Show Notes

 

As his relationship with his wife began to fail, he lost jurisdiction over his kids and was left to live on the street and be homeless.  He sought help from friends and was able to recover. Through meditation, he realized playing the victim role was not helping his situation. He picked himself up and started over. One day, a phone call asked him if he could be with his kids again, since the mother lost her jurisdiction over the kids due to drug addiction.

 

 

SUMMARY KEYWORDS

kids, parent, church, life, thought, called, felt, special needs, child, naked, people, money, started, months, wife, family, mormon church, outpatient treatment, meditation, realized

SPEAKERS

Chad Ratliffe

 

Chad Ratliffe  07:27

I wanted to introduce that to y'all my family and have it be the intro to part three today of my story where I'm excited to share the final part that brings us up to the present day and then put the story behind. Because I'm done with this story because it doesn't exist anymore.

 

07:52

It's in the past.

 

Chad Ratliffe  07:54

But there'll be a recording if anybody wants to hear about it, I can just point them to the recording. There's anything to benefit from listening to it then all the better. Last time at the end of part two, I think we made it up till when I was in court faced and 10 years in prison with a baby on the way and the judge Lodge. Miracle the oldest judge on the stand in the state of California serving his 50th year on the stand, who overruled the DA, who had tons of evidence after tracking me and my operation for the past six months, Department of Defense gang task force meth Task Force sheriff.

 

They all were tracking what was going on. When they pulled the trigger on the raid. It was a bit of a shit show for a number of reasons. They didn't pull the trigger on the right day and I was on my way down. So stuff was kind of messy. At any rate, the judge decides to overrule the DA and gives us a chance to let this baby be a miracle baby and not become a victim of the system, which the judge said would be most likely the destiny for this child. I was let out later that day. And as I mentioned last time you you'd think and hope that I had learned my lesson. But I hadn't the first thing I thought about was getting high. And I tried to reach out to score some dope and nobody would take my call. And the reason nobody would take my calls the only reason a drug dealer gets out of jail like that is if you rats on somebody. And so that's what everybody assumed must have taken place and nobody wanted anything to do with me. That day devastating detail in the moment turned out to be part of the miracle. Because that day would begin almost 10 years of sobriety, and a beautiful 10 year period with a lot of beautiful things that happened during that time. But anyway, let's just pick up there.

 

So I get out, my parents are going to allow me to come stay at their place. And my it was my girlfriend at the time was pregnant, was allowed to stay there as well. And we showed up surprised, and they gave us a bedroom to stay in. And that's where it started. There was a lot of anger, there was a lot of mental illness we were fighting it was it was kind of ugly. It's ugly, it was exciting. It was it was just a crazy time, shortly after we moved into a 400 square foot barn. And that's where we would stay for about the next year and I was going to outpatient treatment. The judge you know, gave me a house or you know, an ankle monitor outpatient treatment. A meetings every day. And that's what my focus was, you know, and and I knew I wanted to try to start getting healthy and start working out again. Met a guy in a and he said to meet him at the local city college track. I thought all right, you know, I mean, I hadn't done anything active in years. I mean, I would drive a block to the store to get cigarettes.

But anyway, I met him there. said let's do some laps around the track. And I remember it really, really clear. I mean, the first lap, I was exhausted the second lap, I started to feel ill and after the third lap, I was throwing up literally throwing up off to the side of the track was spinning. Now was it for that day. And it was it was a three quarters of a mile. That's what three laps around the track is my baby's mom had gained 100 pounds. During the pregnancy, you know, she was an underweight meth addict. And then food became kind of, you know, an escape it was the replaced drugs and alcohol for food. She gained 100 pounds, it was the most weight that most of the nurses had seen during anybody's pregnancy. We got a membership, the YMCA. And we started going, you know, and we got into it, we got into it. Baby shows up. It's a miracle baby, the police are in the waiting room waiting to take the baby assuming there's going to be drugs in the baby system. And there wasn't.

