Latest / Your Thoughts Your Reality / Healing Hearts and Homes: Brenda's Story of Family Resilience and the Power of Neuroencoding

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Healing Hearts and Homes: Brenda's Story of Family Resilience and the Power of Neuroencoding · Your Thoughts Your Reality

• 0:02
  Speaker 1: Welcome to your Thoughts, your Reality with Michael Cole, the podcast that shines a compassionate light on the journey of veterans battling through life's challenges.
• 0:11
  Speaker 1: Michael is a dual elite certified neuro encoding specialist in coaching and keynote training presentations dedicated to guiding military veterans as they navigate the intricate pathways of post-deployment life.
• 0:23
  Speaker 1: Join him as we delve into the profound realm of neuroencoding science, empowering these brave individuals to conquer universal battles procrastination, self-doubt, fear and more.
• 0:34
  Speaker 1: Together, let's uncover the strength within you to re-engage with families and society, forging a new path forward.
• 1:05
  Speaker 2: Hello, hello, hello, forging a new path forward.
• 1:06
  Speaker 2: Five and we have some great conversations.
• 1:07
  Speaker 2: We actually started off camera and forgot we're going to do a podcast and had to start it really quick.
• 1:09
  Speaker 2: So great conversations already starting, brenda Welcome.
• 1:13
  Speaker 3: Well, michael, thank you for the invitation.
• 1:15
  Speaker 3: I was thinking about your thoughts, your reality.
• 1:18
  Speaker 3: I was like what a great name.
• 1:20
  Speaker 2: Thank you.
• 1:21
  Speaker 3: Yeah, it sums it up right, especially with what we do with doing coding, that's for sure, yes, yes, and with the topic that we're bringing today, it also you know it matches what we're going to talk about.
• 1:31
  Speaker 3: So I really love that.
• 1:33
  Speaker 2: Absolutely so.
• 1:34
  Speaker 2: You know, brenda specializes in helping people regain control of their negative emotions, which is super important.
• 1:43
  Speaker 2: You know and I think this goes of course, with veterans, but it's with moms, it's with dads, it's everybody as human beings in a sense, is, you know, thoughts really dictate.
• 1:55
  Speaker 2: You know what we do, how we feel and you know all of those.
• 1:59
  Speaker 2: So love to jump into this and so, if you want to, brenda, do you want to go ahead and tell us a little bit about?
• 2:06
  Speaker 3: yourself.
• 2:07
  Speaker 3: Okay, yes, I live in Texas.
• 2:10
  Speaker 3: I am a mother of five kids, ages 22, 19, 16, 8, and 6 years old.
• 2:18
  Speaker 3: I've been married for more than 17 years and the reason why I joined this new way of living because that's how I see it, it's a new me basically it's because one of my kids tried to commit suicide, you know about almost four years ago.
• 2:37
  Speaker 3: So that moment it was an awakening moment for me as a mom, thinking what's going on in my daughter, that she wants to do that.
• 2:48
  Speaker 3: And then, at the same time, I saw the pattern as in me, I tried to commit suicide when I was 17 years old.
• 2:54
  Speaker 3: So I was like my daughter she tried to commit suicide when she was 12.
• 3:00
  Speaker 3: I tried when I was 17 and then me having two youngest one at that time, you know, the youngest ones was about three years old and the other one was about five.
• 3:12
  Speaker 3: So I said to myself if so, what's going to happen when I turn, you know, my 60s, 50s?
• 3:21
  Speaker 3: I'm going to get a heart attack if that happens again.
• 3:24
  Speaker 3: Because I started going into a lot of emotional stress and it wasn't just about me, it was about my family, my kids.
• 3:32
  Speaker 3: So I was like something has to be done, something has to change because I realized is that our kids are a reflection of who we are as parents.
• 3:46
  Speaker 3: So I could see like her getting stressed, depressed, a lot of anxiety, overwhelmed, and I was like, huh, that looks familiar, you know, it was like a meeting me on her so you were seeing the patterns um of yourself in her exactly I saw it and I was like I don't want my daughter to go through that because me being 45, back then I was like 42, you know 41, something like that.
• 4:16
  Speaker 3: Forget the age.
• 4:17
  Speaker 2: But then your age?
• 4:20
  Speaker 3: you just told everybody yeah, because, see, I know I.
• 4:27
  Speaker 3: There are things that I became comfortable within me about, you know, being me, like who I was back then.
