June 1, 2025 • 46 mins
S1E5: Bonfires on the Bluff
Sarah and Corinne are grateful for the outpouring of feedback from you, letting them know how their experiences are feeding into your own as we all live into through the cycles of life and healing in whatever ways are available to us. In this episode, they discuss various resources that have given insight along the way, including IFS-based therapy (Internal Family Systems) and the books No Bad Parts : Healing Trauma and Restoring Wholeness with the Internal Family Systems Model by Richard C. Schwartz, When the Body Says No: Exporing the Stress-Disease Connection by Gabor Mate, M.D., and The Body Keeps the Score: Brain, Mind, and Body in the Healing of Trauma by Bessel A. van der Kolk, M.D., as well as movies like Young Woman and the Sea and Inside-Out 2 and even Taylor Swift's music video for "Look What You Made Me Do." They also explore the concepts of societal barriers toward women's health and wholeness, the power inherent in getting healthy, and consider aloud whether sacrificing ourselves for everyone else truly is the best way to be a loving human.
To connect with Sarah or Corinne, find them on Instagram:
@heysarahcarter @thesaltyshark @sarahandcorinne
For more information about Spiritual Pyro, visit www.spiritualpyro.com.
Sarah and Corinne are grateful for the outpouring of feedback from you, letting them know how their experiences are feeding into your own as we all live into through the cycles of life and healing in whatever ways are available to us. In this episode, they discuss various resources that have given insight along the way, including IFS-based therapy (Internal Family Systems) and the books No Bad Parts : Healing Trauma and Restoring Wholeness with the Internal Family Systems Model by Richard C. Schwartz, When the Body Says No: Exporing the Stress-Disease Connection by Gabor Mate, M.D., and The Body Keeps the Score: Brain, Mind, and Body in the Healing of Trauma by Bessel A. van der Kolk, M.D., as well as movies like Young Woman and the Sea and Inside-Out 2 and even Taylor Swift's music video for "Look What You Made Me Do." They also explore the concepts of societal barriers toward women's health and wholeness, the power inherent in getting healthy, and consider aloud whether sacrificing ourselves for everyone else truly is the best way to be a loving human.
To connect with Sarah or Corinne, find them on Instagram:
@heysarahcarter @thesaltyshark @sarahandcorinne
For more information about Spiritual Pyro, visit www.spiritualpyro.com.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
>> Sarah (00:02):
For all the Match Strikers, this
is spiritual pyro.
>> Corinne (00:24):
Sarah. I have loved. I
have loved, all of our conversation about the feedback that we're
getting from these episodes.
>> Sarah (00:32):
Yes, it has been
overwhelming, but, like, in the best way.
Just hearing from so many different people,
so many different women as they've been listening to these
first few episodes, and the
ways that some of our stories, our
experiences have been connecting with others
has blown me away. Like, that was the hope.
(00:55):
Right? That's the. That's such a
keystone piece of this work that we're doing is that,
yes, it starts with us, but it doesn't end with us.
But until you put it out in the world, it's kind of just
this gamble. It's like, well, this is the hope.
I hope that this is what happens. And so
just, yeah, getting messages, getting to
(01:16):
have conversation with women and hear the
ways that some of our stories
are impacting and shifting the ways that they're
moving through their own lives is just
the most incredible thing.
>> Corinne (01:29):
Yeah, I think we know, like, in
theory, like, on paper, we
know that our stories impact each other.
We know that we find ourselves in between the pages of
each other's stories. But I feel like
as we have kind of,
you know, flung open the. The cage door
(01:51):
and this work that we've been, you know,
spending so much time on for
so long, and to watch it
finally fly, I think that the
surprise for me is not
that people are
enjoying it or that they're
liking it. There's this rumbling under
(02:12):
the ground. That when someone
shares how
their life is being impacted by something, when they
share how they're moving differently
or making decisions differently or seeing themselves
differently or feeling freedom or permission
or courage differently, it
feels like the ground under
(02:35):
our feet is, like, trembling. We
say there's a terraforming happening, that
there's something new, that. That
is, like, breaking apart to begin with,
but also that's going to be like, shifting and those
tectonic plates. Like, all of that imagery,
just feels like we got to take our shoes off because it's holy
(02:55):
ground, right?
>> Sarah (02:57):
Yeah.
>> Corinne (02:57):
so when. So it's not just like, oh, that
someone clicked, like, on a post. When we share about an
episode, it's those messages that are like, here, this is my
life, and someone sharing it, and they're
offering it and they're. They're
connecting over it. That has
been so incredibly powerful. I wasn't
ready. I wasn't ready for that, honestly. I mean, so
(03:19):
on paper, in theory, we knew that those
kinds of things might happen. And the hope is that there
would be something powerful among us that would
get shared, that we would get to
interact with. But the way that it
rumbles under the ground and that
hum of change or that
hum of freedom and
(03:42):
courage is like, who?
Like, that's the part that catches in my throat.
That's the part that takes my breath away,
like every single time.
>> Sarah (03:52):
Well, it's this, like we've been doing this work
so isolated and so kind of really,
literally in the dark, we've disappeared. We went
behind the scenes. There was so much we had to hold onto and keep really
close. And it was really, really lonely.
And as we've been able to find
these pathways to share, it's all
of a sudden kind of like the lights get turned back on and we're like, oh
(04:15):
my God, we're not the only ones in the room.
We're not alone actually. And I think that is such an
empowering and liberating feeling that I
hadn't really anticipated.
And I love this. So one thing that
we've started doing whenever we hear a story,
that comes out of this work that we're doing when a woman shares a
(04:37):
story with us, is to strike a match
and blow it out. And we're collecting these matches like story
by story. And it's not something where
we're sharing the stories or these personal
experiences. We're not even really talking about them with each other in
detail. It's just this knowing, this sense of like,
there are fellow match strikers out there. And
(04:58):
there's something to me about the visual. I'm
just keeping this like little bowl of, of
burnt matches and it's growing and it's
this really profound reminder, this tangible
reminder that we're not alone.
And how many times
throughout, the work we did coming out of
(05:19):
2018, confronting corruption, moving to
the desert, walking those trails
so alone and wondering, like, will it
always feel like this? Like, have I lost
myself forever? Did they take that part of
me away? That spark, that fire, that energy?
Did they take that? Like, do I not get to keep that
(05:40):
with me? And I know you and I have talked about that so
much. Just about
how do you find yourself again after
enduring such trauma? Because that type of
trauma requires such full
capacity, focus and energy just to get through a day
that there's not a lot of room left for
(06:01):
the kind of thriving bigness
of who we were before we were
so wounded, before we kind of went into,
I guess, survival mode, for lack of a better term.
It's yeah, and we talk about that a lot.
of course we talk about that a lot. In the book, there are
so many chapters written about the ways that
(06:24):
we found to navigate, and really
chart some. Some pathways back to
ourselves, our whole full selves. And I love in the
last episode because we. We nod to that in one way. We talk
through therapy and the yellow notebook and
what does it mean to play. and when I think
about some of the stories that have come out of that episode alone,
(06:44):
I'm just like, oh, yes, like the
collective of women remembering
who. Who the hell they are and what
they want and really taking
some ground, back to. To
themselves. That. That's been pretty
incred.
>> Corinne (07:25):
I want to honor those
who maybe,
Maybe last week's episode was one of
those episodes that was like, hm, must be
nice. Must be nice to play. Must
be nice to want. Must be nice to dream.
You know, when you're. When you're still in
(07:45):
that isolation, when you're still. Still
in that lonely place,
sometimes that feels so out of reach.
And I think that we have a spectrum
of women who
are out along that path. And
(08:08):
some are hearing the rally cry and are,
like, clawing for it. Yes, yes,
yes. And others are still a long way
off. Others are still, you know,
like, that film that we love so much, the young woman in the
sea. And she's swimming in open water
and it's at night, and she gets in the shallows.
(08:28):
And the shallows is where the boat can't go,
right? So the shallows is that part where her
safety net, her support system can't go with her.
She has to swim the last part
by herself. Like.
Like, I get choked up just thinking about it. And the.
The moment, you know, spoiler alert if you haven't
(08:50):
seen it. But the. The moment where she realizes that she's
truly just alone and all she has is herself in the
water under the stars. And then.
And then she sees the bonfires on the bluff.
And that is the only. That is the only
course, direction that she then has is she swims for
those bonfires. She knows that that's the direction of land.
(09:12):
And so I just think we've talked
about wants and needs and dreams and
how difficult that was. And we've talked about what it means to
ask yourself, how to play in your own life.
And we've heard the resounding
yes, yes, yes. From so many
women already, even just this week.
(09:32):
And I know, I know that for
every woman who is hearing that rally
cry and is responding. There's also those of
us who are still wondering if
that's even in reach. Those who are still
feeling disoriented. Like it's just you out in the
middle of the dark ocean with nothing but
(09:53):
the stars. And then there's that bonfire on the bluff.
>> Sarah (09:57):
Yes. I'm so glad you named that.
>> Corinne (09:59):
That's what we are for each other. Whether
we're ready for that rally cry
or whether it still feels like it's a long way off.
So. So I feel like
it's, accurate. It's true. To
honor just the whole spectrum of women and
their responses.
>> Sarah (10:17):
And we know it's not a linear
journey. The conversation we're having is not.
You get from A to B, and here's how you do it. This is.
Healing is a, spiral. I think living is a spiral.
And there are
times that we are the ones
swimming with the guideboat, like, showing us where to go
(10:38):
next, charting our course. There's times when we're the one
floating under the stars, completely lost and exhausted with no
direction. And there's times we're the ones lighting those big bonfires on the
hills. Right. Like, we over and over and over
in our whole life. And so
this is a space that we can occupy with such
reverence with. With such deep knowing that
(10:58):
we're not coming from a place of. We. We've got it all
figured out. We're coming from a place of like, look at
all the different versions of me too.
Look at all the different versions of. With you. Look at all the different
ways that it can be.
>> Corinne (11:13):
And that all belongs.
>> Sarah (11:14):
Okay. And so honestly, this
is making me think of your chapter. This is making me think of one
of your chapters in Skies that I really think
it's. I think she's wanting to, to be
a part of this conversation. I mean, we're talking about boats and
we're talking about water and we're talking about finding ourselves.
I just don't know how we don't not talk
(11:35):
about your chapter. So can
you tell us maybe a little bit about. Because I want to give some
introduction, but I also want to do that in a way that feels,
I don't know, full of like you. This is your chapter, this
is your work, but I'm talking, of course about to all the girls.
And I'm wondering if you might be able to share
a bit about that. Like this experience that you had
(11:56):
really, that you share so beautifully.
it's one of the chapters that I cannot get through without crying
every time. And I've read that chapter dozens and
dozens of times throughout the time of writing and editing and
more editing and more editing and like
I still, like I know what's coming. Like I know how it's gonna
go and I still can't get through it without crying. It just,
(12:17):
it cuts right to this deep, deep
core feeling that I think is really in alignment
with what we're talking about right now. And it all
starts with, with a class, a
meditation class that you took. Is that correct?
>> Corinne (12:31):
Yeah, yeah. So
the title first of all is
just, it's a little cheeky because it's to all the Girls
I've been Before, which is, is
honestly it's a play on the young
adult series. To all the Boys I've loved before, which is
something, you know, daughter read through
(12:52):
and you know, so I think what's so funny
is that when
we're thinking about the,
the feelings of isolation, when we're thinking about
how sometimes when you know, we're in the shallows and
we have to go that last part alone, but when we're
also thinking about the bonfire on the bluff, like that's where
(13:13):
it came from. So to all the girls I've been before
is this idea, that we have
a collective with each other
communally, but we also have a collective within
ourselves of all of the different
versions of ourselves that we've ever been.
Both our younger self, our older self. Like
(13:33):
we talk about that all the time. Sarah is, you know,
our younger self and our older self. You know, what would,
what would make my 8 year old self
proud? What would make your 8 year old self proud? Little
Cory and little Sarah. Well, first of all, little Cory and little Sarah
would have been such good friends.
>> Sarah (13:49):
We would have been best friends. We would have had like, we would.
>> Corinne (13:52):
Have been thick as thieves, hundred percent.
>> Sarah (13:54):
We would have been a lot of, little bit of trouble in there, but we would have done it,
we would have had fun.
>> Corinne (14:00):
And then we talk about our older selves. Like what would make our 80 years,
80 year old self proud? Right? Like you know, that crone
self. And how do we want our older self
to look back on these years and these decisions and the way
that we're moving through the world. So this idea that there is
this collective of all
of the versions of ourself,
(14:21):
within us is part of that
impetus. And then also I do
have to nod to
the Taylor Swift video that
she made where at the end it's all of the
different Versions of herself standing in front of the jet.
And you know, that's something that we laughed about during the
(14:42):
time when we were working on, our pieces and writing.
And that's something that came up and how funny and how
clever and how brilliant and how genius that
music, video is because of all of the different
versions of herself that have been so heavily
critiqued and have, you know, have
been under such a microscope. And that's what we
(15:02):
often do for ourselves, right? We put our.
We put different versions of ourselves under a microscope and
analyze and critique and criticize and
berate and all the ways that we,
you know, think that we should have been better, we should have been
smarter, we should have been somehow different.
so to all the girls is this really
(15:25):
compassionate look
at just the ways that we
tried so hard, right?
We've circled that so many
times. You know, gosh, we were just so
earnest. We just tried so hard,
you know, and that's kind of the energy
of it. So it did start with a guided meditation.
(15:47):
Our friend Steph leads and
actually teaches now, inner territory
meditations. And she's a phenomenal guide.
And it was in one of those sessions,
it was a group session and but remote. And
I was. Found myself in
a boat off the coast
(16:09):
and found myself encountering
and then pulling into
the boat each different
version of my younger selves.
All of these selves that were
lost at sea, so to speak. And it was a
reclamation, it was a gathering, it was
(16:31):
a collecting of those younger selves.
It really was a journey through and to
self compassion. Because at the time that was something that
I, I did not have that in my tool belt.
It was way, way easier, at a, at a
point, it was way easier to be
critical of all the things I should have done differently and all the
(16:51):
ways I should have been different and all of the ways I should have been
smarter and have known and all the red flags I
should have seen. And how did I, you know, how did I get myself
into this situation in a way that was very
heavy and very critical? So to all the girls
is. Is ends up being this beautiful
belonging where all of
my different versions of myself belong.
(17:15):
And it ends
with a bonfire on the bluff. So
of course it does.
>> Sarah (17:24):
Of course it does.
>> Corinne (17:25):
Of course it does.
M.
>> Sarah (17:57):
I I One of these, one of the quotes that you
have in that chapter that I return to often,
I actually have it written down, is. I just think
it's so profound and it's this, it's I'm proof that she
survives. She is proof that I almost didn't.
>> Corinne (18:11):
Oof.
>> Sarah (18:12):
Like, the. The power of
those two sentences, the.
>> Corinne (18:16):
The.
>> Sarah (18:18):
The weight, especially in relationship to like, what
you're talking about right now, which is. Which is self
compassion, really. This sense that,
you can look at your past self and
you m. Are representing something to her and she's representing
something to you. But it's this, like,
we made it. We make it, like,
(18:40):
come what may, despite all odds, here I am.
like, you're gonna get through it. And also, you are at a
different point looking back at that younger self and going, like,
I see you. I see you. And you did
the best you could with what you had. That is
so profound to me and that framework. We've
talked about this before, you and I. the.
(19:01):
What would make my younger self proud, what would make
my older self proud. And living from that place, not
necessarily with an energy of like, fear
or shame or like walking on eggshells, like, not
want to upset someone or be a disappointment or not get
it right. Like, it's so not
that energy. It's this. It's really like.
(19:22):
It's asking us to slow down and
really almost be like, self led in our decisions. Like, what we're
doing. Is it in alignment with
myself, Myself now, my
younger self, my older self
and. Okay.
>> Corinne (19:37):
Okay, so now let's
go there because I think
in our last episode, you know,
we talked about your work with Barbara,
which is very different from my work with Gina. So I think that,
I have learned, so much,
even just, walking alongside you through
(19:59):
your journey with, parts, work and ifs.
And you know, in our last episode, we were talking
about your story about the barn, and
you write something so, viscerally about
your girlhood, in the
Palomino chapter, which I think I referenced in that last
episode. And I think that
(20:19):
this idea of girlhood and this
idea of who were you before the
world told you who to be. I think
your story is so unique in that and
also so, incredibly relatable for all
of us. And so I would love for you to speak
a little bit about the
parts. A little bit about your
(20:42):
journey into integrating that and
not in just when you were in therapy, but it really is.
Is part of how you move through your life
now.
>> Sarah (20:52):
Ifs internal family systems. is. Is
kind of the official name, but it. That
to me has. I say this to anyone who will
listen, like, that has changed my life. It is a.
It's really a type of therapy. It's,
it's a, it's a framework for a way to
explore ourselves in a
(21:12):
therapeutic way. When, when Barbara first
introduced me to it, it felt so
foreign. and I really couldn't wrap my head around,
around the idea because it's sort of
this concept that we
all have these parts
inside of us that are essentially versions of us
(21:34):
from our past. Where I like to
think of it like something happened, whether it was
traumatic, or it was beautiful and
gorgeous. It's almost like these pinpoints on a map
of our older selves where some kind of
vow or decision or this is how I see the world
or never again something gets made. And it's
almost like that part of us, whatever age we were at that time,
(21:58):
almost makes a decision for like the way we see the
world and the way we interact with the world. And
so, now don't quote me on that.
I'm not the founder, Richard Swartzer,
I'm not an expert here. This is how I have made sense
of it. But the way that Barbara introduced it to me
was almost this like you kind of slow down. It's very,
(22:19):
it's really similar to I think meditation in that way. There's a lot of like
closing your eyes, breathing, centering yourself.
When you find a moment, maybe a point in therapy where
you get really active, activated, or you notice yourself shutting
down, or you get really angry or you get really emotional.
Those are, those are kind of indicators where Barbara
in our sessions would slow me down and go, okay,
(22:40):
let's take a minute, close your eyes, do some deep breathing
and then get curious. The invitation is always get
curious, like who's showing up right now?
Like who wants to be heard? Who needs
to be witnessed right now? Because usually it's a part that's feeling
activated because whatever we're talking about or
whatever we're sharing feels really, really
familiar. And so that part is like,
(23:03):
oh, I know how to solve that problem. They raise their hand,
they're like, I got this. I know how we survived it last
time, so that's what we'll do again. And of course
all of this is like. It's not like there's a million tiny
voices in my head and I'm responding to all of them right now.
It's all very internal and very slow.
and there are times when she would take me through it where the
(23:24):
parts, oh my goodness, my 13 year old part, she
is so sassy and so stubborn and there were
several Several times where the
invitation would be okay, okay girl, what do you, what do you have for
me? And she'd be like, absolutely not. You gotta earn it.
You know. And I really had to do a lot of work,
earning back the trust of those, of some of those parts
(23:45):
because I had spent a lot of time
ignoring them and pushing them
aside. Talk about self compassion, like shaming them,
judging them. and really, yeah,
not taking heed of whatever warning or
fear they had that they were bringing to the surface for
me in whatever moment I happened to be in. And so it really took a
(24:05):
long time, of practicing.
Okay, that's okay. Like I just want you to know I see
you and if there's anything you want to share, I'm
here. And it's really almost like it's, it's
inner child. But it's not because it's. Of course we have these
versions of ourselves from so many different ages as we go
and we collect more and more of them. My understanding is with
ifs is that when we are
(24:27):
living where one of those parts is sort of
taking over and driving the bus
and making the decisions, we're doing that
out of fear. We're doing that because we're activated.
And that's not really, that means
we're not doing it from a self led place.
We're not making a decision that's
responsive. We're making a decision that's reactive. And
(24:50):
so that's usually a really good indicator that a part might
be leading you or might be driving
something forward. And so I mean it's a
lot. There's a book I
read called I Believe it's no Bad Parts.
And that was a really great foundational catalyst just
for understanding if anyone's curious about it. But
for me it went from
(25:13):
this practice that I would get kind of nervous about in
therapy when Barbara would ask me because I'd be like, this feels so
weird or what's going to come up. You know,
it's this like ah, ah to
to now something that I, I find myself
checking in with different parts. Even just like throughout my day
if I just get a weird phone call or something, I'm like, okay,
(25:33):
how we doing? How we doing? You know, anything need
to come up and, and usually if something
does, I,
I remind myself that
that I'm the safe grownup in the room now. Like I'm the
safe adult. I'm making the decision that's going to be the best
decision, the safest decision for us.
(25:54):
and and usually that is
enough of a relief that whatever felt afraid or
got activated, I can, I can almost physically
feel myself settle. Like
we're okay, like we've got this.
>> Corinne (26:09):
Okay. One of the things that you would say,
say frequently that I've all, that I come back to
a lot when I'm thinking about these types of
experiences is that those parts are always
trying to protect. Right. So it's just,
it's kind of like anxiety like it. And I think of a
little inside out, you know, the second inside out
(26:31):
movie that's such a fantastic, actually
really beautiful look at anxiety and this desperation
to protect. And that's what I think about
with parts work and your journey through that is that
every single time you've
shared one of those moments where you've had
to remind yourself that you're the safe grownup in the room
(26:51):
is it's in response to
a part of you that's trying to protect because you
were so strong. Whether it was at, ah,
13 or 23 or
33, whatever it was, it was that
desire to protect. And I feel like that is that
connection point of self compassion where it's just like, oh, honey, I
(27:11):
know. Like you are trying so hard to
protect me, you know, and so you get that weird phone
call or that email comes in or
whatever it is, or that first podcast
episode goes live or whatever it is, right?
And it's like, yeah, oh, like that part of me
is rising up again to protect.
And so it's almost like, thank you, I've got
(27:34):
this. You know that I'm the safe grownup in the room
as a response to that self protection m
Which then instead of making it this
frustrating thing that we're trying to work
through or we're trying to get over, we're trying to get past,
it's coming alongside that part
and letting them know they don't have to work so hard.
(27:57):
You don't have to crawl on your knees and
beg. Right. You don't have to
always fight.
Yep, we don't have to always fight. So
that when you talk about like being able to sense almost
that relief, it's that what if everything
didn't have to be so hard? What if you didn't, what if
(28:18):
you didn't have to fight every battle, you know?
So, like the way that those lessons that you
have learned have permeated into my
life is like every single time you
talk about it, I'm like, oh, and there it is. And there it is.
And there it is. So the Ways that we get to find each
other in our, in each other's stories. Like
(28:38):
even now, even this, even just in
friendship and sisterhood and relationship. And
it is this continual
practice as opposed to something that you work
through, get through, and are finished and put on the shelf. It's this
continual practice that has woven its way into
your life and now goes beyond you.
(28:59):
I love that.
>> Sarah (29:01):
I love that too, so much. It's just that collective.
It's just the way that there's no gatekeeping. The
generosity of story is like, if you make
it, I make it. That kind of energy. And
I just was listening to a friend of mine who was telling
me she's had back pain for years
and hasn't found a way to resolve it. Just terrible, terrible back
(29:21):
pain. And she recently went to a new chiropractor
and he was doing kind of this assessment or whatever
and he pinpointed exact place where the pain was coming
from. And he was telling her, the
muscles around this
point are so locked and tight.
And he said that
(29:42):
they don't know the wound isn't there anymore.
I know we were just sitting out to lunch and I was like,
okay, I'm gonna write that one down in my notes app.
>> Corinne (29:51):
Like, wait a minute, time out.
>> Sarah (29:54):
Coming back to that. Yeah.
>> Corinne (29:56):
They don't know the wound isn't
there anymore.
>> Sarah (30:00):
Right. And so for years they've been like
locked around the wound that used to be
there, and they're still locked, thinking,
we're doing the right thing, we're protecting the wound, we've
gotta stay. And so instead of
just going in and like how other doctors had done, just adjust,
adjust, adjust. He started with that and like, we've gotta
loosen that up before we can get to the rest of the,
(30:23):
of the, you know, resolution. And, and she, she
just was talking about how profound it's been because it's. That worked, it's
working. And I mean, it's hard to not think
about that in relationship to parts and these other
conversations we're having because it's like we talk
so much about, updating, like updating our
older parts because they don't know yet. They
(30:43):
don't. They're still stuck in, you know, 2018
or 2004 or whatever it is thinking
that that's the reality that they're in forever until we
kind of go back, go out and pull them from the
water and bring them into the boat with us. And we're like, hey honey,
hey, come with me. Like, here we are, let
me Update you. The wound isn't there anymore,
(31:04):
right? Oh, so good.
>> Corinne (31:06):
M.
>> Sarah (31:31):
Okay.
>> Corinne (31:32):
Okay. So now that you said that, now I,
like, I'm. I'm m holding up this
book that I'm reading because
it is exactly that.
I mean, the beautiful metaphor of that very
physiological experience that your friend had at the
chiropractor. okay, so I'm reading
Gabor Mate's when the Body says
(31:54):
no, the Cost of Hidden Stress.
And really, like in the late,
2010. So, like, I would say 2016
is when I was reading, the body keeps the score.
