Shownotes
Today’s guest is not here to perform strength. She is here to tell the truth. Molested at 7. Silence, fights, and promiscuity by 13. A teenage pregnancy. Multiple suicide attempts. Law enforcement work that amplified unhealed wounds. An abusive marriage. A fourth attempt that became the turning point. Chanika shows us what it looks like to stop waiting for rescue and choose yourself in real time. We map her healing to the three phases of exiting survival mode: self-awareness, reprogramming, and reinvention.
- Naming survival mode when it looks “functional”
- Why secrecy feeds shame and keeps the cycle alive
- Motherhood as mirror and motivation
- Owning impact without self-erasure or blame
- Rewriting the story with daily, unglamorous choices
- Living with empathy, boundaries, and purpose
🎙️ What We Talk About:
- Survival mode as masking, smiling, and “figuring it out” while you crumble
- Early abuse, intimidation to stay quiet, fights, and high school promiscuity
- Pregnancy in teens, suicidal ideation, and the cost of silence on the body
- Working in policing with untreated trauma and why it intensified symptoms
- Abusive marriage, isolation, sanctions to MAWI, and the fourth attempt that became a line in the sand
- Honest parenting: telling sons the truth, raising twin girls with vigilance and empathy
- The conversation with her mother that unlocked generational context
- Forgiveness as self-liberation, not condoning harm
- The three phases to exit survival mode:
- Self-awareness: see the pattern, stop gaslighting yourself
- Reprogramming: challenge the scripts about worth, love, and safety
- Reinvention: build a life and identity that are not organized around pain
🔑 Key Takeaways:
“My beginning was loud. It didn’t get to be my ending.”
“I forgave myself first. That is how I stopped bleeding on the people I love.”
“Acceptance is not approval. It is the doorway to change.”
“Self-awareness, reprogramming, reinvention. That is how I stopped performing and started living.”
🙌 Why This Episode Matters:
High-achieving women are celebrated for composure while they quietly disintegrate. Chanika’s story gives language to that dissonance and a map out of it. If you have ever worn “strong” as a mask or felt unworthy of gentleness, this conversation will hand you both mirror and machete. You are not broken. You are unfinished.
💬 Connect with Chanika:
- Made For More: Stories of Purpose — Instagram + Facebook
- Personal IG: @beautifulbydesign_
- WhatsApp: +1 441 707 0114
🔗 Resources & Links:
