Breaking the Blocks
Hi!
Thanks for stopping by! Life is tough, and I think this podcast might offer you some relief. My aim? To inspire you to overcome some of your own blocks through the inspirational, honest, and at times, downright raw conversations with some wonderful guests, not huge celebrities, regular people like you and I. Let’s see how they have overcome the difficulties in their lives and offer you some advice and more importantly hope.
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Breaking the Blocks
Breaking Cycles of Childhood Trauma
Becca Shifflett shares her powerful journey from childhood abuse to becoming a successful YouTuber with a thriving community, revealing how she learned to shine her light after years of being taught to dim it.
• Experiencing severe childhood trauma including physical and sexual abuse
• Being removed from her parents at age 14 and placed into foster care
• Learning to process trauma rather than compartmentalizing it
• Finding healing through forgiveness without excusing harmful behavior
• Discovering creativity and self-expression through sewing
• Managing imposter syndrome while building a YouTube channel with 42,000+ subscribers
• Breaking generational trauma cycles with her own daughter
• Cultivating a positive mindset despite past experiences
• Understanding that authenticity attracts genuine connections
Remember that taking care of your mental health is essential - put your own oxygen mask on first so you can help others.
This is Breaking the Blocks and I'm your host, rachel Pearman.
Speaker 2:I was not lying. I was not lying. And in front of my mom she took a wooden spoon and smacked me across the face a couple of times. I had a big red welt here. I couldn't go to school the next day because they didn't want the sign of abuse to be shown.
Speaker 1:So, as you can hear from that excerpt, my guest today, becca Shifflett, suffered from childhood abuse. Now, in this show, I always want to inspire you. I want you to be able to listen to other people's stories and see that they have overcome some very difficult situations in their life. Of course, becca's story may not be yours life, of course Becca's story may not be yours, but I hope that you find inspiration in this story. Just how did Becca overcome the anger, the confusion, the trauma that began in her early life? She's now a hugely successful YouTuber with her channel. So Becca she does a live stream on a Friday night and her community have certainly given her peace and solace.
Speaker 1:So how do we start on that journey to change ourselves, our patterns of behaviour, our beliefs, and have a much more positive experience in this life? Let's find out. So welcome to my lovely guest. Today. I was just going Becca Becca, becca, becca, becca. I don't know why I was doing that. Becca, becca, becca, becca, but hello, becca Shifflett. Becca Shifflett is in the studio with me today, but you might know her more as. So, becca, I see what you did there because you're a sewist.
Speaker 2:Ah, you got it. I may have stolen that from that Sew Raven, but you know that's fine, it works.
Speaker 1:It works. It works Well, sew Becca, it is so nice. Oh look, the snows are coming everywhere. Oh my Lord, it is very nice to have your company today in the studio. Thank you so much for joining me, and the way that I found you and came across you was because you, of course, are very close with Mr Ian Garland off-culta Ian, who was on my podcast a short while ago and you both have incredible YouTube channels. How many subscribers now? Because you were hoping to get to 40,000. You've hit that now, haven't you? Yep, yep.
Speaker 2:I've gone past that and I was actually quite impressed because I had it set as a goal for 2024 to hit 40,000 by the end of the year and my work life kind of kicked up a little bit and so my output for YouTube wasn't what it was at the beginning of the year and I was like, well, that's not going to happen. But I went past 40,000 before the end of the year, so very excited. I think I'm just shy of 42 at the recording of this. Who knows where I'll be when this airs.
Speaker 1:Well, congratulations I am very very happy for you because I know we did our Instagram live and you're like. I really want to get to 40,000. And then I saw you put it in. I was like, yes, go girl, it's great. It's great to see. I love seeing other people's successes. I really do. There are some people in this world who don't like seeing other people's success and I always.
Speaker 1:Isn't there a? Isn't there a famous saying about something, about when someone else's light is shining, it doesn't dim yours, or something like that. It's like you know, no, but that's so true.
Speaker 2:My sister. Oh my gosh, I can't believe you said that we did not talk about this. This is not staged. No, my, I had a rough spot a few years ago. My sister told me that we are not going to dim Like this is my motto Now. We're not going to dim our light so that others can shine bright, Because for a very long time I would turn myself down and not celebrate what talents or things that I had if there was somebody else in the room that wanted to be that big personality or wanted to shine bright, whether they deserved it or not.
Speaker 2:So if I could do something really well, I would immediately kind of pull back from that to let somebody else be the bigger, better person. And it's taken me a long time and I'm still not completely comfortable with it, but it's taken me a long time to be like it's okay for me to be really good at something. I don't have to. I don't have to not be good because I want somebody else to be better. It's okay to be good and yeah, yeah, it's just. I can't believe you said that, Sorry.
Speaker 1:What did we say just before the interview? He said what are we going to talk about? And you said I don't know, it'll just happen and it did. There you go, and that is what being genuine and being authentic is all about. I love John Eclair's phrase. She says authenticity is magnetic, and it's so true. When you are your authentic self, you will find other people, you'll gravitate towards them and you'll have these amazing conversations. Okay, so let's step back a phrase or two, a sentence or two there. So let's step back a phrase or two, a sentence or two there, becca, because you know, the question I'm going to ask you right now is why? Why did you dim your light?
Speaker 2:Yeah, okay, so it actually goes back to childhood. It always does right. It always goes back to childhood and I just want to say all of this is water under the bridge and I am not upset with it anymore, but it is part of my story and it's actually my story that I have never shared in a public platform before. So I did not have a great childhood growing up. I'm the oldest of four kids and both of my parents tended to be more followers than leaders, which kind of produced an environment where they weren't paying their bills, they weren't taking care of their kids the way that they should have been. We were evicted from homes a lot, though I never really experienced it because we always seemed to move before that happened.
Speaker 2:Between kindergarten and 12th grade I went to 13 different schools, and four years of that was at one school in high school, because when I was 14, all four of us were pulled from my parents' custody. We were put into foster care for a number of years, but there was just so much looking back on it as a parent now. There was just a lot of abuse, not intentionally. My parents only did the best that they could with what they knew at the time and come to find out they were both dealing with their own baggage that they had never gotten over.
Speaker 2:For me, one of the scars, one of the battle wounds that I had from that childhood, is that I couldn't be good. I had to let other people shine, for example my sister. I have a sister named Nicole. She's 18 months younger than me and I was always really good in school and she wasn't. I couldn't celebrate that as a child because we did not want to make Nicole feel inferior and that sort of that basis, that bottom line, kind of played into everything I had.
Speaker 2:I had to think about everybody else before I was allowed to think about myself. That was what was conditioned into me. Everybody else had to be thought of before me, and so as an adult I ended up just giving, giving, giving and not really taking care of myself. And part of that is when somebody wants something, even though they might not be able to do it, or they can do it If I can do it, I always step back to let them have that opportunity.
