Breaking Free: Recognizing and Stepping Out of the Margins of Trauma

Hey there welcome back! Today, I invite you to join me on a thought-provoking exploration of the margins that confine us - margins of fear, guilt, shame, societal judgements, and past trauma. This episode is a heartfelt dialogue about the power of recognizing and stepping out of the margins in our lives.

What margins are you still grappling with? How do these invisible barriers affect your emotions and wellbeing? This episode encourages you to confront these difficult questions and more. As we delve into the nuances of navigating and recovering from trauma, we'll also discuss the cathartic act of fully processing the emotions that arise from our experiences. Remember, we're on a collective journey of healing, a journey that may be challenging but is also empowering. Let's step out of these margins, together. Embrace the freedom that comes with self-love and acceptance, and Triumphs Over Trauma.

•  What is Trauma?                                                                                                                                               Trauma is a deeply distressing or disturbing experience.  An emotional response to a terrible event like an accident, rape, abuse, or natural disaster.     
• How to cope with Trauma                                                                                                               Talk to a few trusted people, open up about your struggle, seek online support groups, read self-help books or practice small acts of self-care such as meditation, breathwork, yoga and exercise can help you regain some feeling of control.”
• Find a therapist                                                                                                                                               Get Started (betterhelp.com)
  Online Psychiatric Medication & Mental Telehealth Services - Rx Anxiety, Depression & Insomnia Treatment | Cerebral  
  
  
• Triumph Over Trauma Scripture:  II Corinthians 2:14 Now thanks be unto to God, who always causes us to Triumph in Christ....   
• Books I'm reading on my healing journey

It Didn't Start with You! - How Inherited Family Trauma Shapes who we are, & how to end the cycle.  https://a.co/d/f22BoLk

Home Coming- Thema Bryant   
https://www.amazon.com/dp/059341831X/ref=cm_sw_r_em_api_i_TE4YHJQ63FA21362FP79

The Body Keeps the Score -  https://www.amazon.com/dp/0143127748/ref=cm_sw_r_em_api_i_HXH4RMNC329DT7VPQ5WG
Trauma & Rec

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2 Corinthians 2:14 Now thanks be unto God, who always causes us to Triumph!

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:01):
Hey y'all, welcome to Triumph Over Trauma, the
podcast.
Listen y'all.
I created this podcast because,like so many other people, I've
had a traumatic past.
I didn't always realize howthose things affected me
negatively and how I evencarried them into my adult life,
and so I wanted to create aspace where other people could
come and we could have candidconversations on how you

(00:22):
identify trauma, how younavigate it and how you recover
from traumatic experiences.
If this resonates with you,then join me.
I am your host and traumasurvivor, ms Eve McNair.
Let's get into it.
What's up guys?
Welcome back to Triumph OverTrauma.
Today is Thursday, november the29th.

(00:43):
Actually, it's November 30th.
Yeah, today is actually the30th.
I apologize, but we are oneweek post Thanksgiving.
I'm afraid that you all had awonderful Thanksgiving weekend,
that you ate some yummy food andgot to spend time with your
family members, friends andloved ones.
I did have a wonderfulThanksgiving and, on that note,
I want to take a moment to thankall of you and to say that I'm

(01:07):
actually grateful and thankfulto all of you, my listeners, my
supporters.
I appreciate you Just being anaudience for me and being my
sounding board.
Some of you often give mefeedback and share the podcast
and help to spread the message,and so I appreciate you and am
thankful for you.

(01:27):
I spend Thanksgiving alone,which was very much appreciated.
I got to relax and have thehouse all to myself, eat some
yummy food and just was stilland grateful and thankful for
stillness, so I'm appreciativefor that.
Listen, today's episode iscoming at you Now.

(01:50):
It's not really coming at youHopefully it's coming to get you
, but not coming at you.
This episode is for those of uswho've been marginalized, those
of us who have been stuck inthe margins.
Right Now, I have my littlehandy dandy notebook here
because I plan to get all up andthrough this episode.
All right, I want to first saythis Again this episode is

(02:12):
dedicated to those of us who'vebeen stuck in the margins
margins of fear, shame, doubt,guilt, margins of people's
opinions, margins of the past,margins of the future and any
capacity.
Right, sometimes we've beenmarginalized and don't know it.
I remember when I was in gradeschool, we had this assignment

(02:33):
in which we would write to penpals.
The pen pals that we wouldwrite to actually went to
different school districts,right, and we were assigned a
pen pal and we had to write tothem, and I remember when we
were learning to write letters,when I was learning to write
letters for the first time, myteacher would often say stay out

(02:55):
of the margins.
She would often say to theclass stay out of the margins.
And I didn't really understandthe importance of staying out of
the margins right, and so whenshe would grade my paper, she
would often write a note thatsaid come out of your margin.
As a reflect on that time, Ithink about the areas of my life

(03:20):
where I am still somewhatmarginalized.
Right, marginalized by fear orshame, by the guilt of my past,
been marginalized by people'sopinions or the need for their
approval.
I often find myselfmarginalized by the stigma
associated with mental illnessas it relates to the trauma that

(03:43):
I suffered.
Right, I find different areaswhere I've been marginalized,
but my challenge, as I moveforward for the remainder of
this year and going forward intothe next, my prayer and my
endeavor, is that I come out ofthe margins fully and live in
the free, open space that Godwants me to.

(04:04):
I challenge myself to live outloud, to learn freely and to
love myself without shame.
What areas of your life have youbeen marginalized?
Have you been marginalized byyour past or people's opinions?
Have you been marginalized byyour age or low self-esteem?
Have you been marginalized bysociety?

(04:26):
How have you been marginalized?
What emotions come up for youwhen you think about it?
Is it anger, despair or grief?
Well, whatever the emotions arethat come up for you when you
think about the areas of yourlife where you have been
marginalized, allow thoseemotions to be.
Allow yourself to process fullyby experiencing each range of

(04:48):
emotions that you feel, becauseyou are on your way out of the
margin.
So how do you bring yourselfout of marginalization, whether
it's been imposed by society, bythe culture or religious spaces
, or even yourself, your owntraumas and things you've gone
through?
How do you get free from thesemargins?

(05:09):
I think the first step isacknowledging and confronting
the area where you've beenlimited, and I think it starts
there.
Marginalization is a socialexclusion and it makes us feel
like we're not good enough tolive fully.
People who are marginalizedoften feel like they are less
important, they are lessrespected and less accepted, and
so we have to look at areas ofour life where we feel that,

(05:31):
where we can acknowledge that.
Sometimes it might also help tolook at your insecurities.
If there are insecurities thatplague you, if there are things
that eat away at yourself-esteem or away at your
sense of self, they may be dueto areas where you've been
marginalized and you're notaware.
Typically, women and girls,indigenous people, ethnic

(05:55):
minorities are the mostmarginalized and are excluded by
barriers that are not onlyeconomical but political, social
and cultural, and I think thatrings true.
I remember even there was astory in the Bible about a woman
with the issue of blood andsuffered.
She was basically sufferingfrom hemorrhages for 12 years
and, according to Jewish law, ifyou were a menstruating woman,

(06:19):
you were considered ceremoniallyunclean, you couldn't enter the
temple, you couldn't touchanybody, you basically had to be
alone until your cycle was over, right.
And even when your cycle wasover, you would have had to have
been hemorrhage-free orblood-free for seven days before

(06:40):
you can resume your place insociety, so to speak.
Now, this particular woman inthe story of Luke 8, she had
been hemorrhaging for 12 years,and so that's 12 years of
isolation, 12 years ofmarginalization, 12 years of
being outcast, 12 years ofrejection, right Of shame, of

(07:00):
guilt, of fear, of despair.
I can only imagine how she felt.
But she was marginalized.
She was marginalized by society, by the culture, I'm sure by
friends and family who knew shehad this issue.
The Bible doesn't go into detailas to how they knew if she had
to make it known.

(07:21):
I know if you were a leper andyou were out in public you had
to announce yourself as beingunclean, like, say, you were
going through the marketplace orsomething you would have to say
unclean, unclean, unclean asyou walked about.
So I don't know if the sameapplies for the woman with the
issue of blood, but the Biblesays that she was hemorrhaging

(07:43):
for 12 years and if you'refamiliar with the story, you
kind of like snuck her healingby touching the hem of Jesus'
garment.
And the Bible says that whenshe touched the hem of his
garment she was made whole.
And the story goes on to saythat Jesus perceives that virtue
went out of him and he askedthe crowd who touched me.

(08:03):
I think that story is so uniquebecause even when asked who
touched me, the woman was afraidand it goes to show you how not
only can you be marginalized byfear, but even when you're
considered okay, there's still alevel of hesitancy to pronounce
freedom because you're solooked upon as not having been

(08:27):
accepted.
There was such an exclusionthat I believe that she
experienced for the last 12years of her life, which led to
her hesitancy in responding toJesus.
But the Bible says that shecame and fell at his feet and
told Jesus the truth, told himher whole story, how she had
been bleeding for 12 years andshe had purposed in her heart
that if she touched him in hisgarden she would be made whole.

