Episode 45: Escaping Domestic Violence, Leaving a Cult, and Finding Personal Freedom: How to Trust Yourself Again After Narcissistic Abuse with Ashana Kaiulani

So you've built a strong recovery foundation and now you’re ready to break through life’s glass ceilings and create next-level success that feels as good as it looks? 

I want to help you make it happen. 

Book your free 1:1 Next Level Breakthrough Call, and together we'll:

• get clear on what next level success in your life in recovery looks like 
• name the biggest thing holding you back from having it now, and 
• map out a powerful strategy to create success in the areas of your life and career that matter most 

You deserve to experience next level success, to expand what’s possible in your life, to step into the identity of a woman in recovery who knows WTF she is, and to know exactly what to do to manifest your biggest dreams. 

And I can help you get there. Book your call here.

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⚠️ Disclaimer

This episode discusses domestic violence, trauma, and suicidal ideation. Please listen with care and use discretion. If you’re in immediate danger, call 911.

Take action today: Donate to Safe Harbor of Eastern Kentucky 

If you or someone you love is experiencing domestic violence, please reach out for help.

• National Domestic Violence Hotline: 1-800-799-SAFE (7233) or thehotline.org

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This episode is one of the most powerful, honest, and riveting conversations we’ve had on Girls Who Recover. My guest, Ashana Kaiulani, takes us on an extraordinary journey—from surviving domestic violence and spiritual manipulation to reclaiming her identity, her power, and her peace.

Together, we explore what it truly takes to rebuild your life after trauma and how to trust yourself again when every voice has tried to silence you.

Ashana shares honestly that may take your breath away:

• How she broke free from a violent marriage and found the strength to leave a high-control spiritual community
• What re-parenting the inner child actually looks like
• Why self-trust, laughter, and spirituality became her medicine for healing
• How she turned her pain into purpose through advocacy for survivors of domestic violence
  
  If you’ve ever felt trapped in fear, self-doubt, or shame, let this episode be a permission slip to begin again.

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Love Ashana as much as I do? Connect with her here:

Substack + Podcast / Instagram / Website 

Ashana Kaiulani is a trauma support consultant, recovery coach, and the founder of Way Home Wellness. A former 9-1-1 operator and survivor of both foster care and domestic violence, Ashana now helps women heal after narcissistic abuse and betrayal trauma. Her work blends nervous system regulation, neuroscience, and grounded compassion, guiding women to reclaim their inner light and find peace after years of carrying too much. 

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Hey gorgeous.

I love you.

I'm so proud of you.

And I believe in your ability to create a life you absolutely love.

Transcript

0:00

Welcome to the Girls Who Recover podcast with Dana Hunter Fradella, where incredible women just like you, go to transform life's biggest setbacks into your most powerful comebacks so that you can live a life you. Love. I'm your host, Dana Hunter Fradella, transformational coach and founder of Girls Who Recover, and my mission is to pull back the curtain on our mistakes, failures, shame and personal disasters, and light the way for how to use those to create your biggest and most gorgeous comebacks. Follow the show now. Grab your iced coffee and turn up the volume for girls who recover. Let's light it up. Welcome back, gorgeous. We have a very special guest for you today and I'm so excited for you to meet, for you to meet her. And I connected with Ana in a group we were in. And we talk a lot about energy on this show. And so my antenna is always out looking not for what people say, but the energy behind how they say it. And this woman is on fire and I can't wait to have this conversation. So Ashana, will you please introduce yourself and tell us a little bit about who you are, what you're about, and where you are in the world? Yeah. Yeah. That was beautiful by the way. Thank you for that. So let's see. I'm Ana. Who am I? This one always catches me off guard because for decades it's oh, I'm this major. Oh, I'm a mom of five. Oh, I'm a homeschooling mom. Oh, I'm figuring it out. I'm an avid learner. I'm a perpetual student, and these days I'm just, I'm a Shana. Like I'm here. I'm here. Ana, tell us how to pronounce your last name. Kayani. Kayani. Ashana. Kayani. Yeah, let's start there. Let, before you even tell us about your story, we, I've done this exercise with my mentor, but. Isn't that funny? How when somebody's who are you? The first thing you wanna say is oh, I have five kids, right? I have three, so that's fair. Or, oh, I have these degrees, or, I live in this place. Or I'm defined by all this external stuff. When really the heartbeat of the question is oh no, who are you without all of those things. Who am I without my husband and my house and my love for bunnies? Like what? Who, what's left? And I hope that we get to that part of the conversation. I hope that by the end of it, I'm normally happens in the first like five minutes that whatever that theme is of who the essence of Asana is, gets to show up and play today. Because what else is there? You know this, you're here to tell us about your setback to comeback story and then to tell us a little bit about the work that you do in the world. So I'm just gonna sit back and drink my lemon water. And please, would you tell us about your comeback story? Yeah. I guess I'll just start by saying my name was not always Una. I was born with a different birth name. And it never really felt like me. My birth family gave me a nickname also. So I went by Breezy for a long time, like 30 years. And of course there's these stories of my parents liked that Lynyrd Skynyrd song. They call Me The Breeze, and so it gave me like this identity to anchor into my family liked this, and so my name was this. And so I was very much an other centered child. I was very much like taking care of people, paying attention to what their needs were very in tune with their emotions, very heart open. And when people felt pain, I felt pain. And so it felt good for me to anchor into the sense of, yes, this is who I am because my mom likes this about me. And when she says my name, it sounds like this. And I get this good feeling. And I don't really know my dad, but I know that he liked this song and this artist. And I don't know it, I guess my comeback story starts with. Starting at the beginning, I was just a person who was just so full of love and I just, I wanted the world to be a place that was full of love also. And I thought that it was. And so growing up and learning later, looking back, I realized my mother had borderline personality disorder. I went through foster care. I was with grandparents a lot. So many generations of traditional styles of parenting, but also some really dysfunctional habits that were thrown in there also. And then moving in with my dad when I was in my like pre-adolescence stage, he was super abusive, physically, psychologically, which was a shock to my system. I could not fathom that a person would slap a child across the face, shook me to my core. And so I guess it was this. Rude awakening in real time of I thought that this was love and maybe this isn't actually love, but as a kid, you still want to, you still want those people to love you. You still want them to accept you. And I just wanted my mom to think I was cool and to wanna spend time with me. And I just wanted my dad to stop telling me that I was dumb and stupid and to just like value what I was saying. So I became this other person, right? We have these, this mask that we put on or this other self that's more presentable for the world. And so I stopped being that heart open little girl, and instead I became this harsh, cold, clinical rigid walls up perfectionism, wanted to go into pre-med, like everything by the book, very type A, just imagine every muscle in your body tensed up for decades and not even realizing that there was the possibility to release them and relax. And that's who I became. And so my identity shifted and it became rooted in my education because I was at, at the very least, maybe I was annoying. Maybe I talked too much. Maybe I was a know-it-all. Whatever these things that people say about you, but at the root of it, I felt at least I'm smart. At least I have school. I relate to that. I relate to that. So I just like pause. Yeah. I relate to a lot of what you're saying, specifically that feeling in your body where it's like your cells can't even take a full breath. You just cannot because it's not safe. What? It's a breath. Exactly. And then the other thing is like holding onto that thing where it's like, at least I'm smart and smart. I'm, I don't know your story, but it took, it can take you a long way. So just know I'm with you. I'm right here. Okay, keep going. Okay. So let me see. Okay, so I was the kind of smart where I. I had read books since I was like four years old. And so you have this massive vocabulary and it's just like you memorize things and you're like, yes, I know this and I know this and I know this. But a big thing in my family was like, breezy has no common sense. Like no street smarts, no. Couldn't apply it to anything. But by God I was passing that test. So here I am, like I had made really high on my test scores in high school. I was getting letters from like far off colleges, offering full rides. I was able to skip some of my classes and go do like a CT prep instead because my school was like, yes. Get her up there. Of course identity acceptance, I feel so proud. And around that time, this was when I actually got a girlfriend instead of a boyfriend. I'm in small town Alabama. This was not Okay. Okay. My dad was very strict, and I just really wanted to spend time with her. I was head over heels and I didn't get to go roll people's houses with toilet paper. I didn't get to go do sleepovers. I didn't get to do any of that. So I started like finding ways to talk to my girlfriend. I got like a secret phone or I snuck her into my house and the tension rose so badly between me and my dad that he came into my room one day. He had flipped the mattress off the bed and was just like, raging shut the door. I was up against the door. I was like trapped. He was yelling at me and I was just like, I don't, something in me just broke off finally. And I just looked at him and I was like, you're crazy. I'm not doing this anymore. This house is awful. I wanna die. I can't, like I'm moving out of this house. I'm leaving and you'll either let me, or you'll find my dead body. And I promise you I was serious. Yes. I guess he believed me because he signed over a power of attorney to someone who had tried to help raise me since I was born. But she wasn't a biological parent, and so the power of attorney was necessary. And how old were you Ashana? 17. Okay. Yeah. So I was a senior in high school and I had, it was January. I had four months left of high school. And I'm still not sure why, but I think it might have been like some sense of retaliation from my father. But his response to me moving out and having this girlfriend and having this freedom was that he withdrew me from high school. And I did not have a blood relative who would sign for me to go to another high school. So I lost everything. Lost, like the whole, the race to valedictorian, the scholarships, the colleges looking at you like, you're like, you matter and they want you. So I feel like that would be like my biggest, most devastating setback. And it segued into this period of adulthood on, I don't really, I don't think I hit true adulthood until like late twenties. But I was out on my own and I didn't know how to do anything. I didn't know how to pump gas. I had never been allowed to go do anything. I would get lost driving places, and now I have to go get a job and pay my bills and communicate with adults. And it led to this like crippling, paralyzing, dehumanizing social anxiety where I just wanted the earth to swallow me up there. There's this shame of I cannot do anything. I shouldn't even be here. I would ditch my grocery cart in the grocery store and just walk out because decision anxiety, like I couldn't decide which ice cream to buy and it wasn't about the ice cream. Yeah. But I would just, or I would go to a drive through to order something and I would get so worried that I was taking too long and I would just drive away. I couldn't even say nevermind. I'm sorry. I would just be and that led to coping mechanisms. I developed some eating disorders. I developed Klepto mania for a minute. Very. Yeah, girl, that's a sexy one. Alcohol. Horrible. Like underage binge drinking. I remember one time I had 17 shots of whiskey in one night at the age of 17. And this continued for years, like I wrecked my body. I felt like my mind was just destroyed, swinging wildly from one end of the spectrum to the other. I was diagnosed with fast cycling, bipolar with sociopathic tendencies, which was interesting because it was like, how did I get here from this heart open little girl to this out of control? I don't know, man. Looking back, I'm just like, it's so sad. It's so sad because I just needed a little