184: Ivy Gordon—Providing A Powerful Voice To The Sexually Abused

<p style="text-align: center;"><span style= "font-size: 24px;"><strong>Hear about the long-awaited healing power of telling your story</strong></span></p> <p>I met Ivy Gordon through my work as a speaker with <a href= "https://www.vistage.com/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Vistage International</a>. But today’s podcast with her is less about her acumen as a business innovator or coach. Rather, she is on a mission to enable women to tell their stories about rape and abuse through her website, <a href="https://unspokenstory.com/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Unspoken Story</a>. While she is a successful innovator and business leader, what she talks about here is the need to provide a voice for women who have been raped or assaulted—as she herself was, almost 50 years ago. It is this need to tell their story that is essential to free women from the chains that stay with them all through their lives. I was incredibly moved...you will be too. Please do listen in.<img class= "mce-hs-more" style="height: 20px !important;" src= "data:image/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAIAAAAAAAP///yH5BAEAAAAALAAAAAABAAEAAAIBRAA7" data-mce-placeholder="" /></p> <p><img style= "width: 152px; float: left; margin: 7px 17px 0px 0px;" src= "https://cdn2.hubspot.net/hubfs/398462/Ivy%20Gordon-square.jpg" alt="Ivy Gordon-square" width="152" /><span style= "font-size: 20px;"><strong>“There is no greater agony than bearing an untold story inside you,” said Nobel prize winning writer Maya Angelou, also a survivor of childhood rape.</strong></span></p> <p>As Ivy writes on her <a href= "https://unspokenstory.com/about-the-project/" target="_blank" rel= "noopener">website,</a> “Our society is in a watershed moment—survivors of sexual assault are finding their voices and they are finding that at long last, their voices will be heard, respected and we hope, believed. For survivors who have carried their secrets for years, throughout marriages, child rearing and long careers without the benefit of a witness or a believer, the time has been especially long i