Ambition as Protection | Anu Verma on Overachievement

Anu Verma — trauma recovery specialist, author, and founder of Victim 2 Victor.

Episode Summary

Anu Verma has spent years helping people heal from trauma while navigating her own entrepreneurial journey. This episode isn't about trauma itself, it's about what happens when old survival strategies quietly follow us into leadership, business, and success, and how easily they get mistaken for ambition. It's for anyone whose achievement has never quite produced the relief they expected it to.

Key takeaways:

• The Protective Ego: Why the ego isn't the enemy, and how it forms as a genuine response to being hurt.
• When Strength Goes Into Overworking: How the same strength that helps someone survive trauma can redirect into 70-80 hour weeks and outward success that doesn't match an inward experience.
• Impact Without Definition: The difference between being impacted by something and being defined by it.
• Chasing Achievement vs. Alignment: The self-reflective questions Anu now asks before saying yes to an opportunity.
• Forgiveness as Release: Why forgiveness is a gift given to yourself, not a favor extended to someone else.

Guest Bio and Links

Anu Verma is a Trauma Specialist, Author, and Founder of Victim 2 Victor, a platform supporting survivors in moving from trauma to self-awareness, healing, and purpose. With an MSc (Hons) in Physiology & Health and postgraduate training in Psychological Traumatology, she brings a science-informed, integrative approach to trauma recovery, combining evidence-based therapies with embodiment and nervous system work. Alongside her professional expertise, Anu draws on lived experience of childhood trauma and recovery, giving her a unique understanding of how survival patterns can shape identity, relationships, and achievement. She is trained in multiple therapeutic modalities including CBT, CPT, STAIR, Narrative Exposure Therapy, IFS, and EFT, and works with clients globally through coaching, education, and speaking.

Website: victim2victor.net
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/victim2victor_anuverma/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/anuvermaV2V
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/anuvermav2v

Full Transcript

Dawn: What if the thing driving your success is also the thing keeping you from experiencing it? Welcome back to the Self-Trust Solution. I'm your host, Dawn Ledet. On this podcast we explore the relationship between self-trust and the results we create, not because results define us, but because they often reveal us.

Today's guest is Anu Verma, founder of Victim to Victor, trauma recovery specialist, author, speaker, and podcast host. Anu has spent years helping people heal from trauma while also navigating her own entrepreneurial journey. But today's conversation isn't about trauma itself. It's about what happens when old survival strategies quietly follow us into leadership, into business, and into success, and how easy it is to mistake them for ambition.

Anu, welcome to the Self-Trust Solution.

Anu: Hi, Dawn. Thank you so much for having me on and for the lovely introduction. It's such a pleasure to be here today.

Dawn: For listeners meeting you for the first time, tell us about Victim to Victor. Who do you help? What led you into trauma recovery work?

Anu: Oh, amazing. Thank you. So the whole reason I'm here today, and why I enjoy sharing my story, is because of my own experiences that I've had to overcome and heal from. I know so many of us go through these experiences, childhood trauma, toxic relationships, suicidal ideation, and so many of us are probably unaware of how to even start to heal from it. I knew that because I was there myself, which is why I share my journey, to give people faith, hope, inspiration, and knowledge that they can also heal. They don't have to remain stuck in those survival patterns, because we all deserve to heal. We all deserve to live a fulfilling life, and that happens when we become aware of our life journeys and our patterns and what shaped us into who we are today, which is why self-awareness is key. I feel everybody needs to learn how to be self-aware, because if we're constantly on autopilot, constantly stuck in survival mode, then we're trying to live our life like a robot. We're not really being in tune with our authentic selves and who we actually are. I know because it took me years to actually regain who I really was, to understand my identity. I was so busy trying to be somebody I wasn't that I got lost in all of that, and I was miserable. I had to heal, and I had to understand who I was beneath this whole surface, beneath this ego that was surrounding me, trying to defend and protect me from being hurt again. I had to become vulnerable, and go in to understand who I really was.

