Power To Be Happy: Journey of Healing, Together

What most people see is the “safe” part of you – is this who you are on the inside?

I think that we’re more than that, and part that we’re willing to share is one part of many that makes you the person that you are today.

These parts might be speaking to diverging hopes, hurts, and stories we carry within.

The first time I spoke to survivor, like me, I felt understood, but also more whole:

I felt that a part of me came back to life.

The part that was hurt, as a child, that lived on in fear and buried in shame…

The first time I spoke to it I even pointed to it by instinct – someplace in the gut.

Now I’m not claiming the body connection at all, but many of the go to therapies that we have for trauma today, including Internal Family Systems, ego state therapy, psychodrama, connect with the parts based approach to our mind.

Is healing then about making parts of ourselves feel more welcome and safe?

Join me this week on The Happy YOU podcast as I talk about parts and the impact of trauma – and how we can integrate our experience in a way that is helping us heal.

If you are looking for a pick me up, check out my brand new book on thriving in times of uncertainty:

With trauma, we’re always running away from hurt…

Because too painful, and yet, that is exactly what can get in the way of healing.

Take me – I spent most of my life suppressing the memory of abuse, and how it has messed me up…

Listen, how could I speak, share my story, get help:

When I could not even begin to ACKNOWLEDGE the wreckage it made of my life!

And I’ve been living in hurt for years because I didn’t know healing and what it can do.

But everything changed the moment I met a survivor – I understood who I am, what I lived through, and what I deserve.

It’s like a part of me came back to life, and this part made me more whole.

This part has helped me starting to dream, more calm, think clearly, but also seeing the other side of healing:

Away from hurt, towards the beauty and joy of life, towards the goodness and feeling better about yourself!

Towards being more creative and open, towards feeling MORE

What are the good things that may be obstructed by trauma?

Join me this week on the podcast to go through the five hidden virtues of healing:

If you are looking for a pick me up, check out my brand new book on thriving in times of uncertainty:

The moment you know that you’re changed, truly is learning you’re not alone.

So this is a year ago, outside at the café that has already closed for the night:

Sitting across from me is a woman who is a holding a draft of my play.

Yes, I read that she’s running a program for survivors of child sexual abuse…

But she’s here, and she looks at me, straight in the eyes, and says:

Joe, have you ever shared your story – with anyone?

No, is the only thing I can muster.

And she starts telling hers…

It is like I am struck by lightning – she is sharing her truth, pain, how she suffered…

But what I feel is mine, swelling up, deep inside me.

And then I start to speak, not in words, but a torrent of pain, shame, and suffering.

And it keeps pouring out!

She has reached out her hand, and I clasp, grateful.

Then she tells me, “What it feels like is, in your play, you are holding you back. We need to hear your voice. You’re a survivor.”

This word, I know, carries power.

It’s the start of a my first conscious journey to heal – because I never even knew that I needed it!

So weird to look at the myriad ways that it’s messed up my life, but the hurt has been buried so deep within I did not even notice the impact that it has been having for decades!

So I think through it now, the affect of the trauma, and what we can find on this crazy journey to heal…

Not to make it to go away, disappear like it never happened, but to hopefully place it somewhere where it is no longer poisoning our lives.

So that we can enjoy the simple things that we love, with our friends, with our passions, feel more present, make plans for the future!

Hope you can join me this week for the podcast on flipping our story of trauma from feeling of less to the feeling of MORE

You’re a survivor, my friend, and no matter what life is putting you through, please know – you deserve!!

We are in this together:

If you are looking for a pick me up, check out my brand new book on thriving in times of uncertainty:

Today I told a friend about going through rape as a child.

And she took well, in the sense of truth and acceptance, as something that’s normal, a part of me.

But it’s also released me – from secrets, from shame, and the pain that I carry with me.

Every single time I share this story, and by now, most people in my life they know, I get a sense of relief – let go of the burden I carry.

Because I can look to the future.

Have you ever shared your story, my friend?

To feel truly heard, understood?

I hope that you find the opportunity to share your truth with someone – be it a friend, or your therapist.

