Know Ya Flow
Women in flow, share what they know. Hear women's stories of how they've grown, what they know, and how they are living in flow.
Know Ya Flow
The Unseen Struggles: Overcoming Childhood Trauma w/Rebecca Robison
The episode centers on Rebecca's story of overcoming her traumatic childhood and finding her way towards self-discovery and healing. Her candid reflections provide insights into the complexities of family dynamics, resilience in the face of adversity, and the journey toward a more fulfilling life.
• Rebecca shares her early experiences of instability and emotional abuse
• The importance of navigating complex family relationships
• Acknowledging personal anger and its implications for life choices
• Finding safety and comfort in caring friendships
• The impact of connection to nature on mental health
• Exploring the healing power of herbalism and self-care practices
• Growth through acknowledging past pain and embracing resilience
• The duality of wanting to reconnect with family while prioritizing safety
• Leading a fulfilling life through connection and curiosity
Welcome to Know your Flow podcast, where women in flow share what they know. I'm your host, lauren Barton. Join me as we talk to women and hear their stories on what they know, how they've grown and living in flow. All right, hi, today we're here with Rebecca. Hi, rebecca, hi Excited to chat.
Speaker 2:Also excited.
Speaker 1:Yeah. So we met via yoga. I felt like you had such good energy. I was like I want to be this girl's friend, like I want to know this girl. She seems really cool, like sometimes it's like that people will come in and you're like she's cool. What's she about? Who's she Cause? I feel like you just like appeared. I did.
Speaker 2:I did just appear. I get that a lot. I had an ex say I was like a fairy. I would just come and go and come and goounce away, bounce back. You're a Sagittarius, though, right I am, but I'm on the day of the change. So Scorpio, sagittarius, and then what is your like?
Speaker 1:moon, and rising sign Taurus. I have a lot more earth in my chart Fire. Wow, that's cool. Yeah, I'm about to have a Taurus baby. I'm excited because it's either that, or Aries or Gemini, I mean, you know, with the two. So I'm like I'll take a Taurus.
Speaker 2:That sounds very nice, I think you'll enjoy whatever you get.
Speaker 1:I know I will too. I think so too. But in your brain you're like, oh, wow, grounded. You know, me and my partner are both air signs. So I'm like, oh, we'll take a little grounding here.
Speaker 2:Sounds good. I felt the same way about you too. I really appreciated, you know, cause? I was using the studio mat and you gave me the how do you say it? Life form, the life form. And then, you know, a few months later, I went out and purchased my very own. It's green and it was the most expensive yoga mat. I've ever, ever bought, but I'm not going back.
Speaker 1:I don't know how people don't use them. Like I feel bad for new people that come in and they don't have one. I'm like, yeah, you already have like a major disadvantage because first off, you know you're new in your practice, but this mat is not helping you, you're just gonna slip all over the place. I just got a new one for Christmas yesterday but, yeah, they're the best.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's thoughtfulness, thoughtful gestures like that that I really appreciate. You were like, hey, let me get this for you, and I spent the the whole. It was just such a nice warm feeling. I really love being thought of and considered it. It means a lot to me yeah, good, yay, I'm glad that that worked out, so where did you appear from? Well, you know, I actually I used to live in Front Royal. I lived in Front Royal for years, yeah, and you know it's it's an interesting area, yeah, but yeah, I'm like eyebrows up.
Speaker 2:yeah, I'm like it is, I'm very partial to it, but I I love being in nature. I always have, so I've lived in the country for about five years now. It was actually the longest place that I've really ever lived. I'm very transient and it was one of my very first attempts to put down roots somewhere. I was there for a while.
Speaker 1:I think Fort Royal is really pretty, but it's all the other vibe.
Speaker 2:Yeah Listen, you're not going to tell me anything, I don't already know yeah really not.
Speaker 1:But what do you do there, Like what do you do for work?
Speaker 2:I've been able to work remote for about I don't know, like the last five years or so. I always tell people it's not exactly what I want to do, but it allows me the financial freedom to do the things that I want to do.
Speaker 2:I haven't yet been able to find exactly how to take what I love and make a living off of it, which I think when people meet me or see you know social media, they're like wow, this girl is always outside. She's always, you know, doing this, this or that and, like, most of the time, I'm working you know what I?
Speaker 2:mean, and it's like those little pockets of time where I get to be outside and be exactly who I want to be, and if you find out the solution to well, I think you already have. I feel like you already do. You know, you've built your life off of things that you like to do, so you let me know a few trade secrets.
Speaker 1:I think we're. Yeah, I think we're doing Same, though. Cause, like I especially when I hear of, like younger kids or whoever trying to figure out what they want to do. But what kind of life do you want to have? Do you want to be able to travel around? Cause, like you, you work remotely, which is great because you can travel and do whatever you want, you know, and then you have this thing that then like pays for you to do what you want, which I think is like key, I mean depending on what you want. But maybe you don't want that. Maybe you want to be stable and like it's all the 9 to 5.
Speaker 2:It's all the earth signs in my chart. The wild practicality.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, totally.
Speaker 2:So where did you grow up? In Virginia, but I lived all over. My parents divorced when I was two and you know just sort of the chaos that that brought with you know, not having enough finances to them getting a new relationship. So I mean I moved a lot when I was a kid, so it's it's just easier to say Northern Virginia, but I've lived in so many different places in my adult life but Northern Virginia, northern Virginia, okay yeah. Do you have siblings? I have step siblings, but I'm an only child.
Speaker 1:So why did they get divorced when you were two?
Speaker 2:You know they just I don't know how they got together to begin with. To be honest, you know they were fighting all of the time and my dad initiated the divorce.
Speaker 1:How old were they?
Speaker 2:That's a really good question, okay, so my dad was 30 when I was born, so he must've been 32.
Speaker 1:Oh, okay. So they weren't like super young, they were like in their, yeah, like 30.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, my mom had me, I think, when she was like 27, 28, yeah, like 30.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, my mom had me, I think, when she was like 27, 28 something. Yeah, yeah, like a healthy age.
Speaker 2:So they had you, they were divorced, your dad initiated the divorce, yeah, and that you know they they both really were not well off financially when that happened. Before that, and even less so after the divorce, it was super chaotic. My mom and I moved into this small apartment in Herndon it was kind of like what we could afford and close to her job and my dad got to kind of stay where he was when we were all living together. What's your earliest memory? I have two. One is pretty normal and then one I guess kind of leads us into our conversation, which is what we're here to have.
Speaker 2:So, my earliest memory is when they were living together, so I must have been obviously under two, and it was one of the few times that I remember actively wanting my mom. I guess I woke up from a nap I was baby, wakes up from a nap and they're like what the hell's going on? Where am I, where is everyone? You know the normal crying. And my dad came and got me and gave me to her. And then the second memory was when I was four and it it really kind of started everything the feelings of unsafety, the feelings of, oh, I really need to look out for myself and oh, I really need to take care of everyone. So I was four and it was when we were living in the apartment that I told you about my mom and I. My dad was living in McLean, so, however far away Herndon is from McLean, maybe half an hour or something like that. And I remember waking up and I felt very unsettled. I don't know if I had I probably had heard a noise and that's what woke me up, but I'm a very heavy sleeper, so it would have had to have been loud and just something felt off, really off, and I woke up.
