Beyond Healing: Identity, Nervous System Wisdom & Post-Traumatic Growth in 2025

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As we close out 2025, Dr Nat Green reflects on a powerful year of growth, integration, and becoming — both personally and collectively within the Growing Tall Poppies community.

This episode is a gentle yet honest Year in Review, exploring the arc many of us travelled this year: from burnout and emotional exhaustion, through meaning-making and identity grief, and into deeper integration and wholeness.

Together, we revisit the conversations, themes, and insights that shaped 2025 — including burnout, nervous system wisdom, post-traumatic growth, identity shifts, and the courage it takes to let go of who we once needed to be.

This is not just a recap. It’s an invitation to pause, reflect, and honour how far you’ve come.

 We Reflect on:

•  Burnout isn’t always about doing too much —  vicarious trauma, compassion fatigue, and nervous system overload often play a role
• The concept of identity grief 
• Why healing is the doorway, not the destination — and what lies beyond it
• A guided reflection to help you honour what you’ve released, what you’re nurturing, and what you want to carry forward
• Reframing the urge to “burn it all down” as a call toward truth, integrity, and alignment

A Special Reflection: 2025 — The Year of Shedding & Sacred Completion

In this episode, Dr Nat also names something many have felt but struggled to articulate: 2025 has carried a strong energy of completion.

Across cultures and traditions, this has been symbolised as a year of shedding — of letting go of skins that no longer fit. If you’ve felt an urge to:

• walk away
• simplify
• release old roles or identities
• question what no longer feels aligned

You’re not broken — and you’re not self-sabotaging. Your nervous system knows when something has run its course.

This episode gently explores how unbecoming can be just as vital to growth as becoming — and why endings are often the gateway to post-traumatic growth.

Who This Episode Is For

This episode is especially for you if:

• You’ve experienced burnout, exhaustion, or emotional heaviness this year
• You feel like you’re in a season of transition or completion
• You’ve done a lot of inner work, but sense something deeper is shifting
• You’re curious about post-traumatic growth, identity change, and nervous system-led healing

Looking Ahead to 2026

As we move into 2026, the invitation is no longer to chase perfect healing — but to live from integration, authenticity, and presence.

Dr Nat also shares her intention to take a short restorative break, modelling the very nervous system care she teaches, before returning refreshed in January 2026.

Thank You

Thank you for being part of the Growing Tall Poppies community.
For listening deeply.
For choosing growth — even when it was uncomfortable.
For allowing yourself to become.

✨ Keep showing up.
 ✨ Keep feeli

If this episode resonates with you then I'd love for you to hit SUBSCRIBE so you can keep updated with each new episode as soon as it's released and we'd be most grateful if you would give us a RATING as well. You can also find me on Instagram https://www.instagram.com/drnatgreen/ or on Facebook https://www.facebook.com/DrNatalieGreen

Intro and Outro music: Inspired Ambient by Playsound.

Disclaimer: This podcast is intended for educational purposes only. It is not intended to be deemed or treated as psychological treatment or to replace the need for psychological treatment.

Episode Transcript

Dr Nat Green (00:01):
Welcome to the Growing Tall Poppies Podcast.
I'm your host, Dr.
Nat Green, and I'm so excited tohave you join me as we discuss
what it means to navigate yourway through post-traumatic
growth and not just survive, butto thrive after trauma.

(00:23):
Through our podcast, we willexplore ways for you to create a
life filled with greaterpurpose, self-awareness, and a
deep inner peace.
Through integrating the manyyears of knowledge and
professional experience, as wellas the wisdom of those who have
experienced trauma firsthand.

