Against All Odds Podcast, The Less than 1% Chance with Maria Aponte
Maria highlights stories of people that have been the "less than 1% chance" and have come out of their situations thriving and seeing life as happening FOR them and not TO them! Inspiring and empowering stories that will show you that against all odds you can make it through anything!
Against All Odds Podcast, The Less than 1% Chance with Maria Aponte
Resilience and Redemption: Dr. Ray’s Journey from Adversity to Empowerment
What happens when your life story seems destined for hardship, but you find a way to turn every obstacle into a stepping stone? Today, we're thrilled to share the inspiring odyssey of Dr. Ray, a life and relationship coach who has faced more than his fair share of adversities. Raised in a conservative town as a Jewish and Buddhist child, Dr. Ray's journey from multiple arrests and severe health challenges to achieving a doctorate in clinical psychology is nothing short of extraordinary. Listen as he recounts a pivotal moment of tough love from a teacher that transformed his mindset, setting him on a path of remarkable personal growth.
Have you ever struggled with the emotional turmoil of co-parenting after a separation? Maria opens up about her journey of healing and the profound breakthroughs she experienced in understanding her ex-husband's perspective. Through empathy and therapeutic techniques like hypnotherapy, EMDR, and NLP, Maria's story underscores the importance of acknowledging past experiences and shifting deep-seated beliefs to foster meaningful change. We also introduce insights from a book that explores how overcoming hidden beliefs can lead to mastering life rather than just managing problems.
Family dynamics can be incredibly challenging, especially when past trauma and cultural expectations come into play. Maria, shares her harrowing experience of sexual assault at 16 and the lack of family support that followed. Her story is a powerful testament to the healing potential of open communication and validation. We delve into the importance of creating healthy narratives about one's body and beliefs, separate from familial and cultural pressures. Wrapping up, we explore the broader themes of self-love and compassion, highlighting the importance of finding healing within ourselves, even when external validation is absent. Join us for an episode filled with resilience, healing, and the transformative power of vulnerability.
Find Dr. Ray Doktor:
Instagram: @drraydoktorcoaching
YouTube: @raydoktor
TikTok: @raydoktor
Book: All It Takes Is One
Follow Maria on Facebook HERE
Follow Maria on Instagram HERE
Follow Maria on YouTube HERE
Welcome back to the.
Speaker 2:Against All Odds, the Less Than 1% Chance Podcast with your host, maria Aponte, where we will hear stories of incredible people thriving against all odds, and my hope is that we can all see how life is always happening for us, even when we are the less than 1% chance.
Speaker 1:Hey, hey, welcome back to, against All Odds, the Less Than 1% Chance podcast with your host, maria Aponte. I hope you are doing fantastic today. Boy, do I have a treat for you today? So I wanna introduce you guys to Dr Ray. Doctor, a renowned life and relationship coach since 1995, has empowered over 6,000 clients to break through limiting beliefs and overcome life's challenges, significantly enhancing their confidence, self-trust and happiness. Don't we all need that? Holding a doctorate in clinical psychology, a master's in counseling psychology and a bachelor's in human behavior, dr Ray combines his extensive expertise with advanced techniques like hypnotherapy, which I think is amazing, emdr, which has helped me a lot, nlp and ancient practices such as can you help me with this word?
Speaker 3:Does it say Qigong? Does it say somatic experience? Okay, I wasn't sure.
Speaker 1:Yeah, qigong sorry. No worries. Such as Qigong and meditation, to offer a holistic approach to mental wellness. You are speaking all of my love languages. I love all types of practices that help me understand myself and my brain and how I be, why I behave the way I do, and I have kids, so it helps me immensely with that I'm so I thank you for being on. Give us a little bit about you and maybe you're against all odd stories oh yeah, I can just jump right into it.
Speaker 3:So I'm gonna say a bunch of stuff. So I have been arrested 11 times. I have been in jail. So that's people like what for DUI? So driving under influence. When I was in high school, a bunch of buddies, a couple of buddies of mine we took off with a woman's car, or we were 17 and we crashed it. So Grand Theft Auto.
Speaker 1:Okay.
Speaker 3:Like things like that, like just things. And so I was. I got in trouble. I, things like that, like just things. And so I was. I got in trouble. I so that kind of paints a little bit of story too.
Speaker 3:I was born with crooked legs so I was made fun of literally I had the same experience as Forrest Gump, where I had kids chasing me and I was really fast. Okay, yeah, I won a lot of races. After the fact there was a lot of tension in our home. My father was in Marines for 30 years. He fought in World War II, the Korean War and three tours in Vietnam. So when he came back there was a lot of intensity in our home and I developed a mood and nervous disorder so I started pulling out my hair to where I had bald spots and was made fun of.
Speaker 3:I was also raised Jewish and Buddhist in a conservative town. I can keep going on. I also had really bad asthma, so I would be separated from other children to be given medication when I would have an asthma attack, and I just keep going on and on. But with all of those, it shaped me into who I am and the one experience I had, which is written in my book and it talks about my first really dark night of the soul, and that is where I was a star football player in my junior high and before the season even began, I fractured and broke basically my right leg into 14 different places, and so that was like my sense of self, of being popular, having girls like me, all this kind of pseudo respect, and for two, three months I was really feeling bad for myself.
Speaker 3:I was probably experiencing a mild form of depression, and I've it. There was a teacher named miss Jenkins who I did not like, and she did not like me either. However, she did say something to me that was quite profound and she looked at me. She says, ray, you need to just stop feeling sorry for yourself and get over it. And I get angry. But that's exactly what I did. Yeah.
Speaker 3:And so that was when I was 14 and not that led to healthier lifestyles or lifestyle and choices, but at least it got me out of the victimhood to do something about something I was experiencing that was negative. So that's. There's a lot there you can talk about.
Speaker 1:All kinds of things.
Speaker 3:That led to I dropped out of school before my senior year. I ended up getting my GED when I was like 19. And, of course, later on my later 20s, I finished school and it was like my early 30s when I got my doctorate. So I came from, you know, being having a lot of health challenges to get in trouble with the law, to drop out of school, to earning a doctorate in clinical psychology, and now I'm like a bestselling author as well. So there's more to that too, but that is my- that is just goodness, dr Ray.
Speaker 1:That is amazing. That, yeah, against all odds, for real, I feel like circumstances, even just getting a GED and thinking how, looking back and saying, did you ever think you would be a doctor from that? That is powerful. And it shows us that that our circumstances currently do not determine our future and, and the reality that will come, that we can choose to make changes with that decision. So, oh my gosh, that's amazing. So talk to us a little bit about what number one, you have a book, so I want to hear about that and what, I guess what led to wanting to do a book. I know you, coach, I know you, you you do amazing Because I again, I've experienced myself some of these practices and they've made such a difference in my life. So let's hear a little bit about that. What got you into this, that kind of practice?
Speaker 3:Just like most people who will be listening to this podcast, I imagine that you're on this healing journey. You're recognizing that life could be better. So everyone starts from that point, such as I even write about this in my book. I talk about how people get stuck, and that is the first step is where you recognize that, wow, I've been married five times. Maybe it is me. Or, hey, five people have told me I have a drinking probably problem. Maybe there's truth in that. So it's like you're no longer in denial and getting defensive about it. So that's the first step of healing. Yeah.
Speaker 3:Shit, I have a problem. Two is you start talking about it. Typically you talk to your friends and they're biased, but that's where you feel comfortable. And sometimes your friends will say, yeah, we've always seen that problem, but we didn't want to tell you because you would get defensive. Or they might say I had the same problem too. Three is you might start looking on YouTube to see if other people have problems with this and so forth, and that might lead to like doing your own self-analysis. And the fourth one is where you recognize oh, I'm going to reach out to an expert such as myself or you, maria, and you start talking to that coach or therapist.
Speaker 3:And then that goes into talking about the past, usually where you're a parent was inappropriate or your dad never showed up, or it's usually the conversations about the past, but it usually creates a narrative of still, in a way of victimhood. I am this way because of what was done to me versus I was influenced by this and I started to believe it was my fault. My dad did this and I took it personally when he was working out his issues. So there's a point where you have to step into empowerment, recognize, yes, these things happen, but it's not the totality of who I am.
Speaker 3:They're experiences in which are still maybe not integrated yet into healthy learning, and so, therefore, we're walking around with these outdated programs and traumas to where that's what's ruling our life, and essentially it's this If we don't change our consciousness, we will respond emotionally to even safe experiences. An example would be this so the mother of my child went through so much trauma when she was a child and I never dated her, meaning that we got together, but it was the second time were single people. She didn't give me enough information. She got pregnant and I did not know I had a child until he was five and a half months old oh my gosh, yes but I raised Max full-time on my own.
Speaker 3:I honestly don't have much help from her still, but when she had Max and she was struggling, I was at her apartment and I was basically showing up to because I made good money and I went through a refrigerator and I saw that his supplies were getting short, like his supplements. I do everything for my son, okay, and I text messaged her and said I see that you're out of these products. She responded in a very reactionary way. She said stop snooping around my place, mind your own business. It was aggressive to where, like most parents would go or co-parents would go. Thank you for contributing, thank you for caring about our kid, but I didn't know that she experienced adults and even parents being inappropriate with her. Yeah, getting into her business. She didn't trust anyone, nor did she trust me. Yeah.
Speaker 3:So the first year of our co-parenting was constantly defensive, as if I were a perpetrator.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and.
Speaker 3:I wasn't. So that would be a good example where, if you don't heal your trauma, if you don't heal your story, even good people you won't recognize and you'll create drama with him or her also, because it's not that's how they are. It's that what shows up is how you are and therefore you create problems in a lot of relationships. So we have to look at that and once we heal that, we start having easier relationships, we have better problem-solving skills and our life gets better. But we have to look at things from that perspective and I went through that kind of process of how people go through their healing.
Speaker 3:I would say most traditional therapists stay with what happened to you. So it's not about some solution. It's about them holding the container, them hearing how you feel and, in a way, commiserating to validate you. But if that doesn't move in a direction of better choices, if you are not taking personal responsibility of how you want to live your life now, nothing will change. Therefore, you'll be in therapy for 20 years and many of your friends are saying, will be saying like maybe not to you but to other people, so-and-so goes to therapy. I have no idea what they talk about, because she continues to attract these narcissists. So-and-so goes to therapy and yet I haven't really seen his life change. And it's not judgment, it's that because you got to get out of that story, you got to move in that place to where you're on the other side yeah, I think that it was actually talking.
Speaker 1:I don't remember who I was talking to, but when you mentioned co-parenting, I I had an amazing, amazing father.
Speaker 1:I had amazing parents, but I had an amazing father and he and I were super close and when I separated from my ex-husband, I had this expectation of him showing up, like my dad showed up, and that led to a lot of suffering for me.
Speaker 1:A lot of suffering because he didn't do that. A lot of suffering for me.
Speaker 1:A lot of suffering because he didn't do that. And until I started to heal a lot of parts of me and understand that and just look and have a little bit more empathy and awareness of my ex-husband is already surpassing what he experienced as a child from his dad. So to him, he is a great parent because he shows up every other weekend and every other week in the summer, and to him, he has already surpassed the fact that his dad didn't do that and child support is always on time, doesn't matter that there's other things that I need to provide for, but to him he's showing up as an excellent father, even if it's not at my expectation of what I know as a father, and it was like this eye opening experience and now we have a great relationship, because I don't expect more. I know that he's always trying his best. It's just a different way of looking at him and I think that until I healed myself and understood that wasn't. And I think healing is like an ever evolving.
Speaker 3:It's a forever journey Because sometimes we don't know when things like you say you don't subscribe to the belief that you'll be enlightened and in that one moment, like everything is, everything no angels are flying around.
Speaker 1:You hear beautiful music in the background and hummingbirds flying by I would totally be in a different part of my life right now if that was the case.
Speaker 1:I've done a lot of work on my own healing and which is why again, maybe this is why we connected, because all of this I've done the hypnotherapy, emdr, nlp, all of these things that I continue to practice for myself, because I know that this is a forever evolving things. I have gone through many things in my life and sometimes we can fall back into the trap of this happened and no, no, no, no, no. Like I'm actually really grateful for the things that happened because I am, in my opinion, awesome human being and I always try my best and I always try to help others because of everything that I've gone through and I am strong and I am resilient and I am all of these. I am the parts of who I am because of everything I went through and I don't know. I just I. Just. When you said that sometimes we stay in that victim mentality and just live in there because we haven't healed all those wounds, like deep down stuff, it just resonated with me so much.
Speaker 3:You mentioned that you've been doing this work for a while. I don't know what that means to you or how many actual years that is.
Speaker 1:So a lot of the work that I've done it was most of it has been from nine years ago and on Went to therapy for the first time when I was 19. But that was solely because that was the first time I spoke up about having been sexually assaulted at 16. And, like I say, quiet for three years and that created a lot of disease in my body and when I finally spoke up I felt so much lighter and I didn't until I was like 20. I started dabbling back into the healing. But in the last nine years or so when I started my health journey was when I was like all right, I need to figure me out.
Speaker 3:Yeah, but you mentioned my book and I'm going to bring it up now, not because I'm trying to get people to buy it more. That it's a, I imagine it it's. It could sound like I'm overly confident of saying this, however, if you go and read the reviews that are up right now, they it. That's what the readers are saying. The book was so.
Speaker 3:First off, I've been coaching for almost 30 years. I've seen over 6,000 clients and I trained with some of the greatest renowned coaches, therapists, on the planet. So, as an example, my mentor coached Tony Robbins' teachers. In fact, mentor coach Tony Robbins' teachers. In fact, nlp. Some of the material that's in there was taken from my teacher and he was never given credit. He doesn't care, he's dead right now, but the point is that there's modalities I learned from some pretty great teachers out there. My mentor worked with Fritz Perls, carl Rogers, like these people were, like the pioneers of the 60s who recognized, like cycle analysis, took too long to where there's different ways to make shifts and see rapid movement with a person's transformation. So, based on that approach, my book basically breaks down pretty much almost every secondary gain that clients experience that keep them stuck. It breaks down all the ways that most of us in a Western culture become programmed and how to basically reprogram ourselves so we're not still stuck in the matrix. And so there's a lot of blind spots that happen with a lot of professionals which they don't know. I put that in the book and that's why the book is called. All it Takes is One Drop your One Big Hidden Belief and Master your Life.
Speaker 3:So, such as for yourself, maria, and most people, many people feel as though they maybe have 10 problems and so therefore they keep working on all these problems, but not a whole lot changes. In fact, for the most part they start to manage them better, to where that maybe helps them feel a little bit more in control and empowered, so they do feel better, to where the way they talk about their life is a little bit more positive. So therefore that's also going to increase happy neurochemicals in a body to where we feel better. But as far as what they attract and what they experience, oftentimes a lot doesn't change and therefore that person keeps going to therapy, keeps going to retreats, keeps going to do yoga, to just breathe that shit out of their body because their consciousness hasn't really shipped. And I'll give you a couple examples.
Speaker 3:So if a child were to grow up and be around a parent who said relationships take a lot of work and it takes a lot of compromising and you're never going to be happy, then this child, by witnessing his or her parent on an ongoing basis, never resolving their issues and they're always being tensioned, might find themselves either avoiding relationships and don't know why, or being in relationships that are toxic, and they don't know the difference because they were programmed to believe relationships take a lot of work. The hidden belief might be this I'm afraid to be like my parents or I'm afraid to be stuck, I'm afraid to lose my autonomy. So therefore, instead of really understanding that or removing that and shifting that, they always find themselves in relationships they compromise themselves in. But the real issue was this that parents never learned how to communicate authentically. Their parents were never transparent about what they were feeling to resolve and to expand when working with, say, a client like that, and we uncover that we work on their core beliefs, such as I'm afraid to be myself to. I didn't know I could be myself to. Oh my God, I don't have to compromise myself to where then they end up being in a healthy relationship. So that would be an example, and another one would be this Some people get really tied into their victim mentality.
