Reinventing Without Burning It All Down with Hillary Powers

We trace how trauma drove constant reinvention and how healing turned that motion into purpose. Hilary shares her journey from child voice actor to recovery mentor, unpacking core wounds, gratitude, reparenting, and the art of receiving.

• black-and-white thinking vs finding the gray
• addiction as symptom of deeper wounds
• reparenting yourself with kinder language
• receiving compliments to rebuild self-worth
• acceptance as a launchpad for action
• gratitude as a stabilizing daily practice
• boundaries with victim language and low-vibe spaces
• leading with purpose instead of the wound
• practical pivots that build inner safety
• resources and how to reach Hilary

“Please reach out to me and ask me any question, and I can help you get guided back towards yourself. You can get me on HillaryPowers.live, Instagram, TikTok, and LinkedIn.”

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:01

Hello there and welcome back to the next episode of Overcome Yourself the Podcast. As you know, my name is Nicole, and I'm excited to be here today with Hillary. And

Welcome And Theme Of Reinvention

SPEAKER_01 0:12

we were just talking about reinventing reinvention, reinventing ourselves. How some people and we love them. There's nothing wrong with this, okay? But some people are super content, like doing a thing. They get into a career and they do it for a really long time and they love it. It works for them, they're energized. But there's some of us who are not like that. And we're, you know, at first we were like, curse the day. Why can't I be like that? But we like to explore different projects. Um, and so that that's just a random thing we were talking about. So, Hilary, I want you to take it away. Just first and foremost, introduce yourself. We'll jump into all the all the good stuff later, but please let us know who you are and who you help.

SPEAKER_00 1:01

Okay. Hi, you guys. My name is Hilary Momberger Powers. And I always like to start out by saying that I spent most of my life on a movie set, but the real story happened

Hilary’s Hollywood Roots And Recovery

SPEAKER_00 1:13

to me off camera. And, you know, I at the age of five, I became the voice of Sally and Charlie Brown Peanuts. Um, later I retreated behind the scene and I worked on over 350 movies and television um as a script supervisor. So um uh yeah, that was fun. And throughout the last four decades, I've been in recovery. And what I mean by recovery, I've had therapy, I'm in AA, Al Anon, you name it on. I'm all about trying to find out what are how I tick and how to help other people tick. And you know, through deep faith and lots of modalities, I've healed from my trauma and my addictions, and especially the wounds that I receive when I grew up with a narcissistic mother. Um, there's a lot of us who have, and you know, it's that's a whole other club, like we're belonging to Nicole. You know, and I've learned through, you know, I've learned to laugh at the absurd ride I'm on and how crazy how I've turned my pain into passion, and then I've turned my passion into a purpose. So my goal is I like inspiring audiences through my no longer leading with your wound, because I think we tend to lead with our wounds and we don't even know it. You know, when you were talking earlier about, you know, I'm one of those people that I like multifaceted. I always say to the women I coach, I go, listen, if we all were on one side of a boat, what would happen? It would tip size. Absolutely. So there are the people that like the consistency. I find them an anomaly. My husband, same job 40 years. I'm like, dude, I would have put a bullet in my head. It doesn't mean he's bad or wrong. I just, it's very, you know, we need we need color, we need different shades of everything. You know, I live my life in black and white, and that's the trauma response. Like, live or die, good or bad, black, white, republican. I mean, Democrat, everything is polar, it's duality. Um, and you know, that's a lie, and I didn't know that because when you grow up in trauma and I had a narcissistic, alcoholic, abusive mother, you're always

