Coming Back to Love: the podcast

Karen Walker Cohn (The KLW Project Group) (00:02)
If this is your first time to coming back to love the podcast, welcome. We're so glad you found us. If you're a regular listener, welcome back. Either way, you're not here by accident.

I'm your host, Karen Walker Cohn a wife, a mom, entrepreneur, friend, and dreamer who is ready to step into more of who I am created to be. I am committed to personal transformation for global impact. Now, this podcast may be very different from others. Our guests don't come with a topic or agenda. They come open and ready to receive and deliver the message that's meant for you.

You will also notice our podcast is not overly produced. This is on purpose. Our hope is we will inspire you to step into who you're created to be, regardless of how it may look. Take inspired action on that book, business, relationship, and yes, podcast or whatever it is on your heart. In my experience, my mess usually ends up being my message. I encourage you to approach our time today with a beginner's mindset.

and with openness to receive what is meant for you.

Karen Walker Cohn (01:19)
In this episode, I'm thrilled to introduce you to Tammy Cox, a dedicated transformational coach, specializing in reviving intimacy in marriages. With a unique focus on inner child healing, Tammy dives deep into the root causes of intimacy breakdown, guiding her clients on a transformative journey towards rekindling the flame of love.

Tammy's own life journey was marked by significant childhood wounds, leading her to critical crossroads where she felt she had only two choices, surrender to despair or embark on a path of healing. She chose the latter, embarking on an inspiring voyage of self -discovery that ultimately shaped her into the coach she is today.

It was a profound personal journey that fueled Tammy's determination to create the Reclaim Your Marriage program, a unique approach designed to empower women to save their marriages even if their spouses are not on board.

With over 15 years of marriage and three beautiful daughters, Tammy brings a wealth of experience to her coaching practice, making her not only a compassionate guide, but also a living testament to the potential for growth within a partnership.

Through Tammy's guidance, women can rediscover the spark in their marriage and heal from past wounds and cultivate a lasting, fulfilling connection with their partner. I met Tammy through her husband, connecting her with me. We belong to the same Facebook community group for podcasters. Tammy and I had a discovery call and five minutes in, I knew I would have her on my podcast.

My conversation with her can only be described as liberating. I know Tammy and I will remain connected.

We speak about some very adult themes, so this podcast may not be suitable to all listeners. And now here's the wonderful Tammy Cox.

Karen Walker Cohn (03:32)
So Tammy, when you hear the title of this podcast, Coming Back to Love, inspiring stories on shifting perspectives, what story from your life comes to mind?

Tammy Cox (03:49)
I would, you know, coming back to love, it might as well say to me coming back to self. you know, I always saw life, I always saw me as separate. You know, I think we do come into this physical experience seeing ourselves as separate than our source or separate than others. And so coming back to love kind of represents to me like remembering who I am. You know, at the core, the

the core part of who I am, the part of me that has no end and no beginning. So the story I would have to say is a story where, you know, I came to a place where I was in so much emotional pain and stress and strain that I said, I'm either ending this physical experience right now,

or I'm healing myself because I will not live and suffer like this another moment. It was the moment of such excruciating pain that you come to the end of it by saying, this has to be the end, it has to end now. And so one might say that was like the darkest time in my life, but it was the time that birthed the light for me.

And so I obviously made the choice to heal myself, which means that I always knew that I could. It always knew that I always, the core essence of who I am always knew that it was within me, right? That there's nothing outside of me that can do it for me. but it was a choice that I had. And so I made it in that moment in that really dark, horrid moment where, you know, I was contemplating, listen, I'm taking this gun.

Karen Walker Cohn (05:24)
Hmm.

Tammy Cox (05:48)
And I'm, you know, it was one of those real moments. And when I think back to that now, it's like, I can't even, I almost can't even find the thought process of who I was in that moment because I wasn't the same me, but it was like, it was a beautiful moment that changed everything for me.

Karen Walker Cohn (05:49)
Wow, Tammy. Yeah.

Wow, wow. Are you open to sharing a little bit more about that and how it changed?

Tammy Cox (06:22)
Yeah. So I had a lot of early childhood trauma. I grew up in a very controlling religious structured house where they kind of tried to put a little bubble around us. We didn't know much about what was going on in the outside world. And I was...

11 years old when my parents sat me down and said, Hey, guess what? Your dad has AIDS and he's dying right now. he doesn't have much longer. So, you know,

And one month later he died. And at 11 years old, you don't really understand death. You know, you know, hey, my dad was here yesterday and now he's not. Wonder when he's coming back. And so it was 13 years old and we get these three adult hormones. I actually found this out much later when I started, you know, getting into this work. But when you're 13 is when you get your three adult hormones. So at 13, everything started going crazy in my little world.

Karen Walker Cohn (07:13)
Right.

Tammy Cox (07:36)
know. And I'd say 13 to 19, I had these like these series of deaths after his. So he died. And by the way, my dad was, he was abusive, you know, more verbally than physically, but it was also physical. so when he died, I was left with this sort of like relief cause he was so scary to me.

Karen Walker Cohn (08:03)
Right.

