It's Time to Turn Up! No More Trauma (Life Change Series Book 1)

The speaker reflects on their experience as an alumnus of the foster care system, discussing the challenges and trauma they faced. They emphasize the need for foster youth to have a voice and choice in their lives. They also highlight the high number of children in foster care in California and the United States as a whole. The speaker believes in the power of owning one's story and using it to make peace with the past and inspire future generations. They offer advice on embracing adversity, reframing hurtful events, and recognizing one's worth. The speaker incorporates key scriptures that have shaped their life and discusses the structure of their book, which is divided into three parts. They encourage readers to engage with the material personally and make use of blank pages for reflection. The speaker acknowledges the sensitivity of the events discussed and chooses not to name the people involved. Psalm 23, NKJV. The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want. He makes me lie down in green pastures. He leads me beside the still waters. He restores my soul. He leads me in the paths of righteousness for His namesake. Yeah, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil. For you are with me, your rod and your staff, they comfort me. You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies. You anoint my head with oil, my cup runs over. Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life. And I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever. Many alumni of the foster care system have written about and inspired readers worldwide with stories of overcoming insurmountable odds. As an alumnus of the foster care system, I am the first to admit I lived the better part of my life encased in survivor's guilt, shame, and silence. These are the unintended consequences that cropped up as I made my way through a maze of a well-intended, yet trauma-inducing system. For years, I lived under a self-imposed code of silence powered by shame, an intensely painful feeling of believing I was flawed and unworthy of love, belonging, and connection. This belief was birthed by a series of traumatic life events experienced as a toddler, adolescent, and teen. But I never abandoned the search for words to give substance and meaning to my experience. By creating space for Faith to have her perfect work and become my writing partner, I decided to use my voice, a voice informed by 17 years of lived experience in foster care, to write about the challenges, unspoken hurts, and routine slights encountered by children and youth as they make their way as non-consensual travelers through the highways and byways of foster care. The ability to lend my voice to a conversation such as this arises from kinship rooted in a unique shared life experience, the unexpected and sometimes abrupt removal from our families of origin. The uniqueness of our experiences appear in a statement by the Children's Law Center. Nearly 100 times a day, a child in California is placed in foster care. Los Angeles County alone has over 33,000 foster youth in care who have experienced abuse, neglect, or been abandoned. On any given day, there are nearly 437,000 children in foster care in the United States and over 60,000 children in foster care in California. The threads binding children and youth in foster care together are the lack of voice and lack of choice when it comes to expressing what they need to feel safe and secure and make the transition from surviving to thriving. Over the years, I discovered our future, individually and collectively, is brighter than imagined. In the 29th chapter of the book of Jeremiah, the creator of heaven and earth said, I know the plans I have for you, plans to prosper you and not to harm you, and plans to give you hope in a future. In the absence of a relationship with kinship and family, a God-given hope and future are not a bad place to begin. It's time to turn up and get on with living life with no more trauma. We must reclaim our voices and pursue our God-given hope and future. By harvesting the truth beneath our day-to-day experiences, we can position ourselves to wield our unique brand of magic and master the art of making peace with the past. I will end my special message with a belief cultivated and used throughout the years to bounce back from every defeat, disappointment, delusion, deception, or distortion birthed by trauma. Irrespective of my current situation or how my life began, I am not a lost cause or forgotten. I am a work in progress, a gift to the world. You and I were created for such a time as this. It's time to turn up, no more trauma. Look at pivotal events and turning points that shaped my life as a survivor of sexual violence and trauma while demystifying the process for experiencing sustainable life change. This is the kind of change that provides protection in every season of life and accumulates spiritual wealth to distribute and share. By writing, I am responding to a call to action to lead by example while humbly acknowledging, like Kelly Noonan-Gores, the author of Heal, Discover Your Unlimited Potential and Awaken the Powerful Healer. It's no small task to demystifying how we heal, not to mention articulate it in a way accessible to the masses. I hope the revelation of my truth will embolden survivors and those who share a personal or business relationship with them to do everything within their power to roll back the corrosive tide of dysfunction produced by traumatic life events. The decision to memorialize my truth arises from the belief that there is a power in owning our stories. This power enables the storyteller to make peace with the past and harvest truth to nourish and uplift future generations. If someone asked what problem or problems does this book solve, I'd say it invites women and girls emotionally disfigured by traumatic life events to take the lead in positioning themselves to experience better outcomes by changing the quality of their lives from inside out. This book challenges readers to take a second look at their life, open the floodgates of healing and make a conscious decision to incorporate the following practices into daily living. Embrace adversity as a teacher, not an enemy or foe. Reframe hurtful events as opportunities for growth. Embrace and make use of their God-given gifts and talents. Narrate and update their life story to align with truth. Assume their worth as a gift to the world. The ability to incorporate these practices into daily living might appear like a tall order after years of butting heads with the hard knock life, but nothing is beyond reach when pursued with faith and belief. Frederick Phillips said it best, it is often hard to distinguish between the hard knocks in life and those of opportunity, but I believe readers can move mountains by heeding the advice offered by world tennis champion Arthur Ashe who said, start where you are, use what you have and do what you can. This is not a Bible study or deep dive into scripture, but a chronicle of life events written to reveal how four key scriptures framed and changed my life from inside out. Those scriptures are Jeremiah 29.11, Psalm 23, Psalm 71, and Proverbs 3.5-6. Other passages appear throughout the book to demonstrate my reliance on scripture to mend stress fractures in my heart, mind, body, soul, and spirit to create an inner sanctuary called home. As a teaching memoir, this book unfolds in three parts, part one, life shifts and transitions, part two, creating order out of chaos, and part three, some assembly required. Each section offers a candid look at memorable and pivotal events of my foster care experience between ages 5 and 18. The decision to look back arises from a desire to extract insight and wisdom worthy of paying forward and to obliterate the perpetuation of generational dysfunction and family misfortune. This book also offers insight and wisdom conveyed through my life story, but a shift in focus, tone, and voice occurs in the middle of part three to transition from shining a light on me to intentionally shifting the spotlight to you as I transition from past to present and bring this book to a close. Rather than summarize what to expect from each section, I've included blank pages to use any way you like as an integration tool to get the most out of this book to make your interaction and engagement with the material personal, purposeful, and practical. As a reader, you bring something unique and distinct to the page. Your thoughts, opinions, and impressions matter. If you are a trauma survivor or have crossed paths with someone who self-identifies as one, you might see yourself or someone you know in the pages of this book. If at any point while reading, you feel the need to pause for reflection or take a breather for your health, please do so. But first, use a pen, pencil, or favorite marker to jot down an insight you'd like to explore further. Highlight an idea or topic you'd like to share with a family member, friend, or coworker. Commit to doing something in the name of self-care to avoid a mistake or pitfall observed in the text. These are simply suggestions. Feel free to add anything that will yield a positive return on your investment of time and set the stage for experiencing positive life change. I hope you will use the space provided to identify and amplify issues and concerns that resonate with you. One parting note before moving on. In the interest of unveiling truth without offense, the people associated with the underlying events are not named.