Speaking and Communicating Podcast

You can control your thoughts, you can control your behaviors and your emotions.

So use that as your catalyst to make the changes that you wanna make in your life.

Welcome back to the Speaking and Communicating Podcast.

I am your host, Roberta Ndlela.

If you are looking to improve your communication skills, both professionally and personally, this is the podcast you should be tuning into.

Communication and soft skills are crucial for your career growth and leadership development.

And by the end of this episode, please log on to Apple and Spotify and leave us a rating and a review.

Now let's get communicating.

Now let's get communicating with Pamela Williams.

Joining us from Kansas, she is an emotional healing coach, author, and emotional intelligence strategist, who authored the book Heart of Love after Heartbreak, and is here to share with us how we can heal emotionally, psychologically, and also improve the communication skills, both professionally and personally.

And before I go any further, please help me welcome her to the show.

Hi Pamela.

Hello Roberta.

How are you?

I'm doing fantastic.

How's it going?

It's fantastic.

Thank you for having me.

I appreciate it.

Thank you so much.

It's how do I find love after heartbreak?

That's not on you, sweetie.

I think somebody else shot you.

So that one's not on you.

Somebody else provided you something, Gammie.

That's all right.

I'll take that one off you.

Appreciate your grace.

Thank you Pamela.

Please introduce yourself to our listeners.

Oh, gosh.

Well, thank you for having me.

Thank you for having me.

Yes, I'm an Emotional Intelligence Coach here based in Kansas City.

My background is in psychology and sociology and rich history of social work.

Working with at-risk youth, parents, working in the judicial system, group homes.

I got to get close up, close and personal with emotional trauma.

And obviously, as working as a social worker, just my own life experiences as well of having to deal with emotional trauma.

So I'm kind of very versed in what it's like to go for emotional trauma and the devastation it leaves behind and what it does to the body.

So after I wrote my book, I wanted to still be in the field of social work, but I say on my own terms, I guess now with my own practice, to help people realize the importance of emotions, that we have to feel it to heal it.

And if we don't do that, they end up in our body.

So that's my next juncture, is to pursue my PhD, with my dissertation being on that.

Adverse experiences, what they do from the emotions that we experience from those experiences and how they end up in our body, if we are not able to recognize them and release them.

It surely is.

When it comes to social work, I've always wondered, and kudos to anyone who does this kind of work, every day you meet these people who have gone through so much, you listen to this phrase.

How are your emotions handling that on a daily basis and absorbing all that information, trauma, emotional baggage they come with?

And you too must be on the other side, helping them to get to the next step or to the other side of this.

That's a fantastic question.

Now, I'm more skilled in being able to compartmentalize, right?

Whereas before, I was able to do it, but the problem is, and that's the flip side of when you care so much, I was able to set that boundary in terms of not adopting their emotion and their pain.

But you're a human being, especially for me back then, and I would get very drained because I was so invested in making sure that they had the services that they need.

And that was that the kids were placed where they needed to be placed, that they were getting adequate help from their foster parents, that they were safe in their environment, that they made their court appearances, that they had money for clothing, and that the parents were able to do the work the court had laid out for them to do, to follow the case plan and make sure that they do the services that has been set for so that they could get their kids back.

And it was really difficult because it's like as a social worker, and especially that time that the burnout rate was so high.

But it's ironic because that's what I'm doing now and helping with my clients is to overcome burnout.

But it's like I had to experience that myself.

And the biggest problem that I found for me, like I said, it was a double extra because I care so much.

And I wasn't good at compartmentalizing their emotion from mine.

So it was like I was taking on their emotion too, you know?

But now I don't have that problem.

I see it now as I could detach the emotion because I understand the implications of not doing so.

It ends up in your body.

So what I do is that I honor and acknowledge how I'm feeling, and then I release it.

So that's one of the strategies I put out there.

And when I'm working with people is that the power is in acknowledging how you feel.

