Transcript of No Longer Leading With the Wound with Hilary Momberger Powers New

Oh shit, anyway, okay, okay, we're live.

Hey friends, welcome back. We're already doing a podcast, guys. Welcome back to an episode of Notes from the Edge. I am your host Lisa Lazy, and this is the place where we have the conversations we should have been having all along. Guess what? You ain't talking about it, but we're gonna talk about it. And our special guest today is Hillary Momberger Powers, and check this out, she is a transformational mentor. If you don't got a mentor, get yourself one. Trauma-informed coach, motivational speaker, keynote speaker, former child performer, fascinating, and licensed vocational nurse with more than 40 years. You don't look older than 40, sister. She began her entertainment career at 5. She started performing at 5 as well, guys. We talk about that a lot in here. And was the cast as the voice of Sally Brown in Peanuts cartoons. She worked consistently through childhood, but her early teens gave her exposure to drugs and alcohol, marked the beginning of years of addiction, a lot of emotional pain, and some destabilizing choices. Then she went into nursing, and now she entered recovery in 1983. Guys, that's a long time in recovery, so she's gonna have some skills and some tools for us today.

She supports individuals, particularly women, healing from trauma to develop resilience, advocating for yourself, which is so important, rediscovering your mission, your purpose, your meaning, and creating a life that is no longer directed by old wounds. Hillary, welcome in, sister. How are you today?

Good.

How are you?

I'm so excited to have a conversation with you.

You're awesome. I know. You've already lived like 15 lives. I don't even know where to start with you.

I know. I'm tired, but I'm not.

I'm retired, but I'm not tired, but I'm energized. Yes, I get it. I get it. That's what these good conversations do for you. That's why I love them. So, Hillary, we talk a lot. There's a mask behind me. We talk a lot about performance. I too started performing at the age of 5, not quite to the level that you did. I had signed with a good agent in Atlanta, then went backpacking with a dude in Alaska, came back, backed up with a kid and changed careers, but that's a story for another day. Talk to me about being in front of a camera at 5 and what happens to you as a child when you're so visible and seen and praised and evaluated before you even form an identity. How does that shape and change you?

That's so incredible. You know, that's the thing, before you even build and shape an identity. It's crazy. We live in a world where we think, Oh my God, I want to be famous because we're so not okay with just being who we are.

Podcast done.

We're done. That's it. So, you know, that's kind of what I was raised in. And this is like a long time ago. I always reveal my age. I'm like, who cares? I might even go under the knife one day. Who knows? But, you know, I'm like, I would if I could, girl.

I have a clotting disorder, so they won't let me. That's okay. I hit menopause and I got boobs out of nowhere. I didn't even—

oh my God, I got double boobs out of nowhere, but that's a different story. That's, that's for just the women. I got double or nothing. But so here I am, I'm 5 years old, I was raised under the cloak of—

I love it.

I, I, I, I did a little, a little, uh, Instagram the other day saying, oh, narcissism is such a— it's one of those hot words. It's like, yeah, you're creative. I found my truth. You're a narcissist. You know, it's like, like, ah, what I used to call them is self-centered, arrogant, smelly, self-righteous assholes. That's what they used to be called, right? Now we have a clinical name. They're a narcissist.

And the problem— everybody's a narcissist now.

Everybody's like, well, everybody's self-centered today. We live in a very vacuous, self-absorbed climate. Vacuous.

Beautiful word.

So ugly. So here I am. I grow up with this woman. She was so ahead of her time. The narcissist. Right. But she was an alcoholic. She was an untreated, meaning she was suffering throughout her childhood, her drinking. She was from an elite family where her father was having sex with her. So common theme today, but it was more behind closed doors before. And she was like this beautiful only child and tortured. Now I say this only today because I'm way on the other side. Yeah, before I was on the other side, I was a victim. And she was a bitch and she was crazy. She was a narcissist and she destroyed my life. Now that I have gone to the healing side, I I see her as a very, very troubled, hurt, angry, disappointed, just so unbelievably tortured by self and mental illness and a disease that doesn't go away called alcoholism. And she's—

isn't it amazing? Don't gloss over that, Hillary, because you just did something that was beautiful. And I spent too many years in anger and victim consciousness too. Before I could see that my own mother's mother was murdered in a DV situation by her husband who had violated the children. But I couldn't see any of that. I was just really pissed at her. Same thing, like, you're just, you're just being nasty to me.