bit of guidance and a little bit of acceptance and mirroring back to me like, you're okay. That's okay. All this is okay. And I didn't get it, but. I think the comeback is like where I learned that I needed that and now I'm like, oh gosh, I can do that for myself now. And yeah. So tell us about, I have a lot of questions we're coming back to him'cause I wanna give you the full stage Yeah. For, to tell the whole story. But tell us about, typically in the transformation process, there's a window where something happens or you wake up or you're like hear a song or I, it looks different for everybody, but where you go on the downward spiral and something happens to either neutralize it or have this spiral shift back up. And so was there a moment or an experience or something that you can point to that stopped the cycle? I call it the cycle to hell. Because I've been there and then gave you a different trajectory on the way that you were showing up for life. Yes. Okay. So I feel like there's so many like comebacks rolled into one with my story that I'm like okay. Oh my gosh. I'm sorry, my nose is running. So you're good. I got married I got into a relationship, so I stayed with my girlfriend for a long time. Moved to Arizona with her. We parted ways and not the best way. And so I had this rebound relationship, you could say. It was a guy that I went to high school with. We weren't like friends or anything. I had noticed him before and thought that he was cute, but he worked at the place where my dad worked. And so when I came back from Arizona to Alabama, I like patched things up with my family. Which looking back now, I'm like, God, that's so sad. That is so fucking sad. I still just wanted a family. It was like some of the same dysfunctional things. So my dad gave this guy my phone number and was like, she's single now. Oh, thanks dad. Yeah. And so this guy like bugged the shit out of me. And I would not go on a date with him kept, I would be like, yeah, okay, sure. And then I wouldn't, which looking back now is my intuition. But I had no way that I was just this wildly out of control person. And I didn't have an intuition. I just had these, my dad would call it jumping up and down on the self-destruct button. Just like your mother. So just like your mother. Yeah. Yeah. So I had all these labels ready to go for this reaction of mine or that reaction of mine. And so I just, I doubted every decision I made and I just did what I thought was the right thing to do so I wouldn't get in trouble. That's the theme of my life. So I finally went on a date with this guy. And we actually, we went to his, our mutual friend's house, which was his best friend red flag. Looking back, he had a suitcase of stuff and was staying on his friend's couch. Got it. I didn't know he had just gotten out of a relationship that she didn't know that had gotten out of, she thought that they were still together. Long story. Got it. So we hung out all night, played video games, watched movies, super fun time. The next day he came over to my house to, to eat a meal with me. And this joker never left. Like he moved in with me starting that day. He'd already had his suitcase packed. Yeah. I was primed and ready for a relationship like this. Like codependent city over here. Yes, someone loves me, wants to spend time with me. Yeah. Yeah, it wasn't for a while until I realized that some of the behaviors were abusive. I wouldn't wanna go party one night and he would just pick me up and throw me over his shoulder and carry me to the party. I had grown up reading all these books, which included romance and smut. So that's good stuff, girl. So you, wait, what was the last part? So you said what you'd read you, that's how you treat a woman, right? You just don't Oh, right on your shoulder and you Yeah. Yeah. So at 19, at this point, I'm 19. It escalated in that relationship. So I got pregnant six months in. He wanted me to abort the baby, another red flag. And I was like, absolutely the fuck. Not, no, this isn't my baby. I was actually on my way leaving him when I found out I was pregnant. So of course I stayed. And of course he proposed. And of course we got married. And I realized later, like him taking my keys from me when I tried to leave the argument, him taking my phone from me when I tried to call for help, him wrestling the house phone out of my hands and wrestling me onto the couch, choking me while his mother and that friend stood by and just were like, Hey, stop. Of course, I was leaving for a reason. Yeah. So I had this baby, my firstborn, and then a year later I had another baby, my second born. And I realized how much I loved labor and delivery and this miracle of bringing forth something that wasn't even there before. It doesn't belong to me, and it's just this force. And I was like, oh my God, I could do this every day for the rest of my life. And he was like, I don't want any more kids. So I'm like, okay, I'll be a surrogate. And so I started carrying babies for other people. Wow. So I'm busy, right? Like I'm going through all these transformative processes. And it was in between baby number two and baby number three, where I realized I need more help. And so I asked him like, I need you to like, come inside and stop working on your truck and stop playing video games. And I want a family. Can you please help me? This is a lot. And that was absolutely not okay. Oh my God, I was the worst human in the world for asking for that. So I left him actually I think four times over the course of several years accidentally, like when I took him back one time, accidentally got pregnant with baby number three. Who is oh, he like I say accidentally, but I'm like, no, it wasn't like the world needed him ready or not. Here he is. Here's how you be like a fine specimen of a human. He's wild. He's free. He's like unfettered, unbothered here he is. And something about him just I was just like, it wasn't fair. What these two got my two older babies and we've had this conversation many times. They're 12 and 13 now. And I'm just like, I'm so sorry. I had no fucking clue. But baby number three, he was like, I was like, I gotta leave this. This is a spiral. This is unhealthy. I'm living out the same shit that I had before, but now it's more physical, like least with my dad, I outgrew the spankings. This is like dangerous, like holding me by my throat and then spitting me around, holding me over the back of a couch while I'm pregnant with someone else's babies. I, this is a big dude. I can't, I couldn't get outta that. Yeah. And so I just realized like something has got to change here. So I left him for the last time, the final time, and that started my journey of self discovery. But there were more coping mechanisms, more things that happened after that. More themes to, to break free from, but grow through and learn from. But I think that was the pivotal moment was like, I guess seeing number one, when I got pregnant with that third baby and told him about it. He was so mad at me that he asked me to get him a big thing of Jim Beam on my way home so he could drink about it. That hit me and then I just I thought back to like he didn't want the first baby. He asked me to abort it. He didn't really want the second baby because when people were congratulating us on Facebook, he was like, yeah, we were actually, we actually got stupider and planned this one. And I had just overlooked all these red flags until finally it was like. This is not what you want. Your children are watching this stop. So it was a process, I think, but my kids they saved me. I don't wanna put that on them as some duty that they were here to perform or fulfill, but they did. I was in a retreat this weekend and the presenter defined the word magic as creating something out of nothing, basically. And that's what we do as women specifically, is we are the great creators and we create these beautiful beings that are straight magic that came basically from nothing. All the odds. It's very unlikely that anyone would make it here anyway. And then of course, they come out like unicorns. Of course they come out wild because that's the way magic works. That's the way transformation works. And who knows? No shame in the game. My kids have saved me from a lot of stuff, and I do think that's part of their assignment, and it was part of mine to learn it from them. So we're gonna get to that. I'm still ba tongue. Hold my tongue. So you, the your transformation was a window. It was coming back trying again. Getting in a relationship with the dude with the suitcase again, like no shame, because when we back up and start looking, I'm sure you've done this. You seem extremely self-aware when we look at the history. No shade for you. Meta. You need some support. Okay. Listen for the for our podcast listeners. The, and she almost was bombarded by a porch umbrella. So I, we're not laughing at this situation, but we are laughing at the shade coming. Are you okay? Do you wanna take a moment? I'm good. I'll just chill for a second while the wind passes. Great. All right. We're good with the umbrella. Okay. So there's a window of pivot, right? There's not a pivot point. There's a pivot. Phase where you come back, you try again, you meet this guy with a suitcase, he moves in and all the while just honoring this part of us as humans. Again, going back to this retreat I was just on like our basic needs include love. We humans will, we will die without it. There's study after study of orphanages where the babies are held and not held, and that's why there's something called failure to thrive is because when we're denied the kind of loving, acceptance, encouragement that is our birthright as a human, something gets messed up in the wiring and the best news, which we'll talk about is there's a way to rewire it and you use the word reparent it and then you're in this marriage, you found the thing that just, I, it's hard with a podcast. We'll publish this video at some point, but you just lit up when you started talking about, it's my baby, I'm keeping it. And by the way, I love having babies and I love creating. And so I'm gonna keep doing the thing I love, which is my love language. Women who are get to do what they love, and then your awakening of noticing the things that were there. But there are no shame or shade to ourselves for not seeing them. We see things when we're supposed to. My opinion, and you saw clearly. Thank