 

And we have the baby in the 400 square foot barn. Start taking her the YMCA, they have a child care program. And that became kind of the the rotation it was like even if we didn't want to work out we needed the two hour break from the child. We were still working on our mental, you know mental illness medications, outpatient treatment, exercise, you know, just really trying to trying to find a path that could work. We were doing that for a while. And then like I said there was anger and fighting. And it was you know, we had been in that other world for a long time, long time. And Baby's mom was really struggling, you know, there was postpartum, which we anticipated. You know, trying to change, you know, get the medications, right, just coming out just so much going on that we anticipated that there'd be issues. And it just was something really seemed awful.

 

It was really difficult. Whatever we were trying, it just seemed like it wasn't working. It seemed like it was getting worse. And finally we just decided we needed to go see if the doctor could change the medication or do something to help. We went to the doctor. And I remember seeing a couple people in the waiting room that I knew. Said we're in there you know, my girl is not feeling that great. See The doctor was a long delay after a long delay, he comes back in and he says, looks at us and he says Sit down.

 

15:11

felt a little weird. And he said, Well, the good news is, you're halfway there.

 

Chad Ratliffe  15:19

And I'll never forget, I said halfway to what? He said, You're 20 weeks pregnant.

 

15:27

We were speechless. 20 weeks pregnant. What are you talking about?

 

Chad Ratliffe  15:38

And as it turned out, we thought it was hormones and all of these things, but six weeks after is he was born, she got pregnant. And because she had gained so much weight with the first pregnancy, we didn't notice, you know, she was losing weight. But she still had a lot of extra weight on her body, and found out that we were 20 weeks pregnant, halfway there. And I remember walking out and I saw one of those people that I recognize and, and they said, What are you here for? And I said, we just found out we're 20 weeks pregnant, and the girl like, couldn't believe it, because she's like, Are you kidding me? She's like, I just got pregnant. These have been the worst three weeks of my life. She was so sick. She's like, how could you make it 20 weeks without knowing. And 11 months later, we had our second child 11 months after the first one. Our little boy Rocco showed up on the scene. So we're less than a year sober. We have two kids. And or no, we're a little over a year sober. We have two kids. We're trying to get it all figured out. We're trying to get it together. And it was pretty challenging. But at this point, we're really trying to domesticate ourselves. We're trying to do the family thing. We're trying to pull off this new life. And we started exploring different churches and religions. My kids, Mom was raised very Catholic, strict environment. She rebelled against that I was traumatized from my religious upbringing. So we were looking for other things. We went to the synagogue, we said, how do you become Jewish? What does it mean, if you're Jewish, we went to Unity Church, we went to the Unitarian Church. We went nondenominational church, Presbyterian Church.

 

We went to the Buddhist center. See, what else did we do? I don't know, I think we figured out that we went to eight or nine, churches and temples. And I was continuing to work out and I was running with a local running group. And one day, you know, we did this run at 5:30am, through these hills, in a place called Hope ranch in Santa Barbara. And there was some really cool guys that were in the group that used to ask me about my kids. And I thought it was pretty weird that they would ask me about my kids, because most guys I knew, you know, just talking about other girls, not asking you how your relationship is or how your kids are doing. So it was really a nice, pleasant, innocent feeling. friendships that I was starting to create. And I remember one day I, I asked these two guys that I ran with regularly, and I said, Hey, you guys don't know a place that focuses on God, health and family. And I remember one of them kind of snickering and looking at the other one. And they said, Yeah, we do.

