August 21, 2025 • 53 mins
Healing from trauma requires understanding its profound impact on both mind and body. Licensed mental health clinician Alyssa reveals how trauma goes far beyond the conventional definition of near-death experiences or severe abuse. "Trauma can be anything that impedes your progress, anything that prevents you from functioning in the best possible way," she explains, helping listeners recognize how past experiences might be affecting their present lives.
Alyssa shares her personal journey through trauma healing after experiencing domestic violence and sexual abuse, navigating from substance use and depression to finding a comprehensive healing path that addressed mental, spiritual, and physiological aspects of her trauma.
What makes this episode particularly valuable is the exploration of various healing modalities. From evidence-based approaches like Cognitive Behavioral Therapy, EMDR, and somatic work to alternative practices including sound healing, light therapy, and plant medicine, listeners gain insight into the multi-faceted nature of trauma recovery. Alyssa emphasizes that complete healing is possible with commitment and appropriate support: "You can change that, it's possible. If you do the work, you will be able to change how you feel and how you experience life."
Check out my website, and remember to subscribe/follow my social media to get notifications for new content being released weekly! Thank you again for your support.
website: www.spadementalhealth.com
TikTok: @spadementalhealth
If you are seeking help, call the SAMHSA’s National Helpline:1-800-662-HELP (4357), or The Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration: 1-800-487-4889.
National Suicide Prevention Lifeline: 988
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:02):
yo, what's up everybody?
It's your boy, anthony.
Welcome to another edition ofspeed, this podcast.
What's going on y'all?
What's up?
All right, I know it's augustand it's been since May.
(00:22):
Since I've posted and my bady'all, it's just been a lot that
has been going on a whole lot.
So let me give y'all a quicksynopsis of everything that's
(00:44):
happened between May and now.
So my anniversary came about onJuneteenth, so initially I was
going to release a episode.
(01:04):
The plan was to release anepisode on Juneteenth
celebrating my five-yearanniversary.
Yes, me, I've made it fiveyears in the business of
podcasting.
So that was going to be a hugething of me releasing an episode
, but it didn't happen.
(01:26):
However, what was happeningbehind the scenes was I recorded
a podcast called Inside theMind of a man and volume.
(01:53):
I'm going to create a series ofit, allowing them to express
how, growing up, either with orwithout a foggy figure, how that
impacted their lives, how theyhandle emotions, et cetera, et
(02:17):
cetera.
So we had a whole podcast topicon that and it turned into a
series and within that podcast,because it was so good, I turned
it into my first docufilm, andso I released my docufilm.
(02:43):
I released it.
It was going to be released onJuneteenth, which was my
anniversary, but I didn't haveeverything together so I
released it at the end of June.
So I released.
It is now streaming on YouTube.
(03:05):
You can actually check the shownotes and you can click the
link and you can actually seethe movie yourself so you can
check it out.
Simply amazing.
Their stories were so touching.
(03:25):
I was just so moved.
The whole segment was moving,everybody being so transparent
and so honest and showing theemotion expressing their
feelings.
So definitely check that out.
And that was just volume one,inside the Mind of a man, volume
(03:46):
one between me and my father.
I've got like three morevolumes that's coming out.
The second volume is going tocome out in 2026.
Not only I'm working on that,but I know you guys are
wondering okay, what's happenedwith Tricky Cards at Hand?
(04:08):
Because that's my fictionalseries that was supposed to be
coming out in 2025 as well.
That is also in development aswell, because that is my
fictional, biblical,psychological drama.
(04:28):
So that's a genre that I amcreating.
So that's going to be a visualaudio series and that will be
coming out soon.
I am pushing that date back, soit would just be.
I'm just going to say it'scoming out soon, not giving a
(04:53):
release date because I want itto be top quality, and so, in
the process of writing the firstepisode, I have a writer that's
helping me out writing it andalso, speaking of that the
(05:15):
writer, I have a new co-hostthat will be joining me who is
also the writer that is helpingme with that script.
So you will see my new co-hostcoming soon One of my real, real
(05:35):
good friends, a brother to mein the upcoming shows and I hope
(05:55):
you guys enjoy what we will bedoing.
So that will also be happening.
So that is pretty much it, yeah.
So, oh, sorry, I will bereleasing the audio version of
the movie that will be comingout soon.
I'm still editing that becausethe video version previews and
(06:17):
stuff.
So I'll give upcoming dates andstuff soon.
But I hope you enjoyed thisepisode.
It's going to focus on healingtrauma and my guest.
(06:39):
I loved her.
She did an amazing job.
She was a licensed therapistand I hope you are able to learn
from her and her techniquesthat she gives.
Other than that, I hope youguys Just enjoy it and stay
(07:03):
tuned for all the previews thatwill be released soon Some
special small movies that willbe released soon.
I'll be getting the YouTube andstuff coming out as well that
will be released.
As far as my YouTube channel,that will be coming out soon.
(07:24):
I'll be back on TikTok soon, so, yeah, y'all stay tuned.
I'll be sending out all thoseupdates.
Other than that, enjoy thisepisode.
Peace, everybody.
(07:54):
I hope y'all are having um awonderful day today.
Um, we are finally spring,finally no more winter or
anything like that, thankgoodness, because this weather
has been insane, but we'refinally approaching warmth and
(08:16):
everything like that, so I'mglad for that.
But today I've got a reallyheavy, serious topic and it's
dealing with healing trauma andI have a very special guest with
(08:38):
me and I'm going to go aheadand introduce her in my special
guest today is Alyssa.
Speaker 2 (08:50):
Alyssa, how are you doing today?
I'm doing wonderful.
Thank you so much for having me.
It's an honor and I would loveto dive deeper into this topic.
Speaker 1 (08:56):
for sure it's something I'm very passionate
about.
Yes, yeah.
So, alyssa, tell everybody whoyou are and what you do.
Speaker 2 (09:09):
Yes, so my current career is a licensed mental
health clinician counselor.
I specialize in trauma and it'ssomething that definitely is my
life's mission and somethingI'm really.
I feel like I'm honored to beable to do this work with people
because I've dealt with thatmyself as well throughout my
(09:30):
journey.
And being assistance andproviding that guidance and
helping people to overcomecertain experiences they
struggle with is my life'smission and my life's goal, and
I'm consecrated to God.
I call it, I love to be youknow of service when it comes to
that part.
Speaker 1 (09:49):
That is amazing.
That's amazing.
Well, welcome to my podcast.
I'm so happy and honored tohave you on and we're going to
go ahead and just dive on in,okay, so tell everybody, if you
can.
I want to ask you what exactlyis trauma and how does it affect
(10:20):
the mind and the body?
Speaker 2 (10:23):
Right.
So and I'm glad that you'rebringing both of those aspects
into play, because I feel likewe have we're not knowledgeable
enough about what trauma is, orwe have this old kind of
definition of trauma when we'retalking about, you know, being
in situations that are close todeath, right near death
experiences, being in combat,right being veterans of serving
(10:47):
the country, being a victim of,you know, sexual abuse, domestic
violence, things of that nature, and trauma.
Now we're becoming more awareof what that is and how it can
affect others, and there's a lot, of, a lot more literature now
that we have available.
We're actually living in a veryfortunate times when it comes
to that, because now Iunderstand that a much deeper
level.
(11:07):
So trauma can be anything thatimpedes your progress, anything
that prevents you fromfunctioning in the best possible
way.
It doesn't have to be somethingthat we just experienced, that
near death experience orwitnessing some horrific things.
Also, not getting our needs metcan also be a severe experience
for children per se and thatcan develop afterwards in
(11:30):
something that really preventsus from functioning in a society
in the best way possibledealing with relationships
successfully, our personaldevelopment, our emotional
well-being, our physicalwell-being as well, because now
we know how much stress canbring on for our physiology and
what, what kind of problems wecan experience afterwards.
(11:50):
We know it can help developcancer, autoimmune diseases,
chronic pains.
There's so many aspects oftrauma that before we had no
idea about.
Now we become more aware thatit's not just mental.
Trauma resides in ourphysiology and there's a lot of
again books right now.
Body keeps the score, the mythof normal.
There's a lot of resources thathelp us understand that in a
(12:13):
deeper way if we are ready tolisten to that, because I know
sometimes we don't think that.
I want to dig back into whathappened to me and you know it's
a past, but we have toacknowledge whether this is
something that it's stillaffecting me today and that can
be not in a way of having aflashback per se, but struggling
.
Maybe I have a lot of low dayswhen I'm really struggling to
(12:35):
get out of that and that may notbe even conscious in our mind
or why I feel this way.
Because we have this, so we callit top and bottom brain
physiology itself that keeps thescore, that keeps those
negative neural networks underwhich we have certain experience
are being encoded as, let's say, negative beliefs about
ourselves, but we have noconscious awareness of that when
(12:57):
it comes to our conscious mind.
So it's a very tricky thingthat we're being triggered in
our physiology but we with ourmind we cannot distinguish why
we're being triggered in ourphysiology, but we with our mind
, we cannot distinguish whywe're being triggered or why
we're over overreacting, whywe're acting that way and we're
not able to respond to certainthings.
We're going to this we call itsympathetic dominance If we're
being triggered in ourphysiology where we can't think
(13:18):
straight, and so this is veryimportant aspects of that.
And I feel like, again, there'sso much more that goes into
that when we're talking about itand you know mechanics of it
when it comes to physiology andthe mind.
But I feel like, first, it'sunderstanding what is trauma and
again, it doesn't have to besomething that can cause you,
let's say, to think back and say, well, yes, I was severely
abused, I've been bitten, I'vebeen, I had all of this sort of
(13:41):
negative experiences thatimpacted me.
It doesn't have to be that way.
Sometimes, again, not havingone parent there and struggling
to navigate, even being a childfor some people, even though
you've never had, let's say,physical abuse, it doesn't mean
that you won't have trauma Again.
We have a lot more informationand kind of different aspects of
(14:03):
trauma that we now begin torecognize as such, and so that's
the advantage that we currentlyhave.
Speaker 1 (14:09):
Right, right, I do want to circle back to um,
something that you said earlierand um, why do uh I guess you
can say um are not forthcominginto really um deal, uh, really
(14:35):
dealing with um, talking abouttrauma that's happened in their
past, Like they, I guess you cansay they they're not really
ready to um, to speak on it orready to relive it.
Why do you think that?
Speaker 2 (14:55):
Well, a lot of times.
Number one we have tounderstand how trauma works as
well.
You know deeper.
In that way, we have implicitmemories and we have explicit
memories.
So explicit memory is somethingI can recall.
I can say, well, yeah, that wasin that year, that's what
happened.
I've had this argument with myparents, I've had this fight
with my loved one, whatever thatsituation was, that's the
(15:17):
explicit memory I can say.
When that happened, I may evendescribe what happened.
However, implicit memories issomething that we experience
going through that, and sosometimes those memories get
repressed.
It's not even that we're notgoing to have parts of the
memories that are explicit, likeremembering or recalling the
details of the event.
That can be one way, butanother way again, because we
(15:39):
have to function.
Function and sometimes, again, aminor thing if I think as an
adult back and I think about mychildhood experiences, I may not
have access to how the childself felt during that situation,
because for me now I'm thinkingback well, that was nothing,
you know, that was some minorthing.
I know my mom was dealing withsomething or my dad was dealing
with something.
I understand that.
(16:00):
Yes, we understand it as anadult now, but what's being
triggered is that physiologythat we experienced as children,
that that was created duringthat impactful event, and the uh
, the emotions and sensationsand the negative kind of beliefs
about ourselves that we hadduring that period as children
can be outside of our consciousawareness because it was so far
(16:22):
away.
And for the child to processthose experiences again, I'm
not'm not an adult back then.
So how can I make sense ofwhat's happening for me if I
don't get what I need from myparents and I may think, okay,
well, I'm unlovable, I'm unsafe,people can't be trusted.
There can be a lot of thingsthat for us now it seems like
it's a minor thing, but for achild it can be a huge
(16:42):
experience.
And so sometimes, again, goingbackwards can be a lot for a lot
of people and even though theymay not really have an idea that
they experienced certain pain,in this moment again we have to
pay attention to how am I beingimpacted right now?
And I have people who say youknow, I don't want to dig up the
past, right, I'm fine, it wastoo much back there.
(17:04):
Like it's too much to kind ofbring back forth, okay.
But these people are alsocalling 9-1-1 every single month
because they're having a panicattack, right.
So, again, we have toacknowledge how those
experiences may be affecting usnow.
Again, there's no point oftrying to go back and bash our
parents about what happened.
You know, if we're fine, if I'mfine right now, but if I'm
(17:25):
struggling to navigate liferight now in certain ways, we
should address that.
And I always give this metaphorwhen people say I don't want to
go backwards, right, I say, well, imagine you have this open
injury.
Imagine you cut your arm, forinstance, right, and I have this
open wound.
Then the wound heals, on topright you have the scar, but
inside of that wound there isthe infection that continues to
(17:48):
impact you and you have fever.
You're feeling bad.
When you look on top of me,like you know what, it's healed,
it's fine, I don't see anything, because I don't see what's
going on on the surface of that.
I may not even understand theimpact that this wound is
creating from the inside becauseof that infection.
And so we continue to live likethat and say you know, I'm not
going to dig into that, that'sfine, and we're going to
(18:10):
continue to have that fever, youknow.
However, it's going to affectme, shivers and throwing out
whatever, whatever is going tobe created within me.
But again, I'm refusing to goin just because, you know, maybe
it was too much, it was toopainful, that wound was too
painful.
We have to pick and choose.
Am I sick and tired to bedealing with that?
Or, you know, do I want tocontinue healing and I want to
(18:32):
address that and it's yeah, it'snot for everybody.
People can be afraid and I feellike taking your time for when
you're finally ready to do that.
It's an important step becauseyou know you don't want to be
digging when the person does notwant to go there.
It can create more tension andstress than heal heal.
Heal them from that trauma.
Speaker 1 (18:52):
Right, right, yeah, that's uh, I completely, um
totally uh understand that.
So, um, what uh, um are thedifferent?
Uh, actually, I'm sorry.
How does unresolved traumaimpacts a person's mental health
(19:15):
and their relationships and apersonal growth?
Like, for instance, let's say,if someone just decides again
like I'm not going to deal withit, and how would that affect,
particularly, like, theirrelationships with people?
Speaker 2 (19:37):
Well, again, it depends.
Everybody has to make their ownjudgment.
In that way, I feel like firstwe have to become honest.
Am I living my best life?
Am I the best version of myself?
Or there's something in my lifethat I don't like and I want to
change, but I'm incapable ofdoing so, and so I feel like,
when we find that brick wallthat I'm not able to cross and
(20:01):
that's something that's reallybothering your life, right, it's
something that is not.
You don't want to live likethis anymore, but you also don't
have the solution.
I feel like this is a greatmoment to consider that.
That might be because of thetraumatic experiences.
Again, usually the consequenceof that can be all of the major
things that we know substanceuse, anxiety, depression, right,
(20:21):
inability to build connectionsand we don't even know why it's
there, right?
Sometimes, again, I'm not evenfeeling confident to come and
talk to that person, or I'm notable to communicate my needs to
people around me, or I'm notable to establish new
connections.
I'm not able to perform at work, right, maybe it's the
concentration, maybe it'stiredness, maybe it can be so
(20:44):
many different things in whichwe can experience that
dysfunction, I would say, andjust being honest with ourselves
first Is that the person I wantto be, or there's a better
version of me?
And why am I not making thisleap forward?
When I want to and I'm ready,then there's something going on
inside of me that may bepreventing me from that and I
feel like first, again, it'sbecoming more aware on in which
(21:07):
way our life right now is notworking well.
Right, and that's the startingpoint.
And then we try to go out thereand start seeking solutions,
and it can be in different ways.
Right, some people can useself-help kind of strategies,
and sometimes you need to go forprofessional help and really
get into, you know, treating andhealing those parts of
(21:27):
ourselves.
Speaker 1 (21:28):
Right, right.
So, um speaking of uh dealingwith trauma, can you share um
your particular story and how umtrauma you experiencing trauma,
how that shaped uh your pathand what was some of the biggest
(21:50):
challenges that you faced inyour healing journey?
Speaker 2 (21:56):
Oh my God, so many, so many.
And that's why exactly that'smy point, that sometimes we need
to wait for the right time,just like I feel like there's
also just like we have naturalcycles in nature, right, we have
natural cycles in our lives andeven sometimes, if I want
certain things to happen now, Imay not be ready for that
(22:16):
because it maybe needs to be alot of work.
Maybe I need to get to adifferent place, maybe I need to
first change my environment,because maybe the abusive
environment that's preventing me.
So it's a lot of steps to that.
And so, in my personal case,well, I've been an immigrant
since I was 18.
I moved here to the UnitedStates from Russia and I was
very young I didn't have myparents with me.
(22:37):
That was a very big change,that also.
I wasn't even sure why therewere reasons for that, but
mentally I was like there couldhave been ways to figure that
out, but the pain of me livingthere.
So I've had certain traumaticexperiences, but not in the way
of what we again perceive assomething serious or
endangerment or abuse.
(22:58):
Right, I didn't have that.
I didn't have a dad, but againliving.
I was born in Soviet Union, soit was a very, very kind of poor
life, but I never felt like itwas poor.
But again, we didn't reallyhave much.
So living there and my mom wasdealing with a lot of things too
.
So that started my kind offeelings of hopelessness
(23:21):
initially, which again I wasaddressing.
Still till today I'm stillworking on that to address those
feelings, because that's howdeep our childhood traumas can
be.
And when I moved here my firstromantic relationship was
abusive.
It was a sexual abuse.
Speaker 1 (23:37):
It was domestic violence.
Speaker 2 (23:38):
It was a lot of really really tough experiences.
And that was a very big thing toovercome for myself and it
started.
I've spent quite some time inthe victim mode myself and
trying to figure out life andturning to substance use and
struggling with depression andanxiety and whatever you can
think of it was a bouquet ofdifferent things, but help comes
(24:01):
in many different shapes andforms and I was able to navigate
it, first from a standpoint ofmy health and first attempt of
quitting drinking and working onmy mental state and clearing
out my mind completely, changingthe mindset.
There's one quote that I alwayslove to provide from Albert
Einstein we can't solve aproblem with the same mind that
(24:21):
created it.
If we're remaining in the samemind, nothing is going to change
.
But if I start to takedifferent actions, make
different steps, if I begin tolook for different ways and
different information andtalking to different people
getting out of different socialcircles too, so I feel like
that's the first step ofbeginning to address how we
(24:43):
think, and so that was my firststep.
But again, it didn't kind of.
It was a long time for me to beworking through that as well,
and that gave me a lot offreedom to to choose how I
respond to things, to become adifferent version of myself,
improved version, and the nextstep was spirituality.
That was the next way for me to, or the next, you know, kind of
(25:06):
journey to address and to finddeeper meaning of my traumatic
experiences.
And that's what gave me evenmore kind of understanding of
traumas and understanding how wecan feel after we make peace
with it.
Because I feel like the naturalprogression of that is to look
back and to be, in certain ways,to see positive aspects of that
(25:29):
traumatic experience and how itwas on my development.
And then finding and saying youknow what, what?
Because of that I am where I amtoday and so I'm grateful that
I had that, because it broughtme here and I feel like this is
the healing we seek.
I mean, we can't say I'm happyabout that and I can't say that,
you know, I would wish that onanybody, of course not.
But I'm happy that I am herenow because it led me to this
(25:51):
mission to be on purpose, to beof service, and I found this new
meaning of that and that was aspiritual aspect of that.
And now, from the last coupleof years, actually it was more
of the addressing physiology,because this was the new step of
that.
And again, trauma was notalready affecting me in that way
, but I've discovered moreaspects of the trauma that I
(26:11):
never addressed away.
But I've discovered moreaspects of the trauma that I
never addressed.
And so that became my next kindof journey as well, with EMDR
and processing and working withsomatic kind of exercises to
really navigate the physiologyof it and to look different, to
begin to break down those neuralconnections that have been
created for decades of my life.
So, yeah, there was a lot ofsteps to that, even though the
whole experience was probably 15years ago.
(26:32):
So, yeah, there was a lot ofsteps to that, even though the
whole experience was probably 15years ago.
Speaker 1 (26:36):
So yeah, wow.
So can you explain a littlefurther some specific, the
specific techniques that help,that can help people heal from
trauma, such as, like thedifferent types of therapies,
(27:00):
such as some asthmatic therapyor logo therapy or any, or, et
cetera.
Speaker 2 (27:11):
Right Of, of course.
So I would start with somethingthat I feel like we need to
address before we move into,like those more subtle and more
deeper parts of ourselves is ourmind, and I feel like
navigating and becoming moreaware of what kind of thought
patterns we have, becausenaturally we're creatures of
habits and the mind is the firstthing that gets influenced, and
(27:33):
it gets influenced prettyquickly because we're always on
the phone, we're always on media.
You know we're a lot of peoplewatch tv and garbage in, garbage
out.