you for the third child who helped us wake up. The third one for me did the same thing. Wake up and remember who we were and actually what we're available for. And so you decide I'm not available for this relationship. I heard you say, which I also wanna normalize, it took several times to leave. That is so normal in the leaving process. And so just, we've had conversations on the show with other women who were like, fall shame that it took so long. I'm like, no, girl. Go look at the science of what happens in the brain and the body and the spirit and the soul. Like of course it takes a little bit and frankly. I'll probably put a trigger warning at this at the beginning of this episode, just in general, but many women don't ever make it out and they, and their kiddos or their in utero kiddos don't make it out. And so I just wanna hover there for a second. It's a really big deal. And so while we can't capture it all in one podcast experience, I just wanna honor you because that takes a lot to do that. And what also I want to celebrate you for is that we're not shaming ourselves for taking what it took. We're honoring that and loving that part of this. Okay, so now you've gone tell us about the comeback. You're gone, you've extricated yourself, and now where are you now? And then tell us about that path to where you are now. Yeah. Okay. Let me see. So I. There's so much that happened here. It's gosh, if you think a lot happened in the first 20 years of my life, like looking at the last 10, I'm just like, whoa. So I did remarry. I had two more children. So I have five kids, every single one of them. Just as magical as the first and the next along the way. Oh my gosh. Okay. There's so much here. Okay. There were things in me. That after that first relationship and after that kind of waking up moment, I dove into these like aspects of me. It's like that book, are you My mother? It was like, are you my personality? Are you my identity? Wow. Yes. These phases, right? And I was like, at one point I was like head shaved, nose pierced, had an altar, like tarot cards. Not that I'm saying there's anything wrong with that, but I was like, that was my identity for a minute. Yeah. Okay. And then when I started plant-based eating, like I watched all these documentaries about animals and how they're treated and then it was like I was vegan. Like all these aspects that we're digging into. And I had to wake up to the fact that what I was doing by trying to find my identity so hard, I was still trying to find that one thing about myself that would finally be enough to like your lovable. You're wanted. You're good. You're good. That's what it was. You're good. You're not bad. And so I had all these experiences that were thankfully reflecting back to me, this theme of like you're wandering around the world constantly trying not to get in trouble. And this means that you're also waiting for someone to tell you what to do, which is holding you back from that accountability of being the adult that you want so badly to be. So there was a part of it I had to realize was also me staying stuck in those pain stories because I just wanted someone so badly to see what I had been through and to validate that I had never had that before. And growing up, I had heard all these adults be like, oh, you're so strong. Oh my gosh. Bless your heart like you've been through, than more than any adult should ever have to go through. Oh my God, you've been through so much trauma. So this was an identity that I carried forward with me, of course, because it got me the attention that I needed as a child, but it wasn't an identity that I wanted to stay in. And so there's this fine line, I think between staying stuck in the pain stories and that becoming your identity, and then that informing your ability to show up in certain areas of your life versus finally coming to a place of understanding or at least acceptance of what you've been through to the degree that there may still be some grieving there. There may still be pain that shows up that you definitely wanna sit with and be there for yourself with, and you may need support, you may need community, that's fine. There's no shame in that, but it doesn't have to be your identity. Instead, it can be what helps you show up for others. What helps inform who you are showing up as in the world. Had I not gone through those things, I wouldn't have the depth of compassion that I have now where a human can tell me something about their past. And like in sessions, people, women specifically I work with, women, will tell me these things and they're like, God, you're gonna think I'm awful. Like I don't even wanna say this. And I'm like, dude, you have no idea. I could never, like you could tell me anything right now and I'm gonna love you just as much as I did five minutes ago. Why? Because you're human and you're here and you're worthy of love, and you're not gonna change my perspective of you like you were hurting, you were in pain. And I can sit here and say to you, also, you know what? Maybe you didn't get that from your parents and maybe you're just trying to get it somewhere else. Now I still love your parents the same too. That doesn't mean I'm judging them either. It just, it is. And so when you're asking me like, who are you? I'm to this point where I'm like. I just am. I am finally, for the first time ever, and the things that happened to us and the setbacks and the comebacks and the things that we go through, they are, they were. They are. We carry them forward with us. We can release what parts we don't want for sure. You don't have to keep having that as part of your identity. But I like to think of it in terms of it's this beautiful swirl of colors behind you. And as you're walking forward on your path, you're choosing what colors you wanna bring forward with you and color the path ahead of you. And when I wasn't aware of all of this, like all these oh my gosh, you're worthy of love. What? Like forgiveness? What? This is crazy. I'm not an awful human. Not everyone is judging me when I wasn't aware of these things. The colors that I didn't like and the colors that I didn't want were constantly coloring everything in front of me. I viewed everything through those lenses of fear and of, punishment or this someone has to be the bad guy. Someone has to be to blame. So you're constantly defensive. And so when I'm able to like, choose which ones I wanna bring moving forward, I'm also able to say you're sharing with me what you're going through and I'm, I, it didn't happen to me. So I can't say oh, I get exactly what you're going through, but I can relate in some way and I can understand where you're coming from and I can sit with you in it.'cause it, it hurts. I can feel that sucks. So I don't even remember what your question was. I'm sorry. No you you answered it really beautifully. So I'm curious about. I have a million questions, but I'm curious about there. It sounds like you had a pretty big awakening to go from leaving your ex-husband and then having this Yes. Very enlightened conversation with me today. What helped you the most? Because we didn't just have a new habit to change, like our weight or fitness or whatever. Your entire life has been transformed and it sounds like from the inside out. So what would you say helped you the most along your journey? Okay, so this is the part where, not to censor myself, but I will be a little more careful in choosing of my words as they come out.'cause some things are still in flux and in process. I found a spiritual teacher and I went. Gung-ho like balls to the wall. I'm in this right. And everything that was put out by this person, I ate it up. And so it started with healing programs that taught about narcissistic abuse, which I know is a hot button topic out there right now. And what you experienced it sound like, right? Not to bring it out there, but to bring it home to you. Wait, wasn't, isn't that what you walked through? Oh, good. It's nice. Okay. Yep. And so waking up to that and realizing oh my God, everything that I've been feeling was valid this whole time. What? It felt like a sucker punch and something was taken from me and I was finally waking up and realizing that it had been taken from me, like the violation. So that was a whole layer of healing in itself. And then through just to have what your experience named, just to have it named oh, this is what this is what it looks like. And for you to just deeply resonate with oh my God, not only so this is what I heard. Not only is that my experience, but I'm not alone in this. I'm not alone in this experience. And just to pull back, you said some really, you said something really powerful. You basically said our basic human need. I don't know this about boys, but girls specifically you, it sounds like you have boys, so you can affirm this is to be seen, to be validated and to be loved. Yeah. Whether or not we understand or agree like that, none of that matters. But what it sounds like you needed me too, right? My, yeah. My favorite words is me too. It's connection as a child, what you're able to honor for yourself now and what it sounds like you give to your clients and of course your kids is I see you. I'm with you. I love you. Yes. No matter what. That's literally it. That's literally it. Like in my day job, I work as a couples recovery coach with another company who helps couples who have been through like relational harm and betrayal trauma. And just like literally summing up. Even that work is just sitting with these people and being like, oh my God, I see what you've been through. You're right. That's painful. I'm so sorry. I'm so sorry. And there's this layer that builds on that of and you can do it. Yeah, you can do it. I believe in you. Oh, that's a lot of my work too. I'm like, are we done? Are you done with it? And are you ready to do something that you're actually here to do? Yeah. So hold on. Let's go back. You spiritual teacher, you felt seen, you felt heard. I'm a big fan of spiritual teachers. I have several myself because my solution and recovery has always come from the realm of the spirit always. I could never have recovered from eating disorder, alcoholism, depression, anxiety, all the things with some cognitive behavioral mode is if whatever you would have. I would, I would've and you too. So I love the fact that you are here to talk about the language of the spirit and