The Chris Voss Show - The Chris Voss Show Podcast – Elayna Fernandez, The Positive MOM

Episode Date: September 7, 2022

Elayna Fernandez, The Positive MOM Thepositivemom.com

You wanted the best. You've got the best podcast, the hottest podcast in the world. The Chris Voss Show, the preeminent podcast with guests so smart you may experience serious brain bleed. The CEOs, authors, thought leaders, visionaries, and motivators. Get ready. Get ready. Strap yourself in. Keep your hands, arms, and legs inside the vehicle at all times because you're about to go on a monster education roller coaster with your brain. Now, here's your host, Chris Voss. Hi, folks. It's Voss here from thechrisvossshow.com, thechrisvossshow.com. Hey, we certainly appreciate you guys tuning in welcome the show once again we certainly appreciate you guys being here hey you might have heard the announcement on the last show

we slammed it in at the end as of september 1st the chris foss show and the podcast i think the show.com was created somewhere around the 19th of august 13 years ago. And the podcast was created or we started tracking, you know, dates of all the stuff we did on volume around this time. So September 1st, the Chris Voss show, all of it is officially 13 years old. 13 years. My God, what a ride it's been. And I'm tired just thinking about it. And do I have to really do another 14? Anyway, guys, we really love you guys. We had an awesome year for the last three, four years, three years, maybe four years. It's all starting to go.

We've been doubling and tripling every year and we did it again this year. It was just crazy to look at the numbers. In fact, what was even crazier was we knew we were going to hit our mark of hitting what we've been doing every year since. But like the last month, we were up 30%. And it's kind of funny, every year we double and triple, double or triple. And then what we'll see with the numbers when we hit this point is that we're

going to double and triple again based upon what we have in the can going forward. So it's almost like, well, if it just keeps going this way, it'll just keep hopping. And it just keeps getting more exciting. So we appreciate you on the show. We love you. Thanks for being part of the family that loves you, but doesn't judge you, The Chris Foss Show. And thanks for referring your friends, show and neighbors and relatives. If you can, go to iTunes, give us a referral, give us a five-star referral over there. Tell me how much you love the show. I mean, give me a star for at least every year we've been around. So 13 stars, please. You can do that. It's not going to be possible. Anyway. So guys, be sure to go to all of our different places on the interwebs, goodreads.com, Fortuna's Chris Voss. Go to youtube.com,

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I think we've captured them in the wild. Sounds like one of those nature shows. And now we've caught them. Whatever. Anyway, you guys got it. It's kind of a neat thing. We captured them in the wild, brought them on the show, and now they're here willingly to tell us what amazing thoughts they have.

Today we have Alina Fernandez on the show and now they're here willingly to tell us what amazing thoughts they have. Today we have Alina Fernandez on the show. She's joining us today to talk about her website and everything she does and we're going to be talking with her about all that. So let's get into it with her. She is a best-selling author, international speaker, and self-made mom entrepreneur. She's best known for her award-winning blog, thepositivemom.com, which has inspired millions of moms in over 160 countries to transform their grief into growth. She was born and raised in a slum of the Dominican Republic with a multiple-time trauma survivor. Her mission is to provide moms with skills, strategies, and steps to find peace, break cycles, and feel whole. She holds a home and family studies certificate from Brigham Young

University in Idaho, as well as numerous certifications in the areas of neuroscience, personal development, and positive psychology. She's an avid storyteller, story strategist, and student of pain, and she's spoken on prestigious stages around the world and has served as an advisor to leading brands and some of the most renowned transformative leaders of our time. Welcome to the show. How are you? I am honored to be here with you, Chris, and just laughing that i'm willingly here but you caught me in the wild we caught you in the wild we captured you you know those you know those nature shows where they're always like and now the lion the hunter is sneaking up on the lion

yeah yeah just gonna dart in them and sounds like one of those will ferrell movies so welcome to the show we really appreciate it now get to the pronunciation your first name correct yeah elina elina there you go i'm learning i'm learning i flunked spanish as a kid but i used to be able to count to 40 in spanish and i used to be good and then i learned how you know the differences between a male and female in you know there's that and all that but other than that i flunked spanish and i wish i know better but I love to turn on Telemundo and just the language is just so beautiful. Oh, thank you. Well, you know, I think that my English has become very good looking over the years. There you go. Very good looking. There you go. So give us your dot coms as we get into it. Where

