Latest / Chatting with The Experts with Paula Okonneh / Breaking Generational Trauma: Empowering Women to Transform

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Breaking Generational Trauma: Empowering Women to Transform · Chatting with The Experts with Paula Okonneh

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Hi folks.
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It's yet, it's another episode of Chatting with the Experts where I speak
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with phenomenal women from Africa, from the Caribbean, and in the diaspora.
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These women are professionals and successful entrepreneurs, and they
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share one and the same mission with me, which is to educate,
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empower, and inspire women globally.
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Every week on Wednesday, I have these women share their expertise, and so
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today our topic is Healing Generations- From Trauma to Transformation.
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My guest who will join me in a few minutes is a nurse consultant.
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She's an author and she's a coach, passionate about empowering women
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to heal from generational trauma and to step into wholeness.
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As a founder of Her Wellness Nook and The Women in My Garden Project,
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she creates spaces for storytelling, for sisterhood and transformation.
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And through her books, she has helped women move from surviving
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to thriving through embracing self-love, purpose, and legacy.
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And with that, I welcome Karla Scipio to the show.
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Thank you so much for having me.
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I am truly honored to be here.
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And I'm truly blessed to have you here.
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Thank you for what you do.
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And you know, helping women to move from surviving to thriving, and I know offline
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or off camera, we talked about some of the things that you do to help them.
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I know one of them is breaking the cycle of silence.
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Let's talk about that.
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Definitely.
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You know, for too long, many of us, especially in black families,
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were taught not to talk about hurt.
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We were told to pray about it, keep the family business
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private, and simply be strong.
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And that talents became a generational habit, but it also
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became a generational wound because we kept all of that inside of us.
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What you don't speak, what you don't release tends to hurt you,
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tends to cripple you, and that's why it's so important for us to
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speak on our past hurts, to speak on those, that pain that was handed
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down from generation to generation.
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Oh, sorry.
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Go ahead.
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I wanna cut you short.
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Was just talking about unspoken trauma.
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Many of our mothers and grandmothers carry pain quietly.
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They carry the abuse, they carry rejection, even colorism.
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They carry their loss, the poverty and this silence passed down to us.
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I can speak for my family.
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My mother was the one that didn't talk.
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She kept all of that bottled up inside of her.
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Mm-hmm.
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And it shows up.
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It shows up as anxiety.
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Mm-hmm.
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As you know, distrust.
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Mm-hmm.
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Sometimes anger.
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Definitely a lot of anger and perfectionism.
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Mm-hmm.
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And, you know, so a few weeks ago I had another woman talk about
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this and we said it was global.
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And why I say this is global because you, I know are from the islands.
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You're from Trinidad.
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Yes, from Trinidad and Tobago.
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Tobago.
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So when this lady I spoke with, I had two other guests.
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One was from Nigeria and then the other woman is African American.
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And now you are from the Caribbean.
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From Trinidad and Tobago to be specific.
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And you're talking about the same thing.
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So this is global.
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This is not confined to one part of the world or women whose
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culture embrace this sort of thing.
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This is global.
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Yes.
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It definitely is a global issue.
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I went to London probably about a month ago.
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Mm-hmm.
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And I did a workshop on barriers, things that prevent women in the
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diaspora from thriving, from rising.
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I realized, Paula, that a lot of the women, they were women from Nigeria,
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from Ghana, from Zimbabwe, from South Africa, women born in London,
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and we all carried the same burden.
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That burden of shame, the burden of pain.
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I mean, they know.
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But PTSD, I think this one young lady from Liberia that shared her story and
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it made me realize that the things that we go through and how we live is not
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just limited to one space or one place.
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These things tend to unite us and we need to speak on it.
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We need to be the change so the generations coming behind us wouldn't
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have to go through what we went through and what our ancestors went through.
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Absolutely.
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And you know, that's why you mentioned earlier on that we talked about, you
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know, we are talking about breaking the cycle of silence, you know?
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Yes.
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And so, you know, expand on how you feel that sharing our story, because
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as a people, we are very verbal.
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We are more verbal.
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Our history has showed that we carried on our tradition through,
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you know, stories and so on.
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So, why do you think we haven't been so vocal about sharing our stories, which
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is part of our culture anyway, sharing stories and how does it come about?
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How does it bring about healing and strength collectively?
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Someone that knows me will tell you.
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I believe in intergenerational conversations.
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Mm-hmm.
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I tell people I come from a family of storytellers.
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Mm-hmm.
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There were some members of my family, like my grandmother for instance,
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that would sit me down and would share the family history with me.
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Then you had my mother that kept all of that stuff inside of her that didn't talk
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and you know, silence comes with a cost.
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It comes with the pain festers.
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It affects our relationship, it affects our health, our ability to feel joy.
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But for me, there is power in storytelling.
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Mm-hmm.
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Sharing our stories truthfully.
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Without shame becomes a form of liberation.
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As women, storytelling connects us back to our roots.
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It's how our ancestors, like you said, shared their wisdom, how we survive.
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But now healing in this community, every time one woman speaks her truth,
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mm-hmm.
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She gives permission for another woman to do the same.
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That's how we start healing together.
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It's how we start healing together.
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Okay.
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So...
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And you know, teaching women how silence keeps us stuck.
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How Speaking that brings you healing because you learn it.
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I wasn't the only person that suffered from incest.
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Mm-hmm.
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You know, why are my father's... my father so angry?
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Where did this alcoholism come from?
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We learn more.
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We realize that we have
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so much commonality, which gives us the strength to be in a safe space where we
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can be honest, truthful, and transparent.
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I'm not here to shoot you down.
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Your story gives me courage and inspires me to know that I can do this.
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If she did it, I can do it as well.
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Mm-hmm.
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And that's where the collective strength comes from, right?
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Right.
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From community.
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And community.
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So you know, together, two can do so much more than just one.
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Yeah.
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So with that combined strength, our combined voice, we're speaking for those
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two who doesn't have the strength, the courage, or even the voice to speak up.
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Mm-hmm.
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You're right.
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So, yeah.
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So another thing that we spoke about was the difference
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between survival and thriving.
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Go ahead.
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You know, I was gonna say, yeah.
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What is the difference?
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So it's about a mindset shift.
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Okay.
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Surviving sense, I'm just trying to get it through the day.
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I'm just making it through this day.
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Thriving sense, I deserve peace, I deserve joy, and I deserve purpose.
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Mm-hmm.
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And for me, and I encourage people.
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Faith is my foundation.
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Faith grounds you.
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Mm-hmm.
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It helps you trust the healing and abundance of my birthright.
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They're my luxury.
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Mm-hmm.
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I also encourage women to journal.
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Mm-hmm.
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And I encourage reflection.
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I tend to say that confrontation with ourselves or in another way.
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'cause you know, confrontation is a strong word.
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Addressing yourself.
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Mm-hmm.
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Taking that time to find a quiet time every day, just to be quiet.
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Mm-hmm.
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Just to think about you and I tell people, you know, everything for me
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is about self-love and self-care.
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Mm-hmm.
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So I do in order to love someone else.
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Even our children and our spouses, our family members, we
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have to learn to love ourselves.
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How do you learn to love yourself?
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You have to learn to get to know who you are.
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Mm-hmm.
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And confronting and adjusting ourselves can be painful because that means
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we hold ourselves accountable for the role that we play in whatever
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incident, whatever circumstance.
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Mm-hmm.
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Yeah.
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So the time of self-reflection gives us power, and it's something that
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we need to do on a daily basis.
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Go ahead.
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No, just, I just add to just being quiet.
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Being still.
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Being still.
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Because that was the question I was gonna ask because, you know,
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some of us grow up our culture, sometimes we have extended families.
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So you know, even finding time to be quiet is almost, or space
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to be quiet is almost impossible.
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Or looked at that, where are you going?
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You just disappear like that.
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You know what I mean?
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And so how do you, in our type of community, find that quiet time if there's
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no space to even find that quiet time.
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You know, it's funny that you answer because as you saying that, I started
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thinking about my daughter and then also kind of perfected on me too.
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When I was younger, my children were still small.
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One of her space is in the bathroom.
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You know, when she disappears into the bathroom, I'm like,
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what is she doing in there?
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Mm-hmm.
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And sometimes she's in the bathroom for an hour.
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Mm-hmm.
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For me, when my children were younger, I made sure I set time in boundaries.
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They had to be in bed by eight o'clock.
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Mm-hmm.
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Which gave me enough time for myself.
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And time for my mate.
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Mm-hmm.
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Or even the hours early in the morning when everyone is still asleep.
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Mm-hmm.
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That quiet time.
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Mm-hmm.
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You know, even deep breathing helps to, and you can, everything could
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be going on around you, but just being able to center yourself.
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Mm-hmm.
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And just be still,
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even with the little kids playing, the children laying on the floor.
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Mm-hmm.
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And being able to do that without feeling guilty.
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That's a big part, Karla.
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Without feeling guilty, because as mother's guilt, you know what I mean?
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I should be, I'm not doing what I need to do.
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Oh my gosh, my children, my child, or my children need me.
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And here I am by myself?
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Our culture doesn't really encourage too much by ourselves.
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And we have to shift that thinking.
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Mm-hmm.
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I can't give to my child until my cup is full.
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True.
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I can't give to everyone or anyone until my needs are met, and I'm not saying, you
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know, sometimes self-care looks selfish.
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But it's not being selfish, it's being able to just like a car, the
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car gotta get an oil change, right?
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Mm-hmm.
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We gotta put gas into the car to get to point A to B. So
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it's the same way with us.
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We gotta fill up, we gotta refuel, and that's why a lot of us are burnt
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out, stressed, anxious, we deal with chronic diseases because we don't rest.
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Mm-hmm.
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We deal with hypertension.
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Mm-hmm.
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All of that stuff affects us we more so because of who we are and where
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we live in the circumstances that surrounds us, we got double jeopardy.
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We are female and we're black, and oftentimes class also plays
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a place in how much money we have, determines a lot as well.
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Because you know, as a public health specialist and consultant, one of
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the things they talk about, social determinants of health, it says the
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saying, and I wanna prove it wrong.
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Where you were born determines how long and how well you live.
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But with our mindset shift, where we promote rest and quiet and healing.
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We can change the narrative.
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We can change the narrative when we promote rest and see rest as healing.
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Time for the body to heal, for the mind to heal.
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Many times you don't see rest as being productive.
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It's almost like you're lazy if you are resting.
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Mm-hmm.
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Not realizing that your body needs a downtime to recoup.
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And as you rightfully said, a few minutes ago, just like in the car mechanical
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mm-hmm.
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It's not human of course.
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It has no life.
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You have to, you know, to break fluid.
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Hm.
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Change your tires.
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You know?
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You have to maintain the car.
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You gotta work in that car.
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Yeah.
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You gotta take care of the car, otherwise it's not gonna last as long.
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And it's not gonna take you from point A to point B. It's not gonna do its job.
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And so, like us, moms, females, in order to function and do our jobs
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properly, we gotta do the same thing.
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Self-care, it's like maintenance.
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Mm-hmm.
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And you know, you said something that's so on point.
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God mandated rest.
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Yes.
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On several different levels.
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He's the creator of all mankind.
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He created the universe where He rested on that seventh day.
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Yes.
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And He wants us to rest.
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And He even created our bodies where when we sleep, our body rejuvenates
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the cell process, recreation.
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Mm-hmm.
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You know, so rest is so important.
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Mm-hmm.
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Wow.
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So let's talk about something else that you mentioned, legacy of healing.
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You mentioned that it's not just for us.
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As a legacy, that means we are leaving something for people who come after us.
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So legacy of healing from your perspective, it means we are doing
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things that will positively affect our daughters, our granddaughters,
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and future generation, right?
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Right.
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So how can we bring about transformation?
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Because I know that's one of the things that you do.
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Yes, I love intergenerational conversations.
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I believe when we heal, we change the story of those who come after us.
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And I wanna emphasize again, healing is not selfish.
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It's sacred work that impacts generations, you know, intergenerational
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impacts our daughters, like you said, our nieces, our granddaughters are
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watching how we respond to life.
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Yes.
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When we model self respect, boundaries, and love, they learn to do the same thing.
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Mm-hmm.
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Every time we choose to heal, we breaking patterns.
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Every time we choose forgiveness over bitterness, and faith over fear, and truth
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over silence, we shift the family line every time and there's a ripple effect.
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Healed women build healed communities.
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The transformation of one woman's heart can change a household.
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'cause remember, as mothers, we are the nurturers.
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We can change a neighborhood.
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We can change nations.
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I realized the way that I raise my children wasn't always the best way.
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So now I encourage my children, they're like, well, you did this and you did that,
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but you letting them get away with it.
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No, I learned that my grandparents, when, you know, coming from
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the Caribbean, they were hard.
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They were harsh.
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They'll send you outside in the hot sun with stones in your hand and to
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kneel on some kind of rock or, and they did these things because that's what
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they saw and that's what they taught.
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So now it's our responsibility, what we learned, the lessons
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that we learned in life.
