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Jill and Ilanya meet. Jill tells her about her conversation with Susan Scott. Ilanya asks, do you want to get back into radio? Jill: Not as I was. If I go back, it would be as hosting my own show as co-host of a morning show. Ilanya: Do you have a demo? Well, what about if you get ready to go to the studio and cut your demo? Jill throws her head back and laughs, Oh right, Ilanya Vanzant…Ilanya tries to look stern and says, you know Jill, it’s about being proactive. When there’s something that needs to be done, you gotta get up and do it. No reason for you to be sittin’ around waiting for your exercise fairy! They laugh and embrace.
Christie talks to her sister on the phone, says that she misses Justin, going through the mourning stage of it, but it’s been just over a week. She knows it’s not right but still misses him. She feels she has a lot of loneliness, even when she’s been with people around her she still felt lonely. Her sister cuts in and out and then the connection is lost.
Ilanya leads the group. She asks the women to center in, take a deep breath.
Ilanya: I have a thought I want to offer you. That thought is, where I am in my heart and mind right now is….where?
Christie: I’m in my loneliness.
Ilanya: Okay, we’ll talk about that. So how would you define loneliness, Miss Kim?
Kim: Just being around a bunch of people but still feeling alone, just feeling like I’m by myself even though there are people all around.
Christie: The feeling of being insignificant.
Ilanya: Not mattering, not important.
Kelly: Mine would be not being heard, like I feel like I’m begging for help from my family, and nobody helps me.
Ilanya: I want everyone to think for a moment of a lonely story. Miss Jodi?
Jodi: I remember being in Florida in the summer and how the 4th of July is a really big holiday down there. Everyone comes with their significant other and their family and for so long showing up at so many different events and its always just me so this particular 4th the fireworks are about to start, everyone gets their little blanket together, and there I am with the kids again at the kids’ table and feeling so ridiculous..
Ilanya: And what did you tell yourself while at the kids’ table again?
Jodi: What I always tell myself. Push it down, push it down.
Lisa: Last year at Christmastime, I had distanced myself from my family, and Tony decided to work because it was nothing, there was nothing going on and it was just the kids and I. At my sister’s house, 3 or 4 miles away, they’re having a big, festive night, you know everybody was together. Christmas Eve and they were having dinner, and my kids are looking at me and I’m thinking it was really bad, that we were by ourselves. I realized that I was suffocating.
Ilanya in confessional: Lisa’s had a very profound awareness that she creates her own loneliness by isolating herself from her family and blaming them for not being there for her.
Lisa: I hated myself at that moment. I would think, the kids don’t deserve to be here, they deserve to be there with my family. They’d open the door for us, but again it’s that inner voice saying, they didn’t come to my house or call us or invite us. And they hadn’t because I hadn’t seen them for a couple of years, so why would they?
Christie: I remember being 9 or 10, I was home alone, it was getting dark and was a cold winter night. I remember being scared, not knowing where my mom was, and I walked outside and began to roam the streets just because I was afraid to even be in the house. So I went to my neighbor’s house and I knocked on the door and my friend’s mom answered the door and I could see and felt the warmth of the house coming out of the house and I don’t know if they invited me in but I just know it was the loneliest feeling because at my house it wasn’t warm and dinner wasn’t cooking and I was by myself.
Ilanya: What did you tell yourself about yourself?
Christie: That I didn’t matter, my mom didn’t care enough about me to be making my dinner and I didn’t even know where she was.
Kim: I just relate to her story so much. I have that vivid childhood memory, jumping into bed by myself. When I had my son, and I didn’t have any family support, I didn’t have the connection that I thought would bring us all close. And I remember it would be about 3:00 in the morning and there I would be on the porch just bawling and crying and just feeling so alone.
Ilanya: Get still and go to the lonely place inside of you. Just let your mind take you to that lonely place. Miss Kim, if that lonely place could speak what would it say?
Kim: I don’t know, I don’t know. I don’t know if I could even believe it. She begins to cry and says, just show me you love me. Ilanya: Yes, take a breath.
Kin in confessional: Today’s group topic is loneliness. It’s definitely something I can relate to. I grew up alone, I wasn’t anyone’s daughter or sister and I oftentimes even feel alone, even in my marriage, perhaps I feel I’m not enough.
Ilanya: Just think this thought. And that thought is… I am enough. I am enough. Most of us get to the experience of loneliness from a place of something we need or want isn’t there, so if we can fill that space with, I am enough, I am important, just as I am, just what I have, just for myself, just with myself, I am enough, I am important. It doesn’t mean we’ll never feel loneliness again, because sometimes it’s just the yearning, it’s just a feeling, and if you’ll challenge it and sit with it, it will rise to the surface and it will dissipate. And what that means is that you stood with yourself when you needed you, and that’s how we make the distinction between being by myself and with myself. And being with ourselves eliminates loneliness. The women are wiping their eyes all through group session.
Ilanya: So...pretty fun group, huh? They all laugh.
Christie gets a note from Rhonda and a video camera at the door. The note says she is to go to a café and have a healthy breakfast by herself and record her feelings about love and loneliness and what she wants from starting over and how she’ll be when she goes home.
