June 2, 2023 • 59 mins
Natalia Rachel is the founder of Iluma Health and author of “Why am I Like This?” As a therapist, she believes that the root of healing the world begins with healing our own trauma.
Natalia spills:
- The impact trauma has on our relationships and how we take in the world
- Why trauma isn’t about what happened but rather how it’s left “unmetabolized” by our bodies
- Missed symptoms of having “less easy to spot” trauma
- Her unpopular opinion of why knowing your personality type can be a danger to your evolution
- The dangers of allowing a diagnosis to become your identity
- Trauma Bonding: what is it and how does it impact intimacy
- Why we often feel repulsed by people who are “good” for us but attracted to those who are “bad” for us
- Why we can’t rush embodiment and why “healing” for too long can be harmful
- How popular self-help advice can perpetuate shame and be more harmful than helpful
- and more….
Amazon link to Natalia's book: Why Am I like This?: Illuminating the traumatized self
Human Intelligence Leadership Program
Module 1 will be happening in U.S.A this year.
Dates: Friday, 29 September 2023 to Sunday, 1 October 2023, in the
Location: U.S.A., Austin Texas (Casa de Luz).
To register for module 1, click HERE
Instagram: @natalia_rachel_change
The Truthiest Life on Instagram @thetruthiestlife
Host @lisahayim
To support TTL, subscribe, follow, or share episodes with family and friends!
If you’re loving TTL, please leave a review on Apple Podcasts https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-truthiest-life/id1535516122?uo=2
Edited by Houston Tilley
Intro Jingle by Alyssa Chase aka @findyoursails
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:01):
No, you'll be.
Speaker 2 (00:04):
Even when times gethard and you feel you're in the dark.
Speaker 1 (00:12):
C see just how beautiful life can be.
Speaker 2 (00:18):
When you soten your heart, you can finally start to
live your tu seious life.
Speaker 3 (00:31):
Hello everybody, Welcome back to the truthiest life. It is
officially June, and that brings a big smile to my
face because June is the official start of summer.
Speaker 4 (00:44):
It's also my birthday month.
Speaker 3 (00:46):
And it's just the beginning the precipice of the slowness
and culture that we don't typically live in, commencing more
time with family, more time just being, and some of
that added pressure of doing just falling to the wayside.
Speaker 4 (01:08):
At least that's how we envision it.
Speaker 3 (01:10):
We all know that this season goes really fast, and
it's really hard if we think about it, to really
go from our day to day during the year to
summer mindset, especially because most of us still work during
the summer, and achieving that transition is more than just
a mindset change, It's a nervous system change. A couple
(01:33):
years back, I came to that revelation that it takes
doing things differently to feel them differently, and I thought
of the just for Joy June Challenge. I never implemented it,
but I'm implementing it now and that's what matters. My
birthday is June thirtieth, so I love the idea of
(01:54):
putting some intention behind June and stepping into that new
year for me as the most intentional version of me possible.
That being said, I have never implemented anything for thirty days,
so this is a true challenge for me. I usually
steer away from any sort of challenges, usually because they
come under the umbrella of diet culture or forcing yourself
(02:17):
to move your body or eat a certain way, which
sometimes can be a totally healthy thing, but oftentimes it
makes something coming from a forced and disciplined place rather
than a place of true self love and self care.
But I'm hoping that this just for Joy June challenge can.
Speaker 4 (02:35):
Be a little bit different. So what is it?
Speaker 3 (02:37):
Simply, it's challenging yourself every day to do one thing
just for joy, not something that has anything to do
with your work, and not something that you would maybe
ordinarily do. And each day of the week, so Monday
through Friday, we'll tap into doing one thing just for joy,
and you're really on your own for this but I
would love for you to tag me and share it
(02:58):
with me and create a little community around it. And
it can be something as small as having a coffee
on your porch in the quiet before you start your day,
to going to a yoga class or a walk, or
baking or even taking a nap. There's nothing that makes
joy one thing.
Speaker 4 (03:19):
For every person.
Speaker 3 (03:21):
So if one of those things sounded stressful to you,
like if you'd hate to bake, you know that's not
going to be your joyful activity. But whatever it is,
whether it's thirty seconds or an hour long, just indulge
in it. Give yourself radical permission to be there, be
now without the mind doing what it does and stealing
from us what we deserve in that moment. So that's
(03:43):
the Just for Joy June Challenge. I hope you'll join
me as we tap into slower, more gentler living and
put a little bit of intent into this summer that
we all deserve to slow down and live a little
bit more in tune with our joyful selves. Okay, today's
episode is absolutely life changing. It has totally changed my
(04:05):
life and as I recorded it with Natalia Rachel, I
was like, Wow, this is why I love doing what
I do, and I felt totally reinspired after taking a
little break from interviewing people because my headspace was, you know,
largely focused on stuff going on at home. I felt
soone reinvigorated by this conversation because I get to talk
(04:27):
to brilliant people and then share those conversations with brilliant
people all of you, and form this little community of
all of us who are trying to understand ourselves better,
not just in pursuit of self but in pursuit of
having better relationships with the world that we, you know,
(04:47):
inevitably interact with, whether that's the people at home, or
in our jobs, or just strangers on the street. If
we don't know ourselves well enough, where we are functioning
from our trauma. As Natalia so well explained, we are perceiving, expressing,
and relating sometimes from an untrue place, causing more harm
(05:07):
rather than help. Natalia Rachel is the founder of Illuma Health.
She's the author of Why Am I Like This? And
as a therapist, she believes that the root of healing
the world begins with healing our own trauma. And as
somebody who's been in therapy, my entire life very familiar
with trauma. I learned so much in this episode about
(05:28):
why we do the things that we do. I'm totally
fascinated by the concept of trauma bonding that she explains
and its impact on our ability to be intimate. It
goes kind of into that conversation of why we often
feel repulsed by people that are so obviously good for us,
and then why we're attracted to people that are bad
for us, and if we can't relate to that, certainly
(05:49):
you have a friend or a family member that falls
prey to this. I really love this conversation because she
really has a lot of unpopular opinions that I agree
with and calls out a lot of things that are
very commonplace in the healing and self help world and
brings attention to how they can actually be harmful to
(06:09):
our own healing. Absolutely love of love this episode. It's
one that I will be listening to a few times
over to fully digest and untangle within myself so that
I can truly show up as the true me, not
the trauma impacted me, and make this world a safer
place for all. I hope you love this episode and
(06:31):
I'll see you back here next week. Have a great
start to your JOm. Welcome to the Truthiest Life, Natalia.
I'm so excited to finally be sitting down with you.
Speaker 2 (06:41):
Thank you so much for having me. I think we're
going to have a beautiful conversation.
Speaker 3 (06:45):
Yes, it's a long time coming.
Speaker 1 (06:48):
You know.
Speaker 3 (06:48):
I do not like canceling on my guests, and I've
had to cancel on Natalia a few times because of life,
and she's been so compassionate and kind. But it's not
something that I like to do. But our schedules have
been hard to match up because not only are you
living in Singapore, but you are very busy changing.
Speaker 2 (07:07):
The world, doing my little part trying to anyway.
Speaker 3 (07:10):
Well, actually, your Instagram name has the word change in it,
and I'm going to of course link her below as usual,
But why do you have the word change in your
Instagram handle?
Speaker 1 (07:20):
I think that's what we're all seeking, right.
Speaker 2 (07:23):
All of my work is about healing and creating social change.
I think that they're symbiotic and so essentially I'm a
change worker.
Speaker 3 (07:32):
Hmmm, I've never heard anybody put it like that.
Speaker 4 (07:36):
So you are living in Singapore right now?
Speaker 3 (07:38):
Right?
Speaker 1 (07:38):
Yes, I've been here six years.
Speaker 5 (07:40):
Ben You're from where I'm from Sydney, Australia, so I
grew up there my whole life, and aside from a
very short nine months in France as a teen, Singapore
is the only other place that I've lived, and it's
been a miraculous journey of learning.
Speaker 2 (07:56):
About myself, about culture, about systems, and belonging.
Speaker 3 (08:02):
Well, you brought up a social change in what you do,
and yet your title is a psychotherapist.
Speaker 2 (08:08):
Correct, I'm not a psychotherapist, but I'm a therapist. So
my formative training is as a hypnotherapist and regression therapist,
and I'm also trained as a craneopsychotherapist, which is a
kind of like a form of osteopathy, and then I've
done a whole bunch of other stuff as well.
Speaker 3 (08:24):
Yes, my husband's actually a doctor of osteopathy and we
love craniosacral work.
Speaker 4 (08:29):
But I apologize.
Speaker 3 (08:30):
I thought that your background was in psychotherapy because of
largely a part of the somatic work that you do.
Speaker 2 (08:37):
So I've studied many different sematic trainings, but it's not
my formal qualification as a psychotherapist.
Speaker 1 (08:43):
But sematics is.
Speaker 2 (08:44):
A huge piece not only of my personal healing journey,
but my professional journey and the way I write and
speak and teach and just relate as a human.
Speaker 3 (08:53):
Now I relate to everything that you said. Although I
have a formal, you know, talk therapist and I have
my whole life, I think that a large part of
our listeners come to me because of the various modalities
of healing that I'm open to, and even as I
you know, I'm thirty five and I've been in therapy
probably since i was five for the first time my
(09:15):
parents put me in when my parents got divorced. I'm
still learning like new things from each type of healing
work that I do. So I very much appreciate your
approach to healing and the various qualifications that you have
because I think that allows you to really help somebody
(09:36):
from like a multi dimensional approach.
Speaker 2 (09:39):
Thank you for reflecting that to me. I think we
are so complex. We live in many dimensions, you know,
We're not so singular, and we love to put ourselves
in boxes and polarize ourselves and everything that I've explored,
not only on my own healing journey, but traveling around
the world to work and study. Now I've tried in Singapore, London,
(10:02):
I've studied in Norway and BALI like so many different
diverse places and trainings, and so to me, it's allowed
me to now see not only myself but people humanity
in general through this kaleidoscope.
Speaker 1 (10:16):
And so now a large part of my.
Speaker 2 (10:17):
Work is about helping other people to bring their kaleidoscope
into view, which will be unique different to mine. But
I think welcoming that complex processing and sense making is
really really important. So I don't believe in one modality
is the way. I believe we need to welcome many,
(10:38):
many perspectives and views and supports and see how they
refract through us.
Speaker 3 (10:43):
I love that, and I love how you see the
world through that kaleidoscope lens. It really helps to break
up that singularity, like you said, and penetrate different parts
of ourselves that in my experience are just dormant but
become a weakened by different stimulus and kind of all
these different modalities that you talk about can kind of
(11:04):
poke at these parts of us that are dormant or
repressed or part of us somewhere deep down. Okay, So
the social work that you are talking about, like we
need social change, is that what your focus is on
right now or do also work with individuals or is
that one and the same.
Speaker 2 (11:22):
I work a little bit with individuals now so less
and less, but I still do see private clients two
days a week. But a lot of my focus across
all the many layers that I'm working is on helping
us to better understand the nature of trauma, how it
decontextualizes inside our bodies, our minds, our relationships, and then
the communities, cultures, and systems that we create.
Speaker 1 (11:45):
So to me, when we explore.
Speaker 2 (11:47):
Our own personal blueprint and our own reason for being here,
and the ways that we have manifested our personality and
our relational self, we're at the same time exploring the
world we have quick created.
Speaker 1 (12:01):
And so I believe that when we do.
Speaker 2 (12:03):
Our own healing work, we become the social resources that
we've all been craving. So our embodiment of peace and
power and purity is the template for the world that
we want to create. So Heliotrolma change the world.
Speaker 4 (12:19):
Okay? Got it?
Speaker 3 (12:20):
That makes so much sense to me when you put
it like that. From my own self work as well,
I would have never been able to put it in
such beautiful language like you just did. But I've certainly
found that my own work of largely self compassion comes
to mind, has allowed me to live in a gentler,
(12:42):
more receptive place, less combatative, less refusing information that didn't
previously fit with me, and on the social front, that
makes me a better listener, and a better listener makes
me able to understand experiences that.
Speaker 4 (12:55):
Are not mine.
Speaker 3 (12:56):
And when we do that, we realize that the world
does revolve around us, and there's a lot going on
at the same time. So although my reality might look
like this, somebody else looks like this, and how can
I help them or they help me? Am I like
extracting your work and purpose correctly?
