Episode 52: Balance

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If someone would have told me that in my late 50s, I’d be recording a podcast and titled Don’t lose your balance. I’d have waved my hand in their face laughed under my breath, shaking my head and stated, you’re nuts. Little did I realize that I was the one that had gone nuts. Literally. This is a story a journey scripted, unscripted about the life of one woman, the people along the way, the trials and tribulations to say to you get ready, it’s going to be a bumpy ride. So hang on tight, and don’t lose your balance with Mallory Durrick.

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Well, hey, everybody, welcome to the 52nd episode of Don’t lose your balance. My name is Mallory Durrick. If you’ve been joining me, you know that today or this episode is going to be the last episode I’m going to record in what we call one season. And one season for me is a year. And I thought, Oh God, what am I what am I going to talk about on my last episode of my first season, assuming that there will be a second season and I if you listened last week, you know that I’m thinking about this book and how to share your story on the internet, all of that. So as you can see by the title, today’s episode is called Balance. Balance is what this entire podcast is about. And I thought to myself, Okay, what is the best way to approach the topic of balance in the context of everything that I’ve shared in the year, and I decided that I was going to do a recap, and look back on all of the episodes, which is 51 episodes, and talk about them. And I know what you’re thinking, you’re thinking, Are you really going to talk about 51 different episodes, and I’m here to say, Yes I am. If you don’t want to listen, it may be a little longer than normal. But I want to put everything that I’ve done in a capsule as this podcast is and look back and look back at the year because it is a year it is one full year of the time that I started recording and when the episodes were uploaded and when everything went live each week and I want to talk about that from a perspective of being in a very balanced place in my life and how I’m looking back on where I was a year ago that created the podcast in the first place to where I am now. So here we go.

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All right, my first three episodes they were recorded at the same time if you will, and then broken up into three different episodes in order to

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I guess keep a hook going for from the first episode I didn’t wait a week they were I thought they were they were uploaded and then shared over three weeks but they weren’t they were shared in the same actual day so that if you were listening to the first episode entitled marriage the following one from there was an infidelity and then addiction you know those three initials I talk about Mia, marriage, infidelity, addiction. So I started with marriage, mostly because I didn’t think let me share my life story and tell you what, you know what my life was about moreso let me share

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what I think was a big turning point in my life, despite, you know, many, many, many years, including the time that I got married to the time that I had children, there was a lot of time in that period.

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I do think that the marriage part was the one it was so wonderful at the time that it was happening but I was so young. And as I started to get older, I felt maybe and I don’t think I was conscious of this at the time that something just really wasn’t going well for me and how I felt within the marriage and how I felt as a married person.

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And so that’s why I started with marriage because it was as it was when being married although a great thing was also what may be had

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I hate to say it like this was somewhat destroyed me a little bit. I lost my I lost my identity. That’s what it is. I lost my

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stuff inside of my own marriage because I didn’t have a really good understanding of how to have balance in relationships. So that’s why I started with marriage. But then where was the story gonna go, and it was about the affair and how that really changed me. Because my decision to step outside of my marriage to find some level of joy, peace and happiness, while maybe really bad and morally

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incomprehensible that happened, and I have to take responsibility for it happening, like it happened for many people, but I really wanted to own it. Because what happened after the infidelity was my heart was so broken, and I was so and I say this, I was so broken, and I was in so much pain, and I was in, I was grieving to this unending possibility of ever finding balance and hope of anything positive to come out of it again. That’s what led me to self medicate.

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And when I chose to self medicate with the Vikon, I remember the day that I did that. And I remember thinking to myself, well, it’s just a half a pill, and you’re only having a glass of wine. There’s probably no harm in this just, and I even think I said this to myself, don’t, don’t, don’t take this too far, really, you know, don’t keep taking it. But you don’t, I don’t think people set out to say, Yep, I’m going to make a daily practice to take vi get in every single day, it’ll keep me out of pain. And if I get addicted to it, I’ll worry about that at another time. Now, I really feel like there was so much chaos going on in my life that obviously I compounded that with the vikan. And even with alcohol,

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I may have been a functioning person, and I think I had to have been functioning in my addiction. Because it went on for so long, for years, for years being addicted to Vikon. And with no one in my family knowing. So I had to have been highly functioning at that time. And until the Vikon really took over. And I was in really bad shape. Did anybody actually take notice? Something’s wrong with Mallory. And that’s when I actually came clean.

