Your nervous system—not just your mindset—holds the key to healing. In this powerful conversation, Elizabeth Kipp shares how she recovered from 40 years of chronic pain and why codependent patterns are actually survival strategies, not flaws. You’ll learn simple breathing techniques to shift from stress to safety in minutes, plus holistic tools for releasing trauma, breaking cycles, and finding true regulation.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
If you've ever felt stuck in survival mode, caught
in people-pleasing or like yourbody is constantly bracing for
something, this episode's foryou.
We're talking about how chronicstress affects your entire
nervous system, why codependenthabits often start as survival
tools, and what healing actuallylooks like.
Beyond just positive thinking,you're going to walk away with a
(00:21):
whole new perspective onrecovery, one that's
compassionate, body-aware anddeeply validating.
All right, let's get into it.
Welcome to the CodependentDoctor, a podcast where we
unpack the messy, beautifuljourney of healing from
codependency.
If you're burned out frompeople pleasing, stuck in
(00:44):
unhealthy patterns or just tiredof putting yourself last,
you're in the right place.
I'm Dr Angela Downey, a familydoctor and fellow codependent,
and I'm here to help youreconnect to your authentic self
, one honest conversation at atime.
Here we go.
Hello to all my wonderfulpodcast listeners and welcome to
the 55th episode of theCodependent Doctor.
I'm your host, dr Angela Downey, a family doctor and fellow
(01:05):
codependent, here to help usuntangle our patterns, heal our
hearts and reclaim our peace.
For today's episode, we have aguest with us.
Elizabeth Kipp is a stressmanagement, historical trauma
specialist and addictionsrecovery and betrayal trauma
coach who uses post-betrayaltransformation methods,
trauma-trained and yoga-informedaddiction recovery, coaching,
(01:28):
ancestral cleaning and yoga tohelp people with their healing.
Elizabeth healed from over 40years of chronic pain, including
betrayal, trauma, anxiety,panic attacks and addiction.
Now in long-term recovery.
She helps others tap into theirhealing potential.
Addiction Now in long-termrecovery.
She helps others tap into theirhealing potential, discover
(01:50):
freedom from suffering and leada thriving life.
She's the internationalbest-selling author of the Way
Through Chronic Pain Tools toReclaim your Healing Power.
Welcome, elizabeth.
I'm so glad that you're able tojoin us today.
How are you?
Speaker 2 (02:00):
I'm good, thank you, and I'm delighted to be here.
Thank you for inviting me.
Speaker 1 (02:04):
Amazing.
I'm really excited to have youon the show.
Your story is absolutelyincredible.
So 40 years of chronic pain andanxiety and now you're helping
others find real healing, and Ilove how you reframe codependent
behaviors as survivalstrategies not as flaws and how
you bring in the nervous systemand body-based tools.
Elizabeth, one of my traditionson the show is that we discuss
(02:27):
what we're grateful for, becausewhen we stop and think about
what we're grateful for, ithelps our brains focus on what's
working instead of what'smissing or what's broken.
So I'd like to ask you is thereanything that you're especially
grateful for today?
Speaker 2 (02:41):
Well, today because I work on a list every morning.
I have a list of five thingsI'm grateful for, One thing I
love about myself and I trade itwith a bunch of people, and the
top two on my list today wereevolving understandings and
compassion, and I think theymake a really nice pair.
Speaker 1 (03:02):
They do, so this is a tool that you use every day.
You list five things.
Speaker 2 (03:07):
Yeah, I do that consciously because my most
challenging part of every24-hour period seems to be those
wee early morning hours, sayaround three, 4, 5 o'clock in
the morning, and so I like tostart off my day in the
(03:32):
frequency of recovery, not inthe frequency of addiction,
which is what that negativethinking thing is.
That old stress pattern kind offlares up at that hour.
I'm not sure why it does that,but there it is, and so this is.
I just think it's a good toolfor recovery in general, but I
(03:56):
actually apply it veryspecifically every day, every
morning, okay.
Speaker 1 (04:01):
So this kind of helps change your mindset a little
bit and starts your day on abetter foot, that's right.
Speaker 2 (04:06):
Yeah, right away.
This is how we're doing thisday.
Speaker 1 (04:11):
Right?
No, absolutely so, for today.
I'm grateful.
This lady yesterday stopped mein the grocery store and she
just told me she loved my shirtand this was completely out of
the blue and I, you know, so farlike I'd been having a so-so
day, and that one commentcompletely lit me up and I think
that I, I need to do more ofthat.
(04:33):
I need to take the time andjust, you know, tell somebody
that their hair looks good thatday, or, you know, it's a
complete stranger Cause for meit was.
It was a complete 180.
Like, it totally lifted me up,that one little comment, and I
love that she took the time todo that, and so I think that's
something we can all do for eachother.
Wonderful, I love that.
So, elizabeth, why don't westart by having you introduce
(04:55):
yourself and tell us a littlebit about your journey?
Speaker 2 (04:59):
Sure, I'm a stress management and historical trauma
specialist, addiction recoverycoach and ancestral clearing
practitioner and that soundslike a lot of hats, but they're
all under stress management andthose are just audiences that I
happen to serve.
I also work as a I'm also acertified trauma betrayal coach,
(05:22):
and I work on a platform thatspecifically works with people
that are just healing from that.
So that's what I do, and Istarted my business in 2014,
which was like I got clear ofall that medication and pain in
(05:45):
2013.
, and I was.
So this is what happened when Igot to treatment to get off all
that medication and went intopain management.
There were 100 patients oncampus and 20 of us went to pain
(06:05):
track, into this chronic painprogram, and the other 80 were
not.
And so in the afternoon, the 20of us went to pain track, which
we call it pain track, and theother 80 went to relapse school,
and so I didn't get anytraining on relapse, and so I
(06:26):
asked my counselor one day well,what's the story here?
I'm not getting any training inrelapse.
And this is what she saidthere's an 80% relapse rate in
the first year, and I startedout as a social scientist in
college.
So as soon as I heard that, Iwas like, two things happened in
(06:51):
my mind.
One I'm doomed because I didn'tlike the odds, and the second
was what's wrong with the modelthat we're using, that we're not
doing better than 80% relapserate, Like right.
So I mean not knowing anythingmore than I knew in that moment
I was like we got to get abetter model here for recovery.
Speaker 1 (07:11):
So can you clarify what you mean?
You had chronic pain for areally long time.
Speaker 2 (07:16):
Yeah, Is that?
Speaker 1 (07:17):
what you're referring to, and when you say relapse,
what kind of relapse are wetalking about?
Speaker 2 (07:21):
Well, she was talking about relapse in general and so
that was a chemical dependencyfacility and so anybody that was
they came in with maybealcoholism or they were on drugs
of some sort and the relapsewhen you go back to that, when
you go back to that behavior.
I had an accident when I was 14and broke my fifth lumbar and
(07:47):
it broke front to back so thefront part of it slipped forward
.
I didn't know at the time thatI had quite that bad of a.
I didn't know I'd broken a bonefor one thing.
It hurt, but I didn't know I'dbroken a bone because I walked
away from that.
But I didn't know I'd broken abone because I walked away from
that.
But I had a history of chronicpain, not understanding at that
(08:10):
time.
I grew up in an environmentwhere the environment was
chronic pain, environmentDysfunctional.
So let's just define chronicpain for the audience, right?
Chronic pain is any pain that'sfelt 15 days out of 30 for
three months or more.
So physical, mental, emotional,spiritual, financial.
(08:34):
The brain can't tell thedifference between one kind of
pain and another.
It sends the same signal ithurts.
And why is that a thing?
With an acute pain, that painclears within a few weeks.
In chronic pain it doesn't, andthe difference is the stress
(08:55):
response in the body, right.
So we have a mechanism in thebody called the stress response
that turns on.
It's off most of the timeunless there's a threat that
presents itself or we perceive athreat.
Then it turns on and we bringall kinds of psychology and
biochemistry and biology to meetthe threat and then we meet it
(09:17):
and the stress response goes inthe off position.
That's a balanced stressresponse.
In chronic pain the stressresponse gets stuck in the on
position and so we're always inthis threat mode.
We're always looking for thethreat.
I mean this is one of thereasons I had anxiety.
(09:39):
It's just a really stressful,obviously, state and we really
don't have a chance to rest andheal.
We're really not made forchronic stress.
It creates all kinds of toxicstress hormones in the body that
(10:00):
we have to clear and it alsocreates confusion in the brain.
So it affects the memory partof our brain and it affects the
emotional part of our brain.
So that normal, slight negativebias that we have already as a
(10:21):
normal human being if there issuch a thing on the planet
anymore, a normal, healthy humanbeing we have a slight negative
bias In chronic pain that getsaccentuated.
So now the whole world is well,you're wrong, the world's wrong
(10:41):
.
And then we turn it in onourselves and we're wrong.
And so now we've got, we'vereally dug ourselves into a hole
and that's kind of chronic painin a nutshell.
Yeah, okay.
Speaker 1 (10:57):
So what was it like living with chronic pain for
over 40 years and what shiftedfor you when you began
questioning the conventionalmedical model?
Great, question.
Speaker 2 (11:09):
It was hard.