Dawn: How did you recognize that you had put up this armor, this shield of protection?

Anu: Wow, that did take a lot of healing, because at first I thought having an ego was a bad thing. We say it all the time, don't we, "Oh, they're so egotistical." I feel like the word ego has this stigma to it, whereas what I realized was that the ego is protective. It's there to protect us from being hurt, and it comes as a result of being hurt, as a result of wounds we've had to overcome growing up. Now I see ego as this thing that's there to protect us, not that bad term I thought it was my whole life. My ego was there because of what had happened to me as a child, to protect me from bad things happening again. Because of that, I made out that I was this very strong woman, an extrovert, the party animal, buying all the shots. It was this persona I was putting out there, and a lot of people hated me because they thought I was very inauthentic. I think people were intimidated by how I was, but that's because I didn't want them to see who I really was, this soft, innocent, lost child who had been so hurt that she was struggling with a lot of emotional pain. Whatever I was showing people externally wasn't who I truly was, which is why the whole ego work fascinates me now, it's been such a huge part of my journey.

Dawn: Sometimes we're trying to prove something about ourselves. You mentioned you were putting out this persona of being so strong, and what I'd say is you absolutely were, but you were operating from it as an outfit you were putting on instead of who you truly were. You hadn't quite connected to how strong you already were and had already become.

Anu: That's so true. For anybody who's had to overcome childhood trauma and toxic relationships, and I was three when bad things started happening to me, we're in survival mode, and we learn to protect ourselves, we have to be strong, because otherwise, if you're not going to be strong, you go the other way, becoming an alcoholic or suppressing your pain by becoming a drug addict. There are different ways we cope as we get older. My strength helped me in that way. I was taking recreational drugs, it did help numb my pain, but I didn't become dependent on it, because I saw there was a different way of living. My strength went into overworking, overachieving. I was working 70, 80-hour weeks through my 20s. I had a full-time job and was running my side hustle, working literally seven days a week. My strength went into that, and the persona I portrayed then was success. People saw me as this successful woman because I was making so much money. And because I had so much money, I didn't have a sense of what to do with it, so I was burning it, buying a convertible car, some properties, going on expensive Caribbean cruise holidays. I was living a really successful life externally, but inside I was so broken. I never felt successful.

Dawn: What's interesting is that's another example. You actually were successful, you just weren't owning it, embodying it, or connecting to yourself in those spaces. Both things can be true.

Anu: True.

Dawn: It's easy to dismiss that as if you weren't, when in actuality you were, and you just weren't connected to yourself, weren't honoring yourself, and you were creating that through, maybe, protection and trying to outrun something waiting for you to address and take care of yourself through.

Anu: Yeah, which is why self-trust is the key to believing anything about ourselves, having that trust in ourselves. I had zero trust in myself. I remember even trying to make decisions, I couldn't make decisions, I didn't have the ability to, so I'd be asking the wrong people to decide on my life for me. They were always the wrong decisions, because I wasn't aligned with what I needed in my life, what would be good for me. I'd be reliant on other people's decisions, which is sad, because the people I was associating with didn't have my best interests at heart a lot of the time. They were people taking advantage of me because I didn't have my identity, I didn't know who I was, so it's easy to be manipulated and controlled when you don't have self-trust, self-belief. I was entering into numerous toxic relationships where I'd get abused.

Dawn: I've seen this many times, especially when it's a child wound, that when we're children we have to rely on others, we can't take care of ourselves, and so we end up, because we have to be able to trust people in some way, turning that wound almost into ourselves. We think we can't be trusted, when it's really them who can't be trusted. But then it can carry into adulthood, and it's just a misunderstanding, but it's almost survival when you're younger, because really you have to be able to rely even when they're unreliable.

