I Got Out of My Own Way

In my last blog post "Shedding Fear to Find My Unique Strong Voice," I addressed my fears and how self-defense training supported me in my healing journey and increased my sense of personal safety and confidence. And that now, instead of walking around with that old familiar feeling of fearfulness, I now feel more vibrant, alive, and confident. 

This week, I am sharing a link to a podcast “The Untold Story, Get Out of Your Own Way and NARM” that I did with Chicago Center for Integration and Healing (CCIH). In the podcast, I address:

• My journey into developing more safety and enjoyment in my  body and working with anxieties and fears
• Exploring trust and mistrust
• The profound experience of realizing I was holding someone else’s fear
• My personal journey into exploring the truth of the untold ancestral story as half German and half from the South
• How to connect with our own desires as an empathic person
• Personal agency and how we can get in our own way
• What the body-centered and relational model of NARM (Neuro-Affective Relational Model) offers
• When you feel you’ve had a set-back it could actually be the natural contraction that happens after expansion

Bianka Hardin, PsyD

Licensed Clinical Psychologist

Centered Therapy Chicago

Shedding Fear To Find My Unique, Strong Voice

As a woman, I am very aware of the dangers that exist in society.  I have been taught about these dangers since I was young and continue to hear about the dangers to women on a daily basis on the news.  Every day there is a reminder that the world is not safe for women. Because I didn’t feel safe, I looked for ways that I wasn’t safe and for the dangers around me.  I used hypervigilance and caution to protect me for many years. 

In the past few years, I began to integrate lessons from my work as a trauma therapist and wondered how they may help me in my own life.  The hypervigilance that was so familiar and protective to me did protect me but I also began to understand sustained hypervigilance negatively impacts my health and well-being. I began to recognize that the fear I was carrying was related to trauma that happened before I was born, it was intergenerational trauma, passed down from generations before me. In the blog post below and another one next week "I Got Out of My Own Way,"  I will share how self-defense training and somatic therapy supported me in my healing journey and increased my sense of personal safety and confidence  Instead of walking around with that old familiar feeling of fearfulness, I now feel more vibrant, alive, and confident. 

It’s not safe to walk alone at night. Don’t trust strangers. ALWAYS be on your guard. You could be kidnapped.  As far back as I can remember, I was told that I am not safe and the world is a dangerous place. 

Where did this fear come from? Why was I scared all the time?

Many of us are wired to be fearful because of our intergenerational trauma and societal imprinting. My mother and grandmother, of course, had good intentions and told me the same messages all women get because they cared for me and wanted me to be safe. Fear was transmitted as a result of their lived experiences and their own intergenerational trauma. 

At the same time, we absorb daily lessons from movies, music, and television that women are weak and need to be protected. Every time we turn on the news, we are bombarded with numerous stories about women being assaulted and victimized.    

My own personal wiring combined with the cumulative impact of society's consistent messaging resulted in me personally feeling weak, disempowered and afraid.  On the surface, you wouldn’t know how I felt.  But fear was lurking below the surface, interfering with my confidence and my voice.  Often, I looked calm on the outside, but inside, I was waiting for something bad to happen. If I didn’t know better, I could easily self-pathologize and call myself 'silly’ or 'paranoid.' As a professional now, in my many years of work with women and trauma survivors, I know I am not alone. Many of us live in fear.  

Doing instead of fearing

I pride myself on being a doer, an achiever.  If there is a solution, I will find it.  Well, I found it. Two years ago, I learned about the IMPACT Chicago Core Program Self-Defense Training for Women and immediately wanted to be a part of this training.  I completed a two-weekend IMPACT Core Program where I learned verbal and physical boundary setting techniques. I was amazed at how empowering the experience was for me. I felt strong, powerful, brave!  

Now I walk around with an attitude of “don’t mess with me, or else!” I also now know how to fight, how to defend myself, how to stand up for myself from the outset. Even better, I no longer need to buy into societal messaging that women are weak, or that I need to be nice because I am a female.  I know I have everything I need to defend myself. 

The confidence and empowerment I experience after completing this program has been invaluable to me and has helped me personally and professionally. I wish every woman and every girl could experience this! 

Bianka Hardin, PsyD

Licensed Clinical Psychologist

Centered Therapy Chicago

Turn Your Feelings Into Fearlessness

When you find yourself in an uncomfortable or dangerous situation, how does it make you feel?

Fearful Afraid Scared Nervous

Worried Intimidated Panic

Frightened Anxiety Terrified Helpless

For help, many look to family and friends, some look to therapy, and then there are others who choose IMPACT.

IMPACT participants have asked themselves this very question, and their answers are just like those listed above. According to Gavin de Becker’s book The Gift of Fear, many women should trust the power of their intuition and follow through on their instinct. Women shouldn’t worry about someone else’s feelings in an unsafe situation that would compromise their own, because often times, it’s a matter of life and death. Pay attention to that inner voice, and allow it to embrace your power of perception.

You’ve now looked at all of your options and you decide to sign up for an IMPACT course. Now you start to wonder what to expect. Your mind eventually starts racing in hopes of either calming you down or getting super excited over what’s to come.

Your class has finally started. The first day is usually quite comical, or so you think. You don’t feel as strong as you’ve always mentally thought. You can’t comprehend why the various scenarios you are participating in are not reflecting what you see on television. You may feel terrified or paralyze at what your about to experience. Yet, others may feel they are reliving a traumatic event.

Regardless of how you feel when you initially walk-in, the instructors and volunteers hope that your emotions become much different throughout the course. With the help of your classmates and the power within yourself, the instructors and volunteers hope you find yourself feeling...

Encouraged Uplifted Tested Reassured

Strengthened Motivated

Inspired Comforted Supported Driven

Just as quickly as the weekend starts it soon comes to an end. All those feelings you had prior to and during may have changed multiple times the course have changed again - this time for the better, but hopefully not for the worse. .

So, how does the IMPACT organization want you to feel after you’ve taken a course?

Empowered Strong Courageous Fearless

Bold Aware Heroic

Confident Tenacious Unyielding Brave

Women and girls have found the strength, courage, and power to set boundaries, assess dangerous situations, and respond effectively to verbal or physical attacks. IMPACT allows individuals to walk into a safe space - feeling accepted despite their circumstances or what they’ve been through. There is just one goal in mind - turning those negative words into positive ones.

No matter what option you look to for help, remember to never ignore your intuition, and turn your feelings into fearlessness!

Maple Joy

New IMPACT Chicago Contributor--look for future posts by Maple Joy the third week of each month.