207: Resolving Childhood Trauma with The Power of A Love That Heals with Danielle Bernock

Dr. Brad Miller: 00:00

We have Danielle Bernock with us.

Dr. Brad Miller: 00:02

She is a trauma and forum self-love coach and author and a speaker

Dr. Brad Miller: 00:05

with several books and some great details on her website, daniellebernock.com.

Dr. Brad Miller: 00:11

And she is here to talk to us about childhood trauma, and about how you can get through it.

Dr. Brad Miller: 00:16

And she likes to call herself, the woman who loves you on the internet.

Dr. Brad Miller: 00:20

So we're glad to have you with us today. Danielle Bernock.

Danielle Bernock: 00:23

Thank you for having me, it is quite an honor.

Dr. Brad Miller: 00:26

Indeed it is. And I've looked through your website and your materials.

Dr. Brad Miller: 00:31

And you have quite an interesting story to tell interesting and tragic in some way,

Dr. Brad Miller: 00:37

a story to tell, but also then a process to help people to deal with things.

Dr. Brad Miller: 00:41

So let's just kind of start to get some context.

Dr. Brad Miller: 00:44

You do talk a lot about trauma in your writing and your processes.

Dr. Brad Miller: 00:49

But that comes from your own personal experience.

Dr. Brad Miller: 00:51

So tell us a little bit about your trauma that you faced.

Dr. Brad Miller: 00:54

That is kind of the foundation of what you teach about now.

Danielle Bernock: 00:58

Well, I am a survivor of multiple childhood traumas

Danielle Bernock: 01:02

that I dismissed as not bad enough, because I was not sexually molested.

Danielle Bernock: 01:08

I hadn't been in a typhoon or in a plane crash or Sandy Hook massacre.

Danielle Bernock: 01:13

And I compared everything I had been through to something that ginormous.

Danielle Bernock: 01:17

So what I'd went through, I dismissed it.

Danielle Bernock: 01:19

And I grew up in a very authoritarian home.

Danielle Bernock: 01:24

And emotions were not something that we did much or college.

Danielle Bernock: 01:30

So when I went through different things. You shove them down, that's what you do.

Danielle Bernock: 01:34

Children were to be seen and not heard. Stop crying, or I'll give you something to cry about.

Danielle Bernock: 01:39

Stop being so sensitive. So just you know, erase your emotions.

Danielle Bernock: 01:44

And that in and of itself, is a form of trauma called childhood emotional neglect.

Danielle Bernock: 01:51

Also, I went through bullying. I was not born Danielle Bernock.

Danielle Bernock: 01:57

I changed my name legally in 1988. I have a trauma that was associated with my name.

Danielle Bernock: 02:03

I suffered a trauma at the church where I was publicly humiliated in front of the entire church.

Danielle Bernock: 02:07

And that affected me for my entire life.

Danielle Bernock: 02:10

Until intervened at a later date and through much process, I was healed of all of that.

Danielle Bernock: 02:19

But it was a very lengthy process because my trauma was so deep and multifaceted.

Danielle Bernock: 02:25

I discovered later after healing and after I wrote my first book,

Danielle Bernock: 02:29

I started learning many of the terms that I didn't know

Danielle Bernock: 02:33

what they were back when I suffered them or when I healed from them.

Danielle Bernock: 02:38

And I also had a lot of death growing up. My grandmother died in July, one summer.

Danielle Bernock: 02:46

And two months later, my father died when I was there, and it was awful to be a witness of that.

Danielle Bernock: 02:52

Yes. And four years later, my oldest brother died, I lost a close friend in high school.

Danielle Bernock: 02:57

So multiple traumas within like a four, five-year period of death added to the neglect in the bullying.

Danielle Bernock: 03:07

It's like I had trauma at home, trauma at school, trauma at the neighborhood

Danielle Bernock: 03:10

and trauma at church like where else could it be?

Dr. Brad Miller: 03:12

Oh, my goodness. This so your early life was just filled with all traumas

Dr. Brad Miller: 03:19

and all the drama that comes with the trauma.

