Episode 5: I Escaped 25 Years of Abuse

Naomi Nye

Bio : Naomi Nye has been an Entertainer - Entrepreneur for almost 20 years, with Award Winning businesses in Miami but her life was turned upside down when she underwent a series of surgeries that left her bedridden for  years. When it was time for Naomi to get back in the game she was unable to do so. This experience brought up repressed emotions, trauma, childhood wounds and fear that left her stuck and lost. After years of hard work through personal development, meditation, exercise, diet, and hard work Naomi was able to turn everything around. This got her on a search to understand the human mind. She spent the next couple of years studying neuroscience, human behavior, cognitive therapies, psychology, etc. and found that some of this information was vital for us all to learn in our adolescent years. So she began creating courses for teens to help them develop their mindset they need to overcome life’s challenges and be successful in all aspects of their life. 

Today, Naomi is a teen coach and has an online school with courses or mindset and entrepreneurship. 

Find Naomi here:

Website: https://www.thnnetwork.org

https://www.instagram.com/msrockstarentrepreneur/

TikTok https://www.tiktok.com/@rockstarentrepreneurs

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=585549287

Podcast transcript below:

Damaged Parents: [00:00:00] Welcome to the Relatively Damaged Podcast by Damaged Parents where devastated, crumbled, fractured people come to learn. Maybe just, maybe we're all a little bit damaged. Someone once told me it's safe to assume. 50% of the people I meet are struggling and feel wounded in some way. I would venture to say it's closer to 100%.

Every one of us is either currently struggling or has struggled with something that made us feel less than like we aren't good enough. We aren't capable. We are relatively damaged. And that's what we're here to talk about in my ongoing investigation of the damaged self. I want to better understand how others view their own challenges.

Maybe it's not so much about the damage. Maybe it's about our perception and how we deal with it. There is a deep commitment to becoming who we are meant to be. How do you do that? How do you find balance after a damaging experience? My hero is the damaged person, the one who faces seemingly insurmountable odds to come out on the other side, whole those who stared directly into the face of adversity with unyielding persistence to discover their purpose.

These are the people who inspire me to be more fully me, not in spite of my trials. But because of them, let's hear from another hero. Today's topic includes sensitive material, which may not be appropriate for children. This podcast is provided for informational purposes only, and is not intended as advice.

The opinions expressed here are strictly those of the person who gave them today. We're going to talk with Naomi Nye. She has many roles in her life. Daughter protector, entertainer, award-winning business person, and more. We'll talk about how a man broke into her home, how she was acting prisoner in a family full of physical and emotional abuse until the age of 25, how the violence impacted her and how she found health healing.

We especially love when she gives us tools to Reece bond, instead of react. Let's talk.

Hi, Naomi, thank you for coming on the podcast relatively damaged.

Naomi Nye: [00:02:37] No, thank you so much for having me. It's a pleasure. Yeah.

Damaged Parents: [00:02:41] So we were originally scheduled to meet yesterday and a very scary thing happened. Uh, will you tell us about

Naomi Nye: [00:02:50] that? Yeah, so it's so funny about intuition. So I was going to get ready and I had to schedule to take a shower and I was finishing an email and I was about, you know, the alarm went off and I was about to close and go shower.

And I thought, you know what? Just proofread and send it out before. Before heading out. So that took like two minutes, two, three minutes of my time, which I think was grace. Because when I got in the hallway, I look in my room and there's a man like this much in my window. So I, I was like in shock. I come into the room, he looks at me.

And the first thing I wanted to do was grab him. That was the first instinct, but it literally in like three, four or five seconds, I was like, absolutely not. It doesn't matter. So I looked at him and I hit him in the head and I pushed him and I said, get out of here, I'm calling the cops. And then he was like, he got like a little kid.

He was, um, actually. And a lot of drugs, his eyes were bloodshot. I mean, that's when I realized it's better to let someone go. He obviously has a need. It's not important. And so I hit him in the head and I closed the window and then I immediately called the cops and I saw him running out. And of course he took my purse, but I didn't realize that he had taken so many things, but it was, it was terrifying.

It was. It was like a movie. I never expected that number expected. Never happened to me before. So

Damaged Parents: [00:04:27] w when you saw him, what was that feeling like inside

Naomi Nye: [00:04:31] of you? It's unexplainable. My heart sank. My high school. I was frozen because it's funny the night before I was watching cold case files. So yes, I mean talk about timing.

So I was watching cold case files and of course there was a burglary and the girl had been raped and. I just couldn't believe it. I literally, when they say that your heart sinks like that exact feeling, I felt, I just felt something go like this and my stomach all the way down.

Damaged Parents: [00:05:05] Okay. So you're motioning that your hands just pushed down your heart down into the, like, into your

Naomi Nye: [00:05:09] face.

Right? Just thinking, feeling literally I felt the sinking feeling from my chest all the way down to my stomach. It was, and you know, it happens so fast in one second, you

Damaged Parents: [00:05:22] start sweating where you, I mean, how could you think through that?

Naomi Nye: [00:05:29] You know, um, I was raised Jehovah witness and they always talked about the world being so dangerous.

And so in our, our magazines, and they're always talking about breaking in rape this. So you're always on a higher alert. Uh, so I always, I would always prepare myself. I've always prepared myself. Okay. So someone comes in, remember calm down. So I kinda always had like a little mental preparation, uh, because I it's something that was so commonly talked about in my home.

