The Season of Self Love
Embracing Vulnerability as Strength: Healing Beyond Betrayal
In today’s empowering episode of The Season of Self-Love, host Nyomi Banks dives deep into the transformative power of embracing vulnerability as a strength. Continuing our monthly series, Healing Beyond Betrayal, we explore how opening up and facing our emotions is a courageous step toward reclaiming our power after deep personal wounds.
Nyomi shares insights on overcoming barriers to vulnerability, including shame and fear, while also responding to a heartfelt letter from a listener, Sharon, who seeks guidance on moving beyond betrayal. Together, we unpack how vulnerability is not a weakness but an essential part of healing, growth, and finding purpose after betrayal.
Join us for grounding meditations, personal reflections, and practical steps you can take to embrace vulnerability and turn your pain into power.
What You'll Learn in This Episode:
- The role vulnerability plays in healing after betrayal.
- How to move past feelings of shame and self-blame.
- Strategies to journal and reflect for deeper emotional understanding.
- Practical techniques from Nyomi’s eBook, Healing Beyond Betrayal: A Journey of Growth, Empowerment, and Renewal.
Key Takeaways:
Healing is possible when we allow ourselves to be vulnerable, face our emotions head-on, and transform pain into personal empowerment. This episode provides practical tools and reflections to help you on your healing journey.
Call to Action:
If you’re ready to reclaim your joy and overcome the pain of betrayal, sign up for the 30-Day Healing Beyond Betrayal challenge at theseasonofselflovepodcast.com. Plus, get 15% off Nyomi’s eBook to guide you further on your journey toward self-love and resilience.
#HealingBeyondBetrayal #VulnerabilityIsStrength #SelfLoveJourney #OvercomingShame #Podcast
Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-season-of-self-love--6003379/support.
- Duration:
- 41m
- Broadcast on:
- 16 Sep 2024
- Audio Format:
- mp3
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I'm your host, Naomi Banks, and I am thrilled to have you join me on this transformative journey. You see, every day we dive into a powerful conversation about self-discovery, healing and empowerment. This podcast is brought to you by Axe, Naomi, and Elevate Me Self-Discovery, where we believe that loving yourself is the first step to living, a fulfilling life. You can expect insightful discussions, practical tips and inspiring stories, plus we occasionally walk in special guests who will share their unique perspectives on self-love and person. So get comfy, grab your favorite beverage, and less embark on this journey together. Because it's time to embrace the beautiful person that you love. So let's elevate our lives one episode of time. Now let's get started. Welcome back, my beautiful souls, who the Season of Self-Love Podcast. I am your host, Naomi Banks, and I am here to guide you through another journey of healing and empowerment. This month we are deep in a series of healing beyond the betrayal, where we unpack the layers of healing after deep personal wounds, and today we're going to dive into a profoundly transformative aspect of healing and embracing vulnerability as a strength. So let's prepare to open our hearts and our minds. But before we do that, and we can dip into this conversation, let's take a quick break alright? It's your girl, D. Goddess, Naomi Banks, here on the Season of Self-Love Podcast, and we'll be right back. I hate my beautiful souls, this is your girl, D. Goddess, Naomi Banks, and I am excited to share something special with you, introducing my latest abled world book, Healing Beyond the Betrayal, a journey of growth, empowerment, and renewal. In these 55 pages, I offer you insight, heartfelt stories, and practical worksheets, designed to guide you on your humanity. So if you experience betrayal, or you are seeking personal growth, this resource is made just for you. You see, it's time to reclaim your power and embrace renewal, so you can get your copy by visiting the Season of Self-Love Podcast.com, and as a thank you for being part of our community, use the code HEALDZERONA, and check out to enjoy a 15% discount. So let's embark on this journey together, because you deserve to heal, grow, and thrive. All right, well, welcome back to the Season of Self-Love Podcast. I am your host, Naomi Banks, and again, we are going deep into the conversation today of Healing Beyond the Betrayal, but today we're talking about vulnerability. We're talking about embracing the vulnerability as strength, and before we get into deep down into this topic, let's center ourselves for a nice guided meditation, all right? So if you can please close your eyes, now take a deep breath in through your nose and slowly exhale through your mouth. Now, as you breathe in, I want you to imagine drawing in self-love and acceptance, and as you exhale, I want you to let go of any shame or hurt that is weighing down on you. I want you to picture yourself in a warm and comforting light, and this light represents a safe space to where you can open and be vulnerable. Now I want you to hold on to this feeling of safety and warmth as we explore today's topic together, all right? All right, now is your moment to open up your eyes, yes, yes. All right, I