Unbreakable Mind & Body
Welcome to The Unbreakable Mind & Body podcast with host, Tiana Gonzalez—a multi-passionate creative, storyteller, and entrepreneur with a fierce love for movement. This is our space for powerful stories and actionable strategies to help you build mental resilience and elevate your self-care practice. Together, we’ll unlock the tools you need to create an unbreakable mind and body.
Unbreakable Mind & Body
The Fighter Behind the Honor Roll
Strength wears many faces, but perhaps its most powerful expression comes when we've been broken and find our way back to wholeness. In this deeply personal episode, I peel back the layers of my childhood, revealing how growing up in a complex divorce situation during the 1980s shaped my identity and coping mechanisms.
From living with my father while he kept my mother away, to the seismic shift of his incarceration when I was just twelve years old, my young life became an exercise in survival. I share the raw reality of coordinating prison visits as a teenager, navigating a difficult home environment, and carrying the weight of family secrets that couldn't be spoken aloud.
The duality of my existence becomes clear as I recount leading a double life – the honor student and "good girl" at school whose inner toughness emerged unexpectedly when I jumped into a fight to protect my help my brother. This moment perfectly captures how adversity had shaped me: academically successful yet ready to fight when necessary.
My journey toward healing required confronting painful patterns in adult relationships, where I found myself playing "the man" – aggressive, controlling, and armored against vulnerability. Through intensive therapy and difficult choices to letting go of people and behaviors that no longer served me, I discovered that true strength isn't about control or perfectionism. It's about embracing softness without sacrificing power.
For anyone who's struggled with childhood trauma, perfectionism, or finding their authentic voice after years of survival mode, this episode offers not just my story, but permission to redefine strength on your own terms. Sometimes the strongest thing we can do is put down our armor and allow ourselves to be truly seen.
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Disclaimer: This show is for education and entertainment purposes only. This is not intended as a replacement for therapy. Please seek out the help of a professional to assist you with your specific situation.
What's going on? It's Tiana here. Welcome to episode two. So grateful to have you back here Now.
Tiana:In this episode, I'm going to share with you a little bit about my past, get into more details and some more nitty gritty, and really demonstrate why I feel I am an authority to speak on the topic of overcoming adversity. The stories lend themselves to this thought, to this belief, to this notion, and if you find that the episode is great and you can relate to me, please follow along. Subscribe to the show. That is all I ask of you. So buckle up, buttercup, because this is going to be a really good episode. Here's the deal. This show is for entertainment and education purposes only and it is not a replacement for therapy. So if you are looking to work on your mental toughness, your grit and how to overcome an adverse situation in your life, I highly recommend that you acquire the help of a qualified professional. Thank you. Now let's get into the show. So in the last episode I introduced myself, talked a lot about fitness and a little bit about my career. Today, I want to share more personal stories that kind of connect the dots, that make you aware of just how challenging some situations were, that were happening simultaneously, overlapping with each other and really sort of clouded my judgment. Now, hindsight is 20-20. So it's easy for me to look back on these different stories and situations and events and know exactly what to do. But again, I know I said this before and I will say it often I did the best I could at the time with the tools that I had at my disposal. So, as much as I wish some things played out a little bit differently or a little less painfully, everything happened for a reason and it brought me to this point right here, right now, sitting here and talking to you, and for that I'm grateful, and I wouldn't change myself for anything Proud of the woman that I've become.
Tiana:I am a product of divorce, as many of us are. But here's the difference In the 80s, divorce was very uncommon, especially where I grew up. I was in the suburbs of New York City and my elementary school fostered a group for children who had divorced parents. We would have to meet and have lunch on Fridays. Imagine having to give up your recess because your parents were divorced.
