I created this podcast as a space to tell stories I felt didn’t have a place to be told. I wanted to create a space to tell the stories of brown women and those who identify as women that are nontraditional, taboo and generally unspoken.
To honor this intention, the first episode of The Cherished You podcast is one of my untold stories … of being brown and bisexual. I don’t have a traditional coming-out story. In fact, I never really came out at all. My bisexuality has always been a part of me and I never really felt uncomfortable with it nor have I felt compelled to share it. I don’t carry any shame about it – it just is.
I’m sharing this story first to give those who may have a similar experience with something “big” a safe space to see that not all big things are big to everyone.

Everything is relative.

Thank you for taking the time to listen to this episode. Please share, like and subscribe to the podcast – I appreciate every single one of you. Please also leave a review as it helps others find the podcast.

Until next time!

Narcissism has gotten very popular as the “reason” for people experiencing trauma. While true, the piece that is missing from this conversation is where do narcissists come from? No human is born this way, so why does it seem that are SO MANY narcissists everywhere? In this episode, we explore the villain origin story of narcissists and what systemic practices allow so many of them to roam among us.

Rahma dives deeper into the concept of grounding, how to use in trauma recovery work and how it fits into the larger framework of healing from generational narcissistic trauma.

Rahma talks about Activation (another name for “triggered”), what it looks like in the real world, how to handle them and use them on your healing journey.

In this episode, Rahma shares her experience navigating ‘release’ and the importance of after-care to prevent emotional hangovers. You can read more here.

ma gives an oral history on where her framework around self-care comes from, how it fits into the process of healing from narcissistic mother trauma and goes into detail on the first pillar, Nutrition.

No man is an island.

Humans, as a rule, are not lone wolves. We need and thrive in supportive communities, including but not limited to families, friends, partners and the larger communities we form through work and leisure.

This week’s episode dives into how crucial connection is to one’s healing and how building relational intelligence is one of the more rewarding experiences that healing gives.

Mindset – the gateway to control?

Mindset gets talked about a lot as the main character in the healing journey. I don’t buy this perspective. Mindset and your control over your thoughts and feelings are important but can only be in your control when you’ve felt what you needed to as a result of the trauma you’ve experienced.

This week’s episode dives into the fallacies of mindset, its use in mind-control groups (aka cults) and how to come back from your own cult-like patterns.

The holidays are notoriously hard on most people because they’re around family. Toss in narcissistic abuse and now the holidays are an unbearable stew of all the wounds we carry.

This episode, I touch on how to use self-care to figure out if being around family is the right thing for you during the holidays (or any other time of year).

It seems like everyone, everywhere is talking about narcissitic trauma, healing from it and helping others in recognizing it. It also seems like SO MANY PEOPLE are gravitating towards this type of content because it validates their experience. 

This begs the question – are we all traumatized or does it just seem that way?

In this week’s episode, I dive into the hidden elephant in the room about narcissistic abuse and why it’s important to call out this elephant so that we can heal but also create a world where abuse isn’t a part of existing.

CW: this podcast talks about mental health and abuse openly. If this makes you uncomfortable or you’re not ready to explore these topics in this way, please do not consume this content as it can be triggering.

One of the unfortunate side effects of healing from narcissistic abuse is the realization that traits you thought were uniquely yours are actually trauma responses. This causes quite a bit of cognitive dissonance as you navigate the process of dismantling who you thought you were for who you actually are. 

In this episode, I explain the emotional rollercoaster that occurs during this part of healing and the one process that gets overlooked, but is imperative for you to come out the other side more whole and secure.

CW: mental health, abuse, whiteness, capitalism, patriarchy

An all too common occurrence in survivors of maternal narcissistic abuse is the Mother Wound. While the mother wound doesn’t necessarily come from a mother or even a woman, it is the characteristics of the wound that we’ll be diving into today. The mother figure in a person’s life is foundational to a person’s understanding and belief of how they function and belong in the world; so it’s safe to say this wound can be substantial in the ways it shows up. This episode contains content around trauma and caretaking, some explicit words so proceed as needed.

Rich, poor or somewhere in between, if you’ve dealt with narcissistic abuse, you’re dealing with money trauma. This first episode of a two-parter, I give some background on my money trauma and how it’s manifested in my life. I hope this helps give you some language and compassion around your own money trauma.

Next week, in the 2nd part, I’ll dive into the tools I’m using to work through my money trauma and how it’s going.

CW: this podcast talks about mental health and abuse openly. If this makes you uncomfortable or you’re not ready to explore these topics in this way, please do not consume this content as it can be triggering.

This episode covers how famous frauds almost always involve money, how we often play out our trauma onto money and how that impacts us and our relationships.

CW: capitalism, whiteness, narcissism, abuse

In this episode, I review the documentary series on Netflix “The Romantics.”

CW: narcissism

In the spirit of talking about hard things while in the middle of them, I share my experience of breaking up with a trauma bond in this episode. I retrace my steps and share my healing process of coming out of a trauma bond.

CW: narcissism, trauma, childhood trauma, insecure attachment

In this episode, I share what learned helplessness is, how it shows up for me in real life and how I helped myself and my clients work through it so it no longer holds us back from the life we desire for ourselves.

CW: narcissism, trauma, childhood trauma, insecure attachment

In this episode, I’m sharing my experience with emotional permanence, where it shows up in my life now and I manage my part while having the people in my life manage theirs.

CW: narcissism, trauma, childhood trauma, emotional neglect

While the inner child is often the phase where our inner template is started, the inner teenager is the phase where we start to assert ourselved into the world. The trauma we experience in our teenage years is often more impactful to our worldview than our childhood years.

In this episode, I expand on inner teenager work, what it is, how it’s done and the effect this work can have on your healing and how you show up in your life.

CW: narcissism, trauma, childhood trauma, insecure attachment, neurodivergence, capitalism, partriarchy

Having to reconcile, over and over again, the disappointment of someone or something not being what it appeared to be.
In this episode, I’m sharing my experience of this loss with medicine, sports, and Shah Rukh Khan.

CW: narcissism, trauma, childhood trauma, attachment, capitalism, partriarchy

In this episode, I share an exercise I do with my private clients that helps you identify your primary stress response and how that can help you overcome the hump you may be experiencing your healing.

CW: sexual abuse, narcissistic abuse

CW: narcissistic abuse, childhood trauma, stress response

In this emotional episode, I share my experience with my siblings while having the same parents and living in the same environment and how I’m navigating the trauma around my siblings now.

CW: narcissism, abuse

CW: narcissism, abuse, cults, high control groups, trauma

In a society where mothers are both exalted and disenfranchised, I grew up knowing something wasn’t right about my family. But I seemed to be the only one who could see it.

This is my story. I hope to shine a light on other families that are cults and to connect with other people who may have felt alone in their experience of living in such families. This story and my experience are not unique but they are not told out loud.

CW: abuse, narcissism, cults, trauma

This is part 2 of my story of living and leaving a single family cult. In this episode, I dive into my preteen and teenage years where I experienced crippling depression and anxiety, the growing realization that my experience wasn’t “normal” but not having any language or support around being able to explore this.

These years form the foundation on which I would later build myself up to get to the point of leaving my family due to the abuse I experienced. As much as there are many things that start to pile onto my “shelf”, there are glimmers of peace and happy that I receive that give me the strength to leave later on.

In the final part of my story, I share the circumstances and glimmers I received that helped push me to finally leave the family cult I was raised in. I relate the story of the final straw that broke my back and how I was able to leave for good.