I Married Two Different Men... They Both Betrayed Me | Flip That Switch Podcast

In this episode of Flip That Switch, I talked with author Candi to discuss her incredible journey through abuse, betrayal, infidelity, and healing. After surviving toxic relationships, becoming a single mother, and enduring unimaginable loss, Candi shared how faith, forgiveness, and writing helped her reclaim her identity and purpose. Together, we explored recognizing relationship red flags, overcoming childhood trauma, finding healing after heartbreak, and why sharing your story can empower others.

00:00
Introduction to Candy's Journey
01:57
The Story Behind 'I'm Still Standing'
05:50
Abuse and Its Impact on Identity
12:02
The Complexity of Relationships and Choices
18:01
Healing and Moving Forward
24:02
Faith, Forgiveness, and Letting Go
25:35
Navigating Betrayal and Trust Issues
27:52
Moving On and Finding New Love
29:46
The Healing Power of Writing
30:59
Coaching for Peace and Mindfulness
32:00
Confronting the Past: Family Dynamics
34:41
The Pain of Loss: Losing a Child
39:18
The Impact of Infidelity and Betrayal
44:29
The Cycle of Toxic Relationships
48:48
Ego and Relationships
51:56
Self-Acceptance and Identity
52:46
Healing and Personal Growth
55:34
Faith and Purpose
01:00:13
Impact and Influence
01:02:33
Advice to the Younger Self

Follow me on my socials to stay connected
IG @FlipThatSwitchPodcast, @Sudduth84
Candi's IG @authorcandiusher

#Candy, #abuse, #healing, #relationships, #mentalhealth  #health, #identity, #forgiveness, #empowerment, #women'sstories, #personalgrowth  #betrayal, #trustissues, #healing, #writing, #coaching, #family  #dynamics, #loss, #infidelity, #toxicrelationships, #personalgrowth  #ego, #relationships, #self-acceptance, #healing, #personalgrowth , #faith, #purpose, #impact, #influence, #advice 

Transcript

SPEAKER_07 0:00

My ex's stepfather tried to rape me. And he did not defend me. He got in the middle of the street, he called himself fighting him. Three days later they were cool as if nothing had happened. And I felt like you say you love me, but your actions and your words aren't matching. But then going back home and admitting defeat felt like it would be an embarrassment. So I stayed, regardless. I talked in the book about cheating, because he was doing that. The very night his son was born, he was with another woman.

SPEAKER_00 0:54

What's up, you guys? Welcome back to another episode of Flip That Switch. I am your host, Brandon, aka B to the Sis Nai, and we're back with another episode. If you want to be a guest on the Flip That Switch show, you think you have a story that uh will resonate with people, please hit me in the comments, or you can DM me at Flip That Switch on IG. One way or the other, if you want to be a guest on the episode, please either hit me in the comments or DM me. Today we're gonna be diving into a new episode, and the person that's stopping by to interview with me is Candy. And Candy, yeah, you know what? Say what's up. Go ahead, say what's up.

SPEAKER_07 1:31

What kind of people was good?

SPEAKER_00 1:36

Candy is a author who has written many, many books. Um, some of those books inspired by what she's been through in her life, and so she's taken her journey, she's taken her life, and she's decided to put that on paper. And it you know, it's translated to many, many books that we're gonna get into today. Um, but I thought she'd be the perfect person to do this episode with because she does have a story to tell, and she wants to create awareness, and we just hope that this can help somebody who may be in a similar situation um get the necessary help that they need to get out of their situation or to get through their situation. So without further ado, um Candy, welcome to the show.

SPEAKER_07 2:22

Thank you for having me. Thank you. I appreciate it.

SPEAKER_00 2:25

And I for sure appreciate you coming on uh to the show. So we'll get started. Uh when I started to uh take a look at everything that you had going on, kind of doing a little bit of research, um, seeing that your journey has been uh one for the ages.

SPEAKER_04 2:42

Very much so, very much so.

SPEAKER_00 2:45

Yeah, yeah. So you've been through a lot. Um I want to particularly talk about one book that you wrote called I'm Still Standing. Um, this is gonna be one of many books that we discussed, because again, her life story is in all these books, and you could take away a lot from each one of these books. But I'm gonna start with I'm Still Standing. Tell me a little bit about your journey and why you wrote that book and what was the inspiration to write I'm Still Standing.

SPEAKER_07 3:17

Um, so first the book started um being called Bondage. Um, because that's what it was. That was the description of my first marriage. It was literally like bonded. I was like a slave. Um, it was abusive, it was neglectful, um, it drove me to an age that I never would have imagined I'd have been in. Um so that's what inspired it. Um 2017. I've been writing poetry since I was six. So I've always been into writing. I've been reading since I was like four or five years old. You know, I've always been into both of those sides. So stepping out, God was like, you need to write this story about that part of your life because a lot of people don't understand where you were when you got married, and they don't understand for especially a lot of young women what rejection feels like when you're younger and what it translates into. And so I wanted to explain that. I wanted to tell people about my first marriage because a lot of people didn't know the details of that either. Fear kept me from saying a lot of things that happened in that. Then you're talking about at the same time your rejection is because of a mentally ill parent that your other parent is trying to help fix, and you're seeing their marriage fall apart. Where she is so bad she has to go to the psychiatric board back and forth numerous times. And you're just like, you know, you're lost, you're stuck, you're scared. You're about to be a freshman in high school. You're still trying to figure out your own life, and here you are with the parent who doesn't even realize what they're doing to you, the abuse that they're doing mentally, physically, emotionally. Then they tell you they don't want you anymore. And you spent the first 12 years of your life trying to please them, trying to be what they wanted you to be, and they still tell you they don't want you. You know, then you you're I had a choice between um my then boyfriend and staying in the house with my mom. Because I was at a point where I literally was going to commit murder when it came to her. It was that bad.

SPEAKER_02 5:26

Wow.

SPEAKER_07 5:27

I was ready to snap. So it was a choice between him and her, thinking picking him would be the lesser of two evils, and it wasn't. I stepped into a situation a 16, 17-year-old should have never been in. But that was on me because I didn't open my mouth and tell my dad how I felt out of here. I'm a daddy's girl, 175%. Now that I'm older, I talked to him about everything, but it hurt when he read the book because he was just like, Why didn't you tell me? And I'm like, your marriage was already falling apart. What was I supposed to say? I was being abused by her. What was I supposed to say? When I reached out to her family, nothing. You need to go home. Well, what did I just not tell y'all what she was doing? That she was being abusive, that she hit me for no good reason? She put me outside on the porch, no shoes on, no socks, no jacket. It's 30 degrees outside. Because she's mad at me about something. So I don't get why you all won't help. My dad was trying to send me to his family in Chicago because he knew I wanted to be a nurse. My grandmother was a nurse. So he wanted me to go under her wing to learn, but to also get out of that situation so that he could do something for my brother. But I was gone by 17. I hadn't moved out. I couldn't do it anymore. And then my dad's a pastor. So on top of that, you want the church to help. And you know the church people are seeing this, and it's nothing, it's silence. That hurts too. So in those moments, I felt very abandoned. And I wanted other women to see that you're not alone, that there are other women who've been through that. They've been through the abandonment, they've been through the hurt, they've been through all of that, and they don't know how to get through that. They don't know how to really deal with it, and they don't have the words to express it. So I wanted to give them words so that other people could understand their story. And then right before we started recording, um, we were talking about assault. My ex stepfather tried to rape me. And he did not defend me. He got in the middle of the street, he called himself fighting him. Three days later, they were cool as if nothing had happened. And I felt like you say you love me, but your actions and your words aren't matching. But then going back home and admitting defeat felt like it would be an embarrassment. So I stayed, regardless. I talked in the book about cheating because he was doing that. The very night his son was born, he was with another woman.

