Feel, Heal, and Reveal - A Journey to Emotional Independence

0:01 At the end of the day, it's not about what you have or even what you've accomplished. It's about what you've done with those accomplishments. It's about who you've lifted up, who you've made better. It's about what you've given back. Denzel Washington, Welcome to inspire Vision. Our sole purpose is to elevate the lives of others and to inspire you to do the same. Excellent, Thank you so much for having me located. So I am currently in Palma Sola, Florida on the Gulf Coast. Oh. It is a beautiful sunny day. History do what you what you are doing? Press and so brought you to the point writing a book and doing then administration and those kind of things. So I was a child with not a typical childhood as far as we look at America today. I was raised in the seventies by a mother who unfortunately, at that time, when parents got divorced, they just

1:34 gave children to the mothers. They didn't really take a look at what might have been in the best interest of the child. So I was raised by a drug addict and an alcoholic who was trading my body to drug dealers for drugs. So I was basically what we now call sexually trafficked starting around the age of two. And it wasn't until I was five years old and taken by a neighbor to a vacation Bible school that I looked up and I saw a picture on the wall. And I told the woman, as I was gluing toothpicks to the little milk carton making my little church, said I know that man, and she said, oh, yes, of course that's Jesus.

2:22 Said, I don't know his name. I just know he's the man that sits in the corner and cries when the bad men are hurting me. So I didn't have a typical raising, and I escaped into books. I read a lot of books to escape what I was living, and my father did. My biological father finally got custody of me when I was eleven and a half. And yes, I did do therapy and we tried to create a normal childhood for me. But I wouldn't call it normal because I started acting and singing and modeling and being on stages and being in commercial and it was a lot of fun. But I think I was just hiding and masking pain and so after being in some not wonderful relationships, since I couldn't fix mommy obviously, I decided to do a missionary dating expedition and date boys with drug and alcohol problems. So I ended up in a yoga class at a shelter for abused women and children. When I ended up there, and I vowed to give back by volunteering. One day after I became a certified yoga teacher, and so I wanted to volunteer to help others learn to have peace within themselves and use their own breath for that. Because I know I've spoken to many people over the years. I could have taken a similar route as my mother. I could have because of the abuse I endured become a drug

3:53 addict or prostitute. But instead I found how to yoke my breath to Jesus and to God. And so then I started to teach group and private yoga classes and then become a Christian yoga therapist, and I then became a certified mindfulness meditation teacher. And all of the coaching that I've been doing is based on self regulation principles, because honestly, when you've been abused, no matter what age you have, a hard time finding your breath, recognizing that you can breathe, and you become into this constant state of fight or flight.

4:36 And I have found that yoga helps me and meditation helps me as an important piece of self care for me. And I didn't want to just keep it to me. I wanted to share it, and honestly, rather than wallow in self pity, I wanted to inspire others wrote a book. And well, it's funny because I wanted to write a book. I was actually thinking about this recently. I had written it, you know, goals and dreams. What's the difference when you write it down right? And I wanted to publish a book by the time I was thirty five. However, life was happening and different things in life kept happening, so it never happened. And I am super excited because it all like it all fell together. This My first book was published just two weeks before I turned fifty one, and then, because I was writing two other books at the same time, not sure how this should all be. A week and a half ago my publisher put my second book, which is actually a letter to my twenty one year old son, in print. So now i have two books in less than four weeks, and I'm ecstatic because they are similar but different. And I love the fact that I now have these two different audiences that I can hopefully inspires.

6:12 Right. I don't know what got published. I can tell you that feel heal and Reveal is definitely the journey that I have been on for essentially fifty one years of finding emotional independence. I have learned and I know that many people, whether it be because of trauma or because of just where they found themselves in life, you can physically remove yourself from an abusive situation or an unsafe situation, but you're not emotionally immediately healed. It doesn't happen.

