Does moving forward after the traumatic experience of sexual abuse seem impossible? Together with my guest Reno Merta, we bravely traverse this hard-hitting topic. Reno courageously shares her personal journey, revealing the emotional wreckage left in the wake of her own abuse at the tender age of 16. We unearth the deeply rooted connections between traumatic experiences and our emotional, mental, and spiritual health, shedding light on the painful reality of repressed memories and their unforeseen resurfacing.
Breaking the silence, we tackle complex issues surrounding the healing process and the necessary journey towards self-love. How do we identify violations, set boundaries, and remain steadfast in our value? Reno recounts an eye-opening experience with a church service campaigning against a bill meant to protect survivors of sexual abuse, speaking volumes to the importance of compassionate dialogues about trauma. We highlight the difficulties survivors face and underscore the need to redefine our beliefs and rediscover our values despite the scars of our past.
Our conversation doesn't end at identifying the problem, but aims to empower survivors through actionable steps towards healing. This episode distills the essence of recovery, illuminating the path towards reclaiming our lives after trauma. We emphasize the importance of creating safe mental and emotional spaces, allowing ourselves to grieve, and taking small steps towards recovery. Engage with us in this profound discourse, and unearth the strength within you to move beyond trauma and embrace a future of healing and self-love.
Please visit us at: http://retreattopeace.com to find out more about the shows you love to listen to, the upcoming retreats we have planned and your favorite merchandise to help support those in need. Also, send us your testimonial of how the show or Catherine has helped you. We would love to share your story on the air.
Does moving forward after the traumatic experience of sexual abuse seem impossible? Together with my guest Reno Merta, we bravely traverse this hard-hitting topic. Reno courageously shares her personal journey, revealing the emotional wreckage left in the wake of her own abuse at the tender age of 16. We unearth the deeply rooted connections between traumatic experiences and our emotional, mental, and spiritual health, shedding light on the painful reality of repressed memories and their unforeseen resurfacing.
Breaking the silence, we tackle complex issues surrounding the healing process and the necessary journey towards self-love. How do we identify violations, set boundaries, and remain steadfast in our value? Reno recounts an eye-opening experience with a church service campaigning against a bill meant to protect survivors of sexual abuse, speaking volumes to the importance of compassionate dialogues about trauma. We highlight the difficulties survivors face and underscore the need to redefine our beliefs and rediscover our values despite the scars of our past.
Our conversation doesn't end at identifying the problem, but aims to empower survivors through actionable steps towards healing. This episode distills the essence of recovery, illuminating the path towards reclaiming our lives after trauma. We emphasize the importance of creating safe mental and emotional spaces, allowing ourselves to grieve, and taking small steps towards recovery. Engage with us in this profound discourse, and unearth the strength within you to move beyond trauma and embrace a future of healing and self-love.
Please visit us at: http://retreattopeace.com to find out more about the shows you love to listen to, the upcoming retreats we have planned and your favorite merchandise to help support those in need. Also, send us your testimonial of how the show or Catherine has helped you. We would love to share your story on the air.
Thank you for being here with me and welcome back. My name is Catherine Daniels and I love to empower people with spiritual healing and wellness. The best thing about retreat to peace is the gift of inner peace, greater love and joy. And during these times of changes and uncertainty in the world, nothing is permanent except our souls, and that's why we need to come together, traveling through one another's countries, creating a bridge, removing all labels, coming together as one people, finding our home in one world. And as we do this, this is why our signature talk today is so important. Today, I have the privilege of welcoming back Reno Merta to my show. Thank you, reno, for coming back. So appreciate it.
Speaker 2:Thank you so much for having me back, Catherine.
Speaker 1:You are so welcome and, for the audience, this is a powerful interview, and I'm yeah, reno and I talked actually at length after our first interview together and we were talking about so many different topics, and one of the topics we did not discuss during the first interview was this piece of us that has been compromised during our journey and this sexual abuse portion of our life that we didn't talk about during the first interview, and part of the reason we didn't talk about it is because it is a very deep topic.
Speaker 1:It's a topic that not everyone can talk about, not everyone can even listen to.
Speaker 1:As I was just speaking to a friend about preparing for this interview, she was actually saying to me how interesting it is that a lot of people can listen to the show but it's harder for them to actually talk about it, and you and I were just talking a few minutes ago about that very fact and I was just saying you know how much people want to put this part of themselves like in a box and tuck it away and not deal with it, and there's a lot of emotions around being sexually abused. But what I'd like to do is just open the conversation and because everyone knows I do this very organically and just go with my guidance and intuition as to how to work through the interview, and I think the place to really start is just ask you, reno, like for you. You can share what is on your heart or share however you would like to share, but I'll just turn the table to you and just ask you where would you like to start with this conversation?
Speaker 2:I was just wondering, as I listened to you, if there's a part of us that either dismisses what has happened or minimize what has happened to us, and I wondered if that could be something that makes us not need to feel the need to talk about it. I think there's various degrees of sexual abuse and no level or degree is acceptable. Yeah, what do you think?
Speaker 1:I completely agree and I have done some brief shows around this topic where it was more the other person sharing their story and their journey and their testimony of what happened to them. Me personally, I was raped when I was 16 years old and it was by a boy that I actually knew At the time. I just remember that I couldn't tell anybody. I didn't feel safe to tell anybody because at the time in my environment I didn't feel like I had a safe space to go to or someone to comfort me and help me feel safe because, unfortunately, my environment at that time I didn't have a support system that was really giving me what I needed and I knew that. So, because I knew that, I also knew that if I said something, then it would have been, I would have been targeted almost like, well, you deserved it because you did this or you did that.
Speaker 1:And it's kind of the stereotypical kind of stuff that we hear about a woman. You hear these comments well, she deserved it. And for me, that was very disturbing for me because I knew in my heart that I didn't deserve it and I knew in my heart that at the moment that I was experiencing this, it's almost like when you go through this moment, you're in a state of how do I react? Do I defend myself? Do I freeze? Like, what do I do? Because you're so scared, You're so terrified and you just don't know what to do. And I think it's really easy for people to say, well, this is how you should react, but in the moment we never know how we're going to react and I almost felt like I was disconnected from my body in that moment and what was happening to my body was literally just happening to my body.
Speaker 1:It was like I almost felt like my soul was outside of my body, because I had to protect my soul, and part of my experience was recognizing that, yes, this happened and I need to acknowledge that it happened. But the bigger part of it, too, was protecting my soul and just being okay that way, because I knew the impact was so deep and it really rattled me. But what I didn't know at the time, until much later, is that I was also a woman who suppressed sexual abuse. So when you suppress the sexual abuse again, I'm in this moment where I'm feeling violated all over again, because we literally were going through a period of time where a major Hollywood star is being brought to trial and all of these women are coming out of the woodwork and they're saying this person did this. And literally the undercurrent and the vibe that was happening throughout was well, how do all these women come out of the woodwork like this, how many years later, and say this about this person?
Speaker 1:And it's really interesting because for me, I literally had a triggering event, so a triggering event meaning the death of my mother, and when that happened, all of the childhood repressed memories started to surface, so it was much easier for me to remember other traumatic events and not that. And then that's when it was almost this moment of oh my goodness, this is so much bigger than I even anticipated or even knew. And then it was what do I do with it, how do I work through it, what are the next steps? And I can share more about that as we go through our conversation, but that was a little bit about what happened to me with my exposure and I think the hardest thing was just again getting into the space of I'm not going to walk through life feeling ashamed because I did not deserve this and I did the best that I could, even though I was a little girl and couldn't defend myself.
Speaker 2:I resonate so much with what you say and as I was listening to you, I could almost feel it again in my body, even though what happened to me was decades ago. I remember the feeling of being touched and, oh my goodness, it is even listening. I will admit it is not easy and the shame. Let me go back a little bit of how you mentioned that your body was experiencing something that your soul was almost out of your body. I don't know how that happens, I don't know why, but that was what I was feeling too at that time. Just to give it a little bit of context, what I went through was I grew up most of my life in Tokyo.
