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Healing and Empowerment: Tara Wisco's Story of Resilience

• Tabitha MacDonald • Episode 36

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When the weight of the world seems to press down on us, it's tales of triumph like Tara Wisco's that light our way through the darkness. On the Mindful Love Podcast, I, Tabitha MacDonald, sit down with Tara, a beacon of hope who has emerged from the shadow of domestic violence to become a symbol of strength and success. Her story is a stark reminder that the path to personal freedom is fraught with challenges, but is indeed navigable with resilience and support.

https://tara-wiskow.com
@tarawiskow

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About Tabitha
Tabitha MacDonald is an Intuitive Coach and Healer committed to helping people overcome their pain as fast as possible so that they can have the love, success, freedom and fulfillment they truly desire.

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Speaker 1:

Hello everyone and welcome to the Mindful Love Podcast. I'm your host, tabitha McDonald, and I am very excited to have a guest on today. Her name is Tara Wisco. She is the CEO of Be the Change. You Need a successful podcaster and coach helping women shift their mindset, lose weight and heal internally. Tara has lost 220 pounds, survived an abusive relationship, managed being a single mom of three boys and now has a happy marriage, thriving online business and the health that she dreamed of. Welcome, tara, I am so happy to have you on the show today.

Speaker 2:

Thank you so much, Tabitha. I'm so excited to be here with you. I appreciate this opportunity and have loved getting to know more about you and the bit that we've been chatting already.

Speaker 1:

Did I say your first name correctly? Is it Tara or Tara, tara, tara, yep, you did. You got it. As soon as I said it I was like did I say that correctly? Thank you. So tell me a little bit about your journey. I love I don't love hearing about domestic violence, but I love hearing stories about people who came out of it and like what they did, because that's hard, that's not an easy thing to one identify and believe it or not. Sometimes people are in it and they have no clue and then how you come out of it Like. I would love to hear some of that story if you don't mind sharing, yeah.

Speaker 2:

I don't mind at all. So for me, I actually had and did a nine year marriage with my husband and I the dad to my three boys. And in that time of ending that I actually as many women know desperate to know that I was going to be loved again, desperate to know that I was going to be wanted in a relationship. And so I met a guy and everything that he said was what I dreamed of. It was. If you were to have your list of qualities about a guy, he marked. I mean, he met every single one of them and I thought it was a dream come true and so entered into the relationship. Thankfully, was very cognizant of making sure that I was going to wait until I really got to know him before I allowed him to be around the boys, and so the boys did meet him a couple times, but it was after that. I think it was him thinking that because I allowed him to meet his boys, that it was finally fully accepting him into the relationship.

Speaker 2:

And that's when the abuse started. That's when I mean it started with a mental piece of it and then went into very quickly the, the physical piece of it, the violence, the beating and things like that. I did not last in that relationship very long, thank goodness. I struggled for a long time to believe that I could get out of it because of the things that he said he would demean me, you know, when I was working to lose Go to like how the mental abuse started, because I know a lot of people who are like, well, why did you stay?

Speaker 1:

And I don't think they understand the amount of energy that goes into getting your mind to believe whatever they say, like can you talk a little bit about that journey and what he did to get you hooked? Basically, because it's what it is and I think that when we talk about that initial stage, it helps other people identify when it's happening to them. Such a good point. I woke up one day and you were like, oh, this is great, this is exactly what I wanted. He had a, and I would love for you to share about that.

Speaker 2:

I love that you say grooming, because that's huge, that is so huge and that's what's done. And to be very straight, tabitha, I had an aunt that was in a domestically violent marriage and I always told myself I would never, ever let a man do that to me. I would never let a man touch me. I would never let a man punch me, I never would, and I was very, very serious about that. So the grooming process was telling me that nobody would ever want to touch me, telling me that my body was gross, telling me that I was disgusting, telling me that I was lucky that he would even touch me. Telling me when he would say those things and I became adamant about wanting to lose weight so that I would look good enough for him that if I continued to lose weight, my nose would get too big for my face and then I would look odd and people wouldn't even be able to handle looking at me.

Speaker 1:

All of those things. Say with that for a minute, because I do not think people realize how, when we are really overweight, how susceptible that makes us to emotional abuse, because there's a part of us that believes that and they intentionally pick us because of that, like, yes, and then we spend the whole time trying to make our bodies look good, but really they don't want that because that would give us confidence to leave them. And so I I'm like, how much did you weigh at the time? If you don't mind sharing like what was your relationship with your body? Because he knew right how to go in on it. So what was that like for you?

Speaker 2:

Yeah, I had lost about 85 pounds. So I hadn't lost the mass majority of my weight being at, you know, the total weight loss of 220. So I hadn't lost the mass majority of my weight, being at the total weight loss of 220. So I was quite large, I was close to 300 pounds and so, you're right, he saw me as an easy target. He knew that I struggled with belief in myself, my confidence that I had body dysmorphia, that I didn't think I was good enough. I didn't think that I would be accepted, loved or wanted. He knew I just went through a divorce, so I was very vulnerable and he targeted me and took advantage of an opportunity to get what he wanted out of that situation.

Speaker 1:

Which is interesting, looking back, because people don't understand this. What did he want? Because he wanted something specific, and what was it? Power, power, right, yeah, it has nothing to do with you. And I think that's so hard to remember is that it doesn't. It's not, it's just just power. It has nothing to do with you. And it's so weird and it's so hard to like comprehend that because it's so personal. Right, it's so personal, it is power.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, that's all it was was power, and so for me going that, I was sucked into it, all of the negative things that he would say about me. I have always been a fast eater. I grew up in the farm and in the fields with my grandpa, and if you've ever been and done field work, you know that when you stop you have like 20 minutes to get your meal done and then back on the go Right, and so I've always been a fast eater. And I remember one time he looked at me and he said slow down, quit eating so fast. And I didn't think I was eating fast, I was eating how I always did, and so I did not. You know, quote, unquote, listen to him. I didn't follow his rules or his wants or desires, and so he punched me in the side of the face, right there, and he told me you realize that this is why you're fat, right, it's because you eat like you eat, and that led to eating disorders.

Speaker 2:

Anorexia bulimia became my thing, and it makes me a bit emotional because, just because one person said that to me, I decided I needed to start a journey that was so unhealthy for me, only to try to make him happy, but it was as you said the grooming, it was the things that he said to me. It was dropping me to my lowest level of belief and thinking that I would never, ever have anybody that would look at me, love me, like me or accept me, except for him, and he would go into my family. He would even use my boys and say you do realize that, because you're so fat and ugly that at some point your boys are going to look at you and see you for you and they're not going to want you either.

Speaker 1:

It's the process of telling you start because he didn't start like this, right? So how did your relationship start? Because that's what I really want people to understand, because that breaks my heart. Hearing what you went through, and I know people on this call or this listening to this are probably like, well, why didn't you see it? Because it didn't start that way, right. Like, how did you meet? Like, how did it begin?

Speaker 2:

Yeah, good question. Yeah, so the very beginning, how it started, to be honest, sometimes I don't know, because it was so incognito style, like it was very, very calculated. It was very much controlling tactics. When I was on the phone with my ex-husband talking about my boys, it had to be on speaker. If I said anything that maybe sounded like I was being nice to my ex-husband, it was like a tap on the shoulder and a no, we don't do that sign.

Speaker 1:

It was a little don't raise me with pretending like he was supporting you.

Speaker 2:

Yes, yes Very much like I'm here, me, yes, teaching me how to, which is so odd to me. Teaching me how to be in control of situations is what he was he was intending. That was what he would say to me is I'm teaching you how to be strong and not let your ex-husband get away with things that isn't what he.

Speaker 1:

That's the hook. That's the hook. That is there. Yes, I don't know my ex -husband. Oh, I'll help you with that now, like there's the, there's the opening. How did you meet him? Was it online dating or was it through his?

