Latest / Voices for Voices® / From Cult Conditioning To Child Protection: Kim Kelley’s Survivor-Led Blueprint | Ep 389

Transcript

From Cult Conditioning To Child Protection: Kim Kelley’s Survivor-Led Blueprint | Ep 389 · Voices for Voices®

• 0:02
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: Hey everyone, it's Justin here, Voices for Voices.
• 0:05
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: Thank you so much for joining us on this episode of the show.
• 0:10
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: Uh, we have part two of our discussion with Kim Kelley on this particular uh episode show.
• 0:21
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: And if you tuned in to her first episode, it was just totally awesome to have all the context, the backstories, uh, all the details, and we're gonna continue on that path.
• 0:39
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: I I just wanna read uh a little bit off of uh Kim's uh uh CV resume uh for those in case you haven't watched or listened to her first episode, uh, so you can have a little bit of context about who who she is, and uh then we're gonna dive right in.
• 1:06
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: There's so much to to get to, and we're just grateful for her time uh to to spend with with us.
• 1:13
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: And we want to thank our viewers and listeners uh from all over the world.
• 1:18
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: It's it's incredible the feedback uh we're we're getting and we're moving slowly from that awareness of what's going on to the action of actually helping and putting things in into motion, which is all about what Kim does in her uh her line of work.
• 1:46
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: Uh so pulling from Kim's uh resume, quote, Kim Kelley is a nationally recognized advocate for child safety, survivor of two decades of child trafficking and cult abuse, and a trusted consultant to law enforcement.
• 2:07
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: She was born into the notorious Children of God cult in Brazil, where her parents held senior leadership roles.
• 2:17
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: Kim endured systemic abuse and trafficking across Brazil, Mexico, and the United States.
• 2:26
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: After she escaped at age twenty, Kim rebuilt her life as a serial entrepreneur, founding businesses in digital marketing, sports apparel, and wellness.
• 2:40
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: And I'm gonna continue.
• 2:42
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: At twenty-nine, Kim channeled her resilience into combating child trafficking and exploitation, and she later founded Digital Defenders United, which is a nonprofit dedicated dedicated to eradicating child exploitation through survivor-focused advocacy, law enforcement training, and cutting-edge technology solutions.
• 3:14
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: Known as the Fearless Voice, Kim collaborates with local, state, and federal agencies, tech giants, policy makers, and survivor networks to develop immersive trauma-informed training, improve digital safeguards, and also champion policy reforms that are critical to child protection.
• 3:42
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: Her first hand insights into grooming, brainwashing, and trauma-informed aftercare empower her to train law enforcement, assistant investigations, collaborate with tech innovators, advocate for survivors, and work undercover in predator state operations.
• 4:08
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: Her leadership has shaped groundbreaking programs, technological advancements, and awareness campaigns reaching millions nationwide.
• 4:20
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: She brings a survivor-centered perspective and actionable expertise from tactical field operations to national media campaigns and policy initiatives.
• 4:35
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: Kim, thank you so much for joining us for uh a second show.
• 4:40
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: We enjoyed thoroughly the the first show.
• 4:42
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: Yeah, I can't wait to to learn learn more.
• 4:48
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: Um I think I just wanna I wanna pick up a little bit on the brainwashing.
• 4:55
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: Uh spoke a little bit about that in the in the earlier episode.
• 5:00
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: Um is that something that is easy to say easy?
• 5:09
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: How can one find out if they're being brainwashed?
• 5:12
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: Is that something that it just comes with maturity, getting older, or how how would a person know that unless they're being rescued by somebody that knows that?
• 5:26
  Kim Kelley: So let's get more specific so we can define the premise here, right?
• 5:30
  Kim Kelley: Because brainwashing can be applied in a lot of different ways.
• 5:33
  Kim Kelley: Like if you've been to some kind of carnival cruise line and there was like a hypnotist and he hypnotized people into doing things they would not normally do on stage, right?
• 5:41
  Kim Kelley: There's so many different levels to this.
• 5:43
  Kim Kelley: I just want to kind of narrow down the question for the sake because I please I'm gonna rephrase it from what I think you mean, just to make sure I'm answering the question, right?
• 5:51
  Kim Kelley: When it comes to adults being brainwashed, let me refer the public to a few things they may have already researched, and if not, they should, right?
• 5:59
  Kim Kelley: We know of successful programs that have been done successfully on adults.
• 6:04
  Kim Kelley: You can look up the MK Ultra program, you can look up Operation Mockingbird, like there's lots of different ways that fully grown humans that have not been, you know, necessarily closed off to the outside world can be influenced or manipulated by propaganda or information.
• 6:19
  Kim Kelley: Look at, you know, lots of different examples throughout history.
• 6:23
  Kim Kelley: So we know it's effective, right?
• 6:25
  Kim Kelley: How does one do program themselves?
• 6:27
  Kim Kelley: Well, it depends on the situation, right?
• 6:30
  Kim Kelley: Who's saying what, to who, why, how, like what is the environment here?
• 6:34
  Kim Kelley: All right, so let's leave all the adults out of this for the sake of this conversation and let's narrow that down to children.
• 6:40
  Kim Kelley: Now, in the first episode, I likened being born and raised in a cult and all the propaganda you're being fed from day one, like being born and raised under a rock and you're told red is blue, and that's all you know as a child.
• 6:52
  Kim Kelley: Now, thoughts and prayers to all the adults who decided to join the cult and decided to perpetuate the belief that red is blue, right?
• 6:59
  Kim Kelley: But they certainly knew better, right?
• 7:00
  Kim Kelley: So I'm just gonna talk about my personal parents, but let's apply this to every single grown-ass adult who decided to join a cult, right?
• 7:07
  Kim Kelley: Despite how vulnerable and searching for community and sad your life was, right?
• 7:11
  Kim Kelley: You decided to join a cult where you felt accepted and free hugs and love, and that's great.
• 7:16
  Kim Kelley: But they also asked you to believe red is blue.
• 7:18
  Kim Kelley: So you had to suspend your critical thinking at some point.
• 7:21
  Kim Kelley: Now I'm gonna make the assumption, right?
• 7:23
  Kim Kelley: When, again, we're talking adults who have the contrast of knowing blue is blue and what blue looks like, right?
• 7:29
  Kim Kelley: They're joining this cult.
• 7:30
  Kim Kelley: It's not an overnight decision.
• 7:32
  Kim Kelley: It's not like on day one, they're like red is blue, and you have to believe that.
• 7:36
  Kim Kelley: But it's a series of abolishing critical thinking.
• 7:39
  Kim Kelley: So again, that's gradually.
• 7:41
  Kim Kelley: What I want to unpack here is the psychological patterns of how it happens so that we can reverse engineer it.
• 7:48
  Kim Kelley: So I'm also gonna be focusing more on this realm of child exploitation and cults, which is much broader, right?
• 7:54
  Kim Kelley: But specifically cults where children are harmed, like the one I was raised in.
• 7:57
  Kim Kelley: Okay.
• 7:58
  Kim Kelley: But I'm also gonna be unpacking the 10 rules of every cult, which is something I wrote.
• 8:03
  Kim Kelley: But it's a what it's a it's something I wrote late at night and it all came out at once.
• 8:08
  Kim Kelley: And I've run it by a lot of experts.
• 8:10
  Kim Kelley: And so far, no one's had anything to add.
• 8:12
  Kim Kelley: And I'd love to see if anyone has feedback for it because it's totally based on my theory and perspective, but it's a pretty comprehensive list of how this works so that people can understand the patterns.
• 8:25
  Kim Kelley: Or, like I like to say, we can't solve a problem we don't understand.
• 8:29
  Kim Kelley: So none of this is justification.
• 8:31
  Kim Kelley: This is about understanding so that we can reverse engineer it or help people get out of it, right?
• 8:36
  Kim Kelley: So I'm gonna be doing this contrast of adults versus children because it's a very different body of water, right?
• 8:42
  Kim Kelley: If you knew blue was blue and you grew up the whole life knowing blue is blue and exactly what blue looks like, versus if you've been born and raised under a rock and you've never seen blue and you're told red is blue, and that's what's normal to you.
• 8:52
  Kim Kelley: Okay.
• 8:52
  Kim Kelley: So as an adult, it's still gonna be a gradual manipulation process of deconstructing truths and feeding you lies that taste good.
• 9:03
  Kim Kelley: Maybe like they're sugar coated, right?
• 9:05
  Kim Kelley: And it's God's love and it's what's happiness, and everybody's doing it, and you're weird if you don't.
• 9:10
  Kim Kelley: Maybe we'll be mad at you and excommunicate you if you don't, right?
• 9:13
  Kim Kelley: Whatever, the big bad consequences.
• 9:16
  Kim Kelley: Respectfully, I have very little.
• 9:19
  Kim Kelley: Um, how do I say this?
• 9:23
  Kim Kelley: I have very little empathy for the adults who decided to join and then decided to stay, and then decided to have children and teach those children that red is blue.
• 9:33
  Kim Kelley: Okay.
• 9:34
  Kim Kelley: I don't have a lot of empathy for those adults.
• 9:37
  Kim Kelley: I don't.
• 9:37
  Kim Kelley: Now, in this cult I was born and raised in, those are called first generation, meaning you knew blue was blue, you joined this cult, now you're teaching everyone red is blue.