SPEAKER_00 8:31

Wait, so you were in the hospital?

SPEAKER_07 8:34

But pushing out his child, he showed up right before my son was born, literally.

SPEAKER_00 8:40

And so he had been with another woman before he came to the hospital.

SPEAKER_07 8:43

You could smell her all over him. It permeated the air. Then he turned around and moved us into the house that she used to live in.

SPEAKER_00 8:59

Wow. So sorry that all that happened to you. I really am. I'm so sorry. Wow, wow, wow. Let me ask you this. Um, you said that you had a choice between at the time staying at home with your mother or going to live with your boyfriend, and you chose what you thought was the lesser of two evils. What was your boyfriend doing to where at the time to where it was like, okay, this is the lesser two evils, even though both of these situations are are bad?

SPEAKER_07 9:35

He paid me attention. What I really wanted at that time. High school, my best friend um was not there yet. She was a year behind me in school. So she had not arrived yet. I stood outside by myself a majority of the time. I was with the emo kids. So I really wanted somebody to pay me attention to care about me because my mother had sheltered shattered my self-esteem. Well, my idiotic 16 self thought that him bringing me candy and paying attention and carrying my books to class, that he really cared about me in that extent. So they had my brother jump. He had my brother jump so he could control me because I kept threatening him that I was gonna leave him. So he had my brother jump and said, Now you make a choice, your brother and me. And if you don't choose me, I have him jumped every single day.

SPEAKER_02 10:29

Wow.

SPEAKER_07 10:32

So that was a level of cognitive dissonance. I knew that, but that was the choice I had to make because he would not leave him alone otherwise, and I will always protect my little brother, always, in whatever I way I can, and so that's how I protected him. He didn't get jumped again, so it worked, but then I got jumped verbally and emotionally. Now, when we over 18, that's when he physically would put his hands on me. Like we would have knocked down, drag out fights to the point where it was so bad I would black out, and I wouldn't remember what happened in between in those fight. One day I walked in, this was after we were married, we had had our son. Um, yes, because I married the four. Michael, I married him, thinking that would be a safety net to keep him close to me. Okay, if I marry him, he'll stop cheating, he'll stop this, you know, thinking I could fix him. So one day he asked me to take his sister home. Take them home, his sister and his brother drop them off, come back. He has another woman in our bed that he's sleeping with, with my son laying next to it screaming. I blacked out when I came to, I had a knife in my hand, and I was about to stab both of them. That's just how serious my mind had cracked at that point in time. And that hurt more than anything because he claimed she was his cousin. Yeah. It took a long time to to recover from that fracture, and it had me um diagnosed with dissociative identity disorder because it became another persona for me. I could slide into her and I felt more protected than if I stayed myself.

SPEAKER_00 12:38

Explain to us what that is.

SPEAKER_07 12:40

What is dissociative identity disorder is where usually when it's an extreme amount of trauma, it's not like psychosis, it's not like schizophrenia. But it's like your body is out of body. You're you literally disassociate.

SPEAKER_03 12:57

Gotcha. Okay.

SPEAKER_07 13:00

Hers was Vanessa, my middle name. So it was Candy, and then it was Vanessa. But you had to push me to a certain point before Vanessa would kick in. At that point in time, that fuse was very, very short because I was dealing with my ex at that point. As I got older, I matured more, I learned how to deal with her on a different level. When I started therapy, I got rid of her completely. I tell people all the time, she's out there in a Bermuda triangle somewhere where she belonged. But it took time to get to that point where I didn't have to, and it's a lot of conversation about um not feeling safe and and not being able to live in authentic safety. But she was my safety because that's the only way I would have peace. And so that it's hard to deal with that when you're just like, that's not what I introduced because the way I saw marriage, the way I saw things was how my dad did my mom. They were married for almost 20 years. So that's the only way I knew love. I didn't know love was like that. Or what was supposed to be love. If you say being love, you you love me, why would you mistreat me? Why would you hurt me? Because I'm not doing that to you. Now I did get him back though. I will say that I was a very vindictive, so I got him back for what he did. And it crushed us into the world.

SPEAKER_00 14:30

Yeah, it usually does.

SPEAKER_07 14:32

I said I'll never do it again, but at that point in time it was well worth it. Cause they hit it with the okie doke, and that's not what he expected to happen. I was like, I told you. I'm I'm mean like that, I'm dirty like that. He didn't believe me until he found out.

SPEAKER_00 14:49

You mind sharing what you actually did?

SPEAKER_07 14:51

I cheated on him with his best friend.

SPEAKER_00 14:55

Oh.

SPEAKER_07 14:56

I hit the down below, down below. I hit all the ankles. I hit at the ankles.

SPEAKER_00 15:02

Oh, yeah, that's a low blow.

SPEAKER_07 15:04

And knowing his best friend liked me too? Oh, absolutely. He took me away from him.

SPEAKER_00 15:11

His best friend. Wow. And so when so when he found out about that, what happened with him and the friend?

SPEAKER_07 15:19

They fell out. As far as I know, um, his best friend ended up going back to New York where he was from.

SPEAKER_01 15:24

Oh, okay.

SPEAKER_07 15:24

So that's what I know about it. Um I didn't keep up with it after the fact. It was just like deed done. I don't care.

SPEAKER_04 15:33

Yeah.

SPEAKER_07 15:34

That's the way I saw it. I did not care at that point in time. Now I wouldn't do no mess like that. It's just like, you know what? You got it. You you want to cheat? Yeah. We don't need to have a conversation. But it was my my payback.

SPEAKER_00 15:50

Did you ever get therapy after um, because obviously, you know, you're going through abuse and stuff like that as a child. And then, like you said, you start to get older, and it's you you start to recognize it more. Now you're going from the child phase to like this is just what's happening to now. Wait a minute, hold up. This is not what's supposed to be happening. And so now, because you're more aware of it, like you said, there's there's more in you to snap and and and and be vindictive. And did you ever like at any point seek therapy for it?

SPEAKER_07 16:22

Not until much later. Um when I was pregnant with my middle, that's when I started to course through therapy because I didn't want to be the mom that mine was to me.

SPEAKER_01 16:32

Yep.

SPEAKER_07 16:33

So I need knew I needed to be in a place where I could be different, I could be better, you know, and not be bitter about what happened. Then I could truly forgive her, but also know how to set up my boundaries, set up my lines. Because she interfered in two marriages for me. Not one, but two.

SPEAKER_01 16:50

Yeah.

