“I am no longer a victim”: Tiffany’s Healing Journey part 2

[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: Hello, hello. I'm so glad you're back with me.

Tiffany is here with us again. If you caught last week's episode, you have already gotten invested into her life, I bet. And today she's going to continue to share with us about her healing journey and what that process has been like.

If you didn't get a chance to listen to last week's episode, it is worth going back and listening to that. And today's conversation is a continuation of last week's, but it is chock full of other topics besides the ones that she covered last week. I am so grateful that she's willing to share her story with us. And I hope that as you hear it, it will spark in you ways that you can pursue your own healing, your own freedom, your own radical change. 

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Tiffany Vaughn: And feel your feelings, express your feelings. And I do things that make me happy that maybe somebody won't understand, such as this past weekend, I was at the beach and I, it was cold out. I was dressed warmly and I just started spinning in circles. And why, why did I do that? Because I was happy. And that's what I wanted to do, you know? And I chased a pigeon and I had fun, had a great time. 

And did I potentially look foolish? So? I don't care anymore. I was happy and it brought me so much joy to be me and to let go of things that I before would have cared about. I'm not too much and I'm not too much for the right people. I have a huge personality that I had stifled for years. And now I am perfect for the right people. Not everyone's going to love me. Not everyone is going to enjoy being in my life and that's okay. 

Corinne Powell: Yeah. 

Tiffany Vaughn: But you know what? I draw people to me because I am who I am and I love it. It's, if I see someone at the store that I want to talk to, I'm going to talk to you. I'm going to say hi. I'm going to say nice hair.

I'm going to say, I love those earrings. Where'd you get them? I'm going to say what I'm going to be a little bit unfiltered because that's who I am. I'm authentic.

Corinne Powell: Yeah. 

Tiffany Vaughn: And I've made people uncomfortable, but most of the time, 95% of the time I leave and the person has a smile on their face, which brings me joy. And it's authentic because that's who I am. And maybe that's not someone else's. Maybe they're quiet and they would rather not talk to people. And that's okay.

That's who they are, but it's okay that I am who I am. It's okay that I would like to skip on the beach. It's okay that I would like to dance around the house and sometimes make my kids go a little crazy. “Mom, mom, why are you doing that?” Because it makes me happy. 

Corinne Powell: Yeah. You're touching on so many good things because letting yourself just be free to be who you are and actually connecting with a child likeness, like little kids would twirl around and not care. Right? And a lot of times we have to get to that child likeness to be able to live and love life. And being mature doesn't mean losing our child likeness. We know when we need to take responsibility. We understand the dynamics of life more, but it doesn't mean losing ourselves. And sometimes that's what we allow it to mean. 

But you also talked about being okay with somebody not liking who you are. And that is a huge indicator of your inner healing because when we can get to the place where we're like, I'm just, I'm going to be me and it's okay if not everybody likes who I am. That speaks volumes because so many of us are just looking to be accepted. And we think that acceptance means everybody likes us.

And it's just the simple reality that everybody doesn't have to like us. You know, like the seven year old who walks in the classroom and is hoping that they don't stand out. It's hoping to not draw too much attention to themselves. It's hoping that everybody thinks they're okay, right? We're looking for our validation. And if we never learn, because developmentally, then we should get to the place later on where we understand, oh, it's okay if I walk in the room and I draw some attention to myself. It's okay if I'm wearing something that somebody doesn't like, or it's okay if I'm wearing something that somebody does like. So that gets me attention. 

But if we never get to that developmental stage and we're stuck as that little kid who just hopes to fit in, then we have to, at some point in our life, address that. And you've addressed that. And the outcome is you're okay showing up as who you authentically are saying, I'm not everybody's cup of tea. And that's okay. Because some people like coffee.

Tiffany Brialliant: Yeah. 

Corinne Powell: And I don't know, you just, you said so many good things and I love it because it ignites the spark for some of us that we need to say, if this is where Tiffany has gotten, it's possible for me to get there too. 

Tiffany Brialliant:  Yeah, it really is. And something else that just came to my mind was also, I have gone through a lot of trauma. I have a very traumatic story and I have now come to a place where I am no longer a victim. I was a victim. I acknowledge that like a lot of the things that I went through were not my fault, but through healing and through facing it and allowing myself as you were the victim, yes. Like realizing that grieving it and going through my trauma, now I'm no longer a victim. I will not allow myself to be victimized. The trauma and the abuse has ended. Yes, something could happen, but I no longer allow relationships where I am going to be abused or victimized in my life. They're gone. 

