Do you ever wonder how resilience and faith can help us navigate life’s hardships? Join us in a truly moving conversation with our guest, the inspirational Reverend Barbara Lane. Reverend Lane bares her soul as she recounts her childhood marked by loss and separation, which ultimately led her to pursue a path of healing as a minister, author, and counselor.
Her memoir, Broken Water, is a testament to her remarkable journey and stands as a beacon of hope for many. Prepare to be moved as we explore her motivations behind this deeply personal narrative, the courage it took to share such painful experiences, and how her bond with her 11 sisters fueled her journey.
Moving from past adversities to present healing, we delve into Reverend Lane's unique approach to overcoming trauma. Her candid sharing of the experiences that have shaped her healing process is both enlightening and comforting. Together, we unpack her upcoming book, which outlines nine powerful steps to cope with trauma and life's challenges.
We'll also discuss the transformative power of seeking help and the importance of trusting one's instinct and divine guidance. Reverend Lane's story is a heartfelt reminder of the power of love, unity, and resilience in the face of adversity.
So join us, and let's embark on this journey of healing together.
We hope you found the episode to be enlightening and insightful. Our goal is to create content that not only entertains but also helps you grow spiritually and connect with your inner self.
If you enjoyed listening to this episode, we would greatly appreciate it if you could take a moment to like, subscribe, and write a review. Your feedback is incredibly valuable to us and helps us to improve the quality of our content and reach a wider audience.
We believe that by sharing knowledge and insights about spirituality, we can help to inspire positive change and personal growth. So, if you find our podcast to be meaningful and informative, we encourage you to share it with your friends and family.
Do you ever wonder how resilience and faith can help us navigate life’s hardships? Join us in a truly moving conversation with our guest, the inspirational Reverend Barbara Lane. Reverend Lane bares her soul as she recounts her childhood marked by loss and separation, which ultimately led her to pursue a path of healing as a minister, author, and counselor.
Her memoir, Broken Water, is a testament to her remarkable journey and stands as a beacon of hope for many. Prepare to be moved as we explore her motivations behind this deeply personal narrative, the courage it took to share such painful experiences, and how her bond with her 11 sisters fueled her journey.
Moving from past adversities to present healing, we delve into Reverend Lane's unique approach to overcoming trauma. Her candid sharing of the experiences that have shaped her healing process is both enlightening and comforting. Together, we unpack her upcoming book, which outlines nine powerful steps to cope with trauma and life's challenges.
We'll also discuss the transformative power of seeking help and the importance of trusting one's instinct and divine guidance. Reverend Lane's story is a heartfelt reminder of the power of love, unity, and resilience in the face of adversity.
So join us, and let's embark on this journey of healing together.
We hope you found the episode to be enlightening and insightful. Our goal is to create content that not only entertains but also helps you grow spiritually and connect with your inner self.
If you enjoyed listening to this episode, we would greatly appreciate it if you could take a moment to like, subscribe, and write a review. Your feedback is incredibly valuable to us and helps us to improve the quality of our content and reach a wider audience.
We believe that by sharing knowledge and insights about spirituality, we can help to inspire positive change and personal growth. So, if you find our podcast to be meaningful and informative, we encourage you to share it with your friends and family.
Hello everyone, Welcome to our spiritual spotlight series. Today I am joined by Reverend Barbara Lane. Reverend Barbara Lane, thank you so much for coming on the spiritual spotlight series. I'm so happy you're here.
Speaker 2:
I'm so happy to be here too. Rachel, Thank you so much for having me. I've been looking forward to it.
Speaker 1:
Oh, that's so awesome. So let me ask you this. So your rich tapestry of experiences, from being a foster child to an author and a counselor, is really inspiring. How do these varied roles inform and enhance each other in your life and work?
Speaker 2:
One just builds on the other. Actually, I think sometimes we're called to do a particular thing with our life, and it has to do with our history. And in the process of healing trauma in my case, people entered my life that I think I was open to receive, that led me to see parts of myself that I hadn't seen prior to that, and one of them was indeed an empathy, I think, that I carry for individuals who are suffering, so they're just kind of all intermingled. You know, my childhood, dealing with loss and separation really gave me some compassion, I think. And then there was a really strong spiritual element to my healing and that led me to pursue ministerial counseling. So is that answer? That's?
Speaker 1:
a good answer. So I mean, so you do have a book, so Broken.
Speaker 2:
Water your.
Speaker 1:
Memoir Serves a Beacon Hope for Many. What motivated you to pen down such a personal and poignant journey of resilience and faith?