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As I was entitling many of these episodes, if not all of them, I thought, well, what can I talk about, and I didn’t really feel like I needed to put every single episode in chronological order. The next thing I talked about was poverty, because poverty came from my addiction. Now, I was very fortunate my family paid for rehab. And it was very expensive. And I get it, it was a country club. But I always say this, nobody goes to rehab with a smile on their face, they go kicking and screaming. And it’s not like you go into rehab, and then you come out healthy. It’s a it’s like a reset for you. And that’s where people really don’t want to do the work. I think they make it look glamorous in these Country Club rehabs, but we’re talking about poverty. And what happened for me was because of the and I’ll get to rehab later, but the addiction

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was the the facilitator for the poverty because I was putting all my purchases for Vikatan on credit cards, American Express, Chase, Visa, whatever it was, and every bottle that I bought was $200. And I was getting three bottles delivered every couple of days, if not sometimes every day. So that was near the end. So you can only imagine plus there was an enormous amount of spending that I was doing. You know, if I go out with the kids, or if I would go into a store and I wanted to feel better about myself, I might buy something I couldn’t afford it, I’d add it to the credit card. So when I was all said and done with it at the end of my addiction, and on the you know, on the beginning of recovery, I was about 80 $80,000 in debt. That was my debt.

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Despite having, you know, financial wealth in the family, I wasn’t getting any of that to pull out of the debt. Just so I’m clear. Then I talked a little bit about employment, which I think is a little boring. But I took jobs that I you know, I had to take in order to find my way back to a place where I could actually I don’t even want to say find my way back because I don’t think I ever was self sufficient. So in order to pay rent because I was living in an upper

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aren’t, you know, I took jobs, I hate it. I didn’t know what I wanted to do in my life. So it was unfortunate, but I worked jobs and you can go listen, if that’s something you’re interested in, in kind of what those jobs were like, and, you know, working in a pawn shop wrapping packages for eBay packages, I, you know, educated women. But I had to do what I had to do to pay and make sure that I could pay my rent. Then I talk a little bit about doctors and how I feel like the doctors maybe didn’t help me so much, as well as maybe they made things worse. But one thing I’m going to say about your doctors, if you’re not completely open and honest with them, they they 100% cannot help you. Unfortunately, doctors have a tendency to want to fix whatever emotional distress that you’re going through with a pill that I’m going to say happens whether you lie to them or not. So I could go to the doctor and tell them that I was really sad, and, and maybe I could even say why I’m sad. And then they’re gonna give me a pill to say, well, you’re depressed, you’re sad, let’s fix that. Let’s get your serotonin levels back. And I’m not saying that this isn’t right for all people. I’m saying for myself, medicating what I was going through was not okay, I was grieving, I was full of anxiety because I was cheating. And every single time, doctors would prescribe medication, which only compounded the problem for me. Now, if they had known, and I’m going to say this, if they had known that I was mixing it with alcohol or mixing it with Vika them, you know, there’s always going to be this little caveat, well, you didn’t follow it to the letter. And I’m going to tell you that when I did follow it to the letter, medicines never really worked. They screwed up my brain. And these doctors, they just write the script and they send you on your way until you see them next week for an update. And before you know it, you’re feeling all this stuff inside. And you don’t know why but you keep taking the medication. So careful on that with me, I can say we I should have been really careful.

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Then we then I talked a little bit about loneliness and how I felt in my life and how lonely I felt in my marriage, which obviously led to the infidelity, but also just lonely as a mother. I didn’t, even though I had friends that were also moms, I just didn’t feel like I had that true. I did a few I did have a few friends, I shouldn’t say that. They’re not really great friends anymore. But I did have that. And I want to say that my loneliness was very private to me. Nobody knew that I was lonely. In fact, if you were to ask any of those friends, they would all tell you God, no, you were terrific. You always look like you had it together. But loneliness really returned for me, especially after the divorce. It happened during my marriage that happened during motherhood, but it really happened more than any other time after my divorce. For whatever reason, my friends may have decided to side with my ex husband, maybe because what I did was so awful. But I would question my friends. Have you done any of those things and be really honest with yourself. For me, loneliness came at a price. Because the easiest thing for me to get was, you know, alcohol so I could I could kind of fix my loneliness with having some wine even going to like a restaurant and sitting at the bar.

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Okay, so loneliness also happened for me in rehab, which was the next episode that I talked about. And when I got into rehab, I was like, why am I here? And I knew that I belonged there. But what I didn’t feel connected to Were any of the people in rehab. They were they were

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as narcissistic as I was probably at the time. And I was alienated I was. And I know that that sounds like oh, they pointed fingers. And no, I was alienated for wanting to be. I wanted to contribute. There was something I thought about in rehab where I got in there and I thought, oh, god, look at this. I gotta be here for a whole month from July 21 to August 21. I have to be here for an entire month. What am I going to do with myself? So I said, I have to participate or I’m not going to get anything out of what I’m doing here. So in the beginning, I was really scared and I was really sick. And that’s the problem with rehab, especially for people who have opioid addiction. You have to recognize

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have physical withdrawal is not like alcohol after a couple of days, this thing could last a month. And they were giving me Suboxone. But then they took it away. And then they had to give it back to me. And then they took it away again. And I was really isolated in rehab. And I don’t remember anybody, but I do remember thinking I’m getting out of here, and I’m never coming back.

