Angel Deen and Makini Smith "Breaking Cycles of Trauma Through Generational Healing"

Makini shares her journey of healing from personal struggles, traumas, and setbacks, emphasizing the importance of self-discovery, resilience, and social connection. She discusses the transformative power of inner work, therapy, and reprogramming self-limiting beliefs to overcome obstacles and unlock individual potential.

She also highlights the significance of acknowledging past mistakes, setting healthy boundaries, and prioritizing self-care to break cycles of trauma and foster personal growth. Through the "H.E.A.L. Her" podcast, she provides a platform for sharing healing journeys and building a supportive community, demonstrating the ability to transform adversity into a source of inspiration and purpose.

This episode is an interview by Angel Deen with Makini Smith on her platform "My Purpose Lifestyle"

Takeaways:

- Transforming personal struggles into purpose involves a healing journey emphasizing social connection and resilience. - Self-discovery and breaking generational patterns can lead to personal transformation. - Reprogramming self-limiting beliefs involves overcoming internal doubts and fears to unlock true potential. - Acknowledge past mistakes for generational healing, setting healthy boundaries and transparency are key. - Understanding oneself and having compassion can lead to friction with others, but shedding old narratives is crucial for personal growth. - Listening with Love stresses the importance of actively listening with empathy to foster deeper connections. - Building a healing community through social connections can lead to post-traumatic wisdom and hope.

00:12:53 - Transmuting Pain into Purpose Transforming personal struggles, traumas, and setbacks into sources of purpose and inspiration involves undergoing a healing journey. Makini shares her experience of healing from divorce, loss, abuse, and health scares, emphasizing the importance of social connection, resilience, and hope. Through self-discovery and breaking generational patterns, individuals can transform themselves. Despite challenges and doubts, embracing growth, affirmations, and inner work can lead to a profound sense of purpose and fulfillment.

00:13:49 - Self-Discovery and Inner Work Makini emphasizes the importance of self-discovery and inner work as a transformative journey towards breaking generational patterns, healing trauma, and fostering a positive mindset. Through personal experiences of overcoming divorce, narcissistic abuse, and health scares, she highlights the power of holistic healing of mind, body, and soul to find peace, clarity, and connection. She mentions that evolving through inner work may lead to distancing from loved ones not on the same journey, but ultimately, it is a process of self-empowerment and growth that can change one's life and surroundings for the better.

00:15:14 - Reprogramming Self-Limiting Beliefs Reprogramming self-limiting beliefs involves confronting internal doubts and fears to unlock one's true potential. This process includes overcoming obstacles like negative self-perceptions and resistance from those closest to us. Consistency, perseverance, and shedding old beliefs are emphasized to evolve into a new, empowered version of oneself. By challenging limiting narratives, we can pave the way for self-discovery and transformation towards a life filled with possibilities.

00:23:23 - Generational Healing and Parenting Makini discusses the importance of acknowledging past mistakes in parenting and the process of generational healing, emphasizing the role of therapy in understanding and addressing family dynamics. Through her own experiences as a mother working on herself and her relationship with her children, Makini highlights the significance of transparency, accountability, and setting healthy boundaries to break cycles of trauma responses and create a positive environment for personal and familial growth.

00:23:59 - Ther

Episode Transcript

(00:00):
I'm Makini Smith. After going through a divorce, my
sister passing away, experiencing narcissistic abuse, and some significant
health scares, I realized through sharing my story that
I wasn't alone in my suffering. Suffering subjective distress
generated by the experience of being out of balance
in a deep dive to holistically heal mind, body

(00:21):
and soul is where I discovered peace, clarity and
connection. It is impossible to be truly wise without
some real life hardship, and we cannot develop post
traumatic wisdom without making it through, and most importantly,
through it together. Social connection builds resilience and resilience

(00:43):
helps create post traumatic wisdom, and that wisdom leads
to hope. Hope for you and others witnessing and
participating in your healing and hope for your community.
A healthy community is a healing community. And a
healing community is full of hope because it has
seen its own people weather, survive, and thrive. This

(01:06):
episode is brought to you by herbal face food.
Since early 2022, I have taken back control of
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(01:28):
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eczema. Use promo code Makeni 20 or McKinney 30

(01:50):
for 30% off this all plant facial product. This
week's episode is a little something special. I was
interviewed by a great friend of mine by the
name of Angel Dean. We've known each other since
I was in the 7th grade and her platform
is called my purpose lifestyle and I sat down

(02:12):
for her community to talk about my healing journey
and how it has affected my parenting and the
struggles and the blessings that come along with it.
If this episode resonates with you, we would be
honored if you would tag us on Instagram in
your stories with your aha moments and we will

(02:34):
definitely share.
Hello everybody and welcome back to another episode. My
name is Angel Dean and I am here with
a very, very special guest. Nikkini Smith, Myth of
the Heal her podcast and what we're doing here

(02:54):
is I actually I have the honor of interviewing
Nikini today in regards to her healing journey and
I'm very excited about this. So welcome. Thank you
for having me. So heal her podcast. Tell us

(03:18):
about how heal her podcast came about. It was
also called something else before that. So just walk
us through that. Yes, so in 2018, I started
the Walk of my Slows podcast, and it was
supposed to be an evolution from my first book,

(03:38):
the Walk of my Slows. And I wanted to
interview women that I felt were successful women that
inspired me. But I knew that they had a
story of resilience, that they had gone through some
serious adversities that they had overcome. And by year
four, I realized the podcast had totally transitioned to

(04:00):
speaking about people's healing journey.
And because I had gone through a very heavy
healing journey since I started the podcast, my obsession
with understanding healing, with understanding trauma, with understanding how
to, like, I guess, process a lot of things
that we've been through and providing tools and everything
that I was learning, I felt it was necessary

(04:24):
to change the name of the podcast and also
the focus, because that's where conversations were going. So
I changed it to the Healer podcast. Heal is
abbreviated, so honor, elevate, and love her, and thank
you.
And I feel like ever since I transitioned, even

(04:46):
the feel of the show, all the feedback that
I've been getting from listeners, from the people that
have been interviewing, when we're done, the recordings are
like, wow, that felt like a therapy session. Like,
where can I make my offering? Where do I
pay the feedback, the impact that I get in
my DM's, from women saying, like, wow, this episode,
now I understand this family member better.

