We can take responsibility. There isn't anybody who is going to do it for us. We are making the choice every single time we take a step. Am I stepping in love? Or am I stepping in fear? Welcome to Women of Impact. Thank you. And, H, you are incredible. You have gone from being homeless, living in a car, having your dad pass away at a very early age, incredible thermal rejection, and yet you sit here and marry a ward winner with your own podcast looking like you love life. I do. And so I really want to dive into that because the amount of people right now that I think are stuck in where they are are taking rejection to heart, are taking it personally, they're not living in the dream they really want. I want you to be the most beautiful beacon for those people to show that it's possible because you've been there and you've done it. So if you don't mind taking me back back to your early childhood, where you talk about rejection, and you talk about being rejected by the church because of the history of your dad, so if you don't want it starting there. It's a lot to dive into. And the journey that I had came from a very difficult place, raised in a call, gone through a very religious, very abusive life upbringing. There is an unfortunate misfortune to the death that lies cause. My father was one of the first men to die of AIDS in 1983. In fact, he died the next morning on the cover of the New York Times. They labeled AIDS, they gave disease. We were told that we wouldn't know if we would live for nine years. There was so much fear. Just to give people context. So I don't think they'd, you know, we lived through it.

But they didn't know back then,

whether if someone had it, if it was transmissible. That's right. So they just assumed that maybe you and your family had age two, correct? Well, it wasn't even that. I was raised in an abusive childhood very many different levels sexual included.

What happened was my father died three months later to the day my brother died.

In the middle of that I became 14 years old.

I looked at life the way that he was delivered and I realized that it was based in my opinion on the lie that my father could not tell the truth about his life. That his sexuality was such that he had to hide it so much that he became abusive to himself, then had to cover the lie, then became abusive to his family. And the amount of hatred he had, I believed, for covering what was his most exclusive, most excellent self had to be buried. And it died in that lie. And I said, I don't know if it's storytelling the truth, no matter what it took, let me try something else. And that's kind of what got me through to understanding what it is to now be sitting here

being able to be a voice that says look at the truth when we look at the truth

it's most complicated most direct thing you're ever going to do when you make

the decisions to tell the truth or tell a lot there's only one fork in the

road and it's must say you must must answer that question when you do it

delivers everything will step that you take.

And those steps that I've taken

are now what people are witnessing and being able to experience. In fact, when you look back at somebody's life, it makes absolutely 100% sense how they are and who they become, I think. Because you look at that journey and there's no other choice for them, but to keep moving forward. And that's what you and I are about.

Talking to them, about moving forward

and furthering their lives.

Got it, so freaking powerful.

So this one has you and I are about. Talking to them, about moving forward and furthering their lives. God, that's so freaking powerful. So there's one thing I actually want to dive into a little, because there's these two parts you talk about the fork in the road. Many people, when there's turmoil, especially in childhood, the fork becomes go with what you know. Right? Because there's Is there some safety in that? And so, well, to be clear, when a child has been abused or mistreated in any way, the fork is go with what you know, what you know is a dual, dual, forked road, because go with what you know is habit. And it also going with what you know has covered your reality. So you have become whatever it is you've had to manufacture to make what you know make any sense at all. The third part of that fork then becomes an idea that does not exist, which is choice to make a different impact in your own life by choosing truth. So what we do when we want to talk about the communication like you're doing and allowing us to recognize that the fork that we think we're facing, we haven't addressed the middle part that we've become something to survive. That something to survive is what we have to ask ourselves about, determine, and call it the last name story. Tell yourself the truth about the story you came into that you couldn't choose. I couldn't be the queen of England. Guess what? Sometimes I want to be. But I ain't gonna be.

Ever, no matter what it takes. My story is my story. She goes through her hardships. That's called a pool of consciousness. We all hurt things going feeling bad.

There would not be things that we choose because we would never choose if we were in our right minds to allow something to feel bad.

So that's that middle part where you go that means telling the truth about the things that felt bad, giving the responsibility back to those who put that into you and then get it out of you so that it becomes a badge of honor for you to be able to choose to. You are your first name story saying, I choose me, I choose this, I see what happened, I'm okay with accepting the responsibility of understanding that I can make a different life for myself. And that's really what's standing up,

getting in the side of love.

Oh my God, that's so amazing. So let's keep going, because down that middle path is where people don't even realize they are. What is the key then that allowed you to say, I have this middle path? Because most people go back to the thing, most people don't realize they have that middle. I don't know if you've heard David Foster Wallace's story

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