Break-ins break-ins break-ins violence, you know, crime. So I guess because of that, I, I was able in my head really quick. I felt myself wanting to launch and something, as I said, no, something, as I said no. So I just, I locked eyes with him and I thought he is so messed up. Treat him like a child. Treat him like a child don't make it a big deal.

You know? So I it's, like I said, I said, what are you doing here? And I just hit him in the head. And he was just in shock too. I guess he just stood there like that. Like he was like in like this and he was just like looking at me. And then I said, you know, I'm calling the cops on you right now, get out. And he's like, you're calling the cops and he just dropped.

And then. And then ran.

Damaged Parents: [00:06:54] So it sounds like in some ways that growing up Jehovah's witness with consistently talking about the potential for danger helped you in that instance. Now, what was that like to be on high alert all the time?

Naomi Nye: [00:07:12] Uh, well, it was not good. Uh, well, in my entire life, I've had 18 surgeries.

I was born with a club foot, so I've had a lot of complications, but, um, when I lived with my parents, I spent since the age of 13 to 25, uh, developing cysts tumors, ulcers, I had an esophageal ulcer that literally would, when it would burst, I would drop. I mean, I would have to drop whatever it is I was doing.

I always had cyst. I always had tumors was always having to have procedures to have them like eliminated. I mean, they were benign, but it was because I was always living in constant stress and high alert. Uh, my home, uh, was a very violent, abusive home. My parents had a very unhappy Matt matrimony. So although I was in a religious environment, it was a very violent home.

Damaged Parents: [00:08:11] Physically or emotionally violent or

Naomi Nye: [00:08:13] both? Uh, both physically, emotionally and psychologically, because a lot of bad words, a lot of yelling, a lot of verbal abuse and physical abuse because. Um, my father's an, uh, an elder and as an elder, you know, you're not supposed to hit your wife, but you will lose your privileges.

So you, you can't hit your wife, you can't get her a divorce. So what my father would do was beat me to get at my mom. So I was, yeah, so I was the one caught in the middle. Um, so yeah, it was, it was very difficult, very stressful. That's why, you know, I, I always had problems. I always had health problems because of that.

So he would

Damaged Parents: [00:08:56] get mad at mom. Yes. Or something would happen. And because of that, you did nothing. You did nothing, but he would come and find you.

Naomi Nye: [00:09:05] And yeah, because my fault has a temper. I mean, naturally has a temporary uses failure. Strong center. And I will admit it was, it was a bad measure money. There was reasons for them to be upset, but because he couldn't do anything.

Yeah. He would, he would take it out on me. He would take it out on me. I was the one, I was the one who was thrown in the middle. And even when he wouldn't, I would get in the middle and defend my mom because I felt she was the weaker one. So I was the one that would stand up to him. I would get it. Yeah.

Damaged Parents: [00:09:43] So you would try to protect her.

So if he wasn't coming after you, you felt obligated to protect her. Yeah. Because you thought you were stronger than she was in some ways. Yes,

Naomi Nye: [00:09:57] because my father, um, was very verbally abusive and humiliating. Like he would ask me a million, her public, like you would go out to a restaurant. We were in a group of, you know, dinner, 20, 30 people.

Um, and she wanted dessert. He would start making fun of her and saying, yeah, with that face, you already looked like a pizza. Uh, and just. Publicly humiliate her, like, you know, uh, calling her names, like, uh, let's say it was a fat actress that was famous and he would just call her that name on the table and do stuff like that.

And she, she wouldn't say anything. She wouldn't say anything you saw. I felt like, Oh my God, I have to stand up. So there were many times, like I remember one dinner, there was about 20, 24 of us keep fun of her. And I literally got up on the table and I was like, This is you guys allow this, this is okay for you.

Like allowing him to talk to her like that. I mean, we're all Christians. We all go to the same church, but yet we just got out of church. We're having dinner at the church. And he's insulting her and you're all sitting here, you know? So I would, I was the one that would do stuff and like barge out and was very rebellious because of that,

Damaged Parents: [00:11:10] that must have been really hard as a teenager.

I mean, it sounds like you were a teenager at that time when that happened, right? Yeah. So, you know, and I know in your notes, you told me. The word you used was prisoner. So here you are feeling like a hostage in a way, right? In this family of yours. And at the same time, you're finding the strength to stand up.

How did you do that?

Naomi Nye: [00:11:37] I guess, I guess it has a little bit to do with personality traits. I have a tendency to have a fierceness personality. I don't, I don't really get scared and I have to say, I have to stand up when I see injustice. I don't even think of myself. And so from a very early age, I just felt like it was wrong.

It was wrong. I felt it was wrong. And I didn't understand dynamics of things very much at 13, but I knew that it was wrong. That if someone is speaking at a church and then they're behaving like this at home, and then there's other people in the church that are aware and are condoning it. I knew that it was an injustice and I, I just, I couldn't sit there and I felt prisoner because although I'm a very spiritual person and I believe that there is something that guides us.

I don't know this it's a God. Or if it's the universe that is alive or, or what exactly it is, but I know that there is something that is divine, that has, um, Organized everything and structured in such a way. Um, but I did not, I did not feel comfortable in the organization and I had to stay till I was 25 because, uh, I was taken out of school.

Um, in, um, in the ninth grade. So I really didn't have any education. I didn't have any associations out of the Jehovah witness organization, and both my family on both sides. They're all Jehovah witness. So it wasn't like I could leave or do anything. I was forced to be there. Um, and I also felt bad because of my mom.