Speaker 2:I lived there for a long time and you may know that the trains in Japan are jam packed during rush hour. So I was commuting to school for my junior high, in high school, so from 13 to 18. And almost every single day there would be a man putting his hand on my bottom. His hand would go under my skirt, sometimes it would go in my underwear, and all I remember is that I froze. I heard my voice wanting to say something to this man, to stop or to ask for help, but I couldn't. And I think what was happening was, like you said, my soul was outside my body. It was protected, it had to be detached. But it's also so hard to go back into that, you know, for your soul and your spirit to go back to that body, because it's such a horrendous thing and the impact that it had on me. It wasn't one big impact, but it was six years of almost every day, almost every day, going to school in the morning, coming back in the afternoon, depending on the time, and it just still, it still feels detached. To be honest, katherine, do I want my spirit to go back? I don't know. And there was a time that I did ask for help. I my hand, I just had enough. That was when I was 18. I had enough and a man was touching me in the train and automatically my body just moved and grabbed this man's hand. I could not let go. I couldn't let go.
Speaker 2:I dragged him out in the next station, the station masters came and he was taken to one office and I was taken to another. After a while the police showed up and we went to the police station and I was asked questions for six hours. I have to repeat what happened because, god forbid, I'm making it up Right. So they kept asking me same question, but different angle. They also took me back to the station, stopped train where there were hundreds of people and they would put cones you know those ABCD kind of cones to replicate that situation again where everyone was watching. I feel I was traumatized all over again. You know those scenes are for criminals. I was the victim, but I had to repeat that scenario again in front of people. I'm sorry, I'm not sure where I'm going with this, but I just feel so much in my body right now.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and that I identify with what you're saying because it's a revictimizing of you right, and I think sometimes this happens to anyone who has had that line crossed. And I need to be crystal clear with everyone that one inappropriate touch qualifies. It doesn't mean that you have to have, you know, these horrific events that we hear. It's one inappropriate touch that does qualify because it's a violation.
Speaker 2:It really is.
Speaker 1:And I think one thing that really shook me at a particular moment in time is that I was in a church and at the altar was a priest and he was asking everyone to go and to repeal a bill. But he wouldn't say what the bill was and intuitively, I knew something was wrong. I felt something was wrong and I just sat there and started to Google exactly what it was that he was asking and literally I'll never forget it. It was as soon as I started to read the words that the bill was to protect people from bringing cases back to the present, for people that have had 10 or plus years go by. And here I am I have just lost my mother and going through all these repressed memories, and here I am being revictimized because literally this entire congregation of people, which was over 200 people and however many services that they were having and I was a guest at the time to this particular church literally hundreds of people are being asked to go against a bill to protect the person who was the abuser. So for me, in that moment I literally felt everything in my body as if it just happened. And here I've been how many, as you said, decades removed, but in an instant I am in that place again and I literally in the middle of everything, with everyone seated. I got up, walked out outside and as soon as I felt that air hit me because inside the building I felt like I was being suffocated as soon as I hit the outdoors and breathed in that fresh air, I literally just broke down crying because I recognized that all of these people had no knowledge of what was being asked to them and all of these people, how many of them, would do what I did right, because there's this huge capacity of trust and that rattled me for a long time. It really did. It really shook me for a long time and I think that it's so important to be mindful of your state.
Speaker 1:Like you said and I know, by divine intervention I actually was asking for some guidance on how to help myself go through a healing process, because some of it I just didn't know what to do with. Like I didn't know what to do with some of these feelings or emotions and it just felt so foreign to me. I mean, when I was raped when I was 16, I pushed that stuff down. I would push it down because I knew at 16 years old I didn't have support and I just pushed it down and I just figured at some point I would deal with it in my life, because what else could I do? I'm at the mercy of everyone else. I'm at the mercy of everyone else. I'm a kid, I can't do a thing.
Speaker 1:So, interestingly enough, through divine intervention, I was invited to a national group for sexual abuse survivors and it was a pilot group and they were running one for men and one for women and I was startled by the astronomical numbers of both men and women that actually experienced us during their lifetime at some point in their life. I mean, most of the time you think of women, you don't think of men. But who? But this is, this is something that's happening across the board and the numbers are super, super high. And I remember when I started this healing program, this pilot group, it was actually started by a gentleman who was sexually abused by his mother. His parents were an arranged marriage, they didn't love each other and his mother turned his her affections onto her son. And what that did to his journey is it led him down a path of addiction and, interestingly enough, he was forced to go into the seminary to become a Catholic priest and when he was in training the, the person that he was under actually was an addict and it was like Well, this is what you do to suppress those feelings that you have. And it turned him into addiction. And he went to rehab and he undid one addiction, turned it into another, undid that addiction with rehab and then turned it into another. And at some point he meets the love of his life, who literally stops him in his tracks, and he makes a decision that he's going to change. And not only is he going to change his life for this woman that he loves, but he's going to make a difference and he's going to make an impact. And he opened up a center to help people.
Speaker 1:Well, this particular program I was invited into as a guinea pig program and when I started this program, I was floored by the number of people that showed up.
Speaker 1:But then what happened?
Speaker 1:Every week it was a six month program, weekly program Every week the numbers would start to drop off and drop off, and drop off and drop off, and week after week, it was hard because it was like Well, is this just too hard for people, you know?
Speaker 1:But one of the things that I noticed right away is that there was a high percentage of people that were just angry. They had these feelings of anger and they were angry at themselves because they handle it a certain way, like they had this expectation that they needed to do it different than what they actually did. And I think for myself, given all of my circumstances and what I know, I never did that to myself. I always showed myself compassion and grace and love and I remember, with my testimony to the group, I actually brought in a picture of myself at the age that I was violated the first time and I put her in the middle of the group on a chair and just talked with love, because as a little girl or a young girl there's no possible way I even knew what I was dealing with or knew how to fight or knew what was going on and I had no real understanding, as I do as an adult, at that age.
Speaker 1:So just giving myself grace and turning, you know, love towards myself. But over and over and over, I just heard so much rage and so much anger and and to be honest with you, I had a little bit of that as well, because if I were out somewhere and someone's giving me the eye up and down, I would feel, you know, disgusting after that. It's like what gives you that right, you know, looking at me like that. And then I had to really work on that piece of it too. I had to really work on that piece of it and step back and just be an awareness, right, because I think after we have something like this, we are constantly on guard for safety, right.
Speaker 1:So when that happens to us, we're not feeling safe and just, you know, being on guard, being mindful, being an awareness, but then also reminding myself Okay, I'm an adult now. I'm not a little girl. I can defend myself, I can use my words, my voice, I can reach out for help, I can do all of these things that when I was a young woman or a little girl, I didn't have the ability to do that. So it's separate, separating it out and identifying. I'm not that little girl anymore, but I can protect. I can protect her Now as an adult, I can protect her. And that really, really, really was a life changing moment because it gave me the empowerment, gave me the opportunity to rise from something that so many people go through and just struggle and don't know what to do.
Speaker 2:Right, Right, yeah, the last part empowerment. You know from yourself, from within, the anger towards yourself. I didn't feel anger towards myself, but I definitely felt anger towards others, Because I did ask for help around who was around me, maybe two or three times, but 100% failure. No one stepped in to help at a public place and I felt anger towards that. I felt anger towards a person, a very close person, who told me, when I told that person what happened to me that day, well, at least someone thinks they're attractive and I think I internalize that so much that my sense of worth somehow because I was also young, about your age, when I was told that that, oh, okay, so I guess it's a good thing that no one to touch me and that is so long, because I say it just sounds very wrong and it is wrong. And I think I did use that to in a way to flirt. If I can flirt in a sexual way and get attention, then that made me feel that, okay, I am worth something as a woman, people are attracted to me, but it's definitely not a healthy way at all. So my boundaries were very low. It's not that I turned to sex for attention or affection, but sex meant nothing to me. You know, it was not about me If I could have someone want to have sex with me. It meant, okay, maybe I'm good enough, it just sounds so long. Did I handle it? Well, I don't think so. But it wasn't anger either. You know I didn't feel anger. It was my sense of work. It was very, very low for very, very long time. And you know, sexual abuse doesn't happen only with people you don't know it could happen with people you do know. It could happen in a marriage, it could happen in a sexual way that hasn't been given consent. And when that happens you feel even more violated Because in a way you feel that you know it is your duty or obligation to provide, I guess, your body. So that was something that happened to me in my previous marriage that I thought, okay, maybe you know this is okay, it definitely doesn't feel okay, but maybe it should be okay, it must be okay. And just brainwashing myself over and over again until I had it and had enough and I realized it was not okay because, first of all, I'm not enjoying it. And every time it was the same reaction I had on the train my body froze and in a way, I couldn't say stop either, because I felt bad was wrong. Because you're married. Yes, because you're married, and that's what a husband and wife does. That's what married couple does, you know, it's just so interesting.
