From Shadows to Light: Kerri's Triumph Over Trauma and the Quest for Self-Healing

The echoes of a troubled past can reverberate long into adulthood, shaping our self-perception and relationships in profound ways. Join me as I sit down with Kerri McKenna-Reese, a trauma recovery coach with a harrowing yet inspiring tale of her transformation from a childhood marred by neglect and abuse to guiding others toward healing. In a candid exchange, we traverse the landscapes of emotional neglect, the generational effects of trauma, and the importance of a nurturing environment in developing one's identity.

If you would like to work with Kerri or are looking for additional information around recovering from abuse please access the links below.

https://kerricoaching.com/
Email: coach@kerricoaching.com
https://www.linkedin.com/in/kerri-mckenna-reece/

Transcript

Jenny Benitez: 0:03

Hi everybody, welcome to SteelRoses podcast. This podcast was created for women, by women, to elevate women's voices. Thank you so much for joining me today. You have Jenny with you. I am very excited to introduce our guest for today, carrie McKenna-Rees. Carrie is a trauma recovery coach in private practice and she's an accredited instructor certifying other professionals on the impact of complex trauma. Carrie, welcome to the show.

Kerri McKenna Reece: 0:33

Thank you so much, Jenny. Thank you so much for inviting me to be here today.

Jenny Benitez: 0:37

Of course it's my pleasure. So, Carrie, I would love it if you provided the listeners with just your story and your background and maybe how you got into trauma recovery, coaching and just a little bit about yourself.

Kerri McKenna Reece: 0:52

Yeah, okay. Well, I never in a million years saw myself in this field. When I was young, I really felt different than everybody else and I didn't really know who I was as an individual or how to connect with others. And I didn't feel connected to anyone not my parents, my friends or my family and I feel it connection really scared me right. I wanted to fit in, but at the same time I feared being rejected and I didn't feel I was good enough, lovable or valuable or even worthy enough to be in the life of other people or to be happy. So I felt broken, incapable, stupid, ugly and weak and I really never felt like I fit in. So I didn't understand myself, my feelings or my emotions, and they showed up in ways that failed me time and time again and this validated my thoughts and feelings of inadequacy. So I pretty much felt flawed in all areas of my life and that was all the result of my childhood. It was the way that I was treated, the way I was talked to, taken care of by my parents and other family members. So really, like growing up, I felt like my life was sort of pointless, and it wasn't always that way.

Kerri McKenna Reece: 2:05

As a toddler I remember being very lively and creative and I clearly remember wanting to be a dancer and a singer and I want it to shine you know, my little light on the world in such a glorious way and I want it to celebrate and share the love flowing from my soul with the world in a way that brought joy to myself and everyone around me. We actually come into this world with this natural, innate feeling that we're going to be loved and nurtured and our soul knows right from wrong and we rely on our caregivers really to further define that for us and we worship our parents and our caregivers and want nothing more than to connect and attach to them for guidance, and that's truly how we learn about relationships and we form our own identity. So that was the issue for me. I wasn't able to form an identity because I wasn't nurtured and our primary drive at birth is it's really to shape our personal identity. We're so full of love and trust and when we're not taken care of and nurtured, we no longer feel safe. And when we don't feel safe, we're not able to connect or attach to our caregivers, and when we're not able to connect or attach, we're not able to form our own identity. So that's really how we define ourselves. It's through connection, it's establishing relationships with people and it's by looking at the world through their eyes and our own eyes and the eyes of the other relationships we have.

Kerri McKenna Reece: 3:31

And trauma and it disconnects that right. It disconnects us and our inner relational bridges. What we know today is we learn the most from birth to eight years old and that's our developmental years and our brain, our personality and our view of the world. They're developing at that time and trauma in this timeframe, especially pervasive trauma, can have a drastic impact on a child's health and well-being way into their adulthood. And trauma for a child means like facing problems that are too big for them, having nobody there to give them tools for the support that they need.

Kerri McKenna Reece: 4:10

That was my childhood. It was beyond my resources to deal with and I felt like I might get hurt or die right. I felt abandoned and alone and I suffered 13 years of childhood sexual abuse, and it was in my home and it was within my family. So I totally felt powerless. I was intensely frightened by that, defiled my moral values. It violated my welfare. I wasn't just sexually abused, I was emotionally, physically abused as well. So it totally changed the way that I walked in the world right. I lost an aspect of myself.

Kerri McKenna Reece: 4:57

But it's not always just horror story stuff.

Kerri McKenna Reece: 5:00

It's really a child that does not feel safe, maybe a child in their home, where their needs are met physically, where they have tremendous opportunities, but they don't feel safe sharing their emotions, or they just don't feel totally loved or accepted or respected.

Kerri McKenna Reece: 5:14

So they have to walk on eggshell right and they're full of insecurity, not able to fully relax. That's complex trauma as well. So it doesn't have to be physical or sexual abuse. It doesn't have to be this severe neglect or abandonment. It could be a couple of key emotional needs that were not consistently met that cause the child to feel on guard. That does a lot of damage to a child. So I really struggled, not really having anyone to go to, not having. I had two parents that were emotionally disconnected from me with dealing with their own trauma. They came into the marriage and having kids with their own trauma and dealing with trying to find safety for themselves and it just kind of escalated from there. So it's a huge generational thing in our family. So it's really vital that children feel seen, heard and valued by their parents and their caretakers and their nurturers.