I had a few things going for meand I love that you started the
podcast with what are yougrateful for?
Because that was one of thetools that I used.
Because that was one of thetools that I used, I came in my
ancestors.
I swear I didn't think it up,it was right there for me and so
(11:31):
when things got crazy at homewhich they did on a regular
basis I would go.
You know, oh yeah, that was badand I'm grateful for this other
thing, right.
So I always had a way of kind ofnaturally balancing the good
and the bad in my life, andgratitude is one of them.
So gratitude is one of the waysI got through.
(11:52):
I also had a meditationpractice, which isn't as
powerful when you don't havepain and you're not on
medication, but it's stillhelpful because I learned to
stay present and it helped memanage time better.
Now it was 14 years after thataccident that I finally started
(12:21):
having surgery, and that's whenthe pain medicine started.
The pain medicine and anxietymedicine started, and that went
on for 31 years.
The doctors at that time didnot have an answer for chronic
pain.
Well, they had an answer.
(12:41):
They just didn't have the rightanswer.
Speaker 1 (12:44):
Pills and pain medication, chronic pain.
Well, they had an answer, theyjust didn't have the right
answer.
Speaker 2 (12:47):
Their answer was you can't heal from chronic pain.
Here are your opiates and yourbenzodiazepines, right, and I
was trained as a researchscientist.
So when I first heard that itwas like, well, they're the
experts, you know, and.
But something didn't sit rightwith me when they said you can't
(13:10):
heal from chronic pain.
It was kind of like I it upsetme like a lot for a couple of
weeks and but I kept thinkingand thinking and thinking, and
sometimes a little slow on theuptake, but I at the end of two
weeks I was like, oh, I see whathappened here.
They made an error.
They said you can't heal fromchronic pain and they forgot
(13:35):
their basic science, which isprobabilities.
It's not facts, right, and welive in the all that is, but
science is just a piece of it.
Science operates in a frameworkthat's limited relative to the
(13:55):
all that is.
It can only comment on thatwhich you can observe, measure
and describe.
So they were telling me moreabout the model they were
working with and its limitationthan they were telling me about
my ability to heal because oftheir orientation.
And they made the mistake aboutthey forgot probabilities.
And I was like, oh, okay, I seewe've made an error here.
(14:20):
And then I knew that well.
I also knew that scientificparadigms changed.
So I knew that the sciencewould evolve eventually and I
knew I was going to have to lookoutside of the scientific
framework for other options forhealing.
And I did, and meditation wasone of them which kind of really
(14:43):
kept me pretty steady relativeto my experience of just being
flared up in pain all the time.
I had a massage therapist, Ihad acupuncture, I did very
(15:04):
gentle yoga that kept me kind offlexible and I had a lot of
support.
I had a lot of kind ofencouragement and support.
So it was difficult but Ifinally found a doctor who
actually understood the natureof chronic pain and he was
(15:24):
Western and Eastern, so he was aQigong healer as well as
straight up Western and he was abrain physiologist and a
neurophysiologist and anaddiction specialist.
So he knew kind of the basicscience, but he also you will
love this the first time that Imet him he said to me I don't
(15:46):
need to see your records or yourx-rays, I want to know who you
are.
And I was like who are you andwhere have you been all my life?
No doctor ever asked me thatquestion.
So it was pretty cool.
Speaker 1 (16:02):
Sounds like a Pretty smart guy yeah, so that was.
Speaker 2 (16:06):
That was kind of the story and kind of how I shifted
my orientation to like how am Igoing to handle this situation
here?
Speaker 1 (16:18):
Yeah, right, and just recognizing that you know
medicine offered one route butthat there was other routes that
you could, that you could lookinto.
So you say that chronic stressisn't just mental, it's a full
body experience.
So can you walk us through whatthat actually means on a
nervous system level?
Speaker 2 (16:36):
Sure, Well, if you think about it just in terms of,
I like to reference StephenPorges' work in polyvagal theory
because it makes the most senseto me in my own lived
experience.
He maintains that theorymaintains that the nervous
(16:58):
system is always checking forsafety.
Nervous system is alwayschecking for safety.
So right now, you and I arehaving a conversation and we're
kind of co-regulating with oneanother and our nervous systems
are talking to one another andwe're trying to.
We're saying are we safe?
Are we safe?
Are we safe?
Well, we're safe, we know we'resafe.
(17:19):
Right, it doesn't mean thenervous system has stopped
talking.
Right right Now.
They're not in hypervigilantmode because you and I are both.
You know, we both know our area.
We're not feeling threatened.
But in chronic stress, thenervous system, like I said, the
stress response is stuck in theon position and so it's out of
(17:40):
balance.
Response is stuck in the onposition and so it's out of
balance, and so the nervoussystem is.
When it's in that kind of state, it's either going to fight,
it's going to run, it's going toshut down, and there's a few
different stages of shuttingdown.
Depression is an example ofshutting down.
(18:11):
Appeasement, people-pleasing,is an example is an aspect of
that kind of depressed, andthere are kind of this blend
where we're moving from onestate to another as well, so
it's not quite cut and dry likethat.
But we have these certainstrategies that we use.
But we have these certainstrategies that we use and in
chronic stress we're kind of inone or the other of those where
rest and digest is not really.
(18:33):
We don't hang out there, and sothis makes it very difficult to
heal, because we can't healwhen we're not resting.
Speaker 1 (18:42):
So when you're in chronic stress, your nervous
system is constantly in thisfight or flight response, or
freeze response.
Speaker 2 (18:51):
Yeah, yeah, it's in one of those states.
Speaker 1 (18:55):
Yeah, so many people.
They see people-pleasing orovergiving as just part of who
they are.
So how do you help peopleunderstand these as
trauma-informed copingstrategies rather than just
personality flaws or just beingpart of who you are?
Speaker 2 (19:28):
I'm going to define people pleasing, just so
everybody's super clear on whereI'm coming from with my answer.
If I'm doing a people pleasingthing, then I'm changing my
authentic self in order toelicit a response I want from
you.
I'm anticipating that if I dothis, you'll do that and I have
(19:48):
to change myself.
I become a chameleon and I haveto change myself in order to do
that.
So why is that even happening?
That's happening because Idon't feel safe in my own body
and I'm looking for safety inthat other person.
So again, we're getting back tothis chronic stress situation.
(20:09):
It's a fear-based response.
Yeah, and so the way that webring trauma-informed, there's a
lot.
I'm still learning.
I'm still getting trained.
I spent a year training with DrGabor Mate and his Compassion
Inquiry.
I've had a ton of training inpolyvagal theory.
(20:31):
I've had like I've got over 500hours in trauma-informed yoga.
So I've just a lot of trainingand I'm still learning more,
because we're still learningmore in that space.
But mostly we need to learn.
You know, this is the quick,this is the quick and amazing
(20:51):
thing that I'll teach everybodytoday.
There is a profound connectionbetween a long exhale at the
brain and when we bring a longexhale.
When we do a long exhale we'retelling the part of the nervous
(21:13):
system that we're telling thebrain that it's safe.
So we now have a tool in thebreath that when we're activated
and I could get into that andI'm not going to because I could
get really into the weeds here.
So I'm trying to keep it kindof simple and I start getting in
(21:39):
that fight or flight orshutdown because I can feel it
in my body.
I can bring in a long, I canstart doing long, deep breathing
and make sure that that exhaleis as long or longer than the
inhale, and I can do that.
I mean I like to do three to 11minutes of it, but you could
(21:59):
try six or seven of thosebreaths and you'll notice a
difference in the body.
Speaker 1 (22:06):
You'll feel so, instead of being stuck in this
fight, flight or freeze responsebecause of your chronic pain or
whatever your stress is doing,that longer exhale will convince
your nervous system that you'rein a safe place.
Speaker 2 (22:20):
Yeah, there are at least six ways right off the bat
that we can use to change ourstate, and for me that was good
news, because I thought the painwas doing it to me and I had no
agency.
Speaker 1 (22:37):
Yeah, if you have no control over the situation, the
anxiety.
Speaker 2 (22:41):
So I had my wits and then I learned there were tools.
This is great, right.
So we can.
We can change our state by howwe move, what we eat, how we
breathe, our rest, where ourattention, where our focus is
(23:04):
and is, and by releasing thepast.
Speaker 1 (23:08):
Are you okay going into some of these a little bit,
because I find this reallyinteresting.
I think this is somethingthat'll be really helpful for a
lot of people.
Speaker 2 (23:16):
Sure, yeah, so one of the things I mean, my yoga
practice is amazing.
It's not the only thing.
Qi Gong is amazing.
Tai Chi there's lots ofmovement practices that are
powerful.
So, you know, pick the one thatworks for you, but please
(23:38):
explore.
There are movements that I cando that if I'm feeling a little
bit sleepy, maybe a little bitlike I have to maybe it's 4
o'clock in the afternoon andI've got a 6 o'clock thing and I
don't have time for a 20-minutenap and I need to.
(23:58):
Well, I can do some activatedbreath practices and I'll show
you one right now.
I'm not sure you can see it allin the mirror, but I'm going to
raise my hands up like this,and then when I bring them down,
I'm going to grab the air, likegrabbing the energy, and bring
them down.
