The BraveHeart Story of Pamela Duran on Self-Love and Forgiveness

Dawn Damon: Thank you everybody for being with us today again on The BraveHearted Woman Podcast.

Today I have an amazing opportunity for you. You're going to hear from a guest who has an incredible story and it's going to touch your heart. Let me tell you a little bit about her. She is an author and a podcaster, a vision coach. She's a speaker and a singer. She's a songwriter. I mean, she does it all y'all. But she also helps domestic violence survivors to gain clarity and design a new vision for their lives. And she does it all through a vision course that she does online called Clear the Clutter. Clear the Clutter, because what has happened to you does not define who you are. You do have a purpose. So she loves helping women, anybody facing. Anxiety. She helps them overcome adversity to provide encouragement and support, all the amazing things. I want to welcome to the program today, my guest, Pamela Duran.

Hey, Pamela.

Pam Duran: Hey, Dawn. Thank you so much for that beautiful intro. So happy to be here today. And thank you for having me on your show.

Dawn Damon:. I'm so glad that you're with us now, you know, just by the title of this program, the bravehearted woman that we talk about becoming brave. We are women of vision. We tackle midlife issues, but just like we talked about in the intro there. Overcoming adversity, looking at life on life's terms, and saying, ‘What is my purpose now? What is it that I do?’ I love that you help women. So tell us a little bit about you, maybe a little bit about your story.

Pam Duran: Well, I am an IT professional and the corporate world, but my mission and passion is really to help women overcome those adversities and become more, to take their power back, and to create that sustainable life. And that is, you know, what my podcast is about real heart talk, but I really love helping in the community. I volunteer at my church. I sing in the praise and worship. I am writing another song and getting ready to record it in November. Another book as well, You Are Enough, how to stop imposter syndrome, stop comparing yourself to others, and be your true self in Christ.

So I'm really excited about that because I feel like so many people struggled with that. I started my vision course because so many women just look so sad. They just needed a little out. They needed to live. And that was about six years ago. So I started it because I want people to know that they're always becoming who God has designed them to be. We have a mission and a purpose. It's not just our work. Our work is what we do. It's not who we are. It's not who we're becoming. And you have to separate that. And I think for so long, I did it. I didn't separate that. I thought it was my work. But God works on us and you go through that separation of what you do is not who you are or who God designed you to be. And so that's the message I really want to share with people.

Dawn Damon: I love that you're saying that, and let's take it one step further because you're saying, you are not what you do, but you also said you are not what has happened to you. Can you talk a little bit more about that? Because I think that some women define themselves based on past struggles.

Pam Duran: Yes, sometimes I feel like what happens to you is for you, like you said in the beginning, but it also, if you do not realize how to take that experience and to share it with others to help them through, then maybe that becomes a limiting belief in your life. You start absorbing that and thinking, Well, this is all I can do, This is all I can be, or I wasn't meant for more. But that's what I want to help people get over because I overcame poverty. We were very poor. Growing up, I never knew it. We had love. We sang and all of our things. We have music, we have plenty of food, and then I am a survivor of domestic violence myself, which is why I have a passion to help. Either they're still with the abuser, or maybe they're not. Maybe they're a single mom. I was a single mom for 11 years. Raising my own children because I wanted a better life for them. So I didn't let what happened to me define me. I overcame it and moved forward, moved past that. And I just have this compelling drive inside of me. Maybe it's the Holy Spirit, the Lord. My passion, my mission, but just pushing me and pulling me, maybe it's pulling me more forward to it. So I feel like every day I get a little bit closer, you know, to being and who God has designed me to truly

Dawn Damon: be. Yeah. Isn't that something that we can say that at our age we're still becoming, I mean, we're probably over 50? That's a safe guess. Maybe. We're still saying, ‘Okay, God, I'm still becoming, but I want to take us back just to a moment because you just unpacked a whole lot there.’ When you said, ‘I'm a survivor of domestic abuse.’ I'm a survivor of childhood abuse of sexual abuse, but it changes you. Doesn't it?

Abuse changes you and if the enemy had his way, we would stay beaten down, insecure, and not feeling like we're enough. Talk to me for a minute and to our listeners who are probably tuning in because they need to become brave. They need to make a change in their situation. They might be trapped in circumstances that are very painful. What was that like living in a situation where you were being abused? Your children were in that situation. Can you share just a little bit?

Pam Duran: Yes, I feel it was because of my kids. I feel like that really just pulled me out of it, or I may have stayed, you know, my dad was an alcoholic. My mom stayed with him. Of course, he became a Christian just in time for me to be, you know, 16. So, you kind of follow what your path has been, or what you see. I feel like a lot of traditionalists are like that, and they just keep staying in that same mode, that same track, and we have to break those generational curses. That's what they are, and you can break your generational curse. You need to prepare.