having a spiritual guide and a spiritual teacher. So keep going. What else helped you from that path or, yep. So there was the validation of what I had been through, and then there was this talk about these gaping wounds in humanity. A lot of people talk about the feminine and the masculine, the mother wound and the father wound. And I realize now, like it really doesn't even matter what label or words you use for it. It's the same fucking thing. And it's what you just said. We all need the same things. And you can have the best parents in the world from your perspective. It's all about your perspective and what you perceive it as. But you're still gonna get hurt. Hold on. Can I get an amen on a weekday for us on that? It's everything starts with your perspective. Yep. Yep. Yeah, because that's the thing, like I'm not gonna sit here and call my parents up and be like, you're a piece of shit.'cause you didn't give me what I needed. Like they were struggling too, and they had a perspective going on too. And my perspective was colored through my lenses and I'm okay now, but it doesn't change my perspective of what I went through. It was still valid and true for me. So there, there's so many layers to it, but I think waking up through this spiritual journey of realizing what was needed and what I actually didn't get, which was very painful for me because then that meant that I had to face that in my own children, which was the hardest fucking thing I've ever been through. Oh yes. I laid in the kitchen floor sobbing. My kids were standing there and they were like. Oh my God. What is she doing? Just crying because I didn't know how to be a mom.'cause I had never really had a mom. And then there was a time when I went and laid in the front yard and literally had a toddler tantrum kicking and hitting the grass. Why? Because that's what I needed to do in that moment. Nothing else would've helped me. I can tell you. It's like that is what I needed to do. And so I did it. And children, number one, they're teachers. They're teachers, they're so wise. Number two, they don't really have a sense of self-preservation. So you have to kick in with that and be like, okay, let's guide this a little bit. If you have no fucking clue what you're doing and haven't for a long time, and your children are being these teachers and these mirrors back to you of Hey, this is what I'm really needing in this moment. And you're realizing like, I don't know how to give that. Oh my God, it's hard. I get it. My having children has cracked me wide open and I relate deeply about the toddler tantrums and what this is, what I love about that for you and for me, and also for toddlers, the reason why I love toddler tantrums is because those little children are feeling all of their feelings as hard and as deeply as they can. And society comes with the toddlers. Have you ever seen a mom in a target having a toddler meltdown or whatever the do, like whatever store you got there, Alabama. Okay. Whatever it is. We don't come outta the mom. The mom normally. And this was me with my first one, and then half of my second one, the mom is horrified. Oh yeah, I can, face red, you can see she's sweating, she's angry. She, and then she's oh, how can I get this to stop? When I realized that. True. I wanna use this word, recovery, right? But really what it is true. Being with the essence of who we are means honoring our feelings, just like a toddler does. And the sadness here, that is, we're gonna break the ceiling on that and get happy about it.'cause you and I are leading the movement on this is that all of society has told us that it's not okay to feel our feelings, especially boys and also girls. Okay? It's not okay to have a tantrum. It's not okay to be in the middle of the floor, in front of your kids crying like why the fuck not? Because let me tell you what I didn't see growing up. I didn't see my mom crying. I saw my dad cry. One time in the whole of our relationship one time. And there's something to that, right? Like I don't know that anybody ever said Don't cry. They probably did. I don't know. But what I saw was nobody crying about it. Raging a little bit, breaking things, driving away. And I know when you're coming back, okay? But this is what we get to teach our kids. It is okay and safe to feel our feelings, to express them so deeply that we must lay on the floor so that they all come out into the earth and we get to be free of them. To make space for more of what you said we need. Love, validation, connection. Being seen, being held, being I am. There's no, it is not an accident that every spiritual text says that God says I am. That I am. And since we're made in the image and likeness of whatever you're believing in right now. We are. That we are. That we are. Yeah. And if you're stifling your feelings down, you're not saying I am. You're saying I'm not. I'm not. I'm not. I'm not. I don't wanna be an angry person. Oh. I'm not that kind of person. You're emotion. And then what happens when we suffocate them, they don't go anywhere. They hide in the pockets of our kidneys, of our brain, of our elbows, of our joints, of our DNA. And then they express, they're going to be expressed. Absolutely. But often it comes up I don't wanna be alive today, or I can't, I get out of bed because I'm feeling so anxious. Or now I have diabetes and cancer, their connection between in expressed feelings and the social suffering of humanity, that is fixed. We fix it with the Western medical health. Listen, I'm going to the doctor. My people are doctors. I love that. But if we went back and just had our tantrum on the floor when we needed to in a safe space with people like you moms or friends or neighbor, whatever that says, it's okay to be said. Let's be said. I did it with my five-year-old this morning, Ana, and I was so proud of myself because when my now 10-year-old was back in the day having these, I couldn't access that part of me. I was terrified of her feelings. Of my feelings and so like you said, so much can happen in a really short time. So keep going. Tell us how you got to where you are now internally. Okay, so we had this re-parenting journey that started with this spiritual teacher. Fast forward. So of, I also have gone through periods of cleaning up my diet, getting more in tune with my body, fasting, things like that, which I believe is very important. Yes. We talked about that before we record, we were like fasting the shit. It's so good. Yeah. And it's funny'cause when I'm fasting, I'll have something happen and I'm like, huh, that's mildly annoying. But there's it doesn't take hold in my body. It just like, boop, there it goes. And I'm like, oh, okay. I'm not annoyed anymore. That was cool. So there was the period of learning about that. There was also the period where I realized that this spiritual community that I had jumped into both feet first was actually very high control cult mentality. Which was an entire journey of its own, because I don't know if anyone of your listeners have ever left a cult, but it's fucking terrifying. Yes, they have. So please, if you wanna talk about it or we could come back and talk about it, a whole new episode, but give us the highlights, the gist, whatever you feel like will be helpful to you, and then to my friend who's listening. Okay, great. Yeah, I could definitely come back and talk about this more on a whole episode, but there comes a point where you realize that a cult itself is another reflection back, just like my kids were a reflection back. It was a reflection back of me looking to someone else for the answers that were already within me. And I was so pure apart. Here's the thing, the people that go into cults we're not dumb people. We're very intelligent people. Yes. So there's a shame associated with that of oh my God, how could I have fallen for this? You're pure of heart, I promise you. Like, when you went into that, you weren't thinking, let me get sucked into this other reality. That is completely like, when you come out of it, you're like, that was crazy. No, you're really trying here. I was trying to heal, I was trying to be closer to God. I was trying to learn more about this man Jesus that I have heard of, Southern Baptist Methodist churches. It's you're going to hell. And I'm like, I don't wanna go to hell. Please help me. And you'll be there forever, right? And there's no hope. You're just like, you might as well give up now. And you're just a sinner. Like you're, and religious cult, spiritual cult, any kind of cult, pure of heart, you're looking for something that you need. That's it. Plain and simple. It's the answer to everything that we go through in life. So don't shame yourself for being in that. And the lesson came from me when I. I first realized what was happening. I doubted myself so hard. I laid in the bathroom floor praying like, I feel like I'm going crazy. Please help me. Please help me find the truth. I just need the truth. I'll act on it. I will, I will. And I just kept getting this message of feel what you're feeling. Your feelings aren't lying to you. Your brain is trying to talk you out of it. So I would be listening to this spiritual teacher and I would have these thoughts of that wasn't nice, what they just said, wait a minute. That's not how I wanna treat people. But you have this mentality that has been built up in the community of oh my God, you have to worship this person. They're right about everything. And so it was like the ultimate test of leaning on myself and leaning on my connection to my higher power. Of I'm gonna be held and guided either way. If I leave this community, that doesn't mean I'm doomed to hell. That doesn't mean I'm eaten up with demons or what have you. Yeah. I'm a person and this is an important part of my process and I can say that I hope more people leave that community, but I could see the danger zone being when you first come out. Because if you're not quite yet able to look back at that as a learning experience and be grateful for it, which is, I, a lot of people wouldn't be in that place. A lot of people be like, oh my God, what did I just go through? This is fucked up. I'm mad, I'm hurt, I'm appalled. Like I'm violated on so many levels. This is disgusting. Which I felt that too, but the over the kind of over that was this beautiful oh I, the plant medicine was there all along. Because in these communities and in the spiritual world, you