Speaker 2:I went out into the hallway and it's a, you know, a two bedroom apartment, my room's here, my mom's room is here. This is the hallway leading out to the door, and it was an older, like shitty apartment, you know. So, like you have the automatic swinging door, you know, automatic swinging front door, it shuts really heavily. My mom and stepdad, I guess, had been fighting, which was super common, and she was yelling at him, like you know, outside of the main door, right. So you know, like it's not enough, you're fighting in the house, let's have all the neighbors here. Yeah, like one of those. And I guess her hand got caught and nicked something and there was blood all over the walls.
Speaker 2:But you know, I didn't know that at the time, all I saw was blood all over the walls. I panicked and I didn't. I don't think I don't remember seeing my mom. I just saw blood and I ran to my mom's room because that was where the only telephone was, you know so, the 90s.
Speaker 2:So you got the cord phone, you know, and you know nine-year-old stuff, no, and you know nine-year-old no one taught me 911, but my dad taught me his phone number, so I called it and you know, my stepdad came in and saw that. And he's not a violent person. He has a lot of issues but he's not violent. But he saw me on the phone and I guess he panicked and you know, at that point my dad had picked up and I'm screaming and like daddy, daddy, mommy's bleeding, and he's like what you know, and he's also a Virginia state trooper, so like as soon as I said that, like his, you know, instincts kicked into gear and he's trying to figure out what's happening. But you know, my stepdad comes up behind me and he like puts his hand over my mouth and my dad just hears a man on the other end. He has no idea who that man?
Speaker 2:is, you know, and my stepdad hangs up the phone and my dad instantly calls the cops, as he's you know this before cell phone. So he calls the cops, tells them where my mom lives and then, like, gets into the car and like, speeds away, you know, to me and the cops came and you know my dad didn't have custody of me. That was a choice that he gave to give my mom full custody when, when he left, and I have my own feelings about that, but statistically women do get primary, primary custody. So I ended up having to stay at my mom's that night. And that's when my memory fades. You know I have such a vivid memory of everything else, but that's when it, that's when it kind of disappears. And where it disappears is where I get sad.
Speaker 1:Cause, in that moment where you kind of like wait, why didn't you take me back to your house? Yes, yeah, yeah. Why do you think he did it? I don't know, you know it was so many different factors.
Speaker 2:Right, it's when it's the nineties and I don't know what. I don't know how children are taken care of now, right, especially in like domestic violence situations. But back then it was always leave them with a mom, leave them with mom, and it was so. One of the things that was so challenging all of these years was to prove that my mom was doing things to me because she is a woman, because it's not as common, because it's not as believed. You know, women are not typically the perpetrators of violence, right?
Speaker 1:But what?
Speaker 2:happens when they are.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so what was her mom like?
Speaker 2:By all accounts, I never got to meet her. She passed a long time before I was born. By all accounts, from all the people that I know, she was so lovely.
Speaker 1:Really.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it was my grandfather who wasn't.
Speaker 1:Oh, okay, so was your mom an only child she had a brother, my uncle David Okay. So then, what was her family dynamic like?
Speaker 2:I only heard a few stories, and what I heard wasn't good. You know, my grandmother died of breast cancer when she was 42. Oh, wow, okay, super young, and she was actually diagnosed around my age now, so I'm 36. So I think probably even a little bit younger than I am now and my grandfather didn't believe her. It got to the point where she was so sick. He came home and he found her crawling out of the house to get help from the neighbors. He didn't believe that she was sick. Yes, so by the time that she was diagnosed it was so far gone and just a bunch of other things on top of that. Like I said, I've just heard snippets of abuse.
Speaker 1:I mean that's pretty wild, it's not great.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and so I imagine, with as much empathy as I can muster, because I really do have empathy for my mom, I don't think she had. It's not like I had a lot of help, but she had even less at a time when what was help, you know what was psychological help, what was emotional help. You know, like 60s, 70s.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you know. So how old would she have been when her mom died? I think 18. Oh, okay, and then on her own to roll out. But I guess her mom was probably sick for a while too, all yes, for a while. Was there any like drug use or anything like that with from your mom, like in her early, like no, no no, no, no, which you know.
Speaker 2:I probably shouldn't say this like I don't think it would have made it easier for me to understand if she had some sort of substance abuse, but it because it's. It's so. It doesn't make any sense to me why she would do certain things that she does. I was always kind of looking for an answer. Why is is she doing this? Why is she doing this? No, it was. She never had any problems with drugs, no problems with alcohol.
Speaker 2:It was just, I think something in her became so warped and she couldn't switch it back, you know there was a point, and it just she far exceeded it, and now she's so far gone, she can't even see where she started.
Speaker 1:Cause I mean, obviously that's what I'm trying to do here is be like okay, so was her mom. Was it like a mom thing where she didn't get love, so she didn't know how to love to her own daughter? Was it a drug thing, where she had been on drugs and there was addiction, like what was the trauma that then caused her to then be abusive? And you're kind of saying that's even worse because you can't really pinpoint really anything. Because you can't really pinpoint really anything.
Speaker 2:The only thing that I've been able to even make sense of is I think she saw things that my grandfather did to my grandmother, but I've only heard like one or two stories, so I can't speculate too much on that.
Speaker 1:So how does it feel to not be able to pinpoint back and then have empathy from that?
Speaker 2:point. It's something that I struggled with for years and I would ask therapists or people, therapists or people, friends, close friends, like who knew what I was going through. Like just the struggle of like why, why, why, why? It was just like an answer I was always searching for, and now it doesn't bother me because there is no, there's no answer, it just is yeah, yeah, which is pretty difficult, though.
Speaker 1:I mean with time, obviously like it takes time, but I mean I would time, obviously like it takes time, but I mean I would imagine that that would be pretty difficult to be, like some people are just that way.
Speaker 2:I had to let it go because it just became manipulative. At a certain point, the empathy that I had for my mom would bring me back into the relationship with her, which is not good for me.
Speaker 1:So what was your childhood like? So then, from like four until for like the next like 10 years, what was going on? Would you go to your dad's house on the weekends?
Speaker 2:Yeah, but it was so sporadic. So he worked night shifts as a Virginia state trooper and there was no set schedules. So it created this intense longing in me to see my dad, especially when things were bad, because it was the only sense of safety that I got that two-day break where I knew nothing was going to happen, even if I knew something was going to happen, the second that I got back to my mom's house at least I had 48 hours where I would be safe. But it was so sporadic and there, of course, just like anything else, like nothing's black and white. You know, there were moments of really great times with my mom. You know what I mean.
Speaker 1:Did anything like dictate that, like if she was in a good relationship or if she was making good money or if she was good with herself, or is there, or was it really just like unpredictable? It was just so unpredictable.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's a really good question. It it really just was unpredictable, I think things. It became worse when those things were unstable, like the money, like having issues with my stepdad you know when things were bad with them.
