Tending to Storyteller Vicarious Trauma with Michelle Vande Hay

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In This Episode

Content Warning: Michelle briefly talks about the death of a loved one. Be mindful of your emotional capacity as you listen in.

Storytelling in the nonprofit world is a powerful act of witness, but it can also take a quiet toll. When we listen to story after story of grief, injustice, or survival, our bodies absorb more than we realize.

This is vicarious trauma, the invisible weight that settles in when we hold space for other people’s pain without tending to our own. Many storytellers and mission-driven leaders find themselves emotionally exhausted not because they don’t care, but because they care deeply and continuously.

In today’s episode, we’re joined by Michelle Vande Hay, a Certified Holistic Life Coach and Trauma Sensitive Yoga Facilitator who works with leaders and teams navigating compassion fatigue, overgiving, and burnout. Michelle helps mission-driven professionals reconnect with their bodies, their purpose, and their boundaries so they don’t lose themselves in the work they feel called to do.

Together, we explore how vicarious trauma shows up in our daily lives and how honoring stories also means honoring the storytellers. This conversation is an invitation to notice what your body carries and to consider that caring well for others begins with caring well for yourself.

About Michelle Vande Hay

Michelle is a Certified Holistic Life Coach & Trauma Sensitive Yoga Facilitator. She empowers mission-driven leaders and teams to overcome the culture of overgiving and self-sacrifice so they don’t lose themselves in their mission. Michelle guides leaders & teams to overcome compassion fatigue, vicarious trauma, and burnout. Through holistic coaching, trauma-sensitive yoga, and breathwork, clients connect more deeply to themselves, their mission, and their community, which creates long-lasting, sustainable impact.

Connect with Michelle Vande Hay

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Transcripts

Maria: Well, hello everybody. Today we're diving into a topic that often goes unspoken in our space, and that is the emotional toll of both story gathering and storytelling. Whether you're interviewing survivors, documenting injustice, or sharing the weight of community challenges, nonprofit storytellers carry the weight of those stories.

Joining us today is Michelle Vande Hay, a trauma sensitive, holistic life and business coach and certified yoga facilitator. Michelle works with mission driven leaders and teams to help them navigate compassion fatigue, vicarious trauma, and burnout among other things. I'm so excited that we're talking about this really important topic. Welcome, Michelle.

Michelle: Thanks for having me, Maria.

Maria: So glad that you're here. I would love to know more about your journey. Tell us what your path was to becoming a trauma sensitive, holistic life and business coach.

Michelle: It is quite a journey, but it definitely includes some of my own trauma. One of the big things that was a catalyst for me was the death of my son, and that flipped my world upside down and made me question all the things. When I was in my self discovery about a year later, I was trying to figure out, what do I want to do?

A friend of mine suggested I become a coach. And I was kind of like, I don't want to be a coach. That just doesn't feel right to me. And she basically said, well, what else are you going to do? And I thought, you're right. I don't know what else I would do. So I kind of reluctantly got into coaching. I started out as a health coach.

Then I came across this holistic life coaching certification a couple of months in. I was realizing with my clients that they needed more work with their mindset and beliefs than they needed to know what to eat and what not to eat, so it felt very aligned. I was also thinking, I'm not going to tell anyone I'm a certified holistic life coach. I'm just going to use it.

But then I realized I should be helping women after loss. So I made that shift and did that for a couple of years, and then I started working with some nonprofit leaders and organizations that were hosting events. They were asking me to lead a meditation or speak, and I realized that a lot of them were losing themselves in their passion for the work they were doing, which was similar to my current clients who had lost themselves.

At the same time, I came across this trauma sensitive yoga certification. Initially, when I started coaching, I thought I don't want to have anything to do with trauma. That feels too big for me to be able to help people with. I have a background in business. I don't have a background in psychology. It felt aligned to do this trauma sensitive yoga certification. It helped me learn a lot about trauma and how to help people without being a therapist, taking more of a body centered approach. That's how I got into being a holistic life coach and then added that layer of trauma sensitivity to it.

I realized I'm really a life and business coach. I want to see nonprofits thrive and be able to see the change that we want to see in the world. The best way to do that is to help the people leading the change.

Maria: Absolutely. Thank you for being so generous with your story. I can totally relate. When I started learning about being trauma informed, I thought, I need to be careful. I am not a therapist. I am not a social worker. Who am I? Folks are going to call me out. I learned two things quickly. One is you don't have to have an MSW to be trauma informed in your work. And also few therapists and social workers are actually trauma informed themselves. This fear, this block I had, dissipated when I realized that this is a movement. We all should be trauma informed and we can do this. The arts can be doing this. Nonprofits, real estate agents, hair stylists. No matter where we are and who we work with and serve, being trauma informed, even as part of our title, I'm a big fan.

Michelle: Yeah.

Maria: Cheers to that. You talked about your own personal trauma and learning that folks, especially in the nonprofit space, experience what we might call compassion fatigue. You called it losing this sense of care, which I relate to. I'm seeing that this year compounded. Let's talk about what we're here to talk about today, and that is vicarious trauma, especially in the context of a nonprofit and storytelling. How would you define vicarious trauma?

Michelle: Vicarious trauma can happen with anyone in human services or in any crisis. Law enforcement, emergency services, healthcare, social workers, therapists. Anyone who is experiencing or seeing someone else's trauma play out in front of them or listening to stories. It's really the repetitiveness of that that creates vicarious trauma. If you hear something once, it's not necessarily going to cause vicarious trauma. But if you're doing something where it's happening over and over, that creates vicarious trauma. Then you can have similar symptoms or similar things happen within your body as trauma. That's how I define it.

Maria: Yeah, absolutely. I find it fascinating how our body's nervous system kicks in when we need it most, when we truly are not feeling safe or in danger. But the same things turn on when we're safe but maybe experiencing retraumatization. Vicarious trauma is the same thing where you receive, either watching or listening, just holding space, watching the news. In the case of our listeners, collecting and gathering painful stories over and over, our bodies get confused and think we are not safe, and then we get dysregulated. How do you see that come up for people who are storytelling? What might that look like? Why does this happen and how can that impact our bodies and minds and hearts?

Michelle: It can happen through listening to stories over and over. It's especially challenging right now because if part of your job is listening to stories, but then you're also going on social media or even just going out in public, all of these things are happening around us too. That adds a compound effect of hearing other people's stories and seeing it played out. That's how it happens.

If anyone has experienced a prior traumatic experience, that increases the risk of vicarious trauma. A lot of times people who go into nonprofit work have some sort of personal reason, like, this is why I want to help people because I went through something similar. Being aware is important to know that it can happen and then what it might look like as it's coming up for you.

Maria: When we experience something painful or difficult, we might be on the lookout a little more. But with vicarious trauma, it's tricky to know what to look out for. What signs or symptoms that we're experiencing vicarious trauma should we be on the lookout for?

Michelle: There are lots of signs. These symptoms could be from something else too, but even feeling emotionally numb or shut down. If you feel like you're shutting off that emotional side of yourself, that can be something. Feeling more sleepy than normal or having difficulty sleeping or staying asleep that is out of the ordinary for you.

If you're someone who already has difficulty sleeping, that might not be something you notice. But even aches and pains in your body and your immune system too. Your resistance to illness. If you notice you're getting sick more often, even if it's not significant illness, you might wonder why you feel like you're getting a cold all the time. It can be subtle initially and then get bigger with losing a sense of meaning or purpose, wondering what's the purpose of this anymore.

I think this is common right now because there are so many things happening around us that it can feel like what's the point. That can also be a sign of vicarious trauma.

Maria: When I was looking into vicarious trauma, there was one sign that really stuck out to me, and that's the sense of grandiosity. Oftentimes we think about feeling like we want to give up or get out of the space. But what also comes up is martyrdom. Our bodies and minds feel like we can't stop because our role is so important and we have to get these stories out. We think, I am so privileged, I haven't experienced these things, so the least I can do is listen to these stories and be a support, not honoring and acknowledging the huge impact that is having on our body and mind.

Something else to look out for, not just for yourself but for your friends and colleagues, is not being able to turn off. That person that has to go in on Saturday or has to stay late. This is also a sign of trauma and vicarious trauma. I think it has to do with guilt and shame. Some responses we don't totally understand. Bodies are weird. Bodies are brilliant. Bodies are weird in how they respond. What's at stake for us if we keep going, hope this is just a season or a wonky month, and we don't stop and recognize these signs and do something about it? What could happen?

Michelle: Some of the subtle symptoms can become bigger symptoms. Illnesses can become long lasting. Especially when we talk about our bodies recognizing it. It's our bodies saying, I can't keep doing this, so I'm trying to slow you down. You're not listening, so I'm going to keep trying to slow you down. Relationships with your family, coworkers, anyone. If you start noticing you're isolating yourself or getting into fights with people more, that affects your fun and joy in all areas of your life. That's where things can get bigger.

