Latest / Alive & Kicking: Stories of Waking Up with Kay Eck / Interview With Carmen Santiago-Keenon | Awakening Through Generational Trauma

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Interview With Carmen Santiago-Keenon | Awakening Through Generational Trauma · Alive & Kicking: Stories of Waking Up with Kay Eck

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_00: Welcome to the Alive and Kicking Podcast.
• 0:02
  SPEAKER_00: I'm your host, Kay Eck, and this is where we talk to ordinary people about their extraordinary lives.
• 0:20
  SPEAKER_00: Welcome back to the podcast, everybody.
• 0:22
  SPEAKER_00: And today I'm delighted to introduce to the alive and kicking uh listeners and viewers my friend Carmen Santiago Keenan.
• 0:32
  SPEAKER_00: Welcome, Carmen.
• 0:34
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, thank you for having me.
• 0:36
  SPEAKER_01: Thank you.
• 0:37
  SPEAKER_01: And thank you for creating this space of um not only community, but awareness and joy and love.
• 0:48
  SPEAKER_01: And I'm just so grateful that we're friends and that you've invited me here today.
• 0:53
  SPEAKER_01: So thank you.
• 0:53
  SPEAKER_00: It's so nice to have you.
• 0:55
  SPEAKER_00: And I I know only just a I've only scratched the surface with you.
• 0:59
  SPEAKER_00: So I'm looking forward to diving a little bit deeper because I know you have a really compelling story to tell that uh people are going to enjoy and be inspired by.
• 1:09
  SPEAKER_00: So let's just get started.
• 1:11
  SPEAKER_00: All right, let's hit it.
• 1:12
  unknown: All right.
• 1:13
  SPEAKER_00: So I'm interested in learning about your background as a as a child and how you came into this world.
• 1:21
  SPEAKER_00: Um, tell me what you what your sense of yourself was and what what was the situation that you were born into?
• 1:29
  SPEAKER_01: Okay, so for me, um I was born four pounds addicted to cocaine.
• 1:36
  SPEAKER_01: My mother was a young mom, um, but she was also an addict, and that wasn't all that she was, you know, um, but at that place in time um that was going on there, and that was my introduction to the world.
• 1:52
  SPEAKER_01: So I was this four-year-old, you know, four-pound finicky, you know, coked-filled baby.
• 2:00
  SPEAKER_01: And so my presence in the world was from the beginning very um intense.
• 2:08
  SPEAKER_01: It was very volatile, if you will.
• 2:11
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and my innate state was heightened.
• 2:15
  SPEAKER_01: So super anxious, super just unsteady.
• 2:20
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and that was kind of my introduction to the world.
• 2:24
  SPEAKER_01: If you see my newborn baby picture, I literally have my dukes up and my face, that's just my face whenever I'm frowning, almost like I knew, like, okay, here we go.
• 2:35
  SPEAKER_01: Um, but yeah, that's kind of the way that I enter this world.
• 2:39
  SPEAKER_01: And so um, you know, I always tell people that my innate self is kind of like a little Tasmanian devil, you know, it's all just, you know, of yeah, just anxiety and um yeah.
• 2:54
  SPEAKER_00: So that was I mean, that must have been something obviously that you reflected on um back, you know, once you reached a certain level of awareness about who you were.
• 3:05
  SPEAKER_00: But you must not have really had an awareness of that as a child, that you that you came in with an automatic struggle with with something that formed you um early on that you had no control over.
• 3:19
  SPEAKER_00: So, right, what what was your childhood like?
• 3:22
  SPEAKER_00: What were you like as a toddler and a and a child?
• 3:25
  SPEAKER_01: Well, from what I hear, so my mom ended up passing away when I was six years old.
• 3:30
  SPEAKER_01: But um, after I was born, um my because my mom wasn't, you know, the healthiest person at that time, um, and she was an addict.
• 3:40
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, my grandparents um who at the time lived in um Wisconsin um got a call from my mom's friend, whomever she left me with.
• 3:52
  SPEAKER_01: And basically they were told that my mom had to abandon me there.
• 3:55
  SPEAKER_01: I was maybe about a month old.
• 3:57
  SPEAKER_01: If that um, and that I was out of diapers, food, I wasn't her responsibility, and if they didn't pick me up, I was gonna be thrown in the trash.
• 4:06
  SPEAKER_01: So my grandmother and her, you know, um, and my stepgrandfather um drove and picked me up and then you know brought me back to Wisconsin with them.
• 4:19
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and at the time my grandmother or my so my biological mom's youngest sister, my aunt Amy, was 16 and lived, you know, at home with my grandma and her stepdad.
• 4:32
  SPEAKER_01: Um and yeah, so that's how I was brought into their home.
• 4:37
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and then through that, you know, my mom really wasn't able to be consistent in my life.
• 4:44
  SPEAKER_01: Um, you know, I was a very, again, being born four pounds addicted to, you know, with cocaine in your system, you're an anxious person.
• 4:52
  SPEAKER_01: I was a very hard child to pacify.
• 4:55
  SPEAKER_01: Um, I wasn't good at self-soothing.
• 4:57
  SPEAKER_01: That's still something that I work at as a 41-year-old woman, right?
• 5:01
  SPEAKER_01: Um I came, you know, I was difficult, you know, difficult in the sense that I was a volatile little child because, you know, this is the way that I came into the world.
• 5:14
  SPEAKER_01: Um then later on, you know, we moved to Chicago.
• 5:18
  SPEAKER_01: I I only lived in Wisconsin briefly, maybe till I was two.
• 5:22
  SPEAKER_01: Then we moved back to the inner city Chicago.
• 5:25
  SPEAKER_01: Um, I grew up Fullerton and Cicero for the better part of uh that time.
• 5:31
  SPEAKER_01: Um and you know, in the interim, like I said, my mom passed away when I was six.
• 5:36
  SPEAKER_01: I don't, you know, my memories of my mom really are waiting outside, looking outside the window, waiting for her to show up, right?
• 5:44
  SPEAKER_01: And her not being able to show up and feeling that that hurt and that abandonment, even though I didn't know her.
• 5:52
  SPEAKER_01: But the talk tracker around me was you know, your mom was an addict.
• 5:57
  SPEAKER_01: My family loved my mom.
• 5:58
  SPEAKER_01: My mother, my biological mother, Carmen.
• 6:00
  SPEAKER_01: I also have her name.
• 6:01
  SPEAKER_01: There's five Carmans in my family.
• 6:03
  SPEAKER_01: Um, she was a first granddaughter.
• 6:06
  SPEAKER_01: You know, um, I'm big on talking about generational strongholds.
• 6:10
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and so for my family, my great-grandma, you know, in Puerto Rico in 1918, whatever it was, you know, was married at 15, started having babies at 15, right?
• 6:22
  SPEAKER_01: She had six kids.
• 6:23
  SPEAKER_01: My grandmother Carmen, so it's my great grandma Carmen, my grandma Carmen, my mom Carmen.
• 6:30
  SPEAKER_01: So my grandma had my mom at you know, 15, 16 years old when she got married.
• 6:36
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and then my mom had me at 19.
• 6:39
  SPEAKER_01: Um, you know, and through that, there's not a lot of awareness.
• 6:44
  SPEAKER_01: And then I ended up becoming a mom at 19 as well, right?
• 6:47
  SPEAKER_01: So there's the whole generational stronghold circle of life right there.
• 6:51
  SPEAKER_01: Um, but through that, you know, they loved my mom.
• 6:55
  SPEAKER_01: My mom was the first, you know, granddaughter and niece to all my aunts.
• 7:00
  SPEAKER_01: Um, my mother was a beautiful woman.
• 7:02
  SPEAKER_01: She was, you know, twig model, she, you know, um was a musician, super talented, but you know, she had her struggles and she became an addict at an early age and you know, um didn't really I knowing me and knowing life, understand now, right?
• 7:21
  SPEAKER_01: Um the dysregulation and all the things and how trauma manifests and things like that.
• 7:27
  SPEAKER_01: Um, but she just wasn't able to show up.
• 7:29
  SPEAKER_01: So for me, growing up was interesting in the sense that I was told to love my mom, but also heard the stories of her drug abuse and how I was gonna grow up to be just like her and all these things.
• 7:42
  SPEAKER_01: So as I grew and started to look more like my mother, I mean, I look pretty much identical to my biological mom, um, and started having, you know, my own stuff come up.
• 7:55
  SPEAKER_01: Um, it was hard for my biological family.
• 7:58
  SPEAKER_01: Um, I also was in a situation that was abusive with my grandfather.
• 8:03
  SPEAKER_01: He was a very abusive, you know, emotionally, mentally, physically abusive towards my grandmother and myself.
• 8:11
  SPEAKER_01: Um, he's the reason my mom and her siblings, you know, left the home as teenagers.
• 8:18
  SPEAKER_01: Um and, you know, when we lived in the city, there was still a lot of trauma and things.
• 8:26
  SPEAKER_01: But when we ended up moving to the suburbs, we moved to Glendale Heights when I was about 13 years old.
• 8:31
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and which is about 30, maybe 35 minutes west from the inner city, um, things were a little different.
• 8:40
  SPEAKER_01: You know, the school system was more involved.
