Yasmine Charles
Title: Family Scapegoat Trauma Coach
Public Speaking/Storytelling
Education: Norfolk State University- Food and Culinary Science
Norfolk, VA, USA
Biography
“My dear daughter-broken, shattered, and yet they put on Band-Aids, saying, ‘[Girl] it’s not so bad. You’ll be just fine.’ But things are not ‘just fine.’ For they have treated the brokenness of the daughter of My people superficially by saying, ‘peace, peace’ when there is no peace.” Jeremiah 8: 11, MSG, AMP.
Many of us women are either angry or depressed because we were products of poor parenting growing up. In our adult lives, we attract negative energy because we have a distorted image of what real love is, while orbiting around toxic people including loved ones because we don't know our identity. It's time to remove the Band-Aids.
Hello! My name’s Yasmine Charles. I'm a Haitian American immigrant and author of The Cost of the American Dream. I’m an educator, a speaker, a US Navy veteran, and I’ve been featured on PBS for a Women’s History Month documentary. My memoir, The Cost of the American Dream is part of my legacy. Some of us have the gift of marriage, motherhood, and romantic relationships, while others have the gift of singleness. I belong in the latter group. It's a powerful awareness when we align with our purpose.
I have a powerful story that speaks to where many women are. My mission as a family scapegoat abuse overcomer is to inspire women who grew up in dysfunctional family systems, women who were rejected, shamed, belittled, and blamed, women who feel lost and stuck in unhealed trauma to find their true authentic selves outside of the false family label and to finally come home to themselves.
For most of my life, I felt small because I had a cloud of inferiority and worthlessness hanging over me. I’ve spent many years being belittled as a scapegoat and with that came immense rage and anger, sentiments I didn’t know how to process. Thanks to immense self-care, therapy, and the writing of my memoir, The Cost of the American Dream: Diary of a Homeless Soul, I now live in a very happy and peaceful place. I'm now the woman, the queen, and the beautiful soul I was intended to be.
Passion
My assignment is to inspire women who struggle to validate their own sense of worth climb out of their anger, out of their rage, out of their shame, and guilt. I want to help them climb out of the pit of worthlessness and inferiority that was put on them by family and by trauma to finally come home to themselves. It's time for us to start living from the center of our being, and to feel confident within the truth of who we really are.
Featured Video
I am willing to travel
More than 100 miles
When it comes to payments
I generally get paid for speaking but make exceptions
Topics
Best Story
When emphasizing the importance of separating ourselves from our toxic past and the dangers of seeking safety and validation in what’s familiar, I tell the story of Iraqi politician Saddam Hussein who was captured in the same abusive household where his stepfather used to beat him as a little boy.
Origin Story
Book Description: In her memoir, The Cost of the American Dream: Diary of a Homeless Soul, Yasmine strips herself of religious restrictions and expectations, giving voice to her issues, pain, vulnerabilities, and deepest desires to help us understand that our traumas are often generational. Therefore, it is not our responsibility to carry them for the rest of our lives. This book is about overcoming adversity and trauma. It inspires women to redeem, recall, reclaim, reconnect, and realign themselves with the essence and the truth of their being.
Example talks
Resiliency
I gave this talk in Maryland in March 2022
"...All of us been called to do something in this world...I must say that I’m excited for you, for the courage, the strength, and the inspiration you’re going to withdraw from me today. I’m a strong believer that our experiences are not just for us.
...To begin, I want you to know the fact that I am standing here, even before telling you the details of my story and how I grew up, I believe that my presence alone is evidence that greatness and worthiness is our birthright. Regardless of where we come from, regardless of our country of origin, regardless of the kind of parents we had, what they failed to do, or perhaps, weren’t equipped to do for us. Regardless, of the trauma we’ve experienced, or the number of times we’ve failed, been rejected, or overlooked. Whether we’re rich, poor, middle class, immigrant, American, black, white, Latino, Asian, gay, or straight; greatness and worthiness is our birthright."