The Chris Voss Show - The Chris Voss Show Podcast – Wounded to Warrior: How To Participate in Your Own Rescue by Tiffany Owen

Episode Date: February 27, 2024

Wounded to Warrior: How To Participate in Your Own Rescue by Tiffany Owen https://amzn.to/3UVvBWB Coachtiffanyowen.com It is time, friend, to change the trajectory of your life! Tiffany Owens's book "Wounded to Warrior," reveals how participating in your own rescue can take you from despair to mountain-top motivation and inspiration. She offers her experience, hope, strength, and victories to help warriors in waiting revolutionize their minds, bodies, habits, and goals. Along with the same tools she used to overcome PTSD, addiction, mental health struggles, and living from a victim mindset! Tiffany Owen is a fitness and life coach on a mission empowering people to be radically transformed into their best version. Her pain is her purpose! With over 20 years experience in the fitness and health industry, she is a voice for those caught in a vicious cycle of self-sabotage. Through her experience as a trauma survivor, Tiffany offers hope, strength, and instruction sharing her victories to help warriors in waiting revolutionize their minds, bodies, habits, and goals. Along with the same tools she used to overcome PTSD, addiction, mental health struggles, and living from a victim mindset!

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. 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 Chris Voss here from The Chris Voss Show. Welcome to the big show, my family and friends. We certainly appreciate it. TheChrisVossShow.com. There we go.

She finally tried to cut in on me earlier there. Welcome to The Big Show. As always, my family and friends, we welcome you. We, of course, interview the most amazing people, the authors, the Pulitzer Prize winners, the astronauts, the CEOs, the billionaires, all the people who bring you all the lessons they've learned over the axis of their life

and improve the quality of your life here, as it were. You can go to goodreads.com, Forge Has Chris Voss, or for your family, friends, and relatives, youtube.com, Forge Has Chris Voss, facebook.com, Forge Has Chris Voss, and Chris Voss 1 on the tickety-tockety. Today, we have an amazing young lady on the show. She's the author of her newest book that's come out December 17th, 2023, called Wounded to Warrior, How to Participate in Your Own Rescue. Tiffany Owen joins us on the show today. She's going to be talking to us about her journey and what you can learn from it. She is a fitness and life coach

on a mission empowering people to be radically transformed into their best version. Her pain is her purpose. With over 20 years of experience in the fitness and health industry, she is a voice for those caught in the vicious cycle of self-sabotage. Through her experience as a trauma survivor, she offers hope, strength, and instruction, sharing her victories to help warriors in waiting, revolutionizing their minds, bodies, habits, and goals, along with the same tools she used to overcome PTSD, addiction, mental health struggles, and living from a victim mindset.

And now it's your turn. She joins us on the show. Welcome to the show, Tiffany. How are you? Hey, I'm so excited to be here. Thank you for having me. We're excited to have you as well. Thank you for coming.

Give us your dot coms. Where can people find you on the interwebs? CoachTiffanyOwen.com. There you go. And so, Tiffany, give us a 30,000 overview of your new book, Wounded to Warrior. Okay. So, you have to bear with me because I get really excited about this. I'm very passionate about this mission, and it's a big one.

So I help empower others to be radically transformed into the person that God created them to be. And I use a holistic approach to health and wellness. So I do this by incorporating fitness, mindset tools, nutrition guidance, and authentic community. So I've created a community that's freaking awesome. fitness, mindset tools, nutrition guidance, and authentic community. So I've created a community that's freaking awesome, and they all hold each other accountable. It's so cool. And it's all virtual, so it works because I'm proof, and I believe that when you transform your mind, your body will follow. Ah, there you go. Transforming your mind,, your body will follow. Ah, there you go.

Transforming your mind and your body will follow. You know, I guess what's representative in our life is what's inside of our minds and how we reflect and build the world around us. Does that sound right? Absolutely. There you go. There you go. So you wrote this book, Wounded to Warrior.

