Episode 18
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[00:00:00] Transcribed
by https: otter. ai
Welcome back to the Women in Writing podcast. This week, I have Rhonda on my podcast, and she's very amazing. She shares a very vulnerable story about her losing her daughter. So a little bit of a disclaimer here, we will talk about child loss. And if that's a sensitive topic for you, better not listen to this episode.
But it's a heartfelt story also how she trusts in God and how she moved forward in her life with everything she learned from that very tragic experience.
Hello and welcome to the wonderful Ronda. Hello in Nashville. I'm so excited [00:01:00] to have you on the podcast this week. Thank you for having me. And we met online. You are very inspiring and you inspired me with your story and everything you shared. So you just want to introduce yourself. Yeah. So my name is Rhonda Velez.
I am from Nashville, Tennessee, originally from California. I moved here to Nashville about two and a half years ago. I just am so passionate about helping women entrepreneurs like find their root causes of what might be holding them back from their purpose. And so we connected and I'm also an author and a podcast host and a mom and a wife and, all those things.
So we connected and I love to write. And so we just decided, let's have a conversation about this. That's really amazing. So I think my first real question is like, Is there a pattern between what is holding women back female entrepreneurs? Is it like imposter syndrome or is it, [00:02:00] obviously everyone has like individual issues, traumas to deal with, but where's like the kind of like common ground?
Yeah so when I started digging into what's holding me back from really finding my purpose, I needed to find the root cause of it, but I didn't even know where to begin. I just knew something needed to change, and I knew that I It wasn't working. Whatever I was doing was not working because I would get a little bit ahead and then I would find myself back in the same place that I was before.
And I ended up running into this wonderful woman. Her name is Carrie Garcia and she has something called Freedom Movement. It's an organization. That just helps you find freedom in your story. And I didn't really know what that meant, but our stories define us. And it's funny cause we talk about writing and stories, right?
We even movies, like we're all about story. Everything is storied in everything we do. And so to not understand that our story [00:03:00] actually impacts the way that we Live life would be dismissive of it. So I just started really digging in and trying to figure out like what's going on in my own story and where is it holding me back?
And I came to the realization that it was something that happened to me in fifth grade and it was a string that tied along all the way through 50 now. And I was like, the more I dug in, I was like, Oh my gosh. Oh my gosh. It's the same narrative every single time. Wow. Do you want to tell us what happened exactly?
Yeah. Yeah. Absolutely. And it seems so incredibly silly. So I think we minimize our stories a lot, right? Like we think I don't have massive trauma. I haven't had anything major happen to me. And so we minimize this thing that might've happened that really stuck in our brain. And, it's not moving from there.
You [00:04:00] go back to that every time that trauma happens, you go back to that same place. So when I was in fifth grade, I I was a pat in the pastor's kid. And my dad also ran a drug and alcohol rehab. Yeah. So those are like two things that like when you're in fifth grade, like those aren't the cool jobs for your parents to have, it's like my dad's a pastor and runs a rehab.
Not too many people want to hang out with me. So I always felt like I didn't quite fit in, but so I was at school, it was a normal day and at fifth grade, you're beginning to realize that boys are cute. You want to, Run and chase them. I don't know if you did this when you were in fifth grade, you chase the boy and then they chase you back.
And it's so one day I came to school and I felt super cool. Cause my mom had taken me to I know that you live out of the country, but there was a store back in the eighties. It was called the limited. It was the coolest store ever. And we didn't really shop there too often, but my mom had bought me this beautiful sweater and these really cool jeans.
And so I felt extra cool going to school that day, chasing the boy as well. Wow. As I was running I hit a patch of grass that had a big, huge [00:05:00] divot in it. And that divot caused me to fall into it and fly forward in front of all these people, all these cool kids as I would say they were. And I looked, and as I was falling, I said,
And it flew out of my mouth and immediately I felt this sense of shame. One, because I grew up in church and you weren't supposed to swear. And I didn't know what my dad would say if I swore. And then the kids started coming around me and they were pointing at me and they were saying, we're going to tell your dad, we're going to tell him you're going to get in so much trouble.
You're not supposed to say that. And I felt one, I felt so embarrassed cause I fell in front of everybody. Two, I said a bad word. And what was going to happen and three, I just felt a ton of rejection. I just, all of a sudden felt this. This rejection, come on, I got up, I brushed myself off. I went and sat on a bench and sat there until the bell rang and watched [00:06:00] my friends play.
And nobody really cared for my heart at that very moment. And so I thought that's a dumb story, right? Like it's not that big of a deal. Kids fall. It's not that big of a deal. But as we started to explore it, I realized that rejection was really the root cause of a lot of things that were holding me back.
And rejection also stems in fear. And so as I began to explore those things, I began to realize that like years later, things that had happened in my life, when that rejection would happen, I immediately would shut down and I could not move forward. And so those are the things that. With our stories, I feel are really important to explore and understand, because if we don't understand where the root causes, there's no way for us to push forward.
And all that, although that story seems really simple and not that big of a deal, it was a super huge deal and caused me to make a lot of decisions in my life [00:07:00] to not move forward, to not speak up, to not be there. I feel seen in the room. And so since I've been doing this work, I've watched like my life just bloom because I'm like, I'm not as fearful.
Yeah. A hundred percent. Like how you felt in this moment, you wanted to protect yourself then in the future to feel the same way, right? Yeah. Yeah. So immediately you go back to that root fear or rejection. And I know a lot of women in particular deal with, the mean girl aspect or things of that nature.
And it really does. It'll either make you. Pushback, or sometimes it'll cause you to be overly aggressive, like in a situation, where you're not, where you're just going to be very brash and harsh because you're like, I'm not letting anybody bully me, so it can go in different ways.
And so when you see those kinds of things in the workplace happening, or you see it in your own life happening, you begin [00:08:00] to understand like, okay, there's something that's causing this behavior. Definitely. Yeah. It's just crazy to think about how childhood affects us. And there was the similar to me I was, like, ashamed, like, when I was probably like two, three, I started I got glasses because, my eyes are not amazing.
I'm wearing contacts now since most of my life, but I got glasses and I thought, like, all of these. Like in every comic or everything I was watching, like Scooby Doo or whatever, like always the kid with the glasses was always the nerdy kid, so I thought Oh my God, I'm always I will always be the nerdy kid.
And I blocked myself a lot from being like living my full, joy or like potential, so I think it's a lot of things that even if you grow up, and safety, like everything is good. Like you said there's not like major trauma, like we have to look at these things.
And a lot of times it's not [00:09:00] until we are older to understand. And I think what I got out of your story as well, it was also like the expectation part, right? Because you were expecting, Oh my God, that will be such a good day because I have these, new clothes and it will be so much fun.
And then. The day turned out like so much different, right? Yeah. Yeah, exactly. And expectation was a lot of in fact, I talk a lot about that in my book is that I had a lot of expectations not only from me being a pastor's kid, but thinking I've been a good Christian girl, so things should work out.
The way they should work out good because I've done all the right things. I've checked all the boxes. And so many times, we have this narrative in our head that if we do it all right, that it's going to turn out perfect. And, unfortunately life just isn't that way. And so like, how do we deal with the blows when our expectations are shattered,
and so a lot of the reason why I wrote. My [00:10:00] book was because I felt like I can't be the only one feeling like, like this. I know that I'm not alone in feeling like angry or sad or, and I think a lot of times we don't allow people to actually feel or have emotion. I have this really silly my therapist had a feelings.
chart pillow in her office. And I was like, Oh my gosh, I love this word. You get it. She goes, I got it on Amazon. So I immediately went home and I ordered it and I love it because it has all of your major feelings. So like happy or disgust, sad and fear and anger. And then all of the emotions that stem from those core things.
And so when I look at it, I realize man, I'm like, Everything for me was fear my, my husband has worked more from a place of anger and he is like the kindest, nicest person. You would never know that, but everything, the root is actually anger. So I like to think of it as you [00:11:00] go out and you dig a plant and, if you don't get to the root of it, it's going to continue to grow up just like a weed, right?
And so it will pop its ugly head up every single time you are in a situation where you feel threatened or you feel like you need to protect yourself. That root just pops right up and your reactions aren't great. I will tell you, I Just recently got done. I'm a narrative trauma coach and just got done with my certification program and my daughter who is 26 went through that program with me and it was one of the hardest things I think I ever had to do because there was some real soul searching I had to look at as a parent of not doing things well.
And the very last day of the coaching program, I walked up to her and I hugged her and I just told her, I love you so much. And I am so sorry that I did not hold your heart well, that my hands were not kind to you and that my words were not always kind to you. And it was so repairing. [00:12:00] And so for, I posted something on my Instagram and I got so many messages from moms that were like, thank you, because we think it's not fixable or repairable, but it is right.
But it starts with us. It starts with me as a human being going, I did not do these things right. And so I need to repair myself so that I can change the next generation and it doesn't happen again. Exactly. A hundred percent. It's like that cycle breaker mentality where. like a lot of us, and I found the same, when I became a mom, like I was working on myself a lot, and I felt just last night, really on his chair, just last night, I was laying in bed and I was crying because I thought there was a situation earlier where she was like just up and she didn't want to go to bed.
And I thought Oh, I should have reacted differently. And I felt really bad and like really guilty. And it's about like these things where you. Like you have to connect with yourself, give yourself grace, but at the same time, learn your lesson and then [00:13:00] move forward. And I had conversations with my mom about like different things, like parenting related.
And then she said something like, yeah, so then I did everything wrong when you were little. And I said, I'm not saying that you don't have to I'm not blaming you, there's different things now I do different, just because out of. What we know now and out of what I experienced, but it's not like to do with blaming always.
But I think it just shows us how incredibly complex it is, right? Yeah. And it is. And I think, it is to have to face, I'll never forget our facilitator coach. She had told us during one of the sessions I want you guys to go home and my daughter was there. So it was a little different for me, but she says, I want you to go home at some point and ask your child, what was it like for me to be your parent?
And be ready. And she's I don't want you to go home and do this. Right when you get home, sit with that, because the responses that you're going to get might not be the responses that you want. Because we all want to [00:14:00] be told that we're doing a good job and we're being a good parent and we're doing all the things.
The fact is we're human and we're not going to do it. And even in the process that in the healing journey that I've been on, I think one of the most illuminating things for me is that I'm never going to arrive. Like I'm never going to totally get there. I'm not going to always, I'm not going to be totally healed.
But I know how to, when those triggers come up, now I have the tools to be able to say, yeah, that's a narrative, and I don't believe that narrative anymore. Or when I make a mistake, And I can go repair that relationship with my daughter and tell her, I'm really sorry I blew up and I shouldn't have done that.
And, or, I said that and that was not my place. And so I think that's what it's really all about at the end of the day is once you get, you start to heal and you start to understand okay, I can go repair things and I can be a better person in general. Cause we're going to make mistakes.
We're going to say wrong things. I know. That's never gonna go away, but we just learned to be better [00:15:00] at it. Better people. Exactly. That's so true. It's almost like that mission to get out of that vic victim mentality, right? . Or victim state. Even though we might not be aware of it, because one of my coaches who just had a session yesterday and she said too,
you are the creator of your life and you have to make sure like that, that, and you remind yourself of that, every single day is, and I think like when we don't like fully heal, then we only really have the capacity to be a hundred percent, the creator of our lives, of our careers.
Like I teach that to my clients, like when they're writing as well, like growing in there, like freelance writing career beds. They have to heal first, like this, even though they don't expect and they don't want to do like a lot of mindset work. And sometimes I have people that say, Oh, I don't, I'm fine mindset wise, I don't need like any [00:16:00] mindset work or mindset advice, but these are mostly the people who need it the most, because when you get triggered, like that's like a gift, like you can really look into what's behind that,
yeah. And I think too, if you're writing something that's coming from a place of that you've been hurt in my story very much has to do with my daughter passing away and some of the really hard struggles that my husband and I had. And I don't think I could have written that two years after my daughter passed away.
Like I really had to start doing the hard work. And even now I look at the book and I think, man, I would have written that different now. Yeah. Not that it's not helpful, but I feel like I would have written that different, but you only know what you know when you're doing it at that moment. And obviously, like I said, the healing journey is a forever process.
I will forever be in the process of healing. I think the problem is as human beings, we want to get from point a to point B. Like we don't like the painful stuff, right? The stuff, the ugly middle. That's not comfortable for us [00:17:00] because it isn't, it's not comfortable. And so when you start to heal, you start to really feel these like things that you're like, I don't like that feeling.
This does not feel good. But anything, you have to press through it and push, push towards it. I don't say push. I don't like to say push through it because I don't feel like. It's something you have to push or, force. Like I feel like you have to sit in it and be like, this feels crappy.
Name it, say there's a really crappy circumstance. It sucks that my daughter died. It sucks, and it's okay that it sucks. It's, and there's days that I'm very grateful that, that for the life that I had in the time that I had with her. And There's other days.
I, I will, I'll be honest, but last night we had dinner with a really good friend of ours. I haven't seen her about 14 years. She literally had her daughter two weeks after my daughter passed away. And as we were catching up at dinner, I just kept thinking, Oh my God I can't [00:18:00] believe that Tiana would be 22.
And it was so crazy. And when we got in the car, my husband goes, are you okay? And I go, actually I'm just really processing. And I was really tired last night. And it has nothing to do with her. I'm so happy for her that she has her daughter and that, her daughter's doing well. But for me, my heart hurt a little bit and I had to acknowledge that I had to acknowledge like my heart hurts right now because I don't have my daughter with me.
And so I think just being, that's such a healthy way to process. I ended up going to bed a little early last night cause I'm like my body and my mind are just they're tapped out and it's time to go to bed. Yeah, that's so crazy. So crazy. I'm so sorry. Do you want to share a little bit more about your daughter that passed away?
Yeah. So my daughter Tiana was born in March of 2002. She had a heart condition called fibroelastosis and it was an internal there were the internal fibers in her heart were not connected. So the doctor Said, [00:19:00] it's like, it's not like a plumbing issue where we could repair a hole or fix a valve or something of that nature.
It was actually the fibers in her heart. I did not know that she was sick. I was 37 weeks pregnant. I had a perfectly normal pregnancy. I have a, had a four year old at the time. That's my 26 year old. She's 26 today. She was four. And so they were like, you healthy pregnancy, you never had any problems.
But when I went into the doctor the Friday before I delivered her, I knew something was wrong. I was like, there is something wrong. And I asked for an ultrasound. They said, no, you've had a healthy pregnancy. You can't have another one. And Monday I went into labor. They had a hard time finding her heartbeat.
They were just really struggling with keeping her heart on the monitor. So immediately I knew when the doctor walked in that there was definitely something wrong. And they rushed me in to, for a C section, delivered her. Whisked her away and she actually died in my [00:20:00] husband's arms three hours after my delivery.
And so it was a really hard season. And then eight weeks after I delivered her, I went into, and I was, I've always been a corporate girl. I've always had a job. I love to work. And I went into the office that I worked in and I found my severance package letter on the photocopy machine and my boss let me go.
And I really thought Wow. Like the world is caving, like literally caving in on me. And I don't know, I don't know what I'm going to do. Luckily my husband was incredibly supportive and he's don't worry. We're going to, I will never forget. He, I was in the bathtub when he came home and he brought me some flowers and a bottle of champagne.
And he says, this is to our new life. We're going to do this. We're going to be okay. Yeah. And I took some time off, and during that time, my husband and I started helping other parents who lost children to neonatal and early infant death, and we would buy gravestones for their babies, and it's been a journey and we still [00:21:00] continue to help women I'm, I do, I'm going to be leading a support group for women once a month for women who have lost children, because it's such a hard, lonely place to be.
And I didn't have Instagram during the time, so there's so many resources now, but even then, it's just, I just wish I would have had somebody who was 20 years out that could tell me it's going to be okay, I promise. So sorry, and I'm like sitting here, like I can start, I could start to cry, it's crazy.