want to thank you for joining me in this moment of peace, and if you're new here to the Season of Self-Love podcast, this is something that we do every day, Monday through Friday. I'm to help center us before we get into the topic of hands, and today is all about embracing the vulnerability and making it as our strength, and today we have a heartfelt letter from one of our listeners which really sets the stage for our discussion, and here is what they're all, Dear Naomi, I've been following your series of "Healing Beyond the betrayal," and it's opened my eyes in many ways. However, I'm struggling with feelings of vulnerability and shame after being betrayed. It feels so heavy, and I often find myself wondering why this has happened to me. I want to move on, but each time I reflect on my experience, the shame overwhelms me, making me feel stuck. How can I embrace my vulnerability without letting it consume me? Thank you for your guidance. Sharing. First, I want to thank and acknowledge your courage in sharing this with us, because it's not easy to open up about such a personal feeling in your strength that's truly commendable, but what I first want to talk about, I want to talk about vulnerability. When the word "vonability" comes up, it's often seen as weakness, right, especially after betrayal. You know, vulnerability is actually a more powerful step towards your healing, but it does. It allows us to face our truth, no matter how painful it is, and it provides us with a path to a more deeper understanding and healing. Vonability isn't about weakness, it's about the courage to face life challenges and transform your pain into power. This shows, well, recent shows on this series this month, we had some amazing guests that came on to share their stories. Two particular shows and guests stand out to me, and that's Jesse Torres and Melissa. Both of those beautiful women that have shared their story actually used their pain in their betrayal for power and in their purpose, and in my e-book, "He led beyond the betrayal, growth, empowerment, and renewal," in this book, I want to go to the chapter two. Chapter two is about processing the pain and the emotions. And what I loved about both Jesse and Melissa is that they took the time to truly process the pain in their emotions. Yes, it took them years of trials to get there, but they eventually get there. Let's talk about Melissa first, really quick. Not only has she experienced betrayal of the same level, I talked about levels before, I talked about levels I believe in the beginning of this series about there are different levels to betrayal, but for her, both of her betrayals that she had experienced the most were through her marriage. She was married twice, and in both there were infidelity in both of her marriages. One that caused her not only shame within her household, but in the town and the city and the community that she was living in. And she shared with us that it took her some time to really get past all of that because she didn't at the time have the tools to get through it, but what she did realize from that is that through signs and people around her, they helped her, that she was able to use that trauma, to use that betrayal to make it a purpose. And now she's able to help other people, other women, other men, and she said specifically men to be able to get through that process, to use that pain again as power, and then as purpose. Now, I want to talk briefly about Jessie. Jessie's story was a little bit more intense. She was abused on several different levels, from sexually abused to mental, physically, never abused possibly that can be said, she was abused in that manner. And I remember us having a conversation, and I remember just filling her energy through our conversation just through the interview. And I myself was so engulfed in the words that she was speaking and a light that was surrounding her, that I knew that she was truly genuine in her love for her pain. And when I say her love for her pain is that she truly understood her pain. She truly understood her journey, and she embraced it. And when I say she embraced it, oh my gosh, she embraced it. I'm going to talk about that in a little bit. But this is an example of processing your pain and your emotions. And in one of our challenges that we have, we're doing a 30 day challenge, a 30 day from her to hope, for her to her challenges is a 30 day healing beyond the betrayal. And the very first one that we talk about, the very first challenge that we talk about is about journaling. And in my chapter two of my e-book about healing beyond betrayal, we discussed the importance of acknowledging and processing your emotions. See, what this do is it, it essentially validates your feelings without judgment. And so the techniques that I share with you all is about journaling, is speaking to or speaking to your trusted friend. But let's specifically talk about journaling for a moment right now. Again, that was challenge day one for our 30 day challenges to write a letter to yourself, or write a letter about your betrayal, all of it, real raw and uncut without any judgment, put all of your feelings down or what that betrayal did to you. Put it all down on that paper. And with this technique, only do you not see it, but when you read it back, you can hear it. And you