You ruined my life.

Like, I made choices because of you. And but man, it's a, it's a beautiful thing to get out of victim consciousness because the healing doesn't happen there.

Yeah, well, here's the thing. If you think of the word trauma, traumatic— I love breaking words down. If I were living in California today, which I'm no longer, but if I were, and there was an earthquake, it moves the plates, titanium plates underneath the ground, and it becomes traumatic. And meaning, in other words, I have been shifted to to a new paradigm. Mm. And that is what occurs when you hit trauma. Now, trauma can happen. It doesn't have to be an earthquake. No, it could be a mother die, a father die, a brother gets sick, someone else becomes the star child and you get placed in the back seat. It doesn't matter. It's that fundamental, that original sound being, that sound ground, that foundation gets shaken. And that becomes my trauma response. What does that mean? I respond based on this event for decades. Sometimes it becomes my identity.

Yes.

So what happened? Yeah, as a child, I was placed in a position— I didn't ask to be an actress. Kids today that say, I want to be an actress, They don't even know what day it is, okay? They don't even— they don't even know how to tie their shoes yet, but they think they want to be a superhero.

My daughter got out of the house and she didn't know how to pump gas. I was like, I made a lot of mistakes here. Oopsie.

But the kid doesn't even know how to clean up his clothes, but he wants to be famous, which means a lot of— all eyes are going to be on you.

Yeah.

So here I am as a kid. Every little kid goes— you walk into a room, a little boy, and go, I need the strongest boy in the room. All kids go, oh, I'm it, I'm it. The little girl goes, who wants to please Mommy? I'll do it. Because my first initial response is unconsciously, subconsciously, uh, you know, all in the deep basement. I don't even know that my primary energy is I want to give back because my mother gave me life. And I have a natural response of wanting to— it becomes a symbol. It is simply, you know, it's serendipitous that, um, what's that, simdopio? What's that word? I'm talking— I don't know, whatever.

Symbolic. It becomes symbolic.

Symbiosis. I want to get back. That's it. I want to give back to my mother. So as a kid, I want to please my mother. Now here's the trauma response. So when something happens where all of a sudden I'm in school, my mother says, oh, you look like Shirley Temple, which I did. Lucky me, unlucky me. You know, there's devil, there's always a devil. And once—

yes, ma'am.

And here I am, I'm this cute little girl, but— and I'm friendly by nature. Because it's my nature, right? That's the root of who I am. And all of a sudden, my mom thinks, oh, I can make money off this woman, this girl. So she, because she is the narcissist, the alcoholic, that the ego's never satisfied, says, oh my God, I can get something out of her and it's gonna come back to me. So she's gonna get her hit. So I just show up, I'm cute, I have a nice conversation with Charles Schulz, and, and all of a sudden, boom, I become not only in front of the camera for commercials and TV shows, I become a cartoon character. And I don't even know who I am. I'm this character.

Yep.

And I want to do it because, see, there's drinking, there's fighting, there's alcohol, there's so much traumatic shit going on at home. My dad's not enough. My mother's calling him a fag. I don't even know what the word means as a child. He's weak, man. She was already, you know, Me Tooing way back when. You know, yeah, and they're not good enough. Men are not strong enough. You're not enough. She's a narcissist. If you want to look up the malignance of a narcissist or an arrogant, self-centered, self-righteous— it's just an asshole, you know. See you next Tuesday. We just put it on because we're dropping F-bombs on this one.

I was just telling you, I'm rolling with it. Yeah, so good sometimes.

I know, I'm so fresh. I've just dumped my crap on you.

So I—

here I and I, and I just want to please mommy because that's my natural response. But what ends up happening is, is when something traumatic happens in your life, and like I said, meaning if your mother dies, your parents get a divorce, you get jolted into a new paradigm, into a new timeline where you're like, oh my God, I got to be perfect. So there's 4 ways of trauma response. There's— I stick to 3. I keep it simple. I'm either a people pleaser. I want to make you happy. I'll do everything. Okay. Yes, Mommy.

Okay.

Do you love me now? Do you love me now? Am I enough now? Is it enough?

Yeah, right.

Remember, I'm dealing with the asshole that's self-centered and narcissist and all those pretty little words, alcoholic, that nothing is ever enough because she's not happy inside because she's, she's broken. She's, she's hurt. So hurt people hurt people. So she's trying to get her needs met through me because she doesn't know how to self-soothe or heal herself. She doesn't know anything. She just thinks the bottle will fix, the man will fix, the money will fix. How does it sound like your life? Right? Hello? Right. So she keeps thinking this, and I want to fix Mommy because I want to please Mommy.

And you want Mommy to feel better too.

Yeah, I want everything to be okay, and I want to feel like I did it. So I start building on this trauma response. There's people pleaser, there's loner, and there's controller. I'm going to go through all 3 of them because we just are not one hat. We change them in the day we're in. Some days I'm controlling the kids, the husband, everybody. Next day I'm a people pleaser. Other times I'm a loner. What's a loner? So here I am, the people pleaser. I give and give and give, and I'm realizing mom's not enough. She's not happy. There's fighting, there's screaming. My brothers and sisters hate me. I can't be the perfect horse rider, because I used to ride horses, I'd get champion, she'd say, well, you should have gotten it the last one. It was like wind out of my sails. So no matter what I did, I don't even know who I am because I'm trying so much to be who you want me to be that I'm so fractured as a little girl that of course I never feel enough. I've got blisters on my fingers, I'm biting my fingernails to the quick, I'm always nervous.

She's like, stop fidgeting, you're ADD. We have all these names now. It was just like, stop fidgeting, you're making my fucking crazy. That's ADD, right?

Yeah.

So I don't know what's wrong with me, but I have been shook off my foundation. Trauma that I—

let's talk about that, because safety, the word safety is what you're getting at, right? Talk to me about the foundation of safety and how that was fractured for you?

Well, if you think, here I am as a being, I am seeing, tasting, touching, hearing, smelling, my senses, that's me. I know how I feel by the way I— oh God, it's so nice out. It smells great. I feel home. You know, seeing, tasting, touching, hearing, smelling. Those are the only things I have control over. But when I'm a child, I have control over nothing because now I'm just trying to find out who I am. Am I this?

And get on solid ground, and you can't.

I don't even know who I am because my emotions— my logic has not connected to my emotion, or my emotions have not connected to my logic. I can't go, oh wow, Mom's messed up. Mom's an alcoholic. Don't worry, Hillary. Ah, get away out of the room. All I know is I have to feel, see, taste, touch, hear, smell okay, and everything's wobbly. And then I have the sixth sense, which is a later thing that once we stabilize— I can't get to that God mode, I can't get to that quiet time, I can't get to that, that real, real authentic stabilization. That doesn't come from me, it comes from the Creator who created me. But I can't get there until I take responsibility of myself. Well, when you're a victim, can't do it.

No, because your finger's pointed outward. You're like them, them, them, them, them, them, them, right?

Everywhere except here. Yeah, it's not my fault, right? Okay, so here I am. I go from being the people pleaser— that doesn't work, I find out my mother's spending all my money, everything I ever made as a child. And now I'm finding out that it's not enough. So I say, okay, it's not enough. I go into my loner state. Now, what is a loner? We have tons of ways of being a loner. Kids sit on their iPad all day long. How you doing? Good.

They're gone. They're escaping.

They're escaping because guess what? They're trying to find out how to be safe. Just like I people-please. Why? Because I want to feel safe. Yeah, if I do enough, then I'll be enough, then I'll be okay, right?

Success does not provide safety though. No, no, but it looks pretty though, doesn't it look pretty? It provides—

it provides distraction. It's all provides. So here I am, the loner, you know. I'm— I would go— my mother would say, oh, Hillary and her famous disappearing acts. It'd take me 4 hours to walk home because I'm gone, I'm distracted, I'm somewhere else. I'm like, I'm looking at my books, playing with my dolls, I'm running away, I'm hiding out during, you know, during having to clean up the house. We had 7 kids, horses, Wow. Nothing was ever enough for my mother.

Wow.

My poor father couldn't work hard enough. He constantly fell behind under the line of perfection.

Not enough.

But when you have that mind, an arrogant, self-righteous, smug asshole, aka narcissist, nothing will ever be enough because it keeps moving, moving.

Yes. Yes. The goal line keeps moving. What did I write the other day? It wasn't good. It was, uh, oh, Hillary, I can't remember it, but it keeps moving on you. You're like, they say go left, you go left. They're like, I said go right. I'm like, wait a minute, what?

Like, the best way I could say it is I always think happiness is over there. Over there does not exist. News flash, everybody, your audience, it doesn't exist. It's an illusion. You're never gonna get there because it doesn't exist.

Well, because it's here.

It's already right now.

Yeah.

So the way I can visualize, because I'm an artist, right? Crazy brain. Lucky me. Thank you, God. But I see creative soul. We love it. Thank you, God. Thank you, God. Thank you. I'm colorful.

I have so many ideas.

I got kaleidoscope. That's my middle name. So here I am, I'm like a little child on the beach. Ever seen a little kid with a huge beach ball?

Not that big. How big was your beach ball?

Just think the beach ball is huge and you say, go catch the beach ball. Every time you try to grab it, what happens? Goes further, goes, flies away and further and further. And that's what I kept doing. When you're in trauma, you never get stabilized because you're keeping going further and further. And further. So here I go from loner, and all of a sudden I find drugs and alcohol at 13 years old. Guess what? Guess what the spirit of alcohol does to me? It gives me a new spirit. Hillary's gone. She's not good enough anyway. I already heard that. Heard that my whole life. I never measured up. But I have this new spirit that says, you can— you're no longer flat-chested. You're hot. Boys like you. I'm like, like flat-chested, 4 foot 9, and I think I'm gonna be somebody and I'm stronger and I can talk back to my mom and I don't care. I'm a new spirit. Spirit. Yeah, bingo. Little do I know the spirit is now taking me hostage.

That's so early.

Oh, so young. But I don't care. I hate myself. I'm not enough. I look in the mirror, I'm throwing up. I'm 14 years old and I have bulimia. I'm throwing up 10 times a day because I would stuff the feelings down and then vomit them up. I mean, sounds so gross, but it— you do— some people do it with food, but they, they keep the, they keep the food. Or they do it with sex. Or boys do it with gambling, do it with porn, they go with masturbation, they do it with stealing, they do it with whatever you're doing. You're trying to—

it's still a contraction and explosion, contraction and explosion.

Trying to control my insides, but my outsides. Makes no sense.

It doesn't, but we do it for decades.

We do it because I don't even know who I am, because I've been stuffing Hillary and all my feelings and everything deep down in that basement. I never want to look at it. I just want to be happy. I want to be high. I want to go away. Until that stops working, then the control kicks in. There's the third element, control. It's like the, the big— the kid at school who's the bully, that's a trauma response. You want to know why the kids are beating up the other kids? What the fuck is going on at home?

At their home?

Let's talk about that. Like, how are you feeling, young boy? How are you feeling, young girl? Like, nobody gives us a moment to go, I'm taking— why?

Why?