(05:07):
Now I'm able to do this and my relationship
better. Thank you for this. So, it's been healing
not only for me, but for the guest and
listeners. Yeah, my test to that, because there's so
many times, like, you've had people on there that
we see them socially, we see them in their
element in terms of whatever they do professionally. But

(05:28):
that. That story that they have behind them, you
would never know. Just like, when we talk, which
is why we're even doing this right now, because
we had a moment where we had this bit
of a therapy session, I'm like, honestly, I need
to interview you.
But there's so much depth to everybody, and it's
really hard to get there with these real moments

(05:53):
and these TikTok moments. And just being able to
pull stories from people is what I get from
listening to the heal her podcast and allowing that
space for people to normalize what we go through.
Yeah. So thank you for that. And it has

(06:13):
blessed me many times because I'm like, well, she
went through that well, okay, so I'm not alone.
And, yes, I have gotten answers in terms of
what boundaries look like, what healing can look like,
what you need to look out for in terms
of different personality types and things you need to

(06:35):
avoid as being a certain type of person. So,
yeah, all of that. So make sure you guys
check out the heal her podcast. Every week you
have another story, and she just said year four.
So it's been going on almost five years now.
So we hit five years in October, 5 years
in October, and think about it. Every week somebody

(06:58):
is coming on. So there's many, many stories out
there, and if you have a story and you'd
like to share, hit your girl up. So here
you are. You started this. Usually we start things
because of a thing we've gone through.
So you started this and you obviously have evolved

(07:20):
in terms of your own healing process, in terms
of how you go about dealing with the things
that you go through in life.
So what's one thing that you can pinpoint that
you have done art that you're doing differently in
terms of your healing process from when you started

(07:41):
to now? From when I started the podcast, yeah,
I feel like I've gotten a lot clearer in
my communication, not only because as someone who is
like, normally severely introverted and doesn't like to be
around a lot of people doing this type of

(08:03):
podcast, having deep conversations and having such thought provoking
conversations with people that are probably would have never
been able to have conversations with, having them deep
conversation on a weekly basis and learning to ask
questions from sheer curiosity and learning how similar people

(08:26):
are. You know, I have conversations with multimillionaires and
we have the same problems. You have conversations with
people that are running these billion dollar companies and
we have the same problems.
So being able to feel comfortable and being transparent
and realizing through communication that we are more like

(08:46):
than we are different has definitely helped me on
an everyday basis because there's almost no judgment when
you were having a conversation with any human being
on the planet now, because it's like we've got
some similarities in here somewhere. Yeah, we're all human.
Yeah. Yeah. Wow, I can see that. And you

(09:08):
said something, you're like having weekly conversations, like, so
you have therapy sessions pretty much for the past
five years, you've had therapy sessions, which obviously would
change your perspective. So when you think about somewhere
that the podcast has impacted you in terms of
talking to these different people and seeing the similarities

(09:31):
and also even having aha.
Moments, where has, where do you feel like it's
impacted you the most in terms of issues in
your life? So whether it be like, has it
impacted you in your relationship the most as a
mother, the most as a partner the most.

(09:51):
I feel like it's impacted me in every area
intensely. Maybe the confidence in my business, because I'm
having conversations with people that built multi million dollar,
billion dollar businesses, I'm having conversations with people who

(10:14):
work with a list celebrities, I'm having conversations with
other therapists, I'm having conversations with entrepreneurs, tv personalities,
the girl next door. And they're sharing their business
journey. But how they had to develop personally in
order to grow in their business. And I feel

(10:35):
like a lot of their struggles because whether it's
social media or tv or whatever, you see someone
and you admire where they are.
But most times, we don't know how they got
there. We don't know where they came from, we
don't know their struggle story, we don't know their
origin story, we don't know. We know very little

(10:55):
about the depth of who they are. So on
the podcast, having these people that we admire share
that they were sexually abused as a child, share
that they have infertility issues, share that they have
a history with toxic relationships, share that they have

(11:16):
mental health diagnosis, all of these things that you
may not have known or you don't see on
their social or on their tv appearances, but they
were able to build these magnificent things. They took
their pain, they took their struggle, they took their
trauma, and they transmuted that into purpose.
I love that. I love that. And I'm actually

(11:39):
in that same thought currently, where I'm looking at
my own life and I'm looking at my struggles
and I'm looking at all the setbacks and hang
ups and all the things. We talk in depth,
so, you know, all the things. And I'm thinking
to myself, like two thoughts come out of it.
One being penalized by other people that don't do

(12:01):
the deep work, that don't understand what it takes
to show up, even though it's a crack show
in your circle, but you decide every day to
get up and strive.
You get up, dust yourself up, don't look like
you don't have to look like what you're going

(12:23):
through. So there's that aspect of it, and then
there's the other aspect of just doesn't matter what's
going on around you, you can still show up,
right? So there's the social aspect of it, and
then there's the internal obligations of it and how

(12:43):
beautiful it is when you just say, you know
what? I still deserve to build that multi million
dollar company.
I still deserve to write the books, I still
deserve to show up in spaces and be great.
It doesn't matter what's going on. And people like

(13:04):
what you do and the things that you showcase
and how you help people walk their mentally walk
through those things is so important because of how
loud everything is and the fact that you can
still overcome or you can still be successful even

(13:24):
though you're on a healing journey. So I don't
know if I'm rambling there. No, no, I totally,
totally understand what you're saying. And I feel like,
and maybe it's because of my background with the
mindset coaching where understanding those things where it's like
we all have self limiting beliefs, we all have

(13:45):
stories that we're telling ourselves about what is possible
and what is not possible.
And I think the more that we do the
deep work, the more that we do the inner
work and we start to open up to what
is possible for us, especially if that's something that
our families have never seen before. You know, we're
breaking generational patterns, generational chains, generational curses, generational trauma.

