Meet Rachel Grant

We recently connected with Rachel Grant and have shared our conversation below.

Hi Rachel, thank you so much for joining us today. There are so many topics we could discuss, but perhaps one of the most relevant is empathy because it’s at the core of great leadership and so we’d love to hear about how you developed your empathy?

I have been blessed with many horrible experiences that have shaped who I am and have made me better for it. Kind of a wild statement right?!

And for sure, there was a time when I felt like life’s punching bag and there was no way I could appreciate or make peace with what I was going through.

However, my laundry list of mistakes and outright rebellions shows how powerful love and grace and self-compassion are.

I was born in Bartlesville, Oklahoma, the youngest of three.

I was a happy baby and toddler – always laughing, always smiling– always hammin’ it. Below the surface, my mom loved me and cared for me, but she also had to work a lot, so I quickly learned when she was “available” and when she wasn’t. When she wasn’t, I at least had my brother and sister. My dad was my best friend – I loved crawling up onto his lap as he lounged in his recliner. But, he worked a lot, too!

For the next few years, I did what a lot of kids do –I had fun in activities, made friends, went on vacations, and generally continued to be the life of the party. I was a middle-class kid living in the country with an acre out my backdoor and a park across the street and yes, I do have a picture of my father with his truck!

I was a happy kid – always laughing, always smiling. Below the surface, I was starting to feel like the odd kid out. By the time I was in kindergarten, my brother was 17 and my sister was 14. They were teenagers, and I was no longer a cute toddler who could gain their attention just by saying a new word. My world was getting smaller.

I had the bad haircut that traumatizes all children in first grade. I met the woman who would inspire me to become a teacher (or, at the very least, work with children), Mrs. Hendren, in second grade. I kicked butt as a goalie in. In third grade, I went to my first overnight camp, my brother joined the military, and my sister went to her senior prom and then quickly got out of dodge.

My cheeks were getting plumper – but I was still smiling! My character – what made me “me” – was forming. I loved to laugh and make other people laugh. But, below the surface, what we were feeling inside – my mom, dad, and I were suffering from “empty nest syndrome”. My granddad, my mother’s father, who had been living with us for a couple of years by that time, filled that empty space in our lives. I loved having my granddad there even though he was really, really old – he was in his early 90’s!! But, I have always been a nurturer, so I loved bringing him his breakfast in the morning and his snacks at night and holding our springy screen door open for him so he could go out and sit on the front porch swing.

Finally 10 years, my first double digit! I was in fourth grade! And, for all intents and purposes, I was a pretty normal kid.

My granddad was still living with us, and I was still on “screen-door” duty. One day, I was still glowing from having just turned 10, I was hangin’ out – watchin’ some cheesy 80’s TV, and I heard my granddad coming down the hall. I knew he was heading outside, so I hopped up, and went to the door. Usually, my granddad hung out by himself for a while then knocked when he was ready to come back in. This day was different.

When my granddad pulled my arm and dragged me with him to the porch swing, I didn’t think much of it. It was a nice day; I guess I thought he wanted some company.

That’s not what he wanted. I’ve always been a snuggly person – I still, at this age, loved to crawl in behind my dad in his chair while he watched game shows, just as I had as a toddler. So, when granddad put his arm around me – I snuggled in close, inhaling the smell of his musty old sweater and feeling a little sad that I could feel his rib bones because he was becoming so thin.

When my granddad grabbed by breast (though I think I still called it a “private part” at that time) – I figured he didn’t realize what he was doing. So, I shifted away. When he moved his hand back again – I got scared – really scared. My body, my mind froze – and I can’t honestly tell you how long we sat there or where else he touched me. All I can remember is sort of waking up and then jumping up – running inside and throwing myself across my mother’s bed, crying hysterically. Where was everybody? Doesn’t anyone hear me crying? Isn’t mom home? Wasn’t she? I still can’t remember. My world has just gotten much, much smaller.

It went on for months and it got worse, but no one noticed and I couldn’t tell. I just knew I’d done something to cause it. To everyone else, I was the same ol’ Rachel laughing, crackin’ jokes – but in my room, all alone – I suffered in fear, not knowing what would happen next.

One day, my Aunt drove up unexpectedly and my grandfather’s hands withdrew so quickly that I knew, finally, for sure, that what we were doing was wrong. But that made things more complicated. I began to feel like I should know how to stop it. Tell someone? Ya right – I don’t even have the words in my vocabulary to describe what’s happening let alone the nerve to talk about it.

Sometime later, my mother, urged by a nervous knot in her stomach that wouldn’t go away, strolled by the window beside the porch swing and glanced out. I can’t imagine what my mother must have seen or felt – but all I saw was her tearing out onto the porch and yelling at me to get inside. I knew it was my fault right then and there.

Quick side note: Nearly 14 years later, prompted by a study I was doing called “Hope for Women” – I talked further with my mom about the abuse. I found out that she thought this had been the one and only time! Now once is enough – there’s no such thing as “too little” when it comes to sexual abuse – but no wonder she so completely misunderstood me for the majority of my life!

My parents made my grandfather leave (he was no longer granddad to me). They tried to make me go to a counselor – but he kept asking me about what clothes I would wear around the house, which was just confusing me more and making things worse. I thought for sure everyone in my extended family – aunts and uncles – knew. I felt branded – like everyone who looked at me knew what had happened.

As with all things, time passes, life goes on – soon we were busy planning a vacation and heading off to Georgia for my brother’s wedding.

I had started to gain weight to build a shell around the little bit of “real” me I could remember that I swore I’d never let anyone touch again. I had a sense that my mom didn’t know who I was anymore, didn’t get me, didn’t talk to me as much. I thought my dad didn’t make eye contact with me and he didn’t hug me much anymore – I thought he was afraid to touch me.

I was still smiling – but life was bad – and it was going to get worse before it got better.

Fifth grade began, and I started to get involved in activities again – art, dance, music. I look back now, and I realize this was my year of learning how to “perform” – how to keep the outside looking great while everything fell apart on the inside. This was also the year I had my first “real” kiss. It’s embarrassing to tell – but how the kiss came about illustrates a lot about how children who are abused begin to function. For my first kiss – I stole a boy’s favorite pencil, told him that if he wanted it back – he had to come to my house and kiss me. The abuse taught me that sex, love, intimacy was something to control and manipulate. He did come and my mom was oblivious (this became a long standing behavior – I was able to easily deceive, hide from my mother what I was really doing/feeling). The abuse taught me how to lie to others and myself. The abuse taught me that being vulnerable, innocent meant getting hurt, so I had to be in control.

The summer before I started sixth grade, we had our annual family reunion. We headed out for the lake in our campers and hauled the pop-up cabins from the good ol’ days. I caught my first fish, ate some of the best down home country cooking ever, and had my first run in with my grandfather. He was there, sleeping in one of the trailers, and somebody (can’t even remember who) told me to go wake him up for lunch. My blood turned cold – are you serious!? Don’t you know? Don’t you care? (This is just a minor illustration of how clueless family and friends can be towards survivors of abuse). But, not being one to disobey or want to cause trouble – I went on in. Alone. There he was, snoozing peacefully. I inched forward and poked him. He came slowly out of his sleep, but as soon as he saw me, his eyes just changed. And before I could step back, he was reaching for me, grabbing my arm. I tore out of there like hell on wheels, but, again, it seemed like nobody noticed. I was quickly learning that this was my problem and nobody else’s.

That day, I decided that no one will ever, ever tell me what to do again – to hell with following directions, listening to adults – I’d make my own decisions from now on. That, unfortunately, led to a lot more trouble.

I turned thirteen and, after school was out, I headed off to Kanakuk-Kanakoma, a Christian camp in Missouri. I had been there a few times before and really loved it. While I was there, one of the counselors took me for a stroll and told me my grandfather had died. I’d never confronted him, never personally heard him apologize – and he was gone. He’d gotten the last word. I didn’t go home for the funeral. I thought, “Good riddance.” – what I didn’t understand then was that he was going to haunt me for many years to come.

After I got home from camp, I still had plenty of summer left to enjoy with my friends. One of the ways we enjoyed ourselves was to sneak out at night! One of those nights when we thought we were being bold and daring but were really just stupid, we ended up at the house of a really cute boy who conveniently lived next door to my friend. I lost my virginity that night to a boy whose face I don’t remember and whose last name I don’t know. This girl, 13 ½ years old, braces, just starting to wear a real bra, goofing around with her first dog – is sexually active. This is when it really begins – when what’s going on inside, below the surface, looks nothing like what you see on the outside.

This smiling girl, 13 ½, is starting to hate the way she looks.

This smiling girl, 14 – finally in high school, thinks about killing herself on a regular basis.

This smiling girl, 15, is sneaking out every weekend, stealing money, stealing clothes, stealing her mom’s car, and having sex, well, let’s just say, often.

This smiling girl, 16 – aw, sweet sixteen, finally feels like she belongs to someone – has found her girl crew, but they’re just as lost as she is.

This smiling girl, 17 – is in love for the first time (or, at least what she thought was love) and has moved out, works full-time while going to high school so she can pay the bills, she’s more angry inside than she’s ever been, the punches the boyfriend she’s living with throws are welcomed – the bruises and blood remind her she’s still alive.

This smiling girl, 18 – has moved back in with mom and dad, has just graduated from high school, and tried to commit suicide 3 months ago.

My father died from cancer about two weeks before I finally left Oklahoma – headed for Missouri to start college. I was empty and no longer cared what I did or who with. I was spiraling down into a very dark pit – I was sick spiritually, emotionally, mentally. I continued bouncing from guy to guy, alcohol to drugs, suicidal thoughts to false happiness.

One day, I called out – not literally, just in my heart – I wouldn’t even call it a “prayer” or a fully conscious action – “I can’t do this anymore, but I don’t know how to stop! Please, God, send me someone, anyone!”

A few weeks later, my future husband (and abuser) walked into my life – or rather, more honestly, I shoved myself into his! I was instantly drawn to him, even though he was oblivious!! But I kept pursuing him. Once I finally did get his attention, he insisted on calling me for what seemed like forever before he even stepped into the same room with me – I thought, “What planet is this guy from?”

He didn’t want to just have sex, he didn’t want to use my car, he didn’t want to borrow (well, take) my money. I was really confused!

I was trying to have my first “real” relationship, and it became pretty clear pretty quickly that I was completely ill-equipped for this. I was distrustful, antagonistic, created drama all the time, and was in constant fear of the relationship ending. I became fed up with feeling this way and began doing all of the things we do when we want to get better—talking to friends, seeing a therapist, reading books. I was starting to feel better, but in many ways was still going around and around the same mountain of self-doubt, anger, shame, acting out, and living a life with nonexistent boundaries.

I spent 10 years in that relationship. It became emotionally, verbally, and physically abusive. We parted ways, and I was left in a new city with no friends or sense of community, and was still in pain and feeling ashamed as a result of the abuse that had occurred 16 years before.

I realized that I could not keep going in the same direction, that something had to give or I was going to live out the rest of my life feeling alone, broken, and miserable – merely surviving.

That is when I had my “ah ha” moment. The thought occurred to me, “I don’t want to just survive my life, I want to live it!”

I also had the realization that I now saw my abuse as an experience; that I had successfully made connections between being abused and how it affected my current behavior. I could understand why I didn’t trust others, for example. However, the most critical question remained unanswered by any of the books, therapists, or friends I’d come across: “So, what do I do about it?!”

So I started asking this question, and I was shocked by the answers I got. It was if everyone believed this was a life sentence and I was just going to have to deal with it. I thought, “Man, wrong answer!” And that’s really what spurred me on to do my masters in counseling psychology and to study how the brain is impacted by abuse and what that tells us about how we really heal and move on.

So, I started using myself as a guinea pig. I would think about an area in life that I was struggling in and try to figure out what I was missing, what was going on in my brain, and what needed to happen in order for me to heal.

And I did!

Ultimately, this all came together into what is now the Beyond Surviving Method and the work I’ve been doing since 2007 to support people who are sick and tired of feeling broken and unfixable break free from the pain of abuse and finally move on with their lives.

And every day, I draw on the empathy that was born out of living through horrible experiences to help my clients face the lies born out of abuse. Lies like:

1. I did something to cause the abuse to start. False.
2. I was an “equal” participant in the abuse. False.
3. Because I didn’t speak up and tell someone or try to make it stop, I was giving my consent; it made it okay. False.
4. It’s my fault. False.
5. Being abused is something to keep secret, to be ashamed of. False.
6. Sex, love, intimacy are things to control and manipulate. False.
7. Being in control, in charge, making all the decisions protects you from being hurt. False.
8. Being vulnerable, open, innocent means you’ll always get hurt. False.
9. Sexual abuse is a personal issue – one you have to deal with on your own. False.
10. If I can’t confront my abuser, it justifies what happened and gives my abuser the last word. False.
11. Trauma is a life sentence. False.

I can not honestly say that I thought I would ever do this work. I thought I was going to be a high school English teacher!

I can honestly say that this is an issue that I struggled with for the better part of 18 years. I found healing and deliverance. I have no shame.

I have to share that with other people – it’s too good of a thing to keep all for myself.

Whether you were molested, raped; it was someone you knew, didn’t know; you’ve been dealing, think you have dealt, or have ignored the issue – I just encourage you to not give up.

This smiling girl is free from depression, free from suicidal thoughts, free from much insecurity, free from resentment.

I live Beyond Surviving, from an empowered place, a place of choice.

What’s going on below the surface is finally the same as what you see on the outside.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://rachelgrantcoaching.com/
• Instagram: https://instagram.com/coachrachelgrant
• Facebook: https://facebook.com/groups/realktalkwithrachel
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/rachel-grant-19663417/
• Youtube: https://youtube.com/rachelgrantcoaching
• Other: https://shows.acast.com/beyond-surviving