Speaker 1 (13:17):
Absolutely?
Speaker 2 (13:18):
I think so many of us are very traumatized, and
the way we perceive, express and relate is altered because
of that. And so when we heal, we stop seeing
through the lens of our trauma and our suppressed emotions,
and we stop projecting our paths onto other people and
turning others into perpetrators or to heroes, and we can
(13:40):
contain our dysfunction and we can see other people for
who they really are. And when we create that boundary
around ourselves, or that sacred line between us, that's when
we can finally learn to show up and empathize and
relate in ways that are helpful rather than harmful.
Speaker 3 (13:58):
Okay, that speaks loudly. The word trauma and triggered is
one that I deeply understand and will never tire of.
But I have seen on social media and in many
places that like people are getting tired of the word
trauma and tired of the word trigger. So I would
(14:19):
love to actually spend a little bit of time hearing
your approach to what trauma is and how it affects
our relationship with self and others, and how although we
might get tired of hearing this word, maybe that's because
we don't understand the various levels of trauma and how
multidimensional this word actually is.
Speaker 4 (14:40):
So what is trauma?
Speaker 2 (14:42):
I think when a word becomes a buzzword, which has
happened with trauma in the last couple of years, we
can tire of it because it's being thrown around. My
definition of trauma is when a past experience of threat
but it's over, is living and breathing inside us now
and it affects us emotionally, physically, and relationally or dynamically.
(15:05):
Trauma's largely unconscious and felt. So it's somatic in nature,
and it speaks through sensations in the body and emotions,
and it travels through communities, cultures, relationship systems. But just
as trauma travels through this relational pathways, so does healing.
(15:26):
So that's my understanding and definition of trauma. And most
of us have some level of trauma. As with everything,
it exists on a spectrum. It's not actually about what
happened to us in a past in the past, it's
about how it's left unmetabolized inside us and the changes
(15:47):
it creates in the way we perceive, relate, and express.
So there's this whole big conversation about big t little
ty or you went through something really big and this
person went through something really little, and therefore everything should
be easier or harder to heal, And that's just actually.
Speaker 1 (16:04):
Not how it works.
Speaker 2 (16:05):
And the way we will metabolize or not metabolize traumatic
situations depends on a number of factors. It depends on
our physical and mental health at the time of or
shortly after the trauma, but more importantly, it depends on
the quality of our relationships. So we do best when
we're sharing experiences, we're relational creatures, and we're not meant
(16:28):
to be alone. So if we go through something that's
quite traumatic, but we have kind, care and compassionate people
that are going to support us and listen to us,
who care for us and not shame or minimize or
gas light us, we're more likely to integrate or metabolize
the experience, and therefore it perhaps won't become trauma. Whereas
if we're alone with it, and if we don't have
(16:50):
the capacity to process it, makes sense, then it's more
likely to become trauma later on.
Speaker 3 (16:55):
That makes a lot of sense. I want to unpack
that even more. But this question just came up in mind,
given that we are living much more individual lies than
collectively in this modern world wherever we live I guess
not in some colonies that have maintained their tribal nature,
but for the most of us, we are living separate
(17:16):
from other beings.
Speaker 4 (17:18):
Do you think that.
Speaker 3 (17:20):
The level of unmetabolized trauma as you speak about it,
has gone up because of the way that we are living.
And I'm not even referring to the pandemic, by the way,
I'm just referring to the times.
Speaker 1 (17:31):
What a great question.
Speaker 2 (17:33):
I do think that we are meant to exist in community,
and I do believe it's hard for us to metabolize,
not only individually but collectively when we go through something.
And that's why it's so important that we do create
experiences of belonging and community. And what's very interesting is
(17:54):
in the world of commerce and business right now, we're
seeing a rise in community building and storytelling and membership models.
And if you think back to a few generations ago,
you wouldn't pay for that. It wouldn't be a business,
it would be part of living in your closed community.
And so it's really interesting to see that innately we
(18:17):
know that that's what we need, but instead of just
offering it to each other, in these modern times and
in this very commercial world that we live in, belonging
has been commoditized. And I'm writing about this at the
moment as part of my second book. So I'm very
fascinated by how belonging now comes with a price.
Speaker 3 (18:38):
That is going to be a very, very, very juicy book.
Speaker 4 (18:42):
And you are so right.
Speaker 3 (18:44):
People are just hungry for a sense of belonging and
the fact that we've turned it into something that fits
well into a capitalistic culture is a whole I'm sure
book that you are deconstructing nothing that I could even
begin to sink my teeth into. But I've honestly never
thought about that. So thank you for bringing that to
(19:04):
my attention, and I will certainly be buying that book.
Can you tell us a little bit about your first
book actually as well? Can you tell us a little
bit about your first book actually as well?
Speaker 2 (19:21):
My first book is called Why Am I Like This?
Eliminating the Traumatized Self, and it's forty years of my
lived experience of not only growing up in a very
traumatic environment, but developing teenage mental health misdiagnosis, and then
the onset of this mystery illness as a young adult
that lasted eleven years, and then going on this epic
(19:44):
quest to heal. And so the book shares everything that
I've learned on my journey and everything that I've made
sense of in order to heal. So it's the kaleidoscope
of a patient termed therapist. And so every part of
the book share a conceptual sharing of philosophy for healing.
(20:04):
I often share some of the science or psychology that's
linked to it, and then I share a piece of
my personal story where I've lived and learned, as well
as some self inquiry questions to help you get into
your own curious mind and explore, and then a semantic
meditation to help you get into your body and access
a felt sense of healing and transformation.
Speaker 1 (20:26):
And the last part of.
Speaker 2 (20:27):
The book is called the Laws of Peace and Power,
and it's everything that I believe we need to live
by in order to create a sense in the world
where we feel like everything is well again and we
are free and harmonious.
Speaker 3 (20:41):
Well, we're obviously going to link that book below, but
at what point in your life did it switch for you?
Speaker 2 (20:48):
You know?
Speaker 3 (20:48):
I think what's really cool about you as a therapist
is you're kind of lowering that gateway or that door
or that barrier that a lot of times, like we
don't see a therapist which is talking about their personal life,
and I think it's a different dance for each therapist
and their comfort with that. But given that it is
something that you talk about in your book and your work,
(21:10):
I'm curious for you how you left trauma as you
you know, called it trauma, body, trauma mind from your
youth and found your way back to comfortably living in
your body and I just want to say really quickly.
I know this is a podcast and you know you're
listening to this audibly everybody, but I'm also witnessing you.
(21:31):
And there's something so distinct and mesmerizing to me when
somebody is truly like dropped into their own body and
comfortable in their own skin, and when I see you
or feel you, whatever the word is, like, it's there,
and that to me is just like I've got so
many questions, especially because you weren't born like that.
Speaker 2 (21:51):
Thank you for seeing that makes me feel very grateful.
Speaker 1 (21:54):
Thank you.
Speaker 2 (21:55):
It's been a journey. So it was not one moment.
You know, I was sick for very long time. I
was trapped inside the medical system for about seventeen years.
Eleven years of that really in a physically awful space, medications,
intravenous treatments, everything, and there were periods where I couldn't
walk or use my hand. So I was really very,
(22:18):
very very sick. I was back then forty something kilos
and I'm seventy kilos now in my healthy's strongest form,
so a real, real difference. You wouldn't recognize me to
look at me. I think the very first moment where
there was this huge change. Is when I somatized or associated.
(22:39):
So when we have trauma, we live dissociated, so we're
often living outside of our bodies, either sort of floating
next to ourselves or just above our heads or up
on the ceiling. And people often experience it like they
feel not quite fair, or they're blank behind their eyes,
or it feels like they're watching their life, or their
life feels like a movie.
Speaker 1 (23:00):
So that was my.
Speaker 2 (23:00):
Life, and I think while I was trying to get
better from a dissociated state, there was no possible way
to integrate or to come into my body, which is
where I firmly live now. So I was trying all
these things and nothing was working. And it wasn't until
I started exploring bodywork and sematics that all of a
sudden I associated. And when I associated or somatized, it
(23:26):
was not in a trauma informed way, and I was
like plunged into my body, and all of a sudden,
there was this excruciating pain and all these flashbacks. So
I was regressing and I was re traumatized, and it
actually caused all these really intense symptoms to rise. So
my eyes swelled up, I got rushes on my body.
(23:46):
My body locked up like I couldn't move, But there
was this little voice, my spirit spoke to me and said, Natalia,
these things that you're remembering, that you're feeling, this is
where the healing lies, as you need to be with
and process them. And so I spent quite an intense
amount of time learning to feel into my body, to
(24:07):
feel into the emotions, to connect to the memories and
find a way to release them. And it was not
troma informed. It was messy, it was awful. But after
four months of this very intense process, like I'm literally
talking a few hours a day, all of my physical
symptoms vanished, and the doctors couldn't believe that I was
better because they told me, you know, if this illness
(24:29):
that seemed a generative doesn't kill you, the medication you're
on will because I was on forty two tablets a
day at that time, and so all my symptoms were gone.
Speaker 1 (24:38):
At that time.
Speaker 2 (24:39):
I also decided to detox all the medication, against doctor's advice,
and I do not advise that to your listeners, but
it was part of my process. And so all of
a sudden, this past trauma, this muck that was inside
my body was gone and I could start to see
more clearly, and so that was the first big moment.
There were some other big moments. There was also a
(25:01):
piece around leading my marriage. My ex husband and I
were together for seventeen years, which is a really long time.
There was a lot of goodness and love in our marriage.
We built our careers, we had beautiful, healthy children. But
because we'd got together when I was in such a
traumatized mess, I wasn't me and so there was something
(25:22):
about needing to figure out who I was on my own,
and so the time and space of learning who am
I without being in this sort of enmeshed dynamic that
was an amalgamation of so many past experience was really
important for me, And there have been many other moments.
I think when I started to be on my own,
(25:44):
I got really curious about the relational piece of healing trauma,
which for me, it was kind of the last piece.
So I'd done all this somatic work, I've done all
this psychological work and attachment work, But when I started
to explore the way relationships and dynamics influenced me, and
also what I was creating when I was bringing in
(26:04):
my trauma. This was a huge, huge change in the
way I experience and the way I live and the
way I create. And so now it's that relational piece
that I teach first, because I think it is the
thing that creates the trauma and it is the thing
that can heal the trauma.
Speaker 4 (26:23):
Can you go a little bit further about what that entels.
Speaker 2 (26:26):
So much about trauma stems from harmful or oppressive or
mistuned relationship dynamics, and so just as relationship is the root,
it can also be the remedy. So when we get
curious about the way we are relating, and not only
the way we're receiving other people, but the way we're
creating dynamics, we can create incredible multi dimensional transformation. So
(26:53):
I call this topic relational somatics. So we are physiological
beings primarily, so primarily relational beings. And so when we
start exploring how the self responds, reacts and evolves in
dynamic we get really clear and we get really masterful.
So we can learn when someone's given us something that's
(27:15):
really not helping us, but we can also learn when
we're doing the same to other people. We're co creative,
so we're both influencing and being influenced all the time.
And once we purify a lot of the trauma and
the threat and the exclusion from our own system, not
only can we show up with more congruity and intentionality,
(27:37):
but we can also start to deeply see what other
people are bringing to the table and learn how to
do this dance where we make beautiful life.
Speaker 3 (27:47):
Well, I feel like we just took it a really
deep dive into the meat of your work. Does that
feel right? Correctat I want to come a little bit
back to the surface for a moment in case we
lost anybody, or just to bring back you know, the
masses here who might be thinking, well, I don't have trauma,
My life is really good. I believe that probably correct
(28:12):
me if I'm wrong. The truth of that would be
that everybody has experienced trauma, and most likely most people
have undigested trauma as you call it. But you said
that it lives in the subconscious, or trauma lives in
the subconscious, and I think that for a lot of
people it might feel like trauma are only those big teas.
(28:34):
And if it's not the big teas, you know, something
horrific happening to you, going through a natural disaster or something,
you know, sexually assaulted or something like that. If it
doesn't like fit into those major categories that we so
clearly call trauma without argument, then I don't have anything
wrong with me, and therefore I have no work to do,
(28:54):
and therefore, like, why are we throwing this word trauma around?
What would you kind of say to people about all trauma.
