I Finally Found My Voice

This latest episode is sharing with you how I think I finally found my voice, why everything is changing, and why it all comes back to one simple truth....

And welcome to the Courageous Journey podcast. This episode is going to be, I think I finally found my voice and why everything is changing and why it all comes back to one simple truth.

 

Today is going to be a little bit different. I'm not teaching neuroscience. I'm not talking about trauma. I'm not diving into brain injury. Instead, I want to tell you about something that has quietly been happening behind the scenes over the last month or so, especially the last few days. If you visited my website recently, or you've noticed changes to my YouTube channel, or you've seen some of my recent post, you may have noticed that everything is starting to look a little different.

 

And that's intentional. Not because I've changed what I believe, but because I finally found the words to explain what I believed all along. Sometimes we just know our mission before we know how to say it. You know, you spend years speaking, creating trainings, writing blogs, recording podcasts, teaching professionals, working with survivors. I've always known what I wanted people to walk away with.

 

I just couldn't put it into one sentence. I couldn't kind of pin it down. I talked about trauma, brain injury, domestic violence, nervous system regulation, healing, hope, faith, resilience, recovery. But none of those things were actually my mission. Those were just pieces of my mission. And I think, no, I know I finally figured out what my mission has been all along.

 

I've spent years asking, what's wrong with me? Why am I so exhausted? Why can't I remember? Why do crowds in places overwhelm me? Why do I react before I think? Or why do I react out of context? Why can't I just move on?

 

Eventually someone stopped explaining my diagnosis and started explaining my brain. That one shift changed everything for me. I stopped asking what's wrong with me and started asking what happened inside of me because of what I had to survive.

 

Healing begins with understanding.

 

This is the sense that's been living in my heart and my heart. I'll repeat it. Healing begins with understanding.

It begins with understanding what happened. What happened inside of us. Healing begins with understanding our brains. Healing begins with understanding our nervous system. Healing begins with understanding our behaviors. Healing begins with understanding of each other. And I realized that why I speak, that why I write, and that what I teach.

 

My healing began when I was able to understand what was going on inside of me. And so, like, everything's changing. I've reorganized my website. I've rebuilt my YouTube channel. Have these playlists now. I've organized videos so people can find exactly what they need. And it's just the beginning. I'm going to be going back and putting different videos and in trainings and stuff like that into those playlists.

 

So keep a watch my podcast. This podcast is becoming more intentional in this office and happening because I want a prettier website, not because I want a better branding, but I want everything to point toward one mission. I've really began to understand that I really serve three people, and I want to talk about those three people. Survivors. You are broken.

 

Your brain adapted. Your nervous system adapted in healing is possible. I am living proof of that for the families and the loved ones of survivors. You are not crazy for struggling to understand someone that you love. Understanding changes relationships and that's why I want to come alongside you too and help you understand what is going on inside of your loved one.

 

And for the professionals or those people that are working with survivors, trauma informed changed our systems. Now it's time to become brain aware. When we understand what happened inside someone, we can start responding differently. I honestly feel like I'm standing at this beginning of something new. Two weeks from today, I'll be landing in Texas. I'm going to be speaking as a national conference, the National Cut Hotline conference for domestic violence, and I'm excited about that.

 

I'm super excited, and to be honest, I'm absolutely terrified. I'm going to be opening up one of my very vulnerable pieces of my life, but I think it's going to be the big shift for me. There's going to be changes on this podcast, my YouTube channel, these future books. Like a lot of people have heard me talk about my books in I've been writing for so long, but it wasn't Mission Focus.

 

I didn't have what I knew I needed to be. My mission by speaking. And I'm so excited that I'm creating these this courageous survivors community. It's going to be a Facebook group off my professional page. I'm also creating a network for professionals working with survivors, and that's going to be a Facebook group where we can go in and we can talk and we can share trauma informed stuff and different things that we're learning.

