Breaking The Silencing Of Truth To Bring Healing To Heart And Soul with Lilian Warman

When you put away your problem and don’t talk about it, silencing of truth would make your problem go away. Or so that’s what yoga instructor and intuitive coach Lilian Warman thought. When she started training for yoga and went through meditation, that’s when she realized she had to confront the core of her problem when her soul was shaking her to heal and kept bringing her back to when she was twelve.

At that tender age, a bunch of pirates took away her innocence and her joy when they attacked the boat that was smuggling her and her family out of Vietnam. Yoga training helped her get in touch with herself to heal her childhood trauma and awaken her soul. Lilian talks about how cultural beliefs play into the silencing of truth, and what she found on her journey to bring healing to her heart and soul.

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Breaking The Silencing Of Truth To Bring Healing To Heart And Soul with Lilian Warman

This episode is from the While We Were Silent project. It is with Lilian Warman. You’ll find this interview particularly interesting. Her story begins at the end of the Vietnam War. After the war, she and her family were escaping Vietnam by boat. On their journey to Malaysia, their boat was attacked by pirates. All of the women and children, the young girls were raped. Lillian at this time was twelve years old.

As she got to Malaysia and then further onto the United States, she has had to overcome pictures and beliefs from their culture, from religion and from what it means to the value of a woman to lose her virginity to rape. Her story is compelling and beautiful. You’ll learn about all that she went through in her life and how she finally came to forgiveness in order to heal her body, her mind, her heart and her soul.

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Our guest is Lilian Warman. Welcome, Lilian.

Thank you. It’s an honor to be here.

It’s an honor and a blessing to have you here. Lilian Warman has firsthand knowledge of sexual assault and the trauma, pain and anger that often follows. Through her training as a yoga instructor and through meditation and yoga practices, she began healing her childhood trauma and awakened her soul. It taught her to listen and to be kind to herself. Lilian has trained as an intuitive coach.

She trained in Malaysia with Lillian Too, the only female Feng Shui master in Asia. Lilian is also studying with Karen Parker for her Healing by Human Design certification. Lilian’s favorite quote is, “Who I am is not what I do but how I be. Self-love is my key to being.” That’s beautiful, Lilian. Can you start by telling us about your story and what led you to where you are today?

I was smuggling out of the Vietnam at the age of twelve in 1981 after the war ended in Vietnam in 1975, so it was a long journey. We were smuggling out of Vietnam by boat, so I was on ocean for three days. On the second day on the ocean, we were attacked by the pirates. At that time, I didn’t know what they would do to us. They attacked us and took everything. They raped all the women, the young ladies. I was one of the victims raped by a bunch of pirates.

At that time, I was young so I didn’t know the concept but I knew it was wrong. At the age of twelve, I was confused so I didn’t know what to do or what to think about. No one can answer my question when I ask because it’s either they don’t know how to answer me or they don’t know how to react to my question. Everybody was just silent. The answer was silence, so I was confused.

People stay silent because they blame themselves for whatever happened to them. Share on X

When I got to Malaysia, we went to the hospital. At the hospital, I couldn’t understand Malaysian but then intuitively, I saw that the reaction on the doctor’s face when he asked for my age. I told him that I was twelve and then they did the examination on all of us. I put the puzzles together by the time I got to the refugee camp in Malaysia. I’ve seen a lot of women who have been raped. Everyone was just silent and no one talked about it. It’s something that we all keep to ourselves.

We were told culturally that’s what we had to do. I had no one to turn to. I was told by a family member that I wasn’t allowed to talk of about it anymore. It was something that I have to shove away. I learned through life that my problems need to be shoved away because that’s the only way to solve a problem. All my life, anything that happened to me I just shove it away and bury it thinking that it will go away. A lot of things happened in my life but there was something in me that told me that something is not okay. I was confused and I didn’t know why it was not okay. What did I do that was not okay?

When I got to around 40, there was something in me that told me that I need to change. I have to do something to change, but I was still confused and didn’t know what it was until I trained in yoga and went through all the meditation, practice and focus within in silence. That’s when I got in touch with myself and realized that every time I meditate, it brought me back to the age of twelve. It would bring me back to that time that’s chaos and trauma. It started with my childhood. The pirates, they took away my innocence. They took away my joy. That was the core of my problem, but I didn’t know because I thought when you put it away and don’t talk about it, then what is the problem?

It’s locked away that it can’t hurt you anymore.

Then when I meditate through practice yoga, that’s when all these feelings and emotions came up. I was crying every time I meditate, and I was confused. I went to my teacher and I asked her, “Why is that a problem? I thought I just put it away. I never talk about it anymore, so why is that a problem?” She told me that I need to be in touch with that emotion and let it out.

SCS 14 | Silencing Of Truth — Silencing Of Truth: We need to be in touch with our emotions and let it out.

Is that grieving for your innocence that was lost?

Yes, grieving for my innocence and my pain that I went through, the trauma. I didn’t know how to deal with it. I remember back then I wasn’t crying about it. I was confused but I didn’t know what to do with my emotions, so I didn’t know what to do. Everyone was staying silent so I thought, “Maybe that’s the only way to deal with this.” I went through all life doing things in silence, staying silent.

I went through yoga training to help me to get in touch with myself and heal, to let it out. I didn’t have to carry that anger. Unconsciously, I carried that anger throughout all my life but I didn’t know about it. I was angry at my people. I was angry at the pirates. I didn’t know that I had carried the anger inside, so that helped release my anger.

You mentioned the common reaction in your culture. Can you share more about that with us?

In my culture, when I was young all I hear about is, “You have to be a virgin to marry.” After I was raped, this older lady, after all the chaos, she approached me and then she asked me, “Were you bleeding?” I didn’t know what she meant by that. I don’t know where she was coming from. Why is she asking this out of nowhere instead of asking if I’m okay? I was upset with her because I was confused.

She asked me things that were not related to what I need to hear at the time. I was upset and confused at the same time about what she meant by that. If I’m no longer a virgin, I would be bleeding. I am no longer a virgin. When I found out what that meant, I was so mad and angry at my people because I felt like there’s no compassion to it. People only cared about whether I was a virgin or not. For a long time, I carried that anger with me, about my culture. It’s not healthy.

I can’t imagine when you were struggling like that. You also mentioned about the response of karma.

When I got to the US, my aunt and other relatives mentioned that it’s karma that I carry. That’s why this happened to me. Usually the girl in the family carries the karma from the father. Whatever the father does wrong, then it’s the child who carries the karma for the father. I thought that was ridiculous. I get angrier about the karma thing. I was just angry because I thought it was a ridiculous thing. I carried people’s karma but only mine but then my father’s karma for whatever he did. For me, I felt that there was no compassion in all of this going on, so I carried a lot of anger definitely.

You found your breakthrough through yoga and meditation and have now gone on to become a yoga instructor, an intuitive coach and studying the human design. What do you do now to help other people who are struggling?

Nothing is coincidence, so I meet a lot of women who are incestuation and never talk about it. I brought it up and they started to open up and they started to heal their lives. Sometimes just by talking, you let it out of your body, your system. It helps to emotionally detox because to me, it’s emotionally toxic that we carry all this and we need to let it out. Sometimes it helps to let it out. I do a lot of forgiveness work, learn to forgive people in order to move on.

Lilian, you’ve given us quite a bit of information about what was happening for you on your journey and in your culture. As you dug deeper to do more work on yourself and you’re meeting other people who are breaking their silence, what have you seen as the main reason that people stay silent when they’re sexually violated or they struggle to report an incident?

They feel ashamed or blame themselves for whatever happened to them. In one case, I met this young lady who was molested by her father, but she was afraid to tell her mom because she didn’t know how her mom would react, whether her mom would believe her or not. A lot of it is people are afraid of the outcome and what people think and judge. A lot of times, we judge other people, so that’s why a lot of people don’t want to come out. They don’t want to hear any more negative input from people, not so compassionate. You have enough of the pain, we don’t need to hear anymore from anyone. A lot of times, we stay silent to feel safe and try to deal with it. A lot of times, it’s input from the outsider that is not so helpful.

Once we find our self-love, then everything changes. Share on X

Lilian, you lived a long time with having this shutdown. What did you see as the consequences of living with unhealed trauma?

It’s very toxic. Energetically, I carried all this anger unconsciously without realizing that I do. As relationships go, I’d attract a lot of bad and abusive relationships. I put up with a lot of crap. I became a doormat with my relationship with my husband. Then it’s the abuse and all that stuff. I carried all that of that and I lost my value with myself, self-love, self-worth, everything. I put up with a lot of stuff with him. Through that, I learned that because of my carrying all that anger I filled myself with, I attracted the similar type of people. I taught people how to treat me. Going through all that, I realized what happened was I put up a lot.

You taught people how to treat you based on your past experience and your expectations of how you were to be treated. That’s very powerful in stating and owning that because as you’ve break through your own pictures and beliefs and change your expectations, you can change how people are going to treat you as you invite them into your life. That’s very strong. What would you say then is the greatest opportunity for healing when you or the women that you work with realized your breakthrough begin to break that silence or step onto that healing journey in whatever way that manifests?

It changed everything. It changed how I feel about myself, my self-worth, self-value and self-love. It’s a good thing because I start to love myself and never settle for less or anything. With the other women, they start to see the pattern, how we attract our relationships. Every aspect of our life, we all deserve to be happy and that’s the key. Once we found our self-love, then everything changed.

What would you say is the most significant and valuable change you’ve recognized in your life?

The valuable change for me is that I’ve become happier and become lovable. I’m not that easily defensive and angry anymore. I know what I deserve and what I’m willing to put up with. I only allow nice things to happen in my life, healthy lifestyle.

With so many people coming forward now, there is a big shift. Things are exploding in terms of people coming forward, breaking through their walls of silence demanding a change. Any insights you could share with us about the shift in the collective? So many people are coming forward. We’re shifting our culture.

I feel like it needs to shift because we need to be more conscious of what kind of life we want, how we want to live our life and how we want to feel everything. We know that we deserve the best. People start changing and are more aware. It’s a good thing.

When we change how we see ourselves and our expectations for ourselves, we change the way we expect other people to treat us. We retrain people how to treat us and that has a very serious ripple effect. When we bring that level of change to the masses, to enough people, then it ripples out and out. As we come to respect ourselves more, it ripples into drawing people to us who will respect us and also returning that love and respect back to other people.

It’s like each one of us is a flower budding out and out with all of this beautiful love and beauty and fragrance and this mutual love and respect and compassion, which is what was greatly missing in your culture and in the United States as well. I have this vision of all of this transference of mutual love and respect rippling out in a very harmonious way and bringing us into quite a shift from where we are now.

Not to say that it’s all bad. We do have a lot of love and compassion in this culture as well. In the masses, in terms of when you look at the media in general like the television media, sometimes I look at the things that are on television and I think, “Why would they put something like that on? Who would possibly be attracted to that?” A huge percentage of our population wouldn’t have it on. I always have to think about that. We still do have some work to do. We have a long way to go in the way that we view each other and treat each other.

I see that we’re not perfect. I see myself judging but I’m more aware of when I start doing that. I have to align myself back. We’re not perfect, but we are just more aware.

We have the heart. We bring the heart with us to want to improve and to change and to foster love and respect. Lilian, what would you tell someone who may still be struggling in silence or anyone in their healing path who is needing to hear your words right now?

Wherever you are, it’s okay. The sooner you give the permission to yourself and the courage to tell your story, the sooner you’ll release all the toxic emotion that you’ve carried in your body for so many years. It’s worth it, so you have to give yourself permission and have the courage.

That’s one of the purposes of doing this program is to provide a platform where people are sharing stories and help people to know that we’re listening. It’s to help you to know that you’re not alone and to help you see what has happened for many women and men. There are men coming forward also who are sharing their stories and who have recognized transformation for themselves.

It’s to let you know you’re not alone, to give you something examples of what people have done to help heal themselves, and to give you hope for what’s possible once you step on that healing journey and what you can realize in yourself. Every journey is going to be different, so your gifts will be unfolding along your own path. Everyone’s got to find the way.

Lilian, you said something about safety. You want to do what feels the safest for you. I hope that you’ll have the encouragement to speak beginning with yourself, the stories you tell yourself, and have that breakthrough in a way that is the most honorable for yourself and respectable for yourself and safe for yourself. Is there anything else you want to say to our audience?

In my journey to healing, I do the forgiveness work. I am writing a book on forgiveness based on my story. It’s very important to forgive. I learned that once you learn to forgive, then your heart will be open and clear the space for self-love to have love to give to others.

Lilian, can we talk about the name of your book? I bring it up because it’s an interesting discussion.

The title that came to mind is Forgiving My Rapist to Open My Heart. I get a lot of people react to the word rapist. Some people feel that it’s very strong.

Some people are wanting you to change the title, so that you’re not using the word rapist in the title. For people in the audience, I want you to join us in the Facebook group and have this discussion. Help Lilian name her book. She started out with Forgiving My Rapist to Open My Heart. Is there another title you’re playing around with to try to remove the word rapist? Maybe I’ll share my opinion here or I might put it in the Facebook group because I have a strong reaction to people’s strong reaction to the word rapist. Let’s call it what it is. That’s one of the reasons we stay silent is because we’re afraid to call it what it is. It is strong and we need to call it what it is.

The word rapist is out of the title, so I have a lot like, Forgiveness, Free My Soul, Awaken My Soul by Forgiveness.

When you’re taking out the word rapist, are you using different words to describe those people or is it taking that incident completely out of the title and it’s just about forgiveness?

It’s taking out all the word rapist.

Maybe it’s just me but to me, that sounds like more people are asking you to be silent about what happened. Is that not a recurrence of, “Don’t talk about it?” I totally get the struggle because it hits us all. We’re coming to a time in our world where more people are willing to step up and call it out for what it is. No matter all these people that always say, “It’s my fault,” it’s amazing what we can turn back on ourselves as our fault.

Twelve years old on a boat escaping from your country and going to a refugee, that was not your fault. I hope by now you can get that 100% in your cellular DNA. At the same time, it still sticks in there, “We can’t say that out loud. We have to carry the shame and we have to carry all of this.” This is part of the discussion we’re having here. I’m glad you shared it because it’s so appropriate for this discussion. I hope it’s okay that I’m inviting people to weigh in on this on the Facebook group.

I’m fine with it. I brought it up because I wasn’t sure if I should I say that.

It’s a conversation that we need to hear all sides of it and listen to all side of it as well. We want people to read the book and we want people to hear the story and to understand the struggles and to find themselves in the struggles. That’s why we write. Somebody may might find themselves in the struggle that you’re having and help to have the breakthroughs and follow in the way that you did to have the breakthroughs that you’ve had for yourself. Everybody will do it in their own way. Lilian, how can people find out more about you? How can they connect with you if they would like to connect with you?

The only way to connect with me is on Facebook, Lilian Warman.

Join us in our Facebook group. While We Were Silent is the name of the Facebook group. Thank you very much. We look forward to seeing you in the Facebook group. Thank you very much, Lilian, for sharing story, your journey and your personal breakthroughs. Thank you for what you’re doing to help so many others.

Thank you for giving me a space to voice my voice.

About Lilian Warman

Lilian Warman has first-hand knowledge of sexual assault and the trauma, pain, and anger that often follows. Through her training as a yoga instructor and through meditation and yoga practices, she began healing her childhood trauma and awakened her soul. It taught her to listen and be kind to herself.

Lilian is trained as an Intuitive Coach with Collette Baron Reid. She trained in Malaysia with Lillian Too – the only female Feng Shui master in Asia. Lilian is also studying with Karen Parker for her Healing by Human Design certification. Lilian’s favorite quote is, “Who I am is not what I do but how I BE. Self-love is my key to Being!”