Light After Trauma

Welcome to the very first episode of the mini series: Survived & Thrived stories, where listeners write in to share parts of their lives, including the many ways in which they have found peace and comfort after enduring trauma, pain, and suffering.

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: [00:00:23] Welcome to another episode of the Light After Trauma podcast, but also the very first episode of the mini episode series titled Survived and Thrived stories. I am so excited. I have been waiting for this segment of the podcast to launch, and it is finally here. I am really looking forward to this because this really gives me the opportunity to hear from you, the listeners, and to get to know you all on a much more personal level.

[00:01:25]

And it almost makes me feel like I'm able to have conversations with you all. And that's really exciting for me. It helps me just as much as in my own recovery, to be able to connect with all of you. So just to recap, this is the mini-sode where I read your stories that you have sent in. And these are stories where you could be talking about any kind of trauma that you endured, any kind of hardship that you're going through.

[00:01:57]

Any kind of success, you know, we want to hear about it. I want to hear about it. So if you have not written in yet and you want to write in, you can go over to my website at lightaftertrauma.com and you can send in your story through the website, or you can email me directly [email protected]. And again, there is a full description of what kind of stories we are looking for on the website.

[00:02:22]

But really, if you are somebody who wants to start speaking about your story about any kind of trauma or hardship that you have endured, I want to hear from you. I have found that it was so helpful for me in my recovery early on, to really start writing. I began writing about what happened to me before I could actually speak it.

[00:02:43]

So I wanted to create a part of the podcast that's definitely more interactive where I can hear from you all and you can share the good, the bad, the ugly and everything in between with me. And I read it on the mini-sode and we'll respond and reflect on what you are saying.

[00:03:03]

So just some house keeping things. So number one, whatever email that you send,everybody stays anonymous. So if I do feel like there's an email that you sent that might have identifying information, like maybe a location or a name, I might change the email a little bit, just to refrain from the possibility of your identity being leaked

[00:03:26]

We want to keep everybody anonymous on this episode. And the other part is, I just want to make sure that you all know that my reactions and my responses to the messages that you write in, in no way substitute as therapy. This is not a substitute for therapy. I am not providing therapy that would not be appropriate or ethical in the slightest.

[00:03:51]

So it's not therapy. And I just want to make sure that everybody knows that because I wouldn't want anybody to feel like this is something that is a substitute for therapy. Cause it's most certainly not. So with that being said, I'm going to launch right into our first story. So the subject line of this email is Podcast: Sharing My Story.

[00:04:14]

So we are diving right in. It says my story. My symptoms started at age 17 when I had a trauma and I was hospitalized over 40 times until age 27. I have been hospital free for one year on March 15th, 2021. So I guess it's two months ago at this point. The longest hospital stay was at the state hospital for three years where I went through even more traumatic experiences.

[00:04:45]

I am diagnosed with borderline personality disorder, eating disorder, and PTSD. I self-harmed for 14 years and had many suicide attempts, but through DBT therapy, I learned other ways to cope and haven't self-harmed or attempted suicide and almost a year now. Because of my PTSD symptoms being so severe, I am getting a service dog.

[00:05:08]

Having dogs is really the main thing that has kept me from going back to the hospital when I feel low and we will call this person M. So, M, I am so happy you're here. I just...I read that email. And I think about what you've been through and being in a state hospital and how hard you have had to fight to get to the place where you are now, which is now you are over a year hospital free! Huge fucking congratulations to you!

[00:05:44]

That is like...it's incredible. And what you said about just going to a hospital and then enduring more trauma when you're in the hospital. I don't think you're alone in that. I have heard so many stories and I myself have had so many horrible stories from being in a hospital and just being treated like absolute trash

[00:06:10]

But also even more severe things happen, right? People are sexually assaulted in hospitals, people are not given their rights. I've heard stories about people not being fed, lots of terrible things that happen in those hospitals that I think that it's very important to shed light on because these things do happen and they only further traumatize us.

[00:06:32]

So I am so sorry that you had to endure that, but I also see how incredibly resilient you are. And I'm so happy that you're here. And I think I speak for the other listeners that we're also happy that you stayed because your beating heart and the air in your lungs tell you that there is more here for you to do on this earth.

[00:06:59]

Alyssa Scolari: It is not your time and suicide is a way to try to escape the pain, but I'm so glad that you have persevered and you have not given up. And now you are getting a service dog. Okay. What is more healing than a dog? Please tell me. Or any kind of pet, really horse, cat, rabbit, whatever. I know as a therapist, I'm supposed to be like, Ooh, therapy therapy is more important, but no, like pets are so healing.

[00:07:32]

So, I am thrilled for you that you are getting a service dog. I personally, my dog right now is behind me playing like a lunatic. So if you hear some scuffling in the background, no worries. It's just my seven pound dog. That is the dog who honestly saved my life. I got her two months after I escaped from my abusive relationship and she truly has saved my life over and over and over again.

[00:08:03]

So I just believe wholeheartedly in the healing power of animals. And I'm thrilled for you. So thank you so much for writing in M. You keep up the good work and know that you are loved and you are wanted and needed here on this earth.

[00:08:20]

So okay. Woo. Trying to shake off the chills I got from reading that one because, man, so, so much resilience there.

[00:08:33]

Okay. So this one, the subject line is My Story/Need Direction. And it reads: Hi Alyssa. I discovered your podcast this week while searching for information on recovered memories of sexual abuse. I started my recovery process about three years ago with the decision to attend a support group, meeting adult children of alcoholics shortly after joining the group and starting the very long and arduous process of becoming more emotionally sober.

[00:09:08]

I heard a lead from a woman who is now a dear friend. In her lead, she spoke of childhood sexual abuse and her process of recovering repressed memories as part of her healing that same week, I had a flash, a dream, a body memory. I can't remember what form it came in, but there was a sense that something terrible happened sexual in nature to me as a kid.

[00:09:32]

I wrote it off mostly .Fast-forward three years, lots of therapy, meditation, 12 step, and lots of two steps forward, three steps backwards, I have continued to have dreams and I sense that something happened, but became frustrated with not knowing and let it go for awhile. When I say, let it go. I mostly mean I spent much of the last year numbed out with workoholism, perfectionism, people-pleasing, fantasy, alcohol, weed, food.

[00:10:02]

You get the picture. Punctuated by some transformative experiences with EMDR, psychedelics, and float tanks. This winter though, I had had enough. I came to believe my job was killing me. Only partially true. I'm a therapist and had been working primarily with DCS referrals. As an aside, I believe that stands for the Department of Children, Child Services, something like that, but it's like a, it's like social services.

[00:10:32]

I think they call it like DCP&P in my state. I mean, don't quote me on that, but I believe that's what that means. So in other words, as she says in this email, Lots of traumatized kids and parents. I decided to make a change. As I knew I couldn't continue to function the way I had been. I started a new job last week and had begun to reduce my numbing behaviors and feel more grounded the morning of the second day of my new job, I woke up from them.

[00:11:00]

Incredibly detailed, vivid, realistic play by play dream. And I'm going to insert a trigger warning here. This is a trigger warning for incest. So if this is something that's too triggering, please feel free to skip at this point and I'll give you a second skippers.

[00:11:20]

Okay. So. A vivid and realistic play by play type dream of my dad sexually abusing me as a kid. It feels more like a recovered memory than anything else has. Cool timing. Right? Anyhow, I've been able to process some with art, talking to friends ,and energy work, but I feel confused. Like maybe I'm making it up for attention to justify my mental health issues, but there's also a deep knowing. Any thoughts or resources or direction you can give me?

[00:11:53]

It was helpful to hear part of your story. I'd like to hear more. Thanks for what you are doing. Signed, Confused.

[00:12:05]

This email truly hits me like a ton of bricks and I feel very very connected to the words that are spoken in this email, because it very much happened for me in the same way. I would have a dream, a flash, a body memory. So for those of you who don't know, and I know I've talked about it on the podcast before, but a body memory is a type of a flashback, but you feel it in your body.

[00:12:35]

So some people genuinely feel like they are being physically assaulted, even though they aren't at the time. And that's a flashback that's called a body memory. Or maybe they feel like they're being physically abused or something of the sort, but speaking directly to you Confused. I, 1000% understand this.

[00:12:57]

I mean, for me, it was an eating disorder. I didn't ever dabble in any kind of substances, but food was my drug. Like food was my addiction, whether I was running away from it in the form of anorexia or eating myself sick in the form of binge eating and bulemia, I definitely battled with an eating disorder my entire life.

[00:13:23]

And then until one day I kind of...I woke up and it hit me. And I just had this like memory and I was very confused and I said all of the same things to myself. Am I making this up? Am I doing this just to justify my mental health? And for me, I also would question, am I making this up? Just because I know my therapist.

[00:13:51]

So my therapist, who I was seeing at the time also had a history of trauma and I knew about it. So I was also wondering, like, am I making this up? Because I have a therapist who I know was traumatized. So I'm just trying to be like her. I told myself all of these tales and spawn all of these, these webs on like I'm a liar and I made it all up and, and things like that.

[00:14:17]

And I think the one thing that I would say to help with that narrative is, well, there are a couple of things and I think one is: if you truly are making this stuff up, then why do you feel so terrible? Because we aren't just born feeling terrible for no reason. We don't just choose to numb out. There's a reason why we have deep. Feelings that are unbearable and untouchable.

[00:14:52]

So we need to engage in like workaholism, people-pleasing, things like that. There's a reason why we need to numb out. We don't just have these feelings that are so, so incredibly painful for no reason. It's not just a way for you to kind of justify. It's that you feel this way.

[00:15:13]

Right? The one thing you're very, very clear about is that you have led a life of trying to numb out as did I. So when it comes to the memories, denying it and telling yourself that you're lying only keeps us in the not knowing. And the more we stay in the not knowing, the more likely we are to turn to other things, to numb out: eating disorders, alcohol, weed, whatever it may be.

[00:15:43]

We will do whatever we can to keep ourselves in the not knowing because we are terrified of the feelings that come with knowing something bad happened to us. The other thing I want to say is that there's often in times like this, a sense of urgency to figure it out. I know for me, I was like, I need to figure out what happened to me.

[00:16:03]

And I remember my therapist at the time saying to me, You don't need to know everything all at once. And I really wasn't ready to hear it. And I actually kind of snapped back at her and I was like, "Well, how would you feel if, if you were just having little memories, like snippets of information, come back to your conscious memory a little bit at a time, and you were confused."

[00:16:24]

You would want to know everything too. Yeah, no, I, I absolutely snapped at my therapist, but she was right. You know, she. She was right. For all the things that my former therapist did wrong. And she did a lot of things wrong, which I'll get into at a later date. She did that so, so well in that she helped me to understand that, you know what, you don't need to remember every single detail to know that things have been done to you that were abusive. And I just want to say the same to you Confused. It is a really confusing process. Hence you signing the email confused, but with that said, know that your brain is going to reveal more parts to you as you're ready.

[00:17:18]

And as you are prepared to handle it, knowing that you didn't just start uncovering repressed memories for no reason. It was because you were ready and you were ready to face it, even though it doesn't feel like that .Your brain would not be revealing this stuff to you if you weren't ready. So try to trust your body, try to trust your brain, and try to know about the answers that you're searching for.

[00:17:46]

You already have, even if you don't have the details. So I hope that that helps. There's so much more I could say on this, but obviously I don't want to inundate you and overwhelm you so I will leave it at that. And, you know, I hope that this helps for anybody else out there who might be listening, who struggles with this type of stuff as well.

[00:18:09]

So with that being said, that is a wrap on our first mini-sode. Thank you so much for writing in to M and to Confused and to the others who have written in. I will read your story on the next mini episode. Again, if you want to write in, please feel free to share any or all parts of your story at [email protected].

[00:18:36]

And then lastly, I want to ask you to please subscribe and rate and review the podcast. I would say if you can subscribe and rate, even if you don't leave a review, a review is kind of like...it's like the icing on top. It's not totally necessary, but a review would be fantastic, but the subscribe and the rate is really, really important to be able to help this podcast to continue to climb the charts.

[00:19:04]

If you like what you're hearing, if you relate to what you're hearing, if you enjoy listening to this podcast, it would take honestly, probably two to three minutes of your time, please hit that subscribe button and rate the podcast. It would mean the world. So thank you so much for listening. And again, be sure to write in, share your story.

[00:19:25]

I would love to hear from you [email protected]. I am holding you all in the light. Be well and stay safe.

[00:19:34]

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 patreon.com/lightaftertrauma. Thank you. And we appreciate your support.

We know that trauma, if left untreated, can lead to a host of physical ailments, including autoimmune diseases (www.acestoohigh.com). In this week's episode, Alyssa shares about her own battle with being recently diagnosed with an autoimmune disease. She and her guest, Dr. Kylie, discuss a functional medicine approach to diagnosing and treating many physical ailments including chronic fatigue, sleep difficulties, autoimmune diseases, thyroid issues, and much more.

Dr. Kylie's website: www.drkylieburton.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:

Alyssa Scolari: [00:00:23]

Hey, welcome back for another episode of the Light After Trauma podcast, a podcast for trauma survivors, by trauma survivors. I am your host, Alyssa Scolari and I am so excited about today's guest. We have Dr. Kylie Burtonwith us. Dr. Kylie is a functional medicine specialist who turns normal labs into answers, healing, and hope.

And I am very happy to have you here with us. Thank you so much. How are you?

Kylie Burton: [00:01:17]

Thanks for having me, Alyssa. I'm doing great. It's a sunny, bright Tuesday in a cold Utah atmosphere right now, but we got the sunshine, so it's good.

Alyssa Scolari: [00:01:29]

Yeah, it's cold. over here in Jersey today too. I'm like, it was so nice. And now it's a little cold, but spring is coming, so it's like hard to be in a funk because spring is coming, the pandemic is hopefully ending. Yes. So I am so excited to have you on today because I, as many of the listeners know, I am a big fan of functional medicine.

And over the last, I want to say like three to four months. Functional medicine has truly changed my quality of life after being told by doctor after doctor, that they have no clue why I feel the way that I feel. Yes, we don't know what's wrong with you. So I was like, as soon as I started to really go on my journey and realize like the mind body connection and how much of my trauma was playing a role in my symptoms and et cetera, I was like, I need to have somebody on to talk about this.

So I am really excited to dive into this today. And I guess my first question for you would be. I guess first you can elaborate a little bit more on kind of like who you are and what you do in the field. And what is functional medicine?

Kylie Burton: [00:02:52]

Yeah. So I specialize in helping people like you who have been tossed from doctor to doctor, to doctor, to specialist, to specialist. Nobody can figure out what's wrong with them. They have all these normal labs yet, they feel like crap. Sometimes they have great days. Sometimes they have terrible days.

We'll get into that. But the biggest key for me was I had to create a mindset shift for myself. I was an assistant for a chiropractor. What now? Maybe 10 years, eight years ago, maybe 10 years. And there was, when I got hired on, I had no idea what chiropractic was. I had no idea what functional medicine was and he just dabbled in it, but it was enough to introduce me to the concept of the why.

Functional medicine is personalized medicine. It's all about finding the why to how you feel, whether you have a diagnosis or you don't, and then resolving that why. So you can feel like a million bucks again, you can be the mom you want to be. The grandma you want to be. The dad, the uncle, the aunt, or better yet you can even get pregnant without paying 20,000, $40,000 for some IVF treatment.

So it's really cool stuff, but my mindset shift had to change when I was in school, I had this patient come in from the community, and I was saying a lot of people compared to my colleagues, but she'd come in. She was a mess, terrible, terrible, terrible migraines for days on end. She had one at the time.

So we had to find a black blanket to cover the window, just to make sure we can remove as much light as possible. She had MRI scans, CT scans, blood work, every lab test under the sun, you name it and it all would come back normal and we'll get into this normal labs concept because, but for her, it was like, okay, if I look at her the same way, everybody else looks at her, I'm going to get the same results.

And that wasn't okay with me. So I said to myself, how can I take these documents that we have all of these blood work, all of the lab tests, all of the imaging, I mean thousands and thousands and thousands of dollars sitting right here in our hands that were normal. They weren't providing any answers and here she was barely functioning.

Been that way for years. So I figured out a way to train myself and I learned all of this post med school, which is what happens in life. You know, your real toolkit that you need happens outside of the school, the classroom. So that's how it went for me. And it's been really fun. I went from a brick and mortar practice to a completely virtual practice.

I was using Zoom before Zoom was cool and it was really helpful because now boundaries are no limit. Like I've got patients all over the world. So if you're like "I have normal labs and yet I don't feel like myself." We're going to get into that. And we're going to get into specifically auto immune diseases and those people who have good days and bad days, even though they might not have a diagnosis.

So that's my background. That's why I love functional medicine and any patient in the world...I've heard a thousand stories and every time I'm like, "Oh my gosh, how are you even alive? Like, how are you even functioning?" And it's just, you all have their own unique story and nothing scares me anymore.

Alyssa Scolari: [00:06:12]

Yeah. I just love the concept because, and one of the things that I love that you had said, you didn't say on the podcast, but you said this and yeah. I can't remember if it was on your website or something that you had written, you said, "okay, well, let's get one thing straight here. One of the things I'm not trying to do is bash Western medicine, which is obviously not the goal, but I do think it's fair to acknowledge that Western medicine has its limitations."

And I think that what you're doing. Sounds like what functional medicine does is it's, we're going to stop putting a band aid on this and we are going to rip out the core and figure out what is the actual issue.

Kylie Burton: [00:06:58]

Yeah. Yeah. Let's talk about two things you mentioned: the first, functional medicine is powerful when it's done right. And there are a lot of individuals in the healthcare industry who are coaches, naturopathic doctors, like the whole gamut who will call themselves functional medicine and functional medicine requires more than one weekend seminar.

And that's what we're finding a lot is that people are, "Oh yeah, I practice functional medicine. Well, I just attended, you know, one IFM conference or one XYZ conference." Functional medicine, it's tough. It gets very detailed and it's time consuming. It's literally taking the science, the biochemistry, the physiology, the biology, it's literally taking the science and applying it to our bodies.

I always joke around and say, you know, if I would've known, I was talking about the Krebs cycle from high school biology every single day in my career. I might've paid a little bit more attention in high school biology, but that's literally what it is. It's not easy and it's not a one size fits all process.

So just be careful, someone says a practice functional medicine, make sure you still do your due diligence and take a look into what they're doing, because I've seen most of the people that I see have already tried functional medicine from somewhere else. So just be careful with that too.

Alyssa Scolari: [00:08:18]

That's a very important point.

Kylie Burton: [00:08:21]

It can be, you know, pretty, pretty pricey too.

Alyssa Scolari: [00:08:25]

Oh yeah.

Kylie Burton: [00:08:27]

So that's functional medicine. People we're not perfect. And the profession isn't perfect. Same with Western medicine. Now, I like to say it as a toolkit, right? All of us, medical practitioners, doctors, coaches, whatever it is, we all want to go into this business to help people that's the goal is to help people.

The problem is we get into medical school and our toolkit is very limited. They teach us that unless, you have multiple symptoms that fit underneath an umbrella. AKA a diagnosis. I don't know what to do with you, because unless I can give you a diagnosis, now I can reach into my toolkit of pharmaceuticals and tell you what pill to take or what injection to receive, or like Humira for RA or Lyrica for fibromyalgia or, yeah, I mean, you name it Metformin for diabetes, like whatever it is inside their toolkit, that's what they were given during medical school. Now, the thing is. It's not your doctor's fault. It's not your doctor's fault. It's not the listener's doctor's fault. It's not whoever's out there trying to blame their doctor. It's not their fault. It's the fault of the schooling. The schooling is what has failed us. The system is what has failed us because the toolkit is so limited unless they go out and they learn all this additional stuff on their own to expand their toolkit.

Now it's like, You go into your doctor and instead of them saying to you, okay, you have diabetes, go see a dietician. Now they can help coach you in the right ways versus going off to see another doctor or another aspect to look at it is, we have all these specialists, right? Endometriosis specialist, GI specialists, ENT specialists.

When in reality, our body is one incredible machine with multiple systems working together as one. So you fine tuning and saying, Oh, it's my hormones. It might be your hormones, but all of your other systems are playing a role on your hormones too. It's not just your thyroid. Your thyroid is just one gland in a system that's being affected by all the other systems in your body.

Makes sense?

Alyssa Scolari: [00:10:42]

Right. It makes perfect sense. What doesn't make sense to me is the way in which we do have so many specialists, because we're almost taking away from the body as one whole organism, where it's like you affect one part of the system, the other part is affected and I agree. It's not necessarily the fault of the doctors because that's the toolkit that they were given.

Like I went to, I was recently diagnosed with an auto-immune disease called HS. I'm not sure have you heard of it? Hidradenitis suppurativa.

Kylie Burton: [00:11:13]

No,

Alyssa Scolari: [00:11:14]

So it's like, Oh, it's excruciatingly painful. It's an auto-immune disease that results in cysts on your body.

Kylie Burton: [00:11:23]

Like on the external or the internal part.

Alyssa Scolari: [00:11:26]

External and internal. It can be in your armpits. It can be in your groin, on your buttocks, even on your like outer/inner Labia, scrotum. And it's an auto-immune disease and they have no idea what causes it. Like there's not a whole lot known about it. And I went to a dermatologist who was supposed to specialize in this autoimmune disease.

And her response was like, okay, we're going to put you on Humira. And I was like, hell no, we're not putting me on

Kylie Burton: [00:11:57]

Take this injection for the rest of your life and we'll quote, manage your symptoms.

Alyssa Scolari: [00:12:03]

Right. And then I went to the functional medicine specialist and it was like, Oh, okay.

Kylie Burton: [00:12:09]

I get it now.

Alyssa Scolari: [00:12:11]

Yeah, yeah.

Kylie Burton: [00:12:13]

So when it comes to autoimmune disease, any autoimmune disease, I mean, what we're learning more and more is depending on the resource that you can go to, there's eighty to a hundred different diagnoses that are auto-immune right now. The insurance codes, the amount of diagnoses that you can bill insurances continues to grow.

And the reason why it continues to grow is because we have more people showing more weird symptoms that we haven't found an umbrella to clump all those symptoms underneath yet. So now we have to create new umbrellas to clump all the stuff underneath, and the coding is just getting more and more. The amounts of diagnoses they're just getting more and more. And this is specifically with auto-immune diseases. For example, like in five or ten years, I would imagine that endometriosis or even PCOS, common hormonal issues are going to be on the autoimmune spectrum because of the more we learn about them, the more they fall under this component this umbrella.

So when it comes to autoimmune, whether you have a diagnosis or you're one of those people that you have great days and you have bad days, that would be these auto-immune or think about MS. Multiple Sclerosis people have MS flares, right? There is a commercial that teaches us that if you have an MS flare, you can go in and get this injection.

Well what's happening during these flares, what causes these flares? So let's dive into my three step process to stopping auto-immune disease in its tracks. Now, I want to preface that and say, we're not curing immune disease. We're going to put, Alyssa, what you're experiencing, in your history. If I've got a 39 year old mom who has MS, which is the truth.

We're about halfway through her process right now. And she's feeling like a million bucks and I'm real excited for it because in the summertime, when it's the heat and she can't go outside, she couldn't go outside. If it was above 72 degrees have caused this and flare for her this summer is going to be a different story.

She's going to be able to go enjoy the summer activities with her teenage kids. And it would be the first time in awhile that she's been able to do that because we figured out the process of her auto immune. We kicked it to the curb and now it's going to be in her history in just a few more months, and anybody can do this.

So you just have to know how to do it and what's causing your auto-immune cases. So my first step that I like to take a look at what I encourage people to take a look at is the first step is you have to identify the trigger. What triggered the onset of the autoimmune disease? What triggered the Hashimoto's, the Rheumatoid Arthritis, the Psoriasis, whatever it is out there.

Alyssa Scolari: [00:15:03]

Right now, potentially the PCOS, the endometriosis.

Kylie Burton: [00:15:08]

Yeah. The list goes on and on and on, auto-immune period. Right? Identify the trigger. Now there are multiple types of triggers. And one of the triggers that everybody likes to blame on is food. Is it organic, is it GMO, is it clean, like whatever they want to call healthy eating food can be a trigger. So eliminating the food sensitivity culprits, that's a great place to start.

It's not a great place to end. I don't know about you Alyssa, but I like food and part of me enjoying food and enjoying life is to be able to eat things on holidays and birthdays and not being so strict throughout my day, that I can't enjoy the social interactions that we associate with food.

Alyssa Scolari: [00:15:53]

Yes. And it can't be an end point, especially for all of those who are in recovery from an eating disorder and are trying to establish some sense of intuitive eating in their lives.

Kylie Burton: [00:16:05]

Yeah. And functional medicine. I just did a podcast on this. It's coming out in a few weeks on my podcast, but I literally, we had an honest discussion about food because so many times I have people coming in, they're trying to lose weight and they're eating like 1200 calories a day and they're exhausted and they can't get to the gym.

Well, no freaking duh. You're not feeding your body anything.

Alyssa Scolari: [00:16:29]

Your metabolism shut down. Your body's storing fat and you're not going to lose a pound.

Kylie Burton: [00:16:35]

But their personal trainer put them on this. And I could just go on a rant about all of this though.

Alyssa Scolari: [00:16:41]

You and me both.

Kylie Burton: [00:16:43]

So then we've got the eliminators, the elimination diets, right? Huge, big deal in functional medicine. In fact, I would say functional medicine is probably the culprit to this food madness that we've been having.

Right. Because we teach, you know, you can't have dairy, gluten, soy, peanut butter, eggs. Like what the heck are you supposed to eat? Then if you're eliminating all this stuff, I've had people eliminate fruits and vegetables from the gardens because their food sensitivity test came back positive for regular vegetables and our gut needs variety.

So yes, food can be a trigger, but don't just say I can't eat XYZ for the rest of my life. Remove them. Put your body through some work and I'll teach you what that work needs to be. So you can enjoy food again, because food is supposed to be enjoyed. It's part of life, life isn't to just survive it's to enjoy life, right?

So there's a trigger, there's a culprit, but more often than not, what I find, especially in auto-immune cases is some type of hidden infection. And this infection is low grade. So it's not going to come up positive on a test. So if you were to go to your doctor's and if you were to get an Epstein-Barr virus test model, the number one trigger for Hashimoto's, it will probably come back negative.

You want it to be negative because if it's positive, you literally can't walk up five stairs. That's how exhausted you are. I have a 17 year old boy who just got diagnosed with Epstein-Barr virus and it came back positive and they, you know, if you've ever heard or you've gotten that diagnosis, do you know that?

They say, okay, now go home and sleep for three months. Good luck kicking it. We got nothing for you, right?

Alyssa Scolari: [00:18:25]

It's awful. Yeah.

Kylie Burton: [00:18:28]

Yeah. So that's this viral infection is really, really big. It's not active enough to be positive, but it's still there to the point that your body's fighting it. And if your body's constantly fighting something, you're not going to thrive.

Whether it's losing weight, getting pregnant, combating auto-immune disease, or even just feeling like yourself again, 90% of the time, it's this hidden infection that's causing you to be yourself. And that triggered the immune disease. Right.

Alyssa Scolari: [00:19:02]

How do you find the infection?

Kylie Burton: [00:19:05]

I'll tell you that too. So along with the viral infection, we got bacterial infections, we have fungal infections like candida overgrowth, and then we have parasitic infections. So there's multiple types of infections. Now you can identify if you have a low grade hidden infection based off of the labs you already have in your possession.

This lab, it's called a CBC with differential, right? The CBC is like the regular standard blood test that every doctor takes as just a precursor. Let's just figure out what's going on, you know, but just make sure that if your doctor is taking a CBC, they check the box that says with differential. Cause I really get peeved when I'm requesting medical records, when there's no differential.

Cause those puzzle pieces included in that lab portion are so crucial. So crucial and your insurance will pay for it. Just make sure they check the right box. So the CBC, if you have it, go grab it. If it's on your patient portal, look it up that number one marker. The very top marker it's called white blood cell count, WBC, that white blood cell count is going to tell you if you have a low grade hidden infection, but I can guarantee you it's normal.

You want it to be normal. If it's not normal, that means your labs are, you know, you have a disease, they have some disease, they can pass next to your name and give you a pill to manage it for the rest of your life. So you want normal labs. They might be normal, but they're not ideal. They're not optimal.

Okay. So what I'm going to tell you is the range for the white blood cell count, WBC, the optimal range. If you fall less than five or greater than eight, you have a low grade hidden infection. Makes sense. So white blood cell count needs to be between five and eight. If it's less than five or greater than eight, we're dealing with this low grade hidden and infection, don't go running to your doctors to tell them that you have an infection, cause they're going to laugh in your face.

They're not trained to look at labs like this. So I'm teaching you how to do it. So you have the power in your own hands. Once you see that you have say your white blood cell count is 4.9 or 4.1 or 16 or nine, whatever it is now, you know that your body's fighting something. What is that something then you've got to jump below a couple of several markers.

And we're going to, get to this, we're going, I'm going to keep it very, very basic and simple. We're going to keep it to neutrophils, which is this marker that neutrophils are responsible for fighting bacteria. So if your neutrophil percentage is greater than 60%, you're fighting a bacterial infection.

Then the marker right below that, it's going to say lymphocytes. Lymphocytes, fight viruses. That's what they do. So if your lymphocytes are greater than 30%, your body's fighting a virus and you can look back over last 10 years of your labs, which is what I love to do. I love to just pull medical records and trace patterns because you can see, you know, as sometimes my blood work I got taken, it tells me that I haven't a bacterial infection.

Other times my blood work says I have a viral infection, which is very common to have them both. And then at other times, my blood work has this pattern and I want to teach you the pattern because it's auto immune pattern. Now, neutrophils, you want them to be 60%, right. Or less. That's the ideal. Now lymphocytes, you want to have them to be 30% or less.

That's the ideal. So if we're thinking 60, 30, that's a two to one ratio. Correct?

Alyssa Scolari: [00:22:53]

Yep.

Kylie Burton: [00:22:54]

Okay. Now, what if your neutrophils are like 44% and your lymphocytes are like 42%? That's a one-to-one ratio, right? Auto immune. So if you see a one-to-one ratio between the neutrophils and the lymphocytes, you're dealing with an auto-immune flare, when that blood work was taken, your body was in fighting mode.

Your immune system was fighting something. And typically the lymphocytes are the elevated ones. And that viral component is the trigger. When you hear about these flares or these good days or bad days, it's really a viral component. In most cases, the virus is more active at some times, and then less active at other times when it's more active your day suck, you have the MS flare, the Crohn's flare, the Hashimoto's brain fog, flare, whatever it may be, but when it's less dormant, less active, now you feel more like yourself. Does that make sense?

Alyssa Scolari: [00:23:57]

Yeah, absolutely.

Kylie Burton: [00:23:59]

All within regular blood work that you have in your possession, that you were told as normal?

That's how cool labs are. That's why I love the numbers.

Alyssa Scolari: [00:24:09]

And it's so empowering to be able to, I don't know, that anybody can kind of look at it and now go through it and be like, Oh, this is what's happening.

Kylie Burton: [00:24:17]

Yeah, totally makes sense. So, along with the infection, that's a big component of the trigger. We got multiple other triggers, triggers like toxins and metals and mold, even mold in our house Mole in our environment. I live in a four season area. Springtime is mold season. I've had kids, teenagers, specifically who would come in and his knuckles would swell up, but only during the spring and they'd go into the rheumatologists and they'd get the blood work and his ANAs would come back normal.

It would all come back normal, but the rheumatologists wanted to diagnose him with rheumatoid arthritis anyways, cause it looks like it, feels like it, his joints hurt, but they only happened in the spring time. And it didn't clue into me until I went to a seminar. I was talking to another practitioner about this.

And,and he, he said to me, do you live in a four season environment? I said, yeah, but it's a desert. It's Utah, we're desert. And he said, well, what about the spring time when everything is frozen now on thaws? I was like, Whoa, I never thought about that. Yeah, right. And then we'd chopped down our tree as a couple, I guess it would be last summer.

Now, last, last summer, a couple of the trees in our backyard, just mold infested. And my husband's a roofer and he says a lot of times they'll get on the roof to reroof. They will tear off the shingles, tear off the sheet rock underneath, then tear off the wood. And then underneath the wood, they find black mold.

Alyssa Scolari: [00:25:47]

Ooooo.

Kylie Burton: [00:25:48]

So don't just rule it out. Like mold is another trigger and it needs to be dealt with, and sometimes people have to move because that's just the bottom line of it.

Alyssa Scolari: [00:25:57]

RIght.

Kylie Burton: [00:25:58]

So there's your triggers for starting or instigating an autoimmune culprit, autoimmune disease. Okay. Now that's step number one. Once you figure the triggers, got to get rid of them.

Number two. Calming the immune system down. Once you pull the triggers away. Now it's the immune system who was the whole culprit to begin with. It's not the thyroid, it's not your small and large intestine. It's not your nervous system. It's not wherever the disease is happening. What's happening in all autoimmune disease is it's the immune system attacking a specific point in your body and wherever it's attacking.

Well, that's what your genes are there for. So, if you have Hashimoto's running in your family, well your genes told your immune system to attack your thyroid. My family has Parkinson's. Our genes tell us to attack the, tell the immune system to attack the nervous system. Right? So that's how it all works.

We're all about what's wrong with the immune system. Why is it just given up and started to attack whatever it feels like attacking. And then once you can figure out the triggers of it. Now you're going to call the immune system down and there's a couple of ingredients that you can use really easily to calm that immune system down.

And one of my favorites, my all-time favorite is a vitamin D. Vitamin D is like the best supplement in the world. If you're going to just say you have to take something, you got to take vitamin D.

Alyssa Scolari: [00:27:27]

Yes.

Kylie Burton: [00:27:28]

don't just take it at the wimpy 2000 to 5,000 IUs per day level. That's wimpy. You're not going to get anything from it. More than what you would without taking it. But what I've seen in the research literally, research with vitamin D and auto immune, it's huge. And I'm going to tell you my vitamin D protocol. This is what I would do, what I do with patients. And when I blast all over podcasts and social media, and because it's that powerful, but I have had people tell me, they have found my email, strangers have reached out and said, you're telling people these high levels of vitamin D they're going to become toxic. You're right. They'll become toxic. If you stay on them for five, six, seven years. I'm talking three months. So a short time period, I'm going to say, we're going to jack that vitamin D up. It's going to calm your immune system down and just by this one vitamin AKA hormone. You're going to feel way different.

Now, if you were to say, cause I'm a numbers girl, right? The vitamin D normal lab range is from a 30 to a hundred. It's kind of big range. I guarantee you're going to feel a lot better with your vitamin D is at closer to a hundred than it is in the thirties. Depression, you can kick it to the curb with vitamin D. Anxiety, same thing.

Auto-immune same thing. Vitamin D is that powerful when you take it at the right dosage and your number. My ideal number for vitamin D is around 80. So if you have a vitamin D status, go look at it in your labs. And if you're less than say 70 or 60, take some vitamin D take a higher dose than normal, but,from all of the labs I've seen and I've seen thousands of peoples have labs, I have only seen a handful who are even above 50. Everybody is so depleted in vitamin D and then the prescription is 50,000 IUs of vitamin D per week. It's better than nothing, but it's not going to change the way you feel. It is not going to change your labs either.

It will bump them up a little bit, maybe 10, 20 points, but it's not going to take you from 30 to 80 in three months.

Alyssa Scolari: [00:29:50]

Yeah.

Kylie Burton: [00:29:52]

25,000 IUs of vitamin D per day for a month will.

Alyssa Scolari: [00:30:01]

25,000.

Kylie Burton: [00:30:04]

25,000 IUs of vitamin D per day for a month. And then month two, back down to 20,000 and then month three, back down to 15,000 and then maintain more at a 10,000 dosage. Not going to get toxic off of this, I promise.

Alyssa Scolari: [00:30:20]

I mean, yeah, vitamin D and its short.

Kylie Burton: [00:30:23]

Its a short time period And the research I found there was a doctor who did, he was working with auto-immune specifically.

He used a bit of LIGO psoriasis. I can't Oh, MS was the other one. Yeah. So that was big three. And he was like, you know what? I want to see what vitamin D does specifically on these three instances. So his dosage was 35,000 IUs of vitamin D for three months. That's what he used.

Alyssa Scolari: [00:30:51]

Wow.

Kylie Burton: [00:30:52]

VItamin D was enough to put more than half of the patients in the study, their auto-immune symptoms into remission.

Alyssa Scolari: [00:31:01]

Wow.

Kylie Burton: [00:31:02]

The power of vitamin D easiest thing to take. It's like the only thing I will always take, and I'm...

Alyssa Scolari: [00:31:09]

it really is the easiest thing to take. I know.

Kylie Burton: [00:31:13]

So vitamin D is a big one. Then we have essential fatty acids, things like Omega three, Omega six, those good healthy fats will also calm down the immune system. And then this also comes on the immune system or probiotics.

I always want to put an asterisk next to the probiotics because so many people think, well, I just need to take a probiotic and it's going to solve my gut issues. And I'm going to take the same probiotic for the rest of my life. And it's going to be going to be fine, right. Wrong. So probiotics are great.

Just don't take them because you can, and don't take the same one forever, which leads us into step number three. Step number three, once we identify the trigger and removes it, then we calm the immune system down. Now our immune system is literally our gut, so we got to rehab our gut. Don't just take a probiotic forever. Your gut needs variety. Taking the same probiotic for over like three months. I always say is not doing much because it's the same strains, the same quantity, switch it up. Now, the gut is also going to get harped on by many many people, because the more we learn about it, the more we realize that our gut is our second brain, it's pretty powerful. So you gotta make sure you do the gut right. And your gut is like your fingerprint. It's unique to you. So make sure whatever you're doing is personalized to you. So there's your three step kick auto immune diseases to the curb kind of thing.

Alyssa Scolari: [00:32:43]

It's amazing. And it makes so much sense. And I, I can't help but wonder like, vitamin D really is. It's magical. We're talking about triggers. Is it also possible that like chronic toxicity and chronic stress can trigger, these...can be triggers or does it have to be some type of like low grade virus or infection?

Kylie Burton: [00:33:14]

No. When we think about triggers, think about multiple. There's usually multiple triggers. And the reason why, as we all have these cups, we're born with our cup, quarter full or half full or whatever. And the more we have experienced life, the fuller our cup gets. And then finally, at some point, something is the trigger that makes the cup overflow.

That's the onset of the disease.

Alyssa Scolari: [00:33:37]

Okay.

Kylie Burton: [00:33:38]

It's a multitude, multiplicity of triggers. But the big thing is when I look back in the labs, there is that viral component. You're going to have pregnancy trigger. A lot of moms will say, you know, I was fine for baby number one and two. And then number three, my body just gone to crap.

And I don't know what's wrong. Metabolic instances like PCOS and endometriosis, they can trigger it. Trauma is a big one. Trauma can trigger or be a trigger along that process. So there's a whole lot of triggers that are possible even stress. Now I want to caveat that stress because I don't know if you're like me, Alyssa, but you said you work a nine to five and then you do the podcast and, you know, life is life.

Life is stressful.

Alyssa Scolari: [00:34:23]

Life is stressful.

Kylie Burton: [00:34:25]

And if you were to say to me, no, Dr. Kylie, your life is too stressful. You have to find something to eliminate, to make it less stressful. I wouldn't laugh at you. And I'm going to say hi, you're funny. No, I'm a doctor, a mom, an entrepreneur, and I work with the difficult patients right.

Alyssa Scolari: [00:34:41]

Right. Okay.

Kylie Burton: [00:34:43]

So I'm not changing that. And I'm not gonna change that. So I don't expect my patients or people who I work with or who are even listening to podcasts I'm on to change that . What you can do is you can instigate things like five minutes of meditation. But for me, I'm lucky to get five minutes by myself in the shower, so you can instigate those things.

But what I do want to say as far as stress is concerned, if we can find an internal stressor. And eliminate what's causing stress on the inside of our bodies. Now it can handle the external stressors a lot. Okay.

Alyssa Scolari: [00:35:21]

That makes a lot of sense.

Kylie Burton: [00:35:23]

Now it takes the pressures off of moms with three kids, or grandma's like my mom's a grandma and she's about to have five kids and they're five living with her, between my two brothers. So life is stressful and you're not going to just eliminate it, but if we can help our bodies from the inside out. Feel and conquer the external stressors, then life will be a lot better.

Alyssa Scolari: [00:35:44]

Right, right. Because there's no such thing as getting rid of stress. There's just no such thing. Not in the world that we live in. There will always be stress.

Kylie Burton: [00:35:52]

Yeah, there's too many outside influences.

Alyssa Scolari: [00:35:54]

Right. We have much more control over healing, the inside of ourselves than we do over kind of like what comes our way in terms of external stress.

Kylie Burton: [00:36:06]

Yeah, beautifully said.

Alyssa Scolari: [00:36:09]

Yeah, no, that makes a lot of sense. And thank you for that. The auto-immune disease world is just one that I feel is so misunderstood, but I think you did a phenomenal job of kind of summarizing just three steps to kind of like beating it because I really think it's finding the trigger. It's not just throwing pills for this symptom and that symptom. It's finding the trigger.

Kylie Burton: [00:36:36]

Yeah. Once you can do that, once you can find the trigger, calm the immune system down and then rebuild the immune system, which is your gut, you're ready to rock and roll. And I've seen that time and time and time again. So if you're listening to this and you don't have a diagnosis, or you do, just know that you don't have to survive life.

You don't have to survive, managing whatever it is, you can thrive and you can enjoy life.

Alyssa Scolari: [00:37:02]

It's not a death sentence. And I truly, before discovering functional medicine, I truly felt that my HS and my auto immune disease was like a death sentence. So certainly doesn't have to be, so thank you so much for coming on today. That was really helpful. Love talking about this topic. And so you see people from all over the world.

So if people want to find you do they just go directly to your website.

Kylie Burton: [00:37:31]

They can go to my website, but the best place to learn more is the podcasts. And the podcast is called Beyond the Diagnosis with me, Dr. Kylie. So that's the first place to go is go check that out, learn more, dive in there. Several episodes on auto immune diseases and a whole lot more. And then the other place is you can look up and find anything you want on the website, https://drkylieburton.com. I'm also on Facebook, Dr. Kylie Burton on Facebook. Those are the podcasts and Facebook are where I'm most active. And then of course, if you want to join anything, any of the boot camps, the programs, and membership, go find them all on the website, https://drkylieburton.com.

Alyssa Scolari: [00:38:11]

And I will link all of that information in the show notes. Thank you very much for coming on today. I appreciate you making the time to, educate all of us and I appreciate the work that you do.

Kylie Burton: [00:38:22]

Thanks Alyssa.

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

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This week's episode is a lively discussion about the benefits of Equine Assisted Psychotherapy (EAP) between Alyssa and Jeanne Mahoney, LPC. Jeanne is the executive director of Equine Assisted Therapy of New Jersey. Tune in to hear Jeanne share how horses have helped her heal from trauma and have even saved her life. Jeanne talks about the ways in which horses bring so much comfort and healing into our lives, especially for those of us who have a history of trauma.

Learn More About Equine Assisted Therapy of NJ

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: [00:00:23]

Welcome back everybody to another episode of the Light After Trauma podcast, a podcast by trauma survivors for trauma survivors. I am your host, Alyssa Scolari and we have here with us today. Jeanne Mahoney. This is going to be a good episode. I know I say that all the time, but we have just had some incredible guests on.

So, Jeanne has a unique skillset as she has promoted health and healing across the lifespan of all ages and types of people in many different settings. As an RN, educator, and therapist. She is a lifelong horse woman who is living her dream of being able to share with others the healing power of horses and began practicing equine assisted psychotherapy in 2006 using the EAGALA model. Jeanne has been a PATH instructor for over 15 years. She has many fortes and specializes in working with people dealing with addictions, family and couples therapy, grief and loss, veterans, and women's issues. Hi Jeanne. Thank you for being here today.

Jeanne Mahoney: [00:01:55]

Oh, I'm so excited to be here.

Alyssa Scolari: [00:01:57]

This is one of my favorite topics because I believe so much in the healing power of horses.

So I honestly, I'm honored to have you here today and very thankful for the work that you do. So. You started out as an RN.

Jeanne Mahoney: [00:02:20]

I did.

Alyssa Scolari: [00:02:21]

Okay. So can you talk a little bit about the path that led you to equine therapy?

Jeanne Mahoney: [00:02:29]

Yes, I can. So, where to begin?

Alyssa Scolari: [00:02:36]

It's a loaded question.

Jeanne Mahoney: [00:02:37]

It really is. I have a few stories I am going to tell you about that. I did have a lot of trauma in my life. So in childhood, I had a very traumatic childhood. By the time I was eight years old and I started rocking back and forth, like banging back and forth, and banging my feet and crying in my sleep as a young child.

And I was always obsessed with horses. My mother and father didn't know what to do with me back then. I am 63 years old. So back then there wasn't many therapists. Kind of weird. So, my mother had a schizophrenia sister who was in and out of Ancora (state hospital) . So she was terrified something was wrong with me.

Here I am rocking back and forth back on my feet, crying, all that. So she convinced my dad to get me a horse. When she got me the horse, the rocking stopped, the banging the feet kind of persisted, but not as much. And I stopped crying in my sleep. So right then and there, that was proof that the horses were actually helping me.

So they grounded me at a very young age.

Alyssa Scolari: [00:03:43]

That makes me want to just cry because I have a not similar, but somewhat on the same lines. I first discovered horses and I was obsessed with horses when I was maybe around like, six years old, just begged like, can we get a pony? Can we get a pony? Which I think every six-year-old right. What six year old doesn't want a pony.

But when I was around like eight or nine years, old. My best friend at the time, her mom rode horses and I started riding with them at the farm that they go to. And then I started taking lessons and then I started to compete. And that was also around the time where I started to develop really bad symptoms, obsessive compulsive disorder.

So at that time I was washing my hands all the time. I was rubbing my skin raw and when I started riding horses, all of that stuff went away.

Jeanne Mahoney: [00:04:49]

Yeah, it's amazing.

Alyssa Scolari: [00:04:51]

So yeah, I learned that a very, you know, a young age, just like you, the healing power of horses.

Jeanne Mahoney: [00:04:57]

So I got very excited about that and being the therapist in the making. I didn't know that, but now looking back, I can see it. I invited all of my girlfriends in school who said they liked horses to come help me at this farm. So it was like the comradery, the connection, the healing power of the barn just came alive.

It was just awesome. So yeah, I got it early on how you can bring people and horses together and it makes for a very great environment.

Alyssa Scolari: [00:05:27]

A beautiful, beautiful environment for you. You didn't immediately jump into equine assisted therapy. You became an RN first. Were you a school nurse?

Jeanne Mahoney: [00:05:42]

Yeah,I was. I did a lot of different types of nursing from the ICU to the ER to school nursing. And then I worked at a detox because of my trauma. By the time I was 24 years old, I had a significant addiction and didn't know what to do. And I had gone down some pretty dark roads and then I was driving down the road one day.

Another story here, driving down the road one day on a very busy road. And it was all the farms disappeared around where I lived. I came up from like Cherry Hill/Ashland area. So all the farms started disappearing and I'm driving down this road, thinking about suicide and darting across from me, a horse.

Like on this busy street. So I was like, Holy crap. So I pulled over, I got out and I said, he's gonna get hit. He's going to get hit. And I ran down and I followed him and I'm running and I was in shape and I was young girl. So I was running, even though I was pretty damn sick. Cause I think I was just coming off of a run.

And we landed up in this clearing and I just commenced to tell this horse, everything in my life, sobbing and weeping, you know, and I was just telling him everything that was going wrong in my life right now. And I said to him, you need to go home and I need to get you home or you're going to die. And I turned around and he followed me. So right then I was just like, Oh my God. And I did. Yeah, it was amazing. And I did get him back to his owner, but the reality is, every time when I'd had these horrible situations, a horse showed up, like how coincidental is that? I don't think so.

Alyssa Scolari: [00:07:26]

Right. No, not at all. That horse saved your life and that horse saved your life that day.

Jeanne Mahoney: [00:07:32]

And then I landed up finding the 12 Steps. And so I landed up in recovery at 24 and ever since, so I'm 39 years clean and sober.

Alyssa Scolari: [00:07:42]

Wow. Good for you.

Jeanne Mahoney: [00:07:44]

Yeah. And that was like, you know, the horses just really gave me the motivation and the grounding that I needed to survive. And then of course I learned a lot about trauma and a lot about helping people because when I got clean, There was one NA meeting a week in New Jersey That was it.

Alyssa Scolari: [00:08:05]

In all of New Jersey, right?

Jeanne Mahoney: [00:08:07]

All of New Jersey, there was no basic texts. There was nothing. So I got to be able to be in the ground on all of that making. So I was involved in all of that, bring it to fruition, the basic text and all the meetings. And so my life took off in a great direction. So, I landed up working as a nurse and doing lots of things.

And then I landed up working in a drug and alcohol detox, and I had a traumatic event again, in my thirties. It might've been forties actually. And I landed up back in therapy and the therapist asks that I joined a women's group. So I joined a women's group and at the women's group. I was training at that time, a horse, I had gotten a farm by then and all, and I was training a horse that had a lot of trauma.

So I would come into process my training of the horse with these women. And they would be on the edge of their seat waiting for my stories. I was really just being honest and saying, you know, cause I was doing a lot of internal work via the horse at the time she was very traumatized. So they would be like: "Oh my God, that reminds me of my husband."

"Oh, that reminds me of my sister." And they were like relating all this. And I was like, really? Wow.

Alyssa Scolari: [00:09:21]

So, the way the horse was behaving.

Jeanne Mahoney: [00:09:23]

Yes, yes.

Alyssa Scolari: [00:09:25]

Wow.

Jeanne Mahoney: [00:09:26]

So then I was working at the drug and alcohol rehab and I went to the clinical director and I said, I want to bring my horses here. And she said, really, we'd love you to bring your horses here. She said, but you know, maybe you'll want to get a certification or something.

I don't know. So I went and got EAGALA certified.

Alyssa Scolari: [00:09:41]

Seabrook.

Jeanne Mahoney: [00:09:41]

Yes. Yes. Yeah.

Alyssa Scolari: [00:09:43]

Wow. That is an incredible story. So it's almost like forces have been there for you in this healing way, your whole life. And then it just led you, right? Every step you took led you right to the place where you are now.

Jeanne Mahoney: [00:10:00]

Yeah. So we went in and millions of people pass through my arena. It seemed. Probably 20,000. I don't know a lot. At...

Alyssa Scolari: [00:10:09]

Oh God.

Jeanne Mahoney: [00:10:11]

...Seabrook house and it just started growing and just started seeing how the interaction, and this is the first time people have not been next to a horse. If you think about it, like were partners we were partners through war We were partners through discovering new lands I mean it's been us and the horse We may have this unspoken Agreement that we're going to work together So when people would come into the arena who never touched a horse in their lifetime they always displayed to me They absolutely did display to me a generational knowing they've been here before now obviously they haven't but in their DNA and I've had people weeping next to horses I've had heroin addicts hiding in the corner and a horse go over and just stand with them Just to them and the guy or the girl would reach out and then they would open up. They would just open up. It was just amazing. I've really been a privileged person to see many miracles.

Alyssa Scolari: [00:11:12]

It really is the most miraculous thing. And I love what you say about how it's almost just like wired in our DNA and how horses really have been with mankind womankind forever. It has always been human and horse, so it feels so natural when you're standing next to a horse and people that haven't done it.

It may sound silly until you are standing next to that horse face-to-face or when that horse is looking at you, which I learned this about horses recently, right? They can't see you if you're standing directly in front of them.

Jeanne Mahoney: [00:11:50]

Well, it depends on how close you are to their face.

Alyssa Scolari: [00:11:52]

If you're very close, right. They can't see you.

Jeanne Mahoney: [00:11:55]

Well, you'd have to be like right there where they can't see you. They have a blind spot right here, but they can see you. They just have a blind spot right in front.

Alyssa Scolari: [00:12:03]

They have a blind spot. There's something about their eyes that it's just like, they know. So this past summer, obviously this last year of quarantine has been some of the most depressing times I think most of us have ever experienced and very isolating. My cousin owns a horse, my cousin competes and over the summertime, we went down to the farm and I got a chance to ride her horse. And I ended up, he didn't really throw me off, but it was my fault. I wasn't sitting on him correctly. So he kinda got like irritated with me and like shimmied me off and I like fell off.

And it was in that moment that I felt like we've never understood each other more. Like I knew what he said to me, which was: you're not sitting on me right. And he gently shook me off. He didn't throw me off. He was just kind of like, Hey, this doesn't feel right. Like something's not right. So I'm just going to get you off of me. And I felt like we spoke with one another.

It was such a surreal experience.

Jeanne Mahoney: [00:13:21]

Yeah. And so, you know, when I use it in trauma, like years ago, when I started when I was six, there wasn't words for this stuff, there wasn't, there was a basic theory, but it is evolved in the past five to 10 years. It has really evolved like now, like I use polyvagal theory. It's amazing. And I've got a established trauma treatment with the horses.

Alyssa Scolari: [00:13:46]

When you say you use polyvagal theory with equine assisted therapy, can you talk (more about that) ?

Jeanne Mahoney: [00:13:51]

Absolutely. So, first of all, the process that you go through, you know, treating someone with the horses is the first thing that we do is we establish emotional safety and physical safety. So the horses are in the arena and they're loose. They're not on anything. I have an indoor arena and an outdoor arena or the pasture and they're loose.

So they have choice. And the person has choice too. So we established the choice, the trust, the collaboration, the empowerment with the horse and the human first. And that is nothing on their heads. It's just them interacting with them. We talk about the fight, flight, freeze, play dead symptoms that come up or reactions that come up in horses.

And in people too, and we teach them how to co-regulate with the horses. Either they're borrowing from my regulation, the horses regulation, whatever, we are all co-regulating together. So there's a little bit of mindfulness in there and being able to really just come down, just be present to each other after we build that and maybe even widen their window of tolerance, because some people are very afraid when they come, but we use that too.

Feel that. Where are you comfortable? Where are you uncomfortable? Can you step into the uncomfortable section for a bit? You can move back to the comfortable section. So we are able to go back and forth in and out of these. And then we do go into the second phase is trauma processing. So we create the traumatic event.

If that's where we're going. By using psychodrama techniques basically. Do a little bit of EMDR. A little bit of family systems. Gestalt. All of that is used in the arena with the clients and the horses. From that, the third phase is reintegration and reconnection. Integration really and reconnection.

And then we look for the future. What do you want in the future? What do you need to take with you to the future? What new awarenesses did you develop and new tools did you get here at equine assisted therapy that you can use in your everyday life? It is absolute flow. It's not just. It's powerful. The biggest challenge I have is slowing people down because they want to go.

And as you know, as a therapist, you've got to slow people down sometimes.

Alyssa Scolari: [00:16:22]

Yes, because if you go too fast, then you're liable to crash and burn.

Jeanne Mahoney: [00:16:27]

Absolutely. So I have to slow them down. I have to first resource, as we say, building those resources that I can call upon. If they land up in the transformational process and the trauma process, if they land up in there, I need to be able to ground them. The horses do a lot of it. The horses see it. And the horses will ground them as well.

It's amazing to work with them because you'll see a horse go over and absolutely ground somebody when they're going, when they're escalating and they can see when they're incongruent, when their insides don't match their outsides. Because as you know, well, maybe you don't know, I'd like you to know, is that the horses live in a herd.

And they have this extra perception of energy so they can feel energy for...probably some of them can feel for a couple of miles out. I know they can. So, I'm five miles out and you know, they can feel it. I know where their edges are and aware they're feeling it. And if I have somebody come in, who disassociates right in front of me and the horses react. They can see this depending on the disassociation and the degree of emotional regulation.

You see it. It's amazing.

Alyssa Scolari: [00:17:40]

It is amazing. They pick up on energy and they pick up on...it's more than just your affect. It's more than just the way you're standing. It's like you said, if your insides don't match your outsides, they 1000%, know. I mean, I've had a horse who, because of how nervous I was just wouldn't let me get on them.

He was just like, no, you're not ready for this. And he was right. And it took hours of us just walking together. We just walked. Left, right, forward.

Jeanne Mahoney: [00:18:11]

Yeah, which really, if you think about it, he was actually stimulating both sides of your brain. You could say that's a little EMDR-ish.

Alyssa Scolari: [00:18:18]

He was, he was, and I sat in my car after, and I just cried because I had never felt so understood and almost protected by this animal who was just like, You're not ready to do this. You are not ready to get on this horse. You're not ready to get on me. We're not there yet. So let's slow down. So when you'd say,the horses will tell you and the horses do communicate, I a thousand percent believe that. I witnessed it.

Jeanne Mahoney: [00:18:46]

Yeah, it's very powerful. The way the polyvagal theory, there's lots of other things, but the way that works, is that social engagement piece, that often gets messed up. That can actually, you can build upon that with the horses and people will let horses in a little quicker than they will other people sometimes.

And so sometimes that can be a really nice bridge, really nice bridge. And then the fight or flight sometimes when they see that horse react in fight or flight, oh, that can bring so much to them, to somebody who is traumatized, they can identify. They're like so identified and you know, there's some certain times in trauma when you can't fight or flight, you're trapped and there's no way out.

And so then you go and you shut down and you go into the freezer, the play dead and horses will do that in front of you too. So it's just like this big giant mirror for trauma survivors. It's just amazing. It's really interesting because a lot of people into horses I've had trauma. They gravitate towards the horses.

Alyssa Scolari: [00:19:54]

Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. That makes a lot of sense.

Jeanne Mahoney: [00:19:59]

And then when you think about, I've been influenced by Bessel van der Kolk with The Body Keeps Score and lately just some beautiful things coming out in the world and getting somebody back into their body. So like in trauma,you're out of your body, you like it out there. You really don't want to come back in.

Alyssa Scolari: [00:20:17]

Right? You want to leave your body? Yeah.

Jeanne Mahoney: [00:20:21]

I'll have clients come in and they're really interested in all kinds of ethereal kind of things like crystals. And I love all that stuff. Don't get me wrong. But the reality of it is let's come back in for a little bit let's...

Alyssa Scolari: [00:20:33]

RIght.

Jeanne Mahoney: [00:20:33]

...and the horses will bring them back in, in a way that they're willing to go to. A lot of people will do things for the sake of the horse rather than do it for the sake of themselves. And then they'll feel their bodies and they'll feel how it is and you can go back out of it anytime they want.

Alyssa Scolari: [00:20:53]

Right. Right. So basically what you're saying is first they do it for the horse, but then it becomes more about being in their bodies.

Jeanne Mahoney: [00:21:03]

And if it feels good if we can create a scenario where it actually feels good, they'll go there again. the horse. That's the hope.

Alyssa Scolari: [00:21:15]

Now for what therapy looks like in a session, are you in the arena the whole time? In and out of the arena? Like what does that look like?

Jeanne Mahoney: [00:21:25]

I really, wow. I follow my client and so I really let it unfold. I'm comfortable enough with the work to allow that to happen. So I might have the horses already in the arena loose. We might go out and pick a couple of horses. Depending on the weather and the day. Sometimes I'll do a check in, I have an office in the barn, so if there's a need that we need to be in there, we'll be in there.

And I do use the EMDR. I have a light in the barn and I do lots of different things, but we'll start wherever the client is. Sometimes I'll take a walk with a client on the edges of the farm. Sometimes they need a walk. And then we'll go do a horse activity. So it just depends on where they're coming from and what's going on and what is the focus of treatment today.

So I have to make those quick decisions in the moment. There's times when I, after I've built tons of relationship and lots of deposits in the bank account, I will make a withdrawal and I will gently encourage, sometimes the horses will do it for me. Cause they see it. So it's a very intuitive kind of thing.

Alyssa Scolari: [00:22:41]

Yeah, very individualized.

Jeanne Mahoney: [00:22:44]

Although I do groups and we certainly do do groups and I love doing groups, but

Alyssa Scolari: [00:22:50]

You don't love doing groups or you do.

Jeanne Mahoney: [00:22:52]

I do. I love doing groups. Absolutely love it. Cause there's,horses, like I said, you can go too fast. So if your ego is not ready, it can reveal too much. So if there's another person there, they can hide behind that person.

And it's a little safer. So you get a rest, if you will, so you can figure it out.

Alyssa Scolari: [00:23:16]

It feels safer. Yeah. It feels safer in a group. Now, when it comes to helping with trauma, horses definitely helped with the co-regulation piece. What other ways do you see horses helping with trauma?

Jeanne Mahoney: [00:23:36]

I'll give you a story or example, if you will. (I'll) protect the names. So I had this person who came in and a lot of trauma as a child. So mom and dad: drug addicts, alcoholics. So beautiful young woman now in her mid thirties, forties raising a family of her own, but still carrying this heavy trauma. So there was one trauma incident that she set up.

So we have things in the arena, poles and cones and barrels. And there was a car incident where she was in the car and she was left in the car in the pouring rain. While dad went into cop. So there was this abandonment feeling. We recreated that abandonment feeling right in the arena. She was in that moment.

She was in that moment. She described to me what this was, what that was, this is the steering wheel. He went in, you know, like she was able to describe everything. And then we named the horses. It was three horses with something that she needed. Something that she needed to get through this that she didn't have.

And so she was able to name them three things that she needed, and she was able to bring the horses through. Now that was so powerful for her because she was able to resolve some things she got in her body. She was able to resolve some things that actually lifted that from her. You know, and then she still remembers it, but it doesn't sting as much.

It's very similar to doing EMDR, but we actually cleared out a lot of that trauma track from doing these activities. And she did some other things like some writing and some things like that. But the reality of it is it's very, that's why I say it's psychodrama in many ways. It's in the, doing in the action where you're there and I'm saying, what do you need?

What do you need? Let me give it to you.

Alyssa Scolari: [00:25:28]

She's able to like recreate the scenario, but this time she's able to give herself exactly what she needs.

Jeanne Mahoney: [00:25:39]

And the big girl can help the little girl,

Alyssa Scolari: [00:25:42]

She can help her inner child. Yeah.

Jeanne Mahoney: [00:25:45]

And things like that. Like that's one way, I mean, there is so many different scenarios, but just to give you a little visual of what it could be like, and that's in the processing part.

Alyssa Scolari: [00:25:56]

Right.

Jeanne Mahoney: [00:25:56]

It's just like EMDR. It has problems. So that's the processing part. It's not all of it. Yeah. That's just part of it.

Alyssa Scolari: [00:26:04]

Right. It's so layered and it's so much more than what people think it is, which is why I'm also really happy to have you on to be able to explain, well, what is this. No, it's not just, you look at a horse and you give it a pat and say, great, I'm healed now. It's so much different than that. It's so much more complex than that.

Another way that stands out to me, that horses help heal trauma is by making us feel seen. I really feel that when I'm around horses, they see me. And I think so many of us who have survived trauma just have felt unseen throughout our lives.

Jeanne Mahoney: [00:26:48]

Absolutely. Or and sometimes want to be unseen. Yeah.

Alyssa Scolari: [00:26:53]

Can't hide from a horse,

Jeanne Mahoney: [00:26:55]

No, they come and find you. They do. Sometimes they do. I had this one horse, honest to God, I'm not kidding: Grief. I call her my grief horse and I will be working a group of people and someone will have just experienced a loss and this horse will go in and check in with them.

Like she'll pick them out of the group and then go away and then go on and check in and I'll go over to the person. I'll say, "Hey, how are you doing like lost anybody or anything lately?" "Oh yeah. My wife just died a month ago" and I'd be like, huh? I mean, she,

Alyssa Scolari: [00:27:28]

You're like, yep. That makes sense.

Jeanne Mahoney: [00:27:30]

Yeah. Yeah. Cause she's trying to get them congruent.

She's trying to, you know, she's trying, cause they look at everything as a herd and they're trying to make their herd okay. So it's remarkable.

Alyssa Scolari: [00:27:41]

It's so remarkable. Oh my goodness. Now, are you the, I see you're the executive director of it's called Equine Assisted Therapy of New Jersey (https://www.equineassistedtherapyofnj.org/) .

Jeanne Mahoney: [00:27:53]

Correct. Yeah.

Alyssa Scolari: [00:27:55]

You founded the entire, okay.

Jeanne Mahoney: [00:27:59]

Yeah, we've gone down many, many roads with it, but yeah. Yeah, I did. I did (found) it. And I also, I had an LLC for a little bit with another lady and actually she took that on and went on her way with it as well. So yeah, it's been a lifelong journey. I have a farm where the nonprofit is on with the indoor arena and I live on it and it is in Salem County.

So it's in a Mannington actually. It's right outside of Woodstown New Jersey. So it's Mannington New Jersey. It's like 12 minutes from the Delaware Memorial bridge to give you an idea about where we're at.

Alyssa Scolari: [00:28:35]

Okay. Now I'm curious, how did COVID affect this?

Jeanne Mahoney: [00:28:41]

I got busier. Like I down when COVID came, I shut everything down. It was a time for me to really revamp everything. So we had some things going on here, like Therapeutic Riding, things like that. And I actually did away with that. That wasn't my heart anyway. It wasn't working out very well. There's a lot of people that do therapeutic riding around and we do not do that.

Alyssa Scolari: [00:29:06]

Yes, there's a difference between Therapeutic Riding and Equine Assisted Psychotherapy.

Jeanne Mahoney: [00:29:12]

We turned our barn into a professional kind of barn. I do have an occupational therapist and she also does some things. And I also have a veteran mentorship program with a vet that works here.

Alyssa Scolari: [00:29:24]

Wow.

Jeanne Mahoney: [00:29:26]

So we've kind of just redid some things. We kept the social distancing, the masks, the temperature checks and all of that.

While we did things, it was a little bit easier because you're outside. So you can keep that six foot distance and things like that. But there were times when we shut down entirely. Yeah, so we just kind of rode the wave. And I was doing tele-health for a while, just as an LPC, you know, just as a Licensed Professional Counselor, but always thinking we'll open up soon.

And so we've been very busy lately. I'm struggling, keeping up, but in a fun way now, because the weather's getting nicer and the colder weather you do it, but it's not as fun.

Alyssa Scolari: [00:30:04]

It's not as fun. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Jeanne Mahoney: [00:30:08]

Doing some workshops Saturdays once a month and, and seeing clients during the week. And yeah, it's been going well and going to build a little bit more up to, you know, I'm getting invigorated by the nice weather.

Alyssa Scolari: [00:30:23]

Yes. Everything that you're saying just sounds so. The whole conversation just feels so invigorating: your passion for it and your love for it is very, very palpable. And it's exciting. And it's exciting that you just keep building and you're just creating this very, very like healing environment for clients.

Jeanne Mahoney: [00:30:45]

I really just got to do that. I retired from the VA in 2019. So I've been, that's when my building really started. I mean, I've been doing it all along. I've always had like three jobs, four jobs, but now I have this job, so it's really doing so much better than it used to because I'm able to just do this so I can give it my energy and my passion, but it has been a lifelong project.

Alyssa Scolari: [00:31:12]

A lifelong project. Yes. Well, you are doing incredible things and if people want to find you, they can go right to your website, which is https://www.equineassistedtherapyofnj.org/.

Jeanne Mahoney: [00:31:27]

Yup.

Alyssa Scolari: [00:31:30]

Okay. And I will definitely link that in the show notes for people. Thank you so much for your time today. I really appreciate it.

Jeanne Mahoney: [00:31:39]

Thank you. Very excited. Thanks.

Alyssa Scolari: [00:49:01]

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.

(music)

Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD) is a widely misrepresented mental health disorder. Many people do not know of the debilitating effects OCD can have on those who struggle with it. In this episode, Alyssa sits down with Gina Abbondante, LCSW, as she shares about her own battle with OCD. Gina explains the various types of OCD, the ways in which the disorder can become traumatizing in itself, and expectations people can have as they begin their recovery journey.

Gina's Website

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: [00:00:23]

Hello folks. Welcome back for another episode of the Light After Trauma podcast. I'm your host, Alyssa Scolari. And this is going to be a good episode. I am saying this right out of the gate because I adore our guests today. And let's just take a minute to talk about the imposter syndrome, right?

Yeah. This imposter syndrome that so many of us feel like we have. Our guest today is Gina Abbondante. I met Gina through actually as a result of the pandemic through a peer consultation group. Gina is a colleague, fellow therapist, incredible human being. So she has her own group practice that she actually just started up this year and she...

So she does a lot, but her specialty is treating anxiety disorders and obsessive compulsive disorder, particularly in pregnancy and postpartum. So when we talk about imposter syndrome, when I met Gina over a year ago, I was so intimidated. This was like before the podcast is even like a blip on my radar because Gina.

Is just a bad ass at what she does. And each just radiates. When we first started the peer supervision group, I would just sit back and like listen to like the stuff that she would say. And I have been thinking a while about asking Gina to come on the podcast. But I was scared, like imposter syndrome took over and I was like, she's not going to have time for me.

She's way too busy. Shotgun would come on my podcast. And then I wrote this blog post, which I think is ultimately what prompted you to reach out to me, right?

Gina Abbondante: [00:02:44]

It was, yeah.

Alyssa Scolari: [00:02:46]

So I wrote this blog post on obsessive compulsive disorder and after writing that Gina reached out to me and I of course giggled like a school child.

Cause I was so excited and she was like, wow: "I thought that you were going to reject me."

Gina Abbondante: [00:03:08]

Talk about imposter syndrome.

Alyssa Scolari: [00:03:10]

I know. Right. So like here we go. So welcome. Thank you for being here.

Gina Abbondante: [00:03:17]

Yeah. Thanks for having me.

Alyssa Scolari: [00:03:19]

I'm glad that you reached out because I was terrified.

So, can you elaborate a little bit more on like what you do, who you are, what life is like for you? Cause you dabble in so many different things.

Gina Abbondante: [00:03:37]

Yeah. I mean, it's definitely been, it's a journey. So I originally started in solo practice just as my own doing my own thing in 2014, I think, and at the time I've kind of always specialized in pregnancy and postpartum, mental health, mood disorders, things like that.

And also infertility pregnancy loss, birth trauma, infant loss, all that stuff. And I love it. I just love the population. They've just always been really near and dear to my heart. I have two kids, so that probably also plays into it as well. I love it. So I have been in solo practice and then moved into group practice in the beginning of like May 2020 ish, the height of the pandemic, which was nuts.

But you know, here we are. And I do, you know, I specialize in anxiety disorders and OCD. I see a lot of it. I mean, I think anxiety is pretty universal. We all experience anxiety at some point in our life. And for some of us, it does turn into a disorder, which it kind of takes on a life of its own and it becomes a whole other thing.

And for some reason, I think, you know, there are a lot of factors that play into it, but, I see a lot of anxiety disorders and OCD during pregnancy and postpartum, and then add on top of it, (the) pandemic. It's been a lot. So that is my specialty. I love working with this population. It's so rewarding to see people when they realize and make that click of like, wow, I really can control this.

There's nothing wrong with my brain. It's not broken. I can do this. And to really see people get that empowerment and that sense of agency back that they can do it.

Alyssa Scolari: [00:05:41]

Yeah. And it's,one of the things that I remember so clearly on like one of our first peer consultation groups, where we were introducing ourselves and you had said like, you know, OCD is a beast and it really resonated with me then, but,

lately as my OCD symptoms, as I wrote in the blog post, have really been exacerbated. I'm like, Oh God, this is a beast. And I think that OCD is portrayed one way, but I don't think that people truly have a grasp on like its entirety. Like it is not just needing to have an even number on the heat and air or the volume, so could you just first start by like breaking down?

Like what is OCD?

Gina Abbondante: [00:06:45]

Yeah, absolutely. So OCD, obsessive compulsive disorder. It is characterized by having obsessive intrusive thoughts that create anxiety essentially and compulsive actions that we do to neutralize the anxiety. And that is, if we're talking about how OCD is ever sort of miscategorized or mis-seen that's it. Is like we often only from the outside, people categorize OCD as just your compulsion's and it's really not.

So it's not just needing things orderly or needing things clean, or it's not just that. Compulsion's take up such a range of things. It's not just physical. Compulsion's, there's also a mental compulsions, which are a huge aspect. And I think not seeing quite as much to me, no matter what the DSM says and where it is in the DSM, it is an anxiety disorder.

It originally was seen and characterized as an anxiety disorder. At some point along the line, the powers that be decided it needed its own part in the DSM and I still think that's nuts. It's just, it's an anxiety disorder. So it is characterized by obsessive intrusive thoughts and the compulsive actions that we take to neutralize or get away from that anxiety.

OCD has a few different subtypes or sort of categories underneath of it, there is the straight up OCD. And then there's something called pure O or pure OCD, which usually is seen as someone doesn't have physical compulsion's they just solely have mental compulsions. A lot of times it's seen as just having intrusive thoughts.

That's baloney, everyone that has OCD has some kind of compulsion, even if it is a rumination or it's the mental checking or things like that.

Alyssa Scolari: [00:08:53]

So when you say a mental compulsion, can you give an example of what a mental compulsion is? Cause I have not heard that term before.

Gina Abbondante: [00:09:02]

Yeah, absolutely. So mental compulsions, are there things that we do to try to get away from...

when we have physical compulsion's, there's the things that we do with our hands or the things that we say, but mental compulsion's usually. It's mostly around rumination. So we ruminate over a problem. Mostly the thoughts that we have, meaning we try to figure out our thoughts. We try to figure out if they're going to happen, or if they're going to come true.

We try to prove them true or false. We try to analyze how we feel about the thoughts. Other mental compulsion's can look like checking. So we check on our sensations inside of our body. Like, do I feel anxious now? Do I feel more anxious now? It can be really just anything that draws attention to, or brings the focus back to the anxiety and the thoughts that we're having.

And they are very, I have to tell you, they're very, very challenging to treat because it becomes a habit. And a lot of times those mental compulsions that we have, end up...they're a habit, they're things that we've been doing for long before the anxiety was and the intrusive thoughts were ever present.

Alyssa Scolari: [00:10:24]

Right. Right. So it's very, very difficult to treat. Okay. So then you were saying, so there's two different subsets of OCD.

Gina Abbondante: [00:10:34]

Yeah. So those would be like the, I still categorize it as OCD. I don't really delineate between OCD and pure O, I think they're all the same. But underneath of that, in the OCD community, there is a tendency to look at the subtypes of OCD.

Again, it's all OCD. One is not better than the other, but we look at the different subtypes. So there's a bunch. We see contamination, OCD, which is, that's actually broken down into two categories also. So it would be the thinking of I'm going to be contaminated and get sick or be poisoned or something like that.

And then there's also the contamination of I'm going to feel disgusting or that disgust based contamination. And I won't be able to shake that feeling of being disgusting. There is sexuality OCD, where people get caught up on thoughts on whether or not they are straight or gay. If they're a transsexual or not. There is scrupulosity or religious OCD where that really focuses on the morals, whether we're doing something right or wrong.

Have we broken the law? Are we sending that sort of thing? There's harm OCD, which is intrusive thoughts about harm coming to us or people that we love either by ourselves or the world at large, that would be things like, am I going to drive and get in a car accident? Am I going to hurt my child? There's a knife.

Am I going to stab my child? Am I going to stab my loved one? There's also suicidal OCD that falls under the harm OCD. There's pedophilia OCD where people worry that they're a pedophile or not. There's existential OCD where we have thoughts, these existential thoughts of am I stuck in a glitch? Am I in a video game?

Is this life real? Am I alive really right now? Or am I dreaming? So there's quite a few different, really anything that can create anxiety can be categorized into something, some sort of a subtype.

Alyssa Scolari: [00:12:53]

Wow. I had no clue that there were so many subtypes and I've, I realized that it's such a huge beast, but I think that the way they teach it or the way it's in the DSM, which for the listeners out there, as I'm sure many of you know, is like the Holy Grail of where we find mental health disorders, it's a human being or a group of human beings decided that this is:

"if you have these symptoms, this is what disorder you have."

Gina Abbondante: [00:13:23]

Yes, a Bible, so to speak.

Alyssa Scolari: [00:13:26]

Right. Exactly. So we take it with a grain of salt, but when it's in the DSM, it is not like that. It is not described to be as what's the word I'm looking for, like debilitating as it truly is. Can you speak a little bit on how, I know for me when I was younger, it started out just like washing my hands, like to the point where my skin was just bleeding all of the time.

And then as I got older, my OCD shifted and it became much more debilitating. So, can you talk about some of the ways in which it can be like. I mean, really like knock you off your feet in terms of like your ability to function.

Gina Abbondante: [00:14:17]

Oh yeah, absolutely. So I look at the debilitating factor in two ways. It's the anxiety and then it's the actual compulsions.

So. I think the anxiety alone can be debilitating where people feel so overcome with fear of they're really their own mind. Their thoughts become afraid of the things that we think that that alone can become debilitating and cause people to feel like they just get sucked into their own thoughts.

And then on top of that is the compulsions that some compulsions are so time consuming that people can't leave the house, you know, that they can't function on a day-to-day basis. Somebody has a contamination OCD issue where they are concerned that they're going to pick up AIDS from a drawer handle.

And so they're sanitizing the door handles in their house repeatedly, but they have to get it just right. And if they don't do it just right, they have to start all over again. I've had clients that it takes several hours to leave their house because of all of the compulsion's and the things that they have to do physically.

And for those that have more mental compulsions versus physical compulsions, It literally pulls you away from your life. You just get this feeling of like you're locked in your brain in all of these thoughts and trying to prove whether or not they're going to happen. And what does this mean about me?

And I feel differently about that thought. Now, what does that mean? Like you just get so stuck in your own brain. You just really lose touch with your own life. It's awful,

Alyssa Scolari: [00:16:13]

Yeah, it's like the world is happening in front of you, but you are disconnected and stuck in your own mental compulsions.

Gina Abbondante: [00:16:23]

Yeah. I mean, I can look at it. So from my own aspect, I have anxiety. I have OCD. I've had anxiety my whole life. I mean, since I was a child, the first panic attack I remember having was when I was in kindergarten. So it's been a feature of my life since I was really young. Mostly it would be sort of like pegged on to things, things that created stress.

So school was really hard for me when I was younger, going to school, tests were really hard for me. Anything that required me to perform or do something really proved to be difficult for me. I didn't develop OCD until really just a few years ago, which is hard. It's hard to be one thing or be one way your whole life and then wake up and be like a completely different person.

And it really rattles you.

Alyssa Scolari: [00:17:23]

Wow. So you only just developed OCD a few years ago?

Gina Abbondante: [00:17:27]

Yeah. I mean, I've had. Listen, we all have intrusive thoughts. That's just sort of a facet of being a human. It's just those fucked up thoughts that we have as human beings.

Alyssa Scolari: [00:17:37]

Yeah. Let's normalize that we all have intrusive thoughts and it doesn't mean you're fucked up.

Gina Abbondante: [00:17:43]

Yeah, totally.

I mean, it's just the way our brain works. Our brain is an amazing machine, but it also does some really bizarre things. So I tell people all the time, like any time that you're standing on a train station platform. And you have that thought of like, I could just push this person in front of me on the tracks.

That's an intrusive thought. But most people that don't have sticky minds or anxiety can just kind of be like, "Oh, that was weird." And keep it moving. Whereas people that have anxiety and OCD, they get stuck on that thinking. "There's something wrong with me. Oh my God. I'm having these thoughts. What's the matter with me?"

So we all have intrusive thoughts. And of course I had had intrusive thoughts my whole life as the rest of us, but it wasn't until a few years ago when actually my family, my husband and my kids, and I, we went down to Disney and I had had like a really massive panic attack on the way down. And from there I started ruminating on, "Oh my God, what does this mean?"

"Am I going to ruin this trip? I don't want this." And just really struggling with the anxiety that, that raised my anxiety and it lowered my threshold for being able to manage the intrusive thoughts. And we were walking in Disney and in our resort. I mean, and I remember having this really big flush of anxiety, thinking about having to take the boat from our resort to the magic kingdom the next day.

And in response to that flush of anxiety, I just had this intrusive thought that said, if this anxiety keeps up this way, you're going to end up killing yourself. And that was it. I was off to the races. I was, I ruminated the entire trip. Thinking, "Oh my God, I'm a therapist. What does this mean about me?"

"Have I been depressed this entire time? I'm in Florida. I don't know the mental health system down here. Do I need to fly home? Am I going to ruin this trip for my kids? Like what is the matter with me? "Just I was off to the races.

Alyssa Scolari: [00:19:48]

Yup. That thought train has left the station. It has taken off

Gina Abbondante: [00:19:52]

Yup, absolutely. And it's a wonder that I don't exactly know how I got through that trip because it was just like anxiety at a 20, not even a 10, like over the top, you know, but I managed it and it's interesting looking back, my kids don't. They never noticed anything was off, which just speaks to the amazing, like actor ability of people with anxiety. Like you're suffering inside, but outside mostly people have no idea what's going on.

Alyssa Scolari: [00:20:28]

No idea. Yup. Your kids had no clue. And here you are. And it's like, boom, onset of OCD. Suicidal. Like I'm gonna kill myself. If this anxiety doesn't go away. It's like, Oh God, that's horrifying.

Gina Abbondante: [00:20:44]

Yeah. And from there I spent the next good probably I would say 10 months, almost a year. Just ruminating endlessly.

And when I tell you, and I tell my clients, this I'm very open with it. I know that feeling. I know that feeling of your anxiety being off the charts, you're afraid of your own thoughts. You can't trust yourself, you're locked inside your own head. I would tell people, I felt like my brain was on fire because it was exactly what it feels like, you know?

Just these thoughts running through and like, "what does this mean about me? And am I dangerous and trying to figure it out?" And then this weird thing happens sometimes where you almost pretend like the thoughts are true and you respond emotionally that way. So it was then I became depressed and, Oh my goodness.

It was just, it was awful.

Alyssa Scolari: [00:21:41]

Absolutely. I mean, I relate to that so much, you know, just the thoughts about the obsessions about like, am I. I have lots of obsessions about like, am I the perpetrator when it comes to being a survivor of sexual abuse? It's lots of like, well, I'm the perpetrator. Like I did this.

And then I behave as if I am one. Like I closed myself off from the world.

Gina Abbondante: [00:22:10]

Exactly.

Alyssa Scolari: [00:22:11]

All of a sudden my thoughts have become my reality. Yeah. And I'm like, I'm bad. I have to go away. And then I don't talk to anybody.

Gina Abbondante: [00:22:18]

Right, exactly. It's so awful. I mean, I tell what I say is that it is the closest that I feel like I have ever come to having a nervous breakdown because it was just so scary on a day-to-day basis, which I think is also very important thing. I think a lot of, even some OCD specialists don't really touch on is the trauma associated with having an OCD flare up or the onset of it is it is so scary. And the fear that I hear from my own clients and even from myself, is this constant fear of, "Oh my God, is it going to get bad again?"

"Is it going to come back? Can I handle it again"? And I feel like even long after the exposure and response prevention therapy, and once that is over that pervasive feeling of, "Oh my God, is it going to come back again?" That is trauma. That is like the underpinning of the trauma response of having OCD.

Alyssa Scolari: [00:23:31]

So what you're saying is it's not necessarily that a history of trauma is linked to OCD. It's more that having OCD can cause trauma.

Gina Abbondante: [00:23:46]

Or both. I think it can happen both ways. Yeah. I think it can happen both ways. I mean, I certainly have seen my fair share of clients that have trauma history and develop OCD because of their trauma history.

I have clients that didn't have a prior trauma history and developed trauma because of their experience with OCD. I think it can happen both ways.

Alyssa Scolari: [00:24:14]

Yeah. Yeah. I know that when I was little and I had like, I guess more so like the contamination OCD at that point. I didn't necessarily have a history of trauma.

So, but now as I get older, I have intrusive thoughts of seeing my loved ones dead. Like that is the most upsetting thing in the world. It is truly traumatizing and, you know, going through an episode where I think this had to have been just a couple of nights ago. My OCD, my intrusive thoughts are through the roof. Trigger warning for anybody who's listening, intrusive thoughts.

So it was just a couple of nights ago because I'm in the process of coming off. I was on Klonopin for a while and I'm in the process of coming off the Klonopin. And the rebound effect of coming off of any kind of benzodiazepine is like anxiety through the roof. So my intrusive thoughts are coming back and I just, the other night I was looking at my family, like my dogs, and I was just seeing everybody dead and the worst kind of dead and the horror that endured from those images.

Right. Nothing happened. I just have that visual. And then the entire weekend I was down for the count hysterically crying, trying to do anything I could to erase the images from my mind like that is at a level...

Gina Abbondante: [00:25:55]

which is a mental compulsion.

Yes. Yes. And that's the other thing is that a lot of times we think intrusive thoughts have to be thoughts.

Alyssa Scolari: [00:26:06]

They have to be words it's very often images. It's pictures. Yes. That a very good thing to point out. Yep.

Gina Abbondante: [00:26:13]

Totally. You know, I see from my own experience, I couldn't look outside and see a tree and not have an image of myself, like hanging from it, which was terrifying. I couldn't walk into my kitchen and see a steak knife sitting on the counter and have these intrusive images of me like cutting myself or hurting myself. It's just relentless. It was absolutely awful. So I think that's important as well as a lot of people get tripped up on thinking, Oh, these are thoughts. That means it has to be thoughts. Doesn't have to be, it can also be urges as well.

People get intrusive thoughts can come as intrusive urges, which happens.

Alyssa Scolari: [00:26:59]

Like an urge to do an action?

Yeah. It could be in response to having a physical sensation and then having an urge to, I need to do this compulsion. I need to, or even the feeling of I'm having this fear of, "Oh my gosh, this awful thing is going to happen."

Gina Abbondante: [00:27:24]

I'm going to do it. I'm going to do it right now." For instance, when I have clients that are postpartum and they're changing their baby's diaper, they might have a fear of, "Oh my God, what if I'm changing my baby's diaper? And I sexually abused them. What if I do it right now or giving their baby a bath?"

"And they think. Well, I can just push this baby under the water. Okay. What if I do it right now?" It can feel like urges, which is really scary for people as well.

Alyssa Scolari: [00:27:51]

It's so important to hear you say that, like, and say things like that out loud, because I think that there are thousands, millions of people who have these thoughts. And don't feel like they can tell a single soul because of the shame.

Gina Abbondante: [00:28:14]

Absolutely. Absolutely shame and guilt is a huge motivating factor in what keeps OCD hanging around for longer as well. Just having shame of thinking there's something wrong with us that we're bad, that we're evil. That were fucked up in some way.

It feeds that anxiety spiral as well of thinking like, "Oh my God, there's something wrong with me. I can't tell someone about this because they're going to want to lock me up or they're going to want me to go to a mental hospital or they're going to take my kids away from me or they're going to whatever."

Yeah. I think that's what keeps people that have these thoughts and have these compulsion's quiet and in secret for so long.

Alyssa Scolari: [00:29:06]

Yes. Especially people who have kids. Oh yeah. Or even, even younger people who live at home with their families who don't necessarily understand mental health. And I think that in treatment, one of the most healing moments is when the person is able to speak the thought. And have the therapists not blow up and be like, "Oh my God, that's horrible."

Gina Abbondante: [00:29:34]

Absolutely.

Alyssa Scolari: [00:29:36]

That is, I think probably one of the most healing moments in therapy now when it comes to like the treatment for OCD, obviously, you know, one of the most well-known treatments is like the exposure.

Gina Abbondante: [00:29:54]

Yeah. So the gold standard is exposure and response prevention, which.

What that really means is we expose ourselves to the things that create anxiety. That's the exposure part. And the response prevention part means that we don't allow ourselves to do the compulsions to neutralize or get away from the anxiety. So what that might look like is, again, if you have someone that maybe has health, anxiety, or health OCD, that they have a belief that they're going to have a heart attack.

Their compulsion might be that they take their pulse multiple times a day. They're checking in on their heart. It would be allowing those thoughts."Oh my God. I might have a heart attack and not allowing them to check their pulse."

And what that does is it teaches us. It teaches our brain that we can feel afraid and be safe at the same time. So our amygdala, which is that fancy part of our brain that creates the fear response. That's what makes us feel afraid. And because the feeling is so intense, we then believe we are unsafe. And that's why we do the compulsion is so that we make ourselves feel safe.

So we're not quite as afraid by taking away the compulsions because compulsions are what feed the anxiety. When we look at OCD treatment, the intrusive thought part and the anxiety part is not the problem. The problem is the compulsions and the behaviors that we do to get away from feeling anxious.

So a lot of therapists will say, if you can do one part of therapy for OCD, it's just treat the compulsions. Just move away from doing the compulsions. Every day is an exposure for most people, opening their eyes in the morning is an exposure. So you don't have to plan too much.

The most important part is. Holding back on doing the compulsions.

Alyssa Scolari: [00:32:08]

It's so difficult. I don't know. I just even think back to like last night when I was leaving my office, I have this compulsion right now where I light a candle in my office and I will look at it before I leave to make sure it's blown out.

I'll leave. And then not believe that I saw that it was blown out. So then I have to drop my stuff, unlock the door again, go back in, look at it. Then lock up again, go to my car and still, I have to force myself to go to my car because I could just go back 10 times and keep looking at that candle.

Gina Abbondante: [00:32:45]

Right. That's called unproductive reassurance. So two of the most common compulsions that we see with OCD are actually not physical at all. Well, one of them is kind of physical avoidance. And reassurance seeking. So avoidance is obvious, right? So anything that we're afraid of, we just don't do it. So anything that creates anxiety, we don't do it.

If we don't do it, that makes the anxiety drop way down. Oh, done. You know, we're fine. We don't do that again. Yep. Reassurance is very sneaky, especially in the days of the internet, because Googling is probably number one of the reassurance seeking compulsions anytime we put into Google, "why do I feel, or why is this happening?"

Or we never, totally never, it never goes anywhere good Because there's nothing on the internet going to be able to say you're totally fine. It's just OCD.

Alyssa Scolari: [00:33:51]

Yep. There's not one website out there. Maybe you should make one that pops up.

Gina Abbondante: [00:33:56]

Oh my God, that'd be great. I'd be a millionaire. And we'll probably not people wouldn't like it.

They would look for there another answer to that. But it's really like that reassurance seeking. We look at reassurance seeking in two ways, productive reassurance, which means you can go to the internet. Like if you're learning how to build a bird house or something, you look for your instructions on the internet, you get a plan, you execute your plan.

That's productive reassurance. Unproductive reassurance is kind of like what happens when people check, which is: "Okay I've gone. I've see that I blew it out. I walk away, but I don't remember." I'm not sure I can't handle that uncertainty. I'm going to go back and check again and again and again and again, but because it was never about really checking.

It was just about getting away from that sensation of anxiety and uncertainty that was driving it.

Alyssa Scolari: [00:34:52]

Yeah. Now I'm wondering as I'm hearing you talk, I'm wondering, how did this work for your treatment, with the thoughts of committing suicide? How does treatment work with that? Because you can't necessarily do, like, I don't know how does treatment work with that.

Gina Abbondante: [00:35:14]

Yeah. So it was really hard. It got to the point where I would. Let's talk about unproductive reassurance. I would Google TV shows before I watched them to make sure that there was no themes of suicide in them. I couldn't even like listen to the radio because like, if Nirvana came on the radio, it would spin me the fuck out.

So, it started with things like that, where I would purposely listen to songs that had themes of suicide or a band member had committed suicide. And I had to listen to them and let the anxiety come and go and not engage in mostly it was avoidance for me. So I had to not avoid, just sit, let the anxiety calm, let the anxiety go.

And kind of teach my brain. No, this is okay. It's still safe to do this. And then it sort of built from there. I did a lot of, for me, it was a lot of imaginal scripts. So I would write out scripts of what my worst case scenario was in my head of, okay. Worst case scenario is this anxiety continues on. I become nonfunctional.

I can't leave the house. I can't take care of my kids. My husband is resentful and angry with me. I can't work anymore. I fall into a deep depression and because I fall into a deep depression, I ultimately become suicidal and feel like this world is hopeless and this life is not livable. And I follow through on my thoughts and I would have to write that and then read it over and over and over and over again, because the anxiety would do the same. The anxiety would come up, it would spike. And I would have to practice not allowing myself to compulse meaning I couldn't avoid, I wouldn't allow myself to ruminate. So it was just sort of like a bit of a different approach because there's not a whole lot of like physical things that you can do when you have a fear of suicide.

Alyssa Scolari: [00:37:30]

Right. And that was what I was asking, but I guess it's kind of getting almost creative with the type of exposure because it's a different type of OCD than just like, "okay, you have to touch this door handle and then sit with it." But regardless, it sounds like what you're pointing out is that nobody can stay in a chronic state of anxiety forever. Right? So the goal is repetition until your body regulates.

Gina Abbondante: [00:37:58]

Exactly. Yeah. So the rule is any emotion, even the good ones or the ones we judge as good, only lasts in our body for 90 seconds. Anxiety follows the similar suit. It has a very definitive pattern.

It starts, it rises, it peaks, it falls off and it goes away and that happens in 90 seconds. If we can ride that out without feeding the anxiety. So how do we feed the anxiety? We feed it with those what if thoughts. We feed it with more intrusive thoughts. We feed it with ruminating over whether or not these things are going to happen.

If we don't feed it and we just let it be, it will cut off and we teach that part of our brain: "Oh, wait, I didn't have to do X, Y or Z thing. The anxiety left on its own. Hmm. Okay." The funny thing is though, as I very well know this, we can learn fear and a fear response in two seconds, but it takes way more like wildly more time to unlearn a fear in our brain.

Alyssa Scolari: [00:39:14]

Isn't that a bitch?

Gina Abbondante: [00:39:17]

It really is.

Alyssa Scolari: [00:39:18]

I know. It's like, what the fuck, man? Yeah. It can take a split second for that fear to start up, but to be able to get it to go away is work upon work upon work. But the point is is that you can recover from OCD.

Gina Abbondante: [00:39:40]

Oh, absolutely. Absolutely. I will give this caveat though.

So people come to me and they say, what does recovery from OCD look like? And people don't usually like my answer when I tell them this, because a lot of times people want the answer of, yup, you're going to wake up. You're going to do all this and you're going to have no anxiety anymore. And you're never going to have another intrusive thought either.

You're going to be healed. It's going to be sunshine and rainbows and puppies, and you're going to be great. And that's not how it works. What recovery from anxiety disorders and OCD looks like is you learn how to be anxious better. You learn how to become nonreactive to the anxiety. You learn how to become nonreactive to the intrusive thoughts that come, you learn how to be anxious better.

Alyssa Scolari: [00:40:39]

And I would imagine that there's also like ebb and flow to it where like, there are certain things that trigger it. Like when there are really stressful moments of your life, it may be much harder, but as time goes on, just like you said, you learn to be. Anxious better.

Gina Abbondante: [00:40:59]

Yeah. And yeah, there's totally going to be times of stress and there's gonna be things that trigger it and you might have a pop-up intrusive thought.

That's like, totally you weren't expecting. And it does spike anxiety, but we use our skills. We know what to do. We do the same thing every single time. So that we don't really have to think about it too much. Even just yesterday. I was going to pick up my daughter from school. I was a few minutes early, so I parked in the parking lot across the street.

Cause my daughter's school is weird. You can't go in until it's time for pickup. And there was a teenager, but I'm guessing it was like late teensish in the parking lot. Alone playing loud music and immediately my intrusive thoughts went to, "Oh my God. What if he's a school shooter?" Cause that's a huge thing of mine in my harm OCD world.

And I wasn't expecting it. And I noticed it, it caught my awareness and I did the same things I do every time. Okay. We know what to do. You sit here, you let that anxiety calm. You let that anxiety go. You are not going to ruminate over this. Ruminating is a huge compulsion of mine, but I'm not going to ruminate over this.

I am going to act as if everything is okay, let my thoughts come and go and do what you need to do. So it is, it's a practice. It's a thing that we have to make those behavior and lifestyle changes and stick with them.

Alyssa Scolari: [00:42:33]

Very difficult one, but one that can be done nonetheless,

Gina Abbondante: [00:42:39]

The way I look at it is it's awful. And I would not wish this on my worst enemy, but there are worse things.

Alyssa Scolari: [00:42:47]

Yes, but also the discomfort of recovery of going through that process, I still think is easier than staying in a world where OCD runs your life.

Gina Abbondante: [00:43:03]

Oh yeah. Oh yeah, for sure. Cause it really is. It's all encompassing. If you think of like Howard Hughes, who was like the epitome of someone with OCD, he devolved into a world where he couldn't leave his house because he took 17 showers a day and he just devolved into a world of his own madness. And that's totally possible with having OCD, you know?

Alyssa Scolari: [00:43:32]

Yep. When it's unchecked, that's what it can become. Did you decide, did OCD become a huge passion of yours after you had that moment in Disney?

Or were you already very passionate about OCD prior to even knowing that you had it.

Gina Abbondante: [00:43:52]

Sort of a little of both? So, because I had always specialized in anxiety disorders. So it had always been on my radar as a passion. Like, you know, it's really interesting that I see so much of this because anxiety around OCD as an anxiety disorder. I have yet to meet anybody walking on this planet that has any other anxiety disorder and doesn't have a compulsion.

So that's where it kind of, the overlap comes in. So, I had been doing ERP and exposure therapy with clients for years, because I would see so much of it in just the regular population of clients.

And then it was interesting. You would think that by knowing what to do that when you start to experience yourself, you know what to do and you don't .The short answer is you don't. That's a very different thing to be able to do it for someone else, but when it comes to you and ourselves, I was in the weeds.

So that sort of renewed my passion for it, for knowing, for getting to that place of like, Oh, wow. Yeah. Like I knew what panic attacks were before, but now I know what this is like, and Oh, this is a whole different thing.

Alyssa Scolari: [00:45:23]

Whole different ball game. Oh my gosh. So now. Your group practice. Are you accepting new patients right now?

Gina Abbondante: [00:45:33]

We are. So we have as myself and I have another therapist who also specializes in OCD. We all have our little are things that we are interested in or our population, so to speak, but we are accepting new clients. We have some clinicians that specialize in adolescents, which is huge because there's so many adolescents and kids that need therapists and just not enough therapists to go around.

Alyssa Scolari: [00:46:02]

Yes. Not enough adolescent therapists out there. That's for sure. Sure. That's for sure. And it's Change of Mind Counseling, is that correct?

Gina Abbondante: [00:46:13]

Yes. It's Change of Mind Counseling.

Alyssa Scolari: [00:46:16]

So I will definitely pop that into the show notes for anybody who is listening today, who is interested. Obviously from the conversation you can tell Gina knows her shit. I learned a lot today, a lot about OCD.

So thank you for coming on the show and for being vulnerable, because I think it's really hard. You know, and I know we were talking a little bit about this, like prior to recording, but I think it's really hard to be vulnerable as a therapist because there's just this, I don't know, idea that therapists are...

Gina Abbondante: [00:46:56]

That we have our shit together. Yeah, that we together, which is like furthest from the truth. I mean, listen, we didn't get into this field because we're like these epitome of perfect mental health. We got into it because we're in struggled with our own shit.

Alyssa Scolari: [00:47:15]

Right, right. I'm not the portrait of a mental health over here. Yeah. No, there's this idea that we just like are not affected and that we have all the answers to life and it's like, we don't and we struggle.

And I think it takes a lot to just break down that barrier and just say "Hey, no, I'm a human too." And part of you going through this and you being in recovery is part of what makes you, I think, such a good therapist.

Gina Abbondante: [00:47:50]

Yeah. I mean, I think, I think it's important. I think it's the relatable aspect.

I think people want to hear. They want to hear their story. They want to hear other people have been through a similar experience to them and they're not alone. And. I try to normalize that as much as possible. And I'm very open with my clients about that. I have OCD that I'm in recovery from it, you know, some days are better than others.

And I think that's really important because I think we have to normalize the struggle. That it's normal to have days that are good and some days are bad and that's okay. It doesn't mean that it's going to be all good or all bad, or what that means something about you and your coverage journey.

And I think that's super, super important.

Alyssa Scolari: [00:48:44]

Yeah. I think it's one of the most powerful parts of the therapeutic relationship is like the ability to just kind of like be a human, for sure. So thank you so much for coming on today.

Gina Abbondante: [00:48:56]

Yeah, well thank you for having me. It was great.

Alyssa Scolari: [00:49:01]

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 at @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/light aftertrauma 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/late after trauma. Thank you. And we appreciate your support.

This week Alyssa sits down with the wonderful Petia Kolibova, a women's transformation coach. Petia shares her journey from living with an eating disorder and feeling unworthy to now feeling fully empowered and confident in her life. Tune in for an incredible discussion on how Petia helps women to remember that we are all divine and powerful beings!

Petia's website

Tune in to Petia's Unapologetically Abundant Podcast

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]:

[singing]

Alyssa Scolari [00:23]:

Hello and welcome, ladies, gentlemen, human beings alike. This is another episode of the Light After Trauma Podcast. This is a podcast by trauma survivors for trauma survivors. I am your host, Alyssa Scolari, and I am happy to be here with you for another week. And this week we have... Oh you know what? I didn't even ask how to pronounce your name, that was so incredibly rude of me. Is it Petia?

Petia Kolibova [00:53]:

It's Petia.

Alyssa Scolari [00:55]:

Petia. Petia Kolibova.

Petia Kolibova [00:59]:

You got it perfectly now.

Alyssa Scolari [01:03]:

Okay. So we're starting off on a great note. So I am happy to have here with us Petia Kolibova She is a women's transformational coach who helps women who have been pushed down and have been playing it small due to toxic relationships or unhealed childhood trauma to create a life that is true to them and their soul purpose. Amen. Petia's mission is to help women who are on the path to healing from past wounds move through their limiting beliefs and internal blocks so that they can finally do what they want to do, what feels good to them, serve other women in a powerful way online.

Alyssa Scolari [01:46]:

Petia pairs feminine flow with strategic planning to give entrepreneurs immense clarity and exact steps to transition from side hustler to CEO. If she's not interviewing on her podcast, Unapologetically Abundant, working out or reading, you will find her in nature disconnecting from the world and connecting to herself. Welcome, Petia. How are you?

Petia Kolibova [02:13]:

I am doing amazing. Thank you so much for having me, Alyssa. And actually, I find it really refreshing that you didn't ask me how to pronounce my name, because every time I jump on an interview with people they're like, "Okay, so before we even introduce each other, before we start talking, how do you pronounce your name." So I was like, "Oh, this is nice, refreshing." So you are being original, unique and look how beautifully it played out.

Alyssa Scolari [02:40]:

Yeah, listen, I'm going for it. You know what it is? It was just that we started talking and then I already felt like I've known you for five years. So I was just like, "Oh, I got this." And I just didn't even think to ask. So yeah, it played out okay. So I appreciate you being here. You are a rockstar of a woman. So could you just elaborate and expand a bit more and what it is you do, because you are doing all types of incredible things.

Petia Kolibova [03:11]:

Well, thank you so much, Alyssa. That's so beautiful and such a beautiful introduction. And thank you for calling me a rockstar. I think it's very sweet of you. And if you would have told me this 15, 10, heck, even five years ago, I wouldn't see myself as a rockstar, I would see myself as a rock on the bottom, really, because back then it wasn't me who has a podcast, the love of her life who she's getting married in two months and getting myself [crosstalk 00:03:41].

Alyssa Scolari [03:40]:

Two months!

Petia Kolibova [03:41]:

Right? And having a six figure online coaching business. Five, 10, 15 years ago I was very insecure, I felt that I'm unworthy, unlovable. And I was attracting the experiences that were just confirming that. They were confirming my feeling of unworthiness. I went through depression, anxiety, antidepressants. I went through the attempt of suicide, suicidal thoughts, eating disorder. And really the feeling that I'm just the waste of a space, like why am I even here? It didn't make sense to me, like why am I here? And I know that maybe not just your listeners, but people in general, they are thinking about, "Why am I here? What is my purpose?"

Petia Kolibova [04:27]:

I was waking up every single day and I was feeling and thinking that there must be more. If not, this is so silly. We're born, we go through the darkness then we get the job, maybe get married, couple kids and then die. I was thinking that if somebody, higher power, whatever you believe, universe, God created this, this is pretty silly, let me tell you. So I was holding on that hope that there must be more in life, this cannot be it. The world is spinning, the planets are not crashing into each other, we are breathing, our heart is beating, we don't have to control these things. So I wanted to believe that whoever is controlling these things that we don't have to think about has a higher intelligence than just bring us here, go through some suffering, go through glimpses of fun or joy, and then die.

Petia Kolibova [05:24]:

And that's something that really it was just this unstoppable curiosity in me to try to figure it out. So I was trying to figure it out through doing all the right things. I went to school, I went to fitness competition, I got married, I was doing all the right things, checking off the boxes. I got my Bachelor's in Marketing, I got my MBA, I got the great corporate job that I was raising the ladder. And I felt empty and I felt miserable. And I thought to myself, "Something must be wrong with me. What's wrong with me?" People look at me and they're like, "Oh you have such a great life, look how handsome husband you have." Who could have known he's a narcissistic and very, very different person behind a closed door than what you can see.

Alyssa Scolari [06:14]:

Right. The things that people can't see, exactly.

Petia Kolibova [06:16]:

Exactly. And I felt so much shame and so much guilt because when people would look at my life, everything on the outside looked great. I have a great body, I have a great job, I have a great looking husband, right? What's wrong with me that I am not appreciating what I have? But the things that I had were not things that were meant for me, because I was not true to myself. I was doing all the things that I thought that I should and those things that we think we should are not things that are true and right for us.

Alyssa Scolari [06:50]:

Yes, it's this idea that I think is ingrained in people that you have to achieve the American dream, climbing the corporate ladder, looking really good, working out, having a really handsome or good looking partner, having money. And it's like well these are the things that make you happy. And then you attain all of those things and it's like, "Oh, but I'm still really miserable."

Petia Kolibova [07:15]:

Yeah, exactly. And it's the thing, for some people this American dream really works, because that's what lights them up. We are not here to criticize one way or the other way, but it's very important for you to realize, "Who am I? What lights me up?" Because doing all those things, listen, my mentor, I have a business and marketing mentor, she's my friend, she's my mentor, I love her to life, she's making between 100 and $600,000 a month. And she is absolutely incredible piece of human being. I love her to life. It turns her on, it lights her up. She is a genius. She is a marketing goddess. That's how I have her saved in my phone, Shannon, the marketing goddess.

Petia Kolibova [08:05]:

And this lights her up, the spreadsheets, the numbers, the marketing. For me, it drains me. It drains me. That's why in my business I created a feminine flow and strategies that feel good to you so you don't have to be working hard and hustling. For her, it turns her on, for me, it turns me down. So we get to ask ourselves, "What are the things that really I'm curious about? What really lights me up?" Those are the things that are going to take you out from that darkness, from that feeling of meaninglessness. Those are the things that you get to start giving yourself permission to feel and to feel it all, not to bury or numb your feelings. Give yourself permission to feel it all, that's what's going to make you really feel alive.

Alyssa Scolari [08:59]:

Yes, because if you keep pushing down that feeling that's coming up that says, "Something's not right here", then I find that we end up finding ourselves back in the lull of attraction. And speaking of which, I think what you started off with, with the podcast and what you were talking about was really what the lull of attraction is. So would you mind sharing with the listeners what is the lull of attraction? Because it's so easy to get caught up in when we don't honor that feeling.

Petia Kolibova [09:32]:

Absolutely. And I love that question, what really is the lull of attraction? And it's funny because some people like, "Oh, that's woo woo stuff, I don't believe in that." It's like saying, "I don't believe in gravity, that doesn't apply to me." Whether you like it or not, it does apply to you and likes are attracting likes. Just think about it, you wake up in the morning and you're feeling like, "I don't want to wake up, I don't want to go to my job", and everything starts to be looking gray, everything starts to look overwhelming and frustrating. But if you can wake up in the morning and connect with your body, connect with your breath and really think about the things, "What am I really excited for today?" You get to step into that positive expectation. Because when we're expecting the best and when we're expecting the positive, the positive will come.

Petia Kolibova [10:22]:

And even if some challenges will come, like traffic or people you don't want to deal with or traffic ticket, whatever it is, it's not going to be such a big of a deal. Give yourself permission to create the life you truly desire by being what you desire. You get to be it first. It's like going to your garden, planting apple trees and waiting for pears to come. It won't happen. So everything you're planting out there, it's going to happen. And listen, it's not like I have made it, it's not like my life is perfect. We all are going through the things and ebbs and flows in our life. However, these ebbs and flows are not going to be the highest high and the lowest lows, not anymore. And that's something that lull of attraction really helps you.

Petia Kolibova [11:13]:

And I remember the first time that I started to learn about lull of attraction. And then I had a negative thought, I was like, "Oh my gosh, I screw it up. Now something really bad will happen." I was so paranoid like, "Oh my God, I thought about that." It's not like that. I feel like our first thought, it's instinct, like instinctual. It's like this first glimpse into what could be. Like you're waking up and you're feeling negative, don't worry, choose again. That's the beauty, each and every moment is a new moment and you can always choose again and that's what I love. Because sometimes we're feeling frustrated or overwhelmed. Do something that brings you joy. I go to the park, I go for a walk, I kiss my dog on her belly, that makes me happy.

Alyssa Scolari [12:04]:

That makes me the happiest. Puppy belly kisses, they're the best.

Petia Kolibova [12:08]:

Right. I love her to life. She is such a joy. Just playing around or I go take a shower. Or my fiance, I can do it myself, but he does EFT tapping on me, just the tapping on me on the meridian points, because that really helps you to, first of all, just to get present, slow down, get into your body, but also tapping on the energetical points that you can shift the energy, you can shift how you're feeling. So it's fun.

Alyssa Scolari [12:41]:

Yeah. And I love that you pointed out that just because I recognize the lull of attraction and I recognize that I'm getting what I'm putting out there, and just because I'm working on that and I'm actively trying to change things, doesn't mean that I'm never going to have lows. It just means that it's going to be so much easier. It's just different. It's more doable than suffering. It really pulls you out of a place of suffering and a place of meaninglessness. What is the point of anything?

Petia Kolibova [13:26]:

Absolutely. And it's really important to remember, because I even remember when I started my journey I used to be comparing myself with people who are a couple steps ahead of me or are doing the things or having the things that I wanted to. It's a slippery slope, it really brings you in a downward spiral. So recognizing that we are all on our journey and each of us is working on different things. And it would be super boring if everything is just like butterflies and rainbows. You would be getting bored so quickly, because we came here to experience things, we came here to grow, we came here to evolve. And growth is one of my core values. I really value growth. Sometimes to grow is fun and sometimes it's uncomfortable, sometimes it's scary, but we really cam here to experience this world and experience what is it to be a human.

Alyssa Scolari [14:21]:

Yes, we came here to experience all of the emotions both. And I won't say good and bad because I do not believe that there are bad emotions, but both the difficult ones and the easier ones. We came here to experience it all. I don't know that we necessarily came here to suffer in the way that we do when we go into this existential crisis of, "What does anything mean?" Now, for you, I wanted to ask, and if this is too personal of a question, please tell me and I absolutely will take no offense. You had mentioned both, I know this was on your website and you had also mentioned this earlier, that you had battled an eating disorder. Were you in the throes and in the midst of your eating disorder while you were "living the dream" with a handsome husband and climbing the corporate ladder? Was that when you were in your eating disorder?

Petia Kolibova [15:26]:

I was struggling with eating disorder for 18 years. So that was most of my life. I started with my eating disorder when I was 11 years old.

Alyssa Scolari [15:37]:

Wow, you were just a kid.

Petia Kolibova [15:40]:

Yeah, it was something that was the biggest part of my life and I never believed that I could overcome it because it was just like... I don't know if you know the show the Dexter.

Alyssa Scolari [15:51]:

Yeah.

Petia Kolibova [15:52]:

I used to love that show. And at that show he's talking about a dark passenger, something that comes over him and it's not him. I felt the same way with my eating disorder, it felt like it was controlling me that I didn't have a control over it yet usually people with the eating disorder, it's the control that we are craving, because our life on the outside feels out of our control. So we want to have control over something and your body or what you're eating is. And I was feeling so empty on inside, in my job, in my relationship, that I wanted to feel filled. And when you eat 10 doughnuts and french baguette and ice cream, you're feeling pretty filled. So I'm saying jokingly, but back then it was really challenging, because I didn't see it end, I didn't see how it would be possible to ever end. So to answer your question, yes it was part of my life for most of my life and I healed when I was almost 30 years old.

Petia Kolibova [16:58]:

Okay, so almost 30 years old. And what really helped me is I started CrossFit. And I know it's funny, but I started CrossFit and the classes were at 6:00AM. And I had to wake up really early. So if I would be binging and purging the night before, I would be really exhausted. I couldn't do anything. I felt like I want to die on the workouts. So what I did, I was working out three to four times a week. So I told myself, "I will skip this day, just one day just so I can sleep and work out and then tomorrow I can binge again." So that really helped me, just one day at a time. And then two days because I was working out two days in a row. So that really helped me to have something.

Petia Kolibova [17:45]:

So it's really, even if you don't work out, it's one day at a time, I can do it, ask for help. Now it's so much easier than before. This was almost a decade ago, so it wasn't as easy as podcasts, Instagram, all these things that are so easy nowadays accessible. For as then it was a decade ago when I was feeling alone and ashamed and guilty.

Alyssa Scolari [18:10]:

Yeah. Because what you do right now for your job is bringing people out of the shame and the guilt, particularly women, which sidebar or maybe not a sidebar, but sidebar for a minute, is there a reason why you specifically chose to work with women and women's empowerment? I love it. Can't keep the woman down, I am here for it, applaud you, but I'm just wondering was there something specific that led you to be like, "I'm working with women and women only?"

Petia Kolibova [18:46]:

I love that. And thank you so much for recognition of my work. And one of the reasons why I became coach is because I needed this. I needed someone to give me hope, I needed someone to hold my hand, I needed someone who would be listening to me. Because when you think about it, our biggest traumas come from us when we're growing up not feeling loved, heard and seen. When you don't feel loved, heard and see and understood, then you're bringing it into the adulthood and that's all I brought up into my adulthood feeling unseen, unheard, unlovable and doing crazy things just to be seen and to be validated and outsourcing my worthiness and happiness in other people.

Petia Kolibova [19:27]:

So that's why I became coach and why I became women's coach is before I was doing a life and business coaching with women, I was a personal trainer. It was part of my journey. And I would be working with men and women. And I started to really go within and ask myself, why is it that some days I'm really lit up and feeling amazing and some days I'm just dragging into doing the things, right? So for me, men were just more drama, for me, personally. I still had clients that I love to live. I have a client who is 80 years old now and he's amazing. I loved it. He was so dedicated. He was working out twice a week and it's just incredible. But I realized what really does lie to me up it's igniting woman and bringing in the hope and bringing in the possibilities because in my heart, I truly believe that as women, we are peacemakers, we are lovers, we are nurturers and we can truly make the difference because we are not only birthing babies, but we are birthing ideas.

Petia Kolibova [20:42]:

And I believe that it's time that we are shifting from patriarchy back to matriarchy when women are celebrated, listened and really respected. So I want women to step into their power, because I believe that when a woman is feeling good, she will share with everyone else around her, her family, her kids, her partner, her friends, she will give it out, right? Men, there are amazingly focused, right? I'm protector and provider, I got to go. But usually, he doesn't think about the family, the community. And there are some men they are, because it's all about masculine and feminine energy. But for me, who really, really lights me up are the women who came here to help others. I want to help women who wants to help others, whether it's your family and you just want to be a better mom or whether you want to create an online business and impacting thousands or millions, I'm here for that. But I'm only working with woman who wants to be helping others.

Alyssa Scolari [21:52]:

Yes. And it's so I think extra special, because you are targeting a group of people who are generally held down. Women much more than men go unheard, not listened to, not taken seriously, are raised to feel shame in their bodies, shame about no matter what women do, whether they are staying at home, whether they are climbing the corporate ladder, they don't do anything right. So I really love that and appreciate just the advocacy and the empowerment and the way that you say, "I want to work with women who want to help others in some capacity, who are giving back to the community and giving back to the world in some capacity." They don't necessarily need to be CEOs or business women, but women who are looking to give back.

Petia Kolibova [22:52]:

I love that. And one thing that I started to say that I would love to share with you, and this is just my personal feeling is when we say we are giving back, it's like I have taken something. I have taken something and I'm going and giving it back. So what I love seeing is I'm paying it forward. I'm just paying it forward. I'm giving it to those in need, because when we say I'm giving it back, I didn't take anything from anyone so why should I give something back? I'm paying it forward and I'm giving it to people who are open to it, because not everybody is.

Alyssa Scolari [23:29]:

Yeah, it's so true. And I also really want to touch on the inner child work that you do, because it sounds like you do a lot of work about helping women speak back or helping women to nurture their inner child so that they can feel seen.

Petia Kolibova [23:55]:

Absolutely. And it's something that we touched a little bit on, Alyssa, when I was mentioning that many of our traumas come to us because we're feeling unseen and unheard and understood. And some women who come to me, they went through really huge traumas, like a sexual abuse, physical abuse and things that we leave marks on you, not only on your body, but special in your soul and how we are perceiving ourselves. But then there are also women who come to me who are like, "Well, I had a great childhood. I had great parents, I love them, I have a great relationship with them," yet still there are some traumas when we feel unheard or unseen. Just think about it.

Petia Kolibova [24:40]:

One of my clients, she was on my retreat in Bali. And when we were doing a childhood, I do hypnosis, I do NLP, I do meditation. So when I was doing session with her, she was like, "Oh, I don't have any bad experiences from my childhood and anything. It was cool." And I was like, "Okay." I'm like, "Tell me something about your childhood." And she was like, "I don't remember." I'm like, "Oh, that's interesting. Why wouldn't you remember? What is there that you don't want to remember?" So I just invited her and I took her through hypnosis and we find out that she really felt abandoned by her father, because her father didn't come at night to cover her, to tackle her, because he was busy working. And so she felt unworthy because her dad didn't make time for her just to cover her.

Petia Kolibova [25:29]:

And this is when you think about it, this story, it's like the dad would have different perception like, "Hey, I love you so much and I want to work and I want to make money so you can have a better life than me. So I am proving you my love." For her, as a little girl, "Dad's working, dad is busy, doesn't have time for me, he doesn't care, he doesn't love me." So the stories that we create, we were able to go back. We were able to recreate that memory, meaning re-parent yourself, receiving the things that you wish that you received. So we created a different story, different scenario. She's a little girl, lying in a bed, her dad is coming telling her stories, covering her up, kissing her in a front head. And she creates this as a memory. Your brain cannot distinguish from a memory or a visualization. It can't. It can't feel the same way.

Petia Kolibova [26:23]:

Just think about it when you're watching movies. Listen, five minutes in a romantic movie, I'm already crying. We went on a wedding last weekend and they just start playing music and I'm crying. So it can take us back and we can feel it into our bodies. So recreating, re-parenting yourself. Thank God that we did that because a few months after the retreat, she reconciled with her father. She was able to recreate the relationship. She spent a couple months in Europe with him. He passed away.

Alyssa Scolari [26:55]:

Wow.

Petia Kolibova [26:56]:

If she wouldn't done the retreat.

Alyssa Scolari [26:58]:

Body chills.

Petia Kolibova [27:01]:

And I just had it, because she's local here. We had a VIP day experience together, which means spending all afternoon with me. And she told me, "I want to thank you enough. And again, because I cannot thank you enough for how you helped me to reconcile with my father." Because I could just leave it there and I could just say like, "Okay, you think you had a cool childhood. Okay, great. Next." But it's me trusting my intuition and each and every one of us has it. Trust your intuition, don't bypass things. You bypass things, you bypass love, you bypass life. Don't do that. That's why I do the inner child healing. Each and every one of us really need it.

Petia Kolibova [27:45]:

No matter what your childhood was like, I can promise you, there were things that hurt you. One of my clients, we were working on, her parents, they went in big grocery store, like Costco, when she was a little girl. They went shopping, she got lost and she had a trauma from that. They found her, come on, it's Costco. They put her in a register. It's like 10 minutes later. But she had a trauma of being unseen. So she went into the introverted stage of, "I don't matter. I'm not meant to be seen, because if I were to be seen, my parents wouldn't leave me behind." The stories we create as little kinds. It's important for you to go back because if you don't go back, you are going to do this over and over and over again, in all of your relationship with the relationship itself, relationship with money, relationship with your family, relationship with friends at work. You will keep recreating it because that little child wasn't taken care of.

Alyssa Scolari [28:48]:

Yes. And I really appreciate you pointing now examples that are less severe, because I think that trauma is not necessarily about the event itself. Not I think, we know research tells us trauma is not about the event itself, trauma is about the narrative that you've created around the event or the way in which the event was handled, et cetera. So I think it's really important to point out that none of us go unscathed in our childhood. We all had moments of feeling unseen, unheard, unloved, unwanted, whatever you want to call it.

Petia Kolibova [29:37]:

Absolutely. And it's really important to recognize and acknowledge your feelings. Because like my client told me, "Oh, there was no big deal, there was no nothing," because she made it a not big deal, but because she just put it under the rock instead of looking at it and how did I really feel? How does it make me feel now? So acknowledge your feelings. It's not that something is bigger and something is smaller trauma. If it hurts you validate that feeling, but you don't have to validate it and sit on it. It's when we can look at those feelings and acknowledged them that they can go through us versus us, "Oh, this is not big deal. Oh, this is already in the past." Then it sits in our body and it shows in a disease.

Alyssa Scolari [30:28]:

Yeah, exactly. Exactly, it does turn into disease. I love that you pointed that out because I think that it's so true when we keep it in. And then again, there comes that lull of attraction where we're keeping things in and more often than not, it's subconscious. We are attracting people and things that make us feel the same emptiness or make us feel unheard, the same feelings that we felt in childhood.

Petia Kolibova [31:00]:

Exactly. And that's why it's really time for you to shift. And it doesn't matter if you're 20 years old or 60 years old, the time is really now to start taking care of you and bringing into awareness and giving yourself permission to live a life that is true to you.

Alyssa Scolari [31:17]:

Now, how do you help people? And this is a loaded question. And I'm not sure if it's maybe too broad, but I'm just thinking back to the woman who was able to reconcile that relationship with her father. How would you help somebody where that wasn't an option? I'm sure you've had plenty of women who are estranged from their families. Their parents had difficult childhoods for reasons that really aren't able to be reconciled.

Petia Kolibova [31:52]:

I love that question. Sometimes we just get to do the work on ourselves, do the work for us not for them. For her, it was amazing. She was able to go back, talk to her dad. Maybe your parents don't want to speak to you. Maybe the parents, they are not here anymore. Maybe it's not a parent who hurts you, maybe it's someone who just is not even in your sphere. So what I do in those cases, I have a forgiveness framework that we do together because it's really important to forgive, not only them but to yourself. And the forgiveness framework is not just the forgiveness letter, because I did hundreds of those and I was still pissed and I was still frustrated and I was still hurt. Then I'm like, "Okay, I burned millions of letters and I'm still feeling it," but I created a forgiveness framework where I guide my clients through the steps of shifting their perception.

Petia Kolibova [32:56]:

And like you said, rewriting that story. First, it's framed as a letter, but it has specific steps that are consciously you're hurt, consciously you know this person hurt me, this person made me harm or this is the story that I have about the person. So your conscious mind wants to keep you safe, the conscious mind wants to keep you protected and will say like, "Stop, you cannot forgive this person, this person did you wrong," whatever it is. So when we work on the forgiveness framework, it's the subconscious mind. So the words that I'm using, the questions that I'm using, the writing the letter that I'm using, it really goes to your subconscious mind. So it surpasses the conscious mind where there is still some pain hurt and resistance. And we always start the letter with appreciation because no matter what that event created something for you, it created an opportunity.

Petia Kolibova [34:00]:

So first we look for the opportunity, because you can start a forgiveness letter and say, "You did this, this, this to me, but I want to be free so I forgive you." Your conscious mind will say, "That's a BS, you cannot, we cannot, and I'm still pissed and I'm still hurt." But when we start with celebrating the opportunity and looking at that person as something that added into our life, no matter how horrific, how big or small was the event or how we made it, we start first into the opportunity. And then where I take them is looking at this person as again, a little child. That's when the inner child comes in to work, because you're going to be looking at person who is adult differently than you will look at the small five year old who is scared, who screwed up, who is afraid.

Petia Kolibova [34:57]:

How did they grow up? Do you know that? If not, still imagining them like a little child. And thank them and tell them why they are not right to be in your life. So, for example, when I was doing the forgiveness framework, I did it for one of my ex boyfriends. I wrote it down and I said, "Dear, so and so I say, thank you so much for showing me what does it feel like when a woman is treated like a goddess and you give her massages and bring her gifts and bring her flowers. That was so beautiful. I know that you are still scared to get intimate because you never had that in your life." And then I step into, "You're not the one because the one treats me like the only one, it's family oriented, it's looking for commitment, it's loyal, it's committed and all these things." And then I said, "Thank you, I release you from my life."

Alyssa Scolari [35:51]:

I love it. I love this so much, because for the listeners out there, this is going to sound familiar to you if you've listened to previous episodes. So I have a private Facebook group where I post these daily engagement posts and there are quotes. And one of the quotes and this quote is I think one of the most controversial ones in the group, it's a group for trauma survivors. And this quote reads, "Someone I loved once gave me a box full of darkness. It took me years to understand that this too was a gift." And that was a quote by, Lord help me I am going to butcher this name, Pema, P-E-M-A, Chodron, C-H-O-D-R-O-N. This quote is one of the most controversial topics in the Facebook group, because people are, I think very triggered by it because they're like, "Well, I'm not going to be thankful for my abuse or thankful for what happens to me."

Alyssa Scolari [37:00]:

And I understand that, but I don't think that's what this quote says. I think this quote is saying similar to what you're saying, which is, it's not about accepting what was done to you, it's not about saying, "Oh, my abuse was a gift," it's not about saying, "I am so glad I married that narcissistic man," it's about, just like you said, a forgiveness framework and the ability to pull a gift from it.

Petia Kolibova [37:36]:

Yeah. I love that quote and I can see why it would be controversial, because when we are sending in our pain, we want to point out and give that pain to someone, we want to blame, we want to show, we want to ride like showing others and say that, "Oh, when you suffer then I will feel better," but it doesn't work this way. So when you're releasing that, it doesn't make it right, but it does make it bearable and understandable, because I was physically, mentally abused, because I was with narcissistic man or process or jealous man. Now I'm loving, I'm compassionate and patient. It's funny. I think that you have this thing in America, you go the extra mile. My client told me, "You go extra 100 miles for your clients," because I know what does it feel like sitting in a darkness. I know what does it feel like to be alone and not wanting to live.

Petia Kolibova [38:32]:

One time I attempted for suicide. Second time I was thinking about it again. That's why I knew I have to change my life. I didn't want to be here. And women are suffering quietly. They're keeping themselves busy. They're in the people pleasing mode. They are thinking that when I make everybody around myself happy, then I will be happy, but you won't.

Alyssa Scolari [38:54]:

Yes. That is speaking a very hard truth. Was that part of the inspiration for your podcast?

Petia Kolibova [39:06]:

I love that question. When I started my podcast over three years ago, it was called Be Strong Minded, because be comes from the being, that's the spirit. Strong comes from the physical. Minded is the mindset. So I wanted to blend those three, the mind, body, spirit. The spirit, body and mind in my case, and I had it for like a year, and that was when I started to really shift to my life because I realized that when I am unapologetically me, you either take it or you leave it and I don't care because I care too much and too deeply. That's when the abundance come into my life. Up until that point, I was working hard and hustling in my masculine energy and doing things, improving others and just keeping myself busy and really not living.

Petia Kolibova [39:58]:

And when I was able to slow down and step into the flow and the trust, that was the moment that I was really able to create the abundance. So that's when I changed the name of my podcast into Unapologetically Abundant, because when you become unapologetically, you and what you stand for, that's when the abundance can come in, in money, in freedom, in relationships, in house, in the richness of life and everything it can bring, but you get to be you. That's your purpose. That's why you came here. So that's why I renamed my podcast.

Alyssa Scolari [40:34]:

Yeah. I love it. It's incredible. So you're podcast is a podcast for specifically women, correct?

Petia Kolibova [40:44]:

Yes.

Alyssa Scolari [40:45]:

And it's all about the same principles that you work towards when you work with somebody solo basically, obviously not as detailed, but it's the same type of mindset?

Petia Kolibova [40:59]:

Yes, absolutely. I bring on guests who are living the abundant life and who are living fulfilled life. It's very important to live a fulfilled life. That's what I do. And then I have a short solo episodes where I am sharing bits of wisdom and mindset shifts.

Alyssa Scolari [41:20]:

I love it. And isn't it so beautiful when you are able to sit in a space with somebody who has become unapologetically abundant?

Petia Kolibova [41:29]:

You can feel it, because it doesn't matter what you say, it doesn't matter what you do, people can feel your energy. And that's priceless. I remember few years ago people were telling me like, "Oh, your energy is so amazing." I was like, "What are talking about? What energy? What?" Me in the beginning of my journey, I was like, "What?" And then they're like, "Oh, I always feel good when I'm around you." I was like, "Why?" I didn't get it. I didn't know that, but now I can see it. And even people when they're around me and in my life, they're like, "I know." That's I do like woman's weekends retreats, just here for a weekend in Las Vegas. I do international retreats in Mexico and in Bali, because I know that the feeling is just priceless. So it's really all about how you're feeling. How you're feeling is going to lead into what you're thinking. What you're thinking will lead into the action that will lead into the results and what you are ultimately having in your life. So it all starts with how you're feeling.

Alyssa Scolari [42:37]:

Yes. And it's 1000% accurate. I absolutely feed and thrive off of the energy that you have. Absolutely. And it is one of those things that you can feel the moment that you meet somebody and you just know. And you have it, you are the epitome and the definition of unapologetically abundant. And I love it. I am so happy that you came on the show. It has been such a joy to talk to you. So now, if people who are hearing less, if they are like, "I need more of this in my life," where can they go? So I know you have your social media, you have your podcasts, all of which I'm going to link on the show notes. And if people want to seek you out for services, where do they find you at?

Petia Kolibova [43:32]:

I love that question. You can find all the information on my website, petiakolibova.com, but also you can shoot me a quick message on Instagram or on Facebook. All of it is Petia Kolibova. I am very responsive. I have also my team who is helping me. And you never know if this really resonates. There is this saying, and it's funny because my new clients always come with that saying to me, when the student is ready, the teacher appears. So if you're listening to this and you're feeling moved and you're feeling like you're truly meant for more than what you're experiencing right now, whether it's your personal life and how you're feeling and you want to attract the love of your life or create health in your body or do you want to create online thriving business. I'm here for that. I'm taking usually just a couple of clients, a quarter, because with the wedding and the traveling and everything that is going on, I'm very present to my clients. So I take only a couple, but I would be more than happy to connect with you and see how I can support you.

Alyssa Scolari [44:37]:

Beautiful. And I will link all of that in the show notes for our listeners. Petia, thank you so much for coming today and for being a guest and for being so vulnerable and for the work that you do to help empower women, because feminine energy is divine and it is not given nearly enough attention.

Petia Kolibova [45:02]:

Thank you so much, Alyssa. I love what you're doing, your work and thank you for inviting me, recognizing me. And like I said, if I can do anything to support, I'm just a message away.

Alyssa Scolari [45:13]:

Thank you. 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 [45:46]:

Lastly, please head over to patreon.com/lightaftertrauma to support our show. We are asking for $5 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.

Alyssa Scolari [46:06]:

[singing]

Therapist and host of the Mindful Recovery podcast, Robert Cox, shares his grieving process after the tragic loss of his son, Tristn Jevon, to an overdose in February of this year.

Support the Tristn Jevon Recovery Foundation

Mindful Recovery Podcast

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LAT listed in the Top 30 Trauma Podcasts

Transcript:

Alyssa Scolari [00:03]:

[Music 00:00:03]

Alyssa Scolari [00:23]:

Hi everybody. If you are new here, welcome, and if you are not new, then welcome back. I'm going to dive right into it today. We have special guest Robert Cox, who is an LPC, a therapist, in Missouri, specializing in trauma, addictions and autism. He is the creator and founder of Life Recovery Consulting, which will soon be turning into a nonprofit organization called The Tristn Jevon Center for Recovery. Robert is also the host of The Mindful Recovery Podcast, which I had the honor of being a guest on. It is a fantastic podcast that covers all things addiction, trauma and mental health related. Welcome, Robert. Thank you for being here.

Robert Cox [01:14]:

Thanks for having me here. I appreciate it.

Alyssa Scolari [01:17]:

Now you do a lot of incredible things. I feel like there are so many different conversations that I would love to have with you. First, let's just talk a little bit about your podcast. The Mindful Recovery, when did you start that up?

Robert Cox [01:39]:

I started it probably five or six years ago but I took two years off because life got very complicated for me and building this group practice, The Life Recovery Consulting, was taking up all of my time, but I continued to get downloads and I continued to get emails from people saying, "When are you going to get a new episode out? This really helps me." And so just last January I started it back up and we're currently at like 380,000 downloads or so in like 90 countries, so it's ringing a bell with some people because I've only got about 35 or 36 episodes out total, right, so we're averaging about 5,000 a week hits so it's doing pretty well right now.

Alyssa Scolari [02:22]:

Wow.

Robert Cox [02:23]:

It just came out of the fact that I had been an addict with a lot of trauma myself and in my recovery when I thought mindfulness saved my butt to a large extent. I was a practicing Buddhist for 15 years and that really helped me, so I thought I might as well share this space and some of the information that I've accrued not just as a professional with a Master's degree but as someone who's been there and done that and made really stupid choices.

Alyssa Scolari [02:53]:

Right, and in listening to your podcast that's something that, one of the many things that makes your podcast really great is the vulnerability that you add in again coming to this as a human who has been through some shit, made some mistakes. Just so the listeners out there know, I first found Robert on a platform that we are both a part of as podcasters and he had posted in the Facebook group that he was starting up his podcast again after taking a break for a couple of years. Then we touched base and we planned to record together and after doing some more research on Robert and listening to his podcasts I had realized that he had been through a great, great loss recently and today we are here to talk about that. If you wouldn't mind Robert, I will turn it over to you, if you wouldn't mind sharing what life has been like for you for the last several months.

Robert Cox [04:07]:

Wow. It's been a lot of loss. I talk a lot on my podcast about holding space for the pain and not trying to numb it out and trying to learn from it or make something of it instead of just allowing it to eat you alive. I have struggled with every avenue of addiction. My own addiction and then my wife relapsed while we were married and she has bravely overcome that. Then we dealt with my oldest child, my stepchild, he came to me when he was about five or six years old and the first five or six years of his life were pretty horrible. There was a lot of abuse involved and so those issues left him, all adolescents go through the experimental phase with drugs and alcohol, that's pretty normal actually, the problem is that when there's a lot of trauma there that they haven't dealt with, much like I did, they realize hey, when I'm doing this I don't hate myself so much. I can actually talk to people without feeling like a piece of crap.

Robert Cox [05:15]:

That's what he discovered, and he went down that rabbit hole and we talked about it honestly, his mom and I set healthy boundaries, and I really do believe, and I've talked to our family therapist about it and she believed too, all of us believed that he had a really, really good heart and eventually he was going to overcome this like I did when I was his age. But he didn't have time. He had dental surgery and didn't feel like he had enough painkiller so he went to his dealer and got what he thought were Percocets but they were actually laced with fentanyl and that one or two week period he and seven other people died from those pills.

Robert Cox [05:59]:

On February 4th we got a knock on the door and he'd been in jail before so the police are there and I'm like, oh crap. What's going on with Tristn?

Alyssa Scolari [06:09]:

Right.

Robert Cox [06:10]:

That was not what we expected to hear. I don't know, it's changed my whole world. I always thought about him, I always worried about him, but like every minute of every day now is pretty much me thinking about him in one way or another. Part of understanding that is being able to hold space again and practice what I preach and not retreat from that pain.

Robert Cox [06:42]:

I did an episode on the stages of grief and talked about that a little bit on those two episodes, but truthfully the stage I was in for weeks was just being pissed at him for not listening to what I was telling him. For not taking seriously what I was saying and just being really pissed. Then there was the phase of being pissed at myself because, pardon my French, but I'm a fucking addictions therapist and I can't help my son? Are you kidding me?

Alyssa Scolari [07:09]:

Yeah.

Robert Cox [07:12]:

Understanding those spaces and not retreating from them was, is, really important. I would say honestly I agreed to do this podcast, when you asked me about this topic and you were very polite about saying, "If that's too much I totally get it," and I'm like, I kind of see this as an opportunity to embrace that space again knowing full well that what it's going to do is probably lay me out for a day or two. The last time I dealt with this pretty much at this level was when my daughter and my wife, we got these little kind of amulet things that you can put ashes in, they could not bring themselves to sit down and do that. I'm Dad, I'm supposed to hold the pain for my family, so I said I'll do it. But it knocked me down for a couple of days.

Alyssa Scolari [08:03]:

Yeah.

Robert Cox [08:04]:

Understanding that that's going to happen, knowing that doing this podcast with you, it's going to leave me in a funk for a couple days, but also knowing that I'm going to survive that and that that's a space I need to enter into sometimes in order to heal, is really, really important. Part of that healing for me has been sharing with the listeners and stuff and getting feedback from them about that it's helped them and part of the healing for me was starting the foundation in his name, The Tristn Jevon Center for Recovery, which if you go on GoFundMe you can find it there, The Tristn Jevon Center for Recovery.

Alyssa Scolari [08:41]:

Yep, and I will absolutely make sure to link that in the show notes.

Robert Cox [08:44]:

And we've raised enough money on there that I could at least pay for the attorney and get that started and get the nonprofit going so that we can provide services for people who can't afford them and free coaching seminars and public things and this kind of stuff, educating the public about these things and hopefully helping other people to not have to go through this because quite frankly he didn't get as lucky as I got. When I was only two years older than him my heart stopped but I lived, and that was the last time I used.

Alyssa Scolari [09:17]:

Wow. You were two years older than Tristn was and your heart stopped as a result of your substance abuse?

Robert Cox [09:26]:

Yeah, putting too much cocaine and methamphetamine and whatever else in my system and your body just says you know what? I quit. That's too much.

Alyssa Scolari [09:34]:

Yeah.

Robert Cox [09:36]:

I lived through that event and there's a little voice in my head that said, is that really the way you want to go out? The answer was no, and so I've been clean 33 years since that.

Robert Cox [09:48]:

My hope was he will be smarter than I was and come out of this before something like that happens. We talked about it frequently but denial is a powerful part of addiction. All we could do is keep the boundaries there and hope for the best and it did not come out for the best.

Alyssa Scolari [10:06]:

No.

Robert Cox [10:08]:

But this being able to hold space, being able to maintain that vulnerable space where you're hurting and not numb that out is so important. The night after the memorial service, wife and daughter and I and my mother-in-law and sister-in-law, we all went out to a nice Italian restaurant to eat together. Kind of something some people do. My daughter leaned over to me and said, "Dad, it's okay if you have a glass of wine today. I understand." Alcohol was never my problem, so she wasn't worrying about me relapsing or anything.

Alyssa Scolari [10:38]:

Right.

Robert Cox [10:39]:

She's seen me have a drink before at dinner and it was fine and she just said, "If you need a drink, I get it." I said to her, "The problem, kiddo, is that I really do need a drink and so I'm not going to have one."

Alyssa Scolari [10:53]:

What a powerful statement.

Robert Cox [10:55]:

Back to what my sponsor said years ago, he said, "If you can take it or leave it, then you can have it. But if you feel like you got to have it, then you better leave it."

Alyssa Scolari [11:07]:

Wow.

Robert Cox [11:08]:

That is exactly what goes through my mind in every one of those situations and I said, "The problem is, kiddo, I really want one right now but I want it to stop the hurt. I want it to numb me out, and that's not a good reason."

Alyssa Scolari [11:20]:

Yep.

Robert Cox [11:23]:

Part of what gets me through this is being able to inhabit a teaching space at the same time I'm going through it. That was a moment where I could explain to her that yes there are times in our lives we're going to want to numb out really bad. Those are the times we shouldn't.

Alyssa Scolari [11:40]:

Yeah, and I can think of no more difficult time than this to want to numb out, especially as you ... There's so much that you touched on, from the stages of grief to even just the pressure that you feel kind of as the man to kind of absorb the family pain. It is just so much and I also want to point out to the listeners that this was less than two months ago that Tristn passed.

Robert Cox [12:12]:

February 4th.

Alyssa Scolari [12:13]:

Yep, so today that we are recording is March 25th, so this is so fresh.

Robert Cox [12:20]:

Six weeks, yeah.

Alyssa Scolari [12:23]:

I guess one of my questions for you is was there a sense of, because in one of your podcast episodes you talk about this concept of anticipatory grief. Can you talk a little bit about what that is and was that an experience for you?

Robert Cox [12:43]:

Sure. Not with Tristn, no. Denial was not something the addict goes through. Denial is also something we go through and I kept telling myself, "He'll come around. He'll come around." The truth is there's nothing I could have done in that space.

Alyssa Scolari [12:57]:

Yeah.

Robert Cox [12:58]:

But no, as a parent ... When I talked about anticipatory grief it was because my father had Lewy Body dementia as a result of his Parkinson's, was going in a nursing home and that was a very real space at one point that we thought he wasn't going to live beyond a week and I knew this was coming because I could see the fade and suddenly we moved him to a better nursing home and he's doing a lot better but that was what started that anticipatory grief was understanding that this is coming and hopefully with parents and stuff we have time, but it's not something that any parent's going to ever be able to anticipate or prepare for.

Robert Cox [13:36]:

One of the things I point out in the episode is even if you prepare for it, you're still going to feel completely unprepared for it. What did help was educating myself beforehand about grief and because of my field I understood the stages and so instead of, when I got really pissed at Tristn for OD'ing I didn't think I was a bad person, I just thought yeah, that's the stage I'm in with this right now and I could allow myself a little grace and space without feeling shame over being angry with him. You know what I mean? Just understand that's a normal part of the healing process. That is really one way that we can prepare for grief when it comes, because it's going to come. No matter how much we prepare, there are times that it's going to come and we're completely unprepared for it and no matter how much we prepare for it, even the times that we were planning on, are going to hit us in a way that we weren't prepared for.

Robert Cox [14:30]:

When I talk about anticipatory grief I'm talking about really moving into the idea that loss is a part of life and it's going to be painful and if you try and numb out that pain you're going to create ... I tell my grad students, I tell my patients all the time, if there's one thing I could get across to people in recovery, whether from mental illness or from addictions or whatever, it's that pain is a guarantee in life. Suffering is something we choose when we try and avoid it.

Alyssa Scolari [15:03]:

Yeah.

Robert Cox [15:05]:

I'm not saying go looking for pain. I'm not saying create pain. I'm saying don't numb it out when it comes to you. Use it.

Alyssa Scolari [15:13]:

Right, it's when we try to numb our pain with things like drugs or food or sex or what have you, that's when the pain turns into suffering.

Robert Cox [15:26]:

Absolutely. I have been very, very conscientious about trying to inhabit that space in the opportunities presented to me.

Alyssa Scolari [15:37]:

Let me ask you this. As you're inhabiting that space, when you say like after I talk about this, or after I do this podcast interview I'll be laid out for a day, are there some parts where you truly feel like this is suffering? Because I also can imagine that the loss of a child regardless has to make you feel some type of suffering.

Robert Cox [16:04]:

I think it's pain. For me suffering is like what happens when I ignore the pain.

Alyssa Scolari [16:09]:

Okay.

Robert Cox [16:11]:

I guess if you were to put it in terms of the Buddhist perspective, they would say both of them were suffering but the cycle of suffering doesn't have to continue if you stop trying to avoid the suffering that is inevitable, right?

Alyssa Scolari [16:24]:

Right. Right.

Robert Cox [16:26]:

I think that's the way that I kind of keep the division in my mind, is this is pain and I expect it to hurt and I expect it to lay me out for awhile, and by lay me out I mean make me not real happy and chipper for a day or two and I'm going to have to push myself through functioning in certain places for a day or two and giving myself grace in that space, but not numbing that out is so important. Not avoiding it. I don't have to live in it all the time.

Robert Cox [16:59]:

Over the weekend I went out in my wood shop. Before I knew it I had lost track and it had been three, four hours had gone by. That's my self care space. In that time I was not in the middle of all this grief. Allowing yourself that time, I'm not saying that we should feel pressure to experience that pain all the time, but I'm saying when it comes observe it, understand it's there, and know that you can survive it.

Alyssa Scolari [17:26]:

Yeah.

Robert Cox [17:27]:

My sister called a couple days after it had happened when really it was at its peak. Took a couple days to sink in. Initially it's numbness that hits you and you just kind of, I mean there's a lot of pain and crying and upset the first day but then you exhaust yourself and you go into this numb phase.

Alyssa Scolari [17:48]:

Yeah.

Robert Cox [17:49]:

Then coming out of that numb phase is really hard and my sister called. She had been incredibly supportive through this for me. She said, "If I could take this pain from you, you know I would." My response to her was, "Even if you could, I wouldn't let you, because this longing that I have for him, this pain that I have, this is what's left of our connection."

Alyssa Scolari [18:19]:

Yeah.

Robert Cox [18:20]:

To give that up means I'd begin forgetting him and I'm not going to do that.

Alyssa Scolari [18:27]:

Right, like the pain that you feel is the reminder of the love.

Robert Cox [18:33]:

Is the reminder that the connection was real, right?

Alyssa Scolari [18:36]:

Yes.

Robert Cox [18:36]:

That it was real.

Alyssa Scolari [18:38]:

Yes.

Robert Cox [18:39]:

I remember, one of my favorite poets is Rumi.

Alyssa Scolari [18:43]:

Oh I love Rumi.

Robert Cox [18:44]:

If you ever get to read or listen to Rumi, go on YouTube and look up Coleman Barks and he reads Rumi and he's this South Carolina, Southern drawl big bear of a man reading Rumi to this jazz music in the background and it's just this amazing experience. But one of my favorite poems is called Love Dogs and it's about this guy who everyday prays to Allah. Every day he's on his knees praying to Allah and as people pass him by every day on the beach they see him praying to Allah and then one day he stops praying. Rumi talked a lot about the spirit guide Shams and he said Shams comes by and says to this man, "Every day I see you praying and suddenly you're not praying anymore. What's the problem?" The guy, "You know, in response to my prayer all I got was an increased sense of longing." The prophet said to him, "Are you a fool?" He said, "Like a dog whining for his master, that longing is your connection." He said, "There are love dogs in the world no one knows the names of. Give your life to be one of them."

Alyssa Scolari [20:00]:

Wow.

Robert Cox [20:01]:

That has always spoken to me about the pain of loss and the fact that you don't want to go away from it. That longing is the connection. That's what's left.

Alyssa Scolari [20:12]:

Right, and almost I would imagine, and please correct me if I'm wrong, that you don't want the pain to completely go away because the thought of not being in pain just also must be kind of like an intolerable thought.

Robert Cox [20:28]:

I don't seek it out. Again, it's not like I'm a masochist.

Alyssa Scolari [20:34]:

Right. Right, right.

Robert Cox [20:35]:

But I do understand that if I think about him and there's not a little hurt, then I've lost some of that connection also.

Alyssa Scolari [20:42]:

Yeah.

Robert Cox [20:44]:

I don't want it to hurt the way it has in the past six weeks the rest of my life. I'm hoping that will subside. But I would like to be able to remember him. I would like to be able to sit and have a picture of him pop up on Facebook and not have it hit me in the gut so hard at some point.

Alyssa Scolari [21:02]:

Right, in a way that it just knocks you off your feet.

Robert Cox [21:06]:

Yeah, absolutely.

Alyssa Scolari [21:08]:

Now I want to ask you about the stages of grief. I know Kubler-Ross is, for the listeners out there, she developed the five stages of grief and then she worked with David Kessler to add the sixth stage of grief.

Robert Cox [21:28]:

Right.

Alyssa Scolari [21:29]:

Could you talk for a little bit about the five stages of grief and just the way in which they're so not linear?

Robert Cox [21:39]:

Well and you know the thing is that they really, so like back in the '70s or '80s two individuals were looking at smoking cessation and stopping that addiction and they came up with the six stages of change and if you look at the six stages of change and you look at the stages of grief, there are a lot of similarities there.

Alyssa Scolari [22:02]:

You know what, you are right. You are right because isn't the first stage like, the first stage I think is almost denial that you need to change, right?

Robert Cox [22:12]:

It's called pre-contemplation.

Alyssa Scolari [22:14]:

Yep.

Robert Cox [22:14]:

It's about denial. It's about I don't have a problem. Everybody says I have a problem.

Alyssa Scolari [22:19]:

Yeah.

Robert Cox [22:20]:

Then there's contemplation. That's like okay, maybe I do have a problem. I need to weigh the pros and cons. Then there's like, we've got a whole two episodes the past couple weeks on the six stages. Actually it was a three episode series on the six stages of grief, but they really mirror that and especially in the fact that it is non-linear. That unfortunately relapse can be a part of that cycle and then you're stuck with oh, I got to kind of get back on track here, and we're back to pre-contemplation. Oh, is this a problem that I used? Oh it probably is. Okay, what do I do?

Robert Cox [22:59]:

Then preparation is the next step and then action and then, and so they're not exactly the same but the reason they are so closely related is that grief comes from change.

Alyssa Scolari [23:13]:

Yeah. Any kind of change.

Robert Cox [23:17]:

When we grieve we are facing a change. That's grief of anything, we are facing a change. We had to adapt our life to the new normal. That is exactly why they fall in that pattern I think. Understanding the non-linearity of those things, like anger and denial, denial pretty much when you're facing the death of a kid, is not a thing anymore. What I have to face is, the denial that I face is often like oh well, I'm fine. I'll be fine. I'm fine. Right?

Alyssa Scolari [23:53]:

Right, it's more denial of how much pain you're in.

Robert Cox [23:56]:

Denial I'm not big on, and part of that was my own recovery from addiction and understanding that denying shit is not going to make it any better and that I just have to walk into that space.

Alyssa Scolari [24:09]:

Yes.

Robert Cox [24:11]:

The understanding that I can go from acceptance to then being pissed off, to then denying that I'm really mad at him, and I can go back and forth. Bargaining, it's like in these situations of death there's really no bargaining to be done. What's done is done, right? Unless I think take this pain away from me and I'll follow you forever kind of thing, which is not going to do any good anyway.

Alyssa Scolari [24:38]:

Right.

Robert Cox [24:40]:

Bargaining is something that happens more in the addiction recovery kind of phase. Pull me out of this hell and I will become a priest. That kind of thing.

Alyssa Scolari [24:51]:

Right. Exactly.

Robert Cox [24:54]:

The stages change. They change not only based on where you're at in the process but on what that process looks like for you. You may not experience all of the stages.

Alyssa Scolari [25:06]:

Right, you might only experience a few and they could change not even just day to day but sometimes hour to hour, minute to minute I'm sure.

Robert Cox [25:17]:

Yep. Been there. Yeah.

Alyssa Scolari [25:19]:

Just sounds like you have been so much, right, it's like okay, with the death of a kid, denial, not really there. Bargaining, who am I bargaining with? Not really viable.

Robert Cox [25:29]:

Right.

Alyssa Scolari [25:29]:

You have spent a lot of your time maybe going back and forth between acceptance and just anger.

Robert Cox [25:40]:

Yeah, that's true. I think there's been some, I don't know, there's been some denial on my part but I've tried to stay out of that space. A lot of staying out of that space has been me repeating to myself, "I need to be present for my wife and my daughter." But there is denial at times in that you see an ad or TV for a show coming out and you're like, "Oh, Tristn would really like that," and then it hits you like, shit, Tristn's not here anymore.

Alyssa Scolari [26:09]:

Like a ton of bricks.

Robert Cox [26:11]:

Yeah. That's kind of what happened when I sat down and filled those memorial things with ashes for my wife and daughter, was that it took me out of that temporary I can forget about it denial space and put me right back in. I remember mumbling to myself, "This is all that's left of my son," and made it very, very real again.

Alyssa Scolari [26:33]:

Yeah.

Robert Cox [26:34]:

That's a quick way to get out of it, for sure. I think it's important though that people learn to grieve as a family and grieve together. Honestly I don't think my family's been doing that very well.

Alyssa Scolari [26:48]:

Yeah, how is your family?

Robert Cox [26:50]:

Everybody's responding out of their own pain. I don't want to talk too much about what their process is because I don't want to step on their rights to grieve without me sharing that with the world, but I can say that pretty much any time a family member dies of something like this everyone in the family says, "How was I responsible for part of this?"

Alyssa Scolari [27:16]:

Yeah.

Robert Cox [27:19]:

One of the first things I did was set them down and say, "You are not responsible for this. He made his own decision to do this." Some of that sinks in and some of it doesn't, but the thing I have to be careful of is having an agenda with their healing process. In other words, I am going to swoop in and help you heal from this so you don't have to hurt. Uh uh. I can't take the pain from them anymore than my sister could've taken it from me. If I do, I'm robbing them in the same way of that healing experience that they will be able to find on their own in their own time.

Alyssa Scolari [28:00]:

Exactly. I imagine it even requires more restraint to do so as a therapist because you probably do have that urge to kind of swoop in.

Robert Cox [28:10]:

Well as a father I have that urge. As a therapist I know that I should not be therapizing my family because there's too much emotional crap in me connected to them. My daughter has wounded spaces from me and I can't separate that from what we're talking about. I have to be able to inhabit that space. You see what I'm saying?

Alyssa Scolari [28:38]:

Yes.

Robert Cox [28:39]:

If I go into therapy space with her, there is the great danger that I am minimizing what she has experienced. Look, I am broken too. I didn't do fatherhood perfectly. Absolutely not. Nobody does.

Alyssa Scolari [28:52]:

Right, who does?

Robert Cox [28:54]:

Yeah, if anybody out there has I'd like to have them on my podcast if for no other reason than to call them a liar.

Alyssa Scolari [28:59]:

I was just going to say, we would like to have them on the show to tell me that they are liars.

Robert Cox [29:05]:

Right. There's this great Christian author out there named John Ortberg and he talks about the perfect church, the idea of a perfect church. He said, "Even if I knew of a perfect church, I would never go there because I would just screw it up." Because there's no such thing as a perfect human being.

Alyssa Scolari [29:21]:

Exactly.

Robert Cox [29:22]:

We're all broken, but the wonderful thing is, the wonderful thing is that in that brokenness, in the things that I do wrong, and I know this from being a therapist, I can move in for repair and make that relationship stronger.

Alyssa Scolari [29:38]:

Yeah.

Robert Cox [29:39]:

That is the important thing to realize. I can't do that if I avoid the pain of that space. A really good quick example here is that a lot of years ago my daughter and my son got together and they were both in their teen years and they were pretty tight at times and they decided to do some stupid shit together. Then they lied to me about it. When I found out about it I lost it. Yelling, hollering, grounding for life, slamming the door, being angry, and none of that is any good. None of that does anything for two kids that experienced very real physical trauma when they were younger and their brains are still reacting that way. That didn't help them.

Robert Cox [30:27]:

When I calmed down later, about three hours later, I set them down and I said, "That was ugly. I really don't like who I was in that space. I got that way because I don't like feeling hurt and I was hurt by the fact that you lied to me and I don't like being scared and what you did scared the hell out of me and instead of feeling those things I decided I would just rage and be angry." I said, "That was not cool. That guy won't be back." Then I worked to make changes in that space so I didn't ever do that again.

Robert Cox [31:03]:

The benefit of that is later that night my daughter comes in, crawls in bed with me and my wife and says, "I need snuggle time with you, Dad." That doesn't happen if I don't make repair.

Alyssa Scolari [31:18]:

Exactly. Exactly. That is such a pivotal moment for them.

Robert Cox [31:23]:

Yeah.

Alyssa Scolari [31:24]:

And for you.

Robert Cox [31:25]:

Well not just that but what I'm showing them in that space is that you don't have to be perfect. You just need to be accountable.

Alyssa Scolari [31:37]:

Yeah, you just have to own it. You don't have to be perfect, you do have to own it and be accountable.

Robert Cox [31:44]:

I had a client one time who told me, and it was a brilliant thing he said, he said, "Nothing my father did to me was ever my fault but it has all become my responsibility." I think that's brilliant.

Alyssa Scolari [31:58]:

Yes.

Robert Cox [31:58]:

It's his responsibility not to pass that brokenness on. It's his responsibility to sit with the pain that it brings and deal with that.

Alyssa Scolari [32:07]:

Yes. I think it's so powerful and it's an unfortunate statement but it's a statement that packs a punch, which is just this idea that what happened to us is not our fault. The hurt that we endured is not our fault but the healing is our responsibility.

Robert Cox [32:24]:

Absolutely, because if I don't take that responsibility then I numb out to avoid it and if I numb out I create suffering in the lives of people around me. I repeat those broken spaces with my children. I repeat the same kind of damage over because I haven't learned from it.

Alyssa Scolari [32:44]:

Yeah. Yeah.

Robert Cox [32:47]:

That's the responsibility part. Now I remember my son, when he was first driving and he had a car, we had given him one of our old cars for graduation kind of thing, and he hit a raccoon so hard he took the radiator out.

Alyssa Scolari [33:04]:

Oh man.

Robert Cox [33:05]:

You got to be going pretty fast to do that.

Alyssa Scolari [33:08]:

Yeah. Oh yeah.

Robert Cox [33:09]:

His thing was I don't have the $300 to repair the radiator and part of being boundaried is saying, "I'm sorry about that," and I'm kind of a smart alec so I said, "You're right. It's not your fault that you hit the raccoon and it's not my fault that you hit the raccoon but if you can get the raccoon to pay for it, I would encourage you to do that. Otherwise your car is your responsibility."

Alyssa Scolari [33:34]:

Yeah.

Robert Cox [33:36]:

That's kind of where it's at. Sometimes things aren't my fault. Sometimes they're nobody's fault. But it becomes my responsibility to cope with what they're doing in my life.

Alyssa Scolari [33:46]:

Exactly. Exactly. Now I certainly don't want to leave out this other part of grief and this other stage of grief that you're in, which is finding meaning.

Robert Cox [34:01]:

Yeah.

Alyssa Scolari [34:03]:

Can you talk a little bit about was it after Tristn's death that you decided okay, this is what I'm doing.

Robert Cox [34:12]:

I had been moving towards a nonprofit structure for a long time, but honestly I had a lot of fear around doing that because I feel like I'm called to this field for specific reasons and I didn't want to turn anything over to a board who could tell me that well, we're not going to go that way, when I felt the calling to go that direction. You know what I mean?

Alyssa Scolari [34:35]:

Yeah.

Robert Cox [34:35]:

When this happened it just removed all those excuses for me. Then we had already picked out a name and started the paperwork for the nonprofit but I changed the name within just a few days. I thought this is how I'm going to honor him. This is how I'm going to make meaning out of it. He didn't get the chance to make a life that was impactful and so I'm going to give him that opportunity.

Alyssa Scolari [34:57]:

Yeah.

Robert Cox [34:58]:

That was how I made meaning.

Alyssa Scolari [35:04]:

This is how you make meaning and it's not, and I just want to point out, meaning doesn't mean you don't feel pain.

Robert Cox [35:11]:

No.

Alyssa Scolari [35:11]:

It doesn't mean ... It just means that you are taking the pain and transforming it and doing something with it.

Robert Cox [35:20]:

Right. It gives me a place to channel that energy into. Look, the worst part of trauma, you listen to Bessel Van Der Kolk or anybody else, the worst part of trauma is the energy that gets trapped in the body.

Alyssa Scolari [35:32]:

Yeah.

Robert Cox [35:34]:

Grief is traumatizing.

Alyssa Scolari [35:36]:

It is.

Robert Cox [35:37]:

Making meaning out of grief with something like this is a way of externalizing that energy so it doesn't get trapped in my body.

Alyssa Scolari [35:46]:

Yes. It allows for movement so that it does not stay stuck in whatever form. Sometimes it's stuck in the form of catatonia, can't get out of bed. Sometimes it's stuck in the form of rage and being able to take your pain and find some kind of meaning in it and start this foundation, this nonprofit, is your way of effectively channeling all of those feelings. It keeps life moving for you, but it also maintains the connection that you have with your son.

Robert Cox [36:21]:

Yeah. Yeah. That's what I find. It helps me follow through. I mean he had a heart for helping people and had talked before about doing firefighter training and paramedic training and I'm like, "Dude, you'd be great at that. Your pulse doesn't go up in emergency situations so you'd be fantastic at that."

Alyssa Scolari [36:42]:

He'd be great at it, yeah.

Robert Cox [36:43]:

Yeah, and so he never got that chance so this is my way of kind of making that happen.

Alyssa Scolari [36:50]:

Right, he didn't get the chance but you have the chance.

Robert Cox [36:53]:

Right.

Alyssa Scolari [36:55]:

What do you see for this foundation? Ultimately the goal is to turn this into a nonprofit where you can help people with addiction?

Robert Cox [37:08]:

Yeah. What eventually I would like to do is apply for grants and take donations and get all the money we can. It's a nonprofit. Our salaries are set. It's not going to go into that. I take as little salary as I think I can get by on, and the rest of the money then, once we've paid the overhead, goes straight into helping people with recovery by providing free workshops, or let's say we had a hefty amount in our account that we could use for this, we might have someone who's been hardcore IV heroin addict for 10 years come to us and say, "I really need to quit," maybe we could pay for their longterm six month intensive inpatient program.

Alyssa Scolari [37:48]:

Yeah. Yeah.

Robert Cox [37:51]:

This is the idea, and it's not just addictions, it's also trauma. I've had this vision ever since I started my Master's program of being able to create a holistic center that would be a campus that would treat trauma. I would love to have the money to buy, and this is my dream down the line, I would love to have the money to be able to buy 30 or 40 acres down in the Ozarks Woods and set up a campus where we have one dorm for people with development disabilities and one dorm for people with trauma and one dorm for people recovering from addictions and make this whole community where we have psychiatrists on staff, nurse practitioners on staff, medical staff available, we have massage therapists, yoga teachers, all these things that we know work for trauma, to really begin this holistic kind of program of healing. That has always been my dream. This is the first time I've been able to release the fear involved in what if it doesn't work and just say, "You know what? F it. It can't get any worse than this."

Alyssa Scolari [38:54]:

Right. Like what do I have to lose at this point? I'm going for it.

Robert Cox [38:58]:

Absolutely. It does not get any worse than this.

Alyssa Scolari [39:02]:

Yeah.

Robert Cox [39:03]:

I'm going to for it.

Alyssa Scolari [39:05]:

Yeah. That is, just to make sure that I have it correct, right now it's a GoFundMe and it's the Tristn Jevon, or Jevan?

Robert Cox [39:17]:

Yeah, Tristn Jevon Recovery Foundation is what it's called on GoFundMe. I decided not to leave it a foundation because of some of the legal limitations in where you could use money and how that foundation would have to be used for not just ... So I just decided to make it the Center for Recovery instead.

Alyssa Scolari [39:36]:

Okay.

Robert Cox [39:37]:

Turned out the word foundation meant there were certain things we could do and certain things we couldn't do and I just don't want those limitations up front. Those might end up being self imposed limitations but we really have to get off the ground and build this thing first.

Alyssa Scolari [39:51]:

Exactly. Exactly. I don't know, the whole idea is amazing. In building it it's like as you're talking about it I'm just like, ooh. I feel like I want to go there.

Robert Cox [40:01]:

Yeah. Yeah.

Alyssa Scolari [40:03]:

As a trauma survivor it's just, that holistic healing is so helpful.

Robert Cox [40:08]:

Yeah I think the reason I wanted to build in the Ozarks Woods was because that was my healing place.

Alyssa Scolari [40:12]:

Oh.

Robert Cox [40:14]:

I grew up down there. I was always safest when I was out in the woods.

Alyssa Scolari [40:18]:

Yep.

Robert Cox [40:19]:

From the minute I was able to drive I was not in my home. I was gone. If I wasn't working somewhere I was swimming in the river from literally sun up to sun down. That was my healing space. That's why I see that as such, I see nature as such a great healing space.

Alyssa Scolari [40:41]:

It truly is and now you have the opportunity to potentially allow it to be a healing space for so many others.

Robert Cox [40:49]:

Yeah. That is the hope.

Alyssa Scolari [40:50]:

That is the hope.

Robert Cox [40:52]:

But you know the thing is, part of the serenity prayer is I have to let go of things I can't control.

Alyssa Scolari [40:59]:

Easier said than done. Man.

Robert Cox [41:02]:

Do the footwork and hope for the best. Recovery at its foundation is a bicycle built for two. My job is to sit in the back seat and pedal like hell and let my higher power steer.

Alyssa Scolari [41:15]:

Yeah. That's a tough one. That is a tough one.

Robert Cox [41:18]:

Yep.

Alyssa Scolari [41:21]:

I just want to thank you for your vulnerability and-

Robert Cox [41:23]:

I really appreciate you having me on, Alyssa. It was a good interview.

Alyssa Scolari [41:27]:

I can't thank you enough for coming on. I know how difficult this is and I feel like with every word that you speak, I am hoping and praying you are reaching more people and touching more people and-

Robert Cox [41:44]:

That would absolutely be what I'm hoping for. That's how we make meaning.

Alyssa Scolari [41:50]:

It's how we make meaning and I will be sure to link the GoFundMe in the show notes and as well as the link to the Mindful Recovery podcast. If the listeners out there, if you have not heard of this podcast please go check it out. It's a really good podcast. It had me very much in my feelings and was very, very introspective and it's phenomenal work that you're doing.

Robert Cox [42:22]:

I'm glad to hear it put you there. I'm shooting for the feels.

Alyssa Scolari [42:24]:

It really put me in my feels. My husband went out to walk the dogs and I was listening and he came in and I was sitting on the couch and tears are just pouring from my eyes and he was like, "What's the matter?" I was like, "This podcast is so good."

Robert Cox [42:41]:

Good, I'm glad to hear that.

Alyssa Scolari [42:43]:

Thank you for all you do and I am-

Robert Cox [42:45]:

Thank you for having me on.

Alyssa Scolari [42:50]:

Holding you in the light. Yeah. Thank you. I appreciate you.

Robert Cox [42:56]:

I appreciate the support.

Alyssa Scolari [42:59]:

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, so just look us up on Facebook and be sure to join.

Alyssa Scolari [43:30]:

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 Patreon.com/LightAfterTrauma. Thank you and we appreciate your support.

Alyssa Scolari [43:54]:

[Music 00:43:54]

Alyssa steps away from interviews this week for a solo episode in which she shares some exciting announcements about the podcast.

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: Hello everyone. Welcome to another episode of the Light After Trauma podcast. A podcast by trauma survivors for trauma survivors. I'm your host, Alyssa Scolari and. Today we are having a little bit different of an episode. So there's just some housekeeping that I wanted to keep everybody up to date on.

[00:01:09]

We have some really exciting changes happening on the Light After Trauma podcast. So I wanted to make you all aware in an episode. We are skipping this week for an interview. We've got lots of great content lined up. But just wanted to take the time to share with you all the awesome things that we have that are launching as of today.

[00:01:33]

So before we get into some of the major changes that are happening, I just want to backtrack a little bit and go back to really the beginning of quarantine. And, you know, I know I've said this on the podcast before, but it's definitely worth repeating. I started this podcast. I've always wanted to start a podcast, but things have gotten in my way, like being in jobs that I was chronically unhappy and planning a wedding, buying a house.

[00:02:03]

And then I was trying to get my private practice off the ground. And when quarantine hit and we were stuck at home, I really seize the opportunity. And I probably started in April and that was just all the back work. So from April, I worked diligently on this podcast to be able to launch it in late August of 2020.

[00:02:29]

And again, I know I've said this before, but I'm going to say it again. This really was just a hobby for me, a way to spread awareness. And I definitely thought, okay. If I reach five people, if I help five people or even one person fantastic. For me, I continue to be blown away by how many people are being affected and are resonating with this podcast.

[00:03:02]

It's become so much more than just a podcast. It has become a huge part of my life. Something that I care about just as much as I care about my private practice, it has become a place of healing for me, a place of connection with other trauma survivors, and it's become a source of healing and connection for so many of you out there.

[00:03:27]

I have made so many quality friendships. As a result of this podcast, I have met so many incredible survivors as a result of this podcast. And I have healed so much as a result of this podcast. One of the things that I had no idea was going to happen when I started this podcast in August, is that, you know, I was going to go through something extremely traumatic only weeks after I started the podcast.

[00:03:59]

I really haven't spoken much about it and I'm not going to get into it today because that's not the point, but the timing really is uncanny that when I needed this podcast the most, it was there for me and people from all over the world have reached out to me and have said the same type of sentiment that this podcast is there for them.

[00:04:27]

And over the last seven to eight months, I can truly say that this podcast went from a hobby to a movement, a movement to take the shame away from what trauma survivors experience, a movement to educate family members and friends, and even just the general public on all the different aspects of trauma, a movement to educate people on what types of treatment is out there, to talk about all of the things that are so tough to talk about in the field of trauma, when it comes to our own recovery, the battles, the victories, all of it. It's become a movement. We are taking the shame away. We are acknowledging what we've experienced. We are calling it what it is. And there's so much empowerment in that. You know, there was one defining moment for me back in early February, or maybe mid February, where after taking a week of vacation from my private practice, I went back into my office and I had a letter from somebody who lives in Canada. And for those of you who know, I live in the United States, I'm in New Jersey and this letter came with this magnet that says "sing after every storm."

[00:05:54]

And the letter itself was just so beautiful, the artwork and the message of appreciation for the work that I am doing from somebody who would have never known me if it weren't for this podcast. And that was one of those humbling and defining moments where I realized that what I'm doing and what we're all doing here is so much more than just a hobby.

[00:06:20]

It's a movement. So I think at that point, David and I, and again, for those of you who don't know, David is my husband and he's also our tech guy. So David does all of the backend work for this podcast. He does all of the editing. He does really anything and everything that has to do with technology because I am not technologically savvy in the slightest.

[00:06:44]

So that requires a lot of work. And David and I really hit the ground running over the last two months and we built a website from scratch that is just for the podcast. And when I say website, It's really not just a website, it's a platform for all things Light After Trauma related. So this website, which is www.lightaftertrauma.com, houses everything that you need.

[00:07:18]

It has all of the episodes. It has all of the blog posts. It has a link where you can subscribe. It has an application for you to be a guest on the podcast. So if you are somebody who thinks that you would make a good fit to be on the podcast, you can go right on the website and apply.

[00:07:36]

It also has an entire section for the Survived and Thrived Stories. So let's talk about that for a minute, because that is a new segment of the podcast that I've talked about here and there, but I just want to talk about again. So we have a launch date, May 14th. We are going to be launching the other segment of the podcast, which is a series of minisodes and it's called Survived and Thrived Stories.

[00:08:07]

Now, this part of the podcast is a result of how many people reached out to me after hearing the podcast and would say things like, you know, I wish I had the courage to speak about what happened to me, but I just don't, I'm not there right now, or people who have messaged me and have shared parts of their stories, but wished to remain anonymous.

[00:08:33]

And it got me thinking, you know, I want to create space for people who want to be able to share parts of their story or all of their story, but don't necessarily want to be identified. And this part of the podcast resonates with me and it's so special to me because when I first started sharing my story, it wasn't through speaking.

[00:08:58]

It was through writing. In fact, what I did is I wrote in anonymously to a podcast. My favorite murder by the lovely Georgia Hardstark and Karen Kilgariff. If you are a true crime lover as an aside, and you haven't listened to this podcast, please go listen to it. It's like at the top of the charts in true crime and comedy, and it is the best show, but they were asking for hometown stories and one of my traumas is, you know, I'm a victim of a crime.

[00:09:30]

So I wrote in sharing my story to them and between that, and then having so many people reach out to me and share parts of their stories. That is where the inspiration came to add this segment, Survived and Thrived Stories. So with that, I've already had a lot of people reach out to me to ask questions.

[00:09:48]

Like how long can it be? What do I need to talk about what needs to be in there? And here's my response to all of that, which is make it whatever you want it to be. Send an email to [email protected]. And you can sign the email with your initial, with your first name, with no name, with a nickname, whatever you want, and you can share as much or as little of your story as you want.

[00:10:14]

There is also a spot where you can do this on the website. Again, that's lightaftertrauma.com. But as I said, this is about you sharing parts of your personal journey. So whether you want to talk about how you are in recovery from PTSD, how you were just diagnosed with PTSD, a small victory in your day, whatever it may be, and again, however much, or however little. Please write in and please tell us whatever's on your heart. What will happen is each week we will put out a mini episode. It will probably be about 10 to 15 minutes long where I read these emails and I will, of course respond and give feedback in the best way that I can to whatever it is that you write in about.

[00:11:05]

So that is the gist of the segment on Survived and Thrived Stories. Please write in, we look forward to hearing from you. And now to transition, I want to talk a little bit more about the website. So there's also a place on the website where you can support the podcast. So what do I mean by that? When you click any of the support the movement or support the podcast buttons on the website, it's going to take you directly to the Patreon.

[00:11:35]

As you can tell David and I put a ton of time and effort in set this podcast. It has basically become a full-time job and it's really a lot of hard work. And it's also very expensive between the editing software and the podcast software and the scheduling software. And then the time that it takes for David to edit all of the podcasts and to work on the website and to be able to land interviews and conduct those interviews and come up with important questions, it's just...

[00:12:13]

there's a lot of time effort and a lot of money that goes into it. And I love it. I am not complaining one single bit. However, with that being said, it would be really nice to be able to cut down a little bit on my private practice so that I could spend even more time and give even more attention to the podcast in the form of, you know, bonus content, merchandise, Q&A sessions, live Facebook events and other things like that, that I think would be really, really helpful and intriguing for everybody.

[00:12:53]

So with that, I humbly and kindly ask for a $5 monthly donation via Patreon. That's really the equivalent to one drink at Starbucks, but ultimately, any amount that you can give would be greatly appreciated and would continue to help David and myself to keep putting out great high quality content for all of you.

[00:13:21]

So again, head on over to lightaftertrauma.com, there's a few different sections on the website. One that I can think of as right at the top, where it says support the movement. You can click on there and then you can donate. So thank you so very much in advance. And lastly, I want to get into a few changes on social media.

[00:13:44]

So we have changed the name of our Instagram and the Twitter handle. So Twitter is @lightafterpod. There's no underscores. There's no periods. There's no spaces. It's just light after pod. And then the Instagram is @lightaftertrauma. Again, no underscores, no spaces. Just lightaftertrauma on Instagram.

[00:14:12]

And as a reminder, please be sure to look us up. It's the Lighy After Trauma group on Facebook it is a private Facebook group, we have over 60 members and it's a really awesome group for trauma survivors to be able to connect. So if you are on Facebook, don't forget to look us up and join it is Light After Trauma.

[00:14:34]

So, all right. That is a lot that I threw at you. It's a lot of really exciting things that are happening, could not do any of this without your support. So thank you. Thank you. Thank you. And lastly, I would be remiss if I did not acknowledge that April is national sexual assault awareness month, and really the one and only thing that I would like to say to that is, is believe survivors.

[00:15:06]

So I will end with that. Everybody have a fantastic week. Next week, we have an interview with Robert Cox, from the Mindful Recovery podcast. He will be speaking about the loss of his son. It's a really fantastic interview, very, very sad, but also incredibly inspirational. So you have that to look forward to and have a great week, much love.

[00:15:32]

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.

[00:15:58]

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 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.

[00:16:22]

Thank you and we appreciate your support.

This week Alyssa sits down with friend and colleague, Jennifer Bristol, LCSW, to discuss the mind-body connection and the idea that addressing our emotions can help to pacify chronic pain.

Book's discussed:

Healing Back Pain by Dr. John E. Sarno

The Mindbody Prescription by Dr. John E. Sarno

Jennifer's website

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!

Transcripts:

Alyssa Scolari: [00:00:23]

Hi, everybody. You know what time it is. Welcome to another episode of the Light After Trauma podcast. I am your host, Alyssa Scolari and we have here with us today. My dear friend, Jennifer Bristol, LCSW. So I met Jen. I'm just going to give a personal bio for her. I met her as a result of COVID. So while I, of course would have never wanted COVID to happen.

And horrible things have happened. One of the wonderful things that has come out of COVID is the support group, or I guess it would be like a peer supervision group that we are in together on Sundays. I met her through there and I have really watched Jennifer make incredible changes in her life. In the last year when I met her, she was working for another company.

And you were working in like geriatric care, right. A social worker for...

Jennifer Bristol: [00:01:56]

Yeah, hospice actually.

Alyssa Scolari: [00:01:58]

Okay. So yes. So when I met her, she was working for hospice and over the course of the year, she has gotten married. Is it okay if I say...

Jennifer Bristol: [00:02:08]

Yeah, yeah, yeah, absolutely.

Alyssa Scolari: [00:02:10]

So she has gotten married. Had a beautiful wedding, even in a pandemic ,safely, of course.

And she works for herself now at Embracing Stages, she is a therapist working with people ages 18 and up. Correct.

Jennifer Bristol: [00:02:31]

Correct? Yeah.

Alyssa Scolari: [00:02:32]

So without further ado, I'm going to turn it over to Jen. Hi Jen. Thank you for coming on the show. I know you have a lot going on and it has been a year of changes for you.

Jennifer Bristol: [00:02:46]

Yes, a lot of changes, but wonderful ones. All good, except for COVID. Other than that, all good.

Alyssa Scolari: [00:02:54]

Right, except for COVID. But in terms of your career, you have just been thriving and it has been such a joy to watch because you are, you're so good at what you do. Jen to the listeners out there, and I will link her website. It's embracingstages.com. I'll link it on the show notes for everybody. Jen's a phenomenal therapist.

So one of the ways in which Jen helped me is early on in the pandemic. So it has to be probably like a year ago at this point, because I think we started the group in March of last year. So it had to be maybe like 10 months ago or so Jen started talking about back pain. And how she healed her back pain.

And I am somebody who has had physical symptoms out the wazoo, my entire life. I'm always like my back hurts. My knees hurt. My hips hurt. My neck hurts. And she recommended this book by John E Sarno called "Healing Back Pain." And I was like, what the hell. So I ordered it on Amazon. And I read it and I was like, Oh my God, we have to talk about this.

So I am having Jen on today to talk about back pain and the book. And so could you talk a little bit about how did you even stumble on this book?

Jennifer Bristol: [00:04:31]

So actually through my own experiences and my own complaining of physical symptoms, it was actually close friends of my husband and I they're a close couple of friends and she recommended the book to me because of her own experiences and how much it helped her. She recommended it to me and I read it and that was it.

My complete way of thinking changed everything. It's like a whole new world open.

Alyssa Scolari: [00:05:05]

Yes. And so as a disclaimer, let us say that Jen and I are not doctors. We are not, not, not doctors. So if you are listening to this podcast for medical advice, please hit the stop button and call your primary care physician. We are simply two people who have experienced kind of the same effects and the same results with our pain after reading this book.

So can you give like a brief kind of synopsis on like what John talks about in the book? Cause I think he's a chiropractor, right?

Jennifer Bristol: [00:05:47]

I want to say physical therapists.

Alyssa Scolari: [00:05:50]

You're right. Physical therapist. Yep.

Jennifer Bristol: [00:05:52]

Yeah. And so what was the question, that synopsis of the book or TMS or kind of in general.

Alyssa Scolari: [00:06:00]

Yeah. So can you introduce like, cause he introduces the concept of TMS. So can you talk a little bit about that?

Jennifer Bristol: [00:06:06]

Yeah. So for TMS, because TMS is actually, there's a therapy of TMS, but the TMS we're talking about is Tension Myositis Syndrome, where basically it's an emotional state, a psychological state that can trigger, in Dr. Sarno's work ,and trigger the autonomous nervous system. And when that's triggered, it causes a mild oxygen deprivation to different areas of the body.

And when there is the oxygen deprivation, it causes physical pain in simple terms.

Alyssa Scolari: [00:06:41]

Yes. I think you put that actually way more simply than I would've ever to but that, so yes, TMS is Dr. Sarno's ,after seeing so many patients and please order this book on Amazon, it is absolutely worth it. After seeing so many patients come to him with back pain in particular, he talks about. He started to think and be like, what is going on here?

And then from there came TMS, which is this idea that people, because it's too painful to feel their feelings, whether it's emotional distress as a result of trauma of grief, whatever it may be, they store those feelings in their body and where those feelings are stored causes. Like you said, oxygen deprivation, which causes acute pain.

Jennifer Bristol: [00:07:36]

Well, and chronic pain.

Alyssa Scolari: [00:07:38]

Yes.

Jennifer Bristol: [00:07:39]

And I think the thing that is always fascinating to me is that. So many individuals who have chronic pain say, you know, it's kind of like a hamster wheel of going to physical therapy and maxing out all your physical therapy sessions for the year, or at least that was for me, but then also going to out of network, in network, searching constantly for that physical result of what it can be in that physical treatment.

But when it comes to something, that's a cue. Now, everyone knows. If you're anxious, then you get butterflies in your stomach or you have to run to the bathroom. Or if you feel sad and you just are fatigued and you can't get out of bed because of how sad you are. But when it comes to something that's chronic, like back pain or GI issues that can't be from emotions, that can't be anything that's repressed.

Alyssa Scolari: [00:08:32]

Heaven forbid.

Jennifer Bristol: [00:08:34]

Yeah, it has to be something physical. And so it still to this day fascinates me how the mind can kind of separate, like it's okay for acute things, but not for chronic.

Alyssa Scolari: [00:08:47]

Yeah. Yeah. And really what Dr. Sarno did is he brought the two together and I feel like is one of the forefront doctors that really began looking at this mind, body connection that like, okay, people who are having chronic back pain, for example, X-ray after x-ray and like you said doctor after doctor, they're not getting better, they're not getting answers or maybe they're getting temporary relief.

And then what would happen is the pain would pop up somewhere else. Right? So now my back doesn't hurt anymore, but I suddenly, I have this like shoulder pain that I can't quite kick and what he was doing as the listeners out there, if you read this book, as you would read through the book is he would prescribe people to go to therapy.

Jennifer Bristol: [00:09:38]

Yeah to therapy or to journal. Absolutely. To get in touch with the repressed emotions.

Alyssa Scolari: [00:09:46]

To connect the mind to the body and to integrate the emotions with your physical functioning and people were noticing it was then that their pain was going away. And again, I want to reiterate Jen and I are not doctors. So if you are having back pain, please go see a doctor. But, we're here to share our stories about how freeing it was.

I know it was so freeing for me to read that book and it truly healed my back pain. So I guess I'll ask you, did you, and I think I know the answer to this, but you had back pain, right? Is that the chronic pain?

Jennifer Bristol: [00:10:33]

So I've had a few different pains, kind of like you, because if one is feeling better, the other pops up. So I've kind of had upper back pain my whole life, and then it became lower back pain and then GI issues and pain shooting down my leg to my knee. And so it's kind of been all over the place.

Alyssa Scolari: [00:11:00]

And what was the process like for you when you were reading this book? Like, because I, I don't know if it was different than it was for me. Did you read this book? And then all of a sudden it went away?

Jennifer Bristol: [00:11:14]

So, yes. No, it didn't completely go away, but I would say there was a percentage that was lifted. As I read it and I went along and it really was almost like you could feel a part of the mind opening up to, Oh my God, there's this whole new concept. And it could really be some, like, I don't need to be on this hamster wheel anymore of trying to go to physical therapy or acupuncture or massage therapy.

And so as I was reading it, yes, a lot of my pain did heal, but it wasn't a hundred percent. There was more work and exploration that needed to be done as I read. And after I read.

Alyssa Scolari: [00:12:01]

Yes. And it's a lot of having to feel the feelings that you've been suppressing, which doesn't happen in an instant. And when we talk about pain, I know that you said it was chronic pain, but can you talk about the ways in which it perhaps like limited your ability to function?

Jennifer Bristol: [00:12:23]

Absolutely. So with my lower back pain, I couldn't wear heels like high heels for more than like 10 minutes without having my back, starting to hurt. If I would go for a walk or I would be cleaning or cooking, I could stand or walk for maybe like 10 or 15 minutes and then I'd have to stop and stretch and then continue.

I'll say it on this podcast, sex with my partner, it was like so many different things. And when we look at repressed emotions, I mean, intimacy too is something that people, a lot of times, people don't dive into and there's intimacy issues and relationships. And I love working through that with my clients as to what does that look like.

Whether you're single or you have a partner ,intimacy and sex can be explored. And so really every part of my life was affected because if I couldn't stand for more than 10, 15 minutes, what was I supposed to do? Sit down all the time. And then I'm sitting in a chair and I have to constantly fidget because no position is comfortable.

And then when it comes to the GI stuff, I mean, you would have thought I was gluten intolerant, dairy intolerant. I would have like four or five different sugar substitutes in my house and thought that all of that was the cause for it. And now today I could scarf down a whole pint of Ben and Jerry's and not have any stomach problems.

Alyssa Scolari: [00:13:51]

And be fine. Yes. I like that you touched on that, that it extends to GI issues as well. Maybe not necessarily in the book.

Jennifer Bristol: [00:14:00]

In the other book he mentioned it. "The Mindbody Prescription." Yeah.

Alyssa Scolari: [00:14:04]

Okay. Okay. I didn't read the other book, but yes. So it touches on like GI issues as well: gastrointestinal, like Irritable Bowel Syndrome that people have food intolerances, all of these things. And we're not saying for sure, but oftentimes they are related to your inability to process and regulate really difficult emotions.

Jennifer Bristol: [00:14:35]

Yeah, absolutely. I mean even, and cause I know this is a trauma podcast and when you look at victims of sexual abuse and when you look at sexual abuse survivors, a lot of times there's pelvic pain and genital pain and that is very common. And so why can that happen? But not other chronic pain.

Alyssa Scolari: [00:15:03]

Yeah. And it sounds like what you're talking about from your experience is it's almost like you feel even in like your twenties, that you're a hundred years old.

Jennifer Bristol: [00:15:18]

Oh, absolutely. I felt like I was a hundred years old. Yeah. Yes.

Alyssa Scolari: [00:15:24]

Yeah. And how old were you when your chronic pain started?

Jennifer Bristol: [00:15:27]

I'll be honest with my upper back. I have been going to a chiropractor since like middle school.

Alyssa Scolari: [00:15:34]

Okay. Yes. That's when it started for me as well, issues with my, it was not my back at first. It was my knees. My knees have hurt me my entire life and because of my eating disorder, I have been every weight and every size under the sun. And so weight never affected the pain in my knees, but from the time I was a little kid, I had this knee pain and I went to doctor after doctor some of the top docs in the nation for knees.

And every doctor was like, I don't know what you're talking about. And then what would happen? They would send me to physical therapy. I would max out my physical therapy, just like you said for the year. And then my knees would stlll hurt.

Jennifer Bristol: [00:16:28]

Yeah.

Alyssa Scolari: [00:16:30]

And at 14 years old, my friends used to actually make fun of me because I would emember being in middle school and like getting up with the lunch tray in the cafeteria. And I could barely, because they were benches that we would sit on, so I would have to like slide over and I would moan and groan and be like, Oh, Oh, as I got up and my friends were like, what the hell?

Like are you 110. I was 14. I was in pain because I had no clue how to process any of the emotional pain.

Jennifer Bristol: [00:17:12]

Absolutely. You know, it's almost, when it comes to my upper back, it was really my lower back that brought me to Sarno because the upper back I had had it for so long since I was a kid, that it was almost just like a way of life at that point, having to crack my back. And this is even the coolest thing I used to have to crack my back all the time, all day long.

I don't even do that anymore. It's like the muscles and the structure just loosened. But, it really was a way of life going to the chiropractor and going for massages and acupuncture. That was, it almost seemed normal to me. And so I didn't even view it as an issue that could be fixed. I just accepted it, that this was my life and this is something I was going to have to deal with.

Alyssa Scolari: [00:18:05]

Yeah. Yeah. And I think that that was the same for me, for my knee pain. It wasn't until my lower back pain came, I was in my, what am I 29 now? So I was in my early twenties, early to mid twenties and I was at the gym and I was, I mean doing the same workout, that I've done a thousand times and out of nowhere, I was doing kettlebell swings and.

Everybody, of course who hears that as like, Oh my God, kettlebells are the worst for you. I know the point is back then, I was doing them regularly. I was the strongest I'd ever been in my life. And I wasn't kettlebell swinging, you know, 60 pounds. I was using a smaller sized kettlebell and my back suddenly locked up and I went down in the middle of the gym class.

And I couldn't get up and I couldn't go to work. I couldn't drive. I went to doctor after doctor who told me you will never be able to work out again. You will never be able to lift. You will never be able to exercise. You're going to have a horrible time in pregnancy because you've destroyed your back. And I thought my life was over. Like I had just met the man that I'm now married to. And I was like, I don't know what I'm going to do. And I don't know. Did you have that too? Like a grieving process of just being like, there's something wrong with me, like permanently.

Jennifer Bristol: [00:20:01]

Yeah. Especially when it came to the lower back, I don't know what it is with the lower back, but because it's almost as if like you had your knees. I had my upper back, we weren't listening. Our body was giving us a signal and we didn't know, and the body will keep giving different and new, stronger signals until, and different pain and different symptoms, until you listen or you don't and you continue with it.

And for me, the lower back pain, I was actually training for a fitness competition and my upper back hurt as it always did. So my husband went to give me a back massage and he's an average sized man. And when he went and like sat on me from behind to give me a back massage, I felt shooting pain, go from my lower back all the way down my left leg.

And he barely put any pressure on me whatsoever. And I was told to not to work out. I mean, I, I still finished the fitness competition and training for it, but

Alyssa Scolari: [00:21:08]

Damn right you did.

Jennifer Bristol: [00:21:08]

l had ot pain, but talk about repressing emotions. I mean, that is someone who is running from their feelings, waking up at 4:30 every day to go work out when I'm having pain.

But then also. It literally felt like crippling almost like not that my life was over, but there were times I was just like, how am I going to do this? Like, I did want to have a baby. And I was told not to run that pregnancy may cause pain, all of these things. And now I'm 20 weeks pregnant and I haven't had any back pain.

Alyssa Scolari: [00:21:43]

Yeah.

Jennifer Bristol: [00:21:45]

And even with my scans, I, and I was told I have a bulging disc. Two of my discs or vertebrae were starting to fuse together. Like I was told all of these things were going on with me. And, but hello, it's normal. As someone gets older, your spine is going to have degenerations. And again, I say this not as a doctor, but anyone can do the research and show that you take majority of adult people and you give them.

You scan them and do imaging. There's going to be some sort of degeneration, but why does one person have pain and another person does't.

Alyssa Scolari: [00:22:29]

So my jaw dropped. When I heard you talk about like the degenerative discs, like the bulging discs, because I was told the same thing I was told: you've got one herniated, disc, two bulging discs, whatever else discs do in your back, mine did. And I was sobbing. I, this is so embarrassing. I remember being in the office when he told me when the doctor told me and I blacked out for a second. I started to sweat and shake and he had to give me part of his lunch. He gave me a granola bar from his lunch because I think he thought I had low blood sugar.

God bless him. He was a very kind kind, but I was like, Oh my God, my back is broken and I'll never be okay again. And I was told like, if you're going to go to the gym, if you ever do a bicep curl, you need to be laying down. So it's no pressure on your back. And it was like, so stressful that, you know, my world, as I knew, it kind of stopped on a dime, it just came to a halt.

And for the last couple of years, I have been nursing my back and constantly afraid of hurting it. And for so, so many times I would hurt my back again and I would try to work out and I would be like, Oh, well that hurts my back. Oh, this hurts my back. I had a lumbar support in the car. I mean, I have a lumbar support everywhere, everywhere I go.

I have a lumbar support. And then I read this book and was like, wait a minute. I was like, son of a bitch. I know this is emotional I know that around the time when my back pain hit, it's like kind of crescendo, is before I started uncovering. It was like right before I started uncovering repressed memories of sexual abuse, I had met the man that I was going to marry.

I was scared. Because that required intimacy and for sexual abuse survivors, intimacy was really difficult. So I was like, Oh great. I'm good. I know I'm gonna marry this guy. Now I'm going to have to friggin to have sex with him. What am I going to do? And all of those feelings just came to this crescendo in back pain.

So then, you know, fast forward to COVID I meet you. I read this book and I'm sitting in bed and every line I'm like highlighting and I'm like, "David, read this." He's like "what?" I'm like, "there's nothing wrong with me." He's like, "I know."

So, I mean, yeah, it's, it's debilitating. It's absolutely debilitating.

Jennifer Bristol: [00:25:42]

I don't know about if this happens with you, but I know with me, it's kind of like a key almost like I actually am happy for the fact that I have physical symptoms and in therapy, we could say Somatic Symptom Disorder.

Alyssa Scolari: [00:25:58]

Yep.

Jennifer Bristol: [00:25:59]

It doesn't cause me the distress that it once did, but if I'm not dealing with my emotions, those symptoms will come back.

There will be times when, around the holidays or certain people in my life, I could have a phone call with them or they could say, or do something and you know, I have a busy schedule. I have a very full practice and it could be easy for me to hang up the phone and be like, Nope, not going to deal with this.

We're just going to like carry on our day, see our patients or do house work, go food shopping. And then the back pain starts to creep in, or I'll be sitting there eating and I'll be like, why does my stomach hurt so much? What did I eat today? And then it's like, Oh my God, wait. Like, I'm not processing that I'm not dealing with how much that hurt me or how angry I am.

And even with being pregnant, I believe in his "Healing Back Pain" book and correct me if I'm wrong. Cause I, I was also reading the other book too, but I think it's in "Healing Back Pain". He mentioned like do gooders and people pleasers than individuals who are overly self-critical. Yeah. If you just want to like be good and make a good impression, and you're more susceptible to chronic pain and being pregnant.

I worked hard for this baby. Like there was lots of morning monitoring and doctor's appointments and tubes of blood being taken. And I could very easily be like, I need to just be grateful for this baby. I should just be happy and it's a miracle and that's it. But what happens is. It's terrifying to be a first time mom and I like sushi and I like going for bike rides and I just recently moved down the shore and thought I was going to be taking surf lessons.

And none of those things are a possibility right now, but it's okay. I can both be grateful. And also be that kid who's kind of like this isn't fair. And I can have both emotions at the same time. I don't have to push away. I don't want to call them bad emotions because they're not bad. They're just feelings

Alyssa Scolari: [00:28:24]

The less comfortable emotions.

Jennifer Bristol: [00:28:27]

Exactly. And what happens is when you push those away, because I'm supposed to be grateful and I'm supposed to be happy to be pregnant. When you push the other stuff away for me, physical pain comes up. And so when I allow myself the beautiful freedom of being both grateful for my miracle baby, but also a little frustrated that I'm not supposed to eat sushi.

I don't have physical pain.

Alyssa Scolari: [00:28:53]

Yes. Yes. When you allow it all, the good with the bad, is when your pain goes away. And it's kind of, like you said, I feel the same way that I'm almost grateful for it because my body is really communicating with me and I'm now more in tune with it than ever. And after I read that book, I really started to think about my back pain and the more that I processed it, the more my back pain went away and it will pop back up or sometimes it'll go to my shoulder and sometimes it goes to my hips, like, you know, my pelvic area, or comes out in the form of like stomach issues.

Right? But if I'm able to identify what it is, and then I'm able to go, well, what am I not dealing with? Because like you said, it's so easy to get off the phone with somebody after being triggered and to be like, eh, I'm not going to deal with that. Or even as therapists, we sometimes have sessions with other people that are triggering.

So it's so easy to be like, and then be in pain. But as soon as that pain comes, like, I know it's something I'm not dealing with. And I love that you said you're allowing yourself to be like, Hey, this kind of sucks. I can't have sushi. And I'm scared. Cause I'm about to be a mom. And I know I wanted this, I wanted my baby so badly, but I'm terrified instead of just being like, well, you should be grateful.

Cause it was so hard. It's self-compassion.

Jennifer Bristol: [00:30:48]

Absolutely. And a lot of times people are taught to if they fall off their bike and they want to cry and they're like, no, if you get back up and I understand that, and I think there's definitely room for that as well. But if you're taught from a young age, don't have your emotions or don't have your feelings, no matter what those feelings may be, it can...and even in society, we kind of live in a society too where you see on Facebook and Instagram, that everything is happy and positive. It's almost like where is the room for the grief? Where is the room for the anger or the pain? And it is allowing and nurturing that part of you that has it because we all have it. We all have unconscious emotions and feelings.

And that's why I truly believe in therapy because it is that safe place to explore all of them.

Alyssa Scolari: [00:31:47]

Therapy is the best. I mean, I know we're biased, but like the best, it's absolutely the best. So I wanted to ask you, like now, Right now that you have this knowledge of like the mind-body connection and knowing, right. What do you do differently or are there things that you do differently to try to prevent the onset of pain?

Or does that just look like going to therapy? Because for me, I have found that sometimes it sneaks up on me where I won't even be aware that I'm kind of suppressing stuff.

Jennifer Bristol: [00:32:33]

Yeah, absolutely. I mean, so journaling in the beginning of the pregnancy, there was a lot of anxiety. Because I have PCOS and all the things that I went through, there's a lot of anxiety about having the baby and keeping the baby and miscarriage and all of that. And physical symptoms were just happening all over my body.

And for me, journaling and therapy, but definitely journaling is also what helps me. And I do know that if I have physical symptoms that are sneaking up, I also journal because that is a great place where it's just me and the journal. There's no fear of judgment. I, and I even tell my clients this, like after you journal, rip it up, rip it up it out.

There is no need to hold to it. Yes. Yes. I love the burning.

Alyssa Scolari: [00:33:25]

Yes.

Jennifer Bristol: [00:33:26]

Of course got to be careful don't, want someone to start a fire.

Safely. Yup. Burn things safely.

And that can even be therapeutic too, whether you throw it out or, but just not to hold on to it because I don't ever want to go back and read those readings and then judge myself for reading them because it's not about judging or retaining. It's about getting in touch with what's going on underneath everything.

So I would say journaling. But other than that, I have no physical limitations to my life minus the pregnancy ones, but I was told not to run before I was pregnant. I was going running. I could go horseback riding. I could, there's no physical limitations that I need to follow

Alyssa Scolari: [00:34:13]

Yes. Yes. It's so freeing. It's so freeing. Really, I mean to the listeners out there, if you struggle with chronic pain, if you're going to invest in a book, this is one of the books that you really need to invest in. It's again, "Healing Back Pain" by John E Sarno. You can find the book on Amazon. It's really not that expensive.

And this is not an ad. We don't know him personally. I wish we did. What'd you say.

Jennifer Bristol: [00:34:46]

He's actually passed away.

Alyssa Scolari: [00:34:48]

Oh, I am horrible human being.

Jennifer Bristol: [00:34:57]

But Nicole Sachs, she's a therapist who practiced with him and she also has a book too called Journal Speak". And that's another good one. She still practices.

Alyssa Scolari: [00:35:11]

Well, yes, books are still available. May he rest in peace.

Jennifer Bristol: [00:35:20]

And "Mindbody Prescription" is another one of his books.

Alyssa Scolari: [00:35:24]

Oh, okay. See, thank God we have you here. Do you want to be the host of this podcast? Cause I'm failing royally today. Alright, so yeah. Read more into this stuff. If you struggle with chronic pain and you can't find answers, this might be the right answer for you. And I just want to thank you for coming on today.

I know that you are growing a human and you have a lot going on. I know your practice is booming. If people want to find more about you, are you accepting new clients right now?

Jennifer Bristol: [00:36:01]

So I have two offices, one in Oradell and one in Middletown, my Oradell office, I'm not accepting new clients. For Middletown, I am. Not many, but I am.

Alyssa Scolari: [00:36:13]

I mean, yeah. Yeah. Well, if you would like to learn more about Jen, you can go to her website, which I will also link on the show notes, which is embracingstages.com. And I appreciate you chatting with me today.

Jennifer Bristol: [00:36:27]

Thank you so much for having me.

Thanks for listening, everyone. For more information about today's episode and to sign up for the Light After Trauma newsletter, head over to my website at alyssascolari.com. The really great thing about being a part of this newsletter is that not only do you get weekly updates on new podcast episodes and blog posts, but you also get access to the private Facebook Com, as well as access to all sorts of insider tips, resources, and infographs that supplement what we talk about on the show. You also can connect with me and other trauma warriors. I'm super active on the Facebook community, and I look forward to talking with you.

Dr. Nazanin Moali is a public speaker, psychologist, and sex and relationship expert. Dr. Moali is also the host of her own podcast, titled "Sexology", where she dives into the psychology of sex and intimacy. In this week's episode, Dr. Moali and Alyssa discuss the impact that sexual trauma can have on us as well as the hope that comes with reclaiming our sexuality and discovering pleasure again.

Learn more about Dr. Moali and check out her podcast

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 [00:00]:

Hello friends. I hope everybody is well. I have some exciting news. We are adding a mini episode to the podcast every week coming soon. This episode is all about you. When I say mini I'm meaning it's going to be about 10-15 minutes long and what this little segment is going to be called is Survived and Thrived Stories. After starting this podcast I started to get people from all over the world who were reaching out to me to talk to me about certain things on the podcast that I touched on, certain parts of my story, specific topics that they could identify with, and I realized that there are so many people who want to share their story and want their voice to be heard, but they don't necessarily want to be identified or they don't want to share all of their story, so I wanted to create this mini episode series called Survived and Thrived Stories where you can email in anonymously or if you want to sign your first initial or just your first name, however you want, and you can share as much or as little of your story as you want.

Actually, part of why I really wanted to do this as well and part of why this is so special to me is because I realized that when I first started sharing my story, I did it in writing and I did it anonymously and I actually wrote into a podcast. I wrote into a very famous podcast called My Favorite Murder because I wrote in about a trauma that I experienced that I was a victim of a crime and that was my first kind of like, it was the gateway into me sharing my story and into me I think ultimately starting this podcast and helped so much in my recovery and I want to give all of you the same opportunity.

If you are struggling with something, if you have been through a hardship, if you are experiencing PTSD or if you have recovered or you are in recovery, because I believe recovery is a lifelong journey, I want to hear from you. If there's something you want to share, send it on in and I will read it aloud on the podcast and then of course I will comment and offer any kind of support that I can. Yeah, I just think it would be a really exciting way for everybody to get their voices heard and for you to be able to inspire so many others and to reach out to others and let other people who are sitting in the darkness know that they are not alone and that they can get through this.

Whether you want to talk about things that helped you to recover, whether you want to talk about what happened to you, you can send it on over. I want you to send it to the podcast email. That's [email protected]. Again, that's [email protected]. Again, you will remain anonymous. I look forward to hearing from you. I would be honored to share your story on this podcast, so looking forward to it. Stay tuned and send me your story.

[Music 00:03:47]

Hello all you beautiful people. Welcome to another episode of the Light After Trauma podcast. You know who this is. I am your host, Alyssa Scolari, and I am happy to be here this week with Dr. Nazanin Moali. Dr. Nazanin Moali is a licensed clinical psychologist and a, is it double A sect or AAS-

Nazanin Moali [04:27]:

AASECT. I know, it's a complicated name. Yes. AASECT.

Alyssa Scolari [04:32]:

AASECT, okay. All right. Certified sex therapist, her private practice is located in Los Angeles and she specializes in working with couples and individuals struggling with issues of sex and intimacy. She also hosts a weekly podcast called Sexology, introducing the most intriguing findings in psychology of sex and intimacy.

Welcome. Thank you for being here.

Nazanin Moali [04:59]:

Thank you so much for inviting me. I'm very excited about this conversation.

Alyssa Scolari [05:04]:

This is absolutely one of my favorite topics to discuss. It's so difficult. I guess I'll just turn it over to you. Could you just elaborate a little bit more on the work that you do? Are you mostly in private practice in addition to the podcast?

Nazanin Moali [05:21]:

Yes. I have a private practice that I help people with all sorts of sexual health functioning challenges. One of the things that I'm very passionate about is helping sexual assault survivors, people who have experienced sexual abuse, to reclaim pleasure in their life because I know that this is something we will talk about, but one thing that breaks my heart, that at times people, they don't think they deserve pleasure after experiencing trauma or they think that their work is done when they process the horrible traumatic experience that they had, but I think it can be very important and empowering to cultivate pleasure back into our lives. That's one of the things that I'm very, very passionate about, supporting my clients to navigate.

Alyssa Scolari [06:09]:

You are living my dream. I love it and I can't thank you enough for doing what you do because it really is important. As somebody who is, I myself am a survivor of complex PTSD from a history of sexual abuse, and I'm also a trauma therapist and I've been in private practice for about three years now and one of the things that I see consistently showing up in my office for survivors of sexual trauma is, "How do I have any kind of semblance of sexual pleasure when I can't even be in my body? I have so much guilt and shame." You help people to be able to experience pleasure again, to be able to reclaim their sexuality and I think that that's amazing. It's amazing.

Nazanin Moali [07:11]:

Thank you. Back at yourself, that helping people with this processing of traumatic experiences of all sorts. I have lots of respect for people that are helping clients in early stages and all stages of processing the trauma. That's really rewarding but can be challenging work at times.

Alyssa Scolari [07:30]:

Yes. Yes, on both of our ends. It definitely can be challenging but so rewarding. So rewarding. In your experience what typically happens after people have survived any type of sexual trauma or sexual abuse?

Nazanin Moali [07:49]:

Well people kind of have different responses afterward when it comes to their sexuality, their relationship with their sexuality. It's my experience that some people can become kind of numb. They don't want to have any kind of sexual encounter with their partner or with themselves. They are in this continue to live in this fight and flight mode and sexuality is not a priority for them in that phase.

I also see people that after experiencing assault, whether it's abuse, they start becoming more sexual. That they want to have more sex, they want to explore their bodies more, and both of those things are normal. I think it's important to think about normal meaning it's common, in a way. That's the common early phases of experiences that people have.

Also we can develop all sorts of different challenges as a result of experiencing a trauma. Not everyone of course that they experience trauma develop PTSD, depression, anxiety, but for people who develop the depression and anxiety and all of those challenges, that also impact their sexual desire, their connection with their sexuality, and that can be another hurdle. Trauma can impact the way that we see our world and that can impact our relationships in our life, which can in turn impact our sexuality as well. There are a number of different ways that experiencing a trauma can transform us.

Alyssa Scolari [09:25]:

Yes, and have you found it to be even extra difficult for people to talk about because there's already so much stigma around sex and sexuality and experiencing pleasure, especially for women.

Nazanin Moali [09:43]:

Mm-hmm [affirmative]. Absolutely. First of all I think most people that I encounter, even whether in my office or outside, there are some level of discomfort talking about sex. At baseline many of us are uncomfortable and I think added to that, when we're experiencing sexual trauma, that can even complicate things as well because sometimes people receive these unhelpful messages from others, kind of blaming them for their experiences. Perhaps you were wearing something provocative that led to this.

Alyssa Scolari [10:19]:

Right, or maybe you were drinking or what were you doing at a bar that late at night? Or things like that.

Nazanin Moali [10:24]:

Mm-hmm [affirmative]. Absolutely. Like was the person in your home? Maybe then you welcomed them into your home, so what could you expect? All of these horrible messages. If you're feeling bad about sex to start with and then you experience some kind of negative messaging around us being part of what happened, which is ridiculous, so I think that also impacts how we're feeling about our sexuality, the experience.

Additionally, for many people it's okay and it's common to experience some arousal during the experience of assault, during the abuse. It's your body trying to protect you. What if you're getting lubricated? All of those things are completely normally. It doesn't mean that you were asking it, it's just your body function of trying to protect you. I think that's also important for survivors to know.

Alyssa Scolari [11:19]:

Yes. Thank you. Thank you, thank you, thank you for saying this. This was the hardest thing and for me personally, as well as for the sexual trauma survivors that I work with, is the hardest thing for survivors to be able to integrate, is this idea of well during the abuse, during the rape I was aroused. Or even I orgasmed, and therefore I must have wanted it. That's not at all the case, as you're saying, because we can't control our body's physiological response to our genitals being stimulated.

Nazanin Moali [12:09]:

Right. Right. I agree with you and I think unfortunately many people internalize those negative beliefs of thinking about oh God, perhaps on some unconscious level I wanted it or I was okay with it or I gave them the message that it was okay. I love that you talked about yes that's part of the experience, it doesn't mean that you were giving anyone a permission to do anything. Again, it could be a part of your physiological response, as you mentioned. At times it's a way for your body to protect you, so there could be a number of different reasons that physiologically you had that arousal.

Alyssa Scolari [12:46]:

When you say part of a way for your body to protect you, meaning like in the sense of pretending to go along with it in order to protect yourself?

Nazanin Moali [12:56]:

Great question. One of the kind of common challenges that I hear from some of my clients that saying, from female clients, that "I was lubricated so perhaps the lubrication shows arousal," but lubrication is a way that your genitals trying to save you from experiencing tearing, all sorts of challenges. That's why they say that it's your body wanting to protect you.

Alyssa Scolari [13:22]:

That makes sense. That makes sense. Right, so lubrication again doesn't necessarily mean that you wanted it. That's your body's way of trying to protect from any kind of intimacy or sexual trauma. Your body is preparing itself, trying to keep yourself from having tears or whatever kind of other injuries.

Nazanin Moali [13:43]:

Absolutely.

Alyssa Scolari [13:45]:

That makes a lot of sense. Yes. I'm so glad that you touched on that because I think that that's so hard for people. As you were saying earlier, some reactions that we have or some people go into sexual avoidance and some people become hyper sexual and when people come into your office do they realize that they have sexual trauma or do people typically come into your office for other reasons and then discover that they have sexual trauma?

Nazanin Moali [14:22]:

Well majority of my clients coming in for sex therapy knowing that they did the first part of the work. Kind of like knowing that I worked through the early phases of experiencing, kind of working through those difficult memories. Now they're ready to explore their sexuality and sexual wellness piece. That's why they're seeking out a therapist. But at times I had clients that they're coming in to me to say, "I don't feel anything during sex. I have this numbness," and when we're unfolding and unwrapping different parts of their experiences we realize this is stemmed from their experience of being a survivor and not dealing with the completely treating symptoms of experiencing that trauma.

Alyssa Scolari [15:10]:

Yes. Could you talk for a few minutes about that experience of, this is something that I absolutely relate to, of the numbness around having sex? I know for a long time before I knew that I had sexual abuse I truly thought that I was broken so I would imagine that you have people that come to you that are just like, "I don't feel anything when I'm having sex." Could you talk about what that process actually is and what's happening?

Nazanin Moali [15:38]:

Absolutely. I feel like for many of my clients when they experience their sexual trauma or other kind of traumas at times, they learn to disconnect from their bodies. They're very aware of what happens in their mind, but sex is about sensation so it's important to connect with our bodies and it could be a common experience but it's something that people need to work through because in order for us to connect with our pleasure we need to be able to pay attention to sensations and all of those experiences we have in our bodies, so that's part of it.

Again, it could be one way for you to manage working through those or experiencing those horrible experiences because sometimes during the traumatic experience you're going through something really, really painful emotionally, physically, so consciously unconsciously you're disconnecting from your body to protect yourself. Now that you are ready to embrace your sexuality and introducing pleasure, it's really important to do practices that helps you to connect with your body again and work through the numbness.

Alyssa Scolari [16:49]:

Yes, so practices that focus on grounding yourself and being in your body.

Nazanin Moali [16:55]:

And kind of being okay yes, and experiencing pleasure.

Alyssa Scolari [16:59]:

Yep. Yep, exactly. Exactly. How do you help people work through the shame and the guilt around sex? Some people feel like after the abuse that they endured that they're not even worthy of having pleasure. How do you help people with that? I know that's a very broad question. I think it's very individualized, but what are some things you might do?

Nazanin Moali [17:31]:

Well I think one important thing is to identify the beliefs that you develop because of experiencing, as the result of experiencing trauma. What are some of the core beliefs that you develop? What are some of the things that you, the messages that you have around your bodies, around relationship, around sex? Part of it is identifying those messages and also examining that. Are they serving you? Are these accurate? What else we can put in instead of this belief that would serve you better and is congruent with your values. The life that you would like to lead. That's part of it.

Also equally important is seeing it as a way to get revenge on the person wanting to take away your sexuality.

Alyssa Scolari [18:19]:

I love it. Yes.

Nazanin Moali [18:20]:

That can be motivating for many people, thinking about this person, this experience didn't break me. Perhaps I can work toward transforming myself and my experiences and my sexuality as the result of that.

One of the research that I've done in graduate school was around posttraumatic growth. That many people, when they experience trauma, after that possible to experience growth. Growth meaning that it's not you're going back to the even pre-trauma functioning. It's more about going beyond and cultivating experiences that's beyond what you were experiencing. That would be even if you had a mediocre sexual experiences before trauma, this experience can provide you with this opportunity to experience growth and change your relationship with sexuality, with people in your life. Kind of anchoring in that, that can help people to feel more motivated to work through that.

I think the other piece of it, thinking about incorporating pleasure back in your life. Not only sexual pleasure, it could be all sorts of pleasure because when we're thinking we're not worthy then we're not taking care of ourselves, we're not paying attention to our physiological needs, to our pain, all of that. Working on incorporating pleasure inside and outside the bedroom is also part of it and really working on cultivating awareness around your body. [inaudible 00:19:49] that focusing on doing grounding exercises, number of different exercises I give my clients to explore their body and finally their sexuality. That also can help people to feel more grounded and they're going to have more experience of embodiment.

Alyssa Scolari [20:07]:

You start with non-sexual touch.

Nazanin Moali [20:12]:

Mm-hmm [affirmative].

Alyssa Scolari [20:12]:

Which I think is so important. I follow this one person on Instagram. Her handle is My Orgasmic Life.

Nazanin Moali [20:21]:

Nice.

Alyssa Scolari [20:21]:

Have you ever heard of her before?

Nazanin Moali [20:23]:

No.

Alyssa Scolari [20:24]:

She's wonderful. Absolutely wonderful. She has these workshops and these seminars, it's called Body Sex, and she helps women to become more grounded in themselves and be able to explore their sexuality and tap into their sexuality but she starts with non-sexual touch. For many people, and I know especially for me, non-sexual touch was all I could handle for a long time. I think that that's important. Just even hand holding or even, and this is if you're with your partner, but there also can be non-sexual touch even if you're solo.

Nazanin Moali [21:08]:

Absolutely. I think definitely with partners, again kind of like checking in with yourself about your readiness on whether to introduce touch or not. At times we start as you said with hand holding or it could be caressing different parts of the body while you have the clothing on. We're not removing any clothing. That can take awhile and then after that when you're ready you can escalate things.

Also as you mentioned, even when you are practicing solo, exploring putting lotion on different parts of your body and paying attention to the sensations, smells, all of those good things. You can practice this element of paying attention to your body. I think that's very important.

Also breathing. Connecting with your breath can also be very powerful because when we're ready to be with a partner or we're ready to introduce solo sex, it's important to also to use our breath as a way to anchor ourself in our bodies. That could be one tool.

Alyssa Scolari [22:11]:

To use our breath as a way to stay grounded.

Nazanin Moali [22:13]:

Yes, and being focused in the moment because if we're connecting with people sexually, one common experience that many survivors have is they disassociate. They kind of leave their body and that's common and you can use your breath to anchor yourself back into your body.

Alyssa Scolari [22:32]:

Okay. That's really, really interesting and makes so much sense now that you're saying it. I had never thought of that before but yes, it makes so much sense.

Nazanin Moali [22:41]:

Thank you.

Alyssa Scolari [22:42]:

Such great, great tips and tools. I do want to be clear for the listeners out there that this is a process, which I know you can speak more on, that takes awhile.

Nazanin Moali [22:57]:

Mm-hmm [affirmative].

Alyssa Scolari [22:58]:

We can't expect this to happen within a week.

Nazanin Moali [23:01]:

You're absolutely right about that and sometimes it means that it's not a linear path. Sometimes you're escalating things with your partner and it feels okay, and something happens in your life and then your body kind of goes a little bit back. You're no longer ready for sex or you're not ready to connect in a specific way with your partner, so that's completely okay. It's important to have this compassionate view of yourself and okay, as long as you're working on this and moving forward, that's what's important. Recovery is possible but it's important to take it with your own pace because if you are going too fast then that might lead for you to experience all sorts of sexual challenges. I see people that many survivors develop all kind of sexual dysfunctions because they either didn't address the main issue around trauma or their pacing wasn't quite right, so I think that's important to keep in mind.

Alyssa Scolari [23:58]:

Yes, I like that you pointed out that it's not linear because I think that that can be very frustrating for some people and certainly was frustrating for me on my recovery journey where I would be okay sometimes and then during maybe a high stress time in my life it would be like, oh this is not okay, and it would feel defeating because it would feel like well great, I'm right back where I was. But that's not at all the case. It just ebbs and flows. In the same way that I think, and you could speak more to this, that any sexual relationship would ebb and flow, right?

Nazanin Moali [24:38]:

Absolutely. That's completely okay as long as you are focusing on communicating that with your partner and focusing on experiencing having good enough sexual experiences. We are living in a society that we're all constantly bombarded with what's sex supposed to look like. That it needs to be this glamorous production and everyone else is having sex every day and you're left out. It's important to think about who you are and what kind of sexual experiences you want. It's a goal that can change in different phases of our life.

Alyssa Scolari [25:14]:

Yeah. It's important to know that it doesn't have to be ... Just kind of like you said, like it's glamorized. If you're with somebody and the relationship really is right, it has to be this mind-blowing, earth-shattering sex that's every day and it's like, this is not realistic. Everything works differently depending on who you are. Different strokes for different folks, basically.

Nazanin Moali [25:39]:

Absolutely. Yes. Yes, and I think people at times think about if they're not experiencing spontaneous desire and we're not climaxing the same time, it means that we're broken or we're not compatible. I think it's important to know that our sexuality can look different and that's okay.

Alyssa Scolari [26:00]:

Yes. Self compassion and allowing yourself to be where you're at without judgment. Now there's even more I think shame filled than having sex with a partner, I would say for trauma survivors I've found that learning how to engage in masturbation again I have found to be extremely, extremely triggering for trauma survivors. As a sex therapist, when somebody is trying to establish pleasure again into their lives do you recommend masturbation first? Like getting to know your own body first before they step out into exploring other partners?

Nazanin Moali [26:53]:

Well you brought up such an important point, Alyssa, that I think at times even especially with my female clients, there's some stigma around masturbation. Whether they experienced trauma or not, kind of thinking about that this is not okay, I don't want to do it, for a number of different reasons. And paired with experiencing trauma, that message can get amplified.

I guess one thing I want for people to know that it's a wonderful way of exploring and seeing how ready are you to have sexual pleasure in your life and you have the control over your body and you can stop and I think that can be a really, really good way that you can gauge your readiness. You can incorporate different touches and explore that. I think that can be very, very useful.

I think one thing that's really important to also keep in mind, that sexual trauma, sexual assault is a form of violence. It's not about sex at all. It's about the violence.

Alyssa Scolari [27:52]:

Yes.

Nazanin Moali [27:53]:

I think it's important to keep that in mind and separating that from your sexuality and sexual pleasure. I think it's important to keep that in mind, so actively turning your mind that direction. I think when it comes to masturbation I think it's important even if you haven't done it before experiencing trauma, thinking about it as a way for you to reconnect with your body. Even if you are not ready to masturbate to orgasm or you don't want to, you can touch and stroke different parts of your body, kind of exploring and being curious about the sensation. Being curious what feels good and what doesn't feel good.

At times our pleasure and our arousal can change after experiencing trauma. I have some clients, and I know this is such a controversial topic, but they incorporate their sexual abuse experiences as part of their erotic template. Especially if that was something that happened early in life, and they have all sorts of different sexual play that might not be mainstream but it's healthy for them because it helps them to feel in charge, it helps them to feel safe in the consensual relationship and context.

Alyssa Scolari [29:06]:

Yep. In other words, people will incorporate part of their abuse during their sexual arousal because that's what makes them feel A, aroused, B, like they have some kind of control.

Nazanin Moali [29:23]:

Absolutely.

Alyssa Scolari [29:24]:

Yes. Yes. I was just going to ask, and you are saying that we want to normalize that?

Nazanin Moali [29:31]:

Yes. Yes. Again, I think it's important to differentiate are you re-traumatizing yourself with this behavior? Is this trauma reenactment? Or this is truly part of your erotic template now because now our fantasies, our erotic blueprint and our sexual behavior can give us this feeling of safety and it's important for us to feel safe during sex. If this particular play, power [inaudible 00:29:57] change, whatever you're into, it gives you that safety, then there's nothing wrong with incorporating that.

Alyssa Scolari [30:04]:

Yes, and by explaining it like that and saying that you are washing the shame away from people who may be aroused by types of sex or types of foreplay that aren't mainstream and it's okay in a consensual situation. It is absolutely okay. I love that you said that.

Nazanin Moali [30:32]:

Thank you.

Alyssa Scolari [30:33]:

So important. So important. I just have to go back to what you said, because you said this earlier and I love it. It's about when we talk about trying to help people come out of the shame and the guilt that they feel and reclaiming their sexuality and their right to pleasure as a way to get revenge. That is so important. I think that so much of the healing comes from reclaiming your right to pleasure because then you turn to your perpetrator, figuratively, not literally, and you say, "You didn't win," because the assault, the abuse, the rape, it's not about arousal. It's about power. It's about power and violence and when you reclaim your right to feel pleasure, whether it's with yourself, whether it's with another partner, multiple partners, that's when you take back your power.

Nazanin Moali [31:35]:

I agree. You say it much better than me.

Alyssa Scolari [31:42]:

I just feel so empowered by what you're saying and the work that you're doing and it's wonderful. It's wonderful.

Nazanin Moali [31:50]:

Thank you. Same to you.

Alyssa Scolari [31:53]:

Thank you. I have to ask, how long have you been working in particular niche, this field, for?

Nazanin Moali [32:00]:

Well I did tons of different research in trauma, so in trauma it's been around 12 years. Sex therapy the last five years because I felt that I love doing trauma work but specifically this is something that I really enjoy, helping survivors and also people with all sorts of sexual challenges. That's been a newer niche for me.

Alyssa Scolari [32:24]:

Yeah. Yeah. I'm sure it's so empowering just to help people claim their right to pleasure. This is something that I have over the last year or so have strongly been considering going back for my PhD in clinical sexology because I want to be able to better help survivors of sexual abuse reclaim their right to pleasure, and you're doing it and it's incredible.

And you're a phenomenal writer. The article that you sent me, which to the listeners out there, I will link this article in the show notes. This is an article where you talk about you give different tips on how people can start to recover. It was the posttraumatic growth that you were talking about, correct?

Nazanin Moali [33:12]:

Yes. A part of it yes, I talk about that. Yes.

Alyssa Scolari [33:14]:

You're a phenomenal writer and then you have a podcast as well. Can you talk a little bit about your podcast?

Nazanin Moali [33:22]:

Well thank you so much for allowing me to share this. I have a podcast, as I mentioned, called Sexology. I've been airing weekly shows the last four and a half years. I talk about science of sex and pleasure because one thing that I'm very passionate about is giving people accurate scientific research-based information because I feel like when we have the right information it will empower us to make right decisions because there's just so many inaccurate information out there. At times they're interviews, and at times the solos podcast episodes. It gets released on a weekly basis on Tuesdays. Whenever I'm talking about a topic that's not necessarily within my specific niche I invite a researcher, scientist, another psychologist, therapist to come talk about it. It's called Sexology and people can find it everywhere that they're listening to the podcast, like Apple Podcast, Stitcher, all of those places.

Alyssa Scolari [34:21]:

I can't wait to listen.

Nazanin Moali [34:23]:

Thank you.

Alyssa Scolari [34:24]:

That's so exciting. You're doing incredible work. Where do you see your career going, because you're also five years into working in this niche. I'm sure you've got big dreams and big goals to continue on to do other things. What are some of your goals?

Nazanin Moali [34:42]:

Well thank you for saying all of these wonderful things. You're such a kind, considerate host. Yes I'm very excited. What I want to do is I want to do online courses specifically helping couples to connect because I feel like there's a limit on number of people I can see in my practice. I love serving individuals and couples but I feel with e-courses, online courses and programs I can reach a broader audience and I can serve a bigger audience so that's what I have in mind for the next phase.

Alyssa Scolari [35:14]:

E-courses, that's amazing. Especially because everything is online right now. Awesome. Awesome, so you've got big plans.

Nazanin Moali [35:22]:

Thank you. Thank you. The other thing is around sexuality, whether it's podcasts or e-courses, I think it's easier when people can do the work in the privacy of their home or listen in the privacy of their home because it's just tough to A, talk to a stranger about sex or going into the office can be another hurdle.

Alyssa Scolari [35:42]:

Yeah. Agreed. It takes being able to do this type of work from home and from the comfort of their own homes gives all people, but especially trauma survivors or sexual abuse survivors, a relief from the shame. I almost wish that when I was talking about my sexual abuse, I wish that it was online. I wish we were on Zoom because I remember quite literally hiding under a blanket at my therapist's office while I would talk to her because of the shame. I do think it's going to give people, it's going to make people so much more comfortable to be able to do it from the comfort of their own homes.

Nazanin Moali [36:30]:

Well thank you, and I'm glad that you had the opportunity to go in person because I think even going in person can be very, very powerful. I think there's benefit to all aspects, whether going in person or courses. It's a matter of just taking action. I think that's what's important.

Alyssa Scolari [36:47]:

Agreed. Agreed. There are pros and cons to both. I think the benefit of going in person is that you are able to say it in person and to see somebody not judging you, normalizing the things you were feeling. I'll never forget the time when lots of my memories of trauma were repressed and I was in the uncovering phase and I was just having all of these memories come to the surface and I was sitting in my therapist's office with my husband and I kept trying to say, "But it feels good." What we were talking about earlier, like this couldn't have been rape because in the body memories it feels good. I couldn't say it and the next session I remember my therapist saying to me, "I could feel what you were feeling yesterday and I know what you're trying to tell me is that you feel pleasure along with the pain and that's okay." To be able to have that experience face to face was incredibly healing.

Nazanin Moali [38:09]:

Right. Right. What a wonderful gift that you got, the chance to work with someone that was so attuned with doing this work.

Alyssa Scolari [38:18]:

Yeah. Yeah. Absolutely. Well I thank you so, so much for coming on the show. Now if people want to find out more, I will absolutely link the article that you wrote in the show notes and do you have a website that people can go to as well?

Nazanin Moali [38:37]:

Yes. They can find my content, my podcast on SexologyPodcast.com. That would be a place that people can find me.

Alyssa Scolari [38:47]:

Perfect. I will link that in the show notes as well. Thank you for your time, for your knowledge, for your wisdom, your experience, and most of all for working in this type of field because it is so, so needed and you're making huge changes. Thank you.

Nazanin Moali [39:05]:

My pleasure and thank you so much for having me on your podcast. This was an absolute pleasure.

Alyssa Scolari [39:12]:

Thanks for listening, everyone. For more information about today's episode and to sign up for the Light After Trauma newsletter, head over to my website at AlyssaScolari.com.

The really great thing about being a part of this newsletter is that not only do you get weekly updates on new podcast episodes and blog posts, but you also get access to the private Facebook community as well as access to all sorts of insider tips, resources and infographs that supplement what we talk about on the show. You also can connect with me and other trauma warriors. I'm super active on the Facebook community and I look forward to talking with you.

[Music 00:39:52]

On this week's episode, Alyssa sits down with psychotherapist, humanitarian, and author, Robert Strock. Robert discusses the core concepts from his book, Awareness That Heals. The inspiration from this book comes after years of experience as a therapist in addition to a life-changing moment in Robert's 30's that turned his world upside down.

Learn More About Robert

Buy Robert's Book

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]:

Good morning, good afternoon, and good evening, everybody. Welcome to another episode of the Light After Trauma podcast. I'm your host, Alyssa Scolari. I am sitting here today with the wonderful Robert Strock. Robert is a psychotherapist, teacher, and humanitarian. He's also the author of a book that we are going to talk about today called Awareness That Heals, an expression of the powerful tools that Robert has developed over a lifetime of inspired exploration.

He has hundreds of online videos, blogs, and guided meditations, which I tried, by the way, and are fantastic, that he has shared with therapists, psychology students, social workers, caregivers, and seekers of their own inspiration. In addition to this, 20 years ago, Robert co-founded the Global Bridge Foundation, whose mission it is to continue on the creation of a more compassionate, just, and peaceful world that honors the dignity of all beings. This foundation is a part of a united effort to support systems for global change and economic inequality. Most recently, he has two podcasts that are coming out. As if he wasn't busy enough, now he is coming out in... You said April, right, Robert?

Robert Strock [01:44]:

Yes, yes.

Alyssa Scolari [01:45]:

In April, he has two podcasts coming out, one that is based off of the book, Awareness That Heals, and then one is... Correct me if I'm wrong, but that's the one that's tied to the Global Bridge Foundation, right?

Robert Strock [01:59]:

That's correct. It's really tied into homelessness, regenerative agriculture, and immigration reform.

Alyssa Scolari [02:08]:

All right. Welcome. How did I do with that bio?

Robert Strock [02:11]:

That was pretty good on the fly.

Alyssa Scolari [02:15]:

I did do that on the fly. Thank you. Thank you. Well, welcome. Welcome.

Robert Strock [02:21]:

Great to be here. Thanks for inviting me.

Alyssa Scolari [02:25]:

For the listeners out there, Robert and I connected on LinkedIn. We had had a conversation back in January of 2021, so this year, about his book. He was kind enough to send me a copy of his book, Awareness That Heals. It took me some time to get through it. It's an incredible book. I really wanted to have him on the show. Even just after my first conversation with him, it's very easy to tell how passionate he is and how much knowledge he has on healing, especially knowing his personal story.

I wanted to bring him on the show today to talk about this book because he really has developed tools that I think are helpful for everybody, especially going through difficult times. As I was just saying before we started recording, right when I got this book was when I started to go through a lot of health issues and a lot of health scares. Reading this book truly helped me to be able to ground myself during times when I felt so anxious and so worried about my health. Thank you so much, Robert, for sending me this incredible book.

Robert Strock [03:49]:

Well, you're very welcome. Thank you for being willing to share yourself personally, which is such a gift to the audience, to have someone that is leading the way by sharing their own process, which is... One of my pet peeves is just, we're all human. If we could just learn to be able to... with those that we trust, be able to share what our inner experience is and then guide ourselves or be guided to how we can best take care of ourselves.

Alyssa Scolari [04:25]:

Could you talk a little bit more about what it is that you do? Because you have so many things on your plate, are you still practicing psychotherapy, or did you become a therapist and then kind of launch into all these other different branches?

Robert Strock [04:43]:

Well, all the branches are really connected to the same tree. The foundation and my therapy work, which is still happening, is very connected because the last 35 years, I've exclusively been seeing leaders in fields that are successful, but they know they haven't arrived. They feel an emptiness. They feel an incompleteness.

They know that they followed the program of life. It was taught to them, and they won. They succeeded. Yet somehow, it didn't touch their heart, or their being, or something inside, so they wanted to really understand, well, what am I missing? That has really been the narrow referral base that I've had for the last 35 years. I've been counseling for close to 50 years.

Alyssa Scolari [05:32]:

Wow. It's a very specific niche of people who have made it, essentially, but still feel this type of hallowness inside.

Robert Strock [05:43]:

Right. To make it even more confusing, almost all of my clients are running foundations and are doing good work with people. They may be at the beginning stages of it, or they may still be scared, or they may have communication issues. They may have issues with their foundation. They may have issues with their family. They're good souls. They're a select group, so I'm very, very fortunate to not have the monetary need so that I can really not have my discretion of clients be people in a random sort of way because, really, from my vantage point, the inter-connectedness of all the things that I'm doing and trying to do is that the world itself is endangered: the global warming and all the other aspects of the political chaos, and corruption, and terrorism, and nuclear dangers.

Somehow, all of us doing what we can to have a different understanding of what mental health is, which means to me, how are we relating to the world? Are we doing our best to be a quality person that is caring for others, and caring about the world, caring about the earth?

Normally, in psychology, a traditional therapist is trying to have you adjust to the world or have a stronger ego. I would say my work largely is focused on having a stronger relationship to the world, a stronger relationship to your heart, and also a stronger relationship to what is really challenging where your own suffering is so that you can be aware of that and then let that guide you to asking the question of, how can I best take care of myself? and then a number of other strands.

Basically, the tree is we're all interconnected. The more we can see that, the more it has a tendency to open our heart and guide us to where we're not connected to ourselves, to each other, to the partner that we're with, to a family member, and facing the hard-to-face things, like what you're talking about where you have a health issue. Obviously, that's terrifying. It's scary. It's frightening. It's anxiety-provoking. Sometimes it's 10 times that.

To have the courage to, A, admit that, and then, B, while you're allowing that to be the way it is, not trying to magically make it go away, but guiding yourself to know and to follow, how can I best take care of myself? What are the qualities that I need to guide myself toward?

Courage, perseverance, maybe diligence with going to the doctors that you need to see. Whether the thoughts that I need to think, I know I want to care for myself right now. I think this is a very hard time for me. It would be a hard time for anyone, so I want to be open to what I'm experiencing that's challenging. I want to find the best way I can to guide myself, to care for myself, but also care for others too. When you have a health crisis, sometimes you just need to be self-oriented.

Alyssa Scolari [09:20]:

Yes, which can be hard to do when you're a therapist, absolutely. So many of the themes or so much of what you said, I see themes of what I read in your book, which is this concept of awareness that heals. It's so vastly different from just general awareness. I know for you... Well, I guess I should ask. Is it all right if we dive into the book?

Robert Strock [09:51]:

Absolutely.

Alyssa Scolari [09:51]:

Can we dive right in? because I think this book is phenomenal. I mean, a huge congratulations to you. I want to start with this word, heart-ectomy, heart-ectomy. You made that up, right?

Robert Strock [10:11]:

Yes, I did.

Alyssa Scolari [10:11]:

That is a Robert Strock... You should trademark that because when I read that, right? There's this part in this book where... Well, why don't you explain it. What is this concept of the heart-ectomy? How did you get to that spot?

Robert Strock [10:26]:

Well, I had to pay a price. I was really fortunate enough that I had a need for a kidney transplant. My brother gave me a kidney. Of course, that's normally the amazingly good news, which it was. The bad news was that the medications that I took basically were received by my body as if I was taking speed. I slept for an hour a night for six months. Then basically, for the next 8 to 10 years, slept for about three or four hours a night.

When that happened, I was so exhausted, so anxious, so agitated that I couldn't feel my heart. I couldn't feel all the qualities of peace, or inspiration, or joy, or degree of tenderness. All of those were 97% gone. I just refer to it as, my heart was taken out, my inner heart. With that, it led to a natural provoking of, well, if I'm not the good feelings that I was my prior 30 years, throughout my adult life, who am I? Who am I? How can I live a quality of life when my heart can't feel because I'm too exhausted? I had never had a bad night's sleep in my life until the first night of the transplant. It was not a gray situation. It was a very black-and-white mainline.

Alyssa Scolari [12:08]:

Yes, it was like your world as you knew it, which you say in the book, drastically changed. It flipped a switch, a complete 180 where for the first 30 years of your life, you were relatively unaffective and doing great things in the world. Then it was like boom, sickness.

Robert Strock [12:31]:

The inquiry, which I had a lot of time... I had 23 hours a day now to be contemplating.

Alyssa Scolari [12:37]:

Right, right.

Robert Strock [12:38]:

I think the first thing that I really became aware of in the first month or two was in the middle of the night, because I was so exhausted, that my mind had nothing beneficial to tell me. I was just going to be quiet and kind of trained myself. I had been meditating for 30 years, but I trained myself to really say, "No, I'm not going to listen to this," because I knew it was going to come out of fear. Is this going to last forever? I can't stand this.

I know those are the kinds of thoughts that would have been spawned, so I could feel the impulse as they started. I just went, "No, no, no, no, no." Then it became clear that my intelligence was still okay. My wish to heal was still there. I wished to be able to feel my heart. There was a combination of wisdom, intelligence, and will that were still intact. That became more my focus.

As a matter of fact, it became overwhelmingly my focus and still allowed me to be a therapist. I still kept my practice. The clients that had been with me for quite a while... They all knew I was getting a transplant. I would just say to them, "Listen, please. I'm in a state of exhaustion. I'm fine. I don't want to be the center of attention, but I don't want you to identify with my state because I'll be a bit flatter, but I'm still able to fully be with you." In reality, my ability to feel their heart or their body was much more available to me than being able to feel my own.

I was able to kind of borrow their body, almost, and be able to feel where they were. I knew my job was, as it had been and still is, is to empathize with whatever the person in front of me is going through and then listen to their words and their ideas as to, what's the very best way they can take of themselves? If I can mirror back, oh, so you're saying you're afraid because you're not healthy, and you need to have the courage to go to the doctor, that's my job to mirror that back to you.

It's not my job to judge you. It's not my job to make morals for you. Of course, what I'm saying is a very high-functioning client. There's some people... They have very serious issues that it's not just a matter of mirroring. It's a matter of medication. It's a matter of all kinds of other strategies.

For my clientele, they're mainly looking for the guidance of the tagline of the book, which is bringing heart and wisdom to life's challenges, which is a very key part of awareness that heals because you can't have an awareness that heals if you suppress your emotions. You need to really be open to both be aware and actually develop a caring for your emotions. Then that naturally can lead you to the qualities, the thoughts, and the actions that you need to embrace to care for yourself.

Alyssa Scolari [15:55]:

These were principles that you came up with while you were healing, while you were going through the physical recovery, well, and emotional recovery.

Robert Strock [16:06]:

They were doubled. They were principles that were already... Let's say, two-thirds of them were already in my practice, but those all deepened. Then about a third brand new principles were developed because of the depth of suffering that I was in.

If I use my old tools, they didn't work. For example, my old tool would have been share with friends, "Gee, I'm really unbelievably wasted today and exhausted." The sharing would create some kind of relief in their caring for me.

Well, that did nothing for me because I was chemically altered. In a certain way, I think the important thing is virtually all of us are going to have a time in our life, if not many times in our life, where it might be hormones. It may have been there from birth. It may be a trauma. It may be something that we need chemical support.

We really need to honor the fact that these feeling states that we're in... If we don't embrace them and find a way to hold them, that they will run our lives if we let them stay unconscious. They need our caring. We need to let them guide us to what we need.

I have a free... Part of my website lists 75 challenging emotions and 75 qualities and actions to help be more literate for anyone... Gee, I know I'm not feeling good, but I can't quite tell what it is. Now I know what I feel, or a few feelings, or a constellation of feelings. Here's 75 ways that I could potentially help myself. Which ones of these do I really want to put my attention on? Making that connection is such an extraordinary link to connect the suffering, specifically with the needs that you need to develop the discipline to focus your attention on and summon up the courage to keep them together.

Alyssa Scolari [18:18]:

I think that's so important, especially for... Kind of like you said, none of us get through this life unscathed. I think that we all endure some type of trauma at one point. I think when that happens, we can feel almost like our hearts have been ripped out of us. In that moment, we don't have words. Sometimes when it comes to trauma, there are no words because our brain can't process it. Therefore, we're like, "Well, I don't know what this feeling is. If I have no awareness of this feeling, what am I supposed to do about it?"

Robert Strock [19:01]:

Exactly, exactly. Words like overwhelmed, or just exhausted, or just, I really feel bad-

Alyssa Scolari [19:11]:

Or, upset, upset. I get that word, upset, all the time when people come into my office. "I'm just upset. I'm just upset." That's when we need your list, right? That's when we need the feelings chart of, all right, let's go through this. What is it? Be more specific, which is very, very hard to do when you feel like your heart's been ripped out of you. Fundamentally, who you are has been altered.

Robert Strock [19:37]:

It's very helpful because most of us say, "I feel so-and-so." Really, there's a sense that you believe you are what you feel. Let's say when you're in a crisis, I would say not only when you're in a crisis, but really in ordinary life, a better definition of who are is how you respond to how you feel. Really developing the ability to respond... First, to identify how you feel, but also to develop the ability to have a resilient set of qualities, and actions, and thoughts that will guide you to be able to care for yourself. It's rare that people stay aware of what they feel, let alone are aware of a whole bunch of different ways to care for themselves and others.

Alyssa Scolari [20:37]:

Then if you become aware of what you feel, some things that you talk about in the book that really hit home for me, I was like, "Well, how do I cultivate a friendly mind around this, right, if I feel X, Y, and Z?" I know for me, when you describe that experience of your whole world's stopping or your whole world changing, back in 2018, my mom... It was May 5th. I had been married for a month and a half.

My mom got very, very, very sick very fast. It was like she was totally fine, in the prime of her life. She was 59. Then boom, within a day, she was in the hospital with full-blown sepsis. I was sitting in the intensive care unit in a room with the doctors going, "Your mother is gravely ill. Your mother is gravely ill."

I'm like, "What do you mean? I just got married a minute ago." I was on my honeymoon. I came back. I was starting my life with my husband. It was like boom, your mother is not going to make it. She did, but we were told many times that she wouldn't.

In reading this book, I come back to this a lot. Cultivating a friendly mind... I remember talking to my therapist during those moments and not being able to identify how I felt. I felt like a shell. I felt like who I was got up and left, and she was nowhere to be seen. I couldn't identify how I felt, but what I did know is that I believed, right, because there's a difference between thoughts and feelings. I couldn't identify the feelings, but I did know that somehow it was my fault that she was dying.

That's when this concept in your book of cultivating a friendly mind really, really hit me. Setting ourselves up for impossible standards as if I solely was responsible for the health of my mother and keeping her alive, right?

Robert Strock [23:08]:

Right.

Alyssa Scolari [23:10]:

I'm no doctor. I guess, could you talk a little bit about that, cultivating a friendly mind throughout this process?

Robert Strock [23:18]:

Yes. I want to come back to the word, solely. I doubt you were even partially responsible, let alone solely.

Alyssa Scolari [23:28]:

Right, right.

Robert Strock [23:29]:

Coming back to that. When I was in this state of, really, almost being inert other than the aspect I've already talked about, I realized I did have my mind. I realized that the mind usually is viewed as a booby prize relative to the emotion and feeling good.

I also came to, really, quite a depth realization that if I could have my mind be friendly toward me in a way that I earn, it's not just a free lunch. A friendly mind is, well, okay, what am I really capable of? What's possible for me in the next hour?

Now if I'm doing what's possible for the next hour, that's realistic, realistically possible. Sometimes it's lie down. That's my highest possibility. Sometimes it's take a walk. Sometimes it's put my hand on my heart. Sometimes it's call a friend. Sometimes it's go to a doctor.

If you guide yourself to what's possible for you in the state you're in and you build that up, that allows your mind to really trust you so you develop a mind that can be saying, "You know what? I really like that you rested when you needed to rest. I liked when you worked out when you needed to work out," that the mind becomes your best friend when you are listening to yourself.

It's kind of a partner with, how can I best take care of myself? and then listening to that sincere question. It sounds intuitively obvious. Well, who wouldn't ask that question: how do I best take care of myself? Well, the answer is almost everybody.

That's one of the facets of the capacities that we have, is to ask that inquiry. I have one chapter that's called Inquiry From the Heart. That's really asking questions in a positive way. They're saying, "What can I really do?"

You mentioned impossible standards. Well, the standards don't take into consideration that you may... If you're 50 and you want to be younger than 50, well, that's an impossible standard. If you're not married and you want to be married at that moment, that's an impossible standard.

What can you do? Well, I could take good care of myself and my health when I'm 50. What I could do is make myself available. What I could do is grow and do my best to become a sensitive person to increase the chances of being in a good relationship.

Friendly mind is really something that when you're really particularly in a crisis, it's gold because you can be nice to yourself and not be afraid to look. It can encourage you to keep staying in the next hour, the next minutes, the next day at the most, maybe. Occasionally you have to plan a week or two ahead of time.

The part of the friendly mind is staying with what's possible, doing the best you can to follow that guidance, and to keep being realistic about the potential. After a while, you start to realize, "Wow, my friend is an ally," instead of it saying, "What's wrong with you?"

You say things like, "You know what? This would be difficult for anyone to be feeling what I'm feeling, to be going to a doctor and worried about X, Y, or Z." This would be difficult for anyone, so how can you best take care of yourself now? Is this the time where you need to write a letter to somebody? What's this hour about?

When you really start to take it sincerely, that the next hour, really even the next breath or the next thought... You sort of start with wherever you are. Maybe you're living four years from now, and maybe you're living a year from now. You're gradually coming closer and closer to the present and the next week because that's possible.

Realistically, what can I do? How can I be toward myself, toward others in my next thought process and the way that... in my tone of voice. How can I be the best me according to me? Even asking the question is a sign that you'll recognize you're on the right track because you're caring. You're caring about yourself, and you're caring about those important to you. Sometimes it's, how can I best take care of myself? When the self is in suffering that much, it's, how can I best take care of the moment? How can I best take care of somebody else that I might not notice in great need?

Alyssa Scolari [28:18]:

Right, right. I think that also helps, especially, people who have endured extensive types of trauma like abuse, physical, sexual, emotional. We often have feelings of guilt and shame, right? Guilt, shame, almost always, with any type of trauma. I think that trying to do that and trying to, as you say, cultivate a friendly mind also will help tame those god-awful feelings of guilt and shame because they are crippling.

Robert Strock [29:00]:

I think there's a paradox that's also very important, which is that the response to the shame and the guilt is what's really important because it's really hard to get in an eraser out and just erase the guilt and the shame. Early in my life, one of my teachers said something very wise that, really, I've remembered ever since that time, which is, "Don't feel ashamed for feeling ashamed. Don't feel guilty for feeling guilty. Don't be afraid of being frightened."

The alternative is see the innocence in the guilt. For example, I feel guilty because I did something that I regret. The way you can deal with that is, okay, I feel guilty or I feel ashamed. I probably can't erase that. Is there anything I can do in addition to caring for myself while I feel ashamed? Is there anything required for me to heal that?

Maybe I need to resolve a conversation with somebody, and go back, and redo it. Maybe I really was just a victim, and I realized that I need to just stand in myself and say, "You know what? I was completely victimized for me to blame myself. It's completely ridiculous." However, I'm still going to be victimized.

These feelings are a sign of the remainder of the victimization. I don't have to feed it because I can counter it with a friendly mind instead of a mind that's going to keep going, "I'm ashamed. God, maybe I was really flirting, or maybe I really did go into a dangerous area." Or maybe I said, "Well, you know that wasn't your intention. You know that wasn't the case. I'm sorry you have to go through the shame. I'm here with you. I am an empathic voice. Assuming that it's not completely overwhelming, I do care about you. It's okay that you have feelings of shame."

I know that sounds almost like a terrible thing to say, but it's a kindness. Trying to get over feelings is a futile endeavor. Trying to respond to feelings with warmth... The feelings will go away when they're ready to go away, but when you have a mind and a quality that's caring for you, that's the medicine.

Trying to get rid of shame, trying to get rid of guilt, trying to get rid of anger... It's more like, okay, I'm angry. How can I best take care of myself when I'm angry? Well, what is it that I really need? If I'm angry, it means it's something I don't like that happened or something I don't like that didn't happen. Is there anything I can do, any way I can speak, any way I can be that's going to allow me to take care of that original need? If the answer is yes, I want to go for it. If the answer is no, I want to come to some kind of acceptance, but I don't want to compound the injury.

Alyssa Scolari [31:58]:

I love that. What a phenomenal quote of... I can't remember exactly what you said. I think it's something like trying to get rid of feelings is a futile endeavor. I mean, the power behind that, because, right? We're not shaming ourselves for having shame. We're not guilting ourselves for having guilt. We're not beating ourselves up for being angry.

It's like the more you try to get rid of the feelings, the worse the feelings become. You can't stop the feelings. You can just console yourself through the feelings. You can, as you write about in the book, move from this place of self-rejection to self-compassion.

Robert Strock [32:45]:

I'm very careful about saying things like moving towards self-compassion because just as you can't change feelings, I don't think any of us are ever going to ride that, a permanent state of self-compassion. It's like, I want to move in that direction. I want to take my baby steps in this way. Maybe I can take a full girl or a full-boy step in that direction.

I don't want to get too demanding of myself. I want to move toward caring for myself. Oh, I'm being judgemental toward myself. I really don't want to continue that. I want to see that I'm doing that. I want to do my best to respond each time with, are you actually going to be able to learn anything by judging yourself?

Now occasionally, the answer is yes. For example, let's say you've abused your health. You say, "Oh, you're such an idiot. You've been abusing your health." Well, you still don't want to be negative and judgmental, but you do want to face the fact that, you know what? I do need to eat a little bit better. I do need to work out a little bit more.

I don't want to do it, but listen to the difference in tone. One is a tone where it's really punishing you. The other one is a tone that's rooting for you, that's behind you. It's looking at what you really can and can't do, what's really possible, what's impossible.

Again, that's one of the questions that's really important to ask whenever there's any self-judgment of, is it really possible that I can do anything about this right now? If so, can I gather the strength of character to face it and to make some steps toward it?

If you can't or more accurately, if you don't, the judgment is going to stay there. You can try to stop at the judgment, but the wound of not taking care of yourself is still going to be there. The real thing is, oh, I see a wound, or I see a limitation, or I see a place where I'm not taking good care of myself.

The real I, as far as I'm concerned, is the one that wants to take care of ourselves and everyone else. It's the caregiver of ourselves and those around us. The more we're with that, it might be a, first, ourselves, and then it might be ourself, and our partner, and our friends. Then it might be our community.

It's kind of a gradual evolution toward caring about more and more people without that being another standard, like getting ahead of yourself. It's so important to start with where you are and then to just be honest and aware of whatever it is that's most hurting or most causing the suffering, and then having that continuous question of, how can I best realistically take care of myself, especially in the near future?

Alyssa Scolari [35:48]:

Yes, absolutely. All of that, for the listeners out there, I will absolutely link the book, the Awareness That Heals, on the show notes so that you can access it very easily. Robert breaks down all of these themes into very specific sections of his book. He also gives critical-thinking questions to help you practice these different types of concepts. They're very, very healing.

My favorite, favorite part of the book is the one on anger, transforming anger. Anger is something that comes into my office and into my personal life as a disguise, typically in the form of high anxiety, people pleasing, depression, addiction, because we don't know how to deal with our anger. For me, I developed... For the listeners out there, I know you all have heard me say this. I had battled an eating disorder for the first 25 years of my life because I've been in recovery for about four years or so.

All of that was to push down my anger. As I continued to go to therapy and then I started to have my repressed memories, because I had repressed memories of sexual abuse that came to the forefront, I became aware of them. I eventually just felt rage and had no concept of the word, containment, which is, one of, I think, the hardest things to do, personally, and one of the hardest things to help people with professionally. Could you talk a little bit about that?

Robert Strock [37:59]:

Sure. I would say if anybody really is taken in by this, this is something that requires months, if not years, if not decades, of practice.

Alyssa Scolari [38:12]:

1000%.

Robert Strock [38:14]:

I'm going to give it the... The understanding version is definitely inadequate for practice because this requires practice, practice, practice, practice, practice.

Alyssa Scolari [38:24]:

Months, years, yes.

Robert Strock [38:27]:

Depending upon which version I'm doing, there's seven or eight steps, and really transforming anger toward intimacy and peace. The first step is being aware of anger, that as you said very eloquently, that you had all kinds of side doors the way anger came out. The awareness that, "Gee, I'm angry. Oh, I'm angry. Oh, good. I'm finally aware that I'm angry... " Notice the good, that you don't say, "Oh shit. I'm angry. What's my problem?"

Then that's kind of a cutoff switch. That's when it goes sideways. It's like, congratulate yourself that at least I'm aware of my anger. Then right behind that is you realize, "You know what? This has caused me all kinds of hell in my life. I want to make it better. I want to learn how to care for myself," which I call an intention to heal, or you could call it wanting to care for yourself, or you could call it wanting to care for everyone that's involved in this situation. Now if it's somebody that has abused you from your past, that may not apply and probably does not apply.

Alyssa Scolari [39:36]:

Right, right.

Robert Strock [39:36]:

In general, if it's not that situation, if it's a live, current situation, it would be that. Then the third step after being aware of your anger and then recognizing you want to care for yourself is what I would call containment. Containment does not mean suppression. Containment means you're not acting it out. You're not suppressing it, but you're allowing yourself to fully experience the raw aliveness of anger in an environment, backyard, your car, a close friend, a therapist.

You're really allowing yourself to feel the aliveness of the energy with no holding back. If anything, you exaggerate it. You can really support yourself not to suppress it. Then the next two steps are kind of blended, which is, as you're doing that, you're asking yourself the question: what are the vulnerable feelings underneath this? Also, what is it I'm really needing that made me mad in the first place? That's step, really, four and five.

For example, when you look at the anger at any kind of abuse, there's obviously fear. There's grief. You allow yourself to feel that as part of the containment period where you're letting yourself feel the fear and the grief. Then when you say, "Well, what do I need?" that's a complicated question if it's about abuse of the past.

First need is going to be the need to not blame yourself. That's the need. You're, "Oh, I've been blaming yourself." It's not even so much the abuse as much as the self-torture. Maybe I did this, or maybe I did that. Or maybe I was a little bit aroused, or maybe I was this.

It's like, no. The need is to not blame myself. It's to accept myself, to accept the fact that I really was attacked unfairly, whether it's a verbal attack, or a sexual attack, or a physical attack. Or if you're in a relationship and the anger is there, what is it I really needed, and what are the vulnerable feelings?

Well, I feel hurt because my husband, or my wife, or my partner isn't communicating with me, or they're not warm in their tone of voice, or they're not empathic. They don't care about how my day is. Ah, that's what my need is. I want to feel connected. I want to feel like we can talk. I want to feel like they're interested in my day, in my inner experience, in who I am. What if I learn how to communicate what it is that I need rather than being angry that I didn't get what I need? That's where the pivoting... The major, major step is is you-

Alyssa Scolari [42:17]:

That's the transformation.

Robert Strock [42:18]:

That's the transformation. That's almost there. That's part of the 75 qualities where you say, "Ah, communication is one of them." It may be a tone of voice that's a caring tone of voice. It may be a curiosity. It could be any one of 75 things, and more than 75. This list isn't meant to be the list. It's just a list. It's a comprehensive list.

Then after you discover what you need, how do I communicate the need? Let's assume it's a present circumstance. How do I communicate this need? In what tone of voice do I communicate this need? Because there's all kinds of possibilities and likelihoods that, ah, I'm aware of what I need. I'm going to say, "I need to communicate. I need to communicate. How many times do I have to tell you that I need to communicate?"

No, no, no, no. That's just letting anger sneak back in while you're aware of what you need. The sixth step is communicating what you need with a tone of voice that's playable, that's reaching, that's sincere, that's earnest. That's very important because just expressing our needs while we're dumping isn't any better. It's a little bit better because it gives it chance that the other person might get it, but it's pretty unlikely if you're dumping on them, they're going to get it.

Alyssa Scolari [43:37]:

Yes. It's not very productive.

Robert Strock [43:39]:

No, it's not very productive. It's a little bit better because you give them some information as to what was missing for you. To be able to discover what you need and then express it in a tone of voice that's relational, that's caring, that's encouraging, that's not sabotaging is the sixth step.

Then the seventh step, which is a little bit of my... Let's say, hopefully not just mine, is perseverance, is do it at least three to five times. Don't assume that your partner, or your friend, or your family member can get it the first time. Give it a few chances. The only exception to that is if you're really with an abuser, if you realized you're only taking the step to try to communicate, if you think there's a chance.

If you're with a really abusive person, then the sixth and the seventh step become acceptance that it's impossible to get that need met, but at least you know it. Now you need to work with accepting that inside yourself. You know what? My partner is not into communication, is never going to get into communication. If I mention it one more time, they're going to smack one.

Alyssa Scolari [44:45]:

A very, very important discernment. Very important.

Robert Strock [44:49]:

In that sixth step, you're asking yourself, is there any realistic chance I could express my need and have even the wildest possibility, if I do it really well, that it may benefit the relationship? If the answer is yes, then that's that way. If not, then it's working with yourself to say, "Okay. Is this so bad that I need to cut off the relationship? Is this so bad that I need to boundary the relationship and just see them once every three months instead of once a week? Does this mean that we need to separate if we're in a relationship, or is this just one aspect that I'm overreacting to? When I look at the whole picture, it's still worthwhile. I just have to have the maturity to accept it inside myself and realize, every relationship is going to have some weaknesses." Now if it's something like being abused, that's very serious.

Alyssa Scolari [45:43]:

That's a deal-breaker. Yes, that's a non-negotiable.

Robert Strock [45:47]:

Right, right. Or disloyalties or severe dishonesty... Those kind of things aren't playable, but if somebody is not good at communication... My father was probably the most decent human being I knew my whole childhood, but he was not a communicator. He didn't communicate his feelings. He just would put his hand on my shoulder, my mother's shoulder, or my brother's shoulder and give us a light hug, not the kind of hug that we have these days. He was a great man, but he was a non-communicator.

For him, I could say to him, "I have the need to communicate," and he would just say something like, "Well, what do you want to communicate about?" It wouldn't matter what I said. It wasn't going to work, but it wasn't the deal-breaker.

That discernment of whether it's really a deal-breaker, or a boundary-setter, or our whole relationship's over... That's for us to really work with when we're at that stage of dealing with our anger. One of the key turning points is it's got to be, "Oh good, I'm aware of my anger," rather than, "Oh damn. I'm angry again."

Alyssa Scolari [46:56]:

Yes, I was going to circle back to that. I appreciate that you said that because the clients that come into my office... When I see them get angry, when I start to see it after working with them for so long, and seeing no anger, and they finally get angry, there's always a little glimmer in my eye. A lot of them who know me well enough are like, "What? You're happy I'm angry?" I'm like, "Well, I'm not mad about it." I do feel that way. Oh, good, good.

I think it's very, very important to discern and to make clear to the listeners out there that what you're not saying is that anger is bad. It's like, oh good, anger. Transforming anger is not about suppressing anger. It's not about saying go away to the anger. It's about literally transforming it in order to get our needs met because if not, then we kind of just become time bombs and erupt over and over again without ever getting our needs met. I love that part of the... I mean, obviously, the whole book is wonderful. I really resonated with that because I'm an angry person. I'm somebody who's very in touch with my anger. I'm learning currently, the ways to transform it and make it productive.

Robert Strock [48:31]:

Of course, we're saying don't suppress it and don't dump it. Most people will go, "Well, then, what am I supposed to do?" Feel it fully in a safe setting.

Alyssa Scolari [48:42]:

Yes, stick with it.

Robert Strock [48:44]:

With another person, if possible, that is mature enough to help support you not to justify the anger, but to ask the question, how can you best deal with it? When you recognize that anger itself is a need that is not being met, you need to discover what that need is. You need to be very curious while you're in that containment period to discover what it is.

You said when a client shows up in your office, you have a glimmer. I have a glimmer too. When they ask me the question, "You look like you're happy I'm angry," I said, "Well, I'm happy you're aware you're angry. I'm happy that you're angry, not that I want it to stay disabling you. Now that it's come above the surface, you have a chance to discover what you need. Otherwise, it was going to come out sideways. You're not going to want to make love. You're going to forget things that your partner had asked for."

Alyssa Scolari [49:44]:

You're going to stay in your addiction. You know what I mean? Now you're fully in touch with your feelings. Now we're going to recover from addiction, and depression or crippling depression, and crippling anxiety. It's like, yes, all right. We're moving here.

Robert Strock [50:04]:

Yes, for sure. For sure.

Alyssa Scolari [50:07]:

I guess one of the last questions I wanted to ask you is, if it weren't for your sudden, the 180, right, the curveball that life threw you 30 years into the game-

Robert Strock [50:21]:

Right.

Alyssa Scolari [50:21]:

Do you think this book would have existed?

Robert Strock [50:24]:

Not in its current form. I'm a terrible writer by nature, so it took me 45 years to write it. I had six people that didn't help me on the content but helped me actually have one sentence follow the next ones. It would have had similar concepts, but they wouldn't have a depth understanding of primal suffering. It wouldn't have had some of the subtleties.

Friendly mind came out of that experience. That was not a concept that I was using. I didn't also deeply understand. I superficially understood that your response to your feeling was more important than your feeling. I realize all I had was my response to my feeling.

That gave it a whole bunch more contrast. Being able to have a relationship with clients where I knew no matter what they felt, I could feel. I did feel for many, many years. Every morning, I still have a period when I wake up where I still have the reaction to the transplant medication. I have to take five sleeping medications at night. The book would have maybe happened, but there's zero chance it would have been the same book.

Alyssa Scolari [51:46]:

I mean, it gives a sense of purpose and meaning to what you endured, not that... Obviously, of course, we would prefer if it hadn't happened, but it certainly gives it a sense of purpose because there's so much to this book that is really helpful for moving away from primal suffering. That might be the title of this episode because I think that that's just the topic of this conversation, is ways to move away from primal suffering.

Robert Strock [52:20]:

I would tweak that a little, and I would say how to be with primal suffering because I'd be a little concerned that people would see that maybe as moving away, like withdrawing a little bit from it. Whereas it's really being with because the suffering, for example, during this, especially for six years, I was not able to move away from the suffering. The suffering stayed exactly the way it was. What I did was I didn't compound it by thinking about it, by projecting in the future, and by compounding it. It's really being with the primal suffering in a different way and responding to it in a different way.

Alyssa Scolari [53:00]:

Touché. You got me there. I'm very, very thankful that you pointed that out because that is one of my weak points. In my own recovery from complex PTSD is is I want to move away. I want to be done with the suffering. Touché, and thank you for pointing that out because that's something that is a work in progress for me as well.

Robert Strock [53:25]:

Again, I just want to really honor your sincerity, and your willingness to be in the moment, and just to acknowledge whatever is true because I think all of us... It's so hard when we feel like, oh, maybe we didn't get something or whatever. Not to hide from it requires such courage. I really support you there. Moving away is what, instinctively, we all want to do.

Alyssa Scolari [53:52]:

Yes, it's self-protective.

Robert Strock [53:55]:

Well, again, I would tweak the word, protective, which is it's delusionally self-protective. It's actually self-harming.

Alyssa Scolari [54:05]:

Ends up being self-harming.

Robert Strock [54:06]:

Yes, because moving away leaves us incapable of working with, being with, skillfully, how we actually still are. Because we think how we feel is how we are, we don't want to see it, but if we realize everyone's human in the planet, the key is, can we be human and learn a more caring and skillful way to respond to it? We don't have to stop being human, and we can't stop being human.

Alyssa Scolari [54:43]:

We cannot, absolutely not. You have lots of different websites. Could you talk about some of the websites? because I can't remember which one is which. You have guided meditations, which, to the listeners out there, they are phenomenal. I have listened to them. They are really, really great. I call them active meditations because you're not sitting in silence. It has your mind. You're processing and you're thinking about the things that are being said. Could you just share where people can reach you, can find those things?

Robert Strock [55:22]:

Sure. I'll briefly mention. About 12 years ago, I have a website called Humanistic Spirituality that has 250 videos. The videos are all the same theme, which is, be aware of your challenging emotions, and learn how to respond in a way that's caring from your own question. 250 different ways... That's separated into relationships and sexuality in eight different categories.

The second one is Awareness That Heals, which is the book, bringing heart and wisdom to life challenges. It's awarenessthatheals.org. The other one is humanisticspirituality.org. Then there's the Global Bridge Foundation, which is theglobalbridge.org. Then finally, there's robertstrock.org, which is pretty much a composite. Any one of them will refer to any of the others. Really, all that's necessary is to find any one, and it kind of interlinks.

Alyssa Scolari [56:25]:

I will link those websites in the show notes for everybody. Then you have two podcasts. Do you have the dates for when they're going to launch?

Robert Strock [56:34]:

It's going to be in April. As I'm sure you know better than I, Apple podcast takes them from a day to two weeks to... Once you submit them, you don't know exactly when they're going to launch. You can't give it an exact launch date.

What I do know is we've done about 25 shows. Between the two different ones, one being on awareness that heals, and the other one being that, really, pit the issues of homelessness and regenerative agriculture, which probably a lot of people don't know about, and immigration reform. Those two will be both launching somewhere in April, but we'll be turning them in first of April.

Alyssa Scolari [57:12]:

Love it. Love it, love it, love it. So happy for you. Can't wait for those podcasts to come out. Thank you so much for being on the show today. I appreciate you reaching out to me. I appreciate all of the hard work that went into this book. I appreciate all of the self-exploration that you had to do in order to be able to bring us this book that is now allowing so many other people to engage in self-exploration. Thank you.

Robert Strock [57:43]:

Well, thank you so much. Your humility, and your courage, and sincerity... I appreciate very much, you inviting me to be on this show.

Alyssa Scolari [57:52]:

Thanks for listening, everyone. For more information about today's episode and to sign up for the Light After Trauma newsletter, head over to my website at alyssascolari.com. The really great thing about being a part of this newsletter is that not only do you get weekly updates on new podcast episodes and blog posts, but you also get access to the private Facebook community as well as access to all sorts of insider tips, resources, and infographs that supplement what we talk about on the show. You also can connect with me and other trauma warriors. I'm super active on the Facebook community. I look forward to talking with you.