Domestic Violence, & Cancer while Pregnant with Rebeccah Silence - S7 E49

Welcome to Becoming Parents Podcast. I'm your host, Jennifer Campbell. I'm a doula in Washoe County, Nevada, a Medicaid provider, a lactation educator, childbirth educator, and mom of 18. You can find me and connect on doulainreno.com. Remember, give a shout out to those who are brave enough to share their stories with us on how they have become parents. Let's dive in. Welcome to Becoming Parents. I'm the host, Jennifer Campbell. Today I'm on with Rebeccah Silence. Rebeccah, thank you for being here.

Well, thanks for having me, Jennifer. Let's go deep and change some lives.

Yes, let's. You have a really amazing story. I can't wait to hear more about it. I love the bullet points. Start by sharing your story of how you became a parent.

Well, I ended up recreating my childhood, like many of us, in my first marriage that I didn't plan for. I didn't expect— I never imagined myself being a mother, ever.

Of course.

Okay. And that's something I don't typically share publicly. But as we're going here, and this show is specifically about parenting and being the most healed parents we can be, right? And my whole mission today is I want kids to have healed parents. So I ended up getting pregnant with a birth control baby and marrying the guy, and it became a domestic violence situation that I ultimately got out of. So my story is that me becoming a parent was the catalyst for me being reborn and becoming a next-level human, because I didn't have the self-worth yet to get out of this dysfunctional situation that was dangerous for me. But the second I realized if I stayed, I was putting my child at risk, that was the moment, right, where I became the mom I wanted to be, both to my child but also to myself.

Isn't it incredible how things change the moment you have a child? Like, I've always felt like, like, do anything to me, it's my problem. This is my issue. I'm an adult. I can handle it. But the second it crosses the line to a child, how different your perception is.

It really absolutely is wild how that is a visceral experience, right? Like, it's physical and it's spiritual. And I know that understanding trauma isn't enough to break the cycle, right? And I had done the work. I had a 4.0 GPA, master's degree in counseling, and I had decided to become a behavior specialist at 17 years old when I started my undergrad, and I got it. But that isn't enough to break the cycle or to not re-experience what we need to experience to heal what we haven't healed. So I wanna normalize that for our beautiful audience as well, because many of you just can't put your finger on what needs to happen next, or how did you get here? The focus of understanding the trauma only gets you so far. The experience of feeling your way into a next level identity is where it's at.

Tell me about what was happening in that relationship and how you got out, because with domestic violence, often the getting out is the most dangerous part, or right when you get out is the most dangerous. It can be.

Yeah.

Take me through that. And how old was— you have a child at this point?

So she was 2. So yeah, she was 2. And, you know, The first year we were kind of playing house, you know, and, you know, we're, we're trying to figure this out. You know, I was 23 when I got pregnant, 24 when I had the baby, 26 when I left. So for me, and I coach, you know, I've had over 1,000 through my private practice over the years. I've been around helping people heal since 2002, and in 2008 started my private practice. It's different for everybody. So I'm gonna be really specific about my experience of getting out here because it's not the same for everybody. For me, the hardest thing was admitting we were in trouble to myself. That was harder than getting out ever could have been because the recognizing that I'm right where I said I would never be was painful and devastating and excruciating. And what most coaches are not gonna tell you is that when you recognize and make the decision to break up with survival, It feels like you're dying, but you're not. You're in this moment and this opportunity to be reborn. So me realizing we were in trouble was the scariest part. And there was this night where my husband came home drunk and told me that he was gonna take my daughter with him. 'Cause I said, I need you not here. Like, this isn't safe. I need you not here tonight. And he made it very clear that I wasn't the only one that was at risk in, in his wake of addiction and alcoholism, that my daughter would be, if I stayed, absolutely at risk as well. And it got very physical that night, and I ended up realizing this has to end. Interestingly, the next day my grandfather died, and so I was on a plane with my baby and home with family and talking to my family about, I'm gonna have to go home and leave, and that's That's exactly what I did. And what I also did was communicate with my book club that I was in trouble. And I'm telling you, Jennifer, I thought I was the world's best actress. Okay.

I thought nobody knew.

