Passion Struck with John R. Miles - Kara Robinson Chamberlain on Why You Must Be Vigilant about Your Safety EP 165

Starting point is 00:00:00 Coming up next on the Passion Struck Podcast. There are certain things that you can do to not make yourself an easy victim. The biggest one is just be aware of your surroundings, right? If you're out somewhere, you don't be on your phone, you're looking down, be looking around, be aware of people so that action is faster than reactions. Like you said, the first thing that you noticed with that gun in his hand, so you were focusing on that gun so that you would be able to respond quickly. Welcome to PassionStruct. Hi, I'm your host, John Armiles, and on the show, we decipher

Starting point is 00:00:33 the secrets, tips, and guidance of the world's most inspiring people and turn their wisdom into practical advice for you and those around you. Our mission is to help you unlock the power of intentionality so that you can become the best version of yourself. If you're new to the show, I offer advice and answer listener questions on Fridays. We have long form interviews, the rest of the week with guest-ranging from astronauts to authors, CEOs, creators, innovators,

Starting point is 00:01:04 scientists, military leaders, visionaries, and athletes. Now, let's go out there and become PassionStruck. Hello everyone and welcome back to episode 165 of PassionStruck. Ranked as one of the top 10 most popular alternative health podcasts in the world. And thank you to each and every one of you who come back weekly. Listen and learn how to live better, be better, and impact the world. And thank you to each and every one of you who come back weekly. Listen and learn how to live better, be better, and impact the world. In case you missed it, earlier in the week, I interviewed Gene O'Weng, who is the president

Starting point is 00:01:32 and founding CEO of Virgin Unite, co-founder of Plus Wonder, a B-Team leader and author of the new book, Partnering, forged deep connections, and make great things happen. Last week, I interviewed Professor Sarah Mennick, a cognitive neuroscientist at the University of California Irvine, and she is the author of both the Power of the Downstate and Taken App, as well as being one of the foremost experts in the world on sleep. I also interviewed Carrington Smith, who is the author of the new memoir, Blooming. She is also the CEO of her executive search firm, as well as being in attorney.

Starting point is 00:02:10 And we talk about her journey through the shit of life, to one that's now bursting with joy, opportunity, and purpose. And in case you missed my solo episode from last week, it was on How Do You Overcome Mediocrity. Please check them all out. I also wanted to thank you for all your ratings and reviews. And if you love today's episodes or any of the others that I mentioned, please share it with your friends

Starting point is 00:02:32 and family members and do us the honor of giving us a five star review because they go so far and help in the popularity of the show to grow. Now, let's talk about today's guest, Cara Robinson Chamberlain is a public speaker and survivor advocate. In 2002, at the age of 12, Kara was kidnapped by an escape from what she would later find to be a serial killer. Kara's will to survive led her to escaping her captor and identifying

Starting point is 00:03:00 her captor as the man responsible for at least three other murders in Virginia. Following her experience, Kara formed relationships with law enforcement and went on to work with the Richland County Sheriff's Department as a school resource officer. Investigator, Invictum's advocate until the birth of her first child in 2013. Kara now uses her experiences to speak to groups with the mission of spreading awareness, education, as well as inspiration. In our episode today, we discuss heroine kidnapping story. The lessons that she learned from going through that are a deal. Her advice to others on how do you protect yourself from a similar situation? How she was able to overcome her trauma, her advice to other trauma victims and so much more.

Starting point is 00:03:46 I did want to warn the audience, especially if you have young ones who are listening to this. That material in this episode consists of violence, sexual assault, and trauma that some listeners may find sensitive. Thank you for choosing PassionStruck and choosing me to be your host and guide on your journey to creating an intentional life now. Let that journey begin. I am so excited to welcome Cara Robinson Chamberlain to the PassionStruck podcast. Welcome, Cara. Thanks. Hi. How are you doing today? I'm doing really well. Our listeners are going to really absorb the story of yours because I think it's such an important one to get out there in the world and for people to understand not only what happened in your circumstances, but what you were doing now to educate motivate and inspire people as a result of it. I know you grew up in a small town, maybe not as small as it used to be, but in Lexington, South Carolina, can you tell me about that? Yeah, I grew up in more of the rural part of Lexington. I'm an only child, and so I grew up with my parents always had dogs and cats,

Starting point is 00:05:01 and we had horses, so I grew up surrounded by animals, riding go carts, out in the woods, riding dirt bikes, and riding horses and so my childhood was full of me being in nature and amusing myself more or less because when you live in a more rural area you don't necessarily have friends that can come up and play with you all the time. And so that was kind of my childhood. I was always a little mature. I think most only children tend to be that way to an extent. My parents always spoke to me like I was an adult more or less and treated me that way. And so I responded in kind. And so that was my childhood. And so that was my childhood. I remember just growing up with the freedom to roam everywhere.

Starting point is 00:05:52 I mean, my mom would just basically say dinner will be close to twilight. So come back at that time and do your homework and never locked our doors. All that stuff for you growing up in Lexington with similar experience. Yeah, definitely. When I did have friends that were over, we would just go on walks through the woods, we would wander. There was never really any concern about our safety. That's a different era than it is now.

Starting point is 00:06:15 And even more so than when you were a child, I'm sure. Come back when the street lights are on, right? So it was definitely a safe place to be. and we didn't really know anyone who had been victims of serious crimes, no threats to our safety that we could think of as children. With that as a backdrop, we all have defining moments in our lives. Can you tell the audience about a moment that defined who you are today? So I will make a small concession to that statement and say it is something that contributed to who I am today, not necessarily to find me, but yeah, absolutely. So when I was 15 years old, I had spent the night with my friend and we were getting ready for our day trying to decide what we were going to do the next morning and I called my boyfriend, could I check in with him?

Starting point is 00:07:09 What are you doing today? He was working. Okay, well, let's meet up later in the day. My friend called one of our other friends and asked if we could come over to her house and she lived at the lake. And so she said, yeah, absolutely. So we were getting ready to go to the lake. My friend called her mom and she said, is there anything that you need to do here at the house before we leave? And she asked that we would water the plants out front. So my friend wanted to take a shower before we left. And I volunteered to do that for her to water those plants for her while she was taking a shower. So we could get out the house faster. So I had not changed yet.

Starting point is 00:07:48 I was still in my pajamas, went outside, and was watering the plants. And that was a decision that would forever change my life, making that decision to go out and do this chore for her. So while I was out there, I noticed a car drive by. What I've normally noticed this car, it's probably not, but it was a Transamm and my mom's boyfriend had a Transamm. It was very similar and he had just let me drive at a couple of weeks prior.

