41: 10 Lessons from My 30th Year
In this episode, I discuss 10 lessons I learned over the past year on my own healing journey. These lessons and learnings include that new things will always be new and scary, I’m grateful to be sober, I am enough exactly as I am, and many more.
Episode References:
Timestamps:
0:00 Intro
4:29 Lesson 1
10:11 Lesson 2
13:33 Lesson 3
19:18 Lesson 4
21:49 Lesson 5
25:07 Lesson 6
30:03 Lesson 7
31:56 Lesson 8
35:11 Lesson 9
41:25 Lesson 10
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This podcast was transcribed by an AI tool called Otter. Please forgive any typos or errors.
Amanda Durocher 0:00
Welcome to New View Advice, a safe place for you to ask your most vulnerable questions about life, relationships, healing, and so much more. I'm your host, Amanda Durocher, and I believe our fears and traumas are often what holds us back from living life to the fullest. Join me here each week as I offer advice on how to move through whatever is holding you back from being your best self. Let's get started. Hi, beautiful souls. My name is Amanda and this is New View Advice. If you're new here, this is a healing centered advice podcast where we discuss the healing journey and the ups and downs of being human. Today's episode is a bit different than our usual episode format. Today, I will be sharing 10 lessons I've learned in my own healing journey. I turned 31 Next week, so I decided to do an episode about my own healing journey. I'm always talking about how I'm healing right alongside with you. And I wanted to share some lessons, some learnings and some moments of healing that I've had over the past year, I wanted to do this episode and share these insights with you these learnings and lessons. Because typically around my birthday, I actually become quite sad because I become hyper aware of where I'm at in my life. And so many times I'm critical of myself around this time of year, I can be really critical about where I am and where I want to be and how I'm not exactly where I want to be. And this year feels different this year, I feel much more at peace and at ease with where I am, I actually feel much more self accepting than I have in past years. Recently, I realized what my next couple months is going to be. I know I've mentioned on a previous episode that I'm starting to write a memoir, but my next couple of months is actually going to be quite internal for me where I've see some healing I need to do around my teen years around the assault that happened in my teens. And how even though I've done so much work, and I've been on my healing journey for a very long time, and I've sat with all these things I've experienced that there's still more for me to just sit with to just be with to just allow up. And I had a lot of feelings about that, that became very aware for me in October that I'm not done healing. And it's so silly for me to say that now, I had this moment where I caught myself in that pattern where I thought there was going to be a quote unquote, end for this, even though I talk all the time about how it's a healing journey, it's not a destination, gotta put your walk and shoes on. It's a trail, it's not a race. And I do believe that and I know that but knowing it and embodying it are different recently, I caught myself thinking that if I just got over my teen years, if I just got over it, things would be better. And I'm realizing it's not something to just get over. It's something that will continue to arise for me as long as it needs to do as long as my heart has more to share about the experiences I had and the experiences that I suppressed and the feelings that I did not allow myself to feel at the time, because of a sense of of unsafety. So my next couple months will be very self reflective. It's interesting, because we're moving into winter, so I feel like I'm moving with the seasons. I was very active in the summer, I was traveling for three months, then in the fall, I started to begin hibernating. And then now I'm moving into the winter where I can tell I'm gonna be quite self reflective. So it's just interesting to see the my own journey. But through recognizing that and accepting that, right, I had to accept that that's where I'm at. I've came to acceptance a lot quicker than I have in the past. And through that I feel really content with where I'm at. And this year has taught me so much about trust. And through that process, I'm now at a point where I can really trust that where I'm being led and how I'm being led to go inward over the next couple of months is for my own heart and for my own soul's greatest expansion. It may not look that way to the outside world. But I've learned over the past couple of years and over the past year that the more I go inward, the more I heal my own heart, the more of my life begins to change. So today I'm going to share 10 lessons I've learned over the past year. So that's just a quick intro, but I will go more into my own journey throughout the episode. And yeah, let's jump into 10 lessons I've learned over the past year.