Speaker 2:it made it worse but also sometimes better, because focus would be taken off of me and then it would be directed towards him. So it really just depended. But you know, I don't want to create this myth that my childhood was all bad, because that's not what it was. But you know, I want to say there was just always a lot of instability and fighting between my mom and stepdad, but the older that I became, the more it switched to me, you know, until I moved out at 14. So I want to say, you know, I became aware of how as aware as a four-year-old can be of of how not great this situation was at four because of that memory, and that just became more and more prevalent as the years, as the years went on. So you know, it was about a decade. It was about a decade of instability and fighting in the home and then, if I'm being honest, about four years where it was pretty extreme abuse towards me. Like in what ways? So my mom very rarely ever touched me, which made it a lot harder, honestly, to prove A lot of it was psychological.
Speaker 2:I mean just in deep, intense psychological stuff. My mom is very good at that, and she is very good at pretending to other people that it's like oh well, rebecca's just like this, which made it even harder, because when someone says or does something that is so viscerally repulsive to me, I'm silent about it, and I knew the things that were happening to me were wrong, but I was always not able to speak about it because when I tried to, when I finally started to and my mom found out, she would kind of sweep it away and make it seem like I'm not well. It was true, I'm not well because certain things are happening to me in the home and I'm trapped. You know what I mean? Yeah, but I told, kind of had the foresight or the initiative to be curious well, why is Rebecca acting like this? What's going on in the home?
Speaker 1:so then that isolated me even further because was your mom nutty acting towards other people or which did she seem completely like chill, like to most like responsible? Had her shit together, seemed like she seemed like the overwhelmed mother.
Speaker 2:I just don't know what to do with rebecca I mean you see how she's acting. I just don't know what to. I'm so concerned for her that's what she came across, yeah, and then I would just be silent, because you're like I mean, what's the point of?
Speaker 1:What's the point? Yeah, so did you ever feel like telling your dad, or did you feel like he's not going to care either, like if I tell him, dude, this lady is like acting this way to me, listen to what she did. Did you ever do that?
Speaker 2:Or my dad knew he left her for for a reason, and he tells me now well, rebecca, I never thought that she would do to you what she did to me, which you know. The reason why I did the ayahuasca ceremony is not even to help put into perspective some of the things that my mom did, but it was because of the intense anger I had to my dad. It was so consuming that this man who was supposed to protect me knew certain things that my mom was doing and he left me to deal with it for so long. And it was worse. She, what she did to me was significantly worse because I couldn't leave.
Speaker 1:And because your mind, I mean you're like a, like a kid, you know you're not an adult, exactly yeah, what did the medicine teach you about your dad? And getting through that anger of that? Because you're just like cause in my mind. I hear that and I'm like dude, just didn't feel like dealing with this or was a coward or was afraid, or didn't have the tools or didn't want to change his lifestyle or like all of that. Yeah.
Speaker 2:Yes, literally all of that, yeah, but what I was mad about the most was the cowardice and the, the inaccountability and to act like I didn't know or something, Even to this day. My dad, you know you can sit there and tell him something and he'll look at you like he is listening to every word that you're saying, and then you can bring something up again, like a week later.
Speaker 1:Oh, I don't know.
Speaker 2:That's the first time I'm hearing that. So the you know the medicine. It took away a lot of my anger, but it's still challenging. You know, I did it because I wanted to be able to live with myself and not not talk to my dad if he were to pass Like. I could not live with myself and I needed to have something to help me with that anger. Because I couldn't do it? Because, do you like him? I love my dad. He, my dad, was the first word I ever said, the first person I took my steps towards. I love my dad. I don't respect him. I wanted him to be as brave as the uniform he put on and he was not that way with me, which?
Speaker 1:was his most important.
Speaker 2:Which was his most important. Yeah, my dad had a pretty illustrious career in the state police. A lot of people to this day still know him, and yet, and yet.
Speaker 1:It is kind of crazy, but do you think that he has shame towards it?
Speaker 2:Oh, yeah, yeah, because he can't admit it, and when I confront him with that, he goes into kind of like a big man posture. It's like it's false bravado, you know then where? Then he in turn blames me for things.
Speaker 1:What? Yeah, yeah, like you're like, you know that's not even yeah, yeah, and at a certain point it just doesn't matter.
Speaker 2:No, you know it doesn't. You're right, I can't fight anymore yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and it does get to the point where you're like I want to have a relationship, I love you a lot. And I think that as women we do kind of have like soft spots for our dads really. I mean, a lot of times I think my dad is so funny and great and cool, you know, and he has his flaws too, as we all do. But there's just something like special there really and that, I think, is, you know, just like an innate in us that we have sometimes and you know, you want to have that relationship with your dad. But I mean, you can't change the past, you can't control the personality, you can't control the growth, you can't control any of that. So then it becomes like you were saying onto you to get rid of that anger somehow so that then you can move forward, or you could spend your whole life pissed which I, you know, I have a level of stubbornness where I was ready to do that.
Speaker 2:No one can be angrier than me. Yeah, yeah, but it's pointless. Oh, so pointless.
Speaker 1:Cause it's only hurting you.
Speaker 2:Well, that's and you know it's funny I was actually I think it was on my way back from a yoga class. It was over the summer, it was or the spring. It was around the time that I knew that I should go do ayahuasca, because I had sort of a thought as I was driving, where I was like what could my dad do to make up for what happened? Nothing, there is nothing that he could do, there is nothing that he could say, nothing that he could promise he could try until the cows came home. And I would still be mad Because it still happened and it still was bullshit. And that's when I knew oh okay, this is yours to fix, rebecca. The anger has just gotten so out of control. And that's you. That was me, because how old are you now?
Speaker 1:36. 36. Okay, so you've spent how long angry?
Speaker 2:That's a really good question. I did not realize I was angry at my dad until I was about 32. Oh wow, so what was it?
Speaker 1:before that Denial, because it would hurt to see it.
Speaker 2:What was it before that Denial? Because it would hurt to see it or I would sweep how I felt so deeply under the rug. You know, I remember I told a therapist one time when I started to realize how angry I was at my dad. He actually ended up having a stroke and they didn't tell me until the next day, and that's when. That's when the anger really started. It's like how dare you almost die and not tell me, wait 12 hours?
Speaker 2:Yeah, come on, because what my mom had done was so extreme that I never looked at what my dad didn't do. That's a good point.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, because you were just focused on, like my mom sucks.
Speaker 2:Yes, yeah, yeah. And how can I? I didn't even try to get better until I was maybe like 27. So it's been. Yeah, just I. What do you do with how big it was? I didn't know what to do. I didn't know how to untangle this web in my mind that she had put there, and then I had really knotted together.
Speaker 1:I didn't know that's a really good point, cause what did it look like from? I guess we need to back up a little bit, cause I mean, yeah, so you had like a decade where you're like the abuse was not good, basically from four to 14, and then you ended what ended up happening.
Speaker 2:So I think around the time I was 11, I started to tell people. As much as I knew how to talk, I would tell my friends snippets. At school I would. I tried to tell my not my grandmother, the one who passed my. My grandfather got into another relationship with a woman. Her name is his, gloria, but she's always been at like a grandmother to me. I tried to tell her and she didn't help. She told my grandfather and of course he didn't help. Yeah, you know, I would try to tell.
