Healing Out Loud: Cynthia James Unfiltered

From soap star to soul healer, Cynthia James reveals how her public heartbreak became a global movement in emotional integration and trauma recovery. In this raw, revealing episode of Rise From The Ashes, discover how to transmute pain into power and reclaim your truth, your voice, and your future.

What if your trauma isn’t the end but the ignition? In this no-holds-barred episode of Rise From The Ashes, Baz Porter is joined by transformational powerhouse Cynthia James, a former Hollywood actress who turned heartbreak into healing for thousands worldwide.

From overcoming five generations of trauma to creating the Emotional Integration™ Method, Cynthia shares the raw truth behind her journey and how you can reclaim your wholeness, no matter how fractured you feel.

Whether you're a leader, seeker, or survivor, this episode delivers a soul-level strategy to rise into your purpose.

Emotional Integration™ Demystified – Why traditional healing fails, and how to work with your nervous system, not against it.

The Burnout Trap – Why “high-functioning anxiety” masks deep emotional disconnection and how to spot it in yourself.

Healing in the Spotlight – How Cynthia turned a public divorce into her divine assignment.

Breaking Generational Chains – What it takes to stop inherited trauma in its tracks and lead a new legacy.

The Leadership Shift – From control to compassion: why today’s leaders must evolve or dissolve.

Colorado’s best business coach, Baz Porter, has a new mindset strategy mentoring service to help you unlock new heights of growth, prosperity, happiness, and success. Book your first meeting with the coaching visionary at https://www.ramsbybaz.com/

Chapters

• 0:00 Meeting Cynthia James
• 4:17 From Acting Career to New Purpose
• 6:58 Understanding Burnout and Anxiety
• 10:13 The Power of Believing You're Enough
• 19:41 True Leadership vs. Narcissism
• 25:46 There Is No Failure, Only Lessons
• 27:36 Finding Your Essential Self

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:02

ladies and gentlemen, welcome back to another episode of ross nash's podcast. This is burnout to brilliance. It's not my brilliance, it's yours, and I'm privileged and honored to be with a global speaker and author and a coach today. Her name is cynthia james and she joins me from the sunny mid us. I'm not going to tell her where she lives it's near Denver, but it's somewhere around there, so it's my local area and I'm privileged to have her. Cynthia, please say hello, welcome to the show and tell the audience a bit about yourself and who you are.

Speaker 2: 0:37

Well, thank you for having me. I'm very happy to be here and I'm grateful that people like you do podcasts and things so that people get to meet new people. Me, what I do for a living is I'm an author. I've written six books. I'm a coach. I coach companies and individuals and teams on emotional integration so that they can live a clearer, more aligned life. I'm a speaker. I speak all over the world. I have a TEDx talk called the Past Does Not Define you, and I'm really committed to helping people awaken, to remember who they are, because we're all unique, we're all powerful, we're all on this planet in this moment, because we're essential and because we're needed. So I feel that that's my mission here.

Speaker 1: 1:35

So I'd like to ask people how did you get into this? Because it's a very, it's a loaded question, because people are going to think all the way back. But it's not just something you do, it's part of your identity, it's what you thrive at and you live for. How did you actually find that purpose within yourself?

Speaker 2: 1:58

Well, you know it was securities. I'd love to tell you that, like, oh, I went to college and then this all, but that's not exactly what I used to make my living as an actress and I was the first Lexi on Days of Our Lives and I did a lot of television and film and I was really happy. And then I had gotten married to a pretty visible person and we went through a public divorce, gotten married to a pretty visible person and we went through a public divorce and right when that happened, it was like the universe said, okay, you're done doing that. And so I would go up for movies, I'd be between me and another person, the other person would get up, I'd go up for series and it'd be three people and it would go another way. It just kept happening and I had children and so I was like, okay, what am I going to do? And I've been meditating for like 40 years, and so in my meditation I said, okay, what's next for me? And the little voice within me said you need to go to school.

