February 13, 2025 • 38 mins
Many of us carry dark memories—moments so painful and profound that we tuck them away in the deepest corners of our minds. We convince ourselves they’re forgotten, but are they? What if you possessed the key to unlock them?
Would you shine a light to illuminate your past, hoping that by doing so, you might finally understand who you are, why your life unfolded the way it did, and what you can change? Or would you keep them hidden in the shadows?
This week, I’m pleased to welcome Melissa Osorio, author of Hidden Memories, to Chatter that Matters. Hidden Memories is a powerful story about overcoming one's past to conquer one's future.
As a young girl, Melissa lost her older brother to cancer. At 16, her father was murdered. She left Venezuela for the United States but never escaped her pain until she made a life-altering decision to confront her past and face the memories she had long suppressed and how she found light amid darkness.
Georgia Balinsky from RBC joins me to discuss the power of ideas—and how RBC’s latest campaign inspires people to bring their ideas to life.
To purchase Melissa's Book, Hidden Memories: https://www.amazon.ca/Hidden-Memories-Discover-Whats-Blocking-ebook/dp/B0CLK1B4PS
To watch RBC's Ideas Happen Here Campaign:
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:03):
I suppose we all have hidden memories. There's times in our lives that were
memorable, profound, could be life changing, game
changing, even traumatic. Memories that we intentionally or
unintentionally lock away. But what would you
do if you had a key to unlock those memories?
(00:24):
Would you revisit them in the hope of making sense of who you are,
why you traveled the past that you did, the decisions you make, the values that
you have? I thought about it, and I wouldn't. When
my dad became mentally unwell and self medicated with alcohol, when his
personality shifted from one of the kindest humans on the planet to
someone horrific, someone who dealt with his torments
(00:47):
often by tormenting us. And when he was better, he realized this was the last
thing he wanted to do. I don't know if I wanna revisit that, bring revisit
that, bring back that living hell to her family, the the look in my
mother's eyes or me being too small to protect her or my sisters.
And what I do know is that when he left the planet, his demons were
under control. My grandkids loved him, and we forgave
(01:08):
him. And that to me is the memory I wanna preserve.
But that's me. I wanna know what would you do. And my guest
today is Melissa Osorio. Us humans, we think
we know who we are, but most of us have no clue
who we are. Who we think we are is a collection of patterns of
behaviors and emotions that we have developed since
(01:31):
childhood, and they become our identity. She's lived through
tragedy and trauma, but instead of bearing her memories, she in fact wrote a book
titled Hidden Memories. There is something really beautiful in healing in being able
to take the time to recount your life from even before you
were born and go back to your parents, to whatever you know about your
grandparents because they all shape you. To listening to
(01:53):
her, ask yourself, what would you
do? Hi.
It's Tony Chapman. Thank you for listening to Chatter That Matters presented by
RBC. If you can, please subscribe to the podcast. And
ratings and reviews, well, they're always welcome, and they're always appreciated.
(02:13):
Melissa Osorio, welcome to Chatter That Matters. Hi. Thank you
for having me. Your story begins, I guess, in Venezuela during a time
of significant change. So if you can, paint a
picture of your early family life so that we can walk and march in
step with Melissa at a young age. Well, both my parents
moved to Venezuela at different times from Spain. They were looking
(02:35):
for, at that time, you know, the dream that Venezuela held
for for the immigrants. I am the youngest of five
and I basically grew up as an only child because
my siblings were much older than me. So by the time that I came
into our family, my parents' marriage had
really started to disintegrate. And right around
(02:58):
my one year old birthday is when things finally
just completely hit the ground. It was a very turbulent
household where my father was trying to find
ways to make my mom cheat on him or to
pin us against my mother. Interestingly enough though,
those years are in the memories of my siblings, but they're completely
(03:21):
absent from my memory. Between the ages of three and six, you went through
this horrific experience, I guess, because your older brother
Robert not only realized he had cancer, but succumbed to it. So
tell me a little bit about what that was like. As so many
families do, it's something that after my brother passed away,
we all just try to make him disappear from our memories.
(03:43):
You know, families seem to do that sometimes when a child dies,
they eliminate the pictures. They're taking down the room. They're
taking the clothes away just as a way to cope. My
mother, you know, suffered through this and my siblings suffered through
this. However, I didn't grow up with, a feeling
of, sadness for him. In fact, it was almost as if he
(04:05):
never existed. It was interestingly enough through my
inner exploration many years later that I
remember times with him. I remember clearly
the times with him and I realized what an important role he had played
in my life because I have lived a very full life.
You know, never living anything for tomorrow if I can do it today. And
(04:28):
it became so clear that one of the reasons why I adopted that
mentality throughout my life was because I saw the inner
flame disappear, my oldest brother, so early
when he was just a teen. And then you talk about at age seven, so
this is, you know, a year later, you spend a lot of your time working
to gain your father's approval. Children develop,
(04:51):
whatever coping mechanisms they need to survive.
And usually those coping mechanisms, they get
developed in the relationship with their parents.
So, one of the coping mechanisms that I developed at an early
age was to earn the love
of my father and to earn the love of my mother in
(05:13):
different ways. So with my father, I knew that what was important to
him was academic achievements and an entrepreneurial
spirit. And in my mother's case, for example, it was religion.
So I became an exemplar religious little girl to earn
her love. And your parents' relationship between the two,
the entrepreneur and someone that's the mom that's very focused on religion, did
(05:36):
it improve at all because of Robert and because of you, the youngest child, trying
to do all of this? Or did it continue to just fracture? So my
parents never spoke to each other in my in my presence during my life. I
was caught in the middle being the messenger between them two many, many,
many times. The only thing that changed with my brother's
death was the fact that he asked my father as a dying
(05:58):
wish, for my family to be able to continue in the
religion that they had chosen because my dad was opposed to it. I'm not part
of this religion anymore. However, I can see the value
that dad had in our family, especially in a very,
you know, difficult and a period full of tragedy
where for me personally, you know, it made God very
(06:19):
real. And it allowed me to have a routine.
It allowed me to have something constant in a very turbulent
childhood. So it was constant that we went going to, you know, our meeting
place certain days a week and we will do this and that as part of
the religion. So in that aspect, it was very beneficial. And at
age 16, tragedy strikes again. And this time, the
(06:41):
tragedy is your your father's murder. It left me,
broken for a long time. For at least five years, I could not
even speak my father's, name or anything
related to his passing. It literally was like a lock was
placed upon my throat for many reasons that I came to understand later,
but one of them was grief. During those years,
(07:04):
I embraced passions and music was one of them. So I really,
really found, for me, solace in following, you know, my
favorite band around the world and crying to their music as a
way to reset my nervous system because I had no coping mechanisms.
You know? So I kind of made it through. And then as life
got more complex, then other unhealthy coping
(07:26):
mechanisms came. I think most people are never trained
in how to cope with their own emotions and that's one of the reasons why
I'm so vocal about, you know, everything that I talk about. Because
if we are able to understand ourselves better from an early age,
we're able to cope with these tragedies much more effectively. What
was your relationship with God? Because for someone that was so
(07:48):
important in your life, you lost your older brother and then your father. How did
did that change your beliefs or your value system that
what's supposed to be good and almighty wasn't working
necessarily in your favor? What saved my life
was the parallel mental reality that I created
of my life and what everything that I went through meant.
