Turn Your Struggle Into Strength: Discovering the Gifts Trauma Couldn’t Take

Constant Listener, trauma can’t destroy your gifts—it can only bury them. In this week’s episode, we explore how to reclaim the parts of yourself that trauma couldn’t touch, recognize the ways you’re growing into your post-trauma self, and intentionally decide who you want to become.

We dive deep into:

• Remembering your essence and the gifts that define you
• How post-traumatic growth shifts your perspective
• The power of asking yourself the three compass questions: Do you know who you are? Do you know who you’re becoming? Who do you want to be?
• Practical strategies to show up fully for yourself, your family, and your community

This episode is a reminder: your gifts were pressed deep, and when you make space for them, they’re ready to bloom—not just for your healing, but for the healing of generations.

💡 Listen, reflect, and reclaim your power.

#7minShift #WaysToWinWednesday #PostTraumaticGrowth #SelfDiscovery #GiftsUncovered

Chapters

• 0:00 Introduction: Authentic Gifts Create Space
• 0:49 Trauma Can't Destroy Your Gifts
• 2:29 Three Essential Questions of Identity
• 6:13 Where's Your STUFF? Five Power Questions
• 8:23 Your Compass Home: Episode Closing

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:00

You're listening to One Degree to Victory, the space where stories, strategies and soul connect Together. We take one small step each week toward the life you know you're called to live. I'm your hostess, nalita Hollis, and today's story and conversation just might change your life. Your life, what you carry inside will naturally create space for you in places you never could have imagined, instead of hustling to push doors open. Your authentic gifts are what get you noticed, valued and positioned. So the question I have for you today well, the starter question I have is have you made room for your gifts?

Speaker 1: 0:49

Trauma has a way of burying our gifts beneath fear, shame and self-doubt, until we feel as if there's no space left for our gifts to breathe. You start to question whether you even have anything worth offering or whether the pain has stolen it all. Constant listener, I'm here to tell you trauma can't destroy your gifts, even those you never realized you had. Come on, it can only bury them. As you begin to clear away the rubble, you'll realize your gifts didn't disappear. They grew deeper, they expanded, they became more necessary than ever. Your gifts were just pressed so deep into the rich soil of your soul that they drew nourishment from the hidden springs of your resilience. From the hidden springs of your resilience, they grew stronger roots, they evolved, they took on new forms and dimensions that your pre-trauma self couldn't have imagined. Come on, and when the time is right and you create space for them to breathe, they'll be ready to bloom, not for your healing alone, though, but for the healing of your family, to heal generations of dysfunction, to give vision and to restore what was broken, to remind those who come after you that wholeness is possible, that strength come on is inherited and that the story doesn't have to end in pain. And that's what leads me into today's reflection Do you know who you are? When I ask, do you know who you are, I'm not asking about your job title, your accomplishments or even your struggles. Knowing who you are isn't about those titles, achievements or mistakes. It's about remembering the essence of you, the parts that trauma can't erase.

Speaker 1: 2:50

For me, even after the hardest seasons, my love for learning didn't stop. If anything, it enhanced it. You see, there are no guidebooks Well, okay, there's one. Well, okay, there's one. But I had to let my spirit do the learning. It was not my intellect nor my degrees that kept me constant listener. It was the word and the voice of God. So I had to learn how to listen. I had to discover what intentionality for Nalita looked like. So I had to lean in and learn about myself. That's the point.

Speaker 1: 3:31

Who you are is not tied to what you did. What you did was just a natural extension of who you already were. My goodness, and the trauma can't take that away. Those traits don't vanish. You just carry them a little differently. After the storm, when you pause to recall them, you reconnect to your roots and that reflection becomes your first step back to power. But then comes the next question Do you know who you're becoming? I think of it like a learning curve. The vessel you once carried yourself in no longer holds you. The shape has shifted. You're still you, but stretched, expanded and moving differently. That's why the phrase post-traumatic growth feels so right for me, because without the trauma I wouldn't see life the way I see it now. I wouldn't carry this depth of compassion, this shift in perspective, nor this urgency to live with more intention.

Speaker 1: 4:37

Constant listener becoming doesn't erase the past. It is you allowing yourself to be transformed by hard lessons, allowing the rough edges of yourself to be refined. Like sandpaper refines wood, each lesson reveals a stronger, more intentional, more beautiful you. And when you get to the point when you can look back, you realize the process didn't destroy you. It revealed the fearfully and wonderfully made masterpiece that was there all along. You actually have a say in who you want to become and how you use your gifts, or even if you want to use them at all. Gifts, or even if you want to use them at all, I know from experience. Not using them or even trying to deny them, that is to try and go back to the old way of being hurts worse than walking in the fullness of who you were meant to be. So who do you want to be? This question isn't about your past or even your present. It's about vision. It's future, forward thinking, choosing a future that isn't defined by trauma, distraction or the constant noise of the world pulling you in all directions you weren't meant to go. When you ask who do I want to be, you give yourself permission to dream again, to shape how you want to show up in the world.

Speaker 1: 6:06

I have an acronym that I live by For every conflicting situation, I ask myself Nelita, where's your stuff? Stuff stands for strength, transformation, understanding, faith and freedom. So when conflicting situations arise. These are the five questions I ask myself what strength am I going to use to move through this hurdle? How can I transform this situation so that it benefits me or others, without hurt or confusion? How do I understand or interpret my role in this situation? What outcome am I believing for? Or, if you want to use the word you can say, how am I going to exercise my faith in this situation? And, lastly, what are my freedoms? In other words, what avenues can I take? What relationships can I leverage? What can I do without asking right?

Speaker 1: 7:26

Constant listener, I want to utilize all the good stuff, the gifts God gave me. Maybe you want to be more patient, maybe you want to build a legacy of peace, joy and love. That's your stuff. So, again, these three questions do you know who you are? Do you know who you're becoming? You know who you are. Do you know who you're becoming? Who do you want to be? Form a compass. They guide us when we feel lost. They call us back when the fog sets in. They speak truth when the pain tries to rewrite our identity.

Speaker 1: 7:55

Constant listener, beautiful soul, sister, girl. Knowing who you are isn't about having all the answers. It's about having the courage to keep asking the questions and the humility to keep listening for the whispers that lead you home. I love y'all. One degree to victory is about progression, not perfection, and that involves choosing a life that works for you now, in this season, and building from there. And, sister girl, it's going to take more than loving yourself. It's going to take vision for where you're going, hope to believe it's possible, action to make it real and love for your family to fuel every step. Take one degree forward this week and I'll see you in the next episode.