THE BEST OF THE BEST WEBINAR

The "We Built This" global summit created a powerful space where survival transforms into thriving. Hosted by Victoria Cure, domestic violence survivor and founder of A Contagious Smile, this event brings together an extraordinary collection of voices who've turned their deepest wounds into wisdom.

Susan O'Mallan introduces her groundbreaking Thriver's Own Motivational Model, addressing the critical gap between crisis intervention and truly reclaiming joy after trauma. Carrie Blazer reveals the surprising connection between emotional pain and enlightenment through physics principles that explain how our darkest valleys create momentum for our greatest heights. Whitney Knox delivers crucial estate planning guidance specifically tailored for survivors navigating the complexities of protecting themselves and their loved ones.

The summit takes a profound turn as Keelan Flukiger shares his near-death experience and the WIPOS framework (Worth, Identity, Possibility, Ownership, Sovereignty) that emerged from his journey back from addiction and despair. Shane Boyd, who miraculously survived being run over by a truck, teaches us to recognize fear as a compass pointing toward growth rather than a signal to retreat.

Emily courageously reveals her path as a trauma-surviving mother breaking generational cycles, while Allison Graham offers practical resilience techniques through reframing negative thought patterns. Air Force veteran JJ Hawley's emotional account of contemplating suicide and finding purpose through sobriety culminates in his creation of Ripple Retreat—a healing space for recovery built on giving back to community.

The event concludes with powerful perspectives from Victoria and her husband Michael, who demonstrate the possibility of building a loving relationship after experiencing abuse. Their partnership embodies the summit's core message: with the right support and tools, survivors can create lives of purpose, joy and unconditional love beyond their trauma.

Join the Contagious Smile Academy to access resources designed by those who've walked this path. Whether you're taking your first steps toward freedom or are well along your healing journey, this community stands ready to walk beside you, reminding you that you are never alone.

Chapters

• 0:00 Welcome to A Contagious Smile
• 5:15 Breaking Cycles: Introduction to the Academy
• 12:20 Susan O'Malley: The Thriver's Own Motivational Model
• 49:10 Carrie Blazer: Turning Trauma into Wisdom
• 1:22:30 Whitney Knox: Estate Planning for Survivors
• 1:50:35 Keelan Flukiger: Your Worth is Infinite
• 2:28:15 Shane Boyd: Overcoming Speed Bumps in Your Mind
• 2:45:45 Allison Graham: Building Resilience Through Reframing
• 3:05:15 Michael's Perspective: Supporting Survivors
• 3:15:10 Emily: Breaking the Cycle as a Trauma Surviving Mother
• 3:28:05 JJ Hawley: Creating Ripple Retreat for Recovery
• 3:54:30 D. Marie Hurley: Energy Healing for Trauma Recovery
• 4:05:08 Victoria's Closing Message: The Reality of Domestic Violence

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:14

Can you pop on right now and you can show your face? We're not going live until 2. I just want to make sure everything's working right.

Speaker 2: 0:24

Yep, I just heard let the dogs in.

Speaker 3: 0:33

Oh.

Speaker 1: 0:37

I don't understand it's saying it's a practice.

Speaker 2: 0:43

Howdy y'all. Welcome to another episode of A Contagious Smile we are hosting. We Built this with your host, victoria Cur others, and pay it forward. Our lovely Victoria, sitting here to my left, she is my world, she's my rock, she's my soulmate. She went through hell in her eight months of her first marriage with a real monster and she went through abuse like none other and her strength was in her womb. Our faith gave her, gave her the strength to carry on and to push through it and to come out victorious. So at A Contagious Smile, we advocate for special needs families and domestic violence survivors, and we do a host of other things. Please join our website and get on in our academy and see everything about what we do.

Speaker 2: 2:01

My wife over here, victoria. She is a published author currently 41 books, soon to be 42. She's in gosh about five to eight magazines over here on my left. She's won multiple awards for what she does and what she has built, what we have built. She likes to add me, even though I'll probably be the guy in the background taking a nap. She has three doctorates. She's super intelligent way out of my league. Yeah, I can't say enough about my wife, so I'll let her say something, take it away, victoria.

Speaker 1: 2:45

You can come into that. Wow that's. I was not prepared. As any of you know, we are unscripted, to say the least. That is my soulmate. I waited a long time for him and you know it's so funny.

Speaker 1: 2:59

I'm just going to say this about my husband I couldn't be here today if it wasn't for him. The day I met him, I knew that he was the man I was supposed to be married to. I knew it. I mean not even that five minutes into it I knew it. I went, oh crap, Like I just knew. And I knew no one would be a father to Faith except him nobody. And I couldn't have gotten through a hundred plus surgeries and the loss of my arm and more hearing loss and everything else if it wasn't for you. And he is my rock, he's my best friend, he's my soulmate. We laugh every single day. We've never had an argument um, he's my safe place, he's my safe space and he is everything to me. And I love him more and more every day. I fall in love with him over and over every day. So enough of mushiness. There's pollen in here. My husband is crying. That's why he's not on camera, which I think is sweet.

Speaker 1: 3:52

It's definitely pollen, it's not pollen, if you ever listen to our Unstoppable podcast. We are unscripted, off the cuff and quite funny. He is my redneck and I am his redhead, and so it's just hilarious. But we are here today because this started just about 19 years ago, when I survived domestic violence and I'll be speaking about this later on. But I went through this alone and nobody no one man, woman, whatever you identify as should never have to go through this alone. One hit, one kick, one punch is one too many, and it's not a contest. I've had people say well, I can't talk to you, you've been hit. How many times, it doesn't matter, one is one too much. So we have developed a contagious smile. It's 19 years old. Then it grew and grew and we grew into podcasts, which we have three different ones, and they're all in the top between the three of them. They're all in the top 3% globally. And then on top of it, we have done books and workbooks, excuse me and workbooks to help people realize that they are not alone. And we never had a marketing team. We never had anybody except me and my husband and Faith doing all of this, and I've taken countless classes and countless training to learn, and we went from zero followers to millions of followers and I want to help pay it forward. So we started the Contagious Smile Academy, which is not even a couple months old Excuse me, not even a couple months old and it offers free and low cost courses so that everybody can afford it. Everybody can come in, because healing should not have a price tag, and we have such amazing, amazing collections. We have the Limitless Recovery Tribe, where anybody who is in any type of recovery whether it's alcoholic, drugs, abuse, if you're in grief from losing someone everybody that we have the pleasure of working with is in some type of recovery from something. And there's things in there. It's in there to make you laugh. It's in there to make you realize that you have such an amazing ability to regrow and that you're not alone, and even that tiny flicker of life can start a wildfire. You will not be alone through any of this. You are not alone through any of this.

Speaker 1: 6:21

Then there is the safe haven recovery, where anyone who's gone through trauma can go through it and they're nonjudgmental. You go in there and there's classes for everyone, actually in multiple collections, where you can go in and from the very beginning of how can I leave, how can I make this house Because it is not a home safer for me to get out? How can I get out and protect my kids? There are courses in there for the kids about like two homes one me and it's written on their level so they understand it. There is classes in there for the kids who are feeling torn and pulled like tug of war from the parents. There are classes in there that help bond the family. There are courses in there that I've written to help kids that are in foster care.

Speaker 1: 7:08

These are all things that most of them are free. The most cost is $4.99. And that's because it is quite expensive to pay for the platform and all of the other expenses that go into hosting all of this. Now I'm going to fall on the humbleness for a second and tell you that myself nor my husband have taken a paycheck ever once from any of this. Any money that is raised goes right back in to taking care of all of this, because we want to make sure everybody is taken care of.

Speaker 1: 7:40

We offer scholarships to those that can't afford it. We don't ask questions. You come and say I can't afford this, and we make sure that you get the courses and classes that you need and that's why we're here today is to promote these amazing individuals who they are, what they do, and then also to hope that we can get a few donations here and there that can help sponsor these other individuals. Because I want you to think for just a minute it's one in four women that go through some type of abuse in their life. So that would be God forbid me as his wife, our daughter, god forbid a mom, maybe a sister, when you think about one in four, those numbers, that's not okay. We're trying so hard to fight everything else in this world, but we are not fighting on the home front of what really needs to do, and that's protecting our family, and that's not okay. We're trying so hard to fight everything else in this world, but we are not fighting on the home front of what really needs to do, and that's protecting our family. And that's why I am so honored at the list of individuals that are coming on the platform today to speak to you. Each one of them has such an amazing story. They are just individuals that carry such light that I am beyond in awe of each and every one of them, and to call them my friends is a gift in itself.

Speaker 1: 8:51

We have the academy, where we're offering certain things, like we also now offer dedication courses. So we have a beautiful friend of mine named Debbie Gail Zane, who tragically lost her son, alex, to a mental health situation as well as drugs, and so we've done a course dedicating to what has transpired for Alex, and you can get a hold of Debbie and she is a grief counselor now and she has done an amazing book that I've actually helped participate in writing the back cover of, and you can't find any more of a genuine, authentic person than she is and she has helped sponsor this today and I want to thank Debbie for that. You have JJ Holly, who is like a brother to me, to say the least, who has such an amazing story I don't even want to share that he's. He's going to come on here and tell you himself. He is in the valor circle, which is for vets and active military, and he tells his story of how he survived a suicide attempt and all that he has done for our country, and we thank him and all other vets and active military for their service as well. Everybody in here is a gift and we are so unbelievably grateful for every single one of you. This day today is hopefully one that we can do yearly. I would love to have a yearly. We built this uh platform amazing.

Speaker 1: 10:14

I want to apologize in advance because I've recently found out excuse me that my hearing is even more profoundly lost and I've noticed it now affects my speech, and I've talked to my surgeon and they did confirm, in fact, that that is normal. As many of you might know or might not know, that the abuse I went through while pregnant was so severe that it ruptured both my ear, my eardrums and caused me to go basically profoundly deaf. My right ear is basically gone and hearing in my left is profoundly deaf. They want to do cochlear implants, but of course insurance doesn't cover it. They want to do what's called a stitch down where they're going to take out the ear, can, eardrum and the station tubes and all of that. But my speech gets changed now because I hear things different and I just want to apologize for that in advance, because I hear some things differently than you guys do and for that I'm sorry.

Speaker 2: 11:11

We still love you.

Speaker 1: 11:12

Well, thank you, I appreciate that immensely. I am so honored and I'm going to just shut up now because I am so honored and I will admit I said this before we started the event today that when I reached out to Susan, who is our opener today, I was like a kid in a store, because I met her years ago and she grabbed my heart and has held onto it ever since. She is an amazing woman, an amazing human being. I'm honored to know her, yet alone, to call her my friend, and when she said she would do this, I literally I'll embarrass myself. I claim what I do. I literally came out like a kid at Christmas and, you know, made sure that Susan couldn't hear me at that point and I walked out and I was like, yes, oh, my.

Speaker 1: 11:55

God she's coming on Like I was so excited because it just made everything else from there on just perfect, so I want to welcome her. I don't think I could do a fair introduction, so I'm going to let her introduce herself. And again, I hope everybody enjoys the day. We'll make sure everybody's links and contact information is out there so you can get ahold of it as well, and we thank you for supporting and believing in us because we believe in you. Yes, thank y'all in us, because we believe in you.

Speaker 6: 12:31

Yes, thank y'all. Miss Susan, okay, can you guys see that? Yes, excellent. So I wanted to thank you, victoria, for that wonderful, and Mike and all the people who are going to be on today for inviting me, which seemed like such a wonderful thing that somebody invited me, so I was jumping for joy like Christmas morning. So, thank you, and I wanted to show this graphic again because I think it's a wonderful graphic.

Speaker 6: 12:59

I want to talk today a bit about my work, but I was really I asked. I actually asked Victoria at some point in the planning process here why she calls this. We Built this and, as she explained a minute ago, that, because there is no other forum for this. There's no. We as survivors and the work I do to help women thrive, as thrivers don't really have a platform, and I'm going to talk a little bit today about why that's so in terms of the services that are out there and some of the missing pieces. But it's definitely true that we don't have a place where survivors and thrivers and people who are our allies can really come and get the kind of information that we need, can really come and get the kind of information that we need. And actually, I think in many cases it's developing the information, and what Victoria talked about on her platform is some of the materials that has not even been developed yet. Sometimes we don't even have words for some of this because the words are still being articulated. So let me move my slides here, let's see if I can figure out how to do that. There we go. So I am the originator and developer and creator those are all the words that I give myself of what I call the Thriver's Own Motivational Model, and I'll talk a little bit about that more. But I wanted you to understand that I have put together a process and that it's a process that's helped me tremendously in my journey healing journey but also has rung true to lots of the women that I've worked with. I've also worked with men, particularly trauma survivors, and so putting together the ideas and the way that we think about what has happened to us and how to work on healing and recovery. So let me tell you a little bit about myself and, before I forget, the slides are available on my website If you go on to thriverzonecom, and it's a resource tab but just in case people want to take a look, sometimes it's hard to write things down or remember things, so they'll. They'll be up there for you.

Speaker 6: 15:19

So I am among the things that I've done in my life. One of them I'm very proud of is that I'm an attorney. I went to law school when women were not plentiful in law school, nor was it an occupation that many people thought women should do. So it's one of my things that I feel very proud about, and I also feel very proud that I've been able to litigate, particularly in the area of sex discrimination, sexual harassment. But I've been a victim advocate for about 50 years and I was thinking about this, that I remember when there weren't rape crisis centers and there weren't domestic violence shelters and we didn't even have a word for a lot of this. And today we're getting more words and more language like coercive control and financial abuse. But this goes back. I've also done sexual assault crisis intervention, particularly working with victims in the courtroom as they go through pursuing a prosecution. I've worked in state government working on child welfare and human services development, so I've seen how government works and sometimes doesn't work, and how important it is for us to move the issues up to public policy level and make changes.

Speaker 6: 16:39

I'm a trauma survivor. I'm a domestic violence homicide survivor. I'll talk about that a little bit more. That means that somebody that I loved, who was a domestic violence victim was killed by the perpetrator. So I'm a survivor of that, and I am the originator and facilitator of what I call the my Avenging Angel Workshops, which came out of my trauma and moved me to do some things that I thought would be positive, and I'm an author and publisher, and today I'm a motivational speaker. I've also done a lot of training, particularly training to start to integrate what I do into the service delivery model, and my books are available up on my website. I'll talk a little bit about that today and if we have time, I'm going to see. If I can, I'm going to. I am going to do an exercise, perhaps to let you know about an exercise, and okay, let's see. To do an exercise, perhaps to let you know about an exercise, and okay, let's see, sorry.

Speaker 6: 17:54

So one of the reasons why I do what I do although this much of my work started before this event, which was that in October of 1999, my niece, maggie, who was 19 years old at the time and a college student, was killed on a college campus by her ex-boyfriend. He had not physically assaulted her before he killed her. She had no bruises or other marks that would indicate to people that she was in danger and herself and she didn't know he had a gun. So the moment of her death, it came clear to me that when, even though I had done this work for many, many years before Maggie was killed, I had done divorce work with women who were coming through domestic violence for a number of years, and so I knew that the kinds of families that were affected by this that it wasn't about economics or where you lived or your race or your cultural background or men or women. I knew that that was true, but somehow in my brain I was convinced that this was not going to happen to my family, that somehow we were the other in this situation. And, of course, that night that I got the phone call that Maggie had been killed. I suddenly entered the world where it can happen and, as Victoria mentioned earlier, it happens significantly to women, one in three, one in four.

Speaker 6: 19:36

So my challenge was to find something that I could do. The man who killed my niece killed himself. That I could do. The man who killed my niece killed himself. So I didn't have that you know avenge or revenge of taking him to court and making sure that he gets prosecuted and put in prison so he doesn't hurt anybody else. I didn't have that and so I got this quote living well is the best revenge, and that's really what I wanted to start to do for myself and also for all the women that I was working with.

Speaker 6: 20:11

And so that process began for me with a workshop. I put together a two-day workshop. I am not a social worker, I'm a lawyer, although I'm a creative writer. I am a creative writer, so I had been doing some work that, um, some workshops around creative writing and how to get the negative voice in your head to quiet down so you can write. So I had some idea of what I wanted to do, so I have a video about Maggie and about some of the women who come through my workshop. It it's up on my website. It's also on my YouTube channel. Please feel free to venture over to the YouTube under Susan O'Millian and ThriverZone and subscribe to my YouTube channel so you'll have a little bit more information.

Speaker 6: 20:57

But I always say, the women who come through my workshop can tell the story much better than I can. But the pursuit that I've had and the way I've described it, is that there's a journey beyond abuse and it's beyond being a victim or even a survivor, that it's the journey of spirit to become a thriver. And I mean spirit in the sense that there's a part of you that's been untouched by all that's ever happened to you and that part of you cannot die, it's immortal. It's your soul, your spirit, whatever divine, whatever words you have for it because it's hard to find words for this kind of concept and that you can become. You can come back to that place or actually make it grow beyond where you were. So the idea is that you're not going to just survive something, but you're going to move on and thrive. So my simple definition of a thriver is a healthy, happy person with a brilliant productive future. Happy person with a brilliant productive future.

Speaker 6: 22:10

And so through my process not only as a survivor of domestic violence, homicide I started to think about the work I had done previous to Maggie's death with victims of both sexual assault and domestic violence, and the way the domestic violence and sexual assault movement really started moving forward, that the idea that at the time when there were no shelters, that there was no safe way to leave and there was no safe place to go. So that was the first goal the movement really started with in the early 1970s, early 1980s, late 1970s, early 1980s, and then the idea that you could prosecute the offender, which for a long time in our society these were not offenses that were criminal. But sometimes that's not a closure kind of issue and sometimes the prosecution isn't really available. But there are other needs and I really felt like these are my needs as well, because I needed, after Maggie's just tumultuous death and the surrounding circumstances of being on a college campus that wasn't really attuned to the issues on that campus, that might have saved Maggie, it certainly might have made her safer, but I wanted to look at those things and so looking at the impacts on the victim, but particularly reclaiming life goals and desires, that's what I wanted to do and for many women I'd worked with before Maggie was killed, there was all this conversation about, you know, can we have peace, freedom and safety in our home and can we break the cycle of violence, not only for ourselves but also for the other people families, children and to deal with generational passing out of the trauma. So what is clear to me about this is that from my experience prior to Maggie's death is that the system sort of has been set up to address trauma, and I met a woman named Judith Herman, actually right about the time that Maggie was killed and she I read her book called the Three Stages of Trauma Recovery, which she wrote in 1992. She was the first person she's a woman psychiatrist to actually identify as post-traumatic stress the impact of coming out of violence against women's situations. Prior to that, that PTSD was generally looked at in research in terms of war veterans but moving into domestic violence, sexual assault, and so she described three stages safety and stability, remembering and mourning, and then reconnection and reintegration.

Speaker 6: 25:03

So when I started thinking about this and looking at what I wanted to do in my niece's honor, I know I couldn't go back to safety and stability. The hotline crisis counseling, victim advocacy, court advocacy that was just too hard for me. Every woman in the shelter was Maggie and I couldn't do that work anymore. Every woman in the shelter was Maggie and I couldn't do that work anymore. And I saw the importance of support groups. I found my own support groups from the Survivors of Homicide movement and that power of remembering and mourning and just trying to get support and understanding the larger issues and getting resources.

Speaker 6: 25:40

But what really struck me is that on her third stage of reconnection and integration, there was nothing currently in the system and the federal money and most state money that and nonprofits that were providing services to victims of domestic violence, sexual assault of domestic violence, sexual assault, sexual harassment, whatever child abuse, really didn't have a third piece. And so I started attracting women to my two-day workshop who were sort of like, hey, what's next? I've gotten out, I'm getting myself through a number of issues financial abuse and housing and trying to find a lawyer that could could help you without within your resources. But what's that next piece? How can you move on? So that's what I really started doing was to put together, as I said, this motivational model. I wanted it to be a motivational model because I didn't want it to be just one more piece of telling your story and having it be recognized but not really helping you move forward. So one of the things, the first things I do in my workshops, is not to have the women tell me their story of abuse. We recognize it and we honor it and we recognize we've had a similar experience or experience that will help us to move forward. But we don't need to have that story be the focus of what we do, and for many women I tell them you need to have a village, so you may need a support group in which you can do that, or you may need to go back and and perhaps get some some legal advocacy for yourself.

Speaker 6: 27:28

But really to start to move forward on this thriver journey and and I started using this word back in the early 2000s and nobody was using it, it was kind of like this word that was kind of out there and I started decided to see if I could frame it a lot more. So what I put together is what I call. It's part of my motivational model and I don't know where all this came from. So some of it's like you know, something I wanted really badly and suddenly it showed up. So I put together what I call the seven steps to thriving and to really start to help women walk through this process, and I put it together into a book which I call Entering the Thriver Zone.

Speaker 6: 28:17

So I think this is really the entry point to start to see that, for example, the first step is to see your journey, and I put together an exercise for that, using story, your favorite story, and then quieting that negative voice in your head which, of course, has been fed by the abuser, by the society that says this is all your fault. Connecting with the happy person inside the part that says no matter what, there's a part of you that's been untouched by all the. It's never happened to you. And then trying to get the positive energy going to vision a new life, which is really important, because it's a life that's not based on what's happened to you, but where you wanna go forward. And how do you get that energy to start moving there and to really conceptualize it? And then overcoming your fears, fears of not being good enough, of not being able to to do the things you want to do. I'm not good enough, I'm not strong enough, I'm not smart enough. And lots of times in a abusive relationship, that is what the abuser will just feed into that inner. Take over the inner critic and just feed into that inner critic. Take over the inner critic and just feed it. You know you're stupid, you're never getting anywhere without me, those kind of things. And then finally to start setting some new goals those that are that are beyond just safety and stability and remembering and mourning, but really about what do you want to do next? What's your dream If you?

Speaker 6: 29:45

One of the things I use in my, in my material is if you had $10 million, and should probably be a billion dollars. Now, if you had $10 million, and all the time in the world, what would you do? And so you start to think. You know, I want to have a house on the beach, I want to go back to school, I want to get a better job, I want to start a career, I want to, you know, take care of my children and travel with them and give them a good education. So really starting to get those things moving. And then I think, oops, I think I missed a slide. Here it is.

Speaker 6: 30:21

And then the question becomes in my model of where are you stuck? So are you stuck in just not getting being able to get enough positive energy to start this process? Is your desire not focused enough? Like I want to. I want my life to be better, but how do you focus that? So it may be to get a better job, to get a car. It could be something as simple as just, you know, organizing your life or cleaning out the things that are still present from your past relationship and in terms of your house or your ability to move yourself forward, and then overcoming that fear, that I call them limiting beliefs about yourself.

Speaker 6: 31:07

And so you know, there's a lot of fear we have in life. Sometimes it's physical fear or safety issues. Those are important to deal with. But then there's that fear of I'm not good enough, I'm not smart enough, I'll never make it and how to recognize that you're stuck there and what are some exercises you can use to sort of move through that. And finally, as I mentioned it, the happy person inside. I also refer to it as the real you, finding the real you.

Speaker 6: 31:38

One of the things that's always hard for me to do is to come on and do this kind of presentation because I'm thinking, oh, it's not going to come through and I'm not talking right and whatever. And then I always pull myself back and remember that my real you loves, when I do meaningful work, when something is my reward at the end, to feel like what I've done is meaningful or it's helped or healed somebody else. Then I'm saying like I can do it and that's you know I, I'm going to break through my fear. I'm going to get my positive energy. So that's how I told myself this morning when I woke up I'm going to do this, I'm going to go on, come on and victorious thing and I'm going to present and it's going to be great, because this is really meaningful to me and finding that space where that reward, that value, what's important to you, is one of the exercises that I use in my work. So, as a result of this model, what I have found is that some short-term results remember a lot of the women have a goal coming out of the process I work through with the workshops and also using the material in my books Returning to school, got advanced degrees, newer, better jobs that are higher pay or match their skills and talents.

Speaker 6: 33:00

Many have started their own business or have developed a business they already had. Many have started their own business or have developed a business they already had. I have people who've the cycle for them to find the part of them that's been untouched and to really develop it. So one of the things that I think is really interesting to me is how because we have this sort of gap in our systems and let me go back to that slide and I don't know yet how we're going to fill it, because the funding isn't there right now. It's barely, it's hardly there right now for the first two stages the crisis intervention, which is so, so, incredibly important, and, and without those services, the domestic violence, shelters, rape, crisis services. But we need to really develop what is what next? And I think it's more than just therapy. I think therapy is a really good process and I have used it myself, but it's also motivational, moving people through it and trying to see where that goes. So one of the things that I think really has struck me about this process is that putting together that possibility that we can fill the entire range of what the continuum of care could be where that would take us to.

Speaker 6: 34:46

And I have seen women not just do amazing things like go back to school or start a business, but really develop themselves to find the space where they're in free floating, and that they reclaim their lives is the way I describe it. And in reclaiming their lives, they are not going to go back to abuse, and I can't tell you how many workers people I know who have worked in crisis intervention programs, domestic violence and sexual assault will tell me that they will see women come back through the crisis intervention programs. In fact, I have a friend who's worked in a program for about 20 years and she sometimes sees the adult children of the women come back through. So the idea of how do we break that cycle, how do we make it so that people can really begin to move through this and that's really what I've been devoting my life to and creating this model, creating the materials, creating the workshop. And now what I really want to do is take the seven steps and the roadmap and see if I can integrate it and train people who are already providing services free of charge.

Speaker 6: 36:06

I agree with Victoria it's really important that the services that are available to women who are coming out of domestic violence or sexual assault it's really important that they are free of charge or accessible. Particularly when I was doing divorce work and I did it for about five years with women who were coming through domestic violence they don't have money, they don't have access to money, and if there is money in the marriage or in the relationship, they aren't going to get access to without a big legal fight. So it's always for me the choice between they're going to either pay for this workshop or this class or whatever, or my book, or they're going to not feed their children and so really trying to make it as accessible as possible and to give all women the chance to really figure out where they might be stuck and move forward. So I'd love to have you be a part of this. I'd love to help join this process of trying to figure out how or figuring out let's not say trying to we're going to figure this out how to get this idea that there's three stages to recovery, victim, to survivor, to thriver, and that you can enter the thriver zone. And I am working right now to develop my YouTube channel. Love to have you go on there the video about Maggie and four of the women who are in my workshop, including one of the women, vanessa, who I remember I mentioned when people have begun singing again. Vanessa started singing again and not only singing after she had associated the music and her singing with the abuse she experienced. She started to actually write music about her journey beyond abuse and that song which she wrote about me, which is really exciting, and her fairy godmother to help her in that process. That's really invigorating to see how it feels, to feel that energy and what's it about.

Speaker 6: 38:14

I have books that are available and posters. The Seven Steps and the Roadmap are available, and I'm also, if you can see, my T-shirt I also have T-shirts. I'm trying to just put this out there. I am putting this out there and please contact me. Look at my website. As I said, the slides are up there A lot more information. I am currently doing workshops, free workshops. However, my fall workshops are full. However, my fall workshops are full, and so I'd love to. If you're interested in attending a workshop, if you are a survivor yourself, I've not yet started the training program to train other people to do what I do with the workshops, but if you're interested, you can go on the website, click the workshop tab and there's an online forum that you can express your interest in being a part of a workshop in the future. It's been a tough process right now in the nonprofit world getting and securing funding, and my nonprofit, which is called CT Alive, has been, like many nonprofits, really struggling, so I will see how that goes in the future If I have some time. Victoria, I don't know where I am here. Here's some of the information. Just please check out my website and also the YouTube channel.

Speaker 6: 39:54

I do have a quick exercise. I can't see the chat, victoria, so let's see. Am I okay? Oh, so five minutes. Okay, I think I'm done. Let me just show the the exercise. This is what I use to help people to to get positive energy. I call it the list of threes three things. I love write those down, three things I'm grateful for and three things I'm looking forward to, and this is part of my in my entering the Thriver Zone. Thank you so much for coming on and being a part of this. This is like so exciting and I hope that what Victoria and Mike and I will hopefully see you soon. Okay, victoria, I think I'm going to hand it back to you.

Speaker 1: 41:01

Okay, thank you so much for being with us. I cannot thank you so much for being with us. I cannot thank you enough. I will make sure everybody has all the information on how to get a hold of susan and her amazing books. I've read all of her books and they are absolutely full of information and a must for everyone. So thank you so much. I really appreciate your time today. Thank you, of course. All right, carrie. Where's my girl, carrie? There's Carrie.

Speaker 2: 41:30

Howdy Carrie.

Speaker 1: 41:32

Hello, carrie and I met recently and we just had a connection right off the bat. She is my titanium jaw sister, yes, so that's really cool. Like not cool that we had to go through it, but she's, she's awesome. I am going to let her just take it and make sure your chat is up, my dear, and you guys are going to just absolutely love her, like I have, and enjoy everything that she has to talk about.

Speaker 5: 42:07

Okay.

Speaker 5: 42:08

Well, thank you for having me. I really appreciate it. I'm just bringing up my notes right now I don't have slides to share, but I'm going to dive into my speech, okay, so today let's explore some insights that helped me transform my emotional wounds into personal wisdom and experience enlightenment yeah, enlightenment last year. Have you ever considered that there is a connection between your trauma and experiencing enlightenment? Have you ever considered the possibility that trauma, emotional pain, suffering is a necessary prerequisite to experiencing enlightenment? Okay, today we're going to give purpose to your emotional pain by showing how it is a necessary part of the path to increasing your vibration and eventually leading to enlightenment. And to explain the process and how it works, I have to start with the laws of physics. So let's dive in.

Speaker 5: 43:19

And we're going to start with a 10th grade science project, you know, minus the awkwardness and the pimples that we all had in high school. Ok, so the teacher told us imagine we're all there. And the teacher told us the day before today that we're going to have a science experiment tomorrow. And you're never going to, you're never going to guess which, which one wins, you're just never going to guess. So before we're all, you know, taking our lunch money and betting on it. And so this teacher comes in okay, you ready, so we're ready. He's like okay, here are two identical balls, two on two tracks. One is slightly downhill and one has hills and valleys. So technically, the track with the hills and valleys is longer. Which ball wins? Which ball is faster? It's the track on the hills and valleys, why the momentum speed and propulsion gained from going into the valley is what propels you to the next mountaintop, from going into the valley is what propels you to the next mountaintop.

Speaker 5: 44:26

So you might be asking well, how does that apply to me? I mean, that's laws of physics. Okay, what? Well, laws of physics explain how energy functions, moves, changes. But how does that apply to my trauma? Right, where our souls are energy bodies, and physicists have proven that every human has an energy body or a soul. So basically, they've proven that we're all souls having a human existence. So, since our souls are energy bodies and our souls plan and orchestrate our lives, you know, based on the laws of physics, because they're energy bodies, understanding that process is essential to accepting why emotional hills and valleys exist in life. Because personally, I'm like it's awful. Why, why, why, why, why? This is the piece of wisdom I think about daily the hill, the ball in the hills and valleys. And the more hills they add to the experiment, the faster the ball goes. So the more challenge you take on in life, you know, the more mountaintops you can ascend.

Speaker 5: 45:33

So, accepting this truth, I said it was a very difficult pill for me to swallow. My God, why? Why can't life just be that easy downhill coast that we all dream of? Why can't life just be that easy downhill coast that we all dream of? Okay, why? Why? Why?

Speaker 5: 45:50

We are all here because we had trauma in our lives and we had a traumatic childhood fueled by our parents who hadn't healed their own traumatic wounds. You know, how often did your parents scream at you, ignore you, abandon you, hit you or punish you inappropriately? Like, how bad was it? Because it was bad for me. My mom was an alcoholic, my dad was a workaholic, ignored me. I grew up in affluent town in Southern California, 15 minutes from the bachelor mansion, and I had a job. At 12 years old I started a six-year career hot dog on a stick at 14. You know, it's like why was I working when my dad was making over a hundred grand a year in the eighties. Why was I working Well, trauma, okay.

Speaker 5: 46:32

So how often did you not feel loved by your parents and how often did you feel like there was only the valley of darkness and not the mountaintop too? Because that was my life. You know, I had 35 years of debilitating lower back pain, from 15 to 50, and I'm 55 now. But that's an initiation process. It's necessary to teach the lesson. So we're here to learn, dreaming of life resembling the ball on the slightly downhill track. You know, it seems amazing and perfect, right, but that perfect life, one grounded in reality, what's real includes both the valley of darkness and the epiphany on the mountaintop. Whether we like it or not, you might not like it that one plus one equals two, but still that's reality. One plus one equals two.

Speaker 5: 47:30

So, fighting with the laws of physics, I've done it. I lost every time. So getting to that mountaintop has anyone ever dreamed of looking out at the world from the top of Mount Everest? Standing at the top in the clouds, looking over the expansive landscape, bathing in the accomplishment, would be a fantastical experience. But in order to ascend Mount Everest, enduring pain, hardship, sacrifice and beyond is absolutely necessary as part of the preparation process. Pain prepares us to receive wisdom and understand it. You know, I was at Mount Everest, at the base camp, 23 years old. I could barely walk and breathe at 18,000 feet. It wasn't in me to get to the top of the earth physically, but it was in me to get to the top emotionally, which I equate with enlightenment. And in order to get there, I had to learn to surf the waves of life. I had to learn how to go into my more darker, challenging emotions, process them through so I could spend more time in what we call the higher vibrating emotions.

Speaker 5: 48:50

So when physicists found out that we all have energy bodies, and all of our energy bodies are connected through our hearts, so all the souls communicate through our hearts, they can actually track that communication and so they know all of this is happening and we're all communicating to plan our lives. And how do our souls plan our lives? Well, we're here to expand our consciousness. And what does that mean? To expand our emotional range, to open our hearts and allow in more wisdom and more universal knowledge. You know, whatever that may be, whatever your soul plan for that lifetime, and how this works. So our souls plan our lives based upon our wounds, because our wounds give us opportunities to heal, learn and grow.

Speaker 5: 49:42

So if I have a wound like fear of men, then that negatively impacts me every single day. I mean, I had a fear of men until I was 50. And every time I went outside I was anxious because I feared half the population. But I didn't know that fear was in me because it was in my subconscious. I had to learn and process those emotions through so that I could eradicate that fear and feel better. The day after I did, I went and visited my daughter at a market and she immediately saw how different I was and I was a healthier, more balanced mother because I faced my fears and I overcame them. And then, once I let that go and download the wisdom.

Speaker 5: 50:29

Men protect me? Sure, some men don't. And why don't they? Because they're wounded too and they're acting from their wounds. And, as women, when I'm wounded like I used to have a wound that I'm replaceable. And so what happened to me? I attracted men into my life to mirror that wound back to me, because the universe is a mirror. And so I'll explain how that works, because that piece of wisdom helps me self reflect every single day. So I had a wound that I'm replaceable, and those men have a wound from their mom that women are replaceable because of their poor relationship. So I attracted in men with multiple women, men like Justin Waller and his best friend, andrew Tate yes, andrew Tate Then two decorated fire academy instructors, and then that took me back to my guy from high school, my childhood, and he's former FBI assistant, special agent in charge, head of global security at a major international company that handles the internet.

Speaker 5: 51:34

These are all men at the top with wounds, you know, and my story includes a suicide attempt, embracing my shamanic gifts and experiencing enlightenment. Like I had 35 years of debilitating lower back pain from my childhood trauma, because those were emotional wounds stored in my hips. I mean, I had a lot of pain, and these men that I attracted in my life have an equal amount of pain and they're all at the top and I think that's something you know, we all need to think about that men have wounds too, and how are we going to help them heal their wounds? So the universe is a mirror. Let's talk about that for a second and how that works. Okay, our opposite is our best mirror. We only know what tall is because we know what short is mirror. We only know what tall is because we know what short is. We only know what good is because we know what bad is. We only know what love is because we know what hate is. You have to have the opposite.

Speaker 5: 52:39

And so I've asked these questions, like my lightened experience, like why is all this pain necessary? Why, why, why, why, why and I love to figure things out. I like an engineering left brain and a highly intuitive right brain, like I, just in my element. So last fall I asked the universe. I'm like, gosh, you know, there's just, there's so much like during my enlightenment experience. It's like why am I experiencing all this?

Speaker 5: 53:04

And what I was shown is that, you know, I had a fear of men. I had a fear of being sexually assaulted and I didn't value my femininity because all those fears were covering up access to my healthy femininity. It was like covering up that was my masculine, protecting my healthy femininity that I couldn't access. So I asked like, well, gosh, you know, how does this work? Like, how do we come to have a feminine soul and a masculine soul? And this is what I was told the intent to create the masculine creates the feminine and the feminine soul tears out half of her heart chakra to create the masculine soul, and he takes on the masculine characteristics with a little feminine for balance, and she takes on the feminine characteristics of the soul with a little masculine for balance, and that's. We have a perfect partner out there somewhere, so, and who can mirror our wounds back to us. So that's one way that, you know, we can bring people into our lives to see ourselves, and I have a lot of examples in my book and I'll talk about that in a minute, but here's an example of what people can use every day.

Speaker 5: 54:17

So our souls are energy bodies and when we resonate, like Victoria and I did, we were just on fire, oh, you did this and you did that and I did this, and Victoria and I did, we were just on fire, oh, you did this and you did that and I did this, and we just connected on so many different levels because our energy was vibrating at the same frequency, at so many different levels. So we felt super connected. Okay, if we didn't have all those pieces that were the same, resonating the same, then we wouldn't have connected and I wouldn't be here today. So how does that work? Another physics experiment. So you have physics experiments where they have a metal with two prongs and one vibrates at 400 Hertz and one vibrates at 500 Hertz. Well, if you move the 500 Hertz, it doesn't move the 400 Hertz because they don't resonate. But if you have a 400 Hertz and a 400 Hertz and you hit this 400 Hertz, this 400 Hertz moves, the energy moves, so you notice it.

Speaker 5: 55:08

So when you're out in public, when you know I guess this is a better example If you're at a movie with your friend, your friend will pick up on things that resonate because of the wounds in her soul and the wisdom in her soul, where I would pick up things that resonate with my soul, which are different, which that great you know. So when you're out in society and let's say you know, for example, you see someone and you see them, you're being selfish. Now, they're probably being selfish, but we don't have, you know, I don't have control over them, you don't control over them. How can that situation help you self reflect? Well, the universe is a mirror. We put our heart projects, our emotions, how we feel about ourselves, from our heart onto other people and then what we pick up on, what we resonate with, what we connect with, which can be positive or negative, is showing us a part of ourselves, and we have mirror neurons to help us do this. Like when we learn something, we mirror. We mirror our parents when our parents, like my parents, didn't know how to love themselves, so I didn't, was never taught or modeled or mirrored how to love myself.

Speaker 5: 56:14

I had to figure that out in my fifties, my late forties and fifties, you know, on my own. I had to re parent myself, as you know we so often here re-parent myself, as you know we so often hear. So if you're outside and you feel like, oh, you're selfish or you're racist or you're misogynist, ask yourself, how is that also inside of you? Because that is really what your soul is telling you. And so my book is all about teaching people how souls communicate like that, how reality is created, why we're here, transforming our wounds into wisdom. So our wounds take us into the shame, the guilt and fear, that valley of darkness. And you know, I was there 35 years, a long initiation process. But I needed it to receive the wisdom and understand the wisdom and to be like, so just done with it, that I was willing to do anything to get better. I needed to be like done, to like. Use the momentum and propulsion from being in that valley to send me to the next mountaintop, because that's going to be a lot of work and we're here to do work. We're not here to coast souls incarnate especially on earth to do the hard work. So take that home.

Speaker 5: 57:28

You know, when you see those negative things, you're watching the news. Everything is the universe is a mirror, Like my older daughter connected to these immigration raids, that a mother was separated from her daughter. I almost died when she was five weeks old from bacterial pneumonia and spent two weeks on a ventilator. And we're still healing that wound because, as an infant, her heart thought mom's gone, mom's dead, and that went into her subconscious and we've been dealing with it for 24 years and she's still responding to it because her soul is showing her that she still has a wound, thinking that she's separate from her mom when she never has been. So you know, take it in for a second. I know people say, oh, universe is a mirror. Universe is a mirror, but that's really how it works.

Speaker 5: 58:15

And there's one last piece of wisdom I like to share real quick. Triggers are our healing friend and not our healing foe, and I'm going to use Andrew Tate as an example, and I know that's triggering, but that's on purpose. My soul has a plan to help women heal and to help men heal, because both sides need to heal to stop the abuse. You know, my wounds attracted men into my life who had multiple women. And here I am a beautiful woman, three grown kids, a master's degree in East Asian religious studies, a shaman I'll heal your heart. And they're still going after other guys. Hey, something gotta be wrong on that front, right For sure, and it was. It was wrong. So how our triggers are healing friend, not our healing foe. Andrew Tate's energy triggers the fear in men and fear of being sexually assaulted in women, and that's one reason I attracted him into my life. But the chances that he's going to physically be in any of our lives are like zero to none. So let's just use him to heal surface, and my book comes in and shows you how to heal those wounds, because I've done it too. So I'll just introduce oh, I haven't looked, but I think I'm about. Let me see how much time do I have? Oh, not quite.

Speaker 5: 59:41

Okay, so, at the surface, and it's a perfect time to address it, a perfect time to learn how to self-reflect, and the process I go over is called. I call it appreciate, learn, forgive, appreciate your challenges in life, because those valleys of darkness is where you gain the momentum, propulsion and speed to ascend your next mountaintop. And I've noticed my life that I'll send a mountaintop and I'll drop into a valley of darkness. Gave birth to my second child, didn't value my ability to create life, went right back to work when she was three weeks old, almost died because of it, because I didn't value myself, because of my wounds. And so that was my soul showing me my wounds so that they can be healed.

Speaker 5: 1:00:24

Now, if we want to eradicate sexual assault from the society, we have to address the wounds. We can't men stop, men stop, men stop. They're wounded too. You know, I can't go and tell those men. I can't tell Andrew Tate, justin Waller and a six foot seven fire captain who saved thousands and thousands of lives and oversees the wildland cadet program, how to do anything. It's not my place and it's inappropriate, it's rude and disrespectful. But what I can do is open my heart as a woman, my feminine, healing, compassionate, nurturing heart for my own benefit, healing, compassionate, nurturing heart for my own benefit and then take that heart out in the world and help men too.

Speaker 5: 1:01:12

In the final chapter of my book I quote Winston Churchill. He said it is said that famous men are often the product of an unhappy childhood. And there it is, the two ball experiment, the surfing, the waves of life. It's just get going. Oh, appreciate, learn, forgive, sorry, I didn't finish that. So, yeah, appreciate your challenges and then learn your lessons.

Speaker 5: 1:01:35

Okay, learn to surf bigger waves. Start on the small waves, go into the pain a little bit and then come back out and then go in deeper and then come back out and then go in deeper and then come back out and there's enlightenment. So I think I have a few more minutes. So our emotions you know why am I putting enlightenment at the top right? Our emotions are expressed through our souls in terms of how high energy vibrates. And you'll see a lot that people oh, I want to have high vibrating energy. I want to. You know, vibrate higher, vibrate higher. What does that mean? That's transforming your wounds into wisdom, because wisdom is love, compassion. Enlightenment vibrates higher than shame, guilt and fear. Shame vibrates at about 20 Hertz. Anger 70 to 80 Hertz. Love at 200 hertz. Compassion about 400 hertz and enlightenment is 700 hertz and above. So that's why when you learn to surf the waves in life, you go into the mountains and the valleys.

Speaker 5: 1:02:35

You got to start small. You can't jump for 20 hertz and then tomorrow go to a thousand hertz, you'd have a heart attack. Physiologically we can't, you know we can't do it. So start by going into your pain a little bit and being a little bit grateful for that pain. Because the appreciation that you start with, that gratitude, appreciate, learn, forgive opens your heart and allows you to heal. When you're in fight or flight, there's no healing happening. You have to surrender to the emotional pain, open your heart and go. Oh, what's in there in your subconscious? That's called shadow work.

Speaker 5: 1:03:09

Oh fear of minutes. Oh, I was in there and I found it, but a man showed it to me during a fight. That's how I found it was because I had a fight with the man in my life and I was self-reflecting, and that's how I found it. So self-reflection, you know I started asking myself why are events necessary? Once I realized everything's necessary, there's no regret because our souls plan our lives. There's no victimhood because my soul has the intent to show me my wounds for self-improvement opportunities. And one way the soul shows the wounds is to attract traumatic events into my life, and I've had a lot of very traumatic events. So I'm going to leave it there. Give a little information about how you can find me On my website. I'm wwwcaryblazercom. I'm also caryblazer on Instagram. I also have redpillshaman on Instagram because Andrew and Justin are part of Red Pill.

Speaker 5: 1:04:08

I'm currently in the works of developing a film from my book with one of the top media companies, global media companies, a company that could handle an Andrew Tate. Just you know I can't say it out. I'm under NDA that we're working it out and I'm getting working on getting traditionally published and a children's book and then potentially a children's series. So you can reach out with questions, but I don't take individual clients right now. I just to tell you the truth, I don't have the bandwidth to do that as well, and I want to be able to do what I do well. So but but questions, if you had a question, I you know. Feel free to email me from my website and ask or DM me on Instagram. And thank you for listening and I hope it was helpful. Take care.

Speaker 1: 1:04:53

Thank you so much, carrie, for being with us today. You did amazing, amazing, amazing as always, and I'm going to make sure everybody can find you and see where you are and listen to all that you have to offer, because you shine such a great light on everybody, and I can't thank you enough. Thank you so much. Thank you. We are about three minutes ahead of time and I am bringing on a friend of mine who is amazing. Whitney Lee Knox is set to come on here in about three minutes and I'm trying to see where she is. She is a wonderful woman who has an amazing story. She is a woman of power. She has an amazing family. I met her a few years ago. She started a podcast. Her podcast has just gone through the roof, as it should, and you'll see why here in just a minute. Where are you, my good friend? Where are you, whitney? I'm here, I'm here. All right, come on, show that beautiful face. There she is.

Speaker 1: 1:06:15

We met a few years ago and she is so full of empowerment and her story and her grace. She I I'm gonna call her out. She didn't know I was gonna do this, but when almost lost faith. She was such a soundboard for me. She was such a rock for me. She helped me through such horrible times. Even in the oddest of hours I'd call her and she stopped whatever she was doing to be there for me. I am forever in her debt. She is an amazing human being and I'm so honored to even call her more than just a friend. So I'm so glad that she has made time for this today and I thank you immensely for doing what you do.

Speaker 7: 1:06:50

Thank you. Thank you so much, victoria and Michael and everyone, for being here. This is just a great opportunity for me, and I am someone who cares a lot about Victoria and everything that she stands for, and so I'm just honored to be able to participate and be with you all today. I am going to share my screen and present, if you will just give me a moment to do so. Sorry, now I'm trying to get to the front of my slides, okay.

Speaker 7: 1:07:48

And then screen share. Okay, there we go. Okay, we are up. Hopefully folks are looking at my screen. I am able to access the chat so I can see, or the question and answers if anybody has any questions. All right, so I'm, like I said, really happy to be here with you all. Today I am going to be sharing just a little bit about what every survivor and caregiver should know about estate planning.

Speaker 7: 1:08:50

I am a estate planning attorney. I am also a podcaster, as Victoria mentioned. My show is called Impostrix Podcast and I am based out of Atlanta, georgia, so I work primarily with families that are in Georgia. Here you see a picture of myself, my husband and my two young children, everett and Royce, who are now four and seven, turning five and eight, and they teach me new things every day. We'll just put it that way they teach me new things every day. We'll just put it that way.

Speaker 7: 1:09:32

I opened my law practice a year ago and, prior to that, was serving in a variety of non-profit legal capacities for 12 years. So I am a brand new law firm owner and work primarily with people who have no experience with estate planning. I prioritize education because I think that's really important, and so that is. I spend a lot of time with my clients, and that's why I'm here today is to talk with you all about what we can do as survivors of domestic violence, of trauma and caregivers of folks who have special needs or aging folks. What we can do to protect ourselves, our loved ones and make sure that, if we become incapacitated, so if we're not able to care for ourselves for any reason, that we have what we need set up in order to make sure that we're not continuously abused and taken advantage of. The disclaimer that I want to share with you all is just that I'm licensed here in Georgia, so the information that I'm sharing is based on Georgia law. If you live in a state outside of Georgia, this information is still going to be good for you, but keep in mind that you will want to speak to an attorney that is licensed in your state about estate planning, because estate planning is state specific, all righty.

Speaker 7: 1:10:55

So why are we planning? Why are we estate planning? There are a number of reasons, and I think it mostly comes down to these four reasons we're preparing for life events, we are protecting our dependents and our loved ones, we are preserving our assets and we are building wealth. Today, we are mostly going to be talking about dependents and loved ones. Okay, before we kind of jump into it, I want to be clear on what is an estate plan, because a lot of people think that estate plan means you need to have a big old estate, you need to have a mansion on a hill, you're extremely wealthy and you have to get everything together because you've got something to protect. So I want to first say that estate planning is strategizing.

Speaker 7: 1:11:46

First say that estate planning is strategizing. Your estate plan is your strategy for how you are going to keep control over everything that you love and care about to the best of your ability. I say it's a strategy because there are a lot of components that go into estate planning. Some of it free components, some of it does cost money, some of it is long-term planning, some of it is short-term planning, and we're going to talk about some of those tools today. But if there's anything that you remember, it's that estate planning is not just having one document in place. Estate planning is making sure that you've got all of the bases covered, particularly if you are a parent of young children or a special needs child, that you need to have backup plans at every time. You need to have plans A through Z, and estate planning is about making sure that all All right.

Speaker 7: 1:12:37

So when do we plan for estate, or why?

Speaker 7: 1:12:39

I guess the question is why?

Speaker 7: 1:12:42

Why are we planning for estate planning? One is because we all die. Right, there's two things that are certain death and taxes. So we all die. And when we are planning our affairs, we are planning for what is going to happen after we pass away, both in terms of who is going to care for our loved ones, but also where's my money going to go? Where's my podcast going to go? Who's going to have rights to my podcast? What about my business? Those types of questions. But we also plan in estate planning for incapacity.

Speaker 7: 1:13:19

So estate planning is not just about dying. A lot of people say I'm young, I don't need to estate plan because I'm not going to die anytime soon. Well, if you're alive, you need an estate plan. Why? Because a big component of estate planning is planning for if you cannot take care of yourself. Times when that happens is if you are having a medical emergency and you are in a hospital or an ER and maybe you are unconscious and so you can't actually make decisions for yourself, or maybe you're needing to plan for a minor child. That counts as incapacity.

Speaker 7: 1:14:00

If you are in or, sorry, if you are incarcerated for more than 30 days or if you're missing for more than 30 days, that is also incapacitated, and particularly for those of us who are still in dangerous and violent situations with loved ones, where we are being isolated from others, from the outside world, people may not see us for a while.

Speaker 7: 1:14:25

From the outside world, people may not see us for a while. You know, it's really important that we have various documents set up so that we can authorize other people to act on our behalf, people that we trust and that we love and who love us, so that our affairs can continue to be managed. When we pass away without a will so kind of going back to death. When we pass away without a will so kind of going back to death when we pass away without a will, that's called dying intestate, and what it means is that if you do not have a plan, the state has one for you, and that's true whether you're in Georgia or any other state in the United States. If you have not affirmatively decided what is going to happen after you pass away. The state has already decided Often itatively decided what is going to happen after you pass away, the state has already decided. Often it means a judge is going to decide what's happening with your money and your assets.

Speaker 7: 1:15:12

A judge is going to decide who's going to care for your children. Any home that you might own is going to be split up amongst your closest heirs, who may be people that you don't like, so maybe a spouse, or maybe a sibling, or maybe a parent that you don't like. Your loved ones will have to go through probate a probate court process which takes a long time and can cost a lot of money. So there's a lot of downsides to being proactive and planning your estate and, as far as incapacity planning, when we fail to do that, we are leaving ourselves susceptible to prolonged abuse. A judge is going to appoint a guardian for you in a court proceeding that you will barely be a part of. You have no say in what happens to your children or your pets. If you are the person who needs, you know other people claim you need a guardianship. You lose control over everything, even your own body. You no longer have a right to make decisions about your body. The judge decides who is going to control your money and again there's a court proceeding. So often what happens when people lose capacity and they don't have an estate plan set up is their loved ones have to go to court to be able to get authority to care for that loved one and in loving families where we're not worried about abuse. I shouldn't say well, anyways, you know that is still a very long, drawn out and emotional process, and it just gets that much more complicated when you're dealing with power dynamics and danger, dangerous and violent situations. So what is in your estate? Everything, everything, everything, everything that you own, whether it's five dollars or five million dollars, that is your estate.

Speaker 7: 1:17:07

One thing that I do want to make sure to mention is that our children even though they're not an asset, so they're not technically an estate we are planning for our children. When we are estate planning, we're planning for what is going to happen to them. Who is going to care for them? How are we going to keep them out of foster care them? Who is going to care for them? How are we going to keep them out of foster care? How are we going to keep them away from the abusive parent or step parent or father, grandfather, grandmother we are planning for? How are they going to get access to my money when they age so that maybe they can have a way to pay for college or a way to pay for or anything that they might need. So, like I said at the beginning, there's a lot of components to an estate plan, because estate planning is about putting everything together to create a comprehensive strategy around what is going to happen to your stuff.

Speaker 7: 1:18:07

All right, so this is just a brief look at some of the documents or some of the planning that you might do when you are estate planning. Humans, or some of the planning that you might do when you are estate planning, but because we only have a little bit of time today, we are just going to focus on what needs to be in place in order to prepare and to protect. Okay so, the powers of attorneys, the guardianship designations, the payments on death beneficiaries, the last will and testament, and then the supplemental or the special needs trusts, starting with the healthcare power of it. This is the document that authorizes where you are authorizing someone else to make healthcare decisions on your behalf for you, when you can't do it yourself. Okay, so this is, you are giving somebody else the authority is one thing People cannot go and say I want power of attorney over my such and such.

Speaker 7: 1:19:06

No, you as the person who needs the help, you are giving somebody else the authority. In other States this is also known as, like a healthcare proxy Sometimes in Georgia we call this your advanced directive for health care and then in many states, your living will is included within your health care power of attorney, and that living will are the life support decisions. What kind of life support would you want? How long would you want to be on life support, et cetera. So this document is really important because you're able to choose somebody who you trust to make the best decisions for you as they possibly can, and decisions that would be as closely aligned with what you would want if you were able to communicate yourself. This is really helpful if we are injured. Thanks, victoria. If you are injured, or if you need somebody to make decisions for you because you can't do it yourself, information your financial records, who can pay your bills for you, who can receive money on your behalf and who can really manage your financial affairs and also real property. So if you own a home or if you have a business, you are authorizing someone who can step in to care for that in case you can't do it, and maybe again, maybe this is because you've had to flee your home and now you need to be anonymous and you are in another state and you need stuff wrapped up. That financial power of attorney is what's going to give somebody else the permission to go and wrap that stuff up for you.

Speaker 7: 1:20:53

The power of attorney for the care of a minor child is really important. If you have to be separated from your child. This is a temporary thing and it's. You know. We have that this year in Georgia. I'm not sure about other states, but you should definitely ask Google. Do whatever you need to be able to make decisions to care for your minor child if you can't. So in addition to the adult having a power of attorney where they've authorized somebody to make decisions for themselves, you can also do that for your minor child, where you're authorizing somebody to make decisions for that child. A standby guardianship is if you have a longer term medical or you're missing and there needs to be a guardian put in place for a minor child.

Speaker 7: 1:21:48

This is the document that is going to identify who you've chosen to be that child or, excuse me, to be that guardian, and here you can also write letters to the court saying why you do or do not want somebody to be that guardian. And here you can also write letters to the court saying why you do or do not want somebody to be the guardian. So say, there is an abusive parent and you do not want that child to have to be with that parent. You can write a letter to the court explaining that, and it will be considered along with your standby guardianship designation form. I'm going to move right on, because I talked about how costly and time-consuming guardianships can be. So your payment on death beneficiaries this is something that you all can do.

Speaker 7: 1:22:28

Tomorrow, on Monday, you can go to your banks.

Speaker 7: 1:22:31

You can request that, if you have an individual account, a payment on death beneficiary be added to your account, and what that does is, once you have passed away, your whoever you've identified will be able to access the funds within that account.

Speaker 7: 1:22:45

If you have not done that, and if it's an individual account, your account may be frozen, and so anybody who is dependent on that income, who is dependent on those assets, who is dependent on you financially, is not going to have access to that money.

Speaker 7: 1:22:59

So this is really really important if something happens to you and you have dependents. And just the one more thing about the beneficiaries hopefully most of you know that we also have beneficiary designations with retirement accounts and with life insurance. It's also very important that we are making sure that those are up to date and, to the extent that we do have control over who is going to take over for or who is going to be the beneficiary of those types of accounts, that we make the decisions that we need to make to make sure that the folks that are dependent on us have what they need to continue, all right. And then your last will and testament. This is a good start as far as what happens after you die. It allows you to nominate who is going to be guardian of your minor children after you have passed away, as opposed to with the standby guardian.

Speaker 7: 1:23:58

It's if you can't care for them, right now you are able to nominate who is going to be the beneficiaries of your assets Thanks, victoria that are owned by you individually, and then you're also able to nominate an executor to wrap up your affairs. Now, what's important to know about the will is that the will does not avoid probate. Probate court is time consuming, it's costly, it's a headache for most families, and so this is good because it gives you some control over what is going to happen to your stuff. But also, your loved ones are still going to have to go through the probate court process, and in order to avoid probate court, they will need to have a trust, or you will need to have a trust, okay, and so, as far as planning for special needs children or adults, there are many types of trust that you might consider, one being the special needs trust, and the other stamps. Your income and your assets are going to be counted to determine whether or not you are eligible. A trust is a legal mechanism that allows your assets to be set aside and not considered as part of your asset, in order for your you know, the dependent person to still be eligible for whatever benefit that is, and so if a parent wants to be able to leave their children their assets, but they're concerned because if you leave the children their assets, they're no longer eligible for the Medicaid that they so desperately need for their care. How you would navigate that is through special needs and supplemental needs trusts.

Speaker 7: 1:26:00

Okay, so there's four free or low cost steps that I encourage you to take now, like today or tomorrow, since tomorrow is a business day. First is identifying potential guardians of children and dependents and like talking to them about, like would you be interested? Can is this something that you can do? Be a guardian of my minor child. What would this look like for you? What do you need to know about my child? Go to your bank. Number two is go to your bank and establish payment on death beneficiaries.

Speaker 7: 1:26:33

The next is go ahead and sign up for a free estate plan preparation toolkit. You can scan that QR code, but also, on the next page, have a QR code that will show you how to do that. It is a one pager that asks all sorts of questions to help prepare you for the decisions that you're going to need to make while you are planning your affairs. And then, finally, you can purchase the I Plan for this organizer, life organizer and workbook. This is a workbook that I created that takes you through categorizing everything that you need to categorize so that, if something happens to you, whether you're incapacitated or you've passed away, your family can pick up this book, find the stuff and go make the decisions that they need to make to take care of you or your children.

Speaker 7: 1:27:24

This QR code up here is my everything link, so not only are you able to sign up for my newsletter and get estate planning information to your inbox, but you're also able to get that free toolkit and get the purchase links for both the digital version of this workbook and the paperback version. All right, that was a lot, I know. I'm again so grateful to be here. I forgot to put another page with my email, but feel free to reach out. My email is Whitney at willsforthepeoplegacom. Thank you.

Speaker 1: 1:28:03

Whitney, thank you so, very, very much. You are such a light and so helpful and she's so good at what she does. She's amazing at what she does, and so everybody check her out. I'll make sure that everybody has the opportunity to get all of our guests, speakers, information, links and how to get in contact with them, so please do so. Again, thank you so much for joining us, whitney. I love and adore you and I thank you.

Speaker 7: 1:28:28

Thank you. Victoria.

Speaker 1: 1:28:31

All right, here we go. Here. He is there. He is there is my comeback king of unstoppable purpose. This is Keelan. I am so excited. Of all of our guest speakers, keelan is nary near and dear to me. He was my very, very first interview on my podcast. He was my very first. He was such a gentleman, to say the least. I was not prepared for him and you'll understand why when you hear his story and who he is and he holds such a special place in my heart, I get all emotional when I have him anywhere around and I can't thank him enough. I am going to just let him go for it. Keelan is amazing and I can't thank you enough for being here. Thank you so much.

Speaker 3: 1:29:20

You're welcome and I'm delighted to be here and support what you're doing and what you're about. So thank you.

Speaker 1: 1:29:27

Well, he is going to just start talking and I'm just giving him the floor, and y'all understand why in about 30 seconds.

Speaker 3: 1:29:36

Well, thank you. So the first thing I want to do for all of you right now. There's lots of kinds of information Like our previous speaker spoke about, important information that we have to have to navigate different facets of this life. You know, wills, trust money, power of attorney. We've got that situation going on in our life right now. My wife's mother lives with us and she's 95, or not, sorry, 94, and can't take care of herself and been with us for a few years. So we've got power of attorney issues and wills and all that jazz to deal with right now. So I certainly understand the importance of that.

Speaker 3: 1:30:20

I want to take you in a different direction for our time together. The thing I want you to know, first and most of all, is that I love you and I don't need your permission or agreement to say that Loving someone is a choice we get to make and we can love people without their permission. Why would we want to do such a thing? Well, let's think about why we're even here. Why we're even here, victoria, creating this place of service and lifting and love and blessing and supporting people in the world of all kinds, and we have the choice every day about what we add to the world. I jokingly say you know, we can add we do add carbon dioxide just by breathing right. And what else do we add? Well, we could add anger, we can add frustration, we can add bad vibes, we can add bitterness, or we can choose to add good to the world, not because the world or anybody in particular deserves it, but because we decide. That's who we are.

Speaker 3: 1:31:44

I just got off of a call before this one, and I was speaking to a group in Austin, texas, and that particular group is centered around the idea of near-death experiences people who die or nearly die and I was blessed I call it a blessing to have one of those experiences in 2018, where I did die. I flatlined in the ICU of the University of Alberta Medical Center here in Edmonton and had three conversations with God at the door between life and eternity, and if you want to know the story, this isn't time to do that one, but there's a book I wrote called Meeting God at the Door Conversations, choices and Commitments of a Near-Death Experience and a companion book called the Book of Context, which teaches us how to change beliefs, especially those ones we have that are deep in our heart, and they're usually beliefs like I'm not worthy, I'm not that good, you know, I don't deserve this, I'm not good enough. You know the kind of thing that sneaks in in this insidious way and trashes your life because you don't try for that job, you don't try for that promotion, you don't go sing that song or write that book, you believe that somehow showing up is going to be offensive to somebody or they might not like you Guess what. You're right, but you're right. There's going to be 10 zillion who don't and another bunch who do, and the best thing that you or I can do, literally the very best thing, is to be the best person you can be, not by somebody else's standards, but by your own.

Speaker 3: 1:33:39

Now Victoria alluded to a story, and I have hours of stories about how my life developed. I lived for 52 years, till 2007. I'll turn 70 this year, but till 2007, 18 years ago, with depression, struggling with addictions and failed relationships and just suicide attempts, and misery and misery and misery. A lot of it brought on by my own choices, some of it perhaps influenced by the fact that I was raised in an abusive environment and had a lot of physical punishment, so to speak, that today would be felony child abuse and I didn't know how to get help and so forth. And so I lived, all you know, 52 years without any sense of balance, trying to prove to everybody else that I was okay and doing a great job, made a lot of money and everything, but was miserable inside, and hence the addictions and suicide attempts and three failed relationships and just a lot of misery.

Speaker 3: 1:34:45

In 2007, I had a divine intervention, which didn't fix my life and didn't change anything except my viewpoint, anything except my viewpoint. It changed my viewpoint and I realized that I, and only I, was in control and that, though I needed to climb a lot of mountains of addiction recovery and mental illness treatment and all those kinds of things, there was a way. There was a way. It was not hopeless. It was not, and never will be too late. You, me, we are responsible for our lives, and if you find yourself in a difficult situation, whether it's of your own making or somebody else, step one is to claim your life and take the steps.

Speaker 3: 1:35:41

For me, that required me to start seeing shrinks and rehab and a bunch of stuff to change my life. It wasn't easy. I was in that talk I was just giving before this one Somebody you know, talked about a near-death experience. They'd heard of another addict who suddenly was free from all of the urges to use anything. Well, that wasn't me. I had to crawl over broken glass, but the thing that kept me moving was the hope and the certainty that, even though I was late to the party, it wasn't too late. It's never too late to matter and to have big impact as you choose to serve with your gifts, with your life experience.

Speaker 3: 1:36:29

Now I've written 20-something books, okay, and during the course of this talk, I'm going to give you several URLs, web addresses, where you can go find stuff if it's interesting to you. This is going to be one of them in a minute. And in the process of writing all these books, here's what I've learned. Every single book that I've written is about something I've experienced and I believed, after doing it, going through it, doing the work, that what I learned would be valuable to someone else, and that happens all the time.

Speaker 3: 1:37:07

Think about your own life. If you have overcome some difficulty, some struggle, some pain, you've been resilient and you've chosen to move forward in the face of insurmountable obstacles. When you do that, there arises in us, at the same time, the yearning to help. It's part of our divine nature. So when we do that, that just rises in us the yearning to serve.

Speaker 3: 1:37:41

What this teaches me is that the most important thing that you or I have to offer is our own growth, the story of our becoming, the story of the choices, the resilience, the action. The story of the choices, the resilience, the action, the courage. That story is all we are and all we've got, and anything else we do is like that thing over there. I learned how to be an engineer, I learned how to build rocket ships, I learned how to do anything. I learned how to play the trumpet or the piano and you know I do, I play well, I have a recording studio. All of those things are kind of that thing over there. But the most powerful thing I've got, and you do too, is the story of your becoming, the choices, courage, resilience and power that you have exhibited to get where you are today. Now, in that context, one of the things I love most and I have a lot of pieces to the business that I run, but one of the things I love most is to help people discover and own the truth of their own growth, because most people downplay it. I don't have anything to say, I'm not that interesting, it's no big deal. Nobody would listen. Who cares? And that breaks my heart every time I hear it, because I know your growth matters not just to you but to those who need to hear your voice. So one of the things I do and love to do is I help people find and write those stories.

Speaker 3: 1:39:18

After I'd written seven or eight books, I used to go to conferences and people would ask inevitably well, gee, colin, how do you write so many books? And I would say, well, let me show you. It would usually happen at lunch or at dinner, you know, in the conference. And so I'd say, well, give me a napkin, and I would draw a picture on a napkin of a process that I'd developed. And somewhere between 50 and 100% of the people at the table when I finished showing would say, oh yeah, can you help me do that, because the process is so easy and so powerful. So I decided after that happened a bunch of times gee, I should write that book. So I did.

Speaker 3: 1:40:00

There. It is the Story Arc. It's a book about how to mine your life for your story, your developmental story, which is truly the most important and powerful thing you have. So the URL associated with that is in tiny print on the screen dreambuildwriteitcom. Dreambuildwriteitcom If you go there and if you know, even if you're scared, but you know your story matters. The choices and work that you've done in your life matter and could help people Go there.

Speaker 3: 1:40:40

I've run a couple of these challenges a year. Usually the next one and the last one for this year is the last week of September. It doesn't cost anything, so I'm not selling something here. This is an opportunity to explore your own story and become intimately acquainted with the power that you have in your hands just because of what you've overcome, what you have done and what you have become. So that's one invitation that I have for you. Now I want to talk about a goal that I have. Now I want to talk about a goal that I have.

Speaker 3: 1:41:19

I have nearly a thousand episodes of a podcast called your Ultimate Life, and I am grateful to Victoria when she says you know I was her first guest and I didn't know that when we recorded and I didn't care after I found out. I love her, I loved her story, but I love all of you too and her resilience and power and commitment for her daughter, for others who need it, her companion. I love him too, just for the courage to be who you are. Now, the thousand episodes. You know what the name of the podcast is. It's called your ultimate life and it's now a thousand episodes actually recorded 998 the other day, so a thousand will be this coming week. It's it's about how to create for yourself a life of purpose, prosperity and joy. Joy isn't something that happens sporadically or accidentally. It can happen every day. I live a life of purpose every day. I live a life of prosperity every day, not because I'm magic, not because I got some inheritance, but because I create that.

Speaker 3: 1:42:53

And the purpose of the podcast your Ultimate Life is to share two things what I've learned and how I do that, and the second thing is to share the stories of guests who I love to have to share your story of growth and becoming, and choice and resilience, of growth and becoming, and choice and resilience. So there's another invitation. There's another invitation. Go to the podcast If you have a story you want to share. It's called YourUltimateLifePodcastcom Yourimatelifepodcastcom, and I would love to be an amplifier for your message and story. I have met so many people with such commitment to love and to service, and I invite you to be one of them if you feel like that's for you, for you.

Speaker 3: 1:44:02

The next thing I want to talk about is the goal that I have this year is to reach 300 million people, and I want to reach them with a message, a method and the opportunity for mastery. Message, method and mastery About what you might ask. Well, here is the truth of life. Life is exactly what you create. You get what you find, what you look for. You get what you seek. You really do. Now, that doesn't mean stuff doesn't happen around you or because of others' choices. Maybe everyone on this call I know, victoria does, I do maybe every one of you have examples and circumstances where other people have chosen to do things with their agency and have hurt you in deep, profound, meaningful, physical, spiritual, emotional, financial and other ways and beat the crap out of you. Okay, I'm not downplaying that in any way, shape or form. What I am saying is that is a circumstance. Circumstances change and you are still the sovereign creator of your life.

Speaker 3: 1:45:20

In 2018, I died. I had a fatal illness and died. I didn't ask for that. It wasn't something I sought out. Yay, I'm going to die this week. And though it trashed my lungs and I will never get them all the way back, and though I lost 35 pounds and was in a coma for 17 days and was barely able to walk and and, and, and, and maybe some of you have similar things I treat it as a monstrous blessing. I treat it as a gift because it has taught me to love more deeply, it has given me more patience, it has given me the courage to do what I do today. It's given me the courage to set a goal of reaching 300 million people with this message W-I-P-O-S. I don't know how to say that Wipos, I guess. And I'm going to tell you what each of those things are in a minute. But that is the message you own your life. You can make anything you want. If you're not doing it now, this is your wake-up call. This is your opportunity, my only purpose here on the planet.

Speaker 3: 1:46:36

During that near-death experience when I died, I had three conversations with god at the door between life and eternity, and the first conversation was one question. He looked at me and he said do you want to come home? And we talked about that for a while and the whole story is in the book, meeting god with the door at the door. But anyway, we talked about it for a while and finally I realized I'm not done Now. That happened in 18 and I had had this other change of my life in 2007. So I'd spent 11 years like really working on doing adding good to the world. Right, but I said it finally at the end of the first conversation. I said I'm not done yet. The answer was okay, so I know that's when they restarted my heart because I'd flatlined.

Speaker 3: 1:47:23

I am here by choice and the choice is to love, to create and to serve, and I live every single day to do that. And my measurement of that this year is to reach 300 million people with this message of your own worth. You came from the same place I did. You have every bit the value that I do. You are needed, you matter, and the world is crying for more love, more lifting, more blessing and more people that take action to add good to the world and more people that take action to add good to the world. Now I'm going to tell you what the message is that I'm spreading to the 300 million people. And people ask all the time where did that number come from? Well, I'll tell you About four years ago and I'm on this mission still of lifting and blessing and loving and serving. And yeah, I'm a coach. I have coaching clients, I have people that I write books for. Joy runs a publishing company, so we publish mine and lots of other client books. So we make money coaching and publishing and that kind of stuff. But my mission is to lift and bless just as many people as I can talk to and to affirm your worth and worthiness and to be the light that invites you home to yourself and the fire that infuses your heart with courage. And so the message is that acronym W-I-P-O-S, and I'll tell you what it stands for.

Speaker 3: 1:48:45

The first thing, w is worth. I don't care where you've been, I don't care who's done what in your life. Your worth is infinite. You were created by a loving God who sent you here for the opportunity to grow. Sometimes that means living through a shit show. Okay, you did, you're here. You're still standing. If you're in the middle of one right now, let's take control and take the smallest and first action you can take.

Speaker 3: 1:49:15

Growth, at least for me and nobody I know, doesn't happen in an instant Nobody delivered 12 gold bars from Amazon on my doorstep so I could have instant prosperity. That's not how it works. Your worth is infinite. Don't let anybody or any situation convince you otherwise. It's not true. I don't care what anybody says or does, your worth is infinite. Now it's easy for me to say that what matters is when you own that, because in my life, when I was not aware of that, not living that way, I did all kinds of bad things to my body, to others. You know, just terrible. When I am fully aware that I am a son and you are a daughter, you know we're children of God, of the divine. When I keep that in mind and remember that my worth is infinite, I behave differently, I talk differently, I act differently, I think differently, I see problems and challenges differently. Every moment, every breath is different. When I remember that truth. So that is part of the message your worth is infinite, so own it. And if you're in a situation where that doesn't feel true for you right now, move. And if it's a little at a time, fine.

Speaker 3: 1:50:45

The second I is your identity. Your identity. If you walk around with a person you, me, any of us walk around with the idea that we suck and we don't matter much. Nobody listened, nobody cared. I've been told all my life I suck. Well, I was raised that way. You're not good enough. I had the crap beat out of me as a kid all the time. My mom, you know. She thought her idea of discipline was torture. Okay, so my identity was I'm worthless, I'm no good. The truth you're a child of God.

Speaker 3: 1:51:12

Now you can have a genealogy. I don't know, maybe some of you do genealogy right Parents, grandparents, whatever. Some of my family does that and we've got—and Flukiger's a weird name right. So we've got genealogy traced back to 1500 and something Parents, grandparents, great-grandparents, and then cousins, and branching out all over the place. You know what? The pedigree of your spirit can be written on a single line, can be written on a single line. You, god end. I want you to hold that and sit next to that in your heart. Sit next to that and hold it. It is truth, your identity is that, and nothing you do or say, or don't do or don't say will change that. So sit next to that truth and let it give you the courage and the hope to take the actions, because that truth and the truth of your worth don't automatically change things. We have to do the work In 2007, my wake-up call to get out of addictions and all the rest didn't change anything except my attitude.

Speaker 3: 1:52:34

The third piece of this is the letter P. It stands for possibility. So if you have divine DNA in you, think of an oak and an acorn. An acorn can be and will be a great big oak with tree, you know, branches and birds and all that crap giving shade. Right now it's just an acorn, but all of the information and power needed to become that are in there. You and me were that. The DNA of you, your spirit, is divine. End of story. So since that's true P, your possibility is infinite. There's nothing you can't do Now. It doesn't happen like that. But an acorn doesn't turn into an oak like that. It takes time, it takes work, it takes water, it takes sunlight, it takes choices, it takes resilience, it takes sovereignty, it takes getting the help you need.

Speaker 3: 1:53:28

When I made my dramatic change in 2007, away from being a liar and an addict and all the rest, I had to have help counselors, coaches, all kinds of stuff. I had to have help counselors, coaches, all kinds of stuff, and I had to do the work. You go sit with a shrink for an hour and then you got to do the work or a coach or anything else. But the possibilities that we have are infinite. Embrace that. The story of not good enough, the story of I can't, because that's not your highest self-talking, that's not the infinite worth divine being, talking about your possibility, that's some old story. Talking about your possibility, that's some old crap from the background saying hey, not you, not now, it's not true. So own your possibility, speak up, own your possibilities, speak up. Even though the possibility's there, nothing's going to happen unless you do something. And that gets us to O, which is ownership.

Speaker 3: 1:54:30

We often go through life feeling like he made me do it, he made me feel this way. You made me mad. You, this, you that they, this, the government, the election, the made me mad. You, this, you, that they, this, the government, the election, the IRS, the weather, god, you abandon me. You, you, you, you. Nobody's coming, nobody's coming over the hill. There ain't no cavalry. You own your life and if you're in a difficult place right now, maybe all you can do is a tiny step. If you're in a good place right now, then don't get complacent. Actively.

Speaker 3: 1:55:06

One of the questions in that interview just before. This was well, since you had all these revelations. I mean, you know you're not worried. Why don't you just sit around and do nothing? And the answer is worried. Why don't you just sit around and do nothing? And the answer is I can't? We're here to love and serve each other. We're here to bust it and add good to the world. Why are we having this conference? Because Victoria and the people she's working with are adding good to the world. That's a choice. It's not an accident. It's a choice and it takes work and it takes heart and it takes grit and it takes. I'm doing this takes heart and it takes grit and it takes. I'm doing this why? Because I said so, because it's who I am.

Speaker 3: 1:55:42

So I want you to think about this worth, identity, possibility, ownership, and the last is an S, and that stands for sovereignty, and I want you to I use that word on purpose because I want you to think about royalty, because that's you. You are royalty, and I know when you're in the middle of a difficult phase or difficult circumstance or situation. I certainly didn't feel like royalty after 17 days when I came out of a coma after dying in the hospital and had lost 35 pounds and couldn't move. I felt like anything but. But it doesn't change the truth. You are the sovereign director, controller, creator. You're given your agency to choose how you think, how you feel. We're not given agency to control the weather or to control others. We are given total sovereignty over our own thoughts and feelings.

Speaker 3: 1:56:51

So the message I have for you is your worth, your identity, your possibility, your ownership and your sovereignty, and that's the message I have for the 300 million people that I'm reaching Now. It's easy to start with a message. Part two of that is M method, and we don't have time for me to teach different methods today, but they all come from this and I'm going to give you a place to go look at stuff. There's another URL on the screen Kellenflukigermediacom. There's nothing for sale there, but there is tons. All of the books that I have are there so you can see if any of them would serve you. There is links to the podcast, where I've done a thousand episodes.

Speaker 3: 1:57:47

I have a thousand YouTube videos, and that's not to say yay me, because all of it is to give to you both the encouragement, the frameworks, the tools, the energy, the examples and sometimes excuse me sometimes the permission to go, be yourself. And I cherish these opportunities to love you, to lift you, to encourage you, you to lift you, to encourage you, to tell you that you are these things, and the method and tools to do something with WIPOS, w-i-p-o-s are available. If there's something I can do to help you, I will. And our greatest calling is to love and lift and bless those around us. When we love and lift and bless, we are blessed. And, yes, it creates business and cash and prosperity, because money follows value, money follows value.

Speaker 3: 1:58:56

So, as I get to the end here, I want to leave you with the certainty that you're divine, the certainty that I love you, the certainty that I see you, I know you, we know each other and we are here to love and serve and lift and bless in every way that we can.

Speaker 3: 1:59:18

And if there's something I can do to serve you, I will. I have and I'm here. And there is no question that you are of infinite worth and you can create any life you want, no matter where you're starting, that doesn't matter. What matters is that you move and the direction you're moving, and I know that these things are true. I'm the poster child both of failing in this first place of coming from the bottom of the canyon and from getting to a place right now, where every single day is purpose, prosperity and joy and I truly get to live that ultimate life. Victoria, I want to thank you for your place in the world and what you are doing to lift and bless others and all of the rest of you. Whatever it is you're doing to add good to the world.

Speaker 1: 2:00:25

And I'm done. You're never done.

Speaker 3: 2:00:29

Well, I'm done for now.

Speaker 1: 2:00:36

I have to tell you I have gotten so many text messages and private messages and people reaching out how much they love you and how.

Speaker 1: 2:00:40

I keep telling everybody how authentic you are and genuine you are. They're not more real than you. You are such a force to be reckoned with. You're a gentleman, to say the least a million times ever. You and your wife. I adore her. Joy is amazing and as cute as she can be. I love y'all's story and I hope one day you'll be able to share it with everybody, because your love story is just the cutest thing ever.

Speaker 3: 2:01:02

Well, I would have. I just didn't think we had time to do that today with everything else.

Speaker 1: 2:01:07

You have 10 minutes. If you want it, it's yours.

Speaker 3: 2:01:10

All right. Well, I'll tell you the story, then, of how we came to be. In August of 2007, I was single again for the third time and married and divorced three times. I had four of my 10 kids living with me. I was back on top, even though I destroyed several careers. I was making so much money my $3,000 a week. Cocaine habit didn't matter, and I'd attempted suicide the second time two weeks before and one Friday night in August. And I'd attempted suicide the second time two weeks before and one Friday night in August.

Speaker 3: 2:01:40

I got home from work and I was going to go to the party for the weekend and I had this urge to turn on the television, and that doesn't sound like anything. Except I picked up the remote and realized I didn't know how, because I didn't watch TV. I had the biggest, coolest stuff because I had four teenagers in the house and we were the party house because I was a crappy dad. And so my 16-year-old daughter, you know she punched the buttons and threw the remote at me, dip weed, and it landed on a program I'd never heard of called Intervention, which is a reality TV show. Don't know if it's on anymore. That, you know, was about families who stage interventions for busted loved ones, and the protagonist in this one was a high-ranking executive with a cocaine problem. Oh so I watched my life for about 10 minutes and said, ah, it's just crap, and turned it off and went and did some other stuff and before I went out I just had this urge I had to turn the TV back on. So I did and the program started over and I didn't have a DVR and it wasn't on the schedule and no, of course it can't do that, but it did. So it freaked me out and I sat down and watched the program and it went badly. The guy swore he didn't have a problem, stomped out of the intervention and so you know that kind of thing, yelled at his family and everything. So that freaked me out.

Speaker 3: 2:02:51

So instead of going out to party, I went to bed, and when I went to bed I went to hell, and what I mean by that is I went somewhere out of body and I was in a big theater and it was dark and I could see scenes on the stage and I realized the scenes on the stage were all out of my life and every one of them was focused on suffering, suffering that had been inflicted by all the abuse when I was a kid up, through the suffering I had inflicted on everybody else as a drug addict and a pathological liar and a rotten partner and all the rest, and watching those scenes was more torture than I can even express After an eternity. I heard a voice behind my right shoulder say to me it is enough. I woke up and I was completely disoriented for three reasons. One, I was all twisted around upside down and backwards in bed and two, the sheets and bed clothing were so soaked you could wring them out Like I didn't realize a body could lose that much and the only conclusion I could come to was the torture of watching. All that was so much that I sweat literally liters, which I didn't know you could do. But the thing that really freaked me out was the sun was shining in the window and the windows faced west. I got up and realized it was 5 o'clock Saturday afternoon, which means I'd been somewhere for nearly 18 hours, and I realized I'd been invited to change and I had no idea what to do, who to talk to, where to go, how to start or anything. But I said out loud I'm done. So I got up and I threw away a thousand dollars worth of drugs that I had laying around, because I always did, and I quit cold Turkey that day and that got me sober, but it didn't do anything about how I got there, the depression and self-sabotage and you know all the stories that had been left over my whole life Got to remember now that 2007 was the year I turned 52. So that wasn't the end.

Speaker 3: 2:04:46

So Monday I went back to work and because of the position that I had, I used to get free stuff, free tickets to expense, not bribes. I mean, I made decisions that affected other companies, sometimes to the tune of billions of dollars. So I get a lot of nice be nice to Kellan stuff. And one of the things I got was a pair of tickets to a Yo-Yo Ma concert. And if you know classical music, you know who that is, and if you don't, you don't. But in classical music that's like ah. So I was excited and I wanted to go, but I didn't have anybody to take because, of course, I was not interested in any of that stuff meaning having any kind of relationship. So I asked in the groups that I managed who likes classical music, and there was a woman in one of the groups that said, well, I do. And so I said to her well, have I ever given you anything before, because I gave away stuff all the time? And she said no and I said, okay, fine, See you there. So I gave her the ticket.

Speaker 3: 2:05:44

We met at the show. The concert was amazing and that was like three weeks and so, as of the concert, I'm now three whole weeks stone cold, sober. Halfway through the show I had this feeling come over me that I recognized from two weeks before, three weeks before, and the voice said to me you need to marry this woman. And I said you're insane. I said I've screwed that up three times. I do not know how to do that and I'm like three weeks sober. Are you nuts? Later that night we were backstage because they were like thousand dollar tickets, backstage passes, tickets to the reception and all that stuff. So we're backstage and the voice came back and said comma, and you need to tell her tonight.

Speaker 3: 2:06:24

So I went nuts because I thought, well, there's a few problems with this One. I know her because she works for me in one of my groups, but I don't know her well enough to know whether or not she has a relationship, like I don't know that. And number two, she could like call the cops or something for harassment. So no, you know, and you don't win those arguments so awkwardly. I did, and it went about like you would have expected Are you insane? And you know she left. But the good news was she didn't have a relationship and she didn't call the cops. Over the next few weeks, three weeks or so, she had her own set of experiences and about three weeks later about six weeks from the August thing so it's the first part of October she resigned her position.

Speaker 3: 2:07:12

I walked away from millions of dollars of contracts and we walked off into the sunset from millions of dollars of contracts and we walked off into the sunset. And this December, which is coming up now, will be our 18th wedding anniversary. And her name is Joy. Like you can't make this up, she was the angel that was sent to help me learn how to be a person, how to tell the truth, how to have a friend, how to be a friend and, yes, she walks on water and she has been that. She's my business partner. She runs our whole, all of our contractors, our backend. She runs a publishing company and we take care of her 94 year old mother, who can't see out of one eye and is very, very creaky and and and and and she is that and she is the joy and my year starts October 14th because that's Joy's birthday. And so the other piece of help, besides getting sober, was she came into my life and I've asked her a lot of times like what on earth possessed you to quit your whole career and walk off into the sunset with someone like me? I mean, everybody at the office knew I had problems and so forth, and she said I just knew that wasn't right and I saw it differently. And I saw it differently, and so the help that we need is available. That was a miracle.

Speaker 3: 2:08:44

The divine intervention that happened before that, in August, calling me to attention, to wake up, that was also a miracle, but it didn't do any of the work.

Speaker 3: 2:09:01

I had to go do the work. I had no family. I had no, I'd been disowned by the family and no sibs contact and everybody hated me, et cetera. One of my sibs didn't even want me to come to a family reunion because they didn't want their kids to be around me. You know that kind of real being ostracized. So I was literally alone, and the divine in mercy sent a person to help me to wake up and to change, and so I owe God and joy everything, and it didn't do any of the work I have and had to do all of the work. What I know is that I am no more important or valuable than any of you. Right here, right now, you have a calling, you have an opportunity. The only question is the same question for me when I woke up that morning in August Take the invitation or say no, like I'd done a thousand other times, to the nudges and the inspiration. This is your invitation you are so amazing.

Speaker 1: 2:10:25

I am like, I'm so glad my phone and all my messaging here is on on silent. You have so many people who are commenting about how amazing and wonderful you are. It's I love hearing you talk about joy because it brings such joy to you and she. I I've had the privilege and pleasure of getting to know her and she is. She's as amazing as he talks about, and so your message is unbelievable. You are unbelievable. I told him years ago he stuck with me forever because I'm in light of him, like he's. He's always been such a gentleman to me and just the sweetest, sweetest human being. So many people are messaging about how amazing you are and they can't thank me enough for having you on.

Speaker 3: 2:11:03

I can't thank you enough for coming on, and so well, if I can do anything for any of your peeps, get ahold of me, because here's what I know. You can hear. All this cool stuff for me or anybody else and, like our attorney friend just before, if you don't do anything it's not going to matter.

Speaker 1: 2:11:17

Right.

Speaker 3: 2:11:18

So if this has invited you to do something, listen.

Speaker 1: 2:11:25

Absolutely. I'm going to reach out to you after because I have a ton of people who you definitely need to come on and talk with you and you're just amazing. I love you and I love your wife and thank you so much for who you are, what you do. Just thank you.

Speaker 3: 2:11:40

Well, I think, the world of you and what you're creating in the world. So, thank you, and if any of you have good ideas about how to help me get to my 300 million, I need to know.

Speaker 1: 2:11:50

Well, I think you got it here because we're sold out and we're in the million, so thank you.

Speaker 3: 2:11:55

Fabulous, thank you. All right, you guys, we're in the millions.

Speaker 1: 2:11:56

So thank you, fabulous, thank you. All. Right, you guys.

Speaker 1: 2:12:01

Now I don't know, I wouldn't be comfortable coming up behind him I would be so nervous even coming anywhere near him after he speaks because nowhere will I ever be anywhere near as good as he is. All right, so we have sh Shane coming in. Shane is a gentleman as well. He has a story that is one to be told, that is for sure, and he is on his way in to tell his story. His story is one that will really make you think about life all over again. He is got such a purpose here in life.

Speaker 1: 2:12:38

It's really hard to even say anything after listening to Keelan, because he has always been one of these people that I hold in such high regard and I love the story of him and his wife. It's beautiful. Their love is beautiful. I hope we emulate it, my husband and I. Who's chowing down on a sandwich behind the scenes back here? Faith is also here. Uh, real quick. While we're waiting on shane to come in, and everybody's been asking about you today and mentioning you, and even miss whitney and and everybody, so you want to say hi real quick to everybody. While we're waiting on mr shane to come in. Hey, everyone, how have you been feeling? How are you doing? I'm doing really good. How about you, mom? I'm doing really good. I'm doing very good, thank you, and Shane is trying to come in right now. For some reason, he's having a difficult time Trying to get in. I don't understand, so Thank you. For some reason, he's having a difficult time trying to get in. I don't understand. So thank you. How about you and dad talk for just a minute?

Speaker 2: 2:13:46

while I see what's going on here. Well, you can put me back on the spot here. Of course you're getting ready for your talk. So I ran out and got us all, uh, a sandwich I don't know if I can mention the name on air, but, um, I knew my wife would be here all day and, um, normally I cook dinner, uh, but we wanted to get something in our belly while we're sitting here and listening to everybody. Keelan Keelan's awesome, that's an understatement. I heard a little bit of Whitney when I was out driving. I love my girl. I tried to stay off the phone while driving, but thank you, whitney, so I guess we're doing. This is an amazing show so far. I see the comments, all the people commenting in Keelan's just got an awesome voice, you know, and his, his stories, pearl, are amazing. Yeah, we can relate to some because we have that kind of love, that kind of soulmationship if I may heard, our word is our, our soul, nation, ship you know it wasn't well.

Speaker 2: 2:15:02

I'll get to my story later, but it wasn't just a few weeks after my second wife left me that I got with my soul mate right here we've known each other for 25 years at least least at least I know right going back a bit going back a bit, that's an understatement all right bye faith bye thanks for visiting

Speaker 1: 2:15:29

yeah, yeah, yeah. See, this is what happens when you do a multi-viewed, multi-million watched webinar, when we're trying to get someone to come in and log on. I am so sorry. Also, I want everybody to check out the podcast interview that I did with kurt warner, who is amazing. He has such a great story. He's phenomenal um. He went through a very traumatic event and it caused him to lose 40% of his cerebellum and he is such a story to hear and a force to be reckoned with. He is an enlightenment. He's part of this as well. We have his recorded due to scheduling conflicts and he, his story, will be on for everybody to hear for the webinar as well. We are. I apologize for this. I don't know what's going on. I think we got it fixed. I think shane should be accepting and coming in as a panelist now and he will be getting started. We've had no problem all day. It's been great. I don't understand Knocking on wood. I don't know what's happening.

Speaker 2: 2:16:49

These things happen from time to time.

Speaker 1: 2:16:51

Right, they happen from time to time.

Speaker 2: 2:16:53

We were recording. Most of y'all know that our, our, our studio is just a small office, a small bedroom that we converted into office here in our home, and literally we work with like the bare minimum. Uh, we have a computer, we have a sound card, a soundboard and a couple of microphones and that's it. You know, we don't put a lot of money into, you know, the technical equipment. We want to sound good. But here a few months ago not even, yeah, about two months ago we had an issue with our microphones. So we had to call in some expertise and thank you DJ Blacks, who came over and assisted us with setting up better professional equipment. But other than that, we haven't put a lot into this other than programs, subscriptions, things for visual graphics, things of that nature. So starting your own podcast is is not a lot of, you know, upfront capital. You I mean, I encourage husband and wife get on there and y'all just start jaw jacking, just start what we do, but then when I do my interviews, or yeah, that's that's a little different.

Speaker 2: 2:18:15

That's different right you have, you have a conversation with um, oh, let's see Lou Diamond Phillips oh, and it's perfect because now Shane's here.

Speaker 1: 2:18:24

Oh, thank god. Oh, we're so happy now that Shane is coming on as a panelist and we are ready to go. We are so sorry for that, guys, that normally we haven't had that happen. Shane, come on in and we are ready to go. We are so sorry for that, guys. We haven't had that happen. Shane, come on in. I think he's muted. Oh, I am so sorry. Welcome, shane.

Speaker 2: 2:18:54

I read a book by Louie L'Amour called Shane. There was a I read a book by Louis L'Amour called Shane. That was way, way back in, probably middle school, but Shane was an awesome character back then.

Speaker 1: 2:19:21

I think his other main character was Chick Beaudry.

Speaker 2: 2:19:25

I've never heard of that. Well, again, we apologize for the silence and the technical difficulty. She's working it out over there.

Speaker 1: 2:19:31

No, he's here. I just don't know why he's not.

Speaker 2: 2:19:37

Shane, check your mute, check your video. It's 94 degrees where we live at right now. It's kind of muggy out there. I'm glad I got the grass cut yesterday, so shall I continue my wife doesn't like it when I put her up on the pedestal.

Speaker 2: 2:20:11

she, um, she likes the limelight to go to other people, absolutely, she's got the biggest dang heart. But you know, when you have folks from like I said, lou diamond phillips reached out to her one night while we were having dinner. She has had conversations, sometimes called interviews, with the cast of blacklist reacher uh, the rookie chicago fire, the blacklist, the blacklist, yeah, the blacklist. The Rookie Chicago Fire, the Blacklist, the Blacklist, yeah, the Blacklist. Amir came on, he sent, he has sent several.

Speaker 1: 2:20:51

China fella.

Speaker 2: 2:20:52

Cameos, I would call them.

Speaker 1: 2:20:53

Sure. If anybody can get Johnny.

Speaker 2: 2:20:56

Depp, james Spader. James Sp get Johnny.

Speaker 1: 2:20:57

Depp James Spader.

Speaker 2: 2:20:59

James Spader and Johnny Depp. Those are the two my wife's got her heart to know that show.

Speaker 1: 2:21:04

I'm sorry. We're trying to see what's going on here. James Spader in the 80s did all these movies and I was like, ah, but then the Blacklist comes out and that role was made for him. I'm sorry that way. Everybody needs a Raymond Reddington in their life, like he never heard any bad people. He only went after those that deserved it.

Speaker 2: 2:21:28

He never hurt bad people.

Speaker 1: 2:21:30

He never hurt anyone. That wasn't a bad person, he was just so like. I love his character.

Speaker 1: 2:21:36

I hate the ending of the show Like I hated it. And every, everywhere you look that has anything to say with anything talks about how much they hate the ending of the show. And I'm not going to ruin it, even though it did ruin it for anybody who hasn't seen it yet but you could kind of hit fast forward and probably be better off because the ending was awful. But james spader, oh james spader, in the role of Raymond Reddington.

Speaker 2: 2:21:58

Y'all need a room.

Speaker 1: 2:21:59

Seriously, I'm just saying Like that role is iconic. It should be one of those forever known roles, because that was just amazing. So, yes, that was amazing. And who else have we found? We've had a lot of people, malcolm Goodwin, who reached out to me to tell me that somebody that he knew I saved his life.

Speaker 2: 2:22:22

Hey Shane, welcome buddy.

Speaker 1: 2:22:24

There he is.

Speaker 9: 2:22:25

Hey there, Let me get back to where I was Shane you look a lot like Luke Wilson.

Speaker 2: 2:22:30

Buddy, you look like Luke.

Speaker 9: 2:22:33

Wilson.

Speaker 2: 2:22:33

Yeah.

Speaker 9: 2:22:34

I'll take that. Sorry about all of that. I had done interviews, I've done recordings, I've tested my zoom yesterday, today, whatever life happens, what are you going to do? I see a bunch of people on here. Looks like people are muted, cool.

Speaker 1: 2:23:03

Yes, everybody's muted, waiting on you to begin.

Speaker 9: 2:23:05

Okay, so that's what I have going on now. Sweet, very cool, awesome. I am here to talk to you guys today very briefly about the speed bumps in your mind Kind of an interesting intro Back up, just a skosh. My name is Shane Boyd. I do speaking and coaching, consulting. Essentially what I do is I help people overcome the speed bumps in their mind so they can get out of their own way, live on purpose and do stuff that matters. Now, speed bumps in your mind I kind of have some experience about that because I was a human speed bump True story. I won't go into the entire story here because I'm only going to talk to you guys in this brief section just about one small portion of it. But as far as being a speed bump true story, I fell out of a moving truck, the back tires ran over my head and then I was rushed to the hospital eight hours later where I had to have brain surgery to live. So I am legit like a miracle in the making. I mean, I was a human speed bump, so that's where I coined the term speed bumps in the mind.

Speaker 9: 2:24:22

Now I want to talk to you all today simply about one specific thing, and it's a habit that a lot of us have, because I speak a lot about habits. Your habits got you to where you are today good, bad or indifferent. Whether we like it or not, we have good habits and bad habits. A lot of times, our habits will take you right where you are today. Now I want to talk to you about one specific thing, and that is do it scared. Do it scared Now. Okay, what does that mean? Maybe we've read the book from Susan Jeffers. I mean, feel the fear and do it anyway, but do it afraid. Do it scared Now. It, I don't know what that it is for you. You know what it is. When I say do it scared, man, do it afraid. You know what that it is. Is it starting a business? Is it starting a nonprofit? Is it, you know, asking for the raise? Is it asking somebody out? Is it advancing your career? I mean, is it starting any kind of a Bible study at your local church? I mean all kinds of things that we are afraid of. Do it afraid.

Speaker 9: 2:25:39

But here's what's happening in that whole fear moment. You see, we have a habit of stopping when that fear hits. Think about your life, any part of it, man, it doesn't matter which one you want to focus on. Think about any part of it, whether it's your health, wealth, relationship, whatever. Think about a part of your life and you can see areas where you got to a certain point and you stopped. Why did you stop? It wasn't like somebody was physically there, like you can't go further. No, it wasn't like that at all. You had some kind of fear, you had some kind of timidity, you had some kind of trepidation that stopped you. It was that fear that stopped you.

Speaker 9: 2:26:26

Now, what were you afraid of? Were you afraid of failing? Were you afraid of succeeding and have a whole new life afterwards? You see, after going through my accident believe me when I say this happened back in 99, I've done a lot of reading when it comes to brain, brain science, healing of your brain and different things that we do, and one of the main functions of our brain is to keep us alive, yes, keep us safe. Think about that for a second to keep us safe. Now, when you think about when you do new things like this, is, you know, a new thing they're doing here as well, for this whole global mission that they're doing pretty awesome.

Speaker 9: 2:27:14

There was a lot of fear involved before you launched this. I mean even before coming on. Yeah, of course I was a lot of fear involved before you launched this. I mean even before coming on. Yeah, of course I was a little bit nervous. I didn't realize I was going to have camera issues. But whatever Life happens, right, you just keep on keeping on. But you got to a certain point. Fear would stop you. Now your brain's trying to keep you safe of your comfort zone. You feel kind of nervous. Doesn't really feel good to you. Does it Picture any scenario?

Speaker 9: 2:27:45

I'll give you a simple one. I love martial arts. I mean, yep, I have three black belts with a steel plate in my head. Don't ask, I just let them for a punishment, I guess. But my first day in karate class I was nervous. I didn't know how to do a sidekick or a roundhouse or a hook kick and spin kicks. I didn't know any of those things. I didn't know how to do the katzas. I didn't know any of that. So I did it scared, and then I continued to progress and got better.

Speaker 9: 2:28:11

Look at any of your heroes. Any of them. I'll pick a simple one. Being a dude, I'll pick your football. Let's look at Tom Brady. He's an easy one for me to pick because I'm also a Michigan fan. So I've watched Tom Brady's entire career. I've watched him from Michigan to the Patriots to Tampa. So I've watched his whole career Fantastic. Look at his stats. He did great. Do you think he was that great when he first started? Negative, that's a hard no and that's how you're going to be at whatever it is. That's why you do it afraid. You're not going to be the best soldier in a battlefield on your first mission, but you're never going to be anybody if you don't start. You would never be able to help anybody if you don't start.

Speaker 9: 2:29:00

And this whole thing about fear what are you afraid of? See? A lot of times, especially in this online world, I mean, people say that we're more connected now than ever. That's not true. We're more disconnected now than ever. That's a whole side note, this whole online world. You can have lovers and haters come out of the woodwork from everywhere, right? So are you afraid of being criticized? If you start the business? If you start the podcast, you know? If you start the nonprofit, are you afraid what people will say? You know if you start doing this? Oh, who does she think she is? Who does. He think he is right.

Speaker 9: 2:29:40

You start doing the fear. You start feeling that fear and you realize I don't want to do this is uncomfortable. So your brain draws you back, draws you right back to your comfort zone. It's like having the. You've seen the. I read the analogy of. You know, put a bunch of crabs in a bucket. Some of the crabs begin to crawl out Once they get to the top. The other crabs will grab them and bring them back down. They're trying to keep them safe right there where they were. That's going to happen.

Speaker 9: 2:30:09

The same time, you feel that fear, but that fear that you're feeling that's good stuff, man, because that lets you know you're on the right path. It's not that anybody's out to get you. You're never going to be anything great if you can't get past that terror barrier. That fear, see, that fear could actually be your compass. Here's what I mean. If you're having any kind of fear of anything kind of let you know, hey, I might be on the right path here. I'm not afraid because I have, like a saber to tiger coming after me. I'm not afraid because I have, you know, somebody trying to seriously hurt me. I'm afraid because of this change. This change is good.

Speaker 9: 2:30:49

So you could use that fear as a compass and you could follow that fear, because once you begin to do whatever it is you said you were afraid to do, you do it a time or two and all of a sudden you're not really afraid. It doesn't frighten you anymore. It doesn't frighten me to go on stages and speak. It doesn't frighten me to come on this stage, right here, and speak, even though I had 101 blunders, like five minutes before I came on here. Technology wasn't awesome to me. Great, whatever life happens, right, but I'm not afraid to do this. Why? Because I've done it a time or two. I feel comfortable.

Speaker 9: 2:31:29

What is that thing that you keep stopping yourself from doing? So you know what it is. You have that greatness inside of you. You know what it is. I don't know what yours is. You know what it is.

Speaker 9: 2:31:40

When I say what that one thing is, it was put there for a reason. You see, that greatness inside of you would never come out if you're too afraid to be who you are and that's a lot of times what we do we stop and we cower down to our fears and we conform to all the things around us and end up having a life that we're not fulfilled by because we keep trying to put a square peg in a round hole, trying to be who we're not. It's time for you to live the life you were called to live, not the life you feel stuck in. It's the fact that we get this fear that stops us and we conform to the things around us, that we get this fear that stops us and we conform to the things around us. You're never going to overcome that speed bump in your mind if you continue to just hit it and cover down. It's after you get past it.

Speaker 9: 2:32:26

Think of, whatever it is, any sporting event, any business you've been a part of, any new venture. You're going to have some fear there. Then you do it a time or two and you feel kind of comfortable. You do it a time or four and you feel pretty good. You do it a dozen more times. You feel like a pro and it's second nature. Think about when you first went to the gym, all these things. You can take that small win from what you did going to the gym. You know, started a new business, whatever it is. Take that small win and realize I did that. I can do this too.

Speaker 9: 2:32:58

So we have a habit of stopping when fear hits, and the fastest way to success is to replace bad habits with good habits. So, instead of stopping when that fear hits, let's start when that fear hits. Let that fear be your driver. Let that fear say that's my compass. I'm following this and I'm going to see where it takes me. You'll never experience the greatness that God gave you if you keep falling in fear and stopping yourself and being the great person you're supposed to be. Folks. I thank you for having me here today. It's been a pleasure. Sorry that I had issues with the camera getting on, but it was a pleasure being here and I hope this message fell on somebody and was was good for somebody out there. Thank you.

Speaker 1: 2:33:43

Thank you so much, shane. I appreciate it and we're going to make sure everybody can get a hold of all of Shane's fabulous works and how to get a hold of him, and I'm glad we got you on here eventually, so thank you, thank you for doing that.

Speaker 9: 2:34:00

Thank you for being here with us today. I truly appreciate you.

Speaker 1: 2:34:01

Thank you so much, victoria. Of course, all right guys, get ready. Allison's coming. Allison is amazing. All beautiful in her blue is always. I don't think I've ever seen this woman look bad. I don't think it's in her to be able to look bad. She is amazing, she's adorable, she's sweet and she's full of knowledge and wealth. And this is my friend, allison.

Speaker 11: 2:34:25

And I'm such a fan of yours, like what you are creating and what you've been through is just such a beautiful opportunity and I've been coming in and out today and listening to all the great speakers. Thank you, thank you for this forum and for making it happen.

Speaker 1: 2:34:47

Absolutely, and there's no pressure that there's like millions of watchers. I'm just saying I mean it's not a pressure at all. I know she's great under pressure, she's amazing and y'all are going to love every minute with her Awesome.

Speaker 11: 2:34:56

Yeah, we are going to talk about pressure actually and how do you de-stress your life and really hone the skill of resilience and resilience does not erase hard truths. So, to be clear, this is not about sugarcoating reality, and I know a lot of people who are watching this today and myself included have been through some significant life challenges, and it's not. You know, we hear people say, be resilient and we can think, well, yeah, but you don't know what I've actually been through, you don't know the struggle that's going on behind the scenes, and I just want you to know that I see you if you're going through something right now or have come through something already, and this is about how do you create the best life possible given that reality that you've gone through. So everything I'm going to say, please take it through the lens of recognizing that you have. I mean, if you're in this world, here in this webinar for the global summit, I'm going to suggest that you have been through something, and so that is just. My heart goes out to you on that.

Speaker 11: 2:36:13

So let's start talking about resilience Now. If you are like, oh gosh, please don't tell me to be resilient again. And it's likely because when I go in and I speak with audiences of professionals and the companies hire me to come in. I often hear right, and people are like, oh, resilience. And I'm like, listen, resilience does not, does not mean like exercise, you know, and breathe deeply and, just, you know, meditate, like all of those are great stress management strategies but they are not going to get you through the toughest times in life. They are going to make it easier to physically get through it, to calm your mind, incredible tools. But when I was going through my worst time in my life, I was like I'd look at people and they say you got to be resilient and I'd be like yeah, yeah, yeah, but like I can't go to the gym, I'm in too much pain, I, you know, I want to feel better.

Speaker 11: 2:37:18

And then I just like judge myself because I wasn't feeling better and one of the key principles about being resilient. And I realized it and I'll tell you the day I realized it. I was sitting across from my neurologist and he's like Alice, you need to understand what's happening. Like you will never work full-time again, your pain will never go away and we have to talk about you going on disability. And it was in that moment that I was like, oh no, this is like I get it. Like I'd already been two years. Five surgeries. The first one was botched and that's what happened in my story and then there were six people who died in a very short period of time.

Speaker 11: 2:38:09

Like, as you know like when you're going through something significant, it's like when it rains, it pours and it just keeps going, going and like I lost all these people, I didn't know how to grieve. I was struggling financially because my business, like I, was in so much pain I couldn't function. I'd gone from working 18 hour days to having like two hours before I was collapsing and in that hospital room I was so angry at him right it's not his fault.

Speaker 11: 2:38:41

But he's like, yeah, you're going to have to go on disability, you're never going to work full time again and I'm like I don't like your answer, give me a new one.

Speaker 11: 2:38:48

And basically he was like look, you're going to have to learn how to be resilient. And like he had ripped the hope out of my heart in like 20 seconds, right when he's like you're never going to get back. And then he gave it back in those five seconds because I was like, if I can figure out this resilience, I can be okay. And that's where I went on this journey of like how do you actually be resilient? And I found all those exercising things and the deep breathing and I'm like you don't understand what I'm going through and it doesn't even matter what you're going through. But here's the actual thing I think was so important that I realized, see, I went in to see that doctor. He was my ninth specialist, it was my fourth hospital and I was on a mission because I thought he could fix me. And I was like you have to take me back to my life before the pain.

Speaker 11: 2:39:50

And so often with resilience we talk about bouncing, but if you've gone through something significant in your life, you will never go back. And that is a tough reality to stare into. But there is no going back. You are different, your experiences are different the the way life was no longer is. And so, while I was trying to get back to my pre-surgery body, to before the people I loved died, when I was focused on regaining who I used to be, when I was focused on regaining who I used to be, I was not able to figure out who I am and I certainly was not able to muster the hope and the tools and the resilience to actually create a future for myself. And so I challenge you to first on this resiliency journey is to recognize there is no going back Now.

Speaker 11: 2:41:03

One of the reasons I think we stay in the past is because we get so anchored on the story that happened to us. That happened to us and, as a professional speaker and an author and a coach and a consultant like I, have to tell my story a lot more than I probably would like, but, like I've already told it to you, it's no longer part of the situation that we're going through. Okay, but we can get so stuck on this, the way it was the thing that happened, and be so disconnected from how it is, that we just loop back in the past and we never really truly design our life for today, moving forward, knowing and recognizing the challenge that we've been through. And so this, looking at today and starting to be compassionately curious with ourselves about how we can become okay, not let them, you know, if somebody hurt you, if you are a victim of a crime, like you know all of that Like, not make excuses for them. I'm talking about you and how do you choose to live your life today. And if we can be, if we can separate and get curious like it takes some work here okay, like if we can separate who we are from what happened or the issue that we went through, and see those as two separate things, even though we're all like our own selves right, you know what I mean, but like it's we have to be able to separate the two, because if we wear our pain or our trauma or our abuse as our identity, our life is what we have it right now and there's, it will just keep looping and looping and looping, because we'll get stuck on the way things used to be, the thing that happened. I want to be the way things used to be and I don't want to have the thing that happened. And so what I want to do is, with the resilience is really about pulling you and giving you. We're going to get into some actual tactics to take, but I just want you to think about.

Speaker 11: 2:43:30

Thinking here is like, how do we get you moving forward to like, yes, that happened, and here I am in this space right now, and how do I want that to look, to feel, to be designed? So, how do you create your best life with the reality of your circumstances? Well, everything we deal with is framed. Okay, there's a frame in which you see it and that frame so you can have an issue. Okay, so here's this issue that you have to deal with, and let's just let's just use something generic. You have a lot of stuff on your to-do list. I'm guessing that's true. Okay, and that's the issue. But now we're going to frame it with something.

Speaker 11: 2:44:24

I and we're going to start with the storyline. I think other speakers have actually talked about this. Right, we're going to have a storyline. Like, oh my gosh, I have so much to do. I'm never going to be able to get it done. The work just doesn't end. It's not worth it. I'm like there's no time for myself. Like you know the story, right? Well, that story is going to feed an emotion.

Speaker 11: 2:44:48

And what kind of a story do you feel when you have the issue of having a lot to do and it's like the foundation of it, is you repeating a story that says I can't do this, it's too much, et cetera? Well, of course, you're going to feel defeated, you're going to feel overwhelmed, you're going to feel like just hopeless, there's no sense. You're going to like all of that.

Speaker 11: 2:45:15

And when you feel overwhelmed and you feel hopeless, so you feel, um, just like there's no, there's no purpose, and even trying to get through it and it's never going to end, then that's going to lead to this behavior and the behavior will be things like I'm going to tune out, I'm going to deal with, uh, like you know, watch Netflix all day and you're like I got too much to do to ever do that, alison. But you know, sometimes we do, or I'm in a doom scroll, right Like, and I'm just going to numb out to the world. Sometimes that's a really great coping mechanism. But on mass like I've really noticed this with my own self lately is like I've noticed how I'm using the social media and getting sucked into too much June scrolling and just seeing too much, and it's like the last week I've just really been like I can't be online a lot.

Speaker 11: 2:46:09

I've got to protect myself. I've got a design based on today, and so this is the behavior or we procrastinate, or we get irritable with our family because we're just under so much pressure and it's like this loop and that feeds right.

Speaker 11: 2:46:28

Like what does that do? That feeds the more negative storyline oh, I knew I couldn't get it done, there's just way too much to do. You feel more defeated and then it goes into more behavior. I'm going to, you know, not set boundaries, boundaries I've over committed, like whatever, and it just this framing loop, framing loop, framing loop, and that is the key getting control of that spinning of the framing loop is the key to your resilience, because within that you can change how you feel about your life.

Speaker 11: 2:47:00

Because the reality is, if you are going through a really tough time and like Victoria and Michael and Faith, who are our hosts today, they are the epitome of going through tough times right, they have had so much and are serve as such an inspiration, and yet they keep on showing up and they keep on doing everything for everyone else to make it like it, to bring this message of survival and thriving out to the world, out to the world. But like, if you're going through a tough time, you don't have the capacity to deal with what other people maybe can deal with in the drama world, like you can't get into the little nitpicky things you, you don't have time for stuff that isn't going to help you reach your goals or help you feel more whole or going to align with you and what you actually want. Like you don't have time to overcommit, like you have to control that framing on all the other stuff because you've got too much going on in the real stuff, stuff, because you've got too much going on in the real stuff. And so, being careful with this framing loop and just looking at like okay, what are the storylines I'm telling myself, what are the conversations that I'm having? And they're stuck on repeat. Every time we have a conversation, we talk about the same thing, right, right, and we get into these soundtracks with our relationships and it's like if you're not leaving your interactions with people feeling uplifted and better, or at least neutral, for having interacted with them, then something's off on the frame framing and it's up to you to be like what can I say differently? How can I shift the storyline so that I can stop the spinning and the intensity that's going around the issue?

Speaker 11: 2:49:15

Now, what's interesting is I used to think that was the issue that caused my stress, but it isn't. See, the issue is one issue. Issue is one issue. Deep thoughts. Alison Graham here, um, but it's like here's the thing that happens, and that thing that happens, we're going to have a stress reaction to it. That stress reaction, resilience is what will either amplify it like, make it worse, or it will alleviate the pressure. And that resilience, that's the key. That's where we're we're at now. Here, I just want to bring, and we only have a little bit. I want to come back, but I have this in the. I think I still have my corporate kino app instead of the one that I did for us today. I don't know, you can't even see it, so it doesn't matter what I'm doing here, but that's okay. No, you're not seeing any of this.

Speaker 1: 2:50:29

Where are my slides?

Speaker 11: 2:50:34

Where are my slides? Ah, there we go. Okay, gotta love tech. There is the framing loop. Okay, that's what I was talking about. And so the issue if we want to change our stress response, we need to have a better storyline, and for me, this is um.

Speaker 11: 2:50:57

The power in this is that there are such easy ways to change the framing loop and these because you're already got too much on the go, you're already too busy. I imagine that because you're here, like you know, you're someone who's actually making the effort to get you know, ideas and help and learn and all of that. But, like, I'm going to give you some really quick, easy, easy things in the next 10 minutes, because we want to reframe again. This is not about erasing the issue. This is not about sugarcoating the issue. This is about protecting you and you figuring out how do you optimize within your reality of the issues that are on your plate.

Speaker 11: 2:51:41

Okay, so the first thing we want to do is neutralize the storyline, and people used to say like, oh, I've got to be really positive and everything's great and we're getting through it, and it's like no, sometimes it sucks, and I think that sometimes we get so caught in this. I have to be positive for people mode, that what ends up happening is we don't honor the truth of what's actually happening. Truth of what's actually happening. And so when we hear that looping, that storyline, that complaint that's stuck on repeat, I'm going to challenge you to ask the question what else is possible? What else is possible if this thing is horrible is it? Is there anything else within it that could be more plausible? Well, it's really inconvenient now. Sometimes things are horrible. Please.

Speaker 11: 2:52:53

We're not talking about the big stuff, we're talking about everything that's wrapped around, all the big stuff that we have to alleviate the angst because you don't have capacity to dramatize any of that, because you got to deal with the big thing right. This is for when you're going through those really tough times in your life, and so if I've got too much to do, let's go back to that example. Oh, this is so overwhelming Like I'm never going to get it done.

Speaker 11: 2:53:27

Well, what else is possible? I will get it done, but I'm going to be tired tonight when I do it. Or I need to really carve out some focused time without any distractions, in my online community called the Live your Best Life Club. It is free. You are welcome to join. I'll be sure that Victoria has the link. But if you go there and one of the things we do is we hold each other accountable to do focused work time, so when you have too much to do, it's really easy to get distracted and that just makes it harder and harder to get the issues dealt with. So we come together and we hyper focused.

Speaker 11: 2:54:13

Okay, so just neutralizing the storyline, and you don't have to be like doom and gloom. You don't have to be like rosy you know happy, happy unicorns, rainbows and fairy dust, but the find the middle ground, and one of my favorite ways to do that is by choosing another word. So when you have, when you're insulting yourself, if you have a negative voice, if you are, you know, using those words like horrible and never and awful and all those extreme words, thinking about our framing loop, you can't use one of those words and not like, feel discouraged and then have a great outcome. So neutralize the word, simply pick a better word. And you can do this with your friends in your life, with your colleagues at work, your children, like just hey, that's a big word, let's pick a better one. And it's kind of a fun game that has a lot of power in it. And the last thing I just want to share with you is the power of zooming in and out.

Speaker 11: 2:55:31

And when we're dealing with something that is huge, when we're dealing with something that is huge, it's often all encompassing and it's hard to get clarity and grounding within that.

Speaker 11: 2:55:49

And so, like you know how it's, like you were on a camera, like a zoom, a zoom in like on a iPad, right, it's like I kind of want one of those for life, right, but let me show you these images on the screen.

Speaker 11: 2:56:02

And so here's just like this whole field of puppies, and that feels quite overwhelming, right, like if your to-do list, each one of those things on that list, was something you had to do, like, right, of course you're overwhelmed, but when you zoom in, you can see one thing one bird, one flower. That doesn't feel as overwhelming, does it same picture? But now let's zoom out. Same field, same poppies. Wider angle, now we can see we're in the rolling hills of England where you know I don't know if it's a sunrise or a sunset or whatever it's just like it has more context. So when you're feeling really overwhelmed, when it feels like the world is against you and you just can't quite get your grip, I'm going to ask you to challenge yourself to zoom in and just like what can I focus on right now that I can deal with?

Speaker 11: 2:57:11

that's going to be really powerful and then zoom out to get more context about how it's going to play out in your overall life. Okay, and that to me, I find, can really neutralize a lot of the drama. So, like when I go into a company and they bring me in to facilitate some problem solving or difficult, you know conversations, that we do a lot of zooming and I do that with my private clients as well, and I see that what I did was I actually saved this PowerPoint presentation with the right name, but I think I maybe made the old one, the one I was doing for today. But look, there are things that go very wrong, as we've already established, and, like in my own world, the pain I mean Dr Wrong I used to call him wrong, you're wrong, dr Wrong. The truth is he was kind of right Like my pain didn't go away but it didn't keep me from working. Sure, I don't necessarily do full-time, but I have a successful speaking business, I have coaching and consulting practice and I did figure out like my pain is worse when I get sucked into negative framing loops and when I get into the drama and off track Right. So that to me is it.

Speaker 11: 2:58:51

But from every negative situation I believe there are silver linings. And gosh. They can be hard to see sometimes, but for me, with my nerve pain, it forced me to reevaluate my life. I had to learn how to set boundaries. I no longer could work 18-hour days, so when I did work, I had to be profitable. I had to be thoughtful about what I was actually doing which streamlined my workflows and less exhausting. I couldn't drive myself to my gigs, so I had to, like, call my mom and she, you know, after my dad had died and she was retired, we she came to live with me and we have such an incredible relationship now that we would never have had if it weren't for the pain and the journey.

Speaker 11: 2:59:45

See, there are always things that come out of the awful. It's just really hard to see them sometimes, and that's why I challenge you to have that silver lining. Thinking doesn't sugarcoat reality, doesn't take away the issue. You're still going to have the stress response, but with those simple reframing techniques that we just used, you can alleviate the intensity of those, those responses, responses. So I hope you've got something out of that. Come and join the best life club. Live your best life where we're in the trenches, doing focus work, setting goals on your terms, and you can come over to alisonbramcom and you can say join the club there, and with that it is five o'clock and just on the nose. So that is my cue to sign off. But thank you for having me, thank you for being here and investing in yourself, and I hope that you will stress less while achieving more of what you love and be happier while you're doing it.

Speaker 1: 3:00:51

Thank you so much, Alison. We love you. You're the best. So good to see you. It's been too long, we got to do this more often. We, Allison, we love you. You're the best. So good to see you. It's been too long, we got to do this more often. We will catch up here very soon. She's amazing, guys. Go check her out. Join our club. You will get so much gratitude, love and light with Allison, because she's amazing, Now got to do it.

Speaker 1: 3:01:12

Our next speaker is my husband. Now I hold this. This is going to be good because Keelan had tears in his eyes and it wasn't pollen and, if any of you guys know, we have such fun playful banter back and forth and I'm going to introduce the love of my life, my soulmate, my rock, my purpose. No, you're going to just come, stand with me, babe. I'll stay here with you for support and love with me, babe. I'll stay here with you for support and love. This is my rock. This is my husband. He is going to be here with us now and he's a little nervous because you're going to drop every one of the books and magazines behind you. Hi, babe, Howdy mom. So I'm just here for support, but tell everybody about you and this is the president, who is not the CEO, just so you know, because he always no it is not the CEO and founder are here.

Speaker 1: 3:02:08

The president is here and is elected, therefore, by the CEO, which is the president is not by stop it.

Speaker 1: 3:02:16

I brought you in and put you in that position of president. I've done a contagious smile for 19 years now and you've been with a contagious smile and the launching of the Academy for five years. The Academy six weeks old. So you've been there from the inception of that one. But I don't want to take your time away. I want to give you all the time you have. Go for it, babe. I believe in you, I support you and it's all yours.

Speaker 2: 3:02:41

Howdy y'all? I'm Michael. I'm the guy in the background here. I do talk to a few people. I do message you when you come on the Academy. I usually greet you right off the bat. Y'all be sure to jump on and join the Academy. It's for free, and my wife has mentioned a lot about that, I'm sure. So what about me? Do you want to hear about me? Yes, Do you want to hear about us Y'all? I'm very simple. I'm not a public speaker. I was a public servant. I did 13 and a half years in law enforcement after my four years in the military.

Speaker 2: 3:03:26

Thank you for your service Police department.

Speaker 2: 3:03:33

Police department, which I spent six and a half years. After that I did private detective, after that sheriff's deputy, worked inside the jail and then the career with K-9 officer. So my stories usually revolve around law enforcement and my perspective is law enforcement side. When we talk to people that come on our show, or you know, my wife and I we sit here and role play sometimes, uh, she was also law enforcement. Uh, back just before I met her and uh, she actually ended up being my trainer. She trained me in the police academy yeah from classes for in service training.

Speaker 2: 3:04:19

Yeah, so I don't know what happened there, you know but I had met you because I hazed you that was, she did haze me. My partner called me up, said hey, meet me at this location. And it happened. It happened to be a bar, uh, in our territory and while we were on duty we didn't go drinking, y'all.

Speaker 1: 3:04:40

We met outside of the establishment.

Speaker 2: 3:04:42

We did not go inside and I got there and there she was and from what I remember, a business suit could have been pinstripe with the shoulder pads, it tells you how old it was. And she went into this litany of hey, you pulled me over, officer Solomon, you gave me a ticket.

Speaker 1: 3:05:04

I think I screwed up and said citation.

Speaker 2: 3:05:06

Yeah, she said the word citation and, as most of y'all know, civilians don't use the word citations. They say ticket. So cue number one, you messed up. I know you said citation, so cue number one, you messed up, I know, you said citation I've been expecting you Like when you got out. Everybody sees I'm nothing, I'm a big round face. That is not true. You know I've got hazel eyes. I'm hot. Are you on drugs? No, you are hot. I'm 51 years old Now.

Speaker 1: 3:05:35

I've known you from your 20s, 30s, 40s and 50s.

Speaker 2: 3:05:39

But this woman right here is my soulmate. I came out of a relationship of about 10 years where I was mentally and emotionally abused and for those of y'all who don't think that's possible.

Speaker 2: 3:05:54

You got another thing coming. Okay, it is absolutely possible with men. Okay, I'm 6'1", I'm currently 275 and I haven't dated or married any woman comparable to my size or bigger. Okay, so little women can wear your ass out. Can I say ass? I just did. Anyway, with the the what, what, what we called. You know, we had verbal judo in the police Academy women. Okay, in my perspective, cause I'm homophobic. Okay, my second wife had her verbal judo Every day I came home. It was a constant nagging, nagging, nagging. It was the berating, it was the belittling, it was the. You know, you're nothing, you're worthless, you're a piece of you know. So it was constantly, you know that that water, just you know, beaten down on that rock after years and years, and I didn't realize, it took a toll on me. So my wife saw it as soon as we got back together.

Speaker 1: 3:07:01

She, she knew what happened no, because we were friends we were friends and we would talk on the phone and I sensed it and heard it in your voice and it broke my heart because I knew the day I met you. You were my soulmate, I knew it and you would call me and it was like the life got sucked out of you. And I even recorded one of your conversations which I've played back for you since, and you didn't even recognize the voice and it was just so heart-wrenching because the control she had and the unhappiness that that's the only thing she provided you was unhappiness and you were so miserable and what I would hear from you on the phone it was just heartbreaking because you would say I've got two minutes and you would hang up before she'd come out and we were platonic. I mean, as much as I loved you, even then I wouldn't cross the line, I would not be the other woman. And the thing is is that it was so heartbreaking to hear you go through that.

Speaker 1: 3:08:00

And then, after all this time you know we both have history of narcissism in our families. I mean, both sides have it. You know the the fact of what you went through with your family your intermediate family as well, and mine and then it was just to see that unhappiness. And then you go into where we are now, which we say no drama, trauma in our home, and our home is our foundation, our home is our life and we have unconditional love for one another. We laugh all the time. I mean, we had a ketchup fight the other night at dinner. It was kind of fun. Um, actually it was really fun I lost yeah, yes, he did.

Speaker 1: 3:08:42

He lost um, but you know, and those are the kind of messes that are fun to clean up, right and like, we look at each other and we get lost each other's eyes. This man and I are always on the same page. For those of you that don't know, you can find unconditional true love again. You know, he and I, I think, are so much stronger than we were back in the day, but we finish each other's sentences. And it's not a play on the movie Frozen, right? It's the fact that, like you know, we get remarried every year and we renew our vows and, yes, and in that we change rings every year, and so one year we alternate. So one year it's, you know, my turn to pick out the rings, the next is his turn to pick out the rings, and so one year we were both kind of like I don't know which one to get. So here we are, both looking for our next year rings. And what happened at that point?

Speaker 1: 3:09:41

we picked out the same thing the exact how many flipping wedding bands are there. We didn't say, okay, let's go off of this site. Only we didn't say, hey, let's do this color. There were no prerequisites same material nothing it was the same company yeah, same company and that happens all the time, like he'll say you know, I think I need a new, whatever. And when he comes home it's already here, like he's never run out of anything.

Speaker 2: 3:10:08

Um, it's just how it is but how did, how did we get to this point y'all?

Speaker 2: 3:10:13

uh, keelan said earlier he is fabulous we were both my wife and I were, and possibly still are, ostracized by friends and family. Okay, uh, my wife could tell you from you know, experience, a narcissist has control. They make control and when you are isolated, you know you don't have anyone, you cannot go to anyone. So this was my go-to, you know, and this is where I saw a little refuge, a little little sanity, and you know, that's why I would talk to her. Um, we were states away from each other so, like she said, it was platonic.

Speaker 2: 3:10:57

But after listening that a recording of myself, it it sounded so hollow. Like molly said, it sounded soulless, uh, and I've seen that very look in her eyes when I've seen some uh pictures of her back when she photographed herself after some of her beatings. If you will, I'm sorry, but yeah, you absolutely can find your soulmate after you get out of that hole, after you get away from that monster, after you get out of the darkness. You absolutely can, I promise you. You know, even if you're not looking, okay, you don't have to go to 1900 data, data cop or data, whatever, what I don't know. But her and I just it, we're made for each other and I wish, I wish we had met we did meet and married.

Speaker 2: 3:11:54

That's a good save, that's a good save but you know, I don't know, it's just you know there's, there's a lot that you went through that got us to where we are now, right here on this live podcast. You know, and had had I married you, you know, everything would have been different. Everything would have been changed. Everything would have been changed. You, you would have still had an arm, you know, you would have still had both good ears. What, it's not funny. You almost had a moment there for me. Thanks a lot, but, um, yeah, I'm thankful for my wife. Y'all.

Speaker 1: 3:12:32

And the thing is is that you need to prioritize, like Allison said you really do, because there are people that will be in your life that will try to take advantage of you and use you for any and every possible thing they can get out of you and they're your supposed best friend and then the minute that they don't think they can get anything else out of you anymore, they're done with you. They throw you to the curb until they need you again. And we still see that now. We still get that all the time and I refuse to turn into one of them and become just like them, because then they win and I'm not going to give them any more occupancy in my heart because they don't deserve to be in there if that's how they want to be.

Speaker 1: 3:13:14

I mean, and I always say that, if you go after my family, which is my husband and my daughter, then that's a totally different. We're in a different league at that point. But you have to realize you can't pick your biological parents. You can't pick your siblings. You can't pick you know, cousins and nephew, nieces or anything like that. You can pick your nose, you can pick your butt, but you can't pick who DNA is, and DNA doesn't mean you have to be civil. Dna doesn't mean you have to have a relationship. We've been no contact before for years and years and years, and wouldn't you say we've been happier in all fairness?

Speaker 2: 3:13:56

Right, you're talking about with family.

Speaker 1: 3:13:58

Well, if you want to call them that yeah, contact with family.

Speaker 1: 3:14:01

And, like you've told me before, you're happier and I'm happier, and the thing is that you can't come around when it's convenient only because they want something Right. Like we almost lost faith, as many of you know, last year and we didn't hear from either side of our families. And what excuse is justifiable for that? It wasn't a day, it wasn't a week. I mean, we were in there for months. She was in complete organ failure. They read her her last rites. They had a chaplain on standby with us and I said this isn't going to happen. We're not even having this conversation.

Speaker 1: 3:14:36

She's going home, and I don't mean home as in with God. I meant home was with us. It's not her time and we didn't hear from either side of our family and I don't understand what excuse could be justified for that lack of concern, compassion and behavior, right. So you need to cherish the moments that you have and those that are around you that are authentic and unconditionally acceptance. Accepting there's that language issue accepting and loving for who you are, not what you have to offer and let me tell you another thing y'all don't take for granted what you have right now.

Speaker 2: 3:15:09

Okay, don't take for granted that you have two good arms, two good hands, that both your ears can hear well, because it was, it was, it was nothing four years ago, three and a half four years ago, that my wife still had her left arm two, two years, two years. I'm old, forgive me.

Speaker 1: 3:15:37

It seems.

Speaker 2: 3:15:38

And now I wake up and I don't, I don't, I don't bitch and complain anymore, y'all. I sit on the end of the bed, I pop my back, I crack my knees. You know I'm old, yes, I'm old, yes. But I look over my wife and see her nub and I think what, what the hell do I have to complain about?

Speaker 2: 3:16:00

Here this woman is busting her butt, sometimes to me 20 hours a day, up here in this little office, to make a successful business out of a contagious smile and to get the word out and the message out. One hit, one kick, one punch is too many. A message out. One hit, one kick, one punch is too many. And here she is, one-handed, deaf in her right ear, almost deaf in her left ear, and she's doing it, y'all, she's doing it. Thanks, keelan for that little piece. She is doing it, she is making it happen, she's moving. It is doing it, she's making it happen, she's moving it. So y'all don't take it for granted. Okay, she's, she's my bionic woman. She's worth a billion dollars, oh lord thank you, baby.

Speaker 1: 3:16:51

So now emily is gonna come on. No, but you, you'll be back with me here in a little bit. You're not done. So emily is gonna come on with us now, has amazing story. She has just put out her workbook and we're so glad to have her on and to hear what she has to say and tell you all about the great things that she is doing. You will love her, like we do. Emily is a force to be reckoned with. I met her a couple of years ago. I've had her on twice now. I believe we have stayed as friends and stayed in contact and encouraged each other along the way, and I can't wait for her to come on and tell her stories and all that she's up to and doing. Emily, thank you so much for being here. It is all yours. My friend Emily, thank you so much for being here. It is all yours my friend.

Speaker 10: 3:17:37

Well, my friend, thank you so much for having me here today. I am so excited to be here. For anyone who doesn't know who I am, I am the founder of Mama Hood After Trauma, a podcaster. I host the Mama Hood After Trauma podcast and I am an author. I've just released my second solo book. It is in launch as we speak, and I am a mama on a mission to help other trauma surviving mamas to mend the past so they can mama in peace. And so today I want to share a little glimpse of my story, because we don't have time for me to share my whole story, and I want to share some tools for you. Tools for you.

Speaker 10: 3:18:44

So there was this one moment I was sitting on my couch, freshly postpartum, holding my baby girl while she slept and tears welled up in my eyes and all she had done was cry. Just the sound of her needing something, was it? If you're a mama, maybe you can resonate with that, but I want to share with you today. It wasn't about the cry. It was about everything that I had carried up to that moment. It was the trauma I hadn't processed, the emotions that I'd spent years burying. The weight of my past sat heavy on my chest. That's when I realized that I wasn't reacting to my daughter. It actually had nothing to do with her, I was reacting to my childhood. That moment it was my crossroads and I realized that I had a choice I could repeat the cycle that I had known or I could break it. And you know, no one teaches you how to break a cycle that you were born into. And because I couldn't live with the thought of repeating the cycle, because I knew that hurt and I didn't want to cause that on somebody else, I decided to stay and figure it out, one messy, courageous, imperfect step at a time. And looking back now I know that that was the beginning of what I now call the cycle breaker's journey, the beginning of what I now call the cycle breakers journey. And so now I want to take you and unwrap what the phases are of the cycle breakers journey, and I've been able to identify three distinct phases. Picture for me a staircase. You're standing at the bottom. The first phase of a cycle breaker's journey is the rising. This is where you begin to pick yourself up from the rubble, and each step you take up that staircase, you start to see the patterns, you start to see the patterns, you start to learn more about the trauma and its impacts on your life and you realize I'm not crazy, I'm conditioned and my nervous system is in survival mode. And when you're in survival mode, you can't, you get stuck. Sometimes I call it the other shoe syndrome. You're waiting for the other shoe. So, as you're rising, you're building your awareness, you're identifying the things that you need to work on, the things that you need to heal, and once you've strengthened your self-awareness and you're aware of what you need to do, you begin the process of breaking free. And this is where the deeper work begins.

Speaker 10: 3:23:16

For me, my breaking free process started with me facing my fear and naming the dragon. And naming the dragon the complex PTSD that I had lived with for more than 30 years undiagnosed. And when I got that diagnosis there was anger why did it take so long? But then there was relief, because when you name the dragon you can take your power back and I started to build what I call a trigger toolkit. If you've grown up in a traumatic or chaotic environment, you learned those coping skills the numbing out the people, pleasing, the becoming avoidant becoming avoidant and you didn't learn how to manage the stress or nervous system dysregulation in a healthy, functional way. And so, in the process of breaking free, it's a process of relearning how to manage your triggers in a healthy, productive way healthy, productive way, and it's harder than it sounds, so it takes time. It takes time this stage of my process that I became an emotionally safe place for my kids so a few years ago.

Speaker 10: 3:25:54

My son is a screamer. He's been a screamer since day one and for me as a trauma survivor, that was really, that was really, really challenging and I could only handle a very small amount of stimuli. So his screaming would send me out of my zone, my window of tolerance, pretty quickly, anyway. So this particular day he was frustrated. Things weren't going his way. He was screaming, screaming, screaming, screaming, screaming, screaming, and I had reached my limit. I couldn't handle anything more. In a split second I kicked my laundry room wall and a hole the size of the pad of my foot where my, where my toes connect to my foot. I'm not quite sure what the name of that part of your foot is, but that shape came in my wall and immediately I knew better. But I demonstrated to my son that when we get frustrated we kick holes in walls and that's not what I was going for.

Speaker 10: 3:27:24

And that trigger demonstrated to me once I was able to find my calm again, because you can't do any of this process when you're not calm. When you find your calm again and you're able to reflect and you ask, get curious and ask yourself I wonder what it was about that moment that caused such a large reaction. My trigger, my kicking the wall, had nothing to do with my son, absolutely nothing. Sure, his screaming was the thing that sent me over the edge. It was the straw that broke the camel's back, but it had nothing to do with him. Edge, it was the straw that broke the camel's back, but it had nothing to do with him. That trigger was my inner child feeling unheard Because as a child so I had to go through and teach myself how to navigate those stressful moments, those triggering moments, those messy mama moments that happen on the daily, different ways they show up differently for everyone.

Speaker 10: 3:28:49

Different ways they show up differently for everyone. But when we are not able to keep our composure and manage our own triggers, it elevates what our child is experiencing because they need us to co-regulate and that is what we learn in the phase of breaking free, you become an emotional safe place for your kids, and that's huge. And so once you have your trigger toolkit, you've practiced, your nervous system has a felt sense of calm and you're able to focus less on your nervous system and focus more on becoming that safe place for your kids, then you can move into the process of moving beyond the trigger. This is where regulation becomes your baseline. This is where you teach your kids the skills and the tools that you were never taught the emotional intelligence, the safety, the resilience. Because here's the truth Breaking cycles isn't clean, it's not pretty, it doesn't happen overnight.

Speaker 10: 3:30:32

It's crying in the bathroom, it's apologizing to your kid again, it's learning to breathe before you yell, and that one can be challenging. It's brave, it's exhausting on a soul level, it's beautiful and it's sacred work. And so often in our society we tell ourselves that we're the only one dealing with this, so we have to do it alone. You weren't designed to do it in isolation. The expression it takes a village to raise a child is true, and it takes a village to raise a mama, to support a mama.

Speaker 10: 3:31:43

If you're hearing this and you're thinking, I want that, if you haven't started your healing journey yet and you're thinking I want to break free. I am sick and tired of this black cloud following me around. I've got two ways to help you get started. So, if you're not quite sure where you are on your journey, I've created a cycle breakers quiz and it will help you to identify where exactly on the staircase that you are. It shows you exactly where you are on your journey. And then, not only that, I don't just say, we don't just say well, here you are, you're here on your journey, adios, no, I've spent years curating resources to help you in the moment, right where you're at.

Speaker 10: 3:33:02

Or you can dive into my brand new book.

Speaker 10: 3:33:08

Victoria mentioned Breaking Free Parenting in the Midst of Trauma Recovery, and this book is a lifeline for mamas who are healing while raising tiny humans, because, as mamas, we want better for our kids than we lived. And if you are a cycle breaker like me, chances are you're making it up as you go along, and that's okay. But breaking free helps you expedite and simplify the process, and so I want to leave you with this, and this is how I typically end every podcast episode with an, with an affirmation letting you know that you are not broken. You are good enough, you are loved, you are have value, you are worthy. You are breaking free, even when you can't see it, even when it feels like you're not getting anywhere anywhere, and that matters. It matters not just for you, but for your kids and for every generation that comes after.

Speaker 10: 3:35:07

So if you would like to take the cycle breakers quiz, you can find that on my website, mamahoodaftertraumaca. You can also find Breaking Free on there. Breaking Free is available as an e-book right now. The paperback is coming on. July 22nd is coming on July 22nd, and I am just so thankful that you have made the choice to be here today, and with that I am done.

Speaker 1: 3:35:52

Thank you so much for being with us, emily. You're so authentic and we can't thank you enough for taking your sunday afternoon to being here and supporting us well, thank you so much for making this platform absolutely, absolutely, thank you.

Speaker 1: 3:36:07

Everybody will get their links as well. Go check out, do her quiz. She can answer any questions that you also might have. She is just a mama who is helping others and that is so authentic and genuine and we thank you for that. I really appreciate it. Thanks, emily. Thank you, of course. We have jj. Oh, jj's coming. Let me see if I can get him to pop his head on in here already. There's JJ.

Speaker 1: 3:36:38

JJ is like my brother. I am already going to say I'm sorry. I don't know what he's going to say about me. What's?

Speaker 4: 3:36:48

coming, sis, I got you.

Speaker 1: 3:36:57

Oh Lord, I'm going to even let him tell you how we met. Uh, we connected so instantly and he and I have have collaborated in so many ways. I'm gonna let him tell you everything, the whole story, the whole shebang. I am not held accountable for whatever he says. Some might be true, no, I'm just kidding. Jj is a very honest person, but I'm so glad to have him here. He has such a ripple and I can't wait for him to share it with all of you.

Speaker 4: 3:37:18

Well, thank you very much, Victoria. Thank you for having me here and allowing me to share my story with you. Emily, thank you for your ripple and everybody who's on here, and congratulations on your book that's coming out. That's exciting, very exciting. Oh, and all the wisdom that has been given today is just so exciting and is so true and resonates with me on so many levels. Keelan, with his message and I am in that process when he talked about the worth, identity, possibilities, ownership and sovereignty. When he talked about possibilities being infinite and owning my possibilities. And to speak up, that's what I'm doing here today because my possibilities and to speak up, that's what I'm doing here today because my life has transformed, especially since I got sober, and so that's why I'm here today, to talk about the truth of my growth that Keelan had alluded to and had spoke about, and thank you so much. You hit home with that. As Victoria said, I am JJ, I am the dreamer, creator and owner of Ripple Retreat.

Speaker 4: 3:38:47

Ripple Retreat is a non-alcohol turnkey event center, retreat center and recovery space. Let me say that again Turnkey event center, but no alcohol. So you can have a wedding here, you can have a concert here, you can have celebration of life here, but there's no alcohol Celebration of life here, but there's no alcohol Retreat Center. I'm on 11 acres of beautiful wooded mountains in Maine, an hour north of Portland, and on this 11 acres is beautiful woods and trails and a heart-shaped pond that's big behind the apple trees big behind the apple trees and a farmhouse it's two stories with a barn that was all built in the 1830s that I am developing and building on to create this retreat center. Also, it's a recovery space where I hold recovery meetings and I will talk about all of that in a moment. And I will talk about all of that in a moment.

Speaker 4: 3:39:52

But I got here because my past I am also Major Jeffrey John Hawley, united States Air Force, retired 27 years of active duty. Of those 27, 14 years were prior enlisted. I went in the Air Force barely knowing how to read, write. I barely graduated high school. I was already an alcoholic, I just didn't know it. I joined the service and I did my best, as we all do, day in and day out, and I embrace the core values of the Air Force of integrity first, excellence in all we do and service before self. I got them out of order Integrity first, service before self and excellence in all we do. Integrity first, service before self and excellence in all we do, and I made sure I did that even when it came to drinking During my career. I got married, had two beautiful, wonderful children and 23 years later was divorced, still have beautiful, wonderful children, and now I have grandchildren and, thanks to my sobriety, they are in my life, which brings me to this opportunity to share that.

Speaker 3: 3:41:24

I fought the fight.

Speaker 4: 3:41:25

I went to war. I went to Iraq three times. I, uh, I went to Iraq three times. I came close a few times of not being here, wiped off the face. I mean, afterwards I'm like, why am I still here? I don't know, there's something bigger. Well, I kind of feel like I'm doing it now. So thank you for being alive still to this day.

Speaker 4: 3:41:48

But during my service and even after my service to the country, I was still beating myself up by drinking. So this alcoholic got sober over six and a half years ago, on my 50th birthday, and that is when I learned how to love myself. I do this because it's sign language of of I love you, and I always like, when I do this to somebody, they they're getting my love and I like to just I used to do this give everybody my love except myself. Well, through my trials and tribulations and, as alluded earlier in this wonderful webinar, the ups and downs is what fuels us forward. The bigger the wave, the bigger the ride, and it's been a big wave and right now it's beautiful because I can take everything I've learned and experienced in my life and, thanks to sobriety, I can put it in action. I'm lucky, I made it through. I retired and I have a pension for the rest of my life. That is a safety net for me. That has allowed me to, on my adventures, which I was traveling across the nation with my Husky Koda, and turn this down a little bit and found this place in West Paris, maine, and bought it and thought you know what I am going to create? A business that gives more than it receives.

Speaker 4: 3:43:38

It is basically an Airbnb for sober events, for retreats, for things that are holistic and heal us. Can you imagine having a wedding where you're not worried that your drunk uncle's going to show up? Wouldn't that be cool? And I had a concert last year called Bands for Recovery Playing for Discovery. That was from 11 in the morning to 10 at night, eight acts, an amazing sober event. People had a ball, all sober. What a concept. And then, using this space, the concerts, events and retreats are all Friday through Sunday. The Monday through Thursday is I get to open it up to the public for recovery meetings, for holistic healing, being at meditation, reiki, massage resources. I provide resources to the public of Narcan of discovering recovery. Excuse me, so, being a sober individual in recovery, I've learned that I love to recover out loud. So that's what I'm doing and I know I'm a little bit all over the place. There's a lot to cover and I don't even know I failed to start the time, but I'm only a few minutes into it now.

Speaker 4: 3:45:20

The heart of Ripple Retreat is that it not only helps those who come here for their retreats, for their events, for their retreats for their events, for their recovery meetings. When I open for profit, which will be 7 April 2027, which will be the 20th anniversary of the loss of my best friend in Iraq, commander Philip Murphy Sweet On that anniversary I'm going to open up for profit and I'm going to be giving. Ripple Retreat will be giving 75% of all the profit it makes to the town of West Paris and local charities. So, like an Airbnb for events, people come, people go. You have to pay for a retreat center, for an event center, it is a sunk cost, but wouldn't it be nice to know that your sunk cost is actually going to the people that are neighbors to. It is almost my way of bridging the gap between the veterans and my neighbors who are going to benefit from my trials and tribulations. And yeah, and I am open to the public, I'm open for everybody, especially the veterans and especially those in recovery and recovery.

Speaker 4: 3:46:50

Curious, oh my goodness. I have a lot of life lessons I love to share and help others to learn, and the first step is learning to love yourself. Love yourself enough to stop beating yourself up. Love yourself enough to stop drinking. Love yourself enough to be whole for your family so your kids can love you and not worry about dad Not worry about oh no, is he going to say something wrong or whatever. Man. Sobriety has opened so many doors for me and now I get to take the knowledge and experience I have and create this company. And Victoria meeting her through a podcast meetup months and months ago is opening doors to me, allowing me to be here now, in front of everybody, to tell my story and how I feel I'm making a difference in the world, and I would love to share my ripple with you.

Speaker 4: 3:48:09

When I was I retired in 2015. 2018, I took a job overseas and then I got done with that job and I was financially set. I am single, my kids are raised and I decided to backpack the world and I did my backpack and I we we traveled the entire world for eight months. During that time traveled the entire world for eight months. During that time, that alcoholic was with me.

Speaker 4: 3:48:35

And I kept running oh, did I ever? And it chased me all the way down to Australia yeah, laying down under and I was in Noosa Bay, australia. I've always dreamed of surfing. I've lived in Hawaii, I've lived in Guam. I've lived all over the world and I've tried to surf many, many times and during my adventures, I went to a surf camp and failed miserably because, just because because I was drinking and I went to Noosa Bay to learn how to surf because they have the perfect waves I couldn't get sober long enough to surf. I've conquered everything in my world, in in the world, except this.

Speaker 4: 3:49:27

And I found myself this day 2018, standing on the balcony of my condo that I had rented three stories up, and I stepped over a balcony railing and stood on that edge. I started crying at the pain I was about to inflict on my family and I was going to dive headfirst three stories down into the asphalt. And just before I did that, I felt a hand stop me, stopped me. I felt the presence of Commander Murphy Sweet, who is my best friend, who I made in Iraq on my first tour. He and I bonded and just brotherhood the bonds you make in a war zone is incredible. He was killed two days after I got home, on April 7th 2007. And here I am about to throw my life away and he popped in my head going what are you doing? My life was taken. I gave my life so you could throw yours away WTF. I climbed back over that railing, fell to the ground and struggled. It wasn't until about a week no, a few days later, I was in Sydney, australia, and I fell on my face, drunk, and I took baby steps After I got over that railing. It was like trying to get help and then I fell on my face. I grabbed my phone and I, for the first time ever, I asked for help. I dialed 9-1-. 911 doesn't work in Australia. It didn't that day I got the recording. It won't work. I was like that's when I heard Murphy's voice said you've been a hero to many time to be a hero to yourself. And I did. I climbed out of that hole, picked myself up and learned so much and it took me 10 years to get to that point of trying to get sober and I finally did and on my 50th birthday I put it down and have grown ever since having this opportunity.

Speaker 4: 3:52:18

I bought this place three and a half years ago having this opportunity it's taken this long to get where I'm at with Ripple was to help Mary Ann Palmer, who I'm just looking to see how much time I have left Her house. She's a neighbor two blocks down. She's 76 years old. Her house, her family home, burnt to the ground. She had no insurance and this community was coming together to raise money for her. So I thought you know what? I'm going to have a concert and I did. I had two bands that played for four hours and people came and they donated and we raised enough money and awareness that together, through volunteers and donations, we built her a brand new one bedroom, one bath house in the same footprint that her previous home was. She moved in 11 months after the date of the fire, 100% through donations.

Speaker 4: 3:53:23

I know I found the right community and when I say I'm going to give 75% away of the profit to the town and local charities, I mean literally. I will walk down to the town office and be writing a check. Half will go to the town, half will go to the charity and I pick one charity a year County and it is a foundation for the children where they collect brand new clothing and use clothing and people donate that are in great quality. We log it in, they log it in I volunteer there and we put it on online for the teachers to tell. Have the students come pick out new clothing when they need it be it a coat, be it shoes, whatever and then it is delivered to that school and that gives that kid confidence in what they're wearing, which helps them. It creates a ripple, and that's what I'm all about, because we all make ripples in the world, be it positive or negative, and I like to create positive ripples. So how cool is it to create a business that is welcoming, a safe space for people to come and heal, for people to learn new behaviors, for seeds of positive, life-changing behavior to be planted, nourished and grown, and then to know that your money, you're investing in yourself, you're also investing in our neighbors, in our community, creating ripples.

Speaker 4: 3:55:08

I also, in the meantime, while I'm building this business, I ask that you please go to my website, which is ripple-retreatcom. The dash connects the ripple and the retreat, so don't forget, please, ripple-retreatcom, and if you love what I'm doing, doing, I have a button on there called buy a cup of love, and all I ask is that you contribute $5 to this vision, to this dream that I'm working on, and so far I've raised enough money. I've added a bathroom to what's a recovery space where I hold my recovery meetings. It's all been online 44 weeks now, every Wednesday night 7 pm, and now I have it live as well, so people can come and attend and use the bathroom that has been put in thanks to your contributions, because together it is you and me and we can make a difference. We really can. And if you're struggling, please reach out because I tell you what there's no better community out there than the communities that I am connected with the recovery community, the veterans community, contagious smile community, everybody who's been on today. We're all here growing and learning to help each other grow. It's so freaking exciting. It is so exciting. I want to go through my notes to make sure I don't miss a thing. Oh yeah, oh.

Speaker 4: 3:56:53

And opening doors after meeting Victoria. She's putting on this academy where those who have suffered domestic abuse and suffered terribly they can go to this academy and take classes and learn how to get out of that situation, how to recover from that situation, and she has a special section for us veterans called Valor Circle, and I am so excited to announce that another water. I am going to be teaching some of the courses if not all of the courses in the Valor Circle come this fall and some of those courses they really speak to. They spoke to me huge. That's why I want I want to share this and thank you, victoria, for making this possible. Um, one of the classes back but not home. It's for those who return but are have never really left the field. Um, there's a course called the Battlefield Was Safer Than I Was. That means that, hey, my family didn't need a soldier, they didn't need an airman, they didn't need a warrior, they needed somebody who will help make them feel safe. But I brought stuff back with me. We all do and I'm here to help. And it's exciting that I get to teach some of these courses.

Speaker 4: 3:58:40

And one of the bonus courses is the battle isn't all you are, it's not. Put down the battle and live in the moment of who you are today. And thank God, I am sober, I am a grandpa, I am involved in my kids' families, I am an inspiration. It's hard to say that, but yeah, like Keelan had mentioned, the truth of my growth, own it, own my possibility and speak up and I am here by choice and I am choosing to love, lift and bless, and the best way I know how to do that is by creating this business. And thank God, I am sober and I have the experience, the knowledge and the drive and passion to do this.

Speaker 4: 3:59:36

So if you, please have any connection with this cause that I am, I am, this dream that I'm making come true, please visit and contribute. It would be great. Or visit and join in and collaborate with me. If you feel that together we can make a big ripple in the world, in the recovery community, in the veteran community, in community, please reach out, let's collaborate, let's make a positive ripple in the world, let's take care of our neighbors.

Speaker 4: 4:00:29

No-transcript, and, believe it or not, I've been, the connections have been happening, the resources are there and that's part of my mission. So if you're a recovery curious, you're a veteran needing help, I have connections, I have resources, I have a veteran needing help. I have connections, I have resources, I have a network. Please just reach out to me, go to my website, send me an email, you can even call me, and I'm so grateful that I've met Victoria and Michael and Faith and gotten to love them, victoria and Michael and Faith and gotten to love them, and that they provided this opportunity for me to present myself and my dream to you.

Speaker 4: 4:01:19

So thank you for watching, for sticking with me this entire time, and my tagline for Ripple Retreat is to please pause, love yourself and be aware of your ripple Because, believe it or not, people are watching you, seeing you, and if you're in recovery, you are their hero, you're their mentor. You don't even know it. They're like holy crap, I knew him when he was a drinker and he was insane or whatever, and now he's sober, his family loves him, he loves himself or she loves herself. So so I love that. Pause, love yourself and be aware of your ripple and together tell you what we can make a big ripple. So let's ripple, you know, let's do it. Victoria, if you wouldn't mind, how much time do I have left?

Speaker 1: 4:02:30

You have 10 minutes.

Speaker 4: 4:02:31

Holy cow.

Speaker 9: 4:02:35

That's awesome.

Speaker 4: 4:02:36

Yeah, oh yeah. Since I bought this place and I've invested my time, money and effort into building this retreat and event center, I've held community involvement projects. I do a spring cleanup every year. I've had my third annual one this year where I ask the community to all pull together, meet here at Ripple Retreat. I give out trash bags and we walk the community and say I'll pull together, meet here at Ripple Retreat. I give out trash bags and we walk the community and clean it up.

Speaker 4: 4:03:16

I hold a recovery meeting every Wednesday night at 7pm, like I said, called Ripples of Recovery, and now people can attend in person. I held a sober concert last year. Oh yeah, women's groups have been here. I have also held groups that meditation groups and holistic groups have used my space to help me figure out how things flow better. And thankfully, now I have a bathroom better. And thankfully, now I have a bathroom and I have 9,000 square feet of usable space, of a barn, of a yoga studio area of the house that will be able to sleep 18 to 20 people.

Speaker 4: 4:04:05

So how cool would it be to rent this event center to bring your family together? And I have camping, I have trails and the kids can stay in tents out in the back to like have a family reunion here that's alcohol-free. Or for those who are life coaches, to have a weekend where you can bring your group here for a retreat to learn, to grow and to know that you're making a difference in their lives and in our lives here in West Beresmain. Truth in my growth and owning my possibilities. I not only want to start this Ripple Retreat. I see it being Ripple Retreat org Because right now I am a for profit for the community company. I'm an L3C, which is low profit, limited liability company, which the government requires you to give away 5% of your profit to the community. Well, I'll give away 75% because I and I'm going for profit because it's I don't want to lose the ability to give away, to pay it forward. But I do foresee the future of having an organization that is nonprofit, that helps establish ripple retreats in small towns throughout the nation, because can you imagine having a business in a town that pumps money into the town instead of taxes taking care of the town, we start taking care of our own town. That's pretty cool. It's exciting.

Speaker 4: 4:05:55

Yeah, so I also have a podcast I have two One's called what's your Ripple. It's a podcast that I interview wonderful people who have a story to tell about somebody who made a ripple in their life and what they've done with it. Keelan is a perfect example. Joy is his ripple. I would love to have him on my show. Of course, I'd love to be on his show, but have him on my show to talk about his ripple and the impact he is making. I also have another podcast that I've recently started up called what's your Recovery Ripple?

Speaker 4: 4:06:36

And that's the ripple you're making now that you're sober, now that you're in recovery, and that hits home to me really, really close. I did fail to mention that my recovery meeting on Wednesday nights failed to mention that my recovery meeting on Wednesday nights they're called recovery ripples, of recovery ripples, I'm sorry, recovery ripples. And it is an hour of gratitude, it is an hour of speaking about the positive in our lives and it is for those who are in long-term recovery to share the positive in our lives, the lessons learned in our lives since we've gotten sober and yes, I will. If somebody's a week sober or recovery curious, they're more than welcome to join in to listen because the gratitude that is shared in those meetings keeps people sober.

Speaker 4: 4:07:33

I've been to meetings a lot and they're triggering to me because it's war stories, it's telling about the trenches and I'm out of the trenches. Now I am in a positive world of love, of lifting of blessing, of lifting of blessing. I'm in that world. So when I hold these meetings I stop and I say, hey, everybody, let's take a time out. Look how far you've come. You have beat your addiction. You are so freaking tough. Stop for a minute, quit with this. I can't do enough. I can't be growing and learning. Stop, pat yourself on the back and say you've done it. We are always constantly improving. That's life. We are constantly growing. We are constantly going in one direction, be it a positive or negative. We're always going forward. We're always doing our best and when we're sober, that best is glorious.

Speaker 4: 4:08:43

And the great thing about this group I've had people come on. Beautiful stories are shared where someone is going through a really tough time and they've made it through because they are sober. One individual she went from getting kicked out of her house and told that her kids are not hers anymore to buying a new home, getting her children back and getting full custody and it has a full-time job. It has for a couple of years, ever since she got out of prison because she's sober. She made it through those trials and tribulations and it was just oh, so much gratitude. That's what I love to share and I hope I can connect with you just a little bit to make a ripple in your life, a positive ripple, and hope to change in the positive direction. That's me. Thank you, victoria, so so much for providing this space for me and everybody for listening, and I ask that you please, please, pause, love yourself and be aware of that ripple, because you are making a ripple. Thank you.

Speaker 9: 4:10:02

Oh, thank you.

Speaker 1: 4:10:04

Thank you so much, jj, for all of your time today and being who you are with us and collaborating like you do. It makes such a difference, and I have not only been a guest in his weekly meetings to see just how they are, I've also been on his podcast and they are as amazing as he is. So check him out and see all that he is up to and all that he is doing and help support him, because what he's doing is as real as it gets.

Speaker 4: 4:10:32

Thank you, victoria, and the podcast you and I recorded will be coming out in the next few days, and thank you for everything.

Speaker 1: 4:10:41

Absolutely, of course, of course. Thank you All right, guys. We're down to D, marie Hurley, and then my husband and I will close it out. D is somebody that I've met well over a year or two ago. She is fabulous human being, an amazing mom. Look at her. She's just fabulous and beautiful. Look at that. That smile lights up the room. She's amazing. I'm just going to go ahead and let her take it and do her thing.

Speaker 8: 4:11:11

Thank you. You're so beautiful. I love you, victoria. Thank you so much for all this. So I just wanted to say that, to start out, to say thank you for all of this, for this collaboration, for everything you're doing to bring awareness to these things and bring tools to people that need it, and it's just incredible and I'm just very grateful and honored to be a part of this, and I'm trying to open up my screen a little bigger so I can see a little bit clearer here. Let's see if I can get it. I might have just bleeped myself off, okay.

Speaker 8: 4:11:50

Anyways, I just want to start out saying that my name is Dee Hurley and I have a website called Lighthouse Energy Healing, and the reason I got into energy healing was because, like many of the people here who were speaking, is that I went through a pretty big tragedy in my life, which caused me to look inside and to start figuring out what was going on, and I realized that I had repeated a pattern that was in my family and I needed to find a way to break it because I did not want to pass this on to my kids. I was in a narcissistic, abusive marriage for 11 and a half years and I had. I had also been in abusive marriage before that, so I had repeated this and I didn't want to continue this. I tried to get out of it and I realized when I went to the courts that they were not supportive of victims of narcissistic abuse. It was very hard to get support and it was very hard on me and my kids. And I had to find some community, some people that I could talk to who had been through the same thing, just so that I knew that I wasn't alone. So I started finding some advocacy groups and started working with advocacy groups to try to find out what the heck was going on, why was I going through this and how to move forward. And I got into that and I started sharing my story of what I went through and my traumas and the PTSD I had and trying to help my children.

Speaker 8: 4:13:21

But after a while of continuing to tell your story over and over and over, sometimes we don't realize that we can start becoming that story. You know that's, that's our thing and that's kind of what we're known for and I didn't want that to be my story. I wanted my story to be something of hope and, you know, move forward and have something beautiful that I could share for others and for my kids. So, um, sorry, I'm still having trouble with my my camera there it is Okay. So a friend of mine gave me a book called the Emotion Code and I started reading this and it started showing me how we are energy and how we attract other energies to us and we can kind of mirror things and mirror things in our relationships. And I realized that I, since I was raised around a lot of this, this things that I didn't want, it was my head, become my comfort zone and that's what I continue to attract to me, and I needed to get out of my comfort zone. I didn't want to continue that pattern and I didn't want my kids to continue that pattern.

Speaker 8: 4:14:29

So I learned about energy and frequency, which Carrie touched on earlier, which was wonderful, and I'm so glad that so many more people are being open to this idea that we are energy bodies and we can have energies and traumas stored in our body and if we're not careful, those traumas will start causing other kind of illnesses and disease, dis-ease, discomfort in our bodies and it will continue to be a cycle and you'll continue to have problems until you stop and you recognize what these emotions are and you and you help get rid of them. So that's what I learned with the emotion code and the body code was how to muscle test. Dr Bradley Nelson was an amazing mentor and he taught us how to muscle test our body kind of like kinesiology and find out what emotions are trapped or stored in the body, and he taught us how to release those trapped emotions. And this was just so fascinating to me that I could do this and I got rid of PTSD. I was diagnosed with neuropathy and I had a lot of bowel issues and like IBS and anxiety and all these things going on in my body that I needed to heal.

Speaker 8: 4:15:40

And finding these, these emotions that were trapped in my body, and getting rid of them, recognizing them and then releasing them, help my body to heal. I no longer have neuropathy, I don't have PTSD, I don't wake up with nightmares and my body, you know, started healing after I did this and a lot of my friends who knew me, they recognized there was a change in me. They said something is different with you. I don't know what it is, but you are just happier, you're more confident and we want to know what you're doing. So I started working on my friends and my family and I decided I wanted to get my certification and I started working with people to help them to release these traumas so that they could break these patterns and that their body could heal. And it's just been life changing because it put me in touch with a whole different group of people.

Speaker 8: 4:16:30

I started surrounding myself with more healers and energy workers and a friend of mine even introduced me to this technology that you can download on your phone. It's just an app that you can download on your phone and you can scan your body and it will give you a full report of what energies are in your body coming up like lack and some of those lower vibration ones you know, like Carrie mentioned before, like shame and fear. It will show you the energies in your body that are coming up the most and it will show you where they're affecting your body. You know like some of them will affect your lungs or you know different organs and I love it that you can get a printout of what what's going on and you can really read that report in your email and then it will give you energies to help support your body so you can play these frequencies back to your body to give it the support it needs to help your nervous system regulate, to help, you know, with cortisol levels, whatever's going on. It knows exactly what you need. It will send you the custom playlist to help support you and that thing has just been a godsend for me and my family. And the best part about it is is that you can use it anywhere you are.

Speaker 8: 4:17:42

So like, if my 12 year old daughter is at her dad's, you know that's that used to be very, very hard for me, that she was there and had to be in that environment, but at least now I know that I can help support her when she's there and she'll send me a text message every now and then. Mom, can you send me some frequencies? I'm having a really hard time right now and it makes me feel so good that I can at least, you know, scan her and I can push a button to help her regulate her nervous system, help her feel better, and usually it's a few minutes later she's like Mom. Thank you so much. That really helped me and I know that it's helping her and it makes me feel good as a parent so that I can at least do something like that for her. You know I'm not there holding her hand or you know in her presence, but it's just nice to know that I can help support her that way, and I have a little more information about that on my website at lighthouseenergyhealingcom.

Speaker 8: 4:18:33

You can go there and if you are a victim or a survivor of abuse, I would love to offer you a free energy healing scan and show you how this can work and support you and give you some frequencies that you can listen to. That will be custom to what your body needs to help support you, and I would love to offer that to people because you know, when I went through my situation, I know finances were very tight, it was very hard and the court system was used against me to financially drain me, and I know a lot of people go through that, as what was mentioned before. I heard some of that and, yes, that's absolutely true. So I just want to be there to help support people in any way I can as well, because I know we all need to stick together and things like this are going to help. You know help so many people and I'm so grateful, and I love what JJ said about you know, loving yourself.

Speaker 8: 4:19:22

His story was so emotional. I thank you for sharing that. We do need to love ourselves and you also need to know that you matter and I know that sounds kind of cliche, but you do. You matter, and I think people need to remember that and they need to hold space for themselves, put the mask on yourself, and so you can better show up for your kids. You know, if you're in a situation like that, it's very important to make sure you're doing the inner healing work and you do kind of have to step out of your comfort zone if that's all you've known to get better sometimes, and I'm here to help support you if you need any kind of assistance like that, and I'm so very grateful for you, victoria, and and your story is so inspiring to me and your family is just beautiful and thank you so much, thank you so much.

Speaker 1: 4:20:12

You amazing, you're so sweet and amazing and I thank you and again, we're gonna make sure everybody can get in touch with you and all that amazing stuff that you do and all of your links will also be in the show notes. So thank you so much. I appreciate you, love you. Love you too well. Michael has a word, or to say I didn't know who else would be the person that should do the final speaker introduction.

Speaker 2: 4:20:40

And let me introduce the last contestant here on we Built this, victoria Curie, come on down.

Speaker 1: 4:20:48

The last contestant. Now you have to tell people who I am, whatever, before you see how we're unscripted you am my wife, my beautiful sexy wife.

Speaker 2: 4:20:58

I adore her and I love her, even though I'm the president of this company.

Speaker 1: 4:21:03

Which we all know is directly beneath the CEO.

Speaker 2: 4:21:06

Negative, it does not I allow her to wear the britches in the family. Victoria, as y'all already have heard and seen, and from the testimonials from these others, she has one of the biggest hearts out there. And you know, you, just you just can't find a diamond like this every day. And I lucked out and you know, I asked myself like, like Keelan said, you know, with his joy, you know, how did I get so lucky? Why is this beautiful angel married to me? Why did why? Why did she choose me?

Speaker 1: 4:21:46

I'm getting your guys checked.

Speaker 2: 4:21:50

So I'm very lucky and blessed to have have her in my life y'all.

Speaker 1: 4:21:54

And, uh, she gave me an awesome, freaking daughter who quite recently when tense and excited you are about her and when you describe me, you're so melatonin I wasn't melatonin, yeah it you kind of were.

Speaker 2: 4:22:12

Recently got a tattoo on her arm incorporating the semblance of my hand and her hand, and how you're wrapped. And how her little hand is holding my pinky.

Speaker 1: 4:22:26

And you're wrapped.

Speaker 2: 4:22:29

And I'm wrapped yes, okay, maybe wrapped. And and and I'm wrapped yes, okay, maybe. So every time, um, our wonderful daughter asked for anything, all she's got to do is show me the tattoo, point to the tattoo, and I have to give in y'all, because what daughter has that much devotion and love for a father?

Speaker 2: 4:22:49

I have my grandparents yes, you do tattooed on my back and, and though I, I am now considered her biological uh, we got that take care of um months ago to where I adopted her and she is now mine and removed that pos off the birth certificate. She was all asian verse and, uh yeah, all three of us my wife, my daughter, my daughter and myself all shared the exact same tattoo. So thank you, wife, for giving me an awesome, freaking daughter how come you can't introduce me in that excitement?

Speaker 2: 4:23:26

I did, you did not what everyone has talked about you. So you're you're already up there on the pedestal negative, but you just had. You're like, here's my wife you want me to gloat about you? Well, you're supposed to go ahead that's your job, because you don't like the limelight I don't want the limelight on the academy and why we do it well then, let's hear about the academy, tell us all about it tell us all about the. How can we get to the Academy? I could take a smile Dot and as a Nancy.

Speaker 2: 4:23:55

Dot CO yeah.

Speaker 1: 4:23:57

And what do you find there?

Speaker 1: 4:24:06

You can find over 100 courses y'all that my wife has written typed up One hand AI Up Whatever, ai Whatever you did the courses and the material within the courses have been written they are awesome they're master classes were done as ai jpegs, but I don't do the ai writing because I don't believe in it personally might work for others, doesn't work for me, because I'm authentic and I want the people who are reading this to really feel the closeness and the connection to those that are going through or, you know, have been going through similar things. Because it's so, I totally tell everybody therapy is a must, right, everybody needs to have therapy. But when you could go and understand that somebody gets it because they've walked in your shoes, you know I've done. I can't even tell you how many dozens of speaking engagements, even international speaking engagements, where I tell people all the time. I had this one lady who said to me my daughter deserved it and no.

Speaker 1: 4:25:14

I said to her, I kind of just kind of sat on the end of the stage at this point and I said let me ask you a question. And I said how? The one in four, as I've said earlier. And I said let me ask you a question. I said God forbid, god forbid, you get cancer. Right, let's just say you have brain cancer. God forbid, you get brain cancer. Are you going to go to a podiatrist and ask a podiatrist to treat your brain cancer? And she's like are you kidding? Of course not. You know what are you even doing? I said well, just hear me out, stay with me for a second. Would you allow a podiatrist to treat your brain cancer? Well, no. Would you allow a podiatrist to treat your brain cancer? Well, no.

Speaker 1: 4:25:52

And this woman was full of attitude and it looks like she got tied into this and didn't want to be there. And I said can I ask what brought you here today? And she says my daughter is a victim of domestic violence. And I said that's not true. She's a survivor. She's sitting right here, she's beautiful, she's a survivor. And let me tell you something god forbid you've ever get diagnosed with cancer. So let's just take the brain cancer. You're not going to go to a podiatrist to treat brain cancer, right? You're going to find the top neurologist in the country, or that money can afford, or that you can afford, whatever the case may be, because you want the best of the best. Right Like this says you want the best. You want who knows what it's like to go through the trenches and can walk with you Not in front of you, leaving you in the dusks, not behind you, paying attention to everything else, but with you.

Speaker 1: 4:26:56

And when I started to explain this to her, I explained that she has no idea, as a mom, what it's like for her child to have endured the abuse. And sometimes the best gift you can give is silence, because we don't need you to criticize or critique us after what we've been enduring or what we're currently enduring. We don't need that. We need to know we're not alone. We need a shoulder to lean on, a hand to hold. If we can just sit with you, that speaks volumes, and sometimes that speaks more to us than it does. If you actually speak words, and your words, sometimes as harsh and crass as they are, can never be taken back. Those words stick with you forever. Bruises, heal. That doesn't mean it's not excruciating and painful, but those words can stick with you forever. So I said to her I wouldn't expect to walk in your shoes with knowledge of how to treat, heal or overcome cancer. I don't expect you to understand how to walk through hers. But if you can't sit there and say nothing of support to her, just sit there and shut your mouth, because having you just there beside her lets her know she's not alone. If she wants your hand, let her reach out and hold it. Don't make her feel you are forcing her to do anything, because that's all she knows.

Speaker 1: 4:28:08

We have had to live a life where everything that we do, everything that we wear, everything that we say is and it is, it's accounted for by a manipulated, narcissist psychopath who, if he doesn't get his way or her way, depending on the situation becomes where we become the battleground for their anger and animosity, becomes where we become the battleground for their anger and animosity. I used to get woken up in my sleep being straddled over and punched in the face to told me to get my ass up and go get me something to drink because I'm thirsty, I'm pregnant and this is how I was woken up If there was food touching each other or dinner wasn't on the table at exactly a certain time. If I did not call at certain points on the drive home, I knew when I got there that something else was going to happen. That's not surviving. That is not living. You are institutionalized in an incarceration. It's like being an asthmatic in a room full of smokers.

Speaker 1: 4:29:20

When we meet these individuals, I promise you, if you've never been down the journey we are in on or going through, they are charismatic. They are unbelievably charming. They find and placate on the weakness that they see so strongly within you. They lure you in and they take you down the escape route of whatever's possible to get you into their realm, and then they isolate you from everyone, everyone. We don't need judgment, we need support. We don't even have a system in place right now that helps us.

Speaker 1: 4:30:02

It is why did you do what you did? Why did you make him mad? Why couldn't you have just given in and given him what he wanted? You know what? What if this was your daughter? What if this was your son? What if this was your mother or your sister? Let me tell you something. Let's say Jane is in a domestic violence situation right now and she thinks I can never do any better.

Speaker 1: 4:30:27

When you hear something every single day of your life, you begin to believe it. That man sitting right over here yawning waiting for his old man nap tells me he loves me 10 times a day. And I know it to be true because you hear it and you believe it and you begin to make that your life. When you hear you're fat, you're ugly, you'll never amount to anything, nobody will ever love you, nobody's ever going to want to be with you, and I'm so sorry that these are triggering, but this is what it is. This is the truth here.

Speaker 1: 4:30:58

When you hear someone say to you nobody's ever going to want you because you're all full of scars and disgusting and you're heavier than you ever were, or um, who's ever going to want you? And you're dumb and uneducated and stupid. Well, you know what? At one point you came after us, and you know why? Because we're out of their league. So they have to pretend to be someone that they're not Human number one. But they come after you with this admiration and they come after you with such charm and they're manipulators and it's because they could not get a good person like you on their own and I understand that.

Speaker 1: 4:31:39

I've heard more times than I can count. Well, you need to forgive them. They had childhood trauma. I had childhood trauma. My husband's had childhood trauma. So many people, even Keelan, talked about his childhood trauma. Does that give us a pass to berate, belittle and beat the ones that we love? Absolutely not. Do not. Do not give them an excuse for their actions, because it's not acceptable. You make the cognitive choice to break the cycle. I made the choice. My husband made the choice.

Speaker 1: 4:32:12

Faith could come in here right now and tell you she has never been screamed at, she has never been disrespected, she has never been popped or spanked, and she'll tell you that. You know there are times when things happen. For instance, if she did something that I didn't agree with, I would say to her you know what, faith, I love you with all of my heart. I don't agree necessarily with what you just did, but that doesn't make me love you any less. And I let her know that If she didn't do something she was supposed to like finish a term paper I would have said to her you know what. You made the choice not to finish your schoolwork. I'm not taking your phone away. You're choosing to give it to me because you chose that whatever was more important than finishing this schoolwork over your phone. So now you're choosing not to have the phone for a week. So your choice is to give it to me. I love you, but that's a choice you made.

Speaker 1: 4:33:08

There's a way to do these things without making your children spend their adulthood recovering from childhood. That is the worst thing you can do to a child. I know because I was been on account of a counselor for decades and you realize that. You know bruises do come and go. They heal, they fracture, they get set, they go into cast, they do whatever your parts get replaced.

Speaker 1: 4:33:33

I'm a walking robot. You know I joke around with my surgeons that I need a USB port drive because I have to plug in so much of my body every day just to get out of bed. I have hearing aids. They have to be charged. I have a prosthetic arm has to be charged. I have a spinal router in my back that has to be charged. I am being told I need two cochlear implants. Those have to be charged. I mean, for the love of god, can I at least get some free hbo or something out of this? I mean. This is ridiculous. Like when I get older, I don't need to go worry about a facelift. I have 26 pieces of metal in my face from the destruction of my bones in my face. My eardrums have been rebuilt, reconstructed and have failed. My husband likes to like ruin Mickey Mouse for me because I love Mickey Mouse, but my ears are like Swiss cheese because my eardrums are ruptured so badly.

Speaker 1: 4:34:31

Does that give him an excuse and justifiable pass to do what he did? Absolutely not. It does not, and we are in a system that fails us. I want to know why. Why is it when an officer or officers go to a domestic, which is the most dangerous call for them to go on, that now, more times than ever, it is the person that has gotten assaulted that gets incarcerated, while Joey Bag of Donuts gets a pass, if anything. What a restraining order? They ask him to leave the home for a night. That's just going to piss him off.

Speaker 1: 4:35:15

Okay, so let's give him a restraining order. What is that going to do? Give me a paper. Cut. It's a piece of paper. And yes, it's in the protocol to go to court. Yes, it's in the protocol to start the process.

Speaker 1: 4:35:26

You know, yes, but let me tell you that's not enough. This is not enough. We are not protecting our children, we are not protecting ourselves and they are getting away with it. And because there's no accountability on average, I mean, there is a rarity where some of them do serve time very little but some of them do. They're not rehabilitated, they're going to go right back out and do it again and again and again. And there is a small tiny amount of offenders who do rehabilitate and they stop and break the cycle. But the percentage of those versus the ones that just keep doing it is slim to none. It really is.

Speaker 1: 4:36:12

And I'm talking from experience because I found out that my ex, who was the abuser, is on wife like number 10 right now. He's younger than me, which I didn't know about either, and on top of all of this, he killed not only one of the wives, he killed his dad and he's's walking scot-free. I had him dead to rights on nine felonies Attempted murder, kidnapping, you name it. I had it and it was never a, he said. She said my memoir who Kicked First goes through the ins and outs of every moment. I didn't write that for a book. I wrote it because I was sitting bedside by my daughter, who is a medically induced coma, to help me remember who saw what, as I was interrogated left, right and center Because I was the one having to prove my innocence.

Speaker 1: 4:37:01

That's not how it should be. We've already been attacked. Why are we getting attacked again? I would be asked who saw him break your nose? What were you wearing? What was the weather? What day of the week is it? Let me tell you something. If you have never gone through this and I pray to God that you don't you don't know what the weather is. You don't know who's standing at your one o'clock, your four o'clock, your 11 o'clock or your six o'clock. You don't know any of that o'clock. You don't know any of that. If I didn't get all proof of the blood and everything else up and he came back it was round two if I cried he'd do it again and he testified to such in court. He openly testified that if he hit me once, he hit me 200 times. I had been stabbed over a dozen times. My husband will come on here and tell you amputation both my jaws replaced. He's been with me from dozens of surgeries. I've never taken the first pain medication because I've always had to be ready to take care of our daughter, and I didn't get pain medication when the abuse endured. So why am I going to take it now? Right, I tell myself, pain is anger leaving the body I'd have 400 stitches from one stabbing alone just because of one of them.

Speaker 1: 4:38:24

And to always say why did you stay? There are so many reasons why. It's not because we want to. The average person goes back seven. Why it's not because we want to. The average person goes back seven times. It's not because we want to. It's because we feel we have nowhere else to go. It's because we feel judgment. We feel how others are.

Speaker 1: 4:38:43

Why did you stay? Why did you make him mad? Why didn't you just do what he wanted? Why is it everything in his favor? Why are you asking why did I make him mad? Let me tell you something you could do absolutely everything to the T of his quote, unquote requirements and let him get cut off on the road on some way on the way home. Let him run a red light, let him get pulled over. Let him let one of his girlfriends because they're cheating on you, trust me behind your back, which I give him permission of.

Speaker 1: 4:39:13

And people don't understand that because that's the dating phase of the cycles of abuse and there are several stages of abuse and that stage he's out just being that manipulative bastard and if he's out doing that, he's not at the house beating me. So I absolutely gave him permission to go outside of our marriage because he was going to do it anyway and he didn't ask my permission for a damn thing, so he was going to do what he wanted. When you have all of those factors in play and you do everything the bed is made the certain way, the clothes are done, the food's on the table, it's not touching each other, everything is done exactly as you are told for it to be. It's a marriage. This isn't a parent-child relationship. This is a responsibility of equal partnership and this is not when you're in this situation. It is not a partnership, it is not.

Speaker 1: 4:40:04

So please don't think. Well, that's my husband. No, he's become your warden. He's become your warden and you are in a jail. You are in your own incriminating jail of torture and hell. You do everything, right.

Speaker 1: 4:40:20

Somebody else pisses him off. Somebody yells at him at work. He didn't get his promotion. He didn't do something he was supposed to do at work, right? Maybe somebody as he drove through for lunch. Give him a Diet Coke instead of a Coke, doesn't matter, it's the tiniest little thing, and he's still going to come home and blame you. It doesn't matter. Nobody is perfect.

Speaker 1: 4:40:39

And I'm sick and damn tired of these abusers. Literally everybody turns a blind eye or it's the good old boy system and they have each other's backs. What are you going to do when it's your wife or it's your daughter? You know what. You have kids, let's say and I'm talking to the abusers out there you are someone who is beating your wife or beating your spouse or beating your partner. First of all, you're a coward and I will say that, and I have seen our numbers today. We are in the millions. You are a coward and let me tell you because go get help, go work on whatever caused you to be the way that you are.

Speaker 1: 4:41:20

I have learned that not all of these people have had childhood trauma, so don't use that as an excuse. I've had childhood trauma, my husband's had childhood trauma, but you don't see us doing anything like that. I've never raised my hand. I've had childhood trauma, my husband's had childhood trauma, but you don't see us doing anything like that. I've never raised my hand. I've never hit anybody first, never, I never will. But let me just tell you this. Let's say, the person I'm speaking to now thinks he's all badass and Billy badass guy who goes home and pounces on his wife.

Speaker 1: 4:41:48

Okay, we'll just go into that scenario for just a minute. While that's happening, your daughter comes around the corner and sees her dad, the male figure in her life that is supposed to keep her safe, keep her happy and make sure she knows how a man is supposed to treat. Her. Watches you beat her mother. Your son comes around the corner. He sees his dad, the male role model figure, hitting a woman.

Speaker 1: 4:42:16

Guess what? You are raising your children for a different thing. One. You're raising your son to show him that that is how you treat a woman, that is how you treat his mother, that it is okay for you to mouth off to your mother, it is okay for you to put hands onto a woman. You're showing him that that's okay. You're showing him how you're supposed to treat a woman. For your daughter, that little girl that looks up at you with the eyes of innocence, you're showing her what behavior is acceptable from a man. That's all she's going to know. She's only going to know of that individual who hops her in the face and gives her a black eye because he's out of beer, even if she doesn't drink. But because you ran out of beer and you drank it all and you didn't have any left, it's her fault You're going to give her a black eye. That doesn't make you a man, that makes you a freaking coward.

Speaker 1: 4:43:16

It has taken me a long time on my platform for me to get to this point. You know, my ex openly and clearly stated in court the only reason he hit me while I was pregnant is he knew that I wouldn't have tolerated it when I wasn't pregnant. Does that not define cowardism? Does that not tell you? I mean, think about that for a minute. He openly admitted he was with me because I made all the money. Okay, it's not about money, it's about respect and obviously a lot of people don't realize.

Speaker 1: 4:43:50

But these individuals cause they're not men. They are not men. They have a very low self-esteem. They just tried to make themselves bigger than they are because, for whatever reason, they're miserable and they love company. Misery loves company, right. So they want to just embed that and bring it into who they are. Because I'm sure they're a loner. I'm sure they don't have people that they know are true friends. They're probably trying to show off materialistically. That's sad.

Speaker 1: 4:44:24

I've lived in a huge house before, but it's not a home, it's a house. I love my home. I love my family. I have the husband and child I've dreamt of since I was a little girl. Our home has an amazing, unconditional love inside of it. Yes, we have an alarm system, we have big, big dogs. We have 12 cameras around the entire property that give every single inch of the footage recording. But it's not because I'm worried about this cowardly piece of shit coming on the property. It's because we help survivors, and in the first little while to, however long it takes them, while they're on their personal journey, we raise money to help them get on their feet. We take in donations for clothes, furniture, things of that nature to help them get out and stay safe. And if we have you over here, I want you to know you are safe, that you don't have to worry about somebody coming over here to hurt you.

Speaker 1: 4:45:33

Life is too short. You have one heart and inside that heart you could fill it with love, you could fill it with hate, you could fill it and consume it with negativity, or you can love life. Life has been taken away so often before it's done. I was told I wouldn't survive. Faith was told she wouldn't survive. Between us, we're way over 175 surgeries now between the two of us. We almost lost her again last year. We are here for a reason and our reason and purpose is to help others and pay it forward.

Speaker 1: 4:46:07

We built the Academy because I know personally, hands--on. I know what it's like to feel alone and have no one there. I refuse to allow that to happen to anyone else, while I can do something about it. There are several collections within the academy you can go in there. Many collections and courses within each academy are advantageous and can be implemented into your healing journey. So you can go in there from the very beginning of when you're getting ready to leave, to down the road while you continue to grow, and maybe there's courses in there even helping you get ready to date again when you're ready or if you're ever ready.

Speaker 1: 4:46:51

But it's written from the perspective of someone who's been in the trenches, who is there with you every single step of the way. It's not boring textbook writing. There are things in there that are going to make you laugh. There are independent activities in there that really do help you see the light of the beauty within yourself, because you are beautiful, you are amazing and you shouldn't let these ridiculous people who want to come in and take control because they're unhappy, don't give them that satisfaction.

Speaker 1: 4:47:25

Wear your scars well. You are a survivor and thriver. Look at yourself. I look at all my scars. I was told that I even looked like Freddy Krueger and the elephant man had a baby, and if you go back and look, I look at the dozen times he stabbed me. I look at all of the scars he put on me and then all of the scars from all the surgeries I've had.

Speaker 1: 4:47:46

Yeah, I'm pretty scarred up, yep, and do I get scared? And do I get stared at? Sorry, there's my speech issue. Do I get stared at when I'm pretty scarred up? Yep, and do I get scared and do I get stared at? Sorry, there's my speech issue. Do I get stared at when I'm out, and about Every time I'm out, people stare at me. Whether it's my amputated arm or any scars, I still cover myself from my neck to my wrist to my ankle. Now I've just started showing up until about my elbow and that's it. That's the first time in 19 years I've shown skin, and that's because I don't want our daughter to feel insecure or uncomfortable within her own skin because she has scars. And she's a freaking gorgeous young lady. She's absolutely flawless and I tell her those scars show what a badass you are, because that's how many times someone tried and failed. You need to pick yourself up, dust yourself off and straighten your crown because you are amazing. This is why we do what we do.

Speaker 1: 4:48:40

Our lineup of speakers today have been amazing. This is just authentic. None of this was scripted. It was all from original love, heart, dedication and unconditional acceptance. If you go to a contagious smile dot and it's two S's so contagious smile dot, mn, dot, co. Joining the Academy is free. Come on, join, see what all we have to offer. If you can make a donation of even $5, that $5 will help pay for somebody who, at this very point, can't pay for a course. And we offer those scholarships, no questions asked. I'm going to have my husband come back and take us out. I can't thank you enough for everybody who's been here today. You reach out to us, we answer you. If you reach out to me, you get me. I will be the one by your side helping you. I just want to thank everybody, remind you that you are not alone, that we are here with you every single step of the way thank you, babe.

Speaker 2: 4:49:41

Victoria and y'all be sure to go on amazon and check out some of her books by victoria cure and also Faith Curie Solomon. I believe it's under Faith Curie Solomon. Join us on our Mighty Networks, our academy, and we'll see y'all. And JJ, I did not take my own bed nap, I stayed here beside my wife A little trip out to get lunch, but um yeah, we, we appreciate having each and every one of y'all on the show today jj's back.

Speaker 2: 4:50:22

Hey, buddy, so jj? Um, you know, being a former air force yourself, I don't think, you know, I only did four years. And just to touch lightly on what my wife spoke about, you know her, her scars are her. You know they're not really metals but they're metal. But but that's what she has to show that she is a survivor of the war that she went through.

Speaker 2: 4:50:48

I mean, you and I, you know, did our little stint and you know and we were both for your service, given ribbons, you know, just for being um in in a period where it was a declaration of war since some part of the world with the us. Um man, there there's no medal, you know, but the, the medal, the I I guess the medal that you have is faith. That is your badge of honor, right there, as you called it. What do you think, jj? Faith?

Speaker 4: 4:51:25

Yes for sure. Faith in myself, faith in life and each other, and hope you know. So that's what we're doing this for and that's why I'm connecting with you and you with me, and hope that we've got each other's back when those who don't know, I mean we're here and we're healing and we're helping others. That's what we're doing it for.

Speaker 2: 4:52:00

So we got that ripple thing going on oh, for sure yes, you guys do, we do and uh everybody.

Speaker 4: 4:52:09

Today it was so beautiful and uh yeah thank you.

Speaker 2: 4:52:14

Yeah, this, this was a good, good event yes, thank you, victoria, for working your butt off. It's still there. And uh, getting everything set up and everybody lined up. It was a big to-do list and uh, it's not easy.

Speaker 1: 4:52:28

I watched her stress out up to the last minute we had 40 people wanting the spots once they were all sold out right once they were done, taken, we still had over 40 people trying to get in let us know if y'all want us on your podcast.

Speaker 2: 4:52:40

You know we'll return the favor and, uh, we'll look forward to doing this again, maybe next year, okay but until then we'll be doing other webinars and oh, yes, and things of that nature too thank y'all for listening to contagious smile thank you, jj your lovely host, victoria, and michael and jj go check out his ripple effect y'all. Thank you and goodbye hey goodbye, see you later bye.