#52: Pain is the Price of Freedom

Some mental health professionals say you need to "move on" from past pain and trauma. But I think the only way to experience true freedom in your life is to face this pain, and today we will cover a process to help you through that.

Ep52_PainToFreedom
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[00:00:00] so I grew up in California and I lived in the same house from zero to 18. I have gone back to that neighborhood a number of different times, and every time I drive by one specific house, I get the chills. I get this eerie feeling. For years and years, I hid that I was a victim of abuse that occurred in that house, and I didn't tell my parents about this until I was actually 47 years old.

It was just two years ago. I didn't deal with it because it's so easy to hide from things that are painful. Yet facing our pain is the price of freedom. Today I'm gonna talk to you about how you can face your pain. and deal with things in your life, so it's no longer controlling your life because the pain that we experience from our childhood, it formulates forms a way of behaving and interacting with other people and our view of ourselves.

And when I started to understand what had happened to me, I started to realize that it's impacted every aspect of my life for my entire life. And until I started to actually work on it and work it out. I didn't actually know how. This pain that was always there was dictating, and I mean that dictating how I live my life.

So it's been a great source of freedom. I wanna welcome you to the Decide Your Legacy podcast, and I'm your host, Adam Gragg, if you haven't already done so. Subscribe. If you found this podcast helpful, tell your friends. Subscribe on wherever you get your podcast content and then leave it a review. Apple, Spotify, wherever that helps it grow.

Pull out your phone, take 15 seconds to do that helps it reach more people organically. I also, every episode, like to talk about some risks that I've taken recently, and so I'm getting much better at taking risks. And part of the reason I was so. Averse to taking risks for so long and played it safe was because of the trauma I had experienced in my life that I had not actually dealt with.

So recently I went and I ran a trail race in Arkansas with a buddy. And it was some hills. I thought potentially I could not do so well, but I went ahead and did it. Another risk I took is I think if you've listened to my podcast, you realize I was a victim of fraud last year. I actually had $5,000 stolen from me, and it was someone in police impersonating a police officer.

And I handled this situation much differently. They called my business line this time and they said their name was Officer Gosh, you know, I wrote it down. But anyway, it was a legitimate officer, which the, which with the Wichita Police Department, a legitimate number. And I said to him, what's your badge number?

Tell me your badge number. And then he said, this is serious. We got some serious stuff to talk with you about. What's your badge? What's your badge number? And then he hung up and then I texted him right away and he actually texted me back, the guy, and I said, you are going to jail. I said, this is I, I actually made up some stuff to try to scare the hell outta the guy.

I said, you are gonna rot in prison. The F B I and the Wichita Police Department had been informed, which they had been informed. I actually had contacted the Wichita Police Department and was on the line with a detective while I was texting him cause we were trying to kind of connect with him. But I re, I share that as a risk because I wouldn't have handled things that same way in the past.

I would've been afraid. To actually even talk to the officer about it. I don't know exactly. I'm still figuring out why, but I definitely think it's connected to this lack of trust in people that I formulated at a young age. Another risk I took is I talked to some of the neighbors in my old neighborhood and just getting more information about what had happened, and even just that talking to old neighbors in my old neighborhood, to me has been kind of this awkward thing because they were exposed and knew.

Of the family and the situation, not actually the details. But anyway, that's kind of been, it's, been an emotional risk for me. So I'm Adam Gragg. I'm a legacy coach, speaker podcaster, and I'm a mental health professional. I have been for almost 25 years, started in 1998. My life purpose is helping people and organizations find transformational clarity to face their biggest fears so they can live and leave their chosen legacy.

That's my passion. That's my purpose. I live and breathe helping people find that clarity so they go out and face those things that are holding them back. Those scary emotional things. I also talk about things that you can describe and discuss with a six year old. And they are gonna understand some, or if not all, of what you're actually talking about.

Even though this is a heavier topic, dealing with pain and facing pain in your life, it's stuff that you can talk to your six-year-old about. It may relate to having even a dental appointment, , where they have to actually face the pain. And on the other side of pain is freedom. On the other side of pain is [00:05:00] actually the good stuff.

If we hide from it, which most people are doing this subconsciously, they don't wanna deal with it because it's so painful, because that's one of the consequences of going through traumatic events in our lives and experiencing traumatic things. I also discuss topics that I struggle with myself. Facing pain is something that I struggle with myself.

