Dove's Inner B.E.A.U.T.Y. Podcast

Embracing Trauma as a Path to Purpose with Demetria Nickens

• Demetria Nickens • Episode 15

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How Does Trauma Impact Your Purpose?

What if your trauma could guide you to your life’s purpose rather than obstruct it? Join us on the Dove's Inner B.E.A.U.T.Y. Podcast as we welcome the insightful Demetria Nickens, a trauma recovery coach and certified mental health first aid instructor with over two decades of experience. Demetria shares her profound understanding of how trauma impacts our personal journeys, emphasizing that these experiences are as varied as the individuals who endure them. With her wisdom, you'll learn why recognizing and aligning your emotional responses with your core values is vital in navigating the aftermath of trauma.

Throughout our conversation, Demetria uses real-life scenarios, such as the devastating hurricane in Western North Carolina, to illustrate how deeply personal our reactions to trauma can be. We'll explore the complexities of value systems and how they can turn trauma into either a stumbling block or a stepping stone. Demetria encourages listeners to confront these conflicts head-on with the support of coaches or therapists and reminds us of the importance of fully processing our emotions. Tune in for a candid discussion on healing and embracing one’s emotional awareness journey.

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Speaker 1:

Welcome to the Dove's Inner Beauty Podcast, where we foster emotional awareness, one individual at a time. Leading the way is Demetria Nickens, a certified mental health first aid instructor and trauma recovery coach with over two decades of experience in fostering emotional awareness in others by engaging their mental health.

Speaker 2:

Trauma can feel like a speed bump on your road to purpose. Sometimes it slows you down, but it can also make you appreciate the smooth stretches even more. Let's dig into its impact. Welcome back everyone. This is Garfield Bowen-Cohill, slash producer, back in the studio with Demetria Nickens. Demetria, how's it going?

Speaker 3:

Hey, it's going good.

Speaker 2:

So, demetria, how does trauma impact your purpose?

Speaker 3:

Oh man, so many ways. It really depends on what exactly a trauma is. You have to take that into account. I can't say what someone else's trauma is going to be because that's their experience, that they feel. Right, it's the event that happened to them. However, it's how that event has impacted them. That kind of creates what we call this idea of trauma. And so when you think about different types of trauma, it absolutely can impact how we think about our lives ourselves, who we are, what we want to do, all those things positively or negatively. So, example recently Western North Carolina has went through the major hurricane Helene, right.

Speaker 3:

So this idea that some people in that situation, they feel trauma around them Anytime it rains, they're going to have a problem, right, because everything was taken away from them their livelihood, their house, right, everything that they feel like mattered and cared about was taken away from them. So that could be a trauma to them and others. It may not impact them at all. They pick right up, they keep going and it doesn't impact them, right. So for the ones that the trauma has impacted them, this idea that let's say their livelihood is gone, let's say their establishment was wiped out, their house was wiped out right, all of these things. Well, their value system matters, right? So let's say, one of their top five values is this ability to serve others. But your ability to serve others was just taken out. It's going to impact you significantly more than someone whose value system isn't necessarily in serving others. Maybe theirs is in fitness and health. As in fitness and health, well, maybe they can still work out every day. Maybe their workout space didn't get impacted, so they still can work out every day. So their value is strong, they're good. It didn't impact them as much. However, if your value is based on something that happened to you, it's going to significantly impact you more.

Speaker 3:

So when we think about this idea of our value systems and trauma, that trauma that happens to us, whatever it may be, has a direct impact on our values. So, if I value family and there was sexual abuse in my family, that is a direct conflict with our value system. And so when we get these conflicts in our value system based on our trauma situations, we need to manage those. It's important that we can talk to a coach, talk to a therapist and see how these things are starting to conflict with each other and how it starts to mess with our mental health, how we're not going to feel as great as somebody else might have felt. You can't understand why You're like. Why are they OK, but I'm not Right? You start to question why you're not feeling great, and this other person over here seems to be just fine, but you may have experienced the exact same thing. That comes from your value system. Your value systems are different, so therefore you're going to react and impact in a different way.

Speaker 3:

So when there's conflicts with our value system because of something that happened to us, we need to deal with it. We need to figure it out, we need to sit with it, we need to notice it. We need to know how it feels in our body. We need to recognize the emotion that comes with it. We need to manage our expectation around it right, not to have this idea of expectation of I'm going to be back on my feet, I'm tomorrow and I'm going to just keep working and I'm going to go and go and go.

