My Strength is My Story with Cara Brookins, Rise: How a House Built a Family. In her memoir, she shares how she escaped an abusive marriage with four children by building a home with the YouTube videos, determination, and optimism.
Be inspired and encouraged. Anything is possible in Cara’s heart.
Cara Brookins: A single mother of four children. Married and divorced twice with nothing to call home. Cara and her children decided to build a house that rebuilt their family, one nail at a time; and a few cement blocks!
“Go build something big!“ ~ Cara Brookins
BOOK: Rise – How a House Built a Family
Enjoy the multitude of topics discussed including domestic violence, mental illness, shame, optimism, determination, and love! You’ll discover many gems and hope to shatter all your excuses.
- Living life now
- Family Photo album
- Media whirlwind
- Time of decision
- Inkwell Manor
- Manuscripts and Screenplays
- Storytelling
- Mud puddles
- Audiobook narration
- Owning history
- Shame
- Divorce
- Domestic Abuse
- Motivational speaking
- Release of guilt
- Responsibility
- Gifts
- Connection
- Anxiety
- Pre-framing
- Strengths gained
- Extreme optimism
- Married young
- Schizophrenia
- Mental illness and dangers
- Determination
- Ideal mindset
- Married again
- Physical violence
- Perfection
- Single motherhood
- Survival mode
- Hickory Haven
- The Tornado House
- What would be in your house?
- Declaration
- When did you know you would do this?
- Home shopping
- Anything is possible
- Finding land and motion sickness
- Bigger. Bigger. Bigger!
- Getting the loan
- Low self esteem
- Fake it till you make it!
- Changed how I saw myself
- Smirks
- Courage
- Laughing at yourself
- Humility
- Tiptoeing through life
- Healthy family communication
- Growing pains
- Shelter for safety
- Teams in life
- Building a foundation
- Physical weakness
- Goal setting
- Donna Fill
- Let’s figure this out!
- The Firefighter
- The Loss
- The Celebration
- Caroline’s nail
- Conscious decision
BOOK: Rise – How a House Built a Family
“There’s a freedom in laughing at yourself.“ ~ Cara Brookins
Quotes and statements within the interview:
“All I ever wanted was to be a mom.”
“I did this very poorly and it should not see the light of day.”
“You have to have these failures.”
“You’re not just telling the goods parts of yourself; you have to tell the bad parts of yourself.”
“That’s parts of the journey is owning that history.”
“I did something that was so hard and so out of what felt like natural me, and I dove in anyhow.”
“Maybe I should just skip the bad parts today, and just tell the good parts.”
“There’s so much power in it.”
“I have a way to string words together in a way that somebody who is not a writer doesn’t.”
“Where we complete one another’s circles.”
“Owning comes with a consequence. You can’t reign it back in with social media today.“
“He went into a very extreme case of actually schizoaffective.”
“Despite my ideal mom and dad vision, this is not going to work.”
“For the next decade, he continued to come and torment my kids and I.”
“I met a guy who was very strong; who was very protective of me.”
“Despite extreme violence one day, I would wake up the next day quite happy.”
“You have to identify whether they’re strengths or weaknesses. They can act both ways in your life.”
“What happens is you all pull inside of yourself and you lose the ability to communicate together and laugh together and you become very defensive.”
“And for the dark place that I was in my life, it was just perfection.”
“It was just this ridiculous pie-in-the-sky fantasy idea.”
“It had become this symbol of a possible future.”
“There’s so much power in saying things out loud.”
“I was looking for symbols in real life, because I’m that kind of girl.”
“It looked like home the first time we saw it.”
“That’s what happens when you let your children draw the house plans.”
“It was time to put on the big girl suit.”
“It was the first time I felt this inner-self of power.”
“This is gonna be going on for a long time, this sense that I don’t have a clue.”
“If you’re thrown together on a job site for 19 hours a day for 9 months, you will figure out how to talk to each other.”
“We had so many walls built, so many barriers.”
“Positive healthy communication is not alway about positive things.”
“The foundation without a doubt was the hardest part and the longest part of the process.”
“My plumber had no courage at all, that was me, in the early stages.”
“Let’s sabotage our Plan B.”
“The human spirit is amazing, what we can accomplish when you have no other choice.”
“Welcome to reality. Life is this big roller coaster.”
“It was months before it felt like something big.”
“I am not anyone special.“
What would you tell that woman who has or is experiencing domestic abuse?
- Value yourself.
- Get safe.
- Get to healing together.
“You have to do something big enough that it will change the way that you see yourself.”
What has your story gifted you?
- In knowing myself.
“You cannot do anything for anyone else until you have that.“
- Writing your story.
“Truly exploring and writing your own story down, it will change and expand what you can do for the world and what you have to offer.“
Resources mentioned in the episode:
- Connect with Cara Brookins; http://CaraBrookins.com
- BOOK: Rise – How a House Built a Family
- Twitter: Cara Brookins
“One step at a time leads to miles of greatness!”
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ANNOUNCEMENT: Ready to shine your light and tell your story. Please click on MY STRENGTH IS MY STORY. Here you can submit yourself to appear on the podcast or make recommendations as who you would like to hear. This is going to be a beautiful series!
Music by Mandisa – Overcomer
http://www.mandisaofficial.com
Cover Art by Jenny Hamson
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