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WRITER OFFERS HEALING, HOPE THROUGH RADIO SHOW

By LISA CRAWFORD WATSON, Herald Correspondent.
© The Monterey Herald, Friday, October 22, 2010

"I am the positive alternative to Dr. Laura [Schlessinger], the anti-Dr. Laura, which means we don't have to put anybody down to lift ourselves up and find our truth."

Sandy Brewer had to get out. But it was going to take some growing up before she could manage it, which meant she had to survive it.

More than once, she almost didn't, which actually might have been the easiest way out. But no one told her life would be easy, and with each insult or injury, she seemed only to get stronger.

The abuse began before she was old enough to remember it and continued too long for her to ever forget. But somehow, she grew up. Somehow, she got out. And somehow, she has figured out how to deal with a childhood darker than any nightlight could help. Read entire review

"I was severely abused by my parents as a child," said Brewer, "and I came close to death more than once. I was raped countless times, both cruelly and sadistically. I had my father's child when I was 13, and the baby died in my arms. "The entire situation in my home was controlled by my mother, which left me no place to turn. When you're getting raped nightly, verbally skewered daily, there's little room for contemplation. My life was about survival."

Although she has written a book about it, this isn't a story of abuse. This is the tale of one woman's "pursuit of light" and the "extraordinary journey" that has brought Brewer out of the darkness and into a life so clear, so vital, so purposeful that she has been able to help others find the same path.

Brewer was 18 when she bought a Buick. By her early 30s, she had learned that she is more than the sum of her experiences. At 41, she received her Ph.D. in psychology, focusing on human behavior sciences, from Golden State University.

Each was another stepping stone along her personal path toward healing.

In 2007, the teacher, counselor and lecturer wrote and published "Pursuit of Light: An Extraordinary Journey," a memoir that explores her trajectory from the childhood she was given to the adulthood she has chosen.

In 2009, she and John Brewer, her husband of 27 years, found the freedom to move anywhere they wanted in the world and chose Pacific Grove.

Since then, she has launched "The Sandy Brewer Show," a radio show broadcast through KXRA 540 AM and streamed live at sandybrewershow.com.

Airing on Saturdays from 4 to 5p.m., hers is a call-in talk show designed to inform and inspire listeners.

"Although I love my speaking engagements across the country," she said. "I am delighted to be off the road for a few months. If I could draw my dream job, it is radio. I can reach a lot of people in an informal setting and, by using examples and the dialogue we create, it is so much easier to learn.

"My radio show doesn't exist, unless I have a point of view, which is how do we support each other and how do we more through the places where we get stuck, without getting polarized. It's about being proactive instead of reactive, which gives us the freedom to be safe and emotionally naked at the same time.

In Sandy Brewer's memoir, "Pursuit of Light" she recounts a childhood filled with rape, incest and abuse and how she found a way to replace the darkness with light.

"I am the positive alternative to Dr. Laura [Schlessinger], the anti-Dr. Laura, which means we don't have to put anybody down to lift ourselves up and find our truth."

Although Brewer doesn't recommend her history as the ideal therapeutic approach to finding a greater truth inside, she does feel blessed to be able to get through the dark side of her life and find a point of healing, to get to a place where she could understand that she is greater than her experiences.

She learned through time and effort, that her life is defined not by her experiences, but by what she does with them. She came to understand, through practice, that she could make healthful decisions about who she is and healthful choices about how to live her life. Therein lay her truth.

"If you have a mother who is 85 and still isn't kind to you," said Brewer, "it's time to stop seeking kindness there. You're going to the hardware store for apples; they don't carry them. There are other choices, other options for how and through whom you will heal.

"I'm on a healing journey, and what I care about is love. Once we learn to embrace that within us, the past really will fall away. The greatest story I could tell is the promise of hope which, for me, gives a new ending to an old story."

For information about Sandy Brewer and her radio talk show, see www.sandybrewershow.com. Her book, "Pursuit of Light: An Extraordinary Journey," is available at Borders Books in Sand City, Pilgrim's Way in Carmel, and through Brewer's website or www.amazon.com.