Tammy Cox (08:04)
So I had this relief that also left me with guilt because, and then also I was sad because I did love a massive part of who he was. So I was a very confused young girl. Plus I was told my whole life I was just like him. So here I am, you know, I'd say ages 13 to 19, I was just in such confusion.

bitterness, rage, resentment, like questioning what, what am I doing here? Like why, why is life so painful? And, 19 was a pivotal time for me because, you know, that's when I really stepped into religion and I, I, it was a massive relief for me, although it wasn't, it didn't last very long, but it was kind of like, this

there's some hope, right? And then, you know, over time and, but I'd say that there were times where I went through major depressions where I was actually massively suicidal. And so right around 13, when I got those adult hormones and the intensity of all that childhood trauma hit me. And then, 19 again, and then I had a really bad postpartum after my

my second daughter and that was when I had actually planned out.

or contemplated how I was going to take my own life. It was like the one time where it was so bad that I was planning out, okay, when am I gonna do this? How am I gonna do it? Okay, you know, I didn't have that experience before. And I think I had my second daughter when I was 29. So I'm 29. This was the deepest, darkest depression. And it's when...

Karen Walker Cohn (09:42)
Right.

Tammy Cox (10:07)
all of my childhood trauma came bubbling to the surface. And it was that moment where I'm like, this is the end. It's either the end or the beginning and something's got to change. So 29, did I answer your question?

Karen Walker Cohn (10:11)
Right.

Yeah.

like and brought so many more. I first of all, I want to honor you for your vulnerability to share those things like I know that that just the fact that you're sharing it is going to support and heal so many other women and so many other people listening. It's going to.

Tammy Cox (10:28)
Yeah, okay.

Karen Walker Cohn (10:53)
permission them to do the exact same. And that is super meaningful and really emotional for me because I feel like that's what I'm here on this earth to do. And that's what this podcast is meant to do. So first of all, thank you for being so vulnerable and so open.

Tammy Cox (10:55)
Yeah. Yeah.

Mm -hmm.

Karen Walker Cohn (11:22)
I can't imagine the... Well, I can't imagine a little bit, because some of our audience... Yes, exactly. Some of our audience knows enough about my story as well. And just the amount of...

Tammy Cox (11:28)
Yeah, you can relate to some parts.

Karen Walker Cohn (11:42)
Interflection and work that gets to be done in order to just share a story like that is powerful. And that's one of the things when I first started talking to you, what I really noticed about you is just your amazing presence. And there to me, just talking to you, I walked away from that, from our conversation going, there's nothing that woman can't do. So.

I know you might not feel it the front of you, but on the outside looking in, you have huge, huge things getting ready to blow up for you. So I'm so proud and honored that you're here. One of the things that I've been so interested in is, I know I'm shifting gears. So for those of you listening and going, I want to hear more.

Tammy Cox (12:14)
I don't. That's... Yeah.

Thank you my friend.

Karen Walker Cohn (12:40)
about that story? Well, you get to contact me. You get to find out more. Because the thing that's on my heart right now is obviously just looking at you, you've been able to transmute that hurt and that pain into something beautiful and something that's here to serve other people, serve other women. And one of those things is reclaim, the reclaim your mad.

marriage program. And so this is a program Tammy developed to empower women to save their marriages even if your spouses aren't on board. And that's something that speaks so highly to me because coming from two failed marriages and same thing like trying to trying and working so hard to

change me because I was coming from a place of not enough. So I was obviously the problem. And I'm not saying that I wasn't, I'm just saying that it was unbalanced. And so I'm feeling like, gosh, I have so much work that I get to do on this marriage and I'm not sure that they're on board.

Tammy Cox (13:52)
Mm -hmm.

Karen Walker Cohn (14:05)
So there's a part of me that is like, I'm super interested to hear more about that because there's a little part of me that goes, I don't know, is that possible?

Tammy Cox (14:16)
You and everyone else, including myself before I did it. Well, and you know from a leadership perspective, when you change the world in which you see, not that it changes, but it does. It changes through the lens in which you view it. Where like before, before I came into my healing journey, everyone else was the problem, not me.

Karen Walker Cohn (14:31)
Yes, yeah.

thousand percent.

Right.

Tammy Cox (14:45)
No, it was all them. And it was definitely my husband. You know, that was the way I view things and that, you know, before we come into our journey, we all come in as victims thinking it's what life did to us. It's what he did to us. She did it. My parents, it was definitely my parents. You know, it's what everyone else and circumstances did to us. And then as we kind of dig in, we see that, no, no, no.

Karen Walker Cohn (14:49)
Right.

Tammy Cox (15:15)
That's not exactly true. It's, it's actually us creating our experience. However, before we know we're doing it, we're not really creating what we want, are we? So it's like, once you shift this major piece, and I know the skepticalness I get 100%, but when you change you, you change every single thing that you see because it's all

Karen Walker Cohn (15:27)
No.

Tammy Cox (15:45)
an illusion anyways. So it's really the lens you change. It's the lens you look through. Like, you know, all of my clients, when they come to me, they all think like a victim and I'll blame them for it. I was a victim at the beginning of my journey. It's like, that's the way you're supposed to see it until I provide you the new lens that says here, put these on. And then all of a sudden we take radical responsibility for our life. And we're like,

Karen Walker Cohn (15:56)
Yeah.

right.

