#179 Exiting Survival Mode: Healing After Teenage Domestic Violence

What if the exhaustion, over-functioning, and constant pressure you live with isn’t your personality—but survival mode that never switched off?

In this deeply powerful episode, Rose sits down with Leticia Francis, trauma recovery mentor and author of Survival Mode Exit Plan, to explore what it truly means to exit survival mode after trauma.

Leticia shares her lived experience of teenage domestic violence and how that early trauma shaped decades of survival-based functioning—hyper-independence, emotional suppression, and identity built around coping rather than choice. Together, this conversation gently dismantles the belief that survival mode equals strength, revealing instead the hidden cost it places on the body, relationships, and sense of self.

This episode goes beyond awareness. Leticia breaks down:
 • The residual impacts of unresolved trauma on the nervous system
 • How survival identities form and why they’re so hard to release
 • The three distinct phases of exiting survival mode, and what each requires

You’ll hear why healing isn’t about “fixing yourself,” why high-achieving women often stay stuck the longest, and how reclaiming truth, ease, and power begins with understanding your survival patterns—without shame.

This is an honest, grounded, trauma-informed conversation for anyone who has lived through adversity and wonders why life still feels heavy long after the danger has passed.

✨ CONNECT WITH LETICIA

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/leticia-f/

Website: https://www.leticiareneefrancis.com

♥ ♥

Transcript

Intro | 00:00
The Healing Through Love podcast with Sharlene Lynch and Rose Davidson. 

 Sharlene | 00:08
Hello and welcome to the Healing Through Love podcast. I'm Sharlene Lynch and together we're shining a light on hope, resilience, transformation in the journey to end domestic violence. Each week we bring you inspiring interviews with changemakers, survivors, advocates and experts who are making a difference in the lives of those affected by family and domestic violence. Whether you're on this healing journey yourself or you're supporting someone who is, this is your space for powerful stories, practical tools and heartfelt inspiration. Let's heal through love. Today we've got a very special guest from the other side of the world. Hello and welcome Leticia Francis. She is a trauma recovery mentor and a keynote speaker and she's an author. Hello Leticia, how are you? 

 Leticia | 00:57
I'm great, Sharlene. Thank you so much for having me. And I'm Leticia Francis. I call myself the survival mode disruptor. I am a survivor of teenage domestic abuse and it took me a while to get my life together, but I love having disruptive conversations about the residual impact of trauma, how it shows up in our lives and what we can do to get out of survival. 

 Sharlene | 01:24
Mode. I hear you. As a survivor of family violence, I had set the path the pattern, the pace, the expectation that I would unfortunately end up in domestic violence as well. 
 So yeah, so talk to me a little bit more about these. 

 Leticia | 01:41
Patterns. Absolutely. 
 So as survivors, what we tend to do is celebrate surviving without recognizing that we actually lend in survival mode. Most of us adapt survival identities, such as people pleasing, overachieving, fixing, in order to navigate what has happened to us. I think a huge part of my healing process was actually understanding where elements of what I deemed my personality came from. For instance, I'm a recovering people pleaser. That came down as a result of the relationship that I had with my father. I could never make him happy. And I did things to... To appease him in many ways Which then taught me Very little boundaries around man as a person who spent many years perhaps seeking my father in other people. I learned not to advocate for myself in romantic relationships. I learned not to stand up for myself in other situations. I became a fixer as someone who struggled with help and being seen and heard throughout my journey, I then became that person who saw and heard everyone and not having adequate boundaries, but along with that, really put me in some toxic situations. 
 So as survivors, we often develop trauma responses and survival identities, which help us move ourselves forward. It took me until I was in my late 30s to actually realize that that's what was happening. And it allowed me to reprogram the way that I saw myself. But oftentimes, We don't get to that point of awareness. 
 And then we spend the rest of our lives showing up as a traumatized individual without actually realizing it. 

 Sharlene | 04:06
I hear you. So with these archetypes that we have, how important is it for people, our audience that is listening, how important it is for them to identify what archetype they are? And can you change archetypes? And if you can, how do you do that? 