Amanda Durocher 4:34
Lesson one, I learned that new things are always going to be scary, but I have to follow my heart and do them anyways. So this was another thing I learned this year that I had to accept. I think that when we do something and we face our fears, oftentimes our mind can convince us that in the future it will be easier. I have found on my own journey that doing new and scary things doesn't necessarily get easier. Dear, it's still scary, I still face fear, I still feel a ton of resistance with anything new I embark on. But it becomes easier as in when you become aware that you're doing something new and scary. And that fear that arises is natural. That's what becomes easier as you become aware of ah, this is part of the process. This fear is here again, I've seen this fear before. I'm familiar with this. But it's not necessarily easy, because facing our fears, requires all of us, it requires us to be present with ourselves to look at our fears to do the actions that seems scary, and to be confident in our hearts wisdom, and to do it anyways. And sometimes it takes longer than other times, sometimes we're able to just jump right in and face that fear. And sometimes it takes a lot of self reflection and a lot of reassurance with our own hearts, that it's safe to move forward. So I learned this with my podcast, my podcast has existed now for a year and a half. And I learned this through launching my podcast that that was a really scary experience for me. So that's a little over a year ago. But over the past year, I learned this with traveling for anyone who doesn't know, I traveled for three months from April through July, so into July. So it was over three months. And through this experience, I learned a lot of trust in that trying new and scary things, were always going to be new and scary for me. So leaving my home for an indefinite amount of time was scary for me at the time. And also there are moments on the trip where I had to face some fears in the moment. And recently, I also did my first healing circle for people who have been cheated on. And I definitely felt a lot of fear arise for that. I enjoyed doing the circle, and I'm so grateful I did it. And that was a really healing experience for my heart, but it was still new and scary for me to do. Now I am embarking on writing a memoir, which I've talked a bit about, and all the fears arising again, it's the same process for me, it hasn't been easier to see the fears and and the resistances I have towards writing. Because the fears that arise are always different. So you face the fears. And then when you do something new and scary new fears arise. So for example, with my healing circle, I had some fear around being seen in a new way I had never been seen in that teaching leadership role before. And I had some fears Am I good enough? arised. And through the circle, I healed my own heart by saying Yeah, I'm good at this. This is what I'm supposed to do. And I also am somebody who guides people back to their own hearts. I'm not here to give anybody the answers. It was great for me to see that. That's what I do. It's not about me having the answers for everybody. It's about me reassuring everyone that they have their own answers. And now that I'm embarking on writing a memoir, I have new fears arising. Is it safe for me to write this book, will writing this book, bring the people who have hurt me in my past back into my life? Will people believe my story will I be slandered for sharing my story. There's just those type of fears arising for me right now. And it's interesting for me to see that these fears are there. And when we see fear is there, it's really always been there. We just haven't brought it to the surface. So for me, this podcast I had some of those fears arise in the past. But I'm seeing that I didn't fully heal those because I haven't fully shared my story. I don't often talk about myself in this way on the podcast. So this is also different for me during this episode, I don't share too many details of what I've survived for anybody new here, trigger warning, I will be talking about sexual assault throughout this episode, because that's something I have been continuing to heal from throughout this past year. But what I survived is not pleasant. And I don't share the details. I haven't in the past I don't think on this podcast, but this book will go into that it will go into so much of my healing. It's not just about trauma. It's my journey through healing from grief disassociation and sexual assault. And it will end with wherever I'm at on my journey. I can't say I'm fully healed with any of those things. But I don't think you have to be fully healed. I don't even know what that means is what I'm coming to recently. It's just we're always healing so we can always offer the perspective of where we're at and what we've learned. And I feel like I went on a bit of a tangent here. But to sum up this one, I've learned that new things are always going to be scary. And I believe that by doing these new things, we are always inviting our heart to greater expansion because as I mentioned, these fears are always there. They're in our body somewhere. And when we challenge ourselves to do things, these fears arise, but they arise for us to look at to heal and to move through to see how strong we are, how brave we are, how courageous we are. Fear is just an indicator of where we're at. Fear is nothing to be afraid of fear is really just information about where we're out in our journeys and what wants to be looked at witnessed and a part of us wants to be reassured we're safe and that we have our own backs. So I will add that to lesson one. Not only have I learned that new things are always going to be scary for me, and that I have to follow my heart and do them anyways, I've also learned that fear is a teacher. And it's really nothing to be afraid of.
