Light After Trauma

We don't always want to hear that recovery from depression can take a long time. Some days, the pain feels unbearable and we want ways to get more immediate relief. If you feel that way, then this episode is for you! This week Alyssa sits down with Zack S. Rutledge, the author of The Official Depression Relief Playbook: Real-Life Strategies From a Guy Who Has Lived It. Tune in to hear Zack share about his own battle with depression as well as his inspiration to write a book. He provides some highly useful skills from his book that we can all use to get more immediate relief to what can feel like a long-term mental health battle.

Find Zack's Book Here Zack's email: [email protected]

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Transcript:

Alyssa Scolari [00:18]:

Hello friends. Welcome back to another episode of the Light After Trauma podcast. I'm your host, Alyssa Scolari. Just taking a deep breath. I encourage you to take a deep breath with me. It is Friday, or at least it is Friday as I am recording this. When this comes out, it will be a Tuesday, but summer feels like it is upon us and life feels, it feels good. Even in the places that don't feel so good, it feels manageable. It has been a long time in locked down, and it's really adjusting to a new normal. I know people are starting to freak out a little bit about what that means and what that will look like. Right now I'm just riding the wave, which is very nice. I hope that you are doing your best to ride the wave as well, because there's definitely going to be an adjustment period. Just trying to get back to a new normal. I'm not sure if we can ever go back to normal. I think it's just going to be a new normal.

So if you are enjoying the new found freedom that we have. I'm so happy for you. I'm enjoying it too. Today, we have with us a special guest Zack S. Rutledge. Zack is an ACE Certified Personal Trainer, an ACE Certified Fitness Nutrition Specialist, and a Certified Brain Health Trainer through The Functional Aging Institute. He has a black belt in karate and has practiced yoga for almost a decade, finishing up his Yoga Alliance Teacher Certification in August of 2021. Just in a couple months. That's awesome. He holds an MA from American University in Washington, DC, and starts his Licensed Professional Counselor program in January 2022.

I'm really excited. One of the things that Zach did not mention is that he has a book out. I was so honored to be able to read the book and to go through it, because it's awesome. It's an incredible book and we are going to dive into it today. He really talks about ways to tackle depression. So let's just get right into it. All right. So hello, Zach. Welcome. How are you?

Zack Rutledge [02:58]:

I'm doing well. Thank you so, so much for having me.

Alyssa Scolari [03:01]:

I'm so excited that... I'm so happy for you to be here. I was just saying as I was recording, your introduction that it's this book is really, really important. I know we're going to talk about depression, and you did not mention the book in your bio. So I threw that in there. I'm like, oh, and there's also this... On top of all that he's doing, there's also this incredible book, it is the the Depression Relief Playbook.

Zack Rutledge [03:34]:

That's it.

Alyssa Scolari [03:36]:

So, oh, where do we even start? All right. So I think my first question that I have for you is like, how did you even develop a passion for this? How did you get to where you are now? I know you talk about it a little bit in the book, but if you could expand on it on here.

Zack Rutledge [03:52]:

Okay. So I will give the very abbreviated version of the first part of my story, so I can get to this second part. So what happened was, as a kid I went through some, I guess they could be called chemical depression issues, and we'll get more into that later. I'm sure. Because I had a very stable, loving childhood. It was great. But only in hindsight I noticed that there were some issues going on. So when I was 18, my best friend was killed, and then I went through a very deep depression. I promise I'll keep this part brief. Then what happened was, so how I got into, I guess helping people was I ended up becoming a personal trainer around the time I graduated from college. I graduated from college late because not extremely late, I was 26. But I graduated late because of some of my depression issues, and I was in a pretty serious place.

So I got this personal trainer thing. It really, it was almost an ego thing. I was just looking for another thing to kind of fill that void, right? It was part of my journey as I say, building myself back up brick by brick. Then when I started actually working with clients, that was when the fire was lit, so to speak, and I just loved it. So I ended up, I mean, I had a regular full-time job, but I was doing that on the side. Then I said, "Hey, you know what, I really would like to expand on this." I became a fitness nutrition specialist.

Again, the brief version is when I was working with clients with their nutrition issues, we weren't talking about nutrition. They were not bringing that up. They knew what to eat and they knew what not to eat, I mean, I would say 80% of the time. It was a lot of deep stuff and I wanted to work with them. I did what I could. That was what one of the things that ultimately led me to going, I can't believe I'm doing this to myself, going back for the second master's degree to become a therapist. So yeah, that's the very abbreviated version. Yeah.

Alyssa Scolari [06:12]:

Yeah. So it's like you want it to be a personal trainer to be able to help people, right? But then as you're talking to people, you're realizing that the nutritional problems are so much deeper than that surface level like, I don't know what to eat type thing, because that's really not the problem. You ended up talking to people about the stressors in their life, and the other things that are going on. That was sort of when it clicked for you that's like oh, I actually really want to be able to help people in this way.

Zack Rutledge [06:41]:

Yeah. Yeah. It's not just the nutrition stuff, of course, it pops in when I'm training people. Stuff pops up and it just turned into my primary passion, as opposed to my "side gig." I want it to make a healing, I guess, in a way my main thing.

Alyssa Scolari [06:59]:

Yeah. I love it. I love that, and then where did the inspiration to write this book come into play?

Zack Rutledge [07:09]:

So it happened, I put the book together because of COVID. So when I was in grad school, the first time I went for film, and I was doing the training on the side, but I was concentrating on film. At that point, I was a few years out of my deep depression, and I had people reaching out to me saying that they were extremely depressed. Because they knew my past and they wanted to know tips and tricks, and things that I did. So I would end up sending them emails, because I would tell them and they would forget. So I'd send these emails to them, or Facebook messages, or whatever. Then when COVID hit, the same thing kind of happened, I had a lot of people reaching out to me saying, "Hey, I'm having a really tough time."

Because one thing I noticed was a lot of, let's just say quirks, things like OCD, or depression, or what have you, was kind of spike during the COVID for a lot of people. It was a really stressful time, obviously. So people were reaching out to me again. So I just, I kind of said to myself, you know what, it's just going to be easier for me to write a book and put this all together at one thing. Because I was constantly going back to all these old emails or thinking of new things. I said, you know what, yeah, let's put this book together. Then I can get this out to just hand it out to anyone who asks. That was kind of honestly how it started, it was a very organic thing. Yeah.

Alyssa Scolari [08:32]:

I love that. Okay. Here's what I love the most about your book is when people come into my office, or go into anybody's office, or anybody who's struggling with depression, right? A lot of times what we tell people, it's not a quick fix, and I think that that's true. It's not a quick fix. But I, somebody like myself and like other people want a quick fix, right? And I think that's-

Zack Rutledge [09:02]:

Yeah, of course.

Alyssa Scolari [09:03]:

Right. We all want a quick fix. I think that's why a lot of people turn to a numbing out through drugs, alcohol, food, whatever. We want that instant gratification. The thing I love about the book, and that is even so evident in the title is that it gives you the quick fix. It's like a quick fix feel to it where it's like, yes, depression is kind of a long-term thing, but there are things that you can actively do. Concrete changes you can make in your life to help ease that depression. For somebody like me and so many others, when we have those bouts of depression, or we're in a really bad way, we just need relief. The last thing we want to hear, especially when we're at a point where we're feeling suicidal, and we're considering taking our own lives. It's like, I need something and I need it now. I love that this book really, it covers all of that.

Zack Rutledge [10:01]:

Yeah. Thank you. First off, we should say it is short, because the last thing I wanted to do when I was in my deepest depression was to read 350 pages of something.

Alyssa Scolari [10:11]:

Who can do that, right, when you're depressed?

Zack Rutledge [10:14]:

So I got a couple of ideas. It's not going to happen. I couldn't get through one television program. I couldn't get through 30 minutes of a TV show when I was in my deepest, deepest bouts. So yeah. So what I did was I basically, like I said, when I built myself back up brick by brick, this took years and years and years. So what I wanted to do was get this book together. That was all of these little bricks in kind of in, like you said, it's these actionable things you can do. Because what I want to do is speed this up for people. I want to save them a few years of their lives trying to sort out what works for them.

It's like, these are the things that I really found, and it's things that you can do. I think the hardest part for some people is actually getting up to do some of the things, which is why I have those first couple chapters on mindset. Well, I mean, I guess just my intro is just relating to people. Letting them know I understand what this is like. I totally get where you're coming from, but if you can just turn that little bit of a switch, just do one little thing, and then do one little next thing. You're going to slowly pull yourself out. Even if we don't get you to a perfect 10 human in that day, if we can get you from a two to a six or seven, that's a win, right? So yeah, I wanted to make it, thank you for pointing that out. I wanted to make it as actionable as possible. Yeah.

Yes. I think you're exactly right. That is also, what's so important is even the length, right? It's concise. It's very clear. It's very relatable. I mean, it's truly a gift to people who are in the trenches, as some of my clients like to tell me. Sometimes my clients coming in and they're like, man, I'm really in the trenches this week. It's a great book for when you really are in the trenches. It's like, all right, this book is like, it's a comfort in itself. Because it's like, listen, you don't have to figure out all of this today, open up this book. I'm going to tell you one little tiny thing that you can do to make your life a little bit better. I love that.

Then, stack them, that's the important thing. That's another important thing. Stack them.

Alyssa Scolari [10:14]:

Stack them or by brick.

Zack Rutledge [12:30]:

Yeah. Thank you so much, again for saying that. I mean, I should say I'm just completely honored to be here, right? Because this is really cool for me to be talking to somebody like you. I kept it short because I was thinking, what would I read as a 20-year-old, right? I want to say this the right way. Because it's not bragging, right? Because in no way am I a perfect person. Okay. It's in no way. But one of the really nice things somebody said to me was that, "This is a really good book. Even for people who aren't depressed," and I was like, "Oh, thanks." "For people who are just looking to improve their lives," I was like, "Oh wow. That's really nice. Thank you so much."

Because a lot of times I joke that I wrote this book for the worst possible sales. I wrote this for an audience that is not going to go out and buy a book, right? They're not going to seek out for help. So in a way I kind of wrote it as a gift, but I didn't want it to seem like gimmicky. I didn't want to say, "Hey, buy this for somebody," because they didn't want to seem like a sales grab type thing. But in a way it really was written as a gift to, because I know it's tough to reach out for help sometimes.

Alyssa Scolari [13:50]:

It's so tough. It's so so tough. Actually, I love what you said about... I have so many questions on my mind and there are so many things I want to ask you.

Zack Rutledge [14:00]:

I'm here.

Alyssa Scolari [14:01]:

My brain is going a mile a minute, but that actually, it just clicked for me to write. This is a book that is great for somebody even who isn't struggling with depression, because it's almost like it's just, it's preventative. This is to me, this is a book truly... It's a genuine wellness book and listen, for the listeners out there, you all know how I feel about wellness and the wellness industry, and how fraudulent it is. I know we've talked about this, but this is a genuine wellness book. One that really is one size fits all for all people.

So I just want to go back to something that you touched on, honestly 10 minutes ago at this point. But you started to talk about depression and the different types of depression. One that you talked about in the book that I really would like for you to expand on. Because I'm interested to hear your perspective on this is, you said that a lot of professionals tend to miss this idea that depression is more of a feeling rather than a result of something that has happened in your life specifically. Can you expand a little bit more on that, your viewpoint on the different types of depression?

Zack Rutledge [15:20]:

Sure. Yeah. So, and I'm sure you know this, and it absolutely happened in my life. Depression comes in different flavors, I call it. So I mean, and they can come from different... It can come from different causes. So some people are dysthymic, right? So for people who are listening, it's that low level, and then when something traumatic happens, you dip down into this deep trench. Which I think may have described to me, there could be things purely brought on by traumatic events, like a PTSD type depression. So there are different flavors. Interestingly, and again, I know you know this, but for your listeners, a lot of people are saying, treating gut health is a good way to work on your depression. They're giving probiotics, because you actually create more serotonin in your gut than you do your brain. Now, I say-

Alyssa Scolari [16:16]:

Yes. Thank you for saying that. Nobody has ever said this on the podcast before, and I am enamored. Can you please repeat that? Everybody listen to this loud and clear. Say that again.

Zack Rutledge [16:27]:

Okay. So I would argue that this is another reason to keep a good diet, right? That you create more serotonin in your gut than you do in your brain. So some people are actually giving depressed people probiotics in trying to get those bacteria back in a good balance. So yeah. So let's just say, now I personally believe that that could be the case, sometimes. I don't think that's the catch-all. I don't think there is a catch-all.

Alyssa Scolari [17:01]:

Yes.

Zack Rutledge [17:02]:

In that token... So that being said, right? So let's just say, if I had a traumatic event, giving me probiotics wouldn't be much of a help, right? So that's why I call it the D-Day approach. So we come at it from every angle. So whether it's a gut issue or it's a brain issue, because I even talk about medication in there. Whether it's a traumatic issue, I talk about therapy in there, right? We're trying to come at it with everything, right?. So that's kind of treating. So if we don't know exactly what's off, and you're teaming up with somebody like you, like an expert. You're eating the right things, and you're putting these things together. You're going to have a... I personally think you're going to have a much greater chance of success rather than relying on one silver bullet, right? Because there's no one cause.

Alyssa Scolari [18:01]:

I couldn't agree with you more. I also agree that it's definitely not, that is not one size fits all where it is different for everybody. But when we take what you have coined as, right, the D-Day approach, and we attack it from all angles. You're going to find what's going on and you're going to be able to heal. I know for me, I think my depression, it was a result of definitely PTSD, but over the last couple of months, and this is also part of why I'm so excited to talk to you about this stuff, is because I have had my own journey with realizing that what was going on in my gut was causing my depression. It took me a long time to get there, to even realize that until I started to learn that the majority of serotonin is actually like me, made in your gut.

I went to a functional medicine doc, and she was able to help me identify which foods my body truly was hating. After cutting out these foods, giving my body the time and the space to heal, taking the appropriate supplements. I am in a better head space than I have ever been in my entire life. I feel like I see the world so much differently, because I cut out certain things and my gut is truly healthy. I used to sleep... I used to get 10 hours of sleep at night, and then I would wake up and not have the energy to walk downstairs.

Zack Rutledge [19:49]:

Wow.

Alyssa Scolari [19:49]:

I'm 29. Why am I acting like I'm 150? The change in what I was eating changed all of that. When I say change, just to be clear, I am not talking about being restrictive. That is not what I'm talking about here. I'm talking about, for me specifically, I had food allergies that I was truly unaware of dairy, gluten, garlic, honestly, everything.

Zack Rutledge [20:22]:

Which is really common, right?

Alyssa Scolari [20:24]:

So common, and so many people don't know it.

Zack Rutledge [20:27]:

Yeah. Yeah. I think I mentioned in the book too getting an allergy test because really, really helpful. I didn't need the allergy test because I know now, I mean, it's, it's very apparent. I think my body has become more sensitive to, it's funny, like certain dairies. A glass of milk will destroy me, but I can have butter or things like that. But it's funny, right? But yeah. Yeah. I would bet a lot of people, well, look, it's true. A lot of people have a lot of intolerances.

Alyssa Scolari [20:57]:

Yeah.

Zack Rutledge [20:57]:

It's not doing your body any favors. Yeah.

Alyssa Scolari [21:00]:

Yep, absolutely. So yes, you touch on all the different types of depression. So if you could give a synopsis of, can you walk us through the book? So you break down your story, you talk about depression, you go into the mindset, and then can you break down more of it from there?

Zack Rutledge [21:26]:

Sure. Well, let me say first, because the mindset's kind of like a weird thing to talk about. Just because it's not concrete, it's not concrete steps. If anybody wants that chapter, just shoot me an email and I'll send them that chapter, Because we're not going to talk, go to into depth on that today, because it's just a weird thing to talk about. So shoot me an email. I'll send you that chapter. All right.

Alyssa Scolari [21:49]:

I'll put your email in the show notes so that people have easy access to be able to reach out.

Zack Rutledge [21:55]:

Cool. Thank you so much. So anyway, as far as building back up brick by brick, like you said, there's the intro, there's the mindset, which is just to kind of light that fire under you is that relating to you. It's the getting you into gear, coming at us with the right approach, with the right intentions. So I like to start with the physical aspect. Okay. This isn't to look like a bodybuilder, this is getting your physical structure in order. I like it because it's the most concrete thing in the book, and you tend to... Oh, well, just like you said, you tend to notice things pretty quickly, right? If you get your... I think I have it in two separate chapters, but I have the fitness and nutrition. But if you get that dialed in first, that's going to kind of, I'm trying not to make too many battle references, but it's going to simplify the battlefield. I hate that.

Alyssa Scolari [22:57]:

Listen. I love it. I'm here for it.

Zack Rutledge [23:01]:

I regret calling it the D-Day approach, but that's just what pops to mind. But anyway, yeah you're just-

Alyssa Scolari [23:05]:

I think that's the perfect... It's the perfect Analogy.

Zack Rutledge [23:09]:

Okay.

Alyssa Scolari [23:10]:

I think it's perfect.

Zack Rutledge [23:11]:

Okay, great. We'll go with it. So yeah. So that's the first place I like to start. So we go with the fitness, we go with the diet, and then I actually have a section on supplements in there. Of Course, I have all the disclaimers, but it's good to repeat this. You always have to check in with your primary care physician, because we don't want any of these things interacting with anything you take, right? So one of my absolute favorites is turmeric, and I mentioned this in the book, taking a capsule of turmeric is like eating a thousand turmeric roots, right? So you're better off with the capsule. I know people cook with it, but the capsules are great, but you also want to have a little bit of black pepper in that capsule. About half of the capsules you find will have a little bit of black pepper in there, and if there's not, just put a little pepper on your food when you take the capsule. Because what happens is, that black pepper increases the bioavailability of that turmeric, the curcumin and then your body-

Alyssa Scolari [24:10]:

That's what it's called, right? [crosstalk 00:24:12].

Zack Rutledge [24:12]:

It can be called... Yeah. You'll see it as either turmeric, curcumin, curcuminoids, it's all the same thing, right?

Alyssa Scolari [24:18]:

Yeah.

Zack Rutledge [24:19]:

It increases that bioavailability so you can absorb it way easier. Otherwise, it just passes through your system, not all of it, but a good portion of it. So yeah, I go into stuff like that, and like my favorite supplements. One of the reasons I really like turmeric is because it helps with inflammation. One of the theories on depression is that inflammation can really contribute to it, right? So, which is another reason, like you were just saying, getting the foods that don't agree with you sorted out, right?

Alyssa Scolari [24:50]:

Yeah.

Zack Rutledge [24:52]:

So I run through a bunch of different things, working on your relationships, and working on the right media. I go through that, there's actually a chapter in that. Then, I essentially ended with medication. I think there may be a chapter after that, but the medication I ended on, because that was my last step. Now, it took me years, and years, and years, but I'm glad I did it that way, and this is why. I built myself up, and I built up so many practices from my martial arts, like my meditation, and yoga, and the diet, and the working out, like you've said. I worked on everything to, I sharpen the sword as much as I possibly could.

Then, I felt, okay, I still need something else. I still need something else, because at 8:00 at night, it was always 8:00 at night, things would spiral out. I'd be good all day, good all day, and then 8:00 at night, I don't know if it was a testosterone drop thing, because men's testosterone tends to drop later at night. I don't know what it was, but I needed that extra boost to get me the rest of the way. Yeah. So we talk about a lot of things. Sorry. I talk so much. You can just cut me off.

Alyssa Scolari [26:03]:

No. You are absolutely fine. I'm thinking to myself, I know that the nighttime, and especially for the trauma, any kind of trauma survivors or anyone who has been through any type of traumatic loss. The nighttime is always the hardest, it's just the absolute hardest. So I'm wondering when you say, I spiraled out, and if this is too personal of a question, please feel free to tell me to back off and I will.

Zack Rutledge [26:35]:

No. You can't offend me. You can ask me anything you want.

Alyssa Scolari [26:41]:

What did that look like for you? What did spiraling out look like for you? Because like you said, depression looks a little bit different on everybody. So what did that look like for you?

Zack Rutledge [26:50]:

So when I say that, when the 8:00 PM would get a little darker I'd spiral out, I should mention that. By that point, I was way, way, way better than I was when I was 19, and really struggling all day and then my nights would be way worse. So I'm just saying, things would turn negative. I was letting my brain run my mind, is kind of the way it felt. My thoughts would just turn dark. I would start looking at the negative sides of everything. I was fixating on things like death, I was fixating on these things that really were not serving anyone, with note and just seeing the dark side of everything. But I was still much, much, much better, it was just that I was dipping down lower than I should have.

I'm on an SNRI, which was actually, I don't talk about it in the book, I don't think. It wasn't just the death of my friend that had me spiral out of control when depression was really deep. I actually dealt with some chronic pain issues. So the SNRI really helped with the nerve pain. They actually give it to a lot of people with fibromyalgia, for their nerve pain. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. But yeah, it just topped it off. It felt, okay, now everything's a lot easier. Yeah.

Alyssa Scolari [28:13]:

That's so important because so many people, I think beat themselves up when they do "everything" that you're supposed to do to help aid with their symptoms. But still kind of like you said, when that sun goes down or when it turns 8:00, it still just feels unmanageable. It's just, people don't have to suffer. I love this idea and this phrase, I sure as hell did not coin it, but I've been reading on that line. People are making t-shirts now that's like, if your brain can't make it, store-bought is fine. I just love that, store-bought, serotonin, it's fine. An SSRI and SNRI. It is totally fine. So that's the other thing that's fantastic is that you're so open about all of the possibilities, right? That it is a possibility to do all these things and still need to take medication, and that that is okay.

Zack Rutledge [29:29]:

Yeah. Well, I mean, I wasn't always open about it. I had to be, to be honest. But yeah, because there was a lot of hesitancy and I wanted to be clear about that, and I wanted to clear up a lot of the myths too. Because there's a lot of misinformation out there. Yeah. So I'm hoping, well, of course, I'm hoping to read the book. People who read the book will read that chapter, but I'd hope people really take that one to heart too. Yeah.

Alyssa Scolari [29:59]:

Yeah. Yeah. Now, this book, so when you first hit your first major depressive episode, you said about like 19?

Zack Rutledge [29:59]:

18.

Alyssa Scolari [30:10]:

18, is this book, do you think that when you were 18, you would have really benefited from having a book like this?

Zack Rutledge [30:22]:

Yes.

Alyssa Scolari [30:23]:

Yeah.

Zack Rutledge [30:24]:

I was thinking... It was interesting thinking about myself at that age as I was writing this. Because I was like, what's going to resonate with that person who's in that deep of a hole, so to speak.

Alyssa Scolari [30:37]:

Yeah.

Zack Rutledge [30:38]:

Yeah. So it was interesting, but I mean, I wouldn't have released her. I wouldn't be doing podcasts like this, if I didn't believe in it so much, right? So yeah. Yeah. I really do believe it. Yeah.

Alyssa Scolari [30:54]:

Yeah. I asked that question because I bet, as I was going through the book, I think one of the things that I was thinking to myself is, how healing this must have been for you. Now that I'm talking to you, I'm kind of realizing it's almost like you're giving like 18-year-old you what you needed as well through writing this book, which I think is so powerful.

Zack Rutledge [31:18]:

Yeah. Thanks. To be honest, it was fun. I enjoyed it. It was just a good time because you know that eventually somebody is going to read the thing. So even if it helps two people, whatever. Somebody who's going to read it. So it was actually really fun to do it.

Alyssa Scolari [31:35]:

Yes. You're helping more than just two people, right? Even though, if two people was all you help, that's still an incredible and a job well done. But before we started recording, let's have this bragging moment. I'm totally going to bring this back up. Tell me the Canada story.

Zack Rutledge [31:56]:

So I actually had a psychologist reach out to me today. She's from Canada. She said that she loves the books so much that she's actually recommending it to her patients, to her clients. So yeah, pretty cool. Pretty cool.

Alyssa Scolari [32:13]:

It's so cool.

Zack Rutledge [32:15]:

Yeah.

Alyssa Scolari [32:17]:

I'm so happy for you. I'm so excited. This book it's almost... You can tell it's like, you talk about it almost it was effortless, and it seems maybe it's just years of you've been doing all this work for all these years, and now it just came out of you on paper.

Zack Rutledge [32:38]:

Yeah. Essentially condensed the best bits. Yeah.

Alyssa Scolari [32:42]:

Yeah. Yeah. So what is next for you? What's next for you? You've got a book out. You've got people in other countries contacting you. Where are we going next?

Zack Rutledge [32:55]:

So I told you that the personal training, all that was my part-time job. I didn't say my regular full-time job was video production. I went to grad school for film. I'm actually shooting my first full length film in October. No, no, I'm sorry, August. So yeah, I'm shooting a movie in August and then-

Alyssa Scolari [33:15]:

That's so cool.

Zack Rutledge [33:16]:

Yeah. Pretty exciting. Actually, you're not too far from me. If you want to be an extra. If you want to read a couple of lines, I can have you.

Alyssa Scolari [33:24]:

Hello. My dream come true. Let me know, day, time. I will be there with bells on.

Zack Rutledge [33:30]:

Awesome. We're shooting in the Princeton area. I'm sure you know where that is. So anyway-

Alyssa Scolari [33:34]:

Yes. That's like my favorite part of New Jersey.

Zack Rutledge [33:36]:

Cool. We'll talk about that after we record.

Alyssa Scolari [33:39]:

Yes.

Zack Rutledge [33:39]:

But yeah, so I'm shooting this movie, and then it's really... Well, I finished up my yoga teacher training in August, and I get ready for grad school in January. Yeah. Start my LPC. Yeah.

Alyssa Scolari [33:55]:

Then you, ultimately the goal for you is to become, you want to become a therapist and you want to be able to help people. Is there a specific niche of people that you want to help? Or is it kind of, well, I'm just going step by step, day by day seeing where life takes me type of thing?

Zack Rutledge [34:13]:

Well, as of right now, I think anxiety and depression would be a nice fit. That just feels natural to me, and that's kind of where my passion is right now, of course with the book and everything. But we'll see how it goes, we'll see.

Alyssa Scolari [34:24]:

Yeah. Yeah. You never know. You never know where you could end up. I know, I sure as hell did not seen myself ending up where I am.

Zack Rutledge [34:35]:

Right. That's what a lot of people tell me. They say that they're surprised at where they ended up. So I'm expecting the unexpected. Yeah.

Alyssa Scolari [34:42]:

Yeah. Expect the unexpected, and it's a beautiful thing. So where is your book sold? Where can people find it? Where can they buy it?

Zack Rutledge [34:54]:

Honestly, I did the laziest thing possible. It's up on Amazon and it's the only place you can get. I don't have a big social media, it's up on Amazon kind of doing the power of attraction thing, hoping that if the quality is there, people will find it. Yeah. So that's it.

Alyssa Scolari [35:12]:

I love it. So I will grab that link, and then if people have any questions or they want to reach out to you, and they want to ask anything. They can just use the email that I will include in the show notes as well.

Zack Rutledge [35:24]:

Great. Thank you so much. Yeah. They're more than welcome.

Alyssa Scolari [35:26]:

Perfect. I will put the link to your book and your email in the show notes for the listeners. To the lovely and wonderful listeners out there, I am also going to be posting the link to this book in the Light After Trauma Facebook group. Because I know a lot of the folks in that group are always asking for new books and great reads. This is one of them. This truly, truly is one of them. It's phenomenal. It is short. It's concise. It's clear. It's relatable. So highly recommend. We'll post that. If you are not in the Facebook group, what are you waiting for? Thank you so much, Zach, for coming on the show. It was truly an honor.

Zack Rutledge [36:11]:

No. Thank you. The honor is all mine, really. Thank you.

Alyssa Scolari [36:15]:

Of course. Thanks for listening everyone. For more information, please head over to lightaftertrauma.com or you can also follow us on social media, on Instagram we are @lightaftertrauma, and on Twitter it is @lightafterpod. Lastly, please head over to patreon.com/lightaftertrauma to support our show. We are asking for $5 a month, which is the equivalent to a cup of coffee at Starbucks. So please head on over, again that's patreon.com/lightaftertrauma. Thank you, and we appreciate your support.

[singing]

Author Bethany Barton joins us on the podcast this week to talk about her brand new book, Apologies I Never Got. Alyssa and Bethany dive into a discussion on the wounds left by previous partners, both shallow and deep. Bethany gives advice on how we can accept the fact that we may never get the apologies we seek. She also gives advice on how we can move forward in life and find happiness and closure within ourselves instead of waiting on someone else to give it to us.

Bethany's Website: www.apologiesinevergot.com

Bethany's Instagram: @apologiesinevergot

Check out the Light After Trauma website for transcripts, other episodes, Alyssa's guest appearances, and more at: www.lightaftertrauma.com

Want to get more great content and interact with the show? Check us out on Instagram: @lightaftertrauma

We need your help! We want to continue to make great content that can help countless trauma warriors on their journey to recovery. So, please help us in supporting the podcast by becoming a recurring patron of the show via Patreon. Every bit helps!

Transcript:

Alyssa Scolari [00:23]:

Hello, hello everybody. Welcome back. We are at it once again with another awesome interview today. I'm really excited for this one. This one hits home for me as well as I'm sure it's going to hit home for a lot of people out there. We're talking about all things dating today, dating, relationships, and we have a special guest. Her name is Bethany Barton. And Bethany is a Los Angeles based author and a freelance writer that writes about all things dating and relationship. She has a book titled, Apologies I Never Got. And this book features dating and relationship horror stories phrased as apologies you never got from people who never gave them to you. It's all about forgiveness and self-healing.

And I'm really looking forward to diving in and chatting with her today. When I saw the title of her book, I definitely got chills, because I feel like, and I think this is the case for a lot of people, is that we hold resentment and we feel like we should be given apologies. And you know what, rightly so. Many of us should be apologized to, especially those who had to endure trauma or who were in abusive relationships or who were just done wrong in relationships, so, so wrong. People who were abandoned, all types of things.

And I have a lot of experience with this, where just relationships in my life have been so, so ugly. And I felt for so long that I should have been given an apology. And I never got one, nor will I ever get one. So it's been a long journey for me to have to figure out how I can come to terms with really getting going on, the apology I never got. So I'm looking forward to talking to Bethany today. I think it's going to be an incredible conversation, and one that so many of you can relate to.

All right. So we are going to turn it over to our guest, hello, Bethany. How are you?

Bethany Barton [02:54]:

I'm great. Thank you for having me.

Alyssa Scolari [02:57]:

Thank you for being here. I'm, first of all, so jealous that you're in Los Angeles. Can you tell me how the weather is right now?

Bethany Barton [03:04]:

Actually, you might not be jealous right now. It's actually overcast and a little bit chilly. So you might be better off where you are today.

Alyssa Scolari [03:13]:

Okay. Yeah. The sun actually is out in New Jersey right now. Now, have you lived in Los Angeles your whole life?

Bethany Barton [03:21]:

No. No. I've actually been here, it'll be three years this month, in May, actually. Today, actually, I moved on-

Alyssa Scolari [03:29]:

The 31st.

Bethany Barton [03:30]:

... the 31st, yeah.

Alyssa Scolari [03:31]:

Well, happy LA anniversary.

Bethany Barton [03:34]:

Thank you. Yeah. Before that I lived in Austin, Texas for about six years. Originally, I'm from North Carolina, that's where I grew up.

Alyssa Scolari [03:43]:

Oh wow.

Bethany Barton [03:44]:

Yeah, I'm a little bit all over the place. Yeah.

Alyssa Scolari [03:46]:

So East Coast, then the South, and now West Coast.

Bethany Barton [03:52]:

Yes.

Alyssa Scolari [03:53]:

Now, what brought you out to Los Angeles? Was it your writing?

Bethany Barton [03:57]:

It was, yeah. It was just really kind of the drive to go all in and pursue that, and make it the center point of my life. And it took me quitting my social work job in Austin, leaving an apartment, leaving a relationship, just all of the things, and completely starting over in Los Angeles to get there.

Alyssa Scolari [04:22]:

Oh, wow. Okay. So you just said a lot of important things all in one sentence. So I guess maybe, take me back. So we're here to talk today about this book that, oh, I can't wait to dive into, because I just love the title so much. How did you get to this spot? Because, it sounds like you had quite a journey leading up to writing this book.

Bethany Barton [04:47]:

Yes, definitely. Definitely. So, yeah, I mean, like I said, I grew up in North Carolina and I had kind of a difficult family situation and that kind of plays into the book a little bit. The book is mainly about relationships and apologies you never got from that, but it really expands. We don't get apologies from a lot of the people that we should get them from.

Alyssa Scolari [05:11]:

A lot of people, like, parents, grandparents, siblings, all the hurtful generational trauma that we experience-

Bethany Barton [05:20]:

Absolutely.

Alyssa Scolari [05:20]:

... we don't get apologies for.

Bethany Barton [05:22]:

Exactly. I left North Carolina, and I was in Austin, Texas working in social work, which also gave me a really good background for the book to be able to come at it from that standpoint. But I was in this job, in this relationship, in this life that just wasn't mine. From the outside looking in, I had all the things that you're supposed to have or want, and I hated it. I was absolutely miserable in every aspect. And all I really wanted to do, all I've ever really wanted to do was write.

But I just really didn't know that was a possibility. I didn't know that was an option as a career. I didn't realize that was something I could make money doing. I just thought it was just something I was always drawn to do. But, yeah, so it took me, I left that job with no real backup plan. I left that relationship. I left Austin completely and moved out here. And just had to start over, figuring out, okay, this is the life I left that I didn't want, so what is the life I do want. And having to kind of create that from the ground up.

Alyssa Scolari [06:36]:

Wow. So you essentially did what I think is one of the hardest things people can do and you deconstructed your life. You broke your life down to build it back up again-

Bethany Barton [06:52]:

Yes.

Alyssa Scolari [06:53]:

... when you were an adult.

Bethany Barton [06:55]:

Yeah. Yeah. I was, I would have been, I had just turned 30. I had just turned 30 when I... Because my birthday's in April, and I moved in May.

Alyssa Scolari [07:03]:

Wow. That's a really hard thing to do, asking anybody to kind of break down their life. I work with a lot of people who are kind of like college age, so maybe like teenagers or very early 20s, and even that is tough. But I think when you get to that point of being like 30, I think it takes a lot of strength to be like, "Mm-hmm [negative], this is not how I'm doing the rest of my life."

Bethany Barton [07:31]:

Yeah. Yeah. For sure.

Alyssa Scolari [07:34]:

So then where did you get... Because I love what you said about how, "All I ever wanted to do was just write," and I think there are a lot of people out there like that, that have such a passion for writing, but truly don't understand that with a lot of hard work and persistence, you actually can make money off of that. It can be a career. So how did you learn that for yourself? Did you first have the idea of, I'm writing this book? Or were you doing more like freelance writing before?

Bethany Barton [08:07]:

It was more writing the book and I did jobs here and there to help supplement it, and then got more into, oh, okay. I can do this freelance too. So it was kind of backwards, I think, of what people generally do. I think most people do freelance, and then they're like, "Oh, I could write a book." But for me the book was just ready to go, and it wanted to come out, so that was what came first. And then I was like, "Oh, okay. I can do articles around it. I can do just different things." I really was just trying all genres, and drawing from my experiences in social work and whatever, the dating and relationship niche just really... things were taking off in that. And so it really kind of all fell together in a very backwards way, but it definitely came together.

Alyssa Scolari [09:00]:

Yeah. So you did things kind of like the opposite of the status quo, but it all came together for you.

Bethany Barton [09:05]:

Yeah.

Alyssa Scolari [09:07]:

So when did you start writing this book? Was this after you got to LA?

Bethany Barton [09:14]:

It started in Austin as kind of an inside joke with a group of friends. As you see in the book, it talks a little bit about my own stuff with relationships, and I was just having these really bizarre experiences. And so, my group of friends and I were just joking of, "Oh, that's an apology I'll never get," just from these experiences.

Alyssa Scolari [09:37]:

[crosstalk 00:09:37]-

Bethany Barton [09:37]:

And so, even in Austin, I was kind of gathering them from friends and coworkers, because everyone has stories like that. Everyone's got just some really bizarre dating or relationship scenario that they've been through. So I didn't know what to do with them, but I eventually just started writing them down, and I had no idea what was going to happen. I thought maybe I'd start a blog with them or a Twitter feed or something, because they were just so funny. Yeah, and then they just started coming in more and more, and I started categorizing them, and then I was like, "Okay, this is going to be a book. This is what this-

Alyssa Scolari [10:14]:

Yes.

Bethany Barton [10:14]:

... is supposed to be.

And then when I got out to LA, I think it took me letting go of all of the past stuff and the thought that I couldn't do it and that I had to have this traditional lifestyle. It took letting go of all of that, I think, to really commit to putting it all together and writing it.

Alyssa Scolari [10:36]:

Wow. Wow. Now, so the book itself, if I'm understanding this correctly, is a series of different horror stories in relationships.

Bethany Barton [10:48]:

Yeah. So it's dating and relationship horror stories, but they're phrased as the apologies you never got from the people who never gave them to you, and then they're separated into categories. And then at the end of each one, there's just the background of where one of the apologies came from, and... For example, there's a gaslighting category.

And then I go into what is gaslighting? And what does that look like? And how did that play out in this apology? And what can you learn from that? Just kind of the basic relationship aspect of the categories, and what's going on kind of behind the scenes of that? Or first dates, what do you need to know about that? Or what can you learn from these apologies? What can you take moving forward, so you're not making the same mistakes or ignoring red flags or whatever it is that kind of got the apology anyway? And sometimes there's nothing you can do, sometimes people just do what they do. But how to recover from that and move forward.

Alyssa Scolari [11:55]:

Is there a particular story, and it doesn't necessarily have to be something in the book, but is there a particular horror story or relationship moment, either in your life or somebody else's life that you could share to give us an example?

Bethany Barton [12:17]:

Yeah. I mean, there's so many.

Alyssa Scolari [12:17]:

That's sounds... There's so many.

Bethany Barton [12:19]:

I mean they kind of ranged-

Alyssa Scolari [12:21]:

My brain is thinking of all the jerks I've ever dated.

Bethany Barton [12:26]:

Yeah. Yeah. They definitely range as far as, some of them are short and funny. There's the one that happens to my friend where, the date, he literally just left and went outside and stole a bike and rode away on it, and that was on a first date. And she was like, "What is happening?" So there's definitely some of those that you're just going, "What happened there?" I mean, this was like, I want to say we were probably about 28 when that happened. So this is not like, oh, we were 19.

Alyssa Scolari [13:01]:

Right. It's not like we're kids. This is like adult.

Bethany Barton [13:03]:

This is like... Yeah.

Alyssa Scolari [13:08]:

Oh my God.

Bethany Barton [13:09]:

Yeah.

Alyssa Scolari [13:10]:

So is she, I don't even know how the law works, but I'm like, are you an accomplice in that situation?

Bethany Barton [13:15]:

Yeah. I mean, do you call the police? What do you even do?

Alyssa Scolari [13:19]:

What do you do? Like, "911, sorry, this guy I just met five minutes ago stole a bike."

Bethany Barton [13:24]:

He stole a bike?

Alyssa Scolari [13:26]:

"My date just stole a bike." Oh God, that's awful. I mean, I love a good story like that. I mean, it's horrible. Obviously it's horrific, but it's one of those things where it's like, if we don't laugh about this-

Bethany Barton [13:42]:

Right. Yeah.

Alyssa Scolari [13:43]:

... we'll sob.

Bethany Barton [13:44]:

Exactly, exactly. And the hope of it is to get to the point where you can laugh. And, obviously, that guy has some stuff going on, that has no reflection on her. That's nothing to do with her. So, I mean, obviously, in the moment, it wasn't as funny, but she was able to get to the part where it is funny. And eventually, I hope that we can all do that and just see that with the laughter, it's not always on us. Sometimes people just have whatever else going on, and we can't always take it so seriously, you know?

Alyssa Scolari [14:17]:

Yeah. Yeah. Which I love, I love adding that component of, it's not a reflection on me. That's a you thing, you know?

Bethany Barton [14:26]:

Yeah, yeah.

Alyssa Scolari [14:27]:

It's not a me thing. But then I also think there are much deeper issues that I'm sure that the book touches on, where it brings up like abandonment stuff or cheating or things like that.

Bethany Barton [14:44]:

Yeah, definitely. There is a cheating category. There's a gaslighting category. So it does definitely touch on some of the deeper relationship components and things that you might run into, and how to navigate your way through those and find the apologies and move on. And especially with things like gaslighting or cheating, those are really painful experiences to go through. And so, the book really kind of highlights, okay, that's happened, how do I deal with that? How do I maybe keep it from happening again? And how do I get to a point where I can just move on from it and not take it into the next relationship?

Because that's a huge component that I talk about too, is when we hang on to these resentments or wait for these apologies, then we're just dragging all of that into our new relationships, and that makes them very crowded. And so that's kind of part of what I talk about.

Alyssa Scolari [15:46]:

Okay. So, you know what's happening to me right now. Have you ever had, I can't be the only one that has this, where you can be in the middle of your day and suddenly you remember a dream-

Bethany Barton [15:58]:

Yes.

Alyssa Scolari [15:59]:

... that you forgot?

Bethany Barton [16:00]:

Yeah.

Alyssa Scolari [16:00]:

And it just hits you. So this must have been on my mind last night, this conversation, because I'm just now remembering, as we're talking, and as you said, "Letting go of those old resentments and not bringing them into your relationship." My very first boyfriend ever, so I shouldn't even be, not that I shouldn't be that resentful, I think I have every right to be resentful, but we were kids.

My very first boyfriend ever, I had a dream about this last night, he broke up with me, and then a few months later wanted to get back together with me, and said, "well, the only reason I broke up with you on the..." I can't-

Bethany Barton [16:43]:

He was scared.

Alyssa Scolari [16:44]:

He said, "The only reason I ever broke up with you in the first place was because you were fat, but now I think I'm okay with your fatness, so let's do it.

Bethany Barton [16:54]:

Wow. What a charmer. What a charmer.

Alyssa Scolari [17:00]:

It's so funny. I honestly haven't thought about that in what am I? I'm 29. And I was, what was I? 16. I have not thought about that in over a decade. And I had a dream about that last night. So I wonder if I subconsciously Harbor some kind of resent.

Bethany Barton [17:20]:

Right, right. Yeah. It would be hard not to from that, for sure. For sure.

Alyssa Scolari [17:25]:

Yeah. But that's one of those things where it's like, I don't think. Even he could understand how damaging that was in the moment. But it's like working through... clearly I still have a little bit of resentment about that.

Bethany Barton [17:43]:

Oh yeah. I can see why, that's horrible.

Alyssa Scolari [17:47]:

Oh, my God. Wow. That's wild. But yeah, as a therapist, I think that's one of the things that I deal with the most, especially among people in like their 20s, is these dating stories, where people are in relationships and then they get cheated on, or something goes south, or suddenly, they're together for a couple of years and the person just leaves without rhyme or reason or explanation. And what would you say to somebody... because I have so many people that are like, "Well, how could they just get up and leave? How could they?" And, "I need an explanation."

And so many people are on this... not this kick, but this desire. When the heartbreak happens, it's a desire to make it not so. It's like, "Well, let's meet up for coffee, so I can ask you questions."

Bethany Barton [18:45]:

Right, like the closure.

Alyssa Scolari [18:46]:

"I need closure." Exactly, you nailed it. It's the, "I need closure. I need closure." And what I find, 99.99% of the time, is that if you ever get that discussion, if the person who hurt you on the other end, ever even grants you the discussion, ever even allows for that to happen, it never gives you the closure that you're looking for. In fact, it only leaves you more hurt than you were before.

Bethany Barton [19:22]:

Yeah. Because they're not going to say anything particularly nice, even if it's just, "I don't love you anymore. I don't want to be with you." I mean, that's the best case scenario. And everything else is just like, if they are telling you the truth, it could be very hurtful. Like, "Oh, I'm not physically attracted to you anymore." I mean, how does that help you feel better about that scenario? Yeah, you have an answer, but it's not an answer that's going to help you, particularly.

Alyssa Scolari [19:54]:

Yeah. Even the cleanest of breaks, even if the relationship was great, even if that person sat down and said, "I'm just not feeling it. I'm not in it the same way. It was great. Goodbye." Going back, isn't going to give you... That person isn't going to change their mind.

Bethany Barton [20:19]:

No. And I think that's what a lot of people are hoping with the closure, that maybe they can like talk them out of it, or oh, if it's this one thing I can change, maybe I can change it. Or even just... You're so attached to this person and then they leave, and it's like your ego and your attachment system are just creating these schemes, almost, in your mind, of like, how can I make this pain stop? And I think it's so important to just realize that the pain is just going to be there for a minute, and having coffee with them or blowing up their phone or backing them into a corner of telling you the reasons why, it's not going to make you feel better. It's not going to give you the closure, the answers you want, and it's not going to make them change their mind, ultimately.

And I think, honestly, the best thing to do is just allow that pain to be there for a minute, because it's supposed to be, you've lost something, you've lost someone. But all of these little schemes that your mind comes up with, ultimately, just makes it harder on yourself. Because if they've broken up with you or if they've cheated on you, or if they've done any of these things, they're telling you, very clearly, that they don't want to be with you. And we just kind of have to learn to accept that, as painful as it is, but it's a lot more painful to keep dragging it out and trying to get back with them or make them tell you. And the truth is, a lot of times people don't know. Why do we just suddenly stop liking someone? We can't explain that always. Why is it that this great person that we're dating, we just don't feel any real connection to?

I mean, there's just not always a laundry list of reasons. It could just be beyond words. Like, "I don't know why I stopped loving you. I don't know why I don't feel the way I did when we started dating.' You know?

Alyssa Scolari [22:18]:

Yeah. I think that's so important, because I was going to ask you, don't you think that continuing to blow up their phone or request some kind of closure or text or even like stalking their social media all the time... I have people that go into these... And also by people, let may be clear, I was one of these people or I was not above this. I'll circle back to that. But looking at like their Snapchat or their Facebook or their Instagram to see when they were last active, and things like that. Don't you think that that only even prolongs the suffering?

Bethany Barton [22:57]:

Absolutely, it does. Absolutely-

Alyssa Scolari [22:57]:

Yes.

Bethany Barton [22:58]:

... it does. I mean, and it really energetically keeps things going. It keeps your attachment system so activated and triggered, and nothing you find on that is going to help you. Nothing is going to make you feel better about them leaving or about them... If you see them moving on with someone else, that doesn't help you either. It really, I think is good to just, the same way I talk about writing your own apologies, write your own closure. Whatever that story needs to be in your mind of, you know what, they just weren't feeling it, or they wanted to be with someone else or whatever, just make that closure happen in your mind and move on.

Alyssa Scolari [23:37]:

Yes.

Bethany Barton [23:37]:

Whatever it is.

Alyssa Scolari [23:38]:

Yes. This is not related to a breakup, specifically, this is actually related to the ending of a relationship with a former therapist that I used to have. I saw her for quite a while, and one day she was gone. She literally dumped me. I mean, I was devastated. She knew everything and I could not understand, how somebody who I had told, who knew more about me than probably anyone on the planet, just straight out dumped me.

And I wanted closure and I tried to ask for it. And I tried to say like, "Can we meet one more time, so I can kind of understand what's happening here, because this is so out of the blue for me?" And she denied me that.

Bethany Barton [24:37]:

Wow.

Alyssa Scolari [24:39]:

And at that point, I think, after a while she thought about it, then changed her mind, also, because it's just highly unethical, and it's something you can lose your license for.

Bethany Barton [24:49]:

Yeah. No, it is. I was thinking that.

Alyssa Scolari [24:52]:

Yeah, that's client abandonment, honey, and we don't do that. But I think she thought about it, and then came back and was like, "Yeah, let's meet." And at that point, I said, "I will give myself the closure that I need." And I truly think that that helped me heal, by not even engaging in that anymore, because what could I have gotten from that? It prolonged my suffering immensely. And looking back now, it was hard doing that to me. It was truly the best thing she ever could have done for me. It's a reflection on her and her issues.

Bethany Barton [25:29]:

Oh, absolutely.

Alyssa Scolari [25:31]:

Right, right. A total reflection on her and her issues. Not a reflection on me, but I'm actually so much better. I didn't realize it, and I think this is what a lot of us don't realize is that sometimes people in our lives are poison, and we don't know we're being poisoned until after they're gone.

Bethany Barton [25:49]:

Yeah. Yeah.

Alyssa Scolari [25:51]:

And do you find that sometimes people cling to these relationships for reasons that are more than the relationship itself? Because you mentioned attachment.

Bethany Barton [26:04]:

Yeah. Yeah. I think definitely. I mean, there's so many reasons that we cling to other people, whether it's from our wounds, whether it's sense of stability and security, maybe even financial. Or just that deeper level of attachment and fear of abandonment and whatever it is, or maybe it's even somewhat abusive of them making us think that we need them and that we can't survive on our own or whatever it is. We have so many reasons that we're with other people, when we maybe shouldn't be. That make it more intense when we lose them or make us try to cling to it or look past things that we really shouldn't, whatever the reason is. There's so many of them.

And I think that's an important part of the breakup process too, is to sit back and look of, okay, why am I feeling this way? What am I truly afraid of? Is it that I think I can't afford my apartment without them? Or is it I just can't be alone? Because once you kind of face those fears, you can start navigating through them and handling them. Because the truth of the situation, if they leave and you can't afford your apartment and whatever else, you have to deal with that. It's not a fun reality, but you have to deal with that.

And so at least you've begun the process of... You're not waiting until you get evicted, because you've been trying so hard to get them to move back in, or you've been stalking them on social media, and not paying your rent or whatever it is.

Alyssa Scolari [27:36]:

Right.

Bethany Barton [27:36]:

It is just so important to make sure your life can move forward and not make it harder on yourself. And I think that's a huge part of the breakup process is just, what is it about this that is truly escalating the way I feel? Is it because I love them so much? Or is it because X, Y, or Z?

Alyssa Scolari [27:57]:

Right. I have found that folks with like a trauma history or abandonment history or folks who don't have a secure attachment style with our parents really have a much harder time with breakups. Because, what it is, is it's like we're reliving this abandonment from our childhood that we never dealt with.

Bethany Barton [28:21]:

Right. Right. And that's like kind of one of the things I touch on, too, a little bit, is just that relationships show us these things. Relationships are meant to do that. They're hitting on our deepest aspects of love, hate, abandonment, belonging, biological attachment. I mean, these are very human characteristics and the deepest parts of ourselves that we're dealing with, intimacy, I mean, all of these things.

And so, yeah, they're going to hurt. They're supposed to hurt. They're going to show you where your work is or what you need to handle or deal with or whatever. They're not always going to be smooth sailing. Even if you're in a very good relationship, you're still going to get triggered. You're still going to have moments where you're like, "Oh, this is something that I need to work on." And I mean, it's just always learning, always growing.

Even me in my relationship, I still have moments where it's like, "Whoa, where did that come from?" You know? Or-

Alyssa Scolari [29:25]:

Yes.

Bethany Barton [29:27]:

... just different work that gets shown to you ongoing, even if you're in a good relationship.

Alyssa Scolari [29:34]:

That is such an important point, is that, right, even when you're in a good relationship, that's purpose of relationships. They are meant to, that's not the sole purpose of relationships, obviously, but being in a relationship is going to bring up a lot of those vulnerabilities, whether it's a healthy relationship, a toxic one, and those are teachable moments. Those are moments to say, "Hey, this might be an area I need to explore some more. Because you said something and I'm enraged, and I don't know why." Or. "I'm scared for my life, and I don't know why." Or, "I'm afraid you're going to leave me, and I don't know why," stuff like that. It's like, even in the healthiest of relationships, there still are those teachable moments.

Bethany Barton [30:23]:

Right.

Alyssa Scolari [30:24]:

So for you, what's next? Because you will have done so much with your life, in such a short time. If I did the math correctly, you're 33?

Bethany Barton [30:39]:

Mm-hmm [affirmative].

Alyssa Scolari [30:40]:

So young, living the LA life, do you love living in LA?

Bethany Barton [30:47]:

I do. I do like LA a lot. Southern California is definitely, definitely my jam.

Alyssa Scolari [30:52]:

California, I'm coming for you.

Bethany Barton [30:53]:

Yes.

Alyssa Scolari [30:54]:

I am forever West Coast dreaming. One day. One day, I'll be out there. But, so, for you, what comes next for you?

Bethany Barton [31:04]:

Yeah. I mean, that's something I kind of still think about and try to figure out. The book actually has a sequel that I'm working on, because I did a submission call for some of it and friends, coworkers, and I just get sent stuff. People will message me or call me, and say, "I just had this really funny thing, and I thought you'd like it. And you can have it for the book," or whatever.

So it's got a sequel, and then it's also got a companion piece that I'm working on called Pinkies Out. And it's the classy breakup guide. So it'll be all in that same umbrella of apologies.

Alyssa Scolari [31:43]:

Oh, that's so cool. Oh, so you've got so much going on.

Bethany Barton [31:49]:

Yeah. I mean, I feel like there's a lot of places it could go. And then I had a talk with a literary agent the other day and they had said something about like, "Oh, okay, well, have you ever thought about, too, most of the apologies are, well, they all are dating and relationship, but have you thought about expanding it into the more serious, into the family, into the like work?" And so I feel like, at some point, that is where it'll go, once it kind of... I feel like right now, it's kind of like niche driven as far as, it's fun, it's classy, it's light and there's serious stuff to it, but it's also got that humor aspect.

And then, figuring out how to transition that into some of the more intense things, I think, will be a process. But I definitely could see it going into that, because there is such a huge aspect of the apologies we never got from friends-

Alyssa Scolari [32:43]:

Yes.

Bethany Barton [32:43]:

... family, just everybody. And how do we deal with some of the deeper aspects of those?

Alyssa Scolari [32:51]:

Yes. And there is so such a need for it. Such a need for it, because that is so much what trauma work is about, I believe, is grief work. How do I recover from truly be apologies I never got there? The people who hurt me, whether it's rape, sexual assault, the mother or father or parent who left me and I haven't heard from him ever, or her ever? So, so needed. So I love that.

Bethany Barton [33:21]:

Yeah. I mean, I think, too, especially, because when I did work in social work, I worked in Child Protective Services, and I worked with-

Alyssa Scolari [33:28]:

God bless you.

Bethany Barton [33:29]:

Yeah, I worked with-

Alyssa Scolari [33:30]:

You're an angel on Earth.

Bethany Barton [33:31]:

Thank you. I worked with some of the parents, and a lot of them come from that background as well. They were in care or custody, and they just have these... No one in that scenario, generally, has had a great life up until that moment, you know?

Alyssa Scolari [33:51]:

Yeah.

Bethany Barton [33:51]:

So they would have these awful backstories. And there's one that kind of sticks out in my mind of, any excuse to be a terrible human that you could ever have, she had it, she just had the most horrendous childhood. She was in and out of care, like three or four times. I mean, it was unreal. And I mean, but she wasn't at all a terrible person. She just had some addictions and things going on, obviously, from that. And so, I just sat with her one day and we talked and I just told her, like, "I get it. I understand why you do these things or why you feel this way."

But I'm like, "look around you. This is not your best life. This is not your child's best life, but you deserve to have a good life. And addiction and trauma and all of these things are not helping you and they're not helping your child, and you just deserve so much better. So I understand all of these awful things that happen to you, but the point of it is, if you keep holding onto them and using them as an excuse, look around, this is the life you've created from that place." It's like, "How can we get you to a different place?" And that was kind of the conversation that really, I think, helped it click for her of, like, "Oh yeah, this is not the life I want."

And she really did turn it around. She was one of our success stories and no one believed in her. And I was like, "No, she's got this." And she did, she cleaned up. And as far as we know, I mean, I don't work in that anymore, so I wouldn't know, I guess, if she [crosstalk 00:35:27]-

Alyssa Scolari [35:26]:

Right.

Bethany Barton [35:27]:

... back in. But before I left Texas, one of my old coworkers had said like, she still will send pictures to the department and stuff like that, and so they were like, "Yeah, as far as we know she's doing fine." And it's just like, that's what we all deserve. No matter what we've come from, what excuses we have, it doesn't really matter, because the point of it is how can you live your life? How can you make it your best life, your child's best life? How can you put all of that behind you? Because keeping it around, it just doesn't help. It doesn't do anything except ruin your life continuously.

Alyssa Scolari [36:06]:

Yeah. It's destroying you. It's not serving you. It's destroying you. And so, so many of us, myself included, have spent far too much time being destroyed over people who were never meant for us anyway.

Bethany Barton [36:20]:

Right. Exactly.

Alyssa Scolari [36:21]:

So I love it. It's so powerful. So, so powerful. I can't wait to see the work that you do next.

Bethany Barton [36:29]:

Awesome.

Alyssa Scolari [36:30]:

So if people want to buy your book, where can they buy your book? Amazon, right?

Bethany Barton [36:35]:

It is actually still being played around with literary agents. So we don't have a release date yet.

Alyssa Scolari [36:41]:

Okay.

Bethany Barton [36:41]:

But the site, Apologies I Never Got, has all of the updates and details. And the Instagram is, Apologies I Never Got. So all of that has the most current info on it.

Alyssa Scolari [36:55]:

Perfect. And you said, it has a website? What is the-

Bethany Barton [36:58]:

It does.

Alyssa Scolari [36:59]:

... website?

Bethany Barton [37:00]:

Yeah. It's www.apologiesInevergot.com. And then my author website is, www.bethanynicole.com, And that also has info on the book.

Alyssa Scolari [37:14]:

Beautiful. So I will link Bethany's Instagram and websites in the show notes for the listeners, so we can be on the lookout for when the book is released. Thank you so much for coming on and chatting all things, dating, relationships, trauma. I appreciate it.

Bethany Barton [37:33]:

Yeah. Thank you so much for having me.

Alyssa Scolari [37:36]:

Thanks for listening everyone. For more information, please head over to lightaftertrauma.com or you can also follow us on social media. On Instagram, we are @lightaftertrauma and on Twitter, it is @lightafterpod. Lastly, please head over to at patreon.com/lightaftertrauma to support our show. We are asking for five dollars a month, which is the equivalent to a cup of coffee at Starbucks. So please head on over again, that's patreon.com/lightaftertrauma. Thank you, and we appreciate your support.

[singing]

Michael Levitt is the founder & Chief Burnout Officer of The Breakfast Leadership Network, a San Diego and Toronto-based burnout media firm. In this week's episode, Michael and Alyssa talk about the silent killer: Burnout. Michael shares his story of how he almost lost his life from toxic stress and burnout. He now spends his time trying to educate others on how they can recognize the signs of burnout and seek the help that they need before it is too late.

More info can be found at https://BreakfastLeadership.com/media Blog is at https://BreakfastLeadership.com/blog

Books:

Burnout Proof: How To Establish Boundaries To Avoid The Negativity Of Stress https://amzn.to/2JkbKxQ

369 Days: How To Survive A Year of Worst-Case Scenarios: https://amzn.to/38Zd807

Check out the Light After Trauma website for transcripts, other episodes, Alyssa's guest appearances, and more at: www.lightaftertrauma.com

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We need your help! We want to continue to make great content that can help countless trauma warriors on their journey to recovery. So, please help us in supporting the podcast by becoming a recurring patron of the show via Patreon. Every bit helps!

Transcript:

Alyssa Scolari [00:23]:

Hello friends, good afternoon, good morning, good evening, good night wherever you are, whatever time it is. Hello and welcome to another episode of the Light After Trauma Podcast. I am your host, Alyssa Scolari. Today we are here to talk about another juicy topic. I love this topic. Again, I know I say that all the time, but this topic I am very passionate about. We are here to talk about B-U-R-N-O-U-T. So no I can't sing, but yes I'm going to anyway on this podcast. For those of you who struggle with spelling, that spells burnout. I'm really, really excited.

Our guest today, who really has made his entire career and his biggest passion about burnout prevention, his name is Michael Levitt. Michael is the founder and Chief Burnout Officer of The Breakfast Leadership Network, a San Diego and Toronto based burnout media firm. He is an in-person and certified virtual speaker, a certified NLP and CBT therapist, and is one of the world's leading authorities in burnout recovery and prevention. He is a Fortune 500 consultant, a number one bestselling author, and host of The Breakfast Leadership Show, a top 200 podcast on iTunes. That's so exciting! He is a former healthcare executive, CIO and CFO overseeing $2 billion budgets, so he has truly seen and done it all. Hello Michael, welcome to the Light After Trauma Podcast. How's it going?

Michael Levitt [02:14]:

I am awesome. I'm looking forward to our chat today.

Alyssa Scolari [02:17]:

Me, too. I have to ask you from reading your bio, you're on the West Coast?

Michael Levitt [02:23]:

I split my time between San Diego and Toronto, and actually at the time of this recording I'm in Toronto. With the U.S. Canadian border closure they've closed it to non-essential travel, and apparently I'm not essential. So I get to stay here, which is fine.

Alyssa Scolari [02:23]:

Lovely.

Michael Levitt [02:40]:

I'm a dual citizen so I get to vote and screw up two countries, and I'm comfortable either place. Plus the weather now in Toronto is nice, so it's not bad. You should talk with me in the winter, I'm like oh, why am I here.

Alyssa Scolari [02:40]:

I'm sure.

Michael Levitt [02:53]:

But things are opening up. I anticipate by the fall of this year that it'll be easier to travel and all of that, and I'm looking forward to it.

Alyssa Scolari [03:06]:

Yeah. So Toronto to San Diego?

Michael Levitt [03:10]:

Yeah, it's a five hour flight one way, anyway. If you've got stops, then of course it gets much longer. But it's about a five hour flight, and obviously a little bit different temperature during the year. Right now we're about the same because I have the weather out on my phone for both locations, and I always look at them like oh wow, we're actually warmer than San Diego today, interesting. But that doesn't happen a lot. But in the summertime it does, but not so much when that crinkly white stuff's falling from the sky. It's like you don't tend to see that too much in San Diego. In the mountains yes, but not by Gaslamp or anything like that.

Alyssa Scolari [03:52]:

No, not when you're hanging out at the San Diego Zoo.

Michael Levitt [03:55]:

Exactly, yeah. The polar bears might be happy, it's like finally we've got the weather right.

Alyssa Scolari [04:00]:

Right, at last.

Michael Levitt [04:03]:

Exactly.

Alyssa Scolari [04:04]:

Well, that's actually really cool. Obviously I'm sure it comes with its frustrations, undoubtedly. But I don't know, that's kind of neat to essentially have lives in two different countries. We're here today to talk about burnout which as I stated earlier is one of my favorite topics, definitely getting more attention as we were talking about, but there's not a lot of action. First it's like acknowledging that this is a problem and then it's like okay, maybe we should start thinking about taking action. I'm going to turn it over to you, the burnout expert. What is burnout? What does that mean?

Michael Levitt [04:45]:

Burnout is when you have prolonged stress basically, to really narrow it down. It's basically when you are completely fatigued, exhausted, you're mentally and physically drained. You have no motivation to do anything, and it's been over an extended period of time. Now for each person, that could be a different period of time. Some people can burn out pretty quickly, and others it could take several years for it to build up depending on what's going on. But that's the thing I see with everybody that is actually at that burned out state is they're just done. They don't have any motivation, they're fatigued, they're living life in a fog, they really can't see things clearly and quite frankly they're almost numb to life, which is no way to exist.

Alyssa Scolari [05:37]:

Absolutely. I relate to that so well. I think that's a really, really good description because it's just like that sense of almost like you're just going through the motions I think, and nothing really means much to you good or bad. It's just kind of like, oh. Or on the other sense, I feel like sometimes it can also be like you're the Energizer bunny where it's like I can't stop, I can't stop, I can't take a day off, I have to do this, people need me. People need me, I can't take a day off, I can't afford to, that type of mentality as well. I think it could maybe go either way.

Michael Levitt [06:12]:

It does, and a lot of people that I see that are burned out are what we like to call people pleasers, and they don't want to let anybody down so they just continue working. Maybe they're Type A personalities, very driven, very successful and have always put in those 12, 14, 16 hour days kind of thing, and they wear it like it's a badge of honor. And it's like no, actually you'll end up having a different type of badge and it'll be whatever they put around your wrist when you're in the hospital, or a toe tag if you don't take care of yourself. I definitely flirted with that with my burnout journey.

Alyssa Scolari [06:52]:

Yeah. It's funny. As you're speaking I'm like oh, I feel personally attacked right here because that honestly, it truly was me. It was chronic people pleasing, just working 12, 14 hour days. I think for me, I watched my mom get very, very sick and she almost died. We were told she was going to die. I think it was a result of her chronic people pleasing and her burnout that is the reason why she almost died, and to this day continues to have health issues. So I think that was a really big turning point for me. But I know you have an entire journey of your own with burnout. Would you mind talking a little bit about that?

Michael Levitt [07:38]:

Sure, I'd love to. Back in 2007, I was hired as a healthcare executive for a startup healthcare organization just outside of Windsor Ontario, Canada. I'm a dual citizen born in the U.S., immigrated to Canada in 2004 with my former wife and became a citizen in 2011, hence the vote and screw up two countries joke that I made earlier. But in this role, and anybody that's ever worked in a startup, you know there's a lot of work involved, there's a lot of things to set up. I had to recruit physicians, hire staff, educate the community on why our clinic was better than the other clinics that had been in town for several years, and had a very proactive board of directors. Even though I was an employee, as a people pleaser or I identify myself now asa a reformed people pleaser, but as a-

Alyssa Scolari [08:37]:

I love that.