So, you know, that's. That kind of language is now just, like,
such a common part of all of our, you
know, dialogue, and vernacular. But
(32:16):
the body keeps the score and to the point that we
sometimes just really use it in jest, where it's like, something
happens, like, oh, your body is going to keep the
score on that one. Right? And we can
laugh about it and understand just the
reality of the ways that our body
holds onto memory, holds onto experience, holds
onto trauma. But this book, when the Body says no, the
(32:38):
Cost of Hidden Stress is really
a lot of the
physiological connection
to at this point. I'm still early on in the book
to immunology, which is so
fascinating to me because the
ways that. There's a line here toward the
beginning, that says,
(32:59):
when, hang on a second. Let me get to it. When we have
been prevented from learning how to say
no, our bodies may end up saying it
for us. And then there's this
idea of civil war inside the body. And
I think that whether we're talking about
trauma or whether we're talking about
stress and chaos in all its different forms and the
(33:21):
way that that manifests in our life, our
bodies really do carry the very
physiological effects of that. And we know that stress
can kill, but that we don't
often really admit to the
ways that our body is speaking to us
and how that is a direct,
reflection, often, of what's going
(33:44):
on in our lives. And I'm reading this book, and
honestly, Sarah, I'm looking back at different points in my life, and
I'm going, wait a second. I had that
crazy health incident and what was going on in my
life at that point. And then, wait a second. I had that
crazy, crazy situation that I had to have all that testing done for,
like, what was happening in that season of my life. And
(34:04):
when I think about the
vertebrae and your friend at the chiropractor and the
muscles being so locked in, they didn't they no longer. They
didn't know the wound was no longer there.
And at the same time, sometimes our bodies are
screaming at us and we don't
realize the wound that is there.
(34:25):
Right? We can be so detached. We can
be so. We can have everything. We can be so locked
down to survive our
life, to get through the day, to, you know, like, you
and I, like, you still got to show up for work. Trauma. Trauma
doesn't mean you get the day off. Trauma doesn't mean you don't have to
log in for work. Like, you still got to show up for work, still
(34:46):
got to pick the kids up from school, still got to be at
the thing, still got to take. Still got to have the zoom
meeting. Like, they're. Our lives don't stop
just because something is difficult or just
because there is a
stress point in our life that is unresolved. We don't get to
put everything on pause. You know, I still gotta.
(35:07):
I still gotta order. Order the dog's
medicine. I still gotta figure out how to pay the bill.
Still gotta, you know, make sure that the kid has the ride home from
the thing. Like, I mean, we're constantly managing
so much that oftentimes we can lock
ourselves down and be so disconnected from our
physical body that we don't realize that there is a
(35:27):
civil war happening inside of us.
So I'm. I mean, I think about
when. When I was, when I had
first moved to Thailand, and I'm meeting so many people and
I'm making all these friends, and
one of the first things that I started to
notice was all of these women,
(35:49):
expat women, all of
these women who were about my age,
who had been living in country
for at least two years, and
how many of them would share about being
diagnosed with autoimmune issues, diseases,
you know, situations. And I was thinking,
(36:10):
I'm new here, so I'm
able to see a pattern because I'm not used to
this. I'm not in these conversations all day, every day.
But why are all of these women being
diagnosed with autoimmune? And one of the things
in this book that, is talking about so much
is autoimmune and
(36:30):
how and why it presents, when it
does, in who it does. And it's not
definitive, right? But there is this
new element within medicine that is
this combination of the
physiology of our bodies
scientifically and the very
real experiences we have and the trauma that we
(36:52):
survive and the stress that we survive and how those two things
intersect. And that is so fascinating to me.
So I think about these women and I think about the systems
that we were all participating in. The systems
that keep us small, that keep us quiet,
that keep us under extreme stress,
that where we don't have a voice, where we don't have,
(37:14):
seemingly a way out. and that looks a million
different ways. It looks a million different ways. It's not a one size fits
all. But as I'm reading this book and thinking
of my own health situations,
I'm thinking of so many
women in so many different
spaces in their life where their fullness
(37:34):
and their voice and their real
lived experience, there's not room for. And so
in our last episode, when you talked about play
and you were like, what if you made room
for yourself in your own life?
And then how that translates to
our bodies, to our health, to
our actual wellness. Not wellness with
(37:57):
air quotes, but our actual
deep wellness and how we care for
ourselves. And I think that too
can be one of those points where it's like, yeah, it must be nice.
Must be nice to have health insurance. Must be nice to have access
to therapy. Must be nice. You know, I've been that
person, I've been that woman who
has not had access
(38:20):
to things and who has thought to myself, yeah, it must be
nice. So I can appreciate that
that is true for other women as well.
Yeah, it must be nice to be able to think about the stress that,
the toll that stress takes on your body. But when you're surviving
your life, you can't think about that. You can't afford to.
I just, I feel like that's all, that's all swirling together,
(38:42):
right now and how we belong to ourselves.
>> Sarah (38:45):
Yes, absolutely. And I love that you spoke to
the systems because as you were sharing, you
know, that's where my mind goes, is like, well, why, why is it
like this? why what's happening that is
m, you know, causing. Because it's a pattern. It's not just a
one off. This is something that I think
we're seeing more and more of. And I, you know, this is,
(39:06):
ah, a parallel line here, but I think it is
also, the tenacity of
more women speaking up about their pain and
about their, you know, struggles with
different health issues, where
we've spent just decades speaking up
and not being believed or, being told it's in
(39:27):
our heads or there's not a study for that, or there's nothing that
can be done, or it's just your age or it's just how it is, or
just deal with it. And so After a while,
yeah. You know, what's the point of saying it hurts? It
doesn't matter. Apparently, it doesn't matter. What if? What's the point?
And I think what we're watching happen as
more women are sharing their experiences,
(39:48):
is that other women are going, wait a second, I thought
that was just normal or just my age or I just had
to get over it. And all of a sudden
I felt that to be true for myself, where I'm like,
oh, maybe, maybe that's
not what I should have to just struggle through or suffer
through. And maybe if it means I have to go to 5, 10 different,
(40:09):
health specialists to try to find someone who will take my
whatever seriously, can I do that? You
know, it's that acting on behalf of self, it's practiced
in that way too. And because
the system is set up that way, women's health is not
prioritized. It's not studied as well. There are so many
statistics. I wish I had them in front of me right now.
But it's. It's a Google away, really. The
(40:32):
amount, the difference between the way
men's health is studied and women's health is studied kind of
tells the whole story there. And so not only are we
in these situations where
the ways that, like when we are told,
you can't be too big, you can't be too much, you can't feel too much, you have to
stay small, you have to be whatever, that doesn't go
(40:53):
away, right? It's almost like
the only way is through. And so if
we're not going to express it outer in our
outer life, are we internalizing it and is
it metastasizing and causing us to be sick?
Because we'd rather be sick than
be, too much. We'd rather be sick because we
(41:16):
can manage it and control it, and we can be fine. We can be, it's not
so bad, it's okay, we'll be all right. We'll get through it.
Versus no, I'm going to be
inconvenient, and I might not be everyone's whatever, but I'm
living my life. And I'm saying it in
such simple terms. It's so
prevalent, and it's often so
(41:36):
it's on such a micro level that we don't even
know we're doing it. That
denial of self for the sake of
comfort for others or convenience for others. Back to
last week's episode and the idea of play and how
me choosing to value
that element of myself, that that is
(41:57):
a worthy part of being a human being and living a life. And that it
actually is. It's a key that unlocks this
cage, to so much more, that
was going to cause disruption in the status quo
of even the flow of my life and my family's lives. If
we just kept that one ring out and go. That
disrupted, that required things to shift in the
way that we did our life. And that felt
(42:20):
wrong because the messaging that I'd received from
all my years being a woman on this planet has been,
don't be disruptive. Don't be difficult.
You're fine. Right? And we're. We got so
good at being fine that we've been making ourselves
sick, like, literally sick.
>> Corinne (42:39):
And as if that coming back to last week's
episode again, like the. The martyrdom, as if that is
some badge of honor, you know,
to take on, everyone
else's everything to our own detriment,
often to our own death, that. That
somehow is something that we should
(43:00):
aspire to. And actually it's, you know,
I keep thinking about how, you know, we keep
reminding each other that we have to
save ourselves. Like, we. Like no one's
coming to save us, you know, that. That idea
that at some point somebody's going to come in and
save us from whatever it is that
we're not, able to access. And
(43:23):
when I think, you know, when we really
return to ourselves and are going through those
therapeutic modalities to return and belong
to ourselves first before we can belong to anyone
or anything else, I think
that is a reminder that
we are the only ones that can
(43:44):
save this life. Like,
in this very real sense. You know, this isn't
even. I'm not even talking about, like, a spiritual
part of the conversation yet, but. But really
we have to take care of this
self that we've been given, and that is actually
such a,
(44:05):
revolutionary act of love for the. Toward the people around
us. Yeah. Like, we've been that woman
out along the edges, out along the
trail in so many different ways, which
is the only. The only thing that we ever have to
share, like you say, Sarah, is all we have
is our stories. All we have to share is our stories.
>> Sarah (44:25):
And so I think we're going to keep doing that here.
>> Rebeca (44:40):
You've been listening to Spiritual Pyro with Sarah
Carter and Corrine shark on the 1C Story
Network. For more information about this and all
of our stories, please visit
just1c.com. That's
J-U-S-T O N E C
dot com.
>> Sarah (45:17):
Okay, okay. But really.
>> Singer (45:18):
the 1C story network
for the love of stories.
For all the Match Strikers, this
is spiritual pyro.
>> Corinne (00:24):
Sarah. I have loved. I
have loved, all of our conversation about the feedback that we're
getting from these episodes.
>> Sarah (00:32):
Yes, it has been
overwhelming, but, like, in the best way.
Just hearing from so many different people,
so many different women as they've been listening to these
first few episodes, and the
ways that some of our stories, our
experiences have been connecting with others
has blown me away. Like, that was the hope.
(00:55):
Right? That's the. That's such a
keystone piece of this work that we're doing is that,
yes, it starts with us, but it doesn't end with us.
But until you put it out in the world, it's kind of just
this gamble. It's like, well, this is the hope.
I hope that this is what happens. And so
just, yeah, getting messages, getting to
(01:16):
have conversation with women and hear the
ways that some of our stories
are impacting and shifting the ways that they're
moving through their own lives is just
the most incredible thing.
>> Corinne (01:29):
Yeah, I think we know, like, in
theory, like, on paper, we
know that our stories impact each other.
We know that we find ourselves in between the pages of
each other's stories. But I feel like
as we have kind of,
you know, flung open the. The cage door
(01:51):
and this work that we've been, you know,
spending so much time on for
so long, and to watch it
finally fly, I think that the
surprise for me is not
that people are
enjoying it or that they're
liking it. There's this rumbling under
(02:12):
the ground. That when someone
shares how
their life is being impacted by something, when they
share how they're moving differently
or making decisions differently or seeing themselves
differently or feeling freedom or permission
or courage differently, it
feels like the ground under
(02:35):
our feet is, like, trembling. We
say there's a terraforming happening, that
there's something new, that. That
is, like, breaking apart to begin with,
but also that's going to be like, shifting and those
tectonic plates. Like, all of that imagery,
just feels like we got to take our shoes off because it's holy
(02:55):
ground, right?
>> Sarah (02:57):
Yeah.
>> Corinne (02:57):
so when. So it's not just like, oh, that
someone clicked, like, on a post. When we share about an
episode, it's those messages that are like, here, this is my
life, and someone sharing it, and they're
offering it and they're. They're
connecting over it. That has
been so incredibly powerful. I wasn't
ready. I wasn't ready for that, honestly. I mean, so
(03:19):
on paper, in theory, we knew that those
kinds of things might happen. And the hope is that there
would be something powerful among us that would
get shared, that we would get to
interact with. But the way that it
rumbles under the ground and that
hum of change or that
hum of freedom and
(03:42):
courage is like, who?
Like, that's the part that catches in my throat.
That's the part that takes my breath away,
like every single time.
>> Sarah (03:52):
Well, it's this, like we've been doing this work
so isolated and so kind of really,
literally in the dark, we've disappeared. We went
behind the scenes. There was so much we had to hold onto and keep really
close. And it was really, really lonely.
And as we've been able to find
these pathways to share, it's all
of a sudden kind of like the lights get turned back on and we're like, oh
(04:15):
my God, we're not the only ones in the room.
We're not alone actually. And I think that is such an
empowering and liberating feeling that I
hadn't really anticipated.
And I love this. So one thing that
we've started doing whenever we hear a story,
that comes out of this work that we're doing when a woman shares a
(04:37):
story with us, is to strike a match
and blow it out. And we're collecting these matches like story
by story. And it's not something where
we're sharing the stories or these personal
experiences. We're not even really talking about them with each other in
detail. It's just this knowing, this sense of like,
there are fellow match strikers out there. And
(04:58):
there's something to me about the visual. I'm
just keeping this like little bowl of, of
burnt matches and it's growing and it's
this really profound reminder, this tangible
reminder that we're not alone.
And how many times
throughout, the work we did coming out of
(05:19):
2018, confronting corruption, moving to
the desert, walking those trails
so alone and wondering, like, will it
always feel like this? Like, have I lost
myself forever? Did they take that part of
me away? That spark, that fire, that energy?
Did they take that? Like, do I not get to keep that
(05:40):
with me? And I know you and I have talked about that so
much. Just about
how do you find yourself again after
enduring such trauma? Because that type of
trauma requires such full
capacity, focus and energy just to get through a day
that there's not a lot of room left for
(06:01):
the kind of thriving bigness
of who we were before we were
so wounded, before we kind of went into,
I guess, survival mode, for lack of a better term.
It's yeah, and we talk about that a lot.
of course we talk about that a lot. In the book, there are
so many chapters written about the ways that
(06:24):
we found to navigate, and really
chart some. Some pathways back to
ourselves, our whole full selves. And I love in the
last episode because we. We nod to that in one way. We talk
through therapy and the yellow notebook and
what does it mean to play. and when I think
about some of the stories that have come out of that episode alone,
(06:44):
I'm just like, oh, yes, like the
collective of women remembering
who. Who the hell they are and what
they want and really taking
some ground, back to. To
themselves. That. That's been pretty
incred.
>> Corinne (07:25):
I want to honor those
who maybe,
Maybe last week's episode was one of
those episodes that was like, hm, must be
nice. Must be nice to play. Must
be nice to want. Must be nice to dream.
You know, when you're. When you're still in
(07:45):
that isolation, when you're still. Still
in that lonely place,
sometimes that feels so out of reach.
And I think that we have a spectrum
of women who
are out along that path. And
(08:08):
some are hearing the rally cry and are,
like, clawing for it. Yes, yes,
yes. And others are still a long way
off. Others are still, you know,
like, that film that we love so much, the young woman in the
sea. And she's swimming in open water
and it's at night, and she gets in the shallows.
(08:28):
And the shallows is where the boat can't go,
right? So the shallows is that part where her
safety net, her support system can't go with her.
She has to swim the last part
by herself. Like.
Like, I get choked up just thinking about it. And the.
The moment, you know, spoiler alert if you haven't
(08:50):
seen it. But the. The moment where she realizes that she's
truly just alone and all she has is herself in the
water under the stars. And then.
And then she sees the bonfires on the bluff.
And that is the only. That is the only
course, direction that she then has is she swims for
those bonfires. She knows that that's the direction of land.
(09:12):
And so I just think we've talked
about wants and needs and dreams and
how difficult that was. And we've talked about what it means to
ask yourself, how to play in your own life.
And we've heard the resounding
yes, yes, yes. From so many
women already, even just this week.
(09:32):
And I know, I know that for
every woman who is hearing that rally
cry and is responding. There's also those of
us who are still wondering if
that's even in reach. Those who are still
feeling disoriented. Like it's just you out in the
middle of the dark ocean with nothing but
(09:53):
the stars. And then there's that bonfire on the bluff.
>> Sarah (09:57):
Yes. I'm so glad you named that.
>> Corinne (09:59):
That's what we are for each other. Whether
we're ready for that rally cry
or whether it still feels like it's a long way off.
So. So I feel like
it's, accurate. It's true. To
honor just the whole spectrum of women and
their responses.
>> Sarah (10:17):
And we know it's not a linear
journey. The conversation we're having is not.
You get from A to B, and here's how you do it. This is.
Healing is a, spiral. I think living is a spiral.
And there are
times that we are the ones
swimming with the guideboat, like, showing us where to go
(10:38):
next, charting our course. There's times when we're the one
floating under the stars, completely lost and exhausted with no
direction. And there's times we're the ones lighting those big bonfires on the
hills. Right. Like, we over and over and over
in our whole life. And so
this is a space that we can occupy with such
reverence with. With such deep knowing that
(10:58):
we're not coming from a place of. We. We've got it all
figured out. We're coming from a place of like, look at
all the different versions of me too.