Speaker 2 (29:02):
Whether we believe we have trauma or not, we're likely
relating with someone who does.
Speaker 1 (29:07):
And if we're relating with.
Speaker 2 (29:09):
Someone who has trauma, then we are part of the
experience of trauma too.
Speaker 1 (29:13):
So that's the first thing.
Speaker 2 (29:15):
The second thing is when we consider relational trauma, it
can be as simple as having parents that didn't attune
to us, that weren't there to listen to us and
validate our feelings and help us to remain curious and
make life choices that are in line with our spirit.
And so most of us in our generation didn't receive
(29:39):
that at one level or another, and so many of
us were taught get on with it, Smile Grin and Barrett,
do a good job at school, grow up, get a
good job, earn good money, get married, and have kids.
That's kind of the trajectory, and for many of us,
any attempt to say, well, that's not what I want,
(30:00):
I'd love to do this or that was invalidated and
so and for some people shamed, that invalidation causes trauma,
and so it may not express itself in these really
huge ways. But when we have experienced this kind of
relational trauma, it can often feel like we're not quite
(30:23):
who were meant to be, or we're not quite living
the life that we really wanted. And many of us
also feel like the me that we feel on the
inside isn't really the me that's shown in the world.
And so either it might feel like people see me
in this a really great way, but I feel like
(30:44):
a hot mess, or it could be the flip side,
people think that I'm a hot mess, but inside I'm
this beautiful butterfly or bird. And so that's fragmentation. And
so many of us who have this less easy to
kind of trauma have these experiences, and it can often
show up as feeling not really connected, even if we
(31:08):
have a lot of relationships, like I don't feel like
these connections, feel like how it's meant to feel.
Speaker 1 (31:13):
Why what's wrong with me?
Speaker 2 (31:16):
Or It may show up in just feeling mild anxiety
all of the time, or a sense of apathy and
listlessness and not being able to go for our dreams,
or a sense of imposter syndrome, or a tendency to
self sabotage. So all of these things are symptoms of trauma.
It's just that we tend to minimize them and say, ah,
(31:40):
everything's going to be fine.
Speaker 1 (31:41):
We bury our head in the sand.
Speaker 2 (31:43):
Or there's also the rise of the personality profile, and
there are so many different ones, and so we like
to categorize and say, well, I'm just like this, and
this particular personality profile says that that's part of my
character or my personality.
Speaker 1 (32:00):
So it's fine.
Speaker 2 (32:01):
But when we do that, when we categorize, when we label,
when we accept, it's quite a dangerous thing because we
stop ourselves from getting curious and allowing ourselves to be evolutionary.
Speaker 3 (32:14):
Can you just give one example of what a personality
category is?
Speaker 2 (32:18):
There are so many different ones, but like there's Maya's Briggs,
the current popular one is human design.
Speaker 1 (32:25):
There are all these categories.
Speaker 2 (32:26):
I'm a projector I'm a manifesto, I'm an I, N, I, FJ, whatever,
and because this description fits me, then it makes it
okay and I don't need to change. I'll just try
and create the best life possible within this box.
Speaker 3 (32:44):
So you're kind of challenging that and saying when you chance, oh, okay,
because again, I feel like you're just a step ahead
of me here, So bear with me as a digest
what you're saying. You know, I feel like, especially with
social media, things like human design and all the personality
types have definitely been on the rise of things that
(33:05):
people know about and talk about. And my first understanding
of them was that they give people like better understanding
of themselves. So kind of like we're like, oh, why.
Speaker 4 (33:15):
Am I like this?
Speaker 1 (33:15):
Right?
Speaker 3 (33:16):
That's your book? Right when you find out that you're
a reflector or whatever, it's like, oh, that's why I'm
like that. This person just doesn't understand me. But I
am no longer going to stop changing who I am. Like,
I saw it as a good thing in owning kind
of how you're wiring, which I'm sure to a level,
it is good to know about yourself, right, But if
we stop there.
Speaker 2 (33:37):
Correct, So, I think it's great to be able to
make sense of oneself. But I guess how are these
types any different to being given a mental health diagnosis?
Speaker 1 (33:48):
So I think that you know, back when I.
Speaker 2 (33:50):
Got my diagnosis in my early twenties, I was relieved,
but then I tried to make the best of it
in the box I was given. And so whether we're
talking about diagnosis or whether we're talking about personality profiles.
Speaker 1 (34:07):
I think it's great. These are all archetypes.
Speaker 2 (34:09):
So here are these set of symptoms or experiences we
think this is what's going on. I think when we
say perhaps this is what's going on, there's a lot
more freedom and space than saying this.
Speaker 1 (34:21):
Is what you are.
Speaker 2 (34:22):
So when you accept a diagnosis or a label as
an identity, that's when things get a little bit dangerous,
in my opinion, And I so welcome people to have
different opinions because I think that's really important for evolution
and change. So I think it can be helpful to
make sense of oneself. But I don't think that it's
helpful to remain in a box. The dangers that we
(34:45):
enable ourselves to stay exactly as we are and don't
hold ourselves accountable to creating very deep systemic change.
Speaker 1 (34:53):
I'm just like that, And the.
Speaker 2 (34:55):
Reason we start looking for all of these labels is
because we're wondering what is wrong with me? Why am
I like this? And I just think we need to
go much deeper and get far more texture and complexity
in our understanding of why we're experiencing in certain ways.
Speaker 3 (35:14):
I love that and we kind of breathe past it.
But use the word fragmentation, and can you go a
little bit deeper as to what fragmentation is.
Speaker 2 (35:24):
We are all fragmented, which basically means that we have
different parts of our psyche or self that have different
sets of needs and desires and dislikes and triggers.
Speaker 1 (35:37):
And actually all of us.
Speaker 2 (35:39):
Trauma and no trauma, are fragmented. We are complex, and
it's our tendency to consider ourselves as a single self
that actually causes us mostly to feel a lot of
discontent and like perhaps we can't feel happy because we're
not honoring these different parts of us. In the case
of trauma, we experience into what I label as trauma
(36:01):
born fragmentation. So for example, just say, as a young child,
you're getting abused, and during the phase of that abused,
it's not safe to speak up and set boundaries. It's
not safe to run away, there's nowhere to go. It's
not safe to ask for a cuddle when you're feeling sad.
And so all these parts of us that actually really
(36:24):
want to express but can't suppress, they fragment and they
suppress inside us, and then we develop what I call
an external shell, which is a personality that feels safe
to interface with the world from. So most of us
are walking around with these shells that are personalities that
are designed to help us survive and belong through and
(36:47):
beyond trauma, and we carry them into life. But what
happens when we're fragmented is either those suppressed parts of
us those are the ones that are being recurrently triggered
or acting out and creating havoc in our life lives.
Speaker 1 (37:01):
And so a huge.
Speaker 2 (37:02):
Part of healing is learning about our fragment itself and
all the parts of us that didn't have a safe
space to express themselves have their needs met and follow
their desire and to allow ourselves to become more integrated
in who we are. And it's one scary, beautiful journey.
Speaker 3 (37:22):
Wow, I've never thought about any of that like this,
And previously, before this conversation, I thought I knew a lot,
but it turns out I don't, which is really cool
because I feel like that gives me a lot to
learn about as I continue to go through this. You
(37:45):
mentioned the word trauma bond when you were discussing fragmentation.
You said that that creates a trauma bond. Did you
mean that the person who's getting abused forms a trauma
bond with their abuser or the relationships that they then
form in the world are through that fragmented lens.
Speaker 4 (38:04):
What exactly did you mean that.
Speaker 2 (38:05):
I don't remember saying the word trauma bond. I can
explain what a trauma bond is. Maybe I said it
without thinking. A trauma bond is when we attached to
someone from the lens of our trauma, and so when
we enter a trauma bond, it's like our young, traumatized
self is trying to recreate the same attachment relationship, hoping
(38:30):
for a different ending. And the issue is that when
our child traumatized self or selves are attaching in a relationship,
there's never a chance for real intimacy and real connection
from our adults conscious self. And usually what happens when
we're traumatize is we're seeking this relational repair or safety
(38:54):
or achievement from somebody that really isn't able to give
it to us. Maybe a because we're engaging from a
child place, but often we will seek out people or
characters that are very similar to past characters that just
weren't able to give us what we truly need and deserve.
So there are many people living in trauma bonds today.
Speaker 3 (39:15):
That makes a lot of sense, especially when I think
about when I was dating the type of people that
I was dating over and over again, in the same
scenarios that would happen over and over again, and I
truly didn't understand why. And when I look at some
of my friends who are brilliant and beautiful and they're
going through, you know, these relationship reoccurrences over and over again,
(39:37):
I can begin to kind of see a little bit
of that happening for them. But I think it's like
so interesting because until you start to have language for
these experiences, you remain in them. When you hear you
say the word trauma bond, you know, hopefully some of
our listeners, like a light bulb's going off right now,
(39:58):
and it might not be a good.
Speaker 4 (39:59):
Li light bulb.
Speaker 3 (40:00):
It might be like a oh, f You know, this
is me and this was the trauma that I grew
up with, and this is why I seek out these
types of relationships. And you know, it might not be
necessarily the most like aha, good feeling light bulb, but
all of a sudden it's a new doorway and exit,
or at least a lead to begin to chase to
(40:22):
learn more about yourself and begin to make change by
healing first and then doing something differently.
Speaker 2 (40:30):
I agree, And it's interesting there's usually two different groups
we go on with trauma bonds. So either we'll seek
unconsciously to replicate the same dysfunctional dynamics, or we will
so deeply not want to recreate it that we will
run in the other direction. And so that's what I
did when I chose my life plan and my ex husband.
Speaker 1 (40:53):
I think I've been so physically abused.
Speaker 2 (40:57):
Through my life that I chose someone that I know,
so that I knew would never ever, ever ever physically
hurt me.
Speaker 1 (41:04):
But again, it's.
Speaker 2 (41:05):
Coming from a trauma reaction, right, It's not coming from
this very deep bond to begin with. Of course we
developed one, but it was built on top of my
unconscious choosing someone that I knew would never ever hurt me.
That's not necessarily the best reason to get into a relationship.
So we'll either seek to recreate or to ensure that
(41:26):
we do not recreate. And as we heal and become
more conscious, we learn not to move in either polarized
direction from our trauma. We learn to meet people for
who they are and engage from a much more regulated place,
so we're no longer projecting or transferring or replaying the past.
Speaker 3 (41:46):
That makes so much sense to me, and going back
to like the somatic work, I think that when you
work through your trauma, your body ends up being a
signal of this person feels really good for me, or
they don't feel really good for me, or something in between.
Speaker 1 (42:02):
Maybe.
Speaker 3 (42:03):
But I know for myself, like it's only been the
last less than ten years, last decade that I understood
like that my body could have that bottom up approach.
Speaker 4 (42:16):
Otherwise it was top down, you know.
Speaker 3 (42:18):
And the body is so wise with who we feel
safe with. But if we can't feel our bodies, our
minds are going to be much louder, and our minds
are going to do exactly what you said, recreate the
trauma bond or work really hard to not create the
trauma bond.
Speaker 4 (42:34):
But either way, we're working off.
Speaker 3 (42:37):
Of the trauma because we're not working from the safe
place in our body.
Speaker 2 (42:40):
And another piece to that is that if we have
unresolved trauma, it's likely that our nervous system is just
regulated and our wires are crossed. And so a good
example of this is feeling intense chemistry for really harmful
or unavailable people and either feeling zero chemistry or in
(43:03):
fact a repulsion from safe, healthy people. So when we
have these crossed wires, will tend to feel attracted to
the people who are really not good for us. And
we might meet really wonderful people in our lives, but
we don't feel attraction, and it's actually because we have
a lot of nervous system rewiring to do.
Speaker 3 (43:25):
Wow, Like, just a specific person in my life came
to mind when you said that, And essentially this person,
just you know, for listener enjoyment, is always complaining about
how they are single and alone and there's no significant
other for them and nobody likes them and blah blah blah.
Goes on a date and comes home from it and
(43:45):
tells me that the person that they went on a
date with sor I'm being very vague. It's a personal person,
so I'm just being as vague as I possibly can
for respectful reasons. Anyway, they go on a date and
they come back and these it was so great.
Speaker 4 (43:58):
They cooked for me, they you know, we kissed and whatever,
and I.
Speaker 3 (44:03):
Felt so taken care of. And I was like, oh
my gosh, that's great. Did you, you know, send a
text today? And they're like no, And I'm like why not,
Like I don't know. And I'm like, did you you know,
have a good time. They're like yeah, and there was.
Speaker 4 (44:18):
Like nothing there. It made no sense to me.
Speaker 3 (44:21):
I was like, these are all the nice things that
you've been saying that you wanted, but they were running
from it. But this person also has, you know, a
very obvious nervous system dysregulation, and I could imagine wires
in the wrong place. But I in that moment, I
was just like baffled by it.
Speaker 4 (44:37):
But you just.
Speaker 3 (44:38):
Untangled that whole psychological phenomenon for me.
Speaker 2 (44:41):
You know, when safety and care and kindness have not
been the blueprint for our relationships early in life, when
we're met with it.
Speaker 1 (44:54):
It will feel foreign or confronting.
Speaker 2 (44:58):
And if we have no math for what healthy care
and connection looks like. It's very hard to lean into it.
When we identify something as foreign, our unconscious nervous system
will say, well, that's scary, I don't want to go there.
I'm going to pull away. Or it might just be
that our capacity for that kind of connection is very little,
(45:20):
and so when I'm supporting someone to heal from this,
it's about leaning in very small amounts and taking a
lot of space and then leaning in again. So we
have to build our capacity for healthy connection.
Speaker 1 (45:33):
But we need that awareness first.
Speaker 3 (45:36):
The awareness, right, the awareness is the key. And there's
so many people running around without listening to you speak,
and I think the way that you contextualize it so quickly,
so understandably is just I know that people are going
to listen to this episode and walk away different people,
because once you have the awareness, it doesn't go away,
(45:58):
and you grow over time more irritable and uncomfortable just
being aware. So even if you do nothing in the
next week or month or a year, that awareness is
still there and that door for you to open it
and do something differently or learn more. Whatever it goes next,
you know it WAPs for you it WAPs for me.
I don't know why I'm speaking as if this doesn't
apply to me at one hundred percent applies to me,
(46:19):
it applies to all of us. Like there's still I
assume you would say yourself, there's still things that get
poked at and require awareness and action and change as you,
you know, make your way through life.
Speaker 1 (46:31):
Maybe I will always be healing.
Speaker 2 (46:33):
I think the level of what I've gone through means
that my life will always be about healing, and I'll
continue to go and evolve. But for me, I've got
a place where there's no shame in that. And I
love what you said in about it. It's just waiting
for you. And so I believe illumination is eternal. Once
you see, you cannot unsee. And I also believe that
(46:56):
we build capacity slowly over time. So just because we
can see that something needs to change, or that there's
an avenue for us to walk down.
Speaker 1 (47:05):
It's important to learn we do not have to.
Speaker 2 (47:08):
Rush down it and drop everything else and fix it
and get to the other side. That's a block to
our healing. And so if all we do is stay curious,
allow the illumination to unfold and build the capacity to
take one step forward as a time. That's how we
actually change the way we're living and breathing here, and
(47:29):
that's when we enter a state of embodiment or grace.
We're not rushing to force ourselves or fix ourselves or
be who we're not. We're just compassionate.
Speaker 3 (47:40):
I really appreciate that. On your social media recently, you
post it about healing, and it was a quote that said,
in the early stages of healing, it's common to create
a cocoon. Can you share what this cocoon means and furthermore,
how we know when it's time to leave this cocoon.
Speaker 2 (48:01):
The cocoon is kind of like a safe space. So
when you realize that a lot of the influences in
the external world are not really helping you on your
journey to heal, it's common to create this cocoon and
take the space to begin to make sense of things,
to let go of.
Speaker 1 (48:18):
Past pain, to rest.
Speaker 2 (48:20):
Most of us are really living in a very big
state of burnout, and so we find we kind of
don't want to be engaging with certain people. We don't
want to be so much out there. We just want
to be healing and looking after ourselves and it's a
really important stage. But I often say safe spaces that
are not evolutionary can become cages. So if we're in
(48:41):
our cocoon too long, it ends up blocking us, it
ends up becoming a bit of a prison. Because in
the end, the goal of healing is to create a
life where we feel empowered and of life and curious
and playful, and that means being in relationships with people,
and it means trying a new thing then expanding our horizons,
(49:01):
and if we're in our safe cocoon, we can't do that.
But it can feel really scary to emerge. You know,
think about being born, right, It's terrifying to be born.
You're in this lovely, safe womb and you come out
and there's this big, scary world and you don't know
what's going to happen. And healing is kind of like
being reborn again and again and again, all these new
(49:22):
versions of yourself. And when you sort of step out
without say some of the past trauma or is this
new version of yourself, it can feel scary because we
don't know how to exist as this version of ourselves.
We don't know how to relate as this version of ourselves.
It's terrifying and will people like it or not always
(49:43):
fail And so I often suggest when we begin to
step out of the concoon, we can do it slowly,
and we can always come back to the cocoon. So
the cocoon never leaves, so once we've learned how to
build one, we can always come back.
Speaker 1 (49:57):
And this testing.
Speaker 2 (49:59):
This putting our toes into the waters of a world
where we are sort of more empowered or more alive,
that's really important for building resilience and building self trust.
So in the end, we're needing to teach ourselves. Oh,
I can show up as this version of myself. I
can look after myself. I can make healthy choices and
(50:22):
choose the right people and live a life that's a
little more sustainable. But we don't know that. We have
to go on a journey of proving it to ourselves.
Speaker 3 (50:31):
I love how you put that and called the cocoon
a cage. At some point, you know how, just time,
at some point that shift happens. It reminded me of
a best friend of mine who lost her mother abruptly
about a year ago, and it has thrown her out
of the nest for a bunch of reasons. And one
(50:53):
of the things that she did to take care of
self was go completely off social media. And this is
not like an influencer or anything like that, just a
regular person who uses social media. And we were talking
over coffee and this really stuck with me and I
this explained this just the way you said, just speak
so clearly to it. But she's brilliant, and I was like,
how is your last couple of months being off social media?
(51:15):
She's like, it was six months. It was great, But
I think I'm ready to come back. And I was like, really,
because whenever I go off social media, I feel like
I could like never come back. We have different relationships
to social media. But she was like, yeah, it's kind
of like that, like how far can the pendulum swing
type of a thing. And I just never thought.
Speaker 4 (51:32):
Of it like that.
Speaker 3 (51:33):
And it's kind of the same thing. It's like, how
long can you not interact with the world? You know,
you said, go back to relationships? Social media is here,
whether we like it or not. It's how we relate
to each other. It's how we get information, news, learn
about what our friends are doing, all of that. Like
it's an interface that is there. And I just never
(51:54):
heard anybody put it so the way she did, and
I never heard somebody put it the way you did,
But it feels to me like the same type of
a thing.
Speaker 2 (52:02):
I think if we can know and believe that we
always have the choice to come and go and create change,
then everything's okay. And we also learned that everything is
a stage, and so we will all continue to go
through stages. Nothing's finite. And if we allow ourselves to
live this way, and if we trust that we can
maintain that sense of agency and choice, we're in control
(52:27):
of our lives. So we don't need to be afraid
anymore of getting stuck, of getting trapped, getting hurt.
Speaker 3 (52:34):
On your social media as well, there was something that
you posted that you stated your belief that is the
common statement that we see thrown around, especially in the
last couple of years on social media, is that you
attract what you manifest is actually harmful. I don't know
if I said that right, but what Natalia was wrote
(52:54):
on her social media was that statement, you attract what
you manifest actually is harmful. Can you explain why that's timeful?
Speaker 4 (53:03):
I'd love to hear your approach on it.
Speaker 2 (53:05):
There's these popular sentiments in self help that until you
love yourself, no one's going to love you. That's kind
of what underpins it all. And so until you do
this certain level of healing work, you're not valid or
worthy and you're just never going to get what you need,
and it goes against human nature. It's very shaming, and
(53:27):
there's a lot of shaming messages that actually come through
the modern self help paradigm. If you think about how
humans develop when we are a baby, when we're born,
it's actually through the reflection and care of our mother
and ideally our greater family in our community that show
(53:48):
us we are inherently worthy, and we develop our sense
of worth and self esteem through being loved and cared for,
not the other way around. And so for those of
us that didn't get that early on, we often feel
like we don't love ourselves, and perhaps that we even
(54:09):
hate ourselves. And then if we're being told, well, if
you don't love yourself, if you don't have self love,
no one's gonna love you, that's pretty devastating because you
can't just force it upon yourself. You can't just pretend
that you love yourself, though many people do, but it's
not real. So I might smile and say I love me,
(54:30):
I love me in the mirror, but if there's a
voice inside my say this thing, Oh, I hate myself,
it's not true. And while of course we all do
want to learn to care for ourselves and love ourselves,
I think it's important that the message that people here
is that we are always inherently worthy of love and
(54:52):
care and opportunity, even if we don't really believe it.
And so to perpetuate the people thought I'm just not worthy,
therefore I don't deserve and I'm not going to get it.
That traps them into a shame spiral, and we can't
heal what we're a shame spiral.
Speaker 3 (55:07):
I think that that's really, really, really great advice and
helps us take a step back from the popular paradigms
that are kind of furthering one half of the population.
And I don't even mean this fifty to fifty, but
the people that have made it to the other side, right,
it's like, great, I'm here, I attract it, I manifest
I think there's a level of truth to it.
Speaker 4 (55:28):
It's not like it's all bs.
Speaker 3 (55:29):
But to the other people that are nowhere near that,
it's not even like a breadcrumb for them to work with.
It's putting them in a state of spiral and feeling
so far from that place.
Speaker 4 (55:40):
So that makes a lot of sense.
Speaker 2 (55:41):
So many people read messages like this, and if they
are living in a state of trauma, it just makes
them feel hopeless, like, oh, well, I'm never going to
get that. Then I'm never going to get the love,
I'm never going to get the opportunity. I'm never going
to get the choice or any of these things that
I want because I hate myself so much, so why
don't I just not bother?
Speaker 3 (56:02):
The final question that I have for you today is
you stand by the mantra heal your trauma, change the world.
Speaker 4 (56:09):
What does that mean to you?
Speaker 2 (56:10):
I believe that our own healing is the blueprint for
the social change that we wish to create.
Speaker 1 (56:18):
Most of us.
Speaker 2 (56:18):
Want to see a kinder, more inclusive, more intelligent world.
But if we haven't reached a certain level of our
own healing, we continue to perpetuate cycles of threat and
exclusion and equity because our trauma is leaking into dynamics.
And when we do enough healing work to be able
(56:39):
to contain our bias and our trauma, and also to
not play into other peoples. We become beacons of peace
and power, and we can learn to show up so
that every interaction that we have is a very beautiful
intervention that takes us towards the world we want to see.
Speaker 3 (57:01):
If I had your lens on, or like, if I
had your brain on at all times, like I understand
everything that you're saying, but then I walk into the
real world and I might forget all of that. I
might forget when I hear somebody say something harmful, not inclusive,
you know what, I might just think, Wow, they're an
a whole, but through your lens it's they're dealing with
(57:23):
unprocessed trauma. Do you walk around every day with your
professional brain on or are you sometimes ejected into regular
life where you think, like, you know, this person's just
being an a whole.
Speaker 1 (57:37):
I am a regular, messy, complex human.
Speaker 2 (57:40):
So absolutely I still get triggered and I still move
into judgment.
Speaker 1 (57:45):
But I do have a conscious.
Speaker 2 (57:47):
Practice of trying to catch myself when I move into
judgment and come back to we Why so when I'm
able to see that someone is being dysfunctional or in
a whole, as you say, I'll try to come out
of judgment, but I will have a very very very
strong boundary. So I'm not interested in engaging with people
(58:07):
unless there is a much bigger purpose that aren't able
to offer me or others a certain level of respect.
I'm a regular human, I promise you are.
Speaker 3 (58:15):
But I think you know when you spoke about that boundary,
I like felt it. You know, it's like I am compassionate,
but I am also protective. Like it came through your
voice and I could definitely see you shifting gears a
bit to most importantly protect and hold space for self
and for others.
Speaker 4 (58:31):
So thank you for sharing that.
Speaker 3 (58:34):
I think we learn just from listening to the power
of your voice and that like ferocity, for lack of
a better word, come through because it's not always easy
to sit peacefully and listen to the words that are
thrown around us and the people around us, you know,
and our relationships to the people and all of that.
