She went out for a late lunch in a place she’d visited hundreds of times, then lost nearly eight hours of memory and woke up in a hospital, badly beaten. What happened next was its own kind of trauma: Romy says she was criminalized and treated like the aggressor, even though she was the one who called for help.
That betrayal cracked open everything she thought she could trust, and it forced a decision that so many of us face in different ways: stay trapped in rage and fear, or rebuild from the inside out.
We talk through the aftermath in a grounded, trauma-informed way, including how stress and trauma live in the nervous system, why the thinking brain can’t solve stored survival responses, and what “inner safety” actually looks like day to day. Romy shares the practical tools that helped her climb out of a constant fight-or-flight state: breathwork, movement, shaking, using your voice, stillness, and radical self-compassion. We also unpack the harder emotional work, like releasing people pleasing, letting go of the need to be believed by everyone, and choosing forgiveness as a practice that frees you without excusing what happened.
Faith is part of this story too, not as denial, but as an anchor. We explore gratitude, service, and trust as daily lifelines, and how Romy’s book Broken To Breathful grew out of a choice to turn pain into purpose.
If you’re searching for breathwork for trauma, healing from assault, nervous system regulation, self-love, or women’s empowerment, this conversation offers language and steps you can use right now.
Subscribe for more stories of resilience, share this with someone who needs hope, and leave a review so more listeners can find the show.
What part of Romy’s path to reclaiming her power hit closest to home?
To connect with, work with or purchase Romy’s book you can visit her website at: breathworksimple.com or visit her Instagram @romylimenes
To download a free chapter of host Sylvia Worsham’s bestselling book, In Faith, I Thrive: Finding Joy Through God’s Masterplan, purchase any of her products, or book a call with her, visit her website at www.sylviaworsham.com
Transcript:
Never struggled with fear, doubt, or worry and wondering what your true purpose was all about. This podcast is for you. In this show, your host, Sylvia Warsham, will interview elite experts and ordinary people that have created extraordinary lives. So here’s your host, Sylvia Warsham.
Hey Redbringers, it’s Sylvia Warsham. Welcome to Release Start Review Purpose in today’s room, Luminous. And uh Luminous, sorry. I said luminous because that’s what you said earlier. So sorry about that. And I love her story to a degree. I mean it’s a it’s a painful story, so what you have coming down the road, um, something that she’s gonna be discussing is is pretty heavy, so and maybe triggering for some. Uh, just realize that we’re gonna be talking about assault, but uh, she is someone that took that assault and did something with it. She didn’t allow that darkness to overshadow her light, and she decided to actually launch the book on the third anniversary of that assault, which I think is beautiful because it’s how we reframe our pain. We don’t stay broken, we choose to become you know, light, to be that light when we say no to the darkness. And she said no. She teaches women to rebuild their inner safety for obvious reasons and to reclaim their power because when you have been unjustly prosecuted, unjustly um looked at because of something that happened to you, people can seriously fall into that darkness for a long time and stay there, and yet Romy said no. She said, No, I’m gonna step into my light and I’m going to write a book and I’m gonna help other women who may be journeying through this chapter. And her book is broken to breathful. It released in August of last year. It’s available everywhere. And without further ado, Romy, thank you so much for joining us on the least out reveal purpose.
Thank you so much for having me, Sylvia. I really appreciate being here.
I feel that Holy Spirit already in the room, so I know he’s here. And I know that what you have to share is can be triggering, but it could also bring some light to a very dark chapter. So please do us the honor of sharing your beautiful story with us.
Yeah, thank you so much. Um so the the assault that you’re referring to, yes, it was definitely the it sort of feels to me almost like the final act, if you will. Um, when I was able to zoom out a little, and I’ll get to the the story in a moment, but when I was able to zoom out a little bit, I could see that really it wasn’t just one isolated event. Yes, this was sort of this, it felt to me because it was so massive on so many it it was so many deep wounds that it brought into the light that it um it felt to me archetypal almost in proportions, if that makes sense. And it was almost like it was so massive that I couldn’t for another moment not get the memo, if that makes sense. The memo from, you know, God, the universe, whatever your language is. To me, it was very clear that this was hopefully the final act of what felt like a series of a lot of hardships over about a decade. This was certainly the the the one. Um, in that regard, yes, it was devastating. I was uh drugged while I was having a beer in my hometown where I live. I was it was a late afternoon on a Wednesday. I on a whim decided to, instead of going to swim laps, it was a hot summer day. I thought, you know what, I’m gonna take myself out to lunch. Um I drove downtown where I live, very safe, busy, pedestrian, you know, something I’d done hundreds of times in my life. And while I was having that pint of beer, I was unknowingly drugged without knowledge or consent, of course, and I lost my memory for almost eight hours. My next memory is waking up in a hospital room, badly beaten, and I was acting, I was raging. I was my first memory is ripping my IV out and screaming profanity, throwing it across the wall. And I remember having this fleeting thought of, oh my gosh, what is happening? Why are you so angry? And then boom, I was restrained and injected. Anyway, I ended up then my next memory, I was I woke up, three officers came in and read me my Miranda rights and told me that I was under arrest, and I had no idea what had happened. Anyway, there’s so much to the story that I can’t really share now. But basically, what I learned was about four days later, the memory came back to me. I remembered who drugged me. It was not a patron. I can’t say specifically who it was, but it was not a patron. I learned that there was a pattern of this going on. I learned that um basically um I had been the one to call the police. Not basically, this is what happened. I was the one who called the police for help. But when they came, they were told by the people that assaulted me that I had started a fight, even though there was no evidence of this. There was witnesses that said that I was assaulted. I mean, it’s so it’s so ridiculous of a story. It’s mind-blowing to even imagine that this could have happened. But as a result, I was criminalized. And so, on top of the trauma that I realized I’d incurred of being drugged without knowledge, I learned that I was more than likely drugged with the intent to be trafficked. I do believe I was taken. I know the man that I believe took me. I know who assaulted me. Um basically, on top of that trauma, it was almost a bigger trauma to be rendered completely voiceless and powerless and to be perceived as the perpetrator, basically. And it was such a deep sense of um abandonment and betrayal because my whole life, I’ve I worked as a nurse all my life. I worked in the hospital setting. You know, I was always the one that would take care of patients and advocate for them. And and, you know, my whole family, we come from firefighters, law enforcement, nurses. This was so out of the realm of possibility for me. I always assumed that I could trust these systems and trust uh, yeah, I I assumed that I would be safe and protected, and instead I was persecuted, I felt. So it was a it was this compounded trauma that basically it decimated my life as I knew it on every level, um professionally, financially, psychologically, emotionally. I was so dysregulated. Um I was living in a constant state of fight or flight. I have two young children. Um, I also was just freshly into a divorce, a single mom. So, you know, a lot to manage. I ended up losing my nursing license after a 20-year impeccable history because the Board of Nursing came after me because of the information that was produced that was based on no fact. It was based on uh basically the the people who assaulted me, deflecting from the truth, and and then a broken criminal legal system that basically what I learned didn’t seem to care at all about the actual truth. So that’s the story. I know it’s ugly, and there’s a lot more info. That’s me trying to summarize it, but what it did for me personally is it was the catalyst of it was like the the it was the full uh decimation of my life as I knew it. Everything that I had sort of identified as me up until that point. And I I got to a point where I I realized that nobody was coming to save me, and that really the fight that I needed to focus on was not trying to battle in the courtroom or whatnot, but that I needed to really put my energy into um finding my own peace, my inner peace, finding my own calm. I knew what happened. I realized that the only opinion that mattered was my own and that I knew the truth. I knew exactly what happened to me, but I had to let go of oh my gosh, fear of judgment, a lifetime of being a people pleaser, of always caring so much about what others thought of me. And then I started to see how this was, I mentioned archetypal. I realized, you know, I came from a family. A lot of us did. It’s culturally normal, I you know, relevant to the time as well. But a family culture of like children are not really there to be heard, they were just sort of there to obey and and not really take up too much space and not um have much sovereignty really when it comes down to it. And so I realized that my whole life I had sort of been recreating this in in my patterns. I was playing small, I was always acquiescing to others’ needs, I was um giving my power away, basically. And you know, it took, I suppose, this this event for me to finally say no, this is I’m done. I’m done giving away my power. I believe me. I I’m gonna I’m gonna meet me. I’m gonna I’m gonna love on me now because no one else is gonna do that for me. So I started from the ground up, and what I discovered was that I was reflexively leaning into these tools like breath work, moving my body, getting really still, using my voice a lot with music, vocalizing, you know, even though I’m not a singer and I wouldn’t sing around other people, I noticed that I was instinctively leaning into these things that were basically just on a very basic level, providing me with safety in my body. And that’s where I needed to begin. And once I started to re-establish safety and trust from within, I I started to uh realize that I got to practice radical self-love with myself, that I got to show up in a way that I never had before, that I didn’t need to be hard on myself or judge myself or be imperfect. And, you know, so I started to sort of just really, it’s almost as if the safety that I created from within started to to grow. And I started to be able to love myself more. I never really knew what that meant before. It was always very abstract. Like, what does that mean? But then I started to realize, wow, it’s it’s the way I talk to myself, it’s the language I use when I when I, you know, for years I was always kind of self-deprecating about myself in a funny way, but I realized like it’s not funny. That’s not funny to, you know, so I started just really showing up for myself like I never had before. And and slowly, I mean it’s been three years now, three and a half, I have I have slowly reclaimed this this sense of safety and self-acceptance and um, you know, just this knowing that that everything I need I already have, and that I can I can I can go inward. And for me personally, I do have a spiritual faith that’s huge for me, but I find that they’re very in they’re very connected. When I go in, I then I’m able to be more receptive and more open, and I’m able to shift from the fear into the the more expansive love, right? So it’s all related, but I just discovered that it really begins from within. So my book was partly about finally having a voice because I didn’t have one when I went through the legal system. It was about finally being able to express and take up space and share my story. But more than that, it was really about these things that I learned along the way in the hope that maybe my story can help other women who are experiencing a threshold where where um, you know, because gosh, we all know how many of those we have in a lifetime, right? Um yeah, so that’s I know that was a lot.
That was, but um you shared a lot of pearls of wisdom, but I do want to unpack some of the points you made. First off, I will commend you for having the courage to step out of your darkness and write this book to help other women that might be in the same situation that you found yourself in.
Okay, yeah, really.
Uh, it takes an enormous amount of courage to step out of oneself and and be that vulnerable and be that open and still be that curious to to work through the pain to get to the other side.
Because how many people out there choose to avoid the pain and stay a lot? Yeah, because it’s painful. It is, it’s going to be painful to sit with what happened, yeah, to accept what happens, and from that acceptance space release what you cannot control. You cannot control how people are going to judge you if they’re gonna judge you. You cannot control how the other people, you know, basically claimed unjustly what had happened.
You can’t control that, and people get so caught up in that space, yeah, and it paralyzes them, yes, and they get angry and they rage, and and unfortunately, it’s it could also be described as spiritual warfare, in that our faith will be tested during these dark chapters, and how we hold steady despite the attacks is what actually creates that perseverance in us so that we can persevere through whatever trials and tribulations, because God always said you will have trials and tribulations, we just don’t know what kind of trials and tribulations we’re gonna encounter, right? And I think if God were to show us what we would have gone through, we’d be like, no, thank you. But so of course, we don’t know what his word says, and and I took me a long time to get into the word, is I kept reading how some of these people really went through major trials, like Paul, the one that wrote the majority of the New Testament. He was in a prison pretty much the entire time he wrote it. I I can’t imagine how bad of a situation that must have been like for him. And then to express such joy and thanksgiving, even despite the darkness. So, number one, I commend you. Bravo, really, honestly, bravo, and I’m so grateful that you’re here today.
I heard that I mean, there’s so many gaps in the in the story.
I’m curious if those gaps are filled in by the book. Are you yes? Okay, yeah, so who are things that you can’t talk about? These are things that you have to talk about in a book. So I’m just kind of curious on one thing, it just keeps playing in my mind. Yes, is you you know, wake up in the hospital and you’re badly beaten. Yeah, and but there’s a part in your story that you say that there was um a possibility of being trafficked. Yes. So I’m curious how you got out of that situation. Can you shed some light into that?
Yes, yes. So what I believe happened is that I was um taken. I know for a fact that I left at, so I was in there for about, so this is a pub that was right next to the restaurant where I was planning to dine. I know that I arrived at three, and I know because of information that I received the next day from a perfect stranger who texted me and said that he and I had talked for an hour and a half, and he told me when he met me. So that doc that confirmed when I had exited the place. So I was in there about 45 minutes. I don’t remember leaving, I don’t remember paying nothing. I told you I my last memory is a man coming up behind me, and I turned around, I sensed him, and he was leaning in and staring into my eyes in the most penetrating, the strangest thing. It was totally my whole body just went cold, and that was my last memory. Then I realized that was a man who had drugged me. He was trying to see if my pupils were dilated, I’m sure, because he probably was wondering why I was maybe still lucid. I don’t know. But anyway, I put it all together. Um the police report, so I know that I, according to this person, he says that we talked till uh 5 30 and that at which time he left. Now the police report starts at 8 30. There’s no documentation of where I was for three hours. The police report stated that they responded to a call. The truth is, is it was me calling, saying that I’d been physically assaulted by a bunch of people. I don’t remember calling, but I’ve heard the 911 call, and it’s very clear. There was also two witnesses that came forward that confirmed this. Apparently, I vomited. So I think that the man took me and returned me. And I’ve since later learned from the community that this block I had no idea was known for rampant police intervention, the most in the whole town. Uh lots of lots of common knowledge as it was. I didn’t know. I had no idea that that there’s this sort of activity going on regularly. Then the man that had reached out to me, I noticed for he said we just talked, and then he left. And it wasn’t until about nine months later I had several people say to me, That doesn’t make sense. I think he was involved. And I said, No, no, he wasn’t involved. But then I started to think about some things, and and again, it’s we don’t have enough time to get into it here, but basically it was enough that got my attention. I thought I need to talk to him more. And every month or so he would check in, you know, hi, how are you? But he wouldn’t really, you know, it was odd, it was interesting and odd. And I reached out to him and said, I am starting to have more memory. I would love to ask you some more questions about that day. And then he blocked me. More than one platform. Also, the police had reached out to, or sorry, my attorneys had reached out to him at one point, so I think that scared him. Basically, it was just a lot of information that I had that made it very clear to me that he was at minimum suddenly after being very consistently always sort of checking in, which I later realized. I think he was sort of just trying to gauge if I remembered anything. That’s what I think. He also doesn’t live here. He lives in New York, a different state. There was just a lot of different things that sort of started to come into play. Um, so no, I don’t know for a fact, but it’s my um, I do believe that that’s what happened. I believe that I was taken. I don’t know if I was, you know, it’s so interesting. Here’s the other part. Um, is I assumed for a long time, oh, thank God I wasn’t assaulted, sexually assaulted. I thought I would know. Of course I would know. And then one day it occurred to me, I thought, you know, first of all, sexual assault is not just violent, aggressive penetration part of me, if this is too much TMI. But but I realized you know, there’s a whole range of what is in that arena, correct? But even if he took me, it doesn’t matter. Even if we just sat and talked or held hands or whatever it was, it was nonconsensual, as was the drug assault in the first place. So um, and then I learned that I had he did return me, and I heard from the witness that I walked in and I vomited immediately. Now I don’t know, which is a that’s a telltale sign of being drugged, total amnesia, vomiting, nausea. Um apparently um so so what I would what I learned was that after I vomited, the the the people that were there got really aggressive and knowing me because I have a a mouth on me, um I probably said some things and it probably didn’t go over well because as we are witnessing uh not anyway, I’m not gonna go there, but um this is all speculation, but I do know that I was badly beaten. I had two black eyes, I had to get stitches in three places, I looked like I’d been beaten by a two by four, I had marks on my neck, my body was bruised, and um I no one else was injured. The video surveillance went missing. Um no one had any anyway. So all to say, I never had the liberty to have uh a proper investigation or advocacy because I was deemed the the assailant from these people who I think are just very experienced at I think that this is they’re seasoned and they knew what to say. They said that I had gotten aggressive with the bartender. I’ve never in my life had any physical altercation ever. Anyone that knows me knows that I’m the girl that, like, you know, I’m the person that is too friendly to the bartender. I’m the one who’s the, you know, that that, yeah. So the super kind one. The super kind one to a fault, too, yeah.
