SPEAKER_02 0:00

And just owning who they are, there is nothing more magical or delicious. There's nothing better than really recognizing it is safe to be myself.

SPEAKER_00 0:15

What's up, everybody? Welcome to another episode of Connections That Matter, where we share the stories from Northern Colorado's best business owners and find out about the connections that they've made that has led to their success. Today we have Rebecca Silence in the studio. Rebecca, welcome to the show.

SPEAKER_02 0:32

Hey Andrew, thanks for having me.

SPEAKER_00 0:34

Awesome. Well, I'm excited. We met at a networking event. Yeah. And uh I was a little starstruck because you're a published author. You you've uh you've got some some big stages that you've been on, but if people are not familiar, share a little bit about what you do.

SPEAKER_02 0:48

I am the space where all healing is possible. And what I mean by healing is freedom. And what I do is really set people and marriages and families and businesses free in a way where we're emotionally fully expressed and safe to be all of who we are, which I think is the number one tip when it comes to networking, right? Like being brave enough to risk being all of who we are with our hearts wide open so people can feel us. That is the best networking strategy tip I could ever give.

SPEAKER_00 1:20

I love that you put it that it's freedom. Because especially in a networking event where maybe you don't know a lot of people, you're introducing yourself for the first time. It's a lot of like putting your best foot forward or or um not being vulnerable. It's trying to highlight the different uh things that you do well. But behind everybody's dealing with different things. And um how do you how do you uncover uh that? Because a lot of people don't talk about their trauma. They don't talk about the things that they're dealing with, they just it's in the background.

SPEAKER_02 1:48

Yeah, well, I think we all essentially are bipolar. And I'm a trained therapist, and so that means I'm actually trained to diagnose people, but I won't. And when I'm saying we're all bipolar, I'm not knocking the realities of mental illness. But what I'm saying is we all have this persona, this survival self that I like to call it, that we've created to try to keep ourselves safe and try to put out there the version of ourselves that we think people need us to be. But there's also this healed you that most people have never met yet. Meaning the healed version of yourselves knows yourself, trusts yourself, is safe being vulnerable and fully yourself. And when you're that you, it radiates so much more powerfully than anything you can say or any boxes or achievements that you could check. We want to feel you.

SPEAKER_00 2:41

What is that moment like where somebody gets to meet their healed self for maybe the first time in a long time?

SPEAKER_02 2:48

You know, I've been helping people heal since 2002, and I do get, you know, some of the most wild cases, but also I work with the most successful entrepreneurs and that moment where they relax into feeling safe, owning their power, and just owning who they are, there is nothing more magical or delicious. There's nothing better than really recognizing it is safe to be myself. And nobody can take that away from me. So many people think this person is safe to be myself with this person isn't, and they pick and choose. But when you're just yourself and not trying to figure out who do I have to be in my marriage, who do I have to be in my business, who do I have to be with my family of origin, who do I have to be at a networking event. When you just get to be you everywhere you go, that's freedom.

SPEAKER_00 3:38

Well, I don't think people are free to be themselves.

SPEAKER_02 3:41

Like well, I think we've all learned like what emotions are acceptable and what emotions aren't. And we have learned to, again, pick and choose where we think it's safe to be who we are. And that starts so young. And it really is just a decision. You know, I'm the coach that says you don't need a breakdown to break through, you don't need a crisis moment. I'm a cancer survivor, as you know. I beat cancer with a 5% chance after being diagnosed while I was pregnant. And so now it's like my life is just divine assignment. I don't want it to take something that severe or dramatic for you just to decide, you know, this is my life. How about I live it as me and risk that? It can literally just be a decision, as you're listening to Andrew and I right now, that I'm gonna meet the highest, wisest, most capable version of me and let that me run my life from here on out.

SPEAKER_00 4:39

That's uh exciting at a point. I'm like, what is the highest version of me? Um and what would that be capable of? Uh, you know, especially as a leader, a business owner. Um that that's a powerful question to have. So how do you how do you discover that uh other than working with you? But like what are some of the first steps in like discovering what your highest level of yourself looks like?

