Decolonizing Trauma Healing with Dr. Laura Brown

Season 5 of the How We Can Heal Podcast is sponsored by SimplePractice.

If you want to simplify the business side of your work, I highly recommend Simple Practice! 

Right now they’re offering a special 7-day free trial with 70% off your first 4 months for How We Can Heal listeners.

Go to https://www.simplepractice.com/howwecanheal to take advantage of this offer today!

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This episode is also sponsored by the International Society for the Study of Trauma and Dissociation (ISSTD). 

The International Society for the Study of Trauma and Dissociation is an international, non-profit, professional association organized to develop and promote comprehensive, clinically effective and empirically based resources and responses to trauma and dissociation and to address its relevance to other theoretical constructs. 

Visit https://cfas.isst-d.org/ to access educational offerings for both professionals and non-professionals 

To learn more and become a member, visit: https://www.isst-d.org/

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What if everything we've been taught about trauma and healing has been filtered through a colonial lens? Dr. Laura Brown —psychologist, author, and activist with over 40 years of groundbreaking work in feminist therapy—challenges us to reimagine healing outside the medical model that has dominated Western thinking.

Dr. Brown takes us on a profound journey from her early activism in the 1960s through her pioneering work in trauma psychology, weaving together personal narrative with radical theory. She articulates how medical systems have colonized healing processes that humans have practiced for millennia, turning natural responses to harm into "disorders" requiring professional intervention. "People have been healing from trauma since human beings became human beings," she reminds us, inviting practitioners to question the foundations of conventional approaches.

The conversation expands beyond clinical settings to examine how trauma and power operate in our broader society. Dr. Brown offers wisdom about maintaining our integrity and voice in challenging times, protecting our nervous systems from becoming hijacked by those who don't deserve access to our activation, and finding small yet meaningful ways to resist injustice daily. Her perspective on trauma work as inherently political challenges the false neutrality many clinicians adopt, while her vision of collaborative healing relationships dismantles hierarchies between "expert" and "patient."

All while navigating cancer recovery and a vocal disorder affecting her speech, Dr. Brown embodies the resilience she describes, finding joy in aikido, nature, friendship, and beauty. Her message inspires hope not through toxic positivity but through genuine engagement with both suffering and possibility. Whether you're a healing professional or someone on your own recovery journey, this episode will transform how you think about trauma, power, and our collective capacity for change.

Want to keep creating opportunities for healing together? Subscribe at howwecanheal.com to continue exploring how we can create more humble, culturally responsive approaches to trauma that honor every person's inherent power and wisdom.

Episode Transcript

Lisa Danylchuk (00:19):
Thank you.
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Go to simplepracticecom.
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notes to take advantage of thisoffer.
Today I want to give a big shoutout and extend a huge thank you
to the International Societyfor the Study of Trauma and

(01:24):
Dissociation, the ISSTD, forsponsoring this episode.
If you've been listening tothis podcast for any amount of
time, you've heard me talk aboutISSTD and the incredible
researchers, clinicians andadvocates I've met during my
time as a member and a volunteerthere.
The ISSTD has been delving intothe science and best practice
of treating trauma anddissociation for over 40 years

(01:45):
now, and they have a richcatalog of educational offerings
for both professionals andnon-professionals on their
website that's cfasisst-dorg.
If you're a mental healthprofessional, I highly recommend
you consider becoming a memberof ISSTD.
I'd love to see you during thelive educational offerings and

(02:09):
at the annual conference inPortland, oregon in March of
2026.
Visit ISST-Dorg to learn more.
If you love this podcast, I betyou would love the Yoga for
Trauma online training program.
This eight-week certificationis for anyone who wants to learn

(02:30):
how yoga philosophy andpractice can help respond to the
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When you join the program,you'll learn the theory and best
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(02:52):
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(03:13):
With eight modules and eightyoga classes, you'll get a taste
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Mention the podcast in yourapplication for a special bonus.

(03:37):
One more time, nice and slow.
The website is howwecanhealcomforward slash Y4T.
If you're feeling called tojoin us, I would love to welcome
you and support you through theprogram.
Welcome back to the how we CanHeal podcast.
Today's guest is someone whosework has shaped the very

(03:59):
foundation of trauma-informedcare, feminist therapy and
culturally responsive healing.
Dr Laura Brown is apsychologist, author and teacher
who's been at the forefront offeminist and trauma psychology
for more than four decades.
She founded the FremontCommunity Therapy Project, a
low-fee training clinic inSeattle that served as a home

(04:20):
for healing and growth for somany people over the years.
She's also a past president ofthe Society for the Psychology
of Women and the TraumaPsychology Division of the
American PsychologicalAssociation.
Her writing helps us reimaginewhat therapy can be when it
centers justice,intersectionality and care.
Books like Subversive Dialogues, cultural Competence in Trauma

(04:43):
Therapy and her latestDecolonizing Trauma Healing
don't just add to the field,they expand it in essential ways
.
Dr Brown is also the recipientof countless awards, including
the APA Award for DistinguishedProfessional Contributions to
Public Service and the CarolWood Sheriff Award for Feminist
Scholarship and the Carol WoodSheriff Award for Feminist

(05:04):
Scholarship.
Despite all of that recognition, what stands out most is her
humility, her clarity and herunwavering commitment to
survivors, especially to thosewhose voices have too often been
ignored.
Speaking of voices, dr Brown iscoping with a condition called
spasmatic dysphonia whichimpacts her vocal cords, so her

(05:30):
voice will sound different thanit did a few years ago.
If you're familiar with her.
If there are moments you, as alistener, need help
understanding, check out theYouTube episode or visit
howwecanhealcom backslashpodcast to follow along with the
full transcript.
Today we're talking about whatit means to decolonize, trauma
healing, the evolution offeminist therapy and how we keep
showing up and sharing ourgenuine, authentic voice with
integrity and joy, even when thesystems around us fall short or

(05:54):
we're dealing with specificchallenges.
So excited to share thisepisode with you, please join me
in welcoming Dr Laura Brown tothe show.
Join me in welcoming Dr LauraBrown to the show.
Dr Laura Brown, welcome to thehow we Can Heal podcast.
Thank you so much for beinghere with us today.
Oh, I'm very pleased to be here, lisa.

(06:15):
Thank you for asking me.
Yeah, there's so many questionsI have for you.
First of all, congratulationson your Lifetime Achievement
Award from the ISSTD.
That was such an honor to bethere and to be able to
celebrate you with othercolleagues in Boston recently.

Dr. Laura Brown (06:30):
Well, thank you .
I still can't quite grasp thatI got it, but Steve Gold keeps
telling me you deserve it.
You deserve it Practicing beingdeserving.
So I'm practicing beingdeserving.
It's a pretty amazing group ofpeople to be in the company of.

