Live MAGAZINE VOL 8, Issue #210 June 2nd THRU June 16th, 2015

14
STILL STANDING
– The Journey of Valerie Silveira
By Angela Romeo
“If we could sell our experiences for what they cost us,
we would all be millionaires” a quote from Abigail Van
Buren, appears on rockinredhead.com, the website of
Valerie Silveira, author and lecturer.
“The best way to describe nearly thirteen years of my life, is that I was
shoved kicking and screaming onto the Roller Coaster From Hell. When
my daughter was fifteen she went from being a popular, athletic girl
with good grades to a teenager headed down a very dangerous path,”
said Valerie.
“In 2004, my world was turned upside down, when Jordan was shot by
her ex-boyfriend. Over the next decade, I would learn the painful truth
that Jordan is a heroin addict, and that I am powerless save her from her
drug addiction Beast.”
Valerie describes a Beast as a situation, person, attitude, or
circumstance that leaves one lost, defeated, frustrated, angry, hopeless,
and helpless, or living in paralyzing fear. Valerie’s Codependent Enabler
Beast slowly took over her life, but for years, she refused to recognize it.
“I was losing myself and doing a great job of hiding it. But I was dying on
the inside. I was beginning to exist, rather than to live. Unless you are
the parent of an addict, it is hard to understand the pain - it is far more
devastating than most people understand. We lose our children over
and over again.”
“I had a Supermom Cape and I wasn’t afraid to use it,” continued
Valerie. “I did everything I knew in an attempt to save Jordan. At some
point, we know we are enabling our kids, but we don’t know how to
stop. What keeps us tied to our own Beast is love, and fear.”
“One day I asked myself a pivotal question that allowed me to begin to
put the pieces of my life back together - ‘If you had the ability to save
Jordan from herself, from her drug addiction Beast, wouldn’t you have
done it long ago?’ Valerie found the last shred of self-confidence she
had and did what ended up being the first of her Nine Actions to Battle
Your Beast - Decide to Stand Up and Fight.
In her book Valerie recounts her personal journey and the actions she
took to gain control over her Beast. Her third action is to Put On Your
Oxygen Mask and the seventh is Stop Being a Control Freak. “We run
around trying to save everyone else and control our lives to the point
where we literally lose control.”
Her Workbook helps people to recognize their own Beast, and to work
through the Actions to gain control over that Beast, whatever it may be.
Valerie said, “At first, I wanted to help even one person that was in the
place I was, to move toward where I am today. Now I am on a mission to
help as many people as I can.”
DAVID CLINTON-REID
“Still Standing After All the Tears, is available at:
www.amazon.com/author/valeriesilveira
Angela Romeo is the producer /host of COLLIDING WORLDS TV and COLLIDING WORLDS
RADIO. For more information visit: www.collidingworldstvandart.com
Colliding Worlds TV is available on YouTube at
www.youtube.com/user/AngelaValenteRomeo
or at Colliding Worlds Vimeo:
www.vimeo.com/collidingworldstv
Colliding Worlds TV broadcasts on KPSE (MY 13 Palm Springs California) Saturdays at noon
and Thursdays at 6:30 am
Colliding Worlds Radio, broadcasts and live streams weekly,
Saturday from 11 am to 12 pm on KPSF 1200 AM (Money Radio 1200)
Colliding Worlds is now on KMIR (Palm Springs)Saturday at 5 am and on KPSE Thursday
(Palm Springs) at 6:30 am
CW Radio podcasts are available at
www.collidingworldstvandart.com