Creative Paths to Healing Childhood Trauma with Jonathan Moon - Ep 167 - Unraveling Adoption

Episode Transcript
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(00:02):
Welcome to this episode of Unraveling Adoption, an intentional
space to delve into adoption's complexities together. I'm
Beth Syverson. I'm an adoptive mom of a creative and empathetic
20-year-old son, Joey, who is trying to figure out adulthood. Aren't
we all? I'm walking beside him while working on
my own personal growth and healing. If you're a seeker who's

(00:23):
wanting to move forward in your life, contact me to work with you as a
coach. This podcast helps anyone impacted by adoption
and the general public will understand adoption's complexities better after
listening to. In today's episode, you will hear how
an adopted person has struggled from relinquishment trauma
and adoption trauma, but who has also found some powerful healing.

(00:45):
Jonathan Moon was adopted to the U.S. from Korea at age
9 after spending two years on the streets in Korea. He
reunited through a Korean TV show with his grandmother who raised him until
age seven. He is making an artistic film about his
life called Voice of Waters, which will be
amazing. You have never heard a story quite

(01:06):
like Jonathan's. So thank you for sharing your life with us, Jonathan.
Yeah. And I should say, I met you at Untangling Our Roots in
Denver last April, and it was great hanging out with you
and getting to know you a bit. So I love those in-person
Yeah, it was definitely a long time coming.

(01:31):
It's my first time. It was my first adoption conference. Pretty
late stage in my life, decided to attend Untangling
Your Roots this year. And then I finally went to also
my first Korean American adoption conference, KHAN, as
well, this year as well. Nice. Yeah. So I'm just going

(01:52):
Oh, there's so much healing to be found when you find others that
share your same similar similar story. No one has the same story, but
just you don't have to explain a whole bunch of stuff. You just dive right
in and people are nodding their heads going, yes, yes, yes, yes. Is
Yes, there's definitely a community that really felt like they immediately
understood you, unlike others who

(02:14):
are not adopted, who just don't know even how to
Yeah. And you just have to be in the role of educator or raising awareness
or defending yourself or whatever. So all that can
get dropped when you're in a room with a bunch of adoptees. I'm sure that is very helpful
for adopted people for sure. It's extremely helpful for me as an adoptive parent

(02:35):
to kind of witness that and to observe and to learn
from you all. So thank you. And thank you for being here and sharing more
of your story here. Why don't we start with just telling us
whatever parts of your adoption story you'd like to share, kind of the bones of
So I can give you a very high level chronological view.
So, yeah, I was born at a wedlock.

(02:58):
My mother was, I think, like 21. My father was
like 44. He actually cheated on his wife and his family with
my mother at the time. Come to find out later, he actually spoke pretty good
English. He was selling dictionaries with
a friend of his and got to my mom's parents doorstep. But
my mom was only in her early 20s and

(03:20):
saw my mom and I guess he just couldn't resist
and he went after her. And I think maybe
less than a year later, they had me. And that
kind of uprooted not just my mom's life and not just my dad's
He had three other kids. So my three older half brother is

(03:42):
And this relationship with your birth mom was secret and
In the beginning. Oh, OK. So, yeah. You know, after the reunion and
the subsequent decade, I would say, over a decade, I
found out more information on my
dad eventually leaving his wife at the time and
his family at the moment and I guess trying to make things work

(04:03):
with my mom. Okay. They apparently got married close to the DMZ
was what I was told in Korea and they got married I
think when I was three years old. Okay. I don't have any memories of
that. And then, yeah, eventually I ended up living with my brothers
and him, but I'll get to that later. So my dad meets my mom, they
have me. And the first memory that I ever have was, I

(04:24):
think a lot of people can relate, is a traumatic memory. I
had to be no more than three or four. I was sitting in my grandma's lap
in the kitchen of my parents' apartment. My
grandma and I were both watching kind of a
argument that was going on with my birth father and my
mother in the other room. We could look straight ahead and

(04:45):
could see the commotion. I remember him actually packing
up his clothes in a suitcase. I don't know what
they were discussing, but it was pretty intense. And
I remember my mom either yelling, but it was some kind
of like a light scuffle, What I
remember is my dad slapping her across the face and

(05:06):
her falling back onto the bed. And
then what ensued after that was my grandmother, who's
my maternal grandmother, that's my mom's mom, put me down pretty
hastily and ran after my mom, got
on top of my mom and was actually screaming at my
mom and pulling her hair. I panicked

(05:27):
as I think any kid would. I got on top of my grandmother's back,
crying, trying to pull my grandma's hair and
trying to pull my grandma off my mom. Okay. That's my
So after that, that was my first and my only

(05:48):
Wow. My only memory. Next thing I remember is
my grandma was the one who actually raised me. I don't know what happened between
then, but I just remember my maternal grandmother. Okay. raising
me north of Seoul until I was probably six
or seven. Between that time when I was growing up at my grandma's place,
I had the ideal childhood. I had friends in the neighborhood. It's

(06:11):
very much a typical Asian culture where everybody is
together taking care of each other. And that was the case when I was with
my grandmother. My grandma would wake up in the morning and
go to work at an army base. So I would wake up
and she would already have breakfast made for me. And then I would just have
full independence going outside playing. And it was

(06:31):
just pretty much almost everyday occurrence where, you know, I go outside and play
with my friends and the neighborhood would watch out for
And that was just kind of the way things were then? Yeah. That
Exactly. It takes a village to raise a kid, right? And that's what
everybody did in that town. And it was just that

(06:53):
small neighborhood within that town. Right next to my grandma's house was
a supermarket and I would go there to have lunch. I would always call her
the supermarket ajumma. Ajumma is like an older lady. It's
an endearing term, I guess. Yeah, I would go to the supermarket on most days
and have lunch there and then wait till my grandma came home, you
know, later that afternoon. And then we would have dinner and that was

(07:13):
just my typical childhood. I had a really memorable childhood with my
grandmother. My birth mother really was never in my life. She
showed up, you know, apparently once in a while. I was told
later on that she came and visited me all the time. And I don't
remember that. I only have maybe one or two memories of her visiting
me. And I actually asked my current therapist, why don't I

(07:34):
remember anything like this? You know, like, why don't I remember my mom visiting? And
she said, well, maybe for a young kid like you, maybe it
was just too hard to take. Maybe it was so unstable that you didn't know
when you're going to see your mom. It was just your coping mechanism
to not be so disappointed in your mother or whatever. So
that was the case with my mom. I don't really have many memories of her. And then

(07:57):
fast forward, I was about six, seven. And
I remember my birth father coming to my grandma's house and us
having a conversation for me to go live with him. I
can't see why I wanted to, or maybe I wanted to. I
really don't know. But from my memory, I don't see why I would

(08:17):
You sounded like you were doing well. Yeah. Whose idea was it for you to go
So it wasn't really anybody's idea from
what I gathered because I was at the age where I had
to start going to school. And I was in Korea back
in the days. And it's still this way, but it's a little bit different. But
back in the days, you were under the man's registry, the

(08:39):
father's registry. So that's like a social security number for
every kid, whatever. It's just a way for them to be able to
Yes. So for me to be able to go to school, I had to go live
At that moment, you know, so he was living in a one bedroom

(09:02):
housing apartment with me, my three older
half brothers and him. It was a pretty normal lower class
where everybody kind of slept on the floor. Okay. So when
I started to go live with him and started school, that's when pretty much
all the problems started. Okay. So, I
immediately did not want to stay there. My older half-brothers were

(09:24):
not very nice to me, except the middle one. Okay. The middle one,
I got along with extremely well. Okay. And
he actually left the house a little earlier than the
other two. My two other older half-brothers were not the nicest to
me. From their perspective, if I was seeing it here, comes a

(09:47):
Yeah, that's my guess. You know, I have no facts to back that
up. So problems started once I started living with my birth father.
He was definitely an alcoholic. He was quite abusive. I
eventually started running away. I would run away to my grandma's
house in the beginning with no money. So my dad lived about
a 30-minute car ride. With no money, I would

(10:07):
actually go on the bus. Back then, then this was probably 1985, 1986. I
was probably around seven years old. I
would get on the bus. And back then, you don't have these little
coin machines that you just put your money in. Now, Korea was a
developing country still at the time. They would have bus services.
Walking down the aisle, collecting money. Tickets, tickets.

