Sara Banyan, actress and film-maker, discussing childhood trauma

Transcript

Melanie Suzanne Wilson (00:00)

Welcome, Sarah Banyan, to the podcast. It is an honour to have you here and, and you have quite a story. So let's dive right in, and I'm ready to hear what's your story.

Sara Banyan (00:18)

Woo, thank you, Melanie, it's so nice to meet you. ⁓ So my story is like everyone, we all have incredible stories of how we've gotten here, so I'm gonna try and keep mine very brief. ⁓ I grew up in a small town in Northern California, I became an actress, I worked in film and TV, and ⁓ I started developing a coaching system. And started working with a ton of actors, athletes, hosts, and entertainers. At the same time, while I was succeeding, it was like the duck underwater, you know, just constantly paddling, paddling, paddling, and feeling like I was just swimming to stay afloat because of my own struggle with depression, with confusion, with physical, emotional, psychological, and sexual issues that were arising from something that I couldn't figure out. And being a child of two shrinks, I did have access to some incredible psychiatric care, but no one was. I got a lot of people diagnosing me, but a lot of different things happening; I was consistent. No one could figure it out. And I just knew that most, that I had a lot of highs, but

Melanie Suzanne Wilson (01:36)

No one could figure that.

Sara Banyan (01:45)

I also struggled to want to like be here a lot of the time. And it wasn't that I wanted to kill myself, it's that I was struggling to want to live. And I couldn't understand a well of pain inside of me. And in my early 40s, I was seeing a psychiatrist in Los Angeles for over a year and a half. And he finally said, I think what we're dealing with is trauma. And he said specifically pre-verbal. And that… then he referred me to a colleague of his who specialised in extreme trauma. And I was like, ‘What is going on?’ Back then, this was nine, 10 years ago, people weren't really talking about trauma the way we talk about it now. And so I would have done anything. I would have seen anyone. I saw a lot of different people. I saw Shaman. I saw Jungian Dream Analysis. I saw...

Melanie Suzanne Wilson (02:29)

True.

Sara Banyan (02:42)

Therapists, mental health professionals, psychiatrists, psychologists, ⁓ everything. And Will, the man who I met, Will Randall, is the one who changed my life. And his therapy and the way that he worked with me in a very non-traditional way immediately changed everything. And that's when I started having flashbacks. And it was basically revealed that, you know, I had...

Melanie Suzanne Wilson (02:46)

Everything.

Sara Banyan (03:10)

Two people had done terrible things to me when I was a child.

Melanie Suzanne Wilson (03:12)

Were you just remembering it then? Did you not even remember things before?

Sara Banyan (03:17)

I would have flashbacks, but I didn't know what they were.

Melanie Suzanne Wilson (03:25)

You didn't know that it was a memory?

Sara Banyan (03:27)

I did not know it was a memory. I disassociated so intensely to survive the abuse that I was so fragmented early on, and then I just started fragmenting more and more, and traditional psychotherapy only fragmented me more because I would have to act in order to survive. Like I couldn't, if I accessed the pain that I felt, was scary. People, it was too scary. My mother was terrified by it.

Because I would go into screaming rages and scratch and pull my hair out, and it was it was really rough

Melanie Suzanne Wilson (04:03)

How old were you when you were scratching and screaming?

Sara Banyan (04:07)

It was around nine that my system started exploding. So up until the time from me being a toddler to nine years old, my system was like trying to handle the abuse in the best way that it could, but it kept kind of glitching and kept, I kept trying to fit in, kept trying to be okay, kept trying to act how my parents wanted me to act. But inside, something was not okay. It was not right. And finally, at nine, my system just overloaded, and I went to school and ate some poison.

Melanie Suzanne Wilson (04:43)

some poison.

Sara Banyan (04:44)

A poison plant, yes. ⁓ But it was seen as an attempt that I wasn't really serious about trying to kill myself. I don't know if I'm allowed to say this here. ⁓

Melanie Suzanne Wilson (04:47)

What happened there?

You'll say anything. And that's actually the good thing about this long conversation. I think that so many things don't get said, and people don't get the chance to just unpack things or piece the puzzle together, whichever way you want to put it. let's go for it.

Sara Banyan (05:00)

Is that.

Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. So I ate a poison plant, much like what Socrates was given. You know, I was a dramatic kid, but I was also trying to cope and trying to survive. And the abuse wasn't picked up on ⁓ nor would it be. Why would anyone think that something so horrific and vile could be happening to a child? But this is happening to children all over the world. It is an epidemic.

Melanie Suzanne Wilson (05:42)

Do you, and we don't have to delve more deeply than you want to, but do you know approximately what age you were, and do you know, was it a friend? Was it at a daycare? Do you remember how this even happened?

Sara Banyan (05:59)

Yeah, it's still muddy because my mom will not, she's still foggy. She had three of us within a year and a half of each other. Yeah. And she was young and alone, and like being a mom is like one of the hardest jobs on the planet, I think. So having three kids under the age of four is like, what the heck? know? ⁓ So.

Melanie Suzanne Wilson (06:10)

Whoa!

Sara Banyan (06:28)

What she thinks is that she took me to a neighbour’s house ⁓ and that they were taking care of me, and my mom was late to come pick me up, and they had to leave. So they took me to another neighbour’s house. That’s the memory that I first surfaced was of what I remembered was a castle, and I could see the stone walls. And so I asked my mom if she had ever picked me up from a castle.

And she knew exactly where I was, she knew exactly who it was and the name of the people and that the fact that she did pick me up when I was a baby, and I was inconsolable. ⁓ And so I have flash, I've had the flashbacks of what physically happened, which I won't get into because that could be way too triggering for your listeners. ⁓ But I think it is important to share our stories. I think it is important to be honest about what happened. But from that castle memory and then my mom knowing, we sort of started putting pieces together. And what transpired is it was before I had words to talk. So I wasn't able to say something bad happened.

Melanie Suzanne Wilson (07:33)

So.

Yeah, it's when you couldn't talk. And so then a feeling was emerging years later, but it sounds like by that point, he couldn't really articulate what was going on.

Sara Banyan (07:59)

I had no idea. I just knew that something was wrong with me. I knew that I was different. I knew that I would go days, weeks without talking unless I had to. I was painfully shy. I wet my bed. I sucked my thumb. I would secretly eat. I was constantly trying now, in hindsight, to self-soothe. ⁓ What happened was, in the abuse, I was completely detached from my true self.

And in my mom not being able to pick up on the abuse, she was never able to attach. She was never able to bond. She was never able to soothe me. So I spent most of my life with the repercussions of what this type of abuse can do, which causes hypersexuality way too young, way too young. It messes with ⁓ your spirituality because

For me, I didn't trust that I was safe. I didn't trust that anyone could hear me. ⁓ It messed with me physically because you can't see these scars. I call them the invisible scars of sexual trauma. You can't see them. And so it's really hard for people to sort of understand that this abuse and the ramifications of this abuse are affecting us in every single.

Melanie Suzanne Wilson (09:26)

in every way.

Sara Banyan (09:28)

Yeah. Physically, emotionally, spiritually, psychologically, sexually.

Melanie Suzanne Wilson (09:33)

There's so much to go into here. And I think that it's worth sort of exploring some of these angles before then looking at how you communicate with everybody else, because I think that's important as well.

It affected you physically and spiritually. Let's delve into the spiritual side for a second. Was it that you couldn't trust the world?

Sara Banyan (09:59)

Yeah. If God existed, how could he allow something so heinous and evil to happen? I was not safe. My world was upside down. And so while I wanted to talk to God, my parents weren't very religious. I was raised celebrating Christmas, but then told we were Jewish. So we started celebrating Hanukkah, but church and God wasn't a part of my growing up. I just developed my own relationship with God.

As I begin healing, what I realised is it's really hard to have faith when your trust has been broken. And so I had to find ways as an adult to start putting in systems so that I could feel safe, and then putting in spiritual practice in a way that felt good for me so that I could learn to re-trust and have direct conversations with spirit.

God, universe, Buddha, Jesus, whatever it is that you want to call it. ⁓ Yeah, go ahead.

Melanie Suzanne Wilson (11:07)

And that’s probably really important for everybody, including people who went through something significant, because I heard from the 12-step world that I'm not a part of that they aim to just believe in something greater than themselves. And I love the simplicity of that because then whatever you trust in, it's giving you something bigger than you, because we can feel really powerless. So, when you considered spirituality, did it help you to feel a bit less powerless?

Sara Banyan (11:42)

It feels powerful and full. ⁓ When I speak with God, which is daily, constantly, all the time, ⁓ I feel love inside. I feel radiance. I feel light. I feel less alone. ⁓ And it's not that I go...

It's developing trust and faith in a way that I think trauma can really mess with when you've dealt with it as a child or young adult or adult, a teenager or adult. At any age, when something heinous or horrible happens, our faith and trust is broken. And how we choose to repair and heal that, I think, can be very personal but most worthwhile.

The way forward with healing has to be with great spiritual practice.

Melanie Suzanne Wilson (12:47)

How did you teach yourself to trust people?

Sara Banyan (12:53)

By starting to learn how to trust myself. Which meant I had to interrupt the cycle of me getting people to like me or paying people to like me or surrounding myself with people, but always giving more than they gave because I was so insecure. I didn't trust myself or trust that people would actually like me. And so I had to turn what I wanted, trust with other people and start by learning to trust myself. And that I've spent the past couple of years really working on.

Very quietly, spent some holidays alone. And when you learn to face yourself and love yourself and give yourself what it is that you want in your life, things really start to shift and change.

Melanie Suzanne Wilson (13:47)

You learned to trust yourself.

I’m curious, and I'm sort of handling this one so delicately, but I think that there are so many versions of trauma that can lead people in a similar direction. And so I'm really keen to ask learning to trust yourself. How did you at what point did you realise that you didn't trust yourself, and how did it help you professionally and personally, and well to change that, and how did you get back to trusting yourself?

Sara Banyan (14:30)

Well, I never trusted myself, so it wasn't getting back to anywhere. I was taught not to trust ourselves, myself. I think a lot of us are. I think a lot of us are taught to come from a place of fear, doubt, and insecurity. We're not raised to be warriors, especially as women.

Because my abuse rendered me helpless, because no one saved me, I kept wanting someone to save me. So in my head, I thought everyone knew better than me. Even though I'm a trailblazer, I'm a disruptor, like I have created methods that have changed people's lives in a very short amount of time, I still thought that I didn't know as I didn't know as well as other people would. So I hired someone to maybe run my company, and I thought that person should know way better than me. And the truth is, no, I can figure it out and that no one is gonna care more about you than you care about yourself. So I had to start learning how to care for myself, and that meant learning how to trust myself, learning how to not overdrink, not overspend.

To live within a budget, to learn how to trust my inner voice saying, ‘No, I'd like to go to bed now’, or ‘No, I do want some ice cream’, or it's tuning into a voice of truth that's saying, here's what works for me, versus doing it for someone else. That was a very convoluted answer, but.

Melanie Suzanne Wilson (16:14)

No, it said so much. And yeah, it really

Sara Banyan (16:17)

Really?

Melanie Suzanne Wilson (16:20)

And I'm able to just piece things together in a way that can help anyone, just based on what you're saying. This is great. ⁓ You mentioned the overspending. How was that tied in?

Sara Banyan (16:30)

Yeah.

Melanie Suzanne Wilson (16:32)

With everything else.

Sara Banyan (16:34)

The idea that something outside of you can make it better.

Melanie Suzanne Wilson (16:40)

Was it fine?

Sara Banyan (16:40)

The idea that something outside of ourselves can make us feel better.

Melanie Suzanne Wilson (16:47)

⁓ My goodness.

Sara Banyan (16:49)

Right?

And that's not true. It's not. Matter of fact, the more stuff we buy, I believe, the worse we feel.

It doesn't feel good. Stuff doesn't feel good for us energetically. So I was in an unhappy relationship, and I kept buying things for like another pair of pyjamas, another pair of shoes, another product for my hair. Constantly spending money to get a dopamine hit, to open a package or to think, aha, this is gonna fix it. This is gonna make it better.

When now, instead of buying something, I'm very conscious about where I buy it. I'm very conscious about where I spend. And I catch myself and go, ‘Is this something I really need?’ And if so, is it filling a void that I need to like, need to talk to and self-soothe instead of purchasing?

Melanie Suzanne Wilson (17:54)

Yes. Are you trying to fill a gap by buying things when they're not going to fill the gap?

Sara Banyan (18:03)

Right, right, exactly. Am I trying to numb, medicate, or placate? Am I trying to make myself feel better? ⁓ Especially when we go to social media and we're inundated with ads for all these things that you think you need, all these products, all these courses. And the truth is, it's all just stimuli that's clouding and confusing our true, authentic selves and our relationship with Spirit, Source, and God.

Melanie Suzanne Wilson (18:32)

And you mentioned people pleasing. I'm just going to go in every direction because we did, and this is perfect. You mentioned people pleasing, and you also worked in acting. So I'm so curious about that because I can get inspired by you a bit. I came from a public speaking background, ⁓ but you did acting, and I'm wondering, was there a sense of perhaps enjoying the attention or enjoying just being a part of something? I'm wondering what sort of acting really resonated with you, and were there some scars appearing as you were doing that work?

Sara Banyan (19:18)

No, I just learned how to act better. I mean, that was like the training, right? Is you're supposed to go into the scars and, but I didn't, I just became a better actor. And I was a very good actor. I did a lot of film and a lot of TV. I don't talk about that part anymore, but like, cause I say that there's a place called hell and then underneath it is the place called Hollywood.

And people think I'm joking, but the truth is it's a really intense and crazy industry that really pulls and draws a lot of really damaged people. So yes, I wanted the attention, but I also didn't. I was never really comfortable walking red carpets, the pressure on how I looked, my body, my weight. I, at heart, I think I'm an introvert. At this point, I've...

Melanie Suzanne Wilson (19:42)

My goodness.

Sara Banyan (20:09)

decided that my life is meant to be public until it's not, but like, I didn't necessarily believe in the product I was selling. Now, with the film that I have that'll come out next year, I believe you, I'll walk every carpet I need to. I'll stand on any street corner. I will be outside any theatre. I will be at as many showings as I can to support survivors in this movement. And I believe in it, so I will stand up for it. Yes.

Melanie Suzanne Wilson (20:36)

It can feel more meaningful when you're doing work that actually has a message that you believe in.

Sara Banyan (20:43)

Here's the thing. I have a letter from ⁓ a soldier who worked, a guy in the Navy who was in a submarine. And when I was on TV, he had written to me to ask if I would send an autographed picture so that they could hang it in their galley, which they could only; they were only allotted a little bit of space, and it was such an honour. There were so many times that as an actor, I was able to affect someone's life or send an autograph. I never charged for that.

But what I'm doing now, and it feels purpose-driven, is taking the trauma that I live through and knowing that everything that I found that helped me, I'm now turning it around and passing that on to other survivors, knowing it will help them. And that is something that I... You just can't... There's nothing like that feeling in the world.

Melanie Suzanne Wilson (21:38)

There really is. And I can really sense that you are focused on what message you're giving to people. You mentioned that you didn't like all the focus on your appearance on the red carpet. And I think that a lot of people can relate to that in this day and age of social media. And even there's an expectation to look a particular way, even being social in real life. So

It's worth checking on that for a second, because I feel like something really clicked when you said that I loved the creativity of various forms of expression. And yet there are moments, especially when we're younger, I think it's more so at a younger age, but there's all this talk about how something will look or how someone will look. And so

I'm wondering what was that like for you, and what can you say to people who are maybe wanting to have a personal brand without drowning in the expectations of appearances?

Sara Banyan (22:47)

Yeah, you know, we all know we live in a visual medium, but I think what's surpassed that is individuality, uniqueness, and being brave enough to be yourself in this world.

People are always gonna be drawn to a certain type of beauty. I mean, that's just how we are. And I think as we start to respect people as they get older, versus thinking getting older is a death threat, it's not. Getting older is the best. It is awesome. But as we see, especially women, like I'm 55 and I have never, I know, right? It's like, I've never felt better. I'm more in my body. I have an aching pain, but I figured it out. I am medication-free. I love my life. I feel grateful every single day.

Totally lost the point of the question. I have to circle it back. I was going on a tangent. Going to the pressure of how we look, I want people to stay away from beating yourselves up. If something doesn't feel good in your body, I want you to pay attention, and I want you to take steps to figure out how to feel better in your body. What does that look like? Does it mean more water?

Melanie Suzanne Wilson (23:51)

Tensions are fine.

Sara Banyan (24:14)

Does it mean more steps? You know, the whole like, I need to count my steps. No, tune in, get rid of the technology. You know, I mean, not get rid of it. I'm not like, get rid of it all, but like, tune in. Yeah, step back, stop letting something outside of you tell you what you need. Find what you want to say and how you want to say it, and then don't be afraid to put it out there.

Melanie Suzanne Wilson (24:26)

Step back from it.

Sara Banyan (24:42)

And don't be afraid if no one comments, or don't be afraid if two people comment or three people say negative things. And you're like, okay, I don't want to take this down. There's no right way to do things. There's just discovering your own way of how you want to do things. And that's trial and error. Give yourselves grace a lot.