6:53 There is a well, there's just numerous things that your body has gone through if you've been in a trauma state long enough. There's a beautiful book called The Body Keeps Score. And unfortunately, the way our bodies work, we end up in physical disase. And so this book was it was a it was a passion project because I took the he said she set out. There's nothing in there about the relationships I've been in, and I'm not telling my specific story. I'm really giving a guide to anyone, be it a teenager, a dad, a mom, grandma. It doesn't matter what stage of life you're in. If you realize that you are emotionally still tied to something that you don't want to be, there's this ebb and flow and there are steps forward and back that you can take to help you find emotionally dependence and my journey. Okay, great, great, And you know you you mentioned then you mentioned mindset, and you know, I know a lot a lot of people and the interviews it's like, you know what, I can't be do yoga. I just don't. Don't. I can't even even without yoga

8:24 yoga. But but many many think things physical, physical tightening thing. And now now I'm learning and even as its kind of kind of meditation. When when you talk you talk about yoga and you're talk talking about medication, are you talk same, separate, similar? I would say separate from, but similar. And I think it's up to the individual. So for me, I believe that yoga is your breath. I mean that's the bare bones. Everyone can do yoga because we all breathe. Okay, okay, if there's physical limitations to your body, you can still do yoga. I taught chair yoga, and I've taught to people individuals in wheelchairs. Because what the mind sees, the body believes. So if I'm sitting in the chair and I'm lifting my arms and breathing, and you are sitting in a chair or in a wheelchair, and even if your arms cannot physically move, as long as you're taking that inhale and that exhale, you are putting your body into a beautiful state. And as you've changed your state, you can change your mindset.

9:43 And as you change your mindset, you can literally change your life. Okay, so let's talk. Let's talk why it is. So there's I really think that mindset is a part of finding congruence or agreement between the conscious and the unconscious mind. There are many things that we do, breathing our heart, pumping blood, knowing to move away from a hot stove. There's all these things that you can involuntary and voluntarily do. But your mindset is incredibly powerful for healing as well as just for daily survival. But see, I want to take it a step further. I don't want to just survive.

10:41 I want to be a thriver. So if I'm going to thrive. Then I have to make sure that I am at my purpose. And if I'm going to be at my purpose, then I can't be someone who's wallowing in self pity. And therefore, the best way I have found is you know, people always talk about how many muscles does it take to smile versus frown. Well, your your your mindset is essentially, in its own right, a muscle. And so by exercising your mind and adjusting your mindset with the power of not just positive thinking, but yoga and meditation, you literally can change your own self and then that ripple effect changes the world talked my mindset. People experience life from from conconscious experience those and they don't that they are very experiencing is nearly earlier conscience conscious experiencea cetera. And if correct correctly my mind a situation and those to come up. That's that's that's the thing

12:20 that is necessarily any part of my life anymore. And you that affirm information and my opinion, yes, yes you are. Because here's the thing. I think that a lot of times in our current society, people take a look at sensitivity as a weakness, so you might get lumped in if you're someone who exudes a positive mindset that oh that's an EmPATH or all these different like labels that they want to put on people. And then living beliefs come out of that. And if you have limiting beliefs, then your mindset becomes limited. And so I really want to encourage people and inspire people to understand that sensitivity is a source of power. It's not a weakness. And once you understand how you interact with the world and the people in it, well, then you have this incredible privilege of being able to cultivate environments and relationships that honor your sensitivity rather than demean it. And so you create these healthy boundaries within yourself by giving yourself unbelievably beautiful attention by just sitting in meditation or exercising within the forms of yoga, and you become an individual that has the

13:54 power to not just believe in yourself, but to allow others is to see this person is different. Maybe I want to be like that too, Yeah, child, and all potentially effect effect such a secretive way. Now you know, I know it by a bile on Earth three and heaven. Can you can talk to talk about that a little come on that could could have potential. I will say that because of my own childhood, A top goal, a top priority was when I get older, I'm going to be a better mom than my mom was. Well, the bar wasn't set that high.