Dr. Brad Miller: 03:23

And yet you have found yourself in a process here where you have taken some actions in your life

Dr. Brad Miller: 03:30

that you didn't stay stuck there. And what we love to talk about here, Danielle.

Dr. Brad Miller: 03:33

these traumas that you have shared.

Dr. Brad Miller: 03:33

People who they've had these bad experiences, they've had these adversities,

Dr. Brad Miller: 03:34

Whether on childhood and for some people is dramatic things,

Dr. Brad Miller: 03:36

I can't help but you know, we're in the time we're in a time of war in Ukraine

Dr. Brad Miller: 03:46

and a campus drama and trauma that families are going through

Dr. Brad Miller: 03:49

and all the things of that, and that'll stick with them forever.

Danielle Bernock: 03:52

What's been going on in the pandemic the last two years.

Danielle Bernock: 03:55

The trauma that's just been wielded throughout the whole world,

Danielle Bernock: 03:58

and the depression and the suicide rate has gone up.

Dr. Brad Miller: 04:02

So a lot of people are really off in the ditch because of whatever happens to them.

Dr. Brad Miller: 04:07

And it happens to everybody, but you chose not to stay stuck.

Dr. Brad Miller: 04:11

And that's where I want to go with you for a minute or two here.

Dr. Brad Miller: 04:13

Danielle, what were some of the actions you took in your life to begin to shift

Dr. Brad Miller: 04:18

from the drama and the trauma that you experienced to something else to a better pathway?

Dr. Brad Miller: 04:23

What are some of the actions that you took?

Danielle Bernock: 04:27

One thing that I think I had going for me even in the midst of all the trauma

Danielle Bernock: 04:32

and dealing being a highly sensitive person is in there somewhere,

Danielle Bernock: 04:36

I had like a warrior mindset. Okay, I am not going to live like this. I was miserable.

Danielle Bernock: 04:44

I had horrible self-harming behaviors. But I kept trying to run away from it in some way.

Danielle Bernock: 04:52

I didn't know how, like climbing at the wall and I think that tenacity,

Danielle Bernock: 04:57

that drive to want to heal, to be different, to change.

Danielle Bernock: 05:02

I think that's extremely important. It's one of my core values.

Danielle Bernock: 05:07

Well, in that fight, it was a very messy thing.

Danielle Bernock: 05:11

But I took a road trip all the way out to California and back

Danielle Bernock: 05:15

trying to run away from myself and my pain.

Danielle Bernock: 05:18

I think I wasn't quite sure it was an internal drive I didn't completely understand.

Danielle Bernock: 05:23

But it was on that road trip, where God intercepted me.

Danielle Bernock: 05:30

I wrote about it, my book, and I have all different kinds of ways of putting it.

Danielle Bernock: 05:33

But that was the beginning of change was when I call it.

Danielle Bernock: 05:38

He apprehended me, my perception of God was so skewed and messed up.

Danielle Bernock: 05:45

But his love intercepted me there. And that was the beginning of making more changes.

Danielle Bernock: 05:52

It was what gave me hope, even in the midst of my messed-up mindset about God.

Danielle Bernock: 05:59

I thought God was this big mean thing, punisher.

Danielle Bernock: 06:02

You have to earn his love. You have to work you, have to do, and all those negative things.

Danielle Bernock: 06:09

Yet, I still had a thing in there. That there was hope.

Danielle Bernock: 06:15

I think hope is so powerful that people could find a way to hope they can go to the next day.

Danielle Bernock: 06:23

They can go to the next thing; they can try something again.

Danielle Bernock: 06:25

If you feed that hope, because in the midst of all that misery,

Danielle Bernock: 06:30

depression, and fear is such a fear-centered person.

Danielle Bernock: 06:36

I reached for hope over and over and over again.

Dr. Brad Miller: 06:38

And you were very intentional about it.

Dr. Brad Miller: 06:40

It sounds like I mean, you took this road trip, you knew something was not right,

Dr. Brad Miller: 06:44

you have to do something about it. And so instead of just kind of stewing in.

Danielle Bernock: 06:48

A lot of not right. Lots of drugs and lots of eating disorders and things like that.

Danielle Bernock: 06:54

But it's one of the things I say in my first book that it was ignorance.

Danielle Bernock: 07:02

But my change wasn't through knowledge or wisdom or anything.

Danielle Bernock: 07:07

But what I like to say to quote myself is I got to where I am today because

Danielle Bernock: 07:14

I refused to stay where I was. Change is something I have done.

Dr. Brad Miller: 07:19

It's that warrior mindset you were speaking of a moment ago.

Dr. Brad Miller: 07:23

You refused to stay where you are, you took action.

Dr. Brad Miller: 07:25

I love that, Danielle because that just shows that passion within you.

Dr. Brad Miller: 07:29

That you got to have enough pain or pain on one side

Dr. Brad Miller: 07:33

or yearning for the relief of the pain to do something about that.

Dr. Brad Miller: 07:39

And I love that the action part of what we're talking about here of doing that.

Dr. Brad Miller: 07:44

Even though you were trying other stuff, you mentioned drugs and eating disorders.

Dr. Brad Miller: 07:49

People try all kinds of things that are not healthy.

Danielle Bernock: 07:52

The brain is so bad, you're trying to quiet the pain.

Danielle Bernock: 07:55

Plus I had been taught, schooled intentionally that children catch things from their parents.

Danielle Bernock: 08:02

So of course, you know, the emotions, you don't deal with the emotions.

Danielle Bernock: 08:06

My mother squelched her as I learned later on in life

Danielle Bernock: 08:09

that both of my parents were emotionally neglected, and they suffered trauma too.

Danielle Bernock: 08:14

So I have multi-generational trauma. It was passed along from them.

Danielle Bernock: 08:19

And they didn't mean to do that, it was not intentional.

Danielle Bernock: 08:22

And I know a lot of people have a hard time dealing with their trauma

Danielle Bernock: 08:25

when it's connected their parents because they feel like they're throwing them under the bus.

Danielle Bernock: 08:32

It's just a matter of the source of where it was at.

Danielle Bernock: 08:35

And then you learn later, you have to focus on healing yourself.

Danielle Bernock: 08:38

And then you can deal with other things afterwards,

Dr. Brad Miller: 08:41

In terms of the pain you have are the sources of trauma growing up.

Dr. Brad Miller: 08:43

You have to identify it and deal with it. But you don't have to live there.

Dr. Brad Miller: 08:50

You don't have to stay there, or you stay stuck there. And that's what you're doing here.

Dr. Brad Miller: 08:54

You mentioned that on your road trip that you said you are apprehended by God.

Dr. Brad Miller: 08:59

I want to go there with you for a minute number.

Dr. Brad Miller: 09:02

I'm a big believer that people get through adversity when they take action.

Dr. Brad Miller: 09:06

But they also have to connect to something beyond themselves,

Dr. Brad Miller: 09:10

beyond people getting in their own head, into their own stuff,

Dr. Brad Miller: 09:15

when you start to connect to something greater than themselves.

Dr. Brad Miller: 09:17

And that's and oftentimes when people have healing through a drama.

Dr. Brad Miller: 09:22

It's they've connected to a higher power.

Dr. Brad Miller: 09:25

Sometimes that's through religion, sometimes it's through meditation

Dr. Brad Miller: 09:28

or something like it or breathing exercises.

Dr. Brad Miller: 09:30

It seems like your apprehended by God experience was a part of your totality,

Dr. Brad Miller: 09:30

Any number of things that people do. Tell me about your experience.

Dr. Brad Miller: 09:34

of your healing process to connect up with a higher power.

Dr. Brad Miller: 09:42

How's that been a part of that process for you?

Danielle Bernock: 09:45

That's it. That is the biggest part of my process.

Danielle Bernock: 09:48

As I grew up in church a little bit till, I had that horrible trauma that happened in the church.

Danielle Bernock: 09:55

And when my grandmother, my dad died, I was really angry with God because

Danielle Bernock: 09:59

I felt like he killed them. Which I know I am not alone in that attitude.

Danielle Bernock: 10:03

There are many people that blame God when someone dies.

Danielle Bernock: 10:07

And then I tried to prove that God didn't exist because I knew enough to get myself in trouble.

Danielle Bernock: 10:13

Well, if he exists, I'm in trouble. So I need to prove he doesn't exist so that I'm not in trouble.

Danielle Bernock: 10:19

But I was not successful in that.

Danielle Bernock: 10:21

Because when I went on this road trip, I was a very angry person from the trauma.

Danielle Bernock: 10:27

And finally, through a long-involved process, I found someone to go with me out to California.

Danielle Bernock: 10:33

It was this young lady I had just met her for us to go on this trip.

Danielle Bernock: 10:37

I met her at school in college. And she brought a Bible with her.

Danielle Bernock: 10:44

She just showed up the day to pick for us to leave together.

Danielle Bernock: 10:46

She brought a Bible with her it was called The Good News Translation.

Danielle Bernock: 10:50

I'd never heard of it before.

Danielle Bernock: 10:52

And being the people pleasing, traumatized soul that I was,

Danielle Bernock: 10:56

I went and got my bible so that we both have our Bibles.

Danielle Bernock: 11:01

Well, mine was a King James Bible.

Danielle Bernock: 11:05

It wasn't like either one of us were doing any walking with God.

Danielle Bernock: 11:09

So I look back at that and I'm still puzzled why that even happened.

Danielle Bernock: 11:15

I just think that was the grace of God interceding or intervening in my life.

Danielle Bernock: 11:20

And so we drove, we would get high while we drove.

Danielle Bernock: 11:23

We would smoke, we would drink, party while we're driving, which was really stupid.

Danielle Bernock: 11:27

And we would read the Bible to each other.

Danielle Bernock: 11:32

I'm like that makes a lot of sense. But then I hadn't prayed in a long time.

Dr. Brad Miller: 11:36

It's all we both are a search for meaningfulness. But yeah, please carry on.

Danielle Bernock: 11:43

Well, we stopped because there was like bad weather.

Danielle Bernock: 11:46

And we called home to let them know that that we were okay.

Danielle Bernock: 11:50

Because it was two girls on a road trip.

Danielle Bernock: 11:53

And that was before cellphones existed. And the operator told us about a tornado.

Danielle Bernock: 12:00

And so that was kind of scary, because the operators didn't talk to you.

Danielle Bernock: 12:03

And I was having a conversation with the operator.

Danielle Bernock: 12:07

And then I prayed, I prayed because I was scared. So I prayed.

Danielle Bernock: 12:12

A lot of people pray when they're scared.

Danielle Bernock: 12:13

And I saw the clouds moving. Like I thought I saw in the clouds,

Danielle Bernock: 12:19

God's stretching out his hands to take care of me.

Danielle Bernock: 12:22

And I had this bizarre mentality because I was stuck in an earning mentality

Danielle Bernock: 12:27

that because I prayed, God would save me because I'm doing good.

Danielle Bernock: 12:31

I wasn't doing good. I was not doing good but had protected us that whole way out.

Danielle Bernock: 12:37

I was gone for six weeks. And we did a lot of stupid things.

Danielle Bernock: 12:42

But one night, it was raining so hard, that we couldn't drive anymore.

Danielle Bernock: 12:47

I had to pull off into a rest area. So we slept in the car.

Danielle Bernock: 12:51

And I woke up the next morning, I was in the front seat. She was in the backseat.

Danielle Bernock: 12:55

I woke up the next morning, and I felt like I am not alone in this car.

Danielle Bernock: 12:58

There's something in here with me that I didn't understand.

Danielle Bernock: 13:01

I just felt it. And I felt like it was God drawing me to him.

Danielle Bernock: 13:06

And so my initial thing was, I remembered my roots at the church I went to so I'm like,

Danielle Bernock: 13:11

you know, okay, Jesus be Lord of my life.

Danielle Bernock: 13:13

And you know that, but then all the fear and trauma came raging out in my terror of God erupted.

