Lindsay McKean-Lynch Why I forgave myself

Lindsay McKean-Lynch is a speaker and advocate who shares her story with honesty and vulnerability, helping others understand the importance of healing, self-worth, and emotional resilience. 

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:02

You're muted. You're muted. You're still muted.

SPEAKER_00 0:21

Control D.

SPEAKER_02 0:24

She's I think she's using her phone, so she has to mute it from the bottom. Anybody else? Alright. If not, I will get that Dr. Vi. She's she got kicked out there for a second. She's probably adjusting her stuff. So we have well, we had Tana Bergsma, and he's not here. So at this point, I want to get it into a different direction. So let's do this. How about we invite someone different up here in a different light? Let's hear from Lindsay. Lindsay is a speaker and an advocate who shares her story with honesty and vulnerability, helping others understand the importance of healing, self-worth, and emotional resilience. I give the stage to Lindsay, the balance.

SPEAKER_06 1:30

Thank you so much. I am so excited to be here with everyone. This has been an incredible morning so far. I want to just dive in a little bit into a piece of the story that I will bring with you today. And that is within two weeks after uprooting my life, leaving this comfort zone as a teenager, I moved in with someone, and we'll just call him him. But after those two weeks, I couldn't walk. But with no remorse and instead a smile, he goes, Would you rather me put my helmet on and headbutt you? My ex loved that, and she always ended up with a concussion. And this was the first time that I didn't listen to myself. A voice in the back of my mind said, Leave, Lindsay. But the other voice, like a tiny little devil on my shoulder, said, No one else wants you. Stay here and toughen up. You can still walk, see? At least you don't have a concussion. But one painful year later, I was holding my baby girl alone in the hospital because he had gone to the bar while I was healing from birth. And two months later, alone again. Alone that time, because luckily he was captured, cuffed, and taken away. His words, I'm sorry, fell so far out of his mouth, my hands did not care to catch them. Because in one hand I was holding my sweet baby, and the other hand was pressed so firm against my mouth that I could not let out a sound. And that was the last time I did not listen to myself. My body said, do not answer because it is not okay. And I listened. My mind said, This is your chance. Pack, leave, get out. And I listened. I heard myself again to keep the distance. Don't go back and fall for that charm. And I listened. I said, do not ever call me again. And he listened. And still, not once yet have I regretted a moment of that painful year in my life. And I've forgiven myself for not listening. Sure, others had warned me, you know, have fun with your thug. Or a random message saying, Lindsay, what are you doing? I didn't know. I couldn't hear myself. I lost myself. I lost who I was. I was just a shell. And after it all, I still was lost. I didn't know who I was coming out of that. But I continued on raising my daughter, trying to live my life as best I could. And then I realized that in this little safety moment of my life that I had found, I wasn't afraid anymore. I chose to see the safety. And in that realization, I began to find my voice again. I began that return to myself. And it was not linear, it was not quick, it wasn't an easy path, but it was a deep and relentless cycle of uncovering, listening, reclamation, and unapologetically standing in my power. And here's how this showed up for me in real time. Fifteen years later, I was standing in the grocery store, and in front of me, this janky man was wobbling along with his cart in front of me. And suddenly I could feel the eyes on me. You know, that feeling, someone's staring at you. And I listened to myself because my body said, look up. And I was like, okay. And there he was in the grocery store. In my mind, I heard, don't react, just breathe. But that tiny little devil on my shoulder said, chase him. But instead, I took that deep breath and we locked eyes. He ran. You get to choose what you listen to. You get to hear yourself in the moments when you only just feel like a shell of you is remaining. You get to stand up, you get to reclaim you, your voice, your truth, and forgiveness. I'd say that's also your choice. Because in those moments when you choose to forgive yourself for the times you just couldn't hear clearly, or for those times where that tiny little devil got your attention instead, you're still integrating your reclamation. And I'm not sorry for the mess that I had left behind. I'm just sorry I didn't leave it sooner. So for today, just for now, this version of you that didn't listen, for the version of you that stayed, the version of you that chose survival over truth. Can you take a second? Just a moment, and instead of judging them, acknowledge them. You are here now. The version of you, who you were, who you no longer are. That version of you does not need your punishment. Not anymore. Maybe they need your forgiveness. So let's choose to forgive that tiny little devil on your shoulder, that one that kept us complacent, small, disconnected from our truth. Let's choose to move forward and face it next time with listening deeper to our inner voice. And I want to leave you with this question. What would change in your life if you gave yourself permission to choose your to hear yourself the first time?

