Transformational Trauma and Healing: Under the Orange Blossoms with Cindy Benezra

Join my conversation with Cindy Benezra, sexual abuse survivor and advocate as we discuss her book, Under the Orange Blossoms and the tools she has used to help her thrive.

You can find Cindy at CindyTalks where you can sign up for her newsletter and read her insightful blogs.

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Transcript

0:13 - Carrie Rickert Welcome, Cindy. Thank you so much for being here today.

0:18 - Cindy Benezra It's an honor to be here, Carrie. Thank you for having me.

0:23 - Carrie Rickert Absolutely. I am so glad. And so I'd love to start today by talking about your book, Under the Orange Blossoms. An inspirational story of bravery and strength. Can you talk to us about what led you to write the book?

0:43 - Cindy Benezra Well, it was actually a slight accident in a sense that I was really trying to write a cookbook. My daughter and I are an event planner and I was trying to think of great tips for entertaining, economical, how to make a table settings more beautiful and cook a dinner, tips to make dinner just seamlessly flawless and also beautiful landscape, tablescapes, that type of thing. I'm also a avid, I love to cook.

1:15 - Cindy Benezra And so I've been collecting recipes pretty much since, as long as I can think about, because I could look back in my recipe books and I have it in my original handwriting, you know, as a child, you know, maybe, I don't know, six, I think my first few recipes were things like Jell-O. I love it. Jell-O, that was a big one, Jell-O and adding fruit in my Jell-O and just thinking that was the most mind-blowing experience ever.

1:52 - Cindy Benezra So I wrote that down and there was a recipe on Mrs. Anderson, who was our neighbor, Mrs. Anderson's grilled cheese sandwich. And I used to go to her house. She was my best friend's mother. And she would take care of me often, make a grilled cheese sandwich, and I would have a 7-Up. And I just thought that was the most comforting thing anyone could do to me when I was feeling ill. That was her love language.

2:21 - Cindy Benezra So I wrote down that recipe. But as I was going through my recipes, And especially from the split culture, German and Mexican, I thought, I have lots of recipes to offer here. So when I was doing that, they were actually memories for me, and I would reflect back and go, oh, I know when I wrote this recipe or I know when I experienced this. And everybody has different experiences where they look through a photo album and you could reflect back, my recipes are my photo album.

2:54 - Cindy Benezra So are my shoes. Those are the places that I've walked in where I could kind of go, oh, I bought this on this vacation. But my recipes are my photo album. And when I was writing these recipes down, I was getting kind of maybe triggered, or I would call a memory. And in that memory, I would think, and a lot of them were positive, but a lot of them were more negative, where I recognized like, oh, I know what happened to me at age five.

3:20 - Cindy Benezra That was the time I was sexually first. That was the first time my father came into my room. So I remember writing down that like taking, you know, separating that recipe, but thinking like, well, what am I going to do now with this toxic memory? So I'd write that memory down in another notepad and write that memory down. But then I would think of like, okay, what was the alternative thing? How did I get through that?

3:46 - Cindy Benezra And then I'd write the positive thing down in a notepad. In a notepad and go, oh, that was the solution to that or that this maybe exercising or running or this mantra or this beautiful, inspirational quote got me through that time. So as I was filling up my recipe book, I was also filling up other books notepads, I should say, on inspirational quotes, mantras, healing tools, obviously decor, and I had five books in front of me, notepads in front of

4:29 - Carrie Rickert me by the time I was done.

4:32 - Cindy Benezra And I looked at it and I thought, oh, yay, I've got my recipe book done. This is fabulous. What a great idea. All these entertainment. And this is who I am today. This is what I represent right now. But I did take my hands over it, and I was just kind of rubbing my hands over the books or putting my hand on top of the book. And I would think, okay, which one fills me with the most satisfaction? Of course, my recipes.

5:01 - Cindy Benezra And then the other one was my inspirational quotes, and then these healing tools. And I thought, ooh, that's a little bit heavier. And the one that carried the most energy was the one about my sexual abuse and just the physical abuse, the emotional abuse. And I thought, okay, this is absolutely the book I will never talk about. Like I could never share this in my life. And as I was sitting there thinking, well, why would I do that?

5:30 - Cindy Benezra You know, this probably has the most value in it. I don't know if people really need to know my cookbook I don't know if they really need to know the little nuances of having a party. I thought, I know it's fun, I know this is really entertaining, but it's probably those tools of survival and the ones of trauma. And I thought I've had so much in my life, it would be a shame to take the easier road, and I picked the harder road.

6:09 - Cindy Benezra So I started writing about my trauma in my childhood, and then also how this affected me in my teen years, and then also how it affected me in my parenting. Also in my adulthood. So that was how Under the Orange Blossoms was created. And the orange blossoms represents a sanctuary. So I lived in rural Arizona, and I'd run away as often as I could. And I'd run to the orange orchards and in there, I found a lot of sanctuary in the middle of the orchards because it was a safe place.

6:52 - Cindy Benezra And I used nature and I looked at nature as a way of healing and kind of looked at those trees as my parents because those trees did not hit me. Those trees did not yell at me and they were just always there no matter what.

7:10 - Multiple Speakers And so they sheltered me.

7:12 - Cindy Benezra And I think I found a lot more, I recognized that I had, the world was a bigger place and there was something greater than me in that place. Yeah.

7:26 - Carrie Rickert Wow. So I absolutely love how you got to that book. It's funny how your subconscious gets you to where you need to be. As you said, I am sure that the cookbook and entertainment tips and all of that are wonderful. But I tend to agree with you that the story of your trauma, because other people experience similar trauma, is really important to talk about. You know, not just for the people reading it, but also for your own healing.

8:11 - Carrie Rickert Did you feel like it was helpful in your healing to write that book?

8:17 - Cindy Benezra No, I did not. Okay. Absolutely the opposite. I was so traumatized. I was so traumatized by writing it. It was horrific. I used to put the book down or my computer, sometimes I would toss it on the floor angrily. And I've been thinking, why am I doing this? Why am I digging back into my past? And I was getting triggered. I was having nightmares. I was going through everything that I felt that I had unfolded and put neatly in a place in different and perfect little boxes in my mind, I guess you could say.

8:56 - Cindy Benezra And I was reopening those boxes that I thought I had done a lot of therapy on. And it's different when you go to a therapist, or if you do conventional therapy or unconventional therapy. When you're doing a format of therapy, it's like you're like, ah, okay. And that's you personally saying, ah, I've reached the spot and this feels good. I think I'm done now. But when you're writing and you're writing in description, What did the room look like, Where was the feeling coming from Was it in your stomach?

9:35 - Cindy Benezra What did you feel in your body? What was the response of other people and how did they feel? What did they look like, You know, it becomes something that you relive. And I don't know if that's truly a healthy experience, but I kept on doing it because I would sit there and meditate and think, okay, this is not about me. This is about helping somebody else. How do we relate to somebody else? And I really do believe that a lot of times we relate to other people through storytelling.

10:09 - Cindy Benezra Our moms, our aunts, you know, friends, girlfriends, you know, we tell stories. Great at telling stories, you know, you know what, know what happened, you know, that kind of a thing. And I thought, well, that's how I learn often. And if I want a professional or an expert, then I'll go and I'll resource and find resources to find that expert opinion. But often it's the storytelling that ignites the spark where I kind of go, huh, okay, I don't relate to that story, but I did relate to this portion.

10:44 - Cindy Benezra And that's very hopeful or that I could apply to. And so that was the thing that I kept on thinking about. How many times did I feel trapped? How many times did I feel stuck? How many times did I feel like no hope out there or isolated, alone, enraged? All the emotions that come through that. And I thought, if I could change 10 lives through this and change the generational trauma, this trauma loop that we sometimes get stuck in.

11:18 - Cindy Benezra If I could help and aid in that. And just 10 people, I always think about like all the other lives that they affect and they can change too by that process.

11:28 - Carrie Rickert Yeah, it's that trickle down effect, right? So you mentioned earlier about how the abuse affected you as a teen, as a parent, as an adult. Talk to us a little bit about those different segments of your life and how your abuse impacted those.

11:55 - Cindy Benezra My dad is my abuser. He's my sexual predator. It was, you know, people look at sexual abuse in, oh, it's penetration. That's what everybody thinks. Oh, it's penetration. Not necessarily. Sexual abuse could be fondling. It could be just a variety of different things. And I'm sure you could use your imagination with that. But nobody really thinks about, I mean, I did have fondling, but my dad's biggest format was pornography.

12:36 - Cindy Benezra And then I don't know what he used these pictures for. I don't know if if that was given to other people, or if it was just for his personal satisfaction. But he would wake me up often in the middle of the night, and he started to become very elaborate with his pictures, with his equipment. Wake me up and have me pose and do different things. And I felt that that was, in some ways, as a young child, this happened from five to 10, I felt that that was compared to the fondling where I would dissociate.

13:19 - Cindy Benezra And I hated it, but I didn't know how to say no. And I was threatened that if I didn't do that, then he would hurt my mother or my sister and two for me, they were the most precious things in the earth. So that scared me that in fact, I believed him that I would die. And I would not be around if, if I shared any of these things. So, he would take pictures of me and eventually, as I was getting older, I started to become, I started kind of becoming passive aggressive, I guess you could say.

13:58 - Cindy Benezra And in that, it became a physical, more of a physical abuse. And then later on, it became, as I was getting older and I responded to emotional abuse, then that became emotional abuse. And so this, within this timeframe, it really affected my development. And by the time I was was 10, fully developed because I was overstimulated sexually. I completely blossomed into an adult and my dad was not attracted to, uh, adults, he was attracted to children.

14:35 - Cindy Benezra And so that's why it was such an abrupt ending. And then later on through the years, I realized that he had done this to also neighborhood children too. And I believe it was fondling with them too. So like a real pedophile. And it's an interesting You know, like later on I had to figure out how do you have Christmas with a pedophile? You know, if one person denies it, that this has happened in their family and it's my word against his word, nobody else has seen this, then how do I carry on my life?

15:14 - Cindy Benezra And so this is the dynamics that I talk about, a lot of boundary setting that I had to put up for myself and for my children later on in life. And why I parented a certain way. Also, why I had certain relationships. I just, a lot of times, just let them know if it was somebody I was serious. I'm like, this is my history. My dad's a weirdo, but he is in my life and this is the scenario. And I mean, that is an odd thing.

15:42 - Cindy Benezra I mean, yes, most people are going to run. And when they ran, I was like, okay, this person is probably not the right person for me. But I had to be very... Straight up and very honest with myself and with other people. And if it was something that they weren't comfortable with or it wasn't their style of communication, then usually it wasn't a friendship. And it's unfortunate, but that's the way it was.

16:09 - Cindy Benezra And I think it just became who I am. And so the book kind of takes me or takes the reader through the process of what it was like to be a teenager. In my teenage years, I was so self-loathing and disgusted because I dissociated what happened in my childhood that it all came back as a teenager when I became sexually active for the first time. And it came back in dreams, which is very, very, very typical, something that I didn't know when we have trauma of any sort.

16:48 - Cindy Benezra Typically in sexual abuse, it'll come back in some other format. And usually for sexual abuse, it comes back in parenting. But in for me, it came back with being sexually active as a teenager through the process of dreams. And that's where I would start to journal. And I was able to recreate kind of like it felt like a broken glass or a broken mirror where you take the mirror and you start to put all the pieces together.

17:16 - Cindy Benezra And in my journal I could put the whole thing together I confronted my father afterwards, and my mother who lived in complete denial and I have to say, my family, you know they, they're a very well educated family. They're very open, but this was just something that they both did not address and I didn't feel protected on. And this was a lot of the betrayal and the issues that stemmed out from my childhood that led me into adulthood with where you get your boundaries broken, where my boundaries I had to establish and where I had betrayal and trust issues.

18:01 - Carrie Rickert Right. So, so your mom, are your parents still living?

18:08 - Cindy Benezra So I wrote, I finished. Okay, interesting enough to answer your question. No, they're not there. They've passed. My mom died when I was young. And my dad, out of all of this, he made me his POA. So when he was elderly, he didn't have anybody else to take care of him. So I was there, you know, going from state to state, you know, he was in California, I was in Washington at that time. And I moved him up to Washington five minutes away from me.

18:45 - Cindy Benezra So because I have a special needs son, and I thought I this is like too much for me to deal with. So I moved him up for my convenience so that I could help him with his medical issues because I was more concerned about my son, who was special needs, and he was going through those horrible teen years. And I was like, okay, I need to focus on him. I'll just have my dad closer to me. And in this process, my dad finally started talking about what had happened.

19:16 - Cindy Benezra Through the past because it was denial. And in this, I said, Dad, I think we should talk about this. And he agreed. And I said, I think I want to write a book about this. And he goes, well, then let's do this. How can I help you? So I started to record him. And it was the mindset of a pedophile and what he thought and why he did this. And how he justified his actions. So the book is a lot more detailed than just someone's story.

19:49 - Cindy Benezra It also kind of creates a whole loop in the cycle. And now it has the generations from being a child, a teenager, then it has adult years, and now I'm going to be a grandma. So it has the full cycle of that. And I buried my mother and my father. So I can relate to all the different stages of this journey where you have dark secrets in your family and what stays behind closed doors or what happens in this household.

20:24 - Cindy Benezra My mother used to say remains in this household and what the damages that can do. And a lot of this, my book has a lot of self-healing tools that I had to find on my own because I lived in a foreign country at that time in Spain. And I really contemplated committing suicide. And what was the thing that was going to keep me there? So those were the healing, that was the healing onset of a healing journey up until now.

20:58 - Cindy Benezra Because it's constantly evolving. And I never really thought that it would take me a lifetime, but I think once you go through a healing stage, we always, in some ways, look for more improvement or it becomes an interest and we start digging deeper. And then before you know it, we become something, we heal from the past as much as we can. And yes, we do carry those scars, but it becomes a journey onward to other, forms of greaterness, I guess you could say, because I look at myself now.

21:34 - Cindy Benezra Yeah, growth. Thank you. It's a process of evolution. And I look at myself now and I go, you know, I am a different person and no, it's not perfect. And I do have my scars. But I have changed and morphed into another person. And I like the person I am today. And I don't feel that anything's taken from me. In fact, through so much education and also through so much counseling, alternative and traditional, I feel that I'm right where I should be.

22:08 - Unidentified Speaker Right.

22:11 - Carrie Rickert And that, I think, is such a hopeful message, right? To know that, yes, it could take a very long time and also There is always the potential that you can be right where you should be. That you can grow into that, grow into the person that you love to be. I think that's such, such a hopeful message. So let's talk a little bit, you mentioned before some gaps in your memory and how you have, you know, dissociation and everything else.

22:54 - Carrie Rickert And I know that's a survival mechanism that sexual abuse survivors often incorporate into their lives, right? You know, like you just, I'm gonna shut it off and put it in that box and not look at it anymore. You've talked about how opening those boxes were so terrible, but do you feel like opening those boxes, despite the fact that it was terrible, do you think that the ultimate outcome, how do you feel the ultimate outcome was?

23:33 - Carrie Rickert Does that make my question make sense.

23:37 - Cindy Benezra So, um, you know, I've never really been asked that before and I'm glad you're asking this question because, yes, it was difficult to to dig so deep in there emotionally. However, now that I'm in the thick of this, and this is actually something I do for a living now, is being an advocate for trauma survivors, being an advocate for sexual abuse survivors. I recognize there's, so the statistic is one in four girls, one in four boys.

24:10 - Cindy Benezra And those, I mean, that is a staggering number right there. It is.

24:13 - Multiple Speakers 25%. Yes.

24:18 - Cindy Benezra And if you think about it's only the reported ones which brings that number even higher. And I never reported because I was silent in my process. So those are the only, those are the brave ones who thought I'm gonna rock this boat. I'm gonna burn the house down. I'm going to report. I'm going to do something about this.

24:41 - Carrie Rickert So that- And I would say most people don't.

24:45 - Cindy Benezra No, I don't believe so. I believe that there's so much fear, so much shame, so much embarrassment, so much entanglement in the family, and especially if you're a child, and if your voice has been stifled, and I felt that was the one thing I felt that had been taken away. I did not know how to express myself. I did not feel And in any remote way did I feel empowered until I started doing more of this work.

25:17 - Cindy Benezra So in this process where I recognized, okay, it's time to stand up. And when I started listening to other people, and it's not about the thank you from others, or I'm so glad you shared this. It's more creating awareness and the need to know that we have to know more about this. We need to find more open spaces like this podcast where you allow a space so that we could talk about taboo subjects. I think that's shifting now in society.

25:51 - Carrie Rickert I think we recognize that it just doesn't...

25:56 - Cindy Benezra It doesn't happen just in Hollywood. It really happens to our neighbors, to our sisters, to our brothers, to our aunts and uncles, to everybody around us. And I think that is the part where I am so excited to talk to others and help and facilitate any aspect of that healing because we all are looking for improvement and self-improvement and how do we find empowerment? How do we become better people in society?

26:33 - Cindy Benezra But how do we most love, out of everything, how do we love ourselves? Because I think it's always a challenge to find love for ourselves. And in this process, just even finding self-love for anybody who listens about trauma, because it's not specifically about sexual abuse or it's, we all go through traumatic events. And some of those, it's like, how do you find love for yourself afterwards, after so much grief, so much pain.

27:04 - Cindy Benezra And I think that is really kind of uniting ourselves with other people through our grief process.

27:11 - Unidentified Speaker Yeah, I agree.

27:13 - Carrie Rickert And and I think, you know, as you said earlier, I think the storytelling is so very important, because it allows us to gain information from others but also like not feel so alone because I would imagine through your experience because you were forced to not speak about it right that you felt very isolated like you couldn't form real relationships because what if somebody found out your secrets? Right.

27:51 - Cindy Benezra That's true. I know I did pick the people around me very carefully and I always appreciated their confidence in keeping my story to themselves, you know, and not sharing my story because that was a really big issue. Like, this is my story and if I really wanted my story shared, you know, I would probably take out an ad in the newspaper and share my story, but that was not what I wanted to do. I wanted to have the privacy and the feedback of a one-on-one.

28:29 - Cindy Benezra Right.

28:31 - Carrie Rickert You wanted a friend to listen to you. You didn't want someone who was going to share your stuff.

28:38 - Multiple Speakers And I would imagine with something that big that it would be very hard to trust people.

28:47 - Unidentified Speaker Yeah.

28:47 - Cindy Benezra I think we're human and it's often, did you hear so and so, they said this and blah, blah, blah. And I don't think we really mean it in a malicious way. It's just sort of like, or I heard, but however you want to put that, it's still sharing sometimes somebody else's story or it's gossip or whatever it may be. But this is when it comes down to something that's really heartfelt and something that carries different levels of shame and grief.

29:21 - Cindy Benezra That is really a private, when someone comes up to you, that is something to be really respected. And especially if somebody says, don't share, this is so painful.

29:33 - Unidentified Speaker Right.

29:34 - Carrie Rickert Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. And I think, you know, part of what I have noticed is that As we continue to share stories on this podcast and with your book and all of that, people start to become a little more comfortable also sharing their stories. It opens up the opportunities for other people to talk, which I think does ultimately lead to healing, even if it is painful to do it.

30:15 - Cindy Benezra I 100% agree with you. I think that is the biggest step is just sharing. And I think sometimes listening to other people's story, then you kind of go, ooh, maybe it's okay. Maybe I can say this. And I think that is the first step. I kind of look at it. I've been divorced. I kind of feel like I relate this to when you recognize that your marriage is really toxic and it's not going very well and you're going on through the years, you're always afraid to take that step and call it and go, okay, this is the end of my marriage.

30:54 - Cindy Benezra This is not going to happen. It's like leading- I know that story. It's leading up to that stage and then when you take that stage, and you jump and you get your divorce and you look back and kind of go, Oh my gosh, I can't believe it. And then you go through all the grief and the trauma from processing all that. This is very similar because it's still grief. It's still pain.

31:21 - Multiple Speakers And this is still a process where you could kind of go, okay, that was the old me.

31:26 - Cindy Benezra Maybe I'm going to make some changes and this is how I'm going to heal." Because you don't want to bring that on into your next relationship or into this next new segment of your life. So I added very similar to when I went through my divorce. I thought, oh, you know, it felt almost identical. Like once I was able to take that jump or once I was able to express and tell others, then I was able to recreate.

31:56 - Cindy Benezra And free myself and empower myself like, okay, I'm not going to do these decisions. I'm not going to be that person anymore. I want to have a healthier outlet. Right, right.

32:07 - Carrie Rickert So talk to me a little bit, Cindy, about how your experience has impacted how you parent.

32:21 - Cindy Benezra I have to say I've got, well, excuse me, I have four children, so we're a blended family. And so I hate the statistics, but it's 72% failure in in having a healthy and ongoing relationship the second time around. And I remember thinking like, Oh Lord, like, okay, am I strong enough? Can I do this even with my, do I have a strong enough skills to in my relationship with, with this, with this man that I want to have?

33:04 - Cindy Benezra And can I take on the responsibility of sharing my past with my children and how I hope my parenting, like I hope I have had learned enough through therapy that I could take on just their grief, what's going on with them and not have it, I'm gonna say leak, my past leak out into my parenting with them. So I have to say with parenting in general, it does kind of come natural to me, but I have to say it, There are times I was overly fearful for my children just being in the world where I was maybe helicopter and being a little bit of a helicopter mom.

33:56 - Cindy Benezra And they didn't understand my boundaries were so strict on things that they could do. They just thought, you know, gosh, she's such a hard ass. Just sort of like what is wrong with you, mom?

34:10 - Multiple Speakers And a lot of questioning.

34:11 - Cindy Benezra And I recognize it came out of my own fear when they would say, what is wrong with you, mom? And I thought, oh, OK. Like, let's get this in check. Like, this is my personal fear. And really think about, I think they're going to be okay. But I thought most of it was education. And I think that's what I did. And they thought these books that I would give them on I did an interview with my daughters and I would give them these books on private touching, secret touching, you know, and they hate it and they thought that was the worst Valentine's gift, whereas I thought it was the best Valentine's gift.

34:53 - Cindy Benezra But it's so yeah it did bleed out on on that and I did have their grandfather later on in life as adults in their life, and he would come to the door. I probably said this thousands of times to him I would say. Hi, Dad. Okay, so you made your choices and I'm making my choices. So again, just to the table, to the bathroom, no going in any other rooms. And then he would rub his head or he would act in denial, like, why do you say this?

