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August 20, 2024 44 mins
In this week's episode, I'm speaking with Laverne Friesen, a former law enforcement officer and a survivor of childhood abuse. After experiencing a prolonged mental health crisis, a divorcee, forced career change and heartbreak, Laverne transformed his pain into personal growth. Now as a transformational coach, Laverne helps others find personal empowerment, deeper connections, and fulfilling relationships. This is Laverne's story! Laverne Friesen on Facebook:
https://www.facebook.com/LaverneFriesen97 On TikTok:
https://www.tiktok.com/@trueemotionhealing?lang=en Website:
www.trueemotion.ca  
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Transcript

Episode Transcript

Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Nobodies are somebodies, all right, everybody, it's chad vice. And
you know, things in my little world are hard, especially
when it comes to taking photos and pictures and getting
the right headshots. For me, when I'm doing promotions for
the podcast, whether it be for the radio station Nobody's

(00:21):
Radio station, heavy rock radio or Pairavis City the best
Eighties rock that you've never heard, doing all that can
be hard just to get the vision that I have
in my head, you know, the picture that I see
that I want to create and put out there, whether
it be something that's funny or unique, or a good

(00:41):
you know backdrop, finding the right location. You know, driving
around doing my uber eats job, I see a lot
of places I can take pictures of that will look
just fantastic. I think, oh that's a great backdrop. That's
a great place to take a picture, that's perfect. But
that's half the battle making me look good. Finding the
right exact pose, the right you know, head turn, just

(01:03):
the right facial I don't know, pose, image, facial expression.
Just trying to get all that is. For someone like
me who's got a face for radio, it can be difficult.
But scoping out places that's fun.

Speaker 2 (01:18):
That's easy.

Speaker 1 (01:19):
Did that recently found a place that has a nice
I had an idea for a won't keep you too
long for this. I found a place that has a
you know, and I found a place for this particular
picture that I wanted to do. It was gonna be
a nighttime scene. It was a street light, it was
a park bench, it was it was down a park,
it was it had a pathway leaning out of a

(01:39):
residential area.

Speaker 2 (01:41):
Perfect.

Speaker 1 (01:42):
So I'm gonna go hit this place at night, Go
up there, drive up there. So I'm on my way there.
I got my selfie stick, something brand new I got
off of Amazon, something I haven't have before. Is a nice,
tall high one that's taller than me. It's a selfie stick.
So it's perfect. I get all the angles I want,
absolutely beautiful. Heading down to this area that already picked out,

(02:05):
driving by, and as I'm driving by, I see a
cop car parked. Nobody's in it. It's just parked on
one of the side of the road in the neighborhood,
which is no big deal.

Speaker 2 (02:13):
I don't care.

Speaker 1 (02:14):
I'm not although it is night hanging out in a
neighborhood with a big stick. It's just a selfie stick
still whatever, I go pull up a little further down park,
head out to the path, and as I head out
to the location, I look back and I see that
the cop car is basically basically if anyone's in the car,

(02:34):
they have exact line of sight for what I'm doing.
And if I'm being honest, I like to be alone
to do these shots. I don't like one of those,
especially when it's outside. Obviously, I don't like when there's
a lot of crowds or people walking by, because I mean,
in this day and age, does anybody really care when
anybody's doing when they're stopping to take pictures? I mean,
it's it's still the norm now, people taking pictures, selfies,

(02:54):
you know, trying different poses, taking five to ten minutes
to get the right angle on their face.

Speaker 2 (02:58):
You know, does.

Speaker 1 (02:59):
Anybody really care? Probably not, But in my head, it's
in my head it's like, oh, people are gonna like
make fun of me or laugh or be like just curious,
and it's an distraction in my head, So I don't
do it, try not to. But this is a night
no one's supposed to be around except this cop car. Again,
from I can tell nobody's in it, so anyway, it's

(03:20):
but it's parked in my line of sight and it
is public property. But I'm just you know, kind of
hanging around at night just doing what could be potentially
suspicious things. That's already in my mind. Whatever, I gotta
let it go, gotta get this picture done. I'm kind
of on a time crunch. Gotta happen, so posing for
the pictures, get them all done, trying to make them
work the best that I can, or look the way
I see in my head, like I said, trying different angles,

(03:43):
different positions with the camera, with a selfie stick, myself
sitting on the park bench, standing by the park bench,
all this stuff I want, boy throw all the details.
Got my pictures, and then it's time to leave. And
so I walk up the path, head back to my
car and get in the car and head back out,

(04:05):
passed by the cop car one more time. And something
I realized as I passed by the car. No, I
don't think anybody was in it. I mean, if they were,
they're just falling asleep. I don't know what the cop
would be there for a while, just doing Maybe it
was somewhere, maybe he lives in the air in the neighborhood,
who knows, but I don't think anybody was in there,
hard to see, dark windows, wasn't really looking past him
by it didn't really matter. But what I did see

(04:26):
was a flashing blue light that kind of sits on
the dash of the police cruiser, and it dawned on me,
of course, and a lot of people have this too,
but definitely the police have this. It's you know, dash cams,
cruiser cams, you know, stuff that records what'sever happening in
front of them, you know, right for evidence, right, And
the car is not parked terribly far from where I

(04:48):
was doing sorry, from where I was doing my you know,
photo shoot, but enough that you can get probably stuff
on camera. And it's right in the middle site line.
So some are out there right now there's police video
surveillance footage of me Chadvice doing poses and a little
photo shoot at night on a park bench for what

(05:10):
would become an image for Paradise City or Nobody's radio station,
heavy rock radio, or this Nobody's there, somebody's podcast. Right now,
there's police evidence of what goes on behind the scenes
with me, Chadvice.