Speaker 3:Now, this is not dismissing that something had happened to you. However, if you were touched inappropriately, not just once but twice, by a family member or someone close to you, then there might be a hidden belief that people get close to you also hurt you. That's a hidden belief. Therefore, that person might remain in casual relationships to where. Here's something that I'm just going to. It's a generalization, but I've heard it not just once. Like at least 50 times I have worked with women who've become strippers. Almost every one of them have been raped, some type of sexual assault, and they've told me that they had a love-hate relationship with men and there was parts of them that felt empowered to take the man's money and to basically manipulate them.
Speaker 3:Yeah, it definitely makes sense, yes, so a lot of times what happens is that we don't really heal what happened. We end up moving more into survival, to move into the pseudo position of being empowered. We keep people at bay, we date people that we can control and it's just because we're not dealing with that true inner belief such as, I'm afraid, to be vulnerable, the program might be people who get close to you end up hurting you. Yeah.
Speaker 3:And these people will go read like relationship books. They'll work with a subpar coach and they'll tell that woman or man, you need to be more masculine or feminine. If you wear these types of clothes, you'll have people be attracted onto you to tell a woman you need to tell the man, you, that you appreciate him and all this surface shit. It doesn't work because vibrationally, emotionally, he or she is still afraid and until they own that and integrate that, what will show up is still the same thing. I date him or her because it's safe.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, that makes so much sense. I love that and you better believe that I'm definitely going to get in your book after we finish, because I agree it is core beliefs from, and I can even look back and see the repetition of these core beliefs, that core belief in my own situation.
Speaker 1:And so I can understand everything that you said right now, because I'm like, oh my God, that makes so much sense. If I look back, it all has a general like a. It's like a funnel, right. All of these things happen, but it all ends up in that same feeling or thought process. I guess you can call it. I love that.
Speaker 3:How did you so? What culture did you come from? What did you experience as a younger girl?
Speaker 1:So I'm Puerto Rican and very Catholic, so put those two together. I had yeah it was very protective childhood, so a lot of-.
Speaker 3:You mean sheltered.
Speaker 1:Sheltered, yeah, sheltered, very sheltered, and you don't speak of anything. I'm the complete opposite with my kids. I speak to my kids about everything and I opened that door because I felt like nothing was able to be talked about, because it would be immediately criticized, it would be like it wouldn't be validated, it wouldn't. I didn't know what I was talking about, kind of thing.
Speaker 3:So just notice that for a moment. Isn't that interesting before you? I don't mean, it's just this. So basically, at an early age, you're being programmed that what you say is not important or truth. So imagine that, developing to your teenage years and young adult years, you're not trusting yourself in decisions.
Speaker 1:Absolutely and in so many levels. So when I got sexually assaulted at 16, I was babysitting the the parent of the child was living with her parents and her brother in this household, right, and she wanted to go out. She was newly single and she went out and I was the babysitter. Brother comes in, he's 26, I, I was 16. And he assaulted me and I didn't say anything to my family. Why? Because they were just going to criticize and they weren't going to validate what I needed.
Speaker 3:Blame me for how you dressed, or something like that.
Speaker 1:Oh, my God, you took the words right out of my mouth. It is exactly what I felt I was like. Maybe my shorts or shirt, my, it was too short and it was what at 16, everything that I like I looked for. How I was to blame in this, so I, I stayed quiet, I didn't say anything. And then they asked my parents if I could babysit again, and it happened a second time and again I just didn't think I could say anything. So I kept it to myself. And as soon as I turned 18, the first woman checkup that I went to, I had cervical cancer and Nobody understood how it wasn't in my family. How did I have cervical cancer? I knew how the doctor told me you had HPV, the strand that caused cancer, and this is how it had happened, and I knew who. Tell anybody that. This is the reason why, because I won't be validated and it's it'll still be my fault.
