How a Trauma Expert Turned Pain Into Purpose

He was killed in a car crash.

I was 16. It was my senior year of high school.

“And I asked my mom if I could go to a counselor”

to process the grief. And back then, counseling was shameful. So she said, no one in this family will ever go to counseling. - Yeah. - And watch me, I'm going to grow up and become one.

- Rihanna Millen is a compassionate, insightful, and purpose-driven clinical trauma professional, and the founder of Rihanna Millen coaching. Guided by a deep commitment to emotional healing, she helps individuals and couples overcome trauma

to cultivate healthy relationships, paving the way for profound personal growth, true self-love, and lasting connection. - So a trauma bond is the back and forth. There are some really good parts,

and there's really bad research shows that people break up from a toxic relationship and average of seven times. - Wow. - And before they go back, they even say,

"Concest like, "well, I know he's not good for me, "does this, he does aty, does this, he does aty, does that." They still end up going back. So what is that? That is the subconscious is stronger

than your conscious mindset saying, "I deserve better." So you'll have to have a great mindset before you have the love you deserve. - Mm.

“- So that's why my slogan's create the life you desire.”

- Yep. - And then have the love you deserve. Like, have a lot of people successful in business, but struggle in love. They can't figure out why.

- Yeah. - And that's an interesting dynamic, and I'll tell you why it's... (dramatic music) - It spans the globe.

Like a super high school. - Into their elders. - Ready? - All right. - Today, Apple is going to reinvent the phone.

- It's not over. - I'm telling how we're... - The living your legacy podcast for those who live to leave a legacy. - That's it.

- That's it. - Awesome, though, it is. - Oh, that is sensational. - Sure. - Open.

- Check out what the lady is saying. - Hold in the boxes, not on the planet. - You can live your dream. - Hey, welcome back everyone to another episode of Living Your Legacy Podcast.

I'm your host again, Jay Slingan. I've heard down in the sunny Miami Beach studios, the new studios, and yeah, we get the privilege to talk to some of the best entrepreneurs, the disruptors, America's best doctors.

Like, we just had this morning, and today, we have a special guest for the Love Experts Show. I did her show, and she is incredible. Definitely one of the experts in her field, but yeah, we're gonna have our introduce herself.

What's your name? - Where are you from, and tell us what kind of love expert you are. - Sure, thank you so much for that nice introduction. I'm Rihanna Miln.

I live in Palm Beach County, Florida, and I am a life, love, trauma recovery, and mindset coach of over 40 years, and a psychotherapist for 27. And my love expertise is helping people

overcome both childhood and love trauma to create the life they desire, and have a love that they deserve. - Where does fashion plan so that? Because you've been looking great outfits all day,

a couple of changing outfits, but yeah. - Thank you.

Thank you, fashion has always been fun for me.

I actually started with modeling. It was one of the things that saved my childhood, 'cause I was kind of skinny and gawky, but you're okay to be skinny when you're a model. And when I'm at scholarship to a modeling school,

and from there, actually, in my young 20s, I became a stylist for a large department store in Philadelphia, and modeled for a couple of department stores and a big radio station where I did a lot of promotions and marketing.

- Okay. - I've always loved fashion, and I even helped my clients before their dates, but their looks together. - Correct, 'cause when they feel good and look good, the confidence comes out to.

- Right, Rihanna. - It's total right. - It does place, you know? - It's a big part of your confidence, you know? - Okay, there, and some people have said to me,

you know, I don't feel seen. - Yes. - Like, I feel like I'm not pretty enough, good enough, this enough, that enough.

And everyone is really amazing how they are.

It's just dressing that part and showing up and knowing it in your mindset, which is what I teach a lot of mindset, and just knowing it and feeling it when you show up with that energy,

and your dates, it's very attractive. - But what a powerful way to say, like, I don't feel seen. You know, there's so much to unwrap there. Like, you don't want to go into a room and not be seen.

- Right. - Right. - Honestly, you don't want to fade into the background. Yeah, you kind of want to just put yourself out there and show it.

