Speak LOUD

My guest is Tracy Nelson, a medical assistant who has been on the front lines of COVID. She is a mom and empty nester in a new chapter of her life. Tracey talks about her past history of abuse, how she has changed her parenting style since healing and how she dealt with the trauma of losing her youngest child.

Told to Keep Her Childhood Abuse a Secret

As a young child, her abuse started with her father. When she told her mother what had happened, her mother told her not to say anything and keep it a secret. Finally, however, she did report the abuse, and her father only received a year of mandated counseling.

Being in and out of rehab from suicide attempts and eating disorders, Tracey wasn’t able to deal with the trauma and lack of consequence her father received for abusing her so severely. Then, at the age of 18, he abused her again. She moved out of her home and, at 24, realized she was pregnant. “My son saved my life,” she says, as she was drinking and doing drugs at the time. Her pregnancy gave her the chance to turn around her life.

How Her Dad Shows Love

Her father, when confronted with the sexual abuse, says that’s just how he shows love. So she sent a letter to her stepmom telling her of the sexual abuse she endured with her dad when her stepmom was pregnant with their daughter. The only response she received was a note from her bishop that she should forgive her father and move on.

Flipping the Relationship Switch before Marriage

Her second husband was emotionally abusive to their family pet, the children, and to Tracey. “He would be really threatening and we would all walk on eggshells.” Most of their children don’t have a relationship with their dad now, but they are very close to Tracey.

Listen in to find out how Tracey succeeded in finding a trustworthy relationship, what modalities Tracey is using to heal, and how she uses Shadowwork to heal her emotional hurt.

Resources Mentioned

Join Me on Speak Loud Platform

Speak Loud Podcast on the web

Spread the message of Speak Loudly Podcast and share this episode with a friend!

***Disclaimer: All content found on Speak Loud Podcast, including text, images, audio, or other formats were created for informational purposes only. Material contained on Speak Loud Podcast website, podcast, and social media postings are not intended to be a substitute for professional medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment. Always seek the advice of your qualified healthcare provider with any questions you may have regarding a medical condition. Never disregard or delay seeking professional medical advice. Information on this podcast and guest comments, opinions, and content are solely for educational and entertainment purposes. Use of this information is at your own risk.***

My guest is Dawna Campbell the Mind Whisperer, who has knowledge that can assist in restoring and creating a life of happiness, prosperity, and love. With over 25 years of experience in the financial advisor realm, Dawna’s book, Financially Fit, is an Amazon #1 Best Seller.

She grew up in an environment which set her on the path to experiencing abuse later in life. “I grew up in a household that was pretty angry and I didn’t know that we were meant to live in a state of anger.” No matter the discussion topic, the emotion that bled out from her mother was always anger. As a kid, she received and absorbed much of the anger in her home, including physical abuse. “There was always retribution going on, even if I was just sitting there quietly.” This set the stage for her later in life to receive abuse from others.

Modeling Adult Relationships From Childhood Experiences

Since she didn’t know any different, she modeled her adult relationships after the abusive relationship with her mother. “It’s not until you see that pattern and break it that you can truly move forward.” She experienced anger in her marriage but thought that it was OK because it was better than the anger she endured growing up.

Breaking Childhood Abuse Patterns

When she was in a financial advisory position in her career, Dawna realized through a series of events that she needed to change. Taking a break from her financial career, she moved into a spiritual community to discover who she truly was without the layers of emotional garbage placed upon her. Unfortunately, the partner she met in the community was emotionally and physically abusive towards her, similar to her mother. Her breaking point came about when she realized that she didn’t have to live with abuse.

Meeting a medicine woman, she started studying with her to relieve the emotional impact of her childhood. What she learned from her saved Dawna’s life and is the basis for the message she shares today.

Empowering Your Children

Because her children grew up in an environment that Dawna created for them that was empowering for her children, her kids, now grown, make their decisions as mature adults. “They’ve grown up in an environment that I created around healing energy, and how our thoughts work in the world.”

Listen in to find out how Dawna is shifting the story of abuse in her life, how she has empowered her children, and the epigenetic factors in generational abuse.

Resources Mentioned

Join Me on Speak Loud Platform

Speak Loud Podcast on the web

Dawna Campbell on the web

Spread the message of Speak Loudly Podcast andshare this episode with a friend!