35:27 - Cindy Benezra Oh, you poor you for saying these things. But that was my boundary. And I had said it every time at the door when I saw him. From the time actually, from the time I had, they were infants all the way up until they were in their 30s. And it's just something that I did regularly. And maybe that was overkill. And it wasn't that I was trying to torture him. It was I'm protecting myself and my family. My family, absolutely.

36:01 - Carrie Rickert And I mean, honestly, I think there are many people who would not have allowed him anywhere near your family.

36:15 - Cindy Benezra So my sister was very much like that. She goes, okay, I'm not going to share this with my family, with the kids. And so she had later on in life, she just kind of was like, I can't deal with this. I don't want to do this. And I was like, well, then you have to be you. You have to recognize that this is how you feel. When he passes that this was the right thing that you don't have any regrets because you don't want to have any regrets.

36:47 - Cindy Benezra But I knew it was too much work for me to pretend that it didn't happen. It was too much work to ignore him since I was his power of attorney. And my dad didn't really feel that he did anything wrong. So it was really hard for me to deal with somebody who was completely in denial of what he did and wouldn't own up to what he did. And then also it brought in other dynamics of the family where I hadn't shared with other family members, like aunts and uncles, his aunts and uncles on my mom's side, where I just thought, okay, this is opening Pandora's box.

37:32 - Cindy Benezra I am just going to do what I've always done. And that's just have him occasionally go for holidays, some dinners, you know, I'm not very involved in his life. So that's how I managed it. And I did what worked for me. And when he came up here, it was what worked for me. I also share this analogy, and everybody's different. If I saw a dog on the side of the road, and it was injured, I would pick up that dog, even if it bit me, and I would take it to a shelter.

38:10 - Cindy Benezra And so I'm doing what works for me. I don't think I could drive past that, even though the dog may bite me or may bite me over and over again, as long as I feel that I'm protected and I gave that animal services. And I know I don't mean to be referring to my father as in this scenario. No, but I understand the analogy there.

38:34 - Carrie Rickert You know, like what what I'm hearing you say is that you treated him with compassion despite the fact that he hurt you so badly. And your sister didn't necessarily have that same compassion, but you're different people. And you had different experiences, no matter what, you know, like, no matter how similar they were, right. But like you would an injured dog, you treated your father with the compassion that he did not treat you with.

39:19 - Carrie Rickert Which, you know, is a remarkable thing, I think. I think we all want to be treated with compassion, and perhaps if your father had been treated with compassion earlier in his life, he wouldn't have gotten to where he was, right?

39:40 - Cindy Benezra I haven't really thought about that. Yeah, possibly, yes. Yes, I agree with you, possibly. I don't know.

39:49 - Multiple Speakers Right, and we won't ever know for sure, right?

39:52 - Carrie Rickert Because he is gone. He is gone.

39:56 - Cindy Benezra But I did what worked for me, and I think that's what I want to emphasize. I think when you have a dynamic in your family, you have to do what works for you. It may not work for your other siblings, but then also being mindful what works for your husband or your partner or what works for your children. What is consent? You know, like, When you, if the kids, if one of the kids would have said, oh, like I, this is absolutely something I am not comfortable with, then, but they always took my lead and they felt comfortable.

40:32 - Cindy Benezra And sometimes they would say, oh, you know, grandpa's really weird. And I would go, yes, he is weird. And trust that instinct. He is weird. Trust that instinct.

40:43 - Carrie Rickert Don't be by yourself with him.

40:46 - Cindy Benezra No, and that was never going to happen. That was never going to happen.

40:50 - Carrie Rickert So, you know, I think it sounds to me like you absolutely did what was right for you and what and and with the safety of your family and yourself in mind, and yet still showed him some compassion as he was getting older and toward the end of his life. Mm hmm.

41:17 - Unidentified Speaker And I want to be selfish in this. This was just it was truly about me.

41:21 - Cindy Benezra It wasn't about, oh, geez, I'm feeling guilty, like I need to give my father love. It wasn't that it was just sort of like, oh, geez, this works for me. And this is all about me. And I'm doing what works. At a convenience for myself.

41:37 - Multiple Speakers Mm hmm.

41:38 - Carrie Rickert But you could have also made and here I am playing devil's advocate. I love it.

41:43 - Multiple Speakers You know, you could have also said what works for me is to deny the power of attorney and not help him at all.

41:51 - Carrie Rickert You could have abandoned him and you did not choose to do that.

41:56 - Cindy Benezra No, that's I think. Let's just say I think he chose he knew he knows who I am. And I think he always knew I would do come through or be that person. And that was one of the surprising things at the end. He said, I can't believe it. I've isolated everybody and look who's by my side. And that was what he first said. And that was when I recognized that was his, it was a door opening into, I said, well, then let's talk about this.

42:31 - Cindy Benezra And that was how we started talking. And I write that in the book about, well, let's talk about this. Like, why did you do this? But the main part I liked, if we could, is touching on those intuitive healing tools that I feel that we all often have these innate, we have an innate ability to heal ourselves. And sometimes they're not fancy tools. They're not, they don't involve money. They're things that we intuitively can do for ourselves.

43:09 - Cindy Benezra And we have to think about what works for us. So say, for example, some people say, oh, forgiveness, and other people go, absolutely not. I would never go towards forgiveness. Then if that is the process for you, then that is your journey, and that's okay, and you should have no shame about that. Then work on something. You could also write a letter. A lot of times, forgiveness is a process of forgiving yourself of part of that scenario.

43:43 - Unidentified Speaker meditation. I know some people go, oh my gosh, I love meditation.

43:47 - Cindy Benezra Other people go, no way. That's a very inexpensive way. And meditation can be in different formats. And since I do have a special needs son, he gets stressed often. And so we're always trying to work of how do we meditate in at work? And how do you do this to find just to find a center back to yourself? And then with dissociation, When something's triggering or something's really igniting you, where you're like, oh my gosh, I just want to run, or I feel numb, or I want to throw up in this conversation, I would often put ice in my mouth.

44:26 - Cindy Benezra Or if I had a drink, ice. Or I'd open up a window to try to stay present. Or if I was sitting down, I'd rub my hands on the texture of my pants or my sweater or whatever it may be. Off my shoes and rubbing my toes into the earth to ground me a little bit more so that you don't dissociate so that you can stay present. And when you use breathing, you know, inhaling, those are very inexpensive ways. This is all free and we can innately figure out and decipher what we can do.

45:05 - Cindy Benezra To stay present or to get through stress or stressful times. And that is a section in my book that I talk about. Visionary boards. I know people think that's just for children. You don't have to, you don't have to take out and create these elaborate boards. It could be, when I was a teenager, I would rip out just pictures or words and I would just have them and put them in a little in a book, and I just put them in one portion of the book.

45:37 - Cindy Benezra And when I wanted to picture what it looked like to feel love, I would take out those little ripped words that I had or a picture or a heart or whatever that vision. A lot of times it was a mountain for me or some kind of form of nature. And I would look at that, bring light a candle often. And bring in that scent of what that beauty would look like, feel like, so feel it in my senses, meditate on and think about myself, and that's what love looks like for me.

46:11 - Cindy Benezra So there's a lot of things we can do, but I think you have to recognize what works for me and then trying them over and over again to see. What works for me. Mantras were an amazing, amazing tool for me. I made up my own. I put a sticky note on the bathroom mirror and I would, every time I brush my teeth, every time I wash my hands, you know, or use the facilities, I would say those mantras. And there were, yeah, 20 times.

46:40 - Cindy Benezra But if you think about how often you go to your bathroom, or if you could be mindful, maybe stick a rubber band on your finger and when you look at your finger going, oh, I love myself, I love myself, I love myself for all my flaws, I love my flaws. Whatever your mantra may be, if you're saying that, there is a shift in there. And if that works for you, I think it could be a powerful tool as well.

47:07 - Carrie Rickert There's so many things we can do.

47:09 - Cindy Benezra I think that it just, as long as it resonates with you. And if they don't, it might be two days, four years and then alternate inspirational quotes with the things that I just love. When I see something beautiful because I love words, I look at that and think about that and then also use it in a visionary way too. Yeah.

47:34 - Carrie Rickert So yeah, I think it's interesting because there have been things like some of the things that you've mentioned that have helped me in seasons, right? So it's like for a good solid year, I meditated almost daily. Now I'm not in a meditation season right now, you know, but like, I think that's another thing to think about too, is that if something doesn't work for you right now, it's worth the try in six months or so, see if maybe it works for you now, right?

48:12 - Cindy Benezra Right.

48:13 - Carrie Rickert Again, these are free tools and you might as well try them. And sometimes you just have to be ready to try them, you know, and sometimes you're not ready and that's okay too. Yeah, absolutely.

48:28 - Cindy Benezra Um, I think, um, therapy is, is, um, I remember going to a therapist sometimes for years, or I would only go to a therapist twice. And I thought, Oh, okay. I got all that I need from this therapist. I'm going to quit and then find somebody else who I could resonate with in a different level. But that might be it too. You just might need a quick little checkup or it might not. When I was younger, it was talking to an elderly person because they were present and they were still.

