VBB 303 Teresa Ford: Who Do You Think You Are?

Intro [00:00:01]:

Virgin, Beauty Bitch Podcast, inspiring women to overcome social stereotypes and share unique life experiences without fear of being Defiantly Different. Your hosts, Christopher and Heather. Let's talk, shall we?

Christopher [00:00:20]:

This is a very, very unique situation. We had a guest last week and had such a fantastic conversation, but then technology got the best of us. So I think the universe was saying, you have to talk to her again. Okay. And our guest was certified mental health and trauma recovery life coach Theresa Ford. And we want to welcome you back. Teresa Divergent. Beauty bitch.

Teresa Ford [00:00:47]:

Thank you. I'm glad to be here. I mean, getting to talk with you twice is not a hardship.

Christopher [00:00:55]:

So I started off last time with a quote from your website, which I think is so powerful. I always say, you shouldn't hire a coach who hasn't done what you are trying to do. And that quote speaks to me, as in, where your life has been and what experience has taken you to get to this point where you can coach others? Can you maybe walk us through what that foundation has been like for. For you in your life?

Teresa Ford [00:01:25]:

Yeah. I think book learning takes you so far, but experience goes very deep. So, when I'm working with my clients, it comes from a place of starting from the beginning. You know, my childhood was full of emotional chaos. And it came. It happened because my parents were emotionally immature and emotionally unavailable. There's an absence of love.

Teresa Ford [00:01:54]:

It's a profound absence of love when that happens. There's a lot of managerial stuff that's going on, but it's not actually the nurturing that we need as children. So, there was a higher expectation that we would function on an adult level. And then we were held responsible for the way our parents felt. So that really puts you on a different path because you're in this new space of trying to make Mom and Dad feel better all the time. And that was an impossible task because it wasn't our job to do that.

Christopher [00:02:25]:

That is just heartbreaking. To start life at a deficit.

Teresa Ford [00:02:33]:

You know, I look at it as. They were the perfect parents for me, for what I needed to do in this world: overcome the darkness and stand in the light, right? And that's what we're all doing. We're all alchemists, right? We need to find those things that are still bothering us now. They still cause trouble. We trip over ourselves in life. We're in a trauma loop. We keep doing the same things over and over, hoping things will change. That's darkness.

Teresa Ford [00:03:01]:

That's just plain old pain and struggle. But if we understand that everything that has happened to us was actually happening for us so that we could take what we didn't want and turn it into something we do want, it changes everything because that's how we sort of rise up out of the ashes, right? We become the Phoenix that comes into light.

Christopher [00:03:24]:

How do we? Okay, most of us, you're young when this is all going on. You don't have life experience. You don't have the wisdom to make the connections to these dots. Like you say, take your darkness, and your darkness is what it is that sets you up for lightness. What happened to you that you made those connections and you turned what was dark for you into something that challenged you to be the best you can be?

Teresa Ford [00:03:51]:

Oh, that's a great question. I don't know if I really recognized anything that was wrong. I just knew that I was spending a lot of time looking for love and looking for ways to get validated, looking like I was just trying really, really hard. And I think that's one of the key signs for many of us, is that we're trying really hard to be successful or to get validation or to find love and get someone else to love us so we can feel better. And those are key indicators. But I didn't recognize that the story that I carried with me from my childhood was, you can try all you want, and you're still not going to be lovable enough. So my first marriage, I married a good guy, and I was a good girl. And so it was a good match, but the actual match, energetically, subconsciously.

Teresa Ford [00:04:44]:

And let me make this point: 5% of our brain is conscious thought, and 95% is unconscious thought. So, the unconscious stories that we take into our lives are just revealed in the relationships, especially the relationships that we form. And so the relationship that I formed was with somebody that could not attach to me. He could not connect to me. And so, he had an avoidant attachment style, which made me anxious attachment style. I was wondering why he couldn't love me because it was the same story that I carried with me from my mom, that she couldn't love me. So that was 26 years of trying. Trying and figuring out, you know, codependency and these trauma wounds that he had with his mom and that I had with my mom.

Teresa Ford [00:05:37]:

And we had all these wounds, but we didn't really know what it was. It wasn't actually until I discovered that I just couldn't stay in the marriage anymore because I needed to grow and get beyond the trauma loop. And he was comfortable in the trauma loop. And so that was kind of the beginning of the end for me to discover on my journey of healing from childhood wounds that there was a deficit of love, an absence of understanding, that I already was the love that I didn't have to try to get the love. Does that make sense?

