Latest / Giving Pain Purpose with Lyndsay Soprano / The Girl in The Garage

Transcript

The Girl in The Garage · Giving Pain Purpose with Lyndsay Soprano

0:00
Hey, guys and dolls. Before we jump into this episode, a note
0:03
about our content today. This is created for adult audiences only. We advise
0:08
listener discretion as this conversation focuses on sexual, physical, and emotional abuse.
0:15
Might be a lot to take in, so if you need a breather,
0:19
take a break and come back later. This is Your Pain Game podcast where
0:27
we talk about the game of living in and with chronic pain and trauma,
0:31
getting to the heart of how to heal. I am your host, Lindsay
0:35
Soprano. On the show, I plan on discussing with doctors, chronic pain
0:41
patients, holistic practitioners, loved ones, and anybody that is interested in having
0:46
their voice heard in the chronic pain and trauma world that we live in.
0:59
I've always considered myself to be this strong woman hear me, roar right,
1:04
and I'm gonna say the word used to because I don't feel that way all
1:10
the time anymore. Over the past decade since my illness began, we didn't
1:15
even know what I had. It was just one little thing. It was
1:19
my right big toe that just started talking to me, and the voice of
1:23
confidence kind of started to lose its sparkle. I think then, and I
1:30
didn't know what was going to be coming up in the next decade, and
1:34
I ignored it. And you know, I've put that I think that I
1:38
was about then, but for all I know, it happened when I was
1:41
a little girl, when I was nine, you know, And it's been
1:45
kind of sad and devastating to watch this unfold, and like, I don't
1:49
know, I always use the word sparkle. My street name means sparkle in
1:52
Spanish, so we call my house the Sparkle House. And this is a
1:55
sparkle studio, And it's my way of kind of trying to capture a little
1:59
bit of more sparkle back because I feel like tiny specks of my like personal
2:04
glitter, you know, have been falling on the wayside along my pathway and
2:08
landing on perhaps hopefully other people wherever I went. But that's empassing me.
2:14
I did end up giving a lot of my sparkle away, So I take
2:16
personal responsibility for a lot of that and letting people have my sparkle when they
2:21
damn well did not deserve it. Oh my god, so dysfunctional. You
2:25
know, I actually wear a glitter like I've in in every lotion and every
2:30
makeup product and hair product because I always have to have sparkles on me,
2:32
and I don't know if that's that's something that I'm doing like subconsciously to like
2:38
keep that sparkle going. But who knows that's what's been going on. And
2:42
you know, you don't really realize that all of that goes away or starts
2:46
to fleck off of you until you're sick and you're staring at yourself in the
2:51
mirror and you're like, well, when the hell did that happen? Lindsay,
2:53
like where did she go? And so I find that when we don't
2:57
grieve along the way, and we bebop from one trauma to another, our
3:02
trauma gets like trapped in us, like a soul that can't cross over,
3:07
you know. And it's been hard to wrap my head and heart around it,
3:09
and I know that it is for my loved ones as well. And
3:12
lately days have been worse than others. And as I continue to delve into
3:15
my life's traumas and find that I don't even know how I made it that
3:19
far, I get a little scared. And we don't talk a lot about
3:23
faith and God on this show. I'm not a fairly religious person. I
3:27
consider myself to be agnostic, but I do believe in spirit, I do
3:30
believe in us being here for a reason, and I do believe that I've
3:32
had some pretty angry conversations with him over the years or and have sobbed buckets
3:38
of tears, asking why, why me? Why this? Why that?
3:43
How could you let something like this happen? Being angry? And I grew
3:46
up in a Christian home. We're going to get into a little bit about
3:49
that too, that anger that comes from things that happen to us, the
3:53
craft that happens, you know. So today we're going to talk about getting
3:57
Stella her groove back, gaining our confidence back, and getting that sparkle back
4:02
in our lives. You know, we have the power to choose that,
4:05
and my guest is going to talk a little bit today about her power to
4:10
choose being it her superpower. And I truly believe that, you know,
4:14
we're so capable of making change and changes in our life that it's not just
4:18
possible, it's limitless. Let's talk about it. Let's skyrocket that confidence and
4:24
get our sparkle back, damn it. So, without further ado, I
4:28
would like to introduce you today to my guest, Sharon Cughes. Hello,
4:30
gorgeous. Oh hey babe, it's so good to be with you. Well.