***Disclaimer: All content found on Speak Loud Podcast, including text, images, audio, or other formats were created for informational purposes only. Material contained on Speak Loud Podcast website, podcast, and social media postings are not intended to be a substitute for professional medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment. Always seek the advice of your qualified healthcare provider with any questions you may have regarding a medical condition. Never disregard or delay seeking professional medical advice. Information on this podcast and guest comments, opinions, and content are solely for educational and entertainment purposes. Use of this information is at your own risk.***

My guest is Keisher Glymph, a leader, motivational speaker, and creator who is spreading the message of finding your voice as a female. She loves giving space for creativity, being your best self, and showing up in the world as your authentic self to share your voice with the globe.

Although she doesn’t remember all the details, Keisher remembers the time, day, environment, and what happened to her the night she had two babysitters, one of them was male. They wanted her to stay quiet about what happened, and it took her years to understand what happened to her emotionally and how deeply this experience affected her. “I started noticing it in relationships,” says Keisher, “I could notice that pulling back and being quiet was an effect over time.” She often closed off her heart and didn’t understand how to say no because she felt that she didn’t have a voice.

Having been sexually abused as a young girl at the age of nine, Keisher realizes that being abused can create gaps in memory. “One of the reasons I was inspired to come back to my childhood home is because I wanted to do more childhood healing.” Being the middle child, she was different from her other two siblings. “My childhood was fun and I was a quiet girl, but often misunderstood.”

“Whether it ended up in a deeper emotional situation or it was young boys going through puberty, I was the one who would get the ‘freaky’ part of the game.” Spending the night with a friend or being at home, her cousins and her friend’s cousins would often want to pull her into a closet or find a quiet corner to play around. She didn’t know how to speak up and maneuver around these situations.

Even though her mother was lovely and accommodating, she was submissive to her father, who was dominating. Her mom didn’t have a voice in the relationship with her dad. Keisher says that her father was all bark and no bite and didn’t know or understand how to lead without instilling fear in others. “This experience taught me that I couldn’t be my full voice.”

Listen in to find out how Keisher’s experience growing up was different than her sibling’s experience in the same household, how her father was led by fear and the dynamics of her relationship with her dad.

Resources Mentioned

Join Me on Speak Loud Platform

Speak Loud Podcast on the web

Book a Discovery Call with Keisher

Spread the message of Speak Loudly Podcast and share this episode with a friend!

***Disclaimer: All content found on Speak Loud Podcast, including text, images, audio, or other formats were created for informational purposes only. Material contained on Speak Loud Podcast website, podcast, and social media postings are not intended to be a substitute for professional medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment. Always seek the advice of your qualified healthcare provider with any questions you may have regarding a medical condition. Never disregard or delay seeking professional medical advice. Information on this podcast and guest comments, opinions, and content are solely for educational and entertainment purposes. Use of this information is at your own risk.***

My guest is Lana Elco, a relationship and intimacy coach who focuses on the tantric, sacred unity approach and has worked with cross-cultural couples and women from all over the world in their relationships for more than 10 years. She is a proponent of feminine empowerment. Ukrainian-born Lana moved to California, where she met her soul partner and started her life from scratch.

Lana has a Master’s Degree in social and political sciences, business administration, studied transpersonal psychology and is certified with Grof Transpersonal Training. She has also trained in NVC (Non-Violent Communication), Zegg Psychodrama, Intimacy, and Tantra.

Having a great childhood in Ukraine, Lana experienced her trauma in the United States. She worked on deep healing work on ancestral trauma at a spiritual retreat in the desert when she had a man attack her emotionally. “It took a while for me to process and understand what had happened to me,” says Lana of her experience. In her healing journey from this experience, she realized that her attacker hadn’t completed his healing journey.

“There’s forgiving and letting go and then there’s removing the trauma from your body,” Lana explains. However, she realized that even though she had forgiven and moved on, she still fears that this could happen again.

When she started working with women on a deeper level, she realized that many women weren’t experiencing their authentic feminine energy in expanded states of consciousness. “When feminism movement happened, I believed that was necessary for women to become powerful and claim their rights and freedoms.” Instead, however, many women became powerful in a masculine way, representing the feminine. “They were basically mimicking hte masculine to become powerful.” Likewise, says Lana, because women only had other men in the patriarch to look up to, for example.

These days, we are moving through another wave of feminine empowerment. Lana explains, “We want to do things the way men do it, we can still do things on our own and be powerful in a feminine way.”

