Rewriting the Story: Tara Moore on Identity, Healing, and Personal Agency

Content note: This episode includes strong language and explores childhood abuse, sexual abuse, and the lasting impact of trauma on identity and self worth.

In this powerful and layered conversation, Dr. Shawna Gann and co-host, Marcel De Jonghe sit down with Tara Moore, intuitive coach, empath, energy healer, host of the Rooted & Rising podcast, and founder of Soul’d Spaces. Together, they explore what it means to deconstruct identity, release inherited stories, and rebuild from a place of deeper truth. Tara reflects on growing up mixed race, feeling caught between worlds, and spending years trying to become who others expected her to be before beginning the work of reclaiming her own voice, worth, and sense of self. This episode moves through race, belonging, trauma, motherhood, healing, and the tension between how the world sees us and how we learn to see ourselves.

But the conversation does not stop there. In a deeply honest follow up, Shawna and Marcel revisit one of the episode’s central questions: what happens when personal agency meets structural harm? Tara then responds with a vulnerable reflection rooted in her own lived experience of abuse, survival, and the decision to stop cycles of harm in her lineage. What unfolds is not a neat conclusion, but an invitation to stay with complexity, hold multiple truths, and keep asking better questions. 

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Transcript

Dr. Shawna Gann  0:10  
Before we get into today's conversation, I want to let you know that this episode contains some strong language and it explores themes that may be difficult for some listeners, including childhood abuse, sexual abuse, and the lasting impact of those experiences on identity and self worth. If any of this feels like too much right now, please take care of yourself first. We'll be here whenever you're ready. One more thing about this episode, the conversation didn't end when the recording stopped. A few days later, my co host Marcel, reached out because something we discussed didn't sit right with him. I wanted to capture that, so I recorded our follow up, and then I sent it to our guest, Tara, for her response. What she sent back was one of the most honest and vulnerable reflections I've ever received on this show. So after the interview, stay tuned for what I'm calling the conversation continues. Trust me, you want to hear it.

Intro  1:14  
Welcome to our true colors, hosted by Shawna Gann. Join her as she explores the challenges of being a racial riddle, an ethnic enigma and a cultural conundrum. Let's dive in.

Dr. Shawna Gann  1:33  
Hello everybody. Welcome to our true colors. I'm so glad that you're here. My guest today is Tara Moore. Tara is an intuitive coach, Empath and energy healer. She's also the host of the rooted and rising podcast and the founder of sold spaces. Through her work, she blends energetic alignment with practical support to help people and spaces feel grounded, clear and ready for what's next. Her approach is shaped by what she calls my chosen story, a lifelong healing journey that grew from early life experiences into the foundation of how she guides others. Today, with more than 30 years devoted to spiritual development and energy work alongside a successful corporate career and life as a devoted single mother, Tara helps people release old patterns, rebuild self worth and reconnect with their inner voice. Let's get into it. Hi, Tara, welcome.

Tara  2:38  
Thank you. I'm so excited to be here.

Marcel De Jonghe  2:41  
Hi, Tara, how's it going? Hi. This is a British hello with a cup of tea.

Dr. Shawna Gann  2:46  
Nice, nice. Yeah. He texted me and said he's got his cuppa. A cuppa. I got a cup of tea too. I always treasure these conversations. You never know really what will come out, even when you sort of think about it. Each one of us walks through the world. However we walk through the world, but something can change from one day to the next, and none of us is the same, even if we sort of kind of identify in a similar bucket. Absolutely. So absolutely, yeah, yeah.

Tara  3:13  
I feel that even in today's day, where things are changing and things are so loud and things are moving, I mean that like you say, it can change in a moment, in a moment.

Dr. Shawna Gann  3:23  
I love that you describe the zeitgeist right now as loud. It's loud it is. There's a

Tara  3:28  
lot of noise. It's a lot of noise. It's a it's a lot of noise. And there's people that would probably be really annoyed with me for saying this, but I don't tune into it. I choose not to take part in it at the level that I think a lot of people are.

Dr. Shawna Gann  3:44  
Well, that's fair. It depends on those levels, right? Like, depends on what you do as well, like, what you're interested in. For me, you know, because I do culture work, I do stay tuned in, because much of that noise includes identity stuff, and I always say we cannot clock in and out of our identities. It's who we are. And we bring that. We bring all them bags with us, right? We just walking around carrying bags. We try to let them go, but there they are, right? So sometimes those bags are dragging, and that adds to the noise. It makes it a little bit, yeah.

Tara  4:17  
And I, you know, I don't want to say, I tune out. I skim the top. That's what I do. I skim the top, and I just don't dive too deep, because I think a lot of the noise is designed to keep you distracted from going inward to really be with who the truth of you really is, if that makes sense. And I also find that this is a time where people can opt into doing a deep dive of really understanding the truth of who they are, because so much of what is happening can be attached to these versions of identity that we say maybe we are or have been. I know for myself, personally, I have gone through a major stripping of my identity to rebuild the truth of who. My identity is outside of all that noise. You know, because so much of my life I've been spent trying to be what others wanted me to be, or whoever they needed me to be, instead of me just being who I am, like just be yourself too. You know,

Dr. Shawna Gann  5:14  
did y'all in the back hear that? I don't know if the people in the back heard that one more time you spend a lot of your time doing what now

Tara  5:24  
last year was a year of deconstructing my identity and really getting to the truth and the source of who am I really and what's important to me, only to recognize how much that so much of my world, again, has been built around what I thought I needed to be or who I thought I needed to be. Like, the world says you need to be this and you need to be that. And, oh, if you're 55 years old, you should be here and you should be there, and, oh, and your child should be doing this. And it's like, whoa, you know, like, yeah, I don't even know that I want to be that. I want to be that. I don't want to I don't know if I do I like that. Do I want that? Am I that? It's been intense.