(08:11):
God was never guilty, a guilty part party in my mind,
thankfully. So I held on to God and to
faith. And, you know, looking back, being a young girl going through that,
I honestly don't know how I did that other than God helped
me do that. Maybe I was I got help to go through all of that
so I can be here today sharing about it and helping other people
(08:33):
that are going or have gone through similar circumstances. You
end up at 17 years old buying a Dairy Queen
franchise. After my father passed away, I
packed, two suitcases and my dog. And
$20,000 I had saved up from working, you know, since I was seven years
old. And I just came to Miami. My dad had left all
(08:55):
of us a little money, you know, so we all received, I think it was
something like $400,000 And I got my share when I was 17.
And at that point, I just wanted to go to the university. I wanted,
honestly, I wanted to be a teenager. I was always a little adult and I
think a lot of people identify with that. So, when I moved to Miami, I
wanted to be a teenager. I wanted to go to school and have the boyfriend
(09:17):
and do all of these things. But I couldn't do any of that because I
needed to get my mom a visa. She came afterwards and,
you know, all of my siblings were grown. So, I was the only one that
needed care. And in order to get her a visa, I needed to buy a
business. I had, I guess, the good sense of
understanding that a franchise had systems.
(09:39):
And I found a Dairy Queen that always had a line out
the door in our local, you know, Florida area. And I went
and I purchased this Dairy Queen. It's certainly your path to getting your mom in
the country, but what was it like to run a Dairy Queen when you just
wanted to be a kid? You just wanted to be a teenager. You wanna just
have fun. I mean, running a franchise is not fun. I was 17. I
(10:00):
had, I remember, 15 part time employees that were my age or
older. My English was just barely
enough to get into the university. I had learned it that summer,
like with books and music. And I came to The US and, you know, I
was able to enter the university with that level. But
still, I mean, I still have an accent. It was way worse
(10:22):
back then. And I was just a kid trapped in an
adult body. But I think the experiences that I went
through in my childhood and early life,
they prepare me so I could take on this responsibility. And the
last thing I wanna talk about, and then we're gonna move much more into your
story, is that the the financial crisis of two thousand eight and
02/2009, what did you take away from that
(10:46):
that you feel served you in the future? Not only myself, but my entire
family were completely wiped out from bad investments. And he sat me
down on a couch for almost a year. I became,
severely bulimic, you know, because of I think it was a
breaking point of sorts. Just a coping tool in order to try to
survive, not a healthy one, but one that is extremely common, right?
(11:09):
Bulimia, anorexia, I talk about this openly as well because so
many of us, men and women, go through these type of, you
know, coping mechanisms. It was rough. And what I learned from
it now, as it often happens when we look back, I
am very grateful that happened. I am very grateful I lost
every cent my father ever left me. I was
(11:31):
able to start from scratch in my life, and
create my own, you know, financial situation.
When all this was happening, you say your entire family lost everything. You know,
did you ever feel that sense of responsibility that people were
looking to you for guidance as opposed to being, you know, the
little kid that maybe arrived by accident? Yes. Pretty
(11:53):
much, after my father's murder,
I stepped into the role of my father without realizing
at that time. So I was the first one in the family that moved to
The US. Everybody followed afterwards. I was the first
one in the family to have other businesses. You know, everybody tried
afterwards. I'm grateful because I've been able to really work with
(12:15):
whatever life has thrown at me, and that has placed me in a position many
times where I've been able to help my family. We talked about your eating
disorder, but it was also alcohol started to play an increasing role
in your life. Was that around the same time as well that one of the
other ways you cope was just trying to escape through alcohol? Actually,
I didn't drink, barely anything before my marriage.
(12:37):
We were in a marriage that was extremely problematic from the
beginning. And alcohol became the way to cope
with the stress, the marital stress, all
the, all the issues that we were having. And we were very successful
at making money. We were good at having our businesses, but
we were just very, very bad at being married to each other. What are the
(12:58):
lessons that you take away from that relationship with your husband that
might have been very successful as business partners, but wasn't
necessarily what you would deem to be marital bliss? My marriage
was an incredible learning opportunity, because it
really highlighted a lot of the patterns that I had within myself
that I did not understand. And this is the reason
(13:21):
primarily why I wrote my book. It's because us
humans, we think we know who we are, but
most of us have no clue who we are. Who we are, who
we think we are is a collection of patterns of behaviors
and emotions that we have developed since childhood and they
become our identity. So my marriage really highlighted
(13:44):
a lot of these patterns of these things that made no sense. And
you hear people saying it, this is just who I am. This is how I
do things. I'm too old to change. But my marriage really
highlighted things that I wanted to change, and I didn't understand them.
If I was putting a musical track to your life, you ought to talk about
your love for music. I'd say that when you went to Costa
(14:06):
Rica, it suddenly became quite a magical musical
track. This journey to Costa Rica was a turning point in
what you describe in your healing. So what what can you share about what happened
at that point of your life where you were no longer just
tumbling from one thing to another, but really feeling like it was
time to find some firm footing and carve out a path for
(14:28):
you? Let's imagine the most
hard rock, metallic track, plain for a
while because my life got completely
destroyed initially. So my visit to Costa Rica
is what allowed me to change the tracks completely where now,
let's say, it's just playing classical music.
(14:50):
But as with every healing opportunity that we get, there is a
complete and absolute destruction of, in many cases, of who we think we are
in our life and our existence. So when I got to Costa Rica going for
totally unrelated reasons to what I actually got out of there, I went
because I was having a heartbreak and, you know, I was
not knowing what to do with my life. And when I got to Costa Rica,
(15:13):
I was able to start to remember my childhood. So it was really
dark, but it was a light. And I followed that light. And I
think that's the difference between, you know, getting stuck in a
traumatic event or not, is being able to
somehow fixate on the light at the end of the
tunnel. Even if the tunnel is dark and is narrow, just fixate on
(15:36):
the light at the end of the tunnel. And what advice can you give to
people, especially today on this planet where so many people are
stuck, insecurity, uncertainty, and not just their own,
but wondering if we're even gonna have a planet or if there's gonna be a
nuclear war. What advice can you give to people to find that
light? Often, we are looking for the
(15:56):
answers outside of ourselves. I know I I lived my life
waiting for the other shoe to drop, for happiness to come and knock on my
door, for the men of my dreams to come in the white horse and
take me away and save me from whatever misery I was going through.
The light has to come from you first,
finding a way to really love every single part of
(16:19):
yourself. Every part of your life, every lesson
you've been through, every side of you, the chaotic, the
beautiful, the ugly, the fat, the skinny, just all of it, the one
that's grumpy, the one that's happy. Because when you're able to integrate all
of these parts of yourself, then you start becoming more authentic.
And healing can only happen when you're authentic, when you're living your truth. I
(16:42):
think a lot of people are waiting for something else to complete them, and in
the meantime, they're betraying themselves. They're pretending they don't need
what they truly need. They're pretending they are someone that they're not. So
it's always dark in that way. In my book, I make a comparison
about trauma, specifically unremembered
trauma, being like a fog that is stationed
(17:04):
above millions of people's heads. So when you don't
remember trauma, which by the way is extremely common, extremely
common, what's happening is that you are looking for
ways to be happy because the weatherman says it's sunny,
but you're not able to see the sun because there is this fog of trauma,
but you don't know it's there. So what do you do? You self medicate.
(17:27):
You look for external validation. You get yourself deep
into your work or into addictions.
And you only find happiness in brief moments of your life, when your
child is born, when you get a new partner, when you get a puppy.
And most people go right to their graves,
never knowing why the sun never shone in their lives.
(17:49):
And, a big proponent that a lot of the lack of happiness
people experience is because of traumatic experiences they went
through. They don't remember, but this trauma continues
to, be remembered by the subconscious mind. So
it really controls every pattern of behavior that they display. I'm
fascinated because we're gonna get into your book and how important it is in part
(18:11):
of this discovery and and what you're sharing. Costa
Rica, was it a mentor, a guide? What was that transformative
moment for you? Because I think people need something to shift
gears to wipe away the fog even for a moment
to realize that there's another there's something else out there. Or is it
just that point in your life where your your heart's broken and you're
(18:34):
just trying to get away from the day that made you more open
to finding a new path? I was desperate enough to
look for a new path. However, I and I invite people to
question their own lives. If there are things that you're questioning about
yourself, behaviors that you display, emotions that you cannot
control, patterns that you cannot change. Maybe just
(18:56):
consider the possibility that there might be something that happened
in your childhood or in your early years that is preventing
you from reaching your full potential in life and love.
The brain is wired for survival. So let me briefly explain
how this happens. You're a six year old child
and you are abused sexually by a grandparent,
(19:19):
or you are a seven year old child and you're beaten
repeatedly by your cousins, the brain of
that child is not able to process all the emotions that are happening,
especially the fear. Fear is a huge emotion that takes
over your brain and it shuts down your rational
thinking and your memory center. So you're actually surviving this
(19:41):
experience without recollection consciously
of anything that happened. So what happens is the experience
gets stored in your body. The body keeps a record of
everything that we ever went through, even if our conscious mind doesn't.
When you grow up, say that you are with
a new partner and this partner is silent.
(20:04):
What's happening is you are repeating a pattern of behavior that
you had in your childhood and you stay with this partner
because you are familiar with that pattern even though you don't remember it.
And we see it all the time. People stay with partners that abuse them. People
stay in circumstances that are unhealthy because they were wired as
children to stay in that unsafe environment. We call
(20:26):
it a familiar hell versus an unfamiliar
heaven. So people stay in situations and even call into
their lives the situations that will remind them
of whatever familiar hells they went through in their childhood.
Instead of trying to reach for an unfamiliar
heaven, for a safe partner, for a safe,
(20:49):
environment, that will not change unless you do something
to change it. And one of the most effective
tools that are is becoming more and more available right now
to be able to heal trauma that is deep in your body
and in your subconscious is psychedelic medicine.
So in my case, when I went to Costa Rica, I had never done any
(21:11):
of these substances ever before. I was, you know, never done anything.
But I was desperate enough to try a plant called Ayahuasca.
Now, this plant is incredibly smart. It's impossible for me
to describe when done in the right setting, with the right
facilitators, in a safe place, with the right guidance, it's impossible
for me to really explain what this plan can help
(21:34):
the human brain and body do. Scientifically,
just to put it simply, it actually does the opposite in
your brain that trauma does. So if you remember when the trauma
happened, the fear center took over your brain and your rational
brain shut down and your memory center shut down. These substances
actually lower the fear in your brain
(21:57):
and reconnect your memory center and your
rational way in a way that you're able to process memories
with a less emotional intensity than when they happen.
So you're literally able to move them out of your body and out of
your psyche, and you can start working towards the patterns
and emotions that were attached to these
(22:20):
traumas. The language of ideas is
incredibly important, arguably the most important part
of this platform. When we speak to clients and goals, it
can be intimidating intimidating for people, but we do know about the ideas
we have for ourselves, for our family. That voice you just heard from
was from Georgia Balinski. She's very involved in the marketing at
(22:42):
RBC, and I saw their new campaign ideas happen here. I'm
a huge proponent of ideas as a means for
chasing dreams and realizing journeys. So she'll be joining the show a little
bit. But when we come back, Melissa and I discuss her amazing book, Hidden Memories,
the meaning, the emotions behind her words, and why it's always a good idea to
write it down.
(23:05):
Hi. It's Tony Chapman, host of Chatter That Matters, presented by
RBC. Ideas matter. Ideas are the oxygen of human
endeavor. They breathe life into how we work, live, and play. Ideas
let us create and innovate and overcome complex and often
challenging circumstances. Big or small, revolutionary or evolutionary,
almost every positive step forward begins with a good idea. So bring
(23:27):
your ideas to RBC because they matter, and they'll bring theirs because
you matter. Ideas happen at RBC.
How I'm speaking today is from a place of
deep self analysis that didn't
come when I was in the middle of the problems. Right? So when I look
(23:49):
back at my life, I've been able to really reshape my
perspective and to everything is a learning opportunity.
There are no heartbreaks. There are no mistakes. There are no betrayals.
Everything is a learning opportunity if we look at it that way.
Today, my special guest is Melissa Osorio. She's a
trauma expert, mental health advocate, author of the book Hidden
(24:12):
Memories. She was born in Venezuela in the eighties,
has faced so many personal challenges, including the loss of her brother to
cancer and the murder of her father when she was 16.
And through all of this, she marches on a path
of positivity and possibility.
(24:34):
So let's talk about writing hidden memories. I mean, you've
talked about how important it was for you emotionally.
I've talked to many people that have had traumatic experiences, and the ones that have
come through it, they cite journaling as one of the most
important things, writing this stuff down. So talk to
me about the book. When you started to write it, was it just for your
(24:55):
healing, or were you writing it with the intent to saying that maybe my
path in life now is no longer just, you know, the the entrepreneur,
but it's to share my journey with others so that I can help them
get to where they wanna go. Well, interestingly, the week I started to
recover my memories, from my difficult childhood,
I knew I was gonna write a book. Even though I
(25:17):
had never written anything. And I want to say, it's never too late, people, to
journal. Because my first journaling exercise really was
sitting down to write my book. Different parts of your brain activate
when you actually write by hand. So it's not typing that is
so effective. It's actually writing, writing by hand. The idea of
writing my book became clear when I realized
(25:40):
how common what I went through is. Not
only what I went through in my childhood, but to
not remember it. I consider myself at that point to be
a well rounded woman. I had lived
in different countries. I went to the university. I even took
psychology classes. I knew life, I thought.
(26:04):
I had never been truly exposed to the idea that
the brain hides traumatic memories from conscious
awareness completely. And I want people to understand this. It's not
that you remember some of it, but you don't remember the
rest. I'm talking you have no idea
this happened to you in your conscious brain, but you display
(26:26):
reactions that obviously make it clear that something happened. I
used to think, I don't remember my childhood, so I guess it
was good. It's the opposite. If you don't remember your childhood,
odds are something happened. And I'm not here to scare people. It doesn't have to
be a case as extreme as mine. But there is definitely
something there that if it was intense enough for your brain
(26:48):
to hide it, then it might be worthwhile for you as
an adult to just go and see what it was if it's going to
improve the rest of your life. So, Melissa, what made you share it?
You go through this. You start to really to
terms. The fog is lifting. Why share it? I
wish someone will have written a book that
(27:10):
I will have read, and it will have helped me and saved
me a lot of pain and a lot of hardship. So if it was
within my power to do that for
someone, of course, there was never a question not to do
it. You've had so much beautiful feedback,
powerful feedback. Was there anything, one thing that
(27:32):
radiated such warmth and love through your body that that you actually accomplished
what you just said you wanted to do, which is you help somebody.
You were there for somebody when you didn't have somebody there for you. It has
been such a gift to get all the feedback, as you mentioned, for the
book. I think, you know, one of the most a couple of the most powerful
cases were from people that just became curious
(27:55):
about their lack of memories in their childhood. They
became curious about their patterns of behaviors.