Speaker 2:

friend, so she had gotten to know. Yeah, it did feel safe and it felt like I belonged in this space because we could double date and he was great when we were double dating. But it was two months into it where then he decided we're no longer going to be on double dates, we're no longer going to be with other people, and his reasoning was he just really wanted to get to know me. He really wanted to have one-on. Reasoning was he just really wanted to get to know me. He really wanted to have one-on-one time. He wanted to get to spend that time and value those times together alone, rather than spending it with others. Yeah, it made sense to me. It made so much sense and like, oh my gosh, he just wants to be with me, he values me so much. Like he was saying everything my heart and my mind and my soul wanted to hear yeah, yes.

Speaker 1:

Totally. He knew exactly what that's, that. That's a master, right there, the one-on-one time. Did you start noticing the patterns? You probably didn't. But like looking back, was it immediate or was it like a little bit into it, like where it was? You know what. What did you notice like looking back, because I know when you're in it you don't see it. You're like a frog being boiled right, like it's that slow burn, so you don't't see it.

Speaker 2:

I believe it was about two and a half months into it. There's two things that I remember specifically. We were having dinner with his grandpa and he had made steaks and I'd made the scalloped potatoes and he was very ashamed of the scalloped potatoes. I'm not sure why, but he was very ashamed of the scalp potatoes. I'm not sure why, but he was very ashamed of them. He apologized to his grandpa for the crap recipe that I'd made and his grandpa said it was perfectly fine and I had the steak and I cut it up and I eat ketchup with my steak. I don't care if it's the best steak in the world, I eat ketchup with it. It's just what I do.

Speaker 2:

And it was that moment where he made me scrape the ketchup off my plate and put my steak on a new plate and told me nobody ever eats my steak with ketchup. That is never going to happen again, ever. And there was no like, like as long as we're together. It was almost like in that at that moment it wasn't like you can choose to be with me or you can choose not. You're with me, you're stuck. That's how I felt in that moment.

Speaker 1:

when he said that, I almost felt like the imprisonment, and then I think he realized that, because that's when the threat started coming, that's when he would make those he was he was watching and he knew as soon as you changed the plate, that was the moment he knew he had you and he didn't have to do any more grooming the grooming phase exactly. He there was asking for that. I was just talking to somebody about this the other day, about, like, if you tell this person why they should have to love you, that's the moment they take away your power. Like, and it's waiting for you to do it, because then they know they've got you like. Your self-esteem, self-worth is out the window.

Speaker 2:

And I want to share too, because I think this is huge for women to know. He would force me to watch and I get goosebumps when I think about it. He would force me to watch horror movies. And horror movies are they're just. I cannot handle them, I cannot handle them. Movies are they're just? I cannot handle them, I cannot handle. But his tactic was to know what about them caused me to become very unsettled, uncomfortable. What scared me? Because he would use those oh, that's disgusting.

Speaker 2:

You was studying your fear and getting to know how to keep me reeled in, how to keep me sucked in, and it would be like you're okay. It would be those moments where he would tell me I'm okay. He would always layer it with just enough like you're beautiful to me, but nobody else will see you beautiful. Like you're beautiful to me, but everybody else thinks you're gross. You know, he would always give me that little nugget of what I needed to hear. But then on the other side of that was why I should never, ever not be with him.

Speaker 1:

Oh yeah, it's how. Like Tony Robbins talks about how, in the Chinese camps, when they took the POWs in, they didn't torture them, they didn't remove food, they didn't do these things. They took away their sense of self by talking for 18 hours a day, and so at the end of the, they were like it's true, I don't know why we're even fighting with you. We should be on your side. It's true, I don't know why we're even fighting with you. We should be on your side. And I'm like totally minimizing the story just because it's the same technique and it's like let's rip away your self-worth and then I'm just going to give you why I'm the only person who cares about you and replace it with that. It's very.

Speaker 2:

Yes, yes, you nailed it, that's exactly what it was and he did it really really well. And to all you women listening, I am a strong, motherfucking woman. Like I am strong and I have always been strong. I've always handled everything and been able to face whatever came up and never allowed anybody to crack me ever. And he, he broke me, he cracked me, he undermined me and took control of me and did an amazing job and I had no clue it was happening.