I'll show you.
I'm just breathing it out, okay.
Speaker 1 (24:25):
And you do that.
So as you're breathing out,you're grabbing energy.
Speaker 2 (24:28):
Yeah, I'm grabbing, the hands are up and then I'm
grabbing the energy and bringingit in and you do that for three
minutes and you are not goingto be the same person.
Speaker 1 (24:38):
Okay, interesting.
Speaker 2 (24:39):
You will be energized right.
Another one that I do is justreally simply just sitting and
breathing in four sniffs here,and I've got my eye focus here
because it helps focus the mindon the task at hand.
So four sniffs in.
Speaker 1 (25:09):
One sniff out A long exhale, nice and long.
Speaker 2 (25:12):
Yeah, you want the exhale to be longer than that
inhale, as long or longer thanthe inhale, and you sit and do
that for I do it for 11, but youcould do it for three.
You'll notice a difference.
I mean, run the experiment Idid.
I don't do these things unlessthey work.
I just like I got other thingsto do so?
Speaker 1 (25:33):
do you find that these help control that pain a
little bit better?
Speaker 2 (25:39):
Well, I went into Dr Prescott's program with 40 years
of chronic pain andI walked out52 days later, so I don't have
pain anymore.
Okay.
Speaker 1 (25:48):
Not at all.
Speaker 2 (25:48):
So it's not an issue.
The issue was, if you're askinglike what happened, there was
what happened in 52 days.
That's another conversation,right.
Speaker 1 (26:03):
We're not going to fit that in 45 minutes.
Speaker 2 (26:05):
Yeah, but I don't have pain anymore, so that's not
an issue.
Yeah, now I don't have the pain, but what I do have is the
stress habit that was underneathit.
I'm still working on that,that's right.
That started when I was in thewomb Right, it's like that
(26:26):
started, you know.
So I'm still working onunraveling that, 12 years in to
my recovery.
And so every day I sit down andI do an 11 minute breath
practice.
So every day I sit down and Ido an 11-minute breath practice.
That's a regulating breathpractice in the morning, and the
(26:53):
message is this is how we'redoing life today, and so we're
retraining the brain and thenervous system to be calmer.
Speaker 1 (27:03):
Yeah, so you've talked about the importance of
somatic healing over justmindset work.
So why isn't mindset aloneenough to heal from chronic
stress or trauma?
Speaker 2 (27:11):
Yeah, great question.
So we can't think our way outof chronic stress.
We have to nervous system ourway out.
We have to actually the nervoussystem has to actually believe
that it's safe in order for usto actually rest, digest, calm,
(27:32):
get back to a regulated state.
So this is why, when we have achronic stress habit, that we do
all these practices that tonethe nervous system, retrain the
brain's habits.
If you think of it like inphysics, they tell us an object
(27:54):
in motion stays in motion untilacted on by an equal or opposite
force.
Think about a habit, a stresshabit, right as a habit.
It's an object in motion.
It about a habit, a stresshabit, right as a habit.
It's an object in motion, it'sa habit, and so we need to come
(28:15):
and break that habit.
In order to shift that, we needto bring in an object of equal
or opposite force, and that'swhat these practices do.
Meditation is an example,breathwork is an example.
Those six things that I readoff.
This is how you change yourstate.
Those things are examples.
Yeah, that makes sense.
Speaker 1 (28:30):
It did it does.
You mentioned that there wasother things.
So sleep plays a role.
How you eat, are you justtalking about like, having a
like a normal, like healthy dietand making sure that you get
eight hours of sleep, or isthere something more behind
those?
Speaker 2 (28:46):
Well, I think one of the things in this society
that's the hard part is thesugar, Because it really it
creates.
First of all it createsinflammation, so now you're
inflaming the gut, you'reinflaming the body, so now
(29:08):
you're setting yourself up forchronic pain, chronic stress.
But it also, because of itseffect on the gut and how the
gut operates, it also wreakshavoc on our emotions.
So if I have clients that arehaving anger issues or
(29:33):
depression issues or whateveryou know what's interesting,
Nine times out of ten there's asugar thing going on.
They've got a sugar habit thatthey're having difficulty with.
So, coming off of alcohol,alcohol is a sugar, so coming
off of alcohol, when I came offof opiates I had a sugar
(29:57):
addiction because they're thesame, they hit the same part of
the brain and they didn't teachme about that in that pain
management program.
They just kind of let thatslide.
We were working on other stuff.
We were working on thelow-hanging fruit that's a
little higher up on the tree,but I was able to break it using
(30:18):
and I use bilateral EFT tapping.
I teach that now.
That was how I broke that, thatsugar habit with the.
So that because that was justcreating more havoc in my life
instability.
Right I was mostly unstable.
Speaker 1 (30:36):
Yeah, so you kind of took these different healing
modalities one at a time,starting with, like you know,
start with breathwork, and thenyou start with.
You know, now you're gettingrid of sugar and as you kind of
get a hold on that, then youstart working on other things.
Is that kind of a stepwiseapproach that you took?
Speaker 2 (30:53):
Well, I would say I used a lot of tools to for each.
I mean, I, you know, we didmeditation, breathwork, movement
, food.
We did all those things toaddress clearing the body of the
medication and findingstability in the nervous system.
It was a holistic, it was awhole suite of tools.
(31:17):
We also did ancestral clearing.
That's a big part of mypractice.
So what is ancestral clearing?
Yeah, so that's a beautifulenergetic it's called energy
healing medicine.
It's kind of classified likethat and it's a spiritual
practice.
It's a prayer practice where wecall on a source God, whatever
(31:42):
you call that which made all ofthis.
We call on it to help usrelease that which no longer
serves us.
And in the context of theancestral stuff, we come into
this world with the gifts andthe burdens of our ancestors.
Remember, I said I came in withgratitude, right, I also came
(32:03):
in with the effects of war andfamily.
I mean, I felt it as afour-year-old.
I felt it.
I just didn't know what to callit Right.
I don't know what it was right,but I sure felt it.
So we don't have to carry thatstuff.
There's a way, there are ways toclear it.
Yoga is a beautiful way to helpclear those old patterns, and
(32:31):
so is ancestor clearing, and Ioften will blend the two.
So if I'm teaching a mantracourse, which is a great way to
help clear old habits, it's agreat way.
But the first thing I do is Ibring in ancestor clearing to
help people clear their stuffaround.
I can't use my voice.
All their stuff they havearound, nobody wants to hear
what I have to say, or shut upand be quiet.
All that.
(32:52):
We use ancestor clearing toclear all that.
And now I'll teach you how touse your voice, because now you
don't have any blocks to usingit in the first place blocks to
using it in the first place.
(33:17):
So what is?
What is betrayal trauma?
So you mentioned that you're abetrayal trauma coach and she
used alcohol to manage hercondition and she was very
difficult.
But she was especiallydifficult one time when I was 15
(33:39):
.
And she had the flu and she wastaking antibiotics and drinking
at the same time, which nobodyknew back then.
That that was.
You didn't do that.
That's deadly, that's like.
And she had a psychotic episodeand she came at me with a knife
and tried to kill me.
Speaker 1 (33:58):
so that's that's massive betrayal that you know
that's a that would.
Speaker 2 (34:02):
that would.
That's massive betrayal.
That's a big example ofbetrayal, tom.
But domestic violence isunfortunately rather common.
This is somebody you're of asudden right like that that just
(34:26):
disappears, and that is aspecific.
Dr Debbie Silber did a wholePhD on that and she's got a
sample size of 100,000 peoplethat she's sampled, that she's
surveyed and taken through herprogram.
So she has found that betrayaltrauma is.
(34:47):
There are five stages tohealing it and it's a little
different than other traumas interms of how you heal.
And so I work on that.
Yeah, I actually my job in inthat platform is really I bring
in the trauma-informed yoga andget people to understand the
(35:07):
power of the breath and gettheir nervous systems on board
and then they can work with therest of the coaches.
Speaker 1 (35:13):
But this would an example of betrayal trauma be
not knowing which parent isgoing to come home right.
Going to come home right, is itthe parent who's had a good day
at work and is going to behappy to see you?
Or is it going to be the parentwho went to the bar after had a
stressful day and is now goingto take it out on you?
So this is a parent who'ssupposed to be taking care of
(35:33):
you and making sure that youhave a safe place to be and you,
just you don't know what you'regoing to you don't know what
you're going to run into, andthat's scary 100%.
Speaker 2 (35:42):
Yeah, and that's again.
You've just described a childwhose nervous system is in
chronic pain.
I call that a brain on chronicpain because you're walking on
eggshells the whole time.
I was more comfortable atschool than I was at home, and I
was under pressure at school,but not like I was at home.
Speaker 1 (36:02):
Yeah, that makes it hard to go home when you don't
know what you're going to walkinto every day.
Speaker 2 (36:08):
Well, I knew.
I was going to walk intotrouble, I just didn't know when
it was going to hit.
That was the problem.
Speaker 1 (36:14):
Fair enough.
It's a lot of uncertainty thereand you really have no control,
which is where anxiety is goingto come in, because you can't
control the situation in any way.
Which is where anxiety is goingto come in, because you can't
control the situation in any way.
No-transcript.
Speaker 2 (36:30):
Well, that's an interesting question.
That's kind of a generalquestion.
I'll answer it like this thefirst thing I do with a new
client is assess the state oftheir nervous system and, like I
said, new clients, and becausethey come to me and they're
usually in chronic pain of somesort, they're usually
(36:55):
dysregulated.
Now, they all have this thingin common.
I had it myself, we talkedabout it, the pain's doing it to
me.
So their nervous system is inthis state and they're feeling
victimized by it.
And the first thing I do is Itake them through three minutes
(37:16):
of alternate nostril breathing,which helps to balance the
emotions and balance bothhemispheres of the brain and
helps calm the body.
And after three minutes thatwas you plug.
One Alternate nostril breathingis you breathe in on one side,
plug that side, exhale on theother, exhale and then inhale on
(37:41):
that side.
Switch, exhale, inhale again,switch.
That's another tool.
Inhale.
That is a beautiful.
It balances both hemispheres ofthe brain, helps balance the
emotions.
It's one of the standard onesthat I do.
And what happens with someonewho's in chronic pain and does
that?
Comes into a new session andthey're dysregulated and they do
(38:04):
that for three minutes with me.
They're calm and all of asudden, and because I didn't do
that, they did the breathing.
And now they've gone fromvictimhood to empowerment in
three minutes.
Speaker 1 (38:19):
Right, just helping them see that they have some
control over the situation andempowering people to.
Speaker 2 (38:27):
That's right.
Speaker 1 (38:28):
Even if it's something really small, just
showing that you do have somelevel of control, that's right.
Speaker 2 (38:33):
And then the next thing I do is I take them into
ancestor clearing to help themclear whatever current burden is
showing up from the past, andthen we start working on.
Then I'm going to have aconversation with them about the
rest of you know, then we'llget into it.
But that's kind of where Istart with a new person.
Speaker 1 (38:52):
So for someone who's listening, who feels stuck in
this survival mode, what's onesmall, accessible first step
that they can take to beginre-regulating their nervous
system?
Speaker 2 (39:03):
Yeah, so learn how to breathe.
It's really simple.
So, sitting up straight, relaxthe shoulders back and down or
raise the heart.
Bring the chin in just a bit sothe back of the neck is flat
and the energy can flow freelyup and down the spine.
Now we have full access to thebreath.
Inhale and, as you inhale,allow the belly to relax and
(39:27):
then, as you exhale, bring thebelly towards the spine to help
you fully exhale.
Fully exhale before you inhaleagain, relaxing the belly
towards the spine to help youfully exhale.
Fully exhale before you inhaleagain, relaxing the belly and
then exhale again, bringing thebelly towards the spine.
Fully exhale before you inhaleagain, keeping the inhale and
(39:49):
exhale even or, if they're notquite even, exhale a little bit
longer than the it's got to beeven or a little bit longer than
the inhale.
11 minutes.
Speaker 1 (39:59):
Start with three.
We can all do that.
We think we all know how tobreathe.
Speaker 2 (40:03):
but Start with three minutes, because if you've got a
, you know, if you've got astress habit, three minutes is
going to be tricky because themind is going to kind of bounce
and it's okay.
The mind's like what am I doing?
You know, just bring it back tothe breath.
You just it's not going to wantto focus, so you just now.
One of the cool things aboutthis practice is you can help
(40:25):
focus the mind on the task athand by focusing on the tip of
your nose or the third eye pointor just a single point in space
ahead of you.
If you focus the eyes, it helpsfocus the mind on the task at
hand.
So that's a great little.
So what are you doing?
You're pointing.
So I'm just, I pointed to mynose.
(40:45):
I'm just like keep your eyesfocused on the tip of the nose
or the third eye point herebetween the two brow points, or
just a single point in space.
If you focus the eyes, it helpsfocus the mind on the task at
hand and that will help you withthe breath.
Start with three minutes of long, deep breathing.
Work up to 11.
(41:06):
I'm telling you right now 11minutes a day for 40 days is a
game changer.
It will change your life.
It will change your life.
It'll help reset your nervoussystem and you'll start to
unwind from that stress habit.
Speaker 1 (41:24):
Yeah, 11 minutes in a day is not a long time, but I
think if you're stuck in thisfight fright, fight flight or
freeze response 11 minutes is along time.
Speaker 2 (41:36):
It can be.
One of the things that Iencourage people to do is put on
a set of earphones and listento mantra.
It's like nice soothing mantramusic while they're doing the
breath work, because that givesthe mind, it kind of hypnotizes
the mind a little bit and ithelps to calm things down.
The breath work itself willcalm the body, but the music
(41:59):
will help to calm the mind.
Right, and, by the way, I don'tteach anything that I haven't
already tried and run theexperiment myself, because
that's just the way I operate.
Right, it's got to work for meor I'm not going to teach it.
Speaker 1 (42:18):
Yeah, you're not going to solve something that
didn't work, so that's awesome.
So you said that healing isn'tabout going back to who we were,
but about learning to live withpresence and self-trust.
So what does that look like ineveryday life?
Speaker 2 (42:36):
and self-trust.
So what does that look like ineveryday life?
Well, I think that I mean.
It's interesting that question,because the if you ask me what
is my current, what is the stateof my current practice, I would
(42:56):
say building my capacity to bepresent.
So I feel like there's alwaysmore possibility of being
present.
And here's the thing about achronic stress habit or a
chronic pain sufferer we'reactually not present.
We've got one foot in the pastand one foot in the future and
we really aren't even here atall Because we're so worried
(43:17):
about what just happened orwhat's going to happen, so we
miss the present moment.
This is why a meditationpractice can be challenging for
someone like us, like it was forme.
Even when I had all that pain,I still had a meditation
practice and that was veryhelpful because I had the habit.
I had the habit of, you know,the mind would wander.
(43:39):
I kept coming back, I keptcoming back, I kept coming back,
and it was a real lifesaver forme.
Speaker 1 (43:47):
Yeah, I always thought in meditation when my
mind would wander that I wasn'tdoing it right.
But really you just need tobring your mind back to where
you are.
Speaker 2 (43:54):
Yeah, it doesn't matter how many times the mind
gets off course.
It matters how many times youcome back.
You just want to keep comingback.
That's the practice.
Speaker 1 (44:06):
Elizabeth, where can people find you?
Speaker 2 (44:08):
Oh, you can find me at my website, which is my name
with a hyphen, soelizabeth-kippcom website, which
is my name with a hyphen, soelizabeth-kippcom.
I have lots of free informationthere.
All my social media is there.
You can contact me through thewebsite and I'd love to hear
from you.
You can book a session if youwant.
I've got free introductorysessions as well.
Speaker 1 (44:28):
Amazing and you've got an offer that you're going
to give five ways to relievestress, anxiety and fear.
Speaker 2 (44:36):
Yes, it's actually seven ways, but it's five ways
with two bonuses and it's reallythe tools that, the main tools
that I used in my early recovery.
I still use some of them and myearly recovery really kind of
unwrapping this stress habit.
(44:56):
It includes a whole section onthe breath, a nice practice that
you can do.
I think one of my favorites isthe parts of.
That is one of the I think it's.
The last bonus is re-scriptingyour inner critic.
(45:17):
So it's an exercise where youcan.
I just had had it with my innercritic and I took her to inner
mean girl reform school and Igave her a makeover mean girl
(45:39):
reform school and I gave her amakeover and it was profound how
it affected my life in terms ofself-care and self-compassion
and all that.
And that was a very specificexercise that I did and I lay
that out in this offering.
Speaker 1 (45:49):
Yeah, yeah, I think that's really important.
We do tend to talk to ourselvesin a very negative and mean way
.
It's terrible.
Well, thank you so much forjoining us, elizabeth, your
wisdom and vulnerability anddeep understanding of trauma and
healing.
They are such a gift to myaudience, and I'm grateful for
the way that you reframecodependency with so much
(46:11):
compassion and you offered realhelpful tools for recovery,
showed us how to do them, whichwas amazing.
It was an honor to have you onthe show, so thank you for that.
Speaker 2 (46:21):
Oh my goodness.
Thank you so much, angela.
This is such a treat for me.
Thank you for having me as aguest.
Speaker 1 (46:28):
And thank you to everyone else who was hanging
out with us today.
If you'd like the episode, I'dlove it if you would share it
with someone that you love andsomeone who needs to hear it.
Share it with the whole world.
I'd love to help more peopleout there.
I'd also really appreciate itif you would be so kind as to
follow and subscribe and maybeleave a comment.
I'm most active on Facebook atthe Codependent Doctor and
threads and Instagram atdrangeladowney.
(46:50):
I wish you all a great week asyou learn to foster a better
relationship with the mostimportant person in your life.
I'm going to talk to you in twoweeks with another episode of
the Codependent Doctor.
Take care for now You've gotthis.
Thanks for spending time withme today.
I hope something in thisepisode resonated with you.
If it did hit, follow,subscribe or share it with
(47:10):
someone who needs to hear ittoday.
The Codependent Doctor is notmedical advice and doesn't
replace speaking to yourhealthcare provider.