Look at all the different versions of. With you. Look at all the different
ways that it can be.
>> Corinne (11:13):
And that all belongs.
>> Sarah (11:14):
Okay. And so honestly, this
is making me think of your chapter. This is making me think of one
of your chapters in Skies that I really think
it's. I think she's wanting to, to be
a part of this conversation. I mean, we're talking about boats and
we're talking about water and we're talking about finding ourselves.
I just don't know how we don't not talk
(11:35):
about your chapter. So can
you tell us maybe a little bit about. Because I want to give some
introduction, but I also want to do that in a way that feels,
I don't know, full of like you. This is your chapter, this
is your work, but I'm talking, of course about to all the girls.
And I'm wondering if you might be able to share
a bit about that. Like this experience that you had
(11:56):
really, that you share so beautifully.
it's one of the chapters that I cannot get through without crying
every time. And I've read that chapter dozens and
dozens of times throughout the time of writing and editing and
more editing and more editing and like
I still, like I know what's coming. Like I know how it's gonna
go and I still can't get through it without crying. It just,
(12:17):
it cuts right to this deep, deep
core feeling that I think is really in alignment
with what we're talking about right now. And it all
starts with, with a class, a
meditation class that you took. Is that correct?
>> Corinne (12:31):
Yeah, yeah. So
the title first of all is
just, it's a little cheeky because it's to all the Girls
I've been Before, which is, is
honestly it's a play on the young
adult series. To all the Boys I've loved before, which is
something, you know, daughter read through
(12:52):
and you know, so I think what's so funny
is that when
we're thinking about the,
the feelings of isolation, when we're thinking about
how sometimes when you know, we're in the shallows and
we have to go that last part alone, but when we're
also thinking about the bonfire on the bluff, like that's where
(13:13):
it came from. So to all the girls I've been before
is this idea, that we have
a collective with each other
communally, but we also have a collective within
ourselves of all of the different
versions of ourselves that we've ever been.
Both our younger self, our older self. Like
(13:33):
we talk about that all the time. Sarah is, you know,
our younger self and our older self. You know, what would,
what would make my 8 year old self
proud? What would make your 8 year old self proud? Little
Cory and little Sarah. Well, first of all, little Cory and little Sarah
would have been such good friends.
>> Sarah (13:49):
We would have been best friends. We would have had like, we would.
>> Corinne (13:52):
Have been thick as thieves, hundred percent.
>> Sarah (13:54):
We would have been a lot of, little bit of trouble in there, but we would have done it,
we would have had fun.
>> Corinne (14:00):
And then we talk about our older selves. Like what would make our 80 years,
80 year old self proud? Right? Like you know, that crone
self. And how do we want our older self
to look back on these years and these decisions and the way
that we're moving through the world. So this idea that there is
this collective of all
of the versions of ourself,
(14:21):
within us is part of that
impetus. And then also I do
have to nod to
the Taylor Swift video that
she made where at the end it's all of the
different Versions of herself standing in front of the jet.
And you know, that's something that we laughed about during the
(14:42):
time when we were working on, our pieces and writing.
And that's something that came up and how funny and how
clever and how brilliant and how genius that
music, video is because of all of the different
versions of herself that have been so heavily
critiqued and have, you know, have
been under such a microscope. And that's what we
(15:02):
often do for ourselves, right? We put our.
We put different versions of ourselves under a microscope and
analyze and critique and criticize and
berate and all the ways that we,
you know, think that we should have been better, we should have been
smarter, we should have been somehow different.
so to all the girls is this really
(15:25):
compassionate look
at just the ways that we
tried so hard, right?
We've circled that so many
times. You know, gosh, we were just so
earnest. We just tried so hard,
you know, and that's kind of the energy
of it. So it did start with a guided meditation.
(15:47):
Our friend Steph leads and
actually teaches now, inner territory
meditations. And she's a phenomenal guide.
And it was in one of those sessions,
it was a group session and but remote. And
I was. Found myself in
a boat off the coast
(16:09):
and found myself encountering
and then pulling into
the boat each different
version of my younger selves.
All of these selves that were
lost at sea, so to speak. And it was a
reclamation, it was a gathering, it was
(16:31):
a collecting of those younger selves.
It really was a journey through and to
self compassion. Because at the time that was something that
I, I did not have that in my tool belt.
It was way, way easier, at a, at a
point, it was way easier to be
critical of all the things I should have done differently and all the
(16:51):
ways I should have been different and all of the ways I should have been
smarter and have known and all the red flags I
should have seen. And how did I, you know, how did I get myself
into this situation in a way that was very
heavy and very critical? So to all the girls
is. Is ends up being this beautiful
belonging where all of
my different versions of myself belong.
(17:15):
And it ends
with a bonfire on the bluff. So
of course it does.
>> Sarah (17:24):
Of course it does.
>> Corinne (17:25):
Of course it does.
M.
>> Sarah (17:57):
I I One of these, one of the quotes that you
have in that chapter that I return to often,
I actually have it written down, is. I just think
it's so profound and it's this, it's I'm proof that she
survives. She is proof that I almost didn't.
>> Corinne (18:11):
Oof.
>> Sarah (18:12):
Like, the. The power of
those two sentences, the.
>> Corinne (18:16):
The.
>> Sarah (18:18):
The weight, especially in relationship to like, what
you're talking about right now, which is. Which is self
compassion, really. This sense that,
you can look at your past self and
you m. Are representing something to her and she's representing
something to you. But it's this, like,
we made it. We make it, like,
(18:40):
come what may, despite all odds, here I am.
like, you're gonna get through it. And also, you are at a
different point looking back at that younger self and going, like,
I see you. I see you. And you did
the best you could with what you had. That is
so profound to me and that framework. We've
talked about this before, you and I. the.
(19:01):
What would make my younger self proud, what would make
my older self proud. And living from that place, not
necessarily with an energy of like, fear
or shame or like walking on eggshells, like, not
want to upset someone or be a disappointment or not get
it right. Like, it's so not
that energy. It's this. It's really like.
(19:22):
It's asking us to slow down and
really almost be like, self led in our decisions. Like, what we're
doing. Is it in alignment with
myself, Myself now, my
younger self, my older self
and. Okay.
>> Corinne (19:37):
Okay, so now let's
go there because I think
in our last episode, you know,
we talked about your work with Barbara,
which is very different from my work with Gina. So I think that,
I have learned, so much,
even just, walking alongside you through
(19:59):
your journey with, parts, work and ifs.
And you know, in our last episode, we were talking
about your story about the barn, and
you write something so, viscerally about
your girlhood, in the
Palomino chapter, which I think I referenced in that last
episode. And I think that
(20:19):
this idea of girlhood and this
idea of who were you before the
world told you who to be. I think
your story is so unique in that and
also so, incredibly relatable for all
of us. And so I would love for you to speak
a little bit about the
parts. A little bit about your
(20:42):
journey into integrating that and
not in just when you were in therapy, but it really is.
Is part of how you move through your life
now.
>> Sarah (20:52):
Ifs internal family systems. is. Is
kind of the official name, but it. That
to me has. I say this to anyone who will
listen, like, that has changed my life. It is a.
It's really a type of therapy. It's,
it's a, it's a framework for a way to
explore ourselves in a
(21:12):
therapeutic way. When, when Barbara first
introduced me to it, it felt so
foreign. and I really couldn't wrap my head around,
around the idea because it's sort of
this concept that we
all have these parts
inside of us that are essentially versions of us
(21:34):
from our past. Where I like to
think of it like something happened, whether it was
traumatic, or it was beautiful and
gorgeous. It's almost like these pinpoints on a map
of our older selves where some kind of
vow or decision or this is how I see the world
or never again something gets made. And it's
almost like that part of us, whatever age we were at that time,
(21:58):
almost makes a decision for like the way we see the
world and the way we interact with the world. And
so, now don't quote me on that.
I'm not the founder, Richard Swartzer,
I'm not an expert here. This is how I have made sense
of it. But the way that Barbara introduced it to me
was almost this like you kind of slow down. It's very,
(22:19):
it's really similar to I think meditation in that way. There's a lot of like
closing your eyes, breathing, centering yourself.
When you find a moment, maybe a point in therapy where
you get really active, activated, or you notice yourself shutting
down, or you get really angry or you get really emotional.
Those are, those are kind of indicators where Barbara
in our sessions would slow me down and go, okay,
(22:40):
let's take a minute, close your eyes, do some deep breathing
and then get curious. The invitation is always get
curious, like who's showing up right now?
Like who wants to be heard? Who needs
to be witnessed right now? Because usually it's a part that's feeling
activated because whatever we're talking about or
whatever we're sharing feels really, really
familiar. And so that part is like,
(23:03):
oh, I know how to solve that problem. They raise their hand,
they're like, I got this. I know how we survived it last
time, so that's what we'll do again. And of course
all of this is like. It's not like there's a million tiny
voices in my head and I'm responding to all of them right now.
It's all very internal and very slow.
and there are times when she would take me through it where the
(23:24):
parts, oh my goodness, my 13 year old part, she
is so sassy and so stubborn and there were
several Several times where the
invitation would be okay, okay girl, what do you, what do you have for
me? And she'd be like, absolutely not. You gotta earn it.
You know. And I really had to do a lot of work,
earning back the trust of those, of some of those parts
(23:45):
because I had spent a lot of time
ignoring them and pushing them
aside. Talk about self compassion, like shaming them,
judging them. and really, yeah,
not taking heed of whatever warning or
fear they had that they were bringing to the surface for
me in whatever moment I happened to be in. And so it really took a
(24:05):
long time, of practicing.
Okay, that's okay. Like I just want you to know I see
you and if there's anything you want to share, I'm
here. And it's really almost like it's, it's
inner child. But it's not because it's. Of course we have these
versions of ourselves from so many different ages as we go
and we collect more and more of them. My understanding is with
ifs is that when we are
(24:27):
living where one of those parts is sort of
taking over and driving the bus
and making the decisions, we're doing that
out of fear. We're doing that because we're activated.
And that's not really, that means
we're not doing it from a self led place.
We're not making a decision that's
responsive. We're making a decision that's reactive. And
(24:50):
so that's usually a really good indicator that a part might
be leading you or might be driving
something forward. And so I mean it's a
lot. There's a book I
read called I Believe it's no Bad Parts.
And that was a really great foundational catalyst just
for understanding if anyone's curious about it. But
for me it went from
(25:13):
this practice that I would get kind of nervous about in
therapy when Barbara would ask me because I'd be like, this feels so
weird or what's going to come up. You know,
it's this like ah, ah to
to now something that I, I find myself
checking in with different parts. Even just like throughout my day
if I just get a weird phone call or something, I'm like, okay,
(25:33):
how we doing? How we doing? You know, anything need
to come up and, and usually if something
does, I,
I remind myself that
that I'm the safe grownup in the room now. Like I'm the
safe adult. I'm making the decision that's going to be the best
decision, the safest decision for us.
(25:54):
and and usually that is
enough of a relief that whatever felt afraid or
got activated, I can, I can almost physically
feel myself settle. Like
we're okay, like we've got this.
>> Corinne (26:09):
Okay. One of the things that you would say,
say frequently that I've all, that I come back to
a lot when I'm thinking about these types of
experiences is that those parts are always
trying to protect. Right. So it's just,
it's kind of like anxiety like it. And I think of a
little inside out, you know, the second inside out
(26:31):
movie that's such a fantastic, actually
really beautiful look at anxiety and this desperation
to protect. And that's what I think about
with parts work and your journey through that is that
every single time you've
shared one of those moments where you've had
to remind yourself that you're the safe grownup in the room
(26:51):
is it's in response to
a part of you that's trying to protect because you
were so strong. Whether it was at, ah,
13 or 23 or
33, whatever it was, it was that
desire to protect. And I feel like that is that
connection point of self compassion where it's just like, oh, honey, I
(27:11):
know. Like you are trying so hard to
protect me, you know, and so you get that weird phone
call or that email comes in or
whatever it is, or that first podcast
episode goes live or whatever it is, right?
And it's like, yeah, oh, like that part of me
is rising up again to protect.
And so it's almost like, thank you, I've got
(27:34):
this. You know that I'm the safe grownup in the room
as a response to that self protection m
Which then instead of making it this
frustrating thing that we're trying to work
through or we're trying to get over, we're trying to get past,
it's coming alongside that part
and letting them know they don't have to work so hard.
(27:57):
You don't have to crawl on your knees and
beg. Right. You don't have to
always fight.
Yep, we don't have to always fight. So
that when you talk about like being able to sense almost
that relief, it's that what if everything
didn't have to be so hard? What if you didn't, what if
(28:18):
you didn't have to fight every battle, you know?
So, like the way that those lessons that you
have learned have permeated into my
life is like every single time you
talk about it, I'm like, oh, and there it is. And there it is.
And there it is. So the Ways that we get to find each
other in our, in each other's stories. Like
(28:38):
even now, even this, even just in
friendship and sisterhood and relationship. And
it is this continual
practice as opposed to something that you work
through, get through, and are finished and put on the shelf. It's this
continual practice that has woven its way into
your life and now goes beyond you.
(28:59):
I love that.
>> Sarah (29:01):
I love that too, so much. It's just that collective.
It's just the way that there's no gatekeeping. The
generosity of story is like, if you make
it, I make it. That kind of energy. And
I just was listening to a friend of mine who was telling
me she's had back pain for years
and hasn't found a way to resolve it. Just terrible, terrible back
(29:21):
pain. And she recently went to a new chiropractor
and he was doing kind of this assessment or whatever
and he pinpointed exact place where the pain was coming
from. And he was telling her, the
muscles around this
point are so locked and tight.
And he said that
(29:42):
they don't know the wound isn't there anymore.
I know we were just sitting out to lunch and I was like,
okay, I'm gonna write that one down in my notes app.
>> Corinne (29:51):
Like, wait a minute, time out.
>> Sarah (29:54):
Coming back to that. Yeah.
>> Corinne (29:56):
They don't know the wound isn't
there anymore.
>> Sarah (30:00):
Right. And so for years they've been like
locked around the wound that used to be
there, and they're still locked, thinking,
we're doing the right thing, we're protecting the wound, we've
gotta stay. And so instead of
just going in and like how other doctors had done, just adjust,
adjust, adjust. He started with that and like, we've gotta
loosen that up before we can get to the rest of the,
(30:23):
of the, you know, resolution. And, and she, she
just was talking about how profound it's been because it's. That worked, it's
working. And I mean, it's hard to not think
about that in relationship to parts and these other
conversations we're having because it's like we talk
so much about, updating, like updating our
older parts because they don't know yet. They
(30:43):
don't. They're still stuck in, you know, 2018
or 2004 or whatever it is thinking
that that's the reality that they're in forever until we
kind of go back, go out and pull them from the
water and bring them into the boat with us. And we're like, hey honey,
hey, come with me. Like, here we are, let
me Update you. The wound isn't there anymore,
(31:04):
right? Oh, so good.
>> Corinne (31:06):
M.
>> Sarah (31:31):
Okay.
>> Corinne (31:32):
Okay. So now that you said that, now I,
like, I'm. I'm m holding up this
book that I'm reading because
it is exactly that.
I mean, the beautiful metaphor of that very
physiological experience that your friend had at the
chiropractor. okay, so I'm reading
Gabor Mate's when the Body says
(31:54):
no, the Cost of Hidden Stress.
And really, like in the late,
2010. So, like, I would say 2016
is when I was reading, the body keeps the score.
So, you know, that's. That kind of language is now just, like,
such a common part of all of our, you
know, dialogue, and vernacular. But
(32:16):
the body keeps the score and to the point that we
sometimes just really use it in jest, where it's like, something
happens, like, oh, your body is going to keep the
score on that one. Right? And we can
laugh about it and understand just the
reality of the ways that our body
holds onto memory, holds onto experience, holds
onto trauma. But this book, when the Body says no, the
(32:38):
Cost of Hidden Stress is really
a lot of the
physiological connection
to at this point. I'm still early on in the book
to immunology, which is so
fascinating to me because the
ways that. There's a line here toward the
beginning, that says,
(32:59):
when, hang on a second. Let me get to it. When we have
been prevented from learning how to say
no, our bodies may end up saying it
for us. And then there's this
idea of civil war inside the body. And
I think that whether we're talking about
trauma or whether we're talking about
stress and chaos in all its different forms and the
(33:21):
way that that manifests in our life, our
bodies really do carry the very
physiological effects of that. And we know that stress
can kill, but that we don't
often really admit to the
ways that our body is speaking to us
and how that is a direct,
reflection, often, of what's going
(33:44):
on in our lives. And I'm reading this book, and
honestly, Sarah, I'm looking back at different points in my life, and
I'm going, wait a second. I had that
crazy health incident and what was going on in my
life at that point. And then, wait a second. I had that
crazy, crazy situation that I had to have all that testing done for,
like, what was happening in that season of my life. And
(34:04):
when I think about the
vertebrae and your friend at the chiropractor and the
muscles being so locked in, they didn't they no longer. They
didn't know the wound was no longer there.
