Back to Life with Rebeccah Silence

Teammates, teammates, teammates, we are back once again. If this is your first time listening to the Move Swiftly podcast, welcome to the number one show on innovative teamwork. Great to have you. Incredible to have you. Looking forward to having you back for more. To my regular listeners, you know how we get down here. Been with me for 5 years now. It's crazy to know how long, how long we've come and how far we've actually come. I started this honestly, I had a phone, I didn't even have a mic. I was just out there just speaking, just talking, right? So you hit the play button and you know what goes down, whatever the challenge is, whatever the obstacle is, whatever you may feel like is getting in your way. We are here to indirectly tell you, you are not going through it alone. Today, I have self-care and relationship expert Rebeccah Silence. And you heard the term, you heard that last name correctly, Silence, who is about to absolutely give a master's class on why you don't need to be staying silent regardless of whatever angle you may be listening to this on, whether it's the professional angle, whether it's the relational angle, whatever the personal angle, whatever it is, the staying silent is absolutely going to get you nowhere in life. So Rebeccah Silence, welcome to the show. How are you?

Well, I am honored to be here and I will say it all, you know, so give it to me. Thank you for having me. And I couldn't agree more that our voices our medicine. And if you stay silent, you do get to just keep life as it is, right? And if you want more and better, we got to talk.

A closed mouth does not get fed. All right, a closed mouth.

Yes, spiritually as well.

You have lived through some incredible, like, just really rough times, you know, and I want to give you the microphone for a second to really speak on, you know, a little bit about your childhood, how you grew up, I know you are courageous enough to share. You've been through some domestic abuse situations, you've been through, you know, just rough times in general. And I know personally, whenever there's someone out there that's wanting to help families, wanting to be that kind of that guide for relationships, it's because you have been through some rough times yourself. So kind of speak a little bit about your upbringing, how you came up, some of the things that you learned through some of the difficult times you grew up in.

Yeah, so like all of you, I've experienced trauma, and I like to say nobody is immune to trauma. And my definition of trauma is heartbreak, right? And I think the number one thing people want, if you ask the question, what do you want to be when you grow up, is loved. And we're just not honest about— that's the real answer, right? So it's crazy.

And not to pause either, but yeah, it's as simple as that, you know? It really— right? All the cars, the houses, the clothes, the everything. And if you were you really get someone in an honest moment, and they say, what do you want to be? And regardless of age, just want to be loved. They want to be listened to. They actually want to be seen. You know, it's so crazy. I can see why you're an expert. Just, I mean, we're not even 5 minutes in here.

But we want to be witnessed. We want to be loved. And the deal is, we will never receive love at the level we desire it until we are already providing it to ourselves. So my story began with very confusing messages around love and what comes with it. And again, not unique to me, that's all of us, right? But I grew up in an alcoholic home, a domestic violence environment. I was emotionally abused, mentally abused, verbally abused, physically abused, sexually abused from the time I was 4 until I was 10, then multiple rapists after that. I thought love came with abuse, and I didn't know abuse was abuse because I thought it was love. And that's how I grew up. But there was something telling me, A, I wasn't alone and it wasn't going to last forever. The fear I was living in, the confusion I was living in, the which version of the people in my life who I love the most am I going to get, Jekyll or Hyde today? I had this sense of, even though I didn't have words for it yet, I'm not alone, and this isn't going to last forever. And I think that was just God. And I, I was alone. I didn't feel alone, and I was very confused. I decided when I left the house—

yeah, no, no, you keep going. If somebody's signaling me, go, go ahead. I'm listening.

Okay. I was just gonna say, I decided when I left my, my house, my childhood home at 17, I wanted to become an expert in human behavior. I wanted— there was something in me that was driven to be my best. And to know I was capable of being my best no matter what was going on in my life or my relationships. So I got an undergrad in music therapy, became a board-certified music therapist, worked at the state psychiatric hospital in Denver, Colorado. And I thought at 20, these people aren't crazy. They don't have coping skills. And I ended up getting a master's in counseling because I wanted to learn even more. Right. And Here's the big thing I want all of you to hear me tell you.

Please.

Understanding trauma isn't enough to stop the cycle. I had a master's degree with a 4.0 grade point average. I understood. And then I married a guy with the last name Silence, and it became a domestic violence situation all over again, just like my childhood. Understanding isn't enough. You can't heal trauma in your mind. I teach the practice of emotional healing. So for me, it took being very confronted. I'm in an environment I'm used to and that I know, and that is my fault. But this is what I'm a vibrational match for. So if I want to be a vibrational match for better, I got some inner work to do. And if I hadn't had a 2-year-old, I don't know if I would have gotten out, is the honest truth. I didn't have the self-worth to do it for me. But when I recognized I'm repeating history, and I'm not going to be the parent that allows this environment to be the norm. I got out, kept the name because I loved who I became. And from there, I figured out how to actually heal and how to actually create so much of anything that we're committed to. Right? There's nothing you can't heal, and there's nothing you can't have. And so from here, what I'll say is my greatest testimony that healing is possible. It's not all the crazy I've survived. It's the life I have now. And that's the goal. I want you to have a magically delicious life where you're not reactivated and reliving what you haven't healed yet, because you understand it, but you haven't really healed it.

Yes, the thing about what you're saying, and as you were talking, I was thinking about the young 4-year-old girl that's going through something that they don't know. And, you know, first of all, much respect for your courage, like I said, to be able to share that. But I teach a group of kids now, group of elementary school kids, and there are some kids who have been through similar situations. And the thing I noticed in them is they start feeling like they're trying to please everyone. You know, sometimes, you know, when certain things— when these adults do these sick, disgusting things to them, they start feeling like it's their fault. And they, you know, you can see them express some of the same sentiments that you expressed to where they're making decisions, not even realizing that it's an issue. When did you start to really kind of look back at your former self and say, that young girl didn't deserve those things? And, and then on top of that, be willing to share it? You know, I know you mentioned that, mentioned that your son, you know, played a little bit of role in that. But, you know, it's, it's, if you're going and you get your master's, you go do the things that you think that are going to make you successful, makes it so, you know, you're not going to be in a situation because you have this college degree, you've already done it, you feel like, hey, I've made it, I am you know, I'm above certain things, but you still ended up going down the same pattern. When did you— would you really give your, like, kind of talk to yourself and say, hey, that was— that little girl didn't deserve that. And I can—

yeah.

Because the one thing about forgiveness, and one thing I've learned, is too often is forgiveness about somebody else. Too often do we teach it like, hey, I'm going to forgive that person for doing this. How about we forgive ourselves for letting certain things happen to us. And that part gets missed when we talk forgiveness, you know.

Oh, and let me talk forgiveness too. So I have so much to say here. But number one, you never let anything happen to you.

Right? Yeah. And yeah, that's, yeah, that's another thing.

Like, let's just squash that like a bug.

It's another point. It's not even— it's against your will. So even if— and you know, I had— we had a pastor on too. And he said, you always know what's right. There's always the right time to do what's right. And even as a 4-year-old girl, you knew what was right and what was was wrong. You know, you knew certain things, right? It's just not right. So you're right, it's not something that you let happen. And thank you for correcting me on that. It's actually adults that are forcing that. It's just wrong. And you know, it's wrong because the whole thing is set up. It's not— I mean, it's just not what you do to people, period.

Right. So I'm going to answer your question in 3 parts.

Yeah, I'm not sure if you even got a question out because—

oh, I got it. Like, when did the 4-year-old finally get my compassion?

Exactly.

And me, this me, re-parent her, right?

Yes.

But, but first, I used to be a school counselor, school counseling coordinator for an entire district. I've worked at more schools doing school-wide assemblies on assertiveness training than I can count. And you would be astounded— you get this better than anybody— that by kindergarten they already think— the first question I ask is, raise your hand if you think something's wrong with you. It is heartbreaking. They all raise their hand. Then I say, raise your hand if you think you're better than somebody or worse than somebody else. They all keep their hands raised. So it starts that young. And you talked about kids trying to please, to avoid conflict. We take on this responsibility. Well, that if I could just be better and love this person better, they'll behave better. And that carries with us into our 30s, 40s, 50s, 60s. I've worked with age 4 to 104 in my private practice. Okay, so it doesn't stop just because you just turned 50, right? Like, you have to go into the healing of the inner child, but not in a way where we're reactivating your pain. That's not the point. It's about taking your power back. So the abuser is just as powerless as the victim. Nobody else is going to tell you that. The abuser is powerlessly taking their power back. The victim is powerlessly taking their power back. And it's not who we are, it's a consciousness. But what I mean by that is, in an abuse cycle, you have to have a bad guy and you have to have a victim. And an abuse moment happens, right? So the people that abused me were abused. The difference is they decided I'm never going to be the victim again.

Hurt people hurt people.

I decided I'm never going to be the one that hurts people. Yeah, right. So the victim, I'm never going to hurt anybody. The perp, I'm never going to be that victim again. And what they don't teach you is there's another option called you healed. Healing is freedom. Healing is you fully expressed. You open to being vulnerable and turning the volume up all the way, all the way, all the way, more, more, more on the truth of who you are. So with all that being said, when did I reclaim little Rebeccah? Who— I've never shared this on a podcast before, but my nickname was Beccaloo.

You're on the number one. I was Beccaloo. So this is what we do here. You're on the number one show for a reason. So, all right, go ahead.

Beccaloo needed a strong woman to have her back. And I grew up in a family of women dependent on men, and I don't blame them. I don't shame them. I love the women in my family, but I grew up with some norms that were simply bullshit. And it wasn't until I'm getting out of a domestic violence marriage with my 2-year-old daughter, actually, and I had nothing. And, and, you know, another thing that most people aren't going to tell you is how easy it is to reinvent your life if you want to when everything's falling apart.

Yeah.

I want you to hear me say you do not need breakdown to break through. You do not need to wait for a crisis. You do not need to lose what you have in the name of taking your life back. I was at a place where I lost everything. My husband, my house. I went bankrupt. My ex-husband had taken out credit cards in my name and maxed them out. I didn't even know about— I had nothing. So I went from a pretty cush life to nothing fast, and I chose it. I knew if I left him, I would end up fully responsible for our daughter, and I knew I would be financially devastated. And for me, I wouldn't be the mom that kept my daughter unsafe. So she was the motivation. And for anybody out there that doesn't know how to reclaim your life without losing it all, and who doesn't have it in you to do it for you yet, I work with clients every day on these delicate topics, subjects. Pick one thing you're living for to keep you going in the moments you don't have it for you. For me, it was my kid. She has the same eyes as me.

Yes.

And I was the guardian. And at first it felt like, come on, how do you think I'm equipped for this? She was a birth control baby. I'm like, how am I going to do this? How am I going to pull this off? It was one step at a time. So for anybody out there ready to reclaim your life without any clue how to do it, and if you feel unequipped, you're not alone. It's just one next step and pick something to keep you going. So what happened next was I actually went on an online date, and that didn't work out. And then the guy invited me to a seminar on love, and I was like, well, what the hell do I have to lose? So I show up, and my first mentor, she trained under Werner Erhardt, and she was a badass. And, you know, not quite able to live what she taught at the level I think she strived to, but she showed me a form of facilitation to breakthrough that actually healed me. Yeah, she— I didn't know what she was doing, and then now I do it my way, but she helped me see my inner child, reclaim her, love her, see her innocence. And it, it was like I was toe-to-toe with little Beccalou, and I knew it's going to be up to me to give her the dream come true life she always imagined when it came to family. Because just like how we started, I don't think anybody's answer to what I want— what do you want to be when you grow up? Is anything other than love. And I had that dream of family, and I decided, her and I, we were going to have it come hell or high water. And so from there, it was just a commitment to removing all my blocks to love and intimacy, all of the parts of me that would rather be suicidal or drink or engage with and indulge my eating disorder behavior. All of the parts of me that wanted to stay survival me, safe and small, haven't gone anywhere even today. I just go, hey, babe, I love you. Take a timeout in the corner because you can't be in charge right now.

She's still there, right?

The inner child in you is never going anywhere. But we have to re-parent ourselves, and I had to love me. And I'll share one more quick thing that first coach had me do. She had me get naked, get in front of a mirror, and face myself until I loved what I saw.

Wow.

And I'm a good student. I— 4.0 GPA, master's degree. I'm going to do the homework. It was one of the hardest, most painful nights of my life. And I was liberated. And it was about, okay, scars and all, flaws and all, story and all. This isn't baggage. This is what equipped you to be the you that can really make a difference for people.

