Courage and Grace: From Broken to Blissful with Susan Ball

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Hello and welcome to— hello and welcome to Shedding the Bitch Radio, where you can discuss, debate, and get advice on how to discover and shed the bitches of fear, insecurity, self-doubt, and negative mindsets so you can realize your dreams and life purpose and create and accelerate the riches you want in life.

Join us here live every Tuesday at noon Eastern and dialogue with us at 818-572-2910. You can also chat with us at BlogTalkRadio Shedding the Bitch, or share your stories on our website at sheddingthebitch.com. Whatever the bitch is that's holding you back from living your life to the fullest, it's not worth giving up the riches in life that you deserve.

So call in now and let Bernadette Boas know what's holding you back.

818-572-2910.

Good day, good day, good day everyone! How are you on this wonderful, wonderful Tuesday as we get close to wrapping up August. It's August 21st, can you believe it? Um, but I hope you're having a beautiful day, morning, or night, wherever you might be around the world. I'm excited to be kind of back and getting into the groove of things. Yes, I was back last week, but you know what it's like when, you know, you come back from 2-week vacation where— especially when you're totally disconnected for 2 weeks and have no email or text access and the inundation of messages that you have to follow up on and a lot, of course, a lot of especially emails, spam, but I kind of felt like last week was just one of those rush to make sure that nothing falls, fell through the cracks while you were gone, get back all the messages, respond to everybody. And get kind of back to normal. So it took me pretty much most of last week, and I was finding out up until this morning things were still falling through the cracks. So, you know, that's the way it goes. But I am settled back in. Deborah is here with us, Deborah of Parker House Virtual Services. So excited for her to have her with us today. And of course, our conversation today with our guest is one that the community has buzzed about, I'll say. We've had, we've had conversations in the past in regards to abuse and relationships and healing and personal journeys and whatnot, but when I ran across this whole subject matter and this book and this individual, I just really felt it was important that you, that you would hear her message. So before we get into all that though, I'll just say that it's really— it's kind of nice and quiet here in the Shedding the Bitch community. Of course, you know, you're always reaching out, sharing what's going on in your lives, but I would say from generally speaking, you know, we don't—

there's—

it's just nice. It's calm, cool, and collected. We are talking and working through kind of some enhancements and enrichments in regards to our Shedding the Bitch community in the near future, so stay tuned for that. And of course, if you ever have any inputs and feedback of your own, which you're not shy to share, then feel free to do so, whether that's on our Shedding the Bitch Facebook or Twitter page, whether that's through LinkedIn directly to me, which is a lot of where I get conversations with all of you. And even on our website, ChasintheBitch.com. And we have some great, great guests coming up in the future. Next week we're gonna be talking to Andrea Hall, and this is gonna be an interesting conversation as well.

We—

I love my interesting guests that we have here. It's all around how to leverage and how to use horses as kind of a healing tool. And being a horse lover myself, and yet at the same time being a dog lover, I can relate to, for those of you who maybe haven't been around horses, just kind of the healing possibilities that they would bring to, to one's life. So Andrea has a really fascinating story of how she even got into that kind of area of study, an area of work. So I'll be excited to talk to her. And September, the following week, Labor Day weekend, and we'll kick off the Tuesday after Labor Day weekend with our Ask Bernadette episode. So I take your questions, stories, and challenges the first Tuesday of every month. You can post your questions the same as always— Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn— directly to me at BernadetteBoas@sheddingthebitch.com. Or on our website. So there's many ways for you to get, even if you just have, like I get very simple questions that I don't even bring to the show because they're just things that are not necessarily deep. They're just, hey Bernadette, what should I do? I'm getting on the phone and I'm gonna be talking to, you know, my boss about this, or I'm gonna be scoping out an opportunity with a vendor around this. What should I be asking? Or I'm dealing with this issue or challenge and how can I, you know, kind of work through it very effectively without getting emotionally charged. So I take anything and everything just to ensure that you're getting the information, the support that you need to enrich your life. All right, so that'll be Tuesday, I believe it's September 4th, um, is Ask Bernadette. So start posting your questions. I answer them right away, but then I bring them into the show and allow you even to join in live if you care to. To have a coaching session, basically. So, so that'll be September 4th. And then we'll be talking to Dorothy Kuhn. We've got Kate Osbourne lined up, Rita Smith, a whole number of great guests coming to Shedding the Bitch Radio in order to help you shift from whatever bitch is getting you kind of stuck in your life to riches in your life. All right, all right. Today's show, like I said, a fascinating, uh, conversation, and it's all around courage and grace and, you know, moving from broken to blissful. So if you want the freedom that comes from controlling, or even taking control of your life, or if you crave joy in your life, the type only achieved when you accept and learn to love and honor yourself, then today's show is definitely the one you want to listen in— into, but also even re-listen to. You can always download the show's episodes, whether it's here on Shed the Bitch Radio on BlogTalk, or if it's on iTunes, or— and even shedthebitch.com. So being that we're talking We're going to be talking everything from freeing you from abusive relationships, uh, from just troubling relationships, and really kind of honoring yourself and finding who you are and what it is that you want in your life. I want you to be thinking of this rich question: in what area of your life are you hurting, and what are you willing to do about it? So this is a safe space, and this question I'm asking is a little bit tough because it means that you really have to kind of sit with yourself and be honest with yourself. But in order to do so, and I, I believe our guest is going to support this because it's all about what she does, you need to kind of be uncomfortable being comf— or I'm sorry, being comfortable by being uncomfortable. So you got to learn to be comfortable with being uncomfortable. So ask yourself, what area of your life are you hurting? It doesn't have to be necessarily from abuse. It could be just anything that might be causing you pain within your life. And what are you willing to do about it? We're going to talk to our guests throughout the, the program all about it. She's going to provide you tips, advice, support. You're going to learn how to connect with her, and most likely she's going to answer kind of what you might be thinking about in regards to that response, in what area of life are you hurting, and she'll give you some— but we'll make sure— so the rich tags we want you to be using, Facebook or tweet with us or go on to LinkedIn at any time. For today's show, it could be personal growth, courage and grace, love that, just absolutely love that, and hashtag, of course, shed the bitch. And when we get back from our commercial, we're going to dive right into this conversation, get you introduced to our guests, and bring you what you need to find your own courage and grace and move from broken to blissful. We'll be right back.