Dr. Shawna Gann  6:09  
I already have the questions, and I want to dive in. Let's do them.

Dr. Shawna Gann  6:13  
Yeah. Can we back up a little bit like,

Dr. Shawna Gann  6:18  
who were you and who are you now, after deconstructing slash reconstructing,

Tara  6:24  
yeah, that's a good question. I think I've gone through many identity shifts of who I am, but I would say the core of who I was, you know, was always especially, you know, growing up in the 70s, growing up of color. My mom is white, my dad was black. I was raised with my white mother, and raised in a predominantly white neighborhood, actually white and Latino, not a lot of black kids. We were lower middle class, and it was the 70s, so it was a different time. So a lot of who I'd become was what I believed you needed to be. You know, I was that little girl at eight years old who told my mom I hated being black, and I did the whole Whoopi Goldberg thing before I knew Whoopi Goldberg was. Whoopi Goldberg like I put on the pillowcase over my hair and my long, luxurious blonde hair, like I was just such a hot mess, you know? And I didn't even know I was of color until in kindergarten, the kids said, Why is your mom white and you're black? And I was like, oh, there the kids were the ones, yeah, I had no idea was black. I was like, I'm black. What's black? What is that? Right? What is that? Like? I don't even know what that is. And I think that's such a beautiful moment in memory, because this is what I constantly tell people today, if you want something to change, stop talking about the story like if we never knew we were of any color, if there was no word for a color, nobody would care what color you are, right? Y'all she preaching now, nobody would care. This is such a touchy topic, but there are those who are very committed to holding on to the stories of our past, and I get that, but as long as we continue to do that, then we continue and perpetuate the situation. I don't care if that's racism, I don't care if that's your boyfriend hits you. I don't care what it is. You hold on to that story and you drag that story along like the outside world will always prove to you that that story exists. Your world outside is clearly a reflection of what's happening inside. And the moment you start taking control of what's happening inside, whatever the story may be, that's the day that all of this out here will change like literally, you can shift your paradigm. You can shift your life. You can shift your world. Now here's the other piece. It's not easy to do that you have to practice. It takes something. I was working on a story this weekend with my mother. You know that I'm undeserving. She doesn't love me, and that I'm not enough for her. I've been carrying that, okay, okay, I've been carrying this shit around for 55, years, okay? And, and I always think that they think I'm a fuck up and I'm a hot mess, and I don't have my shit together, and that, you know, they don't love me. And I have all these stories which they're not true. The stories literally viscerally fill up my body, and it's like a giant shield around me, and if anybody walks in the room, they can feel it, and that's what I project when I'm near my mother. But I got over myself, and I allowed that story to go and I just shared it with her on the phone. We've had to do a lot of work over the years, but she's also never really apologized from a very authentic place. She takes more of a victim defensive position, and I just had to figure it out over the years, like, just get over it, Tara and move on. I'm going to transition career wise right now, where I really needed to reach out to her. And I was terrified, because I was locked inside this story. And of course, it was not the response. Response I was expecting. It was so much love, so much presence, so much like I am here with you and for you. And it was in that moment that I realized, you know, the thing that had been stopping the flow, even in my life right now, like having the flow come, was that simple clog with my mom, and the moment I broke through that and recognize that's my story, you know, and the story has a valid reason why it's been placed there. When I was a child, it was a very abusive household, you know, was very abusive. Now I can continue to hold on to those stories, or I can stand up and be the woman that I am, and be like, yeah, that shit happened. It really did happen, and we've talked about it, but am I going to keep holding on to that story and anytime if she projects any of those behaviors I'm an adult, I could be like, hey, hold the phone mom. Chill out, back up, and you don't need to say those things. But instead, I live locked inside a story that then keeps our relationship distant because I don't allow her in for fear of these old ways and behaviors that occurred when I was a child. But I don't have to keep it there. I'm an adult now. I'm not a four year old. I'm not the seven or eight year old that needed to be protected. I'm a woman now, and I'm not saying they haven't. Happened is my adulthood, they have. But do I be afraid of them, or do I just confront them? And also, we look around at the people around us, and we are making up story after story after story just by looking at people, and we know nothing about their world, nothing. Yet we got it all figured out in our mind about who that is, and who she is and who he ain't, and it's like we don't know anything unless you actually go and have a conversation with that person. So much of what

Dr. Shawna Gann  11:51  
you said resonates with me. Part of me sitting here listening to you talk, thinking, how much of this is life stage, how much of this is identity related in other aspects besides life stage, and how much of it is a combination of all these things? Because I tell you, man, I've been unpacking my bags lately. Sometimes people unpack them for me. I don't know if that means anything to you, but I've had a couple of you know conversations in the last couple of years where I was like, oh, that's where we're going with this. Got it. I did not know, but thanks for making me aware. And there goes that bag. So my load is getting lighter. That doesn't mean the bags go away, because more of life continues to happen. But I agree. I think that we do construct these stories. And I mean, I'm going to get a teensy, weensy bit nerdy here and mention a theory, because it's one that I find to be very intriguing, especially as you started talking about your situation, Tara, and that's social identity theory, this idea that part of how we develop into who we are has a lot to do with how other people see us and what we are expecting from them, like that feedback loop, yes, and so it becomes part self fulfilling prophecy, yes, but also part, oh, I'm picking up what you're putting down, like then choosing when to pick things up or Not.