Speaker 1:

I'm so glad you brought that up, because I work with a lot of strong women who are like I don't understand. I'm so strong, I'm successful, I have all of these other things going for me and I'm like it's not you. They'd call me in. You wanted to be supported In some place of your life. You wanted to be able to let your feminine energy go and have a strong force come in and kind of like, hold you in your femininity and they know that and they speak to that and then they rip it away from you and it's just yeah. I mean, I don't know if that's, but to me it sounds like you are super strong and really enjoyed having the support. Yeah, yeah, absolutely. We were designed to want support. It's hard on your own people.

Speaker 2:

there is one thing that you always need and that's connection to the outside world in one way or another, even if it's just through text messages or just your phone, right, like not even speaking on the phone but having somebody send you a message or somebody like something of yours on social media. That's connection and we all need that and we all look for it.

Speaker 1:

Yeah it's very true. So tell me, like, how did it progress and how did you get out? Because I just I hear your story and so many people and I just I'm so grateful that you're sharing it today. It's not always easy to be that vulnerable in, you know, with people, especially people that you don't know or can't see, and so I just want to honor that, because the more of us that tell our stories, the more people will get out, and so I just wanted to say that. But I would love to hear how your story unfolded. How did your boys react? I know that's kind of hard to talk about sometimes, and then how did you finally get out?

Speaker 2:

Yeah, so he was very good with my boys and they were young enough to not fully know what was going on. And when I say he was really good with my boys, he never and I was always eyes on, I was always eyes on he was never allowed to be alone with them. He never did anything that would indicate that there was something to be concerned, that he would throw a play catch with them. He was good, they were young enough and he was also, I'm sure, trying to get the buy-in with them as well. That's why he treated them nice, right. If he would have been a dick to them, they would have been like mom, I don't like him. So he was very smart about that. It progressed to the point where, on a daily basis that we were together, it was a beating of some sort. It was something that I would do, so simple. That was wrong. If I posted a picture, I went with my sister and her husband and we went out to a concert and just had a great time. And I had a picture with me and my brother in law in it, a very innocent picture, and I was wearing the shirt that I had been wearing in that picture. And he saw it and he ripped it off of me and wrapped it around my neck and tied it until I couldn't breathe and I didn't think that I was going to survive that. And his whole intention was you don't ever wear a shirt like that when you've touched another man and you're with me. That was his reasoning for that. So that was the first like when I got to that point of not knowing if I was going to survive that experience. That started to open my eyes. And the next day after that it was the most radical thing. I was standing at the kitchen sink and he was sleeping on the couch and I remember looking outside and I saw hot air balloons going over my house and I've no like. I lived in the country. I had no clue that there were hot air balloons. There were multiple hot air balloons going over the roof of my house and I saw it as a sign of like, peace and safety and the ability to escape, and I had no clue where it came from, no clue why I all of a sudden connected with that.

Speaker 2:

The next weekend was my sister's wedding. I went with a black and blue eye and my mom saw it and I hid it, I lied about it and I felt terrible about it. He wore steel toe boots and said that if my grandpa made one comment he would kick his throat in. My grandpa is my lifeline. My grandpa is my rock. My grandpa is the man that raised me when my dad didn't want me. Nobody speaks about my grandpa the way he spoke about my grandpa. I ended it after that and I ended it because he went home to help his mom and I called the cops and he was arrested. I laid it all out. I showed him the house he had demolished my house after we got home because I had said something that he was angry about. Had the cops come over and he was arrested. It was me being in the supported situation that I was denied until my sister's wedding and I was no longer denied to go, obviously right, isolate you from your family?

Speaker 1:

Yes, that's what they do, is they start isolating you from your family? And it's really hard because you don't even know that it's happening. And it's little drops right like, oh your sister, it'll just make comments, oh your mother, or oh your brother, you know they'll make those little comments. And then suddenly your neural pathways you teach NLP, so you'll this are like aligned in this new programming and nobody around you understands and what? How I like to explain it to the loved ones who support someone in an abusive situation is you have to look at it like they're. They have Stockholm syndrome Like they. You can't just pull them out, because that will pull them closer to the abuser. You just have to be there and not challenge the reality, because your reality is now his reality. Like I mean, that's so hard for people who've never experienced it to understand. Did your family come to you and express their worries, or was it like you just couldn't hear them?

Speaker 2:

They didn't even know because I live two hours away and until my sister's wedding, which he couldn't deny me to go to that because then it would be obvious, right Until that, they'd never met him, they'd never had any time with him. I'd been with him for a year it was just almost a year when I ended it so they had never met him, they'd never been around him, I was never allowed to have them down, he would never go to them. I understand now in the moment. I didn't, because he told me the negative things about them they don't love you, they don't accept you. They say things like this. And he made it about them not wanting me and I believed it. And of course he layered it with how much he loved me and wanted because he was there with me and all these things, and so I totally bought into it.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, and I'm just going to say you didn't buy into it. He was reprogramming your mind like very good, that's nlp techniques, right, like that. That's what they're doing left brain, right brain, left brain, right brain, abuse, love, abuse, love. Like they're literally rewiring your brain with their speech patterns. So, yeah, it's important to remember that that we didn't buy in. They're gifted at that and so good point. I just want to say that because I'm like I feel like sometimes we blame ourselves and it's like no, they're just really good at what they do, they're really good at what they do.

Speaker 2:

They are and, as you said, like to the NLP, we believe things to be true for us, like we decide a limiting belief to be true for us, and so I guess the better way, rather than say buy in, is the things that he was saying supported the limiting beliefs that I had, which made it so real for me, so true.

Speaker 1:

Sure, he was studying your fear patterns like he was studying them, so he knew how to be very effective. Think about a time that maybe you bought something you didn't want. Like it's a. It's a sales technique, but it's also used for manipulation and emotional abuse, which leads into you know, taking away your power. But think about sitting in a in a timeshare presentation where you're like, all of a sudden buying something that you would never buy. Like it's the same strategy of just confusing your mind.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, it's speaking to the emotion, the emotion that's your most vulnerable, your weakest emotion.

Speaker 1:

Oh yeah, and when we struggle with weight issues because I was over 300 pounds like we're not connected with our emotions, there's a reason that we're overeating or we're overworking or we're over whatevering, it's because we don't know how to feel. And I think they tap into that, like our inability to feel, and they make us feel the way they want us to. And we're up here with our minds thinking, thinking we're feeling, but we're not. We're not actually feeling until they create the feeling chain in our body. So very true.

Speaker 1:

Very true, that's my understanding of it, and so you got out. Did he come back for you or did he stay away?

Speaker 2:

after that he stayed away. He was arrested, and so I also had a restraining order against him, and it was done. He realized that there was nothing more that could be. You know, he couldn't get to me at that point. He knew that it was over, and I made it very clear as well.

Speaker 1:

That's amazing. How did you get past that? Because that's hard. How did? How did you get past that? Because that's hard, how did you? You know?

Speaker 2:

it was scary. Uh, the hardest part of it was I knew if I was going to heal, I had to be alone. I couldn't let anybody else in. It just had to be me and my boys. It just had to be me focusing on me, healing through me. So I went through therapy.

Speaker 2:

I did a lot of release work, a lot of work in myself, a lot of removing the beliefs that I had, and this is why I've become an NLP practitioner, the Neuro Linguistic Programmer, our programming practitioner because I realized those limiting beliefs were there and I needed to release them. And once I released them, I was able to be free of believing the things that I so strongly believed. It was the hugest piece of the healing process for me. So for me, getting through it was that just working on myself. My company is Be the Change you Need. I'm the CEO founder and I've realized that every single time that I had a transformation, every single time that something shifted in my life for the positive, it was because I was the one that was a change. I was the one that did what needed to be done to shift my mindset, to show up differently for myself, to get out of my own way, and that created the change. So that's how I got past that.

Speaker 1:

That's amazing. Oh, okay, that's so beautiful. I love that Because I don't think we realize that our beliefs are changeable. They're just how we see the world right, and most people have no idea that they're absolutely changeable.

Speaker 2:

They are, and I didn't. I just felt like who I was. It was who I was meant to be. For the longest time I thought that and I don't know if everybody has their own thoughts as far as God, whether it's God, the higher power of the universe, whoever you speak to but I believed for the longest time that God made me to be one of the less fortunate. I thought there was groups of people this group of people I make are less fortunate. They don't get as great a life. These are the ones that get everything. I truly honestly believed that that's how God made people and that I was just one of the less fortunate people and I didn't realize that I could develop the life I wanted. Again goes back to be the change you need, because I realized that whatever kind of life I want, it's in my full capability. I just have to make it happen by doing the work, taking the steps and making the changes that need to be made.

Speaker 1:

Oh, I love that you said that, because I think that it is more challenging for those of us who had maybe like the not best childhood. I don't know what your childhood was like, but I did hear you say that your dad wasn't around and I think that leaves a big for lack of a better term daddy issues and that is a very big window for abusive men, because we have this really misconstrued definition of love and belonging and it's usually incurred in abuse and abandonment.

Speaker 2:

Absolutely yes. I had a stepdad, which he was amazing and still is to this day. But I found out at eight that he wasn't my dad. On accident, my aunt accidentally slipped and let me know that she saw my dad and it was my eighth birthday. It was Easter. I said, yeah, I know he's in the house. And she said, no, your dad Bruce. Well, my dad's name is Junior. He's in the house. And she said, no, your dad, bruce. Well, my dad's name is Junior.

Speaker 2:

And so I found out that day that my dad that I loved and cherished, was not my dad. And that's when, all of it, at eight years old. And what do you know and think right at eight? What perspective do you take on that? He didn't want me, he hadn't been in my life and he told my mom to abort me. All these things came out to me. So, even though I had my dad, who was my stepdad, I still felt like the guy that made me, didn't want me and didn't accept me. And years down the road I did meet him. We did work and I was very blessed to have him for three short years before he died of cancer. So I did have him in my life, did find out the true whole story of what really did happen in that timing of his life when I was born. So there is a lot more to it than what I was aware of at eight.

Speaker 2:

But you're right, it is that feeling of abandonment and that is honestly still one of the things that I work with. I'm remarried. My husband is amazing. I'm so blessed in so many ways. It makes me emotional to just know that I could get through what I got through. That's the part that makes me emotional. I don't get emotional that I was in that relationship anymore because I've worked through it. I get emotional to know that I could get through that and step into this and be loved and be cherished and be worshiped and be wanted. It's so amazing. But I still have that fear of abandonment, fear of doing something wrong that's going to make him not want me or fear of not being good enough and he's going to find somebody better. And he's been such a trooper of working through it and we've had therapy for things but it's been amazing. We've both had to do a lot of work.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, that's, I mean those ones. They don't come up again until we're in a situation that brings them up. And you know, I knew that. A lot of that work and it's um, it's interesting because, like, even just creating like a landing page, I'm like crap. I have to work through a lot of trauma just to create a stupid landing page. Like like no, no, then never life. I'm like, fine, I'll do the work and then I'll go do the landing page. But yeah, it's just funny how some things aren't that simple, because we do have those deep wounds and it's how your child self-registered the pain and it does keep affecting us. And there's so many tools to help. I do rewiring work to remove limiting beliefs. Nlp is one of my tools. You use nlp, um, it's, it's really powerful because it doesn't always have to be that way. It does happen a new way to be and it does require us to do the inner work. It's worth it right, like it's worth it 100 worth it.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, those triggers come up and even when you have an amazing time, an amazing day, there's been many moments where we've been on a date or we've been having a conversation, and it was a great conversation, but something triggered a memory from the past and that brings it. It's like the regurgitation of it comes back up and all of a sudden you're throwing Kittywampus into left field and you're like what the fuck? Why am I feeling this way? Why did I just say this? Why did I just do that? And it's all because of a past situation and a trigger that came up for you. So you're right, it all of a sudden comes up. You have to work through it, but it's doing the work.

Speaker 2:

As you've mentioned, it's taking advantage of the resources, the people surrounding yourself, with, the people that love you, the friends and the family that hold you up or lift you up or believe in you, even on your weakest days. Right, those are the people that I learned to be around and be with. I wasn't ready to admit why I was broken to them and they didn't need to hear it. They just loved and valued me and they let me be who I needed to be, how I needed to be and gave that very safe invitation for me to admit what I'd went through. And then they just loved me, no matter what. And let me know that just because I was in that situation, they still loved me, they still accepted me and they still wanted me.

Speaker 1:

It was another big component of my healing, that's amazing, and I just think that's such a blessing, especially since there's a lot of people who don't have that like in their life because their family of origin was abusive and so you know they don't have a supportive environment. And I think that's where, like coaching programs like yours or mine come in handy. Right, because if we don't have it, it's available like right, like, you can join our empowerment group. You can join a free facebook group, but we were talking about that sooner. Don't get caught in the ones that are full of negativity, because that can be like a prison of darkness that is um, really looping. I had to get out of most of the active ones because they were just like not empowering each other. It was just they were just stuck in it. And that's hard for me to witness when I know there's a way out, when I know there's a way to rewire those trauma patterns in the brain, and so it's really hard to be in that it's just keeping people in the trauma instead of helping.

Speaker 2:

And I always let my clients know that if you're in a group and you notice there's like a negative post and you feel a little twinge of like oh, and you let it go. If this happens a second and a third time, you know you need to leave. Don't stay in there for the possibility that, oh, it'll probably get better, or oh, I'm just having a sensitive day, or ah, this is just me being a big ass baby, Like no, if you've got those negative twinges and it happens three times, max leave and don't feel bad about leaving, because you have to make yourself sacred, you have to put the boundaries and you have to leave. So I leave them. If there's a third time sometimes it's like a one time I'm like no, I'm out, I'm done. Like all you have to do is see one post and then look at the comments and realize like, oh, my God, I just wasted two minutes of my life and I'm never going to get those two minutes back. I am out.

Speaker 1:

I know I was like, oh, I'll go in there and help people realize there's a path out, Like because I was like there's a way out, Like you don't have to be there forever. And then it's yeah, it's hard because you have to know where the group is actually holding you in that trauma pattern and when they're actually going to help you out of it, because there is a very big difference yes, yes, what does that saying go?

Speaker 2:

it's like the huh, like the weak and the hurt, or whatever they they're. They want you. I can't remember what, how it goes, but it's almost like those that are miserable. Misery wants company. There, it is right. Yeah, misery loves company. That's like those groups that, what, that's what it is. They're just looking for more misery.

Speaker 1:

Yeah it's hard because I think that people want a community, like I've had clients who are recovering from narcissistic abuse and they've gone into those groups and I'm like, all right, I'm warning you don't stay there, like but be, you know, be there. And they're like, oh, it felt really good. There was a bunch of people who experienced my same thing and it was really nice. And like a week later they're like wait a minute, I'm coming out. And they can't come out and like I try to tell them they're the way out and I feel like they're looking at me like I'm crazy, and I'm like like, yeah, see, now it's time to leave. So, yeah, yeah.

Speaker 1:

And it's hard because it's good to get the validation, it's good to see, oh, I'm not alone, like other people have experienced this. But then there comes a point where you have to go. I actually don't want to belong there, because if I belong there, then I won't want to leave and then I won't heal. So, true, good point, oh. So tell me a little bit. We're running a little bit out of time, so I just want to hear a little bit about your business, how you got it started and then what's life like you know now.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, absolutely so. My business was. I started out as weight loss revolutionized and I've transitioned to Be the Change you Need. And the transition came from the realization that weight loss is so much more than nutrition and the physical part of it. It's the mindset, it's the healing, and so Be. The Change you Need is an online program where I work with women in group setting, but also one-on-one.

Speaker 2:

There's NLP involved for the internal healing, the release of limiting beliefs, the release of the negative emotions, because those are the reasons why we become overweight, why we're struggling to lose weight, why we're struggling. And so I want to know why. The very first intake that we're going in, when they come in, I'm like all right, why'd you get here? Right? You know I'm not that blunt with it. I ask the questions to understand why are we here anyway? How did we get here? Because if we don't know how we got here, we don't know how we're going to get out. We have to heal, right, we have to heal everything that has happened in order for us to back ourselves out of the situation. And once we go, I know the why, I know the understanding. We go through the NLP process, which is a three-week part of my program. We step into four weeks of self-love, four weeks of self-worth, four weeks of self-discovery, and then we go into sustainability. Because in my program, in the 19 weeks that I spend with my women, they lose anywhere from 20 to 60, sometimes 70 pounds, and I do not want them gaining that weight back right. This is a permanent weight loss program. It's all about you coming in and transforming your mindset and transforming your lifestyle so that your body is permanently transformed. So that's my online program. I also do one-on-one, and in this space it's personalized to the women. Sometimes it's not weight loss that they need, it's so much more, it's deeper, and so I spend one-on-one in them in that mentorship program as well.

Speaker 2:

Life now it's incredible. It's amazing to think that it could be what it was and I thought that that just was the best that it could ever be and that I was part of the unlucky ones that God made to realize that I have developed the life that I love. I'm an entrepreneur, I get to work from wherever the hell I want to changing lives. And it's amazing. My youngest son graduates in a couple weeks from high school. It's crazy to think that I will be technically an empty nester, and I don't know that I'm ready. I don't know if the world's ready for me to be an empty nest. There's going to be lots of like just re-coaching going on. I'm going to walk around looking for people that look like they need it, and yeah, so my husband and I will. We'll just have that more, more of that time for our time together, which will be great too.

Speaker 1:

Yeah Well, I love it. What a beautiful story, um, thank you so much for sharing it today. Um, that is one of the most inspiring stories I've heard in such a long time, and it is such a beautiful journey of like pain to purpose, like that is just I mean just unbelievable. Thank you, tara. How do people find you?

Speaker 2:

Yeah, great question. So there's, yeah, there's. I'm all over social media and I'm very loud and proud with it, so you definitely no problem finding me on Facebook. It's Tara Wisco. T as in tango A-R-A. Wisco is spelled W-I-S, as in Sam K-O-W, same as Instagram, same as TikTok. You'll find me there. And if you want to check out my website, it's wwwterra-wiscocom, so that's where you can find me or my podcast. Be the Change you Need. Every Monday, a new episode drops.

Speaker 1:

Awesome. Oh my gosh, I'm so glad that I reached out to you. We were in some podcasting group and I was like intuition was like this is exactly who you want to chat with. And I reached out to you and I'm just so grateful that you came on to the show today. Your story is inspiring and it is just powerful and beautiful and I know that sometimes when we look at people who've experienced great pain, I think they really demonstrate to others what's possible and that, like, change is possible and it can be permanent and life is worth fighting for. Like that's really what I'm getting from your story is you're worth it? It's worth it. Yeah, yes, thank you so much and I will post all of the links below in the show notes. Thank you, tara, so much for your time today and I look actually forward to having more conversations with you because there's a lot of things I want to ask you about in future episodes.

Speaker 2:

Yes, I can't wait. I would love to be back on another episode speaking about additional things. Thank you for today. Thank you for blessing me with this opportunity to be here to touch even if it's just one woman that hears my story and is in the situation you're in. Babe, I just want you to know that there's nothing that you can't get out of. You just have to make that decision that you're going to get out, and it starts with, I would say, mirror work, and it's going to be hard to look at yourself in the mirror. It's going to be hard to be able to look into your eyes and even if at first you just have to look down and you say I love you, start there but bring your chin up a centimeter every single time until you lock your gaze with your eyes and then you say I love you and you say your name, just like I do every single day I love you, tara, I'm proud of you and I will fight for you every single day.

Speaker 1:

Oh, beautiful closing words. Thank you so much.

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Tabitha MacDonald

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