hear about these plant medicine journeys and you think you're going on this meditative path sometimes, and it's oh, actually that was I don't like that. And I was like, holy shit. The medicine was there all along. It wasn't the person, it was the experience of what I was going through. And I'm here on the other side. I can trust myself, I can make my own decisions. This is incredible. And part of that community was like not being able to fully jump into my own business because I was worried that this spiritual leader hadn't condoned it or like they weren't sharing my content. So therefore it wasn't good content. But other people were getting their content shared. And again, in that community, people might hear this and be like you were just projecting all of that onto this person. That's your own internal journey that's going on in you. That doesn't mean this is a cult. I hear that and I'm not gonna try to argue with that.'cause if you're not ready to hear it, you're not. But I will say that after leaving that community, I have lived a thousand lifetimes in less than a year, and I'm out here in the world helping people and having actual connections with people that prior, I was terrified of, I wouldn't have even been talking to these people because it was of them versus us. I would been worried that I was gonna get sucked into demons by talking to these people, or, yeah. Crazy things. And so this journey has been like, there's been chapters of my journey and I can't not talk about that one because it was an, I'm so glad you did. I have some questions. Yeah. But I'm, one thing I do wanna hear, I do wanna elevate is this theme of. I call it the great separation, like the great separation. So from a young age, the great separation between what your heart wanted and then what was available to you in, in, in your sphere. And then the great separation between that identity that has all, it sounds like it's always been there and coded in your DNA in your operating system of a woman with an open heart who wants to do what she loves and help others. And I wanna hear more about how you do that. But then a separation of knowing, of your knowing between you and your knowing. Basically you use the word intuition, I love that. But it's our internal knowing of who and who's and we are and what we're here for, what our assignment is. And then there's separation and we try this and we try that and we try them and we try that. And sometimes the separation just gets wider and wider. And that's one thing I also don't love so much about some forms of religion is like the great separation between heaven and hell and who God wants us to be and who we actually are here to be and who God is. Anyway, different conversation. I can't help but drop it here though'cause I feel spicy about it. But really it's this underlying separating us from our knowing. So my question for you is. How did you re-access your knower, your intuition, the thing that was, sounds like she was singing to you the whole time. Remem helping you remember your path, your compass, your identity. What sorts of things did you do to tune back in to what she's leading you to reminding you of? Yeah. I love the way that you called it a separation and the divide grows because I can look back to that period of when I was in that first marriage and that was when it was a chasm. It was the deepest divide. I was completely turned off to the point where I say that I had a me before that marriage and then a me after that marriage. And she wasn't fun loving anymore. She wasn't playful anymore. I didn't laugh for 10 years. And then I got a new best friend and her favorite thing in the world was laughing and she was like, why don't you ever laugh? And I was like. I laugh, and she's I've never heard you laugh. So that is a true friend. Yeah. Yeah. And she helps me laugh about this stupidest shit, like farts. And I'd be like, that's not funny. And then I would hear her laugh and then she's cackling and I'm like, okay. It's funny. So side note laughter opens up a part of you that has been closed down for a long time. Even if you laugh sometimes. I think I heard someone say one time that like, every time you laugh, the angels sing or something like that. This is I'm available for that to be true. Yes. Something clears out. I'm just noticing my body now. I've laughed a few times, probably inappropriately, but there's a lightness, there's an energy, there's a charge to it that's very high vibration, high we'll call it spiritual, but maybe not in this case. It's very light centered. Yes. And okay, so back to the question. How did you access that, that part of you who found my knower. You remembered who you were, like, I'm just gonna call it what it is, when, how did you remember who you were? Okay. The laughter segues into it because and you could, even if you read the Bible or believe in that, there's a part where Jesus said that you need to become like a child again. Yes. So that for me is he, even if you don't look at it in terms of the Bible, look at children, they're unencumbered. And they become over encumbered when we place these things on them of you must be this way. You should be this way. Why are you doing that? Why are you doing that? And I'm like, Ooh. So I, yeah. Also, Jesus never said, why are you doing that? You know he did it. That's not, if you really just take the teachings of Jesus and use everything you think you know about religion in the Bible and just like gently set that aside. He's not wrong. He is not wrong. And he never says you're bad. You're separate. You're going to hell. He just says, I love you. Here's how to be love. I love you. Here's how to be love. I love you. Here's how to be love. Here's how to be love. Here's how to feel love. Here's how to connect to love, to have accountability. Here's how to have accountability because you can't just sit by and passively love everything. Like you have to be looking at yourself. Also love in action. Ugh. I love that. Okay. So I became more childlike. I think this came with my reparenting journey because if we're wanting to get back in touch with that part of ourselves that has been locked off and closed off, we've got to sit with that part of ourselves and ask them what they needed. And I didn't get to be a kid. I didn't get to have fun. I had no idea how to do that. And I wanted so badly to be able to do that. So I had to learn how to do that. And that kind of relaxed those muscles a little bit because when they were tensed up, nothing could enter. A fortress sealed and you can't receive, you can't be tapped into your intuition if you're not, if you're not open in some way. And if you're tensed up, not gonna happen. Yes. So it was a lot of laying in the bathroom floor, doing coffee enemas every single morning, practicing relaxing my muscles, practicing being with that child self. Inviting her to sit with me and just share with me. And I would notice, like this was a few years now, but I would notice like my 17-year-old self was like, fuck no. Back off. Yeah. Okay. The part of you that was like, I'm really attuned to, I'm gonna be smart and that's gonna be the wall that's gonna the only thing that's coming out is me being smart. Okay. But hold on. Can you tell us what a coffee enema is? Yeah. Okay. So again, controversial. It's fine. Do your own research just'cause I do it. I'm not gonna tell everyone you've gotta go do this. It's the best thing in the world. It is. But so an enema, we know the concept of an enema. Okay. So you have your bag and you have your organic coffee, and I don't remember the exact measurements. Again, I think it's like a tablespoon and a half of coffee. Maybe just the benefits. Like what? What are the benefits of it? Yes. Okay. So when the coffee is in your body. You hold it for 15 minutes, it only enters your colon. So there's no actual caffeination going on. You don't get a caffeine high, you're not absorbing it through your stomach. So the palmitic acid that is in the caffeine of the coffee actually helps your liver produce like 60 to 70% more. No, it's more than that. 600 to 700% more of the effects of glutathione, which is like a big master antioxidant that helps. Yes. All these free radicals in your blood and in your system and in your body. So toxins and the effects of your metabolic processes, which can also be toxic, especially if you've got toxins. They get flushed out when you release the enema. So you, I'm going, I'm like a sticky note. Let me write that. Let me find out more about that. Okay. Okay. Thank you. And you're in this and you're mentioning that because you're really in the process of detoxifying every layer of you, your body, your mind, your spirit, your soul, all the things. Is that sort of why you're holding me in for 15 minutes? It's the perfect time to meditate. Don't sit on your phone, don't have information overload for 15 minutes at first. It's gonna be hard to hold that in your body. You have to learn how to relax your muscles and be aware of what's going on in your body. Perfect time to just close your eyes. Put your little eye mask on. Make yourself a nice, cozy palette and sit with that inner child or whoever is showing up today. And another thing that helped me a lot is there's this book called The Artist's Way by Julia Cameron. Yeah, girl. Every guest I have talks about Julia Cameron. Okay, cool. So Morning pages helped me a lot because, for a few years it was literally just me writing about all the things I was angry about, right? Yes. And then finally I was like, dang, I'm an angry person. I don't wanna be this way anymore. And so you have to have self-awareness, which a lot of us don't really have. We think we have it, but we don't really have it. Like you have to objectively zoom out and look at yourself, and then you meet that self with self-compassion. Always. Yes. Always. Because without those two things, you can't have self accountability, which is what enables you to live authentically with intention and make changes in your life to be the person who you want to be. So all these women who are struggling and they're like, I just, I wanna be this way and I can't I just wanna show up better for the people I love. It's of course you can't. You've been in survival mode calm down. It's okay. It's okay that you're this way. It makes total sense. Do you wanna look at you're this way? If not, that's okay. Let's look at what's showing up