Survival with Tarryn Reeves

Blair Kaplan Venables: 00:00:00

trigger warning, the Resilience Project provides an open space for people to share their personal experiences. Some content in this podcast may include topics that you may find difficult, the listeners discretion is advised.

Blair Kaplan Venables: 00:00:19

Hello friends, welcome to radical resilience, a weekly show where I Blair Kaplan Venables have inspirational conversations with people who have survived life's most challenging times. We all have the ability to be resilient and bounce forward from a difficult experience. And these conversations prove just that, get ready to dive into these life changing moments while strengthening your resilience muscle and getting raw and real. Welcome back to another episode of radical resilience.

Blair Kaplan Venables: 00:00:55

It's me, Blair Kaplan Venables, and I'm here with my friend Tarryn. She is the CEO and founder of for Eagles publishing the publishing house of choice for entrepreneurs who want to make an impact with their words. She is a co author in the woman Gone Wild book, right? I'm gonna go on wild wealth edition. Yeah. And we met on the internet. And in this past June, June 2022, we became friends because we were on a media tour together, we, we went all over America and had some really funny moments. She's amazing. Like, she's, she's a brilliant soul, brilliant human. She is a USA Today best selling author, book coach, publisher and marketer, who has been featured in the Los Angeles Times World News Network, thrive global and more. She is just a good fucking person. And usually, we've had a couple catch up since she went back to Australia, and I came back to Canada, you know, and she's not working on manuscripts, which she seems to be doing all the time in nature, or reading a book with a cup of herbal tea, or having FaceTime zoom dates with me. And exactly, you know, I only started to get to know you like in the last six, seven months, and I didn't really understand your story until you got on stage at the book launch for the woman book. And I was like, holy shit. So I know you have lots of stories. But you know, what, what you and I talked a lot about was the traumas we carry with us from our childhood. And, you know, I, I would love to open the floor to you to share your story.

Tarryn Reeves: 00:02:33

Yeah, I'd love to. So something that I think the world needs more of is people who are willing to get real, raw and vulnerable to tell it like it is for them from their version so that we can go, Hey, you're not broken, hey, this is life, tough things happen. And you can come out the other side, you need to, you know, find your people to lift you up and support you, you need to find yourself. Because I think that we are born with such a deep truth and contented knowing with who we are and what we're here to do. And then life happens, right? Your parents put their trauma on you, and you go to school, and the kids are mean and the media is throwing up at you advertising from the age of like, I don't know, probably before you can come out the womb at this bloody rate. But you know, and we've suddenly become these people that we don't even know. And if we're lucky enough, we get delivered. What some people would say trauma, challenging times, and things like that, to bring us back home. So I really want to reframe this, that these bad things. Yeah, they suck. And they're so friggin hard at the time. And it's seriously feels like Hey, I did not sign up for this, where's the eject button? The Abort mission button, but we can only come back to that remembering and that solid connection with who you are and what you are capable of when these things happen. And for me, I was born in Zimbabwe, and lived there for 15 amazing, wonderful, wonderful years we lived on a farm and I was that I was wild. I was a wild child right I still am. So I'm a wild child. I still are. I just look like an adult form right now. And I would run around with no shoes on I would be climbing trees I'd be rescuing animals I'm still I'm still that person. And hugging trees learning how to make rope out of bark. You know that really beautiful, beautiful childhood that I was blessed to have unfortunately, Africa being Africa. There's always a lot of political violence in that part of the world. I don't know why. probably has something to do with colonization and you know, disconnection from self and tribe and all that sort of stuff. We're not going into that today, that's a whole different ballgame. But long story short, they erupted really intense political violence within Zimbabwe. And if you've ever seen the movie Blood Diamond, that's what I tell people who are from first world countries that it was like, because it's a very visual scene for them. They were child soldiers. There was a lot of guns, there was a lot of murder, there was a lot of rioting. There was a lot of bullying, and yeah, it was intense. So I was experiencing that from the age of probably about 13 to 15. When we actually were forced to flee. We had people come on to our farm and say, You have five minutes to get off. If you're not off in five minutes, we will kill you. And they weren't messing around. I mean, my one of my close friends, her dad had been murdered the week before with sticks wrapped in barbed wire while she watched they beat him to death. And I know it's really intense for a podcast. And maybe we need to put like a warning on the front of say, possible triggering

Blair Kaplan Venables: 00:06:02

or there's a trigger warning on every episode. Oh, good.

