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

Building a Foundation of Self-Kindness with Demetria Nickens

• Demetria Nickens • Episode 16

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Why Is Self-Compassion Important In Trauma Recovery, And How Can It Be Developed?

Unlock the transformative power of self-compassion with trauma recovery coach and mental health instructor, Demetria Nickens. Join us as Demetria unravels her extensive experience over two decades, offering profound insights into the journey of healing trauma by embracing grace and kindness towards oneself. This episode promises to reveal how practicing self-compassion helps in piecing together one's past, confronting difficult emotions, and honoring the resilience that has carried you through life's challenges. Discover the crucial role of letting go of shame and guilt, and replacing outdated trauma responses with healthier behaviors.

Engage with co-host Garfield Bowen as he navigates a thought-provoking conversation with Demetria, exploring practical steps to nurture self-compassion. With heartfelt wisdom, Demetria sheds light on the importance of acknowledging past survival mechanisms and how small, intentional changes can catalyze significant personal growth. Whether you're on your own journey of trauma recovery or supporting someone else, this episode offers invaluable advice to cultivate a kinder relationship with yourself. Tune in for an empowering discussion that is sure to inspire and guide you toward a more compassionate path.

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Speaker 1:

Welcome to the Doves 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:

Demetria Nickens helps us to understand why self-compassion isn't just being nice to yourself. It's a powerful tool in trauma recovery. How does practicing self-compassion support healing and how can someone start to develop it? Welcome back everyone. This is Garfield Bone, co-host, slash producer. Back in the studio with Demetria Nickens. Demetria, how's it going?

Speaker 3:

Hey, it's going okay.

Speaker 2:

So, Demetria why is self-compassion important in trauma recovery and how can it be developed?

Speaker 3:

So self-compassion is really important when you think about trauma recovery, coaching or just trying to recover from any type of trauma, right this idea that you have to be compassionate with yourself, you have to give yourself grace. In this process, you are going to discover things about yourself. You are going to see things in a different way, you're going to put puzzle pieces together of your life that maybe there were points in your life where you didn't want to feel these things right. And so when you think about all of that and kind of putting that together, it's important that you show yourself right, this idea of compassion, right this idea that you know what today was hard, right, facing this thing was difficult, and so making sure you give yourself a raise and compassion on that aspect. But also, as you're going through it, this idea of when you experience something, as a kid you dealt with it in a very specific way, but you don't like a kid, you dealt with it in a very specific way, but you don't like the way that you dealt with it. Let's say, you fought right. You were like your response was fight or flight. Some people, they were the fighters, right, and so you know, maybe you feel a way because you were the fighter right. Something happened, you were activated and, out of fear, you fought, and now you have shame or guilt associated with being a fighter, but that's how you survived, right? You technically got to this place in your life now where you're in trauma recovery, coaching, where you're trying to get through all of those things that happened to you in your life. That little person that fought was just surviving, and so you survived to this point. So being able to just honor that right, giving yourself enough self-compassion to honor that little fighter right that got you to this day.

Speaker 3:

Oftentimes, people just want to shame that right. They want to look at that and look at it as a negative thing and shame that emotion or the action that happened out of that emotion. But you didn't know what you didn't know back then. Right, you know better, you do better, and so it's important that we remember that and give ourselves compassion, right? You have kids. Give your kids compassion right. What they don't know, they don't know. So it's important that we're all just trying to survive in this thing called life and it gets hard, and so, in that, it's important that we don't look at ourselves with all of the shame and all this guilt and we just hold on to it and feel away. Honor that right. You got this far in your life. Right now you can put some tools in place that you don't have to continue doing that.

Speaker 3:

Sometimes we act out of trauma reactions oh, this is how it's always been. I'm going to continue to do this. This works for me out of trauma reactions oh, this is how it's always been. I'm going to continue to do this. This works for me. It isn't working for you. Now, right, and so asking those questions now and being able to change and being able to know better, do better matters. And so, in order to know better, do better, you've got to give yourself compassion for the person that you were right, the person that got you to this point, and so that self-compassion part is necessary for your journey to be that complete person.