Speaker 2 (05:27):
How cool is that? All right, let's get to my
guest right here.

Speaker 1 (05:31):
It's Laverne Freezing here on the Nobody's or Somebody's Podcast.
Had a great chat with Laverne. Comes from Northern Alberta,
had a very interesting life growing up, had a lot
of childhood traumas and personal challenges that he had to overcome,
and he talks about them all right here and now
very candidly, very openly, and I was glad to have
his conversation. And you can find out more about Laverne

(05:52):
on his Facebook pages on Facebook, He's on TikTok as well.
He's an empowerment coach that helps out people. He's an
empowering coach. He's an empowerment coach that helps people out
and gets that helps people out and gets through their
challenges in their lives as he did too when he
had no one to help him. He was able to
get help and help himself as well and face what

(06:15):
brought him down.

Speaker 2 (06:16):
And actually we.

Speaker 1 (06:18):
Repair some relationships he's had in the past too in
regards to his family. So let's dive into. It's Laverne
Freeze and here on the Nobody's Are Somebody's Podcast. Thanks
to on paid promoter Marie for setting this up and
thanks to Laverne for his amazing conversation. Dig into it
right now. All right, my guest this week, Laverne, thank
you so much for joining me. It's good to talk

(06:40):
to you. It's good to have your conversation. I can't
wait to dig into it with the time that we have.
So first of all, how are you doing.

Speaker 3 (06:46):
I'm doing very well.

Speaker 2 (06:47):
Thank you.

Speaker 1 (06:47):
Thanks for having me for sure, Thanks for getting in
touch and reaching out and being a part of this.
So you've got a interesting story. There's lots to cover,
so I guess we'll start the basics. We just talked
about it off off, Mike, but talk to me about
where you are are now and men who basically who
you are.

Speaker 3 (07:04):
I'm in northern Alberta. I grew up near here. Where
I am. I swore i'd never come back. I left
when I was eighteen, and then I came back when
I was thirty six, and I actually like it here.
Who I am? I call myself the accidental coach. Several

(07:25):
years or several months ago, I went through pretty hard
time and I did all the right things and I
transformed my life. So that's how I fell into coaching.
I kind of realized that I should share that I
guess wisdom and knowledge with other people. I grew up.
I'm a I guess, to put it really short, I'm

(07:48):
a child abuse survivor, some would call me a cult survivor,
and a former law enforcement officer. I'm a dad of
two children who are my world old I went before
we say, and I'm a man on a mission to
improve every day.

Speaker 2 (08:08):
No, it's good to hear.

Speaker 1 (08:09):
It's good to hear you meant you made a comment,
you said you swore you never come back to where
you are now. Is that part of the reason, because
it comes with some negative I guess things from the
baggage from the past that you were just speaking about.

Speaker 3 (08:20):
You know what, I bet it does. I never I
never actually thought about it that way. Yeah, I bet
it did. I grew up on a farm, a very
fundamentalist religious group that my parents are involved with, and
I always wanted to be a part of the city lights.
And so as soon as I was eighteen, I moved away,

(08:43):
moved to a big city, and my career took me
ended up taking me to some small towns, and along the.

Speaker 1 (08:51):
Way was that the law enforcement was that the law
enforcement at that time that moved that moved you around.

Speaker 3 (08:56):
Yeah, and along the way, I fell in love with
small towns. And when I moved back here, I was
actually working in the oil field. I'd left law enforcement
for a couple of years to work in the oil field,
and I promised my wife that I would my now
ex wife, that i'd be home before our second child

(09:18):
was born. And the time was coming up, and I
needed to find work, and an opportunity came up near
where I grew up, and so I took the job
and we moved here, and I guess fell in love
with the place, even though this is where I grew up.
But I do think now that I thought about it, that, yeah,

(09:42):
like I probably subconsciously didn't want to be around where
I grew up. I did it.

Speaker 1 (09:50):
You said you never be back, and then something obviously
brought you back. But you thought I'll never go back
there for obvious reasons, right, Yeah.

Speaker 3 (09:57):
And it was funny because I want to be around
the people I grew up with, but working in law enforcement,
I would encounter them sometimes and I never enjoyed it.
And now I see them and I don't really care
because I've done a lot of healing and healing on myself.

Speaker 1 (10:13):
Right, So do you still speak to those people that
you see or because you're there now, do you still
have any interaction with them or is everyone just doing
their own thing, move their own separate ways, kind.

Speaker 3 (10:24):
Of move their own separate ways. Like I see my family,
I don't encounter people in their organization that often, and
when I do, it's a lot of people don't recognize
me because I have sleeve tattoos, I have a big
bushy beard now, and so I can kind of go
in cognito and just kind of work around them. But

(10:48):
it's that childhood trauma thing that you're always dealing with.
And sometimes I can, I don't mind talking to them,
and sometimes I avoid them. So it's kind of hit
or miss. It's a journey in progress, right.

