Amanda: “When you say yes to the spirit of who you are, the whole world opens up and says, how may I serve you?” Welcome Vikki.
Vikki: Thank you, Amanda. Wow.
Amanda: That's quite a quote.
Vikki: Yeah. So that is from A Course in Miracles, which was hugely impactful on my journey. I went back and tried to find it put that in, nothing came up, but I tend to take my little country version of a quote and make it my own. So if you're quoting A Course in Miracles, that may not be exactly the quote, but what my childlike heart got from that is from A Course in Miracles. When you say yes to the Spirit of who you are, the whole world opens up and says, how may I serve you? So in order for you to receive something externally, I believe you have to first honor it internally and then you will see that externally in your world.
Amanda: And so this has been something that you've been working towards in the first half of your life. You came from a place of struggle, desperation, brokenness. And so I think today it's important for us to explore what your background is a little bit more. You know, your wisdom and the spiritual principles you live by, it's not something you've studied in terms of academia, this is something that you've experienced yourself and developed over time and internalized. So I thought today we would explore a little bit about the history of where you have had those struggles and different points in your life that maybe were pivotal for you. Yeah. And so let's go back and explore a little bit.
Vikki: Yeah. I think when a lot of people come out to the farm and they see the farm or they see where I am at currently, it's hard to imagine where I came from. But it's always close to my heart to remember where I came from. That's why I love Carl Jung's quotes so much about the morning and afternoon of our life. What worked in the morning becomes a lie in the afternoon of our life. And the morning of my life was filled with such destruction and such addiction, depression, darkness. I was living a lie the first part of my life. Just to open it up with with some labels of who I was and where I was I think is important. I hesitate to do that because I've worked really hard on breaking through those labels and those boxes and those definitions. But for this conversation, I will take us back. At the time, I was an athlete in bodybuilding and powerlifting and Olympic weightlifting. And I excelled in all of those sports. So outwardly, my body, my strength, my power, was my identity and it was all rooted in a lie, really. The time that I was at the peak of my athletic career, I had already been in rehab. One time for alcoholism and bulimia. I was bulimic starting at age 15. I was in rehab for the first time when I was 19 for bulimian alcoholism. I started excelling in weightlifting, in Olympic weightlifting and bodybuilding in my 20s and early 30s.
04:17
Amanda: Now I just find it kind of interesting, the timeline of your life, you were already struggling with bulimia adn alcoholism at 15? Did I hear that right? Or was it just bulimia?
Vikki: No, I didn't know that I was an alcoholic at 15, but it already had taken control over my life. It was just a pattern of checking out and destruction at an early age. I had a lot of suffering. There's no other way to say it. I struggled with a lot of depression and mental illness and other things. But I think internally, I so long to be loved and seen and acknowledged by a male. Um, I didn't have a father that was present in my life. And I think every little girl, um, is looking for that male guidance to give her that internal mirroring that internal validation of your love just because you are.
05:22
Amanda: Yeah, and I think it also is a sense of safety. It's a sense of safety I never had. And I longed for that. And I don't know what it is about the male influence in a girl's life, but you do. It's a longing.
Vikki: Yeah. I think it was placed, uh, placed in us by our creator. I just do. I, um, it's a, it's a deep internal longing that when you don't have that on any level, I think you go looking for it externally because that's the way you know our culture teaches and so for me I'll speak to my journey I did not even realize the drive of everything that I did was to was really to be seen and acknowledged by a male and I think that's why my Weightlifting career took off like in such a profound way was not only am I a really big girl with a big spirit, a big heart, but I have the genetics for the sport of weightlifting.
Amanda: You were getting that validation, that outward validation that you were good at that. So why not just eat that up?
Vikki: Yes. I mean, you follow when you have almost like an addiction for that love, you follow the bump that you get. And so it was just a temporary bump of getting that attention and validation. And it was building up a false armor, really, of strength. But you had mentioned that safety. It's like, yeah, that's one of Maslow's hierarchy of needs. I mean, it's food, shelter, and safety, which I think also is protection. And when we don't have that growing up, for me, I just I didn't know where my place was in the world so I started working for attention and love and approval and all those things. And sadly, I got it because I was really good at my sport and so on
Amanda: When you have that vulnerability You know at least for me like that little space that doesn't quite get filled you're vulnerable and it's easily filled with something that's there to just fill it right so for you it was this external weightlifting that sort of filled that little bit of a void for you.
Vikki: Yeah…
Amanda: it was more codependent behavior, you know, like, yeah, be a people pleaser. And then that little piece sort of can scab over. I don't know.
Vikki: Yeah, I think it becomes it all is a big lie, though, that you are what you do. You know, Wayne Dyer says, you know, the biggest lie that the trap that we fall into is we are. We believe we are what we do, what we have, and what other people think of us. And so I fell into that. But I think the biggest difficulty in the first part of my life was while I was bulimic, addicted to steroids and addicted to alcoholism, I kept winning. And it just created a bigger, dishonest way of living because I was a representative for health and wellness and nutrition and balanced living. And I was bulimic and alcoholic and on steroids the whole time.
Amanda: But it looked good on the outside, right? Looked like you had it all together.
09:03
Vikki: Yeah. And because I've always had a tender heart, I think the contrast of my truth versus how I was living my life became the dark hole that consumed me. I was living so dishonestly, so inauthentically, and that became the dark hole that eventually, I think, just consumed me.
Amanda: So you said you were 20 or 30. I think that was the little last age marker you mentioned. When was the next sort of marker, the little shift? Because I mean, obviously from 19 to now 20, early 30s, you're still struggling. So what happens at that point?
Vikki: Yeah, I retired from Olympic weightlifting in 1999. And at the time I had to officially retire because I was on the NAN program. It was called NAN, N-A-N, No Advanced Notice Drug Testing. So I would get, because I was one of the nine women on the National USA Weightlifting Team, I would get random drug tested and had a way of not getting caught in
Amanda: clearly
Vikki: clearly in a drug test. Towards the end of my career, I did stop doing steroids. My body could no longer take it. But, um, so I had to officially retire in 1999, uh, from the Olympic training center. And from there, I continued to be the face of fitness. I was…
Amanda: Did you spend some time at Home Depot corporate doing some programming there?
Vikki: Yeah, I did a lot with Home Depot's corporate office and building better health and training program. And I did a lot with, um, some athletes from the Atlanta Braves. And so I was a high profile personal trainer in the Atlanta area. And again,
Amanda: living inauthentically.
Vikki: Yeah, just so bulimic. It just, it was a slow death really. At the age of 36, I was underneath the desk at Home Depot's corporate office. And one of the people I trained was one of the VPs and they were married to a man who was a seminary student. And he was one of my clients, him and his wife were one of my clients and he became a friend. He became a really good friend. So he was a male that I could trust. I could ask questions and he was in seminary. And I was always so intrigued with the spiritual path and the spiritual journey because for me that longing was also not just for a father, but for a God of my understanding that loved me just for me. And so I would, I would have these great conversations with him. So I was struggling with suicide and I was underneath the desk talking on the phone. So it had a cord back then. The phone had a cord. His name was Scott and I just really explained to him the place I was at and I needed to know what the Bible said about suicide. And he asked if he could call me back. And I was so devastated. I just could not even catch my breath. I said, “please please don't hang up the phone, please don't leave me.” And he asked me to put the phone down and to go to the TV monitors in the corporate Home Depot's weight room, training room, because I had an office there. That's why I was underneath the desk at Home Depot. And he said, just go to the TV monitors. And I went to the TV monitors and it was September 11th, 2001 at about 9.20.
13:24
Amanda: Oh my gosh.
Vikki: And so the reason he had to go rightly so was he was in the middle of devastation. Yeah. And at his church trying to figure out what they were going to do, what all was happening. So that though became such a marker on my timeline, such a pivotal time. I don't know how old you were around that time, but there was such destruction. It felt like in America there was such anger and rage. And yet there was such love and unity at that time. I mean, so many people just loved each other and were kind to people. I just felt this turmoil inside of just these opposing things. And through another friend, I heard about a research study at Columbia Presbyterian for athletes and addictions and bulimics eating disorder research they were doing. I trained another lady who worked at CDC Center for Disease Control and she told me she knew I needed some help and they were doing a research study on athletes and addictions and she said you can call and see if you can get in. Well right away of course being an athlete, a national level athlete and being bulimic since I was 15 and at the time I was 36. I got accepted in and the whole reason I wanted to do this research at Columbia Presbyterian was because if you gave them non-invasive research on your body really is what it was, they would give you treatment. And so I didn't realize at the time the treatment that I got would be offered at New York State Psychiatric Institute.
Amanda: Oh, and in comes Pat.
15:21
Vikki: There is where Pat's. Yay for Pat. So I did the research portion and then I was admitted to New York State Psychiatric Institute where I stayed for quite some time. And that is where I met Pat, who we talk a lot about Pat at The Farm on many outlets of how she has changed my life and continues to change my life. So I met her on October 27th, 2001, right after September 11th was when I made my trek up north. I met her, so we have been working together 21 years.
Amanda: Wow.
Vikki: So I think it's always important. Pat taught me that. It's important to talk about where you came from and how you got started. And so a lot of what I...have learned and continue to learn. I learned through Pat and therapy and healing. And then I went on my own spiritual journey and people like Wayne Dyer, Eckhart Tolle, Rob Bell have had such influence on me, Richard Rohr, that have given me the freedom to find my own way to realize that all my answers are deep inside me and my heart. And so I knew as I started getting some years of sobriety behind me that I wanted a farm to create a community of people who just wanted to heal and wake up. Maybe they weren't addicted or struggle with steroids or mental illness of any kind, but I think we all have this longing. We all had a childhood. We all have this longing, I believe, to heal and to wake up and to know that our life matters, that we were created for a purpose and we came to live out that Dharma. We get to choose whether we do that or not.
Amanda: I love that. I love that it's just for the everyday person because we all have struggles and it's just a place to be seen and heard and everybody wants to be seen and heard.
Vikki: Yeah, we do. We do, and I think one of the biggest lessons Pat taught me that “of course, sweetheart, you deserve to be seen and heard but until you learn how to see and hear yourself, you won't recognize it when somebody gives you that.” And I think that's why that quote, maybe it was my interpretation of the quote of A Course in Miracles, but in the beginning, when I had...decades of being bulimic and an alcoholic to change those pathways in my brain. It was like turning the Titanic around. But the thing that really did help me the most was I kept saying that quote, “when you say yes to the spirit of who you are, the whole world opens up and says, how may I serve you?” And what that meant to me was if I was throwing up or binging and purging or drinking or doing drugs, I was denying my spirit. And anytime I denied my spirit and hurt myself, I would get more of that from the world. And I so wanted to be loved and seen and paid attention to. And so Pat just kept reiterating that until you can give that to yourself, you're not going to see it externally. It could be going on all the time, but you don't have the eyes to see until you're willing to do the necessary work to see that goodness that is already inside of you. All those things externally, you're just not going to see.
Amanda: An inward journey. It's the inward journey.
Vikki: It's the inward journey as within, so without. All those beautiful sayings, you know, that...can seem kind of hokey or whatever, but when you really open it up, you realize, Oh no, that shits the truth. If I don't see it in me, I can't recognize it. If I want that from someone else, it's a powerful principle when you actually start living from it.
Amanda: I'm starting to see it in my own life. Like it takes a while. It takes a minute to reposition your mind and take that inward step first before you go outward. I mean, it's just this whole pattern of behavior. And I think for me, it's been the repetition of some of the principles. And it's just kind of starting “to take” like you said, my grandma always said, it's not going to take. Well, it's starting to take Vikki.
Vikki: It does. Well, you had a lot of reps of moving in the opposite direction. So it's, you know, it's not whether you're going to remember or forget, you are. The question is how compassionate can you be with yourself when you remember or when you forget? You know, it's just, um, it's just an offering. It's just a powerful tool. But like, if you don't believe me, just try it out. Just try it out and see if when you recognize your spirit and actually honor your spirit, your heart, your soul, whatever word works for you. When you honor that, notice if you actually can see that outside and then notice if you hurt yourself through judgment or through um criticalness notice if you don't start seeing other people doing the same thing to you. It's just an offering.
Amanda: I love it. I love it. Well it's always good to go back and and just know where you've been and how life has treated you to this point and how you got yourself here. I think its all just a great foundation of The Farm and the morning and afternoon of your life. So thank you so much for sharing and taking us back. Any parting wisdom for us?
Vikki: I just think it's so important to honor your story, to honor where you came from, to honor where you're at, to honor where you're moving, where you're going towards. I just think it's important to honor your entire story. And I think it's important to share your story because I believe every time you share it, not only are you healed, but you can help others find their own healing within themselves. I think it's a powerful thing.
Amanda: Well, again, thank you so much. And if you'd like to learn more, you can visit our website at farm2souls.com or find us on social, Instagram and Facebook at Farm2Souls.