Addictive behaviors can show up too as coping mechanisms. It could be drugs or alcohol, but it can also be eating, scrolling social media, shopping, gambling. It could be anything. You're doing this thing and it's your coping mechanism. Especially for someone who feels they have to keep going in, it could be getting addicted to caffeine because you feel like it's the only way you can keep going. It can become an addiction to cope with everything you're dealing with but becomes more destructive than helpful.

Maria: Something you said really stuck out to me, and that's the idea that our bodies are not going to give up. Our alarm systems are not suddenly going to be fine. They are going to keep telling you something is wrong. Trust that your body is not going to say fine, keep doing what you're doing. It's going to keep telling you that something is off. What kind of boundaries can storytellers create when they are holding space for painful, difficult, and traumatic stories that might help mitigate vicarious trauma?

Michelle: One of the things you can do before listening to a story is mentally preparing yourself, almost like holding space for yourself and saying, this is not my story. It's setting an emotional boundary without being detached.

I was reading about compassion fatigue recently. Someone said it should be called empathy fatigue, not compassion fatigue. With empathy, we really feel other people's feelings. With compassion, you can be understanding and hold space for people without feeling those feelings. You can have those emotional boundaries without being detached.

After listening to a story, take some time. If you notice anything in your body, tightness or anything that doesn't feel like it's yours or feels constrictive, maybe you need to stretch or shake it off. That can help finish that cycle of experiencing the trauma and then releasing it. Those can be ways to hold personal boundaries so you're not taking it on for yourself.

Maria: I love this exercise. After receiving a story, pausing and listening to your body and asking yourself, is this me or is this the story I received? It reminds me of my therapist who tells me she is an empath and she will feel what her clients are feeling. She'll say, I'm feeling this in my throat or my back, and it's not me, this is you. It's a great practice for her and it mirrors back to me how I'm feeling.

After receiving a story or writing a story, to think, I am feeling anxiety or stress or my head hurts, is this me or is this somebody else's experience that I am absorbing? That's a really good technique and boundary. You have this background in yoga. Talk to us about how we might use trauma sensitive yoga or breath work before and after gathering and telling stories.

Michelle: With trauma sensitive yoga, I will do a disclaimer that I have no other yoga background. I just have the experience of trauma sensitive yoga, which was interesting because people going through that certification who had done a yoga certification before were in my peer group. They said it's almost easier for you because you don't have to unlearn things.

One of the main principles of trauma sensitive yoga is noticing things in your body but recognizing that depending on your past trauma experiences or what your body is going through, our bodies can turn off the senses. Our internal sense is called interoception. That's a big part of what trauma sensitive yoga can do, help turn those senses back on so you can feel what your body is feeling. Your brain turns them off as a protective mechanism because you don't want to feel hard, horrible things. Your body turns off that ability to feel or recognize things in your body.

When you practice noticing your body throughout the day, not just in certain times, that can help you then when you are listening to people's stories or sharing people's stories to be able to recognize, I'm noticing this in my body. Then also asking, what do I want to do with what I'm noticing and creating that sense of choice. With trauma, we lose that power and ability to choose. Trauma is something that is happening to you. Whether it's your own or someone else's, you don't have control. You are just listening. Bringing back some of that control when you notice something and realize you get to decide what you do with that information.

Maria: Michelle, the thread that I'm getting from this conversation is how important it is to know ourselves, to know our bodies, to pick up on changes, to pick up on what's ours and what's not ours. We appreciate your wisdom. How can listeners connect with you and learn more from you and possibly work with you?

Michelle: My website is michellevandehay.com. Connect with me on LinkedIn, Facebook, Instagram, those are the main places. I also have a YouTube channel and podcast. If you look up Michelle Vande Hay, you should find me.

The Inner Circle is a group coaching program. I'm there as your guide for growth, but we also have the wisdom of everyone else in the group as peer mentoring. It's a dual way of learning and growing while being in community and having the knowledge and expertise of everyone in the group. All that information is on my website.

Maria: Folks, make sure to go to the show notes and check that out. Michelle, thank you so much for spending time with us today. We appreciate it.

Michelle: Thanks for having me, Maria.

Maria BryanOctober 21, 2025Comment