4:34
Sharon is a two time award winning author of The Girl in the Garage,
4:39
Three Steps to Letting Go of Your Past, a faith based book for
4:43
breaking free from a lack of confidence, self worth issues, and a painful
4:47
past. She's the co founder of Confidence Academy the host of the Called to
4:51
Confidence podcast. She is a confidence coach and a self worth expert. You
4:57
can, guys, get the gist of what we're talking about a little bit
5:00
here today, and sadly, she is no stranger to trauma, and we're
5:04
going to get right into it. You might need to grab your tissues,
5:08
guys, because of this hot babe has a harrowing account of physical, sexual,
5:13
and emotional abuse that started at the tender age of five. So I'm
5:16
rolling out the red carpet for you, babe, and I'd like to get
5:19
started with where you kind of want to get started with this when your self
5:25
worth kind of started to get broken. You know, Well, that's a
5:29
toughie. I know it's a toughie. And sadly, most people are not
5:34
strangers to this. The older I get, the more people I talk to,
5:39
it's everywhere. It's men and women, it's every socioeconomic group. It
5:45
doesn't matter who you are, how you grew up, silver spoon or not,
5:50
it's everybody. So one of my favorite favorite quotes, and I'll lead
5:56
with this because I think this is really what I want the audience to capture,
6:00
is believing a lie is just as powerful as believing the truth. Because
6:06
as we're unpacking this, we really want to get to are you believing the
6:12
truth about who you are? Maybe you're not who you think you are,
6:17
Maybe you're something else. Maybe you're this beautiful butterfly, but you think you're
6:24
the caterpillar, or that you're still stuck in the cocoon. So if you're
6:28
stuck in the cocoon, Lindsey and I we're going to get you out so
6:30
you can fly. Let's go. Did you do that on the fly?
6:34
Because that was no way? Yeah. Well, and I like how you
6:39
put that because it is you. I've gotten to this point where I always
6:44
felt that I was just this blooming butterfly fly all over the place. I've
6:46
got this outgoing personality, but I also I am very, very introverted and
6:49
I'm very, very shy, and I don't go out. I work in
6:54
the dark. I have become a little bit of goorphobic over the years of
6:59
going out and look around people. And I don't know where all of that
7:01
started, but it's just a scary place to feel like you can't fly anymore.
7:06
Yeah, yeah, it is. You know, when you and I
7:11
met, we had this talk and I remember you saying, you know,
7:14
I don't have a lot of faith based people. Come on, yes,
7:17
yeah, and you set that up here in the intro. You know,
7:21
one of the things is is but we all have this free will, and
7:26
when people do really bad things with their free will, people like you and
7:30
I and your audience, we pay for it because it has a ripple effect.
7:33
But having this free will, it really is our superpower because we have
7:38
a choice and whether we're going to do good things, we're going to do
7:42
bad things, and how we're going to respond to everything, because we're not
7:46
robots. And that's a beautiful, messy thing right there. So when people
7:53
are wounded and it's tragic, sometimes they really take it internally, and you
7:58
know, we can have all kinds of story depending on you know what the
8:01
situation is and who the instigator of that pain is. Like when it starts
8:07
from childhood, maybe a teacher told you that you're stupid because you've got a
8:11
bad grade. You can take that internally and you can believe your entire life
8:15
that you're stupid, and it can affect every area of your life. So
8:18
that's what I mean about just jotting down what is it you believe about yourself?
8:22
Is it true? And that is a tough one to swallow. And
8:28
I'm sitting here like scatter brained in my brain. I want you to repeat
8:31
that quote again though. For us, Yeah, believing a lie is just
8:35
as powerful as believing the truth. I love that you guys have probably seen
8:41
the pictures of elephants when they're babies and they've got the chain around their foot,
8:46
and then you know, they grow up and it's like the same size
8:50
chain. They never realize how powerful they are and that they can pull the
8:54
chain and just march on. It's the same thing with us and the lies
8:58
that we believe about ourselves. Nobody listening to this show is stupid or worthless
9:05
or unworthy of love. You're human, I'm faith based. I believe that
9:09
you are created in the image of the Lord God Almighty for a purpose,
9:15
and it's not to be abused. It's not to go through life feeling unworthy
9:18
and small and broken. I really believe that those are lies. They're evil
9:24
lies, and we need to deal with those and decide, Okay, what
9:26
do we want to believe about ourselves. One's going to keep us stuck and
9:31
one's going to set us free. Yeah, and that's tough because you know
9:35
when you're talking about looking at something of setting you free. We've talked about
9:39
it on this show about how it's scary to feel like I won't be sick
9:43
anymore, or it's scary to feel like I won't be ill, or it's
9:46
scary that I won't maybe feel this traumer, how will my personality change,
9:52
or like if you start making those shifts, because is Lindsay not going to
9:54
be wild and crazy Lindsay anymore? You know when you start, when you
9:58
start going about cleaning up your cleaning up your house and take taking those lies
10:03
and those beliefs and stomping on them and going WHOA this is. I have
10:07
the control to be able to do this, but the beliefs that I have
10:11
about myself. So many of them are very very hard on me. I'm
10:16
so hard on myself. Yeah, yeah, And that's really typical of anybody
10:20
that's been abused and has struggled in that that ring that we get in and
10:26
we fight, and the decision to decide who we are is a hard decision
10:31
if we're One of the things that I say is if you're not that,
10:35
then who are you? And it really requires reinventing yourself. And that's some
10:41
of the things that are the hardest to do, is the reinventing because it
10:45
can be very very scary changes like wait a second, hold on, I'm
10:46
comfortable here, even though it's harmful. I'm good here. I know this.
10:52
I know how to deal with this area. But one thing that you
10:54
mentioned earlier was about how you respond to things in life, and that's something
11:00
that I'm working on in regards to stress, because I find that I have
11:05
such a high level of stress and so much of it is wrapped around safety
11:09
and my body going is this it m h And it's just it's it's tough.
11:16
It's really really tough. Yeah. And there's a lot of things that
11:18
you can do to reframe, like some of the stressful triggers, but it
11:24
takes really being present and developing a new habit. So one of the things
11:30
that I tell everybody I work with is set the reminder on your phone,
11:33
so it goes off right after you wake up, and the reminder is going
11:37
to say, what do you choose to believe about yourself? And you got
11:43
to start your day with that intention. What am I going to choose to
11:46
believe about myself? Lindsey, you and I know each other a little bit,
11:50
but I know right out of the gate you are kind, you care
11:52
about people, You are generous. So can you choose to believe that you
11:58
are kind, that you care, that you are generous, you have a
12:01
good heart. So, people that are listening, what do you choose to
12:05
believe about yourself today? How about let's just start off with you have inherent
12:11
value. You matter, doesn't matter what anybody else says. These are like
12:18
timeless truths. So's that's really the way that I survived all the trauma that's
12:24
in my book. It was really my faith and going in and saying,
12:28
you know, I believe in God. What does God say about me?
12:31
God doesn't say I'm worthless? God isn't he really isn't the God that hits
12:37
you over the head and says, get it together and then come talk to
12:39
me. That is really the sick, twisted skew that religion has put on.
12:46
Yes, thank you for saying that. Yeah, that is a religious
12:50
spirit and I have no time for the religious spirit. Can you explain that
12:56
from your perspective, the difference between that faith and religion and that you know,
13:03
you love the Lord and you love Jesus, but you're not like the
13:05
Bible thumping standing on the corner like the religious people that are, you know,
13:09
causing problems in our globe right now. But you know, it's tough
13:13
because you it's hard to separate those guys from you know, it's hard to
13:16
separate religion from just being spiritual and faithful and loving that spirit that you have.
13:22
Yeah, you know, I think it's one of those really weird things.
13:26
One of the messy, weird things about being human is that we seem
13:31
to think that we need to jump through hoops and do certain things to earn
13:33
it to be good enough, And that's actually not what's in the gospel.
13:37
It's like, hey, here, this is it's a free gift. You
13:39
don't have to do anything, to show up, just say come here,
13:43
and people are like, wait, that's that offer is way too good to
13:45
be true. Yeah, I always dealt I've dealt with OCD and perfectionism for
13:50
a very very long time. And you know those reasons as well. Yeah,
13:54
it's my coping mechanisms for a lot of my things. If I make
13:56
everything perfect and do all of these things, then I will be loved by
14:00
my parents the way that I thought I should have been loved when I was
14:01
young. Not to say that my parents were. My mother and my stepfather
14:05
were incredible, and they still are. But I struggled a lot with the
14:11
way that I was raised in religion and how much negative came from it,
14:15
and how my self esteem was so poorly affected by not being perfect enough,
14:22
not be my mom's a little goodie two shoes and I am the absolutely all
14:26
opposite. And so I always felt like maybe there was like this conflicting part
14:31
within me where and I always say so Geminiami, but where I always wanted
14:35
to be perfect, but I also was extremely rebellious, and so it was
14:39
this like it was like the little devil and angel on my shoulder everywhere I
14:41
went. And but it was a lot of the albatross that was coming from,
14:46
you know, abuse that started at such a young age. So yeah,
14:48
you know, I think again that's that's a piece of the human condition
14:52
is I grew up thinking I needed to earn love. You know, I
14:56
had a really toxic upbringing, multiple abusers, and just so many things went
15:05
on that it's you. You can be like standing in the grocery store and
15:07
all of a sudden you remember something that happened to you forty years ago,
15:11
and you're like, wow, yeah, and it's you just kind of go,
15:15
how did I get through all this? And it's and what's really funny
15:18
is people that I know in the real world that knew me before my book
15:20
came out, they'll be like, wow, I read your book. I
15:22
had no idea, And I'm like, well, of course you didn't.