She would always beg me not to leave her alone and. Yes, she would kind of threaten me and say, she'd kill herself. If I would leave. You know, the only thing that she had. And so I was so scared that I stayed, I stayed with them. So that was 25. That's why I say it and it was a prisoner and honestly, till 25, my curfew was midnight and I was only allowed to leave the house one day a week to go out.

And my curfew was midnight at 25. So I would say, yeah, I was a prisoner.

Damaged Parents: [00:13:53] Well, it sounds like, okay. So let me see if I'm getting this right, because it sounds like. You were taught through it. You, you went to church and you were taught morals and values and standards that weren't lived at home. And, and I, I think, I don't know.

You tell me, do you think that it was learning those values in the church environment, that you were able to recognize that what was happening at home? Wasn't. Okay. And, and because of that, then. You felt obligated to protect mom in some ways?

Naomi Nye: [00:14:32] I, I think absolutely that it had to do that. I think that a lot of what I heard, uh, yeah, it was ingrained in me.

Yes. But I also feel that on an emotional level, I was just, I saw my mom as a weaker person. She couldn't protect herself. She wasn't strong like my dad. Uh, and so I just felt it was my obligation because she wouldn't do it because nobody else would do it. You know, and so of course I grew up with of course, a lot of anger, a lot of anger towards the organization, a lot of anger towards the members of the congregation who, who knew what was going on and never stood up, never said anything.

And even actually, when we tried to. Stand up for ourselves. Like either my mother, I going to their organization and saying what was going on, nothing was done. So it was, it was a very difficult situation and yeah, I think, I think it was more, I felt it was more of an obligation that I had to.

Damaged Parents: [00:15:44] Were you ever hopeless and it, and what might that have

Naomi Nye: [00:15:49] felt like?

I. I did feel hopeless, uh, because I did not, I did not want to, uh, my, my future was this, this was what my parents wanted. Uh, they wanted me to get mad at him to become a missionary. And that wasn't, that wasn't my dream. I was wanting to do something else. And as a female in the Jehovah witness organization, you don't have a lot of liberties or a lot of rights, uh, things that changed a little bit more.

Uh, because of course, you know, I was, I was raised, uh, in the, in the 87, I was born in the seventies. So it was, it was a different time. It was a different time back then. And you have to understand that everyone thought that Armageddon was coming in 2000. So it was a very, very different scenario back then.

Things have changed now, I guess they realized that. They have to let people go to school. Now they have to let people get, I guess, a career or a degree because Armageddon is not here. You know, they, they made a mistake. So these have changed a little bit because I still have family in the organization. Uh, but yeah, it was, it was very difficult because I didn't see myself there and, and I felt trapped in an environment that I did not, I did not believe in, I did not want.

Damaged Parents: [00:17:07] So, did you blame yourself for, for some of this?

Naomi Nye: [00:17:12] Well, I remember when I was young, I remember I'd be sitting in school and I would look at other kids in the classroom and I would always ask myself, God, why couldn't I just been born here? Like. I could have been born in any family, why I have to be born in this family.

Right. And even in the organization, because my, my parents have families, I have uncles, aunts, their home environments weren't like that. Uh, it was, it was very different. So I always, I always had that in the back of mind. Why me? Why me, why me? You know, uh, I think really what saved me was, uh, that I would go in my head.

I would dream a lot. I would fantasize a lot. I would imagine a lot of things. And that kept me a little bit, a little bit hopeful, but I didn't know where my life was going to go because I was not going to get married. I had relationships, but every time that it would get a little serious, something inside me said, no, you know, it wasn't what I wanted.

It's something is me. Always said, hold on. Hold on. Hold on. I don't know what that was, but something always said, hold on, because I had serious relationships, I could have probably gotten married at 2122. So in that group, exactly, exactly. But something inside me always said, no, no. I didn't know what it was, but it said no.

And so at 25, um, my parents had to have a divorce. Um, I read about this. I haven't published. I will publish at the end of the year. Uh, my memoirs and I talk about this. So my father was so violent that my mother decided to take matters into her own hands. So what she started doing was putting Xanax in my father's coffee.

Oh, wow. So he would calm down. So he would be more passive. And the funny thing is that we all knew about it, you know, and personally, you know, from my end at 14, 15, I was like, yeah, like, go ahead. You know, do it like,

Damaged Parents: [00:19:19] are you grateful in that? Like, were you just so happy? I I'm just wondering, because I think I would find, I would start to feel like, Oh my gosh, there's finally peace.

And maybe. Maybe this doesn't have to be so bad. What, what went through your head? Right?

Naomi Nye: [00:19:35] I was like, when she mentioned it to me, I was like, tastic. Like maybe he'll like calm down. You know, it was, his anger was just so violent and constant everyday. He didn't walk in the house and just walk in and say, what is this cup doing here?

What is it? You know? And just immediately start and throwing things and, and name calling. And so. We thought. Yeah. So she did it for a couple of years and yeah, he calmed down a little bit and then everything stopped and then things started again when I was in my twenties. Very, very, very bad. And so she started putting pills again.

The funny thing is that by this point, the second time around. Everybody already knew that she was going to do it, like all friends and family. And they were like, yeah, go ahead and do it. Like, so everybody knew, but one day my father was driving and it seems that it had a bigger effect than usual. And he does it off.

