The Best You - A Coaching Podcast: Personal Growth Through Real Conversations · Gary Gillan

The Raw Truth About Trauma Recovery: Why Healing Requires More Than Just Showing Up with Bianca Thomas

·45 min·2 clips

Bianca says healing is “going to be awful” and people will want to quit “75% of the time.”

1. The Best You episode with Bianca Thomas focuses on trauma recovery, therapy, and evidence-based personal growth. 2. Gary interviews Bianca Thomas, who is a mental health counsellor, cognitive behavioural therapist, co-founder of Evolve Ventures, and co-host of the Evolve Ventures podcast. 3. The episode asks what it takes to heal when therapy is hard, slow, and emotionally uncomfortable. 4. Bianca says she wanted to build Evolve Ventures because she “desperately needed this journey” earlier in life. 5. She explains that she and Amelia met through Muay Thai, became close, and later built a podcast and organization together. 6. Bianca says her childhood journal described her as confident, a leader, and someone who loved people. 7. She says that around age 6 or 7 she developed significant mental health issues and later understood this as borderline personality disorder. 8. Bianca describes years of low self-esteem, a weak sense of self, and harmful relationship choices. 9. She says a relationship that began when she was 16 lasted four years and included sexual, emotional, mental, and financial abuse. 10. Bianca says she first went to therapy around age 18 and felt, for the first time, that someone really saw her. 11. She says she was not ready then, so she stopped therapy and kept repeating the same dynamics. 12. Bianca says that at 23 she met mentors who introduced her to personal development and ideas about mindset, grit, and change. 13. She says those mentors also taught her and Amelia how to start their podcast during COVID, when everything was virtual. 14. Bianca says the business growth exposed severe imposter syndrome and fear of abandonment. 15. She says Amelia eventually gave her two options: separate the business or get help for the internal issues she was avoiding. 16. Bianca says that choice pushed her into CBT, DBT, and IFS, which she now uses with clients. 17. Bianca says she now tells people therapy is often awful, that they may want to quit “75% of the time,” and that the discomfort can mean good therapy is happening. 18. The conversation is direct, personal, and conversational, with Gary asking follow-up questions and Bianca answering in long, reflective stretches. 19. People dealing with trauma, therapy resistance, or imposter syndrome would likely get the most from this episode. 20. People wanting a light, quick, or purely inspirational conversation may skip it.

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