Greg Voisen
Well, welcome back to Inside Personal Growth. This is Greg Voisen, the host of Inside Personal Growth. And joining me from Seattle, Washington. And Cindy, I don't want to get your last name wrong, but I do want to hold up the back. It's under the blossom. And we have Cindy Benezra. Am I saying it right? Cindy? Benezra. So this is the book, this is what we're going to be talking about today. And I would, we'll put a link in the blog. So you can go to Amazon and get a copy of the book that is beautifully written, Sandy, wonderful job that you did writing this book. And I'm going to let the listeners know a tad bit about you. But it's really going to be revealed because the book is a memoir, in, in, in, in, in, in a sense, it really is. But it's also a way to help people that are dealing with trauma and learn ways that they can cope. And in the back, you actually have some techniques that you provide a to the listeners. And, you know, this is around sexual abuse, this program that we're going to be talking about that she incurred when she was very young. She said at times the journey of life is felt unbelievably Rocky. And she found strength, healing and hope admits to some of the darkest corners of life. As I said, there'll be some tools and resources. And for everybody out there go to cindytalks.com. That's cindytalks.com. There, you can actually watch some very, very interesting videos, with the interviews with her family, her husband, and actually with her, her father. And these are, these are very touching, they really are. And Cindy, as I was watching them this morning with your father, I was noticing that during the sessions with the videos, and it's very brave of you. He didn't actually much open up his eyes. And it was almost like he was ashamed because I was watching his body language in the chair even though he's 84. But it was really interesting. And so in the book, you reveal your story. As we said, of survival of an age trying to escape this post traumatic stress you suffered your father's hands. Your story is obviously filled with pain and suffering. But there's also filled with joy as well along the way. What do you want the readers to know about sexual abuse and, and how you learn to cope and overcome such abuse?

Cindy Benezra
Well, I want to start off with that. So I didn't, I didn't grow up in this country I happen to live at the time when I discovered that I had been sexually abused. I was living in Spain and not being able to speak the language or read Spanish, I had to find ways to move past my trauma. And I didn't even know what was going on. So what I learned. So I kind of created found ways to love myself again, I found healing tools that suited myself, I guess you could say, to feel alive again. And in my book, I describe a lot more about what those tools are. And I don't know how much time because I could go on for an entire day. Just thought

Greg Voisen
Well, you know, this happened between the ages of five and 10. Right. So you weren't you were kind of repressed it was I mean, I'm not saying that the memories of all this wasn't there. But you know, we'll talk about it you're dreaming is really quite interesting. You know, the at times you call them nightmares. Right? But, you know, you mentioned in chapter one of the book and people will probably want to know you know why orange blossoms why orange orchards that it helped to trigger happy endorphins and you so we're talking about a way you learned to cope with what was going on with you. And eating an orange was an escape. And I remember this in particular, you know, because you're talking about not only how you appealed it, but kind of how the orange was a little bit sticky in there. And you mentioned that you frequently thought about jumping out of your bedroom window from the fifth floor. What did you Believe kept you from such a fate that really could have ended your life?

Cindy Benezra
Um, I believe for the first part of that I just to go back to answer one part of your question there about the orange blossoms, and why the orange blossoms and when I would run away or I would feel stuck or basically stuck, after my father beat me or I was sexually molested, I would get on my bicycle and ride as hard as I can. Um, I lived in rural Arizona at that time, and right as hard as I could, it was like a physical release and then go into the orange, the orange orchids, and in there, I would be able to find something that was beautiful that was in nature. And in nature, I was able to trust nature more than I did trusted humans. Humans seem to disappoint me, I could never rely on them. And it smelt great, they produce beautiful fruit, the orange blossoms or the orange trees would grow in the mud. And I could look down and think like, Okay, I'm living in the mud. I'm just like this tree. And so it was almost in a sense, like a role model for me, because I couldn't find one around me. And I could also scream into the trees, and no one was going to hit me back. And no one was, it was just myself. So basically, it was a sanctuary. And I was able to find something in that process that was greater than me. And I realized that I was just another human being another soul just searching for a way out when you get stuck. And I just found something greater than me. And I think that was kind of like the beginning of this huge process of being connected to the earth and to something like a higher power. And I think that's what carried me through all the way through, I would be able to learn how to connect back to tasting the bite of the orange smelling the orange blossoms. And that was the thing that I was able just to connect in anywhere I was at any form of trauma that I was going through in life, and we all go through things. But it was something that I was able to recreate in my home, like a sanctuary in my home, my office, wearing citrus, colognes, candles, things like that, that was able, where I was able to reconnect instantly through my sensories. And then through my heart of what kind of saved me it was always kind of like my reminder.

