Finding Safety After Childhood Trauma (Part 1) | Lisa Tickel
📲 Connect with Lisa Tickel
🎧 Podcast: Healing and Growing Hand in Hand
⚠️ Trigger Warning
This episode contains discussions of trauma, abuse, and other potentially sensitive topics that may be activating for some listeners. Please take care while listening and pause if you need to. Your well-being is what matters most.
Season 3, episode 7
What if the chaos you’ve lived with for years… isn’t who you are — but a response to the trauma you never had the chance to process?
In this 2-part episode of Life After Trauma, Jess is joined by childhood abuse survivor and trauma healing facilitator Lisa Tickel. Together, they explore what it means to move from survival mode into safety — emotionally, physically, and spiritually.
Lisa shares her powerful story of growing up in an abusive home, losing her mother at just 16, and learning to navigate a life without support. For decades, she coped through emotional eating, overthinking, and self-abandonment — until she began to uncover the root of her pain and reclaim her healing through EMDR, inner child work, and nervous system regulation.
If you’ve ever felt broken, too reactive, or disconnected from your voice — this episode is for you. Lisa’s journey is a profound reminder that healing doesn’t happen all at once… but safety is possible.
Chapters
00:00 – Welcome & Lisa’s Story Begins
01:07 – Emotional Eating and Escalating Abuse
03:23 – The Healing Workshop That Changed Everything
05:18 – What Healing Really Feels Like
06:40 – How EMDR Helped Lisa Reprocess Trauma
07:40 – Speaking Up for "Little Lisa"
09:32 – Inner Child Encounters & Self-Abandonment
11:45 – Finding Her Voice and Releasing Pain
13:14 – Lisa’s Workshop & Understanding Trauma
14:10 – Getting a PTSD Diagnosis and Feeling Seen
16:54 – The Power of the Pause in Healing Triggers
17:26 – Living in Survival Mode and Victim Mindset
19:31 – Letting Go of Chaos and Familiar Drama
21:28 – Awareness as a Superpower
23:27 – Emotional Regulation in Real Life
24:19 – Managing Panic, Pressure, and Reactions
26:00 – Adding Color to Black-and-White Thinking
26:30 – Movement, Nature, and Everyday Grounding
27:52 – Grounding & Closing Reflections
🌱 What We Talk About
Growing up in survival mode — and how it shaped Lisa’s life
Emotional eating, self-abandonment, and body image struggles
How trauma is stored in the body — and how to release it
Lisa’s first healing breakthrough at 19, before trauma therapy was mainstream
EMDR and working with “little Lisa”
Rebuilding a sense of safety in relationships
The power of the pause: responding instead of reacting
Letting go of the victim mindset and reclaiming your life
Self-awareness as the foundation for lasting change
Speaker 1 (00:00.158)
Welcome to Life After Trauma. Thank you so much for being here today, Lisa.
Thank you for inviting me to be here. I really appreciate it. I love getting my story out.
Absolutely, and let's start right there. Can you tell us how this has all started for you?
Well, my abuse, I had all abuse except sexual abuse and it was within my family. So it was between my brother, he was the biggest offender and then my parents. And so my brother was abusive and my father didn't protect me. And then my mother later on, and I can explain that, used some of the abuse to help manage me, I guess is the way to put it. So it started as far back as I can remember.
It's always been in my life and my brother was older than me and much larger than me and I don't really ever remember having a great relationship with him. But when in my younger years, he would be physical and verbal with me and you know, part of the reaction to that for me and it's a coping mechanism that a lot of people deal with is as I became a young teenager, I began emotionally eating and that then
Speaker 2 (01:07.416)
triggered my mother because I was this adorable little girl who she loved to dress up. And then all of a sudden I was getting fat according to her. And so her abuse escalated with me. And you know, the teenage years are always hard, you know, without having anything going on in your life like that.