(14:08):
We're breaking those things. It's not easy. So anytime
we're paving a new path, it's going to be
difficult, it's going to feel difficult.
And you're going to have people who love you,
family, friends, co workers, whatever business partners that they
are used to the old version of you. But
as you are evolving, you're dying of the old
self and building a new one. Right? So it's

(14:29):
relearning first, you ought to learn the past stuff,
but relearning the healthy things, relearning the healthy patterns,
the things that allow us to thrive, which rebuilds
the stories that we tell ourselves, the things that
I once thought I didn't deserve or could never
have.
I now had the things that, or even the

(14:50):
people that I looked at from afar and thought,
wow, like, look at that, that life, I. What
I would do to just be in a room
with that person. We're now good friends. Like those
things. It's opened up my perspective in what is
possible and realizing that everything that we need is

(15:13):
already inside of us.
It's for us to tap into that, it's for
us to unlock that. So all of the, I'm
going to call them like, you know, viruses in
our head because our heads, our brains are like
computers. So all the viruses that are in there,
the doubt, the stress, the worry, all those things
that we allow to infiltrate our systems and make
us believe that we are not worthy, that we

(15:34):
can't have, that we don't deserve it's reprogramming.
Reprogramming the computer. Yeah. Yeah. So when you talk
about reprogramming, though, what are some of the obstacles
that you encounter when you're trying to reprogram? One
of the first obstacles is ourselves. Because the only

(15:56):
limits in life are those that we impose on
ourselves. And that's a quote from my former mentor,
Bob Proctor. But it's like recreating this image of
what you want your life to look like. We
are first obstacle because we continue to repeat old
stories, continue to tell ourselves those old things, or
we hold on to something negative someone said to

(16:18):
us in our childhood of what we can and
cannot do. So getting over that and being able
to push through that, it's not easy. It's consistency,
it's perseverance. It's a lot of things that are
required of us to be stronger and resilient and
get back up in order to get to what
we want.
And then it's those around us that love us
the most. And it's not that they are often

(16:43):
intentionally trying to limit our growth, but again, the
version of us that they know, that's the story
that they have in their head of us.
That's the perspective they have of us. So as
we change and evolve and birth this new version
of us, who is that? Like, I know this

(17:04):
version of you, right? So the things that they
say or their belief in who you are, what
is possible for you, it's not necessarily from a
place of, I don't think you can do this,
or I don't think you should do this. It's
from, well, this is the version of you that
I know. And because I may not believe that

(17:24):
this is possible, like, who are you doing this
thing? So it's up to us to do the
thing and show them what is possible. But also
in doing so, as we evolve, we attract who
is meant to be around us. We attract who
is in alignment with who we are. So if

(17:46):
we are, this version of us is over here
and we rebirth to this more evolved version of
us over here. The same people are not going
to be in alignment with us all the time
unless they're doing their own growth, their own healing.
So you lose people unintentionally. But as you evolve
and as you heal, your understanding of no longer

(18:07):
being connected to this person, aligned with this person,
or, you know, people being repelled by who you
become, it's normal to feel sensitive about that because
you're like, well, I love this person. I've known
this person for how long? And these people, for
how long we're connected to that loyalty or that
length of time. But as we evolve, it's natural

(18:28):
to shed things. When we have plants, you know,
we gotta groom the plant and shed things that
it's hindering its growth.
So it's hard both for us to understand the
process of our growth. And sometimes it's like, well,
is all of this worth the pain that I'm
going through? So again, the stories that we continue
to tell ourselves. So it requires just like a

(18:49):
shower every day, constant motivation. It requires constant, like,
affirmations, declarations, prayer, all of these things to keep
going. But anyone who is successful will tell you
how many times they want to quit on a
regular basis. It's not easy.
It's not easy. And, you know, so one of

(19:10):
the points that you brought up was just evolving
from your loved ones. And I think that we
can sit there for like a couple hours, especially
if your evolution is now distancing you from your
children's growth, your husband, your spouse's growth, your partner's

(19:31):
growth. That is one of, in my opinion and
my experience, the biggest issue. Family members, extended family
members, that hurts. That is a tough one. But
when you are in a home and you're doing

(19:54):
the deep work and you're showing up and you're
doing the affirmations and you're writing the journals and
you're listening to the podcast and the books and
the therapy, and nobody else is, baby, they won't
understand that. Right there is, you know, I don't

(20:19):
know. You know. So you have to be okay
with them not understanding because everyone's on their own
journey and everyone goes at their own pace. And
if you are, for example, the woman who's the
head of the household, and you are on your
deep work journey and you're doing the work, everything
around you is going to change, because who you
are is changing.

(20:40):
So that will in turn, change the energy in
your home. It will change the environments you want
to go into. It'll change your interactions with your
loved ones. It's hard. And then on the flip
side, it becomes hard for them again, because their
conditioning of who you are, what you've always done.
So as you grow and as you set healthy

(21:00):
boundaries, people will be upset with you. So you
have to also be okay with that, because it's
one thing if you're evolving and you are now
distancing and creating new fruits, circles or business partners,
because you're evolving, there's less of an emotional connection.
But when it's your family, when it's your spouse,

(21:22):
when it's your kids, it's harder. Like, I had
to realize for the longest time as I was
on my healing journey, I got excellent at creating
boundaries with the outside world. Oh, yeah, she did.
My phone has been on do not disturb for,
like, four years. Yes. I have gotten excellent with
the outside world.
Clients have to schedule a call. You can't just

(21:42):
call me, like, you know, as my friend. Like,
I'm not a phone person. So I've created boundaries
with the outside world, and I've, according to my
therapist, I've excelled at that. But I realized I
had zero boundaries inside my house with my kids.
And as someone who, you know, had been a
single mom for so long and that now I'm

(22:04):
in a healthy relationship and I'm setting boundaries with
my kids, they're like, what the heck is happening
right now? Yeah.
Who are you? What have you done with my
mom? Is it your partner's fault? Is it your
business fault? Is your therapist's fault? We're mad at
everybody. It's somebody's fault. But I don't like this.
Yeah, yeah. At that time, yes, absolutely. 1000%.
That's where I'm at right now. And so because

(22:27):
you have the healer podcast, because of who you
stand for, because of who Bikini Smith is, you
shared something that maybe a lot of people don't
know. Like, that was huge, what you just said.
You have excelled at ensuring that you have created
boundaries outside. You've created the walls. But what happens

(22:48):
when the chaos is inside of the walls? What
does that look like for you? What are you
doing? What are you. What's the process? So because
I had gotten so good at creating boundaries outside,
I didn't realize that I needed those type of

(23:09):
boundaries inside. And to me, it was like, well,
these are my kids. I do whatever they need.
I, like, I love them unconditionally. But there comes
a point, whether it's your kids, whether it's something
on the outside, we have to realize that they're
overstepping.
Even if you have a, like, drawn out that
boundary, they're overstepping about it. They're taking advantage. They're

(23:31):
not appreciating what they have. It's a lot. I
didn't realize how overwhelmed I was by the people
that I loved the most until I was like,
what is going on? Like, I started to feel
disconnected from everything, from business, from friends, from social.
And I was like, what is happening with me?

(23:52):
And when I came to the point where I
was like, okay, I'm ready to go deeper in
my healing journey.
I had been doing all the things, but I
was like, I'm ready now to go to the
next level. And I started seeing a new therapist
and seeing her every week and got to the
point where I started implementing such boundaries. I mean,
they're healthy boundaries, but I started implementing such boundaries

(24:15):
that my kids were like, we don't like you
neither.
You need to be therapist. I'm like, no, you
don't like that. I've started to pull back and
take care of me and not allow you to
walk all over me. That's what you don't like.
But the accountability isn't there yet. With my kids.
They are seeing changes. They're seeing me implement changes.

(24:38):
They're seeing changes within our household. And they're like,
well, this is not the mom that spoils us.
But at the same time, my kids are grown.
They're not babies. That part, my eldest is about
to turn 26. I have a 22 year old
that just had a baby, and I have a
17 year old who is turning 18 just now.
They're adults. So my therapist is like, you've done

(24:59):
it without. What are we doing here? Exactly. Yeah.
Yeah. You've done your job as a mom. You
sacrificed yourself, and it's not appreciated. Now it's time
to water you. So I'm in my watering me
season.
And that, to people on the outside, feels selfish.

(25:20):
Can I insert something here? Because many people will
listen to this, and everybody always has draws their
own conclusion from things. And I'll even preface this,
even for our parents, when you're on a healing
journey, when you have been being honest with what's
going on, I'll honestly say this. For me personally,

(25:44):
I know that my parents, my grandparents, everybody did
what they knew how to do.
Unfortunately, because your toolkit wasn't equipped enough, this is
where we run into some issues that we have,
especially between mothers, father, whatever, parents and children and

(26:06):
all of that being all of that. Right, fine.
That's one aspect. There's different aspects and different levels
of this is what I'm trying to get at.
And for us, because we speak a lot. I'm
not comparing how I deal with my children to
how my mother and father dealt with me because
I have different tools.

(26:27):
I've been doing different things, and I've also been.
I'm not saying that I can't speak for other
people, but I know I've been working on myself.
I can see where for me and you as
teen mothers, for my first two children, I grew
with them. I made tons of mistakes. I've been

(26:48):
honest, transparent, and even talked to them through it.
Right. So not saying that because I've done that
now, it's all on you to or my children
to get over it, but I kind of am
saying that as well.
They have to do, because I can't change the
past, but I can explain. I can point you

(27:11):
into the direction that you need to go. I
can apologize. I can be open and transparent, and
then I can also show you that I'm working
on being a better person and changing. If you
want to stay there, though, that's your choice. Right.
So, because a lot of people, they don't look

(27:34):
at all of that that happens. That I know
for myself and for my friends, I know that
we do do that deep work, and a lot
of people will kind of be like, well, it's
not the kids fault because, well, and all this
stuff.
And I'm like, true. But I don't think you
guys realize how transparent we are with our children

(27:55):
and how much we've walked them through our process
and how much we have been displaying what it
takes in 2023 moving forward, because I'm not talking
about 1995. I had a baby in 1995. Right.
I was a totally different. I was 16. Yeah.
You know what I mean? I'm 45 now. Right.

(28:15):
So. And even with that being said, I'm 45
with growth and with healing journeys and with a
process and all of that, again, me rambling, it's
just.
I just hate when people try to categorize things
and throw it all into this cute saying or
this cute thing without incorporating the work that people

(28:36):
put into without giving context. And I know, like,
so here you are, you're talking about your healing
and all that kind of stuff. And they were
once spoiled and all this kind of stuff, but,
yeah, but there's a whole journey that they decided
they didn't want to join in.
Yes. They wanted to watch you do it and

(28:58):
still benefit from it. And then, well, when you
do do the work, you're going to change. Yes.
Things are going to change. And unfortunately, my love,
as you sat there and you watch me eating
your chips, well, now you've got a lot. Yeah.
Right. So now you've got to catch up. I
don't need to catch up. You need to catch

(29:18):
up anyways. No. 1000%. And to speak to your
point of, like, even being from going from teen
moms to who we are now. Yeah. Our kids
dependent on their age and where we were at
the time. We'll get a different version. Yes. Yeah.
Yeah. And I feel like I probably right now,

(29:43):
have the closest bond with my youngest because he's
getting the best version of me. Absolutely. But at
the same time, the older ones, they're not children
anymore. Right. And like you said, we are the
type of parents where it's not like we're denying
our past or the truth of what happened to
talk to me about the thing.

(30:04):
Exactly. We acknowledge it. I've had conversations with my
kids and I've directly apologized for even me being
in toxic relationships in the past that they've had
to witness for me not having healthy boundaries for
all of those things. So the apology is there,
the acknowledgement is there, and now I'm doing the

(30:26):
work. So now what? Right. It's up to them
now to do their work. I had to learn
from my therapist because I am that very hands
on mom. And people are like, oh, you know,
your kids are old. You should be independent. You
should be able to. No, not yet. My kids
are very dependent, and I'm trying to make them
more independent. But part of that is me doing

(30:49):
your work and showing them what healthy boundaries look
like, showing them what it means for clear communication,
showing them that you do have to have uncomfortable
conversations in order to. To have a healthy relationship,
showing them all of these things through example and
hoping and praying that they will pick up some
of that because some things are taught, some things

(31:10):
are caught, and then them wanting for themselves to
do the work.
Yeah. Yeah. I agree with that. Do you think
that a part of their not being able to
being co dependent with you, do you think it
was something that was your fault or. I hold

(31:34):
a lot of accountability for my part in everything.
Every experience is co created. I agree with that.
Yeah. Thank you. Every. Every experience is co created.
You and I are co created an experience right
now. So with my kids, I will blatantly say,
like, I created these intelligent human beings right now.

(31:57):
Absolutely. I did that. That wasn't my intention. But
when I became a single mom and I wanted
them to have what their two parent friends had,
I didn't want them to feel any less. So
I overcompensated in a lot of areas that I
didn't need to. And in doing so, they weren't

(32:18):
able to learn what they needed to learn to
appreciate certain things. So now I'm dealing with who
they've become because of that. So I hold myself
accountable for my contribution to that. And obviously, as
their parents, who they live with, between the guidance

(32:40):
that I provided for them and what they saw,
there's a lot that they had to learn.
And now, as they are older and they are
now seeing this version of mom, this version of
mom that is setting heavy boundaries, that includes boundaries
with them, they're having a hard time understanding that.
They're like, well, those rules shouldn't have. We're your
kids. I feel like part of me even wanting

(33:10):
to go to therapy was to make sure I
wasn't insane for wanting the things that I wanted,
for thinking, like, okay, yes, I understand. Even culturally,
there's a lot of things that are, quote unquote
normal within our culture that are toxic, that are
unhealthy.
And because I didn't want that, a lot of
people had an opinion as to who I am
or who I think I am or, you know,

(33:31):
I think I'm better than or whatever. And then
my kids started to make me feel like, well,
you shouldn't do that. You shouldn't believe this, or
you should. So going to therapy for me has
been so, so helpful, so affirming that I'm not
crazy, that my kids are a lot, that they

(33:55):
are heavily dependent. But at the same time, I
can also, instead of, you know, looking at all
of the negatives, my therapist has helped me understand.
I have done so much. I have done more
than the average person. All the things that I
once thought, oh, well, maybe I need to do

(34:16):
more.
Maybe I haven't done enough. She's like, oh, no,
honey, you have sacrificed yourself for these kids for
so long. You have been there. You have played
mom, you have played their best friend. You have
played their support system. You have played, like, all
of the hats that I had to wear that
I wasn't giving myself credit for. So on one

(34:37):
hand, I'm being told, yes, you went above and
beyond, but in doing so, you created some monsters.
And you know what? From one monster creator to
another, I'll just say, well done, because everybody has
to do their own work. We're not perfect. We

(35:00):
are trying every day to get up and do
our best. Typically, that's most parents preface, like, some
parents will get up and try to do the
best. Hey, that's another topic and another podcast. But
we get up and we try our best. We're

(35:21):
always, as a mother, I can only speak from
a mother's perspective.
Every day that I get up, even we were
here and we're about to record and stuff, and
it's like phone calls that are crazy. Like where
every day we get up and we're trying to
create an experience for our children that is a

(35:42):
positive one. And you said something. It wasn't my
intention. And my favorite saying is intentions don't always
equate to impact.
So, you know, at the end of the day,
you still are responsible in creating your, what you
want. Right. And learning what your boundaries are. And

(36:05):
I'm speaking to children at this point. You still
need to create those things. You still need to
have communication skills. You still need to learn what
makes you tick and what makes you talk. You
need to be open and transparent about what it
is so that we all can, like, put this
thing together.
But when one person is putting things together and

(36:28):
trying to accommodate everybody, and then when that person
is like, I'm done. Then everybody's like, now you
messed up my life. Yeah. Yeah. No one. Yeah.
Oh, now you're done. Right. Okay. Because there's a
victim now they need someone to blame. So, like
what you said about, like, intention, you can have

