S1 E53 Shit2TalkAbout Transcending Fear with Terri Kozlowski
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Jenn Junod
Hey, Terry, thank you for joining shit. You don't want to talk about. Please introduce yourself and the shit you want to talk about today.
Terri Kozlowski
My name is Tara Kozlowski. I've written a book called Raven Transcending Fear, which is my mem memoir about how I overcame child sexual abuse and really defining and understanding where am I from and how to transcend it. So today we're gonna talk about overcoming our fears, especially fears caused by childhood trauma when we don't really understand as a child.
What in the world happened, how in the world it happened when adults around us were supposed to protect us and we don't comprehend or understand any of that. And as adults, as full grown adults, it's hard to comprehend. So as a child, it's impossible.
Jenn Junod
I'm, we talked about this a little bit before we started recording and I'm excited to go through this and talk to you about it. And it's definitely something I'm struggling with in my own life right now. Now, before we dive into that a bit more, I'd love to hear more about your memoir and the do you know the actual definition of memoir? Because I feel like that is something that many of us don't know.
Terri Kozlowski
Memoir is really, it's a teaching story. So I'm using my real life example to teach others how I overcame my fear and limiting beliefs to become the authentic person I am today. And it's understanding that through that teaching memoir, through that teaching story is really how all of us learn. It is the best way for us to learn, especially about complex subjects.
Because through actual physical examples and having somebody else say, this is what I did, this is how I went through it. It helps you understand and say, oh I could do that too and it doesn't become so complex versus going to therapy and having all these psychological terms thrown at you, all these labels put upon you when really and truly, you just wanna be OK, you wanna go from surviving to living to thriving and when you are in survival mode, all that psychological terminology
means nothing. It's just now all this stuff, all this shit was put upon us that we didn't know actually existed and we were OK not knowing it. But now we have labels for it and then we start living up to those labels because now it has a name.
Jenn Junod
Yes. And thank you for the explanation. I, you and I talked about that we all react differently through these experiences and that many of us, especially sexual abuse in general or any type of abuse. But ch child sexual abuse that many of us go inward and blame ourselves because we don't understand how those who are supposed to protect us are doing this to us.
This is something that I'm still currently working through. This was they were family members that sexually abused me. Yeah, they weren't quite in that parental role and this is I started writing my book like I, I was telling you a bit earlier and it's interesting to look at the type of situations that I went through and see the lack of anger to others is always to myself.
Also, I told you a bit about the tweet that somebody, asked us of how, how our victims always blamed and it really is like, victims blame themselves and, others just don't think that they'd ever be in that situation. Now, how did you get through it? Because for myself, it really shows up in my relationship now as in, like, I just don't want sex. I don't want anything. And I've been in a very, very secure long term relationship and I'm just like, don't touch me and there's nothing
against Tyler. Like, he's absolutely phenomenal and I think he's sexy. But I'm like, it's, it re triggers almost every time and I hate that it does it because he is someone that is taking care of me yet. I, it's almost unfathomable since I've dealt with it for so long to get over it. So please share a part of your story.
Terri Kozlowski
Ok. So my mother was the instigator of and sexually molested me when I was 11 years old. So she could have free drugs because she was a drug addict and an alcoholic. So, because instigated it, she was the person that was supposed to protect me from these men and she didn't do it. So, for me, it was about how can I trust anybody if your mother won't protect you who in the on the planet will protect you.
Ok. So for me, that was the big struggle for the longest time. And even when I became sexually involved, it was, you know, in the course of my life, I've had three sexual relationships. Ok. Outside of the rape, I've had three sexual relationships, all consensual. And interestingly, each one was very, very different and one was extremely caring about me. The second one was you should be over this by now. And the third one has always been about my needs, not about his, about mine.
So when all is said and done that sexual component, although it's triggering isn't the problem. Sex is not the issue because if sex was the issue, then there's a lot of things that we wouldn't enjoy at all because sex is just an external part of our passion. And I'm assuming you're a creative being. Are you a creative being? You have colorful hair?
Jenn Junod
I do. I am and I was just gonna say I, I almost went to the opposite of instead of only having a few partners, I definitely don't want to admit my number yet. It was something that I use to feel loved. So that's definitely not love.
