October 28, 2025 • 54 mins
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What happens when generations of emotional suppression collide with childhood trauma? For therapist Malisa Hepner, it created the perfect storm of perfectionism, people-pleasing, and eventual burnout that forced her to completely reimagine her approach to healing.
Born to parents struggling with addiction and raised in an environment of chaos and neglect, Malisa developed coping mechanisms that initially helped her survive but eventually left her feeling perpetually broken. Despite outward success as the "golden child," she carried deep wounds from both obvious traumas and the more insidious damage of emotional neglect. The messages that shaped her—serve others to your own demise, prioritize compliance, be a perfect reflection of your family—created patterns that followed her into adulthood.
The breakthrough came when Malisa hit rock bottom. Experiencing severe dissociation and overwhelmed by critical inner voices, she made radical changes: quitting her job, starting a podcast, and opening a private practice. Through this journey, she discovered that healing wasn't about becoming a perfect, perpetually zen person. Instead, it meant embracing all parts of herself—including her fire and reactivity—while releasing the shame that had kept her trapped.
"I was walking around believing myself to be, at my core, unlovable, and doing all kinds of things to confirm that bias," Malisa shares. Her story illuminates how we can hold two seemingly contradictory truths: our parents did the best they could with what they knew, AND what they did wasn't enough. This compassionate perspective allows us to honor our wounds without being defined by them.
For anyone struggling with perfectionism, people-pleasing, or the feeling of being "too much and not enough" simultaneously, Malisa's journey offers a roadmap to self-acceptance. By bringing our trauma into the light rather than compartmentalizing it, we create space for authentic healing and connection.
Ready to explore your own path to self-acceptance? Follow Malisa on Instagram @malisahepner or visit her website for workbooks, guidance sessions, and more resources designed to help you release shame and find unconditional love.
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Comments about this episode? Suggestions for a future episode? Wanna be a guest? Email me directly at NSVpodcast@gmail.com.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Mary (00:05):
Welcome to no Shrinking Violence.
I'm your host, mary Rothwell,licensed therapist and certified
integrative mental healthpractitioner.
I've created a space where wecelebrate the intuition and
power of women who want to breakfree from limiting narratives.
We'll explore all realms ofwellness what it means to take
up space unapologetically, andhow your essential nature is key
(00:28):
to living life on your terms.
It's time to own your space,trust your nature and flourish.
Let's dive in.
Hey, violets, welcome to theshow.
I was recently listening to anepisode of the podcast Hidden
Brain and the subject was traumaand how we process it.
(00:48):
The guest was George Bonannoand he's done research on
suffering, grief and tragedySounds like a really happy job
and how we think about it todayversus how we did in the past.
One aspect of the show wasexploring the idea that
therapists believe that peopleoverall are more traumatized
than what his findings wouldindicate.
(01:08):
As a therapist myself, I havemany thoughts about that.
First, obviously, we see apopulation that, percentage-wise
, does have more trauma.
That's why people often go totherapy.
But mainly, I believe that manypeople overall think about
trauma and its impact in a muchdifferent way than we did when I
was young.
(01:28):
Okay, I'm a Gen Xer, as theysay.
I was raised on hose water andneglect.
Well, I was raised on hosewater, for sure, and actually
was shocked when, as an adult, Isaw that there was a lead
warning on new hoses and I drankout of hoses when I was a kid.
But neglect, well, not exactlywe just.
(01:49):
Well, we didn't have Google, wedidn't have cell phones and
basically we had to live by ourwits.
But as far as trauma, mostparents of Gen Xers literally
did not have the language tohelp us process hard things.
As humans, we're made towithstand trauma.
We're nature, just like forestsand grasslands regrow after
fires.
We're resilient.
(02:10):
Our brains protect us when weexperience anything similar to
what created the trauma.
So, for example, let's say oneday you're making toast and
happen to look out the windowand see your dog get hit by a
car, and now, anytime you smelltoast, you get a wash of anxiety
and you have no idea why.
And when we have reactions likethis but don't have the benefit
(02:30):
of insight, we start to believewe're broken.
Or the critical voices fromchildhood start to get a bit
louder, saying things like comeon, what is wrong with you?
Get over it.
We are so complex and the sameevent can affect two different
people in vastly different ways.
That doesn't mean one is morehealthy than the other.
There are so many issues thatimpact our ability to bounce
(02:53):
back from stuff, but the thingabout trauma is that air and
light are what helps to heal it.
Stuffing it down into anairtight, dark compartment in
our brain doesn't so.
Between the hidden brain episodeand reading about my guest
today, melissa Heppner, I havebeen thinking about the idea of
resilience and healing,specifically in the case of
(03:13):
trauma.
Because Melissa experiencedtrauma from a young age and when
it reasserted itself later inlife in the form of burnout
because those pesky traumareactions find sneaky ways to
get our attention, she chosesome unconventional strategies
to move through and past it.
Melissa is a licensed clinicalsocial worker in Oklahoma, an
(03:35):
author and podcast host of theEmotionally Unavailable podcast.
After reaching burnout in everyarea of her life, she decided
to give healing one more chanceand she went big.
She quit her job, started apodcast and opened a private
practice.
She is now teaching others howto rid themselves of shame and
find unconditional love, bothfor themselves and for each
(03:58):
other.
Malisa (04:00):
Welcome to no Shrinking Violets.
Melissa, sorry, I unmuted andit took me forever to find the
unmute.
Hi, thank you, what a greatintroduction.
I'm so excited to be here.
Mary (04:11):
Yeah, I'm here.
I'm glad you're here, okay, andI love that we had a little
technical issue and we are bothpodcast hosts, see nobody's
perfect right Exactly.
Malisa (04:19):
I love it.
Mary (04:20):
A little peek behind the curtain, folks.
Okay, so I would love to startfirst with the parts of your
story, because you have quitethe story that you feel are most
important to where you like, toyour journey and where you are
today.
Malisa (04:34):
Well, oh, my goodness, the most important parts.
You know, sometimes people wantme to get into the deep dark
because it does show myresilience, and so, like just to
briefly summarize, I had addictparents.
I was in the hospital by twomonths old, from quote unquote
(04:55):
failure to thrive, but it wasbecause I would.
You know, they were doingthings like putting orange juice
in a bottle instead of formula.
You know things like that.
So neglect, um, lots of backand forth between my parents and
my grandparents, and then backand forth between my mom and my
grandma, because then even mygrandpa left us.
It was a good thing, he was nota good dude.
(05:18):
And then there was a lot ofevery level of abuse that you
can have in childhood andincarcerations from both of my
parents, my mom more than my dadactually.
And then, when I was 15, my daddied of a morphine overdose.
And there was still more traumapiled on after that because my
(05:41):
brother's responses to that, mygrandma's response to it, in
that she was like continuallyminimalizing and trivializing my
experience with losing my dad,because I wasn't like going off
the walls and starting a drughabit, running away from home,
being institutionalized, beingsent to boot camp for bad kids
(06:03):
like my brothers.
You know, there's like allthese things that they were
doing to live their pain outloud and I was continuing to be
the golden child and you know.
So it was a really frustratingexperience to be like, oh, I'm
not upset about losing my dad,because I'm doing exactly what
you've trained me to do, whichis to live to please you, what
(06:26):
you've trained me to do, whichis to live to please you.
And then you know, high school,after losing my dad, was just
like really surreal for me.
I think I had an expanded levelof consciousness then, just
understanding like some of thestuff we care about as kids
doesn't really matter.
So I felt pretty like separatedfrom my peers.
I went through real isolationand I think probably actually,
(06:48):
as I'm saying that, I'm probablyrealizing for the first time in
my life that that was thebeginning of me pushing people
away because I was protectingmyself.
But in my head that went verydifferently.
So that was probably just anepiphany I just had in real time
.
Yay, but yeah, so then I'm alittle embarrassed about this
(07:10):
part.
I could have made much worsedecisions for myself.
Honestly, I made really gooddecisions for bad reasons, like,
because I'm just doing it toprove my family wrong, prove to
myself that I am better than allof them.
Blah, blah, blah.
Very motivated by spite, if youwill, one of the things that I
did.
I picked a very sweet partner,very calm, very docile, very
(07:34):
loving, nurturing, but I was 18when I met him and lost my
virginity to him, and because ofa program that I had received
from my grandma and thereligious institutions I was a
part of, you know, because Ilost my virginity.
That sin, though, could then beabsolved if I married him, so
we were married when I turned 20.
Mary (07:55):
Wow.
Malisa (07:56):
And then, because I thought it was a good idea, I
had my first kid at 22.
And it was when I was pregnantwith him that I lost my mom to
complications related tocirrhosis and hep C, and it was
a little bit of a three-weekordeal.
She was actually presentlyincarcerated when that whole
thing happened.
(08:16):
So then I can't even say that Ireally grieved because I was
pregnant and I was just blockingeverything out and like I'm
going to be the best mom ever,blah, blah, blah, and so that
was kind of the beginning ofadulthood in real life for me
and believing that my childhoodhadn't really had an impact, as
(08:37):
if all those little decisions Ihad just made in the last two
years four years weren'tdirectly related.
But the reason that I just gavesuch a brief summary of
childhood is because I love whatyou said in your intro.
I'm a zennial, so you know,baby Gen X, elder millennial I'm
in that last three months ofGen X and that's what I've
always identified as.
(08:57):
So but it was the emotionalneglect that really, really left
me with so many wounds Likephysical traumas.
Yes, there is stuff and I'm notgoing to say that it doesn't
have a profound impact on you,but it was the things that
(09:18):
everyone in my generationexperienced that really shut me
down.
I think that, along with all ofthe really big T traumas that I
also experienced, you know, itleft me in a very battered place
internally where I just didn'tlook at any of that because I
wasn't aware of it and I didn'twant to be aware of it.
(09:38):
I just wanted to move on withmy life and do better than they
did.
But I'm so excited that that'skind of the angle we're taking
in this conversation, because asa therapist, that's the thing
that people have such a hardtime understanding is there can
be two perspectives that you canhold at the same time, in that
your parents this is the firsttime that they are living they
(09:59):
did the best they could and alsowhat they did sucked and it
wasn't enough yeah you know, youdon't have to be angry about it
, you don't have to hate them,you don't have to anything, but
you do have to acknowledge thatit did do some things that left
you with some maladaptive coping, because I get it, I've
repeated plenty of thosepatterns with my own children
(10:20):
you know what I mean, so likeit's easy to extend them
compassion.
Now that I see oh gosh, I didthat too.
I see how you get into asituation Like if you have no
idea how to sit with somebodywhen they are uncomfortable or
they're expressing emotions.
Our parents did what everybodydid, which was either completely
(10:41):
rescue you from the experienceyou know, attempt to, or dismiss
you because it dismisses theirown discomfort with sitting with
you in your emotions or yourexperience.
So, yeah, that was kind offiguring out that my wounding
was so much more from that typeof stuff.
I mean, and I was raised by anarcissistic grandma on top of
(11:03):
all of the like, from zero to 18, it was nothing but chaos,
nothing Every day.
Every day was chaos.
So, yes, that my poor littlebrain was not prepared.
I was a completely reactiveperson.
With strangers or people Iwasn't that close to, I would
freeze or fawn and then I'd gohome and think about it for days
(11:26):
and days and days and you know,wish I had said something.
