Empowered Ease
Welcome to Empowered Ease, hosted by Jenn Ohlinger—a holistic coach, founder of The Moonflower Collective, and critical care nurse dedicated to revolutionizing women's health. Join us each week as we delve into the transformative stories of healers, health practitioners, and everyday women like you, challenging the patriarchal framework through empowerment and holistic healing. Through engaging storytelling, our podcast highlights each woman's unique journey toward embracing their feminine gifts, trusting their body, and prioritizing their mind, body, and soul. Discover how by empowering ourselves, we can pave the way for stronger relationships and a more balanced world.
Empowered Ease
Elicia Ybarra on Martial Arts, Resilience, and Overcoming Abuse
Hi!! I would love to hear from you!
Elicia Ybarra defied gender stereotypes in martial arts by embracing her unique style, all while building a brand around the color pink, despite the critics. As a seasoned martial artist with expertise in karate and Taekwondo. Elicia joins us to share her journey of empowerment and resilience. We discuss the importance of boundaries and trust in intuition, women's self-defense, the struggle women face in finding female-led self-defense classes, and how martial arts can be a vital tool for self-empowerment, especially in places like the Midwest where such classes are sparse.
Elicia’s story is one of personal growth, marked by a series of transformative experiences. We navigate through her tumultuous teenage years and an engagement in a controlling environment that almost derailed her dreams. Listen as she recounts breaking free from an abusive relationship, celebrating her newfound freedom and independence with bold actions that signified her journey towards self-discovery. Her story is a testament to resilience and the power of reclaiming one's life after overcoming manipulation and control.
We also tackle the difficult topic of abusive relationships, focusing on the healing process and the critical importance of setting personal boundaries. Elicia shares insights from her own experiences, emphasizing the significance of therapy, community support, and self-care in overcoming abuse and trauma. From understanding the complexities of manipulation to recognizing the subtle signs of abuse, this episode serves as a guide for those facing similar situations, offering practical advice and empowering listeners to recognize their self-worth and the power of leaving toxic environments.
Empowering Women Through Self-Defense and Resilience
Elicia Ybarra is a seasoned martial artist, dedicated women's self-defense instructor, and passionate advocate for empowering women to live confidently and fearlessly. With over two decades of martial arts experience, including a 4th dan black belt in Taekwondo and a 1st dan black belt in Hapkido, Elicia has transformed her personal journey of resilience into a mission to uplift others.
As the founder of Pretty Hands, Hard Punches, Elicia uses her own experiences overcoming abuse and exploitation within the martial arts industry to teach women practical self-defense techniques, boundary-setting, and how to recognize and stand against abuse. Her unique approach combines technical skill, emotional intelligence, and empowerment to help women build physical and mental strength.
www.prettyhandshardpunches.com if you want more information
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and welcome to empowered ease. I have a very amazing guest today, Alicia Ybarra. She is a women's empowerment and women's self-defense. That's the word I'm looking for. Thank you so much. Self-defense coach.
Speaker 2:Welcome. Thanks so much for coming on the podcast. Thank you so much for having me.
Speaker 1:I'm really excited, yay, okay, so I have looked up very little about you so I could ask you as much as I could on here but so I know you're located in California. Where are you located in California?
Speaker 2:I am located in Southern California, in Downey. It's right outside LA. For anybody that doesn't know California, I'm about 16 miles from LA.
Speaker 1:Love it. And for those of you that cannot see, she's like the lady in pink. Everything I see in her she's in bright pink and I love it. She's got a cute pink jacket on right now. So tell me a little bit about the pink I see all over your stuff. I love it.
Speaker 2:So I am a lifelong martial artist. I've been training for 30 years this year and when I first started martial arts, it was not very female at all Wellased because you know, martial arts was considered a very masculine sport and so a lot of the boys would tease me about being too masculine. So I would paint my nails pink, like that was my thing. And as I got older, pink just began to be a part of my wardrobe.
Speaker 2:When I did competitions, my uniform was black and pink and I would get a lot of hate for it as a matter of fact, especially by, like traditional instructors and masters, because they would I had one give me a zero in my competition and tell me that I was a disgrace to the art because I was wearing like a pink uniform. So when I decided to open, it was it was really bad Like I got a lot, a lot of flack for it. So when I decided to open my women's self-defense program, I was like you know what? Like F it, I'm going to do everything pink. So my logo is actually like the martial arts hands right, as if you were bowing with pink nails, and so in all of my interviews and when I teach, I have a pink uniform with my black belt. I wear pink.
Speaker 1:Oh, I've seen your pink gi and I was like that is so cool.
Speaker 2:Absolutely Like I. Really it's a big finger to all of those instructors that told me that you know this wasn't my place and I wasn't, I shouldn't be teaching and you know my job was to look pretty and sell contracts, not to teach martial arts. So that's kind of where the pink comes from. I it's been integrated into pretty much everything I do with my business and and my personal life. I wear a lot of pink in general.
Speaker 1:I love that so much. I love it. That's amazing. So tell me a little bit about how you use martial arts to empower, actually, hold on. Where did you start in martial arts? What kind of martial arts did you start out in?
Speaker 2:Originally I started in karate Okay and I earned my first black belt in karate. That's where I did most of my tournaments. I was a pretty serious competitor for about 10 years in my early adolescence and then I switched over to Taekwondo, which for your listeners it's very similar. It's almost the same exact way of learning.
Speaker 1:I took Judo when I was little. I remember that it was like a lot of hip throws.
Speaker 2:Yeah, a lot of throwing, a lot of leverage. I took some Judo. I trained in Jiu-Jitsu for about three years in my early 20s this was before jujitsu was really like popular with women. Now you can go to like all female classes. I was like when I trained.
Speaker 1:I'm in the Midwest. They still don't have that stuff, so very cool.
Speaker 2:I'm in Southern California. You know we're a little bit more like open to that. You know we're a little bit more like open to that. Yeah, yeah, you are, I've trained in Muay Thai swords.
Speaker 1:Uh, I hold a black belt in hockey.
Speaker 2:Yeah, swords is fun, it's very, it's very pretty. Like if you, if you imagine a martial arts being about painting it's swords, like I'm gonna go on after this, yeah, you should, it's, it's, it's very pretty, it's very, it's like what you would see in movies, you know, it's like very elegant and flowy. Um, jujitsu is, uh, it's really more ground fighting for your listeners, right? I think that it's important if, if a woman wants to learn a martial arts, I usually suggest starting with jujitsu. If you find a place you're comfortable with because almost any time, as a woman, you're attacked, you're it's, you're taken to the ground, right. What are they going to do? They're going to put you on the ground and jujitsu teaches you what to do when you're on the ground. How do you?
Speaker 1:get out of that. Yeah, I like that. It's like all about taking advantage of what you have with you Right, isn't? I don't know? I'm like, no, I love Joe Rogan, um, but yes, if a woman wants to get into it, to start with jujitsu.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's what I always suggest. I mean really any self-defense class will help a woman, like anywhere you can get into. A lot of times local police stations will offer self-defense classes. Sometimes local martial arts school will. What I found is usually it's ran by a man. So if you have trauma of any sort, walking into a testosterone filled you know, muscles bulging man class can be difficult. So you should try to find like a woman run one. But a lot of times, especially in places like the Midwest, it's simply not available.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I would rather learn, I think, wrestling with a woman than a man. I want to feel strong by the time I have to like and just prove that I can do it, and I don't really want to like practice on them, you know so tell me about how, how, um. What do you when you train women in self-defense as your? What is your practice? Is it a mix of all of it or is it specific? What do you do?
Speaker 2:So I train women in all aspects of self-defense so often as any, anybody, but mainly because I teach women. I'm going to speak to women Mainly. When women are taught self-defense, they're taught the physical reaction to an attack. What do you physically do when somebody grabs your wrist, grabs your hair? But I teach an overall aspect of self-defense which is like you need to know physically what to do. But those are very basic, simple techniques that any woman can learn that I've developed with the help of multiple masters across various forms of martial arts.
Speaker 2:But there's also another aspect. There's how do you protect your mental and emotional space? How do you avoid getting into that physical altercation in the first place? And that's where the empowerment self-defense model comes in. It's called a think yell, run, fight, tell. And it really focuses on situational awareness, using things like your language, tone and posture, understanding how to escape danger, not just fight back, but like how do you get away If you can run away, run away. You know 85% of women who run away get away.
Speaker 2:A lot of times the perpetrators are looking for an easy compliant victim. They're not looking for somebody to fight back. There's a whole statistic on that. Um, so you, you think. You think you use situational awareness, you use your language, tone and posture, you run, and then, if none of that works, how do you physically get out of this situation? And you know, I always thought that like if I fought back, if I was ever attacked because I was a martial artist and I was great at sparring that I was going to do some like super cool, ninja, shit Right. And I was just going to like totally like yeah, you know, like sidekick and spinning hook kick and you know all these fancy things that you see in like martial arts movies.
Speaker 2:But the reality is when I was attacked by my ex-boyfriend and abuser, I used the basic technique of a palm strike, which is opening your hand and using the palm of your hand as a weapon, and that is how I survived. There was no like spinning round jump, you know, twirling kicks. It was very basic moves. I grabbed his, grabbed his Adam's apple, I pulled it. I broke his nose with my hand. You know like then I punched the hell out of him, but it wasn't until I got out of. He was choking me, just so you know like then I punched the hell out of him, but it wasn't until I got out of he was choking me, just so. Your listeners know that's a lot of times that's what men will do when they're trying to like make you listen. Um and so when, what I teach is I teach very basic moves that women can go home and practice with their spouse or with their friends, so that when the time comes, if they have to use it, they're not trying to remember something fancy.
Speaker 2:Their body just responds. And their body responds by hitting in the eyes, the nose or the throat, because most of the time you know, if you're not bear hugged from behind, you are either choked or your wrist is grabbed Like. Those are the two main ones. Sometimes your hair will be grabbed. A lot of these techniques can be used in any of those situations. And oh, real quick. Finally, the fifth one cause I didn't grab it is tell it's how do you, what do you do If something happens to you? Most of the time, women are not taught what to do that. So by the time we come into that, it's trauma, right, we're traumatized. We don't know what to do. The judicial system's not set up to protect us and it's only set up to defend us and hold the person accountable if the police officers, the investigators and the prosecutors believe us. If they don't believe you, they're not going to investigate. So what do you do when something happens? That's how I teach Marge, how I teach self-defense.
Speaker 1:Oh my gosh, you just touched on so many things that I could talk about for like a million effing years. I love it. So I mean, seriously, you did you like, went straight for the meat. I love it.
Speaker 2:Have you listened to?
Speaker 1:that podcast Um something was wrong.
Speaker 2:I have not.
Speaker 1:No, it's all about well, it tells like victim stories. Each season has like a different they'll do like cults, but they've done a lot of like narcissistic abuse or like the kind of habitual lying and stuff like that. But they tell it from like the victim stance and then they always educate on like what to do in those situations and then, like you know, the whole thing is victim based, which I love because most of the stories are not, but it's touching on so much stuff here that they talked on and like teach you. So I'm like, oh, my God, you are, you know what you're talking about. I love this so much.
Speaker 2:Okay, your mic cut out. Oh, wait, there you are, am I?
Speaker 1:there're there, don't move. No, I need to stop touching it. I keep touching it. Um, no, touchy, so, um, clearly you have a story. Is this the story that got you into teaching women's empowerment and martial arts with this abusive ex of yours?
Speaker 2:It's part of it. So as a lifelong martial artist, I faced pretty much systematic abuse from the very beginning, because I was a female martial artist in a time where there wasn't a lot. So at 13, I was groomed by my 22 year old instructor and by 16, he was having sex with me. That completely, like, alienated me from anybody my age and it really affected every aspect of how I made choices for several years following that, and I didn't even know that I was a victim. I thought that I was, that I was an equal to him and I was making these decisions as an adult.
Speaker 2:But the reality was with a lot of therapy, I have realized that a lot of those things were very much out of my control and he manipulated, coerced those vulnerabilities in order to get what he wanted from me. And to make matters worse, he had a pregnant fiance while he was telling me he loved me and he wanted to have sex with me, and so finally, when I had sex with him, he decided that he wanted to keep me a secret. So he told me like hey, let's not tell anybody, I love you. And he basically told me once my fiance has this baby, we're broken up, we're just pretending to be together so that it doesn't look bad on my school, because he was my martial arts instructor. But once she has the baby, I'm going to break up with her and I'm going to leave her, and then we're good. Then you're going to raise this baby with me. And so at 16, I was ready to drop out of high school, get my GED and just raise this man's baby, and I mean, I think it goes to my immaturity at that time that I like thought somehow that was all going to be kosher and it was just going to work
Speaker 2:out. And then when I finally called him out and realized that he had been lying to me, he flipped that script real quick. I was a whore, I seduced him, I was tempting him, I tried to ruin his family and I honestly believed him Like I really was, like, oh, I'm such an awful person, and that put me in a very vulnerable state. And then the next school that I went to, when I tried to pick up all the pieces that I had just lost, the owner of that franchise immediately set me up with his son and I started dating his son.
Speaker 2:And then before I was actually just getting a lot of congratulations on this engagement at 19 years old to his son and they were planning this wedding him and the owner and his wife. And you know I was like dead inside because I was like I don't want to, I don't want to get married and have kids. Right now I'm 19 years old, like my goal is to open my own martial arts school and be the head instructor, and after three years, in a very highly controlled and abusive environment where this franchise owner pretty much had control over every aspect of my life, to the point where every month he would have me point that print out my bank statements and he would go through all my purchases with him and his wife and they would let me know everything I shouldn't be buying so that I could budget better, because when I had a family with their son, I was going to need to be on better, a better budget.
Speaker 1:Girl, how did you survive all of this crazy shit?
Speaker 2:I ended up in a very abusive relationship, my friend, Understandably understandably.
Speaker 2:So it all ended right before I turned 21. Um, I realized there was, there was a moment like you know, you hear all of those and all of in all these podcasts right, there's that bubble bursting moment. And my moment was when this franchise owner finally got really angry with me because I was upset that the instructor that was hired after me was making $6 more an hour than I was, but I was still required to do all of the work. And he finally got upset and he said Alicia, your job is to look pretty and sell contracts. You're we will never be the head instructor. You are 20 years old. You look like you're 15.
Speaker 2:And the only reason a man would ever come into your school is to fuck you. And the only reason a man would ever come into your school is to fuck you. That's it. That's what you're here for. Your job is to have is to help the family goals, to sell contracts and to be a good wife to my son. If you can't do that, you're going to have problems. And that was the moment I realized that, throughout all of these years of trying to work hard to own my own school, that I was being trained to be the wife of a school owner, not to be an instructor myself.
Speaker 2:And just so your listeners understand, and the way that I explain it to a lot of people, including my own husband, is like imagine going to medical school. At this point I was 17 years of training in martial arts. Imagine going to medical school, getting all the way through medical school, getting all the way through medical school and then having your in-laws be like okay, you're going to do great as a secretary, sit here and look pretty please. Yeah, you're go ahead and greet the customers, but you know your big bad husband.
Speaker 1:He's going to be the one that, like is rides off of all of your oh my gosh, if listeners, if you could see the facial expressions I'm making through this whole story. I'm like what it's facial gymnastics, I'm telling you, oh my God, so tell me, how old are you now?
Speaker 2:I'm 35 now Okay. So, this happened two weeks before I turned 21 and I went pretty crazy. I went home to my hometown I was living in, I grew up in Northern California, I moved to Southern California, I went back home to Northern California and two weeks before I turned 21, I shotgunned a beer for the first time, got a tattoo and bought a pack of cigarettes For the first time For the first time shotgunned a beer bought a pack of cigarettes, I got a tattoo. I still. It's the only tattoo I have.
Speaker 1:Can I ask you what it is? Are you willing to share what your tattoo is? Yeah it's a lotus, it's on my hip.
Speaker 2:It's like very basic. I love it. That's cute. No, a lotus is beautiful.
Speaker 1:It has beautiful symbolism. I love it. Yeah, it's hard punches. I love it, so keep going. I just got excited Sorry.
Speaker 2:You're perfectly fine. I know it's like it's so overwhelming when people first hear it because they're just like oh my God, it was just abuse after abuse after abuse.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and I have so many questions, but I want to hear the whole thing.
Speaker 2:So so I, for a year, I partied pretty much nonstop, you know I was drinking it like every night. Like me and my like high school friends were now 21. So we were out at the bar, you know like time and that's where I met my abuser.
Speaker 2:He was, I think, four or five years older than me. He made great money. He was like six to a construction worker in good shape, told me everything I wanted to hear. You know I had spilled my guts about all this abuse and he absolutely filed that away to use at a later time. Um quickly isolated me from all my friends and family and I had spent 18 months with him in a very physically, emotionally and family and I had spent 18 months with him in a very physically, emotionally, sexually abusive relationship.
Speaker 2:Finally, when I fought back was what I was talking about when I used the palm strike and you know, he was choking me and I firmly believe that like he would have killed me that night, like he wanted me to die, he hated me with every ounce of his being. I had caught him cheating. That's what the whole fight was about. And then he kicked my dog. He was choking me and I had a little, you know, six pound Chawini I had named Rocky Balboa, who was my baby, and he kicked my dog and as I was like passing out and I was starting to see all the black dots, I heard my dog yelp and that was what empowered me to fight back. It wasn't for my own life.
Speaker 1:It was your mommy instinct.
Speaker 2:Oh girl, I beat the hell out of him. I broke his ribs, I like broke his nose.
Speaker 1:For those of you that can't see, I have like a hundred pound cane Corso in the room and I anyone touched her, I'd lose my shit.
Speaker 2:Right, like that was his mistake, like yeah, he would have killed me, had he not kicked my dog because I didn't have anything and I felt like I deserved the abuse, like I was such a bad person and I had been forced in you by these other people.
Speaker 1:So tell me how long were you with this guy before this? He escalated to this point. How long was the relationship?
Speaker 2:Not that it matters.
Speaker 1:I'm just curious, it was a total of 18 months.
Speaker 2:So the first six months everything was bliss, honeymoon trips to San Francisco and spoiling Love bomb, love bomb, love bomb. Yeah, and then I moved in with him and that was when everything changed. Then he wanted me to quit my job and I didn't like my job. So I quit my job and now I was. I was financially relying on him and then he took my car because his car broke down. So now I had no car. And then he took my phone because his phone wasn't working and even though he was making great money, we still were always broke, turns out. Just so everyone knows he had an extra girlfriend on the side that he was also spending all this money on, so that's where the money went. But yeah, when I caught him cheating, that night was how it all ended, because at that point I had had a little bit of separation from him. I was very sick Throughout that 18 months I was pretty much on a steady diet of weed and vodka.
Speaker 2:I was not living my best life by any means. Yeah, numbing you were hurting. Yeah, I mean I was. I didn't know what trauma was at the time. I didn't learn that until my 30s, but I was definitely having a lot of trauma triggers, and he was a very practiced abuser. He knew exactly what, what buttons to push and when, so that he could flip it around on me very easily. Push and win, so that he could flip it around on me very easily. So I fought back and then, you know, the story actually has a good ending. I got my, I went away that night, I left him.
Speaker 2:I never went back. I got my life together. I started college, I went and got a degree in information technology. I remet my now husband. When we were in our 20s. I was actually his taekwondo instructor when we were teenagers.
Speaker 1:Oh, yeah, and then I love the story that comes back around. I don't know it comes back around I had a great ending.
Speaker 2:He is an incredible man. He has taught me what true love really is, what patience and understanding and what a healthy relationship looks like, because up until this point I hadn't had one. I didn't know what healthy meant. I thought healthy meant like doing what I was told, and I'm not really one to do what I'm told, so flying being easy, being like yeah, all that thing went.
Speaker 1:They women, yeah, oh my yeah.
Speaker 2:Oh my gosh.
Speaker 1:So tell me, okay, um, how long? Well, actually, the other. I think, before we get into that, a lot of women find themselves in this situation to different, varying degrees. Right and it's all. It's like you, it's great one day, and then all of a sudden, it's not. And the truth is, there's subtle signs in the beginning and we ignore them because there's so much good going on, there's so many good hormones being released from all the positive things that happen in the love bombing and your trust. It's our natural instinct to trust. When someone is you know, it's like it's never your fault. It's always your good nature that someone who is a predator comes and preys on. So I guess it's such a complicated situation and most women are already in it when they realize that they're deep, when they realize, oh shit, this is what's happening to me. So what kind of advice or tips or what was your experience with this that you would share with women who are listening to this? Thinking like this might be me. This is a pattern I keep finding myself in.
Speaker 2:So first is learning to set boundaries for yourself right. That helps you understand your self-worth and your self-value, and the moment that you understand that you are worth more than the way that this person is treating you, you can start creating an exit plan. Now for me, I was very, very lucky that my family lived in town. They had a room that I could come stay at. I had no children with him, so when I decided to leave, I was able to leave. He did stalk me for several months, but ultimately I had what I would say a very easy split because, although there was emotional trauma that I had to deal with, I didn't have children involved. When I walked away, I was able to do a clean cut.
Speaker 2:For the women that do have those strings attached they've had children or they haven't had a job for several years my best suggestion is to start planning an escape route, start figuring out how you can get out and that is very, very difficult. I do not say that any type of easy way right. This isn't a clean split if you have children, but by getting a firm sense of yourself, a firm sense of boundaries, you can start seeing when those are being pushed and you can start figuring out ways to kind of push back If you have all financial dependence on somebody. Start looking into women's shelters, because a lot of times women's shelters will help you get placed in a job If he has custody or you both have custody because you're living together and you want to get custody. Start, if it's safe, keeping a notebook of all of these abusive things that are happening. That way when you go to court you have some type of evidence.
Speaker 2:The thing that happened with me when I left and I didn't realize, was that the judicial system was not on my side. This man was 6'2". He was a construction worker. For your listeners, just so they know, I am a whopping 5'2, two and at a healthy weight. I'm like one 35 right now. I'm at a healthy weight. I'm at one 35.
Speaker 2:At the time that I fought back my attacker, I weighed less than a hundred pounds because I had a severe eating disorder of anorexia. So, just so anybody can picture that, I had to fight back with everything I had. And when the police showed up, they heard me on top of him punching the hell out of him and I opened the door with everything I had. And when the police showed up, they heard me on top of him punching the hell out of him and I opened the door and although I was black and blue, although my eyes were like bloodshot red because there had been a lack of oxygen, my throat was bruised. They told me that I was going to go to jail, not my attacker, and the reason it was was because he was more injured than me and until they figured out what happened, I was going to go to jail while he went to the hospital. So I could either press charges and then he could press charges. But if I didn't press charges they wouldn't allow him to press charges, you're going to go to jail.