If that's what I take in, thenmy thoughts will be influenced
by that information and becomingmore aware how that information
also serves me in navigatingthe struggles that I may have
right.
(27:53):
Maybe it's adding me to feelmore agitator, feel more unsafe
or feel more angry, and I feellike again becoming more aware
of our mind processes altogether, and that's what CBT allows us
to accomplish.
It's looking at how ourcognition, our beliefs, can
affect our lives, and so themoment we become more aware of
what's going on in our mind, ourbeliefs can affect our lives,
and so the moment we become moreaware of what's going on in our
mind because naturally in ourlives our mind is the only thing
(28:17):
we have control over, and Iknow we're all control freaks
and we want to predicteverything we have scheduled or,
you know, scheduled for monthsahead, but we can do nothing
about it if something goessideways.
So I feel like navigating.
Navigating, becoming more aware,becoming your best friend in
your mind and knowing how tolift you up, how to get you
through the struggle.
Learning the stress, tolerance,tolerance skills, right,
(28:40):
becoming more again hands-on,having tools, the mental health
tools that can allow you toreally say a, b, c, d.
This is what I'm doing when I'mstart to feel low.
Right, because naturally everyemotional experience comes from
our thoughts or the triggers ofphysiology.
So there are a few components.
But naturally is, what meaningdo I give to the situation?
(29:01):
What do I think that means tome, what just happened?
And everybody will have adifferent perception of the same
thing.
So, becoming again more awareof is my perspective on at life
or of life, is it healing me orkilling me?
because, sometimes when we haveone event and I look at it and
I'm completely destroyed by that, or I see an opportunity in
(29:22):
that.
So you know what, in spite ofthat, I'm gonna, I'm gonna
master myself, I'm gonna have adifferent reaction to that or
response.
Rather, I'm not gonna have areaction, I'm gonna have a
response.
So I feel like starting withmind and anything that will help
anybody to become your own bestfriend, to know what, what
responses you have naturally toa lot of things that happen in
life, and that would be numberone, right.
(29:44):
Uh, moving deeper again, andthat's going to be mind and
emotions together, becausenaturally we'll find a way to
kind of feel differently,because I choose to think
differently.
Also, practicing more of amindfulness meditation, anything
that gives you that controlover your mind too, because
naturally, if you're able to bemore in tune with how you react
(30:05):
to things, then it's more likelythan in triggering situation
you'll have a little morecontrol over that.
The logotherapy that youmentioned is beautiful,
beautiful, um, existentialtherapy or existential approach,
right is again, it's findingthat deeper meaning of that, and
I think it's more of aspiritual kind of perspective.
Maybe that can come even afterwe address more physiological
(30:29):
things with somatic and EMDRright, but logotherapy it's a
created art piece for society byViktor Frankl, who went through
Holocaust, he was a Holocaustsurvivor and he created this
amazing book and the techniquein general for therapeutic world
.
And that's a beautiful gift tojust explore and how to make
(30:50):
sense of your trauma rightwithout being a victim, or even
if you are a victim, right butnot see yourself as such,
because naturally it's how wesee I can become the master of
myself going through somethinglike this and, you know, find a
blessing in anything, and that'swhat he, I feel like, proved to
the world that we can too.
The physiological component asthe next part of that.
(31:14):
Um, so everything that weexperience in life, naturally
it's not going to be just amental process, like if we think
back and even when we'rewatching a movie, if we're
watching a scary movie, we getscared, not just mentally, we
really feel scared.
We have heart palpitations, wehave shaking, we may have
indigestion, we have response ofthe body.
(31:34):
So anytime we experienceanything, our neurons fire and
wire together, creating neuralconnections within ourselves,
whether it's good or bad.
But underneath that is what wedon't know is that there is
either a negative or positivebelief about yourself and when
we have a very distressingexperience as childs, as
children or as adults as well,it doesn't matter where we are.
(31:55):
The neurons will find we aretogether, creating this
connection, and from this pointon we may attract or go through
experiences that will reaffirmthis connection.
And so if we're children goingthrough that and we have this
negative neural network thatcontinues to form, then it may
start to affect me from thatpoint on as a child.
And imagine if you're three orfour and you have a negative
(32:16):
belief about yourself internally, that I'm not safe, people
can't be trusted.
How is it going to impact achild going into school?
Right, you're not going to bemaking connections, you're not
going to be taking newopportunities.
You'll probably be morereserved or antisocial, whatever
you know, we label kidsnowadays so much in schools too,
with all sorts of problems.
(32:36):
But the problem can be that thechild is struggling something
from even before that school andmaybe there's something that he
needs to address, or he or she.
And so that's what EMDR now andsomatic work allows us to do is
to become more aware of ourphysiology and practicing we
have this term that's calledinterception.
It's learning to be aware ofthe bodily sensations, learning
(32:58):
to be inside of your body and tonot want it to get out or
feeling uncomfortable, andlearning to self-regulate by
being inside too.
And that's what somatic workoffers us to do right.
It's allowing us to reallyobserve, even when I'm talking
about something distressing, andif I'm able to maintain the
level, that's what somatic workoffers us to do right.
It's allowing us to reallyobserve, even when I'm talking
about something distressing, andif I'm able to maintain the
level of relaxation within mybody, I'm not going to have a
(33:20):
symptom of PTSD or anxiety.
And now we have a proof forthat.
So you can't have anxiety,stress or PTSD symptoms in
relaxed physiology.
So the stress that we experience, it's not just the mental thing
, it's literally constriction ofour muscles within our body,
because naturally, that's whathappens when we think about
something traumatic, because ourthoughts do not, our mind does
(33:42):
not distinguish something weobserve in reality or something
we think about or something wewitness on the TV.
And that's exactly why we'reable to watch you know, watch
movies and enjoy them, not tothink okay, this is special
effects, this is this, this isan actor.
We really get scared, we getreally immersed into this
experience exactly for thatreason, because our brains do
(34:03):
not distinguish something likethat from reality to non-reality
, and so all of these thingsthat we watch or listen to or
think about, especially when itcomes to our past, can trigger
physiological response just likewe used to have back in the day
.
And then we're surprised thatagain.
Why am I feeling so bad rightnow?
What's happening right now?
Of course, that's what I wasthinking and I'm going backwards
(34:24):
with my mind and I have theresults of it in this point,
here and now.
So why do I choose that?
But but again, there's so manysteps to that before we even
dive deeper into the physiologyright, getting becoming more
aware.
So, yeah, there is a lot,there's it's a lot of work, and
I know it's.
It's hard to do it, but it's soworth it if we allow ourselves
(34:48):
to really become a new person.
If I want to change who I am,if I really, if I'm hungry for
that, if I'm tired living whereI was living, then it's worth it
.
It's not easy, but it's worthit.
Speaker 1 (35:03):
Yeah, yeah um, I know that uh um, I was reading um
within your uh bio that you'veexplored also different types of
alternative approaches inhelping with trauma healing,
(35:25):
such as plant medicine and lighttherapy and sound healing
energy work, so can you expoundon that?
How does that help with traumahealing, especially with the
(35:47):
plant?
Speaker 2 (35:57):
with the plant.
Oh yeah, that's a that's a bigone to cover again.
So, um, let me start that withsound healing, light therapy and
energy work.
It's something that I did, Idid and I do for a while.
I love it and it all startedwith plant medicine as well, but
this is something that I doprovide.
Currently is the again, soundhealing sound healing, pandora
star it's.
It's a light therapy, it's astrobing light.
It's not for everybody becausethere are certain
(36:18):
contraindications to that, butit helps to people to learn how
to meditate and also there's somany benefits to that producing
different serotonin and dopamineand endorphins through certain
settings that it has allowingthe brain again going dopamine
and endorphins through certainsettings.
That it has allowing the brainagain going into different
brainwave length because of thatstrobing light.
But you're sitting with youreyes closed and it goes.
(36:38):
The light goes through theredness of your eyes and kind of
affects your brain.
It's actually used in clinical.
Um, there was lucia star.
That's the one that's used inclinical trials and in clinical
settings too.
It has helps with performance,with cognitive functions, with
insomnia, with hormones, with somany depression, anxiety, of
course, and so many differentbenefits of that.
(36:59):
But I feel like it's fascinating.
I feel like it's moreproductive together with sound
healing, because sound healingis another beautiful modality
that allows to.
Also because, again, again,everything within our body, uh,
vibrates.
Every single cell has avibration but when we?
experience pain or stress orthings of that nature.
The parts of the body wherethat's happening is becoming
(37:22):
incoherent, the energy withinour field, and you know how
sometimes we can see peoplewalking in the room and maybe
they don't look anything specialbut we naturally feel drawn to
them, or the opposite, we can bereally like wanting to get away
, even though the person didn'tsay or do anything yet.
Right, we're reading theirvibes.
We're natural telepathic andempathic humans and we forget
(37:43):
that we read energy and weshould be much more in tune with
our energetic capabilities, soto say Right, but not often we
can really distinguish thatcapabilities, so to say right,
but not often we can reallydistinguish that.
Sometimes we have thoseexperiences that really show us
how well we can feel someoneright and it's a beautiful
experience.
But naturally, again, it takessometimes time because our mind
can overpower a lot of energetickind of fluidity that we may
(38:06):
have within our body and sosound healing allows to
penetrate, especially if it'sdone in a closed room and and
the sound bounces off the walls,penetrating the body and
shifting that vibration,changing that vibration from
that incoherent to more coherent.
And actually I've done thisclasses in rehab, even in detox
and seeing people strugglingwith withdrawal symptoms.
(38:27):
That had beautiful experiencesand they were able to fall
asleep.
If they couldn't sleep, theystopped having anxiety for the
time of the session.
They even didn't have certainsensations that were bothering
them, like pain right.
A lot of people go through paintoo, so it was a very it was
incredible to see what thatpractice can do alone in itself,
(38:48):
with a little bit of meditation, of guiding them and energy
work.
We have Reiki, we have othertypes of energies that people
can also find within themselves.
It's just connecting more, andyour spiritual practice should
be one of the important thingsof your life, to be supported,
to go in and tune in.
However you do it, whether it'syou have a religion that you
belong to and congregation oryou do meditation.
(39:09):
All of those practices arespiritual in nature, especially
if we use them as such.
You know, we can really connectwith the deeper parts of
ourselves, that energy that runsthrough all of our bodies right
now, right as we speak.
We're so fortunate to be ableto have this conversation today,
and why?
Because we have this essencewithin ourselves, this energy
that's still running this body.
That's why we're still alive.
(39:30):
We're not the bodies, we'rethat essence and um, plant
medicine oh, that's cool.
Another beast, I would say I've.
Um, that was the second stageand that's that that.
I mentioned the spiritual kindof development for me.
Again, I make, uh, thestatement clear here it's not
for.
(39:51):
So I feel like it's importantto seek professional advice
before you go into somethinglike this and again consulting
with yourself and, again, yourmedical providers.
For me, that was a lifechanging experience that I never
expected that would be so, andworking with ayahuasca, that was
the medicine that was stillwith me from 2017.
(40:12):
I've done a lot, of, a lot ofwork on myself with that and
also studied with shamans andwas fortunate to be able to
serve as well in that setting,and it was incredible experience
.
Uh it.
It changed everything for mepersonally and I call it they
call it in circles too.
(40:32):
It's terribly beautiful.
It's gonna be rough to be goingthrough that, but it's so, so
healing and it's so beautiful tobe able to get that level of
healing that's so deep inside ofourselves and also so far out
of ourselves too, becausethere's a lot of spiritual kind
of wisdom that we received fromthat and understanding that
probably we won't have theimagination enough as humans to
(40:55):
really experience what we arefortunate sometimes to
experience through those kind ofceremonies.
So that was a huge, hugeexperience for me, and it helped
people integrate too.
If they're struggling withsomething or they want to
integrate their experience fromthe medicine, I'm usually there
and supporting them through thatand providing the education
that I know about it and that Iwas taught, and I'm trying to be
(41:17):
available for that as well.
So it's a beautiful experience.
If anybody you know are calledto go for that, yes, just
verifying that it's safe for youpersonally to do that.
But if it's something that youcan, then and you want to, it's
it's definitely an experiencethat can make a lot of impact in
(41:38):
a positive way.
Okay, okay, okay um.
Speaker 1 (41:44):
So how, um Moving forward?
What are some daily habits ormindset shifts that help people
stay resilient in their healingjourney, as far as trying to
(42:06):
heal from their trauma?
Speaker 2 (42:11):
Well, I think we're all going to have a different
protocol for that.
I feel like, starting withthree areas it's mental,
emotional, rather mentalspiritual and physical, because,
again, emotional will follow ifwe have those three.
And learning.
Number one being open toeverything.
Because I feel like if we'renot open to trying new things
(42:32):
and willing to integrate thatand being ready to really
dedicate ourselves to this newroutine, because again you're
breaking yourself, you'rebreaking your cycles, you're
breaking your patterns.
It's not for everybody.
I know a lot of people who getstuck for much longer than what
they can get stuck for, right,because again it's a rough.
It has to be commitment.
We have to be committed to thischange.
(42:55):
But I feel like navigatingnumber one, the mental area,
right, the mental part of it,again.
What do we watch?
What do we listen to?
Who is in our circle too?
Who is the person that Iconsult with and do they make me
feel great, right or not?
If it's not that, then maybe weshould change the circle as
well.
Positive affirmations, gratitudejournal has been proven to be
(43:19):
to increase mood, to improvemood and to improve sleep as
well through studies, right, sothere's always that scientific
basis for those things that Iusually recommend to people.
Meditation can be another one,right, I feel like anything that
will help to domesticate yourmind, because our minds are
often this wild horse that'sjumping everywhere.
(43:39):
I always give this metaphor andso first we'll need to
domesticate this horse so thatit serves me well, so that I can
use this horse to work for me,and that will again include
scheduling those activities outand staying consistent with that
, and it doesn't take too muchtime.
Journaling is another one,right.
So people have to try whatworks for them and then be
(44:00):
consistent too.
But to give it a not just well,I tried it once.
Yeah, I have a lot of peoplesay well, meditation doesn't
work for me.
Of course it doesn't workbecause it takes time.
It works if you work it, if youstay consistent with that, then
you're able to gain thosebenefits.
(44:20):
Second one physical.
I feel like having dedicationand starting small.
You don't have to start big,but, if you want to, again
taking that class because lifeis movement.
So if I allow myself to move,whether it's yoga, whether it's
trying completely new things, anew class, maybe going to the
gym, signing, signing up forthat, maybe taking walks outside
, starting again, somethingthat's easy, that doesn't create
a conflict with yourresponsibilities, because I know
people can have kids, they canhave, you know, spouses, jobs
(44:42):
that are very demanding.
So I feel like adding smallbits and pieces into that can be
a very good beginning andspiritual component for sure for
me.
Again, not again, not, I knowsome people may not agree with
that, and that's fine.
I feel like meditation canafford us to experience some of
the spiritual kind of aspects oflife as well, but I had it.
(45:03):
For me, connecting with myhigher power made so much
difference and every singlenight I'm on my knees on the
floor right next to my altar andI'm praying, I meditate, I'm
doing all of the things that Iknow are good for me, just like
I brush my teeth and I alwayssay you know, when we don't want
to commit to something, are youbrushing your teeth regularly?
People are like well, of coursewe have to have enough energy
(45:25):
to give ourselves our higherself some time out of the day
too, and I feel like that cancreate a better connection with
you as well with yourself, if wealign with, again, our
spiritual nature.
Speaker 1 (45:39):
Right, right, okay.
So, um, what are some of thebiggest uh making misconceptions
about, about trauma and healing, that you would like to debunk?
Speaker 2 (45:54):
Well, number one is one size doesn't fit all.
Sometimes we have to do somesoul searching in order to find
either a professional that wecan align with Cause I actually
that was my own experience too,when I went for therapy for the
first time and the person didnot understand me at all.
I was like, well, this is allBS, I'm not going to even
(46:15):
continue because all of thetherapists will be like that.
That's a huge misconception.
Just like we find againprofessionals that clean our
houses, doing our nails, doingour hair right.
We have to find the rightperson.
It's not going to be probablythe first person we go to that
we stick with for a while.
Sometimes we have to do somesoul searching in other areas or
(46:35):
you know people can relate to,maybe like finding babysitters
for their kids too.
Right, it's going to.
It's going to take some time.
So I feel like number one isgiving it a try and also not
giving up right away.
Give it some time, trydifferent things, contact
someone with it for aconsultation, get their kind of
(46:55):
what they're doing, how they are, see if you guys can connect
first, and also, again, notgiving up with just trying one
modality that you're given Ifeel like giving it a little
more time, because tryingdoesn't mean I did it once and
it doesn't work.
Of course it doesn't work.
I mean you go to the gym oneand then once, and then you
think you're going to have akiller body until the end of the
(47:16):
year.
No right, consistency is thekey.
So if you stay consistent withthat, it's going to start giving
us those benefits.
That's number one.
Number two trauma does not haveto be something that you
experienced.
That was either near-deathexperience or sexual abuse.
Sometimes traumas can be a lotof other things.
(47:37):
For instance, again, notgetting proper care by your
parent or caregiver, not gettingyour needs met as a child too.
That can lead to really severekind of consequences in
adulthood.
So, again, consulting and goingover with a professional of
your experiences if you feellike there may be something
there in your childhood but youjust can't pinpoint because
there was no abuse, it doesn'tmean that you didn't have trauma
(48:00):
.
So I feel like looking deeperinto that and getting more
literature too, getting moreeducated on that too, for
yourself.
If you don't want to consultwith professionals at this point
yet, yeah, and just again, justbeing ready to address that.
We have to be really hungry tochange, because it's going to be
quite a fight and you will befighting yourself and that's a
(48:22):
hard one.
But if you win over this fight,you will win all of the other
fights that come afterwards,because you will know yourself
so well that you cannot trickyourself, you cannot lie to
yourself, you're honest and openand you can look at yourself
objectively and say okay, Ireally I definitely need to
change this trait right now.
I definitely want to changethat and I need to change that
and I'm ready to change that andstart doing these adjustments
(48:46):
in my schedule, in myself and mypatterns, in order to have a
different result.
Speaker 1 (48:51):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, definitely.
Um definitely feel that.
So um uh, in closing, um, thishas been a really good episode,
um, to address trauma, and Idefinitely actually want to
(49:11):
continue talking on trauma anddefinitely wanting to do a part
two on this, and I would lovefor you to come back and to be a
part of a panel that I'm goingto put together, so would you do
that?
Speaker 2 (49:31):
With my honor and pleasure, everything I'm with
you for sure.
Speaker 1 (49:35):
Thank you, thank you so much, thank you so much.
So, yeah, I feel like that thistopic is such a big topic and
that leads to so many othersubtopics that people are
dealing with and I definitelywant to address more on this
(50:01):
specific topic.
So, yeah, I'm definitely goingto put together a panel so we
can continue this conversationand I really just thank you for
coming on to the podcast andjust sharing your knowledge,
sharing your story, and I'm justvery appreciative.
(50:21):
Thank you so much, thank you.
Speaker 2 (50:24):
Thank you.
Thank you for having me.
It's an honor and pleasure.
Speaker 1 (50:29):
So any final words of advice to any listeners that
are listening to this episodethat is struggling with trauma
and they've heard this episodebut they're just still on the
fence about it.
So any you know, final words ofencouragement.
Speaker 2 (50:52):
So, any, you know.
Final words of encouragementyeah Well, number one, you're
not alone.
Again, there are a lot ofpeople that are struggling, and
being in this field showed mehow all of us are more alike
than we think.
And even though nobody willunderstand you 100% it's
impossible we can get close toit by asking questions, by being
there, of course, but nobodywill really really feel what
(51:12):
you're feeling.
You can change that, it'spossible.
There is a way out.
You can do.
You.
You will be able.
If you do the work, you will beable to change how you feel and
how you experience life, andyour life can be better.
It's, it's possible, it's there, I've it, I've seen people
doing it and again, it's.
(51:33):
The credit always goes to theperson who is doing the work.
Even when I work with people, Igive the information.
What they do with that, it's upto them, and some people take
it and they heal.
Some people don't Right, butyou can heal.
It's possible, I've seen it,and it doesn't have to be that
way.
So just, there is hope, thereis light and you can do it.
Speaker 1 (51:56):
Yeah, yeah.
And I just want to say onething just don't be afraid to
let people in.
Don't be afraid to let peoplein and to allow people to help
you within your journey.
And again, like you said,you're not alone.
(52:16):
So, yeah, definitely with that,don't be afraid and don't feel
ashamed of whatever you've gonethrough, whether it's small or
large, you know it's still yourtrauma, is still your journey
and again, you don't have to doit alone.
Speaker 2 (52:39):
Yes, beautiful.
Speaker 1 (52:42):
So, um, thank you again for coming on and, uh,
listeners, I hope you thoroughlyenjoyed this episode and we are
definitely going to come backfor a part two series.