can say, now I can feel it too, yes, you can feel it, but now you can see it on the paper and now you can start to process it. And by processes, it's put it in different orders. We talk about a gift within the betrayal, we talk about the power in the pain, we talk about the purpose in the pain. For some reason, it seems like when you put pen to paper and you write those emotions down, they tend to resonate with you more. It seems like you tend to pay attention to them more than just having that thought in your head. Does that make sense? And actually what it does too, it helps engage mindfulness. It really does. It helps engage mindfulness, where it can significantly aid your process. This strategy helps, it helps maintain your emotional turmoil, and it also provides structure for the way that you navigate through your feelings. Meaning that, that emotion is going to be triggered by something, whether it's a conversation that someone says, or a smell of something, a song, a color, a car, something. Something is going to trigger that emotion to where that picture, that memory of the betrayal will come up. So this is a time that you can go back to your journal and you can read what you said and how it made you feel. And then this is another thing that I want you to do. And I didn't share this in my e-book. And I think once I write another e-book about this, I think this is ... And I'm going to get some throwback on this from some professionals, but create a betrayal book. And I'm not being a funny one, I say this, but create a betrayal book, a journal of betrayals. And why I say this is because there are different levels to betrayal. And as I said, I said that before. But also this is where you have your emotions out on paper. Because it's not going to be the first, it's not going to be the last time that you are going to go through these betrayals. But what this is for you is a guide. It's a guide to help you to get through the next betrayals in your life. So even though we did a show last week on seeing the red flags. And I know this is probably one of the things that probably ... That Sharon is feeling is that how could I miss the red flags? We are human and we will miss those red flags. One is because one, we second guess ourselves. We second guess ourselves. We don't trust our intuition. Then they say Naomi, does that have to fully do with us? Actually, no, not really. And how I'm going to say this is because a lot of times it's that we think about what other people think of us. And it tells us to determine what our decisions are going to be. So somebody said, "Well, Naomi, you're a hard-ass, you don't get nobody to benefit of the doubt." Even though I see the red flags, I allow someone else's. Yes, it's ultimately my fault because I allowed it. But I allow someone else's influence on my decision to ignore that red flag. But don't be mad at myself, Sharon, don't be mad at yourself because you miss those red flags. This is where vulnerability becomes your strength. This is where you use vulnerability for you because you have to have compassion and empathy for yourself. Because did you really know about those red flags, those red signals, do we? Because remember right now, we are in the process of learning who we are loving us unconditionally without any influences for anyone else. Right now, this is the time that we are building our core values ourselves without any outside influences. So even though we are going through these challenges and everything like that, these challenges are used for tools for the next time. As I said before and I have spoken to a client, I say, "You know, this is just a nice guide or an outline for you. This is not a play-by-play for you because my betrayal is different from your betrayal. The way that I will react to my betrayal will be different from your betrayal. Meaning that you have to do what's best for you. Does that betrayal mean the end of a relationship for you? Does that mean that I'm going to keep going with this relationship, but I'm just going to make sure that I pay attention to the red flags? Does that make sense to y'all?" So that's why when writing this down, it helps you, not for you to have a reminder so you can go to that person and say, "Well, see, this is what you did to me. No, that's not that. This is for you." So you can be able to understand your think pattern as well, but also at the end of it that you can see how far that you've come, that you can see how far that you've come, and there's another chapter in my ebook, "Embracing Resilience and Growth." In this, when we explore on how resilience is in growth, and I'm going to highlight a story and I started speaking about Jessie before and how overcoming her feelings of shame in emerged stronger. Remember, I told you that she had been abused sexually, physically, emotionally, all of that during a time that she was a young child until into her adult age, marriage, and further. But this woman took all of that and created something that's powerful, that's within her teachings. She's not only a motivational speaker, but she is a transitional life coach. She's helped thousands and thousands of people get through. When you need meal time inspiration, it's worth shopping king supers for thousands of appetizing ingredients that inspire countless mouth-watering meals. And