do you want people to visit with you and get to know you better on the interwebs? Yeah. So, you know, the positive mom is my blog. I've been blogging for almost 18 years. So I was resonating with you with, oh my goodness, it's been so long and there's still more to come. And that also my community for moms, which is community.thepositivemom.com. And I'm everywhere you can think of on social media at the positive mom. There you go. She's also the author of the newest book. She's written several books. We'll get into that. But her newest book is dancing with death reflections from a student of pain that came out February 22, 22. That's two to 22. Got a lot. We had a bunch of authors that came up for that day. That day was like really popular with authors. We had like had a bunch of authors that came up for that day. That day was really popular with authors.

We had, I think, 20 authors that came up. I'm just realizing that right now. Yeah, 2-2-22. I remember doing it because we had a ton of authors, and I was like, this is a fun day to have a book. No, you just blew my mind, actually. There you go. So let's start off. Should we start off talking about the book?

Yeah, we can. Let's do that. So how many books have you written? We talked about this in the pre-show. Give us a rundown on that. You're quite the prolific author. Thank you. Well, I've written a lot of books and, you know, I started out sharing my skills, which are, I'm a geek guest. That's what I call myself. So I really love digital marketing, content marketing, social strategy. So most of my books were about that, but this last book, Chris, I really wanted to tap into my stories and to model for other moms what it's like to be a student of pain. And it was a really hard journey, but a fun one too. So we can talk about that for sure.

Let's do. So, you know, you mentioned in the bio you came from the slums of the Dominican Republic. And it sounds like from what I read and stuff, there was some trauma that went on in either your youth or younger years or maybe childhood? Yeah. Mm-hmm. Yeah. Go ahead. Yeah.

And my poetry was really to express all of that trauma. And so that is one of the tools that I teach moms because my mission and the reason why I do what I do, and it's a little bit misleading because it's the positive mom, but it's not only to be positive and bypass our pain. So we must go into our pain, lean into our pain and study it in order to really become positive. Because what we tend to do as humans is that we tend to dismiss, downplay, or maybe deny our pain and go straight into gratitude, straight into

just joy or enjoyment, I would say. And we really don't allow ourselves to feel our pain. And that happened to me for 19 years. I was really just moving through this motivational state, which was fueled by anger. Because as a child, I was very abused, very neglected and I wanted to show other people that I was actually worthy, that I actually had value, that I actually could achieve what they told me I would not amount to do. And so that was the driver for me. And I'm not trying to say that to shame myself. it worked. It was a strategy that worked at that time. But then I realized that I had to find a different way. And I didn't realize that very easily. Actually, I had to go through this very traumatic event at 19 years old. I was going to college in the capital of my country. And as I was trying to catch a public transportation car, which is like an Uber slash bus, I was kidnapped by this gentleman that I thought was a driver and put through the most horrific experience that a young girl or a human can go through with, you know, being assaulted in every possible way, emotionally, physically, sexually. And so with that, Chris,

I understood after I escaped this situation that I really didn't like it when people wanted to motivate me and tell me positive things about what happened. So people would say like, oh, you should be grateful because it was a miracle that you survived. Or they would tell me, oh, thank goodness that the pregnancy test is negative. Or they would say, you know, something like, oh, don't worry because he's going to pay for his crime. And so I realized that we invalidate others with our positivity. That makes sense when people do that. And they kind of minimize the trauma that you went through Right, when they do that Exactly, and so not only

You know, I realized that I had been doing That to myself for 19 years Yeah, and it's a bit of gaslighting Too, whether you're gaslighting Yourself or other people are gaslighting you It's minimalizing it and it's also gaslighting it You know, when people tell you Who've never been through maybe the sort of trauma That you went through or other trauma And they go, oh, it's also gaslighting it you know when people tell you who've never been through maybe the sort of trauma that you went through or other trauma and they go oh it's you know it's not as

bad as you think it is and you're like well you you didn't go through what i did yeah what the hell like and and and i i think the reason i've seen people do it i'm not a psychologist clearly the last thing i was a psychologist right now all the psychologists they're on is going he's clearly not a psychologist but he needs a lot of help but but i think one of the reasons people do it is they're they're faced with the struggle of seeing someone or you know they have to think through the process a little bit of like oh my god what a horrific thing and the horror of it in their, because they've never experienced it, that's kind of their reaction. And so in my mind, I just have to go, you know, okay, I see people react to that.

