January 2, 2024 • 59 mins
When the world seems to spin into chaos, where do we find the strength to confront the pain within us? Join me as trauma recovery coach Deanne Smith shares her profound insights on navigating the stormy seas of personal and collective trauma. Together, we dissect how these deep wounds impact our rationality and emotional well-being, and why it's crucial to not only advocate for peace but also to engage in the hard work of healing. Deanne draws from her own life story, inviting us into the vulnerability and resilience required to mend the scars left by our past.
Life's darkest moments can feel insurmountable, and sometimes, we find ourselves reaching for anything that might offer a fleeting escape. This episode illuminates the lesser-seen coping strategies, from the clutches of addiction to the false sanctuary of gambling, that many grasp at in hopes of relief. But it's within these narratives of struggle where we unearth the turning point—the courage to choose life, to walk towards recovery, and to begin crafting a life worth cherishing. Deanne's own leap from the brink serves as a powerful testament to the transformative decisions we're all capable of making.
Healing isn't a solo journey—it's a tapestry woven with threads of faith, personal accountability, and the sharing of our most intimate tales. We discuss how embracing a connection to a higher power can guide us through life's harshest trials and the remarkable health transformations that can occur when we listen to our intuition and turn towards alternative healing practices. By the end of our conversation, it's clear that sharing our stories isn't just cathartic for us—it has the potential to light the way for others, encouraging them to find solace and strength in their own paths to peace.
Please visit us at: http://retreattopeace.com to find out more about the shows you love to listen to, the upcoming retreats we have planned and your favorite merchandise to help support those in need. Also, send us your testimonial of how the show or Catherine has helped you. We would love to share your story on the air.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 2 (00:35):
Hey you, wherever you are in the world right now.
Thank you so much for beinghere with me.
We know that we live in somevolatile times and we know that
the world is changing.
So let's create a bridge as wetravel through one another's
countries, removing all thelabels, coming together as one
people, finding our home in oneworld.
(00:58):
And as we do this, this is whyour signature talk today we are
designed to heal is so important.
So settle in, as I welcome myguest, deanne Smith.
Hi, deanne, hello, I'm soexcited to be here.
Oh, my goodness, thank you somuch for being with me today.
(01:19):
So Deanne is an artist, a mother.
She's an addict in 20 plusyears of recovery and has spent
her life struggling with theeffects of early childhood and
ongoing complex trauma, beingdiagnosed in 1998, at age 31,
(01:39):
with post traumatic stress.
She helped this helped her tounderstand that she was
struggling and why she wasstruggling, but in spite of
doing her best to avoid it, shebecame disabled in 2002.
And today she is a traumarecovery coach, using her
experience and skills to teachothers that each of us holds the
(02:02):
keys to our own healing and wecan use them to set free
ourselves from devastations, oftrauma.
Holy, freaking moly.
Do I understand all of that,deanne, and I appreciate your
transparency and coming forwardand the vulnerability to be able
(02:23):
to do this particular show withme, because I understand how
difficult this could be for alot of people to just come out
and use their voice.
And I know, in a world thatwe're living in right now, it's
really interesting because theentire globe is experiencing
(02:44):
some level of trauma,unknowingly, because literally
everything that they used toknow has been stripped from them
.
People have lost jobs, they'velost their loved ones, in some
cases to COVID.
There's been so much upheavaland there's a lot of grief and
there's a lot of trauma that'soccurring in the world.
Now, when you look at this,like what?
(03:07):
From your perspective?
What do you see?
Speaker 1 (03:13):
Based on my personal experience with trauma and all
the things that I haveresearched and studied, my
perspective is that very fewpeople get into adulthood, or
very far into adulthood, withoutexperiencing trauma.
So right now there are a lot ofpeople saying, oh, the whole
(03:36):
world is going through atraumatic experience, but what
I'm seeing is new trauma on topof old trauma, unresolved trauma
, which just magnifieseverything, intensifies
everything, and so people areespecially like in social media.
(03:57):
People are talking about brokenfamily relationships because of
this current circumstance andlosing friends on social media
and so much anger and so muchangst and frustration and I feel
like a hammer and everything isa nail.
I see trauma.
(04:18):
I just see trauma after traumaafter trauma.
All of these responses, all ofthis misery is based on trauma.
The first thing trauma does isit reduces our capacity to
access our rational thinking,because that response to trauma
(04:40):
comes out of our instincts whichwe don't have conscious control
over.
So we're being extremelyemotional and we become more and
more rational the more intenseit gets, because our rational
mind is being removed from ouraccess more and more.
So the longer it goes on, themore rational everyone becomes.
The more emotional we become,the less we think and I've just
(05:07):
watched this thing just it'slike a snowball, an avalanche
going downhill.
The longer it goes on, thebigger it gets, and it just
breaks my heart because what I'mseeing is the growth of the
devastation, of trauma, andthat's not something that
(05:27):
everybody's talking about.
They're going.
Oh, we need to be calm and weneed to be peaceful, we need to
be kind of, but it's really hardto do that when you, when
you're feeling all of thoseemotions, everything becomes
personal, and knowing, knowingthat we need to do that and
being able to do that are twodifferent things.
(05:48):
So it's, it's been really hardto watch.
Speaker 2 (05:53):
Yeah, and I think you're exactly right when you
say that it's highlighting othertraumas that people have
experienced during theirlifetime.
And one of the things that Italked about is being a little
girl locked in a closet and mymother closes the closet door
(06:14):
and the closet shelf falls ontop of my back and my body
retained that information on acellular level.
Now, I didn't know that goingthrough my life, but I
definitely, I definitely knewthat when I was going through
therapy and literally could feelthe pain in the cells of my
(06:37):
back, like literally could feelthat and I think that's what
most people don't understand isthat when we go through
traumatic situations, we hold onto that in the memory of
ourselves.
So, for most people in theUnited States, when 9 11
happened, you know exactly whereyou were, you know what you
(06:57):
were doing, who you were withand you could in detail outline
everything about where thatmoment was for you and what it
looked like.
And, interestingly enough, thiscurrent environment that we're
living in in this space is anenvironment is such that we are
also retaining information on acellular level of this period of
(07:21):
time.
So it's really, reallyimportant that we recognize that
and, to your point.
It's not being discussed enough, it's not being talked about,
and we do need to talk about it.
So people have this awareness ofthis is what trauma feels like,
right?
So let me ask you I know thatyou have, you know, this
(07:45):
extensive experience in crisisand trauma and unfortunately, I
you know it's something thatnobody wants to have, but I
personally, for me personally, Ilook at my own experience as
being gifted to me to use it forgood, which is what I'm doing
in the world today.
(08:05):
But for people that areexperiencing the heaviness of
the weight of how we're livingtoday, a lot of people cannot
decipher how to move through itand what to do with it.
So they're turning to vices.
So they may be smoking.
They may be, you know, doingdrugs or eating really crappy
(08:28):
food.
You know doing things to theirbodies that they really know is
not helping them, but it justkind of, for a moment, they
think it makes them feel better,but they're actually
manifesting more harm withinthemselves.
So I know you have thisextensive information that you
(08:48):
can talk to around this.
So I'm going to give you thefloor for a minute and if you
could just jump in and share alittle bit about.
You know some of the some ofwhat's going on in people that
are using these vices and howyou can relate to that in what
to do with it, maybe.
Speaker 1 (09:06):
I remember when I was in active addiction and I was
at a clinic, there was aundergraduate in social work who
was asking clients if theywould be willing to be
interviewed for a researchproject.
I was like sure, why not?
(09:27):
And so the question, theprimary question that she was
trying to get information about,was why do people who don't
have much money, who live indifficult circumstances, who are
struggling in life, why do theyspend their resources and their
(09:49):
time and their energy gettinginto substance abuse?
Because it's not logical, itdoesn't make sense.
Because if you've got limitedresources, then whatever you,
whatever those resources youinvest in a vice of any kind,
(10:11):
whether it's alcohol or drugs orfood or whatever it is.
Whatever you're investing yourresources in diminishes those
resources for basic needs likehousing and gas, for your car to
go to work and stuff like that.
And I explained to her it'sreally not about anything that
(10:37):
makes sense when you are in asituation where you feel trapped
.
And being in a situation whereyou feel trapped and you're
miserable, so your ability toyour capacity or your
opportunity to feel less trappedby doing something or to
(11:01):
actually change the situation sothat you're not miserable, when
that is out of your hands, thenit's just basic, automatic,
thoughtless response to findsomething to feel better in the
moment.
If I can't make this go away, Ican take a vacation from it.
And people who get into viceslike this I'm gambling, you know
(11:29):
.
I mean there's some reallyserious financial losses that go
into gambling and yet many ofthe people who are caught up in
gambling don't have much in theway of money to spend.
They're doing it because theythink they're going to get a
windfall, but that's not reallywhat keeps them going back.
It's the adrenaline and theendorphins and stuff.
(11:50):
It's a chemical response thatwe get caught up in and we don't
want to let go of.
But that's not the point I wasmaking.
The point I'm making is thatwhen we feel trapped, we look
for some way to avoidexperiencing what we don't want
to experience.
And the choice to use somethingto take a mental vacation and
(12:25):
escape that way is not justhuman, it's also animals.
I mean water buffaloes in awar-torn African country found
hallucinogenic wild plants whenthey couldn't escape the effects
(12:45):
of the war and had themselves aparty, chilled out by the river
and took a mental vacation fromthis dress.
They were living it.
It's a response that is very,very natural.
It's just not healthy and welive with the consequences of it
, just as we do any other choicewe make.
(13:08):
So the answer to that woman'squestion was if I'm stuck in a
situation where I absolutelyhave no choice but to experience
something that I reject isacceptable, I'm going to use
whatever resources I have toescape it.
And if I can't physicallyescape it, if I can't alter it
(13:31):
materially, then I'm going totake a mental vacation, I'm
going to alter my chemistry, I'mgoing to invest my attention in
a way that's going to let meavoid experiencing something
that I can't tolerate.
And I was surprised that thatwasn't something she had already
(13:58):
thought of, but it seemedobvious to me.
Of course, I was in activeaddiction and I was asking
myself why am I doing this?
It's not about rationality, it'snot about intelligence, it's
not about anything that makesany sense, because it doesn't.
It's a need to escape, and whenyou feel trapped and there are
(14:22):
no other avenues, the mind is awondrous thing and we can use it
to escape what isn't tolerableTrauma.
Long-term trauma consequencescome out of exactly that
scenario.
So we may be adding trauma whenwe get into an addictive
(14:44):
situation, but in the moment,that's our instinctive response
to what we can't accept, what wecan't tolerate.
And so it works, in the momentit works.
Speaker 2 (14:59):
Yeah, and I know for a lot of people too, and it's
also work.
There's people that are usingwork to escape the trauma that
they're experiencing.
So, you know, sometimes it'snot even drugs or alcohol or,
you know, sex or whatever.
(15:20):
It could be the financial stuff.
It could be work as well.
So I think that's important tomention as well.
But, with your particularjourney through life and
congratulations on you know,being 20 years plus in recovery,
that is amazing and what atestament to your courageous
(15:42):
bravery.
You know, just facing that whenyou are in the height of your
addiction to make that decisionto, you know, just fight with
everything you had to not livein that space anymore and avoid
the experience, as you had said.
So for people around the worldthat are listening right now,
(16:05):
dan, is there any tools or anysuggestions that may help anyone
listening that may be thinkingwell, I could just do this and
it will allow me to avoid thisexperience.
Like, what would you say tothem?
Speaker 1 (16:28):
The truth is that I did not choose to end my
addiction until it was a choiceof do I want to live or die?
I got into addiction because,underneath all of my thinking
and all of my circumstances, tome at that time in my life, life
(16:56):
was a trap that I needed to getout of.
As a child, I went to bed everynight asking God, please don't
make me wake up, let me comehome.
I want to come home.
This is not home.
I don't belong here.
Let me come home.
And that did not go away when Igot into adulthood.
And so, by the time I got intoaddiction, that was a really
(17:22):
powerful motivation for almosteverything in my life.
And one day I looked in themirror and said you're at a
point where you get to make achoice Do you want to live or do
you want to die?
And you know, up until you getto that point where you're
(17:44):
actually confronting the realityof death, it's easy to
hypothesize, to guess whatyou'll do and how you'll feel
about it.
But I surprised my own self inthat moment because I looked in
myself and said I really don'twant to die.
And that was the last thing Iexpected when I was sitting and
(18:10):
having a conversation withmyself, when I was looking
myself in the eye.
I really didn't want to die,and all of these years I had
spent praying to die.
All of these years I hadengaged in self-destructive
behavior, hoping that you know,when this is over, I won't have
to deal with it because I won'tbe here anymore.
(18:31):
But when it came right down tothe moment when I was staring a
decision in the face and knowingthat my next action would
determine whether I lived ordied, I didn't want to die.
And when I made that decision,then I knew it was just a matter
of being congruent with myselfto stop wrestling with something
(19:00):
that I now understood aboutmyself, which was that I really
did want to live, I wanted life,and that it was up to me to
turn that situation intosomething that was a life worth
having.
And you know, by the time youget to that point in addiction,
you've already tried all theother ways.
(19:21):
You know to turn yourcircumstances around and to
create the life that you want.
And generally, what happens,especially for people with
trauma in their history, evenwhen they don't know that the
trauma is in their history, theykeep bumping into these
invisible walls.
They try to do something thatlooks simple, it looks
reasonable, and they fail at it.
(19:43):
And it happens over and, overand over again and they don't
understand why.
So at that point, when I madethe decision I wanted to have a
life, I looked for resources Ihadn't used before.
I looked for avenues that Ihadn't tried before, because my
perspective was different Upuntil that point, it was this
(20:03):
really sucks, I want out, Idon't want to live, I don't want
to experience this life.
From that point forward, it wasI want more, I want better, I
need to find a way to make itbetter.
And so I joined a 12 step group.
(20:26):
I found a counselor, I startedreading about recovery.
I started reading about.
I did, at this point, know thatI had trauma in my history.
This was after I was diagnosed,so I started pulling out
(20:49):
information that I could get myhands on about trauma, about
healing trauma, about what weunderstand what trauma is and
how it affects us.
And the most important thing Idid was I sat with myself All of
(21:14):
those years that I was findingmy life intolerable.
I was running from myself.
I started learning to read atthree, so books were my first
escape and I spent all of thoseyears trying to escape and that
meant that I did not spend timewith myself.
(21:36):
I didn't connect with myself.
The most important thing I didwhen I chose to create a life
worth living was I got to knowmyself and the books I read, the
counselors that I talked to,the people I met with they were
all very different.
I was very much in love withthem.
I was very much in love withthem in the 12 step program, I
(21:58):
mean, I went to church, peoplein church.
I took Bible classes, notbecause I hadn't ever had Bible
classes, but because I thoughtit would be good to be in that
environment to be reminded ofthe things I had learned in the
past that were uplifting.
All of those connections weredifferent because I wasn't
(22:20):
trying to get out of lifeanymore, because I was looking
for resources to help me changemy circumstances and change my
feelings, and that meant Ireally had to sit with myself
and I had to connect to myself.
So at that point the mostimportant thing I did was
(22:44):
reaching inside and examininginside and getting to know the
parts of me I didn't know, andreaching outside and getting to
know other people in a way Ihadn't gotten to know them
before.
That was harder for me, becausedisconnection from yourself
makes it almost impossible toconnect with others.
But because I was making thateffort, it was a gradual
(23:08):
improvement in both beingconnected to myself and to
others.
Speaker 2 (23:18):
Yeah, so if I could jump in for a second in prayer.
Prayer is a powerful, powerfulthing.
So I wanted to just go back tohow you were talking about
bumping into the invisible wallsand you have this reoccurring
pattern where it just keepshappening and happening.
(23:38):
And was there a defining momentwhere it became abundantly
clear, you know, kind of like anaha moment that you wanted to
go from living a life where youwere trying to escape it to
wanting to be part of it.
Was there a defining moment forthat?
Speaker 1 (24:05):
I was living with a guy that I thought was
absolutely wonderful.
He wasn't, but that was myperception.
I was five years into myaddiction and I had physically
(24:26):
been diminished so much by thoseyears of using the choice, that
defining moment when I had todecide do I want to live or die?
It was also a recognition thatmy body was going to collapse if
(24:48):
I kept going.
And that aha moment cameshortly after, sitting in a
crack house spending a windfallfor enough drug to potentially
(25:15):
kill me if I used it in acertain way.
And I heard God's voice in myhead.
Forgive me, this is verypowerful for me to recall.
(25:37):
I heard God's voice in my headand I said I really don't want
to be here.
And he said I know, and I'mreally angry at you, god.
And he said I know.
He said but I love you, you aremine and you're not done yet.
(25:58):
There's a purpose.
Did you have yet to complete?
And I said I don't want to stopthis.
And he said I know, but I'm notgoing anywhere.
I'm right here with you and I'mjust waiting for you to get to
(26:19):
the point.
When you're done, when you'redone, we'll move forward.
That night I smoked anastronomical amount of crack.
I drove myself back to my mom'shouse who was providing me with
(26:39):
a place to live and food to eat, and terribly upset about what
I was doing, but doing the bestshe could to love me.
And I looked at my stepfatherand said I think I just
overdosed, can you drive me tothe hospital please?
And he did, and at that point Igot into an outpatient detox
(27:08):
and recovery program.
It lasted about I don't knowsix or eight weeks.
That was my aha moment, thoughyou know, recovering from an
addiction like that isn't astraight line.
It's the same kind of thing asalcoholism.
You make a decision, you dowell, then boom, there you are
(27:29):
again and you have to pickyourself up and get back on
track and just recognize I'm notperfect, but I can still keep
going.
And that's what I did, but thatdefining moment you're talking
about, that was, was like oh,it's not up to me anyway, deanna
(27:53):
.
Speaker 2 (27:56):
I am wrapping my arms around you virtually and giving
you a hug right now.
I could feel all of what youjust said and it was amazingly
beautiful and powerful, and Ican only imagine the mixed
(28:17):
feelings that you had in thatmoment when God was speaking to
you.
I can only imagine you know thethe sense of questioning it or
the curiosity around it, andmaybe even you know I mean, it
sounds like for a moment you didwant to push it aside because
you continued on your path totry to overdose, and then you
(28:42):
retracted it because you knewthat that's not the direction
you wanted to take, which I'm soglad you did that, because you
know to have you here today tospeak to the audience and talk
about this intimate space ofyour life.
I can't even put words on it,but thank you for allowing us to
(29:04):
be in that space with you tohelp understand.
You know what this looks likefor a lot of families that are
going through this process withother people.
You know loved ones in theirlife, because it is a hard, hard
thing to do, but I think youknow.
Speaker 1 (29:22):
One of the things I'm wondering is did you have a
belief in God prior to Godshowing up in this moment, oh
yeah, it's interesting because II'm able to remember some of
the the earliest moments of life, before most people have any
(29:43):
memory, probably because a lotof trauma happened during those
first years.
But I remember having aconversation with my grandmother
when I was about three.
I had come home from Sundayschool and I had contemplated
all of this stuff that I hadlearned in Sunday school and I
remember announcing to mygrandmother I have mommy and I
(30:07):
have you and I have granddaddy,but I have one more parent.
And she's like, really, I saidI have God, god Jesus is my
brother and I have God.
Later, decades later, late inmy grandmother's life, I confess
(30:29):
to her that I had always had asense of God's presence in my
life.
I didn't always pay attentionto it, but that it was always
there.
And she looked at me and shesaid that's the Holy Spirit.
That's a gift and not everybodygets to experience that.
That's a gift and I'm I prayedfor you to have it right.
(30:56):
So, yeah, and and the truth isthat there was an awful lot
about my life that I just reallyI didn't blame God for it, I
was just angry that that hedidn't stop it from happening.
And, of course, the younger weare, the less we understand the
how that kind of thing worksanyways.
(31:17):
So I'm I Am grateful, I'mimmensely grateful, that at any
point in my life, from the timeI was at least three years old,
if not younger if I wanted topay attention, I Could sense
(31:37):
God's presence in my life, or Icould see God's hand in in what
was going on around me, nomatter how awful it was, and
some of it was truly awful andand not everybody, like my
grandmother told the truth, noteverybody has that.
But you know, I don't believethat God leaves us hanging
(32:00):
without support.
So if we don't have thatparticular experience of God,
there are other ways that heshows up that we can recognize.
All we have to do is payattention, to look for it, to be
aware of it.
For my mother, for my motherit's, you know, like the things
(32:21):
you're talking about, certainthings to show up repeatedly in
her life, little objects orImages.
So it's very different for her,but yeah, there's always some
way to know if you're interestedin looking for it and attention
.
Speaker 2 (32:37):
Yeah, in that aha moment that you had, it sounds
like that's when you fullysurrendered.
It's when you fully surrenderedand really I mean it brought
you to your knees and you werejust totally, you know, naked,
exposed and vulnerable.
And here I am and Mold me theway that you choose to mold me.
(33:00):
I mean that's what it soundslike to me.
Is that fair, the best?
Speaker 1 (33:05):
it was a task.
So there are multiple timesduring my life, before that
moment, where I had tried tocommit suicide and it didn't
work.
I there's nobody matter thansomebody who wants to die, who
tries to commit suicide, andthey wake up and they're still
alive.
That's really angry and thathappened multiple times and you
(33:26):
know, at some point I got towhere it was.
You know this is.
This is more trouble than it'sworth.
I'm gonna stop doing this.
But in that moment when I'mhaving this conversation with
God and he's telling me I havesomething for you to do.
You're not Coming home yet,it's not time, and I'm going to
be here with you througheverything.
(33:49):
I'm not going away.
You're not alone in this momentor in anything.
At that moment, what Iunderstood was I don't get to
choose.
I Didn't choose the moment ofmy birth.
I don't get to choose themoment of my death.
It's not up to me.
And I looked and it was like aflash, just a flash.
(34:14):
All the times that I hadattempted to get out of my life
and it didn't work.
And I'm like, oh, that's not.
I don't have that option, I'mnot in control of that.
That brought something home tome.
That's really hard to put inwords Because all the ways I've
heard it expressed sort ofdiminishes the, the, the potency
(34:38):
of the idea, but generally itgave me an understanding that a
promise that he had a purposefor me, that he gave me when I
was 20, was Not yet fulfilled,but that didn't mean it wasn't
going to be that I had a purposein this life and that I was not
(35:00):
going to be able to bail out onit just because I I went out
right, um, and so at that pointit was like, oh, god's in
control of this.
Now, I not everybody perceivesGod the same way.
I do not.
Everybody's faith is exactlylike mine and that's fine, but
(35:22):
it, I think that's, I thinkthat's a an understanding that
that transcends the divisions ofdifferent kinds of faith.
Um, however you, however anyone, might conceive the whole idea
of having a life purpose, Ithink this is true.
So, yeah, I hope that answeredyour question.
Speaker 2 (35:50):
Yeah, and I, I think you know I've actually have sat
in a spiritual service at aaddiction recovery center and it
was astounding to me how manyPeople that were in recovery had
(36:12):
gone up and had personaltestimonies of God showing up in
their life and it would justbring them to tears and make
them weep, because thatexperience was so powerful and
so life-changing, as it was foryou, and it just changed the
(36:33):
direction and the course oftheir entire life.
And I have heard this, you know, so many times.
Just, you know, being in theaudience of all of that, I
personally have never have gonethrough Addiction in that format
.
I was an, and I was an addictof work.
That was my addiction.
(36:54):
When I was trying to escape, Iwas trying to escape my traumas.
That was my addiction.
But I didn't even recognizethat until I was in adulthood
and had to face certain things.
We it's really interesting ashumans we have layers that we
have to shed and we'reconstantly, you know, changing
and moving through our process.
(37:15):
And One of the things that yousaid earlier that was so
profound was that and I'm sureit was a really Fueled in that
moment where you were just onyour knees and just totally like
okay, I'm done, I'm done, I'mready to just change all of this
(37:36):
and really live, live the lifethat I Want to live, right, but
it's this moment of holding upthe mirror and Looking yourself
in the mirror and saying I don'twant to be that person anymore.
I want to be this new person.
I want to reinvent myself andjust be the best me I possibly
(37:58):
can be.
But it really doesn't happenWith this outer vessel.
It happens with the inner spaceof our soul and I would love, I
would love you know, to haveyou talk a little bit about how
as your title is how we aredesigned to heal.
Speaker 1 (38:22):
Yeah, yeah, before I do that, though, I want to go
back to what I was talking aboutbefore, because the reason I
described all that Was that inthe moment when I'm sitting in
the crack house and I'm about toI'm about to smoke through
enough crack to kill me God saysyou know, this is not gonna
work, you're not done.
Yet I Did it anyway, right?
(38:44):
I smoked it all, went home andhad my stepfather drive me to
the hospital.
That was a test.
I didn't and I didn't knowthat's what I was doing, but I
was testing God and I wastesting, true, right?
Um?
(39:05):
So I needed that moment, and Ithink a lot of times when we're
on a recovery journey, we get tomoments where we test is this
real?
Is this the truth?
Is Anything different?
Is there something here I needto know that I didn't recognize
before this moment For it?
(39:27):
You know, toddlers testboundaries.
They feel safe when they knowwhere the boundaries are and
they test them to make surethey're solid and they can be
dependent and relied upon.
We don't stop doing that whenwe're adults.
We just do it differently.
And in that moment, I testedGod, I tested those boundaries,
(39:47):
but because I did that, I had aconfidence and a and an
assurance, a Strong convictionthat what God said to me in that
moment was true, and Knowingthat, knowing that I could rely
on that to be true, is one ofthe things that kept me going.
(40:08):
So tell me again, I wanted tosay that because it was
important to me.
What, what is it you want me totalk about now?
Speaker 2 (40:19):
Yeah, so yeah, and thank you for you know bringing
up that test part.
I mean I don't encourage anyoneto you know test like that, but
of course, if you're suicidal,reach out to you, know your
hotlines and your community andreach out for support.
But I was asking you in regardsto your title and how we're
(40:40):
designed to heal and looking atthat inner part of ourselves,
like what, what are some thingsthat you did that helped you
with that?
I mean, I'm hearing somespirituality was definitely part
of it, right?
Speaker 1 (40:55):
But that wasn't all of it.
So you know, when you live withtrauma you also have going on
inside of your body theconsequences of the biochemistry
associated with trauma.
So we know Now which we didn'tknow years ago.
But we know now that a lot ofillness, a lot of degenerative
illnesses and autoimmuneillnesses come out of the
(41:17):
chemical responses our bodieshold to the trauma events.
And by the time I was 50 I hadmetabolic syndrome.
I had.
I was almost 300 pounds BecauseI had systemic inflammation.
(41:41):
I was, my body was storingenormous quantities of water.
I was in constant pain.
I Only slept.
Now I started having insomniaat age seven because of things
that were happening then, but itgot worse and by the time I was
50 I couldn't sleep more thanthree hours.
The pain would wake me up.
There was no physical positionthat wasn't painful, there was
(42:05):
no part of my body that wasn'tpainful and I was back to
wanting to die.
I had gone through Between 31and 50.
I saw a lot of therapists, Isaw a lot of MDs, I tried a
bunch of medications for avariety of problems and At that
(42:32):
moment, by the time I was 50,had just discovered I had a lump
in my left breast and I knew Ihad cancer.
And I sat back and I realizedall of those years had not given
me improvement, that I hadprogressively gotten worse and
(42:54):
worse, no matter who I talked to, no matter what medication I
was using, no matter what anyonedid within the confines of
mainstream medicine and what aninsurance policy would pay for
because, remember, by this timeI'm also disabled.
I don't have a lot of funds towork with.
(43:16):
I need my insurance to pay formedical care.
I got frustrated.
I said you know, this sucks andit's been growing worse and
worse for years.
I need to do somethingdifferent.
I need the trajectory of thispath to go in a different
direction.
So I fired all my doctors.
(43:38):
My mom took out a loan to takeme to an alternative
practitioner who used nutritionto heal, and that was an amazing
experience because my pain atthat point, before I saw that
guy, I walked bent over.
(44:00):
I had no strength and I had somuch pain I couldn't straighten
up.
About a third of the waythrough the program that he put
me on, I was standing perfectlyupright, walking across a
parking lot in full strides andnot experiencing pain to do it.
I stopped in the middle of theparking lot and just bawled like
a baby, because it was in themiddle of the parking lot that I
(44:24):
realized I'm just walking.
You know that was the beginningof a journey into what is
popularly known as alternativehealth.
Right, I did a lot of researchinto metabolic syndrome and all
of the different my vocabularyjust blew out of my head
(44:50):
Symptoms, and to all of thesymptoms I was dealing with.
I looked at food, I looked atherbs, I looked at supplements,
I looked at mental health.
I looked at all of it from anentirely different perspective.
I read debates andcontroversies Because I wanted
(45:12):
to understand why people followcertain ones, because not
everybody does.
So why do some people thinkthis is the truth and other
people think this is the truth?
So I got more than one side oneverything I researched and then
I prayed about it and I trustedmy gut.
You know it's those years oftherapy that got me to the point
(45:40):
where I could trust myself atall and be aware of my gut and
trust it.
That self-trust is what allowedme to change my life, in spite
of how unconventional it was,and every step I took based on
that self-trust brought me somekind of discernible improvement.
(46:04):
It wasn't some nebulous thing,it was concrete.
So I kept doing it and the pathI took from that point forward
is a bit complicated and wedon't have to spend a lot of
time on it.
The end result is that I haven'tseen.
(46:25):
First of all, I had a doublemastectomy because the tumor was
so large and it was a veryaggressive form of cancer.
I had the surgery and thenfired the oncologist.
I've never seen a physician soangry in my life and I did
everything that I found to dothat made sense to me, that
(46:50):
clicked with my gut, and Icleaned up the toxins in my diet
.
I cleaned up the toxins in myhome and I sat down and narrowed
down the most powerful herbsand supplements to the fewest,
with the greatest impact because, again, I'm on disability, I
don't have a lot of money.
(47:11):
I tried talking topractitioners like herbalists,
et cetera, et cetera, and Icouldn't afford them.
Insurance doesn't pay for them.
So I did what I could do withwhat I had to work with and I
scared the hell out of my familybecause they knew what I was
doing and it's not somethingthat inspires confidence in
people who haven't done thatkind of research, but I'm 62.
(47:34):
I'm healthier than I was at 40.
I have zero pain in my body.
I lost three clothing sizes andI'm still losing weight.
I'm still healing.
I don't have a lot of strengthor stamina, but that is
gradually improving.
I have been cancer free sincethe surgery.
(47:56):
I stopped going back forcheckups because the doctor was
finding nothing to be alarmedabout.
He was digging because he justknew he would and it wasn't
there, so I just quit going.
It's about taking personalresponsibility for the things
that matter to you about yourlife.
(48:18):
My ex-husband, when he watchedme go through all this, was like
I don't understand why you'regiving this up.
I don't understand why you'rechanging that.
He went through a differentkind of cancer and the surgery
and all the treatment after itand still lives with the side
(48:44):
effects the permanent sideeffects, neurological side
effects from the treatment hehad.
And I looked at him and I saidI didn't want what you got, I
want something better and thisis working for me.
And he said I'm old enough andhe's older than me.
I'm old enough to do things theway I want to do.
(49:04):
I say, yes, you are.
You're also old enough to livewith the consequences of those
choices.
I'm choosing differentconsequences.
So for me, again, I was lookingat a life and death situation
and I simply chose quality overquantity.
I had already had more quantitythan I wanted in my youth and
(49:29):
in my younger adult years andrecognized that quality
invalidates quantity if it'spoor quality.
And I looked at my daughters, Ilooked at my mother and I said
I know this is scary, but if therest of my life is going to be
(49:49):
miserable and I have anopportunity to avoid that kind
of misery, I would rather have ahigh quality, shorter life than
a much longer miserable life.
That's my choice, that's mypriority.
Besides, you know God's gotthis anyways.
(50:10):
Either it's my time to go orit's not.
I don't have a lot of influenceon that.
So the choice is not whether ornot I'm going to die, it's
whether or not the quality of mylife until my expiration date
arrives.
Those are the choices I canmake, and quality, high quality,
is what I'm opting for.
And it scared them and it upsetthem because they're
(50:31):
contemplating the possibility oflosing me.
But you know what they did.
They said it's your life, youget to make that choice and we
will support whichever route youchoose.
That's amazing and that's thething.
That's the most important thing, right?
I don't know what my expirationdate is.
(50:54):
I don't get to choose that thing, but I do get to choose how I
experienced the life up untilthat moment and in the years
when I thought I didn't have achoice.
It wasn't that I didn't have achoice, it was that I didn't
know, I didn't have theinformation.
I was diagnosed in 1989.
(51:14):
You know, the mainstreammedicine was still trying to
figure out what the heck PTSDwas.
What is trauma?
They didn't know, nobody couldtell me.
But that's not true anymore.
So my health recovery in everyaspect of my life and my trauma
(51:38):
recovery and my addictionrecovery has followed the same
trajectory as medicines, whichis as more science, more
technology, better understandingbecame available, more
knowledge became available, andso my journey improved and
(52:02):
shifted according to what Icould find, what I could learn.
Speaker 2 (52:09):
You have an incredible journey that you have
shared with us and I'm soappreciative and I'm so grateful
that you're not only you knowthrough this addiction that
you've gone through and you'veovercome so much trauma in your
life, but you're a cancersurvivor.
(52:31):
I mean there's so many thingsthat just make your story so
powerful and again, thank you somuch for inviting us into your
world and into this space withyou.
It's just so personal but Iknow so many people listening
can identify with what it isthat you're saying and I love
(52:54):
that part that you said at theend about taking the personal
responsibility, because itreally ties the entire
conversation together.
As far as when you were youngerand what you did with you know
everything and how you tookpersonal responsibility of your
health.
You know here at this stage oflife there's so many things
(53:15):
going through that just reallyresonate.
I want to ask you go ahead, can?
Speaker 1 (53:23):
I jump in.
I got so caught up in tellingthis story forgot the point that
you asked me to make, which wasyou know where does we're
designed to heal come from?
My experience through thoseyears was that when I eliminated
the things that werecontradictory to healthy
(53:46):
function, whether it was mentalor physical, when I removed the
things that got in the way andprovided what was needed to
support healthy function, mybody and my mind both had
automatic designs designed intothem.
(54:06):
Automatic healing processeswere designed to self heal and
that has been proven over andover and over in my experience.
And so, to me, understandingthat we're designed to self heal
, that we simply need to knowwhat to remove and what to add
(54:30):
in order to support an inbuiltprocess, changes the way we look
at healing.
A lot of people and thatincludes me for many decades
believe that you know when I'mbroken, something outside of me
has to fix me.
But my most recent experiencehas proven repeatedly that it's
(54:53):
not that something outside of meneeds to fix me.
It's that I need to get out ofthe way of the self healing
processes that are built into me, and when I can do that,
miracles happen.
Speaker 2 (55:05):
I'm sorry, absolutely , that was the answer to your
question no, I think it'sexactly the right answer,
because it's so true that youknow we are meant to self heal
and all the products that we putinto our body they're either
working for us or they'reworking against us.
It's really that cut and dry.
(55:26):
I mean there's just no otherway to put it.
And that's why it's reallyimportant to detox the body with
a lot of water, make sureyou're eating healthy foods, I
mean, if there really is a lotof truth to that, and I wish
more people really understoodthat and embrace that.
So thank you for that message.
And I do have one last questionfor you.
(55:46):
So I ask all of my guests onRetreat to Peace if I were to
pick up your earth angel featheroff the ground, what would your
message to the world be?
Speaker 1 (56:00):
That would be my message.
That is what I'm tellingeveryone is that we're designed
to heal.
I've discovered, after alifetime of living with with
trauma and the consequences ofhaving trauma in my past and an
ongoing situations that addedmore and more trauma, I
(56:21):
discovered that trauma no longerrequires a laborious, painful
investment of years or decadesof therapy and coping skills,
with no guarantee that ourefforts are going to give us the
results we're looking for.
That's not to lay fault onanyone or any institution or
(56:46):
system.
It's just that it's somethingthat I understand now because of
new information, new knowledgeand new tools, and so healing
doesn't mean upgrading copingskills.
It means we don't need themanymore and that's accessible to
us.
So each of us holds the keys toour own healing, because we're
(57:12):
designed to heal and we onlyneed to learn how to use them.
So healing can be rapid,cumulative and permanent.
We know how to cooperate withour own inbuilt healing
processes, and sharing thatmessage is really my passion now
.
Speaker 2 (57:32):
I love that, deans.
Thank you, thank you.
Thank you so much for being aguest on my show today.
I appreciate again so much ofyour rawness, your transparency.
It was really hard for me notto cry with the God moment.
It was there, but I didn't wantto let the audience know that.
(57:53):
But yes, I mean I appreciateyou and I appreciate your
message and I just know so manypeople around the world are
really going to connect with you.
So thank you so so much.
Speaker 1 (58:08):
Thank you for having me.
I'm honored and grateful forthe opportunity to share my
story because that's part of mypurpose right To be able to let
other people hear my story andshare the things that I've
learned and allow God to use mesort of like a pipeline to help
(58:33):
others heal to do that work,because it's something we have
to do for ourselves.
We can't do it to each other,we can't do it for each other.
So I'm grateful.
I'm grateful for theopportunity for your audience to
hear my story.
Thank you.
Speaker 2 (58:53):
Thank you, and that's all we have time for today.
This is Catherine Daniels, withRetreat to Peace, reminding you
to live your authentic life inpeace.
And, as always, retreat toPeace and we'll see you next
time you.
Hey you, wherever you are in the world right now.
Thank you so much for beinghere with me.
We know that we live in somevolatile times and we know that
the world is changing.
So let's create a bridge as wetravel through one another's
countries, removing all thelabels, coming together as one
people, finding our home in oneworld.
(00:58):
And as we do this, this is whyour signature talk today we are
designed to heal is so important.
So settle in, as I welcome myguest, deanne Smith.
Hi, deanne, hello, I'm soexcited to be here.
Oh, my goodness, thank you somuch for being with me today.
(01:19):
So Deanne is an artist, a mother.
She's an addict in 20 plusyears of recovery and has spent
her life struggling with theeffects of early childhood and
ongoing complex trauma, beingdiagnosed in 1998, at age 31,
(01:39):
with post traumatic stress.
She helped this helped her tounderstand that she was
struggling and why she wasstruggling, but in spite of
doing her best to avoid it, shebecame disabled in 2002.
And today she is a traumarecovery coach, using her
experience and skills to teachothers that each of us holds the
(02:02):
keys to our own healing and wecan use them to set free
ourselves from devastations, oftrauma.
Holy, freaking moly.
Do I understand all of that,deanne, and I appreciate your
transparency and coming forwardand the vulnerability to be able
(02:23):
to do this particular show withme, because I understand how
difficult this could be for alot of people to just come out
and use their voice.
And I know, in a world thatwe're living in right now, it's
really interesting because theentire globe is experiencing
(02:44):
some level of trauma,unknowingly, because literally
everything that they used toknow has been stripped from them
.
People have lost jobs, they'velost their loved ones, in some
cases to COVID.
There's been so much upheavaland there's a lot of grief and
there's a lot of trauma that'soccurring in the world.
Now, when you look at this,like what?
(03:07):
From your perspective?
What do you see?
Speaker 1 (03:13):
Based on my personal experience with trauma and all
the things that I haveresearched and studied, my
perspective is that very fewpeople get into adulthood, or
very far into adulthood, withoutexperiencing trauma.
So right now there are a lot ofpeople saying, oh, the whole
(03:36):
world is going through atraumatic experience, but what
I'm seeing is new trauma on topof old trauma, unresolved trauma
, which just magnifieseverything, intensifies
everything, and so people areespecially like in social media.
(03:57):
People are talking about brokenfamily relationships because of
this current circumstance andlosing friends on social media
and so much anger and so muchangst and frustration and I feel
like a hammer and everything isa nail.
I see trauma.
(04:18):
I just see trauma after traumaafter trauma.
All of these responses, all ofthis misery is based on trauma.
The first thing trauma does isit reduces our capacity to
access our rational thinking,because that response to trauma
(04:40):
comes out of our instincts whichwe don't have conscious control
over.
So we're being extremelyemotional and we become more and
more rational the more intenseit gets, because our rational
mind is being removed from ouraccess more and more.
So the longer it goes on, themore rational everyone becomes.
The more emotional we become,the less we think and I've just
(05:07):
watched this thing just it'slike a snowball, an avalanche
going downhill.
The longer it goes on, thebigger it gets, and it just
breaks my heart because what I'mseeing is the growth of the
devastation, of trauma, andthat's not something that
(05:27):
everybody's talking about.
They're going.
Oh, we need to be calm and weneed to be peaceful, we need to
be kind of, but it's really hardto do that when you, when
you're feeling all of thoseemotions, everything becomes
personal, and knowing, knowingthat we need to do that and
being able to do that are twodifferent things.
(05:48):
So it's, it's been really hardto watch.
Speaker 2 (05:53):
Yeah, and I think you're exactly right when you
say that it's highlighting othertraumas that people have
experienced during theirlifetime.
And one of the things that Italked about is being a little
girl locked in a closet and mymother closes the closet door
(06:14):
and the closet shelf falls ontop of my back and my body
retained that information on acellular level.
Now, I didn't know that goingthrough my life, but I
definitely, I definitely knewthat when I was going through
therapy and literally could feelthe pain in the cells of my
(06:37):
back, like literally could feelthat and I think that's what
most people don't understand isthat when we go through
traumatic situations, we hold onto that in the memory of
ourselves.
So, for most people in theUnited States, when 9 11
happened, you know exactly whereyou were, you know what you
(06:57):
were doing, who you were withand you could in detail outline
everything about where thatmoment was for you and what it
looked like.
And, interestingly enough, thiscurrent environment that we're
living in in this space is anenvironment is such that we are
also retaining information on acellular level of this period of
(07:21):
time.
So it's really, reallyimportant that we recognize that
and, to your point.
It's not being discussed enough, it's not being talked about,
and we do need to talk about it.
So people have this awareness ofthis is what trauma feels like,
right?
So let me ask you I know thatyou have, you know, this
(07:45):
extensive experience in crisisand trauma and unfortunately, I
you know it's something thatnobody wants to have, but I
personally, for me personally, Ilook at my own experience as
being gifted to me to use it forgood, which is what I'm doing
in the world today.
(08:05):
But for people that areexperiencing the heaviness of
the weight of how we're livingtoday, a lot of people cannot
decipher how to move through itand what to do with it.
So they're turning to vices.
So they may be smoking.
They may be, you know, doingdrugs or eating really crappy
(08:28):
food.
You know doing things to theirbodies that they really know is
not helping them, but it justkind of, for a moment, they
think it makes them feel better,but they're actually
manifesting more harm withinthemselves.
So I know you have thisextensive information that you
(08:48):
can talk to around this.
So I'm going to give you thefloor for a minute and if you
could just jump in and share alittle bit about.
You know some of the some ofwhat's going on in people that
are using these vices and howyou can relate to that in what
to do with it, maybe.
Speaker 1 (09:06):
I remember when I was in active addiction and I was
at a clinic, there was aundergraduate in social work who
was asking clients if theywould be willing to be
interviewed for a researchproject.
I was like sure, why not?
(09:27):
And so the question, theprimary question that she was
trying to get information about,was why do people who don't
have much money, who live indifficult circumstances, who are
struggling in life, why do theyspend their resources and their
(09:49):
time and their energy gettinginto substance abuse?
Because it's not logical, itdoesn't make sense.
Because if you've got limitedresources, then whatever you,
whatever those resources youinvest in a vice of any kind,
(10:11):
whether it's alcohol or drugs orfood or whatever it is.
Whatever you're investing yourresources in diminishes those
resources for basic needs likehousing and gas, for your car to
go to work and stuff like that.
And I explained to her it'sreally not about anything that
(10:37):
makes sense when you are in asituation where you feel trapped
.
And being in a situation whereyou feel trapped and you're
miserable, so your ability toyour capacity or your
opportunity to feel less trappedby doing something or to
(11:01):
actually change the situation sothat you're not miserable, when
that is out of your hands, thenit's just basic, automatic,
thoughtless response to findsomething to feel better in the
moment.
If I can't make this go away, Ican take a vacation from it.
And people who get into viceslike this I'm gambling, you know
(11:29):
.
I mean there's some reallyserious financial losses that go
into gambling and yet many ofthe people who are caught up in
gambling don't have much in theway of money to spend.
They're doing it because theythink they're going to get a
windfall, but that's not reallywhat keeps them going back.
It's the adrenaline and theendorphins and stuff.
(11:50):
It's a chemical response thatwe get caught up in and we don't
want to let go of.
But that's not the point I wasmaking.
The point I'm making is thatwhen we feel trapped, we look
for some way to avoidexperiencing what we don't want
to experience.
And the choice to use somethingto take a mental vacation and
(12:25):
escape that way is not justhuman, it's also animals.
I mean water buffaloes in awar-torn African country found
hallucinogenic wild plants whenthey couldn't escape the effects
(12:45):
of the war and had themselves aparty, chilled out by the river
and took a mental vacation fromthis dress.
They were living it.
It's a response that is very,very natural.
It's just not healthy and welive with the consequences of it
, just as we do any other choicewe make.
(13:08):
So the answer to that woman'squestion was if I'm stuck in a
situation where I absolutelyhave no choice but to experience
something that I reject isacceptable, I'm going to use
whatever resources I have toescape it.
And if I can't physicallyescape it, if I can't alter it
(13:31):
materially, then I'm going totake a mental vacation, I'm
going to alter my chemistry, I'mgoing to invest my attention in
a way that's going to let meavoid experiencing something
that I can't tolerate.
And I was surprised that thatwasn't something she had already
(13:58):
thought of, but it seemedobvious to me.
Of course, I was in activeaddiction and I was asking
myself why am I doing this?
It's not about rationality, it'snot about intelligence, it's
not about anything that makesany sense, because it doesn't.
It's a need to escape, and whenyou feel trapped and there are
(14:22):
no other avenues, the mind is awondrous thing and we can use it
to escape what isn't tolerableTrauma.
Long-term trauma consequencescome out of exactly that
scenario.
So we may be adding trauma whenwe get into an addictive
(14:44):
situation, but in the moment,that's our instinctive response
to what we can't accept, what wecan't tolerate.
And so it works, in the momentit works.
Speaker 2 (14:59):
Yeah, and I know for a lot of people too, and it's
also work.
There's people that are usingwork to escape the trauma that
they're experiencing.
So, you know, sometimes it'snot even drugs or alcohol or,
you know, sex or whatever.
(15:20):
It could be the financial stuff.
It could be work as well.
So I think that's important tomention as well.
But, with your particularjourney through life and
congratulations on you know,being 20 years plus in recovery,
that is amazing and what atestament to your courageous
(15:42):
bravery.
You know, just facing that whenyou are in the height of your
addiction to make that decisionto, you know, just fight with
everything you had to not livein that space anymore and avoid
the experience, as you had said.
So for people around the worldthat are listening right now,
(16:05):
dan, is there any tools or anysuggestions that may help anyone
listening that may be thinkingwell, I could just do this and
it will allow me to avoid thisexperience.
Like, what would you say tothem?
Speaker 1 (16:28):
The truth is that I did not choose to end my
addiction until it was a choiceof do I want to live or die?
I got into addiction because,underneath all of my thinking
and all of my circumstances, tome at that time in my life, life
(16:56):
was a trap that I needed to getout of.
As a child, I went to bed everynight asking God, please don't
make me wake up, let me comehome.
I want to come home.
This is not home.
I don't belong here.
Let me come home.
And that did not go away when Igot into adulthood.
And so, by the time I got intoaddiction, that was a really
(17:22):
powerful motivation for almosteverything in my life.
And one day I looked in themirror and said you're at a
point where you get to make achoice Do you want to live or do
you want to die?
And you know, up until you getto that point where you're
(17:44):
actually confronting the realityof death, it's easy to
hypothesize, to guess whatyou'll do and how you'll feel
about it.
But I surprised my own self inthat moment because I looked in
myself and said I really don'twant to die.
And that was the last thing Iexpected when I was sitting and
(18:10):
having a conversation withmyself, when I was looking
myself in the eye.
I really didn't want to die,and all of these years I had
spent praying to die.
All of these years I hadengaged in self-destructive
behavior, hoping that you know,when this is over, I won't have
to deal with it because I won'tbe here anymore.
(18:31):
But when it came right down tothe moment when I was staring a
decision in the face and knowingthat my next action would
determine whether I lived ordied, I didn't want to die.
And when I made that decision,then I knew it was just a matter
of being congruent with myselfto stop wrestling with something
(19:00):
that I now understood aboutmyself, which was that I really
did want to live, I wanted life,and that it was up to me to
turn that situation intosomething that was a life worth
having.
And you know, by the time youget to that point in addiction,
you've already tried all theother ways.
(19:21):
You know to turn yourcircumstances around and to
create the life that you want.
And generally, what happens,especially for people with
trauma in their history, evenwhen they don't know that the
trauma is in their history, theykeep bumping into these
invisible walls.
They try to do something thatlooks simple, it looks
reasonable, and they fail at it.
(19:43):
And it happens over and, overand over again and they don't
understand why.
So at that point, when I madethe decision I wanted to have a
life, I looked for resources Ihadn't used before.
I looked for avenues that Ihadn't tried before, because my
perspective was different Upuntil that point, it was this
(20:03):
really sucks, I want out, Idon't want to live, I don't want
to experience this life.
From that point forward, it wasI want more, I want better, I
need to find a way to make itbetter.
And so I joined a 12 step group.
(20:26):
I found a counselor, I startedreading about recovery.
I started reading about.
I did, at this point, know thatI had trauma in my history.
This was after I was diagnosed,so I started pulling out
(20:49):
information that I could get myhands on about trauma, about
healing trauma, about what weunderstand what trauma is and
how it affects us.
And the most important thing Idid was I sat with myself All of
(21:14):
those years that I was findingmy life intolerable.
I was running from myself.
I started learning to read atthree, so books were my first
escape and I spent all of thoseyears trying to escape and that
meant that I did not spend timewith myself.
(21:36):
I didn't connect with myself.
The most important thing I didwhen I chose to create a life
worth living was I got to knowmyself and the books I read, the
counselors that I talked to,the people I met with they were
all very different.
I was very much in love withthem.
I was very much in love withthem in the 12 step program, I
(21:58):
mean, I went to church, peoplein church.
I took Bible classes, notbecause I hadn't ever had Bible
classes, but because I thoughtit would be good to be in that
environment to be reminded ofthe things I had learned in the
past that were uplifting.
All of those connections weredifferent because I wasn't
(22:20):
trying to get out of lifeanymore, because I was looking
for resources to help me changemy circumstances and change my
feelings, and that meant Ireally had to sit with myself
and I had to connect to myself.
So at that point the mostimportant thing I did was
(22:44):
reaching inside and examininginside and getting to know the
parts of me I didn't know, andreaching outside and getting to
know other people in a way Ihadn't gotten to know them
before.
That was harder for me, becausedisconnection from yourself
makes it almost impossible toconnect with others.
But because I was making thateffort, it was a gradual
(23:08):
improvement in both beingconnected to myself and to
others.
Speaker 2 (23:18):
Yeah, so if I could jump in for a second in prayer.
Prayer is a powerful, powerfulthing.
So I wanted to just go back tohow you were talking about
bumping into the invisible wallsand you have this reoccurring
pattern where it just keepshappening and happening.
(23:38):
And was there a defining momentwhere it became abundantly
clear, you know, kind of like anaha moment that you wanted to
go from living a life where youwere trying to escape it to
wanting to be part of it.
Was there a defining moment forthat?
Speaker 1 (24:05):
I was living with a guy that I thought was
absolutely wonderful.
He wasn't, but that was myperception.
I was five years into myaddiction and I had physically
(24:26):
been diminished so much by thoseyears of using the choice, that
defining moment when I had todecide do I want to live or die?
It was also a recognition thatmy body was going to collapse if
(24:48):
I kept going.
And that aha moment cameshortly after, sitting in a
crack house spending a windfallfor enough drug to potentially
(25:15):
kill me if I used it in acertain way.
And I heard God's voice in myhead.
Forgive me, this is verypowerful for me to recall.
(25:37):
I heard God's voice in my headand I said I really don't want
to be here.
And he said I know, and I'mreally angry at you, god.
And he said I know.
He said but I love you, you aremine and you're not done yet.
(25:58):
There's a purpose.
Did you have yet to complete?
And I said I don't want to stopthis.
And he said I know, but I'm notgoing anywhere.
I'm right here with you and I'mjust waiting for you to get to
(26:19):
the point.
When you're done, when you'redone, we'll move forward.
That night I smoked anastronomical amount of crack.
I drove myself back to my mom'shouse who was providing me with
(26:39):
a place to live and food to eat, and terribly upset about what
I was doing, but doing the bestshe could to love me.
And I looked at my stepfatherand said I think I just
overdosed, can you drive me tothe hospital please?
And he did, and at that point Igot into an outpatient detox
(27:08):
and recovery program.
It lasted about I don't knowsix or eight weeks.
That was my aha moment, thoughyou know, recovering from an
addiction like that isn't astraight line.
It's the same kind of thing asalcoholism.
You make a decision, you dowell, then boom, there you are
(27:29):
again and you have to pickyourself up and get back on
track and just recognize I'm notperfect, but I can still keep
going.
And that's what I did, but thatdefining moment you're talking
about, that was, was like oh,it's not up to me anyway, deanna
(27:53):
.
Speaker 2 (27:56):
I am wrapping my arms around you virtually and giving
you a hug right now.
I could feel all of what youjust said and it was amazingly
beautiful and powerful, and Ican only imagine the mixed
(28:17):
feelings that you had in thatmoment when God was speaking to
you.
I can only imagine you know thethe sense of questioning it or
the curiosity around it, andmaybe even you know I mean, it
sounds like for a moment you didwant to push it aside because
you continued on your path totry to overdose, and then you
(28:42):
retracted it because you knewthat that's not the direction
you wanted to take, which I'm soglad you did that, because you
know to have you here today tospeak to the audience and talk
about this intimate space ofyour life.
I can't even put words on it,but thank you for allowing us to
(29:04):
be in that space with you tohelp understand.
You know what this looks likefor a lot of families that are
going through this process withother people.
You know loved ones in theirlife, because it is a hard, hard
thing to do, but I think youknow.
Speaker 1 (29:22):
One of the things I'm wondering is did you have a
belief in God prior to Godshowing up in this moment, oh
yeah, it's interesting because II'm able to remember some of
the the earliest moments of life, before most people have any
(29:43):
memory, probably because a lotof trauma happened during those
first years.
But I remember having aconversation with my grandmother
when I was about three.
I had come home from Sundayschool and I had contemplated
all of this stuff that I hadlearned in Sunday school and I
remember announcing to mygrandmother I have mommy and I
(30:07):
have you and I have granddaddy,but I have one more parent.
And she's like, really, I saidI have God, god Jesus is my
brother and I have God.
