Unleash Your Emotional Superpower – Rebeccah Silence’s Journey to Healing and Freedom

Hello!

Welcome to LOA Today. I'm Wolf Thiessen. I've been doing this podcast since September of 2012, and boy, are my lips tired. This is your daily dose of happy. We are so happy you decided to join us today. And Jody Lynn is not joining us today. She's, uh, her husband actually surprised her with a special trip. I don't even know what the details are, but they're off doing something fun. So hopefully we'll find out about that next week. But this week I am joined by Rebeccah Silence, one of the best last names of anybody we've ever had in our program. And you'll find out why in a minute because there's also a story. I mean, that's always signification, right? Everybody who comes onto the show has a story, and that's part of the reason we like having them to come on the show. But you'll find out very quickly that her last name has real significance tied into her story. And I think that's where I'm going to go first. So Rebeccah, first of all, welcome to the program. How you doing today?

Well, I am thrilled to be here and ready for my daily dose of happy and to serve up some happy for all of the audience. Yeah, and my last name, I'm always asked, is it really your last name? And this is a legal name. I got married at 23 and I was married to a guy with the last name Silence. The marriage turned domestic violence. I ended up getting out with a 2-year-old, and at the time I still was pretty shut down. And even with a master's degree in counseling and a 4.0 GPA, I understood patterns repeat and we recreate trauma that hasn't healed yet. But I found myself smack dab in the middle of reliving what I thought, because I had done so much growth work already, I had healed. And the last name Silence really was transformational because getting out of the marriage, I found my voice and became this me that my second husband, you know, says he can't even fathom— the me that was meek and shut down and had voice. I've had a couple lifetimes in this lifetime.

So you got your voice back and then some is what you're saying?

Oh, yes. In the intro, you're talking about, man, my lips are tired. I laugh because I talk all day, every day, and nobody's shutting me up anytime soon.

Absolutely fabulous. But I totally appreciate what you're saying. In fact, I think that's a fairly common thing among people who go into psychology. As a general field, whether they go into it as a therapist or a psychologist or a social worker or whatever it might be, they're often driven to go there because of their own stuff. That's what kind of motivates them to be there in the first place. And then they, like you were describing so beautifully, you know, they learn this stuff, they say, okay, I'm an expert at this, and they still haven't unearthed all their own stuff. I mean, it's an amazing trend, but it happens over and over and over again so often, and it's innocent.

So nobody judge yourself. Let's give right forgiveness and grace. But the thing is, my work is about healing trauma and healing the emotions in an effort for people to be absolutely free. My definition of healing is freedom. So I'm here— I wrote a book, Coming Back to Life: A Roadmap to Heal from Pain to Create the Life You Want, to have an empowered conversation about how to use life in all of its seasons, including trauma, to our advantage. And most traditional therapy is trying to heal emotions through the mind and giving managing and coping and mindset hacks, which isn't enough to break the pattern or to heal the root of where the pain started. And if we don't get to the root of it, all we're doing is treating symptoms and managing and coping. And then I think it's the worst kind of hell to have an understanding and then nothing's changing, not how I feel, not what's going on around me. So it's almost worse to be awake and aware and then you're still reliving what you know, you don't have to be living. And my work is about making it simple, accessible, and easy to actually set yourselves free, actually and literally, not just conceptually.

I like that. And we're going to go into that in greater detail. One thing that I long noticed, I mean, I have a great deal of respect for therapists. Some of my best friends are therapists. There are a lot of good things that come out of therapy, but there is one pattern that does tend to play out a lot in therapy, and it depends very much on who the therapist is. But the pattern is to just keep hitting the same pain point over and over again and not get any growth out of it. It's kind of astonishing how often that happens.

Well, and it's not the therapist's fault, and I am a trained therapist. I mean, I am so grateful for my clinical background as well as my coaching certifications and my coaching background. But in traditional therapy training, you're not taught how to get to the root of anything. You're taught how to facilitate helping people manage symptoms. And the training just isn't there. So I created what I call the practice of emotional healing, which I think solves for closing the gaps. I think I couldn't agree with you more. Therapy is wonderful. And it's absolutely beneficial. But if you're still dissatisfied and unfulfilled, and like, when are we going to get to the other side of this thing, there is actually a better way. And I call it the practice of emotional healing. Because what we're looking at is in any pain pattern, there's an experience you had, and you got stuck emotionally at the age you were when the experience happened, and emotions got stuck. So we've got to uplevel the experience you're having, and heal up the stuck age and heal through and release in a healthy way the stuck emotion, and then you're free. And I know that might sound like a lot and like I'm making this sound really simple. It is this simple. It's not easy, but again, most practitioners aren't trained to actually help you heal through your survival self and the stuck age and the stuck emotion and elevate the experience you're having. Most are helping you put a bandaid on a bullet hole, for lack of a better way to say it.

Yeah. You're reminding me of something. This is a phrase that I've been using a lot over the last few episodes, probably because it's from a TV series that I enjoy, the Ted Lasso, Apple TV. Yes, love that story. And, and you'll, you know, the, the social work or therapist, I guess she is in that particular, uh, show, she has one really, really, really great phrase that comes out of it. She says, the truth will set you free, but first it's going to piss you off.

Oh yeah, I mean, talk about it, like you're dying. Yeah, I mean, I say this all the time, like we all have a survival self. And we started the show talking about my last name, the Rebeccah Silence that got married the first time at 23. 3 didn't know she was fun and carefree and full of life and had a voice and had value and was a leader. I was very much focused on being as invisible as possible. That wasn't the truth of who I am, right? But when we start to not only identify our survival self but heal it, it can feel like we're dying, but we're not. It's the ego. And that is an indication, not that something's wrong, but that you're in a rebirth.

There is an important distinction too, and we'll get into that in a moment. Let's talk a little bit though about how this came about. I mean, I don't think this sprouted out of the ground. I think you probably developed it. Tell us a little bit about the development behind this.

Yeah, you know, I have been helping people heal since 2002. I was an intern as a music therapist at the State Psych Hospital in Colorado, and I was working on all of the units. So the adolescent inpatient crisis unit, the long-term adolescent unit, multiple adult units, geriatric unit, kids unit. And at 21, I just was certain the majority of these lovely individuals were not crazy. They had no ability to manage and regulate their emotions. So I didn't know how I was going to do it. But I was going to become an expert in human behavior. And that was the beginning of that commitment and that dream. Fast forward, after working in drug and alcohol rehab facilities and adult psych facilities as an activity director and social worker, I got pregnant, got my master's in counseling, learned a lot, and then ended up seeing what was missing, not again, knocking therapy, but there were some missings. And I immersed myself in working with coaches and getting coaching certifications. And then I've, at this point, been in private practice 16 and a half years. But it wasn't until I got diagnosed with cancer at 34 while I was pregnant with my second baby in my second marriage with a thriving business in every part of my life beyond my wildest dreams come true that I was like, okay, wait a minute, wait a minute, wait a minute. Like, what's important? And the practice of emotional healing was born as I went through cancer. And it was a lot of what I had already been teaching, but I didn't have it packaged yet. It just felt like magic before cancer. And then I realized I was given a 5% chance to live. Really? And yeah, I somehow, some way kept the company going while I was sick. And my radio show kept airing in my community, and the community rallied around me. And I was given a 5% chance to live. And I just knew now is the time to not only practice what you teach and preach, but to really understand what do you teach? What do you practice? Who are you? Because everybody can be their best when life is going our way.

Sure.

And I just had this very clear thought one day. Who are you going to be now, Rebeccah? Are you going to stay the best of yourself? Are you going to keep being the truth of who you really are? And I did. And I beat cancer.

And congratulations, by the way.

Thank you. The practice of emotional healing was born and I'm here, a statistical anomaly.

Yeah, it's amazing how many of these statistical anomalies are popping up these days. They're popping up all over the place. But You know, it's a very anomalous culture, so I'm okay with that. But I do like this, um, this topic for a number of different reasons, not the least of which is you had everything going so well, and yet it was all in the process of very quickly falling apart. That happens, I think, a lot more often than we're willing to acknowledge and admit. It happens very frequently, and it has a certain degree of shame attached to it because, well, how can I be You know, how can I feel this way? Everything's going my way. You know, how, how could this be happening to me? That's not possible. And yet it does.

Mm-hmm.

Yeah. Mm-hmm.

And I like to say, I don't think life's happening to us or for us. I think it's just happening, you know? And then we get to decide who we're gonna be. And there are moments that go our way and there are moments that don't, and none of it is about us. It's just life being life. And we always have control over who am I gonna be? And how do I want to feel? And when I realized with cancer, this isn't another opportunity to heal my trauma. I already healed my trauma, which tells me there's nothing I can't heal. And the healed me was in charge of the mission called saving my life through cancer. But more than that, I was reinventing myself, and it was a spiritual awakening unlike anything I've ever experienced. And the biggest lesson I got from cancer was It's not about achievement. It's 100% about alignment as the success metric.

Certainly a word that we appreciate around here, and I'm sure we'll get into that as well. Let's talk about the radio program, though, because that plays a key role in this. You kind of very quickly alluded to that, but talk to us a little bit more about how did that come about and then what role did it play?

Yeah, I mean, you've had this podcast since 2012. I started my company in 2008 in the beginning stages of the coaching industry altogether. I was a pioneer in the industry but I didn't know that at the time. And I had, you know, a couple years part-time where I was working a safe job as a school counseling coordinator for benefits as a single mom and doing my private practice on the side. And then I decided to move back to my hometown where I grew up and experienced and endured a lot of trauma, got married again, and pitched the local radio station. That I didn't want to pay for ads. I wanted a segment where the community could email us questions and I could break it down. And they went for it. And we went to number one literally in a month. And within two weeks, I had a six-month waitlist. The community had never experienced a coach. They had no idea. I brought this fresh and zesty energy and new just paradigms for growth and healing and transformation to the community. And my guidance told me, your mission is to reach as many people as possible. Get on the radio. Which was so funny because at the time I had zero media training and no media experience, but we took off. And to this day, I'm still on the air, 14 years.

14 years later. Congratulations.

Or more. Yeah.

Like, yeah, more. Well, if you said 2008, it's got to be 16 years by now.

We, we started the radio show the end of 2011, so it's been It's been a while.

Yeah, yeah, you've been busy. Yeah, yeah, that's really fabulous. I, I also am very, um, very much appreciating your story about how you were when you were quite young and, and you were still dealing with stuff and, and you didn't have much of a voice. I, I appreciate that in my own life because when I was in high school, I was a wallflower. I, I hid, I hid like crazy. And it took me years to overcome that. So the idea of me doing a podcast for the last 12 years, you know, if you had asked me about that when I was young, I did some college radio, but that's about as close as I ever came to it. And by college radio, I mean where you play something and then you say something for a minute and you play another half an hour. It was that kind of a thing. Yeah. So, you know, the idea of me doing a podcast where I'm talking for half an hour, an hour at a time, yeah, right, that wasn't going to happen. Here I am years later doing that.

Yeah, yeah. So I think there's a correlation, right, between pain and purpose.

There is.

There really is.

