WHAT THIS EPISODES ABOUT…
Hello and welcome everyone. I’m Shauna Hoffman. I’m so excited to share with you our guest today because there’s nothing I love more than sharing with you stories of women who have gone after their passions and their dreams, and had come up with a way to help heal the world.
So, let me introduce you to our next guest, Dr. Victoria Fye. Before she shares her story with us about her journey, let me tell you a little bit about where she is today. Dr. Fye is a licensed clinical social worker. She resides in Ventura County, California. She has two master’s degrees, social work, and psychology. She earned her Ph.D. in clinical psychology and she published her dissertation self-injurious behaviors and social media use by adolescents in 2019.
That dissertation has been viewed by people across the globe from Europe to Asia. Dr. Fi has worked with a variety of different populations, including victims and perpetrators of domestic violence, victims of sex trafficking, incarcerated adolescents, and adults.
Ready? Let’s get started…
LEARN MORE ABOUT THE CONTENT DISCUSSED…
• Guy Free Podcast: https://guyfree.com
• Guy Free Facebook Group: https://guyfreeworkingonme.com
• Shauna’s website: https://www.workingonme.com
WHEN DOES IT AIR…
August 01, 2020
EPISODE TRANSCRIPT…
Hello and welcome everyone. I’m Shauna Hoffman. I’m so excited to share with you our guest today because there’s nothing I love more than sharing with you. Stories of women who have gone after their passions and their dreams and had come up with a way to help heal the world. So, let me introduce you to our next guest, Dr. Victoria Fye. Before she shares her story with us about her journey, let me tell you a little bit about where she is today. Dr. Fi is a licensed clinical social worker. She resides in Ventura County, California. She has two master’s degrees, social work, and psychology. She earned her Ph.D. in clinical psychology and she published her dissertation self-injurious behaviors and social media use by adolescents in 2019. That dissertation has been viewed by people across the globe from Europe to Asia. Dr. Fye has worked with a variety of different populations, including victims and perpetrators of domestic violence, victims of sex trafficking, incarcerated adolescents, and adults.
She’s developed training programs to provide additional education or training on transgender adolescents, undergoing hormone therapy, suicide awareness prevention, and reporting child abuse. Dr. Fye is currently in a private practice that serves children and families. She also serves as a mental health provider for the state of California Department of the corrections inmate population. And that my friends are why we have invited Dr. Victoria Fye to join us on this podcast today. Thank you for joining us, Dr. Victoria Fye.
Dr. Fye
Thank you very much. It’s good to be with you today.
Shauna Hoffman
So you have taken quite a path to get to where you want to be in life. I was wondering if you would share your journey with our listeners, your journey as a woman, your journey as a healer, because when I met you, but God knows how many years ago you were a mother of two amazing fabulous kids. You were a wife. Well, how did you get from there to being Dr. Victoria Fye?
Dr. Fye
Wow, that’s quite an intro. And thank you. Well, I’ll tell you, um, first and foremost, I’m still a mother to two amazing and quite enchanting people. They’re no longer children. They’re full-grown adults and I am thrilled to death to be their mother. They’re just, they’re incredible people. So let’s see. I decided that I wanted to pursue my dream of getting more education. And so at the age of 30, I decided to go back to school and I did it at a time when my kids were still young, they were in elementary schools. So I took one semester at a time and did my homework on the sidelines. As I watched their games, their practices, uh, helped out as a team, mom, all kinds of things like that. And at the end of seven years, I got my first degree, my associate’s degree, which was really exciting.
As my older sister surprised me at that graduation. And she told me that she would go to school as well, and she has five children. So right away I impacted someone and I didn’t even think that I was going to, but I really just did it for me. And I wanted to set an example for my kids to show them that higher education was really important to me. And to encourage them. Why did you not pursue it earlier in your life? You know, I was really focused on raising my kids and really focused on taking care of my marriage, my family, that really came first. And I just felt like I wasn’t really ready yet. And then at times when I was ready, certain things would come up that, put that on the back burner. So again, at age 30, I said, okay, this is a huge moment for me.
Now it’s time to jump in.
Shauna Hoffman
Were there any, any second thoughts on your side, or did you have a good support system around you? Did people believe in you? Did they back this idea or were people other than your sister who I must, must say that we adore her for being such a support? How about the other people in your life?