Greg Voisen
I think that you know, for all these interviews have done over 1000 Now and then many about personal growth, and most people that are experiencing some level of trauma. And you have in the back of your book, some techniques are looking for ways and I'm not going to call it an escape, but nature has always been walking in the woods, walking on the beach, finding ways to get out to release, as you said, the endorphins, right, and the Oxy toxins, so the Oxy toxin, so physically to be released, because that's the high that you get from that, that really makes you feel good to help you overcome that pain. You know, when you're in pain, most of the time the hospitals are going to give you morphine to try and DevNet. And in this sense, you're trying to enliven within you through those releases of jogging, mountain climbing, whatever it might be, that you do. And that's why you see these people in extreme sports. I just finished helping write a book, The Precipice of Life. And it was 27 extreme sports people, mostly mountain climbers who had been up Everest and they asked, you know, why do you keep doing that? Why, you know, that's so dangerous. They don't look at it as dangerous. They say, one of the statements that I heard over and over after 27 interviews, is that if you're not facing death, you're not living life. And I thought, wow, how profound meaning they're willing to go all the way to that extreme pain to have this enlivened feeling in their life. You know, and in your case, I hear what you were saying was so poignant about these oranges, orange candles, orange blossoms, all of that, which really kind of took you away from it. And I found that many of those people I interviewed were doing that to prove something to somebody, you know, to go up and conquer a mountain or so on and I'm gonna switch gears here because this is a very sensitive topic, but you were molested by your father from the ages of five to 10. I remember reading a book that the descriptions of him coming over your bed, the situation with your sister, your memories of these events haunted you into nightmares as explained in the book. And you mentioned that you used to daydream and check out again, another way to cope, another coping mechanism. And which you now realize was disassociation, right disassociation from the vent? Does this disassociation allow you to cope with your memories of your father's actions? Or did it I should say, because that seems like what you were doing in the orange blossoms that seems like that the way that you were attempting to cope with the emotional trauma associated with this.

Cindy Benezra
I think in the orange blossoms, I was able to find some kind of sanctuary, some kind of safe place. However, when I recognized that I had because I had forgotten what happened to me as a child. My mind just froze. I just forgot what happened. I forgot I remembered everything. The only thing I forgot was about the sexual abuse. And I knew my dad was a violent person. But I that was about it. I knew that I didn't like him I created space around him. I knew I had some really strange coping techniques, like I always tried to pretend I was the wallpaper. And I had no idea where that expression came from. And when I didn't want to be seen, I would say be the wallpaper, be the wallpaper, be the wallpaper because I didn't want to be seen. I just didn't know where it all came from. And when I was 16, close to 17 I was a while I was thinking about being sexually active and to recognize boys were pretty cute. So and in this process, I realized that I started to have nightmares, which later on I found out was the all of the things that I was going through was forms of PTSD. And I started having these just rific nightmares where I was screaming completely sweaty, I felt like they were just coming out so fast. And they were so different. They felt so real. So I would journal them down, I'd write it down on any piece of paper. And I'd write it down. Because once I took the piece of paper and wrote it down it I just wanted to know that I wasn't crazy. And so when they were on piece of paper, I could dismiss it, it was almost like, okay, that's down. I'm out of it. And I had so many of these things that I decided to kind of keep a journal, and I would look through them again. And I realized there was a pattern to them. And so I think when you're like somebody who has suffered a lot of trauma, and you experience a lot of PTSD, it's and you can't recall all of it, and you're trying to figure out what happened. Because you recognize that most likely this is probably, you know, if you're dreaming this maybe hundreds and hundreds of time you realize like this is probably something you've experienced. And it's like having a broken window and you're trying to put all the pieces of that broken window together. So everything's in shatters, everything is just, it's you're trying to put it all together. So when I was looking through my words, looking through my journals, I recognized I was writing the same thing, but in different formats, or in that kind of go, oh, that was a time period here. This definitely most likely happened. I mean, I would say definitely, definitely most likely because I really didn't know but I it was just too uncanny to go through so much and write in such detail, like the color of the room, you know, the lighting of the room what it smelt like, so

