be a different man.

[00:03:39] [SPEAKER_02]: Well, yeah, I was doing that in the 2016. I got a call from a friend saying, the making a film.

[00:03:45] [SPEAKER_02]: Hollywood film has been produced by a man. It's got a sazy down in one of the local air bases.

[00:03:52] [SPEAKER_02]: The director needs to speak to the critics, somebody in recovery because the film is about kind of about that and it's about people in addiction.

[00:04:02] [SPEAKER_02]: So would you go, I'm going to speak to her. We'll give you a few quid and we'll get your taxi down and get your own back.

[00:04:14] [SPEAKER_02]: I feel important and I'm like, okay then yeah.

[00:04:18] [SPEAKER_02]: So I went down there this director, her name is Joanna Hogg. The film was called the Souvenaer, also started in till the Swinton and her daughter.

[00:04:27] [SPEAKER_02]: I have to speak into, as she said, do you know what? I initially wanted to speak to you because I wanted somebody that had been through that to play an addict in the film.

[00:04:38] [SPEAKER_02]: But would you come and be a consultant on the film? Would you help bring some authenticity? So that I am a 18 months play.

[00:04:51] [SPEAKER_02]: Working on a film showing them how to show them the act department, how to make true paraphernalia.

[00:04:59] [SPEAKER_02]: Working with the actors showing them how to be off the red.

[00:05:05] [SPEAKER_02]: It was surreal. It was a very surreal experience and she said, I wanted to come back for part two. We're doing a part two. This is a two-part deal.

[00:05:11] [SPEAKER_02]: So I said, yeah, all right. We're thinking it would never come.

[00:05:17] [SPEAKER_02]: Twenty seventeen. I got a call. I was initially going to be working on a film called Jingle Django.

[00:05:25] [SPEAKER_02]: Christmas film that was been made for Netflix. It was been filmed in our city.

[00:05:31] [SPEAKER_02]: And I turned it down because I knew that the Souvenaer part two was coming up.

[00:05:36] [SPEAKER_02]: A lot of my scenes were cut from the final film.

[00:05:39] [SPEAKER_02]: But I got to go down there and I got to be right again, the character that I played in the first one.

[00:05:46] [SPEAKER_02]: I got some on-screen time and I got a conversation on screen and it was great.

[00:05:54] [SPEAKER_02]: And part two I met this young actor. I'm not going to say his name but he's becoming quite big in like Britain and Hollywood and things.

[00:06:04] [SPEAKER_02]: He said I'm going to be making a film soon and I'd love to get you involved.

[00:06:10] [SPEAKER_02]: And I said, yeah, well, you know, just add me on Twitter.

[00:06:15] [SPEAKER_02]: And he did but he didn't contact me when I thought, oh, I was just somebody blowing smoke again.

[00:06:21] [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, then it was only last year.

[00:06:27] [SPEAKER_02]: We went through COVID and everything and I was one of the few actors that were working on.

[00:06:33] [SPEAKER_02]: I got to go and play one of your serial killers.

[00:06:37] [SPEAKER_02]: But for a sick man by the name of John Eric Armstrong.

[00:06:42] [SPEAKER_02]: For a television episode called Twisted Killers, which was about him.

[00:06:48] [SPEAKER_02]: And I also got to do things like banged up abroad because these were all filmed on like a local air base.

[00:06:55] [SPEAKER_02]: It wasn't an air base, it wasn't an American air base at one point.

[00:06:59] [SPEAKER_02]: And yeah, the hangers have become film studios.

[00:07:04] [SPEAKER_02]: And yeah, so I got to do some work but then last year towards into the air, I got an email saying can we arrange a zoom call when I said, yeah, okay, we had a zoom call and he said, would you read my scripts?

[00:07:20] [SPEAKER_02]: So we read the scripts and then didn't expect to hear anything from him.

[00:07:23] [SPEAKER_02]: I gave him a, you know, a two zoom calls.

