Identifying & Working Through Traumatic Experiences

Are you aware of the stories you tell yourself?

He said, “… I try to look at it from the biosocial perspective … that’s essentially, understanding where they got the narratives in the first place … So, this narrative that you currently have, is it something that you’ve always had or is it something that you’ve discovered for yourself through life experience?”

When you’re faced to deal with a traumatic experience from your life, what type of story do you tell yourself?

Do you look at the situation as if it happened to you or for you?

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EPISODE HIGHLIGHTS:

• On Happiness: Identify what in your life is causing you stress

• On Growth: “We’re a product of our environment”

• On Narrative: “My narrative is constantly changing”

• On Journey: Reflect on your progress

Letting Go of Things That No Longer Serve You

Have you ever been in a relationship that held you back from becoming who you wanted to become?

He said, “I came to a point of my life, in my teenage year, where I realized that this relationship that I had with this religion was kind of holding me back as a person … and what I wanted to become …”

How do you end relationships that no longer serve you?

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EPISODE HIGHLIGHTS:

• On Acceptance: Accept others for who they are

• On Family: “I found that the people I ended up calling people were people that accepted me for who I was …”

• On Decision-Making: Stay true to who you are

• On Definitions: Define how you view yourself

Using Creative Outlets to Deal with Pressure of Life

What do you do when the odds are completely against you?

He said, “Just after being introduced to the drums, I was diagnosed with retinoblastoma, which is a rare form of eye cancer … It required that in order to save my life, they had to remove my right eye … So, I’ve been blind in my right eye ever since … What they did is put a removable prosthetic in the socket, and in addition to that, when the surgeon was doing the operation to remove my eye, he made a mistake, and it happens sometimes in operations like this … and he clipped a muscle in my eye lid … So, I grew up … with my lid half-closed, without eyesight in my right eye, and a lot of hospital visits …”

How do you deal with adversity in life? Is it happening to you or for you?

He said, “… I had no awareness of just how deep that trauma was running. But, what I did … is I found music, I found drumming, I found collectables … I can’t tell you why because I’m 5, 6, 7, 8, years old … I just know that I found them in a way that was so important to me … They were such an important escape …”

What are the outlets that help escape from the pressures of life?

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EPISODE HIGHLIGHTS:

• On Outlets: What are the outlets that help escape from the pressures of daily life?

• On Adversity: Is it happening to you or for you?

• On Mentorship: Find people who will help you exceed your limitations

• On Gratitude: Who or what are you grateful for in your life?

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Want to Connect with David?

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Normalize

What are marginalized populations?

He said, “ … They’re populations that for some reason or another are really on the margins of society … Often times it has to do with their … racial identity, gender, sexual orientation … that we as a society for different reasons place them on the margins … A lot of the work that I try to do is give a voice to some those experiences, so that we can better recognize some of the disparities … challenges … and some of the obstacles in discrimination or oppression that they might experience … But, also … recognize that for all of these populations given what they have to go through in terms of the challenges, the discrimination and the marginalization, they’re populations that despite all of the challenges … are populations with far more resilience … ”

Are you aware of how you treat and view those around you?

He continued by saying, “… My work with them has been to help normalize some of their experiences and externalize that many of the challenges that they face whether it’s youth in foster care … LGBTQ … refugee … migrant youth … are because of the actions and the intolerance of others … The more that we talk about these populations, the more that we give a voice to their experiences, the less stigma and marginalization that we’re going to see …”

Do you stand up for others who cannot stand up for themselves?

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EPISODE HIGHLIGHTS:

• On Marginalized Populations: Groups excluded due to race, religion, age, gender, etc.

• On Advocacy: Stand up for those who cannot stand up for themselves

• On Environment: Focus on finding ways to create accepting environments

• On Relationships: Meet people where they are

How do you stay hopeful in life?

Have you ever wondered what your life would be without hope?

She said, “The idea that scares me the most is the idea that there is no hope … for society … for the world … for our individual selves …”

Hope, a state of mind that helps some, if not most of us, get through life’s toughest moments.

Hope, a state of mind that gives us a reason to believe that our lives will get better.

How do you find hope when you need it the most?

She said, “To me … it’s not an option to feel hopeless …”

How do you stay hopeful in life?

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EPISODE HIGHLIGHTS:

• On Hope: It’s a choice

• On Transparency: Own in knowing who you are

• On Authentic Choices: Provide all possible options 

• On Progress: Learn to reflect on your journey

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Want to Connect with Brooke?