 Leticia | 04:25
Absolutely. It's very important throughout the healing process. I believe that the person we become in order to survive is not the person that we need to be in order to thrive. And I believe there has to be a death of the way that we show up. And I often speak about this. I actually have a keynote called The Death of Me, where I talk about having to lay down my survival identity and choose to pick up something else... It's... Whenever I talk about accident survival mode, I talk about it in three phases. The first phase is awareness, self-awareness. We cannot change what we cannot see. 
 So to your question, it's very important to be able to identify these things, spend time really getting to know ourselves. And I think one of the things that is very key is in survival healing is that peace, getting to know ourselves. A lot of us don't know ourselves beyond our trauma. We don't know who we are without labeling ourselves as a result of the events that we've been through. And it's a big shift when we are able to Lay down the identities, lay down this archetypes and really, anchor into who we want to be. 
 So I mentioned earlier, there's three phases. The first is self-awareness. The second is reprogramming, changing the narrative, changing the story about ourselves. And the third is a reinvention. As I did mention, we cannot thrive in our survival identities. 
 So it's being able to get aligned with our core values and our earn distinct girls because oftentimes we are more aligned with societal expectation than our own dreams and desires. So getting Clear about that and then making sure that we are moving in a direction that is more aligned with who we want to be and how we want to show up in the world. 

 Sharlene | 06:41
I love that. I love that. Now, my favorite technique for awareness is definitely journaling. In the old days, it used to be in a diary with a padlock on it. 
 You know, it obviously shows how old I am. I don't think we have those anymore. But what would be one of your favorite tools or techniques to help people shift their awareness? 

 Leticia | 07:02
I definitely encourage journaling. I think it's beyond what we did as kids, right? This is not just, you know, denoting our day and, wow, this happened today. And this person did this to me today. No, it's kind of raw and honest with ourselves. And oftentimes we struggle with self honesty. So I think journaling is key and oftentimes sitting in reflection, Being able to analyze why we did certain things, why we reacted a certain way, what our triggers were in order to help us uncover what is happening. Actually holding us back. Uncovering how we respond to events and situations so that we can make different choices moving forward. Oftentimes, I think people don't spend enough time in reflection. I don't think we are present enough in our lives often. We don't do things and just keep moving, but there isn't this moment of reflection, this moment of, you know, analysis either. And I think that's key. And journaling definitely is a good tool for that. 

 Sharlene | 08:23
I love it. I love it. I love it. Okay, so we've come to a point where we've got a level of awareness and we've stopped blaming other people for our behavior and we're taking a level of responsibility for our own behavior. What is one of the steps that you would recommend to help people reprogram? 

 Leticia | 08:41
Definitely challenge your thoughts. 95% of our thoughts are recycled. And if we don't challenge them in any way, then we move through life with yesteryear's thoughts. If you think about that, if 95% of our thoughts go unchallenged, then we are holding on to things that happened in 1990. 
 So it's really important for us to understand the connection between feelings, emotions, actions. Because that is how we move forward. A lot of people don't recognize that everything we think is not true. It's often a... A version of someone else's opinion of us or someone else's narrative. 
 So daily, if And for me, this was... Instrumental in my healing when I understood how powerful my thoughts and feelings were in my ability to achieve farther than where I am it changed the way that I showed up and I often talk about being at the kitchen sink and having an outwardly conversation about my thoughts I because I learned to challenge them and it will be no, we're not going there today because a random thought will pop up that I could now see was a negative thing that would lead me to inaction. 
 So I would openly challenge that. So I would say to the audience who's listening to really Bits. With your thoughts, but challenge them. Where did this thought come from? Where did this belief come from? And do I still believe that to be true? And if it's If you don't believe it to be true or there is some question in you on whether or not you are aligned with that line of thinking, you can quickly change that. You can choose. Which a lot of people don't recognize, you can choose to think differently. You can choose to frame your thoughts in a different way that will be conducive to moving you forward. 
 So I think, yeah, just definitely challenging your thought process and being honest with yourself about where they're rooted, can really help you move forward. 

 Sharlene | 11:25
I love it. You're so speaking my language. 
 So one of the things that I used to ask myself is this still true? So when I was transitioning from who I was to who I am now, and I still do this now, actually, is this still true? 
 And then what else is possible? Because we do, we are all programmed and we are stuck in a cycle that we don't have the ability to really see past us so i don't i love that i love it you're speaking my language okay so we're we've got that level of awareness and now we're going through the reprogramming at what point in time do we in your process do we make a decision about what it is that we want to be is that something that becomes revealed to us as we move forward or is this something we start with some level of intention and a frequency flow. 