(36:51):
the greatest intentions in the world and still have
a bad outcome. Yeah. You can do something out
of love, out of the goodness of your heart,
and it still not be received that way. Right.
We don't have control over that. Right. With everything
that I experienced, with everything that I intentionally tried

(37:12):
to do as a human being, as a woman,
as coach, as a mother, as a partner, as
all of these things, it doesn't necessarily mean that
the outcome is going to be what I would
love it to be.
Exactly. My kids, I will say to me, they

(37:32):
are the greatest blessing, every single one of them.
Gifted, talented, smart, beautiful, like, all of the amazing
qualities. But because of the trauma that I endure,
because of the experiences that they've also witnessed, they
have their own healing to do. Yeah. I didn't

(37:52):
intend to be in toxic relationships. I didn't intend
to have childhood traumas. I didn't intend for any
of those things.
But it happened. But it happened. And now I
have children who are experiencing my trauma responses, so.
And you're unlearning them. Exactly. And it's like, which

(38:15):
we really need to stop and think about our
trauma responses. I know from, for me, like, growing
up, it's always been trauma, trauma, trauma, trauma, trauma,
trauma. And me dealing, dealing, dealing, dealing. And now
that I'm unlearning it, now everybody's like, oh, well,
you're okay. God. God stuff. Okay, bro, I wasn't

(38:38):
the trauma. Surprise. Nice to meet you. I actually
don't like that. You know, I like my quiet
time. And also it's like them relearning you but
at the same time, if we can have that
understanding for one another, what a beautiful thing that
you could create with one another, you know, but

(38:59):
kids become manipulative.
They can. Yes. Or, you know, let's get off
the kids, because these kids, we're just ever coming
for them. But people in our lives that have
been there from before and now seeing them now,
they can become manipulative. Yes, absolutely. And it's when

(39:20):
you're on your healing journey, not everyone's gonna understand.
No. Cause when I started to distance myself from
certain family members, I had extended family, and, you
know, other people in the family try to manipulate
me into accepting toxic behavior because it's quote unquote
family. And I had learned. It took me a

(39:40):
while, but I had learned, like, it doesn't matter
what the title is, you have to look at
the behavior.
So I started addressing the behavior and not the
title and standing firm with my boundary that, I
don't care who you are. I don't care what
your title is. You could have gave birth to
me. I don't care. Toxic behavior is not okay.
So now that I've shown that to my kids

(40:03):
through their own lives, they are now sharing those
lessons with their friends. Like, you hear. I hear
them on the phone, or they're telling a story
about a friend. Well, I had to tell her,
it doesn't matter how long you've known that person.
The toxic behavior's not okay. So it's like, yeah,
okay, they're learning something. They're picking up something. And

(40:25):
I had learned through my therapist, I was telling
you earlier, the acronym fog. Fog. Fear, obligation, and
guilt don't allow anyone to use those tactics to
manipulate you into doing something.
And once I started to set boundaries and keep
certain family members at a distance or choose not
to interact with certain family members, there was a

(40:48):
lot of thoughts directed my way. Wow. Fear. They're
saying, well, you know, what if that person dies
tomorrow or whatever? The obligation. Oh, but that's your
sibling, or that's your family, or that's your whatever.
And then the whole guilt.
Guilt. Oh, but it's Christmas. How can you not?
No, no. So part of my healing, again, it's

(41:11):
uncomfortable, but part of my healing is now recognizing
other toxic behavior. And when I see it, putting
my foot down and remaining firm in my boundaries,
do not accept that. Yeah, it's important. And that
is so good. With the holiday season approaching us
now, I can't tell you how many different angles

(41:34):
of fog in terms of who's feeling sentimental, who's
feeling left out. Who's feeling like, oh, I hope
you don't have one of those great two second
Instagram reel pictures and I'm not included this time.
It's insane. Yeah. And I want to ask people,

(41:57):
like, in the midst of us having or pinpointing
that same exact situation, how many of us are
guilty in terms of having that type of perspective
and then putting it on somebody to also be
a part of that? Oh, it's Christmas. The person

(42:21):
abuses you 364 days a year, but the one
day you need to put on a smile because
what I think the more that I choose to
honor me, the more it upsets me.

(42:41):
Right. The more that. So I've understood that the
more that I study and understand myself, the more
it helps me to understand other people and have
compassion and empathy for them. But at the same
time, it upsets people. Yeah. So it's so challenging

(43:02):
other people. Well, everyone projects their own insecurities. Sometimes
it's unintentional. Sometimes it's intentional. But as you are
doing the work, you'll hear the comments, you'll hear
them louder. You'll see the behavior. You'll notice the
pattern. This on Facebook probably a year ago, or.

(43:22):
I don't know.
I can't remember. But I said, heal the ears.
Hear differently. Like that. When you are stuck in
your trauma, when you haven't done the work, when
you are, you have these negative habits, you. Everything
that someone says is an offense. And because that

(43:45):
version of that person is so focused on being
victim, everything that they hear, they will internalize and
personalize themselves and think that it is about them.
Wow. I don't know how many people just came
to my mind, because I'm always like, I didn't
say that. Right? What is wrong with you? Right?

(44:07):
So. Oh, my God. Their brain, the way that
it processed those words, was internalized based on their
perception, their trauma, their hurt, their environment, their memories,
their world. Wow. Right? So they may not have
actually heard the actual words that you sent out.