Because this might be helping you to go further, into the future you want without the extra burden that gets bundled onto our shoulders as we’re making our own way through life…

My friend, if there is something that you want get off of your chest, I am here.

Your future, your life it is worth it – and we should never keep at it alone!

This week on The Happy YOU, I am talking about the future and healing from trauma – join me for this conversation as we move towards healing:

If you are looking for a pick me up, check out my brand new book on thriving in times of uncertainty:

Did you know that sharing something you just learned with a fellow human can help you integrate this knowledge at a much deeper level?

Because you understand how it works and what it represents, but explaining it makes you find a place for it in your, to fit in with the rest of your experience.

And I think that it’s true for events that take place in our own life…

Say, have you ever noticed how sharing a personal story with friend, or a loved one made you see it in a different light?

We are finding a new perspective onto our journey, it can help us make sense, and in some way, put in place where it belongs – in the past.

One of the reasons why my experience of going through rape as a child has been keeping a stranglehold over my life is because I never told anyone about it.

What is it that I was afraid of?

Admitting the truth, as if it’s crime – I know that you and me, that us survivors:

We deserve better.

To speak our truth, to get clarity of your journey, and keep going the path into healing.

This is our truth this week – get in touch with your story in a way that is helping you heal:

If you are looking for a pick me up, check out my brand new book on thriving in times of uncertainty:

How come is it that we don’t get to experience the depth and the beauty of life in the way we deserve after going through trauma?

And why do so many of us go through life and suffer, without the help that we so desperately need in order to heal?

Here is one reason – because we get turned away.

For it was the family doctors – I muster the courage to speak not because of strength, but pure desperation:

The woman I loved has left me for somebody else, and I’m in the bottomless pit of depression, drinking, and grief.

I blurt out the ways that I suffer – the nightmare from my past, and suffocating from panic, the fear of being alone.

He looks at me like a puzzle.

There is no need for questions, and so he hands me a piece of paper – here, this should help.

I walk out to find out a prescription – a drug I don’t want, or care for.

One swift move, and it’s in the bin.

I do this without thinking, not knowing what it is that I’m seeking, but somehow I know that this isn’t it.

Us, survivors of trauma, are real people – we are not broken, so we don’t need to be fixed.

We want to be understood, we want to feel heard, assured that we are okay.

And when you’re dismissed, judged, ignored, whether it is by doctor, loved one, or someone you meet – the first time we seek help is often the last.

At least for a while – for me, it is decades.

And all of that time, I never had the chance to find out about therapy, and how it can help us heal from struggle, and hurt.

To find yourself not as a tag in somebody’s file, but as a fragile and intricate human who wants to be heard and supported to find their own path to heal.

A human being who, above all, deserves to be happy.

It’s you, me, all of us who have suffered, who know what it’s like.

We deserve more, even if we have been knocked back!

For years, I was afraid to try therapy, to learn about different options, afraid I’m too broken, too late, afraid of being labelled…

It stuck.

But it was a conversation with a survivor who urged to reconsider, explore and to try.

It’s helping me heal, feel more calm, and make past to feel more like the past – as something that’s already happened, not overreaching into the now.

Being in this moment, alive, feeling that you belong, in this world today!

This is what we deserve.

I know that it’s hard to take next step, but it just might be the step you need to live a happier, more fulfilled life that you truly deserve.

For more on my journey of finding healing through therapy, check out this episode of The Happy YOU podcast.

If you are looking for a pick me up, check out my brand new book on thriving in times of uncertainty:

If you are looking for a pick me up, check out my brand new book on thriving in times of uncertainty:

Links:

Blue Knot Foundation

Innocence Revisited by Cathy Kezelman

If you are looking for a pick me up, check out my brand new book on thriving in times of uncertainty:

If you are looking for a pick me up, check out my brand new book on thriving in times of uncertainty:

For more about Achiro:

Achiro Olwoch official website

Achiro Olwoch on Twitter

If you are looking for a pick me up, check out my brand new book on thriving in times of uncertainty: