#158 Heal Through Storytelling with Perry Power

Have you ever felt like your story was too painful to tell? What if speaking it could set you free?

In this episode of the Healing Through Love Podcast, Perry Power, bestselling author of Breaking the Silence, joins Rose Davidson for an unforgettable conversation on the healing power of storytelling. Perry survived childhood sexual abuse and spent years in silence—until he found his voice through writing.

Now, he’s on a mission to help others do the same. Perry has built a global platform for survivors, empowering them to turn pain into purpose by sharing their stories with courage and clarity.

This episode is about more than just writing—it’s about reclaiming identity, healing emotional wounds, and breaking the silence that too often surrounds abuse. Perry dives deep into how storytelling transforms survivors from victims to victors and becomes a tool for emotional freedom and inner peace.

Whether you're on your healing journey, supporting a loved one, or exploring the power of narrative, this conversation will inspire you to step into your truth—and maybe even write it down.

🎧 Listen now. Your story could be the key to someone else’s survival.
 📩 Subscribe and share to empower healing through love, truth, and words. 

💡 Three Key Takeaways:

1. Why Writing Heals – Learn how storytelling allows you to process emotions and reclaim your voice.
2. How to Break the Silence – Discover the power of speaking your truth after trauma.
3. Transform Pain Into Purpose – Turn your story into a source of hope for yourself and others.

✨ CONNECT WITH PERRY

Facebook: https://facebook.com/perry.w.power

Website: https://bepowerfulmedia.com

📍 PROMOTION:

https://bepowerfulmedia.com/powerful-books

#HealingThroughLove #RoseDavidson #PerryPower #WritingToHeal #BreakTheSilence #StorytellingForHealing #TraumaRecovery #TurnPainIntoPurpose

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Transcript

Voiceover | 00:02
Welcome to another episode of Healing Through Love. Each week, we share ideas, experiences and resources to increase the awareness of domestic and family violence and to empower survivors to grow and thrive. We talk with experts who share their advice. Or with people who have experienced abuse, no matter where they are on their journey. This is all about healing through love. And now, here are your hosts. Sharlene Lynch and Rose Davidson. 

 Rose | 00:42
Hello, welcome to the Healing Through Love podcast. I'm Rose Davidson and together we're shining a light on hope, resilience and transformation in the journey to end domestic violence. Each week we bring you inspiring interviews with changemakers, We are survivors, advocates and experts who are making a difference in the lives of those affected by domestic and family violence. Whether you're on your healing journey or supporting someone who is, this is your space for powerful stories, practical tools and heartfelt inspiration. Let's heal through love. And today, my guest. Is Perry Power and we're going to be discussing the healing power of writing and I'm really interested to hear what Perry has to share because I think we can all learn about you know journaling, writing, you know, and getting out all our feelings on paper. 
 So Perry is a global speaker. He's a bestselling author and a powerhouse in the movement to break the silence on abuse. He's helped thousands find healing through storytelling. Helping them turn their pain into purpose. His raw, unfiltered approach has captivated audiences worldwide and this conversation is just going to be a little bit different. 
 So please welcome Perry Power to the Healing Through Love podcast. 

 Perry | 02:06
Hello, I love the name. I think that healing through love, I think, if there's any way that you can sum it up, We need more love in this world. And if you can step into love more, that's where you can find healing for. 

 Rose | 02:18
Sure. Absolutely. I totally 100% agree with that. Perry, tell me a little bit about your background and, you know, why are you trying to get people to heal through the power of rising? 

