Crisis Alert!! Identity After Trauma Series (Part 3) l Ep 41

Trauma can erase the version of you that felt familiar. Then, you’re left figuring out who tf you are now. And that figuring out period, girrrrlllllll......

In part 3 of the Identity After Trauma Series, we're talking that fun lil Identity CRISIS aspect that gets violently pelted in. Trying to “go back to normal” can make recovery feel so damn much worse. And why??? Isn't the point of healing to get back to feeling like your old self?? 

- Not exactly, but I promise, it's ok!

When your old life doesn't hit the same, that's not failure - that's change.

We get into why forcing the “old you” leads to burnout—and how to sit in the in-between, get comfortable being uncomfortable, and define alignment in a way that actually feels good.

I share what that looked like for me—letting go of a dream career, finding a new pace, and realizing I didn’t actually want everything I used to have.

To all those in a season of recovery or major change, you’re not behind. You’re becoming.

Win most, lose some 

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Transcript

Knowing What Good Feels Like

SPEAKER_00 0:00

You still know how to feel good. Different things or people may feel good, but you still know how to feel good. You still know what good feels like. And when you eventually find something that feels good or someone, keep going after that thing. Keep going after that thing because that's what alignment is. You're going to be fine. You currently are just fine. You're healing exactly as you're supposed to. And like, you know, fuck suppose. But for the sake of my point, all is well. Almost dying taught me how to live. Being struck by a car left me in a three and a half week coma with 15 broken bones and 16 surgeries to complete, including brain surgery. However, I woke up from that coma in an even greater place than I ever foresaw for myself. How? The universe will guide you out of the darkness and into the light if you allow it. Often, spirituality comes off as too highbrow. I'm not about that. Welcome to the podcast that talks and teaches about it through the lens of humor. Together, we'll harness positive energy and use it to work with the universe, all while giggling the entire time. Welcome to Gabriella Rebranded, Win Most, Lose Some. This is part three of the Identity Act of Trauma series where we get into the nitty-gritty of the not very fun identity crisis. And when you think we've maxed out how bad trauma is, let's add an identity crisis into the mix because yeah, that fun part usually accompanies trauma. Um, it's great. But before we get into talking about that really fun part, remember you guys know what I'm gonna do. Like, review, subscribe, hit me up on Instagram at Gabriella Rebranded. That's also on TikTok. That's basically everywhere. Gabriellarebranded.com. Sign up for my newsletter. That's where you get fun and flirty little email updates, and you hear from me, and there's some more stuff from me. And I don't know, we're probably gonna do some other cool stuff with it as we get more ideas and we develop. Okay. But yes, do all those things. And with that, let's get into the episode. So, trauma does include a bit of an identity crisis moment or many moments, and maybe they're bigger than a bit. It depends. It depends on how significant the trauma was to your daily life, your way of being, who you are as a person. But regardless, that identity crisis usually does come with trauma, and it gets more significant depending on how significant your trauma is. People who go through a trauma, a brain injury especially, they don't want to go back to the exact same life, doing the exact same things. Maybe they don't want to go back to the same career. They just don't want to go back to being exactly the same person. And that's because, as we've discussed many, many times on this podcast, you're a different person after trauma. I mean, that's true after a brain injury, but that's true for anyone that goes through trauma. You're a different person. And that change may be small, it may be fucking huge, but regardless, you've changed. So not all the things in your old life are gonna fit with the current you because you're an entirely new person. Trauma survivors often have a little bit of an aversion to rejoining the exact same things that they were a part of, or the exact same relationships, or what they did, or their career, or whatever. They have an aversion to living exactly the same. And this is because everything that used to resonate with the old you is not gonna resonate with the current you. When Stephanie Eng of SGA Coaching was here just last week, I believe, we talked about how 70% of people after experiencing a significant concussion don't want to go back to the exact career that they used to have. Now, Stephanie is a transformational coach. So she's working with people who are making a life pivot or have had a pivoting experience within their life. She does have an emphasis on TBI survivors as clients and other disabled persons as clients. So for Stephanie to take note of this, when this is who she's working with on a day-to-day basis, that's very, very, very significant and holds a lot of weight. Now, part of why this is true for brain injury survivors, obviously, is that we don't have the capacity to operate at the level that we once did. So we may not be able to do the exact same things. We're probably not able to do the exact same things at all. But another piece of that is that your old career or old relationships or old parts of life or whatever, they can almost eerily remind you of who you used to be and reawaken feelings of discomfort and pain that you don't fit into that exact same mold of life anymore and that that life as you knew it is gone. But all of this, all of this not wanting to go back to the exact same career or the exact same things or the exact same whatever, that's hard as fuck, yo. Especially because first, you have no idea what the fuck is going on. You just know how you feel, and how you feel is not good. Like when you go through a traumatic experience, you just want to get back to the way things were. You just want to get back to your normal, your version of normal, whatever that was, what your daily life used to entail. The things that used to bring you peace. But then when you start to go back to it, you'll notice that pieces, either many pieces or just some pieces, all the pieces, or only a few pieces, whether it's your job, your relationships, your hobbies, whatever. It doesn't all feel the same. It doesn't all feel like it used to feel. It doesn't all feel good. And you want all things that used to make you feel good to make you feel good because that's what you know. That's what you know. You know that you used to like these things. You used to like these people. This is what used to fit. So, so why doesn't it feel good anymore? That's what you know. That's what you know is feeling good. That's what your brain knows. And you used to like all these things. So why don't you like them anymore? Like you're healed, right? Like, isn't that the point of healing? Isn't that the point of getting through trauma? Like you're supposed to go back to like you're that's the point of healing. Like the point of healing is that you're able to go back to your old life and you're able to rejoin your old life. And it's it's supposed to feel good and you're able to do it, and everything's great, and everything's, you know, you just press play on your old life. It was on pause for a little bit, but now you just press play, right? Isn't that what healing is? Isn't that what it's the entire point of surviving the trauma? And then you try to force it, okay? You you try to force it, you aggressively try to force it, you okay? You try to force yourself to do these things or surround yourself with these people or do this fucking job because you know it's supposed to feel good. So you're just trying to force your body and your brain to work and you just want it to fit. So you're trying to force it to work. It's supposed to work, right? Eventually it's all gonna click into place, right? But the more you do that, the more tired and the more exhausted, and the more hopeless you become because it's not feeling good. And why the fuck isn't it feeling good? You used to like XYZ. You used to center your whole life around XYZ. So, so why don't you like it anymore, okay? Because you are not the old you. At least not entirely. And that's the thing that no one really tells you before a trauma or while you're going through a trauma. That's a thing that no one really tells you because they don't want to let you down. They don't want to, or maybe they don't know themselves because either they don't know themselves, or maybe they don't want to let you down if they're like a medical professional. You can't really go back to that old you. That person is kind of bye-bye. That life is kind of gone forever after going through a trauma. It's yeah, like you didn't die. That's great if you're still here and everything. But but but but your old life kind of did just a little bit, a little bit, you know, that's why we have to do the whole mourning and grieving thing. And all the attempts to go back to the exact way things used to be, you know, they're gonna feel awful because, like, as the saying goes, it's like trying to fit a square peg into a round hole. Like it's it doesn't work, it's not possible. And all your attempts to go back to all the exact same things are exactly that. That's what you're trying to force and what you're trying to make fit, and it's not really gonna work. Some things will stay the same. I still live in LA. I still have a lot of friends that I had from before I got hurt, not all of them, but a lot of them. I still miss one direction. Okay, I think about them often. I still don't shut the fuck up. Like there are things that are still the same. A lot will still be the same, but my entire career changed. I had wanted to be an actor since I was four and in acting classes since I was four. That was all I knew. And that's what I centered my life around. And now it didn't feel good anymore. I thought the goal of me healing and recovery was moving back to LA and getting back to acting and getting back to all those things, but it just felt incredibly stressful and upsetting and truly made me kind of miserable the entire pursuit of acting, restarting that after my injury. And it honestly just felt like it was distracting from what I actually wanted to do. Like it just was taking away from what I wanted to currently focus on. I did not give a fuck