Lana says we need to remember our feminine power. She reminds us that there are periods in different cultures that women and men were of equal power when we look at The Pyramid Code. “We can see it in there art - women and men holding hands on the thrown” she gives other examples as well. “We have to collaborate, so there’s no competition for power.”

Listen in to find out when females lost control of power, how patriarchal societies tried to erase feminine power, and the essence of the mother wound, and how this causes cyclical abuse.

Resources Mentioned

Join Me on Speak Loud Platform

Speak Loud Podcast on the web

Lana Elko Tantric Relationship Coach on the web

Spread the message of Speak Loudly Podcast andshare this episode with a friend!

***Disclaimer: All content found on Speak Loud Podcast, including text, images, audio, or other formats were created for informational purposes only. Material contained on Speak Loud Podcast website, podcast, and social media postings are not intended to be a substitute for professional medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment. Always seek the advice of your qualified healthcare provider with any questions you may have regarding a medical condition. Never disregard or delay seeking professional medical advice. Information on this podcast and guest comments, opinions, and content are solely for educational and entertainment purposes. Use of this information is at your own risk.***

At the age of three, her mother had a tenant in their home who abused her, along with an uncle who also abused her at the age of seven. As an adult, she was in a constant state of trauma, and as a result, Anu attracted abusive partners into her life. “It was a constant, vicious cycle of darkness and attracting horrible partners into my life.”

Jumping from One Relationship to Another

“I was so scared of being alone,” says Anu, “and I think it’s because I was so vulnerable and other people picked up on this.” She felt that she needed a partner in her life to give her the love she wasn’t able to give herself. Her choices of partners were manipulative and physically and mentally abusive.

Spiritual Healing for Trauma

Anu has tried different western and eastern modalities for healing, and one method she has used with great success is reiki. She has been attuned with reiki and has achieved her level 1, level 2, and master reiki levels. “I felt more intuitive and I can pick up on people’s energies,” says Anu. “Reiki has transformed my life and helped to protect me from bad people and negative energies.”

Meditation for Healing Trauma 

“I feel that meditation helps to center and ground us, and it helps us to understand who we are as beings.” Meditation is being and separates us from doing, which gives us peace and understanding into our own lives. 

Listen in to find out how yoga changed her life for the better, how her travels helped her heal, and how she is navigating finding a new partner who she can love and trust in her life.

Resources Mentioned

Join Me on Speak Loud Platform

Speak Loud Podcast on the web

Victim 2 Victor on the web

Spread the message of Speak Loudly Podcast andshare this episode with a friend!

***Disclaimer: All content found on Speak Loud Podcast, including text, images, audio, or other formats were created for informational purposes only. Material contained on Speak Loud Podcast website, podcast, and social media postings are not intended to be a substitute for professional medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment. Always seek the advice of your qualified healthcare provider with any questions you may have regarding a medical condition. Never disregard or delay seeking professional medical advice. Information on this podcast and guest comments, opinions, and content are solely for educational and entertainment purposes. Use of this information is at your own risk.***

Today I’m talking to Lizbeth Meredith is a speaker and former child abuse investigator. She has also authored the book Pieces of Me: Rescuing My Kidnapped Daughters. In addition, she is a retired juvenile probation supervisor. 

With family violence, parental alienation, control issues, physical abuse, and a large amount of chaos in her home, Lizbeth realized that she wanted a different life for herself from an early age. So she transitioned from her abusive home to an abusive marriage and found herself in Europe in her twenties looking for her kidnapped girls. “I came from a really controlling environment and I was looking for someone to save me.”

Her mother had kidnapped her and her female siblings and moved to Alaska to avoid getting caught. Her mother, having been married to multiple men, had children from several different fathers. Lizbeth didn’t know who her real father was until she was 20, as her mom told her that her stepdad was her real father.

Growing up, she remembers being physically abused if her siblings didn’t follow her mother’s directions exactly. “For the kids in the family, the most damaging part was that we were forced to shun anyone she was angry with.” Even if the person she was mad at was a sibling, the other siblings had to stay away from her if they didn’t want backlash from her mother, which was sent away from home.

Lizbeth experienced guilt growing up as she was favored by her mom, so she didn’t have the most extreme repercussions. “She was funny and amazing and adored me at times,” which was an emotionally manipulative space to be in the family.

Looking back, Lizbeth wishes she had given herself some time to heal before going out to find a life partner. But, instead, her mom and others in her family wanted to push all this behind them and never speak about the trauma and abuse or what happened to their family.

