Finding Hope After Trauma with Susan Snow

A single phone call changed Susan’s life—and the lights of a dozen police cars made sure she never forgot it. Years later, after moving states and starting a family, one headline cracked open everything she thought she’d buried. What followed wasn’t a return to the past but the beginning of real healing: naming PTSD, finding the right therapist, and building a practical way forward that didn’t depend on white‑knuckling through the day.

We walk through the moments that mattered: how an early, shallow round of therapy taught her to wear the “I’m fine” mask, why comparison keeps so many people stuck, and how “stackable trauma” can weigh as much as a single catastrophic event. Susan explains the big domino idea—treat the root wound so the symptoms lose their fuel—and shares the tools that actually help under stress, from body awareness to boundaries. We also unpack a simple morning gratitude practice that doesn’t sugarcoat pain; it shifts your nervous system toward steadiness so taking the next hard step—calling a therapist, asking for help, saying no—feels possible.

If you’ve ever wondered whether your pain “counts,” this conversation is for you. Trauma is personal, and healing is, too. You’ll learn how to interview for a trauma‑competent therapist, why a coach can map the future while therapy heals the past, and how to build a team that makes progress sustainable. Along the way, Susan offers resources, hope, and a reminder that support is closer than you think—988 is available if things feel unmanageable.

Listen for a grounded blend of story and strategy, plus a clear call to reclaim your power from what hurt you. If the episode speaks to you, share it with someone who needs it, subscribe for more honest conversations, and leave a review to help others find these tools.

Transcript

Welcome & Susan’s Mission

SPEAKER_00 0:12

Hello there, everyone, and welcome back to the next episode of Overcome Yourself the podcast. As you know, my name is Nicole, and I'm so excited to be here today with Susan. And Susan is she specializes in healing after trauma. But before I butcher what you do, I'm gonna go ahead and hand it off to you, Susan. Please introduce yourself and tell us a little bit about who you are and who you help.

The Night Everything Changed

Aftermath, Silence, And Isolation

Ineffective Therapy And The Mask Of “I’m Fine”

SPEAKER_01 0:40

Sure, absolutely. Um, well, my name is Susan Snow. I am a trauma resiliency coach, uh, which means that for some people that have already gone through some kind of trauma therapy with a therapist, a professional, um, and they're still feeling kind of stuck because they're a different person now. Um, that's where I come into play. I help you create a map moving forward and help you to kind of redefine and change mindset a little bit. Um, because even though we're we're healing from trauma, we still have some self-doubt and some self-talk that is not exactly positive all the time. So that's where I kind of come into play. I'm also a speaker. Um, I've spoken on stages and many podcasts. Um, and I am an author of a book called The Other Side of the Gun: My Journey from Trauma to Resiliency. That book actually was uh born out of a trauma that I experienced at 17. Um, my dad was an LAPD detective, and he was um investigating. He was a lead investigator on a case, and on October 31st, 1985, I was 17. I had a six-year-old brother at the time, and that Halloween, he went to go um testify. Um, the men that he was testifying against um planned out his death. So that night I was home trying to get ready for a party that I was gonna schmooze my parents to go to. And uh the plan was dad was gonna pick up my brother from school and come home. And um, and then the schmoozing would entail. Um I didn't get that chance. Uh, as I was getting ready, the phone rang, and uh my mom was home. I ran to the phone and picked up the phone, and it was a lady from my brother's school, and all she said was that there was a drive-by shooting and my dad was involved. At that point, my mom walked into the room and I handed her the phone really quickly and tried to listen in to the conversation, but all I had to do was watch her body language, and I knew it was bad. She got off the phone and came to me and said, We're going to the school. So we went to the school, we drove there. It was evening time. By the time we got there, it was after five o'clock, so it was dark, and my uh mom parked in the middle parking lot, and we headed to the back of the school, which is where the kids got out after school care. As we got there, it was like daylight because there were so many police cars and the lights were lighting up the sky. There was an ambulance that sat in the street, and my mom and I caught an eye of my dad's truck. So we started to run towards the truck. As we got closer, we saw glass on the ground and rounded the corner, and there he was, partially covered up. At that point, I watched my mom drop to her knees and start screaming. And I stood in the street totally frozen, not being able to comprehend what I was looking at. So, what I ended up doing is focusing, hyper-focusing on that ambulance. And my head kept saying, Why isn't anybody helping him? Some police officers pretty quickly came over to us and escorted us back into the school and to an office where I sat down and they took my mom aside. As I was sitting there just trying to comprehend everything that was going on, and there was a lot of chaos that night, I could overhear two ladies talking in the um office that they worked there. And the one lady said to the other that my dad was deceased. And in that moment, that's where my world crashed. I my instinct was I wanted to get up off of that chair and run out of that room and run as far as I could from the situation, but my body felt like it was made of cement and I couldn't move. Um I just sat there trying to navigate all of these different emotions that were happening all at once when my mom came up to me and she said, I'm sending you with a neighbor. And I know that at that very moment that I wanted to run out of that room, but I was also a 17-year-old kid that needed to be with her family. And unfortunately, I didn't get that chance. I went to the neighbor's house, and the poor neighbor was, I mean, she had known our family for many years, and she was trying to comprehend everything that was going on in her, you know, with as an adult. And here she has his his daughter just completely inconsolable. I was dating um a guy at that time who was 19, and we'd only been dating three months, and I just begged for him. I just wanted her to call him, and she did. She called him at work and um he showed up. He showed up and he was ready to go. Like he didn't understand. Uh, she did not give him a lot of information. So when he rolled up, he said, Grab your purse, let's go. What hospital is he at? Where's your mom? Where's your brother? And I couldn't spit out the words. I just I couldn't do it. And it wasn't until he was getting a little more persistent as to leave, I um I blurted it out. He's gone. And he said, What do you mean he's gone? And I said, He's not at a hospital, he's gone. And I watched him drop to his knees and start sobbing. So both of us were just trying to comprehend everything that was going on. Um, my neighborhood was filled with police officers. Um, the media had ascended because this was a big story at the time. And I as I went home, I didn't recognize anyone that was in my house. Um, I had total strangers in my house. And being a kid that I was, I didn't want to deal with anyone. So I ran straight to my room and hid. Um, it was the only thing that I could do at that moment. See, back then in the mid-80s, there wasn't talk about mental health, and there were no resources for kids, especially with uh LAPD at the time. They had systems in place to support the widows and the widowers, but not a whole lot for the kids. And so um as I was there in my room, I just uh my my husb my boyfriend left, and as he left, I could hear people talking to him. And I just I just stayed where I was um in total shock, not knowing how to navigate that emotion. Um and I I didn't even wake up, I I didn't go to sleep that night. I just looked out my window and saw that it was sunlight. I had heard my brother overnight so crying, and I so I knew that he was okay physically. My dad had saved his life that night. And so I didn't get to see him until the morning. Um it was about 11 a.m., I think. And I was able to hug him and tell him I loved him and tell him that we were gonna get through this. Um it was a very difficult, crazy time because it didn't it took them six days to find the men involved. And unbeknownst to us, we were targets as well. So that police presence stayed in my in my yard, both backyard and front yard, for six days. I had bodyguards. So I went from having this normal teenage life to this. Um and I didn't know how to, I didn't know what was happening to me. I lived in a fog, I wasn't sleeping, I had deep depression. Um, because my dad was also my safe space, I had a lot of anxiety and a lot of panic attacks. But again, I didn't understand what was going on. To me, it felt like I was going crazy and I was out of control. And it wasn't for about a month after everything kind of died down that LAPD said to my mom that they were gonna pay for some therapy for all three of us. So at the time, I I thought, you know, being a kid at that time, I thought, well, if you go to a therapist, you must be nuts. I mean, that was just the mindset. Um, but I was also in a mindset of like living in this fog. And if you pushed me in a certain direction, I