I will challenge you as I do on my other podcasts. Listen, as a teacher. Not just as a student. I want you to discuss and we'll challenge you to discuss something you learned today in the next 24 hours with somebody else. Just talk about it. Tell 'em what you learned. Share something. It's gonna stick better when you are a teacher.

I'm asked every day at work, basically, how can I face or get over this depression or this anxiety or this pain that is lingering in my life? And there are some fallous dangerous things in the mental health community that are shared that I will challenge anybody on. And one is that you will hear this sometimes from professionals, that you can just move on from the past and you should just move on from the past.

And just go ahead and live your life and act like it doesn't even exist. I mean, we can live in the present, and I understand if someone doesn't want to talk about it, you don't force somebody to talk about trauma. They're not gonna even go there. I mean, the reality is, is that most people don't deal with childhood abuse until 20 plus years later.

They just don't because the common. Reaction to going through traumatic situations is generally repressed memories, hyper vigilance, shame towards yourself. You feel shameful that you went. You even blame yourself. Avoiding. Relational interactions, avoiding relationships, even avoiding romantic relationships, codependent behavior, disassociation, which means you disassociate mentally from whatever actually happened.

That's why we have these memories that are very faint, that we do believe, if we're honest with ourself occurred, but we've never really been able to connect the dots. It's this faint memory, and we may even deny having them. So someone asks you. Did you go through anything traumatic as a child and you say no?

I don't know how many times that's happened. I've asked that to clients before, hundreds and hundreds of times, honestly, and they will tell me no. And then they'll come back in the fifth or sixth session and they'll share something that happened after building trust with me, which I fully understand and share something traumatic that actually happened in their past, the running and the hiding and not wanting to deal with.

It's a common reaction. I mean, this stuff, and it for me actually, when it. I actually started to face it, to face this pain and actually to face the pain of my divorce. It was. So overwhelming emotionally at times that I had trouble functioning. I had trouble sleep, significant trouble sleeping. I also didn't talk to people about it a lot.

When I first came out and told my parents about the trauma when I was five and six, the reaction from my parents was one that was fairly normal. I mean, they were very angry. they, I did hear some, you know, , which is a bad thing to say to somebody, but I did hear, you know, are you sure it happened? That kind of stuff.

Are you sure? Are you sure? How could you remember something that was 40 years ago, or how could you remember that? Or some of that stuff where they were pushing back, and that's a very common response from people that love you because my parents are good parents and they're good people. Mm-hmm. , and they didn't want anything bad to happen.

I don't blame them for that, those situations. But when they processed it, they started to internalize and just blame themselves, oh, we're miserable parents. We're a failure as parents. And so you'll get some responses. You may even get responses like, are you're lying? That happens, man. Oftentimes it's not a reflection of, I mean, it's hard not to take something like that personally when you hear that, but you know, you're not lying.

You know you're telling the truth. You know, you're actually going to the people who are in. That can help you process through the situation, but you get that kind of response because they feel so overwhelmed, and that's a defense mechanism. It's not a good one, like my parents of saying, are you sure? Or How can you remember something so long ago?

Those are not good ones, but my parents have come a long way because that was their initial response, which made it very difficult for me and made the pain even stronger. But eventually they came alongside me and supported me, and they don't believe that. Now, in fact, I've gained some really good factual information from my parents that's helped me to process through the trauma and connect the dots.

Ah, that now that makes sense now because they've given me this information and they've done things to show their support and walked alongside me. But they did not do that at first. And I'm not blaming, I mean, that's. Very difficult for them. It's very painful for those that love you when you expose things that have been traumatic in your life.

But I'm today gonna give you four [00:10:00] different steps that you have to take and you really, you have to take these steps. I mean, honestly, if you have had trauma in your past, it's stored in your body, it's stored in your psyche, it's gonna be there. It's gonna impact everything you do. And if you do not deal with it, you will never.

And I mean, I hate to use the words, never and always, but this is one of those situations where I will say never and always, that you have to deal with it. That you must face it. You must face the pain to get to the other side. It doesn't mean you have to be live this miserable life. In fact, it's the opposite.

