SHOW NOTES
To learn more about Elizabeth’s book Groomed and the different programs/groups available, visit www.freewithe.com.
To learn more about The Selah Way Foundation and all of the Prevention resources discussed in this episode, including The Cool Aunt Series, S.P.E.A.K. Up, and how to set parental controls on your child's smartphone and gaming devices, click here.
Follow Elizabeth Fisher Good on Instagram
Follow the Selah Way Foundation on Instagram.
Follow Selah Freedom on Instagram and Facebook.
Learn more about the Elizabeth Smart Foundation's Smart Defense program.
TRANSCRIPT
Elizabeth Smart: Hi everybody, and welcome back to another episode of Smart Talks by the Elizabeth Smart Foundation. I am Elizabeth Smart, and today I am here with Elizabeth Fisher Good. And I am so excited to have her. She has an incredible story of her own.
She's also created her own anti-trafficking non-profit, Selah Way, and I am thrilled to have her with us and to have her share a little bit of her story and the work she's doing, because she's amazing. So welcome, Elizabeth.
Elizabeth Fisher Good: [00:01:17] Thank you. I am thrilled and honored. Thanks for having me.
Elizabeth Smart: [00:01:21] And can you just begin by telling us a little bit about your story?
Elizabeth Fisher Good: [00:01:26] Yeah. And you know what? I love sharing it all because now that I've been in this movement for 10 years and doing this work in the sex trafficking movement with the root being sexual abuse, it's kind of textbook. So the more we normalize it and talk about it the better. So I would say, like if, if the enemy, we have an enemy, I believe, right, there's always a fight for us. If he can't get us in the womb, he has a plan through sexual abuse for women and he likes to steal destinies and he starts very young. Stats say like three to four years old, it usually begins. I wasn't that young. But I was, it was someone I knew, someone I never would have ever had a guard up to.
One of my favorite, was not an uncle, but was a family friend that I knew forever at my summer, like where my family went every summer for getaways. And honestly by the time that it happened, I think I was 11 or 12. And, I couldn't even, it almost felt unreal, you know, because it was just something that I wasn't anticipating.
It was on the way to church. He was a worship leader, just, just very surprising. But when you're little, it's amazing how it steals your voice and you can't say anything. And so it happened the first time and I was like, well, that didn't just happen. And I didn't even, I just sorta went on. Then we went to church, you know, and as he went up to the front, I was sort of like in shock. But then when it happened in the car on the way to church, that time I sort of, I couldn't pretend it didn't happen, and there was a shift. And I remember going into the bathroom, but I watched, you know, like soap operas back in the day. 'Cause I'm in the bathroom crying, and I'm like, I feel like a soap opera character, like this can't be real. This is too, I can't, it's unbelievable, but I never said anything.
And then I went and sat back down and I literally sat back, or next to one of my uncles who was honestly my favorite, favorite uncle in the world. And he never did anything to ever violate my trust, as a lot of men never did anything to violate my trust.
But he actually, when I sat next to him and he went to put his arm around me, in that moment, everything had changed. I wasn't even comfortable receiving it. And so it sort of changed how I felt with men immediately. Never said a word, never said a word. Then my parents ended up getting divorced probably two, three years later.
And I think when they told me that, there was just another and too much information was shared with me about why. And so there's more devastation around men. And then I just went to a party, it was beginning of my, maybe eighth grade summer before freshman year, and was introduced to alcohol, blackout drank from what I understand someone had sex with me, I don't recall.
But then I ended up after that, that was just like a serial occurrence. I was in a frat house. Actually I think my virginity was first taken at a frat house when I was passed out drunk when I shouldn't have been at 14 years old. And then from then on, I didn't have a filter. And my story is so similar to the sex trafficking survivors 'cause you don't even care anymore. Your guard's been broken and it wasn't until I got it healed and restored many, many years later of just, not, not mattering because of what was stolen, you know. You no longer guard. So sort of it in a nutshell.
Elizabeth Smart: [00:04:26] I mean, I think it's so interesting always to learn people's turning points in their stories.
And so I'm curious for you, what was your turning point when you reclaimed your life? When you're like, wait a second, this isn't normal. This should never have happened to me.
Elizabeth Fisher Good: [00:04:44] Yeah.
Elizabeth Smart: [00:04:45] What, what was it for you?
Elizabeth Fisher Good: [00:04:47] Well, it was, it was progressional quite honestly. That's why I'm so passionate about it. And I love that you're doing it and putting your name out there because we got to get it back quicker. Right? I was, by the time I was fully restored, and, you know, we're never fully restored, right, but I mean,
Elizabeth Smart: [00:05:02] Life's a journey.
Elizabeth Fisher Good: [00:05:03] Yeah. I was always doing something, but by the time, I mean like shoom, clarity, and wow, 34. But believe me, there was pieces that led up to that, that I thought I was better. I got married, but what I learned to do was fake it and learn to act like I was fine. All was good. I'm going to just do the appearances, the appearance thing. And I'm good.
Elizabeth Smart: [00:05:23] And was, did you believe in your appearance. Like, did you believe in the appearance you were putting on or did you always know underneath that there was still turmoil?
Elizabeth Fisher Good: [00:05:34] It got a little better over the years, but it was a struggle. You know, I, I talked about it in my book. Like I was a queen like that, that saying "fake it til you make it," I don't really think is accurate. Cause you can just fake it forever and you often don't make it to the other side. When I was younger, you know, cause I also had, my sister was accidentally shot and killed, which was a tragic part of my life when I was little. And that too, I was like the youngest of all the siblings and cousins. And I was the last one anyone checked in on, you know, when she was accidentally shot and killed by a family member.
So it was horrific. So I think I was the silent, quiet one. And so I think in my, definitely not in college, but then when I started working, I would land great jobs. I was a great interviewer, but I was faking it. I, I didn't have confidence, but I could package it up. So I really knew I was faking it then. And, and, and struggling, struggling, sleeping, not getting there, lying about how I was with a client when I wasn't, shame was all over me.
But I somehow managed to rise out of it more than I did in my teenage years and at least still perform, but I knew I wasn't well, and then I did a lot of grief counseling for my sister, which was more appropriate to hit. Right. And that got me healed enough that I actually, then I didn't know how deeply I was faking it for a long time.
Elizabeth Smart: [00:06:51] Oh, wow.
Elizabeth Fisher Good: [00:06:51] Yeah. Progressional.
Elizabeth Smart: [00:06:53] And as you've met they're survivors, and as you've worked in your nonprofit, have you found that a lot of other survivors have similar stories that they're just faking it or that they're only, they're only sort of addressing surface-y stuff and not digging deep into the, I mean, just how deep trauma really goes?
Elizabeth Fisher Good: [00:07:13] Yeah. Well, you know, what I think is so interesting, you know, we've been doing it for a decade. We started with Selah Freedom, which was the organization that's now a great model for the country of safe housing. It's one of the top leading models of outcomes. And I've only the last two years launched the Selah Way Foundation.
But I always told the girls when we were working in the house, when I was still doing that stuff with them on a regular basis, they were 18, 19, 20, 21, like 26. I'm like you guys are ahead of the world because mostly what I've found is that it was my donors or it was my peers that were like, "oh, I love what you do."
And then they start telling me their secrets that they never told anyone. So they had kept the secrets, you know, in their fifties, sixties, seventies. I find that the survivors, they get into a healthy healing program, they're so far ahead of the game. Like those girls are nailing it. They're, they're, all of their shame is gone because all we ever deal with is the root.
Like many of them prior to them coming to us did go to like, different drug programs. Some of them went 22 times, but they didn't have a drug problem. That's a symptom of your shame. And so they were treatment, back to the live treatment, back to self-esteem treatment, back to like self destructive behaviors.
And when they came to our program, we hit the root because until you hit the root, like symptoms are going to stay. But when you hit the root, you don't even have to work on the symptoms. You know, the freedom comes, it falls away.
Elizabeth Smart: [00:08:34] And can you walk me through some of the services that you provide, sort of like the flow that you would take a survivor through?
Elizabeth Fisher Good: [00:08:41] Yeah, well, you know the story is typically they've been abused since they were three or four. They can't take it anymore. They run away. They usually hit the streets between 12 to 14 years of age thinking whatever's out, there has to be better than what's there. And then they're typically sold for sex seven to eight times a day, I mean, not seven, but for seven to eight years, 15 to 40 times a day. So by the time we reach them, they don't feel they're worth anything. So we have the model campus like Selah Freedom is now what we use as the model for the Selah Way Foundation, trying to help others. So if any listeners are wanting to open a home, all we do now is mentor other organizations.
It's not about our name, but it's about getting this way that actually really heals and we'll help mentor any organization to grow and do this really well. But what we've learned is, we have two separate houses on, in two separate campuses because a girl that's coming in off the street and anybody that's had chronic abuse, it's typically seven to eight times of intervention before they'll receive help.