(10:32):
When she was starting to approach to collect money, I would pretend
Oh, OK. And you're just a kid. Maybe they thought you were with somebody else.
Well, generally, you know, somebody I was sitting next to, they'll say,
I don't know who this kid, whatever. But the bus stewardess would try to wake me
up. But there was no way that she was going to wake me up because

(10:52):
And yeah, it's pretty amazing thinking back then. I'm like, wow, kids are
Yeah, at that age to be able to feel the bus and then you had to go
from the bus to your grandma's house, right? Yeah. You must have really good
spatial intelligence and courage. My goodness.
So, yeah, so the final bus stop was actually in Donggukcheon bus

(11:13):
station. So bus stop Donggukcheon, I would walk to my
grandma's house and then I would maybe spend a couple of days with her.
And she said, you have to go to school. So my grandma would actually help me
She would take you back. Oh, did you argue and say, no, I
And I don't remember. I'm pretty sure I would because I
didn't want to go back. But there were a good handful of

(11:36):
times when she would take me back, or when I eventually went
back by myself, my dad's place would be empty. So
I would get back to his place, everything would be moved
out. My grandma would have to find a way to find my dad, or
I would have to find a way to call my grandma to have her come and get
me and try to figure out a way to get me back to my dad's new

(11:58):
So eventually after being turned away from
my grandmother saying that I would have to go back to my dad, I
couldn't necessarily rely on my grandma to necessarily keep
me safe from my dad. And that's when I started to have
It was fun for you. Like, are you serious fun or sarcastic fun?

(12:21):
I think both. I think I had that sense of freedom where I
Nobody's telling me what to do. I still wonder to this day, but
there were a couple instances where I would try to persuade a

(12:44):
Just disengaged from everything. Yeah, I was disengaged with everything.
No mandated reporters or nobody helping
Shoot. Yeah, like there's one instance when I fell asleep,
a street vendor threw a tent. Okay. If anybody watches K-drama.
Okay. you've probably seen it. Those are some of the places that I
would sleep because it would be emptied out. Me and my friend would try to

(13:05):
look for food there. Most of the time we couldn't find anything, but we
at least had some kind of shelter to fall asleep. And there
was one instance where I got caught stealing
food out of a small family market. They
made me give them my dad's phone
number somehow. And my dad picked me

(13:29):
I was going to say that sounds really dangerous. Oh, yeah. Yeah.
But there are different creative ways where you could find sleep.
I would sometimes go back to my dad's place and there was a storage room
right next to where my dad and brothers were living. And I was just crawling in
a storage room. It was a different room. And there was a small window

(13:49):
and I could see them having dinner, talking about me and
things like that. So yeah, that was kind of like my life with my
birth father. But at the age of eight, I'll
never forget this either. It's clear as day. And the funny thing is, I spoke fluent
Korean. I didn't speak a lick of English, right? Sure. And my
memory, when I go back to that moment, is the dialogues and

(14:10):
the conversations we had were all in English. It's kind of
weird how our memory works. But yeah, he was doing the
dishes. I remember him looking up at me because I was by the doorway.
And he said, Hoon, which is my Korean name, Hoon. Do you want to
go to America? Well, at the time, I've seen some
American stuff on TV, you know, how amazing America is.

(14:30):
This was during the time of Ronald Reagan's era. You know, it
was a very prosperous time, right? Economically. And
the US was on TV all the time. I remember when the Challenger exploded
on TV, that made it over to the Korean news, obviously. And I saw
that as a kid, big rocket just exploding. But
everybody had positive views on America, but

(14:51):
I had no idea where America was. I literally thought America was next
door, just a town away. How would you know? Yeah. Yeah, right, right, right. So
when he said, do you want to go to America? I thought, yeah. And I assumed that it
Yeah, with them. He just said, do you want to go to America? I'm like, yeah, yeah,
that'd be great. And next thing I know, I'm in the director's office

(15:11):
at the orphanage, not too far away from where we were living. Got pictures
Yeah, that's the first picture that they took of me. And that
was my second to last time I saw my father that
day. And I was put into the orphanage. I
recently found out because I was looking at my paperwork. It was back in August

(15:32):
of 1987, was when I was placed in the orphanage. Wow.
I do. Nothing traumatic or nothing bad. There were a lot of
kids. There were a lot of kids. I was definitely one
of the older kids, for sure. And there were a lot of

