The Power of Self-Care: Carly George on Healing from Trauma

Healing is the key to everything.

"I just really want people to know that everything that they need is inside them already."

Carly George is a self-love coach and trauma specialist who helps women to heal from their childhood trauma and to practice self-care in a way that is healing.

This is Carly George's story...

Carly George is a woman who helps other women heal from trauma. She began her journey of helping others when she realized that the official health system wasn't helping people in the way she thought it should. Carly helps people to understand that everything they need is already inside them and that they don't need to go to an authority figure to get help. Instead, they should create practices that nurture and support them.

In this episode, you will learn the following:
1. How our childhood trauma transitions into our daughter and how you and how all of us are affected by that 2. How we can practice more self-care in a way that is healing 3. How do you  move past suffering in your emotions, in your life

Resources:
https://thyme4teawithmikita.com/

Chapter Summaries:
[00:00:04] - Ms. Carly George is a guest on Carla's show today. We are going to talk about trauma and how it affects us.

[00:01:14] - Carly Jordan is on the path of helping other women to heal. She is inquisitive and she has always read loads of books. Carly believes that people are their own spiritual guidance, and healing is tapping into that spiritual connection to who you are and doing the hard work.

 People are afraid of their feelings because they don't know how to listen to them. When they learn to reprogram their emotions, they can breathe through them in 90 seconds. It's hard work to do, but when they get used to the process, it's beautiful. Sometimes people get into toxic dynamics with people and they become their own abuses. People can't make you happy, and if that's what you're depending on, then you're never going to find the happiness that you're looking for. It's important to talk to yourself about what you want out of your relationship and then walk away. With each chapter, with each thing there you unlock a different part of who you are. They always should be a level of growth with each chapter. It's like you are like the seasons or the ocean. Not ever the same. Always moving, always flowing.

Carly is launching her first group coaching program for women at the beginning of October. It's going to be 8 weeks long, and it's about spiritual, emotional, physical, and self-care. Carly is on Facebook under the name Courageously, and she has a group called Awakened Women reclaiming Emotional Sovereignty.
Connect with Carly: http://facebook.com/courageouslycarly  https://www.facebook.com/groups/3067192570210928/

Other episodes you'll enjoy:
Zavonda Parrish: How To Embrace The Past To Step Into Your Purpose
Ayesis Clay: Recognizing The Symptoms Of Compassion Fatigue
Connect with me:
 https://www.instagram.com/thyme4teawithmikita/
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Transcript

[00:00:04]
All right, welcome back. It is time for some tea. I just want to thank you so much for sharing your time, your space and your energy with me today. I am super excited. I have listed me an amazing person, an amazing guest, Ms.

[00:00:19]
Carly George. And today we are just going to be diving in to talk about trauma in the way that how it affects us. Not just our childhood trauma. But how our childhood trauma transitions into our daughter and how you and how all of us are affected by that and how we can move past that and how we can practice more self-care in a way that is healing. Because I think healing is like the key to everything.

[00:00:51]
How do you heal past the trauma? How do we get to that point of recognizing that we're in trauma? So, Carla, thank you so much.

[00:01:02]
Awesome. Thank you for having me. Yes, thank you for just being here and sharing your space and your energy with me and my amazing audience today. Tell us, if you had to describe who you are as a person, how would you describe that? Who is Carly Jordan?

[00:01:23]
These questions, they always throw me, who am I? I am that I am not really that is the country's answer, but I am someone who loves very deeply and who is very deep and open and curious and spiritual and on the healing path, as well as someone who just wants to make the most of the time I have here on the planet and someone who wants to know themselves as deeply as possible. I don't know if that's the right answer, but that's my answer. I don't think there is ever a wrong answer because we're so multifaceted. And when we talk about our childhood and where we were versus where we're at, there's so many things that go into that that make us who we are.

[00:02:23]
And that is like, we are a version of all of those things. So there's never a wrong answer when we think about that. But what kind of got you on the path of helping other women to heal, to practice that devotional, self-care, and just recognize that you have to start a healing process, start a healing journey? Well, I'm someone who's always like, when I think back to my childhood and the many activities I did, I was like dancing, gymnastics, horse riding, I was very sort of social. And what I noticed about myself is that I always had this supportive nature.

[00:03:09]
So say, for instance, when I was a cheerleader, I remember sometimes when the new girl, she used to start and be all size at the back, and I'd always say to the girl, I remember this one particular, a girl come and stand by me because I didn't want them to feel left out or silly. I wanted them to feel comfortable and welcome. And so I've always had that naturally in me, but just my own journey in general. I'm someone that's if I'm thinking something, it's kind of normally coming up my math. So because I've always been so inquisitive and I've always read loads of books and been naturally kind of interpersonal development.