Starting point is 00:08:15 So I was getting ready to get my license. And so I was noticing cars and thought, oh yeah, that's the kind of car. Like I would love to have one of those, right? So it drives by on the way out of the neighborhood and I noticed it. And then a minute or two later comes back into the neighborhood. This is suburban area and pulls directly into the driveway.

Starting point is 00:08:38 So when the car pulled into the driveway, I did not really think anything suspicious. I thought, well, maybe this is someone that knows my friend's mom. I just heard this story a couple of weeks prior that something similar had happened to my friend's mom, where she'd been outside and someone drove by, had noticed her, and had gone to high school with her and kind of pulled it and chatted. So that was kind of fresh in my mind. And it was, they can maybe it was something like that.

Starting point is 00:09:06 And then the guy that gets out, again, nothing, nothing kind of sets off any alarms for me. He is a middle-aged white male. He is fairly neat as far as his hair, his appearance, his facial hair. He has on a ball cap, but it's just kind of on his head. It's not full download, a shade of space. He's wearing a button down, it's tucked in,

Starting point is 00:09:29 he's wearing jeans. And so he doesn't look like what we have been told in that era, that guys look like. So he comes directly over to me. He is not doing anything furtive. So again, there's all these things. It's like no red flags, no red flags, no red flags. So I didn't think anything.

Starting point is 00:09:48 So he comes directly over to me. He says, I saw you out here and I giving out these pamphlets. I wanted to leave them with the unit. He has a binder in his arm. And he said, is your mom or dad home? I said, no, this is my friend's house and her mom is not home. And he said, okay, well, I'll just leave these for you. And maybe you can just leave them for her mom. He reaches in with one hand to hand them to me. And this is the first moment that he enters my personal

Starting point is 00:10:16 space. And I think maybe there's something going on. As soon as I feel that kind of intuition, maybe something's going on, I also feel a gun pressed to the side of my neck and he says, why don't you come with me? So I immediately said, stop. And he said, why don't you come with me? And he has kind of his arm around my shoulder with the guns, very small caliber handgun, pressed right into my neck.

Starting point is 00:10:42 And so he walks me around to the driver's side of his car and he opens the driver's door, a two-door car. And he puts the seat forward and he says, get in. I look in the back seat and there's a large plastic container. And I say, where do you want me to go? He says, get in the container. So I did, got in the container. He gently sets the lid on top and doesn't close it

Starting point is 00:11:08 and then he gets in the car and he backs out of the driveway. So is this like one of those containers that you might see at Home Depot or a Lowe's that you would put clothing in or can you kind of give a visual of it? Yes, yes, absolutely. It's exactly what you said. One of those plastic containers that you would store in your clothes or your Christmas decorations and in your attic. So it's just one of those plastic containers with a snap on the list.

Starting point is 00:11:36 So you're in this situation. What are your feelings and what's going through your mind at this point? Pretty immediately, I had an intuition that not only was this man going to harm me, but he was most likely assault me. I somehow already knew that. This was not something that had been discussed with me necessarily or that I had been prepared for it anyway.

Starting point is 00:12:00 But I also had an intuition that at some point this person would be complacent and I would be able to escape from him and that I would remain calm and I would try to earn his trust and that I would escape and when I did that that I wanted to have information to identify him. So it became this more or less mantra that was just kind of rolling through my head at all times, like stay calm, get him to become complacent, find a way to escape. And it was just this rolling mantra, like I said, it just went through my head

Starting point is 00:12:38 over and over and over the entire time I was there. And I think we know how mantras can help ground us. And that was more or less what I experienced. It helped me to stay calm. Yeah, so I can't even imagine being in that situation. I myself back in 2016 walked into my home. I had dropped my daughter off at school, had to come home a bit early because I would always go

Starting point is 00:13:04 to the gym. And this day I went to Orange Theory. And for whatever reason, they had some type of electrical fire in their AC unit. And so they had to evacuate. And so I went home. And when I got in to the house, I saw a pair of workmen boots sitting in the middle of my floor. At first, I think it was anything out of the ordinary because I rented and oftentimes rental company would send someone in. So I initially start going to someone in the house, is someone from the rental company in here, and I didn't hear anything. So then I do start getting a little suspicious. At that point, thinking, well, maybe they've got a headset on,

Starting point is 00:13:48 and they've got ear pods or something in, and are listening to music and can't hear me. So I start going up my staircase, which winds, and does a 90 degree angle. And as I'm coming around the corner, all of a sudden, I see a person there pointing a gun at me. And so in some ways, I can kind of relate to what you were going through.

Starting point is 00:14:11 But at that point, your body almost goes into this, it's seconds, but it feels like it's hours. And I'm not sure if you experienced that sensation, but it's like all of a sudden, you just start going into this overdrive of escape and what am I gonna do? Did you experience any of those emotions? Yeah, that's your inborn built-in protection mechanism,

Starting point is 00:14:39 that's your fight, flight freeze, or a piece, basically, system that says, okay, what do I have to do to survive this? And so for me, I definitely had a decent amount of fight, but my fight was more in the appeasal. So I wanted to appease him, which is basically, how can I regulate this other person's nervous system so that I can remain safe? That was how I was able to fight, but yeah, time is this weird illusion and trauma. I think some people feel like it slows down, it speeds up, and so for me, it became an 18 hour or deal and so there are large gaps of time due to how my memory works where I can remember every single second or I can see kind of a snapshot of something and then there's areas where the time is very sped up. So time whenever you're in those stressful situations, it can absolutely just slow down,

Starting point is 00:15:46 or it can speed up. It's almost like time is an illusion in those moments and your body does take over and it does whatever it feels as necessary to survive those moments. Yeah, it's interesting. And I'm not sure if you experienced this as well, but after this occurred and I luckily was able to escape down the stairs and get out.

Starting point is 00:16:09 In the ensuing days, a lot of things actually went blank for me about the situation. It was as if I had large gaps of time that were missing. And over the next couple of weeks, is when it kind of just trickled more and more into my memory, did you experience anything like that? I definitely experienced similar things still to this day where the more I share about it, or I'll look at my case file and I'll be like,

Starting point is 00:16:42 oh, I forgot that that happened. And that's kind of, again, our protection mechanism that lives within us. And there are gaps of time where I can't remember necessarily details of what happened. Or I know that this, this, this, and this happened while it was with my captor, but I can't necessarily order them in time of like what came first. But yeah, I definitely still have details where I think, I can't remember at all what happened

Starting point is 00:17:15 or what was said, a lot of the dialogue, especially, is lost to me. Or it's like, well, what did he say? What kind of things did he tell you while you were there? Well, I can remember certain things, but I can't remember all of it. Well, let's kind of go back to you, get in the car. You've got a serious situation here.

