Marc My Words-- Rebeccah Silence: Self Healing & Relationship Expert

Welcome to Mark My Words, a podcast that not only aims to inspire and teach the listener about entrepreneurship, it also aims to give my guests an opportunity to talk about their unique journey in entrepreneurship and life. So join me and my guests as we meet at the crossroads on Mark My Words. Hey, my guests. Has such an array of wisdom. Just little soundbites off the top of my head, like, "The mission is healing. The cure is self-responsibility. If you can think it, if you can dream it, you can do it." And there's just so many other things from Rebeccah Silence's content that I could go off of to introduce her. She's a self-healing and relationship expert. She has one heck of a story, and I didn't even scratch the surface. She's a media personality, an author. She does a lot to try to help people to heal and believe in themselves, and I couldn't be happier to have Rebeccah Silence on Mark My Words. How you doing today?

Well, hello everyone. I'm so honored to be here and thank you for having me.

It's my pleasure. Just going through all your content and getting ready for this episode, I was like, oh man, I, I already feel some self-healing just from listening to some of your soundbites. And sometimes all you need to hear, and you've been through an awful lot. Is to just hear somebody who's come through the other side and have such great energy telling you, hey, you can do this, you dream it, believe in yourself. And I know those are all things that I need to hear even to this day because I haven't really accomplished— I've accomplished a lot, obviously, but I still have plenty that I'm dreaming about. Really trying to accomplish. So just hearing some of that, like, all right, I'm ready to go. I'm ready to do this.

Let's dive in, man. I'm ready too.

Well, let's dive in by doing what I tend to do on most episodes, and I usually like to go all the way back. It seems like you and I have at least a little bit in common In that I'm a huge music person, as you can see behind me.

Okay. Mm-hmm.

You study music therapy, if I remember. Yes. Music therapist. You got board certified. And I know for me, and we can also talk about what else you might have been dreaming about during all of the obstacles and turmoil that might have been going on. But I know for me, music was huge. I grew up during the '80s, so music was awesome back in the '80s, and I have 50 billion favorite songs from that time. And it really helped me, whether it was home or school, really helped me to cope with life and anything that was bringing me down. I'd be curious to know what role music played for you and how did that help you to determine early on that you wanted to become a music therapist?

Yeah, I have not been asked this question and I really appreciate it. In so many ways, surviving a domestic violence household and having a parent who was an addict and another parent who was a perfect codependent brushing it all under the rug. Music and books, but particularly music, gave me words for all these big feelings and an outlet and, and an expression access point that my spirit desperately needed. And I was a very shut-down kid in a lot of ways. It's a very ironic fact that my last name is Silence, I was silent, and I really believed silence was going to make abuse end faster. And if I would just take it for myself and for the team, metaphorically speaking, then we somehow had a path forward beyond all of the dark that I was enduring. And so music, I could sing and I could take it in, and it gave me this way of connecting to resilience in myself that I didn't have that word for, but it, it kept me alive and it kept me going and it kept me looking to the future. And I have quite the eclectic musical taste as well, and so depending on the moment Here's music. I can tap into it. Now fast forward, being a music therapist has been incredibly important to me, and I will never let that license lapse. Music is non-threatening. Music is a medium to help us connect to our truth and communicate in a way where we don't have to make it personal or about us. I love how Byron Katie, the personal growth guru, talks about there's no new suffering, right? Music helps us explore and identify how not alone we are and what's possible, and it allows us to meet ourselves in the moment. We, we get to meet ourselves, our emotions, our feelings, and the music in the moment, and we get to be whoever we want to be as we relate to our own experience relating to somebody else's through their music.

I love the way you put that, that we get to be whoever we want to be in that moment. And I must really be a lot of different things because—

We're all Fifty Shades, Mark. We all got multiple personalities. We're not all just bipolar. We all have multiple personalities as well. And music's there for us in whatever character we are in. A moment.

Was there anybody in particular that you really identified with, or was it just a lot of different—

okay, I'll let you, uh, a lot of different, but I loved Joni Mitchell and the Smashing Pumpkins all through my darkest years where I was beginning the experience of flirting with suicidal ideation. Um, the Smashing Pumpkins, Joni Mitchell, Love them. And I got to see in Denver last year the Smashing Pumpkins, or maybe it was the, the year before, it might have been 2022, but recently I saw the Smashing Pumpkins live and it was super nostalgic, um, because I just, I spent years devouring the Smashing Pumpkins and all of the different versions of the music they put out there too.

I think I'm gonna see them with Green Day this summer. I'm supposed to— oh fun! Yeah, I, I've always liked the Smashing Pumpkins and I'm excited just to see Green Day again. I haven't seen them in over 10 years.