Marcel De Jonghe  13:20  
So something you said as well was about noise, which I thought was really interesting. And I'll always remember I was 11 or 12 do my GCSEs, which is like, I think your SATs. And one of the things I was taught was noise, the definition of that is unwanted sound, but yet we allow it to be there. You know, we allow like white noise and it just blocks out all the common sense decisions we know we should be asking ourselves, parents define us so much like sometimes they can define us in ways which are a little bit scary. You find yourself saying, I'm never going to be like you. Never going to be like you. And your first instinct is, oh, my god, I just responded exactly how my mom would or my dad. There is different levels of importance and what we hold on to. So how you described yourself feeling that this is how I perceive myself could mean nothing. Somewhat out

Tara  14:19  
I am not a perfect person. I'm not perfect, and there are some people in my life that I hope they forgive me one day, because I have been a tyrant in my time. You know, I have been abusive to others. I was simply being that which was happening to me, either at the time or something. I was decompressing from, like if I was coming out of a really abusive relationship, like I was decompressing and it was coming out on all the people around me. And there are times when I feel like cud, I would love to find some of those people and just say sorry. I was a complete ass, you know. But we're human. I sometimes hope and. Pray that people, you know, this is still me worrying about what others think, and really, I should give a rat's ass what people think. But there's times in my life when I think, God, I don't want them to think of me in that way, but that's how they're going to remember me. They're going to remember me as like, this abusive, crazy bitch, and that's just so not who I am at all today, but I also get like I was coming out of incredibly abusive relationships, and that was the environment I was in, you know, and I had no grace and no space and no love for those people going through those spaces. We're constantly evolving, and that goes back to that piece of you never know what's happening in someone else's world, unless you get into their world and it keeps us so disconnected from one another and really allowing ourselves to just be with people and be with humanity.

Dr. Shawna Gann  15:51  
What changed? What is it that was the catalyst for this reconstruction?

Tara  15:56  
I'm a seeker, and I'm someone who dives deep into the understanding of self, and I don't know where that comes from. I was just born that way. I had to go through the codependency years, I had to go through the insecure years, I had to go through the victim years, I had to go through all these years. I really am a firm believer that life is happening for me. It's not happening to me, and anything that's happening outside of me is simply a reflection of where I'm at. So if I'm not feeling good in life, then life outside is not going to feel good. If I'm not loving myself, then the people I attract are people that don't love me and they don't love themselves either. And so I had to learn all that. But, um, I really think and believe that you get to this place where you just get to a space of deep love for self, but you also have deep love for others, like I just have deep love for humanity, and so I have to give people grace of where they're at. I really started recognizing when you look beyond the surface, right? We're all just trying to survive this planet. We're all just trying to walk this journey. I'm like you, ah,

Dr. Shawna Gann  17:21  
can you share with us a little bit about how life is happening for you? As you put it,

Tara  17:28  
I believe my soul chose this lifetime, and my soul came to live during this time. I was born in the 70s, mixed couple, you know, Mia dad, raised predominantly with the white side of my family got heat from black kids. White kids got it from both ends. And I think I really struggled with my identity there, because there was nowhere that I fit in right, like I was too white here, or I was too black here, blah, blah, blah. I really struggled with being of color as a kid, I wanted to be white, and I was pissed at my mom, and I remember in high school, I came home and I was like, You ruined my life by having sex with a black man. Like, that's what I told her. And I mean, what do you do with that? When your kid says these things, like, what does she do? She just shrug, like, I'm so sorry I ruined your life. But, you know, then I go into African American history classes in college, and then I'm not black enough, like, I fall badly in love, and now I'm not black enough, like, damn it, I wish I was darker, you know, you know. But all the while I'm just, I'm just trying to figure out, who am I, who am I, who am I? I'm being driven by what the outside world expects of me, you know. And the other thing is, is like, Oh, well, I'm a woman of color. I'm a woman of color, whatever that means. Like in elementary school, it meant that I could beat kids up. So then they would pit me into these fights because they're like, well, you're black, you could beat her up, yeah, and then I would get beat up.

Speaker 1  18:55  
Oh, my God, damn

Speaker 2  19:01  
clocked in the head. If you're listening, she clocked me in the head with her

Unknown Speaker  19:07  
roller skates, you know,

Tara  19:12  
you know, with the metal 70s, yeah, the metal wheels, you know, they all, I get to school and they're like, go beat her up. You're black, you can do it. And I'm like, oh, okay, you know, she just clocks me upside the head with her roller skates and and then I was done. And then they wanted me to beat up some guy named Clifford, I mean. And then I'm thinking, Oh, I'm black, so I'm supposed to be able to do this, because I don't know any better. I'm a kid, right? Like, I'm just doing, what will ever have me fit in, right to be accepted. A big story that I was coming across just recently is that I am undeserving. I am undeserving and I'm not enough. So that's something I've been doing a lot of work on. But then my you know, fast forward, my child is born, and I look at him in a 3d The sonogram, or whatever. And, you know, I see the curls, I see all my features. I'm like, Oh, he's gonna come out looking just like me, and he's gonna be same color, you know, he comes out and he's powder white with red hair. And I high on drugs, you know, because they did a C section. And I'm like, I just start laughing at God. And I was like, You gave me a little white boy because I told you I would give a black kid up for adoption. What a joke, you know. And so I'm laughing. Oh yeah, you missed that part. So when I was little, I told my mom that I if I had a black kid, I would give it up for adoption. Now today, I would not care what color I thought for sure he was coming out Brown. I was like, Oh, my little brown baby, and I have my cute little white baby, and I'm like, Oh, I just laugh because it's like, it really doesn't matter. And all this color stuff is so silly, all the race stuff, it's all so silly. You know who I become and where I'm at is that we all need to find a space of love and stop fighting amongst all the bullshit that we fight about. Because when you are so focused outside out here, you're missing what's inside in here, and when you're not connected inside in here, you're just never going to root into the truth of who you are. I think it's been just an interesting journey. You know, I also get heat because I predominantly date white men instead of men of color, and it isn't anything other than I actually came to the point that I was just conditioned because I was raised around white men, but we put all this emphasis on who you should be with and what it should look like, instead of just allowing people to have a human experience and not have all these labels around it, like just allow people to experience their life without the noise.

Dr. Shawna Gann  21:39  
I'm really curious about the labels. Thing I've done research in this area and of being mixed race, but specifically what it looks like in the workplace. So my book is called mixed signals, and it's about what signals we can pick up on as people who have complex identities, that we might pick up on sooner, that other folks who feel like they do fit into certain boxes, ie, can be neatly labeled, if you will, right? And part of the thing that came out of this, which I found to be very interesting, there were a lot of folks who were like, Oh, thank you for doing this. Yes. Please tell the world about us and what our experiences are. And then there were this other group that was like, I just wished, actually, that nobody even had any interest in the fact that I mixed or whatever. So it sounds to me like you are more that second group who's like, this is silly. Why are we even talking about this? I would love to hear more about that.

Tara  22:39  
Yeah, I am of that second camp. I got to a point when I recognized, you know, if we never talked about it, it would just go away. It would go away because it wouldn't be important, because there's other important things to talk about. But I also believe that, in one instance, can be very real. You can feel that pressure of whatever you think you're being treated in the corporate space. It all comes back to how you feel in your mind. If you believe in your mind about yourself, that you are going to be looked at a certain way, sexualized, a certain way, you are going to have the world justify that for you, and when I understood, when I started playing with that, like anything that I'm thinking in my mind is just going to be reflected out here, back to me when I started really playing with that and saw that the world then began to prove to me that whatever I was thinking was coming to me. That's when I realized, like this whole story, that of race and gender, any of it, any of it that we're different or better than any of it. It's all bullshit. It's all bullshit. And the moment that you decide for yourself, I'm no longer going to live as if I have a problem with whatever, the universe will start to bring you that. And the other thing about that is, I'm just gonna say this. Let's just say today, somebody says, You know what, I'm no longer gonna believe in this racism conversation, whatever it may be, there's gonna be a lag time, because this is how energy works. There's a lag time and energetically, a lot of things are gonna still come in saying that conversation is true. But if they just say, You know what I know, I used to think that, but it's not true, then the universe starts bringing in what they believe is true in that moment, and those conversations will start to dissipate. And it doesn't mean they go away. They just go away in your field, in your field.

Dr. Shawna Gann  24:40  
I'm thinking, okay, so listeners hearing this, some of them out there are probably gonna be, well, I don't know, but a lot of times when we have conversations like this, one of the things that makes it so soothing is the validation knowing like, Okay, other people are experiencing what I'm experiencing. So. I'm thinking about the listener who's in that first camp that's going now, wait, just hold on a damn minute.

Unknown Speaker  25:05  
Now I've been in that camp.

Dr. Shawna Gann  25:07  
Okay, we can all agree that racism is bullshit. That's any sort of feelings of superiority based on whatever identities we hold or do not hold are bullshit. Okay? They are. That's what that's the whole point of calling it a social construct. It was constructed so that those who believe in that can get ahead and they create the systems that continue it. Yes. However, I think while it's bullshit, we are still living in it. It sounds very much like attraction theory. What you're talking about like, we attract what we put out, like, whatever those vibes are, we can get a neuroscience Yes, 100% but what do you say to folks who are saying, okay, the truth is, I did experience, or I am experiencing discrimination from whatever ism you want to put at the end of it, you know? So here's the million dollar question, Tara, help us solve the mystery of the world. How do we move beyond if it's in some fields, I don't know what to call it. So what it's

Tara  26:08  
around like it's a parent, okay?

Dr. Shawna Gann  26:11  
Yeah, some folks are experiencing and others aren't. I mean, doesn't that mean it's still happening?

Tara  26:17  
I absolutely experienced all forms of racism. I had a boyfriend who I came home one day we were living together, and the house was empty because his parents gave him an ultimatum, because I was black, I've had many parents of the white guys I dated have a problem with the color of my skin. At some point, I recognized that that world I was living in was still a reflection of how I felt inside my mind and my body. So I would ask the person who sees that, who's very committed to seeing that, who is deeply entrenched in that, I would ask them at their root and core, what do you believe about the truth of yourself and the truth of racism period when you start going into that world of science and you recognize, oh, I have the power to actually take that back in my brain. And I have the power to control what I think, feel, see, hear or do. I don't have to have somebody out here tell me what it is, what it is, what it is, that's when you have the power to start recognizing, well, what's the world I wish to create. So, you know, Gandhi said, Be the change you wish to see. But people have to understand when you embody what you wish to see, that means you have to stop fighting against the thing that you don't want to see anymore, because that's a fight we're fighting against. It.

