Unlocking Lasting Love: Riana Milne's Journey Healing Childhood Trauma

[00:00:00] Speaker A: Foreign. [00:00:04] Speaker B: Normalize. We have Rihanna Milne. She's a global certified life dating and relationship coach, certified mindful coach, mindfulness coach, educational speech speaker, and number one bestselling author. Rihanna is a powerhouse woman in all the work that she's done through psychology and assisting people with their understanding of their trauma and doing shadow work to assist them to recover what's necessary to be a fuller and more whole being which then can successfully behave in a relationship, hold good relationships and have a good life. So this is a really deep interview on her process and understanding childhood trauma, inner child healing, and more. Watch all the way to the end. She's got some really good tips on how to actually process these things, but also a greater understanding of how all of that works inside of us. So please enjoy the show. Looking at the statistics that I have for YouTube and for my podcast apps, I have a lot of listeners and viewers that aren't yet like and subscribe. So if you're on YouTube, like and subscribe, it's free. And if you're on a podcast app, please give me five stars. That'd be really cool. It helps other people find these great conversations too. Thank you. Welcome to Super Normalized Rhianna Milne. Rhianna, it's a pleasure to have you on the show. You're a power woman that actually assists people in finding their way in life. Do you have a story to tell? [00:01:44] Speaker A: Hi, cj. So nice to be here. Thanks for having me. [00:01:49] Speaker B: Yeah. So what inspired you initially to pursue counseling and specialized specifically in childhood and love trauma recovery? [00:01:57] Speaker A: Well, it's kind of a long journey that takes me back to age 16 where my very best childhood friend was killed by a drunk driver. And I had asked my mom if I could go to counseling to handle the grief. And she said no one in this family will ever go to counseling. So I said, then I will grow up to become one. So that was decision right then and there because that was a childhood trauma for me. Then my best friend and college roommate of three years was murdered by her boyfriend. So those two losses for me to give back in their name and their memory. I became a counselor helping people through love trauma. She was murdered by her boyfriend and then I became also a drug and alcohol counselor. Not because me or fat family had issues. It's because people needed help in that area and I did it in the spirit of Michael. So that's how my journey started. I didn't get to go back for my master's in psychology until I raised my daughters. So I went back at age 37, graduated at 40, and opened up Therapy by the Sea in year 2000. So I've been doing therapist work for close to 26 years. And then in 2009 and 10, I became certified as a coach for singles and couples. And then after a love trauma that I experienced in 2011 where my partner said to me, I don't know why I ruined everything I love. And I said, I don't know either because it was certainly nothing I studied and I was a great student with a triple masters. And I'm like, what does he have? And I went to seven therapist friends. Nobody could figure it out. And that's really what sent me into the deep psychological journals to put the puzzle pieces together. Why was I choosing partners such as this? And why would people do these types of self sabotaging behaviors unconsciously when consciously they don't want to? So it really became clear to me that childhood traumas impact you as an adult in life, love and business, which we in adults called love trauma. So I found a fascinating work. I wrote my two number one best selling books, Live beyond your dreams from fear and doubt to personal power, purpose and success. Then love beyond your dreams. Break free of toxic relationships to have the love you deserve. So those were the core books. When love got up to 400 pages, I'm there, I have to stop. And then I wrote notebooks, one for singles, one for couples. And then I had my curriculum and came out as a coach and started talking about childhood and love trauma in year 2015 with the research that I had uncovered. And at that point I started coaching. [00:04:49] Speaker B: What common patterns did you discover in a lot of people when it comes to early childhood trauma and how that influences ineffective relationships? [00:05:00] Speaker A: Okay, well, maybe we start back at the beginning. What is childhood trauma? Because most people when they hear that, say, well, I didn't have trauma. But the facts are in 2021, 100% of us do have some of the top 10 traumas that I uncovered. In 2012, when I created the Childhood Trauma Checklist, 90% of the people I interviewed said they had some of those on the list. And then the joke around that was 10% are narcissists. And nothing's wrong with them. It's everybody else has trouble. Right? So but 2021, they said 100% of us have some traumas is really easy to understand. And it's about your childhood experiences, whether it's at home, at school, with a community coach, something that happened as you were moving. It could be anything, right? So in 2021, I believe the numbers really went up because all of us experienced trauma around Covid. So whether there was job loss or kids had to stay home from school and couldn't be going to school with their peers, or, you know, people lost jobs. And the fears around Covid, that is what we call a community trauma. But let me go back and start with what are the top 10 traumas? And these were all found with the varied work that I did as a therapist through the