My girl, Nadra Zabain, is on today.

And as usual guys, she doesn't fricking disappoint. Every time she comes on the show, she fricking blows me away with her words and her way of thinking. Now, if you don't know who Nadra is, my girl is one of the most amazing poets on the fricking planet. She comes from a place of utter beauty and yet heartbreak. And she's very honest and open about the traumas that she's gone through through relationships and her evolution and how she has dealt in the past with transforming and heartbreak and getting over guys where she has felt like she has been manipulated and pushed around. And so I had to have her back on today guys and like I said, she doesn't thicken disappoint. And today guys, we go deep on how on earth we take take these scars these wounds that we've been carrying with us for so long and how we actually are able to transform them into something that can actually motivate us and get us to get back up and so with so much beautiful compassion and yet very tactical advice my girl Nairdra blows me away once again.

So without further ado, I'm going to stop talking guys so that we can get right into this episode because damn, this is a good one. Get your pen and paper because there are so many notes you can take on this one. And then guys, also before I forget, please, please, if this episode brought you value, please do share, rate and review. That is the one ask I have if this episode did bring you value. Alright guys, now let's get to this episode with my

girl, Natchwa.

I will not equate my worthiness of love or belonging or respect on how willing someone is to give me those things. Natchwa, welcome back to Women of Impact. I'm so happy to be here. I feel like it was yesterday that I was sitting here. Oh my god, honestly, it feels like that to me too. I freaking love our conversations. We go so deep and you are always so vulnerable and transparent. And so today really where I want to go is talk about how many of us have been hurt and have scars. And the scars really do leave us with emotional turmoil and emotional baggage. And I have a quote of yours that I'd actually love to read out. You need to transform the scars it left on you from constant reminders of the pain you went through to reminders of how far you've come. How do you start to do that if the scars are still painful? If the scars are still painful, then they are still begging to be felt by you. They are still begging to be seen by you and not looked at through a lens of shame or judgment like I shouldn't have gone through you, I shouldn't have experienced you. They want you to sit with them and speak to them and to yourself with the compassion you needed in that moment, with the compassion they needed in that moment. So when something continuously hurts, it's that kind of pain where you're fine throughout the day and then the nighttime starts to come and that pain starts creeping up and it's like it's this cycle of, I'm fine and then I'm reminded and I wake up in the morning and I'm like today's a new day, I'll be fine and then at night I'm reminded. It's because I haven't fully given myself permission to say, I am going to radically accept, radically accept. And by that, I don't mean I'm saying it's okay that it happened. I'm just saying, it happened. I'm validating that it happened. Maybe I wasn't okay with it, but I understand that there is

absolutely no way for me to go back and reverse it or change it. I accept that it happened. I accept that there was nothing different I could have done about it at the time, and I accept that it is my responsibility from that moment to now Now to come closer to myself in a way where I'm not blaming myself or judging myself for having gone through that. So think of a scab. If every night, like with that pain that we're talking about, every night you're picking at it, and then the next day you just leave it alone and you give it some time to heal a little bit and then before it fully heals

You're picking at it again. That's what you're doing. You're not fully looking at it and saying oh

This actually needs some ointment. This needs a band-aid. This needs some form of

like real healing

power, compassion, inner

Acceptance, whatever it is. I can do that. And then after a while, it will stop hurting as much as it's hurting right now. But as long as I'm repeating the cycle, it just becomes even more painful and the scar becomes even worse. You know that. God, that's so true. Okay. So, that is so profound. So, now I really want to go deeper because as you know, if someone's listening right now they're like, okay, I'm not going to ignore my scars. I'm really going to acknowledge that it happened. That's super frickin powerful. How do you start doing that? How do you start to accept it without reliving the blame, reliving the shame, reliving I wish would have, you know, should have, all of those things that often come with that reminder of what happened in the past, because I think when we look at what are the things that hold people back from healing, I think it is that they feel like they're actually unearthing the problem that happened before, but to your point you actually can't heal into do. So now it's like how do you start to navigate those two things? Yeah, so really what you want to do is just bury it and forget about it and pretend like it never happened and you just hope it goes away. It's a decision. It starts with a decision to say, I want to heal from this. I know how much this hurts and I know that it broke me in a way that every single time I think back to it, it breaks me again. So every time I try to heal from it by going back to it, I just hurt even more. But you have to remind yourself that you can revisit that place and instead of having the mindset, like that place in the past when the event happened, instead of having the mindset that's like, oh, I should have done things differently or I could have said this this way or I should have been stronger, you are judging yourself. You are, this is you in the past and you're coming as your present self, you're not sitting with this person, you're not understanding them or giving them the compassion they needed in that moment which is I know you're doing your best. I know that in this moment you don't think and don't believe that you have the power to do more. I know this. And then there's the self forgiveness part that comes in where my present self is telling this past self of mine. You know, we need to forgive ourselves for not knowing any better back then. It's not like we're forgiving ourselves for choosing to inflict the pain on ourselves. People will hurt you. It's not your choice, but your choice is to say, I'm gonna take this pain and not say that I deserved it because I didn't know any better and not say that I deserved it because I didn't protect myself any better. Give you an example, say this painful event that you're talking about is a heartbreak. And every time your present self comes to your past self, it looks at this past self and says, well, you should have, you missed all these red flags. You should have been more protective of yourself. You should have been like, you know, like you heard in this interview where someone was advising you to just always be strong and never show your cards and never really open up to this person So you're basically telling your past self being vulnerable is wrong Being open to connection is wrong when what your past self needs to hear is Wanting connection is the most basic need we have. Good for you for giving it a try. That's amazing. The fact that someone didn't honor that, the fact that someone cheated on you, the fact that someone decided they no longer want to be with you, that doesn't mean your vulnerabilities wrong. That just means that this person wasn't the right one for you. There is someone out there for you. So take that dialogue from being full of shame and judgment and I should have, I could have to understand. I get it. Be that best friend for yourself in that moment. So first, decide that you want to heal from this painful event. Second, become the person you needed for yourself in that moment. So stop trying to bring your past self here. You need to go back to your past self and sit with her, with him, with them. Oh my god, that is so powerful, so powerful because a the judgment piece, oh my God, how many of us do that, right? Look back and judge our past behavior. And I think the given ourselves, the grace that we didn't know any different then and to stop beating ourselves up over that because I hear what you're saying is part of our that subconscious

messaging is now telling us you shouldn't have been vulnerable, you shouldn't have picked

yourself out there, but actually you just did the best you could with the tools and experience

that you currently have. And going back to where we started with the scars, as you were

talking, it was like, you know how someone can say to you, you know, don't touch the

stove because it's hot. They can tell you, but to be honest, it's until you've actually touched it, burn yourself, got the scar to go, oh crap, that hurt. Maybe I'll learn my lesson. I think it's very powerful to think through the scar. It's actually the beautiful thing that has now taught you that lesson that you wouldn't have maybe known before. That's so beautiful. And sometimes Lisa, we make decisions

feeling in the moment like it's the wrong decision, but we still make it.

So there are many people who tell me,

but I did know that I was making a mistake in the past.

Like, my gut was telling me,

just don't trust this person anymore.

Don't move forward with this relationship.

...