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The Art of Trauma Transformation with Alexis Albro · Groove with Portia

0:06
Welcome to Group Porsche, the podcast that uncovers the hidden treasures within grief.
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I'm your host, Porsche of the Producer, and I'm inviting you to join
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me on a transformative journey where were exchange laughter of course the best medicine of
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them all, reflect on cherished memories, Remember that time that the little boy
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grabbed my hand instead of his mother's at the amusement park yikes, And of
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course, discover gratitude while navigating one of life's hardest challenges loss. So get
0:31
ready to grow with me, Porsche the Producer, let's dive in. Hey
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listeners, welcome back to Group of Porsche. I am your host and face,
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Porsche of the Producer. Don't forget too as always like share and subscribe
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to keep up with the latest and greatest of all. Grew with Porsche.
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So today I am joined by an individual who was turned the calls of our
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journey into a testimony for the masses. So welcome founder of Survivor Rising and
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also your trauma informed coach, Miss Alexis Albro. How are you doing today,
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Alexis, I'm amazing. How are you, Porsha? You know,
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Alexis, every day is great. That ends in why, and alexis for
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our audience who is tuning in. I'd love to start off my conversations with
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gratitude. What are you grateful for today? Yeah, I am grateful for
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celebrating one year. Yesterday we went to dinner for the one year celebration of
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my dad being cancer free, and I am very grateful of that. So
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and I'm grateful for you. I'm grateful you continue to show up for yourself
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and for this community despite what life throws us. And yeah, I'm grateful
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for this today. You know, alexis around of applause to your father.
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I know that journey all too well of you know, celebrating cancer remission ends
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And you know because it's a scary journey, right because whether you're stage one
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or stage four, no matter what stage, a diagnosis rattles your whole world.
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And I know that all too well from when my mom was diagnosed with
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stage three mun cancer in two thousand and eighteen. So kudos to your dad
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for keeping it moving and reaching that survivor boat. The other thing that you
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hit on was, you know, obviously me showing up, us showing up
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as survivors of what life brings us. Right, because life is gonna throw
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us some traumatic curveballs, but there's always the silver lining within the situation.
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And so alexis, you know one of the things that I love to hit
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on. As entrepreneurs, we go through a plethora of emotions right when we
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are making that transitional boat from the corporate space to being full time entrepreneurs.
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And for our audience who's tuning in for more on this conversation about pivoting from
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corporate to entrepreneurship makes you tune into my conversation with a net guarsteck from more
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on that, Alex says, I'm curious as for you, now that you're
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in this space of entrepreneurship and being a coach, how have you navigated the
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grief that comes with the entrepreneurship journey? Right? Because a lot of us,
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when we take the leap, we don't always have a strong support system.
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There's doubt of should I have done this, should I've stayed longer?
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So share with our audience, Alexis, how you've navigated the grief journey of
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that comes with entrepreneurship. Yeah, there's definitely a grief journey that comes with
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that and a healing journey as well. I think that that was something I
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forget me. It was you, Porscha who told me that owning your own
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business is going to be the biggest healing journey, and I was like,
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no, no, no, I've done the healing. I've gone deep,
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like I very much, have really dug into a lot of the past.
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I'm very present in the future or very present now and then really you know,
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have visualized what the future would look like, and it still has really
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racked me at times. I think that it has. I'm so grateful self
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for that, because if I would never have left my corporate job, I
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don't think I would ever know certain parts of myself like I do right now,
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and that I will continue to learn about. I've been able to really
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find out who I am because of course, you know, as I am
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showing up as myself in my business and I want to make sure that people
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feel that as well and know that I am showing up with integrity and authenticity
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and and so that has been really interesting to like not be connect did to
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not have to adapt or even people please or use those trauma responses to identify
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with an organization or a person or a you know, community and just really
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identify as just who I am, and part of that is losing And to
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me, maybe that grief looks like grieving the comfort of what was before in
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my personal life and professional life and the ease of ignorance beingless. There was
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definitely a sort of comfort, but I was not fully present in my life
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and I'm so grateful right now that I can have them. Oh, Alexis,
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you literally just quoted obviously a book that I cannot always get through,
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which is nineteen eighty four by George Orwell, and I know that that's repeated
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it throughout the entire book, Ignorance is Bliss. And I love how you
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talked about that grief of leaving that comfort zone, right, because let's be
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realistic. When we are in the swing of being nine to five vers we
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go to work at eight o'clock in the morning, we know we don't get
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off until four, So in the meantime we're doing whatever our role requires us
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to do. But in a sense we're connected to everybody else's world but disconnected
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from us. And I love, Alexis how you also brought up how you're
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able to be fully present in your life today because you took that leap of
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faith from the corporate space to now embodying your true, authentic self, and
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that brings a whole way of grief that I really want to touch on today
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because as the survivor that you are, right, each and every one of
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us has been a survivor of something, whether it's trauma. Obviously me with
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losing both of my parents and nine months from each other. Right, there's
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a there's an identity, right that's lost in the mix of that, right,
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And so Alexis, I'm curious for our audience who's tuning in. What
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strategies did you use to in a sense, let go of that trauma identity
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to really pivot into the triumphant advocate who you are today. Yeah, that's
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a good question. One of them, right off the top of my head
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is what you might hear in the background, which is Coconut my dog.