Michael Levitt [08:37]:

... former people pleaser I took it on my own and said, "Well, I'm going to act as if this is my company." Which it isn't, but I acted as if it was, and was driven and was basically working 6:00 a.m. to 11:00 p.m. seven days a week for a solid two years. During that time, when you're working that many hours and you're in an office type of role, you're not getting any level of exercise to speak of, and I certainly wasn't. Of course when you're an executive and we all know this, who gets the real close parking spot to the door? The executive. So I wasn't even getting 10,000 steps just because my parking spot was so good. I'd be lucky if I probably got 2,000 steps a day, because our clinic size was rather small at that point. So I wasn't doing that.

My nutrition plan quite frankly was breakfast, lunch and dinner, ordering in a microphone, drive around the corner, paying for it and getting a brown bag handed to me. I just ... Of course working those long hours, you tend to eat differently. So you're eating later than you normally do so that of course, your body doesn't have an opportunity to break that down before you crash into bed, which then your body's got to break that down while you're sleeping. And sleep is so critical in prevention of burnout, and people that don't get good sleep it's really problematic, and I'll talk about that in a moment. But this went on for two years. Then finally in May of 2009 I had what I refer to as my year of worst-case scenarios.

I was mowing my front lawn on a Monday night, actually it was ... The anniversary is this week, ironically. But I was mowing my front lawn, and we had a small lawn and gas prices were expensive back then as they are now at the time of this recording. I had an electric mower and this thing was really bulky to turn, it wasn't light at all, it was really hard to turn. I mow the first row, and then I turned the lawn mower to mow the next row. I felt this incredible pain in the center of my chest. It really felt like I had pulled a muscle, and it hurt so bad that I couldn't continue mowing the lawn. Then I went inside, I took some pain medication. The pain went away unless I lifted anything with my right arm. I'm left-handed so I don't tend to lift a lot with my right arm, but occasionally I do. And anytime I lifted anything, that pain would be there. It was dull, it didn't hurt badly, but it did have some discomfort. So that went on for a few days.

Then Thursday night of that week I went out to a local restaurant that had an all you could eat special, and I took them up on that offer. I had all kinds of fried sea ... really tasty not good for you food and washed it down with a few adult beverages, and life was good. Went to bed, and then about an hour and a half after going to sleep I woke up again with that pain that I had on Monday night, but it was at least 10 times worse. It literally felt like an elephant was stepping on my chest. At that point I thought okay, this is what you get for eating all of that food. It's just ... You're getting acid reflux or indigestion or whatever. So I got out of bed after I caught my breath, went into the bathroom, took some Tums, was able to fall asleep. So Friday morning comes. That pain that I'd been feeling every time I lifted anything with my right arm was persistent, it wasn't going away.

So after working about 45 minutes and reminder, I'm working in a medical clinic, I decide to approach one of our physicians and asked him if he could take a look. Because I explained to him what had happened that week and he listened. He was going, "It's probably nothing but we got the EKG equipment here, why don't we run a test just to make sure there's nothing going on because it sounds different, something's weird. So I just want to check things out." I'm like, "Okay." I go back into the procedure room, so our physician is in there, one of our nurses and one of our admin/medical assistants were in the room. And all of a sudden they just start laughing hysterically, they can't control themselves they're laughing so hard. The reason being is because their boss is taking his clothes off at work in front of them, so they're making all kinds of sexual harassment jokes. Now of course this is before Me Too and all of that, it wasn't appropriate then, certainly isn't appropriate now, but they were doing that. I'm as red as a tomato, I'm embarrassed. I'm not thinking anything else.

So after they had a couple minutes of conversations they said, "Okay, well let's go ahead and get the test going." So they hook up all the electrodes and they run the test and they look at the results, and they're perplexed. They're like, "This looks weird. You know what, let's disconnect everything and we're going to put new leads on and we're going to run the test again." So they did and they put the little electrodes which are basically little tape things with wires, and they tape them all over your legs and your chest and arms and all that stuff. They did it again and they placed it in different spots, and they got the same results. So they took the results and they faxed them off to Hôtel-Dieu Grace Hospital in Windsor and Dr. [Gena 00:14:02] who was a cardiologist there at the time. Got the paperwork, and then about 10 minutes later called the clinic and said, "Tell Michael to get his butt in the hospital right now, and he can't drive."

I had a pretty significant heart attack that Thursday night. I had two blockages in my left interior descending artery, which is known as the widowmaker because if people have heart attacks with blockages in that artery they tend to die. Statistically speaking, most people do. I didn't, thankfully. But that set off what I call my year of worst-case scenarios. So 17 weeks after that, I was let go from that job because they wanted to go in a different direction. Mind you, this is 2009. Remember the Great Recession?

Alyssa Scolari [14:46]:

Mm-hmm [affirmative].

Michael Levitt [14:48]:

I'm in Windsor across the border from Detroit Michigan where GM, Ford and Chrysler were drowning, and GM and Chrysler had filed bankruptcy and got government assistance to stay afloat. Ford wasn't doing much better, but they were able to navigate without getting a lot of government assistance. Needless to say there wasn't a lot of jobs around, and anybody that did have jobs certainly weren't going to be leaving them. So it took me several months to find a new job. Ended up relocating to Toronto where I could find some work, and about two weeks into my new job, and this was in April of 2010, I get a phone call from my oldest daughter, who today is her birthday. Happy birthday, [Sarah 00:15:30].

Alyssa Scolari [15:30]:

Oh, happy birthday.

Michael Levitt [15:32]:

There you go. But she was little at the time. And she called me at work and crying, I couldn't understand a thing she was saying, and then finally I was able to get from her that the bank had come and repossessed our family vehicle. Because when you're on unemployment and anybody that has ever been through that, they know the income is less so you're getting less money coming in. Obviously I wasn't working because I was recovering from my cardiac event, and I was also taking heart medication that was $1,000 a month because I had no drug coverage. So food and drugs, not the fun ones but the ones to keep your heart alive were quite frankly, what we could afford. We had worked with all of our creditors and they had given us a pretty extensive grace period and I'm thankful for that, but unfortunately that grace period ran out, and the bank exercised their right to take back the car.

Fast forward to May of 2010, so almost a year after my cardiac event we find a place to move the family up in Toronto, I was commuting back and forth. We got everything unpacked from the movers, and we realized that we left our bunk bed ladder for our daughter's bed back in the old house. I was going back there the next week to visit with family and friends and all of that, and I said, "Well, I'll just swing by the house, grab that and anything else we left behind," because we were going to be listing it with a realtor that following week, it was ready to put back on the market even though the market was horrible. It's like we got to sell it, we can't pay rent and a mortgage at the same time, that's not going to work. But they were all ... Obviously our mortgage payments weren't being made either because of all the things that were going on.

So I went down there, had the good visit with the family, and then I went by the house to grab the ladder and whatever else we left behind. Opened up the screen door on the front of the house, I saw the largest padlock I've ever seen in my life. I've never seen this padlock at Home Depot or anywhere else, and there was a small sticker on the door that said, "Foreclosure." Now we never got any notices from the bank saying that we were that close to that happening. I'm not sure what happened, but we didn't get the notices. So basically over a year I had a heart attack that should have killed me, lost my job during the Great Recession, had my car repossessed and my home foreclosed.

All of those things happened because I was burned out. My burnout created all those scenarios. I wasn't taking care of myself, I was making mistakes at work. I was constantly in a fog and I wasn't motivated to do anything in life. I certainly wasn't eating right, wasn't sleeping well, and all of those things, all those dominoes came tumbling down. Thankfully, I survived it. But it was obviously not a fun period of time, and I see so many people that are burning out or approaching burnout, they're flirting with their own year of worst-case scenarios and it scares the crap out of me. So that's why I do the work that I do.

Alyssa Scolari [18:38]:

Now at what point was it when you saw that padlock with the foreclosure sticker on it, did that hit you? At what point did it click in your brain that this is what it is, this is burnout? Because I think a lot of people who may not necessarily be aware of burnout tend to go down this other thought path of, why can't I catch a break, why do all these bad things happen to me, I'm just that guy or I'm just that person that I just get shit on all the time.

Michael Levitt [19:12]:

Yeah. For me it was during that 17 week recovery before I had lost my job was I did a lot of deep ... Because I had plenty of time and wasn't working, just deep review of what in the world happened, how did I get to this point? Why am I having to take a nap at 2:00 p.m. every day when I was 40 years old at the time? 40 is a little young to have a cardiac event. But we're seeing-

Alyssa Scolari [19:43]:

Yeah, that's really young.

Michael Levitt [19:43]:

... We're seeing a lot of people now. I know a lot of people in the healthcare industry, there's still a lot of people that are starting to have heart attacks even before 40. That's not good because unless you make some dramatic changes, you could have 30 or 40 years of having to take medications, who knows if you had any ... Thankfully I didn't have any long lasting impact from mine, but I know some people could have strokes, or partially paralyzed or inability to work. It's not something you want to mess with. But during that time I did a lot of reading, which is something that I had stopped doing. When I was younger I read a lot, and then college and university my reading switched to textbooks and things like that. But after getting out of college I didn't read for pleasure, I hadn't for several years and I loved doing it, I just got away from it. So during that time I rekindled my love for reading. I would read different types of books, leadership books and inspiration books and comedy books, just to read and relax.

I realized that leading up to my 369 days, I forgot how to relax. I didn't know how to relax. And a lot of people I think are in that boat because they've been going so much, they're so driven, Type A, people pleasing, they never let up off the gas. And when something happens and there's a lull, they don't know how to react so they have to grab something quickly to fill that "void." That's no way to live. For me, case in point yesterday I was supposed to be on two different shows yesterday, and both of them had to reschedule for whatever reason. Basically that cleared out a good chunk of my day. Did I fill it with anything? No. I listened to some music, I sat out on the balcony so the weather's beautiful now. So just relaxed, just kind of eased into things, and that's an amazing way to fill time. Because automatically we look at that long to do list that we all seem to have and we go, "Oh, I can tackle this and this." You could. Should you? Or should you if you're not-

Alyssa Scolari [19:43]:

Not necessarily.

Michael Levitt [22:08]:

... Yeah, if you need that time to just ... Do it. Don't worry, that stuff's still going to be there. Don't worry about that.

Alyssa Scolari [22:17]:

Right, it's all going to be there, and I think you speak to something so important which is something that I up until recently, have truly struggled with my entire life was this concept of well, when there is a gap. For me, even a couple years ago if there was a weekend where I didn't have anything to do, I was crawling out of my skin, crawling out of my skin. Those are just your big red burnout flags of okay, I can't be still for even a hot minute. So for you to now be at this place, where did that transformation come? At what point did you go, "Okay, I am reinventing myself and now actually going to make this my career"?

Michael Levitt [23:06]:

For me the reinvention started initially during that 17 week recovery period, and then of course after losing the job then my full time job was to find a full time job. That took several months to do so, and that was where my focus was, and I basically had boundaries on it. It's like okay, from 9:00 to 5:00 Monday to Friday I'm going to research and look for opportunities. On the weekends, I'm not. I'm not going to look for jobs, I'm not going to do research. I'm just going to watch sports, do something with the kids, run errands, whatever the case, and just live life. So I started getting in the habit of getting some time blocks around when I work. Then when I finally found the new role which ironically was in healthcare again, my parents wanted to have me committed. They said, "Are you kidding me? You're going back into the field that nearly killed you? Are you that stupid?" And I'm like-

Alyssa Scolari [23:06]:

Do you have a death wish?

Michael Levitt [24:06]:

There's quicker ways to do this, not that we want you to and please don't, people. But they were quite beside themselves. I said to them, "Look. I've done a lot of work on me over these last several months. I want to give this another shot and I want to approach it differently, completely different than what I did before." And I did. I stayed in healthcare for another ... Do the math here, that would have been almost eight years. But during that time for, I guess from 2010 to I'd say 2014, was just working on myself and working. I was getting really successful and doing things in the healthcare space, I was on boards of directors and all this kind of stuff, so going back to that people pleasing thing and giving back and all of that. Then I realized in January of 2015 I was like whoa, my calendar. I don't like what this looks because I started color coding my calendar and meetings I always used the color red, which I think a lot of people see red when they have to have a lot of meetings. But I used that one for not good meetings, just a work thing.

So I look at my calendar and I just start ... Digital calendar of course, and skimming back and forth. And I'm like, I'm seeing a lot of red. I said, "That's not good." So I looked at it and I started counting the number of meetings that I was going to have in the first part of 2015. And in January I had 57 different meetings. And I said, "Okay. Let's not do this again." So I immediately resigned from two boards of directors, and withdrew from a handful of committees at work. I said, "No," switched the team meetings from monthly to quarterly, and just by March it was like I had six meetings. So I went from 57 to six, and was like okay, why did I do that, then I kind of revisit. I'm like, "All right."

Then I started talking with my colleagues and noticing wait a minute, there's a lot of people that are flirting with burnout in this sector and this is healthcare. So I started talking with them about it, not really sharing what happened to me but saying, knowing what I had known and the studies that I'd done. And well, I'm just going to work through it, which is the common answer a lot of people think on how they'd beat burnout. It's I'm just going to work harder, I'm going to work through it.

Alyssa Scolari [26:39]:

Right, or it's like I'll wait until the summertime, and then once summer comes then I'll be able to take a break. Or it's like once I just get through this real big project that I have going on at work, then everything will be fine.

Michael Levitt [26:51]:

Right. Well, it isn't. Because we've seen studies. I know The Hartford just did a study, indicated that 61% of people working are identifying as burning out. Deloitte did one as well that said that 77% of the people they surveyed have been burned out in their current job. Seven, almost eight out of 10 people. We've got a huge, huge challenge with this. So for me, when I started seeing this and everybody was saying well, I'm going to work through it, I'm like, "That's not going to work." So I just started doing a little bit more research on burnout, a little bit deeper dive. Even back then six years ago, there was some conversations happening but not as much as what we're seeing today. But there was still a lot of material and a lot of research and the stuff that, the Maslach stuff out in California and Dr. Freudenberger who wrote a book that was published in 1980 called Burnout. 1980, okay?

Alyssa Scolari [27:54]:

1980?

Michael Levitt [27:56]:

Yeah, 1980. The phrase burnout, he was the one, a German guy, died about 20 years ago, I guess. But he first coined the phrase burnout in the public forum in 1973, so this is not new. But it's getting worse because what's happened is, and I'll use this example. My iBinky, that's the nickname gave my brother gave me, my iPhone because if I don't have it, I'm like a little kid without their pacifier or their binky, not happy. So he's like, "Can you put down your iBinky for a minute?" And based on the number of hours I spent on it, the answer is not likely. But these devices, the smartphones, the laptops, they're great devices because they allow us to work anywhere at anytime. But the disadvantage is we can work anywhere at anytime. And we're horrible of establishing boundaries around when we work and when we don't.

It's so easy. I mean, for many of us our laptop's probably just sitting open all the time at a table somewhere, or if we got a computer we just go ... Or the phone is literally two seconds, unlock, go to it, answer that text message or answer the WhatsApp message or the email or the Slack message, or all the notifications we get on a daily basis from these things. We don't shut down. I think back to my dad, he used to work years ago at General Motors, and he worked on the assembly line for the most part, but towards the tail end of his career he worked in the engine assembly plant. And he drove a forklift, so he would deliver engine blocks to the assembly line so they could put engines in the cars and continue building them. I never remember seeing a forklift come home. He never brought it home. I'm sure the emotions and stress of working in the auto industry which was up and down, he did bring that home. But he never worked on anything at home.

Well for the majority of us we can work at home, on the beach, on our vacation, all these other places. You see these images on Instagram, oh look at my office today. And it's like you see this ocean or mountains and things like that. Yeah, it's cool that you can work in a beautiful setting, I get it. But are you taking time to actually experience that beautiful setting, or are you just plugging away? If you're not enjoying that time, I'm going to save you several thousand dollars right now. Don't go on that trip, have your background image on your computer of those mountains and just work at your desk, because that's basically what you're doing.

Alyssa Scolari [30:40]:

Right, and save your money for all the health bills that are going to come when you eventually suffer whatever illness befalls you because you're not truly taking the time to unplug, relax, unwind.

Michael Levitt [30:57]:

It's critical. I mentioned sleep a little while ago. Lack of sleep impacts your cognitive ability, your awareness, how you digest your foods, pattern recognition, problem solving skills. But the thing of it is when we don't get good sleep, the lack of clarity, the fogginess, all that, what happens is then you start making mistakes at work, or you have to work harder and longer on things because you're not able to flow through things. So if you get a bad night's sleep and we've all had that, we know how we feel the next day. If that's consistent over a period of time, then that's when you start having all types of mental and physical ailments and issues, and you can end up with clogged arteries or a stroke or hypertension or chronic diseases, you name it. Over two dozen of the chronic diseases that we identify as chronic diseases have stress as one of the contributors.

Alyssa Scolari [32:00]:

A thousand percent. Even I would dare say a lot of autoimmune diseases as well, not all but a lot of them are related to chronic stress.

Michael Levitt [32:11]:

Yeah. Because your body and your brain's going I got this stress, this is a toxin to ourselves, I need to send the energy to go fix that. So it's using energy that could be used to help prevent all kinds of different things. I don't know, like maybe COVID for example. People that are stressed out, I haven't seen anything on this, but I'm certain that your stress is going to lower your immunity to be able to fight off things. That's why when you see people stressed, they get coughs and colds and whatnot. Well, you don't want to be flirting with COVID either, so again that's so important for you to get a good night's sleep and do the necessary things to keep your stress at a minimum. Because if you don't have prolonged stress, you won't burn out. Burnout needs the stress. If you don't have the prolonged stress, you won't burn out.

Alyssa Scolari [33:05]:

Exactly. I know when we first connected, you talked a little bit about the work from home burnout because of COVID, and I think it's interesting because I see in my practice and then the people in my life, the people who are truly thriving from working from home like my husband, he's genuinely thriving, have incredible boundaries with themselves where he opens up that laptop at 7:00 a.m., and at 3:00 p.m. it is shut. His phone is gone, and we don't even talk about work. But for the most part like you said, a lot of us don't have great boundaries with ourselves, which I think is probably why the work from home is really, really causing major burnout in folks.

Michael Levitt [33:56]:

It is. I mean and also the, I have to do everything. Well spoiler, you're not going to be able to.

Alyssa Scolari [34:03]:

Ever.

Michael Levitt [34:04]:

So many people became full time schoolteachers during this pandemic as well. So, and we know the school time tends to coincide with when many of us work. Well, you're trying to do two things that are completely different at the same time. It's not going to work, so that's why you see a lot of parents getting up earlier and they're doing a little bit of work, and then they're helping their kids with school and making sure they're on the computer doing the schoolwork and not on their PlayStation 5, and then after dinner they're working again. These long days are not sustainable. The healthy organizations have recognized this and said okay, we need to focus on what we really need to do right now for our customers, and do that. And the other stuff, we'll get to it if it needs to get to.

But unfortunately, there's a lot of organizations that have micromanaging managers that were micromanaging before that have completely lost it because they can't physically see you, and they're like, "I don't know how to manage people if I don't know how to see them." So that's why you hear all those horror stories of you need to stay connected on the Zoom call all day with your camera on. I'm like, "Am I six?" [crosstalk 00:35:21] I approach these managers and I'll ask them, "Why do you do that?" "Well, I don't trust them to do their job." "Okay, wait a minute. You don't trust your employees?" "No." "Then fire them. Right now, go." "I can't do that." "Why?" "Well, I need them." "But you don't trust them?" "No." "Then why did you hire them?" It's the managers lack confidence, training, maybe sometimes there's a personality issue, but for the most part it's confidence, a lack of training in how to manage because no one gets the proper training on that or leaders, for that matter.

Alyssa Scolari [36:07]:

Yeah, and I think it also can be burnout on the manager's end. When you get to the point, and they even say this in the therapy world, when you get to the point where you feel like you can't trust other people and you have to micromanage folks whether it's your clients, whether it's your employees, whatever it is, you need to check yourself. That's a sign right there, we need to step back.

Michael Levitt [36:29]:

Yeah. It's a thing of ... I implore people. I had great, great bosses earlier in my career and throughout where I engaged with them. And the great ones gave me all the information that I needed, I had all the tools that I needed to do to be successful in the work that I was doing, clear instructions on when I need to do it and when it was due, then they got out of the way. They let me do my job.

Alyssa Scolari [36:54]:

It's a beautiful thing.

Michael Levitt [36:55]:

Yeah, and I remember the first day I worked for a company, Rick, one of my bosses back two decades ago, yikes, time flies. But it was 3:30, I remember it vividly. I'm sitting in my cubicle, he comes up, it's my first day, we already chatted earlier in the day and all that stuff, we had lunch and whatnot. And he said, "Okay, just some ground rules." I'm like, "Oh, here it comes." He looks at me and he says, "I don't care when you get here, I don't care when you leave. As long as you get your job done, we're good. You okay with that?" I'm like "Yep, I am."

Alyssa Scolari [37:29]:

Beautiful.

Michael Levitt [37:29]:

I worked for him for three years. That was during the dot com era too, when everybody was switching jobs every two months because the recruiters were saying, "I know I just placed you for this job and paying this. Well, we can give you an extra $25,000 if you go over here." Okay, let me grab my knickknacks. Okay, let's go. Because it was just a zoo back then, but you had to take advantage of it. But I didn't when I was there because I'm like no, this is good. This is a good place for me.

Alyssa Scolari [38:02]:

Sometimes that's priceless, having a good boss. Sometimes you can't put a dollar sign on that.

Michael Levitt [38:06]:

Nope, it is priceless. It makes you feel like you're being listened to, you're being supported, you get to work in your sweet spot with the things that motivate you and all that. When you do that, work flies by and it doesn't stress you out. Even though you may have busier periods, you may have some big workloads, you come home and you're like okay. Yeah, that was a long day, it was tiring. But you don't feel completely wiped out because well, you enjoy what you do. I think that's a big thing for everybody to look at as well, is rekindle what you enjoy doing. Sometimes I know with people that are burned out, they don't know what they like. They don't know what brings them joy. How do you not know? Well, you got to ask yourself. I know why they don't know because they're completely fatigued and wiped out. So rekindle that-

Alyssa Scolari [38:58]:

And put everybody else before themselves.

Michael Levitt [39:01]:

Yes. And self care is not selfish. Although it is, but it's a good selfish, it's-

Alyssa Scolari [39:08]:

It's a good thing.

Michael Levitt [39:10]:

... you got to take care of yourself first because then that way when you do choose to give to people, they're getting a much better version of you than they would before.

Alyssa Scolari [39:18]:

So much better, so much better. Absolutely, it gives you better connections with everybody at work and personal.

Michael Levitt [39:28]:

Absolutely.

Alyssa Scolari [39:28]:

So you have now made ... This is your entire career is burnout prevention and intervention. You have your own podcast, right?

Michael Levitt [39:39]:

Yes, The Breakfast Leadership Show, yep.

Alyssa Scolari [39:42]:

The Breakfast Leadership Show. You are a speaker, so I assume you speak basically all over the world.

Michael Levitt [39:53]:

Yep. Last year, lots of virtual events because of the pandemic. But I spoke at over 30 different conferences last year across the globe. Every industry, you name it, I've spoken with them because burnout doesn't care what industry you're in. You would think yeah okay, healthcare, education, legal, yeah, it's like those are all there. But admins and single parent groups and engineers and automotive, you name it, I spoke at their events. My original career was public accounting, so I was an auditor and I did audits for all different types of businesses, so I'm familiar with most sectors so I can tailor my talk. When I go in and work with organizations, I know some of the struggles that they face because I used to be in those industries in an auditing capacity, so I needed to know what those businesses did and how they did it. So that decades ago career comes back and says hi, remember me? And I said, "Yeah, I'm going to grab the good parts of that and not the long tax season hours. I don't need that again."

Alyssa Scolari [40:59]:

Right, I'm going to leave that.

Michael Levitt [40:59]:

Exactly.

Alyssa Scolari [41:03]:

Then you have two books that are out?

Michael Levitt [41:06]:

Yeah, I've got a couple of books related to burnout. The first one that I released four years ago, 369 Days: How to Survive a Year of Worst-Case Scenarios chronicles what I talked about earlier, about that year of loss and some of the lessons learned from that. Then my new book Burnout Proof covers what burnout is in greater detail, what are some of the signs, what are some things you can do right away to stop burnout. Because people think burnout is this treadmill that you can't get off of, and you can. You make some simple adjustments. And I will say this, most people don't need to reinvent their life if they're burned out. In my situation I did because of all kinds of other factors and the way that I was living my life. I did have to reinvent myself, but most people that I've encountered don't, they just need to make some adjustments here and there.

The deeper work, and you know this in the work that you do, is figuring out why you burned out in the first place because that's important. You don't want to ... Because otherwise you have been burned out two or three times, well I was burned out once and it nearly killed me. So I'm not going there again, I don't want to go to that trip.

Alyssa Scolari [42:12]:

Yeah, you literally don't have the time to be able to do this again and again and again. Because it only takes one time, but it could end your life.

Michael Levitt [42:21]:

Exactly, and when you're laying on a procedure bed in the hospital and Dr. [Morrisey 00:42:25] meets you and says, "Hello," and he looks at you and he looks at your chart and he goes, "You don't know how lucky you are to be alive right now." I looked at him, and I was in pretty good spirits at that particular point and I said, "So, you skipped the bedside manner course, did you?" And he laughed and we all laughed, and we thought it was funny. But it's like, I said, "I know where you're going, I get it. I'm really lucky to be here. Okay, good. What do you need to do?" He said, "We're putting two stents in." "Got it." And he did.

A nice little quick procedure thankfully, but needless to say it was a very, very important lesson for me to learn, and I don't want anybody to go through that. No one should be laying on a hospital bed to have heart surgery basically when you're that young, because it's not good. You shouldn't do that, so you need to make those adjustments and figure out why you get yourself into the situations you do.

Alyssa Scolari [43:26]:

Exactly.

Michael Levitt [43:28]:

Once you do that, then you can make the adjustments on that aspect of it, and then your life will be so much better for you.

Alyssa Scolari [43:36]:

Yep, absolutely. I do agree that there's definitely an element of deeper work that I think people need to do where it's like, how did I get to this spot in the first place.

Michael Levitt [43:46]:

Exactly.

Alyssa Scolari [43:48]:

Both of your books, are they sold on Amazon?

Michael Levitt [43:51]:

Amazon. You can order them on Barnes and Noble as well if you don't like Amazon, then you can get them through Barnes and Noble as well. If you're in Canada, you can get them through Indigo or Chapters. I know there's a few other places that sell it, too. But those are the ones that people tend to flock to.

Alyssa Scolari [44:07]:

Perfect, okay. Then I have the links to everybody for the listeners out there because I know this is something that the listeners will really take to. I think burnout is something that a lot of trauma survivors suffer from because we tend to be chronic people pleasers. It's something that I find myself talking about time and time again in my practice, something I've struggled with personally. So I am so thankful that you were able to come on and share your story and hopefully just continue to save lives because it really is what you're doing, trying to save people from what you had to go through. Because not everybody ... We don't have to have a life threatening situation in order to check our burnout. We're trying to get people before it gets to that spot.

Michael Levitt [44:59]:

Yes, I agree. Prevention is so much better than recovery.

Alyssa Scolari [45:02]:

Yes. Yes, exactly. Thank you so much for coming on today, it was truly a pleasure.

Michael Levitt [45:10]:

Thank you, happy to be here.

Alyssa Scolari [45:12]:

Thank you.

Thanks for listening, everyone. For more information please head over to Lightaftertauma.com, or you can also follow us on social media. On Instagram we are @lightaftertrauma and on Twitter it is @lightafterpod. Lastly, please head over to Patreon.com/lightaftertrauma to support our show. We are asking for $5 a month, which is the equivalent to a cup of coffee at Starbucks. So please head on over. Again, that's patreon.com/lightaftertrauma. Thank you, and we appreciate your support.

Friend of the family and friend of the podcast, Rebecca Christianson, is back with a two-part discussion on the two emotions that trip us up the most when working through PTSD: Guilt and Shame. On last week's episode, we discussed the ways in which guilt and shame can hold us back in our recovery from PTSD. Tune into part 2 this week to discover how you can move through these feelings in order to live a more fulfilled life.

Rebecca's website: www.rebelliouswellnesscounseling.com

Check out the Light After Trauma website for transcripts, other episodes, Alyssa's guest appearances, and more at: www.lightaftertrauma.com

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Transcript:

David Scolari [00:23]:

Hey, hey, hey. Top of the morning, afternoon or evening, depending on where you are and when you're listening. Light After Trauma listeners, this is David Scolari, Alyssa Scolari's husband, editor of the podcast and all around nice guy. Alyssa Scolari forgot to record an intro for part two of her interview about guilt and shame with Rebecca Christianson, so I am just filling in here as we are rushing about, as we are about to go on vacation and we want to get these episodes out to you before we go. This is part two of the Rebecca Christianson interview, so enjoy and have a great rest of the week.

Alyssa Scolari [01:10]:

Wow. That is a very powerful workaholics, even potentially perfectionists, because when we are stuck in the perfectionism, which I used to be all the time, you have no fun. Zero fun is to be had when you are living in a world where everything has to be perfect.

Rebecca Christianson [01:31]:

Right. And Brené Brown says behind every perfectionist, there are shame messages.

Alyssa Scolari [01:38]:

Brené Brown.

Rebecca Christianson [01:40]:

Yep. And it's interesting because I never really put that together until I learned more about shame that people will self-punish by limiting their own pleasure. And then society will punish shame. It's used as a disciplinary action, like if the action is to boo, right, if you do that, you'll be kicked out of the tribe. Shame is used as a disciplinary action in a lot of homes, a lot of societies, a lot of sports. If you're not good enough, you're kicked out. It's used as a motivator, although ill-equipped motivator, and also as a disciplinary action.

Alyssa Scolari [02:28]:

Yeah. I didn't even think about that, how much our society uses shame as a way to try to morph people into what we want them to be.

Rebecca Christianson [02:41]:

Yep. Mm-hmm [affirmative]. Exactly. That's exactly right. It's used as a disciplinary, if you don't meet this criteria, if you don't do things this way, then you're cut out of the tribe. That fear of abandonment, that fear of rejection kicks in. If I'm not this way and I don't feel this way, so I have to pretend to be this way, then you end up feeling like something's wrong because you don't align with that.

It's interesting. There's an African-American tribe, when a member of the tribe does something wrong, they put the person in the middle of this circle of all the tribe members and they all go around and tell that person something that they do right.

Alyssa Scolari [03:27]:

Oh, that's the opposite of shame.

Rebecca Christianson [03:30]:

Mm-hmm [affirmative]. And I thought that that was so interesting.

Alyssa Scolari [03:35]:

Wow. How incredibly healing is that, especially when you look at, right, when we talk about how do we treat guilt and shame, right, how do we treat these horrible, horrible emotions and have them not be so overwhelming to a person and take over the person's world, a lot of it is about rewiring the brain and using cognitive behavioral therapy methods, which is like, "Let's take your thoughts and let's recreate the narrative." Well, you have a whole tribe of people doing that, which makes it so much easier to rewire the brain.

Rebecca Christianson [04:16]:

Right. Right. And I thought that is so powerful. It really made me stop and think how I react to my own kids when they do something wrong or they do something or say something that's hurtful, and it's so easy to do what we've been taught, send a message of shame, and I thought to really be able to bring out something they have done right, how their feelings are right, how they express them might not land the way they want it to land, but to be able to show them that their feelings are valid and what they did was right, just how they did it could be better, I thought that was really interesting because you have a whole tribe of people who are validating that person so that they don't get the shame message and they're able to forgive themselves and they know that they have forgiveness from their tribe, right? It's the opposite. Mm-hmm [affirmative].

Alyssa Scolari [05:19]:

I love that. That's the complete opposite of what we do in this world, which is, God forbid you make a mistake and now it's not even that you're shamed, it's you're canceled. You as a human being, your existence on this earth, you are canceled.

Rebecca Christianson [05:37]:

Yep. You're canceled. Right. One of the other things I learned about shame because it starts so young is it is such a deep-rooted central nervous system reaction. It sets in there so deep.

Alyssa Scolari [05:52]:

Wired in the brain and the nervous system.