Yeah. And you're usually behind it. Every response is fear. I'm terrified. I'm so scared. I don't even know where I am. I don't know even what to do. I don't know how to grow up. I don't know if I'm right. I don't know if I'm ever gonna make it, but I just don't want to feel, so I find a way not to feel. Like I said, kids do it with porn, they do it with sex, they do it with gaming, they do it with sitting on the iPad for hours and hours.

It's escaping.

They're just, please, I give, I turn my will, my life over to the apple, to the knowledge. Oh yeah. And you wonder why. I don't know why I'm breaking out and I'm fat and my back hurts, my arm. You haven't even been outside to the seeing, tasting, touching, hearing, smelling senses. Yeah. So stabilizing. Now get to the stabilization. When you start to, when you make a decision, which is not a A decision is nothing until an action follows it. Otherwise, a decision is just an idea. You gotta do the work, guys.

You gotta do the work. I think I'll change tomorrow.

Yeah, tomorrow. Yeah, there's the bouncing ball.

Monday. I'll do it Monday.

The bouncing ball. There it goes.

Bye-bye. Bye-bye.

It'll never get there. I'm gonna go get a bottle.

I'll do it one day.

I'll see you guys tomorrow. Let's just have fun. So here I go. Here I go. And I say, I think to myself, remember in my mind, I have a thought. Now my thought, I have this, this mind, I call it out. I have alcoholism too. So I have a mind power disease that's hurt. All my memories, all my thoughts, all my yesterdays, all my what happened and what he did to me and this and mom and dad and la la la is all stored in my mind. That's so hurt and it's so scared because it doesn't know how to get out of this pain. But it keeps thinking, if I get a new job, new husband, new— if I get a bigger diamond ring and a bigger, bigger tits, bigger lips, maybe if I get more Botox Just another trauma response. It's another, I don't know how to be with you.

More distraction.

I don't know how to be with Hillary. I'm so scared. There's the truth. There's your truth. You want to know what your truth is? Get in touch with your fear and your pain. There it is. And then only then can you transcend away from that. Only only then. You can't get over— you can't get to your next adventure until you make friends with the adventure you're on.

That now. Yes. Not who are you becoming? Who are you now?

I remember before I lost weight, I was like, I love my fat thighs. They're so gorgeous. They're beautiful. I made friends with myself.

Yeah.

And once I was able to connect with Hillary, I was able to let go of the old idea, the old self. That no longer served me.

I love that. Is it still serving you?

Yeah, yeah, because when I'm in trauma and when I'm in victimhood, it's still serving me.

You're getting something out of it. Yes, that's why you're stuck there.

You're still getting an audience. It changes a lot because most people are like, oh God, here comes Hillary again. I can imagine what's going on today, what kind of drama. And then it's okay I remember, oh, you won't talk to me? I'll let me call somebody else. And it was on the rotary phone then, so you guys don't know what that is. It's called a phone. Never mind.

So it's a pay phone. Just find it.

They don't even know what it is.

What? It's a pay phone.

You have to pay for a phone?

Yeah, you have to pay to call people.

Yeah, you don't—

you got to walk around without your phone.

Yeah, and your parents don't pay for it. You have to pay for it yourself.

Um, you have to go like dig a hole for a quarter. Yeah, I get it.

So by this time, after I'm all drugged out and all this stuff, I had already left home. I said, but you know, I'm leaving home like this with my fingers in the air, and I wasn't waving, and I was angry. Now I'm in control. I hate my life. I hate my mother. I hate, hate, hate anger because now this is the only energy I have to keep me going. Because if I got in touch with the sadness, I just die.

I die.

So I just keep going and going. That energy, that come on, let's do this, come on, let's go, you know, that energy when you get around, it's like, oh, I feel that in my, my soul when I get around that, because I know I, I can feel what they're going through. I know they're in pain. They're so in pain. And I was in so much pain.

It's so buried sometimes.

Deep, deep, deep in that basement, baby.

I love it. You say basement. Yeah.

