VICTOR
Here's a little something about our guest today. My last day at Icon, an award-winning computer company I started shortly after college, was not about heroics a pinnacle of success or the kind of buyout wished for by entrepreneurs. It didn't come by way of illness, accident, or dismissal. But by sheer self mutiny the self I was born to be, decided to hijack the one I had created to help me move through my spontaneous revolt, also known as awakening. I had to learn how to let go of a few things, like almost everything. And I had to trust the voice in my head that was trying to help me evolve and reclaimed The peace of me, I feared was not at all that vulnerable. Once I released myself from what was no longer true, and in most cases never was. Major shifts began to happen in my life.
I embraced a calling to become a writer, deepened my love and compassion for my family and friends, and found a gift of insight, which led me to start Kohler and Company, an executive coaching firm focused on helping leaders manage change. 25 years later, I have raised three children and written three books, including the messages, a memoir, and an award-winning first novel, the Invitation, A Weekend with Emma. I have also been fortunate to coach many of the most influential leaders in entertainment at such companies as n b, NBCUniversal, Lionsgate, Dreamworks, Disney, Amazon Searchlight Films, and Sony Pictures. And I proudly serve on the board of Step Up on nonprofit mentoring organization, supporting teens in low income areas. Enjoy the podcast.
INTRO
Hey everyone. Welcome to The Healing Everyday Podcast, stories and conversations to inspire you to be in the driver's seat of your life. Buckle up.
VICTOR
Hey everyone. Welcome to the Healing Everyday Podcast. My name is Victor.
DEANNA
And I'm Deanna. Welcome everyone. We are so excited to have an amazing guest here today. Uh, we have Dawn Kohler with us. How you doing, Dawn?
DAWN
Pretty good, thank you, Victor. How good. Yeah, thank you. Glad to be here.
VICTOR
Yes, thanks for being here with us. Uh, we, uh, we're just very honored and privileged. I, I was reading, uh, I haven't read all of your book yet, but I've been reading some of it. And, uh, first of all, you write very, very well. I wanted to give you that right away. It's very easy to read and follow and, uh, it's great. So, what we wanna do today, and again, for those of you that are just joining us, uh, we, uh, Deanne and I have created a podcast based on our healing journey, uh, throughout our lives. And we go to schools and we do a lot of programs for kids about overcoming adversity, specifically sexual abuse, awareness and prevention. So, um, we're honored to have you and, um, I guess I'd like to out by, if you can tell a little bit about your story. I'm, I'm really fascinated with the, the specifically the whole idea that you're an entrepreneur. You know, back in the day you started this company, I believe, with your husband, and then you had this, this calling. And, um, I'd love to hear some of what that was all about.
DAWN
Well, yes, thank you. It was, you know, a very interesting time, certainly in my life. Um, like many people that come out of abuse or trauma, and so many of us do have some sort of trauma, either with the big tier or the, the small tea. There's a real need to compensate for a perceived sense of inadequacy. And I remember being very driven very young by that feeling. And I put myself through college selling real estate. And I remember thinking with each time I sold a house and escrow closed, you know, you're happy for about three days. And then it just felt like, you know, you're only as good as your last sale. Mm-hmm. . So your sense of self-worth gets caught up in what you are doing. And so I thought, well, I need something that is more sustainable than that. I know I wanted a stronger structure.
So I thought, well, then I better, I better start a company. Cuz then I thought, well, the company would have worth and again, tying my worth into what I was doing in the company. And that's really the motivation behind it. Looking back, uh, started the computer company. Uh, it was actually, uh, my fiance at the time and another friend of ours was three of us. We were all of 23 years old. We had no money. So you didn't, you couldn't lose much when you didn't have much. We raised, um, some funds based on the idea of providing a four hour, you know, turnaround time for fixing computers and it right place, right time. That, that took off. It did quite well. Um, in about the 10th year of business though, everything I was running from caught up to me. Uh, there was, you know, perfect storm.
My children started turning the age that I was when I was abused. And, you know, all of the means in which I was trying to buoy myself became to, to collapse. And I literally couldn't go to work. One day. I, I pulled up and I, uh, wanted to go in and I started to get, which was a very profound experience, uh, a message, an internal inaudible thought that said, this is no longer your way. And I started receiving those kind of internal messages and they were very healing from there forward as I went through the process.
VICTOR
That's great. That's great. Uh, Deanna, you want to ask anything or share?