You mentioned earlier you were the people pleaser growing up, and you were that’s what, but you also mentioned something that caught my attention, and I did want to touch on this. Um, but first off, let me just say, oh my goodness, and don’t worry about the detail because I think the detail really gives people a visual of just how bad it got and how people could just stay there in that space and keep relieving that. Okay, so before I move on to the next point, you did make a point about growing up in you know, firefighter family, police officers, you were a nurse.
How what did you do to release that resentment I’m sure you felt?
The rage, yeah.
And the rage.
Yeah. Um, you know, I it’s it’s still it’s still in me. It’s still a it’s a process, you know, it’s it’s not just a one and done. So so what I do is I um when I feel a charge in my body, uh, I kind of let my body work as almost like a feedback loop, a beacon, you know, there’s so much information. So, so, you know, moving, moving my body, a lot of breath work, shaking, uh, using my voice, I mean, lots of tears, lots of crying, you know, screaming into the pillow. Um it’s it’s really about moving the energy and but meeting it because what I realized, what I learned when I went into, so I got into breath work after this personally, and then I decided to become a breathwork facilitator, mostly because I I didn’t know if I even wanted to teach, but I knew that it would help me learn it the deepest if I took a program. So I did like a quite extensive program, spent a couple of years quite immersed in this, and I got to learn a lot about how trauma is stored. You know, we don’t we can’t meet it in the thinking brain, we have to meet it in the body, right? So, so when I learned this, and again, I was sort of already reflexively going there, it validated what my body was sort of instinctively knowing movement, breathing intentionally, using the breath as a tool, sound, voice, you know, all this is moving energy. Um, forgiveness, there’s a conscious part for me too of reframing. So the way that I work with my clients now, because now I work with women who are going through thresholds or just worn down because life is can be hard. Um we do work about rooting, which is grounding, creating safety in the body. The next part is all about reclaiming, and what that means to me is reframing. We get to choose, and so that’s part of taking our power back, is we get to choose, we don’t get to choose what happened, but we get to choose how we perceive what happened and how we then use it differently. And so I decided that by staying in that rage and that resentment, it was only imprisoning me. Those people could care less if I was carrying that rage around. I was only drinking the poison, right? So for me, when I get a wave of it, it’s a practice. I do this thing where I feel it, I meet it, I feel it in my body, I acknowledge it to myself almost like I’m speaking to my inner little girl. It’s okay. Yeah, you’re allowed to feel that freaking rage totally. I validate me. I feel it, I sense it, I breathe it. And then I choose because I know I don’t want to carry that rage all day or all whatever. I say, and I’m gonna I’m gonna forgive. It’s I’m not I’m not excusing the behavior, but I’m releasing myself of the burden of carrying it. And and it’s a process. Sometimes it takes, you know, I I always say you can return to the body and the breath again and again as many times as you need. And there are days where I literally, it’s like a hundred times. I was I had to just keep on returning, reclaiming, reframing, you know, and then slowly you you create change because nothing is is instant, right? These are these tiny little things that become big things over time, over consistently practicing them. So yeah, it’s a combo. It’s a combo of body-based meeting, releasing, and it’s a reframe in my mind. And it’s, you know, this is the spiritual part, this is the part for me that is very much there as well. It’s a it’s a it’s a choosing to lean into something more, yeah, it’s hard to even put it into words. It’s it’s expansion over contraction, right? It’s it’s love over fear. And if I stay in the rage, I’m just stuck, I’m imprisoned. I’m no good to myself or anyone. So, but yeah, I wish that I could say I’m over it all. I mean, trust me, I have moments where I still get a wave of the of the injustice of what I lived, you know, and I, you know, losing my profession. I had a business, I had a skincare business. I was 50 years old at the time. Two children, I built my whole life. I just, you know, I had my, yeah, so all that poof went away. Um, but I also recognized that staying in that perception was keeping me imprisoned, and that I needed to, even though maybe I didn’t understand what this was all about at the time, I chose to trust because I could feel in my body that that feels better than I mean, I always say I’d rather be an optimist and be wrong than a pessimist and be right. And it sort of just comes down to well, do I want to stay stuck in this fear and anger, or do I want to choose to believe that there’s a bigger plan here? And so for me, my beacon was that I could use this to help others. That made it for me a way to stay uh focused on the staying positive, if that makes sense, without spiritually bypassing either. You know, I don’t I think that that can be risky, just saying, oh, everything’s great, and trying to pretend that every, you know, we have to.
We call it toxic positivity. That’s what truly talks about. Positivity is it has nothing really to do spiritually that I can see, although yeah, there are people within the Christian, you know, community that will try to use it like a way to avoid really needing that feeling. And so that’s where the inauthentic, that’s that’s where presence really comes into play. When you are present with that feeling, that’s where God meets you in that feeling and says, Okay, let’s you want to you want my help? I I can help you because He He gives us peace that we cannot produce on our own. Yeah, we yeah, He gives us that what we need to be able to forgive and release that rage that we feel in this. And I can relate there was a uh situation where I was there was a physical altercation between a family member and I, where I physically was thrown down to the floor and was about to get hit with a fist to the face, and but God stepped in because we could tell that the devil was trying to divide our family, and it was doing a really tough situation. It was already very heavily loaded, uh like spiritually, and and you can feel the forces like really, you know, conspiring against your soul, man. It’s like this enormous conflict with us, right? Um, because you mentioned uh the reason why I bring this up is you mentioned earlier, back in the first part of the interview, that you know there’s a connection between your faith and and and this work that you’re doing now. Can you make that connection for us right now?
Yeah, trying to think. I mean, I would say Yeah, I’m trying to think. Um the connection between my faith and this work. Yeah, absolutely. So I would say that the work that I am doing is is to empower I work with women, so I’ll say women, but really people, women, to to take their power back, take their sovereignty back. And I see faith as a choice. I do. I see belief. It’s something that you you choose to believe in and to foster. And for me, I feel empowered to choose faith, to choose trust, to choose um that that everything that God is uh conspiring in my favor, supporting me, rather than to um I suppose if you choose to not, that’s also you having your agency as well. Um you know it’s it’s sort of I grew up with always being very um sort of both of my parents are very spiritual. Uh one of them is very religious as well, but I recognize the difference, and both of them are very spiritual and and I don’t consider myself religious, I don’t affiliate with a specific religion, but I do I’ve always had a very uh deep knowing that that I am I am protected, that there is more that I can’t maybe understand. And so for me, going through this time, that was a huge source of um it was an anchor. It was an anchor, is the way I put it. And um in my book, I talk about my I call them my lifelines. I and breath was one of them. I you know, there’s nine, and one of them is called heart and hands. And what that means to me is it means gratitude, service, and trust. And and so I always, you know, I feel like we all know gratitude is the antidote to what is it, all the all the you know, anxiety or fear.
I mean, it’s can exist in the same even scripture talks about it. Like you look at Philippians 4, 6 and say, do not be anxious about anything. But with prayer and petition and thanksgiving, present your request to God. So, what are they telling you? Is that anxiety cannot coexist with gratefulness, yeah? It just can’t coexist together. So, right when you incorporate gratitude, God, thank you for being there with me during this dark period. My my request is the please take this anxiety from me. Please take this fear away.
Yes. And similarly, as powerful for me too, was is service. And and when I say service, you know, that can even just be an interaction with a with someone in the dog park. That to me just means um a foundation of of service servitude, of of being of holding space, that can be service, being fully present to hold space for someone, to meet their eyes and to ask them how they’re doing. That can be an act of service. Um, it doesn’t have to be a grandiose, you know, but what that does is it creates this immediate exchange, and it it’s a ripple, right? And then and similarly with trust. So it’s like trust, faith, belief. Um we yeah, so how does it relate to my work?
I think it all comes back to agency, taking back our power, um, and um our authority because yeah, we are his child, we’re we’re his daughters, we’re the king’s daughters. We, you know, no matter what happens to us, he’s with us no matter what. Because these, you know, people still have free will. People forget that. Yeah, these men chose to assault you, these men chose to lie to the police, and yeah, and they they made that choice. That’s not God doing that to you, God to you, protecting you, and I think people miss that because they they want to blame if they’re in so much pain, they’re in so much pain they want to blame. But blaming the point, it just keeps you there longer. Yeah, it’s all it’s doing. Like you said earlier, you can validate your own feelings. You think you reminded me of when we were talking at the beginning of the interview? Remember the movie Philadelphia with Tom Hanks and Denzel Washington? Oh, yeah. That’s what he reminded me of. Like he got to the point where it’s like, well, wait a minute, I’m an attorney. Like, I can represent myself. Nobody wants to represent me because this is like a taboo subject. Totally. I can do this for myself. Right. Yes, right, yeah, and so we all have that power and authority within ourselves, yet we very rarely tap into it. I find you know, right, and even just before we even got on the podcast interview, just the conversation we were having of perfectionism, like wanting everything to be perfect before we launch, before we’re here’s the thing, guys, whoever’s listening. Yeah, that’s the enemy’s distraction. He wants you in the dark, he wants to divide you from your purpose because he hates people stepping into who God created them to be, like fully stepping into it. And so he will inflict fear and doubt, and he’ll keep you there, playing small, being people pleasers to whomever, yeah, or just being more concerned with how people perceive us versus how we perceive ourselves. Yeah, like how we per that’s the definition of self-love. I mean, in my case, I’ve said this in previous interviews, and I’ll share it in this one. When I wrote my first manuscript, it was God revealed so much to me just in just sitting down and writing that manuscript. I mean, I healed so many parts of me, but I didn’t even realize I had to heal for what was coming later, right? Because I I don’t see what’s coming. He’s the only one that can see that, right? Yeah, and I need to heal the relationship with my dad because it was broken, it was just broken. And he knew that my father was gonna die four years later. I didn’t, I had no idea. Right, and he knew that my heart would not be the same if I if I didn’t reconcile that, like if there was no closure to that, right? So, in the process of writing that manuscript, what what I found to be true about self-love was self-love to me is loving myself and seeing myself the way that God sees me and loves me. Because it’s so gentle, it’s so good, yeah, it is loving, it is full of joy. All these things that we’re not used to saying about ourselves or being with ourselves. Right. We grew up so different, and I’m I’m 51, so I’m in the same age group as you. Yeah. And and I too grew up in an area like in a culture that did not celebrate self-love or self-validation. It was considered arrogant and um just self-serving. Boastful, yeah, yeah, boastful, so I I pushed it down to me like I just kind of kept going. And yeah, no matter how I was feeling on the inside, and I was broken on the inside, I was just just continue to achieve because that’s grew up with a high achiever and a perfectionist. And forever uh I did everything perfect, yeah, until I burned out and nearly died. So God uses all of our choices, all of our pain. It’s not in vain, it is something that he uses, and the interesting thing here is, and I find it so powerful what he does, is he redeems us, redeems our soul in the place that broke us. You are now teaching women how to come to their breath and to their inner work and to their faith because of the assault you went through. I don’t find that like the most powerful thing that that is love in its highest form. He loves us that much. Yeah, he’s like, You are my daughter, and I I will not allow the father of lies to let to tell you that you are not enough, that you are not mine, you are mine, and I will make sure that.