Or you know what I'm going todo next time With people I cared
about.
Oftentimes I didn't sayanything either, but I could
sometimes, just from acompletely triggered place,
react and just be really justrude, and that was something I
(11:46):
carried a lot of shame about.
But anyway, that was a lot.
Mary (11:50):
Yeah, no, that was great.
The one thing you said that Iwant to tease apart a little bit
is you mentioned big T.
So you know, for me I feel likethere's trauma, like there's
trauma that gives youpost-traumatic stress disorder,
and then there are traumaticevents.
We all have traumatic events.
So, in saying that there's alsonow the complete opposite of
(12:12):
what we're talking about withGen X, in that, like on TikTok,
there's trauma dumping.
So we have so gone the otherway.
And so when you say this big T,how do you think about that?
How do you sort of do you inyour mind, either for your life
or your clients, do you kind ofseparate out these typical
(12:35):
things in life, like losingsomeone you know, and it doesn't
have to be this, if it's aviolent death that you witnessed
, that's something that cancause PTSD.
If you have someone in your lifewho's ill and you lose them.
That's a traumatic event.
They're separate and I'm notsure that everyone recognizes
(12:55):
that's the case.
What do you think about that?
Malisa (12:59):
I think what you're saying is very true.
I don't know that I do a lot ofseparating, just because I
think what I find the most isthat the people who come to me
are already fighting for thespace to grieve or to have, you
know, feelings related to theirexperiences.
(13:20):
And or that's just the filterthat I'm using to see because I
was that person myself who justconstantly felt like when I lost
my parents, I felt like Ireally had to fight for the
space to grieve that because Iwasn't like raised by them every
day of my life, as if losingyour parents in itself, like
(13:41):
even we know now, adoption is atrauma, like you know.
But you know in the ninetiesthat we didn't know anything
about anything, and so I feltvery minimalized and trivialized
by everyone around me.
So, no, I don't do a lot ofseparation.
In fact, I'm probably alwayspointing out like well, just
(14:04):
because that's not like the wayyou define trauma doesn't mean
that it's not one.
And like I do a little bit ofwork still for the hospice that
I used to work full time for foryears, I do a little bit of
bereavement calls for them andI'm constantly having to tell
people like hey, before youthink that you know you just
(14:24):
need to get busier, to keep yourmind off of it and whatever,
you need to acknowledge thatyour body is experiencing this
with you because it is atraumatic event and so, like,
maybe a glass of water showering, you know, like, take care of
your physical self first,because the things that you're
doing are just going to lead youto a really bad place if you
don't stop and acknowledge like,oh, it's a trauma, it's not
(14:48):
just a loss.
Mary (14:49):
Yeah, and that's not to minimize anything.
I think sometimes there can bean idea and I think it's among
younger people that whensomething traumatic happens,
they've been damaged and youknow, we are certainly all
shaped by it.
That's why we end up withdifficulty, because something
happened that was difficult,whether it was these things
(15:09):
you're talking about, that werethings that many people really
can't relate to.
They hear it and they're likehow is she sitting here with us
today?
But then there are, you know,just a really significant
breakup with someone you know,these things are all traumatic
events.
Yes, they all shape us.
(15:30):
So I think, recognizing thatwhen something happens that's
really painful, we are made tobe resilient and sometimes you
need to process that.
And sometimes you need toprocess that and I think,
conversely, I can imagine inyour situation, people might
have felt for you like, well,look what kind of parents she
(15:50):
had, why would she be grievingthem?
We make a lot and this was inthat Hidden Brain episode we
make a lot of judgmental well,judgments.
We make a lot of judgmentsabout how other people grieve
things.
Yes, judgments.
Malisa (16:04):
We make a lot of judgments about how other people
grieve things.
Yes, absolutely.
Mary (16:06):
That's a very personal and individual process.
Malisa (16:10):
I actually think that's a beautiful example of the way
we've been programmed to dismissothers, to dismiss our own
discomfort, because I think whathappens is you see somebody
hurting, instinctively, you'regoing to feel compassion, and
that compassion brings your ownlevel of pain if you care about
this person, and so then we justfind a way to poo-poo their
(16:32):
experience so that we can shovewhat we're feeling down.
I was the worst about this, butI see this all the time, even
on tiktok.
I'm glad you brought it upbecause I'm addicted a little
bit, but like I don't know ifyou've watched the new
documentary out on Netflix,unknown Number High School.
Mary (16:53):
Catfish, I read about it and what the ending is and, yes,
I did watch it.
Yeah, I can't even imagine.
Malisa (17:00):
And so now the big discourse on TikTok is I'm not
going to spoil it for anyone,but like, why would this certain
individual respond this way?
And I'm like, oh guys, give ita break.
Like, why are we still doingthis?
And so I'm like, ok, well, tellme, you haven't gone through
something in this manner withouttelling me.
(17:22):
Like, you just don't understandit.
Like, but it's what we do.
When we see the most atrociousnews, we go well, I mean, if
they hadn't done such and suchand such and such.
Like you know, when people losetheir infants to like SIDS,
well, they had unsafe sleepingpractices, okay, and that really
(17:45):
sucks for them.
But I used to do it too.
I used to dismiss the plight ofothers just because, I mean, I
did a lot to dismiss my owndiscomfort for myself too.
But that was what I had trainedmyself to do, and I think
that's kind of what most peopleare accustomed to doing.
Mary (18:00):
Yeah Well, we like to think about the world in black
and white.
You know you're either reactingright or you're not reacting
right, so true, yes, yeah, and Ithink that that's such like a
theme of perfectionism.
Malisa (18:13):
That's so.
It's been really sneaky for meEven just this last week.
I don't know if I was onsomeone else's show or they were
on mine and they said somethingabout yeah, and it's OK that
you didn't do that perfectly.
And I don't know if I was onsomeone else's show or they were
on mine and they said somethingabout, yeah, and it's okay that
you didn't do that perfectly.
And I don't remember what itwas even, but I was like, oh,
you're right, I was upset againat myself that I did something
(18:34):
imperfectly and I find thattheme coming up a lot and most
people I know struggle withforms of perfectionism.
They're not aware of it, Like,and they're so painfully unaware
that, if I like just pointedout, without leading them to the
water, they reject the notionimmediately.
But it is like that's ourentire generation, we were
(18:58):
taught serve to your own demise.
Compliance above all, because Imean that was that was
disguised as respect your elders, but it was compliance above
all.
And second to that is Puttingthe comfort of others ahead of
yourself as the rule.
And then right underneath, thatis, you are a direct reflection
(19:23):
of me and you will never bringshame to our family name.
That was deeply ingrained inall of us.
So I mean, if that's themessaging that you're getting
literally every minute of everyday, like maybe you do look cute
in those pants, but I don'tlike the way they make our
family look, you know?
I mean, you're just constantlycriticized.
We're all battlingperfectionist standards, all of
(19:46):
us.
Mary (19:47):
Yeah, and even now, in the age of social media, it's a
very, it's perfectionism in adifferent way, because filters
and you know, and this hasevened and I think it's
overcorrected in maybe the otherdirection.
But initially, when socialmedia started, people only ever
posted like looking perfect,being happy.
(20:08):
Now we've gone to the otherdirection of like look how
miserable I am, which you know,there's a space for that, that's
another episode.
But I think we can fall intothat trap of thinking what we
are seeing is what I mean.
Even I, when I am on you know,a camera angle or something
where there's no filter, I'mlike, oh my God, and then I have
(20:30):
to remind myself that'sactually what I look like in
real life.
So yeah, but, we get so used toseeing everyone looking their
best that that comparison can bereally hard too, and we just
need to know, like that's why Ilove the fact that when we
started, your mic was muted, andI love that because and even
(20:50):
we're both saying, even with thework we do, we are far from
okay every day, and I think it'sreally important for people to
hear that over and over again.
So when they have that day,there isn't that shame.
Malisa (21:03):
Absolutely, and that's been probably.
When I say that the work I'mdoing is to rid ourselves of
shame and to teach you how tolove yourself and each other a
little bit better, that's thecore of it.
Right there, our shame isdirectly related to the fact
that we're not perfect, and whenyou can get really raw and
(21:24):
right in the middle and just go,yeah, I'm actually pretty great
.
If I'm going to compare myselfto you know, mother Teresa, yeah
, I'm not.
I'm not going to look so hot,but like I'm actually a pretty
great person.
And that was my journey, was Iwas doing?
I like to do like full moon,new moon stuff.
(21:44):
I was doing an identity auditfor like a new moon and I had
been future self-journaling fora while and it was all related
to my reactivity.
It was all related to myreactivity and I had just been
imagining myself as thisperfectly zen, perpetually
unbothered person, I mean, andit was a very peaceful energy
(22:07):
when I would get into that asI'm imagining it.
And it became a great, you know, regulation tool.
But but it wasn't realistic andit wasn't until I got to a
place where I was looking at allthe characteristics I had put
down about myself and I was like, okay, I really actually like
(22:28):
this fire that I've recentlylearned to hold in myself, like
I had learned to advocate inmyself.
I was no longer freezing orfawning.
I was being authentic in mycommunication as much as I could
at that point.
But I was on a journey to bemore vulnerable and to just, you
know, lean into who I wanted tobe in any given moment, and
(22:51):
part of that included harnessingthis fire in myself for the
first time ever.
And I was like, okay, that Ican't be Buddha and this at the
same time.
And I like this, I like my fire, I like that.
I can be zany and quirky andyou know like, yeah, there are
(23:12):
parts of me that really aresuper Zen and unbothered.
And then there's parts of methat are purifier, and if you
mess with someone I love, that'sgonna be shown and I like that.
And so I was like I don't wannaextinguish this.
And as I was kind of justworking through that, I thought
I'm already all of this stuff.
Like the only thing I'm not iszen, but all of these things
(23:37):
that I'm working so hard to be,I'm already all of those things.
I need to un-be, a few things.
You know I needed to un-be asreactive and protective and all
of the things, but like it wasthe first time in my life that I
could look at myself and go,baby, you are fine.
Like what are we doing?
And that was a huge shift in mylife because it was the first
(24:00):
step towards that realcultivation of self-love and it
just tore me open and I wasfinally ready to receive the
things that I had been justpushing and pushing and pushing
out, because I just didn'tunderstand.
I mean, just like I'm stillsurprised to this day.
That wasn't my first identityaudit, you know what I mean.
(24:21):
But like, whatever I waswriting that day was the thing
that made something click in meand I've had like a really
privileged opportunity to deepenthat lesson and get deeper
understandings.
But that's the point is tounderstand you're great Exactly
how you you are.
That doesn't mean like somethings don't need to change.
But I was guilty of using thatlanguage of when I'm better,
(24:44):
like one day I'm gonna be allbetter, and blah, blah, blah.
And I mean I think that youknow that just comes from the
fairy tales we were fed aschildren too and we think that,
like utopia is going to exist orsomething.
I don't really know.
But I know for myself I wasn'tgoing to be rude ever or yell at
my kids ever or, um, push myfriends away out of the
(25:08):
self-protection I wasn't gonnado any of that anymore.
And now I'm fully comfortablewith saying I do some of that
still.
Absolutely I'm rude.
Ask my husband.
