Finding Your Voice: Empowering Women of Color to Save Themselves with Poonam Bhuchar

Deneen L Garrett: 00:02 : 00:14 : This week's guest is Poonam Bhushar. She's a speaker and advocate on overcoming trauma and emotional pain. She's also an author and a lawyer. Poonam, tell us more about you.
Poonam Bhuchar: 00:14 : 01:15 : Hi, thank you, Deneen, for having me on. Basically, as you said, I'm a lawyer, I'm a mediator, and last year I published a book called Safe from the Pain that describes my safe method of overcoming almost four decades of emotional trauma. It's something that we don't discuss enough and many of us don't have the tools to process it. So looking back at my life, realizing that I was a lawyer, I had a supportive family, but yet I couldn't find the words or the tools to get through my emotional trauma, I decided to write this book which is about my personal experiences and also the SAFE method. And the goal of it was that if I could change one person's thought process or help one person, then sharing my story would be worth it. So that's pretty much where this all began.

Deneen L Garrett: 01:15 : 02:00 : Awesome. And so we'll talk a little bit more about SAFE. Congratulations on publishing your first book. And I do emphasize first because I'm sure there's many more to come. So congratulations on that. So you were born and raised in London. You immigrated to the United States at the age of 21. And as you kind of mentioned, you experienced a multitude of painful challenges, such as sexual assault, abuse, and the aftermath and cultural humiliation of divorce. Out of this, you develop SAFE, the SAFE method, as you've mentioned, to help others acknowledge, discuss, and grow from their emotional pain without stigma or judgment, again, which you've already said. What is the SAFE method?

Poonam Bhuchar: 02:00 : 09:32 : So in short, it's basically a four-pronged method to just take a breath and stop. And S stands for stop and acknowledge you're in pain. how many of us go through life and we keep this facade going, or we go on the hamster wheel, you know, we drop our kids off at work, school, we go to work, we socialize, we're with our spouses, but we will never sit down and acknowledge that we're in any kind of pain, we just shove it down. So the S is stop and acknowledge you're in pain. And the analogy I give is that you know, when you have a broken arm, you go to the doctor and you get it attended to immediately. But why don't we do that with our emotional trauma, we tend to shove it down and ignore it. And there's enough scientific evidence to show that it does take on physical manifestations, and it does affect your mental state. So stop and acknowledge is really just take a breath check in with yourself and figure out what's going on. Why are you angry? Why are you sad? Why are you crying? Why are you triggered? And the answers are in us if we take the time to figure it out. The A is acknowledge and accept your responsibility in where you are. Now that doesn't mean that we're to blame for everything that has happened in our life. There are things that are outside of our control. But how we react to those things is in our control. In my own life, I'd gone through a multitude of things that you've just listed, financial loss, losing a home, being a single parent of two kids for 17 years. I was like, literally, I should have won an Oscar for playing the victim. Everything in my life was somebody else's fault and I had no responsibility for it. And that responsibility can be as small as I didn't draw the boundaries that I should have. I had the knowledge to and I didn't. I didn't take care of the issues that I was going through, so I started to attract things in my life that were toxic. That doesn't mean I'm to blame, but it's just empowering yourself and moving from a victim mode to a mode of, I've got this and it is in my control. So that is the accept, A is accept responsibility for where you are and the decisions that you've made. The F is forgiveness. I talk about three types of forgiveness and I don't forgive for any altruistic reason. I forgive for a very selfish reason. And that is pretty much, I don't want to be captured by my past and keep playing that video back in my head. I want to move on with my future because this life that we have been given truly is a gift. and we need to treat it as one. And we can sit here and constantly live in the past, but then we get stuck. And often the people that we perceive as us have moved on. They don't even realize, they don't care, or they've moved on, but you're still stuck. So I figure out methods through journaling, through meditation, through going for walks, through dancing it out with really loud music to get to a place where I can forgive the people that I perceive that have hurt me. And a lot of the times that comes from a place of empathy. It's not saying that what you did to me is okay. It's saying, you had your own baggage that was unresolved, like me, you didn't work through it. So therefore, I understand where you came from. I can empathize with it, but I'm not okay with you and I forgive you. And there are things, you know, it can be for a very small thing like a conflict in a friendship. It can be as huge as something through where I got divorced or somebody that's hurt me and I'm just able to, in time, move through it. The second type of forgiveness I talk about is forgiveness of the universe. We all say, why does this always happen to me? Why do I always have this? The truth is we all have different blueprints in life. You can't compare it to the next person or the person on this side and say, well, why didn't this happen to them? A, we never know the truth of what somebody is going through. B, how selfish is it as a human being that I would want some kind of pain taken from me and inflicted on someone else? And C, we've all got our own journeys and our own lessons to learn. And in every kind of pain, in any kind of trauma, there is always a lesson that we learn about ourselves if we look carefully enough. And the minute you stop looking at the universe as against you, but on your side, things just flow. It doesn't mean that life is perfect, but it means that I am part of this universe and I am connected to everybody and the universe does have my back and rejection is protection. It's not that you didn't get something, it may be because there's something better out there, but it's just about understanding that the universe isn't against you and it's on your side. The third type of forgiveness that I found the most difficult is forgiveness of oneself. Forgiveness for the mistakes that you've made. We all have negative chatter in our brain. And scientifically it's proven that in a day, 70 to 80% of your thoughts are negative. So it takes a real positive effort to come from a place of positivity and to understand that we're human. We are flawed and we do make mistakes and to forgive ourselves for those mistakes so that we learn from them and create a better life and become the best version of ourselves. The E is embrace, embrace the whole of yourself. We're all great at accepting compliments and the great things about ourselves, but how many of us accept the whole of ourselves? And that is our flaws and mistakes, our journey and everything that we've been through. And from my own life experience, I truly believe that until you accept your mistakes, accept your flaws, accept who you are as a human being, you cannot be comfortable in your own skin. And if you can't be comfortable in your own skin, how do you know what you want? How do you know who you really are? And until you know who you really are, you don't know what you want out of life. And I can truly tell you that Since I've been on this journey for the last 12, 13 years, I can truly say that in life, I have been able to manifest most of the things that I want because I know who I am and I'm very clear on what I want and it's not muddled. So the safe method is really just a way in which to have people work through any kind of problems or emotional trauma and take care of their emotional wellbeing. and understand that in life you can keep shoving it down, but I promise you it will come up, whether that's physically or mentally, it always has a way of creeping up on us.