Tell us about your journey that you ascribe in the book, what were your upbringing like, and some of the different trials and tribulations you went through that helped you find yourself in the end going through this journey. Gosh, so we do not have enough time for all the twists and turns of my life. We won't be able to go buy the book. I will tell you that my life story is like no other that you have ever heard. And I didn't just want this to be my testimony. I wanted to provide tools for other people that are still struggling in silence that are stuck in this victim mentality with the cycle of self-sabotage.

Right. So. So this is it's So this is serious stuff. So gosh, my trauma started probably around 12. Lots of sexual abuse, physical abuse. I was married four times by the time I was 29. Holy crap. I kept picking the same person and I'll be 43 next month over and over. I've had issues with prescription medications. I've been to treatment for that. I am a recovering alcoholic. I have almost two years sobriety now. Thank you. I tried to kill myself for the fourth time, June 9th, 2022. And that was my final bottom. And that's when God told me, okay, now you can write your book. Wow. And I have four kids. I have four kids and I am married to an amazing man who his name is Chris also so he's amazing so I have a 22 year old a 17 year old and my twins are 12 so we got twins there you go yeah so I've been in fitness for about 20 years and on the outside if you saw me you would probably not know that I was

struggling mentally I hit it very well I was so focused on helping other people solve their problem that I never had to look inward. So I avoided, I always looked for, um, my worth outside of myself. I did extreme things. I donated my liver to a stranger with cancer. Oh, really? Years ago.

Yeah. Yeah. And that story's in the book. It's pretty incredible. I would do it again if they would let me. I've been all over the world on mission trips to share the gospel. None of that made me happy. Wow.

So all of that is in the book. I turned a corner at my final bottom in June and my life has dramatically transformed. And so the tools that have saved my life are what I use to coach my people. And they're also in the book. Let me ask you this. Those who, you know, most people consume the podcast on audio. So those who aren't seeing the video, you know, you're, you're a very, it looks like you've worked out a lot for throughout most of your life. Have you always had the physique and, you know, you're, you're much better shaped than

I am by far. Have you always been that way where you, you were, you, you're building the outside of yourself, but ignoring the inside, as you mentioned? That's a great question so after i had my twins i i continued to work out then my workout stopped working i started gaining weight the starving myself and the diet pills didn't work anymore so i put on i got to almost 200 pounds and I was really depressed. And so I did have four and a half years ago. I had an amazing transformation and I lost 43 pounds in three and a half months with the program that I coach.

It's amazing. So. But again, I wasn't happy yet. Like I was successful. I figured out how to get the weight off. I was coaching others. I've coached 1,400 people in the past four years with their help goals. Yeah.

But I was still going to bed every night and asking God to please let me go to sleep and not wake up. Wow. You're helping all these people. You're struggling with all these things. You hit your final bottom in December or in 2022 somewhere. And what was it that you were struggling with that you finally figured out how to resolve? So I had built a pretty – so I went from – so stay-at-home mom for about eight years because I had twins. And I went from being a stay-at-home mom to building a six-figure business very quickly.

And I got really wrapped up in how that made me feel and maintaining it because I'm an overachiever. I'm all in and I was very successful and I did not take care of myself while I was doing this. And my drinking progressively got worse. And I would justify it by saying, well, you know, making all this money, I'm helping all these people, every, you know, my health is good, all the bills are paid. So why should I stop drinking? I deserve this. There you go. Well, some people do.

Some people use it as fuel. You can work a little bit longer, work a little bit harder. And what you mentioned, a lot of entrepreneurs are guilty of this. I'm guilty of this over the years. You work so hard, you don't take care of yourself, you know, internally and, and, and give yourself balance. You know, for a lot of years I was like, okay, well, I'm going to drink and have fun. I'm going to try and push the envelope is get as much as I can on my youth. And then if I get, if I get it built right, there'll be plenty of money and plenty of

time to go see a therapist and deal with all that stuff later. That's exactly what I did. i was prolonging the inevitable i knew down inside it was getting out of control i mean i knew i knew it was but i wasn't ready to give it up yet and you mentioned ptsd was that from the trauma of your childhood did you go in the military at all? Yeah, definitely sexual and physical abuse starting at a very young age. Lots of just really dramatic, traumatic things happened. I pretty much raised myself. My mom and dad were 22 years apart and they were entrepreneurs and they traveled all the time. And I was left with babysitters or by myself.

Really? Yeah, they did the best they could, but I did not get love and attention. Yeah. And I seeked it in other places. And I got taken advantage of by an 18-year-old when I was 12. And then it just kind of escalated from there. First time I tried to kill myself, I was 16, and I had to deal with failure. So just lots of emotional highs and lows. There you go.

Now, did you ever go throughout all of your years or after your final episode in 2022, did you ever see therapy? I have had some amazing therapy, but you can have all the therapy in the world. And if you don't do anything with it or you're not ready to, you know, not a denial, it's not going to work. Yeah. I know a lot of people that go to therapy and they just kind of cajole the

therapist and kind of actually mislead them. So that's a good point, Chris, because smart people know how to manipulate the therapist into getting what they want or hearing what they want there you go playing the victim maybe yep and so they so the talk therapy for me just talking about it over and over did not work that's why i went for shock therapy i don't think that's a thing but it sounds good that our little body works for me but that that i they tied it up to a lie detector and every time i lied okay i was like maybe i just invented a new form of therapy so yeah that's kind of interesting

you're good you went to therapy and it still wasn't fixing what you were doing and then so when you hit rock bottom and in 2022 you attempt your final suicide what changed what was the flip switcher so my husband finally did the really hard thing. And he decided to give me an ultimatum and not enable me any longer. And so do you threaten you with divorce or? If you don't go get help from the mental hospital to treatment, you will lose your family. And it didn't, I mean,

I knew immediately I had to go. And I think deep down inside of me i was waiting for something like that to happen for me to do it yeah do you did i and i i don't mean to throw him under the bus but you think he was kind of enabling you for a while or he was trying to support you probably but you know sometimes we can do that as partners in relationships. We can be an enabler. And then there comes a time where you got to provide some tough love. Yeah.

So Chris, think about it this way. Like we are super close. We're very much in love. I have a very dominant personality. I'm making all this money. I look amazing. He's very attracted to me. I didn't make it easy for him to tell me no and we had fun

together so yeah he he he joked a lot and it wasn't a joke for a long time but he he lived a long time managing my emotions ah there you go there you go well he loves you and and men always want the best for their women for the most part I mean mean, I think most every guy wants that. He wants a woman to be happy. So you went to therapy then in 2022 when you hit this bottom. Tell us about this journey. So, you know, people that might be going through the same struggles can. Gosh, the opportunity to go to inpatient treatment

if you can do it take it so that was the real difference in being able to get out of your environment and you have to you're in a bubble you and it's up to you you can work it or not i was in there with a lot of people who were not ready yet and it was a wasted experience but i knew from all the personal development stuff i'd had through coaching which is was definitely a saving grace i knew that i needed to get every fit of what i could out of this 30 days because it was life or death for me wow yeah and losing your family too which is probably you know almost the equivalent yeah so for me i don't so you hear all the time love yourself find your worth from it you know with that all the things it just sounds really nice right self-worth is from the inside don't find okay that sounds

great but how do you do But how do you do it? How do you do it? It would just piss me off because I couldn't connect my head to my heart. I knew what I needed to do, but how do you do it? And that is what I talk about in my book. I give small steps that lead to 1% change. They have a compound effect. and then it leads to monumental change over time and all of a sudden you have created a new narrative in your head and you no