Jenny Benitez: 6:17

You know the part that I think one of the things that I think is very interesting. And when I was reflecting, I was when I was reading over everything in advance of our call today and preparing to have this discussion, highlighting for people that it's not just horror story stuff.

Kerri McKenna Reece: 6:35

Yeah.

Jenny Benitez: 6:37

You know and speaking like I'm 40, so I look back and reflect on, like my 40 years of life and things that I've been through and like why am I reacting the way that I'm reacting things to things today? Like, why do I react this way? And I think that for our listeners, the one of the things I want you to take away from this conversation that we're going to have with Kerry today is you might notice some trauma traits in yourself, and it doesn't have to mean that you were physically or sexually abused, but maybe there was your emotional needs. As Kerry said, we're not being met. I know me personally, like I reflected back on, like my childhood and why I overcompensated in certain ways as an adult, and one of the things that I've said on other episodes that I know I see in myself and I'm actually trying to course correct it now because I have children is the need for me to be in control and to not ask for help. I don't need you. I got this, I can do it myself.

Jenny Benitez: 7:37

And this has been something that has pretty much permeated my entire existence Ever since I was a child. My mother will tell you, like Jenny is independent, she's got it Now. My parents saw it as a oh, she's okay, we don't have to check on her, when in reality I was really doing it because I felt like there wasn't room for me and because I had an older brother and I had a little brother, my older brother. Constantly they were like focused in on him. And one distinct memory carry I have and this is a little bit silly, but it's stuck with me my dad used to help my older brother with his homework every single night and they would sit at the table every single night together and do homework. And my older brother got that attention, whereas nobody helped me with my homework.

Jenny Benitez: 8:27

And I remember being like, oh, one night I was like, oh, let me just ask for help. And I asked for help and the immediate reaction within minutes was like screaming at me why don't you understand this, what's wrong with you? And I was like never mind, I'm okay, I got it, I got it, I'm okay. And I never asked again. I was like I am not going to ask for help because the reaction that I get when I ask for help is frustration, anger, you name it. And I was like you know what? I will just figure things out myself. And to this day. That has been something that I've been working on. So last year, when I started this journey of like I'm going to be a better person and I'm going to really address some of my past trauma, that was one of the things that bubbled up was like Jenny, you have to ask for help, you have to make this okay.

Kerri McKenna Reece: 9:16

Yeah, well, it's not really possible to heal alone, right, because you don't really understand what the brain goes through as children. Our brain develops from the bottom up right, and if you're constantly in a place where you don't feel safe, you get stuck in that limbic brain because there's nobody there to nurture you, to teach you how to go from your limbic brain, which is your emotional center, to your logic and reasoning brain. Right, there's. There's a right and left brain there, but not just that trauma.

Kerri McKenna Reece: 9:46

I love that you pointed that out, really, because, again, it's not all always horror story stuff. It could be one child that has an illness or that is a handful that takes up all the emotional energy of the parents, right, and they don't have any more space left to give to their other children, right. Then it could also be children that come from wealthy families, if the parents are emotionally disconnected and they're given the kid money for everything but they're not really talking to that child or nurturing that child. So they grow up, they may have money and they may look very successful, but really they they're struggling emotionally because they haven't been in a space where they've been nurtured, right. So you're right, it's not always horror story stuff.

Jenny Benitez: 10:35

What for you know for things, for people to reflect on, something I'd like to give the listeners almost like a not a temp check, but I'd like to give them some insights around. Like you know, I guess markers for trauma or things that might be seen as like a response to past traumas, like things of that nature, like might be helpful for the listeners to hear and recognize and then maybe even like seek support or do research.

Kerri McKenna Reece: 11:09

Yeah, there's like that's what we call survival skills, right. What your brain does is is your brain. It does exactly what it's designed to do. We all grow up feeling like we're broken when we're trauma survivors, but actually that's called resilience, right. Our brain gets us to this adult life the best way it can, and even though they work for us as children, they're very maladaptive as adults. Right, because what we're doing is some of those survival skills.

Kerri McKenna Reece: 11:38

Are we stuff our emotions? Right? Maybe we're people pleasers. Maybe we have this great fear of being hurt, right? Or maybe we're addicted to chaos or adrenaline because we grew up in such a toxic home. That's the only thing we know how to handle. We don't know how to handle calmness, right? Maybe we want instant gratification? Right, because you know there's been times when I was younger that my parent would say hey, you want to go get some ice cream after dinner? Or do you want to go now? Well, I wanted to go right now because I knew after dinner they may not be in that emotional headset you know what I mean and I'm not going to get my ice cream. So, as an adult, you see something you're like, wow, I got to have it now. Right, it's instant gratification.

Kerri McKenna Reece: 12:23

Maybe they have a fear of failure. Or maybe they feel like a phony, right? Maybe I used to be a software test engineer for the government, you know, before I went into private practice and I felt like a phony every single day, even though I knew exactly what I was doing. I felt like a fraud, right? Maybe they fear the unknown. You know, a lot of people are so afraid to move forward with healing because they fear what they don't know, and it's easier to live using these survival skills than it is to touch deeply on the way that they're actually dealing. Maybe they have a long list of projects to do around their house. There's probably 10 or 12 things that are started that are never finished, right?

Kerri McKenna Reece: 13:08

Trauma survivors tend to be really good starters. They get really excited but they're really poor finishers. Maybe they have a deep longing for validation or a poor sense of personal value, with a fear of losing that value. You know, sometimes fitness is a big one. People get in the gym and they think, god, I'll look my best and be my best, it's that whole perfect mentality thing.

Kerri McKenna Reece: 13:31

But then you get older and your body changes and your hormones aren't the same and it's hard to keep up, or maybe it just becomes exhausting and all of a sudden they fall into this deep depression because they feel like they've lost their value. So image is a big thing with that Even smart you know even people that throw themselves into education, right? If all of a sudden something they've tackled is more than they can handle, then it'll automatically make them feel like they're this total failure. So image is very important to trauma survivors. Maybe they find it hard to trust. Control is a big issue. You know a lot of trauma survivors are very controlling and the reason for that is because they know that if they have control of it they're not going to get hurt, right?

Jenny Benitez: 14:22

I'm laughing because this is basically like you're describing me. That's why I'm laughing.

Kerri McKenna Reece: 14:29

If they control it all, they won't get hurt. And if they are stuffing emotions or they're stuffing feelings or they're showing up as a chameleon, no one will see that right. Because what happens is is when we're born and we have that great love for ourselves that we want to share with the world, if our environment or someone around us, our environment or somebody, tells us in their own way that we're not good enough, we self-abandon ourselves Immediately. We're wrapped in this profound guilt. Right, because we've abandoned what's the most passionate about us, which is our own self. Right, our intuition is derailed.

Kerri McKenna Reece: 15:06

And then what happens is is the anxiety sets in because we're showing up as a chameleon in every relationship. Who do I need to be? So Jenny likes me. So Jenny likes me, or I fit in, right. So then at the end of those interactions you're like oh, did Jenny like me? Was I pretty enough? Was I good enough? Right, and then it leads to toxic shame, because you find yourself doing what you think Jenny wants you to do being who Jenny thinks you need to be and you fall into doing things that really go against your authentic self right.

Kerri McKenna Reece: 15:37

So it's such a battle because you've got this guilt, you've got this new trauma that you've taken on to try to fit in the world, because you're scared to be yourself right, and then you have the anxiety of it all and then the toxic shame, so it's like it's a major battle.

Jenny Benitez: 15:54

I used to struggle quite a bit with people pleasing and codependency like pretty badly, up until I was about 26. It was, it was pretty intense. And at when I turned 26, I had started down the path of realizing how much I love like self-help books and like reading up on things. And I actually got very into reading books about you know the brain and psychology and psychiatry and like how this all interconnects and how your actions and emotions and how everything's connected. And when I was 26 is when I started the journey of using my feelings to determine how the situation was A lot of a lot.

Jenny Benitez: 16:42

And I know women probably more in particular than men, but I think it's across the board Like we stuff our feelings.

Jenny Benitez: 16:48

I actually I was picking up on that phrase that we stuff our feelings and you'll just do something because you feel obligated, you don't want to disappoint people, but then you walk away from the experience and you're frustrated and upset and you're angry and you take that feeling, that bad feeling there, and you carry that with you to the next thing and the next day and the next day and it kind of just continues to compound and pile up on you and then you're leading a life that you really don't want to be leading and I had noticed that. I picked up on it when I was about 26. I started, I started cutting some toxicity out of my life. I started really honing in on like I really only want to have like people that actually are interested in my well-being around me, because I think that's a big thing too Right, and I think that's like surrounding yourself with people that are supporting you being the best version of yourself that you could be.

Kerri McKenna Reece: 17:40

Absolutely, absolutely. You know, what you just talked about reminds me of like and I don't have anything against Mary Kay when I say this, so for the people that are listening, please understand that but it kind of reminds you of the Mary Kay lady that knocks on your front door and she's your good friend and you're like you come in and she's like oh listen, I'm selling Mary Kay and I would love for you to have a party for me and I'm like oh of course I have to go for Jenny, because Jenny is my friend and she won't like me if I tell her no.

Kerri McKenna Reece: 18:10

Jenny leaves and I'm like, oh my God, I hate Jenny so much now and you gain this huge resentment and it comes from the fact that you haven't honored yourself. You haven't said you know what, jenny, I love it that you're selling Mary Kay and your passion about this, but it's not really my Thing, you know, and I wouldn't be comfortable having a party. However, if I hear of anybody that wants some Mary Kay, I'll send them your way, right, but that's what happens across the board. We end up being yes people. We say yes because we're trying to find that love and acceptance we didn't get when we were born from our own environment. We want love, acceptance, respect, right. There's nothing worse than feeling like you're not accepted by your own tribe, which is your family.

Jenny Benitez: 18:54

Right.

Kerri McKenna Reece: 18:55

And you tend to be like a really needy person in relationships. You have a very negative and critical mindset of yourself. Because now your family, your environment, has told you you're not good enough, right. So you've learned I'm not good enough, I'm to blame for all of my problems, I should be ashamed of myself and I'm powerless, really because I'm a little kid. That's what you've learned in your family and you bring that up into your adult life, right? Have this very negative mindset of yourself. You're jealous of people that feel like they have it all together. Because you're constantly why can't I get this? Why am I not good enough? Right? With a constant fear of being abandoned. Because there it is. If Jenny doesn't like me, that's an abandonment. So now I've not just been abandoned by my family, I've been abandoned by Jenny too, right. So you're needy and then you feel being abandoned. So you take on a helper role as well. Let me do that for you. Yes, you do it. I'll do it. I'll do it. Never say no, right.

