The Chris Voss Show - The Chris Voss Show Podcast – Whispers, Sinners, and Saints by Nancy Heart

Episode Date: August 6, 2024

The Chris Voss Show Podcast - Whispers, Sinners, and Saints by Nancy Heart https://amzn.to/4cvcR5L Whispers, Sinners, and Saints is a multigenerational story of heartbreak, horror, trauma, abuse��and perseverance. At the center are Anna, born in New York in 1959, and her mother, Ann, a Hungarian woman who immigrated to the US in 1957. Ann was twelve when the Nazis ordered the slum where she’d grown up to be the designated ghetto for all Jews. During that year, most of Ann’s family would disappear or be killed. Her means of survival became the streets, where she removed clothing from corpses and snatched items left behind by those taken to concentration camps. Young Ann witnessed murders, torture, and persecution. After Anna was born, Mother Ann shared the atrocities she’d endured by physically beating them into her daughter. Ann swore to make her child “pay for all the wrongs done to me in life,” while Anna promised to “grow up and never be like my mother.” Miraculously, at five months old, baby Anna found enduring salvation through an omniscient connection, All Knowing. Yet, Anna craved a human saint to save her. But who? And where would they come from? Whispers, Sinners, and Saints is a raw and gripping true story of survival and resilience. About the author Nancy’s recipe for happiness is to share ideas and deep thoughts and avoid wasting time in superficial conversations and gossip. She has traveled six out of the seven continents. Having grown up in Manhattan and South Florida, she is a xenophile—preferring exposure to various cultures of the world over sand and sun. She graduated with a Bachelor of Arts in Psychology from the University of Miami, studied Art Appreciation in Europe, attended the Fashion Institute of Technology, studied Kabbalah and Buddhism, and traveled the perimeters of the United States. Nancy’s philosophy is: “One who laughs loudest, masters pain the best.” Pain offers the opportunity to discover one’s true self and greatest strengths. Nancy now lives in Colorado. She is an ambivert, and when not writing with her Maltese-poodle “Cookie-Cake” by her side, she enjoys urban hikes, mahjong, scrabble, reiki as a master, and meditation. Above all else, Nancy appreciates quality time with friends and her adult children.

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2 000 shows plus go back and watch them all just binge them and when you get done just binge them again it's fun she is the author of the latest book that comes out that came out march 18th 2024 it's called whispers sinners and saints by nancy hart it could be an autobiography of myself but i'm sure it's a work of her own fiction so nancy will be joining us on the show to talk about all of her stuff sinners and saints did i do the same part or i just do the center part i don't know both you did both and it's an autobiography you were right about that it's not and it's totally true yeah sinners and saints there you go so she is the author of the latest book she has two more books coming out soon there's still more to share she has a recipe for happiness to exchange ideas and deep thoughts while avoiding wasting time

in superficial conversations and gossip, even though she's now on the show where we'll do superficial conversations. She's traveled to six out of seven continents. Having grown up in Manhattan, South Florida, she is a xenophile preferring exposure to various cultures of the world over sand and sun.

She graduated from the University of Miami with a BA in psychology, studied art appreciation in Europe, best place to probably do that, attended Fashion Institute of Technology, including Kabbalah and Buddhism, and traveled the perimeters of the United States. The perimeters? You didn't go to the inside part? I live in the inside part right now in Colorado, but no, I didn't go to the inside part? I live in the inside part right now in Colorado. But no, I didn't get to do the inside part. I did the outside part.

Got a lovely flavor of all the wonderful people in our wonderful country. Isn't it, though? We have some interesting folks. The outside flavor is kind of the crust, though. It's kind of like if you get toast, you just eat the crust part. You should try the middle. The middle is tasty. Of course, you are in Denver, and it's a wonderful middle up there.

Yeah, I do like bread. All parts of it, unfortunately. All kinds. That's my problem. I'm a bread-dipping fiend. So welcome to the show. We certainly appreciate you coming on, Nancy. Give us a.com.

Where do you want people to find you on the interweb? Okay, wonderful. So nancyheart.com you can also find me either on youtube on instagram and facebook it will be nancy heart author there you go and give us a 30 000 overview of what's inside your book oh what is inside my book okay it's an intense read. It's a historical read. And it's to not concentrate on the negative that is going on that I talk about in the book. It's to have a light shining on that there are negative things that happen, but the negative things that happen were all hidden lessons for me to learn from. And I just got to do it a little bit earlier than other people, but I found my own

tools to see that like two negatives is a positive. I think it really, it really does affect that. I think a lot of people end up in institutions, end up looking for their happiness in the bottle, on the bottom of the bottle. The bottom of the bottle. We'll see that maybe on Friday night. Yeah, that'd be a good one. And maybe that'll be the next book. I like that. I actually like that title yeah all right i'll have to watch this again just so i can remember that one my mind was always love at the

bottom of the bottle love at the bottom of the there you go yeah better or the genie's not at the bottom of the bottle but yeah so the hard stuff i write and i share about the hard stuff totally authentic i don't even change the name of the characters of the first book because So the hard stuff. I write and I share about the hard stuff. Totally authentic. I don't even change the name of the characters of the first book because everybody's passed away. So I don't have to worry about that. Ah. And that I could have just, you know, carried on the trauma and perpetuated that. That was handed down to me.

But instead, I'm what they call a transitional person meaning i stopped it and instead cleared the path so that the future generations in our family which is just my son and my daughter have a clean start they don't have to go and work out all that trauma and i learned that this also clears past karma for the ancestors yeah generational trauma is really a thing we've had probably 200 psychologists on the show we've we've done a few shows and yeah we've it's it's definitely a real thing at first i thought it was kind of foo-foo i'm like well how does the how does a degenerational trauma work? Do you get this through the chromosome? But no, it really does because it's passed down from behavior to behavior between parents and stuff. It's what you learn. It's what you see.

And then, of course, then there's the genetics that occurs in it. In this book, I talk about also my mother has Asperger, and I'm a hypersensitive child, so this is not a very good cocktail. And I go further and further into that in the second and third book, how that works. Yeah. Sounds like you've incorporated some of your life into your book. Tell us about how you grew up. When did you start writing? Kind of know when you had that knack for writing or want to start writing? I think you mentioned earlier in the

green room that you start wanting to write since four, but let you tell your story. Okay, great. So I really had a very, very hard childhood. And I say that because I had my mother was a refugee right from Hungary and I never got to know my father I had a grandmother from age 5 to 11 but my mother was hype very abusive very neglectful I write about historical part of the book is that we lost our family in the Holocaust. Yeah. So my mother was a child of the Holocaust and my grandmother had the numbers on the Holocaust and it wasn't really spoken about until later. I knew my mother being very abusive. How did I know I was going to write at age four?

I had a horrific experience where she threw me out of the car and she beat me in front of other people and other people would you know maybe maybe other kids would I don't know I don't know how other kids would react but me I always had to ask why and what is the purpose of this I was always very curious and how do i make this into a good thing because this is i how do i go on in life like being beaten all the time just the looks of me would get her like wow like primal animal to eat the young it was very very strange very strange and as a child you're trying to process all that yeah you're trying to process all that. Yeah, you're trying to process all that.

Why am I? This is a strange way to be loved. Yes. So I don't have brothers and sisters. Yeah. So I don't have a father to report to. My grandmother was working hard. She did the best she could. And I was pushing why, why, why, why, why. And I was, since I'm very young,

since even before age four, I write about it in the first book, is that I would have a voice come to me. And I did go to therapy to make sure that, you know, if it was schizophrenia, then, you know, you need your medication right there's nothing wrong with that you take your medication and then it's respectable everybody's got their own thing and so i actually was always advised and given wisdom and guided as to how to look at things so when this particular thing happened he was always a he voice said you everything will be all right when you write oh yeah and therefore i did not understand all right a l r i g h t and w r i g r i t e it took me a while, but when I got it, I said, that's a promise I will make. I'm going to tell everybody.

And there's got to be a purpose for it. Yeah. There you go. It sounds like it was a coping mechanism in a sort of way. Does that sound correct? It made me, you know, while I got beat, I kept saying I'm going to write my book one day. And this is all for me to, I've gone to process this. And what I've got to write about is, you know, at least I don't do drugs.