DEANNA
Yeah, I just, um, this is definitely something we've talked on the podcast before about, about seeing our kids at the ages we were, when we experienced trauma or abuse mm-hmm. . And, uh, I, I've, same for me. Uh, my son is, is five. And, and, uh, I know Victor's, um, I know he wants to talk a little bit about something your therapist had mentioned to you here in a little bit. Um, but I've also talked to my therapist about seeing how little our kids are. And then we think, because we often think about ourselves through the lens of a parent, right. And seeing how vulnerable they are and thinking about how vulnerable we are, um, and how vulnerable we were. It's, um, I'm a big crier and just, just hearing it from another, another woman, it, it makes it, it makes it real. And I think it's very powerful to, to tell your story and to to share your successes as well as the times that you felt like you stumbled, you know, through your healing. I think it's incredibly powerful to do that.
DAWN
My, uh, abuse memories were repressed. So when my children became four or five years old, all of a sudden it opened up the window to my four and five and I was gaining memories for the first time. So it was extremely disoriented cuz I, you know, it's collapsing time. I'm, I'm caring for a four year old, a five-year-old, and I'm becoming one at the same time remembering all of this. So, um, you know, children are such blessings and, you know, they do trigger those experiences that we had at, at, at that age. So, you know, then you then you're, you're challenged with not only the healing, but being at least an adequate mother at the time, trying to care for their needs while, you know, you were, everything repressed at that age is coming up and it was quite a challenge and quite a, a juggle trying to keep it all together.
DEANNA
Yeah. To stay grounded as a parent and as a person Right. While also validating your inner child, the experiences you went through. I mean, it's, I I don't, I don't wanna put like a measuring point to it, right. But it's a lot. It is, it is a lot healing. Um, you know, that's the whole basis of our podcast is it's healing every day. Because I mean, up until you were that age, it was repressed. Right. You had plenty of ways you dealt with things and I mean, you very successful business owner, right. And an entrepreneur. Sometimes we use those things to get through and we don't even realize it's a coping mechanism until later on. But sometimes what served us before doesn't necessarily serve us now. I mean, I get it, not even be able to get up and go to work. And it's, it's, it's, it's a very strange feeling to heal yourself at the same time of, of raising children and, and trying not to repeat for them what we have experienced. Right. Breaking those cycles.
DAWN
Yeah, you can, and you can only break the cycle so much cuz it's really hard. You can't, you know, the amount of attention the child needs your children and healing takes so much energy and it, you know, I think all my kids had suffered to some degree just by being with a incredibly depressed mom at that age, trying to, you know, get them to school, remember the what I have to remember to just to make sure their homework was done and picking them up on time. At the same time, you're flooded with all kinds of, you know, repressed emotion and everything. This is, you know, it's just hard to do as a parent. Parenting is hard enough as is,
VICTOR
That's for sure. Can you, can you talk about, um, in, in your book you talked about how, uh, when you were going to see a therapist, how you were you, you said that you basically raised yourself mm-hmm. , right? Can you talk about that?
DAWN
Well, I think that's a, a common thread for people with abuse. Uh, by the time I was four or five years old, I knew I was on my own. I knew that, that my parents were just not capable of raising me. And it didn't look that way from the outside. From the outside. You know, my father was a successful architect. My mother was a homemaker and what was one of four kids and everybody got up and had breakfast and went to school. So it wasn't the kind of dysfunction that you call social services on. It was a family that looked highly functional. So you're very lost in that dynamic because the wor the outside world is telling you everything's normal and you know, it isn't. And you know that they're incapable and that your needs aren't getting met. And the excruciating feeling of being alone and not protected, even though I can't remember why I felt that way.
Wow. I knew that I did. And I knew that I had to raise myself. And even when I would do well in school or anything, I used to say to my mom, I said, don't take credit for this. I'm raising myself . I did not want her to take any credit because I knew, again, you get, kids are so smart and they're sensitive. And I knew that, you know, because of the abuse, I knew more than my mother at a very young age, you know, this was being kept from her. I'm having this affair with my father. And so it, you know, in this horrible way, it splits the mother, the mother-daughter bond, and she just looks like, you know, an incapable person. And I felt my mother was incapable from the time again, I was four or five. So you, you, you recognize you're there, you gotta raise yourself and it inflates your sense of being big and you think, okay, I've got this. And that catches up with you later on in life because the reality is you weren't big enough, you didn't have the neurology that you needed to handle the emotional impact of what was happening to you. So you, you become an adult at five and, you know, you, you manage your life in this very adult way until you can't anymore.
DEANNA
Wow. I can already tell, um, our listeners are going to be so enthralled and connected to this. Uh, we have, we have a many abuse survivors, especially, uh, within the family. And a a lot of us feel exactly that, that we could be surrounded by family and still feel completely and utterly alone and, and isolated and, and to grow up. And I, and I think it's not fascinating, like, wow, this is so cool, but to, to look in and think, I did feel grown at five years old and I felt big and I felt like I know so much because I was introduced to something by someone I loved very much. I, I also, um, was a victim of my father. And it's again, that looking back of I was so little and, and, and, and I was forced to grow up and, and be robbed of, of the innocence of childhood. And, and I, I, I, again, victor, that that is I think a very powerful take away. Um, you know, saying that you basically raised yourself because in a sense you did. You really did.
DAWN
Yeah. The innocence is gone. You know, you, you're, you're, you're first of all being sexualized and you know, at, at such a young age that anything that was pure and innocent, protective is gone. And so you were put in an environment where, I'll, I'll skip a little bit to say, one of the most pervasive feelings that came back with the memories was feeling like an orphan. I felt like I was an orphan in a prison camp and I couldn't place those feelings to my life cuz I thought that doesn't go with this family of four and successful father. And but in the reality, that's how you feel inside. You know, there's nobody there for you. You have been abandoned. I have lost my mother cuz she wasn't playing the role of mother. She was the other woman. You know, when my father sexualized me and said, don't tell anybody. And I knew that I was doing something with him that was betraying my mom even at four or five. You know, that. And when that happens, there's just such psychological confusion and, um, the damage that it does to any kind of relationship that could nurture you into a healthier, um, neurology. But, uh, yeah, difficult disabled.
DEANNA
Absolutely.
DAWN
And way too common. Way too common. You know, I am one of millions of people that have such a similar story and I considered myself to be fortunate. One of the reasons I wrote the book is I did have means for therapy. Uh, I was able, because of the company that I had that was successful to pay for a therapist. A lot of people don't have those means. They don't have the ability. They, they're, they're disoriented by the memories or they're disoriented by, you know, their, their inability to connect or their feeling of excruciating loneliness even though they're in a family, all of these things. And they just don't have a way to solve this. So much of the intent in the book, along with the fact that it did feel like a calling and that there was something that bigger than me to be communicated, was also allowing people to have access to all the therapy that I had. Um, I went through very different modalities of therapy and I think we are all offered ways to heal, uh, wherever we are, uh, in whatever environment if we're willing to, to participate in that healing. But certainly, uh, I, you know, I don't deny the fact that I had privilege in this. Yeah,
DEANNA
Absolutely. Um, Victor, really quick, cause I know you wanna say something too. Um, I've, I used to say that I'm a huge advocate for therapy. And, and in a way I am. Um, I, I started saying though that I advocate for therapy. Um, if we have the means and the ability to go, um, again, I I, I left home at 18, I fled my child at home and I, I got some really simple therapy in college, you know, just, just client-centered. But when I got outta college, I mean, I had the privilege, the absolute privilege to go to a, a very theory-based type of therapy. I, I went to cognitive behavioral and, and looking back, the ability to be able to go in, in general, to have family support of my husband and his family to be able to, um, you know, have, have the financial means of being able to go and to just be able to sit with what I was learning is the biggest privilege.
So I'm trying to kind of get away from just saying, oh, just go to therapy. It's so great because while it was for me, it's, it is not realistic and available to every person who, who may benefit from it. Right. And I, I think, uh, I think that's such an important piece as we're healing and we become, you know, inspiration for other people or, or mentors for people is, is to know that there's, there's no one right way to heal. And I, I therapy is on wonders for my life. Um, it sounds like, I mean, it, it's, it's helped you immensely as well. Um, but I think that's such a powerful thing as well to say it, it, it may not be right for everyone. It may not be right in this moment. And I, I think, I think it's important to point that out as well.
DAWN
And it doesn't mean that you can't heal just because you don't have means to therapy. Um, you know, one of the, the biggest experience of this entire book was how guided I felt to heal. It was coming from a source beyond my own. I didn't have any re religious orientation. I still don't, but it was undeniable, the force behind me that would open doors just when I needed that door open. And it's important to make the point that help is not always a comfort. It didn't necessarily mean that the help I was getting, although it did help me, sometimes it was excruciating. Sometimes it was doing body work that, you know, I found somebody on the beach that was doing body work and I started doing it. And the release that goes on, just when you allow yourself to let go, it's difficult. But, um, it, it's like anything, when you cut your finger, your body, you know, goes into action to re repair, repair that your soul's always trying to do the same thing.
Um, if there is soul damage and abuse is nothing short of soul damage. Your soul is trying to put you in positions and guide you in ways that it can heal those very intrinsic internal wounds. Uh, but in order to be able to listen to those messages, and in order to be able to do that, we have to first be able to identify the ways that we have been repressing our own feelings and emotion and connection to the soul that's trying to heal us. And whether that's shopping nor drugs or alcohol or like hyperactivity or workaholism, which was my drug of choice, um, I had to get to a place where it all came crumbling down, and I c I didn't have, I c was too depressed to become the workaholic that I was. So it's like, you know, you hit rock bottom because you can't, you can't depend on your vice anymore. And that's when the healing can really begin.
VICTOR
So I have two things, but I, I was trying to figure out which one to ask you, but this kind of, I think is good here. Um, based on what you just said, what was that? Do you have a, a concrete turning point in your life where like you were like, I am, uh, this is it. I I can't do what I'm still doing, which was, you had the company, I, I know you were, you were repressing all these things and you were talking to a therapist, but was there a concrete time where you said, this is it, I have to change my life.
DAWN
It's when I could get outta my car. I was, I had gone to work that day and I literally, I, my, it was like, I, I call it self mutiny. I wanted to go in, my brain wanted to go in, but there was a force bigger than me that kind of took me over and said, this is no longer your way. And I couldn't open the car door. I sat there for 20 minutes trying to get the car door open, trying to get the window open, and I literally physically couldn't get myself outta the car. The only direction my body would allow me to go in is when I said, okay, I'll go home. I turned on the key and went home and just sunk into a very deep, deep depression. At that point, I, I was incapable of going to work. Uh, but the turning point was when I couldn't get outta the car. And when, when you hear yourself say, this is no longer your way, and you go into that, it, there's, i, it, my choices were taken away from me granted by something very deep inside of me. And I, I think that's true of, um, people particularly, I, I have many friends that are AA that just hit a point where they, they recognize that this is killing them, and their own sense of spirit just says, I can't do this anymore. And oftentimes that's when they walk into a meeting.
VICTOR
Wow, that's really, really powerful. So that must when you didn't go into work that day. That probably really freaked out a lot of people at work,
DAWN
Particularly my husband , because I was the c e o and when we started this, you know, he was more of a support person. He was interested in supporting, but he was never interested in running the company. So that was difficult for him because it's not what he wanted to do. It wasn't who he is. Uh, so yes, it did, it did leave a, a, a gap in leadership that we weren't able to fill. And then we eventually, within a couple years sold to come.
VICTOR
And then was there another level of, not only you were trying to deal with this, like, I can't go into work I have, I'm going home. Did a lot of people just had a hard time understanding why you were going through this at the moment?
DAWN
I'm sure they did. I wasn't really privy to that because I was sunk so deep in what was happening to me that I, I really wasn't all that aware of. Right. The productions of others.
VICTOR
Right, right. That makes sense. Okay. I wanna ask one more thing, and then Deanna can take, take over. But in the book, you talk about, um, your therapist responded to something you had said, and she said the unresolved past is the present trying to be healed. Can you, again, I we're really passionate and I'm just about this whole idea of healing. I've realized in my own journey that, um, I'm working on this every day. You know, I, I, I was sexually abused one time in my life. I was eight years old. Um, nobody knew it was someone outside my family. Um, but my, I grew up in a family where my father would say, you know, you should be seen and not heard. And so I believed it. I bought into it for a very, very long time. And, and Deanna just her and I having conversations about, you know, I, I'm, I talk about, and I wanna ask this later, is creating out of our pain. And that, that's what I've dedicated my life, and this is what my whole business is all about. It's creating out of my pain. But it's this idea that, you know, I, I'm not perfect and I'm working every day to just be better than I was yesterday. And that's that whole true mobility concept that Dr. Wayne Dyer taught me years ago. But I'd like to to to get your take on this. The unresolved past is the present trying to be healed. What what comes to your mind with that?
DAWN
Well, I think it, I'm glad you pulled that point out, because it's so important to where we are today as individuals and collectively as a humanity. Our unresolved past is always in the present. We carry it around with us because it's unresolved. So it's not like we can't really count on linear time. Oh, that happened when I was five or 10 or eight, because we're carrying it with us. It's here today because it hasn't been dealt with. It's, it's unresolved. Now. We compartment compartmentalize it. We can anesthetize it, we can do all kinds of things to not deal with it, but it's here and in our everyday life, it's trying to get our attention. And for me, I I, I often find that it tries to get my attention through my body, which I think is true for many people. It, we are, the body has the last say, and all of this is stored inside our cellular system.
And whether it's through very high anxiety, whether it's through debilitating depression, whether it's through severe pain that can't be diagnosed, these are all the ways that the body is trying to communicate to us that there's an issue going on. There's a, there's a deep internal conflict. There's a chasm between who we were meant to be and who we have become. And that is a very painful delta, especially for those of us that have tried really hard to be something to prove ourselves worthy. And we can be very far away from what is naturally and authentically who we are, what our gifts are to our humanity, our connection to our own heart, our own spirit, our own life. So in the present, it's all there. It's all there every single day. It's learning how to live more consciously. It's learning how to tune into that and to pay attention and be more masterful about our daily situations, because our daily situations are always trying to heal us. Whether it is that conflict that you got in at the office that all of a sudden is crippling to you because you feel worthless or you feel unseen, or you feel those type of situations that are amplified out of what really happened in the moment, that's a healing moment because you're, you're attributing more emotion to it than it deserves for that incident. The emotions coming from some other pain, the emotions coming from some other experience in your life that is wanting to be known.
VICTOR
Wow. That's awesome. I love that. What do you think about that, Deanna?
DEANNA
Um, literally what me and my therapist have talked about since 2015, um, that if someone responds to me in a certain way, you know, Victor, as Victor mentioned, we go to, we go to schools, um, we probably end up going to like 300 schools a year between the two of us. Um, so that's a lot of schools. And one of the things that that ha is sometimes tough is if you go to a school and they don't always, you know, respond in a, a great, happy way, um, you know, you're like, what did I do? What, what was wrong? Well, nothing, I don't, I actually don't know what was going on in their everyday life. I don't know if they were late to work. I, I just don't know. It actually has nothing to do with me. But if you look at our life as a
That's the only way things made sense. And so now it's that, like you said, that self-doubt, that negative self-judgment, this idea that it must be my fault, or else it wouldn't be happening to me when sometimes things just happen and we do, we, and I should speak in I statements, I do that, I do put stuff on myself that really is none of my business. You know, I put more emotional energy into it because that's how I survived as a kid. And I, you know, could be spending the rest of my life working through that and, and calling myself outright. And, and that's okay too. That's why we say healing every day. Mm-hmm. , I do think that I, I, and I completely agree, the the things that have happened in the past when they're repressed or hidden or we just look away. I still see it in my daily life and things that, you know, in 10 years will pop up that I'm gonna heal through then too. Right. It's, it's, it's fascinating. It really is.
DAWN
It is. And I think we can be more proactive about it as well, because that's most of my client base. I mean, I am an executive coach and I work in multiple different industries, predominantly entertainment. And at every level of the organization, I see this all the time. People get triggered. Uh, they're reacting in such a way that, you know, is amplified from what really happened. And because I'm a coach and not a therapist, I don't go back to the past. Um, that's not my domain. But what I will often sh have, have clients shift into is recognizing themselves, recognizing their strengths, recognizing their self worth, their positive impact. And I'll even give, um, them an exercise called recognition moments where you take a journal and three times a day, or excuse me, once a day, you write three things. That was a positive impact that you had on somebody based on who you are.
And it's amazing to me the shift in confidence people will make in just two or three weeks of doing that daily practice. Because if we're not bolstering ourselves up, if we're not strengthening ourselves up, then it's too easy to then get triggered into a sense of unworthiness or blame or shame, or all the places we can go when abused. So it, you can counter that and, and consciously heal yourself by connecting to the goodness in you and how that's represented in everyday life, how it's expressed, express it more, acknowledge it within yourself more. Because too often we're hungry in the world looking for somebody to finally see us, looking for somebody to finally understand us. And even if they do, it's not gonna scratch that itch. It has to come from within ourselves. As much as I always hated hearing that it is true ,
VICTOR
Something that, that I do. Um, and we try to, you know, we talk about it a lot is the idea that, um, waking up in the morning, did I mute myself? No. Uh, waking up in the morning and I, I, I pretty much make this a practice now, uh, again, I I like to learn from a lot of different people, but, um, I write three things that I'm grateful for every morning when I wake up. Um, are you familiar with Joe Dispenza by chance?
DAWN
No.
VICTOR
No. Okay. So he's a chiropractor and he talks about, you know, having a vision of the future as opposed to a memory of the past. Yeah. And he's, he's very powerful. But even before that, I, I wake up and I write three things that I'm grateful for, and it might be three things that I'm imagining is gonna come into my life mm-hmm. , right? Like, I see myself, uh, taking, for example, my business to the next level, or I see myself what, whatever it is, I see it already in the present moment. Because when you're grateful for something, you're appreciating something that you have already, right. That you've received. So that's one thing. But even on a basic level, at night before I go to bed, I, I call it, I do it with my kids too. It's, we call it a victory lap, going around the table and saying, okay, what went well today? Nice. I'm not trying to ignore what went wrong either. We wanna acknowledge that, but we also want to, because we have, it's so much easier sometimes to focus on what went bad, . Right. So,
DAWN
Absolutely. I mean, we're human beings, so we're, we naturally have a negative bias Yeah. To what wasn't good. Right. And we have to reprogram ourselves to take in the good and take in the positive and e and acknowledge we are, you know, I found that for myself anyway, and I see this most often in my clients at the root of healing it, at, at the root of the pain is oftentimes just a really bad relationship you have with yourself. Hmm. Because, you know, most of us are parents are gone or would've long been out of the house, yet they're living on inside of us because we're treating ourselves that way. Mm-hmm. , we're being abusive to ourselves. We're not supporting ourselves. We're being overly critical. You know, we're being neglectful or dismissive. All those things that denotes a bad relationship. And healing really begins when we can sit down and evaluate the relationship we're having with ourselves and say, I wanna have a better relationship with me. No different than you would in couples therapy. And if you really look at how you're treating yourself, so often, we're treating ourselves like the worst of our parents.
DEANNA
Yeah, I Agree. Absolutely. Um, I think that's one of the hardest things. Um, again, hard, easy, it's, it's all a judgment, right. Um, but, but to repair the relationship we have with ourselves, you know, I know it's such a cliche, but the longest relationship you have is the one with yourself. Mm-hmm. . And we do often, we, again, I'm saying we, but I should say, I, I do often put myself down and I don't look at the, the, the successes and, and the things that I've done to, to get to where I am today and, and the steps that I'm gonna take in the future to continue healing. Um, and, and sometimes I get the imposter syndrome, like nobody really knows the real Deanna. Yeah. And I just, I, I so quickly want to be dismissive mm-hmm. , uh, and then I think a lot of our listeners do. Um, I think it's, it's, it's why, it's why so many of us talk about this, because for the first time, you know, in our life, we, we had a spark that said, well, I deserve to be heard and I deserve to like myself. And it's, it's out of this world, it really is. To finally have that opportunity.
DAWN
Recognition moments are a great way to deal with imposter syndrome. Um, because I see that now it's so common in the workplace, uh, and often with imposter syndrome, we, you know, we're afraid we're, somebody's gonna find out that we're not as good as we are, yet most people are seeing us in our best and we're not mm-hmm. . So it's, it's learning how to own that reflection instead of dismiss it.
VICTOR
Wow. That's really great. Um, can I ask you, if I said to you, how, how do you create out of all the pain that you've experienced, or like, I mean, I know you said you're a coach, but maybe what, have you done anything specifically? Like, when, I always like to say I, I'm kind of moving to this whole idea of I don't consider myself, I don't say I'm a survivor of sexual abuse. I'm a creator out of it, because that's, I think that word is so powerful. Um, and that's what I've done. I mean, that my whole premise of what I do is just based on all the adversities that I've had to overcome in my life. But can you talk a little about what that means to you to create out of your pain? What does that mean to you?
DAWN
That's a great question. Uh, I think it's creating me out of my pain. Hmm. I think that it's not just in what I do, but who I have become as a result of it. When you really allow yourself to feel the feelings and to, to get the accounting right, who was responsible for what and you can take you, you don't have to take responsibility for everything that was done to you. In fact, you know, you, in most cases, you don't take any responsibility for it. But once you get, you know, who, who was not to blame, but who was responsible for what care, um, right in your head, and then you recognize the ways that you have survived this, and all of us, it's like anything, if you lose your eyes, your sight and your smell become, uh, more be better, more intense. Well, for people of abuse, they often become very acutely insightful and, um, have very high emotional intelligence because they know how to read a room.
Because you're always, you know, you're so hypervigilant that you've gotta figure out who's doing what, when am I, when am I at threat? And, um, you know, what people's intentions are with you. So I would say that what I have not even created, but acceptance accepted that there are ways that I have developed that have strengthened me as a result of it. Um, there's certainly things that have impaired me, perhaps permanently, that I still deal with. Uh, but I look at it as we are a very fluid organism that's changing and evolving all the time. And I, and these painful memories, it's not something that you are, abuse isn't something you're cured of. Abuse is something you learn to manage over a lifetime. And every time it comes around, uh, I am challenged once again to grow from it in some way versus reinforce it.
Um, you know, the Pan Pandemic was a great example. You know, we all shut down in the course of like one week. All of a sudden we went from, you know, one severity to the next. Well, anybody that you know, has post-traumatic stress disorder, that was a huge trigger. Rhett was everywhere. It was everywhere on the news. You could catch something that you couldn't see. I mean, talk about just pushing every single button that you weren't safe. It was terrorizing and terrorizing for years. So again, you gotta go back and go, I thought I had healed all of this. And now all of a sudden this other source comes in and you're back at the drawing board again saying, okay, this is another, it's exposing to me, it exposed that I have dealt with the memories. I have dealt with the emotions behind the memory, but what is lasting is what it did to me from a neurological standpoint.
And since the pandemic, that's what I've been working on. It's how do I regulate my nervous system, my autonomic nervous system so that threats are not instantly magnified. And I am, you know, back into severe trauma that hypervigilance. Absolutely. It's that, and, you know, the nightmares that come with it and everything else. But that's what can be very frustrating about the healing, because, you know, we make great breakthroughs and, and we can see things and, and grow and, and obtain great wisdom. And then all of a sudden you get something like the pandemic and you recognize, you know, my nervous system is still, um, I think in some ways underdeveloped, because I didn't develop naturally as a, as a child. I, I, you know, I had to be an adult at five, so I didn't get the luxury of coming into myself in any kind of natural way. Uh, so, you know, I'm, for the rest of my life, I will be challenged with that one. And I don't know what that looks like in aging either. You know what I mean? In aging, you naturally, your nervous system starts to break down a little bit. Um, so what's that gonna look like? I don't know. You know, all of that's still ahead.
DEANNA
So for you, creating out of your pain is not necessarily what you're doing. It's who you are, who you're becoming, and who you will be. And in within that, there are all the other aspects of your life, right? As a parent, as a partner, as a business owner, as an author, as a coach, as a mentor, and I, I, that's, I, I think that is very all encompassing and a and a great way to look at, you know, how, how you have become who you are today.
DAWN
And I will say the, the one of the greatest things that have come out of it, um, is capacity for compassion and empathy. Hmm. And I, and that starts with yourself as well. I had no compassion for myself or, or no empathy. I didn't even get it. Um, but when you really embrace this and when you really feel it, it's like you open up the container of your heart and you are able to hold more, and you're able to love more. Um, you know, I'm recently married and we've got a combined family that's seven kids and three grandkids. And I look at it and I think I've got the capacity for this. I have the capacity to love all of these people and connect with them. And I, I wouldn't have been able to do that had I not healed.
VICTOR
Hmm. That's wonderful. Thank you for sharing all of that. Um, as we wrap up, Deanna, did you wanna say ask Anything?
DEANNA
Yes, yes. Okay. So, um, obviously whenever we, we have a guest, we, we like to either questionnaire or, or Google someone. Um, so in your, in your one sheet that was sent to us, I, I saw that you are, are a part of an organization called Step Up. And looking at it, it just made me so emotional. So I'm, I'm gonna read what the mission is and then kind of read the breakdown of the people that you help. Um,
so step Up and it says, our mission is through structured programs, focused support and inspiring connections. We help girls define and achieve their unique visions of success. And then underneath that it said, um, you know, the age range of, of people you help. And, and the wording in this is just fills my heart. Um, ages 14 to 18 high school girls and those who identify with girlhood ages 18 to 23 young women and those who identify with womanhood, and then girls of color facing systemic barriers and or first generation students.
