When life blindsides you, do you freeze—or build a new path? Our guest shares how a surprise breast cancer diagnosis didn’t end her plans; it clarified them. She went from corporate accounting to licensed therapist in her fifties, guided by quiet faith, relentless discipline, and a simple surrender cue she calls “manager.” Together we unpack why motivation is unreliable, how micro-steps create momentum, and the surprising relief that comes from letting go of what isn’t yours to carry.
We explore the mindset shift from “why me” to “why not me,” and how that perspective fuels courageous decisions like returning to school at 42, tackling an advanced master’s at 50, and pursuing independent licensure. The conversation turns honest about grief—framed as love with nowhere to go—and how to honor loss without losing yourself. You’ll hear practical tools for slowing down when anxiety speeds up your life, including the power of 15-minute blocks to regain focus.
To connect or work with Zulma, visit her website at: www.dragonflytherapyservices.net.
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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:
This is my podcast!
If you’ve ever struggled with fear, doubt, or worry, and wondering what your true purpose was all about, then 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 my bringers, it’s Sylvia Warsham. Welcome to Release That Review for Business. Today is Duma Williams. And you know, you would never know with the last name of Worsham and Williams. You would never know that we’re both Hispanic, of Hispanic descent. I am both Mexican, and she’s from Argentina. And the minute you started to speak in English, I was like, this lady is from somewhere in South America, maybe even Mexico. I don’t know. I’m just gonna throw it out there. And then we started talking in Spanish, and we decided that at some later date, we’re gonna do this interview in Spanish to reach the Hispanic population out there for release that reveal purpose. So without you, Zuma, thank you so much for joining us. Where are you at currently?
Thank you for having me. Such a pleasure. I am in Henderson, Nevada, which is close to Las Vegas.
You’re in Las Vegas. I don’t know.
That was my layover coming back from Hawaii two days ago. So I’m just like, wow, Las Vegas, really?
And people don’t live here. We are baking right now. But uh like last year we had 117 degrees. Uh it was it was uh inhumane. Uh but uh he here we are taking it one day at a time, one um uh hot day at a time.
Yes. Well, you know, I’m in Austin, Texas, and I can totally agree with you, but now like Nevada standards, you guys, you guys really hot, dry hot, which is really hot at times. I mean, like the sun is like on you. So yeah, I get it. I totally get it. So, Matt, you know, when we were discussing earlier, you have an amazing story of transformation. I really want you to guide us through your story because getting a medical diagnosis can halt anyone in in their tracks for a while, and people can get stuck in those chapters. So, can you guide us on that medical diagnosis and on your current state?
Absolutely. So I was, as you said, born and raised in Buenos Aires, Argentina. I immigrated into the United States at age 31, and I was working at a corporate doing accounting at 42, and kind of like thinking about my future. I I do love numbers, but I was kind of like uh reflecting about my future, and I always had this passion to help people. So I was like, okay, um, I want to be a therapist, so what do I need to do in order to be a therapist? I need to start a school. So I started my bachelor of social work at 42 with the intention of graduating with a bachelor’s, moving forward into doing my master’s, doing the internship, and became independently licensed. The idea was to become independent independently licensed by age 50, right? Like so I started my my bachelor’s, I graduated at 46 and I’m on track to do my master’s, and six weeks after graduating with my bachelor’s, I got diagnosed with breast cancer. So life is what happens when you have other plants, right? Like, so my first reaction was why me? I was asking God, why me? Like I’m I’m I just you know, and and I started reflecting, and I don’t have children myself, but at that time my mom was still alive, so I had a mom and I had a sister and I had misses, and I started thinking if it wasn’t me, would I have preferred that it was one of them? And the answer is no. So I moved I changed my mindset from why me to why not me. Right? And then I had a decision to make I could sit in the corner and cry or I can stand up and fight. Spoiler alert, here I am. Uh but uh with with the help of God and all all glory to him, here I am, right? Like because