Starting point is 00:17:34 Do you start then trying to analyze perhaps where he's taking you in the car and were you able to do that at all? I did start trying to figure out where we were going. So I was paying attention to the terms we were taking and pretty much knew where we were until I felt the car get on to the interstate and at that point I thought, okay, well, I'm not going to know where we are. So I need some other tactic. And as many people know whenever one of your senses, so my sight is removed, your other senses become strengthened.

Starting point is 00:18:08 And so I was listening to things and noticing things that I may not have noticed otherwise, smelling things. And then I was also thinking, what else can I do? So I'm memorizing these other things that I can hear and smell. And then the only thing I can really see is the inside of the container and like can really see is the inside of the container

Starting point is 00:18:25 and like a serial number on the inside of the container. Okay, shove that in my memory. So just begin kind of cataloging anything that I can because again, I'm like, I will escape this person. I will escape. And so that's the beginning of me trying to analyze this person and he drove for about 15 minutes total. And at one point, hold over for a second,

Starting point is 00:18:50 restrained me with handcuffs and with a leg restraint, and then a gag in my mouth. Told me to scream as loud as I could, and he said, okay, good. And then he put the container lid all the way on and drove for another minute or two before he stopped the car and got out for a second and came back and lifted the container with me in it Carried it a short way and then drug it. I could feel that it was being drug-over concrete and then over a threshold into his apartment

Starting point is 00:19:21 What's the apartment? I'm guessing on the bottom floor because not, it would have probably been difficult to get you up some stairs. I would think so. I was pretty small at the time, but still I imagine it would have been pretty difficult. So yeah, it was a bottom floor apartment. And he left me in the container for a minute or two. He left and like left the area. He left and left the area, could hear that he wasn't right there. And then he came back to pull it off the container. He had changed clothes into a T-shirt and some shorts. And he basically told me that he would take the ball gag out if I promised not to scream. And to remember that he had a gun, he still had a gun.

Starting point is 00:19:58 And so this begins my 18 hours of being held captive by this person, which started by him, taking me into his bedroom and taking out a legal pad, a yellow legal pad, and asking me questions and writing down the answers. What was my full name? Whose house was I at? What was her name? What was my address? What was my boyfriend's name, what was his address, and he's just writing down all these things. So he is researching who I am, and he doesn't realize that I'm also researching who he is while I'm there. So I began immediately kind of memorizing cataloging everything that I can see in the apartment. And while I was there, I also was one point trying to see if I could read his name on the mail. I couldn't. I was remembering every single animal that he had because he had like a bird and a guinea pig and

Starting point is 00:20:55 other small animals in the apartment. I also, at one point, I used my appeased survival mechanism to sweep his floor. I asked him if there was anything that I could do for him while he was getting himself dinner and he said I could do that. So I'm sweeping his floor and I use that as an opportunity to get close to his refrigerator so that I can read his magnets and I know who his doctor is and his dentist

Starting point is 00:21:22 because there's magnets on the refrigerator. At one point we're sitting down talking and he's asking me questions. What school I go to, and just really having a conversation, and I'm asking him similar questions, and I find out he's in the Navy. When I was in the bathroom, I see feminine hygiene products, and I see a hairbrush with a long red hair in it.

Starting point is 00:21:41 So, okay, I now know that there's a woman that lives here at least some time a long red hair in it. So, okay, I now know that there's a woman that lives here at least some time with long red hair. So, just kind of gathering all of this information for when I escape. We'll be right back to my interview with Cara Chamberlain. As a business owner, I realize we all have our strengths and weaknesses, and in order to succeed, you need a partner who can help you with hiring that adapts to your needs. That is why I have trusted Indeed for years because it is the hiring platform where you can attract, interview, and hire all in one place. And instead of spending hours on multiple job sites searching for candidates with the

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Starting point is 00:23:40 I wish I would have discovered AppSumo sooner. MailChimp, Shopify, Zapier, and many awesome products first launched on AppSumo. Imagine getting lifetime access to Zapier for just $39 on AppSumo back in 2013. As a special bonus, AppSumo is giving 10% off the already discounted price, the first 100 people to click social.appsumo.com slash passion will get 10% off their first purchase with app sumo. That's social.appsumo.com slash passion. Now back to my interview with Cara Chamberlain. And do you think that keeping your wits because I'm just trying to put myself in your shoes and you've got all the stuff going on He's taking down these names at this point

Starting point is 00:24:30 You may be even thinking he wants to hold me ransom and that's why he wants these names So he can get some bounty for me, but you got to be scared out of your mind But somehow you were able to keep your wits about you to have this But somehow you were able to keep your wits about you to have this reconnaissance or ability to kind of observe and do this counter reconnaissance of the situation. Do you think ultimately that's what allowed you to survive and to eventually escape? I think that it definitely played a very big part. And I will say I was not calm the entire time. There was one time when he put me back in the container with the gaggle and then I did have a panic attack

Starting point is 00:25:11 and that was when he gave me a volume. So what's interesting about my response that I've learned since I've learned kind of recently is it's pretty textbook of P's stress response, which is to remain calm. That's exactly what it is. That's something that's within most people, interestingly, but I definitely think it was a big contributing factor. And to be quite honest, there was also a part of me that knew that someone like this

Starting point is 00:25:44 wanted me to be scared. And it's like, no, I refuse. I'm a very strong little person. And I thought, I don't want to give him that satisfaction of needing scared. And so there was a lot of that in me as well. Yes. Well, my experience from the military about that calmness that you said you experienced is I think that's the reason we do so much training is when you are put in those situations, you want to be clear calm and level headed as you're approaching whatever mission it is you're on. And I always found myself actually more nervous on the transition point leading up into an operation than I did

Starting point is 00:26:27 actually doing the operation because you've trained for it. You're kind of there and you're realizing that in most cases it's not going to go as you expect, but you've kind of looked at how this thing could go awry and so there's a calm to it. But in your case, you don't have any idea what the long term goal of his is, did he give you any indication why he was doing this and was this just a random act or had he been following or targeting you? He never told me anything like that about why he chose me. I

Starting point is 00:27:10 more or less learned later that it was simply because I was there. I was his victim of opportunity. He was the type of perpetrator who would plan his victims and would not necessarily stalk them, but keep an eye on them and know approximately what they were doing. But he did tell me that he was going to let me go whenever he was quote done with me in a few days. And then it would be my choice, whether I went to law enforcement,

Starting point is 00:27:37 and was always known as the girl who was raped. That was one of the things that he said that kind of stuck with me. And he said, take you somewhere where you won't know where you are and let you go. And I more or less believed him because while I was there, I was actually assaulted multiple times. But other than that for the most part, he was not violent or I hate saying mean because that's that's not a strong enough word, but I had not experienced anything from him that led me to believe that he would have killed me.

Starting point is 00:28:12 And so the only thing I had to do was to go on what he was saying. And so I expected him to do that, but I also thought, I don't really want to wait on him to make that decision. Well, I want to come in a moment to how you actually escaped and then some of the moments after, but I did want to ask you, for the listeners who are here or perhaps their children or friends, as overall awareness, if a kidnapping happens, what I've read is the general advice is to scream, attack, and escape. Do you agree with those measures?

Starting point is 00:28:48 And are there other things that you would add to that list based on your experience up and to this point of your story? So I find this question somewhat difficult to answer for a few reasons. So let's take my situation as the example here. So the neighbor, the next door neighbor saw me get into the car with my captain. He saw that that that he had his arm around my neck and it looked like I was willingly getting into the car. He could not see the gun, but I was not screaming, I was not fighting, I was not

Starting point is 00:29:25 looking like I was in distress to him. So he did not raise an alarm, he noted it and then continued on with his yard work. So had I have had screamed or yelled or fought, very probably that neighbor would have investigated and come out and he knew me, he knew my friend very well. And so I say, would that have been the, I hate to say Maybe, but the fact of the matter is that when you have someone who is perpetrating violence, you cannot anticipate what that person will do. Statistics tell us that a stranger kidnapping is far less common than we think they are.

Starting point is 00:30:22 And statistics also tell us that with a stranger kidnapping or an assault that perpetrators very often will not go for a difficult victim. They want someone that's going to be quote, an easy victim, right? So usually if someone fights back, they will leave that person. But when you have someone that's perpetrating violence, they're not predictable. So it's easy to say that you should do something. However, you can't predict what that person would do. And as you previously stated, when you went into those

Starting point is 00:31:06 situations that were stressful and military, you were able to perform a certain way because you had a high amount of training. And then that's how you are able to overcome that autonomic nervous system response. So while we can tell people, yes, screen, fight to all these things, if your response is freeze or a piece, you may not be able to do that when you feel the cold metal of a weapon press up against your body, your body will take over and it takes a high amount of training to fight or flee or screen. So I answer your question with not an answer,

Starting point is 00:31:48 but to say, yeah, it would probably have been something that would have worked out differently, but maybe not. We'll be right back to my interview with Cara Chamberlain. We live in a very unpredictable economy and life insurance can offer peace of mind that anyone who relies on you financially, a child, a parent, or even a business partner will have a financial cushion if something happens to you. Policy Genius is an insurance comparison website that makes it easy to compare quotes from top companies like AIG

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Starting point is 00:32:54 Head to policygenius.com to get your free life insurance quotes and see how much you could save like the 30 million people before you they've helped since 2014. Now, back to my interview with Cara Chamberlain. From my experience, I think my military training was one of the reasons I was able to get out of there because I was always trained, you know, look into a person's eyes, you kind of look at their hands, probably something the law enforcement would teach you as well. The first thing I saw,

Starting point is 00:33:25 even before I saw the person's upper extremities, was that they had a weapon. And so immediately, for me, it's, I had to find a way to get out of the situation. But I can completely understand, you're in a completely different situation without any of that training. I did want to give without any of that training. I did want to give some statistics that I found while researching. As you said, of kidnappings, 80% are done by family members or someone known to the victim. But I found it pretty interesting that historical averages are that they're between 20 and 25,000 kidnappings in the US each year. So the audience can put this in perspective in 2019, which was the latest data I could find. There were 22,757 kidnappings

Starting point is 00:34:13 out of 1.64 million crimes against persons. I did want to use this as a point though before we go into the rest of your story. Do you have some advice overall to listeners on how they can avoid putting themselves into situations where whether it is a loved one, things that they might recognize or if not, steps you would recommend that they take to protect themselves. So it's very tricky when you're talking about someone that you know, because I think very often those types of kidnappings,

Starting point is 00:34:49 you didn't give the statistics on this particular aspect of it, but I would assume it's primarily kidnapping of minors by non-custodial parents or non-custodial relatives. I feel pretty confident in saying that's probably the majority of those. There is a lot of those to your point. It is a high percentage of them.

Starting point is 00:35:13 That's what I would assume. And in those situations, I'm not sure what exactly can be done to prevent that. One of the questions I do get very often is more speaking to that stranger, basically, and violence perpetrated by a stranger, right? So I think that's what most women especially are afraid of happening when they're walking on the street by themselves. And I will tell you that the statistic does prove to be true that most offenders are not going to perpetrate violence against someone who looks like they would fight that. There are certain things that you can do to not make yourself an easy victim.

Starting point is 00:35:48 The biggest one is just be aware of your surroundings, right? Like if you're out, you're somewhere, you don't be on your phone, you're looking down, be looking around, be aware of people so that action is faster than reaction. So if you're able to, like you said, the first thing that you notice with that gun in his hand, so you are focusing on that gun so that you would be able to respond quickly.

Starting point is 00:36:13 So if you are focusing on the people around you, then you will notice if someone is acting suspicious usually. So being aware of your surroundings, having your head up, carrying yourself with confidence, looking people in the eye, because if you're looking people in the eye, they realize, okay, they're see me, they recognize me. So those are some of the things that I tell people when they ask, how can I make myself more safe when I'm out?

Starting point is 00:36:36 But when you speak to that, someone that you know, and familial situation, there's not, I mean, it's so tricky because there's so many dynamics when you get into violence perpetrated by someone that you know that because it's really more difficult because usually if it's someone you know there's a level of affection or love there that complicates it. So I think it's just loving the people that are around you and hopefully feeling like a safe place for anyone who is in a dangerous situation so that they can disclose something that would happen. a loved one or someone that you know might be missing. What would be your advice on how quickly they should report a missing person's as quickly as you can? So it differs by jurisdiction

Starting point is 00:37:35 and by agency even. So for me, my family, my friend, pretty quickly notified law enforcement. However, because I was a teenager and because I looked like I went willingly, I was listed as a runaway. Even though I was put in NCIC, the National Crime Index database, I was listed as a missing and endangered person, the incident report that went out with my name on it,

Starting point is 00:38:02 I was listed as a runaway. So it changes how things are kind of handled, and that's like a jurisdictional agency type thing. But I would say you suspect that someone's missing. Kind of do something as quickly as you can because we do know that if there is a stranger related kidnapping or kidnapping in general of someone who intends violence that the first 24 hours are the most critical. That tends to be a pretty well-known statistic. So the faster you can get law enforcement involved

Starting point is 00:38:36 and fortunately law enforcement's overworked and underpaid and there's only so much they can do. So a lot of it, you may have to do yourself, but just so frustrating and I know disheartening, but just the limitations of the society we live in unfortunately. We'll go back to the story. Here you are with this person who obviously has deep mental illness is a monster inside, but you don't know the depths of it while you're there, but you know Your life is at stake You know that there's something you've got to do

Starting point is 00:39:15 How did you go about figuring out what the right moment was and what were the events leading up to the escape? So there were several moments while I was there that I thought, well maybe this is it, maybe this is it, the gun is closed, maybe I can grab it, but very often I realized in those moments, okay, I'm 15 years old, I weigh 105, 110 pounds, this is a grown man who weighs close to 200 pounds, like if I am not successful, he will hurt me.