Speaker 2:

So is there some kind of baby steps we can take to this whole self-compassion thing? Is there like a beginning, of course, for not being hard on yourself?

Speaker 3:

Hmm, unfortunately it's not like a course or anything right Well, at least not that I have right. But for me, in terms of how I help people with this idea of self-compassion, is being able to recognize what you need to give yourself compassion for. People need to inherently know themselves.

Speaker 3:

You need to really get to this part of feeling okay with who you are, and often people don't want to sit with themselves. They'd rather avoid whatever it is that's going on. And so, for me, I want to give people a space to feel okay with, to sit with themselves, give them space to cry, give them space to be upset, give them space to feel whatever it is they need to feel. One of the things that I say all the time allow yourself to feel and heal. And so this idea of feeling right, giving people space to feel, give yourself space to feel it whatever it is, feel it right. And so that's like my baby step whatever that is, even if it's anger, feel it right.

Speaker 3:

Recognize what you want to react and do next, but try to stop yourself from the reaction part. Just feel the anger right. Is it heat? Is it sweat? Is it? You know what is it Like? What is it that you feel? And allow yourself to feel that right. Is that tears that come out of that anger? And that's okay too. And being okay with however you feel right, acknowledging that you feel this way, is just such an important step in getting to this idea of self-compassion. If you don't understand you, then how can you expect somebody else to understand you and be in a relationship with people? Right? You got to understand you and who you are in order to get to the next steps in this life, and definitely for self-compassion, that understanding you part has got to come first.

Speaker 2:

So this self-compassion thing, what's a normal time of getting through this? And if you don't get through it by then, are you considered abnormal then are you considered abnormal?

Speaker 3:

you know, I would say absolutely not. I don't like to put time frames on anything, especially when it comes to healing. Often people I think people have a huge misconception of healing. People think that, oh, I'm gonna go see a therapist one or two, three times and I, oh, I'm healed from whatever thing. Healing is a journey on this thing called life. Healing is not something that you're just gonna go see somebody a coach, a therapist. Healing is not something that you're just going to go see somebody a coach, a therapist, no matter who it is and you're just going to be healed. And I don't have to worry about this anymore.

Speaker 3:

Right, there are things that are going to be quote, unquote triggers to you, that are going to change how you feel about something, but that'll bring back past memories that are going to impact you. There are going to be things. Right, it is how you deal with the moving forward that matters in terms of seeing the change. So the idea is to see the change in yourself. Right, being able to know and a coach can help you do that Are you? Are there change? Is there gradual change? Right, you used to see this way, but now you know what I'm thinking about, this whole thing totally different If this would have happened 10 years ago. Man, I'm a totally different person. That's change. And so being able to notice that change, those changes in who you are as a person, how you think about yourself, how you view other people, the empathy you have for you and others, those things are ways that you can kind of, I guess, notice the timeline of it all. But at the end of the day, it's a journey. There are things I still struggle with, right, and I coach people through their life, but there are things that I still struggle with too. It's a journey, and we walk this journey together. Right At the end of the day, we're all trying to deal with things that we have in our life, and so the idea is that how do you see the change Like?

Speaker 3:

What are the changes that you see? Do you see yourself being more compassionate? Do you see yourself being more patient? Do you see yourself working on your anger? Do you see yourself you know? What is it like? What do you notice within you that is changing? And that is how you can mark whether or not. Wow, I reacted that totally differently. Right, you can try to see a timeline of how you have changed, but don't try to think of it as this day, by this day, you're going to be great. Healing is a journey. When it comes to trauma, right, and you got to stay on that journey. It's just important because if you don't, you'll just fall back into some of the same trauma reactions, and you don't want to do that.

Speaker 2:

The importance of self-compassion in trauma recovery. Love it, Demetra. You have a wonderful rest of the day. We'll see you in the next episode.

Speaker 1:

Thank you. 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 Dove's Inner Beauty dot com or call 336-298-6599. That's 336-298-6599.