30 - Overcoming Grief - Carol 2 - Transcript

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Robbins-Madanes Training
Reclaiming choices: familly and children Carol 2

Film Transcript
CM
Cloe Madanes
Tony Anthony Robbins
Carol
Chelsea
Audience
CM: Losing a loved one is one of the most painful experiences you can have. Yet in our culture,
the journey to take while grieving is not well-defined. When you lose someone close to you how
can you go on with ordinary life as if nothing had happened? What can you do to honor your
loved ones memory in the best way? How can you define a new future for yourself?
Carol, who lost her sixteen-year-old daughter overnight to a tragic illness, was so devastated by
her loss that she felt unable to give her other four children the love that they deserve. She came
to an Anthony Robbins seminar as a last resort and a friend volunteered her to speak directly
with Tony. This conversation is covered in detail in the film entitled Overcoming Personal
Loss.
Now, eight years later Carol has come to meet with Tony again to discuss the changes that have
taken place since the last time together. You will see exactly what Carol did when she went
home to move on with her life and how her new decisions impacted the lives of her children.
You will also see what you can do to help children who have lost a family member early in life.
We begin with Tony and Carol while Tony is on a break from a weekend event he is giving.
Carols sixteen-year-old daughter who had been eight when her sister died is in the room with
them and she will join the conversation later.
Tony: First, I want to thank you. Thank you for coming and taking the time and as you are
taking off-screen here, you had been totally surprised. You had no idea that we are going to call
on you here so thank you for that spontaneity. Your example is now almost eight years since
this has occurred, I guess a little more.
Carol: Eight years exactly. It happens to be the anniversary of her death.
Tony: Today?
Carol: Yesterday.
Tony: You didnt know we are coming here?
Carol: No idea.
Tony: I had no idea it was the anniversary yesterday. Wow. I had no idea it was the
anniversary yesterday. We were talking about doing this film and I said, Here are some people
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I can remember that I was touched and I was I remembered you specifically because it was
the hardest thing that I have ever done on stage to shake, because it was on stage in which we
reversed roles if you recall.
Carol: Were just we are talking about that.
Tony: I felt you are feeling so intently. If you remember I began to cry and then Ive done
various things like that but it was the most three days later Ive still not shaken it off and so I
remembered vividly like it was yesterday.
Carol: Yeah I do, I do. I remember that. We were just talking about that.
Tony: What an instinct. Guidance for depth and literally within a day of eight years, wow.
Carol: That what Ive said. Its funny how the universe works. It really is funny.
Tony: Wow. Honestly as I see you and I remember that I stepped back at that moment for a
moment so I can feel I can feel that again, too.
Carol: Wow.
Tony: I like to know if you tell the story from your perspective of: Where were you before we
had our little interaction? What were you feeling? What were you thinking? What was your
world like? Then we will talk a little bit about what happened that day and then we will talk a
little bit about what happened since.
Carol: When I came to the event I was in a very difficult place. It was like six weeks after she
died it was
Tony: Really close.
Carol: It was really close.
Tony: I remember.
Carol: What happened to her was she actually, what happened was she had just gotten sick.
So she stayed home from school. I let her decide what to do pretty much because she is very
responsible; very responsible unbelievable kid. I came home and I had brought my daughter
home, this other one. She was sitting on the computer and I said, You have been on the
computer too long, you got to get off the computer. I made dinner for them, I had four other
kids, I have total of five kids. She went into her room, was lying down. I said, No, no you cant
play in there you got a horse you have to take care of, you are fine. She got up and went in
she has just told our friends that she was going back to school. She went into the bathroom and
threw up and she just called me and I went in. You hear that voice from your child you know, I
just hear mommy and I went in. She is sixteen yelling mommy and I went in. She was just
sitting there on the floor just kind of staring. I knew at that point that something was really
wrong. I took her temperature, she has a fever and I said, What are you looking at? She just
kind of was delirious and she says everything. That was it, I just called the doctors, tried to
explain what I was doing. It was kind of late at night and they are closing at night. I took all my
kids and packed up when we went down. They just said she had the flu and I was over reacting.
I was a little upset about that so I said, We are going to go to the hospital. I took her to the
hospital and we kind of got shuffled through there. I really pushed but obviously not enough.
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They sent me home and I brought her home. They had said to me no I havent given her enough
Motrin and so She was so sick that she was passed out but then she got out of the car, ran
upstairs and went to the bathroom and threw up. So I went in and she wanted to stay there.
When we have kids sometimes thats what they do. I made her take her Motrin and she said to
me She just asked me for her Teddy bear, which is kind of unusual. I gave her bear then I slept
downstairs outside the bathroom and it was pretty late.
The next morning I got up and I said to her actually my other kids have gotten up I went in the
kitchen. They were riding around their little cars, making a lot of noise. I hadnt gotten much
sleep, it was a typical morning. I went in to check on her, I never saw her head. I said to her,
Are you alright? She said, Its too loud. Its too loud. Whats too loud? She said, The
bells. So Im thinking its from this little ride on toys, so I shut the door on her. Somebody gave
me a call and I kind of opened the door. She was just lying there, I couldnt see her. I went back
20 minutes later and she had died. It just happened really quickly. So you know we went
through. I tried to resuscitate her and called the ambulance. We went through all the [0:06:25],
said they were died. I just I couldnt believe that this was you just dont believe that this
could happen. That one minute they are there and the next minute they are not. That was it, I
mean my life just I just shut down, just going through the emotions. There were people there
to try and help you and I did have four other children at the house. They are pretty small. My
youngest one was he was turning three, one who was five, one who was seven and one who
was eight. I had a responsibility with the kids and I was on my own. We had just had some
other things happening in the house . We were struggling a little bit.
Tony: When you say other things what do you mean?
Carol: The company that I was working with had changed compensation plan and so I was
already struggling financially. The kids father had left. I was there trying to raise these five kids
by myself and cope together and then my compensation plan changed. It was its a little bit of
a struggle and then she died and it was just I cant even explain to you where you are, I just
cant explain to you. There is just kind of you just kind of are there. I didnt I couldnt find
any meaning, there just didnt seem like any meaning even though I did have four other
children. People would say to me, You know you have four other kids? but its not like you
have a handful of M&Ms and you drop one and you just go the rest of them are there. Its I
cant think of any of it, it was so just huge, huge and she was my oldest child. She was sixteen
and very close to me. She wasnt just my child, she was a friend, she was we had a great
relationship. She was always she was very special not that any of my other children arent
special. But she was I always considered her a gift. My life was not in a good place and she
came along as a surprise because I was not supposed to able to have children.
Tony: How interesting.
Carol: She came along and changed my life all for the better. I always knew that she was going
to do something huge. She was going to do something big; she was going to make a difference.
She was so wise beyond her years. Just shes so peaceful; she was so different than the rest of
us. To have that taken away from you, I couldnt understand it. Why would God do something
like that? thats all that went through my mind. Why would he take something so precious? I
mean, I was the one who is always messed up and made the bad decisions and screw up. Here is
this amazing individual who is going to do something and she was gone. I couldnt figure that
out. Its just I couldnt figure it out. Even though I have others, I get up every day and I fed
them and kind of took them where they needed to go but you just shut down. I didnt want to be
here anymore. I felt guilty about that. Id go to bed and I relive it every single night. Im sorry.
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Tony: Im sorry to make you go through this again. Are you okay with continuing of this?
Carol: Yes.
Tony: Because if you dont want to
Carol: No, Im okay.
Tony: Yeah okay.
Carol: Because I know it gets better.
Tony: Yeah, back then you didnt know that.
Carol: I know I didnt. It still is very sad to but Ive been able to put it in a different place.
Still its a huge loss.
Tony: Sure.
Carol: But I can look at it a little bit differently. I look at that part of my life and Im sorry that I
was so shut down, because I did have four other children who had nothing. We dont have
grandparents; we dont have aunts and uncles or anything. All my kids have is me. They have to
be going through their own pain. We are pretty close but we didnt talk about it a whole lot, they
drew pictures. Now, as they have gotten older now they will share different things. My youngest
one went to kindergarten and she said, I used to just go stand in the corner and cry. Nobody
ever told me that so I couldnt help her; but I wasnt in a very good place.
Tony: How could you be?
Carol: So a friend of mine called. I guess he called Scott Roberts because Scott Roberts had
been my account rep. I didnt even know how he did it. He said you got to do something for her
because shes not the same and I wasnt because Ive always been kind of a crazy person. Ive
gone through a lot in my life and you can always I always go, Ah, thats what made me who I
am. I have always looked at it and said These are the things that made me who I am, and you
kind of laugh at that. This one was not funny.
Tony: Yeah.
Carol: This wasnt funny and it didnt make any sense. I couldnt understand why God would do
this. That was all I kept saying is Why. I couldnt understand why, I just could not. I think
thats what happens to everybody. We just cant figure out why this is happening. It tortures
you. I relived it, relieved it. Every night I went to bed and I kept thinking, If I had just stayed
there at the hospital and gotten into their face. Why didnt I? Ive always been the type of
person who gets in their face.
Tony: Why is the question of pain, because there is time in our live where we cannot know
why? There is no way to know why? So we just go deeper and deeper into the pain. So this
person Ive found out about it because this person let me know that what they knew at that
stage and what they believe is you are suicidal. So obviously some more than one person knew
this at that time I guess.
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Carol: Yeah, I didnt want to be here and actually and I didnt tell you this. To tell you the truth
I have the whole thing devised about how I was going to do it. I thought well, I cant leave these
kids on their own because when I was a kid I was on my own and I kind of just a little bit on
the street when I was a teenager. I thought I cant do that. I had it all figured out. I was going
to burn the house down with every single one of them in there. Im sorry Chelsea, you probably
didnt know this.
Tony: Chelsea is here watching on the side. We are going to interview Chelsea at the end here,
too.
Carol: I just
Tony: Chelsea was eight at that time, right?
Carol: She was eight at that time. I had all these kids with all this potential and I really couldnt
think clearly. I just didnt want to be there, it didnt make sense.
CM: Many people who lose a child under such surprising and tragic circumstances go into such
shock and despair that they try to think of any way they can to escape the pain, including
suicide.
Carol: But I anyway as I was driving to the desert I thought, You know what, we are going to
go in here and this will be a great place, because you know now I dont have to worry about my
kids finding me or anything. So Im just going to go into the desert, Im just not going home.
This is what Im going to do, Im here a minute. You know what, somebody will help my kids, I
finally decided. Somebody will help them. Im not in a place to raise them. I cant do it and its
not fair to end their lives. They got potential and they will get over it. I mean I got over a lot of
stuff when I was a kid. I mean you are head is not in the right place.
Tony: Yeah. I interviewed a man years ago. He is on one of the films we made. His partner,
they were destiny was going though it and he had the plan for killing himself and killing his
children. That sounded so horrific to everyone there. When I brought him up and instead of
looking into this pathological person; this man stood up and he looked like Santa Claus. He
literally had this little belly and this grey beard and he had the sweetest eyes. I said, Okay.
Who here is suicidal? He didnt raise his hand during that time so I said, Bob, I know you are
out there. Then when I called on him he said yes he was suicidal. When I dug deeper I finally
said, Do you have a plan to kill your kids? and the reason was the exact same thing. He
couldnt imagine them living in such pain of knowing that their father left them or not having
them there. He figured theyll be so much better off. Theyll be in peace if they went with him.
That was it. I cant tell how many times that have been true. That sounds horrific to hear. For
someone who has not been through what you been through, it can sound horrific. But for
anybody who has been in that experience, its actually a way out of pain for you in your mind in
those moments the mind tells you that is out of pain for your children too. So at this stage you
move beyond that. Now its like theyll be okay, I got to get out of my pain.
Carol: Im thinking yeah I kind of thought, Okay, thats not fair to them. Yeah. You know
what you just dont think rationally.
Tony: Yeah.
Carol: But it is I cant even there are no words to explain what it feels like. It just eat your
whole body, everything. It consumes you, the pain just consumes you.
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Tony: Yeah.
Carol: Its just the loss is its devastating. Its absolutely devastating.
Tony: What was the as you went through the event, if I remember correctly the opportunity
came up with you as I asked, Who here is suicidal? I dont recall if you raised you hand initially
or not.
Carol: He made me.
Tony: Yeah, I think thats what happened. I dont think you did.
Carol: I dont even remember how the conversation began. I just remembered this huge
release. I just was I cant explain to you. It was this and I felt okay about it. I really felt okay
about it and I felt like Melissa was there and I felt that that was she wanted me to do and I didnt
remember. Afterwards I thought I cant remember what we just did. I wish I could remember
all that. What did he say to me? What did he say to me? I cant remember all this. Every
now and then little pieces will come out somebody will be talking to me, they have a loss; or
when we came here. Its just so funny how things work. We came here; we got on the shuttle
and as we were dropping people off we drove by and this girl was, Did you see all the sod? We
are going by where the fire office is getting ready.
Tony: Yes.
Carol: She go, You are going to UPW? So we started talking. She said that she had done an
intervention or something. That she had been abused as a child. And so then I said I had and I
talked a little bit about it and I talked about how I changed and how I looked at it differently and
how its really okay. I kind of went into it a little bit. The whole everybody on there is
listening to all these. I got off then the guy came off and gave us our bags from the hotel. He
turned to me and he said, Thank you. He said, You know I lost a son who was sixteen years
old. He said, You know it almost brought me to tears. He said, You have really touched me.
He said, Thank you very much. I couldnt believe it, I couldnt believe it. To me thats her gift.
Tony: As it is yours, my dear. How incredible.
Carol: Thats Melissa. Thats how she was helping the world. I just know thats what it was. I
know she was put here for a reason. I guess she died for a reason and that was That was kind
of neat that he said that. It was just amazing.
Tony: Ill tell what I remember when you were up there standing is: I remembered the feeling
of that being warm and kind and loving which is in my heart and soul is about and feeling your
pain would not have changed you. So I have to go to a place that I dont know if you ever have
to do with your children but I have to do with one of my boys in particular where I had to do an
intervention with him, where I have to be so intense.
Carol: You did yell at me. I remember that.
Tony: Yes, right. I had to be so intense. I had to seem seemingly be harsh in order to break
this pattern. I remember hating the feeling, hating the feeling. And then also knowing that the
audience probably just thinks Im an idiot and a jerk because they have no clue of what I am
doing.
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Carol: You got right in my face and my friend Jean said to me I dont mean to interrupt but I
just want to
Tony: Yes, please.
Carol: She said to me, she goes, Nobody else could get away with that you know. Because you
said to me, Dont you ever lie to me.
Tony: Yes and I used really intense language, a really intense approach. On the surface it will
look like I was attacking you, when what I was doing is attacking the belief that was destroying
you and your family. I remember just this horrible feeling inside my gut but also simultaneously
I just knew this is because thats not the approach that I normally use this is what I have to
do to break the pattern initially. Then I knew that for you to get that I wasnt here in judgment
of you I have to become you completely. Thats when we did the reversal component. Then I
remembered being in that reversal component and feeling I mean I saw it so vividly and so
directly that it was overwhelming to all of my senses, but not enough for me not to stay focused
on serving you. I then guided you to be me, because I knew you believed in my capacity. But if
you believed in my capacity then I can help you for the moment that you go back. I have to have
you know its your capacity. The only way to do that is in your state you couldnt do it, but we
all have many parts of ourselves. There is a part of you that is powerful, more powerful than
anything thats inside of me. If I can get you to access that by giving it a name called Tony, if I
could demonstrate for you since I knew you are someone who cared about people so much,
your own experience then I knew we could create a collapse with that experience. That was the
strategy approach I took. You watch it later, we will provide it for you to see.
Carol: Good.
Tony: They didnt shoot it well unfortunately. You dont see my face on most of it, so you dont
get to see my tears or anything of that nature but this is the best that we could
Carol: Ill never forget them ever, ever, ever as long as I live. I remember looking into your eyes
and thinking, I just felt so sorry for you because you are in so much pain. I do remember that.
[Laughter]
Tony: I was feeling what you were feeling. What I would love to know now is, tell me what
happened after that. First of all, what was some of the challenges? Because the biggest cultural
challenges as you recall at that time and when I went after you I went after you with the
leverage of: You have these four children here that you know how could you I really went after
you and all the most seemingly harsh ways on the surface just as turning devices. But I said
things but basically all related to: They deserve to know they matter as much as she did or more.
Carol: The next thing I remember actually as we were talking about this is: I remember going to
a softball game for her and Im like, Whoa! I had a great time and all life is good and its okay
that she died. People are going, Shes lost her mind.
Tony: You mean Chelseas softball game?
Carol: Chelseas softball game. I couldnt remember exactly where I was standing and stuff that
I was trying to contain myself. Because whenever you leave one of your seminars you are like,
Whew! You are flying.
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Tony: Yeah.
Carol: Someone had asked me something about whatever and I would say, You know what I
was trying to tell them and they just keep looking at me like, You are messed up.
Tony: The fact that you could be happy.
Carol: That I could be happy.
Tony: That you could take on Chelseas victory and her fun and her experience.
Carol: .and be okay now that Melissa has died. Its probably only been I dont know, two
months or so. So its only been a few months. Not to say that every now and then I didnt feel
some sadness
Tony: Of course.
Carol: .there is absolutely You did feel sadness and sometimes I still do. I miss her very
much.
Tony: Sure.
Carol: But I am able to put her in a different place in my heart and my beliefs. I believe that she
is still with us.
Tony: Yeah.
Carol: She has given us some neat gifts. I came back and I was able to function and I love my
kids. My kids mean everything to me. They mean absolutely everything to me. Anybody who
knows me will tell you that. I like to be at their games.
Tony: Sure.
Carol: Im really passionate about the things that they do. I dont work a full time job so we are
always financially challenged.
Tony: Yeah.
Carol: But it is because its really important for me to be there with them. Because you could
never ever take back what you have missed.
CM: Carol was able to overcome her extreme grief and shock over Melissas death to the point
that she found herself feeling spontaneously happy and excited about her childrens sports and
other things that used to make her happy before. Clearly, she has overcome one of the most
traumatic things any parent can undergo and has been able to give her other children the life,
the love and the attention that they all deserved. This goes to show you being happy again does
not mean that you have forgotten the one you have lost. In fact Carols love or Melissa is such
that even now it would be difficult for her other children to live up to their eldest sisters
reputation. At this point, Tony will invite Carols sixteen-year-old daughter to join in the
conversation.