If you're in a crisis, pleasego to the nearest ER or call 911
or reach out to your localmental health helpline.
I'll be back here next weekwith more support stories and
strategies, because we'rehealing together.
If you've ever felt stuck in survival mode, caught
in people-pleasing or like yourbody is constantly bracing for
something, this episode's foryou.
We're talking about how chronicstress affects your entire
nervous system, why codependenthabits often start as survival
tools, and what healing actuallylooks like.
Beyond just positive thinking,you're going to walk away with a
(00:21):
whole new perspective onrecovery, one that's
compassionate, body-aware anddeeply validating.
All right, let's get into it.
Welcome to the CodependentDoctor, a podcast where we
unpack the messy, beautifuljourney of healing from
codependency.
If you're burned out frompeople pleasing, stuck in
(00:44):
unhealthy patterns or just tiredof putting yourself last,
you're in the right place.
I'm Dr Angela Downey, a familydoctor and fellow codependent,
and I'm here to help youreconnect to your authentic self
, one honest conversation at atime.
Here we go.
Hello to all my wonderfulpodcast listeners and welcome to
the 55th episode of theCodependent Doctor.
I'm your host, dr Angela Downey, a family doctor and fellow
(01:05):
codependent, here to help usuntangle our patterns, heal our
hearts and reclaim our peace.
For today's episode, we have aguest with us.
Elizabeth Kipp is a stressmanagement, historical trauma
specialist and addictionsrecovery and betrayal trauma
coach who uses post-betrayaltransformation methods,
trauma-trained and yoga-informedaddiction recovery, coaching,
(01:28):
ancestral cleaning and yoga tohelp people with their healing.
Elizabeth healed from over 40years of chronic pain, including
betrayal, trauma, anxiety,panic attacks and addiction.
Now in long-term recovery.
She helps others tap into theirhealing potential.
Addiction Now in long-termrecovery.
She helps others tap into theirhealing potential, discover
(01:50):
freedom from suffering and leada thriving life.
She's the internationalbest-selling author of the Way
Through Chronic Pain Tools toReclaim your Healing Power.
Welcome, elizabeth.
I'm so glad that you're able tojoin us today.
How are you?
Speaker 2 (02:00):
I'm good, thank you, and I'm delighted to be here.
Thank you for inviting me.
Speaker 1 (02:04):
Amazing.
I'm really excited to have youon the show.
Your story is absolutelyincredible.
So 40 years of chronic pain andanxiety and now you're helping
others find real healing, and Ilove how you reframe codependent
behaviors as survivalstrategies not as flaws and how
you bring in the nervous systemand body-based tools.
Elizabeth, one of my traditionson the show is that we discuss
(02:27):
what we're grateful for, becausewhen we stop and think about
what we're grateful for, ithelps our brains focus on what's
working instead of what'smissing or what's broken.
So I'd like to ask you is thereanything that you're especially
grateful for today?
Speaker 2 (02:41):
Well, today because I work on a list every morning.
I have a list of five thingsI'm grateful for, One thing I
love about myself and I trade itwith a bunch of people, and the
top two on my list today wereevolving understandings and
compassion, and I think theymake a really nice pair.
Speaker 1 (03:02):
They do, so this is a tool that you use every day.
You list five things.
Speaker 2 (03:07):
Yeah, I do that consciously because my most
challenging part of every24-hour period seems to be those
wee early morning hours, sayaround three, 4, 5 o'clock in
the morning, and so I like tostart off my day in the
(03:32):
frequency of recovery, not inthe frequency of addiction,
which is what that negativethinking thing is.
That old stress pattern kind offlares up at that hour.
I'm not sure why it does that,but there it is, and so this is.
I just think it's a good toolfor recovery in general, but I
(03:56):
actually apply it veryspecifically every day, every
morning, okay.
Speaker 1 (04:01):
So this kind of helps change your mindset a little
bit and starts your day on abetter foot, that's right.
Speaker 2 (04:06):
Yeah, right away.
This is how we're doing thisday.
Speaker 1 (04:11):
Right?
No, absolutely so, for today.
I'm grateful.
This lady yesterday stopped mein the grocery store and she
just told me she loved my shirtand this was completely out of
the blue and I, you know, so farlike I'd been having a so-so
day, and that one commentcompletely lit me up and I think
that I, I need to do more ofthat.
(04:33):
I need to take the time andjust, you know, tell somebody
that their hair looks good thatday, or, you know, it's a
complete stranger Cause for meit was.
It was a complete 180.
Like, it totally lifted me up,that one little comment, and I
love that she took the time todo that, and so I think that's
something we can all do for eachother.
Wonderful, I love that.
So, elizabeth, why don't westart by having you introduce
(04:55):
yourself and tell us a littlebit about your journey?
Speaker 2 (04:59):
Sure, I'm a stress management and historical trauma
specialist, addiction recoverycoach and ancestral clearing
practitioner and that soundslike a lot of hats, but they're
all under stress management andthose are just audiences that I
happen to serve.
I also work as a I'm also acertified trauma betrayal coach,
(05:22):
and I work on a platform thatspecifically works with people
that are just healing from that.
So that's what I do, and Istarted my business in 2014,
which was like I got clear ofall that medication and pain in
(05:45):
2013.
, and I was.
So this is what happened when Igot to treatment to get off all
that medication and went intopain management.
There were 100 patients oncampus and 20 of us went to pain
(06:05):
track, into this chronic painprogram, and the other 80 were
not.
And so in the afternoon, the 20of us went to pain track, which
we call it pain track, and theother 80 went to relapse school,
and so I didn't get anytraining on relapse, and so I
(06:26):
asked my counselor one day well,what's the story here?
I'm not getting any training inrelapse.
And this is what she saidthere's an 80% relapse rate in
the first year, and I startedout as a social scientist in
college.
So as soon as I heard that, Iwas like, two things happened in
(06:51):
my mind.
One I'm doomed because I didn'tlike the odds, and the second
was what's wrong with the modelthat we're using, that we're not
doing better than 80% relapserate, Like right.
So I mean not knowing anythingmore than I knew in that moment
I was like we got to get abetter model here for recovery.
Speaker 1 (07:11):
So can you clarify what you mean?
You had chronic pain for areally long time.
Speaker 2 (07:16):
Yeah, Is that?
Speaker 1 (07:17):
what you're referring to, and when you say relapse,
what kind of relapse are wetalking about?
Speaker 2 (07:21):
Well, she was talking about relapse in general and so
that was a chemical dependencyfacility and so anybody that was
they came in with maybealcoholism or they were on drugs
of some sort and the relapsewhen you go back to that, when
you go back to that behavior.
I had an accident when I was 14and broke my fifth lumbar and
(07:47):
it broke front to back so thefront part of it slipped forward
.
I didn't know at the time thatI had quite that bad of a.
I didn't know I'd broken a bonefor one thing.
It hurt, but I didn't know I'dbroken a bone because I walked
away from that.
But I didn't know I'd broken abone because I walked away from
that.
But I had a history of chronicpain, not understanding at that
(08:10):
time.
I grew up in an environmentwhere the environment was
chronic pain, environmentDysfunctional.
So let's just define chronicpain for the audience, right?
Chronic pain is any pain that'sfelt 15 days out of 30 for
three months or more.
So physical, mental, emotional,spiritual, financial.
(08:34):
The brain can't tell thedifference between one kind of
pain and another.
It sends the same signal ithurts.
And why is that a thing?
With an acute pain, that painclears within a few weeks.
In chronic pain it doesn't, andthe difference is the stress
(08:55):
response in the body, right.
So we have a mechanism in thebody called the stress response
that turns on.
It's off most of the timeunless there's a threat that
presents itself or we perceive athreat.
Then it turns on and we bringall kinds of psychology and
biochemistry and biology to meetthe threat and then we meet it
(09:17):
and the stress response goes inthe off position.
That's a balanced stressresponse.
In chronic pain the stressresponse gets stuck in the on
position and so we're always inthis threat mode.
We're always looking for thethreat.
I mean this is one of thereasons I had anxiety.
(09:39):
It's just a really stressful,obviously, state and we really
don't have a chance to rest andheal.
We're really not made forchronic stress.
It creates all kinds of toxicstress hormones in the body that
(10:00):
we have to clear and it alsocreates confusion in the brain.
So it affects the memory partof our brain and it affects the
emotional part of our brain.
So that normal, slight negativebias that we have already as a
(10:21):
normal human being if there issuch a thing on the planet
anymore, a normal, healthy humanbeing we have a slight negative
bias In chronic pain that getsaccentuated.
So now the whole world is well,you're wrong, the world's wrong
(10:41):
.
And then we turn it in onourselves and we're wrong.
And so now we've got, we'vereally dug ourselves into a hole
and that's kind of chronic painin a nutshell.
Yeah, okay.
Speaker 1 (10:57):
So what was it like living with chronic pain for
over 40 years and what shiftedfor you when you began
questioning the conventionalmedical model?
Great, question.
Speaker 2 (11:09):
It was hard.
I had a few things going for meand I love that you started the
podcast with what are yougrateful for?
Because that was one of thetools that I used.
Because that was one of thetools that I used, I came in my
ancestors.