You are listening to Shedding the Bitch Radio with Bernadette Boas. We are inspiring individuals around the globe to discover, confront, and shed their bitches of fear, insecurity, and negativity. So they can create the riches in their career, business, and life they deserve. Be sure to check out Bernadette Boas' book, Shedding the Corporate Bitch: Shifting from Bitch to Rich in Life and Business, available on Amazon and sheddingthebitch.com. We also want to thank our sponsors, TSR Consulting, who offers a broad range of tax services for small to corporate size clients. Go to TSRConsulting.com to learn more. And Parker House Virtual Services, who provides virtual assistance and social media support for small to medium-sized businesses. Email Deborah Parker at deborahparker78@gmail.com for more information. To become a sponsor or advertiser on our program, email us at mediarelations@sheddingthebitch.com. Shedding the Bitch Radio airs every Tuesday at noon Eastern time. Be sure to go to blogtalkradio.com/shuttingthebitchradio and follow the program for all of the updates and announcements of our guests and show topics. Now let's return to Bernadette and Shedding the Bitch Radio.

Welcome back everyone. We need to dive into this conversation because I have a feeling we're, we're gonna have a lot to talk about. So as the founder of Empowered Her, author, speaker, and self-worth activist Susan Ball is on a mission to free women from their abusive relationships. Her message is simple: I want women to aim higher, learn to recognize just how much they are worth, believe in themselves, and establish healthy boundaries as they begin to dream again and love themselves unconditionally. She is a passionate, fierce cheerleader who encourages women to rekindle their joy and embrace their big, bold, blissful life. You can achieve all these goals with her newest release, Courage and Grace. Based on her personal experience and practical coaching, she leads women recovering from domestic violence to courage and embrace their grace. In her book, she guides you on her continuing— on your continuing healing journey to move you from the place of feeling broken to an empowered, healed woman who embraces the blissful life she has created for herself. Welcome, welcome, welcome, Susan. How are you?

I am very well. Thank you so much for having me, Bernadette. I'm excited to be here. I love the name of your show. It fits perfectly with my message.

Thank you, thank you, thank you. And before we get into all— into everything, you are, um, calling in from Canada, correct?

Yes, correct.

Yes, and the beautiful area of Nova Scotia.

Oh yes, the home of lobster, many, many lobsters.

Oh, that's wonderful. That's what— and we were just talking before we went live that I had spent a couple weeks up there More so like, you know, in more of the central to eastern side, not quite anywhere near the waterside, but it is a beautiful country, absolutely beautiful country.

Thank you.

Well, I was very intrigued when I came across you and your book and your whole message. And for those listening, because many of you are fortunate you're not in abusive or not have dealt with abusive relationships. But don't drop the phone just yet. Don't drop the listening if you downloaded this on onto, you know, one of your many devices, because it may not be you, but it may be somebody you know. At the same time, I can guarantee you from what I've, you know, read and know about Susan, whatever she shares with us you're, you're going to find a place that you can apply her, her lessons and her experiences and her tips and advice and her overall support. You're going to be able to leverage her and her, all of that in some area of your life. So, uh, stay with us. So, but give us some background, if you would, Susan, about yourself and your story and how you got to this place to where now you're helping to be a fierce cheerleader for others who need it.

Oh, I'd be happy to. I had a series of, uh, very toxic, ugly relationships, and my last one, he attempted to kill me, and it's by strangling me. And but that relationship, that last one, started off as the most romantic, off your— swept off your feet, in love, in a hurry to marry me, looking after my children. To the morning of— after our wedding, the morning after, we were driving to our honeymoon in the car, and he reached out and grabbed my hand, and he said these words: "Now that you are my wife, you will do as you're told, when you're told, and how you're told." Oh, and I thought he was joking.

Wow.

I really, I really did. I thought he was joking. He insisted we get married on my birthday weekend so we could celebrate our anniversary and our birthday. It was just, it was just the most beautiful story you ever wanted to hear. We got married in October and I ran for my life in March of the following year.