years. So not only did I have a private practice, but I worked in the schools with kids all the way from kindergarten through college and also served as a school psychologist. At one point, I worked in a mental health ward with kids ages 5 through 19 for a hospital group in South Jersey. I worked in drug and alcohol facilities, one for teens and one for women from the prison system and other jobs. But I had found through all these diverse populations in different ages, male, female, straight, LGBTQ, it didn't matter. These top 10 traumas kept coming up. That led to the issues that ended them up where they were. So this is where my childhood trauma checklist was devised. So the first one is if there was any alcohol, drug issues, or addiction in the family. Being that I'm an addictions counselor too, I named 12 of them. So it's not only drugs and alcohol, but there's sex. So knowing that your parent had a lover on the side, a sex addiction, porn use, gambling, hoarding, spending, eating, gaming, TV watching, workaholism, social media addiction. So these are just a few of the addictions. If they took place over time with your child, that could have gotten in the way. Number two is verbal messaging. So what messages did you hear as a child? Did you hear, I love you, I'm proud of you, Good job, kiddo. Even if you didn't win or did you hear well, you didn't do very good, you could have done this better, that better. You don't measure up to so and so. These are verbal, verbal put down messages. Also under this category, how did your parents work through an issue? Did they yell and scream at each other, or were they kind and work through and solve the problems? So the verbal messaging is very important in many ways as an adult, and you'll see how that comes into play. Number three is emotional abuse and neglect. Number four is any physical abuse, rape, or molestation. Number five is around abandonment. And there's two types, fault and no fault. So a no fault abandonment example would be if your parent died early or if your parent was deployed for war and had to leave the family or they traveled a lot for business, but that is how they supported the family. They thought they were doing a good thing. And then a fault abandonment would be never being involved in your child's life, being involved while the couple was together. Once there's a breakup, you barely saw the child. Or even if the parent is actively in the house but not emotionally active with the child, they just kind of checked out. They don't go to their school events, sporting games, plays, those kinds of things. So just not active with the child. Number six is if they were part of the foster care system, adopted, or had to go live in another person's home because mom and dad couldn't keep them at their house. Even if it's grandma or an aunt, it's still being displaced. Number seven, a lot of people can relate to, which is personal trauma. That's any way you felt different. So were you bullied? Were you a chubby child and put down for that? Or diagnosed as ADHD and felt different in the school? Were you tall, skinny and smart and called a nerd? Were you the only African American in an all Caucasian? Did you come out gay or lesbian and your peers rejected you or your family did? All these different scenarios are examples of personal trauma. Number eight is around the sibling. Did your sibling bully you or was your sibling born with a medical condition so mom and dad had to give them more time and attention? Or the one most people can identify as when the sibling was the golden child, the favored one, so maybe the star athlete, or they were more handsome or more beautiful, or the smarter student, and you could just tell they were getting more love from mom and dad. Trauma 9 has two parts. The first part is number 11 that I had to move down, which is community trauma. And again, that's anything that impacts the community at large, like Covid or our Mother Nature. Events like floods, fires, hurricanes, tornadoes, wipes out communities. Of course that impacts the family. So family trauma was always number nine. But that also includes if you grew up in a dangerous neighborhood or if your family suffers with poverty, or you're always struggling to make ends meet if one of your parents was incarcerated or you are part of a military family, like here in the U.S. our military families move every two to four years, making that child the new kid in the school, you know, and that's very hard on a new child in the schools. And then number 10 is any mental health issues in mind? Mom and dad. Now if you're part of my generation, which was the baby boomer generation, we didn't really see our parents go to counseling. So you kind of have to guess the two hardest for the parent, the kids to go through is if your parents had borderline personality disorder or bipolar. So bipolar is manic depressive. Manic phase could be a high and happy phase like going out and buying four purses and spending $3,000. But then depression comes when you can't meet the bills and you're struggling for three or four months, freaking out because you don't have the money to pay for it. That's a manic depressive phase. Borderline personality I describe as people. When they're good, they're great, but when they're bad, they're horrid. And the child never knows what they're going to get. It's like a child always anxious, walking on eggshells. And these parents can explode at the littlest things that nobody else would get upse over. So those are the top 10 traumas that I describe. [00:12:29] Speaker B: Yeah. So with those traumas, would you say that they become like an event in time which is not resolved with clarity. And so because of that we learn a behavior or a way to react or act in the world which is ineffective. [00:12:46] Speaker A: Yes, absolutely. As children we come up with these childhood type coping mechanisms. Right. So if your parents were yellers and let's say you tried once to defend yourself and you got smacked across the face and told, shut up, we don't care what you have to say. You learned as a child, I better shut up and say nothing or I'm going to be in more trouble. So as an adult, they have passive aggressive behavior. They get quiet sometimes they don't talk to their partner for hours or days if there's a fight. And in that way they're punishing them. They feel a sense of power over that because this was never solved. They never learned empowering communication to talk about issues or their feelings. They were told, what you have to say doesn't matter. So there's anger behind that and there's fear behind that. So that's one way that can come out. If a partner is very jealous and controlling, that's usually verbal messages of you're not good enough. And trauma seven of them say you're a male and you're a petite male in high school and you had a couple crushes on girls. They're like, ew, I don't want to date you. You know, these kind of put downs where people can be mean in high school and middle school and you didn't feel good enough. So as a Man, you're jealous and controlling, thinking you're going to lose your partner, because subconsciously that wasn't taken care of. The healing didn't happen around that trauma. If there was an angry parent in the house, let's say an alcoholic mother, and the oldest sibling was a girl, she might get up, get all the kids dressed for school, make their lunches, get into the school bus. So mom isn't yelling because she has a hangover that day. And instead she hears, thanks, hon, for taking care of all of that, becoming the mini parent. And she learns, well, if I do all these things to please this difficult person, I'll be loved. And that showed up when I had a couple come to me for coaching. And the woman says, I do everything for my husband and my kids, and they do nothing for me. You know, I do this to show them I love them. And the husband said, well, I don't ask you to do all those things. If you didn't do it, I would do it for myself. So her boundaries were real stretched, right? Because this is what she learned. This is what love is. So unfortunately, they normalize these patterns and they don't break them or see them as anything wrong. And until the relationships keep failing and falling apart, there's many more combo combinations of this, like at least 24. Perfectionism, impulse. If you're a high impulse person, these are the people that are tend to cheat in. In marriage. Or an example of the guy going out and saying, I want that shiny red Corvette sports car. We may not have the money, but we'll make do. And I don't care what my wife has to say. That's an impulse buy. And it ruins relationships because they want what they want and they want it now. And that can be on that borderline of narcissistic tendencies where it's only about them. But they might have grown up in an impoverished way, worked hard, you know, got a decent position, and now he wants what he wants. So there's all these different combinations of how this can show up in many different ways. Those are just a few of them. [00:16:18] Speaker B: Can you explain how your mindset for success system helps clients attract healthy relationships? [00:16:25] Speaker A: Sure. Well, when someone works with me, I describe it like a rainbow. They're coming to me. They don't understand why they're attracting toxic partners, why they can't make their relationships work. I have many people successful in business but struggle in love, and they're like, why can I be successful here? But I can't get love right? And it's very Frustrating. And the answer to that question is, let me give that example, then I'll answer your other question is that let's say a young girl has a very toxic, volatile home because of the alcoholism. She goes to school and she learns well, if I work hard and get grades, at least I'll keep peace and I'll. They'll be happy I get A's on my report cards. But at the same time, they're getting love and accolades from their teachers. So they learn that learning is fun and getting grades in school feels good. So they become successful because they develop a work ethic. So they got that part down. Then when it comes to love, they never healed the original love trauma that went on with their parents. Right. So that can occur. So everybody is a different puzzle when they come to me. But they're all at that part of frustration. So there's many skills they have to learn. The first is trauma recovery skills. And as they learn to process their trauma and heal from that, then they go on to learn mindset for success skills. And all of this is trademarked, and there's a certain reason this is done in a certain order, because we have to put out the fires first. So let's say there's a woman with a child in a very volatile, abusive relationship. My number one concern is safety for her and the child. What do we have to do to put out those fires? What do we have to do to get her safe? What do we have to do to get her smarter and be empowered enough to call the police? You know, things like that. Handling the most pressing things first, then healing the trauma and learning empowered communication and then doing mindset. So it's this huge learning curve, getting up to the rainbow. And once they've got that and they practice it and they know it and they learned it and they've got it, where the conscious mind has now overtaken, taken