at the time that I was doing my treatment, I didn’t even know if my treatment was gonna be successful, right? Like you are doing these treatments on faith because I never felt sick. If it wasn’t for the lamp that I found on the breast, I would have never known that I had cancer. So continuing to feel the way that I was feeling didn’t mean anything to me because I’m like, oh, I was walking around with cancer and feeling okay. So um so I moved back to Argentina to be closer to my family, and then three years later, so at the beginning, the treatment is very intense. Uh, but as the time uh went by and the treatment, uh again, praise to the Lord, was working, the appointments were like every three months and every six months and so on and so forth. So I started um thinking I wanted to celebrate my 50th birthday in Las Vegas. So I started, I asked God for a sign. Um, you can’t phone what you ask for. So I was like, God, please let me know if this is the right move, right? Because and I and out of nowhere, I get an email into my personal email, not my student email, because I haven’t been a student for three years. They deactivate that email. I get an email on my personal email from University of Nevada, Las Vegas, like, hey, we have the advanced master program back. Do you want to enroll? Yes. Uh the advanced program is a master program that you can get done in one year, it’s very intense. Uh, but it’s like I know I wanted to be a therapist. This is a kind of like a shortcut, if you would, into getting me closer to my dream. So I got I uh enrolled at 50, I uh graduated at 51, I did my internship, and I became independently licensed at 53 and a half. So I want people to know a couple of things. One is that it’s never too late. I started school at 42 in a different country, in a different culture, English is not even my first language. So, what is your excuse? Right? I started my master’s at 50. What is your excuse? Don’t tell me, oh, I’m not motivated. Motivatation is so overrated. What we need is discipline, not motivation. Sorry, because we have done shit we’re not motivated to do our entire lives. When you have a kid and you are in pain, you don’t tell the baby, like, yeah, sorry, I’m not motivated to feed you. You right, like you do what you need to do, right? When you went to work and you like you hated your coworker, you’re not motivated to go to work, right? But you did it. So, what we need to focus on is discipline because discipline is what kept me going to school when I was overwhelmed and when I was feeling well, and whatever whatever the reason was, is like okay, I kept my eyes on the goal, which was to be independently licensed. So, and another thing I want people to know is that in order to build something new, you don’t need to destroy the current situation, right? Like I continue to work in accounting while at the same time I was doing my bachelor’s. You’re gonna I was gonna turn 46 with a degree or without a degree. Time doesn’t wait for anybody, right? Like, so what do you want to do with your life? It’s up to you because you’re gonna turn 46 and 50 and 60. I just turned 60 not too long ago. I went to Hawaii, I had the best time of my life. I started podcasting at 59, right? Like, so it’s like, what is it that you want to do? Go ahead and do it, take that class, do that interview, uh, learn, go to go back to school. It doesn’t matter. It doesn’t matter if you take three credits at a time, eventually you’re gonna graduate. Yeah, who cares that it’s not tomorrow, right? Like it’s like I I had the goal, and I always kept my eyes on the goal, which was to help people.
I knew that’s awesome.
That’s awesome, right?
Like, yeah, you’re so calling because that’s what people don’t realize is that discipline plays an enormous role in achieving our goals and our dreams.
Because God will place a desire in your heart. You ask God for a sign, He gave it to you.
That’s your soul guiding you out of this dark chapter. That’s not your ego, you’re suffering it playing, you know, doubt, doubt, and doubt, and doubt, because that’s where the enemy comes in through is through the doubt, and that’s why you stay stuck in these chapters, because you think there’s no way out of here, and you create these excuses, like motivation is a huge excuse that people give you. When I became an author, the process to becoming an author is really grueling because you need to have the consistency. Have consistency, discipline, whichever word speaks to your soul, pick whichever one. It’s gotta be every day, whether you feel like it or not, you gotta write. Because you will never finish that damn manuscript if you don’t finish it.
Like if you don’t sit down and write, it’s not gonna finish itself.
It’s just not gonna happen, right? You know, you can build a chat GBT, you know, but you still have to speak, you still have to do it. It doesn’t just get magically done, right? So people always ask me, how can you write so much? How did how do you get all that inspiration? I just do it every day. And my late aunt, uh Patricia Gómez, she was a world-renowned psychologist. Uh, she uh gave classes at the UNAM, uh Universidad Nacional Autónoma Mexico. And she was someone that when you look at her, you never would have guessed. She was world-renowned, she was super humble. She had published like several texts in psychology, always presenting in abroad in Italy and France. She had had her PhD done in Paris. So she was fluent in French, Spanish, and English. Very, very talented woman, never gave up. She always like you had a goal, she was disciplined, whether she had the motivation or not. She was a single mom, like I have been. And she just told me because my my nickname at home, my family nickname is Beakys. Don’t that’s another story. She’s like Beakies. You know, you need to sit down in your house every day in the same spot, pick a place at the same time, and whether you feel like it or not, you write something. And if you can’t think of anything to write, you write, I don’t know what to write, I don’t know what to write. I don’t know. By the time you turn around, you will know what to write. And when you when you ask God to guide you, he will guide you, and the downloads will start because she was also a woman of faith like me. Uh, my my aunt passed away at the beginning of last year, and my dad passed away in June of last year. And I had told God, I was like, No more national holidays, I can’t handle more. She was she died on the first of the year of 2024, and she was like my second mom. And my dad passed away on Father’s Day, and I said, No more. I just I this is tough. Like, I don’t know what you’re doing. I I know you have a lot of confidence in me, and you know that I’m a strong woman, don’t push it. I mean, don’t push it, dude. I’d be crying at high that’s like the battle between you and because you know, uh in in life, no matter all of these things are gonna be sandwiched in the grief and the joy, all of it is mixed in together, and how you view life is really whether you cross that finish line or not in a joyful state or not. It’s up to you. Uh and like Zuma said it, it really is a matter of looking and reframing that in your mind. Now she’s a therapist, I’m a life coach, I want to get my master’s too, uh, because it’s my dad is born and I am 50, I’m about to turn 51 in August, so my husband is like, so I’m about to retire and you’re about to step in there, and I’m like, well, you know, I’ve raised our children, and now it’s my turn. And I I told my dad from the moment like he was dying, he was already unconscious, and I made a promise to him. And I’m a woman of my word. When I make a promise, I fulfill it. And so I told my husband, I was like, I’m just waiting for God to tell me what that master’s is gonna be on. And and the and the debate here is I really wanted my licensed professional counseling certification, so I need to do a master’s in something. Like I don’t know if it’s LPC, you know, like uh counseling. Right. It depends on what I don’t have or something. And but also with a concentration and theology, because a lot of my coaching is faith-based. I’m a spiritual transformative coach, and so I guide people out of their fear into their joy and into full surrender to God, um, into a daily surrender, not the surrender when we have a babe nature medical diagnosis, not only then, but every day. Because every day we faced out, right? I mean, you’ve seen the practice.
Oh my goodness.
Right. I had uh a um session with my somatic therapist not too long ago, and uh I came up with this thing about surrender um on a daily basis. You know, when you go to the store and there is this teenage uh employee, and you’re like, I want to speak to the manager, and they don’t give a shit because they don’t get paid enough to deal with your shit. So they’re like, manager, so that is my mantra. Now it’s like manager, meaning God. I this is over my my my pay grade, so you need to take care of this shit because that helps me surrender and it reminds me that I’m not in charge. He is right, like so. When I’m dealing with something frustrating, or oh my god, I don’t know what I’m gonna do, or guide me, or what I’m like, manager, and he immediately brings me back to to okay, God is the one in charge. No, right, like so uh but it might you know you need to learn what tricks will work for you to remind yourself that oh, I need to uh give this to God, right? Like so it’s like I think that the more we go into our hearts and listen to our hearts, the clearer the the path is going to be. So you promise to your dad, and and I notice your the the the grief. I I want to say grief is love that has nowhere to go. That’s why you are grieving so much because you love your aunt and you love your dad. If you didn’t give a shit about them, you will not be grieving, right? Like so when we are grieving, eventually we’re gonna find that place where we can honor our loved one. Right now it’s too painful, but eventually it’s gonna be like, oh dad, look, I got an A on my uh on my final, right? Like what whatever it might be. But when you when you think about grief this way, it’s like, oh, I’m feeling this much pain because I love this person so much, right? Like it replays it.
I do, it does, it reframes it immensely, and I do agree with you.
You know, God is our guider, he’s the one in control, he’s the one that can is the one that deals with the how you’re gonna get there.
Yes, yes, it’s not us, it’s not us, and I know that our culture here in the United States points us in that direction daily of you gotta be an achiever, and this is what you gotta do. And there’s all these checklists and all these lists, and this is how you’re gonna do it. And it’s like, no, no, no, no, no.
Because what you’re getting on the outside is not really always meant for you, right?
Because you’re looking to have those questions answered from these things that you’re achieving, right? So that’s where a lot of people put a lot of emphasis, like say in relationships, they put a lot of emphasis on the other person, a lot of pressure on the other person. Well, if they don’t make me happy, then I leave. No, no, no. That’s that the happiness portion is up to you. It’s it’s an inward work. It is happiness comes from God. And the happiness comes from God, it doesn’t come from another human being, another flawed human being that’s on their own journey with God, right? Because sometimes we want to speed up their their journey. I know I wanted to speed up my second husband’s journey in faith, and that was a big mistake on my part because I’m like, Right, I’m gonna control his journey, like no, no, and I’d have to step in there and say, Silvia, no, that’s that’s between me and me, I’m the manager, I’m the manager. I’m the manager, and I I think you also made a very good point in that what do you do to get back to center? To the present moment, not to your future, not to your past. What’s your center? For me, it’s my fate. He grounds me in it. When I come back to my identity in Christ, that’s my center. I’m a dancer, so you know how you you move to the right, yeah, center. You move to the left, you center, because then you’re off balance. Otherwise, it looks like you’re crazy. Like you’re you’re going back and forth between your future and your past, and the da da da, and those where people get stuck in this loop of like. Doubt of like what if, what if, what if, but if I don’t do, and I haven’t they don’t learn the whole journey of life is to learn the lesson that you’re learning as you’re surviving these things. Like you learned tons of lessons, I’m sure, as you were surviving breast cancer. As I survived pulmonary embolisms, because that that’s my medical diagnosis that kind of stopped me. It was the way that dear old God got a hold of me because I’m his stubborn kid. I just couldn’t, I wouldn’t listen to him. He tried to reach me calmly, quietly, see ya, you know, move in this direction. This is not your life. I need you to move here. And he finally used my choice in taking breast control pills over the age of 35. Because he was like, ah, my opportunity! Can make this a little painful. You need to wake up. And I ended up with pulmonary embolisms and blood carry syndrome. Almost dying. I had an 80% chance of dying. And I faced six doctors in a medical room. I walked in and said, You’ve got pulmonary embolisms, and now you have a massive blood clot in your vena cave, and it’s taking it’s blocking your liver from being able to release blood from your liver, and you’re about to go into acute liver failure. You’re about to require a transplant. And I’m sitting there having just started dating my second husband with a little boy, my mom in the room, and I’m just like, oh, my whole life flashed before your eyes. Yes, because very, very clear. I wish I could tell you that that woke me up and actually started to listen to God right away. That’s not always the case. Because we’re stubborn and we’re doubtful. And if you do not work through your crap, and by that I mean the traumas and the pain and the crap, the programming that you’re feeding your mind every day. If you don’t work through that, you will not learn the lessons that God intends for you to learn, and they’re gonna keep coming back. And coming back is gonna get even more painful every time. So here’s a tip from Zuma and I learn the lesson, accept, accept that that survival is not you anymore, that that pattern that you h held on to for so long was there when you were a little kid, and it just it served you really well, but now it’s time to let it go and to surrender it to God because God wants to take all that from you so He can show you your brightest light.
And you won’t want to see that light until you let go.
Right? Absolutely, and I you know I always say I had cancer, cancer didn’t have me. Meaning that can if anything, cancer came to show me how bad I wanted to be a therapist because it only delayed me, but it didn’t stop me, right? So and and it doesn’t have to be cancer. I invite the listeners to whatever challenge they are confronting right now, you can say I have this challenge, this challenge doesn’t have me, right? Like, what is the lesson to learn? I always say we are either happy or we are learning something. What is it? What what do you need to learn from this? Sometimes, so we all have a hundred percent track record of being successful at overcoming challenges. How do I know? Because you’re here. So whatever shit happened to you could not take you out. Why is this challenge different than the other challenges? I’m saying look back into your own life to the challenges that you overcame, and that’s where the faith is gonna play a part, but also your part is gonna like so it’s like, oh no, um I want you to remember to go back to a particular challenge where when you were in the middle of the challenge, you didn’t have the answers. But you just kept putting one foot in front of the other, and eventually you came on the other side of the challenge. So for everybody listening right now, it’s like, oh my god, I cannot see the way out. Just take a deep breath, keep praying, giving it to God, surrendering to God, and you’re gonna find the way. The the issue is not that I’m not moving fast enough, the issue is when I get stuck. If I don’t get moving, I’m gonna be in the same place. But as far as I continue to put one foot in front of the other on face, I’m gonna come out. I’m I don’t know when I’m gonna come out of this challenge, but at least I’m not where I was yesterday. So let’s stop comparing ourselves to other people and let’s start realizing how far we came. Are you better than you were 10 years ago, five years ago, a year ago, a month ago? Right? Like, let’s compare ourselves to ourselves to see our growth. Because if you compare yourself to others, oh yeah, there you’re always gonna be people doing better than you, but there is always people doing worse than you. But we only compare ourselves to the ones that do who are doing better, and it’s like we don’t even have an idea of what the journey is. So it’s like let me get back to my center, to my heart, to my face, to my conversation with God, however, that conversation goes. With me, it’s like manager, right? I guess I’m gonna figure this out, like so. That’s when I invite God to take it away from me. But it wasn’t for me anyway, right? It was for me to give it to him, right? The thing is that I invite everybody listening to identify that challenge and remember that they being the two worst challenges and yet they are here. It doesn’t have to be a a serious uh health diagnosis, it can be anything that you are facing right now as far as you can continue to put one foot in front of the other one day at a time, if one day is too long, one hour at a time, if one hour is too long, 15 minutes at a time. If I ask anybody, nobody, no matter what they are going through, can you push through this shit for the next 15 minutes? Nine out of 10, the answer is yes. Four of those make one hour, 24 of those make one day we don’t only need to push through the next 15 minutes, yeah, and then we rinse and repeat, right? Like it’s like, oh my god, how I’m gonna no no. Can you push through the next 15 minutes?
Yes, you gotta slow it down, and I’m gonna use an analogy in pickleball because I’m a pickleball player. Um, I think you made an excellent point here. Slow it down. Like today, this morning, I got off a plane from Hawaii about two days ago. I’m still jet-lagged. Um, and I’m sluggish on the court. I haven’t played pickleball in over two weeks. So I’m on the court with my very good partner Ann, and she we’ve lost, we’ve been pickled, meaning we’ve lost 11-0. And I turned to her and we’re playing the second match, and I’m like, okay, give it to me straight. Like, what’s happening? Let’s strategize. And she goes, Okay, we need to slow it down. You’re trying to beat the shit out of every shot, need to slow that down, and so I was like, okay, and we just need to start being more strategic, like slow the ball down. Awesome, let’s do that. We didn’t win that match, but we got very, very close because we were coming from behind. We had already lost like six points, like straight, and then we started to come back, right?
So, in life, when you slow things down, you number one, you can see your mistakes clearly, and you can reframe, you can start re-strategizing out of there, saying, Okay, here’s my pattern.
I want to control circumstances every time a feeling this feeling shows up. So, what’s my strategy? What can I do? If you don’t slow it down, you’ll just keep doing it subconsciously over and over and over again, right? Which is what I was doing. I was trying to speed up the ball all morning. And had she not told me, hey, sorry, slow down. And as soon as you started slowing down, I started to watch my options and my opportunities. There were very much available in my eyesight, but I was so focused on getting it over with that I couldn’t see. I know it sounds like so bizarre, but that’s life too. When you’re so focused on go, go, go, go, achieve, achieve, achieve, achieve, and you don’t slow that down, number one, God can’t reach you that way. And then you’re gonna end up with a medical diagnosis like one of us. And really, is that the route you really want to take? I don’t think so. Because that’s right, it the the body getting humbled that way, you have to start all over again. Nobody likes that. No one. But if that’s the only way that God’s gonna be able to reach you to use one of your choices in life, he will. He will because he loves you that much. He loves you because he doesn’t want you to continue on a path that’s not meant for you. Right? It’s it’s what you thought you needed to do based on other people’s expectations of you, and that could be your parents, that could be role models in your life that you want to be like, but that’s not fully, right? Society, whatever social media, that comparison, imposter syndrome, whatever it is, slow down, reflect. And like she said, baby steps, because that’s how we create new habits in life. And habits is what gets us to the goals and our dreams and our desires that God has placed in our hearts as well. That’s what actually gets us there, is that piece. Baby steps. Baby steps. It’s not your motivation. Get that out of your head. That’s not what this is about.
You need to be Nike and just do it.
Just do it. Do not think about it. Like I in Hawaii, I was terrified of being in the open ocean. I’m like terrified of sharks and just you know, jaws. I should have never seen jaws when I was a kid. But I don’t want to try kids see jaws when they’re little. It screams with them. Okay, so but I just did it. I I jumped in there. We were gonna be snorkeling off Malikini Crater. It’s the most beautiful thing you could ever do in Maui. And and I did it, I just jumped in. I just did it. I saw my 10-year-old, she’s fearless, she just jumped in. We went ziplining over a thousand feet up in the air, and uh I’m afraid of heights, but I do it anyways because I push past that fear. It’s I wanna, I’m gonna tell my fear no. No, right? That’s that was my fear developed when I was a little kid. I had a trauma with my dad, caused a lot of friction between daddy and I. But luckily, you know, God got a hold of me before my dad died and said, You need to, you need to accept and forgive before you know all this is gonna happen. Because he sees everything. I don’t. I don’t see that. If we see if we see our journeys, I don’t think most of us would have gone in that journey. I mean, if we if you were to show us a review of our what our coming attractions are, I mean wow. It would be so difficult for him to get this, I don’t want to do that. You know, we saw how much pain we were gonna go through. But the truth is, you know, Zoma pointed it out.
You are not your past. You learned a lot in your past.
You survived your past, you’re here for a reason. You’ve learned there’s a lesson there. Now, how are you applying that lesson today so that you can level up and step into that like fully? I mean, like fully, full surrender, calling the manager in. I call him in I don’t know many times during the day. Right every day, and it’s several times during the day. It’s not just in the morning when I’m having my coffee chats with them. It is it is constantly, like in the four interviews. God, how do you need me to honor you? What do you need me to say? Please guide my words, actions, words, thoughts, everything. I want to be more like you. I want to show you, glorify you, show me the way. And he starts showing me the way because I’ve asked him, and he’s like any good parent, he’s gonna step in there and guide because you’ve asked them.
That’s all if you ever train anybody at work and you’re like, okay, you’re explaining the steps, right? And you’re like, if you have any questions, please ask me, because it only takes me 30 seconds to answer the question and two hours to fix the mistake, right? Like, so I’m picturing God like, you don’t want to bother me, give it to me and I’ll help you, right? Like in our humanness, we are like, no, ask me the question because it’s a lot easier when we are learning together.
Yeah, and you I will point out there’s something that popped in my head as you were talking, the self-reliance, and it’s not just a woman thing, guys do this a lot, and I’m gonna point this out because this is something that my husband just discovered within himself. He he was in therapy, he still is in therapy, and he realized that because I kept telling him, guiding him, like, hey, have you asked God about that? And I don’t want to bother him, I don’t want to bother him. He he’s too busy with like other. I was like, you realize this is nothing to him, like this is what he wants from you. He wants to be in your life, he wants you to invite him in. He doesn’t want you to deal with this by yourself, you’re never meant to do this. I go, I obviously forgotten scripture, like because he knew scripture when he was a boy. I mean, they used to spend hours at church. I go, it’s not just learning the scripture, it’s actually allowing scripture to speak to you and to your soul, because that’s the way that God speaks to us sometimes, is through his word. So, what does he tell us? Invite me in, let me be part of your world. And so, for the guys listening today, realize this might be a blind spot of yours. Your self-reliance, you you’re the protector, you’re the provider. You’ve been given the responsibility as leader of the house by God, and so you want to take that and one with it, and you think you’re gonna do this alone. No, always go back to him, always ask God, your father, to guide you because he knows your wife’s heart, your partner’s heart, he knows their journey and what he needs them to learn, and he’ll give you the words and the wisdom to guide those conversations with your loved ones, you know, like he did with me. I surrendered when I heard that my father was a terminal diagnosis. When they said the tumor’s back, he is 84 years old, no, 83 years old, there’s nothing left to do. And my father had already started with dementia because of the meningoma that had developed from his service in Vietnam. And it just it kept coming back. It was a very aggressive tumor. No matter how many times he removed it from his brain, it kept coming back, kept growing back. So the last time there was just nothing they could do. And in those years, in 2023, at the end, I had started the journey of wanting to be more like Christ, my identity found in him. And so I started to read the Bible, which I had never done before. I was raised Catholic, but as we all know, Catholics don’t know how to read the Bible, they’re never taught that. They’re taught about the religion, that’s great. But but what God really wants is a relationship with you, and the only way to get to know God’s character is through his word first, and then in conversation with him, you get to know him even more the way he shows up for you constantly, right? Because he’s it’s a constant reminder with everything we go through in life. So I started, I had created a little room in my house, so it’s in a closet that I go into and I just have my verses up of scripture and I would pray in there. And at first it was awkward because I didn’t know how to be with him, I didn’t know how to pray, I had no idea. But then someone deep inside of me, I heard, just talk to me, just tell me how you feel. And if I get emotional, guys, please forgive me. It’s been an emotional time losing my dad, and I just started to lay it all on his feet. I was like, I can’t, I I don’t, I want to honor you every day. I don’t know how to do this. I I really don’t. So this one’s on you. You’re gonna have to hold me. I need rest. I I can’t do this right by myself. And the more I did it, the more I didn’t want to leave the wheel room in the mornings because it was my place of solace. I mean, I let him, I let it all out. I would cry ugly tears. I had tissue boxes in there. I mean, I would come down, my eyes would be swollen, but I put one foot in front of the other, like Zuma said, and whether I felt motivated or not, I just kept going, right? By the time my father, and I say this very specifically, graduated into heaven because to me it’s a graduation of swords. Yes, I was at peace, and I had because I had left it up to him, that was his job, and I mean everything Zoma was put at his feet, and I I was like, I’m sorry that I’m having to put everything at your feet. You know me, I I don’t mind rolling up my sleeves and getting to work, God, but I just can’t, I don’t have the emotional bandwidth right now to handle this. But I need your help, and he’ll more than happy to help me. And so going back to the original point, I kept telling my husband Donnie, talk to him. So when he finally, like the light went into the light bulb, you know, it is a third thing. You know, like it’s there, and it’s been there all this time. Like, I’ve known all this time that he would not rely on him, that he was so used to it because based on his trauma, his parents divorced, abandonment issues, all that plays a role in this, guys. So, guys, once again, your trauma, deal with your crap, go to therapy. If it’s big T, we always say this and like you guys say this in therapy a lot. Big T, big trauma or little trauma. What is it? Well, divorce and abandonment issues, that’s a big T. Those are big things that happen in your life, and depends on when they happen in your life, like how young you are, because then your brain development is also piecing these things together, and they’re not always great things. To piece together, right? Your mind doesn’t always make sense. It’s not logical in those years, it’s so subconscious. So stop doing that and invite them in because you will surprise yourself how much rest you get emotionally when you do. And then you can really focus your mind on what you are meant to do with your purpose here on earth. Because you all have it, we all have a divine purpose, we all have spiritual gifts, we all have ways that we are impacting humanity, and we’re doing it in a very special way. So that’s why always have to remember, especially when you doubt yourself, especially when you’re comparing yourself. They may make it look really easy from the outside. Inwardly, it’s a whole different ballgame. It really is. I’ve been in therapy for many years, and I’m happy to say that I’m I’m a big proponent of therapy, and I’m a life coach. And people are like, well, what’s the difference between life coach and therapy? There’s a big difference. There’s a lot of training in licensed professional counseling, and there’s certifications in coaching. Don’t not confuse the two. Coaching is more present-day, like habits, mindset, focus, that kind of stuff. But when it comes to like deeper stuff, that’s where your licensed professional counseling comes into play because they’re highly trained. They have EMDR training, they have all these resources available, and they can bring you very deeply into your mind and have the resources and the skills and the training to get bring you back to present. As coaches, we are not meant to do that. We’re made to do that in a more superficial like surface way. Yes, we can talk about belief systems because that’s a little bit superficial. We don’t dive into traumas. Do not do that as coaches, because you are not trained to bring a person back, and it could be very dangerous to take them down very, very deeply. You don’t know how traumatic those moments are for them. Right. Some people it’s very traumatic.
Disciplines. Yeah. In all disciplines, but it’s like, yes, you’re absolutely right. We can work together. Uh, we are not one or the other. We can work together with you, but it’s like about knowing the ethical limitations of each profession. Yeah.
Like I so and keeping people’s interests and people’s health and well-being up front and center. When you’re coaching someone, you’re there for the client. You’re not there to make more money and to keep them stuck because you want to make more money. And I’ve seen a lot of coaches do that. And I’ve seen a lot of therapists do that too, you know, where they just go back and go back and go back. It’s like, no, no, no, no, no. I need to move forward now. I can’t stay in that past. So we do NDR sessions, we get out of there, we move on. So here’s what another tidbit to always kind of be on the lookout for is the whole concept of learning how to fish or doing it for them, right? And so teaching someone how to fish, you’re gonna be a fisherman for life, you’re gonna be able to do this on your own. I’m coaching myself at a job every time I coach people. I’m teaching you, I’m guiding you how to get out of there yourself. If I’m keeping you there because I want to make more money, you’ll be able to see that. How long have you been with your coach? How long have you been with your therapist? Right. The other concept there is too the unwillingness for you to do the work. If when I coach people, I’m very clear with them from the beginning. Are you ready to do this change? Because if you’re not ready, do not start with me. Because my coaching practice, like my coaching um, my masterminds are six weeks, but they’re intense. Like, I’m gonna we’re gonna work on some stuff because we want you to move through these stages. You don’t have to take years unless you have major trauma. And then we’re like, okay, we can I can work with the president, you can have a coach, and you can also have a therapist, and they need to do the EMDR with you, you know. Like you need to dive in there, get rid of that, because you need to understand what belief true belief systems are are are guiding, and then they need to come to me and say, Okay, this is what we’re working on. Can you help me with the focus and habits and you know patterns of behavior? Because those sort of like you can see those that they they manifest rather clearly to to coaches, you know, right away if it’s a control, you know, um pattern of behavior that you’re dealing with, and then you can say, okay, where’s this coming from? And once we’re the trauma, then go to the therapist and go, hey, by the way, you need to dive deeper into this. Like they’re talking a lot about this in in my session, you know, and and there’s a lot of collaboration and cooperation um that can happen between therapists and coaches. So I’m all for working together. I if I step into that licensed professional counseling now as a certified coach, and then also getting that, then I can go back and forth between the two hats because I’m trained, because I’m trained to do that. But um, but if I’m going to step into that role, then step into it, right? So without uh getting too much, I think we’ve given so many tips during the podcast. You have talked about your purpose, you have talked about your story transformation, any last-minute uh comments you want to make, and if people want to hire you, Roma, to uh as a licensed professional counselor, if they’re in Nevada, how can we reach you?
Sure. So uh my message to close is like if you woke up today, that means that your mission in life is not complete. So keep putting that foot in front of the other, and you’re gonna come on the other side of the challenge. Uh, people can reach out to me uh on Instagram at the Swearing Therapist. I have a lot of videos on mental health. Uh, and my practice website is Dragonfly Therapy Services.net.
I kind of like that, Dragonfly.
Cool. I’m looking after that. I will definitely check out your website because I want to stay in touch with you. I think there’s so much to do, and we are definitely doing this interview in Spanish at a later date.
Yay!
So I do think I do think it’s um it’s important for us to to share these messages. They’re very important to share with men and women because males, you know, you could have your wife go through a medical diagnosis, and as males, we you want to take care of anything and fix everything, but truth be told, you can’t. You can’t fix it. And so um that’s God’s job. Do not step on his toes, do not step on his toes. But um, Zuma, it’s been such a pleasure to have you on the show. I’m really thrilled that you and I met on podmatch uh.com. So for those that don’t know podmatch, it is like match.com, but for podcast guests and hosts, so we match us up based on the themes and topics that we love talking about. And so Zuma and I were able to match up. And here we are today. So for the listeners of Released Out Revealed Purpose, thank you so much for tuning in today. And remember, Matthew 5.14, be the light. Have a wonderful week. Stay safe. Love y’all. Bye now.
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