(58:55):
So thank you so much. I've learned so much from
our time together. I'm so grateful from it. And is
there anything else that you want to share with our listeners?
Speaker 2 (59:04):
Oh, I think it's been a beautiful conversation and really
texted so thank you so much for having me. It's
been a lovely time.
Speaker 3 (59:11):
I cannot wait for your second book. And as always,
I'm going to put Natalia's information below both her social
media and her first book. And as soon as that
second book is out, you better let us know, Okay,
thank you so much
No, you'll be.
Speaker 2 (00:04):
Even when times gethard and you feel you're in the dark.
Speaker 1 (00:12):
C see just how beautiful life can be.
Speaker 2 (00:18):
When you soten your heart, you can finally start to
live your tu seious life.
Speaker 3 (00:31):
Hello everybody, Welcome back to the truthiest life. It is
officially June, and that brings a big smile to my
face because June is the official start of summer.
Speaker 4 (00:44):
It's also my birthday month.
Speaker 3 (00:46):
And it's just the beginning the precipice of the slowness
and culture that we don't typically live in, commencing more
time with family, more time just being, and some of
that added pressure of doing just falling to the wayside.
Speaker 4 (01:08):
At least that's how we envision it.
Speaker 3 (01:10):
We all know that this season goes really fast, and
it's really hard if we think about it, to really
go from our day to day during the year to
summer mindset, especially because most of us still work during
the summer, and achieving that transition is more than just
a mindset change, It's a nervous system change. A couple
(01:33):
years back, I came to that revelation that it takes
doing things differently to feel them differently, and I thought
of the just for Joy June Challenge. I never implemented it,
but I'm implementing it now and that's what matters. My
birthday is June thirtieth, so I love the idea of
(01:54):
putting some intention behind June and stepping into that new
year for me as the most intentional version of me possible.
That being said, I have never implemented anything for thirty days,
so this is a true challenge for me. I usually
steer away from any sort of challenges, usually because they
come under the umbrella of diet culture or forcing yourself
(02:17):
to move your body or eat a certain way, which
sometimes can be a totally healthy thing, but oftentimes it
makes something coming from a forced and disciplined place rather
than a place of true self love and self care.
But I'm hoping that this just for Joy June challenge can.
Speaker 4 (02:35):
Be a little bit different. So what is it?
Speaker 3 (02:37):
Simply, it's challenging yourself every day to do one thing
just for joy, not something that has anything to do
with your work, and not something that you would maybe
ordinarily do. And each day of the week, so Monday
through Friday, we'll tap into doing one thing just for joy,
and you're really on your own for this but I
would love for you to tag me and share it
(02:58):
with me and create a little community around it. And
it can be something as small as having a coffee
on your porch in the quiet before you start your day,
to going to a yoga class or a walk, or
baking or even taking a nap. There's nothing that makes
joy one thing.
Speaker 4 (03:19):
For every person.
Speaker 3 (03:21):
So if one of those things sounded stressful to you,
like if you'd hate to bake, you know that's not
going to be your joyful activity. But whatever it is,
whether it's thirty seconds or an hour long, just indulge
in it. Give yourself radical permission to be there, be
now without the mind doing what it does and stealing
from us what we deserve in that moment. So that's
(03:43):
the Just for Joy June Challenge. I hope you'll join
me as we tap into slower, more gentler living and
put a little bit of intent into this summer that
we all deserve to slow down and live a little
bit more in tune with our joyful selves. Okay, today's
episode is absolutely life changing. It has totally changed my
(04:05):
life and as I recorded it with Natalia Rachel, I
was like, Wow, this is why I love doing what
I do, and I felt totally reinspired after taking a
little break from interviewing people because my headspace was, you know,
largely focused on stuff going on at home. I felt
soone reinvigorated by this conversation because I get to talk
(04:27):
to brilliant people and then share those conversations with brilliant
people all of you, and form this little community of
all of us who are trying to understand ourselves better,
not just in pursuit of self but in pursuit of
having better relationships with the world that we, you know,
(04:47):
inevitably interact with, whether that's the people at home, or
in our jobs, or just strangers on the street. If
we don't know ourselves well enough, where we are functioning
from our trauma. As Natalia so well explained, we are perceiving, expressing,
and relating sometimes from an untrue place, causing more harm
(05:07):
rather than help. Natalia Rachel is the founder of Illuma Health.
She's the author of Why Am I Like This? And
as a therapist, she believes that the root of healing
the world begins with healing our own trauma. And as
somebody who's been in therapy, my entire life very familiar
with trauma. I learned so much in this episode about
(05:28):
why we do the things that we do. I'm totally
fascinated by the concept of trauma bonding that she explains
and its impact on our ability to be intimate. It
goes kind of into that conversation of why we often
feel repulsed by people that are so obviously good for us,
and then why we're attracted to people that are bad
for us, and if we can't relate to that, certainly
(05:49):
you have a friend or a family member that falls
prey to this. I really love this conversation because she
really has a lot of unpopular opinions that I agree
with and calls out a lot of things that are
very commonplace in the healing and self help world and
brings attention to how they can actually be harmful to
(06:09):
our own healing. Absolutely love of love this episode. It's
one that I will be listening to a few times
over to fully digest and untangle within myself so that
I can truly show up as the true me, not
the trauma impacted me, and make this world a safer
place for all. I hope you love this episode and
(06:31):
I'll see you back here next week. Have a great
start to your JOm. Welcome to the Truthiest Life, Natalia.
I'm so excited to finally be sitting down with you.
Speaker 2 (06:41):
Thank you so much for having me. I think we're
going to have a beautiful conversation.
Speaker 3 (06:45):
Yes, it's a long time coming.
Speaker 1 (06:48):
You know.
Speaker 3 (06:48):
I do not like canceling on my guests, and I've
had to cancel on Natalia a few times because of life,
and she's been so compassionate and kind. But it's not
something that I like to do. But our schedules have
been hard to match up because not only are you
living in Singapore, but you are very busy changing.
Speaker 2 (07:07):
The world, doing my little part trying to anyway.
Speaker 3 (07:10):
Well, actually, your Instagram name has the word change in it,
and I'm going to of course link her below as usual,
But why do you have the word change in your
Instagram handle?
Speaker 1 (07:20):
I think that's what we're all seeking, right.
Speaker 2 (07:23):
All of my work is about healing and creating social change.
I think that they're symbiotic and so essentially I'm a
change worker.
Speaker 3 (07:32):
Hmmm, I've never heard anybody put it like that.
Speaker 4 (07:36):
So you are living in Singapore right now?
Speaker 3 (07:38):
Right?
Speaker 1 (07:38):
Yes, I've been here six years.
Speaker 5 (07:40):
Ben You're from where I'm from Sydney, Australia, so I
grew up there my whole life, and aside from a
very short nine months in France as a teen, Singapore
is the only other place that I've lived, and it's
been a miraculous journey of learning.
Speaker 2 (07:56):
About myself, about culture, about systems, and belonging.
Speaker 3 (08:02):
Well, you brought up a social change in what you do,
and yet your title is a psychotherapist.
Speaker 2 (08:08):
Correct, I'm not a psychotherapist, but I'm a therapist. So
my formative training is as a hypnotherapist and regression therapist,
and I'm also trained as a craneopsychotherapist, which is a
kind of like a form of osteopathy, and then I've
done a whole bunch of other stuff as well.
Speaker 3 (08:24):
Yes, my husband's actually a doctor of osteopathy and we
love craniosacral work.
Speaker 4 (08:29):
But I apologize.
Speaker 3 (08:30):
I thought that your background was in psychotherapy because of
largely a part of the somatic work that you do.
Speaker 2 (08:37):
So I've studied many different sematic trainings, but it's not
my formal qualification as a psychotherapist.
Speaker 1 (08:43):
But sematics is.
Speaker 2 (08:44):
A huge piece not only of my personal healing journey,
but my professional journey and the way I write and
speak and teach and just relate as a human.
Speaker 3 (08:53):
Now I relate to everything that you said. Although I
have a formal, you know, talk therapist and I have
my whole life, I think that a large part of
our listeners come to me because of the various modalities
of healing that I'm open to, and even as I
you know, I'm thirty five and I've been in therapy
probably since i was five for the first time my
(09:15):
parents put me in when my parents got divorced. I'm
still learning like new things from each type of healing
work that I do. So I very much appreciate your
approach to healing and the various qualifications that you have
because I think that allows you to really help somebody
(09:36):
from like a multi dimensional approach.
Speaker 2 (09:39):
Thank you for reflecting that to me. I think we
are so complex. We live in many dimensions, you know,
We're not so singular, and we love to put ourselves
in boxes and polarize ourselves and everything that I've explored,
not only on my own healing journey, but traveling around
the world to work and study. Now I've tried in Singapore, London,
(10:02):
I've studied in Norway and BALI like so many different
diverse places and trainings, and so to me, it's allowed
me to now see not only myself but people humanity
in general through this kaleidoscope.
Speaker 1 (10:16):
And so now a large part of my.
Speaker 2 (10:17):
Work is about helping other people to bring their kaleidoscope
into view, which will be unique different to mine. But
I think welcoming that complex processing and sense making is
really really important. So I don't believe in one modality
is the way. I believe we need to welcome many,
(10:38):
many perspectives and views and supports and see how they
refract through us.
Speaker 3 (10:43):
I love that, and I love how you see the
world through that kaleidoscope lens. It really helps to break
up that singularity, like you said, and penetrate different parts
of ourselves that in my experience are just dormant but
become a weakened by different stimulus and kind of all
these different modalities that you talk about can kind of
(11:04):
poke at these parts of us that are dormant or
repressed or part of us somewhere deep down. Okay, So
the social work that you are talking about, like we
need social change, is that what your focus is on
right now or do also work with individuals or is
that one and the same.
Speaker 2 (11:22):
I work a little bit with individuals now so less
and less, but I still do see private clients two
days a week. But a lot of my focus across
all the many layers that I'm working is on helping
us to better understand the nature of trauma, how it
decontextualizes inside our bodies, our minds, our relationships, and then
the communities, cultures, and systems that we create.
Speaker 1 (11:45):
So to me, when we explore.
Speaker 2 (11:47):
Our own personal blueprint and our own reason for being here,
and the ways that we have manifested our personality and
our relational self, we're at the same time exploring the
world we have quick created.
Speaker 1 (12:01):
And so I believe that when we do.
Speaker 2 (12:03):
Our own healing work, we become the social resources that
we've all been craving. So our embodiment of peace and
power and purity is the template for the world that
we want to create. So Heliotrolma change the world.
Speaker 4 (12:19):
Okay? Got it?
Speaker 3 (12:20):
That makes so much sense to me when you put
it like that. From my own self work as well,
I would have never been able to put it in
such beautiful language like you just did. But I've certainly
found that my own work of largely self compassion comes
to mind, has allowed me to live in a gentler,
(12:42):
more receptive place, less combatative, less refusing information that didn't
previously fit with me, and on the social front, that
makes me a better listener, and a better listener makes
me able to understand experiences that.
Speaker 4 (12:55):
Are not mine.
Speaker 3 (12:56):
And when we do that, we realize that the world
does revolve around us, and there's a lot going on
at the same time. So although my reality might look
like this, somebody else looks like this, and how can
I help them or they help me? Am I like
extracting your work and purpose correctly?
Speaker 1 (13:17):
Absolutely?
Speaker 2 (13:18):
I think so many of us are very traumatized, and
the way we perceive, express and relate is altered because
of that. And so when we heal, we stop seeing
through the lens of our trauma and our suppressed emotions,
and we stop projecting our paths onto other people and
turning others into perpetrators or to heroes, and we can
(13:40):
contain our dysfunction and we can see other people for
who they really are. And when we create that boundary
around ourselves, or that sacred line between us, that's when
we can finally learn to show up and empathize and
relate in ways that are helpful rather than harmful.
Speaker 3 (13:58):
Okay, that speaks loudly. The word trauma and triggered is
one that I deeply understand and will never tire of.
But I have seen on social media and in many
places that like people are getting tired of the word
trauma and tired of the word trigger. So I would
(14:19):
love to actually spend a little bit of time hearing
your approach to what trauma is and how it affects
our relationship with self and others, and how although we
might get tired of hearing this word, maybe that's because
we don't understand the various levels of trauma and how
multidimensional this word actually is.
