June 22, 2025 • 29 mins
Sylvia Moore Myers is the founder and CEO of Gold Scars, LLC, a consultancy
that empowers individuals and organizations through strategic coaching,
leadership development, and transformative growth. Diagnosed with
autism as an adult, Sylvia brings a unique perspective to her work, inspiring
others with her resilience and adaptability. With over 30 years of experience
in mental health coaching and grief recovery, she holds certifications as a
Mental Health Coach, Personal Life Coach, Suicide Prevention Specialist, and
Crisis First Responder.
Sylvia’s book, Gold Scars: The Truth About Grief, Loss, and Trauma, and How
to Beautifully Mend, offers insights for navigating life’s toughest challenges.
As a speaker, she captivates audiences with her S.C.A.R. framework—
Strength, Courage, Adaptability, and Resilience—and her 7 to Heal Method,
guiding them in healing from grief, trauma, and PTSD. Dedicated to
fostering inclusivity and diversity, Sylvia creates spaces where diverse
perspectives are valued and celebrated, helping clients embrace their full
potential with courage and authenticity.
that empowers individuals and organizations through strategic coaching,
leadership development, and transformative growth. Diagnosed with
autism as an adult, Sylvia brings a unique perspective to her work, inspiring
others with her resilience and adaptability. With over 30 years of experience
in mental health coaching and grief recovery, she holds certifications as a
Mental Health Coach, Personal Life Coach, Suicide Prevention Specialist, and
Crisis First Responder.
Sylvia’s book, Gold Scars: The Truth About Grief, Loss, and Trauma, and How
to Beautifully Mend, offers insights for navigating life’s toughest challenges.
As a speaker, she captivates audiences with her S.C.A.R. framework—
Strength, Courage, Adaptability, and Resilience—and her 7 to Heal Method,
guiding them in healing from grief, trauma, and PTSD. Dedicated to
fostering inclusivity and diversity, Sylvia creates spaces where diverse
perspectives are valued and celebrated, helping clients embrace their full
potential with courage and authenticity.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:03):
I'm Cynthia James, and this network is about changing lives,
one woman at a time. Welcome to Women Awakening. I'm
your host, Cynthia James, and I get the distinct honor
of introducing you to incredible women, women that inspire me.
(00:27):
But what's the most important thing is that I really
believe this is the time for women emerging on the planet,
that our energy, our nurturing characters, our wisdom is needed.
And so I'm so grateful that these women have taken
charge in their own lives and become dedicated to make
a difference for women and people all over this planet.
(00:48):
So we do these every week. We're on all the
platforms Spotify, iTunes, Iheartspeaker, YouTube video. Please subscribe, Share this
with a friend or anybody you know who might need support.
You can also go to Cynthia James dot net. There's
gifts there, and there's all kinds of things going on
(01:09):
in my world, and I'd love to share it with
you because this is what I believe that the more
we can nurture and care for each other, the more
we rise. I'm very grateful today to have a guest.
She's new to me. Her name is Sylvia Moore Myers.
She is an experienced entrepreneur and author and business consultant
(01:32):
with over thirty years of expertise, certified in mental health,
life coaching, and crisis intervention. She's the founder and CEO
of gold Scars LLC. Sylvia authored gold Scars Stars gold
Scars Say It Right Cynthia, offering insights into grief, loss
(01:54):
and trauma. As a sought after speaker, she inspires audiences
to embrace scar strength forridge, adaptability, resilience, and navigate healing
through her seven to Heal method. Sylvia, thank you so
much for being here.
Speaker 2 (02:13):
Thank you so much for having me. I appreciate it.
Speaker 1 (02:16):
Well, I'm really looking forward to our conversation. But I
want to start with where you came from, how you
grew up. You know, I people have a misconception of
the fact that people just dropped into successful ways of being,
but you know, we all evolved. So how did you evolve? Sure?
Speaker 2 (02:34):
Well, you know, I guess it's kind of strange. I'm
a late diagnosed autistic adult found out I was autistic
writing my book, so and I realized that it wasn't
the last twenty years that I'd gone through grief, but
it was my entire life, early childhood included. And you know,
(02:55):
I was six down and five up, a family of
ten children with a lesson the nurturing type of mother.
She was very business like. I made appointments to see her.
I didn't his sister's mayor and traveled the world. But
she wasn't a nurturer, and so I lacked that as
a child, and as an autistic child, I was kind
(03:16):
of bullied in grade school, junior high, got into high
school and realized what you know that I was. I
needed to act different or I wasn't going to make friends.
So I immediately put that into play, not even knowing
what I was doing. I was just acting the part right,
and I got through that, but went right into adulthood
the same thing. From employers. I was sexually harassed and
(03:38):
abused by two separate attorneys. I decided at that point
maybe law wasn't my career after all, and became an
entrepreneur because I was tired of that crap. No offense,
I just you know, it never seemed to end. Yeah,
so I got in. Yeah, I'm sorry. Tell me how
far down this rebbert hole? You?
Speaker 1 (04:01):
I love that you shared that because I have a
very dear friend who in her late forties got diagnosed
with autism, and she said, all of a sudden, light
bulbs went on that it made her.
Speaker 2 (04:15):
Yes, she was like, oh that at why, Yes, you
really meet yourself for the first time and what's really sad.
And I'm a specialist in autism. I'm advanced autism specialist.
I speak on that subject as much as grief. But
when you've spent your entire life masking, which is exhausting,
by the way, because after any encounter, if I'm not
(04:38):
being my true, authentic self, I'm totally shutting down after
that because I'm so tired and my brain hurts and
my body feels funny, and I feel like I've lied
through the entire conversation. But when you've done it your
whole life, it takes a long time and a little
bit of therapy to be able to let that mask down.
Even now, to make I on tact means that I
(05:01):
need to force it, and I'm still I still, you know,
I just I'm graduating with my master's, I've got my
cohort PhD. I'm starting in a couple of weeks, and
I still don't know what small talk is, so as
long as there's nothing like that on a test, I'll pass.
But I got into my thirties, I'd gone through a
(05:22):
bad marriage, I'd lost a child, you know, in the womb,
and I had three lovely boys, a wonderful husband, and
a business, real estate business. I was doing pretty good,
and I thought, finally, yay, life is going to be
normal for me. And I got a call in May
of two thousand and three that my brother was in
(05:43):
a hospital close to me. I drove down to see him,
and he eventually died from a blood clot He was
very young, he was just turning fifty, and he passed
away and I had to help my mother bury her
firstborn child. Six months later, I got the call that
no parent wants to get. My teenage son was in
(06:04):
a hospital Macon, which was very far away from where
we lived. We have a hospital local. They took him
to that one in Stays. I was very confused, and
I got to the hospital find out that he had
been shot by another teenager that he didn't know, a
stranger in a gas station, and by the morning he
was going to be an organ donor. That five people
(06:27):
would live because of him, but he was not going
to be with us. So I left the hospital to
pick out a coffin for a child that was still warm,
knowing that the next time I saw him he was
going to be in a coffin of my choosing and cold.
And there's two other children standing there and all of
my family converging all on this, and you would think
(06:51):
it couldn't get worse, right, but it did. So we
got through that funeral. I had PTSD from the trauma
from that. Obviously that's normal parents, especially because I was
seeing him right after. I saw the horrificness of it.
And I'm sorry from triggering anybody. Sorry, we'll try to
(07:11):
pre warn you before the show.
Speaker 1 (07:13):
Because I think life experiences are important.
Speaker 2 (07:19):
They are.
Speaker 1 (07:19):
Indeed, I'm grateful you're sharing it and get me to
support you.
Speaker 2 (07:25):
Thank you well. Eight months later, no kidding, almost to
the day, you know, of eight months after he was murdered,
I'm on my way home and I'm being followed. I
didn't realize it. It's probably an autistic thing too. I'm
attentive to all kinds of things, but you know, I
wasn't prepared for that. And the gentleman got out of
his car after I pulled into my garage, and he
(07:47):
ran in and got me as I was opening the door,
and I fought for my life. He was a serial
want to be killer. I was his fourth victim, not
his first. And after a lot of tussling and a
loss of hair and little fist fighting in my driveway,
I was in behind his car looking at his license
plate at akv O nine four three and one thing
(08:09):
about autistic people. We may not remember your name, but
bye God, we remember your number.
Speaker 1 (08:17):
I had it like a.
Speaker 2 (08:18):
Computer, had memorized it. And eventually I got away, I
got the license plate. They picked him up, We all up,
Me and two little twelve year old girls and another
lady testified against him in court for trying to kill us.
And that was eight months after so I already had PTSD.
Put a traumatic life on top of that, and now
(08:41):
I was deepen depression, deepen grief, deepen loss. And I'm
staring at a seven year old and a sixteen year
old and I have no idea how to help them either.
And that is when I went for the grief recovery. Eventually,
it took me several years. Under that I lost my marriage.
I lost my business as I sold it got out
(09:03):
and when I finally found the grief recovery and I
realized how and I don't want to downplay this, but
how simple the process really is if you're committed to
do it. I started helping other people. I got certified
and grief recovery. I'm finishing my masters and traumatology and
my PhD. But I took it seriously and that's why
(09:23):
I wrote the book, and I'm trying to I was
helping eight people at a time, and I thought, if
I write this book, there's a very good chance I
can help thousands instead, and maybe content instead. And so
on my website, I give a lot of my stuff
out for free. So I just hint, hint, you know.
But that's where that came from. That's my story of
(09:45):
how I got to where I am now.
Speaker 1 (09:49):
So what's important about your sharing this is that you know,
when you've been traumatized, it's bad enough to go through
the trauma, but then if you're holding it in because
you don't want to be judged, or you don't want
to be punished again, or you know, whatever it's like,
then it's double. It's double. So I want to talk
(10:09):
a little bit about gold scars and you know, first
of all, where did that come from? And then I
want to talk about the four ingredients of it.
Speaker 2 (10:20):
Yes, because oil. For me, gold scars is like the
consugivase right Japanese consugi base. It says, just because it's
broken doesn't mean that you didn't cherish it. You're not
going to toss it in the garbage. In Japan, that
tradition is to fill those pieces with gold, and the
(10:40):
resin is so strong and it's so beautiful. When you're
done that it's more beautiful, more resilient than before it
was broken. And then it's cherished and used again. And
that's what we are. We're we are human beings. We
are not a c cucumber nor a chameleon. We can't
grow back apart. And we were never designed by the
(11:01):
maker to completely heal. We were never meant to heal.
We were meant to scar. We get wounds and we scar,
and it hit me that we were always meant to scar.
You know that once you get to that healing spot
and you've got your scars, people with wounds are looking
(11:23):
for people with scars. And that's why the huge I
truly believe God given spiritual it's supposed to be that way.
How else will we minister each other if we completely
heal every time we're injured, and scars on the heart
are the same.
Speaker 1 (11:40):
Yeah, well I love about that is because there is
something beautiful about connection and community with we're healing is
concerned and so you're never going to erase what has
happened to you.
Speaker 2 (11:57):
No, And you know that's what I was doing. I
was running around looking for an eraser to get rid
of everything that was wrong. And I should have been
looking for a highlighter instead, because I did not need
a way to forget what happened to my son or
to me. I needed a better way to remember. And
(12:18):
that's where scar comes in and the seven to heal.
It gives someone a better way to heal and to
remember what happened to them.
Speaker 1 (12:26):
Well, yeah, and I want to talk a little bit
about grieving, and then I want to talk about acronym.
But you know a lot of people have gone through
something traumatic and then other people around them saying, you know,
you should get over this, or they say, you know,
(12:51):
don't you think you spent enough time on this? How
can you move forward, and it's like not understanding that
grief is a is the process of grieving is different
for every single person, so a little.
Speaker 2 (13:04):
Bit absolutely well so, and you hit a really good
point because in psychology they teach you that for someone
to recover from grief it can take anywhere from six
months to six years. If you've got PTSD, it's a
lifelong illness that you're going to be dealing with. But
if you're still suffering and in deep distress after thirty days,
(13:25):
you've probably got PTSD. Your road is going to take
a little longer, right, But society only gives us six
weeks and then they give up on us. It's called
the honeymoon stage of any trauma crisis. And a trauma crisis,
whether it's a hurricane or the death of a child,
or a murder of a loved one, or a flood
that takes your house down the river, you have that
(13:45):
first six weeks where everybody wants to get their photo
op and rally around you, and you know, and do
fundraisers and show up with water and pop tarts, and
the president gets his photo taken at the scene, and
then they all go away and the next is called dissillusion,
and that's when the people that were injured are still
standing there going now we're alone. Now what do we do?
(14:07):
And that's what grief is. Like. You go out and
I've had this happen to me personally several years after
Jacob died, and someone Leou'd say, I haven't seen you,
and how are you doing. You haven't been in church
for a while, what's wrong? It's like, well, you know,
just thinking about Jacob right now. It's you know, that
time of year, and I'll go still, it's like it's
been so long. It's like it's like Powell, I'll good
(14:29):
punch you in the face, But no, I don't bud him.
I just go yeah, yeah, Still, it's his birthday, so
it kind of frings that up. But no, society doesn't.
And do you know why we don't do it to
be mean. We're not just innately mean to our people
that have been injured. We do it as a self preservation.
(14:51):
We victim blame because we feel like if we'd been
followed home in our driveway, we would have got away,
Or if my son had been on a gas station,
he wouldn't have got shot. It's like he was nineteen
in college. You know, he's on his way home to
put a Christmas tree up. You know, he didn't cause
that problem. I could not have prevented it. I know,
I've relived it five million times thinking if there was
(15:14):
any possible way. By the way, that's part of the
grieving steps is that like, Okay, God, if you'll do this,
I'll do that. Maybe it's a dream denial, you know,
but society does that because it's their own way of
preserving themselves outside out of that that trauma, and they
resolve it in their mind that it would have never
happened to them. So they expect you to be over
it now so they don't have to deal with you.
Speaker 1 (15:37):
But you know, here's the thing. You know, you can
be very much in charge of yourself, but you cannot
be in charge of other people's behaviors or psychosis or challenge.
That person that followed you. You weren't the first, and
so whatever that was wasn't even about you.
Speaker 3 (15:57):
You know, I'm like, how great you got away? And yeah,
my son is a baseball player, my younger middle son.
He had a Louisville slugger at the corner of the
garage and I was. I managed to get it and
I just started swinging it.
Speaker 2 (16:12):
That's how I got away. That was after I got
his license plate number.
Speaker 1 (16:16):
So well, I'm so grateful for you. So I want
to talk about scar, strength, courage, adaptability, and resilience. Let's
start with strength.
Speaker 2 (16:26):
Sure, and and you know when I talk about the
the gold scar, strength is let me get to that
really quick. It's to get up, right, You got to
get up. You got to make that decision. It's the
first thing you do in the seven steps I'll give you.
That's called help. I need help. You know that admission
that damn, it's not getting any better. But it's hard
(16:48):
because we love to waller around in our grief. We
love to stay there because it's now comfortable. You know,
we're down, we're depressed, but it's it's the same, and
you feel like it's not gonna help. But strength is
that thing that you already have in you. By the way,
you have the S to see, the A and the
R pre wired into your brain as a human being.
(17:09):
It's a gift of your creation and all you got
to do is tap into them. So the first one's strength,
make the decision that you're gonna do it. Courage. Courage
is because it's really easier to stay in grief. Like
I said to Waller around at it. And the courage
is is that you're gonna get up and you're going
to do something. And it does take courage, I'm afraid.
So if I told you, hey, I've got this cure
(17:30):
for your grief, I can help you through it. You know,
most people think that the person grieving would go, yeah, here,
I come, no there when I have a class. I
had a class a week or two ago, a week
and a half ago for older women. Now older. I'm older.
I'm sixty three, you know, between the edges of fifty
five and seventy, and some of them were very reluctant
(17:53):
to go and others were reluctant to speak. When they
got there. The courage had to be kind of pulled
out a lit little bit, right, But that's courage because
it does take courage. Adaptability is our ability to change,
and we've got it to pivot, to adjust, to live forward,
even when your future looks like nothing that you ever planned.
(18:16):
I wasn't just grieving the loss of my son. I
was grieving the loss of my future grandchildren. The person
that he was going to be calm. You know. You know,
he was my firstborn child, and I grieved everything about
him and everything that I'd hoped for him, not just
the loss of his body and his mind and his spirit,
but of what he would be. And that happens to
(18:37):
a lot of people in grief, grieving autistic parents. They
grieve what they thought their child was going to be.
And that's grief now for them that they feel like
they've lost that, and I can help them do that.
That's adaptability and again, it it's there. You got it.
You just got to say it out loud. And resilience,
it is the god given superpower to keep going when
(19:01):
everything's unbearable. People call it bouncing back. You can bounce back.
It's like, yes, you can, yeah, because it's called resilience
and our brain is already set up for it. The
problem people have is they don't realize that those things
all go together. I gotta be strong, I gotta have
some courage. I'm gonna I'm gonna make some changes. Okay,
I'm gonna take all the things down that have been
(19:22):
in my son's room for thirty years. I did not
do that, but you know, some people do they memorialize it.
I'm gonna put them away and start living forward into
the future. I'm gonna make some changes in my life,
you know, I'm gonna I'm gonna do things differently, and
that takes a lot of courage as well. So and then,
of course, like I said, resilience, I believe that resilience
is how we bounce back. It's how you find new purpose.
(19:45):
It's how I like to say, from the ashes of
disaster come the roses of success, from one of my
favorite childhood movies. But it's so true, it's so true.
Speaker 1 (19:56):
Well, thank you so much, and ladies, you know I
I hope you were taking notes or you know, well
you'll get her beautiful book Goal Scars. But I want
to talk a little bit about diagnosis for autism later
in life and the navigating of that because because for you,
(20:17):
you know, what were the symptoms before you got diagnosed,
what were you witnessing in yourself?
Speaker 2 (20:23):
First, I wanted to say that I was born in
the oh, how do you say it, the chaos and
glory and beauty of the early nineteen sixties, right, So
if I would have been diagnosed autistic when I was
in you know grade school, I would have been institutionalized
most likely. Yes, yes, So I was very smart. I
(20:45):
spoke two languages at the age of two, not one,
but two, French and English. A lot of it was
echolalia and I would say big words, and my dad
told me about it later one he said, you said
constitutionalism or something like that when you were like one.
But they just thought I had a very high IQ
and I was quirky. So I was quirky and clumsy.
(21:08):
Clumsy is dyspraxia. I fell all the time. I was constantly.
I had three concussions before I even came into adulthood.
Got my fourth concussion a few years ago when I
slipped and fell like it. But I had a little
dyslexia dyspraxia. I have a fantasia, which means I don't
(21:29):
have any vision. When I close my eyes, I can't
envision an apple. If you've tried it, now close your
eyes so you can see an apple. You'll see one.
Most people can, although that's not a comorbidity of autism
mini autism. Folks with autism habit. But I had everything.
I mean, it was all there. When I finally realized
(21:51):
it was when I was writing the book and I
got to the section about my mom, and I really
did research on this book. I did not write this
book in like thirty days with the help of chat GBT.
It was all me. It took years, and I had
a writing coach with my publisher, you know, that asked
me a lot of questions, sent me back to rewrite
a lot. But I did a lot of research on
(22:12):
my mom. And I called my brother and I said,
Mom was brilliant. I mean my mother. I don't know
what her IQ was, but it was big. That's all
I can say. She worked for the governor, she worked
for the United States government. She was the mayor of
our town. She balanced the books in sixty days of
a city who hadn't been in the black in twenty
(22:33):
five years, found corruption, turned it all around. It has
a lot of fun. But she again, she was just
one of those people that couldn't even stand to take
a shower because she didn't like how the water felt
on her head, and a half a dozen other things.
So I called my brother, I go, do you think
Mom was like autistic or something? And I said, she's
(22:53):
kind of I'm kind of reading about her traits and
that's what keeps coming up on my research. And he said, yeah,
we've my brother. Your brother and I have talked about
it too. We've always kind of thought mom might have
been Asperger's. And he started he was the youngest, so
he was spent the most time alone with my mother,
you know, after ten of us. And he was telling
me all these things and I'm like, oh my god,
(23:13):
I'm I'm pretty sure she was too then. And then
I started looking and reading about Aspergers. I'm like, oh god,
I think I'm autistic too. So I took the test online.
I went to the autism websites, the legit ones right,
and I took this self test and I kept scoring
off the chart right, and I'm like, yeah, this is crazy.
(23:35):
It took months for me to get a diagono get
the appointment for it, but two PhDs and me an
entire day after three months of testing, sat down and
he said, hey, you needed a forty eight on this test.
You got a seventy two. You needed a fifty on
this When you got a ninety, he said, you got
an A plus in Augier. It's like, how do I
(24:01):
not how do I not know it? But I was
a walking, talking, autistic child, undiagnosed. I clicked every button,
I hit every level. If you say it, I am it.
I think what really got me through is I'm very
good at masking. I have. I trained for two years
with the National Speaker's Association in the United States to
(24:24):
speak on stages and with people. I've trained to make
eye contact. I've taught myself to things that I need
to know. But I'm still authentically autistic. And I love
that about me, and I think it's wonderful. It's like
I am uniquely wired in my brain. Am I different? Yes,
(24:45):
spend fifteen minutes alone with me, you'll see my autism.
It can't hide very But but I cried a lot
when I first found out with the doctors. And I said,
I don't think I'm sad. I think I'm just crying
because I'm overwhelmed. And she said, you're doing what every
other client we've ever had. You're meeting yourself for the
first time. And it's okay. I said, You're gonna spend
(25:09):
the next few years getting to know yourself more. It's
going to take a little while, and she wasn't kidding.
It's taken a while. And I grieved that child that
was abused. I was I was picked on, I was
sexually abused, I was treated poorly. I got kicked out
of jobs that I should have gotten. If I named
(25:30):
everything that was affected by my autism, if I wasn't autistic,
my life would have been different. Right now, I want to.
Speaker 1 (25:38):
Say, thank you, thank you. I'm so grateful that you
shared that. And and you know, like I said, my
friend got that diagnosis in her fifties. What I want
to say is that what if whatever way you were born,
whatever way you came in on the planet, what if
that was perfect? What if? What if you know the
(26:00):
way you are is what created gold Scars and allows
you to help other people. You know, I love that.
How do people find you?
Speaker 2 (26:10):
Oh that's easy goldscars dot com. You can everything but
my blood type and I'm an a positive. So there
you go. You got it all out but gold Scars.
And you know, one thing I'll tell you real quick
is on the when you order the book, you know
(26:30):
you won't get the exist, but if you reach out
to me, I'll send you the bookmarks. But I have
in my website right now you can get the seventy
heel process and start that on your own four free.
Please buy the book. Yes, you'll notice that if you
put in MJ A four zero you'll get forty percent off,
(26:50):
so make sure you do. But it'll take you through help, help, healing, healthy, hope, holiness,
happiness and hilarious and those seven steps. I made them fun,
but they're legit. It's taking yourself from the help part
all the way where you're just roaring with laughter. Because
I'm a person filled with joy and I've been through
(27:12):
every monstrosity you can think of, and I'm still laughing
every day. And that's where I want everyone to be.
There is joy after grief.
Speaker 1 (27:22):
There is yes, there is Well. I'm so grateful. You know,
I asked the same last question of every guest on
my show. This show is called Women Awakening. What do
you think is the most important thing about women awakening
on the planet today?
Speaker 2 (27:37):
Wow? You know, I've been through a lot as a woman,
and I've been mistreated by employers. I've lost jobs because
I was a woman. I couldn't even get a coffee
in a gas station one time because the men were
there trying to go to work and I had to wait.
And there I was a working woman, right. So I've
seen that kind of discrimination, but I never let it
(28:00):
define me. So what I say is, you know, damn
the torpedoes and full speed ahead. If you've got it
in you, you fight for it. You no offense, You
get the short end of the Lilli Pop, make a fuss,
because we've got to stand up. We've got more generations
of women to go, I think before we're going to
(28:21):
truly see the equality that we all deserve. And I
hate that for my granddaughter, who I adore, but I
see it still. And it's not our husband's faults or
our father's faults or our son's faults. It's just the
way the world has gone and it's just not moving
fast enough to suit us women right now. So push
forward that cause for women's rights. We're still fighting that battle.
(28:46):
I hate it, but it's really true.
Speaker 1 (28:48):
Yeah, well, thank you. I mean, I agree, it's like
you know, but that's why I really believe that women
standing in their power is what raises the frequency. I
wanna thank you so much for being here. I'm so
grateful that you've been a guest on the show.
Speaker 2 (29:03):
Oh thank you so much for having me. It was
a pleasure.
Speaker 1 (29:07):
Okay, ladies, I close this show the same way, different words.
Speaker 2 (29:11):
You know.
Speaker 1 (29:13):
I loved that when I got the information on Sylvia
that it was talking about gold scars, because there is
something about what's innate within us that allows us to
be resilient and tap into our strength and our power
and our courage. So I want you to know that
nothing that has ever happened to you defined you. You
(29:35):
get to create the life you want to live. You
get to bring your joy to the planet. I'm so
grateful to have this opportunity with you every week. I
love you, and I'll see you in the next session. Bye.
I'm Cynthia James, and this network is about changing lives,
one woman at a time. Welcome to Women Awakening. I'm
your host, Cynthia James, and I get the distinct honor
of introducing you to incredible women, women that inspire me.
(00:27):
But what's the most important thing is that I really
believe this is the time for women emerging on the planet,
that our energy, our nurturing characters, our wisdom is needed.
And so I'm so grateful that these women have taken
charge in their own lives and become dedicated to make
a difference for women and people all over this planet.
(00:48):
So we do these every week. We're on all the
platforms Spotify, iTunes, Iheartspeaker, YouTube video. Please subscribe, Share this
with a friend or anybody you know who might need support.
You can also go to Cynthia James dot net. There's
gifts there, and there's all kinds of things going on
(01:09):
in my world, and I'd love to share it with
you because this is what I believe that the more
we can nurture and care for each other, the more
we rise. I'm very grateful today to have a guest.
She's new to me. Her name is Sylvia Moore Myers.
She is an experienced entrepreneur and author and business consultant
(01:32):
with over thirty years of expertise, certified in mental health,
life coaching, and crisis intervention. She's the founder and CEO
of gold Scars LLC. Sylvia authored gold Scars Stars gold
Scars Say It Right Cynthia, offering insights into grief, loss
(01:54):
and trauma. As a sought after speaker, she inspires audiences
to embrace scar strength forridge, adaptability, resilience, and navigate healing
through her seven to Heal method. Sylvia, thank you so
much for being here.
Speaker 2 (02:13):
Thank you so much for having me. I appreciate it.
Speaker 1 (02:16):
Well, I'm really looking forward to our conversation. But I
want to start with where you came from, how you
grew up. You know, I people have a misconception of
the fact that people just dropped into successful ways of being,
but you know, we all evolved. So how did you evolve? Sure?
Speaker 2 (02:34):
Well, you know, I guess it's kind of strange. I'm
a late diagnosed autistic adult found out I was autistic
writing my book, so and I realized that it wasn't
the last twenty years that I'd gone through grief, but
it was my entire life, early childhood included. And you know,
(02:55):
I was six down and five up, a family of
ten children with a lesson the nurturing type of mother.
She was very business like. I made appointments to see her.
I didn't his sister's mayor and traveled the world. But
she wasn't a nurturer, and so I lacked that as
a child, and as an autistic child, I was kind
(03:16):
of bullied in grade school, junior high, got into high
school and realized what you know that I was. I
needed to act different or I wasn't going to make friends.
So I immediately put that into play, not even knowing
what I was doing. I was just acting the part right,
and I got through that, but went right into adulthood
the same thing. From employers. I was sexually harassed and
(03:38):
abused by two separate attorneys. I decided at that point
maybe law wasn't my career after all, and became an
entrepreneur because I was tired of that crap. No offense,
I just you know, it never seemed to end. Yeah,
so I got in. Yeah, I'm sorry. Tell me how
far down this rebbert hole? You?
Speaker 1 (04:01):
I love that you shared that because I have a
very dear friend who in her late forties got diagnosed
with autism, and she said, all of a sudden, light
bulbs went on that it made her.
Speaker 2 (04:15):
Yes, she was like, oh that at why, Yes, you
really meet yourself for the first time and what's really sad.
And I'm a specialist in autism. I'm advanced autism specialist.
I speak on that subject as much as grief. But
when you've spent your entire life masking, which is exhausting,
by the way, because after any encounter, if I'm not
(04:38):
being my true, authentic self, I'm totally shutting down after
that because I'm so tired and my brain hurts and
my body feels funny, and I feel like I've lied
through the entire conversation. But when you've done it your
whole life, it takes a long time and a little
bit of therapy to be able to let that mask down.
Even now, to make I on tact means that I
(05:01):
need to force it, and I'm still I still, you know,
I just I'm graduating with my master's, I've got my
cohort PhD. I'm starting in a couple of weeks, and
I still don't know what small talk is, so as
long as there's nothing like that on a test, I'll pass.
But I got into my thirties, I'd gone through a
(05:22):
bad marriage, I'd lost a child, you know, in the womb,
and I had three lovely boys, a wonderful husband, and
a business, real estate business. I was doing pretty good,
and I thought, finally, yay, life is going to be
normal for me. And I got a call in May
of two thousand and three that my brother was in
(05:43):
a hospital close to me. I drove down to see him,
and he eventually died from a blood clot He was
very young, he was just turning fifty, and he passed
away and I had to help my mother bury her
firstborn child. Six months later, I got the call that
no parent wants to get. My teenage son was in
(06:04):
a hospital Macon, which was very far away from where
we lived. We have a hospital local. They took him
to that one in Stays. I was very confused, and
I got to the hospital find out that he had
been shot by another teenager that he didn't know, a
stranger in a gas station, and by the morning he
was going to be an organ donor. That five people
(06:27):
would live because of him, but he was not going
to be with us. So I left the hospital to
pick out a coffin for a child that was still warm,
knowing that the next time I saw him he was
going to be in a coffin of my choosing and cold.
And there's two other children standing there and all of
my family converging all on this, and you would think
(06:51):
it couldn't get worse, right, but it did. So we
got through that funeral. I had PTSD from the trauma
from that. Obviously that's normal parents, especially because I was
seeing him right after. I saw the horrificness of it.
And I'm sorry from triggering anybody. Sorry, we'll try to
(07:11):
pre warn you before the show.
Speaker 1 (07:13):
Because I think life experiences are important.
Speaker 2 (07:19):
They are.
Speaker 1 (07:19):
Indeed, I'm grateful you're sharing it and get me to
support you.
Speaker 2 (07:25):
Thank you well. Eight months later, no kidding, almost to
the day, you know, of eight months after he was murdered,
I'm on my way home and I'm being followed. I
didn't realize it. It's probably an autistic thing too. I'm
attentive to all kinds of things, but you know, I
wasn't prepared for that. And the gentleman got out of
his car after I pulled into my garage, and he
(07:47):
ran in and got me as I was opening the door,
and I fought for my life. He was a serial
want to be killer. I was his fourth victim, not
his first. And after a lot of tussling and a
loss of hair and little fist fighting in my driveway,
I was in behind his car looking at his license
plate at akv O nine four three and one thing
(08:09):
about autistic people. We may not remember your name, but
bye God, we remember your number.
Speaker 1 (08:17):
I had it like a.
Speaker 2 (08:18):
Computer, had memorized it. And eventually I got away, I
got the license plate. They picked him up, We all up,
Me and two little twelve year old girls and another
lady testified against him in court for trying to kill us.
And that was eight months after so I already had PTSD.
Put a traumatic life on top of that, and now
(08:41):
I was deepen depression, deepen grief, deepen loss. And I'm
staring at a seven year old and a sixteen year
old and I have no idea how to help them either.
And that is when I went for the grief recovery. Eventually,
it took me several years. Under that I lost my marriage.
I lost my business as I sold it got out
(09:03):
and when I finally found the grief recovery and I
realized how and I don't want to downplay this, but
how simple the process really is if you're committed to
do it. I started helping other people. I got certified
and grief recovery. I'm finishing my masters and traumatology and
my PhD. But I took it seriously and that's why
(09:23):
I wrote the book, and I'm trying to I was
helping eight people at a time, and I thought, if
I write this book, there's a very good chance I
can help thousands instead, and maybe content instead. And so
on my website, I give a lot of my stuff
out for free. So I just hint, hint, you know.
But that's where that came from. That's my story of
(09:45):
how I got to where I am now.
Speaker 1 (09:49):
So what's important about your sharing this is that you know,
when you've been traumatized, it's bad enough to go through
the trauma, but then if you're holding it in because
you don't want to be judged, or you don't want
to be punished again, or you know, whatever it's like,
then it's double. It's double. So I want to talk
(10:09):
a little bit about gold scars and you know, first
of all, where did that come from? And then I
want to talk about the four ingredients of it.
Speaker 2 (10:20):
Yes, because oil. For me, gold scars is like the
consugivase right Japanese consugi base. It says, just because it's
broken doesn't mean that you didn't cherish it. You're not
going to toss it in the garbage. In Japan, that
tradition is to fill those pieces with gold, and the
(10:40):
resin is so strong and it's so beautiful. When you're
done that it's more beautiful, more resilient than before it
was broken. And then it's cherished and used again. And
that's what we are. We're we are human beings. We
are not a c cucumber nor a chameleon. We can't
grow back apart. And we were never designed by the
(11:01):
maker to completely heal. We were never meant to heal.
We were meant to scar. We get wounds and we scar,
and it hit me that we were always meant to scar.
You know that once you get to that healing spot
and you've got your scars, people with wounds are looking
(11:23):
for people with scars. And that's why the huge I
truly believe God given spiritual it's supposed to be that way.
How else will we minister each other if we completely
heal every time we're injured, and scars on the heart
are the same.
Speaker 1 (11:40):
Yeah, well I love about that is because there is
something beautiful about connection and community with we're healing is
concerned and so you're never going to erase what has
happened to you.
Speaker 2 (11:57):
No, And you know that's what I was doing. I
was running around looking for an eraser to get rid
of everything that was wrong. And I should have been
looking for a highlighter instead, because I did not need
a way to forget what happened to my son or
to me. I needed a better way to remember. And
(12:18):
that's where scar comes in and the seven to heal.
It gives someone a better way to heal and to
remember what happened to them.
Speaker 1 (12:26):
Well, yeah, and I want to talk a little bit
about grieving, and then I want to talk about acronym.
But you know a lot of people have gone through
something traumatic and then other people around them saying, you know,
you should get over this, or they say, you know,
(12:51):
don't you think you spent enough time on this? How
can you move forward, and it's like not understanding that
grief is a is the process of grieving is different
for every single person, so a little.
Speaker 2 (13:04):
Bit absolutely well so, and you hit a really good
point because in psychology they teach you that for someone
to recover from grief it can take anywhere from six
months to six years. If you've got PTSD, it's a
lifelong illness that you're going to be dealing with. But
if you're still suffering and in deep distress after thirty days,
(13:25):
you've probably got PTSD. Your road is going to take
a little longer, right, But society only gives us six
weeks and then they give up on us. It's called
the honeymoon stage of any trauma crisis. And a trauma crisis,
whether it's a hurricane or the death of a child,
or a murder of a loved one, or a flood
that takes your house down the river, you have that
(13:45):
first six weeks where everybody wants to get their photo
op and rally around you, and you know, and do
fundraisers and show up with water and pop tarts, and
the president gets his photo taken at the scene, and
then they all go away and the next is called dissillusion,
and that's when the people that were injured are still
standing there going now we're alone. Now what do we do?
(14:07):
And that's what grief is. Like. You go out and
I've had this happen to me personally several years after
Jacob died, and someone Leou'd say, I haven't seen you,
and how are you doing. You haven't been in church
for a while, what's wrong? It's like, well, you know,
just thinking about Jacob right now. It's you know, that
time of year, and I'll go still, it's like it's
been so long. It's like it's like Powell, I'll good
(14:29):
punch you in the face, But no, I don't bud him.
I just go yeah, yeah, Still, it's his birthday, so
it kind of frings that up. But no, society doesn't.
And do you know why we don't do it to
be mean. We're not just innately mean to our people
that have been injured. We do it as a self preservation.
(14:51):
We victim blame because we feel like if we'd been
followed home in our driveway, we would have got away,
Or if my son had been on a gas station,
he wouldn't have got shot. It's like he was nineteen
in college. You know, he's on his way home to
put a Christmas tree up. You know, he didn't cause
that problem. I could not have prevented it. I know,
I've relived it five million times thinking if there was
(15:14):
any possible way. By the way, that's part of the
grieving steps is that like, Okay, God, if you'll do this,
I'll do that. Maybe it's a dream denial, you know,
but society does that because it's their own way of
preserving themselves outside out of that that trauma, and they
resolve it in their mind that it would have never
happened to them. So they expect you to be over
it now so they don't have to deal with you.
Speaker 1 (15:37):
But you know, here's the thing. You know, you can
be very much in charge of yourself, but you cannot
be in charge of other people's behaviors or psychosis or challenge.
That person that followed you. You weren't the first, and
so whatever that was wasn't even about you.
Speaker 3 (15:57):
You know, I'm like, how great you got away? And yeah,
my son is a baseball player, my younger middle son.
He had a Louisville slugger at the corner of the
garage and I was. I managed to get it and
I just started swinging it.
Speaker 2 (16:12):
That's how I got away. That was after I got
his license plate number.
Speaker 1 (16:16):
So well, I'm so grateful for you. So I want
to talk about scar, strength, courage, adaptability, and resilience. Let's
start with strength.
Speaker 2 (16:26):
Sure, and and you know when I talk about the
the gold scar, strength is let me get to that
really quick. It's to get up, right, You got to
get up. You got to make that decision. It's the
first thing you do in the seven steps I'll give you.
That's called help. I need help. You know that admission
that damn, it's not getting any better. But it's hard
(16:48):
because we love to waller around in our grief. We
love to stay there because it's now comfortable. You know,
we're down, we're depressed, but it's it's the same, and
you feel like it's not gonna help. But strength is
that thing that you already have in you. By the way,
you have the S to see, the A and the
R pre wired into your brain as a human being.
(17:09):
It's a gift of your creation and all you got
to do is tap into them. So the first one's strength,
make the decision that you're gonna do it. Courage. Courage
is because it's really easier to stay in grief. Like
I said to Waller around at it. And the courage
is is that you're gonna get up and you're going
to do something. And it does take courage, I'm afraid.
So if I told you, hey, I've got this cure
(17:30):
for your grief, I can help you through it. You know,
most people think that the person grieving would go, yeah, here,
I come, no there when I have a class. I
had a class a week or two ago, a week
and a half ago for older women. Now older. I'm older.
I'm sixty three, you know, between the edges of fifty
five and seventy, and some of them were very reluctant
(17:53):
to go and others were reluctant to speak. When they
got there. The courage had to be kind of pulled
out a lit little bit, right, But that's courage because
it does take courage. Adaptability is our ability to change,
and we've got it to pivot, to adjust, to live forward,
even when your future looks like nothing that you ever planned.
(18:16):
I wasn't just grieving the loss of my son. I
was grieving the loss of my future grandchildren. The person
that he was going to be calm. You know. You know,
he was my firstborn child, and I grieved everything about
him and everything that I'd hoped for him, not just
the loss of his body and his mind and his spirit,
but of what he would be. And that happens to
(18:37):
a lot of people in grief, grieving autistic parents. They
grieve what they thought their child was going to be.
And that's grief now for them that they feel like
they've lost that, and I can help them do that.
That's adaptability and again, it it's there. You got it.
You just got to say it out loud. And resilience,
it is the god given superpower to keep going when
(19:01):
everything's unbearable. People call it bouncing back. You can bounce back.
It's like, yes, you can, yeah, because it's called resilience
and our brain is already set up for it. The
problem people have is they don't realize that those things
all go together. I gotta be strong, I gotta have
some courage. I'm gonna I'm gonna make some changes. Okay,
I'm gonna take all the things down that have been
(19:22):
in my son's room for thirty years. I did not
do that, but you know, some people do they memorialize it.
I'm gonna put them away and start living forward into
the future. I'm gonna make some changes in my life,
you know, I'm gonna I'm gonna do things differently, and
that takes a lot of courage as well. So and then,
of course, like I said, resilience, I believe that resilience
is how we bounce back. It's how you find new purpose.
(19:45):
It's how I like to say, from the ashes of
disaster come the roses of success, from one of my
favorite childhood movies. But it's so true, it's so true.
Speaker 1 (19:56):
Well, thank you so much, and ladies, you know I
I hope you were taking notes or you know, well
you'll get her beautiful book Goal Scars. But I want
to talk a little bit about diagnosis for autism later
in life and the navigating of that because because for you,
(20:17):
you know, what were the symptoms before you got diagnosed,
what were you witnessing in yourself?
Speaker 2 (20:23):
First, I wanted to say that I was born in
the oh, how do you say it, the chaos and
glory and beauty of the early nineteen sixties, right, So
if I would have been diagnosed autistic when I was
in you know grade school, I would have been institutionalized
most likely. Yes, yes, So I was very smart. I
(20:45):
spoke two languages at the age of two, not one,
but two, French and English. A lot of it was
echolalia and I would say big words, and my dad
told me about it later one he said, you said
constitutionalism or something like that when you were like one.
But they just thought I had a very high IQ
and I was quirky. So I was quirky and clumsy.
(21:08):
Clumsy is dyspraxia. I fell all the time. I was constantly.
I had three concussions before I even came into adulthood.
Got my fourth concussion a few years ago when I
slipped and fell like it. But I had a little
dyslexia dyspraxia. I have a fantasia, which means I don't
(21:29):
have any vision. When I close my eyes, I can't
envision an apple. If you've tried it, now close your
eyes so you can see an apple. You'll see one.
Most people can, although that's not a comorbidity of autism
mini autism. Folks with autism habit. But I had everything.
I mean, it was all there. When I finally realized
(21:51):
it was when I was writing the book and I
got to the section about my mom, and I really
did research on this book. I did not write this
book in like thirty days with the help of chat GBT.
It was all me. It took years, and I had
a writing coach with my publisher, you know, that asked
me a lot of questions, sent me back to rewrite
a lot. But I did a lot of research on
(22:12):
my mom. And I called my brother and I said,
Mom was brilliant. I mean my mother. I don't know
what her IQ was, but it was big. That's all
I can say. She worked for the governor, she worked
for the United States government. She was the mayor of
our town. She balanced the books in sixty days of
a city who hadn't been in the black in twenty
(22:33):
five years, found corruption, turned it all around. It has
a lot of fun. But she again, she was just
one of those people that couldn't even stand to take
a shower because she didn't like how the water felt
on her head, and a half a dozen other things.
So I called my brother, I go, do you think
Mom was like autistic or something? And I said, she's
(22:53):
kind of I'm kind of reading about her traits and
that's what keeps coming up on my research. And he said, yeah,
we've my brother. Your brother and I have talked about
it too. We've always kind of thought mom might have
been Asperger's. And he started he was the youngest, so
he was spent the most time alone with my mother,
you know, after ten of us. And he was telling
me all these things and I'm like, oh my god,
(23:13):
I'm I'm pretty sure she was too then. And then
I started looking and reading about Aspergers. I'm like, oh god,
I think I'm autistic too. So I took the test online.
I went to the autism websites, the legit ones right,
and I took this self test and I kept scoring
off the chart right, and I'm like, yeah, this is crazy.
(23:35):
It took months for me to get a diagono get
the appointment for it, but two PhDs and me an
entire day after three months of testing, sat down and
he said, hey, you needed a forty eight on this test.
You got a seventy two. You needed a fifty on
this When you got a ninety, he said, you got
an A plus in Augier. It's like, how do I
(24:01):
not how do I not know it? But I was
a walking, talking, autistic child, undiagnosed. I clicked every button,
I hit every level. If you say it, I am it.
I think what really got me through is I'm very
good at masking. I have. I trained for two years
with the National Speaker's Association in the United States to
(24:24):
speak on stages and with people. I've trained to make
eye contact. I've taught myself to things that I need
to know. But I'm still authentically autistic. And I love
that about me, and I think it's wonderful. It's like
I am uniquely wired in my brain. Am I different? Yes,
(24:45):
spend fifteen minutes alone with me, you'll see my autism.
It can't hide very But but I cried a lot
when I first found out with the doctors. And I said,
I don't think I'm sad. I think I'm just crying
because I'm overwhelmed. And she said, you're doing what every
other client we've ever had. You're meeting yourself for the
first time. And it's okay. I said, You're gonna spend
(25:09):
the next few years getting to know yourself more. It's
going to take a little while, and she wasn't kidding.
It's taken a while. And I grieved that child that
was abused. I was I was picked on, I was
sexually abused, I was treated poorly. I got kicked out
of jobs that I should have gotten. If I named
(25:30):
everything that was affected by my autism, if I wasn't autistic,
my life would have been different. Right now, I want to.
Speaker 1 (25:38):
Say, thank you, thank you. I'm so grateful that you
shared that. And and you know, like I said, my
friend got that diagnosis in her fifties. What I want
to say is that what if whatever way you were born,
whatever way you came in on the planet, what if
that was perfect? What if? What if you know the
(26:00):
way you are is what created gold Scars and allows
you to help other people. You know, I love that.
How do people find you?
Speaker 2 (26:10):
Oh that's easy goldscars dot com. You can everything but
my blood type and I'm an a positive. So there
you go. You got it all out but gold Scars.
And you know, one thing I'll tell you real quick
is on the when you order the book, you know
(26:30):
you won't get the exist, but if you reach out
to me, I'll send you the bookmarks. But I have
in my website right now you can get the seventy
heel process and start that on your own four free.
Please buy the book. Yes, you'll notice that if you
put in MJ A four zero you'll get forty percent off,
(26:50):
so make sure you do. But it'll take you through help, help, healing, healthy, hope, holiness,
happiness and hilarious and those seven steps. I made them fun,
but they're legit. It's taking yourself from the help part
all the way where you're just roaring with laughter. Because
I'm a person filled with joy and I've been through
(27:12):
every monstrosity you can think of, and I'm still laughing
every day. And that's where I want everyone to be.
There is joy after grief.
Speaker 1 (27:22):
There is yes, there is Well. I'm so grateful. You know,
I asked the same last question of every guest on
my show. This show is called Women Awakening. What do
you think is the most important thing about women awakening
on the planet today?
Speaker 2 (27:37):
Wow? You know, I've been through a lot as a woman,
and I've been mistreated by employers. I've lost jobs because
I was a woman. I couldn't even get a coffee
in a gas station one time because the men were
there trying to go to work and I had to wait.
And there I was a working woman, right. So I've
seen that kind of discrimination, but I never let it
(28:00):
define me. So what I say is, you know, damn
the torpedoes and full speed ahead. If you've got it
in you, you fight for it. You no offense, You
get the short end of the Lilli Pop, make a fuss,
because we've got to stand up. We've got more generations
of women to go, I think before we're going to
(28:21):
truly see the equality that we all deserve. And I
hate that for my granddaughter, who I adore, but I
see it still. And it's not our husband's faults or
our father's faults or our son's faults. It's just the
way the world has gone and it's just not moving
fast enough to suit us women right now. So push
forward that cause for women's rights. We're still fighting that battle.
(28:46):
I hate it, but it's really true.
Speaker 1 (28:48):
Yeah, well, thank you. I mean, I agree, it's like
you know, but that's why I really believe that women
standing in their power is what raises the frequency. I
wanna thank you so much for being here. I'm so
grateful that you've been a guest on the show.
Speaker 2 (29:03):
Oh thank you so much for having me. It was
a pleasure.
Speaker 1 (29:07):
Okay, ladies, I close this show the same way, different words.
Speaker 2 (29:11):
You know.
Speaker 1 (29:13):
I loved that when I got the information on Sylvia
that it was talking about gold scars, because there is
something about what's innate within us that allows us to
be resilient and tap into our strength and our power
and our courage. So I want you to know that
nothing that has ever happened to you defined you. You
(29:35):
get to create the life you want to live. You
get to bring your joy to the planet. I'm so
grateful to have this opportunity with you every week. I
love you, and I'll see you in the next session. Bye.
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