So, definitely, um, y'all tuneinto that and um, until next
(53:03):
time.
We'll see you guys later.
Thank you, my listeners, andy'all listen to my outro music,
you.
yo, what's up everybody?
It's your boy, anthony.
Welcome to another edition ofspeed, this podcast.
What's going on y'all?
What's up?
All right, I know it's augustand it's been since May.
(00:22):
Since I've posted and my bady'all, it's just been a lot that
has been going on a whole lot.
So let me give y'all a quicksynopsis of everything that's
(00:44):
happened between May and now.
So my anniversary came about onJuneteenth, so initially I was
going to release a episode.
(01:04):
The plan was to release anepisode on Juneteenth
celebrating my five-yearanniversary.
Yes, me, I've made it fiveyears in the business of
podcasting.
So that was going to be a hugething of me releasing an episode
, but it didn't happen.
(01:26):
However, what was happeningbehind the scenes was I recorded
a podcast called Inside theMind of a man and volume.
(01:53):
I'm going to create a series ofit, allowing them to express
how, growing up, either with orwithout a foggy figure, how that
impacted their lives, how theyhandle emotions, et cetera, et
(02:17):
cetera.
So we had a whole podcast topicon that and it turned into a
series and within that podcast,because it was so good, I turned
it into my first docufilm, andso I released my docufilm.
(02:43):
I released it.
It was going to be released onJuneteenth, which was my
anniversary, but I didn't haveeverything together so I
released it at the end of June.
So I released.
It is now streaming on YouTube.
(03:05):
You can actually check the shownotes and you can click the
link and you can actually seethe movie yourself so you can
check it out.
Simply amazing.
Their stories were so touching.
(03:25):
I was just so moved.
The whole segment was moving,everybody being so transparent
and so honest and showing theemotion expressing their
feelings.
So definitely check that out.
And that was just volume one,inside the Mind of a man, volume
(03:46):
one between me and my father.
I've got like three morevolumes that's coming out.
The second volume is going tocome out in 2026.
Not only I'm working on that,but I know you guys are
wondering okay, what's happenedwith Tricky Cards at Hand?
(04:08):
Because that's my fictionalseries that was supposed to be
coming out in 2025 as well.
That is also in development aswell, because that is my
fictional, biblical,psychological drama.
(04:28):
So that's a genre that I amcreating.
So that's going to be a visualaudio series and that will be
coming out soon.
I am pushing that date back, soit would just be.
I'm just going to say it'scoming out soon, not giving a
(04:53):
release date because I want itto be top quality, and so, in
the process of writing the firstepisode, I have a writer that's
helping me out writing it andalso, speaking of that the
(05:15):
writer, I have a new co-hostthat will be joining me who is
also the writer that is helpingme with that script.
So you will see my new co-hostcoming soon One of my real, real
(05:35):
good friends, a brother to mein the upcoming shows and I hope
(05:55):
you guys enjoy what we will bedoing.
So that will also be happening.
So that is pretty much it, yeah.
So, oh, sorry, I will bereleasing the audio version of
the movie that will be comingout soon.
I'm still editing that becausethe video version previews and
(06:17):
stuff.
So I'll give upcoming dates andstuff soon.
But I hope you enjoyed thisepisode.
It's going to focus on healingtrauma and my guest.
(06:39):
I loved her.
She did an amazing job.
She was a licensed therapistand I hope you are able to learn
from her and her techniquesthat she gives.
Other than that, I hope youguys Just enjoy it and stay
(07:03):
tuned for all the previews thatwill be released soon Some
special small movies that willbe released soon.
I'll be getting the YouTube andstuff coming out as well that
will be released.
As far as my YouTube channel,that will be coming out soon.
(07:24):
I'll be back on TikTok soon, so, yeah, y'all stay tuned.
I'll be sending out all thoseupdates.
Other than that, enjoy thisepisode.
Peace, everybody.
(07:54):
I hope y'all are having um awonderful day today.
Um, we are finally spring,finally no more winter or
anything like that, thankgoodness, because this weather
has been insane, but we'refinally approaching warmth and
(08:16):
everything like that, so I'mglad for that.
But today I've got a reallyheavy, serious topic and it's
dealing with healing trauma andI have a very special guest with
(08:38):
me and I'm going to go aheadand introduce her in my special
guest today is Alyssa.
Speaker 2 (08:50):
Alyssa, how are you doing today?
I'm doing wonderful.
Thank you so much for having me.
It's an honor and I would loveto dive deeper into this topic.
Speaker 1 (08:56):
for sure it's something I'm very passionate
about.
Yes, yeah.
So, alyssa, tell everybody whoyou are and what you do.
Speaker 2 (09:09):
Yes, so my current career is a licensed mental
health clinician counselor.
I specialize in trauma and it'ssomething that definitely is my
life's mission and somethingI'm really.
I feel like I'm honored to beable to do this work with people
because I've dealt with thatmyself as well throughout my
(09:30):
journey.
And being assistance andproviding that guidance and
helping people to overcomecertain experiences they
struggle with is my life'smission and my life's goal, and
I'm consecrated to God.
I call it, I love to be youknow of service when it comes to
that part.
Speaker 1 (09:49):
That is amazing.
That's amazing.
Well, welcome to my podcast.
I'm so happy and honored tohave you on and we're going to
go ahead and just dive on in,okay, so tell everybody, if you
can.
I want to ask you what exactlyis trauma and how does it affect
(10:20):
the mind and the body?
Speaker 2 (10:23):
Right.
So and I'm glad that you'rebringing both of those aspects
into play, because I feel likewe have we're not knowledgeable
enough about what trauma is, orwe have this old kind of
definition of trauma when we'retalking about, you know, being
in situations that are close todeath, right near death
experiences, being in combat,right being veterans of serving
(10:47):
the country, being a victim of,you know, sexual abuse, domestic
violence, things of that nature, and trauma.
Now we're becoming more awareof what that is and how it can
affect others, and there's a lot, of, a lot more literature now
that we have available.
We're actually living in a veryfortunate times when it comes
to that, because now Iunderstand that a much deeper
level.
(11:07):
So trauma can be anything thatimpedes your progress, anything
that prevents you fromfunctioning in the best possible
way.
It doesn't have to be somethingthat we just experienced, that
near death experience orwitnessing some horrific things.
Also, not getting our needs metcan also be a severe experience
for children per se and thatcan develop afterwards in
(11:30):
something that really preventsus from functioning in a society
in the best way possibledealing with relationships
successfully, our personaldevelopment, our emotional
well-being, our physicalwell-being as well, because now
we know how much stress canbring on for our physiology and
what, what kind of problems wecan experience afterwards.
(11:50):
We know it can help developcancer, autoimmune diseases,
chronic pains.
There's so many aspects oftrauma that before we had no
idea about.
Now we become more aware thatit's not just mental.
Trauma resides in ourphysiology and there's a lot of
again books right now.
Body keeps the score, the mythof normal.
There's a lot of resources thathelp us understand that in a
(12:13):
deeper way if we are ready tolisten to that, because I know
sometimes we don't think that.
I want to dig back into whathappened to me and you know it's
a past, but we have toacknowledge whether this is
something that it's stillaffecting me today and that can
be not in a way of having aflashback per se, but struggling
.
Maybe I have a lot of low dayswhen I'm really struggling to
(12:35):
get out of that and that may notbe even conscious in our mind
or why I feel this way.
Because we have this, so we callit top and bottom brain
physiology itself that keeps thescore, that keeps those
negative neural networks underwhich we have certain experience
are being encoded as, let's say, negative beliefs about
ourselves, but we have noconscious awareness of that when
(12:57):
it comes to our conscious mind.
So it's a very tricky thingthat we're being triggered in
our physiology but we with ourmind we cannot distinguish why
we're being triggered in ourphysiology, but we with our mind
, we cannot distinguish whywe're being triggered or why
we're over overreacting, whywe're acting that way and we're
not able to respond to certainthings.
We're going to this we call itsympathetic dominance If we're
being triggered in ourphysiology where we can't think
(13:18):
straight, and so this is veryimportant aspects of that.
And I feel like, again, there'sso much more that goes into
that when we're talking about itand you know mechanics of it
when it comes to physiology andthe mind.
But I feel like, first, it'sunderstanding what is trauma and
again, it doesn't have to besomething that can cause you,
let's say, to think back and say, well, yes, I was severely
abused, I've been bitten, I'vebeen, I had all of this sort of
(13:41):
negative experiences thatimpacted me.
It doesn't have to be that way.
Sometimes, again, not havingone parent there and struggling
to navigate, even being a childfor some people, even though
you've never had, let's say,physical abuse, it doesn't mean
that you won't have trauma Again.
We have a lot more informationand kind of different aspects of
(14:03):
trauma that we now begin torecognize as such, and so that's
the advantage that we currentlyhave.
Speaker 1 (14:09):
Right, right, I do want to circle back to um,
something that you said earlierand um, why do uh I guess you
can say um are not forthcominginto really um deal, uh, really
(14:35):
dealing with um, talking abouttrauma that's happened in their
past, Like they, I guess you cansay they they're not really
ready to um, to speak on it orready to relive it.
Why do you think that?
Speaker 2 (14:55):
Well, a lot of times.
Number one we have tounderstand how trauma works as
well.
You know deeper.
In that way, we have implicitmemories and we have explicit
memories.
So explicit memory is somethingI can recall.
I can say, well, yeah, that wasin that year, that's what
happened.
I've had this argument with myparents, I've had this fight
with my loved one, whatever thatsituation was, that's the
(15:17):
explicit memory I can say.
When that happened, I may evendescribe what happened.
However, implicit memories issomething that we experience
going through that, and sosometimes those memories get
repressed.
It's not even that we're notgoing to have parts of the
memories that are explicit, likeremembering or recalling the
details of the event.
That can be one way, butanother way again, because we
(15:39):
have to function.
Function and sometimes, again, aminor thing if I think as an
adult back and I think about mychildhood experiences, I may not
have access to how the childself felt during that situation,
because for me now I'm thinkingback well, that was nothing,
you know, that was some minorthing.
I know my mom was dealing withsomething or my dad was dealing
with something.
I understand that.
(16:00):
Yes, we understand it as anadult now, but what's being
triggered is that physiologythat we experienced as children,
that that was created duringthat impactful event, and the uh
, the emotions and sensationsand the negative kind of beliefs
about ourselves that we hadduring that period as children
can be outside of our consciousawareness because it was so far
(16:22):
away.
And for the child to processthose experiences again, I'm
not'm not an adult back then.
So how can I make sense ofwhat's happening for me if I
don't get what I need from myparents and I may think, okay,
well, I'm unlovable, I'm unsafe,people can't be trusted.
There can be a lot of thingsthat for us now it seems like
it's a minor thing, but for achild it can be a huge
(16:42):
experience.
And so sometimes, again, goingbackwards can be a lot for a lot
of people and even though theymay not really have an idea that
they experienced certain pain,in this moment again we have to
pay attention to how am I beingimpacted right now?
And I have people who say youknow, I don't want to dig up the
past, right, I'm fine, it wastoo much back there.
(17:04):
Like it's too much to kind ofbring back forth, okay.
But these people are alsocalling 9-1-1 every single month
because they're having a panicattack, right.
So, again, we have toacknowledge how those
experiences may be affecting usnow.
Again, there's no point oftrying to go back and bash our
parents about what happened.
You know, if we're fine, if I'mfine right now, but if I'm
(17:25):
struggling to navigate liferight now in certain ways, we
should address that.
And I always give this metaphorwhen people say I don't want to
go backwards, right, I say, well, imagine you have this open
injury.
Imagine you cut your arm, forinstance, right, and I have this
open wound.
Then the wound heals, on topright you have the scar, but
inside of that wound there isthe infection that continues to
(17:48):
impact you and you have fever.
You're feeling bad.
When you look on top of me,like you know what, it's healed,
it's fine, I don't see anything, because I don't see what's
going on on the surface of that.
I may not even understand theimpact that this wound is
creating from the inside becauseof that infection.
And so we continue to live likethat and say you know, I'm not
going to dig into that, that'sfine, and we're going to
(18:10):
continue to have that fever, youknow.
However, it's going to affectme, shivers and throwing out
whatever, whatever is going tobe created within me.
But again, I'm refusing to goin just because, you know, maybe
it was too much, it was toopainful, that wound was too
painful.
We have to pick and choose.
Am I sick and tired to bedealing with that?
Or, you know, do I want tocontinue healing and I want to
(18:32):
address that and it's yeah, it'snot for everybody.
People can be afraid and I feellike taking your time for when
you're finally ready to do that.
It's an important step becauseyou know you don't want to be
digging when the person does notwant to go there.
It can create more tension andstress than heal heal.
Heal them from that trauma.
Speaker 1 (18:52):
Right, right, yeah, that's uh, I completely, um
totally uh understand that.
So, um, what uh, um are thedifferent?
Uh, actually, I'm sorry.
How does unresolved traumaimpacts a person's mental health
(19:15):
and their relationships and apersonal growth?
Like, for instance, let's say,if someone just decides again
like I'm not going to deal withit, and how would that affect,
particularly, like, theirrelationships with people?
Speaker 2 (19:37):
Well, again, it depends.
Everybody has to make their ownjudgment.
In that way, I feel like firstwe have to become honest.
Am I living my best life?
Am I the best version of myself?
Or there's something in my lifethat I don't like and I want to
change, but I'm incapable ofdoing so, and so I feel like,
when we find that brick wallthat I'm not able to cross and
(20:01):
that's something that's reallybothering your life, right, it's
something that is not.
You don't want to live likethis anymore, but you also don't
have the solution.
I feel like this is a greatmoment to consider that.
That might be because of thetraumatic experiences.
Again, usually the consequenceof that can be all of the major
things that we know substanceuse, anxiety, depression, right,
(20:21):
inability to build connectionsand we don't even know why it's
there, right?
Sometimes, again, I'm not evenfeeling confident to come and
talk to that person, or I'm notable to communicate my needs to
people around me, or I'm notable to establish new
connections.
I'm not able to perform at work, right, maybe it's the
concentration, maybe it'stiredness, maybe it can be so
(20:44):
many different things in whichwe can experience that
dysfunction, I would say, andjust being honest with ourselves
first Is that the person I wantto be, or there's a better
version of me?
And why am I not making thisleap forward?
When I want to and I'm ready,then there's something going on
inside of me that may bepreventing me from that and I
feel like first, again, it'sbecoming more aware on in which
(21:07):
way our life right now is notworking well.
Right, and that's the startingpoint.
And then we try to go out thereand start seeking solutions,
and it can be in different ways.
Right, some people can useself-help kind of strategies,
and sometimes you need to go forprofessional help and really
get into, you know, treating andhealing those parts of
(21:27):
ourselves.
Speaker 1 (21:28):
Right, right.
So, um speaking of uh dealingwith trauma, can you share um
your particular story and how umtrauma you experiencing trauma,
how that shaped uh your pathand what was some of the biggest
(21:50):
challenges that you faced inyour healing journey?
Speaker 2 (21:56):
Oh my God, so many, so many.
And that's why exactly that'smy point, that sometimes we need
to wait for the right time,just like I feel like there's
also just like we have naturalcycles in nature, right, we have
natural cycles in our lives andeven sometimes, if I want
certain things to happen now, Imay not be ready for that
(22:16):
because it maybe needs to be alot of work.
Maybe I need to get to adifferent place, maybe I need to
first change my environment,because maybe the abusive
environment that's preventing me.
So it's a lot of steps to that.
And so, in my personal case,well, I've been an immigrant
since I was 18.
I moved here to the UnitedStates from Russia and I was
very young I didn't have myparents with me.
(22:37):
That was a very big change,that also.
I wasn't even sure why therewere reasons for that, but
mentally I was like there couldhave been ways to figure that
out, but the pain of me livingthere.
So I've had certain traumaticexperiences, but not in the way
of what we again perceive assomething serious or
endangerment or abuse.
(22:58):
Right, I didn't have that.
I didn't have a dad, but againliving.
I was born in Soviet Union, soit was a very, very kind of poor
life, but I never felt like itwas poor.
But again, we didn't reallyhave much.
So living there and my mom wasdealing with a lot of things too
.
So that started my kind offeelings of hopelessness
(23:21):
initially, which again I wasaddressing.
Still till today I'm stillworking on that to address those
feelings, because that's howdeep our childhood traumas can
be.
And when I moved here my firstromantic relationship was
abusive.
It was a sexual abuse.
Speaker 1 (23:37):
It was domestic violence.
Speaker 2 (23:38):
It was a lot of really really tough experiences.
And that was a very big thing toovercome for myself and it
started.
I've spent quite some time inthe victim mode myself and
trying to figure out life andturning to substance use and
struggling with depression andanxiety and whatever you can
think of it was a bouquet ofdifferent things, but help comes
(24:01):
in many different shapes andforms and I was able to navigate
it, first from a standpoint ofmy health and first attempt of
quitting drinking and working onmy mental state and clearing
out my mind completely, changingthe mindset.
There's one quote that I alwayslove to provide from Albert
Einstein we can't solve aproblem with the same mind that
(24:21):
created it.
If we're remaining in the samemind, nothing is going to change
.
But if I start to takedifferent actions, make
different steps, if I begin tolook for different ways and
different information andtalking to different people
getting out of different socialcircles too, so I feel like
that's the first step ofbeginning to address how we
(24:43):
think, and so that was my firststep.
But again, it didn't kind of.
It was a long time for me to beworking through that as well,
and that gave me a lot offreedom to to choose how I
respond to things, to become adifferent version of myself,
improved version, and the nextstep was spirituality.
That was the next way for me to, or the next, you know, kind of
(25:06):
journey to address and to finddeeper meaning of my traumatic
experiences.
And that's what gave me evenmore kind of understanding of
traumas and understanding how wecan feel after we make peace
with it.
Because I feel like the naturalprogression of that is to look
back and to be, in certain ways,to see positive aspects of that
(25:29):
traumatic experience and how itwas on my development.
And then finding and saying youknow what, what?
Because of that I am where I amtoday and so I'm grateful that
I had that, because it broughtme here and I feel like this is
the healing we seek.
I mean, we can't say I'm happyabout that and I can't say that,
you know, I would wish that onanybody, of course not.
But I'm happy that I am herenow because it led me to this
(25:51):
mission to be on purpose, to beof service, and I found this new
meaning of that and that was aspiritual aspect of that.
And now, from the last coupleof years, actually it was more
of the addressing physiology,because this was the new step of
that.
And again, trauma was notalready affecting me in that way
, but I've discovered moreaspects of the trauma that I
(26:11):
never addressed away.
But I've discovered moreaspects of the trauma that I
never addressed.
And so that became my next kindof journey as well, with EMDR
and processing and working withsomatic kind of exercises to
really navigate the physiologyof it and to look different, to
begin to break down those neuralconnections that have been
created for decades of my life.
So, yeah, there was a lot ofsteps to that, even though the
whole experience was probably 15years ago.
(26:32):
So, yeah, there was a lot ofsteps to that, even though the
whole experience was probably 15years ago.
Speaker 1 (26:36):
So yeah, wow.
So can you explain a littlefurther some specific, the
specific techniques that help,that can help people heal from
trauma, such as, like thedifferent types of therapies,
(27:00):
such as some asthmatic therapyor logo therapy or any, or, et
cetera.
Speaker 2 (27:11):
Right Of, of course.
So I would start with somethingthat I feel like we need to
address before we move into,like those more subtle and more
deeper parts of ourselves is ourmind, and I feel like
navigating and becoming moreaware of what kind of thought
patterns we have, becausenaturally we're creatures of
habits and the mind is the firstthing that gets influenced, and
(27:33):
it gets influenced prettyquickly because we're always on
the phone, we're always on media.
You know we're a lot of peoplewatch tv and garbage in, garbage
out.
If that's what I take in, thenmy thoughts will be influenced
by that information and becomingmore aware how that information
also serves me in navigatingthe struggles that I may have
right.
(27:53):
Maybe it's adding me to feelmore agitator, feel more unsafe
or feel more angry, and I feellike again becoming more aware
of our mind processes altogether, and that's what CBT allows us
to accomplish.
It's looking at how ourcognition, our beliefs, can
affect our lives, and so themoment we become more aware of
what's going on in our mind, ourbeliefs can affect our lives,
and so the moment we become moreaware of what's going on in our
mind because naturally in ourlives our mind is the only thing
(28:17):
we have control over, and Iknow we're all control freaks
and we want to predicteverything we have scheduled or,
you know, scheduled for monthsahead, but we can do nothing
about it if something goessideways.
So I feel like navigating.
Navigating, becoming more aware,becoming your best friend in
your mind and knowing how tolift you up, how to get you
through the struggle.
Learning the stress, tolerance,tolerance skills, right,
(28:40):
becoming more again hands-on,having tools, the mental health
tools that can allow you toreally say a, b, c, d.
This is what I'm doing when I'mstart to feel low.
Right, because naturally everyemotional experience comes from
our thoughts or the triggers ofphysiology.