Yes. Well, first of all, again, congratulations for the growth and development. I mean, myself and I know anyone that's tuning in, whether you're watching visually, or you're actually listening to the audio, it's clear that you actually do this every day. You practice what you preach. You talk every day, every single day, every moment, and you don't allow, you know, you don't allow a moment or a day go by where you take life for granted. You take the things that you've been through for granted, and your heart is like, it's oozing, you're bursting out with love and appreciation. So again, kudos to you for the work you're doing, but, or for the growth and development that you've already had. But one of the things that you have mentioned is your and I don't want it to just get brushed over how important having a kid was for you in terms of healing. And you actually were diagnosed with cancer. You found out during your pregnancy, second pregnancy. Yeah, this is one of the kids, the second pregnancy, you find out you're diagnosed with cancer. And I definitely want you to kind of speak on how that moment happens. Because I've seen people who have been in a lot worse situations, who play the victim role, who played a— well, my man ain't doing this. I mean, people like literally, who have given up on life, who have not even lived through a a portion of what you lived through, but you were able to somehow take that diagnosis, take that reality and say, hey, all right, here we go again. This is just life hitting me. And we gonna, we gonna meet it head on. And now look at you, you know, so through kind of that day of the doctor, and then, you know, how you were able to really come out stronger as a survivor. I wear, you know, all the time, I just actually did an article, but I always wear this pink bracelet because, you know, I do a lot of— my grandmother passed away because of cancer. So It's a disease that has affected every family, but it really does hit a trigger with me.

Yeah. Well, thank you. It's actually— I'm at the 10-year anniversary of my diagnosis.

Look at you, 10-year survivor.

So it's a huge milestone moment. And the difference between the two times the bottom fell out of my life— first was the domestic violence marriage, the second was a cancer diagnosis where I was given a 5% chance to live, and I was 34 and I was pregnant. So both my kids saved my life and changed my life, and I've raised them to be who they are, not who they're expected to be. And that is a whole other Oprah, because I'm not the relationship expert I am because everything goes perfectly with my kids or in every relationship. I'm that expert because I know how to stay this me no matter what. And I had to have the best relationship with me I'd ever had when I was coaching a plastic surgeon and his wife, helping them save their marriage. And they said, Rebeccah, that thing on your arm, that doesn't look good. You need to come into the office at 7:00 AM tomorrow and let us deal with that.

Oh my goodness.

And I did. And I, I was ignorant, right? I thought, okay, even if it's skin cancer, because I had this mole on my arm that was changing. I was 7 months pregnant. I'll cut it out and I'll be fine, right? Well, nobody told me melanoma, that's malignant. I had the most aggressive malignant melanoma. It's like glacier, it's like cells. And I already had it in my lymph nodes. It spread everywhere. I had no symptoms. I had no symptoms. I was thinking everything was great. And I had gotten married a second time. I had a thriving business, you know, 6-month waitlist, sellout every retreat I ever do. I was pillar of the community I was in. On the radio every single week talking to hundreds of thousands of people. I thought I had made it and beat my past. And then boom, 34, pregnant diagnosis. And I have no family history of cancer.

Hmm.

It made no sense. So what happened next is what we all have available to us. And it's simple. It's not easy. Was a decision. It was a decision to stay the best of me, to stay the me I'd become. Because I remember thinking, I guess this is going to be the ultimate seminar. You know, how, how easy is it when my life is perfect on paper to be this me? Pretty easy. How easy is it going to be for me to stay me and the best of me now? Not easy. But is it doable? Yeah. And is it as simple as a decision? Yeah. So the difference was I still hadn't healed my past yet in my first marriage.

Right.

I had healed. So now the healed me is in charge of the mission called my life when cancer comes. Big difference. And I just practiced what I teach. I teach the practice of emotional healing. And if you want more of, like, the step by step by step by step, I wrote a book about it. I have a major publisher backing me. It's won a couple of awards. Coming Back to Life: A Roadmap to Heal from Pain to Create the Life You Want is the steps. It's all right here. But it really was about me choosing to stay the best of me and me following the practice of emotional healing. We can't control our thoughts. We can control what thoughts we follow, but we can be emotionally clear 100% of the time. And that's my mastery. And from a place of emotional clarity, you become timeless and you have access to spirit and you have access to God, divine guidance, whatever you want to call it. So I got so spiritual when I was sick. I never identified as sick or dying. I couldn't hold my baby for the first year. There was nothing I could do. My older daughter at the time said, great, I don't have a dad and you're going to die. And I fought. I lived like I was going to live, and I stayed emotionally clear and sound. My husband would say, I don't know if today I need to take you to the crazy hospital or the cancer hospital, because I'd scream when I needed to scream. I'd shake when I needed to shake. I'd laugh, I'd cry. I was just like, we are going to be an emotionally clear channel, damn it. So I can hear my own voice. Place so I can know the next right step. And again, it's just about the next right step. And just like in my childhood, I had God with me. I wasn't alone. And the next thing that happened was I completely shifted from an achievement paradigm to an alignment paradigm. None of the accolades mattered anymore, and it was about, am I in alignment with my soul and my truth? That ever since has been my only priority in Focus.