today. Okay. Write down everything that's stressing you out. Write down everything that is pressure on you. And then they see that and they're like, oh my God, I'm holding on to so much. So much. Yeah. Yes. And the thing that also is, humans don't change. They don't change permanently anyway. Through judgment. Yeah. Through blame, through. And a lot of us now that we've been programmed, the way we've been programmed, and again, no judgment, just like that's what was in the program. We came up in the world, but we're still. Lambasting ourselves with our own gavel and our own criticism and our own judgment. And then it's all day long. So no wonder we're feeling depressed'cause we're up there talking to ourselves like we're pe Like, your dad was talking to you at a young age, or your mom or whoever, and you ashana, but also other, anybody who's listening. Gosh, you just, you make it sound so simple and my experience just wanna, aff wants to affirm that it is, it's literally, you said I have pages of notes from you. You just let that go. You let that part of your identity go and what happens or you decide or you choose like a gentle one choice kind of thing. And my experience is what happens when we allow ourselves to just let go gently of one thing, then the real version of us stands forward. She's got a little bit more confidence.'cause she's not being weighed down by the armor of the cynic inside. Yep. Of the par. Easier with each thing you lay down. And I like to tell people, your parents, as a child, your environment around you not only shows you what the world is, but it also teaches you how to perceive that world. And getting in touch with your inter intuition, which is what you asked me and I completely. Didn't fully answer that in words, but you have to look at the belief systems that got you to not having an intuition at all. Sometimes like sometimes there's still pieces of it and it's still there and you can look back and you can be like, oh dang. I definitely was like on the right track there. And just but you've gotta remember that these environments that we had as children, that was our world. And here's how you operate in this world. Here's how you act in this world. Here's how you believe in this world. Here's what you should say, think and do. And you have to look at those things and be like, do I still believe that to be true? How does that feel to me? Yes. If it coming back to your body, how does it feel in your body? Because a belief, you'll feel it in your body. A true belief. Yes. If it's a brain belief, then it's I could logic this and I could make this make sense and I could do, no. All those acrobatics in your mind are not necessary. You'll know it feels like a breath of fresh air. It feels like you can set something down, and if not, it's probably not your intuition. Now, I will say following your intuition at first feels terrifying because you've had all these years of being trained not to do it. Okay? So that doesn't mean shy away from the scary thing, but when you get that nudge, and especially if you keep getting it, if you keep getting signals or messages about it, or that same word has popped up like four times now and you're like, that's weird. I keep seeing that. Sit with it. Spend 15 minutes with it. Don't get on your phone. Don't go talk to your best friend and see what her opinion is. Do that also. But also, how do you feel about it? What do you feel very. Something else you said too, which is, it's it's, I think it's the same thing, but I wanna hear you speak into it a little bit more, is to trust yourself and to trust your knowing and to trust that you don't need a man or a, a big dude in the sky, or a spiritual teacher or a bunch of courses, or your mom's opinion to tell you the truth about who you are. Can you speak into what that has looked like for you, this process of trusting yourself and I think, capital S self. Yeah. Not the one that lives in the brain, but the one that throbs in your heart and opens your heart again. Yeah. So for one, I changed my name legally, let go of that name completely. There came a physical symbol. It did not resonate. I was like, who is that person? People would say that name and I would be like. Who are they talking to? Okay. So small town, Alabama, when you change your name, people are like, okay. I got the stank guy for three years straight. People that I went to high school with, who we were like good friends, ghosted me. Like it terrified people for me to be stepping into something new. And I don't think being true to yourself means that you're gonna, we get to let go of the people, places and things that aren't aligned with our new frequency, and so the way that I have learned to really tap into, is this true for me or is this a path that I wanna be taking? Imagine that there's no money involved, there's nobody else's opinions involved. No. Like literally there's nobody on earth but you. And you're in this beautiful sanctuary, whatever that looks like for you, you see mine. Okay? Like mountains in the background, green, gorgeous, beautiful blue sky. There's no one here but me. And this is presented to me. What are you gonna do? Which one would I choose? That's it. That's authentic. Because if you're making decisions out of, oh, I need the money for this, you're probably making it out of fear and lack and scarcity. And you might feel restricted by that later. But if you sit with it and you're like, what would I actually do in this moment to, let's say you do need to make that money for something. Okay, what would I actually do? And you just sit and you're like, oh, you know what? I would love to make bracelets and go sell them at a craft show. Go fucking do that. You can do that. Yeah. Yeah. Relax and get out of the fear. So many opportunities open up to you that you were just like, huh, I had no idea. Yes. And you may go back and make that decision to make that money, and that's okay, because each time you get closer, let's say it like blows up in your face and it was awful. Okay, next time you're gonna know what a no feels like. Yes. So don't hard on yourself and don't think that every choice you make is permanent. There, there are some that are more permanent, so definitely sit with those. But it's just like this concept of rupture and repair and relationships. You can go back and apologize. You can go back and try something else. It's okay. And we don't, nobody needs us to be perfect, right? Like I always tell all my guests, I'm like, please, like there's no editing. Like whatever happens. And our only job here is to have a good time. And I really believe that's our only job in life is to have a good time. And the parts that we're not having a good time, there's a good time waiting for us when we reflect on what we learned from that and how if we expand it as a result. Okay, so we're nearing time. So I have two, two more questions and one is tell us about you now. Tell us about, you've had this journey. You're not done right? This is just one moment in time after you've completely transformed from the inside, outside. And tell us about what that feels like in your day to day, what it looks like in your day to day. Give us a little sneak peek on your life right now. Okay, so this is an interesting question. I don't know why I was just like, how am I gonna answer this? So super long story short I had issues with my first husband regarding our children. And I actually had him arrested for some domestic violence activities. And as a result, the court decided that I was alienating my children from him. So I lost placement of my oldest three children a year and a half ago. So they now live with him. Devastating, felt like I was dying, felt like my children were dying, could not understand how the system could not serve justice in that way. So I. Also had a, like an unofficial gag order. If you don't stop talking about this stuff on social media, there's gonna be a problem here. We'll go back and we'll revisit this. Which to a mother is they're gonna terminate my rights. Oh my God. So I've gotta be quiet about the abuse that I've endured in the courtroom now too. I can't talk about these people in this county. So I started volunteering a friend I noticed that she was posting about domestic violence and I was like, Hey, can I help you? So I started volunteering with the Alabama Domestic Violence Registry Project. We're working on getting a registry, the first one in the nation of the Yes Queen. Yes. Send me the link to donate. I'll, yeah. And it's it's super cool actually.'cause people had told me like, you should write a book or start a podcast. People have gotta hear what you have to say. So I was like I'll dip my toes. And I started a podcast for survivors of domestic violence. Yes. I'm not the only one who had my kids placed. The person. I'm not the only one. Every single woman that I've interviewed has had this happen also. So now there's reporters reaching out and they're like, would you guys be interested in talking about this? And I'm like, yes. Oh my God, if I can't talk about it here, there's fear of that SmackDown. It's me and a girl were talking about it recently. It's like Rosa Parks. Like somebody has to sit in the wrong seat. Somebody has to take a stand. And someone asked her like, why did you sit down in that seat on that bus? And she was like, I sat down because I was tired. And it's like sometimes sitting down looks different than just sitting down. So I really I'm very passionate about my work with that project. We, the website is now called Break the Silence al.org. If anybody Wow. To look at that. I'll try it in the show notes. It's going in the show notes. Yeah. And then in my personal business, like my business, aside from my wait, also what's the name of your podcast? So that one is called Voices of Strength. Okay. Voices of Strength. And then in my business, so I started out as a holistic health coach and I was coaching women through eating disorders'cause I had healed from that. Realized that there were deeper things underneath. And so I went through this whole journey of like how are all these things similar? What are the steps that I got through that actually healed the underlying things, which was a year long journey of me creating my own 12 week program of reg self-regulation and repair after complex trauma or narcissistic abuse. And I'm sharing about my business and my volunteer work here to answer this question