Welcome to From Trauma to True Love, the podcast where we break the cycle of painful relationships and build deep, lasting love you can trust. I'm Layla Reyes, a relationship coach, speaker, and author of Freedom From Shame, Trauma, Forgiveness, and Healing From Sexual Abuse. I'm here to help you release the invisible wounds from your past that may be holding you back from the love you truly desire. In each episode, we'll uncover the hidden patterns shaped by early childhood trauma, explore how they impact your relationships today, and guide you toward creating the partnership you were born to have. Whether you're looking to attract the one, deepen an existing connection, or finally feel safe in love, this is a space to discover what's possible.

Let's dive into your journey from trauma to life. Conversations where we dive deep into process and stories that help us get free from the shame that childhood sexual abuse leaves us with so that we can create healthy relationships with ourselves and others and live fulfilling lives where we feel safe and secure in who we are as whole human beings. If you were sexually abused as a child, then it's important to know that childhood sexual abuse does not have to define you. It does not have to limit you in any way. It's an experience you had and you just need to learn how to integrate this experience into your adult life so you can access the wisdom for yourself and others.

I say just. You just need to learn how to integrate this experience, not to minimize your pain and suffering from your experience, but to minimize the hold it has over you and what's possible for your life. So to lessen the impact childhood sexual abuse has on you, you'll need to move from where you are today in your habitual ways of thinking, in your habitual ways of relating to yourself and others, and in your habitual choices that you make on a daily basis. Today, we're exploring the fascinating process of transformation. The process of changing your life and how you experience it doesn't just happen.

It takes three things. It takes grounding yourself in a new, more empowering way of thinking about yourself and what happened to you. It takes awareness. You need to bring awareness to your habits so that you know what you need to do differently in your life. And it takes presence.

You need to stay in the present moment instead of letting the past dictate what you're doing today or what you're experiencing in your daily life. Today, I'll guide you through the four stages of transformation. I'll help you identify the elements of each stage, and I'll give you some questions to help you see what stage you may be in, and I'll give you some practices to engage your transformation with. Feel free to pause the recording to take time to reflect and journal along the way. By the end of this episode, you'll be able to identify the key points of each stage of transformation.

You'll be able to identify which stage you're in. And you'll have the steps that you could take to move at least some of the steps you could take to move to the next stage. So let's start at the beginning. Stage one is unconscious incompetence. It's unconscious because you don't know what you don't know, and it's incompetence because stuck in a pattern of thinking and behaving that isn't moving you forward.

So at this stage, nothing is changing in your life, but you don't even know anything needs to change. So let's take a look at Alex. Let's just use a a little story here. We'll take Alex who has always found it difficult to maintain long term relationships. His relationships are marked by distrust and jealousy.

And he often feels that his partners are distant or hiding something from him. Alex blames his partners for being secretive and unfaithful, and he's completely unaware that his own insecurities and his own lack of trust are what's sabotaging his relationships. Alex is unable to see that his responses to his partners are rooted in his unresolved trauma from his past, not in the actions of his partners. So at this stage of unconscious incompetence, it's very common for people to blame others for their difficulties, for their unsatisfying relationships, for anything that's going on in their lives. With Alex, he's blaming his partner for his lack of trust.

And at this stage, most people feel victimized by the circumstances of of their lives of their life, and they'll point their fingers at everyone and everything other than themselves. They're often aware that changes need to be made, and and they're convinced they can't move forward until someone else changes or until their external circumstances change. Either way, the problem is always outside of themselves. You can tell if you're in unconscious incompetence if you have feelings of resentment and anger towards other people for not doing what you think they should be doing. People who are in this stage feel embedded in victimization, and it's very difficult to begin the process of transformation.

There's a lot of resistance there. There's a lot of it can almost feel like you're in, you know, just like quicksand in a way, not not not really able to move forward or not even knowing that you're stuck. And so during this stage of unconscious incompetence, there is a drive to keep life status quo, to keep everything the same. You know, you might put one foot in front of the other. You keep your head down and you move forward as if you have no choice in your life, which can be very limiting.

So let's just imagine Alex for a moment. Picture him strolling down a cluttered, dimly lit sidewalk at dusk. The path is uneven. It's scattered with cracks and overgrown with weeds. And there's a large hole obscured by shadows and debris.