(00:44):
We'll combine psychologyaccelerated approaches.
Coaching and personal experienceto assist you, to learn, to grow
and to thrive.
I hope to empower you to createdeeper awareness and
understanding and strongerconnections with yourself and
with others, whilst also pavingthe way for those who have

(01:08):
experienced trauma and adversityto reduce their suffering and
become the very best versions ofthemselves.
In order to thrive.
Thank you so much for joining meon today's episode.
Welcome, beautiful tall poppies.
I'm Dr.
Nat Green, and in today'sepisode as we near the close of

(01:31):
2025, I wanna sit with youreflect on what we've explored
together this year, andcelebrate how far you've all
grown, not just in knowledge,but in lived transformation.
This community, this work, it'snot about perfection.
It's about growth through thediscomfort, learning through

(01:55):
heartbreak, and becoming thepeople we couldn't see at the
beginning of the year.
You've shown up, you'velistened, welcomed hard truths,
heard challenging stories, andcarried all of that with grace
and that matters.

(02:16):
In 2025, we navigated an arc.
From pain to burnout throughmeaning making into integration
and identity, we unpacked howburnout isn't always what it
seems.
Sometimes it's vicarious trauma,compassion fatigue, or nervous

(02:38):
system overload.
We explored this deeplytogether, naming what many of us
felt but didn't yet have thelanguage for.
You invited me into your earbudsas you walked, or your cars as
you drove, as we exploredidentity, grief and what it

(02:59):
means to shed who we were toembrace who we are now and who
we are still becoming.
We sat with deep personalstories, stories of loss,
caregiving.
Of reshaping self-worth whenlife threw you off its course.

(03:22):
And we asked what lies beyondthe healing and started to see
that healing is the doorway, notthe destination.
These were not just podcastepisodes.
They were invitations to lookinward, to feel fully.

(03:43):
To move forward with intentionand some of the most powerful
moments this year came throughour guest conversations where
lived experience met greatwisdom and true courage,
conversations withpractitioners, survivors, and

(04:06):
change makers.
It showed us how boundaries andself-worth rebuild not just a
life, but a life of purpose.
How chronic invisible effects oftrauma, like exhaustion and
weight on the nervous system,aren't weaknesses, but doorways

(04:28):
to new identity, how creativerecovery, nature, and permission
to pause.
Can restore energy when survivalhas become routine, what it
looks like when someone stepsinto legacy, turning loss into

(04:49):
purpose.
And each of these episodesreminded us that every single
voice in this space whether hostor guest reflects a shared
longing.
To rise beyond survival and growinto thriving this year wasn't
just about me talking to you.

(05:10):
It was about you listening withyour whole self nervous system
and soul included.
You told me you've recognizedburnout as more than tiredness.
You've set boundaries that younever thought was possible, and
you've started saying yes toyourself even when that too felt

(05:33):
impossible.
You've grown and not just intheory, in real embodied ways.
This transformation doesn't showup only as a change in thinking.
It shows up in how you treatyourself, how you show up in
relationships, and how youengage with your purpose.

(05:55):
And all of that is worthcelebrating.
So now let's take a momenttogether.
If you're driving.
Just keep focusing on whereyou're going and focus on the
road.
If you're sitting with yourcoffee or walking wherever you

(06:15):
are, feel your feet on theground beneath you.
Just take a slow, deep breath inand let it out with gratitude
for how far you've come.

(06:38):
Ask yourself, what did I releasethis year?
What part of myself am Inurturing now that I couldn't
nurture before?
And what do I wanna carryforward into the new year?

(07:01):
You don't need answers rightaway.
Let the questions land for nowand take root, and there's
something else I wanna namebecause so many of you have
mentioned it in your messages,your sessions, and your quiet
conversations.
I know for some of you thismight seem a bit woo woo, and

(07:24):
I've certainly been embracingmore of this throughout the year
as I open my inner self up moreand more and connect with my
soul.
And I must say that while I'mnot quite woo woo yet, I'm I'm
one woo.
And this has had quite aprofound impact on me at many

(07:46):
levels.
So I invite you to allow this tomeet you wherever you're at
right now.
2025 carries the energy of theyear of the snake and
numerologically.
It's a nine year and acrosscultures, both of these

(08:09):
symbolize completion.
Endings, shedding, letting go ofskins that no longer fit.
And I personally think this isso apt for us right now, and if

(08:30):
you've felt an almost visceralurge this year to walk away, to
burn things to the ground, tostrip life back to, its.
bare essence or to release oldroles, identities, stories, or
expectations, then I want you tohear this clearly.

(08:53):
You are not broken.
You are not self-sabotaging.
You are responding to thatcompletion energy, and the
nervous system knows whensomething has run its course
long before the mind catches up.

(09:13):
For many people this year hasn'tbeen about adding more.
It's been about unbecoming.
Unbecoming who you had to be tosurvive unbecoming identity
shaped by trauma, obligation, orexpectation.

(09:35):
And unbecoming versions ofyourself that once kept you
safe, but are now keeping yousmall.
This is what shedding reallylooks like.
It can feel raw, it can feeldestabilizing.
It can feel like everything isfalling apart, but often it's

(10:01):
actually falling away.
And this urge you might have hadto burn things down isn't about
destruction.
It's about truth and fullyliving in your truth.
When a cycle completes, anythingmisaligned becomes intolerable,

(10:24):
and your nervous system simplywon't cooperate anymore.
That's not recklessness.
That's integration of your selfidentity and your nervous system
demanding honesty, and inpost-traumatic growth.

(10:44):
This is a really crucial phase,not healing the wound, but
releasing the identity thatformed around that, and that is
why this year may have feltheavier, quieter.
Or more confronting thanexpected because endings require

(11:07):
presence, and shedding requirescourage.
So if you've been standing atthe edge of something, a
relationship, a role, a versionof yourself, unsure whether to
leap or to stay, know this.

(11:30):
Completion doesn't rush.
It waits for readiness, andsometimes growth looks less like
blooming and more like lettinggo of the skin that once held
you together.
Just let that sit for a minuteand as we move into the next

(11:57):
year.
Our work is not to chase perfecthealing, but to look for and
embrace wholeness and authenticpresence.
2025 was about realizing thathealing opens a door next year.

(12:18):
It's about what we choose to doafter we walk through it.
And I am really excited aboutwhat lies ahead for all of us in
2026.
Thank you all for being such aspecial part of the growing tall
poppies community.

(12:38):
I've made a decision that inorder to honor my nervous system
and ensure that I walk the walkand talk the talk, and continue
to show up as the best versionof me and continue to grow our
special podcast and community,that I'll be taking a few weeks
off to rest, recover, andreplenish, and I'll be

(13:03):
returning.
With the growing tall poppiesThrive After Trauma podcast the
week of the 12th of January, sowishing you all a restful break
and holiday period.
And if you celebrate Christmas,may you do so with joy and
peace.

(13:23):
And if you do not, then pleaseenjoy the holiday period also
with joy and peace and may yourhearts and souls be filled with
love, kindness.
Deep inner peace.
Thank you for growing with me,listening deeply and choosing
your expansion even when it wasuncomfortable.

(13:45):
Keep showing up, keep feeling,keep becoming more of who you
are and growing into who you aremeant to be.
This is growing tall poppies,and I can't wait to see what the
next year holds for every singleone of us.
Bye for now.

(14:08):
Thank you for joining me in thisepisode of Growing Tall Poppies.
It is my deepest hope thattoday's episode may have
inspired and empowered you tostep fully into your
post-traumatic growth, so thatyou can have absolute clarity
around who you are, what mattersthe most to you, and to assist

(14:31):
you to release your negativeemotions.
And regulate your nervous systemso you can fully thrive.
New episodes are published everyTuesday, and I hope you'll
continue to join us as weexplore both the strategies and
the personal qualities requiredto fully live a life of

(14:51):
post-traumatic growth and tothrive.
So if it feels aligned to youand really resonates, then I
invite you to hit subscribe andit would mean the world to us.
If you could share this episodewith others who you feel may
benefit too, you may also findme on Instagram at Growing Tall

(15:12):
Poppies and Facebook, Dr.
Natalie Green.
Remember, every moment is anopportunity to look for the
lessons and to learn andincrease your ability to live
the life you desire and deserve.
So for now, stay connected.
Stay inspired.

(15:33):
Stand tall like the tall poppyyou are, and keep shining your
light brightly in the world.
Bye for now