Like, you see people, like a good example is the Sandy Hook thing, where people got shot up at Sandy Hook. And then a lot of people disbelieved it. We've had some authors on the show who wrote books about Alex Jones and I think, or 9-11 was a big thing where the shock and horror of it was so much that people had to believe that it was fake or it didn't happen. It was their way of trying to compact. Oh, for real. Absolutely. It just furthers the injury to you because the gaslighting, you know, it just makes it worse because, you know, people are telling you that, you know, well, maybe it wasn't as bad as you thought or maybe you're not that big of a victim or maybe, you know, why should you be hurting more than the rest of us? Yeah, exactly. You know, and I think you just enlightened it for so many people because we are uncomfortable with pain.

If someone crying, what do we do? We say, oh, don't cry. Or we hand them a tissue because we feel physically uncomfortable with the pain of others. And we want to go into fix it mode. And that is augmented when we are parents. As a mom, you know, you want to just into fix it mode. And that is augmented when we are parents. As a mom, you know, you want to just soothe and fix. And the thing is that people don't need to be fixed and their pain doesn't need to be fixed. People need presence.

So instead of, you know, that's what I learned from that, that instead of denying that I went through something or dismissing what that was like for me or downplaying that it was, you know, this little when it could have been this big in comparison, let's not compare our pain sidebar. But what I learned is that I needed to be present with my pain. And that's why I wrote the book, because when we are present with our pain, we really unpack what happened. And that's how we can realize what we're going to do moving forward in a healthy way. That's how we really are positive because we can gain a new perspective that can give us a sense of purpose in life. And that can help us really relate to others in a different, more, I would say, improved way. There you go. And is that what you referred to in the title,

a student reflections from a student of pain? I've seen you use the word student of pain before in some of your stuff. So that's probably what you refer to, right? Yes. It's really seeing or acknowledging. I call it see it, sense it, and say it. You see what happened to you and you observe it from a distance. It's called psychological distance. And that's why the poetry is in third person, but it could also be in second person. Like I could say, Elaina, you went through that and that was hard. So first is see it, then is sense it because our trauma, it's stored in our body. Yeah. So when you feel something, you know, your palms get sweaty or your heart starts racing or your shoulders slouch, you know. So it's a physiological experience. So I absolutely want to connect with when I'm feeling sad, where do I feel it? Is it an emptiness in my stomach or maybe a lump in my throat? So very physical.

And then the say it part, it doesn't have to be physically say it it's expressing it through words written or or said but also through art through boxing it doesn't really matter how you express it but you have to get it out it doesn't belong inside of you because that is what creates the trauma and that's what creates those triggers yeah i. I watched one time, it was the Leaving Neverland interview at post the movie with Oprah and a guy who had been molested as a child by a police officer. He made this statement that was pretty profound. And he said, you know, the main thing I had to do was open up and talk about it and admit to it, admit that I had been a victim. And he said, the problem was, is the poison you keep inside you is, is the poison that kills you.

It doesn't kill the person who hurt you. And so he talked about how, you know, all the years he was hiding it. He was ashamed of it. He was unwilling to accept himself. He was victimized. And until he came out and said, this happened to me and it was wrong and talked about it, the secret was killing him.

It was destroying him on the inside. And so it's interesting to talk about that, how you need to let it out. Absolutely. You know, if something is not sitting right with your stomach and you eat it, it has to come out. It's like Taco Bell night last night.

Well, I'm vegan, so I wouldn't know but but don't go that this is about it but yeah it's trash inside of us it doesn't serve us anymore you know it's like i was telling you we all need to give grace to ourselves because at some point, this kind of behavior worked for us and that's why we did it. These strategies helped us survive and yet they are outdated today. So we don't need to continue the same pattern. And that is where we have power. I have the power to say, yes, this happened to me. No, it wasn't my fault. Yes, it has affected my life. And yes, yes, yes, I want to move on. But it's because I want to move on, not because someone is telling me that it's been 10 years or somebody is telling me that, you know, it wasn't that big.

It's because I have processed it enough that I can move on now. I can learn from it, study it, right? Study it by sea sense and say it. And then now I can get the learning to move forward. There you go. There you go. Yeah. It's, it's, it's, it's good advice. People need to, you know, we've had a lot of psychologists on the show over the years and dealing with trauma, addressing it, preferably seeing a psychiatrist. And the sooner you can, the better, because, you know, if you hold it in, you take it through your life, you can look back and you can see the damage that you let it done. And it's, it's kind of like a baton race. That's probably the best analogy I can give on the moment, but you know, it's kind of like someone damaged you and now you're damaged and you go through your life causing a wreckage through your life sometimes because you're damaged and until you

reconcile it. And sometimes you can look back on your life and you can go, well, I, that might've been better if it had been for me not dealing with that. But, you know, people poem is turning my pain into poetry. But then I have a bit of teaching after that that helps the audience really understand what that means and how it matters to them. And then there are prompts that help them unpack what they've read and also apply it to their own lives. So it's really a workbook in itself that allows people to unpack, process, and move from their own pain. And let me just jump at that because a lot of people are going to hear like, oh, you were kidnapped and, you know, all of these things, you lived in a slum and they can't connect with that. But let me tell you what my mentor says. My mentor, Gabor Mate, he says,

trauma is not what happens to you, it's what happens inside of you as a result of what happens to you. Wow. Yeah. That's powerful. Yeah. It doesn't matter what you went through.

We've all been through trauma. Actually, if you go to the CDC website, you're going to find that over 60% of adults that are brave enough to talk about it say that they had at least one adverse childhood experience. Wow. So we all go through that. And trauma is not only caused by abuse. It's also caused by neglect. Oh, wow. Yeah.

So if someone, you know, maybe said, well, I had a great childhood, you know, I didn't have poverty. My parents were married, you know. But there was one moment in which, you know, we're locked in a closet and nobody found out for 10 minutes. That, your nervous systems reacts to that and you carry that through life if it was not processed. So it could be something that quote unquote simple because trauma isn't simple. That's true. That's true. It's very complex and sometimes it's very subtle. You know, sometimes people are in denial about their trauma. I think they, you know, they go through that phase.

But no, this is really good that people, there's something out there that people can learn from. Because, you know, like this, the reason we have people on the show, because stories are the way we learn from each other. And so, you know, finding out, I think that's one of the good things about everything we've ever done.

I wrote about it in my book. It talked about how, you know, my first dog died. I didn't want to share how painful emotionally it was. It was long, it was long, it was a while ago, but I didn't want to share how emotionally painful it was. And I didn't want to open myself up, but I'd written this, just this, the night of it, after she passed, I just wrote this whole thing and I didn't want to publish it on my Facebook and share it. Cause I'm like, well, this is really selfish. Like who cares what I think? And then I shared it and I, and I was just stunned at how many people it opened up, you know, their pain. I had people write me and say, you know, we never got closure with our, with the relative we had, or we never

got closure with our animal. And when you, you know, posted what you posted, it helped us get clear on, you know, sitting down with that pain and going, hey, we didn't get closure with this. This has been an open wound for a while. And it was interesting. It helped way more people than it helped me. Yeah. So it's great that we do this. And then it made me realize, too, that we're not alone.

There's lots of people going through sometimes similar conditions sadly but that is the state of the world and human nature i guess and by you know sometimes that feeling of not being alone in the universe and feeling like i'm the only one going through hell especially in a world that we live in today where you know on instagram everybody everybody as far as I'm concerned, is living the million dollar lifestyle. They have no problems. Everyone's always smiling. Yep. Filter, filter life. Filter life, the filter life. That should be the title of your next book. So we've talked about that book. Anything more you want to tease on that book? Because I want to cover some of your other properties and what you do.

Well, you know, I want to say about what you just said that, you know, I always say that pain is the common thread of humanity. So the only assumption that I like, you know, I allow myself to make about another person is that they're suffering. Because that's really, you know, we're born through pain. Even if you, you know, were adopted, that was painful. I mean, everything that is human is painful. And actually, I'm reminded of a quote by Mr. Rogers, Fred Rogers, right? Same person. He said that anything that's human is mentionable, and anything that's mentionable is manageable.

So when we share our stories, which is what I like to do on my blog all the time, we give others language that helps them then see sense and say their pain. And that's what you were doing. That's what I'm doing with my blog, but also that's what I'm doing in my community because we are, we feel that sense of we're not alone in this. And you know, the research shows that basically that's what the trauma is. It's the feeling alone in the suffering that people that have what, you know, in the research they call supportive, nurturing, and stable environment. Whether it's a mentor, whether it's a teacher, whether it's, you know, a friend, whether it's a therapist, right? Whatever that is, when you feel supported in adversity, you can bounce back from adversity sooner because you become resilient. And so not only is that trauma when other people invalidate your pain, you go further into that cycle. But when you have a supportive group of people or

even a safe person that is just there for you without trying to fix it for you, but that is present with you, then you are able to thrive. So that, I want to talk about community. When you ask me like, what else do I want to say? Yes. You know, being in a community of supportive people that not only share their struggles, but, you know, become then fluent in speaking the language of being there for you. When they're struggling, that is key. And that's why I was motivated. Actually, you know, I was, I remember when I had my babies that were one and two and I became a single mom. They're 18 and 19 now. But the reason I started my community was because I felt so alone.

I wanted to end my life. I was just in the fetal position on the ground floor, just saying, nobody's going to understand what I'm going through. Nobody has been where I am. And there is no way out. And so when we hear somebody else's story, we are able to lean into hope instead of the hopelessness that we feel when in the middle of that suffering. There you go. There you go. And let's lead a little bit into that. So you grow up in this small town in the Dominican Republic. I think you meet your husband there, if I have that correctly. We met in war, yeah.

Oh, okay. And then you travel to America and you get out of that, the Dominican Republic, and then you get married and you start having kids. Tell us a little bit about your journey and, of course, how that led into ThePositiveMom.com. Yeah, absolutely. So, you know, I grew up in a very dysfunctional situation. You mean a family? No, I'm just kidding. Well, it was the situation because, you know, if you think about the slum, everyone is in poverty. Everyone, you know, you have to fetch water. There is in poverty. Everyone, you know, you have to fetch water. There is no sanitation.

There's a lot going on in that community, right? And so there's a lot of, there was a lot of addiction. There was a lot of abuse everywhere. And, you know, the research shows that it's not even enough for you to experience it. If you experience that other people are experiencing abuse, you also become, you know, traumatized from that. So I witnessed a lot of things and experienced a lot of things, but that can sum it up for you. And then, you know, obviously I went through that kidnap. Then I went through a coma for eight days. Wow. So, yeah. What would induce that?

Well, I, after six months after I was, you know, freed from my kidnapper, I actually was in a car accident and the car fell on top of me and I had an, you know, I was actually pronounced then for a few minutes and had an auto body experience. You know, there's a, there's a poem that describes kind of the afterlife as I experienced it in my book and, um, and basically saw myself laying there and, you know, going through all of the things. And I remember having the choice that I didn't want, you know, I didn't want to go back to all that trauma. But actually in the coma was when I realized that being still was necessary to process my pain. I had been dismissing and denying and downplaying my pain for 19 years before that.