SPEAKER_02 5:02

Well, I'm gonna say you should be in my world, right? If this is appealing and attractive to you, so the first step is go to Amazon and buy my book, Coming Back to Life, because it literally is a roadmap to heal into who you're capable of becoming. And one of my mentors, Ed Milette, he talks about like the definition of hell is if you got to the end of your life and met the version of yourself that you were capable of becoming, but you never did. So definitely go to the unsilentwoman.com, get the book Coming Back to Life. But then from there, I just want you to recognize you're supposed to feel good in your mind, body, and spirit. And if you're not feeling good, something's misaligned. You're being fake somewhere. You're putting pressure on yourself to be somebody you're not. So where I like to start is if you know what you don't want and how you don't want to feel, guess at what the opposite would be, right? How do you want to feel? And what do you want is connected to what you know you don't want. Because that's one of the hardest questions I ask people, right? Is what do you want? They don't know. They know who they think they need to be, but they don't know what would make them come alive or what would make their soul sing. So if you know what you don't want, you know what you want.

SPEAKER_00 6:19

It's an interesting way, because people get fed up uh or at least uncomfortable enough to do something about it. Um but what does that transformation look like? Where is it leading to you? Well, maybe they've never experienced it, so it's hard to even believe or imagine. But uh, I guess take me through somebody who hasn't felt healed in a long time. What are some themes that they're working about? And then the opposite of that, what does healing really feel like in a day-to-day?

SPEAKER_02 6:47

Yeah, let me just walk you through a case study of a current client, right? So we're gonna call her Lauren right now for confidentiality purposes. But this woman is making millions of dollars in real estate and just got cheated on by her husband and went through a brutal divorce and feels like everything she thought she did right was for nothing. And now, instead of just trying to achieve more, she wants to feel peace. She wants to enjoy her life. So there's this dark night of the soul as she's coming to me, and she doesn't want to let go of the success that she's built. And I call it high-functioning unhappiness, right? She's coming to me with high-functioning unhappiness that just isn't worth it anymore.

SPEAKER_00 7:31

Like people would view her as a success. Everybody wants her life. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 7:36

Everybody, even with the divorce, they would give anything to be her. Because she has the money, she has the status, she has the body, she has the reputation, and she's actually an elected official and the mayor in her community, literally, while also having this thriving multi-million dollar real estate business. So she comes to me and just something has to give, right? So what I am essentially giving her the keys to is permission to just set herself free and figure out what she wants and how she wants to live her life. So in a very short period of time, she's given up achievement as the way to be successful. And now we're looking at new success metrics in terms of all right, how much energy do I have? How much peace do I have? How much happiness do I have? And so many of you think happiness isn't real. There's no way to actually get happy. And I'm just gonna live in spite of my past and in spite of the pressure that the success I'm after cost me. So, in a very short period of time, Lauren now has built a second business. So real estate is working well with agents underneath her, and she wants to be an actual personal coach like me that had her own proprietary process that teaches people for this client how to actually rest in joy. Her tagline that we created together with me as her coach was it gets to be joyful. So now she gets to go first, right? And what does joy mean to her and what would bring her joy and just play with that? Is this joy or isn't it? She also hired me for all of her kids. And so now she's also telling me like this last holiday season, Thanksgiving and Christmas, it was the most connected. It was the most emotionally powerful holiday she's ever had. The conversations they're having, the ability to be present with each other, the ability to actually feel safe being themselves and learn about each other and enjoy each other. Her family had never had that before.

SPEAKER_00 9:38

What um that point where they they want the transformation, they're they're seeing in it. Um, I I see somebody, Rebecca, where they they actually hold on to the stories of their trauma and it's a way for them to that's a survival mechanism. Sure. Um what is that process of letting go of those kind of stories and giving them up and moving into healing?

SPEAKER_02 10:03

Yeah. Well, before I answer that, just understand for most of us as adults, life still feels how it felt growing up in our home as a child, right? So most people don't know that's happening, and or if they do, they don't know they could have anything different. So when we let go of survival, what nobody else is gonna tell you is it literally will feel like you're dying, but you're not. It's your ego. And it's about, again, risking feeling safe enough to just let yourself be seen and heard and felt for who you are, not who you're expected to be. So that is a little bit of a dark night of the soul, right? And my work isn't for everybody. Business Insider name me the top emotional health and relationship coach in the world for how quickly I can help people heal into freedom personally and professionally and just have a life that's theirs. But most people aren't gonna be brave enough, quite frankly, to say yes to letting go of who they've been and how it's been. And letting go of who you've been and how it's been does not mean you're leaving your spouse or shutting down your business or burning it all down. It means before you do that, in the name of trying to figure out how to be free. Now you just have to get really honest about where you're being honest and where you're not. And so what I teach is the practice of emotional healing, which means I make it super simple. There's only five emotions. Okay. And if you have a healthy relationship with these five emotions, you're free. Anger, fear, grief, joy, excitement. So you have to feel what you don't think you could survive feeling. So you can make some decisions about what life looks like now. Most people aren't going to be brave enough to do that work. But those that will, I offer a 12-week transformation where you can meet a next level you and a next level of peace and joy and happiness in 90 days beyond what you could even fathom. So it's right here for you if you want it.

SPEAKER_00 12:09

A lot of people think I need to go to years of therapy to undo.

SPEAKER_02 12:12

No way, it doesn't work. It doesn't work. You're gonna find a way to manage and cope with who you've been and how you're living and what you've been through. But I don't want you managing or coping. And I don't want you to understand more, right? Like this is a very sophisticated audience that you have, right? And I'm so honored to know you and the people that you know. We are talking about real badasses, right? Already. Yeah, of course. Are you having enough fun, right? Is your life yours? So nothing is wrong with you. But if you will say yes to, you you've been through enough, you've created enough success. And now it's about standing out in a way where you're willing to risk being misunderstood or not liked. And you're ready for alignment over achievement. Like if that's you, you came to this episode on purpose.

SPEAKER_00 13:03

Absolutely. Well, as a as a leader of a business, how how would you advise um, let's say I'm a boss and one of my employees had a like a loss of a child or something super tragic. Um, as a as a leader or something, who who can you be just to help um the workplace environment, help your support your employee, that those kind of things?

SPEAKER_02 13:23

Yeah. We have to stop being willing to just put in the closet, right, all of what we're going through because we don't want to deal with it at work or we don't want it to affect work because it is affecting work, right? I literally have a client who's a business owner who had a child at five years old die in a tragic construction accident, right? And she's coming to me, and now we've got a whole nonprofit named after this son that she lost. I want you to learn how to use every trauma, every heartbreak as rocket fuel so you can serve more, right? It's all about how can I be as of service, the most of service with the lives in front of me. And if I haven't processed my crap, that isn't possible. But then I can even use the most painful places and most tender places I've been and what I've been through to my advantage in a way where I can serve more.

SPEAKER_00 14:21

So that again, the the your trauma is rocket fuel and unpack that a little bit more.

SPEAKER_02 14:25

I'm wanting us to get trauma is just heartbreak, right? Like if I'm defining healing as freedom, I'm defining trauma as heartbreak. So I want you, using every heartbreak as rocket fuel, to serve more. And how do we do that? We lean in where we want to lean out. And again, you can't heal in your mind. So somebody or a traditional therapy environment, which isn't bad, it can help you understand. But I want you to take it where you're willing to be in your body, feeling and processing what nobody has been able to help you fully process. And then we transmute it into real, genuine service.

SPEAKER_00 15:07

So tell let's hypothetically, let's say there's like a business partner situation and some kind of trauma is holding back communication for you as a partnership or uh like a board or you know, a C-suite where they're it's in the way.

SPEAKER_01 15:22

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 15:23

Um, how do you have the tough conversation that you're like, hey, you need to go see Rebecca, or hey, we need to deal with the.

SPEAKER_02 15:28

Well, well, here's the deal. If you can't recognize the situation is the is is not the problem and that you're triggered, then we really are only going to be able to do about 10% of what you're capable of in business. So what I mean by that is whoever is pissing you off or hurting you or confronting you, they aren't the problem. They're giving you access to a pattern that's there with or without them. So this person that right now has you up at night, they're your step parent growing up, or your sibling, or the mean teacher. They're not the problem. They're giving you access to a trigger that you quite frankly don't know how to make your biatch yet. Right. So I do a great keynote called Make Your Triggers Your Biatch. And I'm literally teaching you, wait a minute, this is real, right? Like I'm not giving people a free pass to behave badly, but how it's affecting you emotionally, you need to know this trigger is there because again, it's a pattern. So when I'm willing to take it off of this person, my upset, and actually be more me because I processed the trigger and broke through the pattern. My God, can you imagine if you were willing to take every trigger and look at it like, wow, I needed to know what that pattern was. And I'm gonna be more me, right? We talked at the beginning of the episode about there is this highest, wisest, most healed you inside of you that you don't know yet and you don't trust yet, and you don't feel safe with yet. So when I come in and I work with a board or a C-suite or a business partnership, just like a marriage partnership, that we're at an impasse. What I'm helping us see is we both have an opportunity to heal. And from there we get to meet each other all over again and ourselves all over again. And now we can create new solutions and new agreements that work for both of us, where we're not just recycling our pain, playing out the pattern, trying to have a solution that's a band-aid, but then I take my pattern with me. Right? Don't end a partnership or a business or a marriage when you're still triggered. And how do you know you're triggered? You're upset. That's good news to be so aware that you're upset, that you face it, move through it, conquer it, make it your biatch, and now you're more you on the other side of it, and more equipped to be of service and more ready to be profoundly connected.

