Yes, You Should Cry If You Want To with Michelle Samuel

Becoming Unapologetically Me with Helen Norbury

Becoming Unapologetically Me is the podcast for people who know that they have more inside them and want it to come out. In this episode, host Helen Norbury is joined by trauma-informed coach Michelle Samuel. Michelle is no stranger to trauma herself, and in this episode, she shares her story. She talks about the unhealthy coping mechanism of emotional suppression, how immobilizing grief and trauma can feel, and why letting yourself fall is the key to getting back up.

Michelle lost her younger sister around the same time she had her newborn in 2004, and her body went on survival mode. With the stresses of postnatal depression, anxiety, and grief, she found herself going through the motions and drawing on strength that was only there as an illusion. It wasn’t until 2019 that she realized her life was stuck in a monotonous loop. Fortunately, Michelle found a coaching program that opened her eyes to a trauma-informed approach to life. “I don’t think we get over grief,” she shares, “we navigate our way through that sticky process. It’s not linear - it’s very up and down, and moving through is the only way.”

Learning that lesson, however, was achieved through trial and error. Michelle may have convinced herself that it was business as usual, but her body begged to differ. “[It] started to give up on me… [and] was telling me no, you need to stop, you need to go inward.” This was due in part to her failure to set boundaries, she claims. She was a people-pleaser who would do anything for anyone, but it soon began taking its toll. After all, you have to put your oxygen mask on first before you can help anybody else fix theirs.

Michelle decided to slowly come off her antidepressants after the breakdown of her marriage. Her issues, she rationalized, weren’t due to any chemical imbalance in her brain - they stemmed from the traumas she had repressed from a very young age. As fate would have it, her best friend’s husband had died around that same time, and the entire situation triggered memories of her sister’s death. Without the buffer of her antidepressants, she sat on her dining room floor for hours and cried, and ironically, it was cathartic. “We were given tear ducts for a very good reason,” Helen comments. “I think tears allow us to process emotion the same way laughter can.”

Key Takeaways

• Grief isn’t something we get over, but when we let ourselves feel it, it takes less of a toll over time.
• Draining yourself to help other people is unsustainable - you need your own oxygen mask first before you can help anyone else fix theirs.
• There is no shame in crying - we have tear ducts for a reason.

Resources

Helen Norbury on Instagram | LinkedIn | Facebook | helenannenorbury.co.uk