The major trauma that I talk about is getting kidnapped in Mexico and almost ...
stolen into sex slavery and escaping from that. I wanted to figure out how to create a life
“for myself that I didn't feel like I needed to escape from and...”
Carrie Davidson is a resilient trauma informed coach, registered nurse, and the founder of Conscious Coaching Collective. Drawing from her own journey of recovery and transformation, she empowers high-achieving women to release what holds them back, reconnect with themselves and create lasting change. I can either, you know, stay in this depression that I'm in and not figure out how to find happiness or I can create a life for myself that I really
want to be living and I knew that doing that by helping other people overcome their own struggles was the path that I wanted to take into that. I created this method, the Conscious Creation method, there are several steps, but the fourth one is creating and from what I have seen, that's actually what allows people to... It's our over, I'm telling our weird!
The living your legacy podcast, for those who live to leave a legacy. Hey, welcome back everyone to another episode of Living Your Legacy podcast, where yeah, we've got the privilege of speaking to some of the best entrepreneurs from around the country, the disruptors, the taste makers, and the legacy makers like we have today.
“So we have a special guest today, honestly this girl just rock my world with her interview”
and her episode and honestly never judge a book by his cover because her story is just absolutely
incredible. And so yeah, what's your name? Where you from and what do you do? My name is Carrie Davidson. I'm from Durham, North Carolina and I am a nurse life coach. I work with people who are overcoming trauma and yeah, on my own business it's conscious coaching collective. So not just trauma, but you talked about like the one of the first things you do you said in your episode was, you're trying to raise awareness behind C, PTSD, right? And what's that?
Everyone knows PTSD, but what's the C stands for? Yeah, it stands for complex.
“All right, and what's the difference between PTSD, which already sounds quite complex, right?”
And C, PTSD. PTSD typically comes from like a singular traumatic event. So you have to think about, you know, someone going to war, but come back with PTSD, but with complex PTSD, it's repeated exposure to trauma. So it's like just micro traumas over and over again that
kind of just compound. Yeah, I'm never heard of C, P, is PTSD before. Is it something that they've
discovered that's new and is it? Yeah, is it new or? I don't think that it's necessarily new. It's just not recognized and now it's become a recognized, but it's donut and like the psychiatric diagnostic manual old school psychiatrist don't really recognize it, but, you know, society is forcing people to understand it, because a lot of people are getting misdiagnosed with other stuff, like depression, anxiety, all kinds of personality disorders, and people are finally recognizing
that this is actually kind of the hat that everything falls into. Yeah, and there was something that you called the trauma loop, right, which is, you know, something pretty prevalent in patients that, you know, are suffering from C, PTSD. Can you talk about that a little bit? Sure. The trauma loop is really the kind of patterns that people get stuck in in terms of like the thinking processes. So I talk a lot about like the urge to, you know, kind of have unhealthy behaviors through
communication. Someone might habitually, you know, engage in an argument through text message, and they know that the outcome is not going to be what they desire, but because their brain is pretty much programmed to kind of almost give them dopamine from that kind of behavior they continue
To engage in it.
of dopamine, if I say, you know, it's just something out of the blue wild and unnecessary, like,
I don't know, like you're being such a b today, right, or like that, and just to trigger a response from you, and but I get a rush because my brain's just wired that maybe my father was doing that.
“So that's how I experience love or something. Exactly. Yeah, definitely, and I think it always”
goes back to our attachment styles that we developed, you know, in childhood, there are initial caregivers. Yeah, I mean, honestly, the so many are our formative years, child, their parents, say it's so important. Have you ever watched the show, uh, softway underbelly? No. No, okay. It's very similar to this, but he talks, you know, to we talk with entrepreneurs, right, which I have amazing stories, but he talks with like, you know, the softway underbelly of society, which could be,
you know, prostitutes, pimps, and all that, and it's always like, what's your childhood?
What were your parents like? Yeah. And then they just get into it, right? But yeah, I mean, such formative years. So it's very important that you have the mother and the father in your life,
“like a solid mother and father, right? Yeah. And the way that society is going today, right, with”
so many people growing up and see single family households, right, or the amount of abuse, right, is just like, it's really crazy. Like, it's like, um, the, like America's getting more and more crazy. And I wonder if that's kind of at the root of it, right? Uh, so you've experienced, um, unfortunately, you were kind of, you know, experienced PTSD yourself, right? Uh, I'll actually kind of see PTSD because you had some dealing with alcoholism in the family when you were younger,
and also had one of the most crazy stories that you wrote a book about recently. What's the book called? It's called Addicted to Trauma. Addicted to Trauma. Oh my god. Yes. So, and kid, just very briefly talked to us about the trauma that you experienced. Yeah, the, the major trauma
“that I talk about is getting kidnapped in Mexico 10 years ago, and almost getting, uh,”
stolen a sex slavery and escaping from that. Yeah. That is like, every parent's worst nightmare, every person's worst nightmare, you know, uh, and you lived it and you survived it, and you're here
to tell that story and you wrote a book about it, and it's just so incredible. Uh, I highly suggest
you guys tune into the episode, uh, to hear more about that. We won't dig into it here, but, you know, uh, another thing that was amazing in your life that you were a nurse during COVID, right? I mean, all of us, we were, I was out there banging on the pots 7 p.m. every night to support you guys, you know, because that's all we had, right? Yeah. But I mean, tell us about being in ground zero as a nurse working in the emergency rooms. Yeah. I mean, it was very eye-opening. I saw families and
patients, you know, it was just so affected by the fact that this disease and virus that no one really understood was taking millions of lives, and I was the person that, you know, was telling their family that, you know, their family member had passed away that they didn't make it, and we were just kind of forced to go from, from room to room with, you know, compassion and empathy, and I don't think at the time, as nurses, we really recognize that that was also traumatic for us,
just as much as it was for the families who were, you know, losing people from it. Yeah, and when the buzz of, you know, everyone at, you know, stopped kind of banging on pots, after 7 p.m., when the buzz of that kind of died down, you guys were still living through that, you know, working 14 hours a day is, I mean, it's just most of been so exhausting. One of the questions I have, were you living alone at that time, because it's like, how did your family take it that you're
coming to whatever, and you're like, in ground zero during such a questionable time, but no one knows what's going on? Yeah, part of that time I was living alone, and then part of it was actually back home as an adult child living with my mother, and so yeah, I would bring the stores home to her, and she was just like, oh my gosh, my day was so different, you know, how do you cope? And was how was I living with her, but like were you guys like knocking on the door? Here's your dinner,
and then she's, you know, like two rooms away telling her these stories, or it was just, she just
Opened up her house and let you in.
between it was the time, right, when I was trying to heal from Mexico, and thought actually I was
going to move to Europe for nursing school before the pandemic hit, so I had, you know, gotten rid of my condo that I had, and just kind of at a time where I know she took me in, and she's even still today, she's a busy body, a workaholic, so you know, we were crossing paths at different
“times, but you know, we tried to spend quality time together, which was unique. Yeah, that, honestly,”
that time was so intense, you know, like intense times of like growing up like 9/11, and then COVID, or just like, you know, everyone really remembers like globally, like what was going on, and yeah,
being a nurse in the ER, like whoa, that must have been so crazy, but that burnout, right,
that exhaustion, and the PTSD, you kind of, you know, had to step away from it all. Tell us about, you know, stepping away from it, and what gave you the inspiration to start your own clinic. Yeah, I mean, for me, it was the burnout that was definitely motivating for me, right? I wanted to figure out how to create a life for myself that I didn't feel like I needed to escape from, and I definitely think looking back during that time, it was, you know, easy for me to fall back
into old patterns, and even things like addiction were just so prevalent during that time, and even for me, knowing what I know, it's easy to fall back into those patterns. So with that, I, the burnout was essentially like, okay, I can either, you know, stay in this depression that I'm in and not figure out how to find happiness, or I can create a life for myself that I really want to be living, and I knew that doing that by helping other people kind of overcome their
“own struggles was the path that I wanted to take into that. And that's such a strong sentence, right?”
Create a life that's worth living, right? You've got to create it. It's not just going to come and happen to you, but it, it takes effort. You know, betting on yourself that entrepreneurial story really is not easy, right? And but speaking of creation, that's kind of at the heart and center of what you do. So talk about this method that you've created in your clinic, and yeah, how it's kind of blowing up globally now with professionals. Yeah, so like you said, it's definitely
the heart of it, which many people kind of think that once they've healed, then they get to create.
But for me, it's totally at the center of ultimately what allows people to kind of break those patterns.
And so I created this method, the, the conscious creation method, and there's several steps, but that the fourth one is creating, and from what I have seen, that's actually what allows people to, to move through the process and get out of that loop. And what are they creating, specifically? It looks like different things for different people. For me, it's art writing, but for other people, it can be simply like singing a song in the car, you know, writing poetry,
cooking a meal for their family. And yeah, I mean, because when you enter that creative flow state, you know, your mind is, I mean, there's nothing like it, right? You're kind of like excited and you're focused and you're motivated and you're creating something. And yeah, I mean, if you can enter flow state, right, it doesn't matter if it's work or if it's art, you know, that creative state exists in many different capacities. Definitely. Yeah. So talking to us about some
of the, you know, I know that you can't speak specifically on a lot of stuff, but what kind of people find you? And how do they find you? How do you market to that kind of people? Yeah, it's been
“a challenge, right? Because I think people who are trying to overcome trauma-day, are people that”
are scrolling Instagram all day, you know, for for that quick dopamine hit or they're on TikTok, trying to find a video that that will speak to them or change their life in some way. So the marketing process has been for me pretty organic in the sense that I've just done what I like to do, which is like right blogs and do my own research and kind of teach. So I've been able to create
Content just through my own love of art and and creating and people have foun...
word of mouth, referrals, but it really is just kind of taken off from a community standpoint in that
“way. But the people that really find me are the ones that they have the language for for what they're”
going through. They have tried therapy for years. They, they, you know, can talk clinically about what they've gone through, but they actually don't know what action steps to take, the practical, like action steps that they need to to be taking to see change and so that's, that's my role is figuring out that. So maybe they've been through therapy. It's not working out, but they have
some tools and some of the keywords that, you know, they're kind of typing in exactly. And so it
sounds like your marketing's a lot of diversification, right? Just getting to know and dabble in sample and seeing what hits, how's the, how's the content creation right then? It's been a journey, you know, it's like I love to create content, but there's such a fine line between, you know, creating too much and trying to reach everyone versus narrowing down on thinking about a specific
“person that I want to be addressing. And I think that was the pivot for me was I was trying to create”
too much content all at once, having no direction. And so would you describe yourself as an introvert or an extrovert? A little bit of both, I think, 15 years ago, I would have said, I'm an extrovert, but then the order that I've gotten, the more that I've, you know, embraced my healing journey, I realized that I actually liked being alone. I recharge alone. So now I think more, more introverted, but it's changed. But with, with the content creation, is that kind of
bringing that extrovertness out a little bit more? A little bit, but I still think I'm speaking more to like the introverted people. Gotcha. So I asked everyone, kind of, what are the most excited about these days? What are you, what are you working on? What's at the forefront of your industry right now? But what, what, what plans you got, what's going on? Yeah, I mean, I'm still in this this building phase, which to me is, is a very exciting phase, but I'm now starting to build like
online communities and host events for that. I'm looking forward to hopefully starting healing retreats one day soon and yeah, just expanding and living able to travel with this work as well, right? Because it's a, it's an online business and so I'm able to, to take it with me wherever. Well, I mean, it's been a journey and we've traveled kind of within this studio through your story and yeah, it's definitely one that I'm going to remember for a long time, but thank you for,
you know, sitting here with me opening up and telling me about your whole journey of life.
“And yeah, that's why I love this job too, you know, speak with people like you. It's been a privilege.”
Awesome. Thank you so much. So it's been great to be here. And honestly, I haven't really scratched a surface of, you know, her expertise, her knowledge because she can really relate with her patients because she's been there. She's done that and yeah, some of the things that she
shared is just really incredible how what people can overcome in life, you know, and you never know,
you know, what life brings, but you'll be surprised what what people can overcome, you know, and so yeah, tune into her story highly recommend it and yeah, tune back here to, uh, living your legacy back us. And we'll see you again, everyone. Thanks.