Speaker 2:My mom used to take me to a counselor when I was younger. I tried to tell her she wouldn't help, because what did you want them to do? Help my mom so she would stop hurting me. But I didn't know how to articulate that at the time and I was so scared all of the time because of I never knew what to say or what to do or what mood she was going to be like when she came home. And when my mom was mad she would be mad for weeks and weeks. I mean it was nothing could soothe her and actually the only what I found was the only thing that soothed her is when I spoke badly about myself.
Speaker 1:Really.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it would. It would really it would. It would almost diffuse the situation to the point where I hated myself so much. You know, it wasn't even the hate that she was spewing towards me, about me, it was the tactics that I had to use to speak badly about myself. And that's kind of like the web that I was talking about earlier that I you know my mom kind of put in my mind, but I tied those knots really tightly, just full of self-hatred because basically she would be mad and angry and then you would be like you know, yeah, you're right, you're right, I am, I'm bad.
Speaker 2:And she'd be like yes, it, yes, that was kind of what it was. It would just it soothed her to almost like validate yeah, validate yeah. Almost be like, uh, I don't, I, I can't even speculate what it did for her, but it all it did was diffuse it.
Speaker 1:So, where you know, the yelling would stop for weeks and maybe it'd be a few hours because she just went around yelling and just, I guess, just like an angry tone, basically right, like just a never loving, like just always sort of irritated, is that sort of like the vibe?
Speaker 2:yeah, yeah, so the first thing that came to mind. I might've been like 10 around that time and I used to play in the basement a lot and I forgot to put like VHS tapes away for or I put them away, but I put them in the wrong containers. You know, I put like the brave little toaster in the Beauty and the Beast.
Speaker 1:VHS thing.
Speaker 2:And it's late at night I'm asleep and my mom comes into my room and wakes me up, starts yelling at me, and then you're trying to figure out what's happening because you're in rest. And now you're in fight or flight trying to figure out what's happening and she marches me down two flights of stairs just yelling at me the whole time. Whether that was an erased voice, I don't know Whatever it is it's belittling, it's a tactic.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:So it's, you know, late at night she's mad, and she had me put everything back together again in the way that she wanted it to. And whenever she was upset, she would stand over me and yell at me the whole time, you know, and she would say things like, if you know, if I started crying, that's right, you better cry or I'll beat you.
Speaker 1:You know, it was just, it was stuff like that.
Speaker 2:It was the ever present threat of physical violence but, like I said, it was more psychological, the things that she would say it was. It was all the time where it's like it's challenging for me to give you an example, because it's like totally what didn't this woman, totally you know whatever you're imagining, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, and I mean it doesn't.
Speaker 1:You know, the examples don't necessarily matter, but I mean you're just living in stress yes, living in stress.
Speaker 2:like to give you the example of the kind of stamina my mom had. We went to the holidays in Pittsburgh one time, more than once, but you know I think I was like eight, nine and I had super long hair and I was fidgeting in class with it and I got in a sn at me for cutting just like a little bit of my hair and the only time she stopped yelling at me was when, because my stepdad was in the car.
Speaker 2:So it's about two and a half hours and we stopped to get gas and he just asked her very gently, like hey, it's not that big of a deal, could you please just stop yelling at her? And she only briefly paused to yell at him and then to finish the next three hours up to pittsburgh.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you know and so, yeah, when you're asking for help, you just wish that somebody would be like can you please make her stop acting like?
Speaker 2:this. I couldn't. I knew at a certain point I couldn't take it anymore. Yeah, yeah, I was, I was, I was breaking. I couldn't, I couldn't, I couldn't be as silent as I was anymore but but her energy.
Speaker 1:Like people didn't realize she had bad energy, I have no idea what people didn't realize. Because it's like if a person's doing that, you would think that it just be one of those types of people that you're like golly. But I guess that's not enough to actually like I don't know. It's not enough Because I imagine she didn't have friends.
Speaker 2:That's a good point. She had birds of a feather. She had a few friends who were like her.
Speaker 1:Some misery, commiserators. Yeah, so you were like I can't take this anymore. How did your stepdad?
Speaker 2:deal with that. He didn't, he just didn't. I mean, you know, even to this day, you know a big thing that my family does, which is why I don't talk to them. Find a weird way to admit that this stuff happened but still blame me for it.
Speaker 1:It's a really you know, you really were just whatever, yeah, you were just whatever.
Speaker 2:Or you know one thing that my stepdad does my stepsister when I moved out, she ended up moving in because she had a very similar situation with her mom. You know my stepdad, he likes a very particular type of woman. Yeah, and you know she moved out of her mom's house and then moved in with him and my mom, and my mom then started transferring what she did to me to her and my stepdad believes her but still calls me a liar. It's very, it's a very twisted, interesting dynamic, Totally.
Speaker 1:It makes no sense.
Speaker 2:They have to lie to themselves to make themselves feel better. It's easier to blame me totally yeah.
Speaker 1:So when you were like I can't take it anymore, then what did you do?
Speaker 2:well, eventually I started stressing to my dad how bad it was. I started keeping a journal of dates and times of things that my mom would do. I took pictures because one of the things that my mom did was not necessarily be physically violent to me, but she would, you know, punch holes in the wall and she ripped a door off of its hinges one time and just stuff like that, Throw stuff away, throw garbage over my head, Like it was just. You know what I mean. So, like you know, you document that as much as you can.
Speaker 2:And I don't know what finally broke in my dad to really understand how dire the situation was. I think I might've said something like if this isn't fixed, I'm going to run away, Something like that. I said something to impress upon him the direness of the situation and obviously at that time had a very extensive background in law enforcement. He got a lawyer with money that we didn't have at the time and you know I spoke to the lawyer a few times and it was. It was one of the first moments in my life that I had telling someone like an adult, like an adult that wasn't my dad, who believed me, and then the look on her face when I told her the things that were happening to me. It was nourishing, and so we proceeded with what was an emergency custody removal, which I think I told you this in the voice clip that I sent. Like, no one gets granted something like that, especially for lack of physical violence.
Speaker 1:Right yeah.
Speaker 2:When I'm telling you what my mom did was thorough and extensive and horrible, I mean it. I did not have to testify. All I had was that journal. I didn't have to go in front of a judge. My lawyer gave them that journal. Five minutes later they switched the custody to my dad.
Speaker 1:Do you think that your dad was like okay, she's older now I can handle this too?
Speaker 2:That's a good question I just don't know the answer to. I know there are certain things that are more important to my dad than me, which has always been really hurtful, but I think it really was. Whatever I said to him one day he got it.
Speaker 1:How did you feel when that all went down?
Speaker 2:I had been traumatized for so many years, I was convinced she was going to get me back. When I think about it now, it was one or two. Things was going to happen. She was ultimately going to kill me. She made threats all the time and I knew there was a point in her mind where something was going to snap and she was going to do something that would physically hurt me. There was no, no doubt in my mind that something like that was going to happen or I was going to snap. And whatever happened as a result of that? If I'm being honest and what is the point of this if not that my snap would have probably been ending my own life.
Speaker 2:So was she pissed that? She kind of lost. She was desperate and embarrassed. She was embarrassed that people found out her pride. Did you ever have to go back over there? My dad strongly encouraged me to continue to have a relationship with my mom, which I attempted to for years at my own detriment, because she couldn't physically threaten any me anymore, but she could really demean me in other ways. You know my, like, my body was a huge focus of hers. She was super fixated on my body or anything about me, like I remember when I was older, and this is when I didn't live with her.