SPEAKER_02 8:23

Lindsay, thank you so much for saying yes to be part of forgive yourself. Listen, I can't say it more than I keep saying it. What do I say? Take your hand and give yourself a pat on the back for doing it for you. Because nobody else would have been able to do it. There's tons of ladies I know going through domestic violence right now. And they would not stand up for themselves to understand. Hey, that gotta be crazy. I am allowing someone else to treat me like this. For what reason? For what reason? Nah, I don't deserve this. I need to love me enough to pull me out of this. And you did it. I saw Dr. Tash in the private chat send you a message and she said to you, I'm so proud of you. I went through the same and now I shine. He thought I would die with I would die without me. But when I forgive myself and forgive him, I saw it. So she's saying she's so proud of you too. And I am proud of you because you know it takes a lot. It takes a lot to keep pulling yourself out of it. But you see, this is one of the things people continue to hold things back. Like when I said, if you don't let go of certain things, it's one of the things is they don't realize when they reflect, they would realize there's a Bollywood movie that is called Three Idiots. I quote all the time. These guys would put their hand on their chest and they would say, All is well, all is well, and even have a sound for it. All is well. They were med students, right? So the same is they're telling you, all will be well. It is temporary, it don't last forever. That scenario, that situation, it's already written. You just have to be like our amazing friend Anya Piskinoff always says, rah, let's go to California and ride some waves because she loved to surf. She said when she's out there, she's in control. The waves on her becomes one with her board. The same thing with you. It's all temporary. You have to let go in order to allow life to take you on this journey. Let the wave take you for that ride and bring you back in. Alright, so let me bring up everyone. I see the smiles, Nina and Dr. Nimpu. Alright, let's see what's going on. And I don't know where Vined has gone, but ladies, you want to ask a question?

SPEAKER_00 11:06

Um, I have comment, um, not questions, but comment, uh, about the yourself, what stand up for yourself. Do you believe it is do you believe it's what your guardian angel? And that little thing what sitting on your other shoulder, who was saying, no, no, do this. What you was exercising free will, whereas we live in three in free will world. Is it what we're doing every single day? We are um saying yourself, yes, this is way right, we're listening, Angel. And then they say, no, no, I will do my way because I can. This is what you feel this way, or something else was moving. You are go away from all this abuse.

SPEAKER_06 12:16

There were definitely moments where I let that inner critic or the energy of others' words, you know, those hate comments or that verbal abuse that we go through, those microaggressions that really just build up, right? And it can form itself into this tiny little devil on your shoulder. And it's not you, it's the energetic form of every piece of damage that you've ever had to withstand. And it just compiles and builds, and it's that weight on your shoulder. But when we just pause and take that moment to recognize it for what it is, and we say, that's not me. And we get to that moment to where we can sit with ourselves in a different way from the lens of love, from the lens of acceptance, the lens of forgiving ourselves for taking on this energy form and putting that pressure with ourselves, it shifts the way that we hear everything else. We can then identify that verbal abuse of, oh, what are you wearing? That's that, that's that energy form. That's not us. That's somebody else's comment that's just coming onto us. But when we stop and we sit and we listen to who we truly are, without the the words of others or the pressure of others, I feel everything shifts. And that's those moments where we do find that reclamation of self and hearing ourselves again.

unknown 14:06

Dr.

SPEAKER_01 14:06

Nipu, you want to ask anything? Let's see, Dr.

SPEAKER_02 14:12

Vinet is back. Hello, Dr. Vinet. How are you?

SPEAKER_03 14:17

I'm here, but can you hear me?

