Embracing Trauma as a Path to Purpose with Demetria Nickens

How Does Trauma Impact Your Purpose?

What if your trauma could guide you to your life’s purpose rather than obstruct it? Join us on the Dove's Inner B.E.A.U.T.Y. Podcast as we welcome the insightful Demetria Nickens, a trauma recovery coach and certified mental health first aid instructor with over two decades of experience. Demetria shares her profound understanding of how trauma impacts our personal journeys, emphasizing that these experiences are as varied as the individuals who endure them. With her wisdom, you'll learn why recognizing and aligning your emotional responses with your core values is vital in navigating the aftermath of trauma.

Throughout our conversation, Demetria uses real-life scenarios, such as the devastating hurricane in Western North Carolina, to illustrate how deeply personal our reactions to trauma can be. We'll explore the complexities of value systems and how they can turn trauma into either a stumbling block or a stepping stone. Demetria encourages listeners to confront these conflicts head-on with the support of coaches or therapists and reminds us of the importance of fully processing our emotions. Tune in for a candid discussion on healing and embracing one’s emotional awareness journey.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:04):
Welcome to the Dove's Inner Beauty Podcast, where we
foster emotional awareness, oneindividual at a time.
Leading the way is DemetriaNickens, a certified mental
health first aid instructor andtrauma recovery coach with over
two decades of experience infostering emotional awareness in
others by engaging their mentalhealth.

Speaker 2 (00:33):
Trauma can feel like a speed bump on your road to
purpose.
Sometimes it slows you down,but it can also make you
appreciate the smooth stretcheseven more.
Let's dig into its impact.
Welcome back everyone.
This is Garfield Bowen-Cohill,slash producer, back in the
studio with Demetria Nickens.

(00:55):
Demetria, how's it going?

Speaker 3 (00:57):
Hey, it's going good.

Speaker 2 (00:59):
So, demetria, how does trauma impact your purpose?

Speaker 3 (01:04):
Oh man, so many ways.
It really depends on whatexactly a trauma is.
You have to take that intoaccount.
I can't say what someone else'strauma is going to be because
that's their experience, thatthey feel.
Right, it's the event thathappened to them.
However, it's how that eventhas impacted them.
That kind of creates what wecall this idea of trauma.

(01:24):
And so when you think aboutdifferent types of trauma, it
absolutely can impact how wethink about our lives ourselves,
who we are, what we want to do,all those things positively or
negatively.
So, example recently WesternNorth Carolina has went through
the major hurricane Helene,right.
So this idea that some people inthat situation, they feel

(01:48):
trauma around them Anytime itrains, they're going to have a
problem, right, becauseeverything was taken away from
them their livelihood, theirhouse, right, everything that
they feel like mattered andcared about was taken away from
them.
So that could be a trauma tothem and others.
It may not impact them at all.
They pick right up, they keepgoing and it doesn't impact them
, right.
So for the ones that the traumahas impacted them, this idea

(02:13):
that let's say their livelihoodis gone, let's say their
establishment was wiped out,their house was wiped out right,
all of these things.
Well, their value systemmatters, right?
So let's say, one of their topfive values is this ability to
serve others.
But your ability to serveothers was just taken out.
It's going to impact yousignificantly more than someone

(02:35):
whose value system isn'tnecessarily in serving others.
Maybe theirs is in fitness andhealth.
As in fitness and health, well,maybe they can still work out
every day.
Maybe their workout spacedidn't get impacted, so they
still can work out every day.
So their value is strong,they're good.
It didn't impact them as much.
However, if your value is basedon something that happened to
you, it's going to significantlyimpact you more.

(02:56):
So when we think about this ideaof our value systems and trauma
, that trauma that happens to us, whatever it may be, has a
direct impact on our values.
So, if I value family and therewas sexual abuse in my family,
that is a direct conflict withour value system.
And so when we get theseconflicts in our value system
based on our trauma situations,we need to manage those.

(03:19):
It's important that we can talkto a coach, talk to a therapist
and see how these things arestarting to conflict with each
other and how it starts to messwith our mental health, how
we're not going to feel as greatas somebody else might have
felt.
You can't understand why You'relike.
Why are they OK, but I'm notRight?
You start to question whyyou're not feeling great, and

(03:42):
this other person over hereseems to be just fine, but you
may have experienced the exactsame thing.
That comes from your valuesystem.
Your value systems aredifferent, so therefore you're
going to react and impact in adifferent way.
So when there's conflicts withour value system because of
something that happened to us,we need to deal with it.
We need to figure it out, weneed to sit with it, we need to
notice it.
We need to know how it feels inour body.

(04:04):
We need to recognize theemotion that comes with it.
We need to manage ourexpectation around it right, not
to have this idea ofexpectation of I'm going to be
back on my feet, I'm tomorrowand I'm going to just keep
working and I'm going to go andgo and go.
Maybe you need to stop and livein the emotion.
Allow yourself to feel and heal.
Right, we don't I say this allthe time.