because a big part of my day is waking up and just being able to take a breath for the first time in my life and be like, like I'm about to cry. Like I'm actually like doing something here to help other people. And it's not because I need to do it to feel like a good person anymore. It's not because I need to do it, of oh, mom, dad, look at me like I'm actually making something of myself. It's this sense of, like Jesus said in the Sermon on the Mount, he talks about blessed are those who mourn. Right? And to me that means holding space for everything that you've been through and holding space for the fact that as humans, we're gonna suffer at times, but not ever being indifferent to the fact that there's suffering out there in the world. And Buddha talked about it, the ocean of suffering. Yes. Okay. Don't indifferent to that. Don't close your heart because of that. Don't ignore it. Don't walk away from it. And I just, I feel like that is what I was placed on this earth to do. I believe that's why my heart was always so open, because I just, there is a path through the suffering. There is. And there's an after and there's a purpose. Not to say you're suffering for a reason. There's a reason why you're going through this. There's a greater purpose for your life. I promise you this suffering does not define you and it's not your identity. And my everyday life looks like me living that now, and I'm waking up and I'm just. I don't know. My muscles aren't tense. I can take a deep breath. I can come out and enjoy the sun, and I'm not worried about I gotta go do this. I gotta go do this. It's just, I'm chilling outside with my tea and here we are. And that's what life is to me, is like, where do you find yourself next? And how are you gonna be present in that moment? How are you showing up? What's gonna come from that? You have no idea. The possibilities are endless. Enjoy it. I do wanna reflect back to you just have this sense of ease about you, which is miraculous. I'll just call it what it is. Having had a similar experience where it's like every bone, every muscle, every artery was just so contracted and constricted that I don't even know if I ever slept really until I was able to, you used the word regulate. And that's a whole beautiful conversation waiting to happen. Regulating nervous system, regulating spiritual balance, regulating mind, regulating all the things. And there are practices and processes and it sounds like that's part of the work that you get to do in the world. And so that leads me to, I just wanna, before this last question is just really acknowledge. My love language and my favorite thing in the world is the transformation of women who become who they were sent here to be, who they were assigned to be. And it's just, I get full body resonance when I'm in the presence of someone who is on that path. And it's so clear that you are using your experience of the great separation to close that gap, not just for yourself and your own family, but for the women and people that you get to support as a result of this. Not just work in the world, but a movement. It sounds like you are in the process of creating. So tell us how we can work with you. Who is your, who's your soulmate client and how can she be in touch with you for the work of transformation? Yeah okay. Before I answer that, I just wanna say also, I forgot to mention this before another example of that divide and what comes from it is like. Yes, my children got placed with someone else. And somehow my relationship with my children is 10000% better than it ever was before. And my children, they're kids are resilient. Yes. But they also are more open and more receptive and more thriving somehow. So what I thought was a death sentence, and it was the end of my children's childhood, it was actually an opening of like, where can compassion come in? Where can the light come in? What can be done here to make these moments with them more? Let it expand, slow down time. What can you pour into these children? So side note of that and also I know that you're closing the separation for them and they're hearing things from you. I love you. There's nothing you can do about it. You're amazing. I'm so proud of you. I see you. I'm with you. I got you. So we're inter, we are generational interrupters who are creating a legacy of love, starting with ourselves by closing that chasm and then passing that along. Not just to our kids, but everyone that our kids get to touch. Plus everyone we get to touch and beyond. And beyond. Brava to you. How do we find you? Therefore, this is no we're nearing the end of our time. I'm sorry. Okay, so my soulmate client, okay. I typically work with women. I have worked with men, but I'm a woman. I'm just, we're gonna get along better. If you're a woman, I can help you, but I would probably more likely send you to a friend if you're a man. So thank you for listening. If you are, however speaking to the women here, if you've been through things that have been difficult for you, and maybe you are aware of them, maybe you have started to face them. Maybe you're that person who's like pouring over, like the self-help books and the 90 pages of Instagram at night, and you're going down rabbit holes and you're like, okay, save this, like this, save this. I'm gonna copy this into my notes I'm gonna take notes on this. Okay, attachment styles here. Okay, got it. Okay. I need to do these foods. Okay, then I need to get sunlight. Like all the things, right? You're still overperforming. You're still trying really hard to be that good girl or to be that person, and it's the person who needs to hear this from me. You already are that person. You don't need all of those things. And if you just need someone who gets that and who can say, I can help you, it's not that hard. I promise you, it may be difficult for you to dig into some of these things, and if you're not ready to face specific situations or look at certain things from your childhood, that's okay because you have patterns showing up now. You wanna change those patterns. There's something that you wanna improve about yourself, or you wouldn't be looking at all of those books. Okay. So you can still take actions to improve those things that you want to improve, but those are just things. So the real magic is gonna be helping you realize that you're already all of those things underneath. Yes. You were born with it. Girl, baby. She's born with it. Yes. So that's, that's what I do and it's hard so I call myself a trauma recovery coach and I've called it reclamation coaching because you're reclaiming your sense of self. That's the word that came up. I'm like, girl, you are a reclamation movement maker. Yes, you are. I love that. I love that. Also, just like for feedback, the word reclamation has such powerful energy, and I've found just like in my journey in coaching, that when I lean more heavily on I mean it is girls who recover, but like recovery and trauma and that it has a little bit of a lower energy and it calls in a different kind of person who's not always ready to be over it or transform it. Okay. So do you, how do we do, how do we touch base with you? How can we like literally get in your client roster? Oh, okay. I just feel like this is me as a person. You're probably about to laugh. I'm in the middle of a rebrand, so nothing for as simple. Upgrade, girl upgrade. Yeah. And so I'll tell you my website URL at the moment. It's your north star rising.com. Okay. And when I get the new name put up there, I will redirect. So you can still type that in and find me. But you will soon find me at Way Home Wellness. Ah, wait, say it again. Say it again. Home wellness. I love that. Also, I need, I just have to call this out, you're wearing my favorite word on your hat. And so she has this beautiful gold cross. She's gorgeous. So whenever I publish this please go on the YouTube and watch it. But she's also wearing a hat that says, very boldly manifestation, right? That's what is it manifesting or manifestation? Manifest. Manifesting. You're owning it. It's not something, it's, you're doing it. And I'm pretty sure that's how we landed in this conversation. Out of nowhere that has, for me at least, been an awakening an a reclamation from my own hopes and dreams and also a really fricking good time. So thank you for that, Ana. And if there's any one message that you'd like to share with the woman who's oh my God, that's me. What's the one message you have for her? Oh man. Condense this down. Let me see. Okay. No one gets to define anything about you except for you. Yes. You get to decide. You get to define, yeah. Oh, love that. And that may change over time. That may change over time. And that's okay too because you're not those things. You are, you're you are you. And you get to decide who that is. Ana, please open your heart. It's already open, but open a little bit wider and hear this from mine to you or yours. Me to you. I love you, girl. I'm so proud of you. I'm so stinking grateful for you, and I'm so grateful that you have decided to create a life you love. Thanks for being here, Ana. Thank you. Oh, whoa. Did you just feel what I felt? There is a whole lot of that and more to help you create miracles in your life. On upcoming episodes of the Girls Who Recover a podcast now ranked in the top 5% of podcasts globally. If you've built a strong recovery foundation and you're feeling ready to break through life's glass ceilings, let's make it happen together. In the show notes, you'll find a link to book a free one-on-one conversation with me and in that conversation. We'll get clear on what next level success even looks like for your life. We'll create some powerfully aligned goals and a plan. We're gonna talk about the big thing holding you back, and you will walk away with a roadmap for how to create a life you are obsessed with. Because hear this from me, my friend. You deserve. Success and freedom and the full identity of a woman who knows what she's capable of and who she is. And I wanna help you get there. So book your free call in the notes. And if you love this episode, follow us five stars, write a review, share it with your best friend, share it with your mom. And in case you haven't heard it today, I love you. I'm so proud of you, and I believe in your ability to create a gorgeous life. You are madly in love with starting. Right now and I'll see you in the next episode, mwuah.