• 4:36
  Speaker 3: I didn't.
• 4:37
  Speaker 3: I did not want to accept my age.
• 4:39
  Speaker 3: I did not want to accept who I was.
• 4:41
  Speaker 3: I hated myself.
• 4:44
  Speaker 3: I literally, like I could say, like I hated myself, the way I felt.
• 4:49
  Speaker 2: So can I ask you what drew you to that, or what patterns, what habits took you down that road?
• 5:00
  Speaker 3: do you think, See, like I was thinking, thinking, okay, I never been into a war, right, because we're here, like you know, uh, about helping the veterans and you know whoever is watching the show.
• 5:12
  Speaker 3: Um, I never been into a war, but definitely what I can see is that if we live in an environment we're just constantly fighting, argument parents, you know, you see those things.
• 5:26
  Speaker 3: So you basically live in a war in your own home and you as a little child, you see all that, like even cousins fighting, uncles, all the people that surround you.
• 5:39
  Speaker 3: So all that unconsciously started affecting me because I did not know and now I've been.
• 5:45
  Speaker 3: I am a very empathetic person.
• 5:48
  Speaker 3: I feel what people feel.
• 5:51
  Speaker 3: And I used to cry a lot Like I was very emotional.
• 5:54
  Speaker 3: I'm still.
• 5:55
  Speaker 3: I am a very emotional person, but I can manage my emotions.
• 5:58
  Speaker 3: That's why I talk about negative emotions, because I learned to manage my own emotions, because I was affected by everything.
• 6:07
  Speaker 3: So as I was growing up I would see all that.
• 6:10
  Speaker 3: So eventually it all went to pile up.
• 6:13
  Speaker 3: You know, it's like when you fill in a cup of water right A drop, a drop, until eventually it overflows and I couldn't handle it anymore.
• 6:21
  Speaker 2: And those were the patterns, that and things that you were saying that you drew you down that road then.
• 6:27
  Speaker 2: So, and just because you weren't in a war or a veteran I mean human beings all deal with my perception, my hypothesis, if you will, as human beings all deal with these things.
• 6:38
  Speaker 2: It's the human condition.
• 6:40
  Speaker 2: If you will, you know whether it be self-loathing or imposter syndrome or any of these things that you know you were dealing, self-loathing or imposter syndrome or any of these things that you know you were dealing with, I've dealt with.
• 6:48
  Speaker 2: It's about how fast we get ourselves out of that, right.
• 6:51
  Speaker 2: So, and thank God for Neuron Codem, because you know we do the work and it helps, right.
• 6:55
  Speaker 2: So, when you were seeing yourself going down that pattern, if you will, what helped you break yourself out of that?
• 7:05
  Speaker 3: Well, basically my daughter, because when I got that call from the school hey, you know, we have your daughter in the office.
• 7:12
  Speaker 3: She says she had drank some pills because she tried to kill herself.
• 7:16
  Speaker 3: We need you to come in, you know, pick her up and figure out what to do.
• 7:21
  Speaker 3: I started calling the hospitals and then she was hospitalized for 11 days.
• 7:26
  Speaker 3: Wow.
• 7:26
  Speaker 3: So when I came back home and I mean my husband and I, my whole family was just destroyed, because it was during COVID, when you could not go into the hospital, visit her, nothing.
• 7:40
  Speaker 3: I just remember leaving her inside.
• 7:42
  Speaker 3: And well, that's the second part, right, because we went to the hospital first and then, after that, we had to transfer her to another institution.
• 7:50
  Speaker 3: And then when I got out, I remember I just got in my car, started crying, crying, crying, crying, crying, you know on stuff, right, because I was like, what am I going to do?
• 8:02
  Speaker 3: Like I started judging myself, what have I done wrong?
• 8:06
  Speaker 2: Right, and that's so normal.
• 8:08
  Speaker 3: Yeah, and then I started blaming my husband.
• 8:10
  Speaker 3: It's your fault, I think it's you, because you are the one that is not changing.
• 8:13
  Speaker 3: You are the one that is not changing, you are the one that is doing this.
• 8:16
  Speaker 3: And so at some point I was like you know what?
• 8:19
  Speaker 3: There's so many things wrong that I see around me that I don't want to live like this anymore.
• 8:27
  Speaker 3: So that got me into.
