The Bobby Bones Show - BONUS: A Message from Amy on The Truthiest Life - Bre's Fight to Survive

Episode Date: December 30, 2020

The Truthiest Life is a podcast on The Amy Brown Podcast network!Content WARNING: This episode contains graphic details about Bre’s attack that include sexual & physical violence, assault, and blood.Bre Lasley survived an attempted murder when a man forced himself through her bedroom window. While the physical fight ended that night, Bre fights a lesser known emotional fight every day since. Her life's mission was changed that night. Now, Bre invests her time and energy, to protect other victims and provide them with resources she didn't have. Bre is a beautiful example of someone living their truthiest life day in and day out, often exposing her human pain to empower others.In late October, Bre will launch The BIA Movement, a movement of mental, emotional, spiritual, and physical acts of strength that create a holistic picture of “self-defense” while addressing the results & roots of abuse along the way.Follow Bre at @fightlikegirls which will soon become @thebiamovement (coming late October 2020)Learn more: https://www.thebiamovement.com/Got your own story of how hardship led to you living YOUR truthiest life? Submit it to [e-mail] on insta! @thetruthiestlife Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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Dot, E-D-U-S-Military. Open doors to the future for you and your family with the help of American Military University. That's AMU. .APUS. dot edu slash military. Hey, y'all, Amy here. I appreciate you guys listening to our Bobby Bone Show podcast. I want to recommend a show for you from my podcast network that

I think you'll definitely like. My friend Lisa Haim has a podcast called The Truthiest Life. And the whole premise is that, you know, in the age of social media, filters and highlight reels, we all work pretty tirelessly to make sure that no one sees our cracks, our faults, and the messy moments. But what if we let our human show? What if instead we stride for unconditional vulnerability? Only then could we stay soft in life's hardest moments and show up as our true selves.

the version of us the world needs. Now on the truthiest life, Lisa shares tips, tools, and conversations that will leave you inspired and ready to live your own truthiest life. It's a great podcast and I think you'll really like it, especially this episode I'm about to share. So go subscribe and listen on IHeart Radio or wherever you listen to a podcast. Now here's Lisa Hayme with an episode of The Truthiest Life. I know you'll be all right. Even when Time's get hard and you feel like you're in the dark. You will see just how beautiful life can be. When you soften your heart, you can finally start to live your trutious life.

Hey everyone, welcome to the first episode of The Truthiest Life. I seriously can't even believe it. I'm so excited to be doing this and thankful that you're here. Before we kick off our first episode in just a few moments, I just want to say hello. And I want to let you know that you can expect a new episode every week on Fridays. So be sure to subscribe. That's what you do in podcast world. And thank you so much for your support. After listening to the episode, I would so appreciate if you rated it. And if you had any feedback or just want to spread some positivity, leave some comments. On this first episode, we're joined by Bree Leslie. Bree survived an attempted murder. And as a result, she has become such a force in this world. I can't wait for you to hear her story. I do have to give a content warning here. Bree's story does involve sexual and physical violence, assault, and blood.

So if that is too much for you, just want to make sure that you're protected and this stays a safe space. There's so much to Bree's story and without further do, let's meet Brie. Today we have Bree Lasley on the podcast. Bree is a living miracle. She survived an attempted murder with her sister Kaylee. And what really draws me to Bree is how she's taken what's a terrible life event and turned it into a passion for protecting and helping others.

For many, they may sweep this incident under the rug, pretend it didn't happen or quote unquote not want to talk about it, but instead, Bree has made a career out of talking about it. And that's really brave because I imagine it doesn't get easier as many times as you have told this story at this point. One of the things I have learned by being Bree's friend on the internet is that while the event and the fight was over that night, the internal battle begins after that fight. So welcome Bree to the Truthiest Life podcast, and it is such an honor to be seeing your face like this. Yes, we're finally friends in real life now too. I've been looking forward to it. And I'm so honored to be on your podcast. I've looked up to you ever since we connected on Instagram and I just love what you're doing. And I'm excited for this platform for you. More people to hear the good word. So before we kind of jump into your story of five years ago, can't believe it was five years ago, by the way. I normally like to jump right into the quote unquote juicy stuff, the stuff that people kind of like brush under the rug. But your story is actually very out in the open. And so before we kind of pivot into it, I feel like we're doing a really big disservice to our guests and myself to not know who Brie was pre-event.

So can you tell us like before September 2015 who Brie was? Like, what did your life look like now? You know, we all, we know what it looks like now, but what did it look like pre-event? I grew up in Utah and a family of five children in the second oldest. I was very much so a homebody. I got homesick at like a friend's house. I always wanted just to be home, like playing outside of my friends. After high school, I didn't know what I was going to do. I didn't know like what school, what college I wanted to go to. I wasn't sure. And so in my home

class, I was online and I decided to sign up to go to China. And it said like, okay, if you sign up, can't quit. If you like drop out, then you have to pay even more than it costs to go. Wow. Like, well, if I do this, like my parents can't say no, which I understand that is a huge privileged situation. So I signed up. And two weeks after high school, I went to Gweling China and lived there for almost a year teaching English. It came out of nowhere. Like I was just this homebody and then all of a sudden, I'm like, of all places I'm going to go. Yeah. So the farthest point. I'm like a town in China. So I lived in China. I absolutely loved it. I thriving, meeting new people and new culture and just knew everything. I absolutely loved my time there. And then that kind of changed, that experience changed me. So from China, I lived in five different countries, teaching English and volunteering, just doing missionary work. I did missionary work in Brazil.

for a year and a half. I loved that and I just became this independent adventure-seeking traveler that just loved other cultures and loved other people. So when you came back, were you still doing that? You were teaching English? I came back and I was studying dental hygiene. I was at dental hygiene school and then I started, I was teaching English on the side and then I was just making more money teaching English on the side. And so I actually dropped out of dental hygiene school and started an English business. And I know your teeth are really important to you and I'm looking at them right now and I why, but I think we'll get to that a little bit later in the story. So you were kind of living your passion that you found. And how old are you now? Right now I'm 32. So you were 27 when your life

changed. Yes. It's like pretty established in life considering anybody who has met you since year 27 probably doesn't know who Bree was before. Yeah. That's a whole lifetime, 27 years. Yeah, it is. It really is. It's a shame to not acknowledge that you were a, thriving person before this and get to know because you had to say goodbye to that person without knowing it. Forced to say goodbye to it, right? Like forced to redefine. And that's really scary, especially for women. It's hard to get comfortable in our own skin. It's hard to find confidence and just around the board with our bodies, with everything. The day before my attack, I remember calling my mom and just being so giddy on the phone. And I was like, I finally feel like I'm where I've wanted to be

for so long and where I've worked so hard to be for so long and life is just really good. So one thing about you that I heard you say in a podcast, which I just think is really quirky and cute and kind of telling as well is that you love a before and after. Yes. Like the infomercial kind, like a deep cleaning situation, like a stain remover. Love it. I just think that that's a personality quirk that everybody kind of needs to know about you because it also fits into your life, right?

So there's life, there's Brie Pre-Event, and then there's post event. Yeah. And so you're kind of a walking before and after yourself, which is kind of cool metaphor. I love that you put that together. I appreciate it so much. But yes, it is. But you liked before and afters before that. Yeah. I mean, it got weird. Like I would waste, not any, I mean, I wasn't waste to me because I thoroughly enjoyed it, but just watching like cleaning videos or whatever it was. I absolutely loved it. You remind me so much of my husband, which is funny, including being late to this meeting. Are you a late person too?