• 8:43
  SPEAKER_01: So I was going to school, you know, with bruises and upset, and schoolwork was, you know, I was an angry kid, I was an overweight kid, I was fighting and I was pushing back a lot.
• 8:55
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and so the school therapist got involved and things, and as things started to come out, um, they understood that there was abuse going on.
• 9:04
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and then eventually DCFS stepped in when I was almost 14, like at between 13, 14 years old.
• 9:12
  SPEAKER_01: So at the middle of my eighth grade year, um, they stepped in and took guardianship from my grandparents.
• 9:20
  SPEAKER_01: And then I spent a little blurp of time um in a hospital um because they were trying to regulate me.
• 9:29
  SPEAKER_01: So that's when they started introducing me to antidepressants and mood stabilizers and all the things, and that's all we'll delve into that maybe a little bit later.
• 9:38
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and then through that, um I had two experiences with two different foster homes very briefly until they were able to either find me a placement in a group home setting or in a foster home.
• 9:55
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and that's when I was introduced to my now adopted parents, Paul and Jill Keenan.
• 10:00
  SPEAKER_01: So that's where Keenan comes in to my name.
• 10:03
  SPEAKER_01: Um, they were my first interview in life.
• 10:06
  SPEAKER_01: Um, they lived in Wheaton, Illinois, and they had a nonprofit called uh Open Door for Teens, where they were the only family really taking in teenagers as foster kids because they understood, right?
• 10:18
  SPEAKER_01: We're not cute and cuddly, we have issues, we have parents with issues, we have a lot of crap.
• 10:24
  SPEAKER_01: Um, but that was their mission work.
• 10:27
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, my parents are missionaries through Wheaton Bible Church, they were missionaries through there, and um that was their nonprofit, open door for teen.
• 10:34
  SPEAKER_00: That's that is an incredible calling.
• 10:37
  SPEAKER_00: Wow.
• 10:38
  unknown: Yeah.
• 10:38
  SPEAKER_00: So before we move into that next chapter, I want to dive in a little bit more to this first chapter because the picture that you're painting of your upbringing and your family's um history and legacy, it is really making it clear how generational trauma uh persists through the through the generations.
• 11:02
  SPEAKER_00: And if you look at um your, you know, it's it's not the fact that your your mother or your grandmother had or your great grandmother had children at the age of 15.
• 11:14
  SPEAKER_00: It's like that's not, it's the circumstances around which that created this, you know, the situation that allowed that to happen.
• 11:24
  SPEAKER_00: So what is your how have you sort of dived into that generational trauma?
• 11:30
  SPEAKER_00: What because you have you have the abuse and also the abandonment issue.
• 11:36
  SPEAKER_00: So how how were you able to dive into that and how did it affect you as a as a kid growing up?
• 11:42
  SPEAKER_01: Um well, for me, I had to really what has helped me heal that generational trauma and um really break it um and heal it is delving into my faith.
• 11:58
  SPEAKER_01: So for me, it's Jesus.
• 12:00
  SPEAKER_01: It's you know taken a long time to get back to that place of understanding my identity, you know, in Christ, my identity as a woman, my understanding that, you know, my earthly mother and father are all well and good, and I chose them for my life's journey, but he's my father, right?
• 12:20
  SPEAKER_01: And but it took a long time, and it's still something that he's unfolding, and he and I are working together in understanding that and building my relationship with God and that understanding, but that's what really help has helped me understand and heal, and you know, bringing that full circle, my grandmother, you know, um definitely, you know, has a more understanding around um faith, and we've been able to heal those generational, you know, those things, and we're working on healing those things, right?
• 12:54
  SPEAKER_01: Um, but that's really what it was for me, and it wasn't until you know I really delved into um different types of healing, right?
• 13:05
  SPEAKER_01: So therapy, um, but there's also different types of therapy, right?
• 13:09
  SPEAKER_01: Like there's wound therapy, there's all sorts of things where you can go back and work on things um that aren't as mainstream, you know, um, but it is there.
• 13:19
  SPEAKER_01: EMT, um tapping, I'm a big tapper, um, energy work, um, all those things, but really uncovering and getting to the core of it, I think all of us really, you know, with my great-grandma, her circumstance came from abandonment.
• 13:37
  SPEAKER_01: Her mother died at a young age.
• 13:38
  SPEAKER_01: She was placed in care with her aunt in Puerto Rico as a young girl.
• 13:42
  SPEAKER_01: And she literally had like a Cinderella story.
• 13:45
  SPEAKER_01: She was severely abused, you know, had just all the things.
• 13:49
  SPEAKER_01: They made her stop going to school in like first grade, you know, really treated her like she wasn't part of the family.
• 13:56
  SPEAKER_01: Um, so when she met my great-grandfather, I can only imagine, because I know that that was kind of for me too, when you're when you don't understand love and you're seeking love, you're going to, you know, she married my great-grandfather and he was older than she was, you know, and they proceeded to have six kids.
• 14:12
  SPEAKER_01: But she, you know, um, and that's twofold.
• 14:15
  SPEAKER_01: That's kind of the culture back, right?
• 14:17
  SPEAKER_01: Um, back then, but also that trauma, right?
• 14:20
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and then I would I think that that's pretty much probably what happened with my grandmother Carmen, you know, the same thing, right?
• 14:28
  SPEAKER_01: You know, my great-grandparents had a very um toxic environment, you know, but they didn't know better, right?
• 14:38
  SPEAKER_01: And that's really at the root of this.
• 14:40
  SPEAKER_01: And the more that I uncover and the more that I heal and the more that I understand, I'm able to give that grace and forgiveness and understanding because we're human.
• 14:49
  SPEAKER_01: And if it's now at 41, I'm just starting to understand, and the world is just starting to unleash different types of modalities for healing and resources.
• 15:00
  SPEAKER_01: I can only imagine in 1920.
• 15:03
  SPEAKER_01: You know what I mean?
• 15:04
  SPEAKER_01: Like you had no resources.
• 15:06
  SPEAKER_01: What you did was you got married at 13 and had babies.
• 15:10
  SPEAKER_01: There was no learning how to become a young lady and then learning how to become a woman and unfolding of yourself, right?
• 15:19
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and if you don't have that, how are you gonna teach that and still that in your daughters and in your sons, right?
• 15:24
  SPEAKER_01: So it does call this cycle of generational stronghold and toxicity and mindsets and ways of thinking and operating that then get deeply rooted into family systems, and you see that, you know, branched out through different, you know, families throughout your family, you know, and generations and things like that.
• 15:44
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and I do definitely believe it's been my experience that trauma, we house trauma within our bodies and ourselves.
• 15:53
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and even if we're consciously, most of us subconsciously don't understand that we're operating from that system as well, you know, that fight or flight um response, you know, and when you're constantly programmed to work in that way, and then you're you know, mentally, but then you take it a step further.
• 16:11
  SPEAKER_01: And if you, you know, do epigenetic study or any of those things where it shows the science behind, yes, our body houses these things and then it manifests into illnesses and all these other things, you know, depression for me, it was an autoimmune condition on top of depression and you know, anxiety and all the things, but until you really start to peel back the onion and start to delve into that.
• 16:36
  SPEAKER_01: But it started with wanting to know more.
• 16:38
  SPEAKER_01: Even as a little girl, though, I understood that my environment wasn't conducive to who I was.
• 16:44
  SPEAKER_01: I was always an awkward kid.
• 16:45
  SPEAKER_01: I preferred to be by myself and create or paint or write, I'm a musician, I'm a creator.
• 16:51
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and that was kind of my respite from my world was reading, writing, creating, drawing, singing, painting.
• 16:59
  SPEAKER_01: Um, but the more that, you know, I delved into the therapy, the more that I delved into things that are not pretty, you know, and the more that I realized, okay, yes, these things have happened, these things are happening, but now you, Carmen, as the woman, knowing the things that you know, how can you take accountability for your life, your mind, body, and spirit, because it's the trifecta, you know, and once I started working it and understanding it that way, um, I was able to start healing more of this, and then bringing that to my children, you know, and trying to do different and better, or not, I shouldn't, I don't know if better is the right way, because I feel like we do the best that we can in what we are, right?
• 17:46
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and in being a mom and in making the choices that I've made, which you know, are very similar to how my mom did it, who I never even met, right?
• 17:56
  SPEAKER_01: And that's you know, when you really start thinking about, for me at least, like, okay, her biology is in me, her cells are in me.
• 18:04
  SPEAKER_01: You know, so you do need to delve a little bit deeper and really start to want to do the work.
• 18:10
  SPEAKER_01: You know, the easy thing, and for a long time I was because I was prescribed so many medications, I was a zombie.
• 18:17
  SPEAKER_01: I was a walking disaster zombie, you know, um, and it wasn't until I got off of all the pharmaceutical drugs that I'm at a healthier place now.
• 18:29
  SPEAKER_01: And that's the hardest work to do, is you know, when you're just like, uh-uh, I need to delve in deep and I need to be of the right mind so that I can really start understanding and grabbing a handle of this.
• 18:41
  SPEAKER_00: I'm really interested in the generational trauma because I was speaking with someone the other day and we were talking about how when you are born into a family, you um start to change and adapt based on your environment.