Rebecca Christianson [05:58]:

A lot of it is helping them feel it. There's this one part of treatment that talks about paying attention to people's posture when you're talking about their shame and helping them correct their posture as they tell you their story, because really being aware of where you feel the shame in your body is so important to treating shame, because you can rewire the brain. You can use CBT, but you have to use something that is more mind-body connected along with the CBT or you will never really fully treat the shame. One of the things that I thought was really powerful is paying attention to people's posture as they tell you their stories. You work through their shame and helping them correct their posture as they tell you the story, and I thought that that was really interesting.

Alyssa Scolari [06:57]:

Helping them, correcting their posture in the moment, yeah, which I could see how that would be so powerful. I mean, I know just sitting in my office when people tell their story, you do watch their posture and what they would do is they curl into the fetal position, or what I would do is I would take a ... My old therapist had a blanket in her office, and I would take the blanket and I would cover myself up to my shoulders, from the shoulders down in the blanket, curled in the fetal position, and yeah. I mean, I never did this in therapy, but I can think of how powerful it would be to correct that, to take the blanket off, to sit up with my shoulders back.

Rebecca Christianson [07:46]:

Yes, and talk about your shame messages. That's a lot of CBT working with para ... I can never say that word and that-

Alyssa Scolari [07:59]:

I can't say it either. What the hell is it? Oh, the parasympathetic nervous system.

Rebecca Christianson [08:03]:

Thank you. Yes. Thank you. Yeah, thank you. I knew if I tried to say it, I would have totally [inaudible 00:08:11] that up, parasympathetic nervous system. I feel like those two working in conjunction, when you can help people correct their posture, you would have to do that slowly. You'd have to say what would it feel like if you took the blanket off. Those things are really, I think, useful tools in treating shame, and then because we really feel shame. More than we talk about it, we feel it, right?

Alyssa Scolari [08:36]:

Yes.

Rebecca Christianson [08:37]:

And then Tara Brach did a lot of work in treating shame, as well. Her message is, "What is happening inside me now, and can I let this be?" When you're talking through shame messages, to stop and say what is happening inside your body right now and can you let this be?

It reminds me of exposure therapy, when you're doing CBT and anxiety only goes up. People feel like their anxiety is going to go ... like it's just never going to stop and their head's going to pop off their body. That's what it feels like, but that obviously doesn't happen. Your anxiety only goes up to a certain point and then it-

Alyssa Scolari [09:21]:

It tapers off.

Rebecca Christianson [09:23]:

... it starts to come down, and once you realize anxiety does have a ceiling, then it feels more manageable. You can manage that anxiety, and it reminds me of this kind of work, stopping people as they're talking through shame and helping take their blanket off and sit up straight and help them feel the shame. "What is happening in your body right now, and can you let that be?" helps, I think the same thing, realize that what's happening in your body is not boundless.

Alyssa Scolari [09:54]:

Yes. It's not going to kill you. It might feel like it's going to kill you, but it's not.

Rebecca Christianson [09:59]:

Can you let it be and can we release it? That is, I feel like, really, really powerful.

Alyssa Scolari [10:06]:

Yes. That coupled with being able to do that with a person who is safe, a therapist who is safe, who is letting you or making space for you to feel that and is not adding to it. That therapist's calming tone and the lack of shame and the lack of guilt-inducing and the lack of judgment on the part of the therapist is so healing.

Rebecca Christianson [10:39]:

So healing. And then of course, hopefully people who do this kind of work with their therapist have an authentic attachment to that person. That is what becomes healing, is that you can trust another human with these stories, who's going to help you move through and release the shame messages and help you be more self-compassionate and help you learn inner attunement, help you balance that. That's really so healing, right, because your attachment. You learn to [inaudible 00:11:19] your attachments that way. You learn to how what a secure attachment feels like. You learn to know what you can expect from that, and then you learn how to process these shame messages and we rewire your brain, process and replace those shame messages. You learn to trust those new messages that are healthier and let go of the old messages all through that healthy attachment and release of shame in your body. There's a lot of therapeutic yoga that help release some of the shame.

Alyssa Scolari [11:58]:

Yes. Yes. There is this ... It's free for the listeners out there ... It's Yoga with Adriene. She has these different types of yoga that are specifically for opening up the different parts of your body. And I did this one heart opener yoga. Oh my Lanta, what came out of me, the feelings that just released. If anybody is rolling your eyes out there at the idea of yoga to help release guilt and shame or as part of your treatment in general, don't roll your eyes no more because go Google Yoga with Adriene and your life will be forever changed.

Rebecca Christianson [12:54]:

Actually, one of the people in our practice is a certified yoga therapist. DeAnn Mishler is a cer certified yoga therapist and she also does workshops in yoga therapy, so [crosstalk 00:13:09].

Alyssa Scolari [13:08]:

That's incredible.

Rebecca Christianson [13:10]:

You can find her on our-

Alyssa Scolari [13:14]:

RebelliouWellnessCounseling.com, baby.

Rebecca Christianson [13:18]:

She also sees people individually for that as well. But I think that along with that, there are some meditations that therapists can use or can give and that's so effective to do that with a therapist that you have a secure attachment to, and then you can do the meditation on your own, but to do that with somebody, to mirror that person and be with them in that shame, that is the way it's truly healed and allows people to let go of those messages and take on more appropriate, healthier messages.

Alyssa Scolari [13:57]:

Yeah. I think it's very important that you've pointed out the necessity of having a healthy attachment with the therapist, because I think, and I've heard the story many times before, that there are people who will go in to see a therapist and will release all of it in the first session and just spout off, "This is what happened. This is where I'm at," and they share all of their trauma, all of their feelings, and then they leave and they never come back. And that is likely because it's not healing to be doing that with somebody that you have not cultivated an attachment with, that you haven't cultivated a safe relationship with. It's very important to make sure that you are doing this work with a therapist who is safe because if not, you run the risk of re-traumatizing yourself.

Rebecca Christianson [15:01]:

Right. Exactly. There's a quote by Dan Siegel.

Alyssa Scolari [15:06]:

I love Dan Siegel.

Rebecca Christianson [15:07]:

I know. It's in the neural integration in the treatment of shame and it says, "It's important to get them beneath thinking with words, thinking, thinking, thinking, and instead we want them to become present with their own internal experience beyond the need and before words."

And I love that quote because it reminds me always, people are connected to content. That's what I feel like ... and I'm guilty of that, too. As I say all the time, every good therapist has a good therapist. And even when I am talking, I want to get all my content out, but what we know, especially in the treatment of shame, is that content isn't important, especially in the treatment of attachment.

When we're trying marriage therapy, everybody wants to talk about their content, but what's important is the feeling. What's important is what happens in your body before the words and that's really hard to do by yourself. I think there's a ton of books and meditations out there that people can find, but I think that's really hard to do on your own. I think it's so much easier to find a therapist that you trust that you can build a secure attachment with.

And then most time people don't come in, like you said, into our office and say, "I have shame." It's that you have anxiety or you feel depressed, and then shame comes after you've built that attachment that you can start to talk about those messages, those unwanted intrusive messages that are shame messages and be able to identify them, talk about the root of them and release that.

Alyssa Scolari [16:59]:

Exactly, exactly. And it's so much more about the shame and the guilt than it is about the content, not that your story isn't important, not that what happened to you isn't important, but like you said, it's very easy, and I'm guilty of this too. I will sit down with my therapist and I will spend an hour talking about all the things that happened and not about what's happening in my body. And in a way that itself can be a form of dissociation or a way to maintain a level of disconnectedness from your body to avoid any painful emotions.

Rebecca Christianson [17:41]:

[inaudible 00:17:41] painful emotions. That's exactly right. And I think that one of the treatments is to develop inner attunement, and that's what you're talking about, to attach our content to what we're feeling, because there's a lot of content that makes us feel the same way. And if we can really get to the root of why we feel that way, the content doesn't matter. We stop that shame message. We stop that high standard. We start taking some of our vacation days to self-care, and that is a sign that you're healing from shame, that you start to take a sick day, a mental health day, a vacation day.

Alyssa Scolari [18:22]:

Set some boundaries, right?

Rebecca Christianson [18:25]:

Set boundaries. Recognize if you're being self-critical and correct that, right, your path. I think that all helps us be more authentic and genuine. And if you're authentic and genuine, then you have very few shame messages, because you're able to deal with them in the moment. You're able to reject what doesn't sit, right. It is interesting.

I also think just for the listeners, it's a work in progress. It's not a work that's done. It's not a, "I feel anxious. Fix my anxiety." It's a work in progress. I think what you learn is a practice that helps you stay from attaching to shame messages. It's a constant work in progress. I don't think that it's a, "Here, fix my shame and I'm all good now." It's that you learn tools and practices that when you feel that in your body, you're able to inner attune, you're able to figure out where that's coming from and either rewrite that or right your ship or you're able to process that and reattune, so I think it's a work in progress. You're always doing it.

Alyssa Scolari [19:51]:

Yeah, yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. Well, this was a really difficult topic to tackle, hence needing the two-part episode, because guilt and shame are just such complex emotions, but I could think of nobody better equipped to have this discussion with than you.

Rebecca Christianson [20:14]:

Thank you.

Alyssa Scolari [20:16]:

And thank you for coming on the show and for sharing. For the listeners out there, obviously I know you love Rebecca Christianson. Rebecca Christianson's episodes get the most downloads. Rebecca Christianson is much loved on this podcast and fear not because we have some really great things coming for you in the future, so stay tuned for that. And yes, thank you to the listeners for tuning in and thank you, Rebecca Christianson. I appreciate it.

Rebecca Christianson [20:55]:

Thanks for having me on, and I love to talk about all these things with you. It's always enlightening.

Alyssa Scolari [21:00]:

It's the best.

Friend of the family and friend of the podcast, Rebecca Christianson, is back with a two-part discussion on the two emotions that trip us up the most when working through PTSD: Guilt and Shame. Tune into part 1 to find out if guilt and shame may be holding you back in your recovery.

Rebecca's website: www.rebelliouswellnesscounseling.com

Check out the Light After Trauma website for transcripts, other episodes, Alyssa's guest appearances, and more at: www.lightaftertrauma.com

Want to get more great content and interact with the show? Check us out on Instagram: @lightaftertrauma

We need your help! We want to continue to make great content that can help countless trauma warriors on their journey to recovery. So, please help us in supporting the podcast by becoming a recurring patron of the show via Patreon. Every bit helps!

Transcript:

[00:00:01 music intro]

Alyssa Scolari [00:23]:

What's up, everybody? It's your girl, Alyssa Scolari. Welcome back for another very special episode of the Light after Trauma podcast. I am your host and we have with us today, a person who will be very familiar to you, the lovely LCSW, Rebecca Christianson. Rebecca, as many of you may already know, is my mentor and has served as my clinical supervisor. Rebecca and I have done podcasts together on grief and on resiliency and today we are coming at you with a two part series. So this podcast episode is going to be split into two episodes, mostly because there's so much to talk about. So we're talking about guilt and shame today. So hello, Rebecca. Welcome back.

Rebecca Christianson [01:20]:

Hi, I'm happy to be here. Thanks for having me.

Alyssa Scolari [01:23]:

This is your third podcast. I was just talking about Rebecca is a frequent flyer and I love it.

Rebecca Christianson [01:33]:

I know I should have a frequent flyer card or something.

Alyssa Scolari [01:37]:

Yeah. Yep. I love it. And obviously, as I was saying today, what we're talking about, guilt and shame are two of the most, I think, complex and difficult emotions to deal with when it comes to trauma. So I know that we had been wanting to do this episode on guilt and shame for a while, but there's so much to unpack. So we're breaking it into two parts. So yeah, guilt and shame. Let's dive into it. I guess... do you want to start with guilt?

Rebecca Christianson [02:10]:

I feel like guilt and shame are something that everyone struggles with. No matter what people come into our offices for, I feel like guilt and shame is something across the board that people really struggle with. So I feel like this episode is going to be really helpful to a lot of people. I think it's important to denote the difference in guilt and shame. That's one of the things that you and I had talked about before talking about doing this podcast. A lot of times I think that people don't understand the difference between them.

So I think there's appropriate guilt and inappropriate guilt. And then there's shame. And guilt is a biological system that we have that tells us when we have done something against our moral code or against our values. It's helpful because it tells us we have gone against our moral code and we actually feel guilt as early as three to six years old. And if we've done something against our moral code, we've stolen something or you've lied about something, then it's resolved as soon as the damage is repaired. So when we are accountable for our behavior, that appropriate guilt is resolved.

Alyssa Scolari [03:33]:

It reminds me so much of, you're talking and you're probably like, why the hell are you smiling? But it just reminds me of, I don't know when I was maybe 16 and teaching a summer camp, being a summer camp coach and having all these little toddlers and when they do something wrong, they tell on themselves. Leave it to a toddler to always tell on themselves. Excuse me, I'm the reason why the bathroom is trashed with toilet paper. I did that.

Rebecca Christianson [04:08]:

Yep. They always come clean. Yep. And then your guilt is resolved. Guilt is not a bad thing. It really is a healthy way of our bodies, that's what it's designed to do, right? Tell us, your fight or flight response is like a biological system that we all have to let us know when there's danger. Guilt is an emotion that is helpful because we need it to let us know that we've gone against our moral code.

Alyssa Scolari [04:40]:

Right. We need guilt. We need guilt. It's something that keeps, it almost keeps our society as a whole in check for the most part. Of course you have those who simply don't feel guilt, but the majority of us do feel it. It might be, I think 1% of the population are psychopaths and sociopaths who typically don't feel guilt. But for the majority of us, we do feel guilt and it just helps keep really the whole system in check. Because we have those moral codes and that's appropriate. But then we have, guilt as we get older, and I think emotion starts to become more complex. And we start to have specific experiences in our life. Sometimes we can develop inappropriate guilt.

Rebecca Christianson [05:34]:

Right, right. And inappropriate guilt is something, there's a couple of explanations, but often it's when we've done something against our unrealistic high expectations of ourselves. So, we feel it's rational and it's often tied to a rational belief system or standards that we have of ourselves or others and weren't able to attend a birthday party because we're legitimately sick. And we feel guilty that we can't, it's like these high standards that we set for ourselves. And when we don't reach those high standards, we feel guilt. That's inappropriate guilt. It's not resolved by resolving the damage because you can't ever do that. It's like the standard is too high.

The only way that it's resolved is by self compassion and understanding that our standards are too high and have, setting realistic expectations of ourselves. That's the only way the inappropriate guilt is resolved. So inappropriate guilt is resolved by either some good TBT work ourselves or seeing, seeing a therapist and understanding that our belief system and our standards are too high, and setting realistic expectations and standards for ourselves. That's how inappropriate guilt starts to be resolved. It can't be resolved by repairing the damage like appropriate guilt because the damage isn't real. It's perceived from an unrealistic standard that we have.

Alyssa Scolari [07:10]:

Right. So appropriate guilt can be resolved externally. Inappropriate guilt has to be resolved internally, therapy is just one outlet kind of like you said, cognitive behavioral therapy or other types of therapy. And I think of so many ways this shows up and I can think of so many ways in which this shows up. Just like you said about you're so sick, but you got invited to a birthday party. Or even just calling out of work. How many people out there have their vacation days, sick days just accruing, accruing, accruing, because they feel so bad for calling out of work.

Rebecca Christianson [08:02]:

Yep. Yes. And inappropriate guilt is mostly formed from messages from our family. Inappropriate guilt is passed down. These standards are these expectations that are unrealistic. So if you have a parent who had unrealistic expectations of themselves and had inappropriate guilt, you learn that. Or if they had high expectations of you and you assumed those expectations were standards as you grew up, then that would be appropriate guilt. And you have to kind of go back and see the flaws in those messages and understand that you don't have to assume those standards, and really look at what it's realistic and what's not, and learn how to set realistic expectations.

Alyssa Scolari [08:50]:

Yeah. I see inappropriate guilt showing up so much. I'm just thinking even over the weekends. I got an invitation to an event, I'll keep it kind of general, of this friend of an extended family member who I really don't even talk to. And I got this invitation to go to this party. And I was like I really just have too much on my plate right now and I can't go. But the way I was raised is you have to go to everything you're invited to. You have to bring the best gift. You have to show up. You have to act the happiest. You can't be sick. You can't say no. I was taught that kind of presentation is everything. And that when you get invited, you have to show up and you have to get a gift.

So even this person who I haven't spoken to in years, quite frankly, this invitation that I got, I felt so guilty and I was battling this weekend, do I go, do I not go? And then finally I made the decision and I reached out and RSVP'd, no. No thank you. It's just, I have way too much going on right now. Not going to be able to do that. But Ooh, that guilt hit me hard and that is from kind of like you said, like the parent stuff, the guardian stuff, the way that you were raised, the messages that you received when you were younger about living up to certain expectations.

Rebecca Christianson [10:31]:

Right. That's exactly right. And understanding and what you said before about people who have the sick days and vacation days that accrue and accrue and accrue, and they have all this time, but then they feel guilt for taking the time they've earned off; that is inappropriate guilt. Because they're putting some expectation on themselves when they earned that time, that time it's given to them, but they don't want to take it because of some expectation that they have or some high standard, or people who go to work sick when they have all these sick days. A lot of that is inappropriate guilt.

And there's no way to repair inappropriate guilt or process inappropriate guilt until you look at those standards. Why are you holding yourself to that standard? Or why are you not taking that time off, that sick time? Self care, a lot of people feel guilty for taking care of themselves. They are parents, or they do take care of elderly. They can be a caretaker, but they can't take care of themselves. That's inappropriate guilt. And the only way to resolve that is to look at the reasoning and be able to question whether that thinking is flawed and set.

Alyssa Scolari [11:58]:

Yeah. And I even think of societal expectations, making us feel guilty as well. If my brain goes to, there's survivor's guilt, which is lots of people who come back from war who have lost friends, they have survivors guilt. They feel guilty that they survived when somebody else did not. Or the guilt that sexual assault survivors feel. Right. Well, if I wasn't so drunk, well, if I wasn't high, well, if I never went to that party. And I think that this is also a result of societal expectations, but I also would take it one step further and say that guilt, I think inappropriate guilt serves a purpose, different, but it serves a purpose just as appropriate guilt serves a purpose.

So I think appropriate guilt serves the purpose of keeping us in check, it lets of snow when we're not living up to our moral code. Inappropriate guilt, I think makes us feel as though we had more control over the situation than we really did. I almost see it as a bit of a defense mechanism. Well, if I had just done this differently then this person wouldn't have died. If I had just never done this, then I wouldn't have been raped. And I think that we say that to ourselves because it gives us this idea that we actually had more control than, or it gives us this false sense of security that I could have controlled this. As opposed to the much more anxiety provoking truth, which is you actually had zero control over any of us.

Rebecca Christianson [13:48]:

Right. And it's having to look at the reality of the situation and the thoughts that formed out of that situation and the flaws in those thoughts, right? The perfectionism, the high standard, that control, being able to look at the flaws in those thoughts. The actual lack of control that you had to be able to counter what you were just talking about. To be able to counter that inappropriate. A lot of it is societal. It's not all messages from parental influences. A lot of it is societal. But shame on the other hand is...

Alyssa Scolari [14:30]:

Ah, yes. Shame.

Rebecca Christianson [14:32]:

Is a feeling of being fundamentally flawed. So instead of guilt, which is that you've done something wrong or that you haven't measured up, right? Like done something wrong is appropriate guilt, haven't measured up to your own standards or you didn't have as much control as inappropriate guilt. Shame as a feeling of being fundamentally flawed, undeserving of love and respect. It's caused by an innate sense of worthlessness or being defective. And it creeps in as early as 15 months of age.

Alyssa Scolari [15:10]:

15 months! That is is mind boggling to me. How can a 15-month-old, a baby, feel shame?

Rebecca Christianson [15:27]:

So lots of different factors here, but it's primarily linked to attachment style. So at 15 months you already have an attachment style with the people who care for you. Right? It's deeply wired. It's shame is deeply wired. It's much more challenging to re reverse. And it leads to a myriad of different things, right? Depression, substance abuse. It's internalized. It's connected to your self use. But it starts that early because of attachment style. And if you have a secure attachment, then you likely don't experience shame until you're older and then it becomes more of a societal influence where you feel shame. Right?

Alyssa Scolari [16:23]:

Right.

Rebecca Christianson [16:24]:

But if you have an ambivalent attachment style or a disorganized attachment style, then your needs being met. If it's chaotic attachment stuff, it's a disorganized attachment style, then your needs are sometimes met and sometimes not met. And when they're not met, you feel like something is wrong with you. Right?

Alyssa Scolari [16:50]:

What's wrong with me? Right.

Rebecca Christianson [16:52]:

What wrong with me, right.

Alyssa Scolari [16:55]:

So guilt is I did something wrong. Shame is I am wrong.

Rebecca Christianson [17:03]:

Right. And so I also was shocked when I looked at the research and it said 15 months, and I thought the same thing. How can a baby feel they're fundamentally flawed? But it really is about those early, early ages and that attachment style. If it's avoidant, if it's insecure, then shame becomes a product of that. I am flawed. There's something wrong with me. My needs aren't being met or they're sometimes met and sometimes not. So it really does start there, which is really fascinating. I feel like so many things come back to attachment style.

Alyssa Scolari [17:47]:

I feel like a lot of the research is showing that so much just comes back to early childhood attachment. I mean, even in utero. We know now, right, that babies in the womb can be deeply affected by things that are going on with their mother. They pick up on the energy. But yeah, 15 months, and it's, shame is one of those things, and I don't know if you've experienced this in your practice, but it's a word that I think not a lot of people truly understand. When I ask people about the feelings that get brought up in them, shame can often be masked, as a lot of times people will say embarrassment. I'm embarrassed. What is the difference? Because I think that there is one. What is the difference between embarrassment and shame?

Rebecca Christianson [18:45]:

I think you can feel embarrassed, because you made a mistake. Or you feel like you, I mean, again, I feel like you feel more embarrassed related to guilt, something you've done or inappropriate guilt, like somehow you haven't measured up. And shame is more about...

Alyssa Scolari [19:09]:

It's more internal...

Rebecca Christianson [19:10]:

Yeah, it's more internal. Right. So I don't think that you feel shame. I think that the embarrassment would go more with I feel guilty, like why do you feel embarrassed? Right? I guess you would feel embarrassed about yourself if you feel like you're always flawed, there's something wrong with you, I guess that you would be embarrassed.

Alyssa Scolari [19:34]:

Or embarrassment. I wonder if it could be also the embarrassment in some cases is a more fleeting emotion, right? If I'm, and this happens to me on several occasions, if I'm walking my dog and I trip over air and eat the dirt, I'm embarrassed. I'm mortified. But not to the point where it's affecting my worthiness as a human.

Rebecca Christianson [20:11]:

Right. Exactly, exactly.

Alyssa Scolari [20:15]:

I also think it's important to point out, and you touched on this earlier, that people don't really walk into our offices saying, "I have inappropriate guilt and shame."

Rebecca Christianson [20:29]:

Right. So it's also important to note that inappropriate guilt feeds shame. So I feel unworthy, and worthiness to me means that everything I do and say is perfect. So my worthiness standard is set so high that I can never achieve it. I feel unworthy so I felt inappropriate guilt over never being able to meet my high standard and it feeds shame. Therefore, I am unworthy. So inappropriate guilt feeds shame.

Alyssa Scolari [21:02]:

It's like a vicious cycle.

Rebecca Christianson [21:04]:

It is. Appropriate guilt is there for a reason, like we talked about it. It is resolved when you atone for your behavior or whatever you feel guilty about. It's forgiven. It's resolved. Inappropriate guilt doesn't get resolved because it's about these standards we set for ourselves. Like I'm worthy if I, and then when we don't reach that we have inappropriate guilt, which feeds this shame message of I'm just unworthy as a person. So inappropriate guilt feeds our shame messages. And interestingly enough, people who have, and that starts with our attachment to our parental figures, right? The people who care for us, the people who love us. If that's not a secure attachment, it's likely that we carry some shame. Some message that we're flawed in some way. And then depending on how pervasive that shame message is, it dictates how we connect to other people, how we attach to other people.

If our shame message is so profound, it's difficult. We're going to have an insecure attachment to the people we love as we get older. It's belonging. So the treatment of shame is really looking at attachment and repairing the attachment, repairing your attachment, like belongingness. I mean, there's a lot of different things that we can talk about when we talk about treatment of shame, but to look at shame, it's people who are self critical. There are levels. It's like so many other things, it's kind of like a spectrum. Everybody has some shame. So you're either over on the, I had a secure attachment growing up, I felt some societal shame, everybody has some shame. Or you're somewhere along the spectrum, people who grew up in a really highly disorganized attachment style, they probably feel more shame and they have difficulty attaching to other people and they will make those attachments chaotic also.

Alyssa Scolari [23:11]:

Yeah. It shows up in so many ways, like you said. It shows up in eating disorders, aggression, addiction, suicidality, becoming extremely withdrawn, and also very, very dysfunctional relationships with others. So that is kind of what guilt and shame looks like underneath all of the things I just mentioned why guilt and shame. And potentially excessive amounts that we want to work to try to get rid of.

Rebecca Christianson [23:49]:

Yeah. Because if you have a lot of anxiety and you have obsessive intrusive thoughts. A lot of times we'll treat anxiety or we'll treat depression without really understanding how deep the shame messages go. And that is the root of a lot of the anxiety and I think it's the root of so much anxiety and depression. One of the ways that, there's a lot of diagnostic criteria used to diagnose shame. But one of the things that I think is always helpful. A lot of people who have profound shame messages will self punish by limiting pleasure. So if people don't have things that they find joy in, they don't have hobbies, they can't describe happiness. They probably are limiting pleasure to self punish because of these shame messages of I'm not worthy. I don't deserve to have fun. So it's really interesting. I thought that that was really interesting to think about. Like workaholics. Like do you...

Alyssa Scolari [25:01]:

Wow. That is very powerful. Workaholics, even potentially perfectionists, because when we are stuck in the perfectionism, which I use used to be all the time, you have no fun. Zero fun is to be had when you are living in a world where everything has to be perfect.

Alrighty and I think this is where we should wrap up for today. This is going to be a two part episode. It's a lot of information that we're throwing at you, but this stuff is really, really important for recovery. So guilt and shame, two of the most important topics I think to talk about. So we are going to get back at it with the same kind of stuff, talking about ways to recover and going in depth about ways to recover from guilt and shame next week. So I hope you enjoyed part one and stay tuned for part two. See you all next week.

Thanks for listening everyone.

For more information, please head over to lightaftertrauma.com or you can also follow us on social media. On Instagram we are at lightaftertrauma and on Twitter it is @lightafterpod. Lastly, please head over to patreon.com/lightaftertrauma. To support our show, we are asking for $5 a month, which is the equivalent to a cup of coffee at Starbucks. So please head on over. Again that's patreon.com/lightaftertrauma. Thank you. And we appreciate your support.

This week's episode sheds light on the harm that is perpetuated by purity culture as well as the abuse that can take place within the church. This episode is by no means a denunciation of God or religion. Rather, Brian, who is both a survivor of abuse in the church and a follower of Jesus Christ, sits down with Alyssa to discuss some of the dangerous ways in which religion can be manipulated by humans.

Check out the Light After Trauma website for transcripts, other episodes, Alyssa's guest appearances, and more at: www.lightaftertrauma.com

Want to get more great content and interact with the show? Check us out on Instagram: @lightaftertrauma

We need your help! We want to continue to make great content that can help countless trauma warriors on their journey to recovery. So, please help us in supporting the podcast by becoming a recurring patron of the show via Patreon. Every bit helps!

Transcript:

Alyssa Scolari [00:23]:

Hello. Hello, everybody. Welcome back to another episode of Light After Trauma. I am your host Alyssa Scolari. We are here today to talk about a rather sensitive and difficult topic, I would say. We are here with Brian Catton. I do believe this is Brian's first time on a podcast. I met Brian...

Brian Catton [00:47]:

In a while.

Alyssa Scolari [00:47]:

What did you say?

Brian Catton [00:49]:

In a while.

Alyssa Scolari [00:50]:

In a while. Oh, so you've been on a podcast before?

Brian Catton [00:52]:

Yes.

Alyssa Scolari [00:54]:

Okay. Okay. This is the first time he's been on in a while. I do believe that this is the first time you're on talking about this subject.

Brian Catton [01:02]:

Yes, that's correct.

Alyssa Scolari [01:05]:

Brian is a friend of mine and my husband's. I met Brian through my husband.

Brian Catton [01:11]:

I miss you guys.

Alyssa Scolari [01:14]:

I know. I hate COVID. We miss you too.

Brian Catton [01:17]:

I know.

Alyssa Scolari [01:22]:

It sucks. It really sucks. Brian and I have kept in touch on the internet because he is honestly just social justice warrior. Brian does a lot of work and a lot of awareness on autism, which is not going to be the topic today, although I would love to have him back on to talk about autism because he does a fantastic job, just supporting and spreading awareness but I digress. The topic that we are here to talk about today is Purity Culture and the ChurchToo movement. We are here to spread some awareness and shed light on the sexual abuse that is happening in churches and not just sexual, but also psychological and emotional abuse that is happening in church. I just want to preface this conversation. We'll come back to this a couple of times by saying that the goal of this episode is not to denounce any type of religion or Christianity. We are not here to say, "You should not believe in God because of the abuse that happens in churches." We are here spreading awareness and taking shame, and talking about the idea that changes need to happen within the church, not that we need to turn away from the church. With that being said, hello, Brian. Happy Saturday.

Brian Catton [03:10]:

Happy Saturday to you too. I forget what national day it is today.

Alyssa Scolari [03:15]:

Every day's national something.

Brian Catton [03:17]:

Indeed.

Alyssa Scolari [03:23]:

The first question I have for you is what is the ChurchToo movement and what is Purity Culture?

Brian Catton [03:30]:

Sure. Let me start with answering the purity culture thing to the best of my recollection. Let me also just give a little bit of background about my Christian journey, that I that came to Christ in 2004. This is right around the height of... Well, this is after the True Love Waits movements that took place in Purity Culture, and promoting and emphasizing sexual abstinence and promoting a high standard of sexual ethic. Nothing wrong with that. There is Biblical precedents that we must maintain a high sexual ethic. The issue with Purity Culture, is that it's done in a very legalistic framework where that it's done in specific doctrine of man ways that may present itself like you can't hold hands when you do. You can't kiss. You have to pursue Biblical courtship. You may know about Josh Harris's books like with I Kissed Dating Goodbye. I mean, that's one of the big examples with that and then Passion Impurity. There are some others that talked about denouncing dating in the sense that dating is just, "Hey, have that and it's all fun and games."

Brian Catton [05:01]:

While there is an appropriateness as far as saying, "Hey, let's be intentional about dating," the way how Purity Culture did it was that they set up barriers, not even guard rails, where basically, you can't hold hands. You can't kiss. You can't hang out at night. You can't watch Netflix together because your hormones are raging or whatever the excuse may be, and you need to guard each other's hearts, and you hear that type of language. The thing is that with Purity Culture, that's talked about it in such a way that the fine print with that is or else. For example, the or else may be or else you may get kicked out of the church, or else, you're basically deflowering your girlfriend or your boyfriend, essentially translating it in a dehumanizing way of saying or else you're beyond the reach of God's grace and you're pretty much worthless.

Alyssa Scolari [06:09]:

Even the word de flowering, it's ichy, it makes me feel ichy.

Brian Catton [06:13]:

It is. Welcome to spring too. mean, the way how it set up is more than just the dating scene, as you may talk, like, with modesty, and especially with women talking about the idea of 1 Timothy 2 that you have to dress yourself in a certain way in order to make sure that your brother in Christ doesn't stumble, when there's no talk about, "Hey, even if that is true, shouldn't we address the main issue, which is that for the guys, you need to watch yourselves too." It's shifting responsibility away from the guys over the girls in the sense of with modesty and with clothing. How it impacts itself is multi layered, as I've been figuring out. I mean, it could be dating. It could be how you dress. It could even be in the sense of with gender and sexual identity. If you even have an inkling of flirting with the idea of coming out, then forget it. You're beyond help.

Alyssa Scolari [07:24]:

It takes all of the blame. It shifts it on to all of those reasons, the way you were dressed because...

Brian Catton [07:31]:

You can't feel this way. You can process things this way. You must think about it in these black and white terms, that there's no room for ambiguity, no room for grade, no room for doubt, no room for questions, no room for having meaningful dialogue, which then because it's framed in that binary way of black and white, that basically if it's the wrong answer, then forget it. Basically you could be shunned. You could be forced out of church. You're basically silenced. That happens too many times. Now with the ChurchToo Movement, that formed shortly after MeToo Movement, which I applaud everyone who has come forward and said, "This happened to me and this is wrong. We need to change it." I applaud them with that. ChurchToo is similar to that, except it's taking on all of those sexual ethics within the church along with it. You hear cases of... There was one book I finished where it's talk about how there was a woman who when she was in her teens, her abuser groomed her and then ended up raping her, and basically she was forced to forgive him, which is another thing. [inaudible 00:09:02]. Yeah, tell me that's not fucked up.

Alyssa Scolari [09:08]:

Oh, it fucking kills me. It kills me.

Brian Catton [09:12]:

I know, which I mean, that's...

Alyssa Scolari [09:14]:

Let's forgive him.

Brian Catton [09:15]:

Exactly. It's just no. basically with the ChurchToo Movement, it's saying we're done with victims having to be villainized and with the villains having to be victimized. I mean, we see it with church. We see it in politics, we see it within celebrities, but with ChurchToo, we're confining it specifically within the context of evangelicals within the sexual ethics in the church. It's important to make sure that reputation is upheld at any and all costs, even if it means that we have to bulldoze Over the trauma that victims have experienced. We have to maintain its prestige, no matter what.

Alyssa Scolari [10:09]:

That's what it is. It's so much about self-preservation.

Brian Catton [10:12]:

It is.

Alyssa Scolari [10:13]:

I love what you said about, we need to stop villainizing the victims and victimizing the villains, which we do in all of rape, sexual assault. We do that all the time. But when it comes to the church, we really lay it on thick because of that desire to have this self-preservation because we need everything to look hunky dory.

Brian Catton [10:43]:

We have to whitewash the walls double meeting implied by the way. I mean, there is the report that came out about how less than half of Americans are now identifying as regular church attendees, which I mean, I don't want to celebrate that because what do you expect? I mean, it's almost like this. Say, if you and David were to stay in your house, you had some people over and you're watching your dogs do too, by the way... Sidebar, I miss them, too.

Alyssa Scolari [11:21]:

They're so big.

Brian Catton [11:22]:

I mean, I'm seeing pictures on the socials but anyway...

Alyssa Scolari [11:27]:

It's not the same.

Brian Catton [11:28]:

I know. Once COVID hits, we're getting our backyard fixed.

Alyssa Scolari [11:34]:

Oh, good. Then we can see [crosstalk 00:11:36].

Brian Catton [11:36]:

Yes, you can see the little toddler. He's getting so big and squishy too.

Alyssa Scolari [11:43]:

Oh, you're baby is so cute. He's so cute. Anyway, we digress.

Brian Catton [11:47]:

Yes, indeed. I mean, think about this, if you were to live in a house and you had someone inspect it and tell you that there was black mold, there was termites, there was water damage, wouldn't the common sense solution be, we need to get everyone out of here, we need to make sure that this is fixed, and make sure that it's habitable again? Once it is, then we can return and we can carry on. Nope.

Alyssa Scolari [12:17]:

That would make sense but not in church.

Brian Catton [12:21]:

Not in church. Nope. Outcomes the paint, we need to paint over that because if we find out about it, then no one's going to want to stay with us. The irony of it all, is that if we use that house illustration, it's almost like if you were to look at your neighbor's house and say, "Well, wait a minute, the front door isn't painted well or they're siding is all messed up, or, well, their driveway is cracked or something like that. It's basically oh, well, because something else is wrong with them, then that frees us from having to take any responsibility on our end to make sure that we maintain safety within our neighborhood." No. Does that make sense?

Alyssa Scolari [13:08]:

Just to make sure I understand that correctly, what you're saying is that we tend to shift blame when we see that there are cracks in the foundation in someone else's life. That's the scapegoat for churches to shift blame onto that person?

Brian Catton [13:23]:

Almost. I need foundation out because the foundation is Jesus Christ. first and foremost. No other foundation can be laid or [inaudible 00:13:34], which is Jesus Christ, which is why I'm focusing more on everything above the foundation, the water game, the black mold, the pesticides, termites.

Alyssa Scolari [13:46]:

Any imperfection.

Brian Catton [13:48]:

Any imperfection, as long as we can identify it outside of the church, and demonize, and dehumanize that, then that frees us from having to change anything on our end. No, it doesn't.

Alyssa Scolari [14:02]:

Because it's like, the church isn't the problem. You're the problem.

Brian Catton [14:05]:

Exactly. That's pretty much what... I mean, with many church issues, but within Purity Culture, that's the way how it is, that basically, it's almost like everyone is on a sin house that basically, if there's any imperfection with the way how you date or with how you dress, or with how you identify yourself from a gender standpoint or from a sexual standpoint, we are going to exploit that because then that makes us the moral Vanguards, and that makes us the faithful witnesses of what Christianity is like when in reality, no, it does.

Alyssa Scolari [14:45]:

In a way, and this is what you're saying is really tying both Purity Culture and sexual abuse in the church together forming in my brain in a way, it's like Purity Culture paves the way For churches to blame the other when sexual abuse happens or any abuse, emotional abuse, physical abuse.

Brian Catton [15:13]:

It's rape culture.

Alyssa Scolari [15:14]:

Yeah, yes. Yes, that's exactly what I'm hearing. It's like, oh, ichy, that's the only word I have. I'm like [inaudible 00:15:24].

Brian Catton [15:24]:

Yes. Here's the other thing that I found. Here's the other thing I'm coming to realize. It's very interesting with Purity culture and with sexual ethics, they have the sex talks about just making sure that you guard your heart and keep yourself pure. I mean, that's fine and all, but there's no counterbalance to it. There's no discussion about what to do in cases of rape. There's no talks about the other C word, consent.

Alyssa Scolari [15:51]:

Mm-hmm [affirmative].

Brian Catton [15:52]:

There's none of that happening. In fact, one of the things I've been pushing my youth pastor to do is, "Hey, we need to talk about rape. We need to talk about consent," not to say it's acceptable. We hate it. But we need to basically say, "Rape is wrong. Consent is mandatory." Anything short of a yes means no. No further questions. Hard stop. Remove any ambiguity in that response. Purity Culture doesn't talk about rape or consent.

Alyssa Scolari [16:29]:

Not at all. They pretend like it doesn't exist.

Brian Catton [16:32]:

Hence Purity Culture leads to a Church's version of rape cult.

Alyssa Scolari [16:37]:

Yeah. Yeah. We know why Purity Culture is so damaging.

Brian Catton [16:43]:

Mm-hmm [affirmative].

Alyssa Scolari [16:49]:

I understand more about the ChurchToo Movement. How did you become so passionate about this? Because this is something you're really, really, really passionate about.

Brian Catton [17:06]:

Story time.

Alyssa Scolari [17:08]:

You also don't have to answer that question if you don't want to.

Brian Catton [17:11]:

No, no, I want to.

Alyssa Scolari [17:12]:

People don't have to answer my questions.

Brian Catton [17:13]:

I want to because again, as far as raising awareness, if I don't tell the truth about what happened to me, not to say that it's all dependent upon me, but if I don't tell the truth about what happened to me, that may not encourage others to come forward and share their stories as well, and [inaudible 00:17:40] sounds. The issue is with remaining silent about it. As far as my story goes, there was no sexual abuse that happens to me, per se, which is one of the reasons why I was initially hesitant upon it, but nevertheless, as you affirm and as I affirm abuse is still abuse, no matter what shape, size, color.

Alyssa Scolari [18:14]:

Yes, and you talking about this, even though it's not sexual abuse is all the more important because you're giving a voice to all of the other people who are in that ambiguity going, "Well, it wasn't sexual abuse. Does it count?"

Brian Catton [18:28]:

It does.

Alyssa Scolari [18:28]:

You're here being like, "Hell, yes, it counts."

Brian Catton [18:32]:

Fuck, yeah, it counts. My story, again, I became a Christian 2004, started finding out more about the Josh Harris book, so I could stand by employments girl, back then at. But I mean, since 2019, Josh has come forward and says that he basically terminated all publishing deals on his books, so no more. His books are being published with advance to his teaching. He has taken ownership of that, but still, the damage has been done. That said, one of the books I picked up, talked about courtship, which I mean, I thought, "Well, okay I want to please my God. This seems to be the way to do it." There are a little bit of legalism in that language. Yeah, you better believe it. Here's the other thing that's insightful about this too. You hear a little bit about prosperity Gospel, that if you do these things, if you court the right way, then God's going to bless your marriage. You're going to have the best sex life ever. Yeah, which is just wow, that type of language. But back then, I mean, I was still a fairly new Christian, as far as the conduct aspect is concerned. I thought, "Okay, yeah. Cool. I'm in. I'm buying this. Not be on the book." I mean, I thought, "Okay, this is great."

Brian Catton [20:03]:

There was a church I attended during my winter, fall, springs, summer breaks. There was a girl who I was attracted to and I found out that she was the admin assistant that had nothing to do with it. But I mean, I found her, well, I'll just say very attractive. I found her conduct attractive. I found a lot of things attractive about her. I thought, "Okay, well, let me pray about it." I think how I used to pray about it [inaudible 00:20:36]. But I mean, I did. I end up talking with the pastor about it. I ended up talking with her dad about it. Again, this is critical too that, basically, you have no free thoughts or very little then that things have to be done under the submission on the other password of pastors and friends because they're there to protect you. You need accountability because we're going to make sure that we protect you from sin. I ended up having a DTR talk, and things were great, except a few months later found out that her dad was [inaudible 00:21:18]. I mean, despite that, I still stayed with her because I mean, anything like that is finding out about your own parents being quiet in something that controversial is like, "Okay, let me bear with you with this. Let me guide you with this."

Brian Catton [21:42]:

This is all before the days of Instagram, FaceTimes, and all that good stuff. Sticking with Facebook and emails and texting before unlimited texting. Verizon, I hate you with all my heart. But I mean, things progressed from there and then having some more talks with her mom because things had to be done under her watching, with her permission as well which okay, fine, whatever. I'll do it because I want to please God. I wanted to protect her and everything like that. We didn't even kiss then. What is it? This is in P2 year... I was in pharmacy school. P3 year, I came back for fall break, I told her I love her, and I meant it too. I mean, things started to blossom. But I mean, there is no physical... There is nothing controversially physical except for [inaudible 00:22:51] cuddle.

Alyssa Scolari [22:58]:

Cuddling.

Brian Catton [23:00]:

But it's just like, "Okay, come on. I'm able to think for myself and know, when it is too much, I'm able to advocate myself in that regard." But also, one of her friends, he would come down through Winchester, Virginia, where I went to college, and he would talk about, "You need to be stable. You need to be a man. You need to be a source of stability for her." I'm thinking, "Well, fuck. I can't do that even if I tried." I mean, forget the fact that I'm in pharmacy school. Forget the fact that I have autism. Forget the fact that I'm trying to do my best with everything. It's just, man, if I can't take care of myself, how much less? Can I take care of her? I mean, it was depressing. I mean, again, that's where the toxic masculinity within Purity Culture takes place that, really? Do I have to? I want to but is it required of me? What's the RLS part? But yeah, so things progressed along swimmingly well, and then I basically got chastised because I end up telling him that, "Well, I love her." He's like, "You what?" It's just like, "Dude, it's dating. Really? While on the fact that she couldn't make a weekend trip to be my plus one at some weddings. Let alone the fact that she would seldom visit unless it'd be with one of her close friends.

Brian Catton [24:50]:

Hindsight, it was just "Okay, I'm doing all these things for you but I don't feel like that there's any reciprocation." "Oh, well, you're being selfish." "Why? I mean, am I not allowed to say, "Hey, I would love it if you could come down here?" But her parents prohibited for whatever bullshit reason. January came along, and the pastor basically put the E break and he said, "Listen, you guys really need to slow the pace down. You're..."

Alyssa Scolari [25:22]:

Good lord.

Brian Catton [25:26]:

Now I'm just thinking like, "Whoa..."

Alyssa Scolari [25:29]:

We're already at a snail's pace, buddy.

Brian Catton [25:32]:

Yeah, well, because like I said, I love her and the fact that emotions get entangled so much that it's like you're flying a kite. If a huge gust of wind blows, and then it plummets, and then the kite breaks, and there's no hope of redemption beyond this. Really? Yeah, way to go teaching God's sovereignty and that God does cause all things, including emotions, possibly running wild to happen for our good and learning from our mistakes. Anyways, things took well, opened the door for that nosedive because it was just this is really hard for me, because it's P3 year of my spring semester, I took pharmacy law, gag. I was getting ready for my clinical rotations. I just felt like I wasn't receiving reciprocated support. Well, on the fact that I couldn't talk with other girls within my church, let alone within my own school. I mean, I did. Don't tell anyone.

Alyssa Scolari [26:51]:

That will be a secret.

Brian Catton [26:53]:

Well, it's too late. It's already on the interwebs. But yeah, I ended up just sharing my frustrations with her mom and everything like that, and then she withdrew support for us, that basically that was her final straw. Then Easter Sunday night, I was driving back from visiting my parents because I was in Virginia, my parents were in New Jersey at the time, we met halfway. Then basically, my, well, then girlfriend told me that we really need to pray about this. I can tell from the tone of her voice that she's shocked. She basically, "Well, my mom, just word vomited on me." I pretty much went [inaudible 00:27:47] for less than 24 hours I would say. But it was just like, "Wait a minute, I'm not..." Also, by the way, I was having many doubt, which you cannot have any doubt whatsoever. No questions. It was tough maintaining that facade. I just said, "You know what? Fuck it." I broke up with her. The funny thing is that after I told her and as I was walking back in and getting ready to study for one of my therapeutics classes, I felt a weight lift off my shoulders. I thought, "Well, great. That's just..."

Alyssa Scolari [28:31]:

You broke free from that Purity Culture and the gas lighting.

Brian Catton [28:37]:

Yeah. In some sense, yes. I mean, that's the biggest one that I broke free from. I mean, of course, with any breakup, it's hard. I did check up with her. I did own up to some things that I did wrong. Then, basically, a week later, I checked in, "Hey, how are you doing?" Essentially, she just in a few short words, in a Biblical sense, she told me to fuck off. Then her pastor came in and said, "Well, actually, you need to write a letter of apology, outlining what you did wrong and how the relationship in a sense was successful and just like, just insert I can't even...

Alyssa Scolari [29:31]:

That's such an abuse of power.

Brian Catton [29:34]:

It's just like, "Well, fine. I'll do it." The thing is that still to this day, there has been no mutually reciprocated apology from her to me. Her husband reached out and basically said, "I'm sorry, but you need to do better," which, listen, buddy, my issue isn't with you. It's with your now wife." This still remain sang for over a decade. Part of the reason why I became so passionate about it, it's just that, Purity Culture and ChurchToo, it's one of those, wow, it's not just the sexual abuse. It certainly entails that but there's so much more to it. It's the gas lighting. It's the mental abuse.

Alyssa Scolari [30:32]:

The psychological manipulation of parents coming into the relationship and telling you who you are is not good enough, and that that prayed on it, and that they have the message that you're not good enough. That wears on you.

Brian Catton [30:48]:

It did. It was to the point where I mean, I wasn't suicidal, thank God, but, it was almost like, I need professional help. That was being prevented. I felt shamed for admitting that I need professional help. "No, you don't. You just need to pray even more." Really?

Alyssa Scolari [31:07]:

No.

Brian Catton [31:08]:

I mean, even in pharmacy school, ironically enough, here's the irony of all of this within Purity Culture, I was anti antidepressants, I was anti psychiatric care and everything like that. Yeah. Now just realizing, one of the big things I learned in clinical rotations is to view the patient as a whole. Don't view the part as the whole. I mean, some of the parts does make the whole but when it comes to with mental issues, I mean, that is a part of them, but it's not the entirety of it, if it makes any sense. It's just, people are just one thing. There's multiple dimensions of who people are. With Purity Culture, it packages it in a nice, easy to understand and apply, and to respond.

Alyssa Scolari [32:16]:

Very black and white, when humans are anything but in the black and white area.

Brian Catton [32:24]:

Yeah, absolutely.

Alyssa Scolari [32:26]:

Now, what would you recommend...? Your story is one of just intense and chronic psychological, manipulation, and abuse as a result of Purity Culture, which leaves you feeling just... It's a mindfuck. I can't think of any other way to put it. It's an absolute mindfuck. What do you recommend to somebody who might be listening right now, who is feeling like, "Hey, I think I'm caught up in this" or is going, "Oh, I was caught up in this at one point in my life." Maybe not what they can do as in how physically within their church but how do they hold on to the faith in Jesus, or whatever their religion may be while also acknowledging that bad things came as a result?

Brian Catton [33:24]:

First and foremost, I'm going to affirm this with all my heart on [inaudible 00:33:28], what habits you use. Absolutely not. [inaudible 00:33:31] You need to believe that with every single ounce, as hard as that is, what happened to you is not your fault. That's what's painful about it. It's that, well, if I didn't listen, it's not your fault. Yeah, but if I did, and then... No, no, no, I get that.

Alyssa Scolari [33:55]:

It's not your fault.

Brian Catton [33:57]:

I realized that there were situations that happen, but you're not responsible for the way how they chose to prey on you. The shame isn't yours. It's theirs that they have to take. They're the ones who have to take ownership of and if there even are a decent human being, let alone a Christian, they should be willing to apologize for that and leave the decision of extending forgiveness [inaudible 00:34:26]. That said, that applies for any human being, irrespective of any religion because like it or not, no matter... Yeah, you've seen my posts that no matter what your gender and/or sexual identity is, no matter what your race is, no matter what your religion is, all human beings are created in the image of God, and because of that every single human being has God bestowed dignity, honor, worth, value, and respect. For Christ's sake, and I mean that with sincerity, for Christ's sake, hold on to that, even if your strength is fleeting. Hold on to, that you are valuable because you bear God's image. That is something that no matter what abuse that you experience, that is something that will never be taken away.

Brian Catton [35:30]:

Now, as far as the practical stuff goes, if you're in imminent danger, report it to local law authorities right away. Actually, I would say report it to local law enforcement first, whether it was rape or not, whether you're experiencing domestic abuse, whether you're experiencing physical abuse. If you're on a college campus, let the Help Center know. They have crisis centers. They should have crisis centers available and it's been years but zooming, now, if someone you know, is a minor, there are states like Pennsylvania that mandates pastors and clergy as mandatory child abuse reporters.

Alyssa Scolari [36:18]:

New Jersey, yep, New Jersey too.

Brian Catton [36:21]:

Excellent. Thank You ACT 31 for PA. I don't know what it is in New Jersey, but if it is, shout it out.

Alyssa Scolari [36:28]:

No clue.

Brian Catton [36:29]:

Okay. That said, I say report it first and then report it to pastors. The thing is that also you must... I realize that what about to say is traumatic. Find someone who's going to believe you. I realize that language, it does bring up the same language like with Brett Kavanaugh, Christie Boss report. I believe you friended. I believe he doesn't mean that. I believe everything that you say 100% and throw any logic out of the way. No, if someone told you that your house is on fire, "I believe you. Let's go back and let's take a look and see if it really is on fire. If so, let's make sure that we get the house extinguishment... Let's make sure that everyone is safe. That's all we're trying to say.

Alyssa Scolari [37:24]:

Find somebody who will take it very seriously.

Brian Catton [37:26]:

Exactly. That's what churches must do. Now, here's the other thing that I mentioned PA in New Jersey being mandatory child abuse supporters. Now, here's the other thing for the victim, that leaves the victim empowered because now that you reported it to the church, now the church is held responsible for having to report it. If they do not, then they are held liable. Now, I'm speaking only for Pennsylvania, I'm not sure what it is for New Jersey, but penalties for failing to report or to file a report ranges from a misdemeanor to felony both to the second degree. It could be anywhere either one to two years in prison and a fine about the 5,000 or five to 10 years in prison and a fine of up to $25,000. Now, again, if what you're experiencing is domestic abuse, here's the telephone number for the National Domestic Violence. Let's see if you can also slap it in the notes too.

Alyssa Scolari [38:30]:

Yep, I will.

Brian Catton [38:31]:

Yep, 1-800-799-safe. Again, that's 1-800-799-safe. Here's the other thing, if you don't feel comfortable talking about it, there it is, also a chat function enabled. You can chat with someone right away. You also have the suicide hotline. The new three digit code for that is 988. If you're experiencing a mental health crisis, call that number. Don't question if you are. Here's the thing, once you do escape, and I mentioned this in the beginning, give yourself space and grace to feel. I mean, any violation of trust fails [inaudible 00:39:14]. The interesting thing is that the people who you would expect to trust are the biggest fucking liars out there and the people you expect to who wouldn't believe you are your biggest advocatess. It's very counterintuitive.

Alyssa Scolari [39:33]:

It is.

Brian Catton [39:34]:

It is one of the most bitter sweet realities I've come to experience, that non-Christians do far better with dealing with the ramifications of abuse than Christians do, which should not [crosstalk 00:39:49].

Alyssa Scolari [39:49]:

It's very sad.

Brian Catton [39:49]:

It is.

Alyssa Scolari [39:49]:

It's very sad.

Brian Catton [39:52]:

Here's the thing, if there were reputable data that had evidence upon evidence, upon evidence to the contrary, I will eat my words and own up to it, but I've yet to see it. I'm pretty sure... Yeah. Now, again, here's the other thing. Once you do escape, be prepared to lose relationships. I mean, that's part of the trauma too. You may have developed some strong friendships, I have, and having to leave that after coming forward because of self-preservation while the church is decaying and importing from within, it's traumatic. It's devastating. It's depressing.

Alyssa Scolari [40:41]:

Yeah, it certainly is.

Brian Catton [40:43]:

In a sense, I say with caution, prepare to feel alone. Do what you must, get counseling, start on medication.

Alyssa Scolari [40:53]:

Know that ultimately, you will find people who stand by your side.

Brian Catton [40:57]:

Yes. Hard communities. Yes. That's the other thing. S

Alyssa Scolari [41:01]:

Such great advice.

Brian Catton [41:03]:

It is. Take care of yourself. Thank you. If applicable, take care of others within your family who are abused, especially if the abuse happened to a minor within someone you know. Now, again, there's no prescriptive way or any straightforward or linear way of saying, here's how you handle... There's no 12 step program. You will follow on this as well. There's no clear cut way as to how to deal with trauma because every human being is different. Every human being processes trauma differently. Every human being feels trauma differently. There may be certain triggers that may happen. There may be some overlap. That's up to you as far as how you want to move forward. Now, for the Christian, I also want to say and this is piggybacking off with Beth Moore's advice after her defecting from the Southern Baptist Convention, sidebar, you go, girlfriend. Embrace your wilderness, wandering. Realize and rejoice with mangled tears, sorrow, angry, that you serve, and you are loved by the Son of God, who Himself became a man of sorrows and acquainted with truth. Yes, we do feel alone. I'm not trying to minimize what I say next.

Brian Catton [42:41]:

But the good news is that because of what Jesus did at the cross, we'll never had to feel that alone ever again.

Alyssa Scolari [42:49]:

Yeah, that's great advice.

Brian Catton [42:56]:

If I could just shake somebody up, check them in their nerds, do whatever it takes to make them believe it, I would. I realized that's going to take time. Now, if you're someone who's advocating for someone, give them space as well. Don't be like Job's friends and offer trite Christian cliches. That may be while true and everything like that, but in the moment, trauma is still trauma. Give them space. Give them a place. Give them grace.

Alyssa Scolari [43:29]:

Absolutely.

Brian Catton [43:31]:

Be very, very patient with them. Yes, I realize that you're going to have to associate with someone who has experienced trauma. Yes, I've realized that there may be some, that you may be feeling a little bit outcast. Well, guess what? Get over it. Jesus did, and so can you. He can help you to be a faithful friend. We can help you to be a person who can be a sounding board. He can help you be a good friend to speak a faithful word at an appropriate time. He can also help you just to say, "Listen, I'm going to apply Galatians 6:2, not to get some brownie points with God, but because His love has set me free to bear your burdens." I see your burdens as being heavy. I hear the choking up and fear and I'm going to do what I can to come alongside you no matter what it takes. If Christians within churches began to do that without having to address any bullshit neowans or anything like that, then maybe, perhaps we can reclaim some credibility that yes, we do stand for those who are marginalized and we do stand for justice in the sense that we will do whatever it takes to make sure that those who are truly victims do the same.

Alyssa Scolari [45:33]:

Thank you. Such incredible advice. Such an important story. I'm sure that that was not easy for you. Thank you so much for coming on the show and for just being vulnerable and for empowering others to take their healing into their own hands. I appreciate it.

Brian Catton [45:56]:

Yep. Thanks, Alyssa.

Alyssa Scolari [45:58]:

Thanks for listening, everyone. For more information, please head over to lightaftertrauma.com or you can also follow us on social media. On Instagram, we are at Light After Trauma and on Twitter, it is @lightafterpod. Lastly, please head over to patreon.com/lightaftertrauma. To support our show, we are asking for $5 a month, which is the equivalent to a cup of coffee at Starbucks. Please head on over. Again, that's patreon.com/lightaftertrauma. Thank you, and we appreciate your support.

In this week's episode, Dr. Alison J. Kay, PhD, gives us a thorough explanation of the ins and outs of the chakra system and how it can be used to aid in healing and recovery from trauma.

Visit Dr. Alison's website

Dr. Alison's Books on Amazon

Check out the Light After Trauma website for transcripts, other episodes, Alyssa's guest appearances, and more at: www.lightaftertrauma.com

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Transcript:

Alyssa Scolari [00:23]:

Hey, everybody. How's it going? Welcome back to another episode of the Light After Trauma Podcast. I'm your host, Alyssa Scolari. I hope that everybody is doing well and is hanging in there as this pandemic is hopefully coming to a close. I am excited today to announce our guest who is Dr. Alison J. Kay. For more than 25 years, Dr. Alison has practiced as a mind-body energy healer, founding the Vibrational UPgrade System, and working in yoga, meditation and Qigong, energy medicine, mind, body, fitness, longevity, and holistic health, with a specialization in the chakra system.

Alyssa Scolari [01:12]:

Considered one of the leading experts in her field, she has taught around the world and has written three books: the award-winning What If There's Nothing Wrong, Vibrational UPgrade: A Conspiracy For Your Bliss: Easing Humanity's Evolutionary Transition, Reasonable Dragons: How to Activate the Field of Possibilities Where Logical Magic Is the New Normal, and her latest masterpiece, The Dragon Master Creatrix: Conversations with a Female Spiritual Teacher for these New Times. And with that being said, I am going to turn it over to the highly successful and wonderful Dr. Alison. Hi, Dr. Alison. How are you?

Alison J. Kay [01:58]:

I'm good, Alyssa. How are you?

Alyssa Scolari [02:02]:

Good. I'm so happy that you are here today. Dr. Alison and I were just chatting off recording and we were talking for about a half hour because we just had an instant connection. I really love the work that she's doing, and I think that all of you will be blown away by what she has to say today. My first question I have to ask, you studied in Asia for 10 years. Tell me what happened that got you over to Asia.

Alison J. Kay [02:35]:

I was already doing energy medicine and holistic health wellness sessions alongside classroom teaching and administrating. I remember one Saturday morning a client, she's probably... IN a series of 10 sessions, she was probably like in her fourth. She was getting great results. I was really pleased. My hands are over her belly, upper belly and lower belly, I'll talk what those actually are later in the chakra system, and was really pleased with the update she'd given me and what I've been seeing.I looked up and asked my guidance, AKA, the sky, the universe, the divine, how does it get any better than this?

Alison J. Kay [03:10]:

How do I get even more robust results for my clients? Right around that same time, I was balancing my checkbook pre-digital banking. I had a master's, and I had taken up barely any loans. I worked all the way through, and so I didn't have a big loan to pay back. All I was wanting was organic food, massage a week, because I consider that preventative health 101. I had basic housing, basic car. I mean, for Ford Escort at that time. I wasn't living high in the hog, and I had already traveled and lived around the world prior. Even as a senior in high school, rather, I was an exchange student in Venezuela.

Alison J. Kay [03:49]:

I'm used to adventure and fun, and I demand that I have that and abundant and ease and joy. I just know that we're not meant to struggle. When I was looking at my checkbook that Saturday morning right around the same time I had that session and asked that question about how do I get even more robust results for my clients, I realized this wasn't enough. I'm not going to be in this cage for decades as a teacher barely scraping by. Just know it's not acceptable. Where's the joy? Where's the adventure? Where's the abundance? Where's the fun? Uh-uh.

Alison J. Kay [04:17]:

Within a month's time at most, my intuition showed me and turned me onto the international school system. A colleague actually brought it up to me. That's what I consider a synchronicity when I'm asking for the information be brought in so I can uplevel. I went. Did what I had to do. Submitted applications. Traveled to the place where all the international school heads were coming in and all of us wanting to place. We interviewed in all these different hotel rooms throughout the day, so I was all over the world literally throughout the weekend.

Alison J. Kay [04:47]:

I got a bunch of job offers and chose Taiwan because it's the Chinese culture. I considered both Chinese and the Indians of the yogic culture, the Hindu Indians, to not only understand how energy works, subtle energy works, and consciousness works, but to still be operating from it today. Whereas in the West, we had alchemists, but they went underground into the mystery schools. So that's how.

Alyssa Scolari [05:13]:

That's so cool. I mean, really you were immersed in Eastern medicine.

Alison J. Kay [05:20]:

You got it right, Alyssa, because I wasn't even an expat teacher living in the expat teacher's housing they provided. I said, "Please help me integrate. I want to immerse myself in the local culture." I was the one who lived downtown and I used stipend, instead of living in the teacher provided housing right next to the school where I'm still with a bunch of expats. I was like, no, I want to understand the locals. I didn't even realized it was any different than anybody else. My first weekend there, I traveled down to a certain forest because I wanted to discover this certain kind of tree and get something.

Alison J. Kay [05:50]:

It had the same name. It's Alishan and shan means mountain in Chinese, but it's close to my name and yours. Alishan, you know? I was like, "I want to go to that forest." That was my first weekend there. I couldn't speak a lick of... Well, I could speak a little bit of Chinese. I had studied before I went on purpose, but I couldn't read and I was matching maps to train signs. I did things that drew me out there that other expats didn't do. When I say I studied in Asia, I mean, I would get a traditional treatment every week, whether it's a Tui na, massage, or it's reflexology.

Alison J. Kay [06:22]:

I'd sit there with the chart asking the person, "What does this mean? What does this mean," in Chinese. I was then going to monasteries and talking to... I'll go for a run behind the monastery. There's a great forest path locally in one of them, but I drive down and go with a friend even later to monasteries and sit there and immerse myself in the environment and ask questions and interact with monks. Then when I would go on breaks, I wouldn't come back to the States midyear, between semesters, during Chinese New Year.

Alison J. Kay [06:52]:

I would only come back to the States in the summer. I'd go around Southeast Asia, and a lot of the time it was Thailand because it's great.

Alyssa Scolari [07:00]:

Magical. I've heard it's so magical.

Alison J. Kay [07:02]:

Oh Jesus, it's fantastic. I've had other expat colleagues of mine go to the Vietnam beaches as they were opening or go to India. I actually had tickets to go with that friend to India and I backed out at the last minute. I had tickets three times to go to India before I finally made it, because I just knew it was a huge thing as a traveler. You have to be grounded, and you have to be ready to tackle India. I just went to Thailand because I knew how easy they make it for tourists. It's their number one industry.

Alison J. Kay [07:27]:

Both of those friend left their trips within the first five days and came to meet me in Thailand at different times because they know how easy it is in Thailand to travel. But while I was there, I'd get treatments and I'd ask questions and I'd learn and I took classes. That's actually where I learned Qigong and then furthered it back in Taiwan. But I was piecing together my understandings from what I had already known, because I was already teaching meditation and I was already practicing energy medicine and holistic health and wellness in the States, getting trained in herbalism.

Alison J. Kay [07:55]:

I had started with the Native Americans, and then it went from there. Then I went over there, and now here I am back.

Alyssa Scolari [08:04]:

Now you've brought what you learned about Eastern medicine and you've brought it back to the States. We were talking about this, but I'm so passionate about this topic and Eastern medicine. I think it's because I have had my run-of-the-mill Western medicine and nothing has helped. If anything, it has made me worst. I think that while Western medicine can be beneficial at times, it definitely has its limits. Now, would you agree with that?

Alison J. Kay [08:38]:

Yeah. Let me give you two things. One is when I was... Here's the story. Let me start with this one. Two women were in this local gym that I was a member of, and one woman was in her 60s and one woman was in her 90s. The woman in her 90s was spry coming out of the pool, didn't need anything to assist her with walking, really looked great. They go into the steam together. The 60 year asked her, "What is going on with you? How are you able to be this vibrant and alive at your age?" She said, "I never went on any Western med."

Alyssa Scolari [09:08]:

Wow.

Alison J. Kay [09:09]:

There are certain Western medications that help people. There really are like with certain heart issues. But there's the consideration of... Here's an idea. One of the things when I had my own radio show, I had a nutritionist on. He was the first nutritionist on the first food pyramid meeting the government ever had before setting up the FDA suggested food pyramid. He left because he was surrounded by beef and dairy industry people. But one of the things that he said was... He wrote later The China Study. He went over to a certain part of Mainland China.

