On this episode of Media Rebel Unplugged, everyone wants forgiveness. Everyone wants forgiveness. No one wants to give it out because we haven't been taught properly what forgiveness is about and how to forgive. What advice do you have for women who are made to feel like it's not okay? If you feel that way, there's a part of you that still has shame. And so that first one is identifying it, naming it, but also finding the gratitude in it. And that's what people like. How do you even start with forgiveness? Gratitude. Welcome back to MediaRebel Unplugged. I'm Janice. Today we're talking about overcoming trauma, the healing process, and what it really looks like to turn your pain into purpose. This topic is very personal for me as a survivor of trauma myself. I know what it looks like and feels like to have to rebuild yourself and to turn your pain into something meaningful. I'm very grateful we get to have an open and honest conversation today with my guest. Joining me is Shannon Curtis. She is the author of No More Monsters Under the Bed, Shining Your Light on the Dark, the founder of Angel of Goddess Healing. She helps people work through their trauma and addiction in a very deep healing way. Shannon, I am so glad that you're here today. If you wouldn't mind letting the audience know a little bit about yourself and what led you here. I'm Shannon. I am currently in Texas. Like you said, I'm the founder of Angel Goddess Healing. I do intuitive coaching, write children's books, do a lot of inner child work. I also work in the plant medicine space. I love that you do so much. For people who have been through trauma, we end up taking that and like running with it in so many different directions. And I had somebody once say something to me about, because I have all these different things that I'm doing in life. Well, are you just running away from your trauma? And I would like to define that as we are not running away from our trauma. If anything, our trauma is what we've used to propel us forward. And I would love to hear your insight on that. The first thing I thought of, no, we're integrating our trauma. We're integrating it because we can't outrun it. That's the point of it. Anyone listening that has tried to outrun their trauma, I would ask, how did that work out for you? Because I know for me, I outran my trauma for eight years with addiction. To outrun it and numb the pain, once you accept it, I told my clients, have to, literally to make something disappear, you have to turn around and look at it. Once we acknowledge our trauma, it's just a part of us. I only keep the good stuff. I keep the lessons. I keep the survivor, the warrior mode. That's what I keep in my trauma. So when I hear someone saying that, no, I, this is not my work. This is my life. Everything that I do, I literally created my life a couple of years ago after leaving a 15 year marriage. And I started with what I love to do. And then I built my life around it. And so the reason why I have so many things is because it's who I am. Those are all aspects of me coming from something so painful to turning it into purpose. Yes. And I love how you just articulated that. People don't really seem to understand it. And I see this a lot. They do the victim blaming or shaming and that doesn't exist. We have this warrior spirit. just pull ourselves up and use us as lessons to become this new version of ourselves. Yeah, that's why it's done. I believe it's done for us. Everything that's happened in my life has truly been for me because it always propels me into the next phase of my life. The victim mode keeps me in that victim, keeps me in the sadness, keeps me in the pain, keeps the perpetrator having the power. Working on a forgiveness method is what I found is literally forgiving. the pain and the shame back to your perpetrator. And forgetting is forgetting your power back. When I can transmute that pain into purpose, my whole life changed. And that is my hope is to help other women or anyone listening right now. There is beauty in the pain. Are you just willing to find it? People think I'm crazy when I'm like, I'm thankful for my trauma. They're like, what do you mean? For one, I've spent years healing. And I believe that as I continue my life, that healing continues. It's a journey that never stops, for one thing. It is absolutely what has put me in the position of where I am today. Five years ago, I wouldn't have been on here recording any type of video content for people. I was having panic attacks every time I would even go into a Zoom meeting. So the fact that I am here, it just says a lot about how you're capable of healing and then turning that, like we're saying, turning that pain into so much more purpose in your life. Yeah, I don't think we're here to suffer. Truly my understanding of God, I don't think we're supposed to suffer. So if something bad happens, it's not my fault, but it is my responsibility to extract the goodness out of it. Because there's always goodness, there's always two sides to the coins. It's just, you look for the good, you're gonna find it. You look for the bad, I guarantee you're gonna find it. That is the universe, it reflects back what you put out. I'm choosing like you to turn all of this into something good. And the good is I get to spread the message to other people. Forgiveness is possible. I have forgiven my perpetrator. I've forgiven pretty much everyone that's hurt me in my life because I've seen the gratitude in it. And so I'm like, thank you for giving me that opportunity. And sometimes the gratitude is, thank you for showing me who I choose not to be. Thank you for showing me I never want to make someone feel the way you made me feel. And there's gratitude in that. I get discernment from it. Everything that happens in my life, I'm going to smile. Ultimately, I'm going to feel the pain when the pain comes because that is very important. That's why I try to tell people just because I forgive, there's boundaries with that forgiveness. It's not forgiveness is not saying I'm okay with it. It's just saying you're not going to own my space anymore. I'm taking my power back. Thank you. Because what happens is the perpetrator for you, the perpetrator for me, they are passing their shame and anger on. That's what they're broken to do. I'm going inflict everything I hate about myself and I'm going to inflict it on you." And I'm like, no, no, no. No, you're not. There you go. Take it back. I'm taking my power back. I'm good. I did not deserve to be molested at four. Those are those things and I didn't deserve that. But thank you for giving me the opportunity to where I got to see the over picture of it, that it was something for me because I never would have known my power that wouldn't have happened to me. Now it took me 40 years to get there. That's okay. But I now know it was for me. You know, it's so ironic. We were talking about before we got on here, kind of how the universe aligns. Then I feel like it really aligned us at just the right time. Yesterday, I had posted a video under my, in my YouTube channel. It's called Rebel Thoughts. And I had posted about forgiveness and how important it is because we carry this weight around with us when we don't forgive people. Um, and I think some people think it's just a sign of weakness when it doesn't, it really shows how strong we are that we have that ability to forgive those who have offended us in some way. But I think also the biggest part of it is forgiving ourselves because we can feel so much shame from those events that we were in. And sometimes we play how we should have done them better, said something better spoken up or whatever that might've been. So to really kind of. it and forgive yourself is so important. think that's the first place you start is that you have to forgive yourself because ultimately what I find is everyone wants forgiveness. Everyone wants forgiveness. No one wants to give it out. My understanding is because we haven't been taught properly what forgiveness is about and how to forgive. And so many times when you bring in religion, we forgive because it's the right thing. The Bible tells us, okay, I forgive because it is the most selfish thing for me to do. When I forgive somebody and I've looked across the perpetrator that has hurt someone in my family very dear and I've looked at them and said, forgive you. That's because you're no longer going to have that anger and that control over me. And that's what I walked away feeling like high on life because I faced my fear of you can't hurt me anymore. You can't hurt me. And that's what happens is forgiveness is for that ultimate. feeling of us. If someone realized and experienced what forgiveness really felt like, you would understand it because it's the most beautiful thing you can do by saying, your actions are not my worth. Your actions are your actions. I give your responsibility back and they don't think we have been properly taught. And then the shame comes in. People are mad at themselves. What would you advise somebody struggling with forgiveness right now as their first step? Yeah, the first step is naming it. You have to feel safe to name it. You have to feel safe to say it out loud. And so what I do with my clients is I create a special place of a container where someone can feel safe to say it without being judged and moving through it of feeling like you're worthy of saying that and the pain. But you have to start with, like you said, the forgiveness of you weren't bad because that's what happens is there's somewhere deep inside that you think you deserved it. That's what happens is the shame that that we have to first feel worthy of the forgiveness of someone else, but we have to feel worthy of letting go of that pain. And we like the pain sometimes we like the victim mode. It's a permission slip act out and you have two different ways. I was one who I internalized the pain and I took it all and I hurt myself with addiction. And then you have other people that go the opposite and they spew out the pain and they become the new perpetrator. And that's that vicious cycle. The quiet ones are usually the ones you have to watch out for because those are ones that are usually internalizing the pain inside that they don't think they're worthy enough to get help. really struck a chord for me in the, just kind of had this moment of revelation. It's very, very angry person who's taking it out on the entire world and post angry things on social media or has acted out in family and and created quite a divide where as I feel like I'm the other end of it, where I'm taking it and I'm turning it into this light that I'm trying to shine out onto the world. And what are you going to do with all that anger? And that's what I tell my clients. The anger has to go somewhere. We have the ones that we stuff it down and we numb it. And then we get addicted to the numbing because we're like, I don't want to feel it. That's that running away. Then you have the other ones. It feels good to lash out because basically they're lashing out saying, I didn't like this. but they're doing the same behavior. And so ultimately both is hurting. One is hurting self and one is hurting the other. I found the only way to stop that is to move through the pain. And so that first one is identifying it, naming it, but also finding the gratitude in it. And that's what people like, how do you even start with forgiveness? Gratitude. Every day find three things you're grateful for. What happens is we wanna create these new pathways in our brain. We want to start tricking our brain into finding the good stuff. Do that for 30 days and see how you feel. Yeah. I absolutely love that you pointed that out. do the same thing every morning. I started this ritual where I wake up and I thank God that I'm alive. I thank God that I'm drinking this coffee, you