Lisa Danylchuk (06:48):
yeah definitely, and it was great just to be
able to see everyone standingand celebrating you and just so
grateful.
I think a lot of the work youdo that we'll talk about today
is a long journey, right, it'slike the arc of the moral
universe quote comes to mind,where it's like oh yeah, long
and it's arduous, and just likehealing, it's not linear, and so

(07:11):
I feel like you have been alongfor that ride in terms of
cultural responsiveness andinclusion and gender inclusion
for a very long time.
So I'm curious for you and Iwant to get more history in a
moment but just as you sit heretoday and see where we are in
the world in terms of progressand challenges, how does that

(07:33):
sit for you, given how muchamazing humanitarian work you've
done in the world of psychology?

Dr. Laura Brown (07:42):
Well, I feel like I was really fortunate to
come of age in a time when thatwas happening, and I am very
worried about what's going onright now with the pushback that
social justice is getting, notjust in the larger world but in
the mental health professions,it feels as if the current

(08:04):
Western administration is tryingto strip away half a century of
work that we've done, and so,right now, resistance is really
my daily question.
And how, each day, do I do onesmall thing to resist?
Which takes me back 50, almost60 years now, to when I first

(08:25):
got involved in social justicemovements as an adolescent.

Lisa Danylchuk (08:30):
What was that like?
Can you tell us about when youfirst got involved?

Dr. Laura Brown (08:33):
So it started with.
There was this group calledStudents Struggle for Soviet
Jewry and I don't know if youknow, but in the Soviet Union
Jews were systemically oppressedand discriminated against and
for many years Soviet Jews triedto get out of the Soviet Union.

(08:55):
And so there was an AmericanJewish student group, sssj, and
it was active at my synagogueand when I was about 15 or so I
got involved in it, went todemonstrations, got used to
being in demonstrations and thenin the summer of 68, I had just

(09:18):
got back from my very firsttrip to Israel to Israel at the
Democratic Convention in Chicagowas happening on TV and I got
to watch what was going on and Ithought I have to do something.
And I searched for and found alocal SDS group of students for
a democratic society, whichwasn't quite as crazy then as it

(09:41):
got in a few years.
And I got involved in theanti-war movement in SDS and a
group called StudentMobilization Committee and the
War in Vietnam and from theregot involved in challenging more
conservative elements withinthe Jewish community, because

(10:03):
there's a strong tradition ofleftism in the Jewish community
but it wasn't the primary voice.
And so I got involved in a groupwhen I was in college and went
to one of their meetings, anational meeting in the winter
of 1971 in Madison, wisconsin,that we were voting to support

(10:28):
every liberation movement in theworld and the six women in the
group said what about women'sliberation?
And we were laughed at.
And that was the end of myinvolvement for a very long time
in transgender social justicemovements, because I went back
to Cleveland where I wasfinishing my undergraduate

(10:49):
degree and joined aconsciousness raising group and
there she wrote I have been afeminist and a feminist activist
ever since then, but we'retalking about 54 years of me
being involved with andidentifying myself with,
feminism, or, as we called itback then, the Women's

(11:12):
Liberation Movement.

Lisa Danylchuk (11:14):
Yes, yes, and I'm curious what language you
resonate with the most today.
Do you still like the originalterm?

Dr. Laura Brown (11:22):
What I call myself is a decolonial,
intersectional feminist.
Okay, yeah, and becausefeminism is not about women,
that became really clear by themiddle of the 1980s that it's
really a way of thinking aboutgender and power and eventually
other intersectional identities,that the person who's doing the

(11:45):
thinking it doesn't matter whattheir biology is.
There are people with 2Xchromosomes at a vulva who are
anti-feminist, and there arepeople all along the biological,
gender and chromosomal spectrumwho are active feminists, and
so the more that that becameobvious to me over time, the

(12:09):
less women's liberation was abeginning term, but it really
isn't where anybody that I havebeen associated with for decades
calls themselves anymore.
Yeah.

Lisa Danylchuk (12:21):
But there is an inclusion now of more gender,
non-binary and sort of a span.
You know, like you said, it'sabout power and it's about all
these intersectional identities.
So there's a lot of connectionfrom a feminist psychotherapy
standpoint.
There's a lot of connection toother identities as well to

(12:43):
other identities as well.

Dr. Laura Brown (12:45):
Yeah, and in fact, you know, there's still
some feminist psychologists ofmy age cohort and I'm 72 now who
don't support trans people, andwhat I say to them is look, we
created a movement that saidgender is a social construct.
We opened that door.
We challenged biologicalessentialism.

(13:07):
What are we doing?
What are you saying?
Why are we neglecting what itis that we had to learn in the
1980s about gender as a socialconstruct, just as race is a
social construct, and so on andso on, and so there are still
some people of my age cohort whoare having that argument.

(13:28):
But what I say is we open thisdoor.
Yeah, we should welcomeeveryone who has the courage to
come through it.
As a feminist, as a decolonialthinker, as someone trying to do
liberatory work, yeah, I don'tcare how they identify

(13:48):
themselves, what body they wereborn into.
What's important is what arethey doing in the world now?
Mm, hmm.

Lisa Danylchuk (13:59):
Yeah, I'm curious how and when trauma
theory wove into some of thiswork, right, because I'm aware
of the historical arc of it andyou're talking about.
You know, before PTSD was evena diagnosis, you were doing this
work, and then there's themovement for more awareness of
it, and then I know you'vewritten about okay, well, this

(14:20):
is just the biology of how werespond to stress, so why are we
calling it a disorder?
Right, there's such arevolution there.

Dr. Laura Brown (14:26):
Yeah, I know.
Well, you know what'sinteresting is, when I was in
graduate school, I worked atwhat was called the Women's
Center of Carbonell, illinois,and what we didn't realize is we
were a de facto shelter forbattered women.
We found that out because weoffered places for women and
children to stay for free for acertain number of days.

(14:47):
There were like four or fivebedrooms in the house that the
Women's Center was in and wewould I was a volunteer there
and we would have these menbanging on the door.
Well it turned out that thesewere women's league abusive
relationships and we didn't havea word for it then women's
league abusive relationships andwe didn't have a word for it

(15:08):
then.
So I was working in a sort of ade facto battered women's
shelter and then anothergraduate student came back from
her internship and herinternship at the University of
Florida at Gainesville, workingwith the psychologist Jacqueline
Liss-Resnick, who has gone onto become a friend and was
actually the older sister of oneof the people I was in grad
school with.
So my best friend came backfrom her internship and they had

(15:32):
started a great crisis line inGainesville.
She said we need one here.
We created one and I got backtalking to the police chief in
Carbondale, illinois, andCarbondale lives in Chicago.
Carbondale is in the Bible Belt, okay, and it is very not

(15:52):
progressive, and so I was seeingpeople who were survivors.
But when I thought about it more, it goes back even further to
the job I had betweenundergraduate and graduate
school when I worked as a psychtech in a patient psychiatric
hospital.
And when you are the only psychtech, you're the lowest person

(16:16):
on the food chain and so you getthe difficult jobs.
You get to work weekends andevenings and one Saturday
afternoon I was asked to dointake with a woman who was
being admitted by herpsychiatrist and I sat.
I got this like full bodymemory of sitting with her in

(16:36):
her room as it got darkeroutside, with her telling me
that what was happening is thather daughters had come to her to
tell her that their grandfather, her father, was secretly
abusing her and that this hadhappened to her and that her
daughters coming to her hadtriggered her memories of what

(16:59):
had happened to her.
She was having a full-blownPTSD episode.
Well, we were taught to writedown everything the patient said
to us, so I would like pagesand pages of what she said to me
.
Monday morning I am called intothe head nurse and told that I
was never allowed to speak tothat patient again, that this

(17:24):
was a delusion, that I wasfostering the delusion that this
is 1972 or 73, but that's howit was then.
You have to realize that therewas no place for incest
survivors to speak in 1972 orearly 73.