So there are a few components.
But naturally is, what meaningdo I give to the situation?
(29:01):
What do I think that means tome, what just happened?
And everybody will have adifferent perception of the same
thing.
So, becoming again more awareof is my perspective on at life
or of life, is it healing me orkilling me?
because, sometimes when we haveone event and I look at it and
I'm completely destroyed by that, or I see an opportunity in
(29:22):
that.
So you know what, in spite ofthat, I'm gonna, I'm gonna
master myself, I'm gonna have adifferent reaction to that or
response.
Rather, I'm not gonna have areaction, I'm gonna have a
response.
So I feel like starting withmind and anything that will help
anybody to become your own bestfriend, to know what, what
responses you have naturally toa lot of things that happen in
life, and that would be numberone, right.
(29:44):
Uh, moving deeper again, andthat's going to be mind and
emotions together, becausenaturally we'll find a way to
kind of feel differently,because I choose to think
differently.
Also, practicing more of amindfulness meditation, anything
that gives you that controlover your mind too, because
naturally, if you're able to bemore in tune with how you react
(30:05):
to things, then it's more likelythan in triggering situation
you'll have a little morecontrol over that.
The logotherapy that youmentioned is beautiful,
beautiful, um, existentialtherapy or existential approach,
right is again, it's findingthat deeper meaning of that, and
I think it's more of aspiritual kind of perspective.
Maybe that can come even afterwe address more physiological
(30:29):
things with somatic and EMDRright, but logotherapy it's a
created art piece for society byViktor Frankl, who went through
Holocaust, he was a Holocaustsurvivor and he created this
amazing book and the techniquein general for therapeutic world
.
And that's a beautiful gift tojust explore and how to make
(30:50):
sense of your trauma rightwithout being a victim, or even
if you are a victim, right butnot see yourself as such,
because naturally it's how wesee I can become the master of
myself going through somethinglike this and, you know, find a
blessing in anything, and that'swhat he, I feel like, proved to
the world that we can too.
The physiological component asthe next part of that.
(31:14):
Um, so everything that weexperience in life, naturally
it's not going to be just amental process, like if we think
back and even when we'rewatching a movie, if we're
watching a scary movie, we getscared, not just mentally, we
really feel scared.
We have heart palpitations, wehave shaking, we may have
indigestion, we have response ofthe body.
(31:34):
So anytime we experienceanything, our neurons fire and
wire together, creating neuralconnections within ourselves,
whether it's good or bad.
But underneath that is what wedon't know is that there is
either a negative or positivebelief about yourself and when
we have a very distressingexperience as childs, as
children or as adults as well,it doesn't matter where we are.
(31:55):
The neurons will find we aretogether, creating this
connection, and from this pointon we may attract or go through
experiences that will reaffirmthis connection.
And so if we're children goingthrough that and we have this
negative neural network thatcontinues to form, then it may
start to affect me from thatpoint on as a child.
And imagine if you're three orfour and you have a negative
(32:16):
belief about yourself internally, that I'm not safe, people
can't be trusted.
How is it going to impact achild going into school?
Right, you're not going to bemaking connections, you're not
going to be taking newopportunities.
You'll probably be morereserved or antisocial, whatever
you know, we label kidsnowadays so much in schools too,
with all sorts of problems.
(32:36):
But the problem can be that thechild is struggling something
from even before that school andmaybe there's something that he
needs to address, or he or she.
And so that's what EMDR now andsomatic work allows us to do is
to become more aware of ourphysiology and practicing we
have this term that's calledinterception.
It's learning to be aware ofthe bodily sensations, learning
(32:58):
to be inside of your body and tonot want it to get out or
feeling uncomfortable, andlearning to self-regulate by
being inside too.
And that's what somatic workoffers us to do right.
It's allowing us to reallyobserve, even when I'm talking
about something distressing, andif I'm able to maintain the
level, that's what somatic workoffers us to do right.
It's allowing us to reallyobserve, even when I'm talking
about something distressing, andif I'm able to maintain the
level of relaxation within mybody, I'm not going to have a
(33:20):
symptom of PTSD or anxiety.
And now we have a proof forthat.
So you can't have anxiety,stress or PTSD symptoms in
relaxed physiology.
So the stress that we experience, it's not just the mental thing
, it's literally constriction ofour muscles within our body,
because naturally, that's whathappens when we think about
something traumatic, because ourthoughts do not, our mind does
(33:42):
not distinguish something weobserve in reality or something
we think about or something wewitness on the TV.
And that's exactly why we'reable to watch you know, watch
movies and enjoy them, not tothink okay, this is special
effects, this is this, this isan actor.
We really get scared, we getreally immersed into this
experience exactly for thatreason, because our brains do
(34:03):
not distinguish something likethat from reality to non-reality
, and so all of these thingsthat we watch or listen to or
think about, especially when itcomes to our past, can trigger
physiological response just likewe used to have back in the day
.
And then we're surprised thatagain.
Why am I feeling so bad rightnow?
What's happening right now?
Of course, that's what I wasthinking and I'm going backwards
(34:24):
with my mind and I have theresults of it in this point,
here and now.
So why do I choose that?
But but again, there's so manysteps to that before we even
dive deeper into the physiologyright, getting becoming more
aware.
So, yeah, there is a lot,there's it's a lot of work, and
I know it's.
It's hard to do it, but it's soworth it if we allow ourselves
(34:48):
to really become a new person.
If I want to change who I am,if I really, if I'm hungry for
that, if I'm tired living whereI was living, then it's worth it
.
It's not easy, but it's worthit.
Speaker 1 (35:03):
Yeah, yeah um, I know that uh um, I was reading um
within your uh bio that you'veexplored also different types of
alternative approaches inhelping with trauma healing,
(35:25):
such as plant medicine and lighttherapy and sound healing
energy work, so can you expoundon that?
How does that help with traumahealing, especially with the
(35:47):
plant?
Speaker 2 (35:57):
with the plant.
Oh yeah, that's a that's a bigone to cover again.
So, um, let me start that withsound healing, light therapy and
energy work.
It's something that I did, Idid and I do for a while.
I love it and it all startedwith plant medicine as well, but
this is something that I doprovide.
Currently is the again, soundhealing sound healing, pandora
star it's.
It's a light therapy, it's astrobing light.
It's not for everybody becausethere are certain
(36:18):
contraindications to that, butit helps to people to learn how
to meditate and also there's somany benefits to that producing
different serotonin and dopamineand endorphins through certain
settings that it has allowingthe brain again going dopamine
and endorphins through certainsettings.
That it has allowing the brainagain going into different
brainwave length because of thatstrobing light.
But you're sitting with youreyes closed and it goes.
(36:38):
The light goes through theredness of your eyes and kind of
affects your brain.
It's actually used in clinical.
Um, there was lucia star.
That's the one that's used inclinical trials and in clinical
settings too.
It has helps with performance,with cognitive functions, with
insomnia, with hormones, with somany depression, anxiety, of
course, and so many differentbenefits of that.
(36:59):
But I feel like it's fascinating.
I feel like it's moreproductive together with sound
healing, because sound healingis another beautiful modality
that allows to.
Also because, again, again,everything within our body, uh,
vibrates.
Every single cell has avibration but when we?
experience pain or stress orthings of that nature.
The parts of the body wherethat's happening is becoming
(37:22):
incoherent, the energy withinour field, and you know how
sometimes we can see peoplewalking in the room and maybe
they don't look anything specialbut we naturally feel drawn to
them, or the opposite, we can bereally like wanting to get away
, even though the person didn'tsay or do anything yet.
Right, we're reading theirvibes.
We're natural telepathic andempathic humans and we forget
(37:43):
that we read energy and weshould be much more in tune with
our energetic capabilities, soto say Right, but not often we
can really distinguish thatcapabilities, so to say right,
but not often we can reallydistinguish that.
Sometimes we have thoseexperiences that really show us
how well we can feel someoneright and it's a beautiful
experience.
But naturally, again, it takessometimes time because our mind
can overpower a lot of energetickind of fluidity that we may
(38:06):
have within our body and sosound healing allows to
penetrate, especially if it'sdone in a closed room and and
the sound bounces off the walls,penetrating the body and
shifting that vibration,changing that vibration from
that incoherent to more coherent.
And actually I've done thisclasses in rehab, even in detox
and seeing people strugglingwith withdrawal symptoms.
(38:27):
That had beautiful experiencesand they were able to fall
asleep.
If they couldn't sleep, theystopped having anxiety for the
time of the session.
They even didn't have certainsensations that were bothering
them, like pain right.
A lot of people go through paintoo, so it was a very it was
incredible to see what thatpractice can do alone in itself,
(38:48):
with a little bit of meditation, of guiding them and energy
work.
We have Reiki, we have othertypes of energies that people
can also find within themselves.
It's just connecting more, andyour spiritual practice should
be one of the important thingsof your life, to be supported,
to go in and tune in.
However you do it, whether it'syou have a religion that you
belong to and congregation oryou do meditation.
(39:09):
All of those practices arespiritual in nature, especially
if we use them as such.
You know, we can really connectwith the deeper parts of
ourselves, that energy that runsthrough all of our bodies right
now, right as we speak.
We're so fortunate to be ableto have this conversation today,
and why?
Because we have this essencewithin ourselves, this energy
that's still running this body.
That's why we're still alive.
(39:30):
We're not the bodies, we'rethat essence and um, plant
medicine oh, that's cool.
Another beast, I would say I've.
Um, that was the second stageand that's that that.
I mentioned the spiritual kindof development for me.
Again, I make, uh, thestatement clear here it's not
for.
(39:51):
So I feel like it's importantto seek professional advice
before you go into somethinglike this and again consulting
with yourself and, again, yourmedical providers.
For me, that was a lifechanging experience that I never
expected that would be so, andworking with ayahuasca, that was
the medicine that was stillwith me from 2017.
(40:12):
I've done a lot, of, a lot ofwork on myself with that and
also studied with shamans andwas fortunate to be able to
serve as well in that setting,and it was incredible experience
.
Uh it.
It changed everything for mepersonally and I call it they
call it in circles too.
(40:32):
It's terribly beautiful.
It's gonna be rough to be goingthrough that, but it's so, so
healing and it's so beautiful tobe able to get that level of
healing that's so deep inside ofourselves and also so far out
of ourselves too, becausethere's a lot of spiritual kind
of wisdom that we received fromthat and understanding that
probably we won't have theimagination enough as humans to
(40:55):
really experience what we arefortunate sometimes to
experience through those kind ofceremonies.
So that was a huge, hugeexperience for me, and it helped
people integrate too.
If they're struggling withsomething or they want to
integrate their experience fromthe medicine, I'm usually there
and supporting them through thatand providing the education
that I know about it and that Iwas taught, and I'm trying to be
(41:17):
available for that as well.
So it's a beautiful experience.
If anybody you know are calledto go for that, yes, just
verifying that it's safe for youpersonally to do that.
But if it's something that youcan, then and you want to, it's
it's definitely an experiencethat can make a lot of impact in
(41:38):
a positive way.
Okay, okay, okay um.
Speaker 1 (41:44):
So how, um Moving forward?
What are some daily habits ormindset shifts that help people
stay resilient in their healingjourney, as far as trying to
(42:06):
heal from their trauma?
Speaker 2 (42:11):
Well, I think we're all going to have a different
protocol for that.
I feel like, starting withthree areas it's mental,
emotional, rather mentalspiritual and physical, because,
again, emotional will follow ifwe have those three.
And learning.
Number one being open toeverything.
Because I feel like if we'renot open to trying new things
(42:32):
and willing to integrate thatand being ready to really
dedicate ourselves to this newroutine, because again you're
breaking yourself, you'rebreaking your cycles, you're
breaking your patterns.
It's not for everybody.
I know a lot of people who getstuck for much longer than what
they can get stuck for, right,because again it's a rough.
It has to be commitment.
We have to be committed to thischange.
(42:55):
But I feel like navigatingnumber one, the mental area,
right, the mental part of it,again.
What do we watch?
What do we listen to?
Who is in our circle too?
Who is the person that Iconsult with and do they make me
feel great, right or not?
If it's not that, then maybe weshould change the circle as
well.
Positive affirmations, gratitudejournal has been proven to be
(43:19):
to increase mood, to improvemood and to improve sleep as
well through studies, right, sothere's always that scientific
basis for those things that Iusually recommend to people.
Meditation can be another one,right, I feel like anything that
will help to domesticate yourmind, because our minds are
often this wild horse that'sjumping everywhere.
(43:39):
I always give this metaphor andso first we'll need to
domesticate this horse so thatit serves me well, so that I can
use this horse to work for me,and that will again include
scheduling those activities outand staying consistent with that
, and it doesn't take too muchtime.
Journaling is another one,right.
So people have to try whatworks for them and then be
(44:00):
consistent too.
But to give it a not just well,I tried it once.
Yeah, I have a lot of peoplesay well, meditation doesn't
work for me.
Of course it doesn't workbecause it takes time.
It works if you work it, if youstay consistent with that, then
you're able to gain thosebenefits.
(44:20):
Second one physical.
I feel like having dedicationand starting small.
You don't have to start big,but, if you want to, again
taking that class because lifeis movement.
So if I allow myself to move,whether it's yoga, whether it's
trying completely new things, anew class, maybe going to the
gym, signing, signing up forthat, maybe taking walks outside
, starting again, somethingthat's easy, that doesn't create
a conflict with yourresponsibilities, because I know
people can have kids, they canhave, you know, spouses, jobs
(44:42):
that are very demanding.
So I feel like adding smallbits and pieces into that can be
a very good beginning andspiritual component for sure for
me.
Again, not again, not, I knowsome people may not agree with
that, and that's fine.
I feel like meditation canafford us to experience some of
the spiritual kind of aspects oflife as well, but I had it.
(45:03):
For me, connecting with myhigher power made so much
difference and every singlenight I'm on my knees on the
floor right next to my altar andI'm praying, I meditate, I'm
doing all of the things that Iknow are good for me, just like
I brush my teeth and I alwayssay you know, when we don't want
to commit to something, are youbrushing your teeth regularly?
People are like well, of coursewe have to have enough energy
(45:25):
to give ourselves our higherself some time out of the day
too, and I feel like that cancreate a better connection with
you as well with yourself, if wealign with, again, our
spiritual nature.
Speaker 1 (45:39):
Right, right, okay.
So, um, what are some of thebiggest uh making misconceptions
about, about trauma and healing, that you would like to debunk?
Speaker 2 (45:54):
Well, number one is one size doesn't fit all.
Sometimes we have to do somesoul searching in order to find
either a professional that wecan align with Cause I actually
that was my own experience too,when I went for therapy for the
first time and the person didnot understand me at all.
I was like, well, this is allBS, I'm not going to even
(46:15):
continue because all of thetherapists will be like that.
That's a huge misconception.
Just like we find againprofessionals that clean our
houses, doing our nails, doingour hair right.
We have to find the rightperson.
It's not going to be probablythe first person we go to that
we stick with for a while.
Sometimes we have to do somesoul searching in other areas or
(46:35):
you know people can relate to,maybe like finding babysitters
for their kids too.
Right, it's going to.
It's going to take some time.
So I feel like number one isgiving it a try and also not
giving up right away.
Give it some time, trydifferent things, contact
someone with it for aconsultation, get their kind of
(46:55):
what they're doing, how they are, see if you guys can connect
first, and also, again, notgiving up with just trying one
modality that you're given Ifeel like giving it a little
more time, because tryingdoesn't mean I did it once and
it doesn't work.
Of course it doesn't work.
I mean you go to the gym oneand then once, and then you
think you're going to have akiller body until the end of the
(47:16):
year.
No right, consistency is thekey.
So if you stay consistent withthat, it's going to start giving
us those benefits.
That's number one.
Number two trauma does not haveto be something that you
experienced.
That was either near-deathexperience or sexual abuse.
Sometimes traumas can be a lotof other things.
(47:37):
For instance, again, notgetting proper care by your
parent or caregiver, not gettingyour needs met as a child too.
That can lead to really severekind of consequences in
adulthood.
So, again, consulting and goingover with a professional of
your experiences if you feellike there may be something
there in your childhood but youjust can't pinpoint because
there was no abuse, it doesn'tmean that you didn't have trauma
(48:00):
.
So I feel like looking deeperinto that and getting more
literature too, getting moreeducated on that too, for
yourself.
If you don't want to consultwith professionals at this point
yet, yeah, and just again, justbeing ready to address that.
We have to be really hungry tochange, because it's going to be
quite a fight and you will befighting yourself and that's a
(48:22):
hard one.
But if you win over this fight,you will win all of the other
fights that come afterwards,because you will know yourself
so well that you cannot trickyourself, you cannot lie to
yourself, you're honest and openand you can look at yourself
objectively and say okay, Ireally I definitely need to
change this trait right now.
I definitely want to changethat and I need to change that
and I'm ready to change that andstart doing these adjustments
(48:46):
in my schedule, in myself and mypatterns, in order to have a
different result.
Speaker 1 (48:51):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, definitely.
Um definitely feel that.
So um uh, in closing, um, thishas been a really good episode,
um, to address trauma, and Idefinitely actually want to
(49:11):
continue talking on trauma anddefinitely wanting to do a part
two on this, and I would lovefor you to come back and to be a
part of a panel that I'm goingto put together, so would you do
that?
Speaker 2 (49:31):
With my honor and pleasure, everything I'm with
you for sure.
Speaker 1 (49:35):
Thank you, thank you so much, thank you so much.
So, yeah, I feel like that thistopic is such a big topic and
that leads to so many othersubtopics that people are
dealing with and I definitelywant to address more on this
(50:01):
specific topic.
So, yeah, I'm definitely goingto put together a panel so we
can continue this conversationand I really just thank you for
coming on to the podcast andjust sharing your knowledge,
sharing your story, and I'm justvery appreciative.
(50:21):
Thank you so much, thank you.
Speaker 2 (50:24):
Thank you.
Thank you for having me.
It's an honor and pleasure.
Speaker 1 (50:29):
So any final words of advice to any listeners that
are listening to this episodethat is struggling with trauma
and they've heard this episodebut they're just still on the
fence about it.
So any you know, final words ofencouragement.
Speaker 2 (50:52):
So, any, you know.
Final words of encouragementyeah Well, number one, you're
not alone.
Again, there are a lot ofpeople that are struggling, and
being in this field showed mehow all of us are more alike
than we think.
And even though nobody willunderstand you 100% it's
impossible we can get close toit by asking questions, by being
there, of course, but nobodywill really really feel what
(51:12):
you're feeling.
You can change that, it'spossible.
There is a way out.
You can do.
You.
You will be able.
If you do the work, you will beable to change how you feel and
how you experience life, andyour life can be better.
It's, it's possible, it's there, I've it, I've seen people
doing it and again, it's.
(51:33):
The credit always goes to theperson who is doing the work.
Even when I work with people, Igive the information.
What they do with that, it's upto them, and some people take
it and they heal.
Some people don't Right, butyou can heal.
It's possible, I've seen it,and it doesn't have to be that
way.
So just, there is hope, thereis light and you can do it.
Speaker 1 (51:56):
Yeah, yeah.
And I just want to say onething just don't be afraid to
let people in.
Don't be afraid to let peoplein and to allow people to help
you within your journey.
And again, like you said,you're not alone.
(52:16):
So, yeah, definitely with that,don't be afraid and don't feel
ashamed of whatever you've gonethrough, whether it's small or
large, you know it's still yourtrauma, is still your journey
and again, you don't have to doit alone.
Speaker 2 (52:39):
Yes, beautiful.
Speaker 1 (52:42):
So, um, thank you again for coming on and, uh,
listeners, I hope you thoroughlyenjoyed this episode and we are
definitely going to come backfor a part two series.
So, definitely, um, y'all tuneinto that and um, until next
(53:03):
time.
We'll see you guys later.
Thank you, my listeners, andy'all listen to my outro music,
you.
Popular Podcasts
NFL Daily with Gregg Rosenthal
Gregg Rosenthal and a rotating crew of elite NFL Media co-hosts, including Patrick Claybon, Colleen Wolfe, Steve Wyche, Nick Shook and Jourdan Rodrigue of The Athletic get you caught up daily on all the NFL news and analysis you need to be smarter and funnier than your friends.
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
I’m Jay Shetty host of On Purpose the worlds #1 Mental Health podcast and I’m so grateful you found us. I started this podcast 5 years ago to invite you into conversations and workshops that are designed to help make you happier, healthier and more healed. I believe that when you (yes you) feel seen, heard and understood you’re able to deal with relationship struggles, work challenges and life’s ups and downs with more ease and grace. I interview experts, celebrities, thought leaders and athletes so that we can grow our mindset, build better habits and uncover a side of them we’ve never seen before. New episodes every Monday and Friday. Your support means the world to me and I don’t take it for granted — click the follow button and leave a review to help us spread the love with On Purpose. I can’t wait for you to listen to your first or 500th episode!
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com