Episode 16 : Healing from Childhood Trauma with Felicity Nong

In this powerful first part of a two-part series, I sit down with Felicity Nong as she courageously shares her journey of healing from childhood trauma. With raw honesty, Felicity opens up about the difficult experiences that shaped her childhood and how those wounds carried into her adult life. Together, we explore why healing from past trauma is essential for growth, and Felicity offers valuable insights on navigating this process.

We laughed, we talked, and yes, we didn’t just break bread; we ate Sadza and left the conversation feeling lighter, more hopeful, and more healed 😌.

Through this episode, we came to understand that healing is not a destination but a continuous journey marked by moments of growth. Join us as we take the first steps toward understanding and embracing the power of healing.

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:39

I'm nice to take this moment and welcome everyone to the Real Talk Real Quick Podcast, which is a faith-based podcast upon the navigation of living like Christ in a culture that refers to God as the universe, and I am your host, Ru. But today I'm actually not alone.

SPEAKER_00 1:00

Hi, um, thank you so much for having me. I'm fine. And just to break down the ice, I usually ask, how did we meet? We literally met in my living room. We made in my house, we were visiting my mom. And for some reason, I was drawn to her. I never talked to a lot of people that come to visit my mom. So, but for some reason I was drawn to her and we started chatting for a while. And with that, man, you remind me something that I've always learned in life. It takes one person who's transparent and open about the circumstances that allows to build a relationship and trust. And so that's what I did because I remember I was telling you about my issues with my brother, and I was crying, and here you are pouring into me, and you're like, you have to die to yourself. It's true. And most of us we are operating from a place of trauma. So is today's episode, which is based upon childhood traumas and insecurities. But before we talk about it, could we pray? Let us pray. You will always be, O God. Lord, you say your hand is not too short to save us, and neither is your ear too deaf to hear us. But it's because of our sins that separate us from you, O God. Father, we have eyes but cannot see. We have ears but cannot hear. So in this moment, Father, we ask you to create clean hearts in us and renew the right spirit within us, O God. Lord, we pray that you begin to put your words upon felicity and nice mouth. So it is you who speak, Lord Jesus, and may there be healing that is found upon this conversation. May your children's hearts be reached in such a way that there is turning away from trauma and turning towards healing at the feet of Jesus. Now and Him who's able to keep us from falling and present as forces before the throne of the Father. To you be the glory, the honor, the power, and the majesty, Lord Jesus, because you deserve to be praised at all times. In your name we pray. Amen. Amen. So, Felicity, what's your understanding of childhood traumas? And do you think they can be linked with insecurities? My understanding of childhood trauma is pain experienced or negative situations experienced in childhood. And yes, I think they are a big part of insecurities in some people because trauma in itself brings a lot of baggage with it. So definitely insecurity becomes one of those things that are applied out of trauma. And so what's the one experience or experiences you faced as a child that you say were traumatic? With me, it was domestic violence. My parents used to beat each other up. And I would tell you a little bit about how it started. So my mom was raised by her dad. Her mom passed away when she was still a child, okay, when she was three. So she was raised by a soldier, and he taught her to defend herself, to fight. And when she met my dad, my dad had lost his dad when he was 13. So at that age, he had to leave school and go start working. He literally became the man of the house at only the age of 13. So these two people coming together in marriage, having not dealt with what happened when they were growing out. The first time my dad hit my mom, my mom packed her things and left. But when she got home, her dad said, I didn't raise you like this. I raised you to stand up for yourself. I raised you to never run away from a fight. And my mom said to her dad, but this is her husband. And her dad said, But he beats you. So if he beats you, if that's how he wants to do it, then go back. I didn't raise you to run away from a fight. So that's how it started. So my mom now started fighting back. And my mom can bring it. See, she truly never, never, ever used to back down from a fight. Because that's what her dad taught her. And just suppose you're there, man, you spoke something so deep and so profound. The fact that now, as a society, if I were to be in the same situation, a man is beating me, you go back home and then I go back to that toxic environment. And I believe speaking life into this is that I think it also starts with our family man business. Yes. That they need to be more gentle. Because I think if your mom's dad was carrying that to your mom, they would not have been in a traumatic experience throughout the journey of your life. But I'm relating it with someone else who is going through that same situation. How can we help such people before we even continue? I think now times have changed so much for me because we have become more vocal and women as well. They have more rights in the society. But back then, I mean it was the 80s. As a woman, there was no women's rights for you to speak up. No one was talking about abuse, no one was talking about toxic environments. In some homes, it was normal for a man to beat his wife. So a lot of parents used to do that. When you would go back home and say, my husband is beating me, for then it's like that's the norm. That's okay. So we have normalized the trauma. So it was the norm, big thing. It was the norm because you're going home, say maybe you're going home to a home where there's your mom and your dad, and you would speak to your mom. And your mom knows that it's what happens