It's completely invisible to him. And Alex is distracted. He's scrolling through his phone, and then suddenly he just, like, falls into this hole. He's injured, and he's confused. And he you know what he's doing?

He's blaming the poor street lighting, and he's blaming he's placing blame on the people who are supposed to keep the path clear. And he is not realizing at all that it was his lack of attention that led to his fall. Just like in his relationships, Alec's distrust created create unseen pitfalls that he's falling into, blaming external factors without recognizing his own role or his own responsibility. Now given I mean, honestly, childhood sexual abuse is really painful to acknowledge, and and I completely understand why someone would not want to acknowledge it. The first 100 times or so that I said out loud that I was sexually abused, I spoke it through fears and tears.

Fears that I would be rejected and that it would be known to the world that I was flawed, that I was damaged, that I was unworthy of being loved or cared for, and that truly that I didn't matter. But after engaging in the transformational journey, I don't feel that way anymore. I know my value and I take a confident stand for it. Staying unconscious can be a way of avoiding emotional pain, which I completely understand, but what I've learned is to alleviate the pain, you actually have to go through it. And it's worth it because on the other side, I found me.

And if you take the journey, then you will find you, and that is worth the journey even if it there's some emotional pain along the way. So we wanna look at how at evolving out of unconscious incompetence and what what's you know, that kind of thing. So in in evolving out of it takes a lot of courage and a willingness to stop blaming others for the external circumstances, the external conditions of your current life. Evolving beyond the disempowering stage of unconscious incompetence is really only possible when you're willing to let go of victimization and take complete and total responsibility for what for your choices and what you're creating. So Alex, he was busy paying attention to his phone instead of where he was going.

It wasn't his phone's fault that he fell. It wasn't the the people who weren't caring for the path. It was because he wasn't paying attention. So consider your own life and answer some of these questions here. You can stop the recording after each question and really take the time to answer these questions thoughtfully.

And I'll say them a little slowly so that you can really get the sense of these. The first question is do you often find yourself blaming others or your circumstances for your unhappiness or your failures? If you're doing this, who or what are you blaming? The second question is, are you aware of patterns in your life that you wish were different but you don't know where to start? If so, what patterns are you aware of?

Even if you're not completely able to articulate them, completely able to see them, what are you aware of? The third question is can you identify any repeating problems in your relationships or maybe even at work that seem to happen to you? What are those repeating problems? What keeps happening over and over and over again? And you're just like, I don't know why this is happening.

What are those problems? What does someone always do? What what what situation always seems to happen? Are you always left out? Are you nothing here is too small for you to identify these problems.

The fourth question is do you feel stuck but believe that the external changes are needed before anything can improve? So if so, what are what external changes do you think need to happen? What is it that you're saying, if only this was different, then everything would be okay. Or if only this was different, then I could have the life that I want or then I would be safe or then I would be happy or then I would know that I mattered. And then the last question here is, do you dismiss feedback from others regarding your behavior or circumstance?

So if so, what does their feedback bring up for you? Like, when someone says, hey. You did that or you, you know, you, you know, were talking unkindly to me. What whatever it is. What are be someone's calling you on something.

They're saying you're doing this and it it's not I don't like it Or noticing some kind of pattern that you are engaging in. What is it, and what does it bring up for you? What does it make you feel? There's some clues in that too in why it would keep you stuck there. This is for me, it was the the sense that I didn't matter.

That's the the recurring theme in my life was, oh, I don't matter. Oh, see, I don't matter. See, you did you called me on that. That means I don't matter, that type of thing. And there might be you might notice additional feelings of victimization or a sense of maybe not being understood or misunderstood.

Really take a look at those things. I have to say that if you're listening to this podcast, then you're probably not at the stage of unconscious incompetence. My experience is that people who are at this stage really don't think that they need any help. They're probably not searching, and they're not listening to these types of podcasts. They're really not open to contribution.

They might even be argumentative if you give them feedback, and they may be dismissive and and reject your feedback. So, you know, this is important, I think, to to understand that you're probably not at this stage. So give yourself some credit for being here and for engaging in these questions and and inquiry. When you were answering the questions, if you did uncover something difficult to be with in answering them, then you may be at the edge of unconscious incompetence and at the next stage, which is called conscious incompetence. It's called conscious because you're aware of it.