Speaker 4 (14:40):
So what is trauma?
Speaker 2 (14:42):
I think when a word becomes a buzzword, which has
happened with trauma in the last couple of years, we
can tire of it because it's being thrown around. My
definition of trauma is when a past experience of threat
but it's over, is living and breathing inside us now
and it affects us emotionally, physically, and relationally or dynamically.
(15:05):
Trauma's largely unconscious and felt. So it's somatic in nature,
and it speaks through sensations in the body and emotions,
and it travels through communities, cultures, relationship systems. But just
as trauma travels through this relational pathways, so does healing.
(15:26):
So that's my understanding and definition of trauma. And most
of us have some level of trauma. As with everything,
it exists on a spectrum. It's not actually about what
happened to us in a past in the past, it's
about how it's left unmetabolized inside us and the changes
(15:47):
it creates in the way we perceive, relate, and express.
So there's this whole big conversation about big t little
ty or you went through something really big and this
person went through something really little, and therefore everything should
be easier or harder to heal, And that's just actually.
Speaker 1 (16:04):
Not how it works.
Speaker 2 (16:05):
And the way we will metabolize or not metabolize traumatic
situations depends on a number of factors. It depends on
our physical and mental health at the time of or
shortly after the trauma, but more importantly, it depends on
the quality of our relationships. So we do best when
we're sharing experiences, we're relational creatures, and we're not meant
(16:28):
to be alone. So if we go through something that's
quite traumatic, but we have kind, care and compassionate people
that are going to support us and listen to us,
who care for us and not shame or minimize or
gas light us, we're more likely to integrate or metabolize
the experience, and therefore it perhaps won't become trauma. Whereas
if we're alone with it, and if we don't have
(16:50):
the capacity to process it, makes sense, then it's more
likely to become trauma later on.
Speaker 3 (16:55):
That makes a lot of sense. I want to unpack
that even more. But this question just came up in mind,
given that we are living much more individual lies than
collectively in this modern world wherever we live I guess
not in some colonies that have maintained their tribal nature,
but for the most of us, we are living separate
(17:16):
from other beings.
Speaker 4 (17:18):
Do you think that.
Speaker 3 (17:20):
The level of unmetabolized trauma as you speak about it,
has gone up because of the way that we are living.
And I'm not even referring to the pandemic, by the way,
I'm just referring to the times.
Speaker 1 (17:31):
What a great question.
Speaker 2 (17:33):
I do think that we are meant to exist in community,
and I do believe it's hard for us to metabolize,
not only individually but collectively when we go through something.
And that's why it's so important that we do create
experiences of belonging and community. And what's very interesting is
(17:54):
in the world of commerce and business right now, we're
seeing a rise in community building and storytelling and membership models.
And if you think back to a few generations ago,
you wouldn't pay for that. It wouldn't be a business,
it would be part of living in your closed community.
And so it's really interesting to see that innately we
(18:17):
know that that's what we need, but instead of just
offering it to each other, in these modern times and
in this very commercial world that we live in, belonging
has been commoditized. And I'm writing about this at the
moment as part of my second book. So I'm very
fascinated by how belonging now comes with a price.
Speaker 3 (18:38):
That is going to be a very, very, very juicy book.
Speaker 4 (18:42):
And you are so right.
Speaker 3 (18:44):
People are just hungry for a sense of belonging and
the fact that we've turned it into something that fits
well into a capitalistic culture is a whole I'm sure
book that you are deconstructing nothing that I could even
begin to sink my teeth into. But I've honestly never
thought about that. So thank you for bringing that to
(19:04):
my attention, and I will certainly be buying that book.
Can you tell us a little bit about your first
book actually as well? Can you tell us a little
bit about your first book actually as well?
Speaker 2 (19:21):
My first book is called Why Am I Like This?
Eliminating the Traumatized Self, and it's forty years of my
lived experience of not only growing up in a very
traumatic environment, but developing teenage mental health misdiagnosis, and then
the onset of this mystery illness as a young adult
that lasted eleven years, and then going on this epic
(19:44):
quest to heal. And so the book shares everything that
I've learned on my journey and everything that I've made
sense of in order to heal. So it's the kaleidoscope
of a patient termed therapist. And so every part of
the book share a conceptual sharing of philosophy for healing.
(20:04):
I often share some of the science or psychology that's
linked to it, and then I share a piece of
my personal story where I've lived and learned, as well
as some self inquiry questions to help you get into
your own curious mind and explore, and then a semantic
meditation to help you get into your body and access
a felt sense of healing and transformation.
Speaker 1 (20:26):
And the last part of.
Speaker 2 (20:27):
The book is called the Laws of Peace and Power,
and it's everything that I believe we need to live
by in order to create a sense in the world
where we feel like everything is well again and we
are free and harmonious.
Speaker 3 (20:41):
Well, we're obviously going to link that book below, but
at what point in your life did it switch for you?
Speaker 2 (20:48):
You know?
Speaker 3 (20:48):
I think what's really cool about you as a therapist
is you're kind of lowering that gateway or that door
or that barrier that a lot of times, like we
don't see a therapist which is talking about their personal life,
and I think it's a different dance for each therapist
and their comfort with that. But given that it is
something that you talk about in your book and your work,
(21:10):
I'm curious for you how you left trauma as you
you know, called it trauma, body, trauma mind from your
youth and found your way back to comfortably living in
your body and I just want to say really quickly.
I know this is a podcast and you know you're
listening to this audibly everybody, but I'm also witnessing you.
(21:31):
And there's something so distinct and mesmerizing to me when
somebody is truly like dropped into their own body and
comfortable in their own skin, and when I see you
or feel you, whatever the word is, like, it's there,
and that to me is just like I've got so
many questions, especially because you weren't born like that.
Speaker 2 (21:51):
Thank you for seeing that makes me feel very grateful.
Speaker 1 (21:54):
Thank you.
Speaker 2 (21:55):
It's been a journey. So it was not one moment.
You know, I was sick for very long time. I
was trapped inside the medical system for about seventeen years.
Eleven years of that really in a physically awful space, medications,
intravenous treatments, everything, and there were periods where I couldn't
walk or use my hand. So I was really very,
(22:18):
very very sick. I was back then forty something kilos
and I'm seventy kilos now in my healthy's strongest form,
so a real, real difference. You wouldn't recognize me to
look at me. I think the very first moment where
there was this huge change. Is when I somatized or associated.
(22:39):
So when we have trauma, we live dissociated, so we're
often living outside of our bodies, either sort of floating
next to ourselves or just above our heads or up
on the ceiling. And people often experience it like they
feel not quite fair, or they're blank behind their eyes,
or it feels like they're watching their life, or their
life feels like a movie.
Speaker 1 (23:00):
So that was my.
Speaker 2 (23:00):
Life, and I think while I was trying to get
better from a dissociated state, there was no possible way
to integrate or to come into my body, which is
where I firmly live now. So I was trying all
these things and nothing was working. And it wasn't until
I started exploring bodywork and sematics that all of a
sudden I associated. And when I associated or somatized, it
(23:26):
was not in a trauma informed way, and I was
like plunged into my body, and all of a sudden,
there was this excruciating pain and all these flashbacks. So
I was regressing and I was re traumatized, and it
actually caused all these really intense symptoms to rise. So
my eyes swelled up, I got rushes on my body.
(23:46):
My body locked up like I couldn't move, But there
was this little voice, my spirit spoke to me and said, Natalia,
these things that you're remembering, that you're feeling, this is
where the healing lies, as you need to be with
and process them. And so I spent quite an intense
amount of time learning to feel into my body, to
(24:07):
feel into the emotions, to connect to the memories and
find a way to release them. And it was not
troma informed. It was messy, it was awful. But after
four months of this very intense process, like I'm literally
talking a few hours a day, all of my physical
symptoms vanished, and the doctors couldn't believe that I was
better because they told me, you know, if this illness
(24:29):
that seemed a generative doesn't kill you, the medication you're
on will because I was on forty two tablets a
day at that time, and so all my symptoms were gone.
Speaker 1 (24:38):
At that time.
Speaker 2 (24:39):
I also decided to detox all the medication, against doctor's advice,
and I do not advise that to your listeners, but
it was part of my process. And so all of
a sudden, this past trauma, this muck that was inside
my body was gone and I could start to see
more clearly, and so that was the first big moment.
There were some other big moments. There was also a
(25:01):
piece around leading my marriage. My ex husband and I
were together for seventeen years, which is a really long time.
There was a lot of goodness and love in our marriage.
We built our careers, we had beautiful, healthy children. But
because we'd got together when I was in such a
traumatized mess, I wasn't me and so there was something
(25:22):
about needing to figure out who I was on my own,
and so the time and space of learning who am
I without being in this sort of enmeshed dynamic that
was an amalgamation of so many past experience was really
important for me, And there have been many other moments.
I think when I started to be on my own,
(25:44):
I got really curious about the relational piece of healing trauma,
which for me, it was kind of the last piece.
So I'd done all this somatic work, I've done all
this psychological work and attachment work, But when I started
to explore the way relationships and dynamics influenced me, and
also what I was creating when I was bringing in
(26:04):
my trauma. This was a huge, huge change in the
way I experience and the way I live and the
way I create. And so now it's that relational piece
that I teach first, because I think it is the
thing that creates the trauma and it is the thing
that can heal the trauma.
Speaker 4 (26:23):
Can you go a little bit further about what that entels.
Speaker 2 (26:26):
So much about trauma stems from harmful or oppressive or
mistuned relationship dynamics, and so just as relationship is the root,
it can also be the remedy. So when we get
curious about the way we are relating, and not only
the way we're receiving other people, but the way we're
creating dynamics, we can create incredible multi dimensional transformation. So
(26:53):
I call this topic relational somatics. So we are physiological
beings primarily, so primarily relational beings. And so when we
start exploring how the self responds, reacts and evolves in
dynamic we get really clear and we get really masterful.
So we can learn when someone's given us something that's
(27:15):
really not helping us, but we can also learn when
we're doing the same to other people. We're co creative,
so we're both influencing and being influenced all the time.
And once we purify a lot of the trauma and
the threat and the exclusion from our own system, not
only can we show up with more congruity and intentionality,
(27:37):
but we can also start to deeply see what other
people are bringing to the table and learn how to
do this dance where we make beautiful life.
Speaker 3 (27:47):
Well, I feel like we just took it a really
deep dive into the meat of your work. Does that
feel right? Correctat I want to come a little bit
back to the surface for a moment in case we
lost anybody, or just to bring back you know, the
masses here who might be thinking, well, I don't have trauma,
My life is really good. I believe that probably correct
(28:12):
me if I'm wrong. The truth of that would be
that everybody has experienced trauma, and most likely most people
have undigested trauma as you call it. But you said
that it lives in the subconscious, or trauma lives in
the subconscious, and I think that for a lot of
people it might feel like trauma are only those big teas.
(28:34):
And if it's not the big teas, you know, something
horrific happening to you, going through a natural disaster or something,
you know, sexually assaulted or something like that. If it
doesn't like fit into those major categories that we so
clearly call trauma without argument, then I don't have anything
wrong with me, and therefore I have no work to do,
(28:54):
and therefore, like, why are we throwing this word trauma around?
What would you kind of say to people about all trauma.
Speaker 2 (29:02):
Whether we believe we have trauma or not, we're likely
relating with someone who does.
Speaker 1 (29:07):
And if we're relating with.
Speaker 2 (29:09):
Someone who has trauma, then we are part of the
experience of trauma too.
Speaker 1 (29:13):
So that's the first thing.
Speaker 2 (29:15):
The second thing is when we consider relational trauma, it
can be as simple as having parents that didn't attune
to us, that weren't there to listen to us and
validate our feelings and help us to remain curious and
make life choices that are in line with our spirit.
And so most of us in our generation didn't receive
(29:39):
that at one level or another, and so many of
us were taught get on with it, Smile Grin and Barrett,
do a good job at school, grow up, get a
good job, earn good money, get married, and have kids.
That's kind of the trajectory, and for many of us,
any attempt to say, well, that's not what I want,
(30:00):
I'd love to do this or that was invalidated and
so and for some people shamed, that invalidation causes trauma,
and so it may not express itself in these really
huge ways. But when we have experienced this kind of
relational trauma, it can often feel like we're not quite
(30:23):
who were meant to be, or we're not quite living
the life that we really wanted. And many of us
also feel like the me that we feel on the
inside isn't really the me that's shown in the world.
