Shemergence: Session 3 | Silent Battles Healing From What No One Saw - Emerge & Empower Podcast TV

Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome to Emerge and Empower podcast TV, a platform where
resilience meets transformation. Here we amplify voices that have faced trials, trauma,
and adversity, stories that inspire hope, healing and empowerment. Every
episode brings raw, unfiltered conversations with individuals who have risen

(00:21):
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we break the silence, uplift one another, and emerge stronger together.
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Speaker 2 (00:46):
Hello everyone on Welcome to Emerge and Empower with your host,
Doctor Lynn J. Now, as you know, we are running
a series that's called The Shee Mergins Virtual con Friends,
where we have individuals coming on this platform and sharing
their stories of the moment where they felt unworthy undeserving

(01:09):
of love. But on today we continue with Session three.
Session three are again we've ended up coming on the
platform sharing their individual experiences through a few guided questions.
So what you need to do is go ahead and
get in the front row seat right now. I don't
know where you are, where you're packed, where you're going.

(01:31):
But what you need to do is subscribe, subscribe, subscribe, subscribe.
It is time. Doctor Lynjay is here and we are
here every Tuesday until the last Tuesday in September. So
we come on and just share it with your friends,
share it with your audience, share it in your groups
wherever you want, because listen, I don't know everyone that

(01:54):
you know. But as we connect together, we can reach
more individuals and the purpose is for each of us
to heal for real. Healing is a beautiful thing now
as we take off these layers. It's never easy, right,
even if you had an old scab, when you try
to peel that off, it will bleed. But we do

(02:16):
understand the healing process. So you might need someone to
talk to. Not sure if you can talk to. There
have been diverse individuals that have been on here from
different backgrounds who can help you relate. Find someone that
is relatable. Don't go through this alone, all right, There

(02:40):
is help out there for you, and our desire is
for you to emerge, to come away from such pains,
to come away from the secret that has been so
disabling to you, the secret that has been keeping you
trapped and everything that you have done. You seem to

(03:00):
can't get away from it. It's time to talk about it.
It's time to heal for real. If you're a part
of a church group, if you're a part of an organization,
there are things in your community, community centers that you
can go to for healing. I want to encourage you
to seek this healing. Seek the healing today. Start today,

(03:23):
All right, start today. We'll be bringing all I guess
on at this time and will go through a short
break best seller soon to be New York Times bestseller.

Speaker 3 (03:35):
All right, introduce yourself.

Speaker 2 (03:37):
Hi everyone.

Speaker 4 (03:38):
My name is doctor Linda Joseph, and I'm a pastor, mentor,
life coach and basically the books about my journey, and
it's a journey to healing. It starts from my childhood
to life and marriage and too helping other people heal.

Speaker 2 (03:52):
So my whole point of view is making you be
the better person that God.

Speaker 5 (03:57):
Created you to me.

Speaker 2 (03:58):
Ay, all right, everyone, we are back. We are back,
and look at this beautiful guest. These ladies are beautiful
and you can tell that their healing is radiant because
you can see the confidence on the screen, like I
can't wait, you know, I can't wait. To start talking.
I can't wait to sheare And also this is a

(04:21):
platform to voice welcome ladies to the she Mergons Virtual Conference. Welcome, Welcome, Welcome.
I am so excited that each and everyone are you
are here on today? All right, So we have Kelly,
we have Ashton, and we have Sue. Ladies, go ahead
and let everyone know that you are connected to she Mergons,

(04:42):
the Virtual Conference on Emerge and empower. Go ahead and
introduce yourselves, one at a time.

Speaker 5 (04:50):
I'll go first. My name is Kelly Morgan. I am
owner of Bright Headed Publishing and I'm connecting from Aurora, Colorado.

Speaker 2 (04:58):
Yay yalay. Hello.

Speaker 3 (05:02):
I'm Ashton, Mania. I am a teacher, seer, and mentor
for grounded mystics. This also includes very very powerful intuitive women.

Speaker 2 (05:14):
Yes, yes, love it, love it, love it. Let's go outday.
Come on, we get excited. I get excited for people
just wanting to step out of bed. Okay, that's a
big thing. Go ahead, Sue.

Speaker 6 (05:27):
I am Sue. I am connecting from Ohio. I am
an a SEC certified Master Life and Mental Health coach,
passionate about breaking the stigma around mental health and work
with the intersection of faith and mental health that comes
out through my organization, my Step Ahead, where you only
have to be a step ahead help the person behind you,
and comes out through the books that I write. I said,

(05:49):
I'm an AC Master certified life coach and I do
love speaking as well. So but the forward to the
time today. Thanks for having me.

Speaker 2 (05:56):
Yes, welcome back Sue, who is not a stranger. If
you want to go find out about it, go back,
go back and watch. This is not a one on
one segment. This is more like a general platform. Some
of these ladies will be coming back on to share
the individual stories. But on today we're just gonna go
through the very series of questions and we're just gonna
flow from there. I know our audience can't wait your feedback.

(06:18):
You could just put in the comments, and we're excited
that you are watching us today and again this is
section three. Yay yeay, yeay yay. I am so excited
for each and every one of these women as they
will be sharing their own experience on today. Now, this
session is titled Healing from what No One saw, Healing

(06:41):
from what no one saw. Many times we say we
were invisible, right we reached out. It was like, nobody
see me, nobody can hear me, all right, but these
women have emerged from it. So we're gonna start off
with the very first question and just move right along,
and whoever wants to answer can answer first. What are
some of the silent struggles you carried that no one

(07:04):
around you recognized?

Speaker 5 (07:07):
I think I can answer first. Personally, for me and
my journey, there were two kind of struggles. One was
always body image, and so nobody really knows that you're
going through your body image thing. That's kind of your thing,
and even if you're in the process of working now,
it can be fanatical, can be unhealthy, right, but you're

(07:30):
just because you're going for what people say you should
go for. And in the process of the body image thing,
I'm also shrinking who I am because where I live
there's not a lot of people who look like me,
who sound like me, and I find myself just trying
to find out where I fit in, Where do I

(07:51):
fit in? And so that was a silent struggle because
I think I was very good at masking it and
hiding it and using humor to defle what was really happening,
and that was kind of my thing. So I was
always duye, you know, joking and happy, but inside I'm
really I'm really down on myself, and I think when

(08:11):
I when I look back, I was probably really listening
to the negative chatter in my own head and the
chatter coming from outward as well.

Speaker 2 (08:23):
I'm so glad you touched on that, because many times
we smiled through, we gran we playful about it, but
indeed it's just a mask, right, It's just a mask,
and you don't want people to see you, so, you know,
you go to jokes, you go to you know, the life.
That's why I say even people could be the life
of the party. But inside it's a whole different war

(08:46):
that's going on, all right, And we'll move right along
to the next I'll jump in, go ahead.

Speaker 3 (08:55):
I came in quite intuitive, but this wasn't something that
my nuclear family or really anyone around me was able
to heir back to me. So I was seeing things,
I was knowing things. I'm a deep, deep, deep feeler.
I'm a highly sensitive human and that was not something

(09:15):
that anyone around me not only could mentor me in,
but even acknowledge was a part of my unique experience.
And then I also arrived into a highly dysfunctional family.
I have a father who is an alcoholic and kind

(09:36):
of stereotypical narcissist, a mother who was also an EmPATH
but not in her power and would dissociate and leave
her body going to catatonic states hospital, will be hospitalized
for dissociating. And then an adopted brother who is nine
months younger than me, who also came from a really
traumatic start in life, which meant I very quickly became

(09:58):
his mother, anningly to myself at the time. And so
it's very much so this parentified child because I was
intuitive and I was wise, and I have you know,
the wounded healer kind of archetype throughout my life. So
I was, you know, looked at and viewed at as
the harmony point or the strong point, the peacekeeper, or

(10:21):
the one who's going to keep things together. But me
being held wasn't something that was common, and when I
would seek support, I found that oftentimes it created a
heavier weight for me because I wasn't being understood in
who I was or what I was genuinely navigating through.

Speaker 2 (10:40):
Yeah, you said, you said a lot, and I think
we need to actually probably allow you to break that
down because there was a lot of masking and different
so many different levels there, right, because you were dealing
with so much so you had to also deal with
your father, your mother, your brother, So you're different all

(11:01):
of these people while you yourself being a young child,
all right. So that's a lot adults can't really do
that well, let alone for you to be a child,
you know, but that's a lot of masking, all right.
So Sue, we'll go to you and then we can
always come back to African if she wants to talk
a little bit more there.

