Rebeccah Silence – Healing High-functioning Unhappiness

Hi there, and thank you for joining us on the Overcomers Overcoming podcast. We feature those who are in the process of overcoming or have overcome any type of life encounter, life obstacle that at the time seemed to be almost insurmountable. With this podcast, we have 3 objectives in mind. Our first objective is we want you to know with a confident resolve you're not alone. We want to work with you. We want you to know there are others who are working with you, who want to help you through whatever you are encountering, and together we will get through whatever you're experiencing.

Our second objective is there are multiple options for any life encounter you are facing. We want to help you develop a resolve that there are various options and solutions to any life dilemma.

Our third objective is to help you with critical thinking skills. If you're encountering something that was possibly a decision you made sometime in the past, and if you had the opportunity for a life redo, you would make a different decision. We want to help you with those critical thinking skills that can help you make an informed decision and not encounter what you're going through at the moment. We are The Cooper Culture, a veteran-owned business. We work with business personnel and families to develop and sustain connected relationship cultures within their families and organizations. That type organization is one where people feel wanted, appreciated, and genuinely a part of that organization. I'm with my wife and business partner, Marty, who is helping me facilitate this podcast. Today we feature Rebeccah Silence, who discusses with us her family upbringing. And by her description, she was abused in every possible way a child can be abused. From that abusing in her life, she suffered a trauma, but she made a decision when she was in her 20s that she was going to use her trauma as a way to move forward and help others who are living some sort of life trauma But she reached a point in her life where she just made the decision, I'm going to do better, and I'm going to help others. It's a great life story of being in a family with, as she describes, a narcissist. And she was encouraged to remain silent about everything, but she was able to overcome. Marty, what are some takeaways our listeners can gain from Rebeccah Silence?

I admire Rebeccah Silence and her determination to not let the trauma determine her life, her happiness, and decided to take it and coach others so that they too can overcome the trauma. They too can make the trauma to their advantage and help others.

And many people are living a life of trauma because The family culture is one where just get over it. We don't discuss this. Many people are holding inward challenges they are having to endure, and they're not performing at their best and their design potential. Let's listen and learn together how we can overcome life trauma to be the person God created us to be.

Rebeccah Silence, it's great to have you with us. We are going to learn from your life experience, I believe, about coming from various life traumas and recovering from. And Rebeccah, our listeners are going to be very interested in knowing how to recover from various life traumas. I know some of our listeners have been raised in a family environment where they have been told verbally, nonverbally, but the expectation is, come on, just get over yourself. We don't sit around the table, talk about this kind of stuff, whatever stuff is. And some people live for years, maybe even decades, with various life traumas. They don't feel they have an avenue to even discuss this with a person because they were raised in a family that that's not our culture. So Rebeccah, you may be the person who can help our listeners uncover and just know that there are people who care and it is all right to discuss any life traumas and so forth. But Rebeccah, it's great to have you with us.

Well, thank you both for having me, Ron and Marty. I'm very excited and I think this can be a powerful, life-changing discussion for people today.

Let's start out, Rebeccah.

Would you— I'm just going to guess you might be living the benefits of your life experience. Maybe you too have experienced trauma. If I'm supposing correctly, would you feel comfortable explaining any part of that? And we're not here to dwell on the past. Yeah, absolutely. Just so I know what you've recovered from.

Absolutely. So One of the things that I do in my work— I've been helping people heal since 2002, so almost a quarter of a century worth of actual success stories where I am teaching people how to use trauma to their advantage. And what I define trauma as is heartbreak, right? So I lovingly suggest, if that is the definition, no one is immune to trauma, and there's no trauma that we can't use to our advantage. I really am the space where all healing is possible. And the way I define healing is freedom. So if there's no trauma or heartbreak we can't use to our advantage, and if there's nothing that can't heal and become an opportunity for more freedom, I think that is an interesting conversation. So I grew up in domestic violence, in an alcoholic home, abused in every way imaginable, and I decided very, very young There has to be a better way. And why can't people just love each other? Why is it so hard to be good to people? And I made a decision very, very young that I was going to learn how to be love no matter what, that I was going to learn how to be the best of me no matter what. And I didn't necessarily have that language as a young child, but I had that commitment. Fast forward, I became a board-certified music therapist. I worked in a state psychiatric hospital. I recognized at 20 years old, there is no way that the majority of these people are crazy. They just don't know how to move beyond their patterns of coping and self-protection. They don't know what to do with their emotions. They don't know how to navigate their environment. And so I ultimately decided I was going to get a master's degree in counseling and become an expert in human behavior. Wow. This is the part of the story I really want listeners to hear because I think we try to outwit our past and out-achieve it and understand it, and then we think that's going to break a cycle. I had a 4.0 grade point average in my master's counseling program, and it wasn't enough to stop me from ending up in my own domestic violence marriage. Because understanding trauma isn't enough to break the cycle. And what nobody else will tell you is our trauma is actually very comforting, and it's very comfortable because we know we can survive it. So it wasn't till I was about 27, getting out of a domestic violence marriage, with a young child that I really started to learn and understand what it takes to break a cycle and how to reinvent ourselves in a way where we get to experience the good stuff and joy and peace and pleasure unapologetically and without fear. And that's the work I do with my clients now, is help them set themselves free so they can live a joy-filled life and have all of the good that they deserve without that need to stay comfortable in patterns and cycles that don't serve them anymore.

Let me interject here, Rebeccah Silence, and help us a little bit more with the term moving beyond and so forth, that I'm gonna guess you are much more assertive now than you were pre-age 27. Something to the effect you could say now, not me, not you, not ever. Nope, I set boundaries, if that would be the correct term. But maybe earlier in life you maybe were not as aware of yourself as you are now, and you just kind of accepted things, and which included abuse. Am I even close to anywhere close to describing?

Yeah, so here's Here's the irony, right? I was so committed to silence and not rocking the boat and not losing people and avoiding conflict at all costs that I ended up ultimately marrying a man with the last name Silence. Rebeccah Silence is not just some stage name. I actually had this name legally and keep it professionally because I thought silence was the way and silence was the answer. And I'm not alone in this. I experience You know, my clients who are what I lovingly describe as high-functioning and unhappy when they come to me, right? I was high-functioning and unhappy and muting myself because I didn't want other people to be uncomfortable, and I was willing to be the one that was uncomfortable in the name of peace, in the name of love, which is a real shit show, right? That's not effective, and it's actually very toxic for us. So, you know, when, when we're talking about generational trauma healing, and I've won global awards, I was named by Business Insider the top emotional health coach in the world in 2022 for my work. I teach what I call the practice of emotional healing, and it's about being safe with your truth, being safe with yourself emotionally, and unwilling to betray ourselves ever again in the name of love. That's what my work is about. And anybody in your life that does not want you free, fully expressed, and fully you, I think you want to know, instead of not wanting to lose that relationship, what would it be like to be willing to get the information so that you can surround yourself with people that want the healed you and want to be the healed them? We all grow up. Creating a survival self. Okay, and here's what I mean by that. Rebeccah Silence was created because she thought silence was the answer. I have a mayor of a town, very wealthy, you know, polished, wonderful client who learned to be nice and to be good. She's not that nice. She's a powerhouse, right? I learned to be silent. Think about what it was for you, every gorgeous heart listening. What you decide was the right way to survive your family system. And then mistakenly, you believed that's who you are. That's your survival self. And so many of us have that version of us running our lives.

Now, the term high functioning, I'm processing what you're saying and tell me if I'm not processing it correctly. You can put on a very effective mask that you are deeply, deep within, you're hiding something, but yet in the open space of work, whatever, you can hide that behind a mask. Am I processing that correctly?

Yeah. And when I talk about high-functioning unhappiness, it's really about life on paper looks great, right? You're achieving. You've got, you know, the job, you've got the family, you've got the stuff. But I want your life to feel even better than it looks on paper. And for so many people with high-functioning unhappiness, which is the term I coined, They don't even know that's what's happening, and they don't necessarily believe happiness is even real. So I come in and I'm all of 5 foot 2. I'm not that scary, but it is scary, right, to face our emotions, to face our past, and to face this decision to break up with survival so we can reinvent ourselves and become the version of ourselves that we've always imagined was in there, right? You used the term boundaries earlier. When I'm talking about boundaries, with clients and with audiences. I'm talking about what honors and respects and takes care of you. And if you want to be high-functioning and happy, you have to be willing to honor, respect, and take care of yourself above making sure everybody's happy with you and no one's upset with you. And so much of a trauma response that's going on with so many of you is you don't want anybody upset. But internally, are you at peace? Are you joyful? Are you resting in a place where your life is on your terms? Because if not, that's the goal, and that's what you deserve. And nothing bad happens from that place, only good.

What I'm hearing is, and I'm trying to speak for possibly a listener who is under the domination of a narcissist whether it's male or female, and they think, oh golly, I, um, this is just the way life has been forever and ever, and if I were to set these quote boundaries, this person may come back at me and there may be some physical harm and so forth. But Rebeccah, is there a point in a person's life that you just have to, if necessary, seek the shelter, make the decision and change the life and be— you'll have to do whatever you have to do to be protected from— I'm not even sure how to word my question.

I got your question wrong because I think what happens is we think something's wrong with us if we don't want to tolerate what we've known love to be that looks abusive. So I had to get out of a domestic violence marriage. It wasn't easy. It was one of the hardest decisions I've ever had to make. But I thought love and abuse went together. Like peanut butter and jelly. And your story might not on paper look that severe, but I want you to understand, if you're putting up with someone who's cold and shut down or mean to you, or basically it feels bipolar because on one hand they love bomb you and they're great, and then when you don't do what they want, they treat you like crap, right? Like, there's so many layers and there's so many levels and there's so many versions of this. Right? But here's what I want you to know: nothing's wrong with you. I had a client last year going through a brutal divorce with a narcissist, and he just went for the jugular more and more and more when she kept standing up. And when she kept finally saying, this isn't good enough for me, and I'm unwilling to participate in this dynamic that is so dysfunctional with you, he kept trying to up the ante. That might happen, okay? In my book Coming Back to Life: A Roadmap to Heal from Pain to Create the Life You Want. In the very back, I include a ton of resources because you aren't going to be able to break a cycle alone. And I called the book Coming Back to Life not because of all of the crazy I've survived, but because every client I've ever had— over 1,000 success stories in my private practice— they look at me and they say, Rebeccah, I just came back to life, and I didn't even know I wasn't fully living. So it's, it's baby steps. And with boundaries, it's really about, are you going to be brave enough to say, I don't do this dance anymore? I don't put up with verbal abuse. I don't put up with mental abuse. I don't put up with the part of me that wants to people-please, right? A boundary is really a you-with-you game. It's really— this is a great exercise for everyone— I am not someone who, and I am someone who. So I had to make a decision, and I'm going to invite you all to make a decision right here, right now, that I am not someone who puts up with abuse and bad behavior. I am someone who loves and respects myself no matter what. And if you're in danger, you get help. You call a domestic violence shelter and you ask for help in removing yourself from the situation, or you call the police, you call friends. I had a book club 40 women showed up to my doorstep to help my daughter and I move out of the house I was in into a little apartment. And I knew I was gonna end up bankrupt. I knew I was gonna end up on my own with this child. I just knew it. But I wasn't willing to keep me or my kid in what I grew up in another second. And one more just quick nugget here for all of your nervous systems' benefit. You don't need a breakdown to break through. You do not need to wait for it to get worse for you to make the brave choice to have a better, healthier, safer, more joyful life. It's just a decision, and it is that simple. It's not easy, but it is that simple. And I want you to know you deserve life the way you've always imagined you could have it. But you have to break the cycle. And what's hard is when your family system or your friend group, your environment, even your workplace— this is just what's normal. It's easy to feel like you're crazy. You're not crazy. You just have to go first in being brave enough to say no to what isn't good enough for you and yes to a life that loves and respects you as much as you love and respect others. And it takes a while to clear out the backlog and to build a new foundation, but the best of you has already handled so much and survived so much, and the best of you deserves a beautiful, magical, magically delicious life. So go let yourself have it.