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Tony: So Chelsea, you have been sitting here listening to all this and unfortunately you also
lived through all this at a very young age. You were eight, right?
Chelsea: Yup.
Tony: What do you remember about what happened at that time? How did you deal with it?
Chelsea: The first thing I knew was she wasnt dealing with it well. How she had been saying
she had a plan to end it.
Carol: You knew that?
Chelsea: I know she did.
Tony: Really? At eight years old? How did you find out?
Chelsea: You could tell. You definitely could tell. She wasnt she wasnt herself. I can always
tell because she was like, she didnt hug us the same way and when we came home from school
that day, she was not the same person. She was so like drawn back in fear. I just knew she
wasnt going to handle it. But when she made it back from California that was really cool
because I just remember as she was. She was happier and she went to hug us the same way like
Mom came back. And the same like desire to want to be with us, she was back. So its really
good that she went. I remember that but
Tony: When she came back you could feel it immediately, huh?
Chelsea: Oh, yeah. I know like she would never admit it to me or anything but I knew she had
no intention of staying.
Tony: Wow. You mean staying alive?
Chelsea: Staying alive. When she came back, I knew it was okay.
Tony: Wow. And you were in the third grade then? What would you have been?
Chelsea: Second.
Tony: Second grade when this happened. You could feel it that clearly?
Chelsea: Oh, yeah.
Tony: You must have an unbelievable bond with your Mama.
Chelsea: Yeah, we are close.
Tony: That is beautiful. Before she left during those six weeks or so, what were you feeling?
Chelsea: It was weird like nobody really talked that much. I just remember we didnt go to
school as much as we did or supposed to obviously and mostly we just like play video games.
People brought us food. Family was there. People were there. We didnt like communicate the
same way or anything like we all are like shocked because she was like she was there one minute
and the next minute she wasnt.
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Tony: How did you deal with it? I am talking about with Melissa.
Chelsea: I wrote poems.
Tony: Did you?
Chelsea: Yeah. We sat in church and I wrote poems and I wrote poems at school. That was only
way I knew how to deal with that because crying didnt seem right because there are all those
people around and you are at a stage but so I wrote poems.
Tony: Wow. Did your Mama read your poems? Did you show them to her? Did you keep them
to yourself at that time?
Chelsea: I showed everyone to her. She read one of them actually when she was saying a speech
at the funeral. She read one and I remember her talking about it. She was saying something
about how I have written and have it on a paper and I have a little how all ended up and
happened, that is what I wrote and I had little sparks around them. She told that I [Inaudible]
[0.25.08 ] at the funeral which I remember being so cool.
Tony: You felt proud?
Chelsea: Yeah.
Tony: You felt loved?
Chelsea: Yes.
Tony: So during that time, you went through both the loss of your sister but also felt like
potential loss of your Mama as well?
Chelsea: Yeah.
Tony: Yeah, and did you have pieces of wondering why you are not enough by yourself? Or did
you go through hurt or anger about that? Or did you just understand what was going on? What
were you really feeling then? It is hard to be eight years old. It would be hard at 50 years old,
you know so I am curious.
Chelsea: I was just like I was mad because that was not supposed to happen. I am supposed to
grow up and she was supposed to be there and she was supposed to be like my childrens aunt. I
am supposed to be her childrens aunt and we were supposed to like grow old together. She had
nicknames for us. She was always supposed to halos for me and then she was just taken away
and you couldnt do anything about it to like change it, you just, no more, cut off.
CM: It can be difficult for adults to understand in detail the loss that is suffered by a child when
a close family member dies. In Chelseas case, she had already imagined an entire lifetime of
growing up and even having children alongside her sister. It is vitally important that children
are given the opportunity to talk about these kinds of loses when they happen and to find ways
of reconciling with a new life situation. Now back to Tony and Chelsea.
Chelsea: When I went back to school I just remember this one kid going, Okay, [Inaudible]
[0.26.56 ] she said okay, everybody else be really nice to Chelsea Collins and it was just really
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nice of them but nobody like, nobody knows what it is like to lose somebody that young and I
was just mad because people are like It is going to be okay. I was No, it is not. Like I didnt
tell people Yeah, my Mom is going to kill herself, too, but I just lost my sister and I thought
that I was going to have no Mom either.
Tony: I am grateful that it didnt occur.
Chelsea: Yeah, definitely.
Tony: So you are really close to your older sister [Inaudible][0.27.36 ] I guess.
Chelsea: Yeah, we shared a room up until two months before she died. She moved out of the
room in January and she died in March.
Tony: Wow. Was she a role model to you? Were you competitive with her? Or they are both
true?
Chelsea: Probably both. She was definitely a role model because she lived just like so simply
and she is older also. She was in high school. She was a cool older sister kind of thing.
Tony: Right.
Chelsea: But we were definitely competitive, too. She had her side of the room which is clean
sometimes and mine was never. It was always that sisterly competitive thing.
Tony: Yeah. Now, when your Mama came home and she had made such a huge healing within
herself where she could feel more she is still with her. You felt the love returning to you and you
felt your fear disappear it sounds like. You knew for sure she was staying?
Chelsea: Yeah.
Tony: And then what happened to you as a result of that at that stage besides the joy of
obviously having your Mama back?
Chelsea: I just remember being so satisfied with the fact that okay, I can at least count on that
hopefully. But then I was kind of scared of what if somebody else got sick because we didnt
know warning signs. It just happened.
CM: It is part of human psychology when a death is very sudden or surprising to worry that
another similar tragedy will strike again. Children need to be reassured on a regular basis that
they will be safe and that their family will be okay.
Chelsea: I remember about just being like happy and thankful that she was home. She wasnt
gone but I was kind of like, I remember being kind of worried about my younger brother Patrick.
He is just one like younger than me because he was really quiet. I just remember him not saying
a lot.
Tony: When did things start to change within the family as a whole? It changed for you when
you saw your Mama was when you knew she was going to stay. Right? And you felt her love
again. And the same kind of hugs and the same kind of connection again, when did things start
to shift for the family as a whole?
Chelsea: I dont really remember.
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Tony: What did it? Was it just your Moms consistently being there again?
Chelsea: Yeah, she sort of kept us together because we are all like a place where you dont want
to function really either but when she came back and we have that assurance and you know that
it is going to be better.
Tony: Right now, I am wondering what belief you may have now if I may. When you look back
and you think about your sister now, what do you think about most? Do you feel her presence?
Do you remember her fondly? Are you still mad? Do you have all the above of what is your
primary feeling?
Chelsea: All of the above definitely.
Tony: You dont have to pick your emotions. You get to do all.
Chelsea: Yes, seriously.
Tony: I understand that but what dominates I am curious most of the time for you?
CM: A large part of overcoming grief is your ability to redefine what things mean to you. When
we grieve, it is natural to experience a variety of intense emotions. While going through this, it
is important to create meanings that empower you to experience the full range of human
emotions. It is natural for Chelsea at times to feel angry, disappointed and sad about her sister
as it is healthy for her to remember her sister with love and appreciation. Tony wants to make
sure that Chelsea does not feel guilty, suppressed or victimized by her sisters passing. Let us
her Chelseas answer.
Chelsea: It depends on the day really.
Tony: Yeah.
Chelsea: When I am having a tough day and something kind of like arise over it then I get kind
of mad about it but then I saw it is when her presence is definitely there. Her favorite this one
was kind of weird story but it was her presence. She was there. She was there. Her favorite like
candy was this Cadbury Crme Eggs which are so good. And they are one of my favorite kind of
candies too and we had them in the car for her to bring to the cemetery for Easter.
Tony: Yes.
Chelsea: We have them brought then for like two weeks so they are not going to be that good
and they will just going to sit on the grave. So I said to Mom, I said Mom, can I please have one
of these eggs? I am hungry and they were so good. She goes, No, they were for Melissas. I
was like Melissa? This is like, this is really recently so I am like Melissas dead. She is not going
to eat them because she cant eat the egg and she is No, no, no, you got to ask Melissa. I was
like how am I going to ask my sister who is under the ground right now if I can eat her egg? And
she so she pulls out these papers that she has gone to see a psyche.
Carol: Okay. Dont tell people this.
Tony: That is okay. Tell us.
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Chelsea: No, it is a good stuff.

Tony: This is good.
Chelsea: She gone to see a psyche which is a little weird but there was definitely, I thought there
was the connection because she took out these papers and so agreeing to do the things that she
knew and then she was but there is this one thing I didnt get about a tattoo.
Carol: I didnt take the papers up because of that. I was just I just happened to pick the thing
off the floor of the car and there are notes in there. And then go Oh, these are notes from when
we were I went to see so and so which is quite a while ago.
Chelsea: And so she picks all these papers, she was like, I was like oh, read some of them, she
was reading through some of them and then she stops at this one thing. She is like the only
thing I didnt get was this tattoo. I had no idea what she was talking about. She kept
mentioning tattoo, tattoo and so I said to her What?
Tony: Because your Mom didnt know she had a tattoo?
Chelsea: No, it was I went to [Inaudible][0.33.41] like a year or two later and I got an airbrush
tattoo on the back with her favorite blue, [Inaudible][0.33.48] blue and I got an angel wings on
my back for her.
