Healing Generational Trauma and Embracing Joy

Rebeccah Silence

[00:00:00] Ed Watters: To overcome, you must educate. Educate not only yourself, but educate anyone seeking to learn. We are all Dead America, we can all learn something. To learn, we must challenge what we already understand. The way we do that is through conversation. Sometimes we have conversations with others, however, some of the best conversations happen with ourselves. Reach out and challenge yourself; let’s dive in and learn something new right now.

[00:00:55] Today, we are speaking with Rebeccah Silence. She is an expert in human behavior, an emotional healing coach, she’s written a book called Coming Back to Life. Rebeccah, could you please introduce yourself, let people know a little more about you, please?

[00:01:14] Rebeccah Silence: Thank you so much for having me, I’m thrilled and honored to be here. I’m Rebeccah Silence, and I am a self healing and relationship expert. And really the space where all healing is possible and my mission is for kids to have healed parents. And in 2024, we’re helping a million families heal. So thank you again for having me, and I’m ready for a life changing conversation.

[00:01:43] Ed Watters: As always, so am I. Rebeccah, it’s remarkable what I’ve researched about you, you’ve went through some struggles and those struggles brought you here today to share with us. So living with a dysfunctional alcoholic family, I’m well versed in that. And it really has upset the apple cart of my life in many ways, but the same goes for me,

[00:02:15] I’m glad I went through the experiences so we can turn around today and help other people go through similar things without the struggle. So what was your, uh, episodic periods of alcoholism in your life like? Because usually it’s a roller coaster, sometimes you have good experiences in life and then it’s tragedy. What was that like for you?

[00:02:48] Rebeccah Silence: Well, I think first of all, let me just say, I am not a positivity coach. I’m not here to help us find the silver lining or the good in the bad. I’m here [00:03:00] to say that no matter what, possibility still exists. I don’t think life happens to us, I don’t think it happens for us, I think it’s just happening.

[00:03:09] And what we have power and control over is deciding who we’re going to be in the face of whatever moment we find ourselves in, preferential, non preferential, right? So with that disclaimer, I guess what I’ll say is, you know, I think it’s almost more comfortable and comforting when you’ve grown up in an alcoholic addictive, dysfunctional, abusive home when there’s an upset apple cart.

[00:03:35] It’s almost less easy and more upsetting when everything appears to be good. Like we’re good at the apple cart is upset. Now what, right? We’re not so good at everything seems in order and I trust that, you know? So one of the things I like to say is, We’re not healing the trauma. We’re healing so that we can handle joy, and peace, and fun, and good.

[00:04:02] And I want, and I literally have goosebumps as I’m saying this right now to all of you, life at home to be delicious, to be glorious, to be beautiful. And for so many of us, life at home as adults is the same levels of dissatisfaction we had growing up because it’s comfortable because it’s comforting.

[00:04:23] It’s not what we want, but we, we know how to navigate survival. What we don’t know how to navigate is alignment. So my story is one where I grew up just knowing there had to be a better way. Like, can’t we just love each other? And then that heals us. Can’t, if we love more, if we’re more careful with each other and each other’s hearts, can’t life at home get good?

[00:04:51] And I grew up in the middle of so much trauma and abuse on every level. And while I understood it could be better, it didn’t matter, the understanding, I ended up recreating my childhood. So my real episodic moment was finding myself twenty-five years old with, you know, a master’s degree in process in counseling, 4. 0 GPA, and a two year old, and I’m in a domestic violence marriage. And I’m realizing just because I understand generational trauma doesn’t have to repeat, I’m still finding myself in it. So there has to be a next level of work and healing to do because I get it. I have immersed myself in working at a state psychiatric hospital,

[00:05:38] I’m a board certified music therapist, I have a 4. 0 GPA master’s degree in counseling, and I am re enacting my childhood with all of the purest best intentions. What on earth? What can I do to learn how to actually break the cycle? Because the understanding of it isn’t enough. So I ended up getting out of that marriage [00:06:00] with my two year old, going bankrupt, working three jobs, starting my private practice, getting coaching certifications in addition to my master’s degree, and just very much focused on no generational trauma cycles, absolutely have to heal and they can. And anybody that wants it, I’m going to be their guiding light. But I’m going to have to go first, which is exactly what I did.

[00:06:25] Ed Watters: That’s big right there. You know, if you don’t change yourself first, you can’t change anybody else. And that’s the struggle that many people walk every day, it is a true struggle. I’m in a relationship, a long relationship, I’ve been with my wife for forty-one years, we’ve been married thirty-nine this year. She’s a wonderful woman, I don’t know how she did it, you know? Because I understand the difficult times we both went through. We suffered these emotional traumas as children, and then we tried to re invent ourselves going into a marriage. And we had no clue of what or how, and that dysfunction just crept right back in. And until you really address the innermost deepest, darkest slime that’s in you and say, I’m better than this, you’re not going to get better. Is that a good take on life?

[00:07:37] Rebeccah Silence: I mean, first of all, congratulations for keeping your beautiful marriage together for four plus decades. I am in awe and so happy for what you’re modeling to every life you and your wife touch. And for me, you know, my greatest testimony that healing is truly possible isn’t all of the abuse and violence and I’m a cancer survivor that was given a five percent chance to live. It’s not all these odds I’ve beat, it’s the marriage I have and the life at home I have. So I don’t think there’s a more

[00:08:13] beautiful gift that we can give ourselves, you know, than a healed family life, regardless of where we come from. I think that is super important, and I don’t think we can ever change anybody, no matter how healed we are, but we can set the example. We can model what being emotionally cleared and healed looks like.

[00:08:35] Because again, mindset and strategy work. And understanding, it’s not going to be enough ever to heal a trauma, to break a cycle, or to stop a pattern that no longer serves us, right? So in marriages, the key is to be aware and self responsible. I love to say, The mission is healing, the cure is self responsibility for, whether or not I’m [00:09:00] emotionally clear and healed.

[00:09:01] That is my responsibility, the other person isn’t the source of my happiness or my pain. They’re not the magic bullet that’s all of a sudden going to heal me and make my life worth it or make my childhood trauma better. It’s up to me to feel how I want to feel and to be the version of myself that I can be proud of at my best, letting my best be enough.

[00:09:25] And that is, that’s my job. That’s my only job. So in a marriage, when both people are self responsible for, am I emotionally clear or not? Am I being my best or not? And am I a space for, with love and compassion? Seeing my partner’s innocence and letting their best be enough in this moment. When I’m there, it’s a glorious ride. When I’m not, I’m at the effect of life and I’m in survival.

[00:09:54] Ed Watters: Yes, that’s huge. I, I agree a hundred percent with all of that. One of the big things that I came across when I did my research on you was high functioning unhappiness. This is a big statement, and it intrigued me. I need to know more. Could you fill us in on that, please?

[00:10:19] Rebeccah Silence: Yeah. Well, what I found over the years is when I talk about generational trauma can heal, I don’t care how bad, how dark, what it is. I’m an incest survivor. I mean, there is no trauma that can’t heal, right? Well, when I was talking about, in my messaging, generational trauma and let’s heal our trauma, everybody, you know, runs away as fast as they can, like, we don’t want to go there, right? We want to leave Pandora’s box all tucked in with a bow on it and not deal with it. When in fact what’s in there is running and potentially even ruining our lives anyway. You know, so when I was thinking about, okay, messaging for all of the beautiful hearts and souls that do want to heal and do want to break the cycle.

[00:11:06] You know, I thought, Well, actually, actually the solution is healing generational trauma. But the real reason to hang out with me is because you’re ready to resolve your unresolved high functioning unhappiness. I work with generational healers in the family, but what I found is, they are bad asses, they are executives,

[00:11:31] they are entrepreneurs, they are, they are public servants, right? And they are giving and they are serving at home to their spouse, to their kids, in their jobs and in their companies, to their teams, and to their clients, and to their audiences. And there’s this level of dissatisfaction that I found. I’ve been in private practice now

[00:11:51] almost seventeen years. I’ve worked with thousands in my private practice and hundreds of thousands in my audience and what I see time and time again is [00:12:00] they’re dissatisfied, they’re unfulfilled, and they don’t know why. And I just gave it a name, I called it high functioning unhappiness. Because we talk about high functioning depression, we talk about high functioning addiction, we talk about high functioning autism, nobody’s talking about high functioning unhappiness.

[00:12:17] And what I mean by that is you give, and you give, and you give, and you give, and you are very achievement-wise successful. And you know it, but are you happy? Are you fulfilled? Are you satisfied? And some signs that you might be dealing with high functioning unhappiness are just exhaustion, physical, mental, emotional, irritability,

[00:12:44] telling yourself, what is my problem? I should just be more grateful, life looks so good. Cause see, for so many of you, your life doesn’t look like your childhood. You did break the cycle in many ways. But if you’re feeling the same in your family, in your life, when you’re alone with yourself, as you did growing up, it doesn’t matter that on paper it looks different because it feels the same.

[00:13:11] So what we want is to get how you feel under control and in alignment with the truth of who you are and how you want to feel. And what we don’t want to do is threaten the high functioning part of your life. And what I realized doing research and just looking at all this clinical experience I have under my belt is people are afraid to threaten the high functioning part of their lives. Because we want to serve,

[00:13:37] we want to give, we want to make a difference. If you are hanging out with me, you are a difference maker. But the real truth is we have to threaten the unhappiness part of your life. And if we don’t, you’re already threatening the high functioning part of your life. My work isn’t around threatening the high functioning part of your life,

[00:13:57] it’s about protecting and preserving it. But we’ve got to get beyond the fear that happiness doesn’t even exist and we’ve got to threaten the unhappiness. If you’re going to be as high functioning, and making the biggest difference and impact you can make in your life, and better than how you grew up,

[00:14:18] I’m just going to boldly say isn’t good enough for you. I want you in a world where your life now as an adult is healed, and yours and on your terms, and you’re high functioning, and you’re happy and it doesn’t feel like a reenactment of your childhood in any way, shape, or form. And we’re not knocking your family, your parents, where you come from,

[00:14:40] they did the best they could with the tools they have. But every family has a generational healer in it and every family has that kid that goes, Why aren’t we doing better? There has to be a better way. But in almost every case that child decides something must be wrong with me because nobody else seems to get it.[00:15:00]

[00:15:00] And instead of going, No, the dysfunction is the problem. That generational healer often decides as a child, I must be the problem because nobody else sees what I’m seeing. And I’m here to say to all of you generational healers out there, You’re right and you deserve to be happy. And it’s time to break through high functioning unhappiness.

[00:15:22] Ed Watters: So really the target there is what you feel is not who you are, and you must figure out who you are to find that happiness. It’s a big key in life, and we struggle with many things trying to figure out, Hey, I don’t fit in here, but I want to fit in. You know, there’s a struggle, an emotional intelligence struggle, an emotional stamina,

[00:15:56] the problem, you know? And we’ve lost this ability to forgive ourself, and I think we hold that against ourselves a lot of the time. If we can’t forgive ourselves, the struggle will always continue. And that, that’s, you know, many people go through different things in life and they feel different things about different situations, and I can’t relate to any of them because I’m not the individual going through them. All we have is empathy. And empathy is really tricky to dive into it deep, it’s leveled. We really don’t get empathy in our world, what’s your take on empathy and being empathetic towards others without giving them that pity trip?

[00:17:01] Rebeccah Silence: Totally! Okay, you are saying so much here, okay? So, let’s talk about feeling, right? Cause it, it really, you can’t have empathy. You’re talking about feelings, and forgiveness, and empathy. And, and I want to touch on all of this because it’s really important. So knowing how you want to feel is the gateway to knowing who you are. Who we became to survive our childhood is not who we are,

[00:17:34] that’s our survival self. And we all get to have this moment where we go, Uh uh, something has to give. But it isn’t you wake up one day and you find yourself and you know who you are. You wake up one day and you go, I don’t feel how I want to feel. And enough with surviving, okay? And then we design, my last name is Silence.

[00:17:54] The first marriage I had, I married a guy with the last name Silence. I was meek, I was shut down, [00:18:00] I really was at the time. And then I just loved who I became as Rebeccah Silence. And my mission was to break the chains and the cycles and to be a mom my little girl could be proud of. And at first I didn’t have the self worth or the confidence to do any of the work for me, but I was going to be God damned

[00:18:17] if I was going to repeat history. And be aware that I was doing that with this little girl in tow, right? So you, you start by knowing the difference between your feelings about what’s going on around you and the emotions you need to feel, they’re very different. So we can’t need the external to be different to give us permission to feel how we want to feel and to be internally resolved.

[00:18:46] You needing the external to change is just a dead end, right? As my coach would say, It’s a journey of seek and do not find. So what I teach are five emotions, five. That’s it. Anger, fear, grief, joy, excitement. Anger, fear, grief, joy, excitement, everything else is learned. Rejection, jealousy, abuse, abandonment, anxiety, depression,

[00:19:12] these are all our feelings about what’s going on that are, how we’re coping with what’s going on. But underneath all of our feelings about what’s happening around us is a core naturally occurring human emotion that we need to feel just like a baby. We’ve all been around a baby that could go through anger, fear, grief, joy, excitement in 10 seconds.

[00:19:35] And there’s no resistance, they’re happy as a clam, right? And to me, my definition of happiness is a healthy relationship with anger, fear, grief, joy, excitement. So now let’s talk about forgiveness. Forgiveness is loving as much as you can, as much as you did, before got hurt. So until we know better, we can’t do better.

[00:20:01] And where we haven’t forgiven ourselves enough is for being human. And for being willing to have compassion for our humanity, especially emotionally. Giving ourselves permission to know we did the best we could from the level of awareness we were at with the tools we have. And when we’re not giving ourselves permission to fully emotionally express and to be fully emotionally clear, that hurts.

[00:20:29] And it’s okay to have grief, and anger, and fear, and joy, and excitement. And anytime you’re taking your emotions out on anyone or anything, or blaming your emotions on what’s going on externally, you can’t be in a place of forgiveness. Which means you have no empathy towards yourself, which means you can’t have any empathy towards anybody else.

[00:20:51] So my book, Coming Back To Life A Roadmap To Heal From Pain To Create The Life You Want, has a beautiful chapter on forgiveness. And I actually [00:21:00] recently got an email from a woman, in her therapist’s book club, I don’t know this therapist, but a therapist has been using my book for a book club with his clients, and they spent an entire month on my forgiveness chapter. And this woman wrote me an email just saying how powerful it was for all of these women going through the book club. The book is worth it just for the forgiveness chapter alone. But it’s really about having compassion and empathy for you as a human with emotions and getting back to the place where you give yourself permission to love as much as you did

[00:21:33] before you got hurt. And when you’re emotionally clear and when you’ve forgiven yourself, especially for your humanity, you can be such a different empowered space for the people around you that are also human. Without pity, like you were talking about earlier. And I think the more vulnerable and human

[00:21:53] we are, the more attractive and sexy and magnificent we are. And it’s okay to let yourself not feel sorry for yourself, to not need to run from or shut down on any part of your humanity. And when you’ve mastered that, what a gift you are to every life you touch.

[00:22:14] Ed Watters: Amen. I like that a lot. Let’s, let’s talk more about your book because, you know, you talk about it being used as a workbook.

[00:22:24] My wife and myself, every Saturday, we spend some time reading a portion of a book each week, and then we discuss it and we think about it. And that’s really helping us heal our journey that we had in the trash can. But I really like it when people write books that you can actually go through and read and discuss like a workbook. What, what brought on the book? Of course we kind of get an idea of that, but who’s this targeted for mainly and why should somebody pick it up and read it?

[00:23:05] Rebeccah Silence: Yeah. So if you want to be free, if you want to be happy, if you want to get the most out of your one precious life, this book is for you. And the, the book was born when I came out of cancer. I had my crazy childhood and first marriage, and I was experiencing so much self abuse, abusing alcohol, eating disorder behavior.

[00:23:31] And, you know, I did all this work to become somebody I could be proud of. I got married again, I started my business, I got on the radio talking to hundreds of thousands of people a week in the community I grew up in, where I was so traumatized. I thought I had beat my past, and then I was coaching a plastic surgeon and his wife

[00:23:50] and they stopped me and said, You’re here to save our marriage and you are, and you have, but will you come to the office tomorrow morning at 7am so we can take this [00:24:00] mole off of your arm? I was pregnant with my second baby, on top of the world, and it was malignant melanoma. Turns out it was already in my lymph nodes at the time.

[00:24:12] I was diagnosed at the very end of 2014, I was thirty- four and the melanoma treatment was still not as researched as some of the other forms of cancer. So there really wasn’t a lot that could be done. I was given a five percent chance to live and I beat the odds. And the book was me showcasing, here’s my story and how I used trauma to my advantage to save my life.

[00:24:40] And there’s no trauma that can’t be used to your advantage and I’m going to give you a masterclass on how to use trauma to your advantage. Because what I had realized was, at first, with the cancer journey, it felt very similar to, especially in my childhood, sexual abuse. I’m stuck in a bed, I feel like I’m going to die,

[00:24:59] like somebody is trying to kill me, I’m in so much pain, nobody gets it. Oh my God. And what I realized very quickly was the healed Rebeccah, because I had beat my childhood trauma, was equipped to heal through this experience of cancer. I never identified as sick or dying, I never called it my cancer. It’s a cancer diagnosis.

[00:25:23] There really is cancer going on in my body, but I focused on, all right, as they healed me, I know how to have a clear mind, how to have a clear open heart, how to connect to my body so that I can connect to my spirit. And I practiced what I call the practice of emotional healing all throughout my initial year and a half of going through cancer, twenty surgeries, chemo.

[00:25:46] I eventually quit chemo, which I think saved my life. I never recommend that to anybody else, but I know your spirit will guide you home. So here I am vibrant, well, alive, and I just came out of cancer and I couldn’t start writing fast enough. What just happened? What did I just do? Because it makes no sense I’m still here, except it’s my destiny. And I have a divine assignment to teach the planet the practice of emotional healing and how to be the best of themselves, as emotionally clear as possible. So that’s where the book came from.

[00:26:24] Ed Watters: Very powerful. You know, in those words I heard my wife, and identical words coming out of your mouth, from not only the sexual abuse, but the physical abuse from her father. And, you know, It’s like, it’s a commonality between survivors and these traumas, they can be healed. And strong people like you are bringing it to the [00:27:00] forefront.

[00:27:00] My wife will love this. And I particularly love this because this is what our focus is truly on, is these types of traumas. And I think bringing it out and helping people is so important. So we thank you from, from the get go and we cheer you on to the very end. Do you have anything you want to add to the conversation before we end our conversation today?

[00:27:38] Rebeccah Silence: Well, I do recommend my book. I think it came through me, but it’s not even mine. I think it is for all the hearts out there that really do need and want a roadmap to be the best version of themselves. And I’ll just say, There’s nothing to do, there’s who you want to be and how you want to feel, that there is a way to connect to that information

[00:28:04] and plug it into your spiritual GPS. Regardless of what you’re facing. And there is absolutely nothing outside of you more powerful than you. No circumstance, or abuse, or diagnosis, or setback is more powerful than the essence of who you are. And you’re the strongest when you’re the softest, most relaxed into the truth of who you are. And this book is here to challenge you and to quantum leap you into a next level identity.

[00:28:35] That’s all you need to have and create anything you want. And each question at the end of every chapter is designed in such a way where you can ask yourself, but if you are going to do, you know, this book with the best friend or with a spouse, or even with one of your children, ask the questions each as individuals, but then answer the question for your relationship.

[00:28:58] It’s, it’s next level to go, There’s me, there’s you, there’s us. What’s important to me? What’s important to you? Now, how do we answer this together? So I would just give you that nugget to consider as you buy the book. Um, if you love it, we would so appreciate reviews. But yeah, I want the planet to experience this book because you are the medicine you’ve been waiting for, and we need you making your most healed impact on the world. And this is an empowered experience of liberation. The trauma conversation shouldn’t be so disempowering so I wrote this book to empower you.

[00:29:34] Ed Watters: Awesome. You know, my wife and I, we will pick that book up to read it. We had that very conversation about an hour before I got on with you. You know, it is about empowering yourself, not living in your trauma. You can help somebody and it is important. There’s so many out there suffering. There’s young women [00:30:00] out there suffering, it’s your daughter, it’s your wife, it’s your mother. You know, and it goes the other way, it’s your son, it’s your father, it’s your uncle, it’s your grandfather. We need humanity back and I think this is one of the big things. You know, we need each other and we are social

[00:30:25] so we need to learn to be social. And that’s what this journey’s about. If we can learn to be social, we can learn to be loving people. And that’s the mindset and the journey we’re on at the Dead America Podcast. We’re so thankful that you came here today to share your journey, your experience with us. Because it’s so empowering and don’t be a victim, be a hero.

[00:30:55] And you, Rebeccah, are a hero for being out there doing it and showing others there’s a path to victory. And you don’t have to be that whatever it is, be a victorious person and shine. How can people get ahold of you, grab your book, and know a little more about you?

[00:31:21] Rebeccah Silence: Thank you. And thank you for that reflection, I fully receive it. You can visit me at rebeccahsilence.com. Rebecca has an H, R, E, B, E, C, C, A, H silence.com I’ve got a free masterclass available, if you want to experience me. Right when you get to the homepage, the three must know secrets to heal and save your family. You can also get access to the book from the website and information about my courses and my private coaching.

[00:31:49] You can check me out on YouTube there. You wouldn’t be able to get through all the videos like Disneyland, if you tried, but there is for sure something for you there as well. If you are interested in finding me on YouTube, subscribe, please. And you can get all my newest, latest material there.

[00:32:06] Um, but just know that we can be more careful with each other’s hearts and we should be. And you doing this work, you’re not going to guarantee that everybody you love that you know needs healing is going to follow in your footsteps. But you can know you showed up and you modeled that possibility.

[00:32:27] Everybody has free will and agency. Your job is to have your life magically delicious and the world experiencing the best of you. And my work will guide you there. You are the hero in your story. I’m just here to say, Come on, it’s possible. If I can do it, you can do it. I guarantee. And there’s never been a case in my private practice

[00:32:49] I haven’t cracked. There’s not one case that hasn’t been a success story. And this work, this material, whether you experienced the book, my masterclass, my [00:33:00] course, my coaching, it’ll change your life. And it’s okay to let yourself know joy is supposed to be your default, the rule you live by. And you’re allowed, even if people around you don’t get that, don’t want that, you can have it. And that’s my wish for you is that you get as much joy and love as possible in this lifetime.

[00:33:21] Ed Watters: Yeah, that’s right. Find the joy, put yourself there. It’s a simple thing to do, but so many struggle with it. Thank you for being part of the show today, Rebeccah, and I wish you so many blessings in life.

[00:33:39] Rebeccah Silence: And right back at you. Love you all. Reach out and again, thank you so much for having me.

[00:33:49] Ed Watters: Thank you for joining us today. If you found this podcast enlightening, entertaining, educational in any way, please share, like, subscribe, and join us right back here next week for another great episode of Dead America Podcast. I’m Ed Watters, your host, enjoy your afternoon wherever you may be.