just went that direction. I had no advocacy for myself. I I was afraid to verbalize what was going on because I thought they would throw me in a loony bin and not come back. Um, so I did when my mom voluntold me that I was going to therapy. That's what I did. And I, in hindsight, this man that I saw, he did not want to dip his toes in the weeds at all. Um, I don't think in hindsight he was trauma competent nor informed. Um, and so I think he was almost afraid to ask certain questions that would open that up. So I um, and and again, I didn't know how to verbalize it myself. So when I went to see him, our sessions were very shallow. They were very uh general, and we basically only talked about my relationship with my mom, my boyfriend, my relationship with my brother and school. That's it. And every week I saw this man for an entire year, I kept thinking, today's the day. Today's gonna help me feel better. And every day I walked out of there not feeling any better. After a year, he looked at me and said, Susan, you're a well-rounded young lady. You're gonna be fine for the rest of your life, and I don't need to see you anymore. I literally walked out of his office thinking, okay, that's it. I've snapped, I've cracked, I'm crazy. This is something I'm just gonna have to deal with myself. And, you know, even my mom at the time, she had kind of turtled in. Um, a lot of the the focus was on my brother and my mother, and so be it. You know, I understand why, but I also got pushed aside. And from the night of being sent away to that time, I felt like I was not important in the scenario. So I created this emotional mask based on what people would say to me, which was, oh Susan, you're so brave. Oh, Susan, you're so strong. And so I thought, okay, without anyone seeing the turmoil that's going on inside of me, I'm just gonna put that facade out. That's gonna be my mask that I'm gonna hide behind. And I did. I did that uh for 14 years of my life. I lived in fight, flight, or freeze. I when people came to me trying to support me, I pushed them away. I said, you know, this is my burden, this is not yours. I can handle this, I'm fine. I hate that word. I'm fine. Um and and I lived, I lived like that. I in hindsight, that kept me from really seeing things for who what they really are. Um, I was a total people pleaser. I molded myself to be what people needed instead of who I truly was. And that was because I was unhealed and undiagnosed, and I didn't know how to um, I didn't know really how to be myself because I didn't know who that was. And um I married that boyfriend, we're still together almost 40 years, which is crazy to say. Um, and we had two kids, and we decided to relocate to Colorado from Southern California, and at that point I was ready to kind of put that part of my life aside. It it needed to stay in California, which, ha ha, funny thing for me, right? Um and so when we moved to Colorado, I didn't tell anyone who I was, what my story was, nothing. And I was working as a hairdresser. I worked at a salon that was very close to Littleton, Colorado. And um, I was working on April 20th, 1999. Um, I put a client under the uh dryer and walked into the back to take a break, turned on the TV, and up popped the Columbine shootings in real life. Like I had a visceral reaction. I started having flashbacks. I saw the school, the lights, the fireman, the all the things. But remember, I was told I was gonna be fine for the rest of my life. So everything that was happening to me in that very moment, I had no idea what was happening. I felt like I was spiraling, I was going into a panic, panic attack, and I knew I was turned white as a ghost. And my colleague came over to me and she was totally confused. And she's just like, I don't understand what's going on with you. What's what's happening? You're too young to have kids at that school, and I know you don't live around there, so what is happening to you? And I was like, I don't know. I don't know. I can't answer that question. And so when she left the room, I did what I always do. I put that mask back on. I went out, I finished my day. Everyone around me was an emotional mess. Angry, crying, I mean, you name it. And I was completely stoic and kept telling myself, this isn't affecting me. It's not affecting me. I'm gonna be fine tomorrow. It's gonna be fine. And the joke was on me because the minute I walked out of that door, all of it came flooding back. And not only did it come flooding back, but it came flooding back even harder than it was in the beginning. And I was struggling to sleep at night again. I was I knew I was going down that dark hole of depression. Um, suicidal ideation started to creep in again. And I wanted to leave. I didn't want to feel this way anymore, but at the same time, I had babies. I had young kids, and I was like, it was like a constant fight every day. And my husband, being the very smart man that he is, recognized it, and he knew that it was a slippery slope. So he met me at the door one day and he said, Susan, you have two choices. You either get help or I'm putting you in a hospital. And at that point, I was so scared and felt totally unlike out of control that I put up that white flag and I was like, All right, I give up. Like, I will, I'll go to the doctor. And I went to a physician and he put me on antidepressants because that's what they do. And then he handed me a business card and he said, I want you to make an appointment with this therapist. And I literally laughed at this man. I was like, wait a minute, I tried that before, it didn't work. 14 years ago, it did not work. What makes you think it's gonna happen this time? And he looked at me and he said, You have no choice. And I said, All right, you know, and I made an appointment with this woman, and she specialized in trauma, in extreme trauma, actually. And uh when I sat there in the first three minutes of this session, I knew that something was different. I felt like she was a safe space. I felt like I could be vulnerable with this woman and tell her everything I went through at 17 and what I was currently dealing with. And she was listening to me intently and asking me the questions that the other guy should have asked me years ago. And that's where I knew that she knew that I knew that I could trust her and I felt safe. And she looked at me and she said, Susan, everything you've gone through since you were 17 is normal because. You have PTSD. And I kind of sat back and I looked at her and I was like, wait a minute, I wasn't, I'm not in the military. I didn't go to war. What are you talking about? And she said, Well, she said, anyone who goes through any kind of trauma can experience PTSD. But what you need to understand is that PTSD is not something that just goes away. It's something you learn to manage. And in that very moment, I had hope. I knew I wasn't crazy. I felt validated. I felt like I had answers to all the questions I had had for so many years about what was happening to me. And I knew that this was my person. This was the adult that I had wanted years ago to help me and navigate me and guide me in my healing. And I finally knew I could heal from this, which was something I never thought possible. So in that moment, I had so much hope. And that started my journey right there.