Jenny Benitez: 19:56

But you're not setting any boundaries for yourself.

Kerri McKenna Reece: 19:59

Yeah, no well, listen, if you're, if you, if you don't not given boundaries as a kid, you don't know how to set them as adults, you are not properly loved as a child. You don't know how to love yourself as an adult, right. If you're not respected as a child, you don't know how to demand respect as adult. And if you don't feel, if your parents don't make you feel like you're worth more than anything in this world, you don't understand what your worth is as an adult. You learn that in your childhood, right. When babies come into this world, it should be this huge celebration, not a bunch of doctors poking in prodden. There should be good music play and there should be a huge celebration. It's a new life right.

Kerri McKenna Reece: 20:39

Babies come out of the womb now they're terrified, like you know. You don't even have to spike a baby, they'll just cry, right. So it's like it should be such a Glorious thing, right? But because it's not, we're not given that baby respect right away when it comes into the world, right?

Jenny Benitez: 21:04

you know it's interesting that you say that because I was very when my kids were babies it was Incredibly important to me. This is gonna sound a little it might be strange for the listeners and I don't know why this was so important to me, but you just said respect for babies and I was pretty particular about my kids, not not in like an over ridiculous way, but something I was really particular about was my kids, even as infants, not having clothes on. I Really was not interested in, like you know, people do like the little naked baby pictures and this and that. I Was very like I don't like that. I, this is my child. I have to protect this child and even with like changing the baby's diapers in in settings where, like family was around and stuff, I always made it. I was very particularly like no, they have these, are their private parts, I will change them, or my husband or whatever like that, put them in a place where they're not totally exposed and people are staring at them, even for like bath time. I was very pretend I'm not and I didn't come from. I do want to like kind of reorient from the listeners. I wasn't physically abused as a child or sexually abused.

Jenny Benitez: 22:18

But this was something I was very particular about because To me I'm like this is a person here, they, they should be protected and even like when they were little and taking baths and stuff like that. I never let them run around naked. I always put clothes on them because to me, at least the bottoms you know, the tops you know. When they were little it was different, but what I always made it a point like we need to cover you up, you protect yourself, and my husband always tell them you when they were little, he'd like this is yours, this is valuable, protect yourself. And we would always and that's how we brought them up and it's a point of sensitivity for me, because I had would observe other people with their kids and They'd be naked running at the water park or, and I'm always like, ah, but what are we telling them? Like, yeah, what are we telling them that this isn't and I know that seems silly because they're so little, but it doesn't work in.

Kerri McKenna Reece: 23:11

No, it doesn't seem silly at all. I'm hyper sensitive to Parents making their kids sit on Santa Claus's lap. Yeah, because the first thing you're doing is that child's crying and saying, listen, I don't want to do this. And when you force the kid to do it, you're saying your boundaries don't matter, mm-hmm. And because that picture is not really for the kid, it's for the parent, right, and it's the same thing with the Easter Bunny. But it's also the same thing with grandparents, like when my daughter was little. If she said I don't want to kiss pop-up because For any reason whatever the reason is she didn't have to give me a reason I don't want to kiss him, then you don't have to.

Kerri McKenna Reece: 23:49

Right, you don't want to hug him and you don't want to kiss him. You don't have to, because when I was younger, I was forced to hug and kiss somebody that was abusing me. Yeah right, oh, you should. That's family. You have to do that. I have to do it. It's family. Your children are telling you what their boundaries are in their own language, and for a baby, all that is is tears. You know like it's. Even when you're feeding your baby, they tell you're in your own way when they're done eating, yeah, right. So you have to understand that. And you're teaching children that their boundaries are very important, and if you're forcing them to eat food when they say I'm full, yeah, you're telling them, their boundaries don't matter.

Jenny Benitez: 24:27

We used to even for like relatives that our kids didn't see a lot. We didn't make them, and my husband was totally like I was very happy that he was very on board with like all these markers that he and I were like, no, we're not cool with this if they didn't see somebody for a long time, like we weren't like, oh, you have go go, you have to kiss them. Exactly what you just said, something like they're, they don't know this person, they're scared. Like, they're little, they need a minute, like. And then, once they warmed up, okay, that's fine. But then in that moment I'm like, yeah, I'm telling my child that your fear doesn't matter. Suck it up and put what, what did you? What is the frame? Stuff your feelings. I like I'm gonna tell my kids to stuff their feelings like, no, I'm recognizing you, I see you, I'm here for you, I'm your backup. You don't want to hug them, you don't have to. The other thing that you put you touched on. And actually we touch.

Jenny Benitez: 25:14

We also do this at home when the kids say they're full. Now, when I was growing up and Carrie, I think probably you too you had to finish your food, like you had to finish your plate of food you were not to waste, and I didn't do that with my kids and and my husband didn't do that and we actually did it One. We wanted to make sure they understood their boundaries. But we say to them is your belly full? Because that sometimes they go, I want to snack instead. We're like no, I know, well then, your belly's not full, like, eat a little bit more dinner. But Because it's, it's an emotional thing, but it's also a physical thing too, because if they're, if we're telling them to ignore their fullness cues when they're little, well then they will be, and I know I read this somewhere they could be more prone to overeating when they get older because we're telling them to ignore that cue.

Kerri McKenna Reece: 26:05

I love this topic so much because the whole thing about your children is is you have to cultivate their innate Wisdom okay, that's what they have. And their compass, their internal compass, right, their intuition. It's there and you're teaching them how to tap into that. So a lot of trauma survivors. They walk into Relationships or groups of people asking themselves what if they don't like me? It has nothing to do with whether or not they like you, it's do you like them?

Kerri McKenna Reece: 26:45

If they don't. If you don't like the way the situation feels, right. If you don't like a person's presence, that's your soul speaking to you. That is your internal wisdom that says hold up, jenny, this is not a good place for you. Pay attention, right? That's your internal compass. And so, by teaching your children to focus on their belly and say hey, are you full, are you hungry, do you want any more food? Because, absolutely, if a kid's going to say, hey, I'll take some cake. Well, listen, if you got room for cake, you got room for the rest of the pasta on your plate, right, you can have cake later as a treat, right?

Kerri McKenna Reece: 27:23

But I think that's fantastic that you're doing that, because the whole thing with trauma survivors is we're so used to dismissing the way we feel and disregarding ourselves to honor other people. You should never honor someone else first. That's like when you're on an airplane and they say put your oxygen mask on first, because if you're not healthy, you can't help the person next to you. It's the same way in life, right? You need to make sure that you're healthy. So, listen, if I'm around somebody and that person doesn't make me feel good, I need to honor my gut and say, hey, thank you for telling me that right You're. You have this internal wisdom about you that you're born with your parents. Just have to help you Cultivate that. And you're doing fantastic like that with your kids.

Jenny Benitez: 28:08

I'm I, so I will say this the reason why we're so sensitive to it is because we did not have that. We're very particular, that's you know. It's the only, there's so many things and it's exhausting the way that the way that we're parenting our kids.

Jenny Benitez: 28:24

We talk about it at the end of the day all the time.

Jenny Benitez: 28:26

We're like we are emotionally drained, we're exhausted, we're like tapped out at the end of the day because so much of what we do is we talk to them and we're constantly talking to them and even like when you know we have to yell at them for being on the computer or whatever, if they're playing the video games too much and they're getting to fights, like we do all that stuff too.

Jenny Benitez: 28:47

We, we do all that stuff, but we just try to like, even after they all get in trouble, my husband will make it a point to like be like, come here, I want to talk to you and once, once the feelings have settled down, we're like hey, listen, this is what happened. Um, one thing I do want to kind of really Like hone in on for the listeners is really gut checking yourself. I think for so many of us, for so long we have ignored our intuition and you ignore that little voice or that gut feeling or that feeling in your heart, whatever you want to call it, but you almost become conditioned to ignore it after a long period of time and what are you?

Jenny Benitez: 29:26

self-abandoned. It's called self abandonment. And I remember when I first started to check back in with myself, it was, it was right when I met my husband and, um, I had started to break the cycles of codependency with my friends and my family. I had started to break those codependency cycles. Nobody was happy with me, everybody was up in arms, and they were all coming together on the side without me and talking about how I wasn't being me quote unquote. And I remember saying to them like I am being, I'm finally being me. You're just mad because now I'm not being the me you wanted me to be. And there was a lot of like strife for a very long time, for a couple of years, where my family was mad at me because I had significantly pulled out of the. I'm here to help you. I'm here, I'm your go-to, you can count on me for anything. And I started prioritizing my own feelings and emotions and I used to check in with myself because they would come at me with like You're too, you're too into your new relationship. This is when I met my husband. Yeah, he's, he's monopolizing your time. I'm like, well, he's not chaining me to the door like I'm. I'm Selecting to spend my time with him because at the time, when I was 26, like all my friends had been married.

Jenny Benitez: 30:47

At that point, everybody was having kids. I was like one of the last single ones left. But you know, because I had paid so much attention to everybody else's lives, I wasn't really living my own and I used to gut check myself like almost weekly and be like all right, let's do a barometer check here In this moment. Am I waking up happy? Do I feel good? Do I feel okay with this? Because at the end of the day, like, all that's really mattering here is do I feel okay? And every time it came back yes, jenny, you're on the right path here. This is the life that you're trying to cultivate for yourself. Do it keep going forward?

Jenny Benitez: 31:22

And people weren't happy. I lost a lot of friends. Well, quote unquote friends like. I lost a lot of people in my life and, to be honest with you, I call it like trimming the fat, like these were people that I really didn't need to be friends with and I shouldn't have been connected to anymore.

Jenny Benitez: 31:39

And you know, our time for our friendship had come and gone and I was moving on to a different phase of my life and it just sort of happened that way. And the reason why I wanna share all that with the listeners is because it is a hard road, but it's also a beautiful road, because once you start to really recognize that some changes are needed, you'll start to feel like the unease. People around you will feel the unease. But if you could just get past that part and, carrie, I'm sure you could have more, you have more insight there. But for me it was like I just need to get over that hump. I have to know, like on the other side of this hill, like, all right, I still feel okay, I'm still happy with what I'm doing, I'm gonna keep going.

