The WERKin' Mommas™️

Nikki: 00:02

There's been a lot of conversations about mental wellness, specifically around dealing with childhood trauma. And it's it's been a larger conversation now as we start to realize how important exercising your brain is, which is a muscle. Just like we go to the gym and we work out to work muscles, we have to work our brain too. We have to invest in mental wellness. And the thing that has opened my eyes to quite a few people, quite a few scenarios and situations is that people talk about dealing with the effects of childhood trauma and how it affects you and what your life as an adult looks like when you carry unresolved childhood trauma.

Nikki: 01:26

And one of the things that is like a a dead giveaway or one of those things that really brings that trauma to the surface is when you see childlike behaviors from an adult. When you see it and it just makes you think like, wow. I haven't seen this since I was in the third grade. And what is going on? So what I'm thinking about is when, say, you're growing up.

Nikki: 02:10

Right? You get in trouble or something happens and you're you're being reprimanded. You're dealing with the consequences and repercussions of whatever it is you did that you weren't supposed to do. And your mama or your daddy walks away, and then you mumble under your breath to say how you really feel. You just you can't say it with your chest because you know what's gonna happen if you try to say it with your chest.

Nikki: 02:49

So imagine that scenario. You might be pacing back and forth in your room, figuring out how you can get revenge on your I mean, whatever the conversation with yourself is. And then seeing that play out as an adult, with an adult emulating or re basically reenacting the same type of behavior. And I've I've seen it in some public places. I've seen it in some private places, and that's all I can think of is why would you rather continue to wear that pain on your sleeve, on your face, in your job, in your relationships, in everything that you do, why would you continue to wear that pain?

Nikki: 04:09

And some people choose to avoid dealing with it because of triggers, because of the way it might make them feel vulnerable, hurt again, uncomfortable, but that pain feels like a cathartic pain that's going to help move you into a different phase of of dealing with and working through whatever past traumas you're trying to work through versus the pain of not dealing with it, which isn't really cathartic. It feels more like a a never ending a never ending pulsating type of pain that's always gonna be there, and it's never gonna change. It's always gonna be there as long as you carry that hurt, as long as you choose to not deal with it. And it's more like the the analogy of ripping the Band Aid off with the cathartic pain of dealing with past traumas and deep seated hurt where, yes, it's gonna hurt in the beginning. There's gonna be a lot of wounds open and and things come into the surface.

Nikki: 05:35

But once you can get over that hump and start a journey of of healing, of rejuvenation, of maybe even rebuilding some things, It feels so much better to have that pain off of you, to have that weight off of your back. And then if we go over here to the unresolved pain, it's more like you just keep putting a different Band Aid on it, or maybe you don't change the Band Aid at all. Or maybe you might even go and get some Neosporin or some Bactin before you put the Band Aid on just to make sure that you don't have to deal with it. And the unfortunate part about that is, yes, if there's an individual who's dealing with something who they feel like is too painful for me to revisit, I don't wanna deal with it. That's their choice.

Nikki: 06:36

But what you have to understand is that if you are that person or if you work with this person, if you experience this person in some kind of way, go to church with this person, you live with this person, you're in a relationship with this person, this is your friend, your partner, spouse, whatever, that's going to impact you. And if you're a person who has your own issues to deal with and now you are compounded with somebody else's just because of your sheer association with them because it's hard to wear that type of pain and deal with unresolved hurt and not have it bubble up to the surface every now and then when something feels uncomfortable, when things don't go your way, or if any type of rejection or denial or if anything happens to you as an adult that takes you back to those moments that caused you pain or trauma. And it doesn't have to rewind all the way back to childhood. There could be people who had great upbringings, and then as an adult, they started to experience different things in trauma. So I don't wanna hang the hat just on childhood trauma.

