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Time To Come Alive: “Coming To Life…Literally” With Darlene Parris Young, Author
Take a deep breath with me. I want you, if you can, to pinch some parts of your body gently and notice the sensation. Notice if you can feel or see the blood coming back up to that part of your skin. Perhaps you also notice that you might be breathing. At least, I hope you are. Notice your breath coming into your lungs or being expelled through your nose or mouth. Perhaps if you're still enough, you might even notice your heartbeat or pulse. All these are signs that you are alive living and breathing.
In this episode, I have a wonderful guest who I will introduce in a moment, who will share her story of how her vital signs were almost compromised at a certain point in her life. Before we do that, I want to welcome you. Good morning, good afternoon, or good evening, depending on where you are in the world. I’m always so honored to have fantastic conversations that help us become more conscious, get more connected, and then also be more creative in the world. This episode is no exception.
I'd like to introduce you to my new friend, Darlene Parris Young. Darlene and I have never met in person. This is our first time ever meeting. We had a wonderful phone conversation because we were introduced by a mutual friend LaRue Epler. LaRue has been such a lifesaver for me. She knows everybody. Darlene, I mentioned to LaRue at one point that it would be so amazing to have a conversation with somebody who's had a near-death experience. She said, “I know who the person is.” She connected the two of us and ever since I've had an opportunity to get to know a little bit about you and your story. I'm so honored that you're here. What would you like for us to know about you as a way of introduction?
Thank you for inviting me here. I love the name Time To Come Alive. That's what happened with my near-death experience. One of the things I want them to take away with me talking to them is that we have all been knocked on our butt one time or another. Sometimes it's very hard to get up because that baggage is so hard to pick up. As we get up, we often pick up the bags of other people that we love.
We don't see things. We get so familiar with the pain and heaviness that is the norm. We live in fear. What is FEAR? False Evidence Appearing Real. Take all of that apart and see what is false about this. One of the things with my near-death experience, I learned there was a lot of false stuff being taught here on this side of the veil that I'd love to share with you. I will not be picking on any faith or anything but sometimes it's not things that are not always true or universal.
I love the acronym you gave for FEAR. I remember Wayne Dyer used to say that all the time. False Evidence Appearing Real. Darlene what we know so far about you is you're radiant, enthusiastic, and passionate about living. Thank goodness that you're here to tell the story. We'll go into that in a moment. Talk to me a little bit about when LaRue connected you and me. I said, “I want to talk to you about a near-death experience.” Can you tell me about it? What went through your mind? What made you decide, “This is what I want to talk about?”
It was the promise that I had made before I was going over on the other side. Would you let me speak about the experience?
Let's go right into it.
I came from a background raised by a very strong, heavy family. War hero Dad brought the war home with him. It’s like when you grow up with a lot of fear. For me, it wasn't all evidence appearing real. It was forget everything and run. All I did was run away from the things that scared the hell out of me. Here I am. I'm finally leaving New Hampshire and New York City in a modeling career that became very successful. I decided to move down the Jersey Shore for some free time but I was all closed off.
I met a man and we got married a year later. I was carrying that fear inside of me still. It's like I brought all my baggage right back into this marriage. He had his own. I decided I was going to get a self-help book and talk myself through this. This was after I spoke with LaRue years later. I went out and this self-help book jumped off the shelves, and don't they always?
The name of it was Defy Gravity by Caroline Myss. I went home and told my husband I was booking a cruise and we were going on this cruise. We were going to meet Caroline Myss and there was Wayne Dyer, John Holland, and Brian Weiss, Many Lives, Many Masters. I said, “We are going to study.” He said, “I'm way too booked up. I couldn't go.” I invited my best friend Betty. She is always game for anything.
We started on the trip. My husband rode us to the airport. I was not feeling well but I thought I was exhausted. This was January and we had a lot of bookings to get out before the end of the month. Betty was exhausted. She works in the Diamond District. We had a lot on our plate but we got there. We're on board the ship on their first day there.
We go upstairs, have a drink, and sit down at the bar, and there she is Caroline Myss. Betty pokes me in the shoulder and says, “Go and talk to her. She's your hero.” I said, “No, it is her downtime.” I didn't want to bother her. I missed out on the opportunity to talk to somebody who I wanted to talk to because the next day, I was going to be having my near-death experience.