Anu: So true. Especially in my case, because my perpetrator had told me not to tell anybody about what was happening, for those years I lived my life in suppression. I wasn't able to communicate my feelings or emotions to anybody, not even my parents. Bad things happened to me even in my late teens, but I suppressed everything, kept it all in, because part of me was like, who's going to believe me? And secondly, I didn't know how to even start to comprehend all this stuff, because it was very traumatic. How do you tell your mom and dad you've just been pushed into an alleyway, groped, and nearly raped? It wasn't really a level of communication I was able to have or understand at that time. So I kept everything in, pushed under the carpet, not dealt with, hoping it would go away.

Dawn: What first made you realize that healing wasn't just about recovering from the past, but about changing how we live today?

Anu: Obviously the past is the past, whatever has happened, and it's good to be aware of it, because without understanding what's happened to you, it's hard to understand yourself today, in your life. But it's important we don't remain stuck in the past, because that's a huge trauma response, being stuck in the past, or anxious about the future, and we forget to be in the present. Healing to me has been about understanding what's happened, understanding where I am today, and understanding that whatever's happened in the past shouldn't be impacting who I am today, because today's a totally new day. We've been given this beautiful life, and it's about asking yourself, who am I, understanding your identity, how do I want to live my life. If you're feeling low, which is normal, the emotional pain doesn't just go away, then what can I do to make myself feel better today? It doesn't have to be starting a whole new therapy process, but what are the small things that can make me feel better today?

Dawn: I love that you said it doesn't impact you. I'd say it'd be fair to say for anyone listening that it does impact you, but it doesn't have to define you.

Anu: Yeah, perfect, I love that. 

Dawn: So when you started to build your business, how did this impact those early years?

Anu: Wow, a lot came up. The start of my whole therapy and coaching journey was actually writing my book, because I wanted to communicate to people not only my life journey, but the practices that helped me heal. Having that in my book shaped my whole life from then on, because it wasn't only my memoir, it was more like a self-help tool where people would learn about what trauma is, the impacts it has on us, and what we can do to help ourselves. That's why I'm doing what I am today. I've trained in emotional freedom therapy, which has been such a beautiful practice, because it helped release a lot of the stored emotions I was feeling at the time of the pain. Reiki really helped too, a beautiful energy healing practice that helped unblock all my chakras, my throat chakra in particular, which is why I wasn't able to communicate. I did a lot of reiki work to help get the energy flowing through my body again, and hypnotherapy worked really well for me. It's interesting, because these aren't the clinical practices people normally talk about, like cognitive behavioral therapy, because for me it's always been the spiritual work. It might not be for everyone, but for me, I've realized we are spirit. Our emotional being, our mind, body, and soul are all interconnected, we're holistic beings, and if we want to heal, it's not just about the talking therapy, the mind work, the whole body needs to heal, it's a holistic approach, which is why I'm so passionate about the work I do. Embodiment coaching forms part of my practice too, because it implements the whole body. In my practice I'm all about giving my clients the tools to heal themselves, to become self-healers, because I'm not there to have sessions with them for years on end, I want them to have a limited time with me where they become their own healers, and I feel like that's what's going to help them live better lives, if they're able to regulate their own emotions and identify triggers as they come up. We're humans, we have a life full of triggers, so it's how we deal with those triggers that's going to be important for us moving forward.

Dawn: You'd described a ceiling you were butting up against, that wasn't revenue or opportunity. What was happening instead?