Dr. Shawna Gann  27:40  
The thought that's kind of rattling around in my head is, if we all want to be the change we want to see, and we all are expecting this change, but we're not all on the same page, do we actually move anywhere? I'm just trying to reconcile that.

Marcel De Jonghe  27:58  
I do believe that, you know, we can manifest certain attributes in but there are individuals on this planet who are just narcissistic, horrible individuals. So whilst we can say, Do you know what? I'm fed up of racism, I'm not going to engage with this. It's something which, if it comes to you from those individuals, is that a failure in your way of thinking? Or is this such a strong, narcissistic individual walking this planet intentionally, just causing harm? And so which one would you say it is? Because I think that there's the risk of saying that I've dealt with my demons, racism, sexism, homophobia, it just doesn't exist. And then you've got this person who's like a bulldozer. What do you do with that?

Tara  28:47  
You know, I think those are some of our best teachers, and that's what they come for. And they're coming to be that experience themselves. See, I look at it from a soul's perspective, and maybe this comes from my whole quantum healing hypnosis days when I was, you know, putting people in past life regressions. It's, it comes down to the same thing that there's this Akashic Record, right? And you go to this vault, apparently, we go to this library of all these beings that you can be, and we pick, like, who we want to be. We want to pick the lessons that we want to learn and however that is. And then we go to our team of souls, you know, our soul families, and say, Hey, I'm going to go to this place called Earth, that little blue marble that's all insane and chaos, and it's crazy. And apparently, when we come here, it's not for the faint at heart. It's a pretty intense, energetically dense place filled with complete and total contrast, which apparently we made up, we created this realm to come and learn how to navigate and bump up against all these different ways of being to expand our level of consciousness, apparently. Now this is just a theory. I mean, I have no idea what the truth is until the day I die. But it resonates with me. It makes sense to me. You know, me. Next year, I might think something different, but it's what I believe right now. It's the experience I want to have right now, and it's where I'm learning the most right now. You know, I have two brothers who are very adamant and very loud, and they're very into the race conversation and very angry. And I just give my one brother, so much grace like that's he's playing in that world, and he's very active. I don't agree with it. I think he's just as divisive as what's being fed to us.

Dr. Shawna Gann  30:32  
Tara, are your brothers both mixed? Yep, we're all mixed. They are okay. I was just curious, because, yeah, you're even in your own family

Tara  30:40  
totally, and we're all half. There's four mothers, there's six kids. We're all half. We're all mixed, and we have all had different upbringings somewhat. And I don't make them wrong for where they're at. I don't agree with it, but I don't make them wrong because I get that whatever they're up to, it's important to them. I think everybody has a right to their experience. 10 years ago, I wouldn't have said that. 15 years ago, I wouldn't have said that. But today I say that

Dr. Shawna Gann  31:12  
I'm imagining this library of old card catalogs, yes, and your soul's going through and picking their card where they're gonna go. I guess this is the thought that you're leaving me with. And I'm like, huh, is And correct me, if I've picked up on this wrong but I understood you to say, like, in this particular theory or way of thinking, it's an idea that your soul gets to kind of come to earth to try some stuff out and learn things. So I'm thinking as, okay, the little blue.is the sandbox? Yes of some kind, yes. But if you stop engaging in all of the different conversations, are you missing out on the sandbox? Isn't, isn't that the point? No. She says, no, okay,

Tara  31:55  
you're, you're just at a different stage in the sandbox. Okay? Because you're just, I just heard the word evolving. I don't know. I don't like saying evolving because it makes it feel like I'm some place further than somebody else. But we

Dr. Shawna Gann  32:13  
know i mean i, the word I that comes to my mind is development. Yeah, it's like, it's stages, places that makes so

Tara  32:20  
like you're so, for example, your soul could have said, I want to come down and learn forgiveness and peace and hope, and then you literally will go to your soul family and say, Hey, I'm going to this place Earth. I'm going to learn about hope and forgiveness and whatever. But does anybody want to join me? Because I need, I need some people. Or what are you guys doing? What are you good? Okay, so can we now create a blueprint? Then you create a blueprint of when and where you're going to meet and what that's going to look like. And what I always tell my son is that your whole existence on this planet is to master choice. Every second of your day is a choice, and your job is to master it. And your blueprint has all of these outcomes. It could have an outcome of total chaos and hell, it could have an outcome of total bliss and beauty, and somewhere in the middle. And your job is to, you know, follow the breadcrumbs. The more intuitive you become with yourself. And you know, hope for the best, have some good stories when you get done, enjoy the ride. You know, have to go

Marcel De Jonghe  33:27  
back to something you said about the quantum realm. Okay? Is this? It's something I love to stories based upon this idea of choice and the ability to recognize when we make a choice we branch off. Do you think then, based upon that an individual has the ability to see the possibilities and choose the right one? Or is there only one path? Yes, it's all squiggly and it's all over the place. Or is there a way of going back and saying that was the wrong choice I need to go back and change.

