Breaking Free from Past Patterns + Resiliency with Rebecca Silence (part 2)

This episode delves into the transformative power of resilience and healing through trauma, featuring Rebecca Silence, who shares her personal journey from battling melanoma to empowering others. Listeners are offered insights and practical strategies for recognizing and embracing their emotions, breaking free from generational trauma, and reclaiming their identity in relationships. 

• Rebecca Silence’s journey from trauma to healing 
• The concept of the healed self versus survival self 
• The importance of body acceptance and partnership 
• Recognizing and navigating generational trauma 
• Emotional Survival Kit: embracing five core emotions 
• Breaking unhealthy patterns in relationships 
• The call to prioritize self-love and authenticity in life

About Rebeccah:
Rebeccah Silence is not just changing lives; she's redefining family happiness for audiences around the world. She is the world's leading coach for emotional healing and relationships. She is the author of Coming Back to Life, host of The Healing IS Possible Experience and the Tougher Together Breakthrough Podcast, and the creator of The Emotional Survival Kit Course. Rebeccah teaches us how to become our own healer, how to love and trust ourselves, and how to be our best for others.
 
https://www.instagram.com/rebeccahsilence/
https://twitter.com/RebeccahSilence
linkedin.com/in/rebeccahsilence/

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Transcript

Speaker 1 0:06

All of us reach a point in time where we are depleted and need to somehow find a way to reignite the fire within. But how do we spark that flame? Welcome to Reignite Resilience, where we will venture into the heart of the human spirit. Resilience where we will venture into the heart of the human spirit. We'll discuss the art of reigniting our passion and strategies to stoke our enthusiasm. And now here are your hosts, natalie Davis and Pamela Cass.

Speaker 2 0:42

Welcome back to part two of our two-part conversation with Rebecca Silence, who has a firm belief that healing is possible. She has become a generational healer, working her way through healing some childhood trauma and trauma that she experienced as a young adult to now living a flourishing, fulfilling life. Rebecca is also going to share with us some tools and modalities that she uses with her clients to help them in navigating overcoming trauma in their personal lives. We hope you enjoy.

Speaker 3 1:16

So I'm working with this couple. They're telling me to come in. I'm just not thinking there's anything wrong. Even if there's something wrong, because nobody has cancer in my family and I'm in my purpose and I've beat my past Well, it was malignant melanoma.

Speaker 3 1:33

If I hadn't been pregnant with our second daughter, who's now nine, I'd be dead. I had no symptoms. It was already in my lymph nodes. I didn't know melanoma could be that aggressive or deadly. I knew nothing about melanoma. I didn't know melanoma could be that aggressive or deadly. I knew nothing about melanoma. And I don't tan. I've been this very pale, the not in the sun person forever right. So long story short, we couldn't stage the cancer until after the baby was out. So they took her out early, at 38 weeks, staged me three weeks later. I've had 21 surgeries. I had chemo that I quit. The chemo attacked all of the nerves in my spine and down my right leg so I had dropped foot.

Speaker 3 2:12

And this is where this book came from. It's not called Coming Back to Life because of the beating of the cancer. It's called Coming Back to Life because this is what my clients say about working with me, that they came back to life. But I will tell you cancer had me be reborn, because I remember thinking okay, you thought you beat your past. That doesn't mean life isn't going to keep being life. And so I just remember thinking, all right, well, you teach this shit, who are you going to be? Who are you going to be? Who are you going to be now? Yeah, and so I just thought, and I lived what I taught and developed next level ways to talk about what I've been teaching all those years. It felt like magic, but I didn't really have it packaged yet.

Speaker 4 2:58

And here I am All of those things that you went through leading up to the cancer prepared you for the cancer.

Speaker 3 3:06

There's no doubt, and I remember one of the biggest chapters I get a ton of feedback on is the body chapter, because the original title I almost never share this the original title of coming back to life was I'm not too fat unless I look in the mirror.

Speaker 4 3:20

Wow, because I thought everything was the body's fault. I own, I'm not too fat.

Speaker 3 3:23

We are not too fat Like I own all these URLs because I thought that was the body's fault. I own. I'm not too fat. We are not too fat like I own all these urls because I thought that's going to be the book, because I always thought it was my body's fault.

Speaker 3 3:30

And I remember driving down the road pregnant I know I have cancer and I'm realizing, oh, my body's keeping me alive and the baby alive, like why am I making my body the enemy? And how am I going to actually survive if I don't make my body my best friend and like a partner, like I am not a good partner to you body and I'm sorry. And I remember sitting in a light bawling like, oh, my god, my body isn't the problem, you know. And and then it was just about letting go of any of those success metrics that had me identifying as achievement Right Cause I couldn't be sexy, I couldn't be a size six, I couldn't be, you know, making all the money and booked out and I just was fighting for my life. And so you know, it was a wild ride to be in a spiritual awakening, recognizing this isn't my trauma reactivated and another opportunity to heal my trauma. This is you're healed. So the healed you is in charge of the mission called your life.

Speaker 2 4:38

Wow, I think that is a large chunk for most people to bite off to be their reality. Right, you're healed. Now the healed version of you gets to face everything else. That in itself seems daunting.

Speaker 3 4:52

Well, it doesn't have to be like there really is a roadmap, there really is I put it all in a course for you and it's seven 20-minute lessons and it's produced and it's fun and I'm like, can we make your life happen? It starts with a decision and I don't think life happens to us or for us. I'm just knowing life's going to be life and I have control over who am I going to be. And we're all bipolar, right. We're all. We have a survival self and we have a healed self and the healed you is empowered. The healed you is focused on alignment. The healed you is free. The healed you is unshakably whole and you own it. And it's not daunting to be committed to a life where you're free and resting in peace and owning your power. And you know our power. It's relaxed, especially as women. It's not force, it's not amped up, it's not adrenaline. To me it's so daunting to stay unhealed.

Speaker 2 5:59

Okay, fabulous. And so the healed you is the I mean the unhealed version of you. Like continuing to walk around in that space is the daunting pace, but, rebecca, like that's the place that people feel most comfortable, right, because it's easier to just stay in that space and not do the healing that you talk about. I'm not even gonna say it is work, because then it seems like it's a task and you have to get it done. But the healing that you talk about, and so it's, it's really getting to that point where you realize or you say to yourself enough is enough. I want to heal through and find this true, genuine, authentic version of me, the healed version of me, to take on this next season chapter, rest of my life, whatever that looks like.

Speaker 3 6:40

Well, yeah, and I always say if you can survive survival, you can survive alignment.

Speaker 4 6:46

Okay.

Speaker 3 6:47

But the thing about survival is, you know you can survive it, right. So it's not like we're wanting to be high functioning and unhappy. It's that we don't know we can survive who we would need to become to have the life we want. We do know we can survive who we've been and how. It is right. So let's just normalize that and it is work. You know it is work.

Speaker 3 7:13

I think it's okay to call it that I don't get to have the sex I have and the life I have and the business I have, and to wake up every day, chosen and adored and cherished and told that and I am not making that up Like I am chosen but I chose me. So then I attracted a partner that chose himself, so then he can choose me and I can choose him because we already chose ourselves right. That's work. It's not easy, but, healed, you is the sexiest you can be. I'm telling you right. But we don't know who we're going to lose. We don't know what we're going to lose and we don't want to lose anybody or anything. And I don't want you to lose anything either, or anyone either. But I do want your life on your terms and you don't get to have both. I'm at the effect of your humanity or your. I'm at the effect of my power and choice and my power of choice, and what you do is what you do. But for me, I'm stubborn and I just decided a long time ago I'm not going to be less me for anyone for any reason, and my past does not get to win for any reason.

Healing Generational Trauma Through Emotions

Speaker 3 8:21

And when we stay in survival, the past keeps winning. I was just working with a client who is in a breakup after a divorce and devastated. And it's the same pattern. That's what happens. So let's break the pattern, so we stop the madness. And with this client, she realized at 13, she tried to love herself less and focus on her dad's needs so maybe he would love her, but he couldn't love her more than he loved himself. So she's been trying to fix all these men and on a love strike, like we talked about earlier, ever since. Until they love her, then she can love her, and that's what so many of us do. But when we do that, that past wins, the trauma wins, the pain wins, the wound wins, the trigger wins.

Speaker 4 9:09

Yeah, how do you help those people that are? They've had this generational trauma and they don't even realize that they're in it. It's just become such a norm for them. Maybe people on the outside see it, but they don't see it. How do you help someone?

Speaker 3 9:27

Yeah. So here's a few signs, some warning signs that can be alarm for you, right? So if you feel pressure, if you feel stress, if you're exhausted and drained, if you're depressed, if you're anxious, if you're jealous, if you're feeling abandoned or neglected or betrayed, these are all patterns. This is all learned. So you're supposed to receive the good You're meant to receive, the good. You deserve to receive the good. You've had enough contrast. You've had enough of all the heartbreak and turmoil that you need for the next 158 lifetimes, right? So you can decide to decide to pay way more attention to is the experience I'm having a learned pattern that I can break? Or is this just all there is? And if it feels like shit, it's not all there is right.

Speaker 3 10:26

And for example, say, someone's overwhelmed Well, I'm too overwhelmed to start Like, I'm going to buy Rebecca's book and it's going to sit on a shelf for 10 years and I'm going to have done something, but I'm too overwhelmed I can't open it. Right. And if that's you, I love you. I'm not judging you. I just want you to understand there's never a good time right and it's never going to be convenient. And the overwhelm that's not you. That's who you learned overwhelm from. So when you feed the overwhelm and give it permission to decide for you, now you're being your mother or your grandmother or your father or your older sister or your mean piano teacher. But you weren't born knowing overwhelm was a thing. Somebody modeled it, you bought it and you became it. And now, when you're that, it feels bad because it's not you right.

Speaker 3 11:22

So there's a massive distinction between our feelings about what's going on and the emotions underneath it all that we need to feel. So my biggest path to helping people liberate themselves because I don't think I have the way for you I will help you find your right way. I found my right way right. I would never tell anybody to quit chemo. I quit chemo on a very conscious, intentional journey where I felt like I had God's voice guiding me and I just wasn't going to argue right.

Speaker 3 11:55

But we want you to find your right way and if it's misaligned it's survivable and it's what you learn to survive the family system. But that doesn't mean that's right for the life you have now. But we don't want to get in trouble and we don't want to rock the boat and we don't want to upset anybody and we don't want them to think, god forbid, we're too much. And who do we think we are? Well, who you can decide you are is somebody who's committed to getting the most out of your one precious life, right? So, differentiating between these are feelings I'm having about what's going on outside of me that I have no control over that if it hurts, that's a trauma response versus the emotions underneath it all. That if I would just feel my way through, I'd be free, right.

Speaker 3 12:42

So I teach there's only five emotions. And this is the big piece of the emotional survival kit where I'm teaching you in a really fun way, in a do-it-yourself course where it'll feel like I'm right there with you, how to have a healthy relationship with your humanity, because you learned how to have a healthy relationship with your emotions. So I just teach five anger, grief, fear, joy, excitement. That's it Anger, fear, grief, joy, excitement. Because these are emotions a baby has and you can see a little kid going through anger, fear, grief, joy, excitement in 15 seconds Because there's no resistance, right. So we're not taught our emotions are okay. We're taught there's going to be a negative reaction, and we're taught we're too much and not enough at the same time. And we're taught to deny our emotions. And now we're self-betraying in the name of love, and now we attract other people that do that too, and we wonder why we're not in healthy great home life experiences.

Speaker 2 13:41

It's interesting with those five, three of them definitely at a lower vibrational frequency and the other two that are I disagree.

Speaker 3 13:51

Oh, vibrational frequency and the other two that are. I disagree. Oh, the way I think of it is yes, they're all equally just, precious and vibration right. A woman in her true anger, because here's the deal about these emotions, they're not about anyone or anything. The second the anger becomes a lash out, blame, threat, intimid abuse. That's not anger, that's avoidance to intimacy. Anger never hurt anybody. Anger is passion and I know it's correct and I'm going to stand for it and I can be in my anger and I can create and I can serve, and I don't have to hurt anybody and it doesn't have to hurt me. We're just not taught how to have a healthy relationship with our emotions, and so your joy and excitement can't be more than your willingness to be with the darker emotions. So we have dark and light emotions is how I talk about it. So I just want to challenge that. Oh, these are low vibration. No, when you won't be with your emotions, you are low vibration, right.

Speaker 3 14:55

So, grief, there's a big difference. Like I'll give you this little fun framework, there's three different types of tears. There's victim tears. For me, why is this happening? Oh, my God, I can't believe it, and I'm not making fun, I'm just saying that's not taking us anywhere. I'm not making fun, I'm just saying that's not taking us anywhere, right? Then there's grief tears that are just about letting go and we don't talk enough about, like grieving people that are alive, that behave badly, that you tried to reinvent with and they don't want to, and you got to grieve that. Or you have to grieve the end of an era, yeah, and step into a new one, right, but grieving tears.

Speaker 3 15:27

Then now there's tears of joy, and I'm crying all the time because I'm just like, oh my God, it's all so beautiful, you know, and it's not insincere, but the deal is, I want all of you to have joy and excitement as the rule you live by, and that can't happen. If anger and fear and grief got you going, no way. Talk to the hand, right. And that's how I define anxiety is rejecting those naturally occurring emotions. I'm not saying it's not real, but I'm saying if you would just stop that, it would change a lot. Depression is shutting them down. I'm not saying depression isn't real. I've been clinically depressed and suicidal and almost hospitalized. It was real, but I was denying my emotions, I was shutting them down. So you shut it down and you're going to be depressed. You reject it and it's anxiety. And the more you're willing to be with those darker emotions, the more joy and excitement are the rule and the darker emotions are the exception.

Speaker 4 16:29

Love that. How do you help somebody be in those emotions?

Speaker 3 16:37

Yes. So the emotional survival kit, I'm facilitating you through it. In chapter two of the book I explain it really well. But what I'm doing is I'm helping them feel safe enough to get out of their head and connect to their heart so they can connect to their body. So they can connect to their body, so they can connect to their spirit. And then it's a healing of because think about it like this so an event happened and a pattern started. So we'll use overwhelm, because we already talked about it. So you're in a pattern of overwhelm is how you cope. It's not really how you're feeling, it's how you're coping right. So the pattern started and there's a stuck age and there's a stuck emotion. So I get to the event is neutral. What's the pattern? What's the stuck age? What's the emotion? We heal up the stuck age, we release the stuck emotion, we make a commitment to a new experience. Bada bing, bada, boom, you're healed.

Speaker 3 17:23

And it's messy.

Speaker 2 18:21

So and talk to us then, like, as you talk you said that this is in chapter two of the book when you talk about the emotion, the emotion piece, like getting comfortable with actually being in the emotions, the five that you just mentioned, and not rejecting, suppressing, deflecting all of the things that we want to do. Right, we don't want to sit in it, right.

Speaker 3 18:39

Well, and you got to get closer to it, like in the emotional survival kit I teach in the feel lesson. I use fun tools with each lesson and so the feel. I have gloves, cause I'm like I promise it's safe to touch the thing you think you can't touch, so touch it with gloves first. You know like it's not, it's not going to kill you, right? But the thing about it is like with anger, for example, I can even just air screen you. You know I do this with the nine-year-old. I'll be like one, two, three and she knows and we go like let's just be with it. But the point is you're an emotional being, so there's never a moment where you're not in an emotion.

Speaker 4 19:16

it's just we deny it yeah, yeah, yeah, because from very young we're told shh, don't do that, don't yeah right like and we're trying to pick and choose where we think emotions will be safe and where they won't.

Speaker 3 19:28

And for any of you listening, and my God, I was there too, thinking I can't really be myself with this person because they're not safe. Who are the people I can be me with? Because, few and far between and it's not safe to be me I'm going to go holy shit, it is always safe to be you, and you're never safe when you're not.

Speaker 4 19:51

Yeah, right, but nobody will be there, and the people that are not supposed to be there will not be there.

Speaker 3 19:55

Right, right. And I've had to have some really hard conversations with people I wanted in my life forever letting them know here's what I want, here's what I need, here's how I feel, here's how much I care about you. Are you willing to reinvent with me? I want to know what you need. I want to know what you want. I want to know how you feel, too, and what your solution is for moving forward. I want that so much. And sometimes people are just like going to stick with who they're being, stick with who they're being. And it's more about that, right, like who we're being versus what we're doing. And if you know you tried, great. I don't casually end relationships. I'm just committed to. I'm not going to do what doesn't work for me.

Speaker 2 20:35

Right, that's huge. That is not the first step, right, it's not starting there. It's starting with that relationship with self first.

Speaker 3 20:42

I think it is starting with a commitment to living your life on your terms, a commitment to your life right, I'm going to get the most out of it. It starts with that decision and then it's about who am I going to be. I created Rebecca Silas yeah, I kept the name because I loved who I became Right and then from there it is about what am I looking for in relationships, what are my standards? What's my vision, what am I really wanting? And in both the book and the course, I help you get super clear about vision and values and what you have the ability to rest in no matter what right. But it really is as simple as starting with a commitment to coming back to life and then focusing on who you're going to be.

Speaker 3 21:22

I was just working with a woman who's super, super miserable in her marriage and wants to divorce her husband and drop him like he's hot. And I said to her you are not liking who you've become and you don't know where you went. And she just started bawling and I was like I am going to just lovingly suggest that's not his fault. You lost you Because we're trained that relationships are supposed to be codependent. Yeah, no, right, like I teach one plus one equals one is codependence, right where it's a meshed and gross and there's no me anymore. And then I teach one plus one equals three is the ideal partnership formula, right where I am in my independence.

Speaker 3 22:03

Because, believe it or not, you can have independence and relationship right. So let me just make that very, very clear. So, you having your independence in your life, them having their independence in their life, now we co-create a relationship on our terms, our way as healed adults. That's the goal. So a hundred percent, Natalie, we don't start there, but from coming back to life and a commitment to your life, the unacceptable no longer seems as interesting or like what we were talking about earlier. The patterns that used to be so exciting start to give you the ick. Yeah Right, and for most women, healthy love gives them the ick. How about your old patterns giving you the ick instead?