Anu: Wow. God, I've always been one of those where I thought I had to achieve the most in my professional life, because if I achieved more money, more certificates, more education, it would make me a better person. That's what I believed, because I'd lost my whole sense of identity, and I needed that external validation. That's how I lived a lot of my life, and I think the real turning point for me was during COVID, so it wasn't even that long ago, where I was just in work mode, thinking, I'm at home now, what can I achieve. Along with writing my book, I decided to create an online educational platform. In England there are these grammar school entrance exams a lot of children go for, a very competitive market, and I'd already had a whole business around it. I decided to turn it into an online course, because COVID meant people were at home so they could study it. I created it all on my own, it was hard work, a lot of hours went into it, and it was something I wanted to accomplish, because it gave me a sense of achievement, external validation. I created it, it started to go to market, and I realized I was depressed. It wasn't fulfillment for me after all the hard work I put into it, it wasn't what I wanted to pursue. Every business requires a lot of investment to succeed, but I just wanted to get rid of it, I was already done by that point, burnt out from creating it, because I had a lot of emotional ties to it, having been in the business for 20 years, a huge investment of time, energy, and resource. I just kept it, wasn't running it, it was just being run in the background as passive income, and it was making me feel worse, year on year, I was feeling rubbish about it. I didn't even want to look at emails coming in from customers purchasing the course, every time an email came through it made me feel really icky, because I wasn't aligned to it anymore. It was only earlier this year that I finally sold it, after all these years of keeping it, and I feel free. As soon as it went, I was like, why was I keeping a hold of it for so long? It's because there was an emotional attachment to it. I learned a big lesson: don't hold onto something if you're no longer aligned to it, because it's not going to serve you.

Dawn: One thing I noticed in your story is that whenever uncertainty appeared, your response was action, more projects, more certifications, more speaking, more content. When did you begin noticing that as a pattern?

Anu: Probably just when I sold this course. But I feel like, as part of my healing journey, I've always known that was a trauma response, because if you're not happy within yourself, you're always going to be searching for ways to seek that happiness, thinking, if I start another business it'll make me happy, or another accreditation will make me happy. That's when I realized it's not, happiness can't be bought, it's something we feel within ourselves, and that feeling only comes when we fully accept ourselves for who we are, when we're fully aligned with our values, our purpose, our beliefs, our needs. Tony Robbins' work has been huge in my understanding around this, because I wouldn't have understood about belief systems if I hadn't attended his seminar. I really praise a lot of his teachings, and it was just understanding that true fulfillment is within. I used to chase fulfillment thinking I'd find it by going to another country, moving to another place, having another boyfriend, but it had to be settled and grounded with who I was in order to feel that fulfillment, and that only happens when we've done the work. We have to do the work.

Dawn: I don't know about you, but the achievement feels so much better when it's not chased in order to validate ourselves. It's actually, from a validated self, achieved, it feels more fulfilling.

Anu: So true. Absolutely, yes. Now I've simplified my life so much that I don't need all these different projects to feel fulfillment. I'm quite happy with simplicity now, focusing on a couple of projects that fulfill me, making sure they fulfill me, not dreading the next email from somebody who's part of that. It's being able to really enjoy your life, enjoy the things that matter. I didn't understand what love was for the majority of my life, I didn't understand how important it was to have healthy relationships, the importance of connection, having people around you that support and encourage you. It's such a huge part of everyone's lives, and if we don't have people around us who have our best interests at heart, we have to question whether these people should really be part of our lives. That's been a big part of my journey too, not getting rid of people, because some you can't, they're family, but keeping people at arm's length who should probably be there, and not letting certain people in.

Dawn: I think it's helpful to be the example of how you want to be treated, by treating yourself that way first.

Anu: Yes, love that. It makes a big difference. And then it's easier to identify when someone isn't, and you can decide whether they're someone you want to invest in teaching, or whether they're just not a good fit, and that's okay too.

Dawn: Absolutely.

Anu: Sometimes it's people who are very deep in our lives, we're not getting rid of them, but we don't have to give them energy or success.

Dawn: So how do you know now when you're operating from pressure instead of alignment, or chasing achievement instead of fulfillment?

Anu: Again, it's asking myself self-reflective questions, which I've become really good at, because I struggled at first, it was hard to answer questions about myself because I wasn't aware of myself. As I've become more aware, I can answer these questions very easily now. If a certain opportunity comes my way, I ask myself, does this align with my values and beliefs? Will it lead to more stress or will it lead to fulfillment, will it help me grow in certain ways? I ask myself these questions and write down the answers, see if it feels good or not, and if it doesn't, I have to say no, because life's too short to waste on areas and projects that don't fulfill you. You have to find ways to spend your time that either help you grow, make you happy, or contribute to your life in some way. For some people that's monetarily, which is fine, but is it giving you money and making you unhappy, or giving you money and making you happy?

