68: Healing Generational Trauma: A Conversation with Tammy Cox

[00:00:00] Welcome to episode 68 of the podcast. We are flying through them. Today's another fabulous episode. At least it is in my opinion, but I want to hear from you, let me know what you think about the episodes. You can go to the website, leave a voicemail, ask me a question. But also make sure you're officially following the podcast, leave me a review.

[00:00:22] And if you're feeling super generous, send me a couple of bucks as a tip to help me cover the costs of running the show. I'm currently in Darwin it's wet season. Super, super humid. We just had a lovely storm, but it stopped now. So the humidity is back up, which is awful. You might even be able to hear Tilly panting in the background.

[00:00:43] That's enough for me though. Let's roll the intro.

[00:00:46] Rosie: G'day and welcome to the Pursuit of Freedom podcast. I'm your host, Rosie Burrows, and I'm on a journey to find my freedom so that I can help you do exactly the same. Join me each week as I share the stories of everyday people who found their own path to freedom. I'm not going to focus on job titles and accolades because I don't care about that stuff, and neither should you.

[00:01:10] I want to uncover what truly makes you tick. Who are you when you step away from society's expectations and follow your heart? I still haven't figured it out yet. Have you? Either way, buckle up, because it's going to be one hell of a ride.

[00:01:31] Welcome back to the Pursuit of Freedom podcast. Joining us today is Tammy Cox. She's a transformational coach, a podcaster, a mom, and so much more.

[00:01:41] She helps women heal their childhood. Wounds without years of therapy. Sounds pretty cool to me. Um, And Tammy, to use your words, you had a pretty fucked up childhood. And, You had to make the choice to either surrender or heal and you chose to heal and I can't wait to dive into your story today. Thank you so much for being here.

[00:02:02] Tammy: Yeah, I have been looking forward to this for weeks, Rosie. Ever since our pre call, I'm like, this chick is going Hella cool. We gotta talk.

[00:02:12] Rosie: Thank you. Yeah. I've been keen to.. Somewhere I like to start with all my guests is diving into their story. And I know you have quite a story. So can we go back to when you were a little girl? What was life like for Tammy back then?

[00:02:30] Tammy: She was not having a good time for the first, I'd say the good, the first 11 years. My family, it was, there was a lot of physical violence in my house.

[00:02:42] My dad was very violent person. It was very controlling. There was a lot of religious trauma. I'd say the biggest thing is there was no leeway or freedom to be what I wanted to be. I had to be exactly what my dad wanted me to be. I had to speak like him. I had to think like him. And if I was out of line.

[00:03:02] With any of that, it was a physical punishment. And so I was a very scared little girl In fact now that I know that how trauma tracks it's like my siblings and I all lived in this state of fear we like wet the bed far past the time that kids do we had all these signs of trauma that I didn't even know.

[00:03:27] And so here we were experiencing all the fear stuff, right? I also have an old, had an older sister, have an older sister, who's incredibly, she's developmentally delayed and she was also very violent. So the whole household, there's just every single day, there was. There was confrontation, physical confrontation.

[00:03:49] So I thought that was normal. I went out in the world and I was very, I was met with a lot of shock because I wasn't, people didn't like when I put my hands on them, either in a violent way or just in a, Sometimes it wasn't even violent. I just didn't think anything of putting my hands on other people.

[00:04:06] And I remember going to school and they're like, you can't put your hands on other people like this. And I was like, that's weird. My house, it's very normal. But it was 11 years old where everything really shifted in my world. My parents sat us down and told us that my dad had HIV. He was very sick.

[00:04:30] They had kept it a secret for my entire life, right? Because they found out like my mom was pregnant with my brother when they found out. My brother's two years younger than me back then in the eighties, you didn't find out right away. So basically my mom probably had all three of us while my dad had AIDS.

[00:04:53] Yeah. Wow. So just the miraculous part of her not getting it and us like we'd all be wiped out. But by some wonderful miracle here we're alive today, but they sat us down and said, yeah your dad's. He's sick and he's about to die. And a month later he died. And the rough part was I missed him so much.

[00:05:18] I loved my dad. There was a part of me that loved my dad so deeply, but the other part of me was so relieved because he scared me so much. And then I felt guilty. That I felt relief. And so I just had some really fucked up years after from like, um, so 13 is when we get our adult hormones. So I would have to say I didn't even realize what death was until I hit 13.

[00:05:46] And by that point is when it, when I realized, okay, my dad's not coming back. I'm never going to see him again. He's gone. And by that time, my mom my mom moved on very quickly. I started dating her boyfriend, her ex boyfriend from right before my dad, six months after my dad died. So here we are, the kids processing it, not understanding what's going on.

[00:06:13] And she's moving on and then she got pregnant right away. So all these life changes hit me so fast, moved out of the family home and this just left me reeling. Like I spent my. My teenage years, so angry, so sad, so bitter and very confused. Like what the F is life? This is just absolute shit.

[00:06:34] Rosie: I want to touch on the concept of death. My sister was also 11 when our dad died and I've, she's 10 years younger than me. And I've often wondered. what her understanding or perception of death was at that age. Could you share with us what you remember of that? What was your understanding of death?

[00:06:57] Tammy: It just, it didn't, it didn't, you don't realize that it's a final thing, right? You only know this reality of like, um,, you just don't know the finality of it. So you're waiting for them to walk in the door, which some of this is normal in the grieving process anyways. Cause the first step in grief is denial.

[00:07:19] So you do have that denial, but I'd say as a child, you have it a lot longer because 13 is when you get the three adult hormones. So before that you have this you're more. Introspective. You're, it's all about, what's going on inside of you. And then once you hit 13, that's when you get extra, no, that's not the word you start to S to notice the world around you, right?

[00:07:42] You're like, Oh, there's other people in this reality of mine. And so that's 13 and then it hits us like adulthood hits us. And if you go through really traumatic things in that, in those time periods, like right before 13, even a little bit after it. It has a huge impact on you for the rest of your life.

[00:08:01] So yeah it massively impacted her. She didn't understand what death was probably as far as, Oh, my dad's gone and I'm not going to see him again. Yeah.

[00:08:13] Rosie: You were forced to grow up so quickly, I think. Not only the death of your dad, but all the other stuff that was going on at home. Did you have any support

[00:08:22] Tammy: network?

[00:08:25] No. So my mom grew up in church, so there was, there was that there was some support there. But my mom. After my dad died, like my mom, she says now I was grieving for years before he died because she knew earlier she knew he was going to go. We didn't know for we I think it was like even less than a month.

[00:08:45] I think it was like three weeks that we knew that he was going to go, but didn't hit us. I didn't know, I didn't know what death really was. You don't understand it at 11. And so I was like, okay, he's dying. He's getting ready to go, but you don't realize what that even means. And so she started dating my stepdad six months after my dies.

[00:09:07] And she's I grieved all those years. She didn't, by the way, she absolutely didn't, but we didn't, we especially didn't. And so us kids, me and my two siblings we were just, We were all a mess. We were all freaking messy. And I'd even say, you know, my brother, he's gone on his healing journey.

[00:09:31] My sister's developmentally delayed. So she's all the way out to lunch. In fact she got progressively worse after my dad died. In fact, she got the most. She got the most abuse at the hands of my dad because she did not comply with his rules. And so he, she got the work, the worst of the beatings and she's got a lot of trauma and she's in a level four group home, which is pretty much the most severe you can get because she's violent.

[00:09:58] She's she didn't have or didn't do the inner work. Like I learned how. I taught myself not to be violent. It took me a lot longer than I wanted. But I had to learn not to be violent. She never Learn that and in fact her abuse almost got worse towards others She's been arrested for beating up the staff and her group home she's done really terrible things to people and so when I look at her, I'm like dang I have a good because I learned earlier, you know who I wanted to be and how to heal and how to heal myself, but she Yeah, she chose differently

[00:10:41] Rosie: So what do you think caused that?

[00:10:45] Do you think she's chosen that path or is it to do with her being developmentally delayed? Because you grew up in the same household, had similar experiences, I'm assuming, obviously very different people. Here you are on your healing journey, and there she is at the other end of the spectrum. So why do you think you have ended up in such different places?

[00:11:11] Tammy: Oh, because I chose not to be a victim and she's, she still chooses to be a victim. I've done so I've tr I've even tried to work, you know, on my sisters, which this is what I do, it's my pleasure. I could, if I could help my sister, if she wanted the help, I could totally help her. But a person has to wanna give up the victim story.

[00:11:31] And honestly, there are some people that are just so attached to it. My sister is very attached to her victim story. And if you were to talk to her for any length of time, she would have a whole list of all the reasons why she's the victim of her whole life. And yes, she was victimized early in life, but a lot of us are, that doesn't mean we go on to live.

[00:11:55] The victim lifestyle, like my sister, she has, like I used to tell her, like she could totally take care of herself on her own. She could be an independent living is what they call it. If she complied with the rules, but she never would. And I'd sit her down. I'm like, listen, all you have to do is these things.

[00:12:15] And it was not a long list, but she did not want to live within those boundaries. And so every time they'd give her a little bit of freedom, she'd either run away, she'd go, she wouldn't comply with the rules. So I could totally see her having lived a completely different experience. If she stopped seeing herself as the victim and started seeing herself in a different light.

[00:12:41] Like for me, the reason why I'm here, where I'm at now is because I. Own my life a hundred percent. I say everything in my experience is because I created it. I made this. I'm responsible for it. No one else is. And until you get to that place, you're a victim on some level. And don't get me wrong. I do go into my victim story sometimes.

[00:13:03] I do. I am, I'm a human being. I like to point my finger at my husband sometimes and my kids and Try and think but I will quickly remind myself, no, I created all this and I bring myself back to truth, which is that I'm responsible for all of it.

[00:13:22] Rosie: Every last drop. Can we go more into that? I remember in our pre interview, you said something to me and I just went, Whoa, like it was really confronting and made me think.

[00:13:34] And you've just talked to it there is that you mentioned, and you can tell me if I've remembered this wrong. That we choose our life ahead of time. We know what we wanted to experience and we choose these experiences. And I just went, what? Like you chose all that shit in your childhood. And I'm going, what?

[00:13:58] I didn't choose my parents to die. Fuck you. So to unpack, I know it is really, really curious about this. I want to understand it.

[00:14:09] Tammy: Like I said, it is just, it's my personal belief that I choose to hold because it holds me in complete autonomy, like owning all of it. If I believed that. I created everything and I chose this life experience before I came here, then that would be owning it.

[00:14:31] And I do believe that because I think that, okay we're eternal beings, right? Forever unfolding. Like we've, I believe that we come here to expand and become more. And I believe that the reason why we choose these challenges Is to expand our compassion and to like, how do we know love until we've seen hate, until we've seen like hell on earth, until we've experienced just the absolute shit until we've just been drugged through The freaking depths of hell, could we then rise up and be like, Oh my gosh, this was available the whole time, right?

[00:15:13] I just think there's, we live in this world of polarity and why it's because you have to have both. You can't have the dark without the light. You can't have the fear without the love. Like it all has to exist and then you get to choose, right? Like with death. I don't believe in death. I don't believe in death.

[00:15:34] We're eternal. We can never cease to exist. If you exist. You always have and you always will. Now, it doesn't mean that I'm going to stay in this meat suit forever. I came in, I said, okay, I'm going to have this many years. I'll experience this. I'll experience that. But I knew I wasn't going to be around like for thousands and thousands of years.

[00:15:57] So it's just interesting how much For me, it's very interesting how much judgment we have on death. And I think death is just the most natural thing in all of the earth. We come in, we bang around a while, we, then we come back, bang around a while, it's just everything's a cycle. So it's like, why do we judge death?

[00:16:20] Rosie: That's a tough one. And I think no matter if you're coming at it from a spiritual perspective or a more scientific perspective. Even from a science perspective, we're atoms. You can't create or destroy atoms. So there you go. And from a spiritual perspective, you just unpacked it. And I think the accountability piece is huge because it's very easy to default to blame, shame, and you mentioned this whole victim mentality.

[00:16:51] Why do you think we default to that? Why is that our first? The first kind of place we visit because it's easier

[00:17:03] Tammy: if it's, If it's not our fault, then it's easier. We just be like, Oh, it's everyone else. They suck. They suck. They did that to me. They did. It's easier in some way, except that you're living with all the pain anyway.

[00:17:16] So it's actually not easier, but it feels easier in the moment. I blamed my parents for everything forever. I blame this idea, this FF false concept of God, this, now I don't see God in anywhere the same way. That's why I barely use that word. The source of all that is can you imagine us blaming the source for our problems when we get to choose the way we define it?

[00:17:43] Like same thing with death, right? Like we have this judgment about death. We've defined it as this bad thing. Why is it bad? Who said it's bad?

[00:17:54] Rosie: Tell me more about your view on death. I love how you said I just said it's bad.

[00:18:00] Tammy: Yeah. It's so I believe, okay, when you study physics there's no such thing as time.

[00:18:06] There's no such thing as space. So essentially. Okay. So for instance, our DNA on, we have billions of cells in our body. Our body's made up of billions of cells and on each and every cell is your DNA, right? That DNA has something wrapped around it called epigenetics. And epigenetics is basically. Your lineage, it goes back, modern science, it could be more now, but it goes back seven generations on both your mom and dad's side, which means on the moment of conception, all of dad's DNA and all of mom's DNA become your DNA.

[00:18:46] So essentially on a physics level, you are the lineage, you are the entire lineage, right? So that's why when we heal us, we're healing the lineage backwards and forwards. Because all that DNA just gets passed on. That's why we have the programs that get passed on to us.

[00:19:10] So it's in a sense. Both your parents still exist within you and will always right and you are them and they are you and then back The generations before that and the generations before that and the generations before That's why I could take you through a past life regression and take you to one of those lives And you will have the cellular memory of it if I put you under a deep, deep enough state of hypnosis.

[00:19:38] Do you know what I'm saying? If hypnosis can go back in your DNA and pull out memory that you didn't technically live because you started at this time and you're like, Nope, that's way further back. Then how do you have those memories? And it's funny because they're doing these tests on the heart donors and the heart donors are getting their new heart transplant and they're having all these patterns that the person who owned that heart previous.

[00:20:10] Like different cravings. Even um, they start to like drink and smoke and all of a sudden they, they have cravings for this and that. And then they talk to the the donor's family. And they're like yeah, that's our kid. Or, that's our person. So it's like this cellular memory inside the cells.

[00:20:27] Is just, we're barely scratching the surface. And then there's what you mentioned is that energy can neither be created or destroyed and each and every cell of your body. It, within it, if you were to slice it open has energy, right? That energy, an atomic bomb couldn't destroy it.

[00:20:46] So then where does that energy go when you're no longer filling your meat suit? You know, This

[00:20:51] Rosie: is making my head spin

[00:20:53] Tammy: like,

[00:20:57] Rosie: But these conversations are great because I think modern medicine as wonderful as it is, it doesn't explain it all. There's more at play here and hearing your view on it is just. It's fascinating and it kinda, it does kinda make sense and I think we hold a lot of trauma in our bodies and whether or not it's ours or, you're talking about the seven generations previous, it has a very real impact.

[00:21:26] But what I want to know, because you do inner child healing, I am not super familiar with it. I know some people like, I don't think it's, it's becoming more mainstream, I guess if you want to use that word, but I think a lot of people still don't know a huge amount about what it is. Some people think that's a load of crap because they're not willing to hear another point of view.

[00:21:52] So can you give us a bit of a crash course? What is in a childhood?

[00:21:57] Tammy: In your first five years of life, you do not have the upper faculties of mind. And what that means, you know how the expression they, you're like a sponge when you're young. This is true. You don't have the upper faculties. Therefore everything that gets dropped into your subconscious mind. It becomes fact and true to you comes, becomes your belief.

[00:22:19] You don't have the ability to reject it. So everyone around you that says you're this, you're that, you're this, you're that. It becomes an instant belief for you because you don't have, like I said, you don't have the ability to reject it. So you're in almost your entire personality was created in those first five years, all the way up to eight, right?

[00:22:39] And so if you think of the human being as a you've seen those Russian dolls. Where you open up the nether and then okay, that is us. We open us up and there's all these different, we are every age that we've ever been still exists within us. And so the majority of the pain we experience is in the trauma within those first five years.

[00:23:09] And so what I've noticed because. The identity creates the belief creates the thought creates the emotion, and the emotion creates the circumstances or results of our life. So if I want to change the results, I got to go all the way back to the beliefs held within the identity And I get to, we get to neutralize the trauma, which is basically, if you think of a trauma as a, it's this high state of negative emotion, yes, high state of negative emotion where boom, there is a belief that's imprinted, right?

[00:23:41] So in those first five years are the deepest imprints. And we have on those trauma events these deep rooted beliefs about ourself. My two, my top two that were just wreaking so much havoc in my life where I'm unlovable and I'm not important and I can, you know, when I found them, I saw all the different places in my life where I made that true for me.

[00:24:09] So if we could go back, which is what I do with my clients, we go back to the event and we take that emotional tag off of it. We neutralize it. We take the emotion out of it so you could, that event still exists. You could even watch it, but you have no emotional attachment to it anymore. It's been neutralized.

[00:24:32] And so just imagine that we just move all this negative motion trapped in the body. We move it out. So that we have that freed up space to create the new identity of your now choosing.

[00:24:47] And are we

[00:24:49] Rosie: aware of this? Like, how, yeah. The average person? No. So how do we go on that journey? And in fact, how did you go on that journey? You experience all this trauma, feeling shit, very angry, all sorts of behaviors coming out. And here you are today. Like I'm having trouble bridging the gap.

[00:25:13] Tammy: Yeah well, there's many years in between.

[00:25:16] So I spent a lot of time trying different things. Like I was in religion for, The majority of my adult life, I studied the Bible, I studied all these ancient texts. I studied, I started to look everywhere for healing because the moment I became a mom and I looked at my baby and I was like, There's no fucking way I'm going to pass on all this trauma to her.

[00:25:46] That was the moment where I really made a choice where I was like, nope, it has to stop here. It has to. And so then I went from being more passive and looking for my healing options to much more. Um, I mean, It wasn't until I started doing the trauma work, I just started hiring coaches to be honest.

[00:26:07] Um, I, I believe. I know a lot of people, they don't, they don't maybe want to invest in themselves, but I think that's the fastest way to get the results because I spent a lot of time and money on things that didn't work. But if you're not, if someone has not created the results that you want and said, here, Give me your hand.

[00:26:29] I'm going to take you through this step by step. If you don't have that, then your journey is going to be much longer and it just doesn't have to be. So if I could give anyone advice, it's pay someone, find a coach that does something that you feel called and say, okay, I'm choosing you. You're going to walk me through it.

[00:26:45] Because I don't believe that we're going to do it if we're going to. If we're on the road alone, I feel like we all want someone to hold our hand and say, it's okay, it's safe. Come along. So that's what I tell everyone. It's like, yes, you can dabble, you can watch the podcast, you'll get it.

[00:27:01] Great stuff. But nothing will be like hiring someone to really walk you through to create the results that you want. And that's what I had to do over the years. And I just would learn modality after modality. Because when you learn a modality you're learning it for you first.

[00:27:17] You're clearing up your own stuff. And then you get to use it on other people. So it becomes even more effective for you. So I feel like that's the next step on our journey. Once we've healed ourself, now we get to Teach someone else how to do it or several other people how to do it.

[00:27:36] Rosie: I love what you said in terms of healing other people always is also helping to heal ourselves.

[00:27:43] Like it's yes, that is so true. And, but I want to know what made you choose or feel like you wanted to help others?

[00:27:55] Tammy: I just compassion remembering when I was on those times in my life where I was like seriously considering taking myself out of the game. And I was just like it's going to be this or it's going to be that I either have to heal or I have to go.

[00:28:11] Like I can't experience this pain and it was so painful just to be me and be in my body and to feel all the shit that I had accumulated and haven't. Hadn't let go of and released yet. And so those moments thinking back to where I was at. And then, when you see someone in that kind of pain, you're like, I remember that.

[00:28:34] I believe that's why I chose this little, This life, because that's what woke me up. It's our struggles that wake us up. It's not the easy breezy times. It's the real shit that we go through that wakes us up and has us asking those deep questions of what is this all about?

[00:28:51] What am I doing here? What, why, what is this? It takes those questions in order, I believe for us to get the answers of like, what is Yeah, you get to choose what you want, but you, you got to let go of some stuff first.

[00:29:06] Rosie: Mmm. I see so many people not letting go of this stuff. And something I've been exploring a lot on the podcast, I'm obsessed with it, is do we have to hit rock bottom before we're ready to go on this healing journey?

[00:29:26] You were saying a big moment for you is when you're looking at your baby daughter and you're like, this has to stop here. I am not passing on that trauma. And you went through some shit, right? But can someone start healing before they hit rock bottom or do they need to reach that point? To go, fuck, I need to make a change.

[00:29:51] Tammy: I don't think everyone needs to hit rock bottom. I just say It's the most common Yeah,

[00:29:58] Rosie: true that

[00:30:00] Tammy: Yeah I mean, it's really out of desperation if things were going so well Why would you be asking those really difficult questions, like if things are just like Everything is just do do do do do like why would you ask, it's like You're just being scraped Like I said, I felt like I was just being scraped on the very very bottom and hell like, just like, I couldn't even yeah. When you've experienced the lowest of lows I think that's really what calls us up, and I don't, I think there are people that have these kinds of lives and maybe they said, Hey, this time around, I'm going to take it easy. I'm going to pick an easier journey. I believe that's what happens.

[00:30:48] But for me, I believe that I chose this path because I, because of what I get to do that I wouldn't have probably even found, except that I needed me all those years ago. I need someone like me. So I became

[00:31:03] Rosie: um, um, And I want to hear your thoughts. On helping people. This is front of mind because I was listening to a podcast yesterday.

[00:31:14] Actually we can do hard things. And they were talking with the author of codependent no more. I've forgotten her name. And they were saying that codependence is when we're very much wanting to be in control. And I thought well, that's not me. I'm not a control freak. Although I think I kind of am. But what they were saying is when they, when they talk about control, they're actually talking about help.

[00:31:39] When you just want to help people. And this is something I struggle with, especially with my sister. I just want to help her. And what I've come to realize is I'm not helping her if she's not ready.

[00:31:55] How do you navigate that?

[00:31:59] Tammy: Yeah. I think that is the hardest thing that we go through as healers is like letting go of expectations. It's very hard when you need something, you need this outcome that, that is control. I'm like, I'm a natural controller. Yeah. And Don't take that as like a negative.

[00:32:19] My controller is also a driver, you know, a controller is a driver. And so a controller has all these beautiful qualities, but in our unhealthy state, we are like trying to make things happen and you have to behave. And I noticed it in my most intimate relationships, which is with my husband and my kids.

[00:32:39] I need you to be this thing, which is, obviously learned behavior from my wonderful childhood. But surrender is really letting everyone, it's really hard to let my kids, mess up, but it's necessary. It's very necessary. And I have to trust and I have to surrender and I have to say whatever will be in their life will be, and it will be what they want.

[00:33:02] They choose. Not me. I'm not the one that gets to choose what their life experience is going to be. And for you, that might be very hard to surrender it. But when you do, you will give her the freedom and autonomy to choose for herself and she could choose it or maybe not, but you get to be okay regardless because codependency is needing other people, places, and things to be different than they are in order for you to be happy.

[00:33:28] Yes. And that's binding.

[00:33:32] Rosie: Yeah. That's uncomfortable. Oh, it's so fucking uncomfortable. I'm still on that journey, you know, but I've like me trying to help. We all are. Yeah. Yeah. Oh. Muck up all the time on it, but I, I very much realize now that me trying to help somebody isn't really helping them. I'm doing it for me.

[00:33:54] Not that I'm consciously doing that. You just gotta, sometimes you just gotta let it be. It's their journey. How are they going to learn in life and become who they are if you don't let them experience that?

[00:34:08] Tammy: Mm hmm. Mm hmm. Mm.

[00:34:13] Rosie: So tell me more about your work as a healer. Because you're helping people, right?

[00:34:17] But it's a bit different. I hope so.

[00:34:22] So tell me about that and how you help people

[00:34:24] Tammy: heal. Essentially we all have all these negative emotions trapped in our body. If we haven't done any inner work and even sometimes if we have I'm still very connected to mine. And so we have it stored in our body. My job is to move it out of them.

[00:34:44] To help them move it out of themselves more appropriately is like we just get to release everything that's no longer working. I do a lot of inner child healing trauma work a lot of hypnotherapy stuff, but it's all around releasing, letting go of the negative emotion and really calling in. What you want from this freed up space because most people don't know what they want.

[00:35:09] They're so focused on all the negative that they have no idea what they want. And so I help them get very clear on what they want. But the first thing we've got to do is clear out the stuff that is just weighing them and anchoring them down, which is Pain, unforgiveness anger. A lot of women hold a lot of anger in their body. And so any emotion that hasn't been felt, hasn't been emoted. We have to go into it. We have to feel it fully. We have to let it, we have to like essentially move through it. So I take them through, I have many different processes to identify where the pain is.

[00:35:47] So they'll connect to the emotion. I'll be like, okay, close your eyes. Where's the stored in your body? First impression. They'll always, they'll put their hand on it. It'll always have a color because the first two languages we learn when we're born into this world is color and emotion. And so those are tied together and it's a way that we can access it within the body and move it out more quickly and easily.

[00:36:10] So I work a lot with color attached to emotion, but it's really just a lot of emotional work, a lot of internal work. Yeah. It sounds very confronting.

[00:36:24] Rosie: Does it? Well, It sounds, you have to confront your trauma and work through that and feel all the feelings. I personally see the benefit in that, but I'm at a certain point in my journey.

[00:36:43] So why do people choose that? Do you think they get worse in inverted commas before they get better because they're having to go into the depths of all those emotions?

[00:36:54] Tammy: Initially they're coming to me because they haven't been able to find love or their love relationship isn't working or they've, all they've done is attract toxic relationships and so they're just trying to find a solution to their problem. The solution is inside of them. The solution is identifying the beliefs. So how do we find the beliefs? Well, We got to go back. We got to go back to little them and we got to figure out what they decided about themselves in those first five years of life.

[00:37:25] What they decided about life, what they decided about um, men, what they decided about women, what they decided about love relationships. We have to find those beliefs in order to change them so they can. Everything that we have in our life is because of the beliefs that we hold. So if I'm going to get you results, we've got to identify what you want.

[00:37:46] And then we got to figure out where the roadblock is. And the roadblock is in the first five years. So they come to me because they want an outcome. They want to find love. They want to. Hold love. They want to sustain love and they want to be really happy. And so that's the journey. So really,

[00:38:02] Rosie: their life before they come to you is so incredibly painful.

[00:38:06] Really, isn't it? And they need, they want that change. They want that love. I think we all want that. Surely we all want love. We do. Yeah. Even if we don't admit it, we do, but

[00:38:18] Tammy: We're the holders of our own love. Love has to come from within us. It doesn't come. We think it comes in this way. It does. Yes.

[00:38:26] It starts in here and goes out and then it becomes what we attract. It has to come from within first. But if we don't know that and we're looking for love and all the wrong places, it's not out there, folks. It's not there. It's not there. It's not there. It's not there. I use this example. I'm like, I found my husband 18 years ago.

[00:38:45] We've been together all this time, but for the majority of our relationship, we both were like this, had each other at arm's length, don't come any closer. We had all these walls around our heart and we both lost our fathers when we were young. We went through very similar traumas, but we didn't allow the other one in.

[00:39:04] Yeah, we were coexisting. We're like, having kids and whatnot, but I didn't intimately let him into my heart and he didn't with me. And it wasn't until I went on my healing journey that I could even see these high, tall, thick walls all around my heart, which really hurt. Which do still exist at times.

[00:39:25] I have to like recognize them and say, Oh, there's that wall again. And I got to imagine just taking the brick by brick. But if we don't realize what the real problem is, and we're just deluded into thinking that the external reality is creating our emotional state versus the opposite.

[00:39:44] Then, we just, again, don't get to be the creators, the intentional creators that we really are. And I think this That we can be.

[00:39:56] Rosie: Yeah. Yeah. And I think this comes back to the accountability piece. And when you said love comes from within. Whoa, excuse me, what? It's true. Like, That's not what we're taught.

[00:40:11] And you said, you know, it's, it's, it's what we attract. And that immediately made me think of people in my life who have experienced domestic violence or, you know, abusive relationships and they keep getting in relationships that are perpetuating this pattern. Do you think that's because they're attracting that into their life?

[00:40:36] This is controversial. We're all

[00:40:38] Tammy: attracted. Yeah. We're all, here's the thing, they're not doing it on purpose. None of us are. But yes, we live and you can't get around it. This is just science. We live in an attraction based universe. It's the reason why birds of a feather flock together. It's the reason why we're magnetizing everything and everyone to us, whether we realize it or not.

[00:41:04] So yes, in fact, I had this girl on my podcast and for Those listening my podcast, I ha it's called behind the veil, anonymous transformations and people anonymous anonymously come on my podcast and I take them through a session and almost always I know very little about their life, but they give me a brief and I've had these women on that are like, yeah, I've had domestic violence after domestic violence.

[00:41:27] We go back to their childhood. What, when we, when I say, okay, take me back to your first experience of this emotion. They take me back to their childhood and they were watching their mom get beat or they were getting beat by their dad or, it's always, there's always a connection piece that goes back to those first five years.

[00:41:44] And that's why I tell people it's not really your fault and yet you can change it. So until we change the patterns, we are just duplicating the pattern that was downloaded into our subconscious very young. So on, on one hand, they are victims. On the other hand, they don't have to be once they realize how the programming works, right?

[00:42:09] It's when you buy a computer and you go to turn it on and it turns on being, but there's no program and it's, you can't do much with it. And so our software, our hardware, our entire system was set up so that we could choose our own reality. But the problem is we weren't taught. We weren't taught how.