Yeah. So, you know, first of all, shout out to the second husband. I got to give him a shout out because from— you're speaking from the man's perspective. And I remember actually, there was a previous guest I had on and, you know, he was talking about some of his football college, college football playing days. And the coach told him, there's going to be one day y'all gonna wake up, wife is going to be sick, the baby's gonna be crying, it's gonna be one on the way. And you just got to figure it out. You just got to figure it out. So as you said that, I kind of put myself and realize how much more it is than just a physical attraction to someone, how in love you have to be with the person, how much support you have to be doing. This is a lifetime thing. This is not a casual thing. This isn't just leisurely activity. This is a serious thing. And you don't want to walk into something with just a leisure casual element to it, a casual aspect to it. And saying that, and we're going to talk about your book in a second, but when it comes to what you can be taking away, whether you're listening from the business owner's perspective or you're listening from the client's perspective, is Authenticity, folks, authenticity. If you are the person that is trying to develop clients and you're not doing exactly what she said in terms of, hey, this is my divine, this is what makes me genuine. I don't— I am not a perfect mother. I'm not a perfect wife. But I'm teaching you how to develop a relationship because I am not perfect and I'm open to it and I'm open to feedback. It was someone you were counseling that just noticed that thing and they cared so much about you to say— I mean, imagine that kind of connection, right? Imagine your clients saying, hey, you got to check that out. That's love and appreciation on a different level. And you as a client now, when you're, when you're looking to work with people, you want to make sure you really vet folks out, vet people out to make sure they're authentic and they're not selling you bullshit. All right, that they really are going through it. So, you know, as you're going through this, when do you actually have time to write a book?

When, you know, is it like, you know, this is what I'm saying about The practice of emotional healing makes you timeless, and it gives you so much time back when you're not dysregulated and in fight, flight, freeze, and in the let me get here so that I can finally relax, because someday never comes. And from the business owner's perspective, I cannot emphasize enough what— yes, you're reflecting back about what I said just one more time for everybody's nervous system. The more aligned you are and honest you are, and consistently you, you are now not confusing and now you're someone worth following. And my community rallied around me. My business did not skip a beat. I still to this day do not know how that's true. They did best-ofs with my radio show and it didn't stop. And the second I was ready to go back to work, we had a retreat sell out overnight and I had been me people didn't know the version of me they were gonna get post-cancer. I came hot and next level, and I've been ever since because it used to be about me helping you get your achievement goals.

Mm-hmm.

After cancer, it was about you knowing you, loving you, trusting you, focused on what honors, respects, and takes care of you in the pursuit of your dreams. Right? Whole next level. But The book, I, I couldn't get it out of me fast enough. And I had this mortality motivation because, and again, you all out there do not need a breakdown to breakthrough. You do not need to create that. You do not need to wait for a crisis.

Right.

But I didn't know how long I had. You know, I walk around every day with a benign brain tumor. I walk around every day knowing cancer could come backstage for any second. I've had 21 surgeries just from the cancer. And this summer I had 2 more. You know, I needed to tell people healing is possible. It isn't promised. And here's what healing really is— emotional freedom. And here's how to get there. Because I knew I'm here on divine assignment, and I have no idea how long I've got. So I would just write when I could. And it took 3 years. And I did 2 projects at the same time. I wrote Coming Back to Life, and I produced my Emotional Survival Kit course. And between both of these products, It's everything you need to heal generational trauma, to revolutionize your life, to be free and the best of you no matter what. And I just, every chance I could, I wrote. And sometimes it was the course and sometimes it was the book. And then all of a sudden I had a manuscript and I got introduced to a woman in publishing that looked at it and said, get me a book proposal. This is publish. Publisher worthy. And I just, you know, what I would do is I would go every once in a while. I did it like 5 times. I'd go to a hotel for 3 days. I'd listen to Lil Wayne. I'd plug into God, and I would just go. Yeah, Lil Wayne is the soundtrack for Coming Back. And I just wrote and wrote and wrote because that's how I do. I go in bursts. And when the woman said, all right, I need a book proposal, I did it on a Sunday, and I had an agent 4 days later and a book deal 2 weeks later.

That is amazing. And I have to— I mean, there's, there's so much we could, we could go down that rabbit hole or talk about in terms of just being an artist and being a creator and all that. But before we get there, I want to give you the opportunity as well to speak on the people that, the people that come to you and you're like, look, you're making too many excuses. Have you ever run into a situation? Because I could see someone like you who's been through what they've been through, but you're hearing people who have excuses of giving up, you hear people that kind of are coming to you and they will, hey, just fix my life, fix my relationship, fix everything. I paid you. So just like, do you, do you ever run into a situation where you have to turn folks away because they're making too many excuses? And I want to make sure you're on the record saying so if anyone's listening in, they know you're not a, you know, a miracle worker. You're someone that is going to require a great deal of work and things like that.

I'm not an easy coach. Yeah, but I'm really good. So there's no case I haven't cracked.

Yes.

None. And I will help you heal the thing that you think it's impossible to heal in terms of heartbreak. Right. It's always about heartbreak. And sometimes you're aware of it, sometimes you're not. Sometimes you think you've already done all the work. But I always say, until you've worked with me, you haven't. Right. And I still work with people at a VIP private practice, one-on-one, direct access to me level.

Yes.

And I turn people away often. And what I'm looking for, all right, there's 3 different ways to approach healing. Number one, I'm not interested. So obviously that's not gonna be somebody I would work with. Right? Because if you're not interested, I love you, and I have a therapy background, and I'm a coach, and there's nothing I can do if you're a closed door.

Yes.

The second thing is I want it, but I'm not ready to commit to it.

Mm-hmm.

And that commitment is about who you would have to be. It's not about what you would have to do.

You, right?

So you— if you want it, it's not enough to change your life. Understanding isn't enough to change your life, and wanting it isn't enough to change your life. And when I'm talking about changing your life, I'm talking about how you feel. I want you to get— you can be the best of you, you can feel how you want to feel, and that means you can have whatever experience you want to have no matter what's going on around you. I found so much peace in the face of cancer. I could be healed, free, joyful, appreciative, honoring that I'm still here, grateful, all of the things, and the scenery was horrible. And I don't want it to have to get to that point for people, but the goal is, if you're the person that wants all of the full human experience, if you want the most out of your one precious life and you're committed to being the person it would take to have that, I got you all day. And I'm not the savior, you're the hero in your story. You're not a victim You don't need a rescue, and I will have empathy. I've dealt with so many crazy cases that people have been to therapy for decades to try to deal with, and they come to me, and in one session they're like, where have you been? But I'm just bringing you back to the best of you. And here's another thing people aren't going to tell you: you do not wake up one day and know who you are. No, you wake up one day and know you're in survival, and then it's a bitch to reinvent the version of you, you could be, that you wanted to be. This me I created, and it's genuine, but I had to design her, right? And people don't tell you that's the work. So if you want to say yes to reinventing your life— my clients say yes to reinventing their life. They're committed to their life. They're committed to their impact on humanity, and they know their most healed impact is the best gift they can give the planet. Right? And, and that's what I say, the world needs you healed so you can make your difference. And not everybody wants to do it. So I coach like the emotional billionaires, right? Like the 1% of the 1% that care about personal growth.

Yeah. And that's— well, actually, that, that's how it's set up though. I mean, the, the ones who do reach that 1%, they care. They care so much. I mean, it's not just they woke up one morning and they're rich. No, they actually care about their personal and professional development because it's so much in alignment. And, you know, as a person, I live out here in West Palm Beach. I see it every day. I see it all the time. I see a lot of people that come in and out and you never really know what's going on with a person. And one of the things that, and I'll, you know, I'm going to be respectful of your time. But one of the things that I have personally has bothered me even to this day is the way it starts to affect kids. When, yes, when kids are seeing us adults that are acting crazy, you know, you got, we're actually recording this on election day, folks, and the amount of dirty politics that have gone on. I'm not even gonna bring up too much politics here today, because there's gonna be enough of it throughout the day. But the way grown adults have just been so low and going after each other, when it comes to raising your children in this world, that it kind of thrives off the negativity, people make money off seeing one person going after another person and name-calling. And it's so unavoidable for kids. What are some of the things you're able to do maybe to I guess help them, shield them a little bit from it, or kind of not let it affect them too much to where eventually they know they have a mom that loves them, they have a dad that loves them, they have a safe place to work. They don't have to, you know, they don't have to engage in so much negative behavior. That seems to be what gets results. You know, if a kid growing up right now, my niece and nephew growing up right now, what they're seeing is negative name-calling, just being an asshole is going to get me results. Hey, that's what I see on TV. And it's natural for them to fall, to kind of, you know, go down that route. So what are some of the things you do to help, you know, raise a sane group of kids so they don't go down that road too far?

Yeah. So here's the deal. The number one most talked about chapter in Coming Back to Life that I wrote is the forgiveness chapter. And my definition of forgiveness, you touched on it earlier, but my definition of forgiveness is loving as much as you did before you got hurt.

