These Fukken Feelings Podcast©
Are you tired of feeling alone in your emotional struggles? Tune in to These Fukken Feelings Podcast! Hosted by mental health advocates, our weekly show explores life's ups and downs, from relationships and anxiety to loss and happiness. With honest conversations, you'll get practical tips for managing emotions and living your best life. Join us every week for inspiration, motivation, and a bit of humor. Subscribe now and start feeling better today! Note: Our podcast is not a substitute for professional advice. If you're in crisis, please contact emergency services immediately.
These Fukken Feelings Podcast©
Navigating Trauma and Grief: Tamara Fox's Insights on Empathy, Resilience, and Personal Growth | Season 3 Episode 337
In this deeply reflective episode of *These Fukken Feelings Podcast*, we dive into the heart of trauma and grief with National Board Certified Health and Wellness Coach, Tamara Fox. Joined by special co-host Jonathan Niziol and Producer Crystal, we embark on a journey to truly understand what it takes to support someone grappling with unimaginable loss. Tamara begins by inviting us into a comforting space, reminiscing about the last movies we've seen, before leading us into her mission to revolutionize our conversations around trauma and grief. Her personal story of a life-altering incident at the age of 19 sets the tone for a profound exploration of coping strategies and emotional resilience.
Together, we tackle the often inadequate responses found in workplaces when dealing with grief. Tamara shares poignant anecdotes, including the heartbreaking loss of her brother, illustrating the shortcomings of generic condolences and limited bereavement leave. Through our discussion, we emphasize the critical role of empathetic leadership and emotional intelligence in fostering a truly supportive work environment. Managers will find invaluable advice on how to offer specific, meaningful support to grieving employees, highlighting the importance of asking what they need rather than making assumptions.
As the conversation deepens, we explore the transformative journey of healing from grief and trauma. Tamara shares how choosing to heal can lead to profound personal growth, offering stories of overcoming loss and the impact of unresolved trauma on relationships. We delve into essential techniques like therapy and coaching, emphasizing the importance of setting boundaries while offering support to others. This episode is a heartfelt guide to living authentically and offering compassionate support, even in the face of profound loss.
#TraumaHealing #GriefSupport #EmotionalResilience #EmpathyInLeadership #MentalHealthMatters #AuthenticLiving #WorkplaceWellness #CopingWithLoss #HealingJourney #WellnessCoach #EmpatheticLeadership #BoundariesAndHealing #SupportiveCommunity #TheseFukkenFeelingsPodcast #TraumaIsExpensive
you don't have to be positive all the time. It's perfectly okay to feel sad, angry, annoyed, frustrated, scared and anxious. Having feelings doesn't make you a negative person. It doesn't even make you weak. It makes you human and we are here to talk through it all. We welcome you to these fucking feelings podcast, a safe space for all who needs it. Grab a drink and take a seat. The session begins now.
Speaker 2:What is up, guys? Welcome to these fucking feelings podcast. I am Micah. We got producer Crystal in the building. Hello Our co-host, jonathan Ne Neisel. Hey everybody and our very special guest, tamara Fox. Did I say your name right? Did I mess it up?
Speaker 5:No, you got it correct.
Speaker 2:Hello, I overthink things right.
Speaker 5:That's okay, don't we all?
Speaker 2:Yeah, now Tamara, one thing actually before we get started. I think Jonathan wanted to start with a few things with a few things I did.
Speaker 3:So we always like to get into something a little bit lighter hearted before we start getting into the deeper stuff, and the question of the day is what is the last movie that you saw in theaters?
Speaker 5:I'm probably going to mess this up because I can't even remember the last movie I saw in theaters. I know one of the last, like last five movies I saw in theaters was the new Avatar movie, avatar 2. I liked it because I'm a child and I love cartoons and mystical things and like I love to, just when I'm watching movies, not think and process. But I know my boyfriend about an hour in was like really it's been the same scene for 45 minutes, like let's move on.
Speaker 2:So but that's pretty recent though, so that's pretty recent, was like, really it's been the same scene for 45 minutes.
Speaker 5:Let's move on. That's pretty recent, though that's pretty recent. That may be one of the last, but I don't want to lie. I know it's one of the last five movies I've seen.
Speaker 2:Now. Have you watched the show on Netflix?
Speaker 5:The Avatar show.
Speaker 2:Yes, the last Airbender. They have the last Airbender.
Speaker 5:I'm talking blue people.
Speaker 3:I was just talking about Avatar from like James Cameron. No, no, no, I know which.
Speaker 2:Avatar she's talking about To me. I kind of just put them all together. Yeah, I did get that You're talking about Zoe Saldana, so yeah, I know which one you talk about.
Speaker 3:The one that took like 10 years to have a sequel or whatever it doesn't look like they got much further in the animation? Yeah, that's what I was wondering. Is it like mind blowing? But I guess you just answered my question.
Speaker 5:I thought it was really cool. Again, I must be like a six year old because I love like Finding Nemo type movies, but my boyfriend was like it's literally the same movie as the first one. So two very different perspectives. I think it. What do you? You know what I think? What do you look for when you go see movies? Like I said, for me, I like to check out when I watch movies or TVs. I want to not be thinking so. The less thinking the better. So I didn't even connect the dots of how similar it was to the first one.
Speaker 2:And.
Speaker 3:Jonathan, what's your answer? Top Gun Maverick.
Speaker 2:I saw that in theaters? Is that recent or not recent?
Speaker 3:Yeah, it's fairly recent, it was the remake of Top Gun with, obviously, tom Cruise and the younger guy. I thought it was good. I thought they did it pretty well. The original Top Gun obviously is a classic, obviously Tom Cruise.
Speaker 2:I've never seen Top Gun.
Speaker 3:What.
Speaker 2:You don't know, tom Cruise, top Gun.
Speaker 4:And Crystal your answer. I want to say the Last Fast and the Furious, okay, maybe.
Speaker 3:Really. Maybe, what are they up to? Like nine or ten now.
Speaker 4:It's when Paul Walker died the one that he was making.
Speaker 3:That was a couple of ones ago. That was a few ago, yeah, I think.
Speaker 2:And my answer is I don't know. I think it was Dreamgirls and what's that?
Speaker 4:20 years old, but uh I mean, we did get movie tickets, so it's funny.
Speaker 2:Yeah, like our job gives out movie tickets for our birthday, so, and now we have four, so we might actually plan on going to the movies now, tamra, uh, before we go any further, one thing that we'd like to do is we ask our guests to introduce themselves, because we feel like no one can tell your story quite like you, so tell our audience a little bit about yourself.
Speaker 5:Sure, so thank you all for having me first off Excited to be here. My name is Tamara Fox. I am a National Board Certified Health and Wellness Coach. I also am a consultant and speaker.
Speaker 5:I really focus on speaking about topics of trauma and grief, both personally like one-on-one in a coaching setting, as well as speaking to organizations and the public, to revolutionize and transform how we think and talk about trauma and grief. We live in a society where we don't talk about it. We're afraid to talk about it, especially in places like work, where I work with a lot of organizations and death is one of the only two things in life that's inevitable. Yet still, as a society, we don't talk about it, we're afraid to and we don't know how. I think that's the biggest thing is. I work with some extremely brilliant people PhDs, master's degrees, more education than I'll ever have and they've never been told what to do when somebody dies or somebody dies in somebody else's life that they love. So that's really where I spend a lot of my time is just helping whoever I can get more comfortable in this uncomfortable space known as trauma and grief.