(44:27):
I'm always like, it's not about you. I. There's
so many people that I'm like, it's not about
you. I was just saying, like, it's not about
you.
And that clarifies. That's a good saying. Healed ears
hear differently. I love, love, love that. What I
feel like, the more work that I do, I

(44:47):
will quietly listen not only to what someone says,
how they say it, the context within it, the
body language. It's almost like the unhealed version of
me would have heard that and been like, well,
what are they trying to say? Oh, they don't.
They don't think that I. Now you hear someone
say something and you're like, that says more, a

(45:12):
lot. It says a lot more about where they
are than where I am. So it's learning where
to direct the energy. And a lot of people,
what I'm noticing, a lot of people's perspective is
based out of fear. Even the toughest of the
toughest people. There's a fear of losing something, fear

(45:36):
of losing control, resources, significance. There's always some type
of fear behind it that has become super evident
to me over the past couple of months, or
I'll just be talking to somebody about something, and
their perspective is so, like, irking to me, like,

(45:58):
nothing's gonna happen.
You know what I mean? Or if something does
happen, there's always a way, you know? But there's
this fear based and speaking transparently, just speaking with
my husband, where he's more of the. And I'm
more of the creative person. And there's the fear

(46:19):
of when you become that person that's always so
serious and always so feeling like you have. You're
the one that has to hold everything together. You
can almost turn your ears off of what's actually
happening and create your own reality. And you. You

(46:43):
stop hearing your loved ones. You stop hearing the
demands, the needs, how to create a friendly, calm
environment, because you're just on. Because there's no emotional
connection. Yeah. Physically doing things. Interesting enough. Probably not
the greatest example right now, but I remember years

(47:06):
ago, there was a red table talk with Jada
Pinkett Smith and her mom and her daughter.
And they were talking about Wilton and how he
strived to provide his focus, was just to provide.
Make sure they had the house and the vacations
and all of the things. And his daughter had

(47:27):
to humble him and was like, I don't care
about these things. I want you. She wanted. She
wanted quality time with her father. She wanted his
presence, but he was so focused on providing. So
I feel like it's important one to understand how

(47:49):
somebody needs to be loved. Yeah. Very often, people
will project onto you how they want to love
you.
Yes. And obviously, you're not going to receive it
that way because that's not your love language. Nope.
You're just like, sir. Yes. So, naturally, as humans,
we're wired for connection, but everyone connects differently, how

(48:14):
our brain processes it different. So if. If one
person is acting out of pure emotion, that's not
good. That's one sided. And if the other person
is, like, not emotional and is just doing the
action, that's extreme on the other side.

(48:35):
Yeah. Right. So it's both, you know, having emotion,
having compassion and empathy and all those things, and
doing the action. But if we look at someone
else and try to understand from their perspective, not
from ours, I think very often the reason why
a lot of communication is messed up and broken

(48:57):
down is because the words and information, people are
trying to understand it from their own understanding and
not trying to understand where that person is coming
from.
There was another acronym that I learned, love. L
U B. When someone's having a conversation with you,
l is for listen. You know, too often, someone's

(49:20):
talking to us and we're in our head going
somewhere else, not paying attention or, you know, whatever.
Like, actually listen. Don't just hear. Listen to what
that person is saying. You understand. Try to understand
from their perspective, and then be validate. Validate what
they are saying before you go on and switch

(49:41):
to your. Because you and I have had people
that love us, that because of their personality type,
it's not, they're not hearing you. You're talking to
them, and you're probably having a deep moment of
confession telling them something about your pain.
And because they're not listening with love, it's an

(50:01):
immediate. Well, I never put it at all. Yeah,
it's not about you right now. Something's always wrong
with you, and you're like, huh? Like, they're invalidating
your experience. They're not listening to you at all.
Like, so, yeah, listen. And along the same line

(50:22):
of that is people. I always say, people listen
to speak, not to understand. Yes. You're always listening
to. Okay. That's what you're saying. Well, this is
what I say. It's like sometimes if you really
listen to somebody, you actually have nothing to say
after that.
Like, you need to be quiet. I said this

(50:43):
before. I don't. Maybe I said, I said this
somewhere. It's like sometimes somebody can, if you're really
coming with a love ear, L U v, ear,
you have never metal. Yeah. Because you need to
go think about that and be able to properly
respond to the person. We live in a world
where we do not listen. And that's why, like,

(51:05):
I just want to thank you, too, because the
podcast has enabled people to speak, enabled people to
share.
I was sharing with you, too. There was a
time one day where I just took a step
back that day, and I just kept asking strangers,
like, how are you? And the amount of conversations
I had that day because people want to be

(51:27):
heard. Yeah. Nobody listens to anybody anymore. And it's
sad. It really is sad. So I kind of
want to jump into a little bit of the
success with the podcast and just share with me
maybe some highlight moments. What is your highlight moment?
Anything you want to share about highlight moment? I

(51:53):
mean, in terms of, like, some success.
I feel like when I started the podcast, being
someone who is so introverted, I was like, I
don't even know what I'm doing. I don't like
the sound of my own voice. How am I
gonna do this? I want to talk. I'm not
a talkative person. Blah, blah, blah. I had the
story that I was telling myself, and two years
in, I was like, okay, I'm gonna take a
break. And I took a break for a couple

(52:15):
weeks, and I was thinking to myself, is anybody
really listening to this? How do I even know?
And that's when I started really looking at the
analytics and there's, like, a website that I guess
it takes all the RSS feeds from all the
podcasts that are active. And so two years in,
that's when I found out that I was in
the top 2% of the world of most popular

(52:38):
podcasts.
I was like, how? My brain couldn't process it.
I was like. At the time, I was recording
every episode in my bed, wrapped with my head
tied on like nobody could see me, no video.
Half the time, I wasn't well. I was going
through health challenges. I was like, oh, okay, so
people are listening.
I should continue. I'm doing something. So I continued.