Danielle Bernock: 13:20

And it's almost like I covered my head and ducked like

Danielle Bernock: 13:23

back when what they would do under dusks years ago.

Danielle Bernock: 13:23

Because I was afraid God was going to kill me. But he didn't.

Danielle Bernock: 13:24

And I was like, wow, I am not dead.

Danielle Bernock: 13:26

And I think of that line from you have that Raiders of Lost Ark on back there?

Danielle Bernock: 13:39

I'm so pleased you're not bad. I was so pleased to not be dead. Yes.

Danielle Bernock: 13:46

That was the beginning. And I was puzzled. Because something had changed.

Danielle Bernock: 13:51

And I didn't understand it in the slightest.

Danielle Bernock: 13:55

And when I after I got home, to short the story.

Danielle Bernock: 14:00

My mom had gone back to church not too long before I left or something.

Danielle Bernock: 14:05

And so I started going to her church with her.

Danielle Bernock: 14:07

And little by little and this other lady, she came in my life

Danielle Bernock: 14:10

and she told me about this place where young people were going to church

Danielle Bernock: 14:13

and I didn't want to go because it was Friday night and that was party night.

Danielle Bernock: 14:17

And she talked me into going once and then I went I stepped started going all the time.

Danielle Bernock: 14:22

And that ended up leading me to where I reconnected with someone

Danielle Bernock: 14:28

I went to school with and the eighth grade who is now my husband of 42 years.

Danielle Bernock: 14:35

And this man named Michael has a whole chapter in my book emerging with wings

Danielle Bernock: 14:40

because he was God's gift to me as my first experience with unconditional love.

Danielle Bernock: 14:48

And it was through learning love and connecting with God and Lord little by little

Danielle Bernock: 14:56

took me in different levels because it took years and years and years.

Danielle Bernock: 15:00

For him to heal my soul that took years and years and years for me to believe he actually loved me.

Danielle Bernock: 15:06

I have a little book called "Love's Manifesto"

Danielle Bernock: 15:09

And there I share how it took 34 years for God to convince me

Danielle Bernock: 15:14

that his love was mine, for me, and that I actually believed it, even on the bad days.

Dr. Brad Miller: 15:20

So I think it's clear, we're starting to get into how this has been an ongoing part of your transformation process.

Dr. Brad Miller: 15:26

An ongoing part of the healing from trauma is the everyday choice,

Dr. Brad Miller: 15:31

you made your initial choice that, okay, this life and lifestyle that I was doing,

Dr. Brad Miller: 15:35

okay, it's not for me. I'm going to search for something different, I'm going to go this direction.

Dr. Brad Miller: 15:39

So the actions you take and continue to take,

Dr. Brad Miller: 15:41

we're going to get into some of your new disciplines and things you do now in just a minute.

Dr. Brad Miller: 15:45

But this ongoing connection to a higher power is a daily or a regular part of your life,

Dr. Brad Miller: 15:51

which is part of your ongoing transformation process.

Dr. Brad Miller: 15:54

And I just think it's a part of what is happening with you,

Dr. Brad Miller: 15:57

I don't think a really true transformation really happens, Danielle, without this, you know.

Dr. Brad Miller: 16:01

There are folks who you against a technical kind of the, you know,

Dr. Brad Miller: 16:05

you break an old habit, start a new habit, things like that.

Dr. Brad Miller: 16:08

But we need to have that inner transformation as well as the other. Do you agree?

Danielle Bernock: 16:13

Yes, we have to think differently.

Danielle Bernock: 16:17

And you, we don't think differently on command.

Danielle Bernock: 16:21

And I felt that way, when I was like going to church, at the beginning of it,

Danielle Bernock: 16:26

they would tell us to do stuff. And I felt like I'm supposed to just instantaneously do these things.

Danielle Bernock: 16:31

They were like commands, it's like, I don't know how to think differently.

Danielle Bernock: 16:36

I don't know how to change my attitude.

Danielle Bernock: 16:39

No one ever taught me I don't know how I'm feeling.

Danielle Bernock: 16:42

There's a term called alexithymia, which is when you don't know what you're feeling,

Danielle Bernock: 16:46

and you don't know what it's called. And I didn't know what I was feeling.