15:24
You know, I don't want her out with the teachers and saying everything that's
15:28
happened to me exactly. But I mean, at that same token, everybody
15:33
else is walking around with this you know, this kind of thing. It's
15:37
it's we struggle and you don't know. I mean sometimes, you know,
15:41
I think people that have been through a lot of trauma we have such a
15:43
radar. We see people you go, oh, we know, oh,
15:46
you know all you're on the rect life. I got you, girl,
15:50
I know exactly what you're going through right now. You can tell. Yeah
15:52
you can't. And it's because you're seeing you see the weights of it on
15:58
people. Yeah, So would you mind touching on a little bit? And
16:02
I know it's a tough story to tell, but it is one that I
16:04
think because you are such an incredible woman and you've gotten yourself through, I
16:10
like to make sure that we don't let anybody feel like they're alone. Oh
16:12
and I'm spreading my glitter and my sparkle anywhere that I can. And you're
16:18
right, I am nice and kind and loving and generous and all of those
16:21
things. And some of those reasons are also how I got sick, because
16:25
I did do many things that were nice for other people too. So that's
16:27
a full other day. Yeah, I get you, Yeah, I get
16:33
you. Yeah. The story's pretty messy. You know. It's like parents
16:36
get divorced, abuse of parents. That's why the mom left the dad and
16:41
then you know, bounced back and forth between which parent I live with,
16:45
being taken across the country, having the dad track me down and you know,
16:51
basically pulled me out a window in the middle of the night and bring
16:52
me back to California. You know. So there was paranal abduction, there
16:56
was sexual abuse by an older step brother that tried to rape me. Then
17:02
there was you know, dad's a single dad, I mean puts me,
17:06
you know, with a babysitter, babysitter's husband is a is a pedophile babysitters
17:11
group, teaching his son to be a pedophile. So the list just goes
17:14
on. It was just one thing after another. Things just kind of it
17:18
was my normal because when you're five, six, seventy eight, nine,
17:22
ten, you don't know that all the other houses on the street don't live
17:25
like this. You know. It was of course toxic and horrible and all
17:29
that stuff, and you know, I felt, you know, invisible,
17:32
and it's kind of one of those things where you're screaming at the top of
17:34
your lungs but nobody can hear you. And yeah, you know that one.
17:40
And just tried to suck it up and kept moving forward. And really
17:44
everything culminated when I was sixteen and I went to a Halloween party with an
17:48
older boy and you know, as soon as I say, older boy,
17:52
it didn't go well. But I was handed a cup, and not even
17:56
by him, by one of his sisters, and I was I was mickeyed.
18:00
I think that's what we called it back in the day. Now you
18:02
call it being roofied. Yeah, right, that's a program. Yeah,
18:12
so that was wild. I went in the bathroom and you know, was
18:17
just kind of like fixing my little Halloween costume and I was like, oh
18:21
my gosh, I'm so tired. I need to lay on the floor just
18:23
for a minute. And I woke up about seven hours later in a garage
18:26
at a different location, and I was being assaulted when I came to.
18:32
And the what really sealed the deal was when I finally got home around four
18:37
in the morning, the porch light was off and the front door was locked,
18:41
and I didn't have house keys. People didn't give their kids house keys
18:42
back. Yeah, I mean most people didn't even lock their door, So
18:48
why was my door locked? I don't know. Maybe she was real extra
18:51
pissed, but I had to wake her up to get in the door,
18:53
and she just looked at me. She didn't say, you know, where
18:57
have you been? Are you okay? What is happened, and no medical
19:00
attention, like nothing, and so I shoved it all down. You know,
19:06
I didn't tell anybody. There was nobody to tell. And about a
19:11
year and a half later, I guess it was decided that I was just
19:12
too much trouble. So I was sent to my dad's house. You know.
19:15
It was the continuation of nobody knowing what to do with me and being
19:18
bounced back and forth, and then he had had enough. He was a
19:22
very abusive alcoholic and he said, you know, get out, kicked me
19:26
out. So at seventeen, I was homeless, and you know, and
19:30
it was just like one thing after another, one trauma after another, and
19:33
I just kept showing up like this entire time. I believed in God.