Speaker 3:Yes.
Speaker 1:And so it that just kept happening. And until I was 19 and the cancer had come back and I was like dealing with the depression of just keeping all this in. And I was going to cosmetology school at the time and I stopped going to school and the director called me and she's like Maria, I'm going to have to call your parents because they're paying for the school and you're not showing up. And I was like, no, no, no, miss Baker, I will go in and we'll talk. And that was the first time I said anything about what happened to me. And it's crazy, the person that I ended up telling her daughter had experienced that. So she kind of like took me in and was like, all right, you're gonna go to this therapist because this is like a practice that really deals with women that have gone through assault and blah, blah, blah. And so it was just the first time I felt heard and it was outside of my family. Yes, and for my, for the. So I finally told at that point he was my ex husband, but at that point he was my fiance. I told him what happened and he went crazy and he was like you got to tell your parents. And I'm like no, I don't, no, I don't. And I remember for a month I was like, no, I'm not telling them, because they're going to end up telling me that it was my fault and they're going to end. I already knew what was going to happen and I didn't say anything.
Speaker 1:And one day my sister she's three years younger than me and she had a friend of hers that we were coming back from church I remember this like yesterday and she came my mom was telling us that her friend that I did not like very much was pregnant and she had called it rape and she was like demeaning her in a way, not validating that this was. And I didn't know it could have been that she was just calling it that. And I kept trying to like to vouch for her no, you never know, and whatever. And my mom looked back at me and she's you don't even like her. Why are you so defensive of her? And at that point I blurted it out and what exactly?
Speaker 1:What I thought was exactly how it happened. And they called me all kinds of names and I was like I can't, I've been going to therapy and I know this is not my fault. And I was like I'm leaving, I'm moving out, and they're like, oh, you just want to do that to go live with, with your fiance. And I'm like, no, I wanted to get married for real out of my house, and that's just not what I'm okay with. I'm not okay with you guys not believing me, and so that was how that situation happened. But it's become that underlying, like well, they're just not gonna believe me.
Speaker 3:And yeah, so experience, it's this. So in my book there is a process where it gets into religion, it gets into sexuality. For a person to create a healthy narrative for him or herself, what that means to them, not what they're taught by their culture or parents, or even be shaped by trauma. But how do I love my body? Now, number two there's an initiation process where I go through as many beliefs that are Western culture or collectively, that we, whether we're conscious of them or not, and we release those beliefs such as this If you were really to ask yourself these questions about your parents, you maybe would have shared this information anyway or not. And that is this In this initiation process in my book, we end up recognizing how we project, how we want our parents to be, and we let go of those expectations and from that we recognize that they're dealing with their own stuff to where they're doing the best that they're conscious of. Yeah, so the real discomfort for them was this they're afraid of change, they're afraid to ask questions as well, they're afraid to challenge all that they've come to know because it's their identity. Okay, the other part is this If they're a part of this identity, then what comes with part of this identity is having the perfect, untouchable daughter. To where we can keep her safe. So there's this reality in which they subscribe to, whether it's conscious or unconscious, that nothing can happen to our daughter. The moment that doesn't happen, they have difficulty taking personal responsibility to recognize, oh my God, we are wrong. Oh my God, our daughter might not be safe, oh my God, there's real evil on the planet, and so forth. And so people parents will live in this bubble to keep themselves safe and therefore, if children or people, other family members or just anyone challenges that belief system, they could get defensive. They can try to turn around and blame it on that other person. To where they don't get to the truth. I'll just give you an example. So most people were not really speaking the truth when it came to COVID and when I say, that is, you have the vaxxers and you have the anti-vaxxers.