Tiana:But it gets more complex than that. Not only were my parents not together, but I lived with my dad. Me and my brother lived with my dad and his living girlfriend. He had other girlfriends on the side. He probably thought we didn't know. Of course we knew and it was a very unusual time my mom wasn't around. Now I know what you might be thinking. Maybe she didn't care. Of course she did. She was actively seeking us out, looking for us. She didn't know where my father took us at first, and then eventually she did and he would manipulate her. Now, of course I didn't know this at the time. I find all this stuff out years and years and years later. It was complicated but long story short, he had us, she wanted to see us. He wouldn't let her see us. He would use us against her. He would lie, tell us that you know, mom didn't miss us, mom wasn't looking for us. And then sometimes, when I was expressing a need or I missed my mom, he would say, oh, but you didn't ask me to call her. I think that my dad was very much selfish at the time and manipulative. Now I know I mentioned this in episode one.
Tiana:There is a lot of stuff that's going to come up and I'm just going to do away with all of the what's the word prefacing of the situation. Here's the deal. I don't know who's going to be listening to this show and I'm not going to let who might hear this stop me from speaking my truth. This is my story to tell, these are my experiences and this is what happened from my lens and no one can take that away from me. So maybe the facts are remembered slightly differently because, you know, as they say, there's your version of the story and my version of the story and then the truth. I believe there's that and probably several true versions of the story, but the experience and the way that you felt in the moment that is not going to change.
Tiana:You always remember how you felt at the moment. That is not going to change. You always remember how you felt at a certain period of time. Right, think about something from your past. You remember exactly how you felt when you heard the news about fill in the blank. So at the time I was more worried about everyone else and not myself. So I would cry at night in my room missing my mom, didn't want my dad to know, didn't want to hurt his feelings. Because that's what firstborn, oldest child, daughter. That's what we do. We just internalize, we start to parentify. We don't want to be difficult. Eventually my mom gets a lawyer. We have to go into the judge's quarters and say who we want to live with our mommy or our daddy.
Tiana:It was straight up out of Irreconcilable Differences. It's a great movie. If you've ever seen it starring Drew Barrymore, that was me All right. There's a scene in the film where the mother and the father are each yanking on this little girl's arms One has the left hand, the other has the right and they're like pulling on her and it is so dramatic and she's crying. And yeah, that's exactly how I felt. The judge grants my father full custody, with weekend every other weekend visitation with my mom Craziness that is unheard of, and this was in the 80s.
Tiana:Fast forward a few years, my dad gets himself into some trouble. It was very confusing, didn't really understand what was happening at the time, but he wound up getting arrested. He comes out on bail. It's like a year of uncertainty and us spending pretty much every weekend with my mom and then school breaks with my mom and seeing school breaks with my mom and see my dad less and less and less, and then finally he gets sent away and we have to move in with my mom.
Tiana:And there you have the second or third major life trauma that I experienced at the tender age of 12. Everything I knew was flipped on its head. I didn't understand. I thought my dad was an amazing person. I loved him so much. I wanted to go and be in jail with him, and Nobody else felt that way.
Tiana:The specific details I'll get into in a future episode, but I will say that that experience really changed everything for me and I went from being a kid to almost like having to become an adult overnight, coordinating prison visits, finding out the details. Where was he? How do I get there? How do I visit him? Who's bringing me? What documents do I need?
Tiana:I mean, it was just a mess and I think that my mother really tried to protect me, but her delivery was really rotten. But her delivery was really rotten and I think that her anger towards my dad just she couldn't help herself. It just came out constantly in all of her language and her, her energy. It was like always mad. You know, unfortunately for me, that's how I remember my mother when I was young. She was always angry and you know what? I don't blame her. My dad really did a number to her. But yeah.
Tiana:So now I'm a young teen and going to see my dad on weekends in jail and arguing with my mom, and oh, by the way, we had to keep this all a secret. And oh, by the way, we had to keep this all a secret. There was so much shame around it. So not only did we go to a new school and have to make new friends, we had to lie where my dad was. Oh, he's upstate. I'm sure now it was not that much of a secret, but back then we thought we were being slick. Yeah, he's upstate. He moved upstate. I'm sure you can imagine the complexity of this relationship right. So I love my dad, I would do anything for him. I swore that he was innocent, and then I've got this really volatile situation at home and my mother and I fought a lot the first few years.