Tara  34:01  
So I think this is all new. And so I was telling you, Sean, like I've just recently come across with so many new things about myself. I think it's about practicing what it feels like when you make that choice. And yes, you can always go back. I actually am starting to think that when you make a not so great choice. I used to say, what comes around goes around, but actually, what I just recognized recently is I think God, or whatever this higher consciousness is, gives you the opportunity of like, okay, well, you played that one out. You want to try it one more time, because there's a better choice. How you want to choose this time. And that's the beauty of it is if we learn to enjoy the experiences, because they're not always fun. You.

Dr. Shawna Gann  35:02  
So obviously we could kick it and keep talking about this. This is such good stuff. So thank you so much. Before you go though, Tara, I want to reach into the archives. They are all quotes from either people that I've interviewed on the show, people that I've interviewed through my research, or things that people have included on any qualitative responses to surveys, and so what I like to do with a guest is just reach in, pick one randomly, and ask you to respond to it. It doesn't have to be something that you've personally experienced, but it gives us a way to bring other voices into our conversation and just reflect and respond. Sounds good. I got one. Okay, I'm ready. Okay, it says I'm always hyper aware of how I was different from other people. What comes up for you when you hear that

Tara  35:52  
very much, can resonate and say yes to that, yeah. I've always felt different. I've always been hyper aware, and now today, I don't. I don't care. Only every now and then will people blatantly do something or say something, and I'm like, Oh yeah, that's right. I'm different. I forgot. You know which one of these is different? Which one is not the same, or whatever,

Unknown Speaker  36:17  
one of these things is not my yellow. Three of these things are kind of the same,

Speaker 2  36:25  
yes, yes, yeah. That was part of my identity, for sure. Yeah.

Dr. Shawna Gann  36:29  
So. So the difference is, you have awareness, but you don't care anymore. Whereas before, when you had awareness, it was a little bit more consuming.

Tara  36:38  
I was victimized by it, yeah, yeah, because I thought there was something wrong with me, yeah. And you realize there's nothing wrong with anybody. You know, we're all the same.

Dr. Shawna Gann  36:50  
I mean, there's something wrong with some people. Terry, that's true.

Tara  36:54  
That's true. I mean, they went to the Hall of Records, and they're like, I want to be the worst one. I want to be the evil one, and you're like, Danny, they

Dr. Shawna Gann  37:03  
forgot to go, they forgot to go to the Hall of Records. I'm just saying I can't be with you on there. Some people definitely are not,

Tara  37:11  
okay, yeah, they're not, and they're not from here. So yes, I agree.

Speaker 1  37:15  
Oh, okay, Marcella comes up for you when you hear that.

Marcel De Jonghe  37:19  
I actually went the other end. So you're saying that when I walk into a room or I'm considering how different I am, I think what we fail to remember as humans is how similar we are. Yes, we fail to recognize every single person in there. Maybe 1% all have some form of self loathing. We all think we're the worst. We all might think we're the best at certain things. But I think what divides us quite often is internalized, because there are some things which people just don't see, like, Yeah, but we know about it, so therefore we manifest it into something real and tangible. And this, this real, big concern, and when it comes down to it, it's insignificant. Not that I'm saying, you know, racism, sexism, any ism isn't real. I'm just saying that any slight towards us exacerbates how we feel about ourselves. So we can manifest the idea that that person's being against me because of the color of my skin, because of my height, because my weight, because of all these things, when, in fact, it was nothing to do with you and everything to do with them.

Tara  38:27  
Yep, 100% so then that's where we're talking about the stories that we're making up and we're projecting not knowing anything. And it's not the truth, you know. But I love that we are so similar,

Marcel De Jonghe  38:40  
we have so much more in common that we have anything else.

Tara  38:43  
Yeah, and that is a world of contrast in a world of growth and expansion. And we're we're only ever expanding or contracting, and right now we feel like we're contracting, but we're probably expanding, even though it doesn't feel like it.

Unknown Speaker  38:56  
I don't know what that part's gonna look like. Y'all,

Tara  38:59  
it is looking like it right now. It's the zit. It's the zit when you're in high school and it is it explodes on the mirror. We're in that stage right now and then it's gonna heal. So we all have, yeah, it's gonna heal. It's gonna heal. We're healing, y'all. But right now we're in the exploding on the mirror phase.

Speaker 1  39:14  
Oh, Jesus. And with that, we want to thank you.

Speaker 2  39:21  
Sorry. I've had so much fun. Thank you.

Dr. Shawna Gann  39:24  
Thank you. Oh my gosh, thank you. Yeah, so much to think about, right? Because it all comes down to perspective and attitude and how we're walking through these spaces or being in these spaces. So thank you again for joining us too, yes, and y'all write to us and tell us what you think of I would love comments on this. I want to know where people have landed after hearing this conversation so awesome. All right. Take care, everybody.

Dr. Shawna Gann  39:58  
That's where we ended the conversation with. Tara, and honestly, I thought we were done.

