The Transformation of Trauma into Pride: A Conversation on Self-Worth

You know that sinking feeling of being misunderstood and overwhelmed? It's like the whole world has turned its back, leaving you in a pit of self-blame and internal turmoil. I've been there too. My name is Amanda Quick and I invite you to join me in an honest conversation about self-worth, fear, and the quest to find pride amidst the chaos of our collective struggles. 

Ever felt like you had to be 'normal', to fit into this invisible mold society has laid out for us? Well, I've struggled with this too, battling feelings of betrayal and the weight of self-imposed expectations. We're going to navigate through these limiting beliefs, trying to forgive ourselves for not seeing the red flags. Let's embrace the risk, step out of our comfort zones, and disrupt the status quo by tapping into the power of our individuality.

Finally, let's chat about pride—not the kind that precedes a fall, but the kind that comes from gratitude and a positive sense of self. We'll explore how our past traumas can be transformed into things to be proud of. I'll share some personal self-care activities that have helped me find pride in my experiences, my relationships, and even my decision-making process. Let's remember, together, that every hurdle we've overcome, every battle won, deserves recognition and gratitude. Tune in and let's navigate this journey together.

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:36

Hello everyone and welcome back to the Amanda Quick Show. I'm your host, amanda Quick. This episode is going to be perhaps a little bit different than some of the others I've done this far. Last couple of weeks, we've talked a lot about parenting after trauma and some of the previous experiences and current experiences that myself and my kids are going through, but today I want to talk about more of the feeling, not only what happens after we go through big traumatic things, but something I think that most of humanity struggles with and struggles at least off and on, throughout their lifetime Knowing their worth, knowing their value, understanding in some level, their purpose and what makes them tick.

Speaker 1: 1:21

I've been doing a lot of thinking about a lot of these things this week those of you who are listening during the release, it's October of 2023. We've just had the first of a handful of eclipses. There's a lot going on in the world A war has broken out, the economy is in shambles, the housing market, the job market, all of the things. There's a lot of pressure and I find, at least for me, that when there's a lot of collective pressure, a lot of turmoil, it brings up more of these feelings, it brings up more frustrations, it brings up more money, stress, which contributes to feeling worthless. It brings up more identity misunderstanding Maybe you're not happy in your job, maybe you're not happy in your relationships. Whatever it is, it brings up a lot of these fears in us that often stem from all of these places all over, and I'm not immune to this by any means. And this week has been intense. In fact, this is the first time since I've released this podcast that I haven't actually released it earlier and had it do on a schedule. It's nine o'clock in the morning on Saturday and I'm recording because I really wasn't in the headspace to do this before, and that's okay. And the first thing I want to say to everybody is it's okay if there are days where you just don't feel like it. It's okay to take a day off, it's okay to watch Netflix and stay in bed in your PJs. There's nothing wrong with it. It doesn't make you less of a person, it doesn't make you lazy None of those things.

Speaker 1: 2:56

And I know for me, when I'm in an emotional state which doesn't look the same as other people's emotional state, but for me it's usually mostly in my head and I can't connect with other people as well and I'm spinning about things in my head and I'm taking things apart and trying to understand why I feel the way I feel. And there may or may not be crying, there may or may not be external on visual displays of those emotions, but it's definitely happening inside and it's definitely very tumultuous inside my body. And that's really been my experience this week, more so than a lot of other, at least recent experiences, and I think that I'm not alone in that. And I think it's really important for us to recognize, when we're going through stuff like this, that we're not alone. It's not just us and as much as we might feel isolated and we might feel like nobody else could possibly understand, there are a lot of other people experiencing at least versions of what we are. And, in a lot of ways, why I'm recording this podcast and sharing it and sharing my thoughts with you all is so that I can help in whatever way. That is, other people not feel alone. It's why I do a lot of the things that I do. I think it's really, really important that we know that If we spend our whole life isolated and think that everybody else has it figured out but us, well, we're just going to continue to stay separated and if we recognize that other people have similar struggles, it might be an invitation to open up to something else.

Speaker 1: 4:36

And now, at least for me and, I imagine, anybody who falls on the more introverted spectrum when I'm struggling, I don't want to talk to anybody. Don't touch me, don't talk to me. I can't even hardly look at other people and I can fake it yes, and some people are better at this than others but I really don't want to talk to people. In fact, my husband said to me yesterday he's like I think I can tell when you've come out of it, because you'll actually look at me. It's like I wasn't. I think I was looking at you before. He's like, yeah, you were, but not in the way you normally do, and it's because I'm in my head and so I'm not looking outside, I'm not looking externally, I'm really focused on whatever I'm chewing in my mind.

Speaker 1: 5:18

And so those of us who are introverted in that way, we do need the space and time to figure it out. We do need the introspection time and we need to not be feeling like that's a wrong thing. We need to not be feeling like, if we're, you know, taking the time for ourselves that we're pushing out the outside world, as long as we allow ourselves to come back out of it. But I know for me, when I'm in that place, I don't really want other people. I really don't want suggestions or help or people who think they're going to fix it. I don't want any of that. I want to figure it out and I want to figure out why I feel the way I feel. And if there's a shift that I need to make, I want to know what it is, but I want it to come from me. I don't know that everybody is quite this stubborn, but I certainly am, and this was true this week. I had a lot of people reaching out with similar experiences. But in order for me to actually get out of it, I had to find the thing, and thankfully I did.

Speaker 1: 6:21

Yesterday I went for a float, which is my one of my favorite self care activities. Not everybody enjoys these, but I think they're the bees knees. Truthfully, it's a sensory deprivation float tank where you're put in a pod that's total darkness, total silence, and you're in a body of water with it's very, very salted, and so you float. So you float so much that you basically can fall asleep. You're very, very buoyant. So there's no gravity, there's no sound, there's no light, complete sensory deprivation, and it's one of the only places that I can actually shut my mind off, and so I really, I really like it, and I also find that I get a lot of space to chew things apart and to figure out what's going on and to kind of pull out some of that noise. And some people also find that it can help amplify other areas which can be helpful for them as well, and so if you've never tried it, I certainly encourage you if that's kind of sounds like it would be appealing to you. But for me that's what helped me get to the place that I needed to be, where I can actually sit here and record this for you all this morning.

Speaker 1: 7:35

But this week not just did worth come up, but this, this at least for me, this belief that my my value was primarily in my ability to provide, my ability to see my ability, my ability to make the right choice. And it was interesting that this was wrapped up into a bunch of different pieces, but I had this, this belief running that I had to know all pieces to a puzzle. I had to know everything there was to know about a situation before I could act or put together, and I could never step out and and lead other people because I didn't know everything. And while it sounds silly to say it out loud, yes, I think that a lot of people who have been betrayed or blindsided might have a piece of this. They might feel like I never want to be betrayed again, I never want to be blindsided again, I never want to not know something and be hurt like that, and and at least for me, it wasn't even so much my own pain that I was afraid of. It was other people being hurt because I didn't know something, and they were followed me or they were connected to me, you know, and in this, in this experience, it's that's my children and not wanting to make moves, in a way, because if I made the wrong choice, then they could be impacted, and they could be impacted in a negative way, and I that was.

Speaker 1: 9:05

I was just unwilling, unwilling to do that, and so, rather than find something that I was passionate about or make any decisions or step out and do anything, I was just gonna sit and the word that came to me was just be normal. I was just gonna be normal and not, you know, have a, have a normal job, have a normal life, and that could be enough, and for a lot of people that is enough, at least for me. That made me feel sad. It made me feel sad to know that I have all of this information and and this understanding and this abilities to heal and to grow and to ask questions, and have not a way to share it with other people because it was too scary.

Speaker 1: 9:48

And so, as I kind of sat with all of that, I would go back and forth in my, in my emotional state, I would go back and forth in the stories I was telling myself, I would go back and forth in all of these various pieces with with feeling complete, like despair, complete, just very sad that there was that I didn't have a, I didn't have an answer, I didn't have any answer to how to put this together, in a way, because I was never gonna have all the information, it was impossible and and yet I had this high expectation of myself that I should, I should, and I don't know about any of you all, but I know for me one of the hardest beliefs to unravel when you get blindsided like this and when you, you know, somebody that you're with, turns out to be a different person entirely. Everything that you believe to be true about not just you, but about the environment around you and the people around you, turns out to be false. For me, it was this, this how did I not know? How did I not see it? I have such a high expectation of me and and my intelligence and my knowledge that I would beat myself up because I missed it and then I would look back and go well, there were signs right there. It was so many red flags We've talked about those red flags before on this, on this show and there were so many. How did I, how did I excuse those away? How did I Like, how did I do that?