Nikki: 08:10

You can be an adult and create new drama and new trauma and not even realize it until the damage is already done. And so not a doctor, any of those therapists, not any of those at all. It's just a conversation that I wanted to give people something to think about. And a lot of times, people who choose to not deal with it, it it says a lot about other things that they are and aren't willing to do in terms of taking risk, trying new things, exploring, opening their minds, having a different way of thinking about things or even being open to other people's opinions. Their way is the right way.

Nikki: 09:10

They know. They've done it. And there's so many other factors that play into that, but the key takeaway is that if you're with somebody that is going through something or you suspect that they're going through something, start with how can I support you? Isn't always a situation where somebody has to sit down and tell you the whole story cover to cover. If they choose to share those things with you, then that's great, and that can help you help them to get to to get on a better path.

Nikki: 09:59

But it is absolutely going to affect you when you deal with people who harbor unresolved trauma and drama in their lives. And my hope that your relationship or your experience with this person is not severed or destroyed because of it and realize that sometimes people who operate in that way, the the core the core emotion, the foundational emotion is usually hurt. And the hurt is disguised as anger a lot of times, but it can also be disguised as happiness and jubilation. And that when you think about how do we say it? Like, people want everybody to think everything is fine.

Nikki: 11:24

The facade. Right? So it could also be disguised in that way. So the strong friend, for example, the person that you interact with, and anytime you're interacting with them, everything is up. Everything is great.

Nikki: 11:43

Everything is lovely. It's fine. No issues at all. Those are the type of people that are usually covering. And one quick thing before I wrap because I wanted this to be a quick thought.

Nikki: 12:00

But as I just as the word covering just came out of my mouth, it took me back to a conversation I had a while back about the different types of covering. And one of the examples is covering at work, parental covering, where you leave work, there's a happy hour you leave work at five, there's happy hour from six to eight, and everybody from the office is planning on leaving the office and going straight to happy hour except you because you have kids, and you have to pick them up from school or day care. So you don't get to partake in the activities because you have to get to day care before they close. Otherwise, they'll charge you what is it these days? $10 a minute that you're late?

Nikki: 12:49

I don't know. And then instead of that, you say, you know what? I am gonna leave work and go straight to the happy hour and hang out. And while I'm there and while I'm talking and eating and drinking, I'm also gonna remind everybody, hey. See, I can come out.

Nikki: 13:07

I don't have to skip events like this just because it's after work type of thing where people start to say, oh, you're here. Like, we thought maybe you had to go pick up the kids. And so you try to you try to mold the situation so that you don't look like the person who can't participate because you have an obligation that other people don't have. So those are the type of coverings. Or people with natural hair in the corporate world deciding to relax their hair because that seems to be more acceptable in their workplace.

Nikki: 13:45

That's covering where you are diluting or hiding or shielding a part of your true identity in order to fit a mold or allow yourself to be placed in a box or assimilate into some culture or environment. So, yeah, I just I felt that today. I wanted to put that out. I know that we get into these conversations on the podcast, and we can talk about a lot of things. We can talk about parenting, of course, and these kids and work and businesses and the house and what we found on Pinterest that we'll probably never make or decorate and politics and the news and money and just so much.

Nikki: 14:38

And I wanted to pause and just share this conversation real quick. So if it resonated with you, if it gave you something to think about, great. If it didn't, that's great too. But we'll put a pin in this conversation for now. So as always, thank you all for tuning in to the working mommas podcast.

Nikki: 15:07

It has been fun, and feel free to share this episode, to like and rate it so that other people can find it who need it. And come back and listen to another episode next week or even tomorrow or even right after this one. There's plenty out there for you to listen to. And I like to have fun, unfiltered, unedited conversations about the frolic and frustrations of motherhood among other things. But it's always a great conversation to have to connect with other moms and other mom supporters and just have a a free space for a minute.

Nikki: 15:49

You know? No walls up. No formalities. No politically correctness. Just a live organic conversation.

Nikki: 15:59

So thank y'all for tuning in. Y'all be good. I'll see y'all next time.