Fear Disguised As Loyalty Keeps Women Stuck with Grace Rabia Wood

Fear doesn’t always announce itself as fear. Sometimes it shows up as loyalty, silence, and a “good girl” version of humility that keeps us shrinking long after the danger has passed. Mel sits down with author and speaker Grace Rabia Wood to talk about what it takes to break generational patterns and heal the parts of us that parenting, relationships, and everyday life keep exposing.

Grace shares how pain became the starting point for her work helping women heal, find their voice, and name what happened in a safe space. We talk about oppression and survival mode, why time doesn’t heal wounds if we refuse to face them, and how family and cultural systems can reward secrecy while punishing truth-tellers. If you’ve ever felt like you’re the first person in your bloodline to say the hard things out loud, you’ll feel seen here.

We also get practical about mother wounds, self-talk, and how our inner world quietly shapes our kids. You’ll hear why fear can look like “honouring your family”, why boundaries can be called rebellion, and how healing can feel like betrayal when you start to outgrow old dynamics. Grace and Mel also speak openly about combining therapy and Christian faith, and what alignment looks like when you’re ready to move from surviving to becoming.

Follow Grace on Instagram @grcerabiawood

Subscribe for more conversations like this, share the episode with a friend who’s doing the work, and leave a review so more women can find it. What’s one pattern you’re determined to end with you?

Transcript

Welcome To Beyond Organised

Mel 0:22

Welcome to Beyond Organised, the podcast that helps you simplify your life and amplify your purpose. I'm Mel Schenker, life coach, speaker, founder of She's Organised, but, more importantly, a wife and mum of four little kids. If you've ever felt overwhelmed, like you're constantly juggling everything but never quite catching up, this is the place for you. Here we go beyond just the tidying up and creating systems. We're talking about real life strategies that bring order to your life, but also we talk about the things beyond the organising, the things that really matter, like your parenting relationships and so much more. So grab your coffee and let's dive in. Welcome back to another episode of Beyond Organized.

Meet Grace And Her Mission

Mel 1:03

I have Grace with me here today. And I am going to let this lovely lady introduce herself and as to what she does and where she's from.

Grace 1:13

Hi everyone. Thank you so much, Mel, for having me. I'm so excited to be here, first of all. My name is Grace Rabia. I am originally from South Africa. What I do is I'm an author, I'm a speaker, I'm a podcaster. I used to have my own podcast, but I've kind of taken hiatus in a way. And so I've been guesting. I love to help women heal. I like to help people identify patterns and, you know, just break off things that follow us because we didn't know. And that is my heart is to see people break out of what's the word? We get so trapped by our past. So just helping people break out of that and be free and find your voice. So yeah, that's what I do in a nutshell.

Mel 2:02

I love it. I I noticed on your Instagram you even touched on, I think it was maybe one of the posts of like generational stuff as well. And I really like that. And I feel like from what I'm seeing, it's coming up more and more in the Christian circles of actually being aware of our past and what our family line has done before us and breaking those curses off us. So anyway, I'm excited to hear more about what you do. So what inspired you firstly to do all the incredible things that

Pain As The Start Of Healing

Mel 2:36

you're doing?

Grace 2:36

Honestly, pain. I was inspired by pain. And I know that sounds maybe it sounds ridiculous, but that was my reality. I was tired of feeling the way I felt. I knew there had to be another way. And because I grew up in a part environment where they basically tell you your identity, and you learn to become small and shrink. And I realized Yes. You know, you don't realize when you're in it, that's what's going on, because you're so accustomed to the weight and the oppression. And the way I grew up in my home, there was oppression in the house, and there was oppression outside the house. So it was from both, you know, both sides. Outside would tell you who you are, and inside was telling you what you have to do and encouraging you to shrink small. And I was like, no, I don't want to do this anymore. And I would say, as I started having children, it really hit me hard. I realized that time does not heal all wounds. Because if you don't face it, then you you're not gonna heal it.