And so either it might feel like people see me
in this a really great way, but I feel like
(30:44):
a hot mess, or it could be the flip side,
people think that I'm a hot mess, but inside I'm
this beautiful butterfly or bird. And so that's fragmentation. And
so many of us who have this less easy to
kind of trauma have these experiences, and it can often
show up as feeling not really connected, even if we
(31:08):
have a lot of relationships, like I don't feel like
these connections, feel like how it's meant to feel.
Speaker 1 (31:13):
Why what's wrong with me?
Speaker 2 (31:16):
Or It may show up in just feeling mild anxiety
all of the time, or a sense of apathy and
listlessness and not being able to go for our dreams,
or a sense of imposter syndrome, or a tendency to
self sabotage. So all of these things are symptoms of trauma.
It's just that we tend to minimize them and say, ah,
(31:40):
everything's going to be fine.
Speaker 1 (31:41):
We bury our head in the sand.
Speaker 2 (31:43):
Or there's also the rise of the personality profile, and
there are so many different ones, and so we like
to categorize and say, well, I'm just like this, and
this particular personality profile says that that's part of my
character or my personality.
Speaker 1 (32:00):
So it's fine.
Speaker 2 (32:01):
But when we do that, when we categorize, when we label,
when we accept, it's quite a dangerous thing because we
stop ourselves from getting curious and allowing ourselves to be evolutionary.
Speaker 3 (32:14):
Can you just give one example of what a personality
category is?
Speaker 2 (32:18):
There are so many different ones, but like there's Maya's Briggs,
the current popular one is human design.
Speaker 1 (32:25):
There are all these categories.
Speaker 2 (32:26):
I'm a projector I'm a manifesto, I'm an I, N, I, FJ, whatever,
and because this description fits me, then it makes it
okay and I don't need to change. I'll just try
and create the best life possible within this box.
Speaker 3 (32:44):
So you're kind of challenging that and saying when you chance, oh, okay,
because again, I feel like you're just a step ahead
of me here, So bear with me as a digest
what you're saying. You know, I feel like, especially with
social media, things like human design and all the personality
types have definitely been on the rise of things that
(33:05):
people know about and talk about. And my first understanding
of them was that they give people like better understanding
of themselves. So kind of like we're like, oh, why.
Speaker 4 (33:15):
Am I like this?
Speaker 1 (33:15):
Right?
Speaker 3 (33:16):
That's your book? Right when you find out that you're
a reflector or whatever, it's like, oh, that's why I'm
like that. This person just doesn't understand me. But I
am no longer going to stop changing who I am. Like,
I saw it as a good thing in owning kind
of how you're wiring, which I'm sure to a level,
it is good to know about yourself, right, But if
we stop there.
Speaker 2 (33:37):
Correct, So, I think it's great to be able to
make sense of oneself. But I guess how are these
types any different to being given a mental health diagnosis?
Speaker 1 (33:48):
So I think that you know, back when I.
Speaker 2 (33:50):
Got my diagnosis in my early twenties, I was relieved,
but then I tried to make the best of it
in the box I was given. And so whether we're
talking about diagnosis or whether we're talking about personality profiles.
Speaker 1 (34:07):
I think it's great. These are all archetypes.
Speaker 2 (34:09):
So here are these set of symptoms or experiences we
think this is what's going on. I think when we
say perhaps this is what's going on, there's a lot
more freedom and space than saying this.
Speaker 1 (34:21):
Is what you are.
Speaker 2 (34:22):
So when you accept a diagnosis or a label as
an identity, that's when things get a little bit dangerous,
in my opinion, And I so welcome people to have
different opinions because I think that's really important for evolution
and change. So I think it can be helpful to
make sense of oneself. But I don't think that it's
helpful to remain in a box. The dangers that we
(34:45):
enable ourselves to stay exactly as we are and don't
hold ourselves accountable to creating very deep systemic change.
Speaker 1 (34:53):
I'm just like that, And the.
Speaker 2 (34:55):
Reason we start looking for all of these labels is
because we're wondering what is wrong with me? Why am
I like this? And I just think we need to
go much deeper and get far more texture and complexity
in our understanding of why we're experiencing in certain ways.
Speaker 3 (35:14):
I love that and we kind of breathe past it.
But use the word fragmentation, and can you go a
little bit deeper as to what fragmentation is.
Speaker 2 (35:24):
We are all fragmented, which basically means that we have
different parts of our psyche or self that have different
sets of needs and desires and dislikes and triggers.
Speaker 1 (35:37):
And actually all of us.
Speaker 2 (35:39):
Trauma and no trauma, are fragmented. We are complex, and
it's our tendency to consider ourselves as a single self
that actually causes us mostly to feel a lot of
discontent and like perhaps we can't feel happy because we're
not honoring these different parts of us. In the case
of trauma, we experience into what I label as trauma
(36:01):
born fragmentation. So for example, just say, as a young child,
you're getting abused, and during the phase of that abused,
it's not safe to speak up and set boundaries. It's
not safe to run away, there's nowhere to go. It's
not safe to ask for a cuddle when you're feeling sad.
And so all these parts of us that actually really
(36:24):
want to express but can't suppress, they fragment and they
suppress inside us, and then we develop what I call
an external shell, which is a personality that feels safe
to interface with the world from. So most of us
are walking around with these shells that are personalities that
are designed to help us survive and belong through and
(36:47):
beyond trauma, and we carry them into life. But what
happens when we're fragmented is either those suppressed parts of
us those are the ones that are being recurrently triggered
or acting out and creating havoc in our life lives.
Speaker 1 (37:01):
And so a huge.
Speaker 2 (37:02):
Part of healing is learning about our fragment itself and
all the parts of us that didn't have a safe
space to express themselves have their needs met and follow
their desire and to allow ourselves to become more integrated
in who we are. And it's one scary, beautiful journey.
Speaker 3 (37:22):
Wow, I've never thought about any of that like this,
And previously, before this conversation, I thought I knew a lot,
but it turns out I don't, which is really cool
because I feel like that gives me a lot to
learn about as I continue to go through this. You
(37:45):
mentioned the word trauma bond when you were discussing fragmentation.
You said that that creates a trauma bond. Did you
mean that the person who's getting abused forms a trauma
bond with their abuser or the relationships that they then
form in the world are through that fragmented lens.
Speaker 4 (38:04):
What exactly did you mean that.
Speaker 2 (38:05):
I don't remember saying the word trauma bond. I can
explain what a trauma bond is. Maybe I said it
without thinking. A trauma bond is when we attached to
someone from the lens of our trauma, and so when
we enter a trauma bond, it's like our young, traumatized
self is trying to recreate the same attachment relationship, hoping
(38:30):
for a different ending. And the issue is that when
our child traumatized self or selves are attaching in a relationship,
there's never a chance for real intimacy and real connection
from our adults conscious self. And usually what happens when
we're traumatize is we're seeking this relational repair or safety
(38:54):
or achievement from somebody that really isn't able to give
it to us. Maybe a because we're engaging from a
child place, but often we will seek out people or
characters that are very similar to past characters that just
weren't able to give us what we truly need and deserve.
So there are many people living in trauma bonds today.
Speaker 3 (39:15):
That makes a lot of sense, especially when I think
about when I was dating the type of people that
I was dating over and over again, in the same
scenarios that would happen over and over again, and I
truly didn't understand why. And when I look at some
of my friends who are brilliant and beautiful and they're
going through, you know, these relationship reoccurrences over and over again,
(39:37):
I can begin to kind of see a little bit
of that happening for them. But I think it's like
so interesting because until you start to have language for
these experiences, you remain in them. When you hear you
say the word trauma bond, you know, hopefully some of
our listeners, like a light bulb's going off right now,
(39:58):
and it might not be a good.
Speaker 4 (39:59):
Li light bulb.
Speaker 3 (40:00):
It might be like a oh, f You know, this
is me and this was the trauma that I grew
up with, and this is why I seek out these
types of relationships. And you know, it might not be
necessarily the most like aha, good feeling light bulb, but
all of a sudden it's a new doorway and exit,
or at least a lead to begin to chase to
(40:22):
learn more about yourself and begin to make change by
healing first and then doing something differently.
Speaker 2 (40:30):
I agree, And it's interesting there's usually two different groups
we go on with trauma bonds. So either we'll seek
unconsciously to replicate the same dysfunctional dynamics, or we will
so deeply not want to recreate it that we will
run in the other direction. And so that's what I
did when I chose my life plan and my ex husband.
Speaker 1 (40:53):
I think I've been so physically abused.
Speaker 2 (40:57):
Through my life that I chose someone that I know,
so that I knew would never ever, ever ever physically
hurt me.
Speaker 1 (41:04):
But again, it's.
Speaker 2 (41:05):
Coming from a trauma reaction, right, It's not coming from
this very deep bond to begin with. Of course we
developed one, but it was built on top of my
unconscious choosing someone that I knew would never ever hurt me.
That's not necessarily the best reason to get into a relationship.
So we'll either seek to recreate or to ensure that
(41:26):
we do not recreate. And as we heal and become
more conscious, we learn not to move in either polarized
direction from our trauma. We learn to meet people for
who they are and engage from a much more regulated place,
so we're no longer projecting or transferring or replaying the past.
Speaker 3 (41:46):
That makes so much sense to me, and going back
to like the somatic work, I think that when you
work through your trauma, your body ends up being a
signal of this person feels really good for me, or
they don't feel really good for me, or something in between.
Speaker 1 (42:02):
Maybe.
Speaker 3 (42:03):
But I know for myself, like it's only been the
last less than ten years, last decade that I understood
like that my body could have that bottom up approach.
Speaker 4 (42:16):
Otherwise it was top down, you know.
Speaker 3 (42:18):
And the body is so wise with who we feel
safe with. But if we can't feel our bodies, our
minds are going to be much louder, and our minds
are going to do exactly what you said, recreate the
trauma bond or work really hard to not create the
trauma bond.
Speaker 4 (42:34):
But either way, we're working off.
Speaker 3 (42:37):
Of the trauma because we're not working from the safe
place in our body.
Speaker 2 (42:40):
And another piece to that is that if we have
unresolved trauma, it's likely that our nervous system is just
regulated and our wires are crossed. And so a good
example of this is feeling intense chemistry for really harmful
or unavailable people and either feeling zero chemistry or in
(43:03):
fact a repulsion from safe, healthy people. So when we
have these crossed wires, will tend to feel attracted to
the people who are really not good for us. And
we might meet really wonderful people in our lives, but
we don't feel attraction, and it's actually because we have
a lot of nervous system rewiring to do.
Speaker 3 (43:25):
Wow, Like, just a specific person in my life came
to mind when you said that, And essentially this person,
just you know, for listener enjoyment, is always complaining about
how they are single and alone and there's no significant
other for them and nobody likes them and blah blah blah.
Goes on a date and comes home from it and
(43:45):
tells me that the person that they went on a
date with sor I'm being very vague. It's a personal person,
so I'm just being as vague as I possibly can
for respectful reasons. Anyway, they go on a date and
they come back and these it was so great.
Speaker 4 (43:58):
They cooked for me, they you know, we kissed and whatever,
and I.
Speaker 3 (44:03):
Felt so taken care of. And I was like, oh
my gosh, that's great. Did you, you know, send a
text today? And they're like no, And I'm like why not,
Like I don't know. And I'm like, did you you know,
have a good time. They're like yeah, and there was.
Speaker 4 (44:18):
Like nothing there. It made no sense to me.
Speaker 3 (44:21):
I was like, these are all the nice things that
you've been saying that you wanted, but they were running
from it. But this person also has, you know, a
very obvious nervous system dysregulation, and I could imagine wires
in the wrong place. But I in that moment, I
was just like baffled by it.
Speaker 4 (44:37):
But you just.
Speaker 3 (44:38):
Untangled that whole psychological phenomenon for me.
Speaker 2 (44:41):
You know, when safety and care and kindness have not
been the blueprint for our relationships early in life, when
we're met with it.
Speaker 1 (44:54):
It will feel foreign or confronting.
Speaker 2 (44:58):
And if we have no math for what healthy care
and connection looks like. It's very hard to lean into it.
When we identify something as foreign, our unconscious nervous system
will say, well, that's scary, I don't want to go there.
I'm going to pull away. Or it might just be
that our capacity for that kind of connection is very little,
(45:20):
and so when I'm supporting someone to heal from this,
it's about leaning in very small amounts and taking a
lot of space and then leaning in again. So we
have to build our capacity for healthy connection.
Speaker 1 (45:33):
But we need that awareness first.
Speaker 3 (45:36):
The awareness, right, the awareness is the key. And there's
so many people running around without listening to you speak,
and I think the way that you contextualize it so quickly,
so understandably is just I know that people are going
to listen to this episode and walk away different people,
because once you have the awareness, it doesn't go away,
(45:58):
and you grow over time more irritable and uncomfortable just
being aware. So even if you do nothing in the
next week or month or a year, that awareness is
still there and that door for you to open it
and do something differently or learn more. Whatever it goes next,
you know it WAPs for you it WAPs for me.
I don't know why I'm speaking as if this doesn't
apply to me at one hundred percent applies to me,
(46:19):
it applies to all of us. Like there's still I
assume you would say yourself, there's still things that get
poked at and require awareness and action and change as you,
you know, make your way through life.
Speaker 1 (46:31):
Maybe I will always be healing.
Speaker 2 (46:33):
I think the level of what I've gone through means
that my life will always be about healing, and I'll
continue to go and evolve. But for me, I've got
a place where there's no shame in that. And I
love what you said in about it. It's just waiting
for you. And so I believe illumination is eternal. Once
you see, you cannot unsee. And I also believe that
(46:56):
we build capacity slowly over time. So just because we
can see that something needs to change, or that there's
an avenue for us to walk down.
Speaker 1 (47:05):
It's important to learn we do not have to.
Speaker 2 (47:08):
Rush down it and drop everything else and fix it
and get to the other side. That's a block to
our healing. And so if all we do is stay curious,
allow the illumination to unfold and build the capacity to
take one step forward as a time. That's how we
actually change the way we're living and breathing here, and
(47:29):
that's when we enter a state of embodiment or grace.
We're not rushing to force ourselves or fix ourselves or
be who we're not. We're just compassionate.
Speaker 3 (47:40):
I really appreciate that. On your social media recently, you
post it about healing, and it was a quote that said,
in the early stages of healing, it's common to create
a cocoon. Can you share what this cocoon means and furthermore,
how we know when it's time to leave this cocoon.
Speaker 2 (48:01):
The cocoon is kind of like a safe space. So
when you realize that a lot of the influences in
the external world are not really helping you on your
journey to heal, it's common to create this cocoon and
take the space to begin to make sense of things,
to let go of.
Speaker 1 (48:18):
Past pain, to rest.
Speaker 2 (48:20):
Most of us are really living in a very big
state of burnout, and so we find we kind of
don't want to be engaging with certain people. We don't
want to be so much out there. We just want
to be healing and looking after ourselves and it's a
really important stage. But I often say safe spaces that
are not evolutionary can become cages. So if we're in
(48:41):
our cocoon too long, it ends up blocking us, it
ends up becoming a bit of a prison. Because in
the end, the goal of healing is to create a
life where we feel empowered and of life and curious
and playful, and that means being in relationships with people,
and it means trying a new thing then expanding our horizons,
(49:01):
and if we're in our safe cocoon, we can't do that.
But it can feel really scary to emerge. You know,
think about being born, right, It's terrifying to be born.
You're in this lovely, safe womb and you come out
and there's this big, scary world and you don't know
what's going to happen. And healing is kind of like
being reborn again and again and again, all these new
(49:22):
versions of yourself. And when you sort of step out
without say some of the past trauma or is this
new version of yourself, it can feel scary because we
don't know how to exist as this version of ourselves.
We don't know how to relate as this version of ourselves.
It's terrifying and will people like it or not always
(49:43):
fail And so I often suggest when we begin to
step out of the concoon, we can do it slowly,
and we can always come back to the cocoon. So
the cocoon never leaves, so once we've learned how to
build one, we can always come back.
Speaker 1 (49:57):
And this testing.
Speaker 2 (49:59):
This putting our toes into the waters of a world
where we are sort of more empowered or more alive,
that's really important for building resilience and building self trust.
So in the end, we're needing to teach ourselves. Oh,
I can show up as this version of myself. I
can look after myself. I can make healthy choices and
(50:22):
choose the right people and live a life that's a
little more sustainable. But we don't know that. We have
to go on a journey of proving it to ourselves.
Speaker 3 (50:31):
I love how you put that and called the cocoon
a cage. At some point, you know how, just time,
at some point that shift happens. It reminded me of
a best friend of mine who lost her mother abruptly
about a year ago, and it has thrown her out
of the nest for a bunch of reasons. And one
(50:53):
of the things that she did to take care of
self was go completely off social media. And this is
not like an influencer or anything like that, just a
regular person who uses social media. And we were talking
over coffee and this really stuck with me and I
this explained this just the way you said, just speak
so clearly to it. But she's brilliant, and I was like,
how is your last couple of months being off social media?
(51:15):
She's like, it was six months. It was great, But
I think I'm ready to come back. And I was like, really,
because whenever I go off social media, I feel like
I could like never come back. We have different relationships
to social media. But she was like, yeah, it's kind
of like that, like how far can the pendulum swing
type of a thing. And I just never thought.
Speaker 4 (51:32):
Of it like that.
Speaker 3 (51:33):
And it's kind of the same thing. It's like, how
long can you not interact with the world? You know,
you said, go back to relationships? Social media is here,
whether we like it or not. It's how we relate
to each other. It's how we get information, news, learn
about what our friends are doing, all of that. Like
it's an interface that is there. And I just never
(51:54):
heard anybody put it so the way she did, and
I never heard somebody put it the way you did,
But it feels to me like the same type of
a thing.
Speaker 2 (52:02):
I think if we can know and believe that we
always have the choice to come and go and create change,
then everything's okay. And we also learned that everything is
a stage, and so we will all continue to go
through stages. Nothing's finite. And if we allow ourselves to
live this way, and if we trust that we can
maintain that sense of agency and choice, we're in control
(52:27):
of our lives. So we don't need to be afraid
anymore of getting stuck, of getting trapped, getting hurt.
Speaker 3 (52:34):
On your social media as well, there was something that
you posted that you stated your belief that is the
common statement that we see thrown around, especially in the
last couple of years on social media, is that you
attract what you manifest is actually harmful. I don't know
if I said that right, but what Natalia was wrote
(52:54):
on her social media was that statement, you attract what
you manifest actually is harmful. Can you explain why that's timeful?
Speaker 4 (53:03):
I'd love to hear your approach on it.
Speaker 2 (53:05):
There's these popular sentiments in self help that until you
love yourself, no one's going to love you. That's kind
of what underpins it all. And so until you do
this certain level of healing work, you're not valid or
worthy and you're just never going to get what you need,
and it goes against human nature. It's very shaming, and
(53:27):
there's a lot of shaming messages that actually come through
the modern self help paradigm. If you think about how
humans develop when we are a baby, when we're born,
it's actually through the reflection and care of our mother
and ideally our greater family in our community that show
(53:48):
us we are inherently worthy, and we develop our sense
of worth and self esteem through being loved and cared for,
not the other way around. And so for those of
us that didn't get that early on, we often feel
like we don't love ourselves, and perhaps that we even
(54:09):
hate ourselves. And then if we're being told, well, if
you don't love yourself, if you don't have self love,
no one's gonna love you, that's pretty devastating because you
can't just force it upon yourself. You can't just pretend
that you love yourself, though many people do, but it's
not real. So I might smile and say I love me,
(54:30):
I love me in the mirror, but if there's a
voice inside my say this thing, Oh, I hate myself,
it's not true. And while of course we all do
want to learn to care for ourselves and love ourselves,
I think it's important that the message that people here
is that we are always inherently worthy of love and
(54:52):
care and opportunity, even if we don't really believe it.
And so to perpetuate the people thought I'm just not worthy,
therefore I don't deserve and I'm not going to get it.
That traps them into a shame spiral, and we can't
heal what we're a shame spiral.
Speaker 3 (55:07):
I think that that's really, really, really great advice and
helps us take a step back from the popular paradigms
that are kind of furthering one half of the population.
And I don't even mean this fifty to fifty, but
the people that have made it to the other side, right,
it's like, great, I'm here, I attract it, I manifest
I think there's a level of truth to it.
Speaker 4 (55:28):
It's not like it's all bs.
Speaker 3 (55:29):
But to the other people that are nowhere near that,
it's not even like a breadcrumb for them to work with.
It's putting them in a state of spiral and feeling
so far from that place.
Speaker 4 (55:40):
So that makes a lot of sense.
Speaker 2 (55:41):
So many people read messages like this, and if they
are living in a state of trauma, it just makes
them feel hopeless, like, oh, well, I'm never going to
get that. Then I'm never going to get the love,
I'm never going to get the opportunity. I'm never going
to get the choice or any of these things that
I want because I hate myself so much, so why
don't I just not bother?
Speaker 3 (56:02):
The final question that I have for you today is
you stand by the mantra heal your trauma, change the world.
Speaker 4 (56:09):
What does that mean to you?
Speaker 2 (56:10):
I believe that our own healing is the blueprint for
the social change that we wish to create.
Speaker 1 (56:18):
Most of us.
Speaker 2 (56:18):
Want to see a kinder, more inclusive, more intelligent world.
But if we haven't reached a certain level of our
own healing, we continue to perpetuate cycles of threat and
exclusion and equity because our trauma is leaking into dynamics.
And when we do enough healing work to be able
(56:39):
to contain our bias and our trauma, and also to
not play into other peoples. We become beacons of peace
and power, and we can learn to show up so
that every interaction that we have is a very beautiful
intervention that takes us towards the world we want to see.
Speaker 3 (57:01):
If I had your lens on, or like, if I
had your brain on at all times, like I understand
everything that you're saying, but then I walk into the
real world and I might forget all of that. I
might forget when I hear somebody say something harmful, not inclusive,
you know what, I might just think, Wow, they're an
a whole, but through your lens it's they're dealing with
(57:23):
unprocessed trauma. Do you walk around every day with your
professional brain on or are you sometimes ejected into regular
life where you think, like, you know, this person's just
being an a whole.
Speaker 1 (57:37):
I am a regular, messy, complex human.
Speaker 2 (57:40):
So absolutely I still get triggered and I still move
into judgment.
Speaker 1 (57:45):
But I do have a conscious.
Speaker 2 (57:47):
Practice of trying to catch myself when I move into
judgment and come back to we Why so when I'm
able to see that someone is being dysfunctional or in
a whole, as you say, I'll try to come out
of judgment, but I will have a very very very
strong boundary. So I'm not interested in engaging with people
(58:07):
unless there is a much bigger purpose that aren't able
to offer me or others a certain level of respect.
I'm a regular human, I promise you are.
Speaker 3 (58:15):
But I think you know when you spoke about that boundary,
I like felt it. You know, it's like I am compassionate,
but I am also protective. Like it came through your
voice and I could definitely see you shifting gears a
bit to most importantly protect and hold space for self
and for others.
Speaker 4 (58:31):
So thank you for sharing that.
Speaker 3 (58:34):
I think we learn just from listening to the power
of your voice and that like ferocity, for lack of
a better word, come through because it's not always easy
to sit peacefully and listen to the words that are
thrown around us and the people around us, you know,
and our relationships to the people and all of that.
(58:55):
So thank you so much. I've learned so much from
our time together. I'm so grateful from it. And is
there anything else that you want to share with our listeners?
Speaker 2 (59:04):
Oh, I think it's been a beautiful conversation and really
texted so thank you so much for having me. It's
been a lovely time.
Speaker 3 (59:11):
I cannot wait for your second book. And as always,
I'm going to put Natalia's information below both her social
media and her first book. And as soon as that
second book is out, you better let us know, Okay,
thank you so much
Popular Podcasts
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com
24/7 News: The Latest
The latest news in 4 minutes updated every hour, every day.
Therapy Gecko
An unlicensed lizard psychologist travels the universe talking to strangers about absolutely nothing. TO CALL THE GECKO: follow me on https://www.twitch.tv/lyleforever to get a notification for when I am taking calls. I am usually live Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays but lately a lot of other times too. I am a gecko.