What was the biggest turning point in your life that changed the person you were becoming?

So the biggest turning point in my life was incarceration.

And when you have to take accountability and deal with your consequences because of your actions, then you are left with nothing but time to look at your past, look at your life, and its incarceration ca- changed the way I thought about my identity.

And your life can suddenly be reduced to a charge or the worst thing someone knows about you, and it can feel as though the world has decided who you are based on one chapter.

But it also confronted me and, and there was nowhere else to run from certain truths.

I had to sit with my choices.

I had to sit with my regret and think about my children and think about the direction my life had taken.

What gave you the courage to finally tell your own story?

So when you're

When you grow up and you only know certain skills, you only know what you're taught.

And that also is what I talk to later in generational cycles.

When your parents' trauma and stuff or their way of doing things get taught to you that you think are normal or part of life, then you carry that and you practice that in your life.

It doesn't, it's, and it does not make it right at all.

And some people don't always have the skills to understand that, but it's being talked about a lot more these days about what our parents done or what their parents done in their lives, traumas, it gets passed down, but I, my incarceration happened a year after my accident and me going to do unorthodox things to have for my finances and stuff.

And then I always let people walk all over me and I was taken advantage of at that point, but I still had a brain injury and that was new and I didn't get the help I needed right away.

I want to know why this summit? What about the title, Finding Safety After Trauma Resonated? What did you jump up to decide to be a speaker?

Before you wrote this book, before you became an author, when you look back at your life, where do you think the refight began? Where did it begin from? Was there a particular moment where you realized, "I have to find my way back to myself"?

There was, uh, a few of them, yes, and before my life now, it's been ...

I was carrying a lot of pain I didn't fully understand, and when you experience trauma early in life, it can affect how you see yourself and what you expect from people.

I-- looking back, I see how much of my life was trying to survive, and I-- my life was full of chaos, and it kept me stuck in, uh, those situations.

And I've learned that my past is my past, and yes, those things happened, but they're not my whole story, and that's what I want people to really understand.

I've made a lot of mistakes as well as had a lot of hurt done to me as well, and I live with that, and it's helped me build my, my future though.

I've-- those experiences have helped build who I am today.

So is there a cycle you partic- you're particularly afraid of passing to your children?

How did the experience reshape the way you understood yourself, not just a person in pain, but as a mother, wife, and a woman with a future?

So pain changes more than your body.

It changes your relationship with time, uh, your independence, your ambition, and even your confidence.

And after my accident, I had to grieve the person I had been physically and emotionally, and there are things I can no longer do the same.

There are days when pain will determine how much energy I have before the day's even started.

And at first, I realized that reality.

I resisted it, and it almost became almost unacceptable, and I couldn't live like that.

What do you wish people understood about living with a pain that does not show on the outside? How has it changed the way you move through the world?

So India, can you start by telling us about your journey and what inspired you guys fighting to come home?

So my journey has been definitely one that would have broke a lot of people and who I was before today is someone who carried a tremendous amount of unresolved pain I had experienced trauma early in life, and for a long time, I did not fully understand how much that trauma shaped the way I reacted.

made decisions, or handled conflict and viewed myself, I was surviving more than I was living.

And there were times when I reacted out of fear, anger, hurt, shame, or desperation.

And I do not always have the tools to stop, reflect, and choose a healthier response then life became even more difficult after a catastrophic car accident that left me with permanent injuries and eventually some of my own choices led to my incarceration and separation from my children and Today, I focused on how I live and how I treat people and how I show up for my family and I use my experiences to help other people feel less alone.

I'm trying to understand my past and take responsibility for my choices and have compassion for others.

What I've survived and continue to become someone different.

So was there a particular moment when you realized you were beginning to find your way back to yourself?

Mm-hmm

... my car accident actually gave me a different outlook on life as well, and it's-- when you're in so much pain, it's probably your hardest teachers, honestly.

But I had to accept that my life was not going back to what it was before.

It was incredible- incredibly difficult for me to, to realize that, and for a long time, I thought part of me was waiting to get my old life back.

Eventually, I realized that I had to build a life with what I have now.

And writing my memoir has also taught me that strength doesn't always look strong.

Sometimes it's just getting out of bed and getting someone to help you without being ashamed that you have to ask for help.

So now, uh, moving on to some of my final questions for you is, uh, what made you decide to put your experiences in a book?

Yes, please.

So it was actually, that's quite funny because honestly, as I was writing, things of my past became very vivid for me and it was quite easy for me to write a lot of it because it was like I was reliving those moments.

And even back from when I was a kid, I remembered riding my bicycle from my mom's house to my dad's in this small town that we lived in.

And it was, wasn't that far but it was but and i don't think i was more than four years old at the time five maybe and i literally would ride my bike from my mom's house across the bridge to my dad's house and i also remember the one time i did that a lady stopped and picked me up to take me to my dad's house because I was a little girl riding a bicycle by herself.

There's moments when I remember my mom with me in the coffee shops and me poking my head underneath the tables or wanting to go home.

It was really easy for me to write a lot of my life.

And it made it a lot clearer for me for some reason.

How did you balance those threads so they did not compete with one another?

change that,

but I am working on doing that now and it's not one it hasn't been one dramatic decision it's been hundreds of smaller decisions and a couple were noticing how you react and I noticed that a reaction in myself that I had done also had done to me from my parents but understanding that you know where that comes from but then realizing that you're not going to pass it forward and apologizing when you're wrong allowing your children to express their emotions instead of making them afraid of them it's learning that that Love doesn't have to be chaotic.

It's creating stability.

When instability was what you grew up understanding, it's choosing communication instead of shutting down.

And sometimes it's recognizing behaviors in yourself that you promised yourself you would never repeat.

And that's painful itself because Generational cycles doesn't mean pretending that you've completely, you're completely different from the people who raised you.

Sometimes you see pieces of those patterns inside yourself.

wow absolutely wonderful angel now angel for my final question for this wonderful conversation we've had today for someone listening who's still somewhere in the middle of their own rebuilding who may not yet see how their story could become something meaningful, what would you want them to understand about the possibility of beginning again?

Mm-hmm

... show them when they don't have a different mindset on that people can change either, right? [clears throat] And I am not asking anyone to pretend that my past didn't happen.

I'm asking myself not to pretend my growth didn't happen either.

And there's another difference between accountability and permanent condemnation.

I believe people should be accountable for their choices.

I also believe that if we generally believe people can rehabilitate, heal, and change, then at some point we have to allow room for changed behavior to actually mean something.

I can't control whether everybody gives me that room.

Mm-hmm

Hi and thank you for having me today.

So before everything, I was a child learning how to survive in a chaotic life that felt normal at the time.

My life was very hard to navigate.

I didn't understand who I was then and I kept running from everything I wanted I needed to heal from I didn't process a lot of things the way I should have also my life was very very chaotic and I was just constantly living in survival mode.

So my childhood was not so, like childhood was not great for me.

Um, I learned at a young age that the people that are, the people that are supposed to protect you and look after you are sometimes not the ones that do, and they're the ones that end up hurting you.

For a long time, I didn't know.

me I feel that

So how has physical pain affected your emotional well-being? And how has it been living with chronic pain and disability?

So living with chronic pain is...

It's hard to...

Deal with that as well as trying to be the person that you're trying to become.

It's not an easy, straightforward path.

And it's not something you do in...

One day before my accident, I probably thought about health the way a lot of people do.

I'm happy that you were able to do that for yourself and for your own generation.