SPEAKER_00 18:02

I think in networking, and it's triggering in a way that like some people are deeply afraid of public speaking. Maybe, maybe as a kid they spoke and and they were like told they're stupid. Now that now every time the mic is passed, there's that fear uh with them. Or um being vulnerable enough to make actually a connection that's not a superficial one. Um in a networking sense, what are some steps uh to overcome maybe some of those things holding you back?

SPEAKER_02 18:33

Well, so what I would say is to start, don't make it about you and your weird insecurities. Make it about who is in front of you and fall in love with them. I fall in love with everybody I meet. I fell in love with you right away. And we were not superficial when we first met, right? Like we went deep and we got real. And I love that. But I am here to get to know you and to feel your heart and to let you feel mine. And I want to find out what's at least one way I can support and honor you and what's most important to you. So so many of you are going into the workplace or a networking event, and you're just all about yourself and your insecurities, and you don't mean to be. And I say this with love and no judgment, but instead of all that, just focus on falling in love with the person in front of you and finding a way to serve them.

SPEAKER_00 19:26

Well, that's you're right. You brought up one of our first conversations. I was at children's hospital, uh, overcoming uh my my daughter was there, and you connected with me in a way that, hey, I'm also a cancer survivor. Gave me some peace around that to have uh, you know, that somebody else I'm talking to is going through it. But it's never an easy thing. Uh you know, so take me to that point. You're seven months pregnant. Yeah. Um, you know, uh, did you feel something was wrong? Were you going to doctors and then getting the news that hey, it's cancer and odds aren't great. Um what was that moment like? What was going on in the background? And then what all of a sudden changed at that moment?

SPEAKER_02 20:09

So at the time, I had blown up. I was on the radio, I had a six-month wait list with my private practice, and I was seeing 10 clients a day, seven days a week. I was very much at that time all about what I call achievement paradigms, right? I had to find a way to have a right to take up space in my life. And so I was coaching a plastic surgeon and his wife, and in this session, I didn't have time to think about was anything wrong? I was just focused on the next achievement, the next achievement, right? So my plastic surgeon and his wife, they're sitting in front of me. And at the end of the session, they say, Listen, you saved our marriage and you saved our family. And there's this thing on your arm. And please let us help you. Will you come to the clinic at 7 a.m. tomorrow? Let us take this off, let us biopsy it and help you. You've done so much for us, and there's something wrong with this. And did I know something was wrong with this mole on my arm? Sure. It was changing, it looked terrible. Did I have time to deal with it? No. And three years before, I had asked my primary for a dermatology referral for this black mole on my arm, and he said I was fine. He wouldn't give me the referral. And in my brain, I was like, great, I'm busy. I did my part. So from there, that that was the beginning of like, yeah, I'm gonna have to face this. Then once I got the results of the biopsy and found out it was malignant melanoma, that was really the moment where it felt like the sky was falling.

SPEAKER_01 21:51

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 21:51

And like the world was crashing down all around me. Right. And, you know, what I knew was that I was never gonna be the same again in my life. Was never going to be the same again. But there's nothing I can't handle. And you know, another big part of my story, and it's a lot, right? So I'll just be frank. I grew up in domestic violence. So because of that, I ended up in my first marriage, in my own domestic violence marriage. And I got out with a two-year-old and became a single mom, went bankrupt, figured it out. And at the time I knew, all right, this is a malignant melanoma and this isn't good, right? I already knew what I was capable of in terms of resilience. And I knew based on what I'd created with the practice of emotional healing, my job was gonna be to live what I'd been teaching. And I literally heard what I call God say to me, Rebecca, it's easy to be this badass, right? Like this version of you when everything's going your way. I was married again. It was a dream come true. But who are you gonna be now? Now is the time to live what you teach that you've been given and to just walk it out as the best of you, practicing emotional healing. And it's one step at a time with my practice of emotional healing. We don't get too far ahead of ourselves. So I knew what I'd already been through that had prepared me. So the healed me was already in charge of the mission called my life. This wasn't another opportunity to heal past drama. That was done. Now it was the opportunity to be who I said I was.

