Discovering Your Inner Soulmate

What if the love you've been searching for in others was always within you?

In this transformative episode of The EmPOWERed Half Hour, Becca welcomes Chengi Tobun, the dynamic Founder and CEO of The Black Swan Relationship Academy. With her unique blend of spiritual insight and practical wisdom, Chengi has empowered countless women to find love within themselves and build fulfilling relationships.

Join us as Chengi shares her journey of heartbreak, self-discovery, and the powerful lessons she learned along the way.

From Heartbreak to Healing

Chengi opens up about her whirlwind marriage at 19 and the devastating divorce that shattered her identity. She candidly describes her struggles as a single mom and her chaotic foray into the dating world. After enduring multiple disappointments, Chengi realized she needed a change and took a three-year sabbatical to work on herself. This period of intense self-reflection and personal development became the foundation for her future success.

The Birth of The Black Swan Relationship Academy

Chengi's journey of healing and self-love led to the creation of The Black Swan Relationship Academy. Initially, she intended to share her insights online to help just one woman. However, her message resonated with women worldwide, transforming her healing journey into a global movement. Chengi's belief that "the soulmate was always themselves" underscores the central theme of her work: the importance of cultivating a deep, loving relationship with oneself.

The Power of Self-Love and Inner Work

Chengi and Becca discuss how turning inward and prioritizing self-love can lead to a blooming life and successful relationships. Doing the inner work can attract others who resonate at the same frequency. She also highlights the importance of setting healthy boundaries and teaching others how to treat us.

Chengi’s Realization and New Adventures

Realizing that the world is safe is a breakthrough that inspired Chengi to embark on a new adventure as a digital nomad. This realization came through trauma work with her counselor and marks a significant shift in her journey. Chengi's decision to travel the world and live as a digital nomad reflects her newfound courage and belief in the world's safety.

Key Moments You Won't Want to Miss:

• Chengi's Marriage and Divorce: Delve into Chengi’s early marriage at 19 and the subsequent dissolution, where she reflects on how this pivotal event reshaped her identity and propelled her onto a transformative life path. She shares intimate details of her emotional journey, offering insights into the complexities of young love and the impact of heartbreak on personal growth.
  
• Navigating the Dating World as a Single Mom: Listen to Chengi’s candid account of struggles and heartbreaks in the dating world, leading to a profound three-year period of self-reflection and personal growth amidst the challenges of single motherhood.
  
• The Influence of Trauma on Partner Choices: Learn from Chengi’s realization about trauma's profound impact on partner selection and the pivotal role of self-awareness in breaking destructive relationship patterns, drawing from her own experiences and insights.
  
• Empowering Women Through The Black Swan Relationship Academy: Explore Chengi’s inspiring journey towards founding The Black Swan Relationship Academy, a global movement empowering women to find love within themselves and cultivate fulfilling relationships.
  
• Harnessing Self-Love and Inner Transformation: Discover the essence of self-love and inner transformation, emphasizing their belief that cultivating self-love is the cornerstone of healthier relationships and a more fulfilling life.
  
• Chengi’s Breakthrough and New Adventures: Be inspired by Chengi’s profound realization about the world's safety, prompting her to embrace a bold new lifestyle, marking a significant milestone in her personal growth journey and igniting new adventures ahead.
  

Empowering Thoughts to Take With You:

• “The backbone of my business is transformation in transformation.” — Chengi Tobun
• “If you would meet yourself, you'd fall madly and deeply in love with who you are.” — Chengi Tobun
• “The soulmate was always themselves.” — Chengi Tobun
• “This love they've been seeking from outside of them is within.” — Chengi Tobun
• “It should be good to give, but how people treat us is how we teach them to treat us.” — Chengi Tobun
• “Never do anything for anyone. Do it for yourself.” — Chengi Tobun
• “There's a difference between knowing you are loved and feeling loved.” — Chengi Tobun
• “Instead of allowing the woundedness to cripple me, I've decided that it's going to become the reason I bring healing to the world in whatever capacity.” — Chengi Tobun
• “Don't allow yourself to get stuck here because somebody's waiting for you to get unstuck.” — Chengi Tobun
• “You are your soulmate.” — Chengi Tobun
• “When you start from within, your business blooms, your life blooms.” — Becca Powers
• “It does start inside, and that's not just like a yogi or a spiritual thing, but when you turn inward, your life blooms.” — Becca Powers
• “When you love yourself, your boundaries are tighter.” — Becca Powers
• “When you love yourself, you're not going to bleed out all over the place.” — Becca Powers

About Chengi:

Chengi Tobun is the founder & CEO of The Black Swan Relationship Academy, where she intertwines her profound experience and expertise to empower women to find love within themselves and cultivate fulfilling relationships. Chengi's ability to foster connection and create impact is evident, as she boasts a community of circa 100k across her social channels. With a background as a minister and a deep understanding of Christianity, Chengi brings a unique blend of spiritual insight and practical wisdom to her work.