[00:42:30] We weren't taught how to program ourselves. So we just were downloaded with the hardware, the software, and most of us don't want to change it because it is, I will tell you, it's uncomfortable to change the shit. It's like you said, why would anyone do this hard stuff? Yeah. And it's yeah, I get it.

[00:42:48] The ones that, that's why I said the ones that were changed will change are the ones that like can't live in the hell that they're living in another moment. It's that's what, that's where I was. I just couldn't, I could not do it. There was no way I was going to, do you know what I'm saying? It was the only option for me.

[00:43:05] And that's where I feel like we're just like, okay, this has to change because I'm not living in this hell anymore. So yeah.

[00:43:14] Rosie: And if I think of my experience, I don't know if this resonates for you and this is going to sound dramatic, but it comes to a point of you either choose death or life.

[00:43:24] Yeah. Yeah. You're at a point, it's I keep going or just that's it. I can't keep doing this. And for me, I chose life and I felt like it was something I had to fight for. Like it wasn't easy, but I want to go back to something you said, which I went, Oh, I like this. And I think it'll soften it for people because we're talking about this accountability piece, but you said it's not our fault.

[00:43:51] The stuff that happens to us is not our fault. And to me, that just brought a sense of calm. It's not our fault, but we still. Are responsible for what we do moving forward. Like we have the power and the ability to change these patterns.

[00:44:11] Tammy: And it's so interesting because, for me, so much of my work, like I go back not only to my childhood, I spent a lot of time with my, Little four year old self because she's the one that carries most of the pain.

[00:44:24] But I, I also go back to my dad's four year old self because my dad experienced so much pain and I go back to my mom as well to work with them because like I said, they're me, I'm them. But to have compassion, my dad became who he was because of his programming and in his mind, when I go back to those events where, you know, He's being violent towards me.

[00:44:50] I can have compassion now because I realize in his heart of hearts, he feels like he's saving me from going down the path he had to go down. And I had to see, it took a lot of work for me to get to that place where I could see it from this clear perspective of like, he really feels like he's doing the best thing for me.

[00:45:14] And in my mind, obviously I'm suffering. I'm believing that, he doesn't love me and that I'm not important and all these things. But in his mind, he's I would do anything to protect you from what I had to go through. And my dad, when I um, my dad didn't tell me what he went through and neither, no one told me.

[00:45:32] Cause like I said, I live in a family. It's very secretive, but I've gone into you. I've gone into his life and I have learned more about him from doing this work on him. There's always a reason why we do it. And so for his for he was in pain, and he lived in guilt and shame so long.

[00:45:54] That's the only, this is the only way someone could pass away from something like HIV is that they live in shame for so long that they're basically beating themselves up for years and years and years. So for me to be able to take that on and to feel it for him and to have compassion and love for him is to heal my lineage.

[00:46:18] Rosie: Has forgiveness played a role in this for you? Cause you mentioned compassion. What about forgiveness?

[00:46:24] Tammy: Oh, forgiveness is one. A hundred percent. One of the first things that we work on and all of it is forgiveness towards self at the end.

[00:46:35] Rosie: Ah, okay. One thing I know I've struggled with in the past with forgiveness, and I think others as well, is that I feel like if I forgive someone, I'm saying what they did is okay.

[00:46:50] And

[00:46:50] Tammy: I don't like that.

[00:46:51] Rosie: I

[00:46:51] Tammy: know. I know, I wish people would get over that. Because here's the thing, like I said, the emotions we don't feel are trapped in the body, right? You're really, it's, I love the description of you're drinking poison, expecting the other person to die. And I was able to really understand this because I had to forgive my father after he already passed away.

[00:47:11] And I was like he's not even here. How can I forgive him? Because it has nothing to do with the active relationship, how, how It plays out in the physical. It's all about saying I'm cutting the cords with the negative emotions tied to that. Like I'm letting go of the negative emotions.

[00:47:26] You're not letting, you're not saying what they did was cool or right now it fucking hurt. It fucking hurt me. And in fact, I've had those times, you know, with my clients where we do primal screaming cause we got to get that anger out too. And women hold a lot of anger in. And so we just. We let it rip.

[00:47:47] So anger, pain, all that ties into unforgiveness, but you have to let go of the negative past. If you want to have that clear freed up space because your negative attachment to the past will keep that past in your present. We're just pulling all the, all the shit up with us. We're wearing the backpack. Oh, nope.

[00:48:07] Still got it. Ooh, can't let this go. No I've been dragging it a long way. You know, I got 42 years with this bag. You think I'm going to let it go now? No way. Come on. And so each new moment, pulling all the horrible stuff into the present moment. We're saying, no, I'm not going to let go of any. Bit of this.

[00:48:28] And it's like, it's kind of heavy though. You don't really have to carry it. It's not even yours. None of that shit you're carrying. It is yours. So could we just take out one little thing? One little thing. That's all I ask. Okay. This one. Okay. Is there more? Yeah, I mean we get to have a lot of grace for ourself in our healing process because there are parts of it that are harder for other people.

[00:48:51] Like for the forgiveness piece, it's because you've been taught that forgiveness is something that it's not forgiveness is just the letting go of the shit behind you and saying, yeah, I'm not carrying that anymore. I'm releasing that. It's too heavy. Yeah, it has nothing to do with the other person and it never has and it never will.

[00:49:10] Rosie: Yeah. That's such a different perspective, I think, to the common understanding. You just said forgiveness has nothing to do with the other person. It's like, wait, what, excuse me, what? But you're right. It is like, if I'm to forgive, I think even the way we say it, to forgive someone, but it's not, it's, I think self forgiveness is a big part of it too.

[00:49:33] Would you agree?

[00:49:35] Tammy: Oh, yeah. Um, When it comes back to it Everything is a reflection of your relationship with yourself. So yes, it's like, why would it have anything to do with my dad when he had been gone so many years? He'd been gone so long, right? There was no physical representation of him currently in my life, but I kept that negative emotion going.

[00:49:57] It was my interpretation of the events. That kept it alive and active in my current reality where what makes something true? Like it's even been proven that most of the time when we go back to a traumatic event, we don't even remember it accurately and it has a tendency to get more negative every time you return to it.

[00:50:20] So the events that you remember may not have happened that way at all. Shit. Yeah. Wow.

[00:50:34] Rosie: Oh, this conversation, seriously it's got me thinking about so many things and I know that people listening right now will be feeling the same. But we got to wrap this up somehow, right?

[00:50:45] Otherwise I'm going to be, we're going to be talking forever. I love this. So this is the question I ask everybody and I can't wait to hear your answer because I know it's going to be good. No pressure. What does freedom mean to you? Oh

[00:51:00] Tammy: gosh. Oh, freedom. Freedom is like full autonomy. It's freedom is going within yourself and just being. So full of source that you don't need, you don't need anything external, no relationship externally. It's all just like the fullness of the source within you because you are the very temple of the divine itself. So for me to be so in that it's no attachment to anything external.

[00:51:33] It's just me and me and me with the divine. That's beautiful.

[00:51:41] Rosie: Tammy, thank you so much. This conversation has, it's gone all over the place, but it's all interrelated and I love it. And I just want to say thank you for being so open and vulnerable and generous with your wisdom and insights.

[00:51:56] I think for a few people, their minds are going to be blown for most actually.

[00:52:01] Tammy: I mean, You are incredible at. Like your, the way your mind works, the way you come up with your questions, it's like so deep. You, You made this go as deep as it did because sometimes I get interviewed in the, and it's just, it's, it can be very surface level, but you're like, let's dig in girl.

[00:52:20] Let's get to the juice and the meat. Let's not stay on the surface. Let's just Absolutely. Absolutely. That's music to my ears. This is the kind of conversation that will I, I will probably buzz, be buzzing for the next several hours. I don't know how I'm going to sleep.

[00:52:38] Rosie: I'm lucky because it's morning for me.

[00:52:40] I can go out and, you know, burn some energy, go for a swim. Yeah. Oh, I've been sitting here in the heat. Sweat has come through my t shirt. Like, That's disgusting. It's been dripping on my microphone. Um, Probably a combination of the heat and the sweat. The in depth conversation, but here we are. If people are watching on YouTube, you get to see me in all my sweaty glory.

[00:53:02] Um, Yes,

[00:53:04] Tammy: I can't, I really couldn't see it and I'm over here. I'm over here. Like I'm super hot too. Like my face is all getting hot because when I have these like really cool conversations, I just get really, I get hot. Like the energy is like zzzzz and I'm like ooo. My face is like a tomato right now, but we, it's all worth it, right?

[00:53:27] Rosie: I agree. And if people have made it this far into our conversation, please go listen to Tammy's podcast. You launched it, was it last month? October, maybe? No, I think it

[00:53:40] Tammy: was like two

[00:53:40] Rosie: weeks ago, maybe. Oh, two weeks ago. Well, You could be right. Which could have been end of October, maybe. I think you've maybe got five episodes.

[00:53:48] I can't remember.

[00:53:49] Tammy: Are they? I don't even know how many are up. I know we've recorded like 14 of them, but I don't know how many are up currently. Yeah. Um. Well, There's

[00:53:59] Rosie: enough there to go binge listen. And if you want to see. action. That's where you need to go. And tell me, how can people get in touch with

[00:54:07] Tammy: you?

[00:54:08] I can provide you my link tree. That's the best way. Link tree slash Tammy Cox. If you want to be on my podcast, there is a spot for you to Apply. Awesome. And then if you are interested in seeing, doing any inner work, you can reach out to me on there and book a discovery call.

[00:54:28] Also I'm just, I have a, I say. If you just have a question you want to ask me, a lot of people reach out with relationship questions. You can also just reach out to me on Instagram because I am there mostly.

[00:54:42] Rosie: Awesome. Cool. Yep. All the links are going to be in the show notes. Tammy, thank you again.

[00:54:47] This has been an awesome start to my day. I'm going to go wash the sweat off, jump in the ocean and Yeah, slowly come down from the buzz of this conversation. It's been great. Yes. Thank

[00:54:59] Tammy: you for having me. I look forward to our next conversation. We gotta have one. I agree. Yep. Let's do it.

[00:55:07]