Relocation, Columbine, And Symptoms Resurface

SPEAKER_00 21:33

That is such an amazing story, Susan. That's a huge trauma. That's very, very big. It was very public. I'm sorry that you went through that. Um thank you for being vulnerable and sharing that with us. Absolutely. Um, because I I know it's gotta be hard to talk about. Well, I'm sure you've also done a lot of healing. Like you've it's the point of your story, right? So that you can come back to it, you can talk about it, you can share it. You can inspire others who have been through these really big traumas to say, hey, there's hope, there is a way to move forward. But I want you to talk to me now about the people out there, maybe even like me, right? Who I went through a lot of smaller traumatic incidents. I well, I lost my mom when I was one and a half, don't really remember, but the effects of that follow you, right? Um, I had a boat accident when I was nine, and then it wasn't until I was like 21 that I was told, hey, you have the back of a disabled elderly woman, you're about to be in a wheelchair, something's gotta change. Um, you know, getting um, you know, reprimanded via belt when I was a little kid, um, you know, other sexual encounters that leave you traumatized. These are all smaller traumas, but in themselves still trauma. So can can you be called stackable trauma? Yeah, okay, stackable trauma. But I want you to I want you to talk to me about what even is trauma, because I if I hear your story and I'm like, well, that didn't happen to me, and so I must not be as traumatized, right? Which comparing is bad. But can you talk to me about how that affects us even if it's not big? I don't know how else to put it. Like so big.

SPEAKER_01 23:37

Well, and and you made a point, you know, everybody's trauma is different, okay? So because um people can have similar traumatic experiences, it's still not the same, it's still not the same. So I really can't quantify really what trauma is because it's it's very personal to the individual, right? So I can't look at you and say, oh, well, you had a boat accident, but that's not as bad as someone getting shot up. You know what I mean? It's just not your experience, it is very personal to you. Um, PTSD is a little bit different just because it's an actual physiological um break, I guess, you know, and so no, like I will go into full-blown panic attacks.

SPEAKER_00 24:44

Yes, I was watching a video of a boat and it was these waves were huge. Yeah, and like I went into a full panic attack. I couldn't breathe. Yes, I had to put the phone down and be like, you are safe, you are here, and then I had to wait for the room to stop moving.

