Our Woman of the Week is Nicole Roccas, nominated for her work as a certified trauma-informed coach and author. You see her here in the graphic for her podcast on Ancient Faith along with her dog Felix, from his Instagram @FelixtheNaughtyBeagle. We asked her to tell you how she began pursuing both coaching and writing:
“As a coach, I support clients in both one-on-one and group contexts in their journey towards hope, wholeness, and transformation after trauma and other wounding experiences. So how did I get here? I began sharing my writing and ideas with an audience in late 2015, after launching my Ancient Faith podcast, Time Eternal. At the time, I had recently completed my PhD in European History (and a minor field in Church History) with a dissertation project that examined how people in 16th-century Germany made theological sense of the year as a unit of time. Although I didn’t wish to pursue an academic position, I still wanted to continue thinking about how some of the topics I explored in my doctorate—especially temporality—connected to my life as an Eastern Orthodox Christian.
“So for much of those first few years, my podcasting and writing focused on how to ‘redeem the time’ God grants us. My first book, Time and Despondency: Regaining the Present in Faith and Life, looks at the classical spiritual sickness of despondency (acedia) from the vantage point of time and eternity. It was published in 2017 and continues to be the one I’m most well-known for.
“In the years since writing that book, I was blessed with countless conversations and correspondences in which readers shared points of pain from their lives. I found myself wishing I had more professional training so I could move those conversations forward and help others responsibly and effectively. Meanwhile, my own life began to implode, requiring me to go back and work on my own healing from trauma experiences both past and present (and healing is always evolving).
“These two paths—my own healing journey and my desire to help others walk through their pain—converged in 2021, when I completed an ICF-accredited training program in trauma-informed coaching. Whereas a therapist may spend more time establishing a past context for trauma, as a coach the work I do is firmly rooted in the present. I help clients identify key ways trauma or other wounds hold them back in the present—whether in their body, mind, or soul—and build regulation and resilience so they can embrace a fuller vision of their life moving forward. I’ve been doing this work for a year and a half, and it is humbling in the best way. It’s a tremendous gift to bear witness, at least in a limited capacity, to the Mystery of someone else’s suffering and, glory to God, their healing.
“As my professional work has shifted towards the area of trauma, so has my writing. More recently, I’ve begun work on a new book, tentatively titled Remembering All These Things: A Liturgical Theology of Trauma from the Christian East (I’m just starting to work out some of the ideas behind this book on my Substack blog).
“Years ago, when I was first received into the Orthodox Church, I often marveled because I would never have expected that outcome for myself previously. Now, as I share about some of the professional twists and turns I’ve taken in the last decade or so, I feel the same way. The learning and the growing and changing never end. Glory to God for His timing, His healing presence, His gentle nudges towards good paths and quiet waters—expected or unexpected.”
Axia!
Nicole Roccas is our Woman of the Week, nominated for her work as a trauma-informed coach and author. You see her here speaking in a parish setting and holding her first book that she published with Ancient Faith (the other two are Under the Laurel Tree–about infertility–and a Journal of Thanksgiving, a three-year guided journal). Nicole is her parish’s unofficial photographer and the photo of feet came from a Holy Saturday when they welcomed “five beautiful souls into the Church through chrismation.” We asked her what she wanted people to know about the relationship between time and trauma:
“Truthfully, I don’t think the topics of time and trauma are that far apart. There are so many ways trauma can affect our ability to inhabit time—from the way memories are stored in the brain, to our capacity to look to the future with hope and vitality or recall the past without debilitating shame or overwhelming emotions.
“Let me zoom in on one such connection between trauma and time.
“The imprint of trauma on our nervous system can complicate our capacity to inhabit our present lives in a spirit of freedom, safety, and connection. Even when our minds understand where we are in time, our bodies, nervous systems, and subconscious wiring can detect almost imperceptible cues of threat and begin re-experiencing past instances of danger and distress. This can be so subtle—tense muscles, shallow breathing, a vague feeling of dread, irritation, or overwhelm—that we may not always be consciously aware what is happening inside us, or what our nervous system has been reminded of.
“One way to understand this is to imagine that you are standing against a guard rail at the very edge of the Grand Canyon. You look out over the expansive formation and it’s beautiful, but what happens the moment you look straight down the precipice beneath your feet? For most people, this will cause at least some agitation. When I walk people through this thought experiment in virtual webinars, some participants scoot back from the Zoom screen when prompted to look down—others gasp, clutch their stomach momentarily, or later report a racing pulse rate. Even though we know in the present that we are not in danger of falling, somewhere along the way, most of us learned that falling hurts, and that the greater the fall, the harder the pain. Therefore, when we peer over a guard rail—or even just imagine doing so—our bodies instinctively respond as though we were about to fall. Telling our lurching stomach or a galloping heart rate ‘just calm down’ or ‘stop being so sensitive’ or ‘remember there’s a guard rail’ usually don’t abate our body’s natural responses in this scenario.