Oh, deep. So here I am, I'm, I'm, you know, I leave home, I, I find a boyfriend. You're my daddy, you'll fix me. Yeah, right. 16 years old, he beats me, I beat him. I end up, and you know, I end up hitting my mother back. I go to juvenile hall, leave high school, 7 high schools later, living in, in a foster home, leave the foster home, living on the streets, living in warehouses in Compton, selling drugs, alcohol, my body, whatever it takes, because I'm gonna figure it out. I don't need anything.

I'm always pushing, pushing, pushing, pushing, pushing, pushing, live hard, running, running, right?

I love that, running with scissors. No, running with time bombs, running, running with grenades, okay, connected to my toes. Yeah, that's gonna work well. So here I am, I'm so angry, but I think what I got to do is I got to go get it. I end up going to nursing school because I think I gotta go fix them, I'm gonna go save people. They can save me. There's always a glitch, you know. It's like, it's not for fun and for free. I need you to fix me in return. Yeah, because I still have that people pleaser. If I'm perfect and I make you well, will you love me then? Will I be enough? Will you tell me? So here I am, I'm staring at my outside world in hopes it will make my inside world feel okay. And don't we all do that? We think that when we get the job, the podcast, the house, the husband, the kids, the destination, yeah, then I'll be happy. When I get married, then I'll be a good girl. You're, you're, you're, you're not right now, hooker. Okay, it is not gonna help. You're still gonna be you.

You go with you everywhere. I think that's the thing we miss. We go with ourselves everywhere. Everywhere.

Yeah, she's here.

Nursing school too.

Even because you're not here. Yeah. So by the time I'm 21 years old, I'm, you know, I've already moved 65 times. And, uh, wow, girl. I, I don't believe in God. I think God's, you know, BS. I was raised Catholic. I was waiting for, oh, you know, him to climb off the cross and say, come on, girl, we're going for a hike, you know, but nothing happened. I would pray and ask my parents to die and wouldn't happen because I live in this fantasy world that I just have to ask for what I want. There's a little hint of— there's a large hint of entitlement with victimism. It goes hand in hand.

Mm.

You need to fix me. Yeah, that's entitlement. And it's your job.

Yeah, it's your job.

Yeah, it's entitlement in a victimhood. Ouch. I don't even know it.

That's not fun to look at at first.

But then when you don't have a choice— I got the gift of desperation. Thank you, God. Thank you, God. Thank you, God. I was sitting on a fire escape in Venice going into a grand mal seizure, and I didn't care if I died. I didn't like God. I didn't believe in God. And I said, if there's a God, don't let me die. They went away. Did I have this, you know, Mary Magdalena, you know, Florence Nightingale moment? No. But what happened is my hard shell of denial started to crack. Oh. And I started to think maybe I'm not supposed to die, because I've been trying to kill myself slowly in a slow drink of death. Slit my wrist. I'd have sex with random people. Oh well, I've been raped a few times. I mean, I have an incredible portfolio of pain. Big deal. Either I use that to stay in the gutter, or I use that to, to rise in the occasion and be of service and enlighten someone else's load. And that's what I do now.

Enlighten.

Yeah, enlighten. Lighten other people's loads too. And so at 21 years old, I had this aha moment. And you know, God has a sense of humor. He sent me, you know, a guy who I had had a huge crush on at 21 years old. He was like it. He was, uh, he was Mr. Universe of, um, Ireland. And I thought, he'll fix me, he's my daddy. And I— and he said to me, you look horrible, can I take you to an AA meeting. And you know what I heard is, "I love you so much, let me fix you." I said, "Sure, I'll go, I'll go anywhere you go because you must want me. Please fix me, please make me whole." And what happened is, is I didn't see him for a year. He was my gift. He disappeared. But all of a sudden I got into a world where other people knew they were broken, but they weren't going to throw each other away. They were going to all be in the same ship and look at themselves, be able to mirror off one another, and slowly heal. And that was the beginning of my journey of healing.