Melanie Suzanne Wilson (25:05)

Give yourself some grace and free yourself from the expectation of the numbers and the comments, and the opinions that translate to so many things. So part of our freedom is just letting go of our dependence on others. That's so crucial in what I've been following lately, especially in some particular industries. 

I saw people getting very political. And I know there's a lot going on in America, but this is bigger than that. I, around here in various wellness sectors, I saw it being ultra, ultra political. And that just concerns me so much because it should be all about everybody being okay. And I think,

The thing that you said about social media that can translate into any community, any space. I've seen churches getting divided. No matter where you are, people get divided. And it sounds like part of what you're saying in recovering from the trauma and recovering from not trusting yourself is to just go with what you need and don't get so absorbed in what everybody else is going to think.

Sara Banyan (26:27)

Listen, the pus of the underbelly of our country is coming out.

Melanie Suzanne Wilson (26:35)

Okay.

Sara Banyan (26:36)

It's pus. It has to come out. We have to be brave enough to realise that this is just our watch. Like, the battle between good and evil has gone on since the beginning of man, and it will continue on way past our timetable and our lifetime. So we can get very distracted by this and that's happening, this and this. We can get reactionary versus responsive. We're reacting.

But no, I mean it like it's it's a little wackadoodle, and we’re reacting and look at what he's doing now and look at that's a waste of time. How can you respond? It’s we need to respond not react. What can I respond to? Where I can make a difference

Melanie Suzanne Wilson (27:28)

It's distracting us.

Sara Banyan (27:37)

With my personal background, what I'm responding to is not believing survivors of childhood and teen SA. And as a survivor who has found answers and can guarantee that there is hope and there is healing to be had and can share the answers, I know that we can make a huge difference if we stay focused on where we can control or where we can make a difference.

A lot of people also who are not healed are out there going, well, I need to make a difference here. I need to help this person and that person, this person or that family. You have to start with yourselves.

Melanie Suzanne Wilson (28:15)

My goodness. So there's something wounded in trying to save everybody.

Sara Banyan (28:19)

Yes.

Yes. Yes. And then we're just trauma bonding and trauma reacting. And ⁓ one of my favourite songs is You Can't Rush Your Healing, Trevor Hall. And it's true. You’ve, it's an uneven, windy path, lots of ups and downs. And, you know the saying, ‘hurt people hurt people.’ Well, if we want to interrupt that cycle,

We need to stop hurting ourselves first.

Melanie Suzanne Wilson (28:56)

So we need to focus on looking after ourselves instead of trying to. Do you think some people try to save anyone else because it might feel easier than saving themselves?

Sara Banyan (29:07)

Yes, or they feel like they don't deserve it, or they're not sure how to change it. And what I encourage people to do is just ⁓ start by first thing in the morning. Take the first 20 minutes to half hour of your day. Do not get on your phone. And just listen. Listen to what you're saying to yourselves. Just listen. How much are you focused on what you need to do? What hasn't been done? Who has? That was me. I'll talk about me personally.

When I started tuning in, I was like, this is a running list of what's not right in my life, or who hasn't texted me back, or what bill needs to be paid, or how my dog is acting. Like, it was all worry, fear, doubt-based. It wasn't filled with like, I’m grateful to be here. I am present in this moment. I am sipping this incredible cappuccino. I am, ⁓ yeah.

Melanie Suzanne Wilson (30:01)

...

just feel like dots are joining everywhere. Do you think that needs fixing, this needs fixing, around every aspect of our existence? Does that emerge, out of old traumas of any sort?

Sara Banyan (30:18)

I think so. I think so, especially if you're a child of a parent who was not there for you or a narcissist or abusive. You're constantly walking on eggshells. You're constantly having to manage or crisis manage so that there's not that next explosion or outburst or hit or silent treatment. Like you are constantly on edge. So you have been trained and groomed and taught to take care of people.

First, before yourself, because it's dangerous if you don't.

Which kids who have experienced beautiful, healthy childhoods with supportive parents, that's not necessarily their journey.

Melanie Suzanne Wilson (31:06)

Yes. And I, I know that your focus is specifically on the sort of abuse that you overcame. And, and I need to make sure that I don't branch out too much in exploring all of the types, because I think that people have gone through so much with the pandemic and then trying to, everybody is trying to get back on their feet. feel like we all took a few years to get back on our feet after all.

So we all went through a lot, but I need to really just specifically ask. Firstly, you do talk to audiences and you talk to communities. I'm wondering what advice do you normally have? Firstly, if someone tells you, if someone says to someone else, something happened to me, what advice do you have for them when maybe people might be totally not equipped?

To receive that, where should they begin?

Sara Banyan (32:08)

Great question. The first thing in the movement that I want to begin is when you hear that from someone is you say, ‘I believe you.’

I believe that something happened, and I'm so sorry.

I'm here to hold space and listen if you'd like. Or, you know, as I've told people, it can make people very uncomfortable. I'm not. I've listened to survivor stories all over the world. I've heard some of the most horrific stories of abuse that you could possibly fathom. But I know that things change when a survivor is heard and seen and listened to.

Melanie Suzanne Wilson (32:56)

Step one is to say, believe you.

Sara Banyan (32:59)

I think so.

Melanie Suzanne Wilson (33:02)

And so the first step isn't necessarily what solution do you want, it's just hear them.

Sara Banyan (33:10)

Yeah, because our job is not to fix other people.

But when we're uncomfortable around someone else's discomfort or shame, we re-traumatise. 

And it's okay to be uncomfortable. That's where we connect. And we need more of that.

Melanie Suzanne Wilson (33:34)

I'm wondering for anyone who has experienced something significant, how do they know? Should they, should they find a friend or someone they're informally connected to, or is it always the first step to do something officially or what's the first step?

Sara Banyan (34:00)

For a survivor who is experiencing maybe flashbacks or remembering abuse or knows, is listening and knows that you're a victim, where do you start? Yeah, that's a great question. ⁓ Well, number one, I want everyone to start by going to IbelieveYouFilm.com. There's a 12-minute trailer.

Melanie Suzanne Wilson (34:13)

Where do you start?

Sara Banyan (34:26)

for the film that I'm doing that will immediately actually give you some insight to this type of abuse. It's a film I went and did a three-hour interview with my former trauma specialist on studying, identifying, and understanding this type of trauma. So that film will come out next year, but the trailer is available. We're still raising funds to finish it, but we're very close. I want everyone to know that no one will know better than you what you need. Now you might have someone helping guide in moments of discomfort, but there's a lot of people out there who aren't necessarily experts just because they have the training. And as someone who went through a lot of traditional psychotherapy, it did not help me; it actually fractured me more. So, yeah.

Melanie Suzanne Wilson (35:17)

Let's look into that.

Why? What, what was getting missed in that? Because a lot of people go to normal, not normal, but traditional therapy and just feel like they're not making any progress, and then they think therapy isn't for me. They don't maybe know there are different types. So what didn't work?

Sara Banyan (35:34)

Yeah.

Being psychoanalysed, having another human being listen to some of my worst moments and me saying, ‘Do you think?’ And them saying, I don't know, what do you think? Or, how does that make you feel, Sarah? I don't know, because I don't know what happened. Like, my whole system was rewired. So working with another human being that you both know you're on the same level, because when it comes to trauma, there is no right way.

We're all trying to figure it out. Will compares it to being a balance beam that you're gonna fall off. So you don't wanna find someone who's like, is the right way for you, because it's a partnership. So number one, especially if you haven't shared your story with someone, I want you to find the right person to share it with. Sometimes when our trauma starts coming up, I wanted to share it with everyone.

Because I was like, I finally found the answers, but not everyone wants to hear it. So if you sense that you're telling someone and they start to shut down or look at their phone, immediately pivot back off, protect yourself, and recognise that person is not safe for me to tell my story to. And then find them. Not everyone's ready. And then find someone who is and go slowly.

Melanie Suzanne Wilson (36:49)

Not everybody is ready.

Sara Banyan (36:56)

You don't need to flood. You can go slowly. It's not all gonna happen overnight.

And find the podcast, the books, the time quietly with yourselves, like spending time with you. ⁓ Little things that help when it comes to going through recovery, something very simple, get a very soft blanket.

I want you to get a very soft blanket and I want you, if you wake up or you're having flashbacks, I want you to self-soothe. I want you to put that blanket on your cheek, and I want you to rock yourselves back and forth and back and forth. Let the tears out. Every time you cry, it's a disease you do not get later on in life. Let those tears out. I know it sucks, but it's worth it because on the other side is enlightenment. On the other side is hope. On the other side are the lessons. But sometimes we just have to walk through the deepest, darkest hell to find who we are and what we're made of and what we're born to do here on this lifetime.

Melanie Suzanne Wilson (38:09)

On the other side is enlightenment.