Because if you suppress that, it has to go somewhere eventually, right?

So if you suppress that, that's where comes the problem.

And it's not a dig that oftentimes we do it because we might go into survival, or we just don't want to feel it that day, and we need to get on.

If it's getting the kids to school, if it's getting through work, if it's being able to deal with an emotional situation, you'll more have a tendency to stuff something as opposed to deal with it.

So it's very imperative to recognize how you're feeling.

Even if it's anger, it's anger.

There is no bad emotion.

Anger is typically a warning.

If anger shows up, there's something underneath that's percolating.

You know what I mean?

The key is you want to release it in a healthy way.

You want to be able to release whatever you're feeling in a healthy way.

And if it's anger, hey, people have made change through anger, I will put out there.

I'm talking positive societal changes or even changes in your life.

Anger could be a motivator.

It could jumpstart you to run for office.

It could jumpstart you to get that new job.

It could jumpstart you to get out of a relationship that's detrimental to you and toxic.

So emotions are your friend.

So in answering, going back to your question in the first place, I acknowledge my emotion now, how I'm feeling, and I release it now.

That way, it's not ending up in my body and I'm not ending up burnt out because I'm working with somebody who is going through pain.

Because when you're working with another human being, and if you care, you're going to feel it to an extent.

I mean, how can you not?

Unless you lack empathy, well, then that's a different story, right?

Yeah, of course, you feel it.

Hence, I've always wondered, you know, like I said, the professionals in this kind of work, how much of that they absorb.

And then when it comes to trauma, if you are helping your clients, like you said, release it from their body.

Have you had cases where no matter what you've done, it just won't go away?

Yeah, I've had some stubborn cases.

But in the end, and that's not to toot my own horn here, in the end, we've been able to get through that stumbling block.

Because what it was, it literally was a block.

Like I have a gift with that, being able to locate energy blocks, I'll say.

But when it's really deep-rooted, think of it as an onion.

There's layers, right?

There's some people where it's easier to locate and to release than there is with others, where they've had an issue that dates way back to their childhood.

Right.

The core wound is so steeped and so buried.

It's like taking off these layers, each layer at a time to be able to get to that core and then release it.

The beauty of it is, it is possible to do that.

Yeah, but there are some cases that are more difficult than others.

But I mean, if I'm committed and then the person I'm working with is committed, I'm very faith based.

I believe anything's possible.

Anything really is possible if you believe that.

There are some difficult cases I've had, but we've always had some measured level of success, I would say.

Also, your book is focusing on healing after heartbreak.

Is it heartbreak from the romantic standpoint only because there's different other heartbreaks as well?

Yes, Roberta.

I love this bloody question.

And that's the thing, the way my book is set up, it does lend itself for the belief that it's just romantic, but it's not.

I even say that in my book and my conclusion and how I round everything, tie it together as a bow, that heartbreak is not only limited to romantic love.

Heartbreak is anything that causes you grief, and grief occurs, it's a natural emotion, by the way, that occurs when you lose something.

So, I mean, somebody could experience grief if they lose a set of keys.

And to one person, it could be, well, why do you care about losing a set of keys?

But how do you not know that that key, maybe your keys held a set of nostalgia for that person, right?

And that is their attachment to that person.

They lose those keys, and they might go through grief.

So, heartbreak is not limited to romantic love.

It is to do with any type of loss you've experienced, be it a job, be it the death of a loved one, the ending of a relationship, yes, the ending of a friendship, and we can heal from it.

We have to go through the stages.

Hear me when I say, feel it to heal it.

That's the word of the day, right?

That's the phrase of the day.

Feel it to heal it.

Feel it to heal it.

Yes.

And as you mentioned earlier, that sometimes we just suppress it because, you know, you have to wake up, go work, pay the bills.

You have to hold your head up high, even though inside you're not feeling that way.

Just put one foot in front of the other.

When I speak from that space, I really speak from that space of authority because that used to be me.

And that's what I chronicle in my book.

But I had to go into survival, right?

I was a single mom who was abandoned by her boyfriend 10 weeks before we were bringing our child into the world.

And he decided not for me.

That wasn't even the worst part.

I had to get on with it.

I had severe preeclampsia.

He was with me when the doctor said, I just delivered a baby that's 26 weeks.

At that time, I was 26 weeks too.

And he said to me that baby is not going to make it.

You're going on bed rest.

He heard all of that.

And when we got home, he was like, peace out, basically.

I mean, obviously, I explained it more in depth in my book, which was very traumatic.

But I then knew, okay, I have to get on with it and this is what I'm going to do.

But that was then the beginning of the upheaval and the turmoil and the tribulation.

I mean, we nearly died.

I nearly died.

So when I got better, I had to stuff all of that because my focus was, I'm a single mom, if I live here, but my family's not here, right?

So I'm alone.

I was working two jobs at the time.

I was in social work and then I would coach in the evening to get extra money.

And then they came along and decided to sue me for grandparents, right?

Just because they could.

So when I speak, I really do speak from the space of authority because, like you said, I just didn't have the time.

I had to focus on making sure that my son's environment was safe, and that he was happy, and that I was loving, I was nurturing, that he understood boundaries, that he got discipline, and that we were okay.

Something I must say must have gone right because he's graduating this Saturday.

Oh God, I want to tear up.

I'm just so proud of him.

Thank you.

With honors, he's going to Iowa State on scholarship, he's gotten into the honor program there.

So what I say to people is, look, stuffing your emotion to get by is understandable because you go into survival mode.

And most therapists would acknowledge and understand that.

And when I wrote my book, I was able to then move through that transition to heal.

But ultimately, you have to get to that point where you start that journey to heal.

Because otherwise, it will show up in your body as an illness.

There's no escape in that.

Right.

It shows up as an illness.

And it also attracts people in your life who will keep reiterating that.

You know how they say, based on how you feel about yourself, that's why you keep attracting the same guy, the same toxic friendships, or going to the same toxic job.

It's a pattern because you are the common factor in all of this.

Yes.

Yes.

The common denominator is you.

If you're telling, you're showing me, you had a marriage that didn't work.

You're now married to someone who's different.

That's not working.

And then you've gone into another relationship, different, that's not working.

Well, then the common denominator is you.

And not only that, it's just like the law of physics.

You attract to your orbit an opposite and equal force.

We attract people who are equal opposite.

So if someone keeps repeatedly showing up in your life as a pattern, it's time to evaluate what lesson are they bringing me.

They're showing up to show you something about yourself.

And I know that that's hard for a lot of people to hear because people don't want to maybe see the bad sides of themselves, right?

It is uncomfortable.

It is.

But all of us have a dark side.

And the ones who are advantageous understand that you have a dark side, and the ones who are advantageous and wise, they know that I want to get to know my dark side so that my dark side is not controlling me.

Right.

If I can't control my dark side, my dark side is going to be the one that has control of me.

And that's when you get into trouble and you ruin your relationship so you can't hold down the job or it's difficult for you to meet people and keep a commitment.

These things will start then filtering in your life because people start noticing these different anomalies and are like, this isn't anything that I want to be part of.

People show up as mirrors.

That's another word for the day or phrase.

And here's the thing about that.

Somebody keeps getting married and divorced.

Do they take the time to evaluate the first one that didn't work before they get into the second marriage so that they think, okay, wait a minute, that didn't work.

Here's my contribution to that.

And here's what went wrong.

Here's what I did.

I've seen people who even do that exercise, but still fall into the trap again.

Yeah, they do.

At that point, when your head and your heart are in alignment, that won't happen.

When your head and your heart are in alignment, that won't happen.