Greg Voisen
All those emotions were locked up with inside of you, you know, I remember you writing about your, your girlfriends at the time when you were a teenager. And you did want to get involved with boys, you know, they were talking about the size of their shoe or the size of their hand or, I mean, you were quite descriptive of that. And then found out that, you know, even somebody with a small shoe didn't it didn't correlate to this size of their instrument. And, you know, I you know, I'm wondering as a woman, blossoming as you were, you know, as kind of your father says in the in the interviews. And for those of you definitely go to cindytalks.com and watch those interviews with her father. You know, how did all that play out for you, you being able to, you obviously ended up getting married, you obviously end up having kids, you obviously, you know, went through or grew through those things, and how did you grow through it? That's basically what I would say, because you know, here you were molested as a child, saying, well, these memories I blocked out, but then really you didn't, because then you wrote them down in a journal, and it was coming out pretty much. And then you have to get involved with another male figure. And this figure, you know, and so and you had a very poignant discussion on the video, I watched with third gentleman kind of interviewing you and your husband, your now husband, because this is your second husband. Right? So right, right. And, you know, you know, when you watch the body language, it's interesting, it is very interesting to see how people are dealing or trying to cope with it. So the question is really, you know, we talked about disassociation, we talked about your journal, and how those germ was bringing that all out. That was one of your coping mechanisms. Was there anything else you were doing to be able to go through those steps that allowed you to have those relationships again, because many women will just totally block it out?

Cindy Benezra
Well, I think, if you go if you have why happened to have complex PTSD. And so it's, it's a little bit more complicated than just your straightforward PTSD. So it's almost like a hiccup. Sometimes I don't know when I'm going to have maybe something occur, I've learned how to control my impulses a little bit, have set up boundaries around me where I tell people that I have this, like, support me through this, don't leave me, you know, like, I'll roll with it. But if I look back at my dissociation, and what I think like, what a miracle dissociation was, that I was able that my brain like just locked things, so that I could develop and be a teenager and go through these things. And then later on in life, when I really wanted to know more of this information, more unlocked, things happen. And I was I had a lot better coping skills to deal with this. And I realized that the only way I could set boundaries was and protect myself later on as an adult, was by talking to people and letting them know, like, a, I have a fear of this or talking to my significant other, my husband, my current husband, saying, Okay, you need Can you help me? Can you support me in this, these are the things that will most likely trigger me. And I think, in that process, I just became very open, almost raw, just telling people what I needed. And I think in that I started to connect more with who I am. And I just started to release my shame. Because the more you talk about things, it's like you're releasing those triggers, even writing something down on paper, just like that. It just charges that connection. You have with that intensity. I mean, yes, you recognize that it happened. Our it discharges when you through storytelling through writing through education through Yeah,

Greg Voisen
it does, I actually got a master's degree in spiritual psychology. And one of the things that we did was we would write journals, and then the instructors who requested that, that we never read them, we just write them and then we burn them. Right. And I remember going through that, and writing a ton because I was having issues with a relationship with a son, and a bunch of issues, right, and then the healing part of what we did to actually heal, you know, like, sticking pictures of them in front of us and sending them messages every day when the pictures were there. Right. So loving messages in healing messages. And it's interesting, how over time, that is kind of a way to forgive. Right? And I think forgiveness is a big thing. And somebody like you with your father, you had to do that. You also have these other techniques. And I loved reading about these because the journaling was great. But you also to get rid of this heavy cloud, you said you'd take long barefoot walks on the beach, which we just said And you'd exercise you do 100 Sit ups every morning. you'd read inspirational books, one of them was Edgar Allan Poe's writing, you said, do you find that these actions, they were obviously comforting. But if you were to tell others listening today that we're trying to heal from some PTSD event, or sexual abuse, or whatever it might have been, what kind of advice would you provide who's already been on the other side of this, and I would say, probably, particularly women who are listening this because it's about 60% of our listeners, who may have suffered this, but are still hiding it. I think