Tiana:It wasn't until I was about I don't know, maybe 15 that I realized the best thing I could do for myself was to keep my head below the radar. Yes, her to death, do whatever she want, do whatever she wanted, stay out of her way, clean up after myself, follow all the rules, get good grades, don't fuck up and stay under the radar. Imagine being 15 years old and figuring out how to survive in your own house, how to survive family unit. And I did that. I had a plan I was going to get the best grades I possibly could. I was going to get some scholarships. I was going to college. I was getting the fuck out of there. I had to. I knew that in a few years she wouldn't have control over me and I was the owner of my life. But until that moment came, I had to navigate these landmines.
Tiana:There were a few plot twists that came along the way. For example, my brother closest in age to me kept getting himself in trouble. So it was kind of good for me in a way, because he took the attention off of me. I was getting good grades, I was behaving in school, I was in the musicals, I danced and I did spring track. So I was the goody goody and my brother was the fuck up, constantly getting arrested, constantly getting in trouble. Things like you know, selling nickel, bags of weed or maybe worse, I'm not really sure and also graffiti, just hanging around with trouble. And really he was the trouble. He wasn't hanging around with the trouble, he was the trouble. He was the one causing the commotion. The police in town hated him, and there are people probably to this day.
Tiana:We went to a very small high school, so I just had to take a moment because I'm thinking about how, even in adult life, there are people that I encounter that have no idea we are brother and sister. I have a pretty common last name, gonzalez, so it's not outside the realm of possibilities that there could be multiple children with the name Gonzalez in the same high school. In fact, there were other people with the name Gonzalez, but us two polar opposites. Here's the thing that rough side, that little tough asshole that he was, I have that in me too. I just chose to use it in a different way. I have that in me too. I just chose to use it in a different way. Funny story. Let me go on a little detour here. There's a funny story here.
Tiana:So my junior year, one day I'm walking out of school and I hear somebody like Tiana come over here, your brother and I'm like what do you mean? What's going on? First of all, I was shocked that he was even at school. But okay, so I run to the corner and I see a group of people. I go down towards the group and as I get closer I realized that my brother was being jumped. Second nature, I literally now, mind you, let me paint this picture for you. Okay, I am wearing glasses.
Tiana:I was a total nerd in all honors classes. Vice president of the National Honor Society on the speech and debate team, getting ready for spring track. I played the saxophone, sang in the choir, was in the spring musical and honor roll. Okay, I walk out of school. I see some kind of commotion. I see my brother getting his ass kicked. I throw my bag down and I jump into the fight. No, not a thought crossed my mind. I literally got scrappy with dudes. I don't really know how effective any of my striking was my punches, my kicks but I know that I got rid of these guys. My punches, my kicks, but I know that I got rid of these guys. And everyone that was there was in complete shock. They all kind of just stood there and were like, oh my God, that was my brother.
Tiana:I don't know what started it, I don't know why, but I knew I wasn't going to let it continue and it changed a lot of people's perspective of me because, I'm sorry, it changed a lot of people's perception of me because I had all those things goody, goody, nerdy girl, but behind closed doors. What they didn't know was that I also knew how to throw down. I grew up in a karate school. Nobody knew that I knew how to throw a punch. I knew how to kick. I probably landed a couple of weak punches on that dude, but I got rid of him. Punches on that dude, but I got rid of him.
Tiana:What I also got after that moment was a lot of respect. I was hoping that it wouldn't get back to any of the administrators at school. It wasn't actually on school property, but just flirting with the property line and I wound up getting away with it. The kids that jumped my brother were not from our town or from our school. Most people just kind of kept it quiet. Nobody really spoke about it after that. I even kind of forgot about this for a while. I even kind of forgot about this for a while and then I earned my brother's respect. I think I had always had his respect, but that was definitely an experience that brought us closer together and it's something that's really relevant because it kind of showed me like, hey, you know what, yes, I can exceed in academia. I can push the pencil, I can solve the problems, but I can also fight if I need to, and I protected my brother a little bit that day. So yeah, it's pretty wild. I did not plan to go down this route on today's episode, but here we are. I did not plan to go down this route on today's episode, but here we are.