SPEAKER_07 16:50

And so it was just like, you know what? I've got to get free. And sometimes you need somebody to just cut the umbilical cord for you. If you're not willing to do it for yourself. And God had to forcefully cut that umbilical cord I had to her in order for me to truly let her go. She's my mom. I didn't want to, you know, I felt like if I wasn't around her, if I didn't do for her, I wasn't doing like the Bible says, and honoring my father and my mother like I was supposed to. But in therapy, I learned you can still honor her. You just don't have to put up with her shenanigans. You don't have to deal with her mess. It's okay to set up that boundary and let her know, hey, if you're not gonna respect me and my boundary and my life, then maybe you don't need to be a part of it. Maybe you just need to be with everybody else and on the outside looking in. You don't need that close contact. It's been almost two years. None. I won't do it. And that's for myself and my children saw how she treated me, and that hurt the worst. Another reason why I did therapy, because they saw it. And they received the same treatment from our own father. So that hurt even worse. So I knew I needed to heal to be able to give them safety also.

SPEAKER_00 18:15

For sure. Yeah, you gotta do, you gotta do what's in the best interest of your children, man. Because now it's not even I mean, it's not even about you anymore. It's about they are not gonna go through what I went through.

SPEAKER_07 18:28

And they're not gonna be the men who created them either. That was one of the things when I found out I was having a son each time. Yeah, a total of four. But the fourth one is in heaven, and that'll be the next book that we talk about. But okay, knowing that as a mom, I did not want them to be like those men, knowing their true authentic selves. I know we hear it a lot, but there's a mask that people put on. There's a facade that is there. Sometimes when they want what they want, they will do whatever it takes to get it. And we get blamed a lot for that, and it's just like, what was I supposed to know at 16, 17? What was I supposed to know at 23, 24? What do I know? Yeah, I'm spiritually mature. I might be, you know, book-wise mature. There's certain aspects that maturity lacked. And women get blamed for that. Oh, you picked him, that was sweetheart, that was 50-50. He picked me, I picked him back. I didn't approach either one of them. They approached me. I just accepted them not knowing that's what I was getting. The promises made were never the promises that were kept.

SPEAKER_00 19:47

Did you? I mean, obviously, because you married that individual, there was the red flags were there. You just chose to ignore them, and you thought that, hey, if I marry him, he'll change. Um, you know, so I love I don't like hearing these stories, but at the same time, I love these stories being shared because I think you can't share enough to people how it is very important to when you see red flags, you gotta believe them. And I don't I don't judge anybody, I don't, I don't knock anybody. I, you know, at the end of the day, we're all I mean, we all have past, we were all young at some point, we all thought we could change somebody or something, and we had, I mean, every I'm sure everybody's been in a situation where they've probably had red flags and they just was like, well, you know what, I'd rather have a piece of them or I love them too much, so I'm just gonna ignore. But we can't stress this enough. Like, if you see red flags, you gotta believe them. That person's not changing anytime soon. Marrying him is really gonna make it even worse because now you really, I mean, you're around him so much, you really get to, um, he's really gonna expose who he is, or she's gonna really expose who she is, because now it's a it's a more intimate setting for them to do so. You know, when you're dating somebody, you you see a red flag, you go on a couple dates, but then you may not see him for a couple days or whatever. When you're marrying the person, you're there with them every day. Yeah, so all that's gonna come out.

SPEAKER_07 21:30

Yeah, I wrote a blog called um flag or flaw. Is it a red flag or is it just a flaw that that person has? To say a flaw that's fixable. A flag usually is something that's a pattern for them and it's not gonna change. And that's why I talk to a lot of young women too, because here, here are the flags. Because I was a young woman, that's how he got me. I was 16. When I did he knew most of the drama because it had gone around school, so it didn't. Take much for him to slide in. And the way he was paying attention, I wouldn't have seen him as a red flag. I wouldn't have thought that. He's giving me what I'm asking for, what I need, what I want. Why would I see him as somebody who would hurt me? He said, I love you first. Oh, that's even better. You know, it was the little things, but it was bread crumbing. I was being gaslit. He was gaslighting. But now what I know, I did not know. And then again, you're talking about the late 99, 2000s, early 2000s, mental health still was not being as pushed as what it is now. It was just starting to rise. And then again, in our households, mental health is not really a big discussion. Therapy is really not a big discussion. A lot of just take it to Jesus and leave it there. As a life coach and as a future psychologist, don't do that. Jesus is the antidote, therapy, prayer, those are the upkeepers. Don't just go to the hospital to get fixed and that's it. You don't just go to the hospital, get penicillin for an infection. Take that one tablet, and that's the end of that conversation. Doctor send you home with a prescription for medication because there's an upkeep that has to happen. The healing has to be a continuous thing. It's not a one and done when you're healed from something. Because best of believe, those things are going to come back. They're going to challenge you. They're going to see exactly how healed you are in that process. It was at a point where I couldn't even say that man's name. I couldn't say my ex's name without wanting to vomit.

SPEAKER_02 23:42

Wow.

SPEAKER_07 23:43

Now, if I was to say his name, and God even has me praying for him. I don't like that one.

SPEAKER_00 23:51

Oh man.

SPEAKER_07 23:53

He's just like, oh yeah, by the way, you remember that gift that I gave you? Yeah. Go ahead and use that really on him. I have to waste it on him. He's like, is it really a waste when I gave it to you?

SPEAKER_00 24:06

Come on.

SPEAKER_07 24:07

I'll do it. Do it because you say so. I'm not doing this voluntarily. I just want you to know that, God. It's not voluntary.

SPEAKER_03 24:14

Yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_07 24:15

It's involuntary. But I do, and people are shocked by that. So yes, both of my exes, my mother, my brother. They're all on my prayer list. On the daily. I pray with them. I pray that God reveals Himself to them. I pray that they're healed mentally, emotionally, physically, spiritually. I pray that whatever they've done to me, they don't receive that back because that's a hard one right there.

SPEAKER_05 24:40

Mm-hmm. Yep.

SPEAKER_07 24:43

And I always have to remember vengeance is mine, saith the Lord, I will repay. The scripture right before that says, as much as is within you, attempt to live peaceably with all men. I did what was in me, I attempted it. God, it's yours. And leave it there.

SPEAKER_00 25:01

Release. Release. Forgive your release. And you're absolutely right. It's it's so tough for like how do I pray for the person that did this to me? And it's like it's just a part of being this is a part of the Christian life. It's being obedient. And we we ain't gonna understand it. Just like we didn't understand why our moms you know whooped us or why things happen. It's just it you can't explain it. You just gotta do it. You know, you just gotta be obedient to it. And God is gonna take care of the rest. Like He, I mean, He has you here today talking about this with everything that you've been through. And I mean, just the fact of you know, you going through abuse with your mother, and then you're having to go live with somebody who is even worse. You know, I mean, it's like, is am I gonna catch a break at any point? And so the fact that you're able to just talk about it today, man, is just it's it's nobody but God that got you through that. Because, you know, I want to ask you something. So you you mentioned that you said you had a knife and you were gonna murder both, you were gonna stab them. What stopped you from doing that?

SPEAKER_07 26:11

I came back too. I had blacked out. I when I opened up the door to the room, that was the last thing I remembered.

SPEAKER_01 26:18

Okay.

SPEAKER_07 26:19

The next thing I remembered was the knife in my hand. That means I left that room, walked back to the front of the house, to the kitchen, grabbed it from where it was, and went back.

SPEAKER_02 26:30

Wow.

SPEAKER_07 26:31

And remember nothing. And the first thing you were gonna kill us, and probably was because that's the worst you could think. I knew there was more than likely chances that you were cheating, but I never caught you. You're literally in our bed.