(15:54):
babies there. There were a lot of foster mothers that
took care of the babies. And we played a lot outside. And
there were a couple of rooms in the orphanage, and we all
slept on the floor. And I'll never forget how crowded it was. It
was just all kids just crowded in one or two rooms, just
sleeping on the floor. And that was a normal thing back then, or

(16:15):
sleeping on the floor, right? But everybody had their space
to sleep. And I don't have bad memories necessarily, but
I don't have a whole lot of memories. I was surprised that I was actually there for
seven or eight months because of the number of memories I have, which isn't
a whole lot. So maybe it was something that I
Okay. Do you know why your dad relinquished

(16:38):
you to the orphanage? Was it just because he kept running away? He just didn't know
So after the reunion, I found
out from a family friend that rumor
was that my dad was trying to
get back with the mother of his other
boys, that he had to get rid of me because

(17:00):
I would never be part of the deal. That's what I was told from
Oh, that's painful. And it hurts because on many
levels, but you think orphanage and you think orphan is
someone with no parents, but you really had at
least two, your grandmother and your dad who were there alive,

(17:21):
maybe not perfect or ideal, but you were not an
I mean, I guess not. I mean, my birth father is the one who actually
Yeah, I guess he just undid it. That must just hurt
at such a deep core level. I can't even imagine what that must be
Oh, I still struggle with it. I'm sure. I still struggle with it. You

(17:42):
know, and that's, you know, that's part of my healing process, right? Yeah, it's,
Well, let's keep going with your story. So you got adopted to the US
So I knew hello. So I remember like when I was living in the streets, I would see

(18:03):
American soldiers. Oh, I would try to be like, hello, some
little Korean kid trying to spark up a conversation with with an American, you
know, and they would just respond back high or whatever. You know, that was
that. OK, but I knew hamburger and I knew hot
Yeah. Yeah. So hot dogs were corn dogs in Korea, but

(18:23):
we call them hot dogs or something like that. Oh, yeah.
Oh, my gosh. What do you remember from those first days and weeks of
So it was an adventure. I mean, I think as a kid, you're just excited
with all the new things, even though you don't know how to really talk to
anybody. I'll never forget coming out of the

(18:44):
O'Hare Airport. So it was me. and a brother
and sister. Our family still kept in contact. We only lived
less than an hour away from each other. The brother and sister got adopted together.
I think they were about a year younger than me. Once we got out of the main
gate, there were families obviously waiting for arrival. And
it was very clear who the adoptive family was because they

(19:05):
had signs, they had balloons, and they were just
waiting for the arrival. And I was trying to play it cool. Like,
oh, this is going to be fun. And I didn't understand that
this was a trip or this was a temporary thing, maybe

(19:27):
I'd eventually go back. I didn't realize that this
is going to be a serious thing when I was actually in the Korean
airport leaving for America that day, when
Oh, wow. Yeah, yeah. Gosh. Yeah, she was being held back by her
two sisters. Yeah, I'll never forget that. It's

(19:51):
And is it that patrilineal situation? Why couldn't
you just have gone back to grandma's? Was it that legalistic kind
I think that was part of it for sure. I think that was the main driver. The
other part of it was it was very hard for my grandma to
take care of me. Sure. It wasn't her job. She
took care of me until age six or seven. She took care

(20:14):
But it wasn't because she didn't love you or care for you. She deeply cared for
So you're here in America and you're like, oh shit, this
Yes. And how was your adoptive family at the beginning? At
Oh, they tried to accommodate me, obviously. And as any parent would,

(20:37):
right? A kid who has no idea what he's doing. I
entered third grade in Sun Prairie, Wisconsin, and
I was just inserted right into class. And I had
an ESL teacher who actually taught me English. Her
name was Kathy Kenneman. She was an amazing lady. She
was instrumental in helping me learn English, you know,

(20:59):
first couple, two, three years of my life until I went to junior
high. Great. It took me about a year and a half for me to be
I'm sure. And then the writing, everything's so different from Korean.
That must have been really hard. Yeah. When
you're little, like an infant or a three-year-old, you don't read or write anyway, so
you just sort of get the hang of it. But you already read and wrote in

(21:22):
a different language. That must have been tough. Were you an only child in
No, I have an older brother. He's seven months older than
Biological to my adoptive parents. And then I had two younger sisters who
were also adopted from Korea. None of us are related, but they were adopted when