SPEAKER_00 23:30

That that flip between like when you're playing life on offense to all of a sudden something happens, it's not in your control playing on defense. But if you're still a healed person or powerful person, like you actually can handle the defense even though it wasn't something you were expecting to go through. That's powerful. Uh yeah.

SPEAKER_02 23:48

Or you can stay on offense.

SPEAKER_00 23:50

You could stay on offense even more.

SPEAKER_02 23:51

In the moment where most people would go into defense mode and self-protection. I didn't go into defense or self-protection. I kept my heart open. I was so willing to be with whatever emotion of the moment was present. Because 100% of the time we are emotional creatures. So anger, fear, grief, joy, or excitement is present. And when I'm able to be with the dark, the anger, fear, and the grief, joy and excitement get to be the rule. And so I was unwilling to not have that be the case even as I fought for my life with a 5% chance.

SPEAKER_00 24:25

Wow. And then what what would you say is the main reasons you beat the odds?

SPEAKER_02 24:32

I have a divine assignment that I'm supposed to still be here. Like I think it's bigger than me.

SPEAKER_01 24:37

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 24:38

I really, really do. You know, I don't think I caused the cancer. I don't think I cured the cancer, but I think cancer was the perfect storm for me to get my priorities in order, right? There's no more 10 clients a day, seven days a week.

SPEAKER_01 24:52

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 24:52

Right. I cherry pick my high-end clients that pay me a premium because they get it. They get life is precious and they want to give the people they care about the best version of themselves. Right. But I needed priorities in order. And it also proved to me that my practice of emotional healing is pretty much the most powerful healing methodology on the planet, which I've been given Global awards recognizing me for that. And, you know, I just never know, right? Like we have time until we don't. And so for me, emotional healing gives me so much more time back and a way to be powerfully relaxed and joyful as the rule, and the best of me as the rule. And I just think I'm obviously supposed to be here because I am.

SPEAKER_00 25:40

I love it. I love it. Well, thank you so much for sharing. Yeah. You know, whether you're a business owner, maybe uh uh a high performer or somebody who just is Googling something and this podcast showed up. Um, and maybe they're not talking about it publicly, but there's something going on. Sure. What is the best way for people to approach your world, get connected to you?

SPEAKER_02 26:02

Yeah. Well, I want to give a gift to everybody listening today. Because if you made it this far, there's something in you that's ready to release any stress, any suffering, any emotional baggage or turmoil that you just don't need, right? And we we've all been told the work of healing is never done. And that is a bold-faced lie. When I am your coach, you fully heal. Healing is permanent, and you feel better than you can even fathom, right? So if you're attracted to this discussion today, follow me on Instagram at Rebecca Silence and just DM me CPR, and I will send you my free emotional CPR masterclass to teach you a whole next level of nervous system regulation and access to joy and excitement being the rule you live by, and to really give you a way to get beyond fight flight freeze and into real emotional healing. So that would be a perfect next step is just follow me on Instagram at Rebecca Silence, DM me CPR, and I will send you a masterclass that will help you at home and in business, and then we'll stay connected from there. You can also check out the unsilentwoman.com or go to Amazon and order Coming Back to Life right now.

SPEAKER_00 27:23

Awesome. Well, I think we both agree if the world was a more healed place, the networking environment would be a lot healthier as well. So thanks so much for coming on the show. We'll see you around Northern Colorado.

SPEAKER_02 27:34

Yeah, thanks everybody. I can't wait to meet you.

SPEAKER_00 27:37

Hey all, thanks for watching. I love networking and building relationships with other Northern Colorado business leaders. So if you want to come meet some of these podcast guests, meet me or meet some other amazing entrepreneurs in Northern Colorado. I would love to have you attend one of our next events. Uh, go in the podcast description. There's a way so that you can see our upcoming schedule. And maybe you could be a future podcast guest as well. Thanks.