Yeah. And had an accident. So

Damaged Parents: [00:20:41] he's driving under the influence, doesn't know he's under the influence. And was it only him that was involved in this accident? Or

Naomi Nye: [00:20:51] he got an accident with someone else, but, uh, but he almost fell off a cliff and he was taken to the hospital. And when they come to the hospital, they tell him, well, sir, you know, you have this in your system.

He's like, Absolutely not, I don't take any medications. They were like, sir, here's the report. This is what you have a certain amount of Xanax in your system. Wow. So as you can imagine, I mean, the poop hit the ceiling. Like they say

Damaged Parents: [00:21:23] everything escalated then.

Naomi Nye: [00:21:25] That's it. Yeah. So, um, so from then on, uh, it became about ground in the house.

Um, elders came, police came, they started doing holding meetings, uh, and you know, uh, Jehovah witness these meetings, they're the same as a courtroom. Okay. They have the three, three to four elders sitting there. They bring in witnesses, witnesses come in to testify. I mean, it's, it's a very intimidating ruling process.

It's kind of like going to court. It kind of feels the same. You're just as nervous. And so we were having meeting after meeting, after meeting, after meeting. And so this is when the organization finally stepped in and realized that yeah, they had some that this match from only stuff. Right.

Damaged Parents: [00:22:14] So that nervousness, you have all these people coming into your home.

And what did that. Field, like, was it like knots in your stomach? Were you sweating? Like what was, what was going through your mind? It

Naomi Nye: [00:22:29] literally feels like, um, like you have a ball in your stomach and kind of want to throw up. I, this that's, that's how you feel. I always felt this huge pain right here in the pit of my stomach.

And like I wanted to throw up and it was horrible. I mean, it. Pretty much for about a year or year and a half ruined my life, the stomach pains when it was so intense. Um, I still get it every once in awhile. I burst, you know, it's an also, but, but it was, it was terrible. I just felt the entire time, like I was going to be sick, like, like I was not associated dizzy, headachy.

It was a terrible feeling and it was really scary because, you know, you're, you're intimidated, you're sitting in front of a whole bunch of grownups, um, and they're asking you questions and of course, you know, They're they're judging your behavior and it's, it's terrifying. It's terrifying. You have no control.

Damaged Parents: [00:23:32] So you having this pit in your stomach and how are you making it through? Like what are, what maybe were some things you would tell

Naomi Nye: [00:23:40] yourself? Um, honestly, like I told you, it wasn't a dialogue because in my home, um, there wasn't any communication. There was yelling for example, uh, the relationship that I have with my mother now, I never had, I had before we never versed.

Um, and you know, this is passed down from generation to generation. Both my parents hadn't even worse. Their parents were even more, they were very violently abusive parents. Actually, my grandfather was a very violent man, so, you know, of course they did better, but. They did with what they had. So they really didn't have communication skills.

There wasn't like any, how are you doing, how you feeling that this happened? I saw you do this yesterday. So what's going on. Um, even when disciplining, uh, I would get hit, I would get beat. I would get kicked. I would get thrown in the room. I would get grounded, but there was never a conversation of you. Uh, I was told that you did this, or you got these grades.

Why did you get these grades? What's going on? What's what's going on in your mind? Are you having any problems? There was never any dialogue.

Damaged Parents: [00:24:49] So there's no dialogue with anyone else. You're having this pit of pain in your stomach. And so. I guess, I think what I'm hearing you say is you didn't really hit you.

Hadn't been taught communication because no one asks, so then you didn't really do that for yourself. You kind of

Naomi Nye: [00:25:09] had to, I didn't have, you know, the critical thinking skills that we all have. We think, well, what should I do this? Isn't I didn't have that dialogue in my head. I literally had no dialogue in my head until my twenties.

It's really insane. I would think of something, but there wasn't a dialogue there wasn't because there was never any communication in my outside world. So I didn't know how to have it inside. And I believe that's why I would have, you know, every year, either cysts or tumors, uh, you know, the also would get worse.

It would open every year, every year. Um, and I was constantly in the hospital actually. At Baptist hospital in Miami, they, they, they knew me. They're in uni because I was in the emergency room every

Damaged Parents: [00:25:53] couple of weeks. Would you say that all of that negativity in your home, the abuse, the physical and emotional violence that, that impacted your health and.

Naomi Nye: [00:26:06] Absolutely. I was swallowing the pink since I couldn't express what was happening. I even talked to my friends about it. I didn't know how, I didn't know how to tell my friend, uh, my dad's miner or, you know, he beats me. He did. I didn't even know how to have that dialogue with a friend. That's that's how limited my resources were when it came to communication.

Uh, but, but I was absorbing it obviously. And, and, you know, it's energy, it, energy doesn't disappear. We all know that it either transmutes into something else. Right. So obviously I believe that this is why every year I would get the cyst, I would get the tumors. They were benign because of the fact that just like.

I didn't do any of the critical thinking skills in my head. I also did not beat myself up with the negative. Um, I would not be all day thinking in my head. I hate my father. I want to kill him. I was dead or what? I didn't have that dial. I had no dialogue in my head. So I guess in a way, It protected me in that sense.

So although I was being affected, I was getting the cyst, the tumors, the stomach pains. When I started driving, I had a car accident. I had 12 car accidents in less than two years. So obviously, and this is what upset me because I felt as a parent, your child is. In the hospital, in the emergency room, every couple of months, tumors, cysts, ulcers, um, all these problems.