The pain had gotten to the point that I couldn't even breathe. The next morning, I went down to the infirmary where they take care of everybody and they had panic on their face so they called the US Coast Guard. The US Coast Guard came in. Here I am in the middle of the ocean. They tried to land on the Westerdam. The name of the ship was Westerdam. The funny thing was the name of this program I was studying was called You Can Do It At Sea.
It's a Hay House Conference. What better place to have this experience than a Hay House Conference?
They call the Coast Guard and here they have me. My best friend Betty is fine, though, because she's looking out the little port window. She saw two dolphins and said, “Darlene, there's going to be a miracle happen. You're going to be fine. I see two dolphins,” but here I am and they're strapping me on.
Before the helicopter? What happened?
They put me on the gurney and rolled me down the hallway to put me into the basket that they were dropping from the helicopter. Everybody else has to stay in their room because they said this is being televised and nobody has to be around the helicopter or anything. They strapped me in this basket. I had enough pain. It was physically very painful. I didn't know at the time but my appendix had burst and the poison was all through my system.
I told you I had a successful career but like any career in the modeling field, there are some drawbacks with predators. Read between the lines, please. Bad marriages, I always walk out. I never fix anything. My daughter was going through a horrific divorce. There was a lot on my plate. I started to swing that basket. I was trying to loosen the ropes. I wanted to fall into the sea and be part of that water. I wanted to be part of the peace.
To help everybody catch up real quick, you're on a cruise ship that is designed to help you live your best life. It's a conference put on by Hay House Publishing Company. Some of the greatest authors about self-help on the planet were in that particular ship. You start feeling ill. It happens to be your appendix so they have to medevac you off the cruise ship.
As you were going in the basket to the helicopter, you were having all these flashbacks. Is that what you're saying about these parts of your life? What was it about this particular moment in your life? You're on the ship to celebrate. You're going for this wonderful experience. What was it that brought all of those memories back to you?
The life that I have been living was so horrific and painful. I didn't want to live it anymore. I wanted a spiritual life and to be happily married, and that wasn't doing so well. We had a lot of things to overcome. We both had baggage. I was tired of trying. I thought, “Let me slip into the sea. Where was calm where there was no abuse, rape, war, or politics? None of that stuff.” I started to do it.
The amazing thing is my breath was heavy. I could feel my breath going out but I also could feel the breath coming back in. It was lighter, friendlier, and calmer. Do you remember the scripture in the Bible that said, “God breathed into man and he became a living soul?” That's exactly what I was feeling. My breath was blending in with everything that was outside of my body but when I breathed it back in, it wasn't heavy anymore. It was light. My pain was lessening.
I stopped looking to the left where the ocean was and put my attention to the right. I would see all these twinkling lights. I'm in the middle of the ocean where there's a lot of light but this one is bright. I would focus on it. It was like a frequency that was saying, “You can do this, Darlene. We're here to help and guide you.” It was like they were helping me.
It seemed like the energy inside of me was mixing in with all the energy that was on the outside of me. If you take a sponge and hold it up to the window, and you see the light coming through the sponge, that's what it was like. It's like your skin and cells are part of all of that. The light was coming through my cells and my heavy light was going out blending in with everything comfortable. It's very familiar. I was scared.
You've been there before. You started blending in with it and you're happy. The pain is gone. I'm going for this. I want to be part of everything divine. You're very familiar with that frequency, even with your loved ones on the other side, positive. One of the best things for me is I've had no religious teaching so I was able to recognize things on a pure level.
As the Coast Guard started to pull the rope up to get the basket into the helicopter, I could feel the propellers going. It shifted that wonderful pure energy I was feeling enough for me to shake my head and say, “Wait a minute here. I got married less than three months ago. My daughter's going through a divorce. My son will never get over this. They’ve seen me go through some stuff. I need to go back and tell them that we can make life work. We can survive all of the things that we have gone through. We just need that guidance.”
The guidance is right on the other side of our breath. “Please, I have changed my mind.” As I said those words, it stopped right there and the opportunity to cross over was gone. The only thing that came back was the pain. They let me come back. One of the reasons I'm here is because I want people to know that we do have a chance.
We can survive all of the things that we have gone through. We just need that guidance, and the guidance is right on the other side of our breath.
All this time, you had been living sounds like not only the physical pain in that moment but was a culmination of all the psychological and emotional pain that you've been carrying over the years that was hopefully going to be alleviated by going on this cruise with your husband at one point but then your best friend. You have this experience where you realize that maybe life isn't worth living if you have to live with all this pain. You try to untie yourself from this basket/gurney and slip into the ocean. You mentioned the sponge. That's such an interesting metaphor that the sponge is like how permeable our cells and bodies are to spirit. Did you hear anything? Was there a conversation in your mind or some awareness?
It's frequency. You're aware of it. You know exactly what's going on. You have your five senses but think of the sixth sense. You may not see it but that frequency is always there. You connect with it. Maybe I should tell you about my brother Danny when he was ready to cross over. Would you like to hear that?
Yes, please.
This will help you to understand what I mean by this. My brother Danny became a paraplegic at fifteen years old. He had an accident, broke his back, and shattered his pelvis. He lived in New Hampshire and I was in New York. I would always fly down and see him. When he got older, we knew his life expectancy wouldn't be as long, and then he was a few months from his 50th birthday. I'm flying up because Danny has developed cancer but he can't feel it because he's a paraplegic. I have got to do everything to prepare him for what's going on on the other side. I have never been there myself. I haven't had a near-death experience.
This is way before you were on this cruise?
Yes. I certainly remember what I told Danny after my near-death experience because that was right. I would talk to him and study Elisabeth Kübler-Ross’ book to prepare him. I would go down and look at my brother. The fear in his eyes took my heart. I noticed on the coffee table that there was some literature from the nearby congregations and Danny was being taught some fear of things that did not exist like Dr. MacPhail and stuff like that. Danny was frightened of crossing over.
He said, “I must have done a terrible sin. Why am I paraplegic all my life?” I said, “Danny, God is never going to punish anybody. You're fifteen years old. You have never done anything wrong like that. I don't believe in such a place as hell.” I went over to the refrigerator because I could see the fear in his eyes. I grabbed an ice cube. Where did I get this idea? I'll never know but there's that divine intervention, and it's always there.
I took this ice cube and put it in my brother's hands. I said, “Look at that ice cube, Danny. You made it out mostly of water. That's all we are. What you've done with that ice cube is freeze the ice cube. The frequency of the atoms in the ice cube is slowed down. All of these little particles are at a different frequency and they have atoms. What keeps them not bumping into each other?”
“That's that beautiful energy between all the electrons, protons, and neutrons. It's God's source. You're going to be blending into it. Let's take that ice cube and throw it into the boiling water. It's just water. You speed up the atoms in the water. Let it boil until it steam and that water is steamed. It's blending in with the universe. That's what's going to happen to you.”
You explain all of this to your brother on his deathbed?
This was shortly before his deathbed. About a month later, he was in a coma. I was in New York City and my sisters were telling me, “Darlene, you have to come home. Danny's in a coma. He may not come out of it.” I spoke to him for a few minutes while he was conscious. I told him to remember all the things that we discussed on that day. I said, “Believe Elisabeth Kübler-Ross. She's done a lot of research. She has to be right. I believe it.” He said he did too but he's at the hospital in a total coma.
I asked my brother-in-law to please put the phone beside Danny so I could talk to him. He would say, "Darlene, he's in a coma.” I said, “Give the phone to my sister.” He gave the phone to my sister Sherry and I said to put the phone by Danny's head so I could talk to him, and I talked to him. I told him how frightened I knew that he was. “You're going to be okay. That veil is getting thinner and thinner. All I want you to do is put your toe through it a little bit and see if it is comfortable. If it's your time to cross over, you're going to do it. Remember all the things that we discussed. Your parents are right there on the other side. They will help you through the process. I'm the bigger sister here and I'm telling you, ‘Do it and do it now.’”
If it's your time to cross over, guess what? You're going to do it.
I bossed him around and he did it but before he did it, he opened his eyes in the coma. He looked at my sisters and said, “Wopido.” Wopido is a word that Danny only uses when he's happy and excited. He was happy with what he saw and what he was doing. His legs started to move and everybody backed away from the bed. Danny's legs had not moved since he was fifteen. How is this happening? With my near-death experience, that question was answered. The energy in his body, right through the cells of his skin, was blending with everything pure. The frequency was blending in like that ice cube. It's changing the frequency. That's all it is.
I don't know why I am necessarily fascinated by near-death experiences. I've read many books on the subject. I've not had that experience myself but the way I hear you describe not only your experience but even predating your experience with death, what you shared with your brother, and the peace that you wanted to transmit to him, I'm curious. What had you want to help your brother embrace death in the way that you explained it to him and the way that you communicated about it?
It was the pain in his eyes. Danny, even though he's a paraplegic, soared. He didn’t sink. He had a boat and a car with hand controls. He was working. He led a life and then I see fear in his eyes. Fear from what? Was it the training that he was getting from something on the outside that I knew in my gut could not be true? It wasn't. I wanted to take the fear away long enough for him to feel that frequency to cross over because at the time, I didn't know it was a frequency but studying some books, I was getting there.
After my brother's funeral, my sister and I came through the door. It was three days later. Everybody remembers this. For those three days, we were aware of that frequency. We knew it was his. All of a sudden, we can feel that big wind getting your attention. He told us that he would blow the hair on my arms and he did. I looked at my sister who had no training that I had or no feeling was so different. I looked at her and said, “What do you think?” She says, “I think Elvis has left the wing of the building.” I said, “I think Dan is out trying on those new wings. He's blending in with what's familiar.”
The frequency that I felt on the other side was amazing. It's so hard to put it into words because there are no words. It's just peaceful, happy, and familiar. Remember the word familiar. You went back to where you were. You're bringing that memory of all that stuff right into when you were being born. There were the twins in the Bible, Jacob and Esau. They were fighting in the womb before they were born. I remember it quite clearly. They had a personality before they were born. It’s like what I tried to explain to my husband, “If I said this, stop me.” It's like we're born with a little white T-shirt on us.
What do you mean you're born with a white T-shirt?
We’re born with all our innocence and the nurse comes in and puts this cute little white T-shirt on you. Everybody comes in to meet with you for the first time. Your mom comes over with a little note, “My baby's going to be a doctor.” Your dad comes in like, “My baby's going to be a lawyer.” The church or whatever community that you're in comes in and puts their beliefs on you. That may not be who you were. You've scaffolding your whole life believing all these things were true. When they believed it was true, your parents didn't do anything wrong so don't blame them. They believe what they were taught. I always had a hard time believing in everything. I challenged everything.
First of all, it’s the fact that you saw something in your brother shift the moment he was diagnosed with cancer and then the fear, which was never been present in his life until that moment. You're being so compelled to shift him back into this fearlessness, which goes back to what you said to us about fear being False Evidence Appearing Real. You’re helping him connect to that. Also, what you mentioned about the T-shirt. I'm curious here. Could it be that in your brother's case, for example, some of the things that were pinned on his T-shirt were true, not necessarily limited, especially since he was so fearless growing up?
Danny could be a wounded warrior but he was a warrior. I don't know why my mind is taking me there but it’s taking me to the day Danny became that paraplegic. He was always so powerful. He loved his dad and never blamed his dad. I always blame my father for the accident because Danny was sitting in front of the American Legion Hall on the day that he had this accident. My dad was going to take Danny fishing but he didn't.
I learned that he didn't come out because he was with his war hero buddies. When you're with that kind of trauma, only another war hero can understand that kind of trauma. Danny was going on his bike and probably going too fast. He hit a car and broke his back shattering his pelvis. I was very close to my mom. This makes me think of LaRue. When Danny had the accident, I saw the ambulance go by and I didn't know my brother was in it. I was on heightened alert. I knew something was different.
My mom always said, “Be aware of your gut feeling because it is trying to tell you something.” LaRue says, "That little whisper inside of you, listen to it.” My mother called in, telling us that we had to go to Hanover Hospital because Danny was going to be admitted into surgery immediately. We got there and Daniel was being taken to surgery. Hours later, the surgeon came out. Remember, my mom was married to a war hero. Listen to the words that she said when she found out the result. “Mrs. Parris, your son's going to live but he's never going to walk again.” She said, “At least I will not lose him to a war.”
It was pretty heavy. I remember that always. Danny did not blame his dad for not coming out or anybody. He never held the grudge. He taught us girls the tremendous power of forgiveness and he’s the one who couldn't walk. I was the one who could walk. I am the one that’s the model in New York City and I can pivot like you couldn't believe but I was the one carrying around like I couldn't walk. It was the fear inside of me. He didn't have any. It was me. He was teaching me. He was helping me with my fears so I needed to help him with his.
You've alluded to this a few times. It’s this notion of your father being a war hero. First of all, to clarify, it’s World War II, I imagine.
Yes, 3 Purple Hearts. The funny thing is he, in uniform, was breathtakingly gorgeous. I can see why my mom melted. He could do a swing dance, hold her in his arms, and sweep her off her feet before the war, and then he did bring it home with him.
What do you mean by that? Can you tell us anything about that?
He was a grounded man who went off to war. It’s what his mother told me. He came back very fractured. It was hard to put the pieces back together when you experienced things like war or any kind of trauma. It’s that frequency that you hold inside. He was trying to put the pieces back together but we didn't have things to help our soldiers back then. He held it inside because you had to live up to the belief that everybody told you. “You save us. You're a war hero. We can look up to you. You're strong. You're this.” You start thinking you are all of these things because they told you, you are. You don't deal with a fractured part inside. That's what my dad and I had in common.
When that part of him that was fractured showed up, what was happening at home?
My father's the type that when he walked into a room, you got his attention immediately. If you didn't, you could probably pick yourself up off the floor. My father's crossed over so I would not go there and hurt him.
Essentially what you're communicating though is that it was difficult for him to come back from the war with the internal wounds, the psychological and emotional wounds of war. That scar tissue somehow manifested itself in how he led his family.
It's a lot of anger. If you understood, the anger was another war hero. One of the funny things is my father knew me quite well. My grandfather was a full-blooded American-Indian. My sisters and brother look like Americans and partly Indian. I didn't. I have my mother's English face. When I was first born, my dad was upset with that. He always wanted me to look like the Indians. He was very jealous of mom. My mother was quite attractive. When men see an attractive woman stare. My father didn't like it at all and he would always say to me, “Darlene, be happy when you're 50 years old because then you'll have a voice. Men are not going to look at you but are going to listen to you.”
Dad said that when you were a kid, men would not listen to you until you were 50. What did he mean by that?
People judge people by the way they look. I would always be judged by the way I look. It gave me a very successful modeling career later but I understood what he meant. I became as fractured as my dad in the modeling field. I have a lot of moms come in with their children and say they would like them to become models. I try to explain to them the horrors that they could run into. There's a lot of Harvey Weinstein, Larry Nassar, and Bill Cosby going on but now, we have model lions and there's a lot more comfort zone. People are a lot more aware. We can have a voice. Before, models did not have a voice.
People judge people by the way they look.
It’s like a private entity. You're hired but you can easily be fired if you have an opinion so you grow up not having an opinion. All you are is something physical. I never had an opinion about anything. I kept quiet. Eventually, you don't know who you are. I didn't get along well with my dad. My brother, Danny, was something else. He gave me my father's Eisenhower jacket and said, “Darlene, I want you to put on Dad's jacket.” In that was the Purple Hearts. It was heavy with metal.
I took it to be polite to my brother. When I moved to New Jersey after I tried to retire, I put on my dad's Eisenhower Jack and wore it to work one day. I matched my boots with a full-circle skirt. I am a model. I got a lot of attention from some of the war heroes. A man in the elevator looked at that jacket and said, “Do you know how special that jacket is?” They would tell me what they meant because I did not know what a lot of those things meant.
One day, I happened to wear it. I took the subway train into a store where I was picking up my car. I walked in and this old man stood up. He saluted me. The other two boys stood up and said, “Sit down you old fool. Do you know how many people had to die for her to wear a jacket like that?” I got my voice. I looked at them and said, “Do you know how many times my father, 3 Purple Hearts, put his life on the line so you could have the guts to say something like that to this poor old man sitting there? Who's the coward here? It’s not my dad.” I started to get the point that we're trained to believe so many of these things that are not true.
When your father said that you wouldn't have a voice until you were 50, what did you believe?
I wouldn't and then in the modeling crew, you don't. You keep quiet so that you can get that job.
You believe that you are beautiful, right?
No, I don't look like my sisters. I wasn't beautiful at all.
I imagine that going into a modeling career takes some guts. There's some impulse that had you decide that was a career. Talk to us about how you reconcile being told that your voice wouldn't matter until you were 50 and not feeling beautiful.
I was living in New Hampshire at the time and never thought about being a model. I was going to college and become a veterinarian. I found myself divorced with two small babies, no money, and waiting on tables at Concord Highway Hotel. This photographer came in and asked if he could do some headshots, and he did the headshots. All of a sudden, I was in New York City with my two children. I started to make a career.
This random photographer in a hotel wanted to take your picture. He took your headshots and then out of that, you got a job offer as a model.
She said she would be able to use me for commercials because of my accent. I went on and became a fit model.
What's a fit model?
