Acceptance: Turning Pain Into Power

Teri Moore — author, speaker, and Impact Coach — shares a story shaped by resilience, culture, and survival. Born to a South Korean mother and a Black American father who served 25 years in the U.S. military, Teri grew up navigating two worlds, two identities, and a lifetime of challenges that could have broken her.

She speaks openly about surviving childhood abuse, rape, homelessness, the loss of both parents, and the moments when life pushed her to the edge. Instead of letting her pain define her, she transformed it into purpose. With over 25 years in entertainment and years of work as a youth mentor, parent and child advocate, and supporter of individuals with special needs, Teri has turned every hardship into a lesson in strength.

Her message is raw, honest, and deeply human:
Acceptance is not about forgetting what happened — it’s about reclaiming who you are because of it.

This talk is a reminder that your story doesn’t end where the pain began. It begins the moment you choose to rise.

#Acceptance #TeriMoore #PainIntoPower #ResilienceStory #HealingJourney #YouAreNotAlone #MrTraumaTalks #RahSpeaks #TraumaSurvivor #MotivationDaily #EmotionalHealing #ImpactCoach #MentalHealthPodcast #StrengthInScars #RiseAgain

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

As well. So, right about now, I'll put everyone backstage and let's introduce our next and final speaker for this evening. So, what happens sometimes is right, we all live our lives and we move forward and we live in and we go on. Well, that's supposed how it's supposed to be, but some people stay stuck, and we want you to understand that is not the way. The way you want to be stuck and hold on to things, you have to let it go. You have to really let it go. Alright. So quickly before we finish, I just want to say this June 11th, our in-person mental health conference. And we're calling it a mental health conference on a stage on Broadway in Times Square in a theater. Is that really how it's supposed to be? But if you want to think about it, you have the host of that event is Lavari, a billboard artist and an actor. He just doesn't um read the bios of the speakers, but what he does, he sings as well. You have Ra, Mr. Traumators, who sings, who performs, who speaks. You have two fashion shows by internationally acclaimed New York Fashion Week, Paris Fashion Week, Milan Fashion Week. You think about all these places Heritage International Fashion has been, and they're having two shows for you on that stage where two Grammy winners are not Grammy winners who just collected one Grammy, and trust me, it might sound like one Grammy if it is, but the journey to get a Grammy is so tough. You would not believe the amount of resilience. Yes, so Cherry Wanda is going to be there. Paul Anthony is going to be there. We have Rob Schwartz going to be there. We have the amazing direct from on a Broadway stage. We have the amazing, the beautiful, the talented Susie with Song Therapy, live with a story on stage on Broadway. And you just heard it. You saw that energy that Sharon just bring? You think about the energy she's bringing to a theater on Broadway. And hey, it's on Times Square, it's right at the corner of 44 and Broadway, the Palladium Times Square. So we have Jasmine Mickey coming up as well, and we have an actual prince. Those of you coming out can get VIP tickets to meet and greet with these people. So don't forget, if you're listening to this podcast on Spotify, on Amazon Music, on Apple iTunes, if you're listening to it on iHat Radio, no matter where you listen to this podcast, you're in New York City area or you're in a tri-bor, the tri-state area, get a ticket. It's really cheap to come out. Just type in resilience on Ticketmaster or Google Resilience Mental Health Conference, which is basically going to turn into a mental health concert event. So, right about now, let's do this. Let's bring up this person I met in Times Square. I want to beat myself up for on for plugging the microphones in the wrong places. It happens when you switch up cameras and different things like that. So but when I sit and I listen to her and I heard her story, I was like, this is a story for your trauma talks. And here she is today, sharing her story on acceptance or attend mental health conference. So this woman has turned unimaginable pain into purpose. Born to a South Korean mother and a black American father who served 25 years in the US military. She learned early how to adapt, how to survive, and how to rise. She has overcome childhood abuse, rape, homelessness, the loss of both parents, and still choose healing over bitterness. Today she's an author, a speaker, an impact coach, helping people to find courage and confidence to live in their truth. Ladies, gentlemen, my rasters, all of you. I want you to welcome my sister from another mister, the powerful and inspiring Terry Moore.

SPEAKER_03 5:01

Hello, hello, hello. Hello, everybody. First of all, I want to say I appreciate the fact that you were courageous in stepping forward and speaking about your experiences and creating an atmosphere of safety for others to come forward to know that they're not alone in whatever traumas they they have experienced. And yes, being able to move forward with other individuals on a healing journey. And we all are a representation of what healing looks like. So wow, I could go back to as early as recognizing the first trauma when I was two, um, all the way forward to. So I guess on the topic of acceptance, we'll just go with I've been given so many gifts and life experiences, and I could have chosen for each of those experiences to be a setback, and I know that that is maybe a little bit of a cliche, turn a setback into a step. Well, some of it I will have to say that it wasn't a choice because we all understand that our brain houses our mind, and our mind in the first seven years of life are you know, our experiences are the experiences of others. We accept them, we take them in as truth, no matter what they look like, from whoever it is that we find ourselves to trust and feel safe to be amongst. And part of it, we we're just conditioned for that. So a lot of it was training. I was born into a situation to where I had to take care of a special needs brother. He was born with Down syndrome, and so I had to take care of him, and my parents were already in their 40s having us. We were the change of life babies, and and so some of the experiences were not by choice, it was it was programming. So the parenting turned into training in how to be a caregiver, which turned into having to switch countries, not knowing any English, arriving here and having to, although my mother was entrepreneurial overseas, her limited English, she could speak it very well, well enough to communicate and run a business and be very successful at that. However, she didn't read or write English well. And then to have a brother with Down syndrome with the mentation that's not gonna really go past aid at any given time in his life, to have the honor to learn the new language here in the US and then take that in immediately and have to teach it right back out to a non-English writing or reading adult, with also coupled with teaching a speak a special needs brother on how to read, write, and speak. And it was, you know, I'm very grateful that God saw fit that, hey, you're gonna be given these experiences, so you're going to be able to do something with them, but I have to put bring you through a journey of the not so great to the we're just gonna have to make it palatable to then, okay, we're gonna use it for ourselves, and then maybe we'll have it for other people to be able to use. And so that whole process was partially because of the fact that I was trained to do so. And I'm very grateful for that because by the time that I was eight, I had discovered that my dad, coming back from the military after 25 plus years, had severe PTSD. That severe PTSD made it difficult on his exit. He didn't take all of the steps to exit to have a disability rating. And I know that if you're military background, you understand what that is. And that is where they will, in addition to the retirement, would have another bump in their retirement for the disability pay. He was had so much trauma that he went, exited out, and then he attempted afterwards to try to capture that portion, which that didn't happen before he passed. And so he self-medicated with alcohol. And then getting here to Las Vegas did not help the situation because then that turned into coupling that with gambling as well, which all of this is because he was looking for another career, and that career was not available to him, or he wasn't able to make a transition. And so that put him in a place to self-medicate, and then that turned into getting to the place of being a blackout drunk, and he was dearly abusive to everybody. He was like dictator over a little country in the house, and I didn't feel safe at home, and so I took solace to myself. And some of the saving graces, I didn't know English initially in my early years, and so I didn't recognize what bullying was until I started to understand English to know what bullying was, and then having to learn body language in all those initial years up until about eight or nine or so, was like, wow, like human behavior is super interesting. And so once I learned how to read, it's delving into books and my school library, I thought was was it. And then I discovered public library. So if you've ever seen the movie Matilda, hey, when she discovered the library and a library card and her red wagon and books, that was, you know, I might as well have been my version of Matilda because I thought that the world had opened up with being able to get to the library and self-educate. And so learning how to learning how to understand my parents. And there wasn't a lot out on like a like the combination in which that I our blended family was with the Black American, with the Korean, the blended family, the generational gap in the parent and the child. There wasn't a lot, but there was a lot of case studies. And I was able to just take in human behavior psychology and mind development, mental development, also personal and professional development, things like that. So I went into a deep dive, not knowing that I was even going into a deep dive in anything dealing with healing. It was just I wanted to understand who my father was. I wanted to understand what his journey was. So then that way I can understand why he changed from the daddy that I knew that introduced me to chocolate, which I have a vivid memory of my first experience with chocolate, and then trying to understand what it was like for a woman to stay in a situation in a marriage that was abusive to her, and trying to understand her position. It was I was diving into behaviors of humans so I can understand my parents and then understanding, hey, I have this special needs brother, and we're trying to get him into school with me, and not in a special school or anything like that. And that journey that put me into understanding social work, and I it was there were a lot of traumas, and I didn't have, like Miss Susie said in the beginning, which is that in between where she's taking care of all of these people, and then it comes to her body attacking itself. That's what she was told. That in between was so short-lived, she didn't have a chance to have a mental breakdown or have anything where she was going into a nervous breakdown or any of that because the life was just happening. And so for me, life happened very regularly every year, without stop. And so it was just adapt, adapt, adapt, adapt, adapt, adapt. Sometimes I didn't actually recognize a trauma had happened. Witnessing the abuse, walking in, and I walked in on a couple different incidences that were very poignant, poignant between my mother and my father, which was the first time I saw him hit her when I walked in and I ran to be the block between him and her, and being swatted out of the way so hard that I hit like I got swatted into the wall. And so then that's when the spankings turned into more than spankings. And so, you know, it it just takes somebody to have one experience to say it's okay for that one experience, and that can be either a negative experience or a positive experience. It's it's when when earlier it was said that when you have something, it makes you feel confident. When you experience something positive, it gives you the confidence and then you keep going. So it's the same thing with something else. He didn't turn abusive with me initially, it was strict, but the abuse didn't happen until that first strike. And then it was like somewhere in him, it was it was okay for this to happen with Terry. And all I was doing was protecting my mom. I wanted to protect her. I didn't want her to get hurt. That's what I saw. And then experiencing other things, even far worse. Uh, I actually thought that my father had choked my mother unconscious as well. And so these relationship dynamics normalized these behaviors for me to where later in life I went into situations that had those same dynamics where I was receiving abuse, where I was involved with individuals that had addictions, where I wanted to be the savior, I wanted to make sure that they were okay, that um just saying that this is what we do, this is how we endure, this is how we get through, this is what this is what life is about. And if it's in front of you, you handle it, you just do it. So in between childhood to adult, of course, there were other situations like I had mentioned when it was brought up, the topic of suicide and having those childhood traumas and being in a place to where it was so dark for me and bleak. And when I found that out, it was after I had found out that my mother had cancer. And my father saying he couldn't do it, he couldn't be there for her because being there for her, he could only handle so much. He can work and pay bills. Dealing with cancer, being a caregiver was something that he wasn't able to do. And I did that because that's what he said I had to do. And I was very accepting. I accepted everything that my parents had had said. Take care of your brother, take care of your mom. Then when mom was dying, take care of your dad. It was whoever was in front of me, I'm supposed to take care of. None of the communication was saying, Terry, take care of yourself. That was something that I had to learn in the journey of all of these things happening to me. And I learned them because other people were willing to put their journeys out, and other people were willing to outline whatever it was that they had gone through into healing modalities or courses or classes, or you know, putting things in front of the world that I can take and say, hey, I can use this for myself. So lots of case studies, lots of medical journals, lots of reference material when it's related to abuse, to addictions, recovery, the relationship dynamics between husbands, wives, you know, within families, blended families, all of those things became extremely interesting to me. And those were all ways that I could take solace and trying to understand people because I wasn't taught to talk to people about my situations or that it was safe to do so. And I definitely didn't feel safe. I didn't feel safe in my home. I didn't feel safe in my body because I also had those physical hurts on me that also included sexual abuse as well, that started at 10 within the neighborhood. There was somebody in the neighborhood that an older boy that started at 10 with me. And I didn't get because there was no communication on what was safe, what was not safe. There wasn't any communication on what was allowed, what was not allowed when it came to my own body. Was never taught anything about how to think or what to think or what to do. It was this is what you do for other people, and this is how you keep everyone else safe. And it was something that I had to learn, but that's when it comes to the topic of acceptance, is I realized that I accepted what everyone else was telling me and all the situations brought on to me. I accepted all of that because that's how I was programmed. And then at a certain point, I read some material that says you can unlearn, you can uninstall, you can take out any programming you do not want. And that's the power of the subconscious mind. The power of the subconscious mind, that portion of us housed in our brain that gives us our personality, also has the immense ability to be able to be resilient, going back to the topic of the of the book as well, that brought Ra into my life and for us to be here today. And acceptance is I have the ability to make a choice and whether or not I'm going to stay stuck in the situations of my past. I have the ability to accept whether or not these are going to be the things that I live within, or if I'm going to reach within myself to connect with all of what's out there as resources and use them for me to be able to make choices to have a better relationship with myself. I had to, I'm very grateful that I learned who I was very early because of the fact that I had all of these situations and I was programmed to have to assimilate a lot of information really fast, apply it to myself, and have to teach it to somebody else. So I have a unique ability to be able to do that with clients in whatever topic shows up for them. And I've had all the life experiences that I've had. There are some that I haven't experienced, and I'm very grateful that there are reference materials out there for people to be able to relate to anything and all things. And so that's a that's a saving grace because that was what it was for me. But back to being able to make a choice, you have to accept your situation for whatever it is. You can take it as a lesson, you could take it as a way to continue victimizing yourself, you can take it as a way to be able to place yourself to move forward in a trajectory of purpose and promise, or you can just be stuck and do nothing. That's a choice, too. It all boils down to how you accept your life, your decisions, because you did make some decisions. Although you may have been placed in situations, you still had choices, you still made decisions. So acceptance also comes with accountability. Doing all of that, accepting, actively accepting. I really love the way that that was phrased. Actively accepting, like acceptance is Active. Love is active. Hate is active. All of it is active. All the emotions are active. Emotions are energy in motion. They're not meant to stay in us, stuck in us. That's what causes dis-ease. And that's how most people will deteriorate and cause themselves to be in a place of repetitive hurt. And whether it's physical, mental, emotional, spiritual, it doesn't matter. It's just continued victim victimization. You just keep yourself stuck. You can choose that. And then you can also choose to connect with individuals that are in front of you, whether it's right in your community or somebody that's online that you feel safe to do so. I am Terry Moore. That's my Instagram. I am T-E-R-I-M-O-O-R-E. And you can connect. We are all here to let you know that whatever you're going through doesn't have to be within you. You can find a safe space. Safe spaces are out there. You just have to look. You have to be in a place to accept that I don't want this anymore for myself. I want better for myself. And there are people that are willing to do the journey with you. Like all of these people that Ra has brought here in this panel, we're all here. We've all gone through what we've all gone through. We are still in our healing journeys. If we weren't in our healing journeys, we might not have accepted this offer to be here with you guys to just give and share. And it's it's all of this is to say, you have the power. You are the power. Once you have made the decision to take a step forward to creating safety for yourself, there's someone that's going to be willing to take your hand to do that. There is a phrase, there's a quote that says, When the student is ready, the master will appear. So just remember, we're on this life journey. So life is living, life is a lesson. And if you're willing to continue living it, then you are a student of your life. Let someone else be in front of you to help you with that. And you can connect with me. I am Terry Moore on Instagram. I just mentioned that. Connect with Raw if you want to connect with any of us here, because we're all willing to be able to move forward with you. As long as you're willing to put one step in front of the other, hold out a hand, ask for help. It took an immense amount of time for me to realize asking for help was okay. Because I was not taught that. I was taught that if you showed any signs of weakness, someone could take advantage of you. And I was in the energy of take of having people take advantage of my kindness for weakness or my big heart in many various ways. And so you do have to set those boundaries as well. That's part of you being able to create a safety for yourself. It's just be willing. Once you're willing and you've made the decision, because you've made decisions before, you've taken up the banter of making a choice before. Make a choice to choose yourself, and someone will be with you. You need someone to be with you. Thank you again.

SPEAKER_00 25:07

Thank you so much, uh, Terry. I know you would have bring it down. I know you would have brought it and you did. I um, you know, there's so many things you said in between there. It's just that time is running out, and you know, I put you there last because I wanted you to bring it down. But we really went into some of the panels and we had some amazing questions. Those of you who listen to us and joining in on the live stream, look out for more. On May 30th, we have a next amazing conference. And Susie, I was thinking we should name this conference Gratitude. What do you think of that? Yes, I love that. Absolutely love it. So, any questions for Terry? Because she's right here. We'll run it about five more minutes before we head out.

SPEAKER_02 25:53

Well, let's start with gratitude for Terry. Terry, you're amazing. And I got the pleasure of meeting Terry in person. And Terry, you're the happiest, most joyful, energetic. You're amazing. And then to hear your story now, I'm like, oh my god. And the the question I want to ask though, because I was completely relating when you go from person to person to person, and you're just like robotic. You're just like, I gotta go here, I gotta go there. And I didn't realize I was in trauma. Did did you like not realize? Like, I didn't know. I and when people told me like years later, oh, you were traumatized, I laughed. Like, that I'm not like I thought of Vietnam people for being like traumatized. Like, I I have no, I felt like I didn't have any right to say I was traumatized, and there were people fighting wars. I'm like, that's real trauma. And I couldn't even face that. So, what point did you realize you were dealing with trauma? And when did you say this is enough? Like, I want my own life back. I'm I'm trying to keep him from walking, that's why he's here.

SPEAKER_03 26:44

Like, oh, I I you know, thank you for asking that. Um, for me, you're when you said that you were just going, going, going, going, going, and you didn't realize that you had stepped, that was the same experience that I had had. There was step grief for me as well, because my mother passed two months after graduating high school for me. I was 18, three months away from being 19. Like I was I was still a we taught in a way. And so I didn't have an opportunity. I mean, not that it's an opportunity, okay. Ladies, when you grow up with the mom, there's that typical you're a teenage girl, mom gets on your nerves, you guys hit butt heads and all that. I didn't have that opportunity because from 12 to 18, my mother was sick with cancer. I was her primary caregiver, and I had to learn to communicate with all the doctors. Remember, she didn't read to write English, she could speak English, but she didn't read to write it. And so I had to translate. So that's another reason why I was into so many books because I had to learn the language of all the different scenarios that I was in. And so communicating with the doctors, I was learning to drive at 13, getting her to chemo, to radiation. She'd have operations every now and then, having to take care of her there, communicating with my school administration to be able to be out of school, not have absences docked against me, to be able to still participate and cheer, choir, and all of the things because I wanted to put myself in a position to go to college, and all of these things are showing up. I did not have a chance. I didn't have a chance all of those years from when I first realized this doesn't seem like a normal thing for my mom to be knocked down to the floor or for me to walk in and watch my mom, my dad choke my mom unconscious, and I thought maybe she was dead. Like these are not things I'm supposed to be experiencing. Not supposed to be these are these are not the things you're supposed to be experiencing. In the moment, life is happening so quick, and so many things are happening, like one thing after another, another, another, another, another, and situations after situations. I didn't have a chance. So I just continue to do the best maneuvering that I could, and really like all everyone that's that authors books, you guys don't even know what it's like when there isn't anywhere else to turn but to a book in a library. It's like, you know, I'm very grateful for the fact that I've gotten into books now, and that I have books in me that I know that are coming out because I know what it was for me. It gave me that opportunity. So it wasn't until I became an adult, it wasn't really until with each death, then it turned into I busied myself with my life in 2016, 2015. I ended I had bronchitis that was not taken care of while I'm I I walk into the doctors, people think that I was a hypochondric. They're like, there's nothing wrong with you. I don't get given proper antibiotics. I try to take care of it on my own. But because I had that stuck grief in me from my father's passing and me having to take the sole responsibility of legal guardianship of my brother with Down syndrome, I had that stuck brief unresolved all of that time, which turned into sepsis. And I'm hospitalized. And I'm told three more days at home of attempting to cure yourself of what you thought was this the flu for the last month and a half, your liver would have been too infected for us to be able to give you antibiotics and treat it. And then that's that was my facing mortality. And then it was like, I'm a certified life coach, I've done nothing with it. And then it's like I've got to do something because I almost died taking my gifts into the ground, like Les Brown says. The graveyard is the most wealth, wealthiest, richest place, the graveyard, because people die taking their gifts and dreams and hopes and aspirations with them instead of out into the world where it benefits people. And so it's uh it was basically in just the last few years that I really took to account that I've got to make sure that I'm well, as well as I am. I have to make sure that emotionally and mentally that I put into practices the things that I learned when I was really, really little, just trying to learn English and understanding my parents. I didn't realize how fundamental that was. And and so now I'm here and I'm able to speak to individuals about everything. It you can bring up a topic and I'll I'll talk. You want to bring me on a show, whatever you want to do, I'm willing now because before I wasn't told I was safe to do so.

SPEAKER_00 31:35

Well, you're definitely back on mental health bites and on trauma top Thursdays. Go ahead, Sharon.

SPEAKER_03 31:42

Have you written a book? I'm I'm outlining two books right now as we speak. And so my inner child was uh, you know, wrote her first book. My little eight-year-old, me, wrote her first book on an assignment. And so I'm rewriting that children's book, actually. And then I'm also writing two other books, and so those are it's more therapy for me than anything else because it's just a way to be able to release, and so I'm I'm looking forward to being able to put those works out there.

SPEAKER_01 32:12

Well, you need to put out a book so some little girl can find your book and get for herself what you what you got from books. Yes, so yeah, I had to say that. Thank you. Beautiful. Thank you. I second that as well. You really need to get your story, is amazing, and I'm so appreciative that you're a survivor and you're helping others. Thanks.

SPEAKER_03 32:37

That's the exact same feeling I have of each and every one of you. I I was just so amazed at everything that I've heard so far because it's it was all about choices and what you were given, and you decided, hey, lemons into lemonade, right? Yeah, so thank you.

SPEAKER_00 32:53

Just before Terry Ty was running out on this person, Angeli Weston has when your dad gave you the chocolate, what did you learn at that moment that you needed to accept in that exact moment?

SPEAKER_03 33:09

Oh my goodness, I was little, I was like one, okay. And he came in, he had a bag of chocolates in his work bag, and he put me on his lap, and I learned to count that day because what I saw was my dad opened the chocolate and had the first one. Then he opened the chocolate and gave it to me. I didn't know what it was, right? So I get the chocolate, and then instantly there's like a part of my brain that lit up, and I looked at him and I'm like, and I looked at his hand in the bag, and then he ate another piece of chocolate, and then he ate another piece of chocolate, and then I got my second one. He had eaten, he had eaten three, he had eaten one, then I had one, then he had eaten three more before I had a second one. So I was looking and I I believe I learned to count that day because once I once counting was happening, I put it together and I'm like going, oh, he had like five chocolates and I only had like two. So I was I was in this place of like, I don't know if that was fair or not. And I remember that vividly in that. And I love chocolate. I love chocolate, and that was that's such a super fond memory because that was when my dad was still my daddy doing my daddy thing. And when he was still in the in the service, he still felt purposeful in his life. That's another reason why I work with vets too, transitioning individuals, foster kids that age out, or transitioning inmates that need to go back into society and things like that. I work with with individuals on projects like that because it when a per when a person doesn't feel purposeful, they they're dying. And so, you know, that's that's another thing that hits my heart.

SPEAKER_00 34:51

That is so true. I like that. When a person doesn't feel purposeful, they're dying. I guess it's dying inside. So anyone else? Because I think that's it. It's 10 minutes over the time, but I'm so happy that I was joined by you amazing panel of beautiful young ladies who have lived it, who is there to help. And y'all came out, share your stories, your expert advice, and it is so amazing, especially when it comes to accepting uh this thing recalled change that happens in a roller coaster life that we live every day. So I want to say a special thank you to Susie, Suzanne Finley, the amazing Yvonne Chudson, Michelle Patet, Sharon Nichols, Dr. Jen, you know you're amazing, and I love you. All of you, thank you so much for coming out here today and making our ninth mental health, sorry, our 10th mental health conference acceptance, a great success. Garing off or mated yet, so you all follow us. Those of you who want to be able to tell your story on the mental health conference, email us y-w-r- at gmail.com and contact one of these beautiful, amazing speakers, and they will definitely contact you. Put you in contact with us so we can do it. Angeli, looking forward to seeing your bio and your beautiful pictures for the poster coming up soon. Everyone of you listening, whether you stream this live, you're on Instagram, this is Mr. Trauma Talks. If you're listening to it on iHat Radio, anywhere this podcast is, we want you to know you are not alone. We love you, and you can reach out to us and ask us anything you need. Have a great day, everyone.