And I lost a lot of people through this transformation of becoming who I am, healing my trauma and putting up healthy boundaries. I am a different person. And so through that you lose people who benefit from your trauma or benefit from who you were, or are unwilling to face their own trauma and their own fears and so on and so forth, you will lose people in a healing journey because in a way you outgrow them, you are not the same person. So therefore you cannot thrive in the same environment.

And that's not to say that everyone will end up going through a divorce or everyone will end up going through these things. But when you are truly yourself and you no longer allow yourself to be in toxic victimizing relationships, it's over. There's only a couple options because other people in this world cannot always stand being with someone who has healthy boundaries, no matter what the relationship is or the closeness of the relationship.

They say, I will no longer be a victim. I no longer believe these things. I no longer allow these things. But on the flip side, there is this other beautiful thing that happens where you no longer only have to have friends who believe the same things as you. So I no longer fit necessarily in the people groups and the circles that I fit in, but I actually have a more varied friendship circle. I can be in relationships with people who have completely different political, religious, any views because I no longer feel threatened by someone else's viewpoint.

So as long as we are both in a place where we can love on truly unconditionally, then I can be your friend. You don't have to believe what I believe. Corinne, I remember as clear as day, there is this time where we were standing around. We were in a group of friends and we were standing around and you were coming into yourself and you and I disagreed on something. My view, of course, was from a religious viewpoint. Yours was from a scientific and you said something to the effect of what I believe is just fine. I am allowed to believe this. 

And I looked at you almost horrified and was like, what? And you were like, I'm just reminding myself that it's okay that I believe this. And I was horrified. I was like, why do you need to say this? And what does this mean? And you can't be religious or christian and view it from a scientific viewpoint. And I was just, but that stuck so deeply in my memory because I had never heard someone do that. 

Corinne Powell: Yeah, it's, I'm laughing because I remember. Yeah. 

Tiffany Vaughn: It's so beautiful. It is beautiful when you can have friends that are all walks of life, all belief systems. And as long as you're both in a place where what you believe, I truly believe you can believe whatever you want. And that has no bearing on what I believe. And I'm okay with it. I love you. And I literally can be like, wow, you believe this? That's great. Cool.

Corinne Powell: Yeah. Yeah. 

Tiffany Vaughn: That's awesome. You are not a threat to my belief system. You are not a threat to me. Yeah. And so it's like this weird dynamic of now I can have any friend I want with any belief system and I can love them completely. Now it has to be a mutual respect or else it won't work. There has to be a mutual love of like, okay, you believe this way. I believe this way. And, and there's no sense of your trying. You haven't, there can be no ulterior motive in unconditional love because so often there's an ulterior motive.

You're trying to make me a Republican. You're trying to make me a Democrat. You're trying to make me a christian. You're trying to make me an atheist. You're trying to make me something that you are in order to either get kudos from a god or to feel a sense of, oh, good. You now relief of you now believe what I believe. Oh, such a relief. Now the world is at peace. When in fact we can all believe what we want and it doesn't nullify anyone else's belief.

Corinne Powell: Yes. And, and you, you brought up something when, when you reflected on those years ago when we were in the group and I said, I'm saying this for myself that you and I can hold different viewpoints and still be friends. I was literally saying out loud what I needed to hear in that moment because of the inner conflict, because of the conditioning that said, you need to agree to be able to be friends or you need to convince her of your way of things.

This conditioning that said all of that, I was coming out of, and sometimes the inner battle is so strong that for certain, for certain of us, it's just important to acknowledge it outright. It's awkward. It might seem strange and weird, and it may not be the way everybody needs to do it. But in that moment, I actually needed to say out loud for myself to hear. 

“We can disagree.  And I don't need to prove myself to you. I don't need to convince you. You're allowed to hold your viewpoint. I'm allowed to hold mine”. And basically that's just bringing to the external what a lot of times we need to do internally. And it reminds me of going back to how you found your healing, really profound healing in a short amount of time, because it was three years ago, right? That you first started meeting with me? And the transformation is very profound. But like I said before, you ran hard after it and you did a deep dive and you were willing to continue to do that. 

But something else you did that is very important for all of us is you didn't just do work during sessions. 

Tiffany Vaughn:Yes. 

you did work in between sessions where you would say, okay, what's the action step? Because I like to give people action steps because I like to give somebody something to do in between sessions.

So a lot of times that inner work you were doing to change, like we talked about how important it is to connect with the body and the somatic practices to release the stored trauma, to release the stress. But to rewire our brains, to change the way we actually think, there's actual application we can do as well. And you were willing to do that. You were willing to confront the ideas that you have been conditioned in and challenge them and say, in the moment where your child was having maybe a meltdown, you were willing to regulate yourself and say, breathe, it's okay that they're not okay right now. It feels uncomfortable, but the reality is I can be okay, even in this moment where they're not. 