And, and throughout the years, I have done every modality you can think of. I'm like, how can I get relief more more, more. I've taken that I want more, but I've turned the other cheek, meaning I've turned my attention towards being healthier and being happier and feeling lighter in the day I'm in. And, you know, my ego and my mind is, is always going to have those memories. I didn't have a frontal lobotomy. I didn't get— I always say I'm a Cadillac. I'm not going to be a Porsche. If you had some traumatic things happen, It's not going to go away. What are you going to do about it now? How are you going to treat yourself? How are you going to stabilize yourself? You can't wait till your insurance kicks in or the therapist calls you back or I get that raise. What are you going to do with all that empty time? Stay tortured by this or find a way to stabilize? So over the years, I've learned how to do things. Getting a massage doesn't do it. That's just an outside fix. It's an inside job I need to pertain to. It's an inside job that I need to learn to stabilize myself.

So I do things like, when I get scared, I take a breath. There's my breathing. There's my seeing, tasting, touching, hearing, smelling. And I touch myself.

Tapsy.

And I say, babe, it's okay. I'm not going anywhere. I'm not going to leave you. Because that's my biggest fear, is I'm going to be alone again, and it's scary. And I say things like, God loves me, he brought you so far, you're such a good girl. That's what I was dying for as a child. Instead of, you want another job, you have to make more money, you got to do this. Like, I realized that I was never those things I did as a kid. They were just added to me so I can become who I am today. That's it. That's it. Yeah. So I have had such an incredible, pleasurable journey of hitting bottom, looking so stupid, making so many mistakes, doing the dumbest things. I'm on marriage 4, whatever. God hates a quitter, okay?

But I'll tell you, marriage 3 girl, he's 16 years older than me. We were only 30 days clean both of us when we met. I was fresh out of the institution. It was a brilliant idea.

Oh, I had one of those.

Some of those—

some of those—

our way into a healthy marriage.

Well, you know, it's as healthy as it is the day we're in. That's it. Because yes, that's true.

I may be arguing over biscuits and gravy tomorrow. I don't know.

We had an argument. I'm a Cadillac. I won't be a Porsche. But what I have learned is I've learned how to walk away from things instead of stick with it because I think it's the last thing available. I've learned how to say no, thank you, I love you, but this isn't gonna work. That was such a huge one for me. My first husband who worked for Tony Robbins' company, we are such great friends. We joke, we came up with my keynote. He didn't know it. He goes, I was so messed up. And I said, I know, I picked you through my wound. Hence, no longer leading with your wounds. And we laugh at that because it was one of the— my— our fall in that relationship, I got to look at. I was so hoping that, you know, we would live happily ever after. Disney got crushed, that marriage. Disney got crushed. Thank you. That was it.

Now it doesn't exist. Relationships are so complex. They're good teachers.

Yeah, but you know, they're— I always say it's a we world, not a me world.

We are all united, and I think there's a world—

not a me world. Yeah, but we keep cultivating, we keep building on the, on the independence. That's the illusion. That's the one that we really need to smash every single day. It's like, no, it's not about you, you self-centered girl. How can I be of service? How can I add? How can I— how can I be altruistic? How can I take care of myself and be of service to you? There's— oh yeah, just struggling act, you know. So, you know, and over the years I went back to college. I had a great— you know, I've had some great mentors, and I've had lots of coaches. And I'm all about, I'm gonna be here since I'm not dead, I might as well learn who I am in the day I'm in and see if I can help other people do it. So I've, I've went to art school, I found out I was an artist. I didn't know I was a painter. I was like, oh, okay. I write books. I've written 9 books. I was like, hello, who am I? I'm God's creation. You know, I wrote, I have this, I wrote an ebook recently that's called the Hope Chest.

And it's basically, there's so much inside of me that I get to keep finding out, wow, this is exciting. Who am I now?

It is exciting. Yes. Yes, we are so lucky. And miracles walking, I tell you.

Oh, everybody is.

Yeah.

