July 16, 2025 • 59 mins
The wisdom to heal is already inside you—but what happens when trauma disconnects you from that wisdom? That's the powerful question at the heart of my conversation with Julian Bermudez, owner of a Psychedelic Integration Trauma Therapy practice in Portland, OR.
Julian shares his journey from a painful childhood—bouncing between parents who saw him as a burden—to becoming a therapist who mirrors others so they can truly see themselves. This mirroring, he explains, is the essence of therapy: helping people reconnect with parts of themselves they've disconnected from as a survival strategy.
We explore how humans have two fundamental needs: attachment & authenticity. When expressing our authentic emotions threatens our attachments—as happens in many families—we learn to suppress parts of ourselves, creating disconnection that follows us into adulthood. This plays out as achievement-seeking, people-pleasing, addiction, or the pursuit of power and status—all attempts to fill the void of unworthiness planted in childhood.
Julian challenges modern parenting approaches like "cry it out" methods, explaining how babies physically download regulation from mature nervous systems through touch and connection. The societal shift away from this natural process has created generations of disconnection, with over half of children now medicated for emotional experiences that are actually natural responses to unmet attachment needs.
What makes Julian's approach transformative is his belief that therapy isn't about fixing something broken—it's about reconnecting with the wholeness already within us. Through plant medicine and psychedelic integration, he helps people identify patterns originating in childhood wounds, develop awareness of triggers, and cultivate the agency to respond differently to life's challenges.
The next time you feel "triggered" by someone, remember Julian's powerful metaphor: a trigger is just a small mechanism that sets off a reaction. The question isn't who pulled the trigger, but who's carrying the explosive ammunition within? By turning toward our pain rather than projecting it outward, we can break cycles of trauma that have persisted for generations.
Connect with Julian : https://www.psychedelic-integration.net/ or on Instagram @psychedlicintegration
Let's connect on social media! You can find me @ _journeytowell
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be well, my friend
xx Hannah
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:02):
Hello, hello, welcome back to the podcast Journey to
Well.
So today's a fun one becausethis is something that I truly
have no experience in, limitedknowledge in, and those
sometimes are really funconversations to have because I
get to learn along with all ofyou listening.
(00:24):
So today I am joined withJulian Bermudez.
He is the owner of apsychedelic integration trauma
therapy.
He is in Portland, oregon, sowe got some East Coast, west
Coast going on today and we'regoing to talk all about
(00:45):
psychedelic intervention andplant medicine intervention for
trauma therapy.
I'm super excited to have thisconversation with you, julian.
Thank you so much for coming.
Speaker 2 (00:57):
I'm very happy to be here.
Thanks for having me.
Speaker 1 (00:59):
Yes, and I would love to have open up the space for
you just to kind of share alittle bit about who you are,
and I'm always curious whatbrought someone to where they
are today?
So what brought you to thespace to open up this healing
studio and why did you feelcalled to work in this modality?
Speaker 2 (01:30):
feel called to work in this modality.
Yeah, well, in terms of who Iam is, I think I've always been
born.
Since I've been born into thisworld, I've been a mirror to
other people, so they can reallysee themselves through me Very
interesting, dynamic, and itmakes a really wonderful
foundation for therapy work.
So I have this incrediblefoundation where I can really
understand and see people basedoff of my own experiences, and
(01:53):
then I can help them seethemselves through a different
light, which, in my opinionreconnecting with yourself is
the essence of therapy, and soif I can help people to find
themselves or to see themselvesin new light, to help them
reconnect with themselves,that's where we do the therapy
at.
So I mean, in a gist, that'skind of who I am.
(02:16):
I've always been that and youknow it wasn't always the
easiest role to play or easiesttype of person to be, especially
, growing up, I grew up just anaverage person.
I grew up in a trailer parkthat bordered a landfill and
(02:38):
that was where my mom lived andmy dad lived in Southwest
Detroit.
So I bounced back and forth andneither family wanted me.
They saw me as a burden.
They were very young when theyhad me and they hated each other
.
So, as I was that mirror, theyhated me as well, and it left me
with a tremendous amount ofpain.
So my whole goal was to try andfigure out how I could first of
(02:59):
all live a life that I didn'twant to end immediately, live a
life that I didn't want to endimmediately, and to ideally
transform that pain so I couldlearn how to enjoy life and
thrive a little bit.
And those are the things thatled me to here.
Speaker 1 (03:13):
Mm, hmm, and those that's what you feel like what.
What are the biggest pillarsthat you feel like helped you
transform that mindset and thatmaybe even like lifestyle
perspective, life perspectivewhat were the bigger pillars
that kind of helped you alongyour way?
Speaker 2 (03:36):
Well, the bouncing between families as a child was
that was very important.
It was very painful, verystressful and it provided me
this really unique lens to seemy family, my caregivers, my
communities and myself throughdifferent perspectives.
So when I would go to my mom'shouse, for instance, it was an
(04:00):
all white, super low class.
And when it's we're in atrailer park, um, we lived in
subsidized housing before that.
Um, you know the perspectivesthat they had there on race and
ethnicity and all thesedifferent aspects of who we are.
Um, if I would have just been inthat one community, I would
(04:20):
have really ingrained a lot ofthat into myself, and I did.
You know, I definitelydeveloped beliefs of
unworthiness I'm not good enough, I'm not deserving, I'm just
not worthy of being loved oraccepted.
But then I would go to my dad'shouse and it was the exact same
thing over there, when I wouldact like my mom's family, or
(04:43):
when I would be at my mom's, Iwould act like my dad's.
They would just hate me.
So what I was realizing was, nomatter what I did, it wasn't
going to be good enough.
And there's really two waysthat we can look at pain like
that when we're kids, which isthe first one, is my caregivers.
My parents are just not up tothe job.
They're not qualified, they'renot capable, they're not willing
(05:12):
.
Whatever it is, bottom line isI'm not safe and there's kind of
a dead end in that viewpointthere, there's not a lot of hope
.
So the viewpoint that we usuallyadopt is well, my parents,
caregivers they do know what'sgoing on, they have
relationships, they're older,they're surviving.
The problem is is I'm notworthy or I'm not good enough to
get the care that they can giveme.
So if I could be good enough,then I'll get the thing.
(05:32):
And don't get me wrong, Iabsolutely have that one too,
and I've had it for a lot of mylife.
But that first one developedvery early in me, and so that
was a major pillar for me tojust say enough, no more of this
, I'm not doing this anymore,I'm not going to continue living
in this pattern and I'm goingto start to take some
(05:53):
responsibility for myself.
It was a very, very challengingone and it started very early
in my life, but I think that wasone of the foundational pillars
and where I got to, or how Igot to where I am now.
Speaker 1 (06:13):
What a perspective shift of maybe they don't have
the tools or the ability to takecare of me and to show up for
me versus.
I think that we all are kind oflike that.
I'm sure that we all have bothsides.
But I'm sure that we all arekind of like that and I'm sure
that we all have both sides, butI'm sure that we all are more.
I know that I have definitely,especially as a child, fallen
(06:33):
into what's wrong with me and,you know, earning love, which I
shouldn't even say as a child.
I think you know you brought it, you said it too like we all
struggle with that from time totime and I think certain
relationship dynamics aredepending on where we are in
life.
But of that so interesting thatyou had that perspective as a
(06:55):
child.
Speaker 2 (06:56):
I mean, that's huge this idea of having to earn our
parents' love is very common,very common in our society, and
it shouldn't be that way.
As a child we shouldn't have towork to be accepted.
(07:20):
We're born into this world andour fundamental need is to be
accepted and to be valued and tobe cherished, and we should be
able to rest in our connectionsknowing that there's nothing
that we could do or there'snothing that we could be that
would disconnect or destroythose connections.
But it's really quite theopposite is, our parents got
(07:41):
their own stress, they got theirown pain, they're caught up in
their own patterns and they needus, as children, to become
their parents and to take careof their emotional needs.
And yeah, that's a tremendousamount of pain and very, very
traumatic for children.
And I think I was maybe 12 or13 years old where it was very,
(08:02):
very well pronounced in my lifeand I remember saying that to my
mom and the outcome was well,you're absolutely right, you
don't live here anymore, so getout.
And I mean there was a lot ofthings that happened in between
me saying that and me leavingthat house that night.
But yeah, that was where I wasreally really learning.
(08:22):
There was nothing I could dothat was ever going to make me
good enough to get theacceptance.
Of course, I still have thatbelief that if I get the degrees
, then you know I'll finally beimportant and accepted.
(08:45):
No, no, it doesn't matter.
It doesn't matter what you do.
You know, sometimes you justwill never fulfill those roles
for people who are caught up intheir own pain and their own
patterns themselves.
And so I think the second thingthat was really important for
me was really learning that Ihad to become good enough for
(09:06):
myself, really learning tocultivate some self-value,
because it wasn't just a matterof, you know, getting the
acceptance from my parents or myfamily or my caregivers.
It was even when I accomplishedthe things that I thought would
make me important, I still feltthat tremendous amount of pain
me important.
Speaker 1 (09:27):
I still felt that tremendous amount of pain.
And what do we do with that?
I mean, my goodness, that'ssuch a pattern I realized that I
saw in other people that werevery close to me when I was in
my 20s, that pattern of if I dothis, if I get this, then I'll
be happy.
And maybe what you're kind ofintroducing is it could be
(09:53):
rooted in this enoughness andproving yourself and you know,
kind of striving for thiscontentment in life from outside
perspective, from outsidethings, um, and kind of giving
our power away to like, well, ifI, if I get this degree, if I
(10:14):
move to this place, if I getthis person, if I find, you know
, my boyfriend or my girlfriend,then I'll be happier, then I'll
be happier, then I'll be enough.
And then we get there andthere's still this sense of
emptiness and of void and oflonging.
Speaker 2 (10:33):
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
We can become addicted to verya ton of substances or behaviors
, Anything that provides a shortrelief but has long term
consequences.
So new places, new jobs, newrelationships, and you know,
there's entire sectors of oureconomy, our, our social
(10:57):
structures are built on thisbelief of unworthiness, where
the marketing is you're not good, good enough unless you buy
this product.
Multi-trillion dollarindustries that are based on
this premise, so you can see iteverywhere you look You're not
good enough, buy this productand then people will like you.
(11:19):
But it doesn't matter if youstart changing all the things
outside of us, if thatfundamental belief of
unworthiness and the painthereof is still inside of us.
Speaker 1 (11:33):
I was in, you know Tony Robbins, so I did one of
his seminars years ago, and onething that he said has has just
stuck with me forever and andit's I mean, it's the same thing
that you're saying it's that wehave these two, and I don't
remember his exact wording soI'm going to put it in my own
(11:54):
language but we have two likecore wounds and we all have
these two core wounds and it'sthis, this desire and this need
to be enough and to be loved,and all of our actions,
everything that we do and all ofour thoughts and everything
comes down to these core woundsthat we were born with.
(12:18):
It's just like a, not even likea generational thing, it's just
like from the beginning ofhumanity, I guess, is from.
What I recall is what he wassaying and that's always stuck
with me.
And, like every, all of ouractions are either to prove that
we are enough or to earn lovefrom those around us, whether
(12:43):
they're people we actuallyactually actually want love from
or not.
Like why are you, you know,getting that botox done or why
are you posting that thing onsocial media?
It's to earn love and to earnadoration and admiration,
whether we really care aboutthose people or not?
Speaker 2 (13:01):
yeah, yeah, I mean, as humans we have two
fundamental needs when we'redeveloping especially, and the
first need is for attachment,because human beings are, as far
as I've seen in this world, themost immature, undeveloped
dependent species for thelongest amount of time.
(13:22):
Dependent species for thelongest amount of time, like it
takes a human three, four yearsto learn how to run, to build
the motor skills, theneurological skills, the muscles
, the coordination, just to moveyour body a specific way to
where a horse learns how to runon their first day of life.
So it takes humans a tremendousamount of care and nurturing
(13:42):
and attachment to develop yourbody just enough to survive
physically.
So we're completely dependenton that attachment.
And then the second thing thatwe need is to be authentic,
meaning that we can express whatwe're feeling, we can be
uniquely who we are and not havethat threaten our attachments.
But that's kind of what'shappening today is our
(14:07):
authenticity, our expression,having emotions, having
boundaries threatens ourattachments, so we have to
sacrifice one of them and thisis the source of great pain.
It shouldn't be that way andit's in our development not that
way, and this is, as far as Ican see, a fairly new phenomena.
(14:27):
And it's still.
There's still pockets ofcultures that exist today that
still have that connection.
You know, you look at hunter,gatherer cultures and in our
society we usually look at themas some form of lesser than
society, look at them as someform of lesser than society.
(14:49):
But when you really look attheir social dynamics and their
ability to live in harmony withnature and in their harmony in
their society, you know theydon't let their kids touch the
ground for the first four yearsof their life.
Those children are always heldand always connected and always
attached and there's nothingthat they do that can ruin that.
And if it's not the parents whoare holding them, it's the
(15:10):
uncles or the aunts or thesisters or the cousins.
There's always somebodyconnected and those dynamics of
not being good enough, we cansee examples where they don't
exist.
So, yeah, there's ways and it'sin our human nature not to have
that.
But that is the hallmark of, Ithink, one of the biggest
traumas of our generation in ourand and of our age right now,
(15:32):
because our parents have it andour grandparents have it and
their parents have it.
It goes through all thegenerations as far back as we
can see right now what changed?
Speaker 1 (15:41):
what do you?
What why?
Why are we kind of in thisplace where we are the most
detached and the most dependent?
And what has changed sincethose times that's created this?
Speaker 2 (16:09):
happened.
You know we could trace it backto the changing of societies,
having these stagnant citieswhere people stay here, and
there's these roles that have tobe fulfilled.
And you know, I mean going backmultiple generations, having
parents that were, you know,needing to go to work, um,
having to go away from thefamily to earn resources to
(16:32):
bring back to the family, um,this is a big, a big disconnect
in the human condition.
And so, you know the the, thefather goes to work, and then,
you know, one, two generationsin now, women have to go to work
too, the mothers have to go towork.
Where does the kid go?
Where does the baby go?
(16:53):
You know, I've worked inhealthcare for numerous years
and I'm not in it now, but I'mstill connected to it, very,
very deeply connected to it.
And I see mothers who haveseven week old babies and
they're like Okay, is it timefor me to start letting this
baby learn how to self soothe?
Do I have to hold this babyanymore?
(17:14):
Can I send them to daycareplease?
You know there's so much stressand so many pressing desires or
needs that have to be fulfilledjust to survive right now that
caring for our kids is not evenon the table anymore.
So, yeah, we really go back.
The industrial revolution youreally see, that's where we
(17:38):
moved from what was oftenreferred to as the household
factory.
So you had theseintergenerational families that
lived on a certain amount ofland.
This was very common, don't getme wrong.
There were a lot of people whodidn't have this as well.
So it goes much further thanthis.
But the Industrial Revolutionyou really start to see people
moving from the household intothe factories, and that's where
(18:02):
daycares, education systems comeinto place too.
So that's a really big moment.
But of course it goes muchfurther back than then.
Speaker 1 (18:12):
The self-soothing that you're talking about.
I have a huge background injust childcare.
I nannied a lot and I babysatand love kids and I have a
degree in speech pathology anddid pediatric speech pathology
and the.
(18:32):
the idea, like just even theparenting tips is so that would
be such an interestingconversation to have some time
on a podcast of you know, letyour baby cry it out and let
your you know, like he'll figureit out or let your baby like
put itself to sleep, and it'sjust these two very opposing
perspectives of you know, kindof labeling that as allowing
(18:56):
your baby to developindependence, and then like
actually putting your baby orlike the co-sleeping or contact
naps, like that's cultivatingthis dependence on parents,
which, anyway, I mean you should.
Speaker 2 (19:16):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (19:16):
My perspective is that I mean your baby should be
dependent on you.
It's a baby.
Speaker 2 (19:21):
Yeah, and it is dependent.
It can't survive without thatconnection.
So yeah, today we have lots ofparents who are well-meaning and
who are getting indoctrinatedand propagandized by the experts
and the medical professionalswho are saying those exact
things.
Let them cry it out.
They have to learn toself-soothe and to be
(19:43):
independent and regulate theiremotions.
And that is so far from thetruth, because babies don't have
the ability to regulate theiremotions yeah um dan siegel uses
the term interpersonalneurobiology, meaning that the
unregulated, immature,undeveloped nervous system,
(20:05):
nervous system of the baby,can't process their own emotions
, they can't regulate their ownemotions, so they literally
download information from themature, regulated nervous system
on how to process and soothethese emotions, and they do that
through physical touch.
So we know that if you take anewborn baby and you feed them
(20:27):
and you keep them warm but youdon't hold them, baby's going to
die.
They can't survive without thatconnection.
And now we have all of thisinformation in an almost very
sinister way, almost seeminglymalicious, and I might go too
far to say intentional.
(20:47):
But it does seem to me likethere is some sort of intent
behind this disconnection wherewe're saying to make your child
independent, you have todisconnect them at a super early
age.
And that is so far removed fromhow nature works, because
independence is always the endgoal of nature.
(21:11):
You look at a mother bear, forinstance.
Her goal is to make her cubsindependent Because at some
point she's not going to bearound anymore and that baby cub
has to go out and hunt and makea den and survive on their own.
And they have to go out andhave relationships.
(21:31):
How do you make a babyindependent?
It's through dependence.
How to survive and how tonavigate this world, how to find
safety.
They have to learn and developall of these customs and the way
they do that is through theattachment.
So no baby cub bear gets thrownout of the den or left alone.
(21:56):
No, the mother has to raisethis child to become independent
.
That's how it works and we aredoing the complete opposite
right now and, yeah, it'scausing a tremendous amount of
pain.
I was looking into it just acouple of days ago because I was
wondering.
You know, my partner works inpediatric nursing and so we talk
(22:17):
a lot about these things and Iwas looking up what are the
stats?
How many children are onmedications right now?
And, depending on the stats youlook at, it's over 50 percent.
Yeah, and I mean you know wesee it every single day, and
it's not just one medication.
It's anti-anxiety,antidepressants, antipsychotics,
(22:38):
you name it and theseamphetamines, you know, ssris.
These children are supermedicated right now and the
parents want they're getting theinformation to start the
medications very early, becausethey're suppressing all of their
parental wisdom and knowledgeon how to care for their kids,
(22:59):
because the doctors are tellingthem don't hold your kids and
it's creating these big divides.
They got to go back to work.
They got to go back to theirlives.
They got to make money, theygot to survive.
They're dealing with all theirown stress.
They can't care for this kidand then the child's developing
with so much pain and they'reacting out that pain in the only
ways that are available to thembecause they don't have
(23:20):
connection, they don't have waysof expressing that emotion in.
It's terrifying of what'shappening right now.
Speaker 1 (23:32):
It really is.
Yeah, I mean, there's so many,it can be very overwhelming.
And you know, actually, sincewe're talking about this an
interesting it's actually notinteresting I am meeting more
(24:04):
and more people that are my age,that don't have kids, that
aren't married, that say, youknow, I don't really know if I
want kids, because it's just a.
It's a terrible time.
You know, like I'm afraid tolike raise kids in this world
today, and that is that's notthe way that I was raised and
that is that's not the way thatI was raised.
I was really not raised to livein fear and I don't choose to
live in fear or get caught up inthat like overwhelm, but I do
know that it's such a real thingfor so many people.
(24:27):
And I mean, this is just onetopic.
But on the aspect of kids andmedication and and really that's
one of the reasons that I thinkit's so important to have
conversations like this becausewhether or not you want to have
kids, I mean that that should beyour decision and it shouldn't
be a decision made out of fearof oh well, you know, I don't
(24:49):
want to like raise my kid, to beon all this medication and, and
there's so many answers that wehave that are in this world.
And if I can be one person tobring like here's something to
look at and here's something toconsider, even just you know,
(25:10):
just studying the attachmenttheory which you've referenced a
few times, and kind of learningthat we need physical touch and
we need that as babies but weneed it as humans, like we need,
we're deeply lacking presenceand connection, present
(25:31):
connection these days,connection, present connection
these days.
And what would, what worldwould we live in if we came from
that perspective, versus, ah,just take this medication or
just take this like anxiety.
I assume but I don't want to beassumptive I assume a lot of
clients that come to you arestruggling with I'm sorry, I
(25:52):
don't really like using the wordstruggling, are dealing with a
lot of these life situations.
Like, do you have kind of thisoverarching characteristics of
people that come to you or is ittruly a mixed bag?
Speaker 2 (26:10):
No, no, you just hit on probably the biggest trauma
that I think everybody's dealingwith, and people do struggle
with it.
A lot of the times we're veryharsh to ourselves and very
judgmental and critical andevaluatory and punishing
ourselves for the way that wenavigate our adaptations to pain
(26:32):
or to the environment that wehave.
So there is an internalconflict and there is a struggle
that I see a lot of peoplegoing through.
It shouldn't be that way, ofcourse, but that's what we're
dealing with.
And, yeah, the hallmark traumathat I see is a disconnect, a
disconnection from ourselves, adisconnection from each other, a
disconnect, a disconnectionfrom ourselves, a disconnection
(26:54):
from each other, a disconnectionfrom the world around us.
And this is the result.
It's an adaptation to trauma.
So, again, going back to thosetwo fundamental needs that we
had as children attachment andauthenticity.
When your authenticity, whenyour emotions, when your
expression, when your boundaries, when your authenticity, when
(27:14):
your emotions, when yourexpression, when your boundaries
, when your needs threaten yourattachment meaning, if you
express anger you get put in atimeout.
Your parents say I'm going todisconnect from you, I'm going
to isolate you until you cansuppress your emotions or
regulate your emotions and thenyou can come back.
