The best podcasts for Healing from Trauma

My name is Kerri and I'm a Certified Trauma Support Specialist. I am also the Owner/CEO of Invisible Wounds: Healing from Trauma. I'm an advocate, podcast creator and host of my own show Invisible Wounds: Healing from Trauma. I'm also currently taking courses to become a Trauma and Resiliency Life Coach! I've worked with survivors of Intimate Partner Violence for over 12 years and with those who have Traumatic Brain Injury for 8 years. I work collaboratively with brilliant and wonderful professionals and groups around the world in this field! I currently work with the CACTIS Foundation in Scottsdale, AZ. We work to promote research, provide education, training, and develop programs, tools and protocols for any organization, system, or group and to help those who've experienced Intimate Partner Violence and Traumatic Brain Injury personally. I am a survivor of both, and I have lots of lived experience with trauma, beginning from my earliest childhood memories onward. I started my podcast, website, and YouTube channel as a way of connecting different shared experiences we may have with trauma, and steps we can take in order to heal, build resiliency, and grow! I can relate my story to others and talk to them about what has worked for me in recovering from a lifetime of trauma, brain injury, and adversity. Using a Trauma-Informed Care approach, I provide real world, relatable, and easy to use exercises in each podcast episode. Listeners can have tools to use to help them become more grounded, relaxed, and gain understanding around how trauma has impacted them and how they can heal one step at a time. Trauma unfortunately is something I am all too familiar with. Growing up, I was surrounded and raised by adults with dysfunction, addiction, mental illness, chronic physical illness, anger, and violence. We moved many times when I was a child, and I was always the new kid. Painfully almost cripplingly shy, I was bullied physically and picked on and teased unmercifully by kids and teachers alike from kindergarten through junior high. Then, suddenly, at the age of 13 in 1977, I held my dying 6-year-old sister whom I had raised and protected in my arms while my parents both intoxicated argued for 2 hours as to whether she should go to the hospital or not. She died 4 days later. A month to the day after she died, my beloved grandfather who lived with us, also died suddenly. At this point, I broke, shattered, and disintegrated into a million little pieces. I became an angry, rebellious, and self-destructive teen. Alcohol and drugs became my coping tools. I was raped the first time at 13, and gang raped at 16. As a runaway at 16, I met the man who would become my nightmare. What followed was 3 years of physical, mental, emotional, and sexual abuse and torture. It took me 5 times to finally leave the relationship for good. the average is 7 times. 4 months after leaving the relationship I suffered a burst brain aneurysm, I was lucky I survived, many do not. It was during testing I went through at this time, doctors found evidence of Traumatic Brain Injury I sustained because of the physical abuse. In 2011, I took a job at a small local domestic violence shelter in Ohio, and I found my passion. Using my experience, I found that I was really able to connect with survivors in a very real and relatable way. In 2012 I moved to Phoenix, AZ and began working at one of the largest domestic violence shelters in the state. In 2014 this shelter began a Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI) program. At this time the connection between domestic violence and TBI was just getting recognized. I helped develop and run this program. Also at this time, I connected with local and global leaders in this field. We work collaboratively to promote research, develop programs, training, education and tools for any organization working with survivors. In 2017, I first began learning about Trauma-Informed Care. This view looks at trauma from a "what happened to you" approach versus a "what's wrong with you" approach. This was a complete game-changer for me. I was not only able to help those I worked with better, but I began to understand just how deeply my own trauma affected me. I took classes and became a Certified Trauma support specialist, and as of June 7th, I will be a Certified Trauma and Resiliency Life Coach. I had not really listened to podcasts before, but I began to listen to what was out there on trauma. There are a lot, but not many from survivors using a Trauma-Informed Care approach, and not many with practical tools and solutions that listeners could learn and apply to themselves. The creation of Invisible Wounds: Healing from Trauma was born in the hopes that I could fill that knowledge and information gap. At the end of each episode, I close with a technique, coping skill, or tool that's "real world" and easy to understand and use! I tell the audience that we're building a mindfulness toolbox together! I have also created companion website, YouTube channel and social media pages. I believe my unique approach will help other, and I hope will make a difference in helping others to begin to heal from trauma.

I started my podcast Invisible Wounds: Healing from Trauma as a way of connecting different shared experiences we may have with trauma, and steps we can take in order to heal, build resiliency, and grow! I can relate my story to others and talk to them about what has worked for me in recovering from a lifetime of trauma, brain injury, and adversity. Using a Trauma-Informed Care approach, I provide real world, relatable, and easy to use exercises in each podcast episode. Listeners can have tools to use to help them become more grounded, relaxed, and gain understanding around how trauma has impacted them and how they can heal one step at a time. I structure my episodes in what seems to me to be a logical progression of information. If I didn't know anything about trauma, how would I like it explained to me? I began with "What is Trauma" and worked forward from there! My playlist choices reflect that same thought process.

My playlist reflects many different things! From subjects related to surviving trauma, to motivation, building resiliency, growth and healing!