Mm-hmm.

Open heart, being the best of you, being the love that you are.

And that— I gotta pause you because that's not easy. I myself struggle with that. No.

This is the real—

the name, and they ask that. So I have this thing I'm doing with the kids where they're opening up about their feelings, and I'm teaching them how to give speeches. And I know I practice it with them. So they asked me some of the things that bother me. I'm like, having a name like Aswan Crookshank, have a curse word in my name. I'm 36 years old, I still get hurt by it. It still bothers me to this day. You know, it still pisses me off because I know how when I was their age, how much I actually got teased for having that name. Yeah, things still— it's hard to really open up the way you said. So it is.

Amen. I'm not saying it's easy. But again, that's why I created a roadmap how-to, right? Because all this sounds good in theory, and who doesn't doesn't want it. It's just most people aren't going to do it. But if you want to be healed for your kids, right, you've got to do the forgiveness work. And like you shared earlier, it isn't about the other person. And forgiveness doesn't mean you're letting them off the hook. It means you're the best of you. So you forgive for you. You stay the love you are, whether or not you think people deserve it. As the adult, right? You do the work to understand the practice of emotional healing. With kids, here's what I teach them. It's 3 things. Number 1, there's a huge difference between your feelings about what's going on and the emotion you need to feel. Okay? So you're not born knowing what rejection is, abandonment, anxiety, depression, jealousy. That's a learned coping skill, actually. Overwhelm, pressure, stress, exhaustion. We learned be that in these types of situations, right?

Mm-hmm.

So I'm teaching kids right away, you have control over how you are dealing with the emotion underneath these big feelings that you need to feel. I teach 5 emotions: anger, fear, grief, joy, excitement. Break it down in Chapter 2. Emotional Survival Kit breaks it down. Anger, fear, grief, joy, excitement. So I'm teaching the kids right away, big distinction between your feelings and the emotion you need to feel. I'm teaching them how to have a healthy relationship with all 5 emotions and to never be threatened by their emotions. The more you are in a healthy relationship with the darker emotions, the more joy and excitement get to be the rule. So what I'm teaching kids is joy and excitement gets to be the rule you live by. It's safe to receive the good. It's appropriate and correct to have boundaries and to use your voice to say, here's what I want, here's what I need, here's how I feel. And you do that using your voice so you know you did. And people are going to do what they're going to do. We can't change people. We can't be responsible for them. The last thing I teach kids—

well, I have— the thing is, I don't want that point to get brushed off, okay? You, because that's something we're talking about kids, but that's something adults can learn too. You have control of your emotions. You have control of your emotions. Actually have control of how angry you get, how joy, how much joy you have, how excited you get. You personally do not have to let your emotions take control over you. I wanted to make sure that we're on the record saying that, and we're pausing it because all of those things that you just laid out, how so many kids grow up. And the thing is, what I've learned is, and me and my colleagues, couple of them just walked in, but me and my colleagues, we talk about all the time, if we've seen the same kid from kindergarten to first grade to second grade, the same things that are triggering them because they don't have not heard exactly what you just said. And you're right, it's simple, but it's not easy. Because when it comes to kids, you got to teach that. You have to teach you are in control of your emotions. That's huge. You can't see it. But There are actually goosebumps coming in on my arms right now.

It's everything.

And I didn't mean to cut you off there.

No, I'm glad you did.

By the way, but anyway, uh, yes, that's huge. That was huge.

By the way, the second you're lashing out or in fight, flight, freeze, you're not processing your emotions. You're avoiding intimacy. So your healthy relationship with your emotions and ability to get that emotion in motion and move through it it, right? And not make it about the person, place, thing, scenery, right? That's where your power lies. So the last thing I teach kids and adults is you are more powerful than anything outside of you. You are more powerful than anything outside of you. You have leverage like you wouldn't believe to put into your spiritual GPS. Here's who I want to be. Here's how I want to feel. Here's how I want to experience this moment. And so I teach kids what it's like to embody their power, and that it is a fire that never goes out.

