Latest / Daily Influence / 744. From Trauma to Transformation: Paula Cofresi-Silverstein on Resilience, Creativity, and Intentional Living

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744. From Trauma to Transformation: Paula Cofresi-Silverstein on Resilience, Creativity, and Intentional Living · Daily Influence

• 0:10
  [SPEAKER_00]: Welcome to Daily Influence, your daily dose of positive influence.
• 0:14
  [SPEAKER_00]: I'm Brian Smith founder of IA Business Advisors and co-author of the Iain team series.
• 0:19
  [SPEAKER_00]: Each day we share stories and insights to help you find be and build your influence in a positive and responsible way.
• 0:27
  [SPEAKER_01]: And I'm Greg Clino, partner at IA Business Advisors, and co-host of Daily Influence.
• 0:32
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• 0:39
  [SPEAKER_01]: And make us part of your Daily routine, whether it's during your commute, on a walk, or an quiet momentous for you, because you're influenced matters.
• 0:48
  [SPEAKER_01]: Welcome to Daily Influence, I'm your host, Greg Coeno.
• 0:51
  [SPEAKER_01]: Today's guest brings a powerful and deeply layered perspective on influence shaped by culture, service, and creativity.
• 0:59
  [SPEAKER_01]: Paula, Kofresi, Silverstein is a licensed clinical social worker, EMDR, psychotherapist, and accomplished artists whose journey spans Puerto Rico, New York, and Chicago.
• 1:13
  [SPEAKER_01]: From pioneering bilingual and culturally responsive programs in public schools, to supporting individuals through therapy and now expressing her story through art and writing, Paula embodies what it means to be influenced across generations and disciplines.
• 1:30
  [SPEAKER_01]: Her work, both in healing and in art, including her book, Bomba Spirit, life journeys of a brown island girl, reflects resilience, identity, and the intentional choice to turn life experiences into something that Uplus others.
• 1:49
  [SPEAKER_01]: Paula, I'm so glad to have you here.
• 1:52
  [SPEAKER_01]: Welcome to Daily Influence.
• 1:54
  [SPEAKER_01]: Hi.
• 1:56
  [SPEAKER_01]: While your life journey spans cultures, careers, and creative expression, what early experiences most shaped your perspective on identity, resilience, and the role you could have played in influencing others?
• 2:11
  [SPEAKER_02]: I thought about this a lot.
• 2:13
  [SPEAKER_02]: And the truth is that women throughout history have really had a challenge in,
• 2:21
  [SPEAKER_02]: finding their voice and living their truth, and as a child of color, when color was when being dark was not okay in my extended family, I got a lot of flack for it.
• 2:38
  [SPEAKER_02]: And at four years old, I looked around and I was already seeing that that I had to gear up.
• 2:50
  [SPEAKER_02]: Trauma can either destroy you or you can.
• 2:55
  [SPEAKER_02]: Flip that trauma and getting to your resilience.
• 3:01
  [SPEAKER_02]: You can really do that.
• 3:02
  [SPEAKER_02]: And I had the ability to do that.
• 3:05
  [SPEAKER_02]: And as a result, once I came back to New York and to reunite with my mother,
• 3:17
  [SPEAKER_02]: I really, I then moved on to really following a path toward the life I've been destined to have.
• 3:30
  [SPEAKER_02]: And I'm fascinated when I look at my child, that time I spent in Puerto Rico with my relatives
• 3:44
  [SPEAKER_02]: But how they treated me as a little animal, I am astounded by my ability to have, you know,
• 3:55
  [SPEAKER_02]: To have figured it out, I was already at age four saying these adults are not very smart.
• 4:02
  [SPEAKER_02]: I mean, that is hysterical, you know, I was already using my clinical skills, you know, anyway, I can just go on and on, but that, but that me out that realization of knowing that I had to.
• 4:19
  [SPEAKER_02]: You know that I had to really work my my abilities.
• 4:26
  [SPEAKER_02]: I took my last trip from Puerto Rico alone.
• 4:32
  [SPEAKER_02]: I stood on a road with my suitcase at the age of four and a half waiting for a public car.
• 4:42
  [SPEAKER_02]: The transportation which is a private car they would
• 4:47
  [SPEAKER_02]: put people different people in a car and then drive them to the airport.
• 4:53
  [SPEAKER_02]: I waited on the road alone for this car and to get on a pan, I'm airplane.
• 5:02
  [SPEAKER_02]: You know, that's amazing and I remember it so distinctly because I was so full of excitement because I knew that my life was going to be getting better.
• 5:17
  [SPEAKER_02]: So I was full of wonderful expectation, but I read that story and I can't believe it.
• 5:29
  [SPEAKER_02]: But we all have it, you know, I've always read biographies as a as a 13 and a teenager.
• 5:38
  [SPEAKER_02]: And when I read the life stories of all these fabulous people, they all had traumas, you know,
• 5:47
  [SPEAKER_02]: going into this incredible family.
• 5:50
  [SPEAKER_02]: She had a huge trauma.
• 5:51
  [SPEAKER_02]: She was depressed for like three four years.
• 5:54
  [SPEAKER_02]: She was suicidal after she discovered that her husband had was having an affair.
• 6:00
  [SPEAKER_02]: This was the early years.
• 6:02
  [SPEAKER_02]: Well, you know, after that, she decided she was going to become Eleanor Roosevelt, the Eleanor Roosevelt we know.
• 6:10
  [SPEAKER_02]: So anyway, it's
• 6:12
  [SPEAKER_01]: Thank you for sharing that story.
• 6:14
  [SPEAKER_01]: You've never get it so many environments and roles.
• 6:18
  [SPEAKER_01]: And along the way, you didn't just adapt, you created impact.
• 6:23
  [SPEAKER_01]: You pioneered programs supporting Latino and Latina communities in school systems.
• 6:29
  [SPEAKER_01]: Can you share a specific moment where you saw the direct impact of that work and what that taught you about responsible influence and action?
• 6:41
  [SPEAKER_02]: to be a part of the bilingual pilot program, which was the testing ground, can these children become bilingual at an early age in elementary school?
• 6:58
  [SPEAKER_02]: We had a very high high school dropout.
• 7:02
  [SPEAKER_02]: People were very concerned about the Latino community in Chicago.
• 7:08
  [SPEAKER_02]: And so I became a part of this pilot program.
• 7:13
  [SPEAKER_02]: And we had, of course,
• 7:15
  [SPEAKER_02]: As all programs you need a good administrator, we had the best Eddie Negron was phenomenal, he was our director and I did the preschool and I had gone from teaching high school to teaching preschool and that was the most phenomenal year.
• 7:39
  [SPEAKER_02]: where I poured all my art, all my dance, everything that I had ever learned about pedagogy, pedagogy, and I created this incredible classroom where at the end of the year, these little children, preschool were completely bilingual, and they could even begin to read.
• 8:03
  [SPEAKER_02]: I mean, it was just a phenomenal year, and I'm so glad I took pictures of it.
• 8:09
  [SPEAKER_02]: What happened there and and the bilingual pilot was from preschool to I believe fourth fifth grade fourth of fifth grade
• 8:19
  [SPEAKER_02]: And at the end of, and it was a real pilot, I mean, the politicians were coming in with the press, they were taking pictures of us, you know, we would appear in the newspaper, it was a very exciting year.
• 8:31
  [SPEAKER_02]: And then at the end of the year, guess what they did, we proved that this
• 8:45
  [SPEAKER_02]: uh, institute and they started, they started the bilingual program in.
• 8:53
  [SPEAKER_02]: the Latino areas of Pilsen, which is mainly Mexican and up in the humble park area west town, which was mostly Puerto Rican.
• 9:04
  [SPEAKER_02]: And then the years after that, it just was totally as the student throughout the entire throughout the entire city.
• 9:12
  [SPEAKER_02]: So I'm very proud of that one year that required a lot of
• 9:18
  [SPEAKER_02]: work, but it was the most fun.
• 9:22
  [SPEAKER_02]: And now, now, I do have to tell you that what was very important is that I have never stopped learning.
• 9:30
  [SPEAKER_02]: I was always learning.
• 9:32
  [SPEAKER_02]: I was always taking a workshop, we're doing a course or whatever.
• 9:36
  [SPEAKER_02]: And at that, the beginning of that year, I took a course with a woman that had come from Palo Arto Palo Arto and California professor.
• 9:47
  [SPEAKER_02]: And she was a professor at a dance in California.
• 9:53
  [SPEAKER_02]: But she was teaching the course that I took from her was teaching children through dance and movement.
• 10:04
  [SPEAKER_02]: Well, that was very helpful for me.
• 10:07
  [SPEAKER_02]: I really took that a lot of, you know, I was inspired by what I was learning.
• 10:14
  [SPEAKER_02]: And this was, she was a good friend of Shirley Moindine, who was the dance chair at Columbia College, Chicago.
• 10:24
  [SPEAKER_02]: So one thing leading to another, you know, Shirley brings this woman in, then I take the course because I had taken courses
• 10:34
  [SPEAKER_02]: and look what it did for me.
• 10:36
  [SPEAKER_02]: So it just deepened my practice, you know, I was already in yoga and already doing that, you know, doing dance, but this was very specific to teaching children through movement, dance and movement.
• 10:51
  [SPEAKER_01]: that is a great story and thank you for sharing it and it truly shows how everything happens for a reason and timing is everything and those intentional choices and awareness that you had brought you throughout your journey and you moved between cultures, careers, and identities over time.
• 11:12
  [SPEAKER_01]: What were some of the most challenging transitions you faced and how
• 11:20
  [SPEAKER_02]: When I'm confronted by a challenge, I gear up.
• 11:26
  [SPEAKER_02]: Well, I decided I was on a trip to Spain and I realized that summer of 73 that I needed a master's degree.
• 11:39
  [SPEAKER_02]: And so I needed to go to graduate school.
• 11:43
  [SPEAKER_02]: And
• 11:45
  [SPEAKER_02]: I needed to rev up my skills.
• 11:49
  [SPEAKER_02]: I needed to become a speed reader, you know, not hold on to each word and every specific, but read tons of stuff real quick.
• 11:58
  [SPEAKER_02]: And I needed to get that or inviting at my writing.
• 12:05
  [SPEAKER_02]: And so I took a reading course that summer before grad school.
• 12:12
  [SPEAKER_02]: No, I should say, or maybe the summer, and I worked on it.
• 12:19
  [SPEAKER_02]: I worked on my skills to really be able to do it.
• 12:24
  [SPEAKER_02]: And then the ideas, the always this for many of us who come from different backgrounds, immigrants, I'm an immigrant, and you know, you,
• 12:37
  [SPEAKER_02]: The world, the world, the American Empire is, you know, after the war, it was an empire, you know, and we really felt it, you know, if you were American, you knew it all in blah, blah, blah, blah, you know, you had all these mythology about what what is.
• 12:54
  [SPEAKER_02]: And I realize that I just have to always try to put my best foot forward.
• 13:05
  [SPEAKER_02]: And Gira challenges.
• 13:08
  [SPEAKER_02]: So you have this challenge that
• 13:12
  [SPEAKER_02]: Uh, I can do it.
• 13:14
  [SPEAKER_02]: You know, I can do this.
• 13:16
  [SPEAKER_02]: I can do this because a lot of us, I've met a lot of brilliant women who still believe they can't do what they want to do.
• 13:23
  [SPEAKER_02]: You know, they, they, they, they can't do this.
• 13:26
  [SPEAKER_02]: They can't do that.
• 13:27
  [SPEAKER_02]: And yet they're doing, they're doing great or they can.
• 13:31
  [SPEAKER_02]: They just have the idea that they can't.
• 13:33
  [SPEAKER_02]: So we have to get over.
