What up my homie this is your girl Lisa Beliu and today man do I have an episode for you? It was such a tear joker guys that when I tell you that half of this interview I and my guest were in utter tears then I'm actually understating it because man did this hit home and I really think it's gonna hit you guys just as much. Have you ever found yourself that you just caught up in life storm and your left fingers are broken or lost.

We are actually questioning what your worth is or perhaps you're putting everybody else at the front of the line and by the time it gets to you you've actually got no energy left to handle your own self-care. Now so many of us women have been Then, stuck in his freaking pattern, self-doubt and of course, yes, self-sacrifice.

Well, my hom you are in for an incredible treat today because today we're going to go deep and oh yes, I mean deep on how to rise from the freaking ashes and actually take your power back. And I don't mean that as a freely way. I actually mean how you

start to feel better about yourself, how you start to say no and put yourself at the front of the freaking line and who better to guide us through that phenomenal heart felt journey. My girl Lisa Nichols now this woman has not only fought to actually reclaim her voice but has turned her pain into utter, fricking, power and she did it in her 40s and 50s guys she's sharing her jaw-dropping story of survival and transformation right here on this episode. And we're talking utterly raw and unfiltered. Now we talk about facing the darkest moments. If there's anyone that can actually make that empowering and motivating, it's Lisa Nichols. We're talking about breaking the toxic cycle of relationship or someone else in your life potentially a family member or a friend and we're learning how on earth that we actually not really love ourselves but actually love ourselves so that we get to the point where we put in boundaries and demand better from the people around us. Now Lisa's also opening up about the struggles of losing herself and how she was actually able to rebuild herself worth and now living her life on her terms in the way that serves her. Guys by the end of this episode you'll not only be altered out have empty boxed dishes, but you'll actually have the tools and the road map so that you can not just freaking go out there and do your thing, but you can go out there and crush your thing. And I can't believe I just said thing, but that is really how I feel right now. Us women committing to ourselves and saying yes to the things we actually care about and a hells no to the things that we don't. So guys freaking back a lot because this conversation is fire. And so without further ado let's dive in right now with the freaking powerhouse, my girl, that I've known for almost 10 years. That's right. Lisa, Nichols, right here on Women of Impact, let's get after it. A lot of us women I find ignore our gut intuition. We end up dating the bad boy even though we know he's going to break our heart. We end up staying in that relationship that we, even when we see the red flags, we just choose to ignore them. Or we can do the opposite where we we end up leaving those bad relationships and swear off love for the rest of our lives. But girl, you didn't get trapped in either of those two. And so I want to know how on earth were you able to go from ignoring your intuition when you were in a very toxic relationship to building yourself worth and confidence in all the few to be able to be open to finding love in your 50s. I got there because I in the moment I valued being tethered to someone more than I value being happy. And I didn't think that being tethered to someone would compromise my happiness until it did. I stayed there because fear of of other people's thoughts of me, trying to manage other people's perception of me. But it was so beautiful and shiny, and I didn't want to admit that everything that glitter's angled. And so I found myself feeling broken, broken. And I needed to fight for my life, Lisa. I was losing Lisa. I was losing Lisa and being a mother. I was losing Lisa and being his fiance. I was losing Lisa in shame and I was a motivational speaker and now I'm afraid that someone will find out that I'm being abused and you can't be abused and a motivator. I didn't allow those two realities to coexist either you were in the light or you were in the shadow, but you could not have shadow moments living in your light or light moments while in the shadow. I just didn't understand at the time that those two worlds can coexist. And so now I have shame. And I remember my mother noticed that everything about me had changed. I was waking up just trying to outrun sad. I woke up trying to outrun my own hurt, outdo my own pain, out serve Jalani, out serve my, with my mom, out serve the public, try to out serve all of my hurt and my regret. If I'm busy enough, if I'm busy being busy, being busy, then maybe I won't feel what I feel. And my then fiance lived with me and I had moved out from another state and all of a sudden I didn't want to be at home by myself with him, but I didn't say that. I just would keep inviting my dad over, inviting my mom over, like over inviting my brother over because he was a professional. He was in corporate America. He was an executive and he validated his abuse. In what way? He validated his abuse. First of all, it was very manipulative and there's no reason for me to live without you. When you found your one, if your one doesn't want you anymore, then there's no reason to live. So if you choose out, then I'm gonna choose out. You choose out of this relationship, but I choose out of this world. So when you open the door, Lisa, crack the door open and keep Jelani behind you because you might just see blood on the cream carpet of our living room, because I've decided to blow my brains out. So for months, I would put Jelani behind me and I would peek in the door and I go, we can come in. And I live with that tension for months, knowing that I secretly stopped the wedding, I had the awareness to know, and this is crazy Lisa, but I knew if I blatantly cut off this relationship that I was going to leave my home in a body bag. I didn't question it. I didn't wonder it to this day. It's been 30 years. I don't wonder it. And I'd never felt that way before. And when it escalated to physical abuse, I found that I didn't know how to prevent it in the future because I didn't, we didn't have an argument. Nothing happened, no matter the fact, we made love and we had this amazing evening. And then I woke up with his hands wrapped around my throat at 3.20 am. And I remember with 3.20, because as he's choking me out, I look over at the clock. And I look at the clock because I'd had a dream several times that I died at the end of his hands. I didn't tell anybody that. I'm like, you're crazy Lisa. This is crazy. This is crazy and everyone loved him. You have an amazing fiancee's awesome. Does

he ever brother? And so I'm not trusting myself. I'm wondering like I just believe you have a GPS God placement system and whatever your faith is you got a God placement system. You got your own GPS and my GPS was telling me that I back up, slow down. I asked more questions, get more information, but my desire and my loneliness and my wanting to be in the relationship so I could experience what she's experiencing. I can have what she looks like she has. My desire to be in that space that other women were in, allowed me to lower my bar. So when I finally navigated him out of my life, I moved everything. I moved my job, I moved my home, I moved everything. And I was diagnosed as clinically depressed. And I was given a piece of paper. And on that piece of paper, it said two things that I never thought would be on the same piece of paper. Lisa Nichols and Prozac. What happened? All I wanted to know Lisa was, what happened if Lisa Nichols needs pro-Zach because she's that sad, that depress. I want to know what happened. And the answer was I lost me. So many of us lose ourselves in service. We lose ourselves in wanting to be loved and accepted, we lose ourselves in our weight gain, we lose ourselves in becoming mothers, we lose ourselves in becoming someone's partner, we lose ourselves in being the best employee ever. Dot dot dot, we just lose ourselves because we're designed to serve, we're designed to nurture. We're designed to care for. And somehow in the long line of people to serve and to care for, I had ended up at the back of my own line. And by the time I got to the front of the line, there was nothing left. There was nothing to give. The reason why I feel like I needed to tell you that is because I don't want any woman, any beautiful sister friend listening to my voice to think that it's Snapcrackup up because discovering that you've lost yourself and then getting on a quest to find yourself and then mustering up the courage to fight for yourself and then staying in action on behalf of yourself it ain't overnight but it's worth the journey so I didn't want to answer fast because I don't want you to think that it's an eye dream of Jeannie moment moment. There's a lot of things. If someone's really trying to follow, how did you do it? I think it needs to then start with when did you start to notice in hindsight that you started to turn down the volume of your intuition in the first place because if we can start identifying of that, potentially we can stop women from funding themselves in the situation. But then also, how many times do we turn down our intuition on everything? So what do you think actually set you up to start turning down that volume in the first place? I believe the leaf on the end of any tree had to start as a seed. The seed was the fear of. The fear is a made up story about the future that hasn't happened yet, but if you make up the story long enough and you tell yourself the story often enough, it becomes real to you. So I started with my fear of raising Jalani alone, the fear of never finding love, the fear that I'm not lovable, the fear that the chatter in my head is true about me. Talk talked to me about that one. The fear that when I say I'm not good enough, that I'm grown-friend material only, but I'm never wife material. The fear that the chatter in my head that says, no one wants a woman with this dark skin and these full lips and this kinky hair and these round hips is true. The fear that the chatter that I tell myself that I'm worthy of acquiring, but I'm not worthy of keeping is true. that the critic in my head is actually telling me the truth. That's where the compromise begins. For me, looking at the television and not seeing anyone who looks like me that represents beauty at the time I was too dark The looking somewhere to see evidence And not seeing any evidence That's someone who was my size, my complexion came from my side and raised the train tracks. I don't happily ever after. But the story I was consuming, fed, digested and believed was hope you get out, okay? Hope you just hang in there. There was no abundance. There was, you know, find the best version of struggle. So it started with the story that I told myself, I think that started with the story. Society looked like it was trying to tell me and then I bought it. I put all my coins and bought the story and then I didn't need society to tell me who I couldn't be because my volume was up loud enough. And then I got into the toxic relationship so that I can prove the lie that I was telling myself. So here I fed myself a story about am I worthy of being chosen? Maybe not. And then I lowered my bar so that that story wouldn't be true. And then I ran into all the chaos because I wasn't listening. I wasn't listening to my GPS that said that didn't feel right. If he loved you, he wouldn't say that repeatedly. Love doesn't give ultimatums like that. Love doesn't squash your life. Love doesn't do that. I wouldn't have said, shh, intuition. I don't want to hear you because then I got to do something about it. Then I got to take action. Then I got to deal with the fallout. I thought staying in it would be easier than dealing with the fallout. I didn't realize that staying in a toxic relationship will always, always cost you more than dealing with the fallout of choosing yourself. All right guys we're going to take a quick break. Don't go anywhere. All right guys we're back, let's get right into it. I heard one of my students once say, you know, when a window closes and a door opens, no one ever talks about the hallway. And the hallway is where I didn't want to be. You said it actually takes a lot of energy to shrink. It does. How much energy were you pouring into shrinking around him? A lot. But see, I didn't use my energy to shrink just when I met him. I had been shrinking before him because I would walk into a room and I would measure the room and look around the room to see if the room could handle all of me. And if the room didn't seem like they could handle all of my light, the light that I knew was in me, then I would turn down my dial so I can be accepted in that room. I think sometimes what I did is actually the opposite. I walk into a room and I'm like, I don't know if I can handle this room. I have such in the past I had such low self-esteem of myself that it was, I think it probably comes from the same place, like the insecurity. So how much of that was when you had turned down your dial, you start telling yourself a story, and then when you met him, he became evidence that you're what you were telling yourself was true. True. At that time in my life, I felt like I was so conflicted. I was conflicted because you don't become who you are. You've always been her. You're just letting her come out. Like I think that's important. There's always a tree in the seat. But I was trying to not let the seat grow because I didn't know what letting the seat grow would cost me. So being loved and accepted as my highest value. Like if you ask me, you just want to be loved. You guys want to be in loving friendships, loving relationship, lesion love. I just sit and rub me,, it was gonna be love. And so anything that felt like it would cost me love or acceptance made me figure out how can I manage it? How can I control that it doesn't cost me too much? It doesn't cost me connection. For me, it was measuring how much of me to show up and to shine. And then be wrapped in the fear of what happens if they see it. Because that could then spiral in with that like end up triggering him in the relationship. Well, it cost me. If in my relationship, if I outshine him, if I, if he understood my capacity, if I show too much confidence, if I, if I didn't show that I needed him, whatever it is, what would that cost me? What would it cost me? So I learned how to, instead of just showing up and shining, I would walk in the room and take the temperature and then adjust Lisa for the room, versus walking in the room and saying, actually, I'm thermostat. Mm-hmm. I'm not a thermometer. We all at thermostats. Here's my temperature. And let my temperature dance with yours. When I was diagnosed as clinically depressed and I realized that I had lost myself, I went on a journey. It's like I was door to the explorer, put on a hat with the light on it. I was like, okay, it's time for you to find Lisa. Now I'm not recommending this for anyone, but I asked my doctor before I take those meds. May I try something for 30 days? Again, I'm not recommending anyone get off their mat. I consult it with my medical physician. And she said, yes, you can try something else. And if nothing has changed, then I need you to jump right on. I said, absolutely. And I went home, Lisa. And I stood in the mirror and I looked at myself. And I said, you forgot who you are. You've lost yourself. It's time to put you at the front of your own mind. So I look in the mirror myself and I complete it three sentences. The first sentence is, I'm proud that you. I found seven different things to be proud of Lisa for. In Lisa it was real small. days I just look in the mirror goal at least I'm proud that you. I found seven different things to be proud of Lisa for. And Lisa, it was real small. Some days I'd just look in the mirror and go, Lisa, I'm proud that you got up this morning. I'm proud that you brushed your teeth. I'm proud that you dressed J. Lonnie. I'm proud that you got in the mirror to find things to be proud of. I'm proud that you took a shower. Mind you, I was in my darkest hours. So baby steps were big to me. And we get celebrated, it gets repeated. So I wanted to celebrate the baby steps. The second sentence was the hardest one. And if you're gonna do this, know that it's the time that you wanna quit. And I'm gonna say don't quit, because that's when your bounce back muscle was being built. And we all got a bounce back muscle in us. Some muscles are strong and strengthened, some muscles are an atrophy, but we all got the muscle. Just because you don't see your tricep, I't mean you don't have a tricep. I'm just saying. The second sentence was, Lisa, I forgive you for. And in that, I began to cut the shackles to blame, shame, guilt, regret, and anger. And I forgave myself for stuff that I thought I'd never say. Things that I promised I'd take to my grave. I went way back. I didn't just do things that were attached to him. I went back. At least I forgive you for saying yes when you wanted and needed to say no. At least I forgive you for lowering your bar. At least I forgive you for feeling desperate and just calling it ready for a relationship. Lisa, I forgive you for gaining over 100 pounds. And I couldn't even understand myself Lisa. It wasn't even audible. I was like, I forgive you for, I mean, I was snotty nose ugly cry. And you're actually saying then the words out loud is not in your head. The words have to be said out loud. You have to feel the energetic vibration of the words coming up through your throat. You have to feel the words filling up your cheek. You have to feel the words falling and passing your tongue. And then you have to hear the words landing back in your own ears. You have to do it. It is not just a mental, mind, quiet meditation. It has to be destructive. If you're doing it right, you go deep enough. You go far back enough on the things you don't even consciously know you're bringing forth. Because you've become successful and because you've been able to do some amazing things, we actually think it's not there anymore and the reality is you can't outrun you. And so I wanted to go back and I wanted to address what got me here. So I had to apologize and I had to forgive myself for what the 16-year-old Lisa did. I had to go forgive myself for what the 21-year-old did. And it may not have been all crazy, but for me it had shame.