Um, you know, I, I often talk about, um, I, I go on, on TikTok and TikTok Live a lot. It's, it's where I, I kind of have a, a community. I can, I can reach beyond the schools. And there are, there's such a diverse group of men, women, and people who identify all over the spectrum. Uh, and, and so often there is not representation and support for people who identify differently or people who are non-white, black or person of color indigenous. And to see another survivor, um, a a woman put themselves in line with an organization that not only has representation for people that look differently than you and I, um, but, but for girls, uh, and those who identify, it just, it, it, it makes me so thankful and so hopeful. And if you could just tell us a little bit about, just a little bit about how you got involved in it and what it means to you to be, what you needed as a kid. What I think would really be so inspiring for our audience.
DAWN
Uh, well, step Up is an amazing organization. Uh, it's a group of young women in their twenties and thirties that go into these schools. We support them, um, financially and help them with material. But people at that age 14 and 15 are really looking for a reflection. They're looking for people like them that can help them deal with predominantly social emotional learning, self-esteem issues. And in a lot of these homes, their, you know, first time graduates of high school, um, they don't speak English in these homes. And so a lot of kids, it, it's astonishing how many kids 14 to 18 have, and even beyond have no idea what the different, um, paths that they could take. They don't know that there's financing available for their school. They don't know career tracks or what's even possible. And to be with an organization that provides them that kind of guidance in social-emotional learning and self-confidence, um, and to then help them align with opportunities that are in alignment with their gifts is amazing.
And, you know, these are kids, girls in low income areas that just don't have the same opportunities as many of us do. And so by nature, they're compromised. And helping them to become who they are is, um, is a collaboration with them. I can tell you, I've, the women that I have worked with, the girls that I've worked with, have taught me at least as much as I've ever taught to them. Um, these are passion. This generation coming up is smart, they're passionate, they're insightful, they see things different. Um, they have a tremendous social awareness. Most of these girls want to get out and get a degree to come back and help their communities. You know, they're not looking to go beyond them. They're looking to help them. Um, so it's just, um, I feel like it's a gift to me to be involved with them. Hmm.
DEANNA
Thank you so much. I, when I, as soon as I saw it and read it, um, I know I wanted to ask you about it because it is, it is not just giving back, like you said, you're learning just as much from them. Right. Which is such a gift. Um, but it's, it's something, you know, you can take your time, your energy, your, your purpose, right. And continue it on. It's, it's going to be a part of your legacy, um, to be, to be with those girls and women.
DAWN
And what I love about, you know, one of the main teachings of Step Up is what do you need to do to be who you already are? Mm-hmm. . And I love that because it says, who you already are is inherently good, inherently valuable. You have something to contribute to our humanity. Let's just figure out what you need to do to be that. Become who you already are. You don't have to compensate. There's nothing. It's just like, let's develop who you already are. Uh, and that's been the core of everything I do. Let's develop who you already are.
VICTOR
That's amazing. Thank you so much for, for being with us today. It's really, truly an honor and a privilege to have this opportunity. If people wanted to like, learn more about you, obviously your website, could you share that or anywhere else that you think that people should go?
DAWN
Uh, sure. You can find me at, uh, Don Kohler, uh, at Cox dot, uh, no, that's the wrong one. Don Kohler don don kohler.com. There we go. Don don kohler.com. p a wn, uh, and Callers, K O H L E R. So [email protected].
VICTOR
Fantastic. All right, well, anything else, Dean, that you want to add before we go?
DEANNA
It, it was such an honor to have you on our podcast. I can't wait to introduce you to our, our community. And, uh, I can only imagine how many people you have inspired off of this platform and now reach even more here being with us today. So thank you for taking the time. Again, just an honor to, to chat with you and meet with you. Um, it, it, it means the world to us truly. And we'll make sure everybody that we put uh, her, her website into the show notes, make sure you check it out. Um, and, you know, check out her books as well. She's an author of three books. Um, you know, cuz you know what a, a advocate I am for reading too. It's always good for Your Brain. Okay, .
DAWN
Well, thank you both so much. I mean, great work that you're doing and I'd love the format of your podcast. It's, it's very real, very conversational. I imagine your readers really enjoy listening to, to the way this, you know, it flows and it interacts and, and it's real. You know, there was no script here.
DEANNA
No swear. I did write down the stuff about Step Up, but it's because I didn't have time to memorize.
DAWN
I said no, it, it was, it was just really
VICTOR
Great. I did write from the book, I had to write From the book .
DAWN
And if either one of you need anything in the future to help your listeners out, I'm, I'm more than happy to, to help. So,
DEANNA
Absolutely.
VICTOR
Alright, everyone, until next time, be present, be playful, and be powerful
DEANNA
And be happy. Be healthy. Be safe, everybody.
VICTOR
Bye.