Green Day. I loved Green Day too. And when I worked at the state psych hospital here in Colorado as a music therapy intern, I did a lot of songwriting, especially with the adolescent inpatient crisis unit, people that, that were living there. And we did a lot of Green Day.

Yeah, no, I— so you're more of an artist in this regard. I'm more of an audiophile, and I'm to the point— I mean, you can see the vinyl, and I collect all kinds of stuff. I get very, uh, snooty about my collecting, like, oh, this is the first pressing and all that. But that's kind of the angle I come from, and I mean, there are just so many artists. I know Green Day is one of them. We could probably talk all day.

Yes.

And just all the lessons that, and inspiration that I've gained from music and from being the audiophile that I am is just incredible. And I could get a little more back on, because I could talk about this the whole time, really. You said one word that I emphasize so much, and that's resilience. You talked about being resilient, and I think not only does music help you to be resilient, but there's other ways that you can learn and become resilient, because I, for one, I won't sit here and say, you know, I'm just this one-man band who never had any friends, but making friends and fitting in and just kind of being within the dynamic I was in at home, it was, it could be very difficult. So I had to learn to be resilient, had to learn to believe in myself at times when others wouldn't believe. And I'd be curious to know, how did you remain resilient growing up and entering adulthood? And just how did you get to the point where you're this fabulous person that you are now?

Thank you for saying that. You know, it's funny, my best friend says, Rebeccah Silence, resilience is already in your name.

True.

Oh my God. And I hadn't really thought about that until I was on a Denver News segment talking about resilience. And she's watching it and saying, your name, it means resilience. Do you get it's in your name already? And the reason I bring that up is because it's in all of us already. Resilience is who you are. Every gorgeous heart listening, resilience isn't a destination to arrive at. It is the truth of who you are, that it's time to let yourself rest in. So none of us have ever not been resilient, and all resilience means to me is my ability to recognize that there's nothing outside of me more powerful than me. And I want to just take a beat to let all of you consider flirting with this possibility for yourself. There's nothing outside of you more powerful than you. Nothing. Not a circumstance, no trauma, no diagnosis, no moment in time that's just a snapshot is more powerful than who we are. And for me, growing up, I was also alone a lot, without a lot of friends, bullied. I had a day in third grade where my entire class beat me up on the playground while the teachers were just kind of standing there hanging out and watching. And I, I don't know if this is just God or how much of it is actually me. But I somehow knew if I can just stay in the game, this is gonna end. The page will turn. And I'm also an avid reader, you know, and I survived my childhood devouring music, devouring books, writing. I didn't identify as a writer until a few years ago when I'm getting this major publishing deal, but I've been writing my whole life. And however you can stay in the moment, finding a focal point that you can put your energy and your passion and your life force into, and just continue, just stay in the game. The moment will pass. And so the more you stay in the game following what inspires you, the more alive you get to be. And what will end the pain faster isn't, you know, just riding it out and sitting in the dark. It's tapping into your life force, your essence, your spirit, and what inspires you. My company is called Inspired Results because I want people connected to the truth of who they are regardless of results as they pursue results that inspire them. So for some of you, it might be books, music, nature. For some of you, it might be lighting candles, it might be creating art. Writing. But don't be afraid in a moment where you feel like, I don't know how I'm going to navigate this, to go, wait a minute, but nothing outside of me is more powerful than me. Where can I put my energy and focus right now? Staying in the moment, knowing with all sorts of certainty the page is about to turn.

Wow. I mean, so you say so many things, and I'm like, I just want to go deeper. So how, how did you come to the point where you discovered that you needed to find the truth within yourself? And I, I'm paraphrasing that a little bit, but you've said it a few times that way. And I love the way you're putting that. How, how did you figure that out?

Well, for me, it took a diagnosis of cancer and I had already survived my childhood. I had already, you know, immerse myself in education and become someone committed to being a human behavior expert in my lifetime. I, I was doing it. I was achieving. I was understanding. I was living out my dream of service on so many levels. Had gotten out of a domestic violence marriage with a 2-year-old, had done single mom life, working 3 jobs, building my company, scraping my way to the top, fell in love with my second husband. Built this beautiful business. I'm pregnant with my second baby.

Oh, congrats.

And I get a cancer diagnosis. Not now.

Not now.