I couldn't do anything more. But the reason why this is relevant is because I had come up with the story in my head that my worth was tied to what I did and what I achieved and how much I proved to everyone else that I was worthy. And so I was able to gain a lot of, you know, financial prosperity at a young age. I was able to, you know, get awards. And that's how I came to the United States as a college student with a work and travel program. They provided a visa for me. I was able to come to the United States and spend the summer studying here and working and even making more money. So I was living a really great life. And because I knew English at a young age,

which is another story that you're going to love. I was actually really successful. And that's how I met, you know, the father of my two children, Alicia and Alyssa, who are 19 and 18 right now, and that we got married in the Dominican Republic. And then because of 9-11 and the implications of that, I ended up moving to the United States. And yeah, I felt really, really foolish that after moving across the country, leaving everything that I had built, now I found myself abandoned, homeless. I didn't know where to go. I didn't have, you know, anybody that I called my family or my friend. And I didn't know how to drive. Trauma from the car experiences that I went through, you know, trapped in a car, trapped under a car. And now I had to get a driver's license, had to, you know, and had the privilege to get a job to make ends meet, move into a roach infested apartment.

I had to really restart my life. And I was resentful, too, you know, because here I was, I couldn't leave the United States because I had two citizen children and, you know, had to wait a long time for my custody. And so I had, I was dealing with so much healing and some, you know, so many things with this divorce that really took a toll on my self-esteem. And so I think that even though one part of me was so happy for, you know, so much that I had in that moment, like my children, my most precious treasures, but I also allowed for another part of me to be frustrated and to, and to also, you know, look for it a different way. And I think that that's really important to highlight for our audience, Krista. We can't just be one thing.

There are many layers to our emotions. And, you know, I think that that's where the gaslighting sometimes comes from, is that I can be sad that this ended and grieve that. And I can be sad that I'm alone and grieve that. And I can also be happy that I have my kids and that I can survive here and that I know English and that I can rebuild myself. We are multidimensional, multi-emotional, and there's room for all of our emotions when we're going through the journey

called life. Definitely, definitely. So as we start to get towards the end of the show, let's talk about the positivemom.com and then your community that you have. Let's talk about how you help people go through all the different things we've been talking about up to now. Yes. So with my blog posts, I'm always giving strategies and skills and steps that moms can take to really be positive. And that means that they are going to become more peaceful at home because they're going to process the trauma and break those cycles so that the momster doesn't come out too often. Momster. I've seen that movie. And they're also going to be more present because they're going to have tools to be present to their own emotions.

So they're going to be able to tend to that child. Because when you have unhealed, unresolved trauma, you're really just going on autopilot and it's going to be passed down. When we don't transform our trauma, we're going to transmit it. Okay. And so they're also going to learn how to be more playful because as we start to get into our body and to understand what's healing for us, we're going to be able to really give our child that experience while also healing our inner child. So a lot of those tools are on my blog and they're going to be on purpose because I teach them how to create income and influence and make an impact as a mom with the

tools that I share on my blog. But through my community, they get the support piece that we were talking about because strategies and structure are great, but without the support of others, we really can't thrive as we would with it. We need those nurturing experiences. We need to know that somebody else is going through the same journey and to, you know, Tony Robbins says success leaves clues. So we look for those clues, but we also provide our own clues and we realize that we're wiser and stronger than we thought we were. So I really love when people join the community. It's free. It's absolutely free. It's a love offering for everyone to join and talk about motherhood and really be nurtured through that.

That's awesome. That's awesome. That's good for people to have because they need that sort of resource. So you've got a dedicated community that people can go to. They can sign up. They can join. I see there's a motherhood chat, a mompreneur chat. Yeah. There's different events and resources that you have on there.

It looks like you have part of the community in Spanish. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. Different events and resources that you have on there. It looks like you have part of the community in Spanish. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. So if you speak Spanish, we also do the motherhood community in Spanish because I think that, you know, one of the things that I didn't start was really reaching out to my community of Hispanic speaking, you know, Spanish speaking community. And I feel that there's a need for you to listen to these messages in your own language. Yeah. It resonates differently. Do you find, I've been seeing some of the articles on you, you know, they've called you a Latina, Latino, Latina, Latina entrepreneur and inspiration.

