Shameless Leadership 691: Denisha Seals: Owning Your Culture & Breaking Patterns of Intergenerational Trauma
Denisha Seals was raised by her mother, a single parent, who had not had a childhood. She was a teenage mom in an abusive relationship. Unfortunately, the unresolved trauma from her mother’s past was projected onto Denisha from the time she was very young, leaving Denisha with low self-esteem and vulnerability to people who exploited her innocence.
A high school teacher helped Denisha realize she had a choice: to continue to hurt and to follow in her mother’s footsteps, or to start her own healing journey. She began counseling and realized that her traumatic childhood was not her fault.
Denisha is now engaged in converting the pain of the past into lessons that can be shared with people in a myriad of creative ways for the greater good. She is a writer and a speaker, impacting the world through her storytelling and powerful messages of hope.
Listen in to hear Denisha share:
- Her documentary, HINT: Historical Intergenerational Nutritional Trauma, about the nutritional genocide of people of color
- How her childhood trauma of incestual sexual assualt inspired her work and her support of her Indigenous culture
- The significance of her Indigenous culture and African culture in her birth experience and how that informs how she shows up in the world today
- How growing up as a Afro Indigenous child who had been neglected and violated in foster care and phases of homelessness impacted her youth
- How she has intentionally shaped relationships and specific boundaries with her parents in order to heal
- Her book, Butterflies In Me, written and designed to support children’s mental health
- How she intentionally made her book inclusive of many children’s marginalized backgrounds and struggles from race to mental health
Links mentioned:
- www.water2spirit.com
- Water2spirit on Instagram
- Water2spirit on LinkedIn LinkedIn
- Facebook: https://m.facebook.com/water2spirit1
Sponsor info and promo codes:
- Please find our sponsor information here: shamelessmom.com/sponsor/
- Interested in becoming a sponsor of the Shameless Mom Academy? Email our sales team at sales@adalystmedia.com
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices