Practical Steps for You to Recover from Trauma with Terra Newell

You’ll hear many victims of trauma and abuse, but this one captures your heart and attention and has millions; Listen and you’ll quickly get why.

Survivors of abuse often talk about how they managed to run away or escape their abuser to save themselves. Terra Newell didn’t do that. She fought back when attacked, and managed to subsequently kill her attacker, her stepfather, in self-defense and freed her family from his reign of terror. Her case gained widespread media attention and became the basis for the Netflix TV series, “Dirty John”.

This week on 52 Weeks of Hope, Terra opens up about her road to recovery, her past relationships, how she is making an impact on people’s lives and how she copes with people continuously asking her about that incident.

“As a human, we’re actually a pack. We’re pack mentality. So it’s really important to have people in our pack. And that’s a part of survival because the more people that we have in our pack gives us greater defense against other people, and predators. That’s our natural instinct and so it’s so important to have some base lines of our natural cave man days.”.

You will hear her first-hand account of how she manages living with the last name of her attacker and her explanation about this. You will also hear her talk about healing and gaining the confidence to be free. Terra talks about her relationship with her mother and her siblings and how she resets her body to drain the negative energy and revitalizes herself to get through the day.

She gives you tools to deal with trauma as well as action steps to realize your dreams.

“Start with a plan. Getting a plan down. What is your dream? What are your desires? Really pinpointing it and then talking to other people that have those dreams, desires or maybe already established those dreams and desires. I think it’s so important to talk to others and see what it’s like.”

Further into the conversation with Terra, she provides practical and very insightful advice on how to be free and concludes with her message of hope which essentially entails that whatever trauma you are going through as a person, it will pass.

“I say, whatever trauma is happening in your life, you can always move past it. You can live with it and you can turn it around and make it a beautiful thing.”

In this episode:

(02:18) – On being attached forever with her attacker’s name.
(04:07) – Talking about repeating the patterns of her mother.
(07:27) – On living in fight/flight mode all the time.
(09:55) – The importance of having people in our pack.
(11:50) – Mindfulness meditation and the different ways to reset the body.
(13:26) – On her relationships with others and tools to maintain them.
(15:28) – Going through therapy and feeling suicidal.
(19:59) – Talking about how she helps people now.
(21:56) – Healing process is like peeling an onion.
(24:20) – Practical advice from Terra to be and feel free.
(26:25) – How she reacts to crying and feeling emotional.
(29:44) – Terra’s message of hope to everyone.
(30:17) – Talking about her ex-boyfriend, her safe person.
(32:45) – The most common question she gets asked.

Guest

Terra Newell is a wellness coach, influencer, and podcaster. She specializes in helping people gain refreshing insights and live their best and most aligned lives. Terra is a survivor. In 2016, Terra was attacked by her stepfather. She fought back, and subsequently killed him in self-defense freeing her family from his reign of terror.

Resources & Links

52 Weeks of Hope