• 9:46
  Kim Kelley: Okay.
• 9:46
  Kim Kelley: But specifically children who have never seen the outside world or at least not have access to it, right?
• 9:51
  Kim Kelley: Okay.
• 9:52
  Kim Kelley: So for an adult to one day be like, hmm, something's not right here, and deconstruct that and be like, I know blue is blue, I've seen it my whole life.
• 10:02
  Kim Kelley: But if I go back out there, they might think I'm weird and crazy, my friends won't like me anymore.
• 10:07
  Kim Kelley: Like, there's a lot of, I know I'm being a little facetious here, okay, but there's a lot of, you know, like that in the last episode, I was like, your mind can be your cage.
• 10:16
  Kim Kelley: Now, again, if you're an adult who should know better, that's a different cage for sure, because you have the context of having been outside the cage and you know the outside world is there.
• 10:26
  Kim Kelley: Okay.
• 10:27
  Kim Kelley: The other analogy I use to oversimplify this, it's like being born and raised on Mars, and you're told the earth is a flaming ball of fire.
• 10:34
  Kim Kelley: And if you go there, you will surely die immediately, in fact.
• 10:38
  Kim Kelley: And all, you know, lots of other bad things.
• 10:40
  Kim Kelley: Okay.
• 10:40
  Kim Kelley: Then the adults who were born and raised on Earth and traveled to planet Mars and decided to tell everyone Earth is a flaming ball of fire, right?
• 10:49
  Kim Kelley: They know it's not.
• 10:50
  Kim Kelley: They know better.
• 10:51
  Kim Kelley: So it might still be very scary for them to make that journey back to Earth, but they've been there before.
• 10:56
  Kim Kelley: They know they ain't burning, you know what I mean?
• 10:58
  Kim Kelley: Anyway, for a child to have the strength to deconstruct truth in an environment where you do not have access to truth.
• 11:08
  Kim Kelley: Not only the strength to ask questions and then defend the truth, but then to be so uh dedicated to truth that you are willing to do something as uncomfortable as journey to a potentially flaming ball of fire because you know there's more freedom there or at least more truth than what you're being fed on this planet.
• 11:32
  Kim Kelley: Okay.
• 11:33
  Kim Kelley: So that journey for a child, again, with zero support, zero context of the outside world, didn't really exist on paper, had never been to a school, had never had medical care, didn't know what credit hit credit was or filing taxes.
• 11:50
  Kim Kelley: Like, please realize we are somewhat like aliens landing on this planet Earth.
• 11:54
  Kim Kelley: And the first thing that happens when you land is you don't burn up, and you're like, oh my God, I didn't burn up, right?
• 12:00
  Kim Kelley: That takes you a few days to process because you're like, okay, now I need to make a plan.
• 12:05
  Kim Kelley: Certainly don't have a plan.
• 12:07
  Kim Kelley: You just know you didn't burn up in a ball of flyer, and that's kind of enough for now.
• 12:10
  Kim Kelley: Okay.
• 12:11
  Kim Kelley: So then we journey on into this earth, and you know, every anyway, you just try to hide the fact that you're not from this planet and assimilate as if you are.
• 12:19
  Kim Kelley: So again, I'm I'm I'm really being a lot of sarcastic humor to this very real, you know, process of survival.
• 12:26
  Kim Kelley: Um, and like I said, you know, there's um, I've got a real dark humor, so I can laugh about a lot of things that would make most people cry.
• 12:33
  Kim Kelley: That's just my chosen form of healing.
• 12:35
  Kim Kelley: That being said, there's so many different situations where people at a very young age escaped this cult in like random places in Russia and, you know, middle of nowhere and places in Africa, like all over the world, mostly American children, right?
• 12:50
  Kim Kelley: Don't exist on paper, don't have any type of support, and net negative support from your family, in fact.
• 12:56
  Kim Kelley: Then you have all this, you know, religious, uh, let's call it trauma, okay?
• 13:00
  Kim Kelley: But then also all the other, all the other forms of abuse.
• 13:04
  Kim Kelley: Okay.
• 13:04
  Kim Kelley: You're, you're, you're dealing with that, and you're also trying to navigate this new planet Earth.
• 13:09
  Kim Kelley: Okay.
• 13:09
  Kim Kelley: There's a lot to go through there.
• 13:12
  Kim Kelley: So, you know, again, everyone's healing journey is very different, but the number one need is physical safety.
• 13:19
  Kim Kelley: Like normally when you land on planet Earth, you're like, oh my God, okay, first of all, I didn't burn in a ball of fire.
• 13:24
  Kim Kelley: That's great.
• 13:25
  Kim Kelley: But now, you know what I mean?
• 13:27
  Kim Kelley: Where where do you go?
• 13:28
  Kim Kelley: So one of the many rhetorical questions I ask people is like, where would a survivor of child trafficking go?
• 13:34
  Kim Kelley: We're not even talking about like eight-year-old me in Brazil, because like I would not be safer on those streets.
• 13:39
  Kim Kelley: We're talking about like in the USA.
• 13:40
  Kim Kelley: So I was 10, there were four years of my life in my childhood when I lived in the USA from 10 to 14 years old.
• 13:46
  Kim Kelley: And I can talk more about that story because there's a lot to learn there.
• 13:48
  Kim Kelley: But just realize, where would I have gone?
• 13:52
  Kim Kelley: Right?
• 13:52
  Kim Kelley: If my parents are the bad people, if that's my environment, there's not really a safe place to land.
• 13:59
  Kim Kelley: So the deep the deprogramming process, like most let's let's just say it directly, I would have escaped much sooner if I had had a physical place to go.
• 14:09
  Kim Kelley: If I had had a place, I don't even talk about like trauma informed soft place to land.
• 14:13
  Kim Kelley: I'm saying, like, if I physically had a place to go, right?
• 14:16
  Kim Kelley: If I had relatives that offered help or some kind of, you know, a safe house, I don't know, I would have absolutely left sooner.
• 14:24
  Kim Kelley: Okay.
• 14:24
  Kim Kelley: So that's a huge part of it.
• 14:26
  Kim Kelley: Then there's the mental aspect of what anyone would go through when they're, you know, dealing with all that, right?
• 14:32
  Kim Kelley: Deconstructing and reconstructing truth and what even is that is that is.
• 14:36
  Kim Kelley: And then in the meantime, I'm paying bills and how does that work, right?
• 14:39
  Kim Kelley: So lots of hitting the ground running all at once.
• 14:42
  Kim Kelley: Um, okay, but the question is how would someone know they're brainwashed?
• 14:46
  Kim Kelley: And then I guess how can you help them?
• 14:47
  Kim Kelley: Well, again, that that really long-winded answer, right?
• 14:50
  Kim Kelley: It really depends on the situation and if you knew blue is blue or if you're never seen blue before, right?
• 14:56
  Kim Kelley: Or if you're still of the opinion that, like, I don't know, I'm just gonna, I'm gonna say something random, right?
• 15:01
  Kim Kelley: God hates blue.
• 15:01
  Kim Kelley: I can't, that's dangerous.
• 15:02
  Kim Kelley: You know what I mean?
• 15:03
  Kim Kelley: If you're afraid of blue, if you're told blue is evil or something, there's some kind of, oh, there's a reason blue is evil.
• 15:08
  Kim Kelley: Like, there's so many different layers to unpack here.
• 15:11
  Kim Kelley: So, you know, if I'm talking to an adult who decided to do something kooky with their life, you just need to get back to truth.
• 15:18
  Kim Kelley: And I'm not trying to undermine anything, but I'm just gonna speed that up for you.
• 15:22
  Kim Kelley: Like, you just need to get back to truth, and there's a whole other dirty for you there.
• 15:25
  Kim Kelley: Thoughts and prayers.
• 15:26
  Kim Kelley: Okay, for the kids.
• 15:27
  Kim Kelley: Um, or like in this case, you know, for the second and third generation cult members.
• 15:32
  Kim Kelley: That literally means babies having babies.
• 15:34
  Kim Kelley: Yes.
• 15:34
  Kim Kelley: So for us, right, the process of healing or let's talk about the process of escaping, right?
• 15:41
  Kim Kelley: That's more of like a process of questioning things and then finding the strength to go, you know, make that jump, that leap of faith to what might be a burning ball of flames and what's definitely going to cost you, you know, whatever type of family you had, or you know, you're gonna lose everything you knew.
• 15:55
  Kim Kelley: Basically, you're gonna start from square one.
• 15:57
  Kim Kelley: That's that's difficult no matter where you're coming from, right?
• 16:00
  Kim Kelley: Or what you're attached to or not, right?
• 16:02
  Kim Kelley: Then there's how do I survive?
• 16:03
  Kim Kelley: Like what happens next?
• 16:04
  Kim Kelley: What's the plan?
• 16:05
  Kim Kelley: And if, you know, a lot of people, unfortunately, a lot of survivors are re-traumatized, re-victimized because there's no physical safe place.
• 16:12
  Kim Kelley: So they end up with like anyone who will offer them help.
• 16:15
  Kim Kelley: And a lot of times those people can prey on vulnerabilities or take advantage of people that are like lost and searching and don't know what healthy is or real relationships or healthy boundaries and things like that.
• 16:26
  Kim Kelley: So the process is individual.
• 16:28
  Kim Kelley: It depends on the person's, you know, healing journey and their situation and what kind of resources they have access to.
• 16:35
  Kim Kelley: Uh now I do want to help people understand that no matter what your healing process involves, it must involve patience.
• 16:45
  Kim Kelley: That's both for the survivor as well as anyone trying to help their survivor or at least have realistic expectations as to what they might expect, right?
• 16:55
  Kim Kelley: The answer is it depends.
• 16:57
  Kim Kelley: And you and I don't we don't get to tell someone how to heal or like that they should be over it by now or whatever.
• 17:04
  Kim Kelley: It's no matter if you and I have been through something worse or don't exp understand what they've been through, like not a trauma competition.
• 17:10
  Kim Kelley: First one number one, right?
• 17:12
  Kim Kelley: Your 10 is my 10.
• 17:14
  Kim Kelley: It doesn't matter that I've been through things you couldn't imagine or that you've been through things I've never like your 10 is my 10.
• 17:20
  Kim Kelley: It's not a competition, it's about being honest with yourself.
• 17:24
  Kim Kelley: Okay.
• 17:25
  Kim Kelley: I'm gonna speed up this.
• 17:26
  Kim Kelley: This this is really more about the healing process, but it's also part of like being real about I guess deconstructing, you know, if you're brainwashed or something like that.
• 17:34
  Kim Kelley: Like, let's lay out some some real basic rules here.
• 17:38
  Kim Kelley: Truth doesn't mind being questioned.
• 17:41
  Kim Kelley: Anything that does not want you to ask questions, you should question.
• 17:47
  Kim Kelley: Let's keep that as a rule of thumb.
• 17:49
  Kim Kelley: You should especially question the things that are not asking you to question.
• 17:52
  Kim Kelley: Rule of thumb.
• 17:54
  Kim Kelley: Okay.
• 17:54
  Kim Kelley: Now that applies to so much here.
• 17:56
  Kim Kelley: You'll you'll know that I oversimplify things for the sake of clarity.
• 17:59
  Kim Kelley: In most controlled environments, if not all, right?
• 18:03
  Kim Kelley: Whether it's a cult or a political affiliation or religion, if questions are not welcomed, or if questions are answered in a very nonspecific, rather, you know, get out of here type response, that could be a red flag, right?
• 18:21
  Kim Kelley: Now, again, I look for patterns.
• 18:23
  Kim Kelley: There's never just like one thing and that's it.
• 18:24
  Kim Kelley: No, there's there's layers to this.
• 18:27
  Kim Kelley: Okay.
• 18:27
  Kim Kelley: So let's let's let's go back to the 10 rules of every cult, because I framed that a little bit.
• 18:33
  Kim Kelley: And I I want to read what I wrote late one night.
• 18:36
  Kim Kelley: This just came out and it's really good.
• 18:38
  Kim Kelley: This applies not only to, I think, every cult.
• 18:42
  Kim Kelley: Just realize most cults don't want to call themselves a cult anyway.
• 18:46
  Kim Kelley: It also applies to a lot of political structures and other realms of society that you might recognize today.
• 18:53
  Kim Kelley: So I want people to listen to these patterns so that they understand these problems.
• 18:57
  Kim Kelley: Number one, they must not know.
• 19:01
  Kim Kelley: Every cult has layers.
• 19:04
  Kim Kelley: The outer public layer is a lot like a corbett brochure.
• 19:07
  Kim Kelley: So you see happy smiling people and we love Jesus and yay, everything.
• 19:10
  Kim Kelley: And on the inside, there's a lot more to that story.
• 19:13
  Kim Kelley: But the public might think they're happy smiling people, religious freedom, and yay, God, so everything's fine.
• 19:19
  Kim Kelley: A lot of bad guys exploit that front of doing good to get away with doing bad things.
• 19:28
  Kim Kelley: I'm gonna keep moving, but you can unpack every one of these rules of every cult.
• 19:32
  Kim Kelley: Number two, it is written.
• 19:34
  Kim Kelley: Take it by faith.
• 19:35
  Kim Kelley: Full stop.
• 19:36
  Kim Kelley: Most answers to your questions are something like that.
• 19:42
  Kim Kelley: Number three, we are the only ones who are right.
• 19:45
  Kim Kelley: We're God's chosen, we're the special ones.
• 19:48
  Kim Kelley: He told us this special thing.
• 19:49
  Kim Kelley: The other world, the rest of the world doesn't understand, but we're right.
• 19:52
  Kim Kelley: These weird things we're calling God's love.
• 19:54
  Kim Kelley: Oh, we're right.
• 19:55
  Kim Kelley: We're just everyone else isn't ready for that.
• 19:56
  Kim Kelley: We're just special chosen, whatever.
• 19:58
  Kim Kelley: Number four.
• 19:59
  Kim Kelley: We make our own rules.
• 20:02
  Kim Kelley: The cult I was raised in literally perpetuated whatever is done in love is love.
• 20:07
  Kim Kelley: Abusing children was God's love.
• 20:11
  Kim Kelley: That was a full, full unbelief.
• 20:15
  Kim Kelley: Number five, this is what's best.
• 20:19
  Kim Kelley: This is God's highest will.
• 20:22
  Kim Kelley: This is what God wants.
• 20:23
  Kim Kelley: God created pleasure.
• 20:26
  Kim Kelley: Like pick a reason.
• 20:27
  Kim Kelley: They can justify it.
• 20:28
  Kim Kelley: This is what's best.
• 20:30
  Kim Kelley: Number six, recruit.
• 20:33
  Kim Kelley: Full stop.
• 20:34
  Kim Kelley: Number seven, you must earn your place.
• 20:40
  Kim Kelley: Participation is not optional.
• 20:42
  Kim Kelley: Friendly reminder, especially for the elected officials or anyone who's in any position of power, you earn your place.
• 20:49
  Kim Kelley: When they play stupid, let's not play stupid enough to pretend like they aren't there for a reason, like they don't know what's going on, like they just got promoted, but they're completely blind to what the organization is really doing.
• 21:02
  Kim Kelley: Let's not play that dumb.
• 21:03
  Kim Kelley: Okay.
• 21:03
  Kim Kelley: Number eight, support.
• 21:06
  Kim Kelley: By whatever means necessary, for most of them, financial contributions are a priority.
• 21:11
  Kim Kelley: And those who give the most money have the most freedom or power within the cult.
• 21:15
  Kim Kelley: Said more directly, if you give a lot of money, they will bend the rules for you.
• 21:19
  Kim Kelley: If you have a lot of money, you will be treated differently.
• 21:22
  Kim Kelley: The rules are for them, but not for us, especially the leaders or those with a lot of money.
• 21:27
  Kim Kelley: You can buy your way into anywhere.
• 21:31
  Kim Kelley: Number nine, dedication.
• 21:33
  Kim Kelley: Do whatever it takes.
• 21:35
  Kim Kelley: Forsaking family and friends, making incredible sacrifices, enduring endless pain and discomfort.
• 21:40
  Kim Kelley: God bless you.
• 21:42
  Kim Kelley: It's what God wants.
• 21:43
  Kim Kelley: Number 10, if you're not for us, you are against us.
• 21:47
  Kim Kelley: Now you guys tell me where else you've seen those patterns, what other realms of society that might apply to.
• 21:55
  Kim Kelley: But then we're going to go back to just keeping this focused on cults, right?
• 22:00
  Kim Kelley: If you're going to a church and you have the option to go or not go, and you have the option to go home and live your life as you choose, and you can raise your children as you want, you have your independent finances and do with your finances what you want.
• 22:11
  Kim Kelley: Okay, maybe that church could be a little kooky, right?
• 22:15
  Kim Kelley: Maybe their religion has some weird history that we should be concerned with.
• 22:19
  Kim Kelley: But my point is that's not necessarily a cult, right?
• 22:23
  Kim Kelley: For people that are like, all religions are cults, all churches are cults.
• 22:26
  Kim Kelley: Bless your heart, you don't understand cults.
• 22:28
  Kim Kelley: Because I'm not saying I agree with all the things everybody does.
• 22:31
  Kim Kelley: I'm saying a cult has a very different level of control.
• 22:36
  Kim Kelley: Participation is not optional.
• 22:39
  Kim Kelley: You don't get to think and ask questions and go home and raise your kids the way you want and do what you want with your finances.
• 22:44
  Kim Kelley: No, no, no.
• 22:45
  Kim Kelley: I'm not saying a church cannot be culty or cult-like or certain beliefs are culty or cultic.
• 22:52
  Kim Kelley: Sure.
• 22:53
  Kim Kelley: Not the same thing as a cult.
• 22:55
  Kim Kelley: Is there overlap?
• 22:56
  Kim Kelley: Yes, but it is not the same body of water.
• 22:58
  Kim Kelley: Again, we have to understand these problems and be willing to truly understand and face the truth, not manipulate the truth the way we want it to be.
• 23:06
  Kim Kelley: Okay.
• 23:07
  Kim Kelley: So starting with, because your question is, you know, how can someone tell if they're brainwashed?
• 23:11
  Kim Kelley: Well, if you're in a highly controlled environment or group and you're not encouraged to think for yourself, in fact, it's highly discouraged, you should definitely ask questions.
• 23:20
  Kim Kelley: And if you're told to kind of simmer down and not ask more questions, you should definitely ask more questions.
• 23:25
  Kim Kelley: And if you don't get honest, straightforward answers, you should consider relocating at the very least, right?
• 23:34
  Kim Kelley: Maybe just not being controlled by them at the very least would be a good idea.
• 23:38
  Kim Kelley: Right.
• 23:39
  Kim Kelley: So again, we're talking about grown adults who can choose to not go back if that's your situation, right?
• 23:45
  Kim Kelley: Don't subscribe, don't sign up, don't donate, don't, don't, don't enmesh yourself.
• 23:48
  Kim Kelley: Pull out.
• 23:49
  Kim Kelley: Okay.
• 23:50
  Kim Kelley: With a child, they don't have that luxury.
• 23:53
  Kim Kelley: Whether it's your parent forcing you, taking you to this service, like you don't sign up, you don't, you don't consent, you don't you're not able to opt out when you're a child.
• 24:04
  Kim Kelley: Now again, that's to varying degrees, right?
• 24:06
  Kim Kelley: I'm not here to diminish anyone's experience, but I've talked to a lot of people that are like, ah, religious trauma.
• 24:10
  Kim Kelley: I'm like, okay, what happened?
• 24:11
  Kim Kelley: Yeah, my parents were super religious.
• 24:13
  Kim Kelley: Okay, what happened?
• 24:14
  Kim Kelley: Yeah, we had to go to church every Sunday, and it was, you know, religious trauma.
• 24:18
  Kim Kelley: And I'm like, okay, you know, there there's levels to this, but like not the same thing as a cult, right?
• 24:26
  Kim Kelley: I'm not here to compete with anybody's trauma, but you know, going to church and listening to religious things, right?
• 24:33
  Kim Kelley: Are they controlling their your life?
• 24:34
  Kim Kelley: Are they abusing you?
• 24:36
  Kim Kelley: Like, there's levels to this.
• 24:37
  Kim Kelley: So again, I'm not here to compete or discredit anybody's experience.
• 24:41
  Kim Kelley: I am here to correct the premise so that we understand these problems, right?
• 24:46
  Kim Kelley: Once we understand these problems and what we're dealing with and who and what, you know, are they a minor or they're blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
• 24:50
  Kim Kelley: Then we could give more specific information with like how would you deprogram yourself, right?
• 24:55
  Kim Kelley: So again, for children who have escaped, survived, been rescued from cults or controlled group environments, like cults, you know, trafficking, et cetera.
• 25:06
  Kim Kelley: Like it's not necessarily a cult, but you're in a very controlled environment if you're in that situation.
• 25:11
  Kim Kelley: The deprogramming, the healing is gonna be very, very different.
• 25:15
  Kim Kelley: Now, once again, your context is red as blue.
• 25:18
  Kim Kelley: I'm obviously oversimplifying a lot of, you know, very abusive things here.
• 25:22
  Kim Kelley: The mind is a very powerful thing.
• 25:24
  Kim Kelley: It depends a lot on that person and the resources they have access to.
• 25:28
  Kim Kelley: If we had better resources to better help spot the victims, help the victims, and then assist the victims in their healing journey, we'd see a lot less hurt people, hurting people.
• 25:40
  Kim Kelley: Because healed people also healed people.
• 25:47
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: That's so true.
• 25:48
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: Um when so this is more, I guess, a big picture question.
• 25:56
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: Uh when uh I'm trying to think of like the best way to ask it.
• 26:04
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: So you're having an impact on so many people on a such positive level from the rants to uh what you've been through through coming on shows and sharing.
• 26:18
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: When did it really when did it really stick that you're having a very positive influence on kind of the masses that you're your messaging and it's not really a hundred percent you're bringing your experience and your learned and lived experience, and you're also uh doing things a lot of out-of-the-box things, so I'm I'm I'm sure you may have got like, well, why is she doing that?
• 26:57
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: Like, couldn't she just do that eight to five or that nine to five?
• 27:02
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: Uh so I guess kind of how how did you or have you come to that point of realizing the work that you're doing?
• 27:11
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: I mean, it does matter, and it matters to a whole lot of people, not just here in the United States, but literally across the across the world.
• 27:21
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: That's that's it's a question I like to ask leaders be because it it's it's just interesting to get the perspective that and from what I gather, it's not about you, it's about helping others.
• 27:36
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: And maybe that's part of the answer, but I'm gonna I want to let you uh you know share you know your insight and into that.
• 27:43
  Kim Kelley: For sure.
• 27:44
  Kim Kelley: I I appreciate the question, and it's also kind of not humbling, but you know, I don't think any of us see ourselves like I'm helping so many people, so I'm gonna pat myself on the back, you know.
• 27:53
  Kim Kelley: I know that's not what you asked, but it's just um, you know, I saw problems and it pissed me off.
• 28:00
  Kim Kelley: And I was unwilling to well, let me put it like this.
• 28:03
  Kim Kelley: I I looked into it, I researched it, I delved in in terms of like, what is this?
• 28:09
  Kim Kelley: Okay, for further context, like I was never rescued.
• 28:12
  Kim Kelley: I don't have children of my own.
• 28:14
  Kim Kelley: I'm not out here fighting for me.
• 28:15
  Kim Kelley: I was doing really good in life.
• 28:16
  Kim Kelley: I was successfully running businesses and like move, you know, I was happy and doing well.
• 28:20
  Kim Kelley: Like this wasn't coming from a place of like searching for answers and purpose in life at all.
• 28:25
  Kim Kelley: I was not, I have not been bored in many years.
• 28:28
  Kim Kelley: Like I did not need more to do.
• 28:29
  Kim Kelley: Okay.
• 28:30
  Kim Kelley: That being said, when I uh when this mission came to me is really what happened, right?
• 28:38
  Kim Kelley: And I was just like, what the hell?
• 28:40
  Kim Kelley: Like it was this, I don't know if I can cuss on your show.
• 28:42
  Kim Kelley: Sorry.
• 28:42
  Kim Kelley: This oh no, you're gonna I get real Torezzi around this, but not anyway talking about this, but like hell no.
• 28:50
  Kim Kelley: It was a hell no from me that this is allowed to thrive in our country.
• 28:54
  Kim Kelley: So, you know, part of it is like for sure, there's some inner child in there that's still pissed off.
• 29:00
  Kim Kelley: And I think that anger is serving me.
• 29:02
  Kim Kelley: Like, I have this saying now, I think if you're pissed off, you're meant to fight back, you know, because everyone heals differently, and that's it's just not a requirement to heal.
• 29:09
  Kim Kelley: I'm I'm sorry, it's not a requirement to fight back.
• 29:11
  Kim Kelley: No survivor uh owes anybody advocacy, okay?
• 29:15
  Kim Kelley: Like, whole other subject, but like to each their own.
• 29:18
  Kim Kelley: There's no wrong way to heal.
• 29:19
  Kim Kelley: The goal is to heal.
• 29:21
  Kim Kelley: Okay.
• 29:21
  Kim Kelley: For me and for other people who are pissed off, who are who who are have a fire under them, who are annoyed with all the inefficiencies and all the broken systems.
• 29:30
  Kim Kelley: I think we're meant to fight back.
• 29:32
  Kim Kelley: I think that's a very healthy way to channel your energy.
• 29:36
  Kim Kelley: But again, not to rage, not to complaining.
• 29:39
  Kim Kelley: I never wanted to be one of those people, and I was never one of those people that was like angry and bitter inside.
• 29:42
  Kim Kelley: Like I had moved so far past all of that, right?
• 29:45
  Kim Kelley: I didn't have questions, I wasn't searching, I had made peace with the fact that I don't have parents.
• 29:49
  Kim Kelley: Like, we, we good.
• 29:50
  Kim Kelley: Okay.
• 29:50
  Kim Kelley: Don't, it's, it's not normal.
• 29:52
  Kim Kelley: It's we're fine.
• 29:53
  Kim Kelley: It's just that at the time, right, there was a lot of um, I was definitely angry once I understood how bad the problem was and the fact that no one was no one.
• 30:05
  Kim Kelley: Like the people who should be solving this problem are not solving this problem.
• 30:08
  Kim Kelley: I could see it so clearly, and it was like, fuck this, right?
• 30:12
  Kim Kelley: Then there was also getting involved, like speaking to other survivors.
• 30:18
  Kim Kelley: So again, initially, like this has never been about me, not even my story, right?
• 30:22
  Kim Kelley: It's just that like I I still had shame around my past, and it was still something people didn't know about me, and I never admitted it, right?
• 30:29
  Kim Kelley: I've always been a very behind-the-scenes person professionally.
• 30:31
  Kim Kelley: Like, I really like setting the stage for clients to perform on.
• 30:34
  Kim Kelley: That's kind of, you know, I have a background in professional in online marketing and all these things.
• 30:38
  Kim Kelley: So like I like setting the stage for others, and I was never, it was actually very triggering for me to be on camera.
• 30:43
  Kim Kelley: Okay.
• 30:44
  Kim Kelley: This was a couple years ago.
• 30:45
  Kim Kelley: Um, I'm 30 years old, no, 31 by now.
• 30:48
  Kim Kelley: The short version is that I started working with a nonprofit, and I saw, again, I had it, I I was, I had not been around a lot of Christians or around a lot of, you know, advocacy types, because that just wasn't my realm.
• 31:02
  Kim Kelley: Going into those realms, I saw a lot of people who didn't know what they're talking about that are not helping.
• 31:09
  Kim Kelley: And we're not even at the time, I didn't realize how much corruption was there yet.
• 31:13
  Kim Kelley: I just saw people like, um, I saw how needed subject matter experts were and survivor voices were.
• 31:22
  Kim Kelley: And I didn't want to.
• 31:24
  Kim Kelley: I really didn't want to be public about it.
• 31:26
  Kim Kelley: It wasn't about me.
• 31:27
  Kim Kelley: I didn't, I like, you know, eating brunch in my my flip-flops and yoga pants.
• 31:32
  Kim Kelley: I don't want to be public.
• 31:33
  Kim Kelley: Anyway, it took me a couple years of just, you know, trying to get everyone to do their job and giving everyone the talking points and like trying to make them care and do it to just realize how needed it was.
• 31:44
  Kim Kelley: Um, I also will always give credit to my friend Tyler Stoot, who worked with me in the same organization for years, and he was a big part of my muse, or I I I jokingly say he bullied me into being on camera.
• 31:57
  Kim Kelley: And I have him to thank for that because I definitely don't think I would have.
• 32:00
  Kim Kelley: But that being said, like he helped me understand how needed it was and kind of helped me get beyond myself.
• 32:05
  Kim Kelley: And no one knew really, I kind of told him, but no one really knew like how it was actually really difficult for me to be on camera until I decided to just, you know what I mean?
• 32:16
  Kim Kelley: It wasn't about me.
• 32:17
  Kim Kelley: It wasn't about me like anyway, it it was so much bigger than me for one that it just kind of pushed me forward.
• 32:25
  Kim Kelley: Um, when I went out there, you know, it was I interacted with a lot of survivors and a lot of people who are not being helped, who even went to therapy and were never told it wasn't their fault, that were still carrying shame.
• 32:36
  Kim Kelley: Adults who had been trafficked in their childhood were still carrying shame about, like, oh, I was a bad kid and it was a bad and it was my fault.
• 32:43
  Kim Kelley: And I was like, so so I started, you know, getting more hands-on, and I'm a very hands-on person.
• 32:48
  Kim Kelley: Like, I really get in and just understanding all these different layers and the people that are just really running their mouth and saying ridiculous things that I really was like, what are you saying to people?
• 32:58
  Kim Kelley: And you know, oh, I think that, you know, we should put a message out there that God can forgive anyone and that, you know, these people should just ask for forgiveness and then they'll be fine.
• 33:06
  Kim Kelley: And I'm like, all these things.
• 33:08
  Kim Kelley: You can't heal unless you have Jesus.
• 33:09
  Kim Kelley: You can't heal.
• 33:10
  Kim Kelley: I'm like, all these things, okay?
• 33:12
  Kim Kelley: And like to real quick to well-meaning people that are listening and are like very, you know, let me let me just unpack something.
• 33:19
  Kim Kelley: If something helped you, that doesn't mean it's going to help everybody.
• 33:26
  Kim Kelley: Crazy concept, I know.
• 33:28
  Kim Kelley: But because a lot of people that have let's let's let's take a very specific example and I will apply this to myself, okay, even though like I'm not the one in question here.
• 33:38
  Kim Kelley: But okay, if we rescue a kid from a religious cult and we look for a safe house, and because most safe houses have a religious undertone, which is fine, however, if they have a requirement like every morning they need to wake up and sing about Jesus, and this kid was just recent recently rescued from a very traumatic cult-like or religious traumatic experience involving trafficking, not very helpful for this kid to wake up and sing about Jesus right now.
• 34:04
  Kim Kelley: I'm not saying it's bad.
• 34:06
  Kim Kelley: I'm saying it's not helpful for their healing journey right now.
• 34:10
  Kim Kelley: Okay.
• 34:11
  Kim Kelley: And if you're going to require this person to do something that is not helpful for their healing journey right now, you don't truly care about healing.
• 34:18
  Kim Kelley: You're trying to check a box because to you, it's more important that this person follows your rules than that they find peace so that they can begin their healing journey, right?
• 34:32
  Kim Kelley: If we rush them from zero to a hundred, they're probably not going to find a lot of peace.
• 34:38
  Kim Kelley: It's going to create a lot more struggle, even possible hurt and re-traumatization to force them to struggle through something that is not that helpful right now.
• 34:48
  Kim Kelley: Okay.
• 34:49
  Kim Kelley: So this, which to you and I might represent peace, love, and happiness to this individual could be re-traumatizing.
• 34:57
  Kim Kelley: Okay.
• 34:57
  Kim Kelley: So many safe houses, survivor centers, aftercare programs, et cetera, nonprofits that work with survivors, they have a lot of bias in what they think has to happen for somebody to heal.
• 35:09
  Kim Kelley: And I'm not saying what they're doing is bad or even harmful for everyone.
• 35:15
  Kim Kelley: I am saying that it's if they have bias, they're not trauma-informed.
• 35:21
  Kim Kelley: So for that safe house, okay, I could send the kids who were not related to religious traumatic type situations, but I can't send kids who experience religious trauma.
• 35:32
  Kim Kelley: Do you understand these patterns that apply to society?
• 35:35
  Kim Kelley: Now, just imagine on a bigger scale, if we have people like that making the policies and rules and training, we ain't solving problems.
• 35:42
  Kim Kelley: We check in boxes, right?
• 35:44
  Kim Kelley: And that type of bias, even if it's with the best possible intentions and the most ignorant belief that this is the only way everybody could heal, right?
• 35:53
  Kim Kelley: That's not really helping on a bigger picture.
• 35:57
  Kim Kelley: So I do well, you know, it's it's interesting working with different survivors and like I have so much that's intuitive to me that I understand.
• 36:05
  Kim Kelley: But then with every person or situation that I interact with, there's always, you know, you you learn so much.
• 36:14
  Kim Kelley: Nobody ever has all the answers, nobody ever has seen it all.
• 36:17
  Kim Kelley: You know what I mean?
• 36:18
  Kim Kelley: There's so much to learn.
• 36:20
  Kim Kelley: So all that to say, we need to have trauma-informed understanding of the problem, survivor-led understanding of the problem.
• 36:29
  Kim Kelley: I'm not saying you can't help if you haven't lived it.
• 36:31
  Kim Kelley: I'm saying if you're not consulting the people who lived it, you probably don't know what you're talking about.
• 36:35
  Kim Kelley: It's like someone trying to help veterans that's never served in war or that's never been a military family or that doesn't understand the military.
• 36:42
  Kim Kelley: Like you're probably not going to be that helpful, right?
• 36:44
  Kim Kelley: You might not understand their dark humor and what's helpful for them.
• 36:48
  Kim Kelley: That's okay.
• 36:49
  Kim Kelley: But let someone who understands it help them or at least hire someone who understands them.
• 36:53
  Kim Kelley: You know what I mean?
• 36:54
  Kim Kelley: So again, we're applying this to the nonprofit world, to the policy legislative world, et cetera.
• 36:59
  Kim Kelley: The better the systems are, the better we can actually solve problems.
• 37:02
  Kim Kelley: So I guess that the shortest answer to your question, um, I realized individual healing wasn't enough if the systems stayed broken and uninformed.
• 37:12
  Kim Kelley: I realized not enough people understand the problems, much less the solutions.
• 37:16
  Kim Kelley: I realize there's so much corruption and people are getting away with it because people are afraid to speak up and there's corruption that protects the corruption, but also people don't understand the problems much less the solution.
• 37:28
  Kim Kelley: So people are able to get away with these band-aids.
• 37:31
  Kim Kelley: So prevention requires infrastructure, right?
• 37:35
  Kim Kelley: Not just awareness.
• 37:36
  Kim Kelley: And awareness to be effective also requires action.
• 37:40
  Kim Kelley: Otherwise, we're just throwing thoughts and prayers, but we're not actually willing to take action.
• 37:47
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: Oh, that's um it's incredible.
• 37:49
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: I like your uh your analogies and and and stories about one safe house and one environment might be good for a certain individual or individuals, whereas it might not be at this very time for another, and the we shouldn't be just checking boxes and say, hey, we saved, we rescued this many.
• 38:19
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: Because some are going back to the the very parents and the very same people that they were experiencing uh the mistreatment, and some are going to kind of the wrong the wrong match of oh I'm gonna be re-traumatized if I go into this this particular setting.
• 38:44
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: I guess I I so where do you get all your energy from?
• 38:48
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: I know I know I know it's very passionate work, but I get asked that a lot too, and I don't drink coffee, and but I'm it's like zero to like a hundred, and I'm just curious where you where you get the the energy and the in the and the passion uh for an individual who may want to follow in your footsteps to some degree this the some level so how is she doing?
• 39:17
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: How is Kim doing all these things and have all all these processes?
• 39:22
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: And uh how how can somebody do that without having to you know drink like seven cups of coffee or I don't even know.
• 39:31
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: I don't drink coffee.
• 39:33
  Kim Kelley: I don't drink seven cups of coffee.
• 39:35
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: I mean it might I mean then there's nothing wrong with it, I guess.
• 39:39
  Kim Kelley: I yeah, I I I'll anyway, I like coffee a lot.
• 39:43
  Kim Kelley: That's my answer.
• 39:44
  Kim Kelley: But okay, on this note, okay, let's let's be real.