(21:44):
Well, it's hard for me to even grasp how
much pain you've gone through, and I
don't even know what else happened in your childhood, but just so far in your story, it's
just like the number of relinquishments and unsettling and
just insecure, you know, those basic needs
of a human being were not met at so many different times

(22:07):
in your life. I just can't even imagine how painful that must be.
And I'm so sorry. And if I saw you walking down
the street, I would not even think that you had had trauma. You seemed super
So. Oh, so. So
yeah, on the surface, I think many of us look like we're pulled

(22:34):
And how did that pain though, how has it manifested in
your life? Did you find self-destructive behavior? Did you
Well, I definitely had my teenage years. I wasn't,
I guess, atypical from other typical teenagers. I
was more within myself than outwardly. I
would say. I got in a decent amount of trouble and that's

(22:56):
something that is reserved for the film, but nothing
Just like a typical teenage testing boundaries
Yeah, typical. And I think for me too, as a
kid growing up and as a young adult, for me to be able
to just kind of move forward with the world, I had my

(23:17):
own coping mechanism. and I didn't realize it until
You know, I was in the military for four years. It was this
machismo, this you got to be a man kind of
thing, testosterone. I think that's the best way I can describe how
I try to carry myself. Okay. Where I didn't complain about things,

(23:38):
kind of the cookie cutter societal expectation of what
Okay. So you were strong. You just took
it and you didn't whine about it or anything. You just, I
I certainly tried. Yeah, I certainly tried. I'm sure, you know, I've
had moments, multiple moments, but I certainly tried, but
I didn't really realize the trauma that I had been shoving

(24:03):
deep into my soul and just cramming everything
and just keeping it stored somewhere where I
How did you start digging through that? Was that the TV show in
It certainly was a spark, I
would say, but it wasn't anything that just kind of blew

(24:24):
everything out of the water. So I can go into the reunion, you
know, this was in my late 20s, you know, I was
doing well. I had just gotten out of the military. I was
going to university trying to finish up my degree. And during
this whole time in the US, I have been trying to get back to finding
my grandma, trying to reconnect with her. My adoptive mom

(24:45):
had been very supportive at the time of trying to help
me. She's a nurse. She actually got connected to
a Korean woman through one of the patients My mom
ended up telling this Korean woman my story and she says,
Oh, I'd be happy to try to help your son look for his
grandmother. We all ended up having lunch. And she said,

(25:06):
Jonathan, can you send me all the information that you have, a
picture of yourself and things like that. And I can see what
I can do. I would say no more than two days later, I get
a call from KBS. It's a Korean broadcasting station. It's
one of the major broadcasting organizations in Korea. Called me
and said, Hey, we can look for your grandmother if you do a TV show
with us. I'm like, okay, okay. And at the time

(25:29):
before I went to America as a kid, my grandma actually wrote her
address on the back of one of the photos. So that's an
address I provided. The weird thing is, is that previous to
all this, when I was a teenager, There was a family friend
who was Korean who was going to visit Korea at the time. We were asking
him, hey, can you go visit my grandma and see if my grandma's there, tell

(25:49):
her at least we're doing okay, and I want to reconnect with her. He
said yes, but once he came back, he said, oh,
your grandma doesn't live there anymore. Well, fast forward, I
give this address to KBS. I'm like, I don't know. This is the last
known address of my grandma. KBS calls back and say, hey, we found your
grandma. Oh my gosh. She lives at the same place. And I was like, what?

(26:12):
Well, he definitely lied. Yeah, or he never went. Dang it.
So she was living at the same place the whole time. It's the same place that
I grew up as a kid. Wow. So they flew me out
a week later. It was just so fast. They
started rolling the film the minute I got out of the airport and
I met them. I got reunited on the

(26:34):
TV show with my grandmother. This was
in 2005. I reunited with my birth mother that
night off camera because of the shame that
So was it a positive reunion or has it continued to
It was a positive reunion. Yeah, it was a very positive reunion. It

(26:56):
was a lot. It was a lot. It was a lot for me to process. I
eventually uprooted my whole life in the U.S. and ended up
living in Korea for a couple of years as an adult. Pretty much after that,
It was a lot. I'm just curious. Did you still remember how to speak Korean fluently?
Oh, shoot. But it probably didn't take you as long as somebody that had to start

