Healing: How to Let Go of Shame, Trauma, and the Past

You can know exactly why you’re hurting and still not be healed.

In this episode of Watch Me, Lauren gets honest about the difference between being self-aware and actually healing. Because sometimes we can name the trigger, explain the pattern, understand the wound, and still feel stuck in the same shame, fear, and old stories.

This conversation goes deeper than “doing the work.” Lauren talks about what it means to stop intellectualizing your pain and start actually sitting with the part of you that has been carrying it. Through personal story, honest reflection, and powerful insight, this episode explores shame, trauma, emotional triggers, self-forgiveness, inner child healing, shadow work, and why letting go of the past can feel so hard.

If you’ve ever thought, “I know why I feel this way… so why am I still stuck?” this episode is for you.

Lauren shares how healing is not about pretending the past didn’t happen, excusing harmful choices, or forcing yourself to “get over it.” Real healing is learning how to honor what happened, take accountability without destroying yourself, forgive the version of you who was doing the best she could, and stop letting old pain have unlimited access to your present.

This episode is for the woman who is tired of explaining the wound and ready to stop leaving herself in the dark.

In this episode, Lauren talks about:

✨ Why self-awareness is not the same as healing

✨ How shame convinces you your worst choices define you

✨ Why trauma can make your body react like the past is still happening

✨ What it means to feel your emotions without letting them run your life

✨ How shadow work and inner child healing can help you face what you’ve avoided

✨ Why healing is not forgetting, excusing, or rushing yourself to move on

✨ How to start choosing truth, compassion, and freedom over shame

Healing is not pretending the dark room never existed. Healing is walking in, holding your own hand, and deciding you are not leaving yourself there anymore.

Subscribe to Watch Me for honest conversations about mental health, confidence, self-worth, healing, and becoming the woman you were always capable of being.