[00:07:27] [SPEAKER_02]: And I didn't expect to hear from him again. And then January hit this year.

[00:07:34] [SPEAKER_02]: January the fifth, the first Friday.

[00:07:37] [SPEAKER_02]: And he ran me and said, we're making this film now. We've got some of the funding in.

[00:07:40] [SPEAKER_02]: But like to be consultant on the film.

[00:07:43] [SPEAKER_02]: And this is our come from prophecy. This is our come from words from people within the church.

[00:07:48] [SPEAKER_02]: And then school saying that I was going to bring Christianity to film sets in a way that I, that I would be comfortable with.

[00:07:59] [SPEAKER_00]: And you'd be at a unique position to be able to do that.

[00:08:04] [SPEAKER_02]: In a unique position and I've prayed with some big actors.

[00:08:08] [SPEAKER_02]: I shared my story with some big actors.

[00:08:10] [SPEAKER_02]: I was supposed to play a part in this, unfortunately, that's not, we're coming to fruition.

[00:08:16] [SPEAKER_02]: I, also in lockdown. I started podcasting. I started doing this. I started my own podcast live on drugs.

[00:08:24] [SPEAKER_02]: Where I started talking to people like me.

[00:08:27] [SPEAKER_02]: Start a building up my confidence.

[00:08:30] [SPEAKER_02]: Roll the first book 2016 personal apocalypse.

[00:08:34] [SPEAKER_02]: Also that year I spent time with the skate piece of human trafficking and then 2017. I wrote a book about that.

[00:08:41] [SPEAKER_02]: Between the street lights and red lights.

[00:08:44] [SPEAKER_02]: That's where I realized what had happened to me. What was what truly was.

[00:08:50] [SPEAKER_02]: So I was able to look at my trauma and start to heal.

[00:08:54] [SPEAKER_00]: Looking at your own story. How you know, call it traffic. So what about your story?

[00:09:00] [SPEAKER_00]: Was more trafficking than just simple abuse.

[00:09:04] [SPEAKER_02]: So I was, these people would send me to take you to parties.

[00:09:11] [SPEAKER_02]: Okay. They would, I was the party boy.

[00:09:19] [SPEAKER_02]: They would take me as I said they would take me into the tents on the weekends away.

[00:09:24] [SPEAKER_02]: I would get to be where they, you know, in the cottages where they were.

[00:09:31] [SPEAKER_02]: And you were still under any pressure.

[00:09:34] [SPEAKER_02]: Yes.

[00:09:35] [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

[00:09:36] [SPEAKER_00]: They promised you to get them so far.

[00:09:40] [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah. It began when I was 13 and it carried on into my early 20s with one man that was pushing me about.

[00:09:52] [SPEAKER_02]: He's dead now.

[00:09:56] [SPEAKER_00]: And these were, you know, some of these were staff at this special school, right?

[00:09:59] [SPEAKER_02]: They were, you would call auxiliary. Right.

[00:10:04] [SPEAKER_02]: So they were people that social workers, volunteers, you've got to work as,

[00:10:13] [SPEAKER_00]: within the leadership of the adult leadership of this school.

[00:10:17] [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

[00:10:20] [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.

[00:10:22] [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.

[00:10:23] [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.

[00:10:25] [SPEAKER_02]: Now, and it just, it all came together.

[00:10:27] [SPEAKER_02]: I realized what was happening.

[00:10:30] [SPEAKER_02]: I got some pushback from all the survivors.

[00:10:34] [SPEAKER_02]: I was told that because I was a man, I could not possibly know what rape is.

[00:10:39] [SPEAKER_02]: I was told that because I was a man that I could not possibly know what abuse is because men, the abuse is not women.

[00:10:47] [SPEAKER_00]: Right. Yeah. That's the common.

[00:10:48] [SPEAKER_02]: I wasn't just men that were using me. Right. It was women too. Right.

[00:10:53] [SPEAKER_00]: Common stereotype type that victims are only female and perpetrators are only men.