The Ultimatum, Real Help, And PTSD

SPEAKER_01 24:59

Like absolutely. Yeah, I've been yeah, but again, it's like you know, someone really needs to see someone professionally to be diagnosed with PTSD. Um, and so I mean, I like I I went through so many years not knowing that what was happening to me was a part of PTSD, and also that it is normal when it comes to something that is that traumatic, right? But uh you you said it before, like there are people that are walking around on this earth that because of sexual abuse that happened as a child, and it was kind of a normal, it was a to them, it was a normal situation because maybe they weren't the only ones that had that abuse. And maybe, you know, I met a woman who um she her mom was a single mom, and the boyfriend was molesting this woman from the age of three to seven, and her cousins were being sexually abused, and her brother was being sexually abused. So, in her mind, this is how you showed love, and so she didn't put two and two together that this was actually trauma. And when I met her, she was headed to rehab for the third time and had never told anyone except for me. And I was just so um humbled that she chose me to tell her story. But you know, when I brought it to her attention that this is the reason you drink when you heal this, sobriety will be easier to attain. A light bulb came on in her head and she had hope. So this is why um, this is why I wrote my book, this is why I speak on stages, this is why I do podcasts in it in it, and why I coach, because I feel like even though I went through all of this, my purpose in this is to give people hope that they can heal from whatever it is they've gone through in their lives, and this is my true purpose. Um, writing the book made me realize my true purpose, and um and a lot of that purpose came with fear, right? Because when you allow yourself to be that vulnerable, it brings up a lot of fear, right? And what I had to do is I had to learn to bulldoze through it. The only way I could do that is to look at the situations I was fearful about, which was my relationship with my mother. In telling my story, I had to tell hers. And it's not the story that the public knew. Um and I I my fear was was it going to destroy our relationship or open a conversation? And also with my husband, we have been through so much in our relationship that I was afraid it was gonna bring up some wounds for him. And the third was there's two men that were still incarcerated, and having been a target in the past, there's always that sense of danger in the back of your head. And so my fear was, you know, if I put myself out there, is there going to be retaliation? So when I zoomed out and I really thought about it, I asked myself, what is the true purpose behind writing your book? And I thought about all the people, even in the law enforcement world, there was so much anger and pain around my dad's death that I thought if they saw me healing that it would give them a way to heal as well. And then moving past that, I thought there are people out there that need to have the hope that I had in that one day. And I want to give that to people. I want them to know when they do the work and they heal from this, that they can take their power back from what hurt them or who hurt them, right? So every time those fears started to come up and surface, I just saw those faceless people out there that needed to hear this message. And that's what allowed me to bulldoze through and keep going. So that's what I tell people all the time. When you're in that state of being fearful, zoom out, figure out what it is and what you want your life to look like because it can look like that. The work is not easy. I don't candy coat it. But when you are able to move through your pain and heal from it, the feeling on the other side of that is priceless, just like that commercial. But it is, it is priceless because you finally can become the person you've always wanted to be, and that pain from that trauma has always held you back.

SPEAKER_00 31:00

Um, I think you brought up a very important point in the story that you shared with us. Um I I use this in terms of you know writing content, like you know, when you make a podcast episode and you can turn it into a blog, and like your podcast episode is your big domino content, right? So you knock that out, and now all your content is done for a month if you just schedule it out, right? But the way that you put it was, you know, you told her, hey, this is your big domino. Right now, you're treating the symptoms that you're seeing coming out. So, like drinking, the self-sabotage, the you know, all the things that come from that, those are symptoms, and you're not gonna do anything by treating the symptoms. You've got to go back. What's causing all of this? What's the big domino? And then once that big domino is handled, everything else falls into place. Um, yeah, and we are walking, living, breathing testament, right? Because I know I try to solve the the symptoms, right? And it and like I said, that doesn't do anything, that's just covering up where it's coming from because now you have to deal with that every day or every week, every month, you know, like that's a headache that keeps coming back. Yeah, you have a headache every week, every week, every week. What's what where's it coming from? It's not about taking Thailand on moving on. How do we get it to stop being a headache? Right. Um, and the same works for our emotional stuff as well. I love that. Um, now when I was writing my book, one of my core themes, one of my foundations was discovering the power of practicing gratitude. Yes. So in this healing journey that we're taking from trauma to, you know, going through the mud, because like you said, it's not easy, it's not fun. You're not singing on the top of a hillside with the sun, right? This is like crying your eyes out under the blanket, right? Right, right. So, what part in in have you found with your clients that gratitude plays in all of this?