Speaker 2:You can sit in jail for the night while he goes to the hospital, and that was almost more traumatizing than actually getting attacked, because I realized that I wasn't safe, that there was like no way of getting out of this, and that is what women have to understand. If you're already in this situation, you're seeing it.
Speaker 2:Getting out is the most dangerous time for this to happen when he knows you're done, when he knows you're gonna leave, that is when he has nothing to lose and that's gonna be the most dangerous time. Try to do it quietly. If you can go out, speak to women's shelters. If you can do it safely, find somebody that you can trust and confide. Confide into so that you can escape without him knowing because I didn't. I was like I'm done, you cheated, I'm out. And he grabbed me by the hair and he threw me down the hallway and he started choking me, telling me I was gonna effing die. So that's what.
Speaker 2:That's what the reality that we, as women who are victimized, who find ourselves in an abusive situation, that's what we face. We the. How do I get out of this? There are ways. Women's shelters, community support, church. If the church is willing to listen to what you say in your grievances, sometimes I will say and this isn't the greatest disclaimer, but sometimes churches believe that you just need to stand by your husband, whether he abuses you or not, go to counseling. Go to counseling. That can also be more dangerous because, like the thing I always say is, if a man will hit a TV, he will hit a wall, and if he will hit a wall, he will hit your face. Counseling doesn't get them away from that.
Speaker 1:It also doesn't address what that issue is.
Speaker 2:No, a lot of times it's power and control. It's not about the physical attack, it's different than relationship?
Speaker 1:Yeah, cause you can have a good relationship and someone can still react that way Like not a good relationship, but they can be good at some relational things. And yeah, it's self-control.
Speaker 1:So do you know the statistic Cause I really think listeners need to hear this. I was so shocked when I heard it. When a man feels, when you are strangled by a man, your chances of dying within that next year in that relationship jumped by like I think it's like 60 to 80%. It is a giant percentage that if someone puts there's a couple of things like a list of checklists of things where you can rate, like the danger of your, because you know some people may be listening to this and be like, oh, he just pushes me when he's mad or you know, he never actually hits me, hits me or he calls me names. But you know there's varying degrees of this. Sounds like you were with a real fucking monster at the end, but the first one wasn't much better. You know what I'm saying. So you know I forgot where I was going with that statistic.
Speaker 2:No, yes.
Speaker 1:So there's just, but there's more than that. There's like a couple of things on there that you could and I. You can Google it and you can see what things are actually more likely to bring it like to show the real aggression or violence that people are willing to take it to, and choking is one of those things. That is really high on the list, that if a man feels comfortable cutting off your airway in any way, you are in such danger.
Speaker 2:I have not heard that statistic, but it does not surprise me. The reality is is when you start thinking about abuse right? Most people think like sexual abuse, right, that's where our mind goes to. But the reality is, any type of abuse is about power and control, and if a man is willing to take the ultimate control, which is to completely stop you from being able to breathe and have your life in his hands, he is willing to take your life. The man ever puts his hands on you in any way. The thing that you need to understand is that it's it's not going to be, it's never going to be enough, right? So if you say like you fill this out, and you're like, oh, every once in a while he pushes me when he's angry, or he'll like throw me down on the couch, but you know he knows that it's soft, so it's not hurting me.
Speaker 2:The reality is is he is using you to release his anger, and there's going to come a point when throwing you on the couch isn't enough when he has to hit you.
Speaker 2:And then there's going to come a point when hitting you is not enough, when he needs more control. Sometimes that goes into a more of a sexual component, like I need to show you that I can have you whenever I want, and other times it goes into a physical component. I will black your eye, I will cut your airway off, I will do what I want to do to your body. Either way, anytime you see that first step, you're already in danger. It's just a matter of how much danger you're in in that moment. And a lot of times what happens is we talk ourselves out.
Speaker 2:The first time my ex-abuser ever hit me, we were very intoxicated. I'm pretty sure there were some drugs involved there at some point on that night and he saw another man talking to me and he asked me to come into the bathroom because he wanted to ask me a question. And as I walked into the bathroom he just backhanded me right Like completely out of the blue. I wasn't even paying attention, I didn't even have a chance to block it, and the next day it was. I don't know what happened to attention. I didn't even have a chance to block it, and the next day it was. I don't know what happened to me. I'm so sorry. You know, I saw you talking to him and it seemed like you were interested and I just really got angry.
Speaker 2:And the second time he hit me it was I'm so sorry, I don't know what happened to me. I love you. There were tears, there was this. All these apologies right, this is all my fault. I'm so sorry, but the third time was well, I've never done this before. What did you do to make this happen? What did you do to make me respond this way? And the moment that it becomes about you, that's the moment it becomes very dangerous, because now you are that way that he's going to get that release, that powerful release of of anger, right. If I, if I hit you and that's not enough, i's going to get that release, that powerful release of of anger right. If I, if I hit you, and that's not enough, I'm going to strangle you, because I need that power and control. So I completely understand that you're right. Like if a man is willing to cut off your airway, he's willing to take your life, and it really is a matter of how much he can control himself and eventually he won't be able to.
Speaker 1:Such good advice. It's so important to share these stories too. I like thank you so much for doing it because I feel like it's so. Like you said, I say this all the time about a totally different subject women heal in community and we need that because we need to talk, to be able to validate our own feelings. But that's so true of trauma, and this kind of trauma is like a combo of the both. So, like women need to hear other women say this is what happened to me, because you know I can roll through a million relationships where there's like a touch of this.
Speaker 1:When we talk about this stuff. You know what I mean, like growing up dating all kinds of men. You know like I live in the Midwest, so it's you know there's a lot of unhealthy men here, so I can think about that role in so many ways, and I feel like every woman can. You know what I mean. You took martial arts. Sounds like this community that's very heavily male dominated, where you and but that's not the only one you know what I mean. This exists on subtle levels for every woman who's ever gone out into the world, and then so this is so powerful for you to share the story so people can validate in themselves and know, like, where the real work is is in yourself. Like go back to yourself, learn your boundaries, learn your self-worth, so that you have what it takes to like know that you deserve more. That's so powerful.
Speaker 2:What I always tell my students, and what I'll tell you and your listeners too, is that, like real confidence, right Is more powerful than anything. I will ever be able to teach you physically Like I was a black belt. I was a black belt by the time I was 13. I could physically defend myself better than most men could now, but I had no idea about boundaries. I had no way of understanding how to protect my mental or emotional space, so I had no idea when somebody was pushing those limits and I was allowing other people to set my boundaries for me. And that's where it can become dangerous, because when you allow other people to set your boundaries, they set those boundaries for their benefit. They're not in your best interest. They're to make their life easier, for them to get what they want. So if you have the confidence to be like, this is my line in the sand, this is drawn. And if you start to push it, I'm going to know you become acutely aware when somebody starts pushing any of those boundaries.
Speaker 2:If you, as a woman, go on a date with a man and you know before you go on that date how much you want to drink, what you want to eat and how far you want to go with that man where you you know if you want to have sex, if you don't want to have sex, and you are confident, and he starts trying to push that third drink on you, or he starts trying to get you to go up to his apartment.