Dr. Fye
Well, I would say initially there weren’t a lot of people that were very supportive. They thought I was pretty much nuts. Uh, why would you want to leave your family and go to school at night? Because yeah, so I’ll say back in the day we didn’t have the internet. We didn’t have online learning. And so I would leave my kids after a whole day of work and my husband and I would go to school one night a week. So the support people in my life really were again, my older sister, but more importantly, my grandmother who was incredibly, just incredibly supportive and sent me money the last Christmas, before she passed away, she sent me a check for Christmas and said, please spend it on books for school, which I did.
And that was the coolest Christmas present I got that year and it made me cry.
Shauna Hoffman
Wow. Had she gone to school?
Dr. Fye
No, no. My grandmother was from the South. She had a high school education at best was a very strong woman, had her own business. She had an interior design business and was extremely successful. She also was a very giving, very loving person. She was very strong in her faith. She helped out so many people and I was completely inspired by her and wanted to continue on her legacy.
Shauna Hoffman
Wonderful. What an amazing woman, when she saw in you, her granddaughter, and wanted to support you, it’s the womanhood helping the next generations. I love that story. Yes. Stories. Can I tell a little story about Victoria the before story? Because I,
Dr. Fye
Yeah.
Shauna Hoffman
Well, thank you because I feel this is such an important story for Guy Free Working On Me because watching the woman that you have become the success that you have become and taking a look at your commitment to your marriage when you were younger and the boundaries that you put on yourself, because of that, I think is really interesting for other women to hear.
I was lucky enough to live across the street from Victoria and we had gotten to know each other and just hit it off, but we’d had so much fun just being neighbors. And one of my friends was having a girl’s birthday party and it was going to be really a chick party. Everything that you can imagine, the manicures and the music and the dancing. And I thought, how wonderful if I invited Victoria to come join us in your first response, do you remember what that was?
Dr. Fye
Panic and fear and, Oh my gosh, no, I can’t possibly do this. And why I was afraid. I was desperately afraid to live life on my terms as an actual individualized woman, but I didn’t even know what that meant yet. So thanks to you. I started on my journey right then and there of, Oh, you mean there’s life beyond?
Shauna Hoffman
How about that? I’ll never forget when you said to me I’ve never gone any place without my husband. I was flabbergasted. I couldn’t even imagine it. But then again, you were such a devoted wife and you were such a devoted mother. It made sense. And yet no sense to me whatsoever. How did you get through that night through the fear?
Dr. Fye
I tried to enjoy it for what it was, but it felt really awkward. I felt like a fish out of water. Although thinking back on it now, I remember thinking that these women seem to be having a really great time and it wasn’t that something that I could do too, but I didn’t really know how to do it without feeling a sense of guilt and abandonment towards my family. That’s really what it came down to me thinking, Oh, this is, this is what other women do.
So I didn’t really know about healthy friendships with my men, healthy friendships with people that could grow my life. I didn’t know about that.
Shauna Hoffman
And then look at the life that you have now, do you find yourself using your own history when you help other women now?
Dr. Fye
Yes, I do. And I will say that thanks to the work of Brene Brown, who is very strong in her. Well, her message about shame and vulnerability. I thought I knew a little bit about that, but I really didn’t. And then I got introduced to her work and started following her. And she indirectly encouraged me to be more transparent for myself. And that translated into being more transparent and a tad bit more vulnerable in my work with my clients or patients. What I like about that is it gives my clients, my patients, the opportunity to know that I’m a real person that’s gone through real experiences.
And in a lot of ways, it strengthened the rapport between us. I’ve had women in the past day. If you hadn’t told me that you were a, and then, you know, divulge different things, I wouldn’t have seen you as a therapist. I wouldn’t have come to you and talk to you, but now I hear you saying this and I see where you are now. I know that there’s hope for me. I can do this.
Shauna Hoffman
I love that the last episode was on our superpowers. What did you always know within you as one of your superpowers?
Dr. Fye
Very tenacious. I don’t like to give up. I know I don’t like to be told what to do. And I know I don’t like being talked down to, so I decided, guess what? I’m going to stuff my tool belt full of tools. So that at any given time I’m going to have the right tool for the right situation.
Shauna Hoffman
Amazing. You’re no longer with your husband. Do you think that your growth had anything to do with that?
Dr. Fye
Yes. I feel that I grew an enormous amount afterward, painful growth and yet necessary growth. I have certainly shown myself that I can be independent and take care of myself but in the process of also showing other women that that can be done, that we can have a good life. We can have a great life and not necessarily depend on, you know, to use your words, a man by our side, to feel like we are successful to know that we are beautiful to know that we are talented to know that we are gifted.