Speaker 2:But I'm still intrigued as to why I felt like that's what my parents wanted me to do, right, like that was what they expected of me and that's how I would get their validation. If I allowed Nicole to be, that was my sister. If I allowed Nicole to have this bright spot or to be celebrated, then I was. I was going to get that validation from my parents, but also I didn't want to get in trouble. So I just always felt like if I did something too good I was going to get in trouble and if I was excited about it I wasn't being a good person.
Speaker 1:But why did you feel that your parents wanted Nicole to have the spotlight and not you? Because that means the two children were treated very differently. Two siblings were treated very differently. Is that actually what was happening or was that in your mind?
Speaker 2:I don't really know. I had a special connection with my dad and he was not exactly the popular kid in high school. He had like two friends and there was just a lot of stories that he would share with me but they made me really sad for him and I just felt sorry for him. I guess I don't really know this sounds so stupid, but I felt sorry for him. I guess I don't really know this sounds so stupid, but I felt sorry for him and I did not want, I guess, my sister or my brother, my sisters or my brother to be the same way.
Speaker 2:I don't know, I don't know, I don't know if I've really reflected on it, I know. I do know that I just wanted to please my parents and I know that they expected and told me on multiple occasions whether it was through direct word of mouth or just their actions, that they expected me not to be this big over the top person. It was. They expected me to dial myself back, I guess, is the answer that I'm trying to come up with Does that make any sense?
Speaker 1:Yeah, no, absolutely. I mean, you mentioned that your dad was quite quiet, didn't have any friends. So were your parents both very quiet, reserved people?
Speaker 2:had some of her own baggage that she was dealing with, and until a few years ago I want to say about 10 years ago she finally started doing some things that would help her with her mental health. And now we know that my mom suffered massively from anxiety and depression. And so as I was growing up, you know our the whole tone in our home was be seen, don't be heard, Don't cause any waves. There was no touchy-feely emotion. There was no I love yous. There was none of that, and so the only way I knew I was getting affection from her is if I wasn't getting in trouble. So it was almost like the lack of her being upset with me was the love, like the lack of her being upset with me was the love. And so if I wasn't doing the thing to take attention away from other people, then I was kind of maybe getting the love that I was looking for.
Speaker 1:I don't know. It's really fascinating. I always find everybody's stories fascinating. But well, let me just ask you another question. So you said that you were removed from your parents' care and you went into foster care. Yep, why was that then? Because there are many, many people who grow up in households where there isn't a lot of love and there's a lot of depression and anxiety and people are told to keep small. That doesn't mean they get removed from the household. So do you mind me asking you why did you get removed from your parents' household?
Speaker 2:I've done a lot of therapy and I can absolutely talk about this. My parents married very young. My dad was 19. My mom was 18. And both of them, looking back on it hindsight's a wonderful thing, right.
Speaker 2:My mom came from an environment where she was a middle child and there was a lot of neglect and baggage. There was love shown to her older sister and love shown to her younger brother, but she felt like a black sheep in her family. When she met my dad, my dad's parents loved her unconditionally and she gravitated to him because of the feeling that she got from his family. Now, looking at my dad, my dad had his own baggage. He had a younger brother who passed away when he was about two or three years old from a condition with his heart, and so I imagine that both of his parents had their own baggage that they had to deal with from losing a child, and so there was probably an amount of love or feeling or validation that he was getting from his parents, but there was probably a void that needed to be filled too, and so the two of them kind of found each other, and I think they just got married too young without realizing what commitment was really laid out before them or why they were with each other. My mom was with him because it filled a void that she wasn't getting from her family, and I think my dad was with her because maybe she was filling another void and they just loved each other and they started having kids.
Speaker 2:Unfortunately, they weren't the most responsible parents and so there was a lot of not at their hand, but they allowed others to do this. So there was a lot of physical abuse, there was a lot of sexual abuse and there was some verbal abuse. To now, none of they didn't do that, but they allowed repetitively for environments to be there that allowed that to happen, and so, as a result, we had some family, friends and actually some members of our family that eventually were able to get child services involved and they came and withdrew all of us from our home, from the home, and we are put into foster care so I I have to ask the question, Becca.
Speaker 1:So you suffered. You suffered at the hands of the people with sexual abuse, physical abuse, emotional abuse. I'm so sorry to hear that.
Speaker 2:Okay, yeah, I mean for a very long time the way I dealt with that is, I took it and I put it in a box and I closed the lid and I put it in.
Speaker 2:I put it in the corner of the room and perhaps that was fine then.
Speaker 2:But it was funny because a few years ago I thought I had dealt with it. You know, I did the therapy that I had to do while I was on foster care and I was okay, I could go my every day without talking about it. But I found that when it got brought up I would word vomit the whole thing and I would want to process it verbally and I'd cry and suffer and do all of these things. And I realized that's because I never really dealt with it. Putting it in a box, putting the lid on it and putting it on a shelf was my way of coping with it and just moving on and forgetting about it. And I think for a very long time I kept myself so daggone busy because if I kept myself occupied with work and home and volunteering and church and school and sewing and all these other things, then my brain never had a chance to stop and think about that box that was on the shelf. It stayed on the shelf.
Speaker 2:Covid, unfortunately, slowed everything down and I had to deal with all of that, so I can talk about it now. It doesn't impact me the way it used to, but also it can be a very triggering topic for others that have had it, so I don't like to bring it up unless I know that this is something that is a safe area to talk about, right? So, yes, I suffered through all of that, through all of that, but I have been very determined to not let that define who I am and rise above it. But, most importantly, I want to break the cycle, and so I don't want my daughter to go through the things that I went through.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and that's exactly what I was going to say to you, becca. It is all about ancestral trauma, isn't it? And you know it's interesting when you said about the COVID thing and I've touched upon this in so many of the other podcast interviews, because it seems to have happened to so many of us that COVID made the world stop and look at itself and look at ourselves, and I know so many people who just went off into, let's call it, a spiritual journey or an awakening or therapy, or whatever you want to say. There are so many people I'm coming across, including myself, who sat there in 2020 and suddenly went whoa. And that's because you so rightly said, because everything was taken away from us Our daily routines, our walks, our socializing, our distractions. It was all distractions.
Speaker 1:They were taken away from us and we had to look in the mirror.
Speaker 2:I remember during COVID I don't remember when this happened, but there were a couple of walks that I remember I didn't want to go but I knew I had to because this was getting me out of the house, right but I remember feeling so depressed with this. We would walk and I literally not that I would have, but I literally was just like I just want to walk into traffic. I don't even care if a car veers off and hits me, I would just have tears running down my face for absolutely no reason and I didn't know why. I dealt with that Fast forward a few years.