Tony: Wow.
Chelsea: Nobody knew except for the girl that I went with and myself.
Tony: Wow.
Chelsea: I ate the Cadbury Egg.
[Laughter]
Tony: There is always a way to get there.
Chelsea: Oh, yeah.
Tony: Here is a side baby.
Chelsea: [Inaudible][0.34.07] and I opened the egg.
CM: Tony asked Chelsea what she thinks about when she thinks about her sister and Chelsea
responded with this story which tells us several things. It tells us that Chelsea still feels a
struggle with her sister even though it has been eight years since her passing. It also tells us that
Melissa is still regarded by the family to be an angel and is still considered a member of the
family. The story also tells us that the bond between Carol and Chelsea is strong and flexible
enough to be playful and interactive. It is very important that younger siblings are able to
express themselves about deceased family members. Grief is a journey that includes the entire
emotional spectrum. Children need to feel empowered to express these emotions in order to
heal.
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Now take a moment to ask yourself: In your family, is everybody permitted to talk about the
person or thing that has been lost? If children speak out with sadness, disappointment, fear or
even aggression, are they met with patient understanding? Do the adults in your family ever
invite the children to speak so that they may listen in a non-judgmental way? Now back to Tony.
Tony: What have you seen? What are you proud of in your Mama?
Chelsea: I am so proud of like I tell my Mom like she was always saying that she is always there
for us no matter what.
Tony: So you love it that your Mama really is there? She is there for you heart and soul?
Chelsea: Yeah, a hundred and fifty percent all the time.
Tony: Wow. That is a beautiful gift. And you paid at times too probably?
Chelsea: Oh, yeah.
Carol: I was just shocked to hear her say this. I didnt know we have ever moved to this point
because all the while there you know it is like do you need to be really here you know?
Chelsea: Yeah.
Carol: She never really said it but it is kind of
Tony: Part of that stage of life.
Carol: It is part of that stage. Yes.
Tony: And the truth is most of what we perceive as an angel because she left at the angel stage.
Chelsea: Yeah.
Tony: Now, it is good for you to know because your daughter knows that beside you. And you
dont have and she wouldnt feel any less an angel for you to know that because she was only
sixteen when she went. And some people have that sixteen stage at nineteen, eighteen. I believe
she is a total unique soul and I believe the one beside you is a total unique soul as you know you
know as well as all the other three. They may pick you as a Mama if that is how it really works or
you picked them. I dont know. I cant profess to know how it really works but I do know it
works.
CM: We often have such strong emotions about the people we have lost that when we remember
them we tend to remember one thing about them in an exaggerated way. Carol thinks of Melissa
as an angel, as being the unique special person that she was. Chelsea remembers Melissa as a
sister recalling her weaknesses as well as her strengths. Tony is pointing out that Melissa passed
away during the angel stage before the onset of teenage rebellion and that if she had continued
living, she would have seemed less like an angel at times. This is important for both Chelsea and
Carol to hear. Chelsea is now at the age at which her sister died and she is likely to start having
challenges and exhibiting behaviors that her sister never did. As Chelsea begins to outlive her
sisters example, both mother and daughter need to know that this puts the family in new
territory and that at some point it will become inappropriate to compare Chelsea with her sister.
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Tony: If for a whole is a human being, we all learn to favor certain parts of ourselves to think
that is who we are parts of our personalities. We call that our personality like one person but
the truth of the matter is some people learn to be rewarded for being so good but they have a bad
part in them too. The bad part is not as really bad. It is just it is not the rewarded part. If I am a
giver then I want my children to experience being givers too and I cant stand people that are
takers but I attract them on a regular basis. I attract them because there is a part of me that is a
taker, too. I dont have to be a taker like take advantage but a taker can receive. Until I get that
I always attract takers because life always bring you the opposite energy for you to hone because
you have disowned that part of yourself and Melissa owned a lot of the light in her experience.
You owned the light and you owned the dark I see.
Chelsea: Yeah.
Tony: And so if she had more time, she probably could have owned her darkness, too. She
didnt have that time and she obviously wasnt meant to in this incarnation or whatever how you
want to frame them in this life. You know the time to experience all those pieces of you and the
dark doesnt mean like the dark light or our harsh dark. It just means making things rightwrong, black and white, good and evil. There are places where that is really valuable to have.
You know you can have somebody would you ever pick a gun and shoot you know a stranger?
Most people with a heart will say no way in a million years but my guess is that if somebody had
a knife to your mothers throat and you have a gun in your hand, the only way to stop them from
killing them or your brothers and sisters was to pull that trigger you might in fact have that
ability, right? Because you will pick normally no. There is a context to everything is what I am
suggesting and so finding those parts of yourself is what makes you more whole and then you get
more comfortable with yourself and until you do that, you keep attracting the opposite so it will
be very easy for you Chelsea to hear Melissa described as an angel and remember the angel parts
of her but you also know there other parts of her too that no one else knows.
Chelsea: Yeah.
Tony: But you cant really bring those up because it would seem almost like maybe at this
stage you could but in the early days, you sure couldnt bring that up because it would feel like a
wound or like you were competing with her or like you were degrading her when you werent.
You just knew these other parts existed, too and as the years go by you will be able to appreciate
even more of those parts of her and more of those parts of you. You will also be able to
appreciate even more of the parts of the angel parts of you that is not better just those pieces as
well and the wholeness comes when in your own relationships when the parts of ourselves we
disowned we begin to hone not necessarily the behavior but the intent of that behavior, the
higher purpose.
So for example, somebody may have grown up where they have to please their father or mother
all the time in order to have love. They had to please, please, please and so they become a
pleaser in their mind. That is who I am. There is some part of them that is not into pleasing at
all and what we do is in order to maintain that love and affection, that respect, that connection is
we push that part down and make that not us. Push it down, push it down, push it down. That
takes energy. So there is a hundred units of energy you wake with everyday as a metaphor and
thirty that is being used before you even wake up trying to keep this part from coming out
because you want to keep the love and affection that you would get. You are always sucking up
that energy with yourself. It takes energy eventually one day that pops out that is why you meet
somebody, How can they behave that way? I cant even believe that. That is not even them. It
is just the part of them they are trying to push down so much and now it is to come out in a way
that doesnt seem very pretty, doesnt seem very beautiful but it has got to come out.
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If you can find that part of you that you disowned and start to find the benefit of it, whatever it
is, the controlling part of you you dont want to be controlling but you are. You know, you want
to be a certain way like I want to ask you who did you have to be growing up to be loved? I know
you will be loved no matter what but we still develop some perception so who did you have to be
for your Mama here to be loved? Not as a judgment, nothing else but you probably know better
now but back then what did you think? Who did you have to be?
Chelsea: Well, when Melissa first passed away, I thought I had to be her.
Tony: That is what I thought.
CM: When children see their parents suffering, it brings up an overwhelming desire to console
their parents to take away the pain and give them what they are wanting. When Chelsea saw
Carol so distraught with the loss of Melissa, Chelsea developed the unconscious wish to be
Melissa so that her mother could have what she was missing. This is a profound emotional
impulse that is nearly impossible to prevent. Tony is inviting Chelsea to understand the key
decision she made as an 8-year-old so that she can make the decision she needs to make now.
Now back to Tony who wants to know more about the decision Chelsea had made to be her
sister.
Tony: And so to be her you had to be?
Chelsea: Perfect.
Tony: Perfect. Who else did you have to be?
Chelsea: Not me.
Tony: Yeah.
Chelsea: Which wasnt cool.
Tony: Yeah. So perfect. What else? What else did you have to be to be like her?
Chelsea: Well, I had to be more outgoing I would have to say and I would have to maybe like
communicate with people in a more simple way because the way that she was.
Tony: Simple is not a good way to describe or a description of you, is it?
Chelsea: No.
Tony: I dont think so.
Chelsea: No. Yeah, we had different personalities. She was a simple kind of person and I am
more like got to have everything scheduled out and more complex.
Tony: You ought to have more control. She would go with the flow.
Chelsea: Yeah, exactly.
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Tony: Yeah, perfect. And so you have to be more simple or you have to be more to go with the
flow, you have to be more perfect. By the way, what are you? You are not perfect. What are you
then?
Chelsea: Human.
Tony: Human. Okay, good. And you are not outgoing. What were you? What are you really?
Chelsea: Well, now I am pretty outgoing but when I was younger I was just kind of like the kid
Tony: Yeah, well at eight years old, that would probably be true.
Chelsea: Yeah.
Tony: Actually a little shy. Do you think you are shy or does she think you are shy?
Chelsea: No, I definitely was shy. Now I am not but I was really shy before.
Tony: Yeah. So you had to be perfect, you had to be outgoing, you had to be simple, go with the
flow. What else did you have to be to truly be enough?
Chelsea: Everything that I wasnt.
Tony: What else were you not?
Chelsea: You have to have like this. She always had this charisma of lighting up a room and I
was eight didnt know really what why I didnt know a charisma went then but it was just that
feeling when she walks into the room. It was like that good feeling you dont how to capture. I
am trying to measure up to somebody like her because she is your older sister on top of that so
she is already a God and I am trying to measure up to it and I am trying that when you first
think, Oh, my God. I have to replace her. It is this great like all of a sudden this pressure that
you are like Okay, now what?
