A serious topic but we're going to try to have some fun with it too. Dealing with
abuse with Leta Greene on board.
With me today is none other than hotness herself,
Leta Greene. Your book, Leta, how to embrace your inner hotness,
an inside out approach to a lasting makeover by Leta Greene. We had an
interview on my podcast, we've known each other through the Speaker's Association,
we've been friends for years. - He still makes cheesy faces I'm like... - You know
what, Leta, you're here at Live On Purpose TV because of a recent conversation
that you and I had where a very serious topic too. Now we are not by our
nature serious people but we both we both deal with serious things all the
time and this came out in the context, we
shared it in another video actually, you can link to it right up there in that
corner if you want to see the other conversation that we had. The quick
version is it started with a social media post that you had made, now you're
already pretty famous and so you had a number of followers who picked up on it
about this me too movement that's out there and it has to do with how
women in particular but anyone who has suffered some kind of abuse or
mistreatment from someone else and they're stepping up and saying hey, me
too, it happened to me too. You did this. That was vulnerable. - Well I felt like I should
but I had no idea that it was going to get the reaction that it did. I'm
glad it did because I put so much out there about choosing to be happy and now
I get to give the sub story because from my outside personality, you wouldn't
think I mean, I'm hotness, right? - You're leading with that as your brand, you're
into cosmetics and makeup and makeovers. - Right
so it was always good, it was it was easy and I'm very proud of that book
but I joke that this is the the pre New Hope Star Wars.
- Oh yeah, the story behind. - All the principles are taught are true to
choosing happiness and hotness in your life which is the biology but this is
even now, even with this, because principles of truth do not change
because of our circumstances. - That's right.
- If it's dealing with not liking yourself which was what my book was about.Oh by
the way, why I don't like myself?
- This isone of the common symptoms in that other video we talked about, the symptoms of
childhood trauma. - And at that point my life, we didn't call it suicidal then but
I wanted to cease to exist but I couldn't figure out how to not make a
mess. Those are pretty serious to go from being that to very mentally
fragile to now I'm a mindset expert - That's a transportation - to you know, going
from being an awkward tomboy with all our teeth to.. I mean it I mean it in a
look, right. You know but anyone - I still remember that time when you had your tooth missing.
That was awesome. She used to flip her tooth. - I was on the car accident
that lost it again and I was made of a thing and I yeah.. - You got some traction
over there. - I got a lot. I actually lost a couple of engagements because I got my
tooth fixed. I told my husband it was going to make us bankrupt, he said, "I'll just
have to rely on my personality now." - Well so all of this is context later because
you're not where you used to be and you're not where a lot of people would
assume that you should be based on me too then if you've been abused as a
child or as a young person or even as an adult, you shouldn't be having this hot
life. - I've already had people express anger at me really for saying you could be happy
after this. - So Leta, question for you. Are you saying
that we have some choice? What are our choices? - Every single day we make
choices, every single day, every single moment and it's not like we just
make them and then we're done. - Every choice has a consequence. - Every
choice has a consequence but throughout the day like, the choice to be kind to
those I live with. I may wake up in the morning go you know, I am going to be
really nice to my family today but then they're people and human things happen
and I still have to choose my reaction to them. - Stuff happens all day long. - Right and we're not talking
about burying it, we're talking about building tools. - So if we tie this into
handling or dealing with abuse, okay, what whatever that means for you,
does that mean that you've got some abuse in your past?
Does it mean that you love someone or know someone who's had some
abuse in their past and chances if you're connected to any human being on
this planet then probably there's someone in your human Treasury who's
dealing with this and you already know who they are most likely so handling
abuse, dealing with abuse in our life. What are our choices? I think the most
obvious one that came to my mind is the one that tends to have a lot of
popularity unfortunately and that is I can be a victim. - I call that lay yourself
on the altar. "I can't possibly." - Now we're being dramatic about but this is not
funny, it's tragic. - It takes
away you've given up your choices. - Some people don't realize they have a choice.
- Right because and this is why it's so important that when I was abused by
what I call jokingly the scum, right, couldn't start with his first name so
that works, right. He took a choice in that moment and the many moments and
hours that these things occurred over years but my response to it as a child, I
did not have the tools to know how to handle that and he was someone who
groomed me to keep secrets which led me into keeping secrets for my addict
brother which led me into, well it couldn't right and fortunately there was
something that interrupted that pattern and that was a relationship that I made
with a very important individual, that I could define and think about myself
differently and that came for my God and it may be annoying to tell people
that that's a first step but if we understand that we are
uniquely special like every snowflake, there may be a million, we've all heard
it before but we are uniquely special and
if that if that is the little kernel, there was a traumatic moment
where I was actually being pursued by a group of drugged boys and I hid in fear
and I'm breathing and I'm crying and I can remember exactly what that feels
like and I'm like God God God God God God and
I don't know if it was an angel that stood over me, a little force field
but that drugged young man walked right by me so close I could feel the
air of him walking by and he didn't know where I was. In that moment, in that
horrid awful moment, I knew that something had protected me,
I knew that and as since I've come forward, I've had people who've given me
sacred stories they want me to share of that moment that it's in sometimes
in the contrast of what is evil that we find those little kernels and if we take
that and we like okay and we
keep working on that relationship, the voice gets louder and louder and louder
and louder and then there were you know, earthly individuals, they gave me other
additional tools but I had to take them, I had to do the work. One time there
was a guy that was a really nice guy, he had the same name as my abuser and he
asked me out and I remember him looking at me and I thought,
"No, ew. What if we dated and
then we got married?" And I went, wait a minute.