(17:44):
It was simply forbidden.
And then I had a friend atgraduate school and we were
driving back from the APAconvention in 1974.
We had all piled into my oldblimpster and we drove down
Route 57 from Carbondale to NewOrleans and on the way back she
told me her incest story and herother incestually abused her

(18:09):
until she was 16.
Wow, and so I also was hearingincest stories, but I didn't
have a unified framework to putany of this into.
I was simply hearing about it.
Yeah.
And then I went off to the VA inSeattle for my internship,
which is how I ended up here,and we're listening to veterans

(18:31):
of many wars, including, mostrecently, people who were
Vietnam veterans, because it was1976.
And I said, gee, these sound alot like the battered women and
rape victims.
And we were told no, war is nota trauma.
Wow.
Because if you admitted that warwas a trauma, you were

(18:52):
challenging, well, really, thefoundations of American
imperialism.
And so we had to say that thesepeople were what you call
character disorder, which is thesame as a personality disorder,
which is ironic given that theVA has become the center of
drama research in the interim.
But in 1976, it was forbidden.

(19:14):
And you look at people likeChuck Bigley and Bessel von der
Kolk, who were in Chuck's casehe was a veteran, he was an Air
Force pilot who became apsychologist, and people like
him and Bessel who were workingin veterans' facilities.
And then Judith Lewis Herman,our great prophet, was also

(19:37):
beginning to work with rapevictims and innocent survivors
of battered women.
And they were all saying we seea commonality, we need to do
something about this.
Oh, I'm a little younger thanthose folks.
I'm, like you know, a decadeyounger than they are, but they
were people who pushed for theinclusion of the first version

(19:58):
of PTSD into the DSM.
I remember when I got it and Iwas like, oh my gosh, look at
this, we finally have adiagnosis for it, which at the
time seemed like a good thing.
Yeah.

Lisa Danylchuk (20:11):
Yeah, well, a name.
Right, we can call it something.

Dr. Laura Brown (20:14):
We've got a name yeah, and people can read
this and see themselves in ityeah.
And I did not have a fullydeveloped critique of what did
it mean to pathologize people'sdistress.
So at the time it was live.
Remember I was sitting in myoffice, university of washington
where I was on faculty for acouple of years, and getting

(20:35):
very excited by the dsm.
Yeah, yeah so I was lucky to bethe right age or the right time
of the world to get in early onour study of trauma.
And then I had the good fortuneof so I worked on the
alcoholism unit at the VA and myfriends there all knew I was in

(21:00):
private practice and theytreated very few women because
there weren't a lot of womenveterans.
They didn't have women'sprograms in the VA.
I got a call from my friend whowas a staff member of the unit
saying we've got a patient herewe want to refer to you when we
discharge her.
And that was the woman in thearticle that kind of made me

(21:23):
visible as a trauma therapist.
She used the pseudonym of Ruth.
She had been a nurse in themilitary, in the Navy.
She was in Vietnam.
She came back traumatized andtold that she couldn't possibly
have trauma because she wasn'ton the battlefield.
Well, she was.
I don't know if you know whathappens when you're a young

(21:46):
nurse taking badly burnedmilitary members off the medevac
choppers and oh, by the way,your hospital is getting shelled
every night.
Yeah, yeah, she had PTSD, yeah,and I was so fortunate that she
came to me and that she waswilling to work with me and this

(22:08):
is before EMDR, by the way so Igot arthritic joints in this
hand from her grabbing on to mewhile she was having flashbacks.
Wow.
Because she needed to begrounded or something or someone
and I'm like, okay, grab away,because she used to be in my
office having flashbacks.
Yeah, and she and the people Iworked with, but her in

(22:32):
particular, really turned mycorner in the direction of
working with trauma.

Lisa Danylchuk (22:38):
Yeah, yeah, of seeing it, of having a name for
it, of being able to be therewith someone in the intensity of
it, like there's somethingreally validating at that point
in time, right when we're like,oh okay, we're going from.
You can never see this client.
About the DSM, I'm thinkingback to 2005, when people
started talking aboutdevelopmental trauma more

(22:58):
formally and introducing complextrauma more frequently.

Dr. Laura Brown (23:16):
It came before that, yeah, I mean it came In
the 1990s because there was anISTSS conference where Judy
Herman and Bessel Lagerholt werekind of debating what to call
it.
And again, another eideticmemory of sitting in a cafe in
Amsterdam, which is where theconference was being held, with

(23:37):
Judy and a couple of otherfeminist people talking about
wanting to call it complex drama, which is not what Bessel
wanted to call it.
So we were talking about it in1993 or 94.
Yeah, and certainly ChristyCourtois was talking about it in
Healing, the Incest Room, whichcame out in 1986.

(24:01):
Yeah, so we've got a lot ofpeople talking about it in the
1990s and we're gettingincredible pushback.
Um, some people in the dramafield who still get the pushback
.
By the way, we're like, youknow, that's not a trauma,
because the person wasn't fillin the blank, having feeling, uh

(24:23):
, so it wasn't 2005, it was agood decade before that.
It's just that it finally beganto reach the surface after a
decade of people saying, excuseme, we have research.
Yes, and then, excuse me, we'vegot neurological research.
Yeah, and some people don'twant to acknowledge it.

Lisa Danylchuk (24:46):
And that phenomenon continues.
I mean, I think even withinISSTD and other similar
societies there's such a wealthand depth of knowledge that's
commonplace and shared.
Of course, there's debatesabout some things and others,
but there's such a perspectiveand understanding about trauma
and that takes a long time to gobeyond.

(25:07):
I remember I was working withyouth in housing development in
Watts in California and it wasjust around.
Well, I said 2005 because Esselpublished something about
developmental trauma and Iremember being like read this,
read this, read this likesharing it with the staff and
sharing it because people wouldpathologize.
I felt like it, even though thatstill used developmental trauma

(25:28):
disorder, with that worddisorder included.
It started to contextualizemore, and I think that's the arc
we've been on is more and moreunderstanding biology,
understanding neuroscience,understanding trauma responses
and contextualizing, like goingfrom what's wrong with you to
what happened to you, to what'sright with you, to what's right

(25:49):
with your and its response andall of that.
So I'm curious for you in thatarc, how does the decolonizing
weave in?
Because I think that part of ofthat, like we're on a journey,
hopefully, of that process.
It's a messy one, but how doyou see, actually let me ask you

(26:12):
this how would you like to seeit evolve from where we are?

