Personal Growth through Battling Internal Conflicts with Sonja Renee / E29

In this profoundly riveting episode 29 of Fraud Busting Neo-Fraus's podcast, we welcome a distinguished guest, Sonja Renee, who is a highly respected speaker, author, and renowned specialist in abandonment trauma. Sonja shares a profoundly riveting narrative about her life, and introduces her exceptionally pivotal book, focused on healing the unseen scars of abandonment trauma.

Link to Sonja's web site: http://linktr.ee/iamsonjarenee

Sonja Renee presents an introspective journey about her own experiences, including the emotional rollercoaster of discovering her adoption at the age of 49. She outlines the complex intricacies of her relationships, and how the revelation impacted her interaction with her birth parents and those around her. Manifesting her resilience and mental fortitude, Sonja embarked on a self-driven quest for emotional healing, manifesting destiny in her book. Link to purchase Sonja's book: https://www.amazon.com/Abandonment-Not-Your-Fault-Abundance/dp/B0B1K5LMS1

In her informative discourse, Sonja unveils the less-talked-about trauma wounds that are often linked with abandonment. These wounds, which could include overgiving, threatening to leave, being clingy, codependency, and trust issues, often lie dormant until triggered. Sonja emphasizes the significance of identifying and harnessing relationships that heal these wounds, thus empowering people to thrive and lead fulfilling lives. Her book, acted as a blueprint for this journey, has now become a lifeline for others battling similar internal conflicts.

With an extraordinary vulnerability, Sonja shares the process of penning her personal experiences into a book in a span of just 30 days. She describes the euphoric moment of holding her first published book, and transcending the private confines of her life to reveal her authentic self to the world. Drawing strength from her painful past, Sonja is turning her pain into purpose.

The latter part of the discussion also reveals Sonja's insights into her upcoming revision of her first book. This revised edition aims to delve deeper into the varied wounds under the umbrella of abandonment trauma, providing a more detailed analysis of the wound, the type of relationship that harbors the wound, and the steps to healing the wound. Sonja believes that healing the wound means strengthening the relationship or walking away from it – either way, it empowers people to disconnect with what's holding them back, enabling them to live their most amazing life.

The interview concludes with Sonja extending advice about resilience to the listeners. She underscores the importance of self-love, of nurturing oneself, of setting boundaries and maintaining peace. It was an uplifting dialogue on the importance of resilience and reaffirms that all of us have the power to heal and grow.

Enjoy listening! Buy me a coffee: https://www.buymeacoffee.com/neofraus

Episode Transcript

(00:00):
Music.

(00:07):
Hello and welcome to Fraud Busting Neo-Fraud's podcast.
It is the only podcast for female fraud professionals
and their allies who want to stay on top of the fraud awareness spectrum in
order to thrive professionally while maximizing their happiness and having the
courage to create the life they love. Thank you for listening.

(00:33):
Hi, everyone, and welcome to the new episode of the Neo-Fraus podcast.
Today, we have a special guest, which is Sonia Rene,
and she's here today to share an important message with the audience and talk
a little bit about her very, very important and valuable book that she's written.

(00:54):
But without further ado, I'd like to give Sonia the floor.
Hi, Sonia. Hi, how are you today?
I am doing wonderful. And thank you so much for making the time to interview with us today.
I'd like to quickly jump into our conversation and ask you first to share with

(01:15):
the audience a little bit about yourself, you know, who you are and what you do.
Okay, great. Well, I'm Sonia Renee. I am a mom of three and a grandmother of
one beautiful great grandson.
And I am a speaker and author. And I speak about the invisible wound that leaves
us emotionally hurt, which is abandonment trauma.

(01:37):
And through awareness and personal development, I help people bounce back to
living with their most amazing life.
So when I was 49 years old, I found out that I was adopted by accident.
And so that took me on a deep dive to get some answers answers as to why I was
never told and what were the details surrounding my adoption.

(01:58):
My birth, my mother who raised me passed away when I was 28 years old.
So the only person I had to go to was my father and he was not very open with
giving some answers at the time because he was in shock that I found out.
So, you know, having the conversations with my father and other family members
and then also getting to know my birth family, which was really great.

(02:20):
They were very open and inviting and welcoming to me on both sides.
I have two sisters by my birth mother and by my birth father.
I am the only child. He never had any other children.
So he was elated to find out he had a daughter and grandchildren and a great
grandchild. And so with all of that.

(02:40):
It really made me start to examine my relationships because my birth mother
was not ready to get to know me,
which I understood because now she had to deal with healing from the traumas
that she had surrounding this moment in time as well when I was born.
So I gave her that grace to do so. But what I didn't realize was in doing so

(03:04):
and not being in communication with her, I I felt abandoned by the same person
twice, which was my birth mother.
So I said, you know what? Let me go on a journey of healing that because I didn't
want to feel like I needed to have that connection in order for me to feel whole and complete.
So I took on a journey to start doing the healing work.

(03:27):
And I was journaling one morning and God spoke to me so clearly and said,
write a book on abandonment.
And I said, what? what? I don't know anything about abandonment because I only
associated abandonment trauma with being needy or clingy and I'm neither.
However, I started writing the book and I was like, God, you're just going to

(03:49):
have to tell me what to write.
And as I'm writing, I realized that there were,
there's other abandonment trauma wounds outside of being needy and clingy where
I did have, I would overgive in a relationship because if you see my value,
then you'll appreciate me and stick around.

(04:10):
In my marriage, if my ex-husband was really doing some things that was really
harming our relationship, I would threaten to leave, which is a manipulation
tactic to make him do right. right.
But you can't make a person do what a person is supposed to do.
You can just let them be who they are and you decide if you want to participate in it.

(04:31):
So with all of that and writing the book.
What I realized was I started to examine my relationships past and present and
how these wounds harness these relationships.
So I did the healing work to heal these relationships, detached from the relationships
that were not healthy for me, regardless of who the person is,

(04:53):
and put that in my book of the type of relationships I had that harnessed these
wounds, how I healed from these relationships, and now helping other people do the same.
And now I'm also writing my second book, which is more so like a revision to
put in more detail the types of wounds that there are, because it's a big umbrella

(05:14):
for abandonment trauma.
You have so many other wounds that are associated under the umbrella of abandonment,
which is trust issues, depression, threatening to leave, overgiving, clingy,
codependency i mean so many other wounds that
are attached and they're lying dormant in people and
they're not aware that they have these wounds until they're triggered and even

(05:36):
when they're triggered they don't know why they're triggered because they haven't
identified the wound because they don't understand that the relationship that
they're in is harnessing that wound it's keeping them attached to that person
so my book is to say okay this is what's going on so now Now people can have
a blueprint of what to do,
how to do it, so that they can heal and start to live their best life.

(06:01):
Thank you so much, Sonia, for sharing this information about your book and also your story.
I think what you're doing is wonderful.
And I personally find this as being a sort of a tool of eye-opening, right?
Because as you mentioned, people may not be realizing some of the struggles
that they They have some of the wounds that they have experienced,

(06:23):
and that in itself is being sort of a blind spot in their life and preventing
them from living their best life.
So what you shared is definitely wonderful. Wonderful.
And I will be sharing the link in this podcast to the audience to purchase your

(06:44):
book and to get familiar even more with your tools that you're providing in there.
Did it take, I'd like to ask you this question, did it take long for you to write your book?
And how do you feel after you've written it and it's already out there for being purchased by people?
I wrote my book in 30 30 days.

(07:06):
It only took me 30 days to put pen to paper because the emotions were just pouring
out the moments in time of the type of relationships I had, especially in the
past and how those relationships made me feel.
It just all just start pouring out. And so I really, really dove into it.