1000%. Yeah. And the thing is, as I'm in the middle of this project with them, and it's so amazing, Rebeccah, to see how— so I started off by having them just write down their feelings, like just write down the things that trigger you, because we wouldn't know as teachers, your classmates aren't going to know if we say something to you. And it started off with this one, I'm thinking of one kid as we're talking he started crying as he was just writing things down. I'm like, look, eventually you're going to have to share it. It's not going to be easy. But if we don't know, how exactly are we going to avoid it? So today, we started this a week ago, about maybe a little over a week ago. Today, he did— he dropped his note card and he gave a 3-minute speech just off the cuff and speaking on the things and started asking questions, moving around. And you could see like in that 3 minutes how it started paining him to say, I don't like when people call me fat. I don't like being called this. My dad wasn't here, but I know— has anybody else deal with that situation? And that's when, you know, some of us raised our hand and we related to each other. And you see the growth, you see the smile, and you see people actually growing because their feelings are out and they actually can give of themselves fully. And what she's explaining to you guys is there's no age limit for when that could happen. This particular kid I'm talking about is in 4th grade, but when that, that thing opens up, it is like an open highway because you start realizing as a kid, what, you got the power? Listen, there's no telling that young man or woman just like you, they can go to the moon and back. There's absolutely nothing in their way when they realize that. One of my favorite verses, Colossians 3:23, you're doing their work unto God, they're not doing their work unto men. They're not doing their work unto a human being. They're not doing their work for the approval of a human being. They're doing their work for the approval of God the Almighty, the person that's who they have to answer to. Come on now, we go into church, we go to church.

Oh, it's so good. And I have chills here too. And the thing about it is, us resting in our power is always available. But your power is soft.

Yeah, you saw, it's not gonna be blaring lights.

It's not forceful. It's not demanding. And here's, here's the other thing I think we have to acknowledge. It doesn't mean everybody's gonna like it when you're on a mission to be undeniably, unshakably whole.

Yeah.

Not everybody's down. And the people that are very comfortable in the dark are going to be repelled by your light. That ain't personal. It doesn't mean you're not on the right path. And I just know my past does not get to win, and no circumstance gets to derail me from the best of me. And I'm stubborn. I'm gonna stay the best of me, and I just have to keep practicing it, and I have to keep going to the what's the emotion underneath it all I need to release so I can hear my own voice, so I know my own next step. And I'm just so honored to have this conversation, and for a community that cares about being healed in business and beyond is my dream come true audience. So thank you for this conversation. It's a big one.

Oh, man. No, my pleasure. Thank you. Thank you. So before I let you go, though, can you just tell people a little bit? I know you mentioned it, but how they can get in touch with you and all that good stuff. What?

Yeah, yeah.

Good stuff.

I'm just gonna say, do yourself a favor and buy Coming Back to Life. It's gonna be amazing for personal, professional, you know, all of it. There's exercises at the end of each chapter that each question, just, it could be like, it's in bookstores YouTube, right? Oh, it's everywhere. Yep, yep. Coming Back to Life is everywhere. It's also available on Audible. You can check out the audio version as well. So the book is amazing. You can go to rebeccahsilence.com or theunsilentwoman.com. You can check me out both places. You can go to my YouTube channel at Rebeccah Silence, and there's almost 800 videos there. If you like this, you can hear me. You could search pretty much any topic and I will have done a show on it because I've been around since 2002. Um, so follow me on Instagram @rebeccahsilence, @theunsilentwoman. And you know, I just am cheering you on, and I want you taking at least one point away today. Journal about what's the one point that's going to help you remember your power and stand in it more after listening to us.

Okay, and I will include all of that in the show notes as well. So Rebeccah, the final thing I do to close out all the shows is I want you to use your imagination imagination a little bit. Pretend that teenage girl Rebeccah Silence has officially entered the Zoom room. She's going through high school. She's probably putting on a smile in high school because that's what you do. You don't really open up to your feelings. You don't really want to tell anybody what you're actually going through. So pretend that that teenage version of yourself is in the Zoom room. Give that young girl some words of encouragement, and we will officially close.

Rebeccah Silence, be careful with your heart so that you can be careful with other people's hearts. You don't have to be afraid of your power or your greatness or your light, and you're going to have everything you want and more, and you're going to make the world a better place, and you already are. Mhm.

I have absolutely nothing to add to that. As promised to you listeners, this is what we do here. We do it every single day. New episodes every single day. And we're here again on a mission to serve you. In fact, the first thing she said to me before we even started recording was, look, I'm on a mission to help— what was the number, like 100?

A million. A million families. I'm on a mission for kids to have healed parents, and I want to help a million families heal in 2024.

Yeah, that was the very first thing she said to me before we started recording. So it's here on the record for you guys. She's here to help you. All right. So all that being said, Rebeccah Silence, fellow teammates, continue to move swiftly. We will talk more soon.