 Perry | 02:31
So... A bit about me and my background is that I went through abuse as a child by my step grandad. It was sexual abuse and it lasted for a while until my step mom caught it happening when I was 11 years old. And she took me home. She told my dad. My dad spoke to me about it, what confronted me about it. And he then told me to stay quiet. He didn't want me to tell anyone. And that was it. It was like case closed. And I then went on to live in silence. At the time I didn't... 
 Sort of consciously from a deep rooted nervous system level, I knew that what I was going through my step-grandad was wrong, but sort of above the surface, he was. Someone I looked up to. 
 You know, he was like the hero of my story. And I didn't really understand the full weight of what happened. My dad in that moment positioned himself as the villain of the story by telling me, don't tell anyone about this. You're never going to go around to your nan's house again. You're never going to see your step granddad. And But as the years went on, I'm 11, then I'm 12, then I'm 16, then I'm 18. I get older. Always being boys. I then understand what all these things are. I know what sex is. 
 And then if I know what sex is, then I know what the sexual abuse is. And then I was then sort of confronted with what I went through and sort of one, two, skip a few, I... Ended up my dad June the 1st, 2017, by this point, he had become an alcoholic. And... He had become a diabetic, he had high blood pressure. And... On June the 1st, he had a heart attack and he passed away. And he was 48 years old. About six or so months after that, I broke my silence for the first time. And I always say that I broke my silence in three stages because stage one was I broke my silence to my girlfriend that I had at the time. 
 And then a couple of months after that, I broke my silence to a small group of people. And then I broke my silence for the third time on social media to the world. And When I put that video out onto social media, that's where the snowball effect happened. And that's where it just blew up. And it kind of switched over from me sharing my story for me to then me share my story for other people because it started to help people. But then that's where I found out because my family watched the video that... It wasn't just me that went through that abuse. It was my cousin who I knew about. My auntie and my dad. Was all abused by the same man. 
 So then that's when I, that's kind of like when purpose came bashing down on the door and said perry you're going to help people break generational silence because if it doesn't end with them it's going to carry on going through that chain And so then I just took it upon myself to try and do everything that I possibly could. I went viral on social media, grew a huge audience on there. 
 And then I was like, what else can I do? What's next? What's next? 
 And then I was two episodes into Jeffrey Epstein's documentary. And someone just spoke about like breaking the silence or like they couldn't break the silence and for some reason they're just sort of like Why don't you write a book? Why not? 
 You know, try it. You've never done it before. And I can hear the voice in there being like, but you've never done it before. 
 So why would you even start? What are you doing? And I just sort of hushed it. 
 And then I wrote my book and I wrote it in 30 days, which is great. It's a good achievement. But I sat on it for a year and I didn't publish it. Because of the fears, because of the perfectionism. I just don't want to be perfect. And. A year later, I woke up. 
 I mean, it's the same sort of, I call it the fuck it moment. It's the same sort of fuck it. 
 Like, fuck it, I'm going to write a book. Fuck it, just put the book out. Just do it. Just take imperfect action and put it out. 
 And then I put the book out, and then it hit number one on Amazon, which I had no idea. One, I didn't even really know about best selling back then, because we're talking... I don't know, four or five years ago maybe, and... I didn't even think about something being a bestseller. I just put it out there. 
 And then it went number one in the sexual abuse category. And then I got press, news, everything. 
 And then sometime after that, Someone had asked me, Perry, I went through abuse. Can you help me write a book? And At a time, there was a lot of resistance because I was like, I don't even know how I wrote my book. 
 So if I'm going to help you write your book, that means I need to show you a process or I need to show you something to help you write yours. And then I was sort of, I didn't say yes straight away. And I'm an actor and I I'd always try to begin with, I was following his traditional path of acting. But you have an agent and go to auditions, but I didn't want to follow that path. I wanted to create my own path. And I never knew what that path was. 
 And then one day I had a vision. Where I was in an office looking at screenplays. And I had to sort of weird connection to the screenplays, almost as if I had created them. And I didn't really understand what that was. 
 And then... One day I thought about that woman asking me to help her write a book now and then it all clicked for me how These screenplays, these true story films that I can see myself creating in the future, could come from true story books. 
 So if I had a publishing company that can help trauma survivors write and publish their own memoir, Then I will have a part of True Story Books that eventually I can turn into True Story Films and help people even more. And that's when I went back to her and said, absolutely, I hope you will figure it out. And that was a probably... That was probably about two and a half to three years ago. 
 And then It was a year after me doing that book, I decided to go all in on this path. And that's when I launched Powerful Books, which is the publishing company. And now we have 20 books published. We're about to have 23. We've got three going through publishing at the moment. But now that's all the context. Now to come back to your question. I launched this as a publishing company. That was it. Just like a publishing company. 
 You know? And then it was after a handful of people went through it. 
 And then they said, they were the ones who said to me, Perry, this isn't a publishing company. I mean, yes, but it's not. This is a healing program because my life has just changed. I've just gotten rid of my personal therapist. I've just gotten rid of my antidepressant medication because. Of what and i'm like holy shit okay interesting and then the more people that have come through it you know we've got over 80 people in the program now it's just mirroring the same transformations as before. 
 So, and that's, you know, now I'm in the middle of writing my next book called, story medicine. About how our stories can be medicine for others and within that I'm talking a lot about something that I'm calling the witness effect which is the five stages of healing so we've got self-witnessing which is when someone's living in silence about the trauma that they've been through they can self-witness what they've been through so rather than running away from it they can witness it themselves that's the first stage then we have community witnessing which is then joining a community of other people that have been through similar because then they'll realize that they're not on their own with what they've been through. Then the next stage three is page witnessing, which is when for the first time they unleash what they've been burying deep onto the paper and they start to see their story unfold for them. 
 And then stage four is trusted witnessing, which is where they Share their story, that truth, whether it's verbally or through the written word, with someone that they trust. And then the last stage is legacy witnessing, which is when they can decide to share their story with the world and start to create impact. 
 So all of this has happened, which is crazy. It's how the universe works once. I stepped into my own story and rode that wave and saw what it'd take me. 

 Rose | 10:28
Yeah, I wish I was brave like you. I've often wanted to write my own story of my own sexual abuse, which happened with my father. He was the abuser. 
 So yeah, and people have often said to me, Rose, write your story, it's going to help somebody. And but I'm not brave enough yet to. To write. I think the, this, it's still... 
 I mean, it happened such a long time ago, but to me, it's still quite raw that there's feelings of betrayal, I think, because, you know, my mother knew what was going on and she never put a stop to it. So, and, you know, she's still alive. 
 So I, you know, that, Maybe when she passes, I might write it then. I don't know. But, you know, we'll see.- But anyway. There is obviously a It's therapy to write these things down as you did. And, you know, you, I got some release from that. 
 So how can we process, you know, this trauma and, you know, gain the clarity that we need to be able to put the words on paper of the trauma that we experienced. 

 Perry | 11:38
I Saw a quote recently and it was randomly in someone else's book and I smiled when I saw it as I just perfect a perfect way of explaining it, which is the best way to get ready to write a book is to write a book. And I was like, because... And I'll give you one example. That We have someone in our program. Her name's Sonia. She's been with us since the company launched two years ago. She still hasn't published her book yet. She's still not even... She's like halfway through it now, but she's still not even towards the end of publishing a book. And our average time frame is three to six months when someone joins our program to go from a blank page having a published book. And... The reason why I bring Sonia up is because I think she's a beautiful example for people who are like, I don't even know how to write. I don't even know if I'm ready. Because one, you don't even need to publish a book if you don't want to. You can write a book for you. No one even needs to know about it. Right. The version of you now compared to the version of you who has written a book would be two very different people. And it's like, well, let that version of you make a decision on how you want to publish it, whether you want to or do it under a pseudonym or who knows. Now with Sonia, She joined, she wrote And then about a year later, She came onto the call and then she took a bit of time away, like a month away, and she came back. And she's like, I've literally torn up everything that I've written. I was like, interesting. Why? She goes, because... It just, because the more that you write, because there's, I've I did a message in my community last week and I put it into my stories. I just want to read this out. I said, how long should it take for you to write your book? As long as it takes. Because it can be done fast it can be done slow and i consider that when you are writing you're not working on the book you're working on you the book will be ready when you are ready Right. 
 And with her, Yeah. And that's, again, that's what they showed me. Right. And with her. She got to a point where she's like, I realized just with time of writing, that old lens started to disappear and this new lens started to come on. And she saw that what she'd been writing for the past year, she was writing from a place of pain and anger. And here's the thing, that's okay because she had to go for a year of writing through Pain and Anger in order to see that she was living in a place of anger. 
 So she can start to correct that and heal those wounds. And now that she's writing from a completely different place and she's giving presentations at her work about her story that she never would have done when she was in that chapter of writing. 
 So yeah. The best way for someone to get, don't get me wrong, there are some people. Who, you know, if we're looking at a whole scale here of healing, we do have some people that are way over here in the place of pain, almost as if like it's happening now, even though it happened 20 years ago. And if they wrote, could it be quite harmful for them? Maybe it could be quite harmful for them, triggers and flashbacks and things of that nature. This is why I always say, have a therapist, have someone alongside you, a professional. We've got many people in our program whose therapists referred their patients and their clients to us so that at least they have someone working with them. With their sessions every week to bring them in and bring them out. But if we had people further along the journey, we'd be like, "Well, no, I'm not that much in the pain, and I haven't enough self-awareness to know that." then I would say that. The process of the writing itself, with taking imperfect action will help you to become the person that can write the book. 

 Rose | 15:08
Yeah, no, that makes perfect sense. And I think, you know, you're quite right that, you know, if you're writing from a place of anger and pain, the words that you're writing are a lot different than when you're coming from a place of healing. - Correct. 
 Yeah. Yeah. 
 So how do we turn that pain into purpose, Perry? 

 Perry | 15:30
I think it's... I wouldn't go for the witness effect that I said there, because the purpose at the end point is that legacy witnessing, which is then where you're able to see... Because what happens throughout that is almost there's a transition of almost like a disconnect, right? Where You're not writing as if you're in the story. You're writing as in you are a viewer of the story. You're seeing yourself as a character in the story. 
 So there's a slight disconnect. And I believe that's a healthy disconnect. When I share my story with, I don't share it as if I am that boy that was abused, almost. I share it as if, well, that was me, but that's almost a character in a film that I produced and launched many years ago type of thing, you know, it's a disconnect. And I feel like when you're and you'll notice when you're able to have that disconnect because you're able to actually speak of your story without you know, you'll share your story, crying, breaking down or whatever your nervous system wants to do. 
 And then you'll start to share your story from a place of, okay, that's interesting, you know, and you'll start to feel the disconnect. And I feel like that simply happens The pain to purpose, one, when you start to confront your truth and you go through that witness effect. But then when you find out what is the message of your story. For me, that's the biggest thing. As soon as you know what the message of your story is, for me it's breaking generational silence. For someone else is raising awareness on narcissistic abuse from partners and whatever it is. You'll have a message. And it's usually the message that the past versions of you wanted to hear. 
 So as soon as you know what the message is of your story, all of a sudden you start to find a purpose. And then if you can make the purpose greater than the fears, then you will do it anyway, despite the fears. 

 Rose | 17:19
Yeah, it makes sense. But, you know, I think a lot of us, you know, survivors of whether it's sexual abuse or domestic and family violence find it Maybe a little bit challenging to write down those things that have happened to us because you write about the flashbacks and the bad memories and you start having nightmares about these things. And am I writing down the right things? And am I going to hurt somebody? Is someone going to sue me? All of those things to take into consideration. 
 So how do we get past that? 

 Perry | 17:56
You get passed that by... Focus in on putting one step forward. Rather than Because this is it. Before someone's even putting pen to paper, they're already thinking about Am I going to get sued? Are they going to come out of prison? What is my mum going to think? I love her, but to be truthful, she could have protected me and she didn't. But am I going to break her heart when I put this book out? All of that, which is the open-ended questions, the fears and anxieties are all surrounding on post-publication of the book. Whereas like, Well, How about we make the end goal to have a final draft, not publishing? Because I've seen this so many times, and it happens every single time. That these people prior to joining had these fears and it stopped them for 20 30 years they went to write the book but all of the fears are still there and then the mum passes away that was the original fear but then that fear gets swapped with something else well what's my best friend sally going to think now right or what's the priest in the local church going to think or like whatever it is there's always going to be it's going to be a replacement of a fear So it's like, well, just... Forget about the publication you're not even going to publish the book forget about it because it's too much for the current version of you it's too much for you to handle because if it wasn't you would have done it already So instead, set your sights on I'm going to get to the final draft because it will be the healing, most transformative process you'll ever go through in your entire life. And I can promise you that. Promise you. 
 So at the very least, you owe that to yourself. So you go through the process, no matter how long it's going to take you, once you've gotten to the end, cross that bridge when you get to it. When you're at that stage, you can then sit down with lawyers, you know, and I can guarantee you that the version of you then sitting down with a lawyer will probably approach that situation differently compared to the version of you now sitting down with a lawyer. Right, so There's a lot of things that you will do differently when you get to that bridge. 

 Rose | 19:51
Yeah, I understand all that. That makes perfect sense, I guess. But, you know, and so, you know, once we get over those fears, what are some practical steps to actually start the writing process? 

 Perry | 20:04
I... The easiest thing to do for now, for people who haven't written, because I could say you know, like the program that we have is very extensive of all the questions and all the modules that we have. And that's just too much. The best, the information that will best serve the people right now listening who haven't written yet is to just word vomit on your laptop or on a piece of paper. Just word vomit. Word vomit your story, doesn't matter where you start, doesn't matter where you end. Word vomit in one sitting, not in multiple sittings, one sitting, word vomit everything down until you feel like you've come to a natural end. 
 And then maybe the next day or the following week or the following month, depending emotionally on how that's affected you. Go back to that and expand on it. And just keep on expanding on it until you're like, ha, because the first stage will be this sort of release. 
 And then... Once you've done the release then it's about okay looking at what you just released how can we then morph that into a story that can be an actual book? 
 So it's the first stage, just word bump your story and just, you know, take all the barriers away and just write. 

 Rose | 21:17
Yeah, I think, you know, it's a bit like journaling. I suppose if you keep a journal, you could take all the stuff that you've put in your journal and put that into a book instead. Usually people that journal write their deepest, darkest secrets in there. 

 Perry | 21:30
Absolutely. Yeah, absolutely. And we, yeah, we have some people that do that. And what you'll find is when that lens starts to change, when you start to transition from pain into the purpose, you start to see that a lot of the journal entries that one did came from a place of pain. And some of them might not want to include because Of the energy that it carries. But then sometimes you do want to include it to show the reader that this was what it was like back then. This was the thoughts that you did have, you know, so. Definitely server-purposed. 

 Rose | 22:05
Absolutely. So Perry, tell me a little bit about your program. A bit more about it. Where can people find it? 

 Perry | 22:13
So, The... So Powerful Books program is a community. That we have. We have weekly group calls, you get an accountability partner, and you basically get like a full-on course with different trainings, different modules, step-by-step process to help you. 
 You know, we've got mindset things to begin with, overcoming family opinions, overcoming the self-critic, and then... The next step is then going into writing your story. 
 So how can we clarify your story? How can we figure out what the message of your story is? How can we create a book structure? 
 And then you go into the drafting process where you actually start to, so as you notice, there's like, there's a lot of work that you do before you start writing the book. Because if you can create a plan before you start writing and then you start writing a book, you know exactly where you're going. 
 And then when you get to the end and... You basically have written a draft of your book. Then you can make a decision. 
 Some people do, some people don't. Whatever you want to just keep that. Because you did this for a healing journey or you want to take the next step and turn that draft into a published book and then there's an option to do that inside of powerful books because there's two ways to work with us basically just our writing community healing community or the publishing program which is like an upgrade so we have that as an option And then the best way to sort of check out more of what we do two ways is one following me on instagram so it's i am perry power and you can see all of our stuff on there always going on to our website And that's definitely a place worth visiting for everyone, which is BePowerfulMedia.com. 
 So BePowerfulMedia.com. And on there, you can see all of our stuff because we've got powerful books, we've got powerful films, we've got powerful merch. 
 So we've got inspirational hoodies, we've got powerful news, lots of our survivors are taking on this sort of position now of, being bloggers and releasing articles, all based on our own individual messages. So it's like a news outlet platform. And yeah, it's just like a good one-stop hub. And there's powerful books information on there as well. And there's a link on there where you can join the community. 

 Rose | 24:15
Perry, would you like to share anything else with our audience today? 

 Perry | 24:20
If... If anyone is Living in silence. I say this in... 
 So I've got a book out called Breaking the Silence, and that's one I published a few years ago. And the core message of that is... For anyone who is living in silence like if you're listening to this and you're living in silence about something that you've been through it doesn't have to just be sexual abuse could be anything. That you went through. And you are trying to decide how can you break the silence and You heard my story when I said I broke my silence to my ex-girlfriend at the time. My recommendation is to... Don't do that. Because I was lucky that my girlfriend welcomed me with open arms. I was lucky that she welcomed my truth. But if she rejected my truth or she paused for a little bit too long, I would have read into that and I would have associated her reaction as rejection. And now all of a sudden my story has been rejected by the very person I loved and trusted the most, whether she meant to or not. And I would have now lived, probably gone on to live in silence for the rest of my life. 
 So. My recommendation to people is if you're living in silence, Rather than making step one, telling that person. Make that maybe step 14. And the first 13 steps is you breaking the silence to yourself. In as many different ways as you possibly can. Journaling, writing a short story, writing a poem. Doing a piece of music, choreographing a dance piece, going to pottery class, making a bowl, and once you're making a bowl, you're transferring these emotions that you've had locked away into the bowl, because now you have a physical representation of you breaking the silence. No one else will know, but you will know. And the more times that you do that, the more times you're confronting your own truth, and you're slowly transitioning out of pain and slightly into purpose. 
 And then the version of you telling that partner of yours on step one compared to step 14, we'll be very different people so that is my recommendation if you're living in silence break the silence yourself first in as many different ways as you can and then to someone else. 

 Rose | 26:22
Great advice. Love that. Absolutely love that. Perry, it has been an absolute pleasure. I've enjoyed our conversation today. Immensely. Don't forget to go to Perry's website, bepowerfulmedia.com. And don't forget to check out his powerful book section and you'll find his merch and you'll find all about his program and everything on there. Thank you so much for sharing with us today, Perry. It's been a pleasure. 

 Perry | 26:47
Thank. 

 Rose | 26:48
You. Bye-bye. 

 Voiceover | 26:53
Thank you for joining us for this episode of Healing Through Love. You can get further resources See the show notes or simply reach out to us via our website at htlaustralia.org. Thanks so much for joining us and we look forward to your company next time on the healing through love podcast.