Mel 3:44

You have to deal with it. Exactly. You have to otherwise there are so many people that I know in their 60s, 70s, and that are still, you know, living and reliving again and again things that happened to them in their childhood. So yeah, if you don't deal with it and and face it, it will just stay with you one way or another the rest of your life.

Grace 4:07

Exactly. And for me, I didn't want my survival to be my children's inheritance. Yes. So I was like, okay, we are not going to do this like what was done to me. And that's what started it.

Apartheid And Learning To Shrink

Mel 4:21

Wow. That's that's huge. I remember learning all about apartheid back in high school. So I'm in Melbourne, Australia, and I loved studying all the history stuff. And I was really, I guess, drawn to apartheid because it was in my lifetime. It was when I was already alive and born, and I could not wrap my head around how even like well, this day and age, obviously it's a little while ago now, but how even in my lifetime there was such oppression and racism and just extreme views, radical views that a whole group of people like that. But then I see it still happens today in different countries, in different areas, uh, and with the Jews and all of that. I mean, that's always happened with the Jews, but it's more like I just I can't wrap my head around it because I did grow up where I could be whatever I wanted to be. And like my parents were quite encouraging. My parents were quite encouraging of whatever direction I wanted to take in life and whoever I wanted to be. And so it was hard for me to understand that there are so many people. In fact, there's probably even more people in the world that do not have that privilege than what I grew up with. But I do also understand that despite the privilege that I had, I still experienced sexual abuse and other things in my childhood that then I had to deal with to be able to not pass things on to my children and all that kind of stuff too. So I feel like it it almost doesn't matter what your background, you can go through things that are good and bad, but you have to deal with it one way or another. Whether you made the choice or someone made the choice for you, you've got to face it, otherwise it will just carry on and those wounds then pass on to our children and to their children. And I just refused, refused to let that be my children's future.

Grace 6:40

They manted that because it's easy to continue patterns. It's easy, especially when you realize that, hey, wait, wait a minute, I'm the first person in my bloodline that's talking about these things. Yeah. Because you where I grew up, they encourage silence. Like we pretend it just didn't happen. And I'm looking around me like, am I the only person that sees this? Because, you know, because to be honest, I was able to read a room before I could read a book. Because I just knew, oh, shrink, stay small, don't do that, don't be noticed. Um, and your parents encouraged that too, because my parents were older and they grew up, like my mom was, well, she's past now. My mom was born in 1939, my dad is 1927. So I had much older parents that grew up in the midst of that. So then when they have us, they're like teaching you, you know, shrink, stay small, you know, your skin color, you're not good enough. And so you start believing this.

Mel 7:40

But there's also a level of protection too. If you stay small, you're not a target. And then you're safe. And we just want to be safe. So I could I could understand, you know, apart from it being trained into them, and then it then gets trained into you, there's also just this element of safety and survival. And absolutely. And even in my case, through the generations, there was abuse. Yet when it came to me and and my time, so so to speak, it didn't come from my family. Like my dad was a really good dad. And he refused to be anything like his dad growing up. Yet I still experienced it through a trusted family friend. And so I've also that's why I really was drawn to the stuff that you were doing on your page, because I really do believe in breaking the generational curses as well. Because despite the fact that my parents were intentional with raising us well, it still happened to us because the enemy was after our family. He was after the way that did stuff. And so, okay, he wasn't gonna get to me through my dad, because he's a really good man, but he still got to us, like my sister and I. But you know, being aware of all of that and going into it, I know that's been broken off my family, and my kids will not experience abuse. I know that for a fact, but I still have to be vigilant and I still have to be alert to the things going on. And I know that walking through the pain has made me who I am. So I I have no regrets, but I also have to make choices to deal with it, and I'm sure that's probably a very similar story for you as well. So given all of that, how do you help people today with everything that you

Building Safety Without Staying Small

Mel 9:42

do?