And at the same time, sometimes our bodies are
screaming at us and we don't
realize the wound that is there.
(34:25):
Right? We can be so detached. We can
be so. We can have everything. We can be so locked
down to survive our
life, to get through the day, to, you know, like, you
and I, like, you still got to show up for work. Trauma. Trauma
doesn't mean you get the day off. Trauma doesn't mean you don't have to
log in for work. Like, you still got to show up for work, still
(34:46):
got to pick the kids up from school, still got to be at
the thing, still got to take. Still got to have the zoom
meeting. Like, they're. Our lives don't stop
just because something is difficult or just
because there is a
stress point in our life that is unresolved. We don't get to
put everything on pause. You know, I still gotta.
(35:07):
I still gotta order. Order the dog's
medicine. I still gotta figure out how to pay the bill.
Still gotta, you know, make sure that the kid has the ride home from
the thing. Like, I mean, we're constantly managing
so much that oftentimes we can lock
ourselves down and be so disconnected from our
physical body that we don't realize that there is a
(35:27):
civil war happening inside of us.
So I'm. I mean, I think about
when. When I was, when I had
first moved to Thailand, and I'm meeting so many people and
I'm making all these friends, and
one of the first things that I started to
notice was all of these women,
(35:49):
expat women, all of
these women who were about my age,
who had been living in country
for at least two years, and
how many of them would share about being
diagnosed with autoimmune issues, diseases,
you know, situations. And I was thinking,
(36:10):
I'm new here, so I'm
able to see a pattern because I'm not used to
this. I'm not in these conversations all day, every day.
But why are all of these women being
diagnosed with autoimmune? And one of the things
in this book that, is talking about so much
is autoimmune and
(36:30):
how and why it presents, when it
does, in who it does. And it's not
definitive, right? But there is this
new element within medicine that is
this combination of the
physiology of our bodies
scientifically and the very
real experiences we have and the trauma that we
(36:52):
survive and the stress that we survive and how those two things
intersect. And that is so fascinating to me.
So I think about these women and I think about the systems
that we were all participating in. The systems
that keep us small, that keep us quiet,
that keep us under extreme stress,
that where we don't have a voice, where we don't have,
(37:14):
seemingly a way out. and that looks a million
different ways. It looks a million different ways. It's not a one size fits
all. But as I'm reading this book and thinking
of my own health situations,
I'm thinking of so many
women in so many different
spaces in their life where their fullness
(37:34):
and their voice and their real
lived experience, there's not room for. And so
in our last episode, when you talked about play
and you were like, what if you made room
for yourself in your own life?
And then how that translates to
our bodies, to our health, to
our actual wellness. Not wellness with
(37:57):
air quotes, but our actual
deep wellness and how we care for
ourselves. And I think that too
can be one of those points where it's like, yeah, it must be nice.
Must be nice to have health insurance. Must be nice to have access
to therapy. Must be nice. You know, I've been that
person, I've been that woman who
has not had access
(38:20):
to things and who has thought to myself, yeah, it must be
nice. So I can appreciate that
that is true for other women as well.
Yeah, it must be nice to be able to think about the stress that,
the toll that stress takes on your body. But when you're surviving
your life, you can't think about that. You can't afford to.
I just, I feel like that's all, that's all swirling together,
(38:42):
right now and how we belong to ourselves.
>> Sarah (38:45):
Yes, absolutely. And I love that you spoke to
the systems because as you were sharing, you
know, that's where my mind goes, is like, well, why, why is it
like this? why what's happening that is
m, you know, causing. Because it's a pattern. It's not just a
one off. This is something that I think
we're seeing more and more of. And I, you know, this is,
(39:06):
ah, a parallel line here, but I think it is
also, the tenacity of
more women speaking up about their pain and
about their, you know, struggles with
different health issues, where
we've spent just decades speaking up
and not being believed or, being told it's in
(39:27):
our heads or there's not a study for that, or there's nothing that
can be done, or it's just your age or it's just how it is, or
just deal with it. And so After a while,
yeah. You know, what's the point of saying it hurts? It
doesn't matter. Apparently, it doesn't matter. What if? What's the point?
And I think what we're watching happen as
more women are sharing their experiences,
(39:48):
is that other women are going, wait a second, I thought
that was just normal or just my age or I just had
to get over it. And all of a sudden
I felt that to be true for myself, where I'm like,
oh, maybe, maybe that's
not what I should have to just struggle through or suffer
through. And maybe if it means I have to go to 5, 10 different,
(40:09):
health specialists to try to find someone who will take my
whatever seriously, can I do that? You
know, it's that acting on behalf of self, it's practiced
in that way too. And because
the system is set up that way, women's health is not
prioritized. It's not studied as well. There are so many
statistics. I wish I had them in front of me right now.
But it's. It's a Google away, really. The
(40:32):
amount, the difference between the way
men's health is studied and women's health is studied kind of
tells the whole story there. And so not only are we
in these situations where
the ways that, like when we are told,
you can't be too big, you can't be too much, you can't feel too much, you have to
stay small, you have to be whatever, that doesn't go
(40:53):
away, right? It's almost like
the only way is through. And so if
we're not going to express it outer in our
outer life, are we internalizing it and is
it metastasizing and causing us to be sick?
Because we'd rather be sick than
be, too much. We'd rather be sick because we
(41:16):
can manage it and control it, and we can be fine. We can be, it's not
so bad, it's okay, we'll be all right. We'll get through it.
Versus no, I'm going to be
inconvenient, and I might not be everyone's whatever, but I'm
living my life. And I'm saying it in
such simple terms. It's so
prevalent, and it's often so
(41:36):
it's on such a micro level that we don't even
know we're doing it. That
denial of self for the sake of
comfort for others or convenience for others. Back to
last week's episode and the idea of play and how
me choosing to value
that element of myself, that that is
(41:57):
a worthy part of being a human being and living a life. And that it
actually is. It's a key that unlocks this
cage, to so much more, that
was going to cause disruption in the status quo
of even the flow of my life and my family's lives. If
we just kept that one ring out and go. That
disrupted, that required things to shift in the
way that we did our life. And that felt
(42:20):
wrong because the messaging that I'd received from
all my years being a woman on this planet has been,
don't be disruptive. Don't be difficult.
You're fine. Right? And we're. We got so
good at being fine that we've been making ourselves
sick, like, literally sick.
>> Corinne (42:39):
And as if that coming back to last week's
episode again, like the. The martyrdom, as if that is
some badge of honor, you know,
to take on, everyone
else's everything to our own detriment,
often to our own death, that. That
somehow is something that we should
(43:00):
aspire to. And actually it's, you know,
I keep thinking about how, you know, we keep
reminding each other that we have to
save ourselves. Like, we. Like no one's
coming to save us, you know, that. That idea
that at some point somebody's going to come in and
save us from whatever it is that
we're not, able to access. And
(43:23):
when I think, you know, when we really
return to ourselves and are going through those
therapeutic modalities to return and belong
to ourselves first before we can belong to anyone
or anything else, I think
that is a reminder that
we are the only ones that can
(43:44):
save this life. Like,
in this very real sense. You know, this isn't
even. I'm not even talking about, like, a spiritual
part of the conversation yet, but. But really
we have to take care of this
self that we've been given, and that is actually
such a,
(44:05):
revolutionary act of love for the. Toward the people around
us. Yeah. Like, we've been that woman
out along the edges, out along the
trail in so many different ways, which
is the only. The only thing that we ever have to
share, like you say, Sarah, is all we have
is our stories. All we have to share is our stories.
>> Sarah (44:25):
And so I think we're going to keep doing that here.
>> Rebeca (44:40):
You've been listening to Spiritual Pyro with Sarah
Carter and Corrine shark on the 1C Story
Network. For more information about this and all
of our stories, please visit
just1c.com. That's
J-U-S-T O N E C
dot com.
>> Sarah (45:17):
Okay, okay. But really.
>> Singer (45:18):
the 1C story network
for the love of stories.
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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. Special Summer Offer: Exclusively on Apple Podcasts, try our Dateline Premium subscription completely free for one month! With Dateline Premium, you get every episode ad-free plus exclusive bonus content.
24/7 News: The Latest
The latest news in 4 minutes updated every hour, every day.