Amanda Durocher 10:11
Lesson two, I learned that I love sobriety, and I am so grateful to be sober. So for anybody who's unfamiliar, I went sober almost two years ago, I guess it's what like a year and a half, I went sober February 2021. And I originally embarked on this journey with the intention of remaining sober for 12 months, I was not sure if I was going to remain sober. But through those 12 months, I learned how much of my life improved through sobriety. And one of the greatest gifts I gained from sobriety was my creativity. And over the past year, my creativity has continued to flourish. And I've continued to see how, by remaining sober, I'm able to be more creative. And I also learned while I was traveling, that it's actually really important for me to be creative in order to remain sober. For the first month and a half. I was traveling, I wasn't necessarily prioritizing self work, I was just so busy traveling, especially when we were in Egypt, we would get up at like five in the morning. And we would get done at like five at night. I mean, it was just really full days. And it was like days of sightseeing education, being around a lot of people, which for me can be really exhausting. I didn't prioritize the creative aspect of my life. So I was meditating. But I wasn't journaling. I wasn't creating, I wasn't prioritizing storytelling, and different outlets of creativity. And I found about six weeks into our trip, I think it was when we were in Portugal, it was the first time in a really long time I started to crave a drink. I don't really think about alcohol much anymore. I don't crave drinks, because I am always creating and I am so conscious that my creativity and my sobriety are connected, that I'm not really tempted to drink, and I'm really grateful for that. But on my trip, I noticed that I was craving drinking. And I had to become aware of this. And when I realized it was because I wasn't creating, I was bored at night and I also had some incessant thoughts and creativity helps me to move those incessant thoughts, even if it's a practice like journaling. I think that's a creative practice for me, because usually when I'm journaling, I'm free writing, but I also do poetry. I also do storytelling also write some short stories for myself. So in this moment in Portugal, I realized how connected for me sobriety and creativity are and how it's so important for me to remain creative, in order to remain sober, and how I am also so much happier when I'm creative. Because when I realized this, I started prioritizing creativity. So I started going back to writing poetry, I did a lot of poetry writing while I was away. And I started thinking about different story ideas that came up with an idea for a novel who knows whenever I'll write that, but I came up with a lot of different story ideas. I started working on a comedy movie, but I started allowing myself to create, there was a part of me that felt like because I was traveling, I had to put all my quote unquote, work on hold. And I just learned that this creativity is such a part of me, it's not like a normal nine to five job, it's not something I can really put on hold. It's just something I have to allow to flow through me all the time. And actually, it was really fun on my trip to be creative. Because I didn't have any pressure on anything that I was creating. I was just doing it for the sake of creation, which allowed me to really relax into it and have a lot of fun with that creativity. So for my second lesson, I learned that I love sobriety, and I'm grateful to be sober.
Amanda Durocher 13:33
Lesson three, I learned that I love to write. And that's why I resist it so much.
This has been an interesting lesson for me to come to terms with, I have talked to other creatives as well who find out as well, that the things we love the most can actually be the things we resist the most. And I have spent a lot of time reflecting on this over the past year because when I sit down to write, it's my happy place. It's where I'm happiest. And for a very long time, I wouldn't sit down to write every day, I would prioritize everything else, including cleaning the kitchen, over sitting down and right I just couldn't get myself to sit down and do it. And there were a lot of different reasons for this a lot of different interferes that I had to look at. But over this one, the one that I've had to look at the most and come to terms with and to heal within my own heart is a reason that I don't sit down to write or I haven't in the past is because I didn't think I was worthy of the amount of happiness writing brings me. And to be honest, that was a really difficult thing to admit to myself throughout the year that I didn't feel worthy of the thing that made me the most happy and that that was the root of why I wasn't sitting down to do what my heart wanted to do. Because when I am writing I am happy I feel connected to something bigger than myself. There is no other time of the day. A sometimes in meditation, but truly, it's when I write that I just have that all knowing of consuming trust in a higher power in a connection to Source God, whatever you want to call it. But that is where I feel in deep communion, I guess it's my version church. And because of that, I fear it. There's something about writing for me, that is just handing over all that control, and handing over all that suffering and just allowing myself to be interest in something bigger than myself. And as I was reflecting, I've really seen now my past year's theme was trust. And noticing this recognizing and becoming aware of this fear taught me that I wasn't trusting, I wasn't trusting that higher power, I wasn't trusting my own heart, I was trying to control by thinking I wasn't worthy, it was a form of control a form of trying to stay small and safe. And over the past six months, I've really looked at why I didn't feel like I was worthy of being that happy. And a lot of different layers. arised three that come to mind are one was that I don't see that happiness, I feel when I right reflected back to me in the outside world. There are a lot of societal beliefs that you have to suffer for work that you have to prioritize making money, that's a big one. When I sit down to write, I'm not making any money in the moment, I'm doing it for myself, and maybe down the line, I'll make money from my writing, but my writing cannot be driven by money. It cannot be driven by a monetary outcome or the writing does not come, I've learned that I have to write what comes to mind. And some of it may make it out into the world and some may not. But that's not really up to me, I have to trust that whatever I write, I'm meant to write. And I've learned that through everything I've written, there's been a purpose, so much of my writing kills me in unexpected ways. And that wouldn't happen if I didn't allow myself to sit down and write. But I've noticed that societal programming has made it hard for me to prioritize writing, I feel like I have to prioritize other things over my happiness. And I found myself falling into some of those beliefs. Another belief I had to look at and become aware of and to heal was that I believed that if I was creative, I couldn't also be a good friend or a good family member. And this came from multiple places, it was partially from my childhood, seeing how my father worked so hard, and he didn't have time for anything other than work. And I believed that if I prioritize my work to a degree, I wouldn't be able to show up for others. And I never wanted to repeat that pattern, I really believe that the people in my life are the most important thing to me. And I want to be a supportive and loving partner and family member, I also can feel how over whelming and consuming that creativity can be in my life and how I do want to lock myself up. And that can be really scary for me because that fear can come up for me that I will be a really bad family member and friend. And what I learned through this one is that it's a learning process. It's a learning process, how to balance it, and I'm not going to be perfect at it at first. And it's not something I have to fear. It's just something that we're all learning. And sometimes we have to do things right, I have to allow myself to be creative to see and learn how to balance that creativity and how to be a good friend, family member and partner through the creative process. So I learned that I had so much fear around being a bad family member that I actually wasn't being creative. And then I was being a bad family member. Because when I'm not writing and I know I'm supposed to, I can get quite moody. So it was learning that balance and seeing where those beliefs were created and started from. And the third belief I had to look around this and the unworthiness of writing and why I resisted so much is that I had some beliefs around unworthiness from my youth from the trauma experienced from the way I was raised, and I had to really dive deep into this unworthiness and where it originated, and the moments in my life where I felt unworthy, and how that unworthiness was continuing to manifest in my life through me not allowing myself to do the thing my heart loves the most, which is to write
Amanda Durocher 19:18
lesson four, I learned that being a podcaster has its ups and downs. This podcast also taught me the importance of consistency and self discipline. launching this podcast ended up being a lot harder than I expected. I didn't realize how hard it would be when I first started a year and a half ago, to be consistent and self disciplined, because so many fears and resistances would arise for me. I found that it could often throw me for a loop and I had a hard time at the beginning being consistent. I remember I used to release my episodes a bit more sporadically. And I would try to be consistent weekly, but I ended up releasing probably more like two episodes a month because it was really hard for me, but throughout the past year and a half, I've really learned to be consistent. And I've learned to be more self disciplined. And for me, there was a lot of healing that had to be done in order for me to be consistent and self disciplined. I felt like for a while, it was impossible for me to be consistent, because so many fears. And my trauma was often being triggered by the podcasts that I always had to sit with my own heart. And I felt like that was being quote unquote, unproductive. But what I've learned is by continuing to look at the resistances, look at the fears and to heal myself, heal my own heart witness myself, that through healing that have actually developed consistency, that I actually am able to be consistent and self disciplined. And that is because of my willingness to look at what was arising in the moment. Also, to go with this lesson, I've also learned the importance of accepting and asking for help when you need it. I now have two wonderful people who assist me with this podcast. And that has also helped me with my consistency. And also it helps me with my self discipline to have people who are waiting on my content and are assisting me with the podcast. So that has been a huge lesson for me. And through this consistency, I've seen my podcast grow by 20 times I looked at my numbers. And last November, I had peanuts for downloads, I had very small numbers. And last month in October, I had 20 times the number of downloads I had last November. So it's really taught me the importance of consistency. And also that when we start new things like I started this podcast with no sort of following. And when we do that, it takes time for things to grow. And by being consistent, and by allowing ourselves to continue with the things even when we have small numbers or small number of downloads or whatever you're doing when we remain consistent, the growth does come over time. So that's been really beautiful for me to witness and it's something I've been proud of myself.