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And that led me to the next episode, which was about choice. And I made a lot of choices, negative ones that led me to the place that I was in, but positive ones. And when I said, I’m not going to, you know, I’m not gonna go to heroin, and I’m not gonna use Vikon ever again, because I had an opportunity to stop using it in rehab. So choices that we make lead us to a place of either pure destruction, obviously, or something really beneficial.

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And growth. Okay, so then I talked a little bit about guilt. And I still carry some guilt only because there’s, I don’t know how much I can do about the past, if anything other than keep talking about it, which I’m doing here. But I carry a lot of guilt, I especially carry guilt about my children. And that’s why I also created this podcast so that if they ever want to listen to my perspective about all of the things that I felt, and all of the things that I went through, I want them to feel comfortable doing that. I think it’s going to be very hard for my children to listen to this, if they even know that I have it. But I am not uncomfortable sharing it because I carry the guilt. But the guilt does not carry me, I do not allow the weight of guilt prevent me from moving forward. And I think that’s a very important thing. Because that led me to my next episode, which is called freedom. And I have a definite newfound freedom than I ever have had before. I’m not afraid to say something to my children. I’m not afraid to say something to my parents, my sister, I’m not afraid anymore. Because I feel very free when I let go of much of the guilt that I was caring and remember much of it not all. But I feel free that I owned my ship. I feel free that I

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understand if people are angry with me, I understand if people want to share their truths about me with me, I get that. And it gave me a sense of freedom that I might not might I might not otherwise have experience if I hadn’t created the podcast. Then around I guess, Episode 12. I thought oh, this is Episode 12, the 12 step program. I should really talk about that. And that’s when was it the 12? Alcohol? Yeah, I believe it was. I hope it was maybe I’m maybe I’m wrong. No, I’m not wrong. Okay, so alcohol. Alcohol was something that I don’t know, I just didn’t want to let it go. And it’s very interesting about my, the, the stuff I sort of sold myself on about alcohol and about drinking. The stigma that is associated with alcoholism is a great one. The problem is that I didn’t look like your typical alcoholic down the street, or at the on the I shouldn’t say down the street. But on the street corner, I was probably down the street alcoholic, but I don’t even like calling myself an alcoholic. I just don’t even like to call myself an addict, yet. I was drug dependent. And I absolutely feel like the second I got rid of alcohol, everything turned around for me. I didn’t need the 12 step program.

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The way other people who embrace the program, embrace it, it wasn’t it didn’t work for me. And I know why it didn’t work. No program that involves a group of other people in you know, in a in a large group of other people who are sharing their stories really do work. For me. I like that smaller, more intimate kind of scenario. So that’s why when I would go to end a Narcotics Anonymous, and they would be groups of maybe seven or eight people that worked better for me when I was in addiction counseling with a group of women. Maybe we were about six of us that work better for me. But my relationship with alcohol

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was complicated because I romanticize alcohol, you know, going to the bar on a beautiful afternoon in early spring or late spring or early summer where you’re sitting on the patio and the sun is shining and there’s no clouds in the sky and it’s beautiful and you’re sitting at the bar or you’re sitting at a table or you’re sitting maybe it was a date and you’re having a glass of wine. Sounds nice, doesn’t it? And I look at what people do on Instagram and

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They’re taking pictures of themselves with a glass of wine or Friday night, and they’re showing their, you know, their cocktail. And I’m thinking there’s something so unattractive about that right now. And yet I somehow still romanticize the idea of drinking. And I said this to my mother, you know, what if I wanted to go to Paris one day, and I want to sit in a cafe and have a glass of wine, and she said the same thing about having a cigarette,

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I can say that the idea of having a drink is so much better than the actual drink itself.

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I never have to worry that I’m that I don’t have my composure. And you know what my liver is saying? Thank you very much Mallory. I’ve cured myself, I’m healed. And I’m not going to need a liver transplant. That is what I am saying.

