Feb. 23, 2026

From Trauma To Peace: A Survivor Therapist’s Journey Nikki Eisenhauer

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Season 4

Some stories rearrange how we see predators, survivors, and the slow work of becoming whole. This conversation with psychotherapist and survivor Nikki Eisenhower does exactly that. She breaks down how grooming hides inside everyday kindness—bedtime rituals, small errands, gentle touch—especially when a child is starved for warmth. That’s what makes it so dangerous and so easy to miss. Nikki also opens a window into repressed memory, explaining how the body sealed off what a child couldn’t bear and how a later trigger brought it all back with painful clarity.

We get into the hard parts few shows cover: what happens when a survivor finally speaks and the family closes ranks; how abusers use “sleepwalking” and other scripts to fog the truth; and why pressing charges in non-homicide cases can feel sloppy and disheartening. Through it all, Nikki offers language and tools for listeners who need more than sympathy. She lays out how to rebuild boundaries you can actually enforce, how to use intuition as a compass, and how inner child work can return choice and safety to the present. This is healing without platitudes—practical, compassionate, and fiercely honest.

The second half of our talk turns to love after trauma. We explore the brain’s pull toward the familiar, the traps of love-bombing and victim-flipping, and the everyday habits that signal a healthy partnership: direct communication, clean repair, and a willingness to learn. Nikki’s path—from chaos to a relationship built on clarity—shows that peace is not a miracle; it’s a trainable state. If you’ve been waiting for a guide that meets you where you are and helps you move toward calm, connection, and self-respect, this conversation is for you.

If the episode resonates, share it with someone who needs practical hope, then subscribe and leave a review so more listeners can find these tools. Your story can help someone else start theirs.

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Chapters

00:00 - Welcome, Safety Note, And Guest Intro

03:50 - Naming Emotional Badass And Its Mission

10:20 - Seekers, Transformation, And Resilience

13:55 - Trigger Warning And Family Background

18:30 - Grooming, Repressed Memory, And Disclosure

26:30 - Confrontations, Denial, And Family Fallout

31:30 - Boundaries, Triggers, And Early Marriages

37:20 - Inner Child Work And Rebuilding Trust

43:00 - Finding A Healthy Partnership

47:30 - Spotting Red Flags And Using Intuition

52:00 - Why Emotional Badass Helps Survivors

57:00 - Closing Reflections And Resources

Transcript
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Welcome to True Crime, authors and extraordinary people.

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The podcast where we bring two passions together.

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The show that gives new meaning to the old adage, truth is stranger than fiction.

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And reminding you that there is an extraordinary person in all of us.

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Here is your host, David McClam.

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What's going on, everybody, and welcome to another episode of True Crime Mobile Extraordinary People.

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Of course, I'm your man, David McClam.

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If you haven't already, make sure you follow us on all of our social media.

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One link to a link tree will get you every place you need to go pertaining to the show.

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And as I always remind you, if you are someone or you know someone that feels like you want to hurt yourself or someone else, please leave this episode in Dow 988.

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It is a suicide prevention hotline.

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It will get you the help that you need.

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And just in case no one else has told you this today, let me be the first to tell you I do care and I do need you to be here.

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There is nothing worth your life.

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Alright, guys, well, we got a good show for you today.

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I'm going to give you a fair warning now.

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If you have small children, there will be certain parts of this interview that you may not want your children to be around.

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As you know me, I try to keep things very simple and plain, but there are just some things in life that we can't sugarcoat.

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And I think this is one of those interviews.

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Let me introduce you to our guest for today.

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She is a professional psychotherapist, international life coach, yoga teacher, and host of the podcast Emotional Badass, where Moxie meets Mindful.

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In 2017, she launched a podcast to spread healing, empowerment, and hope to highly sensitive people known as HSPs, empaths, survivors, and seekers all over the world.

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Drawing from her personal experiences as a survivor of childhood abuse and the years she spent as a psychotherapist and life coach, she mindfully designed the show to be the emotional education so many of us crave.

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She truly believes in the power of healing.

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One of her statements is when we heal our wounds, let go of what doesn't serve us, and embrace transformational self-care.

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We are able a purpose, peace, and connection.

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As we each step up to do this healing work through the butterfly effect, we change the world.

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She is a professional psychotherapist and international coach.

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Please welcome Nikki Eisenhower.

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Hey Nikki, thank you for coming to the show.

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Hello, hello.

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Thank you for having me.

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It's so nice to be here.

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It is all my honor and pleasure to have you here.

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Grateful that you could be here with us today.

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I'm gonna ask you the question I ask all my guests.

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Is there anything else that we should know about Nikki Eisenhower that was not covered in your introduction?

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I think we'll get to it as we go.

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What I what I want most for people is to have as much peace as they can have in this wild and crazy world that we live in.

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And I try to show people how to do that with just ease, ease and lightness.

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We get to have more of that.

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And if we had difficult childhoods, like I think you did and I had, I think that's how we really take care of ourselves.

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Like we deserve that.

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That is available, and that's what I want people to know.

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Now, not often do I get to do this, but if anybody caught it, I am sharing the mic with a fellow podcaster.

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How does it feel to be on the other side?

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Well, if it always feels a little odd for me because I I asked so many other people questions in my work for 20 years as a therapist out on the podcast.

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And a lot of my episodes are just me talking.

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So it feels like a role reversal to have somebody asking me questions.

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So I very much appreciate that that growth edge that stretches me beyond some of my comfort zone too.

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I feel the same way that going to other podcasts.

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I'm sitting here like, man, I got to push this button like, oh, I'm a guest today.

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I don't have to do anything.

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I'm out of control.

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So I I totally know how you feel with that.

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Uh, if you could tell us a little bit more about your podcast, I'm curious to know how did you come up with the name Emotional Badass?

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Well, I've been a trauma therapist for 20 years now.

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I can't believe I've been alive that long, but that's the truth.

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And many years ago, I was sitting with a very traumatized person who happened to be sitting on the floor of my office, kind of in a puddle.

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And I just, this thought came upon me as inspiration.

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And I just said to her, Do you ever think of yourself as an emotional badass?

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Everything that you have survived, like, look how strong you are to have survived that.

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And that phrase has stuck with me ever since because her entire body language perked up.

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And she said, No, I've never thought of myself that way.

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I said, Well, that's how I think of you.

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And I thought, okay, this is what we are.

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When we've been the hell and back as youngsters, that's part of how we start to know who we really are by being able to acknowledge we really are emotional badasses.

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So years later, my husband is the producer of the show.

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We produce the show together.

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He comes on with me sometimes.

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We talk about relationship things.

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We tried for about six months to come up with a name for the show.

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And then one day I said, What about emotional badasses?

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He said, How long have you been sitting on that?

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And we said, Oh, years and years.

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And so, and it just kind of stuck.

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And then where Moxie meets mindful, I think really is an accurate description of who I am.

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And I think this life requires some Moxie.

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You know, it's not that I wanted to learn how to empower myself so much.

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It's not that I ever really wanted to wake up one day and learn boundaries or self-respect or how to stand up for myself.

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I realized at a point I had to, like to take care of myself in this life.

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And I think coming from an abuse history, like that's the rub.

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Like we have to figure out how to stand up for ourselves and learn things we never would have intended.

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But at the end of the day, today, I would never repeat my life, but I'm so grateful to have been through everything that I've been through, even the worst of the worst, because it forced me to explore things that I never would have otherwise that have really aided my life, served me, and made me a better person.

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I know peace now because I I've trained in it.

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I feel very grateful.

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Well, I'm glad you brought that up because that was my next question.

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Because whenever I'm a guest on the show, I get asked the same question, which is basically, you know, how do I go on with it and would I redo anything in my life?

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And I'm with you.

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If I had it to do all over again right now, today, no, I wouldn't want to repeat that.

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But because of the trauma and things that I went through, it has made me the person who I am.

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And I don't know what your religious beliefs is, but I'm a Christian and I do believe that God sometimes puts us in the path of people to help them where nobody else can.

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And you and I are in a very niche situation because a lot of us that survive don't really come forward with our stories in the way that we do.

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And we put it out there nationally.

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You know, once we put our voice in a podcast, it's everywhere.

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So I guess my other question for you about the podcast is this what have you learned?

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Have you learned anything from a lot of the guests you come on?

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What is your feelings when you have certain guests on your show?

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I have what I've learned is that we're all really trying to figure it out.

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And I think there are people that I call seekers.

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I think those are probably a lot of your audience.

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They're a lot of my audience.

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And I think when we're seekers, that is just a different thing than the average person.

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I think seekers, we're we're put on this planet to seek self-evolution, to seek ways to shed our skin like a snake sheds its skin season to season.

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We evolve, we have different seasons of different transformations.

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I think we're always who we always are.

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Like I can look back at four years old and go, yeah, I've always been me.

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And yet I'm transcending different aspects of me and of life.

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I am fascinated by how each seeker sort of comes to that journey, how they realize they're on that journey, and how we each realize that does make us a little different, a little special.

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Sometimes that makes some moments in life really hard.

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I know I've had hard times when I'm around people who don't have that seeker spirit.

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And, you know, they're they're kind of complacent and they're they're cool being the way that they are.

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And I have just this hunger and this desire to evolve.

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And I find it to be just so beautiful in the human condition.

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It's like a like a rainbow or something.

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The myriad of different ways we each shed that skin and find new deeper layers to express who we are.

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So I get a lot of inspiration from that.

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So I want to let the authors know Nikki comes with a hard life.

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I know you guys have heard me tell my story, but when I received a request for to come on the show, uh, her publicists and the people that work for her gave me a list.

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And when you read the list that they gave me, you would think that someone's writing a book for a Hollywood movie.

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I'm only able to cover two of those today because they are extensive.

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And I want you guys to keep in mind that when I have people like Nikki on the show, or when I tell you my story, we relive that to a certain extent, so it does become emotionally draining.

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So, Nikki, I'll let you know for the first time ever, uh, the way my show usually runs is no one knows I'm gonna ask them what you didn't know what the question I'm gonna ask you, or no one picks a topic.

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I did give you Grace and Leeway on that because I read your list, and because I've been through some of what you've been through, I know how emotionally draining that it is.

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So I did make that exception.

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So we're gonna get into that now.

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This is the part of the show, folks, that maybe you don't want your kids to be around if they're younger than 16, 17, 18 years of age, or an age where you don't think this would be appropriate.

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So let's dive into it.

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Um It's a mostly for me because my abuser was also my father.

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And let's go with this question here.

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It's what I got was said that you grew up with a psychopathic, narcissistic mother who enabled your pedophile father or stepfather's abuse.

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Can we go a little bit into that?

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Do you know how old you were when that began?

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And what was your mother's attitude towards that?

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Yeah, so my my biological parents had a messy, like war of the worlds with no assets kind of divorce.

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At the time they separated by the time I was six.

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And because my mother was so cold, very ice queen energy, I was attached to my father by six, kind of desperately, because when you don't have warmth in a mother, you're like that little monkey in those old psychological studies hanging on to that blanket, that little rhesus monkey.

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You know, because we need, and it really is need, like we need air.

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We need warmth and safety and security and nurturing, particularly from our mothers.

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So when that's just absent, you feel an absence as a child, but you have no words for that.

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You don't understand what is happening.

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I felt like my mother didn't like me, didn't want me.

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I was a big pain in her behind all the time was sort of the vibe.

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Anything made me a difficult person, just treated like a nuisance.

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And I don't think we name that in abusive family dynamics enough.

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You know, it the getting hit, the getting sexually abused, like those incidents, those events take precedence because it's just how we think of things.

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That's the thing that happened, right?

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But it's more of that daily grind that chips away at you that has that quality of death by a thousand cuts when you're just looking for warmth and comfort.

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So once they separated, we moved in with my grandparents, her parents, and he basically went MIA.

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So I was a little girl waiting on the porch all day long.

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My younger sisters, they weren't really attached to him because he just wasn't around enough.

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They were too young.

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Yeah, they missed Papa and they, but they, you know, they would wait for him and then go off and play with each other because they were younger.

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My youngest sister was still an infant when they separated.

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So she really essentially didn't know him, know him.

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But I was attached.

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Once he basically disappeared, part of the story there was there were threats that he was going to kidnap me.

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So I started having a lot of trauma.

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I was having night terrors, no comfort from mother.

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There was tension between my mother and my grandparents because they could tell she was not parenting us very well.

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Lots of fighting, lots of screaming, lots of tension.

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Lots of my mom dating different men in and out.

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That was very hard, very dysregulating, no security, no stability in those ways for me, and almost no stability emotionally.

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My mom was rageful and would throw things and would kind of throw us around the room and just be very, very rough and put me in the corner for a very long time and lots of cruelty and shaming.

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So when my stepdad, he would adopt me when I turned 14, showed up, he showed up with interest.

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He wanted to take me on bike rides.

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When I look back at this age, I'm in my mid-40s, and I look back, I think, my God, like we were an advertisement for a pedophile, basically, without knowing it.

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Like he was looking for a single mother with some kids that she had three girls.

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So the second he came into our lives and was interested, that felt like doing heroin to me.

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I was so starved for someone to want to spend time with me that when he did, my God, was that the best feeling in the world?

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Now, because I was older, I was nine, almost 10 when he came around.

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I didn't realize it at the time, but he had started abusing my sisters as young as four years old.

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Once we moved, once they married and we left my grandparents' house, I was, it was 11, almost 12.

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And what happened to me was a phenomenon that's still very controversial today in psychology.

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A lot of therapists think that repressed memories are fake or implanted when you go to therapy.

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And but I can tell you they're real because they happen to me.

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So the odd thing about my history when I try to make a timeline is that there are parts of my psyche that just shut down during that time.

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I believe he started molesting me when I was about 12.

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And I would wake up, I have lots of memories of the door opening.

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It was all wordless.

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He said nothing to me or my sisters, I would find out years later.

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But he would just walk in my room a lot.

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So I have I have lots of flashes of memory of the light from the hallway and my bedroom door opening and closing.

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But I only retain the memory of the last time he molested me when I was laying in bed, and something in me said, push him away.

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Maybe it was an angel, maybe it was an ancestor, I don't know.

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But something in me said, push him away.

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And I pushed his hand away from my private and I felt him stiffen and he got out of the bed and he left.

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And the only other conscious memory I had at that time was he stopped me in the hallway the next day and made up a story.

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His story was he was a sleepwalker.

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So if he ever got caught, he could go.

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I'm just sleepwalking.

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And in that moment, he said to me, you know, if I ever, ever, you know, touch your body, you know, your body's changing, it would just be me sleepwalking, and I would just be confused and think you were your mother.

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Has anything like that ever happened?

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And I said, No, no, no, no, no, no, no, nothing like that's ever happened.

00:15:57.919 --> 00:16:08.799
And it was like in that moment, I know this now looking back, my psyche, this is how powerful our psychology is, and the subconscious is real, y'all.

00:16:08.960 --> 00:16:13.279
That's why changing anything about ourselves is so so tricky and so hard.

00:16:13.440 --> 00:16:17.919
We consciously know, but we're working to get it into our subconscious.

00:16:18.559 --> 00:16:22.320
My mind to take care of me basically said, Nikki can't handle this.

00:16:22.879 --> 00:16:30.399
We're gonna take these memories away from her because the real truth is I had been raised to be a protector of my younger sisters.

00:16:30.799 --> 00:16:37.919
I'd also been raised in a police family where everybody in my big Catholic family had a gun on the refrigerator.

00:16:38.080 --> 00:16:41.759
Now, whatever you think about guns and gun rights and all that, it's a different story, right?

00:16:42.000 --> 00:16:43.039
But that's how I grew up.

00:16:43.200 --> 00:16:51.759
And so I probably would have grabbed that gun and protected my siblings, and which would have derailed my life to make an immature decision like that.

00:16:51.840 --> 00:17:01.519
And I very much believe that there were angels, there were spirits, there was some higher power force that said, nope, we're not going to give these memories to Nikki.

00:17:01.600 --> 00:17:05.039
So what that meant was I was entirely depressed.

00:17:05.359 --> 00:17:09.279
I had severe chronic pain in my neck, my shoulders, my jaw.

00:17:09.359 --> 00:17:19.759
I've had some jaw surgeries that were botched because my body, my but your body keeps the score, my jaw locked down, almost as if to say, don't speak this secret aloud.

00:17:19.920 --> 00:17:21.359
She can't know this yet.

00:17:21.599 --> 00:17:32.559
It wasn't till I was in my early 20s with the man who would become my first husband where he tried to initiate sex with me in the middle of the night while I was sleeping, which is not a terrible bad thing, guys.

00:17:32.720 --> 00:17:36.799
That's totally allowed, like between, you know, two consenting adults.

00:17:37.119 --> 00:17:45.119
And in that moment, because that's how my abuse had occurred, sneaking into my room in the middle of the night, everything flooded back to me.

00:17:45.440 --> 00:17:50.160
And I knew, like I know the sun comes up in the morning that it was true, very true.

00:17:50.319 --> 00:17:52.960
And that was three weeks before my first wedding.

00:17:53.200 --> 00:18:00.880
And so I had a I invited my parents to the house and I told them this memory came back to me.

00:18:01.119 --> 00:18:02.480
And I know this is true.

00:18:02.720 --> 00:18:07.200
And I watched him, we in Louisiana we say crawfish because they move backwards, they go backwards.

00:18:07.279 --> 00:18:09.519
So I watched him try to crawfish.

00:18:10.160 --> 00:18:11.200
No, I can't remember.

00:18:11.279 --> 00:18:21.680
And then sleepwalking, and I don't know how 22-year-old me stood with the strength of you're lying, and I know that you know that you did this to me.

00:18:22.160 --> 00:18:36.000
And then I watched my mother defend him, that she believed him, that it was it was an oops, or it was a you know, a sleepwalking thing, and I knew in my gut, in my soul, that my sisters had also been abused.

00:18:36.319 --> 00:18:44.480
Part of growing up with sociopathic types in the home is that they often pin the siblings against each other.

00:18:44.640 --> 00:18:50.079
Some people in abusive homes, the siblings bond together and they're allies for each other.

00:18:50.559 --> 00:18:52.559
Okay, that didn't happen in my home.

00:18:52.720 --> 00:18:54.640
We were very much pinned against each other.

00:18:54.720 --> 00:18:59.920
That was part of the grooming games was oh, Nikki, I'm gonna take you to the store.

00:19:00.079 --> 00:19:02.559
Oh, you need some new socks, we're gonna go to the store.

00:19:02.799 --> 00:19:07.839
And then I'd turn around, grab my stuff, and dad, why aren't you taking me to the store?

00:19:07.920 --> 00:19:09.039
Oh, I'm gonna take your sister.

00:19:09.279 --> 00:19:11.440
But you you just told me I would go.

00:19:12.480 --> 00:19:17.599
For kids who had lost a father, these were games that played with our emotion.

00:19:17.680 --> 00:19:26.240
He played with being favorites, getting attention, not getting attention, getting promises broken to where we never really knew where we stood.

00:19:27.039 --> 00:19:35.759
And it pinned my sisters against each other so their memories weren't repressed, but they didn't come to me and never speak them.

00:19:35.920 --> 00:19:40.240
Had they, I would have done something about it even as young as 12 years old.

00:19:40.480 --> 00:19:42.720
I feel the same way because I don't have any siblings.

00:19:42.799 --> 00:19:48.880
I do have people that called me their uncle, and I do have people that consider me to be their brother, but I have no siblings.

00:19:48.960 --> 00:19:52.079
My father did rape me, and uh a lot of the trauma went to my mother.

00:19:52.240 --> 00:19:56.079
I mean, I've seen my mom tied to beds, fortunately raped the whole nine.

00:19:56.319 --> 00:20:01.519
I can remember things that's happened to me as far back as four, and some things like you is repressed.

00:20:01.680 --> 00:20:04.400
And I've had people sit in front of me go, oh, you make this up.

00:20:04.559 --> 00:20:06.720
You can't remember anything when you were four.

00:20:06.799 --> 00:20:11.759
I said, if you've been through the trauma that I have, memory that we have will surprise you.

00:20:12.000 --> 00:20:16.079
Because these are things that you live with for the rest of your natural life.

00:20:16.319 --> 00:20:19.920
You learn to adapt to them, but you never get over them.

00:20:20.079 --> 00:20:21.200
And I don't know if you've ever heard this.

00:20:21.279 --> 00:20:23.359
You say, Oh, well, it happened when you was a kid.

00:20:23.599 --> 00:20:25.200
It's horrible, but get over it.

00:20:25.359 --> 00:20:25.759
You don't.

00:20:25.839 --> 00:20:28.960
It becomes who we are as a person, right?

00:20:29.119 --> 00:20:32.400
As you said, your first husband tried to initiate sex in your sleep.

00:20:32.640 --> 00:20:34.720
That hit a trigger, right?

00:20:35.039 --> 00:20:38.480
Um, and then you mentioned you've been married multiple times now.

00:20:38.799 --> 00:20:40.000
Do you like me?

00:20:40.160 --> 00:20:40.960
Because so have I.

00:20:41.039 --> 00:20:48.400
I've been married multiple times, but I attribute that to a lot of my abuse and the things I went through and I've been able to handle certain things.

00:20:48.720 --> 00:20:53.279
Do you contribute your abuse to why you've been married more than once?

00:20:53.680 --> 00:20:54.400
100%.

00:20:55.359 --> 00:21:00.000
100% because I didn't know what receiving healthy love was.

00:21:00.240 --> 00:21:08.079
As desperate as I was to receive it and to give it, and I very intentionally did not want to be dysfunctional like my family.

00:21:08.319 --> 00:21:13.599
But not wanting to be dysfunctional didn't magically make me not dysfunctional.

00:21:13.680 --> 00:21:25.680
I was dysfunctional with myself by accidentally choosing men that had a lot of my mother's traits andor my adoptive father's traits.

00:21:26.000 --> 00:21:33.839
Or like my original biological father, very avoidant, like leave you hanging, neglectful traits.

00:21:34.079 --> 00:21:36.319
And that's kind of what we do in psychology.

00:21:36.480 --> 00:21:46.799
It's a real wild thing to consider that what's natural in our human psychology is not to go towards what's good for us, it's to go towards what's familiar.

00:21:47.200 --> 00:21:59.759
We can't know that when we start dating at 15, 16, 17 years old, especially in this country that continues to put people through high school with not a dating class, not a self esteem.

00:22:00.160 --> 00:22:03.759
Game class, not a how to have clear, healthy relationship.

00:22:04.000 --> 00:22:07.119
Hey, young people, how about we don't play games with each other?

00:22:07.359 --> 00:22:11.200
You know, I grew up in a house with complete master manipulation.

00:22:11.279 --> 00:22:15.839
And there are different similarities amongst every abuse story and differences.

00:22:16.000 --> 00:22:18.400
Like you grew up with violence.

00:22:18.640 --> 00:22:21.599
I grew up with some violence, but the violence was my mother.

00:22:21.759 --> 00:22:23.680
My mother would punch holes in walls.

00:22:23.839 --> 00:22:27.920
She wouldn't punch me in the face, but she might punch a wall near my face.

00:22:28.160 --> 00:22:34.079
So I had a lot of confusion of, well, wait, I didn't get hit like that, but I sure got scared like that.

00:22:34.319 --> 00:22:38.720
So I had startled response as if someone beat me all the time.

00:22:38.880 --> 00:22:40.480
So that made no sense to me.

00:22:40.559 --> 00:22:43.119
It's like it was like one plus one equals three.

00:22:43.279 --> 00:22:48.559
Like I couldn't make sense of who I was or what my reactions were.

00:22:48.960 --> 00:22:52.319
But our psychology makes us go towards what's familiar.

00:22:52.559 --> 00:22:56.880
That to me is the great tragedy coming out of dysfunction.

00:22:57.119 --> 00:23:04.400
Because every seeker I've ever known coming out of dysfunction is earnestly with as much integrity as they can muster.

00:23:04.559 --> 00:23:21.200
If they're not going to follow the sociopath or the narcissist and just become that personality that uses and abuses other people in different ways to different degrees, then they tend to have a big ol' heart, a huge compassion and a huge integrity for doing the right thing and being healthy.

00:23:21.359 --> 00:23:22.960
But I didn't know how.

00:23:23.519 --> 00:23:24.480
I didn't know how.

00:23:24.559 --> 00:23:26.319
And to get tangled up.

00:23:26.559 --> 00:23:31.119
Now, my first husband absolutely like spotted me like a shark.

00:23:31.279 --> 00:23:33.440
He knew I would be easy to manipulate.

00:23:33.680 --> 00:23:40.480
I was overly loyal because I was desperate for someone to just love me and embrace me and protect me.

00:23:40.799 --> 00:23:49.920
The thing is, I've always said this: people that's been through things that me and you have, we are very special and complicated people at the same time.

00:23:50.559 --> 00:23:56.319
We have to be with someone that understands us, but doesn't use it against us.

00:23:56.480 --> 00:24:00.960
And I know when I was younger in dating, I would never tell women what I've been through.

00:24:01.200 --> 00:24:15.119
And once I got married the first time I found out why that is, is because when a man tells a woman, hey, my dad was abusive, I've been through this, for the women that I was dating, they became to the point to where if something they go through, oh, you just like your dad, go ahead, hit me.

00:24:15.279 --> 00:24:16.720
That's the wrong thing to do.

00:24:16.880 --> 00:24:28.400
Yes, my mom did the right thing and she put me in therapy in the whole nine, but there is still that trigger that's within us that when we feel that we're threatened, we may lash out.

00:24:29.599 --> 00:24:34.319
The wife I have now been married to her for 23 years, she was one of the only people that understood that.

00:24:34.400 --> 00:24:37.039
And I'll say, I'm complicated, I'm angry some days.

00:24:37.200 --> 00:24:38.720
I I've learned how to control it.

00:24:38.880 --> 00:24:47.680
I says, but there are certain things and triggers that will still push me to a point to where I feel like, hey, I need to walk away, or this is not gonna be a good situation.

00:24:47.920 --> 00:24:51.920
And I'm glad I'm with you because you totally understand how that is.

00:24:52.000 --> 00:24:58.720
And now that you're married again, I'm sure your husband now understands right what your trigger points is and things of that nature.

00:24:58.960 --> 00:25:04.240
When you found out from your sisters that this was going on, what was your response?

00:25:04.319 --> 00:25:05.920
How did that make you feel?

00:25:07.359 --> 00:25:09.519
Absolutely devastated.

00:25:09.680 --> 00:25:21.200
That was the only time in my life that I self-checked into a psych unit because I had been raised not just with my sister, like I came from a big Catholic family where I was one of the older cousins.

00:25:21.359 --> 00:25:24.720
I would often watch 12 children and take them to the beach in Bay St.

00:25:24.880 --> 00:25:27.279
Louis, Mississippi, where my uncle was.

00:25:27.519 --> 00:25:30.160
I had been babysitting since 11 years old.

00:25:30.319 --> 00:25:32.720
I felt a lot of protection.

00:25:33.039 --> 00:25:35.359
One of the nicknames when I was a kid was Mother Goose.

00:25:35.440 --> 00:25:36.880
I always had my sisters with me.

00:25:36.960 --> 00:25:38.480
I had neighborhood kids with me.

00:25:38.640 --> 00:25:39.759
I was a protector.

00:25:39.920 --> 00:25:44.880
If someone was mean to another kid on the playground, I'd take on the bully.

00:25:44.960 --> 00:25:47.039
Like I had an older sibling.

00:25:47.279 --> 00:25:52.720
It is my job to take care of the younger ones around me that I was taught directly.

00:25:52.880 --> 00:25:54.000
My grandmother would teach me that.

00:25:54.160 --> 00:25:55.200
Nikki, you're the oldest.

00:25:55.279 --> 00:25:56.960
You're responsible for these kids.

00:25:57.200 --> 00:26:00.000
And that responsibility helped me grow into myself.

00:26:00.160 --> 00:26:02.319
It was also a little too much for me at times.

00:26:02.480 --> 00:26:11.599
So when I found out in my very early 20s that my sisters, in my head, I thought what I think a lot of people think about these kinds of abusers.

00:26:11.759 --> 00:26:17.440
If he had been touching my body when I was about 12, I thought, well, that must be his type.

00:26:18.079 --> 00:26:24.000
When I heard he had started abusing my youngest sister, and and I thought you go down the line, you start with the oldest one.

00:26:24.079 --> 00:26:28.400
And I think if you're born into a family, that's naturally more how it works.

00:26:28.640 --> 00:26:34.160
But if if a step parent comes into the family, I had no awareness, let me say it better.

00:26:34.319 --> 00:26:38.640
Thought I assumed he abused me, then he moved on to my younger sisters.

00:26:39.119 --> 00:26:43.200
No, it took longer to groom me because I was older when he came in.

00:26:43.440 --> 00:26:48.400
It was easier, it's easier to groom a three-year-old and abuse her by four.

00:26:49.200 --> 00:26:57.039
So by the time I heard it, when I asked my younger sister, and I I basically I know a little better now.

00:26:57.119 --> 00:27:03.839
I've been a therapist for 20 years, but back then I I just looked at her, I had her at my house, I said, Hey, I know things happened.

00:27:04.160 --> 00:27:05.119
And you have to tell me.

00:27:05.200 --> 00:27:07.759
My other 19-year-old sister was pregnant at the time.

00:27:08.480 --> 00:27:09.680
I said, You have to tell me.

00:27:10.240 --> 00:27:12.960
Oh, by the way, talk about a spiritual connection.

00:27:13.279 --> 00:27:19.279
I believe my memories also came back the moment my sister conceived her child.

00:27:19.440 --> 00:27:22.240
When I traced it back, that's what I can trace back.

00:27:22.799 --> 00:27:32.799
So I I believe that was the universe, God, whatever people's belief system is really saying, if this doesn't come out, the next gen here comes the next generation for it.

00:27:32.960 --> 00:27:36.319
So I I made my, I was like, tell me, my youngest sister, tell me.

00:27:36.559 --> 00:27:38.319
You have you have to tell me the truth of things.

00:27:38.400 --> 00:27:39.279
This has to come out.

00:27:39.440 --> 00:27:42.000
And when she admitted it to me, I said, When did this start?

00:27:42.160 --> 00:27:43.680
And she said, four years old.

00:27:43.839 --> 00:27:47.920
To me, that was the worst moment of all of it for me.

00:27:49.920 --> 00:27:56.559
Do you feel like that your stepfather walked into your life grooming you from the very beginning?

00:27:56.799 --> 00:27:57.359
Yes.

00:27:57.599 --> 00:27:58.160
Yes.

00:27:58.400 --> 00:27:58.720
Yes.

00:27:58.799 --> 00:28:12.720
It started with well, and my mother being narcissistic and sociopathic, which means having children, but then not wanting to care for them a lot of the times, having the perception of caring for them very well, but not really behind the scenes.

00:28:12.960 --> 00:28:16.960
So the second he came into our lives and was interested in us, she backed off even more.

00:28:17.200 --> 00:28:20.000
I don't know if my mother ever told me to go to bed.

00:28:20.160 --> 00:28:21.920
He started putting us to bed.

00:28:22.559 --> 00:28:24.480
So it started with nighttime prayers.

00:28:24.640 --> 00:28:26.640
His dad was a Lutheran pastor.

00:28:26.960 --> 00:28:28.799
And it started with arm rubbies.

00:28:28.880 --> 00:28:33.279
And I hadn't had that kind of affection from my mom, or someone just lovingly rubs your arm.

00:28:33.519 --> 00:28:34.880
Starved for that.

00:28:35.279 --> 00:28:38.319
And it just escalated over time.

00:28:38.720 --> 00:28:48.079
The story I wrote into you about, because I want people to understand that most of this type of abuse, other adults will never see it.

00:28:48.880 --> 00:28:56.640
Most of it, almost all of it, is entirely behind closed doors, which means kids are gonna grow up inside of it.

00:28:56.799 --> 00:29:09.839
Like unless they are beaten to a point or hurt to a point where they're taken to a hospital, medical intervention, they're gonna grow up with it every day, every month, every year of their lives till they get out of that house.

00:29:10.799 --> 00:29:16.240
The only shot kids like us have are other adults stepping forward.

00:29:16.319 --> 00:29:21.440
And this is part of why I teach people how to trust their intuition after they've been abused.

00:29:21.599 --> 00:29:28.400
Because when we're abused, part of that abuse process is subduing our intuition and our ability to speak up.

00:29:28.480 --> 00:29:33.440
Because my intuition would go off like alarm bells about my mother, about my abuser.

00:29:33.599 --> 00:29:36.880
But when you're a child, you can't act from that feeling.

00:29:37.039 --> 00:29:39.119
I couldn't have gotten in a car and driven off.

00:29:39.279 --> 00:29:44.079
I couldn't have handled that in a way like an adult can, who has adult choices.

00:29:44.240 --> 00:29:46.079
So we subdue our own intuition.

00:29:46.160 --> 00:29:46.960
We learn to cut off.

00:29:47.039 --> 00:29:51.039
That's why we feel like a severed head, disconnected from our bodies so much.

00:29:51.200 --> 00:29:54.960
Because if we actually listen to the body, we'd have to get out of the situation.

00:29:55.200 --> 00:29:56.000
And we can't.

00:29:56.160 --> 00:29:59.200
So coming back to our own intuition is very important.

00:29:59.440 --> 00:30:08.880
And if we don't have other adults out there in the world who are connected to trusting their intuition for such kids, we can't help the world with this.

00:30:09.119 --> 00:30:13.279
The story I wrote in about was a grooming game he used to play.

00:30:13.680 --> 00:30:21.680
And the truth is, as a kid, I thought this game was fun and funny because someone was giving me attention and playing with me and we were being silly.

00:30:21.839 --> 00:30:23.599
And so that would that was nice.

00:30:23.759 --> 00:30:28.799
And I wasn't gonna get really touched during this in any way because we were out in public.

00:30:28.960 --> 00:30:30.400
We'd go to an old Mervin's.

00:30:30.559 --> 00:30:32.799
It's like a like a Dillard's, like a clothing store.

00:30:32.880 --> 00:30:35.119
Remember when we used to go to the mall, everybody?

00:30:36.000 --> 00:30:39.759
And he would tell me, okay, I'm gonna pretend to be blind.

00:30:40.559 --> 00:30:42.720
I'm gonna pretend to be blind.

00:30:43.200 --> 00:30:47.359
And I had grown up with my grandmother inviting the blind to my house.

00:30:47.440 --> 00:30:52.160
She did a lot of outreach and political advocacy for different people with different disabilities.

00:30:52.319 --> 00:30:53.759
That was big in my family.

00:30:53.839 --> 00:30:55.279
That's another story for another day.

00:30:55.440 --> 00:30:58.720
So I was like, oh, okay, I get what blind means.

00:30:58.880 --> 00:30:59.200
Okay.

00:30:59.359 --> 00:31:06.319
And so we'd go into the store, he'd put his hand on my shoulder, and he'd walk me into the lingerie department.

00:31:06.880 --> 00:31:11.359
And he'd rub on some silky piece of lingerie and go, ooh, that's nice.

00:31:11.519 --> 00:31:22.480
And he'd kind of get me laughing because other people would look like he like it was weird, like we were playing a joke on other people and just teasing, like we were improving or something.

00:31:22.640 --> 00:31:28.799
But I have countless memories of adults really looking at us with a WTF in their face.

00:31:28.880 --> 00:31:35.440
And I think, my God, hundreds of people saw this at a point.

00:31:35.920 --> 00:31:39.680
And not a one walked up and said, Hey, this is pervy.

00:31:39.759 --> 00:31:40.799
What are you doing, man?

00:31:40.960 --> 00:31:43.599
Why why are you in this section with this little girl?

00:31:44.000 --> 00:31:45.200
No one said anything.

00:31:45.279 --> 00:31:49.759
If someone had said something, it would have indicated to me, oh, wait, something might be wrong with this.

00:31:50.720 --> 00:31:57.599
And it's that type of moment that can make a child start thinking differently about what's happening to them.

00:31:57.839 --> 00:32:01.519
It's not that I'm saying another adult needs to show up and save that child.

00:32:01.680 --> 00:32:04.319
We it's very hard to save children from their own parents.

00:32:04.480 --> 00:32:09.519
We have a lot of that in this country on different, different topics, and that's that's an impossible thing for us to do.

00:32:09.680 --> 00:32:12.799
Parents have rights over their children, and some are abusive.

00:32:12.960 --> 00:32:15.680
There's there's so much gray area and nuance to this.

00:32:15.759 --> 00:32:17.440
There's no simple answers here.

00:32:17.759 --> 00:32:31.440
But I think one of the simple answers we can have is when your intuition is like, something's wrong here, we we can't just keep burying that as adults, as if we're children in some situation where we're not allowed to speak up.

00:32:31.599 --> 00:32:33.759
To me, that's the difference between adult and child.

00:32:33.920 --> 00:32:42.720
So today, I am the person where if in my gut I see something wrong, I am entirely willing to fully piss off that adult.

00:32:42.880 --> 00:32:50.880
And if that adult can't see, hey, I'm checking on this kid, and if nothing wrong is going on with this kid, then everything should be copacetic and fine.

00:32:51.200 --> 00:33:01.440
So I kind of want to make sure that the audience is picking up on this just in case there's someone else out there listening going through this same thing and missing all these red flags.

00:33:01.680 --> 00:33:10.000
Because what you're telling us, your stepfather groomed you by giving you the very thing that he knew you did not have but wanted.

00:33:10.319 --> 00:33:10.640
Yep.

00:33:10.880 --> 00:33:15.119
That's what abusers know how to do, like a demonic art form.

00:33:15.839 --> 00:33:16.160
Right.

00:33:16.400 --> 00:33:23.680
Predators are able to hone in on the things that you need or missing, even if you never tell them because that's how skilled they are.

00:33:24.000 --> 00:33:37.119
And they give you all of that for you, no father figure, you know, no loving reading at bedtime, no rubbing the arm, mom wasn't there, just opened you up for this whole mountain of being able to be groomed.

00:33:37.279 --> 00:33:42.880
And there could be someone listening who has a stepfather or even a father, unfortunately, that's doing these things.

00:33:43.119 --> 00:33:49.519
And if it makes you feel uncomfortable, you need to speak out about that because something very well may be wrong.

00:33:50.319 --> 00:33:52.559
Did you try to tell your mom this was going on?

00:33:52.720 --> 00:33:54.960
And if you did, what became of that?

00:33:55.279 --> 00:33:56.799
I don't believe I did.

00:33:57.039 --> 00:34:04.480
Know that my sisters, who I'm estranged from today, like that that's another truth of incest in a family.

00:34:04.720 --> 00:34:08.800
Not everybody gets out of that situation maintaining family bonds.

00:34:09.280 --> 00:34:11.920
You know, not everybody goes, Oh wow, good for you.

00:34:12.079 --> 00:34:16.320
Nikki, you broke the secret in the family in in a lot of ways.

00:34:16.480 --> 00:34:19.280
Like, and movies don't do a good job depicting this.

00:34:19.440 --> 00:34:29.760
Media, true crime, even this is part of why I'm doing this, does not do a good job depicting what really happens when this type of secret comes out in a family.

00:34:29.920 --> 00:34:35.039
Like you're saying, your mother put you in therapy and like did kind of try to do right by you, it sounds like.

00:34:35.440 --> 00:34:42.480
There are a lot of enabling partners to this that absolutely do not try to do the right thing.

00:34:42.719 --> 00:34:47.679
There was rage towards me, anger, disgust.

00:34:47.920 --> 00:34:52.239
I come from a family that part of the history is I'm related to a real dirty cop.

00:34:53.119 --> 00:34:59.760
And so in my family, I went to the police without going to that cop, which is a no-no in that type of family system.

00:35:00.000 --> 00:35:07.679
So my family was very upset with me that I didn't just go to the dirty cop to handle this quietly, and that the news picked up this story.

00:35:07.920 --> 00:35:14.960
So for my sisters, I understand it with great empathy and compassion, and I only wish them healing and peace.

00:35:15.440 --> 00:35:22.480
But I also know that deep down there is a resentment and a rage and an anger at me because I made the family deal with this.

00:35:24.719 --> 00:35:25.519
How do you feel?

00:35:25.599 --> 00:35:29.280
Because I never really grew up with my father's side of the family.

00:35:29.440 --> 00:35:33.840
He made sure of that so that nobody knew the abuse he was putting us through.

00:35:34.079 --> 00:35:41.440
My dad went into the Marine Corps, which of course granted him the ability to move, so he moved us to Jersey.

00:35:41.599 --> 00:35:45.679
I had just found my uncle on his side about three years ago.

00:35:45.920 --> 00:35:48.320
We don't really speak much anymore these days.

00:35:48.639 --> 00:35:56.559
But when I started to tell him what his brother had did to us, he didn't deny it because he had problems with his own dad.

00:35:56.800 --> 00:36:00.320
But I was like, I had just found my grandmother when she died.

00:36:00.480 --> 00:36:06.800
And he told me that she had already gone through, so we know Raymond has a son, we don't know where he is, but she died looking for me.

00:36:06.960 --> 00:36:13.039
And the one thing that you hit on earlier, where your stepfather was saying things like, Oh, I was sleepwalking.

00:36:13.280 --> 00:36:17.760
When I was able to confront my dad about four years ago, he played dumb.

00:36:17.920 --> 00:36:18.159
Right?

00:36:18.239 --> 00:36:19.599
I'm recounting all of the stuff.

00:36:19.760 --> 00:36:21.679
My mom passed on me in 2020.

00:36:21.840 --> 00:36:26.719
A lot of the reasons why she died at the age of 67 was because of the abuse in which she had gone through.

00:36:26.960 --> 00:36:29.280
And I'm telling my dad, he, well, whatever you want to tell me.

00:36:29.360 --> 00:36:30.639
And I'm just unloading, right?

00:36:30.719 --> 00:36:34.320
I saw you beat my mom, you hung me out of three-story windows, you raped me.

00:36:34.480 --> 00:36:36.960
That screwed with me for a long part of my life.

00:36:37.119 --> 00:36:42.800
He said here just like, um, well, if you say that's what happened, what do you mean if you say?

00:36:43.039 --> 00:36:44.400
You don't forget these things.

00:36:44.559 --> 00:36:50.400
And my wife kind of came at me like, you, you didn't go off on him, you said you was gonna do this.

00:36:50.480 --> 00:36:51.440
And here's what I told her.

00:36:51.599 --> 00:36:53.280
Maybe you can sympathize with this.

00:36:53.440 --> 00:37:01.039
I said, Yeah, for many years, I said, this is exactly what I'm gonna do if I ever get to see or talk to my dad again, and this is how I'm gonna handle it.

00:37:01.199 --> 00:37:05.039
But when you get in that position, it changes.

00:37:05.280 --> 00:37:15.360
And what I realized at that point was no matter if I yelled, no matter if I screamed, no matter if I jumped off the mountain, it's not gonna get through to him because he doesn't want it to.

00:37:15.599 --> 00:37:30.320
But I got a chance to tell him exactly what he did and say, your son made it on his own without having a dad raised by his mom, and I'm successful today, and you have absolutely nothing to do with that.

00:37:30.639 --> 00:37:33.119
Do you still have contact with your stepfather today?

00:37:33.199 --> 00:37:34.719
And if you do, how did that go?

00:37:35.199 --> 00:37:37.199
No, I I grew up and put him in prison.

00:37:37.360 --> 00:37:38.559
I pr I pressed charges.

00:37:38.719 --> 00:37:42.719
Again, that's why my family was upset with me, because it was a that's hard.

00:37:42.800 --> 00:37:49.199
And and our court system, I honestly think with true crime, we see the best of our court system with murders.

00:37:49.679 --> 00:37:51.360
Yeah, because it's so serious.

00:37:51.519 --> 00:37:52.079
Yeah.

00:37:52.400 --> 00:37:56.400
But for these lesser crimes, is the truth.

00:37:56.800 --> 00:37:59.679
I found the court system to be so sloppy.

00:37:59.760 --> 00:38:03.760
If I look up things today, the dates are wrong, the details are wrong.

00:38:03.840 --> 00:38:08.480
Like it's it is such a sloppy, upsetting experience.

00:38:08.719 --> 00:38:09.920
Let me go back to what you were saying.

00:38:10.000 --> 00:38:11.599
I didn't answer your question.

00:38:11.840 --> 00:38:19.280
I think no matter how someone confronts their parent, it's it's unsatisfactory because of what you just said.

00:38:19.360 --> 00:38:21.360
They will not hear anything about themselves.

00:38:21.519 --> 00:38:30.480
Anyone who can abuse a child in those ways has low empathy, low insight, low personal responsibility, and often low maturity.

00:38:30.719 --> 00:38:32.239
Is that true of your dad?

00:38:32.400 --> 00:38:32.960
Those things?

00:38:33.280 --> 00:38:34.239
Very true, very true.

00:38:34.400 --> 00:38:34.960
Yeah, yeah.

00:38:35.119 --> 00:38:39.840
That to me is a universal like abuser personality right there.

00:38:40.480 --> 00:38:48.400
Which means they are like a petulant 12-year-old forever that is not gonna not gonna look at you and go, I'm sorry.

00:38:48.880 --> 00:38:52.800
I did wrong things to you, inexcusable, unspeakable things.

00:38:53.119 --> 00:39:06.639
So when I confronted my mother a few weeks later, she showed up at my house with a box of all of my baby pictures, all of the little Christmas tree ornaments you make when you're in kindergarten.

00:39:06.880 --> 00:39:10.960
Basically, like the the mom box that moms have for you.

00:39:11.519 --> 00:39:13.519
I was 23 years old.

00:39:13.920 --> 00:39:22.960
So how I would confront her today at 45, very different than how I was completely dysregulated back then.

00:39:23.280 --> 00:39:35.440
I was completely unable to like keep my voice quiet, or like I was a lash out, post-traumatic stress, like just ball of chaotic energy.

00:39:35.920 --> 00:39:38.800
And so I did the thing that so many people want to do.

00:39:38.960 --> 00:39:41.280
I told her off up and down.

00:39:41.440 --> 00:39:49.840
I mean up and down because she said to me that day, if I don't allow him in my life, as my dad, I can't have a relationship with her.

00:39:50.000 --> 00:40:09.199
And I just went to cursing her out and telling her that she was gonna spend the rest of her life putting her head on the pillow next to the man that abused her daughters, and that she believed in heaven and hell, and that I hoped that hell was very real that she believed in because she was going.

00:40:11.599 --> 00:40:13.920
Wow, I I'm sorry you went through that.

00:40:14.079 --> 00:40:15.519
It was the opposite with my mom.

00:40:15.599 --> 00:40:16.719
My mom was my rock.

00:40:16.880 --> 00:40:21.599
She's the reason why I survived, and she took a brunt of the beatings and things of that nature.

00:40:21.679 --> 00:40:24.559
And I know as a child I even hinted that something was wrong.

00:40:24.800 --> 00:40:31.119
My mom was the first one to jump and defend me because now she feels like her son's already been through these things before.

00:40:31.199 --> 00:40:34.159
She's not gonna let anybody else in the free world hurt him.

00:40:34.400 --> 00:40:44.320
I wish you would have had that in the mom because I know that sometimes when we go through these things, like you said, we just need one adult, hopefully a parental figure, that's gonna come to your rescue.

00:40:44.400 --> 00:40:48.559
But it seems like that your mom chose him over you.

00:40:48.639 --> 00:40:55.519
I don't think there's anything that you could have said to her that she would have believed when it came to him for whatever reason that is, right?

00:40:55.760 --> 00:41:00.400
And as a parent of sex, I've always, you gotta believe your child first.

00:41:00.559 --> 00:41:04.159
And then when you find out other things, then you can revisit that.

00:41:05.519 --> 00:41:09.519
And I think that's what's missing so much in today's society with that, too.

00:41:09.679 --> 00:41:20.320
Now, don't get me wrong, there's also because uh I'm going into a job where I'm working with children, there are some times where children are groomed to lie on their parents or they're trying to decide to lie to get what they want.

00:41:20.480 --> 00:41:21.760
So I'm not just counting that.

00:41:21.920 --> 00:41:28.559
But I am saying for the majority of children that comes and says, Hey, this person's touching me or this has happened to me, it's real.

00:41:28.800 --> 00:41:29.119
Yes.

00:41:29.199 --> 00:41:38.480
And and the type of kid I was, I was a goody two shoes kid that got good grades and was in gifted classes and you know, went out of my way to not cause trouble.

00:41:38.639 --> 00:41:40.079
I didn't tell stories.

00:41:40.239 --> 00:41:50.320
So, like, really, like I know with every fiber of my being, I knew back then that if I was saying that, I was to be believed and it was wrong not to believe me.

00:41:50.559 --> 00:41:59.039
Now, the lingerie shopping that you talked about going to the store with your stepfather in your married life, has that had any kind of triggers?

00:41:59.440 --> 00:42:03.440
Are you not able to go laundry shopping or have that part of intimacy with your husband now?

00:42:03.760 --> 00:42:07.280
No, no, it's not direct correlation like that to me.

00:42:07.360 --> 00:42:11.119
Like, oh, those fab, like those fabrics don't ick me out.

00:42:11.280 --> 00:42:15.199
It's more like I need direct communication.

00:42:15.440 --> 00:42:21.679
Like I grew up with so much manipulation and so much not being able to know what was real.

00:42:22.000 --> 00:42:26.480
Uh, because my mother would grab me by the arm sometimes and look at me intensely and go, I love you.

00:42:26.639 --> 00:42:28.320
You know that, don't you?

00:42:28.719 --> 00:42:30.400
And I just go, Yeah, uh-huh.

00:42:30.559 --> 00:42:30.880
Yes.

00:42:31.280 --> 00:42:33.119
I didn't feel any love from her.

00:42:33.360 --> 00:42:44.159
So when I grew up and had my first husband was very sociopathic and and in the in a way that it defies logic, it sounds like I'm making it up.

00:42:44.320 --> 00:42:49.039
But if you if you have had such a childhood, you probably will resonate with what I'm about to say.

00:42:49.280 --> 00:42:51.360
We recreate scenarios.

00:42:51.679 --> 00:42:54.079
We really do recreate scenarios.

00:42:54.239 --> 00:42:57.679
So he was very similar to all the parenting that I got.

00:42:58.079 --> 00:43:14.639
When I would try to like back then, it doesn't happen anymore, but in my sleep, I would kick that's my body in a survival mode, trying to empower itself to kick off something hurtful coming.

00:43:15.119 --> 00:43:26.079
You know, with a more emotionally intelligent man like I have today in my husband, a man would have said to me, I totally understand why this is happening.

00:43:26.320 --> 00:43:29.440
I love you and we'll work through it until this gets better.

00:43:29.519 --> 00:43:31.119
And if it doesn't, it's okay.

00:43:31.280 --> 00:43:33.440
I realize you're doing this when you're sleeping.

00:43:33.920 --> 00:43:38.239
Abusers gaslight, they try to make you think you're losing your mind.

00:43:38.480 --> 00:43:42.559
They try to get under your skin to where you doubt reality and what's going on.

00:43:42.800 --> 00:43:48.639
So moments like that, that first husband would act like he was my victim.

00:43:48.719 --> 00:43:49.840
That's what narcissists do.

00:43:49.920 --> 00:43:52.400
They flip flop victimology.

00:43:52.960 --> 00:43:56.639
And he would get so upset that his wife was kicking him.

00:43:57.039 --> 00:43:58.000
How dare she?

00:43:58.079 --> 00:43:59.760
And have no empathy or compassion.

00:44:00.320 --> 00:44:01.599
Because I couldn't control it.

00:44:01.679 --> 00:44:03.360
It's in the middle of me sleeping, right?

00:44:03.599 --> 00:44:07.519
But he'd treat me like I was consciously just getting up and kicking him.

00:44:08.400 --> 00:44:09.039
Yeah.

00:44:09.920 --> 00:44:17.920
I had to defend sort of who I was as a as a moral empathic person again and again.

00:44:18.079 --> 00:44:21.440
I think those were some of the hardest moments for me.

00:44:21.519 --> 00:44:25.760
And then when you're around manipulative types, you really don't want what's best for you.

00:44:26.000 --> 00:44:30.239
And you self-check in to a psych unit, bless those people.

00:44:30.400 --> 00:44:32.079
I was a counseling student at the time.

00:44:32.239 --> 00:44:33.760
I was in my master's program.

00:44:33.920 --> 00:44:43.599
And after they did a bunch of psychological testing on me, after I was there a couple days and I started exhaling, they had me read my own psychological evaluation.

00:44:44.239 --> 00:44:47.519
And I said, This is not what's supposed to happen while someone is here.

00:44:47.599 --> 00:44:48.559
I know this.

00:44:48.960 --> 00:44:57.840
But what would started happening was for the very first time in my life, my mother and that husband teamed up and they were trying to manipulate the staff.

00:44:58.320 --> 00:45:03.679
I didn't know because I was inside the psych unit and the staff was protecting me from that.

00:45:04.079 --> 00:45:08.800
So after about a week of me being there, the staff got together, really blessed them.

00:45:09.280 --> 00:45:12.800
When therapeutic things are done well, they they save lives, y'all.

00:45:12.960 --> 00:45:17.360
There's a lot that's bad out there, but boy, when it's good, it is a lifelong.

00:45:17.679 --> 00:45:26.079
And for them to sit me down while I felt crazy and broken, and the news had picked up that my dad was arrested.

00:45:26.320 --> 00:45:31.039
And he was the type that was real extroverted, nice guy everywhere, knew everybody.

00:45:31.280 --> 00:45:37.199
So I had childhood friends calling up, leaving me messages like I had messages like, why didn't you tell me?

00:45:37.440 --> 00:45:38.639
We would have helped you.

00:45:38.960 --> 00:45:43.360
I had old girlfriends say, I've never seen my dad cry.

00:45:43.679 --> 00:45:49.360
And he cried because you spent so much time at my house and he would have saved you and protected you.

00:45:49.599 --> 00:45:59.119
It was so much for me to hear and felt so much like messages of Nikki, why didn't you just do the right thing and save yourself?

00:45:59.280 --> 00:46:02.480
And I couldn't explain, I didn't have my memories.

00:46:02.800 --> 00:46:05.519
I couldn't have told anybody I didn't know.

00:46:06.000 --> 00:46:10.480
So when you go to a psych unit in a healthy family system, they're like, good for you.

00:46:10.639 --> 00:46:12.239
Take a mental health vacation.

00:46:12.480 --> 00:46:13.440
We love you.

00:46:14.079 --> 00:46:20.719
When people want you to feel crazy and you do that, anything I said after that, you don't know what you're talking about.

00:46:20.800 --> 00:46:21.760
You're crazy.

00:46:22.000 --> 00:46:24.719
Or, no, that's not how it's supposed to go in our relationship.

00:46:24.800 --> 00:46:26.079
You come from a crazy family.

00:46:26.159 --> 00:46:27.039
You don't know.

00:46:27.199 --> 00:46:28.480
I'm the one who knows.

00:46:28.639 --> 00:46:29.760
My way is right.

00:46:29.920 --> 00:46:31.119
This doesn't feel right.

00:46:31.280 --> 00:46:34.239
You're dominating me, you're telling me what to do.

00:46:34.880 --> 00:46:43.760
I've always been opinionated and somewhat self-assured about who I am and what I want and what I don't want when I understand what's going on around me.

00:46:44.239 --> 00:46:48.159
So triggers for me have not been so on the nose.

00:46:48.400 --> 00:46:51.440
I were, I was a French quarter bartender to put myself through school.

00:46:51.599 --> 00:46:57.119
It's only been in recent years, writing part of my memoir, that I put together that I was an actual runaway.

00:46:57.199 --> 00:47:01.679
I remember sitting there writing the chapter when I was in high school, and I was like, what word?

00:47:01.840 --> 00:47:02.320
What word?

00:47:02.480 --> 00:47:04.079
And I thought, runaway.

00:47:04.320 --> 00:47:07.599
And I had this moment where my whole body got tingly.

00:47:07.679 --> 00:47:11.920
It was as if my inner child was looking at me, going, Yeah, we really were that.

00:47:12.000 --> 00:47:13.599
I left home at 17.

00:47:13.760 --> 00:47:16.880
I was a runaway for all my senior year of high school.

00:47:16.960 --> 00:47:19.920
It's a miracle I got out of high school and then got to college.

00:47:20.719 --> 00:47:34.239
My grandparents were my safe people, and I very much believe they died when I was 15, and then when I was 17, in part because their hearts were broken, because deep down they knew we were being abused and they they didn't know what to do about it.

00:47:34.559 --> 00:47:35.440
That is sad.

00:47:35.599 --> 00:47:37.519
Um may they rest in peace.

00:47:37.599 --> 00:47:40.400
I know my mom, when she passed in 2020, she was my rock too.

00:47:40.480 --> 00:47:45.360
Yes, I have my wife, but there's something about the people that you go through these things with.

00:47:45.519 --> 00:47:48.960
And my mom to me, maybe you're you feel to be with your grandparents.

00:47:49.119 --> 00:47:52.960
I just felt like, yes, I know we all have to die, but I felt like my mom would never die.

00:47:53.039 --> 00:47:57.280
You know, somehow I feel like I'll be gone before she does, even though that's not the natural order of things.

00:47:57.440 --> 00:47:57.679
Yeah.

00:47:57.840 --> 00:47:59.039
Um, but that's how we feel.

00:47:59.280 --> 00:48:01.840
Your marriage now, I'm I'm assuming it's going great.

00:48:02.239 --> 00:48:09.360
At what point in time did you feel comfortable sitting down with your husband and letting him know all of these things?

00:48:09.599 --> 00:48:11.280
Well, I this is my third husband.

00:48:11.679 --> 00:48:14.960
So the second one was better, and that's what we do.

00:48:15.280 --> 00:48:21.199
I got to better, but in relative to my history, better wasn't healthy.

00:48:21.599 --> 00:48:24.000
Better was better, but it wasn't healthy yet.

00:48:24.239 --> 00:48:35.280
So I went through a second divorce, and when I was ready to to date, I was very much talking to God, very much gone, all right, God, don't stream me along.

00:48:35.440 --> 00:48:38.000
I am not here for any more dysfunction.

00:48:38.239 --> 00:48:39.679
I am clear with who I am.

00:48:39.840 --> 00:48:41.760
I knew what was really good about me.

00:48:41.920 --> 00:48:44.400
I knew how much work I had done on myself.

00:48:44.559 --> 00:48:53.920
I was 35 when I was started dating my husband today, and I was clear about being me all the way through.

00:48:54.159 --> 00:49:00.480
So when we clicked, you know, I started saying to him, Well, he had actually been one of the original podcasters.

00:49:00.719 --> 00:49:06.639
My husband had a podcast in 2003, like light years before I ever knew what a podcast was.

00:49:06.880 --> 00:49:08.639
He was in Manhattan doing comedy.

00:49:08.719 --> 00:49:12.719
So he's interviewed a bunch of comedy greats doing that way back in the day.

00:49:12.960 --> 00:49:16.320
And even on our first date, I said, Oh, yeah, I want to, I want to have a podcast.

00:49:16.480 --> 00:49:17.599
He said, You do?

00:49:18.400 --> 00:49:20.079
And I said, Yeah, I do.

00:49:20.239 --> 00:49:20.960
He said, On what?

00:49:21.039 --> 00:49:24.800
And I said, Well, my younger life is kind of a shit show.

00:49:25.039 --> 00:49:30.400
And I've done a lot of healing and I I help people get to peace.

00:49:30.480 --> 00:49:39.760
And I want, and my clients over the years would get up out of their traditional counseling session at the end and just kind of say, you know what, Nikki, you should have a show.

00:49:40.480 --> 00:49:42.000
They didn't hear each other say that.

00:49:42.159 --> 00:49:43.440
These were one-on-one sessions.

00:49:43.599 --> 00:49:49.599
So after I don't know how many people, maybe even 40, said that to me, I was like, All right, all right.

00:49:49.760 --> 00:49:54.719
And so through that, I was able to say, This is really what I do, and this is who I am.

00:49:54.800 --> 00:50:09.119
And while I've done probably more healing than anyone you've ever met, in some ways I will always be healing in my life, not in an obsessive way, not like it's my personality, not like it's my identity to be a survivor.

00:50:09.280 --> 00:50:11.599
Like my identity is me, I am Nikki.

00:50:12.000 --> 00:50:16.960
These are just the things I've been through and the hard-earned wisdom I have gained that I will live from.

00:50:17.199 --> 00:50:25.039
And I think at that point I knew how to present myself as powerful and not like a like a wounded bird with a broken wing.

00:50:25.280 --> 00:50:32.559
I also knew how to repel narcissists because I did not want to date them, and I had that confidence.

00:50:32.800 --> 00:50:55.280
And the number one thing that was important to me in dating my husband was if I was going to settle down and partner with someone again, was that they had to be absolutely and utterly willing, just willing, willing to learn, willing to listen, willing to consider that things might be a little different than what you might expect.

00:50:55.440 --> 00:51:01.440
I haven't had real issues in the sexual department, like one might think.

00:51:02.320 --> 00:51:11.679
It's more like clarity of communication being very important to me, energy being important to me.

00:51:11.920 --> 00:51:20.400
I will not do passive aggressive in my personal life at all, not even a little bit, not with my husband, not with a woman.

00:51:20.559 --> 00:51:23.199
Like we'll not do it, will not do it.

00:51:23.360 --> 00:51:24.800
And so I have my boundaries.

00:51:24.880 --> 00:51:26.079
It's the other thing that I teach.

00:51:26.239 --> 00:51:32.000
I I have a course where I teach peace, and I have another one where I teach boundaries, and I think that is the magic.

00:51:32.239 --> 00:51:33.119
That is the magic.

00:51:33.280 --> 00:51:36.880
We have to understand how to execute boundaries that we can control.

00:51:37.199 --> 00:51:38.960
We can't control anybody else.

00:51:39.119 --> 00:51:41.519
If we could, we wouldn't need the boundaries.

00:51:42.400 --> 00:51:50.400
And so coming from more of a place of security within myself and really knowing for the first time I am a good partner.

00:51:50.559 --> 00:51:52.159
I do have things to offer.

00:51:52.320 --> 00:52:04.400
And any areas that I am growing on, the right person for me will help me grow in them, not sit there and poke me in that button till I snap, till I lose it, till I cry, till I'm a puddle.

00:52:04.719 --> 00:52:09.760
Whatever it is, it will actually really hold my hand and walk forward in this life.

00:52:10.079 --> 00:52:12.000
Build, oh, it's gonna make me tear up.

00:52:12.239 --> 00:52:14.480
Building a beautiful life.

00:52:14.800 --> 00:52:18.880
I'm ambitious and I'm strong, and my husband is too.

00:52:19.119 --> 00:52:20.960
And together we are a force.

00:52:21.119 --> 00:52:24.000
And I got there, and then he met me right there.

00:52:25.519 --> 00:52:28.000
It's not easy, but we all have to find our person.

00:52:28.639 --> 00:52:31.679
Um, I'm on number five, and a lot of people make fun of that.

00:52:32.159 --> 00:52:37.360
And I say, if you understand what I went through while my divorce has happened, then you wouldn't find it funny.

00:52:37.599 --> 00:52:48.800
I was still trying to find myself, I think when I got married for the first time at 19, because I had things I needed to prove that my mom went through that I could prove would be different with me.

00:52:49.039 --> 00:52:49.360
Yeah.

00:52:49.599 --> 00:52:52.800
And I ended up going into the same trauma, right?

00:52:52.960 --> 00:52:58.480
Finding women that was narcissistic or women that was all about themselves or women that just wanted to be self-promoting.

00:52:58.639 --> 00:53:04.559
And when you get into that final relationship and you sit down and say, I'm a different person, you have to put up with all this.

00:53:04.639 --> 00:53:08.639
I know my wife's put up with a lot of things in 23 years, but that's how who I am.

00:53:08.800 --> 00:53:15.360
She's been through some trauma in her life too as well, but not to the degree of parental abuse and things of that nature that I have been.

00:53:15.519 --> 00:53:20.159
And it's enlightening when you finally find that person that you say you're gonna be with forever.

00:53:20.239 --> 00:53:20.960
It's not easy.

00:53:21.119 --> 00:53:22.559
It's not easy living with us.

00:53:22.800 --> 00:53:29.599
There's gonna be some issues, some arguments, but I think as I got older, back in my earlier marriage, and I said, I'm just done with this.

00:53:29.679 --> 00:53:31.599
And I'm I'm sure you've probably been here.

00:53:31.840 --> 00:53:33.760
This is too much, I'm out, right?

00:53:33.840 --> 00:53:35.840
There's no second chances, ain't no third.

00:53:35.920 --> 00:53:38.000
I've been through this before, I'm just done.

00:53:38.239 --> 00:53:48.960
When you get older and you settle in and you learn how to handle the trauma, and then you learn how to do things like we do, people don't understand when we do podcasts and talk about it, it is healing.

00:53:49.199 --> 00:53:51.679
We heal ourselves every time we do it.

00:53:51.920 --> 00:53:54.800
You get to that point in age, it's like, I can't run anymore.

00:53:54.960 --> 00:53:55.760
This is it.

00:53:56.000 --> 00:54:00.960
If you're willing to stick this out with me, then I'm willing to be here with you and we're gonna just tough it out.

00:54:01.199 --> 00:54:04.559
So I'm glad that you found someone that you can do that with.

00:54:04.719 --> 00:54:06.000
You look very happy.

00:54:06.239 --> 00:54:08.320
So I'm glad for you for that.

00:54:08.719 --> 00:54:09.519
Thank you so much.

00:54:09.599 --> 00:54:15.760
And I hope anybody listening who doubts, well, number one, there are a lot of manipulative people out there.

00:54:16.000 --> 00:54:18.559
I think mental health estimates are very, very low.

00:54:18.719 --> 00:54:24.400
I think the last 25 years of social media, maybe blue light is having an effect.

00:54:24.559 --> 00:54:25.519
I don't know.

00:54:25.840 --> 00:54:31.360
But we we are growing like ungrounded manipulative people left and right in this world.

00:54:31.519 --> 00:54:35.199
So don't feel crazy if you look around, you're like, oh my God, I dated another one.

00:54:35.280 --> 00:54:36.239
What is going on?

00:54:36.480 --> 00:54:37.920
There's a lot out there.

00:54:38.159 --> 00:54:38.880
That's another thing.

00:54:38.960 --> 00:54:43.039
We just can't know until we're forced to know and learn that.

00:54:43.119 --> 00:54:56.320
And we all have a right to learn what those red flags are and to absolutely stop attracting them, learn to repel them and learn to honor when you see that red flag instead of bury it and wish and hope.

00:54:56.559 --> 00:54:58.159
I was overly loyal.

00:54:58.400 --> 00:54:59.599
That was one of my issues.

00:54:59.679 --> 00:55:01.599
I wouldn't run fast enough.

00:55:02.159 --> 00:55:03.760
And so that's part of what happens.

00:55:03.840 --> 00:55:09.039
And I hope people listening can hear that in the differences in our stories as much as the similarity.

00:55:09.199 --> 00:55:20.159
Dysfunction pushes us into some different polarities, and our healing and our growth brings us more to a center, more of a middle ground, and where we can kind of make choices and respond instead of react.

00:55:20.320 --> 00:55:25.920
And I do a lot of inner child work, and that sounds hippy-dippy and like woo-woo crap.

00:55:26.079 --> 00:55:29.039
You know, whenever anybody first hears that, everybody has that response to it.

00:55:29.199 --> 00:55:30.239
I did too.

00:55:30.480 --> 00:55:43.920
But the truth is, I have helped my inner child trust grown-up adult me so much that she can just let go and go play, go have ease.

00:55:44.880 --> 00:55:46.639
Like she deserved as a child.

00:55:46.880 --> 00:55:55.679
And grown-up me can handle things for people who have abuse history and abuse memories come up in the moment where we're doing adult sexy time.

00:55:56.320 --> 00:56:02.639
It's as simple sometimes as just saying to that inner child, no sweet girl, this is just for grown-ups.

00:56:03.199 --> 00:56:04.239
You don't have to be here.

00:56:05.039 --> 00:56:06.239
This is not for you.

00:56:07.199 --> 00:56:14.079
And it it really is as if that inner part goes, thank you, okay, and goes back.

00:56:14.400 --> 00:56:19.920
And then your adult itself that's appropriate for that can be there.

00:56:20.400 --> 00:56:21.920
And we learn all this nuance.

00:56:22.159 --> 00:56:25.440
I'm not dependent on my therapist, but she is like a second mother.

00:56:25.679 --> 00:56:32.719
She's a colleague, she's a sister, she's a spiritual mama, my angelou, I tap in as one of my spiritual mothers.

00:56:33.440 --> 00:56:40.960
I happen to read her book, I Know Why The Cage Bird Sings, where she talks about her abuse the very year I started being abused.

00:56:42.000 --> 00:56:44.320
So I look back and see so much.

00:56:47.519 --> 00:56:49.360
For many years I couldn't say God.

00:56:49.920 --> 00:56:54.960
For many years in my in my youth, in my rebellion, I was against religion or spirituality.

00:56:55.119 --> 00:56:56.800
I was so angered by it.

00:56:57.280 --> 00:57:01.199
Because he had also like played golf with the pastor, you know, one of those.

00:57:01.360 --> 00:57:04.559
And when we heal, we really do make peace with that too.

00:57:04.719 --> 00:57:08.480
So I just want people to know there is so much peace and so much ease.

00:57:08.639 --> 00:57:13.519
There's the right person out there for you, multiple right people, potentially.

00:57:13.840 --> 00:57:15.760
And I think we are like penguins.

00:57:15.840 --> 00:57:16.639
We are really made.

00:57:16.719 --> 00:57:18.159
There's lots of argument, you know.

00:57:18.320 --> 00:57:20.880
Polyamory is big in the state that I'm in.

00:57:21.039 --> 00:57:27.440
Yeah, that being single forever, you know, is kind of like what the cool kids talk about, screw relationships, why try?

00:57:27.679 --> 00:57:28.880
But I think we're like penguins.

00:57:28.960 --> 00:57:30.480
We are we are made to partner.

00:57:30.800 --> 00:57:33.280
We are we are not made to do this life alone.

00:57:33.440 --> 00:57:42.079
And I think being brave enough to risk again and again is part of our resiliency and part of our honoring that inner child who went through so much.

00:57:42.320 --> 00:57:50.719
So I'm willing to do that and I'm willing to show that publicly in the hopes that that inspires someone else to show up in their own lives.

00:57:52.559 --> 00:57:58.079
In closing, can you tell the artists why they should go check out emotional badass?

00:57:59.360 --> 00:58:04.239
Well, I try to talk about very difficult things with a lot of ease and lightness.

00:58:04.320 --> 00:58:07.519
I'm not sure many people do it with as much lightness as I do.

00:58:07.679 --> 00:58:10.480
I want you to have laughter in your recovery.

00:58:10.639 --> 00:58:19.920
You know, a lot of times in trauma work, there are moments where it does need to be what we call crying and dying, where it's the real heavy of the heavy, right?

00:58:20.480 --> 00:58:23.199
But a lot of it is about learning how to be lighter.

00:58:23.280 --> 00:58:25.119
You spend enough time being heavy.

00:58:25.360 --> 00:58:27.119
Spend enough time in that darkness.

00:58:27.280 --> 00:58:31.360
Like, let's shine some light and let's feel light.

00:58:31.760 --> 00:58:44.320
So come listen to my show if you know in your head that you're allowed to feel calm and peaceful and positive about life, but you can't quite make your body feel that yet.

00:58:44.639 --> 00:58:46.639
And that's confusing for you.

00:58:47.599 --> 00:58:55.039
I talk over time about how to integrate this work so that you can feel the way that you want, and you really can.

00:58:55.199 --> 00:58:56.639
It feels like you can't.

00:58:56.880 --> 00:59:03.360
It feels like this is just how you are, and this is how you're wired, and this is how it's gonna be, and it's tough and it's hard and it's sucky.

00:59:03.760 --> 00:59:23.119
And my promise to you is that there are infinite ways for you to soften all of this over time, for you to cultivate an ease and mind and body, for you to have more control over getting triggered, to have more control over lashing out.

00:59:23.519 --> 00:59:29.920
A lot of survivors feel secretly too young or secretly too old, and they feel weird about not feeling their age.

00:59:30.079 --> 00:59:34.800
When you do this type of healing, you start to feel more of your age.

00:59:35.039 --> 00:59:41.599
It's so cool for me to feel my actual age, 45, and love being that age.

00:59:42.239 --> 00:59:50.079
So come listen if you want like a deeper, more nuanced emotional education as you learn who you are.

00:59:50.480 --> 00:59:56.880
I support all people, all types of people, all colors, all politics.

00:59:57.119 --> 01:00:01.360
I don't demonize anybody, even the narcissists and the sociopaths.

01:00:01.519 --> 01:00:06.559
I have empathy for how they got there, but also we're gonna have some boundaries with that stuff.

01:00:06.719 --> 01:00:25.519
So if you want to learn how to really teach your body to be more peaceful, how to navigate this wild, upset, addicted energy in the modern world and hold on to your peace and your sanity despite it all, come hang out with me at emotional badass.

01:00:26.880 --> 01:00:33.280
Is there anything that you would like to say to any of your listeners or fans who may be listening to this interview today?

01:00:35.280 --> 01:00:39.519
That we all are connected, we all are connected.

01:00:39.679 --> 01:00:42.000
Don't buy into any of the hate.

01:00:42.239 --> 01:00:48.239
Like go beneath that superficial hate, that anger, that upset that's so popular today.

01:00:48.480 --> 01:01:04.400
Remember, we're all people, we're all trying to figure it out, and we're all that the the healthy ones are trying to navigate that there are real predators in our human population, and we get to get wiser and wiser and act from that wisdom, and it's such a gift.

01:01:04.639 --> 01:01:09.199
I really like how you opened the show, how you open your episodes.

01:01:09.440 --> 01:01:09.840
Yeah.

01:01:10.159 --> 01:01:11.440
I want you here.

01:01:11.920 --> 01:01:15.920
Suicide is absolutely never an option, never an option.

01:01:16.000 --> 01:01:18.079
Don't play around with that seductive idea.

01:01:18.159 --> 01:01:20.159
It is a dark seductress.

01:01:20.400 --> 01:01:32.159
Like you are valuable, you have worth, your worth is as unchanging as the very day you were born, despite all mistakes, all missteps, and as hard as like relating to people can be.

01:01:32.480 --> 01:01:35.280
There are people who will love you who will hold your hand.

01:01:36.880 --> 01:01:38.880
I'm continuously shocked.

01:01:39.039 --> 01:01:42.639
You know, half my clients in their session saying, I love you, uncle, I love you too.

01:01:42.800 --> 01:01:47.199
And yes, they pay me, and that weirds people out to hear love and pay and all that.

01:01:47.599 --> 01:01:59.760
But it we get hurt by people who are supposed to love us the most and we heal by people who never had to love us, choosing to, because we are just so lovable.

01:02:00.320 --> 01:02:16.559
You're lovable, and anything you don't like about yourself or any reactions you don't like in you, I promise you, you can like sandpaper, soften those edges, and get to a place where you are proud of you and you love you, and that's the secret sauce.

01:02:16.800 --> 01:02:23.760
When you love you, you will attract those who are willing and able to love you back.

01:02:25.920 --> 01:02:28.239
Nikki, it has been a lightning conversation.

01:02:28.320 --> 01:02:30.079
I thank you for coming on the show.

01:02:30.320 --> 01:02:33.280
What audience don't know is this is just the tip of the iceberg.

01:02:33.360 --> 01:02:35.280
Uh, thank you for being vulnerable and sharing today.

01:02:35.360 --> 01:02:43.840
I would love to have you come back on the show sometime here in the future, and we can continue on with some of the other points that you sent in to me.

01:02:43.920 --> 01:02:48.000
Um, I think there's a lot more of your story that the audience needs to hear.

01:02:48.079 --> 01:02:51.920
So I'd like to go ahead and extend that invitation if you're willing to come back sometime.

01:02:52.239 --> 01:02:53.280
I am so willing.

01:02:53.440 --> 01:02:54.559
Thank you so much, David.

01:02:54.719 --> 01:02:56.079
Thank you for sharing yourself too.

01:02:56.239 --> 01:03:05.280
We need more strong masculine men standing in their power and owning their story to show other men how to do that.

01:03:05.519 --> 01:03:08.159
Men who have been through what you've been through and men who haven't.

01:03:08.320 --> 01:03:09.920
We need more of that in society.

01:03:10.000 --> 01:03:13.840
We need healthy feminine energy and we need healthy masculine energy.

01:03:13.920 --> 01:03:16.000
And healthy doesn't mean perfect, y'all.

01:03:16.159 --> 01:03:18.000
It means working on it and figuring it out.

01:03:18.079 --> 01:03:21.679
So I so appreciate the energy you bring and the the person that you are.

01:03:21.760 --> 01:03:22.800
Thank you, David.

01:03:23.119 --> 01:03:25.519
Thank you, Nikki, and we will definitely have you back again.

01:03:25.599 --> 01:03:26.320
I appreciate it.

01:03:26.559 --> 01:03:27.280
Thank you.

01:03:29.280 --> 01:03:31.920
All right, guys, that was the incredible Nikki Eisenhower.

01:03:32.000 --> 01:03:36.719
You can find out more about Nikki at her website, emotional badass.com.

01:03:37.119 --> 01:03:45.039
I will leave a link to her website and also a direct link to her podcast in the show notes so that it's easy for you to find.

01:03:45.199 --> 01:03:47.760
I hope that you've taken something from this story.

01:03:47.920 --> 01:04:01.760
And if you are someone who is going through some of the same things that Nikki or myself has been through, I hope that we helped you see some of the red flags and do not be afraid to go get yourself some help and don't be afraid at all to go to therapy.

01:04:01.840 --> 01:04:04.000
I know black people like we don't do therapy.

01:04:04.239 --> 01:04:06.559
Everybody needs to do therapy.

01:04:06.719 --> 01:04:10.400
So I want to thank Nikki again for coming on the show.

01:04:10.639 --> 01:04:12.880
And I also want to thank you for joining us today.

01:04:13.039 --> 01:04:20.320
I know you have many choices in true crime and interview podcasts, and I am grateful that I am just one of your choices.

01:04:20.559 --> 01:04:26.800
Always remember you have been listening to the only three-faceted podcast of its kind.

01:04:27.119 --> 01:04:33.920
Be good to yourself and each other, and always remember, always stay humble.

01:04:34.239 --> 01:04:37.039
An act of kindness can make someone's day.

01:04:37.280 --> 01:04:40.159
A little love and compassion can go a long way.

01:04:40.400 --> 01:04:44.719
And remember that there is an extraordinary person in all of us.

01:04:44.880 --> 01:04:47.199
I'll catch you guys on the next one.

01:04:50.559 --> 01:04:53.440
Don't forget to rate, comment, and subscribe.

01:04:53.679 --> 01:04:55.199
Join us on social media.

01:04:55.360 --> 01:04:57.679
One link to the Link Tree has it all.

01:04:57.840 --> 01:05:02.719
Feel free to drop us the line at TrueCrime and Authors at gmail.com.

01:05:03.039 --> 01:05:05.679
Sound mixing and editing by David McLaren.

01:05:06.079 --> 01:05:09.280
Intro script by Sophie Wilde and David McLaren.

01:05:09.760 --> 01:05:12.880
Theme Music, legendary by New Alchabet.

01:05:13.280 --> 01:05:16.559
Introduction and Ending credits by Jackie Voice.

01:05:17.039 --> 01:05:21.920
See you next time on True Crime, Authors, and Extraordinary People.