Speaker 1 (11:00):
Yeah, No, I totally understand that. So you mentioned your
parents growing up on that farm and just they're part
of I guess you said a religious kind of cult things.
So what can you describe exactly what that was? I
know you were a kid back then, but as an
adult now, do you like, first of all, how did
you get out of that? And second of all, is
that still something that's going on with certain members of
that community, like your parents and other members of your family.

Speaker 3 (11:20):
Yeah, for sure. So it's very fundamentalist. The leaders of
the church rule with an iron fist. It's their way
or the highway. You never you can never think for
yourself or question anything. I have several friends and acquaintances
that question stuff and were actually kicked out of the

(11:42):
church because they would call it like an evil spirit
or something, because they can't have questioning and they practice shunning,
and so you can't eat at the same table, they
can't shake your hand. There's a whole list of rules
associated with that. For me personally, I knew at a

(12:03):
very young age I didn't want to join and I
didn't want to be a part of it. But I
didn't know how that would look. But I've always been
someone who questioned everything, and I would question stuff and
I would get answers that didn't make any sense to me.
For example, we could we never decorated for Christmas, but
yet we celebrated Christmas, and Christmas was a really big

(12:25):
thing because of the whole Christianity story, and I could
never understand that. So I actually decided when I was
about five years old that I would never join. One
of my parents had been yelling at me and screaming
at me, and I remember clearly walking across our farm
guard and I told myself, I'm never going to join

(12:46):
that organization if they're like that.

Speaker 1 (12:50):
And at five years old, I was pretty young too
to have that realization, because most people when you're around that,
like as we're kids were growing up with our parents,
we just do what they tell to number one, number two.
If everyone else is doing it, we kind of just
assimilate to that, right, So it's hard to I'm just
curious about how you were able to finally question that,
because a lot of people don't and if you grow
up with that, that's what you naturally expected. But you

(13:12):
was like, no, I'm doing something else. It's fascinating to me.
You're able to break away.

Speaker 2 (13:16):
Mentally.

Speaker 3 (13:16):
Yeah, the pure pressure was very intense to join, because
as soon as you get to about the age of twelve,
there's so much pressure, and anybody in the church started
would start coming up to you and be like, when
are you going to give your heart to God? Or
when are you going to join the church? And what
happens if you die tonight? You're going to go to hell,

(13:37):
and they would say that to you a like starting
around age twelve, which is like really horrific religious abuse,
because children should not be thinking about death or hell.
They have more age appropriate things to worry about. But
for me, I was I was also traumatized too that

(13:58):
there was other trauma. There was sexual trauma, there was
some physical violence, and so I think that kept me
from wanting to join, right. I didn't feel like ideally
a church would be a safe haven for people, and
I never felt that that wasn't my experience, and so
I don't think even all the pressure, I always knew

(14:21):
that I was not going to join. And so when
I was actually when I was fifteen, I went to
live with an alcohol because my family life was quite
tumultuous and violent, and so I lived with an alncohole
who was in that same church, and it was a
little bit better of a situation. And then when I

(14:42):
was sixteen, I moved in with my older brother, who
by that time had been kicked out of the church,
and so I lived with him for probably about a year.
And then when I was seventeen eighteen, I moved to
a big city with my aunt, who had never joined
that church, and so it was more of a gradual

(15:03):
kind of progression out of that area. But it's very
hard for people who grow up in it join the
church and then decide they want to leave because there's
so much pressure, there's so much gaslighting, and they lose
their whole social circle if they leave, and they know that.
So it's really hard for people, and people suffer side

(15:27):
effects from it for years. Like just for me, I
had anxiety my whole life. I didn't realize it until
I was thirty eight, but I had anxiety because my
whole life I'd been worrying about death and dying when
I shouldn't have. I should have been worrying about playing.

Speaker 2 (15:43):
And child joining life.

Speaker 1 (15:44):
Yeah, living and living life exactly had the complete opposite.
So you never joined that. That's like from five years
old twelve when people were saying this, fifteen and you
left home. But that whole time at home, your parents
obviously were in the church, but you weren't. And it
sounds like your brother was and then what and so
how did that? I mean, you touched on a bit
as far as like the abuse and stuff like that,
but on a day to day life at home, do

(16:06):
you remember, like, were they constantly every day your parents?
Like basically, how did they not try to convince you
daily or try to force you into that church environment
with you just clearly not wanting to. How did that
like back and forth work at home?

Speaker 3 (16:19):
So when I was about thirteen, I stopped going to
church and I just had no desire to go to church.

Speaker 1 (16:27):
So you still went to the actual church every summer,
every day every day they went still, but you didn't
want to join, but you still went with them physically there, right.

Speaker 3 (16:34):
Yeah, And when I was about thirteen, I started asserting
kind of my own independence and I didn't want to
go to church. And there were a couple of times
where my dad tried to make me go to church,
and he would he actually physically fought me trying to
get me in the vehicle to go to church. And
so I just started locking myself in my room and

(16:55):
saying I was sick on Sunday mornings and I wouldn't
come into my room. And so then they couldn't do anything.
And kind of further to that a little bit like
as I only in the last few years, I've realized
I'm very sensitive to energy and I don't go to
places where there's not good energy and I can't help.