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And I love that feeling. I love waking up and not feeling ever hungover. I like not feeling sluggish after those couple of glasses of wine on that beautiful, late spring, early summer day, because I’ve eliminated alcohol, which also meant I eliminated the sugar. And I went into judgment, judgment is a funny thing. I mean, I think I probably judge other people the way they judge me. But I think that there, there are people who are very soon and quick to judge people before they actually get to know them. I’ve heard that a lot in my life. Oh, you’re nothing like what I thought you were I’m like, Well, what did you think I was. So then I talked a lot about judgment and what people would say about, you know about me and the story that I shared. And I really believe this, if you care what people think of you in the positive, you’re going to care what they think of you in the negative and we all as individuals need to stop ourselves. We have to practice stopping ourselves from being too judgmental about other people and having an opinion. If I see somebody posting drinks on Instagram, I can’t judge them for doing that, because I probably would have done that. And I probably did do that. So judgment, it’s a really bad thing to do. codependent, I never really understood what that meant. I was very codependent. And I molded myself into the idea of what other people wanted of me, especially in my personal relationships, especially in my romantic relationships. I did it in my marriage. I probably did it in my affair. I did it with future boyfriends that I that have come and gone. And I no longer have to worry about being codependent because I am independent control. That’s a great one, I learned to control my impulses, I learned the value of what that meant for me and how I was going to live a more controlled life, one that provided me with balance rather than impulsivity. I just got this level of control that gives me this level of peace. Okay, gratitude. Well, this is a big one for me, because I practice gratitude every single day. And when I say that, I’m not saying I practice the idea of gratitude. And then I’m standing in line on a Thursday at the supermarket. While I’m in line thinking what am I grateful for? I go into clubhouse every single morning at 8am. Eastern Time, open a room with a bunch of other people who also feel gratitude. And we share gratitude, I read a story. It’s followed by a prompt and we all share

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what we’re grateful for the power of practicing gratitude was what we talked about this morning, and I’m going to tell you something, it is a no bullshit thing. You do not have to sit and feel grateful all day long. And you can feel gratitude on occasion. But the practice of gratitude on a daily basis is a very empowering thing, and will make all the difference in the world. The next episode that I talked about was forgiveness, forgiveness, oh my god, this was so important for me to forgive myself more than anything. I think that many people, you know, have probably forgiven me for all of the things that I’ve done wrong. But if I’m carrying around that weight and that burden, and I know that pretty much aligns with guilt, I had to let go of it. I had to forgive myself. And I learned that I learned it in quarantine. And I actually learned it within the last year more than ever. And I have to say, if you’re holding on to something because it’s comfortable and familiar. Try to let it go and forgive yourself and see what happens for you can always take it back, but you’ll be you’ll be amazed at what it will do for you. Validation. I can’t even remember what this topic was about. I do

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however, want to say that for those that have reached out to me in the last year, as a result of this podcast, I validate all of your feelings, I just want to make that very clear, I validate your own personal journey and recognition for how I may have made you feel in a negative way I am validating that, because I don’t want anybody else’s reality to be skewed by my own. I really get it. I hope that people feel validated. And oh, that’s the right. That’s what I remember it was about

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the manipulation of gaslighting. I think that was what brought me to validation. I never really understood that when somebody says, This is how you’ve made me feel I do, we shouldn’t give an excuse for oh, well, I was really screwed up then. And I’ve done that. I’ve absolutely said that, well, I wasn’t really healthy. But I don’t want to invalidate what their experience or what their feelings are. And there’s a there’s a friend of mine who tried to talk to me about it 20 years after the fact. And I don’t want to invalidate that friend, I am very much validating their feeling. I just don’t know what else to do with it, other than to acknowledge it. Which leads me to the next episode, which is friendship. My friendships are complicated, I’m not going to lie, I have had a lot of really good friends that have done really hurtful things equally the way I have. And I cannot own all of the breaking in the relationships of my friends, alone, my share of it, but my friends have never actually owned their own responsibility in the demise of the marriage or the demise of the friendship. So for me, it’s and I said that probably a mock and even edit that out the device in the marriage. That’s when I lost a lot of friends.

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And some of my friends, you know, I had one friend say to my ex husband, Mallory wouldn’t be with you, if you didn’t make the kind of money you make. I’m not sure why she would say that. But that’s not a friend. And yet, this was a lifelong friend that I had as a little girl. I’ve also protected some of my friends from my sort of crazies, and I ended my friendships with them so that they didn’t have to endure any of my chaos. I don’t know if they’ll ever hear this podcast, or if they even know that it exists.

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So friends, yeah, that’s a toughy. For me, I don’t have a lot of friends. I keep myself pretty guarded. I know that sounds really sad. But I do have online friends and they fulfill me enough. And I have a couple of friends out there. So for those of you who know you, you exist. Thank you. Thank you for sticking by me through all my crazies. Next was creativity. I started in quarantine painting, and I realized the value of channeling your creativity, digital art came into my life watercolors came into my life.

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acrylic paints came into my life, this podcast came into my life. These are the things that when you are suffering, and you are feeling completely out of your head, find a level of creativity and run with it. You will be amazed at how therapeutic it can be.

