Transforming Pain into Purpose | Jess Vanrose
Episode # 25
“This is for every woman who needs to be reminded of her power.”
Summary
In this episode, Jessica Vanrose shares her personal journey of overcoming trauma and the importance of self-celebration. She reflects on her past experiences, including surviving an abusive relationship, and emphasizes the power of recognizing one's worth and achievements. Jessica encourages listeners to take time for themselves, celebrate their lives, and understand that transformation is possible, regardless of their circumstances. The episode serves as a reminder of the strength within each individual and the potential for change.
Takeaways
Jessica emphasizes the importance of self-celebration for personal growth.
Liberation Day is a personal celebration of survival and self-love.
Self-love is imperative for building confidence and worth.
Celebrating small accomplishments can significantly impact self-esteem.
Taking yourself on solo dates is a form of self-care.
Trauma can manifest as physical illness, highlighting the need for healing.
Jessica's journey includes overcoming homelessness and abuse.
Yoga and meditation played a crucial role in her healing process.
PTSD symptoms can be reduced through targeted therapies like neurofeedback.
Everyone has the power to change their life, regardless of their past.
“It is okay to celebrate yourself. It is okay to love yourself. I would argue it is imperative to build your confidence and worth.”
Chapters
00:00 Introduction and Personal Reflection
02:49 Liberation Day: A Journey of Self-Celebration
05:49 The Importance of Self-Celebration
08:57 Sharing My Story: Overcoming Trauma
11:51 Transformation and Healing
13:59 Empowerment and Support
“Learning how to celebrate myself was one of the biggest turning points.”
Transcript
Jessica Vanrose (00:02.158)
Hi friends, it's Jess, your Trauma Informed Life Coach. Today, due to unforeseen circumstances, I'm doing a solo episode. And since we have so many new listeners, and I was not planning for this, I thought today might be a great opportunity for us to have a more casual chat.
and share with you something special to me. This is going to be a shorter episode and the first few minutes I'm sharing something I wrote that I think you will find inspiring and empowering. I hope you'll stick around for this casual chat with me.
17 years ago, I was in a physically abusive relationship that I was lucky to leave with my life. In that relationship, my abuser had unilaterally decided that we were getting married and that it would be on October 22nd. It wasn't so much a proposal as a transaction. He
gets to own me and I get to keep my life. October 22nd has been burned in my memory since that day. The mere idea or suggestion of that day used to strike fear in my heart. Several years ago, I decided to take back the day and now it's a day of gratitude and celebration, a day of love for myself.
It's my liberation day, the day every year that I can look back and notice how far I've come. Every year without question, even if I'm in a relationship, I take myself on a solo date to celebrate me and my life at any and every stage. I don't need to be a huge success or wildly rich. I celebrate my life right where I'm at.
Jessica Vanrose (02:22.23)
And at this very moment of writing this, it is October 22nd, 2024, and I am on my solo date. I got dressed up and I'm sitting in a nice restaurant with delicious food and a bottle of wine all to myself. When I look around, there are couples and groups of friends, and that might sound scary, but I feel amazing.
I feel abundant and so grateful for the life I've built for myself. I feel confident in myself and my self worth. And I know that likely no one is judging me or even noticing me. But even if they are judging me, it doesn't matter. Judge away. It makes zero difference to my worth, my happiness, my moment right now.
Today I'm not talking about how to leave an abusive relationship. If you want an episode on that, please see episode 20, "The Truth About Domestic Violence". I'm also not talking about relationships after domestic violence. If you want an episode on that, please see last week's episode number 24, "Navigating relationships after trauma". No.
Today, I'm focusing on us. I'm focusing on you. This doesn't even need to be about abusive relationships and isn't only for the women who have survived an abusive relationship. This is for every woman who needs to be reminded of her power, her choice, her ability to change her life whenever she wants.
That is not to say that it's easy. It's not easy, but it's possible. Since I started this episode speaking about a domestic violence relationship, I do want to caveat this by saying that leaving is possible, even if it feels like there's no way out, but it is also dangerous and you need to be strategic and prepared before making that choice.
Jessica Vanrose (04:46.986)
Again, we discuss that more in episode 20.
Jessica Vanrose (04:55.491)
A lot of people, especially women, have a really hard time celebrating themselves or even acknowledging their accomplishments. I used to be the same and I believe it stems from childhood. Every time you were excited about something you accomplished and it was dismissed. Every time you were compared to your siblings and you were found lacking.
you learned that your accomplishments were not worthy of celebration. So the idea of celebrating yourself just because may feel really excessive, obnoxious, maybe even narcissistic, but learning how to celebrate myself was one of the biggest turning points on my self-love journey.
It is okay to celebrate yourself. It is okay to love yourself. I would argue that it's imperative to build your confidence and worth. And when you build your confidence and know your worth, you stop accepting or settling for less than you deserve. And your life changes. The celebration doesn't always need to be some grand moment.
It can simply be at the end of the day thinking back on what you accomplished that day and feeling proud of yourself. But I do highly recommend that you take yourself on a solo date at least once per month. This is a moment that you set aside for yourself. Literally schedule it into your calendar and keep it with the same level of commitment you would for a friend or a partner.
If you're new to this concept, maybe start with going to a coffee shop or a park by yourself with a book and enjoy some reading and a drink or even take yourself to get your nails done. These are acts of love and caring for yourself and it up levels the quality of your relationships because
Jessica Vanrose (07:15.7)
you set the standard for how you're to be treated. And when someone comes along who doesn't even do for you what you do for yourself, it's a clear sign that they don't know or acknowledge your worth. But that's for another episode.
I haven't fully shared my story on the podcast before. Not for any particular reason, I had decided I would open up as topics came up naturally. But since we're having a cozy casual chat today, I thought you might like to hear a little more of my story. My story actually starts with part of my mom's story.
She was an 18 year old kid in college and met an older boy, fell in love, and got pregnant with me. He, however, was not ready to be a father and threatened to push my mom down the stairs if she did not terminate me.
I'm not going to even begin to pretend like I know what she was feeling in that moment, but what I do know is that she went to a bridge with the intention of jumping. She had decided to pray before ending her life, and while she was praying, she knew that she couldn't end both of our lives.
She decided to move back home and for the first two years of my life it was just me, my mom, and my grandma and grandpa until she met the man who would become my stepdad. Now I can't share much from my childhood because my memories have been repressed for most of it. It's at my teen years that I start remembering and as far as I know that's when the abuse started.
Jessica Vanrose (09:28.276)
mental, emotional, and sexual abuse was what was familiar to me. In grade 9, I started being physically ill every morning. My parents, of course, thought I just didn't want to go to school, but eventually they started taking it more seriously and brought me to doctors for a ton of tests. Everything came back all clear. We know now that trauma
causes physical illness and that's exactly what it was, a symptom of my PTSD. I struggled through grade 9 and grade 10 and before I got to grade 11 when I was 15 years old, I was kicked out of the house. I'm not even sure how long it was, but I was functionally homeless. I spent some time sleeping on the couch at a friend's house. I was in a women's shelter.
The scariest though was my boyfriend at the time found me a room to rent, but it was in an apartment with addicts. I had a dingy mattress on the floor and there was no lock on my bedroom door. Every night I would fall asleep crying, curled into a ball and alert at any sound. I had to drop out of high school to get a full-time job to support myself.
For a few months, I had moved hours away to live with my then boyfriend's family. It was while I was away that my mom could finally leave her husband. Once she got her own place, I moved back to town and lived with her. And at that point, my first boyfriend broke up with me. After him, I had one very short relationship that ended because he cheated on me.
And then I got into the physically abusive relationship I mentioned at the start of the episode. If you know anything about domestic violence relationships, they try to isolate you from your family and friends. And that happened with me. I was basically living at his place and I was no longer getting along with my mom and he had to move to another city hours away for work.
Jessica Vanrose (11:51.526)
and it was just expected that I go with him and I did go but after two weeks I saw it as an opportunity to get out. So I got in my car and drove the two hours back to my hometown and went to a long-term women's shelter. This puts me at almost 20 years old. At some point I moved back in with my mom and she got a job in a new city.
and we moved there and that was the start of everything changing. I enrolled in a high school equivalency program and got my degree and then went to post-secondary and was the first in my family to graduate from higher education. A few years later, I found yoga and meditation and they transformed my life by
bringing me back into my body and learning how to be present. In my mid-twenties, I was diagnosed with PTSD and was put into a clinical trial for the use of neurofeedback on reducing PTSD symptoms. C- PTSD wasn't a term around then. When I started that trial, I was experiencing symptoms 60 % of the time.
And by the end, it was only 10%. Another huge transformation in my life. From there, I continued my self healing journey with self help books and continuing yoga and meditation.
Jessica Vanrose (13:32.524)
While my life right now may seem average, I went from being a kid on the street having to count change to see if I would be able to eat that day, to having built a life for myself where all of my needs are met, plus way more. I have created a life that is abundant and beautiful and full of
of love and joy and meaning. And you can do it too. I would love to hear your stories, the challenges you've overcome and how you have or want to transform your own life. You can find all my socials and ways to contact me on my website at jessicavanrose.com.
I hope this episode was a reminder to you that you have the power to change your life. And if you want someone to support you along the way, that's what I'm here for. Until next week, you are strong, you are beautiful, and I love you.