Because you're right, there are some people who do that work, they do the self-reflection work, but then they get into a situation again, and they recognize the signs, but they go into denial.

Again, that's an emotion that's come up that they're not expressing.

It's easier to go into denial if you're then thinking, well, I don't want to go through that again.

Let me just ignore the signs.

And this is not anything that consciously saying, this is what's unconsciously going on for them to fall into that position.

Because if your head and your heart are in alignment, you're going to know these signs are showing up again.

So I've got a choice to make.

I either communicate to the person I'm in a relationship with and say, this is what I'm noticing.

I love you.

I want to make this work.

Or you communicate, these are the signs that I'm noticing.

I've been down this road before, and I don't want to go down this road again.

It's all about the person then making that decision.

And that's part of the problem.

Sometimes we don't want to make those difficult decisions because it's easier to be safe than to take the hard road, right?

And have the familiar with us again, yeah.

Yeah.

How do we then align the heart and the head?

That's a great question.

That's emotional intelligence.

The first thing you can do with aligning is to be present.

The reason scientifically why being present is so important is because you cannot ruminate when you are being present.

Rumination only occurs when you're unconscious.

You're not in the moment present.

Then that voice will kick off in your head and keep going and keep going.

You're down the rabbit hole before you, but like you even realize what's going on.

But when you're present, that is either in meditation, that is either walking, definitely being creative.

Being present is just being able to engage all your senses in that moment.

And when you get into a practice where you're doing that, you will start to align your heart and your head.

Now, the other part of that is being conscious of your thoughts.

Our thoughts are the spark.

And this is what I want people to think and remember.

Emotion, intelligence and mindset go hand in hand.

Our thoughts create the spark, and our emotion creates the fuel.

They're like a married couple.

So it's important for you to be aware of what you're thinking.

Because if you have a thought that says, Jane comes into the office, oh my god, she looks so nice today.

She looks beautiful.

I don't want to give this presentation.

What if I don't look as good as she?

You see where I'm going?

What if I don't look as good as she does?

What if I get up there and I buckle?

When you're not in the moment, that thought can then spiral and keep going.

And then the next thing you know, you're attacking her, you're dismissing her because of these thoughts that you're having, that have nothing to do with her.

Sorry, go on.

Because just her looking good triggered you somehow.

Right.

And when that happens to people, I know immediately they're insecure.

If you're securing yourself, you're not going to care what Jane looks like.

You're actually going to be like, oh my gosh, Jane, you look beautiful today.

Doesn't it feel good, for instance, to compliment someone or to be happy about something or to see the beauty in something?

But why do some of us gravitate towards the opposite, the negative?

Well, we're hardwired to compare.

That's because of the amygdala.

We have to be able to compare experiences to determine if the situation we're in is safe or not.

So we're hardwired to compare.

That's number one.

When it's used in that reference to keep one safe, that's good.

But the problem is, if the fear, I call it the fear center, which is the left brain amygdala, if that's activated, then you're constantly going to see somebody or things in your life as a threat.

There will be a threat to you that has to be eradicated in some way because that's the job of the amygdala is to keep the person safe.

But if it's malfunctioning, where you're looking at a person and they may look good, they're kind, which is a good thing, that means then if that bothers you, there's an insecurity that you have.

And what I will say is you can typically tell where a person feels the most insecure because they will attack another person in that area.

If a person doesn't feel that they are beautiful, they'll attack Jane's looks.

Of course.

If it's character, they'll attack their character.

It's almost like Jane is a mirror to whatever insecurity I have, and that's why I fire at her.

Yeah, absolutely.

Touching on from what we talked about, as people show up as mirrors, it's giving you the lesson that you need to work on yourself.

I was just saying, because the next step, we just want to hear the basic steps on how to heal.

So we've had loss, the heartbreak.

How do we, like you said earlier, release this from our bodies, from our systems?

Absolutely.