• 18:58
  SPEAKER_00: And we we commonly think of that as the thought patterns, like we adopt the thought patterns of our parents, which is true, but we also we we also change physically, like we start to see how physically our parents um are in the world, and we mimic that, and so you know, like that's how gestures pass on from generation, like it's oh my god, you just did something that was like my grandmother did the same gesture, and this is how we like morph.
• 19:29
  SPEAKER_00: And so, like we don't even really have a great sense of who we are because we're formed by our surroundings, and so I I'm curious as to it.
• 19:41
  SPEAKER_00: Seems like you you took on things from your mother, even though she was like a complete absence in your life.
• 19:49
  SPEAKER_00: So, how do you think like your you molded yourself to um accommodate that that absence?
• 19:58
  SPEAKER_01: So, I do think there is power in our top, right?
• 20:02
  SPEAKER_01: And so, generational strongholds, again, because me, my faith is rooted in Jesus, you know, biblically it speaks a lot about generational strongholds.
• 20:12
  SPEAKER_01: Um and when you take it to the biology of it, I was actually, it's interesting that we're having this conversation because I was um with my best friend Sarah last night.
• 20:22
  SPEAKER_01: We were having this conversation as well.
• 20:25
  SPEAKER_01: Um, you know, and I had just read something that was curious to me, where it was saying, you know, that they had done an experiment with some cells.
• 20:33
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and the people were placed in one room, their cells were in a petri dish or whatever, in another room.
• 20:40
  SPEAKER_01: And they could see how their cells were changing, even though they were in the other room.
• 20:46
  SPEAKER_01: Um, they were still being affected by their thought patterns, their emotions.
• 20:51
  SPEAKER_01: And that's interesting to me, you know, because I think, wow, so my kids have my biology, I have my mom's biology.
• 20:57
  SPEAKER_01: So if this is what they're uncovering, you know, if I'm feeling anxious, like if I'm at home and my son's into Calvin College and I'm having a moment where I'm anxious or depressed or whatever, you know, and he's feeling funky for no and he doesn't know why is that associated to that?
• 21:15
  SPEAKER_01: So I'm I myself am really curious to keep delving into the science behind it, because I do think it's twofold, right?
• 21:22
  SPEAKER_01: And I do think that we have the power of life or death in our tongue.
• 21:26
  SPEAKER_01: So for me, when you tell a kid or anybody, when you speak death over that person, you say, Oh, you're gonna be like your mom, you're gonna be a drug addict, you're gonna be this, you're gonna be that, what do you think is gonna manifest?
• 21:36
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 21:37
  SPEAKER_01: So part of it I do think is my biology.
• 21:39
  SPEAKER_01: My mom is in me, right?
• 21:41
  SPEAKER_01: And I and I love that.
• 21:43
  SPEAKER_01: I love that people can look at me and be like, oh, you look like your mom, you're a musician like your mom.
• 21:47
  SPEAKER_01: You sound, you know, when I was a kid, I was angry about it because I was angry at her and I didn't understand.
• 21:54
  SPEAKER_01: But now living the life that I've had, mimicking a lot of the same decisions that she made.
• 22:00
  SPEAKER_01: You know, um, and going through therapy and delving in deep and a lot of different therapies and things that have that are still allowing me to heal, right?
• 22:09
  SPEAKER_01: Because we're a work in progress.
• 22:10
  SPEAKER_01: Um, you can't just undo 41 years of junk like this, you know.
• 22:15
  SPEAKER_01: Um, but luckily God gives us grace and he gives us people in our environment, you know, to help us along that journey of healing.
• 22:22
  SPEAKER_01: But I really do think that for me at least it was twofold.
• 22:26
  SPEAKER_01: It was just the innate biology that we have that we don't even know is within us, right?
• 22:32
  SPEAKER_01: And then that people in my environment at a young age speaking that death over me, you know.
• 22:38
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and I kind of housed that, even if I wasn't aware that I was housing that, and then I started performing from that space.
• 22:46
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, I guess I am a drug.
• 22:47
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, I guess I'm gonna amount to nothing.
• 22:49
  SPEAKER_01: I guess I am gonna just be this, that, or the other.
• 22:52
  SPEAKER_01: Um, you know, and then you throw in somebody, you know, I think at the core also of generational strongholds is having a shattered self of identity.
• 23:01
  SPEAKER_01: Because at least for me, I didn't understand, you know, I couldn't, I was never comfortable in my own skin, even as a baby.
• 23:08
  SPEAKER_01: I was finicky.
• 23:09
  SPEAKER_01: You know, I was born four pounds addicted to cocaine.
• 23:11
  SPEAKER_01: And if you've ever done cocaine, you know, you're a finicky, you know, person.
• 23:17
  SPEAKER_01: And that's kind of, you know, still, I think, you know, the underlying of my personality is kind of, I would always explain it to people, like, oh, it's like having an emotional sumber.
• 23:29
  SPEAKER_01: You know, when people would say, Well, don't cry, you know, that saying, don't cry ever spilled milk.
• 23:33
  SPEAKER_01: I'd be like the first one balling, and like, but why did you spill the milk?
• 23:37
  SPEAKER_01: And how did you spill, you know, like all the things, you know, everything affected me that much more than a lot of people in my environment, you know, and everything was just always just raw.
• 23:48
  SPEAKER_01: And I wasn't allowed to, you know, at the time, because I don't know a lot about my biology.
• 23:54
  SPEAKER_01: I don't know who my biological father was, other than he was Italian.
• 23:57
  SPEAKER_01: I didn't have the opportunity to meet my mother, only the things that have been communicated to me about who she was, right?
• 24:03
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and then I really wasn't allowed to explore anything beyond that because then I was in a foster home and I wasn't, you know, and then so a lot of things were displaced.
• 24:13
  SPEAKER_01: So it took a really long time, and it's still something that I'm continually uncovering and trying to, you know, work through all the things that have made, you know, the generational strongholds and you know, looking into my family system, aunts, cousins, you know, like how has all of these things, you know, when we talk about generational mindsets and strongholds and things, it's rooted in family, you know, and whether it manifests through just me, you know, we've seen this story play out in our family, in my family through, you know, through other people in different ways, you know, whether mothering at an early age, addictions at an early age, all of it, you know, and there's no judgment or shame around that, but it's getting to the root cause, you know, and then working from that and working it up from there and understanding your identity and your faith, whatever that is for you, for me, it's Jesus, you know, and really looking vertical to God to say, okay, you show me my truth.
• 25:12
  SPEAKER_01: The world doesn't get to tell me that I'm a drug addict baby, that I'm a piece of crap, that I won't amount to anything.
• 25:18
  SPEAKER_01: I lived in that truth and in that lie that was sown into my soul and into my being at an early age.
• 25:26
  SPEAKER_01: You know, for a long time I lived in that lie and I operated in that in that system.
• 25:33
  SPEAKER_01: And it wasn't again until I started understanding, and it really just started happening honestly a handful of years ago.
• 25:40
  SPEAKER_01: Um, when I found out that I was allergic to all pharmaceutical drugs.
• 25:47
  SPEAKER_01: And you're talking to someone who's been given everything since I was 13, right?
• 25:52
  SPEAKER_01: To help manage the world around me.
• 25:56
  SPEAKER_01: It's easier to give you a pill, you know, um, it's easier to send your kid to therapy.
• 26:02
  SPEAKER_01: I've done it too, you know, than to delve into the root cause, right?
• 26:07
  SPEAKER_00: Um and there was so much for you.
• 26:09
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, there was so much trauma.
• 26:12
  SPEAKER_00: And to, you know, to be presented with a young person, a child who has so much damage, it's almost like how do we do this?
• 26:24
  SPEAKER_00: Do you do you have the understanding that healing you is healing your lineage backward?
• 26:33
  SPEAKER_00: And how did how did you come to that understanding?
• 26:37
  SPEAKER_01: Again, um the more that I got rooted in my identity and God, honestly, the more that I, you know, I had to um matox for myself, which is one of my brands, you know, you know, that's the best way to say it is I had to matox, do a complete, utter detox of the persons and personas and things that I've had to craft to get through certain seasons of my life, right?
• 27:05
  SPEAKER_01: Whether it was, you know, the unhinged teenager, right, that was living out that story.
• 27:13
  SPEAKER_01: I'm like my mom, I'm gonna make these choices, you know, even if I was living through that subconsciously, you know, to then, you know, in my 20s, marriage, divorce, kids, drug abuse, drug use, you know, I've you're you're talking to someone that survived four bullets.
• 27:28
  SPEAKER_01: I've been shot four times, you know.
• 27:30
  SPEAKER_01: Um, it is by the grace of God that I literally am walking, breathing human being.
• 27:37
  SPEAKER_01: You know, I've survived, I have a metal elbow from another incident where somebody tried to, you know, I've had more life, you know, um, death experiences than I care to recount.
• 27:49
  SPEAKER_01: And that's how I can stand in my authority and my faith.
• 27:52
  SPEAKER_01: You know, I almost died twice clinically, and it's out for the world to see.
• 27:56
  SPEAKER_01: You can Google all these things, you know, about me, because it's been out in the world.
• 28:01
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and the understanding of seeing God's handprint over my life and understanding that there is purpose in my life, and that through the mess came and is coming the message, and through the tests, here's my testimony, right?
• 28:18
  SPEAKER_01: I get to stand here and tell people listen, it is hard, and generational strongholds are real and true.
• 28:24
  SPEAKER_01: And you know, you can make the choice here and now to decide to break that.
• 28:30
  SPEAKER_01: It's not gonna be easy, it's not a walk in the park, it is something that you have to consciously decide every day to participate in, working through these things, you know.
• 28:42
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 28:42
  SPEAKER_00: So take us back to your time in in the hospital because prior to that you were in two foster care situations, right?
• 28:51
  SPEAKER_00: And um what was what was that experience like and how did you end up in the hospital?
• 28:57
  SPEAKER_01: Well, I've actually been hospitalized several times because you know, they started pumping me full.
• 29:03
  SPEAKER_01: And let me just say it's my experience with medication personally.
• 29:08
  SPEAKER_01: I understand that medication works for people.
• 29:11
  SPEAKER_01: I'm not here saying I'm anti-meds, this is just my personal experience.
• 29:14
  SPEAKER_01: So I just wanted to throw that caveat out there.
• 29:16
  SPEAKER_01: Definitely.
• 29:17
  SPEAKER_01: Um, you know, for me, I'm allergic to medication.
• 29:21
  SPEAKER_01: We took the swab, there's a test you can take.
• 29:23
  SPEAKER_01: Your doctors, you know, if you think that that's an issue for you, your doctors can do it.
• 29:27
  SPEAKER_01: Um, the technology just unfolded over a few years ago when I got this test, but for a long time, because they didn't understand that I was allergic to every medication.
• 29:36
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, even if I take a Tylenol or an Advil, I'm sick.
• 29:40
  SPEAKER_01: Um, I was in and out of the hospital because they were trying to self, you know, regulate my moods, my all the things.
• 29:46
  SPEAKER_01: So I was basically like a guinea pig, you know.
• 29:49
  SPEAKER_01: Um, so unfortunately for my kids and myself and my family and friends, for a very long time they saw this person that mimicked a bipolar, manic depressive, borderline personality type person because I was so dysregulated.
• 30:05
  SPEAKER_01: I was on drugs.
• 30:06
  SPEAKER_01: And people are like, we didn't know you were on drugs.
• 30:09
  SPEAKER_01: I'm like, well, pharmaceutical drugs, you know, is the same thing for me as being on drugs, which I was on both kinds, you know, I was trying to fix the craziness that I was feeling and instability of the pharmaceutical drugs with, you know, street drugs.
• 30:23
  SPEAKER_01: Well, if I do this or that, at least, you know, so it was this really awful just space and time and energy around me.
• 30:33
  SPEAKER_01: Um, but when I was younger, you know, my first being there, I was a young kid, I was 13.
• 30:40
  SPEAKER_01: They know, they put me into the hospital.
• 30:43
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and you know, DCFS got involved in all the things.
• 30:48
  SPEAKER_01: And that time, that's when they quote unquote diagnosed me, right?
• 30:52
  SPEAKER_01: So they were like, oh, she's bipolar.
• 30:54
  SPEAKER_01: And it was like 1993.
• 30:55
  SPEAKER_01: So at that time, even then, they didn't think that kids could be bipolar.
• 31:00
  SPEAKER_01: So my doctor at the time got a lot of pushback, but he started treating me like that.
• 31:04
  SPEAKER_01: So lithium, all these things.
• 31:06
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and that kind of started that, you know, hamster wheel of what works, what doesn't work, what works, what doesn't work, um, and that dysregulation.
• 31:18
  SPEAKER_01: And by the time I was only there for about two or three months until they found my foster parents.
• 31:23
  SPEAKER_01: But my foster parents, since they were the only people really wanting to take in foster kids, they had limited space.
• 31:31
  SPEAKER_01: So in Illinois, you're allowed to have eight kids live under your home if you're a foster parent.
• 31:36
  SPEAKER_01: Um, you know, however that pans out.
• 31:39
  SPEAKER_01: So my parents had three biological kids of their own and then five foster girls at all times.
• 31:45
  SPEAKER_01: One of the girls was leaving, and so I went in to interview um to take her spot, to take her bed.
• 31:52
  SPEAKER_01: And, you know, I remember my dad looking me in my face, and I was so scared, you know, because I had no idea what was going to happen to me next, right?
• 32:01
  SPEAKER_01: But I knew that this was probably better than ending up in a group home somewhere, you know.
• 32:07
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and you know, he asked me, he's like, Why should we allow you to move into this home?
• 32:11
  SPEAKER_01: And I looked him dead in the face and I said, Because I know if I'm given the right resources and tools, I can make something of myself.
• 32:17
  SPEAKER_01: I understood that much, even as a little girl.
• 32:20
  SPEAKER_01: I understood that.
• 32:22
  SPEAKER_01: And it's not because, you know, my grandmother who raised me, I love her and there's forgiveness there.
• 32:29
  SPEAKER_01: And I get it, I get what it's like to be in an abusive, traumatic relationship.
• 32:33
  SPEAKER_01: Because guess what?
• 32:34
  SPEAKER_01: I dove headfirst into many of those cycles, right?
• 32:37
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and she loved me and she raised me and she's instilled in me, nurturing and all the things, you know.
• 32:44
  SPEAKER_01: And I'm so grateful for all three of my mothers, you know, my biological mom.
• 32:49
  SPEAKER_01: I get my beauty, my a lot from my biological mother, you know, my grandma mom, who's instilled my mothering, my nurturing, um, you know, my heritage, my culture, my Puerto Ricaness, my Latinaness, right?
• 33:03
  SPEAKER_01: And then my foster mom, my adopted mom, my heart mom, Jill, who then stepped in when I was 13 and showed me a different way of mothering, you know, and um I'm just so I sit in this place where I'm just so thankful for this experience and for my mother's and for my life.
• 33:24
  SPEAKER_01: And I know it might sound crazy to some, right?
• 33:27
  SPEAKER_01: But it's who's it's what allows me to sit here in this place, to sit here and tell you, I've survived four bullets to my back.
• 33:34
  SPEAKER_01: Every doctor woke up, looked at me, and they were like, Do you know that any any of these bullets missed half an inch of killing you?
• 33:42
  SPEAKER_01: I couldn't walk for three days.
• 33:44
  SPEAKER_01: Luckily, the steroid that they gave me helped the shrinking around my spine.
• 33:47
  SPEAKER_01: And I walked out of there, you know, almost a week later.
• 33:51
  SPEAKER_01: And, you know, and stories after stories.
• 33:54
  SPEAKER_01: I've had cancer, I've had cervical cancer twice, you know, I've had so many things.
• 33:59
  SPEAKER_01: It's a running joke in my family that I'm like a cat with nine lives, you know.
• 34:02
  SPEAKER_01: But that shows you the grace and the mightiness of God and how he's using me now through you, through this, you know.
• 34:10
  SPEAKER_01: Um, in the last three years, two years really, that I've delved into this healing and understanding that, hey, the data shows me I'm in tech, so I'm a data-driven person.
• 34:24
  SPEAKER_01: It shows me that I'm allergic to all this medicine.
• 34:26
  SPEAKER_01: Okay, I can either decide to take on the lie of I'm gonna be a sick person with an autoimmune condition and I'm gonna be bipolar and I'm gonna be all these things, or I can look at the data and say, all right, there's this, but there's also another truth.
• 34:43
  SPEAKER_01: And the other truth is that I, you know, believe in a God that is healing and that is healing me.
• 34:50
  SPEAKER_01: I have enough within myself to deep dig deep and start understanding how I can take authority and control over my mind, my body, and my spirit.
• 34:59
  SPEAKER_01: And nothing will move forward until you start renewing your mind.
• 35:03
  SPEAKER_01: You know, that's why the Bible speaks to you, renewal of your mind.
• 35:06
  SPEAKER_01: You know, Gandhi, all of the people that you know we listen to, we follow, um, speak about healing, you always bring that back to you, you know, renewal of your mind.
• 35:17
  SPEAKER_01: You've got to renew your mind.
• 35:18
  SPEAKER_01: But what does that mean?
• 35:19
  SPEAKER_01: And as you start renewing your mind, you can start uncovering, you know, generational strongholds because you're no longer going through, you know, life with the vision that everybody else does.
• 35:31
  SPEAKER_01: I have a faith vision, so that's giving me a different understanding now than when I was just walking, you know, aimlessly like a zombie, all doped up, you know, and yeah, I was going to therapy, but I wasn't at a place to even understand how to go, you know, really go through the therapy because I was clouded and foggy and going through all these things.
• 35:52
  SPEAKER_01: But once you start, first you have to make the decision, you know, because it's like I said, the easier route for a long time was to just be like, okay, more meds, change my meds, go to therapy, blah, blah, blah, walk through the motions.
• 36:06
  SPEAKER_01: But that was ineffective.
• 36:07
  SPEAKER_01: And that still allowed me to stay in my victimhood, in my shame cycles, you know, um, in the toxic cycles, um, in the generational strongholds.
• 36:18
  SPEAKER_01: And it wasn't until I, you know, had to make that choice.
• 36:22
  SPEAKER_01: I had to literally decide, okay, either be sick and live that life wholeheartedly, or be well and live that life wholeheartedly.
• 36:33
  SPEAKER_01: And yeah, and I decided, you know what?
• 36:36
  SPEAKER_01: And from that, God has literally given me so many different practitioners.
• 36:40
  SPEAKER_01: And, you know, I love Jesus, that's my faith, but I work with all practitioners that believe in all sorts of things because at the root of that is love, right?
• 36:50
  SPEAKER_01: And if we come from that understanding and under and knowing that God loves you, whatever God, whatever that means to you, delve into that.
• 36:57
  SPEAKER_01: Because once you understand that you are vertical, not horizontal, you start operating differently.
• 37:03
  SPEAKER_01: So now when people ask me things, you know, like the other day, my girlfriend asked me something, she was going through a difficult hiccup, and she's like, How would you handle this?
• 37:12
  SPEAKER_01: And I paused.
• 37:13
  SPEAKER_01: Three years ago, I would have been like, girl, you need to snap, you need to do that, like you know.
• 37:19
  SPEAKER_01: Now I can say, you know what?
• 37:21
  SPEAKER_01: I said, hold that thought.
• 37:22
  SPEAKER_01: I'm gonna pray about it and I'm gonna think this through, but don't respond, don't react, don't respond, go, you know, read, work out, whatever you need to do, just give me a second.
• 37:34
  SPEAKER_01: Three years ago, four years ago, carbon from the block would have came up all thuggish and been like, girl, this is what you need to do, you know.
• 37:43
  SPEAKER_01: But now, maturing, you know, as a human, as you know, as a woman, as all the things, I pause, I breathe, I ask first and foremost.
• 37:55
  SPEAKER_01: I ask, God, how do you want me to respond or react?
• 37:58
  SPEAKER_01: A lot of the time, God just says, You just need to be quiet for now, you know.
• 38:02
  SPEAKER_01: And so that was my advice.
• 38:04
  SPEAKER_01: I said, Hey, breathe, ask a question, don't respond, you know, don't react.
• 38:09
  SPEAKER_01: And if you respond, respond out of love, kindness, whatever, right?
• 38:13
  SPEAKER_01: Totally different than what she, and she's been my friend for 20 years.
• 38:16
  SPEAKER_01: And then later on, she's like, Thank you for that.
• 38:19
  SPEAKER_01: You know, thank you for that.
• 38:20
  SPEAKER_01: That's what I needed.
• 38:21
  SPEAKER_01: You know, she didn't, like I said, three years ago, I probably would have given her the wrong advice and she would have called me, like, girl, pick me up, I'm about to get a divorce, you know, or whatever, or whatever the case is, right?
• 38:32
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and just but it comes from having a different knowing, you know.
• 38:38
  SPEAKER_01: So when people ask me questions now, how do you feel about this, that, or the other?
• 38:42
  SPEAKER_01: I like, do you really want the answer?
• 38:44
  SPEAKER_01: Because I'm not gonna give you a world view.
• 38:45
  SPEAKER_01: My view isn't from the world anymore.
• 38:47
  SPEAKER_01: My view is vertical.
• 38:49
  SPEAKER_01: God, what do you want?
• 38:50
  SPEAKER_01: You've saved my life, not because of me, because you want to work something through me.
• 38:55
  SPEAKER_01: So you tell me, how do I help this person?
• 38:58
  SPEAKER_01: You know, what does that look like?
• 39:00
  SPEAKER_00: That the image of the um the verticality is really poignant for me personally.
• 39:07
  SPEAKER_00: I I don't know if it is it will be for others, but when I pull into myself, pull back from the world, that is the uh the geometry that surfaces for me.
• 39:20
  SPEAKER_00: I'm like this linear column with my heart at the center, and below me is Mother Gaia, and above me is Mother God.
• 39:30
  SPEAKER_00: And it's like this, it's very it is very vertical.
• 39:33
  SPEAKER_00: And um yeah, like the the horizontal is like being in the world and of the world, and of course we have to do that too, but that that isn't where we find our truest self.
• 39:44
  SPEAKER_00: It's like you know, like here.
• 39:47
  SPEAKER_00: Um, so but the thing that I wanted to um to pause on for a moment is like when you said that at 13, having been through what you had been through, that you still had faith in yourself, that there was a version of yourself outside of your circumstances that you knew, even though you weren't living as that person, you knew that that was your potential.
• 40:15
  SPEAKER_00: Like, oh, that just made me want to cry.
• 40:17
  SPEAKER_00: Like, that is such a such a blessing and an incredible, it's a miracle, really, that in your circumstances you were able to to reach for that and to know that, and that must have impacted your parents so strongly.
• 40:32
  SPEAKER_00: What was their reaction to that?
• 40:35
  SPEAKER_01: My dad was like, okay, later on, and then I found out that I was gonna be able to move into the house, and later on, you know, he was like, Yes, we knew at that moment you were gonna be our daughter, you're ours, you know.
• 40:46
  SPEAKER_01: But I was at the time, I was the youngest kid that they had taken in.
• 40:49
  SPEAKER_01: I was just going into freshman year.
• 40:51
  SPEAKER_01: Um, I was displaced.
• 40:53
  SPEAKER_01: My best friend who um I'm in her lovely home today, um, you know, she's known me since I was 13 years old.
• 41:02
  SPEAKER_01: We didn't even become really best friends until we were 15, 16 years old, but we've grown together as women, right?
• 41:08
  SPEAKER_01: Young girls and women.
• 41:09
  SPEAKER_01: And so she's seen both sides of my life.
• 41:13
  SPEAKER_01: Um, I only have a couple people in my life like that that know pre and right.
• 41:18
  SPEAKER_01: But, you know, I really think when I was younger, because I lost myself, and which is interesting because I'm also neurodivergent.
• 41:26
  SPEAKER_01: So I'm dyslexic, but everything I do, I'm in tech, I'm at constantly writing, reading, doing things because I'm a big believer in you know, retraining yourself and neuroelasticity and all those things.
• 41:37
  SPEAKER_01: But I remember reading a book when I was in maybe second grade.
• 41:40
  SPEAKER_01: Are you their god?
• 41:41
  SPEAKER_01: It's me, Margaret.
• 41:43
  SPEAKER_01: Maybe Judy Bloom, maybe I want to say it was.
• 41:48
  SPEAKER_01: And it was just this girl journaling, because I was in that place, you know, I was a girl in that place and it talked about all the things, right?
• 41:54
  SPEAKER_01: And she was just journaling to God.
• 41:56
  SPEAKER_01: Are you their God?
• 41:56
  SPEAKER_01: It's me, Margaret, with all these questions and all these things.
• 41:58
  SPEAKER_01: And it just, I really think that that book gave me that, like, even though I didn't understand, even though I was angry, even though quite frankly, I hated God for a very long time.
• 42:11
  SPEAKER_01: And maybe some other time we can delve into the conversation of spiritual warfare.
• 42:15
  SPEAKER_01: But um, I mean, I understand, I have a very clear understanding when things in my spiritual life shifted for the for the worse.
• 42:24
  SPEAKER_01: Very clear.
• 42:25
  SPEAKER_01: I was very young when I made that um agreement, you know.
• 42:30
  SPEAKER_01: Um, because I do believe, again, that we do agree with things, you know, we live in a in a place of spirits and principalities, you know, um, good versus evil.
• 42:38
  SPEAKER_01: That's a real thing.
• 42:39
  SPEAKER_01: Energetically, like it's, you know, energy is energy.
• 42:42
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, you know, however you want to dice it up, however you want to look at it, it's a real thing, right?
• 42:47
  SPEAKER_01: Um, we can all agree energy vibrations, um, it's a thing.
• 42:52
  SPEAKER_01: So um, but going from that place and just understanding, you know, and then I lost it for a long time.
• 43:02
  SPEAKER_01: My identity was wrapped up in sickness and depression.
• 43:06
  SPEAKER_01: I took on, you know, all these different personality types for those seasons of my life.
• 43:12
  SPEAKER_01: Then, you know, I at 30 had the opportunity to get into the technology space.
• 43:18
  SPEAKER_01: And then that switched a lot for me in regards to building a career and a place for myself and craft a niche for myself without having a college degree, without doing all these things.
• 43:30
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and that's pivoted into you know my career now, um, and so grateful for that.
• 43:36
  SPEAKER_01: But then I had to turn on, you know, put on the persona of, well, now I'm this adult technology, you know, career-driven woman, and this other persona.
• 43:45
  SPEAKER_01: So I was constantly because I had a displaced sense of self and no real identity yet.
• 43:50
  SPEAKER_01: My identity was really, and my and I think one thing I really hope, you know, that I really understand now is we are spiritual beings.
• 44:00
  SPEAKER_01: Right, we open ourselves up.
• 44:02
  SPEAKER_01: We're portals.
• 44:03
  SPEAKER_01: We open ourselves up to good and to bad, right?
• 44:06
  SPEAKER_01: So if you're taking on the persona of sick, if you're taking on the persona of, you know, crazy, sometimes, yeah, I am crazy.
• 44:14
  SPEAKER_01: So what?
• 44:14
  SPEAKER_01: I'm feisty, I'm a Puerto Rican Italian, deal with it.
• 44:17
  SPEAKER_01: No, that's crap.
• 44:18
  SPEAKER_01: You know, that's the easy way.