[00:10:59] [SPEAKER_00]: When women can abuse and males can be abused.

[00:11:05] [SPEAKER_00]: And that's one of the goals of this podcast is trying to dispel that.

[00:11:09] [SPEAKER_02]: We start to see if we're like now. Right.

[00:11:11] [SPEAKER_02]: We start to see if we're more and more men are standing up.

[00:11:15] [SPEAKER_00]: Right.

[00:11:16] [SPEAKER_02]: And I always start that I would stay anonymous because, you know, but I believe that God gives us a story for a reason.

[00:11:26] [SPEAKER_02]: And there are still people out there that need a voice. I was told that I would become a voice for the voiceless and the marginalised, which I have.

[00:11:38] [SPEAKER_02]: And I recover out loud. So other people can continue to do it anonymously.

[00:11:45] [SPEAKER_00]: Now when was the first time you disclosed any of the user trafficking to someone else?

[00:11:54] [SPEAKER_02]: So I started. I guess really, I was making films in 2012 and these film were called a silent.

[00:12:04] [SPEAKER_02]: And they were short films and they were a hot seat session. It was just basically this talking to a camera on the seat.

[00:12:11] [SPEAKER_00]: Like a documentary.

[00:12:13] [SPEAKER_02]: Well, it was.

[00:12:16] [SPEAKER_02]: I designed it with a friend because I had a photography studio.

[00:12:21] [SPEAKER_02]: I bought for ministry actually, but with an Algeria ministry.

[00:12:25] [SPEAKER_02]: So I used to do some work for her and she let me have upstairs room.

[00:12:28] [SPEAKER_02]: And we would make these films and we would say because we were struggling with mental health and mental health systems in joke, especially back then.

[00:12:36] [SPEAKER_02]: So we would use this as a way to find catharsis. And we would say that, okay, we're in a dystopian world.

[00:12:49] [SPEAKER_02]: Disability is illegal, mental illnesses is illegal.

[00:12:52] [SPEAKER_02]: This is how we felt that it was going with the Conservative government that we had anyway.

[00:13:00] [SPEAKER_02]: And so we started that and I started putting it being other people, what been over the top.

[00:13:06] [SPEAKER_02]: Slowly putting my bits of my story into there.

[00:13:10] [SPEAKER_02]: And then like I say after I wrote between the street lights and red lights, I did a podcast where I was asked about it and I just.

[00:13:21] [SPEAKER_02]: It was it was a Christian podcast as well. And I just felt so god-led.

[00:13:25] [SPEAKER_02]: It should give testimony and I had to be honest. And I just did that. And then once I did that and it all came out, it was like I can't actually talk about it without crumbling.

[00:13:37] [SPEAKER_02]: But I might cry but this is natural.

[00:13:40] [SPEAKER_02]: It's normal because grief is a normal part.

[00:13:43] [SPEAKER_02]: And I started dealing with it that way.

[00:13:45] [SPEAKER_02]: I would then when I started my podcast live and on drug diodes speak to people that have been through similar things and they would open up. So I would open up and it became raw and open and honest.

[00:14:04] [SPEAKER_02]: And it was like this, but we would live stream at a Facebook.

[00:14:11] [SPEAKER_02]: So we couldn't edit it and it was just raw, ultimate, rawness I guess.

[00:14:19] [SPEAKER_02]: And then yeah, I just, I started opening up about it more and more. And it's like this past two years I guess that I've been sort of really now focusing on telling that part of my story.

[00:14:35] [SPEAKER_02]: I'm building my TikTok and I do a little bit of that on there and talk about some of my experiences and how I cope and now I do cope. And I do a bit of my poetry on there and just yeah, I find it cathartic.

[00:14:56] [SPEAKER_02]: I'm talking about this thing has just become more natural and it's a way for me to connect with Christ, to evangelize to the broken.

[00:15:10] [SPEAKER_00]: And that's the whole theme of my podcast is that the power of story and the power of your story that you share your faith and you share the fact that you are able to find.