Well, when I wrote my book, is when I discovered the seven natural steps that I take to carry on a positive outlook on life and remain hopeful.

If you don't have hope, that's what depression is.

Hopelessness.

To me, there's the absence of hope.

And then you go into that spiral, right?

To be able to heal, it's a journey, and it's a self-discovery journey.

And as painful as it sounds, there are moments of that pain, you have to feel it to heal it, but it's beautiful because you come out a different person, a person of growth.

And the first step to that, I called it the Ramoni Method.

The first step to healing is laying the foundation and seeking support from personal or professional sources.

It's the first step.

Nobody can change without an external force.

It's like we talked about with physics.

If something is in motion, there has to be some type of external force.

Like if the ball is in motion, for it to change direction, there's got to be an external force.

Right.

Right.

So to be able to change, you have to have help from someone, be it another human being or divine help.

So the first step is seeking and it's the foundation.

Like I say, for any structure to hold weight, you have to have a strong foundation.

And a strong foundation and a healing first step is tapping into your support.

The second step with it is acknowledging self-doubt.

Now, this is the part where you start doing the work.

You've got your supports, but you then have to acknowledge and examine what went wrong and why.

Just like we spoke about earlier in terms of people do that, but then they go back into another marriage that they're down that same rabbit hole.

Without understanding that we are imperfect and we make mistakes, nobody can ever change.

If a person doesn't see that they make mistakes and it's okay to make those mistakes, they won't change.

Therein lies the problem because a lot of us might put that mask up.

When perfectionism is there, I know it's a mask then, straight up.

It's a shield, it's a mask, whatever you want to call it, because it's a protection, survival, a shield of protection, right?

But to make changes and to heal, you have to acknowledge what went wrong, what energy you brought to the situation.

None of us are perfect.

We're all bringing something to the situation.

And that in lies where you do the bulk of the work in understanding and your personal professional help is going to help you get through this part.

What you did so that you could accept that and make the changes so that you don't make that mistake again.

Third part of that is where you take action.

A lot of us can be in a situation that is toxic.

But what separates people from getting out of that situation and not, obviously fear is part of that, but that's a normal emotion.

It's not acting on it.

That's not normal.

We're humans.

We're going to feel fearful.

But it's a motivator to take steps forward, to start developing that plan to get out of that relationship, or to change that job, or to start working harder because you want to move house.

This house isn't good for me anymore.

Whatever that might be.

Lay down a plan so that then you can take action and make those steps to move forward.

And once you do that, you have to trust the process.

Yes.

My philosophy is steeped in the body, the mind and the soul.

All of these steps are a component in that.

And no healing can occur without some type of divine help.

That's honestly my belief.

Wherever a person knows it or not, they might be healing and not realize that they get in metaphysical help but it's coming from that source.

Be it someone else is coming into your life to help you at a moment where you're thinking, my gosh, I really needed this and this person landed here.

You know what I mean?

In that you have to trust the process.

And what's so important about trusting the process, it helps you move forward because you're going to have times when you stumble.

You're going to be tested.

If you can't trust the process, you'll stop and you won't keep going.

And after you've done that, you visualize what you want.

You visualize a better outcome for yourself.

That's the fifth step in all of this.

It is a new house that you want to move into.

You start seeing that new house.

You've already done the work in where you want to move and how much it's going to cost and how much more that you need to earn in order to get there.

All of that.

You start seeing yourself in there with your family.

You start envisioning yourself driving up to that house.

Visualization is so important because it helps you dream forward, helps you keep moving and not remain stagnant.

And then the sixth part, acceptance.

Now, this is the one where if we could just do this part, it negates the other like four, because the first one, you're always going to have to support the foundation.

But oftentimes, we get stuck, because we get stuck on what forgiveness and what we think that is, and that we have to accept what was done to us.

Acceptance doesn't mean you agreed with whatever trauma you've been through, heartbreak, loss, whatever you experience.

What acceptance is saying is, I'm letting go of the emotion that's holding me back so that I can move forward.

When we don't accept our circumstances, it keeps us trapped.

How are we ever going to take action if we don't accept whatever that may be?

Being able to let go is a gift you give yourself.

And a strategy that I use for quick acceptance, in my book, I talk about the fact that one of my friends had called me from England, and we were on the phone talking.

And it was after Warren had abandoned us and whatever, and she was like, Pam though, I know you, you'd never pick a bad guy.

And I went, oh no.

Oh, I own this.

And I blame this part of myself for taking him back.

When we went on our first date, and I knew then, I didn't want to be this guy.

And I thought, let me give him another chance.

But I went into denial.

I was like, oh, I can fix him.

Don't worry, I'll be all right.

And I owned it.

I said, no, because I knew if I'm owning that, I ain't making that mistake again.

So the strategy I tell people, what I say, I just say, this is the reality, period.

So once you know this is your reality, well, what are you going to do to make changes, right?

And take action.

That's to be acceptance, right?

And then the last part of that is the continual part of the journey, which is engaging the body.

Cause up until this point, we've been doing that, engaging the body, the mind and the soul.

But the real healing comes when you do activities that fill your cup.

That means you do physical stuff, you make food work for you, you do the emotional work that you recognize and you release through writing, through meditating, talk therapy, and then connecting to spirit, connecting to the divine, connecting to the moment that is now.

That's the perpetual state of healing.

It's maintenance and how you stay focused, how you stay positive, how you stay connected to the people in your life and how you grow.

Those are the seven steps to letting the trauma leave your body.

Yeah.

And then you talk about authentic joy, the last part where you continue by doing those things.

Do you find over time that you start to experience authentic joy?

Absolutely.

Absolutely.

Because you won't be held back and bogged down by the negative emotions that are there.

Remember, no emotion is bad because if it feels bad, it's just it's warning.

Stress is not bad, but it will be if you don't heed the warning from your body.

When you feel physical effects of stress, that's a warning from your subconscious to say, you are being burnt out, your peace is being compromised.

So it's time to evaluate what in your life is causing your stress.

Is it another human being?

Is it your job?

Do you make time for yourself?

Is it finances?

When you figure out what the problem is, puts you in control in terms of then you have the power to make the changes.

Always internally reflect.

And that's when you listen to your body, as you say.

Yeah, yeah, absolutely.

Oh, yes.

Any last words of wisdom, Pamela?

Take control of the things that you can control.

You cannot control anybody else and their behaviour.

When you start to want to do that, you are leaving what's internal for you and you're focusing too much on them.

So if you're going for a bad situation, you can control your thoughts, you can control your behaviours and your emotions.

So use that as your catalyst to make the changes that you want to make in your life.

And take the time to go inwards.

That is what is meant by filtering out the noise from the outside and just take some time, even if it's in the morning.

I do it here.

I open a window and I listen to the birds.

And I sit, I listen to the birds, and then I do my little gratitude journal.

What that does is set me up for the day, and I tune out any noise, apart from what's coming in with the birds, and it allows me to go inside.

If you take something away, at least be vested in the fact that you need to filter out the noise so that you can go inside.

You can't control what anyone else does.

Don't try to do that, because you're only going to be holding yourself back.

Focus on what you can control.

Words of wisdom from Pamela Williams, the emotional healing coach, emotional intelligence strategist and author.

Thank you so much for being on our show today.

Thank you for having me.

Thank you so much.

It's been a pleasure.

My absolute pleasure as well.

Before you go, would you like our listeners to reach you and where can they find you?

I would love that.

You can reach me on LinkedIn.

I'm on there as Pamela Williams, or you can go to my website, ramoniministries.com.

I would love to hear from you over there in those places.

There's free resources there as well.

So I'll see you guys over there.

Thank you.

ramoniministries.com and Pamela Williams on LinkedIn.

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