I you know I I'll notunderstand why I'm pushing
someone away, but I'll see thatI'm doing it and I'll just say,
like, let's chill a minute, likeyou know you don't have to talk
to them today, but let's figureout what's actually going on.
(25:30):
You know all those things, andthat is how you can rid yourself
, slowly over time, of theperfectionism and to cultivate
that love that we're looking for.
Mary (25:40):
Yeah, and we never arrive.
I think there's that idea thatwe arrive and you know.
To go back to what you saidabout the rules that we followed
, and another that I'll add fromchildhood is children are seen
and not heard.
So you know we got thesemessages consistently.
So, of course, when we havesomething like a fire or an
(26:01):
anger, we were taught that's notokay, you're hysterical, you're
crazy, you're too sensitive.
I say all the time take up yourspace.
And I think there are stillwomen that are like, okay, like
I feel that, but I don't knowwhat that means, because like
you're saying it's scary torealize, oh crap, like I'm
(26:30):
feeling all this down here.
And there's still the socialscripts of like don't lose your
shit, because that means you'rea crazy bitch.
Malisa (26:35):
Absolutely, absolutely Well, and like again, it's so
sneaky, like you, you programmedyourself on top of the
programming that you've received, so, like, layer after layer,
for me it really cause I waslike real, like I am emboldened
Right, but like after, like I'vereached healed or whatever.
(26:56):
Um, and in my podcast I startedkind of lighthearted because I
was afraid of going.
I didn't want listeners to belike, hey, I don't want to
listen because it's too deep ortoo serious.
I also didn't talk aboutdeconstructing from religion for
a while.
I also didn't talk aboutastrology for a while and then I
(27:16):
also didn't talk about otherwoo-woo stuff I'm into for a
while, and just more and moreand more.
I mean I think I'm pretty nowvery open and I just check
myself and say like, okay, am Isaying no to that because I'm
afraid of a response.
And listen, that's not to saythat there's been several
(27:36):
episodes that before posting Iwill be threading a little bit,
like considering editing somethings out.
But I'm really that committedto this that I will not.
But I'll be sitting there withmy tummy on fire like, oh, just
that one line.
If I could just take that oneline out, you know.
But I'm really committed to it,because I, you know, I teach
(28:00):
people all the time like yourpeople are looking for you and
they can't find you if you'recontinuing to wear a mask.
Like all of us, you know, or somany of us, find ourselves to
be in this lonely place or inneed or desire a community, and
we cut ourselves off from thecommunity by being like fake
about who we are.
You know, we're not showingthem our real selves, and so I'm
(28:22):
a person still in like, I'mstill seeking community myself,
and so it's important to me tojust be really truthful about
how I feel about things andabout how I mess up all the time
, because I mean healed doesn'tmean perfect.
Mary (28:42):
No, and you even brought up.
Your instinct when you were, Iguess, a teenager was to keep
people at arm's length, becauseif they reject you, then they're
rejecting that sort of hardcactus-like exterior.
But if you are authentic andthey reject you, they're
rejecting you.
But I think people forget theflip side of that, and that is
(29:05):
when you are truly who you areand somebody loves you just, and
it doesn't mean they're alwaysgoing to agree with you.
Love doesn't mean you know,like you're a doormat or the
other person's a doormat.
If they really love you just asyou are, that is the most
powerful feeling in the world.
Malisa (29:22):
Yeah, and I think for me , I just started understanding
like this love that we cultivatefor ourselves is the only real
love.
You share that energy withothers and they share theirs
with you, but this is why wekeep.
I mean, I was a person who feltlike I loved everybody in my
life far more than they loved me, and I was on the periphery of
every relationship and that likethey needed me but they could
(29:44):
also live without me and I wasvery convenient for them.
I mean, none of this is true,but it was all what I was really
set on believing.
And when I started to feel thatlove again, I had this moment.
I was like, oh OK, this is whatthey're talking about.
And I remember going to myhusband and being like you do
love me Because I've been, youknow, up to that point.
(30:06):
It had been like 10 years of mejust saying all the time like
you don't love me, believing hewas unfaithful for literally no
reason, because I was superinsecure, all of the things Like
I had, just, you know again,other ways to keep myself
separate from him.
I was very I will reject beforeI can be rejected, and that
(30:27):
showed up in a lot of sneakyways too.
But you know, when you'recarrying that narrative of I'm
too much and not enough all atthe same time, it's a very scary
world to try to let people in.
And you're exactly right Rejectme for the parts of me that
aren't real, and then that'smuch less painful than I'm
completely vulnerable with youand you reject me.
Mary (30:48):
And.
Malisa (30:48):
I've had.
I've had people reject thisreal version of me and that was
a process to work through.
I just learned like yourstuff's about you, my stuff's
about me and I really don't care.
Yes, the human in me.
When I say I really don't care,that does not mean that for
three days I wasn't processingthe fact that somebody asked to
(31:08):
not air their episode becausethey didn't like kind of me as a
person, like I was cussing,because I'm a cusser.
I mean I wish they had listenedto five seconds of a show
before they had, you know, askedto come on, because it would
have been really obvious that Isay the F word a lot.
But I just processed it likebecause I was like this really
isn't about me, this is aboutthem, like the way they want to
(31:32):
be perceived or whatever, butlike it's not about me and so
(31:53):
you know that little convergenceof your human self and your
highest self and be like holyshit.
Mary (31:58):
But you don't know any different.
And I think as we move into theworld, I've had clients say to
me why do I keep making thesechoices in these partners?
And it's like, well, it's allyou know.
It's like living in a city andthen you go to the country,
which is what I prefer.
I love the quiet, and they areso unnerved by the quiet they
are coming out of their skin.
So how were you?
(32:20):
You said you initially chose apartner that was the antithesis
of that.
Right Calm, you know, you're inhigh school, the you when you
got married.
How did you I mean, did yourecognize that you were
intentionally making a choicethat was different than your
intentionally making a choicethat was different than?
Malisa (32:40):
your sort of your home environment.
Well, I don't know if I saidthis, but that was my first
husband.
I've been married twice but Idon't think so.
I don't think it wasintentional because I I had been
very attracted to anything Icould fix Anything.
(33:01):
So previously it was maybe thebad boy, because they showed
their pain the way I was used toseeing their pain shown.
But all of a sudden I startedkind of being attracted.
I mean, this is the same aboutmy current husband too Like he's
so quiet and whatever.
Like I started picking thequiet ones because I was like I
can fix you.
There was something aboutwanting to fix them really
(33:23):
honestly.
But I think I I don't rememberif I said this the other day
when I was thinking about this,but I believe wholeheartedly
that was my higher self helpingme out there because I wouldn't
be here anymore if I had pickedsomebody volatile.
(33:43):
I truly do believe that was myhigher self just guiding me
along the way, because that man,for all of his faults, was
exactly what I needed at thattime in my life.
You know, like I moved out of mygrandma's house immediately
following high school and Ilived in an apartment with like
(34:04):
not in that relationship forlike four months and then I met
him and a lot of crazy thingskind of happened around that
time and he was such a safeperson and so was like his
family, you know.
And so that was the first reallook into a different kind of
life that I ever really had.
I mean, they were in starkcontrast from what I was being
(34:27):
raised in.
I mean they had their ownissues which I learned.
Like you know, higher classdoesn't mean that they don't
have a lot of the same stuff, itjust looks different.
You know what I mean.
But no, I just believe it wasmy higher self, because I picked
them based off the samecriteria I picked ever, which
was let me try to fix you.
That's how I went for friends,that's how I went for boys, like
(34:48):
everything.
Mary (34:49):
Yeah, yeah.
So you had you hit the burnoutpoint, right.
And that's when you decided I'mgoing to start a podcast.
I'm going to start a podcast,I'm going to.
So that to me sounds like youwere at a low point, right.
How did you find that energy todecide I'm going to step into
(35:09):
this whole other world andreally facilitate healing for
other people?
Malisa (35:16):
It was slow.
It was a slow process because Ididn't even have half of the
information that I have now.
So I it kind of started withcreative projects that I could
just zone out or get into a flowstate in to to just feel a
different energy.
For a couple of hours I wascrying a lot because I had
(35:39):
started this like road tobecoming more emotionally
available prior to this pinnacleof a mental health crisis.
So I kind of was incorporatingsome of the things I was
learning from that.
That was scratching the surfaceat trying to be more vulnerable
.
Like I literally had no clue.
I felt broken.
I felt really broken and like Ihad there, none of this up here
(36:02):
was ever going to change.
And so, yeah, I just kind ofstarted doing creative projects.
I had energy because I wasworking in education and had a
bunch of like days off saved andand I used them.
I used them and I would be.
I was creating like what mynext life was going to look like
(36:23):
and that's kind of thebeginning of it.
The podcast man you want to talkabout tech issues.
I had so many problems.
I was like perfect is the enemyof good.
I'm not going to sit aroundoverthinking this, I'm going to
just start it.
And we learned by Google.
You know, like every littlestep I would just learn.
I paid for so much stuff in thebeginning, like editing
(36:46):
software or whatever, like Ijust had no clue what was out
there, and so, like I used torecord on Google Meets, but then
when I wanted to do like thevideo on YouTube, I couldn't
find a good like way to do that.
So, like I've switched thingssince then, but I just was like
one day at a time I was, I wasreally focused on being present
(37:10):
and mindful, because that'swhere I had been struggling for
like a year.
Like I was so in such a badplace I would get lost, like
walking from my bedroom to thekitchen because I was just so
dissociated, you know, like Iwould start walking and then why
am I in the hallway?
Where was I going, you know?
(37:31):
And so I would have to walkback and forth.
It got to where I wouldliterally tell my family, like
if I would be walking from thekitchen back to my bedroom to
grab something, I'd say guys,I'm doing this.
So if I don't remember this infive minutes, please remind me
what I'm doing.
Literally that's where I hadgotten to.
So I was working really hard onbeing present and mindful, but
it was just.
It was a lot of crying, a lotof crying and just putting my
(37:55):
energy into things that lit meup.
You know what I mean Like thatthat's been something that I
stay really consistent about isthe things that lit me up.
You know what I mean Like thatthat's been something that I
stay really consistent about isthe things that I don't want to
do.
I just don't do them until I'vedone something that really
lights me up.
I started going in nature more,you know, getting in the sun
more, like things like that.
Mary (38:15):
Yeah, and I think the one of the messages that I'm hearing
from this is that sometimesthere's a middle ground where
you feel like, am I ever goingto get through this?
And I think that is when justhang on to a little bit of hope,
because there's not.
Really.
It doesn't sound like youdidn't go somewhere and you
(38:38):
didn't go to chat GPT and say,print out a list of what I have
to do to get to the other sideof this.
You had to live in it.
Malisa (38:44):
And.
Mary (38:45):
I think sometimes we underestimate when we're trying
to find space for lots oftraumatic things.
It's exhausting, it's your bodygets exhausted and I think
that's where especially women gothrough that.
Why am I so tired?
And we assign this word of lazyto it.
And it's no, it's.
(39:05):
We don't just have parts, wedon't have a spirit separate
from our emotions, from our mind, from our body.
It's all one thing.
So when you have had a lot ofthings happen, it's going to
affect every part of you.
Malisa (39:20):
Yeah, and just the exhaustion of it's, like how you
push through when you'rerunning long distance and then
you have to have that recoveryperiod, like it was really
intense because for the firsttime in my life, I'm allowing
(39:42):
myself to experience feelingsAgain.
