 Hello there, my beautiful internet friends. Welcome back to my channel. I am very excited to share with you today's topic. I saw this on Facebook of all places this morning and it connected with me in a way that few things have in a long time. I have had discomfort with this general topic for a good long while and I've never known how to really put it into words before and I saw this and I was like, that's it. That's absolutely it and I wanted to share this because I'm pretty sure that if you've existed on planet earth for more than, you know, 10 years of your life, you've probably run into something like this before. So let's talk about how trauma or adversity or anything doesn't actually make us stronger and please stick with me as I explain that. Before we fully dive in, I'm gonna do the YouTuber thing and ask you to like this video if you enjoy it as that helps it get out to more people and also consider subscribing if you enjoy the video at the end of it. I'm curious how many of us have ever had the phrase said it's gonna make you stronger. Whatever the situation for that has been, generally I find when I'm facing any kind of adversity, any kind of difficulty, you know, losing my leg or going through trauma, feeling the blank, oftentimes the response is very compassionate, you know, that's really difficult but you're gonna be so much stronger because of it and isn't that a great thing? Isn't that a good thing? I've always been so conflicted on that because I'm like, well, yes, that is a great thing. That is a good thing. I do want to be a stronger person. I don't want to have to have gone through that but I mean, I guess that's true in theory and it's never something that I've been able to fully articulate why I've been uncomfortable with this societal concept of, you know, what doesn't break you is gonna make you stronger because obviously to some extent it's true. We see this over and over and over again. There are countless books about it. There are countless inspirational stories about it and characters written about it. People who don't give up when they go through horrendous things and change the world. People who experience awful things and then use that to do so much good and it's beautiful to see. It's beautiful to see the resilience and persistence of the human spirit but the statement of you're gonna be stronger because of this has never quite sat right with me and it finally connected this morning for me. Why that is? Thanks to a Facebook meme. Little ashamed to say that it's a Facebook meme that finally connected everything for me but you know what? I guess illumination can come from many places. Hey, it wasn't the trauma that made you stronger, kinder and more empathetic. It's how you handled it. That credit is yours. Reading that, I was just like, oh my gosh, that's it. The power of choice I don't think can be understated. When you're talking about trauma or loss or anything that you don't wanna go through, you don't wanna be experiencing anything that's an unpleasant or horrendous thing, 100% of the time we have a choice in how we deal with it long-term and how we respond to it over the course of our lives and what we choose to do with it. If we choose to face it, deal with it, not fill in the blank. A lot of times the assumption is made that simply because you have gone through something, you are a strong person and I don't think that's true. I think oftentimes that is true because like I said, the resilience and the persistent of our little human souls I don't think can be understated either. We find a way to get through so often but not always and also, I think sometimes we attribute strength or overcoming things to those negative things as if it were those things that made us who we are and at least for me personally, I don't feel that way. I feel like anything that I am today is because of how I've chosen to handle things, choices that I've made, people who have been in my life, support that I've had. Speaking specifically about trauma, the trauma that I've experienced involved another person doing something to me, taking something away from me. A pretty severe violation and when I frame that narrative in my head as okay, because of what that guy did to me, I'm a stronger person today, I can't stomach that and that doesn't sit well with me because it's like no, it's not because of what he did, it's because of what I did. It's because I chose to stay alive, it's because I sought help when I needed it, it's because I figured out how to keep getting up every morning when I didn't want to and I figured out a way to get through and also had a small handful of really amazing people in my life to support me through that. It's not because I was hurt that I'm a stronger person a day than I was then, it's because of how I decided to respond to that damage and when we're talking about physical things, like losing limbs, I've heard this very, very often in the amputee community, like if that's a narrative that works for you, if you feel that because something happened, you're stronger and that clicks for you, I think that's amazing, I think that's really cool and use it. But for me, and I'll speak to those of you who also feel like it doesn't quite fit, you guys know this, I've said this before, I never wanted to lose my leg, I never wanted to fall off a horse and shatter my ankle and deal with everything that I have dealt with, but obviously I've had to and so many incredible people have been like, that made you stronger. I think to some extent that they're right, but also you always have the choice to respond one of two ways, to face something or to not face something to deal with it or to run away from it, to fill in the blank, and I have definitely not done that perfectly, let's just make that real clear. But I feel like there is a lot of power in recognizing your own strength from yourself and not from a bad thing that occurred to you or a negative experience or a violation or fill in the blank. I almost feel like it's romanticizing those bad things and giving them too much power because the reality of the situation is that not everyone is a stronger person because of what they've experienced. Not everyone makes those choices or has made them yet. I'm certain that there are many areas of my life and of my mind where I have yet to make choices to get through what I need to get through, but I'm working on it and I'm guessing you are too. This resonated with me so deeply today because I just think that's so true. Whatever happened to you doesn't get the credit for who you are, you get the credit for who you are, your choices make you. The person that you are today and the coolest thing about that is that you're alive watching this today, which means that if you are not okay with who you are, if you're not satisfied with it, if you're not filling the blank, you can always make changes. You still get to make choices no matter where you are and no matter what you're facing, no matter how heavy and dark things are. And I'm not suggesting that's easy or a quick process, but we do get to make daily choices to be who we wanna be and I don't believe, at least for me, that it's the bad things in my life that have built me. I think it's the incredible people around me. I think it's the choices in small moments that I've made not to jump off bridges and not to run towards the darkness that have gradually strengthened me. The choices that I've made to see a counselor when I needed to or journal or fill in the blank instead of more destructive tendencies. I don't know, this really resonated with me and made me very excited to read today because it just all clicked in my head finally and I wanted to share that with you guys in case anyone ever felt the same way. Again, I know that a lot of people really connect with, you know, this made me stronger and I think that that is beautiful too. I think if that's something you feel or you connect with, don't let me say anything negative about that. I'm just saying that for me, that just doesn't connect for the way that I view life and the way that I viewed my life story. So I'm really not saying anything, you know, bad about that. I just wanted to suggest a different way of looking at things in case it might help you as well as it's helped me today. Real quick before I end this video, I am going to be doing a video kind of similar to this one but focusing really specifically on trauma itself on my other channel, Trauma Talk. I'm gonna leave the link down below. So if you wanna check that video out, if specifically trauma is something that interests you when it comes to this topic of like trauma made me stronger, that channel is focused really heavily on mental health and I'm gonna approach this from a slightly different angle there for that audience. If you'd like to be that audience, please join me there. Thanks for listening to me today, guys. I truly appreciate it. Thank you to my patrons, the word is patrons. Thank you to my patrons for making these videos possible. I cannot express my gratitude deeply enough that you choose to support me there. If you're interested in supporting this channel, I would be honored. You can check out the link on screen and also down in the description below if you're interested in learning a little bit more. As I said, thanks for listening, guys. I love you, I'm thinking about you and I will see you in the next video. Bye, guys. Oh, whoa. 🎵 Hand her from the sky 🎵