 

Or guess what? I don't have all the answers, but I'm hoping that people that kind of understand that we have to talk about what's happening into them, happening to the survivors, that we can come along and share resources. We can talk about what we know about the whole person, and how we all can come and help each other to better serve survivors.

 

And again, like, I don't have everything figured out. I'm still learning. Listen, I'm I'm a paramedic. Like podcasting and YouTube, being in technology. Technology is my Kryptonite.

 

I fail at some things and I have to start over. I have to start my podcast over and in. Sometimes I just realized, like, I thought I didn't. I don't look professional enough. And guess what? That's okay. That is okay. I don't I'm not trying to be this perfect, polished person. I'm trying to be me and what it looks like when you take this crisis healing journey.

Sometimes it's messy. Sometimes it's just showing up with the best version of yourself. And sometimes that's just not what some people consider good enough. But I'm doing my best each day. I'm still growing, but I at least know where I'm finally going. And I want to tell you, I want to leave you with this thought. For years. I believe that healing begins when we work harder.

 

I just felt like I had to work harder and do more and be more and all these things. And now I believe that even begins much earlier than that. Healing begins the moment something finally makes sense. My healing began the moment someone explained what was going on inside of me. This moment that someone helped me understand my nervous system.

 

The moment shame began to be replaced with curiosity and learning. The moment I stopped asking myself, what's wrong with me? And I began asking what happened inside of me because of what I've lived through.

 

This is why everything you're going to see from me moving forward, from this podcast to my YouTube channel, to my website, to my speaking, will all point back to one simple idea. Healing begins with understanding. Understanding what happened, understanding what happened inside of us. Understanding how our brains and bodies adapt to survive. In understanding that because our brains adapt to survive, they can also adapt to heal.

 

It also helps. Healing begins for others when we understand what is going on inside of them, it gives us this amazing toolbox of things to better survive or better help and come alongside our survivors. It's going to be it's going to be a journey. It's going to be a lot of hard work. But I keep thinking back about finding a woman named Amy.

 

When I was at rock bottom, when I was getting ready to go out to Minnesota, to a functional neurologist, where I was at rock bottom, and I was gonna I had a plan. I was going to analyze myself if they couldn't help me. I was literally at rock bottom. But I found her through groups, Facebook groups, through a podcast.

 

In my search, I found a woman named Amy who talked about brain injury, and she had a brain injury from a fall where she hit her head. But my symptoms were much like hers and it led me to start researching. It led me to reach out to her and ask her questions, and then led me to reach out to where she went for healing.

 

And that that conversation, that visit changed my life. And I've been able to go back to work as a paramedic and been working. So since I have been able to drive, I have been able to go on an amazing healing journey and I feel like I'm in the best spiritual, emotional, physical, mental health places I've ever been. And I can imagine that I can only get better.

 

I was once told that I probably wouldn't see 50, and to be quite honest, in those last couple of years before I went to functional neurology, I used to think, I really don't even want to see 50. I hadn't hope, I had no hope, I didn't want to live. There was no joy that was taken from me. Why?

 

Because I didn't have any understanding. I didn't have answers. And that is why. That is my why, why I'm doing this. I want this to be a place that maybe just one the power of one, that maybe one other survivor, one professional, one family member will find hope in healing in what they find on my podcast, my website, my blog, any of my stuff.

 

Because I think about all the things that I've done since then and what would have happened if I wouldn't have found hope and healing because I started understanding. So that becomes my mission. And I just want to say thank you for being a part of this journey with me. It's been a wild ride so far. I'm excited to be able to put my feet in the ground.

And so whether you've been here for years or you're just finding this community, I am so grateful that you are here. I hope you'll explore the new resources, the new YouTube playlist, and continue walking alongside me as I learn. And you learn and we learn together. And until next time, keep choosing courage. Keep asking questions, and never stop believing that healing is possible.

 

 

Because healing begins with understanding. I'll see you in the next podcast.