Starting point is 00:39:46 He may kill me. And so I very quickly realized that my best scenario would be when he was completely complacent and the time when he would be the most off guard would be when he was sleeping. So I always expected that that would be my opportunity. So he had given me volume, he made me smoke marijuana with him, and so around two or three in the morning was when we finally went to bed. I think it

Starting point is 00:40:18 was a queen size bed, and he's in the bed next to me. I've been restrained, I had handcuffs on, one of those carabiner quick links that has like a screw type closure on it. And that was around the handcuffs. And there was a rope that was tied to the frame of the bed. And then I had a leg restraint on my right leg that was tied to the foot of the bed. And so that's how I fell asleep.

Starting point is 00:40:44 And just a few hours later, maybe three or four hours later, I woke up and there's early morning light kind of filtering in through the window and he's still asleep. And I realized this is it, he's not going to get more off-guard than this. So this is my moment. And so the first thing that I knew I had to do is to get my hands out of the handcuffs. I could not squeeze either one of my hands out at that point. So I had to disconnect the quick link. I tried to unscrew it with my fingers couldn't. And so I had to kind of scoop my body up so that I could get my teeth up to the screw unscrewed it with my teeth and then finished it with my fingers, got the handcuffs out, kind of got down to my leg with my with both of my wrist, they were still handcuffed and disconnected the carabiner from my leg restraining got out of the bend, he's still sleeping. squeeze one of my wrists out of the, one of the handcuffs and found my shorts that I had been wearing. I was wearing his t-shirt at that point. I got to the front door. It's a very small apartment, maybe 600 square feet, and his bedroom was on the other side of the wall from kind of the four-year area. And the bed was right beside a window

Starting point is 00:42:05 that looked out on the front door. So I got to the front door that should have been the end of my escape, I was in the door, right? But I get there and there's that plastic container in the forier. So I have to move that, I move it. And there's one of those, like a cordian, the metal, a cordian closet doors

Starting point is 00:42:24 or the coat closet, that noisy, just clanging sound. And there's also a vacuum cleaner hanging out of the coat closet, so I can't even close it. And then there's deadbolt and a regular lock. And I think, okay, how am I going to do all of this without waking him on the other side of the wall? Still to this day, I can only attribute a whole lot of divine intervention and adrenaline as explaining how I was able to do all of that literally at once. I mean, it's like a

Starting point is 00:42:58 grew another arm and shove the vacuum cleaner and close the closet door. Unlock the lock is through the door, but just kind of in one swift motion. And just ran, I just ran out the door and thought he's going to wake up, the gun's right beside him, he's going to look out the window and he's going to see me running, he's going to shoot me in the back.

Starting point is 00:43:19 And I thought it doesn't matter because I'm out of his apartment, they will find him. So I experienced some of that that weird time war thing Right then because I experienced that tunnel vision It's like the one and only time that I've truly experienced tunnel vision where it's a little bit like Star Trek when they go at light speed and I saw the car driving across the parking lot and just ran straight for it. I ran out in front of it, flagged them down and went around to the driver's side.

Starting point is 00:43:48 There were two men, a middle-aged man in like a teenager in the car and I said, it was kidnapped and I escaped. And I said, I came from that apartment and turned around and looked at it. And it was a ground floor of left apartments, like the left side of the building. And I said, remember that apartment. And they said, okay, what do you want to do? And I said, take me to law enforcement. And so that's what they did. We took me to law enforcement.

Starting point is 00:44:14 When you turned around, I mean, you were probably like, almost expecting him to be right there in the doorway, like looking out. And he must have been at that point. I mean, relieved to have this car pull up, but at the same time, still probably just had so much emotion and adrenaline running through you. Oh, yeah. I thought I have so much information just crammed into my brain right now that there's no way I'm going to remember anything else.

Starting point is 00:44:42 And I thought all of these apartments look exactly the same, right? Like apartment complexes. You can't tell which ones which by looking. And so I thought, well, these men are in this apartment complex. They must be somewhat familiar with it. And so I asked them, remember that apartment? And so at that point, that's when they took me to the region. So it's like a substation, more or less,

Starting point is 00:45:04 of the Sheriff's Department. And I ran in and I'm kind of looking for anyone. I don't see anybody, but I hear someone say, ma'am, excuse me, can I help you? And so I go towards the voice and there's a deputy sitting there. I again, hold up my handcuffs and I at that point had taken the like restraint off of my leg. So I had that in my hand as well. So my name is Kara Robinson and I was kidnapped and I escaped. And so start giving him the details and he's trying to find me an NCIC having some difficulty. And eventually he finds me and he notifies an investigator contacts my mom. My mom is on the way to come get me at the investigator response and takes off the handcuffs that's remaining. And he says, well, the men that brought you in don't remember the apartment that you asked

Starting point is 00:45:52 them to remember. And so would you, do you feel so you're then like mother trucker? Basically, I'm like, you had one job. Remember the apartment. Now when I tell that sort of like, you had one job, remember the apartment. Now when I tell that story, I'm like, you had one job. But they also did not even go in with me. I was like, guys, let me run in by myself. Like, come on, that was one of the details that I forgot because as I told myself and told other people this story over the years, I was like, we went in and when I was recording my documentary, the other executive

Starting point is 00:46:25 producers had the case file as well as myself having read the case file and so it's telling the story of it. So we went in and the executive producer that was interviewing me, she was like, I was like, what do you mean? She's like, you went in by yourself in a state. Cool. So the investigator gets there like I said and he asked me if I would feel comfortable. Could you imagine being that corporal who's there and then you had this person who walks in and who's got handcuffs hanging from there? Right. And so at the time it felt a little bit like, come on, like this, I should be safe. And I felt a little bit like I wasn't believed just by the way he was responding. I felt a little bit like I wasn't believed just by the way he was responding.

Starting point is 00:47:05 But obviously, many years later, looking back on it, he was in a complete state of disbelief, not only did people not generally run into and run through the region that are strangers. Like, that doesn't happen. How often does a 15 year old girl with a handcuffed thing like from a wrist run in and say, I was kidnapped by a stranger and I escaped.