Danielle Bernock: 16:50

Because my feelings were bad, they were evil, they were terrible, don't feel anything.

Danielle Bernock: 16:55

God intervened in my life there too.

Danielle Bernock: 16:57

And he told me that I needed to stop numbing my feelings,

Danielle Bernock: 17:00

or it was going to harm me physically. So that was another journey that he took me on.

Dr. Brad Miller: 17:05

So you've been going through this entire process here.

Dr. Brad Miller: 17:08

And now you're starting the process of not only healing and the trauma for yourself,

Dr. Brad Miller: 17:13

but in several books, and on your website and other things that you teach

Dr. Brad Miller: 17:17

and lead and speak and make yourself available to be helpful to others.

Dr. Brad Miller: 17:21

You've developed a process then and I had to get in this for a minute here, Danielle,

Dr. Brad Miller: 17:26

of a process of the habits or disciplines or patterns of life that you now have

Dr. Brad Miller: 17:32

or have emerged that are healthier and help you to grow and to thrive and to overcome the trauma.

Dr. Brad Miller: 17:37

Tell us a bit about the how have you changed your thinking,

Dr. Brad Miller: 17:41

you mentioned changing thinking, to change your thinking to new disciplines.

Dr. Brad Miller: 17:44

Tell us about your process there.

Danielle Bernock: 17:46

Well, the process that I went through, I had to see what was going on in my life.

Danielle Bernock: 17:53

And then I had to expose the reasons why.

Danielle Bernock: 17:57

And then I had to let God lavish his love on me and learn how to love myself,

Danielle Bernock: 18:04

before I could take any actions that would lead to my freedom.

Danielle Bernock: 18:07

And this was something that happened over and over and over again, I didn't know it that clearly.

Danielle Bernock: 18:13

And much of the actions to freedom were repressed, reprocessing, reprogramming my mind.

Danielle Bernock: 18:22

Just like a computer because you grow up and you're thinking this thing.

Danielle Bernock: 18:26

I think I'm ugly. I think I'm fat. I think all those things, we have to change that.

Danielle Bernock: 18:32

And we have to convince ourselves that we believe that because we have these beliefs,

Danielle Bernock: 18:36

I hated myself, I thought I was fat and ugly. I bit my fingers until they bled to hurt myself

Danielle Bernock: 18:45

was one of the things in the eating disorders.

Danielle Bernock: 18:48

And I was trying to kill myself slowly because I was trying to torment myself because I thought I deserved it.

Danielle Bernock: 18:56

But going through this process, and little by little changing my view of myself

Danielle Bernock: 19:00

to seeing myself differently, to seeing my circumstances differently,

Danielle Bernock: 19:06

and having developed the courage to expose the reasons and causes behind them.

Danielle Bernock: 19:11

Because you can't fix something you can't see.

Danielle Bernock: 19:13

This is one of my passions to help people is the hidden trauma.

Danielle Bernock: 19:19

There are traumas that people know they call it trauma, they're easy to call it that.

Danielle Bernock: 19:24

But there are things that people they dismiss it that it's not trauma. Yes, it is.

Danielle Bernock: 19:29

Trauma is not really that incident. Trauma is the injury that took place in the brain and in the soul.

Danielle Bernock: 19:35

It's what's left behind, that needs the attention and needs to heal.

Danielle Bernock: 19:41

And people need to hear this and it's a passion of mine to shine the light on these hidden things

Danielle Bernock: 19:46

so people can heal and embrace what I like to call their God given greatness.

Danielle Bernock: 19:51

So through this process, I've developed a process to help my clients and students

Danielle Bernock: 19:57

and I call it the SELF process which reflects See, Expose, Love, and Free

Danielle Bernock: 20:05

and it's repetitive because you go through layers of healing. You have to see where you are today.

Danielle Bernock: 20:11

How am I behaving today? How do I feel today? And then expose why.

Danielle Bernock: 20:15

Why do you feel that way? Why are you there? What do you know about that?

Danielle Bernock: 20:19

And then love yourself and take in love from others, let yourself be loved.

Danielle Bernock: 20:28

You know, I'm a Christian. So I believe in God, and I receive His love.

Danielle Bernock: 20:32

I know other people; they don't feel that way.

Danielle Bernock: 20:34

But even receiving love from other people,

Danielle Bernock: 20:36

because we are created as love creatures we need to love and be loved.

Danielle Bernock: 20:42

And that third part of the process is so crucial and critical.

Danielle Bernock: 20:47

Because love is what gives us the courage to do the fourth step of free to set yourself free to take the action.

Danielle Bernock: 20:57

And if you come up with one thing you can do, and then you do that, and you start over again.

Danielle Bernock: 21:01

With the See, Expose, Love, and Free and you do it again. Little by little, you get free.

Danielle Bernock: 21:09

That's how we overcome habits. I started doing hand weights a few years ago,

Danielle Bernock: 21:15

and I started with little one pounders. And then I hit five pounders and 10 pounders, 15, pounders,

Danielle Bernock: 21:20

20 pounders, well, if I would have started with the 20 pounders, it wouldn't have worked.

Danielle Bernock: 21:24

So we have to start and then just layer by layer, by layer by layer, work on it.

Dr. Brad Miller: 21:29

And what you're teaching on your process and your coaching and your books

Dr. Brad Miller: 21:33

is this SELF process that basically helps people to get in touch with their trauma,

Dr. Brad Miller: 21:39

but then to learn to love themselves. And to leave, they leave your place of being

Dr. Brad Miller: 21:46

what you call being gratefully being grateful and engaged in life.

Dr. Brad Miller: 21:51

And that's a great thing and love to hear that.

Dr. Brad Miller: 21:54

And that's part of what I love to hear on the people I love to talk to have a process of you're doing that.

Dr. Brad Miller: 21:58

And then I'd like to hear what kind of impact that makes.

Dr. Brad Miller: 22:01

And what I mean by that is, Danielle, a big part of the process,

Dr. Brad Miller: 22:06

then is not only to discover this for yourself this self-process,

Dr. Brad Miller: 22:12

but to love others enough to share it with them.

Dr. Brad Miller: 22:15

And that's part of what you do and your website and your books.

Dr. Brad Miller: 22:17

But I'm sure that you've had some folks in your life who you've encountered or served,

Dr. Brad Miller: 22:22

that you may be witness to or seen some sort of transformation and that's always a cool thing to happen.

Dr. Brad Miller: 22:29

Can you share with us? So testimonial basically of a person or?

Danielle Bernock: 22:35

Yes, I've served two specific ones I love to share.

Dr. Brad Miller: 22:38

All right let's hear that.

Danielle Bernock: 22:39

There is no greater joy than to help someone get their own aha moment.

Danielle Bernock: 22:45

When the light goes on, they go ha, and then it changes everything.

Danielle Bernock: 22:50

One of my coaching clients, she is a little older. And it was during the pandemic in 2020.

Danielle Bernock: 23:04

And she was dealing with just fear in general.

Danielle Bernock: 23:08

And I coached her through this, and she started to see

Danielle Bernock: 23:13

that she had trauma from her childhood that she had dismissed because her mother dismissed it.

Danielle Bernock: 23:19

When she took the inappropriateness of her family friend tutor to her mother, her mother just blew her off.

Danielle Bernock: 23:32

And she was just had to keep going and being by this man who was doing inappropriate things,

Danielle Bernock: 23:38

and other verbal abuses and other things that she was subjected to.

Danielle Bernock: 23:43

And she was able to identify the difference between the abuse and the trauma

Danielle Bernock: 23:47

and the good parts to separate the two from each other

Danielle Bernock: 23:50

and hold on to the good and to let go of the bad

Danielle Bernock: 23:54

and to own it and call it what it was: trauma.

Danielle Bernock: 23:58

Because it left that wound on her she was so self-attacking and diminishing of herself.

Danielle Bernock: 24:04

If she would have no self-compassion since then.

Danielle Bernock: 24:10

She has just taken off in her social personality with others.

Danielle Bernock: 24:15

It is amazing like watching a flower bloom,

Danielle Bernock: 24:19

she lost about 50 pounds just as a side effect of how she treated herself differently.

Dr. Brad Miller: 24:25

Sure, it's awesome.

Danielle Bernock: 24:27

When I have seen her, I saw her at an event, and she brought one of her family members to introduce to me

Danielle Bernock: 24:35

and this family member says to me, thank you for what you did

Danielle Bernock: 24:39

she is a completely different person

Dr. Brad Miller: 24:44

That's awesome.

Danielle Bernock: 24:44

That's phenomenal. That's transformation.

Dr. Brad Miller: 24:47

That's a great affirmation to you and what you're teaching that something good has happened there.

Danielle Bernock: 24:52

And the second one was one woman who took my course heal your childhood self.

Danielle Bernock: 24:59

And she had been so through processes to deal with her trauma, so she had dealt with some.

Danielle Bernock: 25:04

But she discovered a hidden one she had diminished as nothing.

Danielle Bernock: 25:11

She was able to address it, and gain the freedom she didn't even know was possible

Danielle Bernock: 25:16

because that thing was hiding. And I helped to bring light to that aspect of her life.

Danielle Bernock: 25:21

And so I'm very excited about that as well.

Dr. Brad Miller: 25:25

That's awesome. Well, that's a great need. Everybody's got drama.

Dr. Brad Miller: 25:28

You know, we've mentioned your last couple years we've experienced with COVID

Dr. Brad Miller: 25:30

and things of the world, it's there for everybody that's just kind of magnifies what is already there.

Dr. Brad Miller: 25:35

And in whatever ways life, whatever the personal matters,

Dr. Brad Miller: 25:38

it might be a relationship issue, health issue, finances, any number of things can happen.

Dr. Brad Miller: 25:43

But we have to have tools to deal with it in yourself.

Dr. Brad Miller: 25:46

Process is certainly helpful. So if folks want to get connected to you, Danielle,

Dr. Brad Miller: 25:52

through your website and things your offer. What are some ways they can do that?

Dr. Brad Miller: 25:55

What would be a good starting point, if someone who really wants to connect with you

Dr. Brad Miller: 25:59

and get some of the good stuff that you offer?

Danielle Bernock: 26:02

On my website, you can connect to anything I have on my website. I have free resources there.

Danielle Bernock: 26:08

I have my books there, my courses are there, my coaching is there.

Danielle Bernock: 26:13

I have a short little course that's only $27 is the Seven-day Challenge to Love Yourself.

Danielle Bernock: 26:20

That's a short seven days. So it's short and it's inexpensive, if they're looking for that.

Danielle Bernock: 26:26

And I also have a podcast that they could listen to called Victorious Souls

Danielle Bernock: 26:31

which focuses on getting the victory in your life because of my core values

Danielle Bernock: 26:35

with being a Victoria Solar Love and Honor-centric, warrior mindset, taking ownership of your life and self-care.

Danielle Bernock: 26:44

And the self is really important to me because that's the core of where our choices are at.

Danielle Bernock: 26:50

It is the self who makes the choices. So we have to focus on that

Danielle Bernock: 26:55

so that you can make intentional choices and not just be pushed down the line

Danielle Bernock: 27:00

because of codependency or any other kind of issues. There are side effects from that trauma.

Dr. Brad Miller: 27:08

Several great things there. I've been on your website, lots of great resources very well put together

Dr. Brad Miller: 27:13

and lots of great opportunities, several books that you have, and some great resources

Dr. Brad Miller: 27:18

based out of your own experience from the lady on the internet who loves you.

Dr. Brad Miller: 27:22

Her name is Danielle Bernock. You can find her at daniellebernock.com.

Dr. Brad Miller: 27:34

And she is a trauma informed self-love coach, author and speaker

Dr. Brad Miller: 27:37

and she has been our guest today on the Beyond Diversity Podcast with Dr. Brad Miller.

Dr. Brad Miller: 27:44

Danielle, thank you for being our guest today.