• 8:28
  Speaker 3: I do not want this life anymore, and I think there's happiness.
• 8:33
  Speaker 3: I believe there is happiness and I I'm going to find it.
• 8:37
  Speaker 3: So then I started saying to myself and I asked God, if you have a purpose for me, show me the way, because I don't want to live like this.
• 8:44
  Speaker 3: I'm sick and tired of living like this.
• 8:46
  Speaker 3: So she was the one that actually got me, you know, to this point, to an awakening time where I say you know what?
• 8:53
  Speaker 3: No more.
• 8:59
  Speaker 2: I do not want to live like this, no more.
• 9:00
  Speaker 2: Yeah, so you found, you found that leverage and it was your daughter, um, that that helped, helped you.
• 9:04
  Speaker 2: I apologize, you know we're uh, I don't know if you can hear my dog in the back, we're pivoting.
• 9:11
  Speaker 2: This is real life, people.
• 9:13
  Speaker 2: This is real life.
• 9:14
  Speaker 3: He wants to be interviewed.
• 9:18
  Speaker 2: So, um, so let's, if we can thank you, brenda, for just being so vulnerable, right?
• 9:24
  Speaker 2: Because when we're vulnerable, we touch people and it really helps connect, you know.
• 9:31
  Speaker 2: So thank you because I think your story, you know you're not alone by any means, you know.
• 9:34
  Speaker 2: So thank you, because I think your story, you know you're not alone by any means, you know, I think your story is important to tell.
• 9:39
  Speaker 2: So, again, thank you for being vulnerable and being here and doing this with me.
• 9:42
  Speaker 2: It's fantastic.
• 9:44
  Speaker 2: Thank you, with your husband and blaming him so did you yourself, of course, first, then blaming him kind of through the stages of grief, in a sense.
• 9:59
  Speaker 2: How did that work out for you guys?
• 10:03
  Speaker 3: well, it made everything worse, because blaming people at that time I thought it was going to fix things, because I thought, okay, if I tell him that he will change, right, if I just blame it all on him, it relief.
• 10:21
  Speaker 3: I felt a lot of, you know, some sort of relief.
• 10:23
  Speaker 3: It's not my fault, I haven't done anything.
• 10:25
  Speaker 3: Because I used to say, oh, I'm a good mom, I'm a good wife, I'm a good human being, right, I am.
• 10:32
  Speaker 3: Um, because I I still question myself what am I doing wrong?
• 10:37
  Speaker 3: Right, but at the same time I wasn't taking any responsibility for what was happening.
• 10:43
  Speaker 3: I thought it was his fault.
• 10:46
  Speaker 3: So then it all created a chaos, like you know, my kids crying, my husband, like we constantly will argue all the time, all the time, until it got to the point that I said you know what, enough, if he doesn't want to change, then I'll change Right.
• 11:04
  Speaker 3: Because I realized it's like no matter what I say, he's still going to act the way he does and no matter what I do.
• 11:14
  Speaker 3: Because I think a lot of times we try to control, you know, we want control, control of everything, and when we lose control we go crazy.
• 11:23
  Speaker 2: Yes.
• 11:24
  Speaker 2: So so the one thing I always and myself as well, you know, I think we all go through it.
• 11:31
  Speaker 2: You bring up an amazing point, because we can't control anybody else, Only people we can control and make choices for is ourselves, right.
• 11:40
  Speaker 2: So, when you're trying to change somebody, it never works and then we get more frustrated and more frustrated and you know it never ends well, right.
• 11:49
  Speaker 2: So how did you guys kind of work through this?
• 11:52
  Speaker 2: And I'm asking this because you know a lot of veterans, you know, come back and they're not, they've changed right, they're gone for two years, 20 years.
• 12:04
  Speaker 2: You know of course there's leave and they reconnect here and there, but same thing with the spouses and the families.
• 12:10
  Speaker 2: The whole family unit has changed.
• 12:11
  Speaker 2: Everybody has grown.
• 12:13
  Speaker 2: You know the mother, father, uncle, whatever it is you know, has been gone and has went through life altering changes, whether it's just, you know, being around, a different camaraderie and then coming back.
• 12:26
  Speaker 2: How do you?
• 12:27
  Speaker 2: How do you, how did you and your husband kind of reconnect and come back together and come back together.
• 12:33
  Speaker 3: Well, I could tell you it took a long time, right, because what did the change?
