In this week’s Sh!t Creek Survivors, Melissa Swonger opens up about her journey through trauma, PTSD, and the healing power of radical kindness. Her story reveals how pain can become purpose — and how resilience, faith, and community can turn even the darkest moments into transformation.

Melissa shares a practical crisis checklist to help anyone facing overwhelming times — reminding us that self-compassion, connection, and faith are essential tools for healing.

This episode is a heartfelt reminder that resilience and hope aren’t destinations — they’re daily choices that rebuild us from the inside out.

💡 Key Topics

• Navigating PTSD and trauma recovery

• The power of community and kindness

• How to use a personal crisis checklist

• The importance of self-compassion and faith

• Finding strength, transformation, and hope

resilience • hope • healing • PTSD recovery • trauma healing • faith • mental health • kindness • inspiration • personal growth • survivor stories • community support • transformation • resilience podcast • god’s plan • self compassionKindness in Crisis

Quick Actions to be Kind to Yourself and Others

Kindness leads to repentance...a change in heart or mind - transformation

(Romans 2:4)

1. Pause Before You React

Psychology: When the brain perceives threat, it activates fight, flight, or freeze. Pause 3–5

seconds to let your prefrontal cortex (reason) catch up with your amygdala (emotion).

Theology: “Be quick to listen, slow to speak, and slow to become angry.” — James 1:19

☑️ Breathe deeply.

☑️ Count to five before responding.

☑️ Whisper a grounding prayer: “Lord, center me in Your peace.”

2. Anchor in Compassion, Not Control

Psychology: Compassion soothes the nervous system; control amplifies anxiety.

Theology: “Clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness, and patience.” —

Colossians 3:12

☑️ Ask: “What’s this person feeling beneath the surface?”

☑️ Offer presence, not quick fixes.

☑️ Choose empathy over correction.

3. Name, Normalize, and Nurture

Psychology: Naming emotions reduces limbic reactivity (“Name it to tame it”).

Theology: God invites honesty: “Pour out your heart before Him.” — Psalm 62:8

☑️ Identify what you feel (sad, scared, angry, numb).

☑️ Remind yourself: “It’s okay to feel this.”

☑️ Offer gentle self-care or comfort to others.

5 4. Regulate Before You Relate

Psychology: Co-regulation requires one calm nervous system to settle another.

Theology: “Peace I leave with you; my peace I give you.” — John 14:27

☑️ Ground: notice 3 things you see, 2 things you hear, 1 thing you feel.

☑️ Pray: “Jesus, make me an instrument of peace.”

☑️ Then connect — not from panic, but from presence.

ò 5. Reflect and Repair

Psychology: Healthy relationships still struggle — focus on repair.

Theology: “If possible, as far as it depends on you, live at peace with everyone.” — Romans 12:18

☑️ Admit when you misstep. Communicate your feelings to others before taking offense.

☑️ Apologize sincerely. Accept sincere apologies genuinely and generously.

☑️ Reaffirm care and keep short accounts.

ü 6. Return to Hope

Psychology: Hope activates the brain’s reward circuits and buffers despair.

Theology: “We have this hope as an anchor for the soul.” — Hebrews 6:19

☑️ Recall past rescues — God has seen you through before and will again.

☑️ Speak truth: “This pain is real, but it is not forever.”

☑️ End each day with gratitude and one act of kindness.

Kindness in crisis is not weakness — it’s strength under Spirit and science.

Let empathy and faith interrupt fear, one breath, one choice, one person at a time.