Follow Lauren on Instagram @thelaurenfritts and TikTok @watchmepod.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Welcome to the Watch Me Podcast. I'm Lauren, but you can call me Low. And around here we talk about the stories in your head, the ones that keep you stuck, small, afraid, or convinced you are the only one that's fighting a war nobody else can see. And today I want to start somewhere a little quieter. I want you to think about the part of you that you don't really like to talk about. The version of you that made made choices that you regret. The version of you who got hurt or like really hurt and never fully said it out loud. The version of you who learned to hide and lie and people please and shut down and overexplain or pretend she was fine because she didn't know what else to do. And now I want you to imagine her sitting in a dark room. And that's where this episode is going to start. Because healing is not pretending that version of you isn't there. It's not shaming her for how she survived. It's not leaving her behind because she embarrasses you. Healing is opening the door, sitting down beside that version of you and saying, I'm here now. I'm not leaving you in this anymore. So today we're talking about what healing actually means, why the past can feel so hard to release, and how you start becoming the person you need. Because I think we use the word healing all the time, but we don't actually stop and ask like what we really mean by it. We say, like, I'm healing, I'm doing the work, I know my triggers, I'm self-aware now. And sure, all of that can be true. Self-awareness is a huge part of growth, especially if you spend a lot of time not understanding why you reacted through it, way you reacted, why certain things hit you harder than they seem to hit everybody else, or why your mind kept dragging you back to the same old story. But at some point, you have to ask yourself a harder question. Am I actually healing or have I just gotten really good at explaining why I'm still hurt? Because those are not the same thing. There is a difference between knowing the name of the wound and then actually tending to it. There's a difference between saying, like, this is my trigger and asking, what is that trigger trying to show me that I keep avoiding? There is a difference between understanding your pain and then actually finally sitting down with the part of you that had to carry that pain. That difference, it matters. Honestly, that difference is this whole episode because I'll be honest with you, I have absolutely used self-awareness, like self-awareness as my thing. Like I've used it as a hiding place. I can name my issues, I can name my triggers, I can tell you exactly what situation caused my emotions, why I reacted the way I did, what the old belief got poked, and what version of me probably showed up in that moment. I can explain myself with a full PowerPoint presentation and some dramatic music in the background. And for a long time I thought that meant I was healing. I thought if I could identify the pattern, then I was free from it. If I could explain the emotion, then surely I had processed it. If I could say this is shame or this is fear, or this is coming from something that happened a long time ago, then I must be doing the work, right? And sometimes that is the beginning of the work. Awareness matters. Mindfulness, in simple terms, is becoming more aware of your thoughts, your feelings, your body, and the world around you in the present moment. That kind of awareness can help you understand yourself and approach challenges differently. So yeah, awareness is important, but awareness is the doorway. Healing is walking through it. A lot of us are standing in the doorway with our little notebook, describing the room, naming every single thing inside, but like still refusing to go in. And that was me. I was stuck. I wanted so many things for my life. I wanted to grow, to become more, to believe in myself, to step into this version of me I could feel somewhere deep down. I wanted the dream. I wanted the purpose. I wanted the confidence. I wanted the life that felt like mine. And underneath all of that was this quiet, ugly belief that I didn't really want to admit. I didn't think I was worthy of actually achieving it. The maddening part was that I knew that. I was aware of it. I could talk about it. I could say it. Yes, I have worthiness issues. Yes, shame is a thing for me. Yes, there are things in my past that shape how I see myself. Knowing that though did not magically free me. I remember thinking, I know exactly why I feel like this. So why am I still stuck? That question hit me in the chest because I realized I'd been naming the pain, but I hadn't been willing to face the root. I had been intellectualizing healing. And in like normal human language, intellectualizing is when you turn your pain into like a research project because feeling feeling it is just wildly inconvenient. And so we just research it and we try to figure out what's going on. And you can analyze the wound, explain the wound, trace the wound, and still never actually touch the wound. And some of us are excellent at this, but we're not ignoring the pain anymore. We are too emotionally aware for that. We listen to podcasts, we read the books, we send each other videos about nervous system regulation, we know the words, we can say inner child, shadow work, trauma response, and triggered and everyday conversations. But knowing the language does not mean we have healed that wound. Sometimes it just means we've gotten really better, like good at narrating our survival. And that's why the healing maps, because if you don't heal, the pain doesn't stay in your past where it belongs. It follows you, it shapes your choices, it colors your relationships, it decides how visible you allow yourself to be. It tells you what you deserve, it whispers when you try to dream bigger. Unhealed pain shows up in your tone, your reactions, your self-talk, your parenting, your friendships, your marriage, your work, your confidence, your body, your