Speaker 2:I talk about this and it doesn't really make sense. You know is I talk about it and I think that's the impact it has on us. Until we talk about it, I don't think we necessarily know the impact it has on us, because we hear ourselves speak. It doesn't make sense. I think this is definitely a starting point if you can talk about it. You know you're we're allowed to feel angry, we're allowed to feel shame, you know we're allowed to feel sad and hurt and violate and disrespected and all the things are valid, and I think this is definitely a starting point. Like you know you, you feel these things and those feelings. We can honor that and I think that is definitely one step forward to healing. And because it's coming from within, we are feeling ourselves, we are empowering ourselves with that. We now know what is not okay. Right.
Speaker 1:And I think the other really strong thing to recognize is that we don't know ourselves well enough when we're young and we don't know the difference of the boundaries or what boundaries are, even are you know, for that matter. Because when somebody that we know and trust, or even a stranger, violates those boundaries, it does expose us to a new sense of ourselves that it's like okay, so I'm not being respected, my body is not being respected. So it's almost like is this, you know? Is this how it's supposed to be? Like you almost adopt this mindset that this is how it's supposed to be, which you're right. It doesn't make any sense, but as children and young adults, we don't know any different and we're not being.
Speaker 1:If you're not being protected or you're not being supported and I've done many shows on this platform where that's exactly what's happened over and over is the person I'm interviewing has shared, you know they didn't have someone who believed their story or someone who would believe in them, and that sense of feeding the low self esteem.
Speaker 1:It's almost like you're in a relationship with someone that you trust, but now you can't trust them because you just gave away the most intimate part of yourself and you're asking for someone to love you Right and keep you safe, right, but you're not feeling safe, right, and that's what makes the anger right, because it's like anger is fear and you know, turned inside out, right. That's why we get so angry, because our safety is not there, which makes it a whole different level of you see this all the time. You know where there is probably a higher rate of flirting and you know girls just, I don't know, being more flirtatious, and because they don't have boundaries for their own self, right, right, they don't have those boundaries for themselves. And then what does that do? That translates into all areas of your life.
Speaker 2:Right, it does, it certainly does.
Speaker 1:Just like you stated. You know now you're getting married to somebody who doesn't respect your boundaries.
Speaker 2:It really does All areas of life.
Speaker 2:It just ripples into you know how you think about money, you know ripples into how you have a business or friendships, and all of that you know, with a sense of boundary. If I can go back a little bit, I think we are hardwired to trying to make sense of what happened and even though the logic is wrong, if someone said something, because our foundation has been rattled, our own sense of value, our rebirth has been rattled, and at that point I think it's gone into the void almost, and whatever information comes in, we try to make sense of it and because if we can make sense out of it, even though it's not right, maybe we feel safe in some way and we kind of run with that for a long time and we didn't set up our boundaries again because that has been violated. We are in a very wrong workplace with a new set of information about ourselves and, yeah, I think it's just a sense of birth part that gets like vacuum sucked and, like he said, it exposes us to a new something.
Speaker 1:I feel that that best gift anyone who's experienced this that they can give themselves is be gentle with that part of yourself, because it really doesn't matter how old you are when it happened or what exactly happened it happened, and recognizing that it happened in the feelings that you have around it. Those feelings are important because they are a part of you and they're true. And they're true, yes, and the thing about that piece of it is, oftentimes when we go through a traumatic experience, it's kind of like when you're going through grief and you're mourning the loss of something or someone, you know there is this part of you that is suffering a loss, right? And if you can get within your body and identify where it's sitting and write that out, put it into a journal and just say this is where I'm feeling it in my body, and then from there, just focus on healing that part of your body and restoring your body and making it whole, because over and over and over, they've done studies about this and there is so much healing power that we can do for our own bodies, where you know we are visualizing healing. We always talk about envisioning light, light just radiating to that center of whatever it is that you're feeling inside your body and just think about the cellular structure and repairing that.
Speaker 1:And what you're doing with all of that is you're literally without maybe even realizing, you're pouring so much love back into yourself. And the more that you pour that love back into yourself, the more you're going to feel yourself worth because you're giving yourself that love. And the more that you start to feel yourself worth, the more you're going to recognize I don't have to fill in the blank. I don't have to lower myself to something that's not making me happy anymore. I can actually put that outside my circle and focus on things that do make me happy, whatever that looks like.