Speaker 2:I went out to dinner with her or something, or we were out shopping and I laughed. She was like who laughs like that, rebecca, no one laughs like that. Or she was very focused on my breasts, like every woman has a bigger one and a smaller one, and my righty is a little bigger than my lefty. I like them both, but she always wanted me to get a boob job Always yeah. So she would try to undermine my body in that way, like, oh well, rebecca, why don't you just get a breast job? I'll pay for half of it.
Speaker 2:It just always super, so she would pick at me in ways like that. You know, after I moved out of her house, just this hyper fixation.
Speaker 1:Like she couldn't control you, but she could maybe try to like say some things that would maybe yeah, Because she must have really hated herself.
Speaker 2:I can't think of any other reason why she would be like this to another person.
Speaker 1:Truly Like you must really like hate yourself, to really be like wanting another person to hate themselves or make them feel worse than you feel about yourself. I guess, yeah, you know. So then, what did your life look like after that Like? Did you start to feel any better or were you still just like living in this sort of weird?
Speaker 2:It was chaos, it was just chaos. I you know, it was my first sense of freedom. So like I got into a lot of trouble in high school and shaped up during college, just because, like oh okay, I really got to start trying now, you know yeah.
Speaker 1:Because I guess you didn't really have time for feelings.
Speaker 2:No.
Speaker 1:Like you weren't feeling really.
Speaker 2:I hid everything about who I was. That was good. I hid it in a deep dark place within me so she wouldn't be able to use it against me. So I did have feelings, but I couldn't show it. So it's the expressing of those feelings, it's having conversations like this that I never would have dreamt of. Me asking you hey can I? Sit down and can I talk about this?
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, totally yeah. So then in high school you were just like partying, Were you like smoking weed? No, well, yeah.
Speaker 2:A little bit of that, but mostly just hanging out with a lot of people who did that. I found that really fun, like the chaos and freedom of that and being a normal kid normal you know I was very drawn to that. Were you good at school when I applied myself? Yeah, yeah, like when I got into college? You know, I've always I've always been a fast learner you know. So when I sat down and buckled up, I was like, oh yeah, no, I'm really good at this, yeah so then you went to college.
Speaker 1:For what criminal justice.
Speaker 2:It's like I was 18. They make you like a major you know, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1:How did all of this end up unraveling? Because basically, you had it sounds like you had this very like traumatic thing that happened and then you're like, shoo, freedom, okay, we're leaving that behind. That never happened.
Speaker 2:I didn't really start exploring myself and what Rebecca actually wanted. Late twenties, truly like 26, 27.
Speaker 1:That's like normal, though-ish.
Speaker 2:Thank you for saying that to me.
Speaker 1:It felt very delayed.
Speaker 2:Yeah, when I was 23, I met a man like one does, and he was in the army and he was stationed in Alaska. I met him when he was on leave here in Virginia. We had gone to the same high school together, but he was older than me and we'd never met. I was with the party crowd and he was like homecoming yeah, he was like a normie football, yeah, guy.
Speaker 2:And you know, I started going up to Alaska and I think the first time that I had a little crack, a little bit of understanding, like oh, this is who I want to be, we were hiking in Alaska and I saw they call her, it's the this mountain range, it's Mount Sistina, but they call her the sleeping lady and there's this whole myth to her that I won't go into now but it's very beautiful. And I saw her and it was in january and all the trees were bare and everything was like white and blue and brown and you just see her off in the distance and something cracked open in me like wait a minute, how I've been living is wrong. What is a better way to live? And then I went to sleep for what felt like another few years and then, around 26 or 27, I started exploring what that might look like for me.
Speaker 1:Because would you tell people this was my life, this is what happened, or now I hit a lot of it because I didn't think that anyone could deal with it.
Speaker 2:So it really limited. Like the people that I thought would actually be good for me I stayed away from Because you didn't feel good enough, because I didn't feel good enough, I maybe some sense of deserve, like lack of deserving to have good people in my life, like why, would they want to be around me? I'm too broken.
Speaker 1:Because what does that all look like? Like the effects of, or at least for you, like the effects of having, or at least for you like the effects of having a person, the one person who's supposed to care for you and build you up and love you, and all this stuff. Well, they basically want you to hate yourself and have low self-esteem and shame and all of the negative things. You know, how does that play out?
Speaker 2:for your life how abuse can just cut through a person, but not only you know the perpetrator, but, like the systems that were put into place that were supposed to protect you and didn't, and the other people, like communities that were supposed to protect you and didn't Isolated, it has left me feeling, for large chunks of my life, isolated and unable to communicate with people and having to radically learn how to emotionally regulate myself and failing at that time and time and time and time again not being able to ask people for help because when I did, they didn't. So there is an extreme lack of trust that I have that I need to continuously reevaluate because you know there are times when I can have a really hard-lined approach with people that they don't understand.
Speaker 2:They don't understand how I can be so strict in certain areas because they didn't have the life that I did. So, yeah, it kind of leaves you feeling so different from people. How do I even begin to connect with someone who I think is so lovely? Because what if they look at me and they see something in me that my mom must have seen in me to treat me like that? What if they see that too? Or, even scarier, what if they see me and they love me? Because what does that mean? I don't know.
Speaker 1:I get scared when people love me.
Speaker 2:I really do when people that I like, when people love me. I really do when people that I like when they love me. I am terrified that I'm going to blow it. It's not an inauthenticity, because I know who I am when I'm not around other people and I like myself. But it's easy to be around someone when they're happy and when they're fun and when they make jokes. I'm really witty, you know. So I can go out and I can do one-liners and everyone laughs.
Speaker 2:Everyone's having a good time, you know, but people don't always know what to do with me when I get sad. Is that true? I found it to be, and I wish it wasn't the case. Not everyone, you know. There are some people I've known for a very long time that know what to do, but I'm at this phase in my life where it's like I'm meeting all of these people that I really like and that I would love to have them in my life. How do I navigate these situations with them? With the adult that I am now, the perspectives that I have now, the health and the growth that I do now?
Speaker 2:But when I still get depressed, when I still get sad, when I'm anxious, I notice when I tell people sometimes I'll be out and I'll feel the rise of anxiety, which usually means that I need to go home. Even just articulating to people, sometimes in a very calm way, just like when I'm saying to you know, hi, I'm feeling really anxious right now. There's nothing that you need to do, although it would be nice if you could, like hold my hand or something. You know, I just need to go to a quieter place, or you know I talk just like that. But even the word anxiety freaks people out sometimes, you know yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah, like it's so contagious even the word.
Speaker 1:It's a really good point, though, because I mean that's really on them. I mean I know, you know this, but it still doesn't make it feel better. But it's really on them and on us as, like people, to not be able to deal with other people's like low level emotions, like we want everybody to just be happy and be cool and be fun, like exactly what you're saying. But yeah, but that's not how it is, and so it's not your fault that they don't know how to just say, oh, wow, okay, no worries, like is there anything I can do for you?