Narcissistic Parenting And Core Wounds

SPEAKER_00 3:43

ready for Freddie. Like, is it gonna happen? So I had this deep-seated feeling I have to keep reinventing myself because moving targets don't get hit, moving targets don't get hit. So, you know, I used to I used to say I have I was born with Nikes on, ready, I'm out, I'm out, I'm out. And it wasn't that I was colorful, is I was terrified. And that's the original wound that I grew up with. And we all have our little, I call it our Uber, our Uber drivers, whatever your core wound is, no matter where you think you're going, that uber driver called fear is gonna bring you to I'm not good enough. So everything that reflects I'm not good enough shows up. And I go, oh my god, it's happening again. Little do I know that that core wound, trauma wound, is actually creating my tomorrows and the next day and the next day. So, you know, I I grew up in a family that appeared to be amazing because they look like the Kennedy family. You know, you have that like, wow, your life must be amazing. There's the duality. My one side says, you look like everything's fine, so life must be easy for you. That black and white thinking. So when I was a kid, I just happened to be, you know, my mother took me on my first interview. You know, my mother was a narcissist, so she wanted to get acclimates through her kids because it's never enough getting it from her. And I happened to become the voice of Sally in my first job interview, and it sounds amazing and wonderful, but I just wanted to be a kid. I just wanted to be a kid, and I was placed in this position to look good. So what you feel good. So I spent my life, my childhood learning how to make you feel good, so I felt good. And I brought that characteristic into my teens, into my, you know, addiction times where I just couldn't do it anymore. You know, you know, they say that people who drink and use drugs or substance or food or shopping or gallery or you know, porn or whatever your dure is, because it can change. It's you know, it's like what other ingredients can I put in there to feel different? And you know, it we think that that makes us hit our bottom. But the truth is, is for me, I was already broken before I started drinking. I was, you know, growing up in this battle zone where you're never stabilized, you know. I talk about the the the triangle of of of trauma, which is I'm in a survival mode, I'm you know, I'm always self-preserving and I'm ready for Freddy. But the recovery side of that is still on that triangle. It's like I gotta learn how to stabilize. And when you didn't really grow up stabilizing, you're thinking, I'll be happy over there, I'll be happy over there, I'll be happy over there. And I have suffered from that and I have grown from that. So when I think I could get that job, I could get that job. I spent a long time beating myself up for not being able to just stick with one thing until I started embracing I enjoy learning more about what I can

Black-And-White Thinking To Gray

SPEAKER_00 7:20

do and what I can't do, and what makes what makes me happy on the inside out, not the outside in. You know, because I mean we live in a society where if you're famous, you're good, and which is there's always Pandora's box to everything. It's like it appears to look good, you know. It's like the veneer teeth, dude. Underneath those veneers, they're rotten bones. Just remember that. Right.

SPEAKER_01 7:47

I've seen like the commercials for the bathrooms where they're like, we just come in and put something over your bathroom. I'm like, all those problems are still there, like in the foundation, like you're messing things up words because you don't know what's going on back there.

SPEAKER_00 8:02

Absolutely, and that's what we do. Like, I think, even though I have this, and everybody's got trauma, everybody's had trauma is just another word of something big happened. Yes, you were knocked off your horse, you were knocked off your bike. Bam! And you always think every time I get on that bike, I'm gonna get knocked off. I'm gonna get knocked off. That's the trauma response I go into. I'm gonna live, I'm gonna die, it's gonna be good, it's gonna be bad. I love them, I hate them. It's the best job they ever. Oh, I can't stand my boss. I can't wait to get that job. I can't wait to leave that job. And my goal, what I have learned how to do is, you know, if life is black and white, there's 98 shades of gray happening on the inside. So learning to find the gray within your life is the goal. And sometimes that gray may be, I'm gonna start a new podcast, I'm gonna start a new painting, I'm gonna, those are my gray zones. I've allowed myself to have some gray zones. Um, so when I think when I talk about my stabilizing, so I I grew up in this alcoholic, crazy, narcissistic just battle zone, um, which I made a lot of jokes about. I learned how to deal with that. I was funny. I, you know, I was the life of the party, I became the hot mess, I became the mean girl. Like there was all these different facets I became at the time. And and so when I ended up hitting my bottom, it wasn't really a bottom that happened then because I was already at the bottom. I had no self-worth, I had no self-esteem. And you would think that you know, I had done over a couple hundred commercials as a kid, and I was on little TV shows and doll voices, and that I would be feeling good about myself. But I was raised to do these things so I appear good. Like it's all a show. That's the show, that's the acting, that's the Instagramming. Make everybody think you feel good and you look good, and your life is amazing. Because if they think so, maybe I'll think so. So I've spent my life living on the outside trying to feel good on the inside, and my funnel was on backwards. It's like my glasses were upside down, they were inside out, and so I got to have some horrible things happen. Like I've had, you know, my my father killed himself, my mother died on downtown LA drunk, you know, I've overdosed over and over, I've been raped. I talk about this stuff. This is stuff that's gotten me closer to my core, which is I'm not a bad girl, I'm a very wounded little girl that needs self-I need to be reparented. I didn't get that from mom and dad. And it's not Instagram that's supposed to parent me or the guy or the money or the car or the food or the clothes or the bit, whatever you keep trying to get, more, more, more, more. Because, like you said, you know, that there's the teeth are rotting inside. It looks good on the outside, the bathroom looks amazing, but you got black mold under there, you can't even see. Yep. Um go ahead.

SPEAKER_01 11:53

No, I was just thinking, like, it's such a common theme on this show, where people get to this place where it looks like

Addiction As Symptom, Not Cause

SPEAKER_01 12:02

they've made it, and then they're like, I hated it. I tore it all down, and I was like, I need to, I need to rebuild this, I want to do it the right way. And what I really love about your example from black to white is that black and white are all colors and the absence of color. And so, in between black and white, in addition to grays, is all the colors, all the colors live there. How exciting, right? Yeah, so you get to be in that in that kaleidoscope of colors.

SPEAKER_00 12:32

So you turn your mess into a message, you turn your pain into passion, and all of a sudden it becomes my purpose. Like, how can I help somebody? I don't want to do it for you. You know, we think if I go to my therapist, everything will be okay. I don't know, honey. They're just gonna sit there, uh-huh. It's like in the Charlie Brown, like, okay, good, they heard me, but uh, it's learning how to hear yourself.

SPEAKER_01 13:02

And it's not just going to the psychologist or the therapist, it's doing the work.

SPEAKER_00 13:08

Yeah, and the work doesn't have to be hard. It can, you know, if you turn it into, you know, when you were a kid, you used to uh I I know for me that I had would have chores, right? You get chores from your parents, and you can either go in into it, like, oh, I hate my parents, I always have chores, or you start to sing a song, or you start, you know, dancing around while you're doing the sweeping and the dishes, and it's all in how you approach it. And the wonderful thing about having a coach, which I have had a handful, is they've helped me see outside of myself to see inside of myself. Does that make sense?

SPEAKER_01 13:53

Yes, yeah, yeah, yeah. And the first step of that that we all have to come to, right? From hating doing the dishes to loving it, the first thing we have to do, and I'm sure this is gonna sound familiar, accept it. And acceptance, no one said you had to like it. Exactly. You have to accept it. Like this is good, this is something you know, like the dishes, right? Not my favorite thing to do. I hated doing the dishes, but then one day you have to really sit down and have a talk with yourself and be like, the dishes are never going away. Every every day, and every day there's gonna be dishes.

SPEAKER_00 14:27

How lucky am I to have dishes? Exactly. You change that perspective, yeah. And it doesn't take one person, it takes a village. Like I have to look at all the time. I remember I was 16 years old and I was living in a warehouse in Compton. I had nowhere to live. I had had this career where good girl turns bad because I realized all my money was being taken, and I got angry and that hating myself because I was this mask over and over and over. I just needed to break out. And people do that now, they just break out. But you know how you said you have to destroy everything, burn it down. What I have learned how to do, I don't have to burn it down, I have to acknowledge that I have a match, and I have, or I can either burn it down or I can appreciate that I can move it over. And that's kind of a weird kind of because I always thought I had to, I loved it really great, and then I destroyed my life, and I feel really good about building it up because I kept building from the outside in. So I was living in this warehouse, and this woman said to me, and I got a job making drawers, you know, at a furniture factory, because I couldn't, I had nine, been to line nine high schools at this time, and I doubt. And she said to me, 'You have such a great brain. What are you gonna do with that?' There's my first little angel thought. So it's it's building on those little, like, wow, you're pretty smart, instead of, oh no, no, no, no, no, I'm not, I'm stupid. Like it's practicing the art of receiving, like practice saying thank you. Yes, thank you, instead of oh no, because then what I'm telling them is they're stupid, they're wrong, they don't know what they're talking about. So I not only insult myself, I insult the person who gives me a compliment. Wow, yes. So I started saying, Wow, really? Thanks, and so I started building on that. I decided to go back to col to school. I lied

Stabilizing After Chaos

SPEAKER_00 16:40

to get into college. It was back in the day, you can say, Yeah, yeah, my diploma's in the mail, it's in the mail. We can't get through that today. Sorry, guys. And I ended up going to college and going to nursing school, and then I went to art school, and then I went to film school, and I I wanted to, I wanted, I kept giving myself opportunities to say thank you. Because when you complete somebody, something people go, Wow, that's great. Thank you. I didn't hear a lot of thank yous as a kid. I heard you better make this commercial or your brothers and sisters are gonna starve. Do you want that to happen? It's like temporarily, you know. How about parent parentification?

SPEAKER_01 17:23

That's not your job to feed your siblings, right?

SPEAKER_00 17:27

But you know, I got I look back at that and I've really um I view things as a gift. How lucky am I to have had that? How lucky am I that I had a mother who left me without food? Like, how can I find the good in that? Let me tell you, I am one resourceful girl, I am one resilient woman, I am one strong, and I have learned how to depend on a power other than myself I call God because I only got like 15 ideas. God is infinite, and so I pray to that source and go, you know what, God, I have no idea what to do. Can you give me a sign? And then I pay attention, meaning I have to put effort into it, and all of a sudden I think, wow, that person just said they had a room for it. Where'd that come from? It's getting yourself out of the hole that you dig. So important. Yeah, so I I I'm big at encouraging people that to hey pop to find, you know, not even just find your voice, but to allow, give yourself permission to live from the inside out instead of having to go to the outside in. Because there's so much good stuff inside of every one of us. You know, if God's made us in his image and we're in he's inside of us, or she or it, whatever you want to call it, man, tap into that source. Don't go to some knucklehead, some bonehead out there, some guy who's never gonna make you feel good, or some girl that's gonna make you hurt, or that job that you don't really like. Like, just how can I add to the world? And then how can I feel what the world has already added to me?

SPEAKER_01 19:19

And I think it's what you what you brought up is so important, and that appreciation, you know, one of my biggest things is gratitude. Um, because gratitude brings you here in the moment. This is what I have, I love it, I enjoy it. And it doesn't mean that you're not striving for something else, because a lot of times people are like, but I I don't I don't want just this, and I'm like, gratitude isn't about just this, because you have this, whatever it is, you you have that, and so if you appreciate that, well, what more can come from that appreciation, right? Because it's like an energy thing, just like you were saying, if someone gives you a compliment and you reject it, you're telling the universe, I don't want, I don't want things, I don't want people to bring me stuff because eventually people won't give you compliments anymore because you never take them, or they won't bring you like a free lunch because you will, you know, like you're always in a bad mood. So I'm not gonna give them the you know the other half of my sandwich. And so it's just these tiny little things where when we when we focus on appreciation, on gratitude, on bringing ourselves into the moment, on realizing bringing back what you said in the beginning. Um, my mom died when I was one and a half, but I grew up surrounded by alcoholics, like her parents um were, you know, like my grandma. I remember she always had her little plastic cup, and in the afternoon she'd have it. But then my grandpa would have to get kicked out of the house. She would kick him out because he would start acting crazy. All of this is in my book, too. Um, and so I grew up surrounded by that. That was just a Saturday night. That was just normal. And like you said, getting out of that environment, the first thing that happened is you're in panic mode.