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We wanna make sure I'm tell my kids this.
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I don't want y'all to walk down the streets, not walk that long.
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That's why I did it.
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So now I'm telling you.
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So we create new stories,
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new pathways to transform the young ones that are coming behind us.
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And the reason why, like I like intergenerational conversations
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is that, that, you know, the young people bring the new insight the
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older people bring the sage wisdom.
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Yes.
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But we need to strengthen the young people.
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We need the new things that they doing in the community and we need to help
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them just as much as they help us.
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But we also have to bring that respect.
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We have to be able to listen to what they're saying.
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So they can also learn from us and we learn from them.
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I agree with you, Karla.
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100% intergenerational conversations better us.
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It doesn't make us go backward and they in turn realize that we respect their views
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and their take on things because we don't know everything and I'm all for that,
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you know, having these intergenerational conversation because we get better.
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We see things different.
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I mean, things are changing all the time.
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And if we are not in touch with change, we stay behind and they, in turn
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learn from us because we've been down the road, not quite the same road,
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but some of the things that they're experiencing, we've seen it and we
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know the outcome so we can change it.
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And so that's why I love when you started off by explaining that the
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legacy of healing comes from knowing that healed women can heal women.
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Yes.
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A healed older woman can help heal or speeding up the
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healing of a younger woman.
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And that's what you're talking about through intergenerational conversations?
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Yeah.
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We can help in the transformation because as a coach, I help women
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look forward and you know, I'm gonna come to the car example again.
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Before you go out into the street, you look in your rear view mirror on your side
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mirror to see what's coming behind you.
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Mm-hmm.
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So we need to address those generational traumas, things that we inherited
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from our mothers and our grandmothers.
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We need to look at it.
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Then we also need to look forward.
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Yeah.
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And move forward.
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So we gotta deal with those things.
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And I tell people those negative things in our lives, but we also have to pay
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attention to the generational blessings.
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In my family, hey we have this artistic... we can do anything with our hands.
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Or, we are teachers.
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We are educators.
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Mm-hmm.
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Or we may be the ones that are nurses.
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We are caregivers, we are healers.
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So we need to look at not just the curses that are handed down.
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That's in our DNA.
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Yeah.
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We can negate those, but we also need to focus more now on the positive.
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Yeah.
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And even for those.
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You know, people don't realize even, there's so many things that I've
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handed down to us in our DNA, not to say that, you know, I grew up with my
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mother, so I'm acting like my mother.
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You may grow up with someone completely different, but still
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have the traits of your family.
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So there's so many things that we need to address as women in the diaspora.
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And I think one of the things for us is dealing with that trauma.
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And there are people who appear to be successful and thriving and deep down in
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something they're suffering because they haven't faced or addressed themselves.
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Yes.
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That's the absolute truth, Karla.
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The absolute truth.
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The outside does not always reflect the inside.
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True.
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You know, and come full circle back.
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Full circle to what we said initially, that our culture did not encourage
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conversations, and now that's what you on a mission with other women to
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do, to break this cycle of silence.
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Well, what we are gonna do now is open up the floor so that other people who have
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joined us can continue the conversation.
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You can continue the conversation with them.
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But before we do that, and for those who are watching online or
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listening to this online, how can people get in touch with you, Karla?
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And the easiest way is Instagram and it's I am Karla Scipio, and
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it's Karla with a k. Last name is Scipio and I'm gonna spell it.
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S-C-I-P as in Paul, I-O or they can email me at hello@herwellnessnook,
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so it's hello@herwellnessnook.com.
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Okay.
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All right, we'll drop all of that in the chat and of course
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it'll be in the show notes.
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And for me, I want you to know that just as Karla was a guest on the show, so can
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you, if you reach out to me on my website, which is chattingwiththeexperts.com.
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I'm also on LinkedIn as Paula Okonneh.
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I am on Instagram.
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My handle there is at chat_experts_podcast and my handle
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on Facebook is Paula Okonneh.
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I also have a YouTube channel that I'd love for you to subscribe to because
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there are so many videos there of amazing women and a few men who are
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sharing information that can educate you, inspire you, and encourage you,
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and so every week on Wednesday, I meet with these amazing women and a few men
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who share with you nuggets of wisdom.
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They inspire you through their stories, and they educate you
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through information that they have.
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But thank you so much for tuning in and for Karla, thank you for being a
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guest today, and now we will open up the floor to those who have joined us.
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Thank you for having me.
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Absolutely.