• 44:20
  SPEAKER_01: That's the easy way to behave.
• 44:22
  SPEAKER_01: The harder way to behave is to really dig in deep and try to understand your true identity.
• 44:27
  SPEAKER_01: And once I started doing that, and honestly, it's been almost coming out of three years, but that took me deciding, me making the clear-cut decision to take total, full 100% accountability for myself, mind, body, and spirit.
• 44:40
  SPEAKER_01: Then I was in agreement with God, and God was like, cool, let's do this.
• 44:44
  SPEAKER_01: He brought into my life, you know, different practitioners.
• 44:47
  SPEAKER_01: Dr.
• 44:47
  SPEAKER_01: Shannon Meyer helped me.
• 44:49
  SPEAKER_01: She's an amazing person.
• 44:50
  SPEAKER_01: Um, gut health, brain health, you know, neuroplan, all these things.
• 44:56
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and she actually asked me, I think one of the most important questions that people have ever asked, that any but any therapist, any doctor therapist has ever asked me, she's like, Carmen, she goes, I want you to go back and journal.
• 45:09
  SPEAKER_01: So this is where the healing, you know, go back to when you were a kid.
• 45:12
  SPEAKER_01: Start writing down your earliest memories of when you were sick and how people treated and what what did you get out of it?
• 45:18
  SPEAKER_01: And I was like, once I really started writing things down, and I was like, wow, well, I was in an abusive home, but whenever I was sick, that's when my grandma would really, I mean, she was already loving and whatever, but that's when really, you know, and I got nurturing in a different way.
• 45:35
  SPEAKER_01: You know, I when my dyslexia started really rearing his head, I would get really, you know, now I understand it as anxiety, but I would always, my grandma would always get a phone call from the school around math.
• 45:45
  SPEAKER_01: Come pick Carmen up, she's sick, she's at the nurse's office.
• 45:48
  SPEAKER_01: You know, the value of me being sick there was, well, I got to leave the stressful situation and be comforted and taken care of.
• 45:56
  SPEAKER_01: That was huge to really start writing down and understanding where the value is in the sickness.
• 46:03
  SPEAKER_01: You know, and Dr.
• 46:05
  SPEAKER_01: Shannon, she's amazing.
• 46:07
  SPEAKER_01: Um, I'll connect the two of you for sure.
• 46:09
  SPEAKER_01: But um, that was so honestly, out of all the therapy that I've spent, and that was, you know what?
• 46:14
  SPEAKER_01: That was in her free consult, actually.
• 46:16
  SPEAKER_01: I didn't even have to pay for that golden nugget of therapy.
• 46:18
  SPEAKER_01: Wow, all the thousands of dollars in years spent on, you know, pharmaceutical drugs, therapist, psychiatrist, psychologist, all the things, that one question and that one um, you know, and that one exercise that she had me do literally shifted everything.
• 46:36
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 46:36
  SPEAKER_01: And then, you know, God brought her into my life, you know, through a friend of mine or friend of ours in technology, like weirdest things, you know.
• 46:43
  SPEAKER_01: Once I became agreed with God and I said, all right, I'm ready to understand you more so I can understand me more, my, you know, what you say about me, because I'm done.
• 46:55
  SPEAKER_01: I'm done being the unhinged, you know, crazy person, the person that needs to be on pills, the person who's now, you know, has lupus, the person, you know, all these things, I'm done.
• 47:05
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I'm ready to be healed and healing.
• 47:08
  SPEAKER_01: And what does that look like?
• 47:09
  SPEAKER_00: That that's such an incredible journey.
• 47:12
  SPEAKER_00: I I it it's like unbelievably difficult what you're you're making it sound easy, but it's unbelievably difficult.
• 47:21
  SPEAKER_00: And so because I know what it's like when I haven't experienced this myself, but I know what it's like when you are really sick, when you are really ill and unwell, it is very hard to have the energy and the hope to make the kind of move that you did.
• 47:44
  SPEAKER_00: So, how did you do that?
• 47:48
  SPEAKER_01: I honestly have been living through the dark dark night of the soul, if you will, for I always tell people I'm like, right before COVID and all the things, I was already in quarantine because I was coming off of the pharmaceutical drugs.
• 48:02
  SPEAKER_01: Detoxing from any drug is god-awful.
• 48:05
  SPEAKER_01: But let me tell you, don't make any mistake about it.
• 48:08
  SPEAKER_01: Whether you're coming off of heroin or whether you're coming off of an antidepressant, it's hell.
• 48:13
  SPEAKER_01: Your body detoxing from things, it is hell.
• 48:16
  SPEAKER_01: So my moods, I was already a moody hot mess, but I was just like, I need to keep me to me.
• 48:21
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and you know, and the more I delved in deep, um, but it was hard.
• 48:25
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, it is hard.
• 48:26
  SPEAKER_01: Two years ago, I had a heart attack in 2019.
• 48:29
  SPEAKER_01: I had to walk around with a pay with a you know, uh paste thing on my heart so it could record because the doctors are like, what's going on?
• 48:37
  SPEAKER_01: You know, for 30 days I had to wear this monitor 24-7.
• 48:41
  SPEAKER_01: You know, I was really living in that truth and in that identity of being sick, you know, and it is hard.
• 48:48
  SPEAKER_01: You're absolutely right.
• 48:49
  SPEAKER_01: It is very hard, but it is possible.
• 48:51
  SPEAKER_01: And the hope that I found was in allowing myself to receive it.
• 48:56
  SPEAKER_01: You have to allow God to show up.
• 48:59
  SPEAKER_01: And he's not always gonna show up the way you think.
• 49:01
  SPEAKER_01: Like for me, like I said, connecting to this practitioner, you know, that she's in Iowa, she's an integrative health therapist, she's amazing, you know, but she's in Iowa, you know, all these things connecting now to my sisters in my faith.
• 49:16
  SPEAKER_01: God brought me my spirit, one of my spiritual mentors, Michelle Fadegaro Geen.
• 49:20
  SPEAKER_01: Um, she wrote the book, But God, you know, an amazing woman.
• 49:25
  SPEAKER_01: Um, you know, God will bring the people and the tribe to match your energy where you're at.
• 49:31
  SPEAKER_01: You just have to be first willing to ask, humble yourself and say, you know what?
• 49:36
  SPEAKER_01: I'm done.
• 49:37
  SPEAKER_01: I'm exhausted.
• 49:38
  SPEAKER_01: I can't fucking do that.
• 49:38
  SPEAKER_01: I'm sorry, I can't do this anymore.
• 49:40
  SPEAKER_01: I can't do this anymore because the way I'm doing it does not work.
• 49:44
  SPEAKER_01: Humbleness.
• 49:45
  SPEAKER_01: Now what?
• 49:46
  SPEAKER_01: And once you're in agreement, once you're in agreement, you coming into my life, all these people over the last three years, my life has radically changed, and I'm still working on radically changing my mind.
• 49:56
  SPEAKER_01: But it's a work in progress.
• 49:57
  SPEAKER_01: I wake up at four every morning because if I don't, I need to get my mind right.
• 50:02
  SPEAKER_01: I have my journaling time, I'm very intentional.
• 50:05
  SPEAKER_01: My thing with the 30-day me talks is walking consciously through life.
• 50:10
  SPEAKER_01: You know, I know the buzzword is being woke.
• 50:13
  SPEAKER_01: Can I just tell you we need to be done with this being woke business?
• 50:16
  SPEAKER_01: Because woke is living in the past tense.
• 50:19
  SPEAKER_01: We need to awaken and become awake and consciously choose to live this life.
• 50:25
  SPEAKER_01: Because when you are woke, you're just another mummy.
• 50:29
  SPEAKER_01: You're just okay, you're living, you know, what's the world saying?
• 50:33
  SPEAKER_01: What's the world saying?
• 50:34
  SPEAKER_01: How do I, how can I make myself fit into all the packages that the world is telling me are important and that I need to fit into.
• 50:40
  SPEAKER_01: When you become awakened and you decide I'm gonna consciously wake up every day and consciously decide how I'm gonna behave and be and move through that day, that's a powerful thing.
• 50:51
  SPEAKER_01: And you're gonna start seeing the shifts.
• 50:52
  SPEAKER_01: And that's what I do.
• 50:53
  SPEAKER_01: You know, I have a whole thing that I teach in the 30-day main talks of, you know, co-creating with God.
• 50:58
  SPEAKER_01: I call it co-creating with God, you know.
• 51:00
  SPEAKER_01: But I have to, I personally have to be very specific.
• 51:02
  SPEAKER_01: Like I legit, I'm like, today I choose to feel joyful, and then I'll delve into you know, why I, you know, today I choose to give this, you know, kindness, truth, whatever.
• 51:16
  SPEAKER_01: Today I choose to show up this way.
• 51:18
  SPEAKER_01: Today I choose to allow myself to receive, you know.
• 51:23
  SPEAKER_01: Um, today I'm open to new opportunities.
• 51:26
  SPEAKER_01: Today I'm open to receive, you know, all the things.
• 51:29
  SPEAKER_01: Write it out.
• 51:30
  SPEAKER_01: God wants to work with you.
• 51:32
  SPEAKER_01: And that when I started understanding that, like, oh wait, God's in me, that means I have all sorts of power.