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Then I talked a little bit about motherhood. And everybody knows who’s listened to my podcasts that the podcast was actually created as a result of a conflict I had with my daughter. And this happened last year. And it’s consequently been remarkable how in one year things got better. And it wasn’t because things just got better. I changed this year. And I think that that is being demonstrated to my daughter. I don’t think she knows I have a podcast. And if she does, I hope she listens with fondness. And even if she’s not fond of it, then I hope she understands why her mother is putting her entire life on the internet, mostly for her own healing and not that of others, although the benefit of it can be in a healing place. Then I talked about death. And that was in January. And that was as a result of my cousin Bob Saget, who had died and I think there’s a lot of people who didn’t know the Bob Saget was my cousin. There are a few people who know especially those who know me on clubhouse and his death. You know, his death came as a shock to all of us but dying in our family does not come as a shock. I I’ve been I’ve had more deaths in our family. We’ve had more deaths in our family than I care to mention. I mean

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My father died when I was seven, we had cousins who have died uncles who have died. And it’s just one of those things. So I don’t want to say I’m anesthetized to death. But I’ve come to expect it and accept it, that it is inevitable an inevitable part of living. His death, however, struck us hard because of his fame. And because of how many people he has touched. And that was really hard. For me, it was especially hard for my family. Then I talked a little bit about opportunity, and how, you know, I think that we have opportunities that are presented to us all the time. And we either accept that opportunity as something we can grow from, or we don’t, and then it becomes a missed opportunity. I also talked about letting go and what letting go meant for me, I had to let go of whatever I was holding on to that was creating this ugly narrative about who I was, and how I was perceived as a mother, as a parent, as a spouse, as a girlfriend, as a friend, as a daughter, as a sibling, I had to let go of all these things. And as a result, I got better. And I found a level of balance. Then I talked a little bit about boundaries, something must have precipitated my conversation about boundaries. And I talked about how putting down boundaries are not about putting up walls. They’re laying down guidelines for yourself and saying, Hey, this is my boundary, I’m not going to let somebody take advantage of me. And I’m not going to let

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myself be taken advantage of. And that’s just one example. But the boundaries is a biggie. And I encourage everybody, to not only, you know, when I say when you lay down boundaries, it sounds like you’re putting up a wall understand where your line is? Because if you don’t understand it, how can we expect anybody else to do that for us? Then I talked a little bit about values, the values are so interesting to me, because I think I really think that I lost all my values, what did I stand for? Who was I? How was I going to make a difference in this short period of time that I am on this earth. And just because I made all these mistakes, doesn’t mean I had no values, I have a moral compass, it just didn’t know how I lost it. I know now, and I certainly know based on my boundaries, how to make sure that I stay on the right track, and, and follow all of the things that mean a lot to me.

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And being somebody who makes a difference. Then it talked a little bit about resilience. I think I’ve been very resilient. I think people through the pandemic showed an enormous amount of resiliency. I feel like the pandemic precipitated, you know, a lot of creativity, but it also, after the situation I had with my daughter last June,

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I realized how resilient I could be if I didn’t fall into those old patterns. I didn’t go to the bar to drink, I put down a boundary and I got on an airplane, and I came home. And that may have been awful to everybody else. But it wasn’t.

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It was awful to me. But it wasn’t something I could I could not do if I needed to follow the path that I knew that I was on. Now, the path of sobriety was being challenged, which is why I lay down my boundaries, you have to protect yourself. And while it may not be great for somebody else, they’ll get over it. Because the worst thing I could have done was gone to the bar, had some drinks to cope because I didn’t have the coping skills, and then find myself exactly where I was back to three years. Then the podcast was created a month later, so that I could change what we often say is to change that narrative acceptance. I’ve learned to accept myself and I think that the people in my life have learned to accept me too. And I love that I love that journey. For me. I feel like it was one of the greatest gifts that any of us could give. This is my mother, I you know, this is who she is. This is how she’s grown. Or maybe this is you know, me speaking about myself. I’ve accepted all of the things about myself, even my ugly truths, and that was the most I think life altering change I could have made when I learned to accept that even though I made these what I consider you know, like egregious mistakes. I survived it and I learned a creative way to tell the story about it.

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So after acceptance came love, and love is hard for me, I, I know that intimacy is part of love. And it’s just hard. It’s even hard for me to talk about here. I think I even said, Oh, it’s really hard for me to talk about the time that I recorded that. And as I remember, it was pretty, it was pretty hard. Then I went into anxiety, which is a funny thing. Remember, these have no chronological order. So anxiety, I, I have experience less anxiety in the last two years than in my entire lifetime.

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I think I’ve found a level of balance. I think that getting rid of the alcohol and the toxins removed,

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if not 80 to 90% of my anxiety, it never once occurred to me that alcohol causes more anxiety. Never. And I know that people talk about that now, but nobody talked about that. Then they said Alcohol is a depressant. Well, it wasn’t for me that that the minute that glass would hit my lips, and I’d be drinking, I would, I would lift up. And I would just like the Vikon and I would then start to feel really anxious sobriety is what? What removed all the anxiety? Yeah, we have we’re in a pandemic, everybody’s quarantined. Okay, what am I going to do? Well, I’m going to make sure I have my bare necessities and get into my creativity. And the anxiety just disappeared. And that’s another reason why I don’t choose to drink, why choose not to drink. Then I then I got a I was contacted by Kailyn Nelson, who is this lovely young woman on YouTube. And I found her it probably in 2020. And we started talking and so then I interviewed her on for my wellness episode, and she really is marvelous. She talks a lot about body positivity and, and she really embraces things about herself that I love. And I wish that I could have done that in my 20s. And she also has such a fun YouTube channel to watch, you know, she’ll, she’ll try fad diets. I think she made a peanut butter and jelly sandwich recently from scratch, which I loved. She’s just a wonderful person. And I encourage everyone to look up Kayla Nelson. She also has a new podcast called girl on the internet.

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And you can find that on any podcast platform, I think she does it with Spotify, Google Apple, go check her out. Then I talked a little bit about fear. Fear was one of those things that used to drive everything that I did, and I hated it. And I may be a little bit fearful, but it doesn’t last very long. So I conquer that. And if you can conquer your fears that led me to the next episode, which is growth and you can grow as a result of being afraid and then doing it anyway, what is the worst thing that can happen, you’ll fail. And then you’ll try again. And that will allow you to have some growth. Then I talked a little bit about rituals, rituals, were something that prompted me to talk about based on something we learned or talked about in the gratitude room that day, you know, taking a bath or lighting a candle or saying a prayer and what were the rituals that we had

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had I don’t have a lot of rituals, I have routines, I don’t think the same thing, but maybe they are I like to get up in the morning and put on my makeup now. And I never used to do that. I mean, who’s seeing me other than being on a Zoom meeting, but I am camera ready most times, most of these days. And I like that I like that a lot. Then it talks a little bit about kindness. Kindness really matters. I remember buying that. Something from Omaha. In a world where you can be anything be kind. I don’t think people are

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generally kind all the time I see a lot of unkind people based on their own levels of frustrations, and maybe they’re full of anxiety. Maybe they’re going through something I don’t know. But being kind isn’t something we should have to be reminded to do

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that I talked a little bit about humility. You know, I don’t even remember what the episode was about.

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But I do think being humble is a very important thing. Get your ego out of it. And you know, just feel feel a little bit more humble.

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I’ll have to go back and listen to that because I have no idea why I would have put that in there.

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Hope hope I was I talked a little bit

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about hope and I,

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I had hope for the future, I think my mother had a lot of hope for my future. And as a result of everything that I had to do here, in my own growth and in my own ability to move forward,

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people need hope they need to feel like they were hopeful they were going to have something that they wanted to have back in the past. You know, remember, we’re still we were still in a pandemic during this time, but the world was starting to open up, then I talked about community,

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the value of community is so important. And it never occurred to me that my online community was as important to me as it actually is.

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I am in gratitude every single morning. I like my facebook community. I

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I think that when you are a part of something greater than yourself, and helping others who help you, your community is just like your friendships. It’s a marvelous thing.

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Clarity, I got really clear about what I wanted, how I wanted to share my story on the internet,

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how I wanted to be public about my, you know, infidelity and my addiction, and share how it helped me grow. And it led me to the next topic, which was giving me this level of confidence. I was always somewhat confident in my ability and some of my talents. But I was never more confident when I became clearer. So clarity, then led to confidence. And it’s huge, because when you’re confident, the world recognizes that.

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I know that when I first started this podcast, I wasn’t very confident at all with what it would do. For me, I just knew that I had to do this. And it wasn’t even anything other than I liked how I had the ability to share what I was feeling better than if I was sharing it by writing it. Even though the earlier episodes were scripted, I needed to organize my thoughts. And now I don’t feel that same way, I’ll have to maybe sometimes go back to that, I think when I am going to do what I want to do next. But I had the confidence that this was going to be a powerful mechanism, you know, for for growth and change for myself. And if I was growing and changing, I was also confident that that was going to help me in my personal relationships, which it’s done.

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Then I talked about setbacks. Setbacks are hard, because people can trigger you. They don’t want to trigger you, but they’re not yet growing, or they’re not letting go or not doing any of the things that I’ve talked about up to this point. And they can cause you to have a setback.

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Be mindful of that. It’s not to hurt you. It’s because they’re not at that same place that you’re in. So if you’ve if you’ve grown and if you’ve let go and you’ve moved the needle forward for yourself, remember they may not have. So they may try to not because they want to bring you backwards, but because they are where you are, they can cause you to have a setback if you are not careful. And setbacks happen all the time for people who have addictions. I am thankful that I didn’t allow any of the situations that’s happened in the last year caused me to have a setback, I’m still on the right path, because I talked about goals. And that’s what I have. I have goals. I have personal goals for myself and I want my life to be

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happy, free.

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Not full of chaos, not fearful, not full of anxiety. I want to share

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kindness and be part of a community and all of the things that I talked about and I want to be humble in the process because those are my goals.

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Interestingly, as I talked about goals, I had to talk about clubhouse. clubhouse was something I found in January 2021 When it was only by invite, and I’m thinking this is a very interesting app. And I stuck with it. And now I stick with it every single day. I don’t think I’ve been without clubhouse on any day since January two

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2021 Isn’t that amazing? There are people who came in to clubhouse, they got a lot of recognition, they looked at clubhouses and opportunity to grow their business, which it absolutely is. And then they said a clubhouse is dead, and they move on to the next platform. Maybe they didn’t get the same thing I got out of it, or I’m getting out of it. But for the people who are sticking with it, who are with me, who are meeting me and getting to know me, I really appreciate you and I really appreciate the app of clubhouse.

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And then I don’t know why. But I must have talked about pain after that episode. And they have nothing to do with one another. Remember, this is not in chronological order. I don’t think I’ve been in pain. I remember feeling a lot of pain back in my day, a lot of pain. So much to the point was we know I medicated it self medicated it. How you don’t know what the answer is. If you go to a doctor and you’re in pain, they give you a pill and then the pill just causes more pain. I don’t know what the answer is, I do know that it’s very important that you have an you know an advocate. If you can’t advocate, you know, advocate for yourself. Because you’re in pain, you may not be thinking clearly, and you’re gonna listen to anybody who’s going to tell you what you need to do to get out of pain, exercise, more. Drink, don’t drink, smoke, don’t smoke, I don’t know, I just know that. Once I figured out how to stay out of pain, and not medicate, whatever painful experiences that I was having, I could get to the other side of it and feel better.

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Then I talked a lot. Next, I talked about milestones. I’m hitting all these milestones, I just hit my 50th episode, and you get like a little acknowledgement from Buzzsprout. And then I have

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probably 2500 downloads, which isn’t very much, but it’s a lot for me, I don’t really market this podcast, I don’t know who’s listening, I know you’re listening, I appreciate you listening. And I’m hitting all of these milestones in December, I’ll hit three years sober. And it’s not like it’s been hard. It’s been very, very easy. I feel like I hit now this one year mark of sharing my life story. I have all this wonderful stuff. And these are milestones based on goals. And it’s important to honor the milestones. And then whatever the next goal might be in, then acknowledge it when you hit a milestone, but I hit a lot of them. We hit 365 days in gratitude, about, I don’t know, two weeks ago. So all of these things are something I’m very, very proud of. I’m not just talking about it, I’m actually talking about things that I’m actually doing. And that’s remarkable toxicity.

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When people hit milestones, or when people are involved in toxic scenarios, you are completely imbalanced, imbalanced, not in balance, but imbalance. toxicity can rear its ugly head and a lot of different ways. I could have celebrated with a bottle of champagne when I hit all these milestones, but I didn’t, because it’s toxic, sugar, toxic for me. Even fruit, which is so upsetting. And I cannot tell you how remarkable when we recognize the things that are toxic for our bodies, when we recognize that those are toxic things, chemicals, whatever foods, and we eliminate them how great we feel. And then it becomes this great thing of for us that is next of my topic. Change.

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I have to say, in the last year, I shared so much about my life. I listened back, I

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created a website.

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I changed what I believed about myself, so that I could be a better person that I could grow that I could change my relationship with the people that I love the most. And I changed, I changed and things changed as a result.

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I don’t I don’t know if I ever really believed that it was possible. But I know that if you and my father always says this, you know the only thing permanent in life is change. If you don’t like something about yourself that you want to change like your body weight, or your physical well being or your emotional state of mind.

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You have the power to change that. And if you’re

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are in a really bad mental crisis like I was back then in my earlier years,

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you don’t have the, you know the, the foresight to see how you can change. I’m here to tell you, I’m a product of that change based on all the things that I’m doing. So if somebody who who’s listening is here struggling with something about themselves,

50:27

you can move that needle. I don’t know what episode might help be the impetus for you to change. But I’m hoping that somewhere along the way, you’ll you’ll figure that out.

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Then I talked about abandoning, you know, I feel like I’ve really, I abandoned my kids, I abandoned my mother and father at that period of my life, I abandon my husband,

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I, I abandoned myself.

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I, I feel like I was just so lost. And that was a powerful episode abandonment. And I encourage everybody to go listen to that. And the reason I say that is because I still struggle a lot with any kind of abandoned meant that I have not as a child, but how my children may have felt, because we just haven’t talked about it. So you know, whether or not that changes or doesn’t change, I don’t know. But I’m here to have the conversation.

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perspective, it’s amazing to me how I could have a different perspective after one year of sharing my story on the internet. And I do have a different perspective. And I hope that for those people who listened, you know, if you heard, something that resonated for you, maybe it’ll help you have a different perspective as well, just like, how I feel for my kids. And I want perspective to be part of our,

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you know, reality. Because I think it’s very important. You know, if you pause, and you say, I’m going to

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not respond right now, I’m going to sleep on it and see how I am in the morning. You cannot believe how remarkable that is, when you actually do it. We’re so quick to respond to get our thoughts out, write them down. But don’t tell anybody, you will have a different perspective in the morning.