those subconscious, normalized patterns that don't serve them, they're all gone. And they have new behaviors and new patterns that are serving them and making them feel more confident, more successful. And at the end of our journey together with coaching, there is the pot of gold at the end where they feel amazing and they never go backwards because now they have these skills and they're ingrained and they're learned. So I can teach one lesson on the show about mindset work. The research shows 8 out of 10 people have 8 out of 10 negative thoughts. Many of them have negative ruminating thoughts. If they had a bad breakup, how can I get my guy back what could I have done different? Does he still love me? You know, these thoughts, over and over, we call them ruminating thoughts. And many people stay stuck in their negativity, which we call the dark side. Okay? So we are always striving to live in the light. And the visual I have for that is the yin yang symbol, right, from Buddhism. So if you're living in the light, it's a white paisley with a black dot. If you're living in the dark side, it's a dark paisley with a white dot. So what does this represent on the dark side? This is where negative mindset is and fear based thinking. Anything that's dark, that makes you feel bad, it's depression, anxiety, addiction, murder, rape, anger, jealousy, control. Anything that's dark that makes you unhappy, okay, that's the dark side. The little white dot reminds you at any time you can go through this and come into the light and live in a whole different way in the light, what's there? Happiness, joy, doing work that you love, having purpose in life, friendships, emotionally healthy love, spirituality. Anything that makes you feel good and happy and joyful is living in the light. The black dot reminds us that this is the earth school and at any time we can be challenged. But how do you deal with the challenge? And that's where having mindset makes all the difference. So here's an example. During COVID here in America, we were told for 30 days you got to stay inside. And people here were just freaking out, no, that can't happen. My kids are going to be here. I can't go to work, I can't earn money. How are we going to get food? It was like this mass mess. My first thought is, wow, I have four weekends where I don't have to leave the house. What can I do that? I really wanted to get done and needed more time. So I wrote two books of that month. Anxiety free living and loving and happiness beyond your dreams. So I wrote two 100 page books. So, you know, we go right away to, hmm, what can I do? Okay, so let me describe the differences of how people think. So living in the light, we are very proactive. We take action when we are challenged. In the dark side, they are reactive. They have that victim mentality. Why me? Oh, no. You know, panic, fear, negativity. When you're living in the light, you're very conscious. You make conscious choices about everything. What you do, what you say, what you write, what you text. Is it for the good of all? We're always thinking in a conscious way. Living in the dark side is unconscious reactions and just acting without wondering is this going to hurt anybody else? In the light, we're educated with mindset tools. We're using them all the time. In the dark side, they have no idea what mindset is. They don't practice it, they don't think about their goals. When they wake up and up for the day, they just kind of are on remote. In the living. In the light, we have positive love based thoughts about ourselves and others, our partners or friends. We are usually always going with that universal love concept. For all. In the dark side, they mostly have negative fear based thoughts, low trust, high anxiety, bouts of depression. When something happens, our first thought is what can I do? We seek the answers. And then the dark side is I can't do it mentality. It won't work for me and it works for other people, but I can't do it. You know, it's always that deflated, not believing in yourself kind of negative thoughts. In the light, we have hope, spiritual faith and trust. The dark side, that's where anxiety and depression lie. And then in the light, we always say yes to new opportunities. So we keep growing and learning so life is exciting and we're always doing better for ourselves. And in the dark side, they often say no. They feel stuck, low self esteem, they're afraid to move forward. So when I get someone with the dark side mentality, this is all the work that I'm working on to bring them into the light. [00:23:36] Speaker B: Makes complete sense. That is a lot. But I mean I getting, I'm getting my head around it exactly as you're saying at the same time. And it to me that balance is also a point of co creation with your own personal universe. So yes, what you put in is what you get out. Really. [00:23:55] Speaker A: That's right, yeah. Yes. [00:23:58] Speaker B: What are common misconceptions about some people have about emotional abuse or narcissistic relationships? [00:24:06] Speaker A: Okay, Two different things. There's all kinds of abuses out there. Emotional, verbal, physical, financial. So there's all kinds of way that people abuse and manipulate. Right. A narcissist actually on the childhood trauma checklist usually has 9 or 10 of the traumas with severity levels of 9 or 10. Nobody is born a narcissist. So unfortunately these people have had usually a very rough childhood and they've learned to become self centered for survival. Now a sociopath is someone that uses another for pleasure, profit or lifestyle advancement. And they are usually a narcissist on top of it because it's all about them. Right. This psychopath is a narcissist, sociopath, and then someone who kills. And this is all without remorse. So the worst is a psychopath. One step down is a sociopath and another step down from that as a narcissist. Okay. So there's a lot of childhood psychological damage there, which is very sad. And if you've ever been on the the side of dating a narcissist or sociopath, and there's a lot of sociopaths amongst us and it's like one in seven people or I heard one time, one in five. So you know, you have to be careful if you're single and out there dating that you really know what you're doing. And I say there's an art and psychology to dating successfully and there's certain questions you want to be asking and you need to know about childhood trauma, you know, and yes, we can have compassion for these people, but that doesn't mean we have to date them. Right. So there are red flags early on. You have to know what the red flags are and what are you seeing early on. And there's questions you should be asking on date one and two. Now all this information is in my love beyond your dreams book. So There are the 24 questions that are listed that you should ask that will give you some insight of how emotionally healthy is this person. And that's what you're trying to find out. We don't date our group. My coaching clients do not date based on chemistry because all the research shows you pick someone out with chemistry. What happens is the mindset likes what it knows. Okay. So it keeps taking you back to your past. And we have to do really more emotional intelligence when we're dating and date what we call with intention and date consciously. Yeah. [00:26:50] Speaker B: And the other point with that too is even with having that list of red flags and asking those questions, you have to be conscious enough to know that when you see that red flag, you don't push it over and go, oh no, that's okay, right? [00:27:03] Speaker A: I marry them. No, it gets worse. The cycle of abuse always gets worse. So you have to see it early on and have that self esteem and self love to move forward and say, I'm sorry, I don't think we're quite a match. And you release them in love and move forward. But that's why you have to know these questions to ask on date 1, 2 and at the latest 3. And if you're really interested, then do a background check after date three, you have to really know who you're dating. The huge mistake that a lot of people make, especially women, is they're getting intimate on dates one through three. It's like, what are you doing? Why would you be sexual with someone when you don't really even know who they are and if they're right for you, you know, and that's someone with low self esteem who's using sex to get love. That is another result of unhealed childhood trauma. So there's seven different life areas that unhealed trauma actually hits. And you know, not only that type of behavioral issues, you know, poor self esteem and risk taking behavior, sexually acting out, but there's also mental health. People that have depression, anxiety, that's originally all from childhood trauma. And the big pharma wants to give you a pill and say here you go, mask the symptoms. But they never deal with the original problem, which is coming from childhood experiences, right? The negative self esteem and then the relationship issues like being too codependent or not being able to attach due to fear and low trust, difficulty making friends, you don't know what to do, you feel paranoid. Different emotional things like can't handle your anger, you frustrate easily or you shut down, you can't communicate your wants, needs and your feelings with your partner, you're too afraid or you have shame and guilt. It also impacts your physical health. Things like fibromyalgia, chronic fatigue are all caused by trauma, shorter lifespan, cardiovascular, irritable bowel syndrome, these kinds of things. And then two areas for our children. One is brain development. Now I remember being a trauma counselor in the elementary schools and so many teachers wanted to say this kid's adhd. And I'm like, let me dig a little further. No, they're coming from a traumatic home, their cortisol is up so high from their stress of their parents yelling and screaming. When cortisol is up, memory and focus is down. So what did I do with those kids? I was like a weirdo counselor having those kids meditate in my office. And then we did music therapy and I did behavioral modification charts and got them to open up and talk about what was going on. So you know, once I could re regulate their body systems and get all this high anxiety lowered and get them back, they could refocus and their grades went up and they were easier to get along with. So the teachers like them better and the kids liked them better and they were then happier children. So so many kids are misdiagnosed ADHD because of the traumatic homes and the parents aren't going to say anything. And the kids are usually scared to death to say anything. But if you have a really great trauma counselor in the schools, which every school needs one, you know why we, we were laid off due to money. But of course the budget had the football coach, right? And now the US has so many school shootings when really they need a trauma counselor in every school because there's so many kids dealing with this. But even in utero, it impacts the brain size of a child, a newborn, the mother's under a lot of stress during her pregnancy. It changes gene expression, like in DNA of the folks we're talking generations back now who were in the concentration camps, their lineage under them had very high anxiety. All change from the gene expression and the