I watched from the window as he walked
across the pavement and as soon as he
crossed the street I thought to myself
it’s time to make my move
so I went into the kitchen and opened
the drawer and grabbed the first knife
that I could find and I held it close to
my chest so I felt safe I walked through
the front door of his apartment and down
the hall down the stairwell and out the
back door of the building and I had this
plan of how I would escape but the
minute I got outside all I could think
was the fear I had inside and I thought
what if what if I find a police officer
but he doesn’t believe me so he sends me
back to my grandfather who hurt me in
the first place and then I thought what
if I find a stranger they’ll help me but
what if they hurt me worse than what he
did so with all of the panic and my body
in my mind I ran back up the stairwell
back through the hall into his apartment
door and put the knife back into the
drawer and walked over to the window
where I watched and waited for him to
come home and he came home for is the
number of days it took me to escape my
grandfather and seven is the number of
sexual assaults I have experienced in my
lifetime It was as if trauma had become
my middle name
and it was so easy for me to ask myself
what was worse the trauma itself or the
aftermath and for me it was the
aftermath because my aftermath looked
like this with every single additional
sexual assault the post-traumatic stress
I developed became even worse and worse
and more complex and complex with each
one and every single sexual assault I
experienced I felt even less and less
so one day I got on this handy-dandy
website called Google and I searched
local advocate in my area and this
advocate that I found led me to the
therapist who was a great part of my
journey and that therapist led me to the
crisis center of Tampa Bay where I
decided that I would join a planning
committee for an interactive event for
sexual assault survivors Take Back the
Night but that wasn’t enough I needed to
do more because I had this pain inside
and I needed it to be fixed soon so I
wanted to help others so I applied to be
a volunteer sexual assault advocate at
the crisis center in Tampa Bay and I
remember when I went in for my interview
I sat at the desk of the lead advocate
and she looked at me and she said Nicole
I don’t think that this is right for you
with what you have been through this
will be too hard and I looked at her in
her eyes and I said I want to do this I
can do this and so I did for three and a
half years I was a sexual assault
advocate at 2:00 a.m. at 3:00 a.m. and I
remember every single time I get a call
when somebody was assaulted and I’d have
to come in and I would prepare myself
and I’m like I can do this I can take
away my trauma to help them and I did
but the minute I would get home at 5:00
a.m. or 6 a.m. all of my fears came back
inside
and the triggers the triggers were awful
because the thing about post-traumatic
stress disorder triggers is that you
freeze and panic so you feel paralyzed
and trapped in a body that really didn’t
even feel like mine and even though I
could visually see with my eyes that
there was no danger in front of me my
mind and body couldn’t tell the
difference
and so after three and a half years of
that I needed something else something
that would work this time because my 12
year eating disorder wouldn’t relax and
all of the bad coping skills and self
sabotaging behaviors became to get worse
and worse and I always liked this thing
called yoga but I usually did for a
workout but then I decided that I was
gonna sign up for yoga teacher training
and so I did and through my journey as a
yoga teacher in my teacher training and
made me face how I felt about myself and
I didn’t love myself I had no self-care
skills whatsoever in fact I was pretty
disgusted with who I was and being a
and so it was in that journey that I
realized that in order to get back into
my body I was so disconnected with I
needed to discover who I was so I got
tired I was telling myself the same old
story and once I started to stumble in
my recovery process I took a deep breath
and I imagined this incredible Nichole
that I would be in my future and she
kept me going because the Nichole then
wouldn’t do the trick and so as I was
moving through this beautiful flow of
recovery and feeling better about myself
the most incredible thing happened I
began to recognize a pattern in my
recovery process a pattern that I’m here
to share with you today
and so you see whatever adversity you’re
faced with whether it’s the loss of a
loved one a cancer diagnosis or maybe
you’ve felt the same class five times
and you don’t know what to do anymore I
want you to try this
I want you to step 1 acknowledge
acknowledge the situation you are faced
with seeing the truth in it every bit of
it for what it is knowing that you
cannot change the past but you can only
move forward in your future Viktor
Frankl an Austrian neurosurgeon
psychiatrist and Holocaust survivor a
Holocaust survivor once said when you
can no longer change a situation you are
a challenge to change yourself and he’s