(17:16):
But wonder if at thirteen it was like a bad vibe.
I just didn't like the energy and it was pushing
me away.

Speaker 1 (17:24):
Yeah, that's what it seems like. It seems like you
sent even from five years old, you sense that there
was something not right about that. At such a young age,
you realize this is not something's not right here, as
usually you would just go blindly as your.

Speaker 2 (17:35):
Parents would tell you.

Speaker 1 (17:35):
So the fact that you didn't at that age tells
me that you sense right away that there's something and
that's been with you all your life.

Speaker 3 (17:42):
Yeah. I agree, And it's been fascinating to look back
on my life and kind of review some of these,
you know, critical steps.

Speaker 2 (17:50):
In my life and.

Speaker 3 (17:52):
Where they steered me. I've become quite spiritual, and I
believe in a purpose, a higher purpose, bigger than my self.
And when I look back, I feel that I was
supposed to go to that environment to experience all what
I did there in some of that abuse, to give

(18:14):
me wisdom and knowledge later in life to be able
to help other people. And I don't believe I was
ever supposed to stay there very long. And you know,
I left the community for good when I was about
sixteen seventeen, and the trauma just from those first sixteen
years of my life. I'm still dealing with some of

(18:35):
the effects of that, right, So, yeah, it makes sense
and that it never goes away.

Speaker 1 (18:39):
No, it never does. Is there a name for that specifically?
I'm thinking, like, you know, there's a name of like
scientology for what goes on there, and there's other like cults.

Speaker 2 (18:47):
And other things too.

Speaker 1 (18:48):
Does it have a specific name or is it like
a like a religion specific name or is it just
church for Catholics.

Speaker 2 (18:55):
It's not cast But.

Speaker 3 (18:56):
No, they're the Church of God in Christ Mennonite. So
they're I think they're they're the probably the most ultra
conservative branch at mid of night you can find. They
also call themselves the Hold Them in Mind and Nights.
They follow after the teachings of John Holdeman. They originally

(19:17):
they originated from I think Russia. They came across to
escape persecution, and then somewhere in the eighteen hundreds, right
around actually the same time that the Mormons, the Seventh
day Adventist Jehovah's Witnesses were all formed. John Holdhiman kind
of broke off and took off on his own way there.

Speaker 1 (19:38):
Okay, that makes sense sense, So I get that's a
very conservative, very religious, very yeah, secular religion and very
it's a community all by itself, basically.

Speaker 2 (19:48):
I understand.

Speaker 1 (19:49):
There's a lot of them, a lot all over the world,
in a lot in Canada too, for sure. Yeah, so
I get you. Yeah, so you left there, So seventeen,
you're you're out completely. You've gone with your aunt and
you moved out. Then you're eventually you're on your own.
Was your next step? You mentioned law enforcement too, which
I'm always fascinated about that career. Was that a first
choice for you to get into that or is that
something you kind of pushed into what drove you to

(20:09):
law enforcement?

Speaker 3 (20:11):
So that was also something that happened very early in
my life. So we grew up on a I grew
up on a farm, very rural area, about an hour
from the nearest town. And when I was very young,
probably summer five, six seven, a police car went down
the gravel road in front of our house like sin sirens,

(20:34):
and I was scared. I was young enough that I
was terrified.

Speaker 1 (20:36):
I ran inside, and I've had that feeling too at
that age too. For some reason, those cars were scary.
I always were. I was always afraid of the police
two back then. I remember that because it was always
like big loud noises or something wrong about that.

Speaker 2 (20:47):
Yeah, I hear you, Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 3 (20:49):
It's I went inside and I was scared, and my
mom said, no, like, he's going to go help someone.
He's on his way to help someone right now. And
I'm like, oh, that's awesome. I want to be a
police officer. She's like, no, you can't. And that was
part of the teachings of their church was non resistant,
so you never be violent, never physical, And I'm like, he's.

Speaker 4 (21:11):
Go ahead, sorry, yeah it It made no sense to
me because I'm like, he's going to help somebody, and
we believe in helping people, so why couldn't I go
help somebody?

Speaker 2 (21:23):
Right?

Speaker 3 (21:24):
And later in life I realized that that whole thing
of non resistance, it's not necessarily about violent, it's about
I believe, it's about not resisting external factors and you know,
fighting yourself or fighting what's going on around you.

Speaker 1 (21:41):
I was gonna say, because your dad, you know, physically,
like you mentioned, physically fought with you to get in
the car. So to me, that's that's not exactly what
it's what you talked talked about earlier too, like what
they say and what they do a couple of different things. Yeah, yeah, yeah,
it's all coming from a full circle.

Speaker 3 (21:58):
Right Yeah.