19:37
But the funny thing was is I thought God was kind of mean, like
19:41
my dad. But I was like, I like Jesus because Jesus died for
19:45
me, so he's cool, like he gets it, you know, Yeah,
19:48
he laid it down for me. You know. So I always always
19:52
thought that that's how it worked, and it wasn't really until like gosh,
19:56
I was probably late thirties early forties where I really started to get some healing
20:02
in my faith journey, and I started going, oh, all these things
20:06
that I've been taught, they're not true. Yeah, I know. And
20:10
it's and even though like being raised in a Christian home and going to church
20:15
and all that stuff, I backed in and out and here and there and
20:17
kind of you know, like, well, okay, maybe I'll try to
20:18
start in church again, you know. And I just never was a place
20:22
that I felt comfortable in my own skin, and I felt very very judged,
20:26
and I always felt and that, you know, that's those circles back
20:30
to the whole belief in your what your beliefs are about you. Yeah,
20:33
And so I think, oh, my gosh, I've had all this bad
20:34
stuff happen to me. I've done stupid things when I was in high school
20:37
and college and bad da da da dah, you know, like we've all
20:38
made our mistakes. And I'd walk in and I almost would feel like because
20:42
when I started going back to church, there was a there's a big church.
20:45
In fact, I brought and introduced my parents to it and they still
20:48
go. But it was a big church where there's you know, thirty five
20:51
hundred people and I could sit in the back row and I wouldn't have to
20:55
do anything. My mom, on the other hand, is the one that
20:56
goes and sits in the front row or the second room, wants hold my
21:00
hand and hug me and sing with me the entire time. Sure, and
21:03
I'm like, I understand that this is important for you to have me next
21:07
to you, but I'm here for me and I don't do it this way.
21:11
So then I just kind of stepped I started walking away from all of
21:14
that. And then just one thing like you're saying, happened after another,
21:17
and I just was like, you know what, I'm done, Like I've
21:19
I've given this my all here. Yeah. Yeah, and I'm still faithful
21:25
and loving and giving in all the things that I would think that Jesus would
21:26
want me to be. Like, you know, I just don't necessarily,
21:30
I can't get into the religious side of it like you, like we talked
21:34
about in the beginning. Yeah, yeah, it is. And I've really
21:38
come to the conclusion that that man has created religion. Man, I've done
21:44
everything wrong. Yeah yeah. And I really think that God created relationship.
21:52
I think he is about relationship with us. What does that mean. Well,
21:56
there's a there's a really great verse in Hebrews that says, come boldly
22:00
to the throne when you need help. So like if you had a dad,
22:04
Let's say you had like the coolest dad on the planet, and he's
22:07
got cash and he totally thinks like you are the apple of his eye and
22:14
he's like, lindsay you go away to college and you need something. You
22:17
want to fly home for the weekend, Like call me what your car's broke
22:21
down? Your car and us to go in the shop. Call me,
22:23
you know, you want to come over and you want to lay on the
22:26
couch and watch a movie and just eat popcorn and not talk. Call me.
22:30
You know, I really think that that's who he is. And I
22:33
think that who he is like has been like we've been lied to, just
22:37
bottom line, we've been lied to about who God really is. And honestly,
22:41
I think it's because there's an evil, dark agenda to keep us from
22:45
experiencing true love. And I know that's like really heavy, But I've been
22:52
to the churches like you've been to where you're just like what is going on?
22:55
Like all these people are a little you know, hoity toity here,
22:57
like but you're there's all these narratives that we've we've grown up with and then
23:03
you know, you see the whole world, you know, hating each other
23:07
from it because of their gods and they're this and all that, and I'm
23:08
just like, hold on, if you think that this is the one true
23:11
God and then this guy over here is willing to blow himself up and all
23:15
of these other people, I don't get it. I don't get it.
23:21
So yeah, so when you started to work through how did you get started?
23:27
I know you had said that, you know, you started when you're
23:30
talking about with their mom and sixteen years old and how you're like, that's
23:33
that. But when it comes to like when did you really start to go?