know, whatever it is. Like you said, it could be the silliest thing, so much shifts when you start to show that gratitude because And there is some neuroscience behind this too. When you start thinking negatively all the time, your brain wants more negative. And that's one of the reasons that we'll see people are so easily making these negative comments on social media and negative reviews on businesses. You don't see so much positivity out there. And especially with women, that's why I loved coming on this show because it's so hard to find women in this space that are powerful and aligned. that don't feel like they need to put another woman down. And that's a big passion of mine is helping other women see they're just as powerful. There's nothing, we're more powerful together. And I feel like we've been pitted against each other. And that's a little bit of that programming I'm trying to undo with my clients. And I see it in the males and I see it in the females of getting pinned against. But the worst stuff that I've seen is women on women. Is the madness that we do to each other. And that's where I feel like when we shift, we start doing, that's when the world will stop shifting. was in a meeting recently. I was talking about how I'm writing this book about what I had survived. And she was like, I didn't know that about you. But it's funny how the different reactions you get from women, as you were saying, they're either very supportive or they're shocked that you're speaking about it. I will be completely transparent that. You know, it's taken me five years to talk about the most recent trauma, different trauma throughout my entire life that now I'm speaking out about because of those people who made me feel like I couldn't talk about it. That wasn't okay to talk about it. So what advice do you have for women who are made to feel like it's not okay? There's something liberating about speaking and saying it doesn't matter if story lands or not. If one person hears something that maybe keeps them out of pain and shame, my job's done. what I would tell someone, why are you talking about this? Why not? We got to shift it and maybe we got to start talking about that's why shining light on the dark. We have to bring light to the darkness. We have to start talking about what's going on. you said, even if I help one person, that is all that matters. Same thing with starting media rebel unplugged podcast. This isn't what I do for a living. This isn't my day job. I'm a marketer, but there was like a million marketing podcasts out there. was like, I really don't want to do that. You know, I want to do something that helps other women and fuels them, inspires them, motivates them and elevates voices. So many different adversities in life and still overcoming on the other side, like you said, to shine the light on it because it is so greatly needed right now. And it has been needed for a really long time. And I think we're finally getting to that position where we as a collective are coming together and going like, I mean, you're going to hear us roar. Yeah, and that's like that movement, the No More movement is what I'm really trying to do with no more of it, no more of this stuff. And I think as moms, as women, we get the say of it. It's so important to speak that and your story is too big to not speak it. People like, if you can get through that, then maybe I get through the loss of a marriage. Maybe I can get through a divorce. It's because the people that have the worst trauma can bring the most hope. I love that quote. think I'm going to live by that. think it's wonderful. And it's something I've stuck by and continuously will say, why else did I go through all the traumatic events of my life that I've gone through if it wasn't to give that hope and purpose to other people? Anybody listening to this going through something right now or, you know, still coming through it to keep that in mind that it's so hard when you're in it to ever think that you're going to come out, you're going to rise above it. And this is where You know, I personally have developed it called Rebel Rising because it's about the rebel rising within you and bringing it into this hope and this purpose that is in there. It might feel silenced right now. It might feel shamed right now, but it's going to come out one way or another because that's who we are as women. We're strong and we're resilient. have to be curious about our behaviors, not judgments of our behavior. Just be curious. Why am I acting this way? Why am I getting panic attacks? Why can't I sleep at night? And what I do with my clients is we keep digging and digging to the core root because what happens is we have a lot of traumas, but we go all the way back to that core one. appreciate how you help people dig deeper because it's easy on the surface, harder as we go deeper and deeper into that trauma that's holding us back. And that segues perfectly into you telling us a little bit more about Angel Goddess Healing. They can find me at www.angelgoddesshealing.com. If it's not me, reach out to somebody. Reach out to you. I have other people. I have people that work with that. So I have all kinds of people, friends that I reach out to, but I always say, it's not me. I will gladly, kindly help you find the person that will get you to that path of you. That's great. That's a good point because that ultimately is what it's about. It's about their healing. It's not always about the person they're with, but it is so important that you find the right person to help you on your healing journey. So thank you so much, Shannon, again, for being here. Thank you. Thank you all for listening to me, Rebel Unplugged today. If this episode helped you or made you think differently about healing and doing that inner work, please share it with someone who you feel it could help and who would appreciate it. And don't forget to subscribe, and we will see you next