In other words, I'm going tothreaten you with the thing
(27:37):
that's most important to youyour attachments and connections
.
We learn at a very early agehaving emotions is bad, so we
suppress them.
Or we're told that if you'regoing to be sad, I'll give you
something to cry about, or ifyou're going to be mad, I'll
give you something to be madabout.
We learn very early on thatexpressing what we're feeling is
(28:01):
dangerous.
Or in other situations, we haveall of these emotions, we have
all this pain, we have thisanger, this shame, this fear,
and we don't know what to dowith it because we're all alone
with it.
There's no one to talk to withit.
So what do we do?
Well, the exact same thing wewould do in the other situation
we suppress it.
(28:22):
And the way we suppress it is aform of disconnection.
We're trying to disconnect fromthose feelings because they're
overwhelming, they'rethreatening for lots of reasons.
They might threaten ourattachments, might threaten my
safety, they might threaten myphysiological well-being,
because I can't feel thesethings and process them.
So I disconnect from them.
How do I disconnect from them?
(28:43):
I distract, I get busy, I takeon tasks, I make myself
agreeable, I make, I try toplease people, I try to take
care of other people.
I go and accomplish things andyou know, later in life I go and
I try and please people, I tryto take care of other people.
I go and accomplish things andyou know, later in life I go and
I try and become, you know,somebody with high status, high
(29:04):
power, high respect, high wealth, high value, all the things.
I can go.
Become the president of theUnited States, because I've
never been good enough once inmy life, so now I'm going to go
be good enough no-transcript1000% agree.
Speaker 1 (29:43):
And then the next question, of course, is how do
we connect with?
Speaker 2 (29:45):
ourselves and then each other.
Yeah, that's the essence oftherapy right there.
That is the fundamental premiseof therapy, in my opinion, is
to reconnect with yourself.
See, I come into this with thebelief that all the wisdom that
knows how to be whole is insideof us.
All the wisdom that knows howto heal is inside of us.
(30:09):
If you look out in nature, yousee it everywhere you look.
Everything knows how to healSystems, know how to heal Trees.
Know everywhere you look,everything knows how to heal
Systems.
Know how to heal Trees.
Know how to heal Animals.
Know how to heal Our bodies,know how to heal the wisdom.
It's inside of us, it'sinherent.
All we need to do is reconnectwith it.
So when we disconnect fromourselves that wisdom, that
(30:31):
wholeness that's inside of us,it's still there.
It hasn't been destroyed ordiminished.
Just because we might have abelief about ourselves not being
good enough or being broken ordamaged goods doesn't mean that
we've lost that wisdomindefinitely.
It's still there and we canreconnect with it.
(30:53):
And so the goal of therapy, inmy opinion, is to help people to
reconnect with themselves, andthere's lots of ways we can do
that.
Speaker 1 (31:05):
Would you share a few of them?
I'm curious.
I really I'm someone that loveslike concrete tools, which
shows up in my human design alot, but I'm curious and maybe
even not sharing.
I mean, you can share anything,but maybe just even sharing
ones that have very, have spokenvery deeply to you and in your
(31:28):
life and your life journey.
Speaker 2 (31:31):
Mm, hmm, yeah, well, I don't really like talking
about other people's experiences.
I started doing that once and Iwas like, ah, you know, even
when I'm being, I'm anonymizingit very well and even changing
the details.
I'm like, ah, you know, so manypeople have dealt with
something similar to this that Idon't want them to think, oh,
(31:52):
he's talking about me right now.
Speaker 1 (31:54):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (31:54):
Because that's a very common theme is, you know, we
develop that very early.
We develop there.
Here we go, so very early inlife, when our parents are
stressed or when they're dealingwith their own pain, as
children, everything's about us.
We're very narcissistic.
We're the center of the worldand so, whenever something is
(32:16):
happening, our parents arestressed, they're busy, they're
disconnected, they're in theirown pain.
Whatever it is, it's our faultyeah and so here is another form
of disconnect, in a way ofbeing very critical and harsh to
ourselves later in life.
So when I'm working withsomebody, usually within the
first few minutes, really thefirst couple sentences they will
(32:40):
immediately tell me aboutsomething that they're going
through, whether they're awareof it or not, and something like
that is very common.
So today my partner went toshe's working in the hospital
pediatric nurse.
She works remote and she worksin the hospital and she rarely
(33:01):
takes hospital shifts.
But today she went in thehospital and we had some
leftovers from our dinneryesterday and she took those, of
course.
Right, because she has to havea lunch, because she's working a
12-hour shift.
Yeah, right, because she has tohave a lunch because she's
working a 12-hour shift.
Yeah, and I have a dynamic withfood from being a child where,
um, I wasn't allowed to eat alot of the times and so food was
(33:24):
always withheld from me and uh.
So today I have a verydifficulty.
I still have difficulties withfood, and so I went to make
myself some lunch, because Ihave to very intentionally force
myself to go eat something,otherwise most times I just
won't eat.
And so I'm going to go eat andI realized she took the.
(33:45):
She took the rice and that waslike one of the only things that
we had in there.
Now that belief of everything'sabout me can immediately get
activated right away and I cansay, okay, she took that and
it's because she wanted towithhold food from me or because
(34:05):
she was mad at me or whatever.
And there's the childish beliefs.
Those are the beliefs that Ihad from my childhood.
They'll get activated veryquickly, so something like that
can get mentioned right awaywhen I'm from my childhood.
They'll get activated veryquickly, so something like that
can get mentioned right away.
When I'm talking to somebody.
They'll say I'm mad atso-and-so my partner for this
reason and it might be somethingas simple as they just took the
(34:26):
leftovers for lunch.
And then what I do is I want tofigure out why did that upset
them?
And so what I'm looking for arecore beliefs about themselves
of I'm unworthy, I'm not goodenough, I'm not deserving, so
and so I'm not respectable.
So this person doesn't respectme.
(34:46):
That's why they did this.
They're intentionally trying tohurt me.
And so once I can figure outthe pattern of what people are
going through, meaning they havea belief about themselves.
It's causing an emotion, it'scausing perceptions, it's
causing behaviors, then I justhelp them become aware of it and
I help them see these beliefsand these patterns and how
(35:07):
they're coming up.
So, right away, what we canstart to do is reconnect with
that initial trauma.
So we ask questions like whendid you first start feeling this
?
Where did this originate from?
Where did you learn this belief?
Is this the first time thatyou've ever gotten mad, that
somebody took your food?
And then, if somebody asked methat, I'd say, well, no, of
(35:29):
course not.
I have no shortage of that, andso it's not about this
situation, it's about thisinitial pain.
So this initial pain fromchildhood is what's showing up
here in the past, and we'redisconnected from it.
We don't see it, we're unawareof it.
It's just unconscious, justrolling around, and we just keep
(35:49):
finding ourselves in thesepatterns.
And so what I use is inquiry.
I ask lots of questions, I tryto understand the pattern and
then I reflect it Again.
I'm that mirror where I canhelp them see it, and then I
help them to understand thevariables that are at play, so
they can start to make choices.
And that's the whole game, right, there is building awareness,
(36:10):
recognizing, identifying thepatterns, the emotions, the
beliefs, the feelings, thebehaviors, accepting that it's
here, saying, oh well, there itis again, rather than fighting
it, rather than struggling withit, rather than trying to exile
it or push it away.
Well, here it is Now.
How can I engage with this?
Well, let's get to know it alittle bit.
Let's start to reconnect withthis pattern.
(36:31):
Let's understand where it comesfrom, how it developed and what
needs were underlying this thatwent unmet.
And then, how can I meet thosein healthy, constructive ways?
How can I nurture and take careof myself?
So that's the gist of it, andyou know it's different with
everybody, but we can usuallyget there within the first
(36:52):
couple sentences of what they'reworking through.
Speaker 1 (36:56):
That is wild, but I mean it's thank you for sharing
and that's so.
What I have learned in myjourney is that so much of what
we do is unconscious and it'scoming from these.
I mean, one of the things thatwe talked about before we hit
(37:16):
record was, like thesesubconscious beliefs and these,
the just the subconscious kindof showing up in our life and in
our actions and the way that wespeak, and it's always
fascinating to me to explorethat within myself and what is
coming up.
And you know why am I feelingthis way?
(37:39):
And, to be honest, it's verydifficult, I would assume, for
most people, but certainly forme.
It's very difficult for me todo that alone and just myself,
because we can't see, I can'tsee my subconscious coming out
as clearly as you, for example,an outsider, could see, and then
(38:04):
to have someone whenever I havesomeone point something out,
I'm like whoa, that was, thatwas wild, that that's coming up
and and being able to address itand then have the choice to
change it, yeah, I think is huge, because if you don't, you
don't know what you don't knowyou know you don't.
(38:26):
You don't know what you're doingand what you know what these
triggers are.
I think that we use words likeoh, I was triggered, you know,
very freely now, at at least my,my community, I hear that a lot
.
But then what is that next stepbelow that of okay, but do you
(38:47):
know what the like, what thetrigger was, or where it
originated from?
And and kind of diving throughthat and navigating that is very
freeing, kind of like the.
The energy that I'm gettingthroughout this whole
conversation is just thisinvitation to freedom and this
(39:09):
invitation to to freedom throughexploration and exploring
what's going on in your life andand your story.
One of the quotes that I wrotedown from our initial
conversation was trauma.
Is trauma can be bad things thathappen that weren't supposed to
, or good things that didn'thappen that we're supposed to.
(39:33):
And that's kind of going back tolike the attachment theory
thing and and the maybe the lovethat we didn't receive, or the
way that we received the love.
I remember Jay Shetty kind oftalked about that on a podcast
one time and he was saying um,our love languages typically
develop by either like what wedid receive, like you got a lot
(39:56):
of physical touch when you werea kid.
So you want that physical touch, or you got a lot of gifts as a
kid and so that's how youperceive what love is, or from
what we didn't receive that wereally wanted, so not receiving
enough physical touch, and thenyou like crave that, like it's
insatiable.
(40:16):
And it's just such aninteresting because I think a
lot of times we think of traumaas the bad things, the bad
things that happen to to us, butI don't always think of trauma
as the good things that didn'thappen, that maybe we're
supposed to, yeah, yeah, likehaving healthy attachments and
(40:38):
connections and being acceptedand valued.
Speaker 2 (40:42):
And you know, the trauma isn't about what happens.
It's not about the thing thathappens to us, the bad thing or
the good thing that was supposedto happen, that doesn't happen,
that's just the thing thathappens.
The trauma is what happensinside of us as a result of what
happened to us.
So in those situations, welearn to disconnect from
(41:07):
ourselves, we suppress ouremotions and then we get stuck
in these patterns of seeking theconnection, the love that we
didn't get.
And so we've subconsciously,unconsciously, look for the love
that we didn't get allthroughout our lives, and we
look for it from people whocan't give it to us, just like
our parents couldn't.
(41:28):
So we get stuck in theserepetitive patterns that we're
unaware of.