(52:59):
And then when I switched it, I think it
was right before I switched it to the healer
podcast, but because of the direction of the conversations,
then it went up to the top one, and
I started paying more attention to global rankings because
I find here in Toronto, there's a lot, a
lot of, I'm gonna say, superficial accolades, where it's

(53:20):
like popularity contest and things like that. These award
shows that are based on how people, you know,
that vote for you or things like that, each
their own. I gave to each their own. But
I feel like I have evolved from that. If
that's your thing, that's fine. If that's what your
version of success is, that's fine, but it's not.
It's not mine. So when I started paying attention

(53:44):
to the actual numbers and global rankings and seeing
that the show was ranking number one in this
country and number five in this country, and I'm
thinking, people, listen to my podcast in China, what
you know, is there subtitles? Like, my mind was
blown where my away listeners were coming from. So

(54:04):
to me, that spoke volumes to me, especially with
the story that I was telling myself. I was
like, oh, people actually do want to listen to
me.
People are actually hearing what I have to say.
And then I feel like another part of the
success for me has just been the feedback, the
DM's that I get. I get emotional when I

(54:26):
get the messages about the podcast and how it
impacted someone's life, because I feel like, again, you
know, it was originally just like, oh, let me,
you know, see if I can put a podcast
out there and see if I can get some
leads for my business. And then it switched to
having such deep impact and it helped with my
healing journey. But I was like, oh, it's actually

(54:49):
helping people. It's healing people, it's opening up conversations,
it's creating safe spaces where people who maybe in
their house listening to the podcast by themselves and
they hear someone successful have the exact same story
and they're like leaving crying voice notes in my

(55:09):
DM's on Instagram saying, like, those things make me
cry.
I feel like I had an aha moment a
few years ago and I was like, what was
I put here to do? What is my purpose?
I was put here to heal. I'm a healer.
And when I first said that to myself, I

(55:30):
was like, no, that's a bit audacious. And then
I started to see the impact that the podcast
was having.
And I think part of my old paradigm, my
old way of thinking, the old story that I'm
telling myself about me being an introvert, me being
shy, me not wanting to hear my voice, all
those things have shifted where, yes, I'm still an

(55:53):
introvert, I'm still shy, but I'm making such an
impact that even if I never get a dime
off of having conversations, it's healing me, it's healing
the guests, it's healing who are listening. And because
podcasts are long form content, so your engagement is
not going to be like social media.

(56:16):
We're short form content. People are looking at a
couple seconds. You may have high views or numbers
when someone starts a podcast. Most people, I think
they said the number was very low. Majority of
people don't make it past seven episodes or something
because they give up. It's a long term thing,
it's a marathon, but people will look at their

(56:39):
starting numbers and think that no one's listening or
it's too hard or any of those things. But
if you look at your numbers. Whether your numbers
are 25 listeners, whether it's 100 listeners, whether it's
a thousand listeners, and you see that number consistently
on episodes. Think about those numbers as actual souls,

(57:01):
because they are. Because they are. But it's so
easy to look at a number and be dismissive
and think that you're not doing enough or you're
not doing good enough.
So it's like there are thousands of people listening
to the sound of my voice every week. There
are thousands of people who return. There are thousands
of people around the world that are tuning in

(57:22):
to hear these conversations. Like, I want to cry
right now because it's like, I never thought that
little girl who didn't have a voice would be
here. We're both like, don't cry. Don't cry. Woo,

(57:45):
child. Yeah. I resonate with the healing. I resonate
with the healing.
And I believe that those of us that have
been hurt so much, I believe that you do
get to wear the healing badge. I believe that

(58:08):
you have what it. You have to give. You
have healing to give. Especially when you say to
yourself, and you're honest with yourself and you get
up every day and you choose to trust God
and you choose to see the good and everything,
and you choose to get up and heal yourself,

(58:30):
then, yeah, you become a healer for sure.
Hands down. So I don't even know, like, we're
both like, kind of, like, both of our voices
are clear. Yeah, I'm just going to. On that

(58:52):
note, I just want to end this conversation, which
I'm really, truly thankful for. This was just a
conversation we were having maybe last week where she
was checking in on me and I was like,
I don't even know.
I don't even know I'm here. And then we
started talking and I was like, you know what?

(59:13):
We should have a conversation and show everybody how
much you have evolved, how much you're doing, how
much you're impacting people and, you know, give you
your flowers. I'm giving you your flowers. I have
an amazing friend, I have an amazing sister who

(59:33):
is doing amazing things. And do not cry. Don't
do it. We're both empty. No, no, no. You
know, it's crazy. I haven't really cried in a
while, and I'm a crier, so I know definitely
some work to do here. You don't want to

(59:54):
get callous, you know, but, yeah, today you have
kind of put you. You've lubricated the back of
my eyes today.
And I'm like, honestly, I want to just I
call her Mac, but you're not allowed to call
her Mac because she's not your friend. Mac. Thank
you so much. Thank you. Thank you for sharing

(01:00:15):
and continued success. And yeah, keep doing the thing
so that I can keep doing the thing. Yes.
Amen. Right. So until next time, guys, thank you
for tuning in. Make sure you share this with
somebody out there that needs to hear this and
we will see you guys in the next episode.

(01:00:36):
Bye.
And to all you healers out there, until next
time, subscribe on all platforms and don't forget to
rate the show and leave us a review on
Apple Podcast. I just want to thank each and
every one of you that continues to listen each
week to help the show rank globally in the
top 1.5% of most popular shows out there. And

(01:00:58):
there are over 3 million if you can think
of. I'm going to challenge you to three friends
that are parents that need to hear this conversation,
that are also on their healing journey. Please share
it with them. Feel free to screenshot this week's
episode. You can tag angel at my purpose lifestyle

(01:01:18):
and you can tag myself, ereal bikini Smith. A
healthy community is a healing community.
And a healing community is full of.
Hope because it has seen its own people whether
survive and thrive. Let's continue to heal her.