We had our first scan yesterday with our next little one, number two. And it's just sad because so much can happen. And we actually had a friend that. Something really similar happened to her maybe a year before we had our daughter and she like, we like, we have friends like that in the U S we here in Europe and like we like saw all the pictures, she had the baby shower and all of that.
And then like you, we didn't really hear from [00:22:00] them anymore. And all of a sudden there was like this post on Facebook. And like you said, like for a lot of people, maybe social media is like the way to like process. a little bit too, because, like on one hand it puts, the pressure on you, like you share pregnancy announcements and all of that and all of that excited excitement and then something like that happens.
But anyway, then she shared that she had a stillbirth at, I think she was like 38 weeks or something. And it's just incredibly sad. And she also shared that she. Couldn't enter the baby room for a year or something like, yeah, so shut close and she couldn't go in there. And yeah. And I think, that even that trauma, like my husband really has, is now dealing with the death of our daughter because after she passed away and I had lost my job, he was working three jobs at the time and he never had a chance to sit down and process it.
And so when we moved to Nashville was the first time that he acknowledged that like he really was feeling. [00:23:00] What he was feeling and a lot of it had to do with the fact that we were leaving California, which was where our daughter was buried and we were moving to another state. And so I think, there's just so many, we, life is really hard.
And I think the one thing that I've learned through the process of my own healing and then also through my own grief is that learning to listen to people and just. not fix it is probably one of the most valuable gifts you can give anybody. Yeah. Because when you lose a kid, there was a lot of advice people gave me.
There was a lot of things like I joke and say I could write a book on things you don't say when your kid dies, like that people are so uncomfortable with. Yeah. With how you're feeling that they just they word vomit. And the people that just sat with me were probably the most wonderful people.
Like I can't fix this and it sucks and I'm sorry, but I love you. And I think those words were probably, would have [00:24:00] probably been the best things that I could have had in any situation, whether it's a divorce or, you Losing a child or a loss of a job because we like to encompass grief in, in Oh, somebody's death.
But we grieve things all the time. Like we're always grieving things that are hard. We grieve. You have to grieve it and process it. Yeah. So yeah, that is the important part. And it feels like also like with my writers, when we, when they start like working with we with me, we do a lot of like writing exercises, where it's like.
free writing or like prompted writing, like just, pen and paper, because like they really get like access to their subconscious and they say it's so hard. And then it's almost like a detox because then, some days just feel like they just feel really down because everything comes out.
But like what you said Like digging for the roots and like through writing, I feel like a lot of times [00:25:00] you can actually better process things just to, because you discover them, you don't even know that they're still like stuck. And you're the new thought, like maybe in your like conscious mind, Oh, I'm fine.
I'm okay. Like I, process that like a long time ago, but it's actually not the case, yeah. Yeah. And I think too, with the writing process for me, it was very healing. And there are things that I don't think I could have written on my, in my earlier journey that I was able to write, 18 years down the road.
Yeah. There's so many things in my book that I shared that I was like, I'm gonna do, I'm gonna say this, and this is really scary because this makes me very vulnerable. Yet it was so incredibly healing for my heart to put it out there and then to talk to women who say, I've felt that way too.
Yeah. I'm not, I wasn't alone. And then I, my, so my book is a devotional. I felt like the. A devotional was a space that I was really comfortable with. I love short writes [00:26:00] and I didn't want to do a whole book. So I was like, I'm going to dip my toe in this devotional journey and see where it comes, but now I love it.
Now I want to write my second devotional. And I'm just in the process of thinking about like when the time is right for that, because I went through a whole other season because I've lived a lot of life and been around 50 years. I, the death of my daughter was really hard.
And then my other daughter went through it. Yeah, I just, it's, yeah, it's I've had so many different things happen in my life that I'm like, okay, I could write about this now too, because now this journey that I've been through was hard as well. And in my devotional, I do some prompts, some journal prompts.
Nice. So it will allow you to process and write it out. Do you want to share the title of your book? Yes. It's called 24 carat conversations emerging as pure gold in the midst of circumstances. And that's also the same title as your podcast, right? It's the same title as my podcast. Yes.
And I named it with, and this is funny, you'll appreciate this. When [00:27:00] I submitted all my stuff to my publisher, I said, here's a hint. He kept correcting my C to a K. And I said, no, it's gotta be a C. And he's no, but it's grammatically, it needs to be a K. And I said, no, I said, it's a C.
I said, carrot. That C that I wrote is encompasses jewels and gems and I didn't want to only think of carrot as gold because the fact is that everything that we have every stone, every piece of gold, a pearl. Those things have to go through a process to emerge beautiful, right? Like a pearl sits in there and it's a braised by, until it, until you take it out and then it's a pearl.
Same thing with diamonds. It has to go through a process where it's refined and gold, same thing. And so I wanted it to encompass jewels and gems, because I honestly believe that we all have some sort of gem or jewel inside of us. Amazing. And that's it reminds me of the saying that. The diamond is[00:28:00] created under pressure.
So that's amazing. I love that. What a beautiful name. Thank you so much for that honest conversation. Yes. Thank you for having me. And I just have to say that I am so blown away by the amazing women that I meet on social media. Like I know social media sometimes gets such a bad rap, but I have met more wonderful connections with women.
And you inspired me too. And we just met, which is crazy. And I feel that too, like with, like most of my podcast guests, it's not okay, it's the end. Thank you. We recorded a podcast and the podcast is it's always you think of them, like it's, like a great relationship that we have.
And a hundred percent of course, if you look at social media and you just want to See the negative, then that's what you find. But I also like, I'm blown away as well because there's so many amazing people online and like you said, it holds so much [00:29:00] potential just, connecting.
And that really made me think because, back in, Back in the day where they didn't have that, like you were just alone feelings and it was really to share something like that, like share grief or find people that, had the same painful experiences, but. On social media can be open if you like in the right groups.
And that's why I think like also Facebook groups are actually better than their reputation sometimes as well, because you just find people where they have a common, goal, or like they have a common pain point. Yeah. Yeah. And there's so much you can learn from each other. I can learn from you and your experience in writing.
And I was just talking to a bunch of ladies yesterday about, the amount of competition there is between women and how it's so unhealthy. And, that, If we just learn to like collaborate as opposed to always be competitive with one another like how much greater are we going to how much further can we get along right and I'm the biggest cheerleader for women.
I want to see [00:30:00] women succeed. And if you're friends with me and you come out with a book, I'm going to absolutely 100 percent share it. I'm an author, but I also want to share your stuff because your stuff may connect with somebody that I'm not going to connect with. And I think this is actually.
Kind of like going in a new kind of like better direction. I think like a lot of women went from that competition to more of a sisterhood, I joined for everyone that's interested, for example, like I joined a community of women as well that are like mothers and they are entrepreneurs and.
like under a lady that's called Kate Scudder. She calls herself online the millionaire mother. So she has like her own business, but like she really inspired me because I always thought, Oh my God, how am I doing this? Oh, I wish, I'm glad that I, started my freelance writing business before I was a mom.
Now I'm like, Oh my God, like I have so much less time, how am I doing that? But just being inspired by others as well Hey, there's a possibility in motherhood can be like that creative, force [00:31:00] that you need to actually leave that legacy. Instead of being in a nine to five job I think it's really inspiring.
Yeah, absolutely. Thank you so much for having me on and I'm excited. I'm actually going to repost this on my podcast as well. So definitely. Thank you so much for everything. I could talk to you forever. It feels like to have a wonderful birthday with your daughter. Thank you. I will enjoy your day.
Thank you. Okay. You too.
Thank you so much, Rhonda. It was amazing to have her on my podcast. And I just think it's the most beautiful thing how she kind of like creates that warmth and this like sense of community in the sense of like, not being alone in a very difficult time. And I just loved her story. We will definitely stay in touch.
You can always share and rate this podcast. And please, if you have any questions or any feedback, send [00:32:00] me an email to hello at with christina. com. Thank you.
Transcribed
by https: otter. ai