Speaker 2 (21:59):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (22:00):
Everything was a hip hop yeah, looking for Yeah. So anyway,
I wanted to be a police officer, but I couldn't
tell people that I wanted to be a police officer,
and so I told everyone I wanted to be a paramedic.
And in the back of my mind, I knew that
I was going to be a police officer or go

(22:20):
into law enforcement, but I couldn't say it. So I
just and I was interested in paramedicine. The whole first
response world really was attractive to me because I liked
the adrenaline and I wanted to help people, so it
was going to be a good fit. So when I
was nineteen, I started working in healthcare as a healthcare

(22:44):
security officer. Actually I was eighteen when I started, because
I wanted to find out if I wanted to go
into law enforcement or paramedicine, and I would.

Speaker 2 (22:55):
Find out in a hospital.

Speaker 1 (22:56):
Working in a hospital security, I can tell you that's
almost like a little mini city depending on how big
your hospital was. Yeah, I have experience on that. Yeah,
trust me, it is.

Speaker 3 (23:04):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (23:04):
Yeah, I'll let you know real quick if you want
to do it or not. Yeah yeah, yeah.

Speaker 3 (23:08):
Oh yeah, you learned fast. And it was. It was
an amazing experience and I loved it so much. I
did it for over five years. It was it was
so much fun. But yeah, I decided that I didn't
want to be in charge of whether responsible for whether
somebody died or not. Yeah. I just didn't really want that,
to deal with that kind of stress, And so I

(23:30):
worked towards a career in law enforcement, and when I
was twenty seven, I was successful. I got into law enforcement,
worked in highway patrol for well was it the organization
for seven years? Worked highway patrol for.

Speaker 1 (23:43):
Five Is that provincial police then, or like your provincial
police or is it the city police that you were with?

Speaker 3 (23:52):
It was the Provincial Sheriff's highway patrol here. Okay, yeah,
so they're not police per se, but it was highway patrol.

Speaker 2 (24:00):
I gotcha.

Speaker 3 (24:00):
And at the same time, I was a volunteer firefighter,
and which I loved, and I was what I didn't
realize was I was bringing my candle up both ends,
but I was having the time of my life.

Speaker 1 (24:12):
Right, So yeah, exactly, it's everything you were looking for
when you when you were there when you left, right
of what you want to do, the adrenaline and helping people.
It's exactly, it's more than that. Yeah, it's everything. Yeah,
I get you.

Speaker 3 (24:22):
Yeah, But what I didn't realize though, is there was
a big part of me that was kind of I
was getting validation from helping people, right, And I think
if I was to be in that same situation now,
I probably wouldn't be as active on the fire department
because you need time for yourself adventure or you know,

(24:44):
you have to take time for yourself. But that was
just a completely foreign concept to me.

Speaker 2 (24:50):
Yeah, yeah, no, it makes sense.

Speaker 1 (24:52):
There's a lot of mentally, I mean physically obviously, but mentally,
the toll on you can be doubled out in more
because of what you're seeing, what you're experiencing, and you're
trying to people that sometimes don't want to be helped.
There's all kinds of scenarios that we could have a
whole podcast on that too, obviously. But yeah, so there's
a lot of that So at what point that was there?
Was it enough for you? You got out of law enforcement
and doing that obviously? When did Was there something specifical

(25:13):
that happen there, or just so you decided on your own,
Hey it's time to get out of this and do
something else.

Speaker 3 (25:18):
So I was I'd been working in a small town
for like five years, almost five years, and when you're
doing traffic enforcement in a small town, everybody knows there's
a fine balance, right, there's a fine line you have
to walk, and I was getting burnt out. I wanted
to be somewhere else. I wanted to I had spent

(25:41):
my career to that point in small talents and I
was just I was done with small towns. I wanted
to go to a bigger place. And I got a
phone call one day from a former law enforcement coworker
who was in the oil field here, and he said, hey,
do you want a job doing this as a contractor?
And this is how much money you make, and.

Speaker 2 (26:01):
Which is a big out there where you are? Yeah?

Speaker 3 (26:03):
Yeah, yeah, it was very very good. And I'd been
trying to get a transfer out of there and I
couldn't get a transfer, and so I told him yes.
On the phone, Like I knew that I was done,
and so I did that for two and a half years.
I knew I'd met my now ex wife by then,
and so about a year year into it working in

(26:27):
the oilfield, we had our daughter and she's daddy's girl
and nice, so that that made it a lot harder
to go away and working as a contractor, you're you're
at their back in call. If they say we need
you for three weeks, you go away for three weeks.

Speaker 1 (26:43):
Right, Yeah, And for those that don't know, so you're
at you're away, you're offside.

Speaker 2 (26:46):
You're away from home.

Speaker 1 (26:46):
You can't get back, you can't come in back and
forth day by day. You're gone for three four weeks
another month at a time.

Speaker 3 (26:51):
Right.

Speaker 1 (26:51):
For those who don't know, maybe just give a little
bit of what you were doing, Like how what your
schedule was like at that time? Was it always sorry,
was it always three weeks in and out or was
it more sometimes?