• 51:40
  SPEAKER_01: That's my truth.
• 51:41
  SPEAKER_01: My truth is God is in me.
• 51:43
  SPEAKER_01: But what the enemy wanted me to believe, and the deep-seated lie that he rooted in me was Carmen, you're abandoned and you're not good enough.
• 51:53
  SPEAKER_01: And I lived in that truth for so long that when I started dismantling that, now I'm just like, shh, all people's daggers, you know what?
• 52:01
  SPEAKER_01: That's cool.
• 52:02
  SPEAKER_01: You can think whatever, cool.
• 52:03
  SPEAKER_01: You know what?
• 52:04
  SPEAKER_01: It's good.
• 52:05
  SPEAKER_01: It's what he says about me because I'm rooted in that truth.
• 52:08
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, you know what, Carmen, three years ago, four years ago, five years ago, 20 years ago, I was not my best self.
• 52:13
  SPEAKER_01: And I'm sorry if I offended you, I'm sorry if I hurt you.
• 52:16
  SPEAKER_01: Hurt people, hurt people.
• 52:18
  SPEAKER_01: But let me tell you, I'm a different person now, not by me, by the grace of God and my understanding that he's working with me and through me, but I had to agree to that.
• 52:28
  SPEAKER_01: You know, for a long time I agreed with the lie.
• 52:31
  SPEAKER_01: I agreed with I'm sick, I'm not worthy, I'm abandoned.
• 52:35
  SPEAKER_01: And then I proceeded to re-behave that way in life.
• 52:38
  SPEAKER_01: You live your relationships that way, you push people away, or you attract people that are gonna match your energy at that time, you know.
• 52:46
  SPEAKER_01: So it really, but it's hard.
• 52:47
  SPEAKER_01: You're absolutely right.
• 52:48
  SPEAKER_01: It's not a walk in the park, but it's it's there, you know, and it's also eating, right?
• 52:53
  SPEAKER_01: So I it's mind, body, and spirit taking care of my body.
• 52:59
  SPEAKER_01: I had to redo everything.
• 53:01
  SPEAKER_01: You know, I'm somebody that doctors are trying to say of this autoimmune condition again.
• 53:06
  SPEAKER_01: I believe in the power word, so I'm even like saying it because I know I'm healing and I'm I'm healing through that, but it's everything.
• 53:13
  SPEAKER_01: I eat CMOS every morning, you know.
• 53:16
  SPEAKER_01: I have supplements that I do, I pray, I meditate, stretch, I work out.
• 53:21
  SPEAKER_01: I am literally very intentional and conscious every moment of my life, as much as I can be.
• 53:28
  SPEAKER_01: Now I'm human.
• 53:29
  SPEAKER_01: I love Jesus, I start to be like Jesus, but I'm not Jesus, right?
• 53:32
  SPEAKER_01: So there's many times that I fall flat on my face, and um, you know, because we're all a work in progress, but that's where the grace comes in and the allowance and just saying, okay, you know, I'm human, it's okay.
• 53:44
  SPEAKER_01: And the greatest thing, you know, and I think it was said best with uh one of my favorite stories.
• 53:53
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, what is it?
• 53:54
  SPEAKER_01: Um, where she says, you know, tomorrow's a new day.
• 53:58
  SPEAKER_01: God gives us a new day every day.
• 53:59
  SPEAKER_01: And every day, you could have been the worst person today and wake up tomorrow and decide today's the day I'm gonna do things different.
• 54:05
  SPEAKER_01: And guess what?
• 54:06
  SPEAKER_01: You can do that every single day of your life.
• 54:08
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 54:08
  SPEAKER_01: And once I I was like, oh my gosh, I have the power to create my life.
• 54:13
  SPEAKER_01: What's that's crazy?
• 54:15
  SPEAKER_01: But it's it's amazing, yeah, and it's hard, you know.
• 54:20
  SPEAKER_00: I I think that that phrase that anything is possible is true, but it's not possible unless you believe it and you understand that you have to do it.
• 54:30
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, it's not going to happen to you.
• 54:32
  SPEAKER_00: You are going to make it happen.
• 54:34
  SPEAKER_00: For now, I was wondering if we could switch over to our lightning round.
• 54:38
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, for sure.
• 54:40
  SPEAKER_00: All right.
• 54:40
  SPEAKER_00: So I have some questions for you.
• 54:42
  SPEAKER_00: Um, the first one is how do you connect with yourself?
• 54:47
  SPEAKER_01: Well, um, I connect with myself.
• 54:49
  SPEAKER_01: My process is I'm up, I, you know, first and foremost, I thank God for another day.
• 54:57
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and I sit and I really have specific journaling that I do.
• 55:02
  SPEAKER_01: Um, I do a Bible study in the morning before that, just renewal of the mind and having that first and foremost.
• 55:08
  SPEAKER_01: And then I delve into, like I said, um literally writing out my whole day and how I want to show up for that day.
• 55:16
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and that's how you know I get in tune with myself, and that's my check-in.
• 55:21
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and then that allows me to go into the world.
• 55:24
  SPEAKER_01: When I don't do that, no bueno.
• 55:28
  SPEAKER_00: No bueno, yeah.
• 55:29
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, I I think what you're saying is you you have to find something that works for you and to have the discipline to stick with it, yeah.
• 55:38
  SPEAKER_00: Like and and also to to let it evolve and not be a slave to your process.
• 55:44
  SPEAKER_00: I know that for me, I um I used to have a very specific meditation practice, and I noticed that um now like my life has become more meditative, so I don't really need to have that seated practice, but sometimes I do.
• 56:02
  SPEAKER_01: And so being open to what what is serving you at that time because you are evolving, you know, like yeah to close close yourself off to one practice, and no, that's a great point because for me too is being out in nature, you know.
• 56:21
  SPEAKER_01: I'm an earth sign, but I also like that's where I find God the most.
• 56:25
  SPEAKER_01: So I have to be, I mean, you'll see me walking the paths, you know, early in the morning because that's where and you'll hear, I mean, I worship out on the path.
• 56:33
  SPEAKER_01: I'm just like, uh me and God time, because that's where God where I find God the most is out in nature.
• 56:38
  SPEAKER_01: So yes, I mean, there are times where you know, if I don't have time to do that or whatever, I mean, I always my connection is always with Earth and with God and finding them there.
• 56:49
  SPEAKER_01: But yeah, that's a great, you know.
• 56:50
  SPEAKER_01: And as you and as you mature and evolve, yeah, that does kind of yeah, yeah.
• 56:55
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, so what world events have shaped you most?
• 57:00
  SPEAKER_01: Well, last year I had the opportunity to speak at the BLM Peaceful Rally in St.
• 57:06
  SPEAKER_01: Charles.
• 57:07
  SPEAKER_01: Um, I've been in the diversity, equity, and inclusion space um within the tech industry for over seven years at this point now.
• 57:15
  SPEAKER_01: Um, so for me, I've been I've been singing these songs for a while, right?
• 57:21
  SPEAKER_01: Um I think that the time and space that we're in right now is very interesting.
• 57:30
  SPEAKER_01: And I think that God has prepared me for such a time as this, is what I'll say.
• 57:36
  SPEAKER_01: You know, um I think that we just we're like I said, we're in it we're in an interesting shift, and people are either going to get it or they're not, you know.
• 57:49
  SPEAKER_01: Um but yeah, I think especially just what's shown up in the world and how my transitions and my growth kind of you know mirrored each other in a lot of ways.
• 57:59
  SPEAKER_01: And to be in a place where God is using me in different platforms, you know, um, is a beautiful thing.
• 58:08
  SPEAKER_01: And you know, it's also a sad thing.
• 58:10
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, I've been a missionary since I was a teenager, so I worked with the Navajos for two years on two different reservations.
• 58:16
  SPEAKER_01: I helped build churches that were burnt down because of racism, my um, you know, um in Alabama, but I'm 41 years old, still fighting those causes and those fights.
• 58:28
  SPEAKER_01: And it's exhausting and it's sad.
• 58:30
  SPEAKER_01: And I'm at the point where I'm like, God has built us for such a time as this.
• 58:34
  SPEAKER_01: Let's go.
• 58:35
  SPEAKER_01: Let's start building new processes.
• 58:37
  SPEAKER_01: You know, we need to stand up.
• 58:38
  SPEAKER_01: We are the church.
• 58:39
  SPEAKER_01: I don't need to be in a church to do good in the world.
• 58:41
  SPEAKER_01: Every day, you're the church.
• 58:43
  SPEAKER_01: Say hi to someone, help somebody do or whatever, you know.
• 58:47
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, make sure you don't run over a bird, whatever that means to you, you know.
• 58:51
  SPEAKER_01: But we have to step up and just do better in a lot of different ways.
• 58:56
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 58:56
  SPEAKER_01: You know, we have to start, like I said, we have to stop being woke and start being awake and really start, you know, delving into whether it's working within your community, pick a cause that strikes your heart, reading, helping kids with reading, whatever it is, animals, rocks, whatever it is, get involved, you know, and do something with it.
• 59:18
  SPEAKER_00: I love that that what you're drawing attention to is the fact that this term woke is like a one-time event.
• 59:25
  SPEAKER_00: Like I did that, you know, been there, done that.
