LET GLORY SHINE:

From Trauma to Triumph: Samia Bano on Healing, Happiness & Heart-Centered Change

In this episode of Let Glory Shine, Martha Glory Kartaoui sits down with fellow global changemaker Samia Bano—the Happiness Expert, author of Make Change Fun and Easy, speaker, podcaster, coach for coaches and healers, Reiki healer, and crisis counselor.

Samia’s story is one of faith, healing, and triumph. A survivor of childhood sexual abuse, she began her search for inner peace at just 8 years old. After more than 20 years of struggle, she not only broke free from suffering but also discovered how to take control of her happiness—and now she’s on a mission to help others do the same.

Through her signature Follow Your Heart Process™—a blend of positive psychology and spiritual wisdom—Samia empowers others to release fear, overcome limiting beliefs, and step into a life of joy, impact, and purpose with fun and ease.

This conversation is a powerful reminder that healing is possible, happiness is attainable, and transformation is within reach.

Learn more and connect with Martha at: https://letgloryshine.com/

To Book your Free HAPPINESS 101 EXPLORATION CALL with Samia, click: https://my.timetrade.com/book/JX9XJ

#LetGloryShine #SamiaBano #MarthaGloryKartaoui #HealingJourney #HappinessExpert #TraumaToTriumph #MakeChangeFunAndEasy #FollowYourHeart #TraumaHealing #FaithAndHealing #TransformationStory #PositiveMindset #HeartCenteredLeadership #Resilience #OvercomingAbuse #SpiritualHealing #TraumaRecovery #HealingIsPossible

Here's the audio version of this episode:

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Full Video Transcript

MARTHA: Hello, and welcome back to Let Glory Shine. I'm your host, Martha Glory, and I'm so glad that you are here for another episode of Let Glory Shine. I have an awesome, awesome guest today and I can't wait for you guys to meet her. And I was just reading her notes from where she applied to be a guest and I'm like, there's so much exciting stuff that I want to get right into. So I'm going to introduce you to Samia Bano. Welcome to the show...

SAMIA: Hi, everyone. Thank you so much for having me, Martha.

MARTHA: Absolutely. And I just had the pleasure of being on your podcast, which was so much fun and it opened up this, like, vortex of questions and then now I get to interview you for mine and it's just... I can't wait for, for my audience to get to know a little bit about you. So, Samia, tell us a little bit about you. Just the acorn version. I love the trademark, the follow your heart process. Can't wait to hear more about that. But tell us a little bit about yourself.

SAMIA: Thank you so much again for the opportunity. So my name is Samia and I'm a happiness expert. And you know, podcaster, but also coach and trainer, basically on a mission to help people learn how to be happy, how to take control of their mental emotional health and just live life so that, you know, you can be really thriving in your life. And it wasn't always this way, you know, like a lot of us, for me, getting to this point of being a happiness expert really started with me really struggling with my own happiness because I'm a survivor of child sexual abuse. And so from pretty young age, from about eight years old on, you know, I have... Well, first of all, I was basically just struggling and, you know, just wanting to end my own sense of suffering and pain and trauma. I didn't honestly even care about anyone else very much in the early years of being in that trauma. But as I continued on my journey, I continued to heal. You know, I realized more and more that, "Hey, it's not just all about me". And the more I actually did allow myself to care for others, to help others in whatever little big ways that I could, the more it helped me. And so that was like such a big lesson that I learned in my life, in my own healing journey, that it's like, continues to be a guiding, guiding Light and a guiding lesson for how I live my life now.

MARTHA: Yes. Oh, I love that. That's beautiful. And I, too, had to learn that lesson, right. And like I say all the time, like, God didn't make us to be... To do life alone. Like, that's not how he created us. He created us for community. He created us to do life together, not to do life in our ivory towers that so many of us have isolated ourselves into. And so often trauma makes us feel and isolates us and makes us feel so alone. And so I love that you brought that up because, yes, that is one of those isolating factors. So how do we get? How do we touch somebody and say that's been through the things that we have? Because I share it. Like I told you, I share sexual abuse in my past as well, as well as physical abuse and mental, emotional, spiritual trauma. So how do we reach those people that have experiences like we have had and say, actually helping others is going to help you? That just seems so contradictory until you start on the journeys that we have. But how do we reach somebody in that capacity?