• 12:38
  Speaker 3: It was I started doing the work on me, like figuring out who I am right.
• 12:46
  Speaker 3: What was my own psychology?
• 12:48
  Speaker 3: Why am I acting like this?
• 12:50
  Speaker 3: Why am I being bothered by anything that's happening around me?
• 12:54
  Speaker 3: Why am I being bothered by anything that's happening around me?
• 12:57
  Speaker 3: Why am I being so hurt?
• 12:57
  Speaker 3: Why, you know things are working the way they are.
• 13:00
  Speaker 3: So then, just understanding my own psychology like our mental tell us right Is what we think.
• 13:07
  Speaker 3: Our psychology is what we think about us, about other people and about the world.
• 13:12
  Speaker 3: So I was like what is it that I'm thinking about me?
• 13:15
  Speaker 3: So I was judging myself.
• 13:17
  Speaker 3: I was like, oh, I'm being bad.
• 13:19
  Speaker 3: That's why my daughter is like that.
• 13:20
  Speaker 3: And some people will tell me that, in the process of being hurt, there's a lot of people that it's easy to judge.
• 13:28
  Speaker 3: Oh, they're paying for something, they're doing something wrong, that's why they're going through that.
• 13:36
  Speaker 3: Right, right, go ahead.
• 13:39
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I think a lot of people.
• 13:40
  Speaker 2: It's easy to judge other people than to look inside yourself.
• 13:44
  Speaker 2: It's easier to point fingers at other people.
• 13:47
  Speaker 2: They're doing something wrong.
• 13:48
  Speaker 2: They're doing something wrong.
• 13:49
  Speaker 2: And if it comes from a place of love it's different, because that's not judgment, that's trying to help.
• 13:58
  Speaker 2: In my opinion, you know when there, when there's judging, saying yeah, mike's not doing that right, or you know Brenda's not doing that right, you know that's it doesn't help anybody.
• 14:02
  Speaker 2: Literally, it's when it comes from a place of love that can be accepted and then change can happen.
• 14:08
  Speaker 3: Right.
• 14:08
  Speaker 3: And the thing is because when we point at other people, we're not looking within us Right is because when we point at other people, we're not looking within us, right.
• 14:14
  Speaker 3: And what I started working with was a lot my inner self, my inner child.
• 14:18
  Speaker 3: Because when you mention about how families get separated when the husband or the wife go to the military, right, I grew up without my parents.
• 14:29
  Speaker 3: I would say I grew up with my grandparents.
• 14:31
  Speaker 3: My mom left me when I was two years old.
• 14:34
  Speaker 3: My parents in my know, in my country, because they had to immigrate to the United States.
• 14:38
  Speaker 3: So I met my mom when I was 12.
• 14:41
  Speaker 3: So when I meet them, there's no relationship, right, like you said.
• 14:46
  Speaker 3: I mean, we haven't bought each other for so many years.
• 14:49
  Speaker 3: And then my dad was at some point like telling me what to do and some of the stuff that he saw I was doing wrong.
• 14:55
  Speaker 3: I was like, who are you to tell me all these things?
• 14:58
  Speaker 3: Right, I never met you before.
• 15:01
  Speaker 3: You just came to my life and you're going to tell me what to do.
• 15:04
  Speaker 2: I know you're my father, but who the hell are you?
• 15:07
  Speaker 3: Exactly so then then, when you know those things start happening, it's like there's no connection.
• 15:11
  Speaker 3: And you know those things start happening, it's like there's no connection.
• 15:14
  Speaker 3: So that's what I see In order for the parents.
• 15:18
  Speaker 3: You know, when they're back from a trip, a long trip, either you know the military out of job or something, and they come back, they need to connect first If they want their family to listen, if they want to feel the love from their family, because if there's no connection, it feels like judgment, like you said a few minutes ago, right.
• 15:39
  Speaker 3: And then when it feels like judgment, people are not listening because it's like you know you're going to tell me what to do when you don't understand what's going on in my life, right.
• 15:49
  Speaker 3: You just it just feel like an intruder coming into your life, even though they're your family and they might want the best interest, but it doesn't feel like that, yeah.
• 15:58
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I think I agree 100 percent.
• 16:00
  Speaker 2: Great, great point, it's that that connection again aligning, finding out who we are so you can communicate, and I think that's really the key is finding that way to communicate again properly, you know, otherwise it just feels like judgment, just like you said, I mean, you nailed it.