• 13:36
  [SPEAKER_02]: Those obstacles, the mental obstacles that keep us from really being true to ourselves, really going for it, you know.
• 13:47
  [SPEAKER_01]: You've hope many people navigate their own internal and external challenges.
• 13:53
  [SPEAKER_01]: from your work as a therapist.
• 13:55
  [SPEAKER_01]: Are there a couple of practical tools or habits individuals can use to become more self-aware and intentional about how they influence others especially during difficult moments?
• 14:07
  [SPEAKER_02]: For those busy bodies like me, busy bodies and busy minds, the truth is we have to find ways of quieting ourselves of really taking great vacations in beautiful places and hearing which allows us to hear our inner voice.
• 14:32
  [SPEAKER_02]: You know, the truth that comes through because we think we know it all and we're always looking for this and looking for that, but the truth is you have to balance that with also some quieting whatever that is for you.
• 14:51
  [SPEAKER_02]: I have always been an artist and now I realize I've always known that art is very therapeutic, but now at my age 80, when I go into my painting room upstairs, and I spend an hour or an hour
• 15:12
  [SPEAKER_02]: in a bliss state, in a bliss state, even when I'm not happy with what I've done, it process of moving that brush, of breathing, of just not thinking of solving this and solving that, of being there, or being here.
• 15:30
  [SPEAKER_02]: No, no, just quieting is so phenomenal and I found that also when I worked with clay, I had incredible downloads, I mean things just incredible visions and downloads that would come.
• 15:47
  [SPEAKER_02]: when I was quiet with clay.
• 15:50
  [SPEAKER_01]: One amazing story how art was able to get you to a state to be able to visualize that, you've expressed your life's story through art and writing.
• 16:01
  [SPEAKER_01]: For someone listening who may not see themselves as creative, how can they use creativity whether journaling, reflection, or expression is a tool for healing and personal leadership?
• 16:14
  [SPEAKER_02]: And notice your language who don't see themselves as creative.
• 16:19
  [SPEAKER_02]: So there you go.
• 16:20
  [SPEAKER_02]: There's a there is there's a thought that needs to be gotten rid of because all of us are creative now.
• 16:29
  [SPEAKER_02]: You know, notice how we cook, I mean, for me, you know, food, preparing food is a work of art, you know.
• 16:39
  [SPEAKER_02]: But we're all, we all have that.
• 16:42
  [SPEAKER_02]: So you have to get over the thought that you're not creative.
• 16:46
  [SPEAKER_02]: Of course, we're not all Leonardo da Vinci's and Michael Angelo's, and of course, you're not going to.
• 16:52
  [SPEAKER_02]: If you haven't been trained.
• 16:55
  [SPEAKER_02]: how can you even be a painter, you know, an artist, you need training.
• 17:00
  [SPEAKER_02]: So the idea is that we all can do it.
• 17:05
  [SPEAKER_02]: We all can do it.
• 17:07
  [SPEAKER_02]: We can all do it.
• 17:08
  [SPEAKER_02]: And find your medium.
• 17:11
  [SPEAKER_02]: You know, seeing stresses.
• 17:13
  [SPEAKER_02]: My mother was a seamstress.
• 17:15
  [SPEAKER_02]: She was an artist.
• 17:17
  [SPEAKER_02]: You know, she had a
• 17:19
  [SPEAKER_02]: piles of fabric, piles of thread, seeing, seeing, binding.
• 17:26
  [SPEAKER_02]: All this stuff that she used to create, you know, these garments, the, so, so we find
• 17:36
  [SPEAKER_02]: Find your medium.
• 17:37
  [SPEAKER_02]: It could be, it could be paper.
• 17:40
  [SPEAKER_02]: I mean, look, I just bought this, I just bought this doll, this woman takes these dolls.
• 17:46
  [SPEAKER_02]: This one is a gentle healer.
• 17:48
  [SPEAKER_02]: Isn't that fun?
• 17:49
  [SPEAKER_02]: And she makes them with old fabric, all kinds of old fabric, and this is yarn.
• 17:55
  [SPEAKER_02]: Now she's having a ton of fun doing that.
• 17:59
  [SPEAKER_02]: find where you can have fun, how the fun, find the fun in, in, in, in, in, it's not fine.
• 18:09
  [SPEAKER_02]: Something that brings you joy.
• 18:11
  [SPEAKER_02]: And, and, and I'm sure, look for something that brings you joy.
• 18:15
  [SPEAKER_02]: We can all get into it.
• 18:17
  [SPEAKER_02]: I mean,
• 18:18
  [SPEAKER_02]: You know, and the problem, you know, is that we tend to say, oh, I've got to do something, you know, to increase my income and you then you get all crazy about increasing your income and where's the joy getting to the joy first and other things will follow.
• 18:37
  [SPEAKER_01]: Paula, if you could go back and speak to your younger self, navigating identity, purpose, and belonging, what guidance would you offer and how can our listeners apply that advice in their own lives today?
• 18:50
  [SPEAKER_02]: you can open your heart, I guess you need to open your heart chakra and expect the best because there are so many gifts out there for you.
• 19:01
  [SPEAKER_01]: If I were to listen, I walked away from this conversation and made one intentional shift in how they show up for others.
• 19:09
  [SPEAKER_01]: What would you want that shift to be?
• 19:18
  [SPEAKER_02]: expect good things to come your way, whether you're at the, whether you're at the shopping, the shopping mall, at the grocery store, I mean, doing your laundry,
• 19:35
  [SPEAKER_02]: You know, you can you can meet your soulmate.
• 19:39
  [SPEAKER_02]: Well, in the laundry of your condo, I've heard that story.
• 19:44
  [SPEAKER_02]: You can meet your soulmate stepping out of your building.
• 19:48
  [SPEAKER_02]: I mean, this is what I've heard through all my years.
• 19:51
  [SPEAKER_02]: Um, if you're looking for a good friend, look, I met a good friend on the bus.
• 19:56
  [SPEAKER_02]: Um, so that's really important.
• 19:59
  [SPEAKER_02]: Also very important is never stop learning, never stop reading.
• 20:03
  [SPEAKER_02]: Um, so your positivity, your expectation of the world being good to you and you being deserving.
• 20:11
  [SPEAKER_02]: You deserve good, goodness.
• 20:16
  [SPEAKER_01]: Thank you for sharing your story, your wisdom, and your perspective on what it truly means to live with intention and influence others in a meaningful way.
• 20:27
  [SPEAKER_01]: If our listeners want to get in touch with you, what's the best way to do so?
• 20:30
  [SPEAKER_02]: People can reach me.
• 20:40
  [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
• 20:41
  [SPEAKER_01]: Great.
• 20:41
  [SPEAKER_01]: We'll put that information or show notes.
• 20:44
  [SPEAKER_01]: Thank you so much for joining us.
• 20:46
  [SPEAKER_01]: I'm so grateful for you.
• 20:47
  [SPEAKER_01]: Thank you.
• 20:48
  [SPEAKER_01]: This was fun.
• 20:51
  [SPEAKER_01]: This was, and to our listeners, thank you for tuning in to daily influence.
• 20:54
  [SPEAKER_01]: I hope today's conversation brought you insight and inspiration.
• 20:58
  [SPEAKER_01]: If it's spoke to you, share it with someone who could use a little positivity today.
• 21:03
  [SPEAKER_01]: This is your reminder that influence is not about position or title.
• 21:06
  [SPEAKER_01]: It's about the choices you
• 21:09
  [SPEAKER_01]: Take one idea from today's conversation and put it into action, whether that's showing up with greater awareness, extending, understanding to someone else, or creating space for your own growth, because small, intentional actions repeat over time, creating lasting impact.
• 21:27
  [SPEAKER_01]: That's what daily influence is all about.
• 21:29
  [SPEAKER_01]: Until next time, stay inspired and keep having a positive, responsible influence.
• 21:34
  [SPEAKER_01]: Bye-bye.