48:59 - Cindy Benezra And they would flush all the ideas or a stranger, sometimes listening to a stranger, talking to a stranger, they don't really have any skin in your problem, their skin in it. So they just kind of just shoot it out really quickly and they go, well, have you ever thought about this? And blah, blah, blah. You never see that person again. And I used to use that as a tool too, just like, maybe I'll ask a stranger, because you just don't know.

49:25 - Cindy Benezra Not all the time. Sometimes friends or family cater to our emotional needs, and they might not be as objective as we would. Right.

49:37 - Carrie Rickert Absolutely. Sometimes it is very often a good idea to get an outside perspective. And that is, as you said, can certainly be done through therapy and can be done through conversations with people you wouldn't necessarily typically have a conversation with. Right.

49:57 - Unidentified Speaker Yeah.

50:00 - Carrie Rickert So Cindy, tell us about your work now. You know, I know people experience all kinds of trauma and lock it away. And you've worked really hard to uncover it and your trauma and also to do that to help other people. So tell us what what you're doing now.

50:22 - Cindy Benezra So currently I'm working on translating my book into Spanish. I am half, well I'm half Mexican and So I feel a connection there, but as I was... It's more than a connection. I recognize there's also an underserved population that everything is pretty much in English. That's the chosen format that a lot of our information comes in. And so I thought, well, it would be... I'm going to have everything translated.

50:59 - Cindy Benezra And it's not through AI, it's really I have a person who is translating the sensitive subject matter and where they could see it in video format or written down below. And so the book will be now in Spanish and that's coming out in October and I'm so excited.

51:22 - Carrie Rickert Yes.

51:22 - Cindy Benezra And so I have a lot of followers from South America and then also Africa and France. And I think that's because there's not a lot of resources out there. And it's not as openly discussed in that area.

51:42 - Carrie Rickert Those areas, I should say, those areas. Yeah, that makes sense. Yeah.

51:47 - Cindy Benezra Yeah, so I've got that and I've been doing my advocacy work. This is really, I do it, I don't get paid for this. I do it out of passion out of love in hopes to help others. And I'm really driven about it. I feel like this is a calling for me. I love talking to other people, talking to people like you, other, you know, speaking, presenting, because I feel there is such a need for this. Yeah, absolutely.

52:20 - Carrie Rickert So if people wanted to get in touch with you, you know, have you on their podcast or have you as a speaker or just have a conversation with you? Where can they reach you?

52:34 - Cindy Benezra Best place to reach me is at www.cindytalks.com. And that brings you to my blog, but I have a place there where you could reach out and I'm always reach out. I always respond. So please feel free and open. I also have a blog there where I have different information. I have great videos. I interview my children often, and we have open conversations about how to navigate through trauma and sexual abuse within families and how I have it in stages where, when they were younger, what they thought about it, if they felt any shame, or what do they have for other children?

53:18 - Cindy Benezra So I- That's very cool.

53:21 - Carrie Rickert That's an awesome resource.

53:24 - Cindy Benezra So it's just, it's not just about their story. It's really how do we do this as a, the dynamics within a family and how do we, it's how do you break out of these cycles and how do we break out of these generational cycles and stop this, stop these cycles with ourselves. And so that's a lot of what I have on my website. I have every podcast on there, too, just like this episode. And you could also find me on Amazon.

53:57 - Cindy Benezra The book is on Amazon. But I'm really, honestly, on every single place that you could sell a book. I believe that's where my book is at.

54:06 - Unidentified Speaker OK.

54:07 - Carrie Rickert Cool. Awesome.

54:09 - Cindy Benezra Well, thank you so much for your time today.

54:11 - Carrie Rickert I really appreciate it. I think your message will resonate with a lot of people and, you know, keep doing your great work.

54:22 - Cindy Benezra Thank you, Carrie. And you too, my goodness, you have such a powerful podcast. I just, I was, I know I shared this with you earlier, but I was listening to them and what a great diversity. It's almost like you uniquely handpicked these people and they're so diverse and so insightful. I think I was up to one o'clock in the morning last night listening to your podcast.

54:48 - Multiple Speakers Well, thank you. I appreciate that.

54:53 - Cindy Benezra Seriously, thank you.

54:55 - Carrie Rickert I have been very, very blessed to come in contact with the people that I have gotten to come in contact with in this journey. So I appreciate I appreciate everyone and yeah, thank you. And hopefully we will talk again soon.

55:14 - Cindy Benezra Looking forward to it. All right. Have a lovely day.

55:16 - Carrie Rickert You too.