And I know I'm not alone in that too, right? Like, my denial was strong. And I had learned that from my mother, and I was repeating patterns. And I thought nobody knew. Well, I tell my book club what the hell is really going on, and they're like, thank God. And 2 days later, 40 people showed up at my house to move my daughter and I into a new apartment, which is great.

Holy cow, how crazy that a death of a family member, which is usually something that's not a good thing, is kind of what helped save you.

It really— the timing was wild, and I will never be able to thank my book club enough because we— they recruited more people, their spouses came Within 4 hours of 40 people showing up on my front lawn, we had my new apartment decorated.

Fun.

One of the guys had new tires on my car because the tires were bald, and it was, you know, the fall. It was November in Colorado. Yeah. And, you know, my story isn't a typical getting out story because then what happened was I tapped into a strength in me I didn't know I had. I married a guy with the last name Silence because I was committed to silence. Balance. I was definitely a woman that wasn't going to upset the apple cart, that didn't want to make waves, that thought love and abuse, that's just part of it, right? Like, if you're calling me names, cutting me down, stealing from me— literally, this guy had credit cards out in my name maxed out that I didn't even know existed— I, I just thought, this is love, right? And then, no, that isn't love at all. And I'm never going to break a cycle if I don't become a version of myself I haven't met before. So that's what happened. I began the process of becoming someone I didn't even recognize and know and tapped into a strength in me I didn't know I had and got a lawyer and demanded that we had an in-state custody agreement, an out-of-state custody agreement, and that I get full custody. And my husband did not argue with me. Wow. Very lucky and blessed. Never got child support. And I knew that. And I think that's one of the hardest things for anyone listening in that moment where you're at the fork in the road and you know a decision needs to be made and you don't know how to make it. Here's the deal. It's never gonna be easy and it's never gonna be the right time and you need support and you're stronger than you think. And for me, I knew taking on leaving this situation would mean a foreclosure of the house, a bankruptcy, no child support, me 100% responsible for this child. For me, all of that was way more difficult than the actual leaving. It was all of what, you know, was like coming into the actual moment of leaving. It was all of the processing and the reality checking that I had to do with myself in the situation. That was the hardest part.

You had great support during that because all these people show up and look at you. You had this, I mean, book club. Who would have ever guessed?

I was the youngest in the book club because everybody had babies much older. And these women loved me, and I am so grateful. And to this day, I am so grateful. It's— that's just so—

how great that you tapped into something that you had and from such a probably unexpected place. And I understand, like, now you're going to leave and you'll get away from the abuse, but you're doing everything on your own. And that is super overwhelming.

You—

when did you find out he took out credit cards? Did you know in the beginning that there was bankruptcy?

I didn't know until I left him, but I knew because I had everything in my name, the cars, the credit. I had the credit, and we were in over our heads with a balloon loan, you know, back in that time frame, 2000 and '06, we had gotten a loan that ballooned. So I probably would have ultimately lost that house anyway. But I knew that I'm a school counselor on a school counseling salary, and this is a nightmare financially. I found out more and more and more and more and more after the fact. I actually— I never share this story publicly, but I actually— another thing that had happened was I remember Dr. Phil saying, Okay. If you're upset, you're not ready to get divorced. And I was a mess. I couldn't get off the floor. I write all about it in my book, Coming Back to Life: A Roadmap to Heal from Pain to Create the Life You Want. I went on Dr. Phil's website. I've never shared this in an interview, and it says, tell us your story. And I'm a mess. And I'm like, I know I have to leave, and I'm a mess. And I tell the story, and this is after he had already— we had a little bit of time between me saying I'm done. He was at his mom's. I was at the house before I moved into the apartment. But long story short, I just journal into Dr. Phil's website. The next day, the producers are calling me at 7 a.m. on my way to work and saying they'll save the marriage. And thank God, because that was what helped me realize I didn't want to save the marriage at all. Wow. Yeah.

I mean, I think saving the marriage when you can is a great plan. In this situation, I'm surprised that that was even on the table, I guess, because—

well, my heart, our heart, right? Like, we didn't end up here because there was no love.

Yeah.