[00:15:27] [SPEAKER_00]: And that you are able to not only survive but thrive and that brings so much hope to others survivors out there who may not even call their what the experience of use.

[00:15:39] [SPEAKER_00]: And they experience nothing but the shame and the guilt that they were somehow a part of this, but that may hear your story and they can see.

[00:15:50] [SPEAKER_00]: Oh, and find healing and start getting into the point where they can share their story as well.

[00:15:58] [SPEAKER_00]: And then other people in their story and then it just continues and that's truly the power of story and so I'm so glad you're able to do that now going back to I know your wife you met at the home of shelter.

[00:16:12] [SPEAKER_00]: When did she finally hear the falls part of your story when were you will to divulge that part of your past to her.

[00:16:22] [SPEAKER_00]: We've been honest since day one. Okay, so she knew a lot of the story in the track.

[00:16:28] [SPEAKER_02]: You will have a story some of that I'd kept back.

[00:16:32] [SPEAKER_02]: She's been through her own problems. So some of it I really didn't bring out which I wasn't too over descriptive.

[00:16:40] [SPEAKER_00]: Right.

[00:16:41] [SPEAKER_02]: I'm losing friends to murder and suicide and family to murder and suicide. I become a bit de-sensitized to life even you know in subrient and being a Christian I became that why God why.

[00:16:57] [SPEAKER_02]: I had to learn forgiveness.

[00:17:00] [SPEAKER_02]: But yeah from day pretty much day one and I said to I I said to run out I didn't day why why me.

[00:17:12] [SPEAKER_02]: You've always known what sort of person I was even when you met me you met me in the food ban.

[00:17:19] [SPEAKER_02]: You knew how broken I was. Why me even when you told not to you know even when you were told not to give me money or by mistake or whatever.

[00:17:31] [SPEAKER_02]: Why why me why and you said didn't see the man that you saw.

[00:17:37] [SPEAKER_02]: I didn't see the man that you saw looking in that mirror.

[00:17:41] [SPEAKER_02]: I didn't see them but the other people saw. I didn't see the man that you were I saw the man that you would become.

[00:17:51] [SPEAKER_02]: Because I needed you just as much as you needed me and you didn't see me for who I thought I was very beautiful.

[00:17:59] [SPEAKER_02]: She upset to me if I were was shut up except to me for my story which I'd never really told anybody.

[00:18:07] [SPEAKER_02]: When I did it with pepid was wise.

[00:18:10] [SPEAKER_02]: Just to make myself feel better.

[00:18:14] [SPEAKER_02]: But I was able to be truly honest and I decided and I prayed that when I started this journey as a podcaster as a writer as a speaker.

[00:18:26] [SPEAKER_02]: If I was going to do anything I was going to be honest about it.

[00:18:29] [SPEAKER_02]: Honest about the feelings, honest about what happened, honest about where I was truly where I was and the depths of the poverty that I lived.

[00:18:40] [SPEAKER_02]: So that you could see that if Christ can do this to me a wicked man or what can it do for you.

[00:18:54] [SPEAKER_02]: If Christ can change a man so broken by life, so broken by relationships, so broken by the people then he can change anything.

[00:19:10] [SPEAKER_02]: And that it's not the I then thought well I can't be naughty because we sin.

[00:19:19] [SPEAKER_02]: We are sin, I make mistakes.

[00:19:23] [SPEAKER_02]: I shout when I get angry a bit too loudly and a bit too much sometimes.

[00:19:31] [SPEAKER_02]: I do things wrong all of the time but the thing is I'm forgiven.

[00:19:36] [SPEAKER_02]: I'm redeemed in Christ.

[00:19:39] [SPEAKER_02]: When he said those two words it is finished on that cross he meant it.

[00:19:48] [SPEAKER_02]: It is finished.

[00:19:50] [SPEAKER_02]: In my sin I was dead in Christ I am something new.

[00:19:58] [SPEAKER_02]: I am alive again, born again and that doesn't mean that we are all good right people.