I swear I didn't think it up,it was right there for me and so
(11:31):
when things got crazy at homewhich they did on a regular
basis I would go.
You know, oh yeah, that was badand I'm grateful for this other
thing, right.
So I always had a way of kind ofnaturally balancing the good
and the bad in my life, andgratitude is one of them.
So gratitude is one of the waysI got through.
(11:52):
I also had a meditationpractice, which isn't as
powerful when you don't havepain and you're not on
medication, but it's stillhelpful because I learned to
stay present and it helped memanage time better.
Now it was 14 years after thataccident that I finally started
(12:21):
having surgery, and that's whenthe pain medicine started.
The pain medicine and anxietymedicine started, and that went
on for 31 years.
The doctors at that time didnot have an answer for chronic
pain.
Well, they had an answer.
(12:41):
They just didn't have the rightanswer.
Speaker 1 (12:44):
Pills and pain medication, chronic pain.
Well, they had an answer, theyjust didn't have the right
answer.
Speaker 2 (12:47):
Their answer was you can't heal from chronic pain.
Here are your opiates and yourbenzodiazepines, right, and I
was trained as a researchscientist.
So when I first heard that itwas like, well, they're the
experts, you know, and.
But something didn't sit rightwith me when they said you can't
(13:10):
heal from chronic pain.
It was kind of like I it upsetme like a lot for a couple of
weeks and but I kept thinkingand thinking and thinking, and
sometimes a little slow on theuptake, but I at the end of two
weeks I was like, oh, I see whathappened here.
They made an error.
They said you can't heal fromchronic pain and they forgot
(13:35):
their basic science, which isprobabilities.
It's not facts, right, and welive in the all that is, but
science is just a piece of it.
Science operates in a frameworkthat's limited relative to the
(13:55):
all that is.
It can only comment on thatwhich you can observe, measure
and describe.
So they were telling me moreabout the model they were
working with and its limitationthan they were telling me about
my ability to heal because oftheir orientation.
And they made the mistake aboutthey forgot probabilities.
And I was like, oh, okay, I seewe've made an error here.
(14:20):
And then I knew that well.
I also knew that scientificparadigms changed.
So I knew that the sciencewould evolve eventually and I
knew I was going to have to lookoutside of the scientific
framework for other options forhealing.
And I did, and meditation wasone of them which kind of really
(14:43):
kept me pretty steady relativeto my experience of just being
flared up in pain all the time.
I had a massage therapist, Ihad acupuncture, I did very
(15:04):
gentle yoga that kept me kind offlexible and I had a lot of
support.
I had a lot of kind ofencouragement and support.
So it was difficult but Ifinally found a doctor who
actually understood the natureof chronic pain and he was
(15:24):
Western and Eastern, so he was aQigong healer as well as
straight up Western and he was abrain physiologist and a
neurophysiologist and anaddiction specialist.
So he knew kind of the basicscience, but he also you will
love this the first time that Imet him he said to me I don't
(15:46):
need to see your records or yourx-rays, I want to know who you
are.
And I was like who are you andwhere have you been all my life?
No doctor ever asked me thatquestion.
So it was pretty cool.
Speaker 1 (16:02):
Sounds like a Pretty smart guy yeah, so that was.
Speaker 2 (16:06):
That was kind of the story and kind of how I shifted
my orientation to like how am Igoing to handle this situation
here?
Speaker 1 (16:18):
Yeah, right, and just recognizing that you know
medicine offered one route butthat there was other routes that
you could, that you could lookinto.
So you say that chronic stressisn't just mental, it's a full
body experience.
So can you walk us through whatthat actually means on a
nervous system level?
Speaker 2 (16:36):
Sure, Well, if you think about it just in terms of,
I like to reference StephenPorges' work in polyvagal theory
because it makes the most senseto me in my own lived
experience.
He maintains that theorymaintains that the nervous
(16:58):
system is always checking forsafety.
Nervous system is alwayschecking for safety.
So right now, you and I arehaving a conversation and we're
kind of co-regulating with oneanother and our nervous systems
are talking to one another andwe're trying to.
We're saying are we safe?
Are we safe?
Are we safe?
Well, we're safe, we know we'resafe.
(17:19):
Right, it doesn't mean thenervous system has stopped
talking.
Right right Now.
They're not in hypervigilantmode because you and I are both.
You know, we both know our area.
We're not feeling threatened.
But in chronic stress, thenervous system, like I said, the
stress response is stuck in theon position and so it's out of
(17:40):
balance.
Response is stuck in the onposition and so it's out of
balance, and so the nervoussystem is.
When it's in that kind of state, it's either going to fight,
it's going to run, it's going toshut down, and there's a few
different stages of shuttingdown.
Depression is an example ofshutting down.
(18:11):
Appeasement, people-pleasing,is an example is an aspect of
that kind of depressed, andthere are kind of this blend
where we're moving from onestate to another as well, so
it's not quite cut and dry likethat.
But we have these certainstrategies that we use.
But we have these certainstrategies that we use and in
chronic stress we're kind of inone or the other of those where
rest and digest is not really.
(18:33):
We don't hang out there, and sothis makes it very difficult to
heal, because we can't healwhen we're not resting.
Speaker 1 (18:42):
So when you're in chronic stress, your nervous
system is constantly in thisfight or flight response, or
freeze response.
Speaker 2 (18:51):
Yeah, yeah, it's in one of those states.
Speaker 1 (18:55):
Yeah, so many people.
They see people-pleasing orovergiving as just part of who
they are.
So how do you help peopleunderstand these as
trauma-informed copingstrategies rather than just
personality flaws or just beingpart of who you are?
Speaker 2 (19:28):
I'm going to define people pleasing, just so
everybody's super clear on whereI'm coming from with my answer.
If I'm doing a people pleasingthing, then I'm changing my
authentic self in order toelicit a response I want from
you.
I'm anticipating that if I dothis, you'll do that and I have
(19:48):
to change myself.
I become a chameleon and I haveto change myself in order to do
that.
So why is that even happening?
That's happening because Idon't feel safe in my own body
and I'm looking for safety inthat other person.
So again, we're getting back tothis chronic stress situation.
(20:09):
It's a fear-based response.
Yeah, and so the way that webring trauma-informed, there's a
lot.
I'm still learning.
I'm still getting trained.
I spent a year training with DrGabor Mate and his Compassion
Inquiry.
I've had a ton of training inpolyvagal theory.
(20:31):
I've had like I've got over 500hours in trauma-informed yoga.
So I've just a lot of trainingand I'm still learning more,
because we're still learningmore in that space.
But mostly we need to learn.
You know, this is the quick,this is the quick and amazing
(20:51):
thing that I'll teach everybodytoday.
There is a profound connectionbetween a long exhale at the
brain and when we bring a longexhale.
When we do a long exhale we'retelling the part of the nervous
(21:13):
system that we're telling thebrain that it's safe.
So we now have a tool in thebreath that when we're activated
and I could get into that andI'm not going to because I could
get really into the weeds here.
So I'm trying to keep it kindof simple and I start getting in
(21:39):
that fight or flight orshutdown because I can feel it
in my body.
I can bring in a long, I canstart doing long, deep breathing
and make sure that that exhaleis as long or longer than the
inhale, and I can do that.
I mean I like to do three to 11minutes of it, but you could
(21:59):
try six or seven of thosebreaths and you'll notice a
difference in the body.
Speaker 1 (22:06):
You'll feel so, instead of being stuck in this
fight, flight or freeze responsebecause of your chronic pain or
whatever your stress is doing,that longer exhale will convince
your nervous system that you'rein a safe place.
Speaker 2 (22:20):
Yeah, there are at least six ways right off the bat
that we can use to change ourstate, and for me that was good
news, because I thought the painwas doing it to me and I had no
agency.
Speaker 1 (22:37):
Yeah, if you have no control over the situation, the
anxiety.
Speaker 2 (22:41):
So I had my wits and then I learned there were tools.
This is great, right.
So we can.
We can change our state by howwe move, what we eat, how we
breathe, our rest, where ourattention, where our focus is
(23:04):
and is, and by releasing thepast.
Speaker 1 (23:08):
Are you okay going into some of these a little bit,
because I find this reallyinteresting.
I think this is somethingthat'll be really helpful for a
lot of people.
Speaker 2 (23:16):
Sure, yeah, so one of the things I mean, my yoga
practice is amazing.
It's not the only thing.
Qi Gong is amazing.
Tai Chi there's lots ofmovement practices that are
powerful.
So, you know, pick the one thatworks for you, but please
(23:38):
explore.
There are movements that I cando that if I'm feeling a little
bit sleepy, maybe a little bitlike I have to maybe it's 4
o'clock in the afternoon andI've got a 6 o'clock thing and I
don't have time for a 20-minutenap and I need to.
(23:58):
Well, I can do some activatedbreath practices and I'll show
you one right now.
I'm not sure you can see it allin the mirror, but I'm going to
raise my hands up like this,and then when I bring them down,
I'm going to grab the air, likegrabbing the energy, and bring
them down.
I'll show you.
I'm just breathing it out, okay.
Speaker 1 (24:25):
And you do that.
So as you're breathing out,you're grabbing energy.