SAMIA: Yeah, it's, I think, different for everyone, right. Like, in terms of the journey that we will have for our healing. I know for me, like, it was just that I spent so many years of my life going inward and focusing on myself and trying. I tried everything I could to help myself. I didn't want to have to deal with other people. I didn't want to have to think with other people. I didn't feel like I had the capacity to deal with other people, to worry about them, to deal with their emotions. It was like a really... One of the things that I was most afraid of in those years was having to deal with any kind of mental, emotional drama because it just overwhelmed me. I was so easily overwhelmed by any kind of strong emotions that I just didn't want to deal with them in anyone else, let alone myself, because I didn't know how to handle it.

MARTHA: Right.

SAMIA: You know, and so that was like, the best I could do at that stage in my life was to just be in avoidance, and denial, and suppression, sort of of my own emotions and running away from everyone else that, you know, was having issues.

MARTHA: Right, right. Absolutely.

SAMIA: Yeah. And so it wasn't until, you know, I think it's just part of, you know, how God is very kind and sort of like, allows us to experience what we are ready to experience, you know, and we're able to handle. And so at some point, you know, I was in my, like, mid teens at this point when life happened around me, and suddenly I found some compassion. I found some capacity to look beyond my own needs. And in my case, what happened was that brother had an accident and he ended up in a wheelchair. And my mom was really struggling to take care of us. There's three of us siblings. And, you know, as if a mom's life isn't busy enough without having one of her children suddenly now end up in a wheelchair and trying to handle everything that comes with that in addition to everything else that, you know, she has to handle. And, you know, that was like, one of the breakthrough moments for me in terms of life. Gave me an opportunity to think about someone other than me and my own suffering and be like, "Hey, Samia, will you do something here to try and help out, you know, will you do something to try and help out your brother? Will you do something to try and help out your mom, make things a little bit easier for her?" And thank God I was able to say yes. And so that, for me was how I started with trying to think about someone other than me. And it felt easy enough to do that. In that moment, it's like, okay, okay, I'm just going to help my brother, like, you know, get into his wheelchair or, you know, do what my mom says. That that's not too hard. That's not too much drama. Like, I can handle that. But that's how it started. And so sometimes it's just that, you know, like, life gives you these, like, little opportunities and just give it a try. Say yes sometime.

MARTHA: Yeah, you brought so many little nuggets up that I want to explore, but one of the biggest ones is, like, that God gives us opportunities, right, to stretch us, to grow us, to teach us something. And so often we miss it, right, because we're so absorbed in our own pain, or we're. We're in a place of like, well, show me the whole path, and then I'll start taking those steps. And God's like, no, no, no... I can only give you what you can handle in this moment, right? If I gave you the whole thing, you would quit, throw in the towel, and you would never get there. But, you know, as we say yes, and as we continue to show up, you see that there's more and more opportunities to. To continue to show up, and God shows you a little bit more and a little bit more and a little bit more of, like, the bigger picture, right? And it's just these puzzle Pieces that keep on adding onto what we know and understand. And it also reminded me when you were talking about your brother and your mom and how you said yes and you were so glad that you did. So I, on my journey, I actually did that. And it became an almost addiction helping other people because I became a people pleaser, I became a caretaker. I became all of these things, and I lost my identity again in that. That became my identity because I didn't have an identity of my own. So it was like I was trying all these things on for size. Does this feel good? I'm a caretaker. I'm a nurturer. I'm a, you know, like I'm a people pleaser. And eventually you realize you're exhausted, you're empty, you're done. Like, it's exhausting... So you can almost do that to default and then realize that that doesn't serve either. You have to have the harmony of self, right. And understanding what that means and then the desire to be able to show up for others. But if this is empty like this, then, right. There's not... There's no harmony. And so I love that. But I did it to a fault, and it became a deficit for me. And then that, that created a whole new struggle that I had to realize. And I had to then learn the tools in order to understand healthy boundaries and, you know, intention and all of those things that help us to create the harmony of self and others.

SAMIA: Yeah, I hear you about the temptation to just focus on others when you discover the joy in that. And, oh, this is helping me to feel better. But I will say my experience has been a little bit different in that I've always been a little very obsessed with myself. So I don't know if I've ever had the challenge of being a people pleaser as such. There's always been with me, like, a natural limit to how far I will think about anyone else. And actually, it's something that I'm working on now in terms of how to have healthy relationships with others where I'm not just thinking about them when I want to think about them, but when they need me to be paying attention, right. You know...

MARTHA: Right.