Speaker 3:

Maybe you need to stop and live in the emotion. Allow yourself to feel and heal. Right, we don't I say this all the time. Right, allow yourself to feel and heal. Sometimes we have to feel it right, whether that means crying and allowing our bodily emotions to just come out. However, it's going to come out. If that's in tears, yelling whatever, allowing it to come out and then being able to move forward. How do I move forward in this? Making the steps and doing the things, but you have to allow yourself to feel through it too.

Speaker 3:

Right, we can't just stuff the emotions. They are part of who we are. What's important? That we don't just stuff it. We feel it, so that we can recognize this conflict on our value system, recognize that there's pain, there's hurt there, recognize those things and say, okay, I'm going to face this, I'm going to feel it and I'm going to move on.

Speaker 3:

We can't move on when we just stuff it. Right, we can't. It's harder to move on because we got this baggage right. This emotion is just sitting there chilling. Well, no, we don't want to keep it right, we want to feel it so we can move on. And that's the problem is that we don't feel, we want to stop ourselves from feeling it.

Speaker 3:

But the reality is, if we can just feel it, then we can move on from it. Right, we feel it, allow ourselves to feel it, sit in it, cry, do what you need to do and then we can make a plan to move on from it. Because when we stuff it, it just hurts us even more. We continuously conflict right and that confliction isn't helpful to us. And so heal, feel and heal right, move forward in your life. Don't stop yourself with emotions or overwork yourself to not feel it. Feel it it's a hard topic, especially because it's impacted so many people, but recognize it's going to impact so many people so many different ways. So there's support system is needed. Support system is absolutely necessary, whether that's a coach, a therapist whatever that looks like a doctor, whoever you decide to go to feel it, don't stuff it and be able to recognize the conflict and say, ok, how can I move forward in this? How do I get through this emotionally and work-wise or family-wise? How can I move forward in this? What does that look like for me? And it's hard.

Speaker 2:

Feel and heal. While you were speaking, I was thinking of the emergency workers. You know people that's dealing with trauma or crisis and they can't stop.

Speaker 3:

Yeah.

Speaker 2:

To feel and heal. You know what I mean. They got to go, go, go, go go. How does that impact them?

Speaker 3:

Absolutely. There are staggering statistics for that population of individuals. Part of their work is going to have to be having a support system, a connection of folks around you. Your connection matters. Who you have around you matters. Having connection in your life matters. And then they have to find time to feel in health too.

Speaker 3:

So, whatever that looks like, there is a point where you have to self-care. We stop and we take a shower. We stop and we use the bathroom, even if it's in the shower, or you just taking a shower, cry just to release whatever's going on. Take that and release and cry. Right, if you're eating, you need to stop. Take the time, breathe right. Take a moment. Breathe in the fresh air. Right, take a moment, breathe in the fresh air right. Ground right. This idea of being able to engage our senses Can I feel my feet on the floor? What am I touching, what am I seeing? What am I smelling? What am I hearing? Can I engage my senses, to quote unquote ground me back into a sense of reality. So that idea of grounding can be helpful. Right, and just taking those moments when you can. They're out there, they're going, they're going, they're going.

Speaker 3:

At some point you got to tap out. You got to let the next shift come in. You get the rest self-care, right Eat, sleep, shower, all of those basic needs right, you got to take care of your basic needs too. But as we move up, we always think about just the basic needs. But we got to move up on that hierarchy right Of needs and know that there's more to that. There's connection, there's love, there's emotions right, those things have to be taken care of and we can do that in those small moments of taking care of our basic needs too.

Speaker 3:

We just have to allow ourselves to do it. People just don't allow themselves to do it because they feel like they're never going to stop. I hear this a lot oh, my gosh, if I start crying, I'm never going to stop, right, you're going to stop and you may cry again tomorrow, but you'll stop. And you may cry again the next day, but you will stop. So this idea that it will, that to feel that, to recognize that it's hard but it's possible, allowing yourself to feel in you, is so important because stuff in it isn't going to do anything worse but come out later. It's going to come out at some point, whether that's through your body, through a physical health condition or come out crying or upset or raging at someone else later, might as well deal with it in the moment that you're dealing with and deal with truly.

Speaker 2:

Love it. The word for today is feeling and healing.

Speaker 3:

Yes.

Speaker 2:

We'll catch you on the next episode. Have a wonderful day, thank you.

Speaker 1:

Thank you for tuning in to the Doves Inner Beauty podcast, where we foster emotional awareness, one individual at a time. For a complimentary consultation, visit DovesInnerBeautycom or call 336-298-6599. That's 336-298-6599.