How a Trauma Expert Turned Pain Into Purpose

0:00I lost my best childhood friend. He was killed in the 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, I said, then 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's some really good parts, and there's really bad parts. Research shows that people break up from a toxic relationship in average of seven times. Wow. And before they go back, they even say, come, just like, well, I know he's not good for me. He does this. He does that. He does this. He does that. They still end up going back. Yeah. So what is that? That is the subconscious is stronger

1:02than your conscious mindset saying, I deserve better. So you have to have a great mindset before you have the love you deserve. Hmm. So that's why my slogans create the life you desire. Yeah. And then have the love you deserve. Like, I have a lot of people successful in business, but struggle and love. They can't figure out why. Yeah. And that's an interesting dynamic, and I'll tell you why. It's... It spans the globe like a super high school internet Elvis. Ready? And today, Apple is going to reinvent the bomb. It's not over. I'm telling our weird. The Living Your Legacy podcast for those who live to leave a legacy. That's extremely, very impossible. Oh, that is sensational. Open. She covered with the way you said. Fall is the box is not on the planet. You can live your dream.

2:03Hey, welcome back everyone to another episode of Living Your Legacy podcast. I'm your host again, Jace Langan, and we're here 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 Expert Show. I did, did her show, and she is incredible. Definitely one of the experts in her field. But yeah, we're going to have her introduce herself. What's your name? Thank you. 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 Milne. I live in Palm Beach County, Florida. And I am a life, love, trauma recovery, and mindset coach 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.

3:04Where does fashion play into that? Because you've been looking great outfits all day. You know, 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. Because I was kind of skinny and gauky, but you're okay to be skinny when you're a model. And I went a bit scholarship to a modeling school. And from there, actually in my young 20s, I became a stylist for a large department store in Philadelphia. Wow. And modeled for a couple of department stores and a big radio station where I did a lot of promotions and marketing. Okay. So I've always loved fashion. And I even helped my clients before their dates, but their looks together. Correct. Because when they feel good and look good, you know, the confidence kind of comes out to right. Right, right, Jane? That's totally right. It does play. It's a big part of your confidence. You know, okay, mayor 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.

4:05And 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 when your dates, it's very attractive. But what a powerful way to say it, 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. 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 been a lot of competition with social media, you know, and I don't look at 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. And then fashion is the fun part. Yeah. You see, I sing on the cake. You got to keep it fun, right? So what what area do you mostly, because you talk a lot about childhood trauma, you also talk about relationships, right?

5:13But I guess it all comes down to the main umbrella with just be 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. So I work with women and men primarily now, because 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 seven video chat avatar. We're gonna AI. So now I can say I work with everyone around the world, which is really fantastic, because it 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 their culture did not allow for them to have counseling or coaching. And with the new avatar of develop that is no longer a block. I've worked from in the schools kids age five all the way.

6:16My oldest client was 83. Oh, that's the spectrum. You got it covered. I mean, if you want to hear the story of Bobby's allowed me to share his stories that phenomenal, you know, he came to me says I'm having he's the five year old or he's he's the 83 year old. Okay. And he's there. My fourth wife, wife wants to divorce me and I'm afraid I'm gonna die alone. Oh, he was very tearing 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 in Life and Love. He has the same girlfriend for seven years. He goes to Madly and Love. He goes, 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 beautiful work. And what about the five year old? I mean, how do you work with a five-room? Well, I was what's called a SAC counselor, student assistance counselor,

7:18which works with the emotionally upset kids within schools. So I was in 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 Crips and they were in the Crips and 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 whole 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 going to get a scholarship. Um, college is your way out of this mess, right? Yeah. I never know what kind of client I'm going to get.

8:18Every, 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 and 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 watch me, right? Yeah. You know, I had the privilege to do your episode and it was fantastic. But I was like, you know, a lot of 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, but it was watch me. Yes. Can you briefly go into that? This came to me in a big time of pain for me.

9:18I 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 going to 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 want to do this and it became my life mission and my philosophy. And then another watch me moment was when I was married with two little girls and my husband at the time 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.

10:18And here I was like 25 years old with this debt because I was going to pay my mom back. I just didn't know how. Yeah. And trying to raise my girls and be a good mom. And you know, most of my life, I worked five jobs because that's a lot of money back. That's a lot of money now. You know, I opened a model and talent agency with my first month's rent. And I said, I will make it. Watch me. And I said to him, you know, I'm going to do this because well, see how far you get in this town without me in my last name. And I said, watch me. And that's when I knew I refused to be a victim. I was not going to 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 for my girls and I and one for my model and talent school and agency.

11:26I 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 Eerie Pennsylvania. But it's a small town. They wanted to make it in the big market. And so they had the talent and I could teach him how to audition. But 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, my auto 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 because all this is my favorite show. I want dream to be on Baywatch. I said, let's get you on Baywatch.

12:27Yeah. So we ended up on Baywatch. I was like the dream maker and then my daughter wanted to be a singer and she ended up singing on three multi platinum CDs. And then I had a dancer Betsy, beautiful dancer. She wanted to be a rocket in New York and she auditioned and made it. So I was teaching them big market mentality because 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. I still have a little bit of that. But I think it's fun. I love that. I thank Michelle, my hairdresser, who's here 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 going to come. Yeah. So what do you do if you had negative fear based mindset would have the victim mentality of why me? Why not me? Why not me? I love that. That's true. That reminds me of a client of mine. She wanted to be a manager at a wall wall store.

13:29Right? And she said, but I'm only the counter girl. I'm like, well, why not you? Are you great with your clients? This is not what I did in a golf college. And so we got her mindset, right? We put together a cool job. And then we got to the point where I was going to be a manager at a wall wall store. I was like, well, why not you? Are you great with your clients? This is not what I did in a golf college. We got her mindset, right? We put together a cool job kit. She goes and she nails the management position. And you know, in her testimonial letter to me, I have so many beautiful testimonials from clients. She goes, I will always remember to say to myself, why not me? Yeah. You know, or watch me. Yeah. Or is this good for me? Yeah. And these are the little sayings. If in doubt, go without. Don't do it. Say it, write it. You know, it's kind of like these sayings. I help you rewire your mentality mindset, you know, and kind of go for it, you know, not the victim, but the victor, I guess. That's right. That's right. Man, I'm coming up with bangers today. That's good. Great job. Great job. So let's get back into, you know, the love expertise, right?

14:33Okay. One thing that we talked about in your show was kind of like this trauma bonding, right? Yes. People that they're in a, you know, people from the outside, they look at the relationship that 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's some really good parts and there's really bad parts. Research shows that people break up from a toxic relationship in average of seven times. Wow. And before they go back, they even say, kind of just like, well, I know he's not good for me. He does that. 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.

15:34So you have to break all ties with a 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 repetition 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, well, my pickers 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?

16:35So I like their character. Are they consistent? Can I? Do I respect them? Do they have their life together? You don't fall in love with someone's potential? No. Get out. Who are they right now today? Did they 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. So 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 in applied clinical and counseling psychology. They didn't break down. What is the healthy relationship? That's where my research came in for my book, Love Beyond Your Dreams, Break Free of Toxic Relationships, to have the love you deserve. Because everyone, you know, everyone should deserve a great, you know, it's one of the

17:55greatest things. Right? Right. Tryroads, what are your thoughts? Cont gj to make the easy to understand. It's a quick, easy read, but it's all based on research. And so which one do they read first? Because you got another one. It's love beyond your dreams, but then you got 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. This one is on the mindset for success, going from fear and doubt to personal power, purpose and success. So you have to have a great mindset before you have the love you deserve. So that's why my slogan is create the life you desire. And then have the love you deserve.

18:58Perfect. So they're meant to go together. Now if somebody, like I have a lot of people successful in business, but struggle and 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 because 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. 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 the love they deserve. So they might want to start with a love book or if they're out actively dating, you better read that book before you go dates. That is the guidebook for love is what they call it on Amazon. And so real quick, I'm sorry, but so you have two daughters,

19:59right? Yes, they're amazing. What did you teach them before they went into the dating room? Alexian Stefana. They're now it'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. 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. 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, because I was from a bigger city. And they worked early. Alexi helped me in the modeling talent school I had. And Stefana helped at her father's restaurant. And by 19, they moved out of the house. Alexi said to me, one day, mom, I want to be a singer. I said, well, then let's make you a singer.

21:00They call me the dream maker. And as the world will align and spear to athlete, I met this top singer here in South Beach at Club Opium. And I send her demo kit. He picked her up in a week later. She's in a limo flying to London for the Teen Choice Awards. Boom. So that's how it happened at the time she was wanted by three producers. So I got her in the studio. We got our demo kits together. How do I know to do that? Because I was a talent agent. Yeah, yeah. So I love that business. It was 10 years, but I really wanted to be the counselor. Yeah. So after 10 years, I started the agency at 26. And at around 36, that's when I put my mindset to going back to school. But to bring it back onto the love topic, right? What would you teach the parents? 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 data. I did. Well, the first thing I said don't marry in your 20s.

22:00Yeah. I married at age 21. This is what our generation did. You married your college sweetheart or a huge mistake. And my girls chose not to do the college route. And they both ended up very successful anyway. Stefano had to get her associates and then moved on. And she runs a major company in 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. Tuck 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. And they met wonderful men. I love my son-in-laws or like my own sons. They've been married many years. And one has two boys and the other has four kids. One's a set of twins. Really adorable. But I said, get your life together. Save your money because you're going to want to buy a home. You're going to want to travel now before you become a mom. So they did a ton of traveling, which was great.

23:02And they really approached life and love very smartly. They really did. And they married in their 30s, young 30s. Nice. And they had their kids. I ask everyone what they're most excited about. But you seem to be most excited about this AI technology that's kind of at the forefront of your industry on. So yeah, speak to us on that. It's just sounds so interesting. Thank you. I was very honored to have several media companies reach out. And one's including me was Sam Altman, another one includes me in an article with Oprah as being 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, 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 even a headset. You could go from a phone to computer. Or you go in and say my native language is Japanese.

24:06Can 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. It's like Kumbawa. There's membership to 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 a 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 at 2 a.m. 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 ask you so courageously, like, such as, um, were you able to work with kind of like large language models where you input your book into it? So it knows kind of everything that you've wrote about.

25:08And yeah, everything my books, my podcasts, I have 126. There you go. There you go. My workbooks for my client. So figure over 40 years teaching mindset work. Yeah. I've written 16 books. So, you know, even my model and 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. Um, I developed it when AI started coming out. I was fascinated by it. I wanted to learn it. I went into classes and they've been in classes for three years. And I had a chat box on my website, Rihanna millen.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, this coach where people know that's not out there. And you know, that doesn't, how does that work? So finally, the development of AI came out to make my wish come true.

26:10And 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 teching. 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've fed all the information. Then I had a higher 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 which avatar you want. Mm hmm. And there's a free trail. Wow, that's a great website name. Lovecoach.com. Lovecoachonline. Lovecoachonline.com. Lovecoachonline.com. All right. Rihanna AI.com, which 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, Jay. I had to spend time with you and learning all about you.

27:12But yeah. And also getting good compliments from you for my hair. So what a handsome guy. Come on. It always feels good to get some compliments. I didn't have to. Models. I told my wife, I was like, oh my god. She used to be a talent agent. She's telling me I could model. So I was like, totally. I was like, please stop. No. You're 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 on how to overcome abuse of love. You know, to have the love you deserve. And I couldn't 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. Like, 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? Because I'm definitely going to be watching your stuff.

28:13But thank you so much. I'm on our coach, Rihanna Milne on Instagram and Facebook. Coach Rihanna Milne, YouTube, I think, is just Rihanna Milne. But just Google from my name. And I pop up everywhere. It's been many years of work. Yeah, yeah, amazing. You'll find me. And thank you guys again for joining us. And if you're interested in talking to 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.