The Journey to Freedom: You Can be Free From Childhood Trauma

Have you ever felt the chains of past trauma weighing you down? I'm Michelle Hall, and on this transformative journey through our latest podcast episode, I lay bare my own path from the deep scars of childhood sexual abuse to the lightness of heart that comes with true emotional liberation. As a Christian Life Coach dedicated to empowering fellow survivors, I offer an intimate look at the trials of being a fatherless daughter and growing up with a birth defect that marred my self-esteem. But more importantly, I share the uplifting reality that healing, although challenging, is attainable, and I'm a living testament to that.

This is not just my story—it's an outstretched hand to anyone grappling with silent battles and unspoken pain. The process of healing is intricate and personal, but the shared experience of overcoming adversity unites us all. Throughout this episode, we explore the profound feelings encountered when confronting the shadows of our past and the steps taken towards embracing a life of blessed freedom. I extend my deepest gratitude to you, my listeners, whether you've been with me since the beginning or have recently joined our growing community. Together, we foster a space where solace and strength are found in our shared narratives, inspiring each of you to believe in your own journey towards freedom.

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Transcript

Michelle Hall: 0:01

Freedom. Do you know what it feels like? Do you know what it feels like to be unburdened and unshackled from your childhood trauma? Today, I'm talking about my journey from broken to blessed, from bondage to freedom, and if you still feel like you're in bondage, I have a way that you can find freedom for yourself. Stay tuned.

Michelle Hall: 0:28

I'm Michelle Hall, a Christian Life Coach, and the host of Broken to Blessed, a podcast designed for women survivors of childhood sexual abuse, where the goal is to empower, encourage and inspire women survivors who are on their healing journey to keep on going. Healing is possible. I know that to be true because I'm a survivor and I've done it, and I'm here to help you do the same. Hello, esteemed ones, and thank you for joining me on today's episode. Before we get started, I just want to take a quick minute to thank all of my listeners who have been with me from the beginning, and thanks to the new ones who are coming along the way. The podcast is growing and I'm so grateful for that, and if you know anyone who would benefit from the content of this podcast, please share it far and wide, because we have so many women survivors of childhood sexual abuse who suffer in silence, who could find this podcast very helpful and beneficial to their healing journey. You never know who in your circle may be a survivor of CSA. So I want to talk today about freedom yes, freedom.

Michelle Hall: 1:45

I have had the pleasure of being interviewed for various podcasts and talk shows. I've been on six since Christmas and I have thoroughly enjoyed being on these platforms and sharing my story of survival, overcoming and healing. One question that comes up often is how did I get from where I was to where I am now? And I am so excited to share what I've done and how I did it on other people's platforms, because I can reach far more people, different people, than what I reach on my own platform. But a better question for me to answer is how did I feel after I went through the healing process, after I released the burdens, after I surrendered all of the pain? And my answer to that is freedom. I felt freedom.

Michelle Hall: 2:45

I've shared various stories about myself on the podcast. I've really opened up and put myself out there, and if you've been listening for a while, you know that I am a survivor of childhood sexual abuse, and I have also talked about how I am a fatherless daughter, which was a traumatic experience for me, and I've also talked about how I was born with a birth defect that impaired my vision and my right eye and is a lazy eye, and how during my primary school years, I was bullied quite a bit because of that. You know, when you look different, kids tend to notice and they pick on you. Kids can be cruel. That's just the way it is, and so that was very hurtful and harmful to my self-esteem.

Michelle Hall: 3:32

I had all of that going on as a kid and so my self-esteem, my lack of self-esteem, was pretty much solidified by the time the abuse came along around age 10. You know, I really didn't think well of myself. I didn't feel like I was good enough after having all of those things be a part of my life at such a young age. I internalized those things. I didn't deal with them. I didn't share with anyone. I never told anyone about the abuse or the bullying. I just really kept things to myself, kept things bottled up inside, like so many survivors do. I didn't realize that other people handle things this way. Honestly, I didn't realize that other people had experienced such trauma. You know, a 10-year-old brain just don't know how to process that and it's something that you don't know or shouldn't know about. You know you shouldn't know about children being sexually abused. That's not something that is normal or something that you should be aware of, and so you know. I felt like I was alone. I felt like I was the only one who had gone through this and I didn't want to talk about it to anyone. It felt safest to me to keep it inside, and so that's what I did as I went on through life, through my teen years and into my young adulthood.

Michelle Hall: 5:09

I got married and I've also shared on the podcast how I was left pretty much abandoned on my wedding day and then ended up getting married two days later, and you know I thought I was okay with that. But clearly there were some things that I held on to about that and once I was married, I had the in-laws from hell. They didn't love me, they tolerated me and honestly, I didn't even realize that early on. They were passive, aggressive and acted one way in my face but acted completely different behind my back, and there was just a lot of drama with them. There was always something going on, with them accusing me of anything that they think their son would believe. There was a relentless effort on behalf of my mother-in-law to break her son and me up, and I dealt with them for 20 of my 27 years of marriage because I wanted things to work out. I was a people pleaser and I wanted everything to be okay. I had become more of a peacekeeper, you know. I wanted to keep everybody happy. I wanted to keep everybody satisfied. I wanted to keep everything, even keeled. I was not the type of person to handle things head-on at that time.