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Animal therapy has been wonderful, but if you think you're going to get an
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emotional support animal, they might actually need an emotional support human, which is
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what I will be for Halloween this year because that is exactly what I am
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to her. But that identity, you know, it has different as the
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healing journey has gone on. There is no prescription that for healing, there
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is no one answer, and that one answer is going if there is a
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one answer, but the multiple answers that you have and the tools those tools
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will change, which is why it's so important to have. You know,
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I know it's cliche, but like that toolbox. And I think that a
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big part of me really growing from that identity has been accepting that identity,
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and not just identity, but accepting who I was in that trauma, accepting
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that part of myself, and then actually loving that part of myself. Sometimes
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that has looked like a a little bit of like inner child work, that
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has looked like EMDR, that has looked like multiple different types of healing modalities.
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It has looked like coaching, and that that's been a more recent shift.
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So that is kind of the part of myself from like, hey,
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you know, I understand, and I've really been able to honor my inner
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child. I've been able to honor the person who I was when I was
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acting in ways or I was behaving in ways or feeling certain things that we're
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keeping me alive, Like my brain, my body has always just kept me
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alive, and I need to think it for that and even though maybe circumstances
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didn't, you know, show up how they needed to, or if I
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did put myself in harm's way, which I did, I know that at
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that time I was doing what I needed to do. And so honoring that
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has been one thing. Honoring the present has been that next part of like
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really being able to just grow from that identity and move away from just identifying
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with the trauma rather than working with the trauma. And so that today looks
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like also honoring when it shows up and when those old parts show up in
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ways that I don't want it to necessarily show up us because still I am,
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my brain will always work to keep me alive. So I know that.
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I also know that it is a constant journey. It's a healing journey,
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just like trauma informed care, just like any healing. It is a
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journey. It is not a destination. And so I think that understanding that
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and understanding that it'll look different for different seasons of our life. And also
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we might be okay, we might think that we're over that I'm over that
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that's not something I deal with anymore, or I'm not grieving anymore for that
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too, show up in other times of our lives. And that's why I
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believe so much in traum and farm coaching because it can and it will.
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You know, when you might lose a parent or have a baby, or
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you might buy a house or have or lose your job, and like then
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that stuff comes up and it's like, so, what can we do?
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What are those tools and resources that network of individuals who can support you in
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things, individuals things maybe not physical things, but like podcasts, things like
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that that can support you when things do not show up, And we kind
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of go back to that person we were so hopefully that does that answer your
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question? No, No, you really hit the nail on the head,
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Alexis when you talked about number one again being present in the moment number two,
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that it's a healing journey, right, It's not a destination. I
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think with grief, we tend to put a GPS navigator on our grief journey,
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on our journeys of going from traumatic to triumphant. We want to put
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a destination endpoint on it. But as we both know, it's like a
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wave. It's some days you'll be okay, I'm smooth sailing today, But
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then as you mentioned as we go through the different aspects of life of buying
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a house, moving away from the childhood home that you've always embodied, there's
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gonna be some grief there because you're gonna feel like you're leaving behind a part
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of you, right and in a sense you are. But at the same
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time, look at all the emotions that spring up that you didn't realize would
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spring up from you taking that pivot and taking that leap of faith and Alexis
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before we jump into the next part of the conversation, for our audience who's
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tuning in, if they're interested in connecting with you and learning more about you,
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can you share your social media or a website where people can find you.
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Yeah, so my website is Alexis elbrow dot com. You can also
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get the trauma Ware directory which Portia is on. It's for Northeast Ohio and
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the virtual community and that is at alexis elbro dot com slash trauma Aware directory
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and then at survivor Rising only one hour in the middle. That is my
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Instagram handle threads and most active on Instagram though, and yeah, you can
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also get a hold of me via email at algrow Alexis at gmail dot com.
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Excellent. So everybody, you can definitely connect with Alexis if you want
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to obviously have her come and speak more about her journey. You know,
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Alexis, I want to go back to something that you mentioned. One of
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the things that really caught my attention was learning to love that part of yourself
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that was heavily, deeply rooted in the traumatic experience that you went through.
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And I think each and every one of us has been in that boat where
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we resented that part of us because in our mind we thought we should have
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known better, We should have known better than to let this happen. Why
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did I let this happen? What could I have done better? For our
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audience? Alexis, who's tuning in? How can they learn to number one,
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forgive themselves for that for taking it so hard on themselves, and to
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learn to love that person who they were during that traumatic experience. So we'll
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start with how can they learn to forgive? And then how can they learn
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to love? Yeah, so for me personally and for and I know that
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this has worked with some clients as well, and actually most people. Is
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education, and it is especially helpful if you are a curious person. A
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lifelong learner, and I know cost you definitely. You know, our conversations
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have really been very much like this, where it's about learning about yourself and
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it's about learning, not necessarily even why, but it's about learning. Once
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I started to understand my brain, understand my nervous system, the vagus nerve,
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and how the vagus nerve can be can impact our whole body and does
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impact our whole body, how that also impacts our gut, and how that
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gut brain connection that can really impact all that we're doing. It impacts the
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chemicals that are throughout in hormones that are throughout our body. And then understanding
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those parts of the brain that you know, if you have your amygdala,
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and that's where all your emotions, your fight flight or freezes, and all
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of a sudden because of trauma, we are executive functioning, and our ability
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to think plan really productively go on with a corporate job or with something that
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we don't necessarily fully align with being able to communicate effectively things like that,
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those go offline and all we have are those emotions that we are reacting to,
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and that's our reptilian brain. So it's kind of that is more of
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if you think about an animal in the wild and the way that an animal
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will react immediately, and if you do have like a snake or something,
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and it'll move either move away or it'll freeze. And oftentimes, like I
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know coconut does this all the time. She'll like if she sees the nail
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thing, like the nail clippers come out and she just freezes and and it's
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like, you know, there's these reactions, these trauma responses that can show
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up, and it all makes sense once you understand that your brain makes sense
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your body the things that are happening in your body. That may look like
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migraines, it may look like stomach pain, it may look like weight gain,
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weight loss, it can look like a it can look like autoimmune disorders,
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cancer, things like that showing up in our body. Okay, so
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there's the brain and the body and understanding that those makes sense. That is
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what gave me the power personally. And I think that when we become empowered
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and understand, hey, my body was in trying to It's always had two
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feet down the gun and kept me alive. And yeah, there's been times
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where it maybe it failed me or what I thought failed me. But the
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whole time it is on your side. It's never working against you. You
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are your body. So I think that education piece is huge. And then
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also understanding those trauma responses. So there have been things that I, you
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know, ways that I have have coped with traumatic situations, and in when
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I've coped in those ways, I responded viat oftentimes freeze. And that came
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from a many you know, that came from at least a decade of really
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adapting to that freeze response and being forced into that freeze response. And there's
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times even today where I'm like, why did I not say something? Why
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didn't I stand up for myself? Why didn't I do? You know?
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And like, and I've been able to really work with myself to not only
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understand it, but also work with it. And so that's been a really
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important part of that process, is the education piece of things. And then
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I think also just yeah, and I think that was your second question about
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the forgiveness and kind of forgiving yourself. A lot of that for me has
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looked like sitting in silence. I think that do you mind if I use
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a prop really quick? So, and I know most people not be able
19:44
to see me but so I just started trauma and formed yoga in the Cleveland
19:48
School District And this is just something that we utilize and it's just sparkles in
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a jar for those who can't see see me. And as we life shakes
20:00
it up right, things happen and things get difficult. But as we rest,
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as we reflect, as we do our gratitude, when we really sit
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with those emotions and actually feel, we start to see that things get a
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little bit more clear. And I put a lot of sparkles in my jar
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because I love sparkles and glitter and proudly do. So it might take it
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a little bit for it to settle, so I'll just leave it over here.
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But as time goes on and you can almost see it's starting to get
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clear. Because we've been able to sit with the emotions, sit with the
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feelings, sit with the fierce, the things that might we're scared to feel,
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everything starts to make sense. And that person, once it all makes
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sense, we can we can forgive that person. We can see that person
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for who they are and what they needed at that time. So yeah,
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I'm I'm very excited about this star of sparkles. No and Alexis I have
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to say I love the analogy, right because when we you know, it's
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kind of like snow globes, right, when we shake up the snow globe,
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and then all the fun you know, things pop up, whether it's
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glitter, whether it's a it's an idea of like a snowy town like New
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York or something like that. Right, It's kind of like when trauma hits
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our body, it rocks us all the way. But then once we're in
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a safe space, whether it's our own company or in the company of someone
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who we trust, we're able to really channel in all the emotions, all
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the fields, take in our surroundings, and really in a sense, connect
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the dots once everything has settled. And I love that analogy because each and
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every one of us. Right, the way that I kind of interpret trauma,
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and you can chime in here, Alexis, is when a traumatic experience
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happens to you, it's like you're frozen in time. That part is frozen
22:08
in your body. So let's say if hypothetically you got in a car accident
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and the person who was driving the opposite car, maybe they have on a
22:17
yellow hoodie, so maybe you go to a new place of employment and your
22:22
boss has on the same kind of yellow hoodie, not saying that they were
22:25
the same person who hit you, but think about all the emotions that are
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gonna resurface, right because that incident is frozen within your entire being. So
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it really it's almost like trauma has no understanding of time or date or moment.