SPEAKER_01 26:50

In our bed.

SPEAKER_07 26:51

That we sleeping with your your child, your child laying next to it, screaming. And it was so good to you, you were ignoring your flesh and body. Best to believe you'll never and I told him that. I said you'll never see him again. God made it so that happened just that way. The last time he saw him, he was three. In between that, he had not seen him for almost two and a half years. So he seen him just the first few months of his life. That's it. He got he went to jail when my son was four months old.

SPEAKER_01 27:26

Okay.

SPEAKER_07 27:27

Him and her did six counts of arm robbery. Him and her. Six. And then when I decided I wanted to move on with my life, I met this wonderful guy. I was like, okay, I can go on. He was sweet, he was caring, walked the world, and literally walked the world, like where my ex would not do the this guy. Did it in zone. This man was mad because I decided I wanted to go on now. I was in the wrong for not having divorced him first before I moved on. That was wrong on my yet. Because the girl that he was messing with looked like me. I spent 90 days in jail. Blessedly, I didn't have to worry about anything. I was set free. And it wasn't even on my record. But I spent 90 days in jail because now he was being vindictive. I went in the Navy. Around my first year in the Navy, I filed for my divorce. I was done. I was through. I said, I don't care what you do with your life anymore. That's your problem. That's your problem, it hurts. I want no parts. I raise my son by myself if I have to. But you'll never get any say so. And my son wants nothing to do with them at all.

SPEAKER_00 28:54

How old is your son now?

SPEAKER_07 28:55

22. He'll be 23 in October.

SPEAKER_00 28:58

October what?

SPEAKER_07 28:59

October the 3rd.

SPEAKER_00 29:01

Oh, I'm October the 2nd.

SPEAKER_07 29:02

The second one? My uh my youngest is October the 14th.

SPEAKER_00 29:07

Wow, that's crazy.

SPEAKER_07 29:08

And my dad is October the 27th. I said, you're welcome. I gave you two birthday presents. Don't ask me for nothing else. And a permanent presence, too.

SPEAKER_00 29:19

Well, look, I'm I'm so happy that, like I said, I'm so happy that you got through that. Um, and it's it's it's it'll continuously be a healing journey. Even though you're in the space that you are now, it'll forever be a healing journey. Because you'll, I mean, thoughts will come back up. I mean, it's it's not like it'll never resurface again, right? So how do I continue to, even when those thoughts come up, not allow my energy or my mind to go back to that time, but to continue to heal and keep moving on. And uh like good luck to you. I I because it's that's a lot.

SPEAKER_07 29:54

That's why I write. That's why I became an author, also, because writing allows me to get so many things. It's my stress reliever, really. Yeah, it is, which is why I have two, three books going at a time sometimes, because it's just like when I feel those thoughts coming up, all right. Or I journal, or I get in my Bible, I pray. Because I know that how you think can destroy you, but your actions to your thinking is the sin. If I have a thought but I don't act on it, I can just buy and rebuke that thought and go on.

SPEAKER_04 30:25

Right.

SPEAKER_07 30:25

If there's a thought and I act on that thought, that's the difference.

SPEAKER_01 30:30

Yep.

SPEAKER_07 30:31

And so I never act on those thoughts no more than all right. Oh, um, this is crossing my mind again. Okay, let me write it out. Let me let me face it, deal with it. Let me have that because I'm a life coach for women finding peace. It's kind of hard to coach people in that if you're not having that in and of yourself. I have to have a chaotic free life in order to teach them how to lessen and eventually eliminate the chaos in their lives.

SPEAKER_00 31:02

I love it. I love it. It's dope, it's an in it's the impact that you're making on others, and I love it.

SPEAKER_07 31:08

It is the power of a sound mind coaching based on 1 Timothy 1 and 7. For God has not given us the spirit of fear, but of power and of love and of a sound mind. So, what is the power of a sound mind? It's a peaceful mind. A sound mind is the mind that has self-control. A mind is a mind that has love, has joys, has the fruit of the spirit. So, how do we achieve that? Well, sometimes that means changing your own mindset. Be ye not conform to this world, but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind. Your mind has to be changed in order for you to find peace. Even in situations where it looked like it's hail, there's peace there still. To help you ride out the situation, to help you not lash out when you want to. But I've learned these things too, not just through therapy, but through talking to God, through recognizing things in myself that I wanted to fix for me so that I could be an example to my son of what it is to have peace in your life, for what it is to deal with people and knowing when you can be there and when you can step away.

SPEAKER_00 32:22

I love that, man. That's awesome. That's awesome. Did you ever have a conversation with your mom about what she did to you or how abusive she was to you? Was there ever a uh come to Jesus meeting with her about that?

SPEAKER_07 32:38

I came to Jesus, she did not.

SPEAKER_00 32:41

Okay.

SPEAKER_07 32:42

Um, I did have a conversation with her a couple of years ago, um, the very last time I saw her face to face. And um I had a discussion and told her I wanted an apology. I was asking for an apology. And she said she did not remember what she said and what she did, so she didn't understand what she was apologizing for. And then my dad reminded me that she is um a paranoid schizophrenic. So it was already enough. I didn't even know which personnel would be willing to apologize, and apparently it was none of them. And I call something like that an apol a lot. Because she apol a lot. I'm sorry for the things that I don't remember seeing or doing. You know what? Thank God for Jesus. Do that, thank God for Jesus. Because, you know, I forgive you. You know that? I I just I forgive you because I can't, I cannot live in this place asking for a level of apology that you're not even capable of. Which is another reason God has me pray for every her every day, because that's another form of me forgiving her more.

SPEAKER_03 33:56

Yeah.

SPEAKER_07 33:57

And as a parent, it's hard, as a parent myself, I would want my children to forgive me. Brandon, I've apologized to them for the fathers that I gave them, for you know, feeling like I've messed up. Yeah, I'm like, no, you did what you had to do. You got us out of those situations. We're not mad at you. You don't have to apologize to us for that. But I want my children's grace, so I give my mother grace. I want God to forgive me, so I forgive her. As hard as it is, I forgive her. Because she's in a mind that the only way it's gonna be fixed, it's gonna heal, is if she wants that. I can't make her. And when she's ready, I'll be here. And if she's never ready, then that's between her and God. I refuse to get involved in it. I leave it where it is now. Something in my eye. I'm sorry.

SPEAKER_00 34:58

No, no, that's cool. Um, no, I get it. I totally understand. Well, thank you for sharing that. Um, like I said, I I I know that's it takes a lot of vulnerability to share that, and I I just appreciate you sharing all that with me. Let's talk about my forever angel. What inspired you to write that? Because obviously my forever angel involved losing a child. And my condolences to you for that. Um really, really sorry for your loss. Just wanted to say that first. But talk a little bit about what happened and how that affected you losing your child.

SPEAKER_07 35:39

Um, so at that point in time, I was in the Navy. I met my second husband. Um got pregnant right off the bat. Um knew that he was going around his ex to an extent because she was giving him money for stuff. But you know how you never really think about stuff like that. You're just like, okay, it is what it is. Well, I'm getting ready to transfer from one command to another because they have special commands for pregnancy. So I was transferring from one that was further out to one that was closer to my house where I was living.

SPEAKER_01 36:15

Okay.