Starting point is 00:47:26 Like, that doesn't happen. He's sitting there doing his reports, getting ready. I can't remember if he was going on shift or coming on shift. We'll be right back to my interview with Cara Chamberlain. As a former Fortune 50C level executive and multi industry CEO, I can tell you how important it is

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Starting point is 00:49:00 to hash and struck dot com slash deals. Now back to my interview with Kara Chamber Lane. Now back to my interview with Cara Chamberlain. I used to live in South of St. Pete and we had an incident where we had a stranger. Someone we didn't recognize who was on the property and I couldn't get a hold of police officer for whatever reason and so we decided to go to this auxiliary station that was

Starting point is 00:49:28 maybe a mile away from us. So I got the kids in the car and we went there. But going in, it's probably what you experienced. There was no one at the front of it. I think oftentimes they use it as a rest point and took me forever to find the person in the back to then talk to him about it. And they were surprised I even came in because it's not a place that someone typically would wander into. It was probably a similar thing going through this officer's mind. Yeah, I mean, they're not generally staffed.

Starting point is 00:50:00 They are a space for the officers that are in that region to have their squad meetings, go over stuff, maybe finish reports, and then usually the supervisors will be there during like business hours as long as they don't have somewhere else to be, right? So yeah, generally it's not somewhere that is staff and it just happened to be the place that was closest to where I was. So you then tell this investigator all this information. Obviously they start believing the story. At that point, do they immediately say we're going to try to take you back to the scene of

Starting point is 00:50:38 where this happened or do they first say let's let you spend some time with your parents? How did that all unfold? So my mom was not there. It was about 30, 45 minutes away from where my mother lived and so she said, okay, well while we're waiting on her to get here, would you feel comfortable going back to the apartment complex and seeing if you can identify the apartment? And I said, yeah, that's fine. I'll go back. So I got in the car with the investigator and we went back to the apartment and I said, yeah, that's fine, I'll go back. So I got in the car with the investigator and we went back to the apartment complex. I obviously did not recognize which apartment it was beyond knowing that it was a ground level left side of the building apartment, but

Starting point is 00:51:16 we did see a man that was driving like a golf cart around like a maintenance man, a handy man and we stopped him and I gave him all the information that I remembered as a man. It is mid 30s, close to 200 pounds, maybe five, five, nine. And he drives a Pontiac Transam, a dark green Pontiac Transam. There's a woman that lives with him, has long-bread hair, there's a guinea pig and there's a bird and there's a disson of that in the apartment apartment and he immediately says, I'm pretty sure I

Starting point is 00:51:47 know what apartment that is. And so they're able to later get a search warrant and get that information from the apartment complex of the person that lives there. So I go back to the Sheriff's Department to the region, my mom is there waiting. I then get in the car with her head to the hospital to get a sexual assault exam done. On the way there, my mom's asking me all these questions and I'm like, I don't, you don't want the answers. I don't want to talk about it.

Starting point is 00:52:15 Like you don't want to know what happened. And so, and that was like a very, it's like almost like living in a cloud to think about like that ride to the hospital. And it's like this nebulous experience. I can't really remember much of it. And then I get to the hospital and there's a wait. You have to wait on your time to get your exam or whatever

Starting point is 00:52:38 and then kind of in a little separate waiting area and telling the investigators what happened. And before I even get back to do my exam, an investigator comes in with a photo lineup. They've used the information about his car. They've used his doctor and his dentist and they kind of cross reference all of this information and figure out who he was. And I have a photo lineup and I immediately, you know, circle my captors face on the photo lineup and identify him. And he is obviously gone from his apartment at that time. And so that begins kind of the second half of the story. I imagine when he sees that you're gone, at that point, he's probably fleeing. And I'm not sure when you wanna reveal who this is, but they have the police start to then do an investigation

Starting point is 00:53:37 of this gentleman, and as I understand it, find some particularly disturbing things in his apartment about potentially some other females that he might have done this to in the past. Yeah, so they pretty quickly found a lot footblocker when they went in and searched, which is slightly suspicious. They take that on the search warrant, they open it up, and they find numerous things in there, and newspaper clippings from some unsolved kinathics and homicides in Virginia in 1996 and 1997, and they think, well that's kind of weird, and so they notify the task force in Virginia,

Starting point is 00:54:16 the civil-risk task force who responds and they gather their own information in it. It does take a while before he is linked to those cases, but he becomes positively identified as the person responsible for those three murders in Virginia. And that was after the conclusion of kind of his story, which is he obviously left the apartment. He goes on the run for a couple of days, but during that time, he makes contact with his sister and she gets in the hotel and then he's gone from the hotel before law enforcement can get there yet again, just misses him. And then law enforcement sets up kind of an operation where he's supposed to meet his sister in Florida in Sarasota, Florida. Right down the road for me. Yeah, yeah. He's supposed to meet his sister and he kind of pulls up to the restaurant

Starting point is 00:55:06 where he's supposed to meet her and he sees law enforcement and he leads them on a police chase up to 100 plus miles an hour and they deploy stop sticks, which causes him to wreck his car and then they send in a canine that bites him in the leg.

Starting point is 00:55:22 And then at some point between either the canine switching to his arm or after the canine bit him on the arm, he shot himself and so he killed himself right there on the side of the road in Sarasota, Florida. Well, I'm having trouble even reacting to this. It's so much of an unbelievable story to just take this all in. I remember earlier in the discussion you mentioned that you saw

Starting point is 00:55:47 red hair from a female, did they ever determine who's it was and why they weren't in the apartment when you were there? Yes, it was his wife. He was married and his wife was in Disney World with his nephew and with his mother. So they go on vacation and he decides to go around kidnapping people. Have his own vacations. Yes. Oh, my gosh. I wanted to ask what happens to the mind of any person, but especially an adolescent after such a trauma occurs. Their mind is physiologically and chemically and physically changed.

Starting point is 00:56:33 Trauma, depending on how young you are, but teens and younger, it actually changes your brain chemistry and a lot of your brain structure. And so it changes how you react to things. So for me, my kind of coping mechanism was, I'm fine. Like I had so tightly compartmentalized this. I like pressed it into a little ball and kind of shoved it into the back of my brain. And it lived in this separate space.