Speaker 1:But it's so important to focus on the healing of that because the more that you can do that, the more you're going to open up your life and manifest exactly what it is that you want and heal from it, instead of just going into avoidance mode and pushing it down and then that part of you that's suffering because it does sit in the body. So that part of you that's suffering, we don't want that to manifest and to illness or disease. We really do want to remove it from the body. So the best way to do that is getting tuned with it and then release it. And journaling, journaling is a powerful, powerful tool Getting it out of the body, just removing it from your cellular structure, releasing it. And you know what, if you don't want to ever look at that again, rip out the pages, throw them away, burn them, whatever. At least the least you're getting it out.
Speaker 2:Right, yeah, you touched on a lot of important information just now and you know, being the trauma informed coach, coach myself we want to move forward and have a meaningful and fulfilling life despite trauma. Trauma is not something that would that we eliminate, you know. It's always going to be there, we can't really forget it. But we can move forward despite trauma and we can adjust our life in a better way that is meaningful for us despite trauma. And there are a couple of steps that I also introduced in my, you know, my course is that because we go into relationships and we repeat patterns and if the sexual trauma part is not healed, there is a massive part of us that is bleeding into the unhealthy relationship patterns. So it is coming back to ourselves, with ourselves and loving ourselves, all the flaws, all the uniqueness, all the light, all the love.
Speaker 2:But there's a story that is in our head that keeps repeating. You know, is it true? You know the belief. There's a belief that is not true, because you know, you may have heard, you know belief becomes thoughts, you know thoughts become words and you know words becomes actions and action becomes habit and habit becomes your life. So we need to kind of backtrack and I call it unlearning. You know, unlearning those beliefs, unlearning, keep asking ourselves why. You know, is it true? Is there any judgment around our own thoughts, because sometimes we feel and end up thinking like, oh, I shouldn't think this way, but does it ring true to you?
Speaker 2:And there are also parts. Despite trauma, you are here today. There's something within you that was standing really strong. That part is also true. You know, what is the strength? Despite those horrific events happening to you, what remained alive? Because you may not know it, but it was always there with you. What is that? And I'd like to think that those are our core values. You know, and I think that core values are like our spiritual fingerprints. You know, it's like intuitive, it's something that just does not die. It is with you from the moment you're born until you leave this place. There are so many things that we can actually, even logically use our brain and bring everything together the emotions, our body, the spirituality and our brain, our heart, our guts. You know everything, it has a place and they're all here for you. And using all of that to help you, it really does move you forward in a very healthy way. It will heal, you will see the love and light that you are.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's beautiful how you just put all that out the way that you did, and as we go through our journey in life, I think one of the things that was very profound for me with my experience was I started to realize I wasn't the only one. I started to realize that there was really an army, an army of people, right, but we don't really talk about it. We don't really hear about it because nobody's really bringing it to the surface. And one of the things that I love about 2020 is it did give us this beautiful platform to put this out and have these conversations, because, with the lockdown, people had to start going into these deeper pieces of their lives to do this healing work, and I feel like this is one of those pieces, right Is addressing some of that.
Speaker 1:And the other thing that 2020 did is it brought a lot of grief to the surface, and this is an element of grief, right, because this is a part of us, and what we know about grief is grief loves to attach itself to other things, so other things that you've stuffed down, that you didn't grieve, and it just keeps on attaching until something hits and then, all of a sudden, everything's coming to the surface and exploding. And now we have to go through this process of grief. But again, even with grief getting back into our heart space, getting back into that heart center of love, it's okay to have these ebbs and flows, right, because that's what grief is too. So it's okay, even after the show, to feel like you know what? That was a little bit hard to listen to, but like it's okay, right, because you are going to resurface again and it will be okay. It's just part of the process and healing is a spiral.
Speaker 2:It is so. You know it might look big but you know it's not going to be forever. You'd like the ebbs and flows and you will have a break. And you know when you have that break you'll actually be better. And you know those griefs and a lot of things that surface that feels very uncomfortable are only the parts of you that want to be heard by you and seeing by you with love and compassion.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and I've heard that before, that grief wants to be heard and I feel like that's so, so true, because even when you lose a loved one, just having someone hear your pain, it's almost like it helps you to rest a little bit easier and feel okay Because you're not alone.
Speaker 2:Right, yeah, no, I think this is what we talked about last time, and how it ended was you're not alone.
Speaker 1:Right yeah.