Speaker 2: 3:02

And there was a place in California, in Santa Monica, called the University of Santa Monica, and they had a master's degree program in spiritual psychology which I didn't even know what it was at the time, but I liked the word spiritual and so I went and I interviewed and it just was one of the greatest gifts I gave to myself, because what happened in that class was one of the semesters you had to create your own counseling strategy.

Speaker 2: 3:35

And I'm like I don't even have a counseling strategy but because I'd been meditating and doing spiritual work for so long, there were always things that kind of dropped in. So I kind of pulled them all together and I created what is now called emotional integration and I presented it to the class that I didn't know what I was going to do with it. I just thought it was an assignment and I had already, you know, been through a spiritual program, become a spiritual counselor and stuff. But I didn't realize that that actually was the beginning of what I do today. And to this day I don't do a lot of marketing for clients. It's word of mouth. People come and I believe it's because what came through me was kind of like a magnet for what I was to do on the planet.

Speaker 1: 4:28

I love that story and something that you said there and you glazed over. You went from stardom, busy actress in the public eye to that's not for me, and you added roles for me and you yeah, it rolls. That's an incredible courage, encouraging thing to hear for many people because you get sucked into that little dome of. This is what I'm gonna do for the rest of my life. It's a thick. You know, you've been there. You know what I'm on about by that. You know that that environment and it can be very toxic right well.

Speaker 2: 5:02

Well you can't, and because when you're in the Hollywood structure a lot of your identity is your last job, what you look like in public, how you, what's your resume, how, what's your resume. And then I was married to a star, which made it even more crazy because it was public and I didn't know it at the time when the marriage started falling apart. But that was the universe's way of saying I've got to move you because the world you're in is not healthy for you.

Speaker 1: 5:46

But it was that that moved to a different direction and, although you didn't realize it to start with, it was the best thing for you longer term.

Speaker 2: 5:56

A hundred percent, and it wasn't easy. It wasn't easy being a single mom. It wasn't easy having a public divorce. It wasn't easy learning what am I going to do if I'm not acting. What am I going to do and how am I going to, you know, make money to take care of me and my children? But this is what I learned those moments in your life are like a void. It's like a pregnant space within your life where something new is being birthed and if you can trust it, you'll be guided.

Speaker 1: 6:30

I think that's great advice there, from being someone who knows exactly what you're learning how to trust not just the other people but yourself and a lot of people who are high performance, they're jet setters, they're go-getters find it very difficult to come back within themselves and say I'm going to trust the journey. But that has a knock-on effect, at least to something we call burnout. Well, we've got to known as burnout, but there's different levels of burnout and that's what I just want to touch on briefly right now. Anxiety is a form of burnout. It's a symptom to a much deeper understanding, but there's also a component there of spirituality and that's where we find our faith. Have you ever had an experience or had a client you don't have to name them, obviously that's had that similar experience, that had that burnout through anxiety, through overwhelm, but they come back through your guidance.

Speaker 2: 7:38

Well, I've had personal experiences and clients. I had a client that came to me that was a brilliant musician but was really struggling, was hoarding in their house and was sabotaging their work, even though they were brilliant. And when they came to me, sometimes I will do inner guidance work, mind-body work and so I was going to have them close their eyes and we were going to do something, and he said I cannot close my eyes, it's not safe. And I said tell me why. And then he proceeds to tell me that he was in a cult and the level of abuse and trauma and indoctrination that he went through made him completely paranoid. And so what we did was the entire time together was how could he learn to be safe within himself, how could he learn to trust himself, how could he learn to love himself?

Speaker 2: 8:41

And one of the ways that happened was he knew this chaplain in a hospital and the chaplain asked him to come and bring his guitar and play for people who were in hospice. And what he would do is he found that when he went there playing for those people, there was this connectivity and that he could see that his music was healing. And as he continued to do that over several months. It also inspired him to create space within his home, so he ultimately cleaned out his home, became a part of the staff at that hospital and then started going out more and doing work in the world. But he said that he had not realized the depth that the cult had taken away his trust in himself and his trust in god or spirit, or whatever you choose to call it I love that story.

Speaker 1: 9:43

This is where I do the podcast and have these conversations, because this wouldn't be out there and most people would just, oh, let's just skim over the carpet, it doesn't matter. People matter, and one of the commonalities that I've seen through the time I've been doing this is we don't believe we're enough, and that's a lie, a mistruth or misconception that we've been led to believe. The moment and you've just mentioned this in theories the moment you believe you're enough, you're worthy of something, you are amazing and you have that light and potential and you experience this, you change your whole life, inner world and outer stars to transform.

Speaker 2: 10:36

Yeah. So what's important about what you're saying, baz, is, before I was Cynthia, actress and all those other things, I grew up. I come from five generations of women who have been abused and traumatized and they left the planet overweight. They left ill, depressed, right and my mother in her second marriage. My father, my biological father, was an alcoholic and floated in and out, but my stepfather turned out to be a wife beater and a pedophile and so he abused me physically, you know, for over a year until my uncle came and rescued us from the house.

Speaker 2: 11:22

But I'm telling you that because I thought that that was normal what I was going through, the violence and the trauma, you know, and I didn't realize that it had put something in me that said I'm not safe and I don't matter that I don't have a voice, and so a lot of the work I've done and you know I mean some of the journeys I've taken is like you know, I was a functional wreck, but the great thing about it is, I believe, that all of that that happened to me became fodder for the work that I do today to let people know that really the past doesn't define you, that you get to choose your life, you get to be the captain of your own ship and whatever you have to go through to get to that knowledge that you're enough and that you're important, I mean, why would the universe breathe life into you if you were insignificant?

Speaker 1: 15:12

I love that For the listeners. Now, if you've just tuned in and you're like what the hell's going on, pause it, go back and please just go back about three minutes and get a notepad and pen and go and take some notes for yourself, because that there was about six months of coaching in three minutes. The experience that Cynthia has and she is an experience she's not brought it with her, she uses it to fuel her, and the tonality in her voice, the authenticity in her, is exuding that. She metaphors it in stories or experiences and she brings it forward. For someone who has seen and understood what she is talking about and in depth, because I can see her face for those people on audio go and look at the video. You will understand the passion she has within her to actually help support and grow you as an amazing person that you truly are. It's not about what we are getting. It's about what you are getting. That's the journey and the spiritualistic side of it, the meditation, the understanding of the universe, quantum physics, whatever how you want to call it. That's important because it's within you, the moment cynthia understood that she mattered. She's amazing, she is more than enough and everyone else can go to hell.

Speaker 1: 16:53

That's when her life started to change and, as you said earlier, it's not easy. How life started to change? And, as you said earlier, it's not easy. Caveat for that nothing good comes easy, because we have to learn the lessons in order to embody that next, next version of ourselves. When we talk about leadership in many different aspects, people think leadership, big ceo, etc. Etc. But it's not. You can be a leader in your own life, cynthia. I want to talk briefly about some of the burdens that can come with that. When you stand in your authenticity, when you stand in your life like a leader and earn who you are, because it's not as simple as I'm the leader in my life, that's it.

Speaker 2: 17:40

Can you just think that? Yeah well, I'd love to talk about that, because I've worked in corporate America. I've been at the top of the food chain in media management in the world. This is what I want to say.

Speaker 2: 17:56

Leadership is a quality, it is not a definition of who you are. And for me, leadership means are you clear about who you are? Are you clear about what you value? Are you clear about what your boundaries and non-negotiables are? Because that clarity is what supports you in leading. Because if you are leading whether it's yourself, a small group or a large group you know you are modeling for the others around you who you are and if you are authentic to who you say you are.

Speaker 2: 18:42

And so when I work with teams, with the leader, it's like what's your mission, what's your vision, what do you value, and is your organization in alignment with that? And if it's not, it falls on you, because that means that you're not giving to this organization, to the world, the truth of who you come here to be. And so leading is about there are good leaders and there are interesting leaders. And good leaders are open, they're collaborative, they're curious. They're collaborative, they're curious, they're innovative. Interesting leaders want to be in control. They can manipulate, they can do acts that are unkind and uncaring, and the difference between those two things is frequency, because a good leader is going to lift people up, an interesting leader is going to push them down.