Alison J. Kay [09:43]:

I was in Taiwan, the small Democratic island that had more traditional practices able to be practiced openly so I could learn more about their spirituality or Taoism. But up on Mainland Chian, there was a province hadn't been exposed much yet to the West. They ate a lot of tofu. What this study did is they went in and introduced the Western diet. And as soon as a certain period of time, I don't remember exactly how much, on the Western diet, they started having diabetes kick in. They started having high blood pressure kick in, and they started being overweight and bigger.

Alison J. Kay [10:15]:

They're considered markers of typically Western or even American diseases from the practices. I know that I say you can eat your way out of it. I used to do more talks in local health food stores where I would present longevity tonic herbs in latte form or a mocha or a chai latte. I would mix together these different medicinal mushrooms and flavors that would end up tasting like mocha or chai lattes, but they were stocked full of tonic herbs that are known in the East to increase longevity, vitality, well-being. There's even the reishi mushroom, which is considered the queen of medicinal mushrooms that actually helps elevate your spirits.

Alison J. Kay [11:00]:

I'm saying all of this because of just wanting to expose other possibilities when you talk about Western medicine not being able to get to it all. We're responsible, and we're in a time now especially where we need to look at our own choices instead of projecting the responsibility of our health and well-being onto doctors and authority figures and learn about nutrition and learn about what foods and observe how our body reacts when we eat certain foods.

Alison J. Kay [11:29]:

The power is in our hands in the time where we used to defer that power even to a priest for our spirituality, or to a psychiatrist for our mental well-being, or to a doctor for physical health. That's no longer the case. This is the second thing I wanted to tell you, Alyssa and listeners. When I was in my bachelor's program, my mom at aged 12 had said to me, "You are so good with people, Alison. You have a natural understanding. You might want to consider going into psychology." God bless her, she was so intuitive and we were so tight. I knew it was a yes and so I did it.

Alison J. Kay [12:00]:

By my third semester, I was like, "You got to be kidding me. I'm learning nothing about what it takes to be the happiest most thriving version of me." I left that major. It was all about the hard wiring, which I understand. In the beginning stages, you got to learn about the hard wiring of the brain, but they were in the stages of proving themselves as a science. It's only in the '90s, the early '90s, that I just got this certification, a specialty certification of behavioral change, because I'm a personal trainer, so I opted for that as part of my personal trainer CEUs.

Alison J. Kay [12:31]:

There was a field of psychology created in the '90s called positive psychology. That was after I was already going for my bachelor's, right? I have been ever since then exploring, okay, how do we become the most happy thriving versions of ourselves? I've been led to the holistic model and to what some of the things you've already heard me say. Western medicine can't get it all. It's not designed to.

Alyssa Scolari [12:55]:

It can't and I really love the point about what you said about how it truly is our job to know what we need and to not rely on somebody else to tell us what we need. I mean, in some ways, we can rely on doctors for certain things. But at the end of the day, we have to turn inward to understand what it is that we need to be able live the lives that we want to live. One of the things that I really want to ask you about today because I do not have a lot of understanding on this at all. I am very new to this idea of Eastern medicine.

Alison J. Kay [13:33]:

You little new born baby you.

Alyssa Scolari [13:34]:

I know. I'm a noob. I am such a newbie, but I am loving it. Help me and the listeners out there understand the chakras, because you do a lot of chakra work. What the hell is a chakra is my first question?

Alison J. Kay [13:57]:

All right. Let me start here. Have you ever heard of something, an interpretation like if a body part hurts, then that means such and such a thing? As in like if your feet or legs or hips hurt, that means metaphorically your body is saying, "You mentally and spiritually don't want to move forward."

Alyssa Scolari [14:14]:

Yes.

Alison J. Kay [14:15]:

Okay. That used to be the kind of interpretation that would happen that I would see in the holistic community and going beyond the physical causes for disease. I didn't find it reliable. When I was doing the energy medicine sessions in the States, I didn't find that reliable. Now, I learned about the chakra system before I left for Asia. I'm a certified yoga teacher in India. When I was in India and I had to produce a sequence... The reason why you feel so good after you do yoga is because every single yoga pose is designed to open a chakra. You hardly ever hear that in the studios in the West, but that's...

Alyssa Scolari [14:55]:

You really don't.

Alison J. Kay [14:56]:

I know.

Alyssa Scolari [14:57]:

I'm an avid yogi and I have never heard that in any class that I've been in.

Alison J. Kay [15:02]:

Let me give you this. Eight limbs of yoga. I'm Ashtanga trained teacher, which is the most substantial and traditional, as well as athletic form of yoga. That having been said, there's considered eight limbs to yoga, and only one of them is about the body posture, so the asanas. Five of the eight limbs is about working with the mind and your consciousness.

Alyssa Scolari [15:25]:

Wow.

Alison J. Kay [15:26]:

Yeah. Look at what we extrapolated and populated the West with, right?

Alyssa Scolari [15:31]:

Yeah.

Alison J. Kay [15:34]:

A chakra means wheel. From Sanskrit translating the word into English, it means wheel, one that turns. A wheel on a car, for example, or a cart. We have seven of them. One is at the top of our head. This is the main chakras from the beginning perspective. One's at the top of the head called the crown. One's in between the eyebrows, that's the sixth. The fifth is at the throat. The fourth is at the heart. The third is at the upper belly. The second is at the lower belly, about an inch beneath the navel, and the first is the root at the tailbone. Every chakra is the intersection of the mind, the body, and the spirit.

Alison J. Kay [16:15]:

By mind... Now keep in mind, I ended up in the international school I was in for the longest in Taiwan, I ended up teaching AP psychology based on my bachelor's training, because I had also created a global psychology course using the Dalai Lama's text with this biannual summits with Western docs and psychologists, as well as the college 101, psych 101 textbook. I created a course called global psychology. And then they were like, "Ooh," because I was teaching meditation to the students too, "Why don't you teach AP psych?" So I did.

Alison J. Kay [16:46]:

I've been able to revisit psychology after decades of gaining this understanding from meditation in yoga and consciousness and how it works. It's even more fascinating to me. I bring it together in a bit of a different way. If a chakra means wheel and it is the intersection of the mind, the body, and the spirit, by mind, the mind component, I mean the conscious mind whose thoughts you do hear, and the unconscious, and the subconscious. In the West recently, we're calling it super consciousness. In yoga, we call that higher self, where it's our higher consciousness that then eventually above that connects with the divine.

Alison J. Kay [17:32]:

All of those levels of consciousness I'm able to reach all those levels of the mind. And keep in mind that we make our daily choices from only using at most 15% from our conscious mind. At least 85%, and I think it's close to the 90 from everything I receive from the tens of thousands of people I've worked with, people are making their daily choices from the unconscious. Un prefix means not. Subconscious, sub means under.

Alison J. Kay [17:59]:

It's not the thoughts you hear, whether you have a meditation practice or not, that is the majority, at least 85%, of where you're making your what to drink, what to listen to, what to click on, what to go to, what to avoid, what to eat from. Meaning when you learn to drive a car, Alyssa, you were told and you said out loud probably shift, hit brake, put foot on gas. Directions out loud, right? You don't do it anymore, right?

Alyssa Scolari [18:30]:

Nope.

Alison J. Kay [18:31]:

That's what I'm talking about. There's all this stuff buried in what I've come to call the back of the house consciousness. That is responsible for where we're making our choices from. And in that is our past, is our imprints, is our conditioning, is our karma, is our very beliefs and conclusions about... From ages zero to two, we have no separation from our parents. We think and feel what they do. Starting at two with the terrible twos and the no. No! Then we're forming our identity. We're separating.

Alison J. Kay [19:02]:

From two or eight-ish, we're looking around seeing how life gets done on planet earth and having child-like conclusions wired into our brain at the subconscious level. We may have, how do I get that yummy feeling from mom? We may have an older brother or sister and look at them how they get that yummy feeling from mom, that smile or that hug or that love or that attention or that approval.

Alison J. Kay [19:26]:

It could be, "Oh, my older brother just came home from school and he got an A+ in that project and mom hugged him and dad gave him a $5 bill or a $20 bill. That must be how I get good stuff, that good feeling," so then the person could become a really good student wired in the back of the brain. But if other things along the way also happen, like other conditioning, maybe trauma here and there, that person might become a perfectionist. It might go out of balance is what I'm saying. So then it becomes a block. And then it goes to the relevant chakra.

Alison J. Kay [19:59]:

Part of perfectionism is the third chakra, because every chakra covers a domain of life. I'm going to stop there for a second. If every chakra covers a domain of life, meaning it has the right to do something, so your root chakra is your right to be here. The second chakra is your right to feel what you feel. Your third chakra is your right to desire what you desire. Just keeping those and stopping there.

Alison J. Kay [20:33]:

If I don't feel like I have the right to be here because in the womb mom may have been hesitant about having me, worrying how she was going to take care of me, and I picked up on that through the water, the energy, because I was just sitting there absorbing it, and water is extra sonar for energy.

Alyssa Scolari [20:48]:

Absolutely. Very important to point out. I know I've said this before in previous podcast episodes, but even when you are in utero, you are still affected by everything that is in your environment and all of the energy that your mother is passing onto you. Just wanted to put that in there, but go on.

Alison J. Kay [21:07]:

Yeah, thank you. Yes. That can end up in your wirings happening. The first thing it gets is your brain's spinal column, right? The root chakra is at the base of the spinal column for a reason. In that period of time or there's some sense of neglect from a parent. You come out of the womb. Let's come out of the utero because I don't want to over emphasize and take people along the path where they think the root chakra is only about being in your mother's womb. It's not. Let's say your first couple of years one of the parents leaves, so you have a thing with abandonment, or one of the parents rejects you, so you have a thing with rejection.

Alison J. Kay [21:42]:

All of that is signaling to you, "I don't have the right to be here. If I weren't here, maybe he wouldn't have left. If I weren't here, maybe she would have more time and wouldn't be so worried." There's all those kinds of child-like conclusions. Because if they correspond to the right to be here, that's the root chakra. It's territory. If you don't feel like you have the right to be here, you usually don't feel like you have the right to feel what you feel, because you're questioning your overall right to exist.

Alyssa Scolari [22:14]:

Right.

Alison J. Kay [22:16]:

And then if you don't feel like you have the right to feel what you feel, you certainly don't feel like you have the right to desire what you desire and go out in the world and create it. I'm not saying... Please don't misunderstand me because people seem to sometimes believe that you have to start working at the root and work up sequentially. You don't. I can go all over the map.

Alyssa Scolari [22:39]:

Okay.

Alison J. Kay [22:40]:

If I get your throat chakra cleared... The throat chakra is your right to be heard, to speak and be heard. If you lie a lot or you're lied to, if you don't feel like you're hurt, if you have a thing with secrecy, all of that is what I consider the first level of the throat chakra. But since about 2016 because of the new times we're in, and I say new times from 2012 to 2032, it's a 20 year window of what's considered our greatest evolutionary leap for humanity ever.

Alison J. Kay [23:08]:

We just spent the past nine, 10 years watching the old paradigm crumble, we're in a stage right now where the new one hasn't been created yet. But we're meant to each becoming new.

Alyssa Scolari [23:21]:

We're working towards it. Yup.

Alison J. Kay [23:24]:

I have come to understand around 2016, I saw a lot of my clients, the majority of them, having from their heart chakra up to their throat like this fountain opening, and I had never seen it before. I talk about this in my second book, Vibrational UPgrade: A Conspiracy For Your Bliss: Easing Humanity's Evolutionary Transition, the co-creator's channel. What that means is being able to create based on what your heart's desire.

Alison J. Kay [23:48]:

And the fifth chakra, the whole higher level of it, is if you don't feel like you have the right to choose, if you don't feel like you have any choice, if you feel like you have to work this job because you have to get that health insurance if you live in the States for your kids, or you have to stay in this job, you're stuck in this job because you have to make sure your mortgage gets paid, then you're going to have a tight neck, for example, or you may have thyroid issues. Because let me come out of the mind now. The mind, body, and spirit, chakra is an intersection of all three.

Alison J. Kay [24:21]:

At the body level, a chakra affects the region that it sits in, so it affects the musculature. If it's not doing what it's meant to, meaning being a wheel and turning chi or prana or fresh vital life force energy in that region, then the musculature gets tight because it doesn't have fresh life force going through it. Additionally, every chakra is connected to a major endocrine gland. For example, the throat is the thyroid and the element here... I'm getting too advanced. Let me just leave it at that.

Alison J. Kay [24:54]:

And then Candace Pert, who was studying I think it was antidepressants for one of the big pharma companies, she knew the chakra system. When she was looking at the spinal column and the brain for the central nervous system, she noticed that along the spine, the biggest neuroreceptor site, the nerve ganglia, the biggest ones, that have the most receptors receive messages from the brain were at each chakra along the spine. That's our two communication systems, hormonal endocrine system or chemical and electrical or central nervous system. The chakras are completely...

Alison J. Kay [25:33]:

Remember, I'm a yoga teacher and a personal trainer, and I have some certifications in different herbalism. I'm very much focused on the body. I'm not about like floating out of the body in meditation and connecting with the angels. I'm very much about thriving in the body here on planet earth and having your material life, whether it's your relationships, your health or your money or how you earn your money, completely infused with the most thriving possible. The third element is the spiritual mind, body, spirit intersection at each chakra. In that spirit aspect, I can connect in with past life stuff, and I can connect in with karmic stuff.

Alison J. Kay [26:10]:

I had to go through years of training and spent tens of thousands of dollars to understand how to clear karma because it's tricky stuff. Anytime you think that there's a physical issue that can be solved only at the physical level, traditional Chinese medicine has an axiom that says, "Where chi goes, that's energy, vital life force energy, "blood follows." Where energy goes, the physical follows. I add onto that nowadays. Where consciousness goes or where our focus of our consciousness goes, that's where energy follows and then the physical.

Alison J. Kay [26:46]:

This is what quantum physics is understanding about the wave and particle phenomena. It's the same thing. What we perceive as most important because we can physically see it, because it's tangible, we consider in the West typically the physical is more important. I can assess you based on what I see physically. I can prove myself with my intellect. Go to that good school. Get that good degree. Place in that good job. Get that kind of sized house. Get that kind of vehicle. Now I've made it because my measurements are up there for what people... When we're in an IMAX movie theater, for example, there is the big surround sound, right?

Alison J. Kay [27:28]:

The bigger the better seems to be a lot of the thinking here. That's old school. When you understand about energy, energy is actually what is creating the matter. It has to exist in energy first before matter. If I can get to somebody's emotional or mental or even spiritual blockages first, then they will never have a physical thing pop to the surface. Once something has come out of a more subtle level and gone into physical... The Tibetans have a scale, subtle energy to crude. Crude is the most grossly physical. This is the most subtle. There's a range as you go out of subtle, subtle, subtle, more energy.

Alison J. Kay [28:16]:

I consider the yogic culture more able to perceive the subtler energies than even the Chinese. Chinese's chi is more crude. They look at the kidney, the liver, and that energy travels along the meridians. But before that, the yogic culture understands how interaction with the ether affects our system. That's too much distinction for this level. But the point is, in that skill between subtle energy to crude, before it gets to that level of physical, if we catch it, then it doesn't have to result in a physical issue.

Alison J. Kay [28:50]:

I found that when I was doing more health concerns, like a tumor or cancer or chronic pain, I had to go so much higher and I had to apply so much more energy to the person's body, because it had already physically manifested.

Alyssa Scolari [29:05]:

Right, because you didn't catch it in time.

Alison J. Kay [29:08]:

Yes.

Alyssa Scolari [29:09]:

Okay. I'm getting it. I'm understanding it.

Alison J. Kay [29:12]:

Yeah, you are. Yeah.

Alyssa Scolari [29:15]:

Now, for somebody let's say who... How do you work on healing? What does chakra work look like?

Alison J. Kay [29:23]:

With me, it looks totally different than what anybody looks. If we call it chakra work, I want to call that term back, because I don't want people to think... Honestly, I'm the only one doing work the way I am. There's all those YouTubes that you go on and you think... I don't want you to think that if you go and listen to a YouTube clearing with a crystal ball for the third chakra, that you're set for life and you shouldn't have any issues. It's just not that simple. I mean, it's a process. It's a spiritual path. It's a path of enlightenment.

Alison J. Kay [29:50]:

There's a ball of yarn where I have to come in and unwind or clear these beliefs that are blocking you that have led to a core pattern that we want to move you beyond. Typically, trauma and karma are the most repetitive, redundant, resilient. They require the most for me to go at. There's one more thing. In the chakra system, if you think of them like an urban center, there's all of these highways and side routes and interstates that lead into each urban center, and you're driving to that urban center.

Alison J. Kay [30:27]:

Those you could think of the 13 meridians in the traditional Chinese medical system, that's what the chi life force travels on out through your body, distribute this fresh vital life force energy throughout your body so it's loose and flexible and juicy and energized. In yoga, we call them nadis and there's like a thousand of them. That's how the energy goes from one chakra to another, and it's meant to be flowing throughout our whole system.

Alyssa Scolari [30:50]:

Okay.

Alison J. Kay [30:51]:

Those good feelings, okay? That's why we would open them is to get that vital life force energy flushing throughout our system at the bodily level, at the energy level, and obviously up to the mind and at the spirit level, because it's the intersection of mind, body, and spirit. I will go in in either if it's a... I don't tend to do one on ones that much anymore. I'm training more students to do it nowadays. I still do them for my students basically, which is great. It's great to be at that level of choice, because I do more group work nowadays to be able to help more people and serve more people.

Alison J. Kay [31:28]:

It's verbal clearings that you can hear me do. If somebody is in a group and I know that I will see cloudiness around their hips, I will perceive like dankness or darkness or cloudiness or heaviness under their sacral. I'll have a sense that that's sexual abuse. I might ask them first are they constipated. I then might ask, if it's a women, are you having your period right now. And then typically, I'll get guidance about what has happened to them. I'll do a clearing to get that moving and it moves.

Alison J. Kay [32:08]:

Then maybe an hour later on that same call, I will do something that would be the next level of unraveling to get to the core problem, because there's always that core problem. I mean, I do this. I'm doing it with my hands for years with local people on my massage table or at a distance. It doesn't matter, because part of what I can do is teach you using ancient symbols how to open up erethic tubes so time and space doesn't matter. I mean, I feel like I may have to say it because you guys are newbies, but it works. It's brilliant watching it work.

Alyssa Scolari [32:44]:

It's fascinating. Yeah.

Alison J. Kay [32:46]:

It is. Because I'm a finely tuned instrument at this point directed towards clearing people, as you hear me say before we hit record, you're even getting splashes of clearing as I talk about these items for you. You guys may feel a little bit more energized or tired after the call, or more tired rather. I affect by doing verbal clearings and then also hands-on or distance, and then even just by field itself. There's two elements though. If you've had sexual trauma, one of the things that results typically is a lack of worthiness, lack of boundaries as well, because you're used to being invaded in a very inappropriate way.

Alyssa Scolari [33:34]:

Absolutely.

Alison J. Kay [33:35]:

Right? And this may sound illogical, but you may then without boundaries have very co-dependent relationships and be the over giver. In that over giving pattern, what I would do is I would focus on your heart chakra, and I would clear out all of the imprints, the conditioning, the imprints from your parents and lineage, because mom may have modeled that over giving, grandma may have modeled that over giving, the conditioning of what you're supposed to do as a mom in society from whatever culture you're from, karma, contracts, oaths, vows, stuff that's happened in other lifetimes, trauma, and all these unconscious or subconscious conclusions and beliefs and expectations and projections you've ended up with in order to keep yourself safe particularly after a trauma.

Alison J. Kay [34:29]:

It's almost like if I over give, then I'm keeping myself safe from invasion down there because I have to over give in order to have the right, because that's just how life works, right? I get invaded. If you look at, that's a Qigong move. If you get invaded down here, so energy moves... This is called the pushing and pulling of the waves. I'm doing stuff with my feet that I don't need to tell you right now. Obviously this looks like stepping out or giving and you could think of this as receiving.

Alison J. Kay [35:09]:

If you are full up in your field with the giving, you're occupying space. It's almost an unconscious way to keep yourself from getting penetrated or invaded.

Alyssa Scolari [35:20]:

Okay.

Alison J. Kay [35:22]:

I work at the level of all that unconscious and subconscious so that it frees up, and I do that through the relevant chakras, so that it frees up more of that to now become conscious. And then I do more clearings and activations and coaching once you have the consciousness like you say, "Oh, okay." You maybe in a moment. The mind-body connection has been cut, so it's not any longer unconscious. You're not unconsciously doing it. Now you have at your conscious mind, I tend to over give as a default mechanism.

Alison J. Kay [35:54]:

The next time you see yourself engaging and stepping out and over giving or having the thought about to do that, I do clearings and activations there to help your reroute to a new neurological path so that then a new behavior can get routed, this active applied coaching for mindfulness, I call it applied mindfulness, that has to accompany the clearings and activations so that you know how to then take over in your day-to-day life and actualize the change.

Alyssa Scolari [36:21]:

It's so fascinating. For the listeners out there who couldn't see what Dr. Alison was just doing, she was sort of doing this motion where she was like bringing her hands back and then pushing them open palm towards me. And as she was doing that, I had a lot of feelings in my... Forgive me, because I don't remember what chakra this is or what area, but it's right below my belly button.

Alison J. Kay [36:49]:

Yeah, that's the sacral, which is where you would feel it.

Alyssa Scolari [36:52]:

Yes, because I'm a survivor of sexual abuse. That's exactly where I had all of those feelings. That is...

Alison J. Kay [37:02]:

That's light coming out of my hands from decades of using these hands in that way going right at your sacral.

Alyssa Scolari [37:09]:

It's mind-blowing and it's very emotional. Honestly, I could sob. Like I said before we started recording, I probably will sob because it's...

Alison J. Kay [37:18]:

I warned you. Yeah. I did.

Alyssa Scolari [37:21]:

She did warn me. She did warn me.

Alison J. Kay [37:27]:

But I just want to say this please, the beauty of this is that that light knew where to go. I didn't say go to where she has had trauma, and I didn't know it was sexual trauma. I did intuitively. But in that moment when I was doing that, I didn't direct it there, Alyssa. The beauty of this is that the light has a divine intelligence of its own. If you read my second book in particular, I talk about how it's like this unconditional love that surrounds us and permeates underneath the undercurrent of all of life. If we can even heal, that shows that there's a supportive force in all of life.

Alison J. Kay [38:03]:

But that knew where to go, that light knew where to go and your system knew what to do with it. There is a quest for unconditional love that is wired into us and an understanding of that really is the core of our existence and all of existence. And then we just muck it all up with all of our traumas and beliefs and conditioning and imprint in minds. Yeah?

Alyssa Scolari [38:25]:

Yeah. It's just amazing. It's amazing. The work you're doing is incredible. You have written three books.

Alison J. Kay [38:33]:

Four.

Alyssa Scolari [38:34]:

Wait. Oh, Vibrational UPgrade is the second one. Third one is Reasonable Dragons, and the fourth one is the Dragon Master Creatrix.

Alison J. Kay [38:44]:

Yeah. Reasonable Dragons is on Audible and people have been really enjoying that. It's the only one I have on Audible. Those of you who are on Audible.com, you may want to check it out. My most recent book where I answer a lot of really specific questions is The Dragon Master Creatrix: Conversations With A Female Spiritual Teacher For These New Times. It's advanced. It's told in story form of a woman who goes on retreat with me to get trained in energy medicine. I take her to power spots and ancient sites while she's engaging and learning how to work with the ancient wisdom and become a Vibrational UPgrade practitioner herself.

Alison J. Kay [39:17]:

The second half of every chapter is me answering their questions. It's not like about, how do I open my third eye, as much as it's about, how do I stop caring what other people think of me? They're very real, down to earth. I apply the holistic model to the daily life living questions. That fourth book is entirely different than the first three. All of them are purely nonfiction, the first three, And the one that's the most text like is the one I wrote while still in Asia for my dissertation. It started as my dissertation, but it became What If There's Nothing Wrong?

Alison J. Kay [39:46]:

That's one where I address Western medicine the most and used studies and stats and stuff. If you're into that, that's where to go for that one.

Alyssa Scolari [39:55]:

Can all of these books be found on Amazon?

Alison J. Kay [39:58]:

Yeah. But you have to make sure Alison J, the middle initial J, K-A-Y, because there's another Alison J. Kay on there. Just put the J, you get all my books.

Alyssa Scolari [40:07]:

I will link that in the show notes for everybody. Just a reminder that the fourth book, The Dragon Master Creatrix, is on Audible, which is... I love Audible, so that's great. Thank you so much for coming on. I learned so much. You're right, I do need a nap.

Alison J. Kay [40:27]:

Yeah. Check it out. It's actually my third book, Reasonable Dragons, that's on Audible, not the fourth book.

Alyssa Scolari [40:33]:

Oh, I'm sorry.

Alison J. Kay [40:34]:

No worries, because you're feeling spacey. The work that I do helps create spaciousness so that you can get into just out of the everyday intellectual mind into other parts of your system. You're feeling the effects knowing that what I do works. Please space out and let yourself go nap.

Alyssa Scolari [40:52]:

I'm very spacey. Yes.

Alison J. Kay [40:54]:

Yeah. Thank you for having me on, Alyssa. It was an honor to have you so hungry to understand for genuine purposes and hallelujah to you for doing this podcast for the reasons that you do it and your courage and boldness.

Alyssa Scolari [41:09]:

Thank you so much. I truly appreciate that.

Alison J. Kay [41:12]:

I truly mean it.

Alyssa Scolari [41:14]:

Thanks for listening, everyone. For more information, please head over to lightaftertrauma.com, or you can also follow us on social media. On Instagram, we are @lightaftertrauma, and on Twitter, it is @lightafterpod. If you're on Facebook, please be sure to join our Facebook group. It is a private community where trauma survivors are able to connect and chat with one another. That Facebook group is called Light After Trauma. Just look us up on Facebook and be sure to join. Lastly, please head over to patreon.com/lightaftertrauma to support our show.

Alyssa Scolari [41:53]:

We are asking for $5 a month, which is the equivalent to a cup of coffee at Starbucks. Please head on over, again, that's patreon.com/lightaftertrauma. Thank you and we appreciate your support.

Kick off Memorial Day Weekend with Alyssa as she offers advice to those of us grappling with a fear of wearing shorts, tank tops, and bathing suits this summer. Tune in for some inspiration so that this summer can be one where you embrace the incredible body you have - at any shape and size!

Check out the Light After Trauma website for transcripts, other episodes, Alyssa's guest appearances, and more at: www.lightaftertrauma.com

Want to get more great content and interact with the show? Check us out on Instagram: @lightaftertrauma

We need your help! We want to continue to make great content that can help countless trauma warriors on their journey to recovery. So, please help us in supporting the podcast by becoming a recurring patron of the show via Patreon. Every bit helps!

Transcript:

Alyssa Scolari: Hey,how's it going? You know what time it is. We are back out it with another episode of the Light After Trauma podcast. You know the deal. I'm your host, Alyssa Scolari and life is pretty good right now. Just wanted to take a moment to kind of check in with all of you. And sometimes I feel like with the interview episodes, sometimes I feel like my personality or my connection to the audience can get lost in translation, just because I think there's a lot of obviously getting to hear and understand and process the stories and the information from the guest speakers.

[00:01:27] So while I absolutely love having guest speakers, I also really want to maintain an authentic connection with all the listeners out there. So, today I was supposed to have a guest speaker come on and unfortunately there was just some kind of confusion in scheduling. So we had to reschedule and I have some free time and I was like, you know what:

[00:01:53] "I actually have some things I wanted to talk about." So it's kind of nice to be able to do a solo episode. I have not done one in a while and that is not because I haven't wanted to, but life has been a little bit, how would you say this: wild, insane all over the place, aah I shouldn't say insane. One of the things I've really been trying to work on is trying to avoid the use of certain words.

[00:02:25] When we talk about the concept of linguistic evolution, right?.We don't use certain words anymore. I think one of the words that I'm really trying hard to stop using is crazy and insane. So my reactions to things, because I'm such an animated person, my gut response is to always be like, "oh my God, that's crazy."

[00:02:45] Or, "oh my God, that's insane." But you know, it can be offensive calling somebody crazy. You know, the word crazy itself has a very negative connotation and was, I think a lot of people who struggled with mental illness were called crazy and I've been called crazy actually. And it's, it cuts pretty deep.

[00:03:07] So, that's just my own personal preference. Some people may be listening and may be like, "oh my gosh, that's way too much of a stretch," but that's just something I've been trying to work on. So that was a little tidbit, but life has been so wild. We are in the process of house hunting. And if any of you know anything about this market, it is...

[00:03:29] I mean again, I'm not going to say crazy, but it is unlike anything I've ever seen before in my life. People are coming in and offering literally a hundred thousand dollars over asking price for homes, because there's such a high demand for homes. And there simply aren't enough sellers. And we know we've been looking for homes for....

[00:03:50] I want to say coming up on a year now. And it has been a really defeating process. The last couple months in particular, we thought that we had found something and we're still actually not entirely sure if it's going to go through, we don't know. So we may be moving. We may not be moving, but our lives have really been house hunting every spare minute that we get.

[00:04:13] And I live in New Jersey as many of you know, but we are looking to move to a different state. So, we're looking to move to Pennsylvania. So I would still be able to commute to my office in New Jersey. It's been so tough and every second has been spent traveling to another state to look at homes and making offers on homes and getting your hopes up and getting deflated essentially when you're told that somebody else came in and offered a hundred thousand dollars over asking price. And it's just, I don't know, it's very defeating. I have wanted to get out of the town that I live in for quite some time. It doesn't hold the best memories for me.

[00:04:58] And it's, I think very triggering to live in the same town where a lot of your trauma occurred and no, that's not to say I haven't had some good times in this place. I certainly have, but it's really hard living in a place where you've had traumas because I am reminded every day of my life. So. I really have been itching to get out of this town and get out of this area.

[00:05:28] And sadly, it's just not working out, which I have a very hard time with being told no. Or with having to wait. I'm not very patient. I kind of want what I want when I want it, which is something I'm working on. So yeah, it's just been...it's been rough and we want to have a bigger yard for our dogs and it's been, it's been a hard time, you know, things could certainly be worse.

[00:05:58] Thank God. My health is improving. I'm healing. I'm getting better. My autoimmune disease is, it appears, knock on wood, to be in remission. I hate to even say that out loud because I'm terrified that I'm going to get a flare up again. You can, if you're curious to hear more about the auto-immune issues that I've been having, you can tune into episode 41.

[00:06:21] I believe it is where I talk a little bit more about the autoimmune disease I was diagnosed with. So with all of that said, it's just. It's been a little hectic. So I have not, I feel given my own, I haven't really put the personal touch on a lot of what I do because I really just haven't had the space to do that.

[00:06:46] So I appreciate all of your understanding and that I am really working on getting back to adding a little bit more of a personal touch. I was really excited about all the feedback I got for the mini-sode series, the Survive and Thrive stories. It's been so fun and such an honor to be able to read everybody's story.

[00:07:08] So please, please, please. If you feel called to do so. Please send in your story to [email protected]. I really, I am just so honored. And so, so many are so funny, those emails that you send and I love it cause I'm a big fan of humor therapy. So I love being able to kind of take what you've been through and take things that are really, really dark and very serious and find kinda some light or some humor in them. Again, that doesn't take away from the seriousness of what happened, but some of y'all just have a really good sense of humor. So I appreciate, hearing your your stories. So with that said, I wanted to come on to talk about an experience that I had today, which felt so liberating. And I think now's a really good time to share this experience. I went to the beach today and that might not seem like a big deal for people who don't struggle with body competence. But for me, that was huge. And I went by myself. First of all, because of the pandemic, I really haven't been to the beach in over a year.

[00:08:25] So I have not had to like do the whole bathing suit situation in quite some time. And second of all, I was alone, which is always extra hard for me because it's one of those things where, when you're alone, I think you're more in your head and you feel more like people are looking at you.

[00:08:48] So today is, it's a Wednesday. I don't see clients on Wednesdays. It's my day off. And I decided, you know, the weather is beautiful. I'm heading to the beach today. And I packed my stuff up. And I went to the beach all by myself and I struggled. I went with shorts and like kind of an oversized t-shirt and I struggled with whether or not I was going to take my bathing suit off...take my bathing suit off!?!?

[00:09:17] Yeah, no, I was not going to do that. Hoping to not end up in jail for public indecency. What I was trying to say is I was debating whether or not I was going to take off my shirt and my shorts and just kind of be in my bikini and it was really a battle. Of course, I had to like look around at the people next to me and kind of size them up and be like, well, are they looking at me?