23:37
I got heal and I got to figure out how I'm going to do
23:40
it, and then what did you do? So it really started. I
23:45
was probably in my early to mid forties where I started just thinking like,
23:49
hmmm, something is just not right here. And somebody gave me a book
23:55
called You're Already Amazing by Holly Girth. She's a's marriage and family therapist and
24:00
she's a Christian author. And I read this book and it was basically like
24:03
you're loved and you're cool, like you're enough. God says You're enough you're
24:07
enough, And I was like, who wrote this? I've read a lot
24:12
of books. I'm kind of a book nerd, but I had never read
24:15
a book like that. So I reached out to Holly on Facebook and she
24:19
was so gracious. We start talking and I'm like, hey, I read
24:22
your book, and you know, blah blah blah. It goes, well,
24:25
why do you become a marriage and family therapist? And I'm like,
24:27
girl, by the time I finished school in bank clinical hours, I'll be
24:30
a hundred yeah, because it's not a small feat to do that, especially
24:37
in California. So she goes, well, why did you become a life
24:41
coach? She goes, I did that too, and you know, I'll
24:42
send you where I went. And I said, okay, sounds good to
24:45
me. I was really at a place where I had just started going through
24:51
a divorce after being married twenty one years, and I had this international wholesale
24:56
business and I would put on entrepreneurial events. I was doing all this stuff,
24:59
and I really felt like I just wanted to love women. I wanted
25:02
to help women know that they matter and that they can, you know,
25:04
do whatever's in their heart. So I'm in this transition place not knowing what
25:10
I'm going to do next. And I start working to get this this certification,
25:15
and as I'm working one on one with this private coach, I'm like,
25:22
I've never heard this stuff before. Where's this been? Really started working
25:26
on the healing journey. And then it fast forwarded a couple of years where
25:30
I was, you know, really grieving all the things, all the things
25:33
in my life. I was grieving the divorce, I was grieving closing it
25:38
a business that I loved. And one morning I woke up and I was
25:42
praying and I was just like, God, I am not going to make
25:45
it. I was like on the verge. I was really thinking, what's
25:51
the easiest way to end your life and not have it be messy? Like
25:55
oh, but then my kids would find me, like, you know,
25:56
this whole conversation's going on in my head and just lord, I'm not going
26:00
to make it. And I just heard this voice say what are you believing
26:04
about yourself? And I thought, are you kidding me? Like you know,
26:07
you know, I feel unworthy, I feel like I'm a mistake,
26:12
I feel dirty, I feel used from years of abuse, like all these
26:18
things, and he goes, is it true? And that was just like
26:25
whoa, I've been in counseling before, nobody's ever thought to ask me,
26:30
is what you believe about yourself? True? And that was super pivotal and
26:34
that was what I really went hard on and used as the foundation in my
26:40
book, is like taking every thought captive? Is this true? Because we
26:44
got to break some patterns of thinking here. Yes, yes, absolutely absolutely.
26:48
The lews of the negative self talk that I catch myself in are unbelievable.
26:53
Yeah. And I'm at that place where and it's been over the past
26:57
couple months where my head, the heavy work has been going into what you're
27:02
talking about about grieving and it gets the well, jeez, now I'm gonna
27:04
cry, all right, So now I'm gonna grieve with you people. And
27:10
you need to grieve. Yeah, No, absolutely need to grieve. And
27:12
it's one of those things because it's dangerous to not and I know that.
27:15
Like this morning, I was in my in fred sauna because I saw I
27:18
try to be a good girl and dude every morning, and I was like
27:23
in there and I just started crying this is morning because I was like,
27:26
oh my gosh, you have so much to let out and let go and
27:30
get rid of and work through and not blame yourself or beat up yourself for
27:37
what you feel about yourself. Leave them behind. You know. It's Yeah,
27:41
this is a tough exercise, Yarin. It is. Yeah, this
27:45
is not for the uh the week. This is hard, gritty work,
27:51
and it's a process. It's a process. But let me tell you,
27:53
when you get to the other side and you look back, you're like,
27:56
I did it. Yeah, I'm free. I am free from this.
28:03
Yeah. And if you're I mean, if you're thinking about looking at the
28:06
future, the future of not like looking back and going that happened to me,
28:12
but that is not who I am. Yes, and that is something
28:17
that has been very hard for me to do, just because I'm the only
28:19
one that knows all the world and crazy things that have happened in my life.
28:22
Like, let's be real, I can be as honest as I want
28:25
to, but there's no way I'm gonna sit down with my sweetie and talk
28:27
about all the random shenanigans that happen, you know, twenty five years ago
28:32
or whatever, Like why do we need to drum that all up again?
28:34
Yeah, I mean we're at a high level. We know it is.
28:37
It's tough to relive it. There's a really great book called The Body Keep
28:41
Score. Oh yeah, we talked about it all the time around here.