And you know, just like youwere saying, finding the pattern
yourself is like trying toidentify a color that you're
blind to you just can't see it.
so, yeah, we get triggered verycommonly because these initial
(41:50):
pains that we were carryingaround from childhood keep
getting activated.
And the analogy of gettingtriggered is very interesting
because the trigger is just avery small mechanism of a larger
tool, like a gun, for instance.
It's this tiny little pin whereyou pull it and it sets off a
(42:11):
whole mechanical reaction whichusually results in something
happening in the case of a gun,a force of destruction, for
instance.
Happening in the case of a gun,a force of destruction, for
instance.
So if I got triggered, ifsomebody triggered me, that's to
say that somebody pulled thisvery small pin and set off a
(42:32):
cascade of mechanical reactionsthat happened.
The real question is well,who's carrying around the
combustible ammunition then?
And where is it located?
Well, it's inside of me.
It's got nothing to do with theperson who triggered me.
It's me who's carrying thataround.
So, yeah, if we want to liberateourselves from these old
patterns, we want to developfreedom.
(42:52):
The first step is cultivatingawareness.
We have to become aware ofthese patterns.
We have to learn how torecognize and identify what
we're feeling, what we'reperceiving about what's
happening in our environment orwith the people that we're
engaging with and what ourbeliefs are about ourselves and
about others.
And once we can start tocultivate some awareness, that's
(43:17):
the prerequisite or thefoundation for making choices,
and then we can start to choosehow are we going to respond to
this.
That's the prerequisite or thefoundation for making choices,
and then we can start to choosehow are we going to respond to
this.
And the goal is to cultivateagency, choice making and to
take responsibility or theability to respond differently
to these situations.
And when we do those thingsconstantly and we're always
(43:38):
paying attention to what we'refeeling and we're being present
with ourselves and what we'realways paying attention to what
we're feeling and we're beingpresent with ourselves, and what
we're perceiving and thinkingand what we're doing that's
where we can start to cultivateliberation, to start to do
things differently and step awayfrom those old patterns, and
this is, in my opinion, one ofthe most important things we can
do in our life.
Speaker 1 (44:00):
Oh my gosh, yes, absolutely.
I mean definitely the mostimportant thing that we can do
in our life the ability to, youknow, the autonomy to make our
(44:20):
own decisions and have authorityover ourselves is I know that
in again, like all I can do isreally share about my journey
and my journey.
It gives me this ability toextend grace to other people and
to see humans as human and notthese perfect or, you know,
(44:46):
robot people.
It's we all have.
We all have trauma, we all havethings that happened to us
growing up or didn't happen tous that should have happened to
us, and we all are are doing thebest that we can with what we
have right now and it, yeah, itkind of gives this, this
(45:12):
perspective of being able toextend grace to other people,
because I guess, because I'mextending it to myself first, is
really what it is.
Speaker 2 (45:23):
Yeah, and I mean that's a testament to the work
that you're doing for yourself,because the way that we treat
other people is oftentimes areflection of how we treat
ourselves.
So when we see these people outthere who are screaming and
cursing and attacking all theseother people, you know that's
just a mirror to theirrelationship with themselves and
(45:47):
you know it's very easy to goout and judge and criticize and
evaluate and want to punishother people.
And you know I mean how do wefeel when people do that to us?
You know, and a lot of thetimes that's what we're doing to
ourselves.
So that's the pattern, that'sthe dynamic is evaluation,
judgment, criticism, punishment.
(46:07):
And the only way to reallychange those dynamics out there
is to do it for ourselves.
Is we've got to really start tocomfort ourselves and be kind
and gentle to ourselves.
Look, I got this neighbor acouple of houses down from me
and this guy is always on somebullshit.
Let me tell you, not too longago I was driving, and it's a
(46:29):
small side road, and he cameflying down the hill and turned
his car left, right in front ofmy car to turn into his driveway
, stopped, honked at me, flipsme off, F you.
He's screaming at me and I'mlike Harold, I'm your neighbor,
man, Come on and don't get mewrong.
(46:51):
There was a part of me that gotso angry about that and wanted
to push that anger back onto him.
But there's another part of methat says, man, that guy's just
really going through it rightnow.
He is what is his day lookinglike?
Where he's in that state ofready to snap and get into, you
(47:13):
know, a really intense conflictwith his neighbor three houses
down.
He didn't even realize it washis neighbor, he was just going
to throw it on.
And then I can hear it and youknow, I hear the way that he's
talking to his grandkids and tohis kids and it's like man.
This guy is carrying around somuch pain and when he dumps that
(47:38):
onto me, when it comes burstingout the seams in inappropriate
ways, Again there's thatnarcissistic child inside of me
who only knows how to say that'sbecause of me, he doesn't
respect me, he doesn't value me,he's intentionally trying to
hurt me.
And I can see that and say, no,that's not the case.
And I see why I believe that,because that's how it was as a
(48:00):
kid, that's how I saw things asa child.
And no, I can comfort that partof me and say, no, that's
actually not true.
This guy is going through someterrible stuff and regardless of
who would have crossed his pathright there, it would have come
bursting out the seams on himregardless.
So it's not about me.
And to give myself that is to,you know, really soothe my
(48:23):
experience, because that pain,it's contagious and a lot of the
times what we're doing is wehave so much of it built up
inside of us.
It's like a pressure cooker andthe pressure cooker is just
getting turned up higher andhigher and then it pops and it
bursts out the seams in superinappropriate ways on other
people and that adds to theirpressure cooker.
And then it pops and it burstsout the seams in super
inappropriate ways on otherpeople and that adds to their
(48:44):
pressure cooker and it just keep.
We just keep popping on eachother.
So, yeah, I mean I can't go andinteract with him and, you know
, help him solve his pain andsoothe his pain.
And if he wanted to come to meand, you know, seek my support,
I still wouldn't do it because Ithink that'd be a little bit of
a breach of boundaries with howclose he lives to me.
I would gladly refer him tosomebody else.
(49:06):
But the way that I can reallyengage with that is by
comforting and soothing the painthat's inside of me, so that
way his pain doesn't add to mineand I can set boundaries even
if I don't really talk to himand just say, yeah, that's got
nothing to do with me.
Speaker 1 (49:22):
Yeah, what a good example and what a beautiful
invitation.
We are so narcissistic, wealways think it has to do with
us, or, like what this person isdoing to me and I mean you said
it so beautifully You're likewow, what?
What is he going through?
Like, what is what's happeningin his day?
(49:44):
You remind me of my mom.
I feel like my mom used to saythat be like they are clearly
having a very terrible day andjust kind of blessing them and
that's, you know, setting thatboundary of like I hope that you
are able to see that somedayand I hope that you know your
day gets better.
(50:05):
Whatever, however, you need tolet it go and kind of cut
yourself off energetically fromit, because, yeah, we all, we
all just walk around and we'reall just.
I love that.
We're all just little pressurecookers.
I talk about that in breathwork.
I do breathwork too, and that'sone of the things that I say is
like creating these spacestherapy being another one,
(50:27):
creating these spaces to releasesome of that pressure, to
express some of that pressure,because otherwise all we're
doing is we are just suppressingand pushing down and pushing
down, and you know what it'sgoing to come up sometime and a
lot of times, if we're notcreating these spaces, it's
(50:48):
going to end up coming up at aninopportune moment, where we end
up screaming at our partner oryelling at our kids or breaking
down, you know, in the middle ofthe highway, whatever it is.
Speaker 2 (51:02):
Yeah.
Or seeking tremendous amountsof power and status so that way
we can go and traumatize otherpeople on a massive level.
This pain that's inside of us,it doesn't go anywhere on its
own.
We have to go into it and wehave to reconnect with it and we
have to start to process it andexpress it in constructive ways
(51:23):
and soothe and comfort thispain.
Otherwise it's just going toget passed on to the next person
and then that's going to keepbuilding.
And I mean that's exactly whatwe see all over the world right
now is pain from generationsjust constantly coming back
around.
And if we don't process ourpain, if we don't reconnect with
(51:44):
that and start to engage withit, our situations in life are
going to keep coming back aroundto that pain and it's going to
keep giving us opportunities toprocess it and those
opportunities are going to getmore and more intense because
it's trying to get our attention.
So the only thing that we canreally do well, probably the
best thing we can do is start tostop running from it, to stop
(52:08):
disconnecting.
We have to pull out theanesthetic and we have to turn
around and face it and start tocomfort it, because most times
what we're dealing with arelittle children who are still
hurt hmm, I love that I couldtalk to you all day, tell
everyone where they can find you, where they can connect more
(52:29):
with you, and also, do you haveyour own podcast?
Speaker 1 (52:32):
I can't remember.
Speaker 2 (52:33):
I don't have my own podcast, no.
Speaker 1 (52:35):
I think you should.
Speaker 2 (52:37):
Thank you, I've been considering it actually, I've
been considering doing.
Thank you, I've beenconsidering it actually.
I've been considering doingconversations with people who
are working through their ownprocess and doing it live, so
people could actually see whatit looks like, because talking
about it and doing it are twototally different things.
Speaker 1 (52:54):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (52:54):
So thank you for that .
Yeah, I've really beenconsidering it.
Speaker 1 (52:57):
I would listen, I would be on it.
You know it's such a good pointbecause we can talk all day.
You know, like a lot of thesethings that that I would assume
a lot of these things that wetalked about a lot of listeners
you've heard before somewhere insome form, right Like, what
we're saying is not unique andnot um, what's the word?
(53:21):
Well, new there's a better wordfor that but what we're saying
is not new.
But how many times do we likelisten to these ideas and these
invitations and not actually dothem?
So I think that's a very, verypowerful podcast idea, but
anyway, where can people findyou?
Where can they connect?
Where can they learn more fromyou?
Speaker 2 (53:42):
Yeah, my website is probably the best way
psychedelic-integrationnet.
We have a mailing list whereyou can stay up to date with
what we're doing.
We post articles, and if youwant to reach out for support,
that's the easiest way.
And Instagram is a good one too.
We just started that up not toolong ago, so we're posting lots
of clips and videos of ustalking like this, and this
(54:06):
weekend actually, I'm sure thisprobably air after that, but
we're starting to do sessions atleast once a month that you can
join if you want to participateand do these exercises together
.
So they'll be live streamed andwe'll talk about things, and
then we'll be doing them as well.
Speaker 1 (54:23):
Is this on Instagram live stream or where is it live
streamed?
Speaker 2 (54:26):
Yeah, yeah, I'm partnering up with somebody who
knows how to do all that stuff,because I don't.
And yeah, it'll be on Instagram, so all the links and
everything are on there.
Speaker 1 (54:36):
Super cool, yeah, and I'll make sure to link
everything down below in thedescription so people can um can
, learn.
So last question we're doingsomething new.
For the past season of mypodcast I always ask the same
question and now I've decidedI'm going to ask a different
question, so you are the firstrecipient of the new question.
(54:59):
If the world could onlyremember one feeling from your
work, what do you hope thatwould be?
One feeling like an emotionfrom your work, feeling or
emotion.
Speaker 2 (55:15):
See, that's an interesting thing because so
frequently thoughts, perceptions, feelings, emotions are all
mixed up and confused and it'svery difficult for a lot of
people to distinguish betweenthem.
But there is a feeling ofwholeness, I think, where you
really reconnect with yourselfand you get back into the flow
(55:41):
of who you really are.
Like when people are in, whenthey're healing from an
addiction we call it recovery,right.
And the word recover means tofind something that you've lost.
So when people heal anaddiction, they're recovering
who they were and there's thatfeeling of wholeness and that
feeling of reconnection that'sassociated with recovering who
you are.
And, like I said, I thinktherapy, the goal of therapy, is
(56:04):
to get to that spot.
So if we could mass producethat or make it more accessible
to people, I think that couldmake a very big difference in
our world.
Speaker 1 (56:14):
It would Thank you.
Thank you so much for coming on.
This was such a lovelyconversation.
Speaker 2 (56:20):
Yeah, thanks for having me.
I really enjoyed connecting.
Hello, hello, welcome back to the podcast Journey to
Well.
So today's a fun one becausethis is something that I truly
have no experience in, limitedknowledge in, and those
sometimes are really funconversations to have because I
get to learn along with all ofyou listening.
(00:24):
So today I am joined withJulian Bermudez.
He is the owner of apsychedelic integration trauma
therapy.
He is in Portland, oregon, sowe got some East Coast, west
Coast going on today and we'regoing to talk all about
(00:45):
psychedelic intervention andplant medicine intervention for
trauma therapy.
I'm super excited to have thisconversation with you, julian.
Thank you so much for coming.
Speaker 2 (00:57):
I'm very happy to be here.
Thanks for having me.
Speaker 1 (00:59):
Yes, and I would love to have open up the space for
you just to kind of share alittle bit about who you are,
and I'm always curious whatbrought someone to where they
are today?
So what brought you to thespace to open up this healing
studio and why did you feelcalled to work in this modality?
Speaker 2 (01:30):
feel called to work in this modality.
Yeah, well, in terms of who Iam is, I think I've always been
born.
Since I've been born into thisworld, I've been a mirror to
other people, so they can reallysee themselves through me Very
interesting, dynamic, and itmakes a really wonderful
foundation for therapy work.
So I have this incrediblefoundation where I can really
understand and see people basedoff of my own experiences, and
(01:53):
then I can help them seethemselves through a different
light, which, in my opinionreconnecting with yourself is
the essence of therapy, and soif I can help people to find
themselves or to see themselvesin new light, to help them
reconnect with themselves,that's where we do the therapy
at.
So I mean, in a gist, that'skind of who I am.
(02:16):
I've always been that and youknow it wasn't always the
easiest role to play or easiesttype of person to be, especially
, growing up, I grew up just anaverage person.
I grew up in a trailer parkthat bordered a landfill and
(02:38):
that was where my mom lived andmy dad lived in Southwest
Detroit.
So I bounced back and forth andneither family wanted me.
They saw me as a burden.
They were very young when theyhad me and they hated each other
.
So, as I was that mirror, theyhated me as well, and it left me
with a tremendous amount ofpain.
So my whole goal was to try andfigure out how I could first of
(02:59):
all live a life that I didn'twant to end immediately, live a
life that I didn't want to endimmediately, and to ideally
transform that pain so I couldlearn how to enjoy life and
thrive a little bit.
And those are the things thatled me to here.
Speaker 1 (03:13):
Mm, hmm, and those that's what you feel like what.
What are the biggest pillarsthat you feel like helped you
transform that mindset and thatmaybe even like lifestyle
perspective, life perspectivewhat were the bigger pillars
that kind of helped you alongyour way?
Speaker 2 (03:36):
Well, the bouncing between families as a child was
that was very important.
It was very painful, verystressful and it provided me
this really unique lens to seemy family, my caregivers, my
communities and myself throughdifferent perspectives.
So when I would go to my mom'shouse, for instance, it was an
(04:00):
all white, super low class.
And when it's we're in atrailer park, um, we lived in
subsidized housing before that.
Um, you know the perspectivesthat they had there on race and
ethnicity and all thesedifferent aspects of who we are.
Um, if I would have just been inthat one community, I would
(04:20):
have really ingrained a lot ofthat into myself, and I did.
You know, I definitelydeveloped beliefs of
unworthiness I'm not good enough, I'm not deserving, I'm just
not worthy of being loved oraccepted.
But then I would go to my dad'shouse and it was the exact same
thing over there, when I wouldact like my mom's family, or
(04:43):
when I would be at my mom's, Iwould act like my dad's.
They would just hate me.
So what I was realizing was, nomatter what I did, it wasn't
going to be good enough.
And there's really two waysthat we can look at pain like
that when we're kids, which isthe first one, is my caregivers.
My parents are just not up tothe job.
They're not qualified, they'renot capable, they're not willing
(05:12):
.
Whatever it is, bottom line isI'm not safe and there's kind of
a dead end in that viewpointthere, there's not a lot of hope
.
So the viewpoint that we usuallyadopt is well, my parents,
caregivers they do know what'sgoing on, they have
relationships, they're older,they're surviving.
The problem is is I'm notworthy or I'm not good enough to
get the care that they can giveme.
So if I could be good enough,then I'll get the thing.
(05:32):
And don't get me wrong, Iabsolutely have that one too,
and I've had it for a lot of mylife.
But that first one developedvery early in me, and so that
was a major pillar for me tojust say enough, no more of this
, I'm not doing this anymore,I'm not going to continue living
in this pattern and I'm goingto start to take some
(05:53):
responsibility for myself.
It was a very, very challengingone and it started very early
in my life, but I think that wasone of the foundational pillars
and where I got to, or how Igot to where I am now.
Speaker 1 (06:13):
What a perspective shift of maybe they don't have
the tools or the ability to takecare of me and to show up for
me versus.
I think that we all are kind oflike that.
I'm sure that we all have bothsides.
But I'm sure that we all arekind of like that and I'm sure
that we all have both sides, butI'm sure that we all are more.
I know that I have definitely,especially as a child, fallen
(06:33):
into what's wrong with me and,you know, earning love, which I
shouldn't even say as a child.
I think you know you brought it, you said it too like we all
struggle with that from time totime and I think certain
relationship dynamics aredepending on where we are in
life.
But of that so interesting thatyou had that perspective as a
(06:55):
child.
Speaker 2 (06:56):
I mean, that's huge this idea of having to earn our
parents' love is very common,very common in our society, and
it shouldn't be that way.
As a child we shouldn't have towork to be accepted.
(07:20):
We're born into this world andour fundamental need is to be
accepted and to be valued and tobe cherished, and we should be
able to rest in our connectionsknowing that there's nothing
that we could do or there'snothing that we could be that
would disconnect or destroythose connections.
But it's really quite theopposite is, our parents got
(07:41):
their own stress, they got theirown pain, they're caught up in
their own patterns and they needus, as children, to become
their parents and to take careof their emotional needs.
And yeah, that's a tremendousamount of pain and very, very
traumatic for children.
And I think I was maybe 12 or13 years old where it was very,
(08:02):
very well pronounced in my lifeand I remember saying that to my
mom and the outcome was well,you're absolutely right, you
don't live here anymore, so getout.
And I mean there was a lot ofthings that happened in between
me saying that and me leavingthat house that night.
But yeah, that was where I wasreally really learning.
(08:22):
There was nothing I could dothat was ever going to make me
good enough to get theacceptance.
Of course, I still have thatbelief that if I get the degrees
, then you know I'll finally beimportant and accepted.
(08:45):
No, no, it doesn't matter.
It doesn't matter what you do.
You know, sometimes you justwill never fulfill those roles
for people who are caught up intheir own pain and their own
patterns themselves.
And so I think the second thingthat was really important for
me was really learning that Ihad to become good enough for
(09:06):
myself, really learning tocultivate some self-value,
because it wasn't just a matterof, you know, getting the
acceptance from my parents or myfamily or my caregivers.
It was even when I accomplishedthe things that I thought would
make me important, I still feltthat tremendous amount of pain
me important.
Speaker 1 (09:27):
I still felt that tremendous amount of pain.
And what do we do with that?
I mean, my goodness, that'ssuch a pattern I realized that I
saw in other people that werevery close to me when I was in
my 20s, that pattern of if I dothis, if I get this, then I'll
be happy.
And maybe what you're kind ofintroducing is it could be
(09:53):
rooted in this enoughness andproving yourself and you know,
kind of striving for thiscontentment in life from outside
perspective, from outsidethings, um, and kind of giving
our power away to like, well, ifI, if I get this degree, if I
(10:14):
move to this place, if I getthis person, if I find, you know
, my boyfriend or my girlfriend,then I'll be happier, then I'll
be happier, then I'll be enough.
And then we get there andthere's still this sense of
emptiness and of void and oflonging.
Speaker 2 (10:33):
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
We can become addicted to verya ton of substances or behaviors
, Anything that provides a shortrelief but has long term
consequences.
So new places, new jobs, newrelationships, and you know,
there's entire sectors of oureconomy, our, our social
(10:57):
structures are built on thisbelief of unworthiness, where
the marketing is you're not good, good enough unless you buy
this product.
Multi-trillion dollarindustries that are based on
this premise, so you can see iteverywhere you look You're not
good enough, buy this productand then people will like you.
(11:19):
But it doesn't matter if youstart changing all the things
outside of us, if thatfundamental belief of
unworthiness and the painthereof is still inside of us.
Speaker 1 (11:33):
I was in, you know Tony Robbins, so I did one of
his seminars years ago, and onething that he said has has just
stuck with me forever and andit's I mean, it's the same thing
that you're saying it's that wehave these two, and I don't
remember his exact wording soI'm going to put it in my own
(11:54):
language but we have two likecore wounds and we all have
these two core wounds and it'sthis, this desire and this need
to be enough and to be loved,and all of our actions,
everything that we do and all ofour thoughts and everything
comes down to these core woundsthat we were born with.
(12:18):
It's just like a, not even likea generational thing, it's just
like from the beginning ofhumanity, I guess, is from.
What I recall is what he wassaying and that's always stuck
with me.
And, like every, all of ouractions are either to prove that
we are enough or to earn lovefrom those around us, whether
(12:43):
they're people we actuallyactually actually want love from
or not.
Like why are you, you know,getting that botox done or why
are you posting that thing onsocial media?
It's to earn love and to earnadoration and admiration,
whether we really care aboutthose people or not?
Speaker 2 (13:01):
yeah, yeah, I mean, as humans we have two
fundamental needs when we'redeveloping especially, and the
first need is for attachment,because human beings are, as far
as I've seen in this world, themost immature, undeveloped
dependent species for thelongest amount of time.
(13:22):
Dependent species for thelongest amount of time, like it
takes a human three, four yearsto learn how to run, to build
the motor skills, theneurological skills, the muscles
, the coordination, just to moveyour body a specific way to
where a horse learns how to runon their first day of life.
So it takes humans a tremendousamount of care and nurturing
(13:42):
and attachment to develop yourbody just enough to survive
physically.