[00:09:45] You know, what are they going to think? But then I just did it, right. I tried to get out of my head and into my body and I was like, what would feel good right now? And what would feel good is to be able to lay down on this huge beach blanket that I have that I think my aunt got me when I was in the fourth grade is still have it because it's amazing

[00:10:06] All I want us to do is just chill out on my beach blanket and have that like warm sensation of the sun on your skin, glorious. Well, obviously I can't do that when I'm covered from head to toe and, you know, clothing and not a bathing suit. So I was like, all right. Screw it taking off my clothes. So I did it.

[00:10:28] I was in a bikini and. Just as an aside, it was a bikini that I enjoyed. Right. It wasn't a bikini that I bought because I was like, oh, well this is going to cover up the most. So let me just buy this one. This one was so fun. It was like a light blue, like a sky blue with like gold throughout. And it was strapless, which like....

[00:10:57] why am I talking about the details? So I'm talking about the details because I love the bikini and I'm allowed to love the bikini. And I don't think it hit me that I was allowed to love a bathing suit that I was in until today. When I was just laying on that blanket with my toes in the sand and the sun on my body.

[00:11:17] And I was like, wow, I really liked this bikini. It's really comfortable. It's really cute. And I'm allowed to like it and you know what you're allowed to like your bathing suit too. So it was, I think really a transcendental moment for me, where I shifted from I'm just gonna wear whatever hides the most of my body to I'm going to wear whatever feels fucking fabulous.

[00:11:47] And so I did it now. I struggled a little bit when it came time to like sit up. Right. And I know that there are people out there who can relate to this. So when it came time to sit up, I'm like, oh God, who's going to be looking at the rolls on my stomach. Now, I'm like looking around to see who's looking.

[00:12:08] And in fact there was a guy who was, I don't know. He honestly, he was probably like 50 feet away from me. And I noticed that he got up and actually moved his chair further away at one point. And do you know what my eating disorder brain did? Right. Get a load of this shit. My eating disorder brain was like, oh, he probably got up and moved because he couldn't stand the sight of your body.

[00:12:34] That is what my brain did. And it's horrible. And it's so body dysmorphic and it's so like eating disordered, but I was able to recognize it and I was able to talk back to it. And I told myself two things. I'm like one...well, I told myself a couple of things. One that's your fucking eating disorder, right.

[00:12:57] Two, look at the tide, the tide had significantly risen, so there was much less beach and he probably didn't want his ass sitting in the water because his chair was very low to the ground. So he probably picked up his chair and moved it back so the water didn't hit him. It's still the middle of May. The water in New Jersey is still freezing.

[00:13:20] That makes the most sense. What really doesn't make sense is the fact that he would take one look at me from 50 yards away and be so repulsed that he had to get up and move his chair. Like what come on, what is my eating disorder doing? Right. So, you know, at that moment I kind of just laughed at myself and I was like, honestly, Ed, I call my eating disorder, Ed.

[00:13:42] It's a little tip that I got from a book that I read called Life Without Ed, by Jenny Schaefer, highly recommended by the way. So I call my eating disorder, Ed, and I was just like, you know what Ed, like, fuck you. Fuck you. Because you're not ruining my perfect day at the beach. And I sat up and that is a very hard thing for me to do.

[00:14:05] I used to struggle and take like five minutes to sit up because I would have to have the towel wrapped around my stomach so that nobody could see my rolls because I was so embarrassed. Well, guess what? Today I just fucking sat up and it was so liberating. I sat there and I looked into the ocean and I could feel my stomach rolls, right.

[00:14:32] Because who doesn't have a stomach roll when they're bending over or sitting like, that's what our bodies do. Right. Our skin rolls, the fat that we have in our stomach, like rolls, stomach rolls, aren't bad. And I just breathe and I was very, very in tune with my body. I was very in tune with my surroundings and I just didn't care if anybody was looking at me, you know, I ended up having a couple that came and sat actually somewhat close to me closer than what I'm comfortable with for sure.

[00:15:11] And honestly, closer than what was necessary, because there was so much space on the beach. I don't know why they needed it to be that close to me, but whatever. I was uncomfortable and I was really just, I, at one point I just stopped caring and I became so much more infatuated with my body and sitting down and processing all of the turmoil.

[00:15:36] My body has helped me to survive over the last year of the pandemic and then a whole bunch of things that happened in the middle of that pandemic that were pretty traumatizing. And I was filled with such gratitude, such gratitude for my body. Such gratitude for the tree trunk thighs that I've had my whole life that I have hated my whole life.

[00:16:06] I found myself sitting in gratitude for these legs, for my stomach, my belly, for all the scars on my body, the stretch marks that are so natural that almost any body has quite frankly. I was just in gratitude and I felt so at peace with this body, I kind of just sat criss cross applesauce on the beach blanket, which I've never done before at a beach.

[00:16:39] I truly, I've never done that before. And it hit me that I have lost so many valuable beach years because I spent time hating my body. There was a time where I would claim that I hated the beach because I simply didn't want to go because I didn't want to be seen. So I would be like, oh, I don't like the sand or I don't like the salty ocean water.

[00:17:07] It makes me feel gross. That's such a load of crap. I love the sand, what a wonderful exfoliant. And I love the saltwater. It feels so healing to me. And I used to say for years that I hated the beach because I was terrified of being seen. And I just wasn't today. I was alone with myself, with my body, with nothing to distract me, and I felt completely at ease and there are people who come in my office and they ask me, or there are people who I connect with on social media.

[00:17:48] And they ask me questions like, well, Alyssa, why am I doing this work? Why bother trying to recover from an eating disorder? Why bother trying to recover from trauma and it's so that you can have days like I had today where everything just feels okay inside of you, because at the end of the day, that's all that really matters, is that you feel good inside. And when you feel good inside, you care less about what other people are thinking. What other people are saying. It was the first time that I didn't spend my entire trip at the beach just looking at the people around me, wondering what they would think. If I dared to get up and walk over to the water and put my toes in the water, I just did it. I just got up and did it because it was what I wanted to do. And it's so beautiful. And, you know, I know that this will resonate with a lot of you.

[00:18:58] And I want you to know that you can get to that spot too. It's a beautiful spot to be in. And I'm not saying that I will never struggle again. I think I absolutely will struggle again. I think that's just part of life, but all the hard work that I've done in trauma and in my eating disorder recovery has helped me get to this moment of truly loving the flesh that I was given, the meat on my body, the weird feet that I have, the you know, crooked smile that I have that some people probably have never noticed. And I notice all the time, I love all of it. And I might not tomorrow, I might wake up full of self-loathing, but today. It was a really, really healing moment for me.

[00:19:53] And I want you to know that wherever you're at right now with your body and with yourself, you deserve to wear a bathing suit that you fucking love, and you deserve to go to the beach and to sit and to not have to look around and make sure that people aren't looking at your rolls, you deserve to be able to get to the beach and to take your shorts off.

[00:20:18] And to not have to hide your thighs, be so thankful for this body that has gotten you through, if nothing else than just the last year alone of immense loss and sickness and fear and all the other horrible things that the pandemic has brought. Your body has kept you alive throughout it all. And if nothing else go to the beach and celebrate that and rock whatever body you have, because it is glorious, you are glorious and you deserve happiness.

[00:21:00] And that's all I have to say about that really. I mean, I know that's a long winded speech. It's a long winded spiel, but I hope that it can help inspire at least one of you in knowing that this summer you literally do not have to suffer or hide yourself. You deserve to be seen on the inside and the outside.

[00:21:24] So if this resonates with you, whether you are he or she or they, or anywhere in between, this is your sign that every single body is a beach body. And go where whatever bathing suit you want, have a wonderful summer. Everybody I'm still going to be here. I'm not going anywhere. Still going to be rolling out podcast episodes, but I love you all.

[00:21:53] From the bottom of my heart. I am so incredibly thankful for your support, for your loyalty, for listening, for being on this journey with me, the highs and the lows of recovery I am with you, you are with me. I feel it every day. And I just feel like I have thousands of new friends and. I'm really grateful.

[00:22:17] So thank you all. I love you all. If you haven't done so yet, please feel free to subscribe and leave a review and rating. Most important of those is a rating and subscription to the podcast. And yeah, that's all I got. Have a wonderful week. Go enjoy some sunshine and let's get a pop in the summer and our beach bodies. Love you all. Take care.

[00:22:47] Thanks for listening everyone. For more information, please head over to light after trauma.com or you can also follow us on social media. On Instagram. We are at light after trauma and on Twitter. It is at light after pod. And if you're on Facebook, please be sure to join our Facebook group.

[00:23:07] It is a private community where trauma survivors are able to connect and chat with one another. That Facebook group is called light after traumas. So just look us up on Facebook and be sure to join. Lastly, please head over to patrion.com/light. After trauma to support our show, we are asking for $5 a month, which is the equivalent to a cup of coffee at Starbucks.

[00:23:32] So please head on over again. That's patrion.com/late after trauma. Thank you. And we appreciate your support.

Thanks for listening everyone. For more information, please head over to lightaftertrauma.com or you can also follow us on social media.

On Instagram. We are at @lightaftertrauma and on Twitter. It is @lightafterpod. And if you're on Facebook, please be sure to join our Facebook group. It is a private community where trauma survivors are able to connect and chat with one another. That Facebook group is called light after traumas. So just look us up on Facebook and be sure to join.

Lastly, please head over to patreon.com/lightaftertrauma to support our show, we are asking for $5 a month, which is the equivalent to a cup of coffee at Starbucks. So please head on over again. That's patrion.com/lightaftertrauma. Thank you. And we appreciate your support.

This week Alyssa sits down with friend, colleague, and Neurofeedback (NFB) clinician Leanne Hershkowitz, LPC. Leanne and Alyssa dive into some of the limitations of modern psychotherapy and how neurofeedback can help to fill in the gaps.

Follow Leanne on Instagram to learn more about NFB @theneurofeedbackgal

Check out the Light After Trauma website for transcripts, other episodes, Alyssa's guest appearances, and more at: www.lightaftertrauma.com

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We need your help! We want to continue to make great content that can help countless trauma warriors on their journey to recovery. So, please help us in supporting the podcast by becoming a recurring patron of the show via Patreon. Every bit helps!

Transcript:

Alyssa Scolari [00:23]:

Hello, everybody. Welcome back for another episode of the Light After Trauma podcast. I'm your host, Alyssa Scolari and we are talking about neurofeedback today. I'm so excited. You're probably so sick of hearing me say that, but I mean it when I say that this is seriously one of my favorite topics. We have with us here today, a dear friend of mine, Leanne Hershkowitz. Leanne's passion has always been working with adolescents and young adults. Combined with her passion for the outdoors, she became a wilderness instructor in 2004 for youth and adolescents in northern New Jersey. She then decided to take those combined passions a step further and pursue a career in counseling. Leanne received her undergraduate degree in psychology from the College of New Jersey. Woo woo. You know, I went to TCNJ too, right?

Leanne Hershkowitz [01:17]:

Mm-hmm.

Alyssa Scolari [01:18]:

And then she got her Master's degree and educational specialty at Seton Hall University. Leanne knew at this point that she wanted to find a place where she could hone her craft, while gaining more experience integrating innovative approaches. This took her to a residential treatment center in the Midwest where she specialized in the treatment of trauma, adoption and attachment through advanced training in dyadic developmental psychotherapy, as well as animal assisted and adventure therapy. Leanne has completed her certification as a therapy dog handler team with her cockapoo, Harley. Leanne has since furthered her understanding of neuropsychology and treatment of developmental trauma, as well as other diagnoses with the addition of neurofeedback to her practice. She is mentored by the one and only Sebern Fisher, author of The Fear-Driven Brain and renowned neurofeedback trauma specialist. She is currently pursuing her board certification in neurofeedback.

Alyssa Scolari [02:22]:

Leanne, welcome.

Leanne Hershkowitz [02:25]:

Hello. Thank you. Hi, it's a pleasure to be here.

Alyssa Scolari [02:29]:

I am so happy to have you on here. To the listeners out there, Leanne has played a major role in my recovery from complex PTSD. And we'll definitely get into that, but I'm going to turn it over to you first. I guess my first question for you would be, what is, because you talked in your bio, you use the term developmental trauma, what exactly is developmental trauma?

Leanne Hershkowitz [03:06]:

It is an attempt to be a diagnosis by Dr. Bessel van der Kolk, one of the leading researchers in trauma. It is really designed to replace in some ways, complex PTSD, RAD, a host of diagnoses that really are not real great and don't really represent what people are going through. Developmental trauma is if you Google it, you can see the beta test version. It actually has enough research support to be a DSM diagnosis, but they told Bessel when they were putting out DSM-5, they have too many anxiety diagnosis, they don't need another one.

Alyssa Scolari [03:44]:

Really?

Leanne Hershkowitz [03:45]:

And so it was excluded. That, he talks about it. That is how bad our diagnostic manual is and don't get me off on that tangent, I'll go out for 20 minutes before you get me back about how useless the diagnostic system that we currently have is. But this has actually attempted a pretty decent diagnosis that has different categories of impact of trauma on relationships, arousal, which is mood regulation, not the sexual kind. Things like that. Development, and it's also historical about what the person's experienced. For laypeople, the developmental trauma is really about trauma during your developing years. Birth, actually in utero counts 100%, in utero all the way through to, you could say 12, but I really would take it to 18, 20. Your brain's not fully developed, I'm giving you air quotes, until 25. Within those developing years, but just know the younger it is, the greater the impact. That's developmental trauma.

Alyssa Scolari [04:49]:

It's basically this form of or another way of saying complex trauma.

Leanne Hershkowitz [04:55]:

Exactly. It's just a flushed out diagnosis that's not about necessarily flashbacks. It's about kind of the whole constellation of symptoms that people with complex trauma tend to see.

Alyssa Scolari [05:07]:

Yes. Right. And the difference being, and for the listeners out there, if you want to learn more about developmental trauma or complex trauma, head back to some of the earlier episodes, I think it was maybe episode either two or three, where I break down kind of what exactly complex trauma is, but it's so different in the sense that somebody can experience one traumatic event and develop PTSD, but it's a whole different ballgame when you have significant, long lasting trauma in your developmental years. It fundamentally changes.

Leanne Hershkowitz [05:43]:

Changes your brain.

Alyssa Scolari [05:44]:

Exactly, exactly. Hence neurofeedback. One of the questions I have for you is how did you personally stumble upon neurofeedback?

Leanne Hershkowitz [05:58]:

I was first introduced to neurofeedback when I worked at CALO in Missouri, Change Academy Lake of the Ozarks, which is now owned by a giant conglomerate. But when I worked there, it was just one tiny little company with 20 students. And they had neurofeedback there, but the clinicians didn't do it. They had technicians who were supervised doing it as a separate thing. And so I kind of had a rough idea that it was there. We had kind of always said like, "Oh, when we get some downtime, I want to try it." But if you've ever worked in residential or been to a facility of such, there basically is never any downtime. You're always working and working too many hours. I didn't really, I just kind of had an awareness of it. And then I got very lucky that when I was leaving CALO and coming back to New Jersey, I made contact with a clinician named Kate Langhart and she said, "Hey, you want to come share some office space? I'll help you get started with your own practice."

Leanne Hershkowitz [06:55]:

That's a whole nother story how I became a business owner when I never planned on it, but she did neurofeedback. And the more she told me about it, the more excited I got, the more I felt with the students I worked with that I was trying to regulate their nervous system, their emotional regulation in our sessions with my own nervous system. And that was burning me out too. I was exhausted from it because you do regulate your children that way, but you're really not meant to regulate 25 adults or young adults that way every week. It's running your motor too much. And so I was experiencing that fatigue, but it also wasn't very effective because it only really worked when they were in the room with me. She was like, "Come on, you got to try it. You got to try it." And so eventually I went and did my introductory course and just, it's been a love story ever since.

Alyssa Scolari [07:52]:

I feel like that's exactly what it is with neurofeedback. You and I met probably coming up almost on a year because we had a mutual client and we had.

Leanne Hershkowitz [08:09]:

Mutual family.

Alyssa Scolari [08:09]:

Suffice it to day, yeah mutual family. Exactly. And there was something that you had mentioned to me when we were talking about it, this concept of neurofeedback, I had never heard of it before. Absolutely didn't know a single thing about it. And you had told me, this was the first time that we met. You were like, "You need to go and read Sebern Fisher's, The Fear-Driven Brain. And I was like, "Huh, I'll do that." I downloaded it on Audible and spent, because the book is so dense. It took me a while.

Leanne Hershkowitz [08:49]:

Wonderful though.

Alyssa Scolari [08:51]:

Wonderful. Took me a while to get through it. But with every passing hour that I listened to that book, I became more and more excited. And there was something inside of my body that was like, this is the piece that has been missing to my treatment and my recovery from trauma. And yeah, just kind of like you, it's that love at first sight. Something I stumbled upon thanks to you. And I guess, could you explain, because I still have a hard time doing this and obviously I don't have my certification in it at all, but could you explain, what is neurofeedback? I find that to be such a hard question.

Leanne Hershkowitz [09:34]:

Usually the way that I start explaining it is talk about biofeedback because that's a concept that most people have been loosely exposed to, which is the idea that you can change your heart rate and your breathing rate at any point in time. If you're given the feedback, you know those little finger things they put on you, the doctors or the hospital that shows you your pulse?

Alyssa Scolari [09:58]:

The pulse ox.

Leanne Hershkowitz [09:59]:

How fast your heart is beating. Yeah. You can do it with your oxygen saturation as well. You could actually do it with your physical body temperature in a specific location, too. These are all methods of biofeedback. One of them is heart rate variability, which teaches you to regulate your heart rate and breath. But meditation, all of that is around the heart and the breath. And if you get the feedback, okay, my heart's beating a 150 beats per minute, bah, bah, bah, bah, bah, bah, bah, bah. If you sit there and take slow, deep breaths, your heart rate will decrease and you can control your body.

Leanne Hershkowitz [10:35]:

The important piece to that is heart rate is technically an unconscious function. If you stop thinking about your heart, it still beats all on its own. That's the difference between the brain and the mind. The brain controls things without our conscious awareness and will continue to do things, but the mind is our conscious thinking and therapy really targets the mind. But truthfully, most of what we deal with, especially in trauma is controlled by the brain, the unconscious parts that we don't have access through through talk. Just like you can learn to use the feedback of seeing it on the screen. Okay, my heart rate's a 150, I want to make it 90.

Leanne Hershkowitz [11:18]:

The same we can do for your brain. We put sensors in specific places to target specific brain parts, and that piece gets very complicated. But then we put feedback on the screen and your job is to change the screen, change your feedback. You can think of it like graph bars. You want to make them smaller or bigger depending on what we're trying to do. And that's actually you changing your own brain. Now it's not as a conscious process to do that. You actually just sit and relax and let your brain kind of do the work because it wants the reward. It uses learning principles that way. And then your brain, which is ever seeking kind of a positive state, will try to figure out how do I get the reward? And it will make the internal changes to get there. It does always help to relax and take deep breaths because generally that's what we're trying to encourage. But yeah, hopefully that's a good start to explaining it.

Alyssa Scolari [12:13]:

Yeah. It's like, I can't remember if this was something that you had said or if this was something that I had read in Sebern's book, but it's like, there are limitations.

Leanne Hershkowitz [12:23]:

Of course.

Alyssa Scolari [12:24]:

I think we would be remiss if we didn't acknowledge the limitations of psychotherapy, modern psychotherapy. There's so many limitations on it. Just one of them being...

Leanne Hershkowitz [12:34]:

Outcomes haven't changed in 40 years. We've done thousands of hours of research and our outcomes are no better than they were 40 years ago.

Alyssa Scolari [12:44]:

Right. There's no real progression in the fields. It kind of just is what it is and we've stalled in terms of psychotherapy. And while it can certainly be helpful.

Leanne Hershkowitz [12:57]:

It gets stuck.

Alyssa Scolari [12:58]:

It does definitely some people need to be in therapy for the rest of their lives. It can be expensive. It can be time consuming, it can also be retraumatizing. And it's so much work on, like you said earlier, the therapist, because a lot of what, especially when you're dealing with developmental trauma, the brain is formed in a way where you grow up not really learning how to regulate your nervous system. The job of the therapist is to co-regulate and help you, help you regulate. But when we're seeing 25 people a week roundabout, it's well, what happens to our nervous system as therapists?

Leanne Hershkowitz [13:43]:

Right. And you're not in the developmental stage where co-regulation makes as much of an impact. I think it does still make an impact, but co-regulation is the developmental task of toddlers. You are no longer a toddler. One, your system is much larger and has much more complex problems so me regulating a toddler does not tax my nervous system in any way that it does. And I know this, I do it with my niece all the time. It doesn't tax my nervous system in any way that co-regulating a full grown adult does. And it's not as effective because you're not in a developmental stage. You're a full grown adult. Your brain is using it in the moment.

Leanne Hershkowitz [14:25]:

I don't think it really absorbs it in a sense that it helps you change your brain. Maybe over thousands and thousands of experiences, sure. But I don't want to say it's futile. I don't think it totally is, but its ability to create an opening for the brain and the attachment and regulation system to change with talk therapy alone is quite long winded. But what I love about neurofeedback is how it pairs with talk therapy because I can get a lot more done in talk therapy when neurofeedback is the regulating agent and I'm just the helper. And I love that pairing.

Alyssa Scolari [15:06]:

Yes, because it makes it so much easier on your nervous system as the therapist. But it also provides personally, it provided quicker relief than what I was getting in therapy, years of therapy. But then after one neurofeedback session, I could feel a change.

Leanne Hershkowitz [15:33]:

When you came to my house that first time.

Alyssa Scolari [15:35]:

When I came to your house, that first time, which was the best decision that I ever made. I think neurofeedback itself because of what it looks like, the sensors on the brain, people have concerns about it. People, it kind of looks a little bit scary. For whatever reason, the therapist I had at the time was just like, "Don't do that." Obviously I'm no longer with that therapist. And as a disclaimer, if any therapist tells you not to do something, get up, walk out of their office or shut the computer and don't ever look back because therapists don't tell you what to do, but that's for another day. For whatever reason, that therapist was like, "Don't do it." And I was like, but something in my gut was like, I really want to do it so I went and I did it. And so the first experience I had, I think what did I do? Six minutes?

Leanne Hershkowitz [16:28]:

Yep. I think that's all we did. It could have even been three.

Alyssa Scolari [16:30]:

Right, so six minutes. You might've started me at three because you want to start small because you don't know, everybody reacts differently. And I came home. One of my triggers is car accidents. I have had a lot of traumatic car accidents in my life, have lost a lot of people, been in bad car accidents. And typically any time that I even come close, if a car gets too close to me, I go into a full blown panic attack. And I remember I was driving home. I was on the highway and somebody almost drove me off the road and I was appropriately alarmed, but I didn't go into this place of, I have to pull over, I'm shaking. I can't feel my limbs. My heart is racing. I am sobbing. None of that happened. And that was the first time that ever happened to me. And that was three, maybe six minutes of neurofeedback after years.

Leanne Hershkowitz [17:37]:

In a very particular place.

Alyssa Scolari [17:40]:

Yes. In a very particular place. Right. That's just an example of what neurofeedback can do. Now can you kind of talk a little bit, and I don't know if this would be too complex, but about the different spots on the brain?

Leanne Hershkowitz [17:57]:

Sure. Where we put sensors and how we pick training stuff is very, very complicated and we all have different approaches, different ways. And what I did that worked really well for you, somebody else could have done something slightly different, it could have worked very well too. In a lot of ways, almost anything we do in neurofeedback tends to work, but the places we choose on the head have to do with what networks and what brain parts we're trying to affect. And what we know about trauma is it's the base of the brain. It's the limbic system and the sensory systems and actually our brainstem systems as well, that are so heavily affected.

Leanne Hershkowitz [18:41]:

Dr. Ruth Lanius has kind of pioneering a lot of the research. She's studying it under the heading of PTSD, but that includes chronic PTSD and truthfully developmental trauma. Her research is great to look into, to learn more about those brain parts. And so where we put the sensors depends what we're trying to affect. And one of the things that Sebern Fisher, she didn't create it, but she has really pioneered it, is inion ridge training. Now that's I-N-I-O-N not Indian. I'm not being racist. It's inion, promise.

Alyssa Scolari [19:14]:

That's what I said the first time. I was like, "Oh, the Indian Ridge." And you were like, "No, no, no. Don't say that."

Leanne Hershkowitz [19:22]:

No. I make the statement every time I say it now, because if you don't see it in writing, it does sound like I'm saying Indian.

Alyssa Scolari [19:30]:

It does.

Leanne Hershkowitz [19:31]:

But not enunciating. It's inion. And it is for the inion ridge on the back of your head, which is a biomarker. It's part of your skull. If you are to imagine holding a baby's head, that is where your hand is and that is no accident. That regulating piece of the mother's hand on the back of a baby's head is extremely important for development. And it is symbolically and actually, but that is also where your cerebellum is. You can also through neurofeedback, kind of get towards the periaqueductal gray and the superior colliculus, which are all involved in your fear systems and connected to your sensory input systems. When something sets you off, like somebody swerves into your lane, what we now know is your sensory systems immediately lock into your fear systems. It bypasses all the other normal systems and goes right, we have a crisis. But if we can get those systems to calm down and be more regulated, you can have a more normal top of the brain.

Leanne Hershkowitz [20:39]:

Your top part of the brain is your thinking and logic for the most part. You can have a more normal response because the bottom part of your brain hasn't hijacked the system. And that's why Sebern's book is called The Fear-Driven Brain because that system is designed, rightfully so, that when it thinks there's threat to life or limb or psychological threat, we now understand, it hijacks your entire brain and it drives the show. But it also destroys your body in the process because all of the systems that take over during fight or flight are very taxing on our bodies and our brains, our immune system, everything. Our digestion, particularly as well. When it hijacks and it stays that way, which is chronic PTSD, you have fallout in almost every major system in your body.

Leanne Hershkowitz [21:29]:

To calm that, which is inion ridge training, can have a very fast and very profound effect. And it is one of my favorite training spots to do, but we also train things like the temporal lobes, which are kind of mood related. We chain, I'm pointing at the temporal lobes like you know what? You can see me. It's above your ears. Also, top of the head, front of the brain. We train all over the place depending on what we're trying to do. But for those of us who do work a lot with developmental trauma, chronic PTSD, we're really focused heavily on that foundation, the fear system and the limbic, our reptilian brain, as it's called sometimes.

Alyssa Scolari [22:12]:

When somebody starts neurofeedback, is it something like therapy that they have to do for the rest of their lives? Or is there an end to it? Or does it differ from person to person?

Leanne Hershkowitz [22:32]:

It definitely differs from person to person. We are still gaining the tools in neurofeedback to fully understand what we're even doing in the brain, because neurofeedback is putting sensors on the skull, on your head. We're not inside your brain. It's like putting a microphone on the roof of a church and figuring out what's happening inside the church from the roof or the side doors or the windows. You get what I'm saying. Now with fMRIs and diffuser tensor images, we're starting to get a picture of the inside of the brain before and after neurofeedback.

Leanne Hershkowitz [23:10]:

Dr. Ruth Lanius does a study on alpha down training, which I get into more on my Instagram. And she was able to do before and after. And what she found out was that training actually affects an entire neural network that we've never known it did. We only know what symptoms it changes. We know when we train at inion ridge that we get vagal nerve function improvements, we get emotional regulation, we get lower fear responses. We do sometimes get grief, but controlled grief responses. We know what it usually affects those spots and what brain parts we think we're affecting. But until more fMRI research is done, we don't actually know what we're affecting. Now I'm trying to remember your question. God, I was going round about to it and then I forgot it.

Alyssa Scolari [24:01]:

It's fine. I was asking, is there a endpoint to it.

Leanne Hershkowitz [24:05]:

Oh longterm. Yes.

Leanne Hershkowitz [24:07]:

Yeah, yeah. Is this something that people have to do for the rest of their lives?

Leanne Hershkowitz [24:11]:

Right now people do tend to probably do more than they will 10 years from now, because in 10 years we will know so much more about what we're doing that we're going to tailor what we do very individualized medicine that it's going to work better and faster. And we're on that road already. Right now though, it usually takes people, like you ended up getting lucky that the first neurofeedback person you met was one who happens to do the specialty for what you were struggling in. But other people don't. Sometimes they go to a practitioner who does lots of just ADHD and regular anxiety, regular depression. Not that those can't have challenges too, but it's a very different brain. And they'll have an experience where it can actually make them worse, not better because the person doesn't understand the traumatized brain.

Leanne Hershkowitz [24:57]:

And so sometimes it takes people two or three tries, practitioners to get the right approach. And then there are complex conditions that neurofeedback can affect. There are things more complicated. In a general sense, it's typically if you're doing kind of run of the mill normal neurofeedback training for developmental trauma, complex PTSD, you're looking at probably a year to two years of really solid training to get to a very good place and that's more cost effective with home use than in the office. I'm working with Dr. Rob Coben to do, what's called multivariate coherence training, which takes a brain map so there's more upfront cost, but it works in 12 to 18 sessions and you might need two or three brain maps and rounds, but that's about, you do it twice a week so that's less than a year profound changes.

Alyssa Scolari [25:57]:

Yes. I have a client right now who she did the brain map, which is quite literally what it sounds like. It's the map of your brain that tells them exactly kind of what work needs to be done and what parts of the brain. And she has been doing it for less than a year, twice a week. And she, in terms of her nervous system, I see zero anxiety. Zero anxiety. Got out of an abusive relationship.

Leanne Hershkowitz [26:31]:

Awesome.

Alyssa Scolari [26:33]:

Just life changing. Really what you're saying is it absolutely depends. Depends on the clinician.

Leanne Hershkowitz [26:38]:

It does.

Alyssa Scolari [26:39]:

Depends on the person, depends on everything.

Leanne Hershkowitz [26:42]:

Depends on the complexity of the issue. It also depends on comorbidities with physiological issues. I've been battling toxic mold exposure and a tick parasite and that has really complicated things. Heavy metal exposure, different things in your environment, diet, all that stuff can also slow down the progression because your immune system is active in your brain. The old thinking that your immune system does not go into your brain, it's not true. New research indicates your immune system goes in your brain. What's happening in your body deeply affects the ability for your brain to regulate and heal itself.

Alyssa Scolari [27:22]:

Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. And the more that I've learned about neurofeedback and all the ways it has helped me and it truly has helped me from my sinus symptoms, to being able to get off all of the medication that I was on, to just all of the flashbacks, it has helped so much. The one thing I always wonder and I think I have some of my own theories about this, but why is this not a more, and I think we might've discussed, we might have the same exact theory because we might've talked about this before, but why in the hell isn't this blasted everywhere?

Leanne Hershkowitz [28:14]:

Well, the conspiracy theory is is because pharmaceutical companies run our industry and this makes them no money. But somebody is going to come for my head for saying that one out loud, but I'm going to say it anyway, because it needs to be said. And I'm not important enough for anybody to come for me.

Alyssa Scolari [28:33]:

Go ahead.

Leanne Hershkowitz [28:34]:

I think that's the easy answer. It's not the full answer. We also don't have the technology to prove what we're doing, which makes people a little scared of it.

Alyssa Scolari [28:44]:

Right. Because a lot of it is mostly theoretical right now.

Leanne Hershkowitz [28:47]:

Yeah. We have EEG, which is reading the brainwaves, reading the electrical activity from the top of the church, the top of the head or all over the head, but we can't go cutting people's brains open. And the double blind kind of gold standard is very expensive so our research studies tend to miss the mark. We are getting there like Dr. Ruth Lanius has a lab in Canada, which is funded so they're able to do double blind control studies, but that's very rare in neurofeedback research because my software company, the EEG Store is very small. They don't have research money. In fact, they don't even have any funders. They just have clinicians buy their stuff. That's how they get money. Who's going to fund a double blind research study of a 1,000 participants? Nobody. The field doesn't have that kind of money and we don't have the backers get that support.

Leanne Hershkowitz [29:43]:

Insurance companies, it's a crapshoot whether they'll reimburse for it. Certainly very rarely covered in network if ever. Out of network's a crapshoot. I think these obstacles to getting kind of official recognition, make it harder to get it out to people. And then implementing it requires clinicians to go from psychology, like me, to applied neuroscience and a lot of applied neuroscience. And that's a big jump and a lot of clinicians are not excited to do it. And there's no manualized approach. I shouldn't say that. There are some, this is personalized medicine. It shouldn't be manualized. It needs to go through a human brain, not so much a computer system.

Alyssa Scolari [30:29]:

Right, right. It can't be manualized.

Leanne Hershkowitz [30:32]:

There's too much to take in. A computer just can't do the work that a human can do.

Alyssa Scolari [30:38]:

Exactly.