ability to receive good things without waiting for them to fall apart. Unhealed pain, it doesn't always scream. Sometimes it manages your calendar, it controls your standards, it picks your relationships. And you deserve to live from who you are now, not from what hurt you then. Now, I want to talk about trauma here too, because sometimes when we say healing, people think we're only talking about heartbreak or regret or bad choices or painful memories. But trauma is a huge part of this. And trauma is not always one gigantic event that everyone would immediately recognize. Sometimes trauma is an event, sometimes it's a series of events. Sometimes it's living in circumstances that made you feel unsafe, unseen, powerless, abandoned, rejected, ashamed, constantly on alert. And that matters because a lot of people minimize what they've been through. They'll say, Well, it wasn't that bad. They had it worse. I should be over it by now. I'm just being dramatic. Like, no, we're not gonna gaslight ourselves. Okay, I'm not gonna let you do that. If something changed the way you see yourself, the way we tr you trust people, the way you feel safe in your body, the way you react to conflict, the way you receive love, or the way you move through the world, if any of it, if it changed any of that, that situation mattered. You do not have to compare your pain to someone else's before you're allowed to heal from it. Just because someone else had a quote unquote worse does not invalidate your experience or your pain at all. And that's what I really want you to understand today. Trauma does not always stay in the past. You may be out of the situation, but your body and your mind and your nervous system is still acting like you're in it. And this is why you can be sitting in your kitchen completely safe and feel your chest tighten because of someone's tone. That's why, like, if you text your friend and they delay in texting you back and all of a sudden you're like, they don't like me. Oh my God, I have no friends. Or like when conflict can make you shut down or lash out or explain too much, apologize too fast. That's why a mistake at work, when you make a mistake, could feel like you're total failure and a terrible person just because you made a simple mistake. Your brain in those situations is just trying to protect you. It's just using old information that's happened in the past to respond to a new moment. And this is where I need you to hear me clearly. Healing from trauma does not mean forcing yourself to get over it. Get over that phrase just needs to be thrown away. Healing from trauma is not rushing yourself. It is not shaming yourself into being okay. It's not saying, well, that happened a long time ago, so I should be fine now. Time passing does not automatically mean something has been processed. Time does not heal all wounds. I hate that phrase. Time heals all, it doesn't. Sometimes time passes, life keeps going, the laundry keeps multiplying, like it pays rent, and the wound is still there, waiting to be seen. So the question is like, then where does healing trauma, where does that even start? And usually it starts with safety, not some grand breakthrough, not a dramatic emotional excavation trip where you like rip every wound open at once. I can just imagine like little pickaxes, like, you know, in Egypt. But it starts with safety. Healing is not just talking about what happened, it's about creating enough safety in your body and your mind and your life that you can actually face it without being swallowed by it. So if you're listening to this and thinking, okay, so I need to go sit with everything I've ever avoided, we're gonna stop you right there. We're not doing that. We're not like kicking down the door like a SWAT team. You do not have to process every painful thing in one night. You do not have to journal yourself into a spiral and call it healing. You do not have to re-traumatize yourself to prove you're doing the work. Sometimes that first step is not go back to the darkest memory, but learning how to feel safe enough to feel anything at all. That can look like grounding yourself before you journal. It can look like taking a breath and feeling your feet on the floor. One thing that I love when I am in a room or in a space and I need to ground, I look around the room and I name five things. Right now, I film this podcast in my bedroom. If you're on YouTube, you can see my books. I have a fireplace. My sheets are orange, my window, my drapes are white. Naming it grounds me. It takes me out of my brain and brings me back into this present moment. It reminds me I'm here, I am safe right now. This feeling is old, but this moment is new. That is not small. That is you teaching your body that the past is not currently in charge. And I want to say something else here because sometimes we make healing sound like it has to be solo. Like you're supposed to journal hard enough, meditate hard enough, be self-aware enough, or magically become emotionally regulated because you bought a cute notebook and a candle. Like, no. Support is not a weakness, and therapy is not a failure. Needing help does not mean you are broken beyond repair. It means you are human. And some things are just too heavy to keep caring alone. There are real tools for this kind of stuff: trauma-focused therapy, regular therapy, EMDR, and sometimes medication. Those can all be part of treatment depending on what someone needs and what they're dealing with. I am proof that treatment works. I have, I did not get to where I am today without medication. I have been on 36 different types of medications trying to find the ones that work. I have done decades of therapy. I've done some intense therapy. I've done some just vent and listen to me bitch therapy. Treatment can work. And asking for help doesn't mean you're weak. It means you are strong enough to stand up for yourself. You are not doomed to feel unsafe forever. You are not stuck reacting from the past for the rest of your life. People who have been through trauma can learn how to feel safe again, cope with stress again, and come back to themselves again. That matters because healing is not you being dramatic. Healing is you learning the danger is not in charge anymore. And for women, especially women who are moms or caretakers or the ones everyone depends on, that this gets complicated because we are really good at functioning. We can carry the shame, the grief, exhaustion, resentment, and a whole emotional crime scene internally. And we still remember who has a doctor's appointment, who needs a water bottom before school, when that form is due, what's for dinner, what email we forgot to send, where are the shoes that your husband swears he looked for, but are right in front of his face. Like we keep going, we keep producing, we keep showing up. Sometimes we call it strength when really it's just survival. Survival is not something to be ashamed of. If you've had to shove things down so you could get through the day, if you've had to compartmentalize because there was no space to fall apart, if you became the strong one because no one gave you another choice, I need you to hear me. That makes sense. Yes, good for you. You did it. You did what you had to do with what you had. But survival is not the same as freedom. And at some point, the things you shove down start asking to be seen. Those things can show up as anxiety, as anger, as perfectionism or people pleasing, or overexplaining, or lying, or hiding or sabotaging something good. They may show up as deep discomfort with being fully seen because a part of you still believes that people really knew you, they would leave. Your pain will find a way to speak. Healing is learning to listen before it starts running the entire house. Now, here, here is where I want to talk about why it's so hard to let go of the past. Because if we understand this, we can stop shaming ourselves for struggling. A lot of us think, why can't I just move on? Why do I keep thinking about this? What does this why does this still bother me? Why am I still carrying on something that happened years ago? First of all, because you're human. Okay. Second, because your brain is not broken. Your brain is actually trying to protect you. Think of it as a security system. This is like scientific. They have done studies on this. When something hurts you, your brain files it under important, remember this, never let this happen again. This helped humans survive actual danger back when we were cave people, right? Which was great when the threat was a lion or a cliff or eating the wrong berry. But in modern life, your brain can respond to emotional pain like it's current danger. It's just reverting back to what it used to do. That heated argument, the betrayal, the rejection, the mistake you made, the moment you felt humiliated, your brain can tag it with this giant red label that says, do not forget this. It caused me pain. Don't let this happen again. The problem is, though, is your brain does not always know the difference between something happening now and something echoing from the past. So a tone in someone's voice can feel like abandonment. That delayed text from your friend that can feel like rejection. A mistake at work can make you spiral and suddenly you're thinking, I can't do anything right. Maybe I'm a failure and I'm a pity hire and they don't really need me. I'm good for nothing. Could you tell I thought that before? A simple disagreement with your partner can make your walls go up because your brain is screaming danger, even if that person in front of you is not the person who hurt you before in that situation. That is not you being dramatic. Your internal security system is overworking. Once you understand that, you can stop asking what's wrong with me, and start asking, what is my brain trying to protect me from? That question changes everything. What is my brain trying to protect me from? Because curiosity opens a door that shame keeps locked. Another reason it's hard to let go is that the familiar can feel safer than the unknown, even if that familiar is hurtful to you. I know that sounds totally backwards. Like, why would we hold on to something painful? But it's because at least we know it. The old story, the old shame, the old pattern, the old relationship dynamic, the old belief that we're not worthy, not enough, too much, too difficult, too broken. Yeah, it hurts, but it's known. So it's comfortable because that unknown version of life asks more of us. Freedom asks us to stop hiding. Peace asks us to stop waiting for disaster. Growth asks us to become someone we've never been before. And that can feel terrifying. Sometimes that dark room feels safer than the light, because at least we know what to expect in the dark. But that doesn't mean we belong there. It just means that leaving that room takes courage. And then, and then there's rumination, which is that loop where your brain keeps saying and replaying what happened 900 times in your head, trying to solve it at midnight. If you've ever laid in bed thinking, if only I could said this differently, like why did this happen? How could they do that? How could I have done that? You know exactly what I mean. Your mind is trying to make sense of it, and that's natural. But at some point, making sense of the past turns into living inside of it. And that's where we get stuck. Healing is not mentally replaying the scene until you finally find the perfect ending or figure it out. Healing is learning how to stop letting that past hold your present hostage. And I want to talk about another part of healing that we don't always know what to do with. And it's happened recently in my life, in the past year, healing from the hurt someone else has cost you. Because sometimes the wound is not from a bad choice you made. Sometimes the wound came from someone who was supposed to love you better, someone who was supposed to protect you, to tell you the truth, to choose you, to respect you, show up for you, or at the very least, not be the reason you had to learn how to survive in the first place. And that kind of healing is complicated because now you're not just dealing with pain. You're dealing with confusion, with anger. You're dealing with the version of you who keeps asking, like, why did they do that to me? You're dealing with the part of you that wants an apology, an answer, injustice, enclosure, acknowledgement, something. And I need you to hear me. Wanting that does not make you bitter. It makes you human. When someone hurts you, especially someone you trusted, your brain keeps reaching for a reason because reasons feel safer than the chaos. You want to understand it because if you can understand it, if you can name it, maybe you can prevent it from happening again. So you replay it and you study it and you think about what you missed and the things that were said and the things that you said or they said, and you wonder what you should have done differently. And imagine a conversation where they finally get it. You picture them saying exactly what you need them to say. And listen, I get it. I I did that a lot. Adult friendships are really hard. There is a version of healing where we want the other person to walk into a room, look us in the eye, and say, like, I know what I did. I know I hurt you and I'm sorry. And that would be awesome. That would be cool and really convenient, but that doesn't happen. And unfortunately, healing is not always that good. Sometimes you don't get the apology. Sometimes you get the apology, but it doesn't undo the damage. Sometimes the person who hurt you doesn't have the self-awareness or emotional maturity or courage to give you the closure you deserve. And that's brutal because now it feels like they've hurt you once and their refusal to acknowledge it, like it just keeps hurting you again. And this is where healing can get really hard but really powerful. At some point, you have to decide that their inability to take accountability cannot be the thing that keeps you trapped. That doesn't mean what they said was okay. It doesn't mean you're excusing it. It doesn't mean you're pretending it didn't matter. It means you stop handing them the keys to your freedom. Because if your healing depends completely on them becoming the version of themselves they've never shown you they're willing to be, then you're stuck waiting outside a locked door that may never open. And I say this with love. You cannot build your future in a waiting room of someone else's accountability. You just can't. You can't want accountability. You can want it. You can want it. You can want accountability. You can deserve accountability. You can grieve the fact you never got it, but you do not have to stay emotionally chained to the person who refused to give it to you. Healing from what someone did to you often starts with telling the truth without minimizing it. Not like it wasn't that bad. Well, other people have had it worse. I should just be over it. Maybe I'm just too sensitive. I said that a lot during a situation where I lost a friendship this year. I maybe I'm just too sensitive. I should just get over it. No, tell the truth. I needed to tell myself the truth. That hurt me. That changed me. It really did change me. It made me question myself. That made it harder to trust people. I started questioning all my friendships. Like if people really wanted to be my friend just because of this one situation. It made me feel unsafe, like I couldn't really be myself. That made me feel like I was too much and not enough, disposable, replaceable. So when you think of these things, you have to say that real sentence because you cannot heal from a wound you keep trying to like politely rename. I have to be honest with myself about what it really was and what it really caused and the pain it really caused me. Then after you tell yourself the truth, separate those two things, what they did and what you started believing because of it. Because that's where that wound gets sneaky. Someone rejects you and the lie becomes, I'm not chosen. Someone betrays you and the lie becomes, I can't trust anyone. Someone abandons you and the lie becomes people always leave. Someone criticizes you and the lie becomes, I'm too much. Someone manipulates you and the lie becomes, I can't trust myself. Someone makes you feel small and the lie becomes, maybe I am. That's why healing matters because the event hurt you. Yes. But the story you built around the event may be running your life. So I want you to ask yourself, what did they do? And then ask, what did I start believing about myself because of what they did? That second question is where the healing gets starts getting honest. You may not be able to change what happened. You may not be able to make them apologize or go back and protect the version of you that got hurt, but you can challenge the lie that pain handed you. You can say that they left, but that does not mean I'm unlovable. They lied, but that does not mean I was stupid for trusting. They hurt me, but that does that doesn't mean I deserved it. They didn't choose me, but that doesn't mean I'm not worth choosing. They made me feel small, but that doesn't mean I am small. That's not denial. That's taking your identity back. And you know, let's talk about forgiveness for a second because people love to throw that word around like a decorative pillow. Just forgive, let it go, move on. Like, okay, Janet, thank you for your beige wisdom. But some of us are dealing with like actual wounds here. And forgiveness is personal. It's complicated. And forgiveness doesn't mean giving someone access to you again. It does not pretend, it does not mean pretending it was fine. It does not mean removing boundaries or reconciling. It does not mean you have to sit across from someone who hurt you and act like your nervous system is not screaming. Sometimes forgiveness means I'm no longer going to let that person live rent-free in my body. Sometimes it means I release the fantasy that they're going to become who I need them to be. Sometimes it means I accept that this happened. I hate that this happened, and I'm choosing not to let it define the rest of my life. And sometimes you're not ready to use the