Speaker 6 (11:21):
Yeah, I think for me just to share a snippet
of my story, I'm a childhood rape survivor. I was
raped by a classmate when I was seven years old
after school one day, and it was a fifteen year secret.
I didn't tell anyone for fifteen years to my senior
year of college. And when I look back now, I
see so many things and the way that hurt was

(11:43):
coming out that I didn't know. I was trying to
say it and others didn't know how to hear, and
I didn't know what to look for I should say.
So some of the thing ways that came out, I
certainly I've struggled with depression. I've struggled with anxiety. I've
twice considered ending my life. I've dabbled it cutting, I'm
in recovery from an eating disorder, all these things, but

(12:04):
one of the cruxes of it all was my worth.
Do I have value? I think that was one of
my silent struggles, that that I'm able to put words
to now, But do I matter?

Speaker 5 (12:16):
Do you know?

Speaker 6 (12:18):
Am I worth worthy of someone spending time with me?
And will they love me for who I am? Not
what I do? Because similar to Kelly and Ashton, I
wore a lot of masks, and mine was if I
was seen, I have value and if I if I
was seen, then I mattered. So for me, my overactivity

(12:41):
in high school and college, my wanting to be be
the one that you could depend on, all those things
were some of those silent struggles that I didn't know
then were part of me needing to be validated because
I was told from a very young age that I
didn't matter. My perpetrator left the other side of the
woods and said, don't tell anybody, and I listened to it. Now,

(13:03):
this was early seventies, so rape was not on the radar.
It wasn't something I didn't know what happened, No one
knew to ask anything, and then just continue to perpetuate
because as you know in your listeners and participants know,
is that trauma literally rewires your brain. So from the start,
I didn't get a chance to be a normal kid.

(13:25):
So anything I did was compensating for that desire to
be seen, to matter, to know that I meant something
to somebody. And as we talk, that'll be a common
theme through some of the other things we talk about today.
But one of the biggest silent struggles for me was
do I matter? Do I have worth? And will someone

(13:49):
see me and love me and accept me for who
I am, not what I do even when I feel
so totally broken and messed up, Because that was one
of the things I've asking too.

Speaker 2 (14:03):
Each and every one of you. Basically, when we go
back to it, it's about that worth. Am I worthy?
Am I deserving? You know? In my case, I looked
at the people who were supposed to love me were
the ones that were hurting me. So being the eldest,
I took care of siblings. I was always doing, doing,

(14:23):
doing overly overly. You're the oldest, you have to do
this the youngest are gonna follow you. You gotta get
good grades. You got to do this. You know, have
to be the mom to my brothers and my sisters,
you know, being seven years old and taking them to
the doctor, okay, because my mom couldn't. So I had
to become a growing up, you know, taking care of

(14:45):
younger kids. So childhood, I'm like, what was childhood? Kids
were playing dollhouse? I had a real life, right, I
was really cooking and cleaning, and you know it was real.
It wasn't toy. It wasn't something that I could do.
Right now, Okay, it's break time, you know, go away
from that. So you question yourself, you know, am I

(15:06):
deserving of love? Why are all of these things happening
to me? Right? And that brings you to the place
of low self esteem also all right, and you feel
like whatever happened, all the bad things should happen to you,
you know, because I guess I deserve that, right, I
guess I deserve that. So these are the places where

(15:29):
we talk about the worth. Right are you worthy? Are
you worthy for healing? Even to ask yourself, I'm not
even worthy to be healing. Should I even spend the
time That's why a lot of people don't want to
talk about these hurts, and they keep them and they
it's been twenty years, thirty years, like you say, seventies
for you, with seventies for me, it was eighties right

(15:51):
in the eighties. I remember growing up, this was the
new norm. There was young kids, babies having babies. That's
not it in the eighties, children that were eleven and
twelve getting pregnant. You understand, this is what was happening.
That's what I saw, you know, that was what it
was in the community. I remember there used to be

(16:11):
a magazine and you would see the young schoolgirls and
they talk about being a relationship with these older men. Right,
it was something to achieve. When I look at that,
I see that as a place of heurd Something broke, right,
something broke within them. All right. So, Kelly, I don't
know if you should go back to the next question

(16:32):
or you wanted to talk a little bit further about
the silent struggle.

Speaker 5 (16:46):
I think we can do a little bit of both.
I think for me, the silent struggle was in hindsight,
a whole nother person, right, It was a whole persona
that I put on on a daily and depending on
who I was talking to, who I was dealing with.

(17:07):
I was not only switching because you know, I didn't
feel worthy because I was heavy. I carried a lot
of weight, and when I was growing up, people didn't
look like me, so I would never look like the
people who I was going to be around, so I
never felt worthy. Right growing up in Salt Lake City,
every nobody looked like me. There were no brown people around,

(17:28):
so I didn't really have an identity. And the funny
thing is I didn't even know what code switching was
wow until I figured it. Until I read an article
as an adult, I figured out, and I thought, all
these years, I have literally been code switching at work
where everybody is white and I have to be a
certain way, I have to act a certain way, but
they're still not going to fully accept me. Right, And

(17:50):
then when I go to people who look like me,
I sound a certain way and now they now they
believe that I'm trying to be something that i'm so
they're not accepting me either. And with all of that,
I am completely overweight, obese, and just really trying to
be accepted and it is not working on any level

(18:11):
for me. And the whole time, I am still jolly Kelly,
and just like Sue, I want to be seen too, right,
So I'm people pleasing, I'm people pleasing everybody. I'm not
saying no to everybody. And that even spilled over into
my business, right and so now I'm not I'm not
even running a business the way that I should because

(18:34):
I'm out here chasing validation in my personal and in
my professional life and I don't even yet recognize it.
So I'm not even recognizing it yet. I'm like on
a hamster wheel. And that's kind of That was a
silent struggle for me for a very long time. It
wasn't until I actually started listening to me. I had

(18:59):
no mentor there was nobody around to say, hey, it
was crying in my closet because I'm a private crier.
I like to cry in silence because I don't know.
I don't know where I got the idea that crying
is weakness. I don't know where I picked that up.
Probably somewhere in my childhood. Somebody must have chastised me
for crying, but I don't know when. But I feel

(19:20):
like even today I have a hard time. I felt
that's vulnerable and if you can see my vulnerabilities, you
won't like me anymore. Right, So I have to put
on this teflon mask and wear this every single day,
and I only take it off when I'm alone. And
when I do take it off, I'm exhausted, I'm tired,
I'm broken, and all I can do is cry, and

(19:41):
at this point cry and eat.

Speaker 2 (19:44):
Wow. Wow, that says a lot there. That's a lot
in there because not only and I can say this
because you're in an environment where no one looks like you,
so you learn to ad very quickly. Then you go

(20:04):
into a environment where people do look like you, like
who does she think she is? You understand? And in
the midst of that, you're broken. I'm trying on both
sides here, like give me a break, right, That becomes
overwhelming in itself, all right, And I understand the private

(20:27):
crying because believe it or not, I would say somebody did.
Somebody did say to you, stop crying, because we only
react from an action that had happened. Somebody said it,
stop crying, stop doing this, YadA YadA. So now you

(20:48):
feel like I'm gonna cry, I'm gonna still cry, but
I'm gonna do it on my own terms, right, right,
and go into your closet, because it internally we cry
even though we don't actually share them physically as well,
because that's the internal closet. Right. You're smiling, it looks
like you're smiling, but inside you're crying and you're dying.

(21:13):
Like I was the smiling person when people looked at me.
I was always grinning, right because I don't want you
to see me. I don't want you to see my pain.
So I was always they looked at me to the
point it was silly, and I would say to myself internally,
why are you smiling? Why you looking? Why you're grin
and silly? You know, stuff like that. You see, So

(21:33):
let's go to Ashton.

Speaker 3 (21:36):
What was coming through for me as I was listening
is a sort of unique experience that I find that
those who are highly intuitive, who see right, they see
what they're not seen, they feel what they're not fully felt,
they can support and heal, and then they feel like
I don't have support in my own healing. Yeah, And

(21:59):
so what I was hearing is like what happens when
you show up fully expressed in your essence and people
don't see you. So for me, it wasn't so much
about masking. It was more so like being like revealing
myself over and over again, to not be received, to

(22:20):
not be heard, to not be understood, to not be felt.
And when you are someone like I soul level of tune,
I can attune to your soul. And when I tune
to someone's soul, it's like nourishment for their spirit. Like
I do this in client sessions and people are like,

(22:41):
no one has ever felt me there, no one has
ever seen me there, no one has ever marred that
about me, And you start to come alive. And so
we're meant to have these kind of mirroring reflections that
happen in our human interactions that bring us more to
life life, but where we as humans have blocks to

(23:04):
things that like even feeling sensations right like we're talking about,
oh my gosh, am I gonna still be loved if
I show my vulnerability if I cry in front of you,
And so there are moments where people can feel uncomfortable
with that and then they look away instead of leading

(23:25):
into us, and we think, oh no, something's wrong, like
maybe I need to not do that, and then we
start kind of hiding and cloaking ourselves up. So it's
like there's a certain level of resilience when you are like,
you know what, I'm going to open up wide. I'm
gonna go the full way. I'm gonna be so self

(23:47):
expressed and true to my experience in this moment, and
I'm gonna ask for other people to look at it
and witness it and not turn away from it. And
then if someone or others do turn away from it,
can you still anchor into the essence of your soul
and know that you are deeply worthy regardless. This has

(24:09):
been more of my experience of like being so deeply
authentic and then still not being received. And I think
that sometimes we're sold ideas about healing, like Okay, if
you just do the work, then this right, And it
doesn't always turn into the thing that we're being sold,

(24:30):
But it doesn't mean don't take that road, because there
are things that we discover along the way that we
would not have been able to otherwise.

Speaker 2 (24:41):
Indeed. Indeed, so that pretty much bring us into the
second question about how did the lack of outward signs
affect the support you receive because you're showing the signs
In my case, I spoke to a neighbor and I
told the neighbor what was going on in my home

(25:03):
because she noticed the stranger. Notice I'm in a new neighborhood,
but she notices, right, So I go over to play
with her kids, and she's realizing what's going on. At first,
I can't say because I haven't I don't know her
that well, so I have to build that trust, right,

(25:25):
And it went on. I don't know how long, because
you know, when you're little, time could say it could
be a week, but it could seem like a month
or a year. I don't know how long. But eventually
I opened up and I said what was happening. So
she later on went not to my mom, but she
went and took me in the downtown area because I'm

(25:46):
from the Bamas in Nassau. At the time, we lived
in Gamber Village, So she drove me from Gamber Village
to you know, East Bay Street area, right to my
aunt's place. Tell her what I told her, right, And
so in that case, my aunt, you know, said, okay,

(26:10):
call the police, you know, do all this stuff. And
then when we go to the police station, because we
had to go to the police station, and the police
wrote a report, and they said, I need to go
to the hospital, like for them to check me to
see if you know I was molested, you know. But
what they don't realize was I was raped and left

(26:35):
for dead a year prior. So obviously you're gonna see something,
you understand. But I was too afraid to tell that because,
like Sue, the perpetrator said, don't talk. But in my case,
he threatened to burn the house down, okay, with us

(26:57):
in it. We were renting from his mom, his family.
We lived on the same yard. So I'm afraid because
I don't want my family to get killed. So I
didn't share this. So even when I spoke to the neighbor,

(27:17):
I never told her what happened prior. I only said
what was happening at that present time, you see. And
so when they checked me to the hospital, the doctor said, yes,
you know, something did happen. I'm not surprised, right because
I already know what was the first encounter. Okay, So

(27:39):
they get to him, arrested, but it didn't last. I
don't know if he paid the cops because by the
next day he was home. My mom stayed with him,
so I had to leave the house. I told my aunt,
I'm not going back because he too went threatened that
he would slit my throat in my sleep. So there

(28:02):
was no way that was going back to that house, right,
And even though this truth came clear to my mom,
she stayed. Now I'm feeling unworthy. Don't tell me not
to feel unworthy because I'm your firstborn. I'm the one
that's been helping you take care of my brothers and
my sisters. You rely on me for everything. I was

(28:26):
the one who stayed away from school weeks on and
if somebody had a cold. But where's the love? So
now here's me. I guess I'm not deserving of love.
That's the first thing that's there. I'm not important. So

(28:48):
I stayed with my aunt. But guess what, it got
worse at my aunt's. So now I can't share it
with anybody because nothing was done. Everyone kind of like
takes size. My aunt really wanted me to go back
home to my mom, even though the perpetrator was there.

(29:10):
So where do I run to? So of course I'm cleaning, cooking,
whatever needs to be done. So she don't tell me
that I have to leave. I make myself useful, and
this was for a whole year, and I was subject
to her boyfriend now doing the same thing. To me,

(29:32):
this is worst off because to me it seems like
it was every other day. You see, So I told
it by expressing, right, But I'm sure as a child
there are signs that adults can see that something is wrong.

(29:52):
I already told you what had happened. Okay, So for
my case, no one showed up for me. So all
the people who should protect me did not. All right,
they did not, So there was no more sharing, talking,
none of that. I became withdrawn like Kelly. I went

(30:17):
to my closet. Everything was inside me, my head. Now
I decide I'm gonna stay at church because now I
don't want to be home. So I spent If they
was having a choir practice, I'm at church. They have
a committee meetings for leaders at at church. As long
as that church door was open, I choose to stay
away from. I would ask to sleep over when they

(30:40):
had fasting on different services, just so I could stay
away from. Now, wouldn't you question why a child wouldn't
want to come home? That would be a sign, right,
Why does my child want to be home. Why does
she want to hang out and stay with friends or

(31:00):
stay at the church and say I don't want to
come home to me? Those were I was side. Those
were cries for help, but no one came. I'll turn
it over to you, ladies.

Speaker 6 (31:15):
I think for me, the question is how the lack
of outward signs affect the support or lack of support
that we received. And I think for me, I was
really good, I mean really good at hiding things. When
when I was struggling with just the first time I

(31:36):
was struggling with the press my junior year of high school,
I literally would come home. I'd sit on the front
step play with my dog. Is dog is the one
that always understood and would always listen, and I would
literally stand outside the door before I opened and go okay,
and I would literally flip the switch. I was that

(31:58):
good of not letting them know. Now I ended up
that you know, anytime there's something happening, something's going to
come out. And I told a friend at school something,
and then she told a teacher who found me after school,
and that led to a phone call home and all
of the sudd I'm like, I can't be found out.
I'm the one that has no problems. I'm to go

(32:20):
to gow. I'm the good one. I get the good grades.
I do this, I do this. I don't have a problem.
I'm the responsible one. So my mom came to pick
me up after school one day and that didn't happen.
We lived about eight miles from high school in downtown Dayton,
and we take the public transportation and everything, and she
came to pick me up and I'm like, oh my gosh,

(32:41):
you've got to be kidding me. So we go to
this park and Mom says, well, I got this phone
call and they tell me that you're thinking and herding yourself.
And I'm like, wait, wait, wait, we don't talk at home.
Our family. We had this functional family that it was
good for a wow, theneapolism took over and then ended

(33:01):
up super great, great, you know, after everybody got over.
But I'm sitting there in this park and I got
to go to work, like four o'clock or whatever. I'm
sitting there telling Mom and I'm looking out the window
this behind you. My mom and I we just it
was just a we just didn't know how to communicate
and anyway, So I made up a story to Mom,

(33:26):
and I said, well, it just seemed like the house
is a revolving door and nobody's home. What I didn't
realize is that I was really telling her what the
problem was, and unfortunately, at that time, you know, the
response was more defensive. And because it's because of you

(33:47):
grew up in the Depression and you grow up all
the things that make your parents your parents. My dad
was raised in an orphanage for six or eight years.
Mom was the youngest of six and the Depression. They
both grew up in the Depression, so there's a whole
different dynamic that where I am now, I can't expect
I could not expect them to be somebody they didn't

(34:08):
have capacity to be. But this is something that I've
had to work through. But with this to answer the question,
was that I ended up telling the real problem, not
knowing that I was doing that, and it wasn't met
with understanding, and that in some ways just kind of
perpetuated what I was already thinking and feeling. And I

(34:30):
just wanted to get out of there. I just wanted
to get to work and just you know, everything's good.
After this, we had our nice little mother daughter conversation,
you know, that kind of thing. But as things got
as I went along, by the time I got to college,
I ended up any time that you're faking it, just
like Kelly said earlier and ashen as well, you are

(34:52):
just exhausted and you don't realize it. You don't realize
the games that you're playing, well, it's going to come
out in some way. You can run, but you cannot hide.
I was a running from myself and I had to
come face to face with myself instead. And when I
got to college, my lack of outward signs started becoming louder.

(35:20):
My outward sign started becoming the whispers somebody heard. And
at first it was I wanted to play basketball, but
I wasn't going to class, and it happened to be
my major. It happened to be my advisor, so you know,
it resulted an iPhone call to the DNA. Students who
called me had a conversation with me, and there was
something about that conversation where it's like Ed feels trustworthy.

(35:43):
I can talk to him, and that started changing things.
But for a while there, that lack of outward sign
just if anything, has sent me further underground, or at
least kept me shut up. But then when I got
to college and someone started seeing and hearing the whisper
and did something about it, that's when things change for me.

Speaker 2 (36:05):
Wow, thank you so much, Sue Ladies.

Speaker 5 (36:16):
Sorry I'm always muted for me. For me, I think
it was all the signs were there. As I'm really
trying to focus on, like was losing weight, my body
image and my self esteem is low. And when your
self esteem is low, you accept anybody and people start

(36:39):
to take advantage of your kindness and they think that
that kindness is weakness, and really it really is in
its way, and really getting fanatical in my weight lost journey.
So if there was a fad, if there was a
new diet, if there was a peal, if there was
a liquid, if there was a shot, it didn't matter,

(37:00):
if there was something you put under your tongue. I
spent thousands of dollars on these things but not doing
any of them, not being consistent in what I'm doing,
and chasing what I thought was validation all the time.
I'm thinking, if I can just shrink my body, then

(37:20):
you'll accept me. Right. If I can shrink, I'll be loved.
If I can shrink, I'll be worthy because everything society
tells me is in order for you to be worthy
and for you to be loved and for you to
be seen, you must be a certain way, and I'm
not it. I'm not that way. I am heavy and heavy.

(37:42):
When you are somebody who struggles with body weight, and
if you are a heavy person, not only are you
just struggling with the health issues that you're really ignoring,
because I'm ignoring all the health things, but you're struggling
internally because people who are heavy always are told that
the being jolly, and you're not. And so when you

(38:03):
are fanatical in your weight loss journey, you're trying everything.
I will tell you, ladies, at the age of forty,
I am getting in a boxing ring with women who
are half of my age, competing muy thai, trying to
prove something right, knowing that I'll never I'll never get

(38:26):
where they are, I'll never be them, but I'm emulating them.
I'm so wrapped up in what I think other people
want me to be. I don't even know who I am,
so I'm chasing and those outward signs. I'm the silent
cry for help, is trying every single fad out there.

Speaker 2 (38:46):
That's what I was gonna say.

Speaker 5 (38:47):
And that was my sign chasing. It didn't matter what
it was if it came on, and this is the
time of infomercials, right, so if it was a good infomercial,
oh my god. And they promised all their promises, knowing
deep down inside that they're probably not true, but wanting
to believe them. If I just take this pill, it

(39:09):
will solve everything. And and really honestly thinking that my
my solution is in a bottle in a box, in
a drink. That was never my solution, but that was
my that was my cry. That was those were my
outward signs because I didn't know what else to do.

(39:30):
And I'm I'm not me. I'm not being authentic to Kelly,
so I don't even know who I am, and the
people that I'm calling my friends I'm gonna find out
later aren't because when I start saying no and stop
saying yes, people tend to fall away. And that's a
whole nother story in the journey, But for me, that

(39:52):
it was the fanatical. It was that that fanatical globbing
onto everything, and that means unhealthy relation relationships too, so
making very poor choices with romantic relationships because if you
looked at me twice, I was in there and I
took everything, the abuse, the narcissism, because I just didn't

(40:15):
want to be by myself, because if I was gonna
be by myself, I was gonna have to face a
lot of truth. As long as I'm not by myself,
I don't have to face any truth. So I'm gonna
be with whoever, and I'm gonna take whatever they give
me right, and I'm gonna think that that's worthy. I'm
not even worthy for the relationships, but I'm gonna take
them anyway because you're giving them to me. So you're

(40:37):
throwing me crumbs and I'm taking them right, and that
those were my signs.

Speaker 2 (40:42):
Wow, throwing new crumbs and you were taking it when
a table is actually set with a seven course meal.
But because we don't have that value or that self
worth to feel like you're deserving, I can love the
skin I'm in. Uh So now you're taking crumbs, and

(41:03):
anyone that comes along, I will even if they don't
love me, but at least they hear they're with me,
you know, And you repeat this over and over and
over and over. You understand So that's what I wanted
to say, because when you kept saying you were going
through all these different diets and all of that, and
Harris also go mentally you say, Okay, I just need
to buy that take it one or twice. But inside

(41:26):
you really have an heel because it's all internal, you know,
until we can heal within the external. You could do
all you want, whether you're heavy, whether you're thin, it
wouldn't matter, because the problem isn't the outside, right, it's
working on you, working on your spirit man, working on

(41:50):
all those places that were broken, the things that were
done to you, to confront them and stop ignoring them.
The disassociation, right, I'll leave it. You could go five
years and then you're triggered by something I don't know
about any of you. Even watching something on TV, I
find myself crying back Dan, and.

Speaker 7 (42:13):
It wasn't nothing sobby, but all of a sudden, it's
like I'm seeing me in that somehow you understand.

Speaker 2 (42:28):
So let's go to Ashton.

Speaker 3 (42:31):
I may not answer the question. I'm just gonna go
with what is arriving. That's it through that, Okay.

Speaker 2 (42:39):
So I have this.

Speaker 3 (42:41):
Memory when I was younger, like really young, probably maybe
four or five years old, and I could feel this
thing inside of me, which is like this pure core,
this kind of heartedness that just cares, like care doesn't
stop from this inside of me, and I couldn't feel

(43:03):
it outside of me. And I think that this is
also like it relates to the things that we're sharing here,
of like there's pain that each of us was experiencing
and traumatic experiences that we were moving through, and there
really should be the ability to feel into another, in

(43:29):
particular your child. You would hope to actually sense that
something is off or something is wrong. And kind of
going back to what I was saying earlier, there tends
to be a tendency to lean out rather than a
tendency to lean in. And I think even in sharing
all of our stories today, we're asking people to lean

(43:49):
in because that's the space of actual healing, that's the
space of actual transformation. So then moving into my adolescent years,
as I mentioned, my dad was an alcoholic. His behaviors
were very unpredictable. He also had a lot of violent tendencies,
so there was a level of physical abuse that was

(44:10):
happening inside of the household. My mom I would speak
up very clearly in the face of injustice. I've always
been that way to include relatives to my father. But
when I would share these things with my mom, she
had to justify her being with him, and so that
meant making excuses for him and then making it me

(44:33):
to actually be to blame for this man's behavior. And
so where again I'm going to be like, hey, you
could help, you would be the one to help, I'm
not receiving that back. So then we go more into
the stages of adolescence, and the dysfunction in my household

(44:54):
is so extreme, and I'm also highly sensitive that at
this point I'm wondering, like why am I here on earth?
Like what is the reason? And why do I feel
like such an alien? Like why are people not feeling
like I'm feeling? And this also turned into suicidal ideation,
like like that was just ongoing, and truly, if it

(45:16):
wasn't just by grace of the divine surrounding me, I
do not know how I would have navigated this entirely
on my own, especially as a young person. And I
remember I would run a lot, I would walk a lot, because,
as has been shared here, leaving home tended to be
maybe a safer, better option, And so I would go

(45:40):
on these walks or I would run and I would
be crying, and I would sit in parks all the
way to like late hours at night, so I could
get home hopefully after my dad's rage, and I could
kind of just slide into the house safely. And I
remember thinking like, I wish anyone would stop. I wish
anyone would ask how I'm doing. I wish anyone would

(46:01):
show care at all whatsoever. And again there were other
experiences outside of the ones that I describe, going to
other family members friends, There were even my friend's parents
who would say, you can't hang out there because instead
of caring about my situation, they demonize and villainized me,

(46:22):
even though I'm just a pure hearted human and a
child right now and actually a great person for your
child to be friends with. So all of this, of
course leads also to these thematic experiences that I hear
us all sharing, which is now we have to suppress,
we're being conditioned and taught that we have to push

(46:46):
it inside of our bodies instead of allowing it to
come out of our bodies, which is a far more
healing experience that then later on in life. I recognize
each and every one of us here has navigated through
in the ways that you have uniquely navigated them through.
And so one part of this is like the a

(47:06):
lack of attunement and empathy that we need as human
beings in order to have a healthier the melial system,
community system, societal system, and world to lean in instead
of leaning out. Another part of this is that that
attunement also leads to a certain level of protection in

(47:28):
safety and justice that we are currently lacking within this world,
which perpetuates trauma. Rather than allowing trauma a space to
fully and completely be healed, such as what has been
shared here, to have even one person that feels safe
can be so tremendously impactful inside of your life experience

(47:50):
and your healing trajectory. And then when we rise into
the space of okay, now, instead of being suppressed, I
am actually becoming it expressed and instead of like pushing
all the things down, we're actually being with ourselves in
the lack of a tument that we've received before, which
is healing. It creates space for who we truly are

(48:13):
to be inside of our bodies. And now we have
that with the space of expression where we move into
the world knowing our worth showing up with our value
being so much more powerful, and how we arrive into life.
And I think all of us are expressions of that
trajectory and that journey.

Speaker 2 (48:35):
Indeed. Indeed, so we're gonna take a break because I
know the ladies have said a lot, and we'll come
back and continue. So I know you didn't want to
come away from your screen, but I'm going to give
you that break. So if you need to go with
that phone, go with the phone. If you're watching it
on TV on the YouTube channel, just it pause, Just
it pause as we go to this break, and we'll

(48:55):
be right back.

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Speaker 2 (50:00):
As we're talking about those moments when we sure I
didn't want to live, this coffee is saying, drink me
and you'll feel alive. I think that would be one
of the things. Well, maybe I'll try that. Oh my goodness.
There is a lot that was said and the truth here.
And this is always what I want people to take

(50:23):
away whenever they listen to this podcast is to know
that it's time to heal for real. Right The last
thing that Ashton talked about is having an environment that
allow you to want to talk about it instead of
internalizing everything but actually releasing it. Right to this day.

(50:44):
Even culturally, because I'm Asian Bahaman so I was born
in Bahamas, but my ancestral background is Haiti, people don't
talk even now, people don't want to talk about these things.
These spread your silence out of fear, right because they
feel like the person will come back and they'll do

(51:07):
more harm. So you are to accept things, move on,
don't talk about it because that person might from be
more powerful. Family. You know, there's a lot that is
involved why individuals don't share culturally, speaking their environment. You know.
I bring this to my home so my children can

(51:29):
express themselves when they're going through something, Let's talk about it.
I ask these questions, what is happening? I have two granddaughters.
I ask the question, how are you? Did anyone make
you feel uncomfortable? Why am I doing that? No one
ever asks me? In true and even when it was told,
nothing was done about it. So I bring in the

(51:50):
atmosphere for love. I'm loving on you. I'm with you
no matter what is going on, no matter how Maybe
you've done something and you feel like it might disappoint me,
you know, as your mother, but I want you to
know at the end of the day, I'm on your side.
I'm here for you, right and I am not one

(52:11):
of those parents maybe because of what I went through
and each and every one of you. If a child
comes to me about that. I'm not gonna say they're
lying because it happened to me. Right. If you're talking
to someone, you're gonna say, you know what I understand, right,
And you'll be that person for that individual who say, finally,

(52:32):
like Sue said, finally someone sees me, someone hears me. Right.
So these are what I want to motivate you who
are watching here today. All Right, we hear you, we

(52:54):
see you, and you can connect with us virtually. If
Kelly is relatable, connect the Lincoln in the bio, if
Ashton is relatable, connect it, Sue is relatable. Connect because
it's time to heal for real. So now we're gonna
go into our next question here, and it brings us

(53:16):
right back into this. In what way did you learn
to give language to your silence? Some of us already
said the language we give. Kelly talked about her language
was what getting, you know, trying to get whatever five
was out there. When it came to the diet, pills,
a diet, what do you call them?

Speaker 5 (53:38):
Whatever, it didn't matter, just it was didn't matter. It
could be a pill, a liquid, a shot, a drink,
it didn't matter, a powder, it didn't matter. Right, If
it promised something. I was gonna try it right, and
I also knew that I wasn't going to I wasn't gonna,
I wasn't gonna I wasn't gonna see it through. But

(53:58):
I knew this going into it.

Speaker 2 (54:01):
See that's what I wanted to say, because many times
we say okay, i'll try that. Knowingly first we do
it because you know, okay, that's something I can I
can go towards right, and then you say, well, maybe
i'll try it once. You know, we didn't see it through,
but it was something at the time that made me
feel better about myself. Right, I have it. So I

(54:25):
see it a lot, even today when people are leaving
reviews and somebody said no, I didn't work that person
probably only tried it once, whereas the other person probably
saw the results in three months. Because you see someone says,
well it didn't work out first, but two months later.
Here's where I am in my journey. I like to
read out to say who actually tried it or how

(54:48):
long did it work? Well. Healing is the same way.
We can't just say, hey, Sue, I want to talk
to you. Maybe she was busy, she couldn't connect. I
don't know any play play those games.

Speaker 4 (55:01):
You.

Speaker 2 (55:01):
If I talk to them and they come to talk
to me, then I'll talk. But if they say later,
I won't talk anybody. Anybody was ever there, like, I'll
try it. I tried, but oh they're busy, never mind,
and you leave it for another day another month, right
because or something happened and you got distracted and said, well,

(55:22):
I'll worry, but that another time. That's what I always
say to people in discernment. When someone says they need
to talk to you, pay attention, Come with an open mind. Hey, Sue,
you said you wanted to talk to me. I didn't
have the time at the time, but right now you've

(55:45):
got my undivided attention. No no, no, no, no, no, no, never mind.
Because we kick it out, we.

Speaker 5 (55:54):
Check it out. I think it's too You don't want
to be a burden. You don't want to burden anybody
with your problems when you're the fix it person and
that person doesn't have problems.

Speaker 2 (56:05):
Because I had each and every one of us here
as a fix it person. We wanted to make it
work for everybody else. But it's falling apart in our
own lives. Yeah, you know, I'm a giver, so when
I gave, that was my joy, right that made me
feel good about myself to give to do. Okay, So

(56:27):
that's the language of these silent battles. Anybody else have
any other language in your silent battle that wasn't shared yet?

Speaker 6 (56:36):
I think for me one of the languages and I
didn't know I'm speaking.

Speaker 2 (56:41):
You know.

Speaker 6 (56:41):
One way that I was saying I'm hurting, I need
help was feeling that connection to Ed, feeling like he
cared and making an appointment and then keeping that appointment there.
I don't know. There was something that made his office safe.
And when we met, we were meeting for a couple hours.

(57:02):
This isn't the dean of students at a small college
about eight hundred two one thousand people in northwest Ohio.
And he became my counselor and confidant. And for me,
I think that that language I didn't feel. I started
to feel a little bit of freedom. My senior year
of college, we had a senior retreat at in my
high school, yeah, senior high school, and talking to father Danny,

(57:26):
and that helped some. But it really wasn't until I
was out of the house and on my own because
then I didn't have to worry about being found out,
because that was one of the big things. I don't
want to be found out. But yet there was something
about ED that made it safe. And yet I left
every year I was paying my own way through college.
I didn't know if I was going to be back,

(57:48):
and his time and investment in me meant so much
that I made sure I stopped by every year to
say goodbye, not knowing if i'd be back, and then
when I got back next year, I'd be the first
person I'm looking up. But I think for me, some
of that language was simply taking a little bit of
initiative because he had proven himself faithful. Had he not

(58:10):
reached out to me, had that professor not called him
and he called me in to say what's going on?
That was probably one of the first times I felt
like somebody cared, because they're like, something's going on. Why
aren't you going to class? What you know? What's going on?

Speaker 2 (58:26):
What's the issue?

Speaker 6 (58:28):
And that that gave me permission to start to start
entertaining the thought. I did still don't know how to
put words to what was really going on, but just
showing up and making an appointment with him every week
just to talk about whatever was on my mind ended
up giving me a jump start to starting to find
some words.

Speaker 2 (58:51):
Yep, that takes us through the silence anybody else.

Speaker 3 (58:56):
Yeah, So I naturally became very curious, even like deeply enamored,
almost this obsessive about studying relationships, because part of it
was like, Okay, I'm seeing things, I'm feeling things. I

(59:16):
can tell that I am in a living amongst a
dysfunctional household, and how can we resolve this? When I'm
speaking things I'm not being received. Can I get better
at that? Could? Could I become more knowledgeable within this
kind of terrain? Could that help? So the pain that
I was experiencing and not being received ended up kind

(59:39):
of moving me into areas of study relative to dysfunctional
family dynamics and patterns, relationships, internal healing, external healing communication.
I inevitably got my degree, my undergrad degree in psychology.

(01:00:03):
I then got another nearly completed master's degree in marriage
and family therapy. I left to do what I do
now because it was a sole call that I could
not note. But essentially, I'm saying that the places that
I ended up putting my energy were like my language

(01:00:23):
for what I had been experiencing and how could I
possibly alchemize this heal this now? Though, that started with
psychology because this was more normalized or known relative to healing.
And I did, by the way, ask my mom like hey,
can I go see a counselor when I was like

(01:00:43):
fourteen fifteen years old, that's another like hello, something's going
on here. But so those psychology was my base. I
ended up in my kind of mid ish twenties having
what I consider my first wave of awakening, and it
was through leaving a narcissistically abusive relationship.

Speaker 2 (01:01:05):
I know why we tend to go to those.

Speaker 6 (01:01:09):
I don't know.

Speaker 3 (01:01:10):
Straight from childhood, straight into the next thing, right. And
he was one of my brother's best friends. He was
my first kiss in sixth grade. We grew up together.
We started officially dating when I was seventeen and were engaged,
had a venue, and I called off the engagement at
twenty seven. So this really was again another way in

(01:01:31):
which early on childhood trauma was showing up as it
can and a romantic relationship and it was just moving
straight into a same or similar terrain that had not
yet been healed because of course, when we don't heal it,
we looped back into it the last rain. So there

(01:01:52):
was the leading of this relationship that I didn't experience
the heartbreak. It was more like I feel like I'm
escaping prison now. And so with that, though, I was
going through deep layers of healing, like rectifying my reality
I had been through at this point twenty seven years

(01:02:13):
of being gas lit. I'm like, who really am I?
What is life? I am so feeling confused and lost,
even though I have this solid center inside of myself
that knows what is true and knows who I really am.
And so leaving that relationship, I came into this like
listful experience of joy. And really it was my intuition

(01:02:37):
that pushed me into leaving that relationship. I can't go
into all of the different segments of that, but just
a short format. It was my intuition that really liberated
me and propelled me into a different space. So when
I chose that life opened up, doors opened up, the
divine opened up. Suddenly I'm feeling things. I'm sensing things

(01:02:58):
that I hadn't before. I mean literally color, I was
seeing in color as I never had before.

Speaker 2 (01:03:05):
Oh my god, I've said this before. Nobody I've said
this before, and I say it all the time, probably
almost every segment. When you're healed, you actually see color.
I'm telling you, Okay, you see color. And if you
look back, even at your wardrobe, you really tried to

(01:03:25):
stay away from all these bright stuff and a lot
of things, but color come alive. It's like anybody ever wear.
There's certain sunglasses that you wear that enhances the color,
it makes it even brighter. Well, that's what happened with healing,
is because you hear, literally hear better, feel better. All

(01:03:47):
of your senses become the best, like the highest, because
you've healed. Sorry to interject, but I just have to
stress that like color, Okay, yes.

Speaker 3 (01:03:57):
It's very real. It's very true. So in this like
first wave of awakening, as I said, I was opening
up to places that had essentially been living dormant inside
of me. Like even when we started this conversation, I
was like I was highly intuitive, and honestly I was
quite advanced coming in, and I was in a child's body,
so people look at you like your child, but you're

(01:04:19):
like a wise soul all the time. And so there
were these intuitive experiences that had kind of been pushed
back down and suppressed, which institutionalized education often does to us.
But then there are all these other factors involved. So
suddenly I was meeting my intuitive self. I was like

(01:04:39):
meeting the deeper truth inside of me in ways that
had never been reflected to me, and suddenly life itself
was reflecting it back to me inevitably. A couple of
years later, I had what I called my second wave
of awakening. And now it's just like every day is
a thing. But in that I met someone that I

(01:05:01):
considered to be like a cosmic connection. We had a
lot of prior lifetimes together. It opened up so many
spaces inside of me and so many spaces in him.
Why I'm saying this is because we're talking about language.
And though psychology was something that supported me and kind
of expressing some of the things that I have been
navigating through and I identifying my own experiences, it still

(01:05:24):
didn't provide the language that I needed as a highly
intuitive human. So it wasn't until I came through these
awakenings and I just became a channel, which I always
was but didn't know it.

Speaker 5 (01:05:38):
I became a.

Speaker 3 (01:05:39):
Channel, and suddenly the language just came through me. I
wasn't reading it in a book, I wasn't studying it
from another person. I am known for developing language that
other intuitives are like. I know that exact experience. I
have just never been able to give it word. And
so there's something deeper the healing about that when someone

(01:06:02):
has gone through these processes and suddenly has the ability
to give word to phenomenon that some people don't even
wouldn't even say exists, and yet you're experiencing it, and
it's like, oh, so that very thing that I needed
as a child, I find that I do it ongoingly
for the people that enter into my world. That's my

(01:06:24):
experience with language.

Speaker 2 (01:06:26):
All right. Language. Language is universal, and it's spiritually speaking,
it's universal. And once you go through the healing and
allow you know, for me, I don't say divine or
anything like that. For me, it's God. And so I

(01:06:46):
would say, once you allow for that experience to happen,
you're a whole different person. You loving care even though
you were already that before, but you become the best
version of yourself, right, And it's a beautiful place to be,

(01:07:10):
beautiful place to be. Kelly, I'm gonna go to you
because you've been the one the lack of lack of
words for It's funny.

Speaker 5 (01:07:20):
I was listening to everybody talked about language, and you know,
my language was written. My language was words. And that's
how I actually healed myself was through writing. You know,
I can remember being in high school and going through
whatever I was going through. I wrote a lot of
bad poetry, right, a lot of woe is me, but

(01:07:40):
that helped me be able to get to where I
thought I needed to be. So as I am healing,
as I'm going through whatever process, I don't know if
it was an awakening a healing, but I did have
a sit down with myself and I really started listening
to myself. Through that, I just started writing what I

(01:08:02):
was hearing. And so as I'm writing the things that
are happening to me and I'm reading them, I'm able
to I'm not saying them out loud, right, but I
can see them on the page and I know that
they are real. And from those what I wrote became
a book. But that was not the intention, right, It

(01:08:25):
wasn't an intention for it to be a book. I'm
just writing what's going on and trying to figure out
what I need to do, listening to the voice in
my head, honestly listening to me for the first time,
a voice I had made quiet and kind of pushed down.
I was finally listening to that voice in the back
of my head, and the voice said, you know what,

(01:08:46):
you need to just start writing what the hell is
going on in your life and just write it down.
And if you write it down, maybe you can't accept it.
So as I'm writing this What's going on, I'm reading
it back next I know I have this whole book.
And it's funny because in the book, my main character
who's me, doesn't have a name because I didn't I

(01:09:06):
didn't know it was me at the time, right, I
didn't realize. But as I'm reading the words back, I'm thinking, man, this,
this woman in the story has a lot of issues
and she really struggles with body and you know, and
so I've almost removed myself from the story and so
I can actually look at it from the outside in

(01:09:28):
and realize that, wow, you can actually start to make
changes if you start listening to that little tiny voice
in your head. And I didn't have anybody to tell
me that the voice was right or wrong. I honestly
thought I was kind of losing my mind because the
voice is getting louder, and I'm starting to really have

(01:09:48):
conversations with the voice in my head. And the voice
in my head is not the negative chatter that I
would hear before. Right now, the voice is like, you
know what, Kelly, you need to start meditating. You need
to start sitting with yourself. And COVID is what forced
me to do that, for me to sit with myself
and really figure out who I was, and from there

(01:10:12):
writing things down, making this story and realizing that it's okay.
It's okay to cry in the closet, it's okay to
share the story. And I learned too that in my language,
there is power in my story. Yes, I'm actually a
lot more powerful than I ever gave myself credit for it.

(01:10:32):
Oh yeah right. And so when I'm telling my story
and people are like, oh my god, I felt like that,
I'm like, really, and that to me, my helping you
helps me And that is my my language's words, and
that's I feel like we heal through words. Sometimes we
don't even know it, but we heal through words. It's

(01:10:55):
true words on the page.

Speaker 2 (01:10:57):
That's true, just like words as if le cause us healing,
and words too also cause this trauma. It takes me
to an expression we used to say when we're kids.
Sticks and stones can break my bones, but words can't
hurt me. Words hurt you know. But as a child
you said that when people like put a thick skin on, like,

(01:11:20):
I don't care what you say, your words can't hurt me.
Basically you're saying, I'm not letting that cross over. We
don't even realize what we were saying when we were saying,
but we really were saying, you know what, I don't
care what you're saying. I Am not going to receive that.
That's what that meant, you understand. But words of indeed
very powerful and once you learn to share your story

(01:11:41):
as we get into this other question here that talks
about how do we help others feel seen even when
they hide in their pain? Right, so, seen while they
hide in their pain is true? Word is true, expression
is true. Sharing. You understand, we are calling on someone

(01:12:02):
right now through telling our story and verbally taking them,
you know, through our journey. Okay, this is helping them
all right, So each of you, because you're now in
a part of your life where you've emerged. And I
have yet to see someone who have turned their pain

(01:12:25):
into purpose or test into a testimony that does not
pour back to help. Because we know what it's like
to be in that place with no help. So why
would you want Okay, I'm healed now, let me leave
that alone. No, because now you become so empowered, you
becoming armored. Right, you're ready to get let's do this

(01:12:51):
all right. I want you to not only feel seen,
but I want you to help heal and the pain
that you have. So let's take it there. Anyone of
you can jime.

Speaker 6 (01:13:01):
In, I'll jump in. I think for me how this
all plays out now? Similar to what you just said,
is that a lot of people said, is words? Is
what we do now. I didn't really enter my healing

(01:13:24):
journey until twenty fourteen. I did not deal with the
rape until twenty fourteen, over four decades after what happened,
I was my eating I hadn't eating disorder. I called
it odd eating behaviors. I called it anorexic tendencies. I
did not call it an eating disorder. I entered recovery

(01:13:47):
from my eating disorder in twenty sixteen. What happened in
between there is when I started dealing with the rape.
There was a movie that came out, so words and
words on the screen as well. There was a movie
that came out called Rag and Muffin and it was
the It's based on the life of the late Christian
musician Rich Mullins. I'm a christ follower as well, and

(01:14:08):
that movie was a hard watch for me. And the
first year, I'm finally dealing with my counselor, I've been
with her for six years and we say now we
had to get me stronger and the present before I
could get before we could go back to the past.
And as we were dealing with it, because eating disorders
and emotions are enemies, I had to figure out what

(01:14:30):
I was feeling and how to deal with it while
deal with all the emotions and bad thoughts and wrong thoughts,
the wrong story I was telling myself about the grape,
about who was responsible for her, just all kinds of things.
I was working hard on getting the story straight. So
twenty fifteen, I wrote my first book and I started

(01:14:51):
my first book, and it tells my story and it
tells the healing journey God took me on and how
one of the I and be able to help others
feel seen even when they're hiding their pain is with
this book. When the book finally came out in twenty nineteen,
second place Nonfiction at the Faith of Fellowship Book Festival

(01:15:12):
in twenty twenty and someone I love, thank you. One
of the things I love is reading the reviews. And
one person actually here locally wrote the review on Amazon said,
I didn't know if I want to hug you, to
hit you, or throw the book out the window. And
to me, that is like a huge compliment, she said,

(01:15:33):
because that gave me words that spoke to my story.
It helped me feel heard, and then that gave her
the courage for her healing journey where she has gone
through a lot now. So with the power of sharing
our stories, it gets you know. In the bio in

(01:15:54):
the intro, I talked about my step ahead. You only
have to be a step ahead to help the person
behind you. That's the company motto. That is the focus.
But that came from the truth of that, and and
behind that is a sorry for a different day I
want to take up all the time. But it was
what something somebody told me when I was reaching out

(01:16:16):
help help, reaching out for help, needing to be seen
and heard. I had a friend who had been suicidal
a few years prior. We were on a trip together
and I said, I need to learn from something you've
gone through. How do you go on living with all
you want to do is die? And he helped me
feel seen and heard by spending ninety minutes with me,
and his last words were, it's oh, I know to

(01:16:36):
tell you step by step, and that became part of
my of my journeys. Yes, it is my mission now
because I know what it was like. I will never
know exactly what someone else is feeling or experiencing, and
I work hard not to say I know exactly how

(01:16:57):
you feel. I can relate to that, I understand it,
but it is your story and I will never fully
know what you have experienced or what you are feeling.
But when someone opens the door that much and allows
me entrance in through coaching, through my books, through speaking,

(01:17:18):
through whatever means it takes, that is an opportunity to
help them feel seen. Not to share my story with
them when they're sharing theirs, but to draw internally from
my story and remember what I went through so that
I can be for someone else what someone else was

(01:17:39):
for me. That is how I'm able to help someone
feel seen. I am a christ Follower, so many of
my clients are Christ followers as well. In the interest
I talked about, I'm on a mission and I'm passionate
about that intersection of faith and mental health because unfortunately,
there are many in the Christian field that don't leave

(01:18:00):
mental health. Is has a place?

Speaker 2 (01:18:02):
Or is that again?

Speaker 6 (01:18:04):
And and and that is that? That is a lie
straight from the pit. So I am on a mission
to break that stigma. And so when I can share
my story because now I'm at a place where I am,
I've found my healing and I have found my mission
as a result of that. My mission is to be
for someone else someone else was for me, because I

(01:18:26):
understand and I know what can be on the other side.
And I'm willing to walk through the MOK with somebody
else to help them get there.

Speaker 2 (01:18:37):
Love it, love it, love it. You're going to go
now to Kelly.

Speaker 5 (01:18:42):
So you know for me putting. I also published my book,
and it's really all about the messy middle, the fanatical
part of weight loss, the part that nobody talks about.
I always would see that before and after nobody ever
chose you the middle, and so you don't even know.

(01:19:03):
And then and then with the onset of social media
and these images that you see of what you're supposed
to look like, it can be very very very frustrating,
and it can be very distressing when you don't look
like any of those people and you never will. So
in my healing, I decided that I was gonna I
was I didn't write a book, but it turned out

(01:19:26):
to be a book, and I thought, I'm going to
step out on faith and I'm just gonna publish it
and maybe it will help somebody and that and that
was the goal. The goal was never to get rich.
It was never that you know, whatever, it was really
put out the story and be vulnerable and put it
out there and hopefully that the words would help somebody
know that they're not alone, That that messy middle, that fanatical,

(01:19:49):
that part of healing or losing weight or finding yourself,
that is real and you don't have to go it alone.
So my platform, my brand is all about helping underrepresented
voices get their words out there. Right, because six out
of ten adults want to write a book, just don't

(01:20:10):
know how everybody has a story, and there's power in
everybody's story. I truly believe that. I believe that to
my core, that we can all learn from one another.
That nobody is perfect, we're all flawed, right, but we
all have a story, and that whatever you're going through,
somebody is either going through it, has gone through it,

(01:20:33):
and needs to hear those words. And if I can
help somebody get those words out there, if we can
pay everything that we've learned, if we can pay it
forward and help somebody else, well, then my platform it's
all worthwhile to me, because my thing is I want
to help myself, but I am really really adamant about

(01:20:53):
helping others. I don't want anybody to have to struggle
if you don't have to. And more importantly, probably more
importantly than anything ever, I want people to know that
they're not alone. You are so not alone, because there
is power in all of us joining together. So platforms
like this, I love the message. I'm for it, and

(01:21:16):
I just that's what I do. So words heal Sue.
I'm with you on that. I'm intuitive like you, Ashton,
and I just think that together, somebody is going to
hear one of our stories. It's going to resonate with somebody,
and somebody is going to start their journey to becoming
who they want to be, right And that is why

(01:21:36):
I sit here today. That is truly why I am here.
I want to sell a book or two, but ultimately
I want to help people. I definitely want to help that.
I feel like I am at my best when I
am helping.