Tarryn Reeves: 00:06:05

Okay, just checking. I'm like, how intense Do I go here. But I think you guys can handle it. Because this is this is real, right? Because this is happening all around us whether you're in third world country on a first world country or anywhere in between. Violence is happening, unfortunately. And so it was basically like everything that we had built up my family, my parents had built up everything we had no one was just taken overnight. And it's like someone knocking on your front door and saying, Oh, hey, by the way, this is our house now. Thanks for the TV. Thanks for the bed. Thanks for the you know, the pets, whatever. See you later. And you kind of just like ushered out the door. And you're going What do you mean? What do you mean? And so I when that happened, I actually happened to be a boarding school. So I went to an all girls boarding school, I only went home once a month. That's just the way the schooling system is over there. And I will never forget. And this is where I think my real trauma started. I will never forget the night that the matron woke me up from the dormitory brought me downstairs and she said, Taryn, your parents have had to flee the farm. And we don't know where they are. And so my 14 year old brain is going okay, so I'm an orphan. I'm an orphan now. They did. They've been beaten to death. They've been had their heads chopped off, like, I don't know. And I had a younger sister who was at a different school. And I was like, right now I've got to be a mom. Like all of these things at the age of 14 are like running through my head going. Okay, like, and I'm like, What do you mean, you don't know where they are? Well, we don't know where we are. They are but I'm sure they're safe. And then I'm like, Well, I'm sure they're pretty not friggin safe. Like my home environment right now is not safe. And so I had to then go back up to the dormitory and go to sleep. I will let you know when we know. Well, yeah. Okay. I know. It wasn't

Blair Kaplan Venables: 00:08:02

like, what did you do? Like what did you What do you do? Like, what do you do? And you're given such catastrophic news. Back then there wasn't cell phones, I'm assuming.

Tarryn Reeves: 00:08:10

Oh, yeah. No, no, we had cell phones. You know, the old ones. The flip phone where you play Snake on it? Oh, yeah. Nokia, Nokia 365.

Blair Kaplan Venables: 00:08:17

Yes. Those aren't a slip. Or they flip. Though they weren't there.

Tarryn Reeves: 00:08:22

You can? No, no. Yeah, no. Okay. That was maybe further on. No, I had a Nokia 365 It was like lime green. But at boarding school is the schooling system. You aren't only allowed your phones they are locked in a safe at all times. You're allowed them for 45 minutes between four and 5pm on a weekday. So and then they Yeah, anyway.

Blair Kaplan Venables: 00:08:42

Oh my gosh. Okay, so you find out this catastrophic news? Yeah, you don't have an answer. And now you have to go to bed.

Tarryn Reeves: 00:08:50

And you're in like a dormitory full of like 50 other girls sleeping on like cots. With wardrobes next to him all the lights are off, you're not allowed to talk otherwise you get punished. So I literally just went and laid in the dark for however many hours it was until the bell went off to get us all out. And I actually don't clearly remember what happened after that. I think it's something that is either not relevant to me or I've kind of just lost in amongst all the chaos that happened thereafter. But long story short, they found my parents my parents had in the capital city with my dad, no, my mum's mum and dad so they were safe. That was fine. And but just like that overnight, having that trauma and then going okay, well, we've just lost that safe childhood place, which was so idyllic for somebody like me, massive introvert, you know, very connected to nature, that sort of thing. Like I don't do well with being told what to do when to do it, kind of society and then having to do Be with my grandparents and then fine in a city environment now nonetheless, I go, Wait,

Blair Kaplan Venables: 00:10:06

hold on. So you were okay. i Sorry, I need some clarification. And you cut out a little because like internet. So you were in overnight, you had to lie in bed, like where the heck are my parents? Are they dead? Oh my gosh, you wake up and like you find they tell you your parents are safe. And they're in the capital city and they're with your grandparents? Yeah. Did you have to stay at school? Oh, yeah. For how long? Like what?

Tarryn Reeves: 00:10:30

I honestly don't remember, but I only went home once a month. So it could have been anywhere from three weeks to one week? Or?

Blair Kaplan Venables: 00:10:37

I don't know, were you able to talk to them? Between

Tarryn Reeves: 00:10:41

you between four and five for an hour? On my prepaid minutes? Yeah, and of course, you know, they were like, That's fine, everything's fine. Because that's your job as a parent, right to tell your child that everything's fine. But if clearly, everything was not fine. My dad actually had a, a breakdown, and he went mute for 48 hours, he just didn't talk at all, from the trauma. And then my mom went into like hyper protective mode, trying to do everything for everybody, which obviously then results in various other mental health issues and things like that. And we were all so traumatized by everything that had happened. I mean, my sister had to sleep with bells on the gate, at every new house, even in Australia, right up to today. And that was 19 years ago now. So that we can hear people coming and going, like, I'm the lightest sleeper in the world, if a fly flies past my head, I will hear that fly. And I will ninja it because because I'm so used to being on edge and protective of my environment, that that's what it does, you know, and when that trauma sits in your body for so, so long, because also coming from a culture that's like, Don't air your dirty laundry in public, you know, we get up and we keep going. There's no such thing as depression, there's no such thing as anxiety. There's no such thing as mental health, like, don't talk about these things like that was the culture that I grew up in. And I know that a lot of people experience within their family environments and things. I'm glad that 19 years later, the sort of thing is very much more spoken about. But I was the first one in my family to speak up and say, Hey, I'm not okay. I am not okay. Because I got to the point where I was so stressed in my life and trying to operate on this level of unhealed trauma, and then all of these other things that I then packed on, when we moved to Australia, for example, I'll just backtrack a bit so that people kind of get what I'm saying here, because it involves a bit of background story. So we had to move basically, you can't live in a country that doesn't. That wants to kill you. Long story short, they're fair. Yeah. Yeah. And so we had to apply to Australia, or Ireland was the other option because of the laws and things like that. And my dad wanted somebody with good schools and similar weather. And obviously, Ireland was out for him with the whole similar weather thing, which I'm quite sad about. I love Ireland. But anyway, we had to move literally to the opposite side of the world to Australia, this big ass island in the middle of frickin nowhere that I had never even heard of, let alone been to as a kid. And I was quite bullied at school in high school growing up because I was weird. I still am. Because I don't I don't you know, fit myself into that box. And so when all the girls were playing spin the bottle or kissing the boys when they came over from the boys school for the one hour visit on a Sunday,

Blair Kaplan Venables: 00:13:47

like four to five cell phone hour

Tarryn Reeves: 00:13:51

four to five Happy Hour baby. While they were all getting happy, I was playing you know, the Gameboy and playing King Kong on the Gameboy or I was reading a book. You know, I that was me. I was happy. It's also

Blair Kaplan Venables: 00:14:04

like you went through this stuff when you were so young that like these, this this new group of peers. I'm sure people suffered trauma but nothing like fleeing from your country because you're gonna get murdered.

Tarryn Reeves: 00:14:17

Yeah, yeah, it was an it was a big deal. Right? And, I mean, I was bullied before that it was I was just bullied for being the odd one out. And I think that that's, you know, when, when your society is based on on fit in or die. Basically, when you're hardwired to do that it's really difficult to navigate. Anyway, when we were told that we were going to Australia, who by the way wouldn't accept us as refugees because of the color of our skin. Just saying I know that's controversial.

Blair Kaplan Venables: 00:14:48

Maybe tell the listeners who can't see you like what you look like.