Speaker 2:And then it not affect them and I think that's one of the things like I, I wish for myself to have that family, to have that larger pockets of community, of people that I know that are like me, because I can do that for other people, exactly. But I've had a lot of practice at it. Exactly. Maybe they haven't, yeah, exactly.
Speaker 1:Yeah, or maybe they're not there. You know, yeah, which is hard though, because you know, when you're feeling a little shaky in yourself and then you go to be your true, 100 authentic self and you have these like past wounds, and then it's harder than to just be like, oh well, that's them, not me, whatever.
Speaker 2:Really good point I you know I take a lot of self-blame on a lot, so I it is very challenging for me to not take that personally yeah because it creation that my mom kind of put in me like you are bad, this is you, and so now it's, I'll take accountability. What do you got?
Speaker 1:I'll take accountability for it, you know yeah, how do you stay out of victimhood, though? Because I feel like you could easily tap into victimhood.
Speaker 2:So I'm so glad that you brought that up. I hate that word.
Speaker 1:Oh man.
Speaker 2:Because I've struggled with this, because, you know, sometimes some people, when I'm close to them and I confide in them, like how I feel they'll say this phrase that just do you want to say something that makes me mad. It's, it's uh. Well, aren't you playing the victim right now? No, I'm, I'm telling you what happened, hoping that you understand and maybe not empathize, but bare minimum sympathize, like, oh, I can see, but maybe that's empathize. Oh, I can see how, because of this happened to you, why you might feel powerless in a similar situation.
Speaker 2:But, yes, I, I don't look at myself as a victim I never have, so it's funny when people place that word on me that's not what you're doing.
Speaker 1:No, I don't feel that way.
Speaker 2:I'm so glad that you asked this question. I'm like ready to talk. Um, you know, I there was never something that I thought about myself. I never thought about myself as a victim. I don't even think about myself as a survivor. I just am. Rebecca Truly. I know that's very cliche. I just am a person, and so how do I stay out of it? You know, there I definitely have moments of self-pity.
Speaker 1:Do you see it in other people? What would be an example to you of somebody that is hanging out in victimhood?
Speaker 2:I don't, I don't, I don't even see my mom as that.
Speaker 1:Yeah, but what about if a person in your situation, let's say, never move forward, and for their whole life? I would find that tiring, but then wouldn't they just be not taking accountability and moving forward?
Speaker 2:I would call them stuck and not in victimhood. No, I would just say they are. They are stuck in a loop because I get, we all get stuck in loops.
Speaker 1:Yeah you know what I mean to varying degrees.
Speaker 2:I wouldn't label that anything other than they are just so deeply stuck and I can't help that. I can't help them with.
Speaker 1:Yeah yeah, do you find that annoying?
Speaker 2:oh, yeah, yeah yeah, oh yeah, I mean you know you ever have a friend who comes to you with like the same problem again.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, yeah, right Right.
Speaker 2:Yeah, please, it's been 10 years, can we like let's move it along.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah. You know, but I, I, I get that way sometimes too, especially with you could have done for your whole life. When you brought up the point about like not being able to untangle and being like, I think it was like 27 and you hadn't even started and you weren't mad at your dad yet, because it was all just kind of lingering there. You could have stayed stuck in that forever and that would have been stuck in that loop.
Speaker 2:I hate feeling stagnant. Yeah, I really hate that. It I don't like not growing. It's just, it's a. I think it's a fundamental part of who I am, especially since I felt like I was so held back from expressing who I am, showing who I am. Who is Rebecca? I want to know? I want to know who Rebecca is. Why do you think some people don't want to know? It's scary. It's so scary, it's terrifying.
Speaker 1:To know.
Speaker 2:Yeah, to feel. You know. There are a few things I've already said during this podcast where I'm like whew, wish I hadn't said that. You know, but that's a part of me, the mistakes and the things that I say.
Speaker 1:So what started happening when you started unraveling things and how did that and what did that look like? And how do people even do that? Because it's easier sometimes to stay stuck even though it doesn't feel expansive a lot of panic attacks.
Speaker 2:That's how that started. My dad had a stroke. I started getting mad at him and then I. Panic attacks, for me, resonate very much in the body. It doesn't even start with a thought, it's just so bodily response yes, yeah to whatever stimulus.
Speaker 2:I have not been able to figure that out, but when I started having the panic attacks it was on and off for like a year. They were horrible, just horrible, and I didn't go on medication for them because I knew I wanted to figure out what I could do. Not saying medication is not a lot of people.
Speaker 2:But for me specifically, I needed to see, I needed to trust my body, and it took about a year to do that. But panic attacks are good for me specifically. They suck but they're good, because every time I have one I feel like I'm coming more and more into my body because I'm sitting with it. So that leads me into your question sitting with yourself, like really sitting with yourself, even when it's awful. A lot of times it will. Yeah, it really will be. They call them overwhelming emotions for a reason. Yeah, it really will be. They call them overwhelming emotions for a reason. Yeah, getting into nature helps.
Speaker 1:It really does.
Speaker 2:If you're having panic attacks and can't figure out how to help, it's getting outside. Yeah, if you're by a forest, go into a forest. Yeah, seriously.
Speaker 1:Because to me it sounds like it was basically you know how they this is always the example but you know in an animal sees danger and then afterwards they shake, you know, to re-regulate. It's kind of like you were like okay, body, if you want to shake this shit out, let's go, and it panic attack, let's go, kind of shook it all out a little bit. Is that kind of how you feel, kind of?
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, that is, but it's challenging for other people. For me, I need to be with someone a lot of the times when I'm anxious or sad or depressed, and that is very overwhelming for people, a lot of people I found. So, you know, it's been a process of hey, like, how do I untangle that? Well, finding the right people, which is a process, how do you find the right people? It's a process. You know, it's being open to trying new things, right? So I had been going to a different yoga studio for years before I came to Shine and met you all, and now I'm sitting here across from you.
Speaker 1:You know what I mean. Like how do things?
Speaker 2:evolve. It's being able to take chances. It's not necessarily doing things that are scary to you, not dangerous, but challenging to who you thought of as yourself. Like, once again, how can I grow? And how can I grow incrementally and then larger over time? It is a process, it doesn't happen overnight, and I think that's why a lot of people don't do it, because it's just fucking hard.
Speaker 1:Yeah, but you equally like yourself and being alone and people.
Speaker 2:It sounds like I'm trying to like myself Trying yeah A lot of times. It's more successful that I'm giving myself credit for because you hang out alone, right, yeah.
Speaker 1:And you like to do things like you have hobbies, yes, and you like to be in nature and learning myself, because it's where I re-regulate is, yeah, and where I find that I'm the most myself is when I'm outside and you travel a lot.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and you, you know, went and did ayahuasca alone well, there was with a group, but like group just you, yeah, I mean you do experience it internally alone, but also you love people, like do you love partners, like do you love being in a relationship? I do yeah, that has been. I've had successes and I don't want to call them failures, because I feel like you learn something in every relationship. I'm not currently in one right now, but you know I would love to be. I'm I grow the most in partnerships.
Speaker 1:So what do you like about yourself?
Speaker 2:A lot actually. I like that. I'm a safe person to be around, how enthusiastic I am for life, and I can tell when I am around a group of people, especially outside, I know what I bring to the table. I bring joy. I really do, I see it. I bring connection. I bring joy, laughter. I like that. I can make people feel joyful. And I love my laugh. I really do. I love my laugh. I really I love my laugh.
Speaker 1:Good, yeah, you should. But it is funny because you know, you felt a lack of safety and you really are a very safe person to be around. Like I definitely feel that you know, like saying that you know coming to shine, and I'm like, oh my God, it's Rebecca. Rebecca's going to be here tonight. That's so amazing. Yay, Come to moon gatherings, Rebecca. Like you're so cool, you know, and I barely know you, you know, but you just have this vibe Like that is so that's just you.
Speaker 2:All I've ever wanted is to be wanted by the people.
Speaker 1:Yeah and fuck you are.
Speaker 2:I agree and not by everyone, right, but it's like yeah. I want to be seen and I want to be wanted by people that I want.
Speaker 1:Yeah, like even when you again, I'm not trying to blow smoke up your ass, but even in hopscotch the other day I was in conversation with my friend and I look over and I was like what the fuck? There's Rebecca. I thought she had your hair up and I was like who is this person? I'd never seen you without your hair. Yeah, I was like what the fuck? There's Rebecca. Like you walked by I was like what is she doing here? Like hey, you know and I don't get that excited about everyone, you know what I mean. So I'm just saying you really, you do have that.
Speaker 2:Hell yeah, and I think part of my struggle is and I'm glad that I brought this up with you and my messages to you after that encounter I was very depressed that day and, you know, leading up to the holidays I can feel that way for all of the reasons we have discussed, and part of what I'm working on right now is self-esteem issues. So, you know, sometimes and it's not just you, I promise Sometimes, when people, when I feel depressed and people seem like they're excited to see me, my default is, oh, they're just being polite, I'm not someone to get excited about, or you know, it's that really horrible self-talk that I'm really glad that you're, that. You know one, I spoke with you about it and then two that you're telling me it's the exact opposite of what I thought.
Speaker 1:I believe you, I know I believed you then.
Speaker 2:But it it. You know, sometimes when I get into that headspace it's like yeah, it just is until I can snap out of it. And here we are doing something that I am so grateful for?
Speaker 1:So what did it look like back to? You know your mom and everything. So now, what do you talk to her at all? Are you like no, this person's not safe, like I'm really not doing this?
Speaker 2:I haven't seen her in about five years and I haven't spoken to her in about two. But I wrestle with that often. My grand not my grandmother who passed from breast cancer, but the one who is alive. She's, I think, 85 and she broke her hip recently and I've had family members reach out and tell me this. You know I sent her a card and I thought about calling her, but I know my mom is with her and I know what that would lead to because Gloria has always been super supportive of my mom and not of me in that regard.
Speaker 2:So it's challenging but I struggle with it and I don't think my family realizes how deeply I struggle with it. I want to be able to have a mother I can have a connection with. I want to be there for my grandmother, who's obviously not doing well right now, but I've not been able to find a way to really do that where it can be safe for me. I don't know if that will be possible in my grandmother's lifetime. I imagine there's going to be a point where I do reach out to them and I do establish some connection, some communication, but that's going to be really difficult and I don't know. I don't know how. I just know it's a growing possibility. The older that I get, the older that they get.
Speaker 1:Would you say that you're able to hold space for both, like the duality of I really do not want to deal with this person, she is not safe to me, she will screw me over, she will not change, I cannot do this and also the duality of I feel like shit about it. I wish that I could do this. I wish she was a good mom, I wish that I could have this relationship. I feel like a bad person sometimes because I can't Do both sort of like exist to you.
Speaker 1:Do you live in my head? Because it seems easy on one side of the coin of the, let them you know, mel Robbins, let them type of vibe or just in general, if somebody is hurting you and they are not good for you and they are not safe for you and they have proven this time and time again you cannot have a relationship with them. That is kind of simple. If you do break it down like that, it is like you cannot have a relationship with somebody who hurts you and who is mean to you or whatever, but at the same time we still are humans and we're going to have that sort of messy.
Speaker 2:If I know myself, what I think is going to win out is they are getting older and I won't be able to live with myself if I don't at least talk to them occasionally. Same thing with my dad, but more so with my dad. I talk to him pretty often. Now I don't think that I could live with the guilt. Even though I don't think that guilt is mine to carry, I still own a bit of it.
Speaker 1:Do you want to get rid of it?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I don't think that's realistic, though it's just there. It's that duality that you're talking about, and I actually have not attempted to hold space for the duality in that situation.
Speaker 1:So, you know, when you were talking, I was closing my eyes seeing what that felt like and like oh, I haven't done that before with this Because, again, it's very easy, I think, to, and I do think that in some certain in a lot of situations, different personalities, different people, can you know, maybe hold both. You know whether it's like a past relationship, you know, maybe not as deep as family ties and things like that, and everyone's different. But yeah, I think it's very nuanced and it's very and like with your dad. Do you feel like you have like forgiven him or what are your feelings? Because this is all still you're not, would you say you're not really over this isn't like you're over this and this is we're done with this.
Speaker 2:I have moments of anger towards my dad. Yesterday was hard, you know, on Christmas I didn't want to call him but I did and that so him. He doesn't want me to be angry at him. So I feel like sometimes I'm still doing things more for him than I am for me and there's resentment there about that. So, yeah, you know, but I think overall, if I were to look into the future, what would I be happiest with myself doing? And it's every day trying to let go more and more of that anger and be less in it With everyone yeah, with everyone, a lot of people.
Speaker 1:Do you care about your mom's response to you?
Speaker 2:No. So what's interesting? That's a hidden out of the park question. I had, you know, when I was in Milwaukee a few weeks ago. I was driving, as you know, getting running errands, getting ready to to back to Virginia, and I had the thought to myself if I reached out to them, I really don't care what they would say to me, how they would react. I really don't. I know what their opinions on me are, I just don't care. Sure, have them, I know who I am. Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1:Anything else, oh boy.
Speaker 2:Anything else. Oh boy, so overwhelmed with what it's taken me, just gratitude. Gratitude both with myself for having the bravery to at least attempt to have the kind of life that I want to have, which was never something that I thought was possible for me possible and you, just just for you, being so open and willing to explore this with me, like you said without you know us, really knowing each other the best yet yeah, do you know what I mean?
Speaker 2:yeah, um, but I appreciate that openness because it shows me like, oh, I'm, I'm doing things right, I'm doing things right yeah, yeah, I think you really are, cause you're.
Speaker 1:You're living, it seems like pretty guided, like you're living according to how, what, how things feel, and then making good decisions and moving towards that decision and that, and that's really all we can do. What do you feel like is this is a big question, but what do you feel like in this lifetime is, like, what are some of the lessons that you feel like you're here to learn and or your purpose and or like sometimes things just are, sometimes things just happen, sometimes we're whatever, but I sort of think that we choose the family that we you know?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I've heard that concept. Yeah, I've wrestled with that.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so easy for me to maybe say than others that are in better, but no but you're right, you know, I think, that sometimes we choose the families or the situation sort of before we, you know, are conceived, and then you know, our souls, here to you know, go through this journey. So do you feel like? What do you feel like is yours to learn and do and cause? You've already grown so much. I you know, and these are only guesses of course, yeah, it is fun though sometimes, yeah right.
Speaker 2:What I meant to do has always been to be outside, in whatever capacity that is. I shine when I am outside. I just am. I don't know what that looks like, other than my purpose is wild nature. I would hope my purpose in this lifetime is also partnership. That has always been a desire of mine to have that with someone, the level of depth and growth becoming more and more of myself. Connection with people, I think, is a purpose of mine. I don't think that you live through some of the things that I've experienced without that also being a desire, and I think what we desire or at least I hope what we desire is one of those goals is to have those desires come to fruition Partnership, connection, nature. I've been told that one of my gifts is bringing people to nature, so whatever that looks like, I don't know, sometimes I feel like just like a lady taking pictures in the woods, you know.
Speaker 1:But then it inspires people to be like you know, oh, that looks nice, maybe I should go do that, yeah, or whatever you know.
Speaker 2:I do get people, especially with herbalism. I get people constantly kind of like asking me questions about this or that, or oh, where, where were you when you took this picture? And I don't necessarily do it for that. It is nice when that happens, it feels flattering. But I think everything is just born of a deep, intense desire to explore and be curious you know, yeah, yeah so maybe that's my purpose is curiosity exploration because are you technically an herbalist?
Speaker 2:yes, yeah, yeah so that's your side gig it will. So I don't make any money off of it, but, yeah, okay, it's. It's a, it's a lifestyle. Okay, yeah, it's connection. It is a way to be connected more to this earth, and that is something that I deeply desire is connection. So you know, what does that plant do? Who is that plant? Why do I like these plants and I'm staying away from these plants? Why do these people like these plants? Whenever I'm around plant people, it's just an opportunity to get more and more connected. Some of the best people I've met are plant people. We can just talk to each other and, yeah, like I can say stuff to them that it's like they get and whereas, like I'm other. All, right now, I need to explain this before we can get hair.
Speaker 1:Yeah, exactly, yeah, yeah, yeah, that's really cool, though. I love that. So you're going back to Milwaukee? Yeah, why Milwaukee?
Speaker 2:Girl. So during the ayahuasca journey, one of the messages that I got was actually to move to Madison, wisconsin, not Milwaukee, but I was more familiar with Milwaukee than Madison at the time. Okay, and you know, Milwaukee's had its ups and downs. I don't like to draw a conclusion like a month and a half into this, but my lease is for nine months, okay, you know, and we're just going to see. We're just going to see what's out there for me. If I move back, I move back. I am so partial to Virginia. I really love it, Even front Royal. Yeah, I know yeah.
Speaker 2:I loved ayahuasca because the experience gave me a roadmap and I really needed guidance. I really needed. I felt so lost and she gave me guidance and you know I've been trying to do my best to follow it, because how often are we given that opportunity? Right, you know, right. So that is why I am there currently, whether or not that is crazy it remains to be seen.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think it's fine yeah, yeah, yeah, but it's been. It's been challenging because, you know, I know a little bit less people there and kind of more in a city environment now, so it's like oh what?
Speaker 2:yeah, um, I'm used to just stepping outside and getting into a forest and being alone, and now it's like I'm used to just stepping outside and getting into a forest and being alone, and now it's like I'm stepping outside and I'm right on Lake Michigan, which is really beautiful, you know, it's like it's like an ocean, it's massive, so there is a nature element to it, but I'm surrounded by buildings, surrounded by people, a lot of people I don't know. So then it's forcing me to get out of my comfort zone.
Speaker 1:And it's like OK, rebecca, how much can we grow, even when we're sad? How can we meet new people, even in the middle of winter, and we're feeling not that way? Do you feel exhausted by growth or do you feel exhilarated by it, or both?
Speaker 2:Mostly exhausted. I don't feel like you know cause they're just it's hard. Growth is hard. I don't know who thinks it's hard. Growth is hard, yeah, I don't. I don't know who who thinks it's easy yeah, I mean yeah, it isn't.
Speaker 1:But I think in the outside it can look like oh wow, they're. Do you know she can just, you know she can just move terrified the whole time. Yeah, she can. Just, you know she's out in nature all the time, like she's. You know she can just meet new people like look at all this, whatever. But actually it's all like yeah, and it's exhausting, you know.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's a really good point. I wonder if people think like that when they see things on on social media and it's like internally, I'm just screaming the whole time yeah, yeah, yeah. But actually you know the the decision to move to Milwaukee and the process was actually really easy.
Speaker 1:That's what I feel like it's meant to be, though is when it's kind of-. Why has it been so challenging the past two months? Yeah, is when it's like okay, this is like, it happened quickly, as opposed to like forcing change.
Speaker 2:I feel like yeah, I had a friend come up to me, hannah I met. There were so many serendipitous things that happened in the month that I was back in Virginia prepping for the move. I ran into my friend Hannah and she is one of those personalities where it's like when you're with her you just get sucked in, but in a really good way. She is like such an intensely calming energy. It's like, can I just be around you all of the time? You're very soothing, yeah.
Speaker 2:You're like a weighted blanket, yeah, or a river. She made that same comment that you just did, where it's like oh well, yeah, you know it's what if things were? Because I was terrified. I said things have been a little bit too easy, hannah. She goes. Well, maybe that's showing you that it's good. Yeah, yeah, you that it's good, yeah, yeah. I was like no, yeah, um, you know things and and I hope so things have been a little challenging, a little rocky the first few months up there, like why, universe?
Speaker 1:you wanted me here. Yeah, exactly, yeah, yeah what's happening here?
Speaker 2:yeah, yeah, but I I do appreciate you reminding me of that, the ease of that yeah, yeah, at least that's how it's always worked for me.
Speaker 1:If it's meant to be, it's just sort of like your ways, then well, but then things come up, you know, like daydream, for instance, like the salon, it was just like boop, boop, boop. Okay, here we go. And then, of course, like things then pop up that are kind of annoying or irritating you know, or whatever, but the initial okay how this is gonna go.
Speaker 1:You know, or whatever, but the initial okay how this is going to go. You know, buying my house, I was like, oh, this one seems good, dip, dip, dip, bought it, bought it, bought it.
Speaker 2:But do you have things pop up that are maybe less than ideal, that kind of maybe make you question a few things, or is it just?
Speaker 1:I don't know that's a good question, I don't know. I feel like what I do the opposite is, if I'm mulling over it for a long time, then that wasn't meant to be Like. If I'm like where should we move our salon? We need a salon, what about this, what about that? But then when it's meant to be, it's like go time done. Yeah, like the decision making is like goes on for a while, but then when it's actually meant to be, it like quick that's kind of what it was when I signed that.
Speaker 2:It took me like a week to think about signing the lease for this apartment because I want I hate spending money yeah, really do. I mean, and it was like, oh, okay, and I gotta get rid of my stuff. And you know, it's all these uh logical things that I was thinking. The practical thing, yeah, thinking I had to do. But like, once I did it, everything happened so quickly, so easily yeah, yeah, and I feel like it's all good.
Speaker 1:Well, we'll see you in nine months and we'll see what happened in seven. Okay, yeah, we'll see you in seven months and see what ended up happening. Yeah, all right, rebecca. Well, thank you so much. Yeah, thank you.