[00:20:05] [SPEAKER_02]: We make mistakes, I make mistakes in my faith all of the time.

[00:20:11] [SPEAKER_02]: The thing is I want to face it.

[00:20:16] [SPEAKER_02]: I want to be better, I want to be a better man, I want to be a better husband.

[00:20:21] [SPEAKER_02]: I want to be a better father because that's how Christ has changed me and honest to the fact that where somebody will say to you.

[00:20:33] [SPEAKER_02]: I'm not feeling great and I'm all right and then after go, actually I'm sorry.

[00:20:39] [SPEAKER_02]: I just lied there, I said I'm okay I'm not this is by room there.

[00:20:48] [SPEAKER_02]: I've gone from a man that would people would cross the road to get away from when they saw him come in.

[00:20:58] [SPEAKER_02]: Somebody in church that people will come to be prayed for.

[00:21:01] [SPEAKER_02]: I'm part of the prayer ministry team and part of many teams service this this for me is service.

[00:21:08] [SPEAKER_02]: I serve God, I serve my community, I serve people and I'm not saying it to be a matter or anything like that.

[00:21:15] [SPEAKER_02]: I love to serve that is a spiritual gift that God has given me.

[00:21:19] [SPEAKER_02]: I love to serve I serve in whatever way I can, whether that's observant tea or whether that's running the live stream on Sunday morning.

[00:21:31] [SPEAKER_02]: I'm a prayer ministry team, whether it's helping put way to chairs.

[00:21:38] [SPEAKER_02]: It's service to my community, so in my family my friends and I truly love to do that because I get a blessing from that by blessing all the people.

[00:21:51] [SPEAKER_02]: God gives us these blessings.

[00:21:53] [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, I just I love to do that because even in the right in it's servant.

[00:22:01] [SPEAKER_02]: I speak into people speaking to you speaking to people like myself.

[00:22:07] [SPEAKER_02]: It's my story of serving.

[00:22:10] [SPEAKER_02]: I'm no longer a victim.

[00:22:11] [SPEAKER_02]: Right because we were victims.

[00:22:15] [SPEAKER_02]: Many people think that we're a victim and many people stay as a victim.

[00:22:21] [SPEAKER_01]: Right.

[00:22:22] [SPEAKER_02]: And then if we're lucky, we will become a survivor.

[00:22:27] [SPEAKER_02]: We will learn to survive.

[00:22:29] [SPEAKER_02]: We will survive or we will escape or be survive.

[00:22:32] [SPEAKER_02]: And the many people only have a stay there as a survivor.

[00:22:35] [SPEAKER_02]: What they don't realize is that there is another level to that.

[00:22:41] [SPEAKER_02]: Victim.

[00:22:43] [SPEAKER_02]: Surviv.

[00:22:45] [SPEAKER_02]: Thriver.

[00:22:46] [SPEAKER_02]: We are made to thrive.

[00:22:48] [SPEAKER_02]: Christ made us to thrive.

[00:22:51] [SPEAKER_02]: He wants us.

[00:22:52] [SPEAKER_02]: God wants us to thrive.

[00:22:55] [SPEAKER_02]: And that is the biggest change in mentality that I could ever wish for because I only ever survived.

[00:23:07] [SPEAKER_02]: I've only known survival since I was eight.

[00:23:11] [SPEAKER_02]: Right. Now I'm facing 50.

[00:23:14] [SPEAKER_00]: Right. Well, now with the thriving that brings up your healing journey.

[00:23:21] [SPEAKER_00]: And I know sounds like 12 step group groups were a part of that and your church life was part of that as well.

[00:23:31] [SPEAKER_00]: What other things have you done that have either worked or things that you tried and didn't work very well with your healing.

[00:23:41] [SPEAKER_00]: So we have worked in what things that you tried really didn't help at all.

[00:23:48] [SPEAKER_02]: So film making helps right.

[00:23:50] [SPEAKER_02]: I made a couple of films that couple of sharp films, shot and revised films that got some critical acclaim.