SPEAKER_02 14:19

We can hear you now. Beautiful. Everything is better now.

SPEAKER_03 14:23

Sora, I don't know what's going on. I just got this new internet system last week, and to me, it's worse than what I had before.

SPEAKER_02 14:33

It happens. Technology. We we speak about that all the time. So you don't have to worry about that. That's out of your control. But we can see you, we can hear you, and that's amazing. Uh, before, I think you wanted to ask a question or say something when I was on, and then Lindsay is here. I know you were hearing her. So if you want to ask anything and add in today, uh and also Dr. Nimpu, if you want to ask something to Lindsay, let me know. Just go ahead. Who's first?

SPEAKER_05 15:02

Dr. Bai, you can go.

SPEAKER_04 15:05

I'll follow. Go ahead. I've been in and out so much that I lost my trend of thought now. Oh, yes, sorry.

SPEAKER_05 15:14

Lindsay, Lindsay, what what a level of strength that I drew from your story. Um, you know, in in um in psychology and or I would say mental health and even healthcare, we say you go through um three responses when you encounter a traumatic experience or exposure. You either fight you either fight it, you fight by running away, or you freeze. So I heard you, I heard you talk about how you fight back. Can you hear me?

SPEAKER_06 16:03

Yes.

SPEAKER_05 16:04

Okay, perfect. So it it is amazing how you you analyze the situation before you could even react, but you had our inner dialogue. It's amazing. That is that is such a a strong suit of a survivor that when you told your story, I kept saying, Wow, she was in control, you held your ground. So, congratulations on how you compose yourself and did not allow the situation to make the best of you, even though you you when you mentioned you should have acted, you should have reacted sooner, you should have done something sooner, forgive yourself sooner. I saw through your story that you had control of the situation. All the way. So great job.

SPEAKER_06 17:02

Thank you. I do want to add to that, if anyone is listening, that fight, flight, or freeze moment can really take us over. And it's in those moments, and I've learned this through my personal therapy too, connecting again to counseling. Um, but it was, she called it, my therapist called it the magic pause. And in that, she really taught me the difference between reacting and responding and how those two are so different. And I think that is one of the things that kept me in that composure was that magic pause of okay, I could react right now, and that's that quick, immediate, you know, reaction of reacting to what's happening. But when you pause, it gives you that moment to oof, respond. And I really I want to add that to how you say, because it is something that comes up for so many of us, and it can happen, you know, like in an instant when you're just walking down the street and something startles you, right? Um, but it's in those moments where we can, hey, I'm choosing to take my power pack right here, and I'm going to pause so I can respond. And I feel that's something that can really make a difference.

SPEAKER_02 18:23

Wow, amazing. Thank you, thank you, thank you so much. You know, some of the things that y'all talk about where she was in control, and that's where self-realization happens, as I was saying to the younger generation earlier, on your reflection of what's happening yesterday. Most of the times you ask yourself, you have learned what is right and wrong. There are some people, and I would say this, they are born here with their destiny and their scenarios of never seeing it, the things they do wrong, or however the things they would always consider their right. That's them. But when you're a person who have love inside of you, as I explained one day on Trauma Talk Thursdays, you know what I explained about love? Love is that smallest, smallest spark inside of you, and the only time that spark ignites and grows and grows is when you show that love. When you share that little spark, it connects with another spark and it gets a little bit brighter, and that's how it is. So the more you show love, the more you help push your spark to connect with others, you would see the difference in your life, and that is the thing about it is letting go, reflecting, and that is what she did. She had to keep looking at all the red flags, and it said, so this is where she was in control to understand. Enough is enough. As my mom, another book we are in, Elevate Your Visibility. Another number one international bestseller I'm in from last August. And guess what? I wrote about what my mom taught me. She taught me the longest rope has an end. And that's where you called it down the middle. I love this. You know, I love bringing the conferences, as I said, because then the messages are powerful. It's not gossip, just like on Broadway. When we bring mental health, a conference together on Broadway in a theater, it's not bringing the drama that you normally see, it's bringing trauma.