28:45
Yeah, yeah, and it does. I mean, I do believe that
28:49
there's healing from trauma. I believe that that is one of the things that
28:55
we can experience. And I've experienced, I've seen others experience when we when
29:00
we're ready to ask the Holy Spirit to heal us from trauma. That might
29:06
be new for your audience, but I mean it's real. And if we
29:11
have trauma that's not been healed and released, it's just a landing pad for
29:15
other things to come along and take root. Yeah, because trauma is no
29:18
joke, you know. I don't. I don't make like light about it
29:22
at all, because when we want to deal with our trauma, we step
29:26
into all kinds of other things so that we can cope. Whether it's eating,
29:30
it's porn, it's drugs, it's people pleasing, it's shopping, it
29:34
doesn't matter. It's like name your poison, yeah exactly. God's not afraid
29:40
of that. And you know what's really interesting, And I'm so thankful that
29:42
you had me on Lindsay, especially knowing that you don't bring these conversations on
29:48
very often, and I don't bring them on lightly. That's why you might.
29:52
You're my first You're my first baby here on this Oh thank you.
29:56
Okay, So I want to talk, if we can, about your book
30:00
a little bit, The Girl in the Garage, because well, the title
30:04
is so gripping. It immediately makes me think, I like love watching horror
30:08
movies and thrillers and stuff, and if I want my sweetie to get out
30:12
of the room, that's all I have to turn on and he's out,
30:15
so I to talk about a superpower. But it takes me to a dark
30:21
and twisty place just reading the title. Yeah, yeah, it sounds like
30:25
it's going to be a thriller. It was in real life thriller. Well
30:27
that's what I'm saying is that is how harrowing and sad the things that you
30:33
went through. Is that the first thing I think of is turning on Hulu
30:37
and watching a thriller and there's you, you know. And so can you
30:41
just chat really quick about a little bit about your book. Yeah. So
30:45
it's written like a workbook. I tell my whole story and I tell it
30:48
really, really carefully. It's very PG. So that nobody that's been through
30:52
trauma gets triggered. And it's just a workbook with you know, really the
30:56
steps that I used to get free. There's Bible verses in there. There's
31:03
some prayers. Fill in your name, you know, and it's all about
31:06
like really shifting your lens and breaking up with the lies, and it's saying
31:11
like who are you? You know? We talk about labels. Were you
31:15
called fat and stupid and ugly when you were a kid? Like, okay,
31:18
let's deal with some labels here. Let's decide not to believe those labels.
31:23
So there's you know, lists of things that you can pick from.
31:26
I talk about the ripple effect when somebody does the unthinkable and causes trauma.
31:33
You know how that affects the person that immediately receives the trauma, but the
31:37
ripple effect it has on a community, like our children, our family.
31:41
And I talk about what to do if you're really angry with God, which
31:45
is kind of a big topic. Yeah, it is, And I think
31:48
just angry as a whole can be. I mean anger and resentment. That
31:52
seems to be something that's starting to kind of come out of me and my
31:56
grief. I'm like, whoa where the hell did that just come from.
31:57
I'm missed and I don't know why. Something could be I watching TV or
32:04
I don't drive much anymore, but like if I'm driving down the road,
32:06
like all of a sudden, like you mentioned it earlier, like I'll get
32:08
a flashback of something and then I'll get angry and then I'll take it out
32:10
of my sweetie or I'll take it out of myself, and it's like,
32:13
wait a second, pump the brakes here, and let's think about what this
32:16
is, what's really happening here? No, lindsay, you are just such
32:21
a beautiful, beautiful person. I love how candid you are. I mean,
32:27
like you're the kind of person that we all wish we had living next
32:30
door, because you know, I'd be like yelling over the over the wall,
32:32
Linda say coffees on, you know, come on over. Oh I'm
32:37
baking a pie. You want some, like you're just because you're real.
32:42
People are so hungry for the real well, and you know, I've talked
32:45
about how I've always been this outgoing and weird and funky and crazy and I
32:51
can go into a room and I can talk to whoever I want to.
32:52
But there is a very very scared person that lives within that. Within that
32:57
personality, that big personality that comes into the room, there's a lot of
33:00
scared that comes with that. That's me. I feel like crap inside,
33:05
or my body's hurting more today, or wherever, you know, whatever it
33:07
is that I'm done with. I'm pretty good at being able to put on
33:09
a face and put on a show. Not that I'm not agreeing with you,
33:15
so thank you, but it is. It is hard, and it's
33:17
gotten harder over the past years as my body declined, you know, and
33:22
now I'm just because of the show, we're working through way more than I
33:25
thought I was going to be getting in. But I when I said I
33:29
was going to do this thing, I was going to do this thing.