At that stage I didn't know how, so I was working really hard
to feel instead of think and wasstill trying to learn how to
stop like overthinking.
And you hit on this in yourintro too, when you talked about
the childhood narratives.
(40:02):
That is where I reached my mylike mental health crisis.
Those narratives have gotten soloud in my voice, but saying
such contrasting things, I feltlike I was going crazy and I
have a schizophrenic brother.
My mother was also diagnosedwith schizophrenia.
I now believe wholeheartedlyshe was going through what I
(40:30):
went through, because she justdescribed it the one time we
ever talked about it as meanvoices, and I'm like, no, oh my
gosh, this is what she had.
I get this now and, honestly,my podcast saved my life because
I had a guest on and she justgave me information in a way
that, like it finally clicked,like that was the way that I
(40:50):
finally learned how to quiet thenoise.
She works with a guy named TroyLove who's a LCSW in Arizona.
He has something called thefinding peace Method and then
this workbook called the FindingPeace Workbook.
He breaks shame down intodifferent archetypes and I was
like, yes, first of all, I'm notcrazy If you've written an
(41:12):
entire book about symptoms I'mexperiencing and that it's
common.
Okay, great, and I'm not broken.
There is hope.
Like I had been left feelingreally hopeless because, like I
was still carrying all thisshame about my reactivity
Because that's not what it wascalled People are like you're
(41:32):
mean and like also my grandmatormented me with it, like
because I had been reactive mywhole life and so she'd be like
you're mean my whole life, andso she'd be like you're mean and
like your brother, my littlebrother.
He has such a better heart thanyou, he has a heart of gold and
(41:52):
you are, your heart is blackand you are just so mean and the
way you talk to me or talk topeople, blah, blah, blah.
There was truth.
I mean, I was mean to her.
Like you know, as an adult,like I, my reactivity was normal
teenage stuff, honestly.
And you know, like, grow up,grandma, but like it got worse
throughout the years becausethere was all this resistance
I'm trying so hard not to, byusing self-control and
(42:16):
discipline that I don't have.
So, like you know, like ah no,you just pushed that wrong
button, grandma, you know, andshe knew exactly how to push the
button.
So, like that, that became ourdynamic oftentimes.
But understanding that, that'sall this was like it's not you,
melissa, it's programming you'vereceived.
And so I went through thatprocess of externalization.
(42:37):
You know where I'munderstanding it's not me and I,
you know, assign these thingsand whatever.
And then I got my brain quietand for the first time in my
entire life, I had control overwhat I was doing up here and
what I was saying to myself.
And man, that was really kindof the real beginning for
(43:01):
everything, like I had quit myjob and whatever.
But I met her right at the endof cause.
Like I went, I worked in thatschool until, let's say, the
middle of May.
Um, I met her somewhere inthere.
So then I spent that summerkind of figuring things out, you
know what I mean.
And then I was like man, I'm ina really good place, and that's
(43:23):
when I started my privatepractice.
Mary (43:25):
Yeah Well, and you talk about that inner critic and I
think we often don't know tillsomebody points it out that the
things we say to ourselvessomebody else often said to us
when we were a kid and when wefinally recognize because you
funny, we believe the adults inour lives when we're kids,
(43:45):
because, right, that's whatyou're supposed to do.
So if somebody says you have ablack heart, it's like, oh man,
I must be a bad person, but it'sabout you were human, you were
a hurting kid.
And that's where the idea ofthe resilience and positive
psychology comes in, because weall survive our childhood the
(44:06):
best way we know how and youmentioned sometimes fawning,
sometimes you know, we all havethe instinctive way we handle it
, and later it's when we realize, oh, this isn't working anymore
, and then we have to reevaluateand switch it up.
But we're just doing the bestwe can, absolutely.
Malisa (44:24):
Yeah, and I, you know, like there's so much forgiveness
that you have to extend toevery previous version of you.
I wish that that wasn't thecase.
I wish that we didn't, you know, get so down on ourselves that
this is such a necessary step in, you know, moving forward.
But I mean, I'm constantlyfinding ways where I'm holding
(44:48):
some previous version of meresponsible in a way that's just
unnecessary, unhealthy, andjust have to forgive those
things that I did, because I canhonestly say I did the very
best I could with theinformation I had.
Yeah, if I had this information,I wouldn't have behaved that
(45:10):
way.
I my life was pretty miserableon the inside for 43 years, like
, as much as I was trying sohard to not feel that way, most
of the time I wasn't really atruly happy individual.
So, like, yeah, I would haveloved to have had better
(45:33):
information and to utilize it,but I didn't.
And now I do, and now I justhave to remember all the time
that that doesn't mean I'm goingto do it right every single
time.
You know what I mean.
Yeah, and I'm just kind oflearning to like lean into the
idea that sometimes it's not aswrong as you think it is Like
(45:54):
it's just what it was in thatmoment.
We assign so much morality andemotion to some experiences that
really could otherwise bebenign if we didn't attack it
with the things that we areprogrammed to believe, you know.
Mary (46:07):
Yeah, and all of this, I think, is the way through shame,
because we feel that shame andthen we stay quiet or we think
nobody will understand.
Nobody else does all thesethings I do.
And knowing that we really, whywould we not do the best we can
, Even if to someone else itlooks like?
Why is she a brat?
Why you know what is happening.
(46:28):
We all are just trying, basedand I talk about nature all the
time.
We're wired to react a certainway.
So if I was a kid growing up inyour home, I would have reacted
differently, Maybe I would haveacted out, Maybe I would have
been more like your brothers.
But we instinctively do what wecan do, based on how we're
wired and what environment wegrow up in.
(46:50):
And it's later, as you'resaying, you get these insights
and being sort of forgivinggentle to that kid, that
teenager, that young woman thatreally just was hurting and lost
and trying to do the best thatshe could to get through life.
Malisa (47:10):
Absolutely, and I think that was the first step to to
then being able to offer thatcompassion and understanding to
everyone around me.
Because you shift your paradigm.
When you start to see thatthey're doing this because of
them, not because of me, I canlook at them and go how do I do
(47:33):
that too?
Like we're really I don'tbelieve any different.
Honestly, like, yeah, some ofour behavior is different and
whatever.
I think our core motivators arepretty similar, our core
narratives are pretty similar,and so, as I was very, very
committed to the idea thateveryone in your energy is just
like a projection of you orreflection of you, and so I
(47:56):
started to be like okay then,because I was still kind of
victimizing myself in mymarriage at that point, because,
while I'm not like a full typeA person, I can get scheduled
and organized.
You know what I mean.
Like I can, I can get my lifetogether.
My husband is the exactopposite of that, like literally
the most disorganized personI've ever met in my life, can't
(48:18):
be on time anywhere, you know,like all the things, and it was
something that was coming up alot, and I'm like I'm so tired
of the same fight, like, and Iwas trying to decipher how
important it was for me to workthrough the fact that I felt
unsafe because of him beingunreliable you know, like how
(48:41):
serious is this?
Blah, blah, blah.
And as I was sitting there, Iwas like, okay, well, I'm
committed to this belief that Ihave heard about and believe
that anything that I am judgingor hating in someone else is
directly tied back to somethingI hate in myself.
And so I was like, well, I justdon't think that's true.
(49:03):
You know like.
And so I just sat and I workedthrough it and, like him making
messes, I was like, well, no,it's, I don't hate that about
him because I'm messy, I'm notmessy.
And then I was like I'm messy.
Mary (49:14):
I'm messy.
Malisa (49:16):
I'm so messy, and what I was actually upset about was
the fact that I need his help.
I need his help with the thingsthat he's not showing up on
time for or remembering at all,like whatever.
I need his help and I can't doit all by myself, which I'm
programmed to believe I shouldbe able to.
You know what I mean, and solike it's things like that, and
so when I was like okay, so ifwe strip away morality and we
(49:38):
strip away emotion, what we'releft here is we need a system,
and that's all it is Like what.
I'll be honest, we have notfound that system yet.
We're we're, you know, stillmakes me mad all the time, but
I'm not sitting here just likeassigning value to it that it
can be a benign experience, andso that's really what I work
really hard to do is just toshift that paradigm and go.
(49:58):
First of all, how do I do thattoo?
Because I know I do, I know Ido this too.
So how?
And then when you go, well, Ido it because of this.
Well, baby, that's why they doit too.
So you know, there are thingsthat are really serious and
there's that whole idea ofunforgivable and whatever.
(50:18):
And I'm not here to dispute anyof that.
I'm talking about this normaleveryday stuff where we are
really victimizing ourself, andI don't want to trigger anyone
with that either, because Iremember being really triggered
by that before I understood it.
But all I know is for me, I waswalking around just believing
myself to be, at my core,unlovable, and doing all kinds
(50:42):
of things to confirm that bias.
So that was me victimizingmyself.
And now, in this empoweredplace, I'm not going to take
anything personally.
I might for a minute or 24hours, you know.
Like yeah, I'm a human.
Like, yeah, I might for aminute, but I'm not going to be
knocked off center ever, becauseI'm very centered in the fact
(51:04):
that nothing external of mechanges my worth or value as a
human, you know.
Mary (51:09):
Yeah, wow, what beautiful icing you just put on the cake
that we baked together today.
It was a good cake, wasn't it?
Yes, a great cake.
And your energy.
I just I love it.
And this was a great cake andyour energy.
I just I love it.
And this was a tremendousconversation.
You are so inspiring with whatyou have worked through and what
(51:32):
you're doing now because peopleyou got to check out you have
so much on your website youwrote the coolest books so tell
us a little bit about wherepeople can find you and what you
do to help people about wherepeople can find you and what you
do to help people.
Malisa (51:46):
I am super active on Instagram at melissaheppner, and
my name is spelled M-A-L-I-S-A.
My parents thought they werecute and so that makes it tricky
.
But on Instagram is my linktree.
Link tree will take youanywhere else you can find me.
My website is justempoweredwithmelissahepnerorg.
I have most of my links thereas well.
(52:07):
I think I have forgotten toupdate a workbook or two link on
there as well.
I offer guidance sessions.
I have workbooks available.
Like I try to make those reallyaffordable and accessible.
They're just instant downloadsand I put a new one out every
month.
I've kind of just recentlystarted that.
One is like to help you withthat overthinking.
(52:29):
You know it's got a quick stepguide in there.
So like, okay, you'vediscovered, like oh, I'm really
tense right now, what's going on.
Oh, I was overthinking how towork through that.
One is about overcomingperfectionism.
One is called surviving theshit.
Show how to like build up yourinner world when the world
around you is falling apart.
So some of that is really goodfor people who are, like
(52:50):
currently living in real stressor survival mode, and I plan to
do more with things like that inthe future.
And then I've got books onAmazon.
I mean, I've got books otherplaces like the same books other
places, but Amazon's just soeasy.
So if you just put my name intoAmazon, it'll show you.
I've got my little story, myfirst book, owning my Crazy
(53:12):
Learning to Survive Trauma,which I wrote prior to a severe
mental health crisis, but it's,you know, I at least I found a
way to share my story for thefirst time, really, and so that
was nice.
Um, I, I did a revamped thingof that because I wanted to
release it to a wider market.