Later, decades later, late inmy grandmother's life, I confess
(30:29):
to her that I had always had asense of God's presence in my
life.
I didn't always pay attentionto it, but that it was always
there.
And she looked at me and shesaid that's the Holy Spirit.
That's a gift and not everybodygets to experience that.
That's a gift and I'm I prayedfor you to have it right.
(30:56):
So, yeah, and and the truth isthat there was an awful lot
about my life that I just reallyI didn't blame God for it, I
was just angry that that hedidn't stop it from happening.
And, of course, the younger weare, the less we understand the
how that kind of thing worksanyways.
(31:17):
So I'm I Am grateful, I'mimmensely grateful, that at any
point in my life, from the timeI was at least three years old,
if not younger if I wanted topay attention, I Could sense
(31:37):
God's presence in my life, or Icould see God's hand in in what
was going on around me, nomatter how awful it was, and
some of it was truly awful andand not everybody, like my
grandmother told the truth, noteverybody has that.
But you know, I don't believethat God leaves us hanging
(32:00):
without support.
So if we don't have thatparticular experience of God,
there are other ways that heshows up that we can recognize.
All we have to do is payattention, to look for it, to be
aware of it.
For my mother, for my motherit's, you know, like the things
(32:21):
you're talking about, certainthings to show up repeatedly in
her life, little objects orImages.
So it's very different for her,but yeah, there's always some
way to know if you're interestedin looking for it and attention
.
Speaker 2 (32:37):
Yeah, in that aha moment that you had, it sounds
like that's when you fullysurrendered.
It's when you fully surrenderedand really I mean it brought
you to your knees and you werejust totally, you know, naked,
exposed and vulnerable.
And here I am and Mold me theway that you choose to mold me.
(33:00):
I mean that's what it soundslike to me.
Is that fair, the best?
Speaker 1 (33:05):
it was a task.
So there are multiple timesduring my life, before that
moment, where I had tried tocommit suicide and it didn't
work.
I there's nobody matter thansomebody who wants to die, who
tries to commit suicide, andthey wake up and they're still
alive.
That's really angry and thathappened multiple times and you
(33:26):
know, at some point I got towhere it was.
You know this is.
This is more trouble than it'sworth.
I'm gonna stop doing this.
But in that moment when I'mhaving this conversation with
God and he's telling me I havesomething for you to do.
You're not Coming home yet,it's not time, and I'm going to
be here with you througheverything.
(33:49):
I'm not going away.
You're not alone in this momentor in anything.
At that moment, what Iunderstood was I don't get to
choose.
I Didn't choose the moment ofmy birth.
I don't get to choose themoment of my death.
It's not up to me.
And I looked and it was like aflash, just a flash.
(34:14):
All the times that I hadattempted to get out of my life
and it didn't work.
And I'm like, oh, that's not.
I don't have that option, I'mnot in control of that.
That brought something home tome.
That's really hard to put inwords Because all the ways I've
heard it expressed sort ofdiminishes the, the, the potency
(34:38):
of the idea, but generally itgave me an understanding that a
promise that he had a purposefor me, that he gave me when I
was 20, was Not yet fulfilled,but that didn't mean it wasn't
going to be that I had a purposein this life and that I was not
(35:00):
going to be able to bail out onit just because I I went out
right, um, and so at that pointit was like, oh, god's in
control of this.
Now, I not everybody perceivesGod the same way.
I do not.
Everybody's faith is exactlylike mine and that's fine, but
(35:22):
it, I think that's, I thinkthat's a an understanding that
that transcends the divisions ofdifferent kinds of faith.
Um, however you, however anyone, might conceive the whole idea
of having a life purpose, Ithink this is true.
So, yeah, I hope that answeredyour question.
Speaker 2 (35:50):
Yeah, and I, I think you know I've actually have sat
in a spiritual service at aaddiction recovery center and it
was astounding to me how manyPeople that were in recovery had
(36:12):
gone up and had personaltestimonies of God showing up in
their life and it would justbring them to tears and make
them weep, because thatexperience was so powerful and
so life-changing, as it was foryou, and it just changed the
(36:33):
direction and the course oftheir entire life.
And I have heard this, you know, so many times.
Just, you know, being in theaudience of all of that, I
personally have never have gonethrough Addiction in that format
.
I was an, and I was an addictof work.
That was my addiction.
(36:54):
When I was trying to escape, Iwas trying to escape my traumas.
That was my addiction.
But I didn't even recognizethat until I was in adulthood
and had to face certain things.
We it's really interesting ashumans we have layers that we
have to shed and we'reconstantly, you know, changing
and moving through our process.
(37:15):
And One of the things that yousaid earlier that was so
profound was that and I'm sureit was a really Fueled in that
moment where you were just onyour knees and just totally like
okay, I'm done, I'm done, I'mready to just change all of this
(37:36):
and really live, live the lifethat I Want to live, right, but
it's this moment of holding upthe mirror and Looking yourself
in the mirror and saying I don'twant to be that person anymore.
I want to be this new person.
I want to reinvent myself andjust be the best me I possibly
(37:58):
can be.
But it really doesn't happenWith this outer vessel.
It happens with the inner spaceof our soul and I would love, I
would love you know, to haveyou talk a little bit about how
as your title is how we aredesigned to heal.
Speaker 1 (38:22):
Yeah, yeah, before I do that, though, I want to go
back to what I was talking aboutbefore, because the reason I
described all that Was that inthe moment when I'm sitting in
the crack house and I'm about toI'm about to smoke through
enough crack to kill me God saysyou know, this is not gonna
work, you're not done.
Yet I Did it anyway, right?
(38:44):
I smoked it all, went home andhad my stepfather drive me to
the hospital.
That was a test.
I didn't and I didn't knowthat's what I was doing, but I
was testing God and I wastesting, true, right?
Um?
(39:05):
So I needed that moment, and Ithink a lot of times when we're
on a recovery journey, we get tomoments where we test is this
real?
Is this the truth?
Is Anything different?
Is there something here I needto know that I didn't recognize
before this moment For it?
(39:27):
You know, toddlers testboundaries.
They feel safe when they knowwhere the boundaries are and
they test them to make surethey're solid and they can be
dependent and relied upon.
We don't stop doing that whenwe're adults.
We just do it differently.
And in that moment, I testedGod, I tested those boundaries,
(39:47):
but because I did that, I had aconfidence and a and an
assurance, a Strong convictionthat what God said to me in that
moment was true, and Knowingthat, knowing that I could rely
on that to be true, is one ofthe things that kept me going.
(40:08):
So tell me again, I wanted tosay that because it was
important to me.
What, what is it you want me totalk about now?
Speaker 2 (40:19):
Yeah, so yeah, and thank you for you know bringing
up that test part.
I mean I don't encourage anyoneto you know test like that, but
of course, if you're suicidal,reach out to you, know your
hotlines and your community andreach out for support.
But I was asking you in regardsto your title and how we're
(40:40):
designed to heal and looking atthat inner part of ourselves,
like what, what are some thingsthat you did that helped you
with that?
I mean, I'm hearing somespirituality was definitely part
of it, right?
Speaker 1 (40:55):
But that wasn't all of it.
So you know, when you live withtrauma you also have going on
inside of your body theconsequences of the biochemistry
associated with trauma.
So we know Now which we didn'tknow years ago.
But we know now that a lot ofillness, a lot of degenerative
illnesses and autoimmuneillnesses come out of the
(41:17):
chemical responses our bodieshold to the trauma events.
And by the time I was 50 I hadmetabolic syndrome.
I had.
I was almost 300 pounds BecauseI had systemic inflammation.
(41:41):
I was, my body was storingenormous quantities of water.
I was in constant pain.
I Only slept.
Now I started having insomniaat age seven because of things
that were happening then, but itgot worse and by the time I was
50 I couldn't sleep more thanthree hours.
The pain would wake me up.
There was no physical positionthat wasn't painful, there was
(42:05):
no part of my body that wasn'tpainful and I was back to
wanting to die.
I had gone through Between 31and 50.
I saw a lot of therapists, Isaw a lot of MDs, I tried a
bunch of medications for avariety of problems and At that
(42:32):
moment, by the time I was 50,had just discovered I had a lump
in my left breast and I knew Ihad cancer.
And I sat back and I realizedall of those years had not given
me improvement, that I hadprogressively gotten worse and
(42:54):
worse, no matter who I talked to, no matter what medication I
was using, no matter what anyonedid within the confines of
mainstream medicine and what aninsurance policy would pay for
because, remember, by this timeI'm also disabled.
I don't have a lot of funds towork with.
(43:16):
I need my insurance to pay formedical care.
I got frustrated.
I said you know, this sucks andit's been growing worse and
worse for years.
I need to do somethingdifferent.
I need the trajectory of thispath to go in a different
direction.
So I fired all my doctors.
(43:38):
My mom took out a loan to takeme to an alternative
practitioner who used nutritionto heal, and that was an amazing
experience because my pain atthat point, before I saw that
guy, I walked bent over.
(44:00):
I had no strength and I had somuch pain I couldn't straighten
up.
About a third of the waythrough the program that he put
me on, I was standing perfectlyupright, walking across a
parking lot in full strides andnot experiencing pain to do it.
I stopped in the middle of theparking lot and just bawled like
a baby, because it was in themiddle of the parking lot that I
(44:24):
realized I'm just walking.
You know that was the beginningof a journey into what is
popularly known as alternativehealth.