Speaker 4 22:45

Mm-hmm.

Speaker 2 22:46

Yeah, that's a huge statement, I know.

Speaker 3 22:49

I've never said that before either. I'm like yeah.

Speaker 2 22:51

Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 4 22:54

Yeah, because if we've never experienced or don't even know how to love ourselves, how do we know what a loving relationship looks like with somebody else?

Speaker 3 23:03

100%. And if healthy love gives you the ick and you think all the unhealthy, toxic love, bombing, controlling whatever dynamics are coming at you that you aren't used to because they've just always been ingredients in the recipe, you can give yourself a minute and permission to take pause and go, okay, not to mention your kids are watching.

Speaker 4 23:26

That's the big one.

Speaker 3 23:27

Right, like do we want to normalize? You know, I remember realizing I am not making an adult look very attractive because I am working all the time like 10 clients a day, seven days a week. For years I was grinding. Then I got sick and I'm like God, I'm living my dream. But I don't think that's how my kid is perceiving it. No, right. And I want our kids to have healed parents and I think that's ultimately the point in being the generational healer and doing the work. And again, I do think it's work, you know it's so your kids get a healed parent.

Speaker 2 24:02

Yeah, Rebecca, if our listeners are looking to learn more about you, or even getting plugged into some of the work that you're doing, or an opportunity to connect with you, where can they find?

Speaker 3 24:12

you Please check me out at RebeccaSilencecom. Rebecca has an H R-E-B-E-C-C-A-H silencecom. Theunsilentwomancom, the Rebecca Silence YouTube channel, or the at Rebecca Silence or at theunsilentwoman Instagram. I'm everywhere so you can just Google me. I would love for you to send me a DM. Tell me your biggest takeaway from today, you know, and text in a DM me break the silence, and I'll send you my ultimate guide to breaking the silence. It's 10 one-liners to give you words in the moments you don't have them, and I give you personal. Here's how to use it personally. Here's how to use it professionally in the workplace. So happy, happy, happy to share that gift with everyone as well and get coming back to life. Yes, there's exercises at the end of every chapter. Most self-help books just help you understand. This will help you have a whole new experience.

Speaker 4 25:08

I love it. That's beautiful.

Speaker 2 25:10

That's beautiful. Any final words, thoughts, suggestions, recommendations to our listeners that we haven't covered today?

Speaker 3 25:18

Yeah, give yourself permission to step into a new identity where you believe in your resilience more than ever before and you know that you, in your unshakable wholeness and in your power and using your voice from pure intention, is the best gift you could give the world. And be careful with your heart so you can be careful with other people's hearts. Beautiful that's. Hearts, beautiful that's huge.

Speaker 2 25:47

Thank you, Rebecca. I love that. I love that so much. I think that's a fabulous place for us to end. It has been an absolute pleasure visiting with you today.

Speaker 3 25:56

Well, thank you for having me, ladies. I am here for a community built on resilience and to help spread the message that resilience works and wins and it isn't too much, it isn't, it's correct, and anybody that doesn't want you resilient is probably not somebody you want to hang out with. That's it. That's exactly right. Like, find the people that are like oh, more of the real you please. Yes, absolutely.

Igniting Resilience Podcast Promotion

Speaker 2 26:24

Not to mention that your name also spells resilient, so I just can't even get over that piece of it. So thank you for that. I didn't plan it, and if there's anything like a nudge or a tap on the shoulder, I feel like it being your actual name. It's more than enough message. Here you go, here's your purpose, rebecca. Thank you so much. We will make sure that we put all of your contact information in the show notes so our listeners can reach out to you, and then make sure that, if you are listening to the episode, once you wrap up, send her a DM on Instagram, I'm assuming, or Facebook, both Either, yeah, just send me a DM.

Speaker 4 26:59

There we go, yes.

Speaker 2 27:01

All right, just send her a DM and reach out so you can get that bonus as well. And if you all are just curious about what's happening in the world of Reignite Resilience, don't forget that you can find out what's happening in our space at reigniteresiliencecom, or you can find us on Facebook or Instagram under Reignite Resilience Podcast. Until next time, we will see you all soon. Thanks everyone.

Speaker 1 27:25

Thank you for joining us today on the reignite resilience podcast. We hope you had some aha moments and learned a few new real life ideas. To fuel the flames of passion, please subscribe on your favorite streaming platform, like or download your favorite episodes and, of course, share with your friends and family. We look forward to seeing you again next time on Reignite Resilience.