Not everybody is built like those beautiful long-legged women who walk down the runway that’s over 5’8”. After that part is finished, they have to be sold to a store. When they put the order, they're going to have a woman with a normal body like mine and yours. The pattern maker makes the patterns and puts them on a model that has those proportions so that they can grade them up and down. They get into the store and you get a nice reorder fit. I became known as the Coat Hanger with a Mouth because I would talk to the pattern makers on how to get the correct fit to make that garment blow right out of the stores.
The modeling that you did was about sizing to help the designers create sizes. I am flattered that you would use me as an example. I don’t know if there's anything that would fit in modeling but thank you. Let's go back to this idea of not having a voice. Prior to the moment of confronting that gentleman who told the person who was saluting you to sit down, what did not having a voice look like in your life? What impact does that have?
It kept me quiet, too frightened to speak up. It seemed like it was stuck in my throat.
Speak up about what? What were you experiencing that you chose to remain silent about?
A lot of violence that went on around me and not understanding why people thought all the time. Why was the best menu to find the fault of somebody else? I had a hard time with all of that. I've learned in the modeling field to keep myself quiet. That also got me into trouble. LaRue always tells you to be aware of that whisper inside of you and my mom said to listen to your gut feeling. That is there when you get out of your head and don't ever ignore what that was for because it's warning you.
Your soul is trying to connect with you on a frequency that you can understand. One day, I was attacked but when I saw the person who did this to me, I knew he was bad. I didn't pay attention to it because I did not speak up. What was I afraid of? Losing everything I created. Maybe I was afraid of hurting another person's feelings. Maybe I was wrong. I was always wrong. It could have been part of all of these things but it ended me up on the other side of being raped.
Can you take us back to what it was that you were noticing? What was that voice telling you? What was the context for it to warn you?
“This man is bad. Stay away from him.”
Are you open to sharing more about that experience?
I wrote a book about my experiences. My husband started to edit the book for me. When he got to that, he couldn't read it so we had to put it down. I didn't want him to hear the rest of it because he's a kind man. If more men were more like that, then we wouldn't have some of the problems that we're having. I've learned not to judge with my near-death experience.
I am a fit model. I have great shoulders. I fit a lot of coat suits and all that stuff but my Dad’s Eisenhower jacket was one garment I could never fit into because I had not been through that kind of war. Some women have been through the kind of war that I have been through. They will be there to understand how fractured you become. You get to put the pieces back together but the wounds are right. It’s like crazy glue. You put it back and those wounds will make you a lot stronger than you have ever been. Anything that gets closer to it triggers you.
You share this idea of having that voice or gut feeling to warn you about someone who could cause harm. I want to be very respectful that you don't want to talk about it but it’s the fact that you were attacked. How did that impact the trust or knowledge that that voice is there to serve you after the fact? What was the impact of having had that experience and you have to trust that inner voice?
That's probably why I didn't have as much voice as before. After this attack happened. I remember walking into the model service agency. There was another model there, one I didn’t know. Her name was Andrea Maiorano. She was a healer. She looked at me, came over, and hugged me. I felt this power coming out of her. She says, “I want to show you my real job, Darlene.” She took me to the healing clinic and started to work on me so that I could have a voice again so I would stop trembling.
The only thing that I could ever speak about was the job because I had to pay bills. It worked on me and I started to trust. The frequency and the hurt part started to go where I couldn't even swallow. She brought in LaRue. That's when the healing with both of them happened. I had no choice. I was going to stand up again, and I did. This time, I wasn't going to sink. I was soaring.
I was always very strong after all of that. I am so thankful to Andrea and Larue for everything they've done for me. Also, my good friend Betty, who went on that cruise with me. I can see myself going alone. I have so much to be thankful for. I can do all of this without notes. I didn't have any notes and you can talk freely about near-death experiences or trauma because those things are so real.
It's fascinating that at one point in your life, you felt that your voice didn't matter and would not be heard. There was nothing of value that you could bring and the traumatic experiences that you had both in flesh and blood and even some of the emotional trauma. All of those things, I imagine for many people, would shut them down in all different areas of life.
It seems to me that those are the things that empower you to become outspoken. The healer who came to you knew that there was something that she could do to serve to help you. When you think about what was healed and the purpose that you're here to fulfill, what comes to mind? What was it that you were healed? Why did you choose to be healed?
When you stop crossing over to the other side, there is no frequency of fear. There's only joy and happiness. You put everything that you've been taught that's not working. You get rid of it. I wanted people to know that there is a tremendous chance you can stand up again if you choose to. Listen to that gut feeling and whisper. You can do this. I did this. I've been through a lot more than most but I know I could do this. Look at what I have. I'm married to a man who adores me. I have a beautiful home. I ended my career.
I have healthy kids and they wouldn’t have been in if I did crossover. They wouldn’t know that you do have a chance to make it work. My daughter went through a horrific divorce. Now, she's strong. I was back to help her and show her what she needed to do to stay strong again. It's funny though. When I watch her, she sees not just a war hero because she loved her grandfather. Anybody who needs help, she's right there. I would see her give money to people on the street who were poor when she had no money herself.
It's phenomenal that a woman who didn't have a voice at one point in time, who didn't think that her life was worthy, comes out on the other side and shows through her example as a mother, as a wife, and as a human being that is opposite. What is this part of your life dedicated to? What is it that you want to accomplish?
My daughter-in-law, Carrie, gave me a baseball cap. She's married to my son. My son is 260 pounds and has size 14 shoes with tattoos. He’s a feminist. He’ll look at me and you go, “I can't go there with politics”. She gave me the hat, “Boys will be boys, no more.” Think about those words. We train them like girls from infancy that you don't have much of an identity until you get married to somebody special.
You don't cultivate a career after college or any of those things. My daughter-in-law is grateful that she's married to a man who’s blonde and is on the sexy side. My son has no problem and is not jealous. He lets her speak for herself. If somebody flirts with her, he stands back and smiles because they are going to get her fury. I get the biggest kick out of it. I wish I had her mouth.
I think you do. It sounds like the white T-shirt that was put on your daughter when she was born maybe didn't have as many pins or the pins were in a little different caliber.
Sometimes she gets into trouble but she has a mouth.
I would imagine your contemporaries. Women in your generation who maybe grew up with very similar circumstances and who had fathers or brothers who went to war that brought the war home perhaps didn't feel like they had a voice. There are so many things that were not available to women then as they are compared to now. What do you want them to know?
Usually, when they're my age, they have daughters or granddaughters like I do, which is amazing because they have the voice that we should have had. When in doubt, talk to your daughter. They're being trained differently. We were raised on the book called The Cinderella Complex. You'll have to Google this. You had to be pretty and not be too smart or the men wouldn't accept that. You had to be all these things that would not let you be your true self.
You're too busy keeping that male ego intact. For the girls in this generation, I don't think you are. Not at all. The man who falls in love with you is going to be one amazing human being and you're going to have a chance to be yourself. I didn't have that chance. My first husband was that bully type. I married my dad but I understood my dad when I crossed over.
What did you understand about your dad?
I crossed over in January. When I came back, my husband had a flight to Puerto Rico to come and get me. When I finally got their word to fly me to Guantanamo Bay, they turned around and took me to Puerto Rico. They put me on a gurney and I'm right beside the emergency room hour after hour. No one was touching me. My girlfriend Andrea called in and I told her what was going on. She said, “Give the phone to the doctor.”
She speaks Spanish and she told him exactly what she wanted done. You don't fool around with that mouth. She said, “You have an angel lying there and she's lying on her wings. Come on, give her some help.” They did but they said, “All we can do is make her comfortable. She's not going to make it.” The poison was all through my system. I was married to an Italian once so I understood enough Spanish and the Italian language that I understood what was going on. I fired the doctor and got another one.
That night, they put me in my bed. Andrea called and we did a healing over the phone. Remember, I was in severe pain. We did healing over the phone. The next morning, I've got tubes in and out of my body. I haven't been eating. I'm sitting in a lotus position on my bed looking at my new doctor. I looked at her and said, “I told you I was going to live,” even though there was no way. They had me on 1,500 milligrams of Cipro for over a year. It was quite hilly.
When you marry someone, you are able to experience a voice that you never had. You talked about your daughter, granddaughter, and all the women in your life. Also, your contemporary set and perhaps now being able to access.
I love the way this generation of young ladies is being trained, and also the boys. When you go through trauma, you spend years and years trying to forget it. You bury it in a certain part of your body. You don't want to deal with it. Years later, when they ask you to think about it, you have that dead look in your eyes because it's hard to go back there and remember all the details. You still have a fraction. You need to grab a hole or whatever it is, bring it up, and heal what it is. LaRue did that for me.
What is the benefit of healing trauma? I can see that there are times when not dealing with it, people are able to shut that part down, move forward, raise children, find a job, and take care of their family, whatever it is that they're doing in the community. What would be the benefits?
You know that you've healed because you can talk about it. I can talk about it because I know it is healed. Does it take away your breath? Yeah. You want to help other people going through the same thing and you can say, “I understand.”
You have a book and some information based on what you are experiencing in your life in this book. Tell us about the book and what inspired you to write it.
It should be out in about two months. It is called Unzipped. Remember, I’m a fashion-fit model. I’m exposing my childhood on how I lost my mouth right up until the attack on 9/11. I was talking to my brother Daniel on the day before 9/11. I was living in the city. I was taking the train into the city. My daughter called me and said that the first Twin Towers came down in an accident. I said, “I'll come back up.” I was on the third step of the subway going down. If I was on the sixth step, I never would have heard this message.
I took another train that took me right by the second tower. As we passed it, the second one came down but we didn't know. We were in the subway. I didn't have the news on because I was talking to my brother Danny about his birthday the day before. Here we are. The subway has stopped and the door won't open. We're all kinds of nationalities on that subway. What did we do? We all prayed to the same God with different traditions. It was a big deal. We put the training and doctors out of the way. It was one frequency. You can complicate it or not.
We held hands. One big strong guy got that door open to help us all down. It was the funniest thing that I remember. I did a lot of coat fittings. There was one powder-maker, a Russian guy. Russian men are strong. There was someone yelling at the other Russian powder-maker like, “Why are you so mad at him?” Guess who was on the subway? That little Russian guy that I didn't like. The heat was killing me. The air was something I didn't recognize. It was strong.
I leaned up against the wall and started to slide down. I felt this little bitty arm come around my waistline to hold me up. He was a small-frame man. He helped me down. This man, I gave nothing but a horror story every time I worked with him because I didn't like that he bullied everybody. We all got down and held hands. Exactly about twenty of us got through it praying to the same God. Three days later, I remember I was on the subway again going to another stop. There was this lady sitting in front of me and a very prejudiced man sitting to my left.
He was glaring at her. He thought she was a Muslim lady but she wasn't. He was staring at her with so much hate and anger. I got up, went over, and sat beside her. I looked at him and said, “Why don't you study some of your history and no traditions before you start blaming people and judging them on your particular training?” I asked him to leave her alone. That's what we all got to do. We can't judge people from our training and beliefs. We all can be empowered by our beliefs so stop judging everybody.
We can't judge people based on our own training and world beliefs.
The thing I most admire about you is that voice. That not kept you back. You have a lot of opinions about everything that you've lived through and the work that you've done for yourself. The healing that you've accepted and the choices that you've made have all helped you have the voice to help other people. I see you as a protector and defender.
It’s time to come alive.
You've come alive, Darlene. Can you tell us where we could find the book? Is there a website?
Kristen is doing the formatting of the book Unzipped: Chronicles of a Fashion Fit Model. You can get it at www.DarleneParrisYoung.com.
Is there anything else that you like to say before we close out our time?
Continue to stand and find your voice. If somebody comes at you with a lousy opinion, say thank you and walk away. No one should be able to take that whisper inside of you because you're going to have to do with it anyway. You might as well deal with it now. It doesn't go away. You have a frequency on that other side that you need to connect to. You’ll be happier when you connect to it.
Darlene, it has been such an honor and a pleasure to have you on the show. Thank you so much for sharing your story, for writing a book, for having us your voice, and for inspiring many others to do the same. Thank you all so much for reading another episode. For those of you who would like to get on our subscription, please go to www.TimeToComeAlive.com so that way you don't miss any interviews. It'll go straight to your inbox as soon as they're hot off the press. They're not off the press if they're online but you know what I mean.
On February 18th, 2020, I look forward to having a conversation with Sharon Crane. Sharon is a wonderful woman who's had a lot of opportunities to have her voice heard as well. She'll talk about what it took for her to be an influencer to other women in her community. I’m looking forward to that conversation. Hope you all tune in. Thank you for joining us. Darlene, thank you once again for being with us.
Thank you, Angel Lady.
It's been our pleasure.
Important Links
YouTube Channel - Connect to Joy
Spotify! - Not Quite Strangers
Tupac: “Death is not the greatest loss in life. The greatest loss is what dies inside while still alive.”
Author, Darlene Parris-Young lost her voice at an early age not due to physical ailment, but from a belief that what she had to say didn’t matter. The trauma of a broken relationship with her father and moments during her modeling career left her in pieces. It was after a near-death experience on a cruise ship that she finally chose to bring her voice back to life.
Highlights:
Near-death experiences and crossing over
The tremendous power of forgiveness
Your voice matters
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