Cindy Benezra
I'm gonna go back to when I was about 17. And I realized that this was true that this was my reality. And this was my family. And I had a hard time coping with it, where I contemplated suicide, and I contemplated it every day, and thought about jumping from my bedroom window. And the reason I thought about it, it wasn't like I was desperately depressed. It was I couldn't handle the pain. And in the feeling of so much pain, I just wanted it to stop. And I didn't know how else to make this pain stop, other than thinking about killing myself. So I would go through the process of, of why I should stay here on this earth, and why I should not. So I had a pros and cons list. And I wrote it down on paper. And I would write everything that I would miss things that I liked, things that I wanted to accomplish from not being here on this earth. And mostly I realized when I looking at the piece of paper, I realized that a lot of it was just stopping my pain. And it was about fear. And when I looked at all the things that were just so beautiful, that I liked even to like things that I like to eat, I thought while I would miss that I would miss this, you know, and it wasn't really so much my family, I just realized that I would miss a lot of part of life. And in that, I think just by going through that process, and again, it's about taking that charge out and going through that process. And then I realized no, I'm I don't, I don't want to, I probably could fix this. I didn't know how but I thought I probably could fix this. So it was like things that I found beautiful. I looked out there, I felt maybe walking in the sand, feeling the sand because I felt nothing, I could hardly even see colors in the world. Because I hated myself, I hated everything about it. So I think it was trying to get back into touch with life and loving myself. And it was trying to find things that I love about myself. And I had very few I remember I liked my front teeth. And I liked my eyebrows. And I like the color blue. And so I would just start focusing on those things. And try to give myself a lot of affirmations I'd write them down, say it again, like I'm, I'm beautiful because of and I would write a mantra, I would say one A times every time I go to the bathroom, it would stuck it on my mirror. And I would say it over and over again until I felt a shift. And then just write another one. And it's almost like self-talking. I didn't know how to find a shift, try to break that cycle. But eventually, through hundreds of mantras are things of saying more positive things. I just started to slowly shift and I don't even know how it happened. But it just started to happen. And I found

Greg Voisen
myself it's self-acceptance, right. In other words, you get to a point where your enlightenment is self-acceptance of self. In other words, it is how you people. You know, I remember talking to Brian yesterday, actually, we were talking about Dr. Brian Ullman and goes to India twice. And it's trying to find these masters who are enlightened. And the guy says you have it all wrong. It lighten meant isn't a space. We're just people because he was always looking for this perfect person who is going to be this most enlightened soul he was going over there to find and Guru said, no, it's about some self-acceptance of what is. And I think, you know, at times you have to go into that and you know, your history here your histogram, your story. You know, you look at your father and your mother. And then you meet Henry, and you're 22 and he's 23 and both of you marry and you get pregnant and you have Hannah, who by the way when you guys want to actually see the family go watch the video. It's Cindy talks to a duck Calm. And you have a second child, Brian, who is diagnosed with a brain tumor and seizures. Okay? So here comes another event, another event, you have to learn how to cope with it and in your life comes tumbling down, including a husband, who's taking money off your credit cards having affairs. So it's like the triple whammy, right? It's like you got even Cecotto beers you marry, this guy is taking your money, it's having affairs, you're having a son that's having seizures. This is obviously a lot to deal with. Great, it obviously is a lot to deal with. How did you cope with these challenges? I know we've talked about some of them. But now you're, you're going into the trauma of a son who's got potentially life threatening illness. And it's not like you can put all these things on a magnitude. But if you were to like rank it and say, well, my father's sexual abuses, or my son's brain seizures, right, and then a husband who's having an affairs? And if you said, well, I was going to rank those kind of one to 10, you know, where would they fit? You had a lot that were probably in the eight, nine and 10 area, right? It could have could have driven anybody to do what you wanted to do. Now, granted, that jumping out of the window was what you were going to do when you were a teenager, but you were you think about suicide, then to