Dr. Laura Brown (26:18):
yeah, well how I'd like to see it evolve for us
.
Often, by us I mean people whowork with suffering individuals
who are trauma exposed and whoare responding in various ways.
They might be dissociating,they might be having nightmares
of flashbacks, they might benumb, they might be having

(26:39):
physical symptoms, might behaving physical symptoms.
I mean there's a lot ofdifferent things that happen in
the interaction between traumaexposure and age of exposure and
the neurology that the personbrings to it and the social
context.
There's a lot of different waysthat people manifest their
suffering.
I would like to see this alltaken out of the medicalization

(27:05):
system and I get it that manytherapists, many people who work
in our field, are dependent oninsurance companies to pay for
what they do, on Medicare andMedicaid to pay for what they do
.
I mean I was a Medicareprovider not to see old people,
but to see people with a historyof complex childhood trauma and

(27:28):
dissociation, because it was away they could have access to
what I had to offer you people Isaw for 10, 20 years, and yet
that system has corrupted us.
It corrupts us, so I use theword colonization because it's a
little bit like what happenedwhen the European Christians

(27:52):
came to North America, to theglobal south, and said your ways
of thinking are wrong, yourways of being are wrong, your
existential systems are wrong,your languages are wrong, you're
not real, you don't exist.
And here we are.
You know, 400 years, 500 yearslater, that's happened to the

(28:16):
work of doing healing.
As I write about in my last book, people have been healing from
trauma and healing with othersfrom trauma since human beings
became human beings, becausewe've been experiencing trauma
since we became human beings.
I mean that's why we've gotnervous systems that are

(28:38):
explicitly attuned to being ableto respond first to attachment
and then to trauma.
I mean, we're built for this,we are neurologically built for
this, and our private ancestorsand relatives are as well.
Well, we've been healing eachother since forever and we've
been struggling with traumaexposure since forever,

(29:02):
struggling with trauma exposuresince forever.
And somewhere in the late 1800sit began to be turned into a
medical problem and aprofessional problem.
And then we have diagnosticmanuals, and then we've got what
I think of as the alphabet soupof treatments that people get
trained to do and instead ofsaying, oh, wait, a, a minute,

(29:24):
stop what, what did we knowbefore?
There was all this layer,layers of medicalization, which
I think of as the colonizing ofhealing and the disordering of
trauma response, instead of thecultures that create drama.
Yeah.

(29:45):
We've been colonized by that.
We need those of us who workwith people who have suffering
souls of some kind, and so todecolonize is a really radical
project, and I get it that whatI'm asking for is probably not
reasonable or feasible for mostpeople, but I want people to

(30:07):
think about it.
Yeah.
I'm very interested less in whatpeople do with their work and
more in how people think aboutwhat it is that they're up to.
I think about myself as incollaboration with a suffering
person, so that they heal and Iheal, and we heal and the world

(30:31):
heals.
If I think about it that waywhen I'm doing EMDR, for example
, if I'm thinking about it thatway, then I'm going to be
different in the room.
Then if I'm thinking I am thetherapist and I know everything
and I have this thing that willfix you, and if it doesn't fix

(30:51):
you, what's wrong with you?
And you're the person with thedisorder.
How do we think about it?
It's always interested me whatI wrote about feminist therapy,
now what I'm writing aboutdecolonial work.
But how do we approach this?
And I think, in the currentpolitical climate in the United

(31:12):
States and some other places inthe world, thinking about it in
this very radical way thatchallenges power differentials,
that challenges who's in theauthority, that challenges who
made this stuff up.
I think it becomes even moreimportant right now because

(31:33):
we're seeing our professionalassociations do pre-compliance,
we're seeing them give in andbow down and that makes thinking
in this colonial wayparticularly necessary.
And I think, for people whohave been exposed to trauma and
are suffering from that exposure, we owe it to them to say you

(31:58):
are not the problem.
Realize, when we're workingwith someone, they're not the
problem.
They may think they're theproblem, they're not sick.

Lisa Danylchuk (32:09):
Yeah, the society is very, very sick yeah,
it makes me think of a quote.
I think it was J.
Krishnamaruti.
It's very challenging, insummary, to be healthy in a
system or society that's not.

Dr. Laura Brown (32:28):
Well, I would say basically that it's
impossible for any of us to betruly healthy in a culture that
is continuously traumatizing usor people we care about.
I don't know how many peopleyou know who have stopped
looking at the news sinceNovember 4th of last year or are

(32:48):
compulsively doom-scrollingthrough the news, but people are
feeling more terrified, moredespairing than they have in a
really long time, and I think inin that we see how the culture
has been so dramatized by what'sbeen happening, and that it's

(33:08):
not just the people with theofficial diagnoses or the
official designation.
So, thinking about it in aradical way, I think it's
becoming even more important,and by.
One of the things I like tojoke about is that the current
administration released a listof words that had to be scrubbed
from all the federal websites.

(33:29):
Well, that's the titles of allof my books, going back to the
very first book I ever co-editedin the early 1980s.
And so scrub everything thatpeople like me write about and
think about and do.
And no, we're not going to bescrubbed.

Lisa Danylchuk (33:48):
Yeah, absolutely not.
So you're talking about powerdynamics.
You're talking about historiesof really severe trauma across
not just the US but other placesin the world in terms of the
impact of colonialism.
I mean.
They're big concepts and Ithink a lot of us in the trauma

(34:09):
world some people focus morenarrowly, but I think you start
to see it and then the horizonbroadens, right.
You're like it's everywhere andit makes sense, and you're
talking about power dynamics inparticular.
So I'm curious.
You know Dr Jennifer Gomez,she's been on the podcast.

Dr. Laura Brown (34:28):
Yeah.

Lisa Danylchuk (34:28):
I know she's great.
We talk about dream storming.
So I'm like what would thedream storm be in terms of power
and that we could start oneither end of the spectrum with?
What does the power look likein a healing partnership?
What does the power look likein a healing partnership?
What does the power look likein a country right or in how in

(34:50):
anywhere in between, in terms ofhow we relate to each other?
What's the dream storm for youof how power works and how we
relate to each other?

Dr. Laura Brown (34:59):
Well, I think that, first of all, we have to
think about power reallydifferently and in a more
sophisticated way, and so westart with how we are powerful
in relationship to ourselves.
Yeah, and that doesn't mean thekind of power that the guy
sitting at 1600 PennsylvaniaAvenue some of the time has,

(35:23):
that's a different kind of power.
But I think that power withourselves, which is what we
bring into our work as healers.
So how do I know what I thinkand know what I feel, and know
where I stop and someone elsebegins, and then how do I know
what's happening in my body sothat I'm able to respond to it?

(35:47):
Those are very powerful thingsthat many of the people with
whom you and I work don't haveaccess to.
You know.
We sit with someone and say howare you feeling?
They say I don't know.
yeah, well, it turned out it wasdangerous for them to know how
they felt, because if they knewhow they felt and they said it

(36:08):
out loud, something really badhappened to them, yep.
And so creating healingrelationships in which, first of
all, we acknowledge that thereis a power imbalance and that
our job as the healer is toreduce it yeah, imbalance and
that our job as the healer is toreduce it, yeah, and to reduce
it not by giving away our ownpower, but by inviting the

(36:29):
people we're working with tonotice how they're already
powerful.
As I said to people, I don'tstay alive long enough to walk
into my office.
Yeah, that's pretty remarkablewhen you think about it in terms

(36:53):
of some of the people with whomwe work, who you know, people
who were their caregivers,supposedly and I'm putting air
quotes around them, you know,tried to kill them, trafficked
them, raped them, starved them,did horrible things to them.
How is it that they walked intoour offices alive, yeah, and
have them look at how they havebeen powerful in ways that they

(37:16):
could not safely know?
So we need to createcollaborative relationships.
So that's my dream for thehealing work is that we say the
disorder is not in the person,the disorder is in the larger
structural and social forms ofoppression.
Yeah, those are the pathologies, those are what think and that

(37:39):
we want to see this as a personstriving toward health, striving
towards power, even if some ofthe ways that they've done it
haven't worked very well forthem yet.
Yeah.
And one of our jobs is toreflect that back.
It's like you tried something.
Some of them worked, some ofthem stopped working, some of

(38:00):
them never worked particularlywell and you did something the
three-year-old kid you werefigured out, dissociating
somehow.
All that you got through thehorror show, whoa.
That's pretty impressive, don'tyou think?
You teleported yourself outwithout a transporter beam

(38:22):
that's pretty impressive, don'tyou think?
Yeah, so having thatcollaborative perspective and
realizing that what we bring arehow to create the conditions in
which people can heal yeah, wedon't actually do anything in
particular.
I mean, and the way I look atit is, there's lots of things we
do.

(38:42):
Working with people have beentraumatized, and some of them
help some of the people some ofthe time, and some of them help
no one some of the time.
And being a true believer inany particular approach to
working with people is kind oflike any kind of fundamentalism.
You kind of get intodifficulties because you can't

(39:05):
see past your own.
This is the way the truth andthe life.
Well, actually, no, the way thetruth and the life of healing
is the relationship.
Lots and lots of good researchon that done by people like my
friend John Norcross, like myfriend Bruce Waphold.
People have looked at theevidence-based psychotherapy
relationship variables.

(39:26):
So one of my visions is we getrid of all these medicalized
terms and just own that we'rehealers, we're collaborating and
that we're not untraumatized,that we are affected, if not by
some kind of big trauma or bydevelopmental trauma or by

(39:50):
attachment trauma, living in aworld where all you have to do
is turn on the TV and there istrauma everywhere around us.
I mean, as a Jew, I could tellyou that the current deportation
of kids who are Americancitizens just has my Hitler
meter going off like crazy,Because you realize that Jews of

(40:11):
Germany were citizens inGermany until Hitler declared
them not.
The Jews of the Netherlandswere the citizens of the
Netherlands until the Nazisoccupied the Netherlands and
declared them not, and in Franceand in Italy and so on and so
on and so forth.
And so when I see and hearpeople who are in a position to

(40:35):
effectuate taking away people'sfreedom saying your citizenship
doesn't matter, we're going tojust wipe it out, that's
traumatic to me.
I don't know if you've heardJamie Pritzker's talk in Vermont
that he gave.
You've got to listen to it.
So Pritzker is the governor ofIllinois.

(40:56):
He gave a talk and he, like me,is the grandchild of Jews who
fled what was then Russia and isnow variously Poland, ukraine
and Belarus.
And we fled because we were indanger, and my grandparents and
his grandparents came to thecountry just a little before and
a little after World War I,before the first immigration

(41:17):
quotas were imposed.
There was no such thing as anundocumented immigrant before in
it21, where the first quotaswere imposed to keep out people
like my grandparents.
Wow, and he said this isrelevant to him because this
country is becoming what hisgrandparents fled here from.

(41:39):
And that's what's going on forme.
So it's not happening to medirectly or to him directly, but
indirectly, throughintergenerational trauma, it's
happening to us.
And so, as healers, rather thansay, oh, I'm fine, we talk to
the people we work with orutilize them, in which someone

(42:00):
else is doing their work, sothat when somebody wants to die
on a regular basis, instead offreaking out and calling law
enforcement, we say, okay, youknow, you can always kill

(42:36):
yourself later, but let's talkabout how you're going to be
alive for the next 24 hoursuntil we get in contact with
each other again, next 24 hoursuntil we get in contact with
each other again, so creatingcollaborative, non-coercive
relationships with people whoare trauma exposed and I think,
becoming aware of the fact thatthis really applies to the broad

(42:57):
range of suffering people, thatit's very easy for us to say,
okay, this is about trauma, butwhat about psychosis?
And what I want to say is wedon't have a place in our
culture for people who hearvoices, including the
disassociated people that youand I work with, who hear the

(43:18):
voices of their equal states.
We don't really have a place inour culture for people who hear
voices and we use othercultures.
Do the history of this culture?
There's a saint, joan of Arc,who heard a lot of voices and
because of that became a saintof the Roman Catholic Church.
You know, there were places forpeople who heard voices and we

(43:43):
don't have that in Westerncultures anymore.
And so how do we create spacesthat are safe enough for those
people, which requires animmense investment of time and
money and energy and a change ofparadigm.
Yeah, rob, this is a mentalillness which was actually a
move out of.
These are crazy people weshould like to.

(44:04):
The mental illness was a stepalong the way, but to say this
is stuff, this is a neurotype,this is a neurotype for which we
don't really have good supportin the cultures that we're
around.
Well, it's the same thing ashow do we decolonize, thinking
about people who are probablyexposed or people who are

(44:27):
dissociative, because you and Iboth know there's still people
who say, oh, they know somethingagainst the social and ego
states.
It's like excuse me, sit in theroom with someone sometimes
when the five-year-old ego stateshows up and says who are you?
Which is, shall we say, veryconvincing yeah.

Lisa Danylchuk (44:49):
Yeah, I mean, I remember having a supervisor at
a young age, before I waslicensed, and I had a client who
was sexually exploited, beingtrafficked, and met with her for
maybe a period of about a yearand then one session where she
actually came into the clinicwhich was rare showed up
speaking like a five, six yearold Can we color?

(45:10):
And I talked to my supervisorabout it and I was like, okay,
I'm seeing some dissociation,I'm seeing this in my supervisor
.
Oh, I don't know if that's Idon't think that's dissociation.
I was like, well, okay,supervisor, you tell me what you
think that is.
I'm pretty confident here.

