S2E10 Unmasking Trauma: ACEs & Disease with Dr Aimie Apigian

The years leading up to and during menopause are a rite of passage.

The wise woman inside of us is calling to slow down,

To take stock,

To speak our truth,

To burn away all that no longer serves us ready for our next cycle of life.

The good news is with the support,

Community,

Connection and most of all sharing our stories and being truly seen and heard,

We will travel through this powerful,

Sometimes painful heroine's journey and out the other side.

Welcome to the Menopause Podcast,

Real and raw stories of midlife and mental health.

I'm your host,

Kylie Patchett,

Menopause self-care coach and storyteller,

And I am so glad you found us.

Let's get on with the show.

Hello everybody.

Welcome back to the podcast.

It's Kylie and today I am very excited to have Dr.

Amy Apigian.

Oh,

Yay.

I got it in the house.

How are you Dr.

Amy?

I'm well,

Yes,

You did get it.

Congratulations.

First,

I did it with an Australian twang,

But we rescued it.

Dr.

Amy is an expert in trauma and trauma release.

And I actually,

I didn't tell you this story.

One of my podcast listeners,

Julie,

Shout out Julie,

Regular listener.

I recorded a podcast about my own mental health and she said,

You need to get on to Dr.

Amy.

So that's how I found you.

And I've since binged all your podcast episodes and yes,

Read everything.

So very excited to have you here.

The reason I invited you was to talk about this funny thing that we notice in some of us or a lot of us in midlife about how trauma that we seem to have been able to keep under the surface somehow,

Maybe we haven't,

Maybe we've just got numbing mechanisms that don't really work,

But,

And then all of a sudden this midlife,

It erupts from underneath.

So I wanted to talk about so many things to do with trauma,

But let's start at the very beginning.

Why were you drawn to this area of medicine?

Like why is it so important to you?

Because I know there's a lot,

A lot that you've gone through personally.

Yeah.

And it means,

It means a lot to me.

You are right.

And what,

Um,

Because of my life experiences,

I saw that this was the biggest gap in medicine.

And I started to see trauma in all of my patients.

And I do mean all of them to some degree,

All of them,

Either because their symptoms I could see were being driven by stored trauma in their body or their medical trauma was a trauma for them.

Yep.

Yep.

And without having tools to address it,

I saw the problem just getting worse.

And what even brought my attention to trauma was I actually became a foster parent and then adopted while I was in medical school.

So I did medical school when,

Um,

At Loma Linda university and became a foster parent.

Just after I finished my master's in biochemistry,

Had a few months of free space before I jumped back into the clinical rotations where you're in the hospital and pretending to be a doctor already talk about trauma,

Kylie.

Anyways.

Well,

Yes,

That in itself is a trauma,

The whole medical training,

If it's anything like Australia,

It's like far out.

And so it was at that time that I decided to become a foster parent.

And the first child that they placed me with me was Miguel.

And he was four years old at the time and I became his mother.

So I ended up adopting him by the time he was five and he had had a lot of early life trauma and had been in the foster care system since he was nine months old and had had a lot of different and had been really not making it in other homes.

And so when the social worker was on the phone and she's explaining to me about Miguel and telling me his story,

Of course my heart is just like bleeding and opening up.

But then when they placed him with me,

I could see why he hadn't been making it in other homes.

He was carrying his stuff and I so wanted him to be able to rise above what had happened to him because I could see that if he held on to this,

This would become also the rest of his life.

And I could see so much more in him.

I could see so much,

So much there that could be different,

That he could be happy,

That he could have a happy life if he could somehow rise above his childhood.

And I thought,

Kylie,

That,

Oh,

What he needs,

Of course,

Clearly everyone knows this is he needs my love.

He just needs to be loved.

I just need to shower him with love and love and love.

I did that and I did it.

I mean,

I did wrong.

And I realized that I really knew nothing about trauma and how to actually help someone rise above it.

And when I saw that it wasn't working and what I was doing was actually not working at all.

That's when I had kind of my lowest moment with him,

Which was one summer day.

We had just come from inside,

From playing outside.

It's hot.

It's Southern California.

Yeah.

And our skin is still,

You know,

All tingling from the grass because we were,

You know,

Playing.

This is what I know that I need to do.

And so we come in and by now I'm doing this attachment stuff.

So I pick him up and I put him in my lap and he's,

You know,

His body's kind of laid out across my lap and his head is resting in the crook of my arm and I'm just starting to rock.

I even bought a rocking chair for this.

Yes,

I did.

And so I'm rocking and,

And just looking in his eyes and just,

You know,

With my eyes,

With my eyes,

Just showering love on him.

Yeah.

Regardless of all the things that had happened that day.

Right.

Just,

I love you.

I love you.

I love you.

And in that moment,

What he tells me,

I was not prepared for it and it took me to my lowest.

And that was mommy,

Tomorrow I'm going to kill you.

Not today,

Mommy,

Tomorrow.

And I,

I mean,

Just everything inside of me constricts and then collapses.

Like everything that I've been working for is,

Is for nothing.

Like I'm not even making progress.

We're just seeming to get worse here.

And so in my,

In my low moment and my desperation,

That's when I finally became open to figuring out what he needed,

What I was not doing,

Or maybe what I was doing.

I got to learn all of that.

Yeah.

But it was a very different,

You know,

It was very different than my studies in medical school where it was just what I was studying and I had to take an exam and give the answers.

This is my home.

Yes.

And I'm living in this.

And I have a kid living with me who does want to kill me and he had already actually tried to kill me.

So I believed him when he told me this and it wasn't,

It wasn't just,

Well,

You know,

Here,

Here are the evidence-based tools.

I'm like,

At this point,

Like I need,

I need solutions that are effective and that will get to the root problem,

Which rules out all the medications that they wanted to put them on and that will work as quickly as possible because he's growing up,

He's getting bigger and there's going to be some point at which I can no longer protect myself.

Yes.

And then I'm done.

Like I'm out of the picture and I want to have him be better by then.

So I was very driven by this single focus.

And if it had just been something that I was studying in school,

I probably would have been a lot more nonchalant about it.

Oh,

Isn't this interesting?

Right.

No,

Like we were beyond that point.

Like I,

I need to know what works because this,

This,

This is my son now.

And what ended up happening was that yes,

Like I did find all the pieces that he needed at that time.

It took six long years,

Six,

Six years,

Six years.

And I do know that it took that long because I had started off wrong and I know that now.

And so that's part of what I teach in my programs is how to start the right way,

How to start the right way.

Because if we start the right way,

When it comes to attachment issues,

If we're working with a kid,

It actually takes usually the number of months for how old they are.

Oh wow.

I could have,

I could have gotten him in a much better place within five months if I had gone into it,

Being resourced with the information and the tools that I have now.

But then I started to recognize myself in some of the stuff that I was studying about attachment and,

And attachment insecurities.

And I'm like,

Oh,

I was like that poked me.

Like I think I guard my heart.

Like I think I'm afraid to be seen.

I think I'm afraid to be loved now.

Granted,

My behaviors were not as extreme as Miguel's right.

Or else I would not have been able to make it into medical school and all of these things that I was accomplishing.

But the root was still there.

And I realized,

Oh my goodness,

Like I think I've got stuff that I've never,

I've never even known.

And I,

So I've never worked on it,

But it wasn't until 2014 when I had a bad accident,

I broke my collarbone and it,

It took me out from being able to exercise for several months.

And coping strategy,

Coping strategy,

Back with my,

Uh,

Just with my residency,

I was in general surgery residency by that time.

And all of this stuff surfaced.

I mean,

All of this stuff surfaced.

The anxiety was through the root,

The depression was insurmountable.

And I was like,

Where is all this coming from?

Yeah.

I was faced with it.

Like I couldn't run away from it anymore because I couldn't over-exercise anymore.

Yeah.

Put on about 30 pounds because there is food and I could overeat.

But the,

I realized,

No,

No,

No,

No.

Like this is driving my physical health and it's more of a problem than what I realized.

By that point I was on two antidepressants.

And when I then was diagnosed with chronic fatigue,

We went in,

Ran a bunch of labs and I saw that I was on the path towards autoimmunity with my autoimmune markers high without reason.

And of course I'm being told by my professional colleagues that there's nothing that I can do about it.

Just wait for that day when I wake up with a butterfly rash on my cheeks and then diagnose me with lupus and then they'll get me started on the medications.

And so when I looked at my symptoms and I realized,

I realized Kylie,

Like,

Wait a second,

Like all of these symptoms are what I read about in the adverse childhood experiences studies.

Like what,

What,

Why is this me?

I didn't think that I had that bad of a childhood.

And that was when I then I kind of see it as I went on to the next level of my trauma journey where I had to now redefine trauma because if I didn't think that I had had trauma,

But yet clearly I had a trauma body,

Then I'm missing a piece.

And that's the piece that I went to go and find out and discover for my own self.

Like this was never at this point still to make it my career myself.

This was just to help myself.

I need to be able to get back on my bike and,

And,

And bike.

And in the process,

One of the questions that I had to come face to face with was,

Is it too late as an adult to rewire this stuff?

Am I stuck with this body because I've carried this stuff now for decades or is it possible?

Is it possible to actually undo not only the trauma,

But the damage that trauma has done to my body as an adult?

I didn't know if that was possible,

But it prompted me to start the same journey that I had prompted with that.

I started with Miguel,

Which was,

I need my health back.

You can keep your evidence-based studies and do whatever you want with them.

I need solutions and I need the fastest,

But most effective solutions.

I'm not going to cut corners,

But I need things that will work.

So what do you got?

And I went on that journey and I feel like I'm still on that journey,

But in the process have fallen in love with what is possible.

And that's what I get to share with other people now.

Oh my goodness.

Thank you so much for sharing all of that.

Cause it makes so much sense.

When,

When I listened to your podcast,

You're so full of enthusiasm.

I'm like,

I want to know the story behind this and make my heart happy.

It also,

I've got so many questions.

Where is like 10 different questions by pressing one.

When you say you had a little tiny break and you decided to foster someone,

Were you not busy enough?

Like do you just like being busy or did you just like it?

So that's part of my trauma.

That's I'm identifying it going,

Hello,

Hello little Carly.

That was part of what I got to discover was that I am much more comfortable staying busy and staying in my head.

Don't make me feel things.

Make me drop into my body.

Please don't just give me a book.

Give me a podcast.

Give me something to study,

But don't,

Don't make me actually feel.

And so busyness is one of those ways that is a very effective coping strategy for not feeling.

But the problem is,

Is that whatever we don't feel,

We don't heal.

Get stuck,

Get stuck.

Which is exactly where I wanted to go.

Yeah.

So you've mentioned attachment.

Can we explain for people that don't understand what healthy attachment looks like?

Because I think there's so many things that you talked about then that are themes that I hear,

Like people say,

I don't have any trauma in my childhood.

I think we do need to redefine trauma because I think people still think it's just the big,

Big,

Undeniably,

You know,

Awful things that can happen to us.

So yeah,

Let's start there with attachment first and then we'll redefine trauma.

Then we'll talk about what it causes and how to start unwinding it.

I'm going to throw out a technical word to help define attachment and attachment.

When you're looking at the body,

Right,

You can look at the emotions,

You can look at the psychology.

That's all fine and good.

But attachment is actually a body experience and attachment is the degree of regulation that your body has coming out of childhood.

That has been so helpful for me because then it takes it away from any focus on an event.

Yes.

Yeah.

Whether big trauma or little trauma,

Like it's just the T is not in the equation at all.

That's the degree of regulation.

How regulated are you?

So what is that?

What does regulated mean?

Regulated means your sense of safety and security walking around in your skin.

Are you coming out of your childhood feeling scared,

Feeling insecure about yourself,

About the world,

About your place in the world?

Yeah.

And you've got attachment trauma.

Do you know what?

As you're talking,

Sorry to interrupt you,

But the way that you just explained that made every single cell of my body go,

Oh,

For starters,

Because I always had this version of myself that I didn't,

I had two different households that I grew up in.

One was incredibly safe always,

You know,

And one was not.

And I always used to think I should be okay as an adult and with attachment and trauma and everything,

Because I had somewhere that was safe.

The way that you've just explained it is even when I was in the safe home,

I was on high alert waiting for something to go wrong in the unsafe home.

So therefore by definition,

Yeah.

Thank you.

That was a gift.

So well received.

So,

Okay.

So if someone's listening and they're going,

Okay,

There was times.

So do you mean overall?

The net effect.

The net effect.

Okay.

Okay.

So we have a degree of attachment.

It's not a black or white.

So no,

It's not insecure or secure.

It's a spectrum.

Yes.

Everything's a spectrum these days.

I love it.

I love it.

I love it.

And so you can take my,

You can take Miguel and you can say,

Whoa,

Whoa,

Whoa,

Whoa.

Like he's on the far end of the spectrum where he was so triggered and insecure with being loved that he wanted to kill anybody who tried to love him.

It felt like a threat.

Total threat.

And for him,

That was his experience,

Right?

The only people that he had known in his life who loved him were the ones that did all these awful things and then abandoned him.

Yeah.

So no,

Love is not safe.

And I don't want you to love me if that's what love is.

But that like his,

His dysregulation,

Right?

Regulation dysregulation.

His dysregulation was so far on that spectrum that it was extreme in terms of the behaviors and the emotions and the expression of that dysregulation of that insecurity.

Whereas you take someone like me,

For example,

How did I channel that insecurity?

Oh,

I became the good girl.

I got all A's in school and A's in high school.

I was going to be the A plus.

And if there's an A plus plus,