Speaker 2 (01:21:49):
Yes, indeed, so I really thank each and every one
of you, ladies. Now we've heard Sue. She talk about
faith and community that helps and play in our healing process.
I talk about what fate did for my healing process.
Ashton talk about you know, what she connected with for

(01:22:10):
her healing process. So each of us know that deep
down inside you have to want to be healed first
of all, right, and this is a choice, you know,
a choice to say I want to live, you know,
I want better and I want to help others you know,

(01:22:32):
heal as well, like you, Kelly. My book or first
book actually was just meant to be a memoir for
my kids. Was never for the world, but little bits
of my story I would give whenever I speak to
young women, or whenever I go out and I speak,
and people will come back and say I've never heard
anybody talk about this, and I went through that too

(01:22:53):
and it opened up doors. So finally, by the time,
as I said, okay, I'm going to get this book out.
This book speak for itself. And it's not about the dollars,
because still I'm at book nine, twenty cent twenty twenty.
It's not the money. It's putting it out there for
people to find. Here's what's out there. Once you pick
this up. I pray that it's changed your life or

(01:23:16):
your sister or or someone you know. I haven't made.
The money is I've made from the first book that
I put in because I put a lot of work
in it. It's in English and also in Spanish. Right,
that project was a big project in itself. But here's
what it is. At the end of the day, somebody
picked it up and they healed and they shared it

(01:23:39):
with someone else. And that's it. The money lord, you know,
when you're gonna send that money in, we all wait,
we're not gonna be selfish about that. We all want
it because we put the work in. Once you put
in the work, there's value. That's what that means, right,

(01:23:59):
there's value you And I don't know if any of
you ladies. But there are parts of my life that
I felt it was never for me. Because now what
I do ministry in it. I realize that's how I
can be sympathetic understanding. You understand. I can relate you know.

(01:24:22):
I don't say I know what you feel, but I
said I've been there. You understand because we all get
on this highway called life, and we all get up
on an exit. We all, when we get a plane ticket,
have a destination to go, but when we get to
that destination, we all pad, we go to a different address. Right.

(01:24:42):
That's the life experience in itself. So each of these
ladies have their books. We'll have all that information in
the bio. But give the name of your books, or
any last words or you would like to leave for
our audience, because we don't want to keep them here.
We want them to come back.

Speaker 5 (01:25:02):
I'll just tell you my book is called Wait for It,
and it's the play on words. It's w E I
G h T. It is available on my platform, Brightheaded
Publishing dot com. I'm right in them, and it's so funny.
I'm in the middle of building my business, building the
infrastructure so that I am in a better position to
help others, because one thing I don't want to do

(01:25:23):
is I don't want to take from anybody without giving
value back. Very important to me, very important to me.
And so but if the book helps, and it's funny,
the only reason why I published it is I read
it to a friend and she's like, oh my god,
you you you're in my head. This is exactly what
I went through. Somebody. W e I g h T

(01:25:44):
like your weight on a scale. Wait for it. It's
also an audiobook as well.

Speaker 2 (01:25:53):
All right, put it here.

Speaker 5 (01:26:01):
W E g h like, wait, w e I g
h T.

Speaker 2 (01:26:05):
Let me correct that hypen and not looking w e
I g h t yep.

Speaker 5 (01:26:20):
And it's just all about the messy middle, the fanatical,
the part that nobody shows you definitely definitely.

Speaker 2 (01:26:28):
That they wait for it, all right, anyone else?

Speaker 3 (01:26:38):
Yeah. So my business is called true Self Embodied. My
website is true self embodied dot com. I work with
individuals one on one. I also have a community membership group.
This would be for the highly sensitive human who is
deeply enamored with healing and transforming and is real about

(01:27:00):
it about it. And then I also have an incredible newsletter.
So if you go to my website true selfibody dot
com and you sign up for the newsletter. Truly, this
is a course for higher consciousness than I'm ongoingly putting
out written transmissions and also video transmissions for so lots

(01:27:21):
and lots and lots of value. And I do not
have a book, but I would say if I did
have this comment. Some people have been like, girl, when
you bring that book out, I know it's.

Speaker 2 (01:27:32):
Gonna be It's gonna be several because you have to
break down each area. Because as you were speaking about language, right,
you have to break down the language, right. And so
as you go into it, you I don't know what
you're gonna call it yet, but first you're gonna put
the title's gonna come after you finish, right, all right,

(01:27:55):
Your title's gonna come after you finish, right, because as
you're doing the research, you've already done the work. Right.
So through that language just in there, right there, I
want you to believe that that's a message in itself
for discovery, because we need to understand first of all,
the language, how to express, how to speak, what does

(01:28:18):
it mean? Okay? And finding oneself all right? And language
is key because we always talk about even relationships. We
need to be able to communicate. What is your love language?
You understand, language is a big deal. It's not I
speak Creole, you speak French. But it's a whole different language.
All right. So that's work that you have. But there's

(01:28:42):
more than one. All right, there's more.

Speaker 6 (01:28:45):
Than one, and you have enough work.

Speaker 3 (01:28:47):
Plus I'm like a trilogy plus.

Speaker 2 (01:28:52):
Yes, I see beyond three. Yes, okay, beyond three. So
a self embodied dot com? All right dot com, true self,
embody dot com. Who knows that might be the name
of the book. You never know, that could be one
of them, for sure, all right, true selfebody dot com?
And sue, what was the name of yours?

Speaker 6 (01:29:14):
Yeah, you can find it at my website suballs dot com.
There's actually three books there. The first book I was
talking about is called this Much I Know the Space Between,
and it shares my story. But the second half of
the book talks about the healing journey God took me on,
and there were three very important points and steps through

(01:29:35):
a faith retreat community that got used and continues to
use to bring healing to me. Excuse me, But at
my website suballs dot com you can find the books.
There's three of them there, as I said, but then
there's also I have a weekly text I send out
because sometimes you're not ready to take that big step
just yet, but you wouldn't mind having a little encouragement.

(01:29:56):
I have a weekly text. The weekly text I send
out called hump They help. Go to the website you
can sign up for that. It's just something I send
to your phone use between seven and eight Wednesday mornings,
just to help you get through the day. And if
there's more that I can do for you, certainly reach
out to me. I'd love to love to hear your story,
love to walk and see you on the next leg
of your journey.

Speaker 2 (01:30:16):
All right, these are very genius. I love this. Wait
for it man, that that that'll help me, I'll see that.
I'm like, definitely, definitely, and even with the true self embodiment. Listen,
we can get really creative with these. So, ladies, I

(01:30:37):
truly thank each and every one of you for being
here on the set of Emerge and Empower. As we
do this virtual conference, and I believe, I believe there
will be tremendous feedback. Your inbox is gonna be filled
with people trying to connect with you for your story
because they find you relatable. All right. It's about being

(01:31:00):
relatable so you can find someone that you can connect
with on today. That is why these segments come on,
just to help you find what you need. All right.
You can google it, you can find it. It will
be in somebody's timeline. It will be a clip probably
on TikTok or Instagram, all right, where you see this wherever.

(01:31:23):
All right, you can connect because there are people that
are relatable all right on here wait for it, True
Embodiment and Sue Bowls dot Com. So ladies, I truly
want to thank each and every one of you for
your presence here on this podcast on today, and so everyone,

(01:31:44):
we thank you. Will be back next week with more
and Sue, like I said, was on the podcast already
and we will be waiting to listen to Kelly and Ashton.
Believe me, there's a lot more to give. And so
that's the end for today because we want you to
come back and watch it next week. So bye bye,

(01:32:08):
all right. I want to thank each and every one
of you for tuning in to the She Merchants Virtual
Conference on today and truly thank you. I know that
you have been watching and this is the third session
of the virtual conference that we're doing here. And what

(01:32:30):
I want you to know that this segment the conversation
reminds us of some of the deep wounds. You know
that we fight alone, those silent moments that you are alone,
all right, And it's to encourage you, to encourage you

(01:32:51):
to come forth. Don't stay there alone, all right. I
know you're fighting a silent battle. I want you to realize, unfortunately,
it's very common someone you know is fighting the same battle.
So don't be a shame of it. Either, to not

(01:33:13):
be a shame of it. It was not your fault.
It was a perpetrator's fault. And if it's a choice
of decision that you made in life, we change that,
change that trajectory. All right, It's time for those change, okay.
So if today's dialogue spoke to you know this, you

(01:33:36):
are indeed not alone. Silence has weight, and you saw
what Kelly talked about. She has a book called Wait
for It because of that was her language. All Right.
I don't know what yours is, but let's continue this
journey together. Connect with the ladies and the links in
the bio. God bless you and Hill next time,

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Shemergence: Session 3 | Silent Battles Healing From What No One Saw

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.css-14f5ked{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:2;overflow:hidden;}Shemergence: Session 3 | Silent Battles Healing From What No One Saw