word forgiveness at all, and that's okay too. So start with freedom, with honesty and boundaries. Start with not abandoning yourself. Start with saying I deserved better and I'm gonna stop treating myself like their behavior was proof that I didn't. That sentence right there might be the whole healing. I deserved better, and I'm not going to stop treating myself like their behavior was proof that I didn't. Because that's what we do sometimes. Sometimes people hurt us, and then we spend years punishing ourselves for being hurt. We call ourselves stupid for trusting, weak for staying, dramatic for caring, pathetic for missing them, broken for still being affected. No, you are not stupid because you trusted someone. You are not weak because you love someone. You are not dramatic because something changed you. You are human. And now your job is to not shame yourself for being wounded. Your job is to start letting their choice stop letting their choices become your identity. That is healing from the hurt someone caused you. Not pretending it didn't happen, not making excuses for them, not turning cold and calling it growth, not building a wall around your heart and saying, I'm healed now because nobody can touch me. That's not healing. That is armor if we're not doing that. Healing is when you can say that hurt me, but it did not get to me. harden me into somebody I don't recognize. Healing is when you can protect your peace without becoming cruel, when you can remember what happened without reliving it every day. When you can build trust slowly and wisely with boundaries instead of deciding nobody gets in ever again. Healing is when you stop waiting for the person who broke something in you to be the person who fixes it. Because maybe they won't. Maybe they can't. Maybe they don't even think they did anything wrong. And that's painful, but it doesn't make you powerless. You can still heal and rebuild and become safe in your own body again. You can still let love in again slowly with discernment, with standards, with a little less prove you won't hurt me and a little more I trust myself to leave if you do. And that's a different kind of safety. That is a grown woman healing. That is I that's not I will never be hurt again. That is I will never abandon myself again just because somebody else did. And that's where you get your power back. So for me now this image that keeps coming back is this younger version of myself. And she's sitting in this dark room. I think about this all the time. Whenever I'm trying healing or doing work like this, sometimes she's a little girl, sometimes she's a teenager or in her 20s or she's not far from where I am now. And she's sitting there with everything I didn't know how to handle at the time shame, fear, confusion, choices, consequences, the things that happened to me, the things I did, the things I didn't have the language for yet, the things I shoved down because looking at them felt like admitting something was wrong with me. Sometimes she's holding the hurt someone else caused her the betrayal or rejection or abandonment, the words that suck, the moment that made her feel unsafe. And for years I just left her there. I closed this door and I piled things in front of it busyness, humor, productivity, control, people pleasing, being the fun one, the self-aware one, being the person who could explain everything so well that nobody including me noticed that I had not actually sat with the pain. And every now and then she knocks and a trigger would happen and she knocks and I'd make a mistake and she knocks at the door and I'd want something bigger for my life. And that old voice would whisper like who do you think you are? There she was again still in the dark still carrying what I didn't want to touch. And when I talk about that dark room, I'm not talking about dragging yourself back into pain just to prove you're strong. I'm talking about going back with compassion, with support when you need it, with safety and choice, with the understanding that the version of you sitting in that room is not broken. She is protected and guarded and scared and she's carrying something she never should have been able to carry alone. Healing is not kicking that door open and demanding she get over it. Healing is opening the door and looking at her and saying hey it's me I'm here now. I'm not going to force you I'm not going to shame you I'm not going to leave you here anymore. That is the difference. Healing is not pretending the room doesn't exist. Healing is not standing outside the door saying I know why she's in there. Healing is going back to the door moving all the junk out of the way turning the knob and finally seeing her. You the version of you who is still hurting the version of you who is still ashamed the version of you who still thinks her worst choices are the truest thing about her. The version of you who has been waiting for someone to come back and say I'm not leaving you in here anymore. And healing is walking into that room and telling her you did not deserve that. You did not imagine that you are not too sensitive and I'm not going to keep making you carry their choices like they were your fault. That's how you start walking yourself out. That is healing. And it does not happen in one neat little moment where you cry once and suddenly become an emotionally regulated fairy godmother who no longer gets annoyed at traffic or children or emails or the dishwasher. Healing is a relationship you build with yourself. It's learning how to stay with yourself when the feeling gets uncomfortable it's learning how to tell the truth without destroying yourself with it. It's learning how to own your choices without making shame your identity. It's learning how to stop abandoning the parts of you that are hardest to love. And now maybe you're thinking okay girl love the dark room love the concept but what do I actually do? So this is where I want to give you something you can actually take with you for this episode. I'm calling this the healing roadmap notice ground tell the truth feel own choose prove that is the roadmap. Not perfect not cute not a magical plan where you do this once and suddenly become a peaceful woman in linen who drinks lemon water and never gets irritated by group text a real one a human this is what I can actually this is a what I can actually practice this week kind of roadmap. So first notice notice the pattern maybe you realize oh I shut down when I feel rejected maybe you realize I people please because conflict feels unsafe. Maybe you realize I overexplained because I'm scared someone will misunderstand me and leave. Maybe you realize I sabotage good things because peace feels unfamiliar. That awareness is powerful but awareness is not the finish line. Awareness is the first step. This is the doorway healing is what happens when you stop standing there describing the room and actually walk through it. The question is not just why am I like this? The better question is now that I can see it, what choices do I make next? And the second after awareness is ground. Before you go digging into painful memories pause. Put your feet on the floor take a slow breath look around the room and then find things you can see say I'm here now I'm safe right now this feeling is old but this moment is new this gives you enough space to choose instead of react. Third is to tell the truth. Start with the sentence you do not want to say I'm still hurt. I'm ashamed of what I did. I miss someone I know I shouldn't go back to I'm angry I'm scared I keep saying I'm over it but I'm not I don't trust myself yet write it down say it in the car whisper it in your room tell a safe person if you have one. The point is not to make it pretty but to make it honest because you cannot heal what you keep editing. Next fourth is feel feel it without becoming it feeling something does not mean becoming it. You can feel shame without deciding you are shameful. You can feel fear without letting fear drive the car you can feel anger without turning anger into your whole personality. You can feel grief without making grief your permanent address a feeling is not always an instruction. Sometimes it's just information. So instead of immediately fixing the feeling fighting it numbing it or sending it somewhere pause and ask what am I feeling? Where do I feel it in my body? What is this feeling trying to protect me from or show me? This is how you feel it without being swallowed by it. You become the witness not the prisoner. Fifth is own. Take accountability without shame this one is big because some healing is not just about what happened to you. Sometimes it's about what you did while you were hurting. There may be a choice you regret there may be people you hurt. There may be versions of you that make you cringe or cry or hide or want to throw away your whole identity into the nearest dumpster but shame will not heal you. Shame will keep you stuck accountability says I did that and I need to face it. Shame says I did that so I'm bad forever. Those are not the same things. You can own what happened without turning it into your identity. You can make amends where you can you can repair what is yours to repair you can become someone who tells the truth faster loves better chooses differently and stops hiding behind survival. That is not bypassing accountability that is what accountability is supposed to do. It's supposed to create change not a life sentence so if shame has convinced you that your worst chapter is the truest thing about you I need you to hear me. No, that was a chapter. That was not the whole book healing is where you take the pen back. Six choose. Choose one healing action one not 20 not a full personality renovation. One maybe your healing action is making the therapy appointment. Maybe it's writing the honest journal entry it's setting a boundary. Maybe it's apologizing without overexplaining maybe it's not texting the person who keeps reopening the wound. Maybe it's letting yourself rest without earning it. Maybe it's telling a trusted friend I don't need you to fix me. I just need to not be alone in this healing happens in those small moments the pause the breath the choice the softer response the honest sentence the boundary you actually keep the moment you don't abandon yourself just because feeling got uncomfortable tiny honest choices become your trail out of the dark that is how you walk yourself home. And lastly proof build new proof I say it with the confidence thing proof proof proof your brain needs evidence not just affirmations not just I'm healed I'm healed I'm healed while your nervous system is in the corner chewing drywall. Evidence proof you build proof every time you choose differently every time you tell the truth faster every time you pause before reacting every time you set a boundary and survive the discomfort every time you let yourself be loved without searching for the exit every time you try again after showing shame after shame told you to disappear the proof matters because healing is not just looking back and understanding who hurt you healing is also moving forward and showing yourself what is possible now. You are not only trying to stop hurting you are learning how to live you are building a life that gives you the present more volume than your past so this week I want you to practice the healing roadmap. Notice ground tell the truth feel own choose prove that's it not perfect not practiced not healed overnight honest today. And that is how you stop believing yourself in the dark that is how you start becoming the person you needed to be back then. And I want you to know something before we keep going you're going to mess this up sometimes you are going to have moments where you react from the world before you remember the truth. You are going to have days where you think wow I really thought I was healed and then one mildly inconvenient interaction turned me into raccoon dumpster buyer. Welcome to being human. The goal is to not never get activated the goal is to recognize it sooner. Repair faster come back to yourself with more honesty and less shame. Stop letting one hard moment