- There's a lot of competition with social media, you know, and I don't look like this one or that one. And part of the success of finding the love you deserve is loving yourself first. - Yeah.

“- Really important, you have to love and respect who you are,”

have a mission and purpose in life, be kind, soul, you know, I am spiritual also. So having this spiritual goodness about you is very attractive, it just lights you up.

It's the icing on the cake. - You gotta keep it fun, right? So what area do you mostly,

“'cause you talk a lot about childhood trauma,”

you also talk about relationships, right? But I guess it all comes down to the main umbrella with just being love, right? - Yes, love of self, love of others, love in your relationship.

- So what kind of people come to find you? - All kinds of people.

I always say this childhood trauma has no prejudice.

- Yeah. - Right, so I work with women and men. Primarily now, 'cause I'm only internet based, 16 and over, 18 and over with we're gonna AI, but people all around the world.

Now, there's no barrier language barrier with my 24/7 video chat avatar, we're gonna AI. So now, I can say I work with everyone around the world, which is really fantastic, 'cause I was always stumped by the language barrier,

I only speak English. So my goal was to help so many women coming out of abusive relationships or the culture did not allow for them to have counseling or coaching, and with the new avatar to develop,

that is no longer a block. I've worked from in the schools, kids age five, all the way, my oldest client was 83. - Oh, that's spectrum, you gotta cover.

- Yeah, I mean, if you wanna hear the story

of Bobby's allowed me to share his stories phenomenal, you know, he came to me, he says, - And having, he's the five-year-old, - He's the 83-year-old, okay, okay. - And he's there, my fourth wife once the voice may,

and I'm afraid I'm gonna die alone. - Oh. - He was very teary, and I have a lot of compassion for him. You know, people share their weakest moments with me. I said, I just need to teach you these things.

I swear if you are open-minded to learning this, you will have the life you desire and the love you deserve. So he's done my podcast, which is called "Lessons of Life and Love." He has the same girlfriend for seven years,

he goes madly in love because I wish I did it years ago, but he says, don't hesitate to do it whatever age you are. - Wow, yeah. - And he's just living his best life now, he says. So it's just a beautiful work.

- And what about the five-year-old? I mean, how do you work with a five-year-old? - Well, I was what's called a sack of council, or student assistance counselor, which works with emotionally upset kids within schools.

So is an every grade level kindergarten all the way through college. And I worked with some tough kids, like kids and gangs in Northern New Jersey at Hackensack High School, the Cripson, they were in the Cripson the Bloods. You know, and they had a family dynamic that they didn't want

to be at home, you know, there's either alcoholic parents or a lot of fighting or they weren't heard.

“In their homes, so they joined the gang to feel important.”

So my job was to get the more self-love and see their future, not just settle for this right now. - Yeah. - You know, an education was their way out. - Wow, okay.

- I've had some really difficult cases, but you know, like I had a girl go home and her family moved out on her. So I had empower her enough to come back to school, we got goody baskets together for her,

and it's like, let's keep working on your grades, you're gonna get a scholarship. And college is your way out of this mess, right? - Yeah.

- I never know what kind of client I'm gonna get,

I always say everybody's a different puzzle. And, but that is my joy and my job to make sure I find where their pain is and help with their healing and their forgiveness and increase their confidence in self-love to then create that in their mind

that watched me mindset like I want this and don't let any of this get in the way. Move forward if you're fantastic and let's do these daily actions to make sure your dream comes to be.

“- You said the two important words on your life, right?”

It was watching me, right? And, you know, I had the privilege to do your episode and it was fantastic. But I was like, you know, a lot of therapists, they come in and they'll, you know,

they'll kind of spit what's already been out there in textbooks, right? But you have this philosophy that you've lived your life and it's your own personal philosophy. I thought it was so strong.

- Thank you. - But it was watch me and can you briefly go into that? - This came to me in a big time of pain for me. I lost my best childhood friend. He was killed in a car crash.

I was 16. It was my senior year of high school. And I asked my mom if I could go to a counselor to process the grief and back then, counseling was shameful.

So she said, no one in this family will ever go to counseling. - Yeah. - And watch me, I'm gonna grow up and become one. - Yeah. - Since I couldn't get help from an expert, I started turning to reading of the masters

who wrote about mindset and spirituality and healing during pain. And that's when I thought, I wanna do this and it became my life mission in my philosophy. And then another watch me moment was when I was married

it made some really difficult financial decisions

“that put us in a three quarters of a million dollar”

bankruptcy and then it defrauded my mom of $200,000. And here I was like 25 years old with this debt 'cause I was gonna pay my mom back. I just didn't know how. - Yeah.

- And trying to raise my girls and be a good mom and in a most of my life I worked five jobs because that's a lot of money back back. - That's a lot of money now.

I opened a model in talent agency with my first months rent

and I said, I will make it, watch me. And I said to him, you know, I'm gonna do this because well, see how far you get in this town without me and my last name and I said, watch me. And that's when I knew I refused to be a victim.

I was not gonna take the emotional and verbal abuse anymore. I wanted to protect my children and give them the best, most successful life I could. Also, I knew I could be successful on my own without baggage.

- Yeah. - And I knew I had to be successful because part of that was doing the right thing by paying my mother back. So it took me 16 years, but within two years,

I did have two homes for myself. One from my girls and I,

“and one from my model in talent, school in agency.”

I read did the whole house. One of my fashions is also interior design. - Yeah. - So taking a modest home and making it look beautiful. I really enjoy that.

I always say I took my pain and made it my passion

and my purpose. - Yeah. - And what I love to Jay was working with my models, like they come to me with a lot of talent from Eripensovania, but it's a small town.

I wanted to make it in a big market. And so they had the talent and I could teach him how to audition, that they needed the mindset and not only to handle the critique and rejection of auditions,

which was part of the talent business, but also the put-downs from their own family. There's a story I am thinking of. - Family is one of the toughest things. And you know?

- I'm thinking of the toughest things. - One of my automatic mechanic, Michael, who came to me and says I want to be a model, but he had this wild blonde hair and blue eyes and big white smile.

I'm like man, you're like the Baywatch type. He goes, oh, that's my favorite show. I dreamed to be on Baywatch. I said, let's get you on Baywatch. - Yeah.

- So we ended up on Baywatch. He was called like the Dream Maker, and then my daughter wanted to be a singer, and she ended up singing on three multiplatten CDs. And then I had a dancer, Betsy, beautiful dancer.

She went to be a rock-hat in New York, and she auditioned and made it. So I was teaching them big market mentality 'cause I'm from Philly, right? So I had to grow up with that big market mentality

and working with celebrities at the radio station there. - Back then, it was big hair mentality too. - Still have a little bit of that. But I think it's fun. I love that. I thank Michelle, my hairdresser

for his hair and helping me today with hair and makeup. It's all fun. You got to make it fun, but you also have to have the mindset to handle the hard time. And you just expect the challenges they're gonna come.

- Yeah. - So what do you do? If you had negative fear-based mindset would have the victim mentality of why me, when you have a positive mindset for success,

you would think, okay, challenges are expected. What can I do? - Yeah. - Come up with step three. Why not me?

- Why not me? - Right. - Why not me? I love that. That's true.

That reminds me of a client of mine. She wanted to be a manager at, you know, a wall walls store, right? And she said, but I'm only the counter girl. I'm like, well, why not you? Are you great?

With their clients, this and that, but I didn't have a college and this and that. So we got her mindset, right? We put together a cool job kit. She goes and she nails a management position.

And you know, in her testimonial letter to me, there's so many beautiful testimonials from clients.

“Because I will always remember to say to myself, why not me?”

- Yeah. - You know, or watch me or is this good for me? - Yeah. - And these are the little sayings if and doubt go without. Don't do it, say it, write it, you know, settle.

- It's kind of like these sayings to help you rewire your mentality mindset, you know, and kind of go for it, you know. Not the victim, but the victim, I guess. - That's right.

- That's right. - Man, I'll come up with bangers today. - It's good. - So let's get back into, you know, the love expertise, right? One thing that we talked about in your show

was kind of like this trauma bonding, right? - Yes. - People that they're in, you know, people from the outside they look at the relationship, they're like, why are you in this relationship?

And then they finally get out of the relationship

and they fall right back into the same thing. So yeah, talk to us about that and how does one get out of that cycle? - Okay, so a trauma bond is the back and forth. There are some really good parts

and there's really bad parts.

from a toxic relationship and average of seven times.

- Wow. - And before they go back, they even say conscious like, well, I know he's not good for me. Does this, he does that, he does that. Does this, he does that.

They still end up going back. - Yeah. - So what is that? That is the subconscious is stronger than your conscious mindset saying, I deserve better.

And the subconscious pulls you back to what it knows. That's from the hippocampus of the brain. The brain center likes what it knows. But it can't decipher what's good or bad.

“So you have to break all ties with the toxic partner”

and cut it off and get yourself really busy. Find a new hobby, go out with friends, start traveling, write a book, write a journal, because you're breaking these habits that the body and the brain like.

- Yeah. - That's called RRS Relationship Repetitions Syndrome. And it also shows up as we call it same person different face. So it's the same emotional traits of that person. So love bombing or disrespect or lying or cheating,

you know, all this toxic stuff. And you're like, oh, my picker's broken. No, it's not, you're falling in love with chemistry, usually number one. And number two, you're not seeing

that your subconscious is in control. You're going with chemistry and this is good and this feels good, this feels familiar. Instead of taking it slow and slowing down and saying, is this person good for me?

Do I like their character? Are they consistent? Can I do I respect them? Do they have their life together? You don't fall on love with someone's potential?

No, get out, who are they right now today? Did have a good relationship with their family and their kids, you know? So it's like you look at the whole picture. And when I do trauma healing work,

I heal seven life areas because it's not just about the broken picker. It's everything else and healing the trauma is step one. Recognizing the patterns,

“what are the patterns, what are your behavioral norms?”

And then the new skills, I have to be empowered with new skills. And nobody told us relationship skills, not even college. No, no, no, I have a triple masters

and applied clinical and counseling psychology. They didn't break down. What is the healthy relationship? That's where my research came in from my book, "Love Beyond Your Dreams,"

"Break free of toxic relationships to have the love you deserve." It has over 300 pieces of research in it. Which one is this one? This one. All right, so here we go.

I'm a number one best seller on Amazon in several categories. Of course it's a number. "Love Beyond Your Dreams," I'm already so old, look at this.

Number one best seller, "Break free of intoxication" ships to have the love you deserve. Because everyone should deserve a great-- - Yeah. - You know, it's one of the greatest things. - Yeah. - Right, right.

Which makes you such an amazing person

to give people the tools in order to go and get that. - Thank you. - Yeah. But the first part starts out with recognizing the toxic personalities that can break your heart.

Like the narcissists, the sociopath, the psychopath, the user, the addict. You know, the mom is boy. You know, they're not technological terms. They're terms that, you know, to make the easy to understand.

It's a quick, easy read, but it's all based on research. - And so which one of the, they read for us? 'Cause you got another one. It's love beyond your dreams, but then you got to live beyond your dreams, right?

So what's the difference between these two and which do you recommend to read first? - Okay, so they're called sister books because they're meant to go together. - All right. - This one is on the mindset for success.

Going from fear and doubt to personal power, purpose and success. So you'll have to have a great mindset before you have the love you deserve. - Mm. - Yeah.

“- So that's why my slogan's create the life you desire.”

- Yeah. - And then have the love you deserve. - Perfect. - So they're meant to go together. Now if somebody, like, have a lot of people

successful in business, but struggle in love, they can't figure out why. - Yeah. - And that's an interesting dynamic and I'll tell you why it's,

they found accolades and love within education and school. So maybe they were a teacher's pet, but they would go home and there might have been fighting or mom and dad weren't home 'cause they were working

and there was some abandonment or other issues at home, but they found love and success at school, right? They loved success, success felt good. - Yeah. - They raised their confidence where other areas in life, they weren't that confident.