Cindy Benezra
know and I think no, because I think

Cindy Benezra
I think that's kind of and I'm not for me at the time, it was in the mindset of a child, I didn't really have like a lot of skill set. And then when you become older, you realize, I have children that you know, there's there I have responsibilities, it doesn't become about me anymore. It's way bigger there. It's way more complicated. And I mean, I also had at that time, my mom was dying, and I was nursing her. And she was in the final stages of breast cancer. So I would go from one room where my son was just I diagnosed, I didn't know if he was going to make it was every day, I didn't know if he was going to be there. And then I would go to the next room, I would check in my mom, and she was dying from breast cancer and I could see the cancer coming up, you know, up on her neck. And then my husband who was you know, doing drugs and becoming paranoid. And I was like, I don't recognize these people. And I did put them in categories, I have to say I did put them in categories. I thought, okay, my mom's passing, I cannot change this. I cannot fix my husband. He's on his own journey. And he chose us. And I looked at my son and I thought I just gave birth to this kid. And he's only a few months old. And so I did prioritize, I thought, Okay, I'm going to prioritize where my emotional effort is going to be spent. And I thought it an oddly, because of what I experienced in the past all these different forms of trauma and some crazy way it prepared me for that moment. And I kind of looked at it and I know that I've shared this weather with other people. And I said it was almost like a gift, like because it did prepare me how to deal with that. And I share that with my son and he goes, are you telling me a brain tumor was a gift to you? I'm like, no, it wasn't a gift. But I was able to have so many tools like meditation in hand prayer, all these tools that I survived with, that I could use at that time. And I have to say, there was a lot of times where red wine kind of I just couldn't find a solution. But a glass of red wine at the end of the evening was like, Okay, let me chill and let me have a glass of red wine. Try to like process this all because there wasn't a solution. And my recognize that, in that it wasn't about me. It was way beyond way beyond me. And I think that's more what I think is a lot of adult thinking where you recognize, you know, yes, I was suicidal as a kid, but I had nothing else to think about. I was thinking more like, oh, I'm gonna get a secondary infection, and that's why I can't die. But this was just way beyond it. So it was monumental. And it was piece by piece. I think when you're confronted with something that's just horrific. You take it piece by piece and you look at those wins in that victory and you celebrate every single one of them and my son was having 63 seizures a day. And I remember thinking he got a new medication, and maybe a 30 that day and I celebrated that when and if my ex-husband I came home, you know, high and drunk. I would just think like, but we didn't get in an argument. You know, I was just taking basic stuff, just basic. And my mom, you know that she found pain relief that day. And I thought, well, this is not I can only maintain this so long. I don't know how long, but it was just a day by day process. And yeah,

Greg Voisen
well, you did categorize them is what you said. And that's how you learn to cope with them. And I think sometimes, you know, they, I think there's a reference to the pain body, right. And you know, you can only have so much of that. And I think one of your compartmentalizing techniques was really a great technique for you. And you know, you wrote in the book, you carry it around pain from your father's actions for obviously, quite some time. And maybe even still, so today. But when you're remarried to mark, your mother in law insisted that your father come to dinner, and you wrote in the book, this is a chapter dinner with a pedophile. And she obviously didn't know about your father, she didn't have a clue. Because you haven't you hadn't told her I guess, right? You have a chapter, as you said, that's titled dinner with a pedophile, if you would tell the listeners kind of about the dinner. And when you looked into his eyes, what you felt because you guys had kind of been in different parts of the world, right? You weren't seeing him a lot. And you know, you had this opportunity, and there was going to be a dinner. And you know, from the book, you as a child and young adult, you kind of moved around a lot. You know, you were in different places. Yeah. So tell us about that dinner. And what happened? And I mean, I know that Mark, he knows now obviously, you told him, according to your video, like, I think you guys have been dating two months, when you told, right. And he was very accepting of it.

Cindy Benezra
Very accepting, it was kind of interesting dating too. It was an almost like a screening process, I would go through, like, Okay, I'm gonna tell him right away, you know, I'm not gonna leave this one out. And I thought, like, if they didn't have the skills to talk through, or that, that just terrified them, or whatever it is, but I had right away, it was just something like, I need to find somebody who is strong, who communicate with me, who was open, could have deep conversations, and it was sort of a because I had been single for eight years. And it's not because I couldn't have a relationship. It's just I had a serious child with some serious health issues. And he was my priority. And then later on, when I told Mark, I mean, it was, I found it interesting. Out of all the people, he's the one who questioned me, he, he's like, well, how do you know, it's how do you how do you know? You know, if he says it's not and you're saying it does? How do you know like, what side do you take? And I remember kind of being disturbed by that. But I appreciated his honesty and thinking like, yes, it is, you know, his word against your word, and who do you listen to? And what is the reality of the situation? But that was a complicated time. But I really appreciated Mark's questioning and I thought, Okay, this is a person I could have in my life, because I am very complex. And I do have a lot of depth in these areas. So I was searching for somebody like that. Yeah.

