Oh, uh, uh, uh. Oh, uh. Well welcome back to

to Shih Show.

Shih Show Saturday. We have Shih Show Joe in the house.

Welcome. Thank you. Good to see you. How do you feel about this? Good, I'm a little nervous, but I'm good. Yeah. What did you join the community? Well, I feel like you joined it. You joined early on and then you pieced out and then he came back.

Yeah, exactly. So I was on Patreon and I just wasn't ready.

Yeah, and I made up stories that I didn't fit in and nobody liked me and so I, you know, kind of took my ball and went home.

And then I think about a year later, I was like, okay, yeah, I get where this is going.

Well, I'm curious, because this actually might be an interesting thing

to bring up because there might be some other people who were in the same position and might feel like

scared or embarrassed to come back.

Was there something that you realized where like you felt comfortable

like coming back and like knew that it would be okay? Yeah, I think I realized that you know kind of why I left the community before was just me projecting all my bullshit around not fitting in or feeling like an outsider and all that kind of stuff.

And so I just sort of rationalized, you know, continuing to isolate.

And then I think what made me come back was like, okay, I really, really get it now that I've taken healing as far as I possibly could on my own and it is a

community act now and that I don't know how to create authentic connection and so where can I find places to build that skill and so you know you instantly came to mind because I've been a long time listener and you know pretty religiously

listened every single week so I was like all right that's it.

I got it.

Have you noticed that it's been easier for you to like open up the longer that you are participating, like does it feel less scary to share?

Feels less scary to share. I also felt really safe not to share for a long time, so I came to different groups to the chat and all that and lurk for a long time and it was really nice not to feel that pressure.

You know, I could just show up and share as much or as little as I wanted and so slowly I've been you know kind of

opening up a little bit more and and it feels really good you know it's like I can do it

at my own pace I'm not I have a tendency to push myself beyond my too much you know and then

...