After being strangled by her husband in front of their daughter, she decided to leave the marriage. At that point, she decided to leave the relationship and never look back. Lizbeth wanted a life without abuse, and she consciously made a choice to have a better life.

Listen in to find out how she was able to leave her abusive husband, how her children were kidnapped, and how she was able to rescue her children and get them back.

Resources Mentioned

Join Me on Speak Loud Platform

Speak Loud Podcast on the web

Connect with Lizbeth on the web

Spread the message of Speak Loudly Podcast and share this episode with a friend!

***Disclaimer: All content found on Speak Loud Podcast, including text, images, audio, or other formats were created for informational purposes only. Material contained on Speak Loud Podcast website, podcast, and social media postings are not intended to be a substitute for professional medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment. Always seek the advice of your qualified healthcare provider with any questions you may have regarding a medical condition. Never disregard or delay seeking professional medical advice. Information on this podcast and guest comments, opinions, and content are solely for educational and entertainment purposes. Use of this information is at your own risk.***

We know and understand that abuse happens to people daily. We also know that when we talk about emotional or mental abuse it can be partially perception. It is the physical and sexual abuse that leaves physical scarring that we can see and document. 

The Importance of Having an Episode Takeaway

Whether the person that is being interviewed is accurately telling their story or not, the purpose of my podcast is for victims of abuse to learn how to thrive. Learning comes from listening to other’s stories and having an actionable takeaway for them to move forward with their own healing.

In this episode, Listen in to find out why healing is a journey and a constant in survivors lives, why I experience anxiety more in the winter months, and my experience with my dad when we visited Hawaii together.

I’m excited to chat with my guest Nadia Bruce Rawlings, a survivor of multiple forms of childhood abuse and whose written two memoirs, Scars and Driving in the Rain. In addition to being an author, Nadia travels the world. She worked in the film industry in Los Angeles for a time. She and her husband live in Nashville, Tennesee, where she writes and raises her six children and fur baby.

Almost all of her relatives on her father’s side of the family were alcoholics, including her father. “He was very Jekyll and Hyde when he drank and very verbally abusive to the kids and his wife.” In addition to the verbal abuse, there was a period where Nadia remembers him being physically abusive to her mother. She found that her parents were both emotionally vacant. As a result of her upbringing, Nadia sought out abusive, dysfunctional relationships, not knowing what a loving relationship looked like.

Nadia picked up her first drink at the young age of 12. Living overseas at the time, she didn’t find hard drugs but could buy marijuana and started smoking pot in high school. “When I came to the States, I found speed and cocaine my senior year of high school.” Although she eventually stopped drugging, she continued to drink.

After her mom died from her battle with lung cancer, Nadia started smoking crack daily for the next four years and shoplifted to pay for her addiction. She was incarcerated and accumulated two felonies before going to rehab for six months. Seeing her crackhead friends and her dealer in the street outside her bedroom window, she was determined to get her life back.

Ending up in rehab for six months due to her drinking and crack addiction, Nadia has spent the last 23 years of her recovery helping other women get sober. She also assists them in beating the cycle of abuse and addiction.

Using her upbringing as a relationship example, Nadia found herself looking for “bad boys” to have a relationship. “I often found myself dating musicians and thinking they were sensitive because they wrote sensitive songs.” In actuality, they were very emotionally vacant, similar to her parents.

Listen in to find out how Nadia worked through the process of addiction and grief, why she decided to write her book, and how she found solace in writing.

Resources Mentioned

Contact Nadia

Pick up one of Nadia’s books

Join Me on Speak Loud Platform

Speak Loud Podcast on the web

Spread the message of Speak Loudly Podcast andshare this episode with a friend!

***Disclaimer: All content found on Speak Loud Podcast, including text, images, audio, or other formats were created for informational purposes only. Material contained on Speak Loud Podcast website, podcast, and social media postings are not intended to be a substitute for professional medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment. Always seek the advice of your qualified healthcare provider with any questions you may have regarding a medical condition. Never disregard or delay seeking professional medical advice. Information on this podcast and guest comments, opinions, and content are solely for educational and entertainment purposes. Use of this information is at your own risk.***

I’m excited about my return guest, Joe Dennis, from episode 08 of Speak Loud Podcast. Joe is our leading referral partner here on Speak Loud Podcast. Joe blends unique meditative practices and philosophy with highly sought-after techniques such as EMDR, Brain-spotting, dream analysis, and Cognitive-Behavioral Therapy to create insightfully inspired and lasting impacts with his clients.