Michelle Hall: 6:40

I dealt with a lot of stress and hardship in my marriage because of my in-laws. It was just constant drama and I eventually made the decision to cut them off because I was just done. I was done with the drama. I was done with the passive-aggressive behavior towards me. I was tired of being mistreated by them. So what happened with me is that I had a lot of stuff. I had stuff from my childhood. I had stuff from my adulthood with my marriage, with my in-laws and just with life in general. And as an adult I did the same thing for a long time that I did as a kid I internalized things and I didn't confront things. I didn't deal with things. I did not have very good boundaries.

Michelle Hall: 7:28

I've told the story that I got to the point where I felt like I was going to have a nervous breakdown because I had internalized so much stuff, and that was when I began my healing journey. After revealing the sexual abuse, I got into counseling. I started a journey that I didn't know how it would end. I knew what I wanted, but I didn't know how it was going to end. But I had faith enough to believe that it would have to be better than what I was dealing with, and so I moved forward with counseling. I moved forward and strengthening my relationship with the Lord, with prayer and with feeling safe in my church, in my weekly services, and I dealt with everything.

Michelle Hall: 8:14

I really went back and did a complete reconciliation of my life and everything that I had been holding on to all of the hurt and pain that I had experienced. And at the end of it, the only way I could describe what I felt is free. I felt free because I was no longer in bondage. I was no longer carrying this heavy, heavy load anymore. I had so much baggage for so long and it had felt so heaviness. It was a heaviness in my heart, a heaviness in my spirit and a heaviness on my mind. But once I was able to work through each and every hurt that I could recall, I did my work to process it and to forgive and to surrender. I became lighter and lighter and lighter and by the time I was done, it was freedom. I was unburdened. I had let all that baggage go, all the baggage that I had been carrying with all of the hurt. I let it all go and I felt so free. Healing to me equates to freedom. That has even inspired a t-shirt design that I've done and put in my online store, because someone was listening to an interview that I did and I had said that healing is freedom. I got a text that said I should put that on a t-shirt, and so I did, and you can check that out at wwwtheesteemedshopcom. The link to my online store is in the show notes.

Michelle Hall: 10:08

If I could bottle up what freedom felt like to me and sell it, I would be a multi-millionaire. I truly would, because there are so many women and men who are burdened with past trauma. But there is no easy way to get to healing and freedom. It is not something that you can buy. It is something that you have to do. It is something that you have to experience and process in order to get to the other side and to feel that freedom. Why so desperately want others to feel and experience Freedom? I'm telling you there is nothing like it. I don't even have the words to explain it well enough to where it is, even close to what it feels like. I know that there are so many out there who have experienced CSA and other traumas that feel like there is no hope for them, or they feel like they are not worthy of anything better. Or perhaps they feel like they can't get over the experience and trauma, or they feel like it's too late. Well, let me tell you that none of that is true. There is hope. You are deserving, you can get over it and it's not too late.

Michelle Hall: 11:35

I want to introduce the Journey to Freedom. This is a personal development program that is one-on-one to help women who wants freedom from the burdens that they've been carrying since they were a child. The program has a three-part framework that is based on my healing experience. The three parts of the framework are illuminate, elevate and radiate. Illuminate is the first part of the framework and it is foundational. This is where everything is uncovered and you lay out what needs to be dealt with, and you also discover your current self-concept and how it is affecting your life. Now the second phase is elevate. This is where it's time to do the inner work. It's time to deal with those pains and those hurts and the frustrations and all that you laid out in the foundational, illuminate stage, and then you begin to build new strategies to change your life. This is deep in transformational work. It's not easy, it's not quick, but it's worth it. The last phase is radiate. This is the result of the hard work done in phases one and two. This is where freedom, joy and peace abound. This is where you began to live empowered, bold and unapologetically. This is where you exude freedom, and people will notice the difference, because you will not be the same as you were when you started the program.

Michelle Hall: 13:15

This is something that I didn't have when I was going through my healing journey, and perhaps I could have gotten through it quicker if I had a framework to work through. But as I looked back over what I did, it was indeed a process that worked for me. I am in my formal training and my formal work history and a accountant and I'm a numbers person, and so I think very logically so, I think, in order in a chronological order, and I do realize that healing is not always a linear progression. But it helped my brain to have a place to start, to have a place to start and to know what to work through and what to work on and how to process things incrementally instead of trying to deal with everything all at one time. And so I was able to create this framework based on how I organized my mind when I was going through my healing journey, and I think it can help you as well.

Michelle Hall: 14:23

I had initially called this program the self-love expedition, but I'm changing the name because, even though seeking help and healing is an act of self-love, when you decide to do the healing work for yourself, it is a huge act of self-love. But I think a more fitting name for this program is the journey to freedom, because healing is freedom. There's a link to a questionnaire in the show notes that you can fill out if you are ready to invest in your freedom. If you have any questions or concerns, give me an email at michellelivetheesteemdlifecom and I'll be happy to hop on a call and discuss if this is right for you. Why not take a chance on you? You deserve it. Until next time, thank you for joining me on this episode of Broken to Blessed. Subscribe to the podcast and share it with all of your sister girlfriends. This podcast may be the catalyst to their healing journey. And remember life can get better. You just have to do the work. God bless.