right when you can’t change your past
the only thing you can change is
yourself and so that takes me to step
two step two you’re going to ask your
gonna ask yourself the questions that
matter the questions we should be asking
ourself every day with every decision we
make so the first question you’re going
to ask yourself is when you’re faced
with a stressful situation how is this
situation affecting me emotionally
mentally and physically and once you’ve
answered that I want you to ask yourself
why why is the situation affecting me
emotionally mentally and physically
because you see it’s through the
understanding of our emotions on why we
do the things that we do and why we feel
the way that we feel that we can move
forward and get on that beautiful flow
into your greater self and so once
you’ve answered that the last question I
want you to ask yourself is this you’re
going to ask yourself how can I move
forward in a positive light and when you
ask yourself this you should have
already learned why you feel the way
that you feel so that your choices on
which way you can move in a stressful
situation will be easily laid out in
front of you and you’re gonna have
choices that are based on your what
and see for me what if I never escape my
grandfather at all what if after the
first time when I didn’t succeed I
didn’t get up and try again and again
for four days straight I would have
suffered even more than I deserved to
but I didn’t give in to the what-ifs on
the fourth try and I succeeded so when
you have your choices in front of you
push away the what-ifs because the
future self of yours deserves way more
than that and then your other choices
will be the ones that you know are the
best way for you to move forward for you
to move forward in that positive light
and so in your face with the stressful
situation I want you to move in the
direction of that positive light for you
and your future self and that’s why the
step three is act when you’ve
acknowledged the way that you feel in a
situation and you’ve seen it for what it
is all you have left to do is to move
forward in that direction that you chose
and so you’re going to begin with little
steps that lead to larger steps until
you’re in the most incredible flow and
transition to get you to where you want
to be and your what-ifs will diminish
faster and faster the more you use this
process throughout your life and so this
is when I ask you this when you are in
the face of adversity will you cave to
the what-ifs or are you worth choosing
you every single time thank you [Applause]
across the pavement and as soon as he
crossed the street I thought to myself
it’s time to make my move
so I went into the kitchen and opened
the drawer and grabbed the first knife
that I could find and I held it close to
my chest so I felt safe I walked through
the front door of his apartment and down
the hall down the stairwell and out the
back door of the building and I had this
plan of how I would escape but the
minute I got outside all I could think
was the fear I had inside and I thought
what if what if I find a police officer
but he doesn’t believe me so he sends me
back to my grandfather who hurt me in
the first place and then I thought what
if I find a stranger they’ll help me but
what if they hurt me worse than what he
did so with all of the panic and my body
in my mind I ran back up the stairwell
back through the hall into his apartment
door and put the knife back into the
drawer and walked over to the window
where I watched and waited for him to
come home and he came home for is the
number of days it took me to escape my
grandfather and seven is the number of
sexual assaults I have experienced in my
lifetime It was as if trauma had become
my middle name
and it was so easy for me to ask myself
what was worse the trauma itself or the
aftermath and for me it was the
aftermath because my aftermath looked
like this with every single additional
sexual assault the post-traumatic stress
I developed became even worse and worse
and more complex and complex with each
one and every single sexual assault I
experienced I felt even less and less
so one day I got on this handy-dandy
website called Google and I searched
local advocate in my area and this
advocate that I found led me to the
therapist who was a great part of my
journey and that therapist led me to the
crisis center of Tampa Bay where I
decided that I would join a planning
committee for an interactive event for
sexual assault survivors Take Back the
Night but that wasn’t enough I needed to
do more because I had this pain inside
and I needed it to be fixed soon so I
wanted to help others so I applied to be
a volunteer sexual assault advocate at
the crisis center in Tampa Bay and I
remember when I went in for my interview
I sat at the desk of the lead advocate
and she looked at me and she said Nicole
I don’t think that this is right for you
with what you have been through this
will be too hard and I looked at her in
her eyes and I said I want to do this I
can do this and so I did for three and a
half years I was a sexual assault
advocate at 2:00 a.m. at 3:00 a.m. and I