Right, I did a lot of researchinto metabolic syndrome and all
of the different my vocabularyjust blew out of my head
(44:50):
Symptoms, and to all of thesymptoms I was dealing with.
I looked at food, I looked atherbs, I looked at supplements,
I looked at mental health.
I looked at all of it from anentirely different perspective.
I read debates andcontroversies Because I wanted
(45:12):
to understand why people followcertain ones, because not
everybody does.
So why do some people thinkthis is the truth and other
people think this is the truth?
So I got more than one side oneverything I researched and then
I prayed about it and I trustedmy gut.
You know it's those years oftherapy that got me to the point
(45:40):
where I could trust myself atall and be aware of my gut and
trust it.
That self-trust is what allowedme to change my life, in spite
of how unconventional it was,and every step I took based on
that self-trust brought me somekind of discernible improvement.
(46:04):
It wasn't some nebulous thing,it was concrete.
So I kept doing it and the pathI took from that point forward
is a bit complicated and wedon't have to spend a lot of
time on it.
The end result is that I haven'tseen.
(46:25):
First of all, I had a doublemastectomy because the tumor was
so large and it was a veryaggressive form of cancer.
I had the surgery and thenfired the oncologist.
I've never seen a physician soangry in my life and I did
everything that I found to dothat made sense to me, that
(46:50):
clicked with my gut, and Icleaned up the toxins in my diet
.
I cleaned up the toxins in myhome and I sat down and narrowed
down the most powerful herbsand supplements to the fewest,
with the greatest impact because, again, I'm on disability, I
don't have a lot of money.
(47:11):
I tried talking topractitioners like herbalists,
et cetera, et cetera, and Icouldn't afford them.
Insurance doesn't pay for them.
So I did what I could do withwhat I had to work with and I
scared the hell out of my familybecause they knew what I was
doing and it's not somethingthat inspires confidence in
people who haven't done thatkind of research, but I'm 62.
(47:34):
I'm healthier than I was at 40.
I have zero pain in my body.
I lost three clothing sizes andI'm still losing weight.
I'm still healing.
I don't have a lot of strengthor stamina, but that is
gradually improving.
I have been cancer free sincethe surgery.
(47:56):
I stopped going back forcheckups because the doctor was
finding nothing to be alarmedabout.
He was digging because he justknew he would and it wasn't
there, so I just quit going.
It's about taking personalresponsibility for the things
that matter to you about yourlife.
(48:18):
My ex-husband, when he watchedme go through all this, was like
I don't understand why you'regiving this up.
I don't understand why you'rechanging that.
He went through a differentkind of cancer and the surgery
and all the treatment after itand still lives with the side
(48:44):
effects the permanent sideeffects, neurological side
effects from the treatment hehad.
And I looked at him and I saidI didn't want what you got, I
want something better and thisis working for me.
And he said I'm old enough andhe's older than me.
I'm old enough to do things theway I want to do.
(49:04):
I say, yes, you are.
You're also old enough to livewith the consequences of those
choices.
I'm choosing differentconsequences.
So for me, again, I was lookingat a life and death situation
and I simply chose quality overquantity.
I had already had more quantitythan I wanted in my youth and
(49:29):
in my younger adult years andrecognized that quality
invalidates quantity if it'spoor quality.
And I looked at my daughters, Ilooked at my mother and I said
I know this is scary, but if therest of my life is going to be
(49:49):
miserable and I have anopportunity to avoid that kind
of misery, I would rather have ahigh quality, shorter life than
a much longer miserable life.
That's my choice, that's mypriority.
Besides, you know God's gotthis anyways.
(50:10):
Either it's my time to go orit's not.
I don't have a lot of influenceon that.
So the choice is not whether ornot I'm going to die, it's
whether or not the quality of mylife until my expiration date
arrives.
Those are the choices I canmake, and quality, high quality,
is what I'm opting for.
And it scared them and it upsetthem because they're
(50:31):
contemplating the possibility oflosing me.
But you know what they did.
They said it's your life, youget to make that choice and we
will support whichever route youchoose.
That's amazing and that's thething.
That's the most important thing, right?
I don't know what my expirationdate is.
(50:54):
I don't get to choose that thing, but I do get to choose how I
experienced the life up untilthat moment and in the years
when I thought I didn't have achoice.
It wasn't that I didn't have achoice, it was that I didn't
know, I didn't have theinformation.
I was diagnosed in 1989.
(51:14):
You know, the mainstreammedicine was still trying to
figure out what the heck PTSDwas.
What is trauma?
They didn't know, nobody couldtell me.
But that's not true anymore.
So my health recovery in everyaspect of my life and my trauma
(51:38):
recovery and my addictionrecovery has followed the same
trajectory as medicines, whichis as more science, more
technology, better understandingbecame available, more
knowledge became available, andso my journey improved and
(52:02):
shifted according to what Icould find, what I could learn.
Speaker 2 (52:09):
You have an incredible journey that you have
shared with us and I'm soappreciative and I'm so grateful
that you're not only you knowthrough this addiction that
you've gone through and you'veovercome so much trauma in your
life, but you're a cancersurvivor.
(52:31):
I mean there's so many thingsthat just make your story so
powerful and again, thank you somuch for inviting us into your
world and into this space withyou.
It's just so personal but Iknow so many people listening
can identify with what it isthat you're saying and I love
(52:54):
that part that you said at theend about taking the personal
responsibility, because itreally ties the entire
conversation together.
As far as when you were youngerand what you did with you know
everything and how you tookpersonal responsibility of your
health.
You know here at this stage oflife there's so many things
(53:15):
going through that just reallyresonate.
I want to ask you go ahead, can?
Speaker 1 (53:23):
I jump in.
I got so caught up in tellingthis story forgot the point that
you asked me to make, which wasyou know where does we're
designed to heal come from?
My experience through thoseyears was that when I eliminated
the things that werecontradictory to healthy
(53:46):
function, whether it was mentalor physical, when I removed the
things that got in the way andprovided what was needed to
support healthy function, mybody and my mind both had
automatic designs designed intothem.
(54:06):
Automatic healing processeswere designed to self heal and
that has been proven over andover and over in my experience.
And so, to me, understandingthat we're designed to self heal
, that we simply need to knowwhat to remove and what to add
(54:30):
in order to support an inbuiltprocess, changes the way we look
at healing.
A lot of people and thatincludes me for many decades
believe that you know when I'mbroken, something outside of me
has to fix me.
But my most recent experiencehas proven repeatedly that it's
(54:53):
not that something outside of meneeds to fix me.
It's that I need to get out ofthe way of the self healing
processes that are built into me, and when I can do that,
miracles happen.
Speaker 2 (55:05):
I'm sorry, absolutely , that was the answer to your
question no, I think it'sexactly the right answer,
because it's so true that youknow we are meant to self heal
and all the products that we putinto our body they're either
working for us or they'reworking against us.
It's really that cut and dry.
(55:26):
I mean there's just no otherway to put it.
And that's why it's reallyimportant to detox the body with
a lot of water, make sureyou're eating healthy foods, I
mean, if there really is a lotof truth to that, and I wish
more people really understoodthat and embrace that.
So thank you for that message.
And I do have one last questionfor you.
(55:46):
So I ask all of my guests onRetreat to Peace if I were to
pick up your earth angel featheroff the ground, what would your
message to the world be?
Speaker 1 (56:00):
That would be my message.
That is what I'm tellingeveryone is that we're designed
to heal.
I've discovered, after alifetime of living with with
trauma and the consequences ofhaving trauma in my past and an
ongoing situations that addedmore and more trauma, I
(56:21):
discovered that trauma no longerrequires a laborious, painful
investment of years or decadesof therapy and coping skills,
with no guarantee that ourefforts are going to give us the
results we're looking for.
That's not to lay fault onanyone or any institution or
(56:46):
system.
It's just that it's somethingthat I understand now because of
new information, new knowledgeand new tools, and so healing
doesn't mean upgrading copingskills.
It means we don't need themanymore and that's accessible to
us.
So each of us holds the keys toour own healing, because we're
(57:12):
designed to heal and we onlyneed to learn how to use them.
So healing can be rapid,cumulative and permanent.
We know how to cooperate withour own inbuilt healing
processes, and sharing thatmessage is really my passion now
.
Speaker 2 (57:32):
I love that, deans.
Thank you, thank you.
Thank you so much for being aguest on my show today.
I appreciate again so much ofyour rawness, your transparency.
It was really hard for me notto cry with the God moment.
It was there, but I didn't wantto let the audience know that.
(57:53):
But yes, I mean I appreciateyou and I appreciate your
message and I just know so manypeople around the world are
really going to connect with you.
So thank you so so much.
Speaker 1 (58:08):
Thank you for having me.
I'm honored and grateful forthe opportunity to share my
story because that's part of mypurpose right To be able to let
other people hear my story andshare the things that I've
learned and allow God to use mesort of like a pipeline to help
(58:33):
others heal to do that work,because it's something we have
to do for ourselves.
We can't do it to each other,we can't do it for each other.
So I'm grateful.
I'm grateful for theopportunity for your audience to
hear my story.
Thank you.
Speaker 2 (58:53):
Thank you, and that's all we have time for today.
This is Catherine Daniels, withRetreat to Peace, reminding you
to live your authentic life inpeace.
And, as always, retreat toPeace and we'll see you next
time you.
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