Terri Kozlowski
So, so there are two reactions. One is like me that I have very limited partners and then the other one is the opposite where you don't understand love is and yet you're seeking it. And you associate that the act of sex with love. When the reality is sex, the way we first experienced it was about power, had nothing to do with actual sex, anything to do with love.
It was just about power. And for those of us who suffer, we want our power back and we look at all kinds of ways to get our power back. And the reality is you have to take it back and you take it back, ready, you take it back by doing one thing ready. That one thing is take responsibility for your actions from this day moving forward. You can't change what happened to you.
And the only way to take your power back is to say from now on, I'm in charge of my life. The people who harmed me are not re not having anything to do with my life now or moving forward. My mother has nothing to do with my life now or moving forward. She is not making decisions for me now, I'm moving forward. Therefore, I'm responsible and very important.
I am now accountable and I retook my power and I am powerful again. I'm in control of my life and these other people that are trying aren't trying to do anything because the reality is it happened, they're not thinking about it. They're not suffering, which is really sad that they aren't suffering because they really should suffer. You know, we, we've been suffering for years.
They should suffer too, but they're not. They're not. And the whole aspect of forgiveness which most trauma survivors don't even want to talk about. Forgiveness has nothing to do with the purpose, has everything to do with you. Letting yourself be free, free from the past. It's cutting those ties to the past, to them that keep you stuck looking backwards instead of being in the present moment.
So I went from being completely fearful all the time, not trusting anybody. And I had somebody in college tell me that I got something from being a victim. Now, I got a little angry because who are you to tell me anything about my victimhood? But at the same time, I realized he was coming from a place of love. He was coming from a place of you're not seeing this.
I'm trying to get you to see something about yourself. And when I actually sat down and journaled about it and, prayed about it, I realized that, yeah, I was getting something out of it because when you are vocal with people and you tell them you've had some sort of trauma in your past. What do they do? How do they respond to you? I'm so sorry. It, it, it gets a very awkward and they tend to shut down and then you have, you feel like you need to fill that space.
And the reality is what that does is that puts distance between you and that person, which is what I wanted as a victim. You want everybody to leave you alone. And so therefore you keep portraying and you keep perpetuating that. But guess what? Being alone is the absolute positively worst thing for any person on the planet to do when they are going through anything.
If they have shit they're going through being alone is thing for you making an authentic connection, talking things out even if all you do is say I just need you to sit here and hold space with me while I rant and rave and scream and shout and you know, throw pillows, whatever it is you need to do to get that emotion out. When you are doing that and making that authentic connection with another person.
It's very healing because you realize that person isn't there to do anything but be there with you for you to love you and to say I'm here, do whatever you need to do, I'm here. And when we have that first person that we can do that with, oh, we allow ourselves to realize that there is another person on the planet. I can trust. There is another person on the planet who actually cares more about me to hold that space than they do about what happened to me because what happened to me isn't who
I am. And many of us hold on to, I'm a victim. Are you a victim or are you a survivor? When I decided that I no longer needed to be a victim. When I was not going to hold that space where the past was in control of my present and my future, I became a survivor. And that isn't a very distinct mind shift that one has to take because when you become a survivor, you are now responsible for how your life progresses moving forward.
You can't blame the perpetrator. You can't blame family members who didn't protect you. You can't blame others because they triggered you. It's about, it's about, oh, I was triggered by this. I'm so, you know, I did, I'm sorry that I was triggered. I need to work this out. I'm not quite sure how to do it yet, but hold space with me while I, you know, maybe you have a suggestion, find those people in your life that have gone through similar experiences, find your tribe, your tribe of
people, by the way, doesn't necessarily, family doesn't have to be the friends you grew up with. Most of the times. Those are not the best people because they have preconceived notions of who and what you are. And I learned very difficult lesson that my family really has no clue who I am. They deal with the little girl who came back with trauma and who was in therapy for years and that's who they deal with.
They never saw the woman I grew into or who I authentically am now and interestingly enough, some of them won't even read my book to find out because some of them blame those shows. I have. my dad blames himself a lot for some, for some of the things that happened because he allowed it to occur. and I never, once, I never thought about blaming my dad because he was, he's who I came home to and I was, you know, took me, I mean, I got off an airplane and said I need therapy.
What 11 year old does that? And I got off on the airplane on a Saturday night, Monday morning, I was in therapy. So the man did absolutely everything he could possibly do to make sure that I got the help I needed. interestingly enough, he also was the first person and I didn't realize it at the time until much, much later in life that gave me wisdom that I should have paid attention to.