• 39:48
  Kim Kelley: I don't have kids, so there's you know, lots of bandwidth there.
• 39:51
  Kim Kelley: Um okay.
• 39:53
  Kim Kelley: What I ha the way I would summarize this, one, like I've always been You could call it ADHD, you could call it a high performer, you could call it highly motivated person.
• 40:06
  Kim Kelley: Um, my point is just like I've I've always been like, even, you know, even going through hard things, my you could say trauma response is to kind of numb by doing.
• 40:16
  Kim Kelley: So we're directing that in a healthy way, but I'm just saying, like, I'm, you know, my personality, my wiring is for one, like sets me up for this for sure, since I was very young.
• 40:25
  Kim Kelley: And anyway, then, but now there's also, you know, there's the look, healing is a choice.
• 40:32
  Kim Kelley: Okay.
• 40:33
  Kim Kelley: This is gonna be a pretty direct statement.
• 40:36
  Kim Kelley: And I think I'm allowed to say this, right?
• 40:39
  Kim Kelley: We're the only one who can decide to heal.
• 40:42
  Kim Kelley: Now, the reason that's a powerful statement is because not only does that remove the onus from everybody else, to me, that's empowering because we don't need anybody else to apologize or say the right thing or change or some magic wand to do something, right?
• 40:58
  Kim Kelley: We're the ones that can decide to heal.
• 41:00
  Kim Kelley: We're the only ones that can make that choice.
• 41:03
  Kim Kelley: Healing is also a process.
• 41:05
  Kim Kelley: It's not linear.
• 41:06
  Kim Kelley: There's not a start and an end, and then we're done, right?
• 41:08
  Kim Kelley: It's uh, it can be a lot of things.
• 41:10
  Kim Kelley: It can be a lifelong process, but it doesn't and it doesn't have to mean suffering.
• 41:16
  Kim Kelley: Uh it can definitely mean, you know, processing pain, especially at the beginning.
• 41:21
  Kim Kelley: It means being honest with yourself.
• 41:23
  Kim Kelley: It means being willing to not only make the choice to heal, but to go into those difficult places and dig out old things and reconstruct.
• 41:30
  Kim Kelley: Like it's not an easy process.
• 41:32
  Kim Kelley: So again, patience is a requirement here in not only healing, but you know, giving yourself that space and realizing, especially like I'm one of those, like I'd like to get this over with as soon as possible, which helped in my healing journey.
• 41:45
  Kim Kelley: But it also like I didn't want to take as much time as I did.
• 41:49
  Kim Kelley: And that's in hindsight, like, oh yeah, no, I wasn't ready when I was like, okay, let's just get this over with.
• 41:54
  Kim Kelley: Like, no, it's gonna take a process.
• 41:56
  Kim Kelley: Okay.
• 41:56
  Kim Kelley: Then there's also boundaries.
• 42:00
  Kim Kelley: Okay.
• 42:00
  Kim Kelley: What I mean by that is generally, especially if you were raised like that or if you experienced that for many years of your life, you know, a lot of times I can go through a whole other realm of what it does psychologically and, you know, all the different, there's a lot of different symptoms, of course, but we're just gonna focus on it, it chips away at your self-worth.
• 42:17
  Kim Kelley: Anytime you're in this very controlled environment where someone or people have control over you and are essentially directing your life, right?
• 42:24
  Kim Kelley: You don't obviously have autonomy, a lot of independence, but it also chips away at your self-worth.
• 42:28
  Kim Kelley: So part of that is, you know, we say things like reclaiming your power and taking your power back.
• 42:33
  Kim Kelley: What that means is really, again, with that healing journey, is not allowing yourself to settle or be led by other people or fall for tactics, right?
• 42:45
  Kim Kelley: It's learning.
• 42:46
  Kim Kelley: And unfortunately, a lot of times we learn the hard way when we think someone's a good person and they're just another manipulative scumbag, right?
• 42:53
  Kim Kelley: Like, unfortunately, that's that's real life.
• 42:55
  Kim Kelley: But it's connecting with your intuition and really gaining the trust in yourself that you either never had or that was taken from you.
• 43:04
  Kim Kelley: I'm gonna try to summarize this because I have a lot to say about the healing process.
• 43:08
  Kim Kelley: Okay.
• 43:08
  Kim Kelley: I reject the notion that anybody was, we're talking about childhood trauma, right?
• 43:13
  Kim Kelley: That you're broken, right?
• 43:14
  Kim Kelley: I really don't like that.
• 43:16
  Kim Kelley: And it's less about the word and more about like, I reject the notion that people are broken because we were as children, right?
• 43:26
  Kim Kelley: A bad guy chose to do a bad thing to a child.
• 43:30
  Kim Kelley: That is the most weak, pathetic, cowardly thing you can do, right?
• 43:34
  Kim Kelley: So I'm I'm reframing, I'm gonna summarize a lot of things that I say to survivors.
• 43:37
  Kim Kelley: Okay, a lot of people are like, I'm so sorry that happened to you, and they treat like an exotic bird now, or they're like, Well, you should just forgive and forget, and you're so strong.
• 43:44
  Kim Kelley: So, yeah, let's just move on.
• 43:45
  Kim Kelley: Like, they're just kind of awkward about knowing how to process that or just say nothing.
• 43:49
  Kim Kelley: What I do instead is of course I listen and you know, there's a whole other rapport thing that's happening here, but also instead of the narrative of like, I they broke me, I'm sad, I'm a victim, they hurt me.
• 44:01
  Kim Kelley: It's all like very external, like, oh, they did big, bad thing, and I'm now very broken.
• 44:05
  Kim Kelley: Nah, man, fuck that.
• 44:06
  Kim Kelley: That weak pathetic coward tried to hurt you when you were a child.
• 44:09
  Kim Kelley: You were an innocent little child.
• 44:10
  Kim Kelley: That weak pathetic coward tried to overpower you, but you survived that, man.
• 44:15
  Kim Kelley: You're a badass.
• 44:16
  Kim Kelley: You know how many people don't survive that?
• 44:18
  Kim Kelley: I'm so proud of you for choosing to overcome.
• 44:20
  Kim Kelley: I just validated that that happened.
• 44:22
  Kim Kelley: Now I'm gonna validate that never should have happened.
• 44:25
  Kim Kelley: A bad guy tried to do a bad thing, or a bad guy did a bad thing.
• 44:29
  Kim Kelley: You overcame that.
• 44:31
  Kim Kelley: You're a badass.
• 44:32
  Kim Kelley: That was not your fault.
• 44:34
  Kim Kelley: That should never have happened.
• 44:36
  Kim Kelley: But I just want you to know that bad guy's a weak, pathetic coward.
• 44:40
  Kim Kelley: You're the strong ass, badass because you chose to overcome that and you're here.
• 44:44
  Kim Kelley: Okay.
• 44:45
  Kim Kelley: Bad thing happened, bad thing bad.
• 44:47
  Kim Kelley: I am validating.
• 44:48
  Kim Kelley: I'm not saying, yeah, but you're fine.
• 44:49
  Kim Kelley: I'm saying bad thing bad.
• 44:51
  Kim Kelley: You're a badass.
• 44:52
  Kim Kelley: He's a coward, he, she, it, whatever, right?
• 44:55
  Kim Kelley: I'm no longer like big scary bad guy that has all this power over me.
• 44:58
  Kim Kelley: I'm like weak pathetic coward.
• 44:59
  Kim Kelley: Okay, now you're here.
• 45:01
  Kim Kelley: Meaning happened, not okay, but happened, can't change that past.
• 45:05
  Kim Kelley: Weak pathetic coward, now you're here.
• 45:08
  Kim Kelley: What do you want to do next?
• 45:10
  Kim Kelley: You get to choose.
• 45:12
  Kim Kelley: You don't need an apology, like no, we don't need to revisit that, in fact.
• 45:18
  Kim Kelley: Okay.
• 45:18
  Kim Kelley: Lots more psychological processes here, but like we're not here to make it pretty.
• 45:23
  Kim Kelley: I really don't like very negative thing.
• 45:26
  Kim Kelley: When people try to make it pretty, yeah, but God had a plan, yeah, but you're so strong.
• 45:30
  Kim Kelley: Okay, bad thing happened, bad thing bad.
• 45:32
  Kim Kelley: Let's validate that.
• 45:33
  Kim Kelley: A lot of survivors don't get the validation, they're called crazy.
• 45:35
  Kim Kelley: A lot of the turmoil and the shame and the PTSD is because they don't get validation that bad thing bad.
• 45:40
  Kim Kelley: Now I realize a lot of times it's a family member or friend and everyone's trying to make excuses.
• 45:44
  Kim Kelley: Bad thing bad, not okay.
• 45:46
  Kim Kelley: Weak pathetic coward, not okay.
• 45:48
  Kim Kelley: Not not nope, nope, nope, weak pathetic coward, leave it.
• 45:52
  Kim Kelley: You overcame.
• 45:53
  Kim Kelley: You're a badass.
• 45:54
  Kim Kelley: Now what do you want to do about it?
• 45:55
  Kim Kelley: Do you want to never think about it again?
• 45:56
  Kim Kelley: Do you want to move on and find peace and happiness?
• 45:59
  Kim Kelley: Do you want to fight back?
• 46:00
  Kim Kelley: You know what I mean?
• 46:01
  Kim Kelley: It reframes the whole conversation because now we don't need an external thing to change or we don't need them for one.
• 46:07
  Kim Kelley: And for two, we get to control our bandwidth now.
• 46:10
  Kim Kelley: So, like this is your bandwidth.
• 46:12
  Kim Kelley: How much time do you want to keep giving them?
• 46:14
  Kim Kelley: How much blame, you know what I mean?
• 46:16
  Kim Kelley: So another another thing I'm paralleling here is that a lot of people, well-meaning people, we would hope, really push the narrative of forgiveness onto survivors.
• 46:26
  Kim Kelley: This typically comes from a religious perspective of you have to forgive, otherwise, God is not gonna forgive you.
• 46:31
  Kim Kelley: And to the religious people pushing that narrative, because let's be realist, the religious people pushing that narrative, let me just remind you about what Jesus said in the Bible.
• 46:38
  Kim Kelley: And for context, and yes, I'm gonna get real soapboxy here, I was born and raised in a religious cult.
• 46:42
  Kim Kelley: Fun fact, I can quote the Bible to you, I can sing the Bible to you in three languages.
• 46:45
  Kim Kelley: Okay, so all the people that are like, you just need to read your Bible to heal.
• 46:48
  Kim Kelley: Which version of the Bible in which language would you like me to sing it?
• 46:51
  Kim Kelley: Okay.
• 46:51
  Kim Kelley: That being said, the irony is I've never met a Christian who knows the Bible better than me.
• 46:56
  Kim Kelley: And I am not a Christian, however, I was raised on a lot of weird things, but also the Bible.
• 47:01
  Kim Kelley: Okay.
• 47:02
  Kim Kelley: Anyway, in the New Testament, there were three times.
• 47:05
  Kim Kelley: Actually, let's start here.
• 47:06
  Kim Kelley: There were two times where Jesus got really gangster.
• 47:08
  Kim Kelley: It was the one time he ever went to church as an adult.
• 47:11
  Kim Kelley: And he flipped tables and kicked whip whipped people.
• 47:14
  Kim Kelley: That was pretty cool.
• 47:15
  Kim Kelley: The second time was when he told people it would be better for you to put a millstone around your neck and drown in the bottom of the sea than for you to offend a child.
• 47:22
  Kim Kelley: Now, fun fact that reference, that verse, the millstone around the neck, drowning in the sea because of child, three times in the New Testament in Matthew, Mark, and Luke.
• 47:32
  Kim Kelley: So Jesus meant it, right?
• 47:33
  Kim Kelley: Let's be real.
• 47:34
  Kim Kelley: He was really clear about that.
• 47:35
  Kim Kelley: Unlike a lot of things that Christians fixate on, he was really clear about that.
• 47:40
  Kim Kelley: He was not clear about going to church on Sunday and a lot of other things that Christians fixate on, but he was really clear about don't let me catch you offending a child.
• 47:48
  Kim Kelley: I find that very significant because the word offend is so broad.
• 47:50
  Kim Kelley: He didn't say like violate or defile or something worse.
• 47:53
  Kim Kelley: He literally said offend a child.
• 47:55
  Kim Kelley: And the millstone around the neck thing is like a 2,000-pound stone.
• 47:59
  Kim Kelley: You can't scientifically put that on somebody's neck, right?
• 48:01
  Kim Kelley: So it's more like a creative threat.
• 48:03
  Kim Kelley: And Jesus didn't typically do that.
• 48:05
  Kim Kelley: He was all peace and love, except when it came to protecting children.
• 48:08
  Kim Kelley: He was like, anyway, I don't want to get too flowerly here, but like I feel like it was a very creative threat.
• 48:13
  Kim Kelley: And Jesus didn't typically do that.
• 48:14
  Kim Kelley: So all that to say, okay, you would think Christians would be very focused on that.
• 48:19
  Kim Kelley: Now it's ironic that there's a lot of Christians so willing to spend lots of time debating that concept and try to pretend like Jesus was not talking about children.
• 48:27
  Kim Kelley: They should read Matthew 18 when he was definitely talking about children, but anyway, they're like, no, he's talking about the church, his little ones.
• 48:32
  Kim Kelley: Anyway, all that to say, we should be very hyper-focused on protecting children and not allowing systems or religious concepts or anything else to discount how bold we should be, regardless of what you believe.
• 48:49
  Kim Kelley: Because once again, the Bible is, you know, I'm not a Christian.
• 48:52
  Kim Kelley: I'm just using the logic of Christians to support the premise of protecting children, which we should just use logic.
• 48:58
  Kim Kelley: But anyway, so the fighting back thing.
• 49:01
  Kim Kelley: Okay, once again, I understood, like I saw all these, you know, people with religious bias, people that are just here to collect money and performative activism and all of that.
• 49:11
  Kim Kelley: It can be very exhausting to try to work through all that.
• 49:16
  Kim Kelley: Okay.
• 49:16
  Kim Kelley: Now, again, I'm wired for this in a way that most people aren't.
• 49:20
  Kim Kelley: I have no problem debating those people or having those discussions, right?
• 49:25
  Kim Kelley: With survivors, though, it can be very traumatizing to again not get that validation, be told you're crazy your whole life, be told you just move on and forgive the person.
• 49:32
  Kim Kelley: And it's like 100% of the people talking about forgiveness right away, like right off the bat, that's just where they go first.
• 49:38
  Kim Kelley: They're never talking about how we're supporting the survivor or like what we've done to make sure that they're okay, or like, are we sure this person's in prison?
• 49:45
  Kim Kelley: Can because he can find redemption and forgiveness there.
• 49:47
  Kim Kelley: That's no, no, no, we're like, no, no, no, forgiveness.
• 49:50
  Kim Kelley: So then back in the fold, right?
• 49:51
  Kim Kelley: Okay, I've seen that happen too many times.
• 49:54
  Kim Kelley: And let's not pretend like it's not as severely re-traumatizing for the survivor, right?
• 49:59
  Kim Kelley: Again, especially if it's a friend or family member, especially if it's someone in the church, like I've seen this protection of the predator and this complete disregard for the survivor or this force-fed like thoughts and prayers and forgiveness, where we're not really helping people, we are checking boxes.
• 50:13
  Kim Kelley: So, all that to say, for survivors or for anyone wanting to get in to help, what I would urge you is number one, choose to heal first.
• 50:23
  Kim Kelley: We cannot pour from an empty cup, but you will also end up getting thrown for all kinds of loops you can't imagine if you're not standing on solid ground.
• 50:32
  Kim Kelley: And that means you personally, beyond faith and whatever else you're standing on, like you personally need to be standing on solid ground before you can truly help other people.
• 50:44
  Kim Kelley: Healed people heal people.
• 50:46
  Kim Kelley: The reason they say hurt people, hurt people, if you're not choosing to heal, you may keep bleeding on others.
• 50:53
  Kim Kelley: You may be re-traumatized.
• 50:55
  Kim Kelley: Like it might not only render you less useful or useless, even, it could break you down because you're not ready for that.
• 51:02
  Kim Kelley: You could bleed on others in a way that hurts other people.
• 51:04
  Kim Kelley: Like it's a vicious cycle for a reason.
• 51:06
  Kim Kelley: So all that to say, healed people are in a much better place to start helping other people, right?
• 51:12
  Kim Kelley: So number one, choose to heal.
• 51:15
  Kim Kelley: And that's a process.
• 51:16
  Kim Kelley: And I'm not here to try to make it sound quick and easy because it's definitely not.
• 51:19
  Kim Kelley: It's a choice, though.
• 51:21
  Kim Kelley: Number two would be boundaries.
• 51:23
  Kim Kelley: So whether it's not talking to everyone about everything, oversharing, whether it's not getting involved with everyone or saying yes to everyone and everything, letting everyone and everything give opinions about how you should do or heal or help or, you know, the way it needs to be done, it can be exhausting and waste a lot of time.
• 51:43
  Kim Kelley: If you are, if you don't have boundaries in place that can help you, first of all, discern who's really, you know, worth working with and who's in who's worth pouring into.
• 51:53
  Kim Kelley: I I that might sound a little callous, but I think you know what I mean.
• 51:56
  Kim Kelley: When we have the urge to help people and when we're not fully healed, a lot of times we have this like broken heart for everybody.
• 52:02
  Kim Kelley: And a lot of people can kind of take up that bandwidth that aren't really here to help or choose healing.
• 52:09
  Kim Kelley: They just need support, right?
• 52:10
  Kim Kelley: So, all that to say, like, there's a lot of needs in this world, man.
• 52:14
  Kim Kelley: And it's actually, you know, what's actually ironic is that like I do a lot of public speaking and talking in the internet and stuff.
• 52:19
  Kim Kelley: And again, this is not about me, right?
• 52:21
  Kim Kelley: But it's it's for some reason, strangers on the internet will see a survivor, again, shouldn't have to be me here, but here it is, who's combating child trafficking.
• 52:30
  Kim Kelley: It's kind of a big undertaking, you know what I mean?
• 52:32
  Kim Kelley: Lots going on here.
• 52:32
  Kim Kelley: And they're like, oh my God, can you also like my ex-husband left with my children and like can you also help me with this thing?
• 52:39
  Kim Kelley: And it's like, I don't know why you think I need more to do, you know.
• 52:42
  Kim Kelley: I want to help everybody, but like I don't have the bandwidth.