unknown 21:00

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 21:00

Because you've always been in this trauma, you've always been in this, and someone's drunk, and so they're gonna be angry about something or someone's stressed out, and

Receiving Compliments And Reparenting

SPEAKER_01 21:10

then you get into this environment, you you know, you raise your vibrations, you practice gratitude, and you get into this new environment and it's safe, and you have no idea what to do. Because you've never been here before, and you're like, I'm about to fuck this up, and then you you start self-sabotaging if you're not careful, right? If you're not paying attention to what's going on in here. Um, because at the end of the day, that drinking, the the drugs, the sleeping with random people, the all the things, the addictions that you talked about, you know, porn, anything, any addiction, those are symptoms, right? That's not the problem. That's a symptom of the problem. You're you're covering up, and like, you know, from being growing up around alcoholics, it's not may not be true for every single one, but that's what I've learned is there's something deep. And so I want to commend you first and foremost for breaking those generational chains, that generational trauma. Because you just you standing up and facing it and saying, enough is enough. I'm not gonna let this pass here. Because imagine, I can only imagine like all the stuff your mom was going through, like how how mean her mom must have been.

SPEAKER_00 22:23

Well, you know what's so crazy is you know, hurt people hurt people, as we know. Yes, and you know, I am a I I gave up the victim victim meetings. I stopped speaking that language because I have power now. You know, when I'm you when you're in that continuous trauma, that's why I said no longer leading with your wound. I don't even know I'm leading with it. I think this is just my life, this is what I've been dealt. And you know, I too grew up with around the alcoholism and the crazy, and then I became a part of the circus until I said, you know what, I don't feel good anymore. You know, and tapping into my mind, I have a fractured mind, I have a hurt mind. I've been hurt by the disease of alcoholism, so I'm fractured, my mind is deformed. I see things differently. You know, I you you see craziness and you're like, that's just life, and then you have some normal persons going, Oh my god, you're in a you're too drama for me. And I'm like, okay, you know, and so learning how to, you know, for me, it's been a many, many, many years of do doing that instead of relying on my thoughts, I go to my heart mind. That's where God lives, and I gotta be, I gotta be gentle with myself. I didn't have that kind, loving parenting. So I get to prepare, I get to reparent myself. Like I make mistakes, and you know, the first thing is you fucking, you know, I go to and then it's like, oopsie, it's okay, honey. It's okay. You're not a mistake, it's okay. Oh well, oh, I broke the disc. I broke, I knocked the lamp over. My husband goes, Oh my god. And I go, oopsie, like, okay, where's the there is no longer I'm no longer in that reptilian brain. The reptilian brain is about survival, and we're up in that survival ecosystem, and all of a sudden you're like, I'm not there anymore. It's okay, it's not nobody died, nobody got hurt, everything's okay. It's like I got I need to soothe and self-soothe myself because I can't get it out there. Yeah, the porn doesn't do it, baby. The chopping poshmark doesn't do it, you know. Go, go, go, go. I mean, uh it's not that I'm tired because I'm not tired, I've just made a decision to retire myself, meaning I no longer have to be that woman anymore. And I do it one day at a time, I do it one conversation at a time, you know, and I get to lead people away from the wound, you know. Let's identify it. What's your biggest? Oops, like I'm terrified. I'm not enough. There's my biggest one. I'll never make it. I don't know where I'm going to, but I'm never gonna make it, right? That's my original wound that I get to. I get to, you notice it's the wording, I get to feel a new existence and live a different life. And I surround myself with people that are in that vibe, you know.

SPEAKER_01 25:30

So yes, yeah, and it's so hard to hang out with people who are not, like it just becomes so simple. Like, I just I can't be around you. Like, I mean, I wish you the best and good luck, but I can't think of this.

SPEAKER_00 25:43

Awesome. That's so, but like I've said, the first thing I said is if we all sat on one side of the boat,

Gratitude, Presence, And Energy

SPEAKER_00 25:50

I need people like these people that are just like, oh wow, just you know, go to the doctor, get another med, get another pill, get another vex, get another whatever, it'll fix you.