But I was so trapped in my, why? Why did this happen to me? Why did my mother not protect me? Why do these people harm me? And we really need to then being in the present moment only in the present moment, do we actually live only in the present moment? Can we heal? Only in the present moment? Can we love only in the present moment? Can we be our authentic selves?
And so my dad went, was the first person to ask me. Now, what I didn't understand his question because I was so trapped in my trauma that I didn't understand what it. So my answer was, you know, well, I don't want to press charges because this was happening in the early eighties, which is a really bad time to try to press charges and all of that. So I didn't want to do any of those. That's what I thought he meant.
But as I got much older, I realized no, that was the switch I was should have made. Then from all the why? Questions to the now what questions the now what question is the bridge to healing? Because it is about you taking responsibility, you making decisions for yourself and you taking con the control back the power back that we all felt somebody took from us.
Jenn Junod
I definitely agree with that.
Terri Kozlowski
We feel that we are not whole because we have put on masks, we've put on armor, we've put on labels on things that fragmented our authenticity. And when you fragment your authenticity, you feel broken because you are not being who you are authentically meant to be. And so when you're taking masks and armors and those labels and become who you authentically are, you realize you were always whole underneath all of that.
And then it's realizing that our strength really comes from being who we are authentically meant to be. And although we may have hidden it away, it's not lost, it's not gone. You, you are still whole.
Jenn Junod, Terri Kozlowski
Despite the fragment that you feel there is so much to impact there.
Jenn Junod
I love the mindset that you talked about, about owning about where you are. And like, what happened to you is your choice to do, like you're responsible for what you're gonna do in the future. And from this point on there is something that I really want to dig in there because I've gotten a lot of pushback from that from people around me that have said, well, there's no way I could do that because Xy and Z happens or you never know if you're going to get in a car crash or you can't help if
there's a death in it. And on that note, yes, I can feel that as well. Like we all can at the same time, it's our choice to go. Ok, this was something that happened. Am I gonna wallow in it or am I gonna move through it and feeling things is moving through it? Because just because it's, you know, you're having hard feelings that doesn't mean that you're wallowing in it. You can be moving through the emotions and that's, I think a difficult mindset that a lot of people struggle with.
Terri Kozlowski
What people don't realize is that your feelings change. Yes. And even if you are angry right now, you don't have to be, you can choose a different feeling. Now, I'm not telling you to go from anger to love. I'm telling you to go from anger to frustration. Ok. So what we're talking about is levels and degree of emotion. You can change how you feel by degrees and eventually you can get to a place where you are no longer frustrated, you can be disappointed and understanding that
sometimes society has us label things incorrectly. Frustration, disappointment can come out as anger, but it's not what it is. And really and truly, my definition of anger is really pain showing up in public.
Jenn Junod
Interesting, II, I do want to dig into that, but there's so many other nuggets from, from what you explained to us earlier. I, you, you mentioned earlier about forgiving others and for myself, that was something very, very easy to forgive others. It was the struggle of forgiving myself.
Terri Kozlowski
Ok, so I can help you with that. Ready.
Jenn Junod
I, I I'm there now. Luckily I'm there now.
Jenn Junod, Terri Kozlowski
But yes, please continue because I think our listeners can really get something out of that for people who have suffered childhood trauma.
Terri Kozlowski
The reason it's so hard for us to forgive ourselves is because we keep looking at the situation from our current self, not from our child self. So I was 11 when my trauma occurred. My 11 year old self had no idea how to, to comprehend what happened or how to deal with what happened. A lot of 26 year olds or 36 year olds would also not know how to handle the situation.
So I had to realize that I was 11, would I expect my granddaughter who is turning 11 to be able to handle anything I went through? Of course not. And I pray that, that nothing like that ever happens to her. But that being said, you don't expect to react to things that they were never meant to deal with in an adult way, in a way that could be easily overcome.
So when I became an adult and I looked back, I'm like, well, of course, she couldn't have done anything because now I'm looking at that from a different perspective. So as I the older I got, the more easily it was to understand that there was nothing she could have done. And as an adult looking backwards, you look at the fact that really and truly all blame lies with one person and that is my mother.
