Overcoming Traumatic Circumstances With Tonja Henderson

Overcoming traumatic circumstances is easier said than done, particularly if they happened in the earliest years of your childhood. If you do not do the inner work to face it with courage, it will continue to hinder your growth and transformation. Real estate investor and speaker Tonja Henderson is here to present her five-step formula for success, which will equip you with tools to heal from past trauma and embrace your unique path in life. Joining Kohila Sivas, she discusses what it takes to unlock a more fulfilling self, from discovering your very own superpower to focusing your energy on the people who truly matter. Tonja also points out the flaws of the education system that cause children not to expand their knowledge but instead feel more disappointed in themselves.

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Overcoming Traumatic Circumstances With Tonja Henderson

Early Childhood Education Is The Foundation To Success Empowering Your Journey With A 5-Step Formula For Success And Fulfillment

I have the pleasure of speaking with Tonja Henderson, a real estate investor, designer, mentor, and speaker. She will share with us her unique five-step formula for rising above difficult circumstances and living your divine purpose. With the fresh yet grounded approach, Tonja inspires audiences of all sizes, from universities to churches with stories of resilience, hard work, and the power of family values. Tonja, welcome to our show.

Tonja, welcome to our show. How are you? 

I'm so good, Kohila. I'm honored to be on your podcast. I admire what you do and I’m thrilled you would ask me. Thank you. 

Yes, I'm honored to have you here today too. I want to start, Tonja, by asking if you have six children. 

Yes. 

Currently, in a world where everybody's so busy, with new parents, we want to talk to new parents because I was talking to someone yesterday that reminded me of a very important conversation I can have with you. How do you balance it all? You're a busy mom, wife, six kids. Tell us a little bit about that. 

First of all, I think that sometimes we focus too much on balance. I think there are times in our lives when we need to give a hundred percent to something important. My children were always a priority. My family was always a priority. A good marriage has always been my priority. When people ask how did you balance it all? I didn't attempt to balance everything. 

I knew what my priority was and that's where my energy was. That's where my focus was. That's not to say that I never did anything else. I'm a real estate investor. We've owned a restaurant and things like that but when push came to shove and I needed to choose between one or the other, the choice was already made for me. I decided that long before I had children. When I'm going to have children, I only get a short time with them. Their world was my world for a while. I didn't worry about balance. I knew there would come a time when I would have more time to work when I wanted to work. 

More time to focus on other activities that I wanted to pursue other passions. I only had this short time with my children. I did my best to take care of myself explore other activities, to spend quality time with my husband. It's not like my children took over my life in an unhealthy way, but I recognize the preciousness of the time that I had with them. I didn't worry so much about the balance. 

That's lovely. That's amazing advice because everybody says, “Find the balance.” Everybody is so concerned with fixing this balance, but there is no real balance. 

There isn't. There's no way to give 100%. People you hear all the time, even a marriage, it's got to be a 50/50. I'm going to tell you right now, if it's 50/50, it's going to fail. It's got to be 100% and 100% being given from both sides. That way, when I fall short a little bit, 100% for my husband makes it up and vice versa. It's not a balance to me. There's no way to give 100% to things that matter. 

If you think about it, at the end of this life, I don't know anybody who sits on their deathbed and wishes they had more time to work. “I wish I would have worked more.” “I wish I would have given another speech.” “I wish I wouldn't win another prize.” No, “I wish I would have appreciated the little things.” “I wish I would have spent more time with my children.” “I wish I would have had more quality engagement.” “I wish I would have made my relationships better.” That priority has guided my life and I'm not worried about balance.

Personal And Professional Balance

Love it. When you had your kids were younger, we have kids, we give birth, and then right after birth, like about one year into it, we're always like, “I can't go to work.” “Should I stay longer with my kids?” “Should I go work?” This kind of battle comes into every woman's mind. I'm not offering anything to the family. There are a lot of people who are having kids right now, younger parents. We also feel like, “My friends are moving up in their work scale or they're doing financially really great, but I'm just with my son or daughter here.” How did you handle that? Did you ever compare like that? 

It's tempting to. We've been lied to though as women. We've been lied to in the worst possible way. This is a very unpopular opinion. I'll say that right up front and I'm going to give it to you anyway. Somehow over the last couple of generations, we have been convinced that we need to do things the way men do them. We need to be like men. We need to accomplish the things that they need to accomplish. We need to be aggressive and all the things, not that there's anything wrong with being aggressive. My point is that we have been taught and convinced that our role needs to be the same as men. 

What's happening now that we've had a full couple of generations of that is you're having women in their 40s and 50s who have done the boss lady who has put their career first as the top priority and thought I'm going to have a family later. They're coming to this middle-aged crisis and their crisis is, “I'm not doing what I feel called to do.” “I don't feel fulfilled in this work.” We've been taught that to feel fulfilled, to have a purpose to be successful, we need to reach some level in a corporation. 

We need to do some fantastic career accomplishments and things like that. Again, not that there's nothing wrong with achieving and being at the top of your career. However, when women go into it thinking that that is the path to fulfillment and a purpose, and they sacrifice a family and children and a good husband and relationship that way. We deprive ourselves of that. 

By the time you're in the late 40s, for most of us, it's too late to have children. Then you are left with a life that has its one-dimensional. It's all about yourself and your career. We don't realize how much fulfillment and joy there is in a family, in building a family, and in helping to nurture and raise children who will contribute to society and who are good, strong individuals. 

There's the poem, “The hand that rocks the cradle is the hand that rules the world.” It's in many ways, that's so true. We are the lieutenants and the caretakers of the next generation. To put that aside, in my opinion, is to do when that is what is innately in you, to put that aside when that is something that you're thinking you're going to do later, is doing yourself a great disservice. 

A lot of people are, after all of that, they're still not satisfied. They're lonely. 

They're very lonely and we're seeing more and more of that. I cannot tell you how there are so many people that come up to me and they're either young, just embarking on this journey and attempting to decide, “Do I want a career path?” “Do I want to have a family?” “How do I do both?” They're like, “Nobody's ever told me that it's okay that that's the priority.” 

I have those women and then I have women that come up to me that are my age saying, “I waited too long.” “I just thought I'll do this and then, and then.” “Not now, but then.” Until it's too late and it's tragic. They have so much to give, and they want that so badly. They've taken away that possibility for themselves. 

Then also, you earlier said this institution of marriage, it's 50/50, you’ve got to do half, the other half. All this stuff also makes it scary for a woman to enter because I'm so successful. I don't need you as well.

There's such a fine line to walk there. It would be naive for any of us to think that a man is not planned. We would be naive to think that I can go into a relationship, into a marriage, and just think I'm going to kick back and do nothing to contribute and he's going to take care of me and I'm going to be set for the rest of my life. 

Not only is it naive and unrealistic, but it's selfish to go into a relationship that way. For me, even when I had young children, even when I went to college, I had in mind what skills I developed. What do I have passion for that allows me to contribute to earn money if I need to in a worst-case scenario? My kids for the most part are in high school now and I do have a little more time. What skills and passion do I develop that will allow me to put my family first? 

I wrote a book at one point that I haven't published yet about a child who watches her mother do all these different things and asks her, “Mom, why weren't you a doctor?” “Why weren't you this or this or this?” The mom finally tells her it's because you were the most important thing to me. I could have done all these other things. I could be a doctor or a lawyer or whatever. 

Those things are not bad. Those things are great. We need women in those, in those spaces but the thought that those things need to come first, to me, also can be stressful in a relationship. When both partners are coming home, and we don't work 8:00 to 5:00 anymore, it's 7:00 to 6:00, and it's weekends, and it's two jobs, and whatever. 

When both partners are coming home, bring the stresses of work and the pressures and that outside. Most of the time, we do those things to have stuff. For me, stuff will never be more important to me than my family. For me to be in a home and keep the home organized, be on top of what the children are doing. 

It was really important for me when they came home from school, I call it being at the crossroads. When they come home from school and something bad has happened and no one is there to talk to, what do they do? They look for other methods to calm themselves. They look for other things to distract themselves rather than talking about working out their problems and finding solutions. 

It's hard to do that on your own as a child. I did not want to be a distracted parent. I wanted to be there at the crossroads. I wanted to be there when they needed someone because something or someone was going to direct them, was going to engage them. You know and I know that there's lots of danger in that scenario. 

Parents

They don't have that support system. They can be, there are plenty of things to take them off in the wrong direction. You Do not balance it. You figured out that your family is number one. Where does that conviction come from? Is it from your parent's parenting or religion? Where do you get that?

Some of both, my faith plays a big part in that. My parents wanted to do that for us. My father worked very hard and there came a time in his life when he fought cancer and the expense of the care required for that. My mother went to work. At the same time, they were very generous people. There were people in my mother's family who had a tough situation at home. 

I won't go into detail about that, although I will say that they had a son, he was in his 20s at that time, but he'd just grown up in really horrible circumstances. A bad home life and it wasn't good. My parents could see that he was struggling and wanted to help and brought him into our home. They brought him in hoping to give him some support, a good environment, and some love. Just a better life. 

What they got in return was a sexual predator. While my mom was working, he was abusing their children. They would never have wanted that. My parents were wonderful. They did everything they knew how to do with the tools that they had and they were forced into a difficult situation. I don't blame them in any way for that. However, having had that experience, I do know the dangers. 

That formed a strong determination in me to make sure that never happened to my children. I was going to be home when they got home. I was going to know where they were going. I was going to know the parents of the kids they were hanging out with and things like that. A lot of that came from that situation when I was growing up, as well as my faith where families are a foundational point of my religion, my faith. 

If we minus the stuff we tend to bring in, and we minus all the labels we put on ourselves where I'm this and that. At the end of the day, as you said, when you're on your deathbed, you're not looking at what I made or what I did to be that successful, you're looking at who I spend the time with and the person. 

I don't know if you know this, but many people wait for their last loved ones before they pass away. They wait for that one person if they still haven't seen them. My granddad was waiting for me, and my siblings to come until he had his last breath, and he couldn't hold on anymore because we never went. They do that because that's the whole essence of life.

For me, I believe for afterward too. I think that the only things you take with you are your relationships and your family.

Sexual Abuse

We have to instill that in our kids. Your six kids know this too now. That happens in the home life in the beginning stages of their life. It's very important. You were a realtor, now you're you are doing that or you're doing something speaking. Tell me why you want to speak. What inspired you to do that?

This was a recently discovered passion and talent, I guess, that I felt strongly to pursue right now. Part of the reason I feel like I'm called to do it is the fact, of my experience with sexual abuse when I was young. Helping people know that yes, you've had this terrible experience, that doesn't need to control you. It doesn't need to frame your entire life. You can reframe. 

I believe that even though there are things that happen to us, that we have no power over, we have no control over, and we all do. However, we have absolute control over how we react to that, and over what impact we allow those events to have on our lives. We can either frame them in such a way that it helps us, helps us do good, helps us to turn those experiences into growth, or we can let those experiences keep us captive. 

Even though there are things that happen to us beyond our control, we always have absolute control over how we react to them.

Unfortunately, as you know right now, sexual abuse is an epidemic in our society. It's a huge problem. There are people in high places that not only allow it to happen but perpetuate it. It's either not a conversation or it's a conversation that gets swept under the rug, or it becomes a conversation that we want to normalize. 

We need to be having healthy conversations about it. So many people have been affected by it that need to know, you don't need to label yourself in the terms that your abuse wanted to define for you. I can be vulnerable and say, this is what happened to me, and still have the courage and the strength to go forward and find joy, purpose, happiness, and love again in my life. People need to know that. That's what has started in speaking and yes, I still do. My family is all involved with real estate investing and it's a family business and things like that but speaking as a personal passion. 

That's amazing. A lot of women need to hear that. I was also molested too. I know how long it takes. The other part of it is all about the grooming. What happens if it happens to you as well? It takes a long time to believe that because the grooming makes you believe otherwise. What happened to you from a different perspective to become in tune with what happened to you took me not until I was 32 years old. I struggled with that. 

That's how most people are. Most people do struggle with it. I'm not saying it's not going to be a struggle. There are still times when it threatens your thoughts and comes in a way to attempt to make you feel insecure. However, there's no reason why we should have so many people in their 30s, 40s, 50s, and beyond, allowing those experiences to have such a devastating impact on their life. We need to talk about the initial feelings of shame and how to get beyond it and that there are concrete steps that you can take and make in your life to reframe those experiences. We need to have that information out there for people. 

Why do you think it's happening so much now? What changed do you think in the culture and society? 

It's my personal belief that, like I said, there are people in high places that want to normalize this. When I say high places, I mean big industries, politics, governments, and powerful people who indulge in this and want to normalize it. Anytime there is outrage about it, as there absolutely should be. We should be protecting the most innocent people in our society. 

Just like I said before, as women, we've been lied to. As a society, we've been lied to and there's been little encroachments from every angle to dehumanize people, to devalue life, to sexualize everything. When we sit back and allow that and don't call it out and don't teach our children that those things are wrong and abusive. It doesn't take very long, right, to go from one generation to another. I mean, you hear so frequently now of an 11, 12, or 13-year-old child abusing another child. A child does not come up with that on their own. They've been taught that. 

Or they're consuming content. 

Right, and you have one abuser who abuses multiple children, half a dozen, a dozen, whatever it is, and it grows exponentially. It doesn't take very long for it to be a huge problem, especially when there are people who have the power to manipulate things in advertising, media, law, and things like that. We just had a law proposed in Congress about more severe punishments for pedophiles and abuse of children like that and it was voted down. When you have people in power who will not protect the weakest and most vulnerable people in our society, it's going to go downhill. There's no way around it.

When you have people in power who refuse to protect the weakest and most vulnerable in our society, everything will go downhill.

Media Consumption

It's very sad. I work with so many students and families, and what I'm noticing is that this content consumption, like being online, parents are giving their kids phones and iPads at such an early age and there is no censorship in anything. You can search for anything. Some countries have put some things that you can't even search if you want, but in Canada, the US, and some other countries, there's no censorship, so anybody can come. 

There was in Finland or someone who was against this access to porn for kids, because you just search up. If you get too exposed to it, you'll just search because kids are curious about anything. It's addicting. They made an episode where they made it to make the citizens aware of what was happening. 

Some people will knock on the door and the mother will open up and older people are hanging out there. They look like porn stars or whatever and then they're like, “Can I talk to your daughter?” Whatever her name is. She's like, “Who are you?” She's like, “We've been meeting online. Every day she's been watching us.” “We're just cool. Can I just meet her?” That's how they were making awareness that you don't know what your child is watching inside the house. We have to wake up to these things that we're giving the world to our kids. 

Yes, right in the palm of their hand, they have more power than you and I. It's been going on for what, 15 years or so now, but they have more power in the palm of their hand than their forefathers did by truckloads. Not only the fact that they have it in their hand, but we as their caretakers, parents teachers, and educators have fallen asleep. 

You can drive down the highway or turn on prime-time TV right now. At 7:00, my boys were over the other night and they wanted to watch March Madness. The commercials that came on at 7:00 in the evening, prime time, family time, after dinner where you're sitting around together, I was appalled. I haven't sat and watched a lot of TV recently. I was like, “Turn off that commercial.” It was appalling. 

Educational System

The things that we've allowed in our books, my high schooler the other day, she's in ninth grade, she came home and brought her reading list. I went through the reading list and I know that teachers want to expose children to different ways of thinking and different cultures and all that should be done. However, there is good literature out there that does that very thing. We do not need to have graphic novels about the intricacies of sex and pornographic stuff in books that we're handing to our children. We have fallen asleep. 

Five-year-olds are reading these types of books. Disgusting.

I found the same thing. When my children were little, we lived in California, which was much more liberal with that thing than where I live now. It was a battle. I scoured everything that they read. Things were hanging on some of the walls in the classroom. I was just like, this is stuff that as parents, you have a right to do in your marriage and your family. What you're going to do ut leave it out of the schools.

It's done very intentionally. We know that. Even when my children were young, I looked for ways to teach them outside of school. Sometimes I homeschooled. Sometimes they were in public school, depending on the teaching situation, the specific school, and the location where we were. Sometimes I did a half-and-a-half situation, and there were certain classes they took at school, and certain classes they took at home. 

We must take things like that into our own hands. We are so beyond the point where we can just pack little Sally with her lunch and her PE clothes off to school on the bus and not worry about her until they come home at 4:00. They're spending eight hours away from us. A lot of us are simply letting whatever happens will happen. Unfortunately, you have people with evil designs that are making sure that certain things are being taught and put in their minds and then we wonder why our society is the way it is. 

Yes, and sometimes stick to the plan. The plan is to educate the child. Why is it that now so much of this education is being turned on who are you going to be? It's so much into who are you going to be at such a young age. I don't remember being a five-year-old going, “Who am I going to be?” I just wanted to know, what can I play. 

Yes, you wanted to play with the dolls and the Legos and on the playground. Whatever was available.

I never thought I was going to be what? I never thought that. 

We're working backward now. The other problem I see is that we want our kids to be accepted into Yale in eighth grade. We work backward from that. What happens is that we start in eighth grade. If they need to be here in eighth grade, they need to be here in seventh grade. We work backward, which is putting our kindergartners in a place where we are getting rid of the toys, rid of the games.

Those things are not simply toys and games. They teach them really valuable skills. They're being robbed, and that's the way they learn at that age. We're attempting to teach them things before they're ready in ways that they're not ready for. In the process, we're raising a generation that can memorize and spit off facts but has absolutely no skills in thinking critically. 

90% are failing. 90% of the kids who can’t go through, because they don't, their brains don't work like that in this environment without a toy or playtime, and without being so structured at kindergarten, I can't imagine. Then what they get to do in the classrooms is they're getting labeled because if I'm one of those kids, I can't sit for six hours. After all, I need to move because kindergarteners love to move. Now we've diagnosed them with ADHD or some other label, it's not true. They just needed to move. 

We start the medication, which has side effects that they're finding now last forever. Then we have a whole other problem. We have a problem where we're either numb because of pain from experiences or to force ourselves to put a square peg into a round hole and to fit in, to become something that we're not, then we medicate. 

Right now, we have upwards of almost 75% of our college students on Adderall or something similar. As you get older, over 70% of our adults ending middle age in their 60s and 70s are on more than half a dozen prescriptions. My point is their health is being affected, their education is being affected, their self-worth is what they feel about their worth is being affected. We wonder why we have such a huge mental health problem. 

Five-Step Formula

It's starting earlier and earlier. The age is getting smaller. You have this five-step formula to help people rise above their difficult and traumatic circumstances. You've developed that. Is that what you use to help yourself? Tell me a little bit about how one can use it. 

I teach people a five-step formula that you can remember, GIVE 100%. G is for Gratitude and Gain. It's about living not only in gratitude but appreciating the good in life. It's also about looking at where you've come from and looking at the circumstances. Even in the worst circumstances, even the situation where I was sexually abused.

I can name five good things that have come from that. Number one, it's over. Number two, I would never let that happen again, I know how to fend that off, and I know how to think correctly about it. Number three, my children will be in a very different situation than I was in. I could go on but it's about reframing events in your life and living in that gratitude in the gain. 

The I is for Input. We allow it into our lives. Of course, that's things like the people that we hang around with, the entertainment that we watch, the music we listen to, and probably the most important thing, it's about what we tell ourselves. Anything that enters here in your mind is entering the Holy ground. All kinds of sources will put all manner of lies in there.

We have to be vigilant gatekeepers of what we allow or not allow ourselves to believe lies. When you say something like, “I'm so stupid.” That gets embedded in your subconscious and it will affect the outcomes in your life. Most people want to look and see, how I change my actions so that I get a better outcome when they need to be looking at how I change my input so that my actions are different so that my outcome is better. They're not going far enough back to the source. It's all about input. 

The V in give is for validation, where you get your validation from and that's especially important in the world right now with social media and all that, but truthful validation. Validation that is sourced from good sources allows us to be vulnerable in healthy ways. It allows us to look objectively at things. 

It allows us to think critically about things in a way that isn't judgmental. It's looking at things as a way to improve rather than, I'm so stupid or I can't do this or whatever it is. Validation and then E is for Energy and Effort. That's related a little bit to what we talked about earlier. Where are you going to put your best energy, your best effort? What is that going to be focused on? How to organize your life and situations that you're in so that that energy is focused correctly? 

Truthful validation from good sources allows us to be vulnerable in different ways. It allows us to look objectively at things and think critically without being judgmental.

Then, 100% is about being 100% accountable. You are 100% accountable for your life. You're not in control of everything that happens, but you're in absolute control of how you react to it. Until you realize that, we're created as beings that could have the potential and the possibility and also the ability to act however we want to act. 

I can look at this piano right here and it's an inanimate object. It can only be acted upon. When we look around us, when we have experiences in life and go through life, we are merely being acted upon and we allow those circumstances and events in our life to determine our pathway and our journey. We're limiting ourselves in such a huge way. We're leaving so much on the table and so much in the closet. Realizing that you have the power to act, it's 100% in your control. It's huge. 

It's big. When you have 100% control and you believe in that, there's nobody can do anything to you. You take nothing. 

They can do things but it just doesn't have an impact. 

I'm not going to react. There's no reaction you're going to get. You can protect yourself. 

It's very easy to see that difference in people who are successful and by success, I'm not just using money and stuff as a measuring tool, but successful in the fact that they feel fulfilled. They are successful in relationships, they're successful in business, they're able to navigate the twists and turns and ups and downs of life. 

It's one of the biggest things is recognizing that you have people who aren't successful at those things and they just succumb to, somebody saying something to them. They have an obstacle that comes up in their path. They don't have the knowledge in this area that they need. Everything is an excuse. People who recognize that they're 100% accountable for their own life. 

Those things are still there. You're still going to have people that say stuff to you. There are still going to be big obstacles to overcome. You're still going to need to learn things. You're still not going to have enough or be enough or do enough. They find a way to do it. 

Speaking Gigs

Because they're complete. There's no validation required from others. Love it. Where do you speak now? Is it different stages or is there somewhere that people can catch you speaking? 

They can certainly follow me on Instagram, @TonjaWHenderson, I'm there, and bits and pieces of my speaking engagements are there. I do speak at different stages. We're going to Indianapolis here in a couple of weeks to Rainmakers and some absolute motivation events and you'll be there too. I'm excited to see you there. Those things will be at different locations, different places. As I have the events that are finalized, I'll post them on my account. 

I love what you said when you were so grounded in what you wanted for your family and how you said it's never 50/50, 100% when you had all that clarity within your mind, you had six kids. You raised six kids and you still had a beautiful life with your career as well. I don't want to use the word balance, but you had an equation you worked with. 

That's a good word for it. An equation, a puzzle, and sometimes you go to take the puzzle apart and put it back together in a different way, depending on what your family needs and what you need and that sort of thing. I feel so blessed. It's been beautiful. It's not been easy. 

Life is always like that. It’s fun. Otherwise, it's boring. 

Right and had I gone into it saying, “I only want to do things that are fun.” “I want to have fun.” “I want it to be comfortable and easy.” I would have missed out on a lot. 

If we only want to do fun things and wait for everything to be comfortable, we will be missing out on a lot in life.

Breaking The Foundation

Expect a ride. That's what a family is about. Enjoy it. Thank you so much. Is there anything you want to add before we end here, Tonja? 

I love what you're doing. Your book and everything you're doing is so desperately needed. I'm grateful that you have a platform where you're speaking out, and that you're creating a community that's concerned about education. It's so needed. Thank you for that. People need to look you up.

Thank you. It's really important and needed as we just talked about. There's just institution after institution that controls our society, as you just mentioned, in different ways, it's attacking the generations that are right here, right now. Our future generation is not going to have what you had at all and religion or faith and grounding values. Without all that you're, you're going to be in chaos.

That's what's so confusing to me people want to ignore all that they want to get rid of the faith the structure we have around family and the support that is to society we do not have to need to value those things. Then they complain about the results. Why is the world such a mess? Why do we have such mental health problems? Why, why, why? The answer is right there in front of you because the things that you're ignoring, the things that you don't want to acknowledge, don't want to believe in, the answers are there. 

They're breaking the foundation. We can't build without a strong foundation. Fundamental stuff has to be there. Structure of a family. 

We're seeing it in every aspect of society, in our education, in our families, and in our health. We're complete, the shots that they're giving people now for weight loss. We know that there's a huge percentage, 80-something percent of our American society and probably Canada too, I'm not sure about. I think America is the worst in the world for obesity. 

We want to turn to a shot that we've got to take the rest of our lives that we don't know what the long-term side effects are instead of doing what's hard and eating right and getting the minerals and the nutrition. I have a health and nutrition business and that was one of the reasons it's like, you want to go live on processed food and sugar and all these things and then wonder why you don't feel well. Many people use the first part of their life, using their health to get their wealth and then they spend the rest of their life using their wealth to get their health back. 

Many people use their health to get wealthy, only to spend the rest of their lives using wealth to get their health back.

This is our formula. This is the messed-up formula we work with, right? It's a vicious cycle. We have to do something. I'm so excited to hear you speak. I haven't seen you in person speaking gigs yet, but I want to be part of that. I know we're part of the motivational channel, Absolute Motivation. It's a pleasure to be on that because I think it has saved and it will save so many people because it's speaking to so many people in a bigger medium. 

We're getting such good feedback from that. It's very, very encouraging.

Closing Words

Thank you so much for sharing your wisdom with us today here. I appreciate you. 

Thanks for having me on, Kohila. 

I appreciate it. 

I love what you're doing.

---

There it is. She has told us so much. Coming from someone who was abused, now she's speaking about it to help those people who are unable to speak about their pain because it's not easy to speak about what happened to you. There's so much shame, there was so much judgment, even including myself, is so hard to speak. 

I love the five steps that she shared with us. It's really important for those of you who are reading this to protect your children. If you're a parent, you have to pay attention. As she said, I wanted to be there for my children when they came home because that's the vulnerable time when they're by themselves, they don't know what to do.

They look at things, they do things. If you're a parent currently and you're like, “I can't be a parent, I can't be good at my job because I got to balance at all.” As you said, there is no balance. You just have to figure out what's important to you. If your children are important, the time you spend with them should be spent without guilt. Don't let society guilt you into thinking that you have to do it all equally and it all has to be balanced. 

This balancing, who brought in this balance? Can you balance it all? You can’t balance it all. At times you're going to give, as she said, 100% to certain things, and other times you're going to give 100% to certain things. Now the thing that she said that resonated with me is that be a gatekeeper of what enters your mind, especially in a world we're living in right now, where we are surrounded by so much information, we don't know what's right, what's wrong. Is it true? Is it false? 

Therefore, just being a gatekeeper and also teaching our kids to be a good gatekeeper of what enters their minds is so important. Who you get your validation and who you look up to is important too for our children. We have to teach that as parents because if they're looking at the wrong role model, they're going to think this is what life is.

It's really important who we get our validation from. Being 100% in control of your mind and your life and who you are is so critical because if you are in control, even if someone does anything to you or someone says anything to you, they can’t adjust your energy or your effort that is centered from you, that is grounded in you. I love what she said. What she's doing is amazing. She is through absolute motivational channels, she shares her wisdom. 

I just loved the fact that six children. She said it's hard, life is hard, of course, family is hard work, but she never had the regret and said, “It was so hard for me.” No, everything she did it with grace. She had a beautiful grace in her voice, in how she delivered all, even with her children, with her husband, with her work. There's just a beautiful grace and she said that centered around her faith and the fact that when she was molested, she didn't want others to endure that or define who they are in the future. What a beautiful message. 

Again, I want to leave you with this. Your children are precious. They need you. You cannot tell yourself that just because you're busy, you can leave that responsibility to someone else. There is nobody else. In those precious moments of their life, be there for them and be there for them in the critical times that they need you, and be mindful of what is going on in them, what is going through them, because if you don't, no one else cares. 

You are the only one as parents who care. Your job is so crucial and critical in those developmental years for your children. I honor you for taking that role and parenting is a beautiful journey, but we have to appreciate it. Not all of us know all the parenting answers. That's why she was talking about my new platform that's coming out called Personal Development For Parenting because I've done some wrong stuff too because of the lack of awareness. 

We also follow our own parents' parenting style as well, we have to be very mindful of it if it isn't a healthy one. Watch out for that. It's coming up. I'll be sharing some more details on that but until my next show, have a great day, have a blessed day. Enjoy with your children. Just don't compare yourself. Don't try to balance it. Just live the equation that makes sense to you. There is no sense of balancing at all. Thank you.

Important Links

• Tonja Henderson - LinkedIn

• @TonjaWHenderson - Instagram

About Tonja Henderson

Tonja is a real estate investor, designer, mentor, and speaker who encourages audiences to rise above difficult or traumatic circumstances with a 5 step formula that serves as a catalyst to success in living ones divine purpose. Her fresh, yet grounded approach has made her a sought after speaker for audiences big and small at universities, churches and service organizations around the country. Growing up in the south, Tonja developed an unwavering dedication to strong family values, a passion for hard work, and a penchant for practical jokes. After graduating from BYU, she and her husband Jason pursued various educational and business adventures around the country, finally settling in the Rocky Mountains of Utah. The entrepreneurial spirit runs deep in their family, with their 6 children having grown up working in the real estate, property management, and restaurant businesses they own.