My menstruation were so violent that every two to three months they would have to hospitalize me because the pains were so. So intense that I couldn't even eat, I couldn't even do so. I was just a very sick team. I was a very sick teen, so, so I believe that that's how I took it in. I took it in and I manifested in my health.

Damaged Parents: [00:28:05] So how did you, how did you find the strength to start being vulnerable? To, to start opening up and sharing.

Naomi Nye: [00:28:17] Well, this is a new process for me. So when I moved out at 25, um, what I focused on was of course getting a job career working. So I focus on that and I did very well and I got into an, a relationship.

And when I got into a serious relationship, With this person, because she was a psychologist is when I started having dialogues. Because for the first time in my life, somebody asked me, how do you feel? What is your home environment like? Uh, why don't you express yourself white? I never had anyone ask me these questions.

And so I started, I started opening up in my late, I would say 29 30. That's when it started. Learning how to communicate now. Um, the self-awareness and all the personal development and being able to talk and deal with my past. It was something that I was never able to do until three years ago. And which is why, you know, my life.

Started going the way that it did several years ago, I landed in the hospital. Um, I had taken a bunch of pills. I didn't consciously think I'm going to take my own life, but I did take the pills and it was because of. The situation that I was in and it all had to do because of this. Although I was in a relationship of though I was doing very well financially with my business.

I hadn't dealt with all the wounds. I hadn't dealt with the trauma with all the repression that I had inside. And so, you know how that is. It's gonna manifest. Some different ways. So it was always manifesting in things, like I said, car accidents, health problems, stuff like that. And like from 2011 on again, I got very ill and I had to undergo a series of surgeries.

And I guess having to go through that again, Being sick again and having to put my life on hold since I had to put my life on hold for so long, it did something to me and it broke me. What does

Damaged Parents: [00:30:33] that mean? It broke you.

Naomi Nye: [00:30:35] It brought me to the point. Okay. So I did not have, and this is something that I did not realize until recently I did not have the mental toughness that I needed to overcome the challenges because of this. See, I was always a very physical person, so I was a very organized person. I always had a schedule.

I always had a routine. I never even really watched television. So my schedule was get up workout that I would come home, get dressed. Um, work. I was very, very strict in what I did everything from my diet and everything. Right. And so that, that kept me going, that kept me going and kept me on a path when I had to start undergoing the surgeries again.

And I lost all control of my life. Again, I think something happened. Hmm. I think something happened that I was not able to deal. And the reason why it was because what I used, my strength was the routine. My strength was releasing the stress through physical fitness. I had to work out, I had to have a routine when I lost that.

You see, I didn't have the emotional strength to now. So my brain. Body now you got to do this. My body was controlling me and it kept me on track on track because I was not healthy inside. I had not dealed with my, you know, we all have, um, a wounded inner child that didn't get certain needs met. That is still stuck at a certain situation, you know, at a certain part of a certain place, uh, where a trauma happened and, and that's where your mental state is.

Right. And so I hadn't developed that and I didn't realize that till recently. I didn't realize so recently, I didn't understand why I was so depressed and I couldn't get myself out of bed. I just couldn't do it. And of course it also didn't help that I was addicted to so many medications because they put me on over 40 pills a day.

Oh, it was insane. That's a lot. That was a lot. Yeah. They, they gave me sixteens allotted a day, which Dilaudid, you know, is a very, very strong medication. And then they had me on 16 Oxycontin a day. So, yeah, and then I was on six Flexerol, which are muscle relaxes and I was Percocet for pain, and then they had three Xanax.

So you can imagine I was a zombie. So between that, between that, and the fact that I didn't have my physical resources, you know, I had cast, I was having surgeries again. I couldn't work out. I couldn't work. I didn't have a schedule. It completely, it completely broke me so,

Damaged Parents: [00:33:29] or crippled in a sense. Right. And not just physically, but now you're on all this medication.

So almost on a mental level too, is what I'm hearing.

Naomi Nye: [00:33:41] Exactly. Exactly. So after, you know, a couple of years with that medication in the, in this environment where I really wasn't doing anything bedridden, you can see where your mind goes. And this is where my mind opened up and I was obsessed reliving my past.

Damaged Parents: [00:34:03] So you're in bed reliving your past. And you're and you're loaded to no gig to no end.

Naomi Nye: [00:34:13] I can say him. Yeah. It feels like, like a literal home. I felt like I was living in hell. And that's when, you know, I started really thinking about the Bible and thinking about everything that I had read and thinking.

Wow. I really believe that all of these talks are, are not as much literal as symbolical. I really believe that. The heaven and the hell that is talked about in the Bible is really something that we experienced in our minds is a little above or below. It's really in here, it's in here, the heaven and hell, because I was in and hell and right.

My environment hadn't changed. My relationship hadn't changed. What had changed. It was here. So

Damaged Parents: [00:34:55] do you think that it happened in that moment? Like when you took, you said you took a whole, most of your pills or all of them, um, and you found yourself back in the hospital. What happened in that. Moment. How did that shift you?

Naomi Nye: [00:35:13] Well, it was horrible experience. It was a horrible experience because one, I got taken to the hospital. Of course they didn't know what was wrong with me. So the first thing they did is give me an adrenaline shot. That is horrendous. I don't even know how to explain it. It's probably like getting an injection of a hundred thousand red bulls in your vein.

It is a horrible feeling. It, I literally jumped off the table. It was, it was the most horrifying, traumatic experience. And then. As I'm sitting there. The question I kept asking myself is my God, how did I get here? And then the other question is what would I have needed to do when I was young? What would I need to learn when I was young so that I wouldn't be here?

Well, what, what went wrong? What did I miss? And that, that moment, that was when I started my real search. That is when I really started looking for answers. I had been to therapists before psychiatrist. I had tried all that. Obviously I had tried the medications antidepressants. I didn't get an answer, but now I wanted an answer.

And so that is when I started my deep search into personal development. And that is when I began to deal with my actual problems. I began to start healing what I needed to do. And it

Damaged Parents: [00:36:41] took getting to that very, the very bottom, I guess, of the mountain or the crevice or the pit.

Naomi Nye: [00:36:50] Yeah, it's funny because you know, I don't know if you've heard of the Kensal versus Satori.

Damaged Parents: [00:36:57] No,

Naomi Nye: [00:36:57] please explain. Okay. So Kenzo has a Satori is what the Japanese called the awakenings that we have, right? So some of us are able to have a Kensal awakening, which is an awakening through bliss, you know, um, through happiness, through joy. Most of us learn through Satori, through suffering. So a breakdown through a calamity, you know, through something big.

And that is when we have our awakening. And so I feel like, yeah, I had my Satori moment in the hospital when I finally finally woke up. So

Damaged Parents: [00:37:35] suffering. How do you see it now? Can you look at suffering and see joy? Can you look at, because the first one, how do you say it again? The. Enzo and then Satori. Right?

So in, so in Enzo, you're, it's like a gentle learning. It sounds like right. Um, where you don't have to experience pain and suffering the other one's suffering. So is one better than the other, or how do you perceive Enzo versus Satori in your own? Whoa.

Naomi Nye: [00:38:09] Um, it's not the one is better than the other. It's the degree of pain.

So most of us, because I, I believe that this happens because our primordial brain is, uh, primarily negative. Right. So we have a negative bias and this is for our protection. Uh, you know, our prefrontal cortex, it's new, that's the new mechanics, but we work a lot with our root Tillium brain and, you know, that's where our subconscious and that's where we run practically our entire day.

We run it out of our subconscious habits and patterns. Right. Um, so I believe that because we're primarily, uh, negatively, uh, That's just the way that our system runs. Uh, we tend to not appreciate the happy moments as much. So for example, for most of us, uh, if you don't ha we don't have a gratitude practice.

If we are not enough, if we are not in a happy state, if, if we have not been taught that way. We're not appreciative. And so we can't see the beauty around us and this happens to a lot of us. So then I feel that that is why most of us can't have the Kensal moment, but Kensal wake me. It takes a very enlightened person to be able to, to be able to be grateful throughout their entire life and just appreciate these moments and be able to have spiritual awakenings through this.

Most of us have to hit rock bottom. Most of us have to lose something. Let's have to have something happen to us for it to go like this and say, Oh my God, I need to change. Or, Oh my God, I need to start appreciating things. Or, Oh my God, I need to do this. It takes something like that for it to happen. I feel that, um, unfortunately the way that we're wired, the way that we're wired is to always look at the negative, not the positive.

And that's why I feel that it happens to us. They're different because one is painful. So painful. I feel they both take us to the same place, but just, you know, like they say that even the Bible says the two roads, right? Yeah. Painful road. And so, yeah, that's, that's what I feel.

Damaged Parents: [00:40:31] Um, I'm trying to think of, of how, how it might help to look at that pain and see

Naomi Nye: [00:40:38] joy.

Yes. Well, I think that when you're able, I hear it when you're able to, to be the observer. Of what's going on. You're able to do that. And that's, that takes work. That takes work. And that's why when, when I teach young people, I always, I always teach them to journal because journaling is, is a way into your subconscious journaling is a way to your inner child.

Journaling is a way to get to know yourself. So the more that you become comfortable with expressing yourself, The one where you get comfortable with your words, with your thoughts, then you're able to sit with them. Then you're able to observe them when, when we don't process things, when we're just feeling and just going through the motions and reacting, then of course, it becomes very difficult to, to appreciate anything, you know, but when we start doing practices like this, and this is, this is something that.

That I feel that we all need to do. Uh, Nope. No one has taught us to do this. And I feel like maybe that's why, you know, we are where we are in the world today. And I feel that maybe that's what personal development and all of this is becoming so big because we're realizing. That these are the skills that we need to learn early in life so that we can be able to deal with life.

Um, if not, we just become reactive to our external world. So my suggestion, the way that I started doing it was writing. That was the biggest solace learning to write things down. And when I started writing them, I started becoming more aware of what was really going on. And that is when I started to be able to separate.

Hmm. I started to be able to separate and say, Oh, wait a second. Okay. So I'm thinking of my thoughts,

Damaged Parents: [00:42:35] right? And I think what I, when you say separate, what I'm interpreting that as is you are not your feeling. You have this feeling, but it is not you. And. When you recognize it, then you can do something about it.

Am I, is that kind of what you're trying to say?

Naomi Nye: [00:42:56] Exactly. We experience things is, is in five ways as sensation, perception, feeling thought and action. That's the five steps that we go through for every process, sensation, perception, feeling thought, and action. But it happens so fast. This happens in even like a hundreds of a second.

This is why we need to practice because you know, people say, well, okay, I'm not going to do this anymore. I'm not going to have, when we fight, I'm not going to call you names anymore. But if you don't practice controlling yourself, if you don't practice beforehand, when you get in the fight, your mind's not going to go, Hey, Remembering I supposed to swear it doesn't happen like that your subconscious has already taken over.