• 16:18
  Speaker 3: Right Because, see like, when we're little, right, when we're little, what we want we want to feel loved and accepted by our parents.
• 16:26
  Speaker 3: But when our parents start judging us, then we don't feel loved, we just feel like rejected.
• 16:32
  Speaker 3: Because I stayed there for like right Another five more years until I came to the U?
• 16:38
  Speaker 3: S.
• 16:39
  Speaker 3: I was 17.
• 16:40
  Speaker 3: When I met my parents they were still married.
• 16:43
  Speaker 3: Okay, when I came again they were divorced.
• 16:47
  Speaker 3: So it was a whole, you know another different chapter of that book, I will say so.
• 16:54
  Speaker 3: Me trying to understand is like what's going on in here and that's what led me to, you know, depression and that's when I tried to commit suicide.
• 17:02
  Speaker 3: Because when, after six months coming to the US, I felt lonely the language, the people.
• 17:08
  Speaker 3: So then you know it's the same thing.
• 17:10
  Speaker 3: I will say that you know people that come from the military, they don't feel accepted, right.
• 17:14
  Speaker 3: Hey, you know I've been here working hard for you because they they're doing that for their family.
• 17:19
  Speaker 3: But the people that are home, they might not understand it like that.
• 17:23
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and I think a lot of it is the camaraderie that they feel in the military and they come back and they're not connected Like you're saying.
• 17:31
  Speaker 2: That's where I see a lot of things go awry, if you will, is they don't have that same connection when they come back until they find a way to communicate and bond back with the family again.
• 17:45
  Speaker 2: Definitely.
• 17:48
  Speaker 3: What I see is, if I'm going back, you know, through my childhood, it's like we all experience different things because, remember, right, as we think, so we feel.
• 18:00
  Speaker 3: As we feel, so we do, and as we do, so we have right.
• 18:04
  Speaker 3: So the way our brain works and I have understanding that helped me a lot to understand other people is like we, whatever we hear, like you know, our senses are the ones that help us understand what's going on, and what I hear is mine.
• 18:20
  Speaker 3: It might not be the same thing as what you're hearing, right, what I see is not the same thing as as you see.
• 18:25
  Speaker 3: So then, when they come, you know, from over there, it's like we don't know what they went through, right, they don't know what we've been through Exactly.
• 18:34
  Speaker 3: So it's like a matter of like, having compassion for each other, self-compassion, right, compassion for myself, because I had it hard while he was there, while she was out, right, like as a me, as a little child, because when I met my mom again, like she would tell me oh, you don't know what I've been through, I'm like you don't know what I've been through either, right, so it's like I had to grow up without you, I mean growing up without parents.
• 19:01
  Speaker 3: It's not easy and I had to deal with that resentment through my whole life.
• 19:06
  Speaker 3: Until just recently I said you know what?
• 19:07
  Speaker 3: It's enough.
• 19:08
  Speaker 3: I want to be free because I want to be happy.
• 19:11
  Speaker 3: I want to be a happy mom so I can transfer that to my kids Because remember who we are, that's who they become.
• 19:21
  Speaker 3: Because exactly you can tell your kids, you can give them so many advices, but they will not listen when they start to do what you want them to do is when you show up doing the things you want them to do yeah, and I think a lot of a lot of it.
• 19:42
  Speaker 2: um, you see, you know, you go through the teenage years, right, those wonderful teenage years, and then you see the things that you taught them and instilled in them that I know, I know.
• 19:53
  Speaker 2: For me it was like they didn't learn anything from me.
• 19:57
  Speaker 2: That's, that's not what I showed them, that's not what I did.
• 20:00
  Speaker 2: And then you start seeing that later in life, when they mature, and you start seeing those things that you know, you, you instilled in them, that they chose to take in, and you see that later in life, a lot.
• 20:13
  Speaker 3: Yeah, it's because whenever we're turning into a teenager, we want to know who we are Like, where do we belong?
• 20:21
  Speaker 3: Right, because it's a different shift going inside of us.
• 20:26
  Speaker 3: We're growing up, you know, we're maturing, so we feel like, oh, we are right, our parents are wrong.
• 20:37
  Speaker 3: And especially, I noticed that when there's no connection between the parents and their kids you can see that a lot, cause I saw it on my kids Once I started building the trust, that connection.
• 20:43
  Speaker 3: That's when, to me, that was the game change.
• 20:46
  Speaker 3: You know, that's when the game study changed, because now I can communicate with my kids in any way and I could tell them hey, you know that I don't like that behavior.
• 20:55
  Speaker 3: They will accept it.
• 20:56
  Speaker 3: Why?
• 20:57
  Speaker 3: Because I have built that connection.
• 20:58
  Speaker 3: They feel love, they don't feel judged anymore.
• 21:01
  Speaker 3: And then, if I had to apologize, I do, because sometimes I said, hey, I'm a human.
• 21:06
  Speaker 3: Sometimes, even though I might not, I might know a lot, but sometimes I'm just being me.
• 21:11
  Speaker 3: I forget that I know so much.
• 21:13
  Speaker 3: I, you know, let my emotions control me.
• 21:17
  Speaker 2: Yeah, absolutely, and I think everybody in the world, I hope everybody in the world.
• 21:22
  Speaker 2: But from what I've seen, when you take responsibility of, hey, you know what I took that wrong.
• 21:29
  Speaker 2: Hey, I said that wrong.
• 21:30
  Speaker 2: The built of respect that changes the game for relationships, yeah, you know.
• 21:36
  Speaker 2: So I found that.
• 21:37
  Speaker 2: So, hey, I want to kind of spin this a little bit.
• 21:40
  Speaker 2: So we talked about, you know, the negative things and things that have kind of happened.
• 21:45
  Speaker 2: So let's talk about how to move forward more if we can.
• 21:50
  Speaker 2: So how do you take it?
• 21:51
  Speaker 2: How do you take regain control of your negative emotions?
• 21:56
  Speaker 3: Well, the first thing is being aware, because if you're not aware.
• 22:00
  Speaker 3: How can you change something that you don't know?
• 22:02
  Speaker 3: It's there, right, right.
• 22:04
  Speaker 3: And then I started listening more, because I heard this If somebody, if only one person, tell you, point something at you that you're doing wrong, you might say, ok, that's not me.
• 22:15
  Speaker 3: But if two, three, four people tell you the same thing, pay attention, right, it might be, there might be something that you need to work on it.
• 22:24
  Speaker 3: I did it, and that's that's the one thing that started like changing.
• 22:42
  Speaker 3: I did it, and that's that's the one thing that started like changing because as I woke up every morning, I realized it's like the thoughts that you have in the morning, the thoughts that you have when you go to sleep.
• 22:47
  Speaker 3: It has an learned since we were little kids.
• 22:49
  Speaker 3: We were not aware that we were picking up all those things until we started growing older and I was like why am I acting like that?
• 22:58
  Speaker 3: Why do I behave the way I do, and don't do it in a judgmental way?
• 23:04
  Speaker 3: Because when you're judging yourself, you're being hard on yourself, and when you're being hard on yourself, when you're judging yourself, you're being hard on yourself.
• 23:10
  Speaker 3: And when you're being hard on yourself, it's hard to change.
• 23:12
  Speaker 3: It's hard to change when you're like, you're beating yourself up.
• 23:15
  Speaker 3: It's like I never do something right.
• 23:17
  Speaker 3: You know everything that I do is so wrong.
• 23:19
  Speaker 3: Nobody likes me, Nobody cares.
• 23:21
  Speaker 3: So when we need to be aware, OK, what can be done when?
• 23:26
  Speaker 3: So that's the first thing for me was like being aware.
• 23:33
  Speaker 2: Right, I think real quick, if I can.
• 23:34
  Speaker 2: If we're not aware, we can't snap ourselves out of it exactly and that's and that's.
• 23:38
  Speaker 2: If you're woke up, pissed off in the morning or you want to kick your dog, don't kick your dog, everybody don't kick your dog.
• 23:44
  Speaker 2: But you wake up in the morning and you know you just wake up what they say on the wrong side of the bed, or or you're just in the middle of the day and someone has stressed you out, or whatever the case may be, if you don't realize you're there, you can't snap yourself out of it, you can't condition yourself or whatever to get yourself out of that.
• 24:02
  Speaker 2: Please get, please continue.
• 24:03
  Speaker 2: I just want to?
• 24:03
  Speaker 3: yeah, because, like we'll see touching on unaware right like sometimes you'll be like looking for your phone and sometimes your phone is maybe underneath or in your hand and you're like man, where did I put the phone?
• 24:15
  Speaker 3: It's right next to you.
• 24:17
  Speaker 3: But because you're not being aware, like what's going on, then you don't know that your phone is next to you.
• 24:23
  Speaker 2: How many times have you said I can't find my glasses and they're on your head?
• 24:28
  Speaker 3: right, right here.
• 24:29
  Speaker 3: So that's the thing, because what I learned is like we need to pause, learn to pause, yeah, and think every day, like every you know few times in a day, like what's my outcome for this day, what do I want out of this day, what do I want out of this relationship?
• 24:49
  Speaker 3: Because when you stop, then you can be more aware of your own thoughts, because if you're not aware of your own thoughts.
• 24:56
  Speaker 3: That's where your thoughts control you and that's where it leads you to negative emotions.
• 24:59
  Speaker 3: So then I could say, the second step to me was the meaning.
• 25:05
  Speaker 3: What meaning are you giving to those thoughts?
• 25:07
  Speaker 3: Right, whenever they're negative or positive?
• 25:11
  Speaker 3: Because all of those have meaning, even the negative ones, can.
• 25:15
  Speaker 3: I mean, the way I see it, the negative ones make us grow, because we can see right, like what we don't want, and we can shift into the ones that we do really want we do really want.
• 25:34
  Speaker 2: Yeah, so it's really.
• 25:34
  Speaker 2: It is literally finding that and shifting your thoughts, because if you don't learn from your thoughts, you don't learn from mistakes, you don't grow, which I think is exactly what you're saying.
• 25:40
  Speaker 2: You have to pause, and my aunt was on there saying pause.
• 25:45
  Speaker 2: Wow, it's so important to learn from where you're at so that you can grow.
• 25:53
  Speaker 2: That's a fantastic point, yeah.
• 25:56
  Speaker 3: Yesterday I was talking to my kids that I've been implementing more often, right, because one thing is the knowledge, one thing is taking the action, the knowledge that you have.
• 26:06
  Speaker 3: So when I, what I do now, right, it's like I pause when I hug my kids, even if it's for a few, one minute, few seconds, but be there so they can feel you, because we are all energy, we can feel each other.
• 26:19
  Speaker 3: They can feel this If it's a sincere hug, if it's a sincere like you know, like you know that that I look at you, that I listen, they can feel it.
• 26:30
  Speaker 3: Even if they're so little, they can feel it so that's why I started doing more and it's working.
• 26:34
  Speaker 3: Because they do feel like oh, you know, mama is not in a rush anymore.
• 26:38
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and you know what I'm just going to say it, man, that's the golden nugget of the hour right there.
• 26:42
  Speaker 2: That's the half an hour.
• 26:45
  Speaker 2: Sorry, we've been on for like an hour, but that's yeah, you know what, and when I stop and I think about it just now, there's such a different connection.
• 26:56
  Speaker 2: It's not oh hi, I love you.
• 26:58
  Speaker 2: Okay, bye, it's, I love you Exactly, and that's when people feel it.
• 27:04
  Speaker 2: That's fantastic, brenda, thank you, yeah, because my kids said did you listen?
• 27:10
  Speaker 3: They used to tell me I was like, no, you didn't.
• 27:16
  Speaker 3: They were like, yes, I did.
• 27:17
  Speaker 3: And I was like, oh, my God, I need to pay more attention to that.
• 27:21
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and it happened.
• 27:22
  Speaker 2: It's easy for us, especially in today's world.
• 27:24
  Speaker 2: We have our phones, we're texting, we're doing all these different things and just to take a minute and be present with the people, especially that we love and that you know we need to build, get to build those relationships with.
• 27:37
  Speaker 2: We need to get to build those relationships with Because it should be an honor to do so, because you don't get to build relationships, true relationships, with a lot of people generally in life.
• 27:46
  Speaker 3: Yeah, because, like I told them yesterday, when we pause it's the only time that we have now.
• 27:53
  Speaker 3: It doesn't matter when we started the conversation, right, we can't go back.
• 27:56
  Speaker 3: What matters is what we're saying right now.
• 27:58
  Speaker 3: And then because I told them my grandparents are not here anymore.
• 28:03
  Speaker 3: I wish that I could hug them, but I can't go back and beat myself because of the things that I didn't do.
• 28:09
  Speaker 3: I'm grateful that I can change with you all right now, because that's the difference.