Speaker 2:I now know that that anxiety and depression that my mom suffers from guess what? It's hereditary. I suffer from it too, but I want to be responsible with that, and so I've worked with my doctor and I'm on, I'm doing things to help with that right. There are a number of different things that you can help with your mental wellbeing, but what that, what that means for me now, five years removed from COVID, is mental wellbeing is very important to me, and self-care is very important. Whether that's a pill that's going to help you, quilting, meditating, prayer, whatever that is for you, you've got to prioritize it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, absolutely. You have to prioritize yourself and you play a role in your life. You play the main role in your life and you can't be a victim of it. That is not to say that any of the things that you're talking about are easy to get over, because they're not. I want to take you back to when you were a child. What ages was all of this stuff happening to you then? What? Age were they.
Speaker 2:I want to say I remember the things that were traumatizing, happening probably around seven or eight years old.
Speaker 2:I definitely have memories from earlier on. I think my earliest memory I was actually three years old. I definitely have memories from earlier on. I think my earliest memory I was actually three years old and I know this because it was a memory of my brother coming from home from the hospital, and he is three years and 10 days younger than me, so I know I was three years old in that memory. Yeah, like most of the memories that I have, they were seven or eight years old and I can even look back at those and be like okay, that was wrong, that shouldn't have happened or we weren't protected the way our parents should have protected us in this moment. But it wasn't necessarily bad, it wasn't horrible. It wasn't until I was about nine or 10 that the big stuff started happening.
Speaker 1:So when you were that child and you were nine or 10 years old and all of this stuff was happening to you, do you remember how you processed it as a child? I mean, I'm not saying you processed it, you weren't able to process it but how did you deal with it as a child? Do you remember?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I thought it was normal because I didn't know. I didn't know that what I was going through was stuff that other people weren't going through. I thought this was just what everybody did. I have a few very vivid memories of things that weren't so great Gosh. So I'm going to take a step back and I want to paint a picture for you. So my parents I mentioned that they were not financially responsible. You know, I didn't know that people actually owned their own home. Until I got to be an adult. I thought if you owned your own house, you were rich, because that's just how it was.
Speaker 2:So we were moving constantly and there were times where we didn't have a place to go, and my parents, their way of protecting us and keeping that from being a big deal or keeping us from going to a shelter was we would go live with somebody. And so there was this couple, debbie and Chuck, that we went and lived with for a couple of times, and the first time we moved in with them, my mom and dad with their three kids my baby sister, alicia had not been born yet moved into this two bedroom townhome where they and their daughter lived. Can you imagine that? Two bedrooms with all of those people. All the kids were in one room, my mom and dad slept in the front room and Debbie and Chuck had their own bedroom. But that is where I remember a lot of the abuse happening.
Speaker 2:Now, thinking back to that, the idea that we were without a home was also an abuse of. It was neglect. Right, they were not caring for their. That was a thing in and of itself. But most of the abuse started at the hands of Debbie and Chuck and where my parents were at fault. Is they allowed?
Speaker 1:that to happen? Did they know it was happening?
Speaker 2:Yeah, they were part of it. My mom and dad had separated. My dad lived in a home. He had rented a house in another city and my mom took all three of us to go live with Debbie and Chuck in this two bedroom townhome that they had. My mom was doing things that she would never do today. Again, she's also dealing with the anxiety and the depression, and I think she's also realizing that she didn't love my dad. She loved what my dad could give her, and so she was struggling through all of that and trying to figure out her way, and at the same time, she had three kids to care for.
Speaker 2:So I say all of that because I listen people on my YouTube channel. They know my mom. They affectionately refer to her as Mama Nancy, and I almost hate to bring this up because I don't want to take their vision of her, because she is a lovely lady and she is absolutely not now who she was then. However, who she was then was not a good person then. However, who she was then was not a good person. So I remember I have this very vivid memory, very vivid memory of being upstairs playing with my sister Nicole.
Speaker 2:My brother, bill Bill, was about two years old or so I think I was about five and we had gone all three of us together. We had gone to the bathroom, which was at the top of the stairs, and at the bottom of the stairs was the front room and there was a sofa sitting there, and I don't know why we decided we were going to go to the restroom together with the door wide open. But we did, and while we were in there, nicole and Bill were sitting on the edge of the tub and I was on the toilet and I was going to the bathroom and just as I was finishing, bill fell backwards into the tub and hit his head in the tub while I was finishing, and so we had switched places. Nicole was now on the toilet and I was sitting next to Bill, and when my mom and Debbie came to the bottom of the stairs, what they saw was that Bill and I were sitting on the tub and Nicole was on the toilet, and so, of course, they came upstairs and they were asking us what happened, and I kept starting with I was on the toilet, and they wouldn't let me get past that phrase. They kept telling me I was wrong, because what they saw was Bill and I were on the tub and Nicole was on the toilet.
Speaker 2:Debbie accused me of lying. I was not lying. I was not lying. And in front of my mom she took a wooden spoon and smacked me across the face a couple of times. I had a big red welt here. I couldn't go to school the next day because they didn't want the sign of abuse to be shown, right. So yeah, they knew, they knew, but they both did not. Neither one of them felt strong enough to be able to stand up to Debbie or Chuck or stop it. My mom now is so ashamed of where she was and she profusely apologizes for all of those things, and I feel bad that she feels that way. It makes me feel good to know that she is remorseful for that. But again, she's not who she is. Who she is now is not who she was then.
Speaker 2:She's dealing with her own stuff. That's why I think it's so important that you got to process what you're going through, because I wonder if she had processed the emotion and prioritized her own mental well-being back in the 70s and the 80s, would we have been subjected to this? Maybe not?
Speaker 1:yeah, I'm still. I'm still, uh, visualizing someone hitting you with a wooden spoon and your mother standing there while a stranger does that. But that reminds me of a scene in the American TV show Mad Men, and there was a scene where there was a party going on in a house and there were kids and adults and this little boy he was probably about six or seven and he was in this living room and I can't remember what happened. He was just been a kid. He was just been a kid, so maybe he knocked something over or whatever. But I remember the main character. One of the main characters was this guy who wasn't his father and he came over and slapped him around the face and the parents stood there and did nothing.
Speaker 1:And I remember my husband and I sat there watching it going. Can you believe what we've just seen? And they were definitely making a statement on that show that this is what it was like, that you know it was free for all. It's a free for all. You see a kid misbehaving, slap him around the face, doesn't matter, it's not your child. So that's just reminded me that instance, and that's why I'm kind of shocked, because I'm remembering how shocked I was when I saw it on a TV program, so to hear it. But what's also so amazing to hear is when you now say that your mom is very loved and cherished by your community. So one presumes, becca, that you and your mom have talked about all of this, yes, which is incredibly progressive because, from my own experience, sadly my parents one of which has passed away, my dad, but my mother is still here we've not had, because I've had stuff as well in my childhood. When I said I was going to therapy myself, they were incredibly threatened by it.
Speaker 1:My mom was too yeah, and they were just like, well, that's all a load of nonsense, because I guess inside they were thinking, oh my Lord, she's going to talk about her childhood. I'm really pleased to hear that you've you've dealt with it with your mom. So how have you dealt with that trauma with your?
Speaker 2:mom. How have you? How have you come back together? Well, I was very angry with her for a very long time and I idolized my dad, who is sadly no longer with us. He passed away several years ago, so I've never really been able to process this with my dad.
Speaker 2:I always looked at my dad. I always kind of idolized him, so I felt like my dad just navigated life with. My job is to go to work and to bring a paycheck home and to provide for my family. Nancy's job that's my mom is to provide for the kids and take care of the kids, and so I never faulted him because I felt like he didn't do it. But again, looking back, reflecting on things, I see it in a different light.
Speaker 2:I don't hate my dad, certainly don't hate him. I think he had his own things that he never dealt with and that caused him to make the choices that he made, things that he never dealt with and that caused him to make the choices that he made. Same thing with my mom. I don't remember exactly what changed or what caused us to grow together. However, I will tell you that my dad instilled in me this sense of responsibility with your parents, that you should take care of them. You should be there for them.
Speaker 2:Family matters. Blood is thicker than water, like just hammered into my head, and so, even though I was angry with my mother for a very long time, I still was a part of her life. I never went away. She was always there and she was always my mother. But we had to get to a point where we talked about things and it was actually her starting conversations by saying I'm sorry. She profusely apologized repetitively and showed how she was sorrowful. You could see it in her face. She would just be brought to tears for the decisions that she made as a younger individual. With those children.
Speaker 1:And when was this? When did she apologize to you?
Speaker 2:I don't remember the first time, but it feels like it's been more than 10 or 15 years ago. I want to say she was, I don't know when. I just know that she still apologizes to this day. In fact, ian was visiting and we were talking and I told him I was going to chat with you today and this was a couple nights ago and again he was like. I was like I don't know what we're going to talk about. He's like don't worry, she'll find it. And as soon as he said that, my mom, who's visiting right now, was sitting in the room and she just looked at me and she goes. Okay, I'm sorry. I'm sorry If you have to talk about the childhood, I'm sorry. It's been a long time I wasn't at a place to fully let go of all of that until probably the past five years or so.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and I want to pick up on something in case your mom is listening to this nancy you said earlier you know she was a bad person, and I just wanted to say that I don't think that she's a bad person, I think that she had bad behavior yes, yes, thank you yeah and and and that's.
Speaker 1:I think that's kind of proven by the fact that she is so apologetic. I think our generation is a little bit more now aware of mental health. We're all talking about it, there's therapy out there. For us, people accept therapy, whereas I think that generation, your mom's generation, it was not a thing really to be done or seen, unless maybe you were in a different echelon of society. But I think in the majority of people it just did not exist. I'm really impressed that your mum has managed to be so apologetic. I wonder if there was a? Do you know of what kind of made her come to this point to apologise? Did something happen to her?
Speaker 2:Well, I know she found faith and I know that that helped a little bit. But I also know several years ago, right after my daughter was born, she lost her brother to cancer and he had been struggling with that for a number of years not like it wasn't a long journey, but he had been struggling with it for a little while before I was even pregnant, I believe and I wonder if that caused her to kind of reflect a little bit, because when she lost her brother she was having a really hard time emotionally and she talked to her doctor about it and they put her on. I think she started taking like Prozac or something and it was probably around that time that she started being okay, talking about some of those things from her past. That was also around the time where she had I think she had started just prioritizing her faith and things like that. So maybe that, maybe that had to do with it, but yeah, but I think I think you're definitely onto something when you say that they that wasn't a thing, right, like when my mom grew up, it was not a thing. You just shoved it deep down inside and you just moved on.
Speaker 2:And looking back at all of that, it wasn't just the neglect that my mom had. She had it because her parents had it. It's just a generational thing that kept getting handed down from one set of parents to the next. It just kept happening. They got pregnant before they were married and so they got married very quickly and, from what I heard, they did not want to be married, but they had to be right. So imagine what that did. So a lot of the things that my mom had and exhibited to us her mom had as well. My mom wanted us to not make any noise, not move, sit, be still, be quiet. That's how she was too. That's how my grandma was.
Speaker 1:And your, your mother and father, were trauma bonded. That's why they were together and it's that whole thing, isn't it? I've said this so many times before that when we are living in our trauma, in our shadow sides, we haven't dealt with anything. We often meet people and people and we go oh, you feel like home to me, which is a really bad thing when you're from a terrible home, you know, and we're drawn to these people. We think that there are magic partners and it's like no, we, when you're trauma bonded to this person. So, yeah, absolutely.
Speaker 1:And that's not to say that that relationship doesn't necessarily not work, because if you both work on your traumas, you might still have that basic connection and be able to grow in a much healthier way. But sometimes people are drawn to each other because of the bad past. So you mentioned, becca, that you went into foster care. Did you have any long term foster care parents, parents Because I'm just wondering if you still got a relationship with any of the people who parented you and if they actually put any kind of positive things into your life that maybe planted seeds for you to later come to terms with what happened to you. It absolutely did so.
Speaker 2:When foster care came into our lives I was 14. Nicole was 13. My brother Bill was 11. And then my sister Alicia was seven. So I don't know if you know this and I don't know how it is over there, but when teenagers go into foster care, a lot of times foster parents are kind of shying away from those children because they have some issues that maybe they don't want to bring into their home. So most of the families that provide foster homes are looking for the little kids. They're not looking for the teenagers.
Speaker 2:When we were removed from the home, there was also a rule at the time we grew up in Michigan. There was a rule in Michigan that if you had a foster home, you could only have four foster children, and so finding a home that had room for all four kids and was willing to take two teenagers was it? They couldn't do it. So Alicia and Bill went off to one home. Nicole and I had no place to go, so they sent us to a juvenile home for girls for a couple of weeks while they found a foster home for us to go to. A couple of weeks while they found a foster home for us to go to. I remember feeling so out of place there because the girls that were there there was one other girl that was about our age and she was stuck in the system, so to speak. She had no place to go, but everybody else that was there was there because they were doing drugs, they were truant from school, they were stealing. It was literally a juvenile detention facility, but they had nowhere else for us to go. I felt so out of place and so uncomfortable there because that's not who I was.
Speaker 2:Fortunately, we were only there for a couple of weeks and then we went to stay with my foster mom, Rose, who is no longer with us, but I did keep in contact with her for a very long time after we were out of foster care. She is, she was a guiding light for a lot of, I think, because of the age I was while I was in foster care. I was there from 14 to 17, I believe so about three years or so. Those are really formative, like those are. That's where you're figuring out who you are and because of that I think she just had a bigger hand in shaping who I was than maybe some of the trauma that I had dealt with in the past. Yes, that was part of who I was. Yes, I was carrying baggage from it, but I wasn't allowing it to make me a victim or define who I was. I was still determined to change things. Had I not been with Rose, I really think that I probably just would have repeated the cycle.
Speaker 1:Yeah, but I was just about to say, rebecca, isn't it amazing, though, like you mentioned, in that juvie center, as we call them over here, the juvie that you know, there were people there who were doing the drugs and the stealing and the la, la, la, la la? And, of course, I'm sure that many of those kids were from traumatized backgrounds, like you oh absolutely.
Speaker 1:But it is amazing with you that you didn't go down those routes because, my goodness me, you had suffered an awful lot and then, as you say, we moved into foster care, then losing your siblings. It is incredible that you were able to not repeat these behaviors of your parents and amazing, amazing to have that foster carer're and they're so underrated foster carers, aren't they? Because, as you say they are, they're not just a home and shelter. Quite often these people are guiding lights. If you foster care, I don't think in the majority of cases it's to get money from the government. I mean, you are welcoming someone into your home who is deeply traumatized and that's difficult to deal with. So I am in absolute awe of anybody who is a foster carer, especially, as you say, with teenagers, because that's very difficult by then it's quite ingrained, the abuse usually.
Speaker 1:I think what must have been so difficult for you, becca, is you are this larger than life character. I mean, look, look at what you do. You know you perform on a YouTube channel. You have this radiance about you, you have this performer about you, you have this. So this must have been doubly difficult for you, because you know I'm not saying that trauma is difficult for one person or another because of their personality, but for you, if you had been a very shy child who never wanted the spotlight and wasn't very gregarious, it may have been slightly easier to deal with. To be told as a child, sit down, don't say anything, la, la, la, la la. What made you start to shine that light? Was it COVID? And I want to know what was it like? What was the first thing you did to turn your torch on?
Speaker 2:If you remember oh, that's such a that's a big question. So you, first of all, I'm going to take a step back, because one of the questions that, when you were talking about being a child and wanting to be out of that box, I never really thought of myself as being somebody that wanted the attention. However, if you think back to the beginning of the episode, when we were talking about why I was quiet, why I was prioritizing others or letting Nicole have the spotlight, it's because that was what was getting me the spotlight too right, that's the spotlight that I had grown accustomed to. And I also remember well I have family friends that would tell this story Anytime. They would read us a book or we would watch a movie. I would have to tell them that I knew the end I would have to like because I wanted the attention. I wanted so much attention and I didn't realize that until probably just now that that was my attempt of getting their attention. That's why I wanted to do good in school. That's why I wanted my homework to be done. That's why I wanted to please my. I wanted attention.
Speaker 2:When did I start allowing my light to shine? Well, I think the YouTube channel is where I first started kind of stepping out and letting myself be in front of an audience and to receive that attention. But even in those early years of my YouTube channel, I remember there would be relationships I was forming and I was connecting with other people and I didn't want to upset them and I treaded lightly in those relationships and so if they did something, I would automatically try to scale back or I would ask for their permission to do the same thing, even if I had already thought of it, because I didn't want them to think that I was taking something away from them, because that's what I thought they would feel. And so maybe, like I don't do that now, I just don't care, I just do what I want to do.
Speaker 2:I've gotten to a point maybe it was through COVID, Maybe it was just through making new relationships and surrounding myself with people that are feeding into me instead of taking away from me. I've just gotten to a point where I've kind of got these blinders on and I'm just doing what I want to do because I want to do it, and I'm not worrying about what others are doing and whether they do it better or worse than me. I'm not comparing myself to anybody else, and I'm not allowing myself to really even focus on what others might be doing. I just want to do something because I want to do it and I'm focused on that, and I don't know if that's the right thing yet, but that's where I'm at right now.
Speaker 1:I think it's absolutely the right thing. Everybody I talk to who is doing well not just on a practical, physical level in terms of their company is doing well, their business is doing well, or whatever but anybody who is experiencing some kind of success or the community is liking what they're doing, or they and it matches up with them that they're being happy in themselves is absolutely focusing on themselves and not what everybody else is doing. You have to focus on being you and being your authentic self. So, and what a success story. What a success story you know you're creating for yourself. I love it. I love it for you that you're being you. But how have you done that? Because, yes, you, that started to be you and be your authentic you. But was there always a voice in the back of your head? That was the voice from the past saying, oh, but hang on, quiet down a little bit, quiet down a little bit. It's still there. It's still there.
Speaker 2:It's still there, um, and I just have to take those thoughts captive. I do every Friday night on YouTube. I'll do a live stream from 8 to 10pm Eastern Time, and I have had to find ways to protect myself because I don't want that voice to come in the back of my head. Imposter syndrome is a real thing for me, right, like I'm always waiting to see that people don't want to watch me anymore, and in some way, I think that kind of brings up that fear of abandonment, which is another one of my traumas, right, like abandonment is a part of my past. I don't want to see that happen, and I'm I am terrified that that's going to happen. One day, I'm going to tune into YouTube, I'm going to tune into YouTube, I'm going to turn on a live stream and three people are going to show up, and I don't want to see that.
Speaker 2:And so the way I have structured myself, I've put some guardrails in place. I physically align all of my windows on my desktop when I'm doing a live stream, so I can't see how many people are watching. So if it's a success and there's 900 people there, great, I don't know. I'm just there looking at the chat. So if you're, if you're chatting, I see you and I'm working on what I want to work on.
Speaker 2:If I'm happy, it's because I am happy sewing and talking to you. It has nothing to do about how many people are there. Additionally, once the video finishes, I let it process, I let it go up there and I don't pay attention to the analytics of it, because I don't want to start to spiral into oh, I didn't do so well, or oh, it wasn't good enough, or oh, people don't resonate with it. I don't look at the numbers of it. Occasionally I will go back and look to see how many people watched throughout it, maybe, but most of the time, I'm just focusing on trying to be authentic and just enjoying what I'm doing, and that's it.
Speaker 2:After that live stream is over. One thing that people probably don't know about me is, immediately when I hit that end button, I'm immediately second guessing whether I should take that video down or not, because it was probably a failure. Like every single time, I'm like, oh I just, people aren't going to like this. I'm going to take it down when I post a video. That's that gets me too, because I'm afraid people aren't going to like it, and I'm like well, is it going to perform okay or is it not? So it's kind of putting yourself out there a little bit, so not so it's kind of putting yourself out there a little bit.
Speaker 1:So how have you dealt with all of the anger that you must have had that I know you've mentioned you had from your childhood?
Speaker 2:So faith is a big part of my life. I don't usually talk about my faith journey too much on YouTube because that can be a polarizing topic for some people. I know there are a lot of people out there that have been traumatized by people in the name of God, right Like, and I don't want. If I'm going to be that light, I want to let my actions speak, not my words. I want you, I want you to see it, I want to be evident through how I'm handling life, not because I'm beating it into you and telling you you have to you know. So for me, faith is. My faith journey has actually kind of helped me with that, because one of the things that I had to learn is forgiveness and forgiveness. I had to understand that forgiveness doesn't make it okay. It just means that we're not going to let it consume us anymore.
Speaker 2:The pastor that I had at the time I don't go to the church anymore because we've moved, but the pastor at the church that I was going to it described forgiveness as an act where you were just taking your hands off of somebody's throat and you were just walking away.
Speaker 2:It doesn't mean what they did to you wasn't horrible. It doesn't mean that they shouldn't pay. It doesn't mean that you have to be their best friend anymore. It just means that you're going to stop choking them. And once I kind of reconciled with that, I realized that there were people in my life that I was doing this to because I was so angry or upset with what they had done to me in the past and I wanted revenge and I just stopped seeking the revenge. And when I stopped seeking the revenge it kind of opened up I stopped seeking the revenge. It kind of opened up a path to be able to have those conversations about whether you were sorry and you've evolved. Or maybe that was somebody that I needed to have a really big boundary up with, because they've not changed and they're not a safe person to be with.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's so true. And what a beautiful way to put that with the forgiveness thing, no-transcript, if somebody's listening to this podcast and not watching. Right now I'm pretending that I've got my hands around someone's throat and the energy to take the hands back and put that energy into yourself, because revenge doesn't get you anywhere. And that reminded me when you said that Becca of the film. This is a very tough watch for anybody to watch this film. I mean, I find things like this quite disturbing because I really struggle with scenes that are violent I wouldn't say it was gratuitous that are violent. I wouldn't say it was gratuitous. Maybe it was a very long time ago, but the film I'm talking about is Dead man Walking and it's Susan Sarandon and Sean Penn.
Speaker 1:Pretty sure it's Sean Penn and I think it is a true story. It's a true story that she plays a nun and he is a man on death row. And it does show you the crime, and it is a very violent crime where a man and a woman teenagers I think were in a car and the character and his buddies came along, got hold of them in the car. You can imagine what ensued and it ended up in murder. But there was a lot of horrible stuff that went on in between and he is now on death row and, as I recall, the parents want him to die, they want the electric chair, they want him to go through the pain that their daughter went through an eye for an eye right and yet Susan Sarandon's character goes and talks with him and she's a nun. So he's just been committed to this horrendous violent rape and she's a nun and the two of them have this relationship together. It's a fascinating film. It's a very difficult watch, but I remember it being a fascinating film because it really asked.
Speaker 1:That was the first thing about forgiveness for me, because the film is about forgiveness and the film is also about vengeance. And when we do take away the life of that person, what does it do? Does it release our pain? No, your daughter is still not here and your daughter has still suffered a terrible, terrible act. This person in bed now has released them from their burden. They're no longer here, they're not suffering anymore. So does that make you feel better or worse?
Speaker 1:This is a very difficult subject and I'm definitely going to put a trigger warning on the beginning, and I'm not. I'm not talking about whether I agree with the death penalty or not. I'm talking about forgiveness, and that film is very interesting because it gives you both sides what is right, what's right. So that's on a much deeper level. But, yeah, you're absolutely right, forgiveness is key to helping you let go of that anger of what actually happened to you and, I think, also understanding, as we said earlier with your mom that is it, that people are bad or they just don't know any better because of what they've been through.
Speaker 1:That's right, it's their behavior, but that's not to take away from what they've done, because I do think in the case of the abuser, of your abuser or abusers they knew what they were doing at the time and they did it. Let's talk about your creativity then, becca, because obviously you've talked there about forgiveness and you've talked about your therapy, but let's talk about your sewing, because I'm thinking that that has helped you to overcome some of this as well. How did you find your creative spark?
Speaker 2:I think I've always been creative. But that was another part of me that was stifled, I, for a very long time, and I know why. It was ingrained in me that I should only make practical things. If it didn't have a use, then it wasn't useful. Like, if you couldn't use it, then why are you doing it? And I've always wanted to be creative. I've always wanted to do things, but I didn't really know where to go with that. So I started I.
Speaker 2:For a while I would try to do scrapbooking. For a while I did beadwork, I would try to make jewelry, I tried to do knitting, I tried to do crochet. None of it really stuck with me. I remember people would ask me if I wanted to sew and I would tell them are you out of your mind? No, absolutely not. I want nothing to do with a needle, nothing to do with a thread, and the sewing machine intimidates me. Well, I had a friend at the church that I was going to. She had started this sip and sew event and so once a month she would tell you to bring your own beverage, and she had a few sewing machines and had all of the different things that you would need fabric, notions, whatever, and she would gather three or four, maybe sometimes five women together and her whole goal is she wanted to teach them how to sew. And so I went to one of her events and I was absolutely smitten with the project that we made. It was something practical, so it definitely appealed to me. And the next day she and I went to Costco. I bought a sewing machine from Costco, I went to Joann's, got a bit of fabric and I just started pouring myself into it.
Speaker 2:I think it's just given me an outlet. It's allowed me to have that creative release which I think I've always desired, but I've never really known how to deal with it. It's interesting because the dabbling in the other creative areas led me to sewing, and then being creative and sewing has led me to YouTube, which is another creative outlet right, making the videos, doing live streams, putting the effort into the tech that is another form of creativity. But all of that kind of comes together because my other passion and what I've loved to do since I was a child I love to share my knowledge. So when I learn something, I get really excited about that and I want to share that with everybody, and YouTube allows me to do that.
Speaker 2:So YouTube for me, ends up being this area where I get to be creative with fabric. I get to play with the fabric, I get to teach, which is exciting to me as well. I get to be creative with fabric. I get to play with the fabric, I get to teach, which is exciting to me as well. I get to play a little bit with the technology, and bringing all of that together also allows me to be creative. So it's kind of like this ultimate form of creativity for me. It's useful, it's practical. I got to do something. I don't have to worry about it being the project being useful afterwards, because the purpose was to show you what I did. So, yeah, it's that's. I think that's kind of how it's helped me. I've just been able to tap into understanding that it's about the journey, not the, not the destination destination.
Speaker 1:But you know what else I think it's also doing for you as well, becca. I think it's allowing you to be that child who was told to sit down and say nothing. It's giving you your childhood back in a way. It's giving you that opportunity to be exactly who you want to be, and that is why it's so successful, apart from hashtags and algorithms I've yet to understand, but that is why it's so successful, because it's absolutely authentically you and genuine you, because I'm sure in your videos you will at times talk about you know. Oh, I'm just, you know, doing this and I worry about things as well. And did I go wrong? I think I went wrong. Oh, I think I've done that wrong all the time. I bet you do. There's no, it's not going to be completely polished. Is it imperfect?
Speaker 2:No, Yep, no, I in fact the live stream that I did last night, I'm sure I in fact, I know I don't know how many of them, but there were multiple times where I was like, okay, well, that was wrong, I can't, I didn't.
Speaker 2:Okay, that's not working, Like I'm figuring it out on the fly, which maybe for some people is a little refreshing because it's not perfect. Right, it's so hard that imposter syndrome doesn't apply just to people who are on social media, it applies to the people that are consuming it too. Right, you see Jane, who's got a perfect sewing room and, like, her backdrop is beautiful and you see everything. But what you don't see is that there's boxes behind the camera that are flowing over the floor needs to be vacuumed. Like you only see what I'm allowing you to see, and the beauty of what I'm doing, at least on the live streams and even in my recorded videos, is I'm allowing you to see. And the beauty of what I'm doing, at least on the live streams and even in my recorded videos, is I'm letting you see where it's not perfect. So when you see that, you know that yours doesn't have to be perfect either, because none of us are perfect.
Speaker 1:It's good to see imperfections. It's good to see that people are flailing and failing. It's good to see that people, as you say, still have that imposter syndrome, still have those worries, because that's what life is like and it's just unattainable to look at perfection. That's what I read about Instagram grids that actually more and more people are now being drawn to the Instagram grids that look a complete mess, rather than the ones that are so beautiful with the everything that runs through and everything is perfect, because that's not what life is like. What is the goal for you now? I feel like you're still a work in progress, becca, and I'm sure you still see yourself as a work in progress. You haven't got it all sorted and figured. I mean, you're on your healing journey and you're well into it and you're doing very well, but what do you still feel that you need to do in your life?
Speaker 2:So I'll preface this by saying we're always a work in progress. There is never a point where we should stop growing or stop evolving. I firmly believe that who I am today is not who I want to be a year from now, five years from now, 10 years from now, nor am I who I was a year ago or five years ago. There is a journey that we are all on. Sometimes parts of our journey go a little bit faster and sometimes it's a little bit slower, but we should always be looking to see how we can evolve. Instead of telling you what my end state is because I don't think there's an end state I can tell you what I'm looking forward to. What I want to be able to do is just keep doing what I'm doing. I just want to keep growing, I just want to keep evolving and I just want to keep enjoying the process.
Speaker 2:I could give you all sorts of statements about what I want to do with my life and my career, but that, at the end of the day, I mean really it's just. I just want to be happy, I want to put happiness out there and, along the way, if I can make you laugh, if I can teach you something new and I can take your stress away from all the chaos and the craziness that's going on in the world, then mission accomplished. I know right now for me I've got a nine to five job. That is very stressful. I love my nine to five job but, and I'm not willing to let it go so until I am fully in retirement, this has to be a side gig for me. So I just have to time box how much I can actually do with that, right, I can't. I can't do this 40 hours a week. I can do it maybe five or 10.
Speaker 1:Yeah, what do you do as a full-time job, becca?
Speaker 2:So this is kind of a interesting topic Now. I think it's going to come back up. So I don't normally tell people where I work, and that has led people to question where I work and they come up with their own interpretation I use I. However, when I first started my YouTube channel, a lot of people would ask where I would work, because I live in Washington DC and so they want to know what do you do? And at the time I thought they wanted all the details like who's my employer, what's my job, what's this, what's that. And I didn't want to get into all of that with everybody because I want I just want to talk about sewing and I want to talk about work. I'm here to sew, not to work. It's completely different. I work in IT, I do work for the federal government and I'm a program manager. I am an IT program manager for the federal government.
Speaker 2:There, you, I remember a few subscribers early on when I had the YouTube channel. I was like I don't want to talk about. They'd be like oh, you work for the CIA, oh, you work for Secret Service, right, they're putting all these really weird things together, yeah. And so eventually I just got tired. Like I just not tired of it, but I just started leaning into it and so I started saying, yep, I'm a Secret Service. I'm on the president's detail. I worked for every president since George Washington. Like, like, completely, so stupidly, like you, it's obviously a lie, because there's no way that I have been a CIA agent for 200 years and also, like can we just talk about my body type?
Speaker 2:Do you really think I'm a spy, come on. So I just started leaning into it and it was a joke that we that I shared with my community for a while. It's kind of died down. Every once in a while it comes back up, and now when people ask me what I do, I just tell them I work for the federal government and I'm an IT program manager.
Speaker 1:I tell you what, though? Something else that's interesting is, once again, you are another person I've spoken to who is a sewer but also has the IT thing going on, which is very kind of academic side of the brain being used, compared to the creative side, which I find fascinating with sewers and creative people. But I always say I find that fascinating because I am. So you know, ask me to do some maths, go and whistle in the wind. I mean, seriously, I can't, I don't have that side of my brain, I just don't. So I find it interesting when I meet creative people who are also talented on that side of the brain as well. Okay, so we've established what you do Brilliant. Now, interestingly, when I said to you, so what do you want to achieve in your life, you did say I Like I don't want to go backwards, I don't want to be where I was five years ago, whether that's emotionally or my YouTube channel declining, Like I don't want to go backwards, I just want to go forwards.
Speaker 1:Two final questions. How would you like people to remember you?
Speaker 2:Two final questions. How would I want them to know that who they are interacting with is who I really am? Period, and I really do care. I believe it.
Speaker 1:I believe it and I can see that about you. I'll think that about you anyway. So that's one person who thinks that that's good, you've succeeded. And a final question. I usually ask this to people if I remember, and I remembered, do you have a motto in life? What is something that you know comes to mind, or a phrase? I mean, we mentioned dimming the light, didn't we? But something along those lines. Is there anything that you know you would say to yourself or or suggest to someone else to say as a kind of motto in life?
Speaker 2:I was just saying this to Ian last night and I say it all the time there's always a silver lining, even if you have to shovel a pile of manure to find it. Positivity is a choice. I had a teacher in high school that told us every day you wake up in high school that told us every day you wake up, you can choose to be happy or you can choose to be upset, and as a junior in high school I was like, yeah, you don't know anything, but it's true. You can choose to let something take hold of you and consume you and eat your joy, or you can choose to let it go and enjoy life. And so sometimes I get upset, but when that happens I stop and I allow myself a moment or several to be upset and be in that process, but at some point I say, okay, that's enough. That's enough there. What is positive about this that we can look forward to? Cause there's always something positive. You just sometimes have to shovel a lot of manure to find it.
Speaker 1:And wear a nose peg while you're shoveling the manure. Yeah, I always.
Speaker 1:It's a similar thing that I say, becca, that the sun and the blue sky is always there Every day, every day. Get on the plane, you'll see it. But in our lives, obviously there are clouds that cover it sometimes, but it's always there. You can still access it, even if it's in your mind. You can remember that blue sky, it's right there. You just got to move the clouds to see it sometimes. Well, do you know what, becca? You have energized me so much that now, now I'm going to go and I'm going to do some of those things that I said I was going to do this morning. I'm not going to go to the gym now that's crazy but I'm going to clean my house and patio a bit and go and make the guys some food. You've energized me in our conversation, you see it doesn't matter that I didn't do it all this morning.
Speaker 1:I've still got some time left in the day.
Speaker 2:It doesn't matter.
Speaker 1:Don't stress, just go through life and see what comes and when it comes, and you'll figure it out and you'll get things done. So, yeah, that's fantastic. But I also want to say, becca, it's hilarious that when we started this just before it hit, live, I mean, I never really know what's going to come out.
Speaker 2:I don't usually ask my guests what's going to come out, but I said to you do you have any ideas about what you'd like to talk about? And you went I don't have anything. I've been looking at your guests. I don't have anything. How utterly kicks in there, right Like. I tend to see what others have and how great they are, but I don't always look at myself in the same light and I don't think any of us do. We give others grace and mercy that we don't give to ourselves. We give others accolades that we don't give to ourselves, and we have to learn that it's okay to love yourself, it is okay to be proud of yourself and it is okay to forgive yourself for things that you would do for others. I'm still learning.
Speaker 1:Praise be hallelujah. That's what it's all about. It is. You're absolutely right. That is what it's all about. Love yourself and other people that love yourself. Put that oxygen mask on, like they just like say on the plane yeah, don't put your mask on the kid next to you. Put yours on first and then you can help the kid next to you. If you're struggling, you won't be able to help the kid, because you will. You will die without your oxygen mask, but you see what I'm saying.
Speaker 2:You said that you said that in the podcast that I just listened to, I think it's the one that you just uploaded.
Speaker 2:You were talking with your guest about that and when you said that, immediately what I started thinking about is my daughter, and she doesn't even know that she did this. So in my mental health journey I did therapy, I did all these things, but I never knew that I dealt with like ADHD or anxiety or depression or any of that stuff. I just knew that I had some things I had to talk about and that's why I would go to therapy about how she was having a hard time focusing, and I could see that she was dealing with a lot of emotion. She was just sad a lot and she was having massive anxiety attacks that would just completely debilitate her.
Speaker 2:And so we took her in and we started talking to somebody and they gave her a low dose medication that would help her with those anxiety attacks, and over the course of a few months we started to see just a complete 180 with her, and when I saw that, I literally was like wait a minute, I can relate to who she was before and now I see where she is now. What if I have the same issue? And so I started talking to my doctor and, oddly enough, I got put on the same medication, my doctor and, oddly enough, I got put on the same medication. But what she doesn't realize and I saw when you said that is that was her putting her oxygen mask on and it was able to help me put mine on. So because I helped my daughter put her oxygen mask on, I was able to do the same for me.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's so. It's so important, you know. And just taking this back full circle to what you were saying about ancestral trauma in the beginning, breaking those cycles. And I do feel that we're doing it with our children, because I'm the same with my daughter, you know it is breaking those cycles. I look at the relationship I have with my daughter now. It is the polar opposite of the relationship that I had with my own mother, the polar opposite. And so this goes to prove, you know, I know that the phrase is hurt people, hurt people. That's right. But you don't have to continue hurting people. You can change, you know. You can get your therapy, you can change your behaviors and you don't have to go back into the same cycles that you were in as a child. You can make those changes, which brings it back to what you were saying, Becca, about. You have the choice. You can make that choice.
Speaker 1:I'm not saying that it's that easy. If you're in abusive situations in a marriage or whatever, it is very difficult to get out, but try and seek help, because there are people that can help. Try and seek help from someone somewhere. But I do understand it is incredibly difficult to escape from those kinds of situations. In other situations, when it's your own behavioral issues, you can change them. And it's hard, it's like any addiction. Any addiction is so difficult to get over. I know I've been there, but you can. You can get over those addictions.
Speaker 1:Becca I think you're an inspiration. I really do, and I predict 80,000 followers within the next I'm going to say 16 months, I don't know why I chose 16 months, but I'm going with that so and maybe I could get to 3,000 followers in the next few years. That would be great. If anybody's listening on SoBeca's's channel, please come over to my channel. Um, yeah, no, it's. It's amazing. So and you deserve it, you absolutely deserve it. You really do. You are a wonderful human being. I feel blessed.
Speaker 1:And it's really weird, becca, because as a kid, you know, I'm from yorkshire, I'm from this little town. My parents, you know, weren't interested in travel or anything and I used to watch Bob Newhart in his Connecticut hotel thing I can't remember what it was called, but I used to watch that and I used to always relate to Americans and want to be in America and live in America and, believe me, my childhood was so far removed from anything to do with anything outside of the UK, anything outsideshire, quite frankly. And it's really weird because I feel like I've manifested America into my life somehow, because I'm meeting all these American, amazing American people and dealing with you every day and working with you, and it's fantastic. So manifest people manifest. That's right, we'll take you, come on over.
Speaker 1:Oh, I, I want to be adopted by you, I want to come over and, yeah, I'd like to live in New York, but anyway, that's another thing. Right, I've got to let you go because we could sit here for 16 hours we really could, but it's been amazing. Thank you so much for your time. Thank you so much for being so open and honest and vulnerable and and you know, talking about your incredibly difficult childhood and painful things that happened to you and you're so brave and courageous and if that imposter syndrome starts coming in, just listen to what I've just said, because I mean it, I sincerely mean it. You are a wonderful human being and you deserve the best. So thank you so much, becca.
Speaker 2:You're welcome. I haven't shared this with anybody else, so we'll just keep it here. I don't want to talk about it.
Speaker 1:I feel so honored, I'm so honored, so thank you. I don't know how I get this stuff out of people, but it's because I don't have a piece of paper when I go into an interview. I just literally sit and talk, and that's the key. It's a good conversation, it's just flowing and that's the key in life. People If anybody out there is listening talk, talk, open up yourself and talk. Talk to someone, listen to someone, have conversations. They really do change the world. They do Take care, becca, thank you so much. I'm saying take care, I'll be talking to you in about another day or so anyway, so, but I wish you all the best on your future journey and I and I'm so privileged to be a part of it because I know that you and I are going to keep working together. So thank you so much absolutely.
Speaker 1:Thank you for having me just before you go, lovely listener, can I ask you a favor if you have a friend who you think would enjoy listening to this podcast, would you mind please telling them about it?
Speaker 1:It helps me to spread the word and you never know, they might get a life lesson out of it or, at the very least, just have a lovely 40 minutes of relaxing time for themselves. The second thing to say is that, if you have enjoyed this, it would really help me if you would give me a little quick like or a comment, especially if you're listening on one of the podcast platforms. It just means that when anybody lands on the page, they can see that people have reviewed it, they've liked it, enjoyed it and got something out of it. So if you wouldn't mind leaving me a review, that would be amazing. And the final thing to say is that if you are a business and you're thinking how do I get my message out there, well, you could do it on this podcast. All you have to do is reach out to me, rachel, at breakingtheblockscom. The details are below in the box. Thank you so much to everybody for listening and enjoying and saying the lovely things that you're saying.