Heather [00:06:11]:

So what was that process like for you when you transitioned from, you know, seeking this external validation and trying to find that I am enough through other people, too? What you just focused on, that it's all within you, is the love. You are already enough. What was that transition process like there? And was there a catalyst moment for you?

Teresa Ford [00:06:33]:

Oh, there most certainly was. When your entire life gets dismantled. Like, all the things that, like, I was in fitness, I was, you know, a personal trainer specializing in hormonal fat loss. I was a mother of five. And there was. There came this moment, wherever it started, actually, with my mother's death. And so she passed away in May of 2010. And then, two months later, I lost my energy.

Teresa Ford [00:07:01]:

Like, I had no more than 2 hours of energy a day, and I couldn't figure out what that was. And I developed all these food allergies and, you know, and so I lost my health. And then I wasn't able to keep working, so I lost my clients. I was having a faith crisis in the middle of all that, wondering who I was to the goddess. Then also I knew I had to address my marriage, that it just. I couldn't stay in the trauma loop anymore. So when you dismantle everything that you've ever known to be who you are, right? Those were yours. Those were my identities.

Teresa Ford [00:07:36]:

You know, we all have identities that define who we are to everybody else. When you strip all that away, you end up, oh, flat on your back, crying. It's a mess, you know. Are you wondering who I am and what I am doing here? When you start to ask those really, really deep questions, you're going to get some really, really deep answers, and you need to buckle up. It's because the answer that you end up getting is you don't have to try and be anything. You already are enough. I realized that from the moment I was born everyone in the room was like, is she breathing? Yes. Yay. Like the whole, you know, the crowd erupts, she's breathing.

Teresa Ford [00:08:21]:

And that's where our value lies. It doesn't get any better or worse throughout life. The fact is that we are. We are here. We're viable. We're living human beings. And when you. When you realize that you don't have to be anything to anybody else, then you can start to actually unfold all your gifts and talents for the right reasons.

Teresa Ford [00:08:45]:

We're not efforting and trying and looking for validation and, you know, fearing judgment and criticism. And we're just in this really unique, peaceful space of being unapologetically yourself.

Christopher [00:08:58]:

When you deal with and have a client that comes to you with all of this baggage, it just. You're trying to reduce them back to the simplest thing. How do you dismantle all of what they have known as their identity their whole life? That's trying so hard.

Teresa Ford [00:09:21]:

That is a really good question. Again, we're just. We're pulling everything back. Who were you before you were conditioned to believe you are who you are now? Like, comprehend that one. If you just take all the conditioning. Like, our parents did the best they could with what they had to work with, but they were just trying to sift and sort through their own pain, their own fears, their own worries about whether giving my child enough or whether I am enough to give anything to my child. They were trying to guide us with that kind of conditioning. And if we could just pull it all away, it's like, okay, but who are you without all that stuff, without all those false beliefs that make us worry and look out at the world with fearful eyes? Who is that person? You know? And what it really boils down to is, we're just love and light.

Teresa Ford [00:10:11]:

That's it. Like, it's not more than that. It's not less than that. It's just love and light. The eternal, infinite wisdom, infinite intelligence, and infinite emotional connection that we are. So when we. When we scale that back, then we have to look at everything else because false beliefs that we think are true are making us feel less than. So negative emotion is on the side of false beliefs that are not true, but we're acting as if they are.

Teresa Ford [00:10:46]:

Positive emotions are the love and light that we are. Those hold a lot of truth. So, I use truth, love, and light synonymously. So if we're operating in truth and, you know, you hear out there in the world, my truth, this is my truth. It's like, you can have your truth because if, you know, if you think it's true, you're right. If you think it's not true, you're right. So either way, you're right. But if it's not working for you, it's not serving you well; it's not helping you grow.

Teresa Ford [00:11:15]:

If it's not, you know, helping you with your expansion, because that's the only reason we're here, is for that expansion, that further light knowledge that we came here to get right. If we're not doing that, then our belief systems that we think are true. Your truth is not actually helping you because it's. It's got an absence of truth to it. It has an absence of love. Love, truth, light, they're all the same. So if there's an absence of love because it's a fear-based thought, we're going to struggle. It doesn't get better, and that's how we know.

Teresa Ford [00:11:50]:

It's like, man, I keep doing the same thing over and over and over, and what's going on? It's because you're operating from a false belief that you think is true.

Heather [00:11:59]:

I'm interested to know your take on it. I mean, something that you just so eloquently said was that life is part of life, an exploration of understanding these elements. And I'm wondering what you think the role is of the wide spectrum of emotions that humans have to play with. So, you know, when I think of what it means to be human and when people fall into fear-based decision-making or sadness or, I mean, the hundreds of emotions that people can feel, what role do you think that plays in the human exploration of self?

Teresa Ford [00:12:43]:

It's where your growth lies. It's just everything. So you've never had an emotion you can't name? We were given these emotions to experience because there's got to be opposition in all things. That's how we grow. We experience the contrast. We know what we don't want. Our job is to recognize what we don't want and move into what we do want.

Teresa Ford [00:13:05]:

Now, the way we recognize what we don't want is the way it makes us feel. That's the very first thing that we'll notice because, like I mentioned before, 5% of your brain is conscious. The rest is. It is in your body. You've done something over and over. You've thought a thought that has put the emotion in your body so many times. It's like driving a car, but you don't remember going from point A to point b. Cause you just.

Teresa Ford [00:13:27]:

You don't have to remember the blinkers and the pedals and the steering wheel and the turn. We don't have to remember all of that anymore because we've done it so many times. It's in the body. We're just driving, right? We can think about the grocery list and other things. That's how we've trained our bodies. That was what our childhood was made of.  All the practicing of thoughts is based on the information coming in. We created this database that just operates automatically without our thoughts being in the conscious mind. So if it's locked in the body, your body's just going to respond without the conscious brain recognizing that it started with a thought.

Teresa Ford [00:14:05]:

The thought was either assigned to fear or love on some level. It could have been a high-grade fear, or it could have been a low-grade fear. Same with love, right? Or, you know, on the low scales, more towards neutral between love and fear, it could be right in there. But most of the time, we're not like, well, I can think about the thoughts I'm thinking about. What was I thinking about? Gee, I don't know. Because it's just going through your brain. You know, every. You're having, you know, 100 every nanosecond, and we're just not aware of what we're thinking about.

Teresa Ford [00:14:37]:

But it is 100% linked to the conditioning of our childhood and what we were taught to think about. So when you can find the emotions, the most powerful emotions we have are triggers. We call them triggers. It's when your nervous system has been activated, and we can just. They're just tapping on our shoulders, going, you're irritated again, you're feeling bitter. You know, they got a little anger under there. Those are your greatest teachers. Because if you can figure out the thoughts you were thinking about before that emotion tapped you on the shoulders, and like, man, that person is so annoying to you, right? It's just whispering to you that you're annoyed again.

Teresa Ford [00:15:21]:

If you can take annoyance and go, wait, what? Oh, what was I thinking about that person? Now, here's what's interesting. This just came in. So undiluted love. Undiluted love is the absence of judgment. If we have a thought that triggers something in the body that has a sense of flavoring or a hint of the past, it's going to come up as though it is a threat to you. And so that's why we have the negative emotion. This is a threat to me. That threat has judgment added to it.

Teresa Ford [00:16:00]:

Because without judgment, undiluted love is just unconditional love. It's like, you don't have to change. So I can be happy, you can be you, I can be me. We're not divided. We're all connected. It would change everything in our viewpoints on political events, the economy, our bank accounts, or anything else that makes us get a little crazy on an emotional scale. If there was no judgment about whether it was right or wrong, good or bad, we could be at peace. But if there's negative emotion there, it is trying to get your attention so you can go back and find that part of you that got lost in the past in a loop of false beliefs, or the lack of love, lack of light, lack of truth.

Teresa Ford [00:16:52]:

Does that make sense? So if, I know this goes really, really deep, but if you're going into your past, you may not have a memory, but your nervous system remembers that. That's why it came to your attention and tapped you on the shoulders. This is irritating us and frustrating us. This makes us sad; this makes us scared. Our fear is high, right? If we can tap into that, we can go back and grab that little part of us that was a child in our conditioning, tucker under our arm and just say, you're with me now, you're safe. And that is how the nervous system works. That you change how your body feels and responds to certain things that are going on in your environment. And if it activates your nervous system, it's going to bring in those negative emotions. Those negative emotions are little pieces of you that got lost in the past.

Teresa Ford [00:17:43]:

We bring you into the present, and we do nervous system work to help you feel safe and secure in the here and now because you're not back there anymore. It's just that your body is a database of everything that's ever happened. It's not programmed to know what's coming. It hasn't been into the future yet. That was a kind of roundabout way of answering that. But there's. There's so much to unpack there.

Teresa Ford [00:18:08]:

Did it bring up questions for you?

Heather [00:18:10]:

Well, I was going to say that that's some of the most powerful therapy that I've ever done, it is a therapist who helped me go back into specific memories as a child. And then, I became the parent that I needed at the time in the ways that I needed it. And that kind of healing in my nervous system that I bring to the present day. It's been some of the most helpful therapy I've done to date. So, I really resonate with what you're saying.

Teresa Ford [00:18:38]:

Yeah, it actually puts the power back in your court. Like, a lot of people feel powerless, they feel helpless to change the environment that they're in, things that aren't making them happy. And if you can, you could tap into your nervous system. And whenever I say nervous system, I tap right here, just below my collarbone. Have you ever done the eft tapping? Yeah. So, the emotional freedom tapping just helps you get in touch with little you, the little you that got stuck in the past before your little brain was developed enough to handle an adult situation for which you were not being offered guidance. Right? So you tap here, you're like, hey, hey, hey. Whatever that is, that's irritating you right now.

Teresa Ford [00:19:22]:

It's going to be okay because you're not back there. I'm right here. I'm with you. Right? It's the adult you, the adult brain, that can help the little underdeveloped brain grow up. She can now develop into a more deliberate and intentional adulthood. Does that make sense? So you're getting all those little pieces that got left behind of you and bringing them into the wholeness of who you are.

Christopher [00:19:49]:

This makes me kind of sad. How many years have we spent being educated in our childhood? Never are we given any of these directions about how to be the best of what we are meant to be and how to walk that path. So the things that we learn in school help us, you know, in an economic world, how do we handle those things? Through the gifts that we have naturally that nature has given us.

Teresa Ford [00:20:22]:

Yeah, I appreciate that, Chris, you know, because it does feel a little bit like time has been lost. If we had known these things back then, we could have been so much better now. But I truly am a big believer in the. Everything happens in its perfect timing, and we are not introduced to these ideas until we're ready to receive them. So, like you, Heather, you're younger than I am. I received these just a couple of years ago. Right. And you received them, you know, before you got to my age.

Teresa Ford [00:20:51]:

So even. Even that idea of being able to grab it when you hear it, and if it resonates, it's the right timing for you. So, our gifts and talents are also there. And if we're busy just, you know, swinging swords and control zillahs, just, you know, burning down buildings as she's trying to navigate life, you know, we're gonna be a little bit distracted, kind of busy, and we're not really gonna get to the good stuff of how we can empower ourselves and feel real peace and harmony with the flow of life. Right. We're not gonna get into that yet if we're. If we're out there being super distracted. But the gifts and talents are there, and as soon as we remove the distraction, those gifts and talents just come to the surface where we actually can rise to our full potential.

Teresa Ford [00:21:41]:

I call it how we fulfill the measure of our creation. Like, we are all created for a purpose. We're here to help lift each other up, right? And so if you stay there, it's, you know, in that low place, that low frequency of, you know, my life sucks. And I, you know, didn't find out about this stuff until too late in life. And those things that bring our vibration down are just you waiting for you to step up and get behind yourself, get full support from yourself, and give yourself permission to get rid of those unhelpful stories. Then, take this new information and run with it. Because it's not hard stuff to figure out. It makes so much sense.

Teresa Ford [00:22:28]:

You know, the thoughts that we have trigger the nervous system right at the base of your skull. And that nervous system sends hormonal signals out throughout the body. And the body is receiving signals that this is safe or this is not safe if it's not safe. Meaning we feel like there's a chance of abandonment, rejection, criticism, or judgment. If we're sensing that something like that is. It is going to harm us. There's probably a part of our nervous system that remembers the first time that ever happened back in our childhood when we were two or three years old. And our nervous system responds as if it's a, you know, as if we're two or three all over again, right? And it.

Teresa Ford [00:23:13]:

And it receives these signals. So when you can really tap into how to change your thoughts so your nervous system is sending out all is well, you are safe. Kind of hormonal signals. Then we can be in this place of parasympathetic nervous system rest and digest. Right? And if we are in that space, we're not really swinging our swords anymore or burning down buildings. You know, we're literally just in the boat flowing downstream. Super easy. Don't even have to paddle.

Heather [00:23:47]:

I like the sound of that. Great picture going in that flow already where you're supposed to be.

Teresa Ford [00:23:55]:

Yeah, but that's the hardest part, right? Because people get in their boat, the boat they were taught to hop into, and they turn around backward, grab the paddle and try and paddle upstream against the current in a windstorm. Because they're working harder and trying harder to be validated. See me? Look at me work hard. Look at me being successful. Look at me trying to get your validation. And it's for nothing because it's no one else's job to validate you but you. It's your job to say, dang, girl, you're doing it right. It's your job to be that support system for you.

Teresa Ford [00:24:35]:

Now that we're adults, right? If you didn't get it in your childhood, it's your job now to go. You know what, though? I'm doing pretty good. I like the direction I'm going. But if we're always like, man, I suck. This is hard. I don't know. It's going to be a lot harder because that is an upstream thought versus turning around in the boat. Set the paddle down, and let the stream, like the water, never flow upstream.

Teresa Ford [00:25:01]:

The water always goes downhill. It knows the way it's going to go. The current can take you where you want to go, and you don't have to work at it. But we are accustomed to paddling really hard in the wrong direction.

Heather [00:25:15]:

We love to ask our guests if there is one of the names in our show that you have a story or a visceral response or something that moves you when you hear it, or all three to whatever. Whatever is going downstream in the boat for you, of the Virgin, the Beauty and the Bitch.

Teresa Ford [00:25:37]:

I love the idea of beauty because it is who you become on the journey. That's the beauty. It has nothing to do with what you look like. It's who you're being in the moment, right? Tomorrow's not here. Yesterday's gone. It's who you are today right now that you love the most. Right? There's so much beauty in that. And one of my favorite soapboxes to climb on top of is that when we get better, everybody else gets better. But it's not just random everybody else.

Teresa Ford [00:26:10]:

It's those people within our circle of influence. And it's especially within our family line, especially because when you get better, and you feel better, and you're healthier, and your boundaries are in place, and you've got emotional awareness of how to bring yourself back into a good and safe emotional state, everybody else is like, wait, what are you doing? That looks amazing. I want to be able to do that, too. Right? And then they come along for the ride. Not because you did it for their sake, you did it for you. But there's so much beauty in your change, your increased health and wellness, you know, mental and emotionally, it's. It's just a phenomenal ripple effect that you see in families where children are like, wow, mom used to struggle, but now she's different. She's better, and we like it because she's not in pain anymore.

Christopher [00:27:03]:

That concept is profound because it says that beauty is contagious and that has nothing to do with the way you look. Beauty is contagious. If you are beautiful from the inside.

Teresa Ford [00:27:20]:

Right. We're just here to lift each other up.

Christopher [00:27:23]:

That is a great picture. So I hear you and I want a piece of your action. I want to work with you or I want to connect with you. How do I go about doing that?

Teresa Ford [00:27:33]:

Yeah, you just hop on my website and grab the contact form @ Teresaford.life. That's Teresa. No. H - T E R E S A. Ford. As in Chevy. 

Christopher [00:27:47]:

Ford as opposed to Chevy. 

Teresa Ford [00:27:52]:

Yes. Maybe as opposed.

Christopher [00:27:56]:

I cannot really say to you how grateful we are to have had this opportunity to not talk to you just once, but talk to you twice. And if we talk to you 20 times, I believe we would still be learning something profound and new.

Teresa Ford [00:28:13]:

Well, I hope we do get a chance to do this again. That was so fun. My pleasure.

Christopher [00:28:17]:

Thank you so much.

Heather [00:28:19]:

Round two was just as wonderful. So I'm really grateful for this extra time with you. Thank you for doing that. And it's a joy to have you on the show.

Teresa Ford [00:28:29]:

Thank you. It's been a lot of fun.

Christopher [00:28:31]:

And you have been listening to the.

Heather [00:28:33]:

Virgin, the beauty and the bitch.

Christopher [00:28:36]:

Find us. Like us. Share us. Please reach out to us. Bring your friends. Come on back.

To become a partner in the VBB community. We invite you to find us @virginbeautybitch.com. Like us on Facebook, Instagram and LinkedIn, and share us with people who are Defiantly Different like you. Until next time, thanks for listening.