So the first home is a little wild, right? Girls come in and they're going, many of them will come for two weeks and be like, "I really understood this. I'm healed. Now I'm going to go back and I could help him." Cause often they think the trafficker's their boyfriend, you know, they've only known abuse their whole life. You stay, you know?
And so sometimes, times it takes a very long time, but that first house, they get four to six weeks and we call it Selah. Selah is a Hebrew word, means to rest, to pause, to reflect. So for the first time they're having to reflect on the past that it wasn't their fault, and this is not who they are, but often they're not ready for that truth and they'll leave, you know, so that house, it takes a while, but if they actually make it and they realize they're worth it and they're ready to dig in, they move to the next campus.
And that campus is anywhere from one to three years because you know, you're not reinvented in a day. And a lot of times when programs are like, oh yeah, we just teach them, you know, job skills. And I'm like, man, you're missing a bunch. So the program consists of absolutely everything. First there's, you know, trauma you know, trauma clearing like resetting neuro, neuropathways. I'm a master's in clinical psych counselor, but me talking to you about your problems is certainly not going to heal you. Often it just makes the treads go deeper of saying the same stuff over and over. But the new modalities now with the neuropathway resetting. That helps the girl that has been unable to sleep in the dark because of her trauma within six to eight hours after one session, that resets it's the most brilliant, amazing.
I was so skeptical seven years ago when I heard about it, I'm like "get out," but it is. And if they're using it more in Europe than we are here, but it's like what Caroline Lee does, Dr. Jason Quintile. There's a few really great practitioners and we have one that works with us. So that's on the front end.
Elizabeth Smart: [00:11:18] So is it like a verbal kind of therapy or is it like a medical treatment or, or what, what is it?
Elizabeth Fisher Good: [00:11:24] You know it's weird, 'cause you know, me, I have enough of my own problems, right? So when I heard about it, he's like, "I really think I could help your girls." And I'm like, "how can you do that?" He goes, "there's a way that your brain, your brain is storing it, trying to fight something that it thinks is still happening. It's just getting the good news in that it's no longer happening."
And I'm like, "Okay," I said, "well, maybe you should try it on me pro bono. Let's see before I try to sell this to my board" and he goes, "do you have any trauma?" I'm like, "do I have trauma?" But literally the stuff I think when I met him probably, a decade ago, because we're a decade old, almost. So I'm 52. I was 42 and, you know, I had nailed a lot of stuff, but there was still pieces that I was not knowing were fake, right.
Or not knowing I had false messaging, keeping me in certain things I shouldn't be kept in any longer. And in one session, I mean, he got to a root of something that no one had ever hit before. And he got there by asking me really weird questions. And then you'd ask me to remember an event, now go through the event forwards and then go through it backwards.
And it was just weird as can be. And then when he was done and we were done talking about it and he goes, "how do you feel about it now?" The sadness was gone. It was just wild. So now there's a lot of, there's different, different people that do it in different ways. But as a therapist, I would never do just talk therapy.
I will tell you, please don't spend that money every week for the rest of your life. There's ways to get better, but that's the front end that helps to clear, but then there's horse therapy, puppy therapy, art therapy, talk therapy, because there's a place for that for sure. All kinds of, all kinds of things.
And we have like 400 volunteers per campus because the girls have never had normal sisters, cousins, aunts. And so they come along and they do art projects and different things. So a lot of different, you hit it from all directions. And then at the same time, a hundred percent are getting their GED. Cause they're, the trauma has been cleared out and they could finally learn again and know that they're not stupid.
And so a hundred percent get their GEDs. They start the career path or college pathway. So it's a beautiful rebirthing of these girls in their identities. And then also many of them decided to stay on staff. And so many have been with us after graduation five years. So it's it's cool. Yeah.
Elizabeth Smart: [00:13:32] What, and actually, sorry, jumping back, something that struck me that you said when they experienced abuse in their homes or in their life growing up and they're like, oh, even on the streets, better, I just wanted to go back to that for a second, because I actually remember when I was kidnapped and after I'd been raped by my captors and I was chained up, I remember actually thinking, because I did feel worthless, you know, I felt like I was unworthy and unlovable and, and all of that. And I remember thinking even if my family didn't accept me back, because I was ruined, I would have a better chance on the streets.
Like I would be happier on the streets than staying with my captors. And just listening to you say that was just like, "oh my gosh, I had that exact thought in my head." I mean, what if I had come back? I mean, heaven forbid that, you know, my family not accept me back. But that could have very easily been a road that I went down myself.
Elizabeth Fisher Good: [00:14:27] It's weirdly textbook. I'm telling you because like in our program, the youngest was 11 and she said at 11 years old after this happening since she was four years old, she literally said, you know what? Whatever's on the streets has to be better than what happens to me every night in my bedroom with my dad and my brothers.
And as she got out there, like they say, within 48 hours, they're approached by somebody, a trafficker. And she said the first guy that approached her was like, in his fifties, she doesn't know she's 11, but some old guy in her mind. And he's like, I'll give you $10 to have sex with me. And she goes, "This is great. I'm going to have, I could buy McDonald's. It's not my dad," like the way it takes a brain and immediately rewires and steals destiny. It's, it's amazing. That's why it is miraculous, right? Like for you to be found, for the girls to make it to a program like Selah, I would say it's one in a million and God has a very big plan for your life. So you're going to, we have to use it.
Elizabeth Smart: [00:15:18] And what, I mean, how many, sorry. I know I'm jumping around, but how many girls do you think you typically see in a year?
Elizabeth Fisher Good: [00:15:26] You know what? To date we're close to 10,000. So it's been, we've been going for almost a decade, you know, and it started smaller and it's grown and now we have more beds at the different campuses and we do outreach programs. So we have staff on the streets, in the jails, and the courtrooms and the girls are like, Ugh. Sometimes though you have to chase the girl for two years before she'll even come into your assessment home to try it because she doesn't think she's worth it. So we show up here, we show up there, love them, tell them that they're worth more.
Elizabeth Smart: [00:15:54] How do you help them understand that they are worth it? Because I've, I mean, I've traveled extensively and I've spoken and I mean, I've experienced so many of the same things that you're describing with people coming up to me and telling me, "I've never told anyone this before, but you know, this happened when I was little or this happened in my twenties and I'm in my sixties now, or I've never spoken about this before.
And I've always struggled with, you know, questioning if I'm good enough." How have, I mean, so therapy obviously plays a huge part and these different modalities are a huge part of that. But I mean, what are other ways that you help them realize that even all of these things that have happened to them do not affect their self-worth, that they are still worthwhile?
Elizabeth Fisher Good: [00:16:37] I know. I mean, over the last decade, and that's why I'm excited about my book that came out, because it gives like a walkthrough, a quick way to do it. And we have curriculum that goes with it, like, because it's, it's root level. And once somebody understands that this is the ploy of the enemy. Like what I always tell the girl, girls is, "you must be so important that you were attacked when you were little, that your destiny was trying to be, you know, was stolen when you were little, because think about it. How much does Satan not want you to have a voice? Think about it. Like, you must be the most powerful woman in the world." So it's like that conversion point of them. And what I do find is like, the more someone could talk about it and like them telling us, like when they come up to us after we spoke somewhere and say, "I've never told," and I will have, you know, 90 year old men with tears streaming down their face, "they just told me I was bad. No one ever asked if anything happened. They just said I was a bad boy." And I'm like, our world has failed. And so it's, I honestly, Elizabeth, it's changing culture, right? And changing society, systemic change to make this a lasting thing to talk about. And that's why like the newest arm that we're really cranking up is the prevention arm too.
It's you know, we were the first state in Florida that passed it, a mandate that every school K-12 has to have this education. And now I have a bill pending in Congress for federal, like it has to be normalized everywhere. And it's it's women that haven't been healed or men that haven't been healed that can't speak about it. And then you're not breaking off the generational, you know, what's going to go forward if it stays silent. So I think what we're doing here and, and inviting people to, in these conversations and when they come to you, I immediately just try to normalize it. "Oh my gosh. So many women, me too. What was yours, who was it?"
And you immediately, it's because most people are afraid everyone's going to be like "you dirty thing, go away from me. Of course he kept that a secret." They've held that lie forever. So I think more of that we as a world can start saying, I mean, it's cliche now, but me too. Right? It's, it's normal. We all have kept these secrets.
The world is over flowing with horrific secrets.
Elizabeth Smart: [00:18:32] And I love that you have a bill in Congress right now, and that it's to promote education, anti-trafficking education in K through 12. Is there a way that we as a public can help push it along that we can get involved? What can we do?
Elizabeth Fisher Good: [00:18:49] Yeah, well, it's right at the tipping point. It's at the tipping point right this moment. So I'm not sure when this is going to come out, but maybe I'll give you the notes afterwards to share with your viewers because it's packaged in with something else right now. And it could be any day that it's dropped because it was introduced last year, House Bill 4388, but COVID happened and everything...
Elizabeth Smart: [00:19:10] Of course, of course COVID happened.