Redefining Trauma And “Stackable” Wounds

SPEAKER_01 33:09

Oh my gosh. So I just had this conversation that is so funny. So I have adult children, and um I'm gonna give you an example. So on Friday night, my uh one of my adult kids had a party here at my house, and I struck up a conversation with a gentle with a young man. Um, and I told him what I do for a living. Um, we kind of discussed my my story a little bit. And in doing that, I gave him a safe space where he was able to tell me his story as well. And he told me that he's been in therapy for years and years, just trying to uh heal from some past trauma of his his own, but he still felt like he had a son who was on the spectrum, and he said, you know, I feel like I put my stuff on my kid, which is very common when people are still trying to heal from past trauma and things like that. And he says, you know, I don't know. I get in my head, and then I start, I start to um, I have negative self-talk that happens, you know, and I said, uh, when does this start happening? And he said, Well, you know, sometimes I wake up like this, like I wake up like this. And um, I have all this guilt about being a bad dad and just, you know, wanting to be a better parent and all of these things. And and I said to him, I said, Have you ever journaled? Because this was one of the modalities I was introduced to in the very beginning with my second therapist. Um, but that was to get all the stuff out of my head before I went to bed. However, I told him the other thing that I did is in the morning, I would journal three things I was grateful for and why I was grateful for them. And um, because sometimes when you say something about journaling, people get a little freaked out. I don't know what to think, I don't want to write, I don't, I don't know where to start, you know? And so I told him, I said, have you ever journaled? And he said, Well, I've done it, but not consistent and everything. And I said, Okay. I said, Have you had a gratitude journal? And he said, No, never heard of that. And I said, Um, here's what I did, and here's what it does. I said, when you get up in the morning before you put your feet on that floor, you grab your your gratitude journal and you write the three things you're grateful for and why you're grateful for them. And what you're gonna see is that instead of wrapping your head around this concept of I'm a bad person, I'm a bad dad, I'm you know, whatever, you're going to be able to see the things that are beautiful in your life, and then it will allow you to have some gratitude for yourself. And you could see the light bulb come on, and he was just like, Whoa I never I never thought about that. And I said, Well, that is why I'm a coach. Um and he was like, Thank you so much. Can I just give you a hug? I said, sure, absolutely. So um, I gotta tell you though, when I walked away from that conversation, I felt like I was walking on cloud nine because it was the universe reminding me that this is my purpose, this is why I'm here, is to remind people that they are beautiful, amazing human beings, and that they just need to find love for themselves. And in doing that, you can become what you want to become the best partner, the best mom and dad, the best whatever, because you have love for yourself, and that's where it starts. And really, even when the world feels like it's on fire, which it kind of is, but you can look at the things around you and in your life and pick them out and say, I am so grateful to have this. And it can be the tiniest of things, right? Could be the blue skies outside, you know, it could be the plant that you didn't kill. That would be me.

Purpose, Fear, And Telling The Hard Truth

SPEAKER_00 38:26

Yeah, I tell my clients make a game of finding like the smallest thing to be grateful for, like the atom of oxygen that you get to breathe, that is like the perfect concentration of elements, you know, the perfect ratio that allows us to breathe. Like how small, the little cricket that's like, you know, feeding the ecosystem, the blade of grass that smells really good after it's cut. Yeah, exactly.

SPEAKER_01 38:53

So I think it's a powerful tool. It's a it's a powerful thing, yes.