In fact, that was one of the first things I had to learn from doing this podcast. I don't know if you know the story behind the podcast, but I started this because I was in pain. My, my business had crashed in 2008, and I hadn't, I hadn't recovered by 2012. In fact, we were in worse shape then than we were in 2008. So I was at loose ends, like, trying to figure out how the heck do I solve this? Because what I've always known isn't working. And it's getting worse and worse and worse. I like to tell the story that not only could I not afford to hire a coach, I couldn't afford to buy a self-help book. I wasn't— I was like in desperate straits, so I had to do something. And that pain that I was in at that point drove me to say, well, I have an IT background, there's this thing called podcasting that started. I know, I'll start a podcast and I'll bring on experts and I'll learn that way.

Yeah, yeah, it worked. Yeah, yeah. And there's something about Following the guidance from a place of alignment.

Now, in this case, the guidance was more like a 2x4, but yes, absolutely.

I get it. And I was just going to say, one of my big, big messages for people is please hear right now what we're talking about and know you don't need a breakdown to break through.

No.

You don't need to wait for the crisis because it will— like, the bottom will fall out. And I was sacrificing myself so much in the name of love, in life and business and leadership. And didn't even realize— I don't think I caused cancer, but I had gotten on that radio, booked out 6 months, and I was literally doing 7 days a week, 10 clients a day, on the hour, every hour, with no breaks for years.

Wow.

That wasn't sustainable, and I wasn't listening to my body or to my guidance, right? So don't let it get to the point where you're hit over the head with a 2x4. And if that happens, No judgment, but just know we don't need a breakdown to breakthrough, and we can just decide to decide enough with survival. Let's follow our alignment.

And once you do get the 2x4 experience like that, the good news is by that point you realize, well, I did have a tap on the shoulder, and then I had a whisper in the ear, then I had a push on the shoulder, then a push in the back, and then finally the universe said, okay, I'm going to use the 2x4. You're not paying any attention.

Yeah.

So it's not like I had no warning.

Right, right, right. It doesn't have to get to the point where the grand piano is falling out of it. That's right. Right. But, but sometimes, like, our best is enough. And I think that's another important message here in a little daily dose of happy for you. You know, your best is enough, and you can only do your best in the moment with what you have from where you are, as cliché as that sounds. And I think The most important thing we have control over is a commitment to— am I committed to being my best? Am I committed to feeling how I want to feel? And am I committed to letting that be enough?

Yes, especially that last bit. Am I committed to letting it be enough? What I think about when you say that phrase is the tremendous ability we all have to beat the crap out of ourselves.

Oh my gosh, right? Oh my gosh. And if people are harsh with you What do I know? I just had a client yesterday whose boyfriend— they have two little babies under one. She has her own business. The boyfriend is very short-fused right now, and he's been pretty harsh lately, and she shouldn't tolerate that, doesn't deserve that. But what do I also know? The way he's talking to her is exactly how she talks to herself.

Oh, yeah.

This means she's a vibrational match for being talked to like that, right? So You know, I think—

and I can only begin to imagine what's going on in his head. I mean, the kind of conversations he's having with himself, right? I wouldn't want to be anywhere near that. It's terrifying.

Talking to himself. This is how she's talking to herself. And I have a lot of faith in this couple. I think they're going to be okay, but they have to get beyond survival, which includes this real commitment to justifying negative, harsh, cruel self-talk, which never benefits anybody.

No.

And there's no— as my coach would say, I could hear his voice right now— there's no spiritual nutritional value.

Yeah, right, exactly right. There is no spiritual nutritional value. That nails it right on the head. So, okay, well, I think we're getting a sense of where all this comes together. That's really cool. I like it a lot. Tell us a little bit about how, um, the book itself came about. I mean, there— what, what led to that happening?

So as I realized, I had, I had decided I was going to commit to life when I got sick, and I was going to live like I was going to live. I wasn't going to identify as sick or dying. I was going to treat myself and life like I was going to make it. And then I ended up following my guidance, quitting chemo. I never suggest anybody else should quit chemo if you're going through cancer, but for me, I knew if I didn't quit chemo, I was going to be dead. I was declining so very quickly, and I had a brand new baby, and I had a 10-year-old, and this gorgeous husband, and a business, and clients, and I was not willing to give up. And there were so many moments every single day, as much as I wanted to live, I wanted to die, and I just kept my commitment to life. And then there was this one day I realized it worked. I'm gonna make it. It went from commitment to a very real realization. I'm actually gonna live.

Do you remember what it was that actually triggered that thought in your mind?

I only remember— like, right now I have chills, literally. I just remember standing in my dining room looking out the windows at the trees and realizing, Rebeccah, it worked. You're gonna live. You're, you're gonna live. Like, you made it, you made it. And it was the wildest moment because I've never been more depressed as I was immediately after realizing I'm gonna live. And then I was like, wait, okay, what are you gonna do? You're gonna write a book and you're gonna create a course and you're just gonna teach all of what you just did to live. Like, that's what you're gonna do. And I— because I had to put the energy somewhere, you know. I've run a few marathons, and at the end of the race, every single I got depressed because like, now it's done, now what, right? And I had this moment of like, I'm gonna make it, and then crash, and then now what? And I just got the guidance, you're gonna write a book and you're gonna get a publishing deal and you're gonna create a course. And that's what I did.

So let's clarify that phrase because you— it's, it's an important phrase. You said, I got depressed, but you got depressed in a very specific way. You got depressed about what's next.

Well, and to me, let me just give you my definitions of depression and anxiety because I very much believe depression and anxiety are real. I have been suicidal multiple times and, you know, to the point where I even thought, is how much I wanted to die for so long part of why I ended up with cancer? I don't think so. But depression is depressing the truth of your soul. And your emotions. And anxiety is rejecting the truth of your soul and your emotions. And I got depressed because I knew there was no going back to who I had been before cancer or to any part of life going back to how it was. And part of me knew I didn't even want to go back, but I didn't know who I was for a second. And I had to reinvent myself all over again because I didn't give a crap about achievement anymore. Or the success metrics that I thought were so important. And I couldn't identify as successful based on being a wife, sexy, a business owner, a mom. Like, everything went out the window when I got sick. So I think why I got depressed— and I really appreciate you wanting to unpack this a little further— is because I didn't know who I was.

First, you were essentially on the edge of asking one of those most important questions that people really don't ask themselves often enough in life, and that is What do I really want?

Right. And I don't think there's a more important question, and I don't think there's a harder question. That is the number one question that stumps my clients for 16 and a half years in private practice is, what do I want?

We—

let me give you a couple hacks, okay? And then I'll get back to the book in the course.

You love hacks.

So, okay, here's a couple great hacks when it comes to what do you want. If you don't know yet, what don't you want? Guess at the opposite.

Yeah.

Hack 2: What do you want for everybody else? Because that's what you want for you.

Oh, that's cool. I like that.

Yeah, it's true. We want for some other people to give us permission to have it because we don't want to admit we want anything.

People, I think, are givers, and, and that's a way of kind of circumventing the question immediately while you can start giving, and then it gives you permission to kind of come in the back door, say, oh, by the way, I want something along the way.

Yeah, and we have needs and wants, and, and we're humans, and, and we feel things. And our only job is to identify and ask for and let ourselves receive. What do I want? What do I need? How do I feel? And so in this moment of like, oh my God, I am going to live, I have never been this depressed all of a sudden, now what? I just clear— Isabelle got the guidance. You're gonna write a book, you're gonna do a course, and you're going to actually outline the steps and the method and the process that allowed you to clear your mind so you could connect to your heart, so you could identify what it is that you're feeling, so you can connect to your body, so you can identify what you need so you can connect to your spirit. What do you want? And so I just got to work. I got to work, and it was a ride. It took a couple years to write the book, and then after I got it pretty far, I started the course. And then I ended up pitching and getting an agent and getting a publishing deal and finalizing the book at the same time. I finalized writing and producing and starring in the Emotional Survival Kit course.

Wow. Do you remember when you first got that guidance? Do you remember how it felt?

It was so subtle. It was so quiet.

Did you have an emotional response to it?

I did after I let myself think about it. Yeah, it felt right at first. I'm just Okay, because I had talked to God a lot while I was sick. Like, all I had to do was talk to God. I couldn't walk. I ended up with drop foot on my right leg, which means all the nerves were dying down my right leg. And they told me in physical therapy I would never heal and I'd never be able to walk again. And even if I beat cancer, I'd be on disability for the rest of my life. And, you know, I wasn't gonna take that lying down, or, or believe that, you know? And so I just had this conversation with God all the time. My life post-cancer I just describe as a 100% collaboration and co-creation with God. And I was like, if I live, all I want to do is serve. And I think my life is a divine assignment to teach love and emotional healing and regulation. And my number one mission is for kids to have healed parents. And I love serving couples and families so they can clear the generational trauma and create whatever they want. And then, oh, wait a minute. Okay, I accept the assignment. The emotional reaction after kind of realizing all this was happening and there was no turning back was, I don't— I'm not an author and I don't know how to do any of this. Like, oh, you were talking about the podcast. At first I was like, I don't know what to do. And part of my emotional survival kit course, is the second lesson. The first is commit to your life. Live like you're going to live. Like, let's live. Let's not live to die a slow spiritual death. Let's live. So it starts with commitment to your life, and then it's about what are you living for. And, you know, identifying in the moments that you don't have the self-worth or self-esteem to do it for yourself, who are you doing it for to keep it going? And then Once you know you're committed to your life and what you're living for, all you need is the next step. We overwhelm ourselves by trying to think we need to know what each rung of the ladder is or how we're going to get there before we commit. So many wait for some magical guarantee before they'll commit, which means they never commit. And I'm here to say, big picture, commit with no idea how. And then all you need from there is one next right step at a time.

But frankly, that's scary. I mean, with no idea how to get there. I've been on that kind of road myself. When you get to that place where it's okay, you have to just have faith without having any idea how you're going to get there. That's scary. That's really—

well, it's scary. But I think what's scarier is a safe and small life with a suffocated spirit. Right. So, you know, it's like, pick your poison. You know, do you want to be scared and alive? Or do you want to be safe and small and dying a slow spiritual death?

Fair point.

And I am not making light of how serious and real this discussion is, but I do just want to point out, let's get our priorities straight, right? Because we get one precious life and we don't have to wait to get hit by a 2x4 to go, what am I doing with this one precious life? And I think this hack of just one step at a time is life-changing. It's been life-changing for me. The only reason I'm here with a published book that sold 10,000 copies and won a couple of awards and a course that is changing couples and families and leaders' lives every single day. I, I just figured out one next step at a time, and I didn't even really have to figure it out because I was shown. When we have a clear mind and a clear heart and a clear body and access to our spirit, there's nothing to figure out. You're shown.

Yeah, that's true. You were describing earlier as alignment, and that's a great way of describing that because you literally changed an alignment that before was fighting you. I mean, you, you described it quite beautifully. You, you would, uh, you were in this great place and then you had the cancer happen and you start getting some insight on that, and the insight made you depressed rather than making you feel like you were getting somewhere. I mean, everything was out of alignment. All the responses didn't match the, the inputs. Everything was just kind of wackadoodle. And then—

amen—

that's the technical term, by the way.

Yeah, perfect term.

And, and, and yet you took that, and you took that download, you took that information, and you realigned your own life. And in the process, you developed, uh, an understanding of how anybody can do that. And that's basically what you're passing along with your course and your book, right?

Well, and again, I'm just saying, you have the ability to decide who you want to be and how you want to feel in every single moment. If nothing else, you can master the art of being intentional about who you want to be.

I've told the story numerous times on the show here. I've told about the first time that I fully realized I actually had control over my emotional response because I was one of those people who for half a lifetime believed that, no, my emotional response was dependent on circumstances. If something bad happened, I had to have a bad reaction. If something good happened, I had to have a good reaction. And the first time I actually learned that no, that's not the way it goes. It was a shock. It was, it was a real surprise. Like, oh my God, what have I been missing all this time? And does that mean that the steering wheel's been in front of me all this time and I couldn't see it? And where have I been driving? You know, I mean, all these thoughts are going through my head, like, wow, what have I missed? But once you do get that, when you, once you finally grasp that, first of all, it can be learned. You can actually learn how to make these selections to your benefit, and then you start applying it, it may not happen instantly, but you start seeing differences, which makes sense. I mean, you start changing things in, in the way you behave, the way you think, the way you live, and so forth. Your life is going to have a different kind of result. You know, that, that logically makes sense. But when you go through it, it's an entirely different experience from sitting back and thinking about, oh, logically this is what's going to happen.

Well, and there's no— when it comes to emotional healing and regulation— logic involved, right? Like, not really, no. None of it makes sense. And I just had a client hire me recently at 78 years old. Like, you're— it's never too late, you know. So if anybody's thinking it's too late or, you know, I missed my opportunity, absolutely false, you know. And we're only— I was just talking to my husband last night. It was our 12th wedding anniversary and we went out to dinner. Thank you. And we knew each other 4 years before we got married. And I made a comment, you know, man, it always is so wild for me to reflect back and to realize we were under each other's noses for 4 years. He's best friends with my sister's husband. Oh, and he just goes, we weren't ready yet, Rebeccah Silence. Yeah. And it's so true, you know. And, and we're never really going to be ready, but there is this point of awareness, I think, where we can take responsibility for Am I going to let the past continue to be my life and my future, or do I want to reinvent and have a new experience, maybe even a next level identity? You know, and I think it's so important to be light about it. This isn't heavy. Nobody's bad or wrong. It's just we inherit what we think is important and who we think we're supposed to be and how we think we're supposed to feel based on circumstance. And we can say, thank you, ancestors. And I hit the unsubscribe button now to your paradigm. And we can decide what our paradigms are going to be and reinvent ourselves as many times as we need to.

That's empowering. I'm often reminded here on the program through the variety of guests that I have, the different stories that we hear and so forth, I'm reminded of just how incredibly powerful human mind, the human soul, the human spirit really is, and our ability to focus and what that's able to produce. But boy, it's so easy to forget that, especially when we're trying to address questions like this. So to hear you saying that, yeah, we really do have that power. That's one of those reinforcements that we need. That's part of that daily dose of happy, the reinforcement that says you really can do this. This is not something that's outside of your range. In fact, you have a lot more range than you realize.

Oh yeah, I say it like this: there's nothing outside of you more powerful than you. Cancer wasn't more powerful than me.

Yeah, you beat it easily.

Yeah, business challenges, scaling the business, and all my fears and insecurities and uncertainties weren't more powerful than me. You know, nothing outside of us is more powerful than we are.

Now, it can take some time to learn that.

I think it's a decision.

You think so?

I do, because we're never going to get enough evidence to prove ourselves right, that we're more powerful than our circumstances. We have to decide that's true, and then we'll create evidence to support that belief.

So for someone who's struggling to make that decision, to conclusively say to themselves, yep, I do believe I have that power— for someone who's struggling with that, what can you tell them?

That's— you're right, you don't have to believe you have that much power, and you can be at the effect of everything around you and everyone around you.

Or that's scary.

Or you can decide the mission is healing, the cure is self-responsibility. And if I don't choose on a belief level to believe I'm more powerful than my circumstances, I will feel powerless for the rest of my life.

So you don't just throw out a challenge, you basically throw the gauntlet down and hit them on the foot with it. I mean, it's like, here we go, trying to do the 2x4.

I'm just here to make sure you have all the information, and then you do you, and I will love and support support you no matter what.

That's fair. Yeah, that's all you can do.

I mean, we all have free will and agency, and God respects consent. I respect consent. I'm not trying to tell people there's a right or wrong way for them. I just know there's a right or wrong way for you. So if you're not feeling free and empowered and more powerful than the moment or the situation you find yourself in, you can remember, all right, The goal isn't to not be human, but you do have the power to decide and to decide again and to decide again. If I was going to be the most powerful me in the circumstance that has more powerful— more power than the circumstance, what would happen next? Back to just the next step. You don't need to know how to solve it, and you didn't create the problem that you're more powerful than, so you're not going to cure it. The cure is to stay the best of you.

That's an important distinction. That's a really important distinction because I think we— I, in fact, I hear people telling me various stories that suggest you have to become a different person, you have to grow into somebody new, you have to leave the old you behind. You're saying no, and I like what you're saying better because I don't think we ever really change who we are. We change our choices, we change our decisions, we change our thought processes, but the essence, the, the essential us That's always the same. It's the same person.

Yeah, well, and it's about getting back to the truth of who we are, I think. Our essence, our spirit, right? And when we're babies, our emotions don't threaten us.

Mm-hmm.

Circumstance doesn't threaten us. We're just authentic. And then we learned what's acceptable and what's not and how to survive our family system. And then we think that's who we are. And if you're stressed or feeling pressure or exhausted, Austin, if you don't have peace, you are not in alignment with the truth of who you are and how powerful you are yet. And so the way I know we're off track is it doesn't feel good. And as scared as I was and depressed as I was in the moment before I realized what's next was writing the book and the course, I knew I'd be guided to a next step, and I let myself let that be enough. And I found something to pour myself into.

You're touching one of my favorite things: how does it feel? Yeah, does it feel good? Do more of it. Keep going in that direction. That's your guidance right there. That's your guidance saying you're on the right track. If it doesn't feel good, that means you're going in the wrong direction. Do a U-turn.