Elizabeth Fisher Good: [00:19:14] It even ruined this right. But it's coming, it's re, it's being reintroduced to the floor. So I will probably be able to share it with you by the time this is live.
Elizabeth Smart: [00:19:24] Okay. And make sure you keep us updated on its progress, because if there's anything we can do to help push it along.
Elizabeth Fisher Good: [00:19:31] Oh, cause we do need,
Elizabeth Smart: [00:19:32] We need to know.
Elizabeth Fisher Good: [00:19:34] Yes. And every single state has to be telling their people get on it.
Elizabeth Smart: [00:19:37] Yes. Now tell me more about your book.
Elizabeth Fisher Good: [00:19:40] Well, you know what, it's so funny because I knew that I was supposed to write a long time ago. Like someone has said to me, this is the imagery, which sounds absolutely ridiculous, but I'll just be honest with you.
Like someone was praying with me and they said, I see the weirdest picture and I can't believe I've never had a picture of this, but it's like those old fashioned feathers that you wrote with the plumes. And they said, it's almost like I see a dipping it in the, your brain, like the pain of your trauma and writing with that flood, but it's going to bring the deepest healing to women because there's so many women struggling in these same deep places of secret, hidden places.
And I was like, "What?" And so like years ago, like three, four years ago, I had become friends with an agent that's like, "I believe in you and you're ready to write. You should write." And he's like, you know, some pub housing, houses are asking about it and I was not ready. So what's weird about it is like, I was going through a horrific divorce because there were some places I was still numbing and faking and, you know, by the time I got full freedom, it was just, you know, sadly, you know, with the cloud of witnesses, sadly, sadly, sadly, I ended up divorced, but I'm remarried now get to be Mrs. Good.
But the book. It, the book was sorta, just flew out of me, but as it came out, thank God COVID happened because then I didn't have the confidence to talk about it in the ways that I should. So I feel like in this last year that I've launched this curriculum with it, what I can tell you now that I couldn't do a year ago is that it is the, it's like a blueprint to freedom in ways that you never thought you could access, like, it literally.
And it's, it's so beautiful and it just it's, and it's funny, it sort of talks like I talk, but it walks into helping you unpack and through the questions in it, it hits things that you never like, people are like, "I never thought about this until you told that story that never would have come up in my life. Never, but, oh my gosh, I have that secret too. And I've never talked about it." And so it sort of goes into like digging in to sort of start unlocking you, and then it talks through five ways most of us women have been groomed, you know, for to judgment, if we were raised in like churchy, legalistic environments we're super judgy, or we're groomed for appearances.
My big one was groomed to endure. I can endure anything, but I perceived it as strength. You know, my friends are like, "you're gonna die there." I'm like, "oh no, I got it." You know, like if you're one of those, like I got it, you'll probably groomed to endure. And there's just a few things groomed to be invisible.
But then it walks through a Selah. So it takes a lot of this stuff we do at Selah Freedom that I've seen over 10 years, that if you don't actually pause and let yourself feel these things and let them come in, you're never going to truly be done with them. And it's not to revisit them in therapy every day for a hundred years. It's to really, really feel them, to allow the grief, allow it to leave you, to be done with it, to thoroughly process it.
And it just, it brings things up in a remarkable way. And then it goes through the chapter called "The Release" and then "The Relaunch" and what we, I talk about a lot there is not just my own personal stuff, but with Selah, I mean, a lot of the stuff we learned over 10 years, our best practices, and I don't know if you got to do this, you may have, but when you face your trafficker or who you're convicting in court, a person gets to make their impact statement.
And for our girls, like we had one girl that was 19 years old and she made her impact statement and we worked with her and our trauma doc worked with her. And these little 19 year olds get their impact statements so brilliant, like, "you're sitting there in your handcuffs and I am now in freedom" and they have to share what was done to them.
"And you did this to me and this and this to me," and those words don't hold power over them anymore if they're saying them, because they've been so cleared from the trauma, but they're saying it to the man and everybody in the room's watching that this is what this man did to this little beautiful girl.
And it is the most empowering, like they get done with these impact statements. We are putting guys away at the heightened level of sentencing, like two 50 year concurrent sentences, 40 years plus this. And I had one state's attorney in Illinois and he said," I've been doing this for twenty-five years. I've never heard such a powerful impact statement."
So the book sort of walks people into looking at their stuff being ready to release it, helping them figure out how to make their own impact statement. Cause you got to draw that line in the sand where you know what, this no longer defines me.
And then it walks into a relaunch chapter because now there's new things that you're, you could dream again on a different level. And there's a curriculum that goes with it and we lead them, I lead them online now for women all over. I had women from Alaska joining my most recent groups, which is so wild. Like how did you hear? But it, the anonymity of doing it in a group online lets each person not feel afraid to speak because I believe group that therapy group sessions are so powerful.
One-on-one it's like you only get as far as you're willing to go, but people will say, "oh my gosh, these you guys are saying what I've never said out loud," or "I've told my therapist that part, but I never told them that part. We're going to say it all all here." And it's this reconciliation that we all need. Cause I don't think we really get our freedom 'till all of our parts come back together and not by telling this one that and that one. So it's, it's a, it's a holistic, beautiful, funny, hard journey, but it's a fun, it's a good book. I can say that now.
Elizabeth Smart: [00:24:33] And, and what is your book called?
Elizabeth Fisher Good: [00:24:35] It's called Groomed.
Elizabeth Smart: [00:24:36] Groomed. And is it on Amazon or where can we find it?
Elizabeth Fisher Good: [00:24:40] Amazon, Barnes and Noble, Christian Bookstores. But if you go, I have a website which is just very simple. It's freewithe.com, E like our name, Elizabeth. Freewithe.com and you could order it, right, there's a link right there. That'll take you.
Elizabeth Smart: [00:24:53] Okay. Sounds like I need to go there and order it because it sounds like an incredible book.
And actually I'm just sitting here thinking and, just everyone that I've ever met, anyone, everyone has a story and I'm just sitting here thinking, well, all of us probably could write an impact statement. We may not have our day in court, you know, where we stand across from our perpetrators or, or whatever hardship or trial we've been forced to endure.
I mean, maybe it's COVID-19, maybe we can't stand across from COVID-19, but I mean, how powerful is it still just to have an impact statement about the hardship you've gone through in life and how, I don't know, freeing, that must feel after doing it. Now I'm thinking you know, maybe I should go work on my own.
Elizabeth Fisher Good: [00:25:41] Actually like these groups, I would tell you, I mean, people, of course they could sign up on my website to do these groups, but then you become a leader of these groups and, and you give people, 'cause it's not about just making your own impact statement alone in your room, by yourself with your journal.
It's having, I would say a cloud of witnesses because when you have, so sometimes we'll have nine little faces on the, my zoom groups and I have other facilitators that lead them and I invite people, go through it and then become a facilitator. This stuff is the most beautiful thing in the world. But when you're saying and all these other women are listening and watching you, and as you're like saying the stuff that you never thought you'd say, all of that strown together.
They're all watching and you see the tears and they're cheering you on, like it's having that witness, right? People just say, oh my gosh. And like you said, it's not always sexual abuse, right? Sometimes it's one woman like laid down her stuff with her sister. She's done. She's not going to be that doormat. She's losing that position. She's no longer taking that title. They're ripping bumper stickers off their forehead of the, what they've been labeled as. So it's just empowering. I do think all women could benefit from something like that.
Elizabeth Smart: [00:26:43] Yeah, I think you're absolutely right. I think it sounds amazing. And I want to go a little bit deeper into this idea of groomed and you mentioned there are five different kinds of, of grooming and clearly grooming is a very big topic. I mean, you named your book after that. Can you talk to me a little bit about what grooming is and the misconceptions that I don't know, the general public have on what grooming is.
Elizabeth Fisher Good: [00:27:07] Yeah. You know, as we roll that curriculum out. So you know, Selah Freedom rolled into, we had a vision at the beginning that we'd launch a foundation one day and the foundation would be like an umbrella to the movement, sort of linking together. That's why we have your website on there, putting together authentic peer DNA of people that are really coming at the situation not from a competitive lens. And so we have an arm of that, which is prevention, which you're under that prevention arm, which is Forge the Future. You know, we have to free our, the future and that curriculum is, we have curriculum there, which is for K through 12, which if anyone has a school, if they are a superintendent, if they are connected through a school district, like this stuff is turnkey, it's train the trainer.
So it's not about let me come to your school and talk. No, no, no. We have coaches that will train up systemically the entire system of a school from lunch lady to security because a child starts being groomed when people are like, oh, don't talk about it 'till they're in high school. No, no grooming happens before kindergarten, in kindergarten.
Kids are so little and people are like, "oh, I don't want them to hear," guess what? You're going to be late. If you even start in third grade, you're missing what already is imprinted on your child's brain of what they're worth and who they are and what they allow. And so, like one of the basic core messages that we have in the K through 2 part of it is what's the difference between a secret and a surprise, you know, no adults should ever asked you to keep a secret, but that's a big tactic of groomers.
Again, everything's textbook. These predators know what works. There's not that much that they need to know, cause it works again and again. So it's like giving our children the antidote. And so on our website of the Selah Way Foundation, which you can go to through FreeWithE, if you go to FreeWithE, it could take you everywhere.
But if you go to that prevention page, there's something for the schools. So people have a connection there, we could get it in K through 12, but it also has our newest, which is partnering with Rachel Thomas, who was a survivor. She's on the white house advisory council, but her new one is called the Cool Aunt Series.
So it's only those two curriculums that we're promoting right now, but one's for the schools and one's at home. So you could walk through with your kids and it hits all of the ways that they are groomed. And it's not in a school setting, so if you're a homeschool mom, you want to go to the Cool Aunt Series because that's, what's going to talk to your kids in cool language.
It's not scary. Because when you say to a kid," do you know the difference between a secret and surprise" a first grader's like, "they're same thing" and no, they're not, but a, an adult will use that word secret to start grooming them. "You want to know a secret, you want to keep a secret" Before they know it, secrets, you know, they've lost the fear. And so a surprise, you always say everyone's excited when they find out about a surprise, are they excited about a secret? Not always. But, so it's so simple, but I think our world just has to wake up. And that's what I feel like we're doing at the Selah Way Foundation is systemic change. You know?
Elizabeth Smart: [00:29:53] And I'm so glad you actually brought that up because people ask me all the time, "what should we tell my kids? How do we, how do I communicate this? Like my kids are, you know, this big, like, isn't it true early?"" And I'm just like, no, no." I was like, my, my oldest is in kindergarten right now. And I talked to her about it. And sometimes I feel like I'm lacking because she tells me her answers and I'm like, "no, That's not right. No, we've talked about this, this isn't okay."
Elizabeth Fisher Good: [00:30:20] Parents that are like, oh, I don't want to talk to them. Guess what other people are talking to them. Or the worst thing in the world. I mean, there's a lot of bad things in the world, but one of my top worst things in the world is when I was growing up.
So I'm 52 now. So back in the day, porn was airbrushed, maybe Playboy, if it was not as airbrushed, it was Hustler. We now live in such a perverse, just dark and destructive world that on the internet, most parents don't know that they're smart devices. American Academy of Pediatrics says that 75% of four year olds are now given a smart device and all iPhones come...
Elizabeth Smart: [00:30:52] Of four year olds?
Elizabeth Fisher Good: [00:30:53] Yeah. They come preset to explicit. So unless you know to go into general settings, you know, restrictions and put on non- explicit and you could do, they have the whole, you know, youth seven rating, 13 rating. Parents don't even know that. So you're giving a kid a phone cause you want to keep them quiet while you eat dinner or an iPad.
And if a child like saw our old Disney days of Puss in Boots, the imagery that comes up now and the imprint on their brain, because the porn is so different. And I think, you know, bringing porn into the conversation has to start happening too, because that's imprinting our children. They say most kids now are addicted to porn by eight or nine years old.
And it's just a hole and it's rewiring their neuropathways, so they don't even know what love is. They don't know what sex was made for. They're watching people get strangled and choked and all this horrific stuff happen, and they're thinking that's what sex is.
And we have there's this one poem, and I don't know if you saw it, but you would love it because it's the heart of what you're fighting against. There's this little girl, I think she was out of New Zealand or Australia and it was called Sweet 16 and Never Been Kissed. And she went on to say that she has been used for sex and that the boys are always saying, look at that, would you do that, look what they're doing on the computer.
So she's been used in all kinds of ways because that's all that boys know, and girls just want someone to choose them. So she's been doing all these horrific acts, but she said I'm going to be 16 and I'm still waiting on my first kiss. No one's ever kissed her.
Elizabeth Smart: [00:32:27] Wow. Okay, so parents, if you're listening, go head over to Free With E, go to the prevention page, go to the Cool Aunt, read about it and have these conversations with your kids.
This is, I mean, I'm going to do that. So you all need to do that as well. And then go to your settings. If you're handing your kids your iPhone or your iPad at dinner, or if you're at a restaurant or wherever, go to those settings, change those settings. And don't just let this, have been, have it be a one-time conversation because it's like anything.
If you say something once, it doesn't stick. I mean, it's like, you know, it's like if I, if I don't practice the harp, I'm not going to remember the song I learned or I won't remember what I learned yesterday, because while I would say my retention is not that great these days, but also I just know that it takes dedication and practice.
And that's the same thing with these conversations. Safety isn't just one conversation. It's a lifetime of conversations and a lifetime of teaching. And if you want tools to help you have those conversations, check out the Cool Aunt, resource page, guidance page, information page, and start having those conversations, because that is such a scary thought thinking that, you know, most kids are sexually abused, I mean, as young as three and four years old, That, that is just scary. I mean, my, my little boy is four years old right now. My little, my baby's two years old and I just think, oh my gosh, that's, that's my, my babies' ages right now.
Elizabeth Fisher Good: [00:34:01] 1000%, and the world is so dark with going after children and the, just the, the depravity of, the desire for kids, you know, like, so we can't be too, they're not too young to start talking because you know what? You love them and you want to empower them. And the greatest gift you can give them is to have a voice and learn how to speak up and what to do. And, you know, I was at my church a few Sundays ago and they had, it was youth Sunday.
So all the different things that are done by next generation. And they had a girl come up and she's started talking about, "I had a really tough childhood. I was sexually abused, physically abused as depressed as this." And I'm like, oh, they said it. Cause, you know, you never say it. Like the church has such a platform, all the churches around the world, all the denominations that have a huge platform to talk about this stuff.
And often it's like, Ooh, don't want to say that in church, but it's happening there. Right? And she, at the end they had her come on stage and she really went into detail about being depressed, anxiety, but kind of like, they didn't hit the root. I called the pastor's wife. I'm like, you "missed the root, like you had one out of three little girls, the stats, right? One out of five little boys sitting forward in their seats going, "how do I, are they going to talk about it? Oh my God, they're finally going to talk about it". And then they didn't. And I'm like, you can't do that. And that's why I told her, I said, "you have to," I said, "I'll help you. We have a program for churches too." But like you said, it's not, oh, we did that in 19, 2019.
It's you got to do it every six months or every quarter, because you don't know who's there that week and you don't know who needs to hear it. And they're longing for "what is the pathway to get out of this? Or who do I tell or what do I say?" And so I just think this awakening is so desperately needed. And so I love, love, love what you're doing
Elizabeth Smart: [00:35:38] And you have it for churches too. I think that's great because I mean, this is a problem. I think it needs to be addressed at home, at church, at school. It needs to be approached from all sides because it happens in all these different locations. So we need to address it in all these different locations as well.
Elizabeth Fisher Good: [00:35:53] 1000%, 1000%. I think that the movement that's happening with all of us talking and actually being empowered by our own stories and not hiding our own stories, you know, that is the greatest gift we have to the world. Like my book Groomed sort of ends with once people uncover some of this stuff and things come out, even if you've done a lot of work, I mean, all my friends are therapists and inner healing.
They're all like, "I didn't know that was still there." And it's just, it gives us this next level because the world's at a next level. So we need, we don't even have the ability to see our eyes open our ears open because there's something more we all have to step into. And the more we each get free, we lock arms and it's in the locking arms, and that's what the Selah Way Foundation is. It's like the best of the best locking arms to step into this in all the places around the world. I mean, people are too valuable and it's, it's, shouldn't be that it's okay for them to just feel they're not worth it. That's just such horrible messaging.
Elizabeth Smart: [00:36:46] Well, I love so much everything you've had to say.
Thank you so, so much for joining. You, you're just so bright and full of hope and I can just feel through our conversation, how much you love humanity and how you haven't given up hope. And I think that's really rare these days. Cause I think a lot of people have felt kind of cynical, especially after this last year where everything seems to have just fallen apart.
And so it's been such a pleasure speaking to you and listening to you and for everyone listening, make sure you stay tuned. Let's follow this bill in Congress. Let's hope it gets passed. Go check out her book Groomed on Amazon or Barnes and Noble and head over to her freedom with E page and then go into.
Elizabeth Fisher Good: [00:37:29] Free With E.
Sorry, I'm
Elizabeth Smart: [00:37:30] getting so excited I can't even remember anything FreeWithE.com, and head over to the prevention page. Look for the Cool Aunt page where your resources and start having these conversations at home. And remember, go check your settings on your phone and make sure it's age appropriate.
Let's make sure it's not a, that it's not on explicit for our little kids because that's not okay. So there are some things that you can do today to support this movement and continue to be educated because that's how we're going to change the world and share your story. So, thank you. Thank you. Thank you so much, Elizabeth. And I can't wait to see where you, where you go next and to talk with you again in the future.
Elizabeth Fisher Good: [00:38:13] I hope so. You were doing a beautiful job, so well done my friend. Thank you so much for having me. Very grateful.
Elizabeth Smart: [00:38:19] Thank you. Have a great day.