Shauna Hoffman
I love hearing you speak Victoria, because you have walked the walk and you have walked the talk and, and now you’re going forward and helping other women to do the same.
What’s the biggest challenge for you that you find with women nowadays?
Dr. Fye
Oh my gosh, they have no girl power. They really have no girl power. And it starts actually with adolescents, the adolescent girls that I’ve worked with, that aren’t the traditional thin beautiful to use society’s construct and what is beautiful. They adhere to that. They look at things in social media and they become very afraid and they don’t realize necessarily that their bodies are going through a lot of changes in the body that they have in their adolescents. Isn’t necessarily the body that they’re going to have when they have children if they decide to have children or even when they are a young woman or, or an older woman, the women that I am encouraged to work with as well are women that have just given birth. I remember like it was yesterday feeling like I was not the prettiest girl, that I was just kind of squishy woman that suddenly smelled like baby throw up and diapers and everything else.
So my work now with women that have just come through that is to celebrate them and say, welcome to the club. Welcome to the club. We are life-givers. We have grown a human inside of our bodies. We are amazing.
Shauna Hoffman
So beautiful. Did you question your path? Did you ever question your abilities?
Dr. Fye
Oh, absolutely. There is… I’m trying to think of what it’s called… the imposter syndrome. As soon as we get something really amazing. Like, for example, when I got my first master’s degree, I was shocked that I had reached that achievement. And yet I knew that I had done it because I was there in class every day. And yet I still had to tell myself, yeah, you did it, you did it, you did it. Then I got my second master’s degree and I said to myself, okay, you’re still doing it. Then the Ph.D. came and there are still moments where I think, uh, I don’t know anything at all.
And I do doubt myself. However, I think that’s a good thing. I think it’s good to not question yourself as much as just check yourself and say, well, wait a second. Do I really know as much as I feel like I need to know? And at that point I can honestly say, no, I don’t. I have a lot of academic learning. I have a lot of real-life learning and I have a lot of work experience. However, to use my grandmother’s words, if I don’t learn something new every day I’m going to die. She, she learned something new every day. She made sure of it. So I’m trying to stuff knowledge in my head on Tiffany basis.
Shauna Hoffman
Well, you know, what’s interesting is something that you just said because as a therapist, myself, there are many times that I am clinically thinking about a scenario, but I would say 70% of the time it’s coming from my knowledge as a woman, my knowledge and experience that I have had. My insights that I have had. Maybe, yeah, we use psychological terms in order to get across or to do my notes and everything else. But really when it comes down to it, I think so many of the female healers and male healers too, I’m sure are now at our age, come from life experience
Dr. Fye
That’s really important though, is to help men understand and notice I said help, not make them, but help them understand that. Well, we have evolved while we have the opportunity to care for ourselves and become more of an independent person. We are still trying to figure out the roles that each one has, those gender-specific roles that we grew up with. So we’re still navigating those things. And that’s where I believe it gets confusing at times. However, we have better forms of communication, hopefully, or at least those of us that have gone through the things that we’ve gone through. We’ve learned that we need to communicate with them better. I can’t help but think of the book. And I don’t remember the author right now, but men are from Mars and women are from Venus. So I start to think about it in terms of where are they coming from and not to trash them, but just remind myself and then remind my female clients that well in the males too, that men are fixers.
And then we want to go on and on and talk for 30 volumes of stuff. So we’re learning how to be more succinct in what we want and what we need. And hopefully, along the way, they’re learning that we need more words from them. And sometimes we need them to listen and not necessarily fix something as much as we love it when they fix something. But if we don’t ask them to do it, we simply want them to listen.
Shauna Hoffman
It’s so true. And it’s the number one thing when I work with couples that so often the woman does not want them to fix it. They want to be heard. They want a support system. They want their partner. They want their mate to say, “Oh my God, I’m so sorry that you’ve been going through that. That’s a drag.”And not say, “well, you know, you really should do this.
You really should do that.” Then half the time, it’s only going to piss off the woman. They don’t want that. Most of the time, they can figure out how to fix it themselves. We, we are lucky if there is a partner who has some really good level of communication that can help us through a scenario if we ask them for it. But, and that’s the key right there. We ask them. But at the same token, you’re absolutely right. I try to help women understand that it’s not that they’re putting them down or thinking they can’t fix it on their own. It’s just immediately where their brain goes. Men’s minds immediately go to fixing and not feeling the situation. Women tend to feel the situation first and then figure out how to fix it. So, yeah, there’s a lot of work in, in counseling with couples.