It means that you get freedom from it because you've accepted it and you know how it impacts you and you know your triggers, and then you know how you're gonna respond differently in situations. Not this reactive kind of response. It's this intentional reaction. You start having space knowing that, hey, I react.

This way for a specific reason. Somebody asked me recently a client, why Adam? Cause I've talked about being bullied quite a bit in podcasts. Why were you bullied so much? And I answered that question. I was, that was a great question. And one of the things I did is I learned based on the trauma that I experienced, not to trust adults and then also to, in my head, I would always be a step ahead.

To prevent interactions or for to prevent myself from getting hurt. So I would think ahead. So how can I finagle this interaction with these people? And I would be really guarded, honestly. And what can I do to get people to like me and how can I put this situation and make it as safe as possible, which has created a great deal of anxiety in my life.

and believe it or not, it has led to, and I've only learned this as I've learned to take some of this, these steps that I'm gonna share with you. I've learned to process it and see how it impacts me and see that my anxiety that I've struggled with as since I was very young is not my fault. It's just the way that I've coped with life.

and I don't have anxiety at the level that I had in the past. In fact, I'm probably as, probably have the least amount of anxiety that I've ever had and annoyingly so to some of my friends and family because it leads to me doing some pretty annoying things. But it's me and I get to be myself at a higher level than I ever have before because I've dealt with this stuff and I have done what in practice and I'm done.

I'm gonna encourage you to do so. Let's go ahead and jump into the actual content. Here are the steps that you need to take. You can't run from it. You have to face the pain. On the other side of that pain is freedom. No longer will that pain be running your life. So number one, and I do encourage you to do this in order.

So number one is to do a timeline and start with your very first memories, whatever those memories might be. And they often are trauma. Start with your very first memories. My very first memories are memories of trauma. They're memories that I couldn't explain of people that I didn't even know their names of.

Strangely enough, those are some of my very first memories. They weren't like playing with my dad and playing with my mom and my brothers and sisters. I have some of those early memories because like I said, I grew up in a family that. I had many, many blessings in my family growing up, and so I have good memories.

But we're gonna list both the good and the bad. So you can get a piece of paper, draw line down the middle, get multiple pieces of paper, get a big sheet of paper, take some kind of action. As I mentioned in that last episode, taking action is crucial, but get out a piece of paper right now and I want you to write down what is one or two early memories that you.

and something you hear in the mental health community that I think is a fallacy as well, is that you can have inaccurate memories of things that your inaccurate memories of childhood experiences that are traumatic, which I think you can have inaccurate details in your mind, but the very spec, like the gist of it, I believe.

Unless somebody is sociopathic, there's reality to the gist of whatever it is that they remember. It was bad. They feel it in their body. It's this feeling that I got every time I drove by this house that, you know, that bad stuff happened there. And so maybe the specific details and some of the dates and everything like that can be inaccurate, but the overall gist of it is not inaccurate.

It is true. And you know it's true. Your body knows it's true. Everything about you knows it's true. Every cell in your body knows that it's true. . So you do this timeline and I would suggest you do it until, and it can be, I mean, through your adulthood, and it's, these are the events in your life that were significantly impactful and they can be both positive and negative.

So you can have the birth of a child, your wedding, anything that was both a. Positive and negative, that was significantly impactful. So you start there, and then as you are doing that, it's gonna stir up some thoughts and memories and things. And as you do that, I would suggest, and even in the whole process of dealing with trauma and dealing with your past, go on walks, or go on camping trips, or go on trips by yourself or have time to be with yourself so that some of these thought.

Can come up cuz they are [00:15:00] gonna be things you're not gonna wanna think about all the time. And sometimes you gotta break it down and it's 20 minutes here and 20 minutes there. But I know I do a lot of processing when I run and when I hike and when I hiked half 'em over the summer, I did a lot of processing cuz my buddy and I went on the hike together.

But there was a lot of downtime in my head time, but it was out in nature. You find these things that you can do swimming, processing, journaling, but you're doing, and you're giving yourself the opportunity to start connecting some of these dots that some of the things that happen in your life and how they impact you today when you've done this timeline and you give yourself some self-reflective time.

So step two is I'd encourage you to write about it. And I give you some structure, I give my client structure as they talk about these impactful life events, traumatic life events. I mean, and we're thinking, and I'm talking about things like combat. I'm talking about divorce of your parents, abuse, emotional abuse, you know, an accident, a car accident, bullying that you experienced, abandonment, you know, not knowing your father, not knowing your mother.

Even adoption potentially cuz you could have a rejection wound based on not knowing why they put you up for adoption. All these things. Traumas that are stored, even if we're very young. We store these things and these things happen in our lives, and everyone has trauma. I mean, nobody can get through life without having trauma, and nobody can get through life without benefiting.

By doing some self-reflection on how things in the past actually impact their life today, their current functioning today. Having that awareness of it, that awareness is the crucial thing. So these are things that. Have happened in the past, and you're gonna get some clarity. The benefit of actually doing this process and actually getting the clarity, so I'm saying writing about it and understanding it, are immense.

I mean, hope, clarity, self-confidence, motivation. Finally getting that mojo, that motivation to move forward to help others, to utilize the gifts that you've been given. Serenity, peace in your life, being able to sleep. Me processing my trauma has helped my sleep. Me processing my trauma has given me confidence, me processing my trauma has helped me to help other people.

There's great tremendous benefit and like I said, it's potentially running your life today and you don't even actually know it. I remember going and talking to a friend and I've had this happen so many times in my life, but they've had something that everyone else knows has been traumatic in their life.

I mean, everyone knows, cuz it happened in a time where everyone was exposed to the event. So it was like a death of a sibling or it was the car accident. Killed their dad. And I'll hear clients say, that doesn't impact me. You know, that was so long ago. That doesn't impact me yet. Everything about them actually was impacted by that situation.

And then they start to admit it and acknowledge it and say, oh my gosh, this is why I relate to people this way. This is why I don't trust people. This is why I push people away. This is why I've had some dysfunctional relationships in my life. This is me. Oh my what? Ugh, I can't believe this. And I'm, I'm 40 and I'm understanding this.

Wait a second, I can't. And it can be so overwhelming, even for people because they realize that this is, it's created a string of events in my life and how can I change now because I'm so old or whatever. But you can change because you have now the space from that pain that's gonna give you the ability to step away from it.

From those behaviors and that view of yourself that's been so harmful to you for so long. So you write about it. And in this worksheet that I put together, I actually did this on my way back from Arkansas and the way there cuz my buddy drove. Thanks Dave. Hey, but some of the questions, these are questions I've been asking people for years about those events that you identify as the being the most impactful on that timeline.

So what happened? I mean like seriously just what happened and write about what. It could be numerous events or a pattern of events, but really what? I mean, did someone get sick? Did someone die? I mean, tell me what happened. And it's probably gonna be a, a lot of information you're gonna write about what happened, you know?

And then how did you think and feel at the time? That's question number two. How did you think and feel at the time? You know, for me, I remember feeling alone. I mean, that's the thing that goes completely, absolutely alone. I had a client recently talk about. Mother's divorce and when he was around his mom and the stepdad, he was in an abusive situation and the guy's older than me and he was very emotional about the situation.

Just because he was, he was hurt. I mean, there was this, This sense of pushing him away in that situation and that he had never really dealt with. And I don't think he actually even thought about it until in fact that question was asked of him to get him to think about it. So how did you feel at the time, and then what support did you need that you didn't receive?

That's an important question to answer, like what support did you need back then? If things were healthy and you had the family situation or the situation that you needed, you know, what did you need back then? How were you impacted? And I think these six categories are really important to answer questions about.

And by the way, I'm gonna give you a link in the show notes to this worksheet that I'm going over with you today. It's called Impactful Life Events Worksheet, and there's also a link [00:20:00] to a newly revised article called Why You Must Deal With Your Past that you're gonna wanna check out as well. If you found this podcast helpful so far, click the link to shatterproof yourself.

27 items. Mental health stress checklist. It's gonna give you some very practical things you can apply today, tips and tools on improving your mental health now. . So you're not gonna wanna miss that, but you're gonna want to answer how were you impacted by that impactful life event in these six areas? So, your self-esteem, your view of yourself, your social connections, your ability to connect with other people, to build strong friendships, professional bonds, comradery within groups, your ambitions, your goals.

did you, because of these things that impact your ambitions, I mean, did you not really believe in yourself or did create plans for the future? Did you always live in survival mode? A lot of people do when they go through trauma, emotional security, your general sense of personal wellbeing. Did you have a sense or a lack of confidence and safety in your life because of these events in your life?

Intimate relationships? How did it impact your intimate relationships, the way you connected with people? Took risk to build relationships with people intimately. In a romantic way, how are you impacted? And then how are you impacted financially? Your sense of financial security? Did you, did it impact your sense of financial security in some way?

So just having those questions in front of you and answering those are crucial. And then the question number four is, what are your thoughts and feelings about this person, group, or situation now? And I'll tell you this, writing it out activity can be a letter to somebody who abused you or who hurt you, or a group or a situation like, you know, a divorce.

Or somebody dying. It was nobody's fault. I mean, somebody dying that you love. It could be a person, it could be a letter to that person that's describing how that situation actually impacted you. That's definitely fine and it's very helpful, but no one has to read this or will ever read this except you potentially, I hope you do talk to somebody about it, like a professional or somebody that's a pastor or a good friend, a close good friend that you trust.

Or a sponsor if you're involved in 12 step groups or things like that. But so that's the fourth question. What are your thoughts and feelings? Now, the fifth question is, what questions do you have about this person, group, or situation that you would still like answered? What are the unanswered questions?

And so as I mentioned, I took a risk to reach out to a neighbor who they are 80 years old and still live in that neighborhood, but me actually reaching out to them was a way for me to get some information that's helping me to continue to connect the dots. And every time I do that, and every time I drive by, I actually took a picture of that house.

It's got it's overgrown trees and there's like a fence around the freaking house, like in the front. It's so strange and it's like a nice neighborhood. I'm, I kid you not, I mean, these are probably million dollar homes in this neighborhood and it's the only house in the neighborhood has like a literal fence in front of the stinking house.

You can't see this house. The people don't live there anymore, but it's so strange to me and I took a picture of it and that was part of part of facing my pain as well. So the sixth question is, how has what happened with this person, group, or situation made you stronger today? And write about that and how can you help others because of it?

And there's a seventh question here is what actions can you take? And go ahead and listen to podcast number 51 if you wanna talk about taking actions and how to take actions. And how to stay motivated. I'd highly recommend you listen to that podcast, but what actions can you take today to heal so that this thing no longer has power over your life?

And one of the actions maybe that you go ahead and fill out this worksheet, one of the actions may be that you go and you talk to a professional. One of the actions maybe that you go and you start talking to your family about these situations. One of the actions may be that you go talk to your wife about something you never talked to your wife about before.

I don't know what it might be for you, but. It is a process of actually physically typing it out, writing about it, getting some clarity, and so the third thing to do is to go ahead and talk about it, talk to somebody about it. As I mentioned, you get support and you process verbally. We can't do this alone.

We need monkeys. And if you don't know, What I mean by that? Well, there's a link to a video on why you need a monkey. And a monkey basically is a supportive friend, a good friend in your life. You need a monkey. You gotta talk about it and process it. And as you do that in community with other people, then you're gonna get clarity on the situation and hear things like, you know it wasn't your fault, or, wow, I mean, I can't believe that happened to you.

Or they're gonna ask you other questions that are gonna get you to think about the situation and understand how it impacts you now, or they're gonna give you sort of, wow, I understand now. You view people that way, or I understand why you're guarded, or I understand why you protect yourself, or I understand why you've made those kind of decisions in your life.

You know, I had a client tell me that she plays it safe consistently. Always takes the easy way, always takes the easy way. I had another client tell me that when he was growing up, he had been, bullied and one of the things that the people that bullied him would do is they would call him. They would call him bad names about being overweight, and I asked him how it impacted him today and he says, well, I still [00:25:00] think of myself as kind.

Being worthless in with other people because of that situation. And he was able to talk about it and we were able to process it and so, and get a little bit deeper and dig deeper. And him having a more healthy perspective about himself, a much healthier perspective about himself and him. Just seeing that.

Yeah, that's why I go into relationships, always thinking that they're not gonna like me and then it triggers the anxiety. How can I make them actually like me? Cuz one thing I learned too, as I processed my trauma and as someone asked me about why I was bullied. Well, when I was in sixth grade, I decided that one of the tools I was gonna employ to get people to like me so I couldn't get hurt again, was I was going to have really nice stuff that people liked and it backfired on me cuz I ended up saving for a bike.