(07:28):
And I had the book written in 30 days.
And then over the next couple of weeks, it was published.
Wonderful. That's definitely very, very impressive.
So how do you feel? Do you feel joy and accomplishment after publishing the book?

(07:49):
Absolutely. Well, for starters, after I finished writing the book,
I was in a wow factor moment for myself that I didn't even realize that I had
these things lying dormant in me for so long.
So that was a very big eye opener.
And also, I was grateful that I took the time to write the book because it also
gave me the power to do the healing work.

(08:10):
And I really felt more empowered. I feel like I took my power back.
I felt more in control of my life. And I felt really good when the book was
published and the first box came to my home.
Oh, I was so excited. And I was like, oh, my gosh, I can't believe I'm an author.
And there's a little bit of nervousness sometimes because I was vulnerable in this book.

(08:33):
I was very, very vulnerable and transparent about my personal life with the world.
And I'm a private person. person so being a private
person and then being so open and
vulnerable and transparent about my personal life and
the challenges that I went through growing up and even in my adult life with
family friends and even in my marriage I was married for 16 years and so just

(08:57):
seeing that come together and and putting that out there for the world to see
it was a little like oh my gosh Gosh, I don't know, but you know what?
It's a part of my process because I realized that God was showing me how to
turn my pain into purpose.
Definitely. That's impressive. Thanks so much for sharing.

(09:17):
And you mentioned you're writing a second book, is that right?
Tell us a little bit about that one.
So that one is more of a revision of the first book.
So in the first book, I speak about the types of relationships that harness
these wounds, But also, so now in the revision,
adding on to, like I said, the different types of wounds that are under the

(09:40):
umbrella of abandonment trauma. So here's the wound.
And I have a detailed description of the wound, the types of relationships that harness the wound.
So people can identify if that's the type of relationship that they're in.
And then also steps of keys to take away of how to heal that wound.

(10:03):
And because here's the deal, if you heal the wound, either you're going to heal
the relationship or you're going to walk away from it.
But either way, it gives you the strength and the power to disconnect from something
that could be keeping you from living your most amazing life.
And then it'll also have in there a call to action and a takeaway for the person
to journal because when they're journaling, and they're journaling their journey,

(10:26):
and to see where they started and to see where they end up because I'm all about the transformation.
That's absolutely amazing. And Sonia, just for the audience to share a little
bit how to find your second book in the future, they would need to go to same, I guess if it's Amazon,

(10:47):
same link with your first book so that they could find your second one in the future. Is that right?
Yes and no. So you will be able to go to Amazon, but they'll give me a second
link. usually they'll have, if you go to my account, it'll show you the books
that I have available and you can just click on the one that you want.

(11:09):
Also with my website, my link to my website, it has the links on there so they
can just, when they click on that website link, when it opens up,
it'll show them all the links and the name of the book will be there.
They can click on it and it goes straight to Amazon and they can purchase the book from there. Yeah.
That's a wonderful Wonderful information for our audience to be aware of how

(11:32):
to find your books in the future and now your first book.
And to conclude our wonderful conversation today, I'd like to ask you this question.
What kind of advice you could provide to women out there and the audience,
you know, in general on the topic of resilience, how to remain resilient through

(11:53):
difficult moments in life?
You have to understand that how a person treats you says everything about them and nothing about you.
And it's not your job to take on the accountability of other people's behaviors.
It's not your job to fix people that you didn't break and problems that you didn't create.
The only flower in the garden that you should water is you.

(12:15):
It is okay to be selfish with yourself.
It is okay to put yourself first. It is okay to set healthy boundaries for yourself
self and for other people so that you can maintain your peace.
And that's how you stay resilient. Thank you so much, Sonia.
I think that's a really wonderful advice.

(12:35):
Thanks for sharing your wisdom today with the audience.
And thank you for attending this interview today.
And thanks everyone for listening. Stay healthy and happy.
Music.