Oh my God, barefoot to the police station.

Yeah, yeah. So he was a sham and a scam. But the bigger part of my story after that happened— where I come, where that happened was in Ontario in Canada, where you were, Bernadette, right? And it's mandatory that the police lay charges now. They don't let the women do it, they just take over over because so many women were backing out of the charges, which was fine with me. He needed to go to jail, no, no problem there. But part of that was I had to go to counseling. It was mandatory. So I went off to my group counseling, and I thought to myself, oh, I'm going to get better. They're going to— what is going on with me? We're going to talk about this. But all it was was all of us sitting around week after week telling our victim story. Over and over again, and it almost became competitive. Oh no, I got beat up worse than you. Oh no, he called me worse names than you. That, you know, we, we were all like these bitchy little victims in there comparing each other's stories, right? And well, yeah, and so I felt sorry for myself. I was being, uh, I would— it was being reinforced I was a victim. I grew the victim mentality. I started to drink a lot. Go out with all the bad boys I could find. I felt very unworthy of anything. And I like to call it the recovery industry, which was where I was put, almost killed me because no one said to me, hey, that happened, but now you got the rest of your life. Let's see what the reason that happened to you— what was— what caused that? Because I had 4 bad relationships. I was the common denominator in all those relationships. Bernadette Boas. No one else, me. So something in me was attracting all this crap, to be quite frank about it.

Yeah, no, no, be frank, as frank as you want there, Susan.

But nobody talks about that. Nobody sat us down and said, what have you done this week? What are your goals? What are you— you know, let's talk about even your childhood. And for 3 years, I struggled very bad. I almost became an alcoholic. It was very serious. And it was actually my youngest daughter. We lived in a basement apartment, and it was a damp basement apartment, and we were really poor because I, of course, was a victim. I couldn't work and all of that, right? And there— well, I couldn't, I was a victim. And then there was mushrooms growing on the wall, and I remember she said to me— now she was 8— she said to me, Mommy, if we eat those mushrooms, it will help with our food budget. And that was sort of the moment when I said, okay, Susan Ball, that you got to do something with this life of yours, right?

Wow.

For your children, right? You can't feed them poisonous mushrooms off the wall, right?

Right, right, right. Mercy.

So I had— I had to shed my victim bitch.

Yes, yeah, she was holding me back.

She was killing me.

And what— and so, you know, so it's that aha, light bulb, whatever you want to call it, moment. Um, so kind of how do you— how do you dig deep? How do you— what's your process for yourself and/or even your— the people you work with to get to open up, to feel that vulnerability, that pain, and that— and being comfortable being uncomfortable, as I mentioned? What was your journey?

My journey, and being uncomfortable— or comfortable with it being uncomfortable— begins right here. And I know there's listeners who are out there who are going to say, oh my God, she's victim blaming. I am not. I am empowering you by saying you had a personal responsibility in this, right?

Yes.

I don't— like, if you are in a relationship where somebody calls you filthy names, and I have spoken to women and, and they're raped, you know, by their spouses, and you keep staying there, that's your personal choice. There's something going on with you that's not giving you the courage and the grace to say to yourself, I am worth more than this, I'm out of here.

Right, right.

And some people might find that controversial, but it's the truth.

Well, I don't know that it's that they would— well, I, I think that their defense mechanisms are— would definitely cause them to want to immediately protect themselves. So they're— yes, they get defensive and they, they take it that way as if it's a personal attack, because somebody— some of them just need— some of them just need that. Okay, so, okay, I, I, I do truly know, you know, know what you're saying, but yet I'm I got all these bitches, I got these fears, and I got these insecurities that are keeping me from wanting to just kind of say, yes, it is me, I'm the common denominator, I'm the victim, but let me get over it.

How—

what do you— what did you do to kind of like allow yourself to have that freedom moment? And then what— how do you work with your, your clients and your readers? Because I know your, you know, your book is also kind of a workbook to help them through that journey. What is that process?

I ask some very difficult questions, some real soul-searching questions, and we go backwards a little bit because in all of the women that I've worked with and all of the women that I know, and even men are going through this process of being abused by women, all of them I have spoken to, there is one common situation. Something happened in your childhood that wound you, and you're looking for someone from the outside to fill in that wound, to fix it, to heal it, to help it, to do something with it. Now, a lot of people will say to me, 'Oh, but I was never abused as a child.' No, that's not necessarily it. I was never abused as a child, but my parents had a very rocky relationship, and when they divorced, they were both very ill, and They left me— I was 8 years old— they left me with the neighbors for a year. I had abandonment issues, but I had never ever explored that, right? I had never explored it, right? So I, I started by journaling through all of my relationships. I started looking back at myself as a young girl and saying, what did I want? What was the thing that made me smile? What brought me joy? Like, where did this fall off the cliff? Because at some point I was a happy-go-lucky young girl who wanted to be, I don't know, an astronaut, and then suddenly I was in lousy relationships, being treated like garbage. And where did this all fall apart? So we dive deep into backwards thinking to get forward thinking.

Yeah, yeah.

And the courage part Go ahead.

No, no, no, please. No, no, no, go ahead, please.

And the courage part is understanding that the fear of leaving is not the fear of leaving. They're not afraid to leave. They're afraid of the unknown.

Yeah, right.

It's like you open that door and it's a big black hole. How will I support myself? How will I do this? How will— what will this look— where will I live? All of these all of these what-if questions come up. So I really coach women through that process of leaving, and we find solutions for all those questions, right? So that when they leave, they feel confident, right?

Right. And I would even— if we could, because I, from what everything you're saying, you would agree— even before they get to being able to leave that person I would say from what even you described in regards to your process about going back and almost like chronicling all the key moments in your life and the key, you know, things that went really well and the things that went off the deep end, I think the first challenge you would have, I would expect, would be them having the courage to acknowledge and confront those pains and what I call bitches, but those things that just bring up a lot of emotion for them. Would you agree?

Oh yes, a lot. Some of them are so resistant. Nothing happened in my childhood, nothing was wrong. You get the arguments, nothing was wrong, nothing happened, it was perfect. No, it wasn't, right? Something happened. And, and I— what I do is I reassure everyone that I work with that what, what you're doing in this process is not so you can go and confront someone It's not about confrontation. I never confronted my parents, but what I did get was a really good empathetic understanding of where they were in their lives for them to make such a big decision, because it must have killed them to make that decision, right?

Right, right. And yet at the same time, if they— it's a big deal for them to make that decision, that's just also something that you know, you just have to kind of acknowledge and, and kind of have compassion for, and, you know, because it's not about you, it's about them, you know, type of thing, right?

Correct. And you, you become— and this is the interesting thing that I found as I work through this process, and even with my clients, is that as you do this and you confront those hurts and you sit back and you, and you— and, and I have a process where I'm very adamant that everybody feels emotions. Don't hide them, don't run away from them. It doesn't matter if it's anger or sorrow or any of those. If it hits you, sit with it and go, what is this, right? What is happening here? What— you know, and allow it to happen, because if you suppress it, you're making yourself ill and you're not getting to the root cause. But most people that I work with, they have that aha moment when they start to journal and they go back through their childhood and and then it appears. And as an example, I had one very reluctant client. She didn't want to do it, and eventually we got to the point where she was the oldest and her brother was born with severe disabilities and took all the attention away from her. Hmm. So when she got into relationships, she was very needy and codependent.

Aha.

Yes.

And yeah, that aha moment for her was like, oh Oh my God, I thought I was okay with my brother's disability. Of course you're okay with his disability, but it had an impact on you.

Absolutely. And, and that's just an example of how if you kind of— if someone just sat and really thought about their, you know, their life to, you know, up until this point, though, they will find something that will explain kind of their, you know, where they're at right now. —so to your point—and therefore they can take accountability for that. That's right.

And you can also acknowledge her mom and dad didn't love her any less. They certainly didn't ignore her, quote-unquote, on purpose. They were just overwhelmed looking after a severely disabled child. Yes, right. But when you're a little girl, how rational is your mind, really? Yep. You're just being told no over and over again, even though you know your brother is sick. It has an impact, a negative impact.

Yeah. Well, and I'll share, because I think it fits your model and examples for the audience, and I've talked about it to our community before, but when I was 12, I'm the middle child, I was very different, very unique looking. I didn't look like anybody. My family teased me, my brothers and sisters teased me about being adopted and the milkman's daughter and the postman's daughter. I believed up until I was about 10 that I was adopted, and then I finally confronted my mother about it. And when I got in my 20s, I certainly began to look like them as I was kind of settling in. But at the same time, probably until I was in my mid-40s did I not understand why I always felt like an outsider and that I didn't fit in, even though I had large groups of friends and relationships and whatnot. But I kind of, you know, all of a sudden, to your process of going back and working with them to those areas of their lives, because all of a sudden you go, "Oh, I never felt like I fit in in my adulthood because I didn't," you know, and then you can— and it's a beautiful thing to be able to then move on from it.

And your example is a perfect one, because there's many, many people I meet that have, you know, they were teased as a kid. Yep. You know, growing up, maybe they grew too tall too quickly, so, you know, "Oh, look at you, lanky Sue," or whatever. Well, that has an impact. Right, right, right. It has an impact, and you grow and you think, "Oh, am I too tall? I don't fit in." Look, and a girl who's very tall will start looking at every crowd and saying, "Look at, I'm taller than everybody here. Oh my God, I stand out." And that has a lot to do with her self-worth.

It's amazing, isn't it? It's just stunning to me that just how powerful words are.

Yes. And you know, and the thing that I tell all my clients and in my book and anybody I talk to, nobody does these things intentionally. There's very few instances except for a child who's been physically or sexually abused, and that's a different category. But parents who are just doing the best they can, brother-in-law, sisters, brothers, etc., they're not intentionally setting out to hurt you, but stuff happens in their life and it changes the dynamic, or they think they're kidding you or teasing you or whatever. It's not intentional, right? Does that make sense?