Speaker 3 (27:01):
Well, it was supposed to be two weeks in, two
weeks out, but there were times where and I was
flying up to northern BC, so it was quite remote. Yeah,
at that time, it would be about a seven hour
drive from where I was and I was ready in
Northern Alberta. But there were many months that I worked

(27:22):
twenty five days in a month, and so as soon
as I had a little little girl at home, that
was really hard. And then we started expecting our son,
and that's when I said, Okay, I'm gonna I'm going
to come back home. I don't want to I don't
want to do this anymore. I want to be home
every night because I've always been a home body, and

(27:45):
you know, my family's the most important thing to me.
So I wanted to come home. And so I lasted
about two and a half years.

Speaker 2 (27:52):
Not still a long time.

Speaker 1 (27:52):
And your wife was your ex wife now, but your
wife at the time was supportive of you doing that.
And it's a job, it's money, it's it's time away.
But wish us part of at least of that. Have
you been a way to do that?

Speaker 2 (28:03):
Oh? Yeah, I was shocked.

Speaker 3 (28:03):
Then Yeah she did. Yeah, she liked it. And it
gave another level to our lifestyle. I guess we were
able to travel a lot more with that kind of
income coming in. So it was fun, but it was
only fun before we had.

Speaker 1 (28:22):
Kids, right, Yeah, exactly, because then you kind of need
to be there and all the money in the world
is not going to change that. You need to be
physically present, as you know obviously. So yeah, that's where
it changes and not get that. So you left that
job after that, so you've made it. Like you mentioned
at the start of this, you made a promise her
that you would quit that job and move on to
something else. You did, So where does the story go
from there? As far as I guess, what are you

(28:45):
doing now? You mentioned you said you're helping people? Do
you like, what is specifically are you doing now? And
how do you transition into it?

Speaker 3 (28:51):
Oh? Boy, that's a long story.

Speaker 2 (28:53):
We got fifteen minutes before this room's o. Yeah.

Speaker 3 (28:56):
I try to make it fast, so no rush.

Speaker 2 (28:59):
Rush, but it's good. Yeah.

Speaker 3 (29:01):
I came home, got back into law enforcement. So that
was June twenty sixteen. March twenty seventeen, I was involved
with the traffic stop with probably the most irrational individual
I ever met. He posted a picture of me on Facebook.
He started he filled the comments with veiled threats towards me.

Speaker 2 (29:24):
Is this the law enforcement agent?

Speaker 3 (29:26):
Yes?

Speaker 2 (29:26):
Stop you? Okay?

Speaker 3 (29:28):
No no, no, no, no, I was in law enforcement.
I stopped him. Okay, okay, yeah, and then he took
a picture of me posted that threatened me on Facebook.
But the worst part about that was is I knew
where he lived, which was right around the corner from
my house, and I've always been very active with my kids,
so I was pretty worried that I'd run into him.

(29:50):
So that kind of started at a series of events.
And then I was tasked with a huge project that
I didn't feel I could muster. My management told me
I was the only one who could do it, so
that added extra stress. As time went on and I
didn't feel like I was succeeding, I started to feel abandonment,

(30:12):
which I have a very deep or had a very
deep childhood abandonment wound. So eventually I went into a
major depressive episode, started suffering from like severe anxiety I
got I was suicidal, and every night like I couldn't sleep.

(30:32):
I was taken up to about five times recommended dose
of a sleep aid. Couldn't sleep, and so I would
just lay in bed and I would plan my own demise.
But my daughter, who was three then would wake up
every night and then come to my bed snuggle in
beside me, and you know, as I felt her body
and listen to her breathing. That's when I knew I

(30:53):
had to fight on and so I didn't know how
I was going to do it, but I just tried.
The stigma around mental health was very strong for me.
I didn't feel like I could talk to anyone. I
was terrified, but I was so desperate. I eventually went
to the one person in my life who I thought
would help me, and they kind of looked me in

(31:15):
the eye and they said, I know when I told
them how bad it was, and then they walked out
of the room, and so I was that was my
rock bottom.

Speaker 1 (31:24):
Was it a family you don't have to name it.
Was it a member of your family from your past,
like were you where you moved out? Or was it
someone just close to you period?

Speaker 3 (31:32):
It was someone very close to me and who I
thought I was very intimate with, somebody that you would
expect to at least try. I got right, try try something.
So I struggled on. I you know, random encounters with
some people kind of gave me some hope. October thirtieth,

(31:56):
twenty eighteen, I went to a collision and I had
tunnel vision. My mind was racing. I couldn't really function
very good, and so that was kind of the catalyst
for me to get get help because I believed I
was broken. So I went to therapy.

Speaker 1 (32:15):
Were you still married at this time or was that
over by this point?

Speaker 2 (32:18):
You were still married?

Speaker 3 (32:19):
I was still married. Yeah, went into therapy. H learned
so much about myself, every like so much. I could
spend an hour just talking about what I learned in therapy.

Speaker 2 (32:32):
Yeah, for sure.

Speaker 3 (32:33):
After about a year of therapy, my ex wife and
I split and we separated. And then that's that was
a whole other journey on its own, where not only
had I learned about, say, my mindset and all my
negative my negative inner voice and my way of thinking,

(32:57):
and through cognitive behavior therapy, now I was learning about
after the divorce, I learned about who I was as
a person. I found out I was a people pleaser,
kind of a codependent, and how my childhood trauma had

(33:18):
created the person I was. So then that was another
level of healing for me. And then twenty twenty, so
then two years after.