Deneen L Garrett: 09:32 : 11:34 : Absolutely. And so as I'm listening to you, several things that stood out, so stop, boundaries and attract. And so we'll kind of talk about this a little bit differently a little bit later. And I want to talk about the forgiveness part, right? So the first part as far as forgiving others, And you're doing that forgiveness, like you said, selfish for yourself. I was watching someone today who was, uh, they were just showing their home, right? The art in their home. And, and one of the paintings that they had was called forgiveness. And he said just that he said that forgiveness, forgiving others frees you. And that's something that I really want to highlight. that that's what forgiveness is, right? And I had never really, and of course, you heard it, but it kind of just was there, it was just noise, but seeing it visually, right? So seeing a piece of art in the forgiveness and then the way that he explained it, and then you are pretty much confirming that as well. So I definitely want to make sure that our audiences is keyed in on that, right? Forgiving yourself. And then, like I said, to stop boundaries and attract. I also like rejection is protection. So many times we go after different things. We think we want something, right? I'm going to say we think we want it. We go after it. We don't get it. And initially, there's probably a point of disappointment. But then as you're saying, it's up to us as to what we do with that, right? So do we go ahead and just let it just bum us out? Like, why? Because you can't change it, right? And it's more so about like what you said, it's about embracing it. And it's also about maybe it protects you, kept you from something else. And or it's, it's giving you space for that thing that you really should have. And also when you know yourself, you know, it's like, oh, well, you know what, I really didn't want that anyway.

Poonam Bhuchar: 11:34 : 11:52 : I agree. And I think when you look back at your past, every time that you haven't gotten something that you felt that you needed, whether it's five years later or two years later, you understand the reason why, because something better came along or at that moment in time, it wasn't the right thing for you.

Deneen L Garrett: 11:52 : 13:09 : Yes. Yes. But I wholeheartedly agree that it starts with self. It starts with us getting to know ourselves, know what it is that we want. And I coach people on that as well. I was actually having a conversation with my cousin on Saturday as we were driving to my son's school. And I was saying, hey, get real clear. about what you want, because he's going after jobs and whatever, and he's applying. And I said, you want to start thinking about really what you want. What do you want in that role? So what do you want your day to look like? What do you want to accomplish? Those type of things. And then think about some companies, maybe three companies that are in alignment with that, with what you want. And just start building relationships with people at those companies. You know, start connecting with them, start demonstrating your expertise. And I said, use LinkedIn because that's what it's for. And, you know, then you'll attract and manifest that which you really want, as opposed to just throwing it out there like, oh, let me, you know, whatever comes about, because you'll end up probably in the same situation. Right. You know, you left one job, this one, because you wanted this one thing out of maybe five that you really want. And that job gave that to you. But you didn't take the time to get to know yourself. to know what three, five things you really want. So now, you know, do that and start to attract that.

Poonam Bhuchar: 13:09 : 13:16 : That's so funny. Four weeks ago, I had the same conversation with my son that's just graduated.

Deneen L Garrett: 13:16 : 14:09 : Right. Oh, my God. I love that. No, because it is it is so important. It always starts with self, because if we don't know, we will continue going after and all these different things. And and, you know, thankfully and hopefully, God, the universe, Whomever that higher power is rejecting us from those things, right? Protecting us from those things. And so that's where the protection comes in. So now I was, you know, listening to you. And initially I thought about who has, you know, who has, who's the person, perfect person for safe. So it really sounds like, as you said, for anyone who has a situation or something that they want to resolve. But what I do want to know is what one specific experience led you to say enough is enough and you create it safe. You know, it's always like, you know, you mentioned lots of things that have happened. However, I'm sure it's at least one thing that was like, okay, this is it.

Poonam Bhuchar: 14:09 : 17:58 : Yeah. So 2011, fall of 2011, I'd almost carried almost four years, four decades of pain that was unresolved. And I was making decisions from a platform of feeling unworthy, insecure. And it was amazing because in my work, I was fearless. I was doing really well. But in my personal life, I had suppressed so much pain. And ultimately, I did take a physical toll on me. Um, one day at work, I was sitting in a chair like this and my associate walked in to ask me a question and I went to get up and pick something up and I was just paralyzed in my chair. And I had gone to see the doctor two days before, and she had told me that you need to check yourself into a hospital because I was swelling up and I was just like, no, this is nonsense. Finally, ultimately I couldn't get up. I had to be wheelchaired into the hospital. I spent a week in the hospital. They thought I had, um, they did a spinal tap. Um, I was still in the hospital on my BlackBerry responding to emails and the neurologist comes in and she takes the phone away from me. She goes, you're going to have a stroke if you don't stop. And I remember being so arrogant saying to her, that I'm 38 years old. I don't think I'm going to have a stroke. Okay. Like you're blowing this out of proportion. And she goes, put them, I'm telling you, you, you need to just stop. So my spinal tap went wrong. I couldn't walk properly for a while. And I had at that time, nine and 11 year old, I was a single parent. And I just looked at my life one day and I was just like, I don't want to live life like this anymore. I tried therapy, I was tired, I was just fed up of the way my life had just taken a course. And I remember sitting there saying that there has to be a better way to live life. I have not been put on this universe to suffer, none of us are. And somewhere inside of me, I was seeking answers. And that day, December 31st of 2011, I decided to just take responsibility for everything that had happened to me, stop playing the victim and vow to myself that I am never going to let myself stoop so low in life again. I have, it is a beautiful life. It is a gift and I want to live it. So I went on a spiritual journey. And in fact, the safe method didn't come, I didn't realize or invent the so-called safe method. So really close friends of mine had seen where I was and where I am. And we're like, how did you do this? Right. And when I started to speak about it more, it was like, well, how did you do this? So I sat back and I'm like, well, really? These were the steps and I came up with the acronym SAFE. But it was just feeling tired and fed up and just seeking answers that truly we hear it all the time. Everybody says are within us. The majority of the answers are within us. We may need help, but they are within us. The problem is most of us, if not all of us, find it very difficult to be truthful with ourselves. Yes.

Deneen L Garrett: 17:59 : 18:55 : Absolutely. No, we definitely do. That's the hardest thing. You know, we can get clear with everyone else, but ourselves, for some reason, it's like, no, I think it's because it's just the uncertainty, right? You just don't know what you're going to get with yourself. So it's easy not right. And then even like mirror. So I had interviewed a guest and we talked about mirror talk and even just talking to yourself in a mirror. Like for me, I don't do it. you know, after that conversation I may have or whatever, but I don't do it. Like, I don't really just look at myself and talk to myself in a mirror. And, you know, and I think many of us, we don't, we, we avoid that. Right. And that's probably part of the spiritual work, which I'm going to, I want to ask you about in just a moment. So you, so I mentioned on your behalf about cultural humiliation. So now how did growing up in London and then your culture, how do you think that played a role in everything?

Poonam Bhuchar: 18:56 : 20:45 : So I grew up in a very conservative Indian family, right? My parents were first immigrants, like a lot of immigrant parents worked extremely hard to provide us with the best education and everything. But they were so focused on, not through any fault of themselves, right? They were focused on building up the finances for us, working really, really hard and giving us the best life possible. But along with that comes a cultural, along with that comes a cultural issue of, you know, you'll be expected, even though you're raised in London, you're expected to abide by a culture in India where I'm not even familiar with it. I mean, I was familiar because we used to travel all the time, but I wasn't familiar with it. And, um, it was not knowing which way you're supposed to go. I'm British. I'm a British born Indian girl, but I'm expected to abide by these cultures that I don't know. It leaves you confused, but you have this unsaid pressure because I didn't want to disappoint my parents. I knew how hard they worked. And there was this underlying subconscious way of how I was expected to behave. Nobody told me this is what you need to do, but there's this pressure that you feel. And I think as women of culture, Carla Dineen, a lot of us are taught to be of service to others before ourselves, especially as women. And I think that is part of the platform that makes it very difficult to take care of yourselves because somewhere along the line, you feel selfish for doing so.

Deneen L Garrett: 20:45 : 21:14 : Yeah. Yeah. And we're, and we're having to reclaim that. Right. Because it's not, um, in order to take care of other people, you have to be together yourself. Right. Um, so that's first and foremost. So this podcast, women of color and intimate conversation is about empowering women of color and elevating our voices. So thinking about that spiritual journey that you went on, what three actions can women of color take to tap into their power and voice?

Poonam Bhuchar: 21:14 : 23:53 : So the first is, I think if I look back at my life, I wanted to be a lawyer because I didn't have a voice and this was my way of having a voice. So I think having your voice and finding your voice is the most important thing because a lot of us tend to think that somebody out there is going to save us. Nobody's coming to save you. You have to save yourself. So you have to figure out how to find your voice. And part of that is what I call honeymooning with yourself and figuring out who you are, what you are and what you're going through, right? Before you can give the time to other people, you need to give the time to yourself because we're that pillar of all the relationships around us, be it work, be it children, be it spouses, whatever, be it family. We have to be strong in order to help other people. The second thing is empower yourselves. You know, don't play the victim. Take the steps that are required to make yourself stronger, to make yourself stand on your own two feet, and to know who you are. And the third thing is, I think, which for me is really, really important, which is part of the reason I've been on this journey, is when you look at your kids, and when you look at what you've been through, to whatever extent, you understand this concept of generational trauma, that if we don't take care of our own baggage, in some shape or form, we are transporting it to our children, who then, if they don't take care of theirs, will transport it to their children. So I urge everyone that, whether it be men or women, we have a responsibility for the future generation to take care of our own selves, our own well-being, and act as role models in front of our kids so that they understand and are confident in taking care of their own wellbeing. So in my household, you want therapy, you've got an issue, we'll discuss it, you can go to therapy, there's no stigma, but I'm very clear. Above 21, you're responsible for taking care of your emotional wellbeing. I'm here to support you. but get out of this victim mode and help yourselves because nobody else is going to. And I think that's the most important thing. Help yourself so that you can help your family and help others.

Deneen L Garrett: 23:53 : 25:05 : Absolutely. So again, we go back to that self. So we, um, you know, we talked about different things that, um, you've gone through, um, the people that you help, what they've gone through and, you know, and the whole, you know, what safe is about and what it offers other people. And so I'm sure that, you know, you know, often Black women and other women of color, we do a lot and even too much, which you even described, right, that landed you in a hospital because you were doing too much, right? I think we can safely say you were doing too much. And so, right? And as you mentioned earlier, you know, that trauma or whatever is going to come back. Like, you can ignore it if you want to, but it's going to come back. And in your case, it came back physically. And so this aligns with, well, you know, we don't often prioritize ourselves or self-care. And so I recently took a pause, right? And I stopped the first S of safe. I stopped, took a break from social media. So like took a two month break, right? Just to be away from it. So talk to us a little bit more about the importance of taking time for ourselves. And like, I like to call it the power in a pause. And I think you have a retreat. So your retreat, does that kind of like tap into this?

Poonam Bhuchar: 25:06 : 29:05 : Yeah, absolutely. So I have two types of retreats. The first retreat is so I'm combining, I've been a corporate immigration lawyer for 23 years, and I've been a family lawyer for about 14 now. And I'm also a family law mediator in New Jersey. So I have decided that along with my emotionally safe method, to combine my legal skills as well, and come up with a three day retreat, in which I obviously can't give legal advice in the retreat, but what I can do is with the help of a semantic therapist and yoga therapist, I've created a retreat where couples on the brink of divorce or who are seriously thinking about divorce move themselves from that situation, come on this three-day retreat, and we talk about the safe method we talk about in divorce the kinds of things that you need to talk about so if you're not communicating today when you get divorced you still have to communicate even if you have young kids you have to communicate throughout their lives and doing it through animosity only increases legal fees It only doesn't let you think clearly about the best interest of the child. And often as attorneys, you're really busy prepping for the case. You can't take care of the emotional needs. And nobody's really there. And having gone through it personally, Nobody's really there to tell you, well, what are the upsides to this kind of custody arrangement? What's the downsides to this kind of custody arrangement? Or how can we come up with a way that really is for the best interests of our children? Or the finances? And it's not that I'm going to give legal advice, but it's these are the things to think about. And also, in speaking to couples that I work with, there are things that couples don't think about, right? when you're in that mode of getting divorced emotionally and dealing with the legal bill skyrocketing, they don't realize that, okay, I can move on from this. And I'm talking about situations in which there's no abuse and it's not really toxic and you can speak healthily, try and speak healthily to each other, that they don't realize that, listen, your second marriage is 76% of them fail. And if you go to the third marriage, I think the figure goes over 85%. So it's about figuring out what works for you. How do you create the least generational trauma for your kids? Think about putting the kids in therapy because believe it or not, a lot of divorced parents shy away from it. And maybe it's because they're afraid of the things that the kids will say. But the truth is, for me personally, it was the first thing I did because I needed to take care of me. It's not fair to the children to expect them to speak to me or their father when I don't know what they're going through. My parents are still together. Theirs are not. I don't know what they feel. So it was the first thing I did to make sure that they were taken care of as well. And the retreat is really to just open those conversations, tell people the importance, working through the emotionally safe method and having the legal aspect, the importance and the need to communicate with each other. And these are the things that you need to communicate about. And then I also have a separate retreat in which I'm doing it for individuals, any individuals that are going through emotional trauma. It's a three-day retreat where we work with a semantic therapist, a yoga therapist, and myself to find out what those trigger points are and start addressing them so that you can start the journey of healing and figure out whether you need to see a therapist, it's a spiritual journey, what it will take for you to actually stop and listen to yourself before it gets too late.

Deneen L Garrett: 29:05 : 29:07 : Very good. And so those are happening when?

Poonam Bhuchar: 29:08 : 29:10 : First week of December.

Deneen L Garrett: 29:10 : 29:10 : Okay.

Poonam Bhuchar: 29:10 : 29:18 : And they'll be continuing throughout the next year. But first week of December is the couples retreat.

Deneen L Garrett: 29:18 : 29:48 : Got it. Got it. And the first thing or one of the most important things that you mentioned is that you have to start with yourself. So again, just want to reiterate that it's always us, you know, it always starts with us, the healing and the getting in tune with ourselves, the awareness and all of those embracing all of those different things. So I honor my late sister author and poet Soul True by asking about Dreams Deferred, which is the title of one of her books. Please share a Dreams Deferred moment.

Poonam Bhuchar: 29:48 : 31:01 : Yeah, I was looking up her book. It looks amazing. So it was really interesting because I think for me personally, a Dreams Deferred moment is being held captive by my past. I wasted four decades of my life blaming living in the past, not understanding myself, not taking the time and effort. And I deferred a lot of my dreams. And after I got sick in 2011, I did end up having two strokes. I was paralyzed one day, but what on the second time for 10 days, they've never been able to come up with the reason why. But I'm walking. And now Having gone through that, knowing all those dreams that I did defer, having gone through that, there is no, I will do this later. If I want to do something, it's right now. There is no, oh, I'll, I'll think about this when this happens. If I want to do it, I do it right now. And I make sure whether it's something socially, whether it's a trip that I want to take, whether it's a dream that I have about writing a book or, you know, doing these retreats, it's now. There is no tomorrow.

Deneen L Garrett: 31:02 : 32:30 : And you know, and I love that because that's exactly why when I retired last year, I started my coaching around empowering women of color to live a dream lifestyle and to live that dream lifestyle now. And what I say to people is it's not even about you retiring, but it's about you going back to self, getting to know you, what it is that you love, what you're passionate about, the life that you want to live, that lifestyle and start living that now, start pursuing that now. So you've already explained your lifestyle, your dream lifestyle, you're living it. So it's no longer a dream. It's a dream fulfilled. It's an actual dream. It's in motion. It's a continuum and you're living that. And so that's beautiful. That is absolutely beautiful that you can say that, right? You went through the things that you went through and out of that, you created something to help other people, the safe method to be able to handle things that they're going through as well. And then you're living your life because you did have a traumatic experience, a physical experience to where as it could, things could have stopped then and they did not, right. They slowed down. That gave pause, right. The stopping, it gave you that opportunity to have that spiritual journey and make decisions as to how you want that lifestyle to be and to start living it. I love that for you and I thank you so much. And that's beautiful to be able to share with the audience. So before, you were going to say something?

Poonam Bhuchar: 32:30 : 32:31 : No, I was just saying, thank you so much.

Deneen L Garrett: 32:31 : 32:36 : You're welcome. So before we wrap, what would you like to leave the audience with?

Poonam Bhuchar: 32:36 : 34:59 : You know, just to continue on your current point, um, I spent four decades of my life not listening to my gut. And when you honeymoon with yourself and you know who you are, you listen to that gut more than anything in the world. And if I could just give over the past year, a couple of examples for myself. So I bought a beautiful house back in 2021. A year later, I decided to sell it. I had this voice in me. I didn't even think about it. I spoke to the kids. They're like, fine. I even heard a price. The realtor's like, you're nuts. She goes, I know you're nuts, but you're nuts. And this is what it's going to get sold for. And that's it. And she goes, but I can't justify this. I'm like, I can just do it. In two days that house sold. I moved about an hour away from my house. In October, I sat on the couch here and I had had this soul calling that I need to sell my business. I don't want to do the legal practice that much anymore. This is not my soul calling. October 1st, I put my practice on sale. Just by intuitively and October 5th, my mom had a brain hemorrhage. I've spent the last year going back and forth, helping my mom out and my dad and family. Um, I did end up having my practice acquired in February. So I still, I've limited the hours I work in the legal field, but this is my soul's calling and this is why I've done it. Um, and everything I do is just completely based on gut now because I've, I trust myself more than I trust what people think more than I trust what society wants out of me, but I trust myself. And I think that is. The number one thing, if I could put out there to people that find yourselves worthy to take the time to take care of yourself and find yourselves worthy to trust your gut and who you are. And I promise you, you won't need validation from anybody else when you do that. And there's a joy that you find in your own life that you can't really find in a lot of places.

Deneen L Garrett: 34:59 : 35:30 : Yeah. I love all of that. And I especially love the, of course, the honeymoon with the self, with a soul's calling. And I love that. And again, it all goes back to self, right? Getting to know self, to get to the point, to be able to trust self, to be able to attract and manifest those things that because you got to know yourself, you knew that you want it. And it just came so easily. I love it. Thank you so much, Poonam Pichar, for lending your voice on women of color and intimate conversation and enjoy the rest of your day.

Poonam Bhuchar: 35:30 : 35:33 : Thank you so much for having me on. It's been a pleasure. Thank you.

Deneen L Garrett: 35:33 : 35:34 : Same here. Thank you.