Finding Your Way: Resilience Development in Action

E.190 Finding Strength in Personal Stories of Healing

• Steve Bisson, Tina Djuretic • Season 12 • Episode 190

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In this episode, Tina Djuretic shares her transformative journey of healing from childhood trauma and toxic relationships through writing her memoir, "Finding My Sovereignty." She discusses the importance of acknowledging generational trauma, finding spiritual guidance, and the healing power of sharing one's story.

• Tina’s experience growing up in a strict religious environment
• The impact of dysfunctional family relationships on adult life
• Realizing and breaking the cycle of toxic partnerships
• Seeking help through spiritual practices instead of traditional therapy
• Writing as a tool for healing and self-discovery
• The connection between healing generational trauma and forgiveness
• Overcoming fear and emotional hurdles in the writing process
• Importance of protecting oneself spiritually during healing
• Elements within her memoir that inspire others to seek their own healing
• Where to find her book and journey further into healing

Please visit sovereignandsage.com for more information and resources. You can also find her social media stuff there too. 

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Speaker 1:

Hi and welcome to Finding your Way Through Therapy. A proud member of the PsychCraft Network, the goal of this podcast is to demystify therapy, what can happen in therapy and the wide array of conversations you can have in and about therapy Through personal experiences. Guests will talk about therapy, their experiences with it and how psychology and therapy are present in many places in their lives, with lots of authenticity and a touch of humor. Here is your host, steve Bisson.

Speaker 2:

Il fait un peu plus noir que d'habitude. It's darker than usual. Welcome to episode 190. Intro's being done from my old studio. I'm still working out the kinks, so hopefully people understand. I hope that you enjoyed What89. I really talked about my coaching and what I do, so I hope you can go back and listen to that and if you want to join me for coaching, just DM me. It would be great. But episode 190 is with Tina Juretic. I hope I pronounced that right because there's a D there, but I'm trying to guess. Hopefully I'm right.

Speaker 2:

Tina is a Canadian author who was raised by strict religious parents who isolated her from the rest of the world. What followed were three toxic relationships that nearly kill her. We'll definitely talk about that. After her last breakup she sought a form, a channeler, who sent her on the path to healing while writing her memoir. Her memoir is called Finding my Sovereignty Go get it. She learned how to forgive herself and her abusers. The process has taught her a lot about generational trauma and gaslighting narcissism and putting up healthy boundaries. Today she's thriving and wants to share her story and I can't wait for you guys to listen to it. And here is her story. Well, hi everyone, and welcome to episode 190. You know, very excited always having a fellow Canadian. Yes, I know I'm an American citizen now, but I love my Canadians. I still am Canadian. I will remain Canadian for the rest of my life and it was great to connect with her on Facebook and I'm looking forward to our interview. And Tina Juretik, welcome to Finding your Way.

Speaker 3:

Thank you. Thank you for having me. It's a pleasure to be here.

Speaker 2:

Well, you know, I read your story and you gave me your bio. I asked everyone to give me their bio. Most people don't know who you are, so how about you introduce yourself to my audience?

Speaker 3:

Sure, my name's Tina, as Steve said, and I come from Vancouver and, uh, I'm a new author. I just published my first book and it's a, a memoir about my life and, um, you know, a quick summary is just as, as a child, like a lot of people growing up, I think, especially as Gen X I don't know if you're Gen X, I I'm Gen X, but, uh, gen X and older, right, we grew up very differently from everybody else. I think the younger generations right and uh, so I'm one of those. But Gen X and older, right, we grew up very differently from everybody else, I think the younger generations right, and so I'm one of those people that had a pretty toxic childhood, really difficult childhood, and so I buried it. I don't remember it, it was completely gone. I, you know, I knew the broad strokes of the things that had happened, obviously anything that all Gen X went through raising ourselves right, you know all of those things that came with it, but also some pretty, in my case, severe abuse on both my mother's and my father's side. My mother is also mentally unwell, so there was a lot of mental and emotional abuse. And to top it all off, just to you know, complete that circle there.

Speaker 3:

When I was 10, my parents joined a really fanatical Christian cult, like church, and you know that just gave them full permission to just be who they wanted to be then, and with the fear of God behind them and also the power of God on their side. So, you know, things just continued to get worse and I left home just barely after I turned 17, took control of the reins, so to speak. But of course I'm a broken child, right, I don't know that. But I'm this broken child trying to make my way in the world, and in some areas I did well. I love to travel, so I just became this world traveler, lived in multiple countries, had lots of interesting experiences.

Speaker 3:

But the flip side to that is my relationships were a hot mess I mean a hot mess and I just couldn't seem to find good relationships. I would go years in between them without any kind of partner at all, which I was never someone to jump from one person to the next. So you know, that's how I did things, I guess. But by the time I got to the third partner, major partner I realized I had a pattern and that even though I had buried my childhood and I thought it was doing me a favor by doing that, not remembering all the pain and horror that came with childhood. I learned the hard way. You're still not escaping childhood. You are doomed to repeat childhood and date your parents over and over until you healed it. Until you heal right, the lesson will repeat itself until it is learned.

Speaker 3:

So that's kind of what brought me to writing the memoir was realizing that I had to stop asking what's wrong with all the men out there and I had to ask what's wrong with me that I have this pattern and that I keep repeating it. And that's kind of my story and how we got to be here and through the writing, because this is really important. I found my own healing, of course. So, yes, that's the end of the story. Is the important. I found my own healing, of course. So, yes, that's the end of the story is the healing and not repeating the pattern again.

Speaker 2:

Well, I disagree with you on a couple of things. The healing is not over, it always goes on and there's no story that ends without us ending. So we keep on working on our story, and my dad had always said to me those who ignore history are doomed to repeat it. So when you said, that really resonated. And you know what's funny is pre-interview. We were talking about how relationships have been difficult and Quebec friends. I'm meaning this as a joke. How the hell did you end up in Quebec being someone who doesn't speak French? I mean, I don't get it. Why would you ever go to Quebec being someone who doesn't speak French? I mean, I don't get it. Why would you ever go to Quebec Again? Quebec, it's a joke, take it.

Speaker 3:

Many people in Quebec speak English, that's for sure.

Speaker 2:

I'm the living proof, but what made you end up there?

Speaker 3:

To get to Quebec. Sorry, you're breaking up a little, so that's what I'm trying to follow here. I followed a partner, my second partner. He was a Quebecois, and when he first moved to Vancouver in the middle of June he went oh my God, you live close to the beach. This is the best place in the whole wide world. How come everybody doesn't live here? Then October happened and it rained for three months and by December he was singing a different song oh my God, it rains here all the time. I'm suicidal. How does anybody live here? And that's how I ended up in Quebec.

Speaker 3:

So he was originally from Montreal and he said listen, it was a work thing as well. He had more work offered in Montreal and I said oh my God, you're about to bring a Vancouver girl to Montreal in December. I hate the snow passionately, I mean, unless it's in a mountain, somewhere where it belongs, but not in the city, when you've got to walk in it and drive in it. I've never been as cold in my life as when I lived in Montreal for nine months. Because he didn't just take it there, he brought me to Mont Saint-Sauveur. Sorry if I'm saying it wrong, but he brought me to a ski resort and I don't ski, so we were living on a ski hill, yeah.

Speaker 3:

But as I was, saying to you this is what narcissists do, don't they? He brought me to a place where nobody spoke English, to a place where I couldn't drive, where there was no public transit, and I was trapped. I was trapped in the middle of nowhere. It was pretty, but it was isolating.

Speaker 2:

Well, first and foremost, you pronounced it well for an English speaker in Quebec, so that's good enough for us Quebecers. Number one Number two you know like I'm listening to the family, I'm hearing about how you grew up and I'm hearing about these relationships. A standard question here is have you ever been in therapy? My guess is I know the answer, but let's go with it anyway.

Speaker 3:

No, I have not. As a typical Gen Xer, I did not go to therapy, yeah of course. You know what I'm going to say. This, though Mostly, I would say, because I couldn't afford it. To be honest, I was never against therapy. I don't know that I was running towards it, but I certainly couldn't afford it as well.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, and Canada doesn't always cover it, so if you've never been in therapy, how did you heal, which is a really good question because this is a lot of things to heal.

Speaker 3:

Oh well, very interesting story. Oh, a lot to heal. There was a lot to unpack. I um uh.

Speaker 3:

So when I, when the last one I had a, had a breakup and I realized he was bipolar like my mother, that really smashed me in the face I'm not going to lie Like that was a gut punch that brought me to my knees and that's when I went. If I'm dating my mother and I didn't even see that coming, that's what stopped me in my tracks and made me go. Man, it's not them. Then it's me Like how did I not see the signs? I've lived with a bipolar parent my whole life.

Speaker 3:

I had many, many bipolar friends, because, of course, you repeat the pattern again. Whether it's relationships or just friendships is the same. I really didn't see this coming and it took me by surprise. And then I was angry. I was angry at myself for not seeing it coming, for really investing in this relationship, thinking it was the last one and the final one. I was angry at him. Knowing my family history and hiding it from me. That made me really angry. I was angry at the universe because I felt so deceived and I also just felt Like, how come some people have these beautiful, charmed lives and they just they're born into money, they get to everything they want, they have these beautiful lives. Of course we don't know what's going on behind doors, but the perception right. They have these beautiful relationships. Why is my life just one big pile of steaming crap after another? Right, like, why is this happening? And so I sought help. And so I sought help. And maybe I didn't go to therapy in my life, but there were probably five or six times in my life where I sought help in the form of a spiritual teacher, meaning either a tarot card reader or a channel or whatever was a shaman.

Speaker 3:

I lived in Mexico for many years, so shamans were being presented to me. So I went to this channeler, I sought her out. I asked some friends for someone who was legit, you know, and she's the one who really sort of laid the trauma out for me so that I could see it. But also, really what I loved about her is she didn't just walk me through my own childhood trauma and then how it was repeated in relationships. She took me back into past lives where some of my habits formed, so that that could be healed, and she also really walked me through my parents' trauma and really showed me the generational trauma which we've already talked about. It keeps repeating itself, right? It repeats itself and repeats itself generationally until someone does some healing and stops that generational trauma. So, by showing me that it had happened to my parents as well, when it came time for me to write the memoir and then start doing my own healing, this gave me the grace to be able to forgive them for the things that they had done.

Speaker 3:

So writing the memoir and finding the healing for me were things that went hand in hand. Because you know, if you've been through therapy and clearly you probably know something about therapy right, you're asking about it. So one of the number one tools they're going to give you is to journal, journal, journal, journal, journal, journal. Well, writing a memoir is journaling on speed. So, yeah, I found my own patterns and you know brokenness, if you will through the writing, and I would write and write, and write, and then I would get writer's block and I would go what's going on here? I know what comes next, and I would realize that spirit was saying to me no, you don't get to write anymore until you heal that what you just spent you know whatever a week writing about no, you don't get to move forward now. I need you to heal that first. So it really was like hand in hand in hand this writing and healing and it was beautiful. The healing was beautiful.

Speaker 2:

Well, writing is healing and I do believe that firmly, not only because of what I do, but also having written a journal myself since 1992. So I certainly relate to that. I also created a book about how people want to start journaling. So definitely believe in the journaling process and when you're writing, I've written a book about how people want to start journaling. So definitely believe in the journaling process and when you're writing I've written a couple of books myself I know how that feels too. Besides the little writer's block, was there any other difficulties you felt along the way, especially getting to things that might've been more painful than others?

Speaker 3:

Oh, absolutely the whole thing was. Again, the beauty of it for me was that I didn't have a timeline, like I didn't have an editor or a publisher, sort of going I need you to be done this For me it was just. However long this takes is how long it takes, because it's more about the healing for me. So I mean, my first major block is how do you write about a childhood you don't remember? Because it has to be authentic. I didn't want to make anything up, even writing about my family and my exes. That was the first thing I had to come to term with. I did not want to do that. I never wanted to expose them or put them on the spot like that or point fingers or blame. So that was just that. Just getting over that hurdle was already huge. And in order to do that, not only did I change all the names of the people in the book which most people are going to do, that anyways I didn't put my own name on it for the first draft, even the second and the third and the fourth, because I edited it that many times myself before handing it over and my channeler the whole time kept saying, okay, when I'm like I'm not putting my name on this. She's like okay. And then you know, three years in, she's like so about that name? And I'm like no, no, no, no. I said I'm not putting my name on it. She's like you have to put your name on it and I'm like but why? I don't understand. She's like how can you tell people to live in their sovereignty, to stand in their sovereignty, if you're not standing in yours and if you're still worried about putting your name out there? Like have I got news for you? Your face is going to be out there. And that made perfect sense. So my name went on it. But I think in order to write it, I needed to feel like my name wouldn't be on it, right? You know what I'm saying. So the first hurdle was to really sit with my older sister and say, please, please, walk me through childhood. I need some details here. Here's sort of the big picture moments I remember. Now, can you give me the details I need?

Speaker 3:

I then also really wanted to make sure that I was fair by displaying the generational trauma. I really wanted this to show through the book. This wasn't just my story. This is how generational trauma gets passed down. So I had to go back. My father comes from former Yugoslavia. This country doesn't even exist anymore. So I went back and I did research. I looked at the dates of birth. I went back and looked where they were born both parents and I really wanted a picture of where they came from, and since they never talked about their past, I couldn't ask them. They also didn't know I was writing this book. It was all done quietly so I didn't have anyone to ask. Then you've got your lovers that you're writing about, right. It was hard to. I'd say the middle one was the most challenging to write about and the one I cried the most.

Speaker 3:

Well, the one thing I would say- Because he was a drug addict and I had to-.

Speaker 2:

I know there's a delay, but and I had to I know there's a delay, but I just wanted to say that, as a therapist, I find it interesting that you didn't want to identify to your own story, because that's what it is when we don't put our names on it, and sometimes it's a way to be safe, like you said.

Speaker 2:

You know, not putting your name on it, you can be more truthful, but that dissociation is really interesting to find you know it gives you like that, and that's not me, that's some story I'm writing on a piece of paper, and so just the thought here. But please continue your story. You talked about the hard second X, so please go ahead. Just wanted to mention that.

Speaker 3:

Yeah, no, it actually didn't even occur to me. But that's sure Disassociation. I can totally see how that would go and I think even if I tried to do that, though, spirit wasn't letting that happen. The whole point was to heal it. I wasn't allowed to disassociate. So, in fact, sometimes I would write it and I would see that it was a bit dry and I'd go, oh gosh, this happened so many years ago. So I would just close my eyes and just say, spirit, this is a really big, pivotal moment, and I remember when it happened how much it changed my life. So I really need to dive a little deeper into this. Please show me. How did this feel? Oh geez, if you ask that question, you'll get answers.

Speaker 3:

And all of a sudden, I would just have this overwhelming sense of emotions, you know, anxiety in my stomach. I'd start shaking, I'd start crying, I would start and I'd go. That's how it my stomach. I'd start shaking, I'd start crying, I would start and I'd go. That's how it feels. And I'd start writing, like, because I would describe what I was feeling. So, even if I tried to pull back so that I wasn't reliving it, yes, spirit wasn't having it. That was part of the healing and it was part of making it a good story, if you will, right? So yeah, those details had to go in there. But because I dated a drug addict for seven years, he's probably the one who put me through the most pain, if you will only because I tried to break free three times and he just kept coming back. I just couldn't escape this one and I lost myself in that relationship. So it was hard to write about that. The third one was the freshest one, so that also was a little challenging in the way that it was fresh. It's the most recent one. But I'd say the scariest challenge for me was on a spiritual level, because I'm having two things happen at once. I'm going through a massive spiritual awakening. I'm going through my dark night of a soul as I'm writing my memoir. I mean things are coming at me from all directions.

Speaker 3:

And because my childhood was so fear-based, not only was I afraid of my parents and afraid of them, but I was afraid of God, I was afraid of church. This was a fear-mongering church, right, this was a loud Pentecostal style in your face go to church four times a week. Go to school seven days a week, because we're not allowed to go to public school. We got to go to your school complete brainwashing, complete isolation, separation, but also like exorcisms and demons, and every day the threat of if you disobey us. Therefore God right, my parents loved this you're going to burn in hell for all eternity.

Speaker 3:

The amount of fear I had in my life.

Speaker 3:

I had to walk through that, and it was the first thing I had to walk through when I started writing and when I started having my dark night of my soul. You have to conquer your fears. I started to actually feel demons touching me and I spent my life telling myself this wasn't even real. So to have it go like, oh my God whether you call it entities or darkness or demons whatever name you want to use for it I had to deal with the fact that that was real.

Speaker 3:

And then, while I was writing about them, they came to visit and I actually had to call a Reiki person and say I can feel them touching me. They're touching, and that's when I had a meltdown because I was like in my entire life I've been afraid of them, but nothing's ever touched me before. And so there was that level of my own fear to go through and I realized I was doing things all wrong. I was writing, and then afterwards I would do a little meditation, I would cleanse myself, but I had let everything in when I was writing. She, my Reiki person, taught me no, no, no, tina, you're going backwards.

Speaker 3:

Meditate, protect yourself and your home first, so that stuff's not coming in so there were all kinds of different layers to learning how to become a writer and how to heal myself.

Speaker 2:

I think you said a Reiki person, being a Reiki practitioner myself, finding that balance is absolutely key, especially when you feel so unbalanced and I don't do Reiki with people who are going to be like, all right, after this, I'm going to be quote pure and I can do all these great things. No, this is just the balance so you can move forward. This is not the answer, because there's a lot of shit to be processed. Answer because there's a lot of shit to be processed. So you know, you talk about generation Xers. We don't like to do the process, we like to get to the solution. That's not how we started as generation Xers, though it just turned out that way as adults.

Speaker 3:

Right, but I want to hear more about. Well, because you know, even as kids, we were like there has to be a faster way to do this right. Get right to the point.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, and I wanted to just ask you a question, because one of the things you said in pre-interview in your notes is that there's a relationship that nearly killed you. Is that the relationship itself? Is it something more sinister than we can think about? But can you tell me more about that?

Speaker 3:

Yeah, my first relationship would have been to my parents, if we're being fair, and they very the demons that control them, let's put it that way very much wanted me dead for sure. I do remember my father beating me with a hammer one time. So you're kind of looking to do some damage if you're picking up a hammer, um, and then my mother. You know when she watched my my mother? You know when she watched my mother's get one of her games, because she had many games as a, as a narcissist and bipolar, you know, pitting the girls, my sisters, against each other so that we would never, you know, bond together. This is one game. But also she loved to create problems so that we would disobey. So, for example, she'd say something like go outside, don't come back till six o'clock, that's when we're having dinner. So we'd come back at six and then it would be like, hey, you're late, I told you to be here at five. And we're like no, all three of us heard six and it was like oh, are you calling me a liar, right? It's like, and then you're caught, like you know how do you even react to that, knowing that this? And then she would have the pleasure of beating us all. And so she played these games and we couldn't. We knew we couldn't win because she would just lie. Well, the next game began as we got a little older and she couldn't just smack us around as much, cause, you know, she was a five foot, you know six, and we were becoming that too. So you know. Then the next game became oh, I love to watch as as as I make my husband beat you, make your father beat you, so she would create problems, so that when he'd come home he'd be like I gotta go beat the children, right. And then he'd go beat the children and she would watch, and my older sister because I'm the one who took most of the beatings would, would sometimes beg her he's going to kill her mom, please make him stop. And she would go. Why would I do that? Like there was actually a smile on her. When I'd look over, I'd actually see a smile, a sinister smile on her face, and I could see the darkness in her eyes. I really could. So my parents wanted me dead, that's for sure. My middle boyfriend it's not that he wanted me dead, it's that he was a coke addict for seven years, and I mean an intravenous user, not a. It was not about the party. For him it was all nightmare. He brought me down with him just because I was part of it. So it's not that he wanted me dead, but the demons inside of him sure did. Another narcissist right, another person filled with darkness who wanted me dead, and that would have been more that. I lost myself completely and I certainly considered suicide you know those kinds of things to escape that.

Speaker 3:

The third one I never, ever thought he would physically harm me. I never thought any of my partners would physically harm me. Actually, to be honest, I'm going to give them that because I never felt that threat. But the day we broke up when I discovered, oh my God, you're bipolar like my mother, and it all just came to a head for the first time ever and he was an alcoholic as well and 6'3" so I'm 5'6", he's 6'3" when he stood over me and put his finger in my face and sort of attack, like sort of just verbally attacked me for that split second, I thought, oh my God, you could hurt me and that was the thought that went through my mind. Oh my God, I'm in trouble. And when I looked in his eyes I saw the exact same demons I saw in my mother's eyes and I even said to him because I know he's not a violent man, you're scaring me right now. And he kind of sneered and smiled like good, and then he backed off. So yeah, I do think that these relationships nearly killed me.

Speaker 2:

Well, I'm happy you're here then.

Speaker 3:

Me too.

Speaker 2:

I think it's hard because I think that when we're in it too you talked about addiction and personality disorders I think that once we're in it, sometimes it's really hard to see what we're actually in it and we think we're the problem and the gaslighting and everything that goes with that. So I don't know if that's what you experienced, but that's kind of what I see in a whole lot of relationships that I work with, where there's a lot of trauma and a lot of hurt, either from the past or the current situation.

Speaker 3:

Absolutely, absolutely. You have no self-worth, even if on the outside, because I was always a vivacious, outgoing, really outspoken person. But my inner voice did not match the masks that I wore for the rest of the world, that is for sure. My inner voice was my mother, and I didn't realize that till I started healing. You know, even just every day, looking in the mirror and just going oh, I look so fat, right, that was my mother's voice. Every day of my life, my mother told me I was fat and that I was ugly and not worthy and I would never be anything. When I grew up, how do you ever succeed when that's what your true inner voice is, thinking right?

Speaker 2:

I don't agree. I think that when it's not only your inner voice, it's how people value you. And if you're told that you're valued as to how you look or things like that, and hey, welcome, you know the whole feminist in me, thank you very much. But also how the world is right, you kind of see yourself that way, also, Absolutely Right.

Speaker 3:

I'm happy that you don't see yourself, I mean because it's not also, you know, that was my own self-therapy, if you will. One of the first things I did to heal myself was to reparent my inner child right. So first I reparented my inner child because she lived in so much fear, and then I reparented my adult. Well, I reprogrammed my inner voice and that took a long time, but I put the work in. I saw how valuable this was.

Speaker 2:

And well, I also saw where my life was going and I didn't want to repeat it. So major changes needed to be made and that's where you led you to making those changes. But, more importantly, talk a little bit more. You wrote the memoir. You talked a little about the process. How long has the book been out? What does it talk about mostly, and stuff like that.

Speaker 3:

I put the book out just this past September, so it just came out recently and it really is. It is a truly a memoir. So I do walk through childhood. I don't write it chronological order. It's more flashbacks because I really wanted people to see. For example, there comes a point in the book where I don't leave him and my editor was like right now, I think you're a moron, so you really need to explain to me so that I'm on your side, because this is what a good editor does. You know why you fell in love with this guy, because I'm only seeing the bad and also, why did you stay? So that's where I started to place the flashbacks and take an actual childhood thing that caused me not to leave him. Because this made sense to me. I really wanted.

Speaker 3:

I think the people who pick up my book and read it are going to be people like me, right People who are trapped in a toxic relationship, who don't know how to get out, who maybe also you can't see the forest for the trees, right who don't see why their pattern developed or that they have a pattern. So I really almost wanted to make like a case study of my life, which means I had to reveal all my crap, right like, and then, when it's all there in black and white, you can't hide from it, you can't make excuses, right? I mean, the first person you have to forgive is yourself for all the terrible decisions and lousy decisions you made in your life. Because, again, living my life for 50 years is one thing. Writing it all down in in two years in a book and seeing it all in black and white is a different story. So the book does walk you through childhood till I meet this channeler, and a little bit past that, to where I meet the Reiki person and boom, my spiritual awakening just explodes. And I leave it on that positive note, because that is the whole point. Right Is that you can heal. The channeler said to me not only will you write this book, but once you're finished and you end with this wonderful healing if that's where it ends, because she never told me where to end it people are then going to have the question okay, so what did you do to heal? So I am just finished writing this week, actually the workbook to follow it up, because I took notes the entire four years I was working and editing on this, since I knew a workbook was next. Thank God, I took all the notes of the things that I did.

Speaker 3:

And because this all happened during COVID, not only was I isolated and not working, because I work in tourism, so of course my job was decimated. My whole industry was decimated, which was a blessing for me. I had two solid years without a job, frightening financially, but on a healing front, oh man, the isolation was a gift. Again, I had nowhere to hide, I had nowhere to go, but I also had no one to turn to when I needed to heal something and was like, okay, cool, I need to heal that. Wow, how do I do that? And I was broke. I couldn't keep calling the Reiki person my, my girlfriend you know that she became a girlfriend or the channel, or they both cost money. I didn't have any money coming in, so I needed to find how to heal and I needed it to be free. And that was a a driving factor when I wrote the second book.

Speaker 3:

I believe in therapy, I believe in Reiki, I believe in all these things. I also think some people can't afford it and, yes, I'm all for manifesting, but when we're all broken and we're just starting, manifesting isn't exactly in our wheelhouse, is it Right, like? So? It all goes hand in hand with the healing and manifesting. So I made sure that everything I put in my book was something you could do at home by yourself for free, so that people don't feel like I can't afford to heal, I can't afford a therapist, so how am I supposed to heal? Because I felt like that growing up I couldn't afford a therapist right. So that that was a driving factor as well.

Speaker 2:

Well, I think that it's interesting because I had another guest about a year ago who wrote a book called this Book is Cheaper Than Therapy. So it definitely sounds the same type of I don't know decision-making skills right. So where can we find the book?

Speaker 3:

The book is for sale on Amazon, so you can just go to any Amazon site, depending what country you live in, and it's called Finding my Sovereignty. So Finding my Sovereignty. My name's Tina. I also have an author's website. You can take a link through there if you want. It will take you to Amazoncom. To be fair, I brought it to the US site just as a simplistic reason, and my website is called SovereignAndSagecom Sovereign and Sage. And my website is called sovereignandsagecom Sovereign and Sage.

Speaker 2:

And my Quebecer friends will like to be sovereign too. So I get it. But I'm happy that you wrote this book. I'm hoping that people will go and get it. And is there any other way to reach you? I mean, there's got to be ways to. If they want to contact you, it must be the web. You said the website. Is there any other way to reach you?

Speaker 3:

Yeah, so obviously it's Amazon. You're just purchasing the memoir. But I also have a Facebook page at Sovereign and Sage. This one has the funny little and in it I'm sure it has a name, but my website is Sovereign and Sage. I actually wrote the word and Says the Quebecer hyperstand.

Speaker 3:

Do you know the name for it? You do, don't you? Okay, there you go. I can see it on your face that you knew the name. So the website is at Sovereign and Sage for Facebook. And yeah, then you could make comments, you could reach out. I also have a newsletter. You can sign up for my newsletter on my, on my author's website.

Speaker 2:

Well, we're going to put this in the show notes to make sure people can reach you. Tina, I really appreciate you sharing your story. I know it's healing for us to share our stories sometimes, but it's still a courageous act to really be honest about ourselves. I want to give you a lot of credit. So thank you for doing that and please go to our website, go to sovereignandsagecom, go get our book, go on Amazon. Reach on Facebook and newsletter would be awesome too. So please go do that, and I really appreciate your time, tina.

Speaker 3:

Thank you. Thank you for having me on, Steve. You're exactly right. By sharing our stories, we help others right, and that is the ultimate mission.

Speaker 2:

I can't tell you how important it is for me to share these stories with people. So you said you give hope. This is cheaper than therapy. It's even cheaper than your book. It's free to go on a podcast.

Speaker 3:

Exactly.

Speaker 2:

Thank you for your time. Well, this completes episode 190, tina Juretic, and now I know I pronounced it right. Thank you so much. I hope everyone enjoyed the episode. On episode 191, we're going to be talking about grief and I hope you join us then.

Speaker 1:

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Steve Bisson

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