Speaker 2:
So I have to backtrack to I was three. I was born the ninth of 11 sisters and when I was three our family fell apart and the younger ones of us fell into an orphanage. We were placed in an orphanage and I tell people you would think that would be so traumatic for me, but it wasn't, because I was placed there with my sisters and I was gifted and graced with sisters who loved me so much that it gave me what I needed, I think, to get through the rest of the story, which was we were separated foster care, adoptions and whatever and reunited 43 years later.
Speaker 2:
Yes, that's amazing, yes it's just an amazing story. It was really a miracle that it all happened, and once we were together a while, I loved my sisters so much. They asked me to write this story. I can't tell them no in any way, shape or form. So I spent 15 years gathering their stories. Because Rachel not one of us escaped sexual abuse in our childhoods 11 sisters and not one of you.
Speaker 2:
Right, and so it took 15 years because each sister was at a different stage of their healing. We had a pact if someone didn't want to share their story, the book was dead. And I'm so proud to say all 11 of us came forward and shared our stories and we all balanced. So I think that's the resilience and the hope that we wanted to share with other women, and actually men as well, who have gone through these same kinds of issues, and show them there's another side to this. You don't have to carry this your entire life. So that's the story, mom, in the making.
Speaker 1:
Yeah, 15 years, and I mean with 11 sisters and, like you said, you were abandoned in abuse. Reunited after 43 years and let me ask you this with all of your sisters, are you all very close?
Speaker 2:
We're still close. We have six of us left now. Five have passed on, but we're still close because they haunt me Literally. For example, I had one of my older sisters. Her name was Annie, and she knew more about our background than any of us and so I really wanted to learn her story, because I didn't know my background, I didn't know what happened, I was too young, and she kept saying she wouldn't tell her story until her husband passed. So eventually her husband did pass and then she was just kind of like a jolly gal and she just said you're going to get your ASS down here and get my story because it'll be the best one in the book. La, la, la la. And she did.
Speaker 2:
I know right, Sisters, she did know the most of our history and as is, I feel, like the entire book was divinely guided, because if I'd have gone and researched and met with sisters, I would have done them chronologically because it would make sense. But my intuition, my guide, said no, see, this one first, this one second, the first sister I visited to gather her story was the first to die. Little did I know I wouldn't have caught her story. And Annie, the one who said get your you know what down here? She lived in Kansas at the time and I'm on the East Coast. I died 10 days after I got her story, so I could not have planned the journey of this book no way. I just had to listen to the divine guidance I was getting, and I'm so grateful that I did, because I would have missed this such spectacular time with my sisters.
Speaker 1:
Yeah. So let me ask you this like you just brought up, like trusting your divine guidance, trusting your intuition, Was that something that you always had in place from a young child, or is? It something that you kind of tapped into as you got older.
Speaker 2:
I think I always had it but didn't recognize it, and I think that some abused children tap into it more quickly because they like to read the environment, so they know what's coming at them. Right, you know what's coming, so you know how to take care of yourself, hopefully. But I had an experience. Once I had an emergency. I had my colon rupture, goodness yeah. So I was in the ER and you know it wasn't looking too good and at the time I asked my husband to bring me some CDs. Back then you still played the discs, and with the earphones, and that I was listening to Deepak Chopra, and in that process I had an experience. The only thing I could call it is it's, it's, it's a going into a zero where nothing exists except creativity, and I could call that God, you could call it glimpse of heaven, whatever words I don't have any words for it. There is no way to describe what I experienced, and it was very brief, very brief.
Speaker 2:
But after that experience I knew my colon healed and that there wasn't any need for treatments. But I also knew something more important. It didn't matter. It didn't matter because none of this matters, you know. There's just so much more. It's like a dream. We could wake up from it. So. So, after that experience, my intuition went through the roof. I would walk by a pregnant person, a pregnant woman. I knew if they were having a boy or a girl, and you know just, it was coming at me everywhere and in every direction. You know the psyche kind of knowing this, that that came with that.
Speaker 1:
So so did you have that medical emergency before you started writing the book or during while you're writing? During?
Speaker 2:
during yeah, during yeah. So it's in the book. Actually, that experience, although I have to claim any way I try to describe it, is inadequate. It's beyond words, beyond comprehension, what I experienced.
Speaker 1:
I mean, what a beautiful one healing experience and to like, just like, having an experience where you don't have words for it, like that.
Speaker 2:
I know where I would. I could try, but it's impossible.
Speaker 1:
I love that. So let me ask you this drawing from your background and human development, family psychology and personal experiences, how do you perceive the complex interplay of family attachment and resilience in the face of adversity?
Speaker 2:
So attachment is, in my opinion, primary to our existence. Obviously, as an infant, you have to attach to a caretaker or a bottle or something just to survive Right, so that attachment can can go beautifully. You can attach and then have the caretaker correspond with a bonding to you. This is what I think occurred between me as an infant and my older sisters I attached to them and they bonded to me. So that was all beautiful and that's the roots of resilience.
Speaker 2:
Now, so many infants never have this experience of attachment and bonding. However, I think there's also attachment and bonding with the spirit, and this can happen at any stage of your life. So you're always attached to spirit God, the divine, the feminine, whatever words you use for that but we forget. And when we don't have that actual interaction with a caretaker or a teacher or a friend or a loved one, it's still there, but with God, it's still there, but we forget. And so the healing process can be a form of waking up, a form of remembering who we really are. So all of those things you mentioned tie together in the attachment and bonding with God, or whatever words you use for that, for which there is no word.
Speaker 1:
I love that. So throughout your journey, faith seems to be a central pillar. How has faith in something greater than oneself aided in healing from trauma and building a fulfilling life?
Speaker 2:
Because I think that's where hope is found and when you have a sense that there's something greater than you like. We think of the book of Genesis. In my Christian background, most religions are egocentric. It's built around the human being, the person right. This is what comes primary, right, very egocentric. But if you look at the book of Genesis, it begins with what Creation right, she's like I'm on the spot. Tell me, look through my brain.
Speaker 1:
I'm like thank you.
Speaker 2:
You know the sun, the moon, the earth, the waters, and it's all good. So when we connect back to that essence of creation, it's in everything right, it's in you, it's in me, it's in the trees, it's in this computer, even though I get so frustrated with it. It's sometimes technology, but it's finding it in everything allows you the opportunity to find yourself, because it reflects back to you exactly who you are, which is divine.
Speaker 1:
That's just so profound, like I just love the way that I mean it's. They're very complex, deep meaning things that you're saying, but the way that you are presenting it it just makes it like, oh, you're right that makes sense, it is rather simple, isn't it? It is. So let me ask you this you have an upcoming book. What your Inner Child Knows Promises to Be a Guide for Many. Can you maybe shed some lights on the central theme of the book and how it complements the narrative of broken water?
Speaker 2:
So it's similar to broken water, but separate. I'm also writing a companion book to broken water, but this is actually a self-help book to help anyone who is struggling with trauma or child abuse or just life in general, and how wise their inner child is. Of course, the inner child is that spark of divinity right that's inside, and what kind of wisdom can that have? And it goes through nine steps ranging from the first, which is the most difficult thing to do, is accepting the reality of your childhood or your trauma or your experience, accepting the reality. So so many people, in my opinion, get stuck in therapy because they repeat this is what happened to me, this is what happened to me. And the story goes on and on and the thoughts in their brain just keep regurgitating over and over and you can't move forward. My approach says just say it was less than perfect and leave it at that. So accept that your reality was less than perfect and leave it at that. And then we go on to talk about how to honor that inner child, because most inner children young kids do the best they can in any given situation, so they may develop dysfunctional behaviors, whereas an adult it just doesn't work. But if you honor that child that you once were. That did the best they could, and maybe telling lies saved them once upon a time. Maybe being quiet saved them once upon a time. So all the things that they would develop, stealing, maybe kept them from being hungry, all these things. If we can look at it differently, this is all about shifting our perception which is a miracle, by the way, shifting our perception about how we blame our judge or inner child. And some clients would tell me oh, I don't blame my inner child. Then they think about it and go oh, I just despise my inner child, right? So that's where self-hatred begins. So we try to switch that into learning how to honor the child that you once were.
Speaker 2:
Then we go into understanding emotions and we go into what emotions or what behaviors do you want to change? And then we get real rational. We say, okay, let's put a agenda together, let's put a plan. How do you plan on changing these emotions and what can they do for you? Then we talk about something called the in-between place. When you learn about your emotions, you may realize you've had extremes like anger I never get angry or I'm raging all the time. Neither of those are healthy, neither of those allow you to express the divine child within. So what's the in-between place, healthy anger, how to express it appropriately, so we go into all those kinds of things, and then how to live from that in-between place. Such a like changes, and there's other things in there too, but I think I've used it with many, many, many, many of my clients. I'm kind of resurrecting it and improving it at this point and I'm considering maybe just putting it online as a course. So it may become that.
Speaker 1:
It sounds very powerful, like I think, as a course would be very impactful for so many people.
Speaker 2:
I think it would.
Speaker 1:
So that's what I'm doing, Just like wait and see guys.
Speaker 2:
Yeah, yeah, it won't be long this month, I'm assuming I'll have everything. I love it.
Speaker 1:
I love it. So let me ask you this With over 25 years in private practice, you must have encountered numerous stories of resilience and transformation. Can you maybe share one that profoundly impacted you, or marriage, your own journey in some way?
Speaker 2:
I had a gentleman walk into my office once who was so beaten that's the only way Physically, psychologically, as a child, and carried that with him that he could not look me in the eyes, he just glanced down at the floor.
Speaker 2:
He was raised by a white supremacist and was beaten and just all these terrible, terrible things occurred to him and he still touches my heart to this day.
Speaker 2:
But what we did, the way I worked with my clients and the way I worked with Kelvin and he doesn't mind me sharing his story I could tell you, and he's written a book which I'll share with you in a minute was to look beyond that and to see his inner child, to see the divinity in him, and he could tell me all the things that occurred and I was willing to listen, but I didn't lose sight not for one second with him of who he really was, kept reminding him of that. We went through the nine step process and many others, and now he gives lectures about his childhood and has written a book called the Sins of my Father by Kelvin Pierce. I'll give him a plug there because he's amazing. He started in Orphanage in Georgia, in Europe. He has three of them now and he called it Divine Child after our work. So it's a beautiful story, touches my heart and it's testimony to the fact that, no matter how dark your past might have been, it's just a forgetting who you are.
Speaker 2:
So I love the ripple effect of your work, oh that's beautiful, right, yeah, and I think we all are like a ripple in a pond. We may not see where they all go, and you are as well doing what you're doing right now. Obviously, it's a beautiful podcast, so nice. Well, it's true, we were all trying right. We're all sending the message.
Speaker 1:
It's a beautiful thing, so let me ask you this your relationship with Gem, your childhood sweetheart, seems to be a heartwarming chapter in your life. How? Has this bond influenced your perspective on love, relationship and healing.
Speaker 2:
That there is such a thing, perhaps as a soulmate, and I met mine when we were 14. I know, and he knew my history, because we started out as friends and confidants, and he had this remarkable ability to listen and to allow me my own process of healing, like you have to do this or you have to do that, and we never said it was this support that you know. Then I would, I took the next step, or took the next step, or took the next step, and he was just so handsome at 14. I couldn't help but fall in love with him. What can I say?
Speaker 1:
So beautiful. I love that. Oh, I love that. Let me ask you this Before we ask the last question if anyone is interested in learning more about you purchasing your book, pre-ordering your books and course to come, where is the best place to go to?
Speaker 2:
The book can be found anywhere on Amazon, barnes, noble. You can also go to my website if you want an autograph copy. It's barberlinginfo, barberlinginfo. And there you can find out about the upcoming course. If you'd rather have the workbook in your hands, you can pre-order it there. And everything else about our story pictures of my sisters and what have you are on there. So I have a blog now that I'm promoting. So I think, yeah, I've been pretty busy, she's a busy lady.
Speaker 1:
Busy lady, yes, yes, why not?
Speaker 2:
Why not? I think you retire, you die.
Speaker 1:
My dad was the same thing. He's in the 70s and he refuses to retire. So I think yeah. It's a good thing.
Speaker 2:
Well, you may not die physically, but you know, mentally. Mentally, you like to stay relevant. You just want to stay relevant. I have a lot still to give 100%. Keep giving it.
Speaker 1:
So let me ask you this For those that are grappling with their own haunting histories, what words of wisdom or encouragement would you like to share, based on your own transformative journey?
Speaker 2:
Reach out for help, don't hesitate. There's such shame involved with some of our traumas that it keeps us, it limits our ability to reach out. But reach out for help. And if you find a therapist that you don't care for, you don't feel like you're working with. It's OK, try another one. A clergy member. I often respond to emails If someone's in a dire situation. It may take me a while that I respond to every email I get. Barbara Lane got author at gmailcom. At least I can give you some direction on maybe where to go or what to do. But don't hesitate to reach out and that is the hardest step because you know what you're opening yourself up to. But to repeat to yourself every day, look in the mirror and say you're a divine child, you're a divine, you're full of good, wonderful energy. You just forgot. All you have to do is remember.
Speaker 1:
I love that. Barbara, thank you so much for coming to the Spatly Series.
Speaker 2:
It's my pleasure. I certainly enjoyed speaking with you, Rachel.