[00:03:50]
I'm always sharing because I can't help. It makes me feel so excited and I want people to feel good. So I'm always sharing these things and some people don't even want to know, but some people do. And so like my own healing journey, I started to kind of realize that so many people are suffering and people need help. And I don't necessarily this isn't like a bash system conversation, but I found that the official sort of health system that set up to help people in this country, it wasn't helping.

[00:04:28]
And so after I figured some stuff out for myself, it's like I want to empower people to understand and to know in an embodied way that everything that they need is inside them already. And they don't need to go to a so called authority like where the authority of our bodies we need guidance, we need people to point us in a direction, but other than that, we've got this. And I just really want people to know that. Yeah, I think we get a little lost sometimes because we forget that we are our own spiritual guidance. You know, we have the healing power in us already.

[00:05:16]
It's just tapping into that spiritual connection to who you are and doing the hard work. I think that's a lot of things that kind of throw people off is they don't really want to look back on the trauma that they experienced. That digging, that saying I've experienced this, I experienced something that was very traumatic. And in order for me to move forward, to start healing, I have to actually look back at that and admit it because so much of our trauma seems normal at the time. You witness trauma, you live in trauma, you spend 30, 40 years sometimes thinking that this is normal trauma.

[00:06:00]
Like, this is normal C and it's actually just repeated bouts of trauma that either was passed on to you that you've experienced, then how do you get to the point of saying, this is crazy, like, why am I living like this? I can't anymore, I need to move past this. And I don't want this cycle of trauma and everything that goes with it because there's a lot of mental health in that. How do you transition people to that space or that you've noticed? So I don't really transition people to there.

[00:06:40]
They have to get there by themselves. And normally it's like I speak for myself here, but when a pattern in your life is so bloody painful and it keeps repeating and I don't know, your normal methods of trying to deal with it are not working, it starts to get so uncomfortable. Like walking on hot coal there's only a certain amount of time you're going to spend on something. And normally it's kind of in their thirties, generally speaking, but something happens and it's more uncomfortable to live in the painful patterns than it is to change them. And so it's like you can never force anyone.

[00:07:21]
It's something you have to come to and then from there. Like, each journey is unique, but what I find is like, there's so many coaches and he loves helping with this stuff. Each each coach has their own flavor and their own way of doing it. And so it's kind of like, find what resonates with your soul and go that way. I like that you said that you don't transition to people, that people have to do it themselves.

[00:07:46]
Because I think we are now in a world where people expect other people to help them. You're going to help me. You're going to fix me. You're going to make it better. And it's like no one can really make it better.

[00:08:03]
But like you say, when you get a certain age and you've repeated this for a while, you do things get really uncomfortable. You start looking around and you're like, I don't like this anymore. I don't want to feel this way anymore. I don't want to feel broken anymore. I don't want to feel lost anymore.

[00:08:21]
I don't want to feel alone. Like, I am just doing this by myself. I don't want that broken person. I want to feel complete. I want to feel whole.

[00:08:31]
And that makes the change start to like you said, you start helping yourself and you are no longer waiting to be rescued. Yeah, there are layers of rescue then because the deeper you dig, some days are difficult, some forms are difficult. Like, the pain is so deeply inside of us that sometimes you do wish somebody has come along and like, you I feel sometimes you're like, oh, my God, do I have to deal with this? Stay. But it's like, I've lost the trailer.

[00:09:07]
Thought I was on there. You have so many thoughts with your mind. You're like, which path was I own? Let's move on. Yes.

[00:09:15]
But when you're saying that, talking about some days you just like, I need help. I want someone to kind of come help me and do it. Not too long ago, I felt that way. I deal with a lot of anxiety and I took time off from work, so I'm a nurse by trade. And I was like, you know what?

[00:09:38]
I need a couple of days off. I just want to relax. I don't want to do anything. And I did it and I woke up my very first day off, I woke up and I felt down. Like, I just felt so depressed and my mind wasn't in it.

[00:09:55]
And I was just like, oh, gosh, I wish maybe I need to talk to someone. I had all these things and it was just like, hold on. Let's start with me first. Let me kind of do a little internal. Like, let's be honest about what's happening to you at this moment, where you really at what's really the cause.

[00:10:16]
Because some things we already know, we just don't want to deal with. So it was just that really sitting down with myself and being open and honest and like you said, every day and a good day every day, you don't want to do it alone. And it's not that you're necessarily alone, but in your journey, people can guide you. People can be there for you, to support you, but none of them can do the work for you. Yeah, totally.

[00:10:43]
And I like what you said about dealing with yourself first because what I find our coping stuff to do to become so normalized, like getting busy, doing the cleaning, going shopping, drinking, eating lots of food or going out and sleeping with someone or whatever, these things become so normalized. But what we don't realize is that driving those things are like emotions and feelings that want to be heard. And so what we tend to do is kind of ignore them or stuff them away and then as soon as they start to come up, we might even think there's something wrong with it. My God, or I need to talk to someone. Like, it's kind of always externalizing when really there's nothing wrong.

[00:11:29]
These things that feel like something wrong is actually your body functioning in exactly the way it was designed. And I called a message. And so the question always is, like, especially when you've wake up, how do I actually feel? How do I feel? How does my body feel?

[00:11:46]
How does my heart feel? How do I feel mentally? And then sort of from there, it's developing this is what I hope people do, but it's developing practices that really nurture and support. I've come to see it as this beautiful romance with yourself. Like, if you imagine that you're two people in a way and in fact, there are many, there's so many different parts inside when you start doing it in a work.

[00:12:12]
But there's sort of this you and then there's this other you like, it maybe a masculine and a family you and one takes care of the other. And so if you start to see yourself as this kind of romance, what do you need? If you imagine the most divine love I will give you, how would it treat you? Like, I tend to wake up and I'll massage the bits of my body that feel kind of stiff and then I do some breath work for like half an hour, which is so healing. It brings up stuff on your body that you didn't have there.

[00:12:49]
And you cry and all sorts of stuff. I do a bit stretching. I journal and drink water fast before I even kind of get out of the bed. But those practices are really making me feel this intimate connection with myself. And so sometimes a little bit of sadness, they're not there to do anything to you or to spoil your life.

[00:13:13]
They just need to be heard. And so you give that piece of sadness a voice and you might journal it or just talk to it and you'll notice that actually it's changed. It shifts like nothing lasts forever. And so as you sort of practice loving yourself in that way, it becomes second nature. But then you just kind of start to realize, oh, I get it.

[00:13:35]
My body is a guidance system. It communicates, so it talks, you listen and then respond and that's it go about life. I love the fact that you brought up doing the breath work because when dealing with my anxiety, that is what really helped me and it is one of the things I kind of got away from it the last two weeks. But I always have to bring myself back because when I start, I do it first thing in the morning. Normally it's the first thing I do and it really sets the tone, like you said, creating those moments of how you're going to start your day with checking into yourself.

[00:14:18]
And I find that when I'm doing the breathing, the breath work, it really lets me, like you say, listen to my body, listen to what it needs for that day, what it wants. And sometimes we try to pile our plate up high because we live in a society that you have to be doing something which was part of what I was feeling that day. For the first time in months, I had nothing to do. And so I couldn't escape all these thoughts that were going on in my head that I was able to like, oh, I can be busy here, I can be busy there. And it's like, no, you got to deal with me now.

[00:14:49]
It's time to check in and deal with me now. And I think people have a hard time getting to that space of saying, I love myself enough to listen to myself. Yeah, and you know what though? Yes, but people haven't been taught how to listen either because feelings are scary. A lot of these feelings that we've developed, these trauma ones, they were developed in childhood when our little brain, we weren't developed enough to understand and process.

[00:15:17]
And so those kind of feeling, the fear and terror that we had when we were too small to understand, it's how they feel inside of now. And so people are like frightened of their feelings. We haven't been shown how to. This is another thing that I help people with, learning how to tap into the present moment and feel what's going on without being attached to it and the stories that come along with it. Because where there's a feeling, where there's an emotion, there's thoughts, the two are connected.

[00:15:47]
So it's like this mind body connection. So, yeah, through starting to listen through the feelings, first you start to recognize the thought patterns that you have. Then you can work with your thoughts as well. Maybe you change them or reprogram them. And so it's like an art form.

[00:16:05]
Once you know how to do that, it's like having a toolkit for life. We just need the tools to care for ourselves. And that's my mission. I want to help people to become suffering in their emotions, in their lives. I like that.

[00:16:22]
I think you're doing that even you have the YouTube channel on Mass where you talk to some amazing women about just really shedding that. And like you said, I love the fact that you brought up that there is this there's a feeling, there's a thought, and usually with all those thoughts, there's a story that's attached to that and then you start kind of refilling it all over again. But if you reprogram how you think about the emotion and feel it, then it changes how I would say, I guess the right one I'm looking for is the control it has over us. Because sometimes we give our emotions so much control.

[00:17:04]
Yeah. And it controls everything and it just from that one feeling will take us down this whole spiral of emotions, and you're locked in there and controlled by it. I see that as speaking from my own experience. That is really you because you're trying to get away from them. And in order for us not to feel like this deep shame or unworthiness or this grief that we have underneath, our ego will do anything not to feel that.

[00:17:39]
And so, like, patterns, like lashing out at people or addictive behaviors or love addiction and that kind of thing, that is literally us trying not to feel all the stuff underneath. And so it has control over you because what you run from control view. Right. We have to learn to turn around and face ourselves. And it's the most loving thing.

[00:18:05]
Once you've kind of done that and got used to doing that, what you find that is there's something so beautiful. There's just this little girl in there that just needs to be picked up and held and told that everything is all right and told that there's no monsters under the bed. I know I'm simplifying, but really it is kind of bad. But it's hard. It's hard work to do.

[00:18:31]
But when you really get used to the process, it does become beautiful as well. And the emotions, they don't last as long. They can breathe through you in like 90 seconds once you learn how to let them. Right? So, I don't know, it does become fun and it actually gives life more color and meaning and diversity, I find.

[00:18:52]
Yes, but it's so different, I guess, depend on, like you said, when you talk about the childhood trauma and the learned behavior, the patterns of how you learn how to cope, how you learn how to communicate, you even learn how to feel when you're young. And also like, you are not allowed to cry. There's no crying here. There's no room for emotions. And then you get to a place where you have to actually show emotions.

[00:19:25]
It's very hard to get there from terrifying. Yes. And also as a child, especially before seven, you're in your emotional body.

[00:19:42]
You can't not do that. So being told, I mean, we used to get hit with children and told if you cry, you're going to get something to cry for. And you weren't allowed to point out, but hang on a minute, you just hit me and you get hit to try to get what? I mean, there's so much wrongdoing that we're doing to children about their emotions. Shut up, stop crying, stop whining, stop complaining, just basically stop being and change into something else.

[00:20:09]
And then we have these patterns. When we get our first boyfriend or whatever serious relationship, it becomes like a mirror of that environment that we had as children, but we don't recognize it. And so you can get into a really toxic dynamics with people or spend your whole life squashing your emotions and silencing yourself. We become our own abuses, actually, because we're the ones that are playing out the patterns and we're picking the perfect other person to help us do that. Right?

[00:20:40]
So as we do this healing work, as we learn to love ourselves with such commitment and dedication and devotion, that relationship becomes a foundation and then we start attracting things to us that mirror that instead. I love the fact that you talked about the attractive because I think sometimes we forget the energy that we have within us is the energy that we kind of sort of attract as well. So when we are looking, when we're holding onto negativity or negative energy, we seem to attract it. But when we start looking at the positives and we start releasing positive energy in return, you're going to attract people that will also bring in positive energy. I think energy is like a flowing thing for me.

[00:21:33]
It flows through us, around us. But you have to make sure the energy that you have is also good. Well, yeah, life attracts life.

[00:21:44]
If you find yourself in a dynamic where that person never listens to me, there's a limiting belief there probably from childhood, no one listens to me. But also, where are you not listening to yourself? Are you listening to yourself? There's always something to be learnt from what's happening around us and inside us. Like, it's not for nothing, right?

[00:22:07]
This stuff means something. There's a cause of everything. So it's really important to pay attention to what's coming at you and what stories you're telling. It is, and you know, it's so funny is that I was talking to someone not too long ago and they were like, well, that person is just not making me happy. And I was like, how are they supposed to make you happy though?

[00:22:36]
No one can do that for you. You have to be able to be happy for yourself. People can't make you happy and if that's what you're depending on, then you're never going to find the happiness that you're looking for. Because in that there has to be a conversation with yourself first and then maybe think about what you want out of your relationship because there's so many dynamics there. But it was just like the thought that another person is supposed to make you happy.

[00:23:12]
Yes, people do that a lot, but also in that is like sometimes it's communication error. Somebody might actually generally feel happy in themselves, but what they mean and maybe what they're not admitting and this kind of goes into self abandonment, but that person is not compatible with me. I kind of think that's what they really mean. Right, but because we're not used to kind of filling our own cup, it's the idea or they're not making me happy, but there's always a choice. Like if the relationship isn't compatible where actually I'm finding we're arguing all the time and I've kind of done mine at work and I don't see as really going anywhere.

