Lia Valencia Key, this custom jewelry designer shares about her childhood filled with poverty

Rebeccah [00:02:15] Have you ever met a light worker? You’re about to if you haven’t before, and even if you think you’ve met a light worker, not one this bright. Lia Valencia Key is our special guest on the Tougher Together, Breakthrough podcast with me, Rebeccah Silence today. Lia, welcome.

Lia [00:02:36] Thank you, Rebeccah. You know, I love you from the bottom of my heart, and it is really an honor to allow me to be here and share my heart with everyone. Thank you so much.

Rebeccah [00:02:47] Oh, my goodness. It is my honor and privilege and all of our honor and privilege to have you with us. I think it is so fun that we’re twinning with our Valencia Key Lariat necklaces today. We didn’t plan that.

Lia [00:03:01] We did not plan that. We must say that.

Rebeccah [00:03:04] We didn’t.

Lia [00:03:06] In all things bright and all dreams coming true. So that’s why we put it on today.

Rebeccah [00:03:11] I love it. Tell us what breakthrough is, Lia? What is breakthrough?

Lia [00:03:16] Breakthrough when I envision the concept of breakthrough I see it as you getting to a pinnacle part in your spirit, your emotion, your mind set, your will and your way that catapults you to the next level of where you know are destined to be. I feel that there is always a break down when it comes to a breakthrough, meaning there is something that you have to go through. It doesn’t have to be necessarily tragic, but it has to be this metamorphosis, meaning this change in spirit and mindset, maybe in physical, something that happens in your life that then gives you the enlightenment to say, aha, I can or will and deciding to walk to, whatever that in our listener is, that God has for you. And when you decide to do the action, breakthrough is an action. Then you are walking towards your purpose, and you are actually walking in your breakthrough.

Rebeccah [00:04:33] And what would you say to the people that feel like breakdown is too hard or painful or like the end of the road?

Lia [00:04:44] Mm. It is hard. First, first of all, I’m going to agree with them, but I never want to [inaudible] higher than reality, because then there is no breakthrough they can certainly have then. And I want to say yes, it is hard. Yes, sometimes it is so hard that it feels like you can’t get to a breakthrough. Yes. There are parameters so deep around you. But I do want to say this, if you have breath, you have choice. And so, with that choice, you are able to breathe out all of the pain that is literally suffocating you and then break down. And consciously you are able to choose a choice of breath to breathe in the next guidance, the next direction, the next, maybe even grace for yourself, because maybe even your own mind is causing you to have the breakdown and breathing in that grace. And when I speak about grace, I mean, that means giving yourself a little love, giving yourself a little understanding to say, yes, this is really bad, but look up as if something around you that can guide you to the light. And when you take that breath into grace, you can breathe out all the challenges still happening around you, but then it allows you to actually take a second, even if it’s a [inaudible] to find a little bit of light. And when you find a little bit of light, then you’re able to see which way you can walk towards. And generally, when you see the light that you can walk towards you actually are finding where your breakthrough is, and your breakthrough is in action. But I must admit, it is hard, but it’s something that you cannot give up on when you are in a major breakdown, when you are in a major suffocating experience of life, whatever that tragic thing is, however horrific it is. You’ve got to lean on, to me, a higher being, because know you probably can’t yourself get through it. But if you allowed a breathe in God’s grace, whoever, God, got to be in your life, or if you’re able to breathe in someone, some human person, a journey that inspires you, that it’s possible, you’re actually giving yourself the opportunity to walk towards your light because you’re showing that there’s proof that there’s something on the other side for you. And all you have to do is take one itsy bitsy step, one itsy bitsy action. And that action may fail.

Rebeccah [00:07:29] Oh, that’s a good point.

Lia [00:07:32] That action may fail and will probably fail in a in a real world. And when stuff is so challenging, when you are in a way, when you are in a breakdown, generally, the first thing that you try and the first thing that you reach for, the first grace that you look up to is… what from your understanding a falsity. It doesn’t prove to be true. It doesn’t help you the way you need it to help. It doesn’t lift you up out of your circumstance. But then it says, find more will; see that’s the proof. Like, then you need to find more will because you have to determine, and you have to believe it to be true. I love Jamie Kern Lima’s Believe It book. If you haven’t read it, because when you are in this breakdown, you’re allowing yourself not to believe. You are actually allowing yourself to believe all of the negative, tangible things around you, and you are creating that bigger than life. But if you just take one step to believe whatever you know is true for your life. Like, this is not true from my life. Whatever it is, is not true. And then when you really start to believe, so believe is also an action word. When you really start to believe it to be true, you start to seek the truth of it. And then when you seek out truth, you find it. That’s why you find, you heard that quote, seek and ye shall find. Well, that started in belief. You believed that that breakthrough was there for you and then you start seeking it. And then when you start seeking it, you start to see glimmers of light and find, and you take little glimmer that you keep trying and keep trying and you’re going to keep failing. But when you believe it to be true so much, you keep going. And then one day you look up and you look at where you’re standing in juxtaposition from where you came from, and you don’t even realize you already had a little bit of breakthrough because you were determined to believe it to be true and you took action on that every time.