• 52:46
  Kim Kelley: I'm not a large organization.
• 52:47
  Kim Kelley: Or the or my favorite is like, you should go to Washington and arrest Hillary Clinton or Trump or you know, whoever.
• 52:52
  Kim Kelley: And I'm like, yeah, I'm I'm on it.
• 52:54
  Kim Kelley: Are you offering to fund this mission or you're just here with ideas?
• 52:58
  Kim Kelley: Because my point is is truly like you have to be aware of your bandwidth.
• 53:02
  Kim Kelley: None of us are superhuman, but also like a lot of well-meaning people, as well as ill-intentioned people, will definitely try, you know, to take advantage or just ask for help in a way that can drain you, right?
• 53:13
  Kim Kelley: So staying mission-focused is critical.
• 53:16
  Kim Kelley: So, because again, there's so many worthy causes.
• 53:18
  Kim Kelley: Like I could get distracted before I even forget, before I even begin, if I'm letting myself get tangled up in everybody's everything or every good cause that needs help, right?
• 53:29
  Kim Kelley: Stay focused.
• 53:30
  Kim Kelley: And again, you can't really do that effectively if you're not healed and grounded, etc., right?
• 53:36
  Kim Kelley: Boundaries is a big conversation, but it's difficult for survivors to gain that.
• 53:41
  Kim Kelley: So, like, let's not even try to go beyond ourselves if we don't have the inside of our house really, you know, you know, set up right.
• 53:48
  Kim Kelley: So, anyway, part of that is, you know, knowing when to rest and when to act, and then just kind of staying grounded on, again, once you're healed, like this work is not about you, me, anybody, right?
• 54:00
  Kim Kelley: It's about like the focus becomes clearer when you don't have all this internal stuff to deal with in the meantime, right?
• 54:06
  Kim Kelley: Then you can stay focused on the mission, the children, what we're doing here.
• 54:10
  Kim Kelley: Um, all that to say, people, you know, you'll see in the nonprofit world there's a lot of ways to waste your time.
• 54:18
  Kim Kelley: And there's a lot of well-meaning people spending a lot of time talking or having meetings or, you know, committees and things that can drain a lot of your time and resources.
• 54:28
  Kim Kelley: I have this term that I use for myself, um, sarcastically called cute puppy.
• 54:34
  Kim Kelley: And what that means is every politician and religious leader and public figure, et cetera, et cetera, right, really like having a cute puppy.
• 54:43
  Kim Kelley: And you're like, oh, survivor, sad face, good cause, please donate.
• 54:48
  Kim Kelley: You know what I mean?
• 54:49
  Kim Kelley: It's especially for survivors.
• 54:51
  Kim Kelley: A lot of organizations, politicians, and situations exploit survivors, whether or not they're meaning to, they do.
• 55:00
  Kim Kelley: Whether or not they're just asking you to tell a sad story for their views or for their service or for whatever it is, right?
• 55:07
  Kim Kelley: A lot of people don't realize the kind of impact that has.
• 55:11
  Kim Kelley: And if the person is not healed, that can be very difficult.
• 55:14
  Kim Kelley: So, like again, there's no finish line to healing, right?
• 55:18
  Kim Kelley: But like, if these interviews, if speaking publicly, if the work I did made me break down, if I needed to go like, you know, cry it out after every interview, I'm not saying that's a bad thing.
• 55:28
  Kim Kelley: That might be the way someone processes and that's okay for them.
• 55:31
  Kim Kelley: What I'm saying is if it didn't light me up, if I felt like I needed to like after everything like this that I do, that's probably not a very healthy thing for me, at least not right now, right?
• 55:44
  Kim Kelley: Sometimes I'm like dealing with so much that like I'm not gonna, you know, I'll lay off, you know, TikTok videos or whatever it is, because like I'm just not in the right headspace.
• 55:53
  Kim Kelley: So that's part of boundaries, right?
• 55:55
  Kim Kelley: It's knowing when to press the gas and when to press the brakes and what how to take care of yourself.
• 56:01
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: Excellent.
• 56:02
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: Thank you so much for the clarity in in detail.
• 56:06
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: Uh we're at the end of our time for our second show, unfortunately.
• 56:12
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: Um we'll have future shows sometime in the future when uh we we both have time.
• 56:18
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: Um but if if you could just do a uh uh just a PR run of how people can learn more about you, the ranch, the work you do, uh get involved if that's something they want, uh and just how how they can just learn.
• 56:40
  Kim Kelley: I appreciate that.
• 56:41
  Kim Kelley: So my website, which has tons of free information and resources and tools on how to protect children, specifically in the digital world where most children spend most of their time, digitaldefendersunited.org.
• 56:53
  Kim Kelley: Tons of free information and resources, checklist style information to help protect kids in a modern day.
• 56:59
  Kim Kelley: And I'm asking everyone to implement at least one of those tips today.
• 57:02
  Kim Kelley: I promise you they're very accessible, practical information.
• 57:06
  Kim Kelley: Our social media links are there.
• 57:08
  Kim Kelley: You can follow us on Instagram and YouTube and TikTok and all the things.
• 57:12
  Kim Kelley: And of course, you can reach out to us if you have questions, if you want to help.
• 57:15
  Kim Kelley: There are many different ways to help.
• 57:17
  Kim Kelley: We're not a fundraising organization, but if you do need your law enforcement department trained, if you want to fund law enforcement training, if you want to understand more about law enforcement training, if you want to set up a sting operation in your community, if you're local politician, like let's get creative and solve some problems together.
• 57:34
  Kim Kelley: So please reach out to us and hopefully I or someone on our team will get back to you right away.
• 57:40
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: Excellent.
• 57:41
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: Well, thank you so much, Ken, for sticking around two episodes, a couple hours of your your time.
• 57:48
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: Uh, we are very much grateful for that.
• 57:51
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: And uh, we're gonna be turning around these episodes here in the next couple days.
• 57:57
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: Obviously, tag you on uh in the rant on all of them, and just want to say thank you for being an action-oriented person.
• 58:08
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: Um because that's I mean the world needs a lot of people, a lot of different types of people, but action-oriented is is one of one of those that it's not just talking to talk, um you're walking and the walk as well.
• 58:24
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: Uh so we want to say thank you, and uh nothing but the best for for you, uh your organization, everything you get involved with, and for the safety of you and everybody as they go through the trainings and and they go and implement different operations and projects and in their communities.
• 58:52
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: Very much appreciate you and what what you have and are and what you're gonna continue to do.
• 59:01
  Kim Kelley: Thank you very much.
• 59:02
  Kim Kelley: I really appreciate that.
• 59:03
  Kim Kelley: And again, thank you for championing this message.
• 59:06
  Kim Kelley: You know, a lot of people, Paul, you know, a lot of platforms are afraid to talk about this message, as you and I know.
• 59:12
  Kim Kelley: So I always want to thank the hosts who are willing to have this message be featured and willing to unpack it and willing to see the truth for what it is, not just what we want it to be.
• 59:22
  Kim Kelley: Sometimes these conversations can be uncomfortable, sometimes they can make us kind of angry or whatever people are feeling.
• 59:28
  Kim Kelley: Again, I want to compel people to channel that energy into action and pick one thing they can do to be part of the solution.
• 59:35
  Kim Kelley: So again, Justin, thank you for all you do.
• 59:37
  Kim Kelley: Thank you for all the voices and the people that you're helping through this message.
• 59:41
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: Well, you're welcome.
• 59:43
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: And we want to thank our viewers, our listeners.
• 59:46
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: Without you, we wouldn't have a platform, we wouldn't have a reason to do a show, two shows like this with Cam and uh getting closer and closer to 400 total or not.
• 59:59
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: stopping there uh and it's just uh it's incredible the the feedback that uh we we get and we do we we we cover some you know some pretty pretty tough topics as as we've talked about on on our two episodes and I think that from what I read off of your uh website you know you're you're being a voice for the voiceless you're you're coming you're that light that's coming out of the shadows and and and those symbolically to me make a uh make a lot of sense to everybody uh but definitely with our organization what we're trying to do is to give people a platform that they can share and talk and they can uh let people know what what's going on so that if uh and I used this on a previous show uh I was I was in the car the other day listening to the radio just flipping through the channels and the the let's say the old time song Monsters with uh Eminem and Rihanna was on and Eminem was talking in his rap about if he could help one one kid out of a hundred million I think then what he's doing would make it would it would justify what he's doing and and and so I I know we're helping more than one one kid one person one adult one individual one human being and that really just resonated with me is like yeah that's that's part of why what what we're doing we're here to help people and if there's one less kid that has to go through a tough situation and we want to want to help everybody uh but if we can at least you know start with one then uh I I think that we're on the the right right track and definitely feels good emotionally too well um we will see you on the next show and again if you haven't checked out our first episode uh with Kim you're gonna want to go to the previous number I think this is episode 386 387 so you want to go back to 380 86 because we just dropped 385 this morning so a lot of numbers to to keep track of uh so thank you to everybody thank you to Ken thank you uh for for joining us please share if you're able to uh follow give us a thumbs up all those things are free to do and help us uh further our our reach to try to make people aware and then turn that awareness into into action so until next time uh this is Justin of Voices for Voices uh let's celebrate the voices of everybody and please be a voice for you or somebody in need we'll see you next time thanks again you're welcome