Speaker 2 (24:28):
Yeah, I'm grabbing, the hands are up and then I'm
grabbing the energy and bringingit in and you do that for three
minutes and you are not goingto be the same person.
Speaker 1 (24:38):
Okay, interesting.
Speaker 2 (24:39):
You will be energized right.
Another one that I do is justreally simply just sitting and
breathing in four sniffs here,and I've got my eye focus here
because it helps focus the mindon the task at hand.
So four sniffs in.
Speaker 1 (25:09):
One sniff out A long exhale, nice and long.
Speaker 2 (25:12):
Yeah, you want the exhale to be longer than that
inhale, as long or longer thanthe inhale, and you sit and do
that for I do it for 11, but youcould do it for three.
You'll notice a difference.
I mean, run the experiment Idid.
I don't do these things unlessthey work.
I just like I got other thingsto do so?
Speaker 1 (25:33):
do you find that these help control that pain a
little bit better?
Speaker 2 (25:39):
Well, I went into Dr Prescott's program with 40 years
of chronic pain andI walked out52 days later, so I don't have
pain anymore.
Okay.
Speaker 1 (25:48):
Not at all.
Speaker 2 (25:48):
So it's not an issue.
The issue was, if you're askinglike what happened, there was
what happened in 52 days.
That's another conversation,right.
Speaker 1 (26:03):
We're not going to fit that in 45 minutes.
Speaker 2 (26:05):
Yeah, but I don't have pain anymore, so that's not
an issue.
Yeah, now I don't have the pain, but what I do have is the
stress habit that was underneathit.
I'm still working on that,that's right.
That started when I was in thewomb Right, it's like that
(26:26):
started, you know.
So I'm still working onunraveling that, 12 years in to
my recovery.
And so every day I sit down andI do an 11 minute breath
practice.
So every day I sit down and Ido an 11-minute breath practice.
That's a regulating breathpractice in the morning, and the
(26:53):
message is this is how we'redoing life today, and so we're
retraining the brain and thenervous system to be calmer.
Speaker 1 (27:03):
Yeah, so you've talked about the importance of
somatic healing over justmindset work.
So why isn't mindset aloneenough to heal from chronic
stress or trauma?
Speaker 2 (27:11):
Yeah, great question.
So we can't think our way outof chronic stress.
We have to nervous system ourway out.
We have to actually the nervoussystem has to actually believe
that it's safe in order for usto actually rest, digest, calm,
(27:32):
get back to a regulated state.
So this is why, when we have achronic stress habit, that we do
all these practices that tonethe nervous system, retrain the
brain's habits.
If you think of it like inphysics, they tell us an object
(27:54):
in motion stays in motion untilacted on by an equal or opposite
force.
Think about a habit, a stresshabit, right as a habit.
It's an object in motion.
It about a habit, a stresshabit, right as a habit.
It's an object in motion, it'sa habit, and so we need to come
(28:15):
and break that habit.
In order to shift that, we needto bring in an object of equal
or opposite force, and that'swhat these practices do.
Meditation is an example,breathwork is an example.
Those six things that I readoff.
This is how you change yourstate.
Those things are examples.
Yeah, that makes sense.
Speaker 1 (28:30):
It did it does.
You mentioned that there wasother things.
So sleep plays a role.
How you eat, are you justtalking about like, having a
like a normal, like healthy dietand making sure that you get
eight hours of sleep, or isthere something more behind
those?
Speaker 2 (28:46):
Well, I think one of the things in this society
that's the hard part is thesugar, Because it really it
creates.
First of all it createsinflammation, so now you're
inflaming the gut, you'reinflaming the body, so now
(29:08):
you're setting yourself up forchronic pain, chronic stress.
But it also, because of itseffect on the gut and how the
gut operates, it also wreakshavoc on our emotions.
So if I have clients that arehaving anger issues or
(29:33):
depression issues or whateveryou know what's interesting,
Nine times out of ten there's asugar thing going on.
They've got a sugar habit thatthey're having difficulty with.
So, coming off of alcohol,alcohol is a sugar, so coming
off of alcohol, when I came offof opiates I had a sugar
(29:57):
addiction because they're thesame, they hit the same part of
the brain and they didn't teachme about that in that pain
management program.
They just kind of let thatslide.
We were working on other stuff.
We were working on thelow-hanging fruit that's a
little higher up on the tree,but I was able to break it using
(30:18):
and I use bilateral EFT tapping.
I teach that now.
That was how I broke that, thatsugar habit with the.
So that because that was justcreating more havoc in my life
instability.
Right I was mostly unstable.
Speaker 1 (30:36):
Yeah, so you kind of took these different healing
modalities one at a time,starting with, like you know,
start with breathwork, and thenyou start with.
You know, now you're gettingrid of sugar and as you kind of
get a hold on that, then youstart working on other things.
Is that kind of a stepwiseapproach that you took?
Speaker 2 (30:53):
Well, I would say I used a lot of tools to for each.
I mean, I, you know, we didmeditation, breathwork, movement
, food.
We did all those things toaddress clearing the body of the
medication and findingstability in the nervous system.
It was a holistic, it was awhole suite of tools.
(31:17):
We also did ancestral clearing.
That's a big part of mypractice.
So what is ancestral clearing?
Yeah, so that's a beautifulenergetic it's called energy
healing medicine.
It's kind of classified likethat and it's a spiritual
practice.
It's a prayer practice where wecall on a source God, whatever
(31:42):
you call that which made all ofthis.
We call on it to help usrelease that which no longer
serves us.
And in the context of theancestral stuff, we come into
this world with the gifts andthe burdens of our ancestors.
Remember, I said I came in withgratitude, right, I also came
(32:03):
in with the effects of war andfamily.
I mean, I felt it as afour-year-old.
I felt it.
I just didn't know what to callit Right.
I don't know what it was right,but I sure felt it.
So we don't have to carry thatstuff.
There's a way, there are ways toclear it.
Yoga is a beautiful way to helpclear those old patterns, and
(32:31):
so is ancestor clearing, and Ioften will blend the two.
So if I'm teaching a mantracourse, which is a great way to
help clear old habits, it's agreat way.
But the first thing I do is Ibring in ancestor clearing to
help people clear their stuffaround.
I can't use my voice.
All their stuff they havearound, nobody wants to hear
what I have to say, or shut upand be quiet.
All that.
(32:52):
We use ancestor clearing toclear all that.
And now I'll teach you how touse your voice, because now you
don't have any blocks to usingit in the first place blocks to
using it in the first place.
(33:17):
So what is?
What is betrayal trauma?
So you mentioned that you're abetrayal trauma coach and she
used alcohol to manage hercondition and she was very
difficult.
But she was especiallydifficult one time when I was 15
(33:39):
.
And she had the flu and she wastaking antibiotics and drinking
at the same time, which nobodyknew back then.
That that was.
You didn't do that.
That's deadly, that's like.
And she had a psychotic episodeand she came at me with a knife
and tried to kill me.
Speaker 1 (33:58):
so that's that's massive betrayal that you know
that's a that would.
Speaker 2 (34:02):
that would.
That's massive betrayal.
That's a big example ofbetrayal, tom.
But domestic violence isunfortunately rather common.
This is somebody you're of asudden right like that that just
(34:26):
disappears, and that is aspecific.
Dr Debbie Silber did a wholePhD on that and she's got a
sample size of 100,000 peoplethat she's sampled, that she's
surveyed and taken through herprogram.
So she has found that betrayaltrauma is.
(34:47):
There are five stages tohealing it and it's a little
different than other traumas interms of how you heal.
And so I work on that.
Yeah, I actually my job in inthat platform is really I bring
in the trauma-informed yoga andget people to understand the
(35:07):
power of the breath and gettheir nervous systems on board
and then they can work with therest of the coaches.
Speaker 1 (35:13):
But this would an example of betrayal trauma be
not knowing which parent isgoing to come home right.
Going to come home right, is itthe parent who's had a good day
at work and is going to behappy to see you?
Or is it going to be the parentwho went to the bar after had a
stressful day and is now goingto take it out on you?
So this is a parent who'ssupposed to be taking care of
(35:33):
you and making sure that youhave a safe place to be and you,
just you don't know what you'regoing to you don't know what
you're going to run into, andthat's scary 100%.
Speaker 2 (35:42):
Yeah, and that's again.
You've just described a childwhose nervous system is in
chronic pain.
I call that a brain on chronicpain because you're walking on
eggshells the whole time.
I was more comfortable atschool than I was at home, and I
was under pressure at school,but not like I was at home.
Speaker 1 (36:02):
Yeah, that makes it hard to go home when you don't
know what you're going to walkinto every day.
Speaker 2 (36:08):
Well, I knew.
I was going to walk intotrouble, I just didn't know when
it was going to hit.
That was the problem.
Speaker 1 (36:14):
Fair enough.
It's a lot of uncertainty thereand you really have no control,
which is where anxiety is goingto come in, because you can't
control the situation in any way.
Which is where anxiety is goingto come in, because you can't
control the situation in any way.
No-transcript.
Speaker 2 (36:30):
Well, that's an interesting question.
That's kind of a generalquestion.