Tony: How have you dealt with that?
Chelsea: Before I came to my first UPW I was not a nice person.
CM: Chelsea has just said that before she went to one of Tonys events at age thirteen, she felt
she was not a nice person. Tony sees that Chelsea has a pattern of being very unforgiving with
herself so he will interrupt her pattern with a very energetic statement.
Chelsea: I was really going through like a rough time. I dont why but
Tony: You dont why? Look at all you went through at eight years old and you dont why? For
Gods sakes.
Chelsea: Yeah.
Tony: You are trying to be perfect, which no one is. Outgoing and simple which does not
usually go together by themselves and you go with the flow and simple, I mean that is go with
the flow and be outgoing dont usually necessarily go together. Or I just got to have total
charisma even though I am eight you know. And my nature is more eclectic. The word eclectic
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means different where funky, more not simple, the opposite of simple, more directive,
controlled, make it happen , constructed, the way you dressed that even though you are
underdressed in your mind right now making sure it is all in a certain way. That is who I am and
I got to fill these shoes of somebody who is already God because she is eight years older and she
is the first born and she is my older sister. And now the damn girl is gone. Damn I hate her
guts. And I have to simultaneously fill her old shoes. I cant understand why I was a little
stressed out or mean to other people or mean to myself or maybe I want to messed with a third
team. Hmm Well, I know. I know why you feel that way.
Chelsea: Yeah.
Tony: And your Mama by the way right now is going through the pieces of her inner self up just
a little bit when she made that pressure on you which she really didnt .
Chelsea: But I made it myself.
Carol: She had some other things going on through just besides that. She has other her father
is uninvolved in her life, she has no
Tony: Oh, good, I am glad you have found other people to blame aside from yourself.
Carol: No, no, no. But I have not replaced any of that. You know I mean how
Tony: You cant. You cant. You cant be a male and female and everything that you could try
but you can just be
Carol: It is just competitive with trying to have the other cousin gets all the love from the
grandmother and everything and they are not acknowledged and so
Tony: Yeah. All the family dynamics.
Carol: The family dynamics is that she has always felt second best I think in that in respect so
Tony: Everybody does also at some level. Have you not felt second best at times?
Carol: Yeah, I guess.
Tony: So did Melissa if she was here to ask. There is no one who doesnt. I have been with
three and half million people. The person you think that doesnt still does in their quiet
moments. I have never met anyone presidents of the United States, children, tough athletes in
the world, politicians, academy award winners, musicians that are funky and crazy, I have done
anybody else and feel better at times but we all have our reasons for it before we all get there.
Because we have the same fear of we are not enough that I am not [Inaudible][0.47.31] love.
CM: One of the core fears that all human beings face is that we are not enough and that if we are
not enough, we will not be loved. Anyone who experienced a psychological or emotional pain
needs to understand that this source of pain, the fear of not being enough, is universal to all
human beings. If you have a tendency to compare yourself unfavorably to others thinking that
they are smarter or more successful or better looking, this is something you need to remember:
The people with whom you compare yourself have the very same fear of not being enough. It is
part of the human condition. It is important for both Carol and Chelsea to understand that it is
pointless to compare yourself to someone who supposedly has it all. This is specially the case
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when like Chelsea you tend to compare yourself to someone who is not even present. The
remedy for this fear is to understand that this pain is universal and to forgive yourself for being
human instead of being perfect. This will be Tonys message to Carol right now.
Tony: Your Mama would never want you to have to go through that burden I think you know.
Carol: I dont even know. I have really never even knew that.
Tony: Yeah, I figured that. But it is hard. How could she probably when she is processing
trying to take care of you all and coming back from all the challenges, guilt, all the pieces that
she went through that are inhumane. She was supposed to be perfect. I [Inaudible][0.49.06] of
it that it is possible. She is perfect with her children.
Carol: Okay. That might be stretching it a little bit but I love my children.
Tony: I say perfectly coached her children, managed her children. I said perfectly love. That is
pretty obvious.
Chelsea: Definitely.
Tony: So you came when you were messed up?
Chelsea: Yeah.
Tony: What was the messed up? You were mean, you were what?
Chelsea: I was mean. I was
Tony: You were angry.
Chelsea: large.
Tony: Large. You gained weight?
Chelsea: Yeah, I had a lot of weight which I lost after the event which was cool.
Tony: Well, congratulations.
Chelsea: Thank you. Just like I wasnt the person I knew that I could be like. When I was a kid
you know like actually I was shy. I still kind of I would like to [Inaudible][0.49.49] it was fun to
laugh and fun to smile before my sister died. My second grade teacher always told me how great
the sense of humor I had.
Tony: Yeah.
Chelsea: And then after she died it was like you one side is separated from my Mom like even
after she came back, I never totally got back I got that the reassurance of she is staying here. We
are going to be okay. But I never really got that reassurance of like you are going to be okay, too.
Tony: It is true.
Chelsea: Like as a whole I will be okay but you yourself
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Tony: When did that change for you?

Chelsea: I think my first UPW definitely. It was like that big turning point and I realized wow,
this is a lot of stuff.
Tony: What happened there for you?
Chelsea: I was just like let it go. I sort of have then. It was of those experiences that definitely
shapes your life and makes you stronger.
Tony: So how would you describe yourself today?
Chelsea: Well, lately I have been going through some troubles. I dont know how to [Inaudible]
[0.51.00] I put on weight which I dont like.
Tony: Where?
[Laughter]
Tony: Where is this weight you put on?
Chelsea: That is what everybody says.
Tony: My God. Who are you kidding here? I will give you that every woman does that to herself
so I am not going to interfere with this process.
Chelsea: I quite say like five pounds. It is so [Inaudible][0.51.18] now.
Tony: Oh, my goddess. So horrible. I tell you I dont how you fit in the room.
CM: Notice the way that Tony disagrees with Chelsea while still allowing her to complain about
her weight which is typical for teenage girls.
Tony: So you put on a few pounds.
Chelsea: But yeah, I put on weight and just like. No, actually I didnt know what if it is school
before I went. I went to California last summer for this leadership that I had great time.
Everybody is there in that loving environment. Everybody is happy, they are all accepting of
your experiences. They are not going to judge you. We are in the room with people who are
white, they are black, they are from Mexico, they are from Asia, they from everywhere all over
the world.
Tony: They are from gigs?
Chelsea: Yeah.
Tony: They are intellectual leaders. We put you in an environment that is the world. The
extremes of the world. That is where we put you at.
Chelsea: Exactly. But everybody still accepts each other. They all come together and it is
awesome because you can just feel that like love and passion that never end. I came home in the
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summer I was going to camp at the time. I was just attending a camp and everyone was like well
that was really cool and then I got back to school. It was you are crazy blah, blah, blah. It was
you are so different than everybody else which I was kind of like whatever but I was just like
instilled in you so many times. It gets to you.
Tony: Yeah. And kids can be so brutal with other kids. It is so hurtful.
Chelsea: Yeah, like a few days before I was actually coming to do this, I told my science teacher
that I am going to California. He was oh, what are you going for? I said I am going for a
seminar. Usually I dislike seminar and because I have gotten such a hard time for coming to
these kind of events and
Tony: And yet they have so touched your life.
Chelsea: Exactly.
Tony: So you have to defend for something that has been so meaningful for us.
Chelsea: Which I had such a hard time.
Carol: These things are going to change when I get back.
Chelsea: Oh, yeah, I dont even care anymore but I just remember, it was just like, oh, what kind
of seminar? I said well, have you ever do you know who Tony Robbins is? And he goes are
you serious? I was like, yeah. He goes you are going to California, you are flying across the
country to go to a motivation seminar and I said well, you just dont really say that but if you
want to say that sure. And the class got involved and I was like yeah, you are doing fine.
Carol: You didnt tell me this.
Chelsea: No, I didnt. We are close but not that now. And I was like yeah, we can do this fire
walk. It is going be great. I have done it before and everybody was like you [Inaudible]
[0.53.58]? I was like, no. You have done it before? Yeah. Other people are going too? Yeah.
There, it is impossible. It is impossible. You cant do it. You cant do it. and it was just like
sitting in the class like defending for what I believe for was exactly why I turned into the person
that I dont like. I have thrown away what I havent notice like outgoing and love was just weak.
Tony: Because that being yourself was not rewarded.
CM: What Chelsea is complaining about is unfortunately very common in schools. Both
students and teachers tried to discourage Chelsea from the activities she believes in. Since her
school problems do not seem to involve serious levels of harassment, Tony will help Chelsea to
find the right attitude and mindset that will preserve her identities and her values in the face of
adversity.
Tony: What would you like to know the good news or the bad news?
Chelsea: How about both?
Tony: Which would you like to hear first?
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Chelsea: Bad news.

Tony: Okay, the good news is it is never going to change. For the rest of your life, you will rarely
if ever will be loved completely for being yourself by very few people in your life no matter who
you are, no matter how grateful or giving you are, no matter how much sincere or real or raw
you are, there will be few people in your life that will ever love you for who you are. You are
sitting next to one and even though at times you maybe you will be wondering whether she will
love you for who you are, she really will.
If you are fortunate, you will find a man in your life that will love you at that level. My bet is you
will because you got such a special, raw, real set of life experiences that have opened your heart
even though you are trying to cover it up a little bit you cant close it once it is opened. The bad
news is that is the good news.
Chelsea: Okay.
Tony: The bad news is you will never be able to blame anybody else long term for this because
you are too smart. You can only do for a short outburst like this because once you have seen the
truth and you have then you know that you can never let anybody limit you again no matter how
painful it is. You cant let them limit your spirit, you cant let them limit who you are because
you will feel even more dead inside trying to fit in to those pieces.
CM: Tony is telling Chelsea that the peer pressure she is experiencing in school is not just a
school problem. It is part of the adult world as well. She needs to step up and decide to live
according to her highest values no matter what other people say. Since that is easier said than
done, Tony will now give Chelsea a story from his own life that will bring the point home for her.
See how this story will touch directly on the issues that Chelsea is concerned about.
Tony: I remember when I was going to my ten-year high school reunion and I called my Mama
and I was very you know I had achieved a lot in my life and I was very proud of all I
contributed. I was 28 years old, so ancient compared to you but something is coming. I called
her up I remember therefore I went up. I looked at some of my yearbooks. And I was like a you
are hearing things and they are saying things like Wish I could have gotten to know you better.
Those were just a couple of pieces that were like painful. Somebody wrote something really
harsh in there and I have written something harsh in theirs as well you know. I have written to
this person someday because they have been treating me really poorly. Someday, it was this
guy I said, you will be a fat truck driver and you will be watching television and I will be out
there and I will be famous. I will be changing peoples lives and I will be rich, too. You will be
broken, alone and with some woman you hate. And I was just really gentle because this man
was so mean and harsh to me so I remembered that I wrote all that and I remembered that I will
probably be going to be seeing this person. I was famous at that point and I was on television
then and I was and I was and I was all those things and I just felt like horrible remembering
that.
Then this flood of different emotions I had certain friends that I was close to but I was never
the popular kid. I became student body president but I didnt like on a I run on real issues. I
went to groups and I talked to them and said, What do you want? I went to talk to the
principal. People figure out and said I cant, I will not be able to do that but this I can do. I was
just driven. I was driven to serve, driven to make it happen but I am not a popular kid. I was
not a popular kid especially not with guys because I was usually Mr. Solution for the girlfriends,
I was not in that way. Like I was never intimate to them. I was the one they came to with all
their problems to. I wished that it could have gone to that level but it didnt.
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So long story, short is I was driving up there, I have this extraordinary life and I always believed
you know when I was a kid I was going to these people are so mean to me, I was going to drive
up in a limousine and I would show up with two women. You know boys at that stage that is
something. And I am going to be rich and famous and they will never be able to abuse me again.
I was small. He used to physically beat me but I had a mouth on me and I would say things and
then I would run and I was slow. That is not a good thing so I get beat up again but the guys are
very much older than I was, bigger than I was.
But now I was I own a limousine actually at that time ironically and I was in a relationship
with somebody I totally love. I wasnt looking for multiple relationships and I left the car at
home and I only brought my lady and I played down what I was doing and I wasnt looking in
peoples faces. Life had changed. But I had this kind of sadness I cant remember ever feeling. I
called my Mom and I said, Mom, I am on my way up to L.A. I am going to my ten-year high
school reunion. She said, Oh, my God. You are making me feel old. You know what Moms
do, right? I cant believe it either. This is horrible. I dont even want to hear this. I said,
Come on, Mom. This is my ten-year high school reunion, and she my Mom heard something
in my voice that really Moms can hear. And she said, Honey, are you okay? I was like, No,
Mom, I am fine. I am an emotional creature anyway. I am driven, committed, loving creature
and she said, Honey, because I hear something in your voice. I said, What? She said, You
are in such denial there is something going on. What are you feeling? I said, Nothing. I am
just going to my high school reunion. I just kind of dont know what to do. It was kind of weird
to go see these people I have not seen in all these years. She goes, Honey, I know what it is.
She said, You feel so different right now. You feel like an outsider. You didnt walk any place in
the world and you said two to three thousand people show up. It is bigger than your whole
school. They all love you and you love them. You will do anything for them and they will love
you, too but you are forgetting all that right now. I said, I know. I know that. I know, it just
feels weird. I dont know what to do. I dont know what to do when I go there. What do you
say? What do you do? I feel embarrassed. I feel embarrassed. I dont want to make them feel
bad. I dont want to, and I also said, I feel like I am fifteen or sixteen again. I feel insecure. I
cant remember feeling insecure if ever. I feel like I dont know where I would fit in. I said all
the dumbest things in the world. Intellectually I am not making much sense but emotionally I
am feeling it. She said, Honey, honey. You feel different, you feel unique, you feel separate.
You just feel different. She goes, You always were. So I said, That isnt helping, Mom. That
isnt helping it all right now. She goes, You are forgetting what different got you.
Chelsea: That is great.
Tony: I started to cry and I said, Wow. I said, Mom knows best. I said, You are right. I felt
lonely, I felt separate, I felt all these things for you. You felt misjudged. You felt hurt. You felt
like people didnt care. They didnt know who you really were. They didnt care. They know
who you were. She goes, Oh that is true. But because of that look who you are. Look who you
are as a man. Look who you can touch. Look how happy you are. Look how you can walk in to a
room that is the size of your entire school and love strangers from your soul and in a few days
have them love themselves. Then they will love you for that. She goes, Look what different
got you. If you want to go back and not be different and have them all accept you, you can do
that and just have a normal life.
Carol: Isnt that cool that she just knows that. She didnt have to read all the books and do all
the stuff?
Tony: She knows. She is a Mom. Moms know.
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CM: Now that they have discussed the different ways that Carol and Chelsea had responded to
Melissas death, it is important they both understand that Moms know best. Carols intense love
and dedication to her children will be a resource that they can count on for years to come.
Tony: And so the last thing I will tell you is I went there. I showed up and I was 67. I was 51
when I was in high school in my sophomore year. I have put 10-11 inches. I played football and
I was the smallest guy, right? And so now, I am walking up these guys like this one guy who was
the nose guard on the football team. He was a senior and his brother was there and he came and
I am towering above them. He was reading my name tag which someday you will pictures of
yourself at this stage and we may feel different than we do now about and it shows a picture of
me when I was there and I had my hair down to here and he looks at me he goes, Tony
Robbins. He looks up like this to me and he was the guy who used to beat the hell out of me.
And I just looked at him and I said, yeah. There was a little part of me [Inaudible][1.02.57]
moment. Then I said, you know what you used to beat the heck out of me. Then he went,
Really? And I said, And I really probably deserved the hell of that. I was such a punk. And
then I went around and did what I really do in my real life. I went around each person trying to
remember what was wonderful about them, what was cool about them, what was different about
them and I told them what I remembered that was great. And I was lit up because I was again
inside myself. Because the only time you get into a pain, there is nothing wrong with feeling for
yourself, is when you focus on yourself. The thing having to do with your Mom back then was
get her out of herself or she couldnt have been here for you and I had to use any tool necessary
to do it and if you ever see what I do with your Mom, you would be horrified. You would
probably hate my guts except you see the result.
Chelsea: Well, she told me.
Tony: Telling you is different than hearing the things I said to her.
Carol: I dont remember the whole thing.
Tony: If you heard the things I said to her, the tone I used with her, it was so in the surface
mean and harsh but it was to get her out of herself because there was no hope as long as she
stayed inside of herself. The only way to get hope was to get her outside to where she could
serve and remember how she felt about you. She didnt feel for you any less. It wasnt that
Melissa was more she would have felt the same way if you were gone because when something
was taken from you that is what happens. So sometimes you got to do that. So if you ever feel it
again, the fastest way out of your pain is get out of yourself.
CM: This is the other part of Tonys message to Chelsea. Like Tony, she needs to put herself on
another level relative to the peers. She needs to accept being different. Most of all, she needs to
know that the secret of being a leader is to get out of her own pain and to help others. By
expanding her mindset, Chelsea will not only get over her emotions about Melissas death, she
will create a more mature place for herself in the world.
Tony: The fast way to your pain is for you to remember difference is going to get you something
most people will never have in their life. It already has. It already has. You have a very different
relationship with your Mom than most people have. You have a very different relationship with
your family. You have a very different relationship with yourself. Somewhere out of you striving
to be enough to be like whatever you people thought Melissa was like. You have expanded who
you are too. You are not Melissa. You are not the Chelsea you were. You are not Melissa and
Chelsea. You are yourself by all these things that you have grown from. You are more outgoing.
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But you can also still be internal if you want. You have both choices. You are more whole. That
is what I meant about owning all the parts of yourself, right? That will not be appreciated by
most people.
Listen, anybody who has ever stood out, they found out and tried to kill. I will give you Christ if
that is somebody you can relate to or any other person who stands up too much, people go after
them. So you have two choices, fit in and be accepted by everyone, it will feel okay for a while
but it will feel very dead inside or go to those stages of breaking through and remember there are
few people like only a few. It is not in My Space game. Life is not Facebook. It is not a bunch of
virtual friends who really dont know your soul and dont really give a damn about you but use
you to make themselves feel more important. Life is about few people that you love and love
you. life is about finding something that give you a mission that you can grab a hold of and it is
a calling in you to give something a song, a garden, a friendship, a love, a child, a business.
Life is about that and when you are focused on that and you are focused on those closer
relationships, as long as they exist physically and even after they exist physically, then you have
a life that is rich and full and for those that dont have that, honestly, they havent had enough
pain or they havent grown. They havent had your pain so they can have your death. They cant
hold as much. Or they have had your pain in some other way but they have not grown from
them. They just stayed with it. And for that, you got to have compassion at some level even
though it is hard.
CM: This is the truth about losing someone close to you. There is a good chance that it will
always be the most difficult painful experience of your life but that pain gives you a spiritual
power if you use it well. Chelsea has a depth of understanding and compassion that is not seen
in most 16-year-olds. It is true that in this way she is different. However, if she uses her grief to
grow and serve others, she will develop an extraordinary spiritual strength and an insight into
the human situation. She needs to recognize this difference and even cultivate it because it can
be used for a great deal of good in the world.
Tony: [Inaudible][1.07.35] I am still not thrilled to hear other people they call me a motivator.
Chelsea: It is a very small town.
Tony: No, I know it is true around the world honey. I have no clue what I stand for, what I am
about but it is easier to punctuate somebody and something all to be simplistic. I happen to
know their soul or to know you what they are about so you cant expect that that is going to
happen. You knew you could always be hurt. Some better punches to go. All I need is a few
people in my life that I love and that some people look like they love me and step back out.
There are a few that loves me and I have something that very few people have. I have a Mama
that loves me beyond life. I have a Mama who lived for one reason just to be there for me. She
wouldnt live for any other reason. To be for you, you were first. You werent the oldest then
and you arent now. I will tell you because I was there. The only reason she lived was to be with
you, to be there for you so I am grateful you were there because that is why she is still alive.
That is a love that goes most beyond anything most people have in their lifetime. And you get
even something that approximates that more in your lifetime. You are one lucky girl but my bet
is because you have experienced this love, you will recognize it when it is available in another
form in the future whether it is going to be your husband or whether be your children or both
hopefully or God.
Chelsea: That is a pretty good feeling.
Tony: That is a pretty good feeling.
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Carol: That is my girl.

Tony: You can kiss each other. It is okay to hug each other.
Carol: I am so glad you told her because I dont think she was believing it lately.
Tony: I was there. I was there during the most painful moments. I was there when she was at
the edge. I was there when she chose to stay. And not only was I there but there are also 1500
people, 1200 whatever was in those days who were also witness there. If you talk to them you
will find out everyone can see it. You can see the moment she chose to stay and the leverage to
stay was both feeling someone that really felt what she feels, bring out the most important thing
in her life which is her children, which is the reason that she had to live, she knew she had to live
for you. We had to figure how to get through it but she wouldnt have gone. There was no way
in hell she would have taken that your lives. The mind would do the most amazing things.
Just like your mind. Your mind will make you think that those people dependent of you really
matters in the long term.
Chelsea: They used to [Inaudible][1.10.04] .
Tony: Yeah, it becomes a label for you. but you know what is interesting, after awhile, I know
three years sounds like forever or two are you a sophomore in high school?
Chelsea: Yeah.
Tony: Yeah. In two to three years
Chelsea: I am not going to see any of them.
Tony: Not only are you not going to see them but you are going to have a different life than they
are going to have and you get to create whatever you want as you get older, you are going to find
that there are many people that have a lot less judgment in those areas because they are no
longer reinforced to stay in a certain way because the world is not one community anymore. We
can pick our friends, we can pick our family. We can pick who we want to spend time with. The
most unique thing about the world we are in today, we are no longer limited by geography like
you are right now. So your life is just beginning. You will not be different though and have a
very boring life if you would like.
Chelsea: No.
Tony: You can let those people control you and take you back to staying internal and living in
pain. You can judge yourself by the way they judge themselves. By the way, ultimately, the only
reason they do all those things is because they judge themselves just as harshly so you are a
distraction. Because if I am raw right here and I am stabbing myself, the only way to stop
stabbing myself, okay, I got to stab you.
CM: This is universally true. When people feel badly about themselves, they will often direct
their criticisms at others. It will make Chelsea stronger in the face of her classmates
discouragement if she understands why they are doing it.
Tony: So the most difficult thing that every religious leader taught at some level, I am
personally Christian, so I am not prophesying anyone as [Inaudible][1.11.45] I dont go to church
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every Sunday or anything like that but the one thing that Christ as a role model did is he learned
how to love those who tried to hurt him that is why he is such a great role model. Dalai Lamas a
role model of that level. Can you imagine having your whole family killed? And he still truly
expects to know, he has wishes no pain when he prays for Chinese soldiers he is not praying like
they are lower than he is and hopefully will get conscious. He is praying for them like a brother
and a sister that he loves in his heart. Gandhi had the ability to do that. Nelson Mandela had
the ability to do that. Everybody has got Nelson Mandela in them and there is Gandhi, those
people arent extraordinary. They are just extraordinarily disciplined on what they focus on.
And they have compassion for people who try to hurt them.
And you have done that too. You have been able to forgive your sister for dying and leaving your
ass with carrying the whole thing. You have been able to let go of your anger at times. You have
been willing to love your Mom even though she is not perfect. You have been able to love
yourself at times even though you are not perfect and you can love these little rascals who are
being very mischievous in trying not to hurt you but to try to make themselves feel important
because two ways to feel important do something and it take risks to figure things out. Tries
stuff that is scary and do something, achieve something in your life, contribute something or the
other way is tear everybody else down.
Tallest building, build the tallest building. It takes a lot of effort, energy, you could fail or tear
down everybody elses building. You have the illusion your building is getting taller. You are at
a stage of life where most people tear down every other elses building and I am sorry to tell you
that stage never goes away with most people but you get more people as they age, they begin to
appreciate life is about love and relationship and connection and not so much about tearing
somebody down. There will be more of those but you have already got some around you that
most people will not get in their lifetime. So that is your mini seminar for the day. What do you
think?
Chelsea: Pretty good. Very good actually.
Tony: What will you take from this?
Chelsea: Well, first of all, when I go back to science, I really guess I will walk on fire, I will feel
empowered with it. I dont care. Leave me alone.
Carol: You guys had to sit here in this boring classroom.
Chelsea: I was in California.
Tony: That is great. The more we can have fun with the things that hurt us, the easier does.
You know you can do harsh fun, playful fun, any kind of fun, generous fun, goofy fun, but if you
can have fun with those things that used to hurt you, they will not hurt you anymore.
CM: Now that Chelsea is aligned with a higher more mature direction for herself, Tony will turn
his attention to Carol. When someone has suffered a tragic loss, it can be very difficult to open
up again to romantic love. Tony will ask Carol to consider this possibility for her life.
Tony: Now, the next piece for you is going to be very interesting because it will be a stage in
which your children are all grown up and you will always be so close to them and so much so
that sometimes they will feel suffocated and other times, they will be so grateful because they
will know how desperately they need you there but there will be a stage of your life in which you
may have to start adopting more kids or you are going to have to have a man in your life.
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Carol: Oh, my God. I knew you were going to talk about this. I know I wasnt getting off this
one. How did you know to do this?
Chelsea: Well, that is good. This is good.
Carol: Yeah, somebody whispered in your ear. It is just not a place I want to go.
Tony: Not for you, for her.
Carol: I know.
Tony: No, no, no. I know you are listening things intellectually. I want you to hear me for just a
minute. For her and for all of your children because what you have given them is a model of love
and that is magical and beautiful. What you have given is a model of resiliency that will touch
their lives forever because somewhere inside them they have gone with you on that journey of
resiliency. Some more than others. I dont know each of your children. I only have her
presence to really make a judgment by but I know the consistency of what you offered and some
of them will need to be less resilient to get attention to get love. They will need to have a
problem to feel like to get attention the same way this young woman would have to come in the
world with her own spirit, her own soul but would also have to be different than her sister in
order to have something unique about her.
CM: As parents, there is nothing so valuable we can give our children as our example. Whatever
we may choose to say or believe, human beings learn primarily by watching others. There comes
a point when as parents, we need to assess what kind of examples we have given our children.
Carol has given her children a supreme example of love and support as well as the resiliency of
living and loving through tragedy and difficult circumstances.
Now take a moment to ask yourself: What examples have you lived out for your children? Have
you been a survivor, a hard worker, an organized person, a loving person? Have you given
examples of charity and altruism? Have you been a skilful mediator helping family members to
reconcile? Have you shown your children how to live passionately? What have you done in life
that your children were not able to see? Take a moment and write down some of the examples
you have given your children throughout your life.
Tony: And some of those children may feel less resilient not consciously but unconsciously so
they can get that love and attention because there are only so many hours in a day and you are
playing every role you can possibly play simultaneously and now she is the lead. Now she is in
the first slot. She kind of likes that slot.
Chelsea: Yes, sounds pretty good.
Tony: So it is a useful place to be but what you have not thought them that they desperately
need
Carol: I know that but my picker is broken, okay?
Tony: No, it is not your picker. It is just your fear.
Carol: Yeah, I know and actually after Melissa died, somebody had come to me and you know
had said some to me, I said you know what I can never ever, ever, ever imagine ever going
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through that pain again. I cannot it was awful losing somebody like that but I can imagine the
person that you wake up with every single morning being gone.
Tony: Well, first of all, you happen not to have that person yet so
Carol: Okay, the other thing is I already went through that stuff a few times and I just really
have chosen some very bad people.
Tony: I understand that. But when is the last time you really made a choice? Shall I ask her?
Chelsea: Oh.
Carol: It was maybe months the last time I dated.
Chelsea: You are asking about the last date. We set her up on it to be...
Tony: No, I mean where she consciously really chose. Not where she did something because
you guys pushed her.
Chelsea: Oh, yeah we forced her.
Tony: There is a different piece.
Carol: I know I dont look even then. I know that is not.
Tony: I am asking you when was the last time you made such a choice? I want an honest
answer.
Carol: A choice?
Tony: To really be with a man.
Carol: Let us see. Well, I cant remember. It has been a long time.
Tony: How long is a long time?
Carol: Well, Jonathan is ten so I havent dated.
Tony: At least a decade?
Carol: Yeah, that sounds like a long time doesnt it though?
Tony: How old are you?
Carol: As old as you are. I am 49. I think I am older.
Tony: Slightly. So this young woman has gotten so much from you. Your children have gotten
so much from you. Two things they deserve. They deserve to see their Mom happy besides
when she is serving them and be they deserve to see a model of what is possible because
otherwise, she is going to leave with unbelievable certainty. She can be resilient because she has
proven it to herself. This stuff she is going through right now is painful and everything else but
she made it through that stuff. If she had never talked to anybody, she will get through it. She is
too strong inside and she is too weak inside meaning she also has connection to the part of her
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that falls apart. She is beautiful. She is not denying that part of herself. Or when she needs it,
she can find the strength. She has proven it. She is proving it to herself. When she is in the
state of mind where she wants love and affection even from herself, where she wants to feel for
herself and feel sad, she knows how to go there but she will spring out of it. She is too smart, she
is too strong, she has been through too much and it is not intellectual, it is experiential. You will
never have to worry about this girl even though you will for the rest of your life and you will look
at things thinking she was making bad choices as she will make some bad choices but she will
always bring back and she is beyond okay. She is beautiful inside and out. She knows more
about who she is and she even acknowledge it to herself and that is only going to grow. She is
only 16 years old, right? What she doesnt know?
Carol: Is a good relationship, she has never seen one. I know that.
Tony: But she doesnt know is not just a good one. She doesnt know a great one.
Carol: But I dont know how to do that.
Tony: She doesnt know a great one. She doesnt know what it is like to see a woman be
completely cherished by a man where it is real and it is not a scam to get something physically
from her even though he may want something physically from her but that is not the reason. He
loves every part of her physically, mentally, emotionally, spiritually. He loves the crazy parts of
her. He loves the weak parts of her. He loves those parts of her that are crazy. He loves the
parts of her that are angel. She has never seen that process nor even if she had let us say she
has seen that somewhere else. She has never seen what it really takes to be a woman worthy of
that. So she may have the delusion that she needs to find a prince charming never comes
without understanding that she has to really become all the parts of herself that would attract
such a man and then it is a two-way street.
CM: The people and processes that we observe at close range are the things that we learn the
best. Most people are not able to observe a wonderful relationship at close range and therefore
most people dont know how to create a wonderful relationship. Tony is asking Carol to
consider the impact of this.
Tony: So she either will never believe it is possible or she will live with the dream that someday
it will happen without her having to really grow, without her having to really give. So you have
grown at levels that most people never would have to be asked to grow. I dont know what the
truth is but my guess is somewhere inside of us God or life or universe, whatever you believe it is
doesnt give us tasks we are not up for. And this task is in front of you right now for reasons that
are way beyond you and that are for you. You have been so courageous and now you wanted to
stay with the courage you have but life doesnt respect anything that doesnt grow and you will
get more pain till you grow. It has to come from another place and you are too good a woman
not to have a man that will worship you and you are too fearful a woman to make those choices
right now but that is only one part of you that is fearful. There is another part of you that has to
yearn but not when you sublimate through your children.
CM: When people lack an intimate relationship in their life, they tend to gravitate to the most
available other source of love and connection usually their children. However, intimate love
and familial love are not the same and they should not be confused.
Tony: And there will be a time if you dont do this soon with the pain you experienced before
will multiply many lives over because no matter how much you love and how much they love
you, you will not be fair to them to fill that spot for you.
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Carol: I know and I know someday, they are going to have to go away and I have thought about
that someday I am going to be by myself.
Tony: I know but that is not like someone thinking if I keep smoking, someday I will have
cancer. It is not real to you. It is too far in the distance.
Carol: You are right.
Tony: And here is the part I know about you. You are not a selfish woman and they have a lot of
burden she will carry as much as anyone as the oldest now to try to make sure they fill you up
because when you are gone, the whole existence of your being, your whole purpose in being is
then to love and take care of them and give them all the things that you could possibly give them
to make sure they have all the experiences that Melissa didnt have whichever ones they did to
make sure that they have all the capacity you have to love. It has been Gods gift, the universes
gift whatever your believe systems gift to those children but now will come a liability if you dont
fill up on your own as well and it is not fair to her to make her to be the one to fill you up and
that is she is going to be the one of the biggest ones and you have to do that. So then she will
have to go from being angry about a sister who left her to have her fill her shoes to being angry
but now I will have to fill my mother up and then she will beat herself up because she will feel
guilty saying that my Mom loved me completely and my Mom deserves that but then she will
torn just like you.
Someday she will have a relationship and hopefully it is a great one and she will want to give
everything to that relationship and then as she decides to become a mother, she will have her
children and then she will have all these pieces that have fretted you up. It is not an option. Any
more than it was an option when I met you before for you to take your own life.
Carol: It might work. We will you see what is in my community.
Tony: It doesnt matter. Have they seen that you made it here to California somehow and that
you are out of here right now surrounded by other people? Or I have seen that you are a
heartfelt soul or I have seen that you have courage or I seen that there may be something in that
community you are not really seeing just because you are blind because you are scared and
busy? Always busy? God forbid if you found somebody that loved you, worshipped you, saw
you for who you were and loved your children. Look at the possibility that will fill up them,
right?
Carol: They are all really cool.
Tony: I know that. That is my point and in addition, God forbid if somebody actually brought
something to table in terms of took on some of the role, the modes that you are filling all of
including working, including earning, including fathering that you are trying to do as well.
Carol: I agree with you because I dont think I can do that. I think that you need a mother and a
father in the house. I believe that, I do believe that.
Tony: All the things that you have done that have made your children be whole at this stage of
life they are but they will not stay whole if this part doesnt become an option for them that they
can see and experience. And if you go to a date that is not the end all and be all but it has been
pretty good to you in the past.
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Carol: Yeah, absolutely. It has been.

Tony: What you have to be able to do is the same impossibility that you can possibly continue to
live back then. This may feel intense but I promise you this is not as intense as that. It is not
even in the same league but it may feel more numb like it cannot seem possible.
Carol: I dont know where to start. I feel like I have been starting a new job or something that
we were talking about this. What kind is? You always say they go. You got to get a strategy.
Listen to your things. You got to get a strategy. You got to
Tony: No, no, no, no, no, no. What you really have to do is open up and put yourself out there
in a different place and ask the same guidance that has brought you to a place in your life today
where you could have gone through the most horrific event that most people could ever have
dreamed of in your life and you will be whole. Whatever guide did that can guide this. Dont
undersell whatever has guided you. Dont under appreciate whatever has guided you.
Carol: Okay, I may have actually been considering this. This is not funny.
Tony: It is not consider. It is not consider. Honey, it is time. And it is so much easier than
what you have been through. You have got to remember that. You are going to appreciate this
man so much differently because you have been through so much crap and they know what you
have been through to some extent. What they know mostly is no relationship with you. It is
possible your whole world could change. It has before.
Carol: Yeah, it has. Several times. Okay. It was a wakeup call.
Tony: So I am not promising what that is going to look like. I am just promising what initiation
it is going to need to be. It is going to start with your initiation, then I will assist you to the next
step and then it is going to take the same courage and faith and on-going ups and downs that it
takes to get where you want to be.
CM: When you want to develop any new area of your life, it takes envisioning a result, applying
yourself and taking the opportunities that appear to you. Tony knows that in the past, taking
care of her children was the only reason why Carol chose to live. It is that much more important
that she consider the journey she wants to take in life even after the children have left home.
What is interesting is that as soon as Tony opened up this topic, Carol mentioned that Chelsea
have brought this up repeatedly. You can see that while Tony is encouraging Carol to find a
relationship, Chelsea looks more animated, happy and cheerful than she has throughout the
entire conversation. The burden of responsibility over the parent very often sits with the eldest
child and Chelsea seems to have thought carefully about her mothers future.
Now as we end this film, ask yourself: What do your children want for you? What is the next
step in your life that they may see more clearly than you do? Listening to them very closely may
just change your life.
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Reclaiming choices: familly and children Carol 2

Chelsea: No, it is a good stuff.

Tony: When did that change for you?

Chelsea: Bad news.

Carol: That is my girl.

Carol: Yeah, absolutely. It has been.

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