Jill is panicking about getting ready for her demo in an hour. She’s trying to find some news items to talk about by searching the web.
Ilanya wants Lisa to identify the things she’s been hiding. She writes down shame, embarrassment, truth, fear, anger. Ilanya then says that she would like to offer her that she’s also been hiding her gifts...her beauty, power, love, and all the time trying to hold it together. She is trying to hold together a family that is perfect, and it isn’t, so it’s an image. She wants to show her a full experience of what she’s been doing and what it really feels like. They go outside and find buckets full of sludge that are heavy and hanging from ropes. At the end of a corridor is a plate that says: Love, Intimacy, Authenticity, Peace of Mind, Clarity, Joy. Ilanya wants her to stop holding on to the very thing that’s holding her back. Lisa is trying to pull the pulleys that hold all the buckets, and it’s too heavy to move enough to get to the plate. She says that it’s hard and it’s been a struggle, holding onto all of that stuff. Lisa says what’s on that plate is what she wants. Ilanya asks, how are you going to get there from here? I just want you to know, Tony ain’t out here, all the people you’ve been hiding from, the community, it’s you…you created it and you held it together. Lisa understands how difficult it is to keep the mess together, so Ilanya tells her she can hold the mess or let it go. Lisa drops all the buckets and they explode on the ground behind her. Lisa cries into her hands. Ilanya says, your hands are free, so you can stand there and cry or go get the prize. Lisa hugs the plate to her chest, and feels such a release. She says she will look at the plate every day and it will remind her that she’s got those gifts. With that, she can clean up everything. Without it, she’s just struggling to hold on to the mess. Once she drops the buckets, she realizes she’s going to have to turn around and face the mess in her life. It’s no longer in pretty little buckets. Lisa wants to clean it as well as she can and looks deep into it and realizes just like she made that mess, she can clean it up. She gets a hose and starts to clean.
Jill goes to the studio and has brought Kelly for support. Jill brought some copy to read as if she were a morning show host. She feels really excited and happy to be back in this space. The sound engineer says it should be talk for about a minute. Jill tries a few times and takes about 10 or 11 takes…she says she feels a little rusty, but you fall off the bike and you gotta get back up on. Jill speaks confidently. Kelly is smiling at her from the couch.
Kelly to camera: Watching Jill reach out to the world and accomplish her goal gives me hope that I’m going to be able to do that.
The sound engineer helps put together Jill’s disc and she leaves confident that it is a good representation of her.
Christie goes to a café and there is a camera set up for her at a table. She says she feels like an idiot. She says to the camera, my feelings right now are just up in the air. All the changes are frightening and the unknown about going home and being alone. Making these changes are terrifying. I am coming to the realization that being lonely and in fear of having this feeling has run my life. My loneliness takes me back to when I was a child and even though I have a house full of beautiful women that are there to support me and my life coaches and Dr. Stan, I feel like that little girl. I need to feel comfortable being by myself, and I’ve never had to do that before, and the thought of that is terrifying. I’m feeling a lot of sadness for my old life; I’m not sure how I’m going to embrace my new one.
Rhonda in confessional: I want to talk to the housemates without Christie, because I want them to understand the lesson I’m trying to convey to her today. In relationships, Christie chases after that initial rush of being admired by others and then finds out that it doesn’t last. If Christie doesn’t learn to be able to sit alone with all her feelings coming to the surface, then she’ll continue to numb herself in more and more destructive ways.
Rhonda to the housemates: I need your help. As we know, Christie has been having challenges and we know she hasn’t been able to give up her love and beauty addictions. I want Christie to experience what it feels like to be in a relationship and feel alone. Because she has been addicted to the relationships, and she believes if she’s just in a relationship, she’ll never feel alone. I want you to disengage from Christie today. I don’t want you to start conversations, I don’t want you to continue conversations, just be like you’re busy.
Lisa in confessonal: Rhonda has informed us that we’re not to engage with Christie at all today and that’s hard for me because I’m more emotional and I’m going to feel for her today.
Christie comes home from her assignment.
Christie: After I spend the morning by myself, I’m very eager to come home and share it with my housemates. The assignment this morning has just made me really miss them.
Lisa: She walks in and it’s obvious she wants to talk to us housemates and we’re all busy in the kitchen and just kind of ignore her and immediately I saw the anger on her face.
Christie: I feel the distance between me and my housemates. I feel ignored and abandoned, and that makes me angry.
Jill calls Jessica to update her on what’s been happening and tells her about the headhunter. She says, he places television executives and he gave me a lot of things to think about and a to-do list to get going and he thought I should definitely pursue it.
Christie walks up to Lisa and Jodi at the computer and says “hey guys.” They don’t pay much attention to her. Christie says “I love you guys!” They don’t answer her. She feels devastated. When she leaves, Jodi and Lisa talk about how bad they feel and how hard this is. Jodi: I just want to hug my little girl. Lisa: I know, I feel so bad. Jodi: It’s for her own good.