(08:49):
And she was made whole.
But that story is a primeexample of how you can be
socially, culturally,marginalized and how those
margins will affect you mentally, physically, spiritually,
emotionally right.
And I thought that wasinteresting.
But what I do like about herstory is that she took

(09:11):
initiative, she took action, shepurposed within herself that
she wasn't going to remain inthe margin, she wasn't going to
remain oppressed, she wasn'tgoing to remain suppressed right
, she was going to be free.
And I think that we all cantake a page from her story.
I think we all need to be justas tenacious, just as bold in
terms of freeing ourselves fromthe margins, knowing that our

(09:33):
healing is on the other side,knowing that healing is
available, freedom and libertyand peace, joy, is available
outside of the margins, where wemay be stuck outside of the
margins, even if they beself-imposed or society-imposed.
We don't have to live like that, we don't have to stay in those
spaces in terms of freeingourselves from the margins and I

(09:55):
thank God for her story.
I thank God for the power ofher push right, the power of her
faith and the power of herinitiative.
I think another way that we cancombat the oppression of
marginalization is to fight back.
Fight back to the powers thatbe right, not necessarily a

(10:18):
physical fight, but fight backmentally, fight back spiritually
, fight back in prayer, fightback in preparing yourself to be
better, to be greater, toexceed the expectations of
others, and not that you want tolive in a way that you
necessarily look for theapproval or validation of others

(10:41):
, but that you live in a waythat supersedes their finite
summation of you.
Because I think we have to cometo a point in our lives where,
once we realize where we've beenlimited, once we realize where
we've been held back, I thinkthe choice is ours and is up to

(11:03):
us to make decisions that willultimately end our bondage.
There's decisions that we mustmake that will ultimately end
our bondage and free us from it,because nobody can imprison us
but ourselves.
I think we have to take ourpower back from those places

(11:23):
where we've lent itunconsciously, inadvertently.
Sometimes we lend our powerespecially if we come from
backgrounds where we had notpreviously received respect or
love or affirmation orvalidation.
There comes a point in your lifewhere you mature past those
traumas, where you mature pastthe failures of the people who

(11:48):
were responsible for yournurturing and development.
There comes a point in timewhere you take responsibility
for your own growth and you canoutgrow the margins.
You can outgrow the boxes thatthey placed you in.
You can outgrow even thelimitations that you've placed
on yourself.
I know me personally.

(12:09):
I feel like I'm at a pointwhere I'm starting to realize
where I've been held back.
I'm starting to realize whereareas stump my growth.
I'm starting to realize whatareas no longer serve me.
I'm starting to realize thatthere are some things and people
in my life who have outgrown,and not in a way of discarding

(12:31):
them, but knowing now that thereare some things that I desire
that certain levels can nolonger provide.
And I think now is a time morethan ever especially toward the

(12:53):
end of the year is now more timethan ever to take assessment of
those areas of your life thatyou no longer serve you.
The mindset that you've had andno longer serve you.
Maybe even some people who youmay have outgrown, or some
attitudes and dispositions thatyou know have held you back in
the past has been a part of whathas marginalized you.

(13:13):
I think that will be beneficialin moving forward right, just
taking full assessment, beingcompletely honest with where
you've been, where you are andwhere you want to go.
Thanks so much for tuning in.
I pray that this message wasbeneficial to you.
Listen, if you'd like to be apart of the show.
Maybe you want to share yourstory or testimony or how you're

(13:33):
learning to triumph over trauma.
Please feel free to look at thecontact information in the show
notes of each episode.
There are tons of informationon how you can persevere, how
you can learn to triumph overyour trauma.
There's some information abouttherapy, there's information
about the books I'm reading thathave been helpful to me on my
trauma healing journey, and alsothere's my contact information.

(13:56):
You can also find me on mysocials.
I am Ms Eve on TikTok,instagram, facebook and YouTube,
and so you check out the shownotes.
You'll find all types of links,all of my information, there.
Also, if you'd like to supportthe show, you can do so by
visiting the link below as well.
Keep in mind that the TriumphOver Trauma podcast does also

(14:18):
offer merchandise.
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We're working on some otherthings to add to our merchandise
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If you'd like to order or checkus out, you can find some of
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there.
If you follow me, I'll followyou back.
Thanks so much again forlistening.
I pray all this well.
Remember now thanks be unto God, who always causes us to

(14:42):
triumph.
Second Corinthians 2 and 14.
See you next time.
Bye you.