I am excited to share that I was on my very first podcast!
When I said I wanted to join in, it was this fun idea of an author interview. It ended up being a conversation I couldn’t wait to hear. When it was edited, she sent it my way, and I listened twice before listening to her other podcasts.
That’s about when I was hit with something heavy.
I’m comfortable with my story. I’ve lived it. It’s not a great part of my daily life, but it is who I am. The conversation flowed. During what I shared, she was more emotionally affected than I was, although there were parts that were difficult for me to get through.
When I went back to listen to the other podcasts, my empathy and compassion for the others I listened to, allowed me to feel the weight of my own experiences as a child. I didn’t know about her experiences until I listened to her podcasts. I experienced childhood sexual abuse that I’ve coped with in various ways for decades. It was so long ago that my more recent experiences tend to be at the forefront for me. I wrote about it in my first book. (Find my books here.) I was re-traumatized during the writing and editing of it.
I met Felicia a few years ago at work. We worked on different teams. At the time of the interview a couple of weeks ago, I was casually job hunting. We discussed the ways company culture helped me grow and leave an abusive situation.
I’m sharing links here.
The pain of trauma forces isolation. We self isolate from others, and often disconnect from ourselves. This can mean feeling numb. I have experienced a feeling of shrinking and sinking into myself, where I couldn’t see and hear normally. At times I can’t feel my body. If my hands aren’t on my skin, I feel numb in places. It’s sometimes hard for me to interact with others, and I often find myself standing alone in parties. It’s my discomfort. As social as i can sometimes feel, I don’t know what to say or how to connect with people. At times, I’m still trying to navigate social skills that were never learned, or entirely shattered.
Healing comes through connection. It comes from connecting to others and connecting to our bodies. This often comes through relationship and compassion toward others. If I can’t feel internally, I can experience acute compassion and empathy for someone else. This acts as a bridge to understand how I feel by allowing myself to feel. I can safely feel for someone else, when feeling my own experience has often spiraled into depression and anxiety. This is where healing is.
I hope the podcast helps you.