I'm so blessed to have had someone I work with that prepared me. Maybe she just saw what I couldn't say, because she approached me about it, and she took me somewhere that was safe so that we could talk about it with a group. It was a group that met to help domestic survivors. Just through that, it really helped me to give me the preparation, not just the strength, but you need to prepare your money, your place, where you're going to go, where they don't know where you are. Then when that happened, I was able to move forward with the restraining order, you know, to just the TPO order to get away. It is a lot. It took a few months of preparation, so it's going to take preparation but know that you can do it. I've done it. You can do it. There's a better life for you. God did not intend for anybody to be abused or to stay in any situation like that. So don't stay. Don't think you can change this person. You can't. Don't think that, ‘Well, I'll just live, I'll survive through it.’ It just gets worse. Everything gets worse in that situation. So I'm so thankful and blessed today. I have beautiful sons and four grandchildren. I did not want them to follow in that. I feel like I broke that generational curse for them and they can be forward. They need the Lord, but I know the Lord's with them and they know the Lord is with them too. They were saved at a young age. So I know God is with them, guiding them, protecting them as well as my grandchildren.

Dawn Damon: Amen. I agree with that so much. I believe the scripture that we lean on when you raise a child and the way they should go, even when they're old, they can't depart. They might not be connected to it right now, but those incorruptible seeds of Jesus Christ are within them and they cannot be killed. So they will bloom. They will come. I agree with you on that. So an incredible story of surviving domestic violence and now reaching back and saying, ‘Okay, I want to help others overcome, not just women from domestic violence situations, but Anyone who has lost their way or they're just so busy doing things in life that maybe they're just leaving God out of their life.’ Do you help women find their way back to a thriving relationship with Christ or how does that look in your ministry today?

Pam Duran: Yes, and that is a bravehearted woman. You are a bravehearted woman. If you have come through the struggles, the fire, the trials if you have survived divorce there, or reconnected. If you divorce and reconnect, that's me, remarried, and went through a whole disruption before the disruption. It was all because you let that little seed of doubt in, just like Eve in the garden. Eve caused that doubt. Satan caused the doubt for her and then she just spread it on to Adam. But that can happen in our own lives. You are serving in ministry. You are busy. You are a woman on a mission. You are leading a women's group. You've got it all together. Then one little thing happens that makes you feel a certain way that maybe you missed. Maybe you miss feeling that way and you didn't talk to your husband about it. Well, it's just a conversation. That just leads to bigger things.

Like my uncle, he's a preacher. He always said the little fox is full of the vine, and it's the truth. I cannot let those cracks in your armor. You have to patch them all up with your faith in the word. The word is alive and the word is a seed. When we speak it, we create because we are creators just as God is. We are made in his image and we are creating and we're sowing seeds every time we speak. Every time we think, and every time we do so make sure that you are sowing those seeds towards your mission, toward God, toward what he wants you to do in your life. I thank God that he brought me back. It was a journey and what took four months to tear down to it's taken three years to rebuild and better. Just like Joe, he prayed for his friends and God doubled his portions doubled everything. His children are cattle. I'm surprised he didn't double his wives but you know I think he only still had one.

Dawn Damon: Probably said, ‘One is all.’ It's so interesting to me when we talk about the word seed. Now, this is the second time in this interview that we've talked about it because in Genesis 8:22, the Bible says these things will always remain seed time and harvest, or in the New Testament, the Kingdom of God is like a seed. Because there's another kind of seed. You just kind of briefly mentioned when we just let little things go. When we just let little discrepancies or little things happen, seeds of bitterness can take root. We miss the grace of God and we allow the seeds of bitterness to take root, that bitter root will grow up and defile us and hurt many, the Bible says in Hebrews. So you're kind of talking about that for anyone listening to this today, always be discerning where the grace of God is being extended to you, right?

In a circumstance, God doesn't want you to miss his grace because of what you get instead. Our seeds that'll turn into a bitter root. I think that can be very problematic, especially since you mentioned women in ministry, women in marriage, and women in careers, and jobs. So there are all kinds of opportunities. But instead, if you put the word of God inside of you, like a seed that grows exponentially. Do you have a favorite scripture that you meditate on or that was meaningful to you? I kind of put you on the spot there.

Pam Duran: Definitely Philippians 4:8, about meditating on these things. Whatever's pure, whatever's lovely, and whatever is a good report, keep your mind in that faith. And of course Hebrews 11:1, fake is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things seen, and can't leave out. Exceedingly above anything we ask, God will do. All we have to do is ask, you know, for the glory. He'll give us what we ask. Matthew 7:7. Ask it, we shall receive it.

Dawn Damon: Yes, those are some of my absolute favorite scriptures too, especially the Philippians because I believe our mindset is so incredibly powerful, right? Where the mind goes, the person goes. So that's why we're told and encouraged to cast down vain imaginations that come against us and speak to us.

