Reclaiming Your Voice & Step Into Your Power

Sometimes when you're overwhelmed, to discover your greatness is really about the fear of actually pushing through the past experiences of those triggers. And that's essential to, I say, to walk into that divine assignment that you have, to cultivate the life that you so desire to have. Welcome to the Thrive Her podcast. I'm your host, Amy Sanders.

I'm a fitness and wellness pro, mom, step-mom, second wife, and master certified life coach. I'm here to help you manage your mind so you can uncover the most potent version of yourself and create a thriving life you love. Welcome back to the podcast. Amy Sanders here, your host.

And today we are talking about how to reclaim your voice and turn your words into power. And I have a lovely guest speaker with me. Her name is Cheryl Clark, and she is so polished. She does a lot of things.

She's a psychotherapist, an unstuck coach, which we will talk about. And she's also the founder of Speak Your Power Now program. And that encompasses life seminars, webinars, coaching, and teaching, and courses, and all of the things. She's highly educated.

She's currently working on her doctoral degree in organizational studies. And really, I mean, I can keep going on and on about everything that you're doing, but I think we're going to talk about it a lot here on the podcast. So do you want to just give us an overview of your story and how you fell into this line of work? Sure.

All right. So yeah, I am Cheryl Clark. I'm a mom of six. I'm a wife of one for 27 years.

And what happened was in my lifetime, I'm also a psychotherapist. I've been in the field of that and also been an entrepreneur for many years. And for that. In my field of psychology, I've worked along the side of many people that have helped me along my journey.

And I found myself at times would get stuck in some things and some nature. And then I had to learn how to begin to move from that stuck place. So hence came the unstuck program and the things that I'm doing now. But essentially, people say, oh, Cheryl looks like she has it all together.

And Cheryl looks like she's got it all. She's a psychotherapist. She has a family. She has the children.

She has this. And I was like, yeah, so that's a mask. And I had to learn how to be very transparent with what was going on with me inside. And that's how this all came together.

Yeah. And you have an interesting story too, from just even your childhood. So you, that's where a lot of this started, right? So tell us a little bit about your childhood as well.

Yeah. So my mother always jokes that I came out talking, right? She's like, I was born. I'm talking.

But what happened was, is that I was raised in a household. I never knew my biological father. Let's start there. And I was raised in a household with emotional abusive stepfather.

So every day I was called a dumb mother ever. Oh. Yeah. And I felt like as I grew up, I would notice that I would get stuck when I need to speak out loud and I would go on a shell a little bit.

And then, or I became a bully. Really to get my point across. So those things started to happen and germinate with inside of me. And as I began to have children, things began to really show up as control as having things in certain kinds of ways in order to begin to be who I was.

But I wasn't really authentically Cheryl because I didn't know who Cheryl was. So remember, Amy, I had degrees already. I had a self-made family and all this happening. And I didn't know who Cheryl was.

And I was stuck in a moment and something happened. And if I may, with that, there's so many people live in a lifestyle where they normalize that emotional abuse and then they have to put things into perspective where how they handle it and it becomes comfortable in that space. And I had to learn how to begin to move through those things that I was going through emotionally and transform my being able to not speak powerfully, not to be able to know my own voice and get stuck in a space where every time I would talk out loud, I would get stuck in. I would go into this thing where I now have to show my power.

So now I forced my way and that didn't work either. And at that particular moment of world throughout my course of my practice, I began to see there's certain things I needed to transform and that was my communication. I think a lot of women can relate to this. I know that I can.

I was taught at a very young age to just say yes to everything, regardless of what it was. Just you say yes, especially if they're adults, like whatever adults say, you don't really have a voice. They out of respect. It's, it was called respect.

And really I look back and it wasn't necessarily respect, but just say yes and don't speak up. And I think so many women get caught in this where they're taught through example or whichever avenue it is like to. Not to speak up, to not share their voice, to hold back until they're like you, where you're like, I didn't even know who I was yet. I had already had an education.

I had a family. I was an adult and I still didn't even know. So how did you go from that place of, I have no idea who I am. Cause that right there is a, that's awareness, right?

You're like, oh, wait, it's like, you're waking up in that phase. Like, I don't know who I am. So how did you go from there to that awakening period and moving forward and speaking your voice? So something significant happened to me.