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It just resurfaces the minute that it has a trigger. I don't know
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if that explains it in the way that you perfect, Yeah, but I
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think for our audience when it comes to just the way that both of us
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have explained, and I think it's important for us to really learn to be
23:02
present and to sit and to also learn to love that part of ourselves.
23:07
Don't resent it because our brain was doing the best that could. Our brain
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wasn't working against us. Nothing was working against us, right, you hit
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on, alexis the importance of education. I think in the world today,
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there's so much unlearning that we have to do, and that's the beauty,
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right. I just literally texted this to my shout out to my significant other.
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I just texted that to them this morning. The importance of we are
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students for life on this physical plane. Each day is a learning opportunity.
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We don't know everything on this life school, but the beauty is that we
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can seek it and we shall find it exactly and there's no need for shame
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around that. I think that's something that when people here, even the word
24:00
trauma informed or even healing, there like all of a sudden brings us fear
24:07
of oh my gosh, that means I need to do that all perfectly right
24:10
now, or all the things that I've done in the past that was bad
24:15
or wrong or I shouldn't have done that, and I should feel shamed for
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that, And so then they just ignore the fact that like there's even any
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growth because they feel shameful for you know, if they admit that, then
24:26
they admit that they're they should have done things differently in the past. But
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that's not true. Again, that is the journey. It is a learning
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like a journey filled with continuous learning and continuously improving on ourselves. I mean,
24:45
and also brain science, new stuff comes out every single day, so
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we don't even know as a as a planet, we don't even know what
24:59
there is left learn and so I think that that's kind of interesting too,
25:03
because there's always new information being out there. Well, of course, our
25:07
thoughts, our opinions are the way we adapt, and that's a big part
25:11
of like trauma informed care as a whole, and that's in trauma aware.
25:15
Being trauma aware as well is understanding that we don't know everything, and each
25:22
person is also different and it's going to look different, and we need to
25:23
be we need to hold that compassion not just for other people, but for
25:26
ourselves more importantly. So and safety that was a big I don't even know
25:32
how. I haven't even said the word safety yet because that's my I shout
25:36
it from the rooftops, but thank you for bringing that that up too.
25:38
That's a huge part of We need to find safety to be able to even
25:48
rise above and that may not even look like physical safety, but it's a
25:53
felt sense of safety. When we feel safe in our body, when we
25:57
feel safe as who we are, we are able to really grow from that,
26:07
move forward and honor that person. But when we're really just trying to
26:12
be safe, and if you think of Masow's hierarchy of needs, that is,
26:17
you know, right at the bottom, that's the foundation. If we
26:19
don't have that, we can't really step up into anything else. And so
26:26
that's a huge priority, and that's also a part that's you know, it's
26:32
hard because that's not always accessible one hundred and let's be realistic. That's a
26:38
conversation for another day. Alexis about learning what it means to feel safe and
26:44
even getting to that space in your life, because that's a whole journey in
26:48
itself, especially when you're going through grief. That's a whole different topic.
26:53
I'm not going to touch on today because we'll be here for a whole day
26:56
talking about that. Alexis, I thank you so much for coming on and
27:02
sharing so much with our audience today. If you can again share your social
27:07
media and website for our audience to connect with you and learn more about you.
27:11
Yeah, So you can find me on Instagram at survivor rising one r
27:15
in the middle. I'm also on Fred's a little bit here and there,
27:21
and then LinkedIn Alexis Albrow. Alexis Albrow dot com is where you can find
27:27
my website and get a hold of me at Algrow Alexis at gmail dot com.
27:33
Excellent, excellent. Well, everybody that was our trauma informed coach,
27:40
Miss Alexis Alboro that you heard from, and that concludes another episode or Grew
27:45
a Porsche Season number two. Thanks for listening, Peace and aggres everybody.
27:52
Thank you so much for tuning in to Grew with Porsche. Remember to subscribe
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to my channel for the latest episodes, and of course follow me on social
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media. You can follow me on Instagram at Porsche the Producer Anyway, guys,
28:06
until we meet again, Peace and hair grease.