[Intro] Hello and welcome to Empowered to Thrive. I'm your host Corinne Powell. I'm so glad you're here.

No matter what type of day you're having, you're always welcome. I like having you around. This space is especially designed for the person who goes about life focused on everyone else while neglecting their own needs.

The person who says yes when inwardly they want to say no. The person who is frustrated at all they do because they don't receive much in return. If that's you, I'm going to put out some great ideas on how you can change those patterns and get unstuck.

Life isn't meant to be tolerated. It should be enjoyed. So let's get to it.

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Corinne Powell: Welcome, welcome. Tiffany is here with me today to share about her healing journey. Tiffany is a friend and former client. She's a mother to four and a powerhouse. I am so excited for you to get to listen in.

She is about to share so much of her life and so much of her heart with us, and because this conversation is a bit lengthy, we've broken it up into two parts. So listen to the end today and join us again next week for the finale. 

Corinne Powell: Thanks for being willing to chat with me and share your story with others, and I would like to just start by you sharing who you were before you even embarked on the healing journey. Describe that person for us. 

Tiffany Vaughn: So before I started this journey, I had, wow, I can't even, it's like a different person. It really, really is. Wow. I was so, I think one word that would sum it up would be fearful. Every decision I made was based on fear for myself, for my children, for my family.

The decisions I made and I had made were all based on fear. There was this sense of a need to control, a need to keep everyone safe. Safe and in a bubble. My life had been very bubbled by the church. I was in this religious bubble and anything that was outside my bubble was dangerous. It was a danger to me. It was a danger to my family. 

So everybody that was in my life and everything I did had to be defined by what I thought religion meant, what I thought God meant, and what I thought God wanted from me. But I think fear just best describes it. I was afraid. 

And a lot of the decisions I make maybe aren't wrong for other people or maybe some of them are made without fear, but because I made them with fear, they weren't the right decisions for me and my family. Some examples would be I homeschooled.

I did it because I feared the public education system. I feared DCF. I feared my children going to hell. I feared my children not growing up to be Christians. So fear just defined everything. And now, after this journey, that fear doesn't exist. It's gone. 

And I'm not telling anyone how to live or what they should believe, but for me, stripping away religion and the rules that I associated with religion and the fear of everything just helped me become who I am today. 

Corinne Powell: Yeah. You talked about how you lived in fear. Years ago, our kids were just playing together and I don't know why, maybe it was somebody was doing something like jumping off of something, you know, something a little risky. And I remember you, when you describe how you were so afraid, I flash back to that backyard because for whatever reason, it was like palpable. And I mean, I can identify too. I used to be afraid of everything, you know, I feared everything. So I get it.

You have truly transformed, like you are really, truly not that person you were. Like the authentic parts of you, of course, are the same, but like how you were riddled by fear and how you aren't today is drastically different. 

Tiffany Vaughn: Yeah. And I have gone through a journey where I've had to face some of my fears and that some of my fears came true. But they were so unfounded. So I'll give you an example, public school, that is best for my family right now.

And, oh my gosh, for us, that has been life-changing, life-altering in such a beautiful way. My children are loving it. I thought I had to do it all.

I thought I had to be the homeschool, stay-at-home mom who taught them everything, who was their all and my children are in public school and I actually am so grateful. They love my children and not only are they in public school, but I have a four-year-old and he is in preschool. And I was so afraid to share parenting responsibilities with someone else that was a stranger. And honestly? One of the most heartwarming moments was when Ezra, my four-year-old, turned around, came out of school, it was probably within the first two weeks, turned around, went up to his new teacher, gave her a big hug and said, I love you.

And oh, it was glorious. I can't even tell you how heartwarming that was. And Ezra the other day said to his older brother, Andrew, he said, “Andrew, do you want to go to school with me? My friends are so kind and nice”.

He loves school. He is learning, he is transforming, he is speaking clearly, he's getting the help he needed that I couldn't offer. He went from really struggling to empowerment, being a four-year-old who can speak his mind, who has been encouraged to feel his feelings, who has been encouraged to speak up for himself in healthy ways.

He went from biting, I mean, like sometimes almost hourly, to I don't even know the last time he bit. And it's all because they worked with me. We're working together as a unit.

And the progress I've seen in his life is beautiful. And all those fears have melted away. I absolutely love having my children in school. I love the public education system. 

I have nothing negative to say about it. My daughter, who is way behind, who has way, tons of educational, social issues, is getting the help from professionals that she needs. We are all thriving in this new world that I was willing to take a huge jump in, a big leap. 

Corinne Powell: Yeah. So you mentioned you had to face some of your fears.

Tiffany Vaughn: Yes. 