Tiana:I think the difficult relationships that I had with both of my parents really lent itself to me feeling like I had no identity. I didn't really know who I was and what I was doing. I was very confused. I was trying a lot of things, all of that stuff I listed before about the kid. I was in school and yet still at home I had a dad who was a convict, a mom who was always screaming at us and my brother constantly being in trouble. Now I was lucky. I had a great stepdad. My mom remarried before my dad went to jail. My mom remarried this great guy and he was awesome, but we didn't have that emotional kind of connection. He was stability, he was a provider. He cooked dinner a lot for us. He taught me how to cook. He taught me how to make Italian food, which I'm forever grateful, for I think of him sometimes when I do make some Italian food and I take the shortcuts like using jarred sauce. He's probably going to freak out if he hears that, but I know better and he taught me that.
Tiana:So I, as you can see, there were things going on in my world behind closed doors nobody knew about. There were things going on that I wasn't allowed to talk about with anyone. I had to carry it around, I had to hold it in, and this went on into college too. So my dad went to jail when I was 12 and he didn't get released until I was about 25. And those are some of the most important years of my life that he missed Middle school, high school, college and early adulthood. Now this story with my father gets really complicated and it gets really messy, because he lived with me when he got out on parole.
Tiana:I set him up, I took care of him. I got him a job, got him clothes roof over his head, cell phone interviews, the whole thing. I hooked him up. I wanted him to be successful, I wanted him to assimilate into society, and I felt it was my job to do that. Think about this when he went to jail.
Tiana:Cds were pretty new, like music, listening to music on CDs, compact discs, listening to music on CDs, compact discs. When he got out of jail, we were listening to music on little tiny MP3 players. That had just started to happen, 2003, 2004. Some people were still using CDs and like a portable disc man, but a lot of people had been starting to convert over. Everyone had internet. There was this thing called the internet, the worldwide web. That wasn't a thing for him. We had Nextel phones that had two-way communication like a walkie-talkie. Imagine you go away and everyone's communicating with landline phones with the long spirally cord that would stretch out across the house. Landline phones with the long spirally cord that would stretch out across the house and you come out and everyone has a phone in their pocket. That's insane. Those are just some of the things that contributed to who I am.
Tiana:The thing that I find really spectacular is how I've been able to stay soft and feminine. These are not things that were intuitive for me. I had to learn how to do these things. I was in a relationship when I was in my early twenties and it was abusive and the guy I will never forget. There was a moment where we were arguing and he just looked at me and he said you know, I will never forget. There was a moment where we were arguing and he just looked at me and he said you know, you're so beautiful, but dating you is like dating a man Like you are a man internally, your energy, you're just so aggressive and rough. And while he was gaslighting me and he was completely narcissistic, he wasn't wrong in those statements. They stuck with me and they stuck with me long term because I started to see that in myself. I started to realize like I don't want to be the man in my relationships, but I didn't know how else to be.
Tiana:I was a firstborn daughter, I was a survivor. I was a firstborn daughter. I was a survivor. I was a fighter, I was a superstar that had to get everything right, perfectionist, to the umpteenth power. And now I had to learn how to be soft, and let me tell you it was a tug of war. Learn how to be soft, and let me tell you it was a tug of war, this soft concept. But what I've realized is, being vulnerable, being gentle, I'm still strong. I don't need to show up into a room with my armor on and let everybody know how strong I am by declaring it. You'll find out. You'll see how strong some people are by how they choose not to handle things. Silence is a strength. Now for some people, they don't understand that. They think it's avoiding conflict. No, nobody's avoiding conflict. Sometimes we choose our battles. Sometimes we choose to address things at another time. Sometimes we choose to just let people act out and be a fool because they're putting their ass out, not us. Becoming soft, becoming gentle, becoming kind, allowing things to just unfold as they are meant to be and not as the control freak that needs to have everything perfect and know all the answers and make sure everything is in place before I take action. That's not how things work. We don't have control.
Tiana:I thought I had control of my career. I was wrong. I thought I had control of my relationships. I also was wrong about that. I thought I had control about how to make money. I was working full time. I mentioned this in the last episode. I was working full time and at one point I was bartending Thursday night, friday night and Saturday night, as well as going to the office Monday through Friday. So you could only imagine how pleasant I was at work on Fridays or when I woke up from sleeping all day on Saturdays, or when I got home from after hours on Sundays. It was not a good time. I thought I had it under control. I thought if I just kept working harder, I can make more money and then eventually climb out of my hole, climb out of the debt I had, climb out of sorting which bills I was gonna pay late and which bills I was gonna pay really late. And you know what? That was my fault.