Connect with Chengi Tobun:

• Website
• Instagram
• Facebook
• YouTube

Follow Becca Powers:

• Website
• Instagram
• LinkedIn
• Facebook

We Want to Hear From You!

Share your journey of navigating trauma, heartbreak, and divorce while discovering resilience and self-love. Connect with us on social media or leave a review on your favorite podcast platform. Your experiences inspire us and highlight the transformative power of finding your true soulmate within yourself, reshaping your relationships along the way.

Welcome to another episode of the empowered half-hour. I'm pretty sure I just made a new friend and we haven't even gone into the interview yet, but today, I'm bringing you Chengi Tobun, and she is a relationship expert. She's also a founder of her organization. I'm going to let her tell you a little bit more about that, but we are going to have a wonderful conversation today.

Welcome to the show, Miss Chengi. We made instant friends. Thank you for having me. 

Let's start with a little bit about your background. Right now, you're a leading relationship expert and you have your foundation. So let's tell the audience a little bit about you and how you got to the point that you're at.

Embracing Self-Reflection Leads Heartbreak to Healing

I'm probably the least qualified person, but aren't we all, what can I say? I was a complete disaster in relationships. I got married at the age of 19 to my first-ever decent boyfriend. It was a whirlwind romance, and I got married at 33. I'm running away with my child, that's the summary of that. You can read between the lines, I'm out in the world, never known any kind of love, and totally devastated because my whole identity was one day I'm going to be a wife and a mom and that's it.

That was my only dream, there were no other dreams, and that was it. Losing my marriage was earth-shattering. It really cut into my identity as a person. And then also having to struggle to raise a child by myself, going through anyone who's ever been through a divorce will tell you that is emotionally harrowing.

After I settled down a little bit and stopped hating men, I decided I'd start dating again, and I was a dating disaster. I was awful, I was terrible, I was getting stood up, I was getting lied to, and ghosted. Everything that women go through right now. It was a culture shock cause I'd never really ever been in the dating world. because you got married at 18. 

I just thought I'd find my next husband, shall I? Yeah, it was a complete disaster. And eventually, I took a three-year sabbatical. I was like, someone's either going to lose, I'm going to lose my mind. I'm going to help somebody lose their mind. So what I'm going to do because I was always into personal development, I realized if this thing keeps happening to me and I keep repeating this outcome for myself, I probably will be the problem and I don't know where to start, but it's very deep insight.

I just want to hold that for the listeners because oftentimes we'll see a pattern in our life, especially in relationships. That's where it shows the most and we keep saying, we'll say this person's this and this person's that. I keep experiencing this and that and then at some point, that's very wise to be like, maybe it's me.

And I just want to say that to the listeners too, because that's a very brave thing to do. It's not easy, but if you're listening to this and you're identifying with anything Chengi is saying, just maybe it's an opportunity to self-reflect.

It's so hard to get to that point and I don't think many ever will, but for me, it was just so painful. I guess what maybe most people would have been going through in their dating world when they were 18, 19, or 25, but I'm 33, I've got a child and I am devastated. So I thought, okay, I might be the problem and sometimes we think, I might be the problem because maybe I'm a bad person and sometimes being the problem is being too naive or just not knowing or just having trauma that you haven't dealt with that makes it okay. 

I was just speaking to a young lady before I came on this call and she is in love with an alcoholic. I said, bless you, he must have had a lot of trauma. She was able to outline his trauma perfectly. So I said to her, what is your trauma? She said I don't have any and I said, I get that, you didn't have a terrible childhood. She was telling me how lovely her childhood was and everything, but did not realize that for us to choose the broken, there's something broken in us. There's something that's resonating at the same frequency. The stories are different, but the energy is the same and we undermine our own need for healing. For me, it was very much the same, I didn't really have it and it has taken me literally 13 years of being single. 