Tarryn Reeves: 00:14:52

What do I look like today? Well, I just had to do a tic toc tutorial on how to do my friggin eyeshadow because I'm up I got to go for a modeling shoot. I have curly brown hair. That's like super wild. I have really pale skin. I have blue eyes. And yeah, one of the first questions I got asked when I came to Australia from the kids at school, because then we had to assimilate into a totally different education system where it's not like the military education system that I came from, where they literally would measure our skirts to ensure that they were the correct amount below the knee to wear girls in Australia when rolling up their skirts, so that they were super short and putting on makeup and their piercings and hair colorings and all the things I was like,

Blair Kaplan Venables: 00:15:36

oh my god, I like the movie mean girls were like Lindsay Lohan moves from like, jungle

Tarryn Reeves: 00:15:40

100% Yeah, totally

Blair Kaplan Venables: 00:15:43

is Mean Girls based on your life story.

Tarryn Reeves: 00:15:46

Oh, you know what, I wonder if they want to do a sequel and hire me, I should reach out to them. If they excuse me, if anyone's listening to this, you want to hire me for me and girls number 302. Okay, so

Blair Kaplan Venables: 00:15:56

we're kind of making light of the situation. But it's not a light situation like fleeing the ball gets light.

Tarryn Reeves: 00:16:01

Now, it's light now. And the only reason being is because I've done the work. And so anyway, I said that I was going to become a whole different person when I came to Australia so that everybody would like me, right? That's what we want as teenagers is to be liked and to fit in, right. And I was like, I don't want to be bullied anymore. It's not a nice friggin feeling. And I already had all of these horrible feelings from the trauma. And so I I'm pretty sure I should have won an Oscar by now. I think it's lost in the mail for the amount of acting that I've managed to pull off between the ages of 15. And I would say 22. I arrived in Australia, and I became one of the cool people misfit cool person.

Blair Kaplan Venables: 00:16:46

But but that's you anyway, you are a misfit cool person, just a cool

Tarryn Reeves: 00:16:49

person. Yeah. But I was this really, over the top doing all the things that I didn't want to do, saying all the things that I that weren't Truly Me going out drinking, like copious amounts, and I'm telling you guys, I'm 46 kilos, like, I'm 1.2 meters tall, whatever it is. And I could drink two bottles of wine on my own and still be fine. Like that was, you know, the kind of environment that I was playing in. And the reason being is because I didn't want to feel that trauma and feelings was so triggering for me that I just wanted to be completely numb. And I didn't value myself being bullied, and then having all of this trauma, I looked for my value in everywhere, outside of myself, but within me, so I had a boyfriend all the time. And if I didn't have a boyfriend, I was freaking the fuck out. Because I didn't know how to be on my own. Because the idea of being on my own triggered all of those traumas from when I literally thought I was alone, and you know, the age of 15. And all these things, I was like, I can't do it. And so I dated like, endlessly, I drank to numb myself, but then the problem was, I would get so so drunk, that then I would have these big crying breakdowns. And all I want to talk about was the trauma, because I'd lost that inhibition by that stage. And then I couldn't nobody wants to go out with the person who gets so drunk and then like, his agony snot crying about their trauma. Yeah, yeah. And so on top of that, coming from a culture that's like strive, you know, be at the top of your game, there are certain education's that you need to study there was like, if I wasn't an A plus student, then I got in trouble. Right? It was this constant pushing like you need to study this needs to be acceptable, you need two degrees to study was literally what I was told, right? You can study this, this, this and this, anything else is not acceptable from our perspective. Right. And so I got a degree in criminology. Whilst I did that, I was working full time in the railway working 12 hour rotating shifts. You know, overachiever type A overachiever, because if I wasn't doing and achieving, and being valued by somebody else, then I wasn't worth it. They my self worth was non existent. Like why am I even here? Right? Anyway, by the age of 23, I was I had the corner office with the view over the harbor, and I had the new car and I had the house and I was earning six figure salary. And I was like, yeah, man, I've got it made. I'm killing life, you know, but I was so so dead on the inside. That I mean, I was I was sick. Anyway, enter a spectacular burnout the universe gave me a beautiful back slap and really, you know, forced me to the darkest place I've ever been. I think, you know, it got to a point where I just could not operate anymore. I was so exhausted physically and my emotionally, mentally, all the things I had shingles, shingles showed up, up and down my spine. So, so freakin painful if you've ever had shingles, I had unexplained rashes all over my jawline in my face that I got, you know, I got treated with lasers and chemicals and, and pills and everything wouldn't go away. Why? Because my body was so stressed out, and so traumatized because I hadn't dealt with anything. And so my doctor was actually South African, which was very lucky because she, South Africa, for those of you who don't know, is the country that is south of Zimbabwe, we share a border. And, you know, Africa being Africa, they were also experiencing similar things just at a later stage, similar traumas. And so she understood and she actually said to me, Taryn, you have PTSD, chronic depression and major anxiety. And I started screaming. And I was like, Don't be ridiculous. I'm not weak. These are the words that came out of my mouth. I'm not weak. Do you not know who I am? I can do anything. I am not broken. There's nothing wrong with me. There's no such thing as depression. There's no such thing as anxiety. I'm just feeling a little sad. It's okay to feel sad. I was having this full on screaming match with my doctor in her office, whilst hysterically crying, mind you, and she was like, Taryn, we need to help you. You need to go on medication. And I was like, I'm not going on medication. And because for those of you who don't yet know me, and please come and play with me, if you do want to know me,

Blair Kaplan Venables: 00:21:46

but you want to know her, you want to know you want to know

Tarryn Reeves: 00:21:49

me? Come play with me. Come send me some Insta DMS, I'll have a chat with you about all the things I don't do superficial conversations clearly. So you know, if you want to talk, we're going to talk. And I was like, I'm I'm very alternative medicine. Now. You know, I want to do the work. I want to feel the feelings. If I'm feeling pain, I want to sit in that pain. But at the time I didn't. And so when she was like, No, you need to go on vacation. I was like, No, I'm not going on medication. Do you? Have you read the side effects? Because let's be real. I'm a massive nerd. I'm like a science nerd. I'm like, have you read the side effects? Do you know they test on animals? Do you know this can happen that she's a doctor, she knows this stuff. But I was like totally against him. Anyway, what stopped me in my tracks was how she explained it to me. And for those of you who are listening, who are going through something similar or who have been through something similar, this is the best way I have ever heard getting support for mental health. explained to me, she said, Taryn, you are like a truck. And you're currently stuck in the mud. Okay. And every time you try to get out of the mud, you're just spinning your wheels, and you're just getting deeper and deeper into it. She said the medication is the tow truck that's going to come and hook up to you. And you've got a journey to go on. And it's a hill, you're the tracks stuck in the mud at the bottom of the hill. Ahead of you is a really steep hill, there is a top to the hill. And then there is a downside to the hill. The easy side to the hill. But right now you need this tow truck to come and hook up to you. And it's going to very gently slowly pull you out of the mud and all the way to the top of the hill. And so me being a smartass was like okay, fine. What if I unhook from the tow truck? About halfway up the hill, she goes, No turn if you unhook from the tow truck, as in go off your medication because I wanted to get rid of that shameful disgusting diagnosis as soon as possible. Right. She said, You will just go back down in the mud again. And so I agreed to go on the medication. And that wasn't enough for me either. I then studied yoga, I became a qualified yoga teacher, I studied meditation, I studied various things of mental health I, I really wanted to go deep into human emotion and how we can heal how do we become more resilient? What, what enables a person to move forward? How do we find that? How do we find the courage to keep going when things do feel like you're going to break? They're going to break you because I also remember feeling that if I did let things out, if I did feel that I would never be able to get back up again that I would just cry forever until I died, that I would scream forever until I died that I that it would be too raw and emotionally catice catastrophic for me to feel at that level that I would never recover. I think that was my main fear. And then obviously there was the shame and the guilt and and all of those other things that I'm broken, I'm weak, I'm pathetic, I'm unlovable, I couldn't do it. I'm a failure, the inner critic is just a vicious little bit when it comes to this sort of thing. And unless you can go there, unless you go into that really dark place, and you let it happen, where you get to the point where you're like, Fuck it, if I never get back up again. So be it. Because there is no other way you cannot, you will reach a point where you cannot continue to operate at the levels you've been operating at. And for me, it was multifaceted. I did all of these, you know, studies and things. And then I have the medication. And then I have my people. You know, I had I found my people that accepted me for who I was, I stopped looking for my work outside of myself. And it was lonely. And it was hard. And it was uncomfortable. But it was also deeply healing. Yeah, and you only you have the power to do that work. No one is going to do it for you.

Blair Kaplan Venables: 00:26:03

So I think first of all, wow, thank you. Thank you for sharing all of that your story is just so incredible. Like, it's like, I'm speechless.

Tara Bryan: 00:26:15

Unusual. We all know, that's unusual, right?

Blair Kaplan Venables: 00:26:18

Yeah, definitely. But I want to like you, you were brought up in a place in a community in a family where like, mental health, the conversations around that weren't a thing like depression is not real. Put a smile on and push through. Yeah, and you almost hit your rock bottom, or you did hit your rock bottom how? At what point like, if someone's listening to this, and they're on that same trajectory as you, but they're not fully there yet. Like, where, like at what? What do you think at what point people need to seek out help? Like, I'm asking, because I know our listeners all come from various backgrounds and experiences. I am on medication, and I have therapy and counseling, and I do all the things the yoga, the meditation, sobriety, the, you know, plant healing, I'm doing the work, I have a lifetime of healing to do like the rest of my life, I will be healing. And really we start we should be starting to heal from when we're out of the womb, like, you know, yes. But, you know, what advice do you have for our listeners as we kind of wind down here? Yeah, so yeah, like, how do we like how do you nip it in the bud? Like, what are those? What are those warning signs that you're getting to that place? Before it's too late, before they become stuck in that mud?

Tarryn Reeves: 00:27:35

Yeah. Okay, so we've got the warning signs. But before I give you the warning signs, I do want to stress that until you are ready to receive help, and you're ready to ask for help. You can't go there. You won't allow yourself to go there for whatever reason. But I hope that Conversations like these can give you the courage to know that you are not alone. There are so many of us that it's part of the human condition. Every single person on this planet has some sort of trauma or dark thing that they're dealing with. And we need to be braver about speaking up and going Hey, and when someone asks you, Hey, how are you actually telling them? One of my pet hates is when someone goes, Oh, hey, how are you in the gut? I'm fine. And I'm like, no, no, no, like, I actually want to know otherwise, I wouldn't waste my friggin time asking you how you are, you know, anyway. So I just wanted to preface the warning signs with that for me. And I think it's different for everybody. But for me, the warning signs were my coping mechanisms of drinking too much. The fact that I was starting to physically lash out at people who were who I perceived were hurting me when I was in those intoxicated states. I started when I started to drink at 9am in the morning. Like, that was a problem, right? I should recognize that sign. When you literally feel nothing inside except anger, or, like anger was my default emotion. Because I knew how to fight. I'm a fighter. I'm a natural fighter. I'm a natural warrior. Right? That was my default emotion. Other people have other default emotions, but when the only emotion I could feel was anger, that was a problem. Other than that, every other time I was just numb, completely numb. When you are sacrificing who you are, what you want, what you think, in order to please others. That's no way to live. If any of you have not read Untamed by Glenn and Doyle, please for the love of God go and buy that book right now. Oh, it's such a good book. Such a good book. people pleasing is an illness in itself. I am a recovering people pleaser. Right. And that's a warning On, because when you're doing that you're living for somebody else not for you. And that is damaging to your healing that is damaging to your purpose here on earth. What are the warning signs?

Blair Kaplan Venables: 00:30:12

and the like? Physical like physical?

Tarryn Reeves: 00:30:14

Oh, physical signs.

Blair Kaplan Venables: 00:30:16

Yeah, like you. You got to the point where you were you having rashes and whatnot. Me I know like, I can tell you when I'm about to hit burnout. My eyes twitch. Yep. I am tired all the time.

Tarryn Reeves: 00:30:31

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So the physical signs for me were acne in my 20s. Like, that was fun. I was also about to get married. And you know, I was like, What am I going to look like on my wedding day? It was something I was worried about. And then what they what they turned us rosacea, but only because they literally said, well, we don't know what else to call it. Like, this is the closest thing we can figure out. That red rash on my face. That continual exhaustion where I could have 12 hours of sleep, and wake up and feel like I'd had none. My eyes felt like they were dry and literally about to fall out of my head. Memory. What memory like yeah, brain fog. Remember your brain fog. I could not remember. You know, my birthday, how old I was, you know, that sort of people are gonna hold me on like a friggin No. Like, what do you mean, don't ask me how questions? Yeah, you know, you walk into your room and you're like, hang on, why am I here? You know, are you You are working and you're typing and you're like, what was I doing? What was I type? Yeah, yeah, you know, that constant that numbing out as well like that daydreaming but then you're not actually thinking about anything. It's like literally someone hits the off button and you just kind of like a catatonic for a bit. Yeah, just stare into space. Young kids do that when they're tired. If you've ever seen a young child, and you're trying to talk to them, and it's just like they've left their body for a little bit. That's another thing. I actually started to see things. I started to hallucinate. Oh my gosh, yeah. It actually got really bad with my mental health. I forgot to share this part. So I was still living at home at the time, I think I was 1819, something somewhere around that. And I would be awake. I will be awake, but not awake. So my eyes were open. I could have a lucid conversation with you. I could walk around very safely. Like, it was weird. But I would remember there was like I was out of my body. And I was watching myself and I would remember all of this in the morning. But I started to see three three ghosts, if you like three figments of my imagination, there was an old man. There was an old woman. And there was a child who had had her eyes gouged out and who's, who had blood streaming down her face, and she would sit at the end of my bed and just stare at me with those eyes and just keep pulling the head off her doll continuously.

Blair Kaplan Venables: 00:32:59

Oh, my God, that's like nightmare fuel is good. Goosebumps. That's yeah,

Tarryn Reeves: 00:33:03

yep. So the old man used to come. And when I saw him, and they didn't all come at the same time, but every night, I would see at least one of them. If not several, during the night, the old man would come and sit down by my bed. And the old woman would just come and stand over me. And then there was the child who would sit at the end of my end of my bed or on the floor next to my bed and just continuously, like intensely stare at me and pull the the head off her doll. And I told my parents, and I started to see them during the day as well. It got to that point, while you were awake. You were seeing I was awake. And you know, I would say to my the trauma or the burnout. I'm not sure. I think it was a combination of both to be honest. Oh my gosh. Because it was like lucid hallucination. I was awake. And I could remember this. It wasn't like, you know, and I would say to my mom, like, Mom, can you see him? She's like, who you're talking about? Because I opened up to my parents. I was like, I'm seeing these things. Like, you know, do you even go psycho open up this conversation? Right? And she was like, see who? I looked the man man. He's right friggin Yeah, look, I'm touching him. Like, I would reach out and go, Look, I'm touching him on the forehead. And she was like tearing there's nothing there. And I was like, What do you mean there's nothing there. Like it was It wasn't even like a ghost like see through ghosts. Like this man was in physical form. These things I was seeing were in physical form of like, What do you mean, I could describe the color of his eyes? How deep is wrinkles were what clothes he was wearing, what he smelled like, like, all of the things that I can't see anything. And I was like, Oh my God. I'm having a breakdown. I've lost my mind.

Blair Kaplan Venables: 00:34:37

Oh my gosh, Taryn, so yeah, yeah. Wow. And so going on medication and yoga and yeah, therapy and everything that you you started doing? Got rid of the old man.

Tarryn Reeves: 00:34:52

Yeah, it's a bit sad because he was really nice

Blair Kaplan Venables: 00:34:56

little girl that she didn't

Tarryn Reeves: 00:34:57

know I'm glad she's gone. She she needed Help. So I mean, right she didn't look happy. She didn't look like me she was I think she was like polish or something she had long like straight back here. I don't know she but she could have been me in you know if you want to look into 4d and all this sort of stuff, right? But once I started to feel the feelings, and when I hit that rock bottom and I did started doing the work, gradually these things went away. So what

Blair Kaplan Venables: 00:35:26

what the important message here is, it's it's okay to feel the feelings, all the feelings, the happy to sad, but also the hard stuff that's happened in life, we need to face it head on like it happened. So the only way to get over it is through it. The only way to heal is through and facing it and doing the work. And there's people out there like counselors and therapists, alternative healers, there's medication, there's, yeah, there's so many different resources that our global Resilience Project our community safe place to read and share stories and listen to stories and share your story on our podcast and, and, you know, help others going through this challenging time sharing your story is part of healing, whether it's in a journal or on this podcast, but you know, you don't have to have survived, you know, fleeing a country because people are getting murdered, to have to go through this like there are a lot of people who are just need support who may be

Tarryn Reeves: 00:36:27

freaking hot. You guys like the world we're living in and the pace that we're running at is insane. We are not designed to operate at this level. It's your trauma doesn't have to look like mine. trauma can be, you know, the smallest smallest of things. It's okay, there's nothing wrong with you. And just because your story isn't as deep or traumatic as mine, or somebody else's, doesn't make it any less worthy. Yeah,

Blair Kaplan Venables: 00:36:54

exactly. Wow. So I mean, I feel like there's gonna have to be a part two, maybe

Tarryn Reeves: 00:37:02

a part 23456 with maybe

Blair Kaplan Venables: 00:37:06

parently at terrines. Amazing. You know, she's just a phenomenal person, I invite you to check out her links in our show notes, share this episode, share her with your community, she's doing some really amazing work. You know, I, like I definitely am in awe of how vulnerable and special you are, you know, you have something about you. And I love our friendship and how it's blossomed. And you know, it's from what you're telling me, you used to be to who you are now they're completely different people, like I can't even see it. So

Tarryn Reeves: 00:37:46

I just think, though, in saying that the soul is the same. Yeah, the soul is the same. And you have to face it in order to step into who you were always meant to be like, if you had told me, like, even when I was a little child that I would have been speaking on stage that I would have been on a Time Square billboard that I would have been, you know, sharing a story like this, I would have laughed in your face. No, thanks. Like, no, yeah, but you are, we are so much more capable, strong and resilient than we ever give ourselves credit for.

Blair Kaplan Venables: 00:38:26

Exactly that. And like that's the whole point like we are resilient, like is okay to not be okay. Yep. That's people to support you, a community to support you. And we all have the ability to be resilient, we all have the ability to become more resilient. We can get through the hard shit, we can do hard things, right. And I mean, you're such a testament to that. So I just want to thank you so much for joining us on this discussion on radical resilience.

Tarryn Reeves: 00:38:53

My pleasure. Thank you for having me.

Blair Kaplan Venables: 00:38:57

And you're amazing so and thank you to everyone who hung out with us listen to this episode. You know, it was another Yeah, it was just like another brilliant conversation that like it leaves a lot to think about Nuno going about your life, my eyes twitching or like things are happening or weird rashes like am I starting burnout? Yeah, my meds,

Tarryn Reeves: 00:39:20

check engine light on a car. If that light is starting to go off you need to go and do something about it before your car breaks down.

Blair Kaplan Venables: 00:39:26

Yeah, so like, everyone you know, is your check engine light on is it flickering? Has it been on for a while? Go take care of yourself. And you know, thanks for tuning in to another episode. Peace out my friend