Dawn: There's some distinction right there. What's become available to you that wasn't before, now that you have this self-awareness, this better communication with yourself, and aren't giving as much room to things that aren't aligned?

Anu: Oh, yeah. I feel like when you give the universe an energy, an abundance, a certain way of living, it returns that back to you. It's very rare in my life now that bad things are happening to me, whereas before, that's all there was, bad things happening all the time, because it was the energy I was giving out. Now, because I'm grateful, I practice gratitude, I'm always practicing affirmations and incantations, things I believe about myself, I'm always looking after my mindset and doing good for people, giving them value, contributing however I can. Even though self-care is important to me and I look after my needs, I'm always very quick to help people wherever I can, because that's always been my nature. I know when I was in my ego state I became very selfish and lost that whole way I used to live my life, which was to help people, but now I love it, I absolutely love helping people, and I feel the more we live aligned to our true values, the more the universe delivers that back to you. So I don't live in fear anymore, I don't worry, I've never feared death either. That's been a big thing for me, and in my embodiment training we did a death meditation, and for some people it was quite triggering, because you're meditating dying, being in your grave and decomposing. But I understand the beauty of it now, because when you know we're all going to die, it helps you live your life more authentically and true to yourself, because you don't want to waste it living it any other way.

Dawn: I think we always have an opportunity to die to certain things, certain parts of our lives, identities that have either been placed on us or that we've absorbed or created ourselves out of safety. I think it could be useful in so many ways. I was just thinking too, you created this opening for good into your life that maybe you didn't know was available to you before. These tools you've employed have connected you to the goodness that was always available to you, though not always present.

Anu: It's so beautiful to see that opening yourself to that is so good, including the taking care of others, being generous with others. I truly believe we're all built for service in some way, and it's coming to your truest self and fitting with your, that's why it felt terrible before when you were operating in a way that wasn't true to you.

Dawn: But felt necessary for survival at the time.

Anu: Yeah, it did at the time. Absolutely.

Dawn: You can have so much compassion for why that's the way you were operating. I would never even judge that. In fact, it brought you to this space. Maybe it was a necessary part of your journey, and the fruit of it on the other side is this beautiful, aligned, aware state where you're able to use your experience to help others.

Anu: Yeah, absolutely. I have zero regrets. People always question that, and I say, yeah, I don't have any regrets about what happened to me. I can't turn back time, and I've forgiven not only myself, but I've forgiven the perpetrators, because otherwise I'm carrying that pain, that anger, aren't I? Whereas when you forgive, you're letting go of what doesn't serve you anymore, what's not yours anymore. I'm a big believer in learning to forgive, which I know a lot of people struggle with.

Dawn: It's such a beautiful thing we do for ourselves, and yet we can often confuse it as something we're doing for the other person. Forgiveness is such a personal gift we can give ourselves. You work with many people who've experienced significant adversity. What do you notice about leaders who begin operating differently?

Anu: Wow, I feel that so many, especially leaders, see any traumatic stuff that's happened to them as being something of weakness, so they probably won't want to share it with many people, which is why they try to brush things under the carpet and not deal with it, because they don't see vulnerability as strength, they see it as weakness. But I feel times have changed now, and so many people are speaking out about stuff that's happened to them, and if anything, if they started to speak out more themselves, they could turn that around and actually inspire people, teach people that talking about the painful stuff that's happened to you is going to make you feel better eventually, because you're letting it out, not keeping it in. They say a problem shared is a problem halved, I'm a firm believer of that, it's freedom from it. I hope anyone walking around sweeping it under the rug takes a moment to recognize how incredibly strong they are. You're out there living, you may not be happy with how you're living, you may be doing things you're not super proud of, but the fact you can experience something traumatic and still be out in the world means you're strong.