SPEAKER_07 36:15

And I get a phone because you know you have to go through medical tests, stuff like that, before you can transfer. I get a phone call, and the phone call says, You have gonorrhea. And I'm sitting here and I'm pregnant. And I'm like, how do you end up with an SCD while you're pregnant? So I go in the room and I confront him. Are you ready? Are you ready? Brace yourself.

SPEAKER_00 36:47

No. Wait, I'm I'm still I can't wait. I haven't even gotten past the gallery part. No, I'm not ready.

SPEAKER_07 36:53

Well, brace yourself for his answer to it.

SPEAKER_00 36:56

Okay.

SPEAKER_07 36:57

I'm not cheating on you. You must have got it off a toilet seat. This is coming, this is being said to somebody who got a 100 in health class. A 100. Not once, not twice. Every single health class she's had. Perfect score.

unknown 37:19

Oh man.

SPEAKER_07 37:20

So I go throughout my pregnancy, I'm sick as a dog the whole time. I'm measuring bigger than what I'm supposed to. And the day comes where my son is not moving, which set off alarm bells for me. Not even a few hours later, I go into early labor, preterm labor, at 32 weeks and four days. My baby is born prematurely. And from what I finally received from the autopsy reports a few years ago, because I had to wait a long time before I got the autopsy report. Um, they just believed that he had a stroke in utero, but come to find out that the gonorrhea, and then because it had caused me to have something called um hypermevas gravitus, which is an overabundance of um fluid inside the womb. So, because of that, it causes cord to be wrapped around, isn't it?

SPEAKER_00 38:19

Oh, and it strangled him.

SPEAKER_07 38:21

It strangled him, it caused him to have a stroke. So, first that was the most silent room I'd ever been in. And wanting to scream when you know your child didn't even cry when they came out, he never cried. And knowing that now you don't even know if you'll get to bring your child home. He lived for 10 weeks and then had to be taken off the ventilator for failure to thrive.

SPEAKER_00 38:58

I'm so sorry, man. I'm so sorry.

SPEAKER_07 39:01

Yeah. That's why I tell women, even if you're married, unless your man is a man after God's heart, sweetheart, you're in the danger zone all day, every day. And it comes from someone whose very own husband did that. And I've had people come at me online when I've mentioned it. Well, how did you, why would you let him stick around if he gave you an STD and it killed, because at that point in time I didn't know the SCD was what killed my child. I could not get autopsy. The hospital claimed they didn't even do an autopsy. In 2023, is when I finally got the paperwork that said they did an autopsy and what the autopsy said. And one of the medications that we he was on, and one of the things that they said was an infection from committee from I'm sorry, from Garrhea. He was on infection medicine his entire life.

SPEAKER_00 39:57

And he never told you.

SPEAKER_07 39:59

Military being the military.

SPEAKER_00 40:04

So how long, how long were you with him before you got pregnant?

SPEAKER_07 40:08

Not not extremely long. We like married very quickly. We met, married, thinking, okay, we both want to go. He'd never been married. I'd been married before, but I was just like, okay, he accepts me for that. You know, he's okay with raising a son. Yes, I know he has a son. You know, when we get to the hill, we'll jump over it for caring for his son, the whole nine, to find out that right after our son together dies, he had another son out there. There was a three-month difference between his oldest son and that second son. Only three months. They're three months apart. One was born in December, the other one was born that next March.

SPEAKER_00 40:48

So he's out here having unprotected.

SPEAKER_07 40:50

He already he was before me. Before me.

SPEAKER_00 40:58

Oh man. I just hate to hear stuff like that. Oh man.

SPEAKER_07 41:04

But this is why I tell people I don't put their names out there because they don't deserve that. I'll give their character all day, but their name, because you'll know them when you see them. Because it could be anybody. It's not just their two names, it could be anybody. It could be either woman or man with that mindset. And what hurt me the most was you knew I had been cheated on numerous times in my first marriage. You claimed and hollered the entire time you were not like him. And then you go and do the same thing he did. Except for you to my child. You took my child. The first one caused a miscarriage. You killed your own child, little, and almost killed me in the presence. He barely visited our son while he was in the hospital. It was me and my oldest that were in the hospital almost every day. My son loved his brother. He will tell you right here, right now, that the reason why he's reaching so high is not for himself, but because his little brother could not live for himself. Much less me. It led me to the point where I wanted to commit suicide. I tried twice. The first time I tried to commit suicide, my first ex-husband. So I've tried three times.

SPEAKER_00 42:32

And God was like, nah.

SPEAKER_07 42:36

I cut my wrist the first time. The other two times I took pills. And God was like, no.

SPEAKER_02 42:46

Oh man, oh man.

SPEAKER_07 42:48

And each time my older saved my life. I found out after I cut my wrist about a week later, I was pregnant with him. Then both times I took pills. He came in the room, he hugged me, and he said, Mommy, I love you. And I made myself throw him back up because I did not want to leave him. I tell him often, You save my life. God saved my life through you. You just don't know how much. So please live the best life you can. Because you're here for a reason. You have a purpose and why you're here.

SPEAKER_00 43:30

Wow. So did you so you actually ended up getting um the the S T D or did it I had it.

SPEAKER_07 43:40

They they they noticed that I had it. And um that was the phone call. Because they as soon as it popped, they called immediately. And I had just got the testing done that morning. That was the crazy part. Just that very morning I had got my testing done and I had to go back in the next day. Pour my life all the way up at that point. Like I said, I didn't know.

SPEAKER_01 44:05

Yeah.

SPEAKER_07 44:05

And I'm one of those people, I need concrete proof of stuff. Before I can go off, before I can act a certain way. And I can never prove that he slept with her. But I knew she was the only one that he had been going around at that point in time. And again, it was red flags that were blaring. But it was also that, oh well, I didn't have my daddy in my life, and you know, I really want to be married, and I can change and be different, and blah blah blah, and da-da-da. And again, gaslighting and break from the whole time.

SPEAKER_00 44:47

So I'm assuming after that situation happened, um that was it for you and him. So you probably called it quits.

SPEAKER_07 44:55

No, no, that's where delusional, crazy in love comes in.

SPEAKER_00 44:59

Oh, okay. Well, let's get to that then.

SPEAKER_07 45:03

I know that was the the culmination. So um my favorite angel is year one that we were together.

SPEAKER_01 45:10

Okay.

SPEAKER_07 45:12

Delusional, crazy in love was the other 14 years of marriage. Well, actually, technically 13 years of marriage. Because 1415 was separation and divorce. Our 15th anniversary came up in the middle of the divorce proceeding.

SPEAKER_01 45:27

Okay.

SPEAKER_07 45:28

But that was a culmination of all of that because he didn't try to kill me once. He tried two more times. He gave another S T D right after I had back surgery back in 2014. This time around, I discovered he had gonorrhea. He gave me HPV.

SPEAKER_00 45:52

What is that? What is HPV?

SPEAKER_07 45:54

Human papilloravirus. It's it's an infection, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 46:00

Oh man, I need the I need the.

SPEAKER_07 46:02

Oh, I'm sorry, not HPV. HPV is a part of it, but it's uh bacterial vaginosis, which is similar to HPV, but it's still an infection in the personal area. And that was right after having back surgery. I have a one and a half inch scar in the lower part of my deck, back where I have to have a dissectomy and a lemonactom because my disc. Six weeks out from surgery. Six weeks. Six. God, if you want me to stand on my own and get out of this marriage, I need you to provide for me to be able to do that. I need that monetarily so I can take my kids and go. I cannot anymore. I cannot.