Rebeccah [00:09:41] Lia, I got my believe it bracelet. I want to hear more. Tell us your story of breakthrough. You get to say this. You came from poverty and homelessness and really beat the odds.

Lia [00:09:56] Yes. I like to call it shattering glass ceilings. Because of my… So, I’ll give a backstory of who I am. Like how is she standing in [inaudible] to say this? Like who? What have you been through Lia? Yeah. Well, I was born in poverty. I was born in the most impoverished neighborhood of Philadelphia. I was born to a single mother that had been riddled by fear and had let society create these stereotypes and allow society to actually limit her way, create these limiting beliefs for herself so that now we are generational poverty, because even my grandmother was born into poverty and now, we can’t get out. We’re in this generational curse situation. And then my mother shattered her ankle in three places, and now she can’t even work if she tried. So, then we lose our little shack that was under someone else’s home in a small one-room basement situation where three kids, myself, my sister, my brother and my mother were living huddled up. We even lost that. And then it moved us to a homeless shelter, so now each food we had nothing, not only were we poverty, but we didn’t even have a place to lay our heads. And even though my mother was paralyzed, I self-diagnosed it as she was paralyzed by fear and by society’s limiting beliefs against her. She found the power to believe enough to speak life into her children. I like to say so. That’s why I’m so honored, Rebeccah, that you allow me to speak life into whoever is listening today, because I was blessed many years ago when I was super young that my mother spoke life into me. And even at the homeless shelter one day when everything was so destitute and negativity was around this violence, drug addictions, moaning and crying, all of these very horrible things around us. I remember my mother vividly looking at her children, me one of them, and saying, your predicament does not determine your destiny. That is life. That is my mother finding a way, even through her challenges, to me that’s the root of her believing it to be true. And she gleamed to a little bit of grace for herself to say, even though I can’t shatter these and make a physical action, my grace in action is going to speak life into her children. And so, she did that. But I, little Lia, like the third person, it was still[inaudible]to succumb by my environment, Rebeccah, truly I was. And I start to follow the leader. Everybody around was negative so I was being negative and I start to fail in school and I just start to act like what I saw. And it wasn’t pretty sight. Until one day my mother, I like to say, turned literally the lights on for my life. She put a little glimmer of light when she said, your predicament doesn’t determine your destiny. But in this next action she turned the lights on for me. And she asked me one day when I was coming back to the homeless shelter from school and asked me, did I want to be a follower or do I want to be a leader? And I didn’t understand that, but she went on to say, right now, you’re following the actions of your environment. And guess what you’ll get? Exactly what you see, you will become this negative environment, or, Lia, you can lead your life. You can lead and choose your destiny. You can find your way. You can choose life, you can choose joy, you can choose perseverance, and you can define your destiny if you choose it to be true. And that was the moment that I found the power and choice, that power to believe the words that you put into your mind and speak out of your mouth. And I just start choosing. So, thank you Rebeccah because now I’m like, yes, you can have. Right. That was a breakthrough for me.

Rebeccah [00:14:20] That was a big breakthrough.

Lia [00:14:23] Yes. So, I’d like to say allow some time. Sometimes we’re in this really heavy environment, but there’s breakthroughs being signaled your way. Gravitate to the breakthrough. I don’t know. Maybe you’ve turned on your phone and you’re on Instagram or YouTube and someone start… and you start to hear our voice on Facebook Live where you turn on this podcast and you start to hear about breakthroughs. Receive it to be that that’s your breakthrough. Take ownership that that breakthrough is directly sent to you to be life changing for you and then allow that to trigger action for you. And it could be a really small action. I’d like to really encourage you that when you start to try to shatter these binds around you or shatter these strongholds, I was told some things are called it doesn’t look big, it looks small. Maybe today you just decide if you’re not going to say negative things about yourself. Maybe today you just start to research. What if I tried to get out of this situation? What would that even look like? What if today you just entertained the idea? A change in your predicament. You don’t even do it; you just entertain the idea. To me, that’s the smallest action that allows a little bit of light to come in. And if you put a crack in and let light in and you keep allowing a little crack to grow bigger and bigger, light starts to flood in and action starts to flow and breakthroughs start to happen.