Speaker 1: 19:47

I love that. What you're speaking into now, it's basically narcissism in corporate America, and that's just how it is. And what you're speaking into now has been encouraged for a very, very long time within structured systems finance marketing, big marketing but it comes down to the person.

Speaker 2: 20:09

Yes, it does.

Speaker 1: 20:11

And you mentioned something there earlier about listening, but really listening, opening up the potentiality within a person and pouring into that person, as well as learning yourself. I love that definition of a leader. So if you're listening to this now and you're like, well, I want to be a leader, go and look at Cynthia James, Go and research what she has done. Go and have a conversation with her, because if you're ready to stop thriving and really start thriving in your life, this is the time to do it.

Speaker 2: 20:50

Oh, I think this is totally the time to do it. You know, we don't have one more minute to be wasting playing small, pretending, hiding, trying to be something that we are not, because what the world needs is people who are conscious and people who are awake and people who care about nurturing and caring and loving others. You know, because what we're witnessing in so many places is you mentioned narcissists. I think that narcissists have such a deep insecurity Correct that they are continuing constantly to prove that they're important, to prove that they're powerful, to prove that they're in control, and in many cases, they can get followers, they can get people to follow them with that, but the thing is is that it doesn't have an alignment with the universe, which is harmonic.

Speaker 1: 21:55

I love what you just said there. And the validation of that person is constantly trying to elevate themselves through inauthenticity.

Speaker 2: 22:03

Right.

Speaker 1: 22:04

And this has been the footprint for corporate America now for at least 50 years At least. You know. Let's just say how it is, but it's been acceptable and I love people like you who come in and go. Well, actually, that's complete BS. This is what it is. This is how to change it, if you're willing to do the work and the art. I don't believe in failure. I don't believe it exists. I believe it's another step for a journey. Can you speak into the failure aspect, of perception of failure in a lot of people in your experience? Because I think people go oh, I failed, that's it, but it's it.

Speaker 2: 22:49

I don't believe in failure. I think that there are mistakes. When I was acting and you would do a take, they would say cut, do it again because it was a mistake, it wasn't in alignment with the vision or what they wanted to show on the screen. And I think it's the true with life. It's like you'll make a choice, everything's a choice. So you make a choice, it doesn't work out, you fall down. But my thing is get up and what did you learn? You know, because if something didn't work, then there's a reason, there's an opportunity there and it's like so then what did you learn? And how can you make a different choice? How can you to make yourself clearer, more confident, more powerful, more abundant? What can you do?

Speaker 2: 23:41

And that doesn't mean that that challenge doesn't hurt. It doesn't mean that you don't have feelings about it, and sometimes it can kind of knock you to your knees. I mean, my divorce was intense. It was like whoa, I didn't sign up for this, but I did. So it's like, if you don't learn the lesson from this experience, you will repeat this class and it will get more intense each time, if you don't learn the lesson. So my thing is okay. What's the lesson, how do I learn it and move on. So I don't have the lesson, so my thing is okay. What's the lesson, how do I learn it? And move on, so I don't have to go through this again I love that.

Speaker 1: 24:23

I have something very similar where I just say to myself I don't need the volume turning up, I get the message and how can I take away from that to improve and move forward. Before we leave for part one, I'd always like to ask you or my guest, in this case you, cynthia what it is you want to give back to the world. What is your legacy?

Speaker 2: 24:53

A reminder that every person is significant and essential to this planet and its evolution. Otherwise we wouldn't be here. And so I want to say to anybody listening your only job is to find out who you've come here to be and remember who you are at the cellular level.

Speaker 1: 25:24

That just spoke, not just to my heart, but I can assume it spoke to the audience's heart as well. Thank you for sharing that, cynthia. Before we close down, ladies and gentlemen, this is part one. Before we close down, ladies and gentlemen, this is part one. Prepare for part two Get a notebook and a pen, go and get a drink, settle yourself down, because it's going to be explosive, it's going to be mad, and this is Royce, from the Ashes, from burnout, to your brilliance. Cynthia, I'll see you in part two. Audience download share and change somebody's life, because you are enough. See you soon.