SAMIA: Like, it's this... I've, you know, there's this tendency that we have that we learn from our parents and other, you know, caregivers in our life. And there's two main ways that we learn from them. One, we learn from them what to do, like we do what they do. But then we can also learn from them, the lessons of what we don't want to do. And so we rebel

and we go the opposite way. And I think what happened with me is that one of the things that I learned from my mom was what I didn't want to do in the sense that my mom is one of these people who will empty herself out completely to be giving, giving, giving to everyone else. And there was always something about that that really bothered me and I was not willing to do, like, even in the, like, when I was mentioning, when I really traumatized, my reaction was to go in myself and not care about anyone else. And I could never completely shake that off in terms of thinking about myself first before thinking about other people. And like, even now when I'm not traumatized, I'm not in the midst of some bout of depression or things like that. I still feel a sense of resistance around, you know, like, my mom, she's constantly thinking about, what could this person be needing? What could they be wanting? And she tries to anticipate your needs and do, yeah, stuff for you even before you ask her, right? I'm like, no, please tell me when you need something and what you need. And I'm so happy to help you with it whenever I can. But I don't want to have to think out what you may be needing, wanting, feeling, because for me, that can feel like a burden because then I have to have awareness and attention. Ways that don't come very naturally to me, but there is a value. I'm like, so for a lot, for a while, like, you know, I had this attitude that I just took on in a very rigid way where I was like, no, I'm not going to pay attention to what other people are doing. Thinking, feeling, needing, wanting. If someone wants me to do something for them, they better tell me. So I. But I became too rigid with that mindset and, you know, so now I'm like, working on creating that balance of. Okay, no, sometimes I can allow myself to be aware of other people and anticipate to some extent how they're thinking, feeling, needing, wanting, etc...

MARTHA: So I'm hearing you talk and I am just, I'm... There's a dichotomy and a big question that I have because some of the things that you shared in your, in answering the questions are that you are a certified Reiki healer, that you are a crisis counsel. Well, as a fellow Reiki master, like, I know what it means to hold space for somebody and to offer that energetic healing. And the same thing with crisis counseling. So the things that you are saying about needing to put the, you know, to save the space for yourself and that your only attention is on self and that you're having to learn this, those two things that you practice don't leave a whole lot of space for self. Your healer first. You are listening crisis holder first in those. So explain to me that dynamic because it seems a little, little... I don't know, it seems, it seems like it would be hard to hold that what you're explaining.

SAMIA: Oh, that's interesting. So we must, you know, obviously have a difference in experience with holding space in those roles. Like for me, whether it is that I'm in that healer mode of being, you know, a reiki healer or in other capacities, even like crisis counseling, for me, it's like, you know, about holding that healing space and creating a container. You know...

MARTHA: But that's stepping out of self.

SAMIA: I don't know if I have ever thought of it in that way or experience it in that way. It's like, I mean, if you think about what it takes to be able to do that work day after day, year after year, I mean, I've seen so many people burn out and just not be able to handle not so much with the Reiki healing.

MARTHA: Right.

SAMIA: But with crisis counseling, one of the things that has helped me just stay in it and not burn out is because I've always been able to have the sense of separation and recognition of like what the other person is feeling, experiencing. That's not me, that's not my trauma, that's not my feeling. I'm holding space for them to feel what they need to feel, express what they need to express. But they're not me. I'm not them.

MARTHA: Yeah.

SAMIA: And so for me, I've always had this sense of clarity and also, you know, this practice of non attachment, you know, being able to, I mean, I think there, it's also partly a skill that I've had to develop of, you know, like letting go of emotions, and thoughts that would otherwise overwhelm me.

MARTHA: Yes.

SAMIA: Because that was actually a very critical thing for me to learn. As I mentioned, when I was severely traumatized, one of my biggest challenges was not having the capacity to deal with strong emotions, whether it was my own or someone else's. And I actually forced myself. Like one of the things that I did straight out of college was I joined this organization called Peace Over Violence and I went through their training to become a crisis counselor on the... It was a sexual assault and domestic violence hotline. And I made myself go through that training because I was like, well, first of all, it was an opportunity that opened up because when I was in college, I got into working with other survivors, sexual abuse and went through a training to do advocacy for survivors. And so then this other opportunity to become a crisis counselor opened up. So that was like the first thing I got into as soon as I graduated from college. And I made myself do it, even though I was like, really afraid because I was like, oh my gosh. I was like, if I can learn, if I can get through the training, if I can learn to handle myself on the crisis line, then I know I have the capacity to handle strong emotions, whether it's one else or in myself. And so I made myself go through that training and I found, oh, yeah, look, I can do it, I can do it. And a big part of that being able to do it was learning to let go of, of those disturbing thoughts and emotions. And so, you know, like, for me, it's been a very natural part of being in that role to maintain a clear sense of separation between me and the other.