Sara Banyan (38:11)

Yes.

Melanie Suzanne Wilson (38:14)

How did you find enlightenment on the other side? Are you saying that it was easier to reach that on the other side?

Sara Banyan (38:21)

No,

nothing was easy. But that being said, one of the things that I started doing is recognising how many times I would say to myself, this is really hard. Like I'd literally just be picking something up under the corner going, God, is, why is this so hard? And in a moment I just thought, why am I saying that? This is so easy. This is so easy. And the minute I did that, whether it was in yoga or cleaning the house or paying a bill,

Be cognizant of what we're telling, what you tell yourself. If you say it's hard, it's gonna be hard. It's not.

Melanie Suzanne Wilson (38:59)

So things are literally physically more difficult when we tell ourselves that they are.

Sara Banyan (39:06)

Correct.

Melanie Suzanne Wilson (39:09)

That's really powerful. Seriously, so much of what you're saying just crosses over into so many other types of recovery. But, but I know that you have your main message. Sorry.

Sara Banyan (39:27)

I do a class called Facing the Imposter

And everyone in there has gone through all kinds of different trauma. And I believe that the imposter voice, the voice that says you're not enough, you're to this, you're not fit enough, you're not rich enough, you're never gonna be able to succeed, you always finish last, you can't finish anything, you're ugly, you're damaged. All those voices are not actually our own.

I think those have been planted or taught or trained or society, parents, school. So learning how to separate ourselves from the imposter actually creates a level of freedom. The method is, people have told me it feels like therapy on steroids. And I see massive results with this course that I've been developing over the past couple years. So I'm really excited because there's other ways to heal that's outside of traditional methodology.

Melanie Suzanne Wilson (39:57)

Absolutely.

would love to see more of that online because the imposter syndrome, it's, it's such a big issue at the moment in general. And if you're helping to overcome that, I just honestly, I felt like what you were describing was so relatable that to be real with you, normally I have the next question just stuck in my head, and it's sitting there waiting to come out. this time it's like,

I'm just so absorbed in what you're saying that everything else just floods out of my head. So, but it's nice to just to change that. ⁓ that's a good thing.

Sara Banyan (40:56)

That's being in the moment. That's great.

It is a good thing. It is a good thing. Because now you're doing an exercise where you can start trusting yourself. Where you don't have to pre-plan the question. Where you can just be present with me and know that wherever we go next, you can find it right now with me.

Melanie Suzanne Wilson (41:24)

Oh, absolutely. Absolutely. So it's okay to just empty out the mind for a moment. Gosh. I feel like you're just, you're helping so many people in all of these teachings, and that's so encouraging. Okay. But see the questions emerge as you're saying things. So one of the ones that it's coming back to me, one thing I really wanted to ask about is when you want to tell people that something happened, and maybe in general, people might be feeling like they're still bouncing back, and they want everybody to have a bit of patience for a while, but they know that not everybody will handle the whole big story, or maybe for privacy, you can't say everything. So, and I think one thing that I've been trying to understand is how to handle how other people are going to respond. So you said that some people are going to just shut down and not really engage with what you're telling them. Have you found that there are ways, I mean, your big message to your broader public that you're connected with is that you had a trauma. So I'm guessing that some people will just not know how to respond to that, or it could even prompt them to feel really emotional if it's triggering something for them, or they feel extra sensitive. So, how do you navigate sharing your truth in a way that people can basically handle and interact?

Sara Banyan (43:03)

I was an actress, so I had to read the room ⁓ and know my audience. Listen, when I first started telling my story, people didn't want to hear it. They don't want to hear it. It's very uncomfortable for people. But I was pressured to talk about it because I was uncomfortable.

I'm not uncomfortable anymore. It's my story, it's my truth, and this is what happened, and it changed my life. It's made me who I am today. And I would rather sit and talk to someone who was violently ⁓ molested than talk to someone about the weather. That's just who I am. I don't need to talk about the weather. For as long as I live. Doesn’t matter. It's the weather. It's beautiful. I accept all kinds of weather. But I want to know your story. I want to know your truth. I want to know where you were in one of the worst days of your life, if you want to share it with me. But not everyone wants to go there. Now, people are fascinated by it. But I think the most important thing is to get comfortable in it first with yourself. And if someone reacts in a way that doesn't feel good, don't let it hurt you. Don't let how other people react to your story affect you. It's lovely when people have connected with me over it, but I can't take the time to manage the people who aren't okay with my story. I need to power through and do whatever it takes so that I can live an authentic life. And how people respond is none of my business. It's none of my business.