Oh, oh no, absolutely makes sense. Absolutely. Okay, I mean Yes, I recognize even for myself those were just innocent childish teases, but it's how we take in information and how we take in people's perceptions and how we take in people's words. You know, goes back to what you said, you know, we're the, we're the one responsible for it. Well, you know, how we take in life and how we project it back out is our responsibility. So going back to your— not only your story, but probably many of the people that you work with find themselves in this abusive relationship and they start to recognize and acknowledge that this isn't, this isn't right, where I'm supposed to be. So you share, you have them go through their journaling process But help us understand kind of the full, full picture of just what courage and grace and your book and the journey you help them through, what that looks like for an individual.

Okay, sure. Well, we do a lot of journaling, but part of the process is asking a lot of deep and tough questions, really tough questions. Want people— and, and this is where the courage comes in, because it takes a lot of courage. It took courage for me to answer those questions. So a lot of times I meet women and they're staying for the children. Now I will ask them point blank, if you are watching a movie with your children and a man was beating up his wife, what would you say to your children? Is it good or bad for them to see that? But it's happening in your home. How do you justify the two? And a lot of times people will go, "Oh my God, I never thought about that. The standards that I set outside my home, somehow those standards don't come through the front door." It's a very interesting parallel. It's like a parallel world. So we work through stopping the cycle, taking ownership for what's going to happen afterwards, getting all the resources, an exit plan and strategy moving forward. I set a lot of goals with them, but the one thing that I insist on is that every day— you've heard of gratitude journals? Sure. I— yes, well, I— we go— I go above and beyond that. I have all my clients and everyone I talk to keep a success journal, because one of the things that happen to women who are finding their courage and their ability to live on their own and manage their life is they do not celebrate the fact that they left. This is a big success. This is a huge success. You move— when you left that door, you went from victim to survivor just like that. When you close the door, nice. And you need to celebrate that. You need to celebrate every day. So if you got up in the morning, if you're struggling with depression, you're sad, but you got up in the morning and you got the kids off to school, celebrate that. Write it in your success Success Journal and celebrate it. Pat yourself on the back, look in the mirror and go, "You got this," and keep moving because every time you do that, you build your confidence muscle, and confidence is the memory of success. That's what it is. If you haven't done something before, your confidence says, "Oh, we've never done that. We're not sure of ourselves. I can't do that." But if you've done it before, you've done something similar, your brain goes, "Oh, we've done that before. No problem." Confidence is the memory of success. Self-worth is a memory of success. So I, I'm really adamant about the success journal. Small, tiny, itty-bitty, huge— not— doesn't matter. At the end of the day, write down everything you did successfully. Pat yourself on the back, pump your fist, and say, man, look what I did today! I'm the best!

I'm the getchiest!

Yeah, yeah, because that's what you want to be doing, right? Right.

Always celebrating.

They're always celebrating. And I just wanted to mention, um, everyone, you can find her book, um, Courage and Grace, on Amazon. You can also go to SusanBall.ca since she's in Canada. Um, and at the same time, along with the workbook that's also there as well. And take a look at, you know, even the feedback from some other individuals that have read the book and/or used the guidebook because you might be able to relate to them, and it's always easier for us to kind of feel comfortable with something uncomfortable when, you know, we know other people are kind of dealing with the same things we are. So take a look at all of that. So let me ask you one question because I absolutely loved it when I read it in your bio. I love the whole idea of a self-worth activist. That's awesome. A self-worth activist. And it's self-explanatory, but give me— give us some idea of how you got to that and how you leverage that in the work that you do and in your own life, quite honestly.

Well, one of the discoveries on my self-discovery journey to heal. One of the things I discovered about myself was I always thought that I was pretty confident and, you know, a woman who thought she was, you know, fairly valuable and worthy of stuff. And when I went on my healing journey, I realized, A, I didn't like myself. I really didn't think I was worth anything. Sorry, I'm laughing. This was part of my problem.

I'm laughing because I can relate to it, so forgive my laughter, but go ahead, go ahead.

No, but it was like an epiphany. It was like, oh, here I thought I was, you know, this feminist flower power girl and did everything on her own, but deep down inside I was a shaking, quaking mess looking for approval, right?

Okay, so pause for a second. How many people listening to this— now be honest— how many people listening to this can relate? Because, you know, yes, that's why I laughed. It was laughter out of familiarity. But I'm sorry, go ahead, go ahead.

Yeah, so when I really— when I realized that, I thought, well, what is self-worth? I mean, this— and if you talk to women who are in abusive relationships or just bad relationships, toxic, hanging on to somebody, you will find out that deep down inside they don't feel they are a woman of value. They don't feel that they're worthy of anything better than what they have. And that's our key problem with women who stay in these relationships. I have a motto, you know, I am a woman of value, and I start to put that into their brains. You are a woman of value. You are worthy of so much more. But one of the things that, you know, and a lot of people, there's affirmations and, you know, I am beautiful, I am this, but there's a, there's a thing that happens in your brain when you do that. When you say to yourself, I am a woman of value, your brain comes back and they say, no, you're not. And you try to say it with a little more force, and you try to say it with a little more force, but your brain argues with you. So I have a process that I use with my clients that instead of saying, "I am," say, "I'm in the process of believing that I am a woman of value." Then your brain goes, "Oh, oh, I can't really argue with that." So it worked Brilliantly, because your brain can't argue. You're not actually stepping out and saying, I am this and I am that and I am this. Your brain, if you're— if your self-worth is weakened, you will argue with that every time, and your brain will win. It will win every time.