Grace 9:42

I kind of have a process, and it's so simple because I keep it simple. And one of the things I do is um I help women to articulate what happened to them, but in a in a safe space and be honest about it, right? Because whatever space we're in, it's a safe space, you can say whatever you want to say, because truth gives you a voice, and voice gives you power, and that translates into your parent, how you parent, right? And the truth is your children see exactly what you're doing. If you as a mother don't like yourself, your daughter probably won't like herself. Because even if you think you're like hiding it, there's certain things, um, especially when you have mother wounds, right? So I have deep mother wounds, and of course I've worked through it, but my own voice to myself was not kind. And when I started seeing my daughters do some of the things I was doing, I was like, wait a minute.

Mel 10:37

So I want it for them.

Grace 10:38

No, so I help people identify patterns by just going to the basic foundational level, because if you don't take care of the foundation, whatever comes from that, the fruit, is good basically it's gonna be rotten. You gotta deal with that.

Mel 10:53

Yeah.

Grace 10:54

And so that's what we talk about initially foundational things, truth. And in my family, they didn't like me telling the truth because I was the first person to come out and talk about birdies. Oh yes.

Mel 11:09

Like a rock the boat.

Grace 11:10

Yeah, yes. It's hard. It it is hard, and somebody has to be the pioneer. Because if you're reading the Bible, Abraham was a pioneer, God called him out. And so when I started looking at it like that, does it hurt being ostracized? Yes. Because nobody wants to be around you because they're thinking every time they see you, you're gonna talk about it. And that's not the truth. Right. Yeah, yeah. Because I'm my personality, I'm not circling the elephant in the room. I I just I can't do it.

Mel 11:42

I'm the same. And it it can be hard at times, but lonely, isn't it? It's there's there's this level of satisfaction though, in going, okay, God's called me for more, and I'm stepping into that more. And yeah, it it can be hard at times, but if anything, it's from the hard times that's made me who I am. So this is just gonna keep making me who I need to be. So I'm gonna keep stepping in it, you know?

Grace 12:11

Yes, and it's so important to name whatever that thing is so that you can realign. Because it's all it's all about alignment. How do I get back into alignment? And so um, I just help people get a voice. And it's some I love that because we can complicate things, um, but my faith is also a very important part. I tell people I believe in therapy, because I've been to therapy. Yep. However, I balance that with my faith.

Mel 12:36

Yeah.

Grace 12:37

You know, because the word of God is important to me. And the Bible says the word of God is alive, yes, it's alive, it's sharper than any double-edged sword. So there you go. Right. You go to therapy, get the labels, because you need to know what's going on with you. And in the word of God, we combine it's and it's a beautiful balance.

Mel 12:54

Yeah.

Grace 12:54

And that's how I heal. So I help other women do the same thing.

Mel 12:58

Yeah. Oh, couldn't have said it better myself. Yeah, I'm totally on the same page with you. And

Truth Telling And Family Backlash

Mel 13:06

I love what you said with the mother wounds. I guess I never really thought about it in that terminology before. So I like the way that you said that. But that was something that I noticed in myself a couple of years ago with my own daughter. She's about to turn four. And I guess I've never, not never, but I never really thought about the way that I was talking about myself or I thought about myself. I I don't think I'm the prettiest person out there or anything. And I've had four kids, and so my stomach shows it. But it's more, I also don't think I'm the worst person either. I I was pretty neutral, you know, in a lot of ways. But I noticed that my daughter, when she was probably about two, she would say something like, Oh, mommy, you're so beautiful, you're so pretty. And like, you know, and I'll do my makeup and I'd, you know, do the blush or something, and I'd do a little bit on her so she could feel all good, you know, like she wanted to be like me. And she's got the curly red hair and everything. So she isn't meaning me. But I noticed when she said that there was a part of me that would kind of react like, no, I'm not. I didn't say that.

Grace 14:12

Right.