You mentioned briefly that your life was disrupted. It took four months to tear down something that you built and now it's taking three years to rebuild and you are being a bravehearted woman. Congratulations. Did you write your book? I'm looking here and it says you have a book. It starts within you. It's an inside job, a heart job, a mind, and emotions. They can get deceived. Is that what your book is about?

Pam Duran: Yes, if I can show it. This is my book. It is available on Amazon. And yes, it is about my story and my journey back. The strategies, the tools that I use, and the books that I read. I had some of my favorite books here, Restart Your Heart, then Charles Stanley's Emotions, Confront the Lies and Conquer with Truth, and of course The Power of Positive Thinking. So those were some of my books to come back, Because at that time you just feel so dead inside, ‘How could this happen? How could you let this happen when it wasn't even in your control?’

Just like God allowed Satan to attack Job. I feel like that is what happened to me because it was not anything intentional. Mine was on God. Our women's group was going through the fruits of the spirit, studying them in depth. So it was just a trial, a test so that I'd have a testimony to save others. Should not believe a lie. Don't give your money away. Don't believe that some famous person is coming to save you because nobody can save you but Jesus and that's through his blood. But just don't be deceived. And if you are feeling like you're missing that loving feeling. For me, when we get our age, you just kind of like in a habitual pattern and you need something to disrupt your pattern. But not that, something loving between you and your husband, a trip, do something you've not done before, go play golf. Take a dance class. I don't know. Go to another country. Just do something to re-spark and re-ignite. Maybe it's not one thing. Maybe it's just a monthly thing or even weekly that you need to do towards your spouse to keep that flame alive because you do not want anything or feelings to come in between you and him. You don't want that.

Dawn Damon: Thank you for sharing that. Just being vulnerable because There are other women that are in that situation. Again, that seed of doubt. That seed of deception. The glittering alternative in a marriage, maybe it's gotten a little apathetic or it's familiar, but you all of a sudden unknowingly can get tripped up. And especially when we think, ‘Oh, it won't happen to me. I'm guarded. I'm protected. I'm smart. It won't happen to me.’ But Satan is a very evil, wise adversary, who wants to devour us and is a sneaky serpent who can slip in, in ways that beguile us.

So you got to fight for your mind, getting your mind back, getting your heart back, getting your life back on track, and restoring what the enemy tried to destroy. That's really courageous and brave. And thank you for touching on that a little bit. What would you say to the woman who feels like she's maybe even in a midlife crisis, like feels like, I don't know what my life is about? I don't find a purpose in God. I'm bored. Would your book be a source of encouragement to that woman, or what would you say to her?

Pam Duran: Yes. So my book really talks about your awareness of how your emotions connect. It talks about forgiveness. I have a whole section on forgiveness and definitely about prayer. Prayer is your uplink to God. It's your communication. I can tell you, on my journey back, When I started praying, I didn't feel anything. I didn't feel like I heard anything, but I didn't care because I was doing what the Bible said. I would get in my closet, and I would pray, and I would really beg God to speak to me, speak to my heart, just give me some hope. I know I messed up, but I want to be back in His safe arms. He brought me back, and that's why I have this book because it will bring me back. It talks about how music is your melody. It's your weapon to really sing those praises.

Even the Bible says to praise God out loud. There's a song that we just started singing with our praise and worship. I was like, ‘Wow, I wish I'd had that song back then, but it's champion and it talks about.’ How when you open your mouth, miracles break out when you start to shout those walls come crashing down because we have the authority that Jesus has given us and we have to realize that we have the power within us just as easy as it is to believe a lie. We can believe and have faith in the truth that God is going to give us whatever we ask. When we knock on that door, he is going to open it. When we seek, we are going to find the answer and what he has for us. So believe those things, whenever you have that, just like that scripture. 2nd Corinthians 10:5, cast down those imaginations and take captive those thoughts because when you resist the devil, he will flee from you. It's when you give place to the devil. That's when you have a problem, but when you resist him, and I can tell you, I quote that scripture. Whenever I just say, even Kenneth Copeland says, ‘You just say, no, you don't devil.’ This is what is going to be, you know? That's how it is spiritual warfare. Just like Ephesians 6 talks about, we are not fighting a flesh and blood warfare. It is spiritual. We have to stand on the word and say the word out loud. That is our power. Our Holy Spirit is the power within us. And when we speak the word, it comes to life. I know it's the promise. I mean, I'm a living proof.

Dawn Damon: Yeah, hallelujah. We're so glad that you are. I had the privilege of meeting you recently when we were both in Houston and you just shine. Not only did your clothing shine, which is why I loved the glitter jacket that you were wearing. Then you sing a song and it was like, there's a wise woman. There's a woman who's been through something. There's a woman who knows the grace and redemption of Jesus Christ. You've been set free from shame. It's like, what? Let me tell my story because I'm not going to hide in the shadows and be ashamed. I'm going to speak God's truth. Thank you for doing that.