SPEAKER_03 47:06

Yeah.

SPEAKER_07 47:07

I graduated college during that time. He and I had started going to school together. He was gonna go for um criminal justice, I was going to be in IT. So the very last semester of school, apparently the VA would not pay for that last semester. Which I told him, don't worry about it, we'll just, you know what I'm saying? Go ahead, finish, graduate, get a good job, and then we'll just pay it off over time. Did you know that man got mad mad about it, quit school, and did not show up to my graduation because he chose to drop out? Yes, I'm serious. I know your face is asking, am I serious? Yes, I'm serious. And didn't bring the kids either, because that was when we had the oldest in the middle. He didn't bring the kids. He sent them to his mom house. And at that point, when I sat back and I looked back, I realized that there was a level of jealousy and pettiness. That he does little slick sly stuff. Whenever I made an accomplishment, oh well, it's not that great. But I'm not trying to be better than you. If anything, I lessened myself so you could shine more.

SPEAKER_03 48:28

Yeah.

SPEAKER_07 48:29

So what do you want from me? Why are you so angry about things I'm because I'm ambitious, I and I am. And nobody around me is not. Everybody around me is ambitious. I don't I don't hang around stagnant people. I don't deal with people who don't want anything in life. I can't, because I'm not that person. So you're not allowed to be in that kind of circle with me. If you marry me, oh, tell me you have goals. Let's go. Let's get those goals. Let's write them out. How long did it take for us to get there? What do you need for me to help you get there? My expectation is just give me the same reciprocation. I have my goals and things I want to do. You help me with mine, I help you with yours. And now we're doing it as a couple together. That's it. He didn't want that.

SPEAKER_00 49:15

It's the ego, man. His ego got in the way. He didn't want it's just this is just our culture and just people in general, but they just don't. I don't know. They want you where they are. They want you where they are for some reason, and they're more happy when you're where they are versus you trying to better yourself. And a lot of people can't, it's an ego, it's a pride thing, it's the ego thing, and it it's a lot, it's it's like that for men too. I mean, it women get it too, but for men, it's it's really prevalent because men just have this ego of, you know, I want to be the one, I want to be the leader. They have this, they feel like they're wired this way, which they are, but you gotta kind of channel that in a direction of like, listen, we can build together. I want my woman to succeed, I want my woman to be ambitious. I don't want, I don't want a woman just laying around just not doing nothing. And he couldn't, he couldn't handle that you were trying to do what you gotta do for you and yours. And it it it stroked, I mean it it it stung his ego, and that's exactly what happened. And whenever somebody whenever somebody's ego feels threatened like that, that's when the pettiness comes out.

SPEAKER_07 50:36

And I always ask other men about that because like I tell people in a heartbeat, I'm a tomboy. If I were to show you right now on my bookcase, I have three different colored Camaros and a little white Lamborghini. I'm in the cars, I'm in the bikes, in the anime, K dramas, everything. I'm a gamer. Yeah, his first thing that he said, him and my first ex parallel in that too. You're not feminine enough. Is it I'm not feminine enough, or you just don't like me the way I am? Because I've always been this way. My dad allowed me to be. I was outside playing in the dirt with my brother with the cars. My dad knew I had a fascination for bikes. I was sitting in front of cartoons on Saturday morning. I watched Save by the Veil, you know. I watched Justice. So I was allowed to be a tomboy, but I also knew how to be more female, too. There was never an imbalance there. Well, you don't do your hair enough, and then go back to your exes who do it. Please.

SPEAKER_01 51:46

Yeah.

SPEAKER_07 51:46

Turn somebody else into that. Please. If I wore my hair natural, I need you to get a purn because I don't look good. Can you not appreciate me for me? You find more flaws in me than I do in you. Because I'm one of those people, I don't look for flaws necessarily in people because I know they have them.

SPEAKER_03 52:06

Yeah.

SPEAKER_07 52:07

But I don't want to expound on your flaws. I want you to still be you. Just don't make it where you hurt me in the process. If you're gonna hurt me, go about your business, please and thank you. But I just could not, it's like nothing, and that's another thing that I encourage people about to stop trying to people please, because I was one. I was a people pleaser. I lessened myself for my mother, that's where it started. Then I lessened myself for my first ex. I lessened myself for boyfriends in between my first ex and my second. I lessened myself for my second. When I got out of that, I said I'll never lessen myself again. You either rise to the top or skim yourself off. One of the two. Because I'm not going to do it. I'm not gonna lessen myself again for another person in that way. I shattered my own self-esteem. I shattered my own dreams, I shattered myself trying to build up other people. And I I allowed for, especially with the second age. Now, the first I was a kid. I was a stupid kid. But I was still a kid, and I made those decisions. But as an adult, at 24, I should have known better. But I didn't do better.

SPEAKER_00 53:34

Yeah, I mean, but even at 24, you're still young. Like it's it I mean, you know, you can't beat yourself up over being 24 and being young and making decisions and being crazy in love and thinking that, you know, you've you found I mean, these are things that go through our heads even as we're young adults, you know. You were a young adult, you know, and so you know, I wouldn't necessarily say that you were stupid, it was just you were young, you were naive, you didn't know, you know, you thought you thought what you thought, right? You didn't have this manual telling you, hey, look for this specific red flag, or look for this, or I mean, you just it was what it was. You thought that at some point the leaf would turn over, right? He would do a 180, whatever. I mean, uh uh you if you would imagine how many people I've talked to that thought the same thing you thought, is it is what it is. Like you were just naive. So I wouldn't even say you were stupid, it was just I mean, you were young. Yeah. I mean, uh look, I I was married once before um, you know, I married my current wife, and here it is. You know, there was red flags before, and I thought things would change. I thought getting married would change the situation. It's like, oh, we're married, we're more official now. I mean, I'm sitting here rationalizing with myself, giving you stability and stuff like that. Yeah, yeah, and come and then lo and behold, it didn't. Yeah, you know. So, I mean, we've all been there, you know. Um speaking of that, so obviously you you've gone through all of this and you you have a testimony with everything that you've been through. Where's your mental at today with everything? Like, how are you processing things today? Um I mean, are you dating? Is it a situation where look, I don't trust men at all? Like, kind of talk to me a little bit about where you are today in life.

SPEAKER_07 55:33

Right now, I'm focused on my ministry. I'm uh I teach the women's Bible study at church. Um writing my books, you know, getting out to people, connecting with them on that. As far as dating goes, if it comes, it comes. If that's God's will for me, so be it. But I'm not looking. Because that was my first two mistakes that I learned from. Candy was looking. And Candy was supposed to, it says he that finds a wife, find a good let me be found. Let me just be the flower I'm supposed to be. You know what I'm saying? I'm gonna stay invested in Christ. I'm gonna stay taking care of myself. You know, I'm gonna keep drinking my water and minding my own business, you know. I'm gonna keep doing that. And if he comes, so be it. If not, so be that too. You know, yes, I'm in my Ruth season right now, but I don't see it as Ruth looking for Boaz in this season as much as I do that complete total healing, that complete total change, that getting where God wants me to be, the shaping of my gifts anymore, because oh my gosh, he has been sharpening my gifts. I don't know how to feel about that part yet. Okay, God, if you want me to be a wife again, you know, make me into the woman that okay, I got you. You know how you like being a leader? Submit. Submit to your pastor and his wife.

SPEAKER_01 56:53

Yeah.

SPEAKER_07 56:55

You know, I'm gonna learn how to be careful with what I asked for. Now, does it, Jesus? Okay, no, all right. Yeah, let me buckle into the passenger side, go ahead on drive. I'm I'm here for the ride now.

SPEAKER_00 57:08

That is no, that's dope. That's dope. Well, I'm gonna get you out of here on this last question, but before I do, I I again I just want to say um, again, thank you for sharing your testimony, sharing your story. Um, and I I commend you. I commend you because through all that you've been through just with trying to take your own life and the adultery and the you know, husbands cheating and your mother abusing you, um, a lot of people they wouldn't be here to tell about it today. And so, really, what like it's it's God that is the reason why you're here today, and it's just his power and his mercy and grace, and what he's been able to do for you, but also through you to help others navigate so they don't end up in the same situation. That is powerful, man. And you have a story, and you like the fact that you can come out and be vulnerable. Um, that is like I said before, I know I'm repeating it, but that is so commendable.

SPEAKER_07 58:15

That's all God knows me. God, it was apparently according to my dad. Um, when my mom was pregnant with me, a lot of things were prophesied. And he's told me some. I don't think he's told me everything. I think he's waiting for certain things to come to fruition first before he tells me. But one of the things that he said was that I was gonna have an impact on the world that I never thought I would. And this has been an impact, like we and I take accountability for my actions always. Also say Romans 8 28, all things work together for good to those who love God and are calling to his perfect will. God had a will for me before I was even born. So sometimes thinking about it, were those really my decisions, or were they the decisions I was supposed to make because there was something that was supposed to come out of it? Because yes, our decisions with free will, yes, we can make our own choices. But sometimes God allows us to make certain choices because he wants something to come out of it. If I would have never gone those through those two marriages, I would have never been able to tell women, hey, these are what a lot of these flags look like. This is bread crumbing, this is bread, this is this is gaslighting, this is a possible. I can say from a clinical side, there were they were narcissists. Know the spirit by the spirit, pray about it. Ask God to remove him if he's not supposed to be there. Ask God to remove her if she's not supposed to be there. And that's not just relationship as far as a guy, girl trying to date. That goes as far as your family, that goes as far as your job, that goes as far as your friends, that goes as far as your church, that goes in every single aspect of your life. You need to strain through the Holy Spirit because not everybody is meant to be learn the hard way, not everybody is meant to be your permanent assignment. Some people are just meant to be a temporary assignment. And we have a bad habit of making temper temporary, permanent, and permanent temporary, and that's where we get shattered and we get hurt. So being able to make this connection and being able to speak on that, it did take time. I this this didn't start for me until I moved from North Carolina three years ago almost. When I was in North Carolina, in Virginia, none of this. I said, God, where do you want me to be so that I can speak to your people the way you want me to? Forgetting that when I was a kid, I wanted to come to Texas, I wanted to move here. And God brought it back to my heart. Yeah, that that was a place I put in your heart when you were six years old. Now you're fully where you're supposed to be. Now open your mouth and share it. Now write the books because the influence that will be there, you use my voice, not your own. Like what God did for Moses when Moses said, I can't speak. Fine, I'll give you Aaron. Take your brother, he'll speak for you. But I'll give you the words, I'll give you what you need to say. You just be open to submitting to me, and I'll do the rest. Those are my two words for this year: surrender and submission. I'm surrendering what I want, I'm submitting to what God wants. Those are not easy things to do because you know we're selfish, we're willful, we have our own mindset, we think we know the best. And God is like, no, you don't know nothing about nothing. Just just let me lead. You keep being the dumb sheep that you are. I got you. That's why I'm the shepherd. I got you. I'll lead and guide you. You just stay in that space right there. So I'm I'm grateful to God for opening these doors and these opportunities for me to be able to share with people. And even if it's just one person that's impacted, I'm happy with that. Because that lets me know that that's one person whose life is going to change, and that they might find God in a way that they didn't think they could. And that's my hope and prayer.

SPEAKER_00 1:02:23

No, for sure. Sometimes we want, sometimes we want the numbers and the results, but sometimes our plans and purpose may be to only impact two or three or four. And you know, I've had to come to grips with that myself because I've I've always wanted my platform and my outlets to impact so many people, but it's like it's not really about quantity, man. It's really about Yeah, it's about the quality and and who is who's gonna receive this and how is this gonna impact their lives where they're actually living it out and applying it versus just watching it just to watch it. Oh man, that's powerful.

SPEAKER_07 1:03:03

That impact is always um something I always noticed too that I don't always get to see the impact. Like the one that I wrote, um, dealing with my mom's issue. I have it with me, called Her Mother's Daughter.

SPEAKER_01 1:03:18

Okay. And I dealt with I like that uh I like the artwork.

SPEAKER_07 1:03:22

Yeah. I do all my artwork too. No, nobody else.

unknown 1:03:26

Okay.

SPEAKER_07 1:03:27

Um but I delve into my relationship with my mom. And I really tell people what it looked like, and realizing that from childhood there was a level of competitiveness, that there was a level of, but a lot of women don't realize that that mother-daughter um relationship falling apart actually can play a part in your marriage, it can play a part in your friendships, it plays a part in how you look at other women altogether. Yeah, now you know that I had to realize that though. Now I've had this book read a number of times, and a number of women who've come back and said, Why are you telling my life? Who gave you that permission? I didn't do that. God just said, write the book and put it there, and that's all I got is the words are there for you. I don't know what else to tell you. I'm just doing what I'm supposed to do with it because I know that you might need that. And that this is not just one place, this is women crazily enough all over the world that it's touching, and I never would have thought it would have gone. Can I read the back of it for you really, really quick?

SPEAKER_00 1:04:41

No, for sure, absolutely.

SPEAKER_07 1:04:44

It says she gave you life, she carried you under her heart. The very heart that the world tells you is supposed to connect you for forever. Yet, when they cut the umbilical cord, she disconnected herself from you. It has remained that way till this day, and you will never understand why she doesn't want you. What did you do so wrong that the woman named your mother doesn't want you, her own, you named your name, her daughter.

SPEAKER_02 1:05:13

Wow, wow, wow.

SPEAKER_07 1:05:16

So, yeah. When I tell you, my favorite angel and that book were the two books that I cried the hard the hardest writing. And I mean a soul cry, literally. Like I had to stand my door to keep my kids from hearing me and coming in here and checking on me cry. Because it's hard to write basically what's a letter of goodbye. Ooh, didn't realize that till just now. Writing that book was a letter of goodbye to who my mother used to be. Because that's who I was always looking for.

SPEAKER_00 1:05:54

Ooh, wee.

SPEAKER_07 1:06:00

Angel was writing a letter to my son of goodbye. Because it hurts still, don't get me wrong. It's been 17 years.

SPEAKER_03 1:06:10

Yeah.

SPEAKER_07 1:06:10

But it still does hurt. But it was a letter of true release for me. It was goodbye to both of those situations. Delusional was a letter of goodbye. And now I understand why God had me write all five books because they're all letters of goodbye.

SPEAKER_00 1:06:27

Wow. How many books have you written?

SPEAKER_07 1:06:29

Twenty. Including two cookbooks.

SPEAKER_00 1:06:34

Twenty books.

SPEAKER_07 1:06:36

And writing twenty-one, twenty two, and twenty-three. Twenty one and twenty two will be out the end of this month.

SPEAKER_00 1:06:44

You know, it's we're gonna look up and you're gonna be at like 30 books.

SPEAKER_07 1:06:50

By the end of the year, I actually will. Because I just did my list for this year. I've already released three. I released um two out of my Mystery Thriller Suspense Science Fiction Fantasy Dystopian series, which will be a total of 10 books over, and this will be year number two going on. Um it's a two and a half year series, so that's 10 books in total. I just released two books out of that. Um just released a remake of Ruth. I retold Ruth to a modern day story in kind of a K-drama type setting, but here in America. Um, and it's called Beauty for Ashes, a story of redemption. I just released a book of poetry called Who Is She? So I've already released four so far this year.

SPEAKER_00 1:07:37

So you just you just have these thoughts and you get inspiration and you just write. That's just your thing.

SPEAKER_07 1:07:44

It just as soon as it pops up, I'm I make the cover for it. Like I'll be releasing my second because the first book of poetry was a surprise to people. Nobody expected that. Now I'm working on my second one called Ungilded Wings, Fluttering Heart. And it deals with who is she deals with the woman who was going through healing. Ungilded wings is about a woman who's healed, but now she's ready to love again and ready to be loved. So um, the first one, who is she, is kind of a goodbye to the old self on gilded wings, because gilded means to be covered in gold. And I have a thing for for um royalty. So, like the blue, the purple, the gold, the silver, the white colours of royalty. And my butterfly that's on the front is blue and gold. She's also the most rare butterfly in the world, only can be found in Victoria, Australia. And so when my dad asked me about, well, why'd you put that on the cover? And I started looking up the butterfly because I didn't know why I chose it, it just stuck out to me. It's because that butterfly is rare. And this book is for women who are rare, who are different, and who have learned to accept they're different. So that's what I had to do. I had to learn to accept that I was not like everybody else. God made me to be kidding me.

SPEAKER_03 1:09:10

Yeah.

SPEAKER_07 1:09:12

And so, yeah, and then I have my next book in my um Fantasy Paranormal that comes out in October. Um, the last two books in the series come out in October and December. I just had one for all five of my books, um, my life story books, because I'm a coach. Um, the name of a book is Coach Mises. And so each one of the chapters will be based on the books. So it'll probably be like three chapters per book for all five books, and just breaking it down even more into like a coaching setting and how each book relates to a woman finding peace in those different situations in each book, whether it's from the suicide perspective, the domestic violence one, um, and just going through that process. And then, like I said, my second book in my fantasy paranormal, my second book in my Christian sports romance will be out too. Um first one is called Caramel Kisses. I mean, the first one's called Chocolate Shot. This one is called Caramel Kisses. So, and then book three I already did that cover, and it's called The Sweetest I've Ever Known. I love that song by Lauren Hill. So that that had to be a subject of a book. So I've just been writing.

SPEAKER_00 1:10:28

You killing it. You are killing it.

SPEAKER_07 1:10:30

Oh, and my middle just debuted his first. He does photography. So one of my sister authors, she put him in her book. Um, and so yeah, he's about to debut as photography author for his first time.

SPEAKER_00 1:10:46

Nice, nice, nice. Yeah, no, that's dope. Candy, you are you are out here killing it. You are killing it, and you got to keep going and keep grinding. And I I want to look up and see you with 35, 40 books. I I mean, just doing what you do, impacting others, and it it's just it's just so dope to see. It's so good to see, and it's so good that you are being obedient and allowing God to let you use your testimony. And I'm just I'm here for it, man. I love it. I love it.

SPEAKER_07 1:11:13

Thank you. Thank you for having me. When I got the DM, I said, Oh thank you for having me and inviting me. It was very unexpected, but I appreciate you so much for this chance and for you allowing God to use you in this manner. With podcasts, it's not easy at all to do that, but to allow people to be very vulnerable and very open and you being that way yourself. Thank you for that.

SPEAKER_00 1:11:45

No problem. Well, I'm gonna ask you one this one last question. You're you're sitting across the table from 20-year-old candy, and she asked you for one piece of advice. And I mean, you've gone through a lot, you've been through a lot, and she's just trying to navigate life. What's one piece of advice that you will give 20-year-old candy?

SPEAKER_07 1:12:06

Don't ever give up on yourself. Don't allow people to control you enough to the point of where you want to give up on yourself. Because she did. Numerous times she gave up on herself. Even three years ago, where I am right now, I would not have thought I'd have been there. I would not have thought I would have. And another piece of advice I would have given her is go to therapy sooner. Kill sooner. Because I had a lot of anger in me, and one of the issues that I had while I was in the Navy was I bumped hair with a lot of male authority. Because when I saw male authority, I thought of my ex-husband and his stepdad and how men had treated me. Even though I have the greatest daddy in the world, my dad was nothing like them. That influence was there. And so I had a really big issue with leadership for a while. And so I would have told her, heal from that. Let your mother go, let her be where she is. She does not mean you well in your life at all. And it's okay that she doesn't. That's her problem. Stop making it yours.

SPEAKER_00 1:13:21

I love it. Well, again, thank you so much for giving your journey. And um, I mean, this is this is a this is a great combo. I appreciate it, appreciate the vulnerability and openness. And uh I'm I'm I'm I am 110% for sure this is gonna help somebody. Like it's somebody that takes some nuggets away from this, somebody that gets some inspiration from this. I'll I don't know what else we could, I don't know what else we can give you.

SPEAKER_07 1:13:49

Nothing else. It ain't nothing else to do. Just you know what? This is it. Like we always say, you can leave the water horse, but you can't make them drink. I'm providing the trial in the water, it's up to you from there.

SPEAKER_00 1:14:02

I mean, you provide a whole ocean for these for these people to drink, man. Give them a glass of water, you gave them a whole ocean for them to drink.

SPEAKER_07 1:14:11

And it's deep, it's deep. I say that the ocean is kind of deep. Yeah, but it's worth the deep. It is, and that's crazy because the name of my series is from the soul books from deep within. That that's what a whole book series is.

SPEAKER_00 1:14:24

Yeah, wow. Well, make sure you guys are following us on IG where we post reels from the episode. And if you can't follow us, you can listen to us wherever you get your podcast at flip that switch. So make sure you're either watching or listening to us. Um, and again, Candy, good luck to you. Uh, we're gonna be rooting for you from afar and keep keep getting your story out there, keep being a light that shines in this dark, dark world because the things that you're experiencing, a lot of other people are experiencing in this world and in society. And so just keep being a light that shines, keep impacting as many women as you can impact, and just keep letting God use you.

SPEAKER_07 1:15:05

Um always, definitely. Always. I'm always in submission, even if I don't feel like it.

SPEAKER_00 1:15:12

Absolutely want to be used. No, for sure, for sure. Well, we're gonna see y'all for the next episode, and we out. Peace.

SPEAKER_02 1:15:21

Okay.