Speaker 2:You are acutely aware that he is pushing that because you've already made it clear oh, I'm only having two drinks tonight. That's my limit, right? I'm a two glass of wine kind of girl, okay, so if you have that, you know when they're pushing that boundary and then having the confidence, and that's this is where confidence comes in play. Being like you know what this really. I'm not having a good job, I'm not having a good time on this date. I think I'm going to leave, right, I'm going to leave. Having the confidence to get up and walk away from that table will keep you more safe than any ninja. Cool spin tricks, kicks, punches I can teach you as a martial arts instructor.
Speaker 1:And that's kind of men hate confidence in women. They hate it.
Speaker 2:That's why, too, because we have been taught as a society to allow, to follow the man's lead he sets our boundaries for us and to never say no right. Be polite, be meek, be quiet. Don't upset their ego.
Speaker 2:So, men have a very strong entitlement to well, you have that other drink, have one more drink, you're fine. Because they are taught growing up that persistence pays off. So women are taught don't say no, men are taught don't take no for an answer. So you have this society where women can't say no and men don't take no for an answer, and that's where a lot of these issues with things like consent come into place or things like well, I thought she wanted it because we, as women, are taught to allow men to set the pace for us. And I say, if we want to stay safe, we set our own pace. We know where we're at, when we're ready, where we're ready to go and what we're willing to do.
Speaker 1:Oh my gosh, that's such good advice. You know, I never thought of the male perspective of that like that they were, but they really are groomed to be persistent, I mean, and groomed to shove their feelings down, and groomed to to take things, when you know, like to be the more dominant, to take the dominant step forward where women are, why I fully understand how we're groomed the pleasers make, set the environment, take care of everybody above ourselves, be these noble martyrs. But yeah, that's so interesting and you know, I love, I just love your perspective on this, how you're bringing it back to yourself. So in your program, um, I'm getting the sense that there's more than physical skills you're teaching here. So tell me about what you do with women who come to you. And did you say you only coach women? I only teach women. Yes, I love that.
Speaker 2:I love it. I am women. Empowerment through self-defense.
Speaker 1:I love that. I only work with women too, so tell me about how you work with women when they come to you with women too, so tell me about how you work with women when they come to you.
Speaker 2:So the first thing I do, the way I lay out my my class is I actually start with what I call staggering statistics. Right, so, because I believe that, for women, knowledge is what our power is by understanding what we're up against. That is where we start to understand how to say stay safe. So the one that I really like is that, according to the Rape Abuse and Incest.
Speaker 2:National Network, 975 perpetrators out of every thousand sexual assaults walk away free. 975. 310 are reported to police, which means 690 never even face a police officer. Out of 310, I want to say 50 are investigated to the point where they will take it to a prosecutor. Out of 50 that are taken to a prosecutor, a prosecutor will decide to prosecute 28. And out of those 28, they will get a conviction of 25.
Speaker 1:And what are those convictions, what are those consequences?
Speaker 2:survive. So then, what are those convictions? What are those consequences? Normally the consequences are very low less than three to five years, um for for sexual assault. So, like you know, basically it's a slap on the wrist hey, bad boy, don't do that again or don't get caught, which is kind of the way that I see it. Yeah, yeah, if you're gonna do it, make sure she can't tell on you and she doesn't have enough evidence to for the police to believe her smarter about it.
Speaker 1:Do you know the statistic about survivors killing in self-defense, like domestic abuse victims, killing in self-defense? I can't remember what it is, but it's like only you're, only a victim if you die.
Speaker 2:I don't know the exact statistics, but I do know that women who fight back and kill in self-defense get like a very high conviction rate and the consequences are like life in prison.
Speaker 1:Yeah, where a man can do the opposite and their consequences are significantly less.
Speaker 2:Yeah, like, oh well, because and here's why, right, significantly less. Yeah, like, oh well, because and here's why, right, here's the reason that, as women, we need to understand a jury, which is normal, everyday people. They will ask the question why didn't she leave? If she, if she defends herself and she kills him, they will say, well, why didn't she just leave? There are other places they could have gone. Now, if it's the man killing the woman, they will ask the question what did she do to upset him to the point? So, as women, we are like society is against us when it comes to self-defense, and that is something we have to go into.
Speaker 2:That's why, in my program, I don't teach to kill. I would like to if I could, but legally and allegedly right, you can't. So what I teach is how to get away. If you can recognize the situation and you can not be in that situation, that's your best bet. But if you can't, if you end up in a situation, for example, say, walking down a dark alley, right, if you end up having to walking down a dark alley, right, if you end up having to walk down the dark alley, what are your escape routes?
Speaker 2:How can you run away? If you can't run away. How do you yell, use your language, tone and posture to not be a compliant victim so that, hopefully, that guy won't choose to attack you? If you can't do any of those three, how do you defend yourself to a point where you can get away without getting a murder charge? Right, like, how do you? You could stab him in the eye. I always say, like you know, spread all your fingers and jab them as hard as you can in the eye, because a dude that can't see can't chase you Right. Yeah, that's Apple. Pull is Adam's apple. As hard as you can, because a guy that can't breathe, he can't chase you. Right, if he has you in a bear hug, break his finger, because if he's more concentrated on the pain of his finger, that gives you the opportunity to get away. But if he falls to the ground, don't stomp his face in, because now you are the perpetrator.
Speaker 1:Run.
Speaker 2:And that's like so difficult because we are not allowed to react out of anger. We have to react out of self-defense, whereas men are definitely. They're like, oh yeah, you know, what did she do. It's a given, right. It's a given like what could she have done? What could she have done to make you so angry that you couldn't control yourself and you had to murder her, like I love your education on the, the men's like psyche as well.
Speaker 1:I feel like I've listened to like her, like I'm very interested in this topic, so I listened to a lot of it and I feel like your education on like the man's mindset is new for me and I really enjoy it because I think it's very helpful to understand and so important to talk about like all of this, especially with the court stuff too, because we assume we call the unless you have called them before and but if you assume when you call the police they're there to help you and I, that is their intention, don't get me wrong. I feel like a lot of them come in with that intention but they're undereducated and they they don't always help, even though that's their intention. Sometimes they make the situation much worse and they commonly retraumatize women, which is so absolutely the judicial system is not set up for victims.
Speaker 2:That's why you need like an advocate.
Speaker 1:Yeah, totally, it's so sad, it makes me so sad, and even the advocates at times are not very well trained, in my experience and no, they're not.
Speaker 2:they're not because most of the time they're just doing it to get their hours for something, so they're not survivors themselves.
Speaker 1:That don't you know, because survivors themselves sometimes can be some of the most judgmental people as well, because they're you know you don't get. There's something we need to work on. When we put ourselves in those situations is not our fault at all Never but there's some inner work that that says we probably need to be doing about like why, what? Where our love is lacking for ourselves.
Speaker 2:Well, and we need to understand that when you're traumatized right, you and you have trauma you don't remember those events, you relive them. Yeah, and there is a comfortability that we look at like. I never say like, oh, you have bad taste in men. I say like what red flags are you attracted to?
Speaker 1:Oh my gosh, I love that perspective. You're so right Because, if you think about it, there's. What red flags are you attracted to? Oh my gosh, I love that perspective. You're so right If you think about it.
Speaker 2:there's usually red flags Like. I was looking for validation with my abuser, like, and he gave it to me.
Speaker 1:He validated me for a long time until he didn't, and then it started the abuse which is part of that love bombing period, because they're getting to know you, they're listening to you, they're looking for those things that you're looking at subconsciously. But yeah, wow, I love also how you're, the way you're approaching boundaries with this. So it's like from the get-go, from the very beginning, know what you want, because that's not necessarily something we're trying to do from our little. Go into situations with these strict views of this is what I want, this is what I'm going to do. That's looked at as being difficult, but really that's being safe, and so how do you incorporate that? Do you do that Like on the mat? When you're talking to people, do you do like coursework with them? First you do one-on-ones. How do you reinforce this with the women you work with?
Speaker 2:I actually have a worksheet that I developed that I used for myself when I was going through my own trauma and trying to figure out how to be a new mom and I was dealing with postpartum and severe depression and I was trying. I had all of these toxic people in my life. I call them emotional vampires, right, those?
Speaker 1:friends that energy suckers.
Speaker 2:Yes, those misery love company type of people, or, you know, the people in your family that are so used to you not having boundaries and making their life easier. They start to push, and so I call it the ideal you worksheet, and that's where I have all my students start. I have a free download on my website. I can send you the link and you can put it in the notes. The promo code is just ideal, you it's very simple.
Speaker 1:If you want what your website is, go for it.
Speaker 2:Oh, my website is wwwprettyhandshardpunchescom. Luckily, I have a pretty unique name, so, like, everything is just pretty hands, hard punches, which I love.
Speaker 1:It goes with my theme too, like empowered ease. I love it.
Speaker 2:I love it Right With this worksheet. Basically, what I do is I walk you through, not trying to create boundaries in the moment, right, because in the moment you're emotional. I can't believe I let this person talk to me this way. I can't believe I went and picked up my friend's kid for the 18th time because she asked me to, even though I couldn't right. I can't believe I did all of this. There's an emotional attachment to it.
Speaker 2:But if you take yourself out of that and you look at your future version of yourself and you figure out what does she look like, really visualize what does she look like. Does she have short hair? Long hair? Is she in shape? Is she out of shape? Blah, blah, blah, right? And then you ask what does she feel like? Does she wake up excited to see her friends or does she wake up dreaded to see her friends? Because then you know which one you want, right? You want to be excited to see your friends, you want to be excited to go to work, you want to be excited to spend time with your children. So how does she look? How does she feel?
Speaker 2:And then you ask yourself what are her boundaries? And I have a list of you know financial, emotional, social, physical, professional, right, all these boundaries. And you start to kind of list what are the boundaries for this ideal version of you? And then you ask after you've sat down and this takes a little bit of time, it took me a couple of hours and I still work on it, I still have that list in my one note notebook and then you ask, like, what does she do when her boundaries are disrespected, right, what does she say to that friend that is asking her to pick up her child for like the 12th time when she couldn't do it? And you will have be empowered to be like.
Speaker 2:You know what the ideal version of me says no. And she says no confidently and no is a full sentence. And I don't need to explain myself because this ideal version of myself, so it takes you out of the moment. And finally, the last step of that is who does she allow in her life? And it was when I hit that step for myself that I realized that a lot of my friends were very toxic and I did not want them in my life.
Speaker 2:And now you know, four or five years later, I have incredible supportive friends that I'm excited to see, that make time for me, that it's not just a you know. Let's get on the phone and talk shit about everyone else and that's how we're going to build our bonds right. It's like empowering and they're successful and they're business owners and that's really what your listeners can start with. How does she look, how does she feel? What are her boundaries? How does she handle when somebody disrespects her boundaries and who does she allow in her life? And the moment you start to figure that out, you will start to take steps to make your life much better for yourself.
Speaker 1:Oh, that's beautiful, I love it. I I coach women through burnout. That's my specialty, but it's very. They have very like, I guess, similar overlays in that the struggles for a lot of people are that self-love, like giving themselves that permission to like put themselves first. But also, I noticed, once I really dig into it with people, boundaries is a huge issue and for many, many of my clients it's like family boundaries, like parents or brothers or cousins, someone you feel deeply committed to for some reason, and they're allowing them to continually step over it. So so it's so powerful for me to hear you say this, because as women, it's also when I teach, I also do a lot on women's issues and good girl conditioning, and this is also like whoop overlay, right on that too.
Speaker 1:This is part of you know, it's not our fault, it's part of how society, unfortunately, has rolled out through time. In this patriarchal society where we teach women their value is in well originally, in what it was to be a wife or what you brought to a marriage and how that's evolved over time, is to be like a pleaser, a caretaker, and it teaches you to subtly put yourself second, put other people's feelings and the environment around you above you, and so that tells us to like not enforce boundaries. It just like it's pushing us to do the opposite of what's good for us, and it leaves a lot of awful stuff right.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it leaves us with things like autoimmune diseases. It leaves us where our body starts to physically have changes that are not good for our health.
Speaker 2:You know I in the last five years I have been diagnosed with Hashimoto's disease of the joints just so your listeners understand, stress is a big one, and so one of the reasons I had to set these boundaries and one of these reasons I had to kind of take the emotions out of it, is because my body physically put me in a bed where I could not get out. Because I didn't have boundaries, because I was too stressed out trying to please everyone in my life and Hashimoto's is directly related to an emotional.
Speaker 1:It's like an emotion, the only one. They directly heart condition. They directly relate to your emotional wellbeing.
Speaker 2:Well, yeah, cause it's. It's your thyroid right and it's all hormonal and when you get emotional and you stress yourself out. Then you don't take care of yourself. Do like like eat healthy, right. When you're doing so much for other people, it's so much easier to just run through McDonald's right than it is to like meal prep. So you end up everything is like a domino effect, right? You have to put the oxygen mask on yourself first.
Speaker 2:You have to make sure you are living a healthy, happy, thriving lifestyle and then you bring the people around you up. You do not diminish your shine. To make other people feel worthy, you have to understand that it is your worth and your value that you get to choose. Other people don't get to tell you what your worth and value is. Other people don't get to tell you when you can sit down and when you can take a break you should be doing that for yourself, and if you're not, then go to that ideal.
Speaker 2:you worksheet right, Working through those five steps so you can find out where you can make these changes in your life.
Speaker 1:I love that and you know, for a lot of us, we know what we need to be doing and there's just some block there. I mean, some of us don't know. We know what we need to be doing and there's just some block there. I mean, some of us don't know. But then there is a component to us as well that we know what we should be doing and somehow we can't bring ourselves to do it. And that's where we need to reach out for a little extra support, like therapy, which you mentioned, and this was one of my questions I wanted to ask you just because it sounds like the beginning of your life was just like a lot of things working against you. That you know you probably had to spend a considerable amount of time processing is my assumption. So I'm just wondering, like, how that process, the timeframe maybe that took for you and some of the more like powerful things you did in that time to heal that you that you could share.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I'm still healing.
Speaker 1:It's a lifelong one right.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I have been in EMDR therapy for going on two years.
Speaker 2:Okay, I meet with a therapist once a week. I am still dealing with setting boundaries with my family. I am still dealing with that feeling of guilt and shame that you know has been kind of instilled in me since a very young age. My mother's very sick. I deal with guilt and shame on that all the time. What I would like to tell your listeners is that, like, getting help is like is self-care right? Therapy is self-care. Like if you're, if you're dehydrated and you need water, then you're going to drink water. You're not going to be like, oh, I don't need the water because somebody tells me I don't need it. Right, and you should look at therapy the same way. Like if you are having a hard time or a stressful time trying to figure out where, why you're feeling the way that you're feeling, or what is happening or what's going on in your life that's making you feel so depressed, find a trauma-informed therapist.
Speaker 2:Not just any therapist, trauma-informed therapist, because they understand at a different level than just a regular therapist. And I am literally reprocessing these memories of what happened to me to realize what steps had been taken to make me vulnerable. I had to go back through that relationship, that very inappropriate relationship, with my 24-year-old instructor for weeks and figure out why it was so inappropriate. It wasn't something that I just like. Woke up one day and I was like that motherfucker right, like he took advantage of me. Yeah, it was weeks of like.