[00:23:58] [SPEAKER_02]: They've got me selected for festivals and awards and things like that because it helped me as an outlet poetry.

[00:24:05] [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, both of those things must have had any kind of creative endeavor where you were creating and you're using that right part of your brain.

[00:24:18] [SPEAKER_00]: That artistic part of your brain because they say that's where trauma is stored as well is in that right brain and so.

[00:24:28] [SPEAKER_00]: Accessing that through creative endeavors can help with the healing process as well for sure.

[00:24:35] [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, because when we're weather we're in our day so you know when we're in a living in a day, she and are weather we're trauma and.

[00:24:46] [SPEAKER_02]: Our grief that's a big one from as I was being a big one for me grief we never I learned that we never truly move on from grief.

[00:24:56] [SPEAKER_02]: Our pain.

[00:24:58] [SPEAKER_02]: Our loss or trauma or addiction but we do move forward.

[00:25:04] [SPEAKER_02]: You see that becomes our story.

[00:25:07] [SPEAKER_02]: I have people saying, I've got Jack, you know, you talk about this too much because you just not talk about it enough.

[00:25:13] [SPEAKER_02]: You know as much.

[00:25:17] [SPEAKER_02]: But I talk about it because my story, my journey is a tool to connect with other people all these things that you cause disconnection they cause disconnection from yourself from your family from God.

[00:25:33] [SPEAKER_01]: Right.

[00:25:34] [SPEAKER_02]: Her disconnection from God.

[00:25:39] [SPEAKER_02]: So when you start dealing with this, this connection.

[00:25:44] [SPEAKER_02]: When you say God Jesus, taking you know, come into my life.

[00:25:49] [SPEAKER_02]: Come into my heart.

[00:25:52] [SPEAKER_02]: That is which, star in the connection.

[00:25:55] [SPEAKER_02]: And we become something new.

[00:25:59] [SPEAKER_02]: We become connected again.

[00:26:01] [SPEAKER_02]: So no longer do we need to be in hell and living in hell because we are reconnected with a loving father, a loving God.

[00:26:11] [SPEAKER_02]: So I learned that 12 step.

[00:26:14] [SPEAKER_02]: The program helps and meetings don't.

[00:26:19] [SPEAKER_02]: We're just investing about them is that they're for the Vatics and they know what you're talking about.

[00:26:25] [SPEAKER_02]: The worst thing.

[00:26:27] [SPEAKER_02]: That for the Vatics.

[00:26:30] [SPEAKER_02]: Right.

[00:26:32] [SPEAKER_02]: I battled a long time with that.

[00:26:34] [SPEAKER_02]: But I do, I work trust that program.

[00:26:38] [SPEAKER_02]: I got led program.

[00:26:40] [SPEAKER_00]: Have you ever looked at therapy or working with a therapist?

[00:26:46] [SPEAKER_00]: Yes.

[00:26:46] [SPEAKER_02]: I work with the elders of my church.

[00:26:52] [SPEAKER_02]: I have someone that I am accountable to because accountability is important for me.

[00:27:00] Yes.

[00:27:00] [SPEAKER_02]: There are times when I keep things to myself.

[00:27:03] [SPEAKER_02]: Things come off kill to at home and then it causes arguments or whatever.

[00:27:10] [SPEAKER_02]: So just learning to be a bit more honest with the wife about how I'm feeling.

[00:27:19] [SPEAKER_02]: Being honest with people about how I'm feeling.

[00:27:23] [SPEAKER_02]: Stay in a way from the wrong ones.

[00:27:27] [SPEAKER_02]: We are.

[00:27:29] [SPEAKER_02]: Who we surround ourselves with.

[00:27:33] [SPEAKER_02]: And if we surround ourselves in a way where you will have.

[00:27:36] [SPEAKER_02]: A little bit of a pain.

[00:27:44] [SPEAKER_02]: We're going to be a little bit more courageous.

[00:28:03] [SPEAKER_02]: There are times when we move towards a different person.