about fitness before my accident. Now, fitness is 75% of my personality. I thought reality TV was so stupid before my accident. Now I hope to God the secret lives of Mormon Wives comes back for a season five. We fucking need that. We fucking need a season five. I need to see this Taylor fallout, okay? Like, give it to me. I need to see it. We all knew that Taylor and Dakota had the screaming match in 2023, okay? We all knew that. That wasn't a secret. They talk about it a lot on the show. We all know that there was some physical violence. The police got called. We all knew about that. It was talked about and discussed a lot on the show. Why is everyone acting like this is such a shock? We always knew about this. So now I want to see what made it come out. Who leaked the video was definitely Dakota. Who leaked that video and why? Her Bachelorette season, how terrible was it? What exactly was going on? There are so many questions that I have. I need the Secret Lives of Mormon Wives to come back for a season five. Uh, leave a comment if you agree. Apparently, enjoying reality TV is actually a common thing for brain injury survivors because it sort of comforts us in a way. Because if we're watching these people who are supposedly normal and they have working brains, act so wildly chaotic and make the most unhinged decisions, then it makes us feel a little bit more like, okay, well, I'm not that insane. Like, yeah, my brain's been a little chopped up, but I'm not doing that shit. Get it? Hi, everyone. Here I'm gonna talk about a really special thing that I'm doing, and I need your guys' support on it, okay? So I am training for High Rocks New York Woman's Doubles Open with my childhood best friend from when I was three years old, Caroline Rose. And we are going to absolutely crush it. I've been working really hard since January. I decided I want to do high rocks, and I've been training like crazy. For those that don't know, Hyrocks is a race and it's eight kilometers with eight strength sections. And the strength sections are things like wall balls, sled pulls, sled push, burpee bra drumps. They're really crazy fucking things, okay? And you have to run a kilometer in between all of them. Apparently, high rocks is harder than a marathon. Don't come for me on that, okay? I don't, I don't, I don't know. I don't know. That's just what they say on the internet. I don't know if that's true. But anyway, I've been working so hard for it and I'm so excited. And why I need your help, why I need your listeners, why I need all of you is because I made the decision, as did my partner Caroline, to fundraise for mental health while we train for high rocks. Exercise is a natural antidepressant. I would be nowhere without exercise. You guys have heard me talk about this a million and one times. Exercise is what cuts off my emotional spirals. It's what quells the overstimulation, it helps me regulate my anxiety and my moods. I need exercise every single day. In the past, when I've been recovering from a surgery, my mom has noticed by week one what not exercising does to my mood. That's how important it is. And I wish more people knew that. I wish more people that exercise is for the mind just as much as it is for the body. In fact, I would argue that it's more for the mind than for the body. I want to give to others what exercise has given me. I would be nowhere without exercise and I love where I am. It's pretty fucking fabulous. So I want to give to others what exercise is given to me. So that is why Caroline and I have made the decision to fundraise for mental health. Please sponsor me. Please sponsor Caroline. Please sponsor the both of us and help us give to others what exercise has given to me. The link to donate is in the show notes and it is also on my link tree. You can go to my Instagram, you can go to my TikTok. Link in bio will take you right to where I'm fundraising for HyROX. Thank you guys so much. Please, please, please, let's see how much we can raise. Let's give to as many people as possible what exercise gave to my mental health and support me on this high rocks journey because it's completely taken over my life and dictating my personality and whatever choices I make. And all my friends think I'm a little crazy, but listen, I'm loving it. Okay. I'm loving it. I'm loving this willingness to suffer. It is so fun. It is so fun. I'm enjoying it so much. Okay, now we're gonna get back to the episode. And see, Gabby, Gabriella 1.0, would think that is fucking insane. She would think, why the fuck are you doing that? Why the fuck are you willingly choose to suffer? And I would say, Gabby, Gabriella 1.0, because you're never gonna believe this, but I like that. Okay. I like it. It makes me feel really good. And she again insert her jaw on the ground, would look at me very confused. And yeah, I I don't know how that one would how we'd resolve. But Gabby, Gabriella 1.0, I promise you like this thing that you're doing. Okay. I think Gabby would be really proud of me in a myriad of ways, but she would also probably think I'm a little bit of a fucking loser that I want to be in bed by a reasonable hour, like almost every single night, so that I can work out six days a week. It is currently a Friday night, okay? And I like currently it's after eight o'clock on a Friday night, and