So we're completely dependenton that attachment.
And then the second thing thatwe need is to be authentic,
meaning that we can express whatwe're feeling, we can be
uniquely who we are and not havethat threaten our attachments.
But that's kind of what'shappening today is our
(14:07):
authenticity, our expression,having emotions, having
boundaries threatens ourattachments, so we have to
sacrifice one of them and thisis the source of great pain.
It shouldn't be that way andit's in our development not that
way, and this is, as far as Ican see, a fairly new phenomena.
(14:27):
And it's still.
There's still pockets ofcultures that exist today that
still have that connection.
You know, you look at hunter,gatherer cultures and in our
society we usually look at themas some form of lesser than
society, look at them as someform of lesser than society.
(14:49):
But when you really look attheir social dynamics and their
ability to live in harmony withnature and in their harmony in
their society, you know theydon't let their kids touch the
ground for the first four yearsof their life.
Those children are always heldand always connected and always
attached and there's nothingthat they do that can ruin that.
And if it's not the parents whoare holding them, it's the
(15:10):
uncles or the aunts or thesisters or the cousins.
There's always somebodyconnected and those dynamics of
not being good enough, we cansee examples where they don't
exist.
So, yeah, there's ways and it'sin our human nature not to have
that.
But that is the hallmark of, Ithink, one of the biggest
traumas of our generation in ourand and of our age right now,
(15:32):
because our parents have it andour grandparents have it and
their parents have it.
It goes through all thegenerations as far back as we
can see right now what changed?
Speaker 1 (15:41):
what do you?
What why?
Why are we kind of in thisplace where we are the most
detached and the most dependent?
And what has changed sincethose times that's created this?
Speaker 2 (16:09):
happened.
You know we could trace it backto the changing of societies,
having these stagnant citieswhere people stay here, and
there's these roles that have tobe fulfilled.
And you know, I mean going backmultiple generations, having
parents that were, you know,needing to go to work, um,
having to go away from thefamily to earn resources to
(16:32):
bring back to the family, um,this is a big, a big disconnect
in the human condition.
And so, you know the the, thefather goes to work, and then,
you know, one, two generationsin now, women have to go to work
too, the mothers have to go towork.
Where does the kid go?
Where does the baby go?
(16:53):
You know, I've worked inhealthcare for numerous years
and I'm not in it now, but I'mstill connected to it, very,
very deeply connected to it.
And I see mothers who haveseven week old babies and
they're like Okay, is it timefor me to start letting this
baby learn how to self soothe?
Do I have to hold this babyanymore?
(17:14):
Can I send them to daycareplease?
You know there's so much stressand so many pressing desires or
needs that have to be fulfilledjust to survive right now that
caring for our kids is not evenon the table anymore.
So, yeah, we really go back.
The industrial revolution youreally see, that's where we
(17:38):
moved from what was oftenreferred to as the household
factory.
So you had theseintergenerational families that
lived on a certain amount ofland.
This was very common, don't getme wrong.
There were a lot of people whodidn't have this as well.
So it goes much further thanthis.
But the Industrial Revolutionyou really start to see people
moving from the household intothe factories, and that's where
(18:02):
daycares, education systems comeinto place too.
So that's a really big moment.
But of course it goes muchfurther back than then.
Speaker 1 (18:12):
The self-soothing that you're talking about.
I have a huge background injust childcare.
I nannied a lot and I babysatand love kids and I have a
degree in speech pathology anddid pediatric speech pathology
and the.
(18:32):
the idea, like just even theparenting tips is so that would
be such an interestingconversation to have some time
on a podcast of you know, letyour baby cry it out and let
your you know, like he'll figureit out or let your baby like
put itself to sleep, and it'sjust these two very opposing
perspectives of you know, kindof labeling that as allowing
(18:56):
your baby to developindependence, and then like
actually putting your baby orlike the co-sleeping or contact
naps, like that's cultivatingthis dependence on parents,
which, anyway, I mean you should.
Speaker 2 (19:16):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (19:16):
My perspective is that I mean your baby should be
dependent on you.
It's a baby.
Speaker 2 (19:21):
Yeah, and it is dependent.
It can't survive without thatconnection.
So yeah, today we have lots ofparents who are well-meaning and
who are getting indoctrinatedand propagandized by the experts
and the medical professionalswho are saying those exact
things.
Let them cry it out.
They have to learn toself-soothe and to be
(19:43):
independent and regulate theiremotions.
And that is so far from thetruth, because babies don't have
the ability to regulate theiremotions yeah um dan siegel uses
the term interpersonalneurobiology, meaning that the
unregulated, immature,undeveloped nervous system,
(20:05):
nervous system of the baby,can't process their own emotions
, they can't regulate their ownemotions, so they literally
download information from themature, regulated nervous system
on how to process and soothethese emotions, and they do that
through physical touch.
So we know that if you take anewborn baby and you feed them
(20:27):
and you keep them warm but youdon't hold them, baby's going to
die.
They can't survive without thatconnection.
And now we have all of thisinformation in an almost very
sinister way, almost seeminglymalicious, and I might go too
far to say intentional.
(20:47):
But it does seem to me likethere is some sort of intent
behind this disconnection wherewe're saying to make your child
independent, you have todisconnect them at a super early
age.
And that is so far removed fromhow nature works, because
independence is always the endgoal of nature.
(21:11):
You look at a mother bear, forinstance.
Her goal is to make her cubsindependent Because at some
point she's not going to bearound anymore and that baby cub
has to go out and hunt and makea den and survive on their own.
And they have to go out andhave relationships.
(21:31):
How do you make a babyindependent?
It's through dependence.
How to survive and how tonavigate this world, how to find
safety.
They have to learn and developall of these customs and the way
they do that is through theattachment.
So no baby cub bear gets thrownout of the den or left alone.
(21:56):
No, the mother has to raisethis child to become independent
.
That's how it works and we aredoing the complete opposite
right now and, yeah, it'scausing a tremendous amount of
pain.
I was looking into it just acouple of days ago because I was
wondering.
You know, my partner works inpediatric nursing and so we talk
(22:17):
a lot about these things and Iwas looking up what are the
stats?
How many children are onmedications right now?
And, depending on the stats youlook at, it's over 50 percent.
Yeah, and I mean you know wesee it every single day, and
it's not just one medication.
It's anti-anxiety,antidepressants, antipsychotics,
(22:38):
you name it and theseamphetamines, you know, ssris.
These children are supermedicated right now and the
parents want they're getting theinformation to start the
medications very early, becausethey're suppressing all of their
parental wisdom and knowledgeon how to care for their kids,
(22:59):
because the doctors are tellingthem don't hold your kids and
it's creating these big divides.
They got to go back to work.
They got to go back to theirlives.
They got to make money, theygot to survive.
They're dealing with all theirown stress.
They can't care for this kidand then the child's developing
with so much pain and they'reacting out that pain in the only
ways that are available to thembecause they don't have
(23:20):
connection, they don't have waysof expressing that emotion in.
It's terrifying of what'shappening right now.
Speaker 1 (23:32):
It really is.
Yeah, I mean, there's so many,it can be very overwhelming.
And you know, actually, sincewe're talking about this an
interesting it's actually notinteresting I am meeting more
(24:04):
and more people that are my age,that don't have kids, that
aren't married, that say, youknow, I don't really know if I
want kids, because it's just a.
It's a terrible time.
You know, like I'm afraid tolike raise kids in this world
today, and that is that's notthe way that I was raised and
that is that's not the way thatI was raised.
I was really not raised to livein fear and I don't choose to
live in fear or get caught up inthat like overwhelm, but I do
know that it's such a real thingfor so many people.
(24:27):
And I mean, this is just onetopic.
But on the aspect of kids andmedication and and really that's
one of the reasons that I thinkit's so important to have
conversations like this becausewhether or not you want to have
kids, I mean that that should beyour decision and it shouldn't
be a decision made out of fearof oh well, you know, I don't
(24:49):
want to like raise my kid, to beon all this medication and, and
there's so many answers that wehave that are in this world.
And if I can be one person tobring like here's something to
look at and here's something toconsider, even just you know,
(25:10):
just studying the attachmenttheory which you've referenced a
few times, and kind of learningthat we need physical touch and
we need that as babies but weneed it as humans, like we need,
we're deeply lacking presenceand connection, present
(25:31):
connection these days,connection, present connection
these days.
And what would, what worldwould we live in if we came from
that perspective, versus, ah,just take this medication or
just take this like anxiety.
I assume but I don't want to beassumptive I assume a lot of
clients that come to you arestruggling with I'm sorry, I
(25:52):
don't really like using the wordstruggling, are dealing with a
lot of these life situations.
Like, do you have kind of thisoverarching characteristics of
people that come to you or is ittruly a mixed bag?
Speaker 2 (26:10):
No, no, you just hit on probably the biggest trauma
that I think everybody's dealingwith, and people do struggle
with it.
A lot of the times we're veryharsh to ourselves and very
judgmental and critical andevaluatory and punishing
ourselves for the way that wenavigate our adaptations to pain
(26:32):
or to the environment that wehave.
So there is an internalconflict and there is a struggle
that I see a lot of peoplegoing through.
It shouldn't be that way, ofcourse, but that's what we're
dealing with.
And, yeah, the hallmark traumathat I see is a disconnect, a
disconnection from ourselves, adisconnection from each other, a
disconnect, a disconnectionfrom ourselves, a disconnection
(26:54):
from each other, a disconnectionfrom the world around us.
And this is the result.
It's an adaptation to trauma.
So, again, going back to thosetwo fundamental needs that we
had as children attachment andauthenticity.
When your authenticity, whenyour emotions, when your
expression, when your boundaries, when your authenticity, when
(27:14):
your emotions, when yourexpression, when your boundaries
, when your needs threaten yourattachment meaning, if you
express anger you get put in atimeout.
Your parents say I'm going todisconnect from you, I'm going
to isolate you until you cansuppress your emotions or
regulate your emotions and thenyou can come back.
In other words, I'm going tothreaten you with the thing
(27:37):
that's most important to youyour attachments and connections
.
We learn at a very early agehaving emotions is bad, so we
suppress them.
Or we're told that if you'regoing to be sad, I'll give you
something to cry about, or ifyou're going to be mad, I'll
give you something to be madabout.
We learn very early on thatexpressing what we're feeling is
(28:01):
dangerous.
Or in other situations, we haveall of these emotions, we have
all this pain, we have thisanger, this shame, this fear,
and we don't know what to dowith it because we're all alone
with it.
There's no one to talk to withit.
So what do we do?
Well, the exact same thing wewould do in the other situation
we suppress it.
(28:22):
And the way we suppress it is aform of disconnection.
We're trying to disconnect fromthose feelings because they're
overwhelming, they'rethreatening for lots of reasons.
They might threaten ourattachments, might threaten my
safety, they might threaten myphysiological well-being,
because I can't feel thesethings and process them.
So I disconnect from them.
How do I disconnect from them?
(28:43):
I distract, I get busy, I takeon tasks, I make myself
agreeable, I make, I try toplease people, I try to take
care of other people.
I go and accomplish things andyou know, later in life I go and
I try and please people, I tryto take care of other people.
I go and accomplish things andyou know, later in life I go and
I try and become, you know,somebody with high status, high
(29:04):
power, high respect, high wealth, high value, all the things.
I can go.
Become the president of theUnited States, because I've
never been good enough once inmy life, so now I'm going to go
be good enough no-transcript1000% agree.
Speaker 1 (29:43):
And then the next question, of course, is how do
we connect with?
Speaker 2 (29:45):
ourselves and then each other.
Yeah, that's the essence oftherapy right there.
That is the fundamental premiseof therapy, in my opinion, is
to reconnect with yourself.
See, I come into this with thebelief that all the wisdom that
knows how to be whole is insideof us.
All the wisdom that knows howto heal is inside of us.
(30:09):
If you look out in nature, yousee it everywhere you look.
Everything knows how to healSystems, know how to heal Trees.
Know everywhere you look,everything knows how to heal
Systems.
Know how to heal Trees.
Know how to heal Animals.
Know how to heal Our bodies,know how to heal the wisdom.
It's inside of us, it'sinherent.
All we need to do is reconnectwith it.
So when we disconnect fromourselves that wisdom, that
(30:31):
wholeness that's inside of us,it's still there.
It hasn't been destroyed ordiminished.
Just because we might have abelief about ourselves not being
good enough or being broken ordamaged goods doesn't mean that
we've lost that wisdomindefinitely.
It's still there and we canreconnect with it.
(30:53):
And so the goal of therapy, inmy opinion, is to help people to
reconnect with themselves, andthere's lots of ways we can do
that.
Speaker 1 (31:05):
Would you share a few of them?
I'm curious.
I really I'm someone that loveslike concrete tools, which
shows up in my human design alot, but I'm curious and maybe
even not sharing.
I mean, you can share anything,but maybe just even sharing
ones that have very, have spokenvery deeply to you and in your
(31:28):
life and your life journey.
Speaker 2 (31:31):
Mm, hmm, yeah, well, I don't really like talking
about other people's experiences.
I started doing that once and Iwas like, ah, you know, even
when I'm being, I'm anonymizingit very well and even changing
the details.
I'm like, ah, you know, so manypeople have dealt with
something similar to this that Idon't want them to think, oh,
(31:52):
he's talking about me right now.
Speaker 1 (31:54):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (31:54):
Because that's a very common theme is, you know, we
develop that very early.
We develop there.
Here we go, so very early inlife, when our parents are
stressed or when they're dealingwith their own pain, as
children, everything's about us.
We're very narcissistic.
We're the center of the worldand so, whenever something is
(32:16):
happening, our parents arestressed, they're busy, they're
disconnected, they're in theirown pain.
Whatever it is, it's our faultyeah and so here is another form
of disconnect, in a way ofbeing very critical and harsh to
ourselves later in life.
So when I'm working withsomebody, usually within the
first few minutes, really thefirst couple sentences they will
(32:40):
immediately tell me aboutsomething that they're going
through, whether they're awareof it or not, and something like
that is very common.
So today my partner went toshe's working in the hospital
pediatric nurse.
She works remote and she worksin the hospital and she rarely
(33:01):
takes hospital shifts.
But today she went in thehospital and we had some
leftovers from our dinneryesterday and she took those, of
course.
Right, because she has to havea lunch, because she's working a
12-hour shift.
Yeah, right, because she has tohave a lunch because she's
working a 12-hour shift.
Yeah, and I have a dynamic withfood from being a child where,
um, I wasn't allowed to eat alot of the times and so food was
(33:24):
always withheld from me and uh.
So today I have a verydifficulty.
I still have difficulties withfood, and so I went to make
myself some lunch, because Ihave to very intentionally force
myself to go eat something,otherwise most times I just
won't eat.
And so I'm going to go eat andI realized she took the.
(33:45):
She took the rice and that waslike one of the only things that
we had in there.
Now that belief of everything'sabout me can immediately get
activated right away and I cansay, okay, she took that and
it's because she wanted towithhold food from me or because
(34:05):
she was mad at me or whatever.
And there's the childish beliefs.
Those are the beliefs that Ihad from my childhood.
They'll get activated veryquickly, so something like that
can get mentioned right awaywhen I'm from my childhood.
They'll get activated veryquickly, so something like that
can get mentioned right away.
When I'm talking to somebody.
They'll say I'm mad atso-and-so my partner for this
reason and it might be somethingas simple as they just took the
(34:26):
leftovers for lunch.
And then what I do is I want tofigure out why did that upset
them?
And so what I'm looking for arecore beliefs about themselves
of I'm unworthy, I'm not goodenough, I'm not deserving, so
and so I'm not respectable.
So this person doesn't respectme.
(34:46):
That's why they did this.
They're intentionally trying tohurt me.
And so once I can figure outthe pattern of what people are
going through, meaning they havea belief about themselves.
It's causing an emotion, it'scausing perceptions, it's
causing behaviors, then I justhelp them become aware of it and
I help them see these beliefsand these patterns and how
(35:07):
they're coming up.
So, right away, what we canstart to do is reconnect with
that initial trauma.
So we ask questions like whendid you first start feeling this
?
Where did this originate from?
Where did you learn this belief?
Is this the first time thatyou've ever gotten mad, that
somebody took your food?
And then, if somebody asked methat, I'd say, well, no, of
(35:29):
course not.
I have no shortage of that, andso it's not about this
situation, it's about thisinitial pain.
So this initial pain fromchildhood is what's showing up
here in the past, and we'redisconnected from it.
We don't see it, we're unawareof it.
It's just unconscious, justrolling around, and we just keep
(35:49):
finding ourselves in thesepatterns.
And so what I use is inquiry.
I ask lots of questions, I tryto understand the pattern and
then I reflect it Again.
I'm that mirror where I canhelp them see it, and then I
help them to understand thevariables that are at play, so
they can start to make choices.
And that's the whole game, right, there is building awareness,
(36:10):
recognizing, identifying thepatterns, the emotions, the
beliefs, the feelings, thebehaviors, accepting that it's
here, saying, oh well, there itis again, rather than fighting
it, rather than struggling withit, rather than trying to exile
it or push it away.
Well, here it is Now.
How can I engage with this?
Well, let's get to know it alittle bit.
Let's start to reconnect withthis pattern.
(36:31):
Let's understand where it comesfrom, how it developed and what
needs were underlying this thatwent unmet.
And then, how can I meet thosein healthy, constructive ways?
How can I nurture and take careof myself?
So that's the gist of it, andyou know it's different with
everybody, but we can usuallyget there within the first
(36:52):
couple sentences of what they'reworking through.
Speaker 1 (36:56):
That is wild, but I mean it's thank you for sharing
and that's so.
What I have learned in myjourney is that so much of what
we do is unconscious and it'scoming from these.
I mean, one of the things thatwe talked about before we hit
(37:16):
record was, like thesesubconscious beliefs and these,
the just the subconscious kindof showing up in our life and in
our actions and the way that wespeak, and it's always
fascinating to me to explorethat within myself and what is
coming up.
And you know why am I feelingthis way?
(37:39):
And, to be honest, it's verydifficult, I would assume, for
most people, but certainly forme.
It's very difficult for me todo that alone and just myself,
because we can't see, I can'tsee my subconscious coming out
as clearly as you, for example,an outsider, could see, and then
(38:04):
to have someone whenever I havesomeone point something out,
I'm like whoa, that was, thatwas wild, that that's coming up
and and being able to address itand then have the choice to
change it, yeah, I think is huge, because if you don't, you
don't know what you don't knowyou know you don't.
(38:26):
You don't know what you're doingand what you know what these
triggers are.
I think that we use words likeoh, I was triggered, you know,
very freely now, at at least my,my community, I hear that a lot
.
But then what is that next stepbelow that of okay, but do you
(38:47):
know what the like, what thetrigger was, or where it
originated from?
And and kind of diving throughthat and navigating that is very
freeing, kind of like the.
The energy that I'm gettingthroughout this whole
conversation is just thisinvitation to freedom and this
(39:09):
invitation to to freedom throughexploration and exploring
what's going on in your life andand your story.
One of the quotes that I wrotedown from our initial
conversation was trauma.
Is trauma can be bad things thathappen that weren't supposed to
, or good things that didn'thappen that we're supposed to.
(39:33):
And that's kind of going back tolike the attachment theory
thing and and the maybe the lovethat we didn't receive, or the
way that we received the love.
I remember Jay Shetty kind oftalked about that on a podcast
one time and he was saying um,our love languages typically
develop by either like what wedid receive, like you got a lot
(39:56):
of physical touch when you werea kid.
So you want that physical touch, or you got a lot of gifts as a
kid and so that's how youperceive what love is, or from
what we didn't receive that wereally wanted, so not receiving
enough physical touch, and thenyou like crave that, like it's
insatiable.
(40:16):
And it's just such aninteresting because I think a
lot of times we think of traumaas the bad things, the bad
things that happen to to us, butI don't always think of trauma
as the good things that didn'thappen, that maybe we're
supposed to, yeah, yeah, likehaving healthy attachments and
(40:38):
connections and being acceptedand valued.
Speaker 2 (40:42):
And you know, the trauma isn't about what happens.
It's not about the thing thathappens to us, the bad thing or
the good thing that was supposedto happen, that doesn't happen,
that's just the thing thathappens.
The trauma is what happensinside of us as a result of what
happened to us.
So in those situations, welearn to disconnect from
(41:07):
ourselves, we suppress ouremotions and then we get stuck
in these patterns of seeking theconnection, the love that we
didn't get.
And so we've subconsciously,unconsciously, look for the love
that we didn't get allthroughout our lives, and we
look for it from people whocan't give it to us, just like
our parents couldn't.
(41:28):
So we get stuck in theserepetitive patterns that we're
unaware of.
And you know, just like youwere saying, finding the pattern
yourself is like trying toidentify a color that you're
blind to you just can't see it.
so, yeah, we get triggered verycommonly because these initial
(41:50):
pains that we were carryingaround from childhood keep
getting activated.
And the analogy of gettingtriggered is very interesting
because the trigger is just avery small mechanism of a larger
tool, like a gun, for instance.
It's this tiny little pin whereyou pull it and it sets off a
(42:11):
whole mechanical reaction whichusually results in something
happening in the case of a gun,a force of destruction, for
instance.
Happening in the case of a gun,a force of destruction, for
instance.
So if I got triggered, ifsomebody triggered me, that's to
say that somebody pulled thisvery small pin and set off a
(42:32):
cascade of mechanical reactionsthat happened.
The real question is well,who's carrying around the
combustible ammunition then?
And where is it located?
Well, it's inside of me.
It's got nothing to do with theperson who triggered me.
It's me who's carrying thataround.
So, yeah, if we want to liberateourselves from these old
patterns, we want to developfreedom.
(42:52):
The first step is cultivatingawareness.
We have to become aware ofthese patterns.
We have to learn how torecognize and identify what
we're feeling, what we'reperceiving about what's
happening in our environment orwith the people that we're
engaging with and what ourbeliefs are about ourselves and
about others.
And once we can start tocultivate some awareness, that's
(43:17):
the prerequisite or thefoundation for making choices,
and then we can start to choosehow are we going to respond to
this.
That's the prerequisite or thefoundation for making choices,
and then we can start to choosehow are we going to respond to
this.
And the goal is to cultivateagency, choice making and to
take responsibility or theability to respond differently
to these situations.
And when we do those thingsconstantly and we're always
(43:38):
paying attention to what we'refeeling and we're being present
with ourselves and what we'realways paying attention to what
we're feeling and we're beingpresent with ourselves, and what
we're perceiving and thinkingand what we're doing that's
where we can start to cultivateliberation, to start to do
things differently and step awayfrom those old patterns, and
this is, in my opinion, one ofthe most important things we can
do in our life.
Speaker 1 (44:00):
Oh my gosh, yes, absolutely.
I mean definitely the mostimportant thing that we can do
in our life the ability to, youknow, the autonomy to make our
(44:20):
own decisions and have authorityover ourselves is I know that
in again, like all I can do isreally share about my journey
and my journey.
It gives me this ability toextend grace to other people and
to see humans as human and notthese perfect or, you know,
(44:46):
robot people.
It's we all have.
We all have trauma, we all havethings that happened to us
growing up or didn't happen tous that should have happened to
us, and we all are are doing thebest that we can with what we
have right now and it, yeah, itkind of gives this, this
(45:12):
perspective of being able toextend grace to other people,
because I guess, because I'mextending it to myself first, is
really what it is.
Speaker 2 (45:23):
Yeah, and I mean that's a testament to the work
that you're doing for yourself,because the way that we treat
other people is oftentimes areflection of how we treat
ourselves.
So when we see these people outthere who are screaming and
cursing and attacking all theseother people, you know that's
just a mirror to theirrelationship with themselves and
(45:47):
you know it's very easy to goout and judge and criticize and
evaluate and want to punishother people.
And you know I mean how do wefeel when people do that to us?
You know, and a lot of thetimes that's what we're doing to
ourselves.
So that's the pattern, that'sthe dynamic is evaluation,
judgment, criticism, punishment.
(46:07):
And the only way to reallychange those dynamics out there
is to do it for ourselves.
Is we've got to really start tocomfort ourselves and be kind
and gentle to ourselves.
Look, I got this neighbor acouple of houses down from me
and this guy is always on somebullshit.
Let me tell you, not too longago I was driving, and it's a
(46:29):
small side road, and he cameflying down the hill and turned
his car left, right in front ofmy car to turn into his driveway
, stopped, honked at me, flipsme off, F you.
He's screaming at me and I'mlike Harold, I'm your neighbor,
man, Come on and don't get mewrong.
(46:51):
There was a part of me that gotso angry about that and wanted
to push that anger back onto him.
But there's another part of methat says, man, that guy's just
really going through it rightnow.
He is what is his day lookinglike?
Where he's in that state ofready to snap and get into, you
(47:13):
know, a really intense conflictwith his neighbor three houses
down.
He didn't even realize it washis neighbor, he was just going
to throw it on.
And then I can hear it and youknow, I hear the way that he's
talking to his grandkids and tohis kids and it's like man.
This guy is carrying around somuch pain and when he dumps that
(47:38):
onto me, when it comes burstingout the seams in inappropriate
ways, Again there's thatnarcissistic child inside of me
who only knows how to say that'sbecause of me, he doesn't
respect me, he doesn't value me,he's intentionally trying to
hurt me.
And I can see that and say, no,that's not the case.
And I see why I believe that,because that's how it was as a
(48:00):
kid, that's how I saw things asa child.
And no, I can comfort that partof me and say, no, that's
actually not true.
This guy is going through someterrible stuff and regardless of
who would have crossed his pathright there, it would have come
bursting out the seams on himregardless.
So it's not about me.
And to give myself that is to,you know, really soothe my
(48:23):
experience, because that pain,it's contagious and a lot of the
times what we're doing is wehave so much of it built up
inside of us.
It's like a pressure cooker andthe pressure cooker is just
getting turned up higher andhigher and then it pops and it
bursts out the seams in superinappropriate ways on other
people and that adds to theirpressure cooker.
And then it pops and it burstsout the seams in super
inappropriate ways on otherpeople and that adds to their
(48:44):
pressure cooker and it just keep.
We just keep popping on eachother.
So, yeah, I mean I can't go andinteract with him and, you know
, help him solve his pain andsoothe his pain.
And if he wanted to come to meand, you know, seek my support,
I still wouldn't do it because Ithink that'd be a little bit of
a breach of boundaries with howclose he lives to me.
I would gladly refer him tosomebody else.
(49:06):
But the way that I can reallyengage with that is by
comforting and soothing the painthat's inside of me, so that
way his pain doesn't add to mineand I can set boundaries even
if I don't really talk to himand just say, yeah, that's got
nothing to do with me.
Speaker 1 (49:22):
Yeah, what a good example and what a beautiful
invitation.
We are so narcissistic, wealways think it has to do with
us, or, like what this person isdoing to me and I mean you said
it so beautifully You're likewow, what?
What is he going through?
Like, what is what's happeningin his day?
(49:44):
You remind me of my mom.
I feel like my mom used to saythat be like they are clearly
having a very terrible day andjust kind of blessing them and
that's, you know, setting thatboundary of like I hope that you
are able to see that somedayand I hope that you know your
day gets better.
(50:05):
Whatever, however, you need tolet it go and kind of cut
yourself off energetically fromit, because, yeah, we all, we
all just walk around and we'reall just.
I love that.
We're all just little pressurecookers.
I talk about that in breathwork.
I do breathwork too, and that'sone of the things that I say is
like creating these spacestherapy being another one,
(50:27):
creating these spaces to releasesome of that pressure, to
express some of that pressure,because otherwise all we're
doing is we are just suppressingand pushing down and pushing
down, and you know what it'sgoing to come up sometime and a
lot of times, if we're notcreating these spaces, it's
(50:48):
going to end up coming up at aninopportune moment, where we end
up screaming at our partner oryelling at our kids or breaking
down, you know, in the middle ofthe highway, whatever it is.
Speaker 2 (51:02):
Yeah.
Or seeking tremendous amountsof power and status so that way
we can go and traumatize otherpeople on a massive level.
This pain that's inside of us,it doesn't go anywhere on its
own.
We have to go into it and wehave to reconnect with it and we
have to start to process it andexpress it in constructive ways
(51:23):
and soothe and comfort thispain.
Otherwise it's just going toget passed on to the next person
and then that's going to keepbuilding.
And I mean that's exactly whatwe see all over the world right
now is pain from generationsjust constantly coming back
around.
And if we don't process ourpain, if we don't reconnect with
(51:44):
that and start to engage withit, our situations in life are
going to keep coming back aroundto that pain and it's going to
keep giving us opportunities toprocess it and those
opportunities are going to getmore and more intense because
it's trying to get our attention.
So the only thing that we canreally do well, probably the
best thing we can do is start tostop running from it, to stop
(52:08):
disconnecting.
We have to pull out theanesthetic and we have to turn
around and face it and start tocomfort it, because most times
what we're dealing with arelittle children who are still
hurt hmm, I love that I couldtalk to you all day, tell
everyone where they can find you, where they can connect more
(52:29):
with you, and also, do you haveyour own podcast?
Speaker 1 (52:32):
I can't remember.
Speaker 2 (52:33):
I don't have my own podcast, no.
Speaker 1 (52:35):
I think you should.
Speaker 2 (52:37):
Thank you, I've been considering it actually, I've
been considering doing.
Thank you, I've beenconsidering it actually.
I've been considering doingconversations with people who
are working through their ownprocess and doing it live, so
people could actually see whatit looks like, because talking
about it and doing it are twototally different things.
Speaker 1 (52:54):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (52:54):
So thank you for that .
Yeah, I've really beenconsidering it.
Speaker 1 (52:57):
I would listen, I would be on it.
You know it's such a good pointbecause we can talk all day.
You know, like a lot of thesethings that that I would assume
a lot of these things that wetalked about a lot of listeners
you've heard before somewhere insome form, right Like, what
we're saying is not unique andnot um, what's the word?
(53:21):
Well, new there's a better wordfor that but what we're saying
is not new.
But how many times do we likelisten to these ideas and these
invitations and not actually dothem?
So I think that's a very, verypowerful podcast idea, but
anyway, where can people findyou?
Where can they connect?
Where can they learn more fromyou?
Speaker 2 (53:42):
Yeah, my website is probably the best way
psychedelic-integrationnet.
We have a mailing list whereyou can stay up to date with
what we're doing.
We post articles, and if youwant to reach out for support,
that's the easiest way.
And Instagram is a good one too.
We just started that up not toolong ago, so we're posting lots
of clips and videos of ustalking like this, and this
(54:06):
weekend actually, I'm sure thisprobably air after that, but
we're starting to do sessions atleast once a month that you can
join if you want to participateand do these exercises together
.
So they'll be live streamed andwe'll talk about things, and
then we'll be doing them as well.
Speaker 1 (54:23):
Is this on Instagram live stream or where is it live
streamed?
Speaker 2 (54:26):
Yeah, yeah, I'm partnering up with somebody who
knows how to do all that stuff,because I don't.
And yeah, it'll be on Instagram, so all the links and
everything are on there.
Speaker 1 (54:36):
Super cool, yeah, and I'll make sure to link
everything down below in thedescription so people can um can
, learn.
So last question we're doingsomething new.
For the past season of mypodcast I always ask the same
question and now I've decidedI'm going to ask a different
question, so you are the firstrecipient of the new question.
(54:59):
If the world could onlyremember one feeling from your
work, what do you hope thatwould be?
One feeling like an emotionfrom your work, feeling or
emotion.
Speaker 2 (55:15):
See, that's an interesting thing because so
frequently thoughts, perceptions, feelings, emotions are all
mixed up and confused and it'svery difficult for a lot of
people to distinguish betweenthem.
But there is a feeling ofwholeness, I think, where you
really reconnect with yourselfand you get back into the flow
(55:41):
of who you really are.
Like when people are in, whenthey're healing from an
addiction we call it recovery,right.
And the word recover means tofind something that you've lost.
So when people heal anaddiction, they're recovering
who they were and there's thatfeeling of wholeness and that
feeling of reconnection that'sassociated with recovering who
you are.
And, like I said, I thinktherapy, the goal of therapy, is
(56:04):
to get to that spot.
So if we could mass producethat or make it more accessible
to people, I think that couldmake a very big difference in
our world.
Speaker 1 (56:14):
It would Thank you.
Thank you so much for coming on.
This was such a lovelyconversation.
Speaker 2 (56:20):
Yeah, thanks for having me.
I really enjoyed connecting.
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