DNA of what their ancestors went through with that trauma. And then of course, language delays, problem solving issues, impaired readiness to learn. So this is happening to our littlest children. And research shows childhood trauma goes through at least three generations, if not more. So how does we change it? Knowledge is power. When I have a client that is a parent, I always ask, how old are your children and how are they doing? Because if I know this lady, for example, went through a very traumatic divorce with a very narcissistic, angry husband, I know the kids already have childhood trauma. So now I have to empower this woman, heal her trauma, empower her and teach her children new trauma healing skills as well. So in that way I can heal the whole family. [00:32:19] Speaker B: Wow. How do you integrate mindfulness into your coaching programs? [00:32:26] Speaker A: That's a part of it, as is spirituality. Spirituality is very important for healing, having the faith you can get out of this and do better for yourself and your kids. And that is all mindset as well. Because again, 8 out of 10 people have this defeatist, I'm stuck, I can't get out of this. I'll never have anyone love me again. Or they do what we call rrs, Relationship repetition syndrome. So let's say they finally get out of that toxic marriage. They read 80 self help books and say, okay, now I'm going to find somebody different. Find someone that chemistry is hot. It's the same kind of person, just a different face. And she's there. I've had three people like this that I've loved, all toxic. What am I doing wrong? And that's the frustration part, because they can't get it. They're trying to learn, read the books and do with this superficial stuff. When the deep seated subconscious work has never been done, which is the trauma recovery, healing. When we get that done and we get Them empowered, then they go out and date. They would never settle for anything else. They would never settle for someone. And they're smarter. They know what to look for. They know the questions to ask. And they're looking for someone who's more consciously aware and emotionally healthy this time, and not just the hot guy or girl. [00:33:51] Speaker B: That's a better outcome for sure. [00:33:53] Speaker A: Yeah, for sure. [00:33:57] Speaker B: Can you share some of your experience working with diverse populations, for example, in the prison system, with women and adolescents and how that shaped your understanding of trauma? [00:34:08] Speaker A: Sure. I guess the best example is my ladies from the prison system. This was in a drug rehab in Atlantic City, down in the city. And the women coming out of jail were from or juvenile home schools. Were 16, and my oldest lady was 68 at the time. And I was hired to do Saturday morning counseling because that was the only time period I had open. And I was doing my trademark system based on my books. And I was just starting to write the notebooks then, and they're like, we need you as a night counselor. So I went in two nights, and then I taught a lesson on Saturday. I remember walking in on Saturday and they're in their robes and their curlers and they're cursing. Why do we have to come to a class Saturday? It's our day off. And I'm like, I get that, ladies, but I'm not going to talk to you at all about drugs and alcohol. They're like, then when are we going to learn? I said, everything else you need to know to get out of here. So I showed them the movie the Secret. Not in the first class, like the second or third class. And one lady says, well, Ms. Rihanna, that's great. You can use this mindset work if your life's together. But we're stuck in here. How is that ever going to work for us? I said, good question. Here's another way to look at it. You may be stuck in here, but one, you're not in a prison cell. Two, you have three days a meal, three meals a day that you don't have to buy, schlep the groceries home or cook the meals. You have clean beds with clean sheets every day. You have 32 sisters here that understand your pain. You may not have your children every day, but you have the ability to have them visit you and give them hugs and kisses where in jail you could not. And another lady stands up and she goes, Ms. Rihanna, we are blessed. And I'm there. There you go. That's the other way you look at it now. They understood what Mindset was, that's awesome. That's awesome. Yeah. So that's an example of a very diverse population and using mindset work. Then I taught them job skills, parenting skills, resumes. They all had a resume before they left there, how to interview for a job. So they learned life skills. And I had found most of the rehabs aren't teaching life skills. Even the teenage rehab where I worked, like, you know, the kids were just standing outside smoking or watching tv, and I'm like, this is early on, I had to get credits to be a drug and alcohol counselor. I'm like, can I teach these kids life skills? They're like, well, not paying in anything extra. I'm like, I am putting time in here, and I. I think these kids need to learn about job skills and interviews and get more confidence in themselves because they're feeling pretty put out now at, you know, 15 through 18 being a drug, alcohol rehab center. They're like, yeah, sure, go for it. And these kids just, like, blossomed. So why aren't these centers doing this is my question. [00:37:05] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, we can't really go into that, but I was going to ask you about key psychological characteristics that people must develop to be able to create lasting, healthy relationships. What would you think they are? And. [00:37:21] Speaker A: Okay, well, let me see. I have a whole list of them somewhere, and I would go over them. They're from my book, love beyond your dreams. But let's see what ones I can remember without my cheat sheet. There's five Fs, so one is foundation, meaning the foundation within each of you is solid. You've got good values, good morals, you like who you are, your life is together. Like, you love your work, you're not in debt, you feel good about your life. You are ready, really for a partner. Another F is fun. Do you share the same activities? Do you have the same future vision together? Where do you want to go? And as simple as travel. Are you someone that, like, cruises, or are you a camper? You know, what is your fun? Does that match up with each other? Another F is fidelity, meaning do you have the ability to be honest and honorable and have integrity, meaning doing the right things when nobody is looking. Say you're trustworthy. You know, there is a foundation in intimacy, and that doesn't mean sex necessarily. That means the ability to love and be loving. Right? So you know, daily affection, holding hands, giving hugs. You know, being kind with your language, with your attitude, so that active intimacy can easily lead to happy sexual life, a healthy life, because the intimacy is there on a daily basis. So those are just a few. You share the same goals regarding parenting. You share the same vision of partnership within the home. Right. So both people are working, which tends to be the norm these days. It used to be in the 70s when I grew up, it's like, okay, the woman goes off to college, gets a job, does the cooking, does the cleaning, takes care of the kids. Like we were on Super Burnout, you know? And they're like, well, why aren't you happy? And it's like, well, you know, where's our chance to even have two minutes of personal time? So it was way a skew back then because our moms were homemakers. They stayed home with their children. So it was in the 70s that our generation was supposed to step up to everything. The women and the men didn't do anything in the household. Very rarely. Like, my ex never changed a diaper, yet I'm working full time to help support the household now. I watch my son in laws, two millennial guys in their 40s now. And there were fabulous fathers, definitely feeding the kids and changing the diapers and doing daddy days and being active at school, being active as their coaches. So from the millennial men, they get it, I think, because they saw their moms going through so much that they really have stepped up to be great partners for their wives. So I think it's gotten better through the generations. But you're really looking to be a good teammate. You know, it's you and you and your partner against the world. Right? It's you putting each other first, having a lot of fun. Never stop dating. Never ever. Usually get couples, and last time they date, they have no idea, because kids got in the way or work got in the way, and they stopped having fun. So you always have to have fun and romance each other. That is ongoing as you work and you put that income towards your dreams and goals for your future. [00:41:01] Speaker B: Beautiful. Yeah, yeah. Can you talk about the importance of understanding unconscious behavioral patterns in healing relationship. [00:41:09] Speaker A: Wounds and healing what? [00:41:12] Speaker B: Relationship wounds? [00:41:16] Speaker A: Yes. When I work with couples, there's three entities. Partner A, partner B, in the relationship. Because I do work with straight and LGBTQ singles and couples as well. Okay. So I have to heal the trauma of both partners individually. So with my couples, I always have individual time, and then I have couples time. Then initially when I get them, I have to put out fires is what I call them. So very early on, we have a communication lesson, and it's a whole hour of me teaching my type of coaching. We're Working as a team, but very much in the beginning, I am teaching, teaching new skills and new patterns that they have to start practicing, right? So they learn to be more open and with more confidence as time goes on. But they already learned the communication skills to try to express these things. And they're practicing them the whole four to six months that we're working together. And then when they understand childhood trauma within themselves, they understand what their triggers are, and they understand the triggers of their partners. So very often people will take. When their partner is triggering around something, they take it personally. Oh, she's mad at me again. When it really has nothing to do with you. It might have been a client that said something to her that upset her, but she's now in a bad mood. And instead you can say, are you okay? How can I support you? You know, and you're not taking it so personally. So you learn these patterns, you learn how to communicate around them, and the triggering becomes less and less, because now they know, okay, that would be upsetting to him. So let me be consciously aware and choose my words in a different way. You know, and there's all kinds of relationship rules, like I said, that they need to learn that they didn't learn anywhere. I didn't learn them. We didn't learn them in the families. We didn't learn them in schools. We didn't learn them in master's programs. But this is something I put together because it's so important, because everyone has some trauma somewhere, that our communication skills have to be very conscious so that we are able to discuss our feelings in an empowered way and not trigger our partner. And if we do, our spirituality rule is quick to apologize and quick to forgive. Oh, hon, I'm