no matter what tasty choice you make, you'll enjoy our everyday low prices, plus extra ways to save, like digital coupons worth over $600 each week and up to $1 off per gallon at the pump with points, so you can get big flavors and big savings, king supers, fresh for everyone, fuel restrictions apply. Next, at Moss Adams, that question inspires us to help people and their businesses strategically define and claim their future. As one of America's leading accounting, consulting, and wealth management firms, our collaborative approach creates solutions for your unique business needs. We leverage industry-focused insights with the collective technical resources of our firm to elevate your performance, uncover opportunity, and move upward at MossAtoms.com. And transition through their healing process, through the shame, and I remember the conversation that we had, and she was saying that because she said that her husband was a police officer, and no one would really believe her. She had no one to talk to, she had no one to speak to. So not only was she living in pain, fear, shame. She couldn't trust her family members, I remember she was being abused over there. Her brother passed away, was murdered, so she didn't have anyone. And so she had to seek outside and within herself, and that alone takes courage. And when you do that, when you do that, that's a part of being vulnerable to yourself. I know a lot of times we say, "Have courage," yes, but within that courage there's a vulnerability, because now you are allowing yourself to feel those emotions. And when you feel those emotions, it turns on the light and says, "Hey, now I need to do something about this." Does that make sense? There was something that she talked about, and it truly hit home for me when I say that this is one of the interviews that I was crying by the end of the interview, because like I said, she touched me in such a way. I felt every emotion that she went through, but also just her words and her energy that came through was amazing, but she was speaking about this conversation. She was now the caregiver of her father. I asked her a question, let me go back. I had asked her a question about her being in the same room. Being in the same room now that she has gone through the healing process, how does she feel when standing in the room with the same people who has betrayed her over and over again? And she said, Naomi, let me tell you a story. She said, "Hi, Aaronic, that I was the caregiver for my father before he passed away." And two weeks before he passed away, he said to me, he said, "I'm sorry that I wasn't the father that you needed or wanted me to be." And she said, "No father, no daddy. He was perfect for me." And the reason why she said that is because if you wasn't the father of the man to me, then I wouldn't be the person who I am today. I wouldn't be the woman who I am today. I wouldn't be able to help the people out there that needs to be helped. You see, she had to go through those things to be able to relate to someone else. She had to go through it to be able to show and guide somebody. If I don't have a map and I ain't been there, I can't show y'all how to get there, right? If I haven't been through the betrayal, if I hadn't gotten through and healed from it, how can I sit on this podcast, how can I write an e-book, how can I do a challenge, how can I do any of those things and share that with you? So when we started looking at things and situations of people doing things to us, betraying us, think about that. That's when you talk about the guilt in the betrayal. That's when you talk about the power and the pain and taking it to purpose. So sharing, that's how you can become unstuck. That's how you can use your shame as a sword. We have to start changing these words that we have for negativity. For now, my shame is my sword. The shame that someone puts on me, that is my sword. Your betrayal, there's a gift in that betrayal and that pain there is a power and is a purpose in that betrayal, in that pain. I just hope that you continue to listen here to the season of self-love, not just on this series or on other series coming and if you hadn't heard the ones before, go back and listen to those because truly or in this podcast, it's all about self-healing. I'm not saying we don't need no therapist or nothing like that because we do have one on with us that comes at least once a week, Dr. Will. But also, you can always go seek a therapist, but also right here, this is work that you can do at home. This is also work that you can do at home. So people say, Naomi, how are you sharing your life's story? How are you being so vulnerable and just so bold in your, you know what, because I knew it was a reason why I went through my journey in life. I knew that it wasn't an accident that I was on those porn sets. And I was safe. Let me tell you something. I've heard horror stories on some of those sets and I'm not even gonna talk about this porn. I was in the music business too. I was in the music business. I was all through the entertainment business. And so I saw all forms of abuse. I thank God was standing right next to me, walking me through, carrying me through all of that, that most of the time I was shield from a lot of that stuff. That I saw and I heard secondhand from other people. And that's