And they were able to confront that trauma
and the perpetrators of that
trauma as adults. And even though it hasn't
been a simple path for them, they tell me has
(28:17):
been incredibly healing. And, you know, the amount of
gratitude I received for just I didn't do anything other
than just turn on a light so their
room of their mind was not so dark anymore. And it's up to
them to do their work and go search, if they want
to, go search inside their brain, inside their mind to see if
(28:39):
there is something there that they just need to process to be able to
have a fuller life. You know, I watched the, the documentary,
Cure Your Mind. I don't know if you saw that, but they looked at four
different herbal remedies that science from LSD,
mushrooms, people that were had critical illness that if it
had a mushroom trip would come back at being at peace with dying. You know,
(29:01):
things that are very just powerful and moving. And
yet, obviously, you know, there's a movement with big pharma
psychedelics are gonna become mainstream? Do you think people
like you that are talking about it with a personal
story is gonna be the catalyst to get more people
(29:24):
saying, let's make that available because I'm hurting. I
need it. I wanna remove the fog. I think people are starting to
wake up to the fact that governments
and pharmaceuticals and tobacco
industry and alcohol industry, they do not have your best
interest in mind. Even the medical model that so many
(29:47):
countries have, like right now, The US thrives on
illnesses. So, the more people realize
these, the more they're gonna be open to alternative ways
of treating, you know, any conditions, mental health conditions. Because
by the way, the body and the mind are not separate.
We are one unit. So what psychedelics allow us
(30:10):
to do is when we are helping our mind, our
mental health, there is no way that your body is not
gonna get helped as well. So it's a synergy that happens so
people will start to realize that there are other ways that
don't require them to take prescription medications, to be
able to get, you know, mental healing and physical healing. Here's
(30:32):
the thing though, these these are still very much illegal in most
places and I always invite people to question why is
there such a red tape around natural substances.
The answer simply and purely is because they
work. If we look at history, anything that truly works
has been shut down and sometimes it takes years or
(30:55):
decades for, you know, treatments to start to show up again.
So we are seeing now a renaissance of psychedelics
coming back in play in a huge part because of technology,
because of the internet, because people are able to see, hear me
and hear people like me. And we're giving our own experiences about how these
substances are helping. On the same token though, we
(31:17):
gotta be very careful because, again,
not everybody that will offer psychedelic
treatments will have your best interest in mind. Right? So human
nature is to turn anything that works into a business. What's next for
you? Well, it will be continuing to expand
on all of the aspects that I'm passionate about.
(31:39):
Mental health, bringing more awareness into people's lives. I
love, you know, speaking about, not only what has helped me,
but what I think can help other people. Very active also in
creating, you know, online courses that I'm gonna release next year, just
so people have more access to this information. Right? There is a
lot of, misinformation and stigma surrounding, many
(32:01):
of the things that we've been talking about. And of course, we haven't gone even
into detail specific traumatic experiences that I went through, but
I know it's something that people don't talk about openly. And, you
know, I wanna destigmatize talking about the difficulties that
happen behind closed doors of households, and
really deep traumatic experiences. And I'm very excited to see
(32:24):
the direction we're all taking as a society, really leaning more
into holistic approach of healing, hopefully utilizing
the right way, these beautiful healing plants that are just
growing freely in nature. So I, you know, I always end with my
three things. And the interesting thing that struck me was really
something about you at the beginning of your life as your coping mechanism
(32:47):
seemed to be finding systems that you could fall
into. You know, religion, you mentioned the franchise
system. I would even argue that university and having a place to
go was a system. They probably all helped you
survive the moment, but it was this childhood and
and this kid trapped in an adult body and then one day becoming
(33:09):
the adult that I think was such an interesting part
of your life because whether you liked it or not, and you certainly didn't raise
your hand and ask for it, it really started setting you off on a course
and it set you off on a path. And even when you were involved in
a in a horrific marriage and you were involved in things
that no one would ever ask for, you at least had the courage to
(33:31):
keep walking and keep moving. And when you found that tunnel as dark
as it was, you kept moving towards that light. Where you were originally
guided by systems, you then became guided by intuition.
And then the final thing is anything that works with shutdown
is really not a lesson you live, but it's a lesson for all of us
to think about. But more importantly, I think, is just the sense of
(33:52):
not being afraid to learn who you actually are. That's one of
the most beautiful pieces of advice. It's daunting for me. I opened up the
podcast saying, I don't really wanna know my childhood because I don't think I live
in a fog. I'm blessed with the life I have, but at the same time,
you know, maybe that's denial and I'm just play acting until I do. So
it's it's, you've left me with a lot of personal thought. And I think you've
(34:15):
left my listeners with an equal amount of things to consider.
And I admire your courage, your honesty, the love you have for humanity.
And I'm gonna do whatever I can to put hidden memories in as many hands
as I can because I think it does us all good to, unhide
them. In my book, I mentioned that I believe we
get messages from the future, from our future
(34:37):
selves. And we can call it intuition, or we can call it a
hunch, or we can call it a grace or coincidence. And we can
think it comes from our higher self or from our subconscious or from God.
The truth is, it doesn't matter who they come from. It doesn't matter why they're
there. We all get these messages and it's up to us to
listen. So those messages are the ones that we're, when we're
(34:59):
deep in darkness, they're the
fleeting thought that might come and say, everything is gonna
be okay. Facing one of the most difficult struggles of
your of your lives is just that feeling that says, keep going.
Be alert, especially in the most difficult times, to see
what that tiny little voice or thought is saying
(35:22):
because that is the light at the end of the tunnel, and it comes from
within.
Joining me now is Georgia Balinski. She's been on the show before. I'm a
huge fan of this lady because she markets with
heart and insight. Georgia, welcome back. Thank you so much for having me, Tony.
So I was watching the Super Bowl, and RBC comes on not
(35:45):
once, but several times. Sort of the second edition of the campaign,
Ideas Happen Here. I'm a huge fan of ideas as a
lubricant to get people to chase their dreams. But if I took away one
thing that really stood out, it seems to be much more personalized. It's
about my ideas and my dreams and less
about RBC. And I gotta tell you something. I like that. That's
(36:07):
exactly right, Tony. You hit the nail on the head, and this campaign
is really an evolution born from the insight that
we all have a human desire to individuate ourselves in
our ideas, that the fabric of ideas are so personal to each
of us. And not only that we're all unique, but we are all
uniquely powerful as the owners and operators of our
(36:29):
own ideas. That's the spirit, the energy that you're feeling in this
creative and and central to the campaign. To make it happen in a
thirty second ad and putting it out there is wonderful, but the hard work
really has to happen at the branches. It has to happen in conversations with
people, especially in a time of insecurity and uncertainty.
How do you institutionalize that so that when you come
(36:52):
into RBC, it's not about the transaction. I want a credit
card or I wanna open account, and much more about the transformation
of here's who I am today. Here's where I wanna go tomorrow.
At our VCU, we operate across a very wide spectrum of
need states, whether it's the little ideas that we need
to make happen quickly, easily, simply help you get on with
(37:14):
what you're really hoping to do, all the way to the big ideas that we
need to service with purpose, with care, with human
intent. And so across all of those needs states,
speaking the language of ideas is really what you're talking about.
The language of ideas is incredibly important, arguably the
most important part of this platform. Our research has
(37:36):
shown that when we speak to clients and goals, it can be intimidating
for people. If you think about it, we we might not know what our own
individual goals are, you know, at every moment, but we
do know about the ideas we have for ourselves, for our family,
for our loved ones, our communities. And so when we think
in ideas, when we share that common ground between an adviser and
(37:58):
a client, we find we can have even more productive
conversations, ones that really lean into the intent that
a client is hoping to reach. And so that's why we retrain
all of our advisors across the country on having ID having
conversations that are rooted in ideas to open up a really
human dialogue with our clients and prospects. Georgia, I can't wait
(38:21):
to see how this campaign unfolds. I'm not only obviously
a fan of RBC for all you're doing for Chatter That Matters, but I'm also
a client of your bank. So, I look forward to sharing my ideas at
RBC and, see them happen here. Thanks for having me,
Tony. Really appreciate it. It's Tony Chapman.
Thanks for listening, and let's chat soon.
I suppose we all have hidden memories. There's times in our lives that were
memorable, profound, could be life changing, game
changing, even traumatic. Memories that we intentionally or
unintentionally lock away. But what would you
do if you had a key to unlock those memories?
(00:24):
Would you revisit them in the hope of making sense of who you are,
why you traveled the past that you did, the decisions you make, the values that
you have? I thought about it, and I wouldn't. When
my dad became mentally unwell and self medicated with alcohol, when his
personality shifted from one of the kindest humans on the planet to
someone horrific, someone who dealt with his torments
(00:47):
often by tormenting us. And when he was better, he realized this was the last
thing he wanted to do. I don't know if I wanna revisit that, bring revisit
that, bring back that living hell to her family, the the look in my
mother's eyes or me being too small to protect her or my sisters.
And what I do know is that when he left the planet, his demons were
under control. My grandkids loved him, and we forgave
(01:08):
him. And that to me is the memory I wanna preserve.
But that's me. I wanna know what would you do. And my guest
today is Melissa Osorio. Us humans, we think
we know who we are, but most of us have no clue
who we are. Who we think we are is a collection of patterns of
behaviors and emotions that we have developed since
(01:31):
childhood, and they become our identity. She's lived through
tragedy and trauma, but instead of bearing her memories, she in fact wrote a book
titled Hidden Memories. There is something really beautiful in healing in being able
to take the time to recount your life from even before you
were born and go back to your parents, to whatever you know about your
grandparents because they all shape you. To listening to
(01:53):
her, ask yourself, what would you
do? Hi.
It's Tony Chapman. Thank you for listening to Chatter That Matters presented by
RBC. If you can, please subscribe to the podcast. And
ratings and reviews, well, they're always welcome, and they're always appreciated.
(02:13):
Melissa Osorio, welcome to Chatter That Matters. Hi. Thank you
for having me. Your story begins, I guess, in Venezuela during a time
of significant change. So if you can, paint a
picture of your early family life so that we can walk and march in
step with Melissa at a young age. Well, both my parents
moved to Venezuela at different times from Spain. They were looking
(02:35):
for, at that time, you know, the dream that Venezuela held
for for the immigrants. I am the youngest of five
and I basically grew up as an only child because
my siblings were much older than me. So by the time that I came
into our family, my parents' marriage had
really started to disintegrate. And right around
(02:58):
my one year old birthday is when things finally
just completely hit the ground. It was a very turbulent
household where my father was trying to find
ways to make my mom cheat on him or to
pin us against my mother. Interestingly enough though,
those years are in the memories of my siblings, but they're completely
(03:21):
absent from my memory. Between the ages of three and six, you went through
this horrific experience, I guess, because your older brother
Robert not only realized he had cancer, but succumbed to it. So
tell me a little bit about what that was like. As so many
families do, it's something that after my brother passed away,
we all just try to make him disappear from our memories.
(03:43):
You know, families seem to do that sometimes when a child dies,
they eliminate the pictures. They're taking down the room. They're
taking the clothes away just as a way to cope. My
mother, you know, suffered through this and my siblings suffered through
this. However, I didn't grow up with, a feeling
of, sadness for him. In fact, it was almost as if he
(04:05):
never existed. It was interestingly enough through my
inner exploration many years later that I
remember times with him. I remember clearly
the times with him and I realized what an important role he had played
in my life because I have lived a very full life.
You know, never living anything for tomorrow if I can do it today. And
(04:28):
it became so clear that one of the reasons why I adopted that
mentality throughout my life was because I saw the inner
flame disappear, my oldest brother, so early
when he was just a teen. And then you talk about at age seven, so
this is, you know, a year later, you spend a lot of your time working
to gain your father's approval. Children develop,
(04:51):
whatever coping mechanisms they need to survive.
And usually those coping mechanisms, they get
developed in the relationship with their parents.
So, one of the coping mechanisms that I developed at an early
age was to earn the love
of my father and to earn the love of my mother in
(05:13):
different ways. So with my father, I knew that what was important to
him was academic achievements and an entrepreneurial
spirit. And in my mother's case, for example, it was religion.
So I became an exemplar religious little girl to earn
her love. And your parents' relationship between the two,
the entrepreneur and someone that's the mom that's very focused on religion, did
(05:36):
it improve at all because of Robert and because of you, the youngest child, trying
to do all of this? Or did it continue to just fracture? So my
parents never spoke to each other in my in my presence during my life. I
was caught in the middle being the messenger between them two many, many,
many times. The only thing that changed with my brother's
death was the fact that he asked my father as a dying
(05:58):
wish, for my family to be able to continue in the
religion that they had chosen because my dad was opposed to it. I'm not part
of this religion anymore. However, I can see the value
that dad had in our family, especially in a very,
you know, difficult and a period full of tragedy
where for me personally, you know, it made God very
(06:19):
real. And it allowed me to have a routine.
It allowed me to have something constant in a very turbulent
childhood. So it was constant that we went going to, you know, our meeting
place certain days a week and we will do this and that as part of
the religion. So in that aspect, it was very beneficial. And at
age 16, tragedy strikes again. And this time, the
(06:41):
tragedy is your your father's murder. It left me,
broken for a long time. For at least five years, I could not
even speak my father's, name or anything
related to his passing. It literally was like a lock was
placed upon my throat for many reasons that I came to understand later,
but one of them was grief. During those years,
(07:04):
I embraced passions and music was one of them. So I really,
really found, for me, solace in following, you know, my
favorite band around the world and crying to their music as a
way to reset my nervous system because I had no coping mechanisms.
You know? So I kind of made it through. And then as life
got more complex, then other unhealthy coping
(07:26):
mechanisms came. I think most people are never trained
in how to cope with their own emotions and that's one of the reasons why
I'm so vocal about, you know, everything that I talk about. Because
if we are able to understand ourselves better from an early age,
we're able to cope with these tragedies much more effectively. What
was your relationship with God? Because for someone that was so
(07:48):
important in your life, you lost your older brother and then your father. How did
did that change your beliefs or your value system that
what's supposed to be good and almighty wasn't working
necessarily in your favor? What saved my life
was the parallel mental reality that I created
of my life and what everything that I went through meant.
(08:11):
God was never guilty, a guilty part party in my mind,
thankfully. So I held on to God and to
faith. And, you know, looking back, being a young girl going through that,
I honestly don't know how I did that other than God helped
me do that. Maybe I was I got help to go through all of that
so I can be here today sharing about it and helping other people
(08:33):
that are going or have gone through similar circumstances. You
end up at 17 years old buying a Dairy Queen
franchise. After my father passed away, I
packed, two suitcases and my dog. And
$20,000 I had saved up from working, you know, since I was seven years
old. And I just came to Miami. My dad had left all
(08:55):
of us a little money, you know, so we all received, I think it was
something like $400,000 And I got my share when I was 17.
And at that point, I just wanted to go to the university. I wanted,
honestly, I wanted to be a teenager. I was always a little adult and I
think a lot of people identify with that. So, when I moved to Miami, I
wanted to be a teenager. I wanted to go to school and have the boyfriend
(09:17):
and do all of these things. But I couldn't do any of that because I
needed to get my mom a visa. She came afterwards and,
you know, all of my siblings were grown. So, I was the only one that
needed care. And in order to get her a visa, I needed to buy a
business. I had, I guess, the good sense of
understanding that a franchise had systems.
(09:39):
And I found a Dairy Queen that always had a line out
the door in our local, you know, Florida area. And I went
and I purchased this Dairy Queen. It's certainly your path to getting your mom in
the country, but what was it like to run a Dairy Queen when you just
wanted to be a kid? You just wanted to be a teenager. You wanna just
have fun. I mean, running a franchise is not fun. I was 17. I
(10:00):
had, I remember, 15 part time employees that were my age or
older. My English was just barely
enough to get into the university. I had learned it that summer,
like with books and music. And I came to The US and, you know, I
was able to enter the university with that level. But
still, I mean, I still have an accent. It was way worse
(10:22):
back then. And I was just a kid trapped in an
adult body. But I think the experiences that I went
through in my childhood and early life,
they prepare me so I could take on this responsibility. And the
last thing I wanna talk about, and then we're gonna move much more into your
story, is that the the financial crisis of two thousand eight and
02/2009, what did you take away from that
(10:46):
that you feel served you in the future? Not only myself, but my entire
family were completely wiped out from bad investments. And he sat me
down on a couch for almost a year. I became,
severely bulimic, you know, because of I think it was a
breaking point of sorts. Just a coping tool in order to try to
survive, not a healthy one, but one that is extremely common, right?
(11:09):
Bulimia, anorexia, I talk about this openly as well because so
many of us, men and women, go through these type of, you
know, coping mechanisms. It was rough. And what I learned from
it now, as it often happens when we look back, I
am very grateful that happened. I am very grateful I lost
every cent my father ever left me. I was
(11:31):
able to start from scratch in my life, and
create my own, you know, financial situation.
When all this was happening, you say your entire family lost everything. You know,
did you ever feel that sense of responsibility that people were
looking to you for guidance as opposed to being, you know, the
little kid that maybe arrived by accident? Yes. Pretty
(11:53):
much, after my father's murder,
I stepped into the role of my father without realizing
at that time. So I was the first one in the family that moved to
The US. Everybody followed afterwards. I was the first
one in the family to have other businesses. You know, everybody tried
afterwards. I'm grateful because I've been able to really work with
(12:15):
whatever life has thrown at me, and that has placed me in a position many
times where I've been able to help my family. We talked about your eating
disorder, but it was also alcohol started to play an increasing role
in your life. Was that around the same time as well that one of the
other ways you cope was just trying to escape through alcohol? Actually,
I didn't drink, barely anything before my marriage.
(12:37):
We were in a marriage that was extremely problematic from the
beginning. And alcohol became the way to cope
with the stress, the marital stress, all
the, all the issues that we were having. And we were very successful
at making money. We were good at having our businesses, but
we were just very, very bad at being married to each other. What are the
(12:58):
lessons that you take away from that relationship with your husband that
might have been very successful as business partners, but wasn't
necessarily what you would deem to be marital bliss? My marriage
was an incredible learning opportunity, because it
really highlighted a lot of the patterns that I had within myself
that I did not understand. And this is the reason
(13:21):
primarily why I wrote my book. It's because us
humans, we think we know who we are, but
most of us have no clue who we are. Who we are, who
we think we are is a collection of patterns of behaviors
and emotions that we have developed since childhood and they
become our identity. So my marriage really highlighted
(13:44):
a lot of these patterns of these things that made no sense. And
you hear people saying it, this is just who I am. This is how I
do things. I'm too old to change. But my marriage really
highlighted things that I wanted to change, and I didn't understand them.
If I was putting a musical track to your life, you ought to talk about
your love for music. I'd say that when you went to Costa
(14:06):
Rica, it suddenly became quite a magical musical
track. This journey to Costa Rica was a turning point in
what you describe in your healing. So what what can you share about what happened
at that point of your life where you were no longer just
tumbling from one thing to another, but really feeling like it was
time to find some firm footing and carve out a path for
(14:28):
you? Let's imagine the most
hard rock, metallic track, plain for a
while because my life got completely
destroyed initially. So my visit to Costa Rica
is what allowed me to change the tracks completely where now,
let's say, it's just playing classical music.
(14:50):
But as with every healing opportunity that we get, there is a
complete and absolute destruction of, in many cases, of who we think we are
in our life and our existence. So when I got to Costa Rica going for
totally unrelated reasons to what I actually got out of there, I went
because I was having a heartbreak and, you know, I was
not knowing what to do with my life. And when I got to Costa Rica,
(15:13):
I was able to start to remember my childhood. So it was really
dark, but it was a light. And I followed that light. And I
think that's the difference between, you know, getting stuck in a
traumatic event or not, is being able to
somehow fixate on the light at the end of the
tunnel. Even if the tunnel is dark and is narrow, just fixate on
(15:36):
the light at the end of the tunnel. And what advice can you give to
people, especially today on this planet where so many people are
stuck, insecurity, uncertainty, and not just their own,
but wondering if we're even gonna have a planet or if there's gonna be a
nuclear war. What advice can you give to people to find that
light? Often, we are looking for the
(15:56):
answers outside of ourselves. I know I I lived my life
waiting for the other shoe to drop, for happiness to come and knock on my
door, for the men of my dreams to come in the white horse and
take me away and save me from whatever misery I was going through.
The light has to come from you first,
finding a way to really love every single part of
(16:19):
yourself. Every part of your life, every lesson
you've been through, every side of you, the chaotic, the
beautiful, the ugly, the fat, the skinny, just all of it, the one
that's grumpy, the one that's happy. Because when you're able to integrate all
of these parts of yourself, then you start becoming more authentic.
And healing can only happen when you're authentic, when you're living your truth. I
(16:42):
think a lot of people are waiting for something else to complete them, and in
the meantime, they're betraying themselves. They're pretending they don't need
what they truly need. They're pretending they are someone that they're not. So
it's always dark in that way. In my book, I make a comparison
about trauma, specifically unremembered
trauma, being like a fog that is stationed
(17:04):
above millions of people's heads. So when you don't
remember trauma, which by the way is extremely common, extremely
common, what's happening is that you are looking for
ways to be happy because the weatherman says it's sunny,
but you're not able to see the sun because there is this fog of trauma,
but you don't know it's there. So what do you do? You self medicate.
(17:27):
You look for external validation. You get yourself deep
into your work or into addictions.
And you only find happiness in brief moments of your life, when your
child is born, when you get a new partner, when you get a puppy.
And most people go right to their graves,
never knowing why the sun never shone in their lives.
(17:49):
And, a big proponent that a lot of the lack of happiness
people experience is because of traumatic experiences they went
through. They don't remember, but this trauma continues
to, be remembered by the subconscious mind. So
it really controls every pattern of behavior that they display. I'm
fascinated because we're gonna get into your book and how important it is in part
(18:11):
of this discovery and and what you're sharing. Costa
Rica, was it a mentor, a guide? What was that transformative
moment for you? Because I think people need something to shift
gears to wipe away the fog even for a moment
to realize that there's another there's something else out there. Or is it
just that point in your life where your your heart's broken and you're
(18:34):
just trying to get away from the day that made you more open
to finding a new path? I was desperate enough to
look for a new path. However, I and I invite people to
question their own lives. If there are things that you're questioning about
yourself, behaviors that you display, emotions that you cannot
control, patterns that you cannot change. Maybe just
(18:56):
consider the possibility that there might be something that happened
in your childhood or in your early years that is preventing
you from reaching your full potential in life and love.
The brain is wired for survival. So let me briefly explain
how this happens. You're a six year old child
and you are abused sexually by a grandparent,
(19:19):
or you are a seven year old child and you're beaten
repeatedly by your cousins, the brain of
that child is not able to process all the emotions that are happening,
especially the fear. Fear is a huge emotion that takes
over your brain and it shuts down your rational
thinking and your memory center. So you're actually surviving this
(19:41):
experience without recollection consciously
of anything that happened. So what happens is the experience
gets stored in your body. The body keeps a record of
everything that we ever went through, even if our conscious mind doesn't.
When you grow up, say that you are with
a new partner and this partner is silent.
(20:04):
What's happening is you are repeating a pattern of behavior that
you had in your childhood and you stay with this partner
because you are familiar with that pattern even though you don't remember it.
And we see it all the time. People stay with partners that abuse them. People
stay in circumstances that are unhealthy because they were wired as
children to stay in that unsafe environment. We call
(20:26):
it a familiar hell versus an unfamiliar
heaven. So people stay in situations and even call into
their lives the situations that will remind them
of whatever familiar hells they went through in their childhood.
Instead of trying to reach for an unfamiliar
heaven, for a safe partner, for a safe,
(20:49):
environment, that will not change unless you do something
to change it. And one of the most effective
tools that are is becoming more and more available right now
to be able to heal trauma that is deep in your body
and in your subconscious is psychedelic medicine.
So in my case, when I went to Costa Rica, I had never done any
(21:11):
of these substances ever before. I was, you know, never done anything.
But I was desperate enough to try a plant called Ayahuasca.
Now, this plant is incredibly smart. It's impossible for me
to describe when done in the right setting, with the right
facilitators, in a safe place, with the right guidance, it's impossible
for me to really explain what this plan can help
(21:34):
the human brain and body do. Scientifically,
just to put it simply, it actually does the opposite in
your brain that trauma does. So if you remember when the trauma
happened, the fear center took over your brain and your rational
brain shut down and your memory center shut down. These substances
actually lower the fear in your brain
(21:57):
and reconnect your memory center and your
rational way in a way that you're able to process memories
with a less emotional intensity than when they happen.
So you're literally able to move them out of your body and out of
your psyche, and you can start working towards the patterns
and emotions that were attached to these
(22:20):
traumas. The language of ideas is
incredibly important, arguably the most important part
of this platform. When we speak to clients and goals, it
can be intimidating intimidating for people, but we do know about the ideas
we have for ourselves, for our family. That voice you just heard from
was from Georgia Balinski. She's very involved in the marketing at
(22:42):
RBC, and I saw their new campaign ideas happen here. I'm
a huge proponent of ideas as a means for
chasing dreams and realizing journeys. So she'll be joining the show a little
bit. But when we come back, Melissa and I discuss her amazing book, Hidden Memories,
the meaning, the emotions behind her words, and why it's always a good idea to
write it down.
(23:05):
Hi. It's Tony Chapman, host of Chatter That Matters, presented by
RBC. Ideas matter. Ideas are the oxygen of human
endeavor. They breathe life into how we work, live, and play. Ideas
let us create and innovate and overcome complex and often
challenging circumstances. Big or small, revolutionary or evolutionary,
almost every positive step forward begins with a good idea. So bring
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your ideas to RBC because they matter, and they'll bring theirs because
you matter. Ideas happen at RBC.
How I'm speaking today is from a place of
deep self analysis that didn't
come when I was in the middle of the problems. Right? So when I look
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back at my life, I've been able to really reshape my
perspective and to everything is a learning opportunity.
There are no heartbreaks. There are no mistakes. There are no betrayals.
Everything is a learning opportunity if we look at it that way.
Today, my special guest is Melissa Osorio. She's a
trauma expert, mental health advocate, author of the book Hidden
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Memories. She was born in Venezuela in the eighties,
has faced so many personal challenges, including the loss of her brother to
cancer and the murder of her father when she was 16.
And through all of this, she marches on a path
of positivity and possibility.
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So let's talk about writing hidden memories. I mean, you've
talked about how important it was for you emotionally.
I've talked to many people that have had traumatic experiences, and the ones that have
come through it, they cite journaling as one of the most
important things, writing this stuff down. So talk to
me about the book. When you started to write it, was it just for your
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healing, or were you writing it with the intent to saying that maybe my
path in life now is no longer just, you know, the the entrepreneur,
but it's to share my journey with others so that I can help them
get to where they wanna go. Well, interestingly, the week I started to
recover my memories, from my difficult childhood,
I knew I was gonna write a book. Even though I
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had never written anything. And I want to say, it's never too late, people, to
journal. Because my first journaling exercise really was
sitting down to write my book. Different parts of your brain activate
when you actually write by hand. So it's not typing that is
so effective. It's actually writing, writing by hand. The idea of
writing my book became clear when I realized
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how common what I went through is. Not
only what I went through in my childhood, but to
not remember it. I consider myself at that point to be
a well rounded woman. I had lived
in different countries. I went to the university. I even took
psychology classes. I knew life, I thought.
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I had never been truly exposed to the idea that
the brain hides traumatic memories from conscious
awareness completely. And I want people to understand this. It's not
that you remember some of it, but you don't remember the
rest. I'm talking you have no idea
this happened to you in your conscious brain, but you display
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reactions that obviously make it clear that something happened. I
used to think, I don't remember my childhood, so I guess it
was good. It's the opposite. If you don't remember your childhood,
odds are something happened. And I'm not here to scare people. It doesn't have to
be a case as extreme as mine. But there is definitely
something there that if it was intense enough for your brain
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to hide it, then it might be worthwhile for you as
an adult to just go and see what it was if it's going to
improve the rest of your life. So, Melissa, what made you share it?
You go through this. You start to really to
terms. The fog is lifting. Why share it? I
wish someone will have written a book that
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I will have read, and it will have helped me and saved
me a lot of pain and a lot of hardship. So if it was
within my power to do that for
someone, of course, there was never a question not to do
it. You've had so much beautiful feedback,
powerful feedback. Was there anything, one thing that
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radiated such warmth and love through your body that that you actually accomplished
what you just said you wanted to do, which is you help somebody.
You were there for somebody when you didn't have somebody there for you. It has
been such a gift to get all the feedback, as you mentioned, for the
book. I think, you know, one of the most a couple of the most powerful
cases were from people that just became curious
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about their lack of memories in their childhood. They
became curious about their patterns of behaviors.