Speaker 5:I also personally experienced a lot of trauma and grief myself. So the catapult that I always say of like my journey is when I was 19 years old, I woke up to a masked man standing over my bed with a gun who robbed me and raped me. So that was in 2011. I always age myself when I do these, so I'm 32 today, and then, from 2016 to 2024, I had nine deaths in nine years. And then I also right after my trauma that I mentioned in 2011, my father was struggling with an opioid addiction and became verbally abusive before he actually passed away in 2020. He's one of those nine deaths I just mentioned. So I've dealt with it all, from my own personal trauma to watching somebody else I love struggle with addiction to then pass away, and then also dealt with those nine losses that I mentioned.
Speaker 2:And you do what for fun? No.
Speaker 5:For fun. I do a whole bunch of things. I love working out very active. I love doing things with my dogs and my boyfriend and I like to take them like paddle boarding, kayaking. I live in Colorado so we're that annoying outdoorsy, active state, so as much as I can, I love to be outside and travel when I can. But, honestly, what I do for work, even though it's kind of a heavy topic, I love it. It's fun for me. Like I spoke last week at a public event and the topic was the trauma grief topic and I get so much passion and joy out of it. So to me it is fun, even though it's work.
Speaker 2:Right, right, I feel like we kind of do the same thing. We all. We sit here, we talk about topics and we make, we make light of it, but it's like, when you think about it's like some of this stuff, like everything you just said, was heavy as hell. Right, this podcast kind of was created out of grief. In a way. We kind of me and actually it was a previous co-host um, we had a lot of deaths going on and it just seemed like every month somebody was dying and we lost some like best friends and and you know. And it was like you know what we originally were doing? Another podcast on prison reform, which, of course, didn't go nowhere, because people don't care about people in prison, right, but, um, it really didn't go nowhere. So so I was like I'm not going to podcast no more. And then grief hit and it was like this is something we need to talk about because, like, life be life, especially when you lose people and and yeah, so that's kind of crazy.
Speaker 5:Yeah, and I have a background in human resources, so I've always worked with like organizations and I've done trainings and learning and development.
Speaker 5:And then, as I was living and breathing in this space, I realized nobody was, as I was going through those deaths myself, like I said, 2016 to 2024, nine of them. Like nobody knows what to do around me, like it's not just that, I'm experiencing them myself. So I have quickly learned how to handle grief because I've had to, I've had no other choice, but nobody knew what to say or do around me. And we spend so much of our time in organizations. I would see managers and leaders of the clients I was working with as a consultant not knowing what to do when their team members were dealing with it. So I was like, oh, I should probably help these organizations and get trained myself and research more and learn more on what I can do differently, because this is not going to change. Like you said, people are constantly losing pets, loved ones, friends, whatever that may be, and we need to be better as a whole society and helping each other with it, instead of ignoring it like it doesn't exist and making those people feel more lonely and worse.
Speaker 3:Yeah, it really hits home for me. My mom passed away the day before my 21st birthday and that really started everything for me just addiction, alcoholism, eating disorder, uh you know, just a whole bunch of stuff. But what you just said really resonated about people not knowing what to do around you. And uh, I remember I was at the celebration of life for my mom and you know we had people over and stuff like that and I I was just, you know, feeling my emotions. So I went into a room and broke down and one of my buddies came in. He's like hey, man, are you okay? I'm like yeah, could you just close the door? And he closed the door and I went to turn around to give him a hug and I was by myself. I'm like what I mean? I was like close the door.
Speaker 3:Man like I turned around and I was like I was like close the door man Like I turned around and I was like. I was like mother are you? Yeah, so people really don't know. They really just they just really do not know, Um, and I didn't know what to do at the time and I've I've lost a number of friends as well since and it's yeah, it's a, it's a, it's a massive thing that, like you said, it's inevitable death and taxes and we just we need to be more educated, or just understand and and, yeah, learn how to uh act or help, whatever that means yeah.
Speaker 2:Is it mostly about what people say, though? Because I know we had a conversation not too long ago. We were talking about, like you know the whole, like oh, I'm sorry you lost. You know, I'm sorry you lost your parent. And it's like, well, they're not lost, they're dead, I know where they're at, you know, or they're in a better place, and it's like, how do you know? You know? It's like all those kind of cliches you know me, I've always been able to be like real. Like people tell me they lost somebody, my first response is like damn, that's fucked up. But it's a real response I learned like most people don't want to hear those cliches.
Speaker 4:Sorry, christopher no, it's okay. I think it is more of they don't know what to say to you, so they would rather just like go backwards and be like yeah, I'm not even gonna say hi or ask how they are, because then I have to come up with a follow-up question like or answer either one.
Speaker 5:Yeah, I mean, it's all of the above. So I mainly do this work on like a larger scale, with organizations, training managers and leaders on what to do, because the number one reason people leave jobs is because of their manager. So when you go to your manager and say like, for example, one of my brothers was killed, I'm one of five, I have four brothers and one of my brothers was killed in a car accident March 21st or, sorry, march 18th I also had a death on the 21st, so I confuse them March 18th, 2022. He was 25 years old, hit by a car crossing the street. Like that's not something I know. You both mentioned you had deaths as well, but you don't plan for losses like that when you're that age. Like that's just not something you prepare for. So when I what I train in this is going teaching managers and leaders to say like, when somebody comes to you and says my brother dies is going teaching managers and leaders to say like, when somebody comes to you and says my brother dies, you don't respond with the generic bs of I'm so sorry for your loss, they're in a better place. And on the organizational level too, it's teaching managers and leaders not to say crap like um, have you talked to hr? Or we offer bereavement leave, which is typically three to five days, so that's a whole nother story we can get into. Or we we have an EAP if you want to utilize it Like it's teaching them, like when you do that, you're actually making these people likely feel worse and closing the door on them to actually be able to talk to you in the future if things come up. And as you all know, grief is living within all of us for the rest of our lives. I am not afraid to say that losing my 25 year old brother is still the most difficult thing that's ever happened to me in my life, and I've been through quite a bit. I thought I was going to die when I was 19. But losing my brother was, hands down, the worst thing that's ever happened to me. I'm never going to get over that. Will it feel differently for the rest of my life? Absolutely, but I will never, ever lose that pain of losing somebody that young that should still be here today. And so I also go into.
Speaker 5:It's not just teaching managers what to do right after and what to appropriately ask, because what happens so often with grief is we say things instead of ask things. So we're assuming we know what somebody needs instead of asking them to articulate how we can support them in that time. And then we do what everybody does. We follow up right after and then we pretend nothing's wrong. So they come back to work after their bereavement leave and we don't ask them what they need again or we again assume what they need. They need to work less, they need to do whatever that is. And then, as time goes on, we also don't ask them what we need or what they need. We continue to make assumptions, be more emotionally intelligent. So it's not something that they can just use with grief and trauma, but can use as leaders in general, to just be better leaders and managers. But focusing on that grief and trauma lens Because I also talk about like when I, at the two-year anniversary of my brother's death date the day before I wasn't even thinking of his death date At the gym working out, all of a sudden I start crying.
Speaker 5:How to leave the gym? Obviously that's not the best place to start crying with hundreds of people around and I realized what day it was. I was like, oh, it's the day before his anniversary of his death. Again, it's teaching Like that's real stuff that happens to people in the workplace too. So most of what I do focus on is, as much as I can, helping organizations, leaders think about it differently. Challenge bereavement, leave policies, challenge what we do to support people throughout their entire career. When it comes to grief and trauma, instead of let's give them this canned package up front, tell their manager to say I'm sorry, hand them to HR and then just go about our days pretending the problem or not the problem, but the grief doesn't exist Right.
Speaker 2:Now I'm actually a very passionate supervisor. So I'm in this trucker is that's what I do for a daytime job. But I'm really big on what you need and I often get in trouble because I don't follow any kind of rules. Like I don't care about bereavement days. You take as long as you need. You let me know when you're ready to come back. You know, like I'm that kind of person, but I am really big on asking those questions what do you need from me? Like, what do you need in this moment? So I was kind of glad to hear you say that, because that was going to be my question Like is that a right way for me to go with them? And it's not just in depth, it's kind of any situation, any situation that I think could be taxing on the mental health. You know, my first question is what do you need from me?
Speaker 5:Yeah, that's actually very similar to what I teach. It's teaching at the first event. So my brother was killed in a car accident. When somebody comes to you and shares that information, what do you need from me? What can I do to help? What type two questions that I never had anybody ask me in the nine years that I've experienced death and it's not because they don't, they did anything wrong, it's just they didn't know is what would you like me to tell your colleagues, clients, vendors, whoever, about your time away?
Speaker 5:Right, some people don't are very, very. They're not like the four of us, you know, sharing our life stories on podcasts. They're very private and they don't want people to know they're out on bereavement leave or that somebody died. They want no one to know. They prefer that more private grief.
Speaker 5:And then the third thing is is it okay if your colleagues contact you while you're away? Because, again, people don't ask that. So then, for those private people who are more introverted, don't want to be talking when their colleagues are sending them calls and texts, that actually adds to stress that they didn't want and didn't ask for, because their manager could have asked three very simple questions that would have made tremendous difference to support them and one of the most difficult times of their life. That's like the immediate three questions I encourage all managers and leaders to ask immediately after. Sometimes people will say I don't know, I have no idea, I can't even think straight right now, and then you can support them and say OK, well, I'll just tell your colleagues you're out on leave, is that OK with you? You can try and guide them there, because there are people that during times of trauma and grief they completely shut down and they really can't communicate to. There are people that during times of trauma and grief, they completely shut down and they really can't communicate too.
Speaker 2:And you know what. That's good. You actually taught me something, because I actually go into reverse and not that I tell everybody's business, but I do. You know, I'm quick to be like, oh, they're on bereavement and those kinds of things and I also always think about like people losing money. So I'm one of those raise funds kind of people like, hey, so-and-so is going through something, they're going to take extra time, they don't have the time. Hey, what can you do to support? Is that something that I should be doing?
Speaker 5:So what I have found with everything in grief and trauma, from talking with people research, education, you name it that I've done is everybody handles it all so differently and I knew that before. But what people need and what people want is going to be very different. So while, like what I'm hearing you say, I'm making an assumption. That's probably what you would want and your healing process could be very different for all of your team. So what I've I have to do this myself because I have gone through, like you all, so much trauma, so much grief that I make assumptions, that I know how somebody feels, I have so much empathy for them and I'm like I know what they need, I know what they want, I've been there, I've been in their shoes, but I have to stop myself and remind myself that I'm not them. I don't know what their lived experiences are, because for me I use the example of, like when my brother died, that was I can never even remember the death count that was like the fifth or sixth death I'd experienced in the nine years I'm sure Maybe seventh. And I remember, as I was going through it, like processing the grief, my mom was like you are so quick to just process and get through this, like called that out to me and I said, well, I've had no other choice, I've had to learn how to do this. Like that experience I went through when I was 19 definitely taught me that like you have to learn how to live with whatever you're handed, like you have to pick yourself back up and get your shit together and figure out what to do next. Like that's kind of the mindset it taught me from that experience when I was 19. And I've learned that very much with grief. But then I've seen other people around me. I briefly mentioned to you all that one of my best friends was killed shortly after my brother, five months apart. So he was March 2022, august 2022, she was killed. So I've seen other people who, again, I've lost friends. I've seen their family experience it. I've lost plenty of family. I've seen my family and friends and others experience that when those people have lost individuals or even people I work with have lost individuals some of them just completely shut down. They can't talk about anything, they can't communicate, they have no idea what to do. They can't even wake up someday, like get out of bed some days, which is totally normal. But then I have to say you know, that's, that's what they need, that's their grief. I can't tell them what to do. They have to tell me what they need. So it's going back to.
Speaker 5:Even though I've experienced the amount of loss I have, I still can't tell somebody how to grieve. And also, when somebody's experienced like their first loss, I found when I interact with somebody who like that's the first big loss they've had Like my grandma, the one in 2016 was the first big one for me Um, when I found that when people have that first big loss, it's always different. There's just a different feeling they have than somebody who's had nine big losses because it's the first time they're experiencing. So I have to go back to. Okay, how was I when I went through my first big loss, like I need to be patient with them. I need to give them time, not what would I do now? Because I have more education, training, knowledge and experiences than they are in at the moment of their first big loss.
Speaker 3:It's interesting. You mentioned a couple things I want to mention. But you mentioned your first big loss and then how your mom said that you're so quick to be able to handle this and stuff. And I noticed, for me my biggest loss was obviously losing my mom and subsequently losing, you know, three friends after that. It's not that it got easier, it's just that I knew more like personally how to process and what to do with it, and I think you articulated that perfectly. But I was going to say also going back to the workplace aspect of it. So if you are a manager, say Micah, and somebody comes to you and you ask those questions, you know you ask the right questions and somebody just shuts down and they don't have, like you said, somebody. People just can't, they don't know what to do. What do you do in that situation where somebody is like I don't know if I want people to call me, I don't know what I want people to know, like I just I don't know, I can't like. What do you do in that kind of situation?
Speaker 5:Yeah, but yeah you are. So first point you articulated perfectly that's exactly what I'm saying I kind of refer to, like riding a bike the first time you do it, like grief, and riding a bike the first time you ride a bike you're not, it's not as easy it's. You have to really, you have to think about it more, you have to figure it's much, you have to navigate it and then after, like you just said, jonathan, you had three friends pass and so you were able to navigate it because you knew how. You had already ridden that bike once. So is it? Unfortunately, in a crappy way. It was easier for you to do again.
Speaker 5:Um, on the organizational side, when I have a manager, a leader, say to me like I had an employee shut down, they don't know what to say, they don't know what to do, they're just start crying, they're completely at a loss. You, you give them an answer and at least give them the opportunity to say yes or no. So for what can I do to help you? I don't know. Okay, would you like time off, yes or no? If you offer time off, of course, there's some places where organizations don't, which is a whole nother thing. I'm working. Hopefully change one day.
Speaker 2:I actually don't give that an option. Like you taking time off, you don't get an option to come back until you can talk to me.
Speaker 4:So but I mean, the reality is some organizations don't offer bereavement.
Speaker 3:leave it's, it's still a thing that is so. Is that like? Is that a common like? I mean, is that a very small like percentage of workplace, or? I can't believe that's even a thing. I can't believe that even that would be a thing.
Speaker 5:So there's no federal law that requires employers to offer time off due to death. I'm not even going to try and change a federal law in my lifetime, because it would probably take my lifetime to even get that there. But that's why I try to just work with organizations to help them be better, because at least we're impacting small pods of people as we go. But the average organization offers three to five days of bereavement leave for specific deaths.
Speaker 2:Definitely. Yeah, I kind of want to get us off corporations for a little while and probably the rest of the episode, and the only reason I say that is because corporations aren't watching us.
Speaker 5:Yeah, no worries, so I'll answer that question and we'll go back. But and I just lost my train of thought, so your question was people who shut down, people who don't have an answer.
Speaker 5:And then you said you asked them questions and sorry, go ahead. Yeah, so you're going to guide them to an answer. Do you do you want time off, yes or no? If, of course, they offer time off? What do you want me? What do you want me to tell people while they're away, if they? Or what do you want me to tell your colleagues, clients, whatever, while you're away? If they say nothing and say I'm not going to tell them anything, I'm going to tell them you're out on leave and I'm going to ask them not to contact you.
Speaker 5:You again, you go to the like, more conservative side of it and like, say nothing, ask people to do nothing. And then, when they are ready because if they are in that much of a state of like, I don't know, I don't know they're clearly very overwhelmed. They clearly cannot process like thoughts in that state. So even having people contact them or knowing their information could be too much for them at that point. So you just go to the more. I'm just going to. Here's what I'm going to do, and when you're ready we can reevaluate that. But yeah, we can shift pivot gears. Sorry, but I do also work with one-on-ones with individuals and others as well.
Speaker 2:Right, right, I wanted to get to that and I'm sorry. I hope I didn't mean to be rude about it.
Speaker 5:If it was rude, it was just I have four brothers on in HR. Yeah, I've heard it all, seen it all, said it all.
Speaker 2:We're good, Because everything that you say, you don't talk me some stuff. I'm like. I'm looking at Crystal like are you taking notes? Hello, Write this shit down. I'm messing up, but however.
Speaker 5:Sorry. One comment Even though corporations aren't listening, your audience ideally, hopefully, is managers, or their spouses are managers, their friends are managers. So, if nothing else, free advice that they can use and take to make their workplaces that much better and hopefully one day their whole organization can be just as empathetic as they are.
Speaker 2:Right, definitely. And so one thing that we did learn about audiences our audiences most often are a person who thinks something is wrong but either doesn't qualify it as big enough to deal with, or they don't know how to deal with it, or, because of all the stigmas, they won't deal with it. So and so kind of. That's why I kind of wanted to get into your one-on-one stuff, because you know, um, we, we get a lot of emails, a lot of messengers and those kind of things, and you know we're a mental health podcast, so of course, people think we have all the answers. But one thing we get a lot of and or that I hear a lot of is other people telling a person who lost somebody that they should be over it already. And I just wanted your take on that on both sides as the person who is grieving and as the person who is supposed to be the support of the one grieving.
Speaker 5:Sure, so the person who's grieving will start there. I just said a couple minutes ago that I'm never going to get over the fact that my 25 year old brother was killed two years ago. Right, I will say that forever because, like I said, I was almost murdered when I was 19,. But losing somebody that young is still the hardest thing that I've ever been through in my life and I truly don't ever think I'll ever get over it because I, why, why should I have to? That's the thing. When somebody says, like you should be over by now. Um, it shouldn't matter anymore. Like you have to figure it out.
Speaker 5:Like, yes, I'm a firm believer that we're given situations that suck, like grief sucks, trauma sucks. It's completely out of our control and, unfortunately, what we have to. Either we have two choices we can get better. We can get better. We can be bitter and sit and stew in the fact that my brother died and I can live in that bitter pain forever, or I can live how he would want me to live and I can get better from that experience.
Speaker 5:And that's the mindset and mentality I talk with one-on-one individuals about when it comes to grief, especially trauma. Anything is you have a choice. You have the power to make choices. The first choice you can make is it's okay to feel your feelings like, feel it as much as you need, feel it for the rest of your life, but are you feeling in a way that's keeping you in the pain and not allowing you to move forward? Or are you feeling in a way that's productive and moving your life forward in the way you want it to be? Because if it's going to be holding you back or you know people are saying things like you should get over it.
Speaker 5:Like I will just say this I have never had anyone and maybe because they're probably afraid of what I would respond with, but I've never had anyone tell me I should be over something. And I have. I think I rattled off like 10, at least 10 things for you, all, 11 things that I've experienced. Nobody has ever said to me that I can recall that you should be over that by now. I have had people not know what to say plenty of times, but you have to.
Speaker 5:I think when, when people say that though it's often what I've seen is because people haven't healed the experience, the trauma, the grief, they haven't actually felt it or dealt with it, and so there's in some there's in some instances they may be trauma dumping on, like a friend or family member that doesn't know what to do with that. So that person's like you need to get over this, instead of working with a coach, a therapist or somebody who can help them process it so they can talk about it and articulate in a way of like I'm never going to get over this, but I'm not going to let it dictate my life and control my life for the rest of my life, because, as I always say, even though we lost somebody, we're still here.
Speaker 2:Right now. I know I asked a two-part question and I'm sorry, and crystal has something to say.
Speaker 4:I'm gonna let you go first. I'm gonna defer to you, don't make me forget um. So I lost, well, so my brother's in a coma. He's been in a coma for eight years and you said that you don't like um. So how did you take them steps of getting where you are now, where, not that you let it dictate how you live.
Speaker 5:Basically, so how do I take my experiences like and get better from them, instead of let them control my life? Yes, there you go. Let me phrase it this way when I was 19 years old 2021, because I'm 32. So 10 plus years ago, I was it this way. Uh, when I was 19 years old 2021, cause I'm 32. So 10 plus years ago, I was not this way.
Speaker 5:So I experienced my first trauma when I was 19 and I was pretty bitter. I wasn't better, I didn't know what to do. I was young, I was hurt, there was a lot going on. It took me a lot of time. So I think that first piece is I had something happen to me at a very young age which forced me to have to figure it out and figure it out young. And then what was that? 2011 was the first one, then 2016. So five years later, the death started. That is when I started to realize like, oh, I don't really have a choice. This stuff is going to happen and I'm going to have to figure it out, I have to navigate it.
Speaker 5:I also did experience some stuff when I was 19, when I was pretty bitter, where I could tell how it was impacting those around me and I'm one of those. I'm very empathetic. I'm sure you all can relate. If you have a podcast like this, you care about people. I didn't like making other people feel certain ways too, because I was, I could, I wasn't happy and I was like I also don't want to be unhappy, I want to be happy, I want to enjoy my life.
Speaker 5:So I realized I have to take control, I have to heal. So it was through different things like therapy I've done probably every type of natural healing or therapy under the sun that exists or have explored it or researched it at some point therapy, coaching, different healing modalities that I healed my shit for lack of better words and I continue to heal my stuff. I say that healing and growth are synonymous and I'm going to be healing and growing for the rest of my life. There's still parts that pop up from when I was 19 years old that I have to heal. There's still parts that pop up from when I was 19 years old that I have to heal. There's still things that come up from my grandma dying that I have to heal. There's still things that will trigger me that I have to heal. But I'm doing it forever and I will continue to do it forever so that I can continue to get better and continue to grow. That was a very long winded way of answering your question. Hopefully that helps.
Speaker 2:It. That was a very long-winded way of answering your question. Hopefully that helps. It was great and I'm going to tell you, give me a headache, right, because I have like a million questions to ask you, but I just want to ask you this one, yeah, and because you still got the other one to ask and then Jonathan got one for you, right?
Speaker 5:I need to write them down.
Speaker 2:I should have brought. No one told me to bring paper and pen. I didn. But okay, so here I am and I'm gonna use crystal as an example, even though we didn't go through this, I promise, even though maybe we did. So crystal gave example. You know, eight years her brother has been going through this stuff.
Speaker 2:Um, you know, what do you do as a person who wants to be supportive, or is there a time frame? It's like so many questions, it's compounded, I promise. So it's like is there a time frame that you let people kind of like go through their feelings, however messy they want to go through it, and if you want to punch the wall, punch the wall. You know, if you want to not shower for three days, don't shower for three days. Like, how long do you like? Oh, it's such a hard question, but how long do you let people go through those things before, as a person that cares, reminds them that, hey, you got four kids you got to get take care of. Like you need to like snap back into this reality, like you need to step back into life and, without you know, like being harsh towards their grieving, or you, you know, like I still am taking this consideration Like trust.
Speaker 2:You got to grieve. You got to go through it. I get it. It's going to last the rest of your life, I get it. But, girl, you got four kids. They all hungry. I don't know what to feed them. This one got a rash, this one allergic to peanuts. I gave the peanuts to the one allergic. You know, it's like I need you to come back and be a mom again. How do you have those conversations tactfully, because I do it the crazy way, right, but I never had someone that might be able to advise me. Yeah, like the conversation that you have should have with someone when it's time for them to realize that it's time to get back to life, like I'm not telling you not to grieve, but you still got to live because you are living.
Speaker 5:Yeah, what I found. Those people that are afraid to step back into reality aren't going to snap back into reality. They need to slowly progress back into reality. So I am definitely. I mean again, I always use myself when you asked me earlier, like what should we not ask? I'm like I'm going to open books and I use myself as examples because I'm the easiest example to use. I'm like I'm going to open books, so, and I use myself as examples because I'm the easiest example to use.
Speaker 5:But, um, I snap back in. I like I wake up, I'm like I gotta go, like I got shit I gotta do, I gotta get things done. But that's how I am and I am intrinsically wired. Like you asked my mom, she said that I came out of the womb knowing what I wanted and I haven't stopped since. So that's how I'm wired, like I just operate that way. I have friends and family that are not that way. So for somebody who is sitting or stewing in grief or an event and can't move past it, if you push them, it's probably going to make things worse. Push you away, which is likely the last thing they need. But you could ask them what's one small step you could take tomorrow to make a change and help you feel better, or what's one thing I could do to help you move in a direction where you can get back to feeding your kids without me?
Speaker 5:Again, it's asking those questions, ask them to articulate, because snapping is not going to happen. There are, there's, there's. That's too far of a jump for them. So I always kind of think of it like in the business sense and that like gap analysis. They need to get back to reality, but they're not, so we got to slowly get them there. With time, Change takes time and for somebody like that, change is going to take longer than it would for somebody. It sounds like yourself, where you are ready to go after you decide you're ready to go.
Speaker 2:Right Now, is there a time frame that you do allow like this to go on. You know like is there. I know you say everybody is different, but you know like.
Speaker 4:Like, should there be.
Speaker 2:Yeah, like, is it two weeks Okay? Is a month okay?
Speaker 3:No, it's three to five business days like snap out of it, get back to work only for certain deaths, though three to five business days only because,
Speaker 2:if it's not a media. You only get one day, you don't get any oh, no, no you don't get any like my dog that I got for protection for ptsd and anxiety when I was almost murdered.
Speaker 5:That doesn't qualify for any bereavement leave anywhere.
Speaker 2:That's a good point. It would with me.
Speaker 5:Yeah, and me too.
Speaker 2:Look, I need to stop giving away secrets. I'm probably going to get fired. Now they're like are you just giving time off to people because of their dog? Now I'm about to lose a job.
Speaker 5:No, have them call me. Have them call me, we'll talk, we'll figure it out as far as like is there a window of time in order to tell somebody like you got to get your shit together? I'm sorry, am I not supposed to curse?
Speaker 2:no, no, no, I never know, some are a little bit more strict, but, um, I would say no, because there's it, it's.
Speaker 5:It's a very interesting question and it's a great question and i'm's a great question and I'm not a therapist, I'm not a psychologist. I want to make that very clear. I do not have any type of PhD, I have no doctor. So anyone listening, to this.
Speaker 2:None of us need to talk down on your statement. We all have the same way. We all have the same way.
Speaker 5:Yeah, so this is non-medical, clinical advice. That would only if you were to put a timeline on somebody's grief and how they should handle their grief. It would be worse where, like an okay window of time to be grieving because the what happened to them could have triggered things that happened years ago. So I briefly mentioned that one of my friends was killed in 2022. That triggered for me ptsd of when I was almost murdered when I was 19 right, and that somebody grieving something or dealing with something there is no way anyone else would know that if they don't articulate it. I mean, you and I are likely more rare and we are very vocal and how we are feeling what we're experiencing, what we're going through.
Speaker 5:The majority of the society, especially in the United States, is not like that. So I don't put any window of time, especially on people that I love. I find out ways to ask them again what do they need, what do they want to do? When do they feel is a good time for them to be back at work? So I could be an accountability buddy for them or support them to get back to that deadline they'd like to set for themselves. That's kind of like the model of coaching is and that's the foundation of coaching is we all have the answers within us. So I use so much of what I do and my coach training within this grief space because it's it's very true. No one can tell us how to deal with our grief. So people ask us questions and enable us to say what we need and how we need our support to get there, and then how much we may or may not want to be pushed to get there. We can support people better.
Speaker 4:Do you think it's a good idea to like, while they're grieving, tell them like maybe you should go see a therapist or life coach or, you know, watch a podcast to help them through it? Or do you think there should be a certain time to mention something like that?
Speaker 5:Ask them what's their plan for support to get through this process? Because I will tell you this when people have told me in the past that I need to go see a therapist, I want to backhand them because I'm like you know how many therapists I've seen Like, right At one point the therapists weren't helping, like I had to find something new. So I would you know asking them like what's your plan for support? If they're like I don't know, you're like well, what have you, what have you considered? Like the how and what questions are so powerful. It's also what they teach us in coaching and allow people to give, to explore, because so much too, when people are grieving or dealing with trauma, they haven't even had the space to think about what they want to do, or they assume I need to go to a therapist, I need to do this, and for many, that is the right solution. They need to see a therapist, they need to see a coach. But for others it's not, and that's okay, like I know.
Speaker 5:I know so many people who listens to podcasts like this because it's all they can afford, and sometimes it's more embarrassing to say I can't afford to go to therapy or coaching right now to a friend when they're already dealing with their grief, than it is to just say I've evaluated a podcast. I think I'm going to go with that or I'm going to try journaling. And if they say I haven't explored anything, what do you suggest? Then at least you're letting them lead you there to give them suggestions. Because even if we are giving them suggestions like have you listened to a podcast, have you gone to a therapist, it's back to us influencing their outcomes of what they should do, which is typically driven from what we would do, which doesn't mean it's right or wrong, it's just not specific.
Speaker 2:Okay, now, as a person supporting right, I'm about to be real selfish. We about talking about me, right, but you know I have this situation. You know yada, yada, yada is what it is. But now it's getting to the point like I still have the means to be there for this person, but I'm like kind of exhausted with it, right, and it's like, once again, you know I'm I'm in my healing journey too, too Right, so I believe that everybody is going to heal, how they're going to conversation, because I still feel they're very fragile from this trauma, you know so.
Speaker 2:But it's like am I putting myself through? Oh, not, that am I. I am putting myself through kind of a little bit of trauma myself by still dealing with this issue. That I think I should be over, you know, because I kind of still want to get on with healing in my life, you know, but I know they're fragile. What would you recommend for me to do in this situation? Be over, you know, because I kind of still want to get on with healing in my life, you know, but I know they're fragile. What would you recommend for me to do in this situation?
Speaker 5:In many ways, I think you answered your own question.
Speaker 2:Did I.
Speaker 5:Yeah, you said that it's causing trauma in your life.
Speaker 2:Right.
Speaker 5:So I mean to me that's boundaries you have to you only. You can make a choice there of how much can you support somebody and their grief while you're dealing with your own like, while you're healing too, because we're all in our own healing journeys. So I have plenty of times sent to friends as they're going through experiences. You know, I love you right now but I don't have the capacity for this. The capacity I'm here, if you like, absolutely need me, but today or this week I just don't have capacity for it. Like I have to honor myself first. It's that old saying you can't pour from an empty cup. So if you feel it draining you, that's likely a sign that you need to say, like you could say to her.
Speaker 5:So it's actually something I said to my dad years ago. I mentioned he was an opioid addiction addict. Severe opiate addict made him verbally abusive and have blackouts and then caused severe medical issues for him, to the point where he was slight hypochondriac. But he would like message me weekly that he had some new disease or new cancer and just new medical diagnosis, literally like weekly, monthly basis. At one point in my life I was dealing with I think it was shortly after my grandma died or something else, I can't remember when, but I had a lot going on for me and I couldn't be his emotional person available for him, every wonderful wife. So I said to him I said you know I love and support you. Set aside all of the verbal abuse and drug years of drug addiction, still loved and supported him. As my father said, I love and support you, but I cannot be your emotional crutch right now. If you need me, please don't be afraid to call and tell me you need me.
Speaker 2:Right.
Speaker 5:But every time something comes up, I don't have the space to be there because I need to focus on me right now.
Speaker 5:And that doesn't mean I love you any less, but it means I need to be able to love you more by loving myself first. And so I think you could tell your friend in a very kind, loving way that you love and support him, her, them. You want to be there for this person and but you also need to think about yourself. So if there's things that they need you to do, you're you're happy to support them, but you have to also honor your own healing journey, and if somebody doesn't have the ability to process that, you can't control that. I mean you can't. One an old boss said to me years ago even though I don't love it is um, their ego is not my problem, like somebody else's ego is not your own problem, which is true in a very, very harsh way, and that's why I don't like it. But the reality is is like we can't control how other people are going to respond or how they're going to feel, but you have to take care of yourself first, otherwise you can't take care of those people.
Speaker 2:Right, and you know I do know all that stuff, but this is my soft spot. That's all it is. I'm just going to cut out everything that you just said and I'm just going to send it to you. Listen to this. Look at this random video I found on TikTok. I think it applies. Sorry, jonathan, I will let you ask your question now.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I just want to go back to something you said a while back and it's been something that's really resonated with me and I've learned throughout my journey.
Speaker 3:Finally, is, um, living life for the people that have had their life cut short and you know, honoring them by, you know, uh, living your life to the fullest and, like I said, like you know my friends who are younger when they passed, and stuff like that, and then trying to live my life and then for my mom to live my life in a way that she would want me to, and you know, spending years, of course, of going through addiction, all that kind of stuff. Like it happens and it takes time, but that's something that's really helped me with my own personal is to look at it and be like, okay, now I've got this opportunity and I'm blessed to still be here and I need to do everything I can to honor them and in the best way possible, and that is to to to live my life to the fullest and every day. And really, you know and what was the second part of my question I forgot?
Speaker 4:Sorry, good job, micah, you're welcome, I know I forgot, sorry. Good job, micah, you're welcome.
Speaker 2:I know.
Speaker 5:I can respond to that though. Well, maybe it'll help stir. I didn't start so, to be fair, I didn't start doing that until after my brother died. So for your listeners too, maybe. Like that's a bunch of crap, like there's no way I can live my life to the fullest after I've lost somebody, like I hear you and I get that because I used to feel the exact same way I was like this sucks, like why does bad stuff keep happening to me? Like every year somebody was dying. I'm like this, I can't live a good life like this.
Speaker 5:And then, once my brother died and I lost somebody that young, I felt something different and I felt this like obligation to live a different way. He also happened to be one of the kindest, nicest, happiest people the world had ever been graced with. He had over 300 people at a celebration of life. I don't even think I have. I know that I've never met that many people in my the span of my life, let alone would show up at, you know, at the end of my life. And everybody had nothing but wonderful things to say about him, no matter when they encountered him. He was like one of those people.
Speaker 5:So when I saw that, it clicked for me and when I lost him it clicked for me of like I need to live like him, I need to live in a better way, because I saw the impact he made on this world. He made this world a better place just by being in it. He was one of those people and I was like I'm going to ensure I carry that forward. So when you lose somebody young, I think it just changes somebody who is younger, I guess it changes the way you think and it makes you want to do that. I often meet people who they've lost grandparents or somebody who's older. They don't tend to have that same tie or that same feeling because that person had lived a full life, like when my grandma died. She was in her eighties, her life was full, she had grandchildren and she got what she. She did what she wanted to do on this earth. So I didn't have that desire. But when Isaac died that desire grew and then losing my friend shortly after, that desire grew even further.
Speaker 3:I finally know what I was going to say. You were talking about filling your own cup, and since I've been talking more about this in the last nine months and doing podcasts and finally talking about the stuff that I've been through, and before I was just so good at putting on the mask and like I'd go home and I was like what you said before, where I didn't want to burden people with my grief, so I'd go out there and everything would be great. I'd train my clients, I go to shoots and like, do all my modeling and stuff, and then I come home and just do drugs and just like, anyway, I could then go back out and but when, man, I keep losing my train of thought I think there's something more than water in that cup.
Speaker 3:I'm 16 years sober, I swear to god.
Speaker 3:But I've had to put up boundaries because, since I've been talking about this, a lot of people are coming out to me and they're saying and they're talking to me about their stuff and I'm very much, I'm very happy to listen and I'm very happy to be like hey, like, like you said, how can I help?
Speaker 3:But it gets to a point where if they don't want to help themselves, or I offer my um, not my services, but if I offer my time and my effort and my compassion, and people are like great, yeah, I'll call you and we'll, you know, let's talk, or they just they don't, or they're starting to impact negatively on me. I've had to put up very rigid boundaries of all right, like I'm so sorry that you're dealing with this, but it's affecting me and you know, I think, yes, you should go talk to a medical health professional and stuff like that. I think it's a really important thing to remember because, like you said to Micah it, he answered his own question by saying like man, this is starting to drain on me and this is really starting to take away and we can't, we can't be ourselves, we can't fill our cups, like you said.
Speaker 5:Yeah, to the first part of your comment question. There most of the world is actually living with masks on, like so many people don't reach a place in their life with comfortability to actually share what they've experienced and it takes somebody else typically sharing before they can share, like podcasts, like this. I think as a society I'm hoping that will continue to change because there are more public platforms for people to share. But look back 20 years ago, like people didn't share what was going on in there, what had happened in their lives. Like unless you were Oprah and so famous nobody knew. Like you couldn't be an everyday person Like you know the four of us I'm. I'm nobody to 99.9% of the world and I'm okay with that.
Speaker 5:But, now we're in a day and age where we can share, so we can create that space for others to do the same and be comfortable to do the same. Because so many people do put on masks. I put on a mask too. I think we often put on masks until we are comfortable and ready to take the mask off. Put on masks until we are comfortable and ready to take the mask off.
Speaker 5:I didn't publicly speak about what happened to me until 2020 because from 2011 until 2020, I was afraid that the man who almost murdered me was going to find me and finish what he's tried to do. So I also wore a mask. Like I had colleagues, friends, others that didn't know what happened to me until I publicly wrote about it. So so many people put on masks. So, for anyone who's listening, like, if your mask is still on, that's okay, you're not ready to take it off yet and don't feel forced that you need to.
Speaker 5:And on the other side, the boundary side, like, yes, I hear you a hundred percent. The more that you've experienced things, the more people feel they can relate and they can connect. But, yes, you can't support them if you don't have the space for it. Like I can only do speaking events in person at a certain cadence, because afterwards people want to talk, people want to connect and I only have so much space to connect with everybody. I mean, if I had this, if I could, I would do it every day, because I want to help people, I want to talk to people, I want to connect with people, but then I would be draining my emotional batteries at the sacrifice of others. So it's exactly what you're saying you have to put up boundaries of what can I do in order to best serve myself so I can best serve others, whether that's friends, family, publicly, in a work setting, whatever that setting is. We got to be a little selfish before we can serve.
Speaker 2:So I actually, like, took off my mask.
Speaker 2:It's like I'm coming out Like literally, but for me it's kind of becoming a negative thing because I'm too honest. You know, someone asked me why I was late recently Well, not recently, but in the last few months. I still hear about it and it was in a professional setting, work environment. But they wanted to know why I was late and my answer was I overslept. And everybody was really mad that that was my answer. And even to lately it's coming up where they're like oh, mike is giving away shade secrets by being honest. You know, a customer wants to know.
Speaker 2:Like I didn't get my delivery at nine o'clock and I'm like, yeah, you was the third stop. He wasn't supposed to, you know. So I'm finding now like people want me to put my mask back on, but I feel like if I do, it's going to hinder my healing. Like I feel like I need to be this person and this honest with everything, because there's a lot that I need to be honest with myself about. And and you know, if I put that mask back on, I feel like I'm going to put it on completely and it's going to stop my healing. What would you say to that?
Speaker 5:So I think to me, I actually process that in a different way of you've taken your mask off to show who you are and who you are as a very transparent person Right, but that didn't mean you weren't transparent before. That didn't mean like and trust me. I was always very transparent. But there was a part of my life that I chose not to share with others. You and I are just now both at the place where we're willing. I mean, there's still parts of my life I won't share with others. I don't tell people about my relationship with my boyfriend like the details. There's private pieces that I will always keep and respect. Is that relationship or my relationship with my siblings, my mom? Like there's still pieces of us that we hold within. But I'm a very transparent person too. Like people ask like where are you going? I'm like oh, I'm headed to the gym, I'll talk to you later. Like I'm just like you.
Speaker 5:I don't think that you need to take put a mask back on at the sacrifice of being yourself. Like you can still be your transparent, honest self. It's a choice of how much you choose to share and don't choose to share. I mean, professional settings are always very different because organizations set a tone for how we show up as individuals Sounds like you're a leader. So how you show up as a leader. Oftentimes they don't even train you or teach you what you should be doing as a leader within their organization and then just turn around and discipline you when you do something they don't like which is why I have a job when it comes to working with organizations is because they don't do that work when they should. But it's a choice for you.
Speaker 5:If you're saying I need to live, this is how I need to live. I need to be able to be transparent, no matter what setting I'm in. Do you Don't let anyone tell you otherwise? I wouldn't say put your mask back on. I would say honor yourself and be truthful to yourself and have the boundaries you need to have. Like do I? Do I center myself in a different way in a professional setting? Absolutely, when I'm working with clients, it's a little bit different than when I'm on a podcast or sharing conversations with my my siblings, but I never am inauthentic in that process. So I'd say be authentic and be as transparent as you want, but you may just have to choose how transparent that is, depending on your setting. But that's up to you.
Speaker 2:And you know what. Honestly, as we talked about it, what I really realized is that it was lying, my issue is yeah, my issue is I don't lie, I don't.
Speaker 2:You know, I lied so much in my life no-transcript that I was told. So finally, one day I realized, like how you gay and you don't like men, so we need to heal some kind of way, because that don't make sense, right, you can't be gay and not like men. So that really was like a big change in my life, where it's like something is wrong and it realized came down to my sexual trauma. Um, you know, most of my sexual trauma, majority of it, was at the hands of men, you know. But I knew that my sexual trauma didn't meet my sexual identity, if that makes sense. Like one didn't make the other, like I'm not gay because I was molested. I always tell people I was molested because I was gay. Right, like is it is a difference in how you word it. But you know, I had to learn just recently in my healing journey that nothing that happened to me was about me and that was like a big part in how I got over it. You know, when I started to realize like, yeah, these people did things to me, but it wasn't for me, it had nothing to do with me. You know, if it wasn't me, it would have been somebody else, and that kind of like really helped me heal from a lot of those things.
Speaker 2:Now, because I'm so like open about my sexual trauma, we get also, like I said, get a lot of emails, messages and people always ask and that's always one question to ask. You know like I make it sound so easy by thinking that way, and it's not, everybody has its method, that's just the method that worked for me. But I wanted to kind of touch on that a little bit because I know you had that experience and just what advice you would give to our listeners that are asking those questions. And also another question that I've never been able to answer and maybe you're not able to, but I'm going to ask anyway Women I have been got messages from women who feel guilty because they had pleasure during their assault and that won't allow them to heal from the trauma, and I just wanted to know if there's any advice you could give to them either, and I'm sorry if I wasn't supposed to ask that question.
Speaker 5:No, you're fine. I said there's nothing off limits about me, so that first. Can you remind me the first question? Sorry, I was listening to the second question.
Speaker 2:I don't forgot it too.
Speaker 5:Now, right, oh something about coming to acceptance, I think with what had happened to you. I'm making an assumption because you're sitting kind of far away from your camera, but I think we're similar age. Am I right? Close, I'm 44.
Speaker 5:Oh so, and you said what happened to you was when you were like 15, 17-ish. Am I tracking? Yeah, said what happened to you was when you were like 15, 17 ish. Is that am I tracking? Yeah, so that's 30, some years ago and and what I? I'm assuming? I'm making a huge assumption here, but if you and I were to be sitting down right now when you were 22, 20, this conversation would not be like it was. It is right now. It's the same thing for me.
Speaker 5:I was 19 years old when I was raped. I'm 32. And I also had nine I guess 10, if you include my dad's drug addiction, 10 very traumatic, crazy things happened to me since my trauma that forced me to do all my healing. So, like who we are today is very different people. That enables us to speak in this way that we are because we're further away from the dates that our traumas occurred. Like there is some truth and the longer time goes on, the more you do learn how to be with what occurred. So that's kind of the first piece.
Speaker 5:So for somebody who recently dealt with something traumatic or was sexually assaulted, raped everybody chooses to use different words If it was very recent, it's going to feel very different, because when I was 19 years old, I was scared. It was not very nice, it was mean. I didn't know I hated. I hated men too, and that showed up in other ways for me and relationships after, and I made different choices than I would make today. And that's okay, cause that's what I needed at that time, right? So that's the first piece. So, so, if somebody who's like fresh in it, like don't I always say, like please, don't look at myself as like I need to be where she's at, because that was 13 years ago. Like my trauma was May 19th 2011, and it's May 23rd 2024. So, like that was me 13 years ago. I've had a lot of work that I've done to get to this place.
Speaker 5:The second piece of your question on pleasure while being assaulted I can't speak to that. I had a gun to my head when I was raped, so I had no pleasure in it. I truly saw my life flash before my eyes. I thought I was going to die. I thought I was never going to see my family or friends again. So for me, I had nothing but fear during mine. So I would say, if that is something and I would definitely encourage them to talk with. There's sex coaches out there, there's sex therapists like there's options out there to help them heal through that, because I don't think anybody should ever feel guilty about something traumatic that happened to them because it was not their fault, right, and whatever the experience they had during it is individual to them and nobody should be able to tell them otherwise.
Speaker 2:Right yeah.
Speaker 3:So, based on what you said, it sounds like the gentleman was not caught.
Speaker 5:No, so he had a mask on and gloves. So there was, and I went to the hospital after and there was nothing that they found in the. We won't get into it. Denver police is not my. They did not really interview anyone. It's a whole nother story. But yeah, it was. Unfortunately Denver police are not great because I know quite a few other crimes that have occurred and nothing has transpired out of them. But yeah, he was never caught.
Speaker 5:So to this day that's something I actually wrote about. The first time I publicly spoke about it was he could be my neighbor, he could be the guy next to me at the gym, he could go to the same grocery store as me and I will never know. The only distinguishing factor I have of him is his voice. I have a guess on his height, but I don't have his voice. That's all I have is his voice. And he did dislocate my arm as well and I had like bruises and stuff all over like my face and neck and inside my mouth, because he was holding a pillow over my face the whole time he was there. So I woke up gun here, then a pillow there, so I don't know where the gun went after, but that's all I can visually remember. And then he was gone.
Speaker 2:That sucks. So now there are people who haven't had as traumatic as experiences as we have had and because of that they sit at home and they're like, whoa, these people had it so much worse than me. I don't need to heal from anything. Any advice you would give to those people.
Speaker 5:I think we all have things to heal from. So I meet people who they went through an experience in elementary school where somebody was mean to them and it still comes up when we talk about things in different ways indirectly, like I'm sure you've all heard of, like inner child wounds, inner child healing, things that happened to us or things that we did not get as children. So sometimes it's not even something that happened to you, it's something you didn't get, so like an absent parent or lack of love from a parent, like there's so many things like it doesn't have to be this event I know we learned like being in a dirty diaper too long had caused trauma in people yeah, well, attachment theory, like if you anxious, attachment, secure, attachment avoidant, like there's so many like you don't have to have gone through something to feel the way you feel right or to feel that you need to heal, like I.
Speaker 5:That's why I say healing and growth to me go hand in hand and are the like, the path we take through life. Because in order to grow, you have to heal. And even if healing is, I need to heal the fact that in kindergarten my brother pushed me down and made me cry and I still remember that memory. Then you got to heal from that, that somebody one time hurt you. Even if it's somebody that loved you, they still hurt you and you need to recognize that everybody that loves you won't hurt you. Because I've had people come to that conclusion of like well, my mom said this to me when I was this age and that means nobody could ever love me. And they like drag these pieces through their lives. Even they tell them, they create and tell themselves these stories that aren't true. I know plenty of people who, for lack of better words have would could say they've had like picture perfect lives.
Speaker 3:They still have plenty to heal from definitely I think it's important thing to remember that, like there's no scale like what is traumatic or you know there's no, it's not a competition. It's important thing to remember that, like there's no scale like what is traumatic or you know there's no, it's not a competition, it's not like, uh, you know I've had this much or this much and then whatever is traumatic, whatever you're feeling about anything, it's relevant and if it's trauma to you, it's traumatic and there's no like, like I said, the things that we're sharing about our lives, it's not like, oh well, you know none of that. Like whatever it is to you feel it and and take care of it and just know that. Like you said, whatever it is, it doesn't matter. If to somebody it seems inconsequential, it's if it's important to you, if it's that, if it's that hard for this judgment, then that's what it is.
Speaker 5:And take your time and work with it. Yeah, I always say that, like one, I have no definition really of trauma. Like what define? What falls into trauma? It's anything that we put into the bucket of trauma that we choose to put in. That's a personal experience for us, that we've chosen for us as a personal trauma.
Speaker 5:And then the second piece of that is like I don't share my story for others to one feel sorry for me because I don't want sympathy and or two, to be like whoa if that much has happened to her and she's doing all of these things, why can't I be and nothing has happened Like I don't share it to make people feel worse about themselves.
Speaker 5:I share my story and publicly talk about and do this stuff to one prove that resilience is real, like it is possible to get through the worst times of life, like shit can happen and you can still be happy, you can still be fulfilled, you can still heal, you can still have everything you've ever wanted and dreamed of, no matter what you've experienced in life, whether that's good or bad experiences.
Speaker 5:So I do want to like recognize that of like. I by no means want to share that and people to be like oh well, she's gone through so much, so her life is just different. It's like yes, but even if you've gone through nothing, you can still have everything you've you want or maybe not nothing, that's a really bad way to say it. Even if you've never gone through anything, ever experienced grief or a sometimes that big T trauma even though I don't like it, but like that's scientifically sometimes how it's classified like big t traumas like what we're talking about right now you can still heal. You can still have whatever you want. You can still grow like. It. Doesn't matter what our experiences look like and what our timelines look like and definitely I think it's that whole splinter thing.
Speaker 2:We had a guest that explained the splinter you know like about. You know, just having a splinter can equal somebody else's cancer if that's the worst thing you went through. So like, yeah, let's not do this. Now we know you do one on one services and you know what. We spend an hour proving people why they should talk to you. But what are some of the services that you do offer?
Speaker 5:Yeah, so I do one on one coaching, I do group coaching, I do workshop facilitation, where I talk about and train on these topics that we're talking about, as well as others like emotional intelligence, resilience. I also do consulting for organizations to help them transform what they actually offer to individuals on this level. So I challenge bereavement leave policies, I challenge how we handle these situations in that corporate world. So everything from one-on-one coaching no matter if you are self-employed or work in an organization, I can coach whoever. Or if you're a manager, a CEO or individual contributor, it doesn't matter. Or if you want to do personal one-on-one coaching, I also do that as well. And then workshops, public speaking I do speaking events as well for groups, whether they're private groups that organize networking events, or I also do speaking for organizations. And then, like I said, the training and facilitation.
Speaker 2:So basically, you have a ton of free time in your hands Of course, we're going to list all of your contact information at the bottom of this episode and on our website. Now, before we go, is there anything that we did not give you a chance to say to our audience that you planned on saying before you got up here and we started asking all these questions?
Speaker 5:I actually never plan to say anything on a podcast episode, because then it's like sitting in the back of my head like I need to get there, and then I'm not focused on the conversation and getting lost in the questions. The one thing that I do love saying, though, is on podcasts that I've started recording within about the last year, year and a half, is I always say the same love, like Isaac, which I mentioned, my brother earlier, who is just the best person that I probably ever met and that most of this world ever got to meet, that got to meet him. So I use that for no matter what you're going through, think of ways to love and live better, cause that's exactly what he did.
Speaker 2:Awesome, awesome, crystal, any last minute, last things you want to say to the people?
Speaker 4:No, I think she's amazing. Yeah, I know right.
Speaker 2:Crystal's, like I'm gonna call you later, girl, jonathan, what you got for us.
Speaker 3:I just want to say that I don't usually forget what I'm going to say, and the reason that I did, I think, is because so much of what you're saying really hit home and there was just so much of like I could relate to, and when I thought of something, it was just like, oh, there's something else and it was like, so I, I really appreciate what you said and taking time to come on because this one really, uh, really hit home for me and yeah, it was, it was powerful. Thank you for sharing your story very much for taking the time and jonathan really cleaned that up nicely.
Speaker 2:You did that, did that. He was thinking about that for the whole half of the episode. Like I got to clean this up. Well, Tamara, one very important thing that you taught me was that I should not be crying at the gym, so I thought everybody did it. Like I do it every time I go I cry.
Speaker 5:I never said you shouldn't be crying at the gym, just that for me it was not the appropriate place for me to feel my feels, that for me it was not the appropriate place for me to feel my feels. So I removed myself boundaries. I removed myself from that situation in order to feel my feels.
Speaker 2:Okay.
Speaker 3:You have to burn calories. I'm saying, if you're burning calories, you're going to cry.
Speaker 2:I think I cry even before. I start working out. I see the door and it's like trauma. Did Jim cause you trauma? See, that's going to be another episode, right? Well, thank you so much for coming on. I appreciate you going everywhere that we took you, because I know we probably took you a little crazy. She was like I need a glass of wine after this.
Speaker 2:If you drink if you don't drink I'm sorry, but thank you. Yeah, Thank you so much for coming on. We appreciate all the knowledge that you share, you guys. Thank you guys for watching and we'll see you next week. Peace, love and blessings.
Speaker 4:Bye, thank you.