And as long as there is a place to put that blame, you know, I didn't instigate any of this. And when we look at the situation that we were in at the time, if we didn't instigate it, and I'm a, I'm sorry, I don't care who you are as a child you instigated because Children don't instigate things that cause adult issues. Adults are adults, they are responsible for their own actions and the harm that comes to a child is the adult's fault, not the child.
Period. End of story So being that it, we look at it from a child perspective and as an adult, we look back and say that child shouldn't have been in that situation. So why in the world would I continue to blame myself for something that that child didn't instigate that child didn't try to cause that child no matter what her behavior was, did not deserve that.
And when I did that and I realized, OK, the blame belongs with the adults, then it was much easier to let go of any negativity I had towards myself, any anger I had towards myself, any misunderstanding, any misdirected negativity that I was directing at myself instead of directing, you know, quite frankly, I didn't wanna blame my mother. She was my mother.
Yeah, I wanted to love my mother and I wanted her to love me. And when I'm, when you're struggling with that, trying to, well, if I blame myself and it's not my mom's fault, ok? That seems to be an ok way to deal with things until you become an adult and you're still blaming yourself for everything else that's happening in the outside world that you have no control over. Why, you know, you blame yourself because you know there's no coffee in the grocery store.
You, you know, you keep blaming yourself and it becomes a habitual pattern. And that is where when we get stuck, that is where we get stuck in is those habitual patterns that we did not release, we did not unlearn them to learn them as a child as a coping mechanism. And now these coping mechanisms us at one time or actually harming us and we have to unlearn them because they are no longer serving us 100%.
Jenn Junod
And it's, it's definitely the type of thing and a few things that you said in there that really stuck with me was how you had to look at your 11 year old self and go. She didn't cause that. And, and just that phrase itself, I, I found in myself that was really, really helpful is looking at myself as a different entity, I guess you could say and being able to love myself and choosing, I love her.
I love each version of her. And almost this is something that my therapist had me do was there is like, especially when I had high trauma at different time was the times that were I have like a child in a safe space at the different ages of something I went through or I have an adult self with a safe space because I know for we were talking about therapy and there's definitely many, many different types of therapy.
E MD R, eye movement, desensitization, repetition that has really helped me. And that was what you and I were touching on before our call with. I'm doing like a half day session this weekend and it has helped me move through so much of the trauma I've been through and go becoming a survivor compared to a victim. And I feel that way in the majority of my life, except when I'm, I'm trying to be intimate and it's something that is naturally happening.
Yet another thing that I didn't realize to your point about we learn different coping mechanism as a child that do not help us is I'm very avoidant. If something hard happens, I avoid all feelings like stressful situations. I'm a pro at dealing with them because I'm not feeling what's going on.
And then when you know, water spills and a glass breaks, I think it's the end of the world and working through those and being able to realize when I'm having those triggers and it's different for every individual. And I, I love how you bring that perspective.
Terri Kozlowski
So one of the things I'd like you to try when you are in avoiding when you're in avoidance mode or crisis mode. And I'm very, I under completely understand that because in crisis mode, I am the one that's completely calm. I'm taking in the situation, I'm deciding, OK, what is the best course of action and then I implement and then what I've learned to do is once everything is calm, I go away by myself and I let it out, I scream, I rant, I cry normally it's just crying and I get those
emotions out. So I don't have triggering events because what's happening is when you are dealing with stress, when you're dealing with drama and you have to handle that situation and you really good at putting everything else aside so you can deal with that and everything is calm. You still have to let those emotions out and if you don't, they will come out in, in two times over stupid shit.
Jenn Junod
How did you learn to let those emotions out? That is something that I've, I personally have had to, I tried to go to, you know, that quiet space or space alone to let those feelings out. And it's basically, I just sit there and I go this, this is fun.
Terri Kozlowski
I journaled. OK? And what I, I mean, I would sit down and start journaling about, yeah, I can't believe they did this. and, and you just rant and then as you keep writing, I journal very differently. At least I think I do compared to what other people say when they journal because I'm having a conversation with the universe. How could you let this happen?
Everything was going so fine. I was doing this. I was and then it just answers actually come, well, this happened because of this, you know, and it just flows like you're having a conversation with the universe and you're paying attention, you're not only asking questions, you're receiving answers, but you have to be open to that. That's why you have to get quiet.
That's why you have to go into that quiet place and you have to go in by yourself because the minute you have distractions, the ego takes over and the ego who it makes us get very fearful about everything in life. And during those times, we have to be able to say, hey, yes, that could be an issue. But I've already passed three issues that were very similar.
I know how to handle it. I can move on. And when we actually confront the egoic fears, most of them melt away, but you have to confront them and where are you confronting all this inside your head? We are our worst enemies. More importantly, we are best friends and it's about learning to love and be friendly to yourself because all this shit that you say in your head, would you ever say it to a child?
Never, not. So why are you saying it to yourself? Because keep in mind who whatever age you had your trauma, you're stuck at that age in dealing from an emotional aspect. So until you nurture that hurt child, you're gonna say stuck in that emotional experience until you learn to deal with that and that emo that child isn't gonna learn by you berating it on a consistent regular basis. It's gonna learn from some, some love it's gonna learn from. Well, of course, you didn't know how to
handle that. You were just 11, you did the best you could and you've taken control of your life and are moving for it and you're choosing to deal with things and you're choosing to make your life a brighter future and a better future because you are actually have retaken your power and you know that you are in control and nothing like that is gonna happen to you again because you are living in the present moment.
Jenn Junod
There's two questions, especially as you're talking about the who like the emotion of whenever your trauma was. That is, is two questions that I don't wanna forget to ask is you mentioned earlier about when you are around your high school friends or you know, something like that, they have this, you know, judgment of you already and they don't know the new you, I don't know about you.
But when I'm around those type of people, I become my old me. So that's like question number one of how you deal with that. And then question number two is I really want to get back to your views about anger.
Terri Kozlowski
OK. So let's deal with those people. Let's look at this from a long term perspective because when you are a child, any child under the age of six for who they authentically are, then you give them into school, they start to conform because you have adults and teachers saying you must be a good girl, you must be a good boy, you must behave a certain way and you must sit still and be quiet and on all of that.
So we start learning what conformity is, then we hit teenage years and we have all that peer pressure and what do we do? We conform even more into what other people around us think we should be or to be like them because we wanna be accepted when the reality is if we were just being our authentic selves and they were just being their authentic selves, we would all like one another better.
And as adults, when you, when I ask Jen, do you want me to have an authentic conversation with you or do you want me to put on a mask? And let's pretend I've never had anybody say they wanted me to pretend or have a mask or do it, they want me to be authentic. Well as adults, if we know that, then why do we conform? Why, you know, co conformity, people pleasers are conforming and conformity is the death of creativity, innovation and solutions and authenticity.
And those are the things that we all think we want and say we want in our lives and yet we conform. So the way to deal with those people is to be your authentic self. And as the universe may have it, we think that people are meant to be in our lives forever and they aren't the only people that you may have to have in your life. Forever. Is that internal family, that first family? Because those are harder to get rid of. You can still do it. And technically I did not speak to my mother for decades.
So I mean, I did cut my mother off and it can't that you can do that if it's unhealthy for you. But the reality is you choose who you hang out with and if you know those people are harmful to you, why are you hanging out with them? The question comes, why is it that you put yourself in situations that cause you harm? Have you revert to something that you don't wanna be? So it's not about blaming them. It's about understanding. Why am I doing this to myself?
Jenn Junod
I, I really appreciate that for myself. It's like extended family or personalities that remind me of a certain age or a certain person that I start to feel very small and that is something that I constantly have to remind myself of, of cool like they can be themselves. That doesn't mean I need to change for them. And I, I really appreciate that call out. Now, please fill us in a bit more about your views on anger.
Terri Kozlowski
My definition of anger is pain showing up in public. And what I mean by that is most of the time when you see anger from people, it's in a public setting, it's not in a private home or if it is in your private home it is with very authentic, establish relationships, maybe not authentic but definitely established relationships. And anger is a means to an end. Because if you are angry about something they did this and then you responded this way.
Now they're mad at you and you're mad. You know, really, if you get down to the core of it, somebody was hurt. And the only way that they know how to express hurt is to get angry because let's really look at emotion. Who taught Children? How were you taught Jen by your family to be emotional?
Jenn Junod
I wasn't exactly exactly kind of like if I showed any emotion or did anything wrong, I un up until the age of eight, I was locked in my room and I would be locked in my room for like days on end with like a little port, a potty and a sleeping bag if I was lucky. So it's definitely we're into your point of like kindergarten.
And like when we start to go to school, we're told to conform and people that conform don't get angry, don't show emotion. And in my opinion, it can be good to show anger in some aspects because then it's, it does can cause change.
Terri Kozlowski
So let's look at that in a minute if you're angry, so you're angry at me, Jen. And, but normally when people are angry, it's yelling and screaming and ranting and raving and what does the other person do they shut down there, there is no real communication. If anger is the emotion that's being shared, I'm not saying that you can't be angry. I'm not saying that anger is not a useful emotion.
What I'm saying is in anger, you cannot communicate with others because you shut down from actually hearing what the other may say and they completely shut down because you're berating them. So when people are angry, you have 00 and really th for me to deal with Jen's anger and Jen's angry at me, how do I help Jen deal with this? I'm necessarily, I apologize, Jen.
What did I do? You? And if you can't calmly tell me what I did, if you just keep on a berating type of attitude, well, you know exactly what you did. That doesn't help the situation because we believe people that we're in relationship with can read our minds, guess what? They can't, they can't, they can't read our minds, but we assume that, well, they know who I am.
They know who you are. They know this is how I am. Well, no, because whatever triggered, you could have been something benign in my eyes. If I triggered Jen, I may not realize that that was a trigger for Jen. And yet at the same time, Jen will say, well, you've known me for 10 years. Yes, but this is the first time I've done this. So I don't understand this and we make assumptions about what's going on in other people's heads.
And the moment you think somebody is thinking something you're wrong, you're wrong, automatically know that you're wrong because you have no idea what they're thinking. You may have well, from past behavior, but guess what this is, you can't keep living by people's past if you want them to grow and they want you to grow. I'm gonna assume that Jenna is better today than she was last time.
She and I tried talking and that being the case, then who I was talking to a week ago is different than who she is now. And that's really how you have to approach people because we're all not meant to stagnate. We're meant to grow each and every day, we're meant, we're meant to unlearn, we're meant to move forward. We're meant to have bold dreams and have passions that move us into new directions and live a happy, joyous life.
But for us to do that, that means we have to grow and we have to change and we have to unlearn and we have to keep moving forward, sometimes take a step back or sometimes pause or take a misstep, but get back, you know, realign and get back on track and move forward. But if we are stuck, being angry at the world or being angry, anger is an emotion that keeps you trapped in the past, anger is an emotion that keeps you stuck instead of moving forward.
Only when you are able to say yes, I'm angry. Let me calm down and we can discuss it when you get to that point. Really and truly, what are you gonna discuss? You're gonna discuss it? Somebody hurt you because that's really what it comes down to is that you were hurt. And the reaction that seems to be a societal ok to feel is anger. Because what happens if you cry in public people?
Jenn Junod, Terri Kozlowski
Look at you funny what happens if you explode in anger, people try to calm you down and yell at you at mattering on the people and they complete complete strangers.
Terri Kozlowski
So you get assistance by exploding. But if you are crying you get ignored. Society is screwed up.
Jenn Junod
I completely agree with that.
Terri Kozlowski
A and so that is why for me when I see somebody angry, I may not run up to them and say what is wrong? What do you need help with? Because it could be dangerous. You don't know what somebody but when they calm down or if I know them and they're angry and you know, calm down, let's figure this out. Normally when they calm down, what ends up, what I end up finding out is somebody hurt them and they reacted this in anger as a way to defend themselves.
Because for some reason, anger is a great way to defend ourselves against others, others, what others words, others opinions. Yeah. The reality is no offense, Jen. What you think of me doesn't matter, doesn't affect my day to day. It doesn't affect who I authentically am I am what I am. I've become my authentic self through a long course and process and other people's opinions don't matter. And when you come to that rationalization that if, as long as I'm authentically me and I'm
at peace, guess what, peace and joy are internal spiritual qualities. They are not something you're ever gonna find outside of yourself. So when you find that peace, it's gonna bubble up from inside you, when you find that joy, it's gonna bubble up from inside you and allowing other people to take your peace or to take your joy means you're giving your power away. And I am not letting anybody on the face of this planet take away my power.
Jenn Junod
I absolutely love that and completely agree. Now, I think for many of us easier said than done of the fact of not thinking about other people's opinions yet, I feel like that could be a whole another conversation and I, I know we have about 15 minutes till we wrap up. What is there anything that you wanted to cover today that we didn't cover?
Terri Kozlowski
Yes, let's talk about worthiness because that's something that I struggled with for many, many years because if your mother doesn't love you and protects you, obviously you weren't worthy of love. I mean, that's just a rational egoic thought. Makes perfect sense from the rational mind. But the reality is when a newborn baby comes into the world and everybody's oohing and awing over this tiny bundle of joy.
Is anybody thinking this child is not being productive? This OK. This child isn't enough because it's not doing enough. No, nobody thinks that at all. That baby who can't do anything but eat sleep and poop can is perfectly worthy and enough just as it is, which means that we all came into this world whole enough and worthy. Just because bad shit happens, doesn't mean any of that changed. It means that our egoic mind took what bad things happen and altered what we thought of
ourselves. And we have to realize that our worthiness are being enough is just because that's who we authentically are. If you are feeling unworthy or not enough, be your authentic self and your and that feeling will automatically change because you who you authentically are who you were meant to be when you came into this world is exactly who you are supposed to be now. And that person is worthy of love, that per person is worthy and more than enough just the way they are.
Jenn Junod
I struggled with this for so long that for myself, that causes a pause of remembering that for myself. I I don't know how this is for other people yet. It's always been so easy to find other people's worthiness yet it took so many years until I started doing inner work with my inner child and forgiving her and like realizing it wasn't her
fault and working through all of these different experiences to realize that I have worth part of the issue is that society looks at worthiness as are you being productive?
Terri Kozlowski
And then not only are you being productive or is your work perfect. So that perfectionism takes over and really and truly perfectionism is something that keeps you from actually doing anything. Because if it's not perfect, you're not gonna put it out in the world, which is why so many people have written books and have never seen the light of day because they can't actually put it out in the world because it's not ready.
It's not done. It still needs more work. And they, and most successful people put stuff out into the world that is imperfect. But guess what? You can correct it and put it out again. You know, when you find those mistakes, put it out again, it's ok. And in today's world where everything can be quickly changed on the computer, it's not a hard process, but a lot of people don't realize that perfectionism, procrastination, all those things that society puts into labels, actually all
work against us from being who we authentically are. And when we are authentic selves, the mistakes don't matter because they're really missteps. And when you take a misstep, it's a cornerstone of how you learn it's a cornerstone of growth, you know, missteps and creativity and understanding that every lesson that you have in life, every experience you have in life is to teach you.
So that when you leave this world, you're as wise as you were when you came in because guess what? You came in with all the answers because all the answers you ever need in your entire life you already have within you. The problem is we let the egoic mind scream and rant and rave and never get quiet to actually listen to the soul's whispers, who has all the answers?
Jenn Junod
And that's a big reason why meditation and those type of things like journaling, what you mentioned earlier is important because we start to listen to ourselves. And I know I said this before Carl started. You are so wise, Terry and I, I appreciate you sharing your wisdom with us. What do you have more words of wisdom that you would like to leave the audience with?
Jenn Junod, Terri Kozlowski
I shared my worthiness speech making sure there wasn't anything else.
Jenn Junod
All right and to our audience. If you're loving shit, you don't want to talk about and want to continue being a part of the journey and changing the it to shit to talk about. Please support by liking, sharing, donating and let's continue these conversations. Terry, how do our aud how does our audience reach out to you?
Terri Kozlowski
You can reach me at Terry kozloski.com. I also have a podcast as well called Soul Solutions. And they can find me at Soul Solutions podcast.com. And each week it's only, it's a solo show. It's about a 10 to 15 minutes spurts of wisdom that you can walk away with an action plan to do some things to help you on your healing journey. And then my book is Raven Transcending fear.com, which is available on Amazon.
Jenn Junod
Perfect. Thank you. And what is something that you're grateful for?
Terri Kozlowski
I'm grateful for our time together today, Jen, that we finally got to have this time because we struggled three different times to try to schedule because I know that when the universe, when there are struggles for us to actually do something that when we actually accomplish it, the universe will bless it in ways that we cannot imagine.
Jenn Junod
I love that. And I am grateful for being able to finally hear your words of wisdom because there's so many times I couldn't in previous recordings, I couldn't understand and thank you for being on the show.
Terri Kozlowski
Thank you for having me talk soon.
Jenn Junod
Terry. All righty bye.
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