This is 9 years ago, but it seemed on paper that I had beaten the odds point. And I had thought achievement was the path out. And then I get diagnosed with a cancer diagnosis at 34 at the time. Every part of my life is what I had always imagined it could be. And it felt like a cruel joke. I was coaching a plastic surgeon and his wife, and they said to me, we know you're here to save our marriage, but you need to show up to the office at 7 a.m. tomorrow and let us take this thing off of your arm. So what really connected me to who I am was cancer. And the healed me was already in charge of the mission called my life. So I didn't experience cancer as a reactivation of my childhood trauma and abuse, how alone I was, how much pain I was in, believing and fearing that I was gonna die, that something, someone was trying to kill me. All of this. Okay. There is such a direct correlation between your pain and your purpose. And cancer had it come to a head. There was nothing to do but sit with me. Recognizing there's the healed me and there's the survival me that's very comforted and comforted by trauma and how I've coped and survived my whole life. This is a job for the healed me. The past is done. My only job right now is to sit with myself and to decide who I'm going to be now. Because what I knew with this cancer diagnosis, which ultimately had doctors giving me only a 5 to 10% chance to live, I got to go, am I gonna believe the statistics? Am I gonna be the statistic? Am I gonna try to solve for this via achievement or alignment? And I had to go through a spiritual identity crisis with cancer because again, I recognized it's easy to be the best of me and to practice what I teach and what I live when my life is exactly what I wanted and imagined and everything is going well. But what about in the face of my you know, ultimate nightmare that I have no control over. Who am I going to be now? And what I teach now, Mark, and to all of you gorgeous listeners, is you do not need a breakdown to break through. You do not need a breakdown to break through. I don't care how many people tried to tell you the opposite. You don't. And you don't need a crisis. For me, it took a crisis called cancer to go, let me reassess. Not what I'm doing, but who I'm being. Let me tap into this resilience, this essence, this me that I want to be, not try to make this go away. Let me use this moment in time to create a life that fits in with me, not a life where I try to fit in. And so I was willing to meet myself in the dark. I was willing to face and move through and conquer any thought any feeling, any emotion, any desire, any need, any want, any truth until I felt like I knew myself. And I don't think we wake up one day and we know who we are. We wake up one day and go, enough surviving. This is bullshit. It's time to live. And my book is called Coming Back to Life because all of my clients over the years, in some form or another, after our work together, they'll say to me, Rebeccah, I just came back to life. And in most cases, I didn't even know I wasn't fully living. And what we want is to recognize it's okay to let go of who we've been, and it's okay to decide who we wanna be, and it's okay to let go of the doing and the trying to achieve our way into finding our place in this life and just connect to where do I feel the most alive? Who do I wanna be? And if you don't have a vision for your life, if you don't feel like you have purpose, if you don't know who you are or who you want to be, you can certainly start with, well, what am I done with? What do I— what am I ready to let go of? What do I know I don't want? Who do I know I'm not? And then trial and error, play with, all right, so what feels good instead?

You know, I feel almost like an athlete, and I feel like I'm ready. I don't know what game I'm playing, but I feel like I'm ready to go do something here.

Your life, your life is the game, right? And you get to win it and conquer it and face it and move through it and get to the place where you're celebrating. I just tapped into the best of me, and that's enough. I don't know a better sport. To play.

So one thing that you said that kind of stuck out and I want to ask is you said something about finding yourself and not fitting into a certain thing. How did you get to the point in your life where you said, you know what, I'm done trying to fit into this, that? Or the other thing. I need to just fit into who Rebeccah is.

Well, here's the process really that I went through during my experience with cancer. It started with a commitment to life. And what I'm going to break down for you all right now is what I call the practice of emotional healing, because mindset and strategy, it's just never going to fill you or fulfill you or be enough. It's just not getting to the place where our mind is clear and we're able to regulate our own emotions so that we're clear enough emotionally to connect to our spirit that can always guide us and always will. And for me, my ability to be emotionally clear and connected to my spirit is for sure what saved my life. For sure. It was me and God, me and the divine, me and something bigger than me, whatever that means to you, that made every decision along the way that allowed me to be here. But it starts with a commitment to your life. You're either committed to living and to fully living, or you're surviving and living to die. And that's it. Those are our options. You're committed to your life. Or you're committed to living until you're dead. And for me, even though I was told I was dying, I decided I don't identify as sick or dying. I'm committed to living fully as much of this life that I am so blessed to have. As long as I'm blessed to have it, I get one precious life. I'm committed to being the best I can and to experiencing the best life has to offer me. So just starting there, is game-changing. Are you someone who is committed to fully living regardless of people's opinions, regardless of whether or not anybody understands or agrees or approves? Are you willing to be someone who's living a life that fits in with you, or are you trying to fit in to who everyone around you needs you to be for their comfort level? And for me, the moment that I recognized life is about fitting in with me, nothing else, was the moment I was standing looking out my kitchen window realizing it worked. It worked. You actually are going to make it. You are going to beat the 5% chance you've been given to live. It's done for me. And I never recommend anybody else quit chemo that's going through cancer. I ultimately ended up quitting chemo and a lot of holistic medicine. They had already done chemo for 4 and a half months. There was no evidence of disease in my body. I was muscle testing— for any of you that know about muscle testing— that the cancer had been in my blood. The chemo took care of it. Now it's not in my blood anymore. And I had quit chemo. And there was just this moment where it was so clear to me, there is no going back to how life was. There is only creating a life that fits in with me now because I really did make it and everything's different. Everything I thought was important, everything I thought mattered in terms of my success fitting in metrics, they were out the window. And now it was about how does it feel? Does this honor and respect and take care of me? And what fits in with me.