Corinne Powell: Can you tell us a little bit more about that? Like I know you talked about the public school and how that used to be a fear of yours. But what about like, give us an example of like the internal, personal, maybe fears that you had to face, that you were willing to face and what that was like?

Tiffany Vaughn: So one of the biggest fears I had was leaving an unhealthy marriage. I was taught from a young age, divorce is evil. I was taught from a young age that divorce is not an option. I was in a toxic marriage and I had to face that. I had to face the fact that I cannot change someone else. And I gave tons of opportunity for my ex-husband to change and I changed, I developed, I grew as a person.

And one of my fears, my biggest fears was a quote unquote failed marriage and I had to walk away for my children, for myself. I had to face my fear of quote unquote marriage failure and did this define me? Did the fact that I was getting a divorce define who I am? Did it show a failure on my part? Did I do enough? Did I try hard enough? And it was a very toxic marriage and I stood up for myself and I got the help and reached out.

And that was one of the hardest, biggest fears I had to face this past year, especially. It was this fear inside me: Will I make it? Will I make it? Am I enough? Am I lovable? Am I enough? Am I going to be able to walk this out? And I faced my fear, I had to really value myself and value my own life. That was one of the biggest things that I had to do was learn how to value myself and see my own worth.

I'm enough and I am valuable in myself and I am valuable in this world and I can pursue my dream. I can pursue healing, wholeness in relationships, in life and in family. I'm now a family of five and I am still in the process of learning what that looks like and what that journey entails. And I don't know what the future holds, but I do know that I'm enough, that I am enough for my children, I am enough for myself and there is a path and a journey that I choose. And I've had tons of help. I'm not saying that I'm doing it alone.

I'm doing it in my strength, in my ability to face my fears. If you had told me three or four years ago, I would be in the place I'm in. I would have laughed. I would have said there's no way on earth. 

Corinne Powell: Yeah. 

Tiffany Vaughn: But I'm happy. I'm healing. I have hope for the future. I have learned so much. Today, this very morning, I kept thinking and kept saying to myself with a big smile, I can be happy. I can choose my own path. Nothing is predestined for me or predetermined.

I make choices and I chose to walk away from very toxic relationship on very many levels. And I have found so much joy and so much peace away from it. And I am looking forward to the future. I went from a stay-at-home mom who homeschooled, who lived in fear and abided by religious rules that my circle at the time bought into. And now I live, I'm now a single mom who walked away from a toxic, bad marriage. And I have found peace and joy.

So much has changed. I am a different person. And I have so much peace and joy. And something I had to face was my fears. And I'm still facing them. I'm still walking through them. You know, Corinne, something you had have shown me and I've seen in your life that I can now relate to, is in a moment of horrible, where life is horrible, where you can't even imagine the depths of pain and things that are going on. 

You can still feel, you can feel at peace during horrible times. You can feel this sense of, this is not in my control. This is one of the worst things maybe that I could imagine happening to my children. But I am at peace because I know that we will walk through this. And I know that my children will grow from the experiences they are facing.

And that horrible things don't have to define us. Horrible experiences, horrible relationships, toxic relationships. We have choices. Even my children who are walking through probably the hardest, it is the hardest year of their lives. Wow, I cannot even imagine the growth I've seen, the changes I've seen. You know, we're all in therapy. We're all getting help. We're all healing. We're all facing tough things.

But I would dare to say we are all also on our own journeys of healing. And it is neat to see children able to heal. And when we as parents provide them with safe spaces and the professional help they need to walk through, they can go through the healing journey that we also are doing as adults, but at a much younger age. And it won't define their future. I believe that and I see that. And wow, there is freedom from fear. 

Corinne Powell: Yeah

You know, it's night and day. I just, I feared everything. And now I don't fear anything.

There are things I don't want to happen, sure, but I know beyond a shadow of a doubt that I will get through anything. 

Corinne Powell: Yeah, I feel you.

And that is a place of freedom. 

Corinne Powell: Yes.

Tiffany Vaughn: But it took facing demons. It took coming out. I remember, Corinne, we went through a session where I remember doing visual work, where we went back into very difficult places in my life. Where I had allowed fear to really take a hold. And I remember going into those emotions, going back in those hard places. I remember, and you may remember it even more clearly than I do, but I remember for some reason, hiding.

This sense of hiding. Do you remember that session? 

Corinne Powell: Yes, I remember sessions, hiding. 

Tiffany Vaughn: And I remember you, we were doing visualizations, and I don't know exactly how, you know, what word you would use, but I remember I was hiding and you offered me a hand of safety. And it was going back into my childhood and looking and reparenting the younger self. And I remember being so afraid and for some reason hiding. And I, at that point, wasn't able to reparent myself.

So you stepped in. And in that visualization, you offered me a hand. And it took me a while to be willing to step out of that place of fear as a child. And accept your hand and accept the love that that child needed at that point in time. In order to heal. 

Corinne Powell: Yeah. Yeah. The memory work is really powerful. And what you're describing for someone who's not familiar with it, you're basically just going back into a time in their life and connecting with that younger part of yourself and feeling what she was feeling and noticing her needs.

Just noticing what's going on around her. And then as you're describing to me in what you're seeing, what you're feeling, then we're meeting that little girl where she's at and we're offering her what she needs. And like you said, we get to this place where we can do it for the inner child, our younger self.

But sometimes before we feel comfortable doing it, it's helpful to have someone else to guide us through that. And that younger part of us, 100% across the board, always needs to know that somebody will show up. Somebody will care for them.

Somebody will prove to them, you matter. We're here for you. Nothing else matters in this moment. Only you. And we've all needed that. We all need that in our childhood. But when we don't experience it enough in our childhood, then these are the ways we can go back and our adult self can go back and take care of that little kid we once were. And so it's really powerful work, what you're describing. 

And I know like when you're talking and telling us how like, we used to live in fear and here's where you're at. And you're telling us, this is where my family's at and we're doing wonderfully. I also know, right, there was this whole process to get you to this point. And it wasn't always easy and happy and high vibe.

And you're giving us a window into like the session, like you said, where the little girl was in hiding. But can you tell us, like, what has it been like? Here you are at this point where you're like, I'm finally loving life. And I know you had moments throughout the journey where you felt that way. Because we have highs and lows. There's valleys and peaks. So sometimes we're on the healing journey and we're feeling like, oh, this is wonderful. I've worked through so much. I love life. I'm feeling good.

And then we go through another season that's heavy and that's hard and that's dark. And we're like, oh, no, what happened? I was feeling so great. And it's not that we've lost anything.

It's another layer of healing, right? It's another layer that needs to be able to be given love and attention. And then we come out of that and we're even more our authentic self than we were before it because more healing has come. But can you tell us what it's been like also? In the moments that it hasn't been so high vibe.

What's that been like for you? Just let's be realistic, right? We're hearing you say where you are and it's a wonderful thing. But for the person who's not where you are, can you give them this glimpse into what they actually might be feeling right now so that they know? Oh, yeah, it's common ground. It's common ground. We're all sitting in a circle on the floor. We're all feeling it. 

Tiffany Vaughn: So I just got kind of a visualization. So I would say our lives are kind of like a house. And we built them. We built it over the years. And for me, when I started this journey, my house was full of dirt and cobwebs that had taken time to build and construct. And they had come through years. Each room maybe was years of my life.

And there was a lot of darkness. There was a lot of dirt. There was a lot of beliefs that had built up. There was a lot of trauma. I was living trauma. So I came to a point where I could no longer close the doors and keep it all at bay. Everything that was in my house was like open doors. So I could no longer hide it. I got to a point where I couldn't get out of bed.

I got to a point where I literally was having panic attacks. Because everything was overwhelming me. And so what happened, what had to happen to come to the place that I'm at is I had to start cleaning out my house. And so I had to journey back into my childhood and face the dirt, the cobwebs, which were fears. Fears, trauma, experiences. So without facing those, without looking at them, there was no ability to heal.

You couldn't mask it. Meds, nothing would completely numb it. So what I had to do was I had to be willing to face, quote unquote, my monsters that were living in the darkest recesses of my mind. I had to go and I had to face fears. Abandonment, loneliness, am I enough? Religious beliefs, religious rules, things that have been built up over time. I had to be willing to go in and literally tear down walls, clean, fear out, face the monster under the bed.

Literally, I was in a session. It was one of the most painful things. Sometimes I would come to a session and I would know what I needed to face and I would face it. The floor of your office, the rug, held many tears for me. I remember doing things like crying, sobbing uncontrollably. I remember doing things like ripping up and tearing up old book, an old book that no longer served a purpose in my life and had led to destruction and toxic viewpoints.

I remember literally asking you if I was having a heart attack and feeling like I was, but it was a panic attack and we worked through it. Visualizations helped clean up a lot of the toxicity. Facing my younger self, facing those rooms, facing those places, facing those events that had led to certain viewpoints that I was unsafe, that I needed to fear the future, that I was unable to handle those things as a young child because my mind wasn't as developed.

So I would go back and at first it was a lot of allowing you to talk to my younger self and then we would do it together. It was a journey. It was being willing to literally, for me, come to your office multiple times a week and really face my darkest fears.

I remember I had an unhealthy emotional need for my oldest son to be okay. And if he wasn't okay, I wasn't okay. And delving into that, breaking that unhealthy bond and being able to be okay within myself when the people around me weren't okay. All of these tools, all of these things I learned and we're talking years of work and deep hard work, sobbing, panicking, looking at things, journeying into my younger self, allowing myself new experiences, new beliefs, new questioning everything and holding my younger self.

And after a lot of work, then being able to also tell myself you're okay. And having to walk out these things too, though. Because some of our fears can be reality but they're not the monsters we thought they are. They aren't the monsters. sometimes our fears of what could happen actually are the best things that lead to healing and so our belief system are these things that we've been taught are these things that are serving us are these things that are reality what do we really believe as an adult and what is reality and what is holding on to something because it gives us control, sense of control? 

How do we develop and cultivate healthy relationships with people where we can have healthy boundaries and we're not toxically connected to the person and we keep our individuality and we keep who we are? How do we learn to love ourselves? How do we… all of these things take time they take being willing to work with someone and face these realities because often we can't do it on our own we can't. 

I'm still in therapy I still see a therapist I'm still walking through this journey and there are seasons of really nitty-gritty work and then there's seasons of freshness. Kind of like when you first clean a room it's so fresh and happy and you're just like oh I hope it never goes back to the way it was but sometimes cobwebs sneak back in. Sometimes we have to freshen up a room again sometimes it's the same way with old belief systems. Believe you me I'm not to a place where I'm just like oh everything's always rosy and dandy and I'm just alive and happy no there are days when I have to say my certain things like my children's behavior isn't about me. They're if they're having a bad day that's okay I don't have to have a bad day too I can be okay and they cannot be okay and I can help them I can be there for them but I can also let them be who they are and that doesn't define who I am and that has been such a healing fact for me. 

I was so codependent I was so I needed everyone to be okay and it was my job to make sure everyone was okay. And now it's no longer my job to make sure everyone's okay it's my job to love everyone where they're at and help them through the process of life.  And wow, is it such a different place to be in but it's hard and you can't get here just sitting around doing nothing.

You have to do the work, you have to put in the heartbreak, the hours, the days. You have to be willing to face your demons and for some of us our demons are so dark and we are so afraid but that's the only way you'll get to freedom. 

Corinne Powell: Yeah that I was gonna say that you may be the one client I've had who has run so intensely after their healing. And I remember when you first started meeting with me you were coming twice a week and that was for a long time and you were always willing to do the hard work, and it proved beneficial. Like you got the results because of what you put in. Now we're all we all have different capacities and it's perfectly okay when someone's like “I don't have the capacity to go back into memories every session”, that's fine. 

But the heart you came with was so desperate for change, you were so desperate for relief and freedom that you ran hard after it you were like fighting for it. And I have had no one else be willing to do some of the things you were willing to do in a session. When you talk about crying many tears into the carpet it's true because you would literally listen to your body if you needed to curl up into the fetal position on the carpet on the floor you would do that. 

Like this is this is the the way to healing is by connecting with ourself connecting with our bodies and doing what they need and so you were releasing buckets of tears because they were held within you and your body needed you to release and you were willing to…

Tiffany Vaughn: Bodies hold down to trauma.

Corinne Powell: Oh yeah, totally. 

Tiffany Vaughn: The body completely holds on to trauma. 

Corinne Powell: Yes, yes, the body remembers as the famous book says the body keeps the score, and there are times that we actually release more of the trauma by connecting with ourselves and doing what our bodies asking us to do. So whether that's the low moans, and groans, whether that's curling up in the fetal position whether that's crying the buckets of tears whether that's ripping the pages of a book because that's what you needed to do to release the stored stress, the stored trauma from your body and all of all of that expedited your healing 

Tiffany Vaughn: Absolutely, you have to face everything. 

Corinne Powell: I applaud you,  I applaud that.

Tiffany Vaughn: Thank you thank you it's been wow it's been amazing but I mean very difficult but it also teaches you that you can walk through anything, anything in life and come out alive on the other side, and stay alive stay who you are. 

But it comes to a point where you do you have to allow your body your mind and yourself to be you to be truly who you are…

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[Outro] We've come to the end of another episode. I'm so glad you stuck around. As you consider what you've heard, what's the one thing that especially resonated with you? What's one way you can start to implement change into your life? Too much too soon isn't sustainable.

Start small and go slow. Consistency is key. If you appreciate what you're hearing on Empower to Thrive, would you kindly leave me a review and rate my podcast? It helps a lot.

I hope you'll share the episode with a friend and come back next week. And don't forget, I'm so glad you're alive.