[00:23:52]
It's having the balls and the face to say, okay, this is not what I want, I want a better match, and walking away instead of clinging on and blaming and you're not making me happy. And then especially as women, we spend all this time with a man who's not compatible and we're trying to change him and force him to be this love that we really feel that we need instead of giving that love to ourselves. And that includes when you pick a partner rather than just kind of and I did this a lot, just rushing in and getting really beat with someone before I knew them and then spending years or months or whatever trying to fix them and change them. But it's slow down, know who you are, know what you want and then have the courage to say no to everything that isn't that and that whatever's meant for you is going to come to you. It takes so much trust and leaning back and it's really just trusting in the life you were given and in who you are instead of doing things out of fear, which is what most of us do.

[00:25:01]
We accept things instead of things just out of fair.

[00:25:08]
We do. But I love the fact that you said that you have to hit pause. You have to hit that pause button. It's so important that you do and create the foundation. And like the first step in the foundation is knowing who you are.

[00:25:25]
You don't know what you want until you know who you are. Exactly.

[00:25:37]
I have two teenage girls. My youngest just went away to college and it was so funny because I keep telling her, I'm like, take time, get to know who you are. This is like a whole new chapter that's going to really give you an opportunity to discover this person, because you should not be the same person you were three or five years ago. With each chapter, with each thing, there you are unlocking a different part of who you are, a different part of what you need from yourself, from other people that you are allowing to be in your circle, in your space. And with that comes that point where you have to kind of reexamine, who am I?

[00:26:25]
Like, things have changed. I'm no longer who I was in high school. I'm no longer who I was when I was in nursing school. To who I am now, that person at the core is the same, but I've grown there. They always should be a level of growth with each chapter.

[00:26:48]
Yes. Which is why it's so important to, I guess, instill into yourself this habit of always inquiring. Like, the work is never done. Right. You're like having a kaleidoscope, you know, those like telescope things with the pattern?

[00:27:05]
Then you just turn it around and it keeps creating a new, beautiful pattern that's you it's never done. You don't reach a stage like, all right, I'm growing up now. And that's it. It's like you are like the seasons or the ocean. Not ever the same.

[00:27:22]
Always moving, always flowing. And so it's so important to keep checking in. I mean, I'm not the same person from my home. Sometimes by the time I go to bed, I'm not the same person who wake up in the morning. You know what I mean?

[00:27:34]
Yes. That changes too. Yeah.

[00:27:42]
I love the work that you're doing with helping women. Just recognize that you can put yourself first so you don't have to be ashamed of that. To embrace the fact that it's okay to practice that self care, to practice that self love, to create the foundation.

[00:28:01]
Tell us a little bit more about how you help women and what do you have going on? Well, in fact, by the time this comes out, you will have missed. I have a free event happening on September, which is a really con, but I am launching my first group coaching program at the beginning of October. I think I've planned it for the 5 October. It's going to be eight weeks.

[00:28:27]
And it's like this deep dive into this beautiful devotional selfcare. Take it in stages. So each week you get to try something on. So it's gentle. It's a gentle process.

[00:28:40]
We do women's circles where we get to share. We do breath work ceremonies, and each week we're going to try something on. And so we might try what it's like when we just only drink water. We notice how we feel. And then when we just make some tweaks to our diet, we can do these challenges that may last three to five days.

[00:29:00]
So you get to experience what it's like when you make certain choices, because when you experience something, that's how knowledge kind of settles into your system. You're able to make changes. And so it's going to be this beautiful, loving container where you get to initiate yourself into a new way of being, a new way of relating. I call it non negotiable. I don't think, like, oh, it's all right to welcome.

[00:29:30]
I'm saying self care is absolutely non negotiable. If you want to have that beautiful life and beautiful relationships and wake up to be happy and healthy and joyous and make the most of this life that you get, it's absolutely imperative. And so, yeah, this program is going to be, like I said, a group program for eight weeks. And we're going to be diving deep into all things spiritual, emotional, physical, selfcare. So, yeah, people can find me on Facebook.

[00:30:02]
I'm only on Facebook currently under the name Courageously. Carly and I have a group as well called what have I called it? It might change because I can't find the right name, but at the minute it is called Awakened Women Reclaiming Emotional Sovereignty. So I share all my little bits of wisdom and things and, yeah, this is kind of quite a new venture for me. Whatever support I can get, I'm really grateful for that.

[00:30:35]
Well, I love the work that you're doing and I'm very excited to see how your new group course is going to come along. Eight weeks, like you said, we talked about changing a habit, changing a thought process. It takes time and getting that opportunity to try something on week by week to see what works, how you feel, really sit with it, sit with the change, sit with how it makes you feel and really give it thought. That's powerful because you're trusting in yourself to make those decisions. Exactly, yeah.