Childhood Trauma, Real Estate Leadership + Resiliency with Heather Washburn (Part 1)

When you’re running on empty, the hardest part is admitting it and the bravest part is asking for support. We open by leaning into community and sending love and prayers to Dr John Molador, reminding ourselves that resilience is not a solo sport and caregivers carry weight too.

Then we sit down with Heather Washburn, managing broker at ReMax Alliance in Windsor, Colorado, to trace a story of grit that starts long before business success. Heather shares what it was like surviving six years of childhood abuse by a trusted babysitter, the confusion of being too young to explain what was happening, and the lasting impact of staying in the same community where the abuser still had influence. We talk about identity, why she refuses the victim label, and how speaking about trauma can help someone else feel less alone.

Heather also walks us through building a new life, graduating high school early, leaving Illinois, and finding belonging in Colorado. Her background in electroneurodiagnostics and high stress hospital work shaped the calm, fast decision making she now brings to real estate leadership, luxury relocation, and strategic pricing. Along the way, we discuss loss, career disruption, and the moment she chose to step through an open door rather than stay stuck.

The Quiet Gift: A Journey of Self Worth and Resilience is now available for download as an audible.  Check it out!

Transcript

When Life Feels Depleting

SPEAKER_00 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. 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 Katz.

SPEAKER_03 0:41

Welcome back to another episode of Reignite Resilience. I am your co-host, Natalie Davis, and I'm so excited to be back with all of you today. Joining me, of course, is your co-host, Pam Cass. Hello, Pam.

A Community Prayer For John

SPEAKER_02 0:53

How are you? I am fantastic and excited to be here. And until about an hour ago, I didn't even remember what day it was. You know, in the days just like blur together. Yes. What day is it? What's my name? I did want to share something at the beginning, and just because I think we need the power of prayer. So our guest that we had on kind of, I want to say, at the very beginning, Dr. John Molador, he was diagnosed with cancer. Gosh, it's been probably a year and a half ago. And he's been battling it. And we send jokes and text messages to each other. And he's always super positive and fantastic. And I got a text from him yesterday, but it wasn't from him, it was from his wife saying that he's just in a really bad place right now. And just asked for me to keep sending messages because she's reading them to him. And so if we can just send out some love to him because he's such an incredible human and there's power in everybody kind of putting positive energy towards him.

SPEAKER_03 1:57

Absolutely. John, we had him on the show. I think you're right. It may have been last season or the season prior. And just a person who had intention of just having an impact on the planet. Maybe you can send this little snippet to him as well. So, John, just know that us, the co-host here at Rignet Resilience, and the listeners that were sending you such positive energy, thoughts, and prayers, and to his wife as well.

SPEAKER_02 2:19

Family. Yeah, the caregivers that are dealing with it as well. Usually we're starting and we're laughing and having a jolly old time, but sometimes these things come at you and you're like, okay.

Meet Heather Washburn

SPEAKER_03 2:32

Yeah, no, I think that's exactly what the reason for community is, right? Like understanding there are ups, downs, and definitely roller coasters in between on this journey we call life. And if we can't be here for one another in times like this, I think this is the perfect space for that. So thank you for letting us all know.

SPEAKER_02 2:48

Well, we have a guest today. We do. I'm excited because this is someone local, someone in our industry. Heather, I don't know that we've really met because I went and did a panel for you for an organization that you head, but you weren't able to be there that night. So I didn't get to see you. Yeah. So I'm kind of excited to get to know you and know your story, but let me read your bio and then we'll kind of hand it over to you to kind of share your story with our listeners. So today we have Heather Washburn. She is managing broker of Remax Alliance Windsor, Colorado, and an experienced realtor serving Northern Colorado and the Denver metro area. Heather has been active in the real estate industry since 2017 and holds a bachelor's degree in business with a minor in marketing. She specializes in luxury relocation and strategic pricing and is recognized by her leadership professionalism and community involvement throughout Colorado. Amazing. Just a couple of things, you know. Exactly. She's done a few things. Just a few things. I'd love to hand it to you, Heather, for you to kind of share your journey up to 2017 when you got into this industry that's so easy and has no adversity and just super simple.

Surviving Childhood Abuse And Silence

Leaving Home To Start Over

Medicine Work In High Stress Rooms

Pivoting Into Real Estate Leadership

SPEAKER_01 4:06

Yeah. I actually was born and raised in Illinois. I had a very tumultuous childhood. I was abused for the first six years of my life by a babysitter. My dad was gone, and my mom was a single mom. She was going to nursing school. And so this was just a person of stress, it was actually recommended to my mother by the church. So my mom put out her version of the story, her perspective of being a mom and finding out that her three kids were being abused, and you know, the shame and the guilt that she felt. So she actually is featured it in a book, which I can give you guys a link to. She did a chapter in that. And it's very inspiring and very interesting for me to see that from her perspective. I think when you're so young, especially I was a baby essentially. I didn't know how to properly communicate what was going on. She would have us call our mom and say things like, tell her you want to spend the night, even though we didn't want to spend the night, but she's standing right there. So, like, what are we going to say? So we would beg her, like, oh, you know, can you say the night? And then she'd wake me up at two o'clock in the morning and her whole house would look like a tornado went through it and would then force me to clean it while she would be like kicking me or hitting me or punching me. If we asked for our shoes to be tight because we would see them to know how she'd tie them together and force us to walk around. One of the weirdest things, which is so weird, it's weird because I don't have any fear towards dogs, but she had a dog and she would cover us in like meat and cheese or peanut butter, put our clothes back on, and then lock us in the room with the dog, and we'd have to like fend this dog off. Things like you wouldn't think of to do to another human little and child. So when we would tell our mom, right, we're so little, we didn't know how to speak on it, that we would say, you know, she made me clean again. And it's like, you know, on the pick of your toys means they're fit, kind of thing, right? Like, what's going on here? So a big thing that I had, I think that kind of morphed into me was right making sure that I'm heard. Because that was a big thing, was you had to, especially my family burning up, right? I mean, like, you had to be loud if you want to be fed, kind of thing. So I think that that definitely morphed me and somebody was like, I don't want to experience that again and I won't allow that to happen to me again. So when we finally told our mom, unfortunately, there's like a lot of weird things that went into it. But my dad was very big on that. He didn't want us to go through the core process. He thought that that would be more emotionally starring for us and kind of wanted to be like, let's just move on from this. And my mom really wanted to. So that woman was never prosecuted ever. I remember I was in eighth grade, and our school therapist was like, you can't do eighth grade yearbook this year because she's the yearbook mom. I have worked out to be like the president, like the editor. Like that was like one of the things that was my goal. And that was something that again was then it was like, this other thing is now taken away from me. And you had nothing to do in my life anymore. So it was a very life-changing experience for sure, and then definitely changed how I moved moving forward and as a part of a lot of the advocacy of why I do what I do today. So, that being said, I wanted to leave ASAP. Like I knew that that was what was meant for me. I didn't want to stay where I was. I didn't think that there was a life for me, I didn't have support there. So I actually graduated high school when I was 16 years old. And I quit to the most opposite place in the world. I went to Cody, Wyoming, and I went to Northwestern there, which is two hours away to get to Walmart. So it was like very rural. There was a Kmart, and I think that was like the fanciest place that they had was a Kmart. So I knew when I went there that I was like, this is too rural for your duel. Like, I'm not gonna survive. So that's kind of how I ended up getting into Colorado. Had cousins here. So on my way to Wyoming that summer, I went to like my sisters in Omaha, it was eight hours away. Then I went and stopped at Denver with my cousins, and they took me to C U C S E game when they were still playing, and I fell in love. I was like, I love the weather. The people like wave at you and say hi. There's just so many different things here in Colorado that I feel like if you're into art, if you're into music, if you're into the outdoors, if you are into theater, if you are into sport, whatever you're into, Colorado has somewhere that is going to accept you. They have a community for each of those things. And so I really just fell in love with being in the Colorado. So I moved here when I was about 18. And I was originally I went into medicine. So I have a during electroneurodiagnostics. I studied nerve and brain function. I did that for years. I absolutely loved it. I specialized in neonatal epilepsies. I kind of checked it out for a group of neurologists and worked for like the state of Colorado, the state of Wyoming, and on the reservations. That was really interesting. Like via calls randomly and be like, hey, we've got a near-death drowning incident in Wyoming that we need you to go drive like 18 hours for. And I'd be like, all right, let's go. Like it was super fun. I really enjoy high fast-paced environments, high stress environments. So I think that's one of the biggest things, especially working in the ER, translated so well for real estate because it's like, what are we doing getting next thing? What stress is going on, except like no one dies. So that's really cool. It's so stressful, but I have agents that come to me and they're like, and I'm like, yeah, okay, so no one's gonna die. So let's like take a step. Yes. We can before he can figure this out. I was doing that, and one of my really good friends, he started like a multi-million dollar business out of his dorm when he was a student at CSU, and he ended up selling that, and he got married, and his wife was in real estate, and they decided to open up a brokerage. And I had always been so interested in doing real estate. And so I was like, let me just tag along. Like, let me see what is this about? Like, what's going on here? So he taught me everything business, and she taught me everything real estate. I worked as her director of operations in their brokerage at the time they opened it and helped them from like their ground up. And unfortunately, in 2018, my friend took his life. And when that happened, it was kind of right around COVID. It was before that, but during that time. And so I was working with UC Health, and they had sold our departments with their party company and didn't protect our contract. So I was like working at the hospital, and they're like, you can go interview for your current job for less money. And I was like, you know what? I think that the universe and God has really just aligned and said, this is no longer your path. I very appreciative of medicine, who I've met in medicine and like what that brought to my life. But this is literally an open door. And so I stepped in. And when my friend passed away, and his wife was like, I really don't, this was never my dream to do this by myself. And so she stepped away. And so I kind of came in and we merged with another remax. And so that's how I ended up to be with Alliance was through then. And then really went head in as soon as I could. I was like, I want to learn everything, I want to do everything, I want to be everything. I want to take all the classes and I want to have all the designations and I want to see like where I fit in this topic kind of thing. So it was a wild ride to get here. And there was a lot of people who I would say didn't believe in me. Even as a kid, I felt that we were the first family that was really within our community where my mom got divorced. We were going to the church, we were in a Catholic church, went to school, Catholic school, and we were removed from the school. And we go to public school. That was like a very big change, and you know, a lot of people just like, oh, they're pariahs. And so I think that we had a lot of that in terms of just our family in general. And my sister got I met a very young, my older sister, but she still graduated early. She's a nuclear technologist, and she's like the lead in the state. She moved here to Colorado now, but I mean, she's doing procedures and bringing in research studies from Italy, doing things that no one has ever done. So I mean, I think that we've both definitely made our own way for sure, but if we had the help and support from someone else or not, it wasn't how I thought I was gonna get into the industry, but it definitely, I think, again, the kind of sink or swim. And I feel like I've always been that person where I'm gonna figure it out. Trust and believe me, throw me to the wolves and I'll come back reading the pack.

SPEAKER_02 12:58

Absolutely. So six years being abused by a babysitter, you still managed to be the president of your high school class? You just weren't able to be in the yearbook, or you were trying to be the president?

SPEAKER_01 13:11

That was my goal. I wanted to be in yearbook, and I had worked like all throughout middle school to get into yearbook, and then that was when it came out that she was the yearbook mom.

SPEAKER_02 13:21

But you graduated at 16. Yes, I did graduate. Sister graduated early. Yeah. And so you've taken that adversity you had as a very young child and created this resilience that is made you pretty dang unstoppable.

SPEAKER_01 13:36

Thank you.

SPEAKER_02 13:36

Not allowed anything to get in your way. Yes. Yeah, which is inspiring.

SPEAKER_03 13:42

And to have like an abuser for all of that time, and you're still in that same network with the abuser, right? Like this person is at the school and it sounds like part of the church before you were asked to not be a part of the church any longer. It's not as if you just went through this small season of abuse, but the abuser was still in your life in some way, shape, or form, maybe not directly in an abusive relationship, but still part of your world.

Refusing The Victim Label

SPEAKER_01 14:08

Yeah, absolutely. She rubbed my sister's nose, and that was when there were little things that was kept being like questionable. And again, my mom goes through this in the book that she wrote of like, how could I not see? And that shame and that guilt, which, you know, for me, I don't blame my mother. Like, she did the best she could with what she had. She was trying to do better and provide a better life for us. And why shouldn't you trust someone in a position of trust? We hear about these cases all the time, whether it's a teacher or your best friend's parent or your own parent. Happens in our backyard every single day. And it's definitely something that people don't feel. It's a taboo conversation, right? Like we don't want to talk about it. Or we do kind of want to be like, well, let's just pretend it never happened and get over it. And that's more healthy. And it definitely leads to a lot of other struggles in life that I've had to heal with and kind of boomerang back to and look at like, why am I making these choices? Or why am I acting this way? Why is my reaction coming out this way? Or why am I doing these things? And had to really go back and dig into myself as an adult and be like, oh, this stems from here or this stems from there. And then work within myself to make sure that those parts, I will never allow that to bleed into what I can be and what I have created for myself. So I think that's like such a huge thing is you are never defined by anything that has ever happened to you. It's something that happened to you. No one can take that away. But you are so much more. I know people are like, I don't like to, I personally don't use the word victim because I'm not a victim. It's something that happens to me, but it's not a definition of who I actually am. You can't use that to describe me. And so I think that's something that sometimes we forget, or like, I'm alone. Nothing has ever happened to someone like this. And there's so many people that aren't willing to talk about it or aren't brave enough to talk about it, or don't want to because it hurts so much, or they just really don't want to be viewed in that victim mentality. So I think it is important for people who have gone through things to kind of have those conversations. That's one thing that I really love about your podcast is you have so many different people from so many different backgrounds doing so many different journeys. And we can all be like, wow, maybe that person had it worse than me. And like, holy canoly, like what hit them go? Or I can resignate with what they're saying because maybe I wanted something similar with something that made me feel that way too. I'm not alone. So I think that's just something that you have to remember that your experience can always help somebody else, whether it makes you uncomfortable or not. And if you are willing to share that, I think it's really important, or at least advocate for those people is really important.

SPEAKER_03 16:55

Yeah, absolutely. Heather, is there anything that you all did to heal through this process? Like you talk about the reflection that you're doing at this season of life. When you were younger, like middle school, high school, going through that season of life, did you all have any techniques or practices that would help you just work through? And like you said, not just push it to the side to say, oh, this didn't really happen to me or label you as victim or what have you. How did you all get through this and continue to maintain the relationship that you have with one another and the support for each other?

Therapy Family Bonds And Speaking Up

SPEAKER_01 17:27

For me, my big sister was a lot like my mother growing up. And again, like my mom was a single working mom who worked, she's a nurse at the hospital and was very, very busy. So a lot of it was like kind of us raising each other. My sister was very much a protector and like the mom when it came to that. So our relationship was extremely, you know, we went through like the whole, like, oh my gosh, you're wearing my shirt. Like, you're so annoying. Like the typical thing. There's a story. This is like really deep, but there's a story. So, like I said, she was a babysitter and she had a date. Like, she literally had like an in-home daycare, this woman. And the other kids would be in a room and she'd like to take you out of the room, and then you'd always know something was up. Like, all the other kids would kind of be like, What, you know, why is this person out of the room? And why were they called out of the room? And why are they gone for so long? So we all kind of had our little community within there. She had this like big rifle, like out of a two by four, like a toy, like a gun cut out of wood. And she was like, You have to go into the room and you have to hit your sister as hard as you can with this. And I was like, right, like you're not supposed to hit people, like this isn't right. Everything made you feel 80. And that's a big thing, where especially when you're younger, you don't always know how to determine because a lot of the times it's adults, right? Or it's older children, or it's people who are in a place of trust. So you're just like, well, whatever they say to do, I mean to do that. And then she would kind of like manipulate things a lot. So she started off with when we were younger, we were so bad our parents wanted her to do these things to us. And that's why we deserved it because we're so bad. And then we kind of grew out of being like, wait a second, like that didn't work anymore. Or like, that's not true. So then she would go to, I know where you live, whatever, I'll hurt you and I'll hurt your siblings if you're not gonna do it. So she would do very mass manipulation things. My sister would always be like, Let's do it, like whatever you need to do, like, I'll take it. It won't even hurt me. Like, don't worry about it. And that's how she always was. And I think she also would try to take the blunt of the abuse so that we wouldn't have to. We kind of had our own term and things that like she would do to one of us that she wouldn't do to all of us, but it was still there and it was so positive and also new. So my sister was the one who actually came forward. And I remember like we were sitting on her bed, and she was like, if we don't tell now, we're never gonna tell, and we're gonna regret it for the rest of our lives. And this is like an eel who had this much sense to be like, we have to say something. So we all wrote my mom a letter and we gave her the letter. And that's like kind of how it all came out. So my sister is a lot like my dad, where she's very conservative with her feelings. She doesn't like any sort of confrontation at all. So that was very big for her to step up. And then I'm like the little strappy one. He's like, get confrontation in the room with us.

SPEAKER_03 20:28

You're like, I wrote a letter and I'm actually gonna read it to you. So let me tell you what is happening.

Affirmations And Rewriting Old Thoughts

SPEAKER_01 20:34

Exactly. So she kind of really forced us to talk and afterwards, and mom put us in therapy. We were in therapy at the University of Eleanor in Chicago, and we think they have a very one of the best programs for young adults in terms of therapy. My brother has bipolar disorder, so we were there a lot for that. And then as we got older, I think we didn't to answer your question, Natalie. Like we stopped focusing on that. And I think we all did our own things to either fill that void or like to deal with kind of what had happened until I got older. I know personally for me, I ended up going to therapy later in my life because I was like, this just isn't working anymore. Like what I'm doing isn't working, or like, why are these things triggering me that shouldn't be triggering me? Like, what's going on here? So it wasn't until later, it was actually 2017, which is crazy. It's kind of like my year, but I hadn't lost 2017. I started doing affirmations. I learned about affirmations and you know, just really kind of letting go and working through. I started reading Leanne Haynes, who does your body, everything with your body has to deal with the mindsets that you hold. And I was just like, wow, I'm such a negative person. My friend took his wife in 2019. And then I lost my mentor to COVID in 2019 later. And it was just like kind of this loss and loss and loss. And I had to really look at myself as a person and be like, is this how I want to be portrayed? All of this negativity and what I'm holding in my body that I didn't even realize that I was holding on to. Is that what I want to live for myself for the rest of my life? And it's crazy because when you start that journey of how easy it is for you, it's so weird and awkward. Like, right when you're like, I'm beautiful. Like, I don't believe you. Question mark. Exactly. It's I'm beautiful question mark. Yes. And it feels awkward. And so this is one of my mantras. I started correcting myself, and I was like, Heather, that's an old way of thinking. So I could doubt myself, or I could doubt what I was saying, or I could doubt the moment, but then I had to rewind and say, Whoa, that's your negativity. That's the belief that you don't have in yourself. That's the abandonment issues you had from your father. That's the whatever in that happened in your life. That's you holding on to those things and you refusing to let go is the only reason why you can't get to where you want to be. So when I started telling myself that's an old way of thinking, I started having the old ways of thinking, those thoughts, less and less and less and less and less until I don't have them anymore. And randomly they'll still pop in there. And then I'm like, girl, get out of here. We're the best. Stop it. Yes. It takes you a little bit to get there. And it is awkward and it feels non-genuine at first because you're so used to plugging in toxic words to yourself and things where, you know, when you sit and if you're like, if you looked at somebody that you loved, would you say those things that you say in your head to yourself? And how it to feel if you did. And you're saying it to yourself every single day on rewind. So, what kind of life do you think that you're going to live by doing that? Honestly, that was the biggest thing when I really started doing more of that reflection and the therapy and the affirmations and just really trying to be a positive person and not just put on a show for other people in terms of my positivity, but like really truly live that is when I feel like a lot of that changed and I was able to really deal with how that happened.

SPEAKER_02 24:23

Heather, what was it like reading that chapter that your mom wrote in the book?

Reading Her Mother’s Book Chapter

SPEAKER_01 24:29

It was very hard. I had to stop a couple times because I know that my mom, like I said, she feels so much shame and guilt. And I wish that I could take that away from her. So a lot of that is like her processing and seeing, like Natalie, like you said. I mean, one of the friends that came over, my sister had three reconstructive surgeries on her nose because it was shattered. A friend that had come over that we called ant, who we grew up with, that was my mom's best friend who was there when we were there from a hospital, then turned around and was like hanging out with this girl later. So I think to see, right, like me as a woman now, and my mom was around my age when this happened, and I don't have children, but right to see that and then to hear her perspective and to see how she was feeling and the things that then, you know, she tried to do that, like we didn't know about because right, you were it's probably inappropriate to have a conversation with us and we're children. So it really just humanized her more. And I mean, granted, I love my mother very much. We have a great relationship, but I think that it was hard. It was really hard to read that and see that, right? It's like you get so lost in this house that you are the only person, or like it happened to me. But there are these ripple effects that happen to the people around us, or the people who love us, or the people who are rooting for us. When things like that happen to us, it also happens to them.

SPEAKER_00 25:57

Oh my gosh. 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.