You'll just get frustrated. Huh, interesting. And so that— and that's how— that's why kind of a— if— you know, someone was going to have a title, the self-worth activist is all around that confidence muscle that, you know, helping them realize their memory of success and really see their value and worth. Exactly.

And, and, you know, it's, it's— I mirror a lot of things. I ask questions like, if that was your sister and somebody spoke to her that way, Do you think that she would be worth that kind of, uh, those kinds of negative words? No. Then how come you are?

Right, exactly. Nice.

So that's the kind of mirroring that I do with them. Okay, if you saw somebody walking down the street and they were a little bit overweight and people were heckling them, would you defend her? How come you're not defending yourself?

Love it, love it, love it, love it. All right, so let me remind every— let me remind everyone, SusanBall.ca. Um, go to her website first off, just go to it, even scroll down and look at her picture, or you can even see it on our, um, radio, um, episode, because you immediately want to smile and just kind of take a deep breath because it's just very— it's just very open, it's just very, um freeing and welcoming. So take a look at that. But at the same time, take a look at her website, and it goes into a really lovely story of her backstory and just what it is that she does for her clients. And then at the same time, you can find— she has a group should you want to, um, and it's a private group, but you can always, um, request to join, uh, Free from Toxic Love, and that's on Facebook. So take So take a look for that. And then at the same time, on Twitter, it is Life Coach Susan B. Um, if you were to, uh, want to link in with her on, on Twitter. And then I do want to provide, um, them your email address if I could, just in case they want to reach out to you directly. Is that okay? Yes, perfect. Yes. Okay, I do. And that is Susan at susanball.ca. So if you were to Google her, and trust me, this is what I did, I just Googled Susan, Susan Ball, and all you have to do is say courage and grace and you'll find her everywhere. Um, so be sure to do that and be sure to, and be sure to connect in with her. And definitely, you— we have a lot more to talk about, so don't go anywhere, anybody. But, um, at the same time, check out her book and that workbook. Again, yes, she's kind of dealing with and talking about abusive relationships. But most of the things that we talked about today, self-worth, value, courage, success, that doesn't have anything to do with any, any, you know, or I'm sorry, that has everything to do with everything in your life. Everything she talked about when it came to, you know, women needing to recognize that, you know, they didn't value themselves, Heck, that can be looked at as corporate fraud. And what I mean by that is, you know, in my work, I work with tons of women who feel like a fraud, that someone's all of a sudden going to call them out for not deserving the level of success that they've had, that job, that money, that promotion, whatever the case might be. And there's, you know, a fraud— what would I call it— persona that many, many, many women, you know, feel. Due to their success. And that really comes down to what Susan's talking about. It comes down to your feeling of self-worth, your feeling of value, your honoring your successes, and being grateful for everything that you have. So when we get back, we're going to continue this conversation because I also want to, want to have Susan talk about with us is, okay, so say you're in this situation, you start going through this healing journey, you even start working with Susan. What exactly, when she started talking about, okay, then she starts, you know, helping you to kind of put goals in place and put a plan in place for that exit that you might be making. I just want to really help you and I understand what that is all about. So we're going to take a quick break. When we come back, we're going to continue to talk to this self-worth activist Susan Ball. We'll be right back.

You are listening to Shedding the Bitch Radio with Bernadette Boas. We are inspiring individuals around the globe to discover, confront, and shed their bitches of fear, insecurity, and negativity so they can create the riches in their career, business, and life they deserve. Be sure to check out Bernadette's book, Shedding the Corporate Bitch: Shifting from Bitch to Rich in Life and Business, available on Amazon and sheddingthebitch.com. We also want to thank our sponsors, TSR Consulting, who offers a broad range of tax services for small to corporate size clients. Go to TSRConsulting.com to learn more. And Parker House Virtual Services, who provides virtual assistance and social media support for small to medium size businesses. Email Deborah Parker at deborahparker78@gmail.com for more information. To become a sponsor or advertiser on our program, email us at mediarelations@sheddingthebitch.com. Shedding the Bitch Radio airs every Tuesday at noon Eastern time. Be sure to go to blogtalkradio.com/sheddingthebitchradio and follow the program for all of the updates and announcements of our guests and show topics. Now let's return to Bernadette and Shedding the Bitch Radio.

Welcome back everyone. We are talking to self-worth activist, author, and speaker, and founder of Empowered Her, Susan Ball. And we're talking all around how, um, you can gain courage and grace by almost shifting from broken to blissful. Um, so Susan, you had mentioned before we went on break and in our earlier conversations about kind of your process and what you help, um, your, your clients, your, uh, and individuals with. You start— you mentioned something about, okay, so then when, you know, you start putting a plan together, almost an exit plan, or, you know, to be leaving that abusive relationship. Is that correct? Did I understand that right?