between her and your dad. She's not gonna advise you any different. She's not gonna say, come back home. She's gonna say, that's how it is. This is what marriage is. This is what marriage is. As a woman, you need to be strong, you need to raise your family. And some of the questions that the parents would ask is, What did you do? What did you say to him? You need to tone it down. So it wasn't easy even for my mom to say no. I need going back. She had to go back. There was no one else to even help her or to even stand with her. It was the Lord. So you say nowadays there are tools. What are the tools that you could say? I think nowadays one of the things that is great about the times that we live in is the transparency, is us being able to talk about it. You know, I think that has disarmed so many situations because we have removed the normal from these toxic ways that our grandmothers and grandfathers used to live in. We have created new normals. So now, if my husband beats me, I'm able to go to the police. Steps are taken. It's not normal anymore. And even in churches now, they are addressing this. It's no longer something that we put a leg on and say sort it out as a family. So I think that's the best thing that happened in this. But also, I think now we can also recognize the victim, and we are able to stand with the victim. When you spoke of that, you reminded me of this verse. What you just said is literally biblical, because God says that pray for one another. There's healing in community as friends, and not just to the police, but as friends. If my husband is beating me, if I was raped, if I was in a situation of trauma, I can go to a friend, but our friends also have to be safe spaces for us. Like I was saying, it takes one person's transparency to open trust. So I think as human beings, as friends, as mothers, as sisters, as daughters, as brothers, as fathers, we need to cultivate an environment of transparency that you don't have to wait for the next person to be transparent. Be transparent first so they can trust you enough to be transparent with you about the circumstance that they face in. It's how we raise our kids. We have to practice conscious parenting where you as a parent are giving your child these tools. So when they go out there, they already have these tools. They know it's okay to speak up, they know it's okay to want to be in a safe space, they know it's okay to walk away from a toxic environment. And they know that even if I go back home, I'll be welcomed with open arms, no questions asked. My healing, my health, my mental health will come first. That's so profound. You and I have an age gap, but already on my own, I was literally looking back at my own life as you're talking about parenting that I was never given the opportunity of transparency fully. Yes, my generation speaks up more, and sometimes when I do speak up, it's my parents would say you disrespect the problem. But the transparency you're talking about is so profound because I don't think my parents were fully transparent with me. Although my mom has been transparent with me about her story and her sharing, but transparency to a point where you're allowed to say whatever you want to say and not be judged because I'm I feel like I do have things I can't say because I'm afraid of judgment, and so that was really profound, but I want to move away from that and speak to your own story of trauma. So your parents beat each other up, and for you you were also beaten up. Yeah, obviously it it translated to that, and if this is how they're solving their issues in their own space, you know, if they can't talk to each other, if the solution is to fight, then obviously when they come to us, it's gotta be the same. They didn't even give you time to explain or talk, they would just beat you. So at some point you didn't know what was right and what was wrong because I'm beaten up for various things. I'm beaten up because I spoke to my mom or my dad while he was speaking to another adult, and then I'd be beaten up because I'm being disrespectful. Or I I remember I used to love to sleep a lot, and at some point I was beaten up even for that, because you're not supposed to sleep in the daytime. What are you doing sleeping in the daytime? So you see, so you ended up not knowing what was right, what was right, what was wrong. So for me, coping mechanism was to be silent, was to be a no, to hide, because I was in a space where anything could trigger. So the best way was to just be invisible. Children, okay. Your parents in the Lord, or this is right, although your parents in the Lord, yes, so anything outside of God is not disrespect. And then now the second thing that you just highlighted to me was the verse that says that And you fathers cannot provoke your children to breath, but bring them up in the training and admonition of the Lord. Sometimes it's parents who provoke responsible, it's not a one-way street, and was it only when you were beaten that you hid, or it was now a trauma response? Because I believe we have trauma response. It became my role every day. I woke up in the morning, and my biggest goal was to make sure that I was invisible. How were you invisible? Not seen, not heard, so I will not talk, and I will make sure to stay away from people as much as I can. If I can go sit at the back of the house alone, I'll do that. Because remember with us growing up, you are not allowed to just sit in the house for just sitting during the day. What are you doing? Sitting in the house, you know, you need to go play outside. So I would just sit at the back of the house where I know no one is going to find me, and then I would only come in if I'm called in for something. Maybe you come in and eat bath or did you do your homework, and I would come in for that. That most of the time it was just me wanting to be invisible. I believe when you don't handle trauma, trauma will come back to handle you. That's true. And in the Vinay in Sister 2, we see washing. It's when you're at unique things. So it literally takes you and hangs you on the washing line. Naked. And um reminded us, man, that hiding Adam and Eve. Yes, Adam and Eve hid. But when the Lord came, they said we were naked, so we shit. The Lord said, Who told you? That was his first response. That was his first response to the sin that was before him. But his concern was still for them. Who told you? Who told you this? So something that you're highlighting is that trauma steals identity. Trauma does steal your identity because it becomes your normal, it opens your eyes to things that God did not allow. It does exactly what the devil did in the Garden of Eden. He brought to them another image and said, You can be this. That's not what God said. So when their eyes opened to this dimension, they started seeing things now. They started seeing we had makers and they were ashamed. And Adam started blaming Eve. The situation became a mess. So when God comes in, he shows us it's what they heard. What they heard opened their eyes to this. They started seeing all these wrong things. They started blaming each other. He asked them, Who told you? But then he does something else in that same scripture in Genesis 3. He covers them. I love Genesis 3. It's one of my favorite scriptures. It's one of the scriptures that shows you that God operates from a place of love at all times. And I know when you talk about obedience, people think, yeah, obedience. But God asking us to remain is also an act of love because obedience is protection. It is. When you think about the Ten Commandments, obedience is protection. It's all about love. Yes, it protects you. It protects you. He doesn't do it because he wants to punish us. No, he's doing it because he wants to protect us. Oh my goodness. You just made me realize something. When they got to a place of trauma, right? Who was they? God. It was God. They had to go back to who? God. He had to fix. God had to fix them. So look at this. God says, Who told you? Who told you were naked? Me. And then he proceeds to cover them. And then he pronounces the punishment. But there's a part of the scripture where he's talking and he's saying, Man is now like us. We don't want him to now reach out and eat from the tree of life and live forever. Remember, if the tree of life was never a problem when Adam was in the image of God and he was in the likeness of God, and he was doing things according to what God told him, and he was only moving according to God's voice. It never was a problem. But when sin came in, then Adam's access to that tree of life needed to be stopped. It needed to be removed. Why? So that the sin does not live forever. Not Adam, but the sin. The Adam who's in sin should not live forever. That's why Jesus came and he was able to conquer death because there was no sin in him. There was no cause to keep him dead. Man, he was bruised for in our iniquities. I would say, where was Jesus when I went through that rape? He was exactly with you because he took our spot. Yes, he felt it more than we felt it. Because people say that where was God when I was right there? He was being beaten with you. And at times he covered you. But remember, because our sin separates us so much trauma. We can't even hear. All you hear is this sin. All you hear is this trauma because you are so separated from God. From God. So all you hear is this sin, is this trauma. With me, how I began to heal was to go to God. I started my work with Christ, and that's where my feelings started. And so, how did you get to a place where you could see that this is an issue? What happened? For me, it was always an issue. Because remember, from my childhood trauma, my personality changed. You know, I was no longer the babbly child that everyone tells me I was. They say I was a babbly child, I would greet everybody, I would dance about. I loved people. I don't know that person. I had never seen that person. All I knew was this person with labels that said shy, introvert, not a people's person. That's who I knew. And everyone around me would say she's shy. She's an introvert. Those became my labels. And I operated from my trauma and from those labels. And so, apart from you hiding, how else did you know you are now operating under a traumatic response? I'm trying to dig deep into a little bit of understanding the felicity that was showing up in as a result of trauma. So because of my hiding and my silence, I now didn't have a relationship with my peers because I was so afraid of my mom. I was extremely afraid of her. So even when I went to university, all the way in Coburg, and she was in Victoria, I still operated like she was sitting right here watching me. I'm afraid of because she beat you. My mom used to beat us. But for me, it affected me badly. I became so fearful as a person, you know. And even when I was in university, my friends would say, Let's go out. I would say I can't. My mom wouldn't like this. And they would say about your mom is all the way plenty. She can see you. And I'm saying, No, what if she finds out? What if she finds out? And I would sit in my room. All my friends wouldn't I didn't go out, especially after dark. I wouldn't go anywhere with you. I don't care if you were dying. I wouldn't go anywhere. I was so afraid. So I started singing from my years internship. Because at home it was the same behavior for my childhood. Even though my parents had divorced and we now lived with my stepdad. My stepdad was a very gentleman, calm, loving, you know, all the things that both my parents weren't. He came into this situation and became a very big message. But my mom was still there. And she had toned down during the years. But I was now in full trauma. So no matter where I was, I was still in that hole. No matter where I went. So I was in university, but I was still operating like my mother was here. I couldn't make decisions outside of that trauma. I couldn't. I couldn't function outside of it. So even when choosing a career, I chose a career that would keep me away from people, that would keep me somewhere in the background, working in the background. So I didn't have to deal with people one on one. It was only when I started my healing journey that I realized and connected all products. You see, but throughout my life, it was my normal. I was this person. So it was normal, it was normal for me to choose this career. It was normal for me to act this way because this is who I ended. Normalized trauma. Hundred per se moving away from trauma into eating for them. Because trauma is connected to insecurities. What