Starting point is 00:57:00 And it had no emotion attached to it. So I could always talk about it. The way I've talked to you today about what happened. And so I just wanted to be treated, the way I was treated the week prior. I just wanted to go back to being just Kara and my family and my friends, they had to process it in their own way

Starting point is 00:57:19 and they felt like they did not have the space to talk to me about it because they didn't know how. I think I'm dealing with my trauma fine until, I mean, honestly, for 15 years, I was like, fine, this did not affect me at all. But my brain was altered very much because my coping mechanism that's now embedded in me when I deal with stress is, okay, we just numb that and we just shove it in a box and we don't deal with it and we don't feel feelings because I have been told pretty immediately after this, wow, you're so strong and strong is something that should have positive connotations, right? But this just goes to show how negative labels in general can be because I had identified with this label

Starting point is 00:58:09 of being strong to my own detriment where it became, oh, I'm strong, so I can't fry. I don't have feelings. I'm not affected by this. I'm strong. I realized 15 years later, oh, I haven't been feeling feelings for 15 years. And so that's more or less where my healing began

Starting point is 00:58:25 was 15 years after this happened. I think that's one of the things that people don't understand unless they've been through something like this. For me as well, even though that incident happened for a while, was sleeping on my couch because he had, it turned out, he did work for the rental company and he was in there the week earlier

Starting point is 00:58:49 and had staked out the house. New where my safes were, new where everything was and a lot of that was located in my bedroom. So when you go through something like that, especially when it's in your house, you just don't feel safe. And my daughter absolutely didn't feel safe coming back at that point, even though the chance of this happening again would have been pretty much zero at that point,

Starting point is 00:59:11 because he used a key that he had gotten from the rental company to get into the house. But I didn't really process it to your point and deal with it for 18 months to two years later. Unfortunately for me, about a week after this happened, my best friend, unfortunately, committed suicide. That came to the forefront, and I was in this intense morning for a period and didn't even deal with the trauma, but I found a statement in one of the articles I read about you that kind of felt the same to me and that's that your emotional detachment allowed you to escape the typical trauma experience. That's kind of the way I would have described it was for me too was this emotional detachment. But did you find after a while that when this did catch up with you, it kind of came in a

Starting point is 01:00:06 tidal wave. I mean, that's what it ended up doing with me. I also had a similar experience where a couple months after my kidnapping, I lost one of my best friends and I felt like I had a mini breakdown like at home funeral, but then everything just got shoved back into that bot. I didn't realize what I was doing until a couple of years after the birth of my second child, and I realized that I was not really feeling attached to him, but I also was not feeling the depth of emotions that eyes as a human should be feeling, the primary emotion that I was feeling with anger.

Starting point is 01:00:47 I was just so angry all the time. I just had like a hairpin trigger and I would just lose it and feel overwhelmed and I thought, I don't wanna feel like this. I don't wanna be an angry person. And I was like, why do I feel so angry? I feel angry because my life is out of control. Because my husband's out of the country most of the year.

Starting point is 01:01:08 And I have two little babies that I have to take care of. And everything fell out of control, which was very triggering for me, right? Anytime anything feels out of control, it feels unsafe. But I also realized that I wasn't feeling feelings. And I was shoving everything down so tightly that the only thing that bubbled up was anger. That was like that title wave. And honestly, I feel like for me, once I realized what I was doing, it's like I had been doing it for

Starting point is 01:01:37 so long without even thinking about it that I didn't realize how detrimental it was. And once I realized, oh, this is actually harming me. I just slowly began feeling feelings. And like, I can cry. I mean, the idea of me, like, crying in front of people was just, it absolutely not. I will not cry in front of anyone ever. And now, like, that's so normal. It's so okay. Like, to feel a feeling, emotions are not good or bad, and they don't make you any less strong to feel feelings. It makes you more human, and that's how we process things. And emotions just are. They don't have positive connotations or negative connotations. They're just part of our experience. That was the biggest part of my healing journey. And I think a lot of people to speak to what you said about my typical trauma experience,

Starting point is 01:02:29 me not having that. We have very often this idea of how somebody might deal with trauma based on what we see in the media. And whenever we love someone or we go through something that's not the quote typical trauma response. It can feel very Isolating and very alienating if you're that person, but it can also Put you off guard. You don't know how to handle it if you're someone that loves someone like that. So for my family, I know it was very off-putting and very confusing to them because I did not have a typical trauma response. So that's a big part of why I now share my experiences just to let people know that there is no normal trauma response. Any response to an abnormal situation is normal. So

Starting point is 01:03:20 if you have an abnormal response to an abnormal experience, that's totally normal. So there's no right, wrong, or usual way to respond to trauma. Yeah, I wrote an article about 18 months ago about trauma and some of the stuff I've experienced. One of the things I put in there is to me, trauma is like a snowflake. No two people will experience it or react to it in the same way. How I like to think about it. And it sounds like what you were experiencing and I was experiencing were very much in the one thing because we had suppressed this for so long. You start getting numb. And that is a state I would not wish on anyone because it's a terrible place to be because you really don't feel any emotions.

Starting point is 01:04:10 It's hard to grow when you allow yourself to feel pain or fear or happiness or joy, so to speak. And then when you have children too, like, it's just, I feel like I don't remember the first three years of my youngest son's life because I was just so numb at that point. Yes, well, unfortunately, I can relate, but it leads me to this question, is full recovery even possible when you go through something like this? And if so, how do you achieve it? I mean, what is full recovery? That would be my question back to you more or less, or to anyone who's wondering this.

Starting point is 01:04:47 Like, what is full recovery? Because I would counter that by saying, who in the world, as a human, gets through life without experiencing some type of trauma. It may not be some big capital T trauma, traumatic experience, but we all go through difficult things and healing is not some linear journey

Starting point is 01:05:09 that has a beginning and an end point. It is this ongoing experience that some days, it goes up, some days it goes down, some days it goes backwards, some days it goes forward. And I would say that the key to healing is just to keep going because we can always be a better version of ourselves. We can always be a healthier version of ourselves. We can always be

Starting point is 01:05:31 a more healed version of ourselves. And the key is just to keep putting one foot in front of the other. All you have to do to succeed is just get up one more time that you fall. That's always going to put this kind of stuff with me and it's proverb old Chinese proverb that's just you just get up one more time and you fall down and you'll succeed that way. Yes well this leads me to another question that I just wanted to ask and that was during or after the incident. Did you ever feel like you sort of left your body and your mind was somewhere else to deal with it? Oh for sure. I definitely did experience that

Starting point is 01:06:11 out of body experience, especially when, well, I would say most of the time when I think about it, when I think back on my trauma, no one's really asked asked me just so I have to think about it. When I think back on that time, I almost see in my memories a photo of what happened, but it's like a third person photo, right? Of me and my captor. The one time that I would say I kind of was slammed back into my body was when I was having that panic attack when I was back in panic attack when I was

Starting point is 01:06:45 back in the container. But for the most part, I would say most of the time it was very out of body is very checked out, which has also been an area that I've had to heal of how to just exist in my body and feel not just emotions, but feel what it feels like to exist in my body. not just emotions, but feel what it feels like to exist in my body. I wanted to ask that because I probably not to the extent that you felt it, but I have felt that in my own life after experiencing trauma and it's such a weird sensation. It's very difficult and it probably was for you for many years to tell this story. What were the barriers to coming forward with it? For me, I always felt open to sharing my story, but the thing that made it difficult was the reactions of the people that I shared with. So the most common response that I historically have gotten when I shared my stories, I tell someone what happened

Starting point is 01:07:42 and I say, I was 15, I was kidnapped by someone that I later found out was a serial killer, they just go, oh my god, I'm so sorry that happened. And for me, I will preface this by saying, I know that everyone who has ever said that to me, their intentions were just so pure and so supportive. But what it felt like to me is just so pure and so supportive. But what it felt like to me is that person was saying, I feel sorry for you and I did not feel sorry for me. And to this day, I am not sorry that this thing happened to me because it put me on the path to lead me where I am today.