Dr. Shawna Gann  40:07  
A couple of days later, Marcel sent me a message something about the conversation hadn't settled for him, not about Tara as a person, he was clear about that, but about an idea that she'd put forward, the idea that racism, sexism, all of it can be shifted by shifting your own belief about it. And Marcel asked, What about the people who don't have that choice? What about the communities where the harm isn't a mindset problem, it's a structural one? Those are real questions, and I felt it too, so I asked Marcel if we could record our conversation, and then I sent that recording to Tara. She deserved the chance to respond. What came back was something much more personal than I'd expected. What you're about to hear is the conversation continues. First Marcel and me working through what didn't sit right, and then Tara's response. Before we go on, I want to flag this again in her response, Tara shares experiences of childhood sexual abuse and physical abuse. She does this with intention, and it's central to understanding where her perspective comes from. Please take care of yourself as you listen. You

Marcel De Jonghe  41:29  
can you hear me? I can hear you. I didn't realize at the time how I felt about it, but the more and more I thought about it, and then I spoke with Monique, and I was like, there's just this one thing she said which felt very privileged to be able to say in the world which we live in now, the fact that we have free speech, the fact that, You know, we can have mostly gender safety, same right to vote, can drive a car, but that isn't the truth for everybody in the world. Just because you can want something doesn't mean doesn't mean because you want something to not exist, doesn't mean you can manifest that the people who do experience racism, it's not that they're going around asking for it. Are we saying then that in some way they were asking for it because they wait.

Speaker 1  42:35  
That's different. How come? Why? Why would? Why do you think of it?

Marcel De Jonghe  42:40  
It's the way it's, it's because, are they not thinking hard enough to say that I don't want this to exist so therefore I can manifest that?

Dr. Shawna Gann  42:49  
I mean, I think that's different than asking for it. That feels a little bit like victim shaming. Yeah, that's

Marcel De Jonghe  42:55  
what I'm saying. It's, I would never say that. I'm not saying that. The question I do

Dr. Shawna Gann  43:02  
think, though, that reality is reality. We can put our fingers in our ears and go, la, la, la, I don't see it. I don't hear it. Therefore it is not exist. It's like, it makes me think of when, you know, like they say, the kid would put the sheet over their head and be like, you can't see me. I'm invisible. Because, because they're they're covering their eyes. That doesn't mean that you're not there, just like any of those isms will still be there. I think that's why I was kind of asking about it in that sandbox, sort of way, is part of the experience, then choosing not to acknowledge it sort of negates that belief of coming to the sandbox to experience it. I don't want to experience it. And I'm not saying like, we should. I'm not saying we should. I'm just saying like, it felt like dichotomous to me a little bit. We can't say, like, just because you're a person that uses a wheelchair, you are like, I choose not to acknowledge that that doorway is not wide enough for my wheelchair, like willing it to be so isn't going to change it.

Marcel De Jonghe  44:05  
No. For me, what really made me think about it is what's going on in the world with Iran. Okay? Iran has all this history. Women lost a lot of rights. Okay? And it's progressively got worse, to the point that couple of years ago, they weren't allowed to access education. Now, as a female saying, I choose to think that this doesn't exist. I can get that education. That doesn't mean a female could have walked into a class, sat down and received that education, she would have been ejected,

Dr. Shawna Gann  44:47  
you know. So I'm not sure she was trying to say, like you necessarily manifest the actual thing happening to you. But maybe what she was getting at was, if you focus on it, you're going to see it more often. Often, whereas if you choose not to focus on it, then you'll see other things, not that it doesn't happen to you, but it won't be like this thing that's incredibly salient in your mind. Perhaps that was what she was meaning. What we do have control over is how much we allow a thing to impact us or affect us. I don't wanna even say impact. Impact is impact, but like how we choose to behave based on that thing. Maybe that's the difference.

Marcel De Jonghe  45:25  
I still feel it's a privileged position to be able to say that, because we live in a free world, you die. Yeah, okay, I could be absolutely facetious and say all that theory and that ideal didn't work out for a large amount of Jewish people in the Second World War and the Third Reich, irrespective of your perspective on whether Jewish people were being treated differently or not, horrible, a horrendous act happened to that community, and it's easy to say when you're the person who has a little bit of control when you have none, the dream world is probably where you escape to

Dr. Shawna Gann  46:10  
Marcel also brought up female genital mutilation, an act of violence imposed without consent, regardless of anyone's mindset or belief about it. It's the kind of example that makes any theory about manifestation hard to defend.

Marcel De Jonghe  46:24  
It doesn't matter how much you want to tell yourself it is happening or it can't happen or it hasn't affected my life, yeah,

Dr. Shawna Gann  46:33  
yeah, yeah. Everything is relative, right? And but it's worth considering before we run off with an idea for sure? Yeah, thank you.

Dr. Shawna Gann  46:57  
I sent Tara the recording of my conversation with Marcel, and I asked if she'd be willing to respond. A few days later, she sent back a voice memo. She'd listened to it multiple times, slept on it and then spoke this is what she said,