Kerri McKenna Reece: 32:20

Yeah, everybody that suffers trauma has a little bit of narcissism in them. Sometimes it's a whole lot, though, because, again, we're trying to feel safe when we're growing up, but when we get older, sometimes we're narcissistic over gaslighters to the extreme and we end up hurting other people, and that's where that comes into play. And then, when you say, you know they're used to having control over you, your mind and your actions, and manipulating what you do, making you live by the family rules, or whatever those rules may be, or mythologies. But then what happens is you come into your own right and it makes them angry, because see now what they're used as survival skills they're not able to use with you anymore. They're not able to manipulate that situation and have control, so now they have this feeling of being hurt right.

Kerri McKenna Reece: 33:19

And being seen authentically when they're trying to stuff their emotion. The same thing happened with me, my I was taken to court because I wouldn't do what I was told right. So that's very common. You lose a lot of friends and a lot of family members and if you have a narcissist in your family they will go to the extreme, like taking you to court. You know, sometimes it's a narcissistic gaslighter, which is even worse. Right, because you got, they have an over inflated sense of themselves and they're always placing the blame on you. So that's a really hard, hard dynamic right there, especially if it's a parent.

Kerri McKenna Reece: 34:00

But I often tell people that and I'll say this to you because a lot of trauma survivors they live in that fear. They're too afraid to move forward. But if you step back and you start listening to yourself, it's quite possible that you're the healthiest member of your whole family, right, right, you get labeled the black sheep. Oh, yeah, yeah, you get labeled the black sheep. But the thing is that's because you've seen the unhealthy and that's not working for you anymore and you see how that's not gonna benefit you moving forward. You want something different for you and when you step back and you say I will no longer live on your terms. It's gonna be on my terms now, right, I'm not gonna continue to self abandon me. They don't like that, because then they don't have control. You're taking away their power. So congratulations you're the healthiest member of your family.

Jenny Benitez: 34:54

You'll probably be very mad at me.

Kerri McKenna Reece: 34:57

Maybe me and you got the good genes we did we did.

Jenny Benitez: 35:00

That's fine, that works that way. The other thing that I think, too, is important to say I also have, over the years, tried to address some of this and not like educate, but kind of like in a way, because I have a respect for my elders, like my parents. Obviously I have a respect for them. They're my parents and they did what they could with the skills that they had. That's sort of how I look at it, like they raised me to the best of their ability with the skills that that they had. There were things that could have been communicated a lot better yes, for sure, but what I lived and what I went through has brought me to today being able to do that by being able to now be able to communicate to my kids better. So that's sort of how to me, like that's how I explain this whole problem. I'm like, yes, I went through what I went through, but you know what, now I have these skills and I can teach this to my children. I do have to.

Jenny Benitez: 35:52

I do remember one, a few instances when I was growing up, where there was one in particular. This came to me like after years of, like you know self-reflection, because I was trying to figure out why I had this mentality of being a doormat for lack of a better term. Like, why do I have this mentality? Like why did I feel like for so long in my life, why did I feel like it was okay for people to treat me like crap and take advantage of me? And I knew it and I knew I was being emotionally abused or whatever by these people. But I would always kind of come around and like make it okay and be like, well, they had a tough day, you know, or oh, they just they're just stressed out, they don't really mean it. And I actually was able to pinpoint it back. Carrie, this is like wild, because I went through so much trying to remember like how this happened.

Jenny Benitez: 36:48

There was a conversation when I was little, I was in grammar school, and my older brother had been just horrible to me, mean to me, just very mean, making fun of me. I was overweight as a child. He was making fun of me for my weight, for just everything, just really going at it with me. And I remember I was crying the one night and I was telling my mommy I was like, oh, you know, I don't understand. Like he's so mean to me I don't understand why he's so mean to me. And she directed me and said Sometimes you have to turn the other cheek and he's having a tough time. So just understand that sometimes people are mean to you, but you have to understand that they're going through something and just it's okay.

Jenny Benitez: 37:34

I was like all right In my head. That translated to I have to accept this behavior because it's okay. I would rationalize it and it actually brought me into really bad relationships. I haven't had a ton of relationships, but the ones that I had before my husband were horrible. I didn't understand for so long, like where did that come from? It's crazy because it was like one pivotal moment, one message that stuck with me and it got in there and I just carried it with me all the way into my 20s.

Kerri McKenna Reece: 38:09

Yeah, this is another thing. When we're young like that, if you look at the way that you were treated, this is what we call putting the puzzle pieces together. It was one. You've identified that puzzle piece, that moment, with your mom. But if your mom had said you know what, jenny, it's okay for you to honor yourself and say listen, I understand you may be having a bad day, but the way you're treating me is not right. So I'm going to remove myself from the room and when you decide you want to treat me better, we can have this conversation again. That would have landed so differently with you If my mother had said to me listen. Yeah, if my mother, instead of shame in me, if my mother, has said, listen, the person that sexually abused you is a really bad person, you didn't do anything wrong and she would have put a stop to the abuse man, my whole life would have been different. It would have landed different right, but she taught you with the skill she had.

Kerri McKenna Reece: 39:03

And this goes back to children trauma survivors. We walk around and we feel like we're broken people. We're not broken people. Our reactions are normal reactions to abnormal situations. I was a kid that was abused in a home and when I went to school and I didn't know what to do with the way that I was feeling because I wasn't being nurtured, I was further disciplined and shamed by teachers who didn't understand what was going on at home. You see what I mean? Yeah, so it's like I always say there's no such thing as a bad kid, it's a bad environment.

Jenny Benitez: 39:37

Yeah, yeah.

Jenny Benitez: 39:38

And it's interesting because if you ever go on it for the listeners to like, if you ever really take time and really start self-reflecting and just kind of thinking, it's not to say live in the past because we can learn from it, but you have to learn from it and let it go, which I have, like it took, I'm saying, many, many years of like therapy and working on it.

Jenny Benitez: 40:01

But there's a matter of like, there's a part of you that needs to recognize and pay respect to and pay homage to. You know what I did go through this. But this is where I'm at now and this is how I'm actually going to take this and I'm going to turn around. That's why I keep referring to how we're working with our kids, because my husband and I both went through very traumatic things when we were growing up and we have taken it and turned it and carry you know to. I want to like highlight for what you do, because you coach people through this Like this is you have a private practice and you work with people through their trauma and it's incredible that you've taken something that was really horrible and you've turned it into something where you're helping people Like I mean, who knows, congratulations, like I can't even say enough.

Kerri McKenna Reece: 40:49

Thank you. I greatly appreciate you saying that you know it's making. It's making meaning. That's what. That's what we do, right. What you've done is you identified this situation in your past and at one time you felt it meant one thing. But now, as an adult, you look at it and you go, wow, really, I am allowed to honor myself. So you make a different meaning of it. Like our brains that's what I was saying about kids Our brains need to make meaning of something right, and so when you're little, you don't have any skills. If you're not being nurtured so automatically you turn that around on yourself. It's my fault.

Kerri McKenna Reece: 41:28

But, now who you are as an adult and you start thinking back to, oh, this situation, like the situation you share with your mom, right? Then you understand wait a minute, I am allowed to honor myself, right? So you make a new meaning of it, you start really understanding yourself and you start coming into your own, and that's what I teach people to do. Right, we do look at the past, but it's not about what you've suffered. It's about the pain you're carrying right now. Right, because you still have it and it's 30 some years later. And it's not that it's your fault, it's just that you didn't make the meaning of it. That made sense, right, you're still blaming yourself Now, and it caused you to have a negative mindset.

Kerri McKenna Reece: 42:11

It's causing you to live with these coping skills right and trying to survive every day versus giving yourself permission to honor you and standing up and saying wait a minute. This is not okay. And it's also about understanding. You're allowed to make mistakes. You know, jenny, I have not always gotten it right. I've had to go back to relationships and say you know what, jenny? I said that I was going to sell your Mary Kay, but now that I think about it I'm not really comfortable doing that. This just doesn't seem like my thing. You know, it's okay to do that, right. But we're so used to honoring other people and worried about what if they don't accept me, that we never think about ourselves and the way we feel and what our needs are right. We keep our. We keep self-abandoning over and over and over again, because it's what we were taught to do, right.

Jenny Benitez: 43:03

Right, it is incredibly interesting because, even like I, there are so many again because I've worked on this for so long and I'll continue to work on it for the rest of my life. But there's so many moments where I can be like, oh, I do this because of this when I was 16. And I was like, and I can kind of track it back, and I even like had come to the revelation, I think, when you and I were having our intro call, or it might have been before it where my, like almost my entire reaction to how I wanted to show up in my marriage was a reaction to how my parents were and the whole like everything that I was like, well, I want to be a breadwinner, I want to have a career, I need to be the moneymaker. There was literally all the reaction because I don't really need to do any of that stuff and it's just, it's crazy and it's so important too that, like you know to recognize, to recognize it, to honor it.

Jenny Benitez: 43:58

Well then, how can I turn this into something better? What can I do better for my children here? And if you don't have children, what can you do better for yourself in this moment? To to change, change how you're processing information. And I'll bring it up again that Kerry does do coaching and she does have her own private practice, because this is really crucial and I want to really highlight that because I think people get a little weird with coaching. Like they're like oh, that's, that's strange, like I don't know if I'd be comfortable with it. It's so empowering because I do some coaching with folks and like I have people coach me and I do like podcast accountability stuff, like there's other like avenues, and it brings so much more light to you when you have someone that's showing up for you to help you and to inspire you and to help guide you a little bit, because we do need that.

Kerri McKenna Reece: 44:46

Yeah Well, I thank you for bringing that topic up because you know I've I've studied psychology and I was first going to get a PhD and I was going to go that route.

Kerri McKenna Reece: 44:57

But what really has me, has my love of coaching, is the fact that there's no ethical guidelines that tell me I'm not allowed to relate to that person Right. If Jenny shows up in my chair and she's been sexually abused, I can help her put words to feelings and emotions that she doesn't understand, because I've walked that wall Right, and I can say to her listen, I've totally been there and I and we can share experiences and we can talk about those things. And you know, when I, if I had went the path and gone to medical school and gotten a PhD, those ethical guidelines would have prevented me from being able to relate. So that's the difference between Western medicine and what coaching does Right. And coaching has this phenomenal dynamic of helping you not only learn about yourself, but learn how to relate to other people Right, and that's what's fantastic. I built my what I teach others about. I built according to what I needed as a kid.

Jenny Benitez: 45:58

Right.

Kerri McKenna Reece: 45:59

What I needed when I was going through that. I needed to feel like I was seeing her in value. I needed to feel like I was loved and that somebody cared about me. Right, and then I wouldn't have tried to commit suicide at 15 years old, right, I wouldn't have made all these poor decisions. You know, I felt like I was thrown to the wolves and told to raise myself and then, as I was trying to find my way, living in fear, and I made all these mistakes, I was criticized for everything I did.

Kerri McKenna Reece: 46:24

Right Well listen, you're my parent, if you, if I'm not supposed to be doing this, why didn't you?

Jenny Benitez: 46:27

nurture me. So I'm like, why didn't you talk to me about this? Like why didn't I know that was another big one, right?

Kerri McKenna Reece: 46:32

It's like you don't have a right to sit back and criticize me when you fail to do your job. Yeah, right, so it's like that's. The one thing I love about my work is everybody that I'm surrounded with. Again, it's not always horror story stuff, but it's the way that they've been affected deeply by their childhood and they've moved forward in a way that's not healthy for them. They survived it. It's it's wonderful that they've survived it. That shows you have tremendous resilience. You know and I want to stress really hard on here that there's not a broken trauma survivor out there. Your brain is a phenomenal thing. It got you here. You've survived.

Kerri McKenna Reece: 47:13

Okay, it's not healthy today, the skills that you're using, but, man, they worked for you great back then. Let's turn around and see what you want for you today, what you need for you today to move forward and be healthy. Right, let's look at the past and decide. Okay, I don't like that. It's like looking at past relationships. This guy hit me. The next guy is not going to do that. You know what I mean. It's you look at the way you're treated and you learn from that and you move forward. But it's about honoring you. Yeah, coming home to you is what I like to say.

Jenny Benitez: 47:46

I like that a lot and I like that you highlighted that. Like, yes, like these skills got you here, they were your survival skills, that's how you got through this. But now let's recognize that you do not need to use those survival skills anymore. You can do it differently.

Kerri McKenna Reece: 48:02

Well, exactly and let me say this too those survival skills, that was resilience. You have no accountability for that. In my opinion, right when you're young and you're trying to survive and you don't have anybody directing your way and you're just a kid and you're living in fear, your parents or your caregivers are accountable for that. The only thing you're accountable for is how you move forward right.

Kerri McKenna Reece: 48:27

And you do that by honoring yourself. Right, if that's what you want to do, if you want to heal and move forward. But I praise people, listen, they come to my practice and they're I'm worthless. I don't believe nothing. You got you here. You did a tremendous job to sit in this chair right here. How do you want to move forward, to build your happiness? Right, because you're not accountable for any of that. It makes no difference what you did, whether you were a dancer, you sold drugs, you went to prison. You're not accountable for that. What you're accountable for is how you move forward from today.

Jenny Benitez: 49:00

Like, from today forward, how are you showing up? You've made this decision. You've made the decision to seek out coaching support. How are we going to go from here? Yes, that happened, but you can do something totally different. You can change the course. I'm a big, big believer in being able to shift the course of your life. I don't think that people are just stuck. I think, mentally, we are told a particular story in that, oh, you get to a certain age, like that's, it Can't move on from here. This is your law in life. That is so untrue and we have to stop selling that story. There's so much more that you can do Now, carrie. Do you also work with people virtually, or is it in person?

Kerri McKenna Reece: 49:41

I do. I run groups and most of the time I do them virtually. I don't take anybody in my office. Actually, I work out of my home, so it's all done virtually OK.

Jenny Benitez: 49:53

That's very cool. That's very cool.

Kerri McKenna Reece: 49:55

What's that? Sorry, say that again. I said I have clients all over the world. I have clients in Australia some in. Canada. They're all over the United States as well. I got one from China, so, yeah, anywhere I do it internationally.

Jenny Benitez: 50:12

Carrie, if somebody wanted to reach out to you for support after hearing this episode. What is it? Do you have a website that you'd like?

Kerri McKenna Reece: 50:19

Yeah, it's carrycoaching and that's K-E-R-R-I coachingcom. Or they could reach out by email coach at carrycoachingcom. Ok.

Jenny Benitez: 50:31

And I'll be sure listeners to link Carrie's information in the description of the podcast. You can click on it after you listen. She's phenomenal, as you can hear. I'm almost sad to see this recording happen, just because I'm like, ah, you're so insightful and it's just so lovely to speak to you because, truly, you've taken something that could have been life-ending and you've turned it into something totally different and it's so amazing because it is unique to you and your story and it's just wonderful. So just huge, huge kudos. I am so impressed and just so inspired by you, thank you.

Kerri McKenna Reece: 51:11

I just want to leave everybody with listen. When you love yourself, you find yourself. So give yourself permission every single morning, look in the mirror and give yourself permission to honor you, to put you first. That's not selfish and there's no shame in that, and the world may say different, but honestly, if you're not healthy, you can't be healthy for anyone else. So love you, give yourself permission to honor you.

Jenny Benitez: 51:35

Thank you so much for that, Carrie and listeners. I hope that you found this episode insightful, inspiring, and you can reach out to Carrie for support Should you feel like you want to go down that journey. I highly recommend going down that journey. I really do. We'll see you next time. Thank you everybody.