[00:28:06] [SPEAKER_02]: The world is really, really great.

[00:28:06] [SPEAKER_02]: Right. And we're all connected by one thing. Christ. Right. He brought us all together.

[00:28:14] [SPEAKER_02]: He gave us a new life. He gave us a new chapter. That story is that story. It's still there.

[00:28:25] [SPEAKER_02]: But it's a different chapter. They had different chapters. That's a start of the book.

[00:28:29] [SPEAKER_02]: This is a different part of the book. If we're lucky, if we blast, God will take us on this journey

[00:28:37] [SPEAKER_02]: where we will get many books. But we get to influence other people's books or the people's

[00:28:45] [SPEAKER_02]: stories. We get to be part of their life, part of their stories, part of their chapters.

[00:28:51] [SPEAKER_02]: And sometimes it's for a season and sometimes it's for longer. Right. But all these things,

[00:28:59] [SPEAKER_02]: they help. What doesn't help is going por me, por me, por me. God-wide did you do this to me?

[00:29:12] [SPEAKER_02]: Blaming God doesn't help because God didn't do it. God didn't put you in that situation.

[00:29:20] [SPEAKER_02]: I spent the first couple years as a Christian.

[00:29:23] [SPEAKER_02]: I'm saying, God, why did you do this to me? Why did you put me in this? Why did you put

[00:29:29] [SPEAKER_02]: you know, why did you allow me to do this and why so much pain and the answer was quite blunt.

[00:29:36] [SPEAKER_02]: I didn't. You did. You had little things called the one that made you a child.

[00:29:42] [SPEAKER_02]: Jesus, you have free will. You picked up the drugs. Okay, the people that influenced you,

[00:29:50] [SPEAKER_00]: the wrong people. Right. But now, you're not your fault. But the choices that you made

[00:30:00] [SPEAKER_02]: going through the pain. Yeah, that's all you. Yes. Yes. And we're not these things that

[00:30:10] [SPEAKER_02]: were not influenced. Right. We're not trauma, our traumas. They don't belong to us.

[00:30:18] [SPEAKER_02]: They weren't caused by us or caused by other people. Right. If anything, they belong to them.

[00:30:24] [SPEAKER_00]: Right. Right. The guilt you've been called along the perpetrators. Exactly.

[00:30:30] [SPEAKER_02]: On then, if you're having me on just feed him with the first given the best wine,

[00:30:39] [SPEAKER_02]: the Lord will ring down hot cows on their head. He will do with that. So what do we do?

[00:30:45] [SPEAKER_02]: What am I commanded to do? Love them. Right. Doesn't mean like them.

[00:30:52] [SPEAKER_02]: Forgive them. Doesn't mean like them have a place in my life anymore.

[00:30:59] [SPEAKER_02]: On forgiveness is like drinking poison and then expecting the other person to die.

[00:31:04] [SPEAKER_00]: Exactly. Yeah. Forgive me. It's for us. It's not for the other person.

[00:31:12] [SPEAKER_00]: I exactly. I remember hearing not that I believe or agree with everything that Oper says, but

[00:31:19] [SPEAKER_00]: she put it very well. It's putting aside the thought that the past will ever change

[00:31:26] [SPEAKER_00]: and moving forward. And that's part of forgiveness. That accepting the fact that the past cannot

[00:31:32] [SPEAKER_02]: give me the freedom to move forward. Yeah. I carry that. I just tattoo on my arm.

[00:31:42] [SPEAKER_02]: I got when many years ago, when I was in the program and I met a guy who wanted to be a tattoo

[00:31:52] [SPEAKER_02]: artist and they said if you get to 30 days, you can tattoo me. I knew you did the serenity prayer.

[00:31:58] [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah. You know, when it's not the cleanest tattoo work, but it's, you know, and it's God.

[00:32:08] [SPEAKER_02]: I'm used to frenity to accept the things that I cannot change, the courage to change the things I

[00:32:17] [SPEAKER_02]: can, the wisdom to know the difference. Right. That doesn't mean like sets that with powerless.

