The Scoop with Tanya Flanagan

Unknown Speaker 0:00
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Unknown Speaker 0:26
Good morning, and thank you for joining me for the scoop with Tanya Flanagan. I'm so happy you decided to wake up and start your day with me. Here on the scoop, where we talk about life, joy, funny moments, trending topics, and so much more. We promise to keep you in the know and find out what you know. So let's get started.

Unknown Speaker 0:54
Good morning, Las Vegas. And welcome to another edition of the scope. I think I might be up a little early today. We know it's early, but I sound like I'm up early. At any rate, I hope you have your coffee or your tea. Your scone or your blueberry muffin or whatever it is you'd like to enjoy and you've settled in and you're ready for this conversation this morning. We have a good one for you. I have a good one for you. I am pleased to welcome to the studio. Lynn. Just sames author, trainer, motivational speaker. Please join me in saying hello to Lynn. Hi, Lynn.

Unknown Speaker 1:32
Good morning. Tanya, thank you so much for this opportunity to share. I'm so glad I'm early bird.

Unknown Speaker 1:41
I know I know. But you know, it's summertime, right. And so I feel like summer mornings are the best part of the day. It's a little cooler. It's quiet, it's fresh, you can step away and you can clear your head out. And speaking of clearing out one's head, you coach you train people in trauma training. Yeah. So I'm I'm grateful that you've decided to come on the show today. And I hope that this show leaves people with some insight and enlightenment about how they can overcome your story is truly one of triumph. It's one of adversity but triumph. And many people don't experience what you've experienced in terms of trauma, abuse, shock, change. It's, it's not that you're a chameleon, but you've just done so much to get to where you are. So I want to let you tell us a little bit about your story. And this started. Even as a child, I was looking at your history. Your father died when you were young, there was abuse. Can we talk about kind of how you became how you became who you are today?

Unknown Speaker 2:46
Well, one of the things that one of my personal sayings I had, I remember it like yesterday, because it still rings, and echoes to me. I remember growing up. And I've always felt like there was something bigger and better and more to my life than what was in front of me. I always had this concept. This idea almost like a vision of this is not my story. Like this is not supposed to be my life. This is where I'm starting, right? But it was a sincere, real feeling that you're going to be able to do better. Like this is not going to be your story or your children's story because I made a lot of vows that a lot of stuff that I experienced as a child that my children would never experience. So that kind of, you know, pushed me towards wanting to do better. Or have a better life than what I was grazed in

Unknown Speaker 3:38
what's at the stage. Um, where were you born? Where are you from?

Unknown Speaker 3:42
So I'm actually from Los Angeles, California. I was born in Lemoore. Your hospital started off in Long Beach in LA. Okay,

Unknown Speaker 3:49
I'd spent a little time in, in Long Beach in my 20s that just left, you know my 20s but in my 20s How'd you end up? So childhood is in Los Angeles. Did you grow up there? Did you leave there as a child?

Unknown Speaker 4:06
I unfortunately we ended up me and my sisters. We actually ended up coming to Las Vegas because our grandparents, my great grandmother lived here and my my grandfather and maternal side because my mom had went to prison. Oh, God, that just kind of dawned on me. Yeah. So that's how I ended up in Las Vegas because they took care of us. While my mom had sort of some time in prison.

Unknown Speaker 4:30
And your dad passed away when you were how old were you? Oh, I wasn't

Unknown Speaker 4:34
even I wasn't even one years old. He had an asthma attack.

Unknown Speaker 4:38
Oh my goodness. So here you are a young girl. Your your every father and your mother is is incarcerated. So you come here to live with your grandparents. And we always you know, it's great when you have family that you can turn to. But what happens when the safe space that family is creating isn't the safe space where is a little bit of your story, right?

Unknown Speaker 5:01
Well, you knocking on doors this morning because when I first my first thought or feeling of life could be unfair is when my mom went to prison. And when we came down here, my grandfather was a great man, an amazing man. And we was living with someone, he knew why he went to work, and we primarily lived with her. And she definitely mistreated me and my sisters, like we was forced to eat, like, eat beans, almost every day. And if my grandfather brought us something, her kids were like, tear it up. I remember watching one of her kids just let the air out of a ball, he bought us. And I just stood there and watched it. And when my grandfather would come over, she would just tell him mean things about us. And when you were a child, you don't talk up, you don't say anything, and he didn't really know us. So how could he, you know, counteract what she was saying? Or even dispute it? But then he never talked to us either. And we was afraid. That's

