Writer offers healing, hope through radio show
By LISA CRAWFORD WATSON
Herald Correspondent
Posted: 10/22/2010
Sandy Brewer had to get out. But it was going to take some growing up before she could manage it, which meant she had to survive it.
More than once, she almost didn't, which actually might have been the easiest way out. But no one told her life would be easy, and with each insult or injury, she seemed only to get stronger.
The abuse began before she was old enough to remember it and continued too long for her to ever forget. But somehow, she grew up. Somehow, she got out. And somehow, she has figured out how to deal with a childhood darker than any nightlight could help.
"I was severely abused by my parents as a child," said Brewer, "and I came close to death more than once. I was raped countless times, both cruelly and sadistically. I had my father's child when I was 13, and the baby died in my arms.
"The entire situation in my home was controlled by my mother, which left me no place to turn. When you're getting raped nightly, verbally skewered daily, there's little room for contemplation. My life was about survival."
Although she has written a book about it, this isn't a story of abuse. This is the tale of one woman's "pursuit of light" and the "extraordinary journey" that has brought Brewer out of the darkness and into a life so clear, so vital, so purposeful that she has been able to help others find the same path.
Brewer was 18 when she bought a Buick. By her early 30s, she had learned that she is more than the sum of her experiences. At 41, she received her Ph.D. in psychology, focusing on human behavior sciences, from Golden State University.
Each was another stepping stone along her personal path toward healing.
In 2007, the teacher, counselor and lecturer wrote and published "Pursuit of Light: An Extraordinary Journey," a memoir that explores her trajectory from the childhood she was given to the adulthood she has chosen.
In 2009, she and John Brewer, her husband of 27 years, found the freedom to move anywhere they wanted in the world and chose Pacific Grove.
Since then, she has launched "The Sandy Brewer Show," a radio show broadcast through KXRA 540 AM and streamed live at sandybrewershow.com.
Airing on Saturdays from 4 to 5p.m., hers is a call-in talk show designed to inform and inspire listeners.
"Although I love my speaking engagements across the country," she said. "I am delighted to be off the road for a few months. If I could draw my dream job, it is radio. I can reach a lot of people in an informal setting and, by using examples and the dialogue we create, it is so much easier to learn.
"My radio show doesn't exist, unless I have a point of view, which is how do we support each other and how do we more through the places where we get stuck, without getting polarized. It's about being proactive instead of reactive, which gives us the freedom to be safe and emotionally naked at the same time.
"I am the positive alternative to Dr. Laura [Schlessinger], the anti-Dr. Laura, which means we don't have to put anybody down to lift ourselves up and find our truth."
Although Brewer doesn't recommend her history as the ideal therapeutic approach to finding a greater truth inside, she does feel blessed to be able to get through the dark side of her life and find a point of healing, to get to a place where she could understand that she is greater than her experiences.
She learned through time and effort, that her life is defined not by her experiences, but by what she does with them. She came to understand, through practice, that she could make healthful decisions about who she is and healthful choices about how to live her life. Therein lay her truth.
"If you have a mother who is 85 and still isn't kind to you," said Brewer, "it's time to stop seeking kindness there. You're going to the hardware store for apples; they don't carry them. There are other choices, other options for how and through whom you will heal.
"I'm on a healing journey, and what I care about is love. Once we learn to embrace that within us, the past really will fall away. The greatest story I could tell is the promise of hope which, for me, gives a new ending to an old story."
For information about Sandy Brewer and her radio talk show, see www.sandybrewershow.com. Her book, "Pursuit of Light: An Extraordinary Journey," is available at Borders Books in Sand City, Pilgrim's Way in Carmel, and through Brewer's website www.SandyBrewer.com or www.amazon.com.
The Sandy Brewer Show- www.sandybrewershow.com
Sandy Brewer, PhD, is a Human Behavior and Relationship Expert. She is a renowned speaker, author, talk radio show host, therapist, coach, and humanitarian who has lived a life that is a testament to the triumph of the human spirit. Her insightful qualities are brilliantly shared not only through her weekly call-in Sandy Brewer Show talk radio, but also through her speaking and workshop engagements, and her multi-award winning memoir, Pursuit of Light, An Extraordinary Journey.