So absolutely.
Any last words of encouragement that you want to leave us with? And and do tell us of encouragement. And do tell us how we can reach you and how where we can build a bug and where yeah.
So um last words, let me think about this. Um you know the I think you you touched on it when you were talking about the way that you think of um the love that God has for you. And I and I said something, you know, I think we’re saying similar things when I talked about almost meeting myself, my little inner girl, you know, my my inner child. Um, you know, for me, it it’s it helps having a daughter. I have a little daughter who’s nine, and you know, sometimes we’re so uh we default to not doing that for ourselves that it’s hard to conceptualize that. And so for me, it helps to imagine the way I am with her or my son, for example. If they’re crying or in pain or angry, I realize that it’s okay if I can’t do more than just hold space for them, but I can do that. You know, I can’t always say, I guarantee you it’s gonna be better, or and and I just sometimes I don’t want to say that because I don’t want to diminish the experience they’re having. And so I started to see how I do that for my children and I can do that for myself. So when you said last words, what popped into my head is I always say this when we when we do this work, the work, which is sort of like the work is never done, in my humble opinion. Um the work for me, it begins with yes, meeting, letting for me, my my body, the the sensations, the charge, the anxiety, whatever you want to call it, the feeling, allow that to be your feedback loop, allow that to be your um emergency hazard light coming on. Okay, something needs attention. So so then I explained, you know, that’s the body based work, but it’s combined with almost over the top self-love and and acceptance and and and you could call that God’s love I might call it something else but I find that it’s this it’s this gentle but very profound way to um to to heal to heal the old stuff that’s been there that’s still imprinted in our nervous system and and then playing out in our in our daily lives and it’s also a way to meet in real time this life to not just stay on autopilot you know we can be in this life in the moment and and constantly check back and and go back to our to our center. So yeah I would say just go so gently show yourself so much compassion so much love um yeah I think that that is probably my my biggest gem and and also in that part of that radical self-love and acceptance is understanding that you may not learn how to do that immediately that in itself is is something that we need to learn right it’s a practice yeah so how do I where’s your book available yeah so it’s on Amazon and it’s I have there’s a digital paperback and hardcover you can find it there broken to breath full I also have um a website breathwork simple is the name of my business and it’s uh I coach women I do classes I do one-on-one I have a few different offerings how I work with people and um yeah all of my contact info is there you can get you can access the book there I have a a blog and insight section so lots of information on my website and um yeah that’s probably the best way to reach out that way and um yeah I’d love to my goodness I I definitely want to get your book and I probably will buy it tonight uh thank you for coming on the show and sharing your amazingly bright light and to all the light bringers listening remember Matthew 514 to always be the light be the light like Romy was the light don’t let your dark chapters keep you small and in the shadows you the enemy wants to distract you wants to kill your joy wants to distract you and divide you from God and his purpose and his divine purpose for your life and it’s your choice really whether you want to listen to that negative voice or you want to know and trust that God has a bigger purpose for you and just step in there and have that immense faith.
So I want everybody to know that you you have that authority you have that that power then you reclaim it like Romy has stated and and just be your authentic beautiful self. Have a wonderful and safe rest of your week everybody I hope you don’t have any more ice or snow out there um of course you’re in California so you didn’t have any of that but Texas actually experienced some tens and 20 degrees is in here in Houston Texas and so I hope everybody stays safe and warm and and just we love y’all. Thank you for joining us today on Release Doubt Reveal Purpose.
Thank you so much for having me.
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