It was a couple of years ago. I would say I was at a seminar for, you know, my colleagues was there for you to do education, continuous education. And this particular facilitator was a mindfulness type of seminar. And I'll never forget it.

It had, it was the end of the program and her name was Joan. And she asked anybody had a questions or would like to say anything about mindfulness. And one of the young ladies or one of my colleagues, she was like, oh, I don't know who I am. And she said, you know, I'm a mom of four and I'm trying to do this private practice.

And I, and I feel like I don't find my boy going on and on. So I stood up of course, to give my feedback. So I said, well, I would like to say, you know, I'm a mom of six and just so you know, I have a mom of six, I'm a mom of six. And, and I just want to just offer some advice.

So Joan stopped me and said, wait a minute. She said, what did you say? I said, I'm a mom of six. She said, I want to honor you for giving us six wonderful human beings.

I want to honor you for sacrificing your body. I want to honor you for God choosing you to be that conduit. The whole room stopped and applaud. I mean, they were like, and I'm sitting there like weeping at this point.

So I'm like, oh God, I'm not present. I went home and I went to go find pictures of me pregnant. I had pictures of my first and my last. Amy, I was just moving through it all.

Yeah. I was not present. I didn't even get, I had one baby shower. I couldn't even tell you the experience of me.

Just, I was just moving. I was a robot. And at that moment, I surrendered it over to God. I said, I said, God, if you help me help myself so I can help others with the training that I got in psychology, help me to find my voice, help me to find my purpose so I can help others.

I can help other individuals speak with power because that communication was the linking and missing key for me to find my own value. And that was a changing point for me. So powerful. And I just look back at your story, that woman, what was her name again?

Joan. Look at what she did. If you even look in that scenario where you are, you stood up to speak, you said that first sentence about I'm a mom of six, and then she paused and had you really reflect on your life. How powerful are those little things that we can do by honoring people?

And that, I mean, that struck you and changed your life forever. And then in turn, because your life was changed forever, you have now been able to go on and help so many other people reclaim their voice. Correct. And when you say that, Amy, what happened was I was still now that at that particular point, I was a therapist maybe for like five years, I was five years in.

So I had a handle on it. I have been. I had trained. I was a supervisor.

I was in the public sector, you know, but I was, I was in prison. I was not present. I was just moving because I always, I struggled in learning this. Now I struggled with anxiety and panic attacks, and it was because I wasn't healed and from the past.

And I always had to learn how to be in a space. And either. I was going to be the life of the party, or I had to take a joke or do something to mask who I was. And this is the first time that you can not like what I say.

And that's okay. And I'm okay with it. You don't even have to like me and that's okay with it. You don't have to like the program.

You don't have to stay in it. But what I show you is tools. So you can regain your power. You can regain your voice or how about find it because you never, ever knew you had it.

I look back or so you and I do a lot of similar work as far as helping women learn how to thrive. And that's like, one thing that I want to do is be an example of what's possible to women and show them like how powerful they actually are. Cause so often we hold back, but when you hold your voice, like you feel it in your throat, you feel your body resisting, like your body wants to speak out. Like your soul wants to speak out, but like, you're not allowing it.

So when you started to speak your voice, what did that look like for you? Like what were the little steps? You took to be like, oh, wait, okay. That was okay.

Yeah. So what I did was I created a method called the pies method. So I was already doing this inside of the therapeutic services, but I actually coined pies P I E S. So the pies method is P pause.

This is where you pausing and you assessing yourself before you speak or have anything because, because I know I struggled with anxiety or anything of that nature, but you don't have to struggle from anxiety. You can struggle from triggers from something that has happened. So I get people very, very, very aware. Like you said, Amy of what triggers you because what triggers Amy mean that trigger show, right?

And you got to be in the moment. Cause that locks you out of, of opportunities that locks you out of purpose that locks you out of a whole lot of things. And the first thing that usually happens when we're triggered, we lose our voice. That's the first thing that usually happens.

Think about it. Yeah. You think about when you see an accident, you see something happens, your voice is taken away. It's like, you have to gain that voice.

