Hello everybody, welcome to the Sex, Love and Superpowers podcast show. I’m your host, Tatiana Berindei, and I am oh so overwhelmingly honored to have with me today Rodney Flowers, and we are going to be discussing the healing superpower of faith and determination.
Rodney has got to me one of my new favorite people. He is one of the most incredible human beings I have ever met in my life. I am honored to know him, and I am so excited to share him with you today. I’m going to tell you a little bit about his story.
After a traumatic high school football injury in 1993, Rodney was completely paralyzed and bound to the confines of his wheelchair. Although he was told his recovery prognosis was unfavorable, he knew he would turn things around, make an impact on the world, and walk again.
With self determination and faith in his ability to persevere, he did. Rodney has developed a process that he used to overcome his trauma and the constraints of physical, mental, and emotional paralysis. He has shared this process with countless people all over the world, and it has allowed them to transition out of their sense of tragedy into living a life of joy, love, greatness, and passionate freedom.
A three-time international bestselling author, an in-demand transformational speaker, superior communicator, influencer, and thought leader, Rodney is dedicated, tenacious, and fully committed to being a change agent for overcoming life’s adversities and maximizing individual achievement and success.
Thank you so much for coming on the show today, Rodney.
Thank you, Tatiana, it’s a pleasure to be here, and you are also one of my favorite people. And I love the work that you are doing, I think it’s so needed in the world today, and I’m grateful to have met you, and to develop this friendship with you, and just honored to be here, so thank you.
Likewise, yeah, it’s a beautiful love I have for you, man, I feel like you’re a soul brother, and I’m just looking forward to cultivating that as we grow and live these beautiful lives we’ve been blessed to live.
So, I want to start off, and I’m sure you, like we all have many, and it’s pretty evident by just your story and your journey what some of them are, but will you please share with our audience, what are your superpowers?
My superpower is determination, grit, faith, gosh, tenacity, resilience.
I would say that my superpower is determination, grit, faith, gosh, tenacity, resilience. That’s what I really have identified as what has allowed me to accomplish what I’ve accomplished in life, and overcome some of the grueling challenges that I’ve had to face in my life. Those are the things that have really helped me get to a place of success, a place of satisfaction and love, and freedom, in my life.
Yeah, beautiful. So, let’s talk about this, because I really want to talk about the role that faith has played in your journey. I mean, I really have, from my own experience, faith to be the most healing superpower of all, but I would just love to hear a little bit more about how you have employed that in your life.
Well, you know, with faith, I came from a place where, you know, there was no cure for what happened to me, for my injury. You know, there’s no cure for spinal cord injuries, and so there was nothing that I had to turn to other than, you know, my faith in God, my faith in myself, that I could turn things around for me.
And so I had to really internalize, and get comfortable with, get used to, get acquainted with, you know, the strength that I had inside. I had to find that, because there was nothing else there for me to turn to.
And so I began to just cultivate that, I began, you know, do all the visualization exercises, and see myself the way I wanted my life to be. And I got so wrapped up in it, and I did it so often that, you know, during those experiences I would feel myself having the thing that I wanted, you know, I would see myself walking. I could feel it, and I would hold on to that.
And even when … You know, when I would come back, and my actual life wasn’t that, I could go to that place, and in my faith, in my mind, I could have what I wanted, and I can experience what I wanted. And so I just kept doing that over and over, and I still do that now.
And it was a way for me to have … It was a way for me to escape the trauma, escape the challenges that I was dealing with, and be in a place of peace, be in a place of joy, be in a place of greatness, be in a place of satisfaction and happiness. It was like a happy place for me, you know?
And so, by doing that exercise and having that faith that one day this thing that I’m experiencing will come to fruition, it will be something real for me, it will be tangible for me because I knew that I had it in a certain form. I had it in its mental form, and I just felt if I kept doing these things I could transform that into its physical form. And so that’s how that worked for me.
So, do you think … I know there’s a lot of people out there who maybe don’t … They weren’t raised in a faith tradition. You know, I’m actually one of those people. I wasn’t raised going to church. I mean, we went to church on Christmas and Easter, because that was … but it was not … I wasn’t raised with faith, I’ll put it that way. I was raised with ritual, with, like, a tradition, but not with faith.
And I’ve been very blessed in my own personal journey to find elders, and mentors, and teachers that resonated with me that were able to bring me into a place of faith that I could understand, and that I could work with and be inside of.
How possible, or do you believe it’s possible at all that you would have been able to come through this journey in the way that you have without that faith?
I do credit my faith, and credit God a lot.
Well, that’s a very good question. You know, I do credit my faith, and credit God a lot for the accomplishments that I’ve been able to accomplish, and, you know, having faith really helped me establish a mindset to win, a mindset to conquer, and that was my anchor. That was my cornerstone, and without that, you know, I felt like … You know, I would have been … I wouldn’t have had such a strong foundation, if you will.
And so, you know, I’m hesitant to say that I would not have. I would say, perhaps, it would have taken a lot longer, because I think that by having that foundation it allowed things to happen, and I was really looking for something. I was seeking something.
And so for someone who has not come up in a faith based family, or church, and things like that, what my recommendation would be is to seek it, you know, to find it. And, you know, I wouldn’t consider the fact that, you know, because I haven’t come up in a faith based family that that is an excuse, or, you know, a way out, you know, we can grow our faith. We can develop our faith, and that may take some work. It may take some seeking out, but it is definitely worth it, you know?
Yeah, I couldn’t agree more, but I think it’s true. I think it does take a certain level of desire for that, right?
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yes, absolutely.
You have to want it.
Yeah, and, you know, a lot of times, you know, I feel like sometimes in life challenges and obstacles come, and it’s a wake up call, you know? We’re always looking at the fact that it’s bad, or it makes us feel uncomfortable, but sometimes these things cause us to exercise our faith, right? It causes you to look internally, it causes you to not be able to depend on the external forces, and have to look and depend on the internal forces, the … Those things that aren’t so tangible if you will, you know?
And that’s not such a bad thing, you know, because without it, sometimes, we would never look for that. We would never see that, and, you know, living life is, in my opinion, you know … And when you live your life, that’s something that you want to have with you. You want to believe. You want to have something to believe in. You want to have faith in a higher power, in a greater source, in your creator, if you will.
And then having faith in a higher source gives you a little bit more faith and belief in yourself, realizing that, you know, you’re a wonderful creature. You’re beautifully and wonderfully made by the creator, and you have gifts and talents, and you’re strong, and you’re powerful, and we all have superpowers, if you will, and you can start looking into, you know, what is my superpower? What is so unique about me?
And I actually went through that. I mean, that’s all part of faith building-
Yeah.
… you know, or understanding who I am and what superpower I have, what abilities I have, what talents and gifts do I have, you know? And what I’m entitled to as … just as a person, or as a child of God, as I would say-
Yes.
… you know?
Yes.
And so, I’m entitled to certain things. And once you come to a place of realizing that, you know, your problems and your situations don’t seem so great, you know? They’re there, but then you realize that you can overcome them, that you are bigger than they are, and that you have powers that will allow you to conquer, to go further than you think, go further than the external forces are resisting, you know, or limiting you.
And so, yeah, I just think that’s very important to have in your life, if you would ask me.
Yeah, absolutely. We have to take a quick break, and then we’re going to come back and we’re going to dive a little bit deeper, because I know that we had talked about, you know, your work with single moms and with women, especially, who have been in abusive relationships, and I really want to dive into that conversation a little bit more with you when we get back from the break.
We are going to take a quick break. Before we go, can you tell everybody where they can find out more about you?
Sure, yes, I’m on all social media platforms, Facebook and Twitter, Instagram and LinkedIn, under Rodney Flowers. If you just do a search for Rodney Flowers under those platforms you can find me. You can also send me an email, reach out to me, I’m very personal. So, you can reach me at [email protected], and my website is RodneyFlowers.com.
Awesome. So we’ve been talking with Rodney Flowers about the healing superpower of faith and determination. We’re going to dive into some juice stuff when we return, so stay tuned.
To listen to the entire show click on the player above or go to the SuperPower Up! podcast on iTunes.
Music Credit: All instruments played by Amanda Turk. Engineered and produced by Tatiana Berindei and Daniel Plane reelcello.com
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