MARTHA: Yeah. Wow. Thank you so much for sharing that because when you were speaking, it cleared up the question that I was having and it then reminded me it's more. I struggled with it because of lack of an identity to hang on to, right. I didn't have the worth of self, right. So that's why I had such a struggle between the two. But as I have been on my healing journey, I too now can care without carrying, right. I can love and I can support without taking on all of their emotions or their, their junk or their right or taking it personally. But that is only because I have stepped into self. And I had. And so hearing you talk about it and you were like, no, I had self. And that's where, that's why I wasn't understanding, like, how? Well, how, how. And now. So thank you for clearing that up. That makes it, that makes it a lot more... I understand a lot more clearly. And I think you were practicing, maybe even before you understood what you were practicing of the importance of maintaining self and understanding that you could care without carrying their stuff. You could hold it in that container. You could hold, you know, the emotions that the. Whatever it was that they were experiencing. You could hold that and show empathy, compassion, love, support, all of those things without taking it home with you. And that is so such an important part of what I've learned as a coach now, as a trauma informed coach, and as, you know, somebody that is able to walk alongside others that have experienced trauma and not have to allow it to trigger me or to take me back down a spiral or any of those things. I can hold that container of space without allowing it to seep into my own self worth or my identity or those things. So thank you for sharing that. That was very helpful.

SAMIA: Yeah. No, it, what you're saying totally makes sense. I mean, given your experiences, you know, being a survivor of a assault, of course, you know, your sense of self was compromised and, you know, that's such a common experience though, for so many of us. Like I was mentioning my mom, she has, I mean, she's constantly that giver type with always like sacrificing, sacrificing, sacrificing her own even well being to take care of others. And so it's a very common experience. And I think in some ways I have stood out even in my own family and friends circles because as I mentioned, I've always had this almost like high level of self obsession and so I've had to learn some other, other boundaries.

MARTHA: Yeah, yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. I love that. So what is it that you are doing or excited about now? You are a happiness, happiness expert, crisis counselor, reiki healer? What are you, what is something that you're excited about now?

SAMIA: I love everything that I do. I'm not actively crisis counseling anymore. I, when I started my own happiness coaching training practice that's called the Academy of Thriving. So I stepped away from working on the crisis hotline at that time. But yeah, it's basically, you know, that same mission in as many ways as I can live it, of sharing with other people what I've learned to be really helpful in my own journey of healing, of transformation and helping others to learn some of those lessons and bring them into their life. So whether it's through the podcast that I have, my show is called Make Change Fun and Easy, or the coaching work or the training work that I do a lot of times now, you know, my core set of folks of community that I work with, our fellow change makers, you know, people on a mission to create change not just in their lives, but in the world. And, you know, for so many of us, the challenge, core challenge that we face is that, you know, feeling of loneliness, of oh, I'm in this alone. And it's really hard. And one of the reason it feels so hard to do the change making we want to do, whether it's at a personal level or a social level, it's because we feel so alone and so, you know, to create that community, to do the work that we want to do in community. That is, you know what I'm all about.

MARTHA: Love it. Love it. Change maker. Fellow change maker. I love it. Global... Let's make an impact. So we are just about out of time and I always end my show the same way. I ask my guest, what does it mean to let your glory shine?

SAMIA: To let your glory shine. Yeah, just be who you are... Like, just be fully you. And I think one of the things that I have learned from you, Martha and I love so much is to just go to the essence and to just think of it very, very simply. So when we think about who we are, we are love, we are light. So just be love, just do love in every which way that you can do it, that you get the opportunity to do it. And that's how you let your glory shine...

MARTHA: I love that. Thank you so much for being on my show, Samia. It's an honor to meet you. It's a... I'm just grateful for the connection and love the opportunity to have a conversation with you and I know that my audience has been blessed by this conversation as well. So thank you so much for being here this evening. Thank you for sharing another episode with us on Let Glory Shine. We look forward to seeing you next week, same place, same station. Until then, let your glory shine. Love you...