So the first thing I say to people is I fought easy steps. You pause. And that pause is for maybe 10 seconds, 20 seconds, or maybe even longer that you've got to step away from a phone call. You've got to step away from that.

You've got to step away from the situation, get some air, change the space. And then the second thing is the, I is identify an inventory. So the, I is. Is that you've got to identify what are the facts that actually just happened.

So I say this story a lot of times to make this come into context. You come to my office and then you leave my office and you witnessed a car accident. And the officer comes to you and say, Hey Cheryl. I mean, Hey ma'am, what did you see?

And the facts are the red car hit the blue car. I'm a Marinette gathering a six. So for those, that's all he needs. However, you sit in an officer officer, right?

God, that midnight blue car hit me. And you know, three years ago. That same car hit me three years ago. And you want to see this car.

That's where it takes us because it triggers in the mind. And that's the way the mind works. That has nothing to do with the present. So the, I is identifying your feelings.

You start to write them down. How am I feeling? I'm feeling anger. I'm feeling disappointed.

I'm feeling rejected. You just write those things that identify. Yeah. And then you acknowledge your feelings, acknowledgement.

See, I was moving over that. And then you identify the facts. And the E is for exploring. Then you explore what you can possibly do.

Don't make it right or wrong. You're not judging in this moment. You're very subjective. You're not, you're very objective.

You're not subjective. You just really making sure that you are with the facts. And then you put the solutions in there. If you possibly can in the moment.

And those are the best, how I was able to move in that. And it takes practice, but you can get the results that you need. Okay. I'm going to ask you, could you put that in a scenario?

Work? Working through the pies that you just went through, just like putting it through a scenario. So people were like, oh yeah, yeah, that makes sense. So which scenario would you, a mom, cause you know, what would you want to do?

Work environment. I give you the scenario. Okay. Let's do overwhelmed mom.

Okay, great. So right now you get up and your children say, we're going getting ready for school. But when you get ready for school, you see that your children have totally, somebody has wet the bed. So that has put you.

Right back has, has set you back to overwhelm. You got it. You didn't make the lunch and that you was going to do that in the morning, but this sets you back. Cause you can't leave the wet bed.

Okay. I'm going to be late. Your morning schedule is all out of control now. Exactly.

So you go into the room and you see that the child has wet the bed. And now, now you're in the moment, like, oh my goodness. So you could do something. You can either get overwhelmed with the whole fact that you got, now you have to change the bed because now you have to go downstairs and do the lunch.

You haven't made the lunch yet. And now this is happening. Now you wet the bed and now he's feeling, or she's feeling, you know, disheartened because now they can feel your energy. Now, all of a sudden, now you're overwhelmed, overwhelmed.

You need to pause in a moment, pause in a moment and be with your child. That just wet the bed because we've taken out of the moment. Yes. You have to make the lunch, but the facts is he had an accident or she had an accident.

Be with him or her so many times and be with yourself that you may be annoyed. Be inventory yourself. It's the third time. He's.

I did this this week. Oh my goodness. I'm feeling angry. I'm feeling annoyed because I told him what to do.

That, that, that, that, that, that you can go down. This is the inventory. Now you can explore the facts. The facts are, I have to get this off the bed before it spoils the bed because my hour to get into school, it will not be good.

So what we're going to do is I'm going to do it together. We're going to do this together. Let's do the facts. I gotta, I gotta deal with this.

I'm going to throw this in here and I'm going to, maybe I have support for someone else. Maybe an older sibling that can support me with the lunch. What are the. The facts that I can put there as a solution after you've gotten all that and tend to, because the facts are he wet the bed, she went to bed.

Those are the facts. Not, he always does this every morning. It's always something. If it's not the one in the bed, it's you did this and you did that, or this one is this, and it has nothing to do with the fact that he wet the bed.

You need to handle the bed. Does that make sense? It does make sense. I like putting it into practice.

Like, okay, let's do a scenario. I know it's always going to have a little scenarios, but I love it. So how else, like, what else are you doing to help inspire women to be able to reclaim their voice? Yeah.

So I have an unstuck program where I used what I did in this moment. I told God that I would use spiritual principles along with this is why I'm in the coaching program. I can do this. I use my spiritual practices inside of that.