remember every single time I get a call
when somebody was assaulted and I’d have
to come in and I would prepare myself
and I’m like I can do this I can take
away my trauma to help them and I did
but the minute I would get home at 5:00
a.m. or 6 a.m. all of my fears came back
inside
and the triggers the triggers were awful
because the thing about post-traumatic
stress disorder triggers is that you
freeze and panic so you feel paralyzed
and trapped in a body that really didn’t
even feel like mine and even though I
could visually see with my eyes that
there was no danger in front of me my
mind and body couldn’t tell the
difference
and so after three and a half years of
that I needed something else something
that would work this time because my 12
year eating disorder wouldn’t relax and
all of the bad coping skills and self
sabotaging behaviors became to get worse
and worse and I always liked this thing
called yoga but I usually did for a
workout but then I decided that I was
gonna sign up for yoga teacher training
and so I did and through my journey as a
yoga teacher in my teacher training and
made me face how I felt about myself and
I didn’t love myself I had no self-care
skills whatsoever in fact I was pretty
disgusted with who I was and being a
and so it was in that journey that I
realized that in order to get back into
my body I was so disconnected with I
needed to discover who I was so I got
tired I was telling myself the same old
story and once I started to stumble in
my recovery process I took a deep breath
and I imagined this incredible Nichole
that I would be in my future and she
kept me going because the Nichole then
wouldn’t do the trick and so as I was
moving through this beautiful flow of
recovery and feeling better about myself
the most incredible thing happened I
began to recognize a pattern in my
recovery process a pattern that I’m here
to share with you today
and so you see whatever adversity you’re
faced with whether it’s the loss of a
loved one a cancer diagnosis or maybe
you’ve felt the same class five times
and you don’t know what to do anymore I
want you to try this
I want you to step 1 acknowledge
acknowledge the situation you are faced
with seeing the truth in it every bit of
it for what it is knowing that you
cannot change the past but you can only
move forward in your future Viktor
Frankl an Austrian neurosurgeon
psychiatrist and Holocaust survivor a
Holocaust survivor once said when you
can no longer change a situation you are
a challenge to change yourself and he’s
right when you can’t change your past
the only thing you can change is
yourself and so that takes me to step
two step two you’re going to ask your
gonna ask yourself the questions that
matter the questions we should be asking
ourself every day with every decision we
make so the first question you’re going
to ask yourself is when you’re faced
with a stressful situation how is this
situation affecting me emotionally
mentally and physically and once you’ve
answered that I want you to ask yourself
why why is the situation affecting me
emotionally mentally and physically
because you see it’s through the
understanding of our emotions on why we
do the things that we do and why we feel
the way that we feel that we can move
forward and get on that beautiful flow
into your greater self and so once
you’ve answered that the last question I
want you to ask yourself is this you’re
going to ask yourself how can I move
forward in a positive light and when you
ask yourself this you should have
already learned why you feel the way
that you feel so that your choices on
which way you can move in a stressful
situation will be easily laid out in
front of you and you’re gonna have
choices that are based on your what
and see for me what if I never escape my
grandfather at all what if after the
first time when I didn’t succeed I
didn’t get up and try again and again
for four days straight I would have
suffered even more than I deserved to
but I didn’t give in to the what-ifs on
the fourth try and I succeeded so when
you have your choices in front of you
push away the what-ifs because the
future self of yours deserves way more
than that and then your other choices
will be the ones that you know are the
best way for you to move forward for you
to move forward in that positive light
and so in your face with the stressful
situation I want you to move in the
direction of that positive light for you
and your future self and that’s why the
step three is act when you’ve
acknowledged the way that you feel in a
situation and you’ve seen it for what it
is all you have left to do is to move
forward in that direction that you chose
and so you’re going to begin with little
steps that lead to larger steps until
you’re in the most incredible flow and
transition to get you to where you want
to be and your what-ifs will diminish
faster and faster the more you use this
process throughout your life and so this
is when I ask you this when you are in
the face of adversity will you cave to
the what-ifs or are you worth choosing
you every single time thank you [Applause]
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