why I knew when I got into the adult industry, I was a praying sister. Every day on my way to set, I was praying every day. But I also believe the new, there's a reason why I'm here. I don't know what it is. But I'm gonna trust it. I don't know what it is, but I'm gonna trust it. And then it brings me here. It brings me right here. All right, this is what I want to do. I want to take a quick break and then when we come back, we're gonna finish off this off this episode. All right. Thanks here on the season stuff, love podcast, and we'll be right back. Hey, hey, hey, this is dog Kyle Mike Mike, and now I'm gonna be bringing the cat pie cat from check us out every week. And remember, I'm the relationship expert. I just tell her like I hear from the kin, get back at me. All right, welcome back to the season stuff, love podcast, I'm your host, Naomi Banks. And today we're talking about a great scene of vulnerability, ash, wrath. This is a part of our healing material series for this month here on the season stuff, love podcast. And I just want to, you know, talk about more practical steps and affirmation for this quick, small segment here and this is just to help you to harness vulnerability and consider creating a vulnerability plan. And what this might involve is the setting boundaries about who you share your feelings with or choosing Pacific safe spaces to express yourself. So this is what I want to do. I want you guys to repeat after me, all right? So we're gonna affirm together, all right, let's affirm together. I am strong enough to face my feelings and my vulnerability is my strength. All right, I know that was a little shaky as we said, go say, repeat that for me. And this time say it from your gut, from your gut, from your gut. I am strong enough to face my feelings and my vulnerability is my strength, yes. Vulnerability is a strength that you have. So sharing if you listen in any other listening out there that believes that vulnerability is a weakness, is not, is a part of your strength. When you need meal time inspiration, it's worth shopping king supers for thousands of appetizing ingredients that inspire countless mouthwatering meals. And no matter what tasty choice you make, you'll enjoy our everyday low prices plus extra ways to save like digital coupons worth over $600 each week and up to $1 off per gallon at the pump with points so you can get big flavors and big savings, king supers, fresh for everyone, fuel restrictions apply. What's next at Moss Adams? That question inspires us to help people and their businesses strategically define and claim their future. As one of America's leading accounting consulting and wealth management firms, our collaborative approach creates solutions for your unique business needs. We leverage industry-focused insights with the collective technical resources of our firm to elevate your performance, uncover opportunity, and move upward at MossAtoms.com. When I think about vulnerability, I think about more of a self-awareness for yourself. For me, when I'm able to feel vulnerable, that allows a light switch to turn on within need to know, "Okay, now, I have to do something about this. I have to start my process of healing. I have to start my process of educating myself." This to switch to turn on and say, "Okay, we got through this. We're still here, even at the betrayal." Now, let's move forward. Remember, let's use that shame. That shame is our sword. That pain is that power. What's the gift for that betrayal? Remember what I said about creating a betrayal journal? Yes. Now, let's create a pain to power, to purpose journal. Whatever pain that you feel, whatever the situation is, write it down. Now, I'm going to turn that pain into power and I'm going to turn that power into a purpose. Create a whole journal for that. Let's start writing down. Let's start creating our own guides for ourselves. All of these self-help books, all of these therapists, all of these groups, this is where I can pin down and add things in there, but not only that, it's when I am in those groups, in a Facebook group, a healing group or whatever kind of group you are in, AA group or whatever group you are in, you have your notes and you can probably share that with someone there. That's a part of changing your pain to your power, to your purpose. I believe it was a few weeks ago, earlier on in the series, Dr. Will and myself, we had, I don't want to say a disagreement, but kind of like a different perspective of turning your pain into purpose or pain into power. It was something that he said about, he didn't believe or it was something, don't take me word for what I said, but in that moment, I heard him out and I said no, I said there's another perspective that I see it in. I see when you look at it, when people say about turning their pain into power, what turning pain into purpose, they're giving that pain a meaning, you're giving that pain a meaning where it makes sense to you. So now if I understand this is why this happened, whatever reason it is, okay, so what is the gift that I found in there, what is the power that I find in there, and how can I use it for a purpose? That's what we have to do with the betrayal. That's where the vulnerability comes in. That's when you allow yourself to feel your emotions, to acknowledge what they are, feel that hurt, feel it, put it down on paper, yes, you can tell someone if you want to, but you can also share that with yourself by writing that letter to yourself, because it might be some things that you can say to yourself on that pad and pencil that you can say to somebody else. And once you finish with that, go stand in the mirror and read it to yourself. Why look and keep glancing up looking at yourself as you speak in those words that you just wrote, your emotions, you say, how do I feel with that, okay? Now what do I do with that? Those are steps for me to heal it, all right, do I need to go speak to a therapist? Because I feel this way, now you have a, now you have a definition, now you have a meaning to what that pain means. Now that's giving you another language, that's giving you another language, so then when you do go talk to a therapist or you do go talk to a person, now you have language, another language to be able to describe it. Because a lot of times when we do go through these things, we don't have the correct language for ourselves. I've been guilty of that before, dealing with betrayal before, I didn't have the language to speak to myself. We have to learn how to be bilingual when conversing with ourselves, when communicating with ourselves. And now what does that mean? Let me tell you something. I do this practice though, I'm speaking, I'm talking to the mirror, mirror imaging practice that I do. And you know when we have that, when we say positive self talk, but not only that but I have a different perspective. So I have conversations with myself and maybe some damn great conversation. I check myself a lot. But within that I have vulnerability, compassion and empathy for myself as well as grace. But even with all of that, I celebrate, I celebrate myself in that moment too. Because not only did I take the time to stop, address and acknowledge my feelings and be truthful with my feelings. But now I'm putting meaning in a language to it. So if this ever was to come up again in my memory bank and be triggered by something that I now have the language to address it, to manage it. Now I know how to treat my heart. Now I know about loving on me or what that feels like. Does that make sense? All right my beautiful people, all right so I want to thank you for joining me today in this conversation and I hope that it resonated with you. I encourage you to reach out with your stories or your questions and you can also find resources and more details from my e-book as well as stay tuned to our next episode. This week episodes are amazing, we have some amazing guests that's coming on. It's going to share their stories as well as one of their book. Yeah, we have some amazing stories this week really. I can't wait, I can't wait to hear the feedback and remember, remember leave us a comment. And I know we have this, I shared this on YouTube, I shared this on all of the streaming networks, you know, wherever you listen to this it please leave a review. Apple, Spotify, our heart radio leave us a review because that helps us, that helps us with our standing, that helps us with our ratings, that helps us with potential sponsorships as well, you know, it helps with a lot of things, a lot of things. And if you have not joined thus far, please join us in our Facebook group and if you haven't joined our 30-day challenge, you can always join and just go back to one, start at one and keep going down. But also my listeners, I want you to remember that you are not alone in this journey. I told you we got you, we got you. So until next time, I want you to keep loving yourself fiercely and freely and have an amazing day, right? Have a good one. Thank you for joining us on this journey of discovery and empowerment here at the Season of Sublove Podcast. Remember, embracing self-love is a continuous journey and we are so glad to have you with us. We hope you enjoyed today's episode, please leave us a review and don't forget to join our community on Facebook at Season of Sublove, connect with a like-minded individuals who are also on their self-love journey. Now, if you have any questions on topics that you would like for us to explore, we love to hear from you. Email us at Season of Sublove@gmail.com and let your voice be heard. So until next time, take a moment for yourself today and remember, you are worthy of the love, joy, and other beautiful things that life has to offer. When you need meal time inspiration, it's worth shopping king supers for thousands of appetizing ingredients that inspire countless mouth-watering meals. And no matter what tasty choice you make, you'll enjoy our everyday low prices, plus extra ways to save like digital coupons worth over $600 each week and up to $1 off per gallon at the pump with points so you can get big flavors and big savings, king supers, fresh for everyone, fuel restrictions apply. What's next? At Moss Adams, that question inspires us to help people and their businesses strategically define and claim their future. As one of America's leading accounting, consulting, and wealth management firms, our collaborative approach creates solutions for your unique business needs. We leverage industry-focused insights with the collective technical resources of our firm to elevate your performance, uncover opportunity, and move upward at MossAtoms.com.