It's called incompetence because you don't know how to change it. And there are some things that you can do to engage first with the unconscious incompetence. I'll get to the the shift to the next stage shortly. But to engage with this stage and move yourself into conscious incompetence, I would love for you to get a a journal to start a daily journaling practice where you write out the events of your day and focus on your emotional reactions and the choices that you've made. And over time, what you'll notice is that you'll start to see patterns or recurring themes that might reveal underlying unconscious behaviors or beliefs.

This can be very valuable on journey of transformation. The second exercise that you can engage in is to seek feedback. So you can ask close friends or family members that you trust to give you, you know, kind, honest feedback and you can ask them to describe how they see you handling challenges or conflicts. And this external perspective can help illuminate blind spots in your self awareness. Keeping a journal will help you raise your self awareness of your patterns, which is key to making to, evolving your patterns.

Seeking feedback from others can feel particularly scary and vulnerable, but this will help raise your awareness and move you to the next stage. Remember, though, to not ask people that you know that are abusive towards you or or tend to be sarcastic or unkind towards you. And in in saying that, also also be courageous and curious about what feedback people might be able to give you. Okay. So let's move to conscious incompetence.

Remember, conscious because you're aware of it, incompetence because you don't know how to change. The first thing people ask me at this stage of conscious incompetence is how do I change it? What can I do about this? They're aware that they need to make some changes, but they don't know how. So if you have this question, it's a really good thing because what it means is that you're entering this next stage.

It means that you're ready for transformation. The the main thing here is that awareness dawns in this second stage and you realize you've been making the choices and taking the actions that keep you victimized. So instead of blaming others, what happens here, which can be a little daunting, is you become aware that you're the one keeping you stuck. And this is a critical moment where blame often shifts to shame because you're thinking, oh, I'm doing this to myself. It's all my fault.

But the it's this awareness that you now have that, you've catalyzed your growth with this awareness and transformation starts to gain momentum. So this if you do find that you are in a place of of self blame or shame, it's actually a step in the right direction because it's a shift from out from blaming everyone out there to taking responsibility. And the shame gets it where it's like, it's my fault, gets in the way of you of taking the next step. So don't let shame stop you. Just be aware of it and take the next step.

So let's look at Alex again. After another failed relationship, Alex gets help. He hires a coach to discuss his recurring relationship issues and through these sessions, he begins to understand the link between his childhood trauma and his current relationship patterns. This relationship is painful for Alex and brings a sense of shame and self blame, but the win for him is that he now recognizes that he's been projecting his fears onto his partners. And even though he's feeling overwhelmed, he's starting to learn how to change his deeply ingrained behaviors.

So it's win win here. When you become aware that your choices are contributing to your experience, you may feel emotional pain. I know I did. Absolutely. When I saw when I noticed that for myself.

And it's hard. It's hard to acknowledge that you've participated in creating your circumstances or remaining in circumstances that don't work for you. For example, instead of being with his fears, Alex Alex projected them onto his partners. So evolving through this stage takes another kind of courage, the courage to seek help and learn a new way. You know, if you don't know that you're doing that and then you need to figure out you need to learn how you're projecting those fears onto somebody else so that you can stop doing that.

So let's see. This next evening, Alex returns to the same sidewalk. But this time, he's aware of the hole. It's still under the same dim street lights. His steps are tentative, and he knows the hole is there.

It's illuminated by this fading light. And as he nears the danger, he slows down, but you know what? He still has the phone in his hand. He's unaware that looking at the phone is preventing him from seeing the hole completely, so he's unsure how to avoid the hole. And his foot slips, sending him tumbling in the hole again.

And then he notices the hole the phone in his hand, and he gets mad at himself for not knowing that looking at the phone got him in got in his way and made him fall. So this slip really represents Alex's new awareness knowing his issues exist but really struggling to navigate around them. You can tell that you're in an unconscious incompetence if you know that there's something that needs to change, but you don't know how to change it. Often, the entry into this stage begins with a relational crisis like a breakup or another traumatic event. So let's just take a look at really, it's any if you look at any crisis in your life, look at it as an opportunity to grow.

If these you know, when those things happen, when there's a crisis, look at any crisis in your life as an opportunity instead of a a barrier. There's possibilities there. So once you become aware that you're responsible for the choices that you've made that lead to the experiences you're having, you'll start to access your personal power to ignite the healing journey. And I really want to point out here I want to say this. I'll probably say it a lot in in these episodes is that you're not ever responsible for what someone does to you.

That's not what we're talking about here. That's absolutely the last thing that I want anyone here to think. You're not responsible for what someone does to you. You're responsible for how you respond to what someone does to you, how you relate to what someone does to you, what you believe about them doing something to you. So that's really the part of the the journey of transformation is shifting the blame, you know, shifting all of the blame and shame out so that you can really honestly look at the sexual abuse that happened with putting the responsibility for what somebody did to you in their lap, but then taking responsibility for how you what you create after the abuse is your responsibility.

And that's the shift to conscious conscious incompetence when you start to notice that, oh, that happened to me, which wasn't my responsibility, but now I've got a responsibility on how I'm recreating the beliefs or the feeling, the felt sense from when I was abused. At this stage, it's really okay to feel uncomfortable. It's almost expected, and and I would almost celebrate that in a weird kind of way because what it means is that you're growing. When you're in conscious incompetence, you start learning all you can about yourself and the patterns. You you learn all the way that everything that you can learn so that you can make the changes that you want to.

You You know, this is gonna include things like setting boundaries, for example, letting people go that are hurting you in your adult life, not accepting crumbs from other people, for example. So really let this new awareness wake you up and motivate you to grow and evolve beyond your patterns. And you have absolutely no power if you're blaming others for your circumstances, and you get access to your true power only when you become aware that you're the one creating the circumstances that you're currently in today in present time. So, again, it's not the abuse from your childhood, although it is an impact. You know, whatever is happening in your life today may be impacted by the earlier abuse.

But through taking responsibility for your choices, you have the power to lessen its impact. So let's have another series of questions here. And, again, you might want to stop the recording after each question and really take the time to answer them thoughtfully. So in for conscious incompetence, here are the questions. Have you recently become aware of problems or patterns in your life that you contribute to but aren't sure how to change them?

If so, what are they? Do you acknowledge that your actions or inactions might be contributing to your current challenges? And if so, what are those actions or inactions? You really have to bring awareness to each choice that you're making. Are you seeking information to help to understand better why you do what you do?

If so, what information are you seeking? What are you really grappling with here? What do you what do you really know that you need to understand more deeply? Do you feel overwhelmed or guilty about not having acted sooner to change these patterns? What do you feel overwhelmed or guilty about specifically?

And then the last question here, are you able to admit fault in certain areas but or certain situations but feel powerless to make a difference? So and, again, fault, we're not talking about well, I I like responsibility better than the word fault because that brings up the shame. But responsibility, you know, what are what are you noticing, and what specifically do you feel powerless to change? I guarantee you that there are there are things that you can't change, circumstances, people, but there's so much more that you can change. But you need to know and identify what it is that you feel powerless to change so we can discern what is yours to change.

And here are some things that you can do to move yourself to the next stage of transformation. These are, some practices you can engage in while in conscious incompetence. And the first one is education and awareness. At this stage, you really want to educate yourself about everything that you can about all the issues that you've recognized. This is a place to read books on the topics that you are noticing need to that you're stuck with or listen to podcasts like this that relate to your specific challenges.

At this stage, you could hire a coach or a therapist to help raise your awareness even more of what you're doing and the patterns that you're engaged in. And this will all help you understand the dynamics at play and visualize potential solutions to what's going on. The second practice is to begin a mindfulness practice. As I said in the beginning, awareness is one of the things that is really required on the journey the transformational journey. And so a mindfulness practice can really support you.

And you want to begin this practice to increase your awareness of your thoughts and your feelings in real time. So use this awareness to catch yourself when you fall into old patterns and acknowledging the issues without judgment and then consciously choosing a different reaction. So this may take a little bit of time. And certainly, I've engaged in a mindfulness practice for a while, and it can definitely say it's taken a while to get to a point of being aware in the moment, but it's worth it. It changes everything.

The main way that you can tell that you're in conscious incompetence is if you know that you're creating the circumstances, but you don't know how to fix it. So this is absolutely the best time to get support from people who can help you and guide you in in bringing awareness and giving you ideas on how to to to move through that. Now on your journey from conscious incompetence to the next stage, which is conscious competence, you'll enter what I call the gap in my book, Freedom From Shame. And the gap is where you step into the unknown. It's it can feel like free falling, and it it's a place where you can feel pretty insecure, but it's also the place of full full of possibilities.

It's where your learning takes place, where you're practicing new behaviors. You don't know whether they're going to work or not, and so you try them out and then you get feedback and you adjust and precision things. And in this gap, your awareness continues to increase as you take new actions and make new choices. Once you enter the gap, it's common to attend workshops or take classes or read, you know, read read a lot, get a lot of support, you're gonna be educating yourself a lot. This is also the stage where people generally you know, as as I've already said, they get support on their journey.

I don't know what I would have done without support at this stage, to be quite honest with you. I had some really amazing therapists and coaches and guides along in while I was in that gap, the gap from the old way of being to the new way of being. It's completely unknown place and very shaky place to be for sure. Well, once you've been practicing living in the gap for a while, you start to transform your habits into your daily life. And you've this is called this is when you come to conscious competence because you've learned so much in the gap, and you've collected evidence that what you're doing is working.

You're being more compassionate with yourself. You're giving yourself a lot of space to continue learning new things. And the most important thing to know at this stage of transformation is that you must be consistent. You must be vigilant in following through with all of your actions, with everything that you've identified that you need to to change. Right?

So you'll be continuing to learn new things, but forgetting what you've learned, forgetting the commitments that you've made can kind of throw you back into an old way of being. Just know that that is part of the process until you until you get really established here. Let's take a look again at Alex and how he's navigating his journey at, inside of conscious competence. So Alex is motivated by his desire for a healthy relationship, and he commits to his healing journey. He's working with a coach, and he's focused on trauma recovery, and he begins to practice the new skills with the people in his life such as open communication, expressing his vulnerability, and managing his emotional triggers.

Each step here requires significant effort and mindfulness. So Alex frequently confronts his discomfort and his old patterns, but he persists. He stays with it. He's vigilant. He's consistent.

He's using the tools that he's learned to build trust and to maintain the boundaries that he has learned how to set in this stage. It's really important at this stage of the transformational journey to celebrate your small victories. Each baby step along the way is breaking apart old ways of being. It's breaking up your old patterns, and you begin to gain confidence with each time you practice a new behavior, a new way of relating, a new way of talking to someone, a new boundary that you're setting, collecting feedback all along the way. So let's look at Alex on that sidewalk.

He's determined. He's he now walks the same route, but he has a flashlight in his hand instead of a cell phone. And each step he takes is careful and measured, and he shines the light ahead, and he can clearly spotlight the hole that's up in front of him. And with focus and determination, he expertly maneuvers his way around the hole. And each night, his careful navigation reinforces his new skills and they mirror his therapeutic process and progress where each act of open communication and vulnerability builds his competence.

And though he still requires significant mental effort to manage his triggers, he's learning to create safer and healthier paths in his relationships. To see if you're in this stage, I'll consider your own life and answer some of these questions. Again, you can stop the recording after each question and really take some time to answer them thoughtfully. Are you actively working on changing specific behaviors and can see progress even if it's slow? What are those behaviors?

Be really specific about the behaviors. Do you have to remind yourself to act differently than you naturally want to in challenging situations? What are those? Do you see a pattern, and in what ways are you reminding yourself? Do you need another tool to help you remind yourself?

Are there new skills or behaviors that you're practicing that require effort and concentration to maintain? What are those skills and behaviors, and what are you noticing as a result of engaging in them? Do you feel like maintaining change is exhausting but worthwhile? So really take some time here to identify what the value is to you, the value of making these changes even though there's effort. And what are you getting out of your effort?

Be really specific so that you have that confidence that you're heading in the right direction. And are there moments when you revert to old behaviors and have to consciously correct your course? What are those? When does that happen? Are you noticing do you notice a pattern?

And if so, what is that pattern? Wait. You know, each time you choose a healthier path, you reinforce new skills and capacities that you're growing, and it will require effort, and you might slip occasionally. But the key here is persistence. I know that in my own situation, I it it took a lot of effort.

I'm not gonna I'm not gonna even attempt to say that it's to, you know, like, lighten that load. It does take effort, but it is worth it. And that persistence grows something inside of you as well. So here are some ways that you can engage at this stage of transformation of conscious competence and practices. And at this stage, it really is about actively working on new skills, on your skill development, and and to be really aware of your old patterns so you're you're you're learning new ways of engaging.

For instance, if your issue is poor communication in relationship, then you're gonna practice clear and open communication techniques with a friend or in a controlled environment even like a workshop. But you definitely wanna take this into your real day day to day living. So the old way this is where we would say, like, the old way of of relating to someone is poor communication, and the new way is to be really clear with communication. So part of skill development may be that you need to take a course in in effective communicating or even what's it called when you, like oh, I can't remember the name for it. Okay.

So the second thing here is setting small goals. Break down the change that you wanna make into manageable goals. So if you're working, for example, on being less reactive, you might set a goal to take a deep breath and to count to 10 whenever you feel triggered before responding. So those are just a few things to to engage this level of of conscious competence. And the effort to learn new skills is like I said, it's well worth it, and you're gonna discover your capacity to change deeply, deeply embedded patterns, you're going to find that you will transform the quality of your relationships which ultimately alleviates the impact that childhood sexual abuse has had on your life.

And with consistency and over time, you'll arrive at the final stage of transformation, unconscious competence. Woo hoo. We're there. Unconscious competence is where your new behaviors have become second nature. You don't have to think about using the tools that you've learned in coaching or therapy.

The classes that you've taken are integrated into your daily life. You've practiced enough having that those clear communications that it's easy and effortless. You no longer go into them with fear or big wide eyes like a deer in a headlight kind of thing. It's just natural and normal. It's kind of like once, you know, when you learned how to ride a bike.

You know? No effort, just smooth sailing. Once you've learned how to ride a bike, it's easy. You can't unlearn it. So with confidence, then you can go anywhere you wanna go.

Let's look at how Alex's life is transformed inside of unconscious competence. So after a lot of diligent work, Alex reaches a stage where his new ways of relating become second nature. He no longer has to consciously remind himself to trust or communicate openly. These behaviors are now part of his instinctual responses, his automatic the automatic response to take something personally or to, you know, be untrusted. I mean, these are completely transformed into new instinctual responses.

Alex's relationships are healthier. They're more stable. He can actually express his needs and fears without expecting betrayal. He's not setting himself up for betrayal by not communicating his needs and having clear agreements. He also understands that setbacks are not failures but opportunities for growth.

Alex feels secure in himself and his ability to maintain loving, healthy relationships. The ways that sexual abuse impacted his life are no longer happening, and they no longer impact his relationships, he might still be aware of the triggers. You know? He might still be aware of, you know, oh, that's what I used to believe. But it's but it's not being acted out in his relationship, so it's not impacting his relationships.

And Alex's journey from blaming others for his relational issues to understand and overcome his trauma exemplifies the transformation through the four stages, leading to profound personal growth and what my favorite thing, healthier relationships. That's always what I'm going to take a stand for. So when you're at unconscious competence, you don't have the same complaints that you had in the past because you've changed how you're relating to the people and the circumstances in your life. You're actually showing up differently. You're actually engaging with people differently than you did before through a belief in your own value, for example, or you're you you'll have a completely different way of relating to yourself.

You'll be filled with energy and with confidence and flow. At this stage, you're not just surviving any longer. You're thriving. You're thriving in your life. You're thriving in your relationships.

Your transformed behaviors have woven themselves in the fabric of your being. So this then becomes a place of deep joy and authenticity and celebration. Let's take a look at at where at Alex on his little walk. So finally, here he is on a bright sunny day. Alex it doesn't have to be a bright sunny day, but Alex has chosen a different path.

He's chosen a path through a well maintained park. He's chosen a place where the park, the grounds, where everything is well kept. The walkway's smooth, and it doesn't have any holes or obstructions on it. Alex moves with ease. He he doesn't need to watch his every step.

Walking safely and securely has become instinctive. Well, he's no longer holding his cell phone is in his hand, but instead he's taking in the scenery. In his personal life, Alex now engages in relationships with natural trust and open communication. The need to actively manage every interaction that he has has faded into a background of healthy habits and secure attachments. So his journey is now one of enjoyment and ease, free from the fears of old patterns of yeah.

And of falling into those old patterns. Through this sidewalk analogy, we've seen Alex's progression from a reactive and unaware state to a proactive and instinctive one illustrating a powerful transformation that he's had. By understanding his past and working diligently to overcome it, Alex turns a treacherous walk into a pleasant journey, mirroring his own evolution in managing and ultimately mastering his relational challenges. There's no hole in Alex's sidewalk now because he's chosen to walk down this entirely different path. This is where you can live your life or at least learn how to live your life effortlessly.

Challenges still arise, but your automatic responses are healthy and constructive. Consider your own life for a moment and answer these questions. And, again, you might wanna stop the recording after each question so you can really take time to answer them thoughtfully. Do you handle stressful or challenging situations effortlessly with new behaviors that once required significant effort? What are they?

Be really specific. What specifically are you doing differently? Have your new patterns become your default responses in most situations? In what ways? What are those new ways?

It can be helpful also to identify the old pattern and the new pattern, new way of being. Can you maintain healthy boundaries and positive behaviors without actively thinking about them? And how do you know these boundaries are being set? What what is it that you notice? Do you feel a general sense of ease and flow in areas of your life that used to be problematic?

What's different? How are you complimented on how are you often sorry. Are you often complimented on traits or behaviors that you consciously worked to develop but now manifest naturally? So what are people saying to you? You know, if you if you if you aren't if you are at conscious unconscious confidence stage bravo, you've done a lot of work, and you should definitely celebrate yourself.

And there may be things for you to still grow beyond, but you have the tools to do that. It's likely very easy for you to ask for help when you need it. But if you if you're not and you were at one of the other three stages or you're in the gap practicing something, just know that this is where you're headed. Let that be an inspiration instead of, oh, well, I'm not there. Let it inspire you and motivate you to move you forward even more diligently towards your freedom from shame, towards your freedom from the impact of child sexual abuse on your life.

Let's look now at a few things that you can do to establish yourself more firmly in unconscious competence. And, again, you can come back to this later when you're at this stage and then listen to this over and over again to to kind of see where to go from there. But the first so the first practice is to establish routines that reinforce your new behaviors. This could be regular self reflection. I really encourage you to carry that first excerpt the first example that I gave or recommendation of having a journal, carry that through to all of these stages because that awareness, as I said in the beginning, requires regular self reflection.

So you so you're going to continue this and continue your education, continue being curious. You may even step into mentoring others, step into a mentorship role where you can help others with the lessons that you've learned, and that helps to integrate them even more firmly. And the second thing is to continue your growth, engage in new challenges that push you to apply your your behaviors, your new behaviors in unfamiliar contexts. And this will keep your skills sharp and ensure that your new behaviors remain adaptable and robust under different circumstances. Boy, stage four is a really wonderful place to live.

But like I said, if you find yourself at one of the earlier stages, don't worry, and don't be hard on yourself. You can transform your entire life by engaging in the transformational process, and you don't have to do it alone. Get help if you need it. Transformation is always available to everyone who's willing to make the commitment to themselves. It's available to you always.

So thank you for joining me today. Remember that every step forward, matter how small, is a step toward a happier, more authentic you. Until next time, keep your focus on where you're going instead of where you've been. Thank you for joining me on this episode of From Trauma to True Love. I honor your courage for being here, taking steps towards the love and connection that you truly desire.

I've been there too, stuck in painful patterns, longing for love but unsure how to create it in a way that felt safe, real, and lasting. You don't have to figure it all out on your own. If you're ready to explore what's been holding you back and discover what's truly possible for your relationships, I would love to support you. Visit Leila Reyes, l e I l a r e y e s, Leila Reyes, and schedule a call today. We'll take the first step together toward the deep, meaningful love that you were born to have.

I can't wait to connect with you. Until next time, take good care of yourself and know that real, lasting love is within your reach.