Um, so it's out there.
But and then I, just I did somecute little children's books
(53:36):
that I did from, like my days asa school counselor, like
lessons that I had taught thechildren I created stories about
.
That was my creative projectsduring that time of like early
healing.
So those are available.
But yeah, and then my podcastis called Emotionally
Unavailable, but I've got linkson my link tree for that.
Mary (53:56):
And we will link all that in the show notes.
I was a school counselor too,were you really?
Yes, mostly high school, but Idid spend a year and a half in
elementary school, which wassuch a shock after high school
because I'm standing theresinging to kindergartners, but
anyway, it was part of thejourney.
So thank you so much for beinghere today.
This has been awesome.
Malisa (54:17):
Thank you for having me.
Mary (54:18):
I've had such a great time , sure, and thanks to everyone
for listening.
Please forward this episode toanyone who you believe would
feel inspired by Melissa's storyand, until next time, go out
into the world and be theamazing, resilient, vibrant
violet that you are.
Thank you.
Welcome to no Shrinking Violence.
I'm your host, mary Rothwell,licensed therapist and certified
integrative mental healthpractitioner.
I've created a space where wecelebrate the intuition and
power of women who want to breakfree from limiting narratives.
We'll explore all realms ofwellness what it means to take
up space unapologetically, andhow your essential nature is key
(00:28):
to living life on your terms.
It's time to own your space,trust your nature and flourish.
Let's dive in.
Hey, violets, welcome to theshow.
I was recently listening to anepisode of the podcast Hidden
Brain and the subject was traumaand how we process it.
(00:48):
The guest was George Bonannoand he's done research on
suffering, grief and tragedySounds like a really happy job
and how we think about it todayversus how we did in the past.
One aspect of the show wasexploring the idea that
therapists believe that peopleoverall are more traumatized
than what his findings wouldindicate.
(01:08):
As a therapist myself, I havemany thoughts about that.
First, obviously, we see apopulation that, percentage-wise
, does have more trauma.
That's why people often go totherapy.
But mainly, I believe that manypeople overall think about
trauma and its impact in a muchdifferent way than we did when I
was young.
(01:28):
Okay, I'm a Gen Xer, as theysay.
I was raised on hose water andneglect.
Well, I was raised on hosewater, for sure, and actually
was shocked when, as an adult, Isaw that there was a lead
warning on new hoses and I drankout of hoses when I was a kid.
But neglect, well, not exactlywe just.
(01:49):
Well, we didn't have Google, wedidn't have cell phones and
basically we had to live by ourwits.
But as far as trauma, mostparents of Gen Xers literally
did not have the language tohelp us process hard things.
As humans, we're made towithstand trauma.
We're nature, just like forestsand grasslands regrow after
fires.
We're resilient.
(02:10):
Our brains protect us when weexperience anything similar to
what created the trauma.
So, for example, let's say oneday you're making toast and
happen to look out the windowand see your dog get hit by a
car, and now, anytime you smelltoast, you get a wash of anxiety
and you have no idea why.
And when we have reactions likethis but don't have the benefit
(02:30):
of insight, we start to believewe're broken.
Or the critical voices fromchildhood start to get a bit
louder, saying things like comeon, what is wrong with you?
Get over it.
We are so complex and the sameevent can affect two different
people in vastly different ways.
That doesn't mean one is morehealthy than the other.
There are so many issues thatimpact our ability to bounce
(02:53):
back from stuff, but the thingabout trauma is that air and
light are what helps to heal it.
Stuffing it down into anairtight, dark compartment in
our brain doesn't so.
Between the hidden brain episodeand reading about my guest
today, melissa Heppner, I havebeen thinking about the idea of
resilience and healing,specifically in the case of
(03:13):
trauma.
Because Melissa experiencedtrauma from a young age and when
it reasserted itself later inlife in the form of burnout
because those pesky traumareactions find sneaky ways to
get our attention, she chosesome unconventional strategies
to move through and past it.
Melissa is a licensed clinicalsocial worker in Oklahoma, an
(03:35):
author and podcast host of theEmotionally Unavailable podcast.
After reaching burnout in everyarea of her life, she decided
to give healing one more chanceand she went big.
She quit her job, started apodcast and opened a private
practice.
She is now teaching others howto rid themselves of shame and
find unconditional love, bothfor themselves and for each
(03:58):
other.
Malisa (04:00):
Welcome to no Shrinking Violets.
Melissa, sorry, I unmuted andit took me forever to find the
unmute.
Hi, thank you, what a greatintroduction.
I'm so excited to be here.
Mary (04:11):
Yeah, I'm here.
I'm glad you're here, okay, andI love that we had a little
technical issue and we are bothpodcast hosts, see nobody's
perfect right Exactly.
Malisa (04:19):
I love it.
Mary (04:20):
A little peek behind the curtain, folks.
Okay, so I would love to startfirst with the parts of your
story, because you have quitethe story that you feel are most
important to where you like, toyour journey and where you are
today.
Malisa (04:34):
Well, oh, my goodness, the most important parts.
You know, sometimes people wantme to get into the deep dark
because it does show myresilience, and so, like just to
briefly summarize, I had addictparents.
I was in the hospital by twomonths old, from quote unquote
(04:55):
failure to thrive, but it wasbecause I would.
You know, they were doingthings like putting orange juice
in a bottle instead of formula.
You know things like that.
So neglect, um, lots of backand forth between my parents and
my grandparents, and then backand forth between my mom and my
grandma, because then even mygrandpa left us.
It was a good thing, he was nota good dude.
(05:18):
And then there was a lot ofevery level of abuse that you
can have in childhood andincarcerations from both of my
parents, my mom more than my dadactually.
And then, when I was 15, my daddied of a morphine overdose.
And there was still more traumapiled on after that because my
(05:41):
brother's responses to that, mygrandma's response to it, in
that she was like continuallyminimalizing and trivializing my
experience with losing my dad,because I wasn't like going off
the walls and starting a drughabit, running away from home,
being institutionalized, beingsent to boot camp for bad kids
(06:03):
like my brothers.
You know, there's like allthese things that they were
doing to live their pain outloud and I was continuing to be
the golden child and you know.
So it was a really frustratingexperience to be like, oh, I'm
not upset about losing my dad,because I'm doing exactly what
you've trained me to do, whichis to live to please you, what
(06:26):
you've trained me to do, whichis to live to please you.
And then you know, high school,after losing my dad, was just
like really surreal for me.
I think I had an expanded levelof consciousness then, just
understanding like some of thestuff we care about as kids
doesn't really matter.
So I felt pretty like separatedfrom my peers.
I went through real isolationand I think probably actually,
(06:48):
as I'm saying that, I'm probablyrealizing for the first time in
my life that that was thebeginning of me pushing people
away because I was protectingmyself.
But in my head that went verydifferently.
So that was probably just anepiphany I just had in real time
.
Yay, but yeah, so then I'm alittle embarrassed about this
(07:10):
part.
I could have made much worsedecisions for myself.
Honestly, I made really gooddecisions for bad reasons, like,
because I'm just doing it toprove my family wrong, prove to
myself that I am better than allof them.
Blah, blah, blah.
Very motivated by spite, if youwill, one of the things that I
did.
I picked a very sweet partner,very calm, very docile, very
(07:34):
loving, nurturing, but I was 18when I met him and lost my
virginity to him, and because ofa program that I had received
from my grandma and thereligious institutions I was a
part of, you know, because Ilost my virginity.
That sin, though, could then beabsolved if I married him, so
we were married when I turned 20.
Mary (07:55):
Wow.
Malisa (07:56):
And then, because I thought it was a good idea, I
had my first kid at 22.
And it was when I was pregnantwith him that I lost my mom to
complications related tocirrhosis and hep C, and it was
a little bit of a three-weekordeal.
She was actually presentlyincarcerated when that whole
thing happened.
(08:16):
So then I can't even say that Ireally grieved because I was
pregnant and I was just blockingeverything out and like I'm
going to be the best mom ever,blah, blah, blah, and so that
was kind of the beginning ofadulthood in real life for me
and believing that my childhoodhadn't really had an impact, as
(08:37):
if all those little decisions Ihad just made in the last two
years four years weren'tdirectly related.
But the reason that I just gavesuch a brief summary of
childhood is because I love whatyou said in your intro.
I'm a zennial, so you know,baby Gen X, elder millennial I'm
in that last three months ofGen X and that's what I've
always identified as.
(08:57):
So but it was the emotionalneglect that really, really left
me with so many wounds Likephysical traumas.
Yes, there is stuff and I'm notgoing to say that it doesn't
have a profound impact on you,but it was the things that
(09:18):
everyone in my generationexperienced that really shut me
down.
I think that, along with all ofthe really big T traumas that I
also experienced, you know, itleft me in a very battered place
internally where I just didn'tlook at any of that because I
wasn't aware of it and I didn'twant to be aware of it.
(09:38):
I just wanted to move on withmy life and do better than they
did.
But I'm so excited that that'skind of the angle we're taking
in this conversation, because asa therapist, that's the thing
that people have such a hardtime understanding is there can
be two perspectives that you canhold at the same time, in that
your parents this is the firsttime that they are living they
(09:59):
did the best they could and alsowhat they did sucked and it
wasn't enough yeah you know, youdon't have to be angry about it
, you don't have to hate them,you don't have to anything, but
you do have to acknowledge thatit did do some things that left
you with some maladaptive coping, because I get it, I've
repeated plenty of thosepatterns with my own children
(10:20):
you know what I mean, so likeit's easy to extend them
compassion.
Now that I see oh gosh, I didthat too.
I see how you get into asituation Like if you have no
idea how to sit with somebodywhen they are uncomfortable or
they're expressing emotions.
Our parents did what everybodydid, which was either completely
(10:41):
rescue you from the experienceyou know, attempt to, or dismiss
you because it dismisses theirown discomfort with sitting with
you in your emotions or yourexperience.
So, yeah, that was kind offiguring out that my wounding
was so much more from that typeof stuff.
I mean, and I was raised by anarcissistic grandma on top of
(11:03):
all of the like, from zero to 18, it was nothing but chaos,
nothing Every day.
Every day was chaos.
So, yes, that my poor littlebrain was not prepared.
I was a completely reactiveperson.
With strangers or people Iwasn't that close to, I would
freeze or fawn and then I'd gohome and think about it for days
(11:26):
and days and days and you know,wish I had said something.
Or you know what I'm going todo next time With people I cared
about.
Oftentimes I didn't sayanything either, but I could
sometimes, just from acompletely triggered place,
react and just be really justrude, and that was something I
(11:46):
carried a lot of shame about.
But anyway, that was a lot.
Mary (11:50):
Yeah, no, that was great.
The one thing you said that Iwant to tease apart a little bit
is you mentioned big T.
So you know, for me I feel likethere's trauma, like there's
trauma that gives youpost-traumatic stress disorder,
and then there are traumaticevents.
We all have traumatic events.
So, in saying that there's alsonow the complete opposite of
(12:12):
what we're talking about withGen X, in that, like on TikTok,
there's trauma dumping.
So we have so gone the otherway.
And so when you say this big T,how do you think about that?
How do you sort of do you inyour mind, either for your life
or your clients, do you kind ofseparate out these typical
(12:35):
things in life, like losingsomeone you know, and it doesn't
have to be this, if it's aviolent death that you witnessed
, that's something that cancause PTSD.
If you have someone in your lifewho's ill and you lose them.
That's a traumatic event.
They're separate and I'm notsure that everyone recognizes
(12:55):
that's the case.
What do you think about that?
Malisa (12:59):
I think what you're saying is very true.
I don't know that I do a lot ofseparating, just because I
think what I find the most isthat the people who come to me
are already fighting for thespace to grieve or to have, you
know, feelings related to theirexperiences.
(13:20):
And or that's just the filterthat I'm using to see because I
was that person myself who justconstantly felt like when I lost
my parents, I felt like Ireally had to fight for the
space to grieve that because Iwasn't like raised by them every
day of my life, as if losingyour parents in itself, like
(13:41):
even we know now, adoption is atrauma, like you know.
But you know in the ninetiesthat we didn't know anything
about anything, and so I feltvery minimalized and trivialized
by everyone around me.
So, no, I don't do a lot ofseparation.
In fact, I'm probably alwayspointing out like well, just
(14:04):
because that's not like the wayyou define trauma doesn't mean
that it's not one.
And like I do a little bit ofwork still for the hospice that
I used to work full time for foryears, I do a little bit of
bereavement calls for them andI'm constantly having to tell
people like hey, before youthink that you know you just
(14:24):
need to get busier, to keep yourmind off of it and whatever,
you need to acknowledge thatyour body is experiencing this
with you because it is atraumatic event and so, like,
maybe a glass of water showering, you know, like, take care of
your physical self first,because the things that you're
doing are just going to lead youto a really bad place if you
don't stop and acknowledge like,oh, it's a trauma, it's not
(14:48):
just a loss.
Mary (14:49):
Yeah, and that's not to minimize anything.
I think sometimes there can bean idea and I think it's among
younger people that whensomething traumatic happens,
they've been damaged and youknow, we are certainly all
shaped by it.
That's why we end up withdifficulty, because something
happened that was difficult,whether it was these things
(15:09):
you're talking about, that werethings that many people really
can't relate to.
They hear it and they're likehow is she sitting here with us
today?
But then there are, you know,just a really significant
breakup with someone you know,these things are all traumatic
events.
Yes, they all shape us.
(15:30):
So I think, recognizing thatwhen something happens that's
really painful, we are made tobe resilient and sometimes you
need to process that.
And sometimes you need toprocess that and I think,
conversely, I can imagine inyour situation, people might
have felt for you like, well,look what kind of parents she
(15:50):
had, why would she be grievingthem?
We make a lot and this was inthat Hidden Brain episode we
make a lot of judgmental well,judgments.
We make a lot of judgmentsabout how other people grieve
things.
Yes, judgments.
Malisa (16:04):
We make a lot of judgments about how other people
grieve things.
Yes, absolutely.
Mary (16:06):
That's a very personal and individual process.
Malisa (16:10):
I actually think that's a beautiful example of the way
we've been programmed to dismissothers, to dismiss our own
discomfort, because I think whathappens is you see somebody
hurting, instinctively, you'regoing to feel compassion, and
that compassion brings your ownlevel of pain if you care about
this person, and so then we justfind a way to poo-poo their
(16:32):
experience so that we can shovewhat we're feeling down.
I was the worst about this, butI see this all the time, even
on tiktok.
I'm glad you brought it upbecause I'm addicted a little
bit, but like I don't know ifyou've watched the new
documentary out on Netflix,unknown Number High School.
Mary (16:53):
Catfish, I read about it and what the ending is and, yes,
I did watch it.
Yeah, I can't even imagine.
Malisa (17:00):
And so now the big discourse on TikTok is I'm not
going to spoil it for anyone,but like, why would this certain
individual respond this way?
And I'm like, oh guys, give ita break.
Like, why are we still doingthis?
And so I'm like, ok, well, tellme, you haven't gone through
something in this manner withouttelling me.
(17:22):
Like, you just don't understandit.
Like, but it's what we do.
When we see the most atrociousnews, we go well, I mean, if
they hadn't done such and suchand such and such.
Like you know, when people losetheir infants to like SIDS,
well, they had unsafe sleepingpractices, okay, and that really
(17:45):
sucks for them.
But I used to do it too.
I used to dismiss the plight ofothers just because, I mean, I
did a lot to dismiss my owndiscomfort for myself too.
But that was what I had trainedmyself to do, and I think
that's kind of what most peopleare accustomed to doing.
Mary (18:00):
Yeah Well, we like to think about the world in black
and white.
You know you're either reactingright or you're not reacting
right, so true, yes, yeah, and Ithink that that's such like a
theme of perfectionism.
Malisa (18:13):
That's so.
It's been really sneaky for meEven just this last week.
I don't know if I was onsomeone else's show or they were
on mine and they said somethingabout yeah, and it's OK that
you didn't do that perfectly.
And I don't know if I was onsomeone else's show or they were
on mine and they said somethingabout, yeah, and it's okay that
you didn't do that perfectly.
And I don't remember what itwas even, but I was like, oh,
you're right, I was upset againat myself that I did something
(18:34):
imperfectly and I find thattheme coming up a lot and most
people I know struggle withforms of perfectionism.
They're not aware of it, Like,and they're so painfully unaware
that, if I like just pointedout, without leading them to the
water, they reject the notionimmediately.
But it is like that's ourentire generation, we were
(18:58):
taught serve to your own demise.
Compliance above all, because Imean that was that was
disguised as respect your elders, but it was compliance above
all.
And second to that is Puttingthe comfort of others ahead of
yourself as the rule.
And then right underneath, thatis, you are a direct reflection
(19:23):
of me and you will never bringshame to our family name.
That was deeply ingrained inall of us.
So I mean, if that's themessaging that you're getting
literally every minute of everyday, like maybe you do look cute
in those pants, but I don'tlike the way they make our
family look, you know?
I mean, you're just constantlycriticized.
We're all battlingperfectionist standards, all of
(19:46):
us.
Mary (19:47):
Yeah, and even now, in the age of social media, it's a
very, it's perfectionism in adifferent way, because filters
and you know, and this hasevened and I think it's
overcorrected in maybe the otherdirection.
But initially, when socialmedia started, people only ever
posted like looking perfect,being happy.
(20:08):
Now we've gone to the otherdirection of like look how
miserable I am, which you know,there's a space for that, that's
another episode.
But I think we can fall intothat trap of thinking what we
are seeing is what I mean.
Even I, when I am on you know,a camera angle or something
where there's no filter, I'mlike, oh my God, and then I have
(20:30):
to remind myself that'sactually what I look like in
real life.
So yeah, but, we get so used toseeing everyone looking their
best that that comparison can bereally hard too, and we just
need to know, like that's why Ilove the fact that when we
started, your mic was muted, andI love that because and even
(20:50):
we're both saying, even with thework we do, we are far from
okay every day, and I think it'sreally important for people to
hear that over and over again.
So when they have that day,there isn't that shame.
Malisa (21:03):
Absolutely, and that's been probably.
When I say that the work I'mdoing is to rid ourselves of
shame and to teach you how tolove yourself and each other a
little bit better, that's thecore of it.
Right there, our shame isdirectly related to the fact
that we're not perfect, and whenyou can get really raw and
(21:24):
right in the middle and just go,yeah, I'm actually pretty great
.
If I'm going to compare myselfto you know, mother Teresa, yeah
, I'm not.
I'm not going to look so hot,but like I'm actually a pretty
great person.
And that was my journey, was Iwas doing?
I like to do like full moon,new moon stuff.
(21:44):
I was doing an identity auditfor like a new moon and I had
been future self-journaling fora while and it was all related
to my reactivity.
It was all related to myreactivity and I had just been
imagining myself as thisperfectly zen, perpetually
unbothered person, I mean, andit was a very peaceful energy
(22:07):
when I would get into that asI'm imagining it.
And it became a great, you know, regulation tool.
But but it wasn't realistic andit wasn't until I got to a
place where I was looking at allthe characteristics I had put
down about myself and I was like, okay, I really actually like
(22:28):
this fire that I've recentlylearned to hold in myself, like
I had learned to advocate inmyself.
I was no longer freezing orfawning.
I was being authentic in mycommunication as much as I could
at that point.
But I was on a journey to bemore vulnerable and to just, you
know, lean into who I wanted tobe in any given moment, and
(22:51):
part of that included harnessingthis fire in myself for the
first time ever.
And I was like, okay, that Ican't be Buddha and this at the
same time.
And I like this, I like my fire, I like that.
I can be zany and quirky andyou know like, yeah, there are
(23:12):
parts of me that really aresuper Zen and unbothered.
And then there's parts of methat are purifier, and if you
mess with someone I love, that'sgonna be shown and I like that.
And so I was like I don't wannaextinguish this.
And as I was kind of justworking through that, I thought
I'm already all of this stuff.
Like the only thing I'm not iszen, but all of these things
(23:37):
that I'm working so hard to be,I'm already all of those things.
I need to un-be, a few things.
You know I needed to un-be asreactive and protective and all
of the things, but like it wasthe first time in my life that I
could look at myself and go,baby, you are fine.
Like what are we doing?
And that was a huge shift in mylife because it was the first
(24:00):
step towards that realcultivation of self-love and it
just tore me open and I wasfinally ready to receive the
things that I had been justpushing and pushing and pushing
out, because I just didn'tunderstand.
I mean, just like I'm stillsurprised to this day.
That wasn't my first identityaudit, you know what I mean.
(24:21):
But like, whatever I waswriting that day was the thing
that made something click in meand I've had like a really
privileged opportunity to deepenthat lesson and get deeper
understandings.
But that's the point is tounderstand you're great Exactly
how you you are.
That doesn't mean like somethings don't need to change.
But I was guilty of using thatlanguage of when I'm better,
(24:44):
like one day I'm gonna be allbetter, and blah, blah, blah.
And I mean I think that youknow that just comes from the
fairy tales we were fed aschildren too and we think that,
like utopia is going to exist orsomething.
I don't really know.
But I know for myself I wasn'tgoing to be rude ever or yell at
my kids ever or, um, push myfriends away out of the
(25:08):
self-protection I wasn't gonnado any of that anymore.
And now I'm fully comfortablewith saying I do some of that
still.
Absolutely I'm rude.
Ask my husband.
I you know I I'll notunderstand why I'm pushing
someone away, but I'll see thatI'm doing it and I'll just say,
like, let's chill a minute, likeyou know you don't have to talk
to them today, but let's figureout what's actually going on.
(25:30):
You know all those things, andthat is how you can rid yourself
, slowly over time, of theperfectionism and to cultivate
that love that we're looking for.
Mary (25:40):
Yeah, and we never arrive.
I think there's that idea thatwe arrive and you know.
To go back to what you saidabout the rules that we followed
, and another that I'll add fromchildhood is children are seen
and not heard.
So you know we got thesemessages consistently.
So, of course, when we havesomething like a fire or an
(26:01):
anger, we were taught that's notokay, you're hysterical, you're
crazy, you're too sensitive.
I say all the time take up yourspace.
And I think there are stillwomen that are like, okay, like
I feel that, but I don't knowwhat that means, because like
you're saying it's scary torealize, oh crap, like I'm
(26:30):
feeling all this down here.
And there's still the socialscripts of like don't lose your
shit, because that means you'rea crazy bitch.