So that's where they got the success,

but the emotional side was never healed, right?

So that's why they don't have a love they deserve. So they might wanna start with a love book or if they're out actively dating, you better read that book before you go dates. That is the guide book for love

is when they call it on Amazon. - And so real quick, I'm sorry, but you have two daughters, right? - Yes, they're amazing. - What did you teach them before they went into the dating room?

that's hard to believe 42 and 43,

“and I have six amazing beautiful grandchildren.”

They didn't have the easiest life growing up because I had the early divorce from their father. - Yeah. - And it was a lot of hostility there. And I had to work a lot to support them. I actually even paid him child support.

Even, that's a long story. So it wasn't an easy life, but we had a lot of fun times. Like we'd have adventure day and we traveled a lot together. I wanted them to see the world. I wanted them to grow up with a larger mindset

than a small town. Could offer 'cause I was from a bigger city. And they worked early. Alexie helped me in the model and talent school I had and Stefana helped at her father's restaurant.

And by 19, they moved out of the house. Alexie said to me, "One day, mom, I want to be a singer." I said, "Well, then let's make you a singer." - Yeah. - You know, they called me the dream maker.

And as the world will align and spiritual athlete, I met this top singer here in South Beach at Club Opium. And I sent her demo kit. He picked her up in a week later. She's in a limo flying to London for the team choice awards.

Boom!

“So that's how it happened at the time she was one of my three producers.”

So, you know, I got her in the studio. We got her demo kits together. How do I know to do that 'cause I was a talent agent? - Yeah, yeah. - You know, so I love that business. It was 10 years, but I really wanted to be the counselor.

- Yeah. - After 10 years, I started the agency at 26. And at around 36, that's when I put my mind set to going back to school. - But to bring it back on to the love topic, right? What would you teach the parents of their daughters

are entering the relationship age, right? - Yeah. - And I was trying to get to, you know, maybe you gave your kids great advice to entering the dating gun.

- Well, the first thing I said, don't marry in your 20s.

- Yeah. - I married at age 21. But this is what our generation did. You married your college sweetheart or the huge mistake. And my girls chose not to do the college route.

And they both ended up very successful anyway. Stefan had to get her associates. And then moved on and she runs a major company

“and Florida and Lexi's one of the top coaches in the world,”

Lexi Panos. So, they both really ended up very successful. They learned the mindset for success very early, taught them that very early. But when it came to dating, I asked them,

don't marry young, build your careers in your 20s. And that was really smart. They met wonderful men. I love my son and laws or like my own sons. They've been married many years.

And, you know, when us two boys and the other has four kids, once it's set of twins, really adorable. But, you know, I said, get your life together. Save your money because you're gonna wanna buy a home. You know, you're gonna wanna travel now

before you become a mom. So, they did a ton of traveling, which was great, and they really approached life and love very smartly. They really did.

And they married in their 30s, young, 30s. - Nice. - And they answer kids. - I ask everyone what they're most excited about, but you seem to be most excited about this, this AI technology that you're kind of at

the forefront of your industry on, right? So, yeah, speak to us on that. It's just sounds so interesting. - Thank you. It's very honored to have several media companies reach out

and one's inclusive me with Sam Altman, another one includes me in an article with Oprah, as being in LA, a cutting-edge inventor of Rihanna AI. And it is a tool where you go on it, looks like me, it sounds like me, it's like me in a Zoom room.

You just go in and you say, like, "Hi, I'm Jay, I'm 48." And I'm struggling with my girlfriend, and she would say, "Hi, Jay, I'm sorry to hear about that." Let's talk about that. It's personalized, it's interactive.

You don't need to even a headset. You go to go from a phone to computer, or you go in and say, "My native language is, you know, Japanese." Can you talk Japanese to me?

And she starts talking Japanese, which is really amazing.

I mean, it's me, it looks like me, it sounds like me. I'm like, "Wow, I can talk Japanese. This is really cool." - Like, "Kumbauwa." - Yeah.