And they were able to confront that trauma
and the perpetrators of that
trauma as adults. And even though it hasn't
been a simple path for them, they tell me has
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been incredibly healing. And, you know, the amount of
gratitude I received for just I didn't do anything other
than just turn on a light so their
room of their mind was not so dark anymore. And it's up to
them to do their work and go search, if they want
to, go search inside their brain, inside their mind to see if
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there is something there that they just need to process to be able to
have a fuller life. You know, I watched the, the documentary,
Cure Your Mind. I don't know if you saw that, but they looked at four
different herbal remedies that science from LSD,
mushrooms, people that were had critical illness that if it
had a mushroom trip would come back at being at peace with dying. You know,
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things that are very just powerful and moving. And
yet, obviously, you know, there's a movement with big pharma
psychedelics are gonna become mainstream? Do you think people
like you that are talking about it with a personal
story is gonna be the catalyst to get more people
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saying, let's make that available because I'm hurting. I
need it. I wanna remove the fog. I think people are starting to
wake up to the fact that governments
and pharmaceuticals and tobacco
industry and alcohol industry, they do not have your best
interest in mind. Even the medical model that so many
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countries have, like right now, The US thrives on
illnesses. So, the more people realize
these, the more they're gonna be open to alternative ways
of treating, you know, any conditions, mental health conditions. Because
by the way, the body and the mind are not separate.
We are one unit. So what psychedelics allow us
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to do is when we are helping our mind, our
mental health, there is no way that your body is not
gonna get helped as well. So it's a synergy that happens so
people will start to realize that there are other ways that
don't require them to take prescription medications, to be
able to get, you know, mental healing and physical healing. Here's
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the thing though, these these are still very much illegal in most
places and I always invite people to question why is
there such a red tape around natural substances.
The answer simply and purely is because they
work. If we look at history, anything that truly works
has been shut down and sometimes it takes years or
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decades for, you know, treatments to start to show up again.
So we are seeing now a renaissance of psychedelics
coming back in play in a huge part because of technology,
because of the internet, because people are able to see, hear me
and hear people like me. And we're giving our own experiences about how these
substances are helping. On the same token though, we
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gotta be very careful because, again,
not everybody that will offer psychedelic
treatments will have your best interest in mind. Right? So human
nature is to turn anything that works into a business. What's next for
you? Well, it will be continuing to expand
on all of the aspects that I'm passionate about.
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Mental health, bringing more awareness into people's lives. I
love, you know, speaking about, not only what has helped me,
but what I think can help other people. Very active also in
creating, you know, online courses that I'm gonna release next year, just
so people have more access to this information. Right? There is a
lot of, misinformation and stigma surrounding, many
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of the things that we've been talking about. And of course, we haven't gone even
into detail specific traumatic experiences that I went through, but
I know it's something that people don't talk about openly. And, you
know, I wanna destigmatize talking about the difficulties that
happen behind closed doors of households, and
really deep traumatic experiences. And I'm very excited to see
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the direction we're all taking as a society, really leaning more
into holistic approach of healing, hopefully utilizing
the right way, these beautiful healing plants that are just
growing freely in nature. So I, you know, I always end with my
three things. And the interesting thing that struck me was really
something about you at the beginning of your life as your coping mechanism
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seemed to be finding systems that you could fall
into. You know, religion, you mentioned the franchise
system. I would even argue that university and having a place to
go was a system. They probably all helped you
survive the moment, but it was this childhood and
and this kid trapped in an adult body and then one day becoming
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the adult that I think was such an interesting part
of your life because whether you liked it or not, and you certainly didn't raise
your hand and ask for it, it really started setting you off on a course
and it set you off on a path. And even when you were involved in
a in a horrific marriage and you were involved in things
that no one would ever ask for, you at least had the courage to
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keep walking and keep moving. And when you found that tunnel as dark
as it was, you kept moving towards that light. Where you were originally
guided by systems, you then became guided by intuition.
And then the final thing is anything that works with shutdown
is really not a lesson you live, but it's a lesson for all of us
to think about. But more importantly, I think, is just the sense of
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not being afraid to learn who you actually are. That's one of
the most beautiful pieces of advice. It's daunting for me. I opened up the
podcast saying, I don't really wanna know my childhood because I don't think I live
in a fog. I'm blessed with the life I have, but at the same time,
you know, maybe that's denial and I'm just play acting until I do. So
it's it's, you've left me with a lot of personal thought. And I think you've
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left my listeners with an equal amount of things to consider.
And I admire your courage, your honesty, the love you have for humanity.
And I'm gonna do whatever I can to put hidden memories in as many hands
as I can because I think it does us all good to, unhide
them. In my book, I mentioned that I believe we
get messages from the future, from our future
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selves. And we can call it intuition, or we can call it a
hunch, or we can call it a grace or coincidence. And we can
think it comes from our higher self or from our subconscious or from God.
The truth is, it doesn't matter who they come from. It doesn't matter why they're
there. We all get these messages and it's up to us to
listen. So those messages are the ones that we're, when we're
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deep in darkness, they're the
fleeting thought that might come and say, everything is gonna
be okay. Facing one of the most difficult struggles of
your of your lives is just that feeling that says, keep going.
Be alert, especially in the most difficult times, to see
what that tiny little voice or thought is saying
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because that is the light at the end of the tunnel, and it comes from
within.
Joining me now is Georgia Balinski. She's been on the show before. I'm a
huge fan of this lady because she markets with
heart and insight. Georgia, welcome back. Thank you so much for having me, Tony.
So I was watching the Super Bowl, and RBC comes on not
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once, but several times. Sort of the second edition of the campaign,
Ideas Happen Here. I'm a huge fan of ideas as a
lubricant to get people to chase their dreams. But if I took away one
thing that really stood out, it seems to be much more personalized. It's
about my ideas and my dreams and less
about RBC. And I gotta tell you something. I like that. That's
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exactly right, Tony. You hit the nail on the head, and this campaign
is really an evolution born from the insight that
we all have a human desire to individuate ourselves in
our ideas, that the fabric of ideas are so personal to each
of us. And not only that we're all unique, but we are all
uniquely powerful as the owners and operators of our
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own ideas. That's the spirit, the energy that you're feeling in this
creative and and central to the campaign. To make it happen in a
thirty second ad and putting it out there is wonderful, but the hard work
really has to happen at the branches. It has to happen in conversations with
people, especially in a time of insecurity and uncertainty.
How do you institutionalize that so that when you come
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into RBC, it's not about the transaction. I want a credit
card or I wanna open account, and much more about the transformation
of here's who I am today. Here's where I wanna go tomorrow.
At our VCU, we operate across a very wide spectrum of
need states, whether it's the little ideas that we need
to make happen quickly, easily, simply help you get on with
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what you're really hoping to do, all the way to the big ideas that we
need to service with purpose, with care, with human
intent. And so across all of those needs states,
speaking the language of ideas is really what you're talking about.
The language of ideas is incredibly important, arguably the
most important part of this platform. Our research has
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shown that when we speak to clients and goals, it can be intimidating
for people. If you think about it, we we might not know what our own
individual goals are, you know, at every moment, but we
do know about the ideas we have for ourselves, for our family,
for our loved ones, our communities. And so when we think
in ideas, when we share that common ground between an adviser and
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a client, we find we can have even more productive
conversations, ones that really lean into the intent that
a client is hoping to reach. And so that's why we retrain
all of our advisors across the country on having ID having
conversations that are rooted in ideas to open up a really
human dialogue with our clients and prospects. Georgia, I can't wait
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to see how this campaign unfolds. I'm not only obviously
a fan of RBC for all you're doing for Chatter That Matters, but I'm also
a client of your bank. So, I look forward to sharing my ideas at
RBC and, see them happen here. Thanks for having me,
Tony. Really appreciate it. It's Tony Chapman.
Thanks for listening, and let's chat soon.
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