And that's very powerful when you get to that moment in your life where you're like, this chapter is over. I'm moving into this new chapter. And not only am I moving into a new chapter, but I'm putting behind some belief systems and letting go of maybe the external noise, and I'm looking a little more inward, and I'm looking to provide and to, I guess, bring something different to the world than I was previously. And was that the point, just so I can get the timeline correct, was that the point where you kind of went away from what you were doing with music therapy and into the career of entrepreneurship that you're now in?

Yeah. So here's how it happened. The, the bullet points, the Reader's Digest version of the timeline. We'll start at 20. I'm graduating my undergrad, moving to Denver, Colorado to work at the psych hospital as a music therapy intern, where I didn't just work at the psych hospital, I lived on the grounds of this 300-acre facility where the craziest of the crazies, the lost cause cases, go, right? And I'm 20 and I'm looking around and I'm realizing nobody here is really so far gone that healing isn't possible for them. I knew at 20 healing is possible, and these people don't have any way of managing and coping with their emotions, and almost none of them are actually mentally ill. They are in a trauma response. So I got super excited about learning about human behavior as a music therapist, and ended up getting a master's degree in counseling, working in school districts, starting a private practice part-time, working with families and individuals and couples that were just surviving. And I just started to get some clinical experience under my belt and get the reps in. But I was still focused on achievement, and my first marriage got violent really fast, and I had a baby, and it became so clear to me— this is the other pivotal moment before cancer that set me in motion being a full-time entrepreneur and going all in with— I'm going to help people heal. I realized I had a 4.0 GPA in my master's degree. I get it. I've worked already with so many people and with beautiful mentors and at a psych hospital, and I'm living exactly what I grew up in all over again. And I freaking know better. So what needs to happen? It wasn't enough what I learned in my counseling master's degree. It wasn't enough to understand Attraction 101. You attract— it's not your fault, you're not causing it, but you attract the opportunities to heal what you haven't healed yet. And patterns repeat until they're healed. And when I'm talking about patterns and healing, I'm talking about the experience of life you're having. So let me just make this simple real quick for everybody. It doesn't matter what's going on around you, it's how you're experiencing it that matters. And you have it in you— back to resilience, back to the truth of who you are— you have it in you to plug into your spiritual GPS, how you want to feel and how you want to experience the moment you're in. I don't care what's going on. And that is everything. And so for me, after the divorce, leaving this domestic violence marriage, I had my 2-year-old to motivate me because I wasn't gonna be the mom that I had, even though she did her best. I wanted better for us. I wanted to be the cycle breaker. And so it took me being a woman going bankrupt, leaving a domestic violence marriage, a single mom to realize, oh, you just throw your whole life at building this business where you get to help people, because now you're being the cycle breaker. Now you get it. It's not your destiny on an identity level, who you thought you were. You get to reinvent yourself. And so Rebeccah Silence had this guy's last name, became a woman with a voice who was fully expressed, who cared about kids having healed parents, generational trauma cycles ending, and full self-expression. Expression for anybody that wanted it. So I had all this in me already. Then cancer was like the second side of the coin to really lock in for me on an identity level. Achievement isn't all it's cracked up to be, and you'll achieve more than you can even imagine. And you get so much time back from a place of emotional clarity and emotional freedom and emotional healing. And all the accomplishments from here are frosting, because the biggest accomplishment is I know myself, I love myself, I trust myself, I listen to myself, and that's all I need, moment to moment, one breath at a time. And that's what I teach my audiences, my private VIP clients. That's what you learn when you experience my book, my courses, any type of work with me, is access to how enough you are and how smooth sailing it gets to be when you're just in alignment. But that domestic violence marriage and cancer are the two parts of my adult life that gave me the opportunity on an identity level to recreate myself and reintroduce myself to myself into the world as a much softer, more powerfully relaxed, freer Rebeccah Silence with nothing to prove and nothing to lose, by the way.