Tammy Cox (16:14)
I see my part in all of it. So in my line of work, we have what's called commands, which is basically a limiting belief that we create in a high state of negative emotion, which is a traumatic event. And in that moment, boom, we make a decision about ourself or life, a belief that gets so deeply stamped on our subconscious mind that it stays there the rest of our life until we choose to change it.

Karen Walker Cohn (16:16)
Mmm, so good.

Tammy Cox (16:43)
which we can, but I had two that were running rampant in my life. And it was, I'm not lovable and I'm not important. And when I went back to, through the trauma work I do, when I went back to these really significant events in my life, those were the two beliefs that were on every single one of them as the meaning I placed on these events. So instead of saying,

my dad's in a bad mood or, you know, he learned this behavior. He's doing the best he can, but he learned that this is the way you, you know, treat your kid when they don't do what you say or whatever. The meaning I placed on it as a little girl is I'm not lovable. So when you look at the lens meaning, the meaning I put on these events, it was like I created the meaning. So,

Karen Walker Cohn (17:28)
Right.

Tammy Cox (17:39)
we're all going to be victimized at some point in our life, but that doesn't make us a victim. We're only a victim if we choose to latch onto that belief. I'm the victim. Life is happening to me. I'm not in charge of this. I'm, I'm powerless to change it. You know, it's, it's two different, two different ways of thinking.

Karen Walker Cohn (17:49)
Right. Yep. Right.

Yes.

Yeah. Yeah. No, I now, now like I'm looking at it coming in the marriage that I am now. And I'm so thankful that, you know, once you do the work, you start to attract, you know, I, this is one of the questions I get asked as a coach all the time because I coach women is, and I coach a lot of single women is how do you, you know, how do you get the person of your dreams? How do you get that? It's like,

you get to become that. And so, you know, I'll say like, be the person you want to date, be the person you want to marry. And so coming out of that now and having that person where it's like, yeah, this it is possible. It is possible to manifest those things. It is possible to create that in your life. Now I'm listening to you going, yep, 100 percent, 100 percent. I could have could have.

chosen that. And at the time, I didn't even realize that choice was even available to me. So when you talk about the subconscious and you call them commands, in that instance in the work that I do, it's called fact meaning. So what's the fact and what's the meaning that I gave to it? I talk about that in my book. Like, yeah, it's

Tammy Cox (19:02)
Mm -hmm.

Yeah.

Mm -hmm. That's great. Fact, meaning.

Karen Walker Cohn (19:28)
fact meaning like the fact is, you know, I'm 5 '10". So, and people have my whole life called me tall. You're so tall. But because I was in a place of not enough, to me, I made that mean, well, there's something wrong with you. So whenever I'd hear tall, you're so tall, right away, I'd like shrink down.

Tammy Cox (19:49)
interesting.

It's associated with a negative, huh? Where did that come from? Where did tall become a negative?

Karen Walker Cohn (19:57)
Yeah, and I, and I, and like.

because it was always so in such shock like in almost like, you're so tall, like, because I towered over people. So I was there was a piece of me that was like, I'm making them feel less than so so that they didn't have to feel less than I'm going to shrink. And to the point where my body.

Like I started to walk with a slouch and I hunched over and where my, yeah. And so I get, I just relate to what you're saying, this command. So then tell me more about the actual reclaiming of your marriage and like, is there any resources? If someone's listening, if a woman's listening right now and saying, my gosh, I'm in that boat.

Tammy Cox (20:32)
Yep. See it all the time.

Karen Walker Cohn (20:59)
Tammy, give me something, give me some little wisdom nugget that.

could support me in this time.

Tammy Cox (21:06)
Mm.

Okay, well, there's so much I could give. First of all, I will give you some resources, free resources I have that I would love for you to give out, email out, however this goes out to the world.

The one thing I will say is aside from there's some people that come to me and there's abuse going on in the relationship on some scale or another. And in which case I say, just because any marriage can be saved doesn't mean it should. There are women that come to me where they tell me what's happening in their marriage. And I'm like, I'm not helping you save this. I will help you develop yourself into the kind of person who loves and values yourself.

enough to walk away and to adore yourself enough to heal those wounds, the patterns, the reason why you chose this person, because we always attract that person for a reason. And so don't judge it, right? Don't ever judge it, but look at it with non -judgmental eyes and be like, if I'm loving adoring myself, or you could look at it, you know, if they have daughters, I tell them like this.

this is a pattern. So do you wish for your daughters to keep this pattern alive? Because if you do keep going, there has to be an interjectory. So a lot of times they'll come to me and I will let them know right off the bat that the abuse has has got to stop. And if it's on the lighter side, I hate to say these terms, but for lack of a better word, if it's on the lighter side, meaning, maybe it's just forceful,

Karen Walker Cohn (22:48)
I understand what you're saying, yeah.

Tammy Cox (22:56)
control, you know, maybe it's just like a lot of rules, something like that. I can work with that. But if it is flat out abuse, I'm like,

Still, I want for her to go through my program because my program is going to support her to develop the identity to choose what she actually wants because most women...

Karen Walker Cohn (23:20)
Yeah, yeah.

Tammy Cox (23:21)
Most people don't know what they want. They never ask themselves. So the first nugget is like, aside from those people, anyone can save their marriage. I believe that wholeheartedly. You cannot change the other person, but you can inspire them for us. Like,

Karen Walker Cohn (23:23)
good.

Tammy Cox (23:44)
We were so, I was so done with him. I was so done with my husband. We've been together almost 18 years now and we were so miserable for so long. And when I got to the place where I was like, Hey buddy, like you're cool and stuff, but I don't know if I want to be married to you. Like I'm healing myself. I want to be super duper happy. And

you kind of seem to still want to do the misery thing and I'm not down for that anymore. Like I'm going here." And he was very disturbed by it initially. but after watching me a while, he was like, I think I want some of that piece. It looks kind of yummy. And so he ended up joining me on my desk and sometimes they won't. Sometimes there's so much of a disconnect and she's like getting happier and healthier and a whole, and he just can't hang.

Karen Walker Cohn (24:24)
Yeah. Yeah.

Tammy Cox (24:39)
He just does not want to rise to that level. And so sometimes it's okay to break them up, break them free, not break them off. Wrong words. Break them loose, you know? Yes, different day for that one. But, you know, it's things will happen, but for the most part, most marriages are not that far gone. You may think you are.

Karen Walker Cohn (24:48)
That's a different podcast.

I'm sorry.

Tammy Cox (25:06)
but you're not that far gone from getting them to rise with you because he who has the strongest will always wins. And so women, when they come to me, they're usually the ones, the supporters, they're on the bottom and they're usually with a controller. So what we do in our work together is we go, we balance out that energy. She's gotta get bigger. She's gotta fall in love with herself. She's gotta stand for herself. She's got to absolutely.

Karen Walker Cohn (25:30)
Yeah.

Tammy Cox (25:35)
put herself first. And in that case, there is no way we cannot balance out those energies. It's just the, it's physics is what it is. It's pure physics. So does it happen like that 100 % of the time? No. And I'll tell you why, because some of those women don't want to change. It's hard to change, girl. It is. I am not going to tell you that, that I just went poof.

Karen Walker Cohn (25:37)
Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. It's absolutely.

Yeah.

Tammy Cox (26:05)
but I was in enough pain that I was like, I can't stay here. This is painful. So when they want it.

Karen Walker Cohn (26:11)
Yeah, you were in, you were gonna be in pain either way. So you chose, yeah, you chose the lesser.

Tammy Cox (26:15)
you are.

Yeah. So yes.

Karen Walker Cohn (26:24)
doesn't mean it wasn't painful. It's just like, you know, I've heard that so many times. Like you it's it. change is hard. Yeah. Staying the same is hard, too. I choose to I choose to change, you know, and I don't even know at this point in my life if change is the right. I think it's more like becoming who I was always meant to be. You know, and the things that the traumatic.

things in my life that I've allowed to kind of cover up the light, not kind of, to cover up the light that I am. And it's now removing those. I always, when I talk about this, I picture this, I picture a lamp. I mean, back in the day, and I'm probably significantly older than you, but back in the day, we take scarves and, you know, put it over the lamp and it was like, such a, just a nice set, a nice ambiance. And it's like,

There's through the trauma, through divorces, through things said, through things I believed, it's just one scarf just kept going over top another, going over top another until there was such this dim light until I've like allowed my light to completely dim. It was just a little flicker. And as you start to go.

And this is how I heard you say it, or this is what came to my mind is when the benefits, when the prices I pay start to outweigh the benefits, it was time to start removing some of those scarves, so to speak. And where I'm back into like full light bulb mode, full shine mode, all the scarves gone, doesn't mean that.

Tammy Cox (28:16)
Even the shade. Throw the shade out.

Karen Walker Cohn (28:18)
Yeah, it doesn't mean that there's not something there to work on or anything like that or that. I'm completely healed and I don't need this work anymore. No, it's like, until like, yeah, until I'm gone from this word. Exactly, exactly. So gosh, I appreciate that so much.

Tammy Cox (28:29)
Yeah, ain't never gonna happen, girl.

till you shed that DNA.

Well, and two, it's like trauma gets a bad rap. Trauma gets a bad rap. Trauma is created as a gift. It's like your subconscious way of keeping you safe. So even sometimes when people like wanna give trauma a bad rap, I'm like, no, just because we know now with modern science,

Karen Walker Cohn (28:55)
I love that.

Tammy Cox (29:08)
about how our subconscious and our conscious mind, how it all works, right? How our whole system, our whole computer system, if you will, works. It's like, but let's not give trauma bad rep because it is there to protect you. It is the reason why you don't keep touching the hot stove. You know, your, your body is your, your cells are actually making note of like, that's going to hurt you. Don't touch it. So,

Karen Walker Cohn (29:15)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Right. Right.

Tammy Cox (29:36)
Now that we know it's there and it's a gift, okay, we get to choose the different meaning for the thing. I don't have to see myself as unlovable just because I deemed it that when I was two or whatever age I chose that meaning. It is my absolute pleasure to go back in and reprogram because we all got programmed in those first five years of life, every single one of us.

Karen Walker Cohn (29:49)
Right.

Tammy Cox (30:04)
And the reason why it works that way is because we wouldn't be able to function in life unless we had a set of beliefs, which is, you know, epigenetics, boop, boop, boop, seven generations back where we're basically, you know, they, they put that little program in our little computer setting so that we can function. But now that we know that we can go and hack our own system, it is our pleasure to do so. So like, yes, let's.

let's praise trauma for what it gave us and also change the meanings that we placed on ourselves.

Karen Walker Cohn (30:37)
Yeah.

Yes, yes, yeah, I was in a coaching session yesterday and that's what I said, like asked a question. It's like, wait, wait a second. So if you gave it that meaning, so you made stuff up back then, we can still make stuff up now. So why don't you just give it a different meaning? It's like she just sat there went going, my gosh, that was the end of the session. It was like big light bulb moment came on. But yeah, let's.

Tammy Cox (30:56)
Ugh.

Totally.

Karen Walker Cohn (31:10)
Let's change the meaning. You can make it mean anything you want it to mean.

Tammy Cox (31:12)
Yeah. Anything. And we're sitting here in the same, you know, 95 % of our thoughts are just regurgitation, day in, day out, regurgitation. We know thoughts create the results of our life. And it's like, why not choose some new thoughts? Some, some new thoughts that create the new ways of being. It's like, why not think on purpose?

Karen Walker Cohn (31:30)
Yeah.

Ooh. And I hear people going, wait a second, Tammy, it's just that easy? Yes, it is. It is. And I know, I know. I think that's the same thing when you say about trauma. It's the same thing that I feel about personal development, personal transformation, doing doing this work. but it's going to be so hard. It doesn't have to be.

Tammy Cox (31:47)
Indeed.

Karen Walker Cohn (32:06)
And it could be really fun too. Yeah, and as you keep going, it's like, there are times where I'm like, I'm hitting this, where I thought I dealt with this and I'm hitting it again. But what I'm noticing is the bounce back. You know, when I first hit something really hard in my life, I was curled up in a ball in a corner of my room and ugly cried for three days, I couldn't breathe. It was like,

Tammy Cox (32:08)
It is.

yeah.

Karen Walker Cohn (32:36)
It was such a, and now I come against that same thing. For me, it was childhood abuse. And now I come up against that and I'm like, yeah, you again. Okay, I know why that's there. Okay. And thank, it's like you say, I choose to give that trauma or that fear or whatever it is, I choose to send it love and go, you know what? Thank you for showing me that again. I know that you're trying to keep me safe.

Thank you, I love you, and I'm gonna choose this way. I'm going for it, you know? And it's just, just give it love. Like you don't have to keep pouring in more fear and I'm so afraid of this, I'm so afraid of that. And just keep stepping forward. What are you thinking? I just saw something I wanna know.

Tammy Cox (33:23)
Yeah.

Well, I was just thinking about some processes because whenever someone brings up something, like I always think, what process would I use for that? And so the first two languages we learn when we're born is color and emotion. And we kind of go, boop, our little minds blend them together. So there's colors that you can directly, like I'll be...

I'll just ask you, okay, first impression, what's your healing color?

Karen Walker Cohn (34:02)
For me? The f - okay.

Tammy Cox (34:03)
I'll just have them, yes, pop it up in your mind. Okay. Picture that color. You got a big bubble of it above your head. And with each breath that you take and every beat of your heart, you're breathing it down deeper, deeper, deeper, deeper to a cellular level. Well, I usually have people use their healing colors to bubble around certain, because when we go back to a traumatic event, you know, every time you go back to a traumatic event, you will see it more and more negatively.

Karen Walker Cohn (34:08)
Yep. Yeah.

Tammy Cox (34:33)
It's a deception of your subconscious mind. And once again, to keep you safe. However, you know how you talked about making up the stories? We can choose to paint the picture however we want. And so by utilizing that color, you know, picturing the color bubble around it, like that's your safety bubble. Nothing can touch you. No fear can come upon you when you are in your healing bubble. And it's whatever color you needed.

Karen Walker Cohn (34:41)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Tammy Cox (35:03)
that young version of yourself needed, right? And so, and then usually when we're working on pulling out the negative colors, they tend to be the opposite of that healing color. And so we tend to just, we quite literally, because physiology will always override your psychology. We just physically, tangibly pull it out.

Karen Walker Cohn (35:17)
interesting.

Tammy Cox (35:28)
Okay, where do you feel it? First impression. it's right down here. Like for me, I hold a lot of my trauma in my lower like uterus area. Because I had a lot of early childhood trauma and the first chakra that's created in utero is your root chakra. So I got a lot down there. But a lot of women, I have some of my clients, they have a lot around their heart.

Karen Walker Cohn (35:38)
Right, right.

Yeah, I could see that.

Tammy Cox (35:57)
some in the pit of their stomach. Some like if you have like this, this goes for like aches and pains too. Some they get it right here in the upper, the lower neck, upper back area, hold a lot of trauma there. And we just literally pull it out until they feel the release because the trauma is stored in the body. And it is really your...

Karen Walker Cohn (36:21)
Absolutely.

Tammy Cox (36:24)
imaging your imagination is how your subconscious mind is speaking to you. So sometimes they'll get a picture up and I'll be like, okay, put a frame around it. But we're working with the images in their mind, the colors. And so if you have your healing color, you can literally put it around those events that you tend to go back to and see in that negative context. And when you put it in the bubble and you bring it into the light, it will completely transmute it.

Karen Walker Cohn (36:54)
Wow, I love that.

Tammy Cox (36:56)
So there's all sorts of different processes. And I think that people, if you've only gravitated towards like, you know, talk therapy or counseling as a way of healing, it's like, you are really limiting yourself to the modern healing modalities that now science and physics is bringing into the picture by...

Karen Walker Cohn (37:22)
Right.

Tammy Cox (37:23)
really letting us know how our subconscious mind and our conscious mind are creating this thing we call reality that is, we now know, completely made up. No two people are seeing the same images or feeling the same emotion from those same images. We are just all creating a very different experience for ourselves.

Karen Walker Cohn (37:29)
right.

right? 100 percent. I mean, you know, shifting perspectives. That's what this is about. That's why I speak to so many different people with multiple different belief systems, because I don't want to miss out on anything. I'm not going to like when I was younger, I would because, you know, I grew up in a Christian household. I would let that the fear of what's out there. And if I listen to

someone that is a Hindu or somebody that's a Muslim or if I listen to what they're saying, somehow that's going to get on me and it's going to pull me away from church. It's weird. It's like a weird teaching. And I'm like, you know, I want to, if I didn't tap into, and this is why I say come,

Tammy Cox (38:25)
yeah, it's gonna get on you girl. It's a disease.

Karen Walker Cohn (38:43)
with your conversations with beginner's mindset. And it's, I don't know anything. And I'm coming, you know, and having this conversation with Tammy, because I've learned so much with this, just listening to you. And so now I get to decide and choose to take those things, put it into practice. And I, for me, I have found that,

Because I've chosen to do that and I align with it, that my relationship to God has strengthened. Like, more so than where I was before when running away because I was like too scared to even have the conversation. So I appreciate you and the time that you're here and...

And I also, there's something that I wanted to ask you around, because you had mentioned, and this is really interesting to me, is that you were growing up religious. And I'm really interested to find out, like, when you say religious, what do you mean by that?

Tammy Cox (40:00)
Well, okay. So there's people that follow the religion. You know how you were talking about, maybe you weren't explaining it like you were saying, I'm open. People with a religious mindset, they're not open. They say, these are my beliefs. This is how they look. This is how they sound. This is how they smell. And this is how they taste. If you, what you're coming at me with doesn't taste, smell, touch all.

all the end, if the language doesn't line up, then we don't align. Right? So I tell people this, I'm like, the Bible has literally thousands of different religions that are associated with it. Why do you think that is? Because it's so symbolic. And so when I say religious, I mean, if it was not literally written out,

Karen Walker Cohn (40:29)
right.

Tammy Cox (40:57)
in the Bible. It was not accepted. I had to think, speak and be like my parents. And the list of don'ts was extensive. You can't go here. You can't talk to them. You can't do this. Don't look over there. Don't watch this. Like we didn't have a TV in my house till I was nine. And then once we did have it, it was very monitored. Everything was monitored. So I'd say it was

Karen Walker Cohn (41:10)
Right.

Tammy Cox (41:26)
more than being very legalistic religious, it was controlled. We think this way, we talk this way, we be this way, we don't be X, Y, Z. And then the list of don'ts was like, way longer than the 10 commandments. It was like, right? And I still, you and I both, we have this in common. I still study the Bible. I still go by,

Karen Walker Cohn (41:31)
Mm -hmm.

rate.

Right, right.

Right.

Tammy Cox (41:55)
because there's so much gold in there. And then there's the places where humans took it all the way left. That's why, you know, there's these large disagreements about certain books of the Bible, like for instance, Revelation. I can't even tell you how many versions of the symbolism of Revelation that I've heard, right? And it's like people want to have all these disagreements about it. It's like that's because it's so hard.

Karen Walker Cohn (41:58)
Yes, beautiful. Yeah.

Tammy Cox (42:24)
highly symbolic. You can't take a beautiful book like the Bible and try and say that it's a one size fits all because it is so very symbolic. I've studied it my whole entire adult life extensively studied, studied, studied it. And you just can't get on the same page. No two people can get on the same page as to what all the symbolism of it works.

And so, but my parents, mostly my dad, my dad was the controller in the relationship. So it was mostly him and he was just a very fearful person. So religious people, when they take it to that extreme, that control, it's like, it's just from this place of extreme fear. My dad didn't want me to end up with AIDS and dying at 39 like he did. He was a extremely...

Karen Walker Cohn (43:09)
You're absolutely right.

right.

Tammy Cox (43:19)
I'll use the terms in which how he saw himself, because I believe that's what it was. I don't believe this is intrinsically true, but he saw himself as an unfixable, like broken individual. And because of that, he lived in shame his whole life. And because of that, he died at 39 of AIDS, but fearful, fearful, fearful. And that's where that sort of religious control.

is versus someone who's open. They say, Hey, I believe like this, but you know, like, because life is always open. It's, it's ever expansive. So there's no way we're going to come to the end of our knowledge. Like the more we learn and press into exploring new things, the more doors open. So we never, I believe get to the end of like, this is the absolute truth and it will never change. It's

Karen Walker Cohn (44:03)
ring.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I don't I wholeheartedly agree with that. That's not been my experience anyway. So thank you. Thank you for sharing that. I was probably not the greatest time to ask, but I was really curious about and I was like, I'm going to ask that. So my last question.

Tammy Cox (44:17)
I don't think that's the way life is.

Yeah.

Karen Walker Cohn (44:42)
If you could leave just one message for our audience, what would that message be?

Tammy Cox (44:52)
There's nothing you can't change.

Karen Walker Cohn (44:54)
Mmm.

Tammy Cox (44:58)
Don't ever settle for anything. There's just nothing that you cannot change in your life. I believe that's going from victim to victor is like understanding that you're creating all of it. No one's doing it to you. That was the difference for me in my journey is seeing, you know, the Bible talks about being the temple, you know, meaning that God is within you. It's not.

here, here, here. God is truly an all of creation. It's the omnipresent. There is nowhere you can go that God isn't. But I was given this image of God, which even though it's all throughout the Bible, like make no graven images, meaning make no physical, tangible image of what God is because God is no thing. It's pure spirit and it is

Karen Walker Cohn (45:27)
Yeah.

isn't.

Yeah.

Tammy Cox (45:55)
everything. And so you are the embodiment of God. It's not external. So for me, it was learning not to look outside of myself for something to save me, but look deep within because that's where the kingdom of heaven is. It's deep within you. It is not external. So when we look at our savior outside of ourself, what we're saying is we don't have the power to change. And so you're either the victim,

Karen Walker Cohn (45:56)
Mm -hmm.

Mm.

Right.

Tammy Cox (46:25)
meaning you're powerless to change yourself, or you are all of it. And you get to say who you be, what you have, and what experiences you're going to live through.

Karen Walker Cohn (46:30)
Yeah.

Mm -hmm.

man, so good. Thank you, Tammy. I am so happy to know you and have this conversation with you. Thank you for taking the time to be with us today. And this has been so good, so uplifting. I know I'm going to leave this conversation with like such a joy and an energy in my heart. And I...

Tammy Cox (46:42)
yeah.

Karen Walker Cohn (47:05)
you bring that, like you have this joyous, fun energy that is really contagious. So thank you for bringing that today. goodness.

Tammy Cox (47:14)
I'm receiving that.

It's a pure reflection because you brought it forth from me. So it is our co -creation, it is purely our co -creation. And everyone who's watching, it was just all of us. I mean, I know it's so weird to like think about time and space, but it's like, we just really brought the conversation together. And how like divine is that? It's like...

Karen Walker Cohn (47:32)
Yes.

Yeah, it's my joy to do this and to have these conversations. You know, even when, Tammy, even when I started this podcast, so it launched in December of last year, and there was something, there's just something blocking me, even in the conversations. And I feel like these last three, four ones that I have, that I've had, has been nothing but, you know,

Boom, here it is, nothing blocking and everything's up for grabs. You choose whether you want to answer, you choose whether you don't, I choose whether I want to ask. And to be in that place and just for our audience and our listeners, it's like to be in that place of true, it's not even freedom, it's liberty. It's true liberty where you're at a place in your life where...

I know what I'm meant for and I'm living into it. And like you say, it's not happening to me, it's happening for me. And once that was a shift in my, like I could just let go of all the stuff holding me back. And that's how I feel right now in this moment.

Tammy Cox (49:06)
I see, I see your transformation when I look back at the, when you first began till now, it's like, you have to remember your inner world and your outer world. They're reflecting each other and yours is, is like, it is so very, very obvious. It's like you busted out, you busted out of that cocoon. You're like, don't put me back. Don't you dare put me back in there. Cause I ain't going back. I ain't never going back girl.

Karen Walker Cohn (49:17)
Right.

Thank you for saying. Yeah.

Tammy Cox (49:36)
And then the wings just went.

I mean powerfully. It's like you thought you were small. no, no, no. It's divine. I just got goosebumps everywhere and you know what that means.

Karen Walker Cohn (49:43)
Yeah.

Yeah, yeah. Thank you for saying so. And that's how I feel. Me too. Spirit says, yes. Yeah. I just like and that's why it's so important for me to have conversations like this with you, because there there are women like I was. And this is how I say it is in the back corner of a back room in the dark hiding.

yet everything in them, it's like this fight on the inside. Everything in me wanted to be seen and wanted to be heard, and yet I was so afraid of being seen and heard. And so now I get to, just like you are doing, reaching in those corners and pulling people out to stand in their own light and using our light to do that. Because I feel like that's what I'm here to do. Yeah.

Tammy Cox (50:34)
And the fear is real too, Karen. It's like, I remember the first time I was asked to speak on stage and tell my story. And I said yes, and then I was like, what did I do? And then the moment I did everything, like I was sweating before, I was like, no, don't make me go. I don't know, no, no, no. Like I was horrified.

Karen Walker Cohn (50:57)
For sure.

Tammy Cox (51:02)
And then they hand me the mic and I'm like shaking for five minutes. I shook like crazy for five minutes. Like, right? And the fear is real. Like you are not going to not feel the fear. Do it anyway. Do it anyway. We were so scared to start and it was like, but.

Karen Walker Cohn (51:19)
Absolutely.

Yeah. Yeah.

Tammy Cox (51:30)
I went through all that for a reason. And if the reason can't be to let people know, hey, like I got a story too. And guess what? You can tell me any. And then women would start to come and share their story with me. And then I was like, all that from just me sharing my story. It is like you unleash a power within you that is like, I didn't know what was going to become of it.

Karen Walker Cohn (51:33)
Mm -hmm.

Mm -hmm.

Tammy Cox (52:00)
I just knew I was petrified to do it and that I had to do it. And I shook like crazy and I did probably every single time I started, I would do the same thing. And the audience, it didn't matter the size of the audience. It could be five people, it could be 50. It didn't matter. I was just... But it was like, you are gonna be scared, love. You're gonna be scared. You're gonna be horrifyingly scared.

Karen Walker Cohn (52:03)
Mm -hmm.

Right. Right.

Yeah.

Tammy Cox (52:28)
But on the other side of that fear, when you tell that fear, hey, have a seat, we're going to be okay, we're going to do this, and then you do it, you will experience a kind of life that you never thought possible for yourself.

Karen Walker Cohn (52:34)
Yeah. Yeah.

So good. So good. And it's so important for people to hear the confidence doesn't come before the fear. You step out and do it scared anyway. That's how you build confidence.

Tammy Cox (53:00)
And how annoying is it when people try and tell you how confident you are and you're like, where do you think it was made, honey? Do you think I popped out of the womb? Like, well, actually we all do pop out of the womb. We all do pop out of the womb like, do, do, do. But then we get talked out of and I was like, no one hated themselves as much as I did. I hated.

Karen Walker Cohn (53:08)
Yeah.

Yeah, I think that about you. I think that that's what I...

Tammy Cox (53:26)
myself to the core of my being. I couldn't even stand being alone with myself. My drug of choice was people. Anyone, anywhere to distract me from having to be alone with myself because I hated me. And that's why when I tell people there is nothing about yourself you can't change, I change everything about myself because I went from I can't stand my effing self to

I'd love and adore you exactly how you are. You are perfect. You are whole. You're everything you need and have desired to be. And so when I tell you I have been drugged through the most lowest, lowest of lows, the hottest hell you've ever experienced, like Satan's asshole, that's where I was.

Karen Walker Cohn (53:54)
I love them. Yeah, yeah. Yep.

Tammy Cox (54:24)
and I put myself there. No one put me there. I put me there. No one drug me through those low lows. I put me there. But then once I went like this, it was like...

Karen Walker Cohn (54:30)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Tammy Cox (54:39)
the ecstasy you feel from being the fullest version of yourself. You're just like, I don't know what drug could get me this. It is just like the pureness of like, this is what's a available for you

Karen Walker Cohn (54:45)
Yeah, a thousand percent.

This is what is available for you. Yeah, so good. So good, it is literal days of heaven here on earth. So for those of you just like, my future is secure, I know where I'm going. It's not about where you're going. It's where you are now. Bring it, that's what we're meant to do. Is at hand Yes.

Tammy Cox (55:12)
where you are. Heaven, heaven, the kingdom of heaven is, it's in the moment. It is right here, right now. It is deep within your being. It is not external. It's not coming once after you croak. It's not coming once you shed this meat suit. The kingdom of heaven is upon us at every single given moment. And if you're not experiencing it, it's because you have put yourself in a place.

where you've blocked all the light.

Karen Walker Cohn (55:46)
Yeah, yeah, that's that has been as I'm doing more and more of this work, that's been my experience. And when I look through, like you said, that's, you know, my degree is in biblical studies. So I love it, too. It's like it's I believe that's what the book meant. Days of heaven here on Earth. And if you look at every time God came down, God came down, God came down. It's like.

Tammy Cox (55:59)
Yeah, you know.

Karen Walker Cohn (56:13)
Like I'm with you. I searched outside all the time for, you know, even my relationship with God, some was always like outside and it's like, no. Yeah. Yeah. And it's like, now it's, it's, it's all here. I meant to live days of heaven here on earth. And this is what this means doing the thing that I'm called to do. And, and I'm so thankful for you. I'm thankful that, I think this is the start of a, just a lovely,

Tammy Cox (56:23)
It was a man in the sky, right? Did he have a beard?

Karen Walker Cohn (56:43)
relationship, friendship, and I'm in your corner cheering you on, girl, go and get your stuff and do your thing. And I'm just so happy that you're here, Tammy. Thank you so much for taking the time.

Tammy Cox (56:51)
Yeah.

thank you, Karen. You are giving this wonderful gift to the world. I appreciate all of your gifts. You are so riddled with gifts, my love. And now they're busting forth. They're just going to keep coming too. Within the next year, you're going to find your gifts are like appearing out of nowhere. Appearing out of nowhere. They're going to come, come, come, come, come. They're going to overwhelm you with how...

Karen Walker Cohn (57:06)
You

Yeah, I received it.

Tammy Cox (57:24)
richly they're going to bless your life. So just stay open because...

Karen Walker Cohn (57:27)
Thank you.

I am. I'm staying open. I got lots to receive. Amen. Thank you, Tammy. Take care.

Tammy Cox (57:35)
Yes! Forevermore.

You're welcome.

Karen Walker Cohn (The KLW Project Group) (57:42)
Thank you so much for listening to today's episode of Coming Back to Love, the podcast. If you enjoyed what you heard, please make sure to click the link in the description to take you to the full video episode on our YouTube channel. If you absolutely love what we're about, please follow us on Apple Podcasts and Spotify and leave us a review. For more inspiration and resources, visit my website at karenwalkercohn .com.

where you'll find all the ways you can connect with me. I would love to hear your suggestions for topics, questions, and future guests you'd like to hear from to support your coming back to love journey. In the meantime, have an inspiring rest of your day.