Right. And my heart and my love for this person is real to this day. I love him and I send him all my love from a distance now. Right. Because there was no leaving the marriage because he was committed to who he was being and to how he was living, and there was no changing that. And we had already tried. We had already been together years, right? So I just— I want to share this because I don't think I'm the only one who left and begrudgingly, knowing it was the correct thing, with a broken heart, wishing the love was enough.

I mean, most of the time— and I grew up with surrounded by abusive relationships, there are all these good parts of the relationship and you're kind of waiting for the next time that happens. It's not like, yeah, 100% bad 100% of the time. There are all these redeeming qualities and that's without gaslighting and all kinds of other stuff. I mean, there really are redeeming parts to the relationship and that's kind of what's keeping you, you staying. Like you're going from one to the next, the next, trying to diffuse the stuff that's not good. So I do get it. I get why you stay and then But then ultimately when you need to leave— and I also understand that when people want to change, they can and you can save a relationship. But Dr. Phil, not happy. Yeah.

And they stopped us for a minute because I really wrote— I'm a good writer and they were like, we can help you.

Not— well, not in that way. Too bad they couldn't help in a different way where you could bring more awareness to situations about leaving when that's the best answer. You left, you got on your feet. When did you meet your husband?

Now, so I met my husband about the time— my second husband. I always tell him he's my favorite husband. He never got married before. He was never going to get married. But I met him about the time I actually left my first husband, and I knew him for several years before we ended up together. He's best friends with my sister's husband. So that we were under each other's noses, you know, and I just was out west and doing my thing and never going to go home to upstate New York. That was never going to happen.

Okay.

And then it did. Actually, my grandmother dying was the catalyst for my second husband and I getting together. I'm kind of putting this together as we're talking about it this way. Um, my grandmother died. I had a one-way flight for the summer because I was a school counseling coordinator by then in Vegas near you. And I was not going to go back to Vegas. I didn't know what I was going to do. I didn't know where we were going to live. My grandmother died, got one-way tickets. And after knowing my husband for years, that trip, it became very, very clear. I had made a list, 11 pages of what I wanted in a partner on the plane leaving Las Vegas. Okay. And all of a sudden, front and back, by the way, 11 pages.

Wow.

Front and back because I was like, you've missed some things along the way, Rebeccah Silence. So I wrote the list, and then Mark and I just connect at a birthday party, and we go out on a date, and I share the list with him, and he pulled out his own list.

Yeah, I have one too. Very few.

I was like, you have— because I thought for sure I was going to scare him off. And then I'm realizing, you know, and we get so attached to how we think things should look and who and how we want it to go, right? And it just became so obvious to me I actually would be doing myself and my vision and dream of a healthy family and beautiful love story a disservice if I ruled this guy out because he's here. He had opened up an aquaponic farm, so there was no relocation for him. He had one of 5 commercially scaled aquaponic farms in the world. So I ended up getting with Mark, moving back, starting my company, getting on the radio in New York, which I'm still there 14 years later on the radio in New York every single week and building a private practice as the first coach in that community. So it, it was a wild full circle experience to recognize I've known you, you're here, I wasn't ready for you, you weren't ready for me, and we were engaged within 3 months and both took off with our companies and built our dream of family together.

Which, what a crazy twist for you. And because you had full custody, you were able to do that. Because a lot of people get locked into where they live. I was one of them, right? I mean, even when I had fully full physical custody, legal custody was still split. And so I couldn't do anything. Um, so that was pretty remarkable. Is that when your— so you were a school counselor. Is that when your career really shifted?

So my real— my career really shifted after. So I left my husband and did another year at the middle school I was the school counseling department head at. And then I had started doing seminars with a mentor because all of my therapy training, it wasn't enough, right? And traditional therapy, while it's beautiful and amazing and there are wonderful practitioners, it's trying to help you heal your emotions through the mind. And if you're really wanting to break generational trauma cycles, we have to do the deep emotional work. We have to to heal the stuck age. And the only way to do that is to heal through the stuck emotions that we'd rather die than face and move through, and we don't believe we can conquer, right? So I ended up working, uh, as a Weight Watchers leader while I was doing school counseling, meeting a new mentor, and then moving to Vegas to help run her company and to learn. And then I became a school counseling coordinator for a charter school district in Vegas while I was working with her, started my private practice part-time in Vegas. And then by the time I got to New York, I was I was like, let's go full time. Let's do this for real.