 

And turns out, one of them was a bishop of Mormon church, and the other one was a stake president of the Mormon Church, which if you know anything about the LDS faith, you'll understand why. That question of asking if I knew of a place with health family and church would be like teeing it up for them for the missionary efforts that the church makes? And they said, Yeah, they were members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, and they told me a bunch of cool stuff about it. And it sounded great to me, mostly because of the relationship I had with these guys. I looked forward to seeing them I really felt good around them. I went home and told my wife and and I said, Hey, you want to check out this church, the Mormon church? And she said, Oh, hell no. And I was like, why she goes, those people are recruiters are they out and I am I know these cool guys, she wasn't interested no matter what I said. So I continue running with these guys. I told them that my, my girl wasn't interested. And one day we were doing a 10 mile run, it was like an event down at the beach. And I finished running the events, and I ran over it, and my wife was over there. And she was talking to some lady. And she said, Ah, I want to introduce you to Don. And she said the last name. And I said, A, that's I run with Mark, same last name. And she goes, That's my husband.

 

And my wife is like, what, because they had invited, you know, this guy and his wife had invited us for dinner, my wife wasn't interested in going to dinner, she said she was gonna get cornered. She want to get cornered a dinner. But she knew this lady from her spin class at the YMCA. And she goes, Don's not Mormon, because Don didn't fit any of the stereotypes that she had of the Mormon church. Anyway, that was the opening and add goddess to church when we went to church. And they, that day, were just coming back from these kids were just coming back from a pilgrim track or something like that, where they, they mimic, you know, what the families did when they were crossing the plains with the hand carts and things like that. And all these young kids were getting up on the, on the podium and sharing their experiences and their love for their family and the love for the experience. They just had these kids were talking so intelligently and with love and their heart. I was like if this church is creating kids like that, I mean this, that it's good for me, you know, because I had no idea how to be a parent or what to do for my kids. We started attending church, we started going to the events, and we started going through some of the ordinances that you do, and we eventually got baptized and sealed in the temple in the Los Angeles temple. And I remember the experience as pretty amazing experience.

 

We had five kids within six years. He's just baby after baby. And the church was super supportive of that. And we were living a new life and I was growing a business and an exercising and now I had done a half marathon. And I eventually did a marathon from that three laps where I was throwing up. Now I was running marathons, and I had these kids. Life's Life was good. business was growing. Things were getting clearer for me. We moved a bunch of times during that process. And eventually we were able to buy the house. You know, we got bought our own house on the hill. ocean views, you know, on an acre in Santa Barbara with fruit trees, and we went through we started remodeling and terracing it and we had a vision for it. And we built an amazing home with multiple structures on there, we put two shipping containers together, cut the walls off and put glass in the front had ocean views and a porch. And it was super cool. Like we were doing some cool things.

 

Raising these kids living on a cool property in a great town connected to an amazing church had an amazing support system. It could Life couldn't have been better. Now, our second child was missing some milestones. But the doctors just kept saying that he was delayed. And so we just kept going with that. And we had so many kids and they were so young. And I mean we had five car seats at one time we had to get a specially made car seat just so we could fit three in one of the rows and we had to get a you know, a vehicle that had a third row. We had five car seats.

 

24:53

And then

 

Chad Ratliffe  24:56

I did a half Ironman and then I saw lined up for an Iron Man. And my wife and I went to Florida, Ironman Florida. And 12 and a half hours later, I crossed the line, they said Chad ratliffe You are in Iron Man, I just couldn't believe it like, wow, the body can really heal. I mean, I was a junkie was a junkie smoked two packs of cigarettes a day. Chad ratliffe, you are an Iron Man. I had tears welling up, my body was shot at that point. It was pretty amazing. And then our fifth child, little baby blue, she started missing some milestones. At this point, our second child was diagnosed with autism and intellectual disability. And he was really low functioning. I mean, he would eat his own feces. He'd put his hands in his pants and wipe feces on the wall. And on his face. I mean, he was really low functioning was difficult.