REBT, CBT, and DBT are forms of behavioral therapy that are commonly used in Utah. “These are useful with clients that want to form a new habit.” This approach determines how you are interpreting information and the behavior resulting from your interpretation. Joe works with clients using this approach as he finds this format more practical. “But even then, I don’t believe the behavioral approaches tend to go deep enough.”

“Existential theory allows integration of other approaches,” which gives Joe and his team the ability to look at the type of trauma and the meaning associated with the trauma experienced in the individual.

“When working with trauma, you’re not working with the traumatic event itself, you’re working with the meaning of it.” Joe explains how your unconscious mind processed and reacted to your trauma is the root of the issue for people.

RRT therapy boasts the claim that you can heal trauma in six sessions. This therapy also works with the conscious mind, along with the unconscious mind, delving into the mammalian and the logical, adult brain. “The fact that they are so sure about [their claim] makes me fascinated by this modality.” This specific type of therapy focuses on the unconscious mind and the meaning that it attributes to an event. 

“Humor brings us back to the present and gives us the ability to process stuff.” Because we can’t be in the past to process traumatic events, humor gives the therapist the ability to bring them back to the present and is a grounding technique he uses in his practice.

Resources Mentioned

Visit Joe Dennis on the web

Checkout Mindful Counseling Utah Resources

Take a look at their Mental Health Workshops

Check out Episode 08 with Joe Dennis

Join Me on Speak Loud Platform

Speak Loud Podcast on the web

Spread the message of Speak Loudly Podcast andshare this episode with a friend!

***Disclaimer: All content found on Speak Loud Podcast, including text, images, audio, or other formats were created for informational purposes only. Material contained on Speak Loud Podcast website, podcast, and social media postings are not intended to be a substitute for professional medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment. Always seek the advice of your qualified healthcare provider with any questions you may have regarding a medical condition. Never disregard or delay seeking professional medical advice. Information on this podcast, and guest comments, opinions and content are solely for educational and entertainment purposes. Use of this information is at your own risk.***

I’m excited about my guest Renee Sinning, a team coach who helps teens feel confident, motivated, and worthy. She has spent her career teaching and mentoring teens. Her years in the classroom teaching, coaching, and mentoring teens, along with her own personal experience as a mom of three children, have given her tools and strategies she passes along to her teens to create a life where they can find peace and happiness.

Working with Teens in a Different Capacity

After moving several times for her husband’s job, Renee decided she didn’t want to be attached to the school year calendar but wanted to offer teens the benefit of her experience. “I saw a lot of teens fall through the cracks, for different reasons. I had some powerful relationships with some of the teens and I was able to help them with coaching outside of the classroom.”

While coaching was the most significant impact and most memorable experience for Renee, she realized there were many more teens with low self-esteem and lack of self-confidence who needed help getting through their teen years. “The biggest common denominator that I’ve seen is the lack of self-confidence and worth.” When she left the classroom, she wanted to make a difference in the lives of teens and discovered coaching.

The Middle Child Syndrome

We often hear about the middle child falling through the cracks, and Renee is no exception. Her middle child is on the Asperberger’s scale and was adopted from Russia, so she isn’t sure about the first few months of his history. “However, I don’t know that I even completely believe that [the middle child syndrome] because I’ve seen kids that were challenged but each child is a different experience.”

Each Child with Unique Superpowers and Weaknesses

“Each teen needs to be seen, heard and valued,” says Renee. This is the difference between being with a kid and being connected with a teen. “They won’t always let you in, but there are some kids that I was able to connect with at a deeper level.” Kids that are struggling need to see their self-worth. Most kids who Renee taught won’t ever use algebra again in their life, but they will use the soft skills and self-esteem they learn from coaching.

Resources Mentioned

Visit Renee on the web

Connect with Renee on LinkedIn

Follow Renee on Instagram

Join Me on Speak Loud Platform

Speak Loud Podcast on the web

Spread the message of Speak Loudly Podcast andshare this episode with a friend!

***Disclaimer: All content found on Speak Loud Podcast, including text, images, audio, or other formats were created for informational purposes only. Material contained on Speak Loud Podcast website, podcast, and social media postings are not intended to be a substitute for professional medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment. Always seek the advice of your qualified healthcare provider with any questions you may have regarding a medical condition. Never disregard or delay seeking professional medical advice. Information on this podcast, and guest comments, opinions and content are solely for educational and entertainment purposes. Use of this information is at your own risk.***