Sometimes its not Abandonment. It’s Loss.
Dear Reader:
I hope this newsletter finds you well.
If you have been looking to order In Trudeau’s Kitchen, it is currently available on the Publisher’s website at this Pre-Order Link
The final Book Description is as follows:
“Tyranny always masquerades as benevolence.” With that stark warning, In Trudeau’s Kitchen propels readers behind Canada’s most photographed front door and into an astonishing true account of power misused and trust betrayed. When acclaimed author and former lawyer Jeff Brown accepts an unexpected invitation from Sophie Grégoire Trudeau, he believes he is lending his words to a noble campaign for gender equality. Instead, he soon finds himself trapped in a four-year whirlwind of manipulation, surveillance and politically driven intimidation that nearly costs him his life.
Part political exposé, part psychological thriller, and part spiritual memoir, this book peels back the polished veneer of the Trudeau brand to reveal a world where public virtue masks private dysfunction and where dissent is silenced with the slickest of smiles. Brown’s raw narrative draws on his own childhood battles against bullies and a near-death experience during the ordeal, charting a harrowing journey from hopeful collaborator to hunted whistle-blower.
Written on what the author calls “a battlefield of creativity and terror,” In Trudeau’s Kitchen serves both as a personal catharsis and a clarion call for radical transparency. Readers who devoured ‘Catch and Kill’ or ‘Fire and Fury’ will find the same page-turning urgency here, tempered by Brown’s hard-won belief that authentic courage can outshine manufactured charisma. This is the story Canada never expected and the cautionary tale every democracy needs.
In Trudeau’s Kitchen is more than an exposé on the invisible world operating behind the scenes. This book also represents the archetypal Hero’s Journey. It is the candid account of a lone wolf citizen, steadfastly committed to speaking truth to power, while facing unimaginable attack and betrayal. Jeff Brown exposes the shockingly raw facts of his story, while eloquently blending keen personal insights, characteristic wit, and hard-earned wisdom—inviting readers to meet their own lives with greater courage and confidence.
Brown’s story is every person’s story of finding their way through impossible circumstances, on the wings of faith and instinct alone. In fighting for his own dignity, he fights for the dignity of us all.
No matter where you stand on the political spectrum, In Trudeau’s Kitchen is a revolutionary act—a heroic journey that will empower you to meet the challenges of your own life with courage, faith, and unstoppable conviction. Jeff Brown’s story will rebrave us and leave us with no other option: It’s time to fight for our right to the light.”
*******************************************************
Sometimes its not Abandonment. It’s Loss.
I lost someone very close to me in recent months. It was intense, confusing, deeply painful. One of those savage disconnections that cuts through you like a knife. Complicated because of its vaster political context, but savage nonetheless.
As someone with a longstanding abandonment wound, I assumed that I would plummet right back there right after realizing what was happening. In fact, I was sure of it. After all, that had been my history whenever a significant relationship had come to an end (even relationships I ended!). It would just be a matter of time before I was swimming in a primal ocean—one that made no distinction between the person I lost and my original early-life abandoners. Once that happened, it would become nearly impossible to cogently process the connection that had ended. Too many old feelings flooded the field of awareness. Too much of the Power of Then to fully connect with the Power of Now.
And so I waited for all those primal feelings to flood me. One day passed, and then another, and then a week went by. None of the old pattern emerged. Strange. Where were the flooding memories of my unavailable mother at the age of 3? Where was the sleeplessness, the nausea, the urgent need to be soothed? Nowhere to be found.
Instead, I felt something remarkably new, something entirely uncorrupted by the past. I felt a genuine sense of loss. Healthy, congruent adult loss. Nothing to do with those early feelings of floating through space with nothing to hang onto. Nothing to do with my primal history. Everything to do with the actual connection itself. Everything to do with the real-time memories of a love relationship that went awry.
Whenever my abandonment wound would activate, I couldn’t cry. I was like a vigilant little child frozen in time, waiting for his caregiver. But now I cried and cried. It was very deep and very honest and it was distinctly connected to the relationship. I remembered us riding our bikes together, holding each other’s hands, writing up a storm. I grieved the loss of her poetic presence—not the loss of my toxic childhood. What a difference.
I have sat with this transition for some time. How to explain this remarkable shift from a stubborn abandonment wound to a pure sense of loss?
Some part of the answer surely resides within my relational readiness. Where before I often had one foot out the door, I now had only one toe out the door. I was more available than ever before, even if the circumstances of our lives obscured it. The work I had done on myself had paid off.
More significantly, this was the first time that I had chosen someone that fully resonated with my soul. Others had come close, but nothing like this. In other words, I had been choosing relationships that reflected the not-quite-right feeling that I’d had with my biological mother. From the very beginning of my life, I had not felt aligned with her ways of being. I certainly loved her in all the primal ways that biological necessity demands, but there was also a feeling that I had been born into the wrong family. She was not quite my people, even if she birthed me.
Consequently, I chose people that reflected the nature of that dynamic. When those relationships ended, my psyche was catapulted right back to that primal connection and the abandonment wound that characterized it. I was used to grieving the loss of someone who wasn’t a fit for me, because I associated that disconnect with unmet primal needs. And so the wound would have its way with me, until it ran its course.
This was clearly different. I had chosen from the purest place within me. I grieved from the purest place within me. The fruit of all that healing labor was to finally be able to feel loss unencumbered by the past. It’s never easy to grieve, but it certainly helps when you are clearly connected to the moment.
If you struggle with an abandonment wound, check out my Healing the Abandonment Wound Course.
And, ask yourself these questions: