Overcoming Trauma and Rediscovering Self-Worth in Midlife with Hillary Momberger Powers

In this episode of the Midlife with Courage™ podcast, host Kim talks with Hilary Momberger Powers about her journey from child actor to overcoming trauma and addiction. Key points include the importance of stabilizing yourself, finding self-worth, and the power of community and service.

- Hilary's early career as the voice of Sally in Charlie Brown
- Overcoming childhood trauma and addiction
- Stabilizing senses to foster self-worth
- Importance of community and self-care
- Hilary’s journey towards inspiring and motivating others

You can learn more about Hilary on her website www.hilarymombergerpowers.com. 

Get in on the next Courage & Confidence Circle before it even opens. The waitlist for the March 2026 Courage & Confidence Circle is open so click the link below to let me know you are ready to grow your midlife confidence now! 

PUT ME ON THE WAITLIST!

Transcript

0:00

I wanna matter. Not what I look like, not my outside. I wanna matter. Mm-hmm. And that's why people have children. They wanna feel like they matter. Mm-hmm. That's why they have a husband. They get these things on the outside to feel okay on the inside, but it really is an inside job, and it's okay to go inward. It's the most exciting adventure you'll ever do is to find out who you are. You are listening to the Midlife with Courage podcast. This is where women in midlife come for inspiration, motivation, and sometimes a little education. Don't forget to hit that follow or subscribe button so you don't miss an episode. Now, let's get started. Hello everyone and welcome back to Midlife With Courage. I am Kim Benoy, your host, and I'm so happy to have you all here. I'm also very happy to have my guest here with me today. Her name is Hillary Momberger Powers, welcome to the podcast. Hillary. Good morning. Thank you so much for inviting me. It's, it's an honor to be asked to share something positive. Yes, for sure. Oh, I'm gonna put it down like that. So, perfect. Yes. We have so many things that I wanna talk to you about. I think it's kind of interesting that if anyone, probably most people have watched, the Charlie Brown shows, they've heard your voice. Yeah. So, we'll, we'll tease that a little bit, but why don't you introduce yourself. Tell us a little bit more. What would you like the listeners to know about you? Well, hi you guys. My, my original name is Hilmer, so you can, if you look me up, you'll see my little face. As a young kid, I started at five years old. I was the voice of Sally. That's when my career started. I didn't just, you know, wake up and say, I think I wanna be an actor. You know, at five years old, five years old. It was kind of, it was one of those things that kind of I had a mother who was a stage mom who wanted everyone to be famous back in the sixties. It was kind of like, wow. She was a model growing up in New York City, and she was a Jackie Gleason girl, and I don't know if your listeners know who that is, but Jackie Gleason was a comedian and he would have a show and she would be one of the people that would say, and here's Jackie. So she would introduce him. So that was the claim to her fame. Back in the thirties and forties, it wasn't respectable for a woman to have a job that was an a, a teacher or a nurse. Mm-hmm. Or to do anything that was kind of outlandish and that was outlandish in that time to be doing something like that. So she decided to get married to my father. They were both menza and they, he went to West Point, she went to Barnard and they just thought they would, you know, smart idea to have seven children. Seven children. Wow, that's smart idea. There's the mensa. And so she never really wanted to have kids, which is the ironic part. And I talk about this. I'm a mentor and I do a lot of public speaking. And I coach a lot of women, and I have over the last 40 years is we think that if we fix our outsides. Our insides are gonna get fixed, and my mother believed that if she made this life on the outside, it would make her feel okay on the inside. And that's kind of the theme of our world. You know, we live with our, I call it the funnel on backwards. Our glasses are tweaked and we're wearing the wrong prescription basically. So, you know, my mother thought that if she had these kids that she would feel, valid. Mm-hmm. Enough. She was really, really beautiful. So a lot of people judged her by the outside, but she wanted to feel like she was doing something. Mm-hmm. You know? So she had all these kids and she hated them, and she. Had she literally did God bless her. And you know, the funny thing is not funny. I've done a lot of work on this. I have no animosity towards my mother. I love my mother. Mm-hmm. All her horrible things she did and all the crazy stuff made me the most resilient woman. And made me so empathetic and made me so encouraging of other people to get through shit.'cause life is tough. Mm-hmm. Life's not easy, you know? I don't know where I got this idea,'cause I grew up in a cartoon I grew up with a mask on. I grew up performing. I grew up living in the world of pretend. And unfortunately it sounds great, but, well you can't bring that guideline, those principles, I learned like everything's okay. If it hurts, don't let'em know. It's all right. I'm good. How you doing? Great. You know, so I grew up with that. I learned how to do that so young. Mm-hmm. So there was a lot of violence and there was a lot of alcoholism screaming and yelling and, and everything's fine. No one knew. Mm-hmm. It's okay. Put a pretty dress on. Pretty, pretty face on. And how many people do we do that with today? Yeah. So we're walking around two-faced and we don't even know it. Right, and we're living two separate lives and this duality, and then we see our world is in a complete duality. So we're constantly spun out. So back to how I became an actor. My mother took us all down to Hollywood. I was living in California. I. And just by the happenstance, I look like Shirley Temple and I met Sol Schultz and I met Bill Melinda for a cartoon and they needed one more character, Sally, because the original Sally, they had, they had done one show and she was a neighborhood kid. And all the Charlie Brown kids were really neighbors in, in Charles Schultz's neighborhood. Oh. And so they came down to Hollywood. They came to Southern California and I just was hike high, sat on his lap. We laughed. He just wanted to see if I were a kid. Mm-hmm. And I have the gift of gab, which is a good thing. And it's a bad thing. Just have to know a win to restrain that tongue. So just like that, my first job I landed south. Interesting. Wow. So that's a big bar to start at, right? Right. I have a stage mother who was a Mensa and used to getting everything she wants. I became her meal ticket. Sure. And that's a lot of pressure, I would imagine for a 5-year-old, I, your brothers and sisters are gonna starve. If you don't get this commercial, are you gonna get it? I used to think, oh my God, they're gonna starve. So I took on this cloak of like, I gotta take care of everyone. I, I gotta make sure everything's okay. I gotta make sure everyone's all right. I can't let'em know I'm stressed, you know? Yeah. Oh my gosh. My heart breaks for you. Oh, no, no, no. Don't. Because I have to say, you know, I have a saying, there's always a pony in the horse. Shit. And I found my pony. I keep finding my pony. Yeah. I think life is going to hell in a hand basket. I go, oh my God. Something really awesomes gonna happen. Oh my gosh. What a great mindset shift. Actually, I have a choice. Yeah, I don't have a choice over if the world's gonna go to if we're all gonna be like, you know, transhuman, I, who knows? Yeah. I don't know. I don't know. But I do have power over choosing the attitude I'm gonna bring in the day that I'm in. Yeah. So let's talk about how. That came to be'cause you had struggles yourself. Obviously with all that pressure tell us about your struggles with that and what ended up happening to you because of all that. Child fame and everything. Well, when you think that, you know, everybody's like, oh, aren't you on that commercial? And of course I'm like, no, that's my sister, because I didn't want the attention. Oh, I'm actually one of those people who don't want a lot of eyes on me. Sure. Partially in my teens.'cause I was always doing something wrong. I want you to see it. But on the other side. I didn't want, I, I felt so, I felt naked. I felt raw because I thought if you stared at me long enough, you would see the craziness in my house. You would see the pain that I held, you would see so much. So it's easier to disappear. So, you know when you grow up in trauma, there's three things that happen in trauma, and I call it the triangle. You either become the loner, the people pleaser, or the controller, because when you're in this live or die, oh my God, if I don't do it, I'm gonna get in trouble. You're in that fight or flight, I'm, it's gonna kill me, so I pick a role to survive. Mm-hmm. I became a people pleaser, and then I became a loner when I found drugs and alcohol. And then I tried to control my life once it was a mess and it got worse and worse and I kept digging myself worse and worse. So I, I grew up in this, you know, everybody's gotta be perfect. They had the horses, I had the lessons. I had to be number one, had to be number one. And I didn't wanna be number one. I just wanted to be a kid. I. You know, I didn't wanna leave school and go to auditions. I just wanted to be a kid. I wanted to hang out with everybody else because you get treated differently and if you're starving for attention and you start getting treated differently, it feels good for a second. It's like when you taste hot sauce. It's good for a second. Mm-hmm. Then when you get a lot, you are dying. That's kind of like a tension. Like a little bit. I can't, and you know, like I said, some people may love a lot, but I, I didn't, so I started learning how to disappear. My mother would say Hillary, in our famous disappearing acts, I was called The Defiant One, and I took that as a badge or honor. That's right. I'm the defiant. Hey, you know, when you're a kid you just want to own something, right? Sure, sure. And plus, I got seven brothers and sisters and I'm smack in the middle. Oh, okay. So I was gonna ask where you fell in that group. So I'm the surveyor. I gotta see what the right's doing, what the let's doing. So I. Bad character into my adult life. So I grew up scared fearful not feeling enough. I'll never make it. Everybody's dying because of me. I'm, you know, I'm not enough. I'm not tall enough, I'm not cute enough. I'm flat chested blah, blah. And then you bring it into your teen years, which is like one remote and combustion. Sure. And I find drugs and alcohol. Hmm. I didn't wanna do it to get high or feel good. I did it because I wasn't feeling all that low self-worth and that not enough, and that fear, it, it became my, my answer, ah, now I can breathe. Now I don't feel bad if I don't show up. Mm-hmm. Now I don't. So it really killed everything. Now you can't really function well. So here, all of a sudden, good girl turns bad. Mom, now I'm like off the top of the list. I'm in the barrel. I'm like, you're a pain in the ASFs. I shouldn't have never had you. I should have aborted you. I'm like, oh no. You know all these, but this is what we do. I mean, when I, I have to look at my mother's situation. She was. She was violated as a child. She had sexual abuse. Mm-hmm. So she's got her hurts or angers and she's gonna be putting it on the whole family because we bring in our crap. Sure, sure. And she thought if she had kids, everything would go away and she'd feel happily ever after. Mm. But you gotta, you bring all your hurts and your booboos and it's like a monkey who sits in a cage. He's gonna throw his not because he doesn't like you, that's just what he does. Mm-hmm. A pigeon It's just what it does. Mm-hmm. So she was throwing all her hurt and everything, and she was hoping to get healed. And then her resentment of not getting healed and then we were, so that you become this battle zone and then it looks so good on the outside. We look like the Kennedys. Mm-hmm. We were all just. Prim and proper, and nobody could know because I couldn't let you know how fractured I was inside. So I just imploded and I think about kids today. Same scenario. Same scenario. But the reason why I share a lot is I'm here to share hope. Sure. Regardless of where you're from, you're not what you're from. You can be anything you want as long as you start changing your thoughts to get there. Because my old thought was, I'm not enough. I'm never gonna get anywhere. I'm a loser. I failed my family. I was such somebody. Now I'm nobody. So don't talk. Destroy yourself. And I ended up going to nine high schools. I ran away from home a lot. I was latchkey kid. I was. You know, 14 hitchhiking across the country, getting raped, getting hurt, not talking about it because it was probably my fault. You know, everything was my fault and a lot of stuff was my fault. But later in my years, I got to figure out what really was my fault and what. I was taking on just to stay in my, myself, pity, and my victim. Mm-hmm. Because that's a, that's another identity. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Yeah. Wha wha So I, I learned to laugh at myself, you know? So I ended up at 21 years old, overdosing a couple ties, and, but for the grace of God, someone introduce me to aa. And I love Alcoholics Anonymous. I'm still a big member of it, and I'm also a huge advocate on everything from therapy to, you know, nutrition. Like, it takes all kinds of stuff to feel better. It's not, stop drinking. Your life will become a miracle. It's like there's a lot of work involved. Mm-hmm. But there's a lot of work involved staying depressed. There's a lot of work involved being a victim. Yeah. It's exhausting being a victim. Yeah. Trying to figure out another way to blame everybody. Man, that's exhausting. Yeah. I've thought of that before. We're talking about people or thinking about people like, that must be so tiring for them. Don't they wanna just. Try and step away from it, like do something different. Yeah. And the problem is, is how many people tried to shake you up and how many people tried to shake me up? Yeah. I have to hit my own bottom and my bottom looks different than your bottom and everybody else's. Sure. You know, my bottom, I was homeless. I was, you know, living on selling pots and pans on the side of the highway. Mm-hmm. I was, dipping drugs, I was in in. Compton north Long Beach. In a very predominantly black neighborhood for this little short midget white girl who was somebody but didn't care about herself. And, and I just, it was, I was just falling, you know? But for the grace of God, and I'm a huge God believer only because I'm not God, I realized and need a power. So much greater than me. Mm-hmm. Because this power is a little fractured. I don't know where to go. My maneuvers kind of off. My compass is messed up, so I gotta ask somebody else. And I go to this power called God and I say, can you help me Today my mind is telling me I'm gonna have a shitty day. Can you help me? Can you shut my head up? Because my mind's the one who's gonna dictate everything, right? You're raised in a family of a lot of fear and anger and trauma. My mind's always on guard. I'm ready for Freddy. What's happening. Everything's like, so I don't know how to stabilize at all. All I know is I'm constantly. You know, catastrophizing because there's a lot of catastrophes going on. Mm-hmm. And I dunno how to make a choice on going to school or college or, I don't do any of that. All I know is I'm 18 years old, I, I gotta survive. And I learned a lie. I tell'em my, my diploma's in the mail and I lie to get into this little nursing college. And in my mind, because I am defiant, that character defect became an asset. Sure. It, I'm defiant. I'm not gonna let them know that I didn't graduate from, I didn't finish. I went to nine high schools. For ninth grade. For ninth grade. That was it. Wow. And you still got into nursing school? You know the gift of gap? Yeah. Plus and a curse. What do you think salesmen do? Oh yeah. Yeah. You know, do you really want that vacuum cleaner? No. No. But they'll convince you. You do. Instagram's the best salesman in the world. Yeah. Really want that lotion. So I went ahead and I lied to get in a nursing college.'cause in my mind, this is the fracture. This hurt mind says if I take care of somebody, they'll take care of me. Hmm. So I go with the intention not to give, but get me give, gimme, gimme, gimme, gimme, which is a lot of the women I work with and the people that I have been able to share my story with. That it's gotta turn around or you're gonna keep getting the same thing over and over and over.'cause when you're hurt. Or have had something happen to you. Your ego, which protects you, becomes the judger because it wants to make sure nothing happens again. Mm-hmm. So my ego is never gonna be satisfied. Because I can't see it. It's not, it's not seen correctly. It says, no, no, there are not enough. I gotta get this job. I gotta get this husband. So we're constantly throwing people away. We're constantly getting new jobs. We never feel good at our, we can't wait to get that job. And then we get there and we're like, oh, really? Is this it? Are you kidding? I went to college for this because I'm not really living in the moment. I'm living in my past. Hmm. So I go ahead and I get this nursing job and I'm working in doctor's office and I'm getting in a lot of trouble with the drugs because I'm the back office nurse. Not good for a girl who loves checking out. So by the time I was 21, I was a hot mess. I was strung out and I hated my parents. My stepfather was a chemist. My parents got a divorce and my stepfather was a chemist in California who brought crystal meth into California. He taught everybody how to cook speed. Oh no. That's a claim to fame, I guess. Oh, right. That was my, that was my family. Yeah. Breaking bad a hundred percent in the seventies, like the Winnebago front yard, they deliver the speed. It was pretty exciting.'cause then you have another secret life. Mm. So there's all these, I keep layering. All this lies over lies. Over lies. I don't even know I'm doing it. Sure. I don't even know who I am. And that's where. Birth happens. If you don't know who you are and you hit that bottom, you can start clearing everything out and find out. So I hit this bottom at 21 and went into a grand mal seizure on a fire escape and said, if there's a God, don't let me die. That was my first introduction back into that. Believing in something. Mm-hmm. Because I'd given up hope on everything. Mm-hmm. I was a failure. I hated myself. I didn't think I'd live past 20. Really didn't 25. No way. I didn't care. I just didn't care. And I had this first hint of hope, like maybe I'm supposed to be here. And I'd love to say, you know, we all want that quick fix. Swipe right 22nd. I can only, you know, we have attention spans of 12 minutes. They're saying now. Wow, that's great. Mm-hmm. You know and a minute on a Instagram, right? Yeah. If that our brain is trained to get rid of disposed dispose. Mm-hmm. I don't understand why I can't have friendships and love and partners and consistencies and good careers because I am in fear throwing it away all the time. Sure. So over the years, and I've been around a couple minutes, I'm in my sixties over the years and I'm happy to be a grownup. I'm happy to be in my sixties. I don't wanna look younger. I don't wanna tuck and tip and, and do all, I just wanna, I'm so content in the day. I am in. I'm just love it being Hillary. Yeah. And I'm gonna get old. Thank God. I'm gonna get old. I don't wanna forever, hell no. Yeah know. I want to ease out quietly. And that's what I'm learning to do. So I go ahead and I have all this stuff happen and I'm, I've learned how to stabilize, you know, I call that triangle of trauma, which is the, you know, like the people please, the controller and the, loner. Mm-hmm. And I'm always in fight or flight, so I have gotta look at the body, mind, and the soul. Like, what am I doing to create this and keep this going? Mm-hmm. So. In order for me to be able to make a rational decision, which we all wanna do, especially here I am in my sixties and I'm redoing my career again. Mm-hmm. And I can't get my career over here. I gotta start right here. Mm-hmm. So how do I calm myself down so I can see what's ahead of me? I gotta stabilize myself. And that's the bottom hitting the bottom. So in my triangle where there's five processes, stabilize means safety. When you are a little kid and or a mother, you tell your kid, you can only stay out till five o'clock. There is. A rule. Mm-hmm. Why do we need rules? Because I feel safe. Mm-hmm. Oh, good. I can play till five o'clock, so now I can have fun Until then. And then I know that's why we need rules. Kids need boundaries. Mm-hmm. They make me feel safe. So if I look at my safety, I have to look at my senses. Seeing, am I pleasing myself? Am I putting myself in a position where I feel good about what I see tasting? Am I drinking water? Am I eating well? What am I doing? Am I eating sugar? Am I drinking caffeine all night? We just had that conversation. Yeah. Like, how come you, I, I don't know why I'm agitated. What are you doing? What are you drinking? Are you drinking monsters all night till 10 o'clock at night and going, I can't sleep at night. I don't know why. It's like, I don't know why. Yeah, see, and we go seeing, tasting, touching. Am I wearing clothes? Sometimes I will go shopping and I will just touch fabric because fabric makes me feel safe, seeing, tasting, touching, hearing. Am I listening to good music? Am I listening to head, banging music about getting shot, killing people? I don't know why I'm anxious. Or am I calming myself down? Can I go listen to the lake? Can I go down and listen to the birds? I love the sound of children laughing. I love the sound of laughter, you know? So I start seeing, tasting, touching, hearing, smelling. I love the smell of coffee. I'll do things like I'll put perfume on. I'll go smell some flowers, so I start to stabilize myself. When I can stabilize my senses, I connect to that sixth sense that says everything is okay. Hmm. I can calm myself on out in the day I am in. So when I'm in this trauma, like something happens, like I've had a lot of stuff happen. My mother died homeless. My father put a gun to his head, my brother died. I've had friends die. I've had lots of traumatic things. Mm-hmm. My work is not to fix the outsides. I need to stabilize myself first, so then I can see clearly. So that's the first layer. Once I can stabilize myself, and we have the power. To deal with our own trauma. I don't need to go to 15 therapists. Go find a coach that costs$8 billion, go to a rehab to take me out of the, I just need to do the, you know, as a kid member. And it said, oh honey, do you need a nap? Oh, someone's tired. Mm-hmm. Here, why don't we put some nice music on, right? Mm-hmm. That's stabilizing. Yeah. When I need to do that just to myself, so once I get into a stabilizing place, then I can reemerge in the world I'm in. That's how I feel like I have a community, like I can get involved in church or PTA or a group of women to read books on Fridays or you know, go with the kids with the soccer. I talk to the other women or the other fathers. So now I get a sense of community, church, whatever your flavor is of where you can feel like you have a sense of belonging. But I can't get there until I stabilize. But what we do is we go, I gotta start going out. I gotta start. So I start, my funnel becomes on backwards. Yeah. Classes are skewed. So once I can get into that stabilizing place, then I start feeling good about myself. Man, I showed up. That lady said she liked me. God, that feels good. Now I get some self-worth. Self-esteem, which I'm lacking. How can I make a decision to shift my life if I don't even like myself? Right? So once I can get those couple layers up, then I could start saying, what do I like to do? So if you are in a place where you're, you wanna change your life, you hate your freaking job. I mean, I don't know how many people goes, I hate my job, but I show up. My dad used to say to me. My dad worked at Northrop, and I'm sure he was a CIA agent. We kind of think he was, but that's, that's another story. I used to say, dad, how do you go to work every day? And he goes, I hate my, you think I like my job? He goes, oh, just show up. How many people say that? Yeah. 90% of the people. Wow. Gotta just show up because my mind, remember I'm fractured from way from the beginning. Oh my God. Hurt. Little scared little girl that's afraid of everything. Yeah. Take it, take it. Oh, he's a nice guy. Take him. Even though he is like beats women, but, but it's okay. I have a place to live. Yeah. Fear Makes a lot of choices. Unless I go back to the original fear and calm it down and just say, you know, honey, it's okay. Everything's gonna be okay. I start talking to myself like, mm-hmm. I take a breath and I start self-soothing. Mm-hmm. Instead of going outside. And once I can do that and I go, what do you wanna do? I like people. Okay. Do you wanna go? Maybe work, customer service? Oh, I don't like people that much. I don't know. I'd rather get a, you know, Siri to take care of that but, okay. What else do you like? I, I like art. Well, maybe you can go work in an art studio. Maybe you can sell. So now all of a sudden, once I am stabilized and I start getting into the community, I start asking people, Hey, do you guys have any, know anybody of a new job? And then all of a sudden I start hearing di different things'cause I've stabilized my thoughts and my hearing, my senses. And they say, oh my God, there's this great place. It's a kid's art studio. It's, and I go, oh my God. I love the sound of kids laughing and, and giggling. That's a great place. I love art. I love painting. So I start tapping into the things that make my heart feel big and good. Mm-hmm. Soothing. And then I start to be aware that there's more things out there, then I can be productive. Mm. And there's nothing like feeling like I'm adding to the world instead of here to gimme, gimme, gimme, gimme. Yes. Yes. Because when I'm going, gimme, gimme. I gotta get this, I gotta get this bag. I gotta, my ego, which is fractured, is never satisfied. I'm never gonna be happy. So there's never gonna be enough clothes, never gonna be enough money, never food, nothing. I keep eating more. More, gimme more. More.'cause I can't get satisfied, right? Because I'm not stable. Right? So it always comes to the beginning. Where do I start the beginning? Mm-hmm. So when I'm talking to women, they're like, yeah, but I need a new job, or I need a new career, I need a new husband. Let's just stabilize. They're