It is the last thing anyone in the world wants to go through but when it does, they hope to at least come out the other side alive. Many tragedies leave physical scars that serve as a constant reminder of the terrible
experience the person lived through. Scars carry a negative connotation, and most people wish for the scar to disappear so it can symbolize that they have moved on from the experience.
But one such woman, Nick Cotto, disagrees with that belief. She feels that women should embrace their scars.
“For me, it’s about getting the message out there that your scar is not something that you need to hide. Really you should turn your trauma into your biggest triumph, your pain into your biggest purpose,” Nick said.
She continued, “People should look at scars like, ‘Hey what’s wrong with her’ but [rather], ‘Oh my God, look at her scar. What strength it had to take to get through that and to overcome that.’ So I want people to look at scars like a thing of beauty and strength.”
When Nick holds a photo shoot session with a woman with scars, she then takes the photos, edits them to perfect it and shows it to her client – which always has a profound impact.
“After they’re edited and they get their pictures and we put it together in the storyboard and it goes out, they’ll look at themselves and say, ‘Is that me?’. I’m like, ‘Yeah, that’s you. That’s how the world sees you,’ because nine times out of ten that’s not how the person sees themself,” Nick said.
She continued, “They’re so bogged down with their trauma or just trying to hide it, you know. They don’t walk out of here the same as they walked in. They just don’t because they get to talk about something that people really, or they think people don’t want to hear about. So it’s been really transformative,” she added. Nick has a skillset for encouraging women to open up about their scars and their personal experiences with how they received those scars. Most of her skill was simply born out of experience dealing with and overcoming breast cancer.
“It was important for me to track my journey through cancer because how could I ask women to come in and share their trauma and wasn’t willing to do it,” she said.
Nick also offered words of encouragement to any woman who is currently going through a traumatic experience such as dealing with breast cancer, for example. “You will get through it you will come out the other side if you just take one step at a time take one day at a time it will make you a stronger person whatever it is. You may not feel that right now but there is hope on the other side of that brokenness there really is hope,” she said.
And hope is a powerful thing.
To learn more about Nichola Cotto and her organization contact her at nick@wearenotbroken.org and follow her on Facebook:
https://www.facebook.com/wearenotbroken2019
A Message from Trudy Jacobson
“Nick’s story is one of adversity. To go through what she went through and now to help other women is very inspiring.” – Trudy Jacobson
Watch the full interview with Nick Cotto at