Greg Voisen
He seems very logical. I mean, I listen to the interview, I say your, your husband, Mark seems very logical is what I was saying. And in really, I can just tell just by the few seconds that I got to meet him. really caring, really caring, very caring soul. Now, look at the end of this. And on your website, Cindy talks, a.com. You have these interviews, and the interviews, the video interviews, I'm going to tell my listeners, you want more than the book, go to the website and watch these interviews there. They really reveal a lot about this story and a lot about what has happened since the stories but you ended up taking care of your father at the end stages of his life and you start interviewing your dad. And you state that this marks the beginning of the publishing journey that you're talking about. You mentioned that you did a series of tape conversations that spanned six months. So, to this end stages, you're taking care of your father, in this started the publishing and you have this chapter dad's time to talk to reveal the interviews. I found these interviews compelling, so much so that I asked my wife to watch them too. Can you tell the listeners what happened during the interviews? And what happened with relation to Cindy and Cindy's healing? Because this was really about you finding forgiveness, I think he was 84 years old, or is 84 years old. And during those interviews, it's very apparent when you watch him that he doesn't really want to talk about this. And he's that he's very resistant to you. But he does open up. And His answers are sometimes quipped in short, because that's just who I am. I thought that was interesting, because you talked about a little boy that he obviously molested in the neighborhood as well, who was a little retarded. He even says. And it's like, oh, my gosh, your father not only molested you, and he's molesting a little boy, too. And giving him magazines to cut out pictures and things. And I'm like, wow, I was just blown away.

Cindy Benezra
He actually molested quite a few people, friends. And when I was doing the audio portions of this because I wanted to know more of his thinking, I thought, well, I don't know where this book is going. He never really apologized to me in the format that I would like to hear. And, but in his way, he apologized. And I got it on odd on video. It wasn't the apology that I truly wanted to hear. So I was a little in shock. I tried not to react because I didn't want to row in my personal opinions. I really wanted the person watching it to just observe and translate how they feel about the conversation without me suggesting or leading, just asking him questions and seeing where he goes with it. So it was I found every single one of them hard for me physically to listen to I found it. I would try most of the time I would go to the to the side and I cry. I was disgusted by his reality. I also recognize which I never really, really thought about how ill he is mentally ill he was.

Cindy Benezra
I was very disturbed.

Cindy Benezra
But in that when I have truth, and when I have understanding I could get I am a truth seeker. I don't like to hear it. But I can move past I understand it doesn't mean I have to accept it. But I have to. It has to resonate in my body. And with that, I'm able to find forms of healing. It just takes a lot longer. And I did go through a stage of understanding my father a lot more. But it really came until way after his the interview process. And I think it came way after my children reacted when they found out that their grandfather was a pedophile. And in that I think it I found healing and resolution in the process of being able to find grace for him and have compassion and disregard seeing everybody who judged me for taking care of him. And I realized in that process that it was, it's who I who I am. And I think I've always hated myself. In fact, I came to love myself even more, by finding that part of myself where I go, No, I'm going to be true to myself, I'm going to take care of my dad, I don't, if a dog bites me, if I found it on the side of the road, I would pick it up and still take care of that dog. And I thought, that's who I am. And I thought, you know, my dad never changed me, I'm still the same person, that I was meant to be here on this earth, no matter what the circumstances of life brought me, I'm still the same person, and I haven't changed. My soul is mine, he never broke my will. It's mine to keep. And that's what I learned out of that. And so in that I found a lot of love for myself and self-healing, and forgiveness for my father and even forgiveness for the, the way I thought about him and the crazy things I thought about him so