SPEAKER_00 38:59

Love it. Yeah, to shift our perspective, like you said. Um, because when you're, you know, one of the things I found when I started practicing gratitude is like exactly what you said. You appreciate you more. And when you appreciate you more, when you can see the value in you, well, then going to the doctor becomes a little bit easier. Going and and doing things for yourself, like like we were talking about the big domino, right? Um, and doing certain things for yourself, it just becomes easier because it's not, oh, I have to do this today. It's oh, I'm so grateful that I get to do this really annoying thing today. Yeah, absolutely. I love that. Yes. Um, all right. So you had mentioned before we started recording that you had a free gift for the audience. So can you tell us a little bit about that?

SPEAKER_01 39:48

So I do a 40 minute free uh discovery call with anyone who reaches out to me um just to see if we're a good fit. Um, or maybe someone is starting their journey and they have questions, or maybe they need a little bit of encouragement. Um, and they feel like my story or what we've talked about has inspired them. Um, I am open. I am an open ear. And if you want to take me up on that 40 minutes, I absolutely will do that. You can um I have a website, it's Susansnowspeaks.com. And you can email me through the website. I'm also on all the socials. Um, I'm on IG and TikTok for as long as TikTok's gonna be around. I don't know. Um, but uh there's ways that you can um message me through there as well. And again, if you if it's just some if you're just needing someone to kind of talk to and get a little bit of encouragement um and some direction, um, I'm happy to speak to whoever needs that.

SPEAKER_00 41:10

I love that. Just like the just like the young man at the party, like you just get to sit down, hang out, have a drink, have a nice conversation. Nice conversation. That's all in the live, no big deal, right? I love that. All right, so as we're signing off, we like to sign off here with like your biggest best tip. Like, what is that piece of advice that you give your clients that just like changes their life?

The Big Domino: Treat Root Causes

SPEAKER_01 41:41

Um, well, a couple of things. One, um, this is this is advice I give to anyone, right? Um so the biggest thing for me is uh the only way that you're truly gonna heal from trauma is to find your person. And sometimes it takes a little bit of time. And when I say your person, I mean um the professional, the spiritual advisor, whoever it is, needs to be able to understand your type of trauma because you can't lump trauma into one general pot, right? Everybody's trauma is different, and everybody's modalities for that trauma will be different. And so this is your healing, it is not the doctor's healing. So because it's your healing, you have every right to interview your therapist. Um, make sure that they understand, make sure you feel like they're a safe place, they're a safe person, and that you're able to be vulnerable. Because if vulnerability doesn't happen, neither does the healing. So you have to be able to feel that. Um and the second thing I want everyone to know is that they're not alone. You're not one person on an island by yourself. There are people out there and services out there and um that are there to support you and to help you in whatever needs you need. And so don't be afraid to utilize those services. And I think the biggest one too is if you feel like you're out of control, like I did, if you feel like it's too much, I ask you to call somebody, somebody that you feel safe with. Um, there are, I think it's 988 is a text that you can reach out to somebody uh that will be able to just be there for you and listen to you. And um, I think it's it's very important, especially people that are either unhealed or undiagnosed and feel like they're out of control, just know that you aren't alone. And there are people that care about you out there.

SPEAKER_00 44:33

It's beautiful. I love it. And I think that as a coach, um, I think it's so important to advise hey, you need a team, it's not just me as your coach. Yeah, you need a whole team of people helping you out. Yeah, so yes, hire me as a coach. We're gonna work on all the future stuff, yeah. But I need a teammate in your therapist who's gonna help you with all the healing underneath that's gonna help us to accomplish these things. Yeah. Um, and so yeah, and so you're not alone, you've got lots of resources here available. Um, I love that so much. Thank you for sharing that, Susan. That was awesome.

SPEAKER_01 45:12

Absolutely.

SPEAKER_00 45:13

Yes, okay. So this has been an amazing episode. Like I said, thank you so much for your vulnerabil vulnerability and for sharing your story with us. Um for having me. Yes, of course. And we will catch you guys on the next episode of Overcome Yourself the Podcast. See you next time. Bye.