14:52 I was frightened to become a mother. What if it's ingrained in me? People talk about generational trauma and all these things like what if I am just automatically this horrible mom. And my father has now he's been in heaven almost twenty years, but before my I guess it's been almost sixteen years. But before my oldest son was born, he told me, he said, all you have to do is the exact opposite of your mother and you'll do great. And I was like, oh, that's good advice. And my first son was born, and unfortunately, because of the person I had chose to be with for the rest of my life, it didn't work out that way. We weren't together for the rest of our lives and we were actually separated before I well, at around I was six months pregnant at the time.

15:45 So my son came into the world with just me and a little tiny support system, a little village of those who love me and A few years later, I did find someone else and we got married, and fortunately there was a miscarriage, and that was very devastating to me. And there were things going on in life, and I already had a young one, so you just pick up and you go. And I didn't really grieve at all, I'll be very honest. Then when my second son was born, it was like, ah, the rainbow child, and you move forward, and now you have two children, and you're going and you're going. And then I suffered a second loss of a child, and it was kind of the same situation. I did have a little bit of advice from someone in a Christian world that told me to write a letter to God and ask him to accept these two children and love on them until I can get to heaven.

16:47 Okay, I'll say that might have been helpful, and I kept going in life. And then with my third son, he was actually a twin. Because of the shooting in Las Vegas in twenty seventeen and the challenge that I had there, I ended up with a staff infection from the shooting and I was bedridden and I ended up losing one of the twins. And you were, you were, you were, and literally of experience experience shooting. Yes, the best we can figure, there was a young girl who got shot right in front of me and her two friends. The bullet went through her abdomen. Two friends picked her up and they ran off, and it sounded like a beasting. It felt like a beasting, but there was so much chaos. I wasn't aware that the blood on my white shirt was my own, and that my ear had what seems to be the conclusion that we've all drawn is that the bullet from her body grazed the corner of my ear and it looked like cauliflower, like a boxer's ear. By the time the lockdown was over and I was able to get home, and then when I ended up in the er, they were like, whoa, we got to clean this wound, and here's some antibiotics, and those were obviously too strong for

18:18 my body with being pregnant. And then it wasn't long after that that my body decided that one of the twins was not going to stay in my body. But that wasn't the end, because then it was like this, the blood mixture apparently was not good, and I ended up with a staff infection and it just It took almost six months, almost the whole rest of the pregnancy, for my body to truly try to find itself in a state of healing. And it wasn't done because after my youngest was born, it wasn't postpartum depression. It was like all of this loss and all of this trauma I had ever experienced was just coming into like a firestorm all at once.

19:06 And that is when I learned that I had developed an autoimmune disorder that had kind of blossomed from all of these experiences. But it was just the shooting was the final straw that broke the camel's back, I guess, and there was. It was at least I would say, close to two years of emotionally not feeling proper, physically not feeling proper, and going through numerous diagnoses and medical things and nobody could really say what exactly was wrong with me. And at that time, I was trying to finally finish my yoga certifications, so that because I thought, you know, my mindset was if I help others, then it's going to help me. And I did did start to teach, but I was still struggling health wise, and I finally I got to a doctor who told me you're not gonna make it. Your body is shutting down, your your oxygenation levels and your this, and you'r that in terms I didn't really understand, because pretty much by the time my son was four, she is saying to me, get your will in order, and I'm like, wait a minute, I have three pole and I am trying

20:37 to end a very toxic relationship and I don't want to leave this earth yet I'm not done. I know there's a purpose to my life. So that is, honestly, it's a gut wrenching feeling. And it was a very powerful wake up moment to me that the body really does keep scoring and that the longer I kept reacting instead of responding to things in my life, there wasn't going to be much life left. And I had to find a way to replenish my inner strength, remind myself of my value, and reinforce my resilience and fix this because if the medical field was going to give up on me, that's a big shock. So does yeah, And that's really I would say in the So that was August of twenty twenty two, and that's basically when I had to have a come to Jesus moment with myself and be like, Okay, what do I do? And that's kind of where I felt like, Hey, you know what, it's a mind body spirit connection that keeps us healthy. And the yoga's great, and meditation is great, and eating healthy is great, but there's some way that it all needs to to kind of come together, and you need to really focus on your health and your wellness in a different way. And that's where that's when I found

