Overcoming Trauma: Empowering Insights from Bonnie Sharf Provost's Journey to Self-HealingUntitled Episode

We delve into Bonnie Sharf Provost's transformative journey of self-healing from trauma, ignited by her introduction to the powerful teachings of renowned author and speaker, Joe Dispenza. 

Gain valuable insights and practical strategies as Bonnie guides and inspires women in abusive situations, empowering them to reclaim their strength and create lives of resilience. Discover how Bonnie's story can give you hope and guide you towards a path of healing and empowerment.

You can connect with Bonnie via email on reinventyourselfwithbonnie@gmail.com, YouTube,   Facebook and Instagram. 

References in this episode

The Truth: It’s Not Because He Doesn’t Love You

How to Use Your Childhood Picture to Guide Your Self-care 

Harnessing the Power of Being Present to Achieve Balance in Difficult Life Situations

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Thank you so much for listening.

Music Credit: https://indiefy.me/wanted-carter

Transcript

JKO: [00:00:00] Okay. Welcome to this episode of Messy Can Stop Her. I am your host, Judith Kambia. Obatusa, J K O. Today we have a very important topic to discuss in our self-care series, and we have a special guest. Joining us to discuss that topic. As you know, we explore ways to support people who are women actually, who are in abusive relationships to help them thrive even when they're not able to leave those situations.

As I always mention, over 80% of women in abusive situations, relationships cannot live. So should we abandon them in those situations? No. We're going to support them [00:01:00] to thrive where they are. Joining us today is Bonnie Sharf Provost. Bonnie is a board certified transformational healing coach. I want you to note those words transformational healing because you understand why that is Her calling. She's a wife, a mother of a blended family of five. Warriors, five boys. She has an incredible story of resilience and healing to share that will give hope to any woman in a difficult situation. Welcome, Bonnie. 

Bonnie: Thank you so much, Judith. It's such a pleasure to be here. 

JKO: Bonnie. Your journey is truly inspiring.

You discovered your passion for [00:02:00] coaching in 2013, but then you faced a serious health Challenge in 2019. Could you tell us a bit more about what happened and how that affected your life? 

Bonnie: Absolutely. 

So I was already a health and wellness coach. And it was my passion already to help women to recognize their true power, their connect to who they really are, and overcome any of the limiting beliefs that went on within them that kept them from living the life of their dreams and then I wound up going through my own very serious health challenge, which it was more of a surprise to me than anybody else because I didn't have anything leading up to that to make me think there was anything wrong with my body. And all of a [00:03:00] sudden my legs stopped working the way they normally do.

They started feeling very stiff and heavy. I was having problems walking and I was having a hard time balancing myself, and then I started having numbness in my, my feet and my legs. And when I got to the doctor by that time, the doctor said he thought that I had a condition called Guillain-Barre. Some people know it as Guillain-Barre syndrome, and it's a very scary condition.

It's supposed to be a temporary autoimmune disease that attacks the nerves of the body. And he told me I need to immediately go to the hospital. So I went immediately to the hospital and it turns out that they did a lumbar puncture on me and a M R I and blood work, and it all came back positive for Guillain-Barre.

So they admitted me in the hospital [00:04:00] and from that point forward, I was deteriorating very rapidly. I wasn't even able to stand on my own or walk unassisted anymore. When I was the first day that I was in the hospital, I wound up falling when I was using the bathroom, just trying to stand up. And from that point forward I was labeled a fall risk and I wound up going through treatments called plasmapheresis, and basically to make a long story short, I wound up being readmitted and readmitted six separate times into the hospital. So for a period of six months, I was unable to walk. Every time I was discharged, cuz I was, each time I was in the hospital, it was for about two weeks to get this plasmapheresis treatment done where, what that was was it transfused all of the blood from my body into a machine [00:05:00] that then separated my own plasma and it replaced my plasma with synthetic plasma and then reinserted my blood back into my body.

So it was a pretty invasive and intense treatment. So each time I had that done, it was took about two weeks in the hospital. I would return home and within just a matter of days, I would relapse. Even worse than before that, where I was, I had even less abilities in my legs and my feet. And there there was a point where I couldn't wiggle my toes.

I couldn't even feel my feet. And after I kept relapsing, they changed the diagnosis to a different one called C I D P. Which stands for chronic inflammatory demyelinating polyneuropathy, and that's a chronic condition where they say there is no cure. So they gave me reason to believe that I was gonna be like this for the rest of my life, and that I would be reliant on either [00:06:00] a walker or a wheelchair and having to take.

Medications such as steroids or have the treatments that I was having these IV treatments or you know, there were different options for people who have this condition that whatever worked best for them, but that I would be reliant on them for the rest of my life. And it was a very scary time. Wow. So they told you that this condition was going to be something that you lived with for the rest of your life.

So the doctors, the experts, yes. Give you their diagnosis. And many times when experts talk, it's like a stamp. It's done. Yeah. As a done meal. How did you manage, because I know that you eventually healed yourself. Yes. So how did you manage to heal yourself Completely. From, is it a [00:07:00] condition that the medical community had told you was for the rest of your life?

Mm-hmm. Well, I. Had already been involved, immersed myself into personal development, and I already had the mindset that everything that happens in our life is not happening to us. It's happening for us. So I already was saying to myself, to people around me, I know this is happening. For a reason. I know that I'm supposed to learn something from this, and when I learn my lesson that I'm supposed to learn from this, it's going to wind up being a blessing.

That this happened to me. Mm-hmm. And it, it absolutely was because I opened my mind to learning whatever I was supposed to learn from this experience. And not too long after this began, someone had reached out to me and asked me if I ever, ever heard of [00:08:00] Dr. Joe Dispenza. And I had not ever heard of him before.

I immediately. Watched his YouTube interviews and found out that this is exactly what I was meant to learn, because his work is all about helping us to change our vibrational frequency, change our energy. And before I continue, I wanna just make mention that I was in multiple relationships. Prior to this condition happening to me, I went through my whole adult life seeking safety in the form of a relationship with a man, and it was a pattern I wound up.

Settling for the wrong relationship, and I felt like I needed to be with someone in order to feel safe in my [00:09:00] life, and I know that my vibration that I was living in was the reason. That this condition happened to me, and I also believe that every single person that is not only going through a health challenge, but that's also going through our relationship challenge, any life challenge is capable of overcoming it by changing who we are, being internally, who we are being in our life, our energy that we're living in, and our energy.

Is based upon our belief system, how we view ourselves, our energy of the vibration that we live in is literally linked to the perception that we have of ourselves, as well as our whole world that we live in, and it's conditioning that we all have experienced in our lives. Ever [00:10:00] since we were young, we've all been pre-programmed to view.

Our life and to view interactions that happen in our life and to view ourselves in a very, very narrow focus. And when we do this work, we unlayer all of this conditioning and we literally take our power back. So this applies to not only health challenges, this applies to any challenging, especially relationship issues.

Wow, this is so fascinating. So you worked on healing your mind and spirit and then you healed your body. Yes. So you weren't healing the body. It wasn't the body first. It was the mind and spirit. Yes. Tell us a bit about that. And it was also getting really in tuned to beliefs that most of us are totally blind to.

Bonnie: [00:11:00] Most of us are just going. Conducting our lives from a place of just automatic assumptions that the thoughts in our head are real and we identify with them and we just believe, accept and believe them, and we don't have to do that. We can literally choose to become someone totally different based on changing our belief system.

JKO: That's amazing. Wow. So Bonnie, as you know, messy, can't stop her, focuses on supporting women in domestic violence situations. My passion has always been to support people with domestic violence institutions, mostly women, because I believe that the hand that rocks the cradle, Rules the world.

Mm-hmm. And though the Bible says, a man is the head of the home, we always say the woman is [00:12:00] the neck. And if the neck is not working, the head can't do nothing. So empowering a woman, setting a woman free, liberating women from limiting beliefs, from things that try to keep them in bondage, literally means liberating families and even our society. Mm-hmm. So now that you are talking about what you've done in your life, these individuals that find themselves in abusive relationships where living may not be immediately feasible, how can we support these individuals to find their strength and, you know, thrive despite these circumstances using what you have learned from your journey to wellness, and now you are [00:13:00] taking those things that you've learned.

In fact, what happened is that when you got better, your coaching moved to another level. 

Bonnie:Yes, it has. Absolutely. And I just need to add, what I do is different from. Dr. Joseph spends his work. Mm-hmm. You know, I do support people who are trying to do his work on their own because many people, many, many people try to do it on their own and have a really hard time, and it's because most times it requires someone else outside of themselves to help them to see things that they just don't have access to see, because it's about themselves and their conditions to see things in a certain way. So many people who try doing this work have a really hard time for multiple reasons, but one of them is because they really don't see things about themselves until someone else points it out to them or shows them.

However, [00:14:00] in the specific instances that you were referring to in this group of women, this work, and like I was saying, what I do is so much more than just what Dr. Joe talks about. I bring in other elements of this work to get deeper into accessing parts of a woman that she hasn't had an example or anybody showing her.

So I know that all women who are experiencing trauma or abuse in a relationship, it's on so many levels of. Emotional turmoil because not only is it seeing their perpetrator, you know, the person who is abusing them with fear or distrust or [00:15:00] perhaps just really being on edge, cuz they never know who he's gonna be at that moment.

You know, there are many men who are capable of being extremely loving and charming. Sometimes, but then all of a sudden they can turn. And so when that happens is not knowing or living in a state of fight or flight, not knowing when they can truly relax mm-hmm. And not be on edge and ready for, you know, him to turn.

And so, It's, it's not only looking at him as the perpetrator, but then we all start to judge ourselves as well, and we start to shame ourselves. Mm-hmm. And we start to think of ourselves in a light like we are victims. Mm-hmm. Or that we are not capable, or not strong enough, or worthy enough to do something about the situation.

So all of that really needs to be addressed. It's a deep inner [00:16:00] work that I help people, help women to work through in order to reinvent themselves. And that's why the name of my business is Reinvent Yourself with Bonnie, because it truly is a matter of totally reinventing ourselves. It doesn't matter what's happened in your past.

Our past has no weight at all on who we are being today. Right now, in this moment, we can choose to be different at any point in time, and this is about giving women the opportunity to take their power back and to no longer let this other person dictate how we're living in our life. 

JKO: I love, I love what you said about taking your power back for someone to abuse you, you've given them power. In some form. Mm-hmm. And you also mentioned that feeling of not feeling like you're worthy. 

Bonnie: Yes. 

JKO: And to be truly empowered as a [00:17:00] woman, self-worth is pivotal to that, to empowerment, and that's why we've invited Bonnie to be on this podcast episode because you can't change your situation without changing your thinking.

So the true work is inside your mind.

You know, there is a scripture that says “Guard your heart with all diligence, for out of it flows the issues of your life. Mm-hmm. Another way that we've heard them talk about it is that thoughts become things. Mm-hmm. What you're thinking is what you get, and so these are powerful, powerful concepts. So seeking [00:18:00] support and having self-compassion, okay, maybe you are in a place that could have been avoided if you'd beat something differently, but well, you didn't. So giving yourself self-compassion is a way that can help provide you some relief and then open you up to reinventing yourself as Bonnie puts it. And just so you know, I'm going to put links to Bonnie's contact, and I'll encourage any woman who is taught in the thoughts pattern or not, just the thoughts pattern in a situation that looks impossible and you're overwhelmed to reach out to Bonnie.

Because lights yes, always cause darkness to flee. And this reinventing yourself is light, is bringing light into the darkness and then setting you free. So in [00:19:00] the face of abuse, it's common for individuals to internalize negative beliefs and by themselves and abused mostly is we do have physical, but mostly emotional. Manipulating the way you think about yourself. So how can someone overcome these damaging beliefs and develop a positive self image? 

Bonnie: I love that question. Yes. I just wanna add that when we are shaming ourselves, when we are speaking to ourselves in a way that we wouldn't even speak to our worst enemy, you know, when we're viewing ourselves as someone who is unworthy undeserving. In fact, I'm gonna go a step further. You know, a lot of times when women are in abusive relationships, it's because that's what they're used to when they were young. We seek what we are used to [00:20:00] because that's our comfort zone. And even if it's something that we were abused or that didn't feel good, We attract people that bring us the same familiar past that we're used to because that's what our comfort zone is.

And even though it causes us to suffer. The human mind a lot of times winds up just seeking what we're comfortable with. Mm-hmm. But in addition, it's an energetic vibration as well. So when we're vibrating at that level of feeling underneath it all, even if we're consciously saying to ourselves, mm-hmm I'm worthy, I'm deserving.

You know, if that underlying belief that we're not even aware of because it's going on under the layers of the surface and we aren't, you know, we don't have access to that in our conscious mind. So we aren't aware that our underlying core beliefs think that we do deserve this, because that's [00:21:00] what we're used to.

Right. And so we need to change all of those beliefs so that we now vibrate on a higher level of worthiness, of deservedness, of deserving to feel loved, of being treated in a loving way. And when we're not even treating ourselves that way because we don't know how to get out of a situation and we're shaming ourselves and we're, you know, Kind of bullying ourselves.

Mm-hmm. Cause we put ourselves in the situation and then we tell ourselves this untruths about, well, I must deserve this, or God must think that I deserve this. Right. And so we don't have to continue to believe that. So what I'm going to offer as something that you can do right now to take your power back is to just first give yourself love.

Practice self-love. No matter, I don't care what's happened in the [00:22:00] past. I don't care what you've done. Nothing that you've done deserves this. Mm-hmm. Nothing. No matter what has happened in the past, I'm gonna start getting all emotional because I, I'm very emotional and I really feel with my heart, cuz I know how it is.

Believe me, I've had experiences in my past relationships that I can relate. And until I took my power back, until I recognized that there was a pattern going on, that must have stemmed from something within myself that nothing was gonna change. I was gonna keep attracting the same type of man in my life.

So what I would say is focus on you. Don't try to focus on changing him at all. Once we change ourselves, that's when our circumstances change in our life. So the biggest thing is first just focusing on you and giving [00:23:00] yourself so much love and compassion. None of this is your fault. And until we change how we're viewing ourselves and until we learn how to really love ourselves mm-hmm. And see our true value. That's when everything changes. 

JKO: Amazing. I'm jumping off my seat because why do I wanna help women who are in these situations? Because I've been One of you, been that woman who thoughts it was because I didn't do something I could do.

Maybe there's a place I'm not doing enough that's why this person is doing this to me. Actually, I have a podcast episode that talks about that. So sometimes you talk to your friends or you talk to yourself that, oh, this person, see what he did to me. And, and then you end it.

Or they tell you, oh, it's cause he doesn't love you. [00:24:00] And those words, Somehow blame you. You take it on upon yourself like it's my fault. They don't love me some somehow because he doesn't love. But the truth is the person's misbehavior is not because he doesn't love you, it's cause he doesn't love him.

Bonnie: Yes, yes. It's absolutely all about him. It's all about himself and the energy that's going on and the mindset that he has mm-hmm about the way that he needs to feel okay about himself by treating you this way. 

JKO: Ooh, got that. Ooh, he me in good places. Bonnie. Thank you. Thank you, thank you. So when you talk about showing yourself love and compassion, I would love for you to give some critical steps because let me tell you, for so many years [00:25:00] people will talk about self-care to me. I'm speaking of me now and I'm not the only one. Many women have heard this self-love, self-care, and the idea we have, for example, you say self-care, people think it's, oh, I have to travel somewhere, go to a spa in a mountain, or blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, and I don't have.

Right. So there's this thing, there's always something limiting from moving forward with actions with something that's gonna help us. So could you give us some practical steps? Mm-hmm. So there are some, some of these men can't leave cause they have children. They don't have enough money and they don't have support. They've been isolated to a place where they have no one. And you know, there are many things that make the person unable to leave.

And I don't judge anyone who is unable to leave. It is just the circumstance. You found yourself. So in those situations, what can [00:26:00] they do? Practical steps that I can take. Yeah, for that self-love, because self-love, compassion, regaining your power is about taking back that control that person has over your person and even your thinking.

Bonnie: Great question. So the first thing I wanna say is, No matter what anybody does to us, nobody can take away the fact that only we have control of what goes on inside of us. Nobody else can take control of that. We have that gift. So remembering that no matter what's happening outside of us, no matter what situation we're in, even if someone is right in in our face, yelling in our face or doing whatever it is, we can go within, and this is the biggest thing that I'd like to [00:27:00] start out sharing, is that we all think of ourselves as our mind and our body, but we really are so much more than that.

We have a soul and our soul. Is very real and very present, and yet sometimes we have gone so long in our life not connecting to our soul that we forget it, that it's there. So this is an invitation to start, even if it's just five minutes a day, taking some time each day and just sitting within yourself.

Just stillness. By yourself, even if you're in a room with kids or you know saying, I need five minutes and not letting anybody disturb you. Obviously it would be better if we had some time to ourselves, maybe before the kids woke up or after they go to bed or when they're at school. Setting aside some time just for stillness, I [00:28:00] recommend sitting in nature if it's a possibility for you, if the weather isn't too extreme and you have a place where you can just go outside.

Even going for a walk or just sitting, sitting on a bench outside in nature is just such a beautiful gift to give to yourself. It doesn't have to be this whole, you know, going to a spa, just taking time each day to just be within yourself and going within. I love meditation. I love breath work. These are all ways that you can practice connecting to your true essence of who you really are to your spirit.

And once you start practicing that, Then start to separate yourself from your thoughts. So every time you recognize that you're feeling disempowered, or you're feeling unworthy, or you're feeling unloved, take time for yourself and connect [00:29:00] and recognize that I'm feeling this way because these thoughts that I have going on in my mind, like, oh, nobody loves me.

Look at how he treats me. You know, my kids don't show me they love me. I have nobody. All of those thoughts can cause us to go into this deep well of depression and loneliness and anxiety, and we can take our power back by recognizing that we don't have to accept and believe those thoughts that aren't the truth.

We can choose something else. We can choose something totally different. And when we start practicing stillness and recognizing that I get to choose. I get to choose what's real for me. I am love, I love myself, and that's the most important thing. And if you have a hard time saying those words, if you have a hard time feeling the love for yourself, that's common too.

There's nothing wrong with you. [00:30:00] It just means that it's a need in your life. You need to start to practice this. And I have techniques that I help my clientele who are women to do in order to develop self-love, such as inner child work. You know, we've all gone through experiences in our life that we took away meanings that had told us that we weren't good enough or that we weren't lovable, and we need to recognize that that was just something that happened in our past that does not

mean that that same belief that we took from that, it doesn't mean that at all. And changing the script in our minds, every time we start to be aware that we're saying things to ourself that cause us to feel unlovable, turn it around first, getting present, you know, connecting by breath, work, meditation, going out in nature, or really just doing anything that feels good.

Giving [00:31:00] yourself an experience that feels good. It doesn't have to be anything, you know, expensive or you know, out of the house, or it doesn't have to be anything that complicated. It really can just be, I haven't done something that I really enjoy doing in a long time. Like, for instance, I love to dance.

And so when I'm in a funk and I feel like I need to shift my vibration, I'll put on some music that I can really get into and I just go off dancing, and that totally changes my vibration. So one of the things that we can do right away is change, move our body, take a walk, you know, depending on what we're capable of doing at that time, doing some, some form of movement.

You know, if you enjoy doing a certain, like Chiang or you know, dancing or yoga or mm-hmm. You know, anything that moves the body, that'll shift your vibration. Also, surrounding yourself with [00:32:00] other women who are support systems to remind you that you have many people who love you. It doesn't have to be. A partner in life doesn't have to be a man.

You can be surrounded by women that are even more valuable than having a man in your life. 

JKO: Yeah. A man can never take that spot. That's why we have the people we call sister friends when there are, there's a relationship with other women. That's feels a part of our souls that no relationship with the man and ever feel, it's just the way it's, so I really, really appreciate the examples and the tips that Bonnie has shared locally. We have so many episodes in the self-care series that reference some of the exam things. She has given us tips. So I'll put those links like breath work, [00:33:00] like Thinking of something that makes you happy.

I remember one episode that came to my heart about looking at my childhood picture. I looked at a picture of me, I think it was my first birthday or so, and that picture brought so many memories. I just started thinking of what my mom and dad were thinking about me when they did that party, and they took that picture, the potentials they saw in me and how, you know, And I did an episode about that. I put a link and it, it made me so happy. So it's 

Bonnie: Oh, I love, I love that. That's one of the things that I do with my, my clients is we do inner child work where we look at a picture of ourselves as a child. Mm-hmm. And just sit with it and really connect to who we were back then, and that can bring up so many memories of what we loved to do.

JKO: Yes. 

Bonnie: So that's what I was referring to. If you, if you remember that you used to love to paint, paint. If you used to [00:34:00] love to, you know, play in a certain way, you know, going out and running or Yes. If you loved to play the piano and you haven't done it in a long time, you know, be a kid again, because that's what all about.

Life is supposed to be fun and lights and people. And when we have trauma, And challenge going on in our life, it can feel so heavy. So give yourself that space each day to be creative. You know, journaling is another really powerful tool. Journaling and I can provide journaling prompts if anybody's interested.

You know, that can really bring out some real awarenesses mm-hmm. And help you connect to who you really are. Mm-hmm. Because we forget, you know, when life happens to us and we're constantly, you know, going through all of these challenges. Mm-hmm. It makes us forget about the things that we used to light us up.

JKO: Awesome. 

Bonnie: You know, let's bring that back [00:35:00] into our life. 

JKO: That's amazing. 

I'm so excited, Bonnie, because the ideas that you are sharing there, we are not just ideas, they are practical and they're effective. So if you're a woman listening to us, take a moment and try one, two or more of these tips that Bonnie has shared. And like I said in earlier on, we do have other other self-care episodes that you could go and check out.

It's very important that we surround ourselves internally and externally with positive energy. And that means, like Bonnie said, not exposing yourselves to people who bring [00:36:00] negative energies up in you. For example, you in a difficult relationship, you already know. Then spending time analyzing it, leave those conversations with so much sadness.

It puts you inside depression, and then you lose out. Because for us to attract the positive. We have to have the positive, like actually attracts, like when it comes to energy, it's not opposite, attracts like physics when it comes to life. Life that we are living. It's about energy. We attract what we have in us and okay, we've had this bad relationship.

We have so much negatives in us. Now we're starting the work to let go to, let me tell you how it is. It's like taking a [00:37:00] glass of coke and pouring water in it. Running water until the cold changes to water. So as you keep putting the positive in you, it keeps pushing out the negative until. So you can also use lights.

Light can come in a tiny dot of light, and the more the light expands, the less the darkness can be there. So this is what we're talking about. 

Bonnie: One thing I just wanna add, is that a lot of women, including myself, used to or still do, put all of our other people in our lives before ourselves.

We are so accustomed to believing that it's our job to take care of the family. It's our job to make sure our children are okay, and that they're not only okay, but that they have everything that they need. Everything that they want. It's our job to make sure that [00:38:00] they're happy and taken care of in the best, you know, everything that we want for them.

And where does that leave us? It leads us being the bottom of the list, not having time for our own self-care because we're too busy taking care of everybody else. And many women identify with being a caregiver and by being a caregiver. We make it more important to take care of everybody else because that's our identity.

So if our identity is tied to being a good mom, or being a good wife, or being a good daughter, then we are gonna be putting our idea of what that looks like ahead of taking care of ourselves. Because we're gonna say to ourselves, well, if my child views me as not being a good parent because I didn't do for them something that they want.

So that I could take care of myself, then that's gonna make me feel like a [00:39:00] bad parent. And then I'm gonna think of myself that way. And so I'm here to tell you that you come first. In fact, it's so important that you put yourself first, that by you putting yourself first, that's the best thing that you can do for your kids. And everybody else in your life, because if you're not taking care of yourself, then you've got nothing left to give them, right? So by taking care of ourselves, we then can become our best version of ourselves and be able to be so much more for everybody else. 

JKO: Mm. Let me say hallelujah for my, I could talk to Bonnie all day, ladies.

You can hear this. You can hear this, you can hear this. Please don't I have a YouTube channel. Don't just be hearers be doers. Please, apply the knowledge. [00:40:00] It's only in applying the knowledge that that change that we seek and come that that overwhelmed that we feel can leave us. This is what we're talking about and Bonnie has a YouTube channel, so I'm gonna put the link cuz you're gonna hear more from her there. I'm also going to put a link to the Facebook group, Messy Can’t Stop Her Sisterhood. Everywhere I go to do studies about how can we empower ourselves as women. We come to that place of community surrounding ourselves as a community of women.

And Bonnie talked about it today, community of women who always try to say that women were all about cattiness. Mm-hmm. Depends on the kind of women. You have to be intentional. And in these spaces, [00:41:00] they are intentional spaces. We are all broken, but together we hear each other. Bible says ion sharpens iron.

We are all blunt, but when you want to sharpen a knife, you take another metal that's blunt. When you, and before we know it's called a shep. So that's what we do in those groups. So that's just one of the groups you can be part of. Messy Can’t Stop Her Sisterhood, there are many other groups online. So don't just sit in the mess. You can be a better version of yourself. So Bonnie, as we come to the end of this, I always ask for one for the road, and that one for the road is for that woman who is in this [00:42:00] place we're talking about. 

I know that what we're saying, it's, it's not easy. To break out from a pattern that we've been in for years. And one thing that I need you to be, to be sensitive, to be sensitive to is what Bonnie said, that most of us that end up in this kind of relationships, something in our childhood led us to a place where we were volleyball  to these people who also are broken people, just so you know, they're not healthy emotionally. So they've been warped and then we fell into the trap. So I want, you might be in this situation when I want Bonnie to say something to you. One for the road.

You, that woman in that situation. [00:43:00] Bonnie, I would like you to say something to that person to encourage her, even though she feels overwhelmed, even though she feels there's no end sight to let her know that a beautiful flower can bloom among rocks.

Bonnie: Perspective is everything when we are perceiving ourselves as being in this. Impossible situation, that there's nothing that we can do that we're stuck. We're imprisoned, we're trapped. That's a perspective that causes us to feel that way, and that winds up being real for us. So I'm inviting you to a different perspective, and this is the perspective I'm inviting you to envision.

Imagine if everything that's been happening in your life. Is happening to serve you as a gift in order to force you to go within and do this inner work so [00:44:00] that you can emerge as your highest self because I want you to know that she already exists. Even though it doesn't feel that way, even though you might have a really hard time envisioning her, she exists.

And so I would like you to even just practice now. Imagining what the highest version of yourself looks like. How does she stand? What does she look like? What is her energy like? How does she speak? What does she do with her day? You know, what words does she say to people and how do people treat her?

Getting really clear on a different version of yourself is going to allow you to then step into that. Even if you're in a situation that feels impossible, I want you to start to [00:45:00] envision that it is not impossible. Envision yourself out of it. Envision what you want your life to look like and start experiencing how that might feel.

Because when we start to open up that door to possibility and start to give our energy, because whatever we focus on is what we're giving our energy to. So instead of continuing to just be receiving all of the beliefs that we have taken with us from our childhood and from our past, and thinking that this is all there is, I want you to know that there is so much more that you just haven't seen yet.

And so I'm hoping to open a door in your imagination so that you can start imagining yourself as that future person that you are capable of becoming, who lives the most beautiful life of freedom [00:46:00] and opportunity. 

JKO: Thank you so much, Bonnie, for the insight you've shared, the encouragement you've given us.

Thank you for the work you're doing to support women to step into their power, their own power. I thank you so much for it and if you, my pleasure. Thank you. So if you know someone who is experiencing abuse or you are the one I would love for you to, if you know someone, share this and if you're the one.

Listen and apply, and if it's more and it's violent, please reach out to an, an organization near you. There are many organizations supporting women in those situations. I want you to know that if you can. Imagine. Like Bonnie said, a tomorrow that [00:47:00] is better than where you are. Everything you've ever dreamed of. If you can reimagine yourself, like I always say, messy, don't stop you. Thank you so much for listening. See you next time.