(27:19):
And that's the funny thing. And I'm still learning. Really? Yeah.
God, the way the brain works. Yeah. Oh, my goodness. Did
you ever reconnect with your birth father? That seems
Yeah. Yeah. So during the filming of
the show, they released a preview that they were going to release

(27:40):
the show that I was on. They showed a preview on TV that
was going to be released three, four days later or whatever. Well,
my birth father saw that and he called KBS and he
goes, Hey, that's my son. I want to get reunited with him. And back then
we were filming still at the time. I said no.
And my immediate reaction was no because of the

(28:02):
anger and internal bitterness that I had towards
a man who discarded me to an orphanage. So
yeah, I said no immediately without even thinking about
it, without even a second of thought. I said no, absolutely not. Because
a part of me was I wasn't sure what I would do at

(28:25):
Yeah, I don't blame you for having very strong feelings about
that. I have strong feelings and I barely know you. How
could you do something like that? Oh my gosh. Well, let's get
into how you have found some healing. I
assume that you have found some healing because you're able to talk about this

(28:45):
publicly. You go to these conferences with
other adoptees. What things have helped you to deal with these
So I didn't really come face to face with my trauma and
started this healing process until very late in my life. Because
like I said before, I shoved everything internally. Even

(29:05):
after the reunion, I shoved everything internally. I'm still
learning how to deal openly with my struggles. So
this thing didn't start until probably COVID. Oh,
So right before COVID, I started an acting

(29:28):
class. I had always been a photographer, hobbyist,
more or less, more traveling photography and things like that. I fell in
love with photography and that kind of easily transitioned into, I
want to do cinematography. That would be so cool. And
then that transitioned to, oh, that would be so cool to direct a film.
Well, I was taking a filmmaking class. And the

(29:49):
teacher said, hey, if you're really serious about this, you should try acting because you'll
know how to at least get into the heads and
learn how to talk to actors. You'll understand the
process that they have to go through. So I was like, all right. So I
ended up taking an acting class, got on
a waiting list with a great teacher here in Austin, Texas, and

(30:11):
got into an acting class pretty much a couple months before COVID started.
And obviously it was a lot harder than I thought it was going to be, because I
think for people who don't do these things, they don't realize how
To make it look authentic. It's not easy. I thought it was easy. Oh my

(30:32):
God, was I so wrong? And one of the big things about
being an actor is being vulnerable. You have to show, because
you have to show true emotions. People who go to movie theaters, they
know if somebody who's a bad actor, they just are acting, or
they're actually being in the moment and showing that true emotion, right? Yeah.
As you have to have a certain level of vulnerability, a great

(30:53):
level of vulnerability to show that. And when I was learning how
to do that, that's when things started to kind
of come up. Okay. And I was like, Okay, what is this? What is
Yeah, so it took an acting class for me to
realize I've been shoving problems down and just

(31:20):
Yeah. So with a combination of acting and then when COVID happened,
I saw the movie Honey Boy with Shia LaBeouf. He's
a very complex person, right? It was about Shia's life.
It's this complex relationship with him and his dad. And
he wrote it and he actually acted as his father. And
there was one scene where Shia's character gets in the face

(31:41):
of a therapist because he has court-mandated therapy. And
the therapist just kind of looks at him and goes, you see that forest out
there and points out the window. You see the forest out there. I want you to
just go out there just by yourself and just scream. And
he's like, what? He goes, I just want you to go out to the forest and just scream
it out. And then next cut, you see him by himself trying

(32:03):
to just scream, but he just can't do it. Wow. And
when I saw that scene, that was like, oh my God, that
My whole life, so. Yeah,
that's intense, that's intense. So

(32:28):
Right. Okay. So you saw that movie and that feeling
of releasing that pent up emotion. It
hit you like a ton of bricks and you're like, Oh, I might have a
It hit me. Yeah. Yeah. And that was during COVID, you
know, this was what, 15 years after my reunion. It
took that long for me to realize that I just been going on

(32:54):
Yeah, yeah. Okay, so that hit you. What
So I started talk therapy with an adoption specialist. She's
been a great therapist. Her first name is Pam. So Pam, if
And then after that, I started exploring other
avenues. My wife first introduced me to Myofascia.

(33:17):
Okay, myofascia. I've barely heard of that. Can you
So I've been to massage before. I went to Swedish Thai massage. Those
are great. They work on your muscle and they try to loosen it. Well,
the way she was telling me was, hey, I have a friend and
I've gone to her too, where she just barely touches you. She
just places her hand and just moves with your body

(33:44):
Okay. And fascia is the layer under your skin between your muscles
Yeah. It's like a web. That's what I understand. And it's very important and
Yeah. So there's a book and I think most adoptees and people
who are kind of in this space knows because it's a very famous book called The
Yeah. I personally have not read the book, so I cannot speak to

(34:08):
Yeah, I've read it. It's really good if you can get through it. And this
is one of the things that he suggests in that book to dig through some of the trauma that
it's not in your frontal lobe of your brain. That's why talk therapy doesn't really hit
it. Yeah. So something like that primal scream that would get
it or massage things that are physical or
things like music or art acting. Actually, acting

(34:31):
I'm not surprised because it has a very therapeutic effect where
you have to deal with and work with your emotions. Like
I said, that was a gateway that introduced me to the healing
process that I went through or that I'm still going through. Her
name is JJ Morales. She's amazing. I just
laid on the table and she just touches you and just moves

(34:55):
and separates. And it's not like a hard, tough
massage therapy where they just get into your muscle and try to loosen that
tight muscle up. It's not that. It's more of just placing
the calm hand and just slowly just moving it.
More energetically, maybe. Yeah, it's so weird. And what kind

(35:16):
Well, the first time I went, I didn't see any vision. So, what I was
told before I went was a lot of her patients see visions. They
end up actually sitting up on the table crying. I'm like, yeah, whatever. I
didn't believe that, right? I didn't believe it. I really didn't believe it. But
I went in there with an open mind. And yeah, again, here,
boy, was I wrong. Yeah, so she

(35:37):
did her myofascia thing on me. And
my first session, I saw colors. I didn't see any, necessarily any
visions. But after the hour session, I
literally sat in my car for 10, 15 minutes, like a
Oh my God. It was like, I literally sat there just

(35:59):
staring off into space. And I'm like, I can't drive because that
was the most relaxed I have ever been. So I was like,
okay, there's definitely something here. So I went back to her. I've been back
to her, you know, multiple times. And during those sessions, there
were definitely visions. There was one moment where I
I met my younger self. And that was weird. And

(36:22):
that's when I started to realize talking to other people when I was talking
about, hey, I met my younger self. This is weird. And they're like, yeah,
that happens. This is part of the healing process. It's not an
uncommon thing to eventually meet your younger self,
to be able to, I don't want to say disassociate, but be able to take
Yeah, kind of re-parent yourself and understand what happened. Fascinating. Then

(36:45):
that's when I started, okay, there's something here. I want more. Give me
more. And then I was
I had no idea ketamine was actually legal in a therapeutic way.
Yeah. So I don't go to clinical settings, which I kind of
do wish, and maybe I will maybe in the future, but

(37:10):
Okay. Right. They send you the lozenge or something. Yeah. Okay. How's ketamine
Man, the first four or five sessions were almost
Wow. So it gave you some realizations or
Without getting too much into it, I genuinely felt like I crossed over.

(37:32):
That was my third session and my only session where I felt like
So you're saying you accessed the beyond or you died? What
It felt like I crossed over. I actually met
my birth mother, my birth father. And I
was a kid. It was like I genuinely had something I longed for.

(37:54):
I think all these years was to have a family, an actual
So that brought that to you. And then the nice thing about ketamine is
it's pretty short acting and then you're a little woozy for a little bit,
but then you're back. So it didn't like leave you there. It brought
So it brought me back. So it's a crazy thing. I

(38:14):
had a conversation with the apologize profusely, like
Yeah. So I met my younger self, that's how it started. And then
I kind of warped into his body. And then it
was kind of back into the scene of I have a family, like
my parents were right there waiting for me at the beach. Oh, wow. They were

(38:35):
together. I knew that they weren't together, but they were together for
Okay. Wow. That's beautiful. I bet it was amazing
Yeah. I
have to say, I literally felt like I was there. I literally
felt like I was there. After that interaction, I

(38:56):
actually went to, I don't know if it
was heaven. I don't know if it was a version of where all your ancestors
I was in this space where I was surrounded by all
the ancestors, all the people that I knew that
passed. And the ancestors that I didn't know, their

(39:21):
It was a known feeling. Okay. Right. Like you just knew that it was,
it was your family. This was your whole family and they surrounded
me and all I could feel at that moment was just a lot of
Yeah. That was the only time I've actually
had that moment. I haven't had a repeated moment

(39:43):
since I came out of that thing just crying
I've had other sessions where I met my younger self or I met
my birth mother, I met my birth father. That third session
where it was just so different from the other sessions that
I cannot describe how real it
Wow. That's incredible. I totally believe that

(40:07):
you had that profound experience and psychedelics are
kind of amazing. It sounds like you've gotten lots of support around it
too with your therapist and you know, you're not just doing it
for fun. It's not
exactly fun, but it can be transformative. And it sounds like
you're taking care of yourself before and after. And it

(40:27):
sounds like your heart is really opening and you're getting a lot of healing through
Yeah. It's opened up a gateway of me trying other things. I've
always heard of Reiki and I thought that was just snake oil too.
But there's also something there. If you go to the right person. I always try
to do my homework and get referrals and
to go to the right person. And I went to a Reiki session

(40:50):
with Andrea here in Austin, Texas. And
there's something there. There's just something there if
the energy work kind of stuff. I know it's a little woo woo. I
don't understand any of it really, but geez, whatever, whatever
helps, right? You know, if you find something that doesn't hurt you or
anyone else and that it helps open things up, go

(41:13):
for it. I think that's amazing. There's so many different ways that
people can help and there's different modes of finding help.
I admire you for being open and I know creating your film is
probably also very helpful. That process of creating, kind
of rewriting your story or going through your story in a

(41:34):
It is, it is. And kind of revisiting this topic of conversation of
healing, I want the listeners who are skeptical about
this, take it from a skeptic like myself. Okay. I
Well, you know, I mean, that's what I try to carry myself as,
but I, you know, I'm not You're not that anymore, right? No, I'm not.

(41:56):
But take it from a total skeptic that just believed that
this was all complete BS. And it wasn't necessarily my
machismo behind it. It was more of, where's the science behind
it? I don't believe in this stuff. And I'm sure there's science. I
don't know because I never did my own research on this, but I
didn't believe in this stuff. And then all I'm telling all

(42:16):
the skeptics who may be listening, just go in there with an open mind because
you're not going to lose anything. You have so much more to gain than you're
not going to lose anything. You might lose a little money here and there, but
at least try it with an open mind. And I would say a good majority
If people wanted to get a hold of you and ask questions or get on

(42:38):
your mailing list for your film when it comes out, how can they find you?
They can go on voiceofwatersfilm.com and
they can enter their email and it's just a landing page for
right now. We're still in early production. We've done a lot of
interviews for the documentary portion of it, but it is going to be mostly

(42:59):
Yeah, I've seen just a few clips of the not
for public consumption part of your film, and it was really
incredible. And I definitely want to hear immediately as
soon as it comes out when it's available to the public and support
Well, your family's situation is one of the more complicated

(43:21):
ones I've ever heard. It's got a lot of trauma. There's
a lot of love in there too. And a lot of just people
doing their best, you know, from all the different angles. I
try as a life philosophy to believe that everyone is
doing the very best they can at any moment in time. And it
sounds like a lot of people were doing their best and it still, it

(43:42):
still made it really hard on you. So. I'm acknowledging all
of that, all those complexities for you. Thank you
So listeners, after you check out Jonathan's website, go find
Unraveling Adoption at unravelingadoption.com. If

(44:05):
you go to the page called Events on our website, you
will find some upcoming events. And if you're listening to this episode right
when it came out, you will hear this in time to find out
about Sunday's Medicine Circle with Miyoke Igaro. She
is a plant medicine specialist and a transracial adoptee herself. And
if you, like Jonathan, have explored ketamine or ayahuasca

(44:28):
or psilocybin or LSD or DMT and
are interested in integrating what you've learned into your
regular life, Miyok is an amazing guide and coach. And
we are offering these approximately monthly for adoptees only.
So it's a medicine circle for adoptees. It's this Sunday, October
20th. And check out our website unravelingadoption.com slash

(44:52):
events to find out more and to register. Thank you all for
listening. Jonathan and I want you all to stay safe.

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Creative Paths to Healing Childhood Trauma with Jonathan Moon - Ep 167

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.css-14f5ked{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:2;overflow:hidden;}Creative Paths to Healing Childhood Trauma with Jonathan Moon - Ep 167