Rebeccah [00:16:05] And it’s so much closer than you realize. The breakthrough is available to you. It is so close. And what Lia is saying about if you have breath, you have choice, you have life, the light in you, cannot go out. And it just feels far away sometimes. But it’s right there. And you’ve got the power and the capacity to be your own light in the dark. And Lia, I just think is a beautiful example of possibility for all of us. Lia, you use dark and pain and you make more light and life out of it. Tell us about how your vision and dream of Valencia Key Jewelry came to life and what breakthroughs were required along the way.

Lia [00:17:03] I’m still breaking through.

Rebeccah [00:17:06] You and me both.

Lia [00:17:08] I say, I’m still breaking down and I’m still working through.

Rebeccah [00:17:12] Yep!

Lia [00:17:13] A couple days ago I had a whole breakdown, but I promise you, in that breakdown, I had an entirely new breakthrough. So, I even like to say embrace the breakdown, because if you embrace it in a way that I am going to learn something from this breakdown, and when I come up, I’m going to come up even brighter than I went down. It’s just, it is a really beautiful mindset. It’s all mindset shift. It’s mindset shifts. It all starts here. My journey into creating my jewelry line Valencia Key. Valencia, meaning brave and Key meaning to unlock. It happens to be the middle name that my mother gave me and it happens to be our last name, which is beautiful and quite poetic, but I have to say when I think about it. But the mission is to truly unlock the bravery, as I said before. And what happened was, as my mother planted these beautiful light seeds in my life and I start to shine them, my mother starts to see that I was choosing and this choosing starts to change things around me. And right before she left this earth, she said to me, Lia, oh, baby, you are shining, radiating. There is so much light and abundance inside of you always. And she handed me these earrings and she said, always wear your earrings. They are a visual symbol of the abundance of light that shines within you. And from that moment, I parallel this beautiful concept of where these visual symbols? A, to define what’s already in you. And B, to be these wearable reminders. So, when your mother leaves and she’s no longer here, when your friend you can’t call to tell you that it’s possible when you can’t turn on that YouTube channel to hear a good word, you can look at these visual symbols that my hands sketch from journeys throughout my life and from strategies and ways and emotions that I am curating throughout my life to keep having these breakthroughs, to get to more light. And so, they are wearable symbols for all of us to keep strategically seeing on how I can keep breaking through, how I can keep altering and keep coming up. Better, better me and a more awesome, loving, joyful me. And it’ll be a reminder. And also, it allows you to shine so bright that others shine with you because the symbols my logo is a four-star V. So, I took V of bravery Valencia, and created a star out of those V’s. And I placed the key in the center. And so, every time you wear those and you see that symbol; it just reminds you to unlock that light and then it’s possible for you. And also, that its visual symbols that if this… if this young lady can go from the most impoverished environment with so many barriers around her, ahead of her pulling her down, and she can keep shattering glass ceilings, so much so that I can physically wear these symbols that she’s created. Then if it’s possible for her now, whatever is in my heart is truly possible for me.

Rebeccah [00:20:52] Yes, Lia and I literally do not start a show without putting on Valencia Key Jewelry first. I wear, I call it my power jewelry. It helps unlock the light but it brings me power and strength and guidance. And the jewelry is a symbol of possibility. And what you’re saying to us about breaking through as access to your life purpose work. I hope everybody is hearing that your life purpose work is in you and breaking through and leaning into the pain. We’ll give you the access to the answers, Lia, would you give our listeners homework, please?