Yes, yes, yes. Because sometimes a lot of women are overwhelmed. Okay, okay. So there's there's a few myths that are associated that women get caught up in, the questions, the what-ifs, what-ifs, what-ifs, why, why, why. So in order to not get stuck there, we start to break those questions down. So for example, the first thing that women will say is, "I have no friends and money," or, "I have no friends with money," or, "I have no friends that will help me." So I encourage them to make a list of their friends and family, and instead of looking at them and saying, "Would they let me stay there? Would they give me money?" Look at them and say, "Oh, I know that, you know, Benny has— lives on a really nice street. Maybe they'll host a yard sale for me to raise some money." Think outside the box about what your friends and family might be able to do for you. Could they deliver groceries on the day that you stay? Arrive in your new place? Could they, you know, go around to all their friends? Maybe they work in a big business and they could go to everyone and say, you know, my friend is moving out, we need furniture, we need this, or we need that, kitchen appliances, and gather all of that. So think outside the box because a lot of times people, when you approach them and say, I have to leave and I've got no money and I got no place to go, those people you're asking, they get overwhelmed because maybe they don't have the money, maybe they don't have the space. Right, so you need to think outside the box. You need to look at your friends and family and your colleagues and acquaintances and anyone you know and think about their situation, where they are at, and what you might be able to ask for outside of the box.

Yes, that's— yes, that's because you will find—

you will find people will help you with all kinds of weird stuff, but they might not be able to help you with money and a place to stay. Right. So, right, that's the first one. The second one is sometimes there's financial abuse going on in a relationship and women don't know how to get a little bit of money, uh, socked away so they can leave. Well, one of the blessings that we have in this day and age is cash back when you go to the grocery store. Because if you are being financially monitored by your spouse and you go to the grocery store Uh, what comes out of the bank is the total amount. It doesn't say how much the cash back was. So for example, if the groceries cost $60 and you ask for $20, the bank is just going to say $80. You take that $20 and you put it away. So you can still say I spent $80 and just say, oh, I don't know what I did with the receipt, it must have fallen out of the bag. But cash back is a blessing, an absolute blessing. And you don't have to do it every time, but when you feel that, you know, you wanted to get a little bit of money to put away— and don't keep the money in the house, don't keep the money under your name. This is where your friends and family, someone you trust, you can go to them and ask them to do that for you, right? If I give you this $20 every couple of weeks, can you hold it for me? Yeah.

Yeah, right. And what— yep, what do you— what have you found though, you know, because you mentioned shame and pride before, but what, what do you— how do you help them when it comes to even, you know, going to their family and acknowledging, you know, and admitting that this is going on? Uh, what do you find, you know, your clients deal with in that respect?

And they are so afraid there's shame and guilt involved. I felt shame and guilt. I felt an awful lot of shame because I thought to myself— and here we go back with the stories— I was always told that I was a very bright girl, very smart. Well, if I was such a smart girl, how come I ended up with a guy who tried to kill me, huh? Answer that question. And how was I supposed to tell my family? This was very shameful for me. But what I found was— and I I tell all my clients, take a deep breath, a really deep breath, and just say, "I'm here to ask for some help today. I'd really, really like it if you didn't ask me too many questions I'm not ready to answer yet." Nice. Allow people to know that you're going through a hard time, but you're not in a place to answer questions, because when they start to ask questions, we get defensive. That's a natural thing. It's natural. Sure, because immediately I would— if somebody said to me, oh, what were you thinking when you married him? Well, immediately I want to say, I know I was supposed to be smart enough to know better, but I didn't. So you become defensive, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah. So be honest, be courageous, be open, but set a boundary. And this is something I work with my clients a lot on, is boundaries and enforcement. Boundaries and enforcement. Set a boundary, write right off the hop, "I'm not ready to talk right now, but I really would like to ask you if you could do A, B, C, or D," or whatever it is you want them to do for you. You might even want to go to somebody and say, "I just want you to listen. Can I ask you to just listen for 5 minutes? I have something to say." But be clear how far you want to go and what your boundary is. If there's no questions allowed, put it out there. The biggest thing about the courage and the grace is when you have courage and grace, you can say yes or no equally. Learn to say no. Yep. Yeah, if somebody asks you a question and you're not comfortable, it's okay to say, "I'm not comfortable answering that question right now." It's okay to say that, right? Nobody's entitled to know your whole story right off the hop. No one. Right. No, yeah, I can't emphasize that enough. I don't care what you're going through out there in listener land. I don't care if it's changing jobs or you got a bad boss or you got a bad husband or a bad boyfriend or a bad girlfriend. No one has the right to your story, only you do. You share what you want to share at that time.

And once they do, um, just because I know we have so much we want to discuss before the end of the show, If we do, then where does— was it enforcement? Boundaries and enforcement?

Yes, that's what I understand. Boundaries and enforcement. Yeah, the enforcement being standing in them when they're crossed, saying, you just crossed a boundary, that's unacceptable. And, and that's because in— when I— when my clients come to me and I'll say to them, do you have boundaries? Oh, I think I do. Well, was one of your boundaries that if you're with a guy, if he ever cheated on you, you would leave? Well, yes, but you know, it happened and I thought— So there you didn't enforce your boundary.