SPEAKER_01 26:01

And I but what I mean is we don't have to be around those people, like it and it's voices, and it's it's different because as you raise your vibrations, as you're practicing gratitude, as you're becoming more positive, the the little nuances become more apparent, right? Because you know, they'll say something and you'll be like, Oh, you can fix it like that, and they'll be like, No, I don't want to fix it, I just want to complain. And you're like, Oh, okay, I'm in a fixing mood, you know, and like you know, you're gonna kind of stew in your misery.

SPEAKER_00 26:33

You're victimese, you're speaking victimese today. Oh, I'm sorry, I can't understand it. Exactly. I don't speak that language anymore.

SPEAKER_01 26:41

Oopsie, yeah, and it's just it becomes easier, you know, because um anyway. Um, okay, so you did mention um you had something. You you told me about something. You had a gift for the audience, if I'm not mistaken. You said something about a call. So can you tell us a little bit about that?

SPEAKER_00 27:03

Uh well, um, you know, I I I encourage you guys if you want to reach out to me and ask any questions and what have you. I I'm very all about how can I add to the universe? You know, I do have boundaries on time, but I love sharing and giving because you know, some of my biggest healing happened from a complete stranger. And I believe that God does that, He pops people in our life because I'm all about helping you crack the egg, it's not about someone else doing it for you. So you can always reach me. There's ways to reach me. You know, I have I have a few books that are beginning or gonna be um published soon. One is Peanuts to Percocet, notes on a Hollywood childhood. I love it. You know, cartoon character peanuts, Percocet, first overdose. Yeah. Um, and then I have a couple children's books. But if you need to get a hold of me, you can get me on book, HillaryPowers.live. You can contact me there. I am also on Instagram, uh, I'm on LinkedIn, and please reach out to me and ask me any question, and I can help you get guided back towards yourself. And uh so much.

SPEAKER_01 28:21

And those links are going to be available down below in the show notes for anyone who's wondering. And then social media, how can we follow you, stay in touch with you?

SPEAKER_00 28:30

Well, you know, I'm on Instagram, of course. Hillary Mombugger Powers. Um, you can always contact me on that. And like I said, I'm on, you know, I'm on TikTok too. But um, yeah, yeah. And LinkedIn. And LinkedIn, I'm on LinkedIn also. I said you can get me on book um HillaryPowers.live that will access my LinkedIn and it will access my information. So yes, I'm all about how can I add to the universe? And you know, when you have been hurt over and over again, allowing yourself to receive is a really big gift. So, you know, allowing yourself to receive some comfort and some relief is probably the nicest thing you can do. That's not leading with your wound. So anyhow, thank you. I really appreciate you inviting me on this.

SPEAKER_01 29:29

Yes, of course. All right, final tip. Uh, that was a great one, but like what's the big, big tip, the final thing, like the one that clients are like, I'm so glad that I'm working with you because this is the best advice I've ever got.

SPEAKER_00 29:42

I think one of the biggest tips is don't take yourself so seriously. Love it. There's this old saying, Rule 62, don't take yourself so seriously. I think my life is the worst, my pain is the worst. But the truth of the matter is, we all got a story. And if you can take your story to help someone else get rid of their story, too, you know, that your pain is not useless. Like you gotta, like you were saying, where's the gratitude? Thank God my mom did

Boundaries, Vibes, And Victim Language

SPEAKER_00 30:15

what she did. Man, how lucky am I? And looking at the good in everything you have, because I'm gonna tell you, there are some people that have it worse, but gratitude, have a gratitude, an attitude of gratitude, and your life will start clicking.

SPEAKER_01 30:31

I love it, and yeah, I love it. Let's end it with that. That was fantastic. So, thank you so much, Hillary. This has been absolutely wonderful, and we will catch you guys next time on the next episode of Overcome Yourself.

SPEAKER_00 30:44

And thank you guys, have the best day ever. Yes, love it. Thanks. Bye. Bye.