And you know, it’s not only couples, but it’s also mothers and daughters, it’s mothers and daughters, mothers do the same thing. If mother oftentimes when a mother hears something that’s going on with their child, they immediately want to fix it. And I have to try to help them to understand that they might not need you to fix it. They just might need your support.
Dr. Fye
So thank you for bringing that up because I think that is a really, really good point. And if I could just add one more piece to that, it is because of my daughter that I learned some of these things. Because now as a parent to an adult, not a child, she will tell me at times, you know, mom, I don’t need you to fix this for me. Right. I know how to fix it, but right now I’m so frustrated or flustered or tired or upset or whatever it is that she’s feeling. She needs me to hear her. And so she’s been a great teacher to me and I’m so very grateful, so very grateful. And then in turn, when I talk with my son, he’s very quick to listen and not telling me, Oh, mom, I can take care of this. I can fix it for you because that’s not what I need now. He’s he is an amazing son. I’ve known him since young. He is, he is one of the, uh, male species. That’s really very deep and has a lot of thoughts and a lot of passion.
Shauna Hoffman
He’s really is. You raised a lovely family.
Dr. Fye
Thank you. And he has a great wife that just adores him. So I’m very, very blessed that way.
Shauna Hoffman
And that goes back to having a great mother. We all know that. I think… I cannot wait. We definitely need to do a mother-daughter podcast here on Guy Free Working On Me because there’s so much to talk about there. But we are out of time. And before we end Victoria, Dr. Fye, first, can you, in a nutshell, tell us the one thing that you believe if you had your own mantra that gets you through every day, what would it be?
Dr. Fye
There’s so many that go through my head, but I suppose one of the biggest ones is I can do it.
Shauna Hoffman
Wow. And you did it! One last thing, because I love this. Can you share how long it took you to go back to school? I mean, when you said the first seven years to get your associate’s degree, I want women to understand that you can do it just like Dr. Fye has done. You can do it. And whether it takes you three years, five years, 10 years, 20 years, you can do it. Can you tell us how long it took you, going back to school between getting started and getting your first Ph.D.?
Dr. Fye
Sure. Okay. So the associate’s degree took seven years, which normally takes most people two years. Then my bachelor’s degree actually took me 18 months because I went into an accelerated program. After that, I transitioned right into grad school. That was two years full time. And I don’t know if I can shout out my university, ‘fight on.”
So it was 18 months. And then two years after that, and then a total of seven years for my Ph.D., which included getting another master’s degree. So let me see. Seven at 14, 16, I don’t know, like probably 18 or 19 years, something like that.
Shauna Hoffman
You are a goddess and every woman that’s listening. I just want you to know that you can go after your dreams at any age, whether you’re 20 and you want to start something new, whether you’re 70 and want to start a new career, it doesn’t matter. You can do it. I love Vicky’s mantra. You can do it.
Dr. Fye
And it’s funny how you called me Vicki because I want to point out that when you and I first met, I went by the name of Vickie. But as I became more, let’s see… sure of myself as I began to grow along my journey, Vicky didn’t seem like it suited me as much. It felt like more of a little kid. I found that people responded better when I became Victoria, which is my birth name. So that’s my story. And I’m sticking to it. And it’s a good one. And I like it only, my very, very, very, very, very close and old friends know me by Vicki or Vickella or Goddess.
Shauna Hoffman
And I got caught on this podcast, calling you Vicky, you are amazing. If someone wants to contact you at your private practice in Ventura,
Dr. Fye
In Ventura County. The practice that I am currently with is in Oxnard. And yes, I, I see people anywhere from, let me see. My youngest client was a year and a half. And I see people all the way up into older ages. I have stayed on my passion. My favorites are those adolescents that people usually run away from and start screaming, Oh my God, those teenagers, they are the best that you can have.
Shauna Hoffman
It makes such changes in their lives. So young. It’s so wonderful. They are lucky to have you, Dr. Fy. We are out of time. Thank you. We are lucky to have had you here on the Guy Free Working On Me Podcast. And I thank you so much, ladies. I will put information on the Facebook group page as to how you can get in touch with Dr. Fye if you would like.
Thank you all so much. I hope you’ve been good to yourself. I hope you continue to be good to yourself. Drink lots of water, eat great food, be kind and gentle to yourself. And I look forward to popping into your life again next week.