longer feel like you did before because you've recreated yourself and there's steps to that I needed tangible action steps there you go and getting down that road, you know, it's overcoming anything, especially when it's really big. And, you know, I always equate it to eating the elephant, you know. Anytime I look at something that's really big, Jesus, this is an elephant. How the hell am I going to accomplish this task? So I just think of it as eating the elephant one bite at a time. I'm just like, just focus on the little things. Focus on, you know on achieving the small stuff

and eventually you wake up one day and you're like, I ate a whole elephant. Now I got to poop. I mean, that's it. That's it. One bite at a time. One bite at a time. And I think some people, they look for quick and easy solutions. They look for

fattish sort of solutions. Well, if I just do this for a couple days, I'm sure I'll be fine. Yeah. That's my whole business. I mean, in the fitness and health industry, that's what people want is a quick fix.

Oh, yeah. I mean, everybody wants to lose 50 pounds like tomorrow. And look like a bodybuilder, Arnold Schwarzenegger tomorrow. I'm just waiting till later on this week, of course. Yeah. I'm just not ready yet. There you go. But you said early in the show, you know, you've got to fix the inside to fix the outside. And I think it's interesting. You, you were kind of, you know,

you had all your stuff going on in the outside and like you mentioned, everybody saw you and was like well she must have everything put together just fine and on the inside that was where your biggest challenge is and that's probably a a metaphor for a lot of people in this world because a lot of people do that i i went through that when i first became successful i'm like well if i buy all the things and i get all the toys and i get the big house and I get the BMWs and I get the cars and I get all the stuff, you know, that I didn't have when I was poor, I'm sure everything will be fine. And actually it made things worse because all it did was propel and support and enable the worst parts of me that hadn't been fixed and the trauma that had been fixed. So it's a good metaphor for a lot of people yeah so what i'm hearing you say is that all of those things did not make you feel like your best you like no made it worse yeah because

i was like is this all there is i thought i thought you know a lot of people make that assumption that hey if you become a movie star, if you become rich, if you become successful, it means that you solved all of your equated problems of your whole life and you're a perfect human being. That's why you rose to that level. And really, it's not. It just means you got lucky in one segment. segment and and then you know sometimes it can make it worse or it just enables the worst parts of you that you haven't fixed or developed and now you're just isolated and living in a bubble as you mentioned earlier so so how did you move past that cocaine no i'm just kidding no that's bad joke don't do cocaine people that's a joke i actually the thing that saved me was fight club

the movie fight club i don't know if you've seen it but yeah and there were there's a lot of paradigms of fight club especially for men and it woke me up to you know it's it's you know why are guys like us concerned about what a uh a bidet is or uh, oh, what was it? The thing that goes on the cloth that goes on the thing, you know, fuck Martha Stewart. It made me realize, you know, I'd built my whole life being successful to, you know, that moment where what's his face says, you know, I thought I had that couch thing taken care of for the rest of my life. And so one of the key components is the things that you own end up owning you.

And I was like, holy shit, I've built this whole life and I'm just like empty inside. And so somehow I needed to get back to whoever I was. I mean, I had everything. And yet everyone, it seemed like the more I gave to people, the more I bought, the more I built, the more people just hated me more. Yeah, because it's lonely at the top. Yeah, it is. And I was like, well, they know, they must know that I love them because I'm working so hard for them. But I was just, I was empty.

It was like just living in a gilded cage and and i was empty inside and so i had to start figuring out who i was and start dealing with some of my trauma and and there began the journey of stuff and sometimes sometimes you just gotta realize that all this shit doesn't add up to a hill of beans when it really comes down to it so you've written this book and now you're sharing it on on how you've changed your life and you're on your journey. Talk to us about some of the things you offer on your website because you do a lot of stuff there, I see. I do.