Dr. Laura Brown (45:31):
If you were there there, I don't think you'd
be questioning this like it wascut and dry so that's my dream
for what happens with us, andwhat that means is finding ways
to pay the bills for all of usto do this work, so that we're

(45:51):
not being required to give adisorder diagnosis, to not have
to be medically necessary for usto do the work we do, which I
think has really corrupted us insome ways.
And you know, when I first wasable to be licensed and take
insurance, that was pretty greatbecause most of the people I

(46:12):
saw had more insurance than theydid money, and so they could
afford to see me and I couldmake a living.
And we need to be able to behoused in a fedex phone, just
like the people with whom wework.
Yeah, that's the therapy vision, the big vision we're seeing
actually at the streets ofAmerica now almost every day.

(46:34):
So I watch Rachel Maddowdevotedly, and every night of
her show she does somethingincredibly hope-creating and she
shows dozens of clips ofdemonstrations happening
everywhere, all over the UnitedStates, in places you might not
expect it.
And that's what we're seeing,and that's what JB Pritzker

(46:59):
called for in his speech atVermont, which is people have
got to rise up.
We have to have a willingnessto take the risk to rise up and
speak truth to power repeatedly,not just one time, not just one
time, not just two times, notfor the first hundred days, and

(47:19):
over and over and over and overagain.
I know a lot of therapists whoare like, well, I'm not
political, this has nothing todo with me, it's like bullshit.
Excuse my French.
Everything we do in the worldof trauma is political, and if
we don't own that, we do it aservice to the people with whom

(47:41):
we work and to ourselves.
And so the big picture is thatwe've stopped.
We who are trying to have amore just world, first of all
stop fighting with each other,because we do that.
We have the circular firingsquad in the left, which I've

(48:01):
seen for many, many years.
We've got to stop fighting witheach other.
We've got to stop beingsectarian about it.
We've got to realize that ourintersectional identities help
us understand who we are, butthey shouldn't be creating
barriers between us, and thatwe've got to figure out how do
we come together in coalition.

(48:22):
You know, bernice Johnson,reagan, who was the founder of
Sweet Honey and the Rock, thewonderful women's group, said
once I went to a concert oncewhere she said being in
coalition is working with peoplewith whom you don't agree about
everything, but you agree onthe social justice goal.
And we need that right now.

(48:43):
And I think, because times areso dire, we're beginning to get
that, because a lot of us my ageare looking around and saying,
well, I read my history book and, gee, this looks a lot like
Weimar, germany.
Yeah, and we could stop this.
We could do something.

(49:03):
Okay, let's do something.
And so my vision for the bigpicture for a more just world,
which I think will not happen inmy lifetime picture for a more
just world, which I think willnot happen in my lifetime
Because, given my familygenetics, if I make it another
20 years that'll be good, but itmight happen in the lifetimes
of the next generation or thegeneration after that and my

(49:30):
family.
I have a bunch of youngercousins who are very fecund, and
so there's a lot of babiesbeing born there, yeah, who are
very fecund, and so there's alot of babies being born there,
yeah, but in that generation, ifwe just are willing to keep on
being fearless and not give into the trance of despair, yes,
and it's easy to fall into that,it's easy to say there's
nothing I could do, and so thattakes me back to what is power.

(49:51):
Yeah, power is the ability tocall up a friend and say let's
go to a demonstration together.
I do have a friend who's afamous person, so I won't say
the friend's name, but thisfriend has started dating
recently and her first date wasgoing to a protest.
The person she was datinginvited her to a protest.

(50:11):
Okay, this is pretty cool, andthis is a person who's already,
you know, very involved inprogressive stuff, has really
changed our field as well andwith their work.
But all of us need to say whatis the one small, powerful thing
I could do every day to movethe whole world closer to
justice?

(50:31):
I have a sign in my front yardthat I bought right after the
election that says resist,persist, repeat.
Every time someone drives downmy street and my street is a
busy thoroughfare that goes fromone part of town to another it

(50:52):
doesn't matter who they are orwhere else in the Seattle area
they came from they see thatsign, and so that's a sort of a
set of get active resistance, sothat I put things on my social
media every day about things youcan do my side petitions I
bother other people to getinvolved.

(51:15):
Those are really big things.
I mean it's not going to causeI don't think it's going to
cause the federal government toshow up at my door anytime soon,
although, ironically, when Iwas in the anti-war movement
back in the 70s, the FBI tappedour home phone because my
brother and I were bothcity-wide organizers for the

(51:35):
Student Mobilization Committeeto end the war in Vietnam.
And when there was a raid onthe FBI files at some point and
they got stolen by the WarResisters League and a friend of
a family member was in WRL andfound his file and our file and
there was nothing.
To me it was like homeworkthat's what we were talking

(51:55):
about on the phone homework or,you know, going to a rock and
roll concert.
But the point is, you know,they've been showing up at my
literal door, on a figurativedoorstep, since I was a kid.
Um, so what?
Yeah, well, I'm an old woman,which actually makes me more

(52:15):
fearless.
But everybody needs to figureout this is my call to all of us
in our field that each of usneeds to figure out what is the
one all-powerful act ofresistance to injustice that we
can find every day, and notdemonize the people who elected

(52:36):
those folks, because the peoplewho elected them are traumatized
themselves and sociopaths takeadvantage of traumatized people,
and we have just seen that inthe latest election in the US is
sociopaths taking advantage oftraumatized people.
And so, rather than saying, oh,I won't talk to a person who

(52:59):
voted for that guy, it's likelet me listen to their story,
because their story has a traumain it somewhere and they were
taught that the way to deal withthat trauma is to pass it on to
somebody else.
I mean, as we know, a lot ofthe people we work with had
parents who were traumasurvivors, only they hadn't
worked it through on themselves.

(53:19):
So having compassion, that's theother thing.
The most powerful thing we cando is have compassion for
everybody.
The autocrats I have nocompassion for they are
enriching themselves at theexpense of vulnerable human
beings everywhere.
But I have compassion for thepeople who are their followers,

(53:41):
because most of them were justresponding to their own drama in
a particular way, and I thinkthat's a difficult message for
many of us who are in the socialjustice world to be able to do,
because those people are notbeing very kind to some of us
these days or to people we careabout.

(54:02):
So that's my bigger vision and Iwon't live to see it, but I'm
not going to stop working towardit.
So that you know if of I have anew baby I don't know how you
calculate it he's the grandsonof one of my first cousins.
He was born a couple of monthsago and I just saw a picture of

(54:27):
him and our family whatsapp chat.
And when that baby is my age,in another 72 years, first of
all, we hopefully will haveprotected the climate and,
second of all, maybe it will bea more just world, because I
don't want to say, well, I won'tbe here, so it doesn't matter,

(54:49):
I won't be here, but he'll behere and his first cousins will
be here.
And if my niece ever has a kidwhich she's working at, her kid
will be here.
And we have a responsibility todo what we can to stop this

(55:11):
injustice, because injustice istraumatizing and injustice
creates the world in whichthere's no post trauma.