Lia [00:21:40] Yes, well, I love a good homework. My master’s degree is in education so you got me to the right place. My first homework for every heart that’s listening: Give yourself grace. And what is grace? It is love, it is God’s love. It is God’s kindness. It is God’s favor of acceptance. It is not judging. It doesn’t pull you down. And we have to start with grace for ourselves, because it is so challenging to arise out of something when you are beating your own self down. Yes, the world’s beating you down. Somebody else could be physically beating you down. But we then take all of that burden that’s external that’s put on us, and then we start doing the same thing for ourselves. So, how is it possible for you even to break through when you are pulling your own self down? So, my first piece of homework is say, put your shoulders back. Find a mirror. If you don’t find a mirror, find something that you can see yourself in and love yourself. Apologize to yourself for thinking the things that you think about yourself, apologize to yourself for even telling yourself that you can’t break through. Apologize to yourself, too, for any harm that you are mentally doing or physically doing to yourself, and then say it’s OK that it’s been done and it’s OK if I find myself slipping back into those habits and behaviors that I’ve done. But I’m committed to changing that story to you, fill in the blank. I’m going to say, to you Lia, and I’m committed to believing in you Lia because I know it’s possible whatever is in our heart and we’re gonna go get it. And you tell yourself that whatever I have to seek it out. And I want you to say, my second piece of homework is, what are we saying we need a breakthrough for? Where is God calling you to be? What is your heart saying to be true for you? Say it. When you say this out loud, first, I want you to say it out loud to yourself when no one is there. And what I want you to understand in this homework and what you should be expecting, I want you to say it and when you say that vibration of sound, the sound of your words are going to come back into your own ears. And when it lands back into your own ears, I want you to be almost shocked. And I want you to almost think it’s impossible. And when you, when you say, oh, is that really happening, then you know that that’s your quest and your journey to follow. When it shakes you up to almost not believe it. That’s when I want you to believe it. So, then the third thing is, when you say this almost impossible thing for your life because your heart has been whispering it. How do you know? Really, I don’t… How do I know what to say? So many things going on in my brain. There’s so many challenges that I want to conquer. There’s so many great things that I want to get to. How do I know what to say? Say them all. Don’t limit yourselves. God is a not a limiting God. You don’t pick one. Say them all. Say them all. Say them all. Say them all. Some are going to be small and they’re going to be obtainable. And then you grab on to the most obtainable one and you start conquering that. And then the other ones that you say are almost going to be so unattainable. I don’t want all the things that you say out your mouth to just go easy. Which is there, OK. What if I just did this? I can do that. Those are great. And I need you to say those. But then I want you to go bigger. I want you to dream farther. I want you to be radical in your statements of life change for you, your breakthrough for you. Say these things that even you may think aren’t possible. And then when you say them out loud and it vibrates back to your ear and you shiver in the thing, like ooh that seems big; even though don’t tell you something that seem impossible, but shiver at, ooh that seems a little big Lia! That, when you know, now we’re starting to get somewhere, because now we’re starting to really break through to what God truly has for you. And then you take that big, big thing and you say to yourself, it’s possible. I believe it to be true. And then my fourth and last thing that I’d love you to do, because I think homework should be bitesize, can’t go on too much homework when you think you’ll break down and you don’t do it. My fourth thing is then I want you to look for parallel situations or obvious examples to encourage your spirit that it’s possible. Maybe it looks like someone else’s journey. Maybe you’re wearing my jewelry. Maybe you’re doing a combination of two, maybe you actually go out and physically find people. This is a beautiful activity. Find a club, a group I know now in a different place where we can’t find them, but you can maybe find it online that speaks to your greatness of where you want to go and just interject yourself in it quietly. You may feel a little uncomfortable. You may feel like you’re not supposed to be there. But just lightly interject yourself in an environment where you want to be around people, that you want to sit there to cultivate you and then start to be poured into by whatever source that is, even if it’s online, because it’s going to start to build your spirit, it’s going to start to build your bravery, and it’s going to start to strengthen your belief.

Rebeccah [00:27:50] Support is so key. Lia bringing the fire to the Tougher Together, Breakthrough podcast with me, Rebeccah Silence. Lia, thank you so much for sharing your heart with us, for sharing your jewelry with the world, and for living into breakthrough. No matter what the circumstance or the breakdown. Love you so much. Thank you. You’ve been listening to the Tougher Together podcast with Rebeccah Silence, where we hope to inspire and empower you through whatever life circumstance you’re in, into your next level of life and breakthrough and possibility.

OutroPlease note that the content of this podcast is not meant to be therapeutic or to replace any personal growth work that you are already doing with a coach, therapist, or mentor. Take the content, have it inspire you, and then keep working with your support system. Breakthrough is your right. Breakthrough reminds us that we’re tougher together and that we’re connected to possibility even in the most challenging and possibly darkest times. I’m Rebeccah Silence, creator of Healing is Possible and proud host of the Tougher Together, Breakthrough podcast where we come together and we tell stories of real breakthrough that exist for you as well. Get ready to break through, get ready to live more free, and get ready to experience more breakthrough. Because that’s your right. Join us on the Life’s Tough Media website and stay tuned for more. If you want to get in touch with me visit rebeccahsilence.com. Your time is now. Your breakthrough begins now.