So I think that what helped me through. Is. Is my spiritual practices. And that being a foundation for me.

In whatever it is. I don't care if you said, believe in God, the universe, whatever it is to create. I don't really subscribe. You don't have to subscribe to anything, but you need to be able to have a foundation of something to hold on to.

Right. And your practices is the thing. So what I used to do, whether it's prayer, meditation or whatever, you got to be centered. So I have this unstuck program.

I have this unstuck program. Well, I show people how to center oneself. You do not have control over others. No, you don't have control over situations, but you do have control over you.

It's such an important, powerful reminder. So often, like we cannot control what other people are doing. Oh, we can't. And when we do, or when we try to, we're just left with like.

Resentment. Frustration. The relationship between whoever you're trying to control is not as healthy as it could be. But we always have control over us and how we show up to the situation.

Yeah, because sometimes when you're overwhelmed to discover your greatness is really about the fear of actually pushing through the past experiences of those triggers. And that's essential to, I say, to walk into that divine assignment that you have to cultivate the life that you so desire. To cultivate the life that you so desire to have. And when you begin to look at that, statistically, only one out of a hundred people living the life, or I think it's a little more than that, are living the life that they've seen, that they believe in their own mind that they can be.

Because a lot of us play it safe. Like right here, this is not me playing it safe. Amy, that's not you playing it safe. When you put yourself out there each and every day, someone is not going to like Amy.

Someone's not going to like what you did or what you said or how you're saying it. Right? And that's a vulnerable space. But there's something inside of you saying, hmm, I'm going to build a platform that women can find their power.

Okay, I'm going to do that. What is pushing you? It's got to be something meaningful to you in order for people to see. It's not about Cheryl.

This is not about Cheryl. I always say this. I'm a girl from the Bronx with a little bit of tools. That just happens.

I just happen to fall into the space where I'm helping people. Yeah. Also powerful story, though. Your girl from the Bronx that's had a rocky childhood that has decided to just, that's not going to be my life.

I'm rewriting history, starting with me and my kids. And so what you're doing is so powerful. Well, I would say this. Your past is feedback.

And we've probably all heard or always heard this. It's feedback for your future. So the concept of Speak Your Power Now is just that. Don't leave off the now because it's not about how much money it is, how much money you make or prestige or anything like that.

It's about what is the meaning of your life that you're being fulfilled and a sense of purpose that people can tap into their own sense of freedom of communication. I believe once you empower someone's communication and never to disempower. Yourself. That was my main thing.

My main thing is that I used to disempower people with my words. That's what my stepfather did. He disempowered me every day. And my mother, I forgave her.

I had to forgive my mother, too, because my mother was not strong enough to begin to see how to support me in that. And I had to forgive her, too. But that is something that I had to learn how to do. Yeah.

And that's easier said than done. Especially with people who had treated you poorly. So I'm going to have you give me another example of what depowering would look like versus empowering. Sure.

If you have to disempower anybody. So I was very great at this. Oh, my goodness. So this is what I would do.

I was called. I pride myself, Amy, on how well I can tell you off without raising my voice. I was called nice, nasty. So this is what I would do.

If someone came to me and I felt that they was either being something that was really silly or whatever, and what I would do is use my word. So my favorite show back in the day was Claire Huxtable, my character. I pride myself. That was back in the day.

And she would be able to tell someone off. So I would be in the mirror saying how I can do this in a way that I could tell you off. And if someone comes to me and says something silly, I would say, you know, I really would give you the time of day. But because you don't have the ability to be on my level, I would rather not even waste my breath on you.

Ouch. Didn't even have to raise your voice to make someone else feel terrible. You said, ouch. I would pride myself of how well I can do that.

And God got me and said, how dare you? I had to stop doing that. I had to begin to stand and say, I can't say anything to anybody like that and expect them to feel good about themselves. I didn't yell at you, but you did.

When I finished, I said, you said, ouch. Because it left you with something. Yeah. And I didn't yell.

I didn't scream. But I made you feel like an aunt. Yeah. Less than.

Belittling. Yeah. Exactly. But that's what I remember.

That's what I was raised with. Exactly. Yeah. He didn't have to raise his voice to say, dumb mother ever.

He didn't have to raise his voice to say that. But he said it. And each time he said it, it left a scar tissue. You don't see scar tissue until they open you up.

Yeah. That's true. So I had to push past the limitations of me doing that and to disempower. And I created, if I may, I wasn't going to, oh, well, I guess I can say it.

I have this declaration. That I always say at the end and the beginning, if I may share it. That's right. It says, today, I reclaim my power of purpose.

Today, I declare that I have unshakable faith and confidence in my uniqueness. Today, I declare that I will not live in fear, but with power, love, and a sound mind. Today, I declare that I always communicate with words to empower myself and others. Today, I declare to always honor myself by living in the present and living powerfully.

And living powerfully in each moment. So powerful. And I love that it's a today I declare. Like, this is how I'm showing up today.

I can't even imagine how powerful that is if you're reading that every single day saying, this is how I'm showing up. Every day. What am I going to do today? Every day.

That falls in line with what this says. And this is where I say, today, I will always communicate with words to empower myself and others. Checking each line is important. Yeah.

So tell me. As we wrap up, tell me a little bit more about your Unstuck program. You hit on it a little bit. Like, how often do you offer it?

How can people get in touch with you? Those sorts of things. Sure. So a couple of ways you can get in contact with me.

Go to the website, of course, www. SpeakYourPowerNow. com. Easy and simple.

And you can go ahead and join the Academy. I have two things going on. The Academy is that we meet twice a month. And I come live with the Speak Your Power Now.

Coaches. And we have, you can come on there and speak anything in a closed setting. We meet on Zoom. And you get to be a part of that Academy.

You come live. And we come live and coach people monthly. Bi-weekly. We come on there.

And we have such an impactful time. And it's one-on-one. If you like. You can say whatever.

I call it the hot seat. You can come to the hot seat and do and say whatever you need. And then I have the Unstuck program. So we have another cohort that opens.

I run it twice a year. So once in March. And then I have the Unstuck program. So we have another cohort that opens.

I run it twice a year. So once in March. And then another one happens in October. So the next cohort is coming up in March.

And then I have the Unstuck program. So we have another cohort that opens. I run it twice a year. So once in March.

And then another one happens in October. So the next cohort is coming up on in March. And what that looks like is that people come into the program. And it's a six-week program that I run it's, that's five.

It is six weeks because that first week you're with me. But it says five, but it's six weeks because that first week, you're with me. And we begin to move. You into what are you here for.

And we usually can choose between the seven domains. Five important items. of self, which is your mental health, your career, which is the thing you want to address inside of unstuck because we're always stuck, but we don't know how to get out of it. It's almost like a car in a ditch.

So I am that tow truck that comes and pulls you out. The car still works. You just need a little help to get out of the ditch. Yes.

Got to get out of the ditch. You need someone to pull you out. I love it. Okay.

So wrapping up, what would be one little nugget of wisdom you'd want to leave with the audience? I would say this wisdom, get rid of your superwoman cape or Superman cape if you have one. I had a Superman, I had a superwoman cape and my superwoman cape had holes in it. I couldn't fly as high.

I kept the cape with holes in it, but I started to pin it with support. So each time I pinned it, I had help from my therapist, help from this person, and they would help mend my cape with words of empowerment. So each time my cape is there, but I had holes for they helped me mend my cape with different parts of support. Thank you.

That's I love the analogies that you've used in this episode too. And thank you so much for being on the podcast. So everyone, I will have her information in the show notes that you guys can access her. And I just want to leave today saying that your voice matters, that what you have to share can definitely help not just you, but so many other people around you.

And so Cheryl and I both challenge you to, speak your truth, learn who you are, do the work so that you can move into a much more fulfilling, purposeful lifestyle or life and be able to impact other people too. We want this type of power to impact as many people as possible. And that includes you. So we will be right back here next week.

Thanks for tuning in and we'll see you later. Bye. Pleasure. podcast, then you've got to come check out my signature program at thrive camp.

This is where we do real coaching and inner work transformation. I teach you how to apply the strategies and mindset tools we talk about here on the podcast. So you can unlock your true potential and create the life you love. For more info, go to amysanders.

co forward slash thrive dash camp. Again, that's amysanders. co forward slash thrive dash camp. Let's get to work and thrive together.