I don't do alcohol. I don't do, you know, the worst thing I do. I was on the phone last night and I was saying to my friend, it's 9 o'clock, but yeah, I'm sorry, I'm chomping on my peanuts right now. So I shouldn't be eating that late, you know on but i wanted a snack oh we all do that yeah that's healthy yeah that's healthy like my things are usually healthy and now my addiction is writing like like it's going out of style i'm writing yeah yeah you know writing is writing is a really good solace i don't know if that's totally the right word i'm looking for it's close but it is a cathartic sort of thing experience i think that's what i'm looking for i find that it can

be cathartic i think it's cathartic and a lot of times it's like a prayer where i am channeling what needs to be done yeah and guided so i you know, I know, I think, I've never been to like a writer's retreat. I've never taken writing in school. I remember, in fact, my gosh, I was supposed to be graduating high school in three days, and the teacher said, I love your character descriptions, but I think you need to stay after school for grammar, whatever it is, grammatical, whatever it is. That grammar crap.

Yeah. And I was like, yeah, that's great. I'm graduating in three days and I'm off. But I love to write and I taught myself to write. So it's okay. There you go. I kind of do the same thing. I think I started writing early as a coping mechanism.

You know, the world is coming at you hard. And sometimes if your parents aren't stable, you know, as a child, you can't handle it. You don't have a way to handle it. And it's overwhelming. And, you know, a lot of people shut stuff out of their memory. You know, they forget about stuff till later. And I guess according to psychologists, what that means is that your brain says, hey, you can't handle this right now, man. This is way too much for us to cope with.

So we're just going to go ahead and put this aside. Or I think in your case, let's write. And that makes it so that you can cope with it and all that good stuff. And that makes all the difference. Yes, yes. And I do remember, too, I i would paint i was always a painter like in third grade i was the only one allowed in this gifted program to be allowed to paint all day long at the easel and somehow i would be able to raise my hand

but once they took the easel away that was it it was like i was shut i was shut off but that's like a create i think if you have creative you have the need to create that's a big part of it i think that's maybe where the cathartic solace comes from is by creating you feel like you're expressing yourself and and and it's also kind of it's also it'sartic. It's just kind of like you go through it and you're just sitting there going, oh, this feels good, you know. And instead of, like I found if I get angry about something, sometimes it's good just to write it out and then throw it away. Yeah. And then, too, I think it's oxytocin when you complete like a body of work and you read it and you're like, oh, I wrote that. Man, that's awesome.

I love it man wow you know that that too is is very good and to get the like you write it down once but literally i must have rewritten this at least 25 times because you go back in it's just like a canvas when you fill up every single aspect on the canvas, now is when you're starting to really create. Yeah? Yeah. So I think then you're getting, no, that's not exactly how I mean it. I need to fix that.

I need to really get in the moment. And you can get lost. It's a great way of escape, too. You can get lost i was reading this thing about creative people and one of the one of the the one of the hallmarks of people that are the most highly creative and successful at it they're usually procrastinators and so like the people that you know they do well they'll get you know you give them a project they're okay they're they're like i'm on it all right working on that project you know they're down the road meanwhile people like me i don't know it might

be people like you we're just kind of fucking around you know we're just kind of well kind of i'm gonna go over here maybe do this over there and i always thought i was being a procrastinator because i'm like i just god what are you doing dude right you know i'm procrastinating stop it but what what evidently we're doing is we're looking for the creative thing. We're asking our subconscious mind to bring us something. And we're trying to find some inspiration, too. So that's part of it. We're also kind of, let's see if, you know, let me find an inspiration, you know,

something that will trigger us into that sort of creative process that we need. And that's why we're more successful at being creative by being procrastinators. Oh, I think, I don't, I wonder if I, I don't think my mind ever shuts off, honestly. Even if I'm watching a show, I might not know what the show is about. I will space out because I'm like, oh, you know, that's what I need to put in there. And then this is what goes there. And, oh, I got to go back. And I have to walk around with a paper and pen wherever I am.

I got to have that so that I can go ahead if I'm playing Mahjong. Oh, that's a good idea. I got to write that down. While we are not physically maybe getting ready the way somebody else does, I think they put this label procrastinator. I think maybe we're still working, but in our artistic way. I'd rather say that. There you go. I think, yeah.