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Next, I talked about uniqueness. And the reason I talked about uniqueness was because I want to make it very clear that each and every person is unique. Every story, every experience is unique to you. And somebody had said in a clubhouse room

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that I was in shared, you know, you’re not that unique, you’re not that unique. And I’m thinking that’s so not true. And I would hate for anybody to listen to that story. Or listen to that statement and think that their story. While it may not be a new story that we’ve heard a billion times, I think every person who shares their story on their perspective of their story is very unique. And I’m encouraging every person who has a story to tell to recognize that, yes, you are unique, and I want to hear that story. So it’s just a matter of finding that level of creativity and figuring out whether you’re going to write a book, you’re going to create a podcast, maybe you’ll even make a collage and a painting of your entire life. Who knows. But you are unique and don’t let anybody else ever, ever tell you otherwise. And then it brought me to my last episode of last week, which was memories.

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Boy, did I have to go down memory lane to pull out an entire year of my life these these things that I talked about. It’s not like oh, yeah, I forgot I had an affair. Of course not. I feel like the memories I had a pull from, you know, the memories of feeling really beautiful or desired

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or heartbroken

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or sad. And, you know, by what I had done what I had chosen and

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the path that I went on and what it did to my family. I’m so I’m so sorry that I did that. And I don’t say that callously I mean, I’m like super sorry that I put anybody else through the pain and anguish that I went through. It sounds so narcissistic. It sounds so self involved, you know, self involved and none of those things could have been further from the truth. I was so broken and empty and I

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Do I did what I had to do so that I could feel less of those things

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I didn’t think about in, I didn’t think about what it would do to anybody, I didn’t even think it would touch them. That’s how stupid I was. So sharing this and bringing up all these memories,

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I can say this, I did it from a place of healing, and clarity, and sobriety, and the opposite of everything else that I started it.

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And it brought me to what I will call balance.

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So that’s, you know, 51 episodes in a nutshell. And that’s the end of the season.

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And I know that to have brought up every single topic was a lot. I mean, I’m in an hour. And I didn’t, I didn’t really look at the clock until just now, as I was recording this almost an hour.

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I have no regrets that I look back on the last year, very fondly about what this did for me. And I know that it, it’s it’s more like a memoir, as opposed to a podcast. But I would encourage any person who feels like they, they either are at a place of balance, or they would like to get to a place of balance, but they’re not exactly sure how this is something I did, and tried. And I stuck with and some of these episodes were hard I didn’t I didn’t feel like sitting down at the computer. I didn’t even feel like sitting down at the computer today. I kept saying, Oh, you can do it another day. But I’m really glad that I did. I and I had been thinking a lot about this episode. And I was thinking a lot about how I was going to encapsulate 51 episodes, one season of my life, one year of my life, 365 days plus of my life shared on the internet.

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And that’s what I did. And I’m still thinking about where I’m gonna go next for my next season. But I probably will not air next week. Because I want to take a little bit of a break to kind of get my self together about where I’m going to go with it. And I hope that won’t hurt anything, especially my momentum.

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But, you know, if I do come back for season two, and I’m hoping that I will, because of the ideas that I have, I hope you’ll join me.

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And I just want to say thank you to all of the listeners from all around the world, and may not be a lot. And I know a lot of people look at their metrics, I do not but I do look, I did look at the metrics, just to see where it was. And I want to say thank you to everybody who’s listened and supported me and written a review, or hit, you know, five stars or hired me so that I could help you in your business. I want to say thank you.

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Because when you approach your life, as openly and honestly as I’ve done and share it, the people who are listening are as much a part of it as me going through the process. And so that is the end of the first season of don’t lose your balance.

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I hope today, tomorrow and always you don’t lose your balance. And I look forward to hearing how you didn’t lose your balance along your life’s journey. And I’ll see you next time. And that’s how I always end all these episodes. And for this episode, I’m going to say thank you everyone for sharing being here. Don’t lose your balance. This is Mallory Durrick. And that My dear friends is a wrap

Transcribed by https://otter.ai

Hi, I am Mallory Durrick. I am a creative. A Marketing Strategist and Web Designer with a small and modest boutique Marketing Agency living in the suburbs of Philadelphia. I am the creator and narrator of this podcast, Don’t Lose Your Balance. This is a culmination of decades of self-help books, countless doctors, numerous hospitals, including rehabs. Once a wife, now divorced, a mother, a grandmother and an addict in recovery. These are things that I am and have experienced.

I’m sharing it all. Baring it all. Hoping to help others; not lose their balance.