Tiana:I did that why? Because I didn't have self-worth. I didn't know how to negotiate. I didn't know how to leverage my skills, talents, gifts and abilities when I would go on interviews. Those are things that you have to be taught and practice. I didn't know how to negotiate. I just took whatever would come my way. Why? Because as a child, I was programmed to not be a pain in the ass. As a little girl, I was told it's not fair. You're pretty and smart, so you're going to start at a disadvantage. You can't have what you want. Because you're pretty and smart, you're already going to get everything you want. Those were things that were said to me in my own home by my family members. That's fucked up. Could you imagine what that does to a child. I didn't think I was pretty and I certainly didn't think I was smart.
Tiana:I was pulling all-nighters in high school. I remember American history. I took AP American my junior year. It was so stupid of me but I followed what the guidance counselors had because they had a mold and a checklist they wanted to get every kid through. I didn't belong in AP American. I was not good in that subject at all, but I did it because that's what my guidance counselor wanted me to do. And at the time just a side note the exam was scaled on a one to five. Five was like the best score you could get. I got a three, so I didn't even get the college credit for that class and I killed myself my junior year.
Tiana:Pulling all-nighters had an ulcer, was thinning hair. Oh, also still coordinating visits with my dad, sending him money, sending him packages, writing him letters, taking his collect calls. Let's not forget all of that. I'm 16, right. Also, my mom had a miscarriage. So before she had my baby brother, she had a miscarriage. So there was that happening in my home too. I'm telling you this shit was so complicated I couldn't just be a kid because I felt responsible for everything and I felt like everything was my fault, and I did feel many times like maybe things would be so much better for everybody if I just disappeared. I am so glad that I'm still here and I'm so glad that I was able to find my way through all of those challenges. All of that stuff that I shared with you happened before I was even 25 years old. The real change, the real growth it didn't really get implemented into my life until probably the last like 15 years.
Tiana:For a long time, there was this experience where I knew what I needed to do. I could talk about it, I could tell people about it, I could teach about it, but I wasn't embodying it. Why? Because I felt shame, because I knew who the old me was. The girl that used to go party on the weekends justified it because she worked so hard. Justified it because nobody helped me get anything in life. Justified it because I put myself through school. Justified it because I had thinning hair and an ulcer in high school. Nobody else did. That's probably not accurate, but that was my experience, that was my mindset. So I had this chip on my shoulder and I was nasty.
Tiana:And I remember at one point, you know like, yeah, I kind of thought I was like hot shit, but I really wasn't, because behind closed doors I was a mess. I was always crying, I was so unhappy, I didn't know how to get out of this vicious cycle. And here's the thing I dated someone who was abusive. After that I dated someone who had a extreme addiction problem, who wound up passing away. And then after him I met somebody who I thought was the greatest thing since sliced bread, who really wasn't. He just took me for granted. And after that relationship, that's when I said you know what Fuck this? I need to change. I really need to change. Like I had already started doing some work on myself. I had been in and out of therapy a bit, but this time, this time, I'm 31. Now I'm putting myself in therapy hardcore. I'm going twice a week. We are making these changes and I was so smart that I used to be able to talk circles around my therapist.
Tiana:Every once in a while, I had to find somebody new. Every once in a while I had to find somebody new. Eventually, I found peace. Eventually it started to come together. Eventually I had to say goodbye to certain people. Eventually, I had to cut certain behaviors out of my life because they were no good for me. They weren't serving me any longer. I'm really grateful that you're here. Thank you for listening to my deeply personal shares. I hope that this episode has offered you some clarity on the person that you are listening to. And again, if there is a topic that I think I'm an expert on, it's overcoming adversity, because I've been doing it since I was about four years old. I love you, I appreciate you, and if this episode resonates with you, please subscribe to the show. Thank you so much for being here. I'll see you next week.