sorry. That didn't sound real nice. Let me reword that. You know, and you just take away the defense of the person right away, so it becomes so much easier and more fun. And, you know, when the people on the other side of the rainbow, they're like, oh, my God, how was I ever that angry, nasty person, sarcastic person, using you as a brunt of my jokes. Like, they look at their behavior after the fact, and it's like, how was I that person? And I said, don't be so hard on yourself because you didn't get any attention in your home. You knew in school when you were the class clown and did sarcasm and jokes, you got love, and that behavior just stayed with you, and you used it. But it's not funny when it comes to you putting down your wife in front of A group of people, right? So now they understand where it came from, what was the use, why did they do it, and why it's harmful. So now they start breaking the patterns. [00:44:36] Speaker B: Yeah. Yeah. Well, that leads me to that next question, which is, what is one piece of advice you'd give those stuck repeating toxic relationship cycles? What's a simple pattern break that they can actually use? I mean, you did talk a bit about, you know, finding the faith in relationships. Is that one you'd recommend as a really good one to actually help break those sort of patterns? [00:45:00] Speaker A: There's so many of them. There's. There's actually a whole trauma wheel. Like when one person does this, it triggers one person to do that, which then in turn makes them do that, which in turn makes them do that. So it's my job to figure out what this trauma wheel is. And every couple's different, right? They have reoccurring arguments or they can't get beyond the past. They keep bringing the past up, or, you know, one's not feeling heard or one's always has to be right. You know, there's these different things that they aren't really conscious of, where they're doing them. So it's breaking that by education. You know, I have to educate them that to make them see that this was the pattern they're doing. And because he was doing that, she responded this way. Right. So it's really so individualized and what they're presenting to me. So it's first understanding their childhood trauma wounds, why they get angry or defensive because it's an old wound, they're triggered, and then what they're doing instead. So let's say a man puts his wife down. She gets angry at first. She yells, and he does it again. So now she shuts down because she's not connected to him. I don't want to talk to him. And how he's mad because he's not having intimacy or sex because she's just not related, not feeling safe, not engaged. So then what happens? He gets mad, he does it again, you know, so it's. It's the wheel that has to be broken. And it's through education of what I learn from each person and the couple's dynamic, that third entity of what keeps going on, and I have to seek that out. [00:47:01] Speaker B: Okay, so how can listeners learn more about your programs or start their own journey towards healing today? [00:47:07] Speaker A: Okay, the best thing is to go to my website. It's my name, rhiannamilne.com and if you've been Driving. The good thing is under quizzes, the childhood trauma checklist is there. Start there. It's fascinating if you think you're in a toxic relationship. Under quizzes is the red flag checklist. Do that one for yourself. On the homepage is a free ebook, how to have the love you deserve. It's about 36 pages, free, very educational. And under books, you can get the first 60 pages of live and love beyond. You'd dream. So start there. And I have a podcast called Lessons in life and love with coach Rhianna Milne. I have 126 shows out and on my YouTube channel, like 350 audios and videos. They are all free. And if you want to work with me to go through your personal trauma checklist and love trauma and let me help put those puzzle pieces together, we do a blueprint of how Coach can help you specifically write exactly what we would work on. And that is a two hour private session with me by Zoom. So I do them around the world and it's on a super, super special. There's a big orange button on the homepage. Just click there and I meet with you and we do everything step by step and get you in your healing journey. [00:48:29] Speaker B: Awesome. Sounds nice and easy. Thank you so much, Rihanna, for everything you've shared today. It's been a pleasure talking with you and hearing of your understanding of trauma and how that can heal people and the world. [00:48:41] Speaker A: Thank you, cj. I just want to encourage our listeners that they can have that life they desire and the love that they deserve. Life's too short, so go for it. And good luck. [00:48:52] Speaker B: Yeah, thank you. All right, I'll just say goodbye to listeners. Wow, that was really good. Thank you so much, Rhianna, for coming on the show and sharing all that you shared. If you've enjoyed today's show, please reach out to Rana specifically on your own and just say thanks because it was really well presented. Her understanding is deep. And, you know, with that many years behind you and a wealth of experience in so many facets of life to do with psychology and inner child healing, trauma work, you're going to know so much that you can share it so willingly and clearly. So if you've enjoyed today's show, remember to like and subscribe. And if you're on a podcast app, remember to five star us. Say something nice and share this to a friend who you think might need it. That'd be really appreciated. And until next episode, it's bye for now. [00:49:51] Speaker A: Like and subscribe. Don't forget, we'll see you soon. Sad to, Lambert.