For over 33 years she has helped and inspired thousands of people to move beyond their personal challenges in order to explore and embrace the possibilities in their own lives. Her call-in talk radio show airs in the Central California Coast-San Francisco Bay area markets on KRXA 540 AM and can also be heard worldwide through the program’s web-site, www.SandyBrewerShow.com.
Sandy has spoken at numerous venues throughout the North America, including from the Alice Tully Hall in Lincoln Center, New York, to Pepperdine University in Malibu, California. Sandy has been featured on numerous television shows, including a special segment on her life and work on NBC's Nightly News and a nationally televised documentary, A Bridge for the Children, – a program she founded for abused and traumatized children.
Sandy has been a powerful advocate, especially for women and children, for many decades and has spearheaded significant programs to that effect. She was the driving force that got the State of Maryland to change the way abused children were treated in court. As a result of her intense advocacy for a child in her program, an 11 year-old girl was allowed to be the first child to testify on closed circuit television instead of in open court in front of her abuser. Soon other states took notice and followed suit.
She was chairwoman of Operation Shelter, a project responsible for successfully opening and operating the first publicly supported homeless shelter in Denver, Colorado.
Sandy is a skilled communicator and it is common for her to receive standing ovations at her presentations. That’s the level of effect she has on her audiences. She gets effortlessly to the heart of what matters speaking with openness, humor, grace, inspiration, and affirmative information interwoven with pragmatic strategies. Her light-heartedness, upbeat attitude and wisdom are an inspiration. She is a unique woman, filled with laughter, clarity and compassion who “talks the talk” based on her first-hand experience of having “walked the walk.”
Sandy, with her compelling compassion, wit, and wisdom, offers a pathway out of darkness into light with warmth and richness. She is a dynamic, inspirational woman who suffered such severe and near-fatal abuse as a child that she was drawn so deeply into the dark that she found the light.
With her empowering insights and natural good-humor, Sandy offers the profound lessons of her personal journey and how they apply equally to people from all walks of life and in all circumstances.
Along the road to her own healing, she developed seminal techniques that enabled her not only to overcome, but also literally gain strength from these experiences. She has devoted her life to helping adults and children recognize that they are loved, and that no matter what happened yesterday it is insignificant to what lies within the core of one's being today.
Sandy has memorialized her innovative work and techniques in Pursuit of Light, An Extraordinary Journey, an entertaining, soul-stirring, master trope in the art of healing that shares her true-life story of how she came to find the presence of Light within her, and the "how to's" of choice - how anyone can look at their life from a new perspective and create new choices.
So how do we let go of past trauma, baggage, and limitation that keeps us from maximizing our potential? How do we connect with ourselves and the light within which is greater than any dark - that light which is the promise of all that we can be, the grace of a wisdom greater than any doubt, the recognition that nothing needs to stand between us and our fulfillment?
Through the experiences of her own life, as well as over 33 years as a counselor, workshop leader, and speaker, Sandy has learned life changing principles that can and do heal the past and open the door to a new day.
Through Sandy’s radio program, her national speaking engagements and workshops, and in Pursuit of Light, An Extraordinary Journey, she shares the insights that have allowed her to come out of the shadow of a brutalized life into one of robust success, fulfillment and love.
Sandy has a universal message that connects with everyone. It doesn't matter what got our past baggage to weigh so heavy on our backs. Whether it comes from abuse, or loss, or "I can't let go of the guy/gal that just dumped me," or "I just am not that thrilled about being me," it's all the same mire and morass. How we deal with it in the here and now will determine not only how we experience today, but how we lead ourselves into our future.
It's quite a journey. Sandy invites you to take it with her and discover:
How to let go of the past and transform your dreams into your life today.
How to reshape past experiences of limitation into present and future success and freedom.
How to be empowered with a simple, but potent, shift in your point of view that can change your reality immediately.
How to improve the quality of your life and relationships by understanding your power of choice today!
Learn More About Sandy at www.SandyBrewer.com