In this powerful episode of Women in the Arena, we're honored to host Antonia "Tuni" Deignan author of Underwater Daughter. Tuni shares her incredible journey of survival, transformation, and healing through art. Together, we delve into her story of overcoming childhood trauma, finding strength through vulnerability, and the therapeutic power of storytelling.
Underwater Daughter is a testament to resilience in the face of adversity. Tuni Deignan bravely reveals her scars from childhood abuse, offering a raw and inspiring conversation about navigating the aftermath of pain. We uncover the shared struggle of feeling inadequate in the eyes of those meant to love us unconditionally and explore the silent battles fought long after the immediate pain has subsided.
Amidst the solitude inflicted by the global pandemic and personal tribulations, Tuni found solace in the written word. Her book, Underwater Daughter, reflects her sheer resilience and the act of penning her pain as an unexpected source of healing and forgiveness.
In this episode, we discuss:
How Underwater Daughter became a beacon of hope for those navigating the murky waters of their past.
The power of storytelling in embracing vulnerability and connecting with others.
The ongoing journey of self-love and forgiveness after trauma.
Join us for this moving conversation as we journey through the ebb and flow of healing and share in the universal quest for solace. Let Tuni Deignan's story inspire you to find strength, love, and forgiveness amidst life's challenges.
In this powerful episode of Women in the Arena, we're honored to host Antonia "Tuni" Deignan author of Underwater Daughter. Tuni shares her incredible journey of survival, transformation, and healing through art. Together, we delve into her story of overcoming childhood trauma, finding strength through vulnerability, and the therapeutic power of storytelling.
Underwater Daughter is a testament to resilience in the face of adversity. Tuni Deignan bravely reveals her scars from childhood abuse, offering a raw and inspiring conversation about navigating the aftermath of pain. We uncover the shared struggle of feeling inadequate in the eyes of those meant to love us unconditionally and explore the silent battles fought long after the immediate pain has subsided.
Amidst the solitude inflicted by the global pandemic and personal tribulations, Tuni found solace in the written word. Her book, Underwater Daughter, reflects her sheer resilience and the act of penning her pain as an unexpected source of healing and forgiveness.
In this episode, we discuss:
How Underwater Daughter became a beacon of hope for those navigating the murky waters of their past.
The power of storytelling in embracing vulnerability and connecting with others.
The ongoing journey of self-love and forgiveness after trauma.
Join us for this moving conversation as we journey through the ebb and flow of healing and share in the universal quest for solace. Let Tuni Deignan's story inspire you to find strength, love, and forgiveness amidst life's challenges.
If you'd like to connect, reach out to me at audra@womeninthearena.net
***One last thing...I have an interview wish list because a girl's gotta dream
Viola Davis
Dolly Parton
Ina Garten
Joan Jett
Maybe one of you can help me out!
Thank you all for supporting this show and all Women in the Arena!
Audra:
Welcome in everyone and thank you so much for joining me again this week. This week, I have an amazing guest who is here to graciously share her vulnerabilities with us and in turn, I may share a couple of vulnerabilities of my own. This week I am joined by Toonie Degnan, and she is the author of the Underwater Daughter. It is her story of childhood abuse and how she has survived. She is a mother herself, she has five children and she is a dancer by trade, as well as by her passion and full disclosure to everyone. This is take two of this recording.
Audra:
We thought it was important to tell you this because in our first attempt, it triggered some emotions in me that I was not prepared for. So I needed to take a break and come back at this again, and the reason why we're sharing this with you is because we wanted to let you know that it's okay to have these emotions, just don't let them control you. So that is this is my attempt to come back, work through these feelings so I can share them all with you. So maybe, just maybe, between Toonie and I, we can help encourage you to do the same. It is my pleasure and my honor to introduce to you, toonie Toonie. Thank you so much for being here and welcome to the show.
Antonia "Tuni":
Ahadra, it is my honor as well, and I feel so much gratitude being with you today, so thank you.
Audra:
Well, I appreciate you. I also appreciate that you allowed me to pause because I had some emotions which we will get into in a moment, but I really would love to give you the opportunity to introduce yourself to the audience and let everybody know who is Tooni Degnan.
Antonia "Tuni":
Well, it's hard not to first focus on the immediacy of talking about the emotions that are brought up when talking about such vulnerable, personal and challenging subject matter, because I feel like that's A why the book is being published or was published and, b, what's missing so much of the time in the ways that we connect with one another, because everyone's got some tough stories. It's all relative, and when you put your vulnerabilities out there for someone else to hopefully shed love on, that is when we're all moving forward right. That's when we can take things apart and find a more expansive view of our challenges. So I'm just very overwhelmed by your ability to be so open with me and with your listeners, because I think it's just an enormous gift. So I just want to say that my introduction I had a very wonderful professional dance career for over two decades and I began dancing very young, age eight, back in the late 70s.
Antonia "Tuni":
Perhaps that was less than usual, less than common for someone to be so serious at such a young age. It's not as uncommon now. And simultaneous to that, I had challenging circumstances at home with my father having inappropriate boundaries with me and my mom being fully aware. I knew she was aware and basically did nothing about it, was powerless to intervene on my behalf or be my protector. And so, from this very young age, two things kind of simultaneously happened. I had this confusion and just disconnect from my parents, my protectors, and simultaneous to that was this ability to sort of disassociate and use dance as a coping mechanism, and it served me throughout my 20s into my 30s. The real change, the first real change that occurred as far as my ability to sort of take apart my past, was becoming a mother myself. As you mentioned, I have five kids, and that was a real fork in the road for me to sort of begin a different way of identifying myself and looking at the past.
Audra:
Well, I'm going to challenge you a little bit with some of my own emotions and, as I alluded in the beginning, I had a reaction and I won't go into a ton of detail, but I will say that I am also a child abuse survivor and in my case it was my mother and she was the abuser Probably not in the same type of abuse that you received, but effective nonetheless. And I have a father who was complacent, knew all about it but did nothing to stop it. This is where I want to challenge it being abused as a child, you develop these coping mechanisms, these armor, this strength, and it comes up in really different ways. For you it was for dance, it was dance. For me it was achievement.
Audra:
I was constantly chasing achievement because I had this thought going through my head that once I reach this, I will suddenly be worthy. Once I reach that, I suddenly will be lovable. Once I do this, suddenly my parents will want me, do this, suddenly my parents will want me. And none of that ever happened. Here is my challenge to you how did you interpret this? Because every child interprets this different and it comes out differently. And when you get older and you can look at your life retrospectively. You can go and point out things. Oh, I do this because of that, so how did it show up for you?
Antonia "Tuni":
Well, that's a really interesting observation and you know I don't pretend to believe that my work is done, as if, writing this memoir, I have it all figured out.
Antonia "Tuni":
If anything, the memoir has opened more questions, opened them up more, and even on the tail end of our beginning to interview the last time, I think that that actually triggered more things for me, and I do know that the struggle of not being good enough continues was almost like just pushed so much of the other things that could have brought me down way back in the recesses of my mind, right, and so you grapple with this idea of not being good enough, but there's so much other things to pull your love out.
Antonia "Tuni":
Right here I am now on the heels of an accident that motivated the book, the pandemic that kept me isolated, like this very concentrated time period to do such deep, introspective work, that now, on the heels and it being published, I still find myself beating myself up, not being good enough, and I know that message was learned, exactly like you say, from a young age. And here I am face to face with it again and having to coach myself up again, like having to coach myself up again, like Toonie, it's okay, stop beating yourself up, and it's the things like that we would never do to our own children, right? And so it's really just sticking ourselves to that promise, like if we can promise that to our kids, we have to be able to promise that to ourselves too, and I know it's the hardest thing I know it is.
Audra:
It's hard, at least for me.
Audra:
When I became a mother, I didn't have a great model, so I basically did what I thought I needed as a child and did my best not to perpetuate the feelings that I had internalized.
Audra:
And I've done a lot of research and that children that experience abuse, any form of abuse, at a very young age, actually changes your DNA. It forms patterns in your brain and you have to consciously take steps to break those habits. Mm-hmm and it sounds like you did the same with your five children is you were very aware and very purposeful in not creating these patterns? Because even though the abuse that you felt was largely physical, in a most inappropriate way, it still comes out in weird spots, in weird ways, and you're just like where did that come from? That didn't sound like me, that sounded like my mother, or it could have been any number of things that may have come out of your mouth and go oh my gosh, I need to check myself. How did you consciously overcome that and acknowledge in the moment oh, this is not what I want to do and this is not what I want to be, and I need to make corrections.
Antonia "Tuni":
Well, to your point, as a child child I was really in the rock and the hard place because the attention, the physical attention I received from my father was pleasurable and it was attention right, and it was really the most focused, directed attention that I did receive. And the negligence on my mom's part became this, you know, I couldn't understand why, you know, she was so absent. So, as I used the dance to sort of navigate the confusion, you know, between my two parents, I really was more hurt by the fact that my mom couldn't intervene and that I wasn't receiving the attention and the love and the protection that I was craving. And so, becoming a parent, from the get-go, of that first child landing in my arms, my only thought was I know how to love, I am going to do that focus anywhere else, but that and what I did do was defer to my children, from the very first instant of letting them be my teacher, and I'll be the student, and I really operated that way all along.
Audra:
Because you didn't have great models either. Nope, you had to make it up as you went along. You had to make it up as you went along.
Antonia "Tuni":
I remember at one point I was, you know, dancing professionally at this point in Chicago and one of my coaches we were assigned to sort of create a narration for a piece, for a choreographed piece that we were all supposed to choreograph our own elements in the piece and there was going to be narration taped in over the dance and part of what we were to speak of were our mentors who had been so responsible for us becoming the professional dancer or whatever. And I remember looking at my coach and saying I don't know if I have a mentor, I don't have one. And I really struggled because all my peers were so quick to say this, that and the other person and I felt really sad about that for a long time.
Audra:
Well, it's interesting that you say that, because I would say it a different way, in that you felt alone and isolated and that, at least for me, because of how I created coping mechanisms, I felt like I could never rely on anybody but me. But as long as I had me, I could keep me safe and I could protect me, and then, as I had children, I could protect them. I always felt like the protector. Much to my husband's chagrin, I always feel like I am in the position of being the protector. It is my coping mechanism, it is how I am wired and it's just how I created a safety and how I needed to get protection. And because nobody was coming to save me, there was no rescuing, I had to figure out how to rescue myself. And this is how it translated and it sounds from what you are communicating to me. It's really similar. It just came out a different way in dance.
Antonia "Tuni":
Dance became my protector I mean unfortunately, because I didn't have the wisdom right going into my 20s.
Antonia "Tuni":
You know, at some point, as you're transitioning from a young person into a young adult and going through the normal growing pains of that, you know, dance couldn't fill all those holes anymore and then it became, you know, filling myself up with other sort of dysfunctional behaviors.
Antonia "Tuni":
You know what you're speaking of too is, you know, not only did you have to become your own protector, but it was also, I think, like the source of love had to be self-generated, absolutely. You know, it's just really interesting because, again, like the focus and the responsibility of having children, really also managed to shelve the issues. Again, you know, because the focus was them, because the focus was them. And it's just really interesting as I've written out my story and I've worked really hard to broaden my lens and broaden my perspective and really lean into forgiveness and lean into the layers and layers and layers that brought that story to me. That work has been hard and rewarding, but it doesn't necessarily erase my habits and I think I'm even more aware now of the ways in which I've, like you said, sealed myself off and become everything I've needed within my flesh and bones. It's been a really interesting journey in that regard.
Audra:
I'll bet and I'll also bet that there are people in your life that have known you for decades that knew nothing about this, because there are certainly some people listening right now that are shocked at what I'm sharing about myself, because we pretend that it doesn't exist, we pretend that it's okay, we pretend that it's not us, because otherwise it becomes overwhelming and unbearable and you can't move forward. But you do a really good job of compartmentalizing these pieces and parts of your life and pretend that they never happened, until something happens and it breaks the dam.
Antonia "Tuni":
I was just going to ask you, I mean, did you find throughout your late teens, into your twenties, that all of a sudden you got to this fork in the road or whatever and all of a sudden all hell breaks loose, right, and you're just like I don't know what to do now?
Audra:
I am so good in compartmentalizing and finding another achievement to get to that. It didn't happen to me until the pandemic Wow. It didn't happen to me until the pandemic Wow. When I was locked down with my family, with my husband and with the kids, couldn't go anywhere. There was no more corporate travel for me. All of that was grounded to a screeching halt. There was no more distractions. Halt, there was no more distractions. Suddenly, the voices and the memories and the habits got really, really loud and I couldn't stop them. I couldn't go to the gym, I couldn't go work them out, I couldn't do anything. All I had. All I had was me sitting in this muck that I had ignored my entire life, entire life, wow. So when the pandemic hit in 2020, I was 49. I was 49 years old, mm-hmm. So I was able to avoid it for almost 50 years and it just broke loose.
Audra:
For you, it was an accident. It was a horrific bike accident. So tell us a little bit about that story of. I mean, you're an expert at compartmentalizing too. You have five kids. You're busy. You were raising five children. You're chasing them around, trying to raise amazing human beings and put them out in the world, because my husband and I have a phrase the world is full of assholes. We are not going to give the world two more. So we really concentrated on raising wonderful, decent human beings. And I know you did the same raising wonderful, decent human beings and I know you did the same. You concentrated on raising five amazing, wonderful human beings. But then you have an accident and that concentration has to shift because you have to take care of yourself. So what happened in that, what led up to it? And then what happened?
Antonia "Tuni":
that you'd said I got to write my story what led up to it and then what happened that you'd said I got to write my story, you know. I do think that there's times where that perfect storm makes itself known. We had just moved from Northeast Ohio to Indianapolis, indiana, where I didn't know anyone, and I had actually one final, last, lucky fifth kid at home. He was a freshman in high school and so it was a huge transition for him Didn't know anyone, himself new school. So I was really focused in that moment on supporting him right, getting him through this new phase of his life. And within days, this accident occurs and I am taken out.
Audra:
What kind of accident did you have?
Antonia "Tuni":
So it was a bicycle accident and what had happened was the movers had disassembled my road bike, which they weren't supposed to touch, reassembled it incorrectly and I had picked up enough speed, literally blocks from my house, and started to sort of shift my weight on the seat of the bike and that was enough change in the weight on the handlebars, and the handlebars just spun out from underneath me and so it was almost like a blindside car accident. It was very violent and ballistic. Right I just was thrown to the road or it was an actual asphalt bike path at that point and shattered and my right arm I had a compound fracture and my left arm was broken in half and basically lost consciousness and had surgeries by the end of the day and all through that week I was on narcotics for a while, a long time Basically I would say a few weeks in the combination of losing all my ability to move and a lot of that was fear too, even though it was mainly my upper body. I was just terrified to take a step and I'm on drugs 24, seven, and what had happened was I tried to go cold turkey off the drugs because I was really not happy about all of that and the pain was so excruciating. I had a ton of nerve damage that I wanted to kill myself. And that's just not who I am right. That's just not how I've ever I've never really dipped to that extent and it was just a full-on identity crisis.
Antonia "Tuni":
And a friend of mine had miraculously called me like right at that moment and my phone was literally on the bed next to my face and I remember answering the phone and her talking me down and you know saying you know, get someone to get you that drug right now. But what it did was really scare me to the point of you know, I need to figure something. I need to figure out what's going on here. Point of you know I need to figure something, I need to figure out what's going on here. My identity was just so shattered that I knew I had to figure it out.
Antonia "Tuni":
And because of you know, my inability to move, which was my go-to hack for everything, I started my little fingertips were poking out of my plastic splints and I started to eventually write things on a laptop because I couldn't write and my childhood just came, like Niagara Falls, right out of my hands and I just thought, oh, this is what I need to be looking at. So I just started writing, writing, writing, writing, writing, writing Couldn't stop. Did not think I was publishing a book, just was writing.
Audra:
You were just trying to survive, yep. Because the dam broke, because you broke you physically broke, damn broke. Because you broke, you physically broke, and and and. Like me, during the pandemic, I could no longer move my body in the way that I liked to, because all the gyms were closed and it felt like walls were coming in. And I'm sure that's exactly how it felt for you is that it felt like the world, the, the walls were collapsing in on you, and so you needed to pour something out somewhere somehow and your story came out.
Audra:
Mm-hmm, what surprised you as you were writing your story, because I believe in that moment, since that was all you were you were in pain, you were recovering, you couldn't move. All of that was coming straight from an unfiltered place in your soul that probably was remembering things that you thought you had forgotten. So, during that process, did you have any surprises that you thought, oh my gosh, where did that come from?
Antonia "Tuni":
It wasn't so much that, it was the sense of being unburdened Because, like you said, it was such raw material that was being put on the page and there was no production, there was no goal as far as. Oh, this is what I'm going to do with this writing, and so this sort of uncensored, unfiltered examination of my childhood, that was for me, that was how I felt, by ridding, you know, these deck, just like you, these decades and decades of keeping all of that silent inside, I just you know, and it really brought home how, for years and years, there was always these pockets of secrets that just remained my business, of secrets that just remained my business, and I never had a voice for them, and I didn't feel compelled to have a voice for them, because I had learned to achieve and to manage without giving voice to them, just like you. And so that unburdening that ability to feel so light was remarkable from the start. But I want to say too, when you spoke earlier of the ways in which we feel and we take in the sort of physical embodiment of abuse, those things too that start to break apart. It's those years and years of the physical manifestations of our experiences those become things that we can address as well.
Antonia "Tuni":
And it's not just survivors of abuse, it's everyone has these experiences Every day. We watch our children go through them. The classmate at your kid's school that says something, and the tension that becomes part of that experience within our child's bodies, and the emotions that attach to those physical experiences. It's like you can't deny that all of these things are part of who we are. So it's just such a complete you know, when you make this decision to sort of unburden and unpack all of these different elements to past experiences, it's a lot. It's a lot to look at and open up our perspectives in a more objective way and say, okay, this is what happened. I don't have to attach all the emotional baggage now to this. I am going to make an effort to detach from it.
Audra:
Well, I don't know if this happened for you Once I started unpacking all of this and getting to the root of it and the raw emotions of it I don't compartmentalize very well anymore at all and it comes out in all these various ways that completely surprised me. I've always been someone that has at least given the impression that I have got it all figured out, and now I tell everybody honestly, I don't. I am just trying to figure this out just the way that you guys do. I've become vulnerable on levels that just surprise me. With my husband, with my boss. I've been vulnerable With my colleagues because I just can't shut that part of me off anymore.
Audra:
Interesting things have happened because of it, things that I didn't expect. I was always taught the vulnerability was weak, but now I'm starting to acknowledge it as a strength, because if you become vulnerable, if you become a an example of vulnerability and you don't fall apart in front of somebody, it helps encourage other people to embrace their superpower of vulnerability too, and you start to see people evolve around you, which has shocked me. What have you experienced now that you're like okay, I can't hold all of this in anymore, I can't put the lid on this, I can't compartmentalize this. I just have to live it and live through it. What has been your experience now, in your new reality?
Antonia "Tuni":
Well, I would also say you know to your point to be being able to embrace vulnerability in public with our loved ones, with one, with people that are challenging us in connection. Falling apart is fine. That might be part of the equation. That's also a way of showing whoever's on the other side of that. Yes, I am experiencing grief right now, I'm experiencing pain right now, and I'm okay with falling apart because I know that this is how I'm going to heal.
Antonia "Tuni":
And I think that the one thing that has really impacted me more than anything is my determination to hand vulnerability love as much as I can, because I feel that, in the end, when I think back to what my needs were and what needs weren't met, it boiled down to love right. It boiled down to being seen, to having someone see me, to being loved, and so I don't see, at least in my experience I haven't met anyone that doesn't have some kind of vulnerability. I think we all share the ebbing and flowing of strengths and weaknesses, and love is what we can all give each other right and in turn, we get it back, and so that really has been my and I'm not saying that I am 100% of the time quick to have that be my default. My husband will piss me off, just like your husband, but it's on the back burner. That flame is higher than it used to be Right, and that's that's me moving forward.
Audra:
Is that what helped make you decide to publish your story, so then you can give the gift of vulnerability and love away to those that really need it, which, honestly, is all of us, but there are definitely some people that need it more than most.
Antonia "Tuni":
Deciding to publish like you said, it was around the pandemic, you know, backed up right against my accident, and so, like you being isolated, I ended up in writing groups in Zooms during that time and suddenly had you know, people I didn't know, eyeballing my writing and encouraging me to publish. So the idea was really planted by someone else. It didn't generate from me the achiever that I am. Okay, I could see if this would happen, right, so I just threw it out in the atmosphere and, you know, I had someone say, yes, I'd like to publish you, and it just snowballed really from there. But once the momentum was in place and that I committed to, you know, okay, this is something I'm going to do.
Antonia "Tuni":
At that time my mom was still living in it and I was her full-time caretaker. I mean, she had home health aides and she was in assisted living, but I was really managing her life and I was with her every day and all of that. So it became simultaneous to the writing, finishing of this manuscript, of this deeper, more meaningful connection to my mom than I'd ever had, and it was the reward of that work. It was our becoming the mother and daughter kind of relationship that I'd always wanted. It ended up being more often me being the mother and her being the daughter, and I was totally fine with that because it still brought us together and it still brought us in a way where we could be more vulnerable the both of us and there was a huge reward there was love there. That was the payoff.
Audra:
And the opportunity to heal, because if you don't deal with your trauma, your trauma will deal with you.
Antonia "Tuni":
A hundred percent.
Audra:
And that gave you an avenue to continue to heal, or maybe even heal on a level that you needed to. That you didn't expect. I'm curious about the title though underwater daughter, and I hadn't asked you that before. I have read experts or excerpts that's easy for me to say Excerpts, maybe I get it Okay From the book. I've read the poems. The poems rip me apart and I respond in an emotional way that completely surprises me. But the title? I don't completely understand the title, but I have a feeling it's because there's a much, much deeper feeling or deeper meaning to it than I can acknowledge. So if it's not too much, tell us about why the title Underwater Daughter Sure.
Antonia "Tuni":
And I've heard it often, but once you sort of dive no pun intended, well, maybe a little bit into the book, my writing style is a million percent informed by the fact that I was a dancer all my life. So when I began to write, not having been a writer, my writing style was intuitively rhythmic and movement oriented, to the point where, when I was trying to express a thought or idea or part of a storyline, the rhythms, the patterns had to make sense to me as well as the meaning of what I was trying to say. So I am very challenged to not write rhythmically and melodically and lyrically. That is just how I write. So when putting together a title, that was first and foremost top of mind is you know, when I pulled the words underwater, daughter together, I loved the way it flowed. It sounded like water to me.
Antonia "Tuni":
There is a lot of water, ocean, sea symbols, metaphors throughout the entire memoir, and the ocean, specifically the island that my parents brought us to every single summer my entire life, was a source of solace and peace for me always, and so I wanted to lean into that component of it. Like I said earlier, the relationship and getting to a place of forgiveness was so much harder for me as it pertained to my mother. That relationship was the one that I was climbing to find, you know, peace at my entire life. So the idea of being the daughter underwater can't be seen struggling to get air. Words are mumbled and jumbled in water and just that whole idea of struggling to be seen and heard because I'm underwater. So it was just a really layered coming together that felt perfect to me.
Audra:
Beautiful imagery in such a painful way.
Antonia "Tuni":
I know.
Audra:
You can still have. Beauty and pain exist in the same space, and that's how it sounds to me is beauty and pain in the same space? And now that you say that everything you write is with melody in mind, I recognize the eight count in your poems, and it makes perfect sense now, and we're definitely going to give everybody a link to your book and, if for nothing else, read it for the poems, which will just wreck you in the best possible way, though I mean it allows you to be very vulnerable and maybe feel some feelings that you shut down and put aside, so maybe read it by yourselves when you need a good cleansing cry.
Antonia "Tuni":
Audra, I just want to say too many people have told me they've picked up on the rhythm of the language that I choose, but the fact that you just said you recognize the eight count, I love that. You said that and no one has ever said that to me before. And there is this given right, this understood way that music evolves, or that we have composers over the years and I'm certainly not a composer but that music has become this understood measure. And maybe that's different because I'm not a poet by trade and I don't necessarily think that all poets lean in that sense, but that is absolutely ingrained in me, this sort of measure after measure after measure. I just love that. You said that, Love it.
Audra:
Is this a good time for me to tell you that I was a dancer? Aha, so here's an interesting tie-in to all of this. Um, I was a dancer until I entered college and I also was a competitive swimmer until I entered college. Amazing, so interesting. There's an interesting connections there, um, but yes, when I your poems, they did sound like music.
Antonia "Tuni":
They absolutely sounded like music and sort of heart connection to a body practice, whether it's in the water or in a studio or, you know, with a black belt on, whatever it happens to be. When it's ingrained in you from such a young age it just seems to become every part of the way you navigate the world. To me it's not the same as picking up a new sport as an adult or dabbling and then leaving some kind of practice right when it's something that you've done from a really young age all into adulthood. It goes along, in my opinion, the same lines as the cellular information we get from experience and the nuance of our emotions and the breaths that become reactive to the experiences, like it's just it's another layer of it.
Audra:
It's how you get to move through the world. Yes, and I have music on in my house all the time. There's constantly a soundtrack in the background of everything I do, and I have moods. I change the music according to my mood and I can do if nothing else. I would rather turn off the TV and just listen to music and read a book than anything else.
Antonia "Tuni":
I'd rather do that. That makes me wonder too. When you found yourself, you know, suddenly not traveling and not going to your go-to studios for whatever workouts you were doing in this sudden new existence with the pandemic and your children, I'm guessing, are at home with you, correct? Did you not default to music right away, such a new foreign experience that you know, perhaps your, your ability to sort of connect rhythmically in some ways, didn't sort of occur right away?
Audra:
Oh, it became rage music 100%. It became rage music Anything that sounded loud and angry I was listening to. Anything that sounded loud and angry. I was listening to oh, that's awesome Much to my husband's delight, quite frankly. He was like all right, you finally are starting to embrace this stuff. Don't get used to it, buddy. I'm sorry, but this is just how I need to express myself right now.
Antonia "Tuni":
Well, I do hope that you know, because I know the book is intense and it can break open, you know, I think, other people that have had similar. The main gist, as you get into the storyline, is finding a revolutionary, different way of experiencing those things becoming someone different.
Audra:
What I like about that statement and that sentiment of your book is that not everybody experienced childhood trauma in the level that we did, but it still speaks to them because everybody has experienced something. Nobody gets out of this life unscathed. If you are living, if you are breathing, you have experienced something that you're trying to overcome, especially women, with all of the mixed messages and things that we have to be, things that they tell us we need to be. There's a level of trauma that is occurring.
Audra:
Your book is a love letter and an encouragement to those that feel that, a love letter and an encouragement to those that feel that one, to know that they are not alone. Two, that it's okay to feel those things. And three, it is absolutely positively imperative that you heal from them and embrace the strength of vulnerability instead of hiding it.
Antonia "Tuni":
Right. I mean our healing becomes service to others and I love that you just said a love letter, because I really wanted it to be underwater daughter a love story, but it's a little confusing.
Audra:
Well, I think that it was a love letter to yourself first that then became one that you wanted to share with others, so then they could experience a higher level of self-love, self-forgiveness, and then vibrating at the level that you were born to be at, rather than the one that you felt contained to. And I say all this and people are like wow, audra, you're really evolved. This is a daily thing, guys. This is a daily thing. There are days that I have said out loud I hate my effing life, I'm going to bed, I'm going to take a hot shower in the morning and try this again tomorrow, and then there are days that I wake up and go. I'm queen of the world. I can do this and every other day in between, but it is something that I do every single day. I have a choice. Toonie has a choice. You all have a choice. You choose it every single day, and some days you're better at it than others.
Antonia "Tuni":
Yeah, we just try to string more and more and more days that are positive and loving right. We try to string more of those together and I think cumulatively we do that. We are, you know, we are raising the vibration, we are.
Audra:
Before we run out of time, I want to do two things. Okay One where can everybody access the book? I know it's been published, but where can they find it?
Antonia "Tuni":
So it's on Amazon and Apple Books and Target, barnes, noble, all the players. And it might be at your local bookstore or your public library. They will, you know. You walk into that library and say you want that book, they'll get it for you, no problem.
Audra:
I will include some links directly to some of the retailers that you mentioned in the show notes so they can go in and look at and find it and order it from themselves.
Antonia "Tuni":
There's also links on my website as well.
Audra:
And your website address is what AntoniaDegnancom. Make sure that that link is in the show notes as well. Second thing, which is my absolute favorite part of the show, is when I step away from the microphone and I give you a moment to have some direct contact, some emotional intimacy with the audience. So that mic is yours.
Antonia "Tuni":
You know audience listeners, we all have dialogues going on all day long and those dialogues are informed from every minute that you've been on the planet. They repeat, they dive back and forth, they repeat, they dive back and forth. And what we, I think, need to remember is that we can choose our thoughts. We can choose when we're listening and we can choose when we become more aware that those thoughts aren't serving us. And if we can make that distinction, then it's so much easier to say I'm just going to choose love today. I'm just going to do that and I'm not going to think about what others say or do. I'm just going to choose love.
Audra:
That'll change the world. That'll change the world, yeah. So first, toonie, I want to thank you for me personally holding space, this sacred space, with me and allowing me the first time to pause so I could get myself together, allowing me the first time to pause so I could get myself together, so I could be vulnerable, not only with you, but with everybody else, because it is my hope that our willingness to be vulnerable will give voice, strength, power to somebody who needs it. So that's, that's my hope, and I want to express my sincere gratitude to you for allowing me to do this.
Antonia "Tuni":
Here, here, Audra, and right back at you. I feel such a real connection with you and this is the most meaningful thing that can happen from my book is this kind of connection with someone. I really, really appreciate you.
Audra:
Thank you, and I want to thank you again for writing the book, giving the world a gift to whomever may need it, and for leaning into the power of your vulnerability. So thank you very much.
Antonia "Tuni":
Thank you.
Audra:
And I want to thank all of you for listening and we'll see you again next time.