• 28:15
  Speaker 3: If I get to do that, if I see my kids in a different level, I win.
• 28:20
  Speaker 3: You know, that's all for me.
• 28:23
  Speaker 2: Amen, I love that.
• 28:24
  Speaker 2: That's fantastic.
• 28:25
  Speaker 2: I love that.
• 28:26
  Speaker 2: So we're almost out of time, so we did like you said.
• 28:31
  Speaker 2: We need to have like five sessions to go through each of these.
• 28:33
  Speaker 2: This has been absolutely fantastic, though, and I kind of want to kind of wrap that up.
• 28:38
  Speaker 2: You know that time that we have.
• 28:41
  Speaker 2: You know I say this at every show, and I want to say it now because it puts a little bow on what you just said.
• 28:46
  Speaker 2: You know, thank you for being here.
• 28:48
  Speaker 2: We don't.
• 28:48
  Speaker 2: You know, as humans, this is the most precious gift or resource we have is time, because we don't get it back.
• 28:54
  Speaker 2: So I just truly want to thank you for being here and spending the time.
• 28:58
  Speaker 2: It's been an absolute honor to spend this time with you.
• 29:01
  Speaker 2: So thank you, I appreciate that.
• 29:04
  Speaker 3: My pleasure, I'm really honored to be here, and I wish that somebody got out of something, because if I understand it, I wish other people understand it as well, so they can transform their life.
• 29:19
  Speaker 2: Absolutely, and I'll tell you right now, I got nuggets out of this, so it helped me.
• 29:23
  Speaker 2: And the funny thing is, even as a, as a coach and and so on, you you get so wrapped up in life and doing things that you, you, you forget those things that you know like be present.
• 29:41
  Speaker 2: Take that minute, you know, because because you know I was telling somebody else on another show I'm going to wrap this up, but how we?
• 29:50
  Speaker 2: I was in a, I was in a in a in a place, and just this guy was in a, this person was in a funk and you could tell it.
• 29:58
  Speaker 2: And just by spending a moment and making him feel special and seen, it changed everything for him.
• 30:05
  Speaker 2: And we've seen him since then and he's different and I'm not taking responsibility for, you know, his life change or whatever.
• 30:11
  Speaker 2: I'm not saying that, but it's amazing how just a moment can change everything for somebody.
• 30:16
  Speaker 2: So be present and spend that time.
• 30:18
  Speaker 3: Yeah, exactly, yeah, exactly.
• 30:20
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it's beautiful Brenda, truly Brenda.
• 30:23
  Speaker 2: If anybody wants to get a hold of you I know you do one-on-one coaching how do they reach you?
• 30:27
  Speaker 3: Yes, well, you can find me on social media Brenda Melendez Coaching, or just Brenda Melendez, and my phone number is 832-818-0947.
• 30:37
  Speaker 3: I'm happy to help in any way that I can.
• 30:40
  Speaker 2: Fantastic, thank you.
• 30:41
  Speaker 2: Thank you very much.
• 30:42
  Speaker 2: And just letting everybody know, as I always do, up in the top right-hand corner there's a QR code blue QR code Scan that there are all kinds of resources for veterans and families.
• 30:54
  Speaker 2: Books are written.
• 30:55
  Speaker 2: You know, reach out if you're struggling.
• 30:57
  Speaker 2: You know, just, there's resources out there and and follow us.
• 31:02
  Speaker 2: We have Facebook groups, all that fun stuff.
• 31:04
  Speaker 2: So reach out, don't be alone, and get some new, some new and great tips like people from, like Brenda here.
• 31:10
  Speaker 2: Yes, please, thank you so much again, and everybody we are out of here, bye.
• 31:21
  Speaker 1: Thank you for joining us on another insightful journey of your thoughts your reality podcast with your host, michael Cole.
• 31:28
  Speaker 1: We hope the conversation sparked some thoughts that resonate with you.
• 31:31
  Speaker 1: To dive deeper into empowering your thoughts and enhancing your reality, visit empower performance strategiescom.
• 31:37
  Speaker 1: Remember your thoughts, shape your reality, so makeperformancestrategiescom.
• 31:40
  Speaker 1: Remember your thoughts, shape your reality, so make them count.
• 31:42
  Speaker 1: Until next time, stay inspired and keep creating the reality you desire.
• 31:47
  Speaker 1: Catch you on the next episode.