A Time to Heal | A Healing Journey
This episode of the podcast is all about healing. We will explore the journey of being the first in your family to choose to heal, the triggers that can come up along the way, and the importance of being patient with yourself and giving yourself grace.
We will discuss how to recognize and manage triggers, how to be kind to yourself during the healing process, and how to find the courage to keep going. We will also talk about the importance of having a support system and how to create one if you don't have one.
Finally, we will discuss the power of self-care and how it can help you on your healing journey. Join us as we explore the journey of healing and how to make it a positive experience.
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Episode 3 Transcript
Speaker 1 00:00:03 Hey y'all. Welcome to Mindfully Yours. I'm your host Ajah, and on this show we talk about all things mindfulness, wellness, loving ourselves, and the journey to showing up authentically as who we are in this crazy world. This podcast is a safe space where we can vibe and chill and chat for a minute about real stuff to help you heal, grow, and evolve into the person you are meant to be in this life. Thank you for being here and I hope y'all can feel all the love and hugs. I am sending you away. Welcome to Mindfully yours. Let's go ahead and get into it. Welcome back to Mindfully Yours, episode three. I'm so glad to be back with y'all. Today we are talking all things healing. Whew. Healing is such a hot topic right now. It's almost become super cliche to say, I'm healing and I'm growing, I'm evolving, I'm working all me.
Speaker 1 00:01:17 For me, healing can be scary, it can be lonely. It is an up and down rollercoaster, y'all. And I know you've heard the term, that whole saying, healing is not linear, and in fact it is not. It's also, like I said, it's a journey that sometimes we walk alone. Sometimes a lot of us are the first in our family to drop the baggage of hurt and pain and drama and step out and heal, heal ourselves, heal our lineage. I made the decision for myself to let go of the baggage I was carrying. And from personal experience, y'all, I have a lot of family. Majority of my family carries so much hurt and so much pain with them. And for me, I wanted to be different. I was tired of being a bag lady, y'all. I wanted to let go of that pain and that hurt.
Speaker 1 00:02:27 I wore like my hurt, like it was a badge of honor. And some people do the same thing as what I was doing. It was like, I'm hurt. I carry my trauma. They broke my heart. Let everybody know that this trauma is me. I am the trauma. You almost become the trauma. The trauma becomes you and you almost accept it and you're okay with that. And it was my decision to let that go. , I call myself a black sheep cuz I'm so different than everybody else in my family. I, I do things a little different than anybody in my family. I'm oftentimes, I'm the first to do something and I'm okay with that. That's cool, that's cool by me. And on this healing journey, when I started a few years back, I told my mom, I said, mom, I'm I'm, I'm gonna go to a therapist and y'all wanna know what she said to me. She said, but, but you're not crazy. Only crazy people go to therapists. I said, , mama, mom, I'm not crazy. I'm just trying to work through my traumas. I'm trying to be a better person.
Speaker 1 00:03:46 So I'm sure a lot of y'all have a familiar kind of story like mine. I've been through a lot. And this healing journey has been a rough, but the first step that I took in healing was recognizing that I was carrying the pain, recognizing that I was wearing the trauma and giving myself permission to heal. Now when I say that I recognized the pain and the trauma that I was holding onto, it was the things that I carried into each and every relationship. It was like, whoop, let me get this lack of trust. Let me pull this garbage bag right on into this relationship. I ain't gonna trust you because that last person, they messed me up bad. So you get the remnants of what happened with that relationship or it was, oh, I don't, I don't really love myself too much. So I'm gonna carry that around and show the whole world my lack of love for myself.
Speaker 1 00:04:50 It was like I had these different stamps all over my body that said she doesn't love herself, she doesn't feel worthy. She's been hurt. They broke her heart. It's like I was walking around naked but I wasn't naked cuz I had all these different pain things that hurt me, labeling me. I had to give myself permission to heal and wipe away those labels from myself to become Aja again and ease myself into accepting the pain of what happened. Woo. And Lord knows that is one of the toughest parts, is accepting what happened and its impact that it had in my life. When you look back at your traumas, the pain, the moments that really broke you, you can kind of see a trickle effect in different areas of your life where it's affected you. And I tell, um, everybody often I was diagnosed with anxiety a few years back and I affectionately call it the anxiety now cause I don't claim it as my own.
Speaker 1 00:06:12 But it came out of nowhere, I will say. And all of a sudden I was fearful of speaking to people. Like I couldn't pick up a phone, I couldn't carry a conversation cuz my fight or flight mode would kick in and be overactivated. Now I can't pinpoint the exact trauma that caused that in my life, but I know that came from something. So I'm not sure what trauma it came from, but I just knew that it existed. So I knew that some form of issue within my life trickled its way into my adulthood, into the way I maneuvered and had a negative impact on my growth. It stunted my growth and I had to free myself. I had to call my power back. I had to release a lot of baggage and allow myself to lead a more positive life. I recognize that I wasn't gonna be the best person I could possibly be, this life without healing and letting go. And as you're maneuvering that space, I encourage you to offer yourself self-compassion, grace, kindness, be gentle with you. And when you look back at those traumas, those pains that hurt, the things have broke you down. Look at yourself affectionately as someone that was just learning. Look y'all, we are all having a human experience. We're not always gonna get everything right. We're not perfect.
Speaker 1 00:08:11 We're always gonna try our best. But when you look back at those pains and those decisions, and let me tell you, when I look back, I used to cringe at a lot of decisions I made. It used to hurt that a lot of the decisions I made were out of the lack of love I had for myself. The lack of understanding of my worth. It used to hurt me and I used to beat myself up for allowing myself to make those decisions. But y'all, I was just learning and so were you. You were doing the best that you could in the situation that you were given. So offer yourself the same kindness you would offer a friend asking for advice and help in that situation.
Speaker 1 00:09:05 I encourage you to be patient in the process. Just like any relationship you work at. The relationship with you yourself should be just as important. And part of that relationship to yourself is healing and recognizing the part you've played in your traumas and meeting yourself with love. When you recognize that, I think it's important that no matter how difficult the healing journey is, that you recognize how strong you are for taking the step to heal and not sitting in that pain and that hurt. So really be proud of yourself for taking this step to heal and move forward in your life. Lean in to what you find is your support system and from person to person that can look really different. For me, it's my family, it's my wife, and I also keep my therapist in my back pocket. So those moments where I'm feeling extremely overwhelmed, extremely triggered, I'm really quick to call up my therapist and set up a zoom call, set up an appointment so that she can walk me through and talk me through getting through my trigger and coming back down to earth.
Speaker 1 00:10:31 So lean into the people that are closest to you, those friends, those family, your therapist. There's in-person support groups, there's online support groups. There's so much out there for you to find that support. And I encourage you to find that space as you maneuver your healing journey. Also, remember to support yourself through self-care and being kind with yourself. Self-care, taking the time to really self-reflect and take a moment to collect yourself and express gratitude for how far you've come in your journey. For myself, I spent a lot of time journaling and reflecting on a lot of things. Asja from 10 years ago, ASJA from five years ago. Or I'll even asked very self-reflective questions that are in the now, in the moment are working and managing through my feelings on paper. I call it like a ward vomit. Writing out my feelings on paper helps it to get out of my head and onto paper so that heavy emotion is no longer within me.
Speaker 1 00:11:35 I also take the moment to go back and look at journal entries to see how far I've come. It's, it makes me so proud of myself to go through my journals and see the writings are starting to shift. The gratitude is starting to be expressed. The forgiveness is there. It's such a beautiful thing to see the growth that I'm going through. And I don't want you to look at healing as a negative experience. No matter how hard it is. It's a positive experience cuz you're taking a huge step towards betting on yourself, improving your life, owning who you're meant to be in this life. And instead of sitting in a low place, you're rising. You're taking your power back When you heal, like think about that. When you heal, you are taking your power back from whatever hurt you, whatever trauma that occurred, whatever that person said, whatever that person did, you're taking your power back from that moment. So own that power and look at healing as a positive experience. No matter how the triggers make you feel. Honor those emotions that the trigger makes you feel. Then reflect on the fact that you are owning your power. You are stepping back into your power and you are becoming who you are called to be because you're deciding to let go and move forward in your life and that is beautiful. Be patient with yourself in those moments where you're feeling, ugh, this pain feels so familiar. Just breathe.
Speaker 1 00:13:15 Recognize that your body, whatever sensations you're feeling in that moment, when you're feeling triggered, if your shoulders tenses up, if you clinch your fists, if your body is all the way tense, if your heartbeat starts racing, if you start to feel yourself shake, take a moment to reconnect with yourself, connect with your breath. Just breathe in that moment and reconnect and recognize that yes, you're still healing, you are still having your human experience and you're working through it. As we maneuver a space of healing and becoming who we're meant to be in this life, look at the ways that your life starts to change as you drop those bags off that you've carried for so long. Watch your life shift in different ways. Watch who you become as you heal.
Speaker 1 00:14:27 So I ask you, what steps are you taking to heal? What are you going to do that your future self will thank you for? Have you met yourself with kindness and gentleness for the choices and decisions you've made in the past? Are you ready to let go of the baggage that you've been carrying for so long? Are you ready to give yourself permission to heal? As we close today, I wanna share some affirmations with y'all, but I just wanna first start with all of us taking a deep breath in and out. Healing can be so, so heavy. Just relax for a moment. Release your shoulders from your ears, unclench your jaw.
Speaker 1 00:15:38 Relax your hands, relax your toes, relax your face. Remove your tongue from the roof of your mouth. Take a moment to scan your body and see if you're holding tension anywhere. Start from your head to your shoulders, to your stomach, to your legs, all the way down to your toes. And if you're feeling any tension, just relax. Release that tension, let it go. Breathe it out if you need to. And when you're ready, join me. As I say these affirmations, I allow myself to move slowly through this healing journey and take my time. I have the power to change my story. I love myself fully, even the parts I once judged and neglected because all of me is worthy of love. I forgive those who have harmed me in the past and peacefully detach from them. It's okay if all I do today is just breathe. Say these affirmations as much as you need to as you maneuver throughout your day and along your healing journey as you heal. I'm with you. I see you. We are on this journey together. That's our show for this week. Thank you for listening. You can find all the resources and links from this episode in the show notes. And if you enjoyed this episode, which I know that you did drop a rating and review, let the people know how much you enjoyed it. And then go ahead and follow us on Instagram at Soul Sista Botanica. We'll see y'all next time. Peace.