Speaker 1: 11:16

And it was very much a judgment of self because of my belief of who I am, and I should be better than that, I should know better than that, and I hold such high expectations of me, even when I can forgive. I can forgive my abuser, I can forgive people who've hurt me, I can forgive collectives and systems that I disagree with, even because of they're operating from a place of their own trauma. They're operating from a place of lack of understanding or whatever it is. I can forgive so many other people, but I had a really, really hard time letting this last piece go for myself, because my expectations for me are higher and it's, of course, to unpack that. It's basically saying you're better than other people, and I don't think that's true either. I don't actually think I'm better than the other people. I don't think there's any hierarchy of under of any of it, and yet I still was holding myself to a higher standard.

Speaker 1: 12:14

And so, as I'm unraveling all of this and I'm looking at the reasons and the whys and I'm looking at lifetimes, I'm looking at all of these various places in my experiences that this is showing up, I'm having these, these waves of deep sadness, deep pain, places and times where people have followed me and have been hurt, places where that level of despair has caused me to to literally give up, and I'm looking at that and I'm feeling these waves of emotion, knowing that the vast majority of it isn't even my own, it isn't even my direct experience. It's pieces that I'm picking up about what's happening in the world right now, because we are replaying in the world so much of this turmoil, of this despair, of this trauma, and I'm looking at this and I'm like just my body is, is, is receiving it and transmuting it, and yet I don't know how to get out of it. And I don't know about you, but once I get down in that hole is really hard to claw yourself out. And you know, I'm so grateful for the space and the understanding of the people in my life to allow me that space, and I have so much freedom of time and I have so much. I have so many people who I can reach out to when I'm, when I'm ready for that or when I'm looking for a perspective that I believe they might have. And my husband will gladly give me the space and you know he knows that I will come out of it and when I, when I, when I do, I will talk about it. But before that, I don't really want his help, I don't really want his insights, because I really just want to sit in it. I want to sit in it and I want to feel it and I want to wallow in it and and I don't want to bypass it. And this place where you get to, where it feels like everything, like there's no point, everything is worthless, everything is, is just a despair, it's, it's total, it's the it's.

Speaker 1: 14:13

I think the moment that some people get to where they do give up and they don't find a way out and they don't have somebody either reaching out or they don't think anybody wants to, and even feeling a little bit of that for just a moment gives me so much. Just my heart breaks for the people who go down that darkness and never come out, because even a piece of it is really really really hard to feel. And I also think the level of understanding and compassion that those of us who've touched it can have and hold and help those other people out of it. And at least for me, I don't, I don't stay there for very long and I don't, I don't never come out, but I do need to feel it and I need to let myself go there so that I can feel the the intensity of it. And it's been a long time since I've had that level of emotions.

Speaker 1: 15:08

But thankfully I was able to pick all of these pieces up and what I want to share with you all next is what actually brought me out of it, because I think it's important to not just know that somebody else has been there, not just know that other people have felt the way you have felt and even if you can't imagine that they could feel as bad as you or in any in any shape of that but not just. Not just that they're there with you, but that they've built a pathway to come to the other side. And to me, this is the value of sharing this whole story with you all is to to get to the understanding that I am now here today because, just as just as my story of what I went through and how I overcame it, my goal is to help everybody out there, if you're feeling this, to maybe find a thread to follow and to pull yourself out and to get to the point where you're doing a little better than you were yesterday and maybe there's an opportunity to reach out to somebody in a way you couldn't yesterday. And so for me, I was sitting with all of these pieces, all of this belief that I needed to know everything in order to take action. I needed to know the outcome before I could move, and I needed to do so in order to not get hurt myself and not have anybody connected to me get hurt, and I could never step out and do anything I was excited by. I couldn't live in passion, I couldn't live purposeful, I couldn't be excited because I didn't really know what was coming, when's the next shoe gonna drop? And I've had this feeling time and time again and so, rather than sit in fear, I just said, well, let's just not bother, let's just hide, let's just be normal, let's just try to find joy in the mundane. And I use that word because that's really what it felt like. There's nothing wrong with people who really truly enjoy quiet life and peaceful life. There's absolutely nothing wrong with that. And I honestly, I'm a little bit envious of you because I don't know that I'll ever be somebody who can enjoy that. It's just not how I'm wired. I've never been wired to be quiet. I've never been wired to not be connected to others.

Speaker 1: 17:32

Since I was a kid, I came out very loud, very excited, wanting to be center stage, and I have, if anything, done the opposite of that until recently. And the last part of actually stepping out there has just been met with this internal struggle, this internal challenge. And so, sitting with all of that, sitting with all of the reasons and the whys, sitting with how this was feeling in my body and what it was bringing. I was actually even experiencing physical sensations. I was having neck pain and headaches and then the other side of my body had this huge knot in my shoulder and I was going to the chiropractor and trying to get massages and trying to move that body sensations. Even knowing that a good majority of it was energetic, I still had to feel it. I had to feel horrible. I had to experience all of these pieces so that I could pick it all up and kind of make it in this ball, and what I was doing essentially was trying to get everything that was causing me this feeling into one energetic piece so that I could completely contain it. And I could contain it and make it into something else.

Speaker 1: 18:44

And this is the beauty of energy work, this is the beauty of hard lessons, this is the beauty of, in my opinion, the beauty of these traumatic experiences that are so, so challenging. If we can find the lesson and the learning and the beauty and the gratitude in our trauma, in the pain, in the suffering, in the betrayals, all of a sudden it becomes something else. It gets transmuted and transformed into something that we're actually proud of. And so the way what came to me in this float tank yesterday was not that I needed to know everything, not that I needed to find, you know, to muster up some passion or purpose or excitement, not that I needed to put on a mask or pretend to be happy, and not that I needed to just go off and be normal either, but that what I actually needed to do was to transform all of these things that I'm doing into something that I'm proud of, and to focus on pride in self. To focus on pride of my experiences, pride of my choices, all the way from my appearance to the people who are choosing to walk beside me and find the pride in that experience and the moment I shifted my energy to think about pride specifically, everything started to fit different.

Speaker 1: 20:17

And when I have experiences like this, where everything starts to shift, I know that this is an important piece for me. I know that something about this really, really matters and I need to pay attention and I need to feel it and I need to let the shifting happen and I need to look at all of these ways that the universe has been trying to tell me this. In fact, I read a story recently on the internet about Pride itself and I remember thinking how cool of a story this was. And yet I missed the message there, because a lot of what I've been doing over the last little while has been rest and recovery, which is really, really important. But I've kind of fallen off the wagon in a lot of other areas. You know, I bought a new treadmill. I was very excited, but I haven't been running every day. I don't always even fully get out of my PJs every day because I don't want to and I don't always have pride in what I'm putting out into the world because I just can't muster up the energy to care.

Speaker 1: 21:26

And I think it's really important it was, at least for me, really important for me to see that if I'm not having pride in what I'm doing, then it's not worth doing, and that's not, there's nothing wrong with it. But focusing on the things that do make me proud, focusing on the relationships that I'm proud of, focusing on the outputs and the experiences that I'm proud of, that's what's worth doing, at least right now. And when I look at things like my story that I've been sharing in various platforms, and I look at my book, I'm proud of that. I'm proud that I was able to transmute that experience and find gratitude in it and that the person I've become today is so much different than the person that went through that, and that's something I am proud of. And I'm proud of my children for how they've handled this experience and the growth and understanding they've had.

Speaker 1: 22:16

And I'm proud of the fact that my children adore me. My eight, 11 and 13 year old are more connected to me than they almost ever were beyond, perhaps, babyhood, and they would pretty much follow me anywhere and sometimes walking around the house. It seems like they do. I've got between the dog and the kids. I can't go into a room without a track of people and I'm not upset by that. I'm proud of it. I'm proud that my children adore me because it means I'm doing. I'm doing something right and they and they are connected to me in a positive way. I'm proud of my ability to take care of my family.

Speaker 1: 22:55

I'm proud of the fact that I can create these manifestations when I'm when I'm feeling down or when I'm struggling to make sense of safety and security. I'm proud of the fact that I got out of that situation the way that I did and I've turned my life around in a new way. I'm proud of the fact that I was able to find a job that pays for my life and my kids' lives and established a new level of safety that we didn't have before. I'm proud of quite a lot of things, and when I sit in that energy and the things that that I'm really, really prideful of, and I sit in the things that I want to put out into the world, what I want to put out into the world isn't to be center stage, isn't to have all of this recognition or understanding, it's not to be a leader, it's not to even have passion, but what I want to put out into the world is something that I'm proud of. I want to hold the level of pride for myself, my experiences, my relationships, my choices. That's what I actually need to focus on and that's what shifted me out of this depressed sadness. Interestingly enough, that's what actually got me to crawl out of this hole and go okay, that's something I can do, that the things that I'm not as proud of, the ways that I've been behaving or acting or not taking action I can look at those and go okay. That's why that's not working. That's why I've been feeling the way I've been feeling and just like a lot of people tell us to focus on gratitude.

Speaker 1: 24:32

Pride is something that we can focus on differently, because it's actually it's gratitude for self, it's an internal validation, it's an internal level of self-worth. It's the things that we've accomplished, we've created, it's the effort that we've put into. Whatever it is we're doing that we have something to show for. And even if it's just I'm proud of the fact that I got up and I kept the kids alive and I made my bed and I cooked dinner great, that is something to be to have pride in, and pride in how you show up every day, and pride in the fact that maybe you don't always respond the way you want to, but that you reflect on it and you apologize when somebody gets hurt. That's still something to have pride in. Pride in the way you show up every day allows not just the level of gratitude for the experience, but it allows us to see ourselves as worthy, as valuable and as ever growing and changing. It gives grace to the fact that this is something that we're still always working on.

Speaker 1: 25:41

It's not just one and done. It would be a lot less prideful if we could just wake up tomorrow and have everybody has a million dollars in the bank account. Everybody has the perfect relationship and the perfect whatever. We wouldn't actually have pride in that. In the same way, we might feel good in a moment, we might have a breath of fresh air and our nervous systems calm down, but we wouldn't actually think we accomplished anything. We would be handed something, and I don't know about you all, but at least for me, I need to be part of the creation. I need to be the one co-creating with another person, with the universe, to do something, to build something, to create something, and for me that creation brings pride. The effort that I put in the challenges I've faced brings me pride to know that I, when faced, even in adversity, I came out the other side, or I grew or I learned or I changed in some way, and that I'm proud of who I am today. And then that that is something worth spending time on, worth considering and worth putting effort into, is creating a life that I have pride in and, I think, everybody out there in the world.

Speaker 1: 27:02

If we all focused on creating a life that we had pride in, that we felt proud to call our own, this creation, this reality that we were living in, we understood the amount of effort we put into it. We understood that we were co-creating with others and that we intentionally created exactly what we set out to create, and perhaps even better, because a lot of times the universe liked to throw us amazing curveballs. We weren't expecting, but we still had a hand in it and we still had to take action. We still had to do and to ask and to take those steps towards this life we want and that once we get to the other side, it's not that we're done, but we can have a pride in the accomplishments we've had thus far, and usually we have new ideas and new possibilities of things that we want to create. It's a never-ending creation process and that's the beauty of living on planet earth is that it never ends. We get to have pride in our children. We get to have pride in the life that we want to live. We get to have pride in our communities, the lessons and the learnings and the understandings and the growth and the evolution.

Speaker 1: 28:22

And if everybody out there focused on creating a life that they had pride in, creating relationships that they were proud of, creating whatever work experience, job, income that made them feel really proud to say this is who I am and this is what I've created, instead of meeting somebody and saying, hi, my name is Amanda and I'm director of IT. If I could say, hi, my name is Amanda and I'm really proud of everything I've created Like cool, that feels different. And then they say, oh wow, what have you done? And I could tell them I'm proud of my relationships with my children, I'm proud to be their mom. I'm proud of the way that I have shown up in my life. I'm proud of the experiences that I have and how I've overcome them and I'm proud of what I've done with those lessons and learnings so far and I'm really excited about what I'm going to create in the future.

Speaker 1: 29:22

That's the way that I want to be introduced. I want to sit with others and I want to say I'm really proud and I want to be even prouder and I want to do it with more people and I want to co-create something together. Pride Pride in our experiences, pride in the life that we're living, pride in how we've overcome, pride in everything that we're doing allows us to not just have gratitude but to keep going. Gratitude can be a reflection and a presence, and that's really important, yes, but pride allows us to continue to build upon to understand there's more. I'm very proud to be sharing this with you all today. Thank you, lots of love everyone.