So, well, if you go to my website, all of my social media handles are there and I live my journey out loud on Facebook and Instagram. There you go. Very authentically. What you see is what you get on there. And that creates connection. So I have these people that come to me

who have been watching me for a year or two or through this whole, you know, really from my downfall until building back up. And they reach out and they think they're they're signing up for a workout because my workouts work yeah they're obviously yeah they will work and it doesn't matter how old you are what what fitness level you are but i do not do fitness coaching without mindset coaching period i will not train you if we do not do the mindset piece. It doesn't work.

So everything I do is virtual. On my website, it talks about the different package options. And I have clients all over the United States, all ages. And you can get in touch with me on my website. It's a direct consultation. But where I really live my journey out loud and you can get to know me is through Facebook and Instagram.

There you go. So you walk your talk and talk your walk there on the Facebook and stuff. I see several different things that you have on your website. There's fitness, where you talk about fitness and the importance of it. Nutrition, helping people with nutrition, which is really important because you're not minding your nutrition. You're working out. You're an idiot. I mean, you are.

Yeah. I mean, if you're down at McDonald's every day and then you're at the gym trying to lift, I mean, like. So hopefully working on the mindset piece, I will help you change your relationship with food. Exactly. A lot of people need that these days. In fact, you could just go stand in line at McDonald's and pick up clients. So you talk about mindset there, mindset coaching, relationship coaching, self-care coaching,

and then you've got several different packages and subscription models. People can get involved with, tell us about some of these packages, like the gold package and silver package. Yeah, so on the gold package, what that is is you get two life coaching sessions with me. You get a meal plan, and we have got this amazing team that is helping you run, we call them small group, like mindset mentor accountability groups, right?

So within the community, you meet with me, but you also have access to these small group accountability pods, basically, which is like group therapy. And people connect, people share their tools. The ones who have been with me help the newer ones. It's just amazing. So you get more one-on-ones with me with the gold package. With the silver package, oh, and you get two workouts a month.

So I write workouts that are full body. And this is really the cool part is most of my people are doing their workouts at home with minimal equipment oh wow you know with a 150 or less investment to get started really so they're not doing the whole buy a giant gym at house no you don't have to yeah so there's some amazing testimonies on on my website and on my facebook page these women in fifties and sixties look ripped and they never stepped foot into a gym. Nice. Nice.

People don't like the gym experience sometimes. No, I mean, they don't have time. If you're working it, you know, you buy some time back if you're doing it at home. So my workouts can be done at home or the gym.

And I like to change it up every two weeks. So we need to keep your body guessing. We don't want you to get bored. We don't want your body to get bored. And that's how you're going to see results. I meet people where they're at. I coach every fitness level. So basically, as you go down the tier in the packages, you just get less one-on-one with me.

Okay. All right. And then you've got a whole lot of packages that are there and then you do speaking as well people can hire you to come speak and inspire them yeah yeah i am so passionate about sharing my story because i am not special if i can change and overcome and heal anybody anybody can do it. There you go. And you went through a lot as we talked about and you cover in your book. So, you know, it's something where it's a mindset thing. So I like how you balance all the different aspects of it. You've got a nutrition plan, you've got the fitness plan, you've got the mindset plan you've got the fitness plan you've got the mindset plan and making sure there's a balance i think that's the problem that a lot of people don't have is

they don't have that balance in their lifestyle they try and do one thing really like a lot yeah like i've probably been guilty of just trying to do a lot of nutrition yeah you move all the components right and community people don't realize how much they need community. Oh, yeah. Yeah. I love accountability groups, too. Tell us why the accountability groups are so important. Gosh, you know, I'm guilty of not leaning into accountability.