First of all, we didn't get married but
that's a completely different person, that we take what's happened to us and
we throw it like mud onto everything and destroy everything that's good,
everything and they were separate people. - What you're describing
here, Leta, is common. - Right, yeah. - And unfortunately, and so is
abuse I mean, it's common. Not to say that it's okay. I
don't want anybody to get that feeling here today because it's going to happen,
it has happened, it's probably happened to you or to someone that you love so
what are my choices and we've spent a few minutes here talking about one of my
choices is to be a victim until you see it as a choice. - Then you
get to move in to.. - What are the other choices? Well if you'll open your mind to
this possibility that this might be something I have some choice about, not
whether I was abused or not. That was decided for you.
- 100% their fault, no matter if you sat on their lap or flirted or wore something sexy.
- But now what are my choices? And I think there's some better choices
than choosing the victim route. Some people use the term survivor or some
similar term which I prefer to the victim. You introduced another
possibility. Will you share that? - Well, here's the
thing. I never really connected with survivor now like breast cancer survivor,
I like that because they still have to monitor their cancer, you still
have to monitor that but I do not need to monitor my abuser.
In fact, because right of the miracle of I have released that responsibility
between him and God, not saying that I'm going to hang out with him and invite him
over for dinner but I've forgiven that situation between him and God, that's
God's job. - Forgiveness, we've had some other videos about that. - Yes so that I
have now removed myself over here to get to choose my path, I'm not stuck in this
so I'm over here and there's a survivor and a survivor phase, it's like
this happened to me and this happened to me and I think our society's
kind of having a survivor thing but if you look up on a thesaurus and I've
never identified with it and then I looked at him and I was like why
do I not identify with this because some of the words used to term
survivor are what's left over, the residue, the trash
and that just feels sticky when you're
talking about this kind of situation. - It also continues to validate and give
power to something that we don't really want to empower anymore. - No, I want to
gain the wisdom and the lessons and my third face. I'm in this place and this is
why I'm reaching out, I'm an advocate, I'm a defender. An advocate has been
there- Yeah, they know the lay of the land. - And they can say no, come over here
because to the little.. - Show them their choice. - Exactly and if the best
that's ever going to be is the coming out of the desert
asking for water. Survivor, right? If that's the best it's ever going to be, why
do the hard self work? Why make choice by choice by choice
because there's so much easier just to go, if that's as good as it's going to get,
the let's just play the victim card the rest of my life.
- Leta, thank you for being so courageous because to step into that
position of influence requires some level of vulnerability which
is the last thing we want to do, that's the first thing that we want form others.
It's so much more comfortable just being known to be hot.
- I can't throw my hair likes yours. Leta, we're
collaborating on some projects and as we conclude this this particular video and
hopefully you've found this conversation helpful. - There's so much more. If we're
going to be horrible, let's just help people. - Let's do it in a way that
empowers people to live on purpose to take hold of their life again, let's not
give that abuser or that trespasser or that sinner in our life any more power
or ability to steal or take anything from us. - Because you can live a great life and
speaking of being vulnerable, I have a wonderful relationship with my husband
in all ways and of course, this is a sacred, not secret but
an abuser keeps the relationship secret.
- You know when I'm married I'm probably with my husband, I have children, right? So
it's not a secret what happens but it's so sacred that it's just between he
and my husband and it's only been between my husband and I and
that's the hope that I want to put out there is that you can have this life
that's full and wonderful and good. It's going to take some work,
there are simple tools and in order to give, we talked, you have the
therapist psychologist thing like you went to school when I went to makeup
school.- But we've got some different things we're
contributing to this. If you want to connect with some of the other things
that we're creating, the description down below has some ways to get in touch with
us and these are being developed.
-You're kid of putting it together like, okay, this is really great. - This is a
topic that we're passionate about that you don't have to be trapped by and I'm
so glad that you found this video, please share it with someone else that you
think would benefit from it and let's collaborate to see if we can empower
some people. - We absolutely will. If we're going to do it,
let's do it. - Isn't it great news that there are some
other choices about dealing with abuse? We don't have to go into victim mode.
Let's share this message with as many people as we can.