I'll answer it like this thefirst thing I do with a new
client is assess the state oftheir nervous system and, like I
said, new clients, and becausethey come to me and they're
usually in chronic pain of somesort, they're usually
(36:55):
dysregulated.
Now, they all have this thingin common.
I had it myself, we talkedabout it, the pain's doing it to
me.
So their nervous system is inthis state and they're feeling
victimized by it.
And the first thing I do is Itake them through three minutes
(37:16):
of alternate nostril breathing,which helps to balance the
emotions and balance bothhemispheres of the brain and
helps calm the body.
And after three minutes thatwas you plug.
One Alternate nostril breathingis you breathe in on one side,
plug that side, exhale on theother, exhale and then inhale on
(37:41):
that side.
Switch, exhale, inhale again,switch.
That's another tool.
Inhale.
That is a beautiful.
It balances both hemispheres ofthe brain, helps balance the
emotions.
It's one of the standard onesthat I do.
And what happens with someonewho's in chronic pain and does
that?
Comes into a new session andthey're dysregulated and they do
(38:04):
that for three minutes with me.
They're calm and all of asudden, and because I didn't do
that, they did the breathing.
And now they've gone fromvictimhood to empowerment in
three minutes.
Speaker 1 (38:19):
Right, just helping them see that they have some
control over the situation andempowering people to.
Speaker 2 (38:27):
That's right.
Speaker 1 (38:28):
Even if it's something really small, just
showing that you do have somelevel of control, that's right.
Speaker 2 (38:33):
And then the next thing I do is I take them into
ancestor clearing to help themclear whatever current burden is
showing up from the past, andthen we start working on.
Then I'm going to have aconversation with them about the
rest of you know, then we'llget into it.
But that's kind of where Istart with a new person.
Speaker 1 (38:52):
So for someone who's listening, who feels stuck in
this survival mode, what's onesmall, accessible first step
that they can take to beginre-regulating their nervous
system?
Speaker 2 (39:03):
Yeah, so learn how to breathe.
It's really simple.
So, sitting up straight, relaxthe shoulders back and down or
raise the heart.
Bring the chin in just a bit sothe back of the neck is flat
and the energy can flow freelyup and down the spine.
Now we have full access to thebreath.
Inhale and, as you inhale,allow the belly to relax and
(39:27):
then, as you exhale, bring thebelly towards the spine to help
you fully exhale.
Fully exhale before you inhaleagain, relaxing the belly
towards the spine to help youfully exhale.
Fully exhale before you inhaleagain, relaxing the belly and
then exhale again, bringing thebelly towards the spine.
Fully exhale before you inhaleagain, keeping the inhale and
(39:49):
exhale even or, if they're notquite even, exhale a little bit
longer than the it's got to beeven or a little bit longer than
the inhale.
11 minutes.
Speaker 1 (39:59):
Start with three.
We can all do that.
We think we all know how tobreathe.
Speaker 2 (40:03):
but Start with three minutes, because if you've got a
, you know, if you've got astress habit, three minutes is
going to be tricky because themind is going to kind of bounce
and it's okay.
The mind's like what am I doing?
You know, just bring it back tothe breath.
You just it's not going to wantto focus, so you just now.
One of the cool things aboutthis practice is you can help
(40:25):
focus the mind on the task athand by focusing on the tip of
your nose or the third eye pointor just a single point in space
ahead of you.
If you focus the eyes, it helpsfocus the mind on the task at
hand.
So that's a great little.
So what are you doing?
You're pointing.
So I'm just, I pointed to mynose.
(40:45):
I'm just like keep your eyesfocused on the tip of the nose
or the third eye point herebetween the two brow points, or
just a single point in space.
If you focus the eyes, it helpsfocus the mind on the task at
hand and that will help you withthe breath.
Start with three minutes of long, deep breathing.
Work up to 11.
(41:06):
I'm telling you right now 11minutes a day for 40 days is a
game changer.
It will change your life.
It will change your life.
It'll help reset your nervoussystem and you'll start to
unwind from that stress habit.
Speaker 1 (41:24):
Yeah, 11 minutes in a day is not a long time, but I
think if you're stuck in thisfight fright, fight flight or
freeze response 11 minutes is along time.
Speaker 2 (41:36):
It can be.
One of the things that Iencourage people to do is put on
a set of earphones and listento mantra.
It's like nice soothing mantramusic while they're doing the
breath work, because that givesthe mind, it kind of hypnotizes
the mind a little bit and ithelps to calm things down.
The breath work itself willcalm the body, but the music
(41:59):
will help to calm the mind.
Right, and, by the way, I don'tteach anything that I haven't
already tried and run theexperiment myself, because
that's just the way I operate.
Right, it's got to work for meor I'm not going to teach it.
Speaker 1 (42:18):
Yeah, you're not going to solve something that
didn't work, so that's awesome.
So you said that healing isn'tabout going back to who we were,
but about learning to live withpresence and self-trust.
So what does that look like ineveryday life?
Speaker 2 (42:36):
and self-trust.
So what does that look like ineveryday life?
Well, I think that I mean.
It's interesting that question,because the if you ask me what
is my current, what is the stateof my current practice, I would
(42:56):
say building my capacity to bepresent.
So I feel like there's alwaysmore possibility of being
present.
And here's the thing about achronic stress habit or a
chronic pain sufferer we'reactually not present.
We've got one foot in the pastand one foot in the future and
we really aren't even here atall Because we're so worried
(43:17):
about what just happened orwhat's going to happen, so we
miss the present moment.
This is why a meditationpractice can be challenging for
someone like us, like it was forme.
Even when I had all that pain,I still had a meditation
practice and that was veryhelpful because I had the habit.
I had the habit of, you know,the mind would wander.
(43:39):
I kept coming back, I keptcoming back, I kept coming back,
and it was a real lifesaver forme.
Speaker 1 (43:47):
Yeah, I always thought in meditation when my
mind would wander that I wasn'tdoing it right.
But really you just need tobring your mind back to where
you are.
Speaker 2 (43:54):
Yeah, it doesn't matter how many times the mind
gets off course.
It matters how many times youcome back.
You just want to keep comingback.
That's the practice.
Speaker 1 (44:06):
Elizabeth, where can people find you?
Speaker 2 (44:08):
Oh, you can find me at my website, which is my name
with a hyphen, soelizabeth-kippcom website, which
is my name with a hyphen, soelizabeth-kippcom.
I have lots of free informationthere.
All my social media is there.
You can contact me through thewebsite and I'd love to hear
from you.
You can book a session if youwant.
I've got free introductorysessions as well.
Speaker 1 (44:28):
Amazing and you've got an offer that you're going
to give five ways to relievestress, anxiety and fear.
Speaker 2 (44:36):
Yes, it's actually seven ways, but it's five ways
with two bonuses and it's reallythe tools that, the main tools
that I used in my early recovery.
I still use some of them and myearly recovery really kind of
unwrapping this stress habit.
(44:56):
It includes a whole section onthe breath, a nice practice that
you can do.
I think one of my favorites isthe parts of.
That is one of the I think it's.
The last bonus is re-scriptingyour inner critic.
(45:17):
So it's an exercise where youcan.
I just had had it with my innercritic and I took her to inner
mean girl reform school and Igave her a makeover mean girl
(45:39):
reform school and I gave her amakeover and it was profound how
it affected my life in terms ofself-care and self-compassion
and all that.
And that was a very specificexercise that I did and I lay
that out in this offering.
Speaker 1 (45:49):
Yeah, yeah, I think that's really important.
We do tend to talk to ourselvesin a very negative and mean way
.
It's terrible.
Well, thank you so much forjoining us, elizabeth, your
wisdom and vulnerability anddeep understanding of trauma and
healing.
They are such a gift to myaudience, and I'm grateful for
the way that you reframecodependency with so much
(46:11):
compassion and you offered realhelpful tools for recovery,
showed us how to do them, whichwas amazing.
It was an honor to have you onthe show, so thank you for that.
Speaker 2 (46:21):
Oh my goodness.
Thank you so much, angela.
This is such a treat for me.
Thank you for having me as aguest.
Speaker 1 (46:28):
And thank you to everyone else who was hanging
out with us today.
If you'd like the episode, I'dlove it if you would share it
with someone that you love andsomeone who needs to hear it.
Share it with the whole world.
I'd love to help more peopleout there.
I'd also really appreciate itif you would be so kind as to
follow and subscribe and maybeleave a comment.
I'm most active on Facebook atthe Codependent Doctor and
threads and Instagram atdrangeladowney.
(46:50):
I wish you all a great week asyou learn to foster a better
relationship with the mostimportant person in your life.
I'm going to talk to you in twoweeks with another episode of
the Codependent Doctor.
Take care for now You've gotthis.
Thanks for spending time withme today.
I hope something in thisepisode resonated with you.
If it did hit, follow,subscribe or share it with
(47:10):
someone who needs to hear ittoday.
The Codependent Doctor is notmedical advice and doesn't
replace speaking to yourhealthcare provider.
If you're in a crisis, pleasego to the nearest ER or call 911
or reach out to your localmental health helpline.
I'll be back here next weekwith more support stories and
strategies, because we'rehealing together.
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