I was a loner. I can just do it myself. I was always afraid someone was going to abandon me, abuse me. So I would not connect with people where I would let them help me. I was always afraid someone was going to abandon me, abuse me. So I would not connect with people where I would let them help me. And I am still growing and learning with my people. And they have taught me why accountability and community is so important because knowing that you have someone that is like-minded that you can reach out to before you put the food in your mouth that's not good for you or when you're struggling and you

don't feel like working out just knowing that you are seen heard and valued by someone else that's going through something similar is a game changer definitely when it comes to you know hardships in life you know learning that you're not alone because people isolate themselves they feel like you know i'm the only one this is happening to i'm you know i've i'm a horrible person i'm a person that it's not worthy you know having other people you can talk to and realize that hey there are other people on struggling through their journey. And, you know, maybe we all get in the life raft together and paddle in the right direction. We can all get to the destination.

And so I love accountability groups because they give you a little bit of peer pressure. They give you a little push and a nudge. You see how other people are doing and you get, you can get inspired by them. You get, you're like, Hey, that guy's doing that. Oh man. Well then that opens my mind and my scope to where I can do that too. And then I've got this friend who will help me. So he'll, you know,

he can tell me how he's doing it and how to do it myself. And then of course, accountability groups. That's how I lost a lot of weight. That's how I started going to the gym on a regular basis, posting accountability groups since I wrote my first book and working on my second is is those accountability groups and by having people who can kind of you know give that control hey man you're not checking in you're not doing your stuff let's get you on track that really helps it's kind of like a family a little bit. So what I'm hearing you say is accountability groups work. Oh yeah.

I believe in them. Yeah. Yeah. So I didn't mention this, but I am, I always am running challenges and in my group, right? Oh yeah.

So we tap in it. Like we did a thousand crunches in three days that these women had to do them. You know, of course that sounds so big. Yeah. So here's the cool part is they proved to themselves they could do it because it's really all about breaking it down into the 50. And then before you know it, you're at a thousand. So then I was like, okay, add 500 more if you finished early.

And these women who thought that they would never be able to do something like this are completing these challenges and their self-worth goes through the roof and it is incredible to witness and i gave away really cool prizes wow yeah there you go a thousand crunches holy crap that's pretty good wow that's gonna get you in shape i mean you gotta do it more than once, but. Yeah, yeah, definitely. Definitely. Yeah. You got to keep doing them. So what are some other things we haven't covered in the teasing out your book or some of the things that you're doing on the website or anything else you're up to? Yeah. So I would like to mention what is the first step in coming out of a victim mindset right what does that look

like well first you have to come out of denial you have to have a true honest conversation with yourself because you cannot change or heal what you don't acknowledge. So I think I want to just mention that, that if something is on your heart and you know that you are not your best self and you have this conviction or there's a little voice telling you you're doing too much of this or not enough of this, you probably need to listen to that.

And that is your sign that you are not living your best life. And something needs to change and no one is going to come rescue you. You have to dig yourself out of the hole and participate in your own rescue. So that's so important to come out of denial. There you go. Participate in your own rescue. A lot of people do stay in that victim mindset because it's very comfortable. They don't have to be self-accountable. They don't have to self-actualize. They can just always go, well, it's someone else's fault.

And, you know, the whole world is usually at fault at that point. But no one can fix your problems. I like that message that you're sending there too, because a lot of people don't realize that. They think that, well, if I just find a better person in a relationship or a better husband or wife, or if I find a better job, or if I find more money in whatever I'm doing, or maybe if I just trade these kids in and get some new kids, they'll be better. Wait, do people do that? Or is it just me?

More than likely, you are the problem. Yes, yes. It's always that mirror. You ever want to find your problem? Or is it just me? More than likely, you are the problem. Yes. It's always that mirror. You ever want to find your problem? Go find a mirror. Just look at it and be like, damn it. Yeah. That's why I ended up being married

four times by the time I was 29 years old. Because I kept I stayed unknowingly. I thought I was going to find someone different. This time was going to be better. And I just ended up with the same type of guy and they just looked a little different because I had identified myself.

Everyone who loves me abuses me or abuses me, or they leave me. So that is how I identified myself. So I found what I was looking for. So you always find what you're looking for. People don't realize when they are putting that out there, their brain is going to find evidence to support it. Yeah. Yeah. So that's what I was doing.

And people don't realize that they're doing it. And trauma is trauma. And most people are justified in how they feel. But you can get your power back if you take responsibility. Yeah. back if you take responsibility yeah a lot of people are trying to fill that hole the trauma and what they were missing as a child and they go seek it and then they make usually bad choices without a good imprint and then they keep doing it because a lot of times they they find sometimes some safety in it it's you know you meet people that, you have to have a lot of drama just to keep in a relationship with you.

And, but there, and you see it as unstable and negative, but for them, it's weird because even though it's a negative and unstable, it's comfortable for them. It is kind of interesting. So most people run on a program, right? So there's a defining moment. And what I heard you say was your defining moment was fight love. So that was a defining moment for you that the trajectory of your life changed because something touched you in a way that motivated change. So for me, my defining moment I write about in my book was being left. Mine was a negative one.

And it was when I was about eight years old. It was being left alone, waking up in the middle of the night, and my mom wasn't there. Wow. And I didn't know where they went. They thought I would stay asleep while they were out. And I didn't. So it's in the book. But that defining moment made me have such a huge fear of abandonment that I ironically went to people who would abandon me because it was normal. It was what I knew.

Even though it was not healthy. It was all I knew. I didn't know what a healthy relationship looked like. And so with my husband, he's so loving and amazing. And I tried to run him off. I mean, he tells the story great, but like I tested him and I tried to run him off because divorce is what I knew. And it was like I was testing him to see, is he really going to stay with me? What is unconditional love?

So my defining moment was that abandonment issue. And then that just set the stage for what my normal was. Did you ever get a chance to sit down with your parents and reconcile any of that and be like, what the hell are you people doing? Yeah. So that's, I talk about that in my, in my book too. So my mom and dad were 22 years apart. So my dad was born in 1935. He, he died in 2009. Here's another crazy thing. I found out he wasn't my real dad when I was 29 in a therapy session. I said, I told my uncle that a family member had great meat and that my uncle said, well, your dad's not your real dad. I had no idea. So I was conceived by an anonymous sperm donor

from a sperm bank. I have 20 or 30 half siblings, like dateline stuff. Really? Wow. Yeah. So that was traumatic. So thinking that my dad was my dad my whole life and he wasn't and my mom was never going to tell me so there's a whole bunch of adults my age that are donor babies

who have so many mental health issues and i talk about the statistics of that it is like finding out you're adopted so i did never have a chance to talk to my dad but my mom has read my book and i did not bad mouth her she has had her own really tough life and when i accepted that i didn't need to expect her to be something that she couldn't be, then we have peace. Right? And I forgive her. And I mean, I didn't make it easy. I'm like, I can

see why. Maybe she didn't want to be around me when I was 16. So I took ownership of some things that I did as a teenager. All of that helped with the healing process. We're in a good place, but there's just me and my mom.

Cause I don't, the whole dad thing. It's crazy. Crazy story. Did you find that telling your story was cathartic for you and helped you heal? Yes. Just being honest about your trauma,

letting it all out there and, and talking about, did you, did you feel that it was a cleansing process for you and kind of helped you heal up? When I did it for the right reason. Yeah, there you go. So I shared my story in therapy. I shared it from church service one time,

like an Easter redemption story that did not go well but when I started sharing my story to give others hope when I started getting private messages of oh my gosh I needed to hear that I'm going through this that changed everything because there are so many people who need to not feel alone. And so, yes, it healed me just to be able, because my pain is my purpose now. And so it does not have a negative, I don't, it's not negative for me anymore. I'm using it for good. You're empowered by what used to disempower you. I remember watching Leaving Neverland about Michael Jackson and the kids that he molested, in my opinion. And after the show, Oprah had a thing where she interviewed