Do you find that you really motivate that community? Do you find you have pretty much broad appeal to everybody? And I suppose being a mom is the ultimate, you know, everyone, I mean, everyone who's a mom, I'm certainly not, but you know, the experiences is pretty much moms go through most of the same challenges. Yeah. You know, and I have moms from 168 countries that I reach. And yeah, the experience is pretty much the same. Right now, you know, I have an 18-year-old, 19-year-old, 9-year-old, and a 2-year-old. Oh, wow.

I have all ages. Wait, can you give me that again? 19, 18. 9 and 2. Wow. Yeah. Yeah. So, you know, we really go through the same things.

We really experience the same emotions, ask the same questions. And it's really reassuring. And I think that inspiring is more than motivating because motivation is something that comes from outside. But inspiration is something that really comes from your whole spirit. And so whether you have, you know, yes, there's intrinsic motivation, like something causes you to gravitate to something else. But I think that through the journey, because I don't have a bow on my experience. I'm always experiencing something new and struggling with something new. So because I'm really vulnerable and I share so openly, I know that I inspire them. But I also know that they inspire me and we inspire each

other because we all have something to offer when we study our own pain. Definitely. Definitely. Well, this has been wonderfully insightful. As we go out, anything more you want to tease out or share so that people will check you out? Yeah. Well, my TEDx talk. There you go. Tell us about that. Oh my gosh. You know, so I got really angry about this, the way that people talk about teenagers and yeah, I have a, I have several, but let me just tell you about this TEDx talk coming up in Georgia on October 21st. And, you know, I really feel that I model this so well because anger is talked about as a toxic emotion most of the time, but we can channel our anger to

make a difference. So I got really angry about how teenagers are portraying the media and how even as parents, sometimes we talk about them or to them. And so because of that, I created this, you know, I wrote this talk and now it's going to be on TEDx. And it's just really wonderful to realize that everything that you feel can make a difference if you do it intentionally and if you do it on purpose. So look for what makes you angry. Look for what makes you sad. Look for any emotion that, you know, what hurts you and see how you can make a

difference in that space because you can. Everyone can make a difference. Yeah. So we should probably talk about them better. I mean, they're good people, right? They're amazing people. I mean, sometimes I'm really humbled them a chance and we listen to what they have to say, we know that their voice doesn't just matter. Their voice is really what's going to build our future.

And it's really important, too. I mean, like you say, they are our future. And it's really freaking important. So give us your plugs so people can find you on the interwebs, please. Thank you. So thepositivemom.com, my blog, and community.thepositivemom.com, free community for moms. And also on social media, at Elaina Fernandez, The Positive Mom. There you go.

There you go. Well, it's been wonderful to have you on the show. Thank you so much for coming on. Thank you, Chris. You're amazing. I love your show, and I'm very honored to be here with you and everything that you share. We're honored to have you as well. Man, you give me some great epiphanies and some great thoughts on trauma and healing

and everything else, and I'm sure you share a whole lot more with your audience. So definitely people should check you out. Find out more about what you're doing over there and get involved. And it's good. Don't be alone in this world. We all go through pain. We all go through struggle. I don't think I've met anybody yet who hasn't gone through a cathartic moment.

And if you haven't gone through one, that probably means one's coming down the pike at you. There's an old line from, there's an old line from Metallica where it comes to be that the soothing light at the end of the tunnel is a freight train coming your way. So you may think that you're living a road, but you know, I've never met anybody, even, you know, even sometimes you see people, so people see movie stars or, you know, see, they'll see someone who's seemed successful on the outside and they won't realize maybe some of the pain that they've gone through and the struggle they're going through, or maybe the struggle they're going through at the time. Anyway, thanks for tuning in. Go to goodreads.com. Fortune says Chris Foss. Go to youtube.com. Fortune says Chris Foss. Go to all the places on the internet. Holy crap. We're 13. I think we just

turned teenagers. I'm going to have to watch your TED Talk to find out how I should treat this teenager because if the Chris Foss show is 13, I'll have to buy insurance, and it's going to want to date and stuff pretty soon. I don't know. I'm probably not going to let it date. Anyway, guys, thanks for tuning in. We certainly appreciate it. Love you all.

Be good to each other. Stay safe, and we'll see you guys next time.