22:10 hypnotherapy. I had used it way back in college after being raped, and that helped me go back to that little two, three, four or five year old girl and be like, hey, it's not your fault. You didn't do this, you weren't a bad girl. The things that happened to you weren't your fault. And I thought, well, hey, it worked then, maybe it could work now. And honestly, that's the journey that led to the book was because I found that by creating hypnotic suggestion or placing hypnotic suggestions into the meditations that I recorded for myself about my own health, about my blood, about my lungs, about the systems and my body that were challenged. All of my blood markers in six months came back to normal ranges. I'm in what they call spontaneous remission now. And that was kind of the light bulb that went off of like, I'm sharing this with my friends, I'm writing meditations for friends, I'm helping friends lose weight, I'm helping friends do this. And then someone's like, there's a better platform, PJ. You've got to figure out a way for more people to know how they can help themselves than just you know, these little things you're doing.

23:26 And it was kind of like when in a meditation state I came out, I thought, remember that girl who wanted to be a writer, Remember that girl. She's still there. And I really furiously in one weekend put Piil Hill and Reveal together without the last chapter. It wasn't quite sure that ended what I want And I think, understand this that at meditatation with with my mindset and with you you actually is And then you know, you know after affirmation what that was. People need to understand and are happening. He is occurring because of meditation, doing it in different ways. Ways, you know, Fine reality is a very very way, or getting getting guidedgation was a very very way that that heal a curR and the body can kill yourself.

24:41 Matter of fact, experiences past can literally really affect our health and the way the way to turn right around to where mind sight and then going to go after allow allow that to literal our lives and it can. And I think a very huge key to that is to understand that it's not a linear journey though. It's not going to happen just one meditation and I'm done. Yeah, I'm healed now. No. No, life itself is filled with highs and lows. There's a lot of discoveries, there's a lot of challenges, and with each step that you take towards finding yourself in a place where you can maybe just do one minute, and then five minutes, and then a week later you're doing ten minutes of meditation, you're going to lead yourself towards having a more authentic and more fulfilling life. So when you honor yourself and you let meditation guide you to becoming the most authentic version of yourself, that's a journey that's well worth embarking on and healing from the impacts of whatever it's been in your life. It's a profoundly personal journey. No one human being can tell you exactly what you need to do to fix everything. You have to find your way back to yourself, and it's piece by piece. There's

26:15 going to be setbacks, there's gonna be moments where you question if you've made any progress. But again, healing isn't linear. Each step forward, no matter how small, is a victory. And as long as you keep the mindset that life is full of victories, then true healing emotionally, physically, in all different directions can occur because it's these limiting decisions. It's these limiting beliefs that we allow to creep in and then we hold onto it like it's the gospel. It's such truth and it's not. And that is honestly, I think it truly started with forgiving myself. Yeah, someone shows me a question. I know you are talking about about different No, I mean it started with paper elephants because I needed something quick and easy with when life comes thunderstorming at you. So it's a thirty sixty ninety second self regulation, so that no matter where I am at a red light at the grocery store, if something triggers me, which is what I think a lot of us suffer from if you've been traumatized, small little things a car backfiring can throw me to the ground because it reminds me of a gun going off. So someone,

27:48 even my own child lifting his arm to like show me a piece of paper of something he drew, will create in me every little you know, all the physical reactions of the fact that I'm about to get hit and you're never you can't predict when those things in life are going to happen. And so it was out of trying to write yoga sequences and beautiful meditations that the paper Elephants method was born so that I could have this little tool for self regulation. And when I started sharing it to other people and they were like, wow, yeah, this is really great. This this helped me focus on myself for just this brief second, get my breath back, and get out of fight or flight. And now it's become a daily part of my life. So I'm I'm, I'm you know, I'm in something. What do I do? So? Let me? Can I give you sixty seconds of your time? Can I take it from you for a second? Sure?