them. And one of the guys got up in the audience who'd been a, I think he'd been an NFL star, big, giant of a man. And he talked about how he'd been sexually abused by a local police officer growing up and he'd held it inside the story of his trauma for most of his life and it ate him up and destroyed him and he said until you get honest and talk about your your issue it's like a poison your trauma sits inside you like a poison and it just festers you and you're the one you're poisoning. And until you, you speak your truth and get it out there, then you can start to heal. And then it becomes where you're no longer a victim,

where you're no longer disempowered. And now it's your power. And it sounds like that's where you've reached. Exactly what I did. And I found a lot of healing and forgiveness and not just forgiveness of, oh, I forgive, you know, my ex or the guys who took advantage of me sexually. I shifted my perspective to look at them with compassion, compassion. And what did they go through? Why are they the way they are?

Because something happened to them to make them do what they did. And that's not getting them off the hook. And that can be very controversial. But for me to see them with compassion and like a child that's hurt, help me to get my power back, forgive them, and they don't trigger me anymore. There you go. Hurt people hurt people.

And the sad thing about a lot of sexual abuse is it's passed down generationally. It goes from one to the other, and usually people abuse or abuses children and they grow up to be abusers and the cycle perpetuates itself sadly but until you can forgive and say you know maybe they were doing the best they could or obviously someone hurt them and so i'm going to stop this this all stops here with me, and I'm taking responsibility for everything. You know, that's really where you have to be, in a place where you can cleanse yourself, and then you're empowered by it. And you can go, this is my story now.

And then sharing it with other people is so important. You know, I've had times in my life, I think people have heard me on the show talk about a lot, where I shared, my dog passed away in the middle of the night with a seizure, and I just poured it out on the paper, on Facebook, actually. And I didn't want to share it, because I'm like, this is really selfish. No one cares. This is boo-hoo, Chris Foss has got a hard life. But it was so painful, and I was like half a bottle of vodka. And I said, fuck it, and i shared it and went to bed thinking well this most selfish thing i've ever written and

probably a little too private but it was interesting to me how sharing that story helped so many other people people were writing me the next day going wow that made me cry i didn't realize i never got closure with my father or my dog i never thought about how i felt like that too and i never have reconciled those emotions and it helped so many people and i was like geez i thought that was just selfish so what i hear you saying is you were telling yourself a story that was not true yeah yeah and and and so by sharing how painful i you know my emotions were and and the trauma of it it helped a lot of other people who kind of just buried their trauma and hadn't really dealt with it and that's why we always say on the show

stories are the owner's manual life and you know the importance of stories like yours that come on the show and everybody we have on the show sharing their stories helps people realize that hey i'm not alone here's some other people that have some tools and resources where if i go reach out to them i can i can help get my thing fixed so that's the beauty of it all that's why we do the show and that is the goal of my book so i write it in such a way where my story is unique but i want the person to be able to place themselves in my story and heal if they need to heal and also i wanted to write it for the family members and friends of people who have died from suicide or maybe a man that's married to a sexual abuse victim how do they deal with that because there's a lot of guys who are married to these women and they

don't know how to love them and they kind of get overlooked and so i i wanted my book to be able to reach both both sides and let there be a healing process. There you go. And knowing you're not alone, knowing other people in the journey, having, you know, seeing a path that others have taken, it's inspiring, it's motivating and helping others. So Tiffany, as we go out, pitch us out any final thoughts so people can reach out to you and onboard you,

pick up some of your packages, order the book, et cetera, et cetera. Yeah. So you can find me at coach Tiffany Owen.com. And that will lead you to all of my social media. Owen with no S. So just like it sounds. There you go. Thank you very much, Tiffany, for coming to the show and sharing your story.

Thank you. There you go. And thanks for tuning in. Go to goodreads.com, Fortress Crispus, LinkedIn.com, Fortress Crispus, Crispus1 on the TikTokity and all those other places on the internet. Thanks for being on the show, folks. Be good to each other. Stay safe

and we'll see you guys next time. And I should have...