But it certainly got tougher for me and the abuse certainly escalated in my teenage years. And it's so much so, and I don't know where I learned this, but I did learn at a very young age that childhood abuse is carried down, right? It's passed down. And, and I don't know, again, I don't know where I learned that from, but it made me in my teenage years even consider not having children because I was worried I would be someone that would carry that on and I didn't want to do that. And then when I turned 16,
my mother passed away from breast cancer. And that really, that really changed my life. And the saddest part in that arena is that I didn't have any adults really helping me. had no support. had no help. My father closed down even more. As a matter of fact, at one point, my father said, I can't afford to raise you. You need to quit school and you need to go get a job. So I remember at 18, I really, like I said, I grappled with the
the decision of, you know, will I have children? And, you know, I did a lot of praying about it and I felt like I would be able to manage it and I felt like it was okay. So, but I knew I needed to do something with myself. So at 19, I started my healing journey and I'm 61. So it's been a long journey. And back when I was 19, there wasn't any trauma support or trauma therapy or the modalities. And so I did so much of my healing kind of on my own.
It's kind of me and God doing it together. And I did do some healing over the years. And, you know, when I was in my 30s and early 40s, it started to escalate a little more. You know, I didn't have the trauma therapy and we all need the trauma therapy. But one of the things that helped me is I took a women's childhood abuse healing workshop, like the one I'm teaching now. That really helped me to get deeper into my healing. And this is what's really surprising. At that point, I only recognized that it was my brother.
Speaker 2 (03:23.554)
that was abusing me. When I was in the workshop is when I, my eyes got opened up to, Hey, no, it was my father and my mother. And that was kind of a nerving cause I didn't see that before. And that's what surprised me. And that's not uncommon either. That's very common among trauma survivors. And so I, I, did the workshop and it certainly made a difference in my life. And then a few years later,
the lady that ran the workshop asked me and a good friend to run the workshop. And so we did that for eight years. Yes, we helped a lot of women heal, which was amazing. But you know what happens in those workshops or anything that you're in there, you're gonna you're gonna be going through some stuff too. And so that really helped escalate some of my healing. But the biggest part was probably within the last 10 years.
because I began to start taking trauma therapy. You know, there's modalities, there's much more information out there, which is wonderful. And we understand trauma much more now. And I married the love of my life, who was for the first time outside of therapy was really my safe space. You know, he's my normal. I call him my normal. You know, my life wasn't normal. And so sometimes when I don't know where that line is, I'll go ask him, you know, I'll explain to what happened and say, is this normal? And he'll tell me.
you know, but overall that's in a nutshell, that's kind of the story of my life. There's a lot more, you know, details, of course, but that's kind of a general overview of it.
Yeah. Wow. That is a tough story. We actually share a lot. Yes. I mean, I don't have a brother, so my abuse came from a different place, but a lot of what you had to say definitely resonates with me. So the journey, the healing journey can take, mean, personally, I don't think that the journey really ends.
Speaker 2 (04:57.079)
really?
Speaker 2 (05:09.399)
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (05:18.112)
Not till you take your last breath. Yeah. It's a journey. It definitely is.
Yeah.
And I like to say that it is a lot of work, like acknowledge that it is a lot of work. And for anybody who's listening and watching, I don't want anybody to feel like they're not doing enough. Like if you, if you have to step back, yeah, from active, like participating in healing, that is totally and completely okay.
Absolutely.
Speaker 2 (05:49.249)
Yes.
and it's part of the reason why the journey is so long.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly. I mean, you know, I have found with my healing, you know, I'll go deep into something and it's sometimes intense and very difficult. And then when I come out of that and, you know, you've worked through it and there's just such a, you know, you're liberated from it, you do need a break. You do need to have time because it takes a lot out of you because that's the thing that we found out that's so interesting about trauma is that, you know, it's physically stored in your body as well in your subconscious.
So I'm all about talk therapy. There's a place for talk therapy, but not when it comes to trauma. We definitely need to go through the modalities that work for us. And for me, it was EMDR so that you can get the trauma out of your body and out of your subconscious.
Can you talk a little bit more about EMDR?
Speaker 2 (06:40.61)
So for me, it was really powerful. I always remember the acronym, but I don't know what the whole title is.
I know it is a long one.
It's a long one, a little tongue twister. Basically what they do is they, my therapist, had her online, but they work through changing your thought process and working through those bad, bad memories. And it's not that they try to replace the memories, they just help you to diffuse that memory. So, because that's the thing, when we're triggered, we're reliving something.
We're not just remembering, we're actually reliving it and that's why we have the reaction. So EMDR helps me not to have those triggers as much. Or at least if I'm triggered, that I can have that pause where I can identify that I'm being triggered and I can take a minute and kind of get myself situated and then give the right response instead of the trigger response, which could be really damaging, right? That has been a lifesaver for me, trust me. It's been a lifesaver for me.
Oz is everything.
Speaker 2 (07:40.994)
But, know, EMDR for me was a little bit different. And when I was doing it, and I'll explain in a minute, I asked my therapist, said, is this normal? Does this normally happen? And she said, I haven't experienced it, but it's not wrong. And then I spoke with a, I talked with other people and I had another lady experience this. And what I did is I worked with little Lisa. So I worked with the younger Lisa. And how it happened is we were working on one of the memories I had. She said to me when, before we went into the EMDR and I was talking to my mom.
And she said, well, just tell your mom what you want to say. And I remember I felt my chest tighten up and I said, no, I can't tell my mom what I want. I'll get hurt. And she said, well, why didn't you come alongside little Lisa? And that was so powerful and it worked. And so what it did is with respect, I got to tell my mother exactly what little Lisa felt like and what she
had to say she had a voice, because that's one of the things that gets shut down. And that was really powerful for me. I don't know exactly why, but I know that really worked for me. And then for teenage Lisa, I did something a little different, where I wrote her a letter and I just validated everything that she had gone through. She needed to hear validation, because the little Lisa got abused different than the teenage Lisa.
That's really powerful. I remember the first time that I had a, we'll say, profound experience with my inner child. it was heartbreaking. Even thinking about it now, it was heartbreaking. And isn't it so fascinating how you, I don't know how to phrase this, but like how you
It was.
Speaker 1 (09:32.824)
find them. when I found my inner child, mentally I could see her curled up under a bed, like hiding. And it was like, my gosh, come out, you're okay. Yeah, I just, find that work so fascinating.
Yeah, you're safe. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (09:53.518)
It was interesting because when I went in the first, say I had similar, when I first saw her, saw me, little me, and little me even reached up and held big me's hand. Yeah. And I saw it. And I saw my mom standing there and my mom didn't say a word.
That's this is making me think down a different path here, but about how we can abandon ourselves, right? And like, I know that's, that is something that I struggle with. I feel like as far as the inner child goes, that's, that's like the biggest struggle for me is, is self abandonment. Yeah. A lot of it, like you had said, not having a voice, not being able to stand up for yourself. And like, if you grew up,
with the abuse you likely didn't really have a chance to do that. So it takes a lot to even learn how to do that as an adult.
Yeah. You know, it's interesting about the voice thing, cause I, I didn't realize that how shut down my voice was until probably about six years ago or so, maybe seven, maybe a little longer. And I was with my now husband and we were in the car and we were just having a conversation and I wanted to say something to him. And I know it was something really important and maybe even a little bit vulnerable. It wouldn't come out. And it was the first time that I,
I stopped and I realized like it won't come out. And he said to me, you can say it, it's okay. And I'm like, it won't come out. It will not come out. goes, okay, well, we'll just give it time. And then I thought back at that moment as I was sitting in the car and I'm like, that's happened a lot. Either that happened or things would be, things would make sense in my head, but they wouldn't come out and make sense when I'm trying to explain it. I wouldn't be able to articulate. So we worked on it over the years.
Speaker 2 (11:45.376)
And what was interesting is about a year ago, we don't argue, we have discussions sometimes. And so there was something that happened. I don't remember what it was. And I just looked at him, said, I just need a minute. I just need a minute. And so I went into the bathroom and I was brushing my teeth. And as I was brushing my teeth, my throat, it literally felt like somebody took their hand and was tightening it up around my throat. meanwhile, I'm processing.
our conversation because I'm trying to figure out for me what my response is going to be because I needed to understand why I was upset. so, but as it was processing this, my throat was getting tighter and tighter. It it ate, it hurts so bad. It was the weirdest thing and I knew, and then once I figured out in my head what it was I needed to say, and this only took maybe, you know, a few minutes, I thought I got to go say it right now. My throat isn't going to quit hurting until I go say it.