29:00 Sure? All right? So I'm gonna ask you, please, doctor Doug to just take a moment and imagine all of your negative thoughts, the things that you have told yourself, the things others have told you, and imagine them and visualize them. Close your eyes if you feel comfortable, and imagine little origami paper elephants. And as you hail, set those paper elephants on fire with your strong breath. Breathe in deeply through your nose and send your breath like a blazing fire to your forehead, and as you exhale, sweep away all the ashes of those paper elephants which are no longer strong enough to take hold in your mind. Okay, okay, in through your nose, set the remaining paper elephants on fire, and as you exhale, you blow those ashes away, clearing them away, so there's only realm for love and happiness to fill your forehead. Oh that I love that. And you know, and again that really kind of kind of havn't had my mindset having

30:30 hail coming coming up to do that, you know, you know, to do that that method and really recogn you know, that's why the mind comes. So here's here's the question comes to right now, right now, is how someone develop that time my mindset that because most say and how where we were that we go? We go, Okay, I need to need The biggest essential piece is forgiving yourself because you're going to slip up, You're going to react instead of respond, and you're sometimes more often than not, going to react in a way that you might regret. You have to know that change is a process. There's going to be setbacks, there's going to be victories, and what matters is your commitment to your growth and your willingness to learn from each and every encounter. You have to just simply understand that every day you can wake up and be like, Oh, I'm so glad, I'm alive, the sun is shineing, or you can wake up and be

32:01 like, oh, it's raining again. I don't even want to get out of bed. But it's a choice. Life is filled with choices, and as you navigate through the complexities of life and relationships with people, that choice that you have to respond rather than react is a powerful act of self love. It's an affirmation of your worth and your capacity to rise above all of the negativity. You embrace your practice of self care, of meditation, of your mindset with kindness and courage, and you just basically end up getting to watch the world transform for the better. Heard that act of our environment are cause over over. We can be act active on or we can we can act and what what what you to move away away that effect, act, situation and literally emotions over all that absolutely and I find you know people they

33:32 everybody gives it different words. We could argue about semantics, but there's no point moving forward. All you have to do is remember the importance of setting intentions. And they're not just mere wishes thrown into the wind, but they are powerful affirmations of your directions and your desires. Intentions become like a compass that guide your steps, ensuring or the individual that even when the path gets foggy, rainy, thunderstorms come in, hurricanes, you name it. You have a sense of where you're headed and you can find your path. If you know your path, you stay on it. And if you take a couple of steps back, just go forward again. Celebrate each and every victory.

34:25 And that honestly has been I wish I wish that I had published a book at thirty five. I wished I'd had the knowledge of what I have at fifty one, when I was seventeen. But it didn't and there's no point to beating myself up over it. It's like forgive yourself, keep inhaling, keep exhaling, keep moving forward as because as you have to gude God Gray so very much christ Christian again, I get okay, okay, So your question I had starts to talk, talk, pause and attect higher and I'm an island right now. A lot of this go to the temple, pray, pray, you know, you know who to help themselves God, God, but I know praying pray for blessings and Chris Christians we pray for bless blessed, and so many many times I have a chrome God, God, you're my prayer prayers answer and why your white would not have had handy to my question? But you're on your aerience and even your faith because I Resiver said that, how do how do we help understand and here's my it's my opinion, how do how do we help that we have to have our responsibility. We can't gug go over to someone that I'm going to take care

35:57 of even then considers and that's God respons I for most of my life, especially you know, since being five years old and understanding exactly who Jesus was as the best of a five year old. I've come to believe and share with others that God answers prayers in three ways. It's yes, no, or wait. If he says yes, it's because you are ready and that you have become the responsible, mature individual to accept whatever it is you've been asking for. If he says no, you may or may not be doing what it takes to accept that gift and use those blessings in the manner that would be beneficial for the world. It might not be ecological for you to have that because you may not know what to do with it, or you may be compromising other people in the process. And if God says wait, then it's you have some growth to do, you have some lessons to learn, and then when that process has been completed, if you want to keep asking, you might get that yes you're looking for. But to me, it's broken down in yes, no, or wait because we have been, in my opinion, given the free choice, free will, and you have

37:28 choices that you need to make, and it's quite possible because I've done it, I've stuck myself back in a negative relationship because it was easier and comfortable than to move forward. The physical independence was the easy part, but the emotional part, the emotional independence hadn't come, so I thought, well, I might as well just go back into it. But that wasn't the best choice for me. And then I'm looking around wondering why all these negative things are happening. But I want to have a beautiful, resilient spirit, want to thrive and not just survive. So I've come to believe that when I'm praying for something or I'm asking for something, if the blessing isn't coming yet, I need to take a look at what are my choices? Where have I put myself? Where have I put my kids? What is it that I'm not doing to help make the world a better place? Well, well, you know, you know, you know what in my mind, My mind is testament, you know, you know, saved all we can do.

38:31 And look that's going going now, And you get on that on the head until till you have done. Spect you to reach yourself to the level of being able to put out that energy and for infrequency to receive received. But once once yourself that point, point, guess what's what that naturally come comes because now you're there, you know, as you to receive it, it will come come. I think that a lot of people if you if you don't have a faith in God or some sort of higher power, it might just be your gut feelings. And your gut can be a very powerful guide. And I believe that your gut will whisper truth to your heart and you just have to learn to acknowledge it. Trusting yourself is a huge first step towards recognizing when to hold on to something or when to let go of it. Our emotions and our instincts should be our guideposts, no matter what your faith is, and they warn us when we're heading down a bad path into dangerous waters, and if we ignore them, it can lead us down

40:01 a path where our needs and our safety is compromised. Well, and there's the bush right experience serienstum Field and able to get that energy and so forth, And that's like, you know, it's the same same thing. You're you're you're trying finding a point where you are you're unimmunicating with whatever whatever your believable allows you to communicate or with or with whom, and as you have to have energies that That's why when you start starting yourself, you're in receive those very very things you are and asking for. Absolutely. It requires acknowledging that you might not know something, or you might know something, and you might feel something that's profound with any without any factual evidence to back it up.

41:06 And so when you recognize either that sinking feeling or that lifting feeling in your gut, you might need to follow it. And I think that that's the it's the problem. People don't trust themselves anymore. They're looking for all in all these other places for answers instead of within themselves. Message. I feel that a lot of people out there are just pushing for survival, but there's more to it. Surviving is like inhaling, and not exhaling, you're going to blow up. Thriving is the true essence of healing and empowerment.

41:55 So with each boundary you set, it becomes a brick and that foundation of having a beautiful, resilient spirit. Thrivers are the ones lighting the way for others with our shared experiences and our newfound wisdom. And I encourage everyone read my book find your own sense of how to thrive, because we need you to help light the world. Oh I love that so can be found where Amazon, Barnes, and Noble, most of your online retailers have it.

42:36 And again, this is for finding emotional independence no matter what you've gone through in your life, physically removing yourself is not enough, okay. And if besides sides of the book to find you, the easiest way is the word the th H E. P J. Victor, v I C T O R dot com. The P J. Victor dot com. You'll find all of the things I'm involved with nonprofit wise, other books I'm writing and have written what we do as a family to help the world. Because it's not just me. You've got three boys that I'm raising to be world changers.

43:22 Uh, thank you so much and all those things. Thank you so much for having me. Again. I just appreciate the platform that you give others and so that we can try to inspire and change the world. Thanks, thanks for listening and again and you know what that is worth reading reading. Thanks you had to have a ra it break. We're we're doing it, doing it stand soon mhm.