Christie goes into the kitchen and there is a huge basket of baking goods and supplies and a note. The women are told they are to bake cookies for tonight. The note says, One of life’s greatest rewards is to make something with love and share it unconditionally. Prepare a cookie care package that you will bring tonight on a visit with some very special people. The women get busy and don’t include Kelly. Jodi: we’re doing it together…we need sugar…
Christie in confessional: After being ignored all day, now I have to make cookies with these women. I am just not sure how much more of this I can take.
Rhonda: Because of Christie’s childhood, she has lived with tremendous loneliness. Today’s exercise brings that pain to the surface and it has to come up in order to be healed.
Rhonda and Christie meet. Christie: I’m just so pissed off right now, I’m angry, and I know the girls were probably given an assignment to not talk to or pay attention to me. I had a whole houseful of people and still feel so lonely and it makes me so angry at my mom for making me feel so insignificant like I didn’t matter and that I didn’t exist. It sucks to be like this. I was so mad at my mom. How could you not love your child the way they need to be loved? I don’t get it.
Rhonda: Loneliness is an epidemic. Christie: Well, I don’t want it to run my life anymore. Rhonda: Well, that would be up to you. The more you’re no longer afraid of it, the more it will have no power over you. Christie: Loneliness will have to become my best friend. Rhonda: It can be a friend. It’s got to be something you no longer fear. So what do you want from me right now? Christie: I want a hug. Rhonda cuddles her tight on the couch while she cries. Rhonda: The good news is, Christie is willing to cry. And she’s willing to cry for herself and all the loneliness she’s felt all these years.
Christie: This is all I ever wanted, you know? Rhonda: From who? Christie: From my mom, to just hold me. (cries)
Lisa calls her other sister, Susan. She knows she has to straighten things out with her. Lisa: It’s been really tough; I don’t even know where to begin. Susan: It doesn’t matter. Lisa: I know it doesn’t matter…
Lisa: I’m finding as I talk to my sister that we both share a common pain and that’s our family and as I’m talking to her about this I realize it’s the first time we had a conversation about this. Susan: That’s what mom and dad both have done, I love them both dearly, but they did raise us that way if something’s going on in your life, keep it to yourself. You don’t want everybody knowing. And it’s a hard life to live.
Christie talks to Lisa in the kitchen. Christie: This morning I was angry, even though I knew you guys were part of my exercise, like I know they’re supposed to love and care about me, and even though I knew, my heart was breaking. Lisa: So that’s the same with me, I’ve been so lonely, but still I’ve been in a marriage for so many years and now I think, you know, it isn’t him, it’s me, this is a mess I made and created this feeling about blaming people and hatefulness and anger and even with my kids I could not reach out to them because of what I was feeling inside of me.
Lisa in confessional: You have to be broken down to be rebuilt. And I now believe that because it’s the only way it can work, you have to feel the pain.
The women have a basket of cookies ready and leave the house and drive off at night. Christie: We are going to a senior citizen’s center for people with Alzheimer’s disease and to bring them cookies to brighten their day. These people are fighting a terrible disease and it will be nice to give back to them so they know that they are not alone. They go into the lounge where there are some senior citizens sitting around a table.
Jodi in confessional: My grandfather passed away from Alzheimer’s so it just brought everything up about missing him and his being in an environment like this and so he’s all around me right now. And that’s a really good thing.
Kelly in confessional: The facility is nice, the caretakers are nice and the people are nice, but I think in their minds they’re lonely. I think Alzheimer’s is absolutely devastating. That would be a lonely position for me.
Jill: As I’m talking to one of the ladies at the senior center, it’s making me think about my own life and the other parts of my family. I am still very afraid of the idea of meeting my father. The whole thing is making me really anxious.
They leave the center with lots of hugs, handshakes, and smiles.
Christie: Seeing the seniors tonight is very touching. It reminds me of how fragile life is and how we take advantage of it. I found that I’m human and I can see weakness in people like my mom and in turn I have forgiveness for her and I can love her.
Lisa: I know that going on from here with my progress is not going to be easy. I have to take a step at a time and repair the things that I’ve damaged and I’ll just take it one day at a time and I’ll do the best that I can.
Jodi and Christie are in the living room talking. Christie: This morning I was crying and so angry at my mom and this morning I wouldn’t have given her an inch and now I feel love for her. When you feel your loneliness then you find humanity, and when you’re human you can look at someone’s weakness and then you can forgive them. I feel love for her and I’m willing to let her in this much.
Christie in confessional: Going to bed tonight I’ve learned that I really need to be comfortable with myself and in my own skin. I’m so worried that I’ll fall back into old patterns and give in to the addiction.
Next on Starting Over:
Jill’s love life gets a boost. We see her sitting down with a man and woman who want to set her up with a date.
Kim struggles to deal with being abandoned. She is talking to Rhonda while looking at a picture of herself as a child. She says, it’s hard for me to feel that people are going to follow through with their promises. I don’t know what to do with how I feel. Rhonda to camera: What she wants is revenge.
Jodi discovers the truth about her past. She is reading some papers and says, I feel him attacking her and I don’t feel that’s fair and I’m so absorbed in the emotion of that, I’m dumbstruck.
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