Greg Voisen
well, I think that you, it's very apparent, you're very compassionate individual, and you have compassion for your family and compassion for your father, to there'd be a lot of women that would have designed their father and never seen them again. But then that wound would have been deeper, and you realize that, you know, and the other thing is, it draws me back to memory of, you know, Man's Search for Meaning Viktor Frankl. You know, if you've never read that book, it's about the concentration camps, but it's more about people taking away your dignity, what you didn't allow your father to do was take away your dignity, you know, the people in the concentration camps and the, the military officers who were beating them and giving them, you know, the toughest times, they're really trying to break them down. You know, in, in, in, in, in, in essence, if you can't be broken down, because your mental constitution is so strong, you find other ways. So a lot of people would play instruments, they would do things to escape, you say disassociate, they had to because the conditions were just so horrific, right? And that, you know, that whole concept of your dignity as an individual is so important. If you were to leave the listeners today, with some sound advice on abuse that your father gave you, what would you tell someone who might be going through something similar in a relationship? And in this case, maybe it's just an abuse from a spouse or abuse from a boyfriend, but it's abuse, it's abuse that's affecting them emotionally. It's affecting the mentally, spiritually, and physically, right, the bruises, whatever it might be, what would you say, as somebody who's been through much of this? Um,

Cindy Benezra
it's a technique that I've learned, and it doesn't matter what it is, because I remember my divorce was one of just trying to think if I was going to get a divorce or not get a divorce. And it's this process that I kind of do with now with everything. And if it if there's something that's an obstacle or a horrible obstacle, and you don't know what to do with it, I always look at it, like, how would I tell my best friend, somebody that I adore and love? How would I tell my child? What are the words I would, how would I talk to them, and then give them at least three or four things? constructive advice. And so I do this with myself. And I actually write it down. I just tried to give it a quick short little sentence about kindly out I would help myself as a friend, but I really tried to take my son that assists dissociation works really well in this technique. But I really try to take myself out of the picture. Because when you remove yourself, you take the fear out of that. So if you're referring to a friend, somebody that you love, like your child, it comes completely out of love. And so writing a few suggestions out of love for your best friend, and then offering it and just putting the piece of paper down, coming back and going, Oh, okay. Put your name in front of that or address it, Cindy or whatever, you know, Greg address that and we'll look at that, and then go, Okay, this is the advice that I'll take. There's only three here and I could do it. You don't have to solve all of them, but just give three good solutions. and the rest will follow. I mean, we all have incredible strength and tools all within us. You don't have to find great masters, you have it within your body, within your soul, you have this divine beacon that tells you what is right and what is wrong, and you know what works for you. And you have to tap into that, and listen to that, and only your voice. And those will be the things that guide you through the end. And you don't have to figure out all the little things, you know, most likely,

Greg Voisen
I think you have to have a lot of hope, faith belief. You talk about some of these in your in the last part of the book. And I'll just meant given them a quick mission mentioned, self-healing techniques, I thought the sticky notes was pretty cool. And for all of us go, go and get the book, visionary work, mantras, journaling, okay, and we're talking about a few, obviously, meditation, exercise, self-care, I think Loving yourself is probably one of the most important ones. Deep breathing, breath work. Okay, and the list goes on. Reiki, there's a lot of things you can do that can help you cope, learn how to cope with this. And I would say one of the biggest things is really, to have a belief in something greater than yourself, this would be the side of me from the spiritual side that says, okay, no matter what your belief is, whether you're agnostic or not. The reality is, is that when you can believe in a higher power to help you through many of these things, it really does help a lot. And I'm not saying who or what higher power it is for people. But there is a higher power out there. If you meditate, and you listen, and you get in touch with it, it's there. Okay, not again. So that's really the most important thing. And I think that the book, and the videos that you have created at the website, are just so instructional Cindy, and I want to say, thank you for doing this, because this is a topic that's so close to you. It's so personal. It takes a lot of I'm gonna say courage to do what you've done. And you're helping people out there that need to heal, and you're helping with the book, and I'm gonna hold the book up, do go get a copy of this book, everybody who's out there listening, read the book, it's very well written. It's a great memoir. But in it, there's lessons, lots of lessons about the pain and suffering she went through and how she learned how to cope with it. And that's the best part. Any parting words for our listeners,

Cindy Benezra
I just want to say that without a doubt, whatever you're going through in life, I do know that you will come through if you choose to put a little effort into it. I know you will come through.

Greg Voisen
Well, thank you and Namaste to you. Thank you for being here. And I appreciate you and appreciate what you did. And for all my listeners again, go get the book. It's out there. It'll be on Amazon. We'll have a link here. And we really appreciate you taking the time Cindy to spend a few minutes with our listeners today talking about your new book, under the orange blossom. Please go get a copy of the book. Thanks so much.

Cindy Benezra
Okay, thank you. Thank you, Greg. Pleasure.