Speaker 2:It's. We need a lot of people and there are a lot of things that people don't say and they don't share for various reasons. But it is really interesting that, man or woman, whatever you are, you know we as humans, we share the same emotions. It really connects us, regardless of your background and I find that fascinating Regardless of your background or race or culture or age that we feel and we have words to these emotions. That connects us, Unless we're so much empathy, so much compassion, even among strangers. I think that's quite profound, you know, for humans to have.
Speaker 1:It's so true. I mean, we have so many languages around the world, and isn't it funny how you could go to another country and smile at a baby, and the baby knows exactly what you're saying?
Speaker 2:Yeah, has no boundaries. No, you don't need boundaries for smiles. Yeah, I've learned a lot being with my second husband. I've been with him for four years now and how he's a man, but he's gone through a lot himself in his lifetime, but what we run fundamentally is really the same. It is like connection and understanding, acceptance, love, no feeling safe, you know, respect, being able to be honest and vulnerable. It's like, yes, that sounds like such common sense, but I do find that it is quite true and, you know, I see hope in that, because I come from Japan and he was born in Wacom, vancouver, and we still have that connection.
Speaker 1:It's remarkable how, during our journey, we have these people that come into our lives, that are assisting us with our healing process and for some people maybe they're not ready to heal and they've turned people away. But when you know you're ready, you'll find those people and they'll be there to help you and love you and support you. And I feel it's really the single most important thing is to really get yourself into that heart center and love yourself first, because really this work is your work, right? So it's not like somebody else is going to fix you. You have to do this for yourself.
Speaker 1:But I know Tony Robbins always says you know, things don't happen to you, they happen for you and for some people that could be triggering right, because it's like why, you know? Why would somebody say this? But I'll be honest with you. I have done a show for three years where people have taken the worst of the worst and made it the most beautiful thing that they could have never experienced before. You know, it's like there was something there was. It's almost like turning something inside out and just making it into something very beautiful.
Speaker 2:Right, I do feel, you know, there's a crossroad of how some people find it difficult to turn their lives around and how some people do turn around, turn it around, and I think the difference may be if you can see something that is more beautiful at the end of the tunnel on the other side of the bridge, and if you can feel it and if that feels good, you walk towards that direction. And you know, there's no promises really, but I think there's a big part that we need to have faith, that we trust that it will be better that we don't. You know, we don't know what's on the other side, but are we able to believe, you know, have faith, and is that a big enough and beautiful enough reason to heal?
Speaker 1:Yeah, having faith through fear is very difficult for anyone, especially when they are in fear because it's all these other stories that they've attached to it. And it's almost like you. You second guess, right, you second guess whether or not you can face the fear, because you have all these things and you have all these feelings. And I go back to what I said earlier. The pivoting point for me was just recognizing that, where I am as an adult and today, knowing what I know, I wouldn't have made those same choices. But I can also honor and love that piece of me that did have that experience, because that's a younger version of myself and I can't be angry at that younger version of myself.
Speaker 2:You know what happened. I think there was actually, you know, the logical brain kicked in, and it's really important in trauma, being, in trauma, informed. But, like fear is such a primal thing, the the brain reacts to fear a lot faster. Well, like 0.00014, yeah, faster then, um, a logic Hicks in, but being able to, you know, recognize that I am an adult, I can ask for help, I will ask for help if I need to. Is Isn't a way that you know, you regulated yourself? And because I fear is such a primal thing, being able to, you know, distinguish. Is it happening to me now, you know, is this fear true? Is it real fear or is it a perceived fear?
Speaker 2:You know, those kind of things really really help to create this opportunity, to create this window of being able to take one breath. You know, it is one breath at a time. It's not going to be a miraculous overnight. Maybe it will for some, but for most it isn't, you know. But it is one step at a time. If you can do it for one second, and that's great because you're being able to do something that you weren't before, that is a step forward. No matter how small it is, it is a step forward. It is a step towards healing. It is a step towards feeling safer.
Speaker 1:Thank you for listening to this amazing interview with rena. We do have part two next week that will continue to explore the healing journey and also provide Additional tools for healing. Please go to retreat to peace for additional resources and information to help you in your journey. And, as always, this is kathryn daniels, with retreat to peace, reminding you to live your authentic life with peace and, as always, retreat to peace. We'll see you next time.
Speaker 2:You.