And I never got through that. Lisa, I never got through the second sentence

for the first, maybe, 60 days without crying.

And then the last sentence is,

Lisa, I commit to you that.

Because I was masterful at making commitments

to other people and keeping them. I just didn't keep the commitments that I made to myself. Again, are you at the end of your own line? I was at the end of my own line. So the last sentence was Lisa, I commit to you that today your yes will be yes for you first. Lisa, I commit to you that you'll say yes when you need to say yes, but you'll say no when you deserve to say no. Lisa, I commit to you that tomorrow we'll get in the mirror again and do this again. Lisa, I commit to you that I'll stop saying so many negative things about you in your head that no one else can hear, but you. Lisa, I commit to you that I won't hold you hostage to your past decisions. Lisa, I commit to you to give you a thousand second chances. And every time you get to 999, we'll press reset together, and I'll give you a thousand more second chances. And that was the beginning of me givingly son of a chance to have seemingly screwed it all up for her and her three-year-old child. still have a right to be happy.

Have a right to be happy.

Have a right to feel whole.

Have a right to feel love.

Have a right to have this messy screwed up past

and still find the light and still find the joy and still help someone else find it. I committed to Lisa. I won't count the number of times you've been knocked down. I'll count and celebrate the number of times you've been able to get up. I never want it to be knocked down. I never want it to be in a toxic abusive relationship. I never want it to gain 100 pounds. I never want it to be broken or feel broken. I never want it to get on government assistance to beat my son. I never want it to have to borrow money to buy in pamper's I never wanted to get on government assistance to feed my son. I never wanted to have to borrow money to buy in pamper's. I never wanted any of that. I never wanted to look in the mirror and hate my mocha skin. Be mad at my full lips to not be able to hear the compliments when someone complimented my lips, to not be able to hear them because my chatter of how ugly they were was louder than their compliment I never wanted. I never wanted to sit on a national media show or sit on a local show or sit in front on a panel and and feel shame about my weight. To want to be a version of someone else that I'm looking at more than I wanted to be me, wonder why God put me in this body, gave me this health journey. I never wanted any of that Lisa. But I stopped asking God why, why me? And I started accepting that if I get this, if I got this journey, then it must be for a reason. Then if I could use it as fuel, what would it be? If I counted every single thing that was messy and funky and ugly and painful, if I counted it all as fuel, how much fuel do I have? How much fuel do I have to help her? If I turned everything that I counted and I thought was a fortress, a wall that helped me back from being who I wanted to be, if I counted every single one of those incidents, moments, as fuel for me to help someone, could I use it, could I turn it into fuel? And then I asked the question, why could I not turn it into fuel? What makes me qualify to help her? Is everything that I just mentioned, it's not what I've avoided that helps me be qualified for this conversation. It's what I've been hit by and bounced back from. Don't put a period where God put a comma. Your story ain't over yet. as long as you still have the pin in your hand, in all sister, you still got the pin in your hand. Let's write another chapter. Oh, okay. Just need to let that really sink him. Alright, my homies will be right back after the short message.

Now... Just need to let that really sink him. All right, my homies will be right back after the short message. Now, let's get back to the good stuff. Okay, there's a couple of things that you said in that that I'd love to go a little deeper if you're okay because there were moments where I always think of that fork in the road. Or I call it the sliding door moment, where there's a whole movie where it's like,

they make the sliding doors of the train

and their life goes one way

and then they cut to another version of the movie

where they're running for the doors

and they don't make the doors

...