like, you're so calm about it. Yeah. Because you're gonna find out it's not that big. We're not in catastrophe, we're not in trauma right now. Let's try to get in today. Mm-hmm. So these little things, and I have like workbooks, I like help people do it. Mm-hmm. Like these little things are so simple. It's almost, we don't want it simple. We want it hard. Yeah. I'm used to it really hard because you have to work for what you want. I have to, yeah. Yeah. And that's the funnel on backwards. Yep. Everything I learned was wrong. Everything. You know, my dad, you gotta go to work because you hate it. I, I am like, okay dad, I can't wait to grow up. I'm sorry, but it's like, ugh. Yeah. Yeah. And then of course I fight to grow up. Sure. Who would want to do that? Who would want to be a grownup? Parents say, you gotta hurry up and get through school. And then you're like, now what? Yeah, now what? I don't even know who I am. So you get all these things on the outside and these kids are, I mean, these, I'm taking kids in their thirties and forties'cause I'm in my sixties. Mm-hmm. But you know, they're just like deer in the headlight going, why am I here? To be happy. What does that look like? Well, let's get down to basics. Yeah. Have you had a glass of water today? They're like, what are you talking about? Well, I'm 85% water fluid in my body. If I'm dehydrated, my synapses in my brains are not gonna be firing off a weird Yeah. So let's just get the simple Yeah. And then all of a sudden we can start from there. And that's where I find the pony in the horse manure. Mm-hmm. Because it's not over there. The Pony's not over there. It's exactly where I'm at and I get to find it. So like I said, I mean, I've been a nurse. I went to art school. I went to art school and my mentor said, you gotta finish. Well, in my third year, I am drawing live new drawings. Mm-hmm. And I go. Oh my God, I'm a fine artist. I'm not a graphic artist. I don't wanna do this. Like we gotta do it. And I said, it was the first time I was 28 years old and I said I'd gone back to college again. And I said, why do I have to be one thing? She was taught you're one thing only. Mm-hmm. So she's just sharing what she knows. Sure. Because I had learned to stabilize, I started thinking and feeling and asking different questions. Why do I have to be one thing if I have a hope chest? God gives me a hope chest. Mm-hmm. And when I'm 17 and I'm in high school, I go and I grab one thing, lawyer. And I closed the Hope chest. I got it. Well. Brave enough is when I can be able to open that hope chest and say, oh my gosh, there's all kinds of things in here I might like. Yeah. So I went to school to be a nurse. I went to miss Massage girls. I thought I wanted to be a chiropractor. Mm-hmm. Nope. No. I just like. Being in shape. I went into school to film school because I didn't wanna be an actor'cause I was too, me too at the time. I wanted to, oh, it my brain. So I became a script supervisor and then I produced movies and then I became actor again. And then I, coached and so I started keep going in my hope chest going out like this because the joy is living. Not making a living. I wanna have a life, meaning I have an inside life where I get up in the morning and I think, wow, today's gonna be, who knows what's gonna happen. How exciting. Yeah. I have a plan and if it doesn't work, I'm just gonna trust it's gonna be the best day ever. Why not? Yeah. Not me. Right? Because I used to be, it always happens to me. Poor me. Yeah, poor pour me a drink. I always say, but yeah, God, it sucks. You know? I always get crummy men, you know, he's always, nobody ever takes me out. What if you redesign your life in here, put it on paper, look at it. Would you like that? I don't know. I've never had it. Well, let's see. Yeah, and then allow yourself to have that imagination. And allow yourself to go to that God that you've just started having conversations with. Like, God, I don't know if I, I don't know. I think I might like it. Can you show it to me? Like, relate to this dude. Mm-hmm. Talk to him. Yeah. And then see, because I, you may get that life and that job and go, Hmm, this isn't it. Okay. Okay. Next. Right. Or say, show me the things I do like in this job.'cause remember my magnifying mind's going to, they're a jerk. They're not. I'm not. That's my old paradigm. Yeah. But I'm gonna go off track occasionally, eh, whatever. Oopsie. Oopsie. I'm negative Nancy today. Oopsie. Yeah, so it's me. Takes me to get back. But I need a community. I need to be stable so I can see that. I need to have some self-worth to go, oh, you know what? I've been down this road. I can do it again. I got faith in you hill. Come on girl, let's go. Yeah. And then I get productive and I start changing the way I think, the way I feel, the way I act. And then the last part is the most wonderful part of getting stabilized and going up this, up this ladder is then I can be of service to another human being. Mm-hmm. I can share my joy. My happiness, how I've been through it and my encouragement with another human being that's like the best drink, heroin, shopping, sex, food. It's better than any of that stuff.'cause I get that hit of like, wow, I matter. I matter. I love that and I wanna matter. I wanna matter. Not what I look like, not my outside. I wanna matter. Mm-hmm. And that's why people have children. They wanna feel like they matter. Mm-hmm. That's why they have a husband. They get these things on the outside to feel okay on the inside, but it really is an inside job, and it's okay to go inward. It's the most exciting adventure you'll ever do is to find out who you are. I had planned when I had kids that I was gonna have grandkids. And I planned my life almost around that idea. But now when you said that about, we have kids because we wanna matter, well. I do. I, when I really think about it, yeah. I want grandkids to keep my legacy or something going on, but I don't need that for that to happen. I don't need them for that to happen. I can do that myself. Well, and there's always, see, we always think that when, remember when we're talking about the Hope Box or the Hope chest? Yes. The HOPE test. Yeah. Only opened it one time. Yeah. Open it more. Open it more. Because I couldn't, didn't have kids. Mm-hmm. Then I thought, oh yeah, I don't matter. I don't have kids. All my friends are having kids. And they're like, oh my God, you'd make great kids. You'd make beautiful. And I'm like, you know, hi, I am different. Hey. Yeah. But I started thinking, how can I, I just have love I wanna give, how can I do that? Mm-hmm. So I volunteer and I started mentoring women.'cause I had a foster mom when I was 14. Mm-hmm. And I remember the day that I came outta juvenile hall and she picked me up and because I salt and battery, I was a bad kid. Bad kid turned good, but I was adventurous. So she said to me, gosh, I looked outside the window and it was cloudy. I was living in California. It's rare, it's cloudy. And I go, wow, it's so cloudy outside. She goes, wow. That's the first time you came out of yourself to see the world differently. Hmm. Which said that to me. I learned from a stranger and that made me think I can go mentor. Or go volunteer to the Boys and Girls Club and you know how much I matter to these strangers because they're able to hear.'cause family, you don't listen. You're like, yeah, ma Uhhuh, whatever. Okay. I know, I know, I know. That's my favorite word, right? Yeah. Two words. I know, I know. Yeah, right. If I knew better, I'd do better, right? So I thought, wow, this is interesting. I can add to a stranger just as well as I can add to my family. So I started doing things like I would go to the boys and club. Club and I would volunteer. Mm-hmm. I asked, you can see if you can go babysit. You can have, you know, parties at you on your property. Mm-hmm. All these, there's so many ways for you to get rid of all that love. Yeah. That's what you wanna do. It's not that you wanna get a legacy, you wanna get rid of the love that you have in psych. Yeah. That's true. And I think part of that, doing this podcast too, I get to connect with women who I would never be able to connect with without it. You know? I mean, look, you're in Florida. I'm in Wisconsin, and you know, we're having this wonderful conversation and that lights me up. And once I started focusing on that too, that kind of helped too. Like I'm, I am making a difference. You know, it's not just me talking to women, right. It's we're connecting and we're showing that connection and the listeners are, are hearing that too, so, yeah. Right. Yeah. That's the joy of giving. So, back to you what things are you doing now? Tell the listeners where they could find you if they're interested in knowing more about you. Well, I'm a keynote speaker and I do a lot of motivation, so people ask me like I go to colleges, which I love going to colleges'cause women were like a little lost in our twenties and yeah. I'm very big on, let's make a lot of mistakes, guys. Let's go for it, you know? Mm-hmm. I don't perfection, eh, eh, look at a Pollock. You know, Mona Lisa is not a pretty painting. Let's just get that up. But it's like art, right? So we're gonna make mistakes. So I, I do private coaching. I only take on so many because I really give myself to people. So I've been doing that for 40 years. You can book Hillary Powers Live if you want a keynote speaking. I've written a few books. I have a few books right now two children's books and a memoir that I'm. Looking for publishers to get published. Okay. I do have some eBooks of, I'm no longer leading With Your Wound. That's my keynote. Mm-hmm. Because we end up leading our lives like my, I pick all my men, my food, my, my future, my jobs, all from my wounds. They're not even really what I want. It's just a habit. Oh, interesting. So I hate to show you how to kind of, I coach you in that I have six weeks course, 12 week courses on how to, and I, and I love working with women that really wanna, they wanna shift. Mm-hmm. Because you can be anything. I mean, from where I came from, I'm not that woman. On the outside it looked like I had everything, but then I was destitute and was homeless and living on the streets and going, I just wanna kill myself. And now I love my life. I'm not talking about my living, I'm talking about my inside life. I get up in the morning and I feel good because I pray the, if I don't go to pray in the morning, I'm going to this brain. I'm probably gonna get into some mischief and cause some kind of havoc and catastrophe. So I go, okay, God, it's another day. Can you show me what to do next? Let's have the best day ever. Yeah. And I really show the people I work with and especially when I do public speaking, I give'em tools right there and then. It's not over there. It's right here. Let's do it right now. Let's do it right now. Your life starts right now. Right now. So I show you how to do that so you can reach me. I'm on Instagram, Hillary Berger Powers. TikTok, I think it's at Powers. Hillary m Powers I'm on LinkedIn Pod match. And Facebook and, all the, places you go, I guess. Yeah. To find you. What popped into my mind, which I do this a lot. I'll be, I guess we'll be talking in, something pops into my mind. Would you consider yourself a work in progress? Always. Yeah. I don't wanna be, I always say this, okay, so the girls say to me, oh my God, I want, and they're always in their like thirties. They wanna just do it right now. I gotta get pregnant now. Like there's been a couple girls that I work with that I've kind of showed'em how to manifest, how to get pregnant. One girl got pregnant in 10 days, and she was 40. She says, I gosh, forever. I'm like, wow, that it's not me. I just show her how to tap in. Yeah. Yeah. I wanna help you help yourself. I'm not a gu, I don't want you to be dependent on me. Right. I wanna show you how to be okay with you and depend on something greater than you. Mm-hmm. That's it. That's it. I wanna be the gateway. But no work in progress is funny. So she says, I wanna be everything. And I said, here's the thing. I'm a Cadillac. I'm never gonna be a Porsche. I always wanted to be a Porsche. Mm-hmm. My whole life, when I get over there so I wake up and I go, oh my God, all my windows are busted. My car, my tires are flat. I've got no oil, no gas. My work is to keep it maintaining constantly, constantly. So I'm always a work in progress. Like some days I'll feel great and I'll all of a sudden go, oh my God, did I just see a bag of Oreos? Oh. All of a sudden my mind's like, you Fat. Fat. And I go into the old school of like the old song, I call it the Elevator Music. It's like, oh, there I go again. That. Is that song playing again? Your fat old hag. Oh yes, I know that song. No. So I get to go, okay, stabilize. Am I eating well? So it's constant. Mm-hmm. But that's life. Mm-hmm. So when I take care of my living, how I live, my inside life is calmer, and then I can have a fruitful life, and then I go. Yeah. And then I start seeing when I, I am stressed and I go, oh my God, look at the butterflies are still here. Oh, that's so great. Look at the leaves are changing. How beautiful. I can smell things differently because now I'm stable. Mm-hmm. And I can reemerge into this busy, crazy rat rate. Oh my God. We're in the biggest show right now. Mm-hmm. And I have got to go here so I can reemerge back out there. It's, you know, I get to learn how to watch the, it's like saying, being on the ticker at the stock market or watching it. I watch it and I go, wow. It's, why did I, wow. Wow. Well, looks like it's gone. I'm not emotionally attached to it because I've learned how to go here for my life, not here for my living. Right. I love too that you, you bring your hand into your, your heart. I think people do that automatically or without thinking of that. That's true. No, because they're taking care of your biofield. Here it is. Yeah. Yeah. It's right here. Yeah. I love that. And I can calm myself down just like that by going, yeah. Yeah. You're okay, honey. You're okay, honey. You're okay. I've learned that too. And then when I am ready to. I just open my arms. The arms just go out. So let's go. Let's go. Yeah. Oh my gosh, Hillary, this has been such a wonderful conversation. I feel like we could just keep going and going and going. That's great. Thank you for asking us such good questions. I appreciate Oh, you're welcome. Is there any one last little nugget of knowledge you wanna share with the listeners before we say goodbye? You know, I always like to, it's let people know that you know, you're where you're at right now. You're in the best place ever. Thank you, God. Thank you. God. If you feel like you're, you hit the bottom, awesome. Now you can build a strong foundation. If you feel like, oh my God, I made all these wrong choices, and you're going through a divorce, I want you to celebrate that you're getting to know yourself more, because that's all you. I wanna know who I am before I'm outta here. I am just passing through, I might as well get to know the host'cause I'm the host. So if you're in a really tight spot or you're scared or lonely, start saying, start praying to something you don't understand. Doesn't matter. I don't understand God all the time. I don't even know who he is half the time, but I keep talking to him. Mm-hmm. And then it helps me go, what do I need today? And it's seeing taste and touching here and smelling those senses, stabilize. And from there, I swear, your life can be amazing in here. That's where I live. I live right here. They're right there. I love that so much. That's, I love that. The picture and words. Yes. Thank you so much for sharing your story. Awesome. And tips with our listeners and I hope this isn't the last time we ever talk because I would love to talk to you again sometime. Oh, invite me back on. I would love to. You're awesome. Thank you. Have the best day ever, you guys. You too. Why not. Bye-Bye. Bye. Thank you for listening to the Midlife with Courage podcast. If you liked what you heard, I would love it if you would leave me a review or even better send a link of this episode to a friend. Until next time, take care of your beautiful self.