And your countenance just radiates. In fact, that's Psalms 34:5, those who look to him are radiant. Their faces will never be put to shame. Thank you for that. I really do pray that the women who need this will be listening to this today because I feel like more than ever before. Our marriages are under attack. Relationships are under attack. I mean, what's not under attack right now really in our world? It's a turned upside down, but God, yes. God is our strength. He's our deliverer. God is on the move. He's not going to be silent and sit back as the enemy ravages people in God's people. God is on the move, and he is our defender. So what's next for you? You got another book called ‘You Are Not Enough.’

Pam Duran: Yes, ‘You Are Not Enough.’ Thank you, Dawn. I have to say thank you for all your compliments. That was so great, and it was so lovely to meet you. It was a God meeting because I was telling someone else the other day, that I wasn't even sure I was going to get to go, so the Lord just made a way, and just made a way for all these beautiful connections of like, Christ minded people to uplift and encourage each other.

So for me, yes, my next book is ‘You Are Not Enough.’ which is about how to stop the imposter syndrome, stop comparing yourself to others, and start being your true self in Christ. Because you know what? There's no comparison to you. You are the best. You are the best. You're the only you. So I'm excited about that book to get it out.

Dawn Damon: What's the projected release date? Do we have that yet?

Pam Duran: Yes, I'm going to say it November 17th.

Dawn Damon: All right. Beautiful. Well, we look forward to that. Your book both sounds so powerful and you're hitting it right on the head. I mean, that's where women are today. Those are the things, stop comparing ourselves, and stay off of Facebook. If you struggle with the person, find out who you are in God. Get your identity solid in Him.

Pam Duran: It's the truth 'cause he has created us with an imprint that only he designed for us to share. And when we come across people or people in our path, we need to see how we can help them or maybe they can help us. You never know what that connection or collaboration can be.

I'm just so thankful to the Lord for what he's doing, what he's already done, and what he's going to do. He gave me a women's conference to do. We're actually going to Indiana this weekend for ‘So Grow, Restore, and Transform,’ and I'm super excited about that because I'm going to be like Tony Robbins. I don't care who shows up. I think eight people were at his first conference. So whoever's there is going to get blessed. God has the people appointed and he has what, whatever he wants, you know, but I felt it in my heart. That's coming up this weekend.

Then my music, I really feel the songs coming from the Lord. I have a song, ‘Something's Moving in the Water.’ So that's what I'm going to record next month. I just feel the spirit. I felt the spirit on this call, just felt it was moving. And I'm excited to see what all he has in store. We can't comprehend it.

Dawn Damon: That's right. I know that God has incredible things in store for you. He has incredible things in store for me. We're just getting started as are all of you. Bravehearted women who are listening. God's not done with you yet. God is still on the move. And if you have a pause, check it. Yup, it's there. You have a purpose, right? God's doing something for you, in you, and through you.

I'd love to hear your last statement of encouragement for that woman who's identifying with you right now. What would you say to any woman who just feels like they've lost their way or lost their hope?

Pam Duran: So don't quit. Forgive yourself. You're not the only one going through this. There are plenty of people going through worse than you. I've interviewed them on my podcast. So just know that, like Dawn said, you have a pulse. You have a purpose. The main thing is forgiveness. You have to forgive yourself because God's already forgiven you. He loves you unconditionally. It's not like how maybe you've grown up and traditionally loving conditionally, God's love is unconditional and he doesn't expect you to do something to earn that love. You just received that love and learned how to be an excellent receiver. I know most of you probably have a servant's heart and are givers, but learn to be an excellent receiver because God wants to give that love to you. So receive it, receive that forgiveness and love and grace. He has it for you.

Dawn Damon: Beautiful words. Remember that you are forgiven and God, his heart is for you. You are an overcomer. Thank you so much, Pam.

Where can they find you?

Pam Duran: So liftupevents.com is my website. That's a link to all my social media and my podcasts. I am on Instagram @pamsduran; Facebook LiftUp Coaching; and Twitter @pamsduran. I was trying to think that those are the ones that places that are frequent and posted on most.

Dawn Damon: So you want to get ahold of Pam or you want to read her books, purchase her books, or the new one coming out. We have all of those special links in the show notes for you. You will be able to find her.

Pam, thank you so much for being on the Brave Hearted Woman. You are an absolutely amazing woman of God and a role model for us to look to, to say that's where I'm going. I'm also an overcomer.

And I'm going to leave you like I always do my BraveHeart sisters. This is Dawn Damon, your BraveHeart mentor telling you it's time to find your brave and live your vision!