Oh my gosh, there are so many things you just said there that I wish we had another hour to talk about. Really, the first thing I'll tackle, and I'll see if I can remember anything else out of that, but breaking patterns is very hard to do. What do you say to people who are trying to break patterns and to try to break through and create new patterns in their life, more healthy patterns? Mm-hmm.

Well, let's identify it first, right? Like, what is the pattern you're finding yourself in? And for me, I try to make it simple. It's not easy, but find a word. Maybe you're in a pattern of experiencing rejection, betrayal, abandonment, self-doubt. But what's the experience you're having? And boil it down to a word or a few words, because that's the pattern you're in. Experience seeing life through these wound-colored glasses. And if you're suffering at all, if you're zapped, if you're exhausted, if you're wondering, when is it gonna get better? When is it gonna be my turn? You're in a trauma response and you're in a pattern to help yourself cope with that. And so all patterns can be broken. Healing is always possible. And so it's about knowing again What don't we want any more of? And what would we like it to feel like instead? And just know, all of us learned from our primary caregivers who did their best, who inherited— here's just what happens in this family, aka trauma patterns— that we don't have to pass on anymore. But this is real important as a mom and as a coach of thousands of success stories in my private practice over the years, and I've had a reach of millions now with my audiences. It's always the same thing. If something feels off, it is. And it's what you think needs to happen or is inevitable that you're fitting in with instead of fitting in with you that's causing the wonkiness internally. And for so many of us, we just try to stay busy and we just try to outachieve that niggling that is our inner highest self going, yeah, what in the actual hell are you doing? Because this isn't working for you. But so often we just try to take more action, do more to fill the void, instead of slowing it down and going, I'm in a pattern that I'm experiencing because I'm a vibrational match for it. Okay, that is The work is going, I don't want to dance with that vibration anymore, and nobody's going to die if I go, this isn't good enough for me, and I'm going to level up into being the person that experiences this differently, does this differently. I remember speaking out about my childhood abuse in my family for the first time, knowing that me saying the truth is the beginning of breaking a pattern. At the time, I was so convinced I was going to lose people I loved because I was following my heart and my path. That didn't happen. I lost anything that wasn't a vibrational match for how big I am as a spirit, how big I want my life to get, how ambitious I am, not just about all the achievement, but about here's how we get to feel. You get to be an incest survivor that has the best sex ever, the best, most beautiful intimacy ever. If you'll do the work, you get to be an entrepreneur creating on your terms, a parent, a spouse, you know, living on your terms. A friend, a community member. So it's about going, if I was living on my terms, how would I be navigating this moment? Who would I be? How would I feel? From there and only from there, what would I do, if anything? And in some cases, breaking the pattern is there's nothing to do. There's nothing to say. Ball's in that person's court. I'm gonna just do me at my best with the volume turned up all the way on me and trust. That's enough. But you break the pattern by identifying something isn't working, and then how do I want to feel, and then who would I need to be. And maybe you come from, you know, trauma cycles that everybody in your family makes money, loses it all. Maybe it is sexual, maybe it's addiction, maybe it's depression, maybe it's anxiety. But what in your family lineage is the flavor of how we deal with trauma instead of actually dealing with the trauma. That's probably the pattern you're still repeating, and it's not even you. I had— I have one quick client story. I had a client just yesterday, and we're talking about, okay, wait a minute, I get to do less and create more? And this is a woman who— she's the first woman in her family to ever make money, be a corporate executive that's doing really well. And we're talking about less is more on all kinds of levels, from all kinds of angles for her. And yeah, but in her family, you had to work harder to create the illusion that you were doing more, creating more, but it was never more, it was always less, because hard equates to less. But in her brain, these neural pathways, they're already formed to tell you, all right, this pattern means you survive. And this is why people stay in patterns of survival that feel like shit because they know they can survive it. They don't know they can survive alignment. They know they can survive survival. And I'll be the coach that says, hey everybody, if you can survive survival, you can survive alignment. I promise. You just have to be willing to see the information that you receive from that alignment that maybe isn't gonna be your preference. People maybe aren't going to support you that you really wish would. People might criticize you that you really wish would be like, oh my gosh, I'm so proud of you. It's information. You can survive it. And not everybody gets a seat at your table if they didn't earn it. Once you're aligned and you got to be brave enough to make those calls.