• 59:29
  SPEAKER_00: And um, awakening is an unfolding process of being open and aware of each unfolding moment, to be conscious in each unfolding moment.
• 59:40
  SPEAKER_00: It's an it's a it's a present tense thing, it's not a past tense thing.
• 59:45
  SPEAKER_00: I love I love that.
• 59:46
  SPEAKER_01: So it's actually because it's so much in the culture.
• 59:48
  SPEAKER_01: And I have a 21-year-old and an 18-year-old, and you know, it's the buzzword, right?
• 59:52
  SPEAKER_01: All the actors, actors, we're woke, we're woke.
• 59:55
  SPEAKER_01: Well, you're walking in the past tense.
• 59:57
  SPEAKER_01: And maybe if we choose to help our children understand and the collective understand what that actually is, we'll start seeing some shift, right?
• 1:00:06
  SPEAKER_01: Because it's renewal of the mind.
• 1:00:08
  SPEAKER_01: We can't have these generations walking around being woke because what what what are we gonna be?
• 1:00:14
  SPEAKER_01: You know, I just yeah, you know, yeah.
• 1:00:16
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 1:00:17
  SPEAKER_00: Um, so what have you done that has surprised the people closest to you the most?
• 1:00:26
  SPEAKER_01: I think come back to life several times.
• 1:00:31
  SPEAKER_01: I think at this point they're like, if you're gonna kill her, either kill her, make sure she is dead, gone.
• 1:00:37
  SPEAKER_01: Um resurrection power through Jesus.
• 1:00:40
  SPEAKER_01: Um, you know, whether that's mind, body, and spirit.
• 1:00:44
  SPEAKER_01: But I think also the fact that I've been able to create a little bit of a career for myself.
• 1:00:49
  SPEAKER_01: Again, I'm dyslexic, no current you know, no college degree, just happen to understand opportunity and um when to take it.
• 1:01:00
  SPEAKER_01: And I believe that you and I touched on this previously before in a conversation when I said, you know, I never lacked opportunity.
• 1:01:06
  SPEAKER_01: For a long time, I lacked awareness of how to take advantage of that opportunity, right?
• 1:01:12
  SPEAKER_01: So um, yeah, I think my resurrection power, you know.
• 1:01:19
  SPEAKER_00: For sure, four bullets in the back.
• 1:01:20
  SPEAKER_00: Uh what's your favorite season?
• 1:01:23
  SPEAKER_01: Oh see, that's hard.
• 1:01:25
  SPEAKER_01: I being from the Midwest, I love the fall and the changing of the color, you know, colors in the seasons, but I hate being cold.
• 1:01:33
  SPEAKER_01: So I, you know, but fall, the colors, you know, my favorite, but the heat from the summer.
• 1:01:39
  SPEAKER_01: So if I can have, but I would say fall, fall.
• 1:01:42
  SPEAKER_01: I love the colors and it gives me hope, and which is interesting.
• 1:01:45
  SPEAKER_01: Like I think more people associate spring with hope, which I do too.
• 1:01:49
  SPEAKER_01: But for me, when I see the leaves falling, I feel like I'm shedding stuff, my old self.
• 1:01:55
  SPEAKER_01: So when you know, because I walk the prairie path 365 all year round and find me there, unless it's like below, below zero.
• 1:02:02
  SPEAKER_01: Um, people are like, who's Sasquatch?
• 1:02:03
  SPEAKER_01: It's just karma.
• 1:02:04
  SPEAKER_01: But um, you know, I love seeing the renewal, right?
• 1:02:08
  SPEAKER_01: You see the death, and you're like, man, all that stuff is just a little fluffing off.
• 1:02:14
  SPEAKER_01: And then you know that through there's gonna be a process of learning and that comes springtime, you're gonna, you know, yield new fruit or whatever that is, and that's exciting to me.
• 1:02:24
  SPEAKER_01: So that's I don't know.
• 1:02:25
  SPEAKER_01: I love the fall.
• 1:02:25
  SPEAKER_01: It reminds me of death and renewal and color.
• 1:02:29
  SPEAKER_00: They kind of exist side by side in um in the fall, you know, like you really get the a sense of them both, like there's still all this vibrancy, and it is like that is the signal that things are dying, you know.
• 1:02:41
  SPEAKER_00: So it's like it's interesting.
• 1:02:43
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, my last question is what is your idea of heaven?
• 1:02:48
  SPEAKER_01: My idea of heaven, great question.
• 1:02:51
  SPEAKER_01: I believe my idea of heaven is where we are with God, where we are with community, where we are with absolute pure joy, light, and beauty.
• 1:03:05
  SPEAKER_01: I believe that we have the power to manifest heaven on earth as being the living, walking representatives of God.
• 1:03:15
  SPEAKER_01: Um and I think that when we get up there, it's gonna be such a jubilee and such a such a party.
• 1:03:24
  SPEAKER_01: And you know, I'm super excited about it, but I'm even more excited of bringing that awareness into this awareness, you know, because as above, so below, as in heaven, as it is on earth, right?
• 1:03:39
  SPEAKER_01: And I think that's what God wants us to do.
• 1:03:41
  SPEAKER_01: God wants us to bring that's why it's as it is in heaven, have it be on earth because he's given us that power.
• 1:03:48
  SPEAKER_01: So yeah.
• 1:03:49
  SPEAKER_00: It's been a long journey though.
• 1:03:53
  SPEAKER_00: So, did you bring a question for me today?
• 1:03:57
  SPEAKER_01: I did.
• 1:03:58
  SPEAKER_01: Um, you know, I'm fascinated by your quest of wanting to unfold and unpackage life.
• 1:04:07
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and you know, I wanted to check in with you and see, you know, with your unfolding and your unpackaging and your awareness, what's the space that you're sitting in now?
• 1:04:17
  SPEAKER_01: You know, coming through what you've come through and creating what you're what you've created and what you continue to create.
• 1:04:25
  SPEAKER_00: Wow, that's such a big question.
• 1:04:28
  SPEAKER_00: Um how do I even want to answer that?
• 1:04:35
  SPEAKER_00: I'm almost I'm at a particular point on my path where I'm on the I feel like there is a great releasing of the past and past ideas and past lives, everything.
• 1:04:59
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm preparing myself by clearing out everything that I thought I knew about myself and about the world, clearing that all out so that I can step into what's next for humanity.
• 1:05:16
  SPEAKER_00: And I have seen that my, you know, the the work that I've been doing in my life and on myself, and trying to share that with other people who are, you know, at a at a resonant point in their path has been unfolding as a according to plan.
• 1:05:38
  SPEAKER_00: And now I'm kind of in a space where I have to like let go of that because I I'm not certain that I know what that's going to look like going forward.
• 1:05:48
  SPEAKER_00: And I suppose that this is going to become a way of life, that we will constantly be releasing what we thought we knew so that we can receive and step into what is not what is there for us now.
• 1:06:04
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm assuming that what is there for us now is going to be an ever-expanding sense of power and self and freedom and joy, love, connection, collaboration, like next generation, all of it.
• 1:06:24
  SPEAKER_00: You know, that's what I'm preparing myself for.
• 1:06:27
  SPEAKER_00: But this in-between space is quite uncomfortable where I don't know what my future holds, I don't know where I am, I don't know.
• 1:06:39
  SPEAKER_00: It's like a void.
• 1:06:41
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm giving myself a lot of space to be there and not freak out about it and just accept and allow and not be, you know, as knowledgeable as maybe I've seen myself as being in the past.
• 1:06:59
  SPEAKER_00: I have to be sort of like stepping into the blank slate and being okay with that.
• 1:07:04
  SPEAKER_00: So basically, I have nothing.
• 1:07:07
  SPEAKER_00: Nothing to say.
• 1:07:08
  SPEAKER_01: No, that was so much.
• 1:07:10
  SPEAKER_01: And I know that you and I, because we're friends and we're developing that, you know, our friendship.
• 1:07:16
  SPEAKER_01: You're singing my song because that's a space I'm sitting in too.
• 1:07:19
  SPEAKER_01: So thank you for that.
• 1:07:20
  SPEAKER_01: Because in you sharing that, that gave me the grace to give to myself.
• 1:07:26
  SPEAKER_01: Because sometimes we we feel like we're the only one out there in the uncomfortable space.
• 1:07:31
  SPEAKER_01: So thank you for that.
• 1:07:32
  SPEAKER_01: And you know, I just I just adore you.
• 1:07:36
  SPEAKER_00: So thank you.
• 1:07:37
  SPEAKER_00: I just adore you too.
• 1:07:38
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you so much for being with us.
• 1:07:40
  SPEAKER_00: Your story is so inspiring, and I know that people are gonna really connect with you and we'll we'll tell people how to connect further with you in the notes.
• 1:07:51
  SPEAKER_00: And um, yeah, so thank you so much for being here, Carmen.
• 1:07:55
  SPEAKER_01: Thank you for having me.
• 1:07:56
  SPEAKER_01: Thank you for creating a space that allows this, these types of conversations.
• 1:08:03
  SPEAKER_01: You know, really honestly, thank you.
• 1:08:05
  SPEAKER_01: Thank you.
• 1:08:06
  SPEAKER_01: Thank you for that.
• 1:08:07
  SPEAKER_01: Thank you.