I went back to dating after three years, but my work really came into the world after three years of self-discovery and really digging deep into myself and working. I thought I'd share a few of my findings with the world, and to be honest, I wasn't thinking of the world.

I was thinking I might get a girlfriend online cause it was quite a lonely life. I wasn't going out, I wasn't doing anything. I was just working on myself. I took three years out to work on myself, which is quite isolating. I thought I'd go online and I'll do a few videos talking about what I found out about men, about myself.

I really thought I just changed one woman's life and one day I had women all over the world sending me emails and telling me their stories and before I knew it, this was my job. This was what I do for a living and it still is a healing journey. I always say to people, I haven't arrived and I keep discovering things about myself. I keep healing and to a degree, I grow my business as well. When I grow, my business grows, and this kind of effect. 

I talk about that a lot because, even as I mentioned in our pre-podcast talk, I just recently wrote a book that is Returned To Radiance, but I believe that our inner self is magnificent and radiant and there's so much wisdom in that, but we chase so many things on the outer side. In your case, you're talking about searching for love on the outside through other people, rather than the love within yourself. And when you redirect that and you start from within your business blooms, and your life blooms.

I would love for you to talk a little bit more about that and like what you've seen in your business, in yourself, and even in life. So your clients, I think it's really important for the listeners to know that it really does start inside and that's not just like a Yogi or a spiritual thing, but when you turn inward, your life really blooms.

Finding Love Within

Because Life is inward, it's all happening within us and we're just interpreting what we're seeing, touching, and feeling from within our understanding of who we are. These earth suits, these physical bodies just give us an experience of ourselves within a physical world but it's all within us, and for me, a lot of the people I work with always believe there's something wrong with the world outside, which is why my practice, particularly even though I'm a dating coach and I do strategy and I tell people what to say, and I do scripts and I do all of the practical stuff, the backbone of my business is transformation in a transformation.

Because I don't care where you've been, I've got clients now who were now in magazines telling their story here in England, having middle page spreads of their story and it always for all my clients starts with, all I wanted was, I'd been married three times and all three times had failed, lost everything.

My mom and dad have been together for 50 years. My brother's been with his wife for 20. But if I, for some reason, have been divorced three times and I don't think I'll ever find love and I'm in my fifties, I'll never find love. For me, it starts with, let's do the work, let's take a journey to you because I believe that you are home and we're always looking for home in others. We're looking for a home in a part. We're looking for a home for our children and no one, so few of us have met ourselves. And I always say to people, if you would meet yourself, you'd fall madly and deeply in love with who you are.

When my clients finally meet themselves and give themselves permission to be who they are, their light and dark selves, the bitch in them, the bully in them, whatever they are, whatever they've judged themselves to be their shadow self, their light self and introduce themselves to themselves.

It's a three-month journey, I always say I took my three-year journey and I condensed it into three months for everybody. It's called the soulmate attraction system course, but they soon eventually realized the soulmate was always themselves

When they meet themselves, which is such a surprise for them because if they're thinking, I'm going to meet my soulmate, I'm going to meet this amazing guy, amazing woman, I'm going to meet this amazing woman, I'm going to meet this amazing guy, and I tell them, let's write about that person and let's make sure we know exactly all this stuff and believe you're going to have that. 

Now let's take a journey, when they take that journey, they realize that they're in love with themselves, that this love they've been seeking from outside of them is within. I always say, once we get to that vibrational frequency and when we get to that vibrational level, then naturally your person on that level finds you. So where women are going on 200 days to meet a man with me, you're going to go on two, three, or four because you're already on such a high vibrational frequency of self-love. Who doesn't want to be with somebody who loves themselves, who doesn't want to be a part of that?

When you love yourself, your boundaries are tighter. I'm sure a lot of that stuff comes into your work too, but when you love yourself, you're not going to bleed out all over the place

I've been divorced as well and I remember loving him, but feeling like it was never enough. I kept losing my energy and I had to give it my all and it wasn't reciprocated. So at some point, it feels exhausting. I'm sure you get women coming to you. Like you said, is it me, but they're also coming like probably drained and just I don't know what to do. And here's the thing, really good-hearted people have the hardest time with relationships.

Because we believe deeply that we will get what we give.  If I can show you love, really show up for you, meet your needs, and be intuitive about your needs, then it's going to be reciprocated. But in relationships, that giving part should be for ourselves.

It should be good to give, but how people treat us is how we teach them to treat us. It's how we show them how we ought to be treated and the boundaries we set, the standards we set, the skills of being able to say no, not this time, not now, and having nice ways of saying no, that's another thing as well.

Because we always feel like we can't set those boundaries. So what ends up happening is when you are in a relationship and you treat people the way they want to be treated, most people believe that they're that special. I'm so special that she treats me. I must be a special person, I must be a lovely person to be showered upon with love, not understanding that they're a good person. They love out of their goodness, so when we are in relationships, what we have to do is learn the art, especially good people. 

Good people end up drained because they just keep giving and when they don't get it back, you think I didn't give enough. I'm going to give even more, I didn't give enough. 

How do you do this? And you go in and you find more strength than before. You're more patient and then the abuse or whatever's going on in that relationship, he just thinks about getting away with it. And then you think I didn't love them enough, I didn't give enough. I can dig deeper until you have self-abandoned.

I love that you just said that and I'm just going to pause you real fast because listeners like relationships. I've seen people who have healthy relationships, like romantic relationships, but then find jobs toxic. The relationships at work are toxic and then vice versa. Maybe work is great and then it's the personal relationships, but at the end of the day, you just said a word that's important to me.

And I just wanted to expand upon this for the listeners. You said self-abandonment. When you don't have self-love and sometimes it's not even self-love. I have found a lot of women who love themselves but don't know how to nurture, they don't know how to give self-nourishment.

Self, like protection, just like all those things that you're talking about. There's a love for themselves, but there's no boundaries. There's no structure for what that looks like. There's a constant, like you said, giving whether it is to work or to their kids. Sometimes it's the kids too and not the partner, but there are definitely a few big pillars where women specifically, but men do it to do this type of stuff and then they end up like you were saying in self-abandonment.

I'd like you to describe to the listeners from your perspective, what that might look like. So maybe they can have some self-awareness, am I doing that? So maybe they have an opportunity to stop.

Understanding Self-Abandonment

Self-abandonment usually exists in the realms of boundaries because boundaries are where you start, and stop and where you begin.

So let's say we're disagreeing, maybe I did something truly authentic. You asked me to pick up something for you and I was super busy and I just couldn't because I've got a lot of things or I didn't want to, it's all good. I wanted to spend my weekend not doing that and then I authentically say to you, you know what, Becca, I really can't today and I need to rest. And then Becca's upset at that point, I have the choice to be in my integrity to protect my authenticity and allow you and make room and hold space for you to be upset. It's okay for Becca to be upset.

When we self-abandon, we say, okay, my needs don't matter. My rest doesn't matter. What matters is that Becca feels better about me. What matters is that I preserve Becca's feelings about me. I want Becca to feel better, which is what is called codependency. So now I am going to rest, maybe it's the only day I'm going to rest.

Now I've self-abandoned for Becca and now Becca owes me. She doesn't know she owes me, but she owes me, she's going to have to pay me back. So now we've signed this unconscious contract that we all do in relationships. So I've made the sacrifice for you and I'm holding a little bit of resentment, but I'm going to call for that favor tomorrow.

But maybe Becca doesn't feel she owes me, right? maybe Becca does. And then we have this toxic kind of unhealthy dynamic of owing. Whereas the healthy thing to do is to permit Becca to be upset with me. It's okay that you're not happy with me. I'm going to sit, I'm going to allow myself to sit in that.

I'm going to allow myself to feel whatever that feels, maybe even process it. What am I feeling right now? Is it a shame? Is it guilt? Is it fear? What do I fear? What am I guilty about? When did this start? Is it really about Becca? And so I get to work on myself and Becca gets to realize, okay, when Chengi needs a rest, and she says she needs a rest, I have to respect that because she's not going to change her mind. So now we have a healthy relationship where I will say not this time, Becca, I'm really tired. And Becca goes, okay, Chengi, no worries. And guess what? Let's have lunch on Tuesday. Now we have a healthy relationship in friendship,

Such a beautiful example. That's pretty much it. I think it's just healthy like we talk and I listened to a lot of podcasts and audiobooks and stuff like that too, and these concepts are thrown out, but sometimes the example is not strong and that's why I wanted to pause here and I just love everything that you shared.

I want to ask a different question, but it kind of springs off. Why are you so passionate about your work?

How Healing Yourself Can Heal Others?

I'm saving myself. I heard a really wise woman say, never do anything for anyone. Do it for yourself. It sounded weird, but I got it. Eventually, I am passionate about healing every part of me.