I turned down going out with friends because I got to be at the Santa Monica track tomorrow at 9:30 a.m. where I am ready to run to train for Hyrocks, okay? 9:30 a.m. on a Saturday, me driving 30 minutes to the Santa Monica track to meet my homies who are also training for HyROX. It's it's great when you meet other people who are just such as you are, you know? That's always that's always nice. I love meeting mutually insane people. None of them have brain injuries, though. See? See, I don't know what that has to do with anything. And Gabby would be even more appalled that Coachella was just this past weekend. And um, I had no desire to get like none. Like, I am not going to Coachella again unless it's with an artist past. Okay, it's if it's with an artist past, I'm not turning that down. That sounds quite amazing, very luxurious. Wanna talk about normal, okay? GA is for normies, all right? General admission is for the normal folks, all right? I've elevated past that, all right? That shit was fun when I was 19. Not anymore, not after I've evolved. We're not doing no general admission anymore. I don't know why the fuck anyone would want to do that personally. No, no shade to people that still really want to go to GA for Coachella, but you know, I'm I'm Gabriella 2.0. That doesn't that doesn't sit with me anymore, okay? It doesn't sit with me. It doesn't sit with me. We don't do that. That's enough shitting on GA Coachella. I will get back to the rest of the episode. So much of me has changed, and that's really beautiful in a lot of ways because I've gotten to live such a wide variety of different aspects of life because I've essentially gotten to live as two different people, which is really cool, but it's also really painful. And it takes a while to accept that. It took a while to understand. I didn't fully understand it until about a year, year and a half ago. I lived in denial for so long. I tried to force myself back into what used to work and the same life things for so long, and it was so exhausting and it hurt so much. And that's the identity crisis piece of it. And this went on for way too long. It went on for years that I was playing this game. It's not something that just happened, that now I'm healed and now I'm cured. That's that's not how it works. So if you're currently going through an identity crisis, or you know someone who is, or maybe you recently went through one, this is me saying it's part of healing. An identity crisis isn't a fun part of healing, hence the word crisis, but it is on par for the course. Did you guys know that I play golf? Sorry. You've changed, and that's all right. Change is good. How boring would it be if you just stayed stagnant your entire life? But change is uncomfortable, especially at first. And that's why we need to get comfortable being uncomfortable, which is so much easier said than done. It's it's really hard to just be still and let things cause you anxiety and feel weird and not feel good without doing anything about it, without like fixing it. You just want to fix it. And it's terrible just sitting in these weird emotions and feeling so strange and you want to fix it, you want to fix it, and you just want to go, you just want to fix it. But that isn't how it works. Sitting in this limbo of not knowing who you are, like that, it's fucking terrible. And the more you think about how terrible it is, the worse everything starts to feel. And no one wants to stay feeling terrible. Everyone wants to do something about how terrible they feel, and we all should do something about that. But what you should do as it pertains to this situation is slow down and relax and let the good come to you because it will find you. Your niche will find you, or rather, you will find it, you will find each other. The key to fixing it is to let things happen as they may, and you still know how to feel good. Different things or people may feel good, but you still know how to feel good, you still know what good feels like, and when you eventually find something that feels good or someone, keep going after that thing, keep going after that thing because that's what alignment is. Living in alignment is simply doing what feels good all the time. Remember, not drugs or alcohol, doing what feels good all the time. That's what living in alignment is. It's really as simple as that. Another thing that's easier said than done, but that's what living in alignment is. You're going to be fine. You currently are just fine. You're healing exactly as you're supposed to, and like, you know, fuck supposed. But for the sake of my point, all is well. Take it from someone who went through trauma and then went through the identity crisis and now is out the other side. It all always works out in the end. Everything always works out in the end. Chill the fuck out and Godspeed. Talk to y'all when I talk to y'all next. Okay. This has been Gabriella rebranded Winmos Lose Um XO XO as it is a Friday night. It's almost nine o'clock. We got a couple minutes till nine o'clock. Um, now is the point in the night when I take an edible, watch hockey, because I'm into hockey now, and um go to sleep so I can be up to go run bright and early tomorrow. Santa Monica track. Anyway, okay, that's it. I'll talk to you guys when I talk to you. When most lose some XO. Okay, bye.