And so I walked out and I said to him, I said, okay, I'm ready to say it. He's like, okay. And as soon as I said it, that feeling completely went away.
Yeah. When we have these moments where you can so clearly see how that trauma is stored in your body, it's just incredible.
It is, it is. And that's why when I'm doing my workshop, the number one thing that we work on first is self-awareness. Because without the self-awareness, you're not going to catch that stuff. Because how many times did I walk around throughout the years and that happened? I didn't even notice it. Didn't even notice it.
Speaker 1 (13:14.168)
Completely. I really like that. Can you walk us through the rest of your framework or maybe the key pieces of it?
Sure. In the workshop? Yeah. yeah. We do some inner child work. After we do some inner child work, we do a lot of lessons. it's because what is so important is we need to understand our trauma. Understanding our trauma is powerful. And that was something I learned in doing the tons of research I've done. And one of the things, the commonalities that got popping up was that learning and understanding your trauma helps you heal. And that is true. And what I found is the behaviors that we do
when we're triggered, you see the behaviors that are lined up with that. And you're all of a sudden like, that's because of the trauma. I was blown away at the behaviors that weren't me. They were directly coming from my trauma.
Okay, like, Lisa.
Am I hitting on the stuff?
Speaker 1 (14:10.038)
You are. Okay, when, when I first got my diagnosis, her PTSD, that's basically exactly what happened. I have been seeing a therapist, but in one of our sessions, she pulled out a list and she's like, can you look at this list and tell me if you experience these things? And I was like, well, yeah, most of them.
And she's like, that's PTSD. And it was such a surreal moment because, mean, one, it was hard. It was hard to hear that. But also it was in a way like freeing. Yeah, exactly. Because exactly what you're saying, there were things where I was always like, what is wrong with me? Yes. Why?
Deliberate.
Speaker 1 (15:07.956)
why am I reacting this way? don't understand. Yes, I'm like, other people don't feel this way or react this way. So what is wrong with me? And so to get that and find out that, wow, this is because of this, it was, like you said, so liberating.
It was, it's empowering because all of a sudden there's that space between you and the trauma. And for me, the stuff I would do when I was triggered, I was triggered a lot, you know, and, and, know, when you get triggered and you do the stuff that's over the top, right. And you're looking at the person across from you and they're doing this, they're like, whoa. And, and which only triggers us more. And then you walk away going, why did I just act like that? Why did I behave like that? And you feel guilty.
and then you try to apologize to the person, even though the person will say, it's okay, I understand, they don't, and they can't trust you anymore. Because are they gonna say something to you again that's gonna cause you to go over the top? And then it's just this vicious cycle that we get into. that was so liberating for me. I shared on my podcast a couple years ago when I walked through a trigger.
from the very beginning, was really weird. was almost like I was floating up above me watching this whole thing happen. And it went in slow motion. watched when I was triggered. And in those moments, I kept my mouth shut, which was really important. But I sat and thought, why am I being triggered? I recognized I'm being triggered. And I found out by slowing down and not responding why I was being triggered, the reason for me being triggered, which is like, okay, okay. And...
I was able to then respond in a healthier way and not have to clean up another mess.
Speaker 1 (16:54.614)
Exactly. That was one of the biggest lessons for me to learn was the difference between reacting and responding. Yes. And it was that comes in between those two things.
That pause is a lifesaver.
It really is. really is. I mean, for your relationships, but also it helps you become more aware of yourself.
Yes. you can then emotionally regulate yourself. Right?
Yes, definitely. Can we talk about survival?