Speaker 3:And if the vaxxers and the anti-vaxxers were to truly say these things like this, I am afraid to die and I'm uncertain. I'm afraid to lose my autonomy and my family. I need to keep working. I'm afraid that my kid is going to suffer by wearing the mask. Can you help me? I'm afraid that this is going to turn to a fascist country and therefore I'm afraid to conform. I'm afraid that this is too new and, from what I read, that this is something that could be detrimental. I don't want to take this experimental drug. I'm afraid that I'll lose my family members and connection to them. I'm talking about just the real fear, because it wasn't a left or right thing, nor was it truly a pro-vaxxer or anti-vaxxer. It was a human problem. We shared the same fears, such as how am I going to take care of my family? Yeah.
Speaker 3:How am I going to pay my bills? How will I be able to see my parent again without me getting them sick? Like we all have the same concerns, but instead of owning that, we went on social media and attacked each other.
Speaker 1:And bashed yeah, exactly, yeah, yeah. And then later on to realize wait a minute, there was truth in all of it.
Speaker 3:Maybe, yeah absolutely Everyone's discovering like wait a minute, there was some fishy stuff here, and I know there's some people really believe that the media is true. They're like, oh, my.
Speaker 3:God, I believe everything on CNN or Fox News and people who are a little bit more awake or doing the research you've got to. I'm sure you're now going. Wait a minute. I'm seeing a lot of pharmaceutical ads right now too. Oh my God. Oh, how many millions of people died by getting a vaccine too. But if we would have just owned our own fears and been transparent same thing, I'm connecting this to your parents then the truth would be this I'm having a hard time, maria, hearing you, and I'm so sorry. I'm so sorry you experienced this. It makes me feel like a shitty parent. Oh my God, it's making me question my religion. Oh my God, like I have to live in my own bubble. If they could just say that to you, then it would be where you both can meet in the middle. You would have said no, it happened, it just happened. How do we heal it now? I don't want to keep. It's just not about you being a good parent or a bad parent, but what you just did again was not support me as an adult.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and so three years ago I was working with a mindset coach and this came up because I have zero problems in talking about my story. So I believe that I went through it and I'm here. So I need to speak up because there's other people that were in the same spot that I was in and or that are in the same spot that I was in and, if I can maybe shift a little bit of what they're going through, I I've helped somebody and so I went through. I was working with them, we were doing like a group coaching thing with my mindset coach and I brought this up and he did a one on one coaching in front of this group and he challenged me to have a conversation with my parents, without the expectation of what I expected them to react, but just letting them know and not accusatory, but have a conversation as to. Hey, so you remember this situation.
Speaker 1:I feel like how I needed you to show up was as a supportive and loving parent that hugged me and told me I'm going to get emotional, that everything was going to be okay, and so my dad was dealing with cancer and I felt like I need, if I'm going to have this conversation, it has to happen like soon.
Speaker 1:And I did have that conversation and my mom has always been very dry, very. She is not the huggygy, feely kind of person. My dad is him and I have like love, language, of physical touch through and through, and I sat them down and I was like I'm not accusing you, I'm a parent and I understand that we just do the best that we can. I get it and there isn't a manual and of how to to any situation. But I can tell you that what I felt like I needed in that moment was your love and your support, and I didn't get that and that's why I left. So I just want to let you know that all I needed at that moment was a hug, and my mom was the one that was like I think it's time to give you a hug and it was just a very healing moment. Sorry, I didn't mean to get all emotional.
Speaker 3:No, this happens almost on every podcast I do to be honest, yeah, it does.
Speaker 1:But it was like it was such a healing moment.
Speaker 1:And number one I've always just had this otter relationship with my mom because we don't speak the same languages.