 

Going through the challenges of you know, that morning, the child you thought you were going to have and just the challenges of raising a special needs child. So it was like all these different being embarrassed and wondering what we did wrong. And you know, did was it. It didn't make sense. It should have been the first baby that was had these special needs, because that's when we were using drugs, but we were healthy by the set. You know, it was just all these questions, all these things, but then the fifth baby started missing milestones. And my wife, you know, just to jump to the chase. I mean, she cracked. I think that basically she realized she felt like she wasn't going to be able to handle another child with special needs that extreme. And, and I was working so many hours, I just I felt like I had so much to prove I wanted to make a lot of money. I wanted to show that I was able to afford, you know all of these things in my wife's family. Very wealthy, old, old, old money. I mean, they were issued the first land grant in California history. Called the Dominguez the land grant was called the Dominguez and our kids middle name was Dominguez because I thought it was such a cool piece of history. But anyway, yeah, they're old old money. And yeah, it was. It was.

 

So I wanted to prove to everybody that like I didn't need their money, I could make it on our own. I'm working 15 hour days, I was probably I was too focused on the business and making money. When I look back, I realized I really liked left her as kind of a single parent. I was so busy at trying to prove myself and we had enough of everything. When I look back, you know, it's definitely something I would do different. If I was in that situation again, or if you could go back but you can't. But that fifth child missing those milestones she cracked. And one day One day she came home loaded nine years and 11 months of sobriety. She showed up loaded and I was devastated. I mean I kicked her out right away. I just couldn't believe it. I did not see it coming. It was so scary to me to see her under the influence. I was we were in that new life. And she was calling me trying to get back in the house and I just was so confused and so angry and and I made her stay out and then she called again like a day or two later and she was wasted again. And shit went down really fast.

 

 Went down really fast. One thing I forgot to mention was, you know, right before she relapsed, I had this opportunity to buy a business called Moms in motion. And the reason it was important to me was one I felt we were uniquely qualified, you know, to create a fitness business for moms having a mom who had five kids within six years of age and two was but you know, and who had gained 100 pounds and then had lost it and was in great shape. I felt like there was and this business had international expansive power. And I just had, I had this picture of me building a billion dollar company, you know, I was in that mind frame, I wanted to show the world, what I could do what we could do. And I started letting the other business the lifestyle business making a few 100,000 A year able to go on vacation work when I wanted to. And I started letting that go, because this other deal was, was going to be the billion dollar play, it was going to be the unicorn.

 

And I worked for about seven months, you know, didn't make a penny on it restructuring the business, the business had been around since 1989. It was a mom and husband who started it. And they just were never able to turn it into what they thought it could be. And I had some visions for it. And, and I restructured the business a bit, and did it in a way where that husband, the original founder. He noticed what I was doing. And he thought it was super cool. And he thought it was inspiring and, and he said, wow, I can see how this could actually go somewhere. And he was a guy who had it had owned a owns a gym. He was in great shape. He had been around the business for a long time, he had a degree from a prestigious college. And he was interested in he asked if he could continue being part of it, because he saw the potential. And I thought well, that would be great. Because I always liked I always wanted to be the most successful guy nobody ever heard of. And I thought, wow, this guy, he's good looking guy, he's got the fitness background, he's got the degree, I don't have any of that, you know, he'd be a good face for the company. So I thought it was cool. And I thought we'd work together. And I found an investor through my church. And about eight months later, we were able to, you know, get the company valued at around a million dollars. We got investment, the investment came in. And this is when we were going to start getting paid, at least enough to support my family that I was since I was letting the other business just kind of go because it wasn't interesting to me anymore. And within two months, I got fired, which I didn't even know was possible. But the guy, the original founder, who we said was the CEO, and I was like the CEO, oh, he fired me.

 

And he said he had talked with the investor who was supposed to be my contact. And anyway, it was Devis devastating. I was dumbfounded I didn't even think they could legally do that. But the point was, I didn't have access to the bank accounts, I had let the other business go where it was falling fast. And I didn't think I was going to be able to salvage it. And now I didn't have enough money. The the investor guy was a billionaire guy, cutthroat dude, who had a team of attorneys and was kind of known for, you know, hustling people out of their companies and then you know, smothering them in court so that they couldn't really do anything about it. And I knew I just wasn't going to be able to, to do anything. And I remember telling my wife but the situation I saw the fear in her eyes, and this is right before she relapsed. And I think that this had this participated the fifth kid missing the milestones, and then the fear about business and finances and she said what did you do? And I said you know, I I didn't know I did anything, you know, but I definitely let the other business go. And I did not see this one coming.

And now she's relapsed. I kicked her out of the house she wants back in and it turns into a shit show real fast. Now you know trying to get back in police are getting called the kids are nervous. It was

 

34:46

it was pretty ugly. And then

 

Chad Ratliffe  34:53

I think she realized how much my my wife realized kind of where we were and she goes to her dad, and basically says that I'm this abusive monster. And next thing, you know, the police show up, handcuffed me for supposedly beating her up, takes me to jail. And I remember that night in jail, I mean, it just, I had been to jail many times. But I did not anticipate being in jail again. And especially under these circumstances. By the time I got out of jail, all the bank accounts had been closed, all the money had been pulled out of it. There was a restraining order on me I wasn't allowed back into the house wasn't allowed to see the kids, the kids were underneath the restraining order. And I had no ability to afford representation. I was homeless. I was homeless with no access to any money. And I held up for I think about a month before, I just couldn't take it anymore.

 

And I started using again, and I started shooting dope again. I'm homeless. My Cadillac got repoed she stopped paying for anything that had anything to do with me. I bought some shitty car. Now I'm living at the side of the road, shooting dope, not seeing my kids and life. Within six months, we had lost everything that it took 10 years to build. And it was super ugly. I'm trying to contact her trying to talk with her. And she was playing me. She allowed me to come back and stay in one of the other units on our property. And then I wake up the next morning to the police, you know, she set me up. And now I got a violation of restraining order. I ended up picking up 19 charges during that time period. And life was out of control. And I'm living on the side of the road. This road called Old San Marcos highway in Santa Barbara. It's this windy road that goes up this mountain beautiful views and I'm living at one of the turn offs. And I have Rocco, my severely special needs son because my wife and her family won't really recognize him. He's too difficult. He is too severe of special needs. They they weren't into him, that one time that they did have him they placed him in a home and another town. And I had to get him out. Anyway, that goes on for six months. And then I get a phone call one day from Child Welfare Services. And they said Chad ratliffe I said yes, they said this is so and so from Child Welfare Services. They said, we have been investigating the mother of your children.

 

 And she is unfit to have the children. The children are at school right now. But they will not be allowed to go home with her after school, do you have a place for them to stay? And I'm living at the side of the road. I mean, I'm I'm at the place where I was staying on an old San Marcos highway on the side of the road with my special needs son in the back. And and I said yes, I do. And they said, Okay, well, you need to meet us at the kids school at 330. And then we're going to follow you back to your place. And we'll talk to you more about how things are going to go from there. And I hung up the phone.

 

39:11

And I was

 

Chad Ratliffe  39:14

I don't know maybe it was instinctual. Maybe it was divinely inspired. And I called this guy from my church and I had stopped going to church for a while now. And I called this guy from my church who is a young guy who was cool. I connected with him. And I told him what had just happened. And I told him where I was living. And he said hey, let me call you right back. And he calls me back in 10 minutes and he says can you meet my wife you know, in 10 minutes over at such as such a place and I said sure why what's up, so just meet her there. I meet her. She asked me follow her to this little town just outside of Santa Barbara about 25 minutes out. She walked up to me with the keys to this condo was a two bedroom 900 square foot condo Townhome. And she said, Here you go. And I said, What? And I said, I have no money. And she said, It's okay, we'll figure it out.

 

She was our tenant, surprisingly moved out a few weeks ago. And she goes, she all she left was a coffee table and a rug. So that's the only thing that's in there, but the place is yours. And like, I couldn't believe it. I mean, all these thoughts and all these emotions, and um, I have to meet Child Welfare Services. I have no furniture in there. My kids haven't seen me in a while, like, oh, my gosh, this is great. How did this happen? How did I get this? I mean, at the kids school, the kids walk out, they're so excited to see me. They don't know why. And then they hear that they're not going back to their mom's house. And I remember how confused just look so confused. It looks so confused. And I'm telling Child Welfare Service, I said, Hey, we just, I just moved, so I don't have all the furniture. And yet, I mean, I'm trying to make up some story that's going to make us showing up to a place with nothing in it sound okay. And Child Welfare Services followed us out to this place called carpenter Ria. And that night, my kids and I slept on the floor in this carpeted room. We got a couple sleeping bags. And that started. That was about five years ago. And that started the journey, me and my kids.

 

41:40

So

 

Chad Ratliffe  41:43

our church helped us furnish the place for kids shared one bedroom, my severely special needs kid had the other bedroom because he'd be up all night screaming, and I slept out in the living room. We live there for about a year. The kids mom would try to have visits. She wouldn't show up. she'd leave them hanging at the corner of the road, then she had to have supervised visits, it had to be at her mom's house. It was just always it was always trouble. It was always a problem. And it always ended up hurting the kids. That lasted for about a year. And then right before COVID hit, I had met this girl. And she's like, You look like you could use a friend. And I had, I felt like I had nobody.

 

You know, I had the people from my church. And I started going back to church and started reconnecting with church. And you know, we are running out I was trying to keep my kids in the same school. 30 minutes away, we're running out of gas, I have no money. I get on welfare, food stamps, the whole deal. I mean, it was it was a shit show. But we were together and my kids and I we started getting close, but it was hard. You know, I was broke. And now I'm trying to get healthy again. I'm trying to get clean again. And right before COVID Hit that girl who said you look like you could use a friend. We kind of ended up falling for each other and she lets us move in to her Montecito 5000 square foot home on an acre in Montecito, which was just unheard of. I mean, she had two kids within the same six year period. So we have seven kids within six years of age. And we figured out how to make it work. And she was really an angel. I mean COVID shut everything down a week later.

 

And we live there for two years. And I'll never know how to thank my girlfriend now and her family for what they did for us. I don't think we would have made it I don't think I would have made it without her. I was kind of relapsing and I was struggling to deal with things. And we moved in there. And I started healing and I started studying and I started the spiritual path and I started meditating and I started studying and meditating and breathing exercises and extra fitness and like I was going to I wanted to do something different you know I was at the edge of the cliff I looked back I realized my kids I was their only chance that if I don't make it they're gonna get split up in the foster system. Nobody's going to take all five special needs and I'm trying to get divorced and my soon to be exes family who are billionaires are like transferring title to the home. Home into other names and paying it off. So that I would get no part of it. They're trying to make my soon to be ex judgment proof. So she owes $200,000 in child support and is not paying for anything and, and our rentals on the property generate 15 grand a month. And I was so angry, I was so angry. And this is before I really started all this study and meditation. I was so angry, I just couldn't get past it. Like, how could this be, but I couldn't afford representation.

 

 I couldn't afford an attorney. And they had three attorneys. And they were doing all this shady stuff. But they were covering it because they had attorneys and they knew I couldn't do anything about it. And they you know, this is four and a half years later, me telling you this story. And I'm still not divorced yet. And they would have cleaned my clock a long time ago except their daughter. The parents even signed on to the divorce. I didn't even know that was possible. So now was the mom and the parents because they're trying to steal the house, because we ended up needing them to qualify for the financing for the house because we couldn't qualify for the financing when we got the house. So even though we did all the remodels and we paid for all the remodels, we paid for the mortgage, they signed the financing for the mortgage. And now they're trying to say that they were that were all 25% aren't it's just all this stuff. And it was like how are you not asking you how the kids are doing? Why? How are you not, you know, like, we're struggling to survive, and they were trying to get more of the house. It was really, I couldn't get past it. And I was so angry. And my girlfriend was like, You're gonna lose everything, you're gonna lose me you're gonna you need to stop being angry. Like, we have what we need, the kids are doing better. You've never been closer with the like, You got to drop that situation and and then one day, like everything lined up, right, like I read the right book, I listen to the right podcast, I did the right meditation and like everything started lining up and and I heard this thing and they said that, you know, like life and movies. They're the same characters. I think I heard this from Donald Miller, who does business made simple or something. He says like Life is like movies, the characters are the same.

 

There's victims villains. You know, heroes and guides. And long story short there. He said, the victims never grow. They never evolve. And I realized like, I was playing the victim that whole time. Look at me, single dad, five kids within six years of age and to his special needs. I had that story down. Everybody felt bad for me. But I was angry and I wasn't growing. It was the same story, the same thing day after day out all day on me thinking about the same thing. And I realized that and then I realized the hero is a weaker character that has this like mountain to summit and I realized my hero's journey was right in front of me it was these kids, I didn't have to go looking for it. It was right there. All I had to do was embrace it. I think I'd read the high five habit by Mel Robbins. And that talked about the RAS and how the RAS is this thing inside of us that doesn't know the difference between what's real and what's fake. Just like dreams, you know how you can wake up all agitated from a dream. You know, that didn't necessarily happen. Well, that's a whole nother story. But anyway, you can wake up and you thought you were falling, but you'll be sweating, but you weren't actually falling or so you thought and it says the RAS tries to give you show you in life, whatever it thinks is important to you.

 

 So whatever you're thinking about or talking about on a regular basis, it thinks that that's what's important to you. So it's going to give you more of that. So when I was talking about this story and being angry, it showed me more reasons to be angry about the story. So that was that, you know, and then I found the Self Realization fellowship and I got into meditation. And then, you know, I found Wim Hof. And I found Dr. Joe Dispenza. And I got to go to a retreat and all these things started lining up and at the edge of the cliff, I realized, no, I'm going this other way. And I started this journey of meditation and breathing and showing up for my kids and, and getting rid of the old story, which is why this is the last time I'm going to tell this story. And my kids started healing like their grades were getting better and they started finding after school activities and we had never been closer in life. So started getting really, really, really beautiful. And the less I would talk about the divorce and all that stuff, the better I would get along with my girlfriend and the closer I would get with my kids and the more life would start to present all the things that I needed and more.

 

And that's kind of what birth this whole naked parent podcast thing you know, because single dad with these five kids, I had fallen into every trap that you can fall, you know, depression and addiction and nasty divorce, like I'm uniquely qualified to help parents raising special needs children through a lot of the adversity that you can fall into. And it's really like, it really started giving me a purpose. My girlfriend had cancer, and I'd help her I helped her through cancer, and she helped me through this divorce situation. And I continue practicing my meditation, and continued getting healthy and creating this new path. And life's like been getting brighter and brighter and brighter every day. And then I go to court, and I see the lies and the deception and the and the the lack of compassion and empathy and consideration for the kids. And I get riled up and it's like, that's been happening like a yo, yo, it's just less and less and less. But it still kind of like gets me. But my kids mom, she kept making mistakes, she kept failing drug tests, she kept not showing up, and that kept the court case, open. Otherwise, they wouldn't had everything clean my clock a long time ago. And as of today, whatever today is just just into April, April 3, you know, the, we got a trial set for June. And I think something will come out of it. That will benefit, you know, my ability to you know, provide a better home or something for my children. Because eventually we moved out of my girlfriend's house, it was just too much too many kids. She's working on selling the house her father passed away.

 

So we're in this very expensive small rental. And, you know, and I believe there's a better living arrangement ahead, but we have everything that we want today. And all I have to do is continue studying Dr. Joe Dispenza Michael singer, Rudolf Steiner Yogananda. You know, Donald Miller was that guy was telling you about Mark Allen, Napoleon Hill, like these are the people that are behind the naked parent podcasts that are behind naked parenting that are behind this way of living, that has totally transformed everything for me. And I learned about life in a completely different way. And I can't wait to share that path with you all after I get done with this third part of the story, then we're going to start focusing on the solution, we're going to start focusing on the culmination of all of these amazing people that have brought amazing information techniques and wisdom. And the combination and how it's melded into me as an individual, who is so passionate about my kids, and so passionate about helping other parents, that I think it's just going to be an amazing journey building naked parent nation building out this pathway for people who either want to pick pieces of it or who are looking for a whole pathway. It's not the only way, but it's a way that works. And it's a way that reintroduces life the way I really believe it is. And it's changed everything for me and my kids.

 

And I believe that the future for our kids not only is way better, because of us being healthier parents and how that will help their futures be better. But I believe there's power in some of these things that we're doing. And I believe we're going to change the world. I believe that we can open up our hearts together and heal people in other locations. I mean, there's real magic alive and available for us to learn and bring in to our families and into our lives. So I'm kind of you know, I'm kind of wanting to be done with this story. And yes, the that the trial is coming up in June and no, we didn't get my quote unquote fair share. But I have everything I need today. And if nothing comes from that, it's totally okay. We're, we're in a perfect place today. And I want to continue this podcast and continue building this family, this community of people that believe in something bigger, that believe in better that believe in. Amazing that believe in magic. And that's what we're going to do. And so I'm going to put this show to bed right now, I'm going to thank you all, for listening, as much as you have, I'm going to apologize for the flow of it anywhere that it's confusing the all over the place, SNESs of it, because I'm just growing as a, as a thinker, writer, speaker, leader, I'm developing these skills right now. And I'm choosing to go for it rather than wait till I'm good enough to go for it.

 

So feel free to critique or let me know how we can do this better or better yet, just join in, participate, become part of this new way of life, this new way of living this new tomorrow that we're building for our for our children. So, yeah, I think I think that's where it is, you all the people in naked parent nation, the hundreds of interviews that I've been able to do, have been instrumental in helping me refined my inner power, my inner strength. And helping me realize who I am. And what I want to do. And I'm excited about it. And at starting next week, we're going to start talking about the message, we're going to start, you know, putting together the pathway for naked parenting for what that is for what that means. And we're going to strip away all of the bullshit that's got us all lost and confused. And we're going to get down to the real truth of who we are, and what we're capable of. And we're going to change the lives for ourselves, for our families, for our children. And we're going to start to put real life magic in the into real life together as a family, and a community where we can be happy, every day, all day where we can feel good every day, all day. That's real, it's real, like we don't have to be depressed, we don't have to be working and grind. We don't have to be struggling. We don't have to be broke.

 

 There's a way for all of that. And it's all going to come together as a part of the naked parent pathway. And I'd love for you to participate at whatever level you'd like to. You can pick little pieces, you can take the whole deal. But join us and become part of it. We're going to have weekly support groups, we're going to have online courses, we're going to have weekly meditations, we're going to be developing chapters in other communities, there's going to be ways where you can make money around putting your family first. It's going to be super exciting. And I'm super grateful to be in this position today. I want to thank all the higher powers that be all the people that had love and open their heart to help me heal. And that helped my kids. And I look forward to the next part of the journey. I love you all. Until then.

 

chad ratliffe  59:26

This concludes our show for today. And I'd like to personally thank you for spending the time with us on a topic near and dear to our hearts. If you'd like to be part of the naked parent nation, and help us reach those parents that are struggling and overwhelmed, there's no better way to help them by subscribing rating and reviewing the show on iTunes. iTunes highlights the shows based on these metrics. And the more the show gets highlighted, the more opportunities people will have to be introduced to the show where they can hear that message of hope. Or that tip they It can change everything. So follow the link in our show notes. And we hope to have you back here tomorrow where we'll do it again. From the team here at the naked parent podcast we wish you the life you've always dreamed of and then some so long