And if I'm okay, if we as the parents are actually able to regulate ourselves, that's when we can help our child the most. Because two dysregulated people are not helpful to each other. Co-regulation is very important where we meet somebody in their big emotions and we sit with them and we say, I get it. I feel it. 

Maybe that's going to mean we cry with them. Maybe we're just going to put a hand around their back. Maybe we're just going to be a strong presence who's actually regulated and helps them return to joy when they're ready. But you were willing to practice these new ways of living in between sessions, which also expedited your healing.

Tiffany Vaughn: Yes. So for me, also when my children were unregulated, because I had unhealed trauma from my past, I was triggered. So I was living in a state of being triggered and it felt like a re-victimization.

So again, I'm no longer a victim, but it took me healing when I was a victim in order to not be re-victimized, if that makes sense. A lot of times when you're triggered, it's because you have unhealed trauma. And so I was so triggered by my children having large emotions. I went back to my younger self and became that victim again, instead of being the parent. So I had to do a lot of work. Like you said, between sessions, I was in a trauma state and because my children were having these huge emotions, I had to stop. I had to remind myself, just like you spoke it out loud, I am not a child. I am not being victimized. I am the parent. I am safe. I am not a child. I am safe in this moment. I can choose how to respond. 

So working through the trauma from my past and then working out my healing during really hard times was a part of it and still is to this very day. Not with that. So now that's easy peasy for me. My children get huge emotions. I got this. I've done it so many times that I know how I don't get triggered anymore because I've healed, because I've walked through it, because now I know how to do this. But a couple things. One, it took a long time. Two, it took counseling. Even it took even sometimes calling on a professional to walk through those very moments and learning how to be the parent I needed to be from a professional in those moments because for my children, they have their own set of trauma. And so theirs is very maybe more severe than the case maybe for other children.

So also with that, there's also mindsets that I'm healing from now. So I've been lovingly reminded that some of my old belief systems no longer serve me and they're no longer true. And so I have people in my life who now lovingly call me out. They’ll say, “Hey, Tiffany, that's no longer. We're not living this way. You're not living this way any longer. You don't need to think of it that way.” 

I often think back to conversations we've had, um, even conversations about money and how, how sometimes investing in something saves your mental health. And some, and money comes and money goes, and there's this belief system that the universe takes care of us or, you know, whatever you may believe in.

But for me, I am still learning and adapting and growing in the belief system that it's okay for me to take care of me. Now for me, you have to realize that I came from a place of, you know, a very poverty mindset. So I'm coming out of that and I am growing and changing.

And it's not that right now there's a ton more money. It's that it's a mindset. And I'm now, and I watch as my mindset, our mindset often leads to how we're living.

Um, like I said, the transformation of who I was and who I am today is two different people. It's, it's not like growth. It's, I am who I was meant. I believe I am who I was meant to be and who I authentically am. Without my trauma, without my past defining who I am today, but I couldn't live in a victim mindset any longer. I had to walk through extreme pain, extreme, many extreme things in order to get to where I am today.

But I had to make those choices. I had to face my demons. I had to face everything. It was literally rebuilding a house. The, the, the structure is still the same, but the inside, you wouldn't recognize it. It's completely gutted. And I had to face everything. And it was long. It was hard. It was painful, but I wouldn't trade who I am today or the process of what I went through for anything, because it made me who I am and I am breaking trauma and victim mentalities. And I am also being an example to my children of what does it look like to be different than our past generations, than our past, than those who raised us, than those who lived behind us. How do we live differently? How do we not carry on things that we were taught that are unhealthy and toxic? 

Corinne Powell: Yeah. Yep. And healing generational trauma is something that each one of us can do because we have a legacy. So whether we think we do or we don't, we impact, we impact. It doesn't mean you have to have children to heal generational trauma.

When you are changing a pattern that your parents or their parents or so-and-so set, you're literally healing generational trauma by stopping it with you. And for some of us, that ignites something in us. We're passionate to see that happen. And I want to just go real quickly back to when you talked about being triggered when your child was feeling very big emotions and you're observing them. 

If you're not aware that you're flashing back to your times in your past, you may be triggered because, to put it in more plain terms, if they're, say, yelling at you, and you were yelled at by a parental figure when you were young, if we haven't healed that part of ourselves, and a lot of times healing comes in varied forms, but in sessions, I often have us go back in memories like you and I talked about and actually meet that little kid as they were being yelled to by their parent, right? And we're stepping into that memory and we're saying, hey, we can do something about this.

And if we're not, if that hasn't happened, or we haven't found some sort of relief for ourselves in another form, then as your child screams at you, you, your body remembers that you were yelled at. And it feels like you said you're being victimized again, when in reality, it doesn't have to feel that way. Like you mentioned, when you do the healing work, then you get to experience your child yelling as actually not anything personal, but as them feeling their big emotions, and this is, they're trying to regulate, they're trying to figure out how to come back to baseline. And so they're yelling because they don't know what to do, right? 

They may feel fear, they might feel overwhelmed, they might feel enraged. But when we can see it as not something personal against us, but simply how they're doing in that moment, it changes everything. But if we're not aware, we'll simply get triggered, emotionally flashback to times in our past, when we were being mistreated, even if we weren't yelled at, and we're going to internalize this present day experience as another attack against ourselves.

So that's why it matters when we heal the memories, when we do the healing work, it matters, it affects the present day, because otherwise, our past is reverberating into our present. 

Tiffany Vaughn: Absolutely. And I can't even tell you the amount of pain it was causing. It literally left me, because of the experience, it left me in bed, unable to move forward in life. And so now, I can't even tell you the horrible things my kids have said to me. But I know beyond a shadow of a doubt that I'm an amazing mother.

And their words do not define my value or my worth, because they don't mean it in that moment. It's not something they would ever say when they're calm. But I allow it. There's no punishment. There is no consequences for them being real and authentic. And yes, we'll delve into it, we might talk about it. And you know the beauty of it?

The beauty of how we're living is I see it in my youngest two the most clearly. My youngest two may have huge meltdowns, may have giant feelings, and I allow it. I allow what, you know, as long as everyone is safe, as long as there is safety, I allow those emotions and those feelings. And what I always wanted before was my children, and I forced on my children, my older, when they were younger, was apologies.

Was you have to say you're sorry, you need to be like repentant, would be a big word. The irony is, they weren't. They didn't. They, unless forced. Do you know my littlest two? When they have big meltdowns, they will come to me later, and they will say, “I'm sorry, mommy, for what I said. I'm sorry for this, that, and the other”. And I will say, honey, I love you. I understand. Because I do.

Even if they say they hate me, whatever. They don't. And it's okay that they have big emotions. It's okay that they express them. And that apology is from within. And it's something that I always wanted.

I always wanted them not to feel bad, but to be like, realize, okay, that, you know, that isn't okay to say, you know, but I wanted it to come from their heart and their mind and their understanding. And it does now. I have two, my little children are being raised very differently than my older two were.

And so I see the difference in my parenting because I have healed because I have learned because I have done the work. Now my two littlest, especially, really all of them, but my two littlest, you see a night and day, the difference of, and what's really funny is, especially, you know, one of them will say to me, it was because I was so hungry. Like they're starting to learn their own body.

And so now, oh, when she starts to get really, really upset, I'll say, are you really hungry? And she'll sometimes stop and realize that she's really hungry. Or we'll try to make sure she's not really hungry in the morning. So we don't have these huge meltdowns.

And the beauty of it, am I perfect? Absolutely not. Will you go through a healing journey and then become the parent that's perfect? Nope, absolutely not. But you will parent from a different place, place of healing, a place of you're on a journey. Your children will know you're on a journey. You will potentially, you know, I used to yell a ton. I yell so much less.

But do I never yell? Nope, not happening. I'm there. I'm going there. I'm trying. But do I ever think I will arrive? No. But my children know that I will apologize. And honestly, they'll yell at me sometimes and they'll apologize. So it's not this power struggle of I'm the parent, you're the child, you must obey, blah, blah, blah. You know, there's this sense of healing of we're all on journeys, even children.

They're on journeys to learn in life. And we don't have the same struggles that we used to. Now, again, there are consequences, just like there are consequences in life for me. If I decide to speed down the highway, I might get a ticket. There's going to be natural consequences. There's going to be man-made consequences. It's the same for my children. Don't get me wrong. It's not permissive parenting, but it's also a parenting from an understanding and a healthy perspective of I'm healed. You're on a journey. I'm on a journey. Let's do this life together.

Corinne Powell: Yeah. Conscious parenting. You just said it. You're aware, you're mindful, you repair when there's been a breach in the relationship. These are important ways, and this is literally us talking about how to heal generational trauma. What you're describing, it is that.

And you're setting a different example. And even when we think, well, for those of you whose children are grown, because you mentioned your first two children are being parented differently than your younger two, it doesn't matter where we are in life and the age of our children or other family members, if we don't have children, at any time, the shifts we make within ourselves will affect the other people we interact with. So when we make positive shifts within ourselves, they will positively affect our relationships.

And so it's worth it. It's worth it at any time. And there's the importance of not shaming of ourselves, but actually recognizing that compassion says, I may not like who I used to be, but she was doing the best she knew how. And who I am today is another version of myself doing the best I know how. And in five years, I'll be even a different version of myself doing the best I know how. And that self-compassion, is important because that also expedites our healing.

When we actually become our own ally, we propel things forward. So I hear that in what you're saying. I hear the compassion you're offering yourself, the compassion you're offering to your children and others. And it's really beautiful. And I really appreciate all that you've shared because you've been willing to give us this very clear window in to what it's been like for you these last few years and how it's messy. It's not always going to look beautiful, but even in the mess, sometimes it will feel beautiful. And you're on a journey. So the destination is not this certain place. It's just journeying through life, realizing that there's always more and that's actually a good thing.

I go back to it. I thought of it earlier where you talked about how you can see in the middle of really difficult times that you can still be happy or you know, things are going to be okay. And I often go back to that place within myself because it feels so true that goodness surrounds me, goodness holds me, it envelops me, like it literally engulfs me. And so life feels good to me. And I know life is full of pain. I know life is full of heartaches.

And some seasons of our life, we feel that more intensely than others. But I also at the same time, feel the goodness. And I see it. And I see it in others. And I see it in nature. It's just a wonderful way to get to live because to the person who feels like the glass is half empty.

It's, kind of fun to see it as you half full know, it's like, you may be the annoying, positive person in the room, but at least it's not put on positivity. It's like, well, I actually feel it in the core of my being. So I'm not being a fraud. It's just what I feel.  And so yeah, it's not only the pop, we get to be the poppies. Oh, you were talking earlier. And all I could think of was there. She is that's you love Poppy from the movie. And as you're talking about how you go through the grocery store and how you show up as your big personality, I thought, yeah, of course she loves Poppy because she's a representation of Poppy. And you know, it's Poppy makes the room. She raises the vibe in the room. She brings in fun that needs to be there. 

And so as we show up authentically, we change the vibrations in the room. Scientifically, it's proven and we affect the atmosphere. And so people need those of, of us who might see the glass as half full because they really do need it. So I'm, I'm glad you're being your authentic self.

Tiffany Vaughn: And you know what? It encourages others to do the same healing becomes second nature questioning old thought patterns become second nature and it becomes, it takes a long time, but it becomes easier to heal over time. It becomes easier to grow because just like a plant, you're stronger. So it's easier to bloom more. It's easier to grow bigger. It's easier to once you've learned how to grow, it's easier to do it. Also, it encourages others. 

I can't even tell you. I something really funny that I like to do is I'll be at random places and maybe there's a statue and I totally want a picture with the statue. Like that's just kind of my thing. And like all I do random things, like you can be so silly and goofy, like picking its nose or whatever. And like other people will laugh and like, it'll other people might smile by me just being who I am. 

Corinne Powell: Right.

Tiffany Vaughn: And I love that. I love inviting other people to be authentically who they are, whether it's happy or sad. I can't even tell you how many people have told me where they're at in life because I was willing to be there.

And whether it's happy place or not a happy place, we can just love everyone where they're at and seek our own healing journey. And there's hope. 

Corinne Powell: There is. Brighter days are ahead for all of us. So if anyone listening is feels like you're in the middle of a really winter season, a dark season, a lonely season, then this message is for you that there are brighter days ahead.  That what you're hearing us talk about today, it's not just for us. It's for you also.

And you can have it if you want it. Like Tiffany said, we can alter our destiny. Things are not just going to be as they will be. We can affect the change we want to have in our life. 

Tiffany Vaughn: And you need to reach out for help because you can't do it alone. 

Corinne Powell: One hundred percent, yeah.

Tiffany Vaughn:  It takes help. It takes someone coming alongside you and showing you and helping you and being there. I couldn't do it alone. I was stuck in bed. I couldn't get out on my own. I had to, I had to seek help. I had to reach out. I had to push limits financially. I had to seek the help that I needed in order to heal. I couldn't just sit there and wallow in it any longer.

You have to, you have to find someone to come alongside you in your healing journey and help you see the way. And that was you. That's what you did. You were, you were a hero to me in my journey. I had to do it, but you wore the cape many times of a hero. 

Corinne Powell: Well, it was my honor. It’s always is my honor. I feel like it truly is when someone's willing to be so vulnerable and share the parts of themselves that feel so hard to expose. For varied reasons. I always feel like it is a gift to me. So thank you. Thank you for being willing. Thank you for that gift. 

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