There's memberships where someone can sign up for only Rihanna AI. There's a text version. They can get if you prefer to write. There's radio only, or there's the combination, or they can actually even hire me as still a coach or a therapist.

- Yeah. - Therapy only in Florida though, that's where my license is. Coaching globally, as long as you speak English, I can help you globally. So that's called the hybrid method.

And if you're of a different language, and you go totally with Rihanna AI. - Yeah. - And you can sign on it to me, yeah. I mean, it's anytime you need support, which is really cool.

- Can you talk a little bit, technically, on it? - I mean, so if I asked you so much as such as, were you able to work with kind of like a large language models where you input your book into it? So it knows kind of everything that you've wrote about.

- Yeah, everything, my books, my podcasts.

I have 120, so you go, there you go. - My workbooks for my clients.

“So figure over 40 years, teaching mindset work.”

- Yeah. - I've written 16 books. So, you know, even my model in talent book that I wrote, my master's thesis is in there. Everything is in there of my educational bank of 40 years.

- Yeah. - It's really trained very well. I developed it when AI started coming out. I was fascinated by it. I wanted to learn it.

I went into classes and I've been in classes for three years and I had a chat bot on my website, RihannaMilm.com for about two and a half years now. - Yeah, that's amazing. - So then I said to a couple of developers,

can you make me this chat counselor? - Yeah. - This coach where people know, that's not out there. You know, that doesn't, how does that work?

So finally, the development of AI came out

to make my wish come true. And as soon as I saw it, I'm like, "Okay, I'm doing this." - Yeah. - So I developed the avatar.

- Amazing. - I did it.

“I did the tech work, which is kind of surprising to me”

because I'm not really tucking. - Was that like vibe coding? - I didn't do coding, but it was like a combination of about 12 AI systems. - Gotcha.

- And then I trained it, I fed all the information and then I had a higher a team, my team from, they're kind of all over the globe, but they then built the website, lovecoachonline.com where you can go in and choose

whichever target you want. - There's a free choice. - That's a great website name, lovecoach.com. - Lovecoachonline? - Lovecoachonline.com for RihannaAI.com

with everyone you can remember. They both go the same page. - Rihanna with no age, right? - No age, R-I-A-N-A. - Okay.

- Rihanna AI, they made the membership site for me. - Lovely, lovely. - So there's text or video chat. - That's so incredible. It's just been such a pleasure to have you on the show here.

- Thank you, Jen. - It's been time with you and learning all about you. But yeah, and also getting good compliments from you for my hair, so. - When I hand some guy, come on.

- It always feels good to get some compliments.

- I have to have models. I told my wife, I was like, oh my God, she used to be a talent agent. She's telling me I can models. So I was like, totally.

- I was like, please, stop. No. - It's so cute. - Thank you for helping me today with everything. You've been really amazing, and in my film,

I'm really excited to see the episode come out. - Yeah. - I really appreciate inside success for us working as a team to help educate people and how to overcome abuse of love.

- Yeah. - You know, you have the love you deserve and I could have done it. - And it's so important today.

“I mean, honestly, like, the chatter online”

about this kind of stuff is all there. And then, you know, talking to you, you're like, you are one of the experts in this. So I love to watch this kind of like, therapists on YouTube and stuff.

And I was like, oh my God, what's your channel? 'Cause I'm definitely gonna be watching your stuff. - Thank you so much. - I'm on post free on a mail on Instagram and Facebook. - Yes. - I'm on post free on a mail on YouTube.

I think it's just free on a mail. But just Google from my name and I pop up everywhere. It's been many years of works. - Yeah, yeah, amazing.

- You'll find me. - Well, and thank you guys again for joining us. And if you're interested in talking to, you know, love experts, which is, you know, it could be all kinds of stuff.

You know, childhood trauma, finding love, getting out of that love trauma as well. Or love experts on actual love. But yeah, a whole spectrum on love. So join us again and join us again

for a living your legacy podcast. We'll see you guys. Cheers. - Bye. (upbeat music)