Mel 14:13

But I was thinking, like, I'm not. I'm I'm not beautiful. I don't think I'm beautiful. And so obviously I didn't say that to her, but I even I brought that before the Lord and I was like, why do I feel this way? And yeah, okay, years of bullying, abuse, like all this kind of stuff that drummed into me that I'm not. But at the same time, I thought I'd dealt with a lot of it, but I realized there was still a lingering part in there now that I've got a daughter, because I've got three sons as well. But my daughter was what sort of triggered, okay, I still, I still have a bit of work to do there. And so now if she says it, I'm like, thank you. Because everyone keeps telling her she's a mini me. And if I'm thinking I'm not beautiful, she's then gonna think she's not beautiful. Yes, and not that beauty is everything, I get that, but it's more all this stuff, even at that age, I'm already recognizing I don't want her going through life thinking I'm not good enough. Right. Because she is exactly I've had to work on myself because I know that by me doing this and working on

Therapy Plus Faith For Healing

Mel 15:28

it, and I've still got a you know, a bit of work to go in that area, but it's improving. But by doing that, I know that she's already getting a head start.

Grace 15:35

Right.

Mel 15:36

So yeah.

Grace 15:37

It really is not about perfection, even parenting, and I tell people you're not gonna get it right every single time, you know, at all. Not get it right by the fourth kid, but you know. No, actually, you're right though, because by the time because I have three, um, and uh I tell my kids the first version that my oldest had, oh gosh, that version of me. Oh, geez. I know that my youngest has is actually the most healthiest version. So the things my oldest experience and my youngest experience are two different people. Like I've totally transformed, you know? Yeah, yeah, and it's like, oh, when my daughter tells me, oh mom, you you you you never allowed us to do what she's doing. And I was like, Oh, it's such a big deal. And they're like, Oh, really? Because when we were growing up, you didn't like that. And I'm like, Yeah.

Mel 16:25

Like, I'm sorry, I was learning too. Exactly, yeah. Oh my goodness. So, from your experience in helping women in their mother wounds and generational issues and just finding their voice and everything, what do you think is the main thing that holds them back?

Grace 16:47

Fear, but it really doesn't look like fear. It looks like loyalty, right?

Mel 16:53

Oh, that's deep.

Grace 16:56

Because there's a fine line between loyalty and slavery, but sometimes we i it gets gray. So we're like, well, I'm loyal, and no. That that's a whole nother thing. I I won't get into that. Um, it looks like, oh, that's still your mother, because in my culture, you don't speak about the elderly. I mean, they can do whatever they want to do, and you just you don't respect them.

Mel 17:20

Yeah.

Grace 17:20

The Bible says honor your mother and father so that you may have long life, and that is absolutely true. But that doesn't mean you don't call out the harm. No, you can still honor your parents and call out the harm. But in my culture, oh no, you don't do that. Like children are to be seen and not heard. Fear looks like uh dishonoring your family. So if I speak up about what happened to me, then I'm dishonoring my family. It doesn't matter that I am being crushed on the inside or I have this internal war as long as I keep your secrets, right? Fear looks like, oh, be humble. So let me shrink myself so that you are not uncomfortable, you know. And a lot of women confuse shrinking with righteousness. Especially a lot of Christian women I notice. I'm like, no. So I find that's what whole people what else do have I noticed in my sessions? They believe that if they if they shine, then they'll lose love because especially in the mother wound, and I know I keep talking about this, an unhealed parent is your child's first bully. Some mothers are absolutely jealous of their daughters because maybe the daughter's beautiful, I don't know. But maybe your daughter does things that you weren't able to do. Maybe she has this boldness, or she's instead of embracing that, you are jealous of your child. And that's the reality. You would because we it's like, okay, when I look at my daughters, I'm like, I want them to be better than me. Super stupid. That's why I'm doing the work, right? Yeah, exactly. And then sometimes building boundaries looks like you've been rebellious. And and I talk about this stuff from a cultural perspective. Uh, because, you know, born in South Africa, but I live in the United States right now. And so it's two different worlds. And then raising American children and then trying to incorporate African values does not work. Now, some things, of course, uh, but there's some things that are is not going to work in this environment. And then if you heal, it feels like betrayal. So for a lot of people, it's the fear of those things about evolving or um outgrowing your family. Because in in in that environment is such a village environment, and to break free of that, you are so disloyal. So you get stuck. And I remember because I used to be Muslim and I became Christian. And when I left Yes, when I left Islam, my whole family turned against me. And um, I remember just struggling with because Islam teaches that heaven is under your mother's feet. What it means is that everything my mother told me, I'm to do with like no question. So you see, it's all about control. And I was reading in the book of Ephesians and it said, Children, obey your parents in the Lord. And I was like, wait wait a minute, she's not in the Lord.

Mel 20:02

Yeah.

Grace 20:02

Yes, I'm to honor her,

Mother Wounds And Self Talk

Grace 20:04

but I can't obey her because we don't serve the same God. And it completely freed me.

Mel 20:08

Yeah.

Grace 20:11

Yes, because I was like, um Yeah.

Mel 20:13

Yeah.

Grace 20:14

Because you can't have two masters. Um Wow. And basically at some point you gotta decide, am I surviving or am I becoming? Yeah. And that's where like you gotta ask yourself, okay, what am I doing?

Mel 20:30

Wow.

Grace 20:31

It's a little portable stuff in what you say. It's good. Let me tell you, the truth is I I've done the work and it was tough.

Mel 20:41

Yeah.

Grace 20:41

And I sat down for a period of time where I was like, okay, I'm not going to speak publicly, I'm going to heal because I was at a place where bitterness was almost taking over. And I knew that if I'm to go before God's people, I can't speak with all this pain. Because what's going to happen one day, something is going to trigger me. And I'm going to say all these things. And words are so important, I needed to sit down. You can't take them back once they're out. You cannot. So I sat down for a long time. And then the Lord was like, okay, it's time. And that's when I started speaking again. But I took time out because I really needed to heal.

Mel 21:17

Wow. I am so impressed with the stuff that you are saying. Some of it I'm kind of like, oh wow. Yeah, that's kind of the missing piece. It's like I've been on this journey too, working through a lot of this, but also putting things together for my own clients. And I, but it's sort of like there's just these little pieces here or there, and what you were saying about fear and loyalty and that I'm like, yes, that's it. Oh, I I spoke on this a little while ago about the lens in which I was viewing faith. Because they say, like Mark 18, when it says, you know, the little children come to me, and you know, and it's having childlike faith in essence. And the Lord really. Um arrested me on it because I realized that when I was thinking of faith, I was looking at it through my childhood. And in my childhood, I had to be responsible. I had to grow up very quickly because I had to protect my sister. I was also the oldest child, you know, my personality, the way it is. I was responsible as a child. And so I was viewing my faith through responsibility. And so, and that's not the same. It's not the same thing. And so I have had to do work on myself as well. And actually going, I need to kind of separate those things. It's okay to be responsible, to be organized, to be in control, all that kind of stuff, but not at the expense that I'm replacing my faith with these things because then I'm doing it in my own strength. And that births the whole program that I do now called Kingdom Women Breakthrough, which literally is going from self-strength to supernatural alignment. So it's through this whole journey, it sounds like I'm on a very similar kind of path to the one you've been taking for a while now with your audience. And I I just love what you said with that fear and loyalty and then humility and all of that too. Cause yeah, that that really does match what I'm seeing in what I do too. So I I think that's incredible. And my goodness, you've got a whole depth to you that I'm sure a lot

Fear That Looks Like Loyalty

Mel 23:33

of people keep coming back for more. It's exciting.

Grace 23:37

You know, it took me a long time to get here. I'll be honest. Uh it took a because the mind, you know, the Bible says the battlefields of mind. Oh my goodness. It took a long. Yeah. And and I'm still healing. And this is the thing, healing is continuous. You don't arrive and you're like, listen, I'm good. I don't know. It's continuous. And the Lord will show you deeper revelation of yourself. Yep. And then you take that stuff and you help other people, right? You just don't accept it and keep it. So yeah, it's been it's been a journey, and I'm so grateful to the Lord for helping me. Otherwise, I don't know where I would be, honestly.