(04:25):
Right, allow yourself to feeland heal.
Sometimes we have to feel itright, whether that means crying
and allowing our bodilyemotions to just come out.
However, it's going to come out.
If that's in tears, yellingwhatever, allowing it to come
out and then being able to moveforward.
How do I move forward in this?
Making the steps and doing thethings, but you have to allow
yourself to feel through it too.
Right, we can't just stuff theemotions.
They are part of who we are.

(04:47):
What's important?
That we don't just stuff it.
We feel it, so that we canrecognize this conflict on our
value system, recognize thatthere's pain, there's hurt there
, recognize those things and say, okay, I'm going to face this,
I'm going to feel it and I'mgoing to move on.
We can't move on when we juststuff it.
Right, we can't.
It's harder to move on becausewe got this baggage right.

(05:10):
This emotion is just sittingthere chilling.
Well, no, we don't want to keepit right, we want to feel it so
we can move on.
And that's the problem is thatwe don't feel, we want to stop
ourselves from feeling it.
But the reality is, if we canjust feel it, then we can move
on from it.
Right, we feel it, allowourselves to feel it, sit in it,
cry, do what you need to do andthen we can make a plan to move

(05:32):
on from it.
Because when we stuff it, itjust hurts us even more.
We continuously conflict rightand that confliction isn't
helpful to us.
And so heal, feel and healright, move forward in your life
.
Don't stop yourself withemotions or overwork yourself to
not feel it.
Feel it it's a hard topic,especially because it's impacted
so many people, but recognizeit's going to impact so many

(05:54):
people so many different ways.
So there's support system isneeded.
Support system is absolutelynecessary, whether that's a
coach, a therapist whatever thatlooks like a doctor, whoever
you decide to go to feel it,don't stuff it and be able to
recognize the conflict and say,ok, how can I move forward in
this?
How do I get through thisemotionally and work-wise or

(06:20):
family-wise?
How can I move forward in this?
What does that look like for me?
And it's hard.

Speaker 2 (06:27):
Feel and heal.
While you were speaking, I wasthinking of the emergency
workers.
You know people that's dealingwith trauma or crisis and they
can't stop.

Speaker 3 (06:40):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (06:40):
To feel and heal.
You know what I mean.
They got to go, go, go, go go.
How does that impact them?

Speaker 3 (06:48):
Absolutely.
There are staggering statisticsfor that population of
individuals.
Part of their work is going tohave to be having a support
system, a connection of folksaround you.
Your connection matters.
Who you have around you matters.
Having connection in your lifematters.
And then they have to find timeto feel in health too.
So, whatever that looks like,there is a point where you have
to self-care.
We stop and we take a shower.

(07:10):
We stop and we use the bathroom, even if it's in the shower, or
you just taking a shower, cryjust to release whatever's going
on.
Take that and release and cry.
Right, if you're eating, youneed to stop.
Take the time, breathe right.
Take a moment.
Breathe in the fresh air.
Right, take a moment, breathein the fresh air right.
Ground right.
This idea of being able toengage our senses Can I feel my

(07:34):
feet on the floor?
What am I touching, what am Iseeing?
What am I smelling?
What am I hearing?
Can I engage my senses, toquote unquote ground me back
into a sense of reality.
So that idea of grounding canbe helpful.
Right, and just taking thosemoments when you can.
They're out there, they'regoing, they're going, they're

(07:55):
going.
At some point you got to tap out.
You got to let the next shiftcome in.
You get the rest self-care,right Eat, sleep, shower, all of
those basic needs right, yougot to take care of your basic
needs too.
But as we move up, we alwaysthink about just the basic needs
.
But we got to move up on thathierarchy right Of needs and
know that there's more to that.
There's connection, there'slove, there's emotions right,

(08:17):
those things have to be takencare of and we can do that in
those small moments of takingcare of our basic needs too.
We just have to allow ourselvesto do it.
People just don't allowthemselves to do it because they
feel like they're never goingto stop.
I hear this a lot oh, my gosh,if I start crying, I'm never
going to stop, right, you'regoing to stop and you may cry
again tomorrow, but you'll stop.
And you may cry again the nextday, but you will stop.

(08:46):
So this idea that it will, thatto feel that, to recognize that
it's hard but it's possible,allowing yourself to feel in you
, is so important because stuffin it isn't going to do anything
worse but come out later.
It's going to come out at somepoint, whether that's through
your body, through a physicalhealth condition or come out

(09:08):
crying or upset or raging atsomeone else later, might as
well deal with it in the momentthat you're dealing with and
deal with truly.

Speaker 2 (09:20):
Love it.
The word for today is feelingand healing.

Speaker 3 (09:24):
Yes.

Speaker 2 (09:24):
We'll catch you on the next episode.
Have a wonderful day, thank you.

Speaker 1 (09:37):
Thank you for tuning in to the Doves Inner Beauty
podcast, where we fosteremotional awareness, one
individual at a time.
For a complimentaryconsultation, visit
DovesInnerBeautycom or call336-298-6599.
That's 336-298-6599.