were you insecure about? For me, when I was bullied, I was insecure about how I looked. And like you were describing, for me, I hid behind my friends, and I didn't see them as friends, but I saw them as people who could cover me. And I had your self-esteem because of that. That I have had to work over time. And it's something I've realized for myself. Even in pictures, I think like being in pictures, it's something that still needs to be addressed. So, Felicity, as we wrap up part one, why is it important to you? It's important to heal not just for you, but for the next generation as well. You have to heal so that it does not become a burden. If already it has become a vicious circle in your family, then it's a good time for you to break it. So you need to heal so that your children can grow up in an environment that they don't need to heal from. If I didn't heal or go through my whole healing journey, then I wouldn't be a good mother to my son who's five years old. I wouldn't even have a good relationship with the father of my child, you know. And for me, if I say I love my child, I need to give him an environment of love. I also need to have a relationship with his father that speaks to those things. The interactions between us that he's looking at, he has to see people who respect each other, people who love each other, people who are always laughing and smiling and you know joking with each other as opposed to people who are always angry with one another, and when they talk or when they see each other, they are fighting. So I don't want him to experience that. And I definitely don't want him to go through the same things that I went through. So if I have the power to prevent it, I need to make sure that I do. So for me, that's why it's important that you heal because it's not only for you. This thing has the ability to go from one generation to the next. You know, so you have to think about your kids, you have to think about your grandkids. So if you have the power to break it, break this thing. I love the word of God because you can always go to to see these examples. Joseph was thrown into the pit by his brothers. Very traumatic experience. They then take him, they sell him. He ends up a slave in Egypt. Very painful, very traumatic. From a loving environment to being a slave. But when he finally saw them and they realized that this was Joseph, he said to them, You meant it for evil, but God meant it for good. Right at that point, he broke that circle. He could have reacted in any other way. He could have done things to them. He had the power. He did, he was now the man in each of them. He did a little bit, but he came back to his senses. Exactly. So he could have continued with torturing them, tormenting them, throwing them in jail, punishing them. This thing was gonna go on and on. He was even gonna tell his kids that you know, this family is bad, they did this to me. He's he he will now transfer that hate to his children. But he didn't do that. He forgave his brothers and he made sure that everyone was fine. He broke that circle. So we can all take an example from him. You always have a choice. Some of the things you didn't have a choice, you know, there are people who've been abused, there are people who've been raped, you didn't have a choice in that moment. But now you can take control of your healing, you can take control of the person that you become, the person that's not defined by this horrible thing that happened to you. And the person that makes sure that their lineage is also not defined by this horrible thing that you went through. You reminded me of Robert Frost's poem, The Road Not Taken. I don't know if you knew it, but it says two roads diverge in a road. But I chose to take one to be one a traveller, and he stood long and he had to look at the other road before, and he realized that it led to the undergrowth, that there was no growth in that direction. So he instead took the road less traveled. This space of healing is the road less traveled, but it's a choice. This poem by Robert Frost is speaking about choices, that life is a daily choice, and healing is a daily choice. And so I'd like to wrap it up by saying thank you for listening. Felicity, thank you for being here in part one. And I ask that you pray for the listeners specifically to this choice that I they have to make on a daily basis, to choose to be a person who's healed for the next generation, to pray for those generations and to break the cycles. May you please pray forth. Heavenly Father, in the mighty name of Jesus, thank you so much for your love. Thank you for your mercy. It is not by our wisdom, it is not by our words, it's not by anything that we do that we are here, but because of your love and your mercy. Lord Jesus, your God says in the book of Deuteronomy, it says, I have laid before you blessings and curses, life and death. So choose life so that you and your descendants may live. On this day, Lord, help us to always choose life. Help us to always choose your blessings. Help us to always choose you, Lord. Always choose your way, always choose your will so that we and our descendants may live. May we always be mindful that our decisions, our daily choices have consequences that go beyond just our lives, but they go on to impact and speak in our lineage. Lord Jesus. Help us, Lord, to stop the curses. Help us, Lord, to stop the circle of death by choosing life in abundance. Christ says, I have come so that you may have life and have it in abundance. Help us, Lord, to choose life in abundance in the mighty name of Jesus. Amen. Amen. I'd like to thank you all for listening. And if you do get the time, we have a donation fund towards the podcast as well. God says that it's not just me who needs to pour into this, but there's a lot of people who are listening. I can testify from different countries around the world, and we all need to hear of this gospel. These young girls who need to hear about what God is doing through others. And it's only through your support, if you partner up with me, that we can change the trajectory of so many young people's lives because that's where the heart of God is. Let's change future generations by starting right here.

SPEAKER_01 35:17

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