So it's my responsibility to shine my mirror on you, meaning you get to see how much of an incredible life you have, even though you can't see it. I get to be an advocate and a guide to go with you down to your basement. That's what I work with people, and I go, let's get rid of this shit. Let's find out who you really are. And I'm not scared. Yeah, I'm not scared. I'll hold your hand. You could be scared with me, but we're gonna do it anyway.

Yeah.

And that's what I get to do. So I want to— I went— I didn't want to be an actress because, you know, I I did an audition to Me Too, you know, pretend you're giving me a blowjob. Oh, okay. Oopsie, how'd that happen? Um, I was in my 20s. Thanks, okay, whatever. I can jump on that. It happened to me, so what? So what? I was trying to get something out of it. I wasn't a victim, remember? They didn't do it to me. I said, hi, my name is Hillary. I walked in.

How can I make you happy?

Yeah, dude, I have to take responsibility for everything, and then I get to take responsibility for everything.

Yeah. Yay! So then it changes because taking responsibility is an action.

That's right. And it's not otherwise, it's just a thought.

Yeah, I love that.

I love that.

Well, Hillary, I— we are coming up on 40 minutes now.

Oh my God, we can talk.

I know, we can talk forever. I think we need to have you back for a round 2. I have many of my guests back for a round 2. I definitely think you and I need a round 2 next month if you're down for it.

I'm down for it, girl. Let's go down.

I would love that. Well, listen, I think all of us need mentors. How can people find you? If they want to have someone hold their hand as they dig into their basement to get rid of the shit and these wounds holding them down, how can they find you?

Well, you can always get a hold of me on my website, which is Hillary Momberger Powers. You'll have it in your thing, or I will put the link.

It's a direct link, guys. You don't have to write it down, you just click. It'll be down here. Hillary, make sure I have all of of that.

And then I will help you. I'll help you. I will show you my program, what I do. If I can't help, I will advocate someone else. I don't care. And I don't want to be your guru or your God. I want to help you find your guru and your God. And that guru is going to be you.

That's within you. Ah, so beautiful. I got chills on the back of my neck. It's so good. All right, Hillary, before we let our guests go, we always ask 2 questions. Are you ready? All right, first question, first question. In your own life, what did you perform— I can't wait for this answer because you've done a lot of it— in order to survive? Just pick one. And what did dropping that role mask or performance do for your life?

Um, I would have to say Because I'm a woman, and I'm going to be really vulgar— I, not really, but I, you know, as a woman, being a woman, I thought I had to be whatever you wanted me to be. And I did things that I didn't want to do, and in turn I resented you and scorched you on fire. And what I have learned how to do is I've learned how to say No thank you.

Yeah, I love you is what you said earlier, but no thank you.

Yeah, how lucky.

I'm walking away now.

Yeah, yeah, thank you. I don't even have to say it, I show you. No thank you.

No, no thank you. I'm out.

I'll see you later.

All right, last question. What do you think we need to be talking more about that we're not talking about? What do we need to be talking about? And maybe we can do it on round 2 next month. What do you want to talk about?

I don't know, if you want to talk to women, I'll help that. I'll guide them back to being a woman.

I love that.

Yeah, come back to themselves. Being a woman is so awesome.

Let's talk about that. That's the title of your next podcast episode, The Art of Being a Woman. You know what, some of us— I was told to man up, so I tried. I tried that. That didn't work very well.

Yeah, I can do it.

Yep, I love it.

I don't need men.

Guess what? I tried. Yeah, I was like, you could fix me, fix me, fix me, fix me, fix it. Oh, Hillary, we— okay, we're having a round two. All right, my friends, we gotta wrap this up, but I want you guys to consider, and we always close out with this, remember, ask yourself, what are you performing in your own life in order to survive? And what might dropping those roles, masks, and performances do to maybe lighten your load? All right, I'm your host Lisa Lacey, and when you find the answer, welcome to the edge. Hillary, thank you so much. You rock. So do you, girl.