Speaker 1 (33:29):
That, Yeah, about the COVID time too, is that changes
everything too? We're thinking twenty twenty, that's when COVID hit
and the whole world changed there. I can imagine what
that might have been, how that might have impacted your life,
for sure.

Speaker 3 (33:41):
Yeah, it was. It was pretty stressful then in twenty
twenty two, So the COVID years were quite stressful. At work,
I had moved on and I was working for a
role municipality. There was several serious incidents. I got rammed once,

(34:02):
I almost got ran over another twice two times.

Speaker 2 (34:04):
Sorry, what was that job? What was that career? He said?

Speaker 3 (34:07):
Rum Sorry, I was still I was still working in
law enforcement.

Speaker 2 (34:10):
Law enforcement.

Speaker 3 (34:11):
Yeah, so I got rammed, my view, my patrol vehicle
have been rammed. I almost got ran over twice. I
got in a couple of fights out in the middle
of nowhere, and so it was very stressful. And going
through a divorce at the same time, or being newly separated,
you didn't have that lifeline back at home. So now

(34:34):
I had to absolutely make it home at the end
of my shift, especially if I had my kids right
because there was nobody else. So there was a lot
of extra pressure. So in July twenty twenty two, my
psychologist told me I needed to find a happier job.
So I went out to.

Speaker 2 (34:54):
I wish.

Speaker 3 (34:55):
Yeah, yeah, so I was off work for almost a
year then on workmen's compensation, and my psychologist really came
through for me with some of the her reporting and
stuff to help me out. But by that time, it
was about fourteen years all in, and all of that
takes a real toll on you, whether you realize it

(35:17):
or not. Right, Yeah, And so then by that time
when that happened, I just started dating somebody else who
for the first time in my life, was showing me pure,
unconditional love and she supported me through that time, which
was amazing because when you have you've never been supported before,

(35:40):
and then somebody supports you like that, it's it's a really.

Speaker 1 (35:42):
You can see the difference. Yeah, it's a shock. It's
a shock to the system for sure. And you may
not even know how to handle that. You may not
know how to open up or how to trust, you know,
when it comes to that, because you're just not used
to that. So I can imagine that would put some
potential roadblocks, especially in an early relationship like that.

Speaker 3 (35:57):
Yeah, But at the same time, once you realize you're
in a safe place, it's absolutely amazing. It's an amazing feeling.
Right So then, but not sometimes good things come to
an end. And then that relationship ended. And that's where
my true transformation happened, was when that relationship ended. Because

(36:21):
I was heartbroken about it. It was shocking, but I
decided within minutes of you know, I was still in shock,
that I was going to do all the right things.
And I did all the right things. All the tools
I'd learned over the past, you know, six years, at
that point, I put them to use, and I became

(36:44):
happier than I knew was possible. I thought I was
happy already. And I what the real transformation came though,
was I was able to identify all of my childhood
or I shouldn't say all of them, because you never
know which ones are still buried. But I found. I found,
I found a lot of childhood wounds and how they
made me think, and I was able to release those,

(37:08):
acknowledge those, and it literally changed my life. Like during
stressful times now, I just laugh it off because I
think what we don't realize is that a lot of
the time when we're stressed out, it's not the adult
version of us that's stressed out. It's our childhood, you know,

(37:29):
our inner child that's seeing something that reminds him of
trauma that we experienced, and it's freaking out and so
that's driving the bus and the adult us is freaking
out when really we if you look at it logically,
there's no reason to freak out.

Speaker 2 (37:47):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (37:47):
I never thought about it that way. Yeah, I can
see that.

Speaker 3 (37:51):
Yeah. Yeah, And it was kind of it was enlightening
to me. So about three months after that, I was
I was a completely different person, and I'm like, I
have to. I have to share this, like I have
to find a way to share this. And my psychologist

(38:11):
had told me several years earlier I should be a
life coach, and I'm like, no, I don't want to
be a life coach. But so I wrote, I built,
I created a program based on everything I did and
how I worked through everything, and then I had some
people beta tested for me, and that's when I kind
of realized, I'm like, no, like I have to. I

(38:32):
have to. My energy has to be involved in this more.
And so that's kind of that's how I fell into
transformational coaching, and because I believe strongly that I had
to share it.

Speaker 1 (38:44):
Yeah, absolutely for sure. And so so since then, have
you been able to help some people do people come
in contact with you. Do you have your name out there?
How came people I guess get in contact with you
if they're in your area or maybe not and want
want your help.

Speaker 3 (38:57):
Basically, Yeah, So I have a website, it's True Emotion
dot CA. I'm on Facebook as Laverne Freezing LinkedIn the
same name. I'm on Instagram is True Emotion Coach. I'm
not sure the exact but I don't use Instagram as much. Yeah,

(39:18):
but yeah, And I have been able to help people
and it's been it's been really amazing when somebody has
that breakthrough in their own life and it's for me.
It's all online. I have clients in the Southern States
in eastern US.

Speaker 1 (39:33):
You can connect with anybody over the world basically if
you wanted to, which is great. You don't have to
limit your area, which sounds kind of like remote with anyway.
And plus, if you're in the area that you say
you're in, you don't want to maybe you maybe know
these people a little bit too well or them you
and you don't want to go down that road.