Speaker 1:I know what she, how she feels, loved acts of service through and through, and so I always know that if I help her with something, she just is elated, but it's not reciprocated. And the fact that she was the first one to be like let me give you a hug now. I think that's what you need now and I just melted and it just felt like the little 16 year old me was like this is what I wanted the whole time and it was very healing. But I now see that, having my own children and I try to tell them all the time listen, you don't come with a manual, and I'm doing the best that I can, and if I feel like I was out of line for anything, I will be the first to tell you that I'm sorry that I'm here for you. However, you'd like to continue this conversation and I think that I'm I guess I'm very proud of the parent that I've become, that I've learned to become because of the things that I went through myself.
Speaker 3:Thank you for sharing that. I'd love to share something with that before we end this conversation, and it's this. I imagine there are listeners who will say I can't have that with my dad or mom because they died, or they'll connect the idea to if I get that as well, that's what will heal this. So you are fortunate enough to experience that, so that's also something I try to share, which is a hidden collective narrative, and that is this. Now, this is going to sound strange. This is that I'm so happy that you had that experience, but it's that we're here on our own free will and, while we want a parent to love us, that no parent is obligated to. In fact, a lot of humans don't even love themselves. Yeah.
Speaker 3:So when we remember that people love others as well as they love themselves, it gives us, it helps us be a little more compassionate for ourselves, but also the expectations we might put onto another human being that will actually keep us in our own psychological prison because they're never going to be able to love us because they still hate themselves. Yeah, and I've seen that to where there will be people talking about a particularly like a narcissistic father and they'll hold their life like on a layaway plan and keep talking about how I'm never getting to get this from this bastard. It was always about him and where they're right. So the way to empower ourselves is to recognize this. It's true, maria, you wanted that hug and that is so beautiful and I validate that. It is true that for you that having a human being there to comfort you and to tell you it wasn't your fault would have been so much more healing. Yeah.
Speaker 3:But also just recognize the expectations that you have for that, and you were to turn that around in a way in which you were clear what you desired, such as a hug. Would it be enough to be hugged by three people who see you and not your parents? Would it have been enough for you, for a strong, wise woman, to look at you and say you're so beautiful, and it happened to me also, and I love you? And what I'm trying to share here is that more than half the people listening to this are not going to get that hug or an apology, and so, therefore, they wait, and nothing ever changes in our life.
Speaker 3:It's important to recognize that we need to love ourselves first and we need to be able to start from there. And if we're not able to experience that from a family member or the perpetrator, that we do that for ourselves anyway.
Speaker 1:Yeah, absolutely One of the things that before I had that conversation that ended up. Thankfully, I went to therapy before I had the conversation and one of the most important things that my therapist told me was make sure that you yes, you wish for this, but be prepared to hug yourself.
Speaker 3:Yes, good advice yes.
Speaker 1:And so I did go in to that conversation preparing myself to hug me and be there for Maria, because I didn't know how that was going to go.
Speaker 3:Yes, that is perfect. Yeah, that's what people tell me. I want to write this letter to my dad or mom. I'm like how would you want to feel anyway if it was not well received? So they would meditate. We would do guided imagery, so they would be happy anyway, my dad or mom. I'm like how would you want to feel anyway if it was not well received? So they would meditate, we would do guided imagery, so they would be happy anyway, and then they would send the letter, or maybe not, because sometimes they would feel good anyway and they would think I don't need to say anything to him because I know what's going to happen.
Speaker 3:I'm just going to love myself anyway.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I love that. Anyways, oh my gosh, I could probably talk to you forever. This was amazing, thank you so very much.
Speaker 1:Thank you so very much. Definitely didn't expect to get all emotional, but I think that's just part of that healing process. So, thank you, I will put all of his information for his book and everything, because, seriously, don't walk, run and get that book now. I think it will, if it's anything of as what I felt in this episode. I'm definitely excited for all of you to start this journey as well, cause healing is, I think, everybody needs that Everybody needs a lot of healing.
Speaker 3:It was, I had a good time. Thank you for being so vulnerable and in your heart.
Speaker 1:Yeah, absolutely. Thank you, Dr Ray, and I hope you have a wonderful rest of your day. Listeners, thank you so much for listening in Peace out guys Love your life.
Speaker 3:Bye, bye to there.