Yeah, I think that meets right there in the middle of what I was saying. There you go. Now, so you've incorporated a lot of this into the book. Let's get back to the book and talk about some of the characters in there and now did you see that some of the characters were based on your life yeah they're all it's all true the whole 100 true everybody's passed away so i don't even i don't use last names but everybody in there that's that was their name. I fully give character descriptions. It starts, what I did not know is when I started writing my book,

I did not know that it would really have to go back to my mother's history because I was so much just raised to be a people pleaser, just to please her until I went to college, you know, to survive. The therapist said, I remember the first question. So what do you do to be happy? And I said, I have to make my mother happy. That makes me happy. And that was the first time I, he says, no, that's not, you have homework. That's your first assignment.

So the characters, my mother is actually the sinner. Because I do write about a monster. But then my grandmother, who is the saint in the story, she explains in the last, what do you call it, chapter of the story, she explains in the last chapter of the book that the difference between a monster and a sinner is a sinner hurts an innocent person. And she was hurting me, who is an innocent person being a child. Whispers is the main character, I think, because he is the character that whispers in my ear and that's how i call him whispers and he always whispers in my right ear so i've been told that could be like an angel oh there you go so angels and saints or saints and saints and let's see sinners title sinners

and saints but you know the saints can be an angel too so yeah there you go i don't like this so would you call this a semi-autobiography or a fictional autobiography or an autobiography oh it's an autobiography yeah it's definitely yes it's written like a novel it's not written like most autobiographies and it's a historical because i go through you know there's a lot of history i go through talk about communism and i talk about the nazism and i talk about what my family went through i mean and it but in a different kind of way uh like that they were the poorest jews that there was and they there are mistakes that they've made in life. Holocaust, the Nazis didn't help. Yeah, that, that was a sad thing.

Yeah. I mean, there's damage from that tragedy. There's trauma, right? There you go. And, you know, that it probably influenced your mother to behave in not the best manner towards you. I do write that a lot of people would say, you know, her quirkiness was due to that. And I'm still out about that. I don't like to kind of teeter-totter because she had more.

I think it's more of what was handed down in the family. Her father, her grandfather, because she was a bastard child. I mean, I'm authentic. I say it the way it is. Her father, her grandfather, because she was a bastard child. I mean, I'm authentic. I say it the way it is. Grandma, love her, beautiful girl. But she fell in love with a royal and she got royally screwed, let's say, that way, pardon me. But my mother never knew who her father was. I mean, knew her the father, and he was royalty, blue blood, while they were, you know, living in poverty.

Poverty. They lived in the ghetto before the ghetto got circled as being the ghetto. Yeah. Yeah, but going back to, she had Asperger, and she had tentacles of explosive disorder. And I describe her grandfather as having episodes of very bad explosive disorder. Wow. And generational trauma. Yeah, generational. Yeah. Yeah.

And, you know, that's the sad part. part but you know the great thing is is you've you've put a stop to that you said hey we're not going to keep keep this pain passed down generation to generation and i think a lot more people need to think about that way and and seeing if they can stop you know everyone needs to go to therapy i think after covid pretty much at this point i think that's where I'm at. Including me, I'm not above it. Although I think I do a lot of trauma. I get a lot of psychologists on the show.

That's my trick pony. I get to talk to them before the show and during the show and after the show. And then they get to sit there and be, you know, usually I'll see them motaring boats or something off of the advice they're having to give me by the hour. So they're like, I'm going to buy my new yacht now that I see how damaged Chris is. Oh, wow. Wow. Nice. Yeah.

Yeah. I bought a few boats for a psychiatrist. That and strippers too. The, put it through college. That's a joke, people. Just roll with it. We're from Vegas. The, what else about the book that's inside of it that we need to know? Huh? The put it through college. That's a joke. People just roll with it. We're from Vegas.

The what else about the book that's inside of that? We need to know. Other than that, the, the, that all negatives, that negatives are not negatives to look at a negative. Like when you get pushed to not just say, and you see this, a lot of people, oh, oh you know they get wimpy and they get whiny and then they leave it at that i'm hurt and they leave it at that because they don't look for the tools to say why would why don't i see it that it's that person that's their personality. And why do I need to keep going back to that person and keep taking it? Instead, life is pushing me in a different direction and showing me that I belong somewhere else.