Holy cow. How old is your daughter at this point? And then you got, got pregnant again.

Yeah. So my daughter just turned 20. The oldest is 20, struggling to be an adult, struggling to find her way. And my whole thing with parenting is I want kids to have healed parents and I want parents to give their kids the space to be who they are and not who they're expected to be. So we're in the middle of that with the older. And then, um, my younger daughter is 9. And yeah, 11 years. Yep. Yep. 10. About 10.

10.

Okay. Right about 10 years. Yes. So they have about a 10-year age gap. And yeah, I've got to—

you, you went many years with your husband, your favorite husband.

Yeah.

Without having kids, not getting pregnant.

I never thought I was getting pregnant either time. I never, ever thought I would be a mother. I can't emphasize that enough. And then I loved being a mother. And then all of a sudden I was pregnant again and I did not— I was not prepared.

Well, I mean, a decade had gone by. You didn't plan it or expect it. And then, you know, your life was very— you had a lot of twists and turns in your career. Your life was very different.

My thought—

yes, go.

I was just going to say my thought when I got pregnant again was, I don't have time for this. Like, I was doing 10 clients a day, 7 days a week, selling out every retreat I was doing with a month waitlist. And I thought my biggest issue was going to be figuring out how to balance career with a baby. But then I was very excited at the same time to have this love child, like, and to be a healed woman at the time of a baby being born. I was very excited about— because I can't say that was true with my oldest. It took a long time. We grew up together, you know, and I was very excited. Trying to think, how am I going to navigate all this? But then that was not my biggest issue in that pregnancy.

So take us through that, because you got pregnant, you went through all the myriad of emotions of holy cow, there's another baby. And then what happened?

Then I got diagnosed with cancer and I was given a 5% chance to live is what happened. And that diagnosis was wild because I had a plastic surgeon and his wife that I was coaching. And they said, you've saved our marriage and our family. And that thing on your arm, please come into the clinic at 7 a.m. tomorrow and let us take it off. It doesn't look right. And then I did. And thank God for my client's connections because things happened really fast. He just got me in with all of the best really, really quickly. Within a week of this getting removed and the biopsy coming back and it being malignant melanoma, I was in Roswell Park in Buffalo with the best of the best, getting a huge surgery to remove as much as possible from my elbow all the way up to my shoulder, got cut down to the bone and they took all of the margins. But then we had to wait for me to get staged because you couldn't get staged. They put radioactive dye into your lymph nodes until the baby's out. So it ended up being— I got a C-section early. We took the baby out early, then we staged me, and then 21 surgeries later and 4 and a half months of chemo that I ultimately quit. I'm still here.

You were 7 months pregnant when you were diagnosed with cancer. So that's, I think, one of the— not that it wasn't there before that, but that's one of the more beneficial things because cancer cells love to grow on pregnancy hormones. I don't know if that was true of this type of cancer you had. No, it is.

It is. The pregnancy moved the cancer along. I think I had it for years. I just didn't know. But It doesn't matter. Like, I'll never know for sure those details. I think what matters is that cancer was the ultimate seminar where I became the Rebeccah that I love and trust and know, and the Rebeccah who's in a co-creation with God 100% of the time. Cancer gave me a spiritual crisis opportunity to figure out who am I really and what's important to me really, because I was so about achievement. Before cancer. I was so about achievement, and now I'm about alignment, and nothing else matters. And I achieve from alignment more than I ever could just focused on achievement. But the success metric is me in alignment with my soul, in partnership with divine love and divine intelligence, not the on-paper, here's what we did, right?

That's a lot of surgeries in a long time. You quit chemo. It's been 11 years, so spoiler alert.

And yep, 10 years.

10.

Yep. I just passed my 10-year graduation of being clear. Mm-hmm.

Cancer-free, which, holy congratulations with the 5%. How did you navigate that, hearing that? I mean, I know you have retrospect now, but at the time, your husband, you're pregnant. How did you navigate that whole situation? That's plus the trauma of all the surgeries, the chemotherapy, like all, all it?