Tara  47:15  
Hi. Thank you so much for the opportunity to follow up on this, and I've listened to it multiple times. I initially had a response, but then I slept on it, and then I slept on it again, and now I'm going to respond, because there's so much there's so much good stuff in what you guys were saying. And I love that we're having this conversation. And I think this is the beauty of your podcast, Shauna, of conversations like this is it, is it causes us all to stretch a bit, to get uncomfortable, to ask questions that are hard, and to get in the world of other people and say, you know, how is life occurring for you? Because how it occurs for me is very different for anybody else, and it's, as you guys can see, it's very different for you, right? But it doesn't make it right or wrong. It just makes it that this is my experience and the choices that I make and you guys have your experiences and the choices you make. Marcel, I absolutely hear you. I hear you both. I think that hopefully what I have to share will help you understand the perspective that I come from. You talked about female genitalia mutilation, so I know that something happened when I was two. I have a stab wound in my armpit that I don't know it's from, and the story that I was told is not the truth. It's a stab wound and it's in my armpit, and it's big. And I do remember something happening at the age of two, but I don't know the true story from the age of four to nine, I was raised in two households, my babysitter's household and my mother's household. In one household, I had extreme sexual abuse, actually in both households from not from my mother, but from other people, and then from my mother. In my household, I had extreme physical abuse, verbal abuse, mental and emotional abuse. I guess what I want to say is that where, where my perspective has grown to does not come from a place of privilege. I've had a lot of trials and tribulations in my life, and I've grown to understand them. What I remember is, at the age of six, I had a dream, I later learned it wasn't a dream. And the dream was, I went home, and the home was, I was in a room. There was a council of energy beings around me. It was a dark space. There was a hand with a sphere in the middle, and I was having a telepathic conversation, which I believe was God. And I said, I'm not going back there, and I heard you must go back there. And I said, I'm not going back there. I absolutely did not sign up for this. And I heard you must go back there. We will always be with you. The only thing I knew as a young person to know if what I was feeling was real was to pinch myself, because I saw it in a movie, right? Pinched myself. And began to cry. It wasn't until I was in my 30s that I really understood that that was not a dream that was real, that was a real moment of disconnecting from this conscious world that we live in and going back to wherever our souls are from.

Dr. Shawna Gann  50:14  
From there, Tara talked about how those early experiences became the foundation of everything she now believes about choice, agency and the stories we carry.

Tara  50:22  
I knew at a young age, when I was 10 years old, and when I decided that I would put a stop to what was happening to me, I also said, I will do everything in my right mind to not do what my mother did to me, to my child, and when my child came, that was a whole journey, I had to go through with him to not have the conditioning of physical abuse be passed down to him, or the conditioning of sexual abuse, or the conditioning of verbal abuse. And I put a stake in the ground before I ever had a child, and said, I will be damned if any of that gets handed down, and I made a decision at a very young age that I would stop that, that I would put a stop to that in this lineage, as far as I was concerned, that was not going to happen. And it has been challenging. There was a time as a single mother raising my son when he was very young, that I was pushed up against those moments where I had to consciously with every cell in my body not do the things that my mother chose to do, because I felt that programming in my cellular system, and as far as I was concerned, hell no, hell no, it stops with me. So racism, I don't believe that it comes out of the blue. I do believe it sits in a collective consciousness, and we are fed that information on a regular basis. You know, I in the corporate world used to be told you have two strikes against you. You're a woman and you're black. I mean, that's conditioning, when, in fact, that's not true. Now it is true if you believe it, and if you believe it, you will create a reality that justifies and that validates that belief. 100% is absolutely not putting your head in the sand. No, you need to know what's happening around the world, but do you need to embody and accept the condition that's being forced or pushed upon you? No, I

Dr. Shawna Gann  52:30  
don't believe you do. Tara went on to talk about the frameworks that shaped her thinking quantum physics, the work of Dr Bruce Lipton, and the idea that collective consciousness can be shifted when individuals do their own inner work. She also drew connections between personal agency and broader political dynamics, including her experiences during covid.

Tara  52:51  
I think what I want to say is that I believe that we, the people, have the power to change this world, but we all have to individually recognize that it is within us, it is not outside of us. That's what I believe. I believe that's what it is you have the power to change the world outside. We all do, but we also have to get out of the fear, and that starts by doing our individual work, our own work, and finding the truth of our agency. And yeah, so thanks for listening. I hope this was helpful. I just want to say I'm honored, and I want to thank you both, and I love this, because this is how I believe, this is how we heal our planet. When you have three people like ourselves, we come together. We have different views, we have different ideas. We put them together, and then we all can sit back and go, wow, wow, wow. Okay, that was cool. There's food for thought. There for all of us. Doesn't mean you have to believe anything that the other person says or even agree with it, but at least we can share it. I appreciate you both. Thanks and take care.

Dr. Shawna Gann  54:21  
So there it is, three people, three perspectives, and a conversation that didn't end when the recording stopped. I'm not going to try to tie this one up with a bow, because I don't think it's meant to be tied up. I think the point is that we stayed in it. Marcel asked a hard question, Tara came back with something harder, not a rebuttal, but a revelation, and I am still sitting with all of it. What I do know is this Tara's perspective on choice and agency comes from somewhere real. It comes from a woman who, as a child, experienced things. SG that no child should ever experience, and who decided at 10 years old that the cycle would stop with her, that is a form of agency that deserves to be held with respect, even when we also hold the reality that not everyone has the same access to that choice. And Marcel's question deserves to stay open too, because the woman in Iran, the community is facing structural violence, the child who hasn't yet learned to name what's happening to them. Their stories matter in this conversation. We don't get to build a framework for freedom that only works for the people who already have some that's the work holding both not choosing a side, but staying curious enough to keep going. I want to hear where this lands for you. If something in this conversation stayed with you, whether it challenged you, comforted you, or left you with more questions than answers, I'd love to know you can reach me directly using the link in the show notes. Until next time, stay curious. Stay connected and keep embracing your true colors. Spread the Love y'all. I'll talk to you soon. 
Transcribed by https://otter.ai