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Filling In the Missing Pieces

Why is “belonging” important to you?

She said, “As humans, when we don't have belonging and community, we are going to constantly crave it … We crave mutual understanding and people that have experienced similar things or have similar belief systems … It’s something that we naturally want for ourselves and when we find it, it can be life-changing … It could set the tone for your life when you have a good support system around you …”

Have you found a group of people that you can count on, no matter what the circumstances may be?

She continued by saying, “Emotionally, there were always some pieces missing … I had a lot of friends, but I didn’t have people that really understood me … During my pregnancy, I lost a lot of friends … After placement, I was still going through a pretty lonely time, but eventually I found a support group in my area in my hometown for birth moms and that kind of made all of the difference … It gave me my first little taste of community, what it meant to have a real supportive community of women … I chased after it … continually … Once I found it, I knew it was real, I knew it was out there waiting for me, so I just kept looking …”

Have you found a place where you belong?

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EPISODE HIGHLIGHTS:

• On Belonging: “As humans, when we don't have belonging and community, we are going to constantly crave it”

• On Community: Surround yourself with people who will support you every step of the way

• On Decisions: Embrace the decisions you’ve made in life

• On People: Seek out people who are likeminded and trustworthy

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Want to Connect with Kelsey?

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Finding MY Tribe

It was hard.

She said, “I always wanted to be a mom … I remember when I was struggling to get pregnant and all of the infertility stuff … Everybody around me because I was hypersensitive to it all, was pregnant or had multiple children … I so wanted to belong to that mother group …”

Have you found your tribe? What are the elements that make up your tribe?

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EPISODE HIGHLIGHTS:

• On Tribe: What are the elements that make up your tribe?

• On Self: Be transparent and authentic

• On Judgment: Don't judge others, as you don’t know the type of struggles people are going through

• On Adversity: There is an opportunity within every challenge

You Are Enough

How do you see yourself?

She said, “I think when we want to belong anywhere, it’s all about being seen … Being seen for who you truly are … As an adoptee … people don’t get to see all of us because we can’t show all of us … There is part of us that is either hidden to us or unknown to us … When we’re looking at how to be seen, its an enigma to us too … When we know we feel like we can belong, it’s because we are confident in being ourselves in the company that we’re in …”

Who are the people that surround you? Do they accept you for the type of person you are today?

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EPISODE HIGHLIGHTS:

• On Belonging: See yourself within other people

• On Community: Surround yourself with people who accept you for who you are

• On Self-Worth: What makes you unique?

• On Purpose: What is the reason for your existence?

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Want to Connect with Tania?

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Who or what are you grateful for?

Who or what are you grateful for?

He said, “… I was at a low point of my life … A lot of things were going wrong … I was in the middle of my second divorce … I was living in a pretty bad apartment … I was working really, really hard … I really felt like I had nothing to be grateful for …”

Have you experienced a similar situation to John’s in your life? If so, what did you do to reverse the situation you were in?

For John Kralik, it all started with changing his environment, going for a long walk on New Year’s Day to reflect on his journey so far.

He said, “I heard a voice … It was an inner voice … It told me that, ‘until I learned to be grateful for the things that I had, I wouldn’t receive all of these things that I wanted’ … When I came down the hill from the mountains that I was climbing that day, I decided to dig out some old notes and to write one thank you note a day … I almost didn't follow through … But, I did …”

Who do you have to thank for helping you become the person that you are today?

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EPISODE HIGHLIGHTS:

• On Belonging: Be grateful for being alive

• On Life: “Why have I been chosen to stay?”

• On Gratitude: Who or what are you grateful for?

• On Life: “We have so much, yet we think we don’t”

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Want to Connect with John?

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The Search for Belonging

Where do you fit in?

Where do people look like you?

Where do people have similar experiences, as you do?

A series of questions that took Angelle Richardson on a journey with no definite timeline for when she may find answers to some or all of her questions.

A series of questions that helped Angelle shape her own identity and determine the type of environment she needed to create for herself.

How often do you take the time to reflect on YOUR OWN definition of belonging? Why is it important for you to belong somewhere?

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EPISODE HIGHLIGHTS:

• On Belonging: Find people that you connect with

• On Identity: Embrace who you are

• On Relationships: Understand your role

• On Human Qualities: What type of qualities are you looking for in people?

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Want to Connect with Angelle?

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