Amanda Durocher 21:49
Lesson five I learned that I had to let go of others expectations of me. This was a big lesson for me this year, I didn't realize how many expectations I was holding onto others for my life of what others wanted me to do. But this came up repeatedly over the year, looking at and seeing how others expected my life to be or expected me to act a certain way or the ways I was still holding on to expectations that I had picked up in my childhood in my teen years in my 20s of what my life was supposed to look like and how none of those were my expectations. And I had to learn to let these go. And I think that's one of the reasons this year my birthday feels so much more peaceful is because I've let go of these expectations that others had put on me for my life and society had put on me for my life, my life is very untraditional, it's been very untraditional for a long time. For a long time, I was still holding on to expectations of what my life could look like or should look like. And I've really let those go over the past year. And through this, I also learned to let go of my own expectations of my life. And I was able to see how so many of these expectations I had for myself were influenced by outside circumstances. So as I mentioned, with this birthday, I feel so much more at peace because of the releasing of expectations of where I should be. But the one that did arise for me recently was I did think that I would be quote unquote, more healed. By this time, by having a lot of this teen age trauma come up, I found myself judging myself for where I'm at in my healing journey. I know I've done so much work, I've done so much healing, I have full time committed to healing my heart, that admitting to myself that my next couple of months would be me sitting with my own heart and doing a lot of inner work was hard for me to admit, because I had created a belief that I was done with that like a full time job of healing, which is so silly. It's such a false expectation. I know what this process is like. And it's looking at what's up and what's present and what needs to be looked at. And if it's there, it's not going anywhere. And my heart is asking for me to heal. But I did catch myself in that. And that was an expectation I put on myself, it was an expectation that I was quote unquote, in a different part of my healing journey and not trusting that the journey is just exactly what the journey is supposed to be. So this year involves a lot of letting go of others expectations for me. And through that it has brought so much freedom, I have found that freedom is on the other side of letting go of expectations because by trusting that you are always being guided by trusting that we're always being led by trusting that we are safe and exactly where we're supposed to be in every given moment allows us to feel free. It allows us to let go of that need to control and for me, it's just brought so much more freedom and peace in my life. And even though I am healing some heavy stuff right now, I still feel that sense of peace and that sense of knowing in a way I haven't before. And I think that some of this difficult stuff that's arisen has been able to come up to the surface to be healed because I have this newfound of love, freedom and safety within myself. So over this year, I really learned to let go of the expectations of others and my own expectations of myself.
Amanda Durocher 25:07
Lesson Six, I learned that I am enough exactly as I am. So this previous lesson that I spoke of really led me to begin to embody the belief that I am enough exactly as I am. This is a continuous lesson for me. But I've learned to trust and embody the knowingness that I have enough exactly as I am in a whole new way over the past 12 months. Again, this is another reason this is a birthday that doesn't feel sad or disappointing. I used to put so many unrealistic expectations on myself or have these goals that I would be disappointed that I didn't hit. And I've learned that goals are great, but goals don't define me my worth. And if I'm enough, I actually had this expansive experience, which I may have talked about on the podcast, back in January, where I felt this download. I don't really know how to describe it. But I had this moment after a few spiritual ceremonies I did around the new year, where the knowingness that I am enough dropped in. And I just felt this all consuming enoughness. And I realized I was always enough, I realized everyone's enough, I realized that there's really no competition, that we're all just going forward, we're all just headed for joy. And there's no leaving anybody behind everybody's come in everybody's enough. And then after that, I had a complete crash. So that's kind of what my healing journey can look like, is the highs and lead to lows. And I have less highs and less lows. Now, I find at the beginning of that healing journey, it's these big ups and downs. And then they become smaller, and it becomes more smooth, and the highest become less highs and lows become less close. But there's still the ups and downs, if that makes sense if that visual makes sense. But for me, I crashed after that. And then it's been a year of really learning to embody that enoughness. And learning that I am enough exactly as I am because nothing ever took away that enoughness it was always there. It was my own beliefs that I created based off of how I was treated by others that I internalized that they were treating me whichever way they were different forms of abuse, emotional abuse, physical abuse and sexual abuse. Throughout my childhood that I created a belief that I wasn't enough that the violence I experienced was because I wasn't enough was because I was unworthy of love, that the emotional abuse I experienced was because I wasn't enough. I wasn't lovable. And I've really had to come to terms with so much of that in a new way. And by come to terms, I mean, I've had to sit with my own heart and realize that it's me, I was looking to have love from that I can reassure myself, I'm enough, I don't need the outside world to tell me I'm enough. I know I'm enough. And I create that safety within myself. And I create that love within myself and I create that worthiness within myself. It was a real year of seeing Hell yeah, I have the power to have all of this. I don't need the outside world to validate me at all. I don't feel that way in every moment. I'm human. But I do have this knowingness. If I take the time, to sit with myself to know that everything I need is inside of me. And I truly believe that for you to, I truly believe and I know, I actually know it, I don't just believe it, that everything you need is inside you to. And we just live in a world that has taught us otherwise and has confused us about who we truly are, and has confused us of our worth, and our enoughness. And because so many people in this world do not sit with their own hearts, it can feel hard to find those who do. And it can be confusing, because there are so many mixed messages out there about people who can fix you products that can fix you societal systems that can fix you, no one can fix you but you, no one can offer you those things. You're looking for that love that safety, that worthiness nobody can offer that to you. First, you have to find that within you first. You have to dig and find the jewels within you. And it can be a really difficult path. I have learned so much this year. But I also took the time yesterday to reflect on how hard this year was. I dug into the depths of my soul this year. I feel like I was cleaning houses here. I have self my own heart for so many years I've looked at so much within and this year, it was really coming to terms with the worthiness and the enoughness. And the things that were keeping me from feeling that way on a regular basis. And through sitting with my heart and looking at some of this really hard stuff feeling so many hard feelings. I now as I mentioned in the previous lesson, I think have a newfound sense of freedom and purpose. And I share that because as I've learned I am enough this year I have also learned that every other soul out there is enough just as they are to everyone is worthy. Everyone is already worthy. We're just the ones who have forgotten that
Amanda Durocher 30:03
lesson seven, I learned that the outside world will often not understand the choices I make. And that's okay. This has been a lesson in self trust. I'm not going to spend too much time talking about this one, because I actually discussed this at the beginning of Episode 39, healing and feeling sadness from getting older and being single. So if you want to learn more about this when you listen to that episode, but I will touch on it for a second, as I mentioned in that episode, this is something I've really come to learn in the past couple of months, is that when you are a creative when you are here to bring new things into the world, new ideas, new movies, new books, new art, new anything, that you are the leader of your creations, you are the one who has the vision and must hold that vision. And many times that people outside of us will not understand our vision. And that is okay. It is our responsibility to be the leader of that vision to be the bringer of that vision into this world. And it's part of the creative process is what I've really learned. And as I talked about previously, I really learned through this memoir I've started to work on and write is that a lot of people in my life didn't quite understand why now is the time why this was what I was going to write. I've actually over the past year received a lot of mixed feedback on the idea a lot of people thought I should write a self help book or focus on screenwriting or a novel. And it's really over the past couple of months that I've had to come to terms with and realize that no, my heart's asking me to write a memoir, and the outside world does not have to understand it, it is my responsibility to listen to my heart and to follow through on that guidance. And to trust myself, it is so important for me to trust myself. And this leads into Lesson Eight.
Amanda Durocher 31:56
Lesson Eight, I learned that my mistrust of others was actually that I did not fully trust myself. This was a big lesson for me this year, I actually started equine therapy. So that's therapy with horses. I started this in September, with the intention of leaning into why it was so hard for me to trust others. I knew this did with being sexually assaulted, I knew this was part of it. I was sexually assaulted, as I mentioned, to my childhood, and also in my teens by a group of boys. So I have experienced, in my opinion, much violence throughout my life. And because of this, I had a mistrust of others. But through this healing with horses, I highly recommend equine therapy for anybody who's working through trust issues. I have learned that yes, I had a mistrust of others. But the real mistrust was a mistrust of self. I've learned that this mistrust outside of myself was a reflection of the mistrust I had within myself and that the more I trust myself, the more I'll trust that this won't happen again, the more I am discerning, the more that I listen to the red flags within my body, the green flags within my body, the more I pay attention to the nuances of relationships, the more that I learn to trust myself, and what my body, heart and soul are communicating to me, the more I can actually trust the outside world. Because who I need to trust. First is me. This has been a hard lesson for me to learn. Because as somebody who has experienced violence at the hands of others, I have felt unsafe. And because of that, I have developed a mistrust. And I have learned that because of the violence, I experienced, the real person I stopped trusting with me, I blamed myself for some of the situations that I found myself in the actions of others are not my fault. Doesn't mean that as a victim, because I do believe I was a victim in those circumstances. I'm also a survivor. And I'm not only a victim, and I'm not a victim in this moment. But in those moments, yes, I was a victim of violence. And in those moments, as a form of trying to make sense of the violence I experienced by the hands of people, I went to the same high school with I blamed myself. And in that moment, I learned not to trust myself. And it has been humbling to see that my mistrust of others was really an inherent and deep mistrust in myself. And it's also been an honor to get to know myself better, and to sit with my teenage self and to reassure her that I, the adults, Amanda am a trustworthy person to help myself heal through this and also a trustworthy person going forward. And that I know this won't happen again. And I also No, it wasn't my fault. And I also have faith in something greater than myself now, and I can see how my life has been divinely designed. There are days it does not feel that way. But in moments like this, where I'm reflecting on the past year, I can see that there is something far greater than me that I choose to trust is always guiding me.
Amanda Durocher 35:11
And this leads into Lesson Nine, I learned that I was avoiding my inner teenager, and that when I finally allowed her to show up, and be heard, that she held many gifts and insights for me. So this one is piggyback off the last one, that by allowing myself to sit with and witness my inner teenager, I have seen how I wasn't trusting myself, I have seen where I was being critical of myself, and why by doing this inner child work, but really my inner teen work, I have learned so much about myself and how that inner teenager still had a lot she wanted to say. And that aspect of me that I still had a lot of things to look at and heal. I have always been really hard on myself. And this is partially because of my teenage years, in my teenage years, I was considered incredibly difficult. I was called difficult. So I internalized I was difficult. And in some ways I was difficult. But I can see that those were cries for help. And because I was called difficult, I had ignored this pain for a really long time. Because I was telling this part of myself, she was too difficult to come forward. I'm so grateful for horse therapy. As I mentioned, equine therapy has been really helpful for me in this that it's not always just sitting there talking about it. It's a different type of therapy. And by learning to trust the horses and being with these immense creatures, it's brought such healing to my heart, it's hard to explain, I feel like there's a magic in equine therapy, because there's something beyond words, that happens. And it's been really, really healing for my own heart. And it's also allowed me to just be with myself while somebody's holding the space. So I work with a therapist, and we work with a horse each week. And that therapist we sometimes talk or sometimes she's just there to like assist with the horse. And that has helped me to be with myself. I think sometimes when we do this type of work for so long this self work, we can think we can do it, quote unquote, all on our own. But it's so important to continue to find support throughout this journey, we cannot do it all alone, we are not meant to do it all alone, we are meant to be supported throughout the journey. And sometimes it's just really helpful to have somebody hold that space for you to sit with yourself. So I have spent so much time with my inner teenager, and I've really embrace her and realize how many gifts she holds. And realize that my love of writing is her. I connect my love of creativity and play. And my star aspect. That's how she likes to be it to my inner child, my young inner child, my four year old self is this bright star of a being I can't even put her into words, she's so big and lovable. And my inner teenager is the writer. And I think that's a reason that I've also resisted the writing for a really long time, because my inner teenager is the part of me that was holding a lot of unworthiness. And I think when we survive some of us who are listening, this isn't everybody. But when we as humans survive violence, and sexual assault, and rape is violence, what I experienced was violence. And in that moment, I also experienced emotional abuse and other types of physical abuse, I was kicked in things like that as well, I don't really want to go into details. But I just want to offer that when we experience these types of abuse, we can really beat ourselves up for it, and blame ourselves and criticize ourselves. Because it's so hard to make sense of senseless violence. It's so hard to make sense of those type of moments I know something I've been reflecting on recently is how one incident can change your whole life. It's so complicated. And I found myself judging that a bit in the past couple of months. Like I can't believe I'm back here. This is one thing. But this one incident did have a ripple effect across my whole life and the people involved in my life, I can see how what happened to me affected my relationships with so many people. And through this, we develop coping strategies, which include trying to make sense of, as I mentioned, a senseless act. And for me, this unworthiness has lived within me and it's affected so many areas of my life. And it was this year that I finally really sat with those feelings of unworthiness in a whole new way. It's not that it was something I was unaware of. It's that this year I really come to embody the worthiness that I always have possessed the enoughness that I am, and it's been sitting with the trauma I experienced in my teens coming to terms with the disassociation coming to terms with the rape, coming to terms with it was a really bad experience. I think another thing many of us can tell ourselves about our childhoods. This is anybody not people who have just experienced rape. This is everybody who experiences trauma in some sort of way, or abuse in their childhoods or or even just tough situations, we tell ourselves it wasn't that bad. It's not that bad. Other people have it worse. We compare. But that keeps us from our own healing. Because you and I, all of us need to witness our own healing as Yeah, it was really bad. That was bad. That sucked. That was as painful as I think it was. Yeah, I haven't been able to let that go. Because that was really hard. We have to stop comparing trauma, we have to stop comparing our experiences to other people. What you experienced, and you survived and seems really hard for you. It is the hard thing for you to look at was awful. And I am so sorry, for whatever is heavy on your heart today. And it's really been in the past couple of months that I've really come to terms with this in my own life, I was still comparing what I survived other people wasn't that bad, this person survived blank. It doesn't work that way. What you survived and I survived is not comparable. Because it's all just fucking awful. And I offer that to you. Because I believe that you are worthy of healing, just as I am worthy of healing. And I know that if you're listening to this podcast that you are continuing to look at your own heart. And I am so grateful to be on this journey with you. And I'm cheering you on on your own healing journey.
Amanda Durocher 41:25
Lesson 10. It's safe to be seen as my true authentic self. This has been an ongoing journey for me, especially since I went sober. I realized how much I was hiding behind alcohol. I feel like I used to be a bit of a Jekyll and Hyde, where I was spiritual healing deep Amanda in my home, I was like a closeted spiritual person. And then I was drunk Amanda. And then I was Amanda who could sit in a bar, watch a sports game and talk about nonsense and surface level stuff. And through my sober journey, I have really started to embrace being seen as me. And it has been so healing to my heart, I used to be confused, why can't people see me? Why do people think I'm this surface level person. And through my sobriety, I've learned it's because I wasn't showing anybody the true me, I wasn't showing anybody. All the work I've done, I wasn't sharing my deep insights, I was allowing myself to only be seen in this surface level way. My sober journey really started this healing for me of allowing myself to be seen in new ways. And in my true, authentic self. And I think that this will be an ongoing life healing for me life lesson for me that it's continually say, for me to be seen as my true authentic self. I think that my true authentic self is vulnerable. And it can be really hard to be vulnerable in this world, because a lot of people aren't vulnerable. And a lot of times people criticize vulnerability, it makes me think of Brene Browns work and how people who are vulnerable are in a different arena, you're in the arena. And you really only want to take feedback from people who are in the arena with you, and you'll get knocked down in the arena. But it's all about getting back up. And I think allowing ourselves to be seen as our true authentic selves can be challenging because we're one trying to figure out who that is. And to there's just so much fear around it. I think so many of us were taught to be different versions of ourselves when we were younger. I think there's a big group mentality and childhood and teen years at least that's what I found in my life. And I think it's true for a lot of people, maybe not for everybody, but it sure didn't feel safe for me to be myself in my youth. So it has been a healing process for me to embrace who I truly am and to allow myself to be seen in new and authentic ways. And even sharing my own journey with you on this episode is a new thing for me. I don't usually go this in depth about my own process and my own life. So I hope somebody found this helpful. And it's another way that I'm reassuring myself that it's safe for me to be seen as my true authentic self.
Amanda Durocher (outro) 43:48
Thank you for tuning in to today's episode. I am so grateful to be on this healing journey with you. I am so grateful to everyone who listens to one episode to every episode to a few episodes. I am just so grateful. And thank you for listening to today's episode and for allowing me to share a part of my healing journey with you. And if you enjoyed today's episode or you found any of the episodes to be helpful for you along your own healing journey, I invite you to leave a rating and review for the podcast reading and reviews really helps to bring more people to the podcast and help people to know that this is a safe place to listen to tough conversations and vulnerable topics about the healing journey. So if you have an iPhone, I think it's only Apple podcasts that allows you to leave ratings or reviews. So if you have an iPhone or you're able to log in to Apple podcasts on the computer, you can leave a five star rating by scrolling to the bottom of the new view advice page. And pressing five stars and leaving a review you can leave the name of your favorite episode or something you love about the podcast and thank you in advance to everyone who leaves a review. Thanks again for tuning in to another episode of newView advice. As always, I am so grateful to be here with you each week and to offer a new view on whatever you may be going through sending you all my love See you next time
Transcribed by https://otter.ai