I want to ask you, talk to the mother that says, I can't do this to my child.

Yeah, that was me.

I can't, I can't I can't hurt them because they may take the blame. Oh, this is my fault. And if I would have been this way or that way, this would have never happened. So speak to the woman that is facing that.

What I would say to you is it's not your fault. You've done nothing wrong. Your need to make sure your child is cared for and protected and not harmed is so beautiful. I have chills. And this was me. And I thought I had done harm. By marrying my first husband and having this child and putting this child in this environment. Where I really would have done harm is if I stayed in it. That is where the real harm lies. And don't you dare think for one second that you are not the sun, moon, and stars. You are the sun, moon, and stars, and you have the most beautiful future ahead of you if you will be brave enough to say, I didn't create this inherited trauma. I didn't start these patterns or these cycles, but what I can promise my inner child, my children, every life I'm meant to bless and touch, is that the cycle ends with me. You're not responsible for how other people respond to you or whether or not they want a healed, free life, but you are responsible for being healed living healed and setting yourself free. And then people get that you, you're not doing harm by breaking up with the bullshit. You're doing harm by continuing to say yes to it because you don't wanna make things worse.

Coming back, part of your book title might connote a journey of some period of time. Can you tell our listeners how long it took for you to recover or, might you say that it's a lifetime, lifelong journey of continuing to recover, albeit maybe you're over the worst of it?

Yeah, yeah, yeah. So the word recover is such an interesting word, right? What we really want to recover is the truth of who you are, your power, your strength, your passion, your peace, your joy, right? For me, I spent hundreds upon hundreds of thousands of dollars on the best of the best in the world to help me heal. And now I am able to fast-track healing for you. Pain starts in a moment and healing happens in a moment. So my work is about— we're not managing symptoms and we're not really worried about mindset or strategy, because mindset and strategy work is really kindergarten when it comes to personal growth and breaking patterns and cycles. So it will take as long as it takes. A year of coaching with me is at least a decade of healing. One session with me is 1 to 3 years worth of healing and liberation. If you are willing and open and unwilling to stay in the crazy, it can be faster than you can imagine. But we have identity work to do, which is what takes the longest. What I mean by that is you're used to life as you know it. You've normalized it. You're actually safe there. I say often in interviews, one of the scariest nights of my life was the night I spent with my second husband because I didn't know what to do with a safe guy. If it was an abusive man, I would have been sleeping like a baby. I knew what to do there. I didn't know what to do with a safe guy. So where the real healing lies is in upleveling your identity, and you don't wake up knowing who you are. Right? My client last year going through the very difficult divorce didn't know who she was without her husband. You don't just wake up one day and know who you are. You decide, who am I wanting to be? What do I want life to look like? And who do I have to be to have that be my life, right? So you don't need as much time as you think to recover. This book has won awards— Best Self-Worth, Best Self-Love— because it helps you reinvent yourself safely, gently, lovingly. There's exercises at the end of every single chapter. But nobody tells you how hard it is to trust it's safe to be this me I don't know yet, I don't trust yet, I don't recognize yet. So it takes practice. But the healing part, the recovery part, that doesn't take long. We just have to heal up the stuck age, heal you through your stuck emotions, and then make a new commitment to yourself. The next part is just the practice, the integration, the commitment every day that this is who I am now, even though I feel like an impostor in my own life. And you may have a lot of people you have to let go of along the way because you're not willing to participate in the madness anymore. But the more you say yes to you, the more you stay open-hearted, healed, and free, the more you attract people who are doing that work too. And who have those values too. So I can promise you, you won't end up alone. It just may look different, and that's not a bad thing.

And I ask you very confidentially, are you remarried right now?

Oh, I sure am. Yeah, my second husband and I have been together 14 years. We've been through the wringer, and it is the most delicious, blissfully joyful experience of love. Every single day I wake up pinching myself. And he was looking for healed love as much as I was looking for healed love. And life keeps lifing, but man, are we a solid tight team, and it's so beautiful. And I want— I specialize in comeback love stories, right? If there's really anything I do, I specialize in comeback love stories. And it is never too late for a comeback love story, and I'm living it, and I'm so grateful.

I am very happy here, Marty and I both, that you've got it together with the new husband. I know there are some people who would say never again, I got no need for, and I've been through it once and I'm not— I am not going to risk another one of any kind like that. I'm just glad to know for you that you were able to, I guess, identify yourself and work through any challenges you may have to find the right man.

Well, and this is what I do with clients day in and day out, right? Because love never hurt you. Unhealed people did. So we associate love with the trauma, and that is so the wrong direction, right? Love never hurt you. Unhealed people did. And the more healed you are, like attracts. You attract people who are healed and value healing too. And when you're healed, you can do so much, be so much more for the people you love and serve. And when you attract someone who's already healed and values healing, they can be there for you in a whole different way that you've been missing. So it is the bravest work in the world to take on your emotional healing. It is the most worth it work in the world. And what you get is comeback love story experience in all areas of life every single day, which is so worth it.

You are located in Boulder, Colorado.

I am.

Can you work with people outside of that area? In other words, I'm asking, can you work with people virtually or do you need to be in person?

I work with people all over the world and my phone sessions can happen from anywhere. There's also courses, the book. I have a membership community for women called the Own Your Voice Society. There are so many ways to work with me from wherever you you are physically, emotionally, mentally, or spiritually.

Where can people get your book?

Okay, you can go to Amazon to get Coming Back to Life: A Roadmap to Heal from Pain to Create the Life You Want, but you can get it everywhere books are sold. I am so blessed to have Health Communications Incorporated as my publisher. Go to rebeccahsilence.com is the best way to find me to get the book the courses, the access to private services, Rebeccah has an H, R-E-B-E-C-C-A-H Silence, S-I-L-E-N-C-E.com. And I have a free gift for all of you. My 3 Must-Know Secrets to Heal and Save Your Family Masterclass is right on the homepage at RebeccahSilence.com. So if you like this, you can go get that free gift as well.

Well, just curious, how long did it take for you to recover from, I mean, just an approximate timeframe? I mean, was this a couple of weeks or has it— how long has it been? Oh gosh.

No, I've been working on my healing since 2002 as well. Really, where the rubber met the road was when I started working with Master Coaches with my therapy background. It was about 2 years of feeling gutted and like the dam burst open and like I may be going crazy or may never recover from ripping off the Band-Aid and starting the process of healing. But I didn't have me as my coach. My clients get to be liberated so quickly and held so safely. And so I never wanna say it takes a certain amount of time, but I will say it's faster than you can fathom when you're brave enough to take on your emotional healing.

Is there a preferred way to contact, or for our listeners to contact you? Through the email, telephone, or do you have a preferred method?

DM me @rebeccahsilence on Instagram for the most direct contact. But you can also send me a message from rebeccahsilence.com.

Great. Rebeccah, on behalf of our listeners, I want to thank you for the life that you are leading, the life you have overcome, and for reaching out to help others. Because yes, there are others who are under the domination of and there's a better life than what you're experiencing. To our listeners, I'm speaking, and there are some who have been told all their life, you just stay silent about it. And but people need to reach out to find others who care. You clearly are one of those who care. So Rebeccah, I want to thank you for the life you're leading, the business you have, and helping others to recover, to recover. And to come back to life. Thank you so much for being with us.

We appreciate having the opportunity to share our and our guests' life experiences with you.

The Cooper Culture advances organizations to achieve and sustain high retention rates, connected communication, and trust through personality insights and principled leadership. You can contact us at our website thecooperculture.com, and you can contact us directly at ron@thecooperculture.com or marty@thecooperculture.com. We work with you to help assess aspects of your culture to advance the environment and people to their best performance. We do that through our staff of certified personal performance coaches, leadership trainers, keynote speakers, and DiSC personality behavior experts. You can book a speaking engagement directly through our website by contacting us at ron@decooperkulture.com. We look forward to sharing our life experiences with you, some of which are profound, some of which are pretty funny. Some of those life experiences are We are ones who will never do that again because we've been through stuff. We truly look forward to working with you, speaking with you, helping advance you in any way that we can.