“Unresolved trauma sets off a similar chain of reactions throughout our body, though these responses may be different for everyone and harder to detect. Nonetheless, even when we know a trauma experience was in the past, our bodies respond to it as though it were occurring all over again. It takes time, self-awareness and self-compassion, and the help of God and one another to work through this with our minds and bodies (rather than against them).
“As I mentioned, there are many other ways the topics of trauma and time connect. In November and December 2021, I explored these more deeply in a limited podcast series, ‘Time in Trauma’ which aired on the Time Eternal podcast (Episode 1 of that series can be found here).”
As always, we asked Nicole Roccas, our Woman of the Week, to tell you about her morning routine. You see her here training for a marathon. She is also sharing her prayer book and her icon corner with you:
“This is a hard question for me because, for a long time, I staked a lot of my self-worth on my ability to stick to routines—especially morning routines and prayer routines—with perfect consistency. This opened the door to exhaustion and a sense of failure that was not constructive.
“I’m learning every morning can be a little different—it doesn’t make me less ‘disciplined’ or holy or virtuous to be flexible and attend to the needs of each day. I’m learning my mind and body are highly sensitive to insufficient rest and early-morning micro-stressors, and that muscling through these hurdles can be detrimental to my well-being. I’m learning—thanks to a recent ADHD diagnosis—that my executive functioning skills are pretty inconsistent, especially first thing in the morning.
“What all of this means is that some days I can manage a certain kind of routine, other days I need something a little simpler.
“So my morning routine is less a routine and more a spectrum of tasks and actions that I know are life-giving to do early in the day. On one end of the spectrum is a kind of “bare minimum” set of manageable tasks for when I don’t have much time or capacity to draw from. On the other end is a more robust morning routine and prayer rule.
“Today, for example, was more on the former end of the spectrum. I woke up late and was still groggy; my dog was a bundle of energy needing to be walked and fed and repeatedly scolded to quit stealing my shoes and socks in rapid succession; I was starving but overwhelmed in deciding what to make—I’m sure others can relate. I listened to the Ancient Faith Psalter on Audible as I slowly paved a path through the chaos of the morning. Took the dog out, made the bed, got some coffee, ate a breakfast high in protein and good fats (hardboiled eggs, some hummus, and a piece of whole grain toast), took a shower, and got dressed. Listening to the Psalms while bringing order and peace to my surroundings reminds me that what can feel like tidal waves of overwhelm first thing in the morning are actually just part of the human condition—not a crisis—and God helps me through every storm, big or small.
“On the other end of the spectrum, other days, I’m up early (before the dog, even!) and head to the icon corner with some coffee. I may read from my prayer book before sitting for twenty or thirty minutes to pray the Jesus Prayer. I used to dread the Jesus Prayer because it is exhausting trying to focus my ADHD mind. Then I decided to see my random thoughts as a gift and pray for whatever people and places come to mind before returning my inward gaze to Christ. Since then, the Jesus Prayer has been a huge source of spiritual renewal for me. It also helps me work through griefs and traumas of the past—as my mind happens to recall painful episodes, I can turn them over to Christ in a simple way, without very many words. The sensation of the prayer rope in my hand anchors me in the present moment with Christ, and it is often in those moments I feel more emboldened than at other times to surrender, forgive, dwell in silence and safety and peace He gives us freely.
“After praying, I try to spend some time reading Scriptures or a spiritual book (I recently finished Fr. Stephen Freeman’s newest book, Face to Face: Knowing God Beyond our Shame, and am slowly working my way through the wonderful handbook on prayer by Fr. Alexander Men, of blessed memory). By then my dog is usually awake, and it’s an hour or two of deliberate chaos trying to get him (and myself) ready for a calm workday.
“Whatever my morning looks like, though, I usually devote the first half hour or so of my workday to contemplation, journaling, or reflective reading. I consider this to be an essential aspect of my workday because I can’t properly show up and hold space for the pain of those I work with if I’m not doing my own healing work. I conclude this time with the Orthodox Prayer for beginning a task and then start in on whatever is on the task list for work.
“In my routines, and my life in general, I’m trying to aim for persistence rather than rigid consistency (a distinction that’s been a game-changer since I first heard ADHD Coach Kristen Carder mention it). I may never be consistent 100% of the time, but I can still come back to the table and keep trying the best I can each day, with God’s help.”
Thank you, Nicole!