convince you all your growth disappeared you can have a hard day and still be healing. You can get triggered and still be growing you can fall into an old pattern and still be someone who's becoming new progress doesn't mean you never sit in the dark room again. Progress means you don't have to move back and redecorate because some of us do that too. We get attached to the pain because even though it hurts at least it's familiar. The healed version the free version the version where you stop hiding and actually show up as yourself can feel terrifying. So we stay loyal to the dark room because at least we know what to expect there. But you were not meant to live there. You can honor the pain without making it your permanent address. You can grieve what happened without building your entire identity around it. You can learn from the past without letting it become the prison guard of your future and yes sometimes you need support to do that. Some healing can happen alone. Some truth has to be spoken in the quiet just between you and you but extended isolation can become shame's favorite playground. There's a difference between taking space to reflect and disappearing because you think you are too much for people to love. So reach out when you need to talk to a therapist if that's available to you. Tell a trusted friend I don't need you to fix this. I just need to say this out loud. Meditate, journal walk find a support group build a life where you're not the only person holding your own pain. You are allowed to be supported while you heal you are allowed to need help. That does not make you weak. It makes you wise if you are the woman who has spent her whole life being the strong one I know that might feel uncomfortable. You might be thinking yeah but I don't have time to fall apart. I get that because I'm that person. You have kids work family responsibilities and a house that somehow creates laundry like it's a side hustle. You may not have time for dramatic emotional breakdown on a Tuesday but your pain doesn't disappear just because your calendar is full. It leaks it leaks into your tone, into your self-talk, into the way you respond to the people you love, into your body, into the dreams you keep postponing because deep down you still don't believe you're allowed to want that much. So maybe you don't start with a huge life overhaul start with one honest moment. Five minutes in the car before you walk in the house one page in your journal where you don't try to sound wise one walk without filling your ears with noise one conversation where you just say I'm not okay and I don't need you to fix me. I just need to not be alone in it. One apology one boundary one moment where you choose not to talk yourself out of it like you're the enemy. Tiny honest moments remember become the trail out of the dark and that's how healing becomes doable. For me, one of the biggest changes has been empathy not the kind where I let people hurt me and call it compassion the kind where I can look at someone and understand that their behavior usually has a root but I can still have boundaries. I can say I understand there's pain there. I get that and I still but I still won't let you bleed on me. And that's a powerful place to live from healing made me softer but it did not make me smaller. It made me more honest it made me more fully myself because when shame is not holding you hostage you have so much more energy to become who you are. That may be one of the biggest truths in this whole episode when you are not constantly hiding from who you were you have so much more energy to become who you are. Imagine how much energy you would get back if you stopped dragging your worst season into every room. Imagine what you would try if you stopped believing your past disqualified you. Imagine how you would love, create, lead, mother, speak, rest, dream, show up if Shame was no longer making the decisions. And that's what healing gives you not a perfect life or a perfect mind, not a version of you who never gets triggered. Healing gives you your power back. It gives you the ability to say that happened and I'm still here. I did that and I can still grow. I was hurt and I can still become whole I'm not the lie Shame told me. I'm not leaving myself in the dark anymore. And you know maybe that's the simplest answer to what it actually means to heal. Healing means you stop living from the wound and start living from the truth. The truth that you're not your worst season. The truth that your pain may explain parts of you but it does not get to define all of you. The truth that accountability can exalt can exist without self-hatred the truth that you can go back for the version of you who was hurting and still keep moving forward. So here's a challenge I want to leave with you. Find the door find the door you probably already know where it is. It's the memory you keep explaining away it's the emotion you keep outrunning it's the truth that you keep softening. It's the version of you that keeps judging because forgiving her feels too generous. Go sit with her. Not forever not to live in the pain not to decorate the dark room and make it your whole identity. Sit with her long enough to tell the truth. Long enough to say I see you. Long enough to stop making her carry it alone. Then take her hand bring her with you because healing is not pretending the dark room never existed. Healing is walking in holding your own hand and deciding you're not leaving yourself there anymore. You're not waiting on healing to magically happen. Healing is waiting for you to be honest. So open the door go get her. Walk yourself into the light and when shame tries to tell you that you don't deserve to leave that room I need you to look that liar straight in the face and say watch me. And I'll end like I always do I love you. I'm proud of you and I believe in you. If this episode hits something in you subscribe to the podcast leave a five star review share it with a friend and come hang out with me on Instagram at the Lauren Fritz and at TikTok at watchmepod. See you guys next time.