33:30
And so it's hard, you know, to show up and talk about this
33:32
and you get it. You're like, all right, buckle up, well,
33:37
and you know what that show since it shows that you're gritty and that
33:40
you're using your power of choice to go Okay, you know, I don't
33:45
feel great today, but I'm choosing to move forward. Yeah, I'm choosing
33:51
to show up and have this show and to live my life. And you're
33:55
basically going toe to toe with the trauma and saying I'm not gonna let you
34:00
win. Yep, amen, And I'm working. And there are so many
34:04
things that have come out of this, not just relationships that I've made with
34:07
people that are my guests, not unlike yourself, but man, I mean
34:10
I've forged friendships with people so quickly that like we're on texting with each other
34:15
every day, and I'm like, how did this happen? And these are
34:16
people all over the world, you know, and it's it's really been neat
34:21
to feel not alone in this. Yeah, that is something that's very important.
34:27
Like when I had a bunch of banked episodes, right you get it,
34:30
and took off a month and a half from recording, and I was
34:32
like empty and sad and like, I don't know why I feel super depressed.
34:37
I wasn't doing this because I took off and it was miss It was
34:40
I was missing this connection because it's it's therapeutic. It feels good for me.
34:45
It's great to see my guest smile and laugh, roll their eyes at
34:50
me, make funny faces at me when I say something. They're just like
34:52
hands on their forehead. I love that, oh, you know, And
34:58
that's that's really all of us are wired for human connection. Yeah, it's
35:02
so dangerous to isolate ourselves and really, like when we saw the pandemic,
35:07
you know, people are getting depressed, they had zoom burnout, they're you
35:12
know, stuck at home and all this stuff. You know, they're isolated.
35:16
How much like that's traumatic? How much more can a person take if
35:20
you've already had trauma that can be really triggering. We need to put practices
35:24
in where we make sure that we're really intentional about having community and taking care
35:30
of ourselves. Yeah, the community thing is something I struggle with. Actually,
35:34
my sweeting I both do. We're both kind of homebodies and it's harder
35:38
for me to go do things. But we still do. Have got my
35:40
wheel, tair and stuff like that. But it's just one of the things
35:44
where we're not engaged in our community at all. And we've been talking about,
35:46
like we want to do Italian lessons. I'm like, okay, well
35:50
we can do them in our house or we can like go to those little
35:52
Italian like dinner things where they have nobody knows how to speak Italian and then
35:57
you've got everybody that's fluent. You go you know, you hang out with
36:00
them and do conversational Italian and like. That would be really fun for us
36:02
to get involved in our community. Those little things. You can reach out
36:07
and meet other people and you know, and start sharing your love and sharing
36:09
your spirit and finding out what other people might be up to. That might
36:13
be a reason why we went out to that Italian dinner that night. You
36:15
know, I just just how the world works. If you pay attention to
36:19
the universe around you a little bit more and be more mindful, I think
36:22
a lot of our fear can dissipate, and we certainly will be more engaged
36:25
and present in our lives. Because hard to do when you're in the thick
36:29
of it, you know, when you are on your knees sob and and
36:31
praying to God, take me away from this, Yeah, take me out
36:36
of this, because I can't do this. I'm alone. I'm alone.
36:37
I can't do it. I can't do it. And then you know,
36:39
show up the next day even still, but it's it's hard, and I've
36:44
had my scary moments, so that's for sure. Okay, so we know
36:49
that we can find you. Well, there's a couple of different things.
36:52
One of her podcast is called Called to Confidence and her book is The Girl
36:57
in the Garage and most recent book Three Steps to Letting Go of Your Past.
37:00
And I hope that it's only three because that sounds lovely. I made
37:05
it really easy. You have a sequel, and there's three more. I'm
37:07
going to be really pissed, Lady White, I forgot there's a couple more.
37:13
No, I'm kidding. And she's just so wonderful and so beautiful to
37:17
look at. And I'm so proud to have you here and I have met
37:21
you, and thank you for sharing your story with us, because I know
37:23
it's hard to do, no matter how many times you've done it. Oh,
37:27
thank you. You are such a gracious host. I just adore you.
37:30
Thank you so very much for your time with us today. Thank you.
37:34
You are exclusively invited to share this breaking up with the lies about yourself
37:38
and having faith in hope, VIP pain journey together. Let's get to the
37:44
heart of how to heal with you by my side. Do you know some
37:46
money who is living in and with chronic pain, or is struggling with health
37:51
challenges or trauma. Send them our way, can send them to me.
37:53
I can send you to Sharon reach out to us. That's what we're here
37:57
for. That's why we've connected today with you. I would love to connect
38:00
with you guys and hear your heartful stories of strength and wisdom. And I'm
38:04
here to give you a safe place to unleash and share your incredible stories,
38:07
no matter how hard they might be. Please follow the Pain Game Podcast wherever
38:12
you digest your podcast content, we will be there. Visit us at the
38:15
paingamepodcast dot com, and follow us on all the socials. Thanks for listening
38:20
to my little VIPs. Catch you on the other side.