Unknown Speaker 6:02
the time when children were, it's a different time like now I think we are much more prone to empower children to Yes, speak, to make us aware of situations and spaces that make them uncomfortable. But there was a time when we had this blind trust, if you will, absolutely. In all adults. And there was a level of respect that came with that. So you didn't question. Especially if you thought it was an adult in your life, that was an authority figure, absolutely. A role model, it could absolutely traumatize you shape your thoughts. I remember going through a similar situation when I was about 12, or 13. And an adult said something to me, that was very hurtful and painful about my parents, which was true. But it was a space for her of a bit of self projection, maybe. But what she said hurt me for a very long time. But I didn't say anything about it. Because this was a trusted source. Right? So it had to be true. Yeah, maybe there's something wrong with my thinking process. So children are very, you know, they can be they're shaped easily. So this, this growing up, grandparent, now you're living with this person, your mom's in prison? What's the worst thing I guess? What's the worst thing that ever happened to you because I want to try to paint a picture a little bit of the hardship that you have gone through, but get into the greatness that you've achieved in spite up because that's what you're all about. You're all about. You have a book. There. It's called your three books. But one of them that I loved was how to beat the odds from A to Z. And what I really liked, was your tagline bet on yourself?

Unknown Speaker 7:46
Yes, yes. Well, I kind of adapted that mindset, because I realized, like, if I didn't bet on myself, There's no way I couldn't have became the lender saying that I am today. I couldn't have did it without believing in myself, betting on myself. And I like to add now I say, a bet on God, because I dropped a lot of my stuff on him. So I'm like, I'm betting on you to God. But the whole mindset of you know, betting on yourself to beat the odds. If I wouldn't have bet on myself, I could not have beat the odds, there was no way. So it's a combination of the two for me when I talk about it, but I come from what I would call hard places. I come from a place I grew up in the project. So there was a lot of it seems like I knew everybody secrets. And but also at the same time I learned then that I could offer a level of balance to what they were sharing with me to make them feel better. And I think that's why it was a natural thing for me to when people talked to me. I could tell them something that I realized that made them feel better. I knew everybody secrets. I knew like what girl was messing with whose boyfriend behind the girl back. Like I knew a lot that I never just never disclosed. I just carried all that stuff as a child. But one of the projects you also deal with a lot of backstabbing, a lot of fighting, I grew up around six violence and drugs growing up in the projects, and then that's when my mom had an accident. And she started partaking in what started off as prescription medication and target into street drugs. And so that was the start of art descent. Yeah, that's

Unknown Speaker 9:19
what took the foundation. Yes, it's hard enough to be in difficult neighborhoods and stay a nuclear family stay cohesive, stay connected, but when you have the things that you're fighting against, and you don't win, and you have to pivot, which essentially is what you had to do you had to pivot to to go forward. So you go through this trauma, the family abuse, the loss of parents living with someone adjacent to your grandparents, although they're they're just, there's all this stuff going on there for child is hard to manage and hard to process at the same time. You're talking about knowing a lot and keeping a lot of secrets. But somewhere, you know, having sort of a spirit, I guess a vision that this, this isn't my life, it's going to be better. So there's this burning inspiration is living inside of you, that propels you forward. Yeah, we're talking about all the trauma from a child, putting it in quick perspective. Tell us what you do now.

Unknown Speaker 10:26
So coming from so I was a teen mom, and my first baby at 14 years old. So I talked about this today, like I experience, you know, just real mean stuff. By the time you're 13 and pregnant, you can't hide that part of your life. And so it comes with stereotypes that comes with language, and it's always negative, you know, you're 13 years old, having a baby, it's just nothing nice and pretty about it, and your innocence is broken. So even for girls who's 13, who's doing it, they can still hide it if they never get pregnant. So your sense of innocence, you can come and try to maintain it on the outside, but I couldn't. So I grew up in that space of someone always talking about me from being a teen mom, into in foster care into ninth grade with no credits. For the first time, I felt abandoned, because the day I had my babies, when we me and my baby went into care, but a time I aged out, I did have three more, two more children, which means I aged out at 18 with three children. And so it was just a bunch of I will call it roller coaster rides a lot of ups and downs, a lot of dysfunctional relationships with men and as a child, you don't even understand because I had the perception, okay, that I knew what I was doing as a child, you know, I thought I could handle it. And I've kind of had to because my mom wasn't there. So you learn to survive into your learning to survive, you adapt this mentality that you can handle it, and you got any you know, what you doing, when you really don't, because you're a child, right. So during that time experiencing sexual abuse, and basically rape, being 12 years old, and having a sexual encounter with a man is in his 20s. At the time, I thought I knew what I was doing, I thought I was doing something better than my friends like they have to go in and I get to stay outside late. But I was just bait for men, but you don't know that as a child, right? So you grow up with this sexual abuse this rate, but you think you can handle it until life presents you with a situation and slaps you in your face. And I shared this stuff in my book. And then you fast forward to you get in relationships, and you're in domestic violence, relationships, and everything that you're being told even the things as a child that you've adopted, you think you still okay, and as an adult, and I think, talk about coping skills a lot. One of my coping mechanisms was to go to school work all the time. So through transparency, looking at my life for the last few years, the reason why I could talk about trauma with someone's competence, because it's taken the last few years that I've had to come face to face with who I am and my life experience without ignoring it. Because I've slowed down. I'm not taking a bunch of classes, the kids are older. I'm not working all the time, like I used to right. So then there's there's time when you got to do it yourself. Recently, someone just asked me a question like, who are you? And I've heard this question a million times that I felt like stomach,

Unknown Speaker 13:27
like, did the did the question catch you off guard? Like, I don't know, or? I'm so many things. I just don't have a quick elevator answer to that question.

Unknown Speaker 13:38
Well, wasn't a quick, elevated asset for sure. But what it was a moment of, you're asking me at a time when everything spiritually is surrounding trans. Transparency and trans, I'm transitioning. You're asking me this question at a time when I'm personally working on personal personal development, self development, like strengthen it, because I can give you the tools all day, I could sit down and talk to somebody and I've watched those people flourish, just from us having a one one on one or me pouring into somebody else's business idea and giving them the tools and techniques. So I've been able to do that, or give someone an answer that they could take it and leave and you watch a change for themselves. So then I sit back and look at my own life and say, Oh, you kind of been in your own way. But you're just coming to these realizations, right? You're noticing that people make statements about things that you're doing. And you watch yourself shut down. I may even have someone talking to me in a no wholeheartedly, no pun intended, no malicious intent about it, but they were like you're the face of trauma. And it it hurt but they didn't mean to hurt me right. And I just shut down talking about trauma on my on my social media. I do a lot of coaching like early in the morning sometime and throughout the day, with my mentees and stuff But that hit me. And it was my first indication that you spend a lot of time feeling like you don't think what people say about you matter. And it's been hitting you hard, and you shut down. But I'm so good at that outer, one of my coping skills is to present myself, well, you know, one of my coping skills is, I'm good.

Unknown Speaker 15:19
Do you talk to people about disguises, if you will, right. So here's my public face. But you're teaching people coping. So all the things that you're going through, I mean, this it's a part of life. Anytime you get into the space where you're counseling, or you're training you're teaching, you're providing any type of therapy or any type of support. Even as a friend we're drawing on what we go through, to relate to what a person is dealing with, even though the circumstances may not be identical. They're relatable relative. So it's all of what you've gone through that helps you to be a trauma trainer. To speak on everything that you've gone through from a motivational space that I've seen, you come out to community workshops, and talk to young girls, and just young people in their teen years about the risk of society, the things that they will face decisions that they need to make being responsible relationships, drugs, gangs, academics, education, how they're presenting themselves thought processes in the fact that choices break consequences, and every choice leads to an unspecial unspecified outcome. But if you're not careful on what that choice is, you reduce the options and increase the consequences that may be negative.

Unknown Speaker 16:40
Yes, but I'm in the middle of working on a book about choices. How for me to like even in my coaching sessions, and working with it, mostly primarily young lady, I've had a few men, and they're just such a different level of teaching. But I'm grateful for the ones that I've had been able to coach that they're open, they're open, and they're receptive to the things that I share. And they liked that it's from a woman's perspective, because it's usually relationship stuff. But I, the transparency piece comes in with me acknowledging like, it is a daily journey to work on yourself, you don't wake up and be a whole person, you don't take a bunch of classes, and then you're fixed or take a bunch of coaching classes or go to some training, or go to therapy, and then you're fixed every day. And that's what I had to remind myself, like every day is about the work. Because it's

Unknown Speaker 17:37
a place of self care. I mean, everyone's going through that. I mean, the trauma may not be losing your parent to incarceration, or even to death at a young age, going to live with a grandparent or being pregnant at a young age, or just whatever it may be. But we all have something whether it is at some point in life, death, a strained relationship with a loved one, a marriage that didn't work, a pregnancy that failed. Something that tore down our marriage, were all a job that didn't work out. You know, we're dealing with different things. And I think what's interesting to me about your journey, is how, as heavy as the issues are, they're relatable to so many things that people deal with mental health, anxiety, managing relationships, managing self esteem, to go through that and to pull yourself up, you have a master's degree and in business in business, so you have a master's in business administration. You went to college, you got a bachelor's and a bachelor's in sociology, a master's in business. You written multiple books, you've done multiple talks and shows you travel, you present,

Unknown Speaker 18:48
you've got a TV show, you're gonna do a radio or

Unknown Speaker 18:50
TV show. And you do right. I mean, that's a lot of things to to be a young girl who goes through different types of abuse that starts Yeah, I mean, just losing a parent can make you feel lost, right, this is a home. And now you're being rehabbed. And even though you have your siblings, then you find yourself a mother at

Unknown Speaker 19:10
1314 13 when I was 14, when I had 14,

Unknown Speaker 19:13
and then by 18, you are the mother of three, when you're really still figuring out what is this thing called life, right? So then you go and you travel this, this path to figure out this thing called life for yourself. And along the way, what you've gone through, I guess, motivated you to help other people in similar circumstances.

Unknown Speaker 19:32
Yeah. Yeah. And you you want people to be better, you know, because you know what it's like to feel not better, right? You know what it feels like to be low. You know, what it feels like to be to feel like you're in a hole. And you you need to see that light bulb. Fortunately, that for me, the light has always been there. It's not a physical person. For me. It's, I talk about hope. People need hope, and talk about, you know, people, a spiritual practice that's in my book, How to be there from A to Z, I talk about the importance of having a spiritual practice. I'm not trying to force my religion on anybody, and I'm not telling people to go believe in God, because those are my beliefs. But just having a spiritual practice helps with hope, studies, information, I've read about things I've known people who have hope. They're usually the ones with a spiritual practice. And they come out quicker than people without them, the people without them stay down longer. If not, they don't usually typically get back up sometime. So it's important that we know what we can gravitate to, to pull ourselves up and my, you know, I'm the one that I'm talking to God and crying to God at two o'clock in the morning. But imagine if I didn't have that at two o'clock in the morning when I don't think anybody might answer. Right,

Unknown Speaker 20:51
because that prayer closet is real. And, you know, to go into this space, because I believe in God, too. And that it I mean, for me, yeah, we were getting ready to talk about this and just talking about life. And I mentioned that I have had probably almost 30 surgeries. Yeah, you can't afford me with that. And you were like 30. And we were talking a little bit about. So my question after that is okay, Durga, what is what's going on with my life? What do you want me to do, because once you start to see what you go through, and how it becomes a testimony, because it's not that you had an issue, and you had surgery is that you had an issue, but you overcame the issue, whether it was surgery, loss, disappointment, relationship didn't work, marriage fail, maybe you lost a child, maybe you lost your parents,

Unknown Speaker 21:43
I think it's important time, you just have to acknowledge that. So I like to talk to people about never minimizing the traumatic experiences that you have, in that category, categorize them and make them less than somebody else's, because one, everything impacts people different. And what might be a little, you know, scuffs on the knee for you. And a scratch could be a deep wound for someone else with similar circumstances. So when we talking about trauma, I like to to the simplest form, when you think about trauma is to think of something happening to you, that is a threat to your survival. Which means people places and things can put you in a situation where it's a threat, with or without it, in some circumstances, but threat of a thing is that being taken from you, but the value that you attach to it can be traumatizing, like a comfort item as a child, and my mom gave me something and I lose it. That can I can, because that was part of my livelihood, right? So I want people to understand you can't minimize, and I talk about different types of trauma, understanding the impacts of trauma, but also how do we handle and manage trauma when I do my coaching. And when I do my trainings, like, I know, I have been gifted with the ability to take a leadership training, and talk about it from trauma. So you as a leader can understand even your experience, make sure a great leader, but how to recognize when someone comes in needing something that you remember that we've all had some type of traumatic experience. And remember that if you if may you sitting here today, you just shared you've had 30 surgeries. Well, guess what, there's something light in there, but you have something in you that can help somebody else, because you've been through it. And because that's in you, you have some skills, right? Right. You have some knowledge, you have some insight that gives you the power and the ability to help somebody else. So if you wonder why there's a there's a piece of it, because God's picture is always bigger, but it's like that strength, somebody need that.

Unknown Speaker 24:03
But I think that also helps us understand a little bit more about who you are. Because the things that we discover about ourselves or that we take away from our observations of other people. Explain who we are a bit, your understanding of my circumstance gives me a bit of insight into who you are. So the motivation what you've been through, right? The same way my journey has brought to me skill sets, I guess I do use them in the community to help women to help people who've gone through whatever it may be. Some surgery situation in my case is breast cancer, among other things. But I talk a lot about breast cancer with breast cancer patients and survivors and families. And it allows me to help them understand what to do what questions to ask how to get the right care how to advocate advocate for themselves, and that is what you You do in the space of what you've gone through, it helps you to, that's the motivation, I've been through something and because I have taken the time to, to not be afraid of it, but to face it, to dissect it, I can now look at the pieces and how they've shaped me. And not that everything about how I've been shaped is perfect. But you take that and you help other people get through different parts of the path that they're on, and to be better than they otherwise would be. And I think that that is huge. Oh,

Unknown Speaker 25:31
thank you, thank you. I mean, I'm really intentional. I've always wanted to be a source and a resource of help for other people, because I know what it's feeling like not to have anybody and know what it feels like, if I look at the bottom of that barrel, and feel like No, nothing's there. Besides the grace of God, if I could be that one face for somebody, or that one voice, that I'm okay with that, because it was just me and my boys always been me and my boys, me and my boys, me and my boys, me and my boys and and I'm gonna take it away from none of my family. But at the heart of it, what I've giving, I have not received. And when you get to a term, like you grew up understanding things, like you got to change your environment. And sometimes you got to leave your family behind. But then you be like, Well, why would you do that? And how could I do that, and we've been through so much, and then you wake up one day, like, it's taken the life out of me. And if I don't get away from him in a bottle of it, and we're going to continue to drown, and to really own, you've made a lot of progress in life, drowning, you've been drowning. And by the grace of God, you've been sustaining at the same time. The balance is nothing but in the grace of God for me.

Unknown Speaker 26:49
And I think that I haven't get the balances and the grace of God for me as well. And really, for many, but I what you said about a spiritual practice, because I don't either try to push people to do but at the end of the day, for me, it is the sun and the moon. It is the end of the beginning of the Alpha and the Omega. And it is a Sunday morning where we are running out of time. I have enjoyed so much talking with you. Thank you for coming on to share your time with me and to share your story. I want to make sure people can find you and get information. When just sames I was asked my guests to share their social. So wherever people can keep up with you. Maybe if they're interested in your books, or want to have you come and talk to a guru. Absolutely. I think that you're phenomenal. And I have watched your story for many years. And so thank you for spending some time here in K u and v talking with us and our listening audience.

Unknown Speaker 27:48
Oh, absolutely. I appreciate this opportunity. So my Facebook is I am well Facebook and Instagram is I am living just Ames. And that's I am l y n n e j ja s a m e s i m Lin just Sings my Tiktok is I m Lin just same seven. That's my Tiktok. My YouTube is Lynch's sames I think 77 So seven is my spiritual number. Yes, seven is the number of completion. So that's how you can and then my website is www dot LAN just aims.com and you can all my social handles are all there. They're all in one place. Well,

Unknown Speaker 28:31
I hope you have enjoyed the Sunday morning chat as much as I have enjoyed the Sunday morning chat. Yeah,

Unknown Speaker 28:36
thank you and we just have wishing to send somebody start somebody's morning off just great and amazing with a good feeling.

Unknown Speaker 28:43
And my mom was a heavy conversation but take away anything from it. Balance and you know, hope and belief and self self care and transparency and being honest with oneself. I think you talked about the two way am conversation with God which I call that prayer closet and sometimes he just wakes you up. I didn't meditate for me read the Bible, but at least meditate. Take a minute to see why you're waking up especially if it's consistent, but hope balance, self care, transparency, and bet on yourself. To beat the mat to beat the US landside plan to same thank you for hanging out on the scoop with me. Thanks for having me. Have a wonderful day and a great week I want to thank you for tuning into the scoop with me telling you Flanagan and I want to invite you to get social with me I'm on Facebook and Twitter. My name is my handle TA and YAFLA na GA N You can also find me on Instagram at Tanya almond eyes Flanagan and if you have a thought and opinion or a suggestion, don't hesitate to shoot me an email to tonya.flanagan@unlv.edu Thanks again for joining in. Stay safe and have a great week.

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