Dawn: Now the invitation is to give that strength back to yourself, instead of using it to try and avoid the past, start using it to just move forward, recognizing how strong and powerful you are, and again, you are not defined by it, you are absolutely impacted by it, but you are not defined by it.

Anu: Yes, I love that. 

Dawn: As you look at your work now, what are you most passionate about helping people recognize?

Anu: The life patterns, just understanding how trauma has shaped their whole way of living, stuff they wouldn't even draw attention to because they don't understand it's a problem until they come to therapy and we talk about it and realize the patterns they're in. One of the main patterns I see is the choice of partners people are drawn to, because when you're in a trauma state, you're automatically drawing other low vibrational people into your life, and then you're basically going to remain in that low vibrational state because you're both in it together, and the energy we give off is what we receive in return. Sometimes it's hard, especially when there are kids involved, but there's a lot of toxicity in the relationship, abuse, there's always abuse, and then it's understanding why that's happened and what they can do now to make things better. Unfortunately, if the other partner isn't ready to heal, it's about, do you leave that partner, is there a way to parent your children by not being together, it could become quite a tragic thing to think about. I feel we all have to understand our life patterns, and relationships are always up there when it comes to those patterns. And obviously things like the jobs people end up in, because what you find with trauma survivors is they end up in jobs they could probably do much better in, they could be on a better salary if they had more self-belief and confidence to go for higher paid positions, but they go for lower paid jobs because that's all they feel they're worth. That's quite common, whereas if you're a bit like me, you go the other end of the spectrum where nothing's ever enough, and you're constantly trying to strive and overachieve, and you're going to get burnt out. There's never a happy medium, always one or the other, we're very all-or-nothing creatures, we move to extremes.

Dawn: For someone listening who has spent years trying to earn the feeling of enough through achievement, or undervaluing themselves in that example you gave of going for the lesser job or lesser salary, what would you want them to know?

Anu: Wow. That you are capable of so much, and I want everyone to know we've got unique abilities, we're all very unique individuals, very unique DNA, and we're all special, because I feel we've all got special qualities, and it's hard to see that, I get it, especially when you've been told you're nothing for so many years. But it's understanding what your unique quality is, because that could turn into your purpose-driven work, understanding who you are underneath this mask, understanding what you need in your life to keep you happy and fulfilled, to basically live your life on your terms, how you want to live it.

Dawn: How can people learn more about you, connect with you, and who are your ideal clients?

Anu: Oh, I just love working with growth mindset people, people who've gone through a lot of trauma and are looking for ways to live their life better, they want to improve, want to make that change, want to make the decision to leave a partner or change careers, people who want to make that change. I feel they're the ones who are halfway there already, it's just that willingness to do something. You can find me all over social media, Facebook, LinkedIn, Instagram. On Instagram I do a lot of videos, talking educational videos, if you want daily inspiration come find me. If you want to connect through my website, it's victim2victor.net, with a number two.

Dawn: We're going to have all of those links in the show notes. Anu, thank you. One of the things that stayed with me from today's conversation is that sometimes what looks like ambition is actually protection, not because achievement is wrong, but because when our worth becomes attached to our output, no amount of achievement can answer the deeper question we're asking. So what if the invitation isn't to achieve less but to stop asking achievement to do a job it was never designed to do? If today's conversation resonated with you, you'll find the links to connect with Anu and learn more about Victim to Victor in the show notes. And if this conversation surfaced a thought you've been trying to outrun with more doing, I'd love to invite you to Meet You in the Lobby. It's a free experience inspired by my book, The Inner Room. You bring one thought, and you'll receive two guided invitations designed to help you stop making an enemy of that thought and begin using it to create greater unity and a deeper relationship with yourself. You'll find the link to that in the show notes. And if you enjoyed today's conversation, subscribe, leave a review, and share it with someone who needs the reminder that they don't have to earn what has already been true about them. And remember, results inform the how. They never get to decide the who or the whether. See you next time.

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