 Leticia | 12:15
I think it definitely starts with a level of intention. As I mentioned earlier, oftentimes as survivors, we really don't know who we are. I know I came out of my abusive marriage and I really didn't know who I was beyond my interpersonal relationships. Whenever I had described myself, I would say I'm someone's child or I am someone's wife. I didn't know who I was beyond that. And part of the reprogramming is putting down the identity that we have picked up Putting down the narratives that we speak about ourselves, putting down the way that we view the world. And in doing so, we need to replace it with something. 
 So that starts that intentional alignment, you know, being able to, first of all, identify who I am. And yes, I get to decide. It doesn't have to be aligned with what I've been through or what other people have taught me life should look like. I get to decide in this reprogramming. And in that decision, I think it's really best to sit and align, well, first of all, determine what your core values are. And oftentimes we really don't know that it, core values in this space tends to be a buzzword but I think once we get clear about what is important to us then it's about taking a line actions to stay in alignment with that like for instance one of the things that I uncovered was really important to me was authenticity being able to show up as myself authentically which I had never been able to do in my entire life so now whenever I'm in circumstances or situations, and I can see that I'm not being allowed to show up authentically, I know that that's not really the space for me, because I want to be in spaces that light me up, that light encourage me to keep moving forward that motivate me that are aligned. And you can't always put yourself in positions where it's complete alignment. 
 Like for instance, you may have responsibilities that may go against your core values in some aspect, but it's really just being able to Anchor into what makes you, and then. Making a promise to yourself to show up as that person every day. And that that's where that reinvention part becomes. 
 Like I talk with my clients about integration, integrating all the things that you learned about yourself into this new element of you, but then really committing to being you until you get to, Were you perceive yourself as wanting to be right? So it's showing up as yourself, even without all of the things that you would perceive. Prefer there. For instance, I had to show up as a person who knew how to set boundaries as I was learning how to set boundaries, right? Or I had to show up as a person who advocated for myself as I was learning to do that more forcefully and stand in my truth. 
 So while there is always a journey to becoming who you want to be it's doing it with intention and making sure that you are in alignment with the person that you have prescribed yourself to be moving forward. 

 Sharlene | 16:01
Yes daily habits okay what is your favorite daily habit. 

 Leticia | 16:08
Gratitude, anchoring into gratitude. I spent so much time growing up. Anchoring into what was wrong and what had been done to me. And I was absolutely a victim of my circumstance, but in doing so, I was given my power away. When I anchor into my gratitude, when I stay grounded in the things that I'm grateful for, it helps me to stay positive, number one, to stay focused, number two. And it gives me the encouragement that I need on these darker days. There's always something to be grateful for. And whenever I speak to other survivors, I One of the things I think that is really key in our healing process is to be able to anchor into our gratitude. 
 So there are very little survivors who have done their healing that does not mention gratitude in some way. And oftentimes it's a gratitude for the events that's happened because we understand that it's created the person who we are today. And for a lot of people that may seem weird, like I'm not going to accept what's happened to me. And it, you know, acceptance is not condonement. It's just knowing that you can't change what has happened. 
 So there is a level of acceptance and gratitude in my journey. Yes, I am grateful that I went through the emotional neglect of my parents. I am grateful that I was in a place an abusive relationship. I am grateful that my first husband stabbed me. I am grateful that I went through all of this toxicity because the woman that I am today is her moving mountains. I'm changing the world. And that would not have happened if it was not for those events. 
 So while I'm not happy about some of the things that I went through, I understand and their place in my purpose. And that helps me to keep moving forward. 

 Sharlene | 18:18
Absolutely. Life happens for us, not to us. I love it. You're speaking my language. Okay. Now for our listeners today, where's the best place for them to connect with you? 

 Leticia | 18:29
Absolutely. Best place to connect with me is on my website, www.Leticiarennefrancis.com. There you will get, some information about how I work with, with survivors, with people that are stuck in survival mode. You'll get access to my book, my podcast, Survival Mode Disrupted, my blog. Disrupting survival mode and my Facebook group. And these are places where I show up and have, you know, very disruptive conversations around the residual impact of trauma and what we can do to exit survival mode. 

 Sharlene | 19:10
I love it. Starting with that level of awareness and then reprogramming ourselves for a different outcome. It's beautiful. This is possible for everybody. It's a privilege and a pleasure to connect with you. And I'd just love to ask you, what would be your final words of wisdom to our audience? 

 Leticia | 19:27
You were not built to breathe. But you damn sure were not built to just survive. 
 So you can disrupt the cycle, you can reclaim your life, and you can thrive on your end times. It starts with a single decision. 

 Sharlene | 19:41
I love it. Thank you so much for joining us today, Leticia, from the other side of the world at a very early hour of the day. I love that. Thank you so much. You look fresh and alive for seven o'clock in the morning. I love it. Thank you so much for watching us today. It's been another episode of Healing Through Love. Bye for now. 

 Outro | 20:02
Thank you for joining us for this episode of Healing Through Love. You can get further resources See the show notes or simply reach out to us via our website at htlaustralia.org. Thanks so much for joining us and we look forward to your company next time on the Healing Through Love podcast.