Casa de Los Angelitos: A Home for Pregnant Women in Crisis Featuring Rebecca Binny

Transcript auto-generated from the episode audio; formatting has been cleaned up, but wording is verbatim.

I'm Cynthia Marks and I head up the Holistic Psychoanalysis Foundation, established by my late husband, Doctor Bernard Bail. Welcome to And Now love. Today we are joined by Rebecca Binny. Rebecca is the vice president of Casa de Los Angelitos. She is also a consultant, author and advocate. And you'll find out she's also a whole lot of other things. Casa de Los Angelitos is a not for profit maternity home that has been helping pregnant women in crisis situations since 1986. They provide a safe and secure and compassionate environment for women and their infants.

Sadly, though, there are few opportunities for women in need of support to actually receive that support. We want to talk about the work of Casa de Los Unhealthy Dos and Rebecca's work today, and bring this desperate situation forward. We all need to open our eyes. Our compassion and empathy ought to lead us to offering real and honest help for the women in our lives. Hi, Rebecca. Hi Cynthia, thank you very much for having me. Oh, so glad you're here. And what you're doing is huge and just talking it through with you. It is mind boggling how much work there is to do around the issues that you are supporting taking care of.

So let's talk about how this organization came about. About 39 years ago, someone had the idea to help pregnant women in crisis, those facing homelessness. There was never such a home anywhere in South Bay or actually Los Angeles for that matter. And then there was an anonymous donor who decided to put the down payment on the house for good. Friends came together and they with the board, they ran Casa on their own. They had little tea parties to raise money. They had their board meetings in the home. And so Casa began. It's a five bedroom residence.

Did they have guests? Almost immediately? Yeah. You know, there there has always been a need to house pregnant women. It gets tricky because the shelters with the bunk beds are legally not supposed to, to houses, human rights. So almost immediately, they had, you know, residents coming in, and it just depends. Sometimes you get full, sometimes you only have two beds, but we can house about 6 to 8 women at a time. And the people that first came together to create this organization just knew of this need just by virtue of being in Los Angeles or had experienced some personal situations where they were faced with someone in in trouble, let's say.

I don't personally know the original founders of the organization. There was a boiler going, you know, not all of them are around, but they they saw the need. They saw how, you know, the shelter for men, the shelter for women, for children to just to be pregnant and homeless is such a huge crisis that we don't really think about. But it's hard enough to be pregnant, a single mother and then to not have a safe environment. Yeah. Yeah. And I think that's what really surprised them to start a class. So is your focus on homeless or unsheltered women?

Yes. So we take women in who are pregnant so all throughout their pregnancy, and then we have them up to the point where their baby is about three months old, and we take women who are either homeless or a lot of them. Have you know, substance abuse, alcohol abuse, some of them are domestic violence survivors, or they've been sex trafficked. All devastate, very, all devastating. And how do these women find you? We have a really good referral base. A lot of the shelters know us in Los Angeles to date. A lot of the hospitals call us when they have women who deliver and have nowhere to just get discharged.

So we tend to pick women up after they deliver. And, you know, we are on a lot of referrals for, faith based organizations and churches. How hard is it for you to accommodate women? It sounds like there are many, many women in need and not enough space. I think the way Casa was created was developed, was to not make it a comfortable home for to a permanent home for too long. So that way we turn and we can help all the women who are pregnant who come to us. Of course, there's always a waitlist. There's five bedrooms is not a lot. No. Even when we double up the rooms, you're looking at eight.

You know it's not. It just isn't enough. Yeah. So there is definitely a need for more. There are different places that have started up in LA. Like just around that mimics what Casa offers. And are they looking to you as a source of learning how to do this? Well, yeah. So 1 or 2 of them actually stemmed from like, you know, people who worked at Casa before and then they come out to do their own thing. Oh, so but it is tough because of funding in, you know, different situations where it's either it's hard to either fill the home or it's hard to sustain the home.

And you're not funded by the government. No. We are all funded by private donors or by the religious organization. Wow. So that must mean that in addition to doing what you do, there's a lot of fundraising that has to happen. Yeah. That's again, our latest fundraiser is cool because we actually had an art and music event. But I think besides raising the funds those events are more important to spread awareness. Because the more people know about Casa the more help we get. You know we always have opportunities for mentors or babysitters who come and carry the babies.

And I see so obviously financial support is huge. But you also need people to help in that caregiving. Absolutely. Yes. Yeah. And so if someone were interested in that being able to support you in that way, they can probably go to your website and figure out how that would happen. Yes. The links to join are on the website. You can become a mentor and sign up there. You could fill out a form, and then we get in touch with you and we we schedule volunteers to come in depending on the need of the women. Like, now we have four babies. We just had one delivery yesterday.

Oh my gosh. So that's when we need, you know, sometimes just to carry a baby for an hour to give them a break. That's a huge need. Yeah. Yeah. I can only imagine. And obviously then if someone wants to contribute financially, they can figure out how to do that on your website, too. Absolutely. And the fundraisers or the events that you have are also on your website. They are all on our website or on our Facebook. Instagram. Okay. Wow, you're all over the place as you should be. We are. So from our standpoint, we find that one of the most important things that we can possibly do is make sure that mothers, women are well respected, loved, held, held by everyone men, women, that the the process, the beautiful process of bringing another person into this world is so cherished rather than so misunderstood.

It's not just a rote event. Every pregnancy is different. Every mother is different. We all have some amount of trauma. Some of us more than others, some of it devastating. Some of us learn how to get past our trauma and others don't. In your organization, the women that are coming to you, I think are probably severely traumatized. How can you go about getting to the bottom of the trauma? How can you go about making, not making, helping these women feel whole and healthy and and wanting to know that the love they can feel for themselves will be transmitted to that baby in utero and obviously after childbirth as well.

That's an interesting question because given the the time frame that they're at Casa. Yes, I would personally say it's almost impossible to change someone or to heal them or to fix whatever brokenness they feel in that short amount of time. But you can probably almost not even open the door. Correct. Yeah. And it takes a while because when they come there, a lot of them are guarded there. You know, with the trauma they tend to be closed up. And I think the very first step in what Casa does well is providing a very safe space, a very safe environment to do different activities that, you know, we have Bible studies on Mondays.

We have re parenting classes on Wednesdays. And, you know, community. Sessions are these required events is. Mandatory to attend all of these. But these are some of the ways that we help. And we even have cooking class on Tuesdays. So anyone looking in would be like oh, it's just teaching them to cook. But what it really is, is building a community where they feel safe and respected. And through these things, they actually start opening up. And instead of just talking about the food, it becomes, oh, my mom used to make this, and I wish I could make this for my son when he's born in in that safe, secure environment is what a lot of women actually don't have, whether you are homeless or not, even in a perfect marriage, there are a lot of pregnant mothers who fear for their babies.

They fear, you know, because of past trauma. They fear they could not be good mothers. So Casa really wants to give that that safe space, first of all. And then throughout the pregnancy, even though you may not be able to completely fix or heal someone in that short nine months, hugging them, listening to them, holding them, just making them feel loved, it changes the dynamic between mother and baby, even in utero, right? It doesn't have to be after the baby's born. But while they're carrying that child, if the mom feels loved, the mom feels dignified and respected.

The baby tends to feel the same way. So we want to take the mother through her pregnancy so that when she delivers, it's tears of joy and not tears of trauma, which we see often. And even when the baby's just born, you know, a lot of them would have given birth on their own. But where there are a lot of the board members, they show up. They carry the babies. When they come out, you know, I've been so blessed to be able to witness those births for the past year. And and then through that, the touch and the love we can change bit by bit, just change their their perspectives or their feelings or their emotions about the trauma that they felt.

What you're saying reminds me very much of what we've experienced with Homeboy Industries. We have a lot of conversations with them and their recipients come in full of trauma and having lived lives of despair and done lots of unhealthy things. And it seems that not too long into their experience with homeboys, they feel these smidgen of love. They get those great hugs, someone looks them in the eye, acknowledges them, and doesn't acknowledge them as being only the trauma that they present, but acknowledges them as an equal, as a valuable human being.

And they shift. It's it's as if, you know, this giant gulp of loving air sweeps through them, and now they have a family. Now they have a place where they feel held. And you're saying the same thing, which is what we need to do for everybody on the planet. So yesterday you had a newborn come in. And so what was that experience like? How did Casa de Los Angeles dos assist with that? The most important part is that the mom knows that after she delivers, she has a home to go to, and that relieves a lot of mothers of that stress and that worry when they're at the hospital.

Was she living with you prior? She was in the home. Yeah. And she was one of our newer moms. So it's very quick. You know, some moms are there for nine months and they're only there for two. And she was a newer mom. So it's interesting because right before her, just days ago, we had one of the other moms who was there longer deliver the casa really is, you know, ensures them that mom and baby will come home. Our staff actually do. We have a a company van. We go pick them up, we bring their car seats. So I was at home trying to make broth and soup and, you know, anything that could help nourish mom because they also don't have that.

What we find is that a lot of them don't have motherly figures or have bad experiences with motherly figures, right. So I see, so they have no idea as to what they need to do in order to be healthy. Right? So, you know, some of us are there, like after they come back to help them feed, teach them how to change. How do you swaddle a lot of them? We try to get them doulas to assist in the experience, but really, a lot of our board members and volunteers are there to aid, you know, the day to day process. Yeah, that is rewarding for everyone all around.

It is. My favorite part is carrying the babies. Yeah. Yeah, sure. That's the same. So the women that are coming to you clearly have no support from family. They would I would imagine they wouldn't be living in an unsheltered way. Well some of them do have family. It just depends. Everyone is different. And we've seen people with family, but they're kind of estranged either because of drugs or or or maybe it's their families who are not, you know, like you said, not supportive. So they're there and they can be there sometimes, but maybe not in the capacity the mom needs them to be.

So that's where we come in. We don't push any regimen or we on any of the moms. We try to see where they need help or what they might most benefit from. We provide therapy for all of them. That's one of the requirements of staying in the home. They also have to test drug free, alcohol free. So we're there to offer these little ways of making sure they have a healthy pregnancy, but also that they feel dignified and loved. I give you one example, like when we take donations, like I always tell them, don't give us stained clothes because even though they are homeless, we want to preserve whatever bit of dignity that you know that they still have.

So they're clothing items either nice clothes, they're not stained and not ripped, you know, things like that. All helping one understand that they've got some self-worth. Yes. So can you. Are you at liberty to walk us through, say, a story of one of these young women? What kind of trauma she came with, how you were able to help her and what her life is like now. What was childbirth like? Absolutely. So I, I met a mother who was out of the foster care system involves while sometimes we feel like, you know, the foster families might be better for these kids, a lot of times they're not.

Is it a profit center? For some people. It is definitely a profit center. I think that it's almost better to put a child with a lesser pair of a parent than with a foster parent. It does, you know, it changes a child's perspective on life and family and love being foster care. So naturally, as a young mother, she had to deal with her own issues about being in foster, being ill treated in foster care. And the result of that was that she had lost her first child, had her second, and was almost struggling to cope with having the second. Right. There's no job, there's no income, there's no food.

And when you say she lost her first child, was that to death or. To no to. So custody was given to Daisy. I see and a lot of times that's what happens is a lot of our mothers actually initially come in because they have sort of a child services case and they do not have their previous children with them. And so what I, what I tried to do was reunify moms and children, because I still believe that, you know, every mom, if you change, you deserve a chance to be a mother to your own children, right? It shouldn't be taken away. That right shouldn't be taken away from you.

Yeah. So the reunification process was tough. It's, it's child services. It's testing, it's therapy. So was she going through that reunification process while she was pregnant? Right. There's. My gosh, that's a lot. There are a lot of them. There are a lot of mothers who have children in foster or placed somewhere else while they're going through the pregnancy. So I very closely with the moms to reunify. I, I firmly believe in reunification. And then we want to make sure that she delivers and can keep her baby. So there's another tricky part, because having past cases makes it harder for, you know, for a mom to actually retain custody of a child after she delivers.

So she's on the radar. And because of the issue with the first child, and now, of course, the second child will be on record, is it then a requirement of this agency to monitor that? So we I always say we're not a rehab center and we're not a, monitoring agency. So while we keep very close watch on our mothers in the babies, we don't get involved in the court cases. We don't get involved in supervising or monitoring visits, for example. It's just not in our staff. So, yeah. You know, abilities to do that are certifications. But we do keep an eye on them.

You know, part of what I do and I, I've mentored, you know, a few of those women who've come in is that I try to help them see what of what kind of a mother they they can be something they've never been shown the result of the mentoring after a year, actually, one of them actually reunify with her own mother, which was beautiful for a mom to see that, you know, my daughter is worth it and I can be there for her. So while she's missed so much of the lives of the kids or her own daughter and the grandchildren, there is still that hope and still that the future that they can look forward to, which in itself is healing.

Yeah, that is true hope. So you're back to your story. So this young woman was having to deal with reunification with her first child, honoring the pregnancy of her second child. And was she going to be a single mom to the second child? Also, she's a single mom. But we did find her transitional housing. So she does have a safe home even leave after leaving Casa. She now has a job which is great because that's a, that's one of the most important things is for women to be financially independent. Whether you're a single mom or you're married. I firmly advocate for women to be independent, so the job is important.

She's also considering going back to school, so isn't even when they leave Casa. It's an ongoing process. The mentors that, you know, we just introduced this program, this unit, when we came up with it, I was like, we need them to follow through after they leave Casa. And that's really important. I still follow through with the ones I mentor, and it's good to see the the way they progress. It's very it's very hopeful and. I'm sure I would think that would propel everyone to want to help more. When you see great progress being made. And so this young woman has custody of both of those children.

Of the current, the youngest one working on the first one. I'm still it's a long process and reunification takes a long time. It's not a few months, but it's hopeful. And I think eventually she will. Yeah. And during that process she's able to see that child. Yes. Yes, absolutely. And that's one of the biggest things is not just the reunification part, but being estranged from your own child is so painful for a mother. Having your child taken by child services is so painful. And I've been personally there witness these babies getting taken away.

There was one incident just recently, a month ago, where I was called to come in and I took the baby home just to prevent the baby from being put in foster care. So there was a lot of night feeds, which shocked my own children who are teenagers, I'm sure. Yeah, a lot of you're trying to mother this child who otherwise has not really felt that love, or might have been with strangers. And I think that's an important part of our work. And how did that situation turn out? So the mom needs to work on reunification because, you know, for a child to be taken away, it has to be really serious, right?

Unfortunately. So, you know, she's she's in an inpatient program. We place the baby with the grandma eventually because I think that's just the better way to go. And if the placement didn't work, then I would take the probably take the baby for a 6 or 12 months. Oh my gosh. That is an amazing amount of devotion. It is. It takes a lot of empathy to work with these women. And I think that the world needs more kindness and more empathy. Yeah, yeah. I think, we have so little of it that we're going downhill fast. So conversations like this need to be 200 fold.

We need people to know that, you know, it's just ever so simple to kind of go back to your roots and dig up the love and kindness and empathy. It's in there. We've just piled all this junk on top of it. Right? And that's what I always see. I see myself just as like a cheerleader for Casa for these women, because they all have the true essence of what a woman is. But because of the trauma, it's been layered, you know, life experiences, pain, suffering. So I'm just here to kind of cheer you up. I think you're more than that. And I mean, there's this sort of innate thing that we still try to dig ourselves out of and that as women, we are not equal to men.

And that is huge. It's just huge and it's so pervasive and it's not going away. I mean, we've taken a big backslide here over the last little bit of time and that we've kind of fallen into line with that, that it's just happening and we're now in it. I, I mean, I it's so hard to take a stand, but, you know, we have to do the best we can and stand up for what we know is right. And this isn't right, you know. Exactly. I think, a lot more women need to know, right? That are not sit back and say you're okay with it when it's not okay. So when I speak up, it looks like I'm obtrusive or I am aggressive, but the truth is that I won't be put down or put in a position that's lesser than what I think I deserve.

Not many women would do that because they, you know, like the safety, they like the familiarity. They like the the calmness. And I always say, don't be afraid of confrontation of is fighting for your worth. Because without that you know, we're not we're reduced already in society. And that's a very sad truth. It is. But and, but what do we do with the women who are not interested. I'm that I'd like to say you can only affect the people you can affect. But there's such a huge community of women who really buy into being lesser than their their religion, their family life, their education has kept them in that position of being second class, let's say, how how can we get to that?

So you may not be able to change the ones who are deeply rooted in I'm okay being less, but you can change the ones who are new and fresh because even though they're, you know, actually almost every child born today has taken the trauma from his or her mother. Yes, but it doesn't mean that set it that because you're so young, there are so many ways that we can reach them or change your perspective. And I, I think even my children there is so much stronger than we were. My daughter stands up for herself way more than I ever did at 13. Mine too.

Yeah. And there, conditioned differently, especially with mothers like you, they know they can stand up and they know they should. So we may not be able to change everyone now who's already set and fix for so long in that way. But we can definitely educate the younger ones to to understand that lesser is not okay. It's it's not our right to be treated a certain way or to receive anything lesser than men. And I'm not saying that all we, you know, we want everything you have. I'm just saying that we deserve the same respect. Yes. As has been. Yeah.

And we get to want what we want. Absolutely, absolutely. In the past, women couldn't because the men were the breadwinners. And now women of a lot of them are the breadwinner. So why do we still feel that we're that we deserve anything? That's that I don't get, but I think a lot of it is through education. I inspire to educate. Everything I do is to just teach, because that's the only way that we can really change perspective and change minds and then change behaviors. Yeah. Yeah. Thank you for that. So tell us a little bit about this foundation of yours outside of Casa.

So the Rebecca Binny Foundation has helped empower women for this is about 17 years now. The foundation itself is new and newly formed in the US, but we've probably given close to 2.6 million in resources and funds and. Jeez, Louise. And it's a huge effort. I, I have a list of names do I keep of the people we've touched and the changes we've made. But the foundation is firmly rooted on three things. It's the way to empower women is through education, advocacy and community. There's only three things that a woman needs to really thrive. And without education, unfortunately, that's how we all fall below the poverty line.

Most single mothers, I think it's 75% of them, live below the poverty line after divorce. Why is that? It's hard for a mom to lock her kids to work. Why aren't more organizations offering childcare? Women are a very important, diverse group in an organization for productivity, for creativity. Why aren't we accommodating women with children to be able to work? What's wrong with working from home? If you have a newborn, why do women lose jobs? Because they have newborns and that's where the advocacy comes in. And it I mean, if you think about it, even not too hard, it really makes no sense.

I mean, here women have brought to the world the next generation. Those children belong to all of us, men and women. And if we don't give women their best opportunity to carry these children in health, take care of these children in health, which means they can't do it alone necessarily. Or if they do, great. But it would be even better if there was a community that was supporting that moment in time. Absolutely. And, you know, even for pregnant women, why is it so hard for them to find jobs? Why is there such a stereotype that a pregnant mother cannot carry out her duties that I don't get?

I worked throughout my pregnancy. I made a problem. I had my laptop in the delivery suite. I was committed to finishing the project and I did it. And you know, and I'm sure there are women who, you know, have problems during the pregnancy. They might not be able to stand so long. Absolutely. But in general, the it should not get to that point where, you know, it's harder to find a job when you're pregnant, harder because you're a single mom. There isn't a single mom that should have to live below the poverty line. Considering that you have to raise these children, why has society made it so hard for them.

And to not want to bring healthy people. Right. Along? I mean, medical care is expensive, insurance is expensive. Raising children diapers formula is expensive. So the really the foundation aims at bettering the women, right? A lot of women don't know better only because they're not educated enough about the issue or they don't have the support from the community. And so that's really the foundation tries to provide these avenues so that a woman can, on her own, rise up knowing that she's got this whole village behind her and she's got the education is support.

So the advocacy part of it is teaching a woman how to advocate for herself. Absolutely. That is the biggest thing a woman should do is advocate. We downplay society, downplays a woman's voice. Yes. And unless you go around writing these books and doing these podcasts, most women do not have a chance to use their voices. And my whole goal when the foundation was created was to use my voice first as a platform for the women to find this. And that's really where the advocacy comes from. And, you know, I've been that's all I try to do is speak up for the ones who are underserved.

And the word community comes in that women will understand that it is okay to be part of a community and take support and give support back, and that we really can only be doing our best when we are parts of communities. Absolutely. And a woman's nature is to support and nurture in a community. All our hearts and our spirits are. We were made this way and so community, it gives a chance also to give back because I always say, if you don't have gratitude, you have nothing. And it's so important to always give back. In my worst times, I realize I feel because I was helping someone else and I found that to be so refreshing and reviving.

For somebody who thinks that this is the end of the world. It's so true. I'm so glad you said that, because I think that once you've received love, somehow someone offered a helping hand to you and you have a feeling about that. And it's great, and you want more of it. And you discovered that if you now offer your hand and help you get that same feeling. Absolutely. And it is this beautiful thing, then that you can't help but perpetuate and, you know, then can go back and forth and back and forth. And that sounds so corny, but I think it's really true.

It is. It's a circle life. Yeah. And we started. So why end there? Right. You're not in there because I you know, I always say this when we channel love and service, it becomes a total love becomes eternal when you combine it with service. So it's not just, you know, I always say it's not just taking. It's not just benefiting me. You have to be able to get back. You have to give back to the community that that carried you. And when a woman knows that and she's able to be her true self, because a lot of us, there's so many women who are just constantly high, constantly drunk or constantly living off some crutch because they don't date something's off.

And when a woman is not authentically her, you're not in your true essence of a woman. It's uncomfortable as much as we don't realize it, especially when we're not educated about these things. But we feel off, right? So the need to always medicate that and mask it is what's creating all these problems with drug addiction. You know, it could be any addiction. But we're always trying to mask something. And until we actually dive so deep into the essence of what we have and we all carry it, then we don't need these little crutches, then we don't.

You can get rid of the alcohol. We can get rid of the drugs. We can get rid of, you know, whatever it is that's keeping us in that numb state so we don't feel uncomfortable. And it could even be as basic as living your life kind of walking in, in, in fear. Because that's just what you've always done. Something's occurred in your upbringing that was extremely fearful. And even that doesn't let you operate from your true self. It's these burdens that we carry, and sometimes we mask those burdens with our drugs and alcohol. Sometimes we just carry the burdens.

And just by virtue of carrying the burden is enough for us to sort of not have time to figure out who we authentically are. But then also that amplifies itself in. Women are now more prone to autoimmune diseases, higher, you know, cancer rates. It's all from carrying these burdens and these bearing this pain and the trauma. And how do we move past it. And everybody thinks oh we need more research. Sure. In the medical field we do need the research. But if we can just heal women early on, as early as we can get to them, if we can change how they see themselves and help them live authentically, then all these autoimmune diseases and these cancers, the rates will start dropping.

Oh I agree. Yeah, it's not really just medicine that will help. It's really it's really what a woman carries sometimes. She's a young girl. You know when it's time for dinner wise the girl is making the dinner. Why is it. Oh, you just have to listen. Why? Why is that? Why are girls raised that way and boys or not? Yes. And we're so well raised that way that we don't question it. Right. And we live that way. And then we feel a little bit odd. And I'm just not always happy. Then you need therapy and, you know, and it snowballs. Right? Right. Or this is my life.

I don't know, I feel like there should be something different, but this is the life I have. There is something different. There is. And we want to give them the platform to be able to do that and say, I want to change. I want to correct it. I want to feel safe when I say I want to correct it. Yeah, I thought I was just going to say that many of us have those feelings, but we're afraid to speak up. Absolutely. Society condemns us when we speak up, you know? Now you're oh my God, you're too strong of a woman. You're too demanding. You're feminist.

I'm like, when did feminists ever mean speaking out for myself? Yes. Yeah. And, you know, just to see how pervasive it is, even in our own government, how how much we just how women are so dismissed. I mean, blatantly dismissed. It seems to be is habitual, right. It's not a habit. It's not just, oh, let me dismiss women. It's just a norm. It is the size or norm, which is really sad because I always say, you know, if if not for women, then who we've got the strength, we've got the, the, the mind, the mindsets, the skills. You know, we can run a house.

So you've seen women run households, you know, you put a man in there is like, oh, they were missing a scheduled date. We're missing. So why not in a bigger realm of things? Why do I, in a different setting, a bigger picture? Why are we so limited to the home? And don't get me wrong, I love cooking with my kids. I adore taking care of my house, but also because I have like a complex with how things go. I rather do it myself, you know? But otherwise. But why only the home? I can take this and multiply it, amplify it in a business, in a big organization, society and community.

So why are we always just constrained to that? But there are women who find all of their joy and success in the home. Sure. And if that's you, that's great if you know. But a lot of women who find that joy also don't know better. That's just the way they were raised and what they thought they should do, right? That no other opportunity, never been encouraged. So if I open the playing field and you still choose to do that, that's great. That's your decision. But we need to open that playing field. What a beautiful way of putting it. You know, you don't have to be limited to this thing, but choose the path that suits you.

Absolutely. And you said something that's I think so important. And that is really focusing on young women who are about to be new mothers or who are new mothers, because we can better affect change going forward by helping people who are bringing the next generation in. You're right. Some of us are set in our ways. Some of us aren't. But it's a lot to go back and, you know, sort of try and relieve the trauma, even though we we really ought to be doing that for all of ourselves. But moving forward, if we can introduce a new, new generation that is much less burdened by trauma, and then they don't need to carry it forward in their lives and the lives of their children.

So you starting this here and now and for the past many years that you've been doing it is just so right on. You remember that our children are really our teachers, right? We have children for a reason. World conspired to give us these kids, these particular kids to me and though us to you for a reason. And if we can teach the young generation, a lot of times their mothers get touched, their mothers learn from the children. As much as we don't see it, we learn about our kids new perspectives of things, and we question it. And we look at it and we, you know, and that's how they also reach the ones who are set in their ways.

But besides said, we also keep educating, whether you're setting your ways or not. The more people who talk about it, the more people like you who put yourself out there to advocate for so many women, the higher the chances are of changing somebody who still thinks right, we can. There is a way to still touch the ones who are set in their ways. So it's not like a lost cause, and it's not like we're going to shut the door there, but it's a lot more. It's a lot harder. You have to see a cycle before you try to break it. So we're trying to help you see it.

We're not just here to say, oh, you have to break it. We're trying to help you see that cycle. All of us have a say, a certain cycle on our own. It took me ten years to break mine, but I come from a, a cycle where it's okay to be abused, right? It seems like that I deserved it. Can you talk about that a little bit? Your personal experience? Mine started with my childhood. I've been through or experience many occasions where I was lesser. I was made to feel that I wasn't good enough from the time I was a little girl. Is this coming from your parents, your immediate family?

Your unity? Yes. So having gone through that, when you marry. Right, the and that's the other problem that we see in women is that they tend to be okay. They go back to what's familiar. And so they end up in abusive marriages at the end of an abusive relationships. And men the same too. Exactly. And they always men tend to also Mary those like their mothers. So when you have an abusive mother figure, then the men choose women that mimic that figure. And with the woman, it's it's hard when there's no guidance, there's no one to mentor you or to give you the tell you.

These are red flags, for example. So when you're left on your own at a young age, you get into relationships that mostly are abusive in some way or another. And abuse is not just hitting someone, it's not a broken bone. There's so many forms of abuse and being belittled. To think that I was lesser and thinking that that's okay. And well, you came to own that, right? I did, but it took me so long to actually look inside and say, I am not lesser. I am not this small. What do you think was going on inside of you that got you to the place where you said, hey, wait a minute, I don't have to be that.

Honestly, I think it's not just one thing I think is I've always had this nagging feeling where I have a voice, but nothing comes out right. I know I have a voice, I can do things I've always felt pulled towards advocating or or helping a service. Service is my biggest trait. I feel that I can give back and I couldn't really do it. I couldn't use my voice to advocate. I could not give or give back enough. I. I couldn't help other women because I didn't think enough about myself. I couldn't draw you up if you needed it because I was down there with you and it nagged me.

So it was so uncomfortable. It was the worst feeling in the world for years. I went through it. So that's so interesting. It's it's as if you could see this little glimpse of the person who you were authentically, who you are authentically, but you couldn't quite make it happen. But yet you had this nice curiosity about it. And then that finally led you to get to a place where it was no longer down here, and it came to the surface. Yeah, it's almost like, you know, and I always say the subconscious is powerful, and I can I can feel it. I used to just hear it.

I could see exactly what I was supposed to be. Better, more powerful, more louder. Why am I not that? And every now and then you get. I get the glimpses, like you said. Right? It's. I would see a different, a different me, a different way of living. But why wasn't I doing that and I don't, I never knew where it was coming from and I used. But you know, I always trust my gut. And I used to a very strong I still do very strong gut instincts where I know I have to do something or I know somebody shouldn't be doing that. And I will say it now, I just say it before, when I felt it, I would just keep it.

And maybe mull it over a little bit, like, I don't know if that's. Right. It could be. Maybe I'm just crazy. Yeah. But now I learned to trust my voice so greatly. This other space that exists, this other me that I've seen is subconscious. You know, the unconscious. I have learned to trust it so much. Every time I have a negative, you know, I'll just. I'll act on it. I don't I don't ever question myself. In our work, one of the things we want to do to help people see who they really are is go into their unconscious. And the unconscious is this vessel that holds everything about us currently our past, our ancestors, and the key to getting into our unconscious really is our dreams.

So every night when we go to bed, our dreams offer up this gift. Come and look. Come and feel these feelings. Your unconscious is giving you messages about the way you live your life, about the things you don't need to be carrying around, the trauma that you were given that isn't yours to carry, but yet you still do. You can figure out how to really undo all these things that aren't yours, and discover who you really are, and come to a place where we can operate from love and compassion and empathy like you're doing. And I mean, you've found this little inroad into your unconscious, and look at the gifts you're giving and therefore the gifts you're getting back because it feels so, so, so good to be able to offer up that authentic help.

It feels really great to be who you're supposed to be. And then show someone else that it's possible for them to be who they are. And that's not a small reduced person. No. And and this also applies to men and women. Absolutely. And men actually have a great need for it because a lot of them are told to bottle their emotions from the time they were young. And so when the men, when men hit like, I think it's the late 50s, early 60s, and they actually get a lot of them get depression. People think that's just normal cycle like menopause is, when in actual fact, though, a lot of that stems from the way men bury they hold and they bury.

And I see it and, you know, even my husband, my father, they're not as verbal as women are, you know, they don't have these connections that women form. And, and so it's so important for them. As much as women have been taught that they're not equal to men, men have been taught that emotions make them seem weak or feminine. Yes. Which is the craziest idea. And feminine, weak, negative. All in the same line. So how do we, you know, how do we change that? How do we make more women understand that there is a difference? There is someone inside. And it's so interesting.

Especially her late husband and how he would try to go ahead and, you know, have people tap into their dreams. I guess when I say I work in my dreams, there's some truth to that now. But to more people need to know that that's possible. A lot of us actually do feel it. We just brush it aside like, oh, it's nothing. Oh, sure, I mean, I before I knew that my dreams were, you know, this gift, I'd wake up in the morning and go, what? What is that nonsense? And I would just push it away. But it wasn't nonsense at all. At all. I just didn't have the education to understand that there was this giant opportunity available.

You and I were talking earlier about these dreams that you have, where you're actually almost putting together your to do list for the next day, and that you've come to be able to to really make that a valuable part of your 24 hour day, let's say, because you don't have enough hours in the waking day to tackle everything. I think that's crazy. Amazing. Thank you. A friend told me it seems I have 20 hours up on her in a day because of what I do. And my answer was just last week, it was because I do it in my dreams. And I have my, you know, when I'm when I wake up, I know exactly what I'm going to do.

I know exactly what the words have formed and I'm not. It's not a magic power. I deliberately try to put myself into a deep sleep like I, I tell my everybody, my kids, but I feel like I need to go to bed. I am going to go, even though I have so many things I have to do in that day, I know it, I can feel it, I'm ready and I put myself in the deepest sleep as I possibly can, I. But it's meditation, listening to some tune, creating the awareness. And I dozed off and it's beautiful. And you know what's interesting enough is that there is a period of time when I was not so in touch with myself, or my feminine self, or my true self, it was almost like I was still trying to break that cycle and finding myself.

And in that period of maybe two and a half years, I had no dreams. Absolutely none. I never had one thought, one glimpse into something out that, you know, whatever else existed. And were you cognizant of that at the time? Like, I'm not dreaming or you weren't even thinking about it? Well, I did it, you know, in the middle of every now and then. I'm saying when a friend talks about dream, I say, well, I don't have any. Yeah. And I and I keep thinking maybe because I'm stressed, maybe because I was a single mother, maybe I was trying to make ends meet and and I read it and read it and I wait, I say, what is going on?

I couldn't there was nothing. I think they they come and the value of them is made present. When your deeper self is is ready. Yes. To move on a little bit. Absolutely. And it could be, as you say, you add all this stuff on the surface that just had to be dealt with so you could get through the day. And, you know, a lot of us live our entire lives like that or we just don't have time to, you know, be introspective enough to discover who we truly are. Everyone's moving too fast. Women are going too fast. Oh, I've got to pick up. I've got to chaperon this thing.

I've got to make dinner. I've got to go back to work in the morning. Then I start again. Some of that is a way of avoiding what we need to contend with. That is a trauma response. We were just talking about that too earlier, that I've seen a lot of women with trauma who have not dealt with their trauma. They pick their schedules, they sign up for everything they can do and possibly volunteer in the schools. I'm too busy for that. Yes, because as long as you don't have time to sit with yourself, it feels okay. It's when you sit with yourself, then it gets uncomfortable.

But what a great feeling to feel so uncomfortable with who you are now that you want to get better. And we do, we really need to pause the whole. As a society, we need to just pause. It's moments like these that I hope blow up. Because what you have to say and what you've done is awesome. And you're making big, big strides for women. And we need women to really honor what you're doing and stand by your side and help it help this movement grow. So my turn to throw it back at you. Okay, let's reverse this a little bit. What would you suggest a week someone like me can do for the women at Casa?

Oh, what can the women at Casa do to start finding themselves through their dreams? Or how do they start accessing their dreams to to try to, you know, find their authentic self. Thank you for asking that because that's sort of our whole premise here. So the best way to do this is unavailable to most of us, which is to have a therapist whose work revolves around this premise. There are very few of them that are doing this. We're hoping that that is going to grow over time. And we're trying to make this type of work ever more present. But still, we believe that there are things we can do as individuals to at least do more than open one window.

Maybe we can open seven windows. So we all dream, whether we believe it or not. And I know the young women that you're helping are busy trying to sort out their lives. They're full of fear and trauma and just probably trying to get through the day so they maybe can put their head on their pillow. But if they can put their head on their pillow and say before they do that, you know what? I'd like to have some dreams. I'd like to remember my dreams. Oftentimes over the course of a few nights, you'll start to have a dream or two that you remember, and it'll come to you and you'll say, what the hell is that?

And you might dismiss it, but don't dismiss it. Think about the elements. What do you feel like? What did that dream make you feel? Were you shocked? Were you happy? Were you afraid? Who were you with? And if you were dreaming about Fred that lives down the street, that maybe you've only seen him taken out the garbage? What is Fred make you think of in your life? Was Fred like your uncle? Was he similar to a cartoon character that you watched when you were three? And you'll find yourself going down these avenues and bringing up feelings associated with the images in your dreams, or the feelings that you have in your dreams.

I was completely frightened. If I moved that foot one more inch, I was going over that cliff. I'm not going to do it. Well, what would have happened had you gone off that cliff? Does that mean you're going to die, or does that mean you're going to take this giant leap in the unknown and discover something fabulous, which is more likely the case? It's really a little bit at a time thinking about the dreams, letting them settle and seeing what the next dream is after that. And you kind of can start to see a sequence and you start to see that you're learning something about yourself and learning some things about your life that aren't yours that you've been living with as if they're yours.

You know, I'm supposed to feel less than I don't deserve to be treated well because you weren't treated well. Somebody in your life said you're worthless. And so you you carry that because to step out of that is challenging that person who's accused you of that, who supposedly knows better than you and but you're not worthless. That's just some idea you have that becomes some trauma that you carry. And when you get to the place where you understand that all these things that we carry that are so hard and so heavy are not wholly us, that is not the healthy, authentic self.

So those keys are in those dreams and really a little bit at a time. I think it's great for everybody to explore. And if you explore and you start to talk about it with other people, that's pretty awesome too. And you can deliver that message to others. And, and, you know, maybe this seems farfetched, but the goal is to create a place where we all have access to this information. We all know that it's important, and we all lead ourselves back to good health, which is basically love. So thank you very, very much. Likewise for you. I think what you're doing is great.

I think your voice is powerful and, you know, I'm fully supportive. Thank you for what you're trying to accomplish here. But thank you for having me. It's a pleasure. So if someone wants to find you at Casa, they can go to the website. Yes. Casa's website has all the information about the organization and what we do and all our events. And the website is. Also de Los Angeles. Jose. Org. And then to find your foundation. So you can find me at Rebecca B.Com. We're in the midst, like I said of of putting up these programs that we have for 2026. And you'll find those as well on the website when they're done.

Great. Thank you. Thank you very much. And you can follow us and connect up to Rebecca too. So please follow, rate and share our podcast and pass this episode along to someone who might need it. This is and now love. Please listen to your dreams and live from your heart. And.