Starting point is 01:08:21 So to say that I am sorry that something happened to me feels like I would be so unappreciative of my life today and where I am and who I am. And so people saying I'm sorry felt uncomfortable enough that I did not share specifically for that reason. So that has led me to not share specifically for that reason. So that has led me to one of the things that I talk about quite frequently, which is teaching people what are the ways to respond, right? That's the natural next question is, okay, well, if that's not the proper way to respond,

Starting point is 01:08:55 then what are the proper ways to respond? Because automatic response say, I'm so sorry that happened. And what that does is it may feel like it felt to me like that person feels sorry for you. So if you tell me your story and I say, I'm so sorry that happened. What that does is it shifts the focus from you sharing your story to me, right? I am so sorry. And then it puts that survivor that survivor in the position of, well, it's okay because, and that's just a terrible place to put somebody in who is sharing something so vulnerable. So the sentiment is there, but

Starting point is 01:09:34 the wording can change. So a better response would be something like, wow, thank you so much for sharing that with me. That must have been difficult for you to share, or how are you feeling, or how can I support you? Those are all ways to keep the focus on the person who has just told you something vulnerable, while letting them know that you're there to support them. Other great things to say are, I believe you, if that's an appropriate thing to say, or to convey that you believe that person, and to let them know that you feel very honored that they would feel safe enough with you

Starting point is 01:10:11 to share something so vulnerable. So those are all great sentiments that can replace that automatic or automatic, automatic response of, I'm so sorry that happened to you, and really continue to empower that person so that they can continue their healing journey and become a survivor, a survivor. I think those are some really good suggestions. I had one more question along this line so that I wanted to ask and that is,

Starting point is 01:10:36 what suggestions do you have to make it safer for other survivors to come forward themselves? So I love that question. I think that is kind of the basis of why I do what I do, which is sharing my story because it can feel like no one has ever experienced anything like you've experienced. So I share publicly because I think the more we have people who are sharing their vulnerable stories and showing the full range of emotions and being authentic in that journey, the more people will feel safe to disclose

Starting point is 01:11:12 what had happened to them. So I think very often the first person that someone discloses, specifically sexual assault, the first person that they disclose what happened to them, too, is someone that they are close to. So being a safe, non-judgmental space is always the best thing, and not questioning, and second guessing, and, well, what were you doing? There's all of these well-meaning things that we can kind of process in our own head of,

Starting point is 01:11:41 like, well, how did this happen, right? And the fact of the matter is that there are bad people in the world. There will always be bad people in the world. There are things that we can do to prevent ourselves from becoming an easy victim. But in the grand scheme of things, when there are evil people in the world, you cannot always prevent violence. And so the best thing to do is just be a safe loving supportive space and use those terms like, wow, I believe you and thank you for sharing that with me and how can I support you? Okay Karen, I typically ask this when authors are on the program but I'll ask it to you as well. Now that, now that someone has heard this story,

Starting point is 01:12:26 what is the biggest takeaway that you would want the audience to have? I think the biggest takeaway is that we all go through difficult things in our lives and we get to decide after something difficult happens what we take from that situation and how we can move forward. So, one of the things that's always stuck with me is,

Starting point is 01:12:50 I am not defined by what happened to me. I do not choose to let that person continue to control me by defining me by what decisions he made. So, I choose to be refined by what happened. I choose to take only the things that make me stronger from that situation. And that is something that's within everyone's power when you go through difficult things

Starting point is 01:13:14 to choose the parts that make you stronger. I think that's an incredible way to close this interview out. And I just wanted to thank you for being so authentic and so vulnerable and being willing to close this interview out. And I just wanted to thank you for being so authentic and so vulnerable and being willing to share this because I think in doing so, you were helping thousands, if not more than that, who have been through trauma or sexual assault of some sort,

Starting point is 01:13:40 understand that it's okay. And you can grow from these things. But it's not okay that it happened, but as you said, I think we all experience some sort of trauma in our life and it's learning how to overcome that adversity and take your life in a positive direction that I think is so important. And so vital for people to hear your story.

Starting point is 01:14:01 Yeah, I totally agree. And that's definitely my mission and why I do what I do because I truly believe that heal people heal people and the more we share these these difficult stories the more comfortable other people will will feel sharing their stories and then that's how you feel. Yeah, and in the same way broken people hurt people. So yeah, very good message. Cara, thank you so much for joining us here today on Passion Struck. Thank you so much for having me. I thoroughly enjoyed that conversation with Cara

Starting point is 01:14:31 and wanted to thank Cara for the honor of being on our show. Links to all things Cara will be in the show notes at passionstruck.com. Please use our website links if you buy any of the books from the authors that we feature on the show. All the proceeds from them go to keeping the lights on here and making the show free for all our listeners. Videos around YouTube at JohnRMiles, please go and subscribe. Avertiser, Deals and Discount Codes are all in one convenient place at passionstruck.com, slash Deals.

Starting point is 01:14:57 Please consider supporting those who support the show. I am JohnRMiles at both Instagram and Twitter, or you can also find me on LinkedIn. And if you want to know how I manage to book all these amazing guests, it's because of my network. So go out there and build those relationships before you need them. And most of the guests on the show actually subscribe to and contribute to the podcast by giving us both topics and guest referrals. So come join us, you'll be in Smart Company. You're about to hear a preview of the Passion Stark podcast podcast episode with Bert Wilkin who is an experienced entrepreneur and founder of Higher Better. On August 1st, he is releasing his debut book titled Who's Your Mike? A No-Shit Guide

Starting point is 01:15:35 to the People that You'll Meet on Your Entrepreneurial Journey. I kept telling the Who's Your Mike Story. It was resonating with people and I realized there's a lot of characters like these that resonate with folks. And so that's why we came up with the archetype version of each character. And resume Ralph was another real example and in all these are based on real characters either that I've experienced correctly or that I've worked with. A fee for this show is that you share it with friends or family members when you find something interesting or useful. So if you know someone who might be dealing with trauma or mental health issues, definitely share this show with them. The greatest compliment that you can give the show is to share this with friends and family members when you care for. In the meantime, do your best to apply

Starting point is 01:16:14 what you hear on the show so that you can live what you listen. And we'll see you next time live life passion-strung. life passions grow.

Passion Struck with John R. Miles - Kara Robinson Chamberlain on Why You Must Be Vigilant about Your Safety EP 165

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