Well, in a way, I recognized right away, like, both of my children saved my life. You know, my first getting me to a place where I was brave enough to next level our lives. The second giving me this information that there was cancer in my body. And there's no family history. I don't tan, right? Like, it was the weirdest thing, and it felt like a cruel joke. But I also understood that cancer could be, if I allowed it to be, the ultimate seminar where I really met myself. Because I remember thinking, it's easy to be your best when your life is perfect, because it really felt like my life was perfect. I had gotten everything I wanted. I thought I had outlasted and outplayed my past, and now I just was gonna be, you know, living this life of, of bliss on the other side of my past. And life keeps being life. So I knew, okay, this isn't happening to me. And I know how to be the best of me, and I know how to live what I teach, and I do. Am I going to be brave enough to apply it now? Am I gonna be the best of me now, or am I gonna let this win? And interestingly, for anybody who has not seen the movie The NeverEnding Story, okay, if you have, Think about the Swamps of Sadness scene that carried me. So in this movie, this hero is trying to save the world and they get to one obstacle, the hero and his horse, where they're going through quicksand. And the only way to get through the Swamps of Sadness and the quicksand is to not let the sadness win or you die. All I could do, because it was me alone in a bed for a year, was think and talk to God. And I just kept visualizing the swamps of sadness because I wanted to die as much as I wanted to live. It was excruciatingly painful. But my daughter, the older one, had said to me, you know, she's 9 when I get diagnosed, you know, great, so I don't have a dad and you're going to die. And I was like, oh my God. So every time I wanted to go there and let the dark win, I just imagined the slumps of sadness and just did my best to keep going because I knew I could commit to my life and live like I was going to live, and that I didn't ultimately have control over the outcome, and I could be the best of me and make the best of this and just find a, a me in there and an access to divine intelligence that I hadn't ever experienced before. And that's what I focused on.

On. What year was that? Was 10 years ago. So we're talking about 2014. You, um, had another surprise. So your daughter, your youngest, was what, 6 during COVID Yep.

Yeah, she was. She was supposed to be— she was 5. She was supposed to be in kindergarten. Okay. And ended up doing unconventional kindergarten. Yes.

Yeah. And then you— your life takes a turn again. Your marriage is good. Your relationship's good. The kids are good. Your cancer is better, you've gotten through all of this stuff, you're continuing to become a better version of yourself, which is amazing. And then COVID throws another— I, I mean, every time we get thrown like some sort of loop, like, holy crap, what's happening? And then it ends up being such a great thing, you know. Take, take me through that.

Well, I don't know what you're referring to, but what I will tell you is from, from COVID I decided to scale the shit out of my business. And my impact. Um, that, that's what happened because I couldn't work how I had used to work. And so that's when I started writing the book. That's when I started creating online courses. I created a Facebook group, the Healing Is Possible Facebook group, that had 1,000 people in it overnight. And I was doing free coaching for anybody that wanted it. Um, and just began the process of, for me during COVID moving from solopreneur to CEO and working on how do scale my impact? How do I teach generational trauma healing? How do I help as many couples and families as possible, you know, in a way where it doesn't all require me directly with the people?

What about your husband's situation and becoming a stepmom?

Okay, so that's what you're referring to. So yes, the— so in the parenting focus, a miracle happened that changed our family. It was just such a beautiful miracle and gift. I don't ever— I think of like, okay, what setback did I have to overcome? This was not a setback. This was a blessing. This was our good karma. So my husband had given up a child for adoption in his early 20s, and the first week of COVID they found us. Wow. And I can't even tell you the miracle. Girl. And now we're all fully immersed in the family. Lucy completed our family.

That's one of those things, because, you know, I've done adoptions and I kept track of the birth families as much as I could because I knew at some point either the kids or the parents would want to have some sort of contact. So I think it's absolutely beautiful that he gave her up for adoption and she found him, and what a blessing it was, because that's not always the case when you go through that.