So there needs to be practiced beforehand. There needs to be practice before him, because if not, your thought just becomes an action. We think, and we feel, and we act, we feel, and we act, so it just, it takes, it takes a lot of practice. And the way that I started doing it was like this. Uh, my first process was writing things down.

Was writing things down. And then from then on, uh, I got into the habit of, okay. When I was going to do something, let's say I was going to send that text. I was going to send that email. I was going to make that phone call. I would make myself write something down first. So

Damaged Parents: [00:44:21] you're talking about the angry phone call, the angry texts, the angry email or whatever.

It was a reaction and not a real, exactly,

Naomi Nye: [00:44:29] exactly. Even the painful or the happy or whatever. Anytime that I, I started training myself to stop myself, so I would train myself. Okay. I want to do this. Let me read about it first. Mm. Let me write about it first. So I would write it up. And then I started training myself like that.

I would say, okay, you know what? You want to say this right down.  for 10, 15 minutes, come back to it. And it will come back into 50 minutes. I will be like, ah, it's not exactly what I want to say. Okay. And I'm like, and this is how I started training myself to the point that now every time that I'm going to say or do something, the first thing I say is, okay, what do I want out of this?

If I see this, what reaction do I want? Because if I say this, this is a reaction I'm going to get. Is that the reaction I want, it was a slow practice where I got to be able to separate myself. So the point where now I can observe my thoughts and actually be amused and be thinking like, like, for example, what happened yesterday?

Uh, it's funny because I've had a little bit of a. Of I was, I was very unhappy in the last place that I lived. I didn't, I became friends with my landlord and then, you know, it got a little bit weird. I got a lot of personal issues. And so since we were already friends, all this bunch of stuff started coming on me and then, and so I was like, okay.

So I went into this new home. Right. And then in this new wound, this happens and of course your mind starts, starts kicking. And for a second yesterday, the first thing I was like, well, Naomi, are you, is something following you, like, okay, you had bad luck in your other apartment. Now in this new home, you had this just happen because that's how the mind works.

And now I'm able to laugh and think, well, I mean, seriously, like. What could I have? What can I do? I just bought a home in an up-and-coming neighborhood. I already knew that is bordering a bad neighborhood. I took the chance. So

Damaged Parents: [00:46:35] even still your mind first goes to what did I do to deserve this? And then you had to shift and go, hold on a second.

That's that's a, that's a negative thought that I don't have to believe is kind of what I've hear you saying. Exactly.

Naomi Nye: [00:46:56] Exactly. Exactly. You see thoughts? We have, we have 60 to 80,000 thoughts a day. Here's what I told kids 60 to 80,000 thoughts. You can't take them seriously. Most of our thoughts, we don't even know where we get them from.

Like, you know, you, you could be, you have the TV on, in the background the whole time, and you don't understand that your mind is taking that in. And then all of a sudden you're having a conversation. You say something you're like, Hmm. Oh, I must've heard that on the radio. I must've heard that on the TV.

You see what I mean? And so some of these thoughts become ours, but they're not a house. So

Damaged Parents: [00:47:31] it really matters what you choose to listen to what you choose to watch absolutely

Naomi Nye: [00:47:39] who you choose to be around my parents. Uh, my father, uh, would not let us watch TV. Well, my brother or I, we never had a television or radio or a phone in a room.

Um, um, the television, it was my, it was monitored. And I used to think that was ridiculous. I know how the brain works now that I've been studying neuroscience and human behavior for a couple of years. I understand that it's absolutely true. Our brain is a computer that records everything that it listens to everything that it sees.

Is stored the most magnificent computer in the world, in our minds. So it's all stored there. Yeah, it doesn't go away. So it does matter. It does matter who we talk to. It doesn't matter who we hang out with. Our associations do matter. That's why it is important. Who your kids hang out with. It does matter.

It does what they watch. It does matter. Now I'm not going to say that it's everything because of course, if you, if you live in an environment or if you're taught certain skills, it, you know, if you're taught, uh, qualities like resilience, control, commitment, kindness, gratitude. Well, you can watch some violent movie every week and you're not going to act out on it.

It's a combination of things, but yes, I feel that it does, it does have a lot to do with it. What we see who we associate with them by elements that we're in, if we're in a very negative work environment. Cause I always thought. You know, um, I'm a positive person, but I realize that, you know, the way that our senses are the way that we are, we absorb, we absorb.

That's what we are. We absorbing everything from the outside. So although you can be as positive as you want, but if you are in a negative environment and say you're in a negative work environment, it's going to affect you. It's going to affect you to a point. So I do believe that our environments, our association and the things that we let in, whether it's radio, television, or podcasts, it does matter.

It does influence us. And it also goes by quantity too, you know, by quantity. So if you're all day listening to, you know, violence shooting, you know, people cursing, you know, People talking about stuff that is not really there. It's not ideas. It's just more gossip. And you're going to, you're going to stay in that, in that frequency.

I don't underst because you have much more of that coming in. Ah, okay. You understand what I'm saying? Whatever you have the most, whatever you're absorbing of the lost is what you're getting is it's just like nutrition. You know, we think that we think that our brain is not like everything else. Just like we have muscles in our bodies and we have to work it out.

We have to resize our brain. We have to exercise our brain by doing certain activities, certain skills, like for example, something simple, like journaling practice, but we have to exercise our brain and it also has to do with our environment, what you feed your brain. So what you feed your brain has everything to do with food.

And it has everything to do with what you watch and what you observe. And the more you observe, the better you eat, the better quality of stuff that you listened to, then that's what you're going to have. And so you will have better thoughts. So it does affect, it does affect us what goes in. Right.

Damaged Parents: [00:51:08] So three things that you would like to leave with the audience today, three tools maybe that they could use.

Naomi Nye: [00:51:18] I think that the first thing I would say, um, is to learn, to sit with yourself and sit with your thoughts. Um, when you have a thought, understand that that thought is not a reality. It's not a reality. It is just a thought. And this is what I tell kids. We have 60 to 80,000 thoughts a day. Let them go, let them go and start learning to only pay attention to the thoughts that are going to benefit you.

Hmm. So it takes a little bit of effort and practice. So what I tell kids is like, okay, and th this, I say kids, cause I, but I mean, we can do this in our thirties or forties, our fifties or sixties, we had to do it. It's, it's a, it's a lifetime practice. But when you're having those thoughts as your soul, is this really real?

Or this is just a fear of thought, a doubt. You know, and what I would say is to everyone, observe your thoughts and ask yourself, like we have 60 to 80 thoughts a day. Is this real, should I really be thinking about this? Should I be focusing in this? Does it benefit me? Is it good for me? Cause sometimes you can think something bad.

Like, wow. I did really, really bad in my test today or, wow. That was a really bad conversation. I could have done so much better. That's not being negative. Okay. So how can we be better? But beating yourself up saying I suck. I'm such a loser. I'm not worth anything. I can't do anything right. You see, there's a big difference between those kinds of thoughts.

And I think that that's where we need to, to differentiate. So am I having a thought that's going to help me, but is it constructed or am I having a thought? That's just once again, our negative bias, we tend to bring ourselves down and then differentiate those two. I would say that that's one thing that I would start doing because our thoughts are the most important thing.

Okay. What we think of the most is what becomes our belief. So that's, that's what I try to like encourage people. Remember what you think of the most is what becomes your belief. And this happens with everything, you know, in Ponce. So you, you talk about something a lot, a lot, and all of a sudden you start associating or, you know, believing a certain party.

Yeah. So it's, it's the same thing with everything else. So if we're entertaining these doubtful daughters or of ourselves, how are we going to behave? How are we going to act with others? Because what I like to tell people is if you want people to treat you better, You have to treat you better because people mirror what is going on.

So if we're kind of like insecure and we kind of act like this, that's how people are going to treat us. They're going to be a heat. But if you're kind of like this and people are going to be like, Hey, so you have to understand that it starts with us. So that that's, that's something that I would say that, that we need to do control our thoughts.

Remember that when you think of the most. Is what you become and you have 60 to 80,000 thoughts a day. They're not valid. They're not real. And most of them are not even ours. And then I would say the second thing is journal start a journaling practice. Because the more aware we become of what we got going on inside.

And I mean, good and bad, we have to know our demons too. Okay. We have to know what our weaknesses are so that we can build our strengths. So sail can, well, you know what? I'm not very good at this. But I am really good at this. And if I get really good at this, and maybe I can have someone to help me with that.

And, and you know, the more we start getting comfortable with ourselves, you know, people talk about how do you get confident? How do you build your self esteem? This is how you build your self esteem, getting comfortable with yourself and even getting comfortable with the ugly parts. So I would say journaling, journaling, Germany.

I heard

Damaged Parents: [00:55:26] journaling be curious about your thoughts and don't trust everything your brain tells you. Right,

Naomi Nye: [00:55:32] right. The journey. And then the third thing I would say is have a little practice in the morning, gratitude. Every day I wake up and I say five things that, um, I could be grateful for right. In this moment, that badly.

Cause you know, when we go to bed, Our mind quiets. Right. And it's kind of like a computer, what exactly like a computer we're quantum computers. So just like when you turn your computer on and all the programs started running in the background, everything starts loading a warming up. That's how we are when we wake up.

So when we wake up, we're like clean slate. We're like babies. And then all of a sudden, the downloads. Start coming in all the thoughts. That's why when you wake up at an end, you start getting up. What starts happening? Oh my God. Yesterday this, Oh my God. I got to stay sick because it's the downloads are coming.

So the first thing that's what I say, meditation is so good in the morning. So I do that gratitude practice, a little, the breathing segmentation and a gratitude practice that way. It sets me off in a different way. I, of course, I'm going to get the download. Of course, I'm going to remember everything that happened every other day, but now I had it with a different attitude because now I know that I have these things to be grateful for.

So I don't let myself get that bogged down. And so these little things, these. These three, these three little tips will help you. We'll help you lie. If you practice them every day, you see a big difference in 30 days a victim.

Damaged Parents: [00:57:10] I think so too. Well, I am really grateful that you came on the show today and that you're willing to share your wisdom of, um, well, not just your wisdom, but the struggle and how you overcame it.

And I'm so grateful for that.

Thank you for listening to this week's episode of relatively damaged by damaged parents. We've really enjoyed talking to Naomi and about how she freed herself from physical and emotional abuse. We especially liked when she taught us about Kenzo and Satori awakenings. To unite with other damage to be bold connect with us on Facebook.

Look for damaged parents. This podcast was sponsored in part by arches audio. We'll be here next week. Still relatively damaged see ya then!