Speaker 2 (39:45):
I get it. I get it.

Speaker 1 (39:46):
So it's good to help people who are obviously are
strangers to you and that's the best way you can
help because there's no attachment there, right, there's no bias,
So it's good, yeah.

Speaker 3 (39:54):
For sure. And there's you know, I think I've been
out of enforcement now for two years, almost exactly two years,
and I've stopped looking over my shoulder all the time.
I've stopped believing that everybody's out to hurt me. And
you know, as much as I enjoyed the career, it
was you don't realize how much poison your drinking until

(40:16):
you stop.

Speaker 2 (40:17):
Yeah, and the way to put.

Speaker 3 (40:18):
It, And I had no idea, right, it's such a it's.

Speaker 2 (40:23):
True for most of your life too. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Speaker 3 (40:26):
For sure. So it's been a wild journey.

Speaker 2 (40:30):
It has.

Speaker 1 (40:31):
I've only scratched some of the service too. A couple
of things I wanted to ask you just before we
do run out of time with this, with the zoom
thing too. I'm gonna I'm gonna pretty much guess the answer,
although I shouldn't assume I'm going to ask you anyway.
Through this whole time, especially between you know, the last
time you were in law enforcement, through your divorce or
everything that was going on your parents, did you have
contact with them? I did they have any support to

(40:52):
offer you at that time or was it completely no contact?
Where where were your parents at during that whole time?

Speaker 3 (40:58):
So to summarize, I had gone no contract contact with
my mom for a very long time. I needed to
protect my peace. My dad has done a lot of
work on himself, and so him and I are able
to have conversations. We go for coffee together, so there

(41:20):
is contact. But I had to do a ton of
forgiveness because I had I realized that if I didn't
do that forgiveness peace, it would just eat me up alive.
I would continue to be angry all the time. I
wrote my dad a letter a while ago. I read
it to him, explaining how traumatic my childhood had been,

(41:41):
and when I finished, he said, thank you for that,
It's all true. Then we hugged, and then he told
me that some of his guilt that he'd been carrying
since I was eight or nine years old, and he
was able to heal that, And so him and I
have a really good relationship. I kind of keep my
mom at arm's length, but during that time there was

(42:03):
no support from them at all.

Speaker 1 (42:05):
That makes sense, But it's good that you're able to
reconnect with him and you have that parental support still,
because no matter how old we are, we still need
that no matter what, whether people want to deny it
or not. Did he leave the church or is he
still a part of it?

Speaker 3 (42:18):
No, he's very much ingrained in it, but he's more
accepting of other people's views now. And you know he's
in his step and he's he's not leaving, right, He's right,
but he's he's not drinking the kool aid as much anymore.

Speaker 1 (42:34):
I was going to say, can that work and he
not drink that kool aid as we put it and
still be a part of that. To me, that's a
I would feel there to put pressure on him on
that side to either be all in or all out.
That's the impression I get. But it seems like he's
walking that tightrope I guess between his son, his family, Hugh,
and then being part of that because he's stuck there.

Speaker 3 (42:53):
Yeah, he came to a realization most I saw. I
have eight siblings and only two of them, only two
of them are part of that church. And I think
they realized that if they wanted to have a relationship
with their family, they were going to have to ease
up a bit.

Speaker 2 (43:08):
Yeah, that's good to hear.

Speaker 1 (43:09):
At least there's some breakthrough there, and then you're The
main thing is that you're happy in a good place,
and that's where the story kind of has a happyending.
Last question, I'll ask you real quick. Have you thought
of or do you have a book out there or
writing about your experience for people who have who have
gone through this or just want to have a good story.

Speaker 3 (43:26):
Yes, yes, and no. So I wrote a very big
manuscript a year ago and I'm sitting on it, and
then this winter I wrote another manuscript and now I'm
sitting thinking about how to kind of I feel like
those two books need to be one book, and so
I'm just kind of trying to see how that might work.

Speaker 1 (43:49):
Should be good if that does come to fruition. I
hope it does. We can hope to talk to you again.
We can dig into a few more things. There's things
that you brought up. I'd love to dig into more,
but zoom only allows me about forty minutes before I
have to, and so I don't want to cut you off.
So it's good to have at least the synopsis of
your story and a good positive conversation and Hopefully people
can get something out of this, they can connect with you.
I mentioned again your website just so people have it.

Speaker 3 (44:13):
True Emotion dot ca A.

Speaker 1 (44:15):
That's t r U E emotion. Yes, yeah, yeah, just
just good an idea. It's on Facebook and it's on
your website as well too.

Speaker 2 (44:21):
It's good to hear Leverne. It's good to have your conversation.

Speaker 1 (44:24):
Like I said, and thanks for being a part of
this and hope to talk to you again soon.

Speaker 3 (44:29):
Awesome. Thanks for having me. I think it's important to
talk about stuff like this so people know that they're
not alone and there's hope.

Speaker 1 (44:37):
Absolutely. I couldn't agree more. Thank you. You've been listening
to the Nobody's or Somebody's podcast with me Chadvice, and
this podcast has been voted the number one podcast by
people that don't vote.
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