I've turned into one a little bit. All right. So what is one adjective to describe Bree pre-event? It's like spontaneous, probably. Well, that shows in your trip to China at age 18. For sure. I love that. Okay, so September 23rd, 2015,

five years ago to the day, and weird enough, I think I asked you to be on this podcast on that day without realizing it. That day or the day before. And now we're here about to talk. about the day itself. So what happened on September 3rd, 2015? I think it's important to note that six days before that date, me and my little sister had just moved out of the home that we'd been living in for a couple of years. You're renting it from a friend of ours. And he came over and was like, I'm so sorry to do this, but I just got a huge offer on this house and I can't pass it up. He's like,

we guys work with me? Like, I'll help you. Like, I'll cover like financial costs or whatever it is. But can you work with me? Of course, just helping a friend out. You know, we don't. want him to lose that offer. So we had Wednesday to Monday to find a new place to live. Like, how do you do that? You know? So I was online basically from the moment he told us until Saturday, looking for a new home and just searching around town. And I, it was like Friday and like 1130 at night. I found this house on Roberta Street. And it was this newly refurnished duplex and super cute inside. It was right downtown Salt Lake. It's really hard right downtown Salt Lake. I mean, the majority of the homes are pioneer homes like historic buildings and so it's hard to find spaces with all the

amenities that you want you know this had everything including like hardwood floors like huge chandeliers built-in bookshelves and i know it sounds silly but like we were just so excited about it that had this backyard with hanging white light the big beautiful tree i emailed the dude like he put it up probably 20 seconds before i found it so i emailed them and it's like we want this place he's like you got to chill out girl like come and look at it like take a walk through And I was like, nope, don't need to, less and life. Right. Spontaneous, though, right? You were spontaneous then. Yeah, exactly. And so I was like, no, no, no, we don't need to. We just want to stop.

Like, just let us have it. And he's like, at least come and walk through it tomorrow. So we're like, cool. So we went and walked through it. There's some applications like on the counter. There's a lot of other people walking through it. I kind of hate admitting this. But then I look it back and I'm like, hey, maybe I saved them, you know? Maybe I saved them. But I took the applications and put them in a drawer. I hit them. So nobody else could get them. So, we got the home. We moved in on Monday and we were there for almost a week. Actually, it was the following Wednesday. We shared the duplex with an older lady who had lived there for 25 years. She always wanted to talk. Anytime she heard us open our door, she always opened her door and she was

like on her porch ready to visit. And so I was always visiting with her. And I just figured, oh, she shares like the same duplex in the floor layout. So she was really interested in what room I took and what room my little sister took. And I told her that Kaylee was younger than me. And I was just being friendly, you know, like I didn't think anything of it. And one day before Kaylee went on her staycation, she was like, don't get too chummy with her. She was like, I have like a weird vibe about her. And I'm one to like welcome anybody in and like host dinner or something. You know, she's like, don't invite her to dinner. Like she's not allowed in our house. That was Kaylee's advice? Yeah. And I was like, dang. And she's like, I'm not kidding. I get this really weird vibe from her.

I mean, I told Sandy everything. I told her what room I took. I told her what room Kaylee took. I told her Kaylee was younger than me. I told her all about me. I told her that Kaylee and Blaine were going on a staycation and they'd love getaways and just fun things, you know. When he came in my window, I didn't, I didn't know him. I've never seen him before. Looking back now, I just often wonder if she had something to do with it. Really? I've never heard you say that. And the police haven't been able to figure anything out there? Our case was closed when I think all focus went on making sure that our officer was cleared. Okay. So let's get to that. He comes in your room and is he is he loud no he used a really quiet kind almost i hate to say this but like almost

like an attractive like just very soft voice the sound of his voice it wasn't scary okay so he just climbs through the window climbs through the window i don't know if i told you this but we had like a six foot fence around our house my window seven feet off the ground so he had set up a metal chair that he got off of our neighbor's porch and he used her indoor broomstick to open my window is that sandy yeah That neighbor? Okay, got it. And so when he was opening my window, I was in the bathroom getting ready for bed. I didn't hear him do that. When I went back to my room, I didn't notice that the window was all the way open. And what time is this? Probably like 1155, probably. Okay. That's a creepy hour. Yeah. Again, I look over. I see him come in. I'm in on my bed and my underwear. My first thought was he's going to rape me. I need to get off my bed. But I don't know if you've ever had a bad dream where you go to move and you can't. That's exactly what happened to me. I was frozen. But I don't know. I knew in my head, I knew it. Like, Bree, get up, move, go to the window, hurry out. But I just, I couldn't. And then I finally did. When I went over to the window, my hope was that I could get there in time to push him out because he came in. His fingers were over the window. So he's putting up

himself on his palms of his hands and then coming head first in. And then just one by one, he put each hand on the ground. And then his feet flopped in. And then he was standing up. So by the time I got over to the window, he was standing up. And I just ran straight into him. So I remember my face hitting his sweaty chest. I have a shirt on. He is wearing these khaki shorts, like cartel shorts that no one should be wearing. So he was wearing those shorts. And he was huge.

He was 6 foot to 210 pounds and ripped. I just remember hitting his body and it was just solid. And I was terrified. And 5'3. I looked up. I don't stand a chance. And after your body hit his, were you still paralyzed or like did that? No, I was still paralyzed.

I was still paralyzed. I remember like trying to make. noise, but my mouth was completely dry, which is a sign of a panic attack, which I didn't know. So it was so dry that, like, I couldn't even form, like, a sentence if I wanted to. I couldn't even speak. And I remember putting my hands up. So I had both my hands up, kind of protecting my face and just saying, please no, please no. I had my phone in my hand. I had like a little sling thing on the back of my phone. So I had my phone. I went to give him my phone. I said, here, take my phone. There's my computer. Take my keys. Take anything

you want and he didn't. I figured he was just somebody's brother, somebody's dad, just figured give him him anything you wants and then obviously he'll take it and leave. Right. And if you know somebody with like addiction, you know that they're happy if you can give them what they want, which is money to go get the fix. But it's interesting in that moment, like you were nonviolent towards him. Just let me help him almost. Give him what he needs. Get him out of here. But you gave him the things and he had zero interest in it. Yeah. And did the fight start immediately after you banging into his body? He came in swinging. So he is touching me both hands. He puts his one hand up against over my mouth, shows me up against my bedroom door, tells me to like shut up. He said, shut up and cooperate with me or I'm

going downstairs to get your little sister. And that was moment. Wait a second. How does he know that my little sister is downstairs? And how does he know that she's younger than me? Anyone that meets us at the same time, always assumed at the time, unfortunately not anymore. At the time. time assumed that Kaylee was older than me. And how does he know which room she's in? Exactly. Or I don't know the land. Is it obvious based on the layout of your house? No. And that was the other thing. Even when we were walking through the house for the very first time, I was like online, I was asking the landlord. I was like online, I swear there was a basement. There's a room in the basement. And he was like, oh yeah, this layout is super weird. It's around the fridge. And he's like, I know. It's really weird.

That was another thing. I'm like, what the heck? Like, how does he know that we have a basement? Her room's directly below mine. So her window. was ground level. It would have been a lot easier for him to go through that window, but he didn't. So how many floors is the house? Two. What happens next? So I knew I needed to get him out of my room. And I also didn't want Kaylee to experience what I was experiencing, right. Did you want Kaylee to hear you, though? Did you want her to hear your screams? Yeah. I mean, I did. But more than that, I just wanted him out before she had to experience it. So I figured if I could pull him out of my room and get him into the kitchen and the dining room, we had a huge window.

in the front room. And I was like, somebody will see and someone will come in. Sidebar, which is interesting. My parents, when they were helping move our furniture in a few days before, my mom, she was in our house and she didn't want to leave. She was telling my dad, I don't feel good about this. I don't want to leave until they have blinds. And we're like, well, sorry, mom. Like, IKEA, everything's close. Like, we can't like go and get blinds. And she's like, well, we're going to put sheets up or something because I feel like someone's watching and I don't feel comfortable. So she put some sheets up. but me and Kaylee were like, we can't have that be our first impression in the neighborhood. So as soon as she left, we took him down, which I think about that now.

Like, it is so important to follow our intuition. My idea was to get him into that room. Maybe someone would see and come in and help us. And unfortunately, that did not work at all. So I remember, like, putting my arms, like, right up underneath his armpit to pull him out. And my hands just slid all the way down his arms. He was, like, silky sock. And that was scary, too, because there was, like, nothing to grab.

He was just so soft and sweaty. And like you're not a trained fighter at this point. Like you're just... Just your everyday, right. Your everyday spontaneous just went to China. Now you're back just lived into this. Like you don't know how to fight, right? No, no.