Ah, that but. That but. You back right up. Yeah, the but. Yeah, the but.

It's not a boundary if it's got a but. Yeah.

Well, and I think that's interesting. You know, I think that's kind of interesting because those boundaries are something, um, as, as kind of a part of this conversation that we should all be making long in advance of even once we're in that situation. We should be saying, okay, so what are our boundaries in our lives? What are we willing to accept and not accept? I mean, is that something that you have your— even though they're coming to you once they're in a situation, and I understand that, um, but, you know, do you advocate that we should all kind of know what our boundaries, values, however you want to look at them, and when they're crossed.

I do a lot of values and boundaries work with my clients right from the get-go, right from the beginning, because you cannot have a successful relationship or career or job or friendship without boundaries. We all need them for different situations. Amen. And we don't need wiggly in the sand kind of the wave can wash them out. We need boundaries, the kind where we stand up and say, "Okay, you know what? That was unacceptable. And if you speak to me like that again, I'm outta here. That's just unacceptable." And it's okay to say that. You have the right to say that.

Did you hear that, ladies? You have the right to say that. Yeah, yeah, your boundaries.

Yeah, there. So yes, values and boundaries, personal worth, that's where we begin the process, the, the emotional work, letting all the emotions out. You have to feel them, you have to go with them. We do an exercise called rage and weep. I tell my clients, if you feel like raging You're angry with him, you're angry at your situation, let it out. Not on other people, alone. If you have to scream in a room, if you have to get a punching bag and punch it out, let it out. And when it's over, move on. If you feel like weeping, if you really are sore, like full of sorrow, you've lost something that you thought was going to be for the rest of your life, let it out. Have that cry. Have that ugly cry. Let it out. When it's over, move on. Don't wallow in it, move on.

But let it out because it feels so good to do so. Oh yeah, you have to. And it feels so good when you do let it go because you're releasing it. Exactly.

And that's part of the whole process of letting go of this, this story in your life, because it is only a story. It's not the final chapter. It's not something that defines you. It's just one story, one chapter, and you can let it go.

Ah, love that. All right, so, um, I, I told you about, um, or I mentioned, um, about, um, you know, how much time we have and that these conversations go so fast. But I, I'm, you know, I just need to make sure that we cover all the key parts when it comes to this subject matter. So I want to kind of take a couple— another couple minutes. What, you know, what would you be telling our— if we were all in a room, what are the big aha tips, advice that you would have for our listeners when it comes to this conversation of courage and grace?

First thing I would say is that if you're looking outside of yourself for happiness, you're in trouble. If you have a Swiss cheese kind of approach to life that you're looking for everybody to fill in the holes, you're in trouble. You're going to attract negative experiences into your life because happiness—

and that's what you said, it's just—

yeah, and you're looking for people to plug it in. You know, the 'if only he would behave this way, I would be so happy'— wrong answer. The happiness comes from inside. And if you're happy in your life and content and at peace, you will attract that into your life. If you are frantically looking for somebody to fill up voids and holes in your life, you're going to— you're going to attract negative people into your life, people who will take advantage of you. So that's the first thing I would say. Where are you looking for happiness? Where are you finding your happiness, within or without? And be really honest, listeners, with yourself with that answer, because it starts right there, right there. So if you're sitting back— if you're sitting back and saying, once I meet the— my forever guy, and once I get to travel to Paris, and once all of this happens, I'll be happy— wrong answer.

Nice. You heard Susan Ball. You heard her. Courage and grace. Have courage and grace. Honor, honor yourself. You deserve it. You deserve it. You deserve it, as, as she says. And please go to susanball.ca, read all about her, read her story, read her insights, look at the resources and the support, and definitely go to Amazon and and check out her book, Courage and Grace, along with the workbook, the guidebook. Um, you won't be disappointed if you actually invest and give yourself that opportunity to work with someone as well as learn from her experiences and also leverage the, um, tips, advice, and the guide, uh, in, in your healing journey. Because as she says, you do deserve it. Susan, I want to thank you so much for being part of the program. Like I said, these hours go so fast. We can certainly continue talking for a while.

Yes, I know, it's a big subject and it affects so many people in so many ways.

It does, it really does. And I hope people that aren't even in an abusive relationship but may know someone and/or leverage all this great advice whatever pain is potentially impacting your life. But thank you so much for being part of the program. I thoroughly enjoyed it. Thank you for having me, Bernadette. Thank you. Absolutely. And everyone, next week, Andrea Hall— you're gonna learn all about how to leverage horses in your healing process. So I'll look forward to having you there. And then of course, the following week is our Ask Bernadette episode, so be sure to post your questions, stories, and challenges. But for everyone here, Deborah Parker of Parker House Virtual Services and the whole Shedding the Bitch community, thank you for being part of the program, and we will look forward to having you right back here next Tuesday at noon Eastern time. Thanks, everyone.

Thank you for listening to Shedding the Bitch Radio with Bernadette Boas. Join Bernadette every Tuesday at noon Eastern as she helps you shift your bitches to riches, and the dialogue is always going on at sheddingthebitch.com. See you next week.