And my dad paid for half and I paid for half. And then so I had this really nice bike and I thought it was. bring people to me, oh, I wanna see your bike, or you know, let's go ahead and check out your bike, and this kind of stuff. But it ended up pushing people away because I was talking about myself. I kind of had this self-focus that I thought was gonna help people like me, but it didn't actually backfired, which we have these.

Dysfunctional coping mechanism. Sometimes it's, we always help other people and that's because we were hurt and we think always helping other people and never accepting help from people is gonna be something that's gonna protect us. Or we always are the person that says yes and we never say no. And then people don't actually learn on their own to do things on their own.

So you're actually enabling them and hurting them in the process. But you're doing it because, and you don't really realize it, but your motive behind it is self protect. And through this process, in talking about it with someone else, you could identify that you do things to protect yourself. That's one thing you can do.

So that's step one. Step one is to do a timeline. Two, write about it. Three is to talk about it. And then four is to move towards acceptance of it. Because as I mentioned before, you know if a mental health professional tells you, you know, just get over it. Or your family just says, just get over it, which you may get, you may get, I warn you, you're not gonna get over this unless you do some work.

You're not gonna get over it unless you do some work. But eventually you're gonna get to the place where you know that you are a better, stronger, more resilient person because of what you have actually been through. And you're gonna be able to talk about it and utilize it to help other people, and you're not gonna be afraid to talk about it.

And some of this stuff I'm sharing today is the first time I've ever shared it with anybody outside of, my counselor and my parents. And I shared it with some friends today. Things I have never shared with anybody and honestly, It is a sign that I am moving past it because I can talk about it and it moves me towards acceptance.

So I give you this hope that in the future you're gonna have this level of acceptance, that you can talk about these traumatic events in a way that will inspire others. So you learn to move towards acceptance. And I can do a whole podcast on that, and I'm sure I will at some point. So I want you today.

To think about and identify what has been the most helpful thing from this podcast today, and if you've been through trauma, I want you to rate yourself on a scale, one to 10, how well you've actually been dealing with it. One means you've done nothing in squat and you are procrastinating, and 10 means you've really processed it.

You're at acceptance, you have, you're able to talk about it and help other people. You're not letting it control you. It doesn't have power over your. And by the way, when someone is afraid to talk about certain topics, it's most likely has it most likely has power over their life. It has some power and is controlling and influencing the decisions they make, the jobs they take, the people they hang out with, what they do with their money, their goals, their ambitions.

All these things are being impacted by fear. because they still have given power away to whatever that thing was. This is about taking our power back from that impactful life event. It no longer has the power because we're taking it away. We're spitting in its face, and we're taking our power back. What insight did you gain?

I want you to rate yourself, as I said, how well you're doing on a scale of one to 10. 10 means you're doing a whole bunch. You've worked it through. So if you gave yourself a five, well, what action could you take that would take it from a five to a 5.5? Maybe just read an article that I linked to, or one of the podcasts that I've done in the past on trauma, which I've done a number.

I did one with somebody named Jenny Helms, who's a great therapist friend of mine that I are gonna, that's gonna be in the show notes as well. And I did a podcast on dealing with your past, back really close to the beginning of the podcast when I started it two and a half years ago. Check those out as.

Remember Adam's rule, 30% of transformational clarity and change is insight. 70% is action. What action are you gonna take today? It's probably gonna be that thing that's gonna take you from a five to a 5.5 if you rated yourself. On a scale, one to 10 outta five, check out my new course. It's in production.

It's called Shatterproof Yourself, creating it now. It's gonna be something that has foundational mental health information for you that will have a huge impact on your life, [00:30:00] and it's gonna be for sale very soon. If you are interested in having me speak about different topics that I've talked about in my podcast, I love to do that and talk to you about that locally or over Zoom or I do travel, some just not.

if you live in Sacramento, California, I'll definitely travel out there cuz I got a lot of family there. But I'd like to travel, so I'm liking traveling more and more. If you're in Lake Como, Italy, yes, I'll definitely come out. You pay my way and I'll speak to your group, which is what I did, had the blessing to do back in 2021.

Oh 22 last year. So anyway, make it your mission to live the life now that you want to be remembered for 10 years after you're gone, you decide your legacy. Nobody else. You decide your future. I appreciate you and I'll see you next time.

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