I believe that every single person that comes to me represents a part of me that still needs healing. 

The passion comes from loving myself. So when I see myself and you, then I have to say, I have to help you heal because we're going to heal together. We're going to heal these parts of me together.

I've always desired one of the things as a child and as a woman that I've craved above everything else to be truly loved. I think we all do. I was raised in a family of seven, and I was number six. My mom was going through a horrible divorce with my dad, and that meant that I spent a lot of time alone. I remember in therapy thinking, I was always alone and that little girl inside of me desperately wanted to belong. Desperately wanted to be loved and I know the pain of not having that need met for so long. And there's a difference between knowing you are loved, and feeling loved.

I knew I was loved, but I didn't feel loved and so I've journeyed through the world with this big hole in my heart. I really believe that our pain is where our purpose lies and for me, empathy, the passion is, I don't want anyone to ever live in the world, never knowing that there's an abundance of love that we're born with, stored with deep within ourselves an ever-flowing spring of love that we can get into, that we can resource from at any point.

My passion comes from, I just don't want anyone to hurt because when you hurt, I see my hurt, it reminds me of my pain. So it's really to do with my own trauma. It's got to do with my own woundedness. And instead of allowing the wounded to cripple me, I've decided that it's going to become the reason I bring healing to the world in whatever capacity.

I just want to expand upon that for a second for the listeners. So you heard Chengi say that her pain is what fuels her purpose to paraphrase. And I have found that in myself as well. So, listeners, it’s not that you have to have an answer for this today, but maybe this is a good reflection question for you, how can your pain fuel your purpose?

I was just tearing up as you were sharing your passion because I felt the authenticity coming through and it made me think too. I shared a little bit with you again in the pre-interview piece, but my parents have passed away and when my parents were born, they were full-time musicians.

I grew up in this beautiful environment where music, dancing, love, laughter, and all this stuff. But then, life happened and they had to get careers cause they ended up with two kids, and were expensive. So here comes career, work, bills, and responsibility.

That's why I call it radiance. I saw their radiance start to dim out to the point that at separate times, they each passed away and I witnessed my parents disconnect from themselves. And so there's the pain I carry from losing them as a daughter but there's a deeper pain that I have from watching them fade out over time.

And so the same way I was like, I can sit in this pain or I can turn this pain to purpose and I can go inward and I can make sure my fire, my flame is bright. And in doing so, maybe I can help others, brighten their flame and it's quite an honor. 

I feel that when we do enough work on ourselves without trying to, the outcome is impacted positively by impacting other people.

We have a responsibility to do the work on ourselves because somebody is waiting for us to heal. I was saying the same thing to my coach, one of my coaches the other day and I said to her, don't allow yourself to get stuck here because somebody's waiting for you to get unstuck.

Literally, it's so beautiful and that's such a great message for the listeners. Somebody is waiting for you to get unstuck. So we have about five minutes left. I want to ask you another question. I have two questions for you, the first one is what is a current aha or lesson that's up for you right now?

Embracing the World's Safety

I am going through a transition of courage, strangely. I'm naturally more reclusive and I like to be left alone and hidden, even though I've got a big public persona, it's really a persona that my truer nature is more reclusive. I am realizing that the world is safe, a really weird realization, and aha moment.

But the world is safe and that came through doing some trauma work with my counselor the other day. I realized that I was still feeling the world wasn't safe. So I was okay behind a camera because it was just me and my camera. I'm okay with a few groups of people and I'm okay with my community.

I don't really get to touch them. They're always behind the screen and it occurred to me that the world is safe. And so I decided right away, I'm leaving, I'm traveling the world, I'm going to be a digital nomad, and I'm going to live in different parts. I saw I've really been courageous and I'm making a big bold move because finally I realized that the world is safe and it's a nice navigator.

I'm going to follow you and I'm going to see all the places you go. I want to ask another question and then we'll go into closing to say, you could share all your information with the audience. 

You Are Your Soulmate

What is an empowering statement or a message that you have for the listeners?

You are your soulmate, you're your hero, it's all there. I went from being a struggling single mom with three jobs to running a successful world-class business without having to do anything outside of me but just doing the work inside of me, so you are your own soulmate.

You are the love of your life, you are your hero, you are your champion and when you get that one piece, that little nugget, you're going to start to attract people who vibrate on that same level and before you know it, you've got a team.