Speaker 2:Who are the adults in your life, alicia? Who are the people who should have stepped in and told this man that you were a child and he shouldn't be trying to have sex with you? Because I wasn't just failed by him, I was failed by all of the adults around that saw this abusive behavior and allowed it to happen and then treated me like it was my fault. And that includes my own father, who told me I was a whore and he had wasted his money helping me get a black belt, paying for my black belt because all I did was use it to sleep my way with my instructor.
Speaker 1:And there's the wound that probably left you open for someone to be like that did more damage my, my own dad telling me that did more damage than any physical abuse that any of these men ever put me through.
Speaker 2:I can tell you. So it's therapy like EMDR talk therapy but really, if you can and I do acknowledge that I am very privileged to be able to see a therapist every week- and work through this on a regular basis. A lot of women are not allowed to do that. If you want somewhere to start and you can't afford to, or you don't have the insurance or you can't find somebody, a good place to start is reading a couple of books. The Body Keeps Score is a really good one.
Speaker 2:It helps you understand trauma and how it affects the body.
Speaker 1:And also.
Speaker 2:The Gift of Fear is another one. It talks about how we are as human beings. We have fear and it is a gift and we should use it to keep ourselves safe. But it also talks about very traumatizing stories, so it can be triggering a little bit, but it gives you another sense and idea of what things like people go through and how they handle it. Just to kind of get you started because like jumping into it and being like here's all my boundaries, there's 57 is going to be very rough.
Speaker 2:Start small, start small. Maybe you don't go get margaritas with your friends because you don't like having to take care of the one who always gets drunk right. Maybe start by saying no to that or saying no to picking up the friend's kid, right, don't, don't, I would say, don't start with. Like the big mountains, and that's usually your family.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I always say practice with someone safe and let them know you're practicing with them, because the first couple of times you do it it's really scary for some and it gets so much easier. But the first time you say no to someone when you're not used to saying no, there's so much guilt that follows it, Like you got to get comfortable with the feelings that come after and they do go away, but it's scary the first couple of times. You definitely don't want to start with your biggest problem number one.
Speaker 2:Yeah. And so just to add on that a little bit, when you do start setting these boundaries with, like your friends and your family, who you have been making their lives a lot easier by not having boundaries, they are going to be like why have you changed, what has happened? And that is where having a strong sense of self, having these boundaries written down, and also, when you write them down, right, why that is your boundary. Why can't you pick up your friend's kid, you know, five days a week? Well, I can't because I can't afford the gas, I don't have the time and I'm having to leave work early. That way, when you're reiterating these boundaries, you already know there's reasons. You don't have to explain them to that person, but you are going to have to remind yourself over and over again, because they are going to push. These people are going to push back, yeah, especially if they're family.
Speaker 1:Yeah, exactly, yeah, cause well, families you put this weird dynamic with families. I find it like still when I go home and a 41 year old woman, but like you're you, you create roles within your family and it's really hard to shift those roles. Everyone's going to resist it first because you're changing something that's pretty set in stone, you know so and that's so good.
Speaker 2:Yeah, my therapist does it best. She says that, like your family works as like a circle right. Everyone is moving in this circle and when you begin to set boundaries, you step out of that circle and as you move, the momentum from your family is going to try to pull you back into that circle, because that is what they are.
Speaker 1:Yeah, shove you back into that role they're comfortable with.
Speaker 2:Exactly. And so if you just remember why you have these boundaries, what they are for, and that you have the ability to say no, you are not wrong for saying no to something you're not comfortable with. You don't have time for you just have to keep telling yourself, you know, like just keep swimming, just keep swimming.
Speaker 1:Right, right.
Speaker 2:Just gotta keep swimming on it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I always tell people to like frame them in love too. You know, like this, I'm doing this because, like this is a way you can support me and this is how I can support our friendship going forward, because I'm feeling, you know, once you get to the point where you're comfortable saying these things, like if you frame it and like how you're trying to protect your relationship, that's a really easy way to go about it without like, like my, I want our relationship to continue and so I need this and I love framing it that way. There's one more question Well, probably one more than one, but so for me, I I have childhood trauma, a lot of issues with my dad. I don't speak to him currently and haven't for several years, just because that's something I've had to relive and process and it's played. It's one of the things that's played out over and over again.
Speaker 1:I have had like multiple relationships in my early years and abandonment issues. When you do finally decide to end something for an unhealthy reason is something that I found. Like whoa just hit me like a brick wall, like, yes, I'm deciding to leave someone, but when they decide they're done too, or when that is actually coming to an end there is something that's like whoa whoa, whoa wait, you want to leave me, or wait, whoa, whoa.
Speaker 1:You're comfortable with this and sometimes that's that moment where you rebound back and like reach out for something, regardless of how unhealthy it is, and it's a really hard, really confusing, odd feeling, but it's natural and for a lot of people with childhood trauma it's significant because that came from someone, it's an abandonment wound from someone that we felt shouldn't have been abandoned. So what's your perspective on this? As I've talked, mike, your ear off, sorry.
Speaker 2:Oh no, I completely, I'm like, I feel it. I got the feels from it because it is true. You know, it's like when you're in high school and you have the on again, off again boyfriend you always feel more powerful when you're the one who breaks it. But when he breaks it, no matter how toxic it is, you're trying to go back. You're like right.
Speaker 1:Because you're like you're not leaving me.
Speaker 2:I think for me it's conditioning Right, like you have been conditioned to expect this type of behavior and so the moment that it changes again, it's that cycle. And it can be a cycle of abuse to where it's like you want the power and control to say I'm done, and then they take it away from you. And it's almost like one time, like almost like they're taking away your empowerment, they're taking away your power to say no. Even if you started it, you're like no, I'm done, right, like I don't want, you're not in my life anymore. The moment that they say it, it's like no, I'm done Right, Like I don't want, you're not in my life anymore.
Speaker 2:The moment that they say it it's like wait. You start to rethink and that's conditioning. It's perfectly normal. I would say that if it becomes a point where it's affecting you, to the point where, like you can't get work done, it's affecting your mental health to definitely talk to a professional. I do not have the professional take on that, but for myself I get this all the time. I am currently not speaking to my mother. My mother is very ill, she has Graves disease and she is very, very cruel and she can't remember that she's cruel. So she said the meanest shit you can imagine and then the next time I talked to her she just repeats it. So I have had to like set that boundary and be like mom. I literally can't talk to you because it affects my mental health so much.
Speaker 1:And.
Speaker 2:I feel that guilt and the moment that she's like, okay, fine, I'm done, my like, the little girl in me, the little girl that wants my mom goes back mom, please, please.
Speaker 2:I you know, I love you, I care about you, please don't do this.
Speaker 2:And I am currently talking with my therapist literally tomorrow about this happening and it is a set of conditioning, like, like I said. Also one thing about trauma, right, not only do you not remember it, but you relive it, but you also relive it at the age it happened. So if you started feeling this sense like for me and my mother, for example, for your listeners I started feeling this guilt and shame, like my mom was my responsibility at like six years old. So when she did this this was just happened last week, so this is a great example when she was like I'm done with you, I'm over it, it wasn't a 35 year old, confident woman talking to her. It was a six year old just wanting her mom's attention, just wanting her mom to say she loves her and she's proud to her. It was a six-year-old just wanting her mom's attention, just wanting her mom to say she loves her and she's proud of her, and that is something that having the knowledge that that is what happening can just help you get through it.
Speaker 2:But like I said I'm in therapy for it, I'm in EMDR. I'm having to reprocess all of this because that guilt and shame is so strong that, like even talking about it now in my body, I feel a pit in my stomach.
Speaker 1:Yeah, me too. Me too Just thinking about like relating to my own stuff. I'm like I don't know if you saw my body posture just shrunk. I'm like, yeah, I did too.
Speaker 2:Yeah, Like you know, I'm like fidgeting around because I was clicking a pin.
Speaker 1:If you heard that earlier. Sorry that was my anxiety, but it's so true. This shit is real and that's why I started this podcast because we need to talk about it. We're grown ass women. I'm 41. I'm still dealing with this shit. I'm going to be dealing with it till the day I probably die, and it's normal and we need to talk about it more. We need to talk about it with people we care about and trust and create these safe environments, because that's how we heal, and you know for your listeners.
Speaker 2:you're not alone, I can. I can tell you firsthand. As a female women empowerment instructor, I have talked to over 3000 women at this point, probably going closer to 4,000. I stopped like counting, Um, and I have not met a woman who doesn't have a story of some type of sexual abuse to this day, Like not one. Also, there's a lot of men who have their own sexual abuse that they all tell me about too, because they feel like I'm a safe space. So we really are living a society of victims.
Speaker 1:Oh yeah, and I think it's becoming evident, yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah, oh yeah.
Speaker 1:I hear you, I hear you, I hear you. Trauma is just an evil, evil thing that just fester sometimes if you can't face it and and it's a process, it's a hard process. So you mentioned earlier, before we got on, she mentioned she has a um workshop coming up is that right?
Speaker 2:I do, I have, um, I am do. I am teaching my self-defense course at what we call a Rising in Sacred Rage retreat put on by the she Is Me global conference community. It's up in Washington. You can find information on it on my website. I'll be updating it today and on the sheismecom website, where it is. But we're getting together with a lot of women, right where it is a.
Speaker 2:But we're getting together with a lot of women. We're figuring out ways to handle our rage in a healthy way. Where we get to, you know, write letters to the people who hurt us most and burn them. At the end of my course, we're all going to break a board, right, yeah, with our very own hands. I think that that, for me, is one of the most empowering moments of teaching is most women that I teach have never even thrown a punch, and watching them see their hand go through the board and that empowered surprise of like wow, I can do it is one of the best moments of my entire business. So if you want more information on it, it will be on my website. I'm updating it today, but it's also on the sheismecom website. Oh, I love it.
Speaker 1:I think my the last guest. I had her name's Terry Grail. She runs like a nonprofit for um women's shelters for like sex trafficking and domestic violence. They go in and they like make shelters dramatic. But she also works with the. She is me um in some ways, so I'm like this is so cool. You guys are all connected, yeah.
Speaker 2:She is me, I will. I can put you in contact with Lisa too. She's amazing, I would love that?
Speaker 1:I would love that. Um, so I always ask everybody what is your go-to self-care when things are getting really hard, what's the one thing you go to that, like, as you'd say, you're number one?
Speaker 2:Um, I'm a big tea drinker, so I have specific teas that I like I. They're expensive. I buy like loose leaf and I make my own blends now, but if you don't want to go that far, right, there's the like. If I'm feeling anxious or tired or upset, I will usually make a cup of tea.
Speaker 1:That kind of helps reset my brain.
Speaker 2:But once a week I do a mani pedi on myself, I do a face mask, I do like a hair mask. I spend about an hour and a half just pampering myself and I do it consistently because I know that like I deserve that time and I can't. Ever since I had my son he's six now I can't like stand the smell of uh, of um, like nail salons, like it just makes me nauseous since I got pregnant, so I bought all the stuff and I do it all at home and I put on some YouTube. Right now I'm watching all the Justin Baldini and Blake Lively stuff like my, my trash TV and I soak my feet and, yeah, I put on my masks and I just enjoy that time and I think implementing it into your routine as like this is my time, is really my go-to. Like I know that I am worth being able to sit down for one hour and give myself that kind of mental drainage and just have my, my relaxed time.
Speaker 1:I love that. You're worth it.
Speaker 2:I'm worth it.
Speaker 1:I love it. I love it. Well, is there anything else that you think our listeners should know? Any tidbits you want to leave them with? I feel like you've said so many powerful things today. I can't. I'm just. I absolutely love it. I'm so happy you came on here.
Speaker 2:I think the last thing I will leave your listeners with is that knowledge is your power. So if you are feeling weak in any any aspect of your life, start to research it. If you don't like your job, start looking into what type of jobs you want to do. If you're not comfortable in your relationship, start looking into how you might get out of that relationship. You might improve yourself to make it better. If you improve yourself and it's still not better, leave. If there's any type of physical violence, walk away now.
Speaker 2:Don't put yourself through anything that, like any of your other listeners, have gone through, right, or I've gone through. But really, knowledge is your power. I'm a huge Harry Potter fan. Go to the library, start looking it up, right, hermione Granger, that shit like. Figure out what your next step is, because options give you power. If you have the option to leave, if you have the option to change jobs, if you have the option of other friends, that is where your power truly comes from Knowing that you are worth more than the way you're being treated, the job you have or what you're doing in that moment. I love that beautiful advice.
Speaker 1:Thank you so much. I appreciate that. So we will put all of her information in the show notes so you can access her website and look up her workshops. Have you ever thought about training women to go out and do this? In the show notes so you can access her website and look up her workshops? Oh, here's that. Have you ever thought about training women to go out and do this Like teach these kinds of courses for you, so that you're not just like in California and workshops?
Speaker 2:I have.
Speaker 2:As a matter of fact, I am working with Lisa Jimenez of the she Is Me Global and we are creating a facilitator.
Speaker 2:I'm the co-creator of the Rising in Sacred Rage Ret'm the co creator of the sheet of the rising and sacred rage retreat, and one of the things that we have planned is a workshop for how to teach women how to do these, these retreats, so that women can learn healthy ways. As far as my specific business, I haven't, I've thought about it and it's in my, like, long-term plans, but I'm going to require that anybody teaching what I teach has a black belt, so it's going to like limit who I could have, because I think that you need to have the understanding of how the body works in a martial arts setting in order to teach women how to defend themselves. Like I know a palm strike works, because I have practiced a palm strike for 30 years and it worked for me. But bringing in like the every average day woman, she would need some consistent martial arts training before she could kind of do what I do. My business is very unique to me.
Speaker 1:I think any woman who is a black belt might right now, though, who may have pursued that on their own, which I know they're out there might be interested in this stuff, because they've probably you know, they've probably felt the same shit you did on some level.
Speaker 2:Absolutely, and if they are, they don't need to come to me. I learned the empowerment, self-defense model through the National Women's.
Speaker 2:Martial Arts Federation associated with. They teach you how to teach this. There are multiple different ways I this is not unique to me specifically, I just use my story but the National Women's Martial Arts Federation created this curriculum 50 years ago, or over 50 years ago, and it was a group of martial artists. So if you have any listeners that are Black folks that want to get involved, start there. You don't need to come to me and do what I specifically teach. What we are trying to do is empower women to take their own stories and then empower others.
Speaker 2:My goal- is to empower 1 million women to learn self-defense. I think that's how we keep the world safe.
Speaker 1:Oh my gosh, I love that. That was great. I, I hope, I hope you martial artists women take her up on that Cause I will come to your classes. That's so cool, I love it. Okay, well, thank you so much for being here. We're definitely going to have to have you back sometime, because I just feel like I'm not done talking to you, but absolutely there's so much I know I appreciate you so much, thank you. Thank you, I got to remember how to hang this thing up.
