Highlight Reel: Holistic Psychology, Integrating Therapies

Highlights from our conversation with Katherine Romero about the integration of different approaches to accomplishing mental health.

Episode Transcript

(00:11):
I did not come about this in any traditional way and going forward will not be in anytraditional way either.
So I've had a whole 20 plus year career in business in digital marketing specifically, andI always thought I would be a therapist.
And when I was doing my undergrad, I did an internship and I don't know.
I feel like in some level, the internship broke me in terms of it was at a communitymental health center and it just really revealed to me how broken the system is and how

(00:39):
harmful
It can be for so many people.
So I ran the complete other direction for 20 plus years into business.
And then somewhere along the pandemic with that forced kind of slow down, the like quiet,the isolation, the calling to get back into therapy got really, really loud.
And it was also really inconvenient because I have a mortgage.

(01:01):
I'm in my forties.
I have kids.
all these modalities into this umbrella that's now called therapy.
And so somebody comes into this office, so to speak, they're wrapped around with all ofthese healers looking at their depression, let's say, from the 360 degree view and saying,

(01:23):
Catherine, that depression or that apathy or that overwhelm you've been experiencing,well, your vitamin D levels are low and your inflammation markers are off the chart.
And yeah, you did go through some shit in childhood.
Let's talk about that too.
And let's also fortify your energy field and let's look at what your soul's purpose isthrough astrology or through a caustic record or just something like that.
And let's see how that all fits together.

(01:44):
So now you're tackling this from multiple different angles, hopefully in the same timethat traditional therapy takes now, which sometimes can be three, four, five, 10 years or
longer even.
But in a way that's in my book, maybe more efficient or more effective or it sticks.

(02:08):
Somatic breath work is all built on this basic premise that our soma, our body, has amemory in and of its own, separate from what our mind has, separate from what our nerve,
or maybe in tandem with what our nervous system has, but our body actually carries thememory of all of the stresses and the traumas and the unprocessed emotions that we've ever

(02:28):
carried through our lifetime.
So somatic breath work leverages the breath to move that out of our body, get it out ofour system.
And then there's a whole period after a breathwork session that's called integration wherewe come and bring it back, bring ourselves, our body, our emotions, our nervous system
kind of back into a new homeostasis, a more balanced homeostasis.

(02:53):
there's been some fascinating studies by a researcher, what is her last name?
Rachel Yehuda, looking at the descendants of Holocaust survivors and looking at the stressresponse systems, different gene expressions, all this fascinating stuff.
And essentially we can inherit our ancestors' trauma, epigenetically speaking.
But I also looked at it from what the Eastern and Indigenous perspectives had to say,because I think that's just as important, if not more, than Western perspectives.

(03:21):
And there's a lot in the area of
But karma, think, is a probably easy way to understand it.
We can inherit our ancestors' karma, and it's our duty in this lifetime to heal that, orelse it will be perpetuated, and we won't be able to kind of fulfill our full potential.
what it feels like for the person receiving Reiki.

(03:42):
Yeah, like what kind of happens?
Yeah, so in a very traditional sense, it doesn't have to go this way, but in a verytraditional sense, they kind of lay on like what looks like a massage table.
And then the healer kind of comes and doesn't really put hands on the person unless theperson is consented to that and there's a need, but there's usually not a need.
But the healer kind of opens the container, so to speak.
We ask for the flow of Reiki to come through.

(04:03):
And then the person receiving Reiki usually doesn't feel much.
They're kind of just laying there.
And in the moment, they might not feel anything.
Usually what's reported afterwards is like, oh, I feel lighter or more energetic or thatnagging pain that I can't get rid of is gone all of sudden.
And sometimes in the session you can feel things too.
You'll feel like heat or you'll feel tingling or you might feel emotions come up and youmight want to laugh for no reason or cry for no reason.

(04:36):
I also have done Ryan and Shelby's liquid breathwork session and I think the difference isI think both modalities are so beautiful.
Ryan's and Shelby's and liquid breathwork feels more gentle.
So I think it does allow for more of that meditative state.
That said, in somatic breathwork, I wouldn't call it a meditative state, but I have goneinto altered state of consciousness.

(04:57):
I've actually gone into a past life and felt a connection with somebody in this currentlife.
And like so much was revealed to me in this past life, like snippet.
It was like I watching it on a movie screen where I just got to watch like one little clipof it.
So much was revealed to me that I never could have accessed with my rational mind.
I never could have accessed sitting there with a therapist.
Like I would have sat there forever with a therapist trying to process or trying to figureout this one piece of the puzzle.

(05:21):
And I did it in a breathwork session.

(06:18):
This has been a Shut Up