Lisa Danylchuk (55:21):
Yeah, and you're tracking right across
generations, things that havehappened directly within your
family, things that are veryreal, that have happened in the
world.
Signs, stirrings of this feelsvery familiar.
Let's not have that happenagain.
How do we work with this?
In the moment, it sounds likeseeing people come together in

(55:41):
coalitions where we can agree onsome values or a shared goal
and work together.
It also sounds like havingempathy for people we might not
be able to really get into theirmind or fully understand, but
be able to be open and stayconnected.
The other thing that comes tomind as you're talking is a
conversation I've seen a lotabout in terms of small power,

(56:04):
like just making what can you dotoday to take care of yourself,
to move forward, and also toit's almost like a decolonize
your emotional state, news dayto day, like stay connected,
stay somewhat informed withoutbeing completely dysregulated,
because that can be a patterntoo, where people become so

(56:26):
dysregulated that it feelsdisempowering and so they lean
out and then people who are invery specific positions of power
can do whatever they're doingbecause people are so exhausted
or despairing, right.
So there's something here about, even when you're talking about
in session what do I need.
What's happening in my body,how am I aware, like that

(56:46):
decolonizing and becomingempowered as a healer in
collaboration with a client,like a lot of that sounds like
it applies to these biggerpicture things that you're
talking about, these largersystemic dynamics.
Where how can we reclaim ourown space, our own bodies, our
values, our vision and stayconnected and and yes, I don't
know if in heartened is a word,but we can stay in heartened and

(57:11):
hold the longer term vision tooof, okay, maybe it's my
children, my grandchildren, mynieces, my nephews, the future
of what does this look like?
Playing forward?
Because we alive now, and youand your family alive now, know
the impacts of racism againstJews, of the Holocaust, of all

(57:31):
of the harm that was done there.
We understand now in the traumafield that harm done has
specific impacts in our biologyand in the way that we think and
feel emotionally, in the waythat we feel safe or unsafe
socially.
And so there's this, there's somuch that you're integrating
and transmitting through in yourwork.

(57:52):
That feels like I just want tohonor how much digestion to go
and how much understandingyourself sitting with
uncomfortable experiences thatother people have had, that have
happened in your lineage or inyour life.
I feel like there's so muchdigestion going from the harms

(58:12):
done, being aware of the harmsdone, and that's hard in and of
itself, right, just to be awareof the harms done and then start
trying to alchemize, okay, well, where do we go with that?
Like, what do we do with that?
And you've given so manyexamples today, from the more
specific micro in the moment tothe more macro or long-term ways

(58:32):
that we can navigate and waysthat we can hopefully heal.
I mean, I think when you againyou broaden that horizon, you
see trauma.
You're like, oh shit, like thisis everywhere.
What do I do?
Yeah, and it's always been.
It's just now.
We have some language and wehave an evolving understanding
of it and we have, hopefully,coalitions, right, professionals

(58:57):
coming together and even for me, being someone who's been in
the yoga world, it's like, okay,yoga world's gone through a
whole lot of reckoning withabuses that have happened even
within that, and finding, okay,here's this amazing long-term
practice that has this lineageand has this sort of sacred
quality, and then here's theexploitive stuff.

(59:17):
We're going to let that go, buthow are we continuing to show
up, to use the tools?
We have to stay connected toeach other, to honor harms that
have been done, without lettingthat sort of fractionate us even
more right, like honor the pain, connect and find some way

(59:39):
forward where there's space foreach of us, where there's space
for us to be human, wherethere's space for I mean I think
of the word healing a lot ofjust being peace and connection
and being able to live a lifethat, like in my idyllic mind,
it's like it's happened beforeon this planet that we've lived
in this way.

Dr. Laura Brown (01:00:00):
But it also sometimes means being angrier.
Yeah, sometimes, when we heal,we get angrier because we have
more access to all of ourfeelings and you know, going
along with what you're saying,what I say to people is do not
let those sociopaths takecontrol of your trauma response

(01:00:21):
system, of your sympatheticnervous system, of your HPA axis
.
Yes, don't give it away to them.
If you notice yourself gettinghighly activated, then do things
to center yourself.
I mean, I've been practicingaikidos for the last 22 years
yes, when I was 15 and gettingon the mat sometimes is what I

(01:00:43):
need to do, and our sensei talksabout the importance of this
practice because it's a traumahealing practice in so many ways
.
And when I start to feelsomething stealing my sns, I'm
like wait a minute, does thisperson deserve my sns?
No, what do?

Lisa Danylchuk (01:01:02):
I do to take it back.
Yeah, they're knocking on thedoor, but you don't have to
answer excuse me, no, this is mysns, this is my nervous system.

Dr. Laura Brown (01:01:11):
I'm going to save it for what matters, or the
moments of joy I get when Istep outside my door and smell
the lilacs.

Lisa Danylchuk (01:01:20):
Yes, yes, so that you don't, they don't knock
on the door If you knock.
If they knock on the door andyou let them in and then your
whole sympathetic nervous systemis doing that dance and you
step out the door, you them inand then your whole sympathetic
nervous system is doing thatdance and you pop the door.
You might not see or smell thelilacs, right, you might just be
in this sort of grumbly cloudybrain space going to your car
and when we can say nope, notanswering that, no, your nervous

(01:01:45):
system, your outreach here isnot allowed in my system.
We can maintain a sense ofpeace.
We can also stay connected tohow we feel about things, like
you mentioned.
Yeah, a hundred percent, it's.
It's an adaptive emotion.
If somebody crosses the line,it's natural to get angry, but
we do also have power to setsome of those lines Right.

(01:02:05):
Exactly, not you, not now.
This is my space, right, yeah,not now.
This is my space, right, yeah,so beautiful.
I mean I feel like we couldtalk for hours here.
So many threads that are, Ithink, so important and healing
in your work.
So again, I want to just thankyou for writing so many books.
I mean, for me, writing booksis hard.

(01:02:25):
I've written three and I'm likeI'm taking a break.

Dr. Laura Brown (01:02:29):
For me it's easy.
Don't ask me to strike a yogapose, I can't do that.
But ask me to write anything,and I just go away for a couple
of weeks at a time to Hawaii,and I write.
That's what I do.
I just get up in the morning, Isnorkel to be with the fishes
and then I write, and I'mfortunate that way.

(01:02:49):
I mean, some people can do whatyou do and some people can do
what I do, and each of us hasour particular talents.
Yes, and I've been fortunate tobe somebody for whom writing
comes naturally, andparticularly now in the last
year, with this vocal disorderthat has descended upon me,
again being able to write hasbecome especially precious.

Lisa Danylchuk (01:03:12):
Yes, you can communicate in that way as well.

Dr. Laura Brown (01:03:16):
Yes, oh, thank you for asking me to be on your
podcast, Lisa.
I really appreciate that.

Lisa Danylchuk (01:03:23):
Yeah, it's been so wonderful talking with you
and hearing more from you, and Iknow listeners will agree.
So what's next for you?
Your book came out recently,decolonizing Trauma Healing.
For those watching on video,you can see it on the shelf up
above.
Uh, laura, towards a humble,culturally responsive practice.
So that's out and available.
Is there anything else that'sgoing?

Dr. Laura Brown (01:03:44):
on I'd like to share.
Oh, apa reached out to me andsaid so why don't you write the
how-to book?
Well, I'm working on how to bea decolonial, humble, culturally
responsive healer.
I have about half the bookwritten and I'm going to finish
it up this year.
So that's the project.
I am slowly, very, very, veryslowly working on a third-degree

(01:04:08):
black belt.
Maybe, I don't know, I'm not inany particular rush.
I'm halfway through the fiveyears that they should be fully
in remission from cancer.
So I'm doing things to takecare of myself and I'm so
grateful for all the researchersat the fred hutch cancer center
here in Seattle who saved mylife.

(01:04:32):
I'm looking for joy where Ihave it.
I'm grateful that my treatmentfor my vocal disorder is moving
ahead so I can have a speakingvoice again, even though it
doesn't sound like the one Iused to have.
But I have one which a year agoI didn't.
When I first got the recurrenceof this I didn't.

(01:04:55):
But mostly I'm looking to keepon making good trouble, as the
late great john lewis used tosay.
It's like make make goodtrouble, because you know, jews
have 613 commandments.
We do not have only 10, and oneof them says that hebrews said
x tiered off, but pursue justice.

(01:05:16):
Well, I have been pursuingjustice for a very long time and
so honoring that commandment.
I may not keep kosher, but I dopursue justice and continuing
to find ways to do that.
Whether it's where I shop ordon't shop, how I spend my money

(01:05:42):
, what I do with my time, all ofthose are about creating
justice, in small ways and inbig ways.
Yeah, but the next book iswhat's next, so it'll probably
be out somewhere in 2026, unlessI get sort of hung up on
writing too many words again.
A problem I have, and this islooking for joy in my life,

(01:06:06):
because when you're 72, you knowthat you're more than halfway
there.
People in my family tend tolive until they're mid to late
80s, so I would like to bearound at least that long, and
at that time I want to be.
I want to honor the gifts thatlife has given me.

(01:06:27):
Yes, by doing something withthem, for myself, but for the
world around me, in whatever wayI can.
That's what's next.
That's what's always the next.

Lisa Danylchuk (01:06:39):
Yeah, I often close by asking people what
brings them hope.
But I'm curious what brings youjoy?

Dr. Laura Brown (01:06:47):
Aikido brings me joy, yeah.
The people in my life bring mejoy, my friends, the people I'm
close to.
Smelling the lilacs brings mejoy, yes.
Looking at the beautiful fabricI heard all around my home,
which has been created byIndigenous women artists all

(01:07:08):
over the planet, that I've beencollecting since the early 70s,
brings me joy.
Beauty brings me joy, yeah.
Dancing brings me joy, yes.
Listening listening to earth,wind and fire, and dancing in
the morning because of me joy.
Yes.
Looking out at the mountainsthat are west of me brings me
joy.

(01:07:28):
So nature, my aikido practice,my friends, that all brings me
joy.
And I nature, my Aikidopractice, my friends, that all
brings me joy.
And I am fortunate.
I'm incredibly fortunate.
I have so much privilege and Idon't feel guilty about that or
ashamed of that.
I am grateful for that becausemy grandparents went, you know,

(01:07:50):
across the Atlantic in steerage.
Grandparents went across theAtlantic in steerage.
My parents worked their tailsoff to be able to go to college
as the first American-bornmembers of their families.
My teachers gave me a wealth ofwisdom and the ability to think
critically.
People worked hard to allow meto do what it is that I do, yes,

(01:08:13):
and so to have gratitude everyday that gives me joy.

Lisa Danylchuk (01:08:19):
Yeah, that intergenerational resilience.
You're tracking right All ofthat, all of those investments
in growth and joy and in rightwhen you mentioned privilege,
like being in a place where youfeel safe enough to go and write
and share big ideas and giveyour gifts, share your gifts
with us, which I'm grateful for.
I know a lot of listeners aregrateful for too.

Dr. Laura Brown (01:08:40):
So thank you for being here, thank you for
inviting me, so I look forwardto seeing you at the next.

Lisa Danylchuk (01:08:47):
ISSD.
Yes, we'll be on the West Coast.

Dr. Laura Brown (01:08:52):
Yay, down the road for me, I don't have to be
jet lagged to go to ISSTD Yay.

Lisa Danylchuk (01:08:57):
Great.
Yes, I look forward to seeingyou there.
And how can people connect withyou?

Dr. Laura Brown (01:09:02):
I've got a website, drlaurabrown.
com, which you can put in yourshow notes and that's really.
It's got my contact informationthere.
That's really the best way toget a hold of me.
People can email me.
I'm not doing therapy anymore,so don't ask me about that.
I don't have a lot of people torefer to anymore, because

(01:09:23):
people are either full or halfretired.
What I am doing is consultationand supervision and teaching.
I've got six groups in Chinaright now where I get up and
teach at four in the morninghere in Seattle, which is really
great, wow, because I'm anearly bird.
Yeah, so people can email me,but don't ask me to do therapy

(01:09:43):
with you, please.
But if you want consultationonce or twice or a long time,
I'm still going to be doing thisfor a while, because doing this
work gives me joy.
Yes.

Lisa Danylchuk (01:09:55):
Yeah, well, thank you again and I look
forward to seeing you inPortland.

Dr. Laura Brown (01:10:03):
Yeah, I'll see you next year here in the
Northwest, all right.

Lisa Danylchuk (01:10:12):
Thanks so much for listening.
Don't forget to go to how wecan heal.
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(01:10:34):
and keep sharing the shows youlove the most with all your
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Visit how we can healcomforward slash podcast to share
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I love hearing from you.
Before we wrap up for today, Iwant to be clear that this
podcast isn't offeringprescriptions.
It's not advice, nor is it anykind of mental health treatment

(01:10:55):
or diagnosis.
Your decisions are in yourhands and I encourage you to
consult with any healthcareprofessionals you may need to
support you through your uniquepath of healing.
In addition, everyone's opinionhere is their own.
Guests share their thoughts,not that of the host or sponsors
.
I'd like to thank our gueststoday, everyone who helps

(01:11:16):
support this podcast directlyand indirectly.
Alex, shout out to you fortaking care of the babe and the
fur babies while I record.
Last but never least, I'd liketo give a shout out to my big
brother, mMatt, who passed awayin 2002.
He wrote this music and itmakes my heart so happy to share
it with you here.

(01:11:41):
Thank you.