Mel 24:16

Yeah. I I hear you on that. It's amazing when you see some people walk through similar things in life. And it's it's sad where they're living and and how they're living. And, you know, they live with unforgiveness and bitterness and resentment and just all this hurt. And it's justified, really, it is in the natural. I look at it then with how I've gone through all these things. And I've even had people say, you have every right to hate him or not like this, and you know, all these things. And I just go, but where would my life be? I've got an amazing husband. I got four beautiful children. I I love my life. I I have a great business. I've met incredible women along the way. Like I just, where would my life be if I chose not to deal with it and not to grow and heal and move through it? And and like I mentioned before with my daughter and realizing, oh, I've got to work on that. It's that level of self-awareness that I can't just switch off anymore. Like I've I've learned that now. I've learned to kind of pick up on those cues and go, oh, okay, that's another thing I haven't dealt with yet. And I I couldn't have really dealt with it before because it wasn't something that was important enough to deal with before because I had other things to deal with before. It's just yeah, I I feel like there's even gonna be women listening to this and to this episode that it's gonna hit home and go, there's gonna be things that they go, oh wow, yeah, I've walked through some bad stuff, but I don't want to live here. I don't want to be staying in this. And I can tell you now, and I'm sure Grace can tell you too, you don't have to stay. You do not have to stay in it. We didn't stay in it. And I just want to encourage you that if you're feeling a bit stuck and you don't know which direction to go, reach out to Grace. Reach out to myself. Like we will help at least point you in the right direction and the right steps if it's not something we can directly help you with. You know, as Grace said, therapy, all of that is important. It is important to have that. And so you want to you want to go to those professionals too. But there's also probably a lot of you that have done that. You've done the groundwork and you're like, okay, I'm ready to reclaim my life now and move forward. And and that's where we can step in and and help. But it is possible. So don't give up.

Grace 26:59

Don't give up. It is possible. There's life after whatever you've been through, divorce, child abuse, whatever it is, there's life after that.

Mel 27:08

Yes, definitely.

Grace 27:09

Definitely. Because some women don't have children, and and that may not be your why.

Mel 27:14

Yeah.

Grace 27:14

You know, but sometimes you have to be your own why. You have to, you know, because when I think about um, I I think it's in the book of Proverbs, I think it's chapter eight, and the Bible talks about when wisdom was standing with the Lord and they were discussing creation, right? I remember being at a low point, and I and I read that scripture and I thought, wow, so when you were creating me, you consulted with wisdom. That means I am pretty important. Yeah, that you have to you consulted with wisdom for me. So whatever it takes for you to um elevate your thoughts or whatever it is, and I'm talking from a spiritual perspective and biblical, do it. Yeah, and all you gotta do is ask the Lord and He'll meet you right where you are.

Mel 27:58

Exactly.

Grace 27:59

You will not be left behind, He will meet you right now.

Mel 28:02

Yeah, and that's one thing that I help women with is you can't necessarily change the season you're in. You got little kids, you've got teenagers, you've got, you know, whatever season you're in, you can't necessarily change it, but you can certainly change the way you view it. Exactly. And how you react to it. And you can actually experience a level of joy and peace and all the fruits of the spirit, really. In the season you're in that you once viewed as stressful and you know, exhausting and all those things, doesn't have to stay that way. So it does. And yeah, I I've really enjoyed this discussion and I feel like we could keep talking for so long, but time just disappears so quickly.

Culture Shifts And Leaving Islam

Mel 28:51

Absolutely. So, Grace, if people want to get in touch with you, they want to follow you, uh, maybe connect, get some coaching or anything by you, where can they find you?

Grace 29:04

They can find me on Instagram. It's at Grace Rabia Wood. And you can send me a DM and I will respond back and we can set something up for sure. Because I would love to help.

Mel 29:15

Perfect. I'll make sure the link is in the notes as well to make it nice and easy for everyone to find you. But thank you so much for coming on today, Grace. I really enjoyed having you on.

Grace 29:26

I enjoyed you as well. Thank you so much for having me, Mel.

Mel 29:29

It's been a pleasure. You're absolutely welcome. If you like this episode, don't forget to hit subscribe so you don't miss what's coming next. And if you want to continue the conversation, you can connect with me on Instagram @shes.organised or for some free resources, head over to beyondorganised.com/toolkit. Remember, organising is a tool to live the purposeful life beyond it. See you next time.