I think I attended one self-defense class that was taught by law enforcement when I was younger in like a church group youth studying. But I don't ever remember like I've never thrown a punch before. I've never done any of that, like, fighting before. And is it just like pure instinct when it's survival turns on to just like kind of know what to do or just feel comfortable touching someone else's body almost? Well, it's interesting because there's three different reactions, right? We have our flight and flight. And then there's also freeze, which is a very common response.

So 80% of women don't fight back. 80% of women, their first instinct isn't to fight back. It's either to fly or to freeze. So only 20% of women fight back. that 20%, only 7% of women fight back the entire time, which is so interesting to me. So I was part of the 80% that didn't fight back until my little sister, she had just fallen asleep, but she said that she was like in the zone where you're like about to sleep, but still kind of awake. And she heard me making noises that she's never heard me make before. And she knew something was terribly wrong,

that something was really scary upstairs. And it was like, it wasn't like a spider scary, she said. And so as soon as she heard that, she came running up the stairs. I didn't even recognize her screaming. Like I thought it was somebody else behind me because her voice was so unrecognizable. So she like gets involved in the fight, you mean? Yeah. So I get him into the kitchen and then I hear her just screaming and screaming. And it's completely dark. There's a little bit of moonlight coming through the kitchen window and the front window. But other than that, like you can't see detail, you know. I couldn't see the tattoos like covering our attacker's body but I could see like his silhouette obviously and like his mustache or whatever but like little details I couldn't see so we're fighting

she's on his back she's trying to claw his eyes out she's hitting him in the throat and they're screaming at each other and I'm scared and I'm like genuinely scared of both of them what is happening what is happening I mean obviously I knew it was terrifying and so scary but for reality to hit like this wasn't a nightmare this is it was really happening but i didn't fight back until he started hitting my sister and that's when it clicked for me and that's when i was like game freaking on so that's when both of us just went him doing anything and everything we're we're screaming we're kicking we're punching we probably punched and kicked each other like we were just going as hard as we could to get him out of our house and we're both screaming at him what do you want

just tell us what you want. Get out of our house. Take anything you want. Just get out. Is he verbal? He's kind of mumbly at that point. And I remember thinking at least he doesn't know where the basement is. Like at least he doesn't know how to get there. And as soon as I finished that thought, he picked me up like a little rag doll, threw me in front of the basement doorway. And somehow Kaylee ended up on the stair behind me. Kaylee like wasn't taking things downstairs. I don't like a mess. So I had like liberal passive aggressive reminders of like, okay, here are your shoes and everything else that you just like left in the kitchen or wherever it was like take them down to your room. Yeah. So I just backed them up by the basement of stairs.

So I had an iron and her shoes. The iron was a lot taller than her shoes were. But luckily when he bent down to grab something to hit Kaylee, he picked up a tennis shoe and he hit her across the face with it. And then I'm on my knees. I'm holding his khaki cargo shorts. and I grabbed the side of a shorts with my left hand and then I twisted my fist into the short. So I had a good hold on it. And then I just remember everything that a girl's taught all growing up, hit him in the balls.

Like hit him as hard as you can. If you hit somebody there, they're going to be down and out. We all know it. We've all seen it. So are punching him there. I'm not missing. I'm punching him with a fist. You're hitting him continuously in the balls.

Yeah. And I'm like on my knees. I have a great shot. Nothing's happening. So I extend my arm. And then I'm swinging my arm up, hitting him with my arm, elbowing him. Nothing is slowing him down. And that's when I know, oh, he's definitely on drugs.

And this is going to be an even longer night than I had expected. Right. That almost just tells you, like, I don't have the power because he has, like, the superpower in that moment. Did a tox report come back to say, like, what type of drugs? Yeah, they found meth and heroin in his system. All right. So you're hitting him. He's not responding.

He's not responding. Keeley's standing on the stair behind me. he lifts up his left leg and like ninja kicks Kaylee down the stairs and he kicked her so hard that she had like a bruise of his foot like on her chest. When we were moving in Kaylee, the stairs are like super steep and really narrow. She had like trips down the stairs a couple of times and so she had counted them. So when she was walking down the stairs she would just count in her head. So there's 17 stairs that were super steep and her little body just blew down them, not hitting one of the stairs. And the only thing that stopped her was her head going through the wall at the bottom of the stairs, which was the only

wall in that entire house that wasn't made of brick and that was put in two days before we moved in. The day that we moved in, the paint on that wall was still wet. Her entire head went through the wall. So, I mean, what are you thinking Kaylee's done? Yeah. So, I mean, he kicked her down. I didn't hear her make any noises. I wasn't sure what had happened. She got a concussion. She got back up and was running back up the stairs to help me when he pushed me. me down the stairs, but because I was holding so tightly onto his shorts, he came down with me. And so then we just tumbled down the stairs. We hit Kaylee's legs. So then she tumbled down a few stairs with us. And then all of us were in the pitch black basement at the bottom of the stair landing.

No windows in the basement. There's a window in Kaylee's room, but her door was kind of shut. And so there was like, there's zero light. And we're at the bottom of the stairs. And it's a war zone. We're doing everything to get him off of us. My chest was like on the landing. of the stairs, but also on like the bottom stair, he's on top of me, he's hitting me, Kaylee's on top of him. It's just a huge mess. I remember I have my phone. I'm like, we got to call 911. I say, hey, Siri, call 911. And she said, I'm sorry, Bray. I don't understand. And my first reaction was like, you got to be kidding me. My name's Brie. Have you ever used Siri before? Oh, yeah, all the time. I mean, but it's Siri. We all know that it's like, hey, Siri, what's this?

I found it on the web. Like, so it's just like, but I figured like that command, She's not going to not understand that. Right. So, yeah, yeah. That one should be like in 12 languages. Yeah. Are you listening, please? Yeah. So then I say it again, three times, same response. It was before face recognition. It had, like, you had to enter the code. So I'm like, trying to enter my password, I couldn't because we're fighting. And so then I say Siri called dad. And so she was like, calling dad. So she started calling my dad. And I knew that he couldn't do anything. Like he's 45 minutes away. There's nothing he can do. But it started calling. I ended the call, which unlocked my

phone. So then I got to my keypad. I dialed 911 and I knew that I needed to wait to put my phone somewhere else because I didn't want to like drop my phone. It was black. I didn't want to drop it and then it be lost in the dark. So I waited until I saw the time counting. And so as soon as I saw it get to three, I was like, okay, that's enough time. I put my phone on the furthest stair that I could reach and then I specifically turn the speaker towards me. And for a minute and 33 seconds, I yelled 850 South Roberta Street. 850 South Roberta Street. I didn't say anything other than what they needed to know my address,

what we're all taught to say when we're calling 911. So I was doing that. Kaylee had her phone. She was telling Siri to do the same thing. She called and connected to three times. They have almost five minutes of us pleading for help. You can hear Kaylee's calls our attacker. You can hear that it's a fight.

You can hear Kaylee say, help us, help us, please. He's going to kill us. Help us, help us please. Then he looks up. And he was like Siri. Like he looks upstairs. Like we're talking to someone. Oh, he has like no idea.

He's like, Siri. Yeah. And we were both ticked. Like, what the crap? But we didn't know that he'd been in prison for 14 years before this. And so he didn't know who Siri was. After that, we're fighting, fighting.

He gets us both in headlock. So he's using both of our heads are in his arms. And he just had to look at both of us. And he said, damn, I didn't think he were going to be this strong. And that was another one of those moments. So I'm like, he's been watching us this whole time. Kaley wasn't fighting anymore. And she'd been screaming.

me that entire time and it was really scary. I'm like, where is Kaylee? Why isn't she talking? I'm saying her name. She's not responding to me. I'm like, what is happening? Like, where is she? Then my attacker realized what I was doing with my phone and he said, stop. And so you can hear the last word in my phone call, the 911 is him saying stop. He ends the phone call. And when he ended the phone call, my phone fell down the stairs. And so there was a little bit of light. And I could see his hand string link Kaley up the wall that he had just figured her through. I know at some point he has a knife that you see. Have you seen the knife at this point? Or no, you just see him strangling Kaylee. No, he's strangling Kaylee. I thought I saw like his veins and my description to the detectives. I was like, yeah, his veins were so big when he was strangling Kaylee. His hands were huge. You're all the way around her little neck. And she's my little sister. So hard. I just remember seeing him doing that to her and he was so incredibly angry. I think that's the angry as I had been all night. And I ran back towards Kaylee's room because I knew I needed to get like as much force as possible. I just ran as hard as I could into his body. And it knocked us into the laundry room.

We broke the door. We went through the door. We're laying on the laundry room ground now. And it's a cement floor in that room. And he's on top of me. And he's just punching me again with both hands, just in the face repetitively, just hitting me. And then his right hand wasn't active. And Kaylee's still not making noise at this point.

So I'm laying there like what where is she okay? Like what's happening? His right hand is no longer active. So then I thought, oh, I have all these pencils for my new students, my English students and this tough war like next to me. I'm going to grab a pencil and gouged like his eyes out. So I reached over to grab a pencil. I grabbed something and I turn my hand and I kid you not. It was like a flashlight or something.

I mean, it wasn't. But I could see his knife so clearly that it is as if there were a flashlight shining on. It was dirty. It was a serrated hunting knife. Like, how big is that for reference? The blade was six inches long. It's a big knife and I knew it wasn't ours. But that feeling of that knife was not meant for me. It's not meant for my body. And this isn't somebody here for drug money. Like he is here for me. And he's saying, like now he's starting to say, I'm going to kill you. I'm going to kill you. And it was terrifying. Then I can hear Kaylee say out of the blue say, no. I'm an effing kill you.

But we're like, we couldn't even say shut up, you know? So it's just like, I have four sisters. And it was just always about being ladylike and polite. And all of a sudden, Kaylee's saying she's going to effing kill him. And I was like, oh my gosh, it was just one of those moments. Or it was like, holy crap, this is real. And I'm just kind of thinking of like next step. Okay, what do we need to do?

He has a knife. So I say Kaylee, he has a knife. And she was shook. She's like, he has a what? I was like a knife. I was like, we need more help. If we don't, we'll die. She said, I'm not leaving you. I'm not leaving you. And then I told her again. And then she said, I'm not leaving you. And that was the hardest part of the night for me. Because I didn't want selfishly. I didn't want her to leave because she was the fighter. She was the angry one. She was the intimidating one out of both of us. She was the one that was

taking no crap. And she was like protecting me. And I didn't want her to leave because I knew that that was going to be the last time I was going to see her. But more than that, I didn't want her to see me be brutally murdered and then be brutally murdered herself. So I said, please leave. You need more help. So she said, okay. And that's when she left. And so she started running up the stairs. When she got to the top of the stairs, she turned the light on. And I just remember seeing her bum and her legs. It didn't like dawn on me until later. She was like wearing a thong because I was like, why? Because I came to the hospital. I was like, why are you like what happened? But I just, I remember seeing her legs. But that was like, I don't know if I'll have another moment like that in my life. I hope I don't. But that was the loneliest.

Right. You're alone with him now. And you need her to go. You need her to stay, but you need her to go. And really, though, you need her to go. If there's. And that's like a game time decision that like just comes out of pure love. So she leaves. She was running up the stairs. That's when he started stabbing me. So the last thing that she heard. heard was he's stabbing me, he's stabbing me. And so she leaves, she's running outside, she's pounding on her neighbor's door, she's screaming for help. She can see our neighbor. Sandy. Yeah, well, Sandy, she's sitting in her refiner, not doing anything. I remember, anytime we would do anything, she was on the front porch, ready to talk, ready to chat, and she did not move. So Kaylee was like, screw this. Like, I don't have time to wait for this lady. Like, I've got to get help. Like, we need to find a place. Like, we need, we thought that

our calls were being dispatched. We thought someone was on the way. So then she just started running up and down the street, just screaming. So as many people as possible could hear, which is a genius thing for her to do. So they had eight calls of eight different neighbors calling and saying something terrible is happening. Someone said, like, there's a lady. I think she's on crack. There's someone that's like, someone screaming bloody murder. Like, there's something terribly wrong. And I'm too scared to go over there. They're getting all these calls. Meanwhile, I'm in the basement. He is stabbing me multiple times in the abdomen. When he started, when he was stabbing me, It wasn't just like an in and out type of a stab.

It was like he was just moving it multiple times, just quick little movements. And then he stabbed. So he stopped me multiple times in the stomach. Then he stabbed me in the leg. And then he stood up and he said, now I'm going to get your little sister. And he laughed. And that was the last thing I was going to let him do. So I jump back up.

So you're stabbed right now and you jump back up. Yeah, which I don't know how that happened. Adrenaline? Is that adrenaline? Like, are you in pain in that moment? or you don't even feel pain? To be honest, I wouldn't have known that he was stabbing me if I didn't see his knife and if I didn't focus on his movements and the silhouette, like his silhouette,

I wouldn't have known that he was stabbing me. When I was on the cement, I can remember my leg stinging, but I didn't put it together that that's why. I get back up, I pull him down to the ground, and then we have this moment that I usually don't like to talk about because I still don't understand it. There's part of me that doesn't like it, but I think it's important now in my healing. especially where we're on the ground, we're face to face. I can feel my hands are like on his upper arm, like underneath his armpits kind of, and I can feel his sweat dripping onto my hands

from his shoulders. I can feel his warm breath on my face and I'm just saying, let me help you. Just talk to me. Please just talk to me. Because I thought like, like, if he talked to me, maybe he would like me. Like, maybe he would understand that I'm a good person and I don't deserve this and maybe there's something that I could do to help him. No, you can get, if you can get through to him on a human level. Like let me just try one last time of the human level. And he put his head down and he said, I'm sorry. Oh, wow. And I was like, it's okay. It's okay. Just talk to me. What do you want? Here's my phone. There's my computer. Just take anything. Just what do you like, what, how can I, like, just take anything you want. But then I was like, Brie, don't tell him, take your computer. Your computer's

upstairs. Kaley's upstairs. And so then I was panicking. like what the crap am I going to tell him to do now because I was so worried he's going to stand up and go get the computer and then I just had this thought like tell him there's a thousand dollars cash in the Nike box in Kaylee's closet and so I told them that Kaylee had two walking closets in her room and she had just purchased like five different pairs of Nike but she didn't tell me because she didn't want me to wear him so she hid them in her closet on the top shelf so he went in and we were walking towards her room and it was just kind of like this slow powerpoint in my head of like okay he's going to walk into her room, lock her bedroom door from the inside, close it, and then he'll have to go through like each closet, then go through the shoes, whatever, you know, to find this cash. So he goes towards Kaylee's room and then all of a sudden he was like, no, I'm an effing kill you instead. And then he's telling me his plan was to rape us and then kill us. But now, because we were so strong, he was going to kill us and rape our dead bodies. So he's telling me he couldn't wait to taste me and all these things that, like, is just very vulgar, very intrusive, very gross, especially after what

he's already done to me. So he changes this mind. He picks up a suitcase. He hits me in the face with it, and I'm ticked. And then he hits me in the stomach and knocks me on the ground. So then I'm laying on the suitcase. He gets on top of me and he's trying to stab me again and he can't. And he was like, why isn't this working? Why the F isn't this working? And I remember saying like, I don't know. But like, don't you just shut up, you know? And then he's like, fine. to stab down in the head. And then he puts his left hand on my forehead. He's holding it against the suitcase. And then he reaches his right hand way far above his head to come down and stab me. And his knuckles just grazed the side of my head. Like he completely met and he did that twice.

And there's two holes in the suitcase that I still have where he missed. So he's getting frustrated that that's not working. He picks me up as his knife at my throat. We're standing up. My feet are dangling. And I kind of gave up. I was so tired at that point. I didn't have any energy left. And I just remember saying like, okay, you can kill me. Just please don't kill my sister. Please don't kill my sister.

And then I just heard something say like, keep fighting. You had this just this inner voice. You were defeated. And at the same time something just told you keep fighting. Yeah. Just keep fighting. My inner self, I don't know. I was just like keep fighting.

And so I did. I mean, we talk about rock bottom, you know? Like people talk about it. And sometimes we throw it out. And obviously, those who are listening, like, life is hard. And like, my, what happened to me isn't harder than what has happened to you. Like, we only know the heart that we faced, right? And so in that moment, though, it was like, I was depleted. I had nothing left, at least I thought. And when I heard Keep Fighting, I'm so glad that I followed that intuition. I acted on that intuition because I needed every millisecond possible to save me. And so I kicked something. I'm not sure

what I kicked, but it pushed us back into the laundry room. So we're on the ground. We're kind of like sitting up against the washer and dryer. He puts his legs up and over my legs, squeezes them together and like pulls me in closer to his body. And then it's like an MMA hold. And then he puts his other hand up and over my arms and then his knife is at my throat. And I can feel his soft lips on the back of my ear telling me he's going to kill me that he's going to rape me, just gross things. And then I was like trying to pull his arm down with my hands from my throat. And right when he flexed to slip my throat, I moved my head over just a little bit. And I could see the stairs and I saw two black shoes coming down the stairs, but I couldn't hear Kaylee. And so I thought it was his friend at first.

I thought they had killed Kaylee. And I was like, you can kill me. I'm not living a life without Kaylee. But then I heard Salt Lake City, please drop a knife. So Officer Ben Holm was originally, we were told that he was off duty, but that isn't the case. He was on duty, but he was responding to a last call before he was heading home. A call that was 13 miles, I think, away from our home. So it wasn't anywhere close to our calls. And as he was driving three blocks away, he could hear Kaylee screaming. And he followed her screams and pulled into our street. She thought that he was responding to our calls. So when he got out of his car, he was like still trying to figure out what was going on. He's a K-9 officer. So he went to get his K-9. But then he thought, if I get my canine, it could attack Kaylee because she was frantic. And so he didn't get his canine. And she was like, hurry up. Like, what are you doing? Get inside.

He's going to kill her. He's going to stab her. Like, go, go, go. And without question, went inside and walked through our living room, dining room kitchen, turn the corner and walked down 17 stairs. Kaylee told him that there were 17 stairs. So he could count. She told him not to turn a light on.

She told him to be quiet because he had a knife and she didn't, you know, all the things. So she quarterbacked the situation perfectly, led him to our basement, and he came right when I needed him very most. He gave my attacker three chances to drop the knife. My attacker didn't take any of them. Instead, he told Ben to step back because he was going to stick me. And when he extended his right hand to come stick me, his head moved out from behind my head. So our cheeks were touching. Our noses were about an inch to an inch and a half away from each other.

And Ben took one shot. And that one shot took my attacker's life and saved mine. And did in that moment, do you even know that it worked? Yes. But it's loud, right? It's not loud. Very loud. Yeah.

And I've never, like, I'm not around guns. Like, I don't know. Are you even sure, though? You're positive that he's gone and you're okay immediately? I didn't know that I was okay. But I mean, by the feeling of the shot, I thought his head exploded off his body. So I knew that he was. I mean, that alone is like a good thing, but that's like very sensory intent.

Hence. No one, including Ben, wanted someone to die. To feel someone die is an experience that nobody. Nobody deserves. But it's tricky too, though, because it's what I'm most grateful for as well. Right. So I don't know. I still navigating. That was the only way for justice in that moment. And just to be clear, Ben was not dispatch. Dispatch never came. No, they never came. Also, I think it's just really important to know that he gave him three chances. to not be shot. But when he extended his arm to come back and kill me, that would have, that could have been it. And that he had already stabbed me. They're actually the stabs that he stabbed me were, they're known as prison stabs.

They're the stabs that are supposed to kill someone the fastest. So he was going from my descending aorta, my small intestine, and my femoral vein. Oh, yeah. He knew what he was doing. Luckily, Ben showed up when he did. So when he died, I remember the shot. It was like, I could see the smoke. And this is so random, but I remember seeing the movie SWAT, which is so weird because I had never thought of it ever. But in that moment, I thought, oh my gosh, he's going to have to shoot me like that one movie. Like, he's going to have to shoot me in the shoulder to shoot him. So he went to take the shot. Like, as soon as he took it, I closed my eyes and kind of flexed. Right. Because I was just like waiting to be shot. And then I wasn't. I had my hair like up in a bedtime ponytail. It was like, like, laughing like everywhere. I can remember my hair was like flew up and then came back down.

And then it was just super slow motion. I can remember the knife drop and then the weight of Berger's dead body instantly, instantly. And so I had to lift his arm up and then I lifted both of his legs, which were so heavy. And then dropping them and they just like, like on the ground. And then I stood up and I stepped on the bullet shell. And when I stepped on it, like spun out underneath my foot. So I went back to look at it. But Ben didn't want me to see Burger.

And so he screamed at me to run upstairs. I don't remember this, but he said that I came to him with like my hands up. I wanted to give him a hug. And I was like, thank you. But he was like, do not touch me. Yeah. A quirky thing about me. I'm so weird about my teeth. I have like the fear of like chipping a tooth. And when I was running, I never skip stairs when I'm walking or running upstairs. And he said that when I ran upstairs, I had no memory of running up the stairs. I remember getting up and then I remember being upstairs. But he said that I was skipping two stairs. After being stabbed, just crazy. So I get to the top of the stairs and the only thing I care about is Kaylee. I just want to see Kaylee. And then I look down. I got to the top and I looked down at my body and I saw what hit on me. And I was losing so much blood just coming out of my body. Like that's when I started it started hurting and I started getting lightheaded. And I looked to the left towards my room and I didn't see Kaylee. I look in the kitchen. I couldn't see her. And then I turned my head to the right. She was there. I just said, thank you, thank you for saving me. I'm still thinking I was going to die. Right, right, right. I mean, you're looking at your body, which was, you know, this whole fight, by the way,

was only six minutes. Is that correct? We think so. I sent a text, like, as he was coming in, I was putting my phone down, and that was sent at 1201. We don't know if it was sent during the fight or right then. And then shots fired was called at 1208, so I guess like seven minutes. Right.

And it's a lot to pack into seven minutes. Yeah. And it doesn't feel like seven minutes, right, when you play that back? No. And even in all of our interviews, I said that he was in for 45 minutes. Kaylee said like 35 to 40 minutes. And Ben, who was only in our house for eight seconds, that's 30 minutes. Wow, that's fascinating.

Yeah. That's his memory? Yeah. Things move super slow when that happens. Do you go to the hospital immediately? No. I laid on the porch for about 30 minutes until an ambulance finally came. Oh, because an ambulance wasn't coming in time, not by choice.

None of our calls were dispatched. Oh my gosh. So we're laying on the porch. We had neighbors. For listeners, I think this is really important. It's very, like, at least in my experience, I wish I would have known. But if ever you're in a traumatic moment like that, it's very important to make eye contact and demands. So we were screaming, like, call 911.

I remember Kaley's, like, telling everybody to F off and, like, all these things. And I just come over her being like, Kili, what are you doing? Like, don't be rude. And she put her hand over my mouth and was like, don't tell me what to do. Like, we're fighting again. She was frustrated because we had all these neighbors with their phones recording and no one's calling 911. And in our neighbor, there were two EMT students that just graduated. So they had their EMT bags.

They came over and there are two men. They had their gloves on and all four of their hands were in all of my wounds. Angels. A lot of angels on your block from Ben to your sister even to these two. And honestly, it's my belief that when I opened my window, there were some divine angels, I don't know, that came in corporate or because otherwise I don't think they'd be here. Yeah, and I'm so glad that you are, obviously. And when you go to the hospital, the doctors thought that he had gotten to your aorta, but he just missed, right? Yeah. So I get there and they're saying, like, trauma one, she's not going to make it. This is it. Like, obviously terrifying. And I was in so much pain, so much pain. I still didn't have any pain medication. I had to wait until I talked to a detective to get pain medication. There was like 16 doctors and nurses around. And the main doctor came in. And I remember him putting like, he was like, like, six fingers in my top wound, like moving stuff around. They took three CT scans and an ultrasound. And they all came back and they were like, he missed. And he was like, there's no way. So he like does

this thing. And sure enough, he missed every vital organ and vein. And they stitched me up. And I went home that night. You went home that night. Where did you go? You didn't go back to that house ever. No, it's good clarification. I went to my parents. And Kaylee, did she, did she need any doctors or no? That's another frustrating thing of our story is we told them that we had just gotten beat up, that she had gotten kicked downstairs. She had a concussion and they didn't take her to the hospital. In fact, they made her stay in the house with his dead body, the room full of strangers and investigators and police.

To tell the story, to tell what happened. Yeah, which I understand. But at the same time, I think she deserves medical attention. Medical and emotional attention. I mean, like that's, you know, I get, and even for yourself too, I mean, you didn't get pain medication because you had to tell your story. I'm sure there's good reason for these things. And for our police officer, too.

Like, you just needed that. I mean, that trauma, there just needs to be more attention on that. Obviously, that six minutes changed your life. And now that we kind of heard that, just immediately off the bat, what's one word you use to describe Bree now? Honestly, my first thought was a mess. Okay. But my follow-up was brave, brave mess.

Brave mess. I like that together, actually. I mean, you can't not be a quote-unquote mess after that because I would imagine you can't distinguish what you call in your in your post that I learned so much from fear versus danger. You can't tell what is about to hurt you versus what is just will this hurt me. Yeah. Every moment that might translate to a quote unquote mess, but that mess is also what protects you. Totally.

Waking up every day and choosing to not just do what you do because I think even if you didn't do what you do, which is helping other, you know, girls learn to fight, which we'll talk about that in just a moment. Like you're still getting out of bed every morning. And I think that there's so much that people don't realize about the weeks, the months, the years after that that's your true fight. Your true fight is now. Yeah. Honestly, I think this last year and a half has been the hardest post fight since my attempted murderer. I think there's a lot that comes into play. I think the first six months, I was in shock. I don't remember a lot of the first six months. Obviously, change is hard, I think, for everyone. And one, form or another, but forced unexpected change on top of like caused by trauma is just a whole new unknown world. I had no experience with any of it. I got home thinking like I would go back to work on

Monday and life would get back to quote a normal, whatever normal is. Kaylee did go back to work that Monday. And she has sailed totally differently than I have and that great, that's her healing journey. But I, for a long time, I compared myself, and that's her story to tell. And so I obviously won't tell it. For a long time for me, it was hard because I was like, why, what is wrong with me? Like, why can't I go back to work? Why can't I sleep in a bedroom? Why can't I go and get the mail without being scared?

My whole independent adventure seeking spontaneous life just crashed into this life of fear and anxiety and I just wanted to be protected. I didn't want anything. I didn't want anything from the outside world around me. I just wanted to be safe. And also from going to meeting new people and new cultures and that bringing in so much light, I was scared of people. I was scared of people. I didn't know and I didn't trust and the unexpected and all of it. And it just every teeny little aspect of my life completely changed. The approach to my life changed. so much of it changed. And for a long time, I thought it changed for the worst. And I thought that my life wasn't one I wanted to live anymore. I don't really talk about this, but I feel safe here.

I am so incredibly lucky that I survived because so many don't. And that's what fuels me to tell my story is obviously to help me, but there's part of me that wants to honor those who don't live and those who don't make it because they can no longer, like, stand up for themselves. There was a long time and there's still moments, but there was a very long, dark time in my life where I would beg God, higher power, anything, just why didn't you just let him kill me? That would have been, I don't mean this disrespectfully to the people who have died. But in those moments, it just seems like it would have been a lot easier just to not be here anymore. But when you get on stage and you tell your story or to the listener, you know,

they tell your story is like, okay, there's this event and then it happened and it's over. Yeah. And then like, you know, you walk off stage and they tell your story of that six minutes or yeah, who knows how long, really, then you're left afterwards with the aftershock of, I mean, you never even got to say goodbye to, you know, spontaneous Bree and that life. You never wanted her to leave. And all of a sudden, like, you're a new person with a completely different nervous system. The nervous system is what goes into fight or flight and protects us. And now you have a nervous system that, you know, a fly is on your shoulder. I'm making this up. You didn't say that, but you're timid of it. I mean, I'm exaggerating. Oh, yeah. But not really. Right.

So does it feel like you're like living in a body that's not yours? Oh, yeah, for a long time. And that's why that day before my attack, when I called my mom, like I'm finally where I've worked so hard to be. I didn't even know that person. Like that was so far gone to me for so long I couldn't even fathom getting in my car by myself. What I want people to understand and what I imagine is that despite now being five years out and I think the longer it goes, the easier people expect it to get. Like that's not the case, right? Like the triggers are there every day in surprising and unsurprising places and you have to get through those every step of the way for your passion and purpose, which has become to tell your story to help other girls learn to fight, right? Yeah. Actually,

one of your posts, well, a lot of your post, I can't remember the specific one, but you talked about the importance of boundaries. And this was like right after we had met. And I remember thinking, what is a boundary? And at this time, the first year and a half after my attack, I did a hundred and like 80 something speaking engagements. I was doing them all the time. Full time job. I wasn't doing my English business anymore. I was letting this, what happened to me, completely 100% define me. I didn't feel like I could say no to people. I was trying to people please. And it's almost weird because you go and you tell, I mean, it's a terrible thing. I'm like telling the story, but you get like, I felt seen almost. And I like wanted people just to see me for Brie,

but they weren't like seeing me for Brie. I don't know. I just, so I just got into this like speaking mode and it was like silently destroying. me because I was giving so much and I had nothing left to give. I remember I being in Arizona, like a year and a half after speaking. It was the second one I did in one day. I had just flown from another place from speaking. I was so tired. I had a cold and I was just standing there like, this sucks. And that was right around the time I found your boundary post. And that was like, okay, I have got to start making boundaries. I have got to like help myself before I can help others. right? And so as soon as I put those boundaries in place, that's really when my healing started.

And so, and I mean, even for this call, you know, we scheduled it. And then you went offline for like, I think a week or so. And you were like, I just need some time to go offline. And I was like, I love that. She's doing that. Didn't know that, you know, this is sort of a new thing that you've learned. But I think that's good for people to hear too is, whatever your level of trauma is, whatever your level of emotional processing, whether it's just surviving COVID even, you know, take time and boundaries to go offline and not just say yes to everything. Do what you need to for you. That's really that's really the key. So you start fight like girls. Tell us about fight like girls. Yeah. So I originally started fight like girls. We were talking to detectives and he said he said something that just stuck with me.

He was like if only all girls would fight like you girls. So when he said that, I was like, oh, fight like girls. And then I met Elizabeth Smart. We were connected and she invited me. to be a part of her book. So she was interviewing me and then she mentioned something about speaking and how she spoke and if I ever had an event that she would be happy to speak at. And so I was like, okay, like, entrepreneur Bree is like, oh, cool. I'm going to like create a company and she can come and speak at an event. And so that night I went home and I started to play like girls as a way for both of us to share our stories to help women and girls in the community. And we did and it just kind of grew from there. But even as it was growing, my entrepreneur self was like, I didn't really

pursue it from a business perspective because I wasn't ready mentally or emotionally. So it has just served as a platform for me to tell parts of my story when I want to share it. And then it wasn't until recently I have decided to turn it into an actual business with resources that I've gathered for the last five years that have helped me keep fighting mentally, emotionally, spiritually and physically to give to other girls who are looking for help. And those resources stem from different self-defense classes that I've taken and certified in to things like breathwork or whatever it is that have helped me because so much of my fight way more than the physical fight has been the emotional and mental fight. And I think that that's kind of my focus moving

forward is to change the definition and the conversation of and around self-defense and how it's practiced. One of the things that I'm really passionate about is having like this level of intimacy broken between people. And so when people hear your story, they might be afraid to ask you which there should be caution always when talking to somebody with trauma. But I've heard you say that like people were very quick to ask you, how are your wounds healing? Do you have scars? But nobody said, how are you emotionally? Yeah, for a long time. Or I mean, maybe until you open that door for people to say, for you, you know, to go on stage now and say, okay, my fight wasn't, isn't just that six minutes with Burger. My fight is waking up every day. I think depression was kind of a foreign concept

to you. And anytime I've heard you talk about this, it kind of feels like you're like afraid to take up space in depression. Like you're not allowed to be depressed because you survived or does that feel right? Because that's what I hear when you talk about depression. Yeah. It's so interesting that you say that because I've struggled with that so much. I think that it's hard for me in the victim world because there are so many, again, who don't make it or for like myself, I'm like, you need to be great. or you need to be positive or all these things. And I'm like, you actually don't. Right. I can be grateful and depressed. I can be and it's okay. And if I like don't recognize that and start working on it. And I love that you said grateful because I think gratitude like keeps our heart

open this morning. You know, since you like my dances, I was having a little bit of a, I was so excited for our call, but there was so excited. That's a funny word too. But I was looking forward to speaking to so much, but my mind was being consumed with some doubt, some worries. And I just kept like doing a grateful dance and just saying like, I'm grateful, but I also have feelings. And I think that sometimes when we talk about positivity, we think that it needs to displace the other feelings, but it's not. It's just there to keep our heart open enough so that we can allow space for the, I wouldn't call them uglier emotions, but what the world has told us are uglier emotions. And, and And I'm, you know, I've never been a victim like you, but like victims, like, I feel like you get on stage for that 180 times and everybody's applauding you for your strength.

And then like, you know, the wounds are healing and the scars are going away or the scabs. And then like nobody knows what's really going on underneath except for like I need to be this face of strength. Yeah. And for a long time, I almost felt hypocritical. Like, oh, here I am on these stage. Like pumping girls up to physically fight back and like telling them that part of my story that people are most interested in. that they're paying me for. It's like there's like a value of that part of my story, but it just feels like in the world there's not a value to the other part of my story, which is in a way, it's so much harder. And it's definitely longer. And it's definitely taken me way longer to navigate and to have the energy to keep fighting than it did in those six minutes.

On the outside, you know, your trauma was physical. But while he didn't get to you sexually, that has to be violating for a man to be touching. you even in fight or then in the moments where he had his arms around, like to feel another human's body. You know, before that, you were going on dates. Now, like, dating must be very hard too. And if there is a dating for you right now in the future, but it's all these things that people don't think about because they see you as strong and you want to be seeing as strong because you want to help them. You had mentioned that when you started talking about depression, lines were out the door. Yeah. And I think that that's important to validate yourself is like your story of that six minutes

is important, but even more important maybe is the fight that you're fighting every day. There's a lot of women, unfortunately, who can relate to my six minutes. There's a lot of women who aren't here that could have related, that relate to my six minutes. But there are men, women, boys, girls, everyone across the board relates to my fight after my six minutes. And that's where we connect. I think that's where when we're at our rock bottoms, when I started opening up about my depression, my anxiety, my fear, my low self-esteem. There was this man who didn't know my name. He knew nothing about me.

And he wanted me dead. I was worthless to him. And that feeling is so hard and also so lonely. And I think that no matter what takes somebody to their rock bottom, what takes you to yours will be different than what has taken me to mine. And by the way, believe that there are more than one. But we get there. And once we're there when we share and when we're open and willing to talk about or just willing to listen, then that's where we connect. And that's where we can find hope to keep fighting. Exactly. And I actually wanted to name this podcast, Rock Bottom, but first of all, it's taken. But I mean, to your point, you know, the reason I wanted to call it Rock Bottom was because in my life, which has had none of the trauma on that level like that is just, you know, the moment in my

life, which seems so silly, that where I hit my quote unquote rock bottom is like there was always this feeling of like, there's only up from here. So again, my stories don't compare to yours. But I think that's where we relearn our strength. And it's once we're knocked down a little bit, do we have to kind of re-figure out our courage here? So tell us a little bit about like the self-defense that you subscribe to, how it's physical, mental and spiritual. So when I told you about five like girls, how it got the name. The man who said, I respect him wholly, but that it kind of has evolved for me. So what it meant to me then was like, oh my gosh, I need to teach girls to keep fighting, which I will keep doing. But now how to keep fighting physically, how to defend themselves.

Yeah. Yeah. That's how I was like, okay, we got to like fight like Kaylee fought that night. Like I got it like really. And you fought too. Yes. But I wanted to raise awareness of like we have to react. We have to make a choice right now that we're ever in that situation, that we don't have to be polite, that we can be loud, that we can be mean, that we can do claw, bite, scratch, do whatever you have to do. So that was very important to me. But as I've evolved and as I've healed and as I've talked to victims throughout the last five years, the phrase, if only girls would fight back, bugs me. I'm like, no, no, no. If only men would stop abusing women. It's not about girls, not fighting or fighting. It's not.

about men abusing women. Self-defense isn't a women's issue. It's a man's issue. And that's not a battle of the sexes to me. It's not a battle of the sexes, but it is like men who abuse are hurting women. They're hurting men as well and boys. It's adult men who are responsible for over 99% of abuse. And it's their issue. And so my approach to self-defense is, yes, I want to teach women to fight back physically and I'll continue to do that. But I'm also simultaneously going to be digging to the root of the problem, which is at what point do men turn into monsters to abuse? And how can I work with men, good men, to change the discussion, to not make it about if girls would do this or if people would always say, well, if you would have closed your window or if you would have done that. And nothing

infuriates me more than that. Because I could sleep with my windows wide open. And it is, not okay for a man to come in my window, but it's put against the victim. And it's just the conversation has to change. And we need each other to do it. And so my approach to self-defense is, yes, let's physically fight back. Let's address the mental and emotional things as well. I think that my physical fight, it was tiring, it was hard, but it felt like in comparison to my mental and emotional fights with anxiety and depression. And earlier you said that maybe your story doesn't quote unquote compared to mine, but it absolutely 100% does. Yours does.

Those who are listening. There are stories everyone's do. And it's just a thing that we have to like, we have to acknowledge because that's where society has kind of tricked us into thinking that if X, Y, and Z doesn't happen to me, then it's not hard. And that keeps us from healing too. And so I think for people listening and just know, and like for you too, like your fight is hard. There's validation there. And I think the less pain felt there's more pain caused. And I think

that it's okay to feel pain. We need to. And so we don't cause more for ourselves or in Berger's case to others. And now that Fight Like Girls was kind of your mission for the last few years. And there's a new baby on the horizon will hopefully be launched by the time this podcast is out. Tell us about the new baby and the evolution of Fight Like Girls. Yeah. So Fight Like Girls is really attached to the night of my attack, right? And I just feel like it's losing focus of my message and what I really want to be advocating for. I have been pursuing a lawsuit for the duration of the last five years. And I have wanted, I saw negligence, I saw needed change. And I have been fighting against the dispatchers, the state of Utah and Salt Lake City. Wow. Because none of them came to your rescue.

None of them helped you. The protocol was rigid. They were asking you questions you couldn't answer. I feel like it's a very dangerous. dangerous system that puts the community at risk and not just Salt Lake City. It's a nationwide, actually international software system that I believe is very dangerous. And not only is it putting communities at risk, but it's putting law enforcement at risk and just as much as that's because no one is being dispatched. But there was also other negligence that I haven't really been able to talk about that I will continue to talk about in my new platform, the B.M. Movement. But Berger, my attacker, shouldn't have been out of prison. And he was. And he's let out of

prison negligently multiple times. He went to a state-run halfway house that had zero security. It's a shit show by being frank. Law enforcement officers that I've talked to, many of them who have sent me messages anonymously say that they refer to it as the, it's called the Fortitude Treatment Center, but they refer to it as a fugitive training center. So it's just a very dangerous place, but it is run by the state of Utah. And watching that place after my attempted murder, there's been several other murders from people who have gotten out of there. And anyway, so I'm just trying to pursue change, right? So I filed this lawsuit against the software company.

We ended up losing the lawsuit earlier this year, which is frustrating and that's a whole other situation. But it has allowed me to finally be able to tell all the parts of my story and to create a place of resources to help girls and women keep fighting while we disrupt the conversation around self-defense. So I decided to name it Bia after Nike, the Greek goddess's little sister, Bia. So it's kind of a nod to Kali. Bia was the goddess of energy and might and strength and power.

She is the one who bound their greatest threat and saved the people. And she placed torment in the direction of the tormentor. And I think that that's what I'm trying to do with the Bia movement. But I can't do it alone. It needs to be more than my story. I need your story. I need the listener story. we all just need to link arms to make this to make it happen.

Right. And that is why you embody, I think, living your truthiest life. From the start to the self-reflection to the physical fight to the emotional fight to five years later now saying, you know, fight like girls, this isn't about me. I need all of us to come together and talk about the rock bottom moments because sweeping them under the rug is not helping anybody emotionally, physically. It's not changing the system. it's not changing the conversation. So if we, hopefully by the time this launches, we can go to the Be a Movement and check it out. On Instagram, will you be Fight Like Girls anymore?

You'll be. No, be a movement across the board. Be a Movement. So I'll put in the show notes when this is out where you can find Brie, most importantly. And just a couple of close out questions a little bit more light. First question is just, can you provide any tools as to how to shift away from victimhood into empowerment? And I don't think this is a static thing.

like that you do once. Like I feel like even for myself throughout the day, like I could play victim for little, not obviously in trauma. But throughout the day, it's easy to kind of shift the narrative. Is there anything you do to move out of victimhood into empowerment? Yeah, actually, there's a lot of things. And some days it will sincerely be opening my blinds and like looking outside and looking at three things and saying out loud what I see or what I'm grateful for. There are other things moving my body. That's a huge thing for me because I can feel myself getting stronger. I can feel like when I'm sweating, I feel like I'm working really hard. I'm releasing like the negative things or like trauma held inside of my body and that feels empowering. It feels like I have control. And then I just

think controlling my thoughts or being on top of my thoughts and defining whatever I'm up against before it defines me that day, whether it's my pants aren't fitting or just changing my pants and being okay with it and like moving on with my day instead of just letting it define me. I try and define it first. I heard you say on a podcast and it actually rocked my world that thoughts are not reality. Yeah. And so, I mean, I feel like I didn't have the language to explain that, but that has drastically helped me too. Like I used to be very fused to my thoughts when you can have your thoughts not automatically trigger the feeling. Yeah. It disrupts things. So I think that starting to listen to your thoughts and questioning them is super helpful and I've learned that from you. That means so much to me.

I think that I had a therapist tell me that if ever I had a thought, like, I really struggled when I first moved back to Salt Lake after six months of living with my parents. I was in my house all the time. And that doesn't help my depression. That wasn't helping my depression. So I was like helping one thing, my fear by staying inside. But then it was just a mess again. No, but a normal mess. An important progression. Totally. An understandable, relatable mess, right? I'm just like, like, how are you supposed to? I don't believe in balance. I believe more in like harmonizing. I just balancing is just I can't do it. And so I just have to like take it off my radar. But my therapist told me that whenever I have a thought to write it down and then put it at least six feet away from me and then read it out loud, point to it and say that is just a thought. So I would do that all the time.

I just had a little post-it note stack and I would just write my thought of if I was going outside to get the mail. I just write that someone is going to kill me. And I'd put it over there. and then I'd be like, oh, no, they're not. Like, that's just a thought. And it helped, I mean, slowly and, like, practicing that helped me make that habit, form that habit of tracking my thoughts. And it's been very, very helpful in healing.

Right. I love that. Well, I love that as a tool, I should say. Not that I love that. I love that. I love that. Two more questions. One is a little bit more of a yes or no, and then the other one is just fun.

So we're moving into light. Do you believe that everything happens for a reason? I could easily sit here. and say, yep, everything happens for a reason because everything's moved me along, dandy so. But for you. I mean, my first answer would be no. Mm-hmm.

That's really tricky. I think that we can define the reason, whatever that is. I have a hard time believing that Burger happened to me for a reason. You know, your strength is saving lives every day. Fight like girls, soon to be Bia, is saving lives. From a learning to fight to a learning to process your emotions, it is saving lives. And although you went through the horror, there were so many almost moments from the suitcase that, you know, just saved your life to Kaylee. I mean, every bit of Kaylee's involvement to the layout of your house.

You know, there were so many moments that it's clear to me that you're here for a reason. And I've been magnetically pulled to you from the beginning. But I think even pre-bre the spontaneous one, I would have been pulled to her as well because there's something so special about you. And then the last question, which is fun. Gosh, well, before you get to the last question, I'm like, you kind of made me change my mind on my answer. Okay. Well, sometimes I think we need each other to tell the other person what we see in them because from when we're sitting, it can get a little foggy. And that's why having these hard conversations is important and asking somebody, are you okay, really?

You know, not, oh, or your wounds healing, like getting into it, being there for people who were, you know, you were a stranger on the internet two years ago or whenever I found. you, but being human to each other is important because we can see the strength that we might not feel in that moment. Yeah, I also think that you help me shift my focus. And that's like another lesson that I still, this is a good example. Five years later, when you ask that question, like my trauma makes me focus on burger. And really, I need to be focusing on the bigger picture like we've been talking about. But I need to do that in my own way. Like, there were so many other things that happened that night that were good than bad. And so thank you for helping me. The trauma brain is always going to be there to protect us and it's always going to jump in

first. So thank you trauma brain for, you know, allowing me to feel like maybe everything doesn't happen for a reason because that makes me feel unsafe to then shifting it aside, moving into gratitude, acknowledging that really sucked and hurt and why me, but also look at where I am alive and breathing. And there are sometimes and some people that have connected in my life, including you, that I can't imagine life without a lot of connections that have come because of it or growth or personal growth or experiences that I've been able to have too. So it is interesting when we decide to keep fighting and when we decide to define that we just redefine our entire lives, right? Yep. And then the last question, which is fun, is if you were a tree, what type of tree would

you be brie nothing like a little bow on top of an intense conversation oh you can thank elissa chase who created the jingle to my podcast for this question she's always sprinkling questions into my great question great question well my first thought there's this tree in southern brazil where i lived and there's no branches all the way up and then the branches at the very top are just it's the most random tree i've ever seen but it's just like flat across it looks like a pin just like a pin just like standing up. I don't even know how to... We don't know the name of it. A Brazilian tree. Okay, yeah, look it up. We need that tree. I'll find it. My second response, though, would be an oak tree because it's nostalgic and I had those growing up and I just love to climb them and just hang out with

them. That's, I guess, where I found... Spontaneous brie, up the oak tree. I love that. I like that that's where you went to, to the innocence of you. So that's telling. There's always meaning to these questions, perhaps. All right, Bree, thank you so much for coming on and more than bravely telling your story, like being emotionally available to tell your story. And thank you for reminding us about boundaries, our inner strength, and that we don't always need to be strong. And there's a place for all of it. We are so excited to see what you're going to do both personally and professionally. And I'm honored to know you. You're the best. Thank you for having me. And thank you for sharing your platform and doing everything that you're doing to help people keep fighting as well. You've helped me

multiple times. I can't even believe that. But thank you, Brie. better believe it, sis. We'll see you over on Bia. Okay, thanks for having me. Well, that was quite the episode out the door. I do have to let you know that not every episode is going to have a story like Breeze at that level of intensity. But like Bree said and why I thought she was such a great first episode out the door, we all have our own fights to fight and they're all uniquely hard in their own ways. And I want to reiterate an important part that Bree said that really spoke to me. And it was that it's okay to feel pain. It's necessary to feel pain so that we don't cause more pain and hurt for others. So remember to support Bree by following her,

supporting the Bia movement. And if you like this episode, which I so hope you did, subscribe, rate it, and leave me some comments. This will be so hugely helpful. And if you've got your own story to feature, I'd love to hear from you. Email me at hello at truthiestlife.com. All right, if you have ever dealt with a traditional home security company, you know the drill. Expensive monthly fees, contracts that lock you in for years, and waiting around for a technician to set everything up. It's a lot. Well, now they're Simply Safe. They have completely changed the game.

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