Melanie Suzanne Wilson (44:45)

Part of your empowerment is not being responsible for how everybody receives your truth.

That’s going to be really crucial. So I'm really keen to ask more about making the movie. So what happened for a moment? I'm curious. How did you get about starting to make the movie? How did you decide that this was the format and the time in history, and so on to express your story in this way? And well, how did you make it?

Sara Banyan (45:29)

After I finished my therapy with Will, I knew I wanted to share his work with the world. And he's a phenomenal storyteller, and I trust him. I trust him, and when people watch it, they'll trust him too because you can tell when someone is authentic and his intention is to help people, as is mine. I opened a credit card, I flew to Ohio, I hired a crew, I directed it.

I produced it, I just did it. I'm someone who doesn't really know the next step; I just take it. And if I happen to fall, I look at where I can learn the lessons, but I kind of just make it up as I go along. That’s the, people will tell you, Sarah never really knows her next step, she just keeps taking it. So it's, I didn't know what it was gonna be, I just knew that I wanted to share.

his words and over the past three years it has changed, it has morphed, it has grown and now it is what was advised to me by the 501C that's fiscally sponsoring me, we want a mental health impact award, is that this is a movement and the movement is I believe you and those being the most important words that we can say to survivors. There's so many projects out there about the pedophiles and about the people who are doing this but I know that I can't change them. What I can do is help the victims and I can empower victims, and I can help victims understand and navigate this world when maybe they felt alone. And I just keep figuring it out as I go along.

Melanie Suzanne Wilson (47:16)

Three words, I believe you, it's going to become your slogan maybe. And it's, it's a simplified one thing that everybody can do, and you don't have to do anything.

So it sounds like you just dove in and made the film with what you know, like the back of your hand, after so much acting.

Sara Banyan (47:43)

I'll send it to you, I'll send you, we still have to do final sound and color mixing, but you'll see.

Melanie Suzanne Wilson (47:51)

Amazing, thank you so much.

Sara Banyan (47:53)

No, I thank you. Thank you for being willing to talk about this subject and going deep. And I think, you know, it's the beginning.

Melanie Suzanne Wilson (48:04)

It is. I'm wondering when the film comes out, where will people be able to access it?

Sara Banyan (48:10)

That I'm not sure. Again, I don't know. I've been working on the companion book. So when I Believe You comes out, I'll also have a book called The Language of Invisible Scars. And that is gonna be a companion book to here's the trauma, here are exercises, here's how to basically begin to heal ourselves physically, emotionally, psychologically, sexually, spiritually.

⁓ So it's all just kind of like trusting earth time versus me trying to go like, it should be here or there. The right people will emerge, the right platform will come, and the movement that we will create of believing survivors will take on a different speed, and it's time.

Melanie Suzanne Wilson (49:01)

What you're doing is even inspiring people to make something and share their story before they have the permission of a major platform. You didn't sit around and wait for Netflix to approach you. You just, on your own, did this.

Sara Banyan (49:14)

No.

Yes.

Melanie Suzanne Wilson (49:19)

You don't have the Netflix, the networks, the cinemas, whoever. You just made it. Be independent.

That's a really great idea. Do you think that, ⁓ so what's one call to action now since the film isn't out yet? Should people go to your website? They need to listen to the trailer.

Sara Banyan (49:44)

Yeah, watch the trailer and you'll get a really good idea. It'll also hook you up with my newsletter. ⁓ And ⁓ again, I think for a lot of survivors, those 12 minutes give a little bit of insight and relief. Just wait, we have 55 minutes coming soon. So it's www.ibelieveyoufilm.com.

Melanie Suzanne Wilson (50:09)

Amazing. Thank you so much for your honesty, and honestly, you're smiling and you're looking like you are fine. And that has been such a joy. You shared such a raw truth, and yet you're doing okay, which shows that anyone else can be okay and bounce back like you have.

Sara Banyan (50:19)

Yes.

We don't bounce back, ⁓ we break, and then we find and then we become. And it's in the becoming that we walk into a level of enlightenment that I don't think anyone who has not experienced trauma can achieve. That's just my personal opinion. I think survivors will change the world, and I can't wait to see that.

Melanie Suzanne Wilson (50:58)

My goodness. Survivors will change the world. Sarah, thank you.

Sara Banyan (51:03)

My pleasure, Melanie. Thank you.