You know, this is what I think is very important. There's so many subtle hints that the universe, if you're keep an eye open that you can see that be more attuned to. I know this is a very much of a, you know, money, money, money,

money, money. I got to have money kind of society. But you know, a lot of people are not happy. So I think that there's some kind of balance and after of course you have to put food on the table this is obviously a necessity but then what about what are you doing going back to the first question what are you doing to be happy are you

grateful and if you are grateful what are you grateful for is Is it fall under, oh, people are looking at me. I'm very important. Then you got ego. And, you know, look at what your obscurations are. What is it that's defining you? What did you do for somebody else today? Even as simple as walking down the street, somebody smiled at you. You didn't turn your head, but you smiled back.

That's huge. Yeah. Just being nice to people and good to them. Definitely. The most simplest things is just huge. Just being kind and courteous. And if you're not, then maybe see, maybe there's something I need to do to change that. You know, look at those signs.

Definitely. So now the other two books I think you said you're working on, how do those fit into the scheme of all of this? Yeah, they are sequels. Okay. They are sequels, yeah. So we're going to tell your whole life story by the time we're done then, right? Yeah, pretty much mine and everybody else's that I've met in my life.

Yeah, I think everybody has a story. And I think, you know, that's what really people are in our lives is so that we can learn who we are, what it is that we don't like about somebody else. Why is that bothering us? Sometimes we have that in ourselves and it bothers us. So therefore, we need to change that. Yeah. And that's what people are for, to learn our power, our self. That's what we always say on the show,

stories are the owner's manuals to life. It's stories of the fabric of who we are. They really are. Even though sometimes we don't have the best stories, we definitely take a look at, you know, what our stories are and then try and figure out how to make the best of them

or to survive. Sometimes it's just survival. Sometimes it's a matter of just knowing that you're not alone in the universe and that other people maybe went through what you did and they survived.

And so maybe they have a blueprint that you can survive with. You know, all these different things make a difference. And so we always talk about that on the show. I mean, stories are everything. It's how we learn. It's how we teach each other.

It's how we educate. It's how we entertain and all that good stuff. So it'll be exciting to see. What's the dates that these new books might come out? I'm in queue with my editor for the second book, and I'm almost done with the third book. So it's kind of 25 was when I'm going to see the second book come out and then I have to be in queue and wait but the second book is done that's written and it goes more into paranormal actually which is very interesting because being you know with whispers and, and having

knowing things ahead of time, what happens in my second book is I predict somebody's death. And at first, you know, who I have to tell, it's going to cost me my life. And they were going to put me in a booby hatch. That's what we called it back then or a loony bin right like the within two weeks then they started to look at me and go okay i think we have to start to look at you in a different kind of way and then i i predict certain things and and i continue doing that still do that today i can i for some reason i'm able to do that and i could read pictures and and the fourth book will will be all out just all my paranormal experiences like a whole bunch of them too you know i think that there is so many horror movies i watch horror movies and i'm like this is not how it is i don't understand what are they do why do they do this

why do they make it so scary for regular people no wonder people say oh my god aren't you scared when that happens and I go no no I'm not scared because I know if it's a bad entity I'm not bothering with it it's got to go but if it's a good entity i can help it pass over and and move on and i think that there's a big big loophole in knowing the honest make it unscary make it like you know when you don't know your next door neighbor and you have all these thoughts maybe but then when you meet them you're like oh you're just like me it's no big deal yeah no big deal there you go so it should be fun to see these new books come out from you people can follow along give us your final thoughts as we go out tell people to pitch out where to buy the book and

of course the link where they can find you on the interwebs okay great so you can find me at nancyheart.com my books books will be available and are available. The first one is available through Amazon. Just go to Whisper Sinners and Saints or Nancy Hart, and there I will be. There you go. Thank you very much, Nancy, for coming on the show. We really appreciate it.

Thank you so very much. I very much appreciate meeting you and speaking to all your viewers thank you so very much and we'll look forward to your next book and to our audience order up the book wherever fine books are sold whispers sinners and saints out march 18th 2024 refer your family friends and relatives to goodreads.com fortress chris foss linkedin.com fortress chris fuss and all those crazy places we're at on the internet be good to each other stay safe we'll see you next time