I identify with so much of what you're saying, and I personally totally identify with what you just said. As far as not everybody is like, especially people in your life are going to pat you on the back or give you the validation that you want. That is a very, very hard truth to comprehend and understand. And it, even with me knowing that front of mind and trying to live my life in that way, it's still hard. But you, you know, we're talking a lot about breaking patterns and you're saying a lot of things that are making me think of my own story, which I haven't really talked too much about on this show. And I really want to try to be careful because if anybody in my family ever listens, I don't want them writing to me or calling me saying, why did you say that? And blah, blah, blah. But what I will say, and I suppose maybe I should not care about that, but I kind of do a little. But I really, for me, I felt like, so I haven't talked to my family since really 2010. Haven't seen them, haven't been really in touch. And really for me, I felt like it was important to go off on my own. I just didn't feel without really talking, I don't want to talk about anybody personally or anything, but I just felt like it was time for me to break some patterns in my own life. And I just didn't feel like I fit into the culture that was my family and Really, like, I didn't feel like I fit into where I came from to begin with, although today I definitely have a lot more love for, like, my hometown and where I come from, and a lot of that has changed. But I, I really felt like it was important for me to preserve myself and to really take the path that I wanted to take in life, to distance myself and to go off and do my own thing and certainly wishing everybody well on the other end of that whole conflict and that whole situation. But I just felt like it wasn't really healthy for me and I felt like it was really important to break those patterns. And I, when you talk about breaking patterns in the way you just did, I just couldn't help but to think about about some of the decisions that I made and the choices that I made. And you really, when you're making decisions like that, you really just have to get very real with yourself. And it's a lot of realness that you gotta face and just say, hey, can I do this? Am I willing to walk away from this, something that feels very probably secure, whether it's really secure or not. Do I have the strength? Can I do that? And those are big questions to ask.

Well, and the answer is yes, you have the strength. And congratulations, and thank you for getting vulnerable, Mark, about what our conversation is activating in you in terms of allowing you to reflect on who you were, where you've been, how far you've come, and maybe now from this place, from this version of you, what feels important to address that maybe hasn't gotten addressed yet. And so many people— let me just say this about patterns in relationship— so many people end a relationship before they gave it the opportunity to be reinvented. And that is dangerous because you're going to repeat the pattern, maybe you put this person on a shelf or like on Ellen's Game of Games, you hit the button, they fell through the floor, and now they're gone. But those pain points, the wounds that you were experiencing in that relationship, if you didn't heal up your part of participating in the wound and the pattern, you create it all over again. And I've seen so many people that got divorced, this person was the problem, and they just become self proclaimed, I'm celibate now for the rest of my life, and they think it's going to solve all their issues. And then their boss is a jerk, their kid, their best friend— they have to deal with the same issue because they never healed the wound and broke the cycle and cleared the pattern. So don't end your relationships too soon. Of course, if there's actual physical harm happening and abuse, Yes, get the hell out of there faster than you can even get out of there. But I want us to recognize, in so many cases, we think the other person is the problem. And so if we just end the relationship, it changes how we feel, it ends the cycle. Not necessarily. If you're not at this place where you're soft and you heart wide open and— oh my gosh, I see I see you. I love you. I've tried. And you just want to keep doing the same thing, which means now I gotta love you from a distance. If you're not there, you're not ready to end it. I'm just gonna tell you.

So how do you get people to see that what they're doing is because of them versus what's going on externally? With them, or maybe to them.

Yeah, I'm just thinking of one client I had who came to me, my husband's the problem, my husband's the problem, my husband's the problem. And he was making it really easy for it to look like he was the problem. He was drinking too much, he was mean, he would even name-call her when he wouldn't get his way sometimes. It definitely wasn't a healthy situation. So he for sure wasn't being a good husband or a good dad, and he was definitely behaving badly. But my client was very comfortable making him the scapegoat instead of looking at how much she was enabling, how much she wasn't telling the truth about what she needed, what she was feeling, or what she was wanting. She was making it, I don't get to have my life because of you, instead of realizing I'm not committed to my life working for me. I am comfortable with, see why I don't get to have what I want, do what I want. Long story short, we worked with this couple. They did a 2-day couples intensive with me. He got really clear about where some of his behaviors were stemming from, did a lot of inner healing work, and she started a business, quit her comfortable job, started using her voice and being honest and having healthy boundaries. And they really gave it a shot. And it became, in this case, very clear that they weren't compatible in creating a future that supported what they each wanted as individuals. But they were able, because they had done all this work, to go, I bless you into your future. I bless you into your future. And my client realized she had put her dream business on hold. She had put her voice on mute. Nobody did that to her. And her kids got to see her rise into showing up to the party called her own life. And got to see their dad doing his healing work and her doing hers. And there was a divorce, but it wasn't a drama or a trauma because everyone was clear. And the healed versions of both these people were in charge of themselves and the family and where the relationship went next. So it's just never the other person that's the reason you feel like crap, or you're not talking, or you don't get to do what you want to do. If you're waiting for them them to like it, to approve, to get it, to change, that's on you. You get to sleep peacefully at night even when people you love are in a tough spot or behaving badly or don't agree with your pursuit. Nobody has told me in any phase of my company that it was a good idea what I was doing. I went to my hometown where I was severely traumatized, got on the top 40 radio station, started a radio show, and was the first coach in that community that was a life coach charging private pay rates that didn't take insurance. And I can't even tell you how many people were like, it's not going to work, Rebeccah Silence, trying to protect me from the failure they thought was inevitable. And what I knew, back to how you introduced me, I can see it, therefore I have it in me. The vision is so clear, right? So now I've trained and certified 19 coaches that are still in that community in upstate New York while I'm now in Boulder. I revolutionized life coaching in an entire community where I grew up in so much trauma because I saw it and I just kept— and this is so key— focusing on, all right, what's the next step? I hold the vision and I carve it out one step at a time. I don't recommend any of you get too far ahead of yourself. Let the vision carry you through. Let the next right, correct step be enough. And no, maybe you don't have it figured out. Yet, yet, just stay in the game. Just rest in your resilience. Just trust that even if you've never seen it before, it doesn't mean you don't have it in you, or it's too big of a goal or a dream, or it's not supposed to happen. Go for it. You can see it for a reason. Go for it.

Well, before we wrap this up, and I— you again have me running through a brick wall for you. Before we really wrap this up, you mentioned one thing that hopefully is a good segue from what you're talking about. You talked a bit about achievement and finding just basically what that means to you as an individual. And I know for me, that definition has changed, especially since I started doing this podcast. Because for me, while yeah, I would love to have a billion trillion gazillion listeners and would love to have tons of accolades and things like that, for me, really, the achievement, the accomplishment is having a great guest like you on the show and just getting that high of like, what a great conversation and just feeling good about what I'm putting out in the world. And how do you communicate and break down achievement for other people so that they're not aiming too high? Because you want people to see it and dream it and go, oh, aim too high.

Please aim too high.

Okay.

Please, please, please. Because you meet the bar where it's set. So if you're hedging your bets so that you can fail on your terms, so you can brace for disappointment, you are doing yourself such a disservice. So I apologize for jumping in right there, but please aim too high. Okay? Please. And I think what you're asking me is, all right, how do we have those new metrics of success when the metrics of success that we know maybe aren't that fulfilling. Here's the deal. Be the person who does the thing for you and give it your all, because from there it now is a gift you gave yourself. And it is, you know, when I was writing my book, I had the best writing advice. Someone said, you need to be writing in creativity mode. Step away, and then come in in editing mode. If you're trying to edit while you're creating, you're gonna just create a mess, and it's not gonna be fun. So it should be fun. It should be for you. And it's about, I'm the person who does this thing for me. And the more you're just raw and real, and I'm not gonna worry about where this goes yet. I'm just gonna have fun. I'm gonna source emotionally clear, connected to my spirit in co-creation with the divine, there's no way it doesn't take off and reach the right people because now it's essentially a divine assignment. So I, it took 4 years to get this book written, to get my agent, to get a major publisher to pick me up. But by the time I got the agent and the publishing deal, I was like, that was fun. I spent countless 3-day stints in a hotel listening to Lil Wayne radio just pouring my heart out. And it was a mess at first, a mess. But I was like, I'm just going to have fun with it. I'm going to tell this story first for me. Then I'm going to be editing it from a perspective of what did I need? What did 14-year-old Rebeccah that was ready to take her own life, getting raped and having all these things happen to her, what did she need to hear? It was me with me, me for me, me with God, for me to get it to a place where I was super proud of it. And then I can't even believe how beautifully it's been received. You can get Coming Back to Life at rebeccahsilence.com. Enjoy it. It's won a couple of awards and it's got exercises in there to basically take everything you and I have been talking about today, Mark, from theory into your day-to-day experience. It's Coming Back to Life, a roadmap to heal from pain, to create the life you want your way. Like, there's not a right or wrong way to live your life. There's what works for you. And unfortunately, too many people have no idea what would work for them, and they are trying to fit in. And I want your life from this second forward to be about what fits in with me. And then you risk it. You risk it. And this book will give you tools to self-validate in the moment you feel like like, none of it's worth it, or working, and who do I think I am? Those moments are inevitable. But you have the dream, which you already know what it is. What is it? I don't know. You do. You have the dream. You can see it. You can taste it. You were brave enough, Mark, to go, okay, I'm gonna distance myself from what disconnects me to me. I'm gonna start this show. And now I'll just lovingly challenge you that you're in a place where you're aware enough and enough of a leader that maybe you can revisit some of the family relationships that you put on a shelf for a little while, or the patterns or whatever it is that's in the way of you no longer identifying as the person who can't, but as the person who, of course I can, and I can do it at my pace and on my terms, whatever that looks like for me. And you can all do that that are listening to me.

Absolutely incredible. I, and I'm glad that you cut me off when you did. I mean, I don't think, I don't know if I quite meant it the way that maybe it came out, but I guess basically for me, because I've always dreamed big. I mean, you're talking to somebody who, when they were younger, they wanted to write their own their own sitcom, and I still dream about doing stuff. Like, if you've seen Forgetting Sarah Marshall, I dream of having that moment where I write the show or the musical or whatever, and I finally make it to that apex, whatever that might be. And I still dream like that, but I think there's also a certain, like maybe on another tier somewhere where I'm trying to also keep it like, okay, I just put out my first episode of my podcast. Don't expect like 50,000 listens right off the bat. And you know, just for me, important to build yourself up and sure, dream big. Like I definitely totally agree with you on dreaming big. I'll never stop dreaming big.

Yeah. And just stay in the game like we've been talking about this whole episode, right? And don't overwhelm yourself with, well, I want this and I want this and I want this and I want this and I want this and I can see this and I can see this. One thing, one dream at a time. And the great question to ask yourself is, is it worth going all in on? Pick one thing that your heart knows it absolutely worth it to go all in on this. Because if you're not committed, meaning you're all in, like whatever it takes, as long as it takes. I knew I was all in with committing to staying alive with this cancer diagnosis, to getting this book out there, to doing a couple of podcasts I've done. Right now we're working on a TV show, and I'm very clear I've gotten every goal I've ever committed to. So why should this be every, ever different, right? As long as it takes, whatever it takes. Let yourself burn the option of it's not going to work. Go all in, all in. Stay inspired one step at a time. Go back to inspiration as much as you need to. That's unrelated to the goal to keep you in that vibe. But you're meant for it. You have everything you need. You are everything you need. And you don't need a crisis or for your life to bottom out or for a breakdown to go, What am I doing? It's time to live. Just decide. Decide to decide. It is time. It is your time. You are enough. You're fully equipped. And then you're not pursuing this goal to prove anything or to fill a void. It's because it'll be fun for you and you're supposed to do it for you, not for anybody else. And then go for it.

Well, I'm gonna go for it. And ask you, so you already mentioned your wonderful book. How else can people find you, get a hold of you, and work with you?

Please visit me at rebeccahsilence.com. Rebecca has an H, R-E-B-E-C-C-A-H. Silence, like be quiet, even though I'm obviously not. rebeccahsilence.com. There's a free masterclass you can opt in as soon as you get to my page and watch it right away, an hour The 3 Must-Know Secrets to Heal and Save Your Family. And there's courses— my Emotional Survival Kit, my Reclaim and Rediscover You 5-day challenge, my book, and access to my private services are all there. You can certainly also subscribe to and check out my YouTube channel, and I'm all over social media at Rebeccah Silence.

I almost mentioned your YouTube channel. I was like, don't you leave that out. That's something Thank you. Well, Rebeccah Silence, self-healing and relationship expert, thank you so much for taking some time out of your busy schedule and to chat with me about healing and self-healing. And my goodness, I could go another hour, but we have things we gotta do. We got lives to live. So I'm gonna wrap it up here. Thank you so much for being on Mark My Words. This was a real pleasure. I love digging into topics like this. So thank you so much for being here today.

Thank you for having me, and what a beautiful show. Everyone be careful with each other's hearts and reach out. I'd love to hear from you.

Well, I can't wait to hear more from you in the future. This was Amazing. So thanks again. Thank you all for listening. I am Mark Schmidt. This is Mark My Words, and I will see you soon with another show. Bye for now. Thanks again for taking time out of your busy every day to listen to Mark My Words. If you would like to connect with me beyond the show, you can find me on LinkedIn at Mark Schmidt, where I will be talking about entrepreneurship, careers, and anything else that is on my mind. You can also connect with me on Twitter and Instagram at @nimrod1977. 79 and Nimrod 79 respectively. This podcast also has a page on Instagram at Mark My Words. And finally, if you want to leave me a voicemail or check out what I'm up to with the podcast, come find me at podpage.com/mark-my-words. Thanks again for listening, and I'll be back with a new episode soon. Bye for now.