Speaker 2 (17:26.733)
Oh yeah, I lived that for many, many, many, years, many years. Yeah, I did that, you know, and actually I had to apologize to my son because I did not abuse him, but I was in survival mode and the things that we do in survival mode, we wouldn't do outside of survival mode. And so when you're in, I know when I was in survival mode, you can only think for the next minute, right? You can only think.
The next thing you got to do or you you don't have the brain space to really do more than that. And it's all consuming. And then if something happens when you're in survival mode, I would just go over the top. Absolutely over the top. So survival mode, I lived it until probably about 10 years ago. And it's another, it's a miserable place to be. You know, I just, I had that and I also had the victim mindset. had both. And those are two things that we talk about in the workshop too, as well as self-talk.
is amazing. Those are two things that are so important. Literally can be life-changing if you...
I had one time I had, you sometimes people say things to you and it hits really hard and it kind of hurts. But you're like, wait a minute, there's something to that though. There's something to that. And I remember, and this was the thing that kind of helped me realize I was in the victim mindset. I wasn't in a good marriage, my first marriage at all. We were both hot messes. But I was going over to this lady's house for a Bible study and we had kind of become friends and she opened the door and said, hi, Lisa. And I said,
She's, are you? And I began to just like, blah, about something that had happened, right? And she just stood there and she kind of looked, she goes, wow, there's always something that's going on with you, you know, or something like that, right? Yeah, see, that was my react. I'm sure that was my face, right? And it stuck me in the heart. I thought, how could, you know, my first thought is how could she say that? She doesn't know my life, you know, that kind of thing, right? And it, it kind of, I thought about it, thought about it. It has stuck with me through the years. She was a hundred percent right.
Speaker 2 (19:31.34)
By her saying that to me though, caused me to slow down and really think about what she's saying and evaluate my life. And I didn't like what she said, but she was 100 % right. I always had some drama in my life. I think that's what she said. You just always seem to have drama or something. Yeah, if I didn't have drama coming at me, I was stirring it up.
Exactly. We learn how to create it because our ego wants to be in that familiar place. is why we have to go through the healing journey because if we don't change what that familiar is, then we're going to constantly be ending back there.
And that's the thing that's really hard for us too, is we grew up in chaos, right? And then we don't like the chaos anymore. We don't know how to change the cast. But then as we start changing and getting away from the cast, then it gets really uncomfortable. That transition between living in chaos and not wanting to live in it, I want the listeners to know that it's tough and it's a transition. It's definitely something that you have to work through. It's really uncomfortable because you're going to sit there thinking something's going to happen, something's going to happen and it doesn't happen. it's, we get
uncomfortably comfortable or comfortably uncomfortable, you know, in those settings. And, you know, it took me a while to hold myself down onto the seat and not jump up and create chaos so that I would feel that weird comfort. And now I stay away from chaos at all costs.
Yes. And you know what's so interesting is that I have eliminated 99 % of chaos from my life. But now when there is something that is slightly out of order, I almost feel a little OCD-ish of like, okay, need to... And like, it's fine when that's only affecting me. Yes. But it has definitely been a learning.
Speaker 1 (21:28.014)
process of when that involves somebody else. I'm not currently in a relationship, but in my last relationship, there would be something like something so small. And it was like, okay, no, this is not a big deal. need to you need to let this go. Yeah, when this comes back to awareness.
Yeah. Yeah. Awareness is your superpower. I would say to the listeners, you know, start studying about self-awareness and learning if you don't know what it is or you don't have it in your life yet, but it is your superpower. It is what is going to help you on your healing journey. It's going to, you know, help you with your healing. You have to have the self-awareness to know all this, especially our triggers.
For sure. So what actually helped me become more self-aware was getting back into my body. And I did that, like where my journey started was actually with yoga. I found that doing yoga, it forces me to be present and it brings me back into my body. When I first started, it brought me into my body in a way that I had never been there before.
it that is what helped me be able to become aware of what was happening, not only in my body, but then also because there's there is a mindful approach to it. So then it also helped me notice more of my thoughts as well.
Yeah, I just learned over the last probably six or seven years that I'm an over thinker. I thought everybody did that, right? I thought everybody did that. Everybody thinks like that, you know, everybody makes a mistake and ruminates on it for two weeks, beats themselves up and doesn't everybody do that? my God. When I realized that we don't have to do that anymore and we do have to find ways not to do that. We do have to find ways to, you know, manage our, our thoughts and our actions.
Speaker 1 (23:27.806)
which comes back again to the emotional regulation. Like that was another huge, huge moment for me when I learned how to do that, which that was that was pretty recent for me. But wow, did that ever change my life? Being able to one, recognize when I was having a really strong emotion like
the one that I'm thinking of. it was it was in my breakup after this relationship I mentioned, you know, you'd have those those moments where like, usually it comes at night and you're sitting on the couch and all of a sudden you just get like this feeling of panic being like, No, I have to message him and like, yes. And in those moments, I'm like, okay, you need to stop. Like, this is where the pause comes. And I just sat there and I forced myself to
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (24:19.522)
breathe. And you know, cry for however long I needed to cry. And like that that feeling, it will pass. It will pass or at the very least, the intensity will go down and then you can make a more clear decision.
That's the part that's hard is the intensity. My reaction used to be, would just do it, is like I had to like get that pressure release almost. And so we have to find a different way to do that pressure release. And like you said, breathing, breathing's huge for me. And I also had a coach one time, he did say something really wise to me that really kind of opened my eyes because I don't know if this is necessarily common with trauma people, but I thought very black and white. I was very limited in the way I thought.
And he said to me one time, you think in black and white an awful lot, you need to add more color. And it was one of those moments too. I'm like, Hmm, that means something. gotta, I gotta think on that a little bit. And he was right. And what it meant to me is I needed to think differently. Like so often I felt like I was walking up against a wall, you know, and I couldn't get past this wall. And I knew I needed to get past the wall and I was only looking one way.
I thought I had to bust through the wall. But if I would have just looked to the right, could see that I could go around the wall. But I wasn't looking to the right. I was only looking forward. That was my black and white thinking. My color thinking was going around. You know, I could look over here and there's another way. right, right. Opening up my mind because I still will go there. If something happens, my mind will want to automatically go to that very, my gosh, it's just this one thing. I have to go, stop, breathe.
possibilities.
Speaker 2 (26:00.652)
give it a minute, let it pass, and then look to see what other possibilities are there. And my mind will open up and see other possibilities.
Yeah, for sure. Once that intensity goes down. Yes, exactly. I mean, on that, we've talked about breathing. I also find that movement just going outside for a walk. Yes. Yeah. Or even if you call somebody that's close to you that you can trust that you feel safe with. Yeah. Yeah.
I can get that down.
Speaker 2 (26:30.626)
Dancing sometimes I literally I'll just put on music and I'll just dance because movement movement helps get that intensity out of your body helps get that trauma out of your body But you're right walking is one of the best getting out getting fresh air vitamin D Movement, it doesn't have to be a difficult walk. I can just it doesn't have to be a long around the block exactly. Yeah
That's it. It can literally be five minutes and you will feel the difference afterwards.
You know, a lot of times what I'll do if I feel like I'm getting really intense, I'll go outside and I'll play ball with my dogs, throw the ball around, you know? And I just, feel like it doesn't even take that long, five, 10 minutes.
That's amazing. We talked about this a little bit before I'm in Canada. So I only get to do this six months out of the year. when I when I'm like in the middle of my work day and I find that work is getting to be too much, then I'll just step out onto my balcony and just the fresh air and the sunshine and just, you know, I'll go out and I'll leave my phone in here.
You don't want to add more distraction or notifications or stress at that moment. your phone in here, go outside, take some deep breaths. And after a few minutes, it's like, okay, I'm, I'm all right.
Speaker 2 (27:52.074)
Yeah, it just it's just getting that break from what you're doing and getting a different scenery and different vibe for sure. The fresh air is so important
It helps so much. definitely. It's very calming, very peaceful.
And it grounded me. Which that's another technique, grounding. I haven't done too much of that, but I know that, you know, that's really important to help people get themselves centered and calm.