No, no. And they're 9 they're non-binary and, you know, say they pinch themselves. Like, it went so much better than they could have ever expected. And it was funny because the first time I met Lucy, Lucy's at the house and telling me about someone had said that they could clear their chakras for $400. And I was like, well, I can clear your chakras. I can open up your chakras. So we go into this office and they're in that chair and I clear the chakras and open up the chakras, and we blow all the electricity in the house. And my husband comes walking down the hall and he's like, what's going on, guys? And I said, oh, I just cleared Lucy's chakras and we just blew the fuses. And Mark goes, oh, okay, I'll go fix it. And Lucy says, that's his reaction? You know, like, this is a next level vibe, right, for all of us that nobody could have expected. That's such a beautiful gift. And they're actually coming out to visit tomorrow to see the little one in Elf the Musical. Oh, I love to do Christmas with us.

Yeah, but what I mean, what a big— it could have been a huge shock. It could have not gone as well. You know, it could have been a lot of different things because giving a child up for adoption, you don't know if you'll ever reconnect and if the child or the parent doesn't want to. So, I mean, in my mind, having done adoptions, That was like the most beautiful situation is that everyone was excited, everybody was accepting. That was in COVID and you changed your business. So catch us up now that you're 10 years cancer-free and the kids are getting older and you ended up with 3 kids, although you didn't want any, um, in different ways. What is happening with your business now? How much has it changed since COVID Because you did a lot online and I want to point that out that you're available a lot online and you mentioned your book. It's behind you. That's all of this is in the show notes. But tell me about— let's shamelessly self-promote what you're doing with people now because of all of the experiences you've personally had.

Yeah. You know, and the cancer journey is never done, just like life isn't going to stop being life for us, right? It's just what we have control over is who we're going to be and what we want to create and experience. And if we need the external to be how we need it to be for us to be okay, we're never going to be okay, right? The most healed version of who we are. So in this season, I still see my oncologist every 3 months. And in this season, I'm very focused on just spaciousness and a business model where I get to reach the masses. I'm here with you today and this gorgeous audience because I said in 2024 I was going to help 1 million families heal. I think we're at 650,000 in the reach that I can, you know, count. And I think 20 countries. And the month isn't up yet. The year isn't up yet. But my focus now is twofold. I have two companies, two sister brands. So we have The Unsilent Woman, theunsilentwoman.com, where I'm helping women reclaim their voices, their peace, and their power and step into full self-expression unapologetically. And then I have the Rebeccah Silence brand that is all about love love and getting 100% of the healthy, healed, happy love, magically delicious love that we've imagined for ourselves. So Rebeccah Silence brand focuses on couples and families. So you can find me at theunsilentwoman.com and you can find me at rebeccahsilence.com. And Rebeccah has an H, it's R-E-B-E-C-C-A-H silence.com. And then I have books, I have Coming Back to Life, and I have a 5-day challenge, the Reclaim and Rediscover You 5-Day Challenge. That's 5 15-minute lessons that will revolutionize your life. People have started businesses, people have healed their relationship with themselves just from the 5-day challenge. And then I have the Emotional Survival Kit, which I'm the most proud of. I'm very proud of my book. It's won top self-love, top self-worth books in the world. I've won top emotional health coach in the world by Business Insider. But the Emotional Survival Kit, it's everything I did to save my life and to change on an identity level, healing myself from the inside out. And it's what I do with all of my clients. And it's 7 transformations, 7 20-minute transformations. People take the Emotional Survival Kit with their spouse. People take it with their children. People take it with their teams. People take it on their own. It's everything you need to set yourself free emotionally. So I'm the most proud of the Emotional Survival Kit, which you can get at either site.

Oh my goodness. This is great stuff. Rebeccah, thank you for sharing your story and, uh, for sharing your information too so people can jump on. I'm already thinking about people I wanna send to your site.

Uh, it is Rebeccah Silence. Yeah, I appreciate you. Thank you for doing this show, and thank you to the audience that cares about being healed parents. You know, I always say the world needs you healed so you can make your difference. Your kids need you healed, especially emotionally, so that you're a parent who isn't threatened by their emotions. And if you're still threatened by yours without meaning to be, you will be threatened by your children's. And we don't need our children to be be who we think they need to be. They get to be who they are. And when you're a healed parent, that gets to happen. And what a beautiful thing. So thank you to this beautiful audience who gets it and is striving to be your best as a parent. It's a big deal.