[00:32:26] [SPEAKER_02]: So we go, I don't know, poor people. Me, we have sets that we're powerless to go, all right.

[00:32:33] [SPEAKER_02]: I'm powerless and by saying, I am powerless. I surrender. My will and my life over the

[00:32:40] [SPEAKER_02]: care of God as I understand him. That makes us powerful by sharing our stories. I is transferring

[00:32:51] [SPEAKER_02]: power, the power forgiveness, the power of love, the power of hope because the difference between

[00:33:00] [SPEAKER_02]: hopelessness and helplessness. It's far less that's it. There's always hope and there's always

[00:33:06] [SPEAKER_00]: help. You've just got to learn to ask. It's right. It's about any God do this. It's right. So any

[00:33:15] [SPEAKER_00]: final thoughts or our listeners, any final words of wisdom you'd like to share? I know that it

[00:33:23] [SPEAKER_02]: might seem dark at the minute for some of you listening. I know that you might not see hope there.

[00:33:31] [SPEAKER_02]: I know that you might not be able to see an end to the pain when you feel hopeless and helpless

[00:33:38] [SPEAKER_02]: and powerless and alone and on love. You're not. You are all of by God, by Christ, by me.

[00:33:47] [SPEAKER_02]: There is hope. So even in the darkest times, there is always hope and there's always help.

[00:33:53] [SPEAKER_02]: You've just got to reach out because sometimes it's stubbornness that stops us from reaching out

[00:33:58] [SPEAKER_02]: because thinking nobody allowed me. So you won't do reach out to me. Find me on the external

[00:34:06] [SPEAKER_02]: journal, stop Facebook. Facebook.com.jw.org. Drop me a DM. I'll always signpost you to somewhere

[00:34:12] [SPEAKER_02]: contact Mike, the signpost you somewhere. I know that sometimes it feels like you're praying to

[00:34:18] [SPEAKER_02]: nothing, like shouting into a wind tunnel. Like it's not going to make a difference. His listening

[00:34:25] [SPEAKER_02]: is there. He cares. You've just got to learn to listen to him because there is a discerning voice.

[00:34:32] [SPEAKER_02]: So I just pray now that you're just in the name of Christ, it's just reach out. Reach out

[00:34:39] [SPEAKER_02]: to God by the maras up there in prayer hours. Might feel like you're firing it into nothing but

[00:34:45] [SPEAKER_00]: be as listening and there is help out there. Amen. Thank you so much, Jack. We're sharing your story.

[00:34:52] [SPEAKER_00]: We'll have all of your contact links in the show notes along with links to

[00:34:58] [SPEAKER_00]: everything you've been involved with and all your books. And so forth we'll make sure we get links

[00:35:03] [SPEAKER_00]: out to that in the show notes. And thank you so much for being here and we'll see you all next time

[00:35:11] [SPEAKER_00]: on making any of your mail survivors. I guess. He would like to learn more about my coaching with

[00:35:19] [SPEAKER_00]: Polar Live Consulting where I provide one-on-one coaching and group coaching both with a focus on healing

[00:35:26] [SPEAKER_00]: for mail survivors. Reach out to me at Polar Live Consulting.com that is Polar

[00:35:32] [SPEAKER_00]: spelled P-O-L-A-R. I would love to hear from you. I want to hear your story. If you'd like

[00:35:39] [SPEAKER_00]: your story featured on this podcast, contact me via my website. If you like this podcast, please

[00:35:45] [SPEAKER_00]: rate and review because that's how other people can find me and I really want to spread this message

[00:35:50] [SPEAKER_00]: of healing and hope to others. And remember, you are not alone. Healing is possible in the abuse

[00:35:57] [SPEAKER_00]: was not your fault. Love you repeat that. The abuse was not your fault. See you next time on

[00:36:06] [SPEAKER_00]: the Healing for Mail Survivors podcast.