Yeah, well, and I do like to say in this line of conversation, let's just call it. Trust yourself that you giving yourself permission to feel good doesn't mean all of a sudden you're going to become reckless and careless in the hot mess express.

Yeah, right.

You're— you know, I think people think if they give themselves permission to feel good, they're just going to go on some bender of some kind, whatever their poison is. And I don't think that's true at all. You care too much.

No, I would argue the opposite. I would say the person who goes off on the bender is actually getting away from how they feel.

Amen. But I've just heard it so many times from so many people. I can't just do me, like, that's gonna potentially risk everything I've built, and I'm not willing to do that. I call it high-functioning unhappiness. I like that. High-functioning addiction. We don't talk enough about high-functioning unhappiness. Happiness, where I am so afraid because I don't trust myself at the deepest level to be happy that if I pursued that, I'd risk the high-functioning part of my life.

Yeah.

And I'm saying let's threaten the crap out of your unhappiness, not the high-functioning part of your life. And until we do threaten your unhappiness, your high-functioning part of your life is already threatened.

Now there's also a very positive flip side, which is if we do dare to believe if we do dare to make the shift, if we do dare to go on that strange journey that we can't predict and we have no idea how it's going to play out and we don't even know where to begin, actually kind of some wonderful things happen where that feeling is concerned. The moment that you start on the journey, even though you have no idea where you're going, that first step feels good, feels really good. And I, I think we kind of underestimate that. When we're faced with the fear associated with taking those steps, changing, making those changes. We feel like, oh, it's going to be scary all, all the way. Actually, it's only up until taking the first step that it's scary. After that, it gets a whole lot easier.

Well, or, all right, you're human, there's fear, just take it with you. Don't let it win. We don't need there to be an absence of fear to know we're on track. You know, the most important things I've done, I was terrified. And excited and terrified.

And yeah, they're mixed, mixed emotions.

What's the next step, right? You know, because again, we're not here to spiritually bypass our humanity.

This is true.

Yeah, you know, there will be fear when you're up to things that are important to you, and especially things that you've never seen done before or that the people around you don't get. When I pitched the local radio station that we talked about earlier Everybody, including my second husband, told me, what are you doing? I don't know if this is a good idea. Nobody thought it was a good idea. I was going to be a private pay life coach in a community that never had a coach, very depressed area financially and economically.

Wow.

And I was going to go on the radio, and nobody does that, and I have no radio experience. And people will try to protect us, right?

By the way, I gotta ask you, what made you think about going on the radio? Where'd that come from?

God, I don't know. I just followed guidance. I just, I heard it one day because I was, uh, the assistant director of a special education program for an entire school district temporarily after I moved back to New York. And you know, I'm a single mom, I needed to have benefits, and I was driving 45 minutes each way listening to this morning show, and I just kept hearing for months 'You'd be great.' Wow.

Wow.

And then I'm like, 'What are you talking about? What are you—' You know, for months I just kept hearing, 'You'd be great. You're gonna do a morning show and it's gonna be great.' Wow. And then— and I tell people this— wait for that 'now' moment. I had the moment this one day. It was snowing. I'll never forget it. I'm driving in the snow and I just heard 'now.' And I called the DJ and I went to high school with him. Oh, wow. And I called, I hadn't talked to him in very long time, you know, 15 years or something. And I called him and he's like, well, I have no power here. I think it's a good idea. And he's like, but you're going to have to pitch the owner. So I ended up getting a meeting with the owner and pitching the owner and the rest I already shared. It took off. And I think when it's aligned, and empowered, it will. And it's, it's not necessarily going to happen on your timeline or on your terms or as fast as you want, but when there's no resistance and you're following the guidance and the alignment, things happen. And that's what happened.

Yeah, that, that's one of the things that I had to learn was being okay with the fact that it's not going to go the way I hoped it was going to go. It was going to go something completely different and What I've learned since then is when I can allow myself to just let it go, let it, let it be that way, it actually comes out in a way that's pretty cool. I would never have dreamed of it that way. I would never have planned— I mean, in many cases, if, if I'd ask myself whether or not a Hollywood screenwriter would write that screen story, the answer is absolutely not. No one would ever believe it. But it always made a cool journey that way, in a way that I never even anticipated.

Yeah, and it is exciting and fun to watch it unfold and experience the unfolding with no idea how it's going to unfold. But what you do know is what you want to create and how you want to feel, and that's enough. And then let yourself hang on.

Yeah, there's a piece to that that's really important, I think, which is it's a question of how much do you really believe in what it is that you're claiming to believe in? Like, do you really buy it? I mean, are you, are you trying to convince yourself of it, or do you really believe it? Yeah, because if you don't believe it, how can anybody else believe it?

Well, and once you really believe it, you don't need anybody else to believe it. Exactly. Yeah, right. Like, I, I do feel like I have figured out how to heal and be free and in control of my life and my destiny, and I know how to do that, and I teach people that wanna learn how to do that. And anybody that isn't interested, I respect if we're on different paths in different places on a different spiritual journey, and it's fine. But I think what you're saying is so important here. Like, there's nothing to do really. There's just who are you being, and there's nothing to prove and nobody to convince.

If there's anybody to convince at all, it's just you're convincing yourself. Because once you convince yourself, the party's over. You're done. You can—

I wouldn't even recommend trying to convince yourself because I think I've got a lot of clinical experience. So if we're trying to convince ourselves, our inner rebel is like, oh yeah. So, you know, again, give yourself permission to lighten up and to let your best be enough. You don't have to convince anybody, including yourself.

Yeah, maybe that's just the analytical side of me. Because I do have that overanalyzing piece that just like—

and if it works for you and empowers you, fine, because there isn't—

well, sometimes it does, sometimes it doesn't. Let's be honest.

I'm not— I just know we all have an inner rebel, Walt.

Yeah, that's part of getting to know yourself too. Yeah, it really is. Yeah, it's getting to know who you really are and how you feel.

I just think it's about finding the one thing that's worth committing to. Pick something You know, whether it's taking on your marriage or your health or your money or your relationship with someone, you know, or a business that you want to create. I've helped over 150 women create businesses. What do you want to create? And then who do you have to be? And then know your only job is to follow alignment and the feeling that you want to be happening. And for me, I teach there's just 5 emotions: anger, fear, grief, joy, and excitement. And I want joy and excitement to be the rule people live by. So even if it's just following your joy, following excitement, and letting that be enough— and when the darker emotions come, fine, every storm runs out of rain— be with the darker emotion, but follow joy and excitement and let that be your life.

Yeah, that point about, um, the negative emotions is an important one, I think, because I know for myself, I for the longest time was not willing to go deeply into them because I thought, well, God, this is going to be like an endless thing. I was kind of shocked the first time I allowed myself to really just feel something really negative, how quickly it dissipated. I mean, it was like, it was 30 seconds and it was gone. Like, what? This is what I've been fretting about all this time?

Back to babies, right? They can feel anger and fear and grief and joy and excitement in 5 seconds. Mm-hmm. Right. And yes, we can too when we get out of our head and our programming. Yeah, yeah.

That— well, that is part of the problem right there, isn't it? We do spend a lot of time in our heads, and we'd spend a lot less time than would be helpful to us if we were in our hearts. I mean, right, it takes practice. It takes a lot. In fact, in fact, it also takes dealing with all of those twists and turns and those curves of the journey. That's really what— where they come from, all those twists and turns that come along. They come along because we're still trying to get into the damn heart.

Yeah, right. Because if we were in the heart, we could ride the wave much differently. Yeah. Versus the wave kicking our butt. Yeah, yeah.

So it just takes some doing to do that, but once you get there, then all of a sudden— and the other thing that I've learned too I'm really curious to know what your take is on this. Um, once I got to my heart, I found that I didn't always stay there, and that kind of freaked me out. Like, oh wait, but I've been working so hard to get there. Why can't I stay there? It took me a while to be okay with that. But, you know, it's kind of like the, the flip side of being totally in the head. Now I had to be totally in the heart, and there was not a whole lot of balance that went on for quite some time.

Yeah, I mean, my take is this, back to What we were talking about earlier, there's nothing outside of you more powerful than you. There's nothing outside of you that has the right to make you less you. Hmm. So when you're not in your heart, you're less you. And there's never going to be, it's safe enough. And I now have permission to be in my heart. And actually, we're less safe when we're guarded. Because we have blinders on and we can't see everything as clearly. And we're actually looking for subconscious evidence to prove we're not safe when we're wrong.

True. That's very true. Right?

So this is complex, but I'm trying to break it down as simply as I can. The truth is I refuse to let my past win. I refuse to let anything or anyone have me believe it's not okay to have the volume turned up all the way on the truth of who I am. And if anybody would want me to turn the volume down, they're not for me. And I can blow them kisses and bless them on their journey and wish them well. But the answer is no, I will not be turning the volume down. And I was just talking to my 9-year-old the other day. She got in a fight with a friend and came home and she was all upset. And she had— it was very funny, actually. And for any of the parents out there, I was blown away by this kid because she sent me a message saying, okay, the code word is goat. If I want to come home, I'm going to send you the code word goat. Now, we have not pre-planned this, okay? All of a sudden I get a message, goat, and I call her and I say, okay, what's going on? She's like, just make up an excuse, I need to come home. So my husband calls and says, okay, you didn't feed your bearded dragon, I need you to come home. You were supposed to feed the bearded dragon before you left, right? So long story short, she comes back and I said to her, you did a great job, I am so proud of your maturity and resilience and your leadership here. But what happened? Turns out this kid is a couple years older and she was just being mean, and my daughter didn't have the words to say, if you're going to be mean to me, I'm going home. Oh, okay. And so we talked about, next time, I don't want you uncomfortable because you don't want her to be uncomfortable. If anybody's going to be uncomfortable, let it be them, not you, because you turn the volume down or doubted yourself or questioned ourself. I think the answer is always to turn the volume up even more on who we are.

That reminds me of one more thing I want to talk about while we still have a little time here. Yeah. Which is what I consider to be one of the most important things in life. Who do we surround ourselves with? Who do we choose to be in our social connections? And who do we choose not to be in our social connections? And how do we handle that?

Yeah. Yeah. I mean, support is so important and it's so true. We're like the average of the 5 people we find ourselves closest to. And I think it is about Do you even know your standards? You know, we talked earlier about, do you know what you want? The answer is yes. Pick one thing, let it carry you through, right? And in terms of like our inner circle relationships, a lot of people are there because we have false loyalty. We think because of history or longevity or they saved us in some way somewhere along the line. Now they are just owed a seat at our table. And I heard Rachel Cargill, an activist, in a seminar say a couple years ago, nobody just earns a seat at my table. Nobody. And I thought, that is powerful. And I think, you know, the most important thing in terms of whether or not somebody deserves really direct inner circle access to you is, do they know what you're up to and support it and encourage it and empower you? And do you know what they're up to? And you support it and encourage and empower it. Like, it's, it's that simple, you know. And I can have family members that aren't at Inner Circle level. Sure, maybe a couple rings out. And I can have somebody new in my life that is bumped up to closer access based on what we're up to in, you know, collaboration, co-creation. Who, who knows, right? But Um, I also heard— I just heard Glo Atomo on Brendon Burchard's— Brendon Burchard, I mean, his Mastermind Ultra. And Glo was talking about why do we call everybody friend? Some people are friends, some are associates, some are advisors, some are mentors, some are clients, some are colleagues, some are strangers. Like, why do we call everybody a friend? And I thought, Glo, that is good stuff. Why do we call everybody a And then I have so many friends. But I also think in this alignment conversation, the more aligned we are, the more attractive we are. So the more discerning we need to be. Yes. Everybody wants to hang out with you all of a sudden. Once you're like lit up like a Christmas tree and plugged into source and the truth of who you are, you're very attractive. So know your standards. What are the standards? What do you look for in a friend? Who deserves to be there. But I'm a coach that always has a coach, and I'm always in a mastermind, and I'm always reading, and I'm always learning, and I'm always growing, you know, because that's really important to me. So I know who my friends are, I know who my growth partners are, I know, you know, what makes sense and what doesn't. And if there's a time when I think maybe it's time to reinvent or replace a relationship, I always give people an opportunity to grow with first. I let them know, here's what I want, here's what I need, here's how I feel, here's what I'm up to, and give them the opportunity. And then maybe they grow with me and maybe they don't, and either way it's okay.

Yeah, that's excellent. I really do like that. Um, you remind me of something— we can't choose our, our relations, but we can choose our circle. And even more importantly than our circle, in the context of this conversation, we can choose we go to for advice. We can choose our coach. You used the word coach. Yes. That, that's a big deal. That's a really big deal. And it, it's something that I think most people don't give a lot of thought to. Most people don't give any thought to, I think it's probably fair to say. And even those who have thought about getting a coach haven't really necessarily gotten enough because they haven't gotten the coach yet. They haven't actually delved into it deeply enough to, to figure out what they want. But it's an important question to answer. What do you look for? I mean, you, you're a coach and all the best coaches, all the best therapists, all the best psychologists, they all have their own coaches. They all have their own support staff. Right. Good reason. I mean, there, there's a reason why this is—

beware of a coach without a coach.

Exactly. Oh yeah. Yeah. I would, I would run as fast as possible in the opposite direction from that.

Yes. Yeah. I mean, I look for it, but I'm very intentional, right? So like even in the masterminds that I've been in over the years, I see people that are thinking this mastermind is supposed to give them something versus they go in intentional, which means they're going to get their intention actualized and not think it's happening to them or given to them, right? So with coaches, I mean, I want to coach with a coach and I want people that understand what I'm up to and they're interested in that and they're ahead of me, they have experience in that, you know, they're not threatened by my wild ambition, you know, or just level of depth and zest, you know. And it's, it's not even just about what are you looking for in a coach, what are you looking for in a partner. When my husband and I got together on date 3, I gave him an 11-page list front and back of everything I was looking for.

Wow, 11-page. Yeah, that's, that's serious. He wasn't intimidated for a second.

He pulled his list out of his wallet. I about fell out the booth. He had his own list list. It was a half a page, wasn't 11 pages. No, but it's like, oh my gosh, be intentional. And we read our list to each other and we weren't threatened. What a gift, you know? Be around the people that are like, yes, not, are you sure, and trying to protect you from yourself and your dreams.

Yes, boy, that's really, really so important. So important. As so often happens when we do these, uh, interviews, these conversations, we run out of time faster than I would like because there's so many ways we could go with something like this. But we are running out, so I need to, uh, draw to a close with a few key points that I like to bring in at the end of every conversation. First and foremost, someone who is listening and wants to perhaps reach out and find out if you're the right person to work with— I mean, we should probably let them know how to do that, don't you think?

Absolutely. I would be honored to support you. You can visit me at rebeccahsilence.com. @rebeccahsilence on social media channels, shoot me a DM. But right at rebeccahsilence.com, you can apply for coaching, you can contact me, and I would absolutely love if you already are feeling drawn to me and this work and this vibration, just reach out and say hi, you know, no pressure, no obligation from there, but at least say hi, you know, and let me know what your biggest takeaway was another great next step for people. I have just recently produced a brand new, totally complimentary and free masterclass, The 3 Must-Know Secrets to Heal and Save Your Family. And it's really just the 3 must-know secrets to set yourself free and to be fully you no matter what. Um, and you can also get that at rebeccahsilence.com and/or purchase my book Coming Back to Life: A Roadmap to Heal from Pain. To Create the Life You Want, a great way to really take what we're talking about today and begin the process of integration and workshopping it.

So thank you for automatically answering questions 2 and 3, because question 2, masterclass, and question 3 was about the book. So thank you for doing both of those. Very, very efficient of you. I love that. One final thing though that I need to do, and I've made this a practice for the last couple of years because I noticed a couple years ago that this was something that we pretty much all miss. I, I know it's true within the podcasting industry, but it's true across the board too. We now live in the age of technology, we live in the age of the internet, and these days it's so much about the content that you're creating, particularly if you're trying to give back, if you're trying to help other people in some way. What content are you creating? What, you know, you're going on to people's podcasts, you're writing books, you're creating courses, you're going onto social media, you're posting there, you're posting to a blog. I mean, there's all these different ways that people give in order to help other people, which is wonderful. It's an excellent thing. But there's a piece of that that I noticed was missing, which is we don't get credit for that. And I said, well, I can do something about that. So Rebeccah, on behalf of those people you've never met, never seen, never will meet, never will see, who you've been helping with all this content you've been putting out there on their behalf, thank you for what you're doing because you're making a difference in this world. Thank you.

Thank you for saying that, and it's my pleasure.

It's our pleasure too to have you here and sharing all these wonderful golden nuggets of information and ideas and thoughts and beliefs and dreams, because without the dreams, what's the point of living?

Amen.

Yeah. So thank you, Rebeccah Silence, so much for joining us. Thank you to our podcast listeners everywhere. We'll see you all next time here on LOA Today. Goodbye, everybody.

Thank you.