Leanne Hershkowitz [30:39]:

That is the list of problems. And I could probably come up with some more that makes this not more widely available. It's also expensive. The equipment's not cheap.

Alyssa Scolari [30:49]:

Right, right. I was going to say, that's the other thing is it can be rather expensive. But I always look at it as like, when you look at what you could potentially be saving in therapy costs. Especially if you see an out of network provider, then it's kind of a big upfront cost. But at the end of the day is saving you tons of money in what could potentially be decades.

Leanne Hershkowitz [31:11]:

I ran the numbers.

Alyssa Scolari [31:13]:

Ah, you have. Okay. Yeah, I'm sure. I'm sure it saves so much money.

Leanne Hershkowitz [31:21]:

And I just ran the numbers for in home use versus in the clinic, in the office use and that's a huge savings. Over one year, it's mild savings. Over two, three years, depending on how you end up using it, it's huge savings. And then if you're not having to go see a therapist more than once in a while, that's another huge savings on top of it. Plus medication that you're saving on, potentially other medical bills, all that stuff.

Alyssa Scolari [31:47]:

Right. Because for me, as I started to do neurofeedback, I was able to come off all of the medications, the psychotropic medications that I was on because my brain started to finally fall into place. And so I haven't needed the medication anymore. And I just want to clarify, when you say at home use, what you mean is it's a possibility for people to find a clinician who will authorize them purchasing the equipment and will see them throughout it. This is not something people can go out and just buy on their own.

Leanne Hershkowitz [32:32]:

With the system I use, that's correct. There are systems you can buy yourself and try to DIY it. If you have trauma, I strongly don't recommend that. It will most likely not go very well. But yes, you do for in home use with trauma, you want to be whatever system I use EEGer, but that doesn't have to be, there are other systems too. You want to work with a provider who has spent their career understanding the effects of trauma on the brain, because the ways it goes haywire are going to be worse than what you're already dealing with. Yes, definitely. It's not a DIY at home. It's a clinician who sets you up and checks in with you and make sure everything's going well and make changes. You just do the actual, put the sensors on and stuff at your own home. And you can do it two to three times a week in your own home rather than having to come into the office and pay for my time two to three times a week.

Alyssa Scolari [33:29]:

Right. Now, so for the listeners, if somebody is listening at home and they're like, okay, this sounds amazing. I really want to do this. What's the first step that they take? Do they just kind of Google neurofeedback clinician near me? Is that what they would do?

Leanne Hershkowitz [33:46]:

That's the biggest gap. It's one of the big gaps in our field right now, especially in trauma is we don't have a Listserv of trauma clinicians, trauma informed clinicians, which I'm actually starting to work on a Google form that everybody I know, and we can pass it on, can add their information in so that, that can be available. Right now, it's a lot of word of mouth. If you're in New Jersey, you can certainly contact me. The hard part is in the US we can't practice in states we're not licensed in, not for trauma so that makes things extra complicated.

Leanne Hershkowitz [34:21]:

You can go on bcia.org. And that's a listing of board certified neurofeedback providers. And you can ask them about their experience with trauma. Are they aware of Sebern Fisher and try to gauge their responses. As a trauma informed clinician, if somebody says, "Oh, I don't believe in her approach. And that stuff is bunk." I'd go somewhere else, they should at least have an acknowledgement and understanding that she knows her stuff. I've only run into that once, but you never know. That EEGer had a clinician listing as well. But over the pandemic, they're trying to revamp a bunch of stuff so that's not up and running right now. I will be honest that that is one of the biggest challenges.

Alyssa Scolari [35:10]:

That's one of the hurdles.

Leanne Hershkowitz [35:13]:

We're not an organized field.

Alyssa Scolari [35:16]:

Well, it's still so new. It's still so new. I can't wait to get started.

Leanne Hershkowitz [35:21]:

It's been around for 30 years.

Alyssa Scolari [35:24]:

Yeah. But you know what? How long has psychotherapy been around? It's been 40 years since we've made any kind of progress in psychotherapy.

Leanne Hershkowitz [35:33]:

Well psychotherapy has been around since Freud. I don't know, did it come before Freud? How long ago was that?

Alyssa Scolari [35:39]:

I don't know.

Leanne Hershkowitz [35:43]:

But 30 is still relatively new in this world, but I truly think it's that our generations, us, oh, I hate to say I'm a millennial because I really am at the very cusp of that. But we're comfortable with technology. It's not weird to stick things on our heads. We've been poked and prodded and tested and we stick phones and all sorts of devices on ourselves all the time.

Alyssa Scolari [36:04]:

Yeah, we're cool with that.

Leanne Hershkowitz [36:04]:

Why not fix our brains that way? I think that it's not hijacking your medical treatment. There's a term for biomedical devices that we're all comfortable with now. I think it's biohacking ourselves is what it's called. And millennials and younger are very much more comfortable with that than other generations.

Alyssa Scolari [36:25]:

Yeah. Yeah. We're more comfortable with technology. One of the things that you also do is you create a lot of free videos for people to be able to go and learn more about neurofeedback. If people want to find some of the stuff that you do, where can they find you at?

Leanne Hershkowitz [36:44]:

I'm @theneurofeedbackgal. You can also put my name into Instagram and both my personal and my professional will pop up. I can only accept you on my professional. My personal is only for people who have met me IRL, but you can put my name in or you can put @theneurofeedbackgal.

Alyssa Scolari [37:06]:

Awesome. And I will link the Instagram handle in the show notes. For those of you who are interested, you really should go and give Leanne a follow on her Instagram because the videos that she does are really incredible and they're very, very helpful. Thank you for sharing what I consider to be one of the biggest secrets to healing developmental trauma that people don't talk about. Yeah, thank you for sharing that.

Leanne Hershkowitz [37:35]:

I 100% agree. Yeah, you're welcome. Thank you for having me. I will talk about neurofeedback forever and ever to anybody who will listen because not enough people know and many people need it.

Alyssa Scolari [37:46]:

I know I love your passion for it.

Alyssa Scolari [37:50]:

Thanks for listening, everyone. For more information, please head over to lightaftertrauma.com or you can also follow us on social media. On Instagram we are @lightaftertrauma and on Twitter it is @lightafterpod. And if you're on Facebook, please be sure to join our Facebook group. It is a private community where trauma survivors are able to connect and chat with one another. That Facebook group is called Light After Trauma so just look us up on Facebook and be sure to join. Lastly, please head over to at patreon.com/lightaftertrauma to support our show. We are asking for $5 a month, which is the equivalent to a cup of coffee at Starbucks. Please head on over. Again, that's patreon.com/lightaftertrauma. Thank you and we appreciate your support.

Speaker 3 [38:41]:

[singing].

Tune in to this week's episode with the host of The Revelation Project podcast, Monica Rodgers. Monica talks about the dangers of staying in your comfort zone as well as the benefits you reap when choosing to step outside of it!

Learn More About Monica Rodgers

Check out the Light After Trauma website for transcripts, other episodes, Alyssa's guest appearances, and more at: www.lightaftertrauma.com

Want to get more great content and interact with the show? Check us out on Instagram: @lightaftertrauma

We need your help! We want to continue to make great content that can help countless trauma warriors on their journey to recovery. So, please help us in supporting the podcast by becoming a recurring patron of the show via Patreon. Every bit helps!

Transcript:

Alyssa Scolari [00:23]:

Hi, everybody. Welcome back. I am your host, Alyssa Scolari, and this is another episode of the Light After Trauma podcast. Just a few housekeeping things before we get into today's episode. Number one, I just wanted to thank you all for your support and let you know that the Light After Trauma podcast has been named on Feedspot's top 30 trauma podcasts that you must listen to in 2021. I am really excited about that. Again, so grateful because none of this would be possible without all of your support.

Alyssa Scolari [01:02]:

That's really exciting. If you want to see the entire post and you want to see all of the other podcasts that got named as the top 30, go check it out. It is on any of my social media links. I will also link it in the show notes for this episode, and it's in the show notes in the previous episode. Again, go to my Instagram, which is Light After Trauma. You can go to my Twitter account. You can go to my website, wherever, and you will find it.

Alyssa Scolari [01:32]:

And on that note, I also just want to say, in case you haven't done so yet, please be sure to go check out the lightaftertrauma.com, our brand new website, which is designed solely for the Light After Trauma brand. It is a really beautiful. I'm really proud of it. David and I worked so hard on it. There's lots of different things on there, not just the podcast episodes. It's all of the blog posts. It's where you can submit to be on the show.

Alyssa Scolari [02:01]:

It's where you can write in for the Survived and Thrived stories part of the podcast, which we'll be launching on May 14th. Really excited about that. A lot of you have sent in some of your stories and things that you want shared. I'm excited to start recording and for you all to hear. I believe that is a wrap. Oh, and the last thing is I want to ask, there is also a spot on the website for you to support the podcast. Obviously launching the Light After Trauma brand has taken a lot of time and it's a lot of effort and very expensive to be able to provide quality content every week.

Alyssa Scolari [02:44]:

So we just ask that you go to the lightaftertrauma.com and click on the support button and give what you can to be able to support the podcast. Even if it's as much as what you would pay for a cup of coffee at Starbucks, that would be great. Any little bit would really help. With that being said, today we have Monica Rodgers with us. Monica is the founder of The Revelation Project. She is bringing an infectious warmth and playful levity wherever she goes. I am so excited for this.

Alyssa Scolari [03:22]:

Monica is a tireless advocate for the full actualization of women, inspiring women everywhere that saying yes to the mess is the missing link to self-love and personal awakening. Through her podcast and group coaching programs, Monica guides women through their inner revolution from trance to transcendence, revealing the toxic myths of social conditioning and self-doubt in order to aluminate the magic and magnificence of our imperfect selves.

Alyssa Scolari [03:51]:

She believes that women can take action towards realizing our true potential only when we stop proving and striving to be who everyone wants us to be. Amen. When we reveal the truth of who we are, we've return to our original design. And with the practice of self-love and compassion, we become aligned, opening the portal into our divine purpose where true prosperity dwells. There has never been a more important time for women to reveal the truth of who we are as a catalyst for positive change in the world as the divine feminine returns. Hello, Monica.

Monica Rodgers [04:31]:

Hi. I'm so glad to be with you. How are you?

Alyssa Scolari [04:33]:

So glad to be with you. So happy that you're here. I'm not even going to pretend like this is the very first conversation we're having, because to the listeners, we just spent probably 10 minutes. I was geeking out about Monica's podcast, The Revelation Project, the episode that came out today, today is April 14th, with Kelsy Abbott, and I believe it's title Sparkly AF, which is the best title for it.

Alyssa Scolari [05:01]:

You need to go listen to this episode because Monica and I were absolutely geeking out over this idea of the human design and the Jovian Archive. Please go look it up. If you want to learn about yourself, that's all I can really say is don't knock it until you look it up. And I will probably be up until midnight tonight learning more about myself.

Monica Rodgers [05:27]:

I know. And I remember in the episode, Kelsy was like, "Welcome to the rabbit hole," right? I think people who have like that inquiring mind or like yes, right? Because I love how it mixes just all of these... Like the I Ching and the astrology. And just the second you kind of put in your birth date, where you were born, and the time, it spits out kind of what you are. And everybody has a unique profile, but you have it right there at your fingertips. It's really cool.

Alyssa Scolari [05:57]:

Yes. Yes. Before we started recording, I was on jovianarchive.com looking at my human design chart. I'm a projector. So everybody out there, please go find out what you are. Let me know. I need to know, because this is now going to be my next obsession. But anyway, welcome to the podcast. So happy to have you here. Love the work that you do.

Monica Rodgers [06:25]:

Thank you.

Alyssa Scolari [06:25]:

Love the podcast. I listened to a couple of episodes, and I think a lot of your niche is very, very important. You are very passionate about one of my favorite topics, which is like the comfort zone and getting familiar and settled and accepting the mess. I guess my first question for you would be, how did you get to be in this field doing the work that you do?

Monica Rodgers [06:58]:

Yeah. Oh gosh, it's such a great question because I am a lover of this subject matter because, of course, I was a perfectionist like so many women, and I'm still recovering because of the practice. But so many of us women have learned to hold it all together and sometimes at the expense of our own well-being, oftentimes at the expense of our own well-being. And in fact, I think we're going through a major shift in the world.

Monica Rodgers [07:29]:

I think in a lot of ways, the more we keep holding it together as women, we're not doing ourselves any favors and we're not doing the world any favors. Because when we really get present to what we're holding together, it's an old paradigm. It's an old structure. And if you go deep enough, you'll see that what you're holding together is the patriarchy.

Alyssa Scolari [07:53]:

Yes. Yes. Down with the patriarchy is probably one of the...

Monica Rodgers [08:00]:

Enough's enough.

Alyssa Scolari [08:02]:

Yes. It's one of the biggest themes of my life, I think. And as a sexual abuse survivor, I can see how the patriarchy had a major, major effect on my life, my recovery, the fact that the sexual abuse even happened in the first place. So yeah, I completely understand. And then the idea of perfectionism, which is that is the comfort zone, right, is having everything all neat and perfect and always striving to be the best of the best.

Monica Rodgers [08:43]:

Yeah, the irony too. I was just going to say the irony to that is that perfectionism... If we were to really kind of get present to what it feels like, it feels awful. It's like hell on earth actually. I think it's hysterical that we think hell is somewhere else.

Alyssa Scolari [09:11]:

That's a powerful statement, and it took me back for a minute because it's entirely accurate. It's entirely accurate. We're we're living in it.

Monica Rodgers [09:21]:

We're living in it. But the beauty of allowing it to fall apart is that we've been taught to avoid the mess. If we were to even look at how we've been trained as women, how we've been socialized as women, we've been taught to avoid the mess at all costs. We literally either run... I don't know about you guys, but I even hire a cleaning lady. I clean the house before I have her come.

Alyssa Scolari [09:47]:

Oh, you clean for the cleaning lady?

Monica Rodgers [09:49]:

Oh, you do that? Like who does that? Everybody.

Alyssa Scolari [09:54]:

Right. Every woman on the planet... Not every woman. Okay? I will not generalize.

Monica Rodgers [10:01]:

We won't generalize, but we'll say we can relate to this.

Alyssa Scolari [10:05]:

And that's the environment in which I grew up. I remember being little and being like, "Mom, why the hell are you cleaning for the cleaning lady? Why?" In your opinion, and from your perspective, why do we do that?

Monica Rodgers [10:24]:

Because we're taught to be ashamed. We're taught to be ashamed. I want to bring this closer to home. Okay? Because we're carrying shame, first of all, that's not ours to carry. So that's the first thing I want to say. The second thing I want to say is that when you look at all of the things we've been taught to be ashamed of, they're all messy things. What do I mean by that? What do I mean? What I mean is that your emotions. You've been taught not to go there. They're not trustworthy. Go to your room until you can act right.

Monica Rodgers [10:54]:

Your emotions are messy. Everybody's uncomfortable when I get emotional. And so therefore, it's messy and I have to hide my emotions. I have to suppress my emotions. I have to shove them away. I have to pretend they're not here. So we don't feel our emotions. What we do is we bottle them up or we disembody to be able to survive the fact that we're so uncomfortable. Because our body has become uninhabitable because it's so uncomfortable and we're not allowed to be there, right?

Monica Rodgers [11:24]:

So we escape up into our heads, or we disembody and go somewhere else. We all know how to do this magic trick.

Alyssa Scolari [11:33]:

Yes, dissociation, the disconnecting from the self.

Monica Rodgers [11:38]:

Yes. And I'm sure being a sexual abuse survivor that you became an expert at it.

Alyssa Scolari [11:51]:

Oh yeah. I could literally see as if I was... When I first started to, I repressed a lot of my memories. And when I first started to have flashbacks of the abuse, I saw it as if I was somebody on the ceiling looking down, like I was watching it. And that I think a lot of people can relate to. I know a lot of people can relate to is dissociation, disconnection. I left my body and then left my body for many, many, many years after that and was also taught to, right? Like you said, if you're too emotional, if you can't compose yourself, if you can't be presentable.

Monica Rodgers [12:38]:

Even if you're going to share your trauma, don't do that here, right? Nobody can handle it. Nobody can hold it. Right? So we're taught to isolate. We're taught to disembody. And unfortunately, for some of us that means a crack or a break in the psyche. It leads to mental illness, right? So if we were to actually start to understand the origins of mental illness, it's when you're not allowed to feel what you feel or know what you know. That's what the definition of trauma is, right?

Alyssa Scolari [13:05]:

Absolutely.

Monica Rodgers [13:07]:

When we think about the other places we've been taught not to go, our intuition, right? Women, we're built to intuit the world. If you looked at our neural network, if you looked at our ability, how many women are gifted, but they're taught to hide it and their six senses, right? They know. They just know, right? Like can get downloads. They can feel something before it happens. They know something's not safe. They can feel the energy in the room, right? And then suddenly you're woo-woo. That's messy, right? Those intuitive gifts are messy. Don't go there, right?

Alyssa Scolari [13:40]:

Yes.

Monica Rodgers [13:42]:

Sexuality, same thing. Oh, good girls don't do that. That's dirty. That shameful. That's messy.

Alyssa Scolari [13:49]:

I could talk for a year on how horrific it is that we shame women for being sexual beings.

Monica Rodgers [13:59]:

Oh, God. I mean, it's just... But here's the beauty of this, is once we start recognizing all of the places that we've been taught not to go, even our creativity, "Don't go there. Let's get rid of it in schools. No art programs. That's all eh, whatever that is. It's messy. It's creative. It's chaotic. It doesn't matter." When we think about where we've been taught not to go or what's been taken away or what we've been shamed for, it's because those are our power centers. Those are the portals back to our power.

Monica Rodgers [14:30]:

What else I want to say about the mess is this, everything in life is a paradox, is a polarization. You cannot have the light without the dark. You cannot have the moon without the sun. You cannot have the day without the night, right? We know this, that everything is a gendered pair. Now, when I say this, I'm not talking about boys and girls. I'm talking, we know this, about energy. But in order to create something new, those energies need to integrate. That masculine and feminine energy needs to integrate.

Monica Rodgers [15:11]:

Same that happens within ourselves. Okay? We need to integrate our feminine and our masculine. We need to understand that our human side is our messy side. But if we don't embrace that humanity, we're never going to embrace our divinity. The beauty of living in the hell is that heaven is on the other side of that. And if you actually go towards the mess, what you're really moving towards once you kind of cross that chasm is that integration and that's where freedom lives. That's where at the lotus starts to bloom, right?

Monica Rodgers [15:46]:

No mud, no lotus. That's where life, right? I used to think before I had my own smack down by the universe, I wasn't getting the memo. I wasn't picking up on the...

Alyssa Scolari [16:01]:

And the universe has its way of being like, "Oh, you're not going to listen to me? All right. It's on."

Monica Rodgers [16:08]:

Right. You have a contract here actually to wake the hell up, and so we're going to get a little stronger, right?

Alyssa Scolari [16:15]:

We're going to smack the shit out of you until you wake up.

Monica Rodgers [16:17]:

And then Monica still didn't wake up, right? They just sent Kali to do her thing. And boy, did she do her job. I could give like a performance review on that woman and just be like, "Wow! Five stars, Kali. Thank you." She was thorough. She left my children. She left me my children. Thank, goddess. I had to lose it all. I come out here as not a prophet of doom, but I say you can actually start doing this work so that you don't have to have your whole life upended, right?

Alyssa Scolari [17:00]:

Because the comfort zone I think is very numbing, right?

Monica Rodgers [17:04]:

It's killing us actually. The comfort zone is killing us.

Alyssa Scolari [17:09]:

Literally killing us in the form of like taking mental illness. Is that what you're referring to?

Monica Rodgers [17:16]:

No.

Alyssa Scolari [17:17]:

Taking on mental illness?

Monica Rodgers [17:18]:

No. Well, I think the comfort zone is killing us. It's like killing us quietly, right? Killing us softly. It's this idea of like the Groundhog Day. It's like living every day of your life in that safe comfort zone. I'm always like, okay, let me trade my soul for a paycheck and a 401[k] plan, right? It's like, what if you could have both? What if you could have a fully invigorated spirit and soul and do something that you love and get paid for it?

Monica Rodgers [17:49]:

We've been taught to believe that we have to somehow give up on our dreams in order to be practical, right? Because dreaming is messy too. Desires are messy, right?

Alyssa Scolari [18:05]:

Yes, because we are all taught to be especially... And I was just having this conversation with a patient the other day. We're all taught on a timeline as well, right? You need to go to school. You need to graduate by the time you're 18. And then by the time you're 18, you're supposed to know exactly what you want to do, and you're supposed to be going to a college. You graduate in four years, and then you either work your way up the corporate ladder or you go to grad school.

Monica Rodgers [18:31]:

And what about that biological clock? I mean, that's ticking, right?

Alyssa Scolari [18:34]:

Right. When are you going to have kids? When are you going to pop babies out?

Monica Rodgers [18:37]:

And then what if you turn 50? I mean, you're over the hill now. Life's over. You might as well pack it up, right?

Alyssa Scolari [18:42]:

You're done. Dig your grave.

Monica Rodgers [18:44]:

It's so cynical. But yet, this is what I call the trance of unworthiness. This is the trance. We're living in a trance that has lulled us to sleep to our own desires, to our own creativity, to our own sensuality. And what we want to do is really start to activate that. We want to disrupt that. How can we disrupt it? How can we go from listening to this, where we're like, "Maybe there's something here. I'm feeling something." How do we know when we're dissatisfied?

Monica Rodgers [19:21]:

Well, it's really starting to tune back in to what is your body telling you, because our body holds the wisdom. We've also just learned to kind of cut the check engine light. Like I was talking about, missing the memos, it's because I was so numbed out, and I was so living in the comfort zone. What does it look like to get out of the comfort zone? Because what I'm not asking you to do is like, I don't know, maybe you're listening and you've been in a loveless marriage for 15 years, right?

Monica Rodgers [19:54]:

I'm not going to say like, "Okay, get a divorce tomorrow," but what I am going to say is let's start looking for something that you want to do to nurture yourself to grow and that you deserve to grow. You have the right to grow. That's literally your human birthright. We're here to grow. We're here to evolve. If you've gotten super comfortable, but yet there's an art program going on at the local university and your heart really wants to do it, but you're kind of scited about it, scared and excited, then I say go there, right?

Alyssa Scolari [20:29]:

Scited about it. I love it. That's a great word.

Monica Rodgers [20:34]:

You're an entrepreneur and you've been kind of dead in your work, but there's this woman's group and you're going to learn how she's doing a sensuality embodiment workshop or something and it's actually going to impact work life, and you're like, "Yes. No. Yes. No," right? It's that kind of double yes... It's like you're a yes, but then you talk yourself out of it. Go them way. Start to go that way. Because what we want to start finding is a growing edge. What we want to do... I call the edge of the comfort zone is the revelation.

Monica Rodgers [21:09]:

That's where we have our insights. That's where revelation starts to visit us. That's where wisdom starts to, "Oh, I'm meant to do this actually. My unique brilliance is here. That's why I'm attracted to it. That's why my body knew to go." You start learning about yourself, right? You start seeing where the universe has been leading you, and you've been like numbing out to it. The universe has been like, "The pot of gold is over here," and you're like, "Nah, I'd rather have the Netflix and the bottle of wine every night."

Alyssa Scolari [21:48]:

Yes. That is so much about what I think a common theme for so many people that come to see me in therapy. That is what it is about is how can we break you out of this cycle that is the comfort zone. Because yes, on the other side can be grief and pain, but joy can't exist without grief and pain, right? One can't exist without the other. When you finally start living true to yourself and not on the timeline that the world has you on, that's the revelation, right?

Monica Rodgers [22:32]:

Yeah, and that's when the universe really starts to reveal to you, right? We don't have to know. For those of you listening here today, you don't have to know right now. All you have to know is that this conversation is stirring something inside of you. And then you can say to yourself, "Okay, more to be revealed." You don't know today, but to allow yourself to feel that desire is what is going to start informing your body to pick up on the cues that are like breadcrumbs to lead you to reveal that next thing, and that next thing.

Monica Rodgers [23:06]:

What we're daring to do here today is to kind of poke you awake. It's to say like, "Come on. You've got this." Your body knows. Your body was designed for this kind of intelligence, and we've just learned to cut it off in this society.

Alyssa Scolari [23:22]:

Yeah. I think that that's a very important point that the goal today, if you're listening to this and you feel this on a level, the goal is not to... For example, going off of what you said, perhaps you're in a loveless marriage, right? Like you said, Monica. I'm using that as an example. The goal is not to... Don't pull over on the side of the road and turn off your car and call your partner and say, "I want a divorce." That's not the goal.

Alyssa Scolari [23:51]:

The goal is to go, "Oh, I'm feeling something. Let me open my eyes to it and the universe will show me where I meant to be." And that's what you help women to do, because you also offer... So in addition to unpacking a lot of this on your podcast, which you've had for... Your podcast has been going on for two years now, right, I think I saw?

Monica Rodgers [24:17]:

Almost. Almost. Just around 19 months, so yeah. Almost.

Alyssa Scolari [24:22]:

Ah, that's so exciting. But in addition to that, you do one-on-one coaching and groups as well?

Monica Rodgers [24:31]:

I used to do the one-on-one and actually I also did women's circles and group coaching. And I've actually put it aside right now to write a book, and what I've been writing about is...

Alyssa Scolari [24:43]:

Oh, congratulations.

Monica Rodgers [24:46]:

Thank you. Thank you. I'm really looking forward to getting back to coaching. But part of really what I feel called to do right now is to really write about what The Revelation Project really is. Because for me, everybody is doing their own revelation project. And I think so much of what The Revelation Project is about for us as women is learning to reveal more of the divine feminine in our lives. And that means more of the mess, right?

Monica Rodgers [25:15]:

That means learning how to receive. That means allowing yourself to unbecome from all of the ways that you've been taught to be, and to really start to perceive the world as a co-creation, like the universe as a force of wanting to co-create with you. I want to go back to we've been taught about this idea of like God as masculine. You can replace that word God, again, if it makes you uncomfortable with any word that makes you more comfortable, right? I'm not attached to the words.

Monica Rodgers [25:56]:

What I'm more interested here is in helping us understand that we've been married to a story that has omitted the divine feminine. When you grow up in a society where you've been taught... Even if you weren't raised in a religion, but you've been taught over time like a thousand tiny paper cuts, right? You've been micro dosed this whole story of unworthiness, how somehow you came from the rib of a... Again, if you were growing up in a religion, that you came from a rib of a man, right? When we know good and well that women have wombs, right?

Monica Rodgers [26:40]:

We don't come from men. That's not how we're born into the world, right? But it's like common sense is not common when it comes to the Bible and how we interpret it. And so, so many women are out there living in this trance of unworthiness because we don't realize of the impact for young girls growing up without a feminine model, a feminine role model, a strong, fierce, creative, messy, beautiful, magnificent feminine role model, divine feminine role model.

Monica Rodgers [27:11]:

When we don't have that, when we've been given instead a patriarchal view of God, we end up entranced in this place. We've been stationed in a place, we've been relegated to a place that has taught us, "You don't belong here. You're not good enough, or you're too much, frankly."

Alyssa Scolari [27:36]:

Yes. Yes. Too much. Too much. Too loud. Too many opinions. Too emotional. Too sensitive.

Monica Rodgers [27:45]:

Yeah, right. It's starting to call bullshit on some of this stuff and starting to really dare to unpack it, dare to get curious, dare to start to question what you've been taught to believe. Because the truth is, you have a unique gift to bring to this world and it's guaranteed. If you're unhappy, you're not tapped into that yet. Because when you are tapped into it, you are so lit on fire. And every single one of us deserves, has the right to bring our unique gift to the world. It's why we came here.

Monica Rodgers [28:35]:

I know this sounds crazy. We were not sent here to be an accountant. That might be part of it, right? That might be part of it, but it's not the whole deal.

Alyssa Scolari [28:45]:

Yeah.

Monica Rodgers [28:46]:

Right? What we want is to start awakening women, because we've been sleeping inside this trance. We want to awaken us to the fact that we're powerful beyond measure, right? And that comes with discomfort. It's like, "Who me? I couldn't."

Alyssa Scolari [29:15]:

I could never.

Monica Rodgers [29:15]:

Yeah, you could. Yes, you are. Yes, yes, yes, all the things. You're so amazing.

Alyssa Scolari [29:25]:

And it's all waiting for you outside of the comfort zone. I like that you pointed out the what I believe and I think what a lot of people believe is a gross misrepresentation in the Bible of women being inferior to men. And that is the message that gets passed on, that like we are nothing without men. That's simply not true. That's a gross misrepresentation that has done harm to women for thousands of years.

Monica Rodgers [30:04]:

We love men. We need men, right? But what we want to...

Alyssa Scolari [30:07]:

Yes, we need men. This is not about bashing men. This is about saying women are not inferior. There is no box that women need to fit into and the goal is to step out of this box.

Monica Rodgers [30:25]:

Yeah. And that our value isn't tied to whether or not we're married or a mother. That we have our own inherent value just as we are without needing to attach our values somehow to our egoic title, right? We oftentimes will invest in the identity of, "I'm a married woman, or I'm a mother," and that becomes our whole world. I'm not saying that shouldn't be part of your world. Absolutely. But you also have your own evolution as a human being and something that's wanting to call you forward and call you.

Monica Rodgers [31:10]:

You get to learn this about yourself. What is that gift that you are holding inside of you? That you are here to bring the world, right? Again, we tend to sacrifice as women. We lift our families up at the expense of ourselves. And I'm not saying don't lift them up, but I'm also saying lift yourself up too. Give yourself an opportunity. Nurture yourself just as much.

Alyssa Scolari [31:36]:

Yes, and the best thing you can do is nurture yourself. That's the best thing you can do for others as well is to take care of yourself first.

Monica Rodgers [31:44]:

Totally.

Alyssa Scolari [31:45]:

I love that. I love everything that you are about. I appreciate your podcast. Again, for the listeners out there, it is called The Revelation Project. It is a very, very feel-good, fascinating, informative, and inspirational podcast. Go and check that out. And then you have a book that will be coming out. I will be looking forward to reading that.

Alyssa Scolari [32:13]:

Thank you for coming on today and for sharing, because this comfort zone... I'm a little bit of an adrenaline junkie, and not in the sense I put myself in danger, but my adrenaline rush is stepping outside of the comfort zone.

Monica Rodgers [32:30]:

I love it. I love it. Now I'm just like, "Oh my God, that terrifies me. I can't wait," right?

Alyssa Scolari [32:35]:

Yes.

Monica Rodgers [32:37]:

Just to give you an example, a couple of years ago, I ended up doing a program where a woman was offering rockstar camp for entrepreneurs. I had never sung on stage in my life. Of course, it wasn't about the song. It was about learning how to claim the stage and use my true voice and daring to shine, daring to be in the spotlight, right? It terrified me. And I was like, "Yes!"

Alyssa Scolari [33:02]:

Yes.

Monica Rodgers [33:03]:

Yeah, but it did. For me, it just really was that growing edge. And I think no matter what we do, no matter what scares us, if it's calling to us, it's like, yeah, do it. There's something there.

Alyssa Scolari [33:16]:

There's something there. There's something on the other side of that fear that makes it all worth it.

Monica Rodgers [33:22]:

Totally. Thank you so much for having me. I was going to say just for your guests, if you guys want a free gift, if you ladies want a free gift, men or women who want this who are listening, you can go to join therevelation.com and I've written a bill of rights to remind women that you have the right to shine. You have the right to be messy. You have the right to make mistakes. I've written my own and I'm sharing it with you.

Monica Rodgers [33:48]:

But if you want to use it as a model to write your own, it's a great reminder to tack on your wall, because you have the right to grow and to be excited and to love your life and to reveal more.

Alyssa Scolari [34:02]:

Oh, I love that. I will link that in the show notes for everybody so that they can have access to it. Thank you. I really, really appreciate you.

Monica Rodgers [34:13]:

Thank you. I've loved this so much. And to everybody, more to be revealed, right?

Alyssa Scolari [34:20]:

Absolutely. Amen.

Monica Rodgers [34:22]:

Amen.

Alyssa Scolari [34:24]:

Thanks for listening, everyone. For more information, please head over to lightaftertrauma.com, or you can also follow us on social media. On Instagram we are @lightaftertrauma, and on Twitter it is @lightafterpod. And if you're on Facebook, please be sure to join our Facebook group. It is a private community where trauma survivors are able to connect and chat with one another. That Facebook group is called Light After Trauma. So just look us up on Facebook and be sure to join.

Alyssa Scolari [34:55]:

Lastly, please head over to patreon.com/lightaftertrauma to support our show. We are asking for $5 a month, which is the equivalent to a cup of coffee at Starbucks. So please head on over. Again, that's patreon.com/lightaftertrauma. Thank you and we appreciate your support.