Malisa (26:35):
Absolutely, absolutely Well, and like again, it's so
sneaky, like you, you programmedyourself on top of the
programming that you've received, so, like, layer after layer,
for me it really cause I waslike real, like I am emboldened
Right, but like after, like I'vereached healed or whatever.
(26:56):
Um, and in my podcast I startedkind of lighthearted because I
was afraid of going.
I didn't want listeners to belike, hey, I don't want to
listen because it's too deep ortoo serious.
I also didn't talk aboutdeconstructing from religion for
a while.
I also didn't talk aboutastrology for a while and then I
(27:16):
also didn't talk about otherwoo-woo stuff I'm into for a
while, and just more and moreand more.
I mean I think I'm pretty nowvery open and I just check
myself and say like, okay, am Isaying no to that because I'm
afraid of a response.
And listen, that's not to saythat there's been several
(27:36):
episodes that before posting Iwill be threading a little bit,
like considering editing somethings out.
But I'm really that committedto this that I will not.
But I'll be sitting there withmy tummy on fire like, oh, just
that one line.
If I could just take that oneline out, you know.
But I'm really committed to it,because I, you know, I teach
(28:00):
people all the time like yourpeople are looking for you and
they can't find you if you'recontinuing to wear a mask.
Like all of us, you know, or somany of us, find ourselves to
be in this lonely place or inneed or desire a community, and
we cut ourselves off from thecommunity by being like fake
about who we are.
You know, we're not showingthem our real selves, and so I'm
(28:22):
a person still in like, I'mstill seeking community myself,
and so it's important to me tojust be really truthful about
how I feel about things andabout how I mess up all the time
, because I mean healed doesn'tmean perfect.
Mary (28:42):
No, and you even brought up.
Your instinct when you were, Iguess, a teenager was to keep
people at arm's length, becauseif they reject you, then they're
rejecting that sort of hardcactus-like exterior.
But if you are authentic andthey reject you, they're
rejecting you.
But I think people forget theflip side of that, and that is
(29:05):
when you are truly who you areand somebody loves you just, and
it doesn't mean they're alwaysgoing to agree with you.
Love doesn't mean you know,like you're a doormat or the
other person's a doormat.
If they really love you just asyou are, that is the most
powerful feeling in the world.
Malisa (29:22):
Yeah, and I think for me , I just started understanding
like this love that we cultivatefor ourselves is the only real
love.
You share that energy withothers and they share theirs
with you, but this is why wekeep.
I mean, I was a person who feltlike I loved everybody in my
life far more than they loved me, and I was on the periphery of
every relationship and that likethey needed me but they could
(29:44):
also live without me and I wasvery convenient for them.
I mean, none of this is true,but it was all what I was really
set on believing.
And when I started to feel thatlove again, I had this moment.
I was like, oh OK, this is whatthey're talking about.
And I remember going to myhusband and being like you do
love me Because I've been, youknow, up to that point.
(30:06):
It had been like 10 years of mejust saying all the time like
you don't love me, believing hewas unfaithful for literally no
reason, because I was superinsecure, all of the things Like
I had, just, you know again,other ways to keep myself
separate from him.
I was very I will reject beforeI can be rejected, and that
(30:27):
showed up in a lot of sneakyways too.
But you know, when you'recarrying that narrative of I'm
too much and not enough all atthe same time, it's a very scary
world to try to let people in.
And you're exactly right Rejectme for the parts of me that
aren't real, and then that'smuch less painful than I'm
completely vulnerable with youand you reject me.
Mary (30:48):
And.
Malisa (30:48):
I've had.
I've had people reject thisreal version of me and that was
a process to work through.
I just learned like yourstuff's about you, my stuff's
about me and I really don't care.
Yes, the human in me.
When I say I really don't care,that does not mean that for
three days I wasn't processingthe fact that somebody asked to
(31:08):
not air their episode becausethey didn't like kind of me as a
person, like I was cussing,because I'm a cusser.
I mean I wish they had listenedto five seconds of a show
before they had, you know, askedto come on, because it would
have been really obvious that Isay the F word a lot.
But I just processed it likebecause I was like this really
isn't about me, this is aboutthem, like the way they want to
(31:32):
be perceived or whatever, butlike it's not about me and so
(31:53):
you know that little convergenceof your human self and your
highest self and be like holyshit.
Mary (31:58):
But you don't know any different.
And I think as we move into theworld, I've had clients say to
me why do I keep making thesechoices in these partners?
And it's like, well, it's allyou know.
It's like living in a city andthen you go to the country,
which is what I prefer.
I love the quiet, and they areso unnerved by the quiet they
are coming out of their skin.
So how were you?
(32:20):
You said you initially chose apartner that was the antithesis
of that.
Right Calm, you know, you're inhigh school, the you when you
got married.
How did you I mean, did yourecognize that you were
intentionally making a choicethat was different than your
intentionally making a choicethat was different than?
Malisa (32:40):
your sort of your home environment.
Well, I don't know if I saidthis, but that was my first
husband.
I've been married twice but Idon't think so.
I don't think it wasintentional because I I had been
very attracted to anything Icould fix Anything.
(33:01):
So previously it was maybe thebad boy, because they showed
their pain the way I was used toseeing their pain shown.
But all of a sudden I startedkind of being attracted.
I mean, this is the same aboutmy current husband too Like he's
so quiet and whatever.
Like I started picking thequiet ones because I was like I
can fix you.
There was something aboutwanting to fix them really
(33:23):
honestly.
But I think I I don't rememberif I said this the other day
when I was thinking about this,but I believe wholeheartedly
that was my higher self helpingme out there because I wouldn't
be here anymore if I had pickedsomebody volatile.
(33:43):
I truly do believe that was myhigher self just guiding me
along the way, because that man,for all of his faults, was
exactly what I needed at thattime in my life.
You know, like I moved out of mygrandma's house immediately
following high school and Ilived in an apartment with like
(34:04):
not in that relationship forlike four months and then I met
him and a lot of crazy thingskind of happened around that
time and he was such a safeperson and so was like his
family, you know.
And so that was the first reallook into a different kind of
life that I ever really had.
I mean, they were in starkcontrast from what I was being
(34:27):
raised in.
I mean they had their ownissues which I learned.
Like you know, higher classdoesn't mean that they don't
have a lot of the same stuff, itjust looks different.
You know what I mean.
But no, I just believe it wasmy higher self, because I picked
them based off the samecriteria I picked ever, which
was let me try to fix you.
That's how I went for friends,that's how I went for boys, like
(34:48):
everything.
Mary (34:49):
Yeah, yeah.
So you had you hit the burnoutpoint, right.
And that's when you decided I'mgoing to start a podcast.
I'm going to start a podcast,I'm going to.
So that to me sounds like youwere at a low point, right.
How did you find that energy todecide I'm going to step into
(35:09):
this whole other world andreally facilitate healing for
other people?
Malisa (35:16):
It was slow.
It was a slow process because Ididn't even have half of the
information that I have now.
So I it kind of started withcreative projects that I could
just zone out or get into a flowstate in to to just feel a
different energy.
For a couple of hours I wascrying a lot because I had
(35:39):
started this like road tobecoming more emotionally
available prior to this pinnacleof a mental health crisis.
So I kind of was incorporatingsome of the things I was
learning from that.
That was scratching the surfaceat trying to be more vulnerable
.
Like I literally had no clue.
I felt broken.
I felt really broken and like Ihad there, none of this up here
(36:02):
was ever going to change.
And so, yeah, I just kind ofstarted doing creative projects.
I had energy because I wasworking in education and had a
bunch of like days off saved andand I used them.
I used them and I would be.
I was creating like what mynext life was going to look like
(36:23):
and that's kind of thebeginning of it.
The podcast man you want to talkabout tech issues.
I had so many problems.
I was like perfect is the enemyof good.
I'm not going to sit aroundoverthinking this, I'm going to
just start it.
And we learned by Google.
You know, like every littlestep I would just learn.
I paid for so much stuff in thebeginning, like editing
(36:46):
software or whatever, like Ijust had no clue what was out
there, and so, like I used torecord on Google Meets, but then
when I wanted to do like thevideo on YouTube, I couldn't
find a good like way to do that.
So, like I've switched thingssince then, but I just was like
one day at a time I was, I wasreally focused on being present
(37:10):
and mindful, because that'swhere I had been struggling for
like a year.
Like I was so in such a badplace I would get lost, like
walking from my bedroom to thekitchen because I was just so
dissociated, you know, like Iwould start walking and then why
am I in the hallway?
Where was I going, you know?
(37:31):
And so I would have to walkback and forth.
It got to where I wouldliterally tell my family, like
if I would be walking from thekitchen back to my bedroom to
grab something, I'd say guys,I'm doing this.
So if I don't remember this infive minutes, please remind me
what I'm doing.
Literally that's where I hadgotten to.
So I was working really hard onbeing present and mindful, but
it was just.
It was a lot of crying, a lotof crying and just putting my
(37:55):
energy into things that lit meup.
You know what I mean Like thatthat's been something that I
stay really consistent about isthe things that lit me up.
You know what I mean Like thatthat's been something that I
stay really consistent about isthe things that I don't want to
do.
I just don't do them until I'vedone something that really
lights me up.
I started going in nature more,you know, getting in the sun
more, like things like that.
Mary (38:15):
Yeah, and I think the one of the messages that I'm hearing
from this is that sometimesthere's a middle ground where
you feel like, am I ever goingto get through this?
And I think that is when justhang on to a little bit of hope,
because there's not.
Really.
It doesn't sound like youdidn't go somewhere and you
(38:38):
didn't go to chat GPT and say,print out a list of what I have
to do to get to the other sideof this.
You had to live in it.
Malisa (38:44):
And.
Mary (38:45):
I think sometimes we underestimate when we're trying
to find space for lots oftraumatic things.
It's exhausting, it's your bodygets exhausted and I think
that's where especially women gothrough that.
Why am I so tired?
And we assign this word of lazyto it.
And it's no, it's.
(39:05):
We don't just have parts, wedon't have a spirit separate
from our emotions, from our mind, from our body.
It's all one thing.
So when you have had a lot ofthings happen, it's going to
affect every part of you.
Malisa (39:20):
Yeah, and just the exhaustion of it's, like how you
push through when you'rerunning long distance and then
you have to have that recoveryperiod, like it was really
intense because for the firsttime in my life, I'm allowing
(39:42):
myself to experience feelingsAgain.
At that stage I didn't know how, so I was working really hard
to feel instead of think and wasstill trying to learn how to
stop like overthinking.
And you hit on this in yourintro too, when you talked about
the childhood narratives.
(40:02):
That is where I reached my mylike mental health crisis.
Those narratives have gotten soloud in my voice, but saying
such contrasting things, I feltlike I was going crazy and I
have a schizophrenic brother.
My mother was also diagnosedwith schizophrenia.
I now believe wholeheartedlyshe was going through what I
(40:30):
went through, because she justdescribed it the one time we
ever talked about it as meanvoices, and I'm like, no, oh my
gosh, this is what she had.
I get this now and, honestly,my podcast saved my life because
I had a guest on and she justgave me information in a way
that, like it finally clicked,like that was the way that I
(40:50):
finally learned how to quiet thenoise.
She works with a guy named TroyLove who's a LCSW in Arizona.
He has something called thefinding peace Method and then
this workbook called the FindingPeace Workbook.
He breaks shame down intodifferent archetypes and I was
like, yes, first of all, I'm notcrazy If you've written an
(41:12):
entire book about symptoms I'mexperiencing and that it's
common.
Okay, great, and I'm not broken.
There is hope.
Like I had been left feelingreally hopeless because, like I
was still carrying all thisshame about my reactivity
Because that's not what it wascalled People are like you're
(41:32):
mean and like also my grandmatormented me with it, like
because I had been reactive mywhole life and so she'd be like
you're mean my whole life, andso she'd be like you're mean and
like your brother, my littlebrother.
He has such a better heart thanyou, he has a heart of gold and
(41:52):
you are, your heart is blackand you are just so mean and the
way you talk to me or talk topeople, blah, blah, blah.
There was truth.
I mean, I was mean to her.
Like you know, as an adult,like I, my reactivity was normal
teenage stuff, honestly.
And you know, like, grow up,grandma, but like it got worse
throughout the years becausethere was all this resistance
I'm trying so hard not to, byusing self-control and
(42:16):
discipline that I don't have.
So, like you know, like ah no,you just pushed that wrong
button, grandma, you know, andshe knew exactly how to push the
button.
So, like that, that became ourdynamic oftentimes.
But understanding that, that'sall this was like it's not you,
melissa, it's programming you'vereceived.
And so I went through thatprocess of externalization.
(42:37):
You know where I'munderstanding it's not me and I,
you know, assign these thingsand whatever.
And then I got my brain quietand for the first time in my
entire life, I had control overwhat I was doing up here and
what I was saying to myself.
And man, that was really kindof the real beginning for
(43:01):
everything, like I had quit myjob and whatever.
But I met her right at the endof cause.
Like I went, I worked in thatschool until, let's say, the
middle of May.
Um, I met her somewhere inthere.
So then I spent that summerkind of figuring things out, you
know what I mean.
And then I was like man, I'm ina really good place, and that's
(43:23):
when I started my privatepractice.
Mary (43:25):
Yeah Well, and you talk about that inner critic and I
think we often don't know tillsomebody points it out that the
things we say to ourselvessomebody else often said to us
when we were a kid and when wefinally recognize because you
funny, we believe the adults inour lives when we're kids,
(43:45):
because, right, that's whatyou're supposed to do.
So if somebody says you have ablack heart, it's like, oh man,
I must be a bad person, but it'sabout you were human, you were
a hurting kid.
And that's where the idea ofthe resilience and positive
psychology comes in, because weall survive our childhood the
(44:06):
best way we know how and youmentioned sometimes fawning,
sometimes you know, we all havethe instinctive way we handle it
, and later it's when we realize, oh, this isn't working anymore
, and then we have to reevaluateand switch it up.
But we're just doing the bestwe can, absolutely.
Malisa (44:24):
Yeah, and I, you know, like there's so much forgiveness
that you have to extend toevery previous version of you.
I wish that that wasn't thecase.
I wish that we didn't, you know, get so down on ourselves that
this is such a necessary step in, you know, moving forward.
But I mean, I'm constantlyfinding ways where I'm holding
(44:48):
some previous version of meresponsible in a way that's just
unnecessary, unhealthy, andjust have to forgive those
things that I did, because I canhonestly say I did the very
best I could with theinformation I had.
Yeah, if I had this information,I wouldn't have behaved that
(45:10):
way.
I my life was pretty miserableon the inside for 43 years, like
, as much as I was trying sohard to not feel that way, most
of the time I wasn't really atruly happy individual.
So, like, yeah, I would haveloved to have had better
(45:33):
information and to utilize it,but I didn't.
And now I do, and now I justhave to remember all the time
that that doesn't mean I'm goingto do it right every single
time.
You know what I mean.
Yeah, and I'm just kind oflearning to like lean into the
idea that sometimes it's not aswrong as you think it is Like
(45:54):
it's just what it was in thatmoment.
We assign so much morality andemotion to some experiences that
really could otherwise bebenign if we didn't attack it
with the things that we areprogrammed to believe, you know.
Mary (46:07):
Yeah, and all of this, I think, is the way through shame,
because we feel that shame andthen we stay quiet or we think
nobody will understand.
Nobody else does all thesethings I do.
And knowing that we really, whywould we not do the best we can
, Even if to someone else itlooks like?
Why is she a brat?
Why you know what is happening.
(46:28):
We all are just trying, basedand I talk about nature all the
time.
We're wired to react a certainway.
So if I was a kid growing up inyour home, I would have reacted
differently, Maybe I would haveacted out, Maybe I would have
been more like your brothers.
But we instinctively do what wecan do, based on how we're
wired and what environment wegrow up in.
(46:50):
And it's later, as you'resaying, you get these insights
and being sort of forgivinggentle to that kid, that
teenager, that young woman thatreally just was hurting and lost
and trying to do the best thatshe could to get through life.
Malisa (47:10):
Absolutely, and I think that was the first step to to
then being able to offer thatcompassion and understanding to
everyone around me.
Because you shift your paradigm.
When you start to see thatthey're doing this because of
them, not because of me, I canlook at them and go how do I do
(47:33):
that too?
Like we're really I don'tbelieve any different.
Honestly, like, yeah, some ofour behavior is different and
whatever.
I think our core motivators arepretty similar, our core
narratives are pretty similar,and so, as I was very, very
committed to the idea thateveryone in your energy is just
like a projection of you orreflection of you, and so I
(47:56):
started to be like okay then,because I was still kind of
victimizing myself in mymarriage at that point, because,
while I'm not like a full typeA person, I can get scheduled
and organized.
You know what I mean.
Like I can, I can get my lifetogether.
My husband is the exactopposite of that, like literally
the most disorganized personI've ever met in my life, can't
(48:18):
be on time anywhere, you know,like all the things, and it was
something that was coming up alot, and I'm like I'm so tired
of the same fight, like, and Iwas trying to decipher how
important it was for me to workthrough the fact that I felt
unsafe because of him beingunreliable you know, like how
(48:41):
serious is this?
Blah, blah, blah.
And as I was sitting there, Iwas like, okay, well, I'm
committed to this belief that Ihave heard about and believe
that anything that I am judgingor hating in someone else is
directly tied back to somethingI hate in myself.
And so I was like, well, I justdon't think that's true.
(49:03):
You know like.
And so I just sat and I workedthrough it and, like him making
messes, I was like, well, no,it's, I don't hate that about
him because I'm messy, I'm notmessy.
And then I was like I'm messy.
Mary (49:14):
I'm messy.
Malisa (49:16):
I'm so messy, and what I was actually upset about was
the fact that I need his help.
I need his help with the thingsthat he's not showing up on
time for or remembering at all,like whatever.
I need his help and I can't doit all by myself, which I'm
programmed to believe I shouldbe able to.
You know what I mean, and solike it's things like that, and
so when I was like okay, so ifwe strip away morality and we
(49:38):
strip away emotion, what we'releft here is we need a system,
and that's all it is Like what.
I'll be honest, we have notfound that system yet.
We're we're, you know, stillmakes me mad all the time, but
I'm not sitting here just likeassigning value to it that it
can be a benign experience, andso that's really what I work
really hard to do is just toshift that paradigm and go.
(49:58):
First of all, how do I do thattoo?
Because I know I do, I know Ido this too.
So how?
And then when you go, well, Ido it because of this.
Well, baby, that's why they doit too.
So you know, there are thingsthat are really serious and
there's that whole idea ofunforgivable and whatever.
(50:18):
And I'm not here to dispute anyof that.
I'm talking about this normaleveryday stuff where we are
really victimizing ourself, andI don't want to trigger anyone
with that either, because Iremember being really triggered
by that before I understood it.
But all I know is for me, I waswalking around just believing
myself to be, at my core,unlovable, and doing all kinds
(50:42):
of things to confirm that bias.
So that was me victimizingmyself.
And now, in this empoweredplace, I'm not going to take
anything personally.
I might for a minute or 24hours, you know.
Like yeah, I'm a human.
Like, yeah, I might for aminute, but I'm not going to be
knocked off center ever, becauseI'm very centered in the fact
(51:04):
that nothing external of mechanges my worth or value as a
human, you know.
Mary (51:09):
Yeah, wow, what beautiful icing you just put on the cake
that we baked together today.
It was a good cake, wasn't it?
Yes, a great cake.
And your energy.
I just I love it.
And this was a great cake andyour energy.
I just I love it.
And this was a tremendousconversation.
You are so inspiring with whatyou have worked through and what
(51:32):
you're doing now because peopleyou got to check out you have
so much on your website youwrote the coolest books so tell
us a little bit about wherepeople can find you and what you
do to help people about wherepeople can find you and what you
do to help people.
Malisa (51:46):
I am super active on Instagram at melissaheppner, and
my name is spelled M-A-L-I-S-A.
My parents thought they werecute and so that makes it tricky
.
But on Instagram is my linktree.
Link tree will take youanywhere else you can find me.
My website is justempoweredwithmelissahepnerorg.
I have most of my links thereas well.
(52:07):
I think I have forgotten toupdate a workbook or two link on
there as well.
I offer guidance sessions.
I have workbooks available.
Like I try to make those reallyaffordable and accessible.
They're just instant downloadsand I put a new one out every
month.
I've kind of just recentlystarted that.
One is like to help you withthat overthinking.
(52:29):
You know it's got a quick stepguide in there.
So like, okay, you'vediscovered, like oh, I'm really
tense right now, what's going on.
Oh, I was overthinking how towork through that.
One is about overcomingperfectionism.
One is called surviving theshit.
Show how to like build up yourinner world when the world
around you is falling apart.
So some of that is really goodfor people who are, like
(52:50):
currently living in real stressor survival mode, and I plan to
do more with things like that inthe future.
And then I've got books onAmazon.
I mean, I've got books otherplaces like the same books other
places, but Amazon's just soeasy.
So if you just put my name intoAmazon, it'll show you.
I've got my little story, myfirst book, owning my Crazy
(53:12):
Learning to Survive Trauma,which I wrote prior to a severe
mental health crisis, but it's,you know, I at least I found a
way to share my story for thefirst time, really, and so that
was nice.
Um, I, I did a revamped thingof that because I wanted to
release it to a wider market.
Um, so it's out there.
But and then I, just I did somecute little children's books
(53:36):
that I did from, like my days asa school counselor, like
lessons that I had taught thechildren I created stories about
.
That was my creative projectsduring that time of like early
healing.
So those are available.
But yeah, and then my podcastis called Emotionally
Unavailable, but I've got linkson my link tree for that.
Mary (53:56):
And we will link all that in the show notes.
I was a school counselor too,were you really?
Yes, mostly high school, but Idid spend a year and a half in
elementary school, which wassuch a shock after high school
because I'm standing theresinging to kindergartners, but
anyway, it was part of thejourney.
So thank you so much for beinghere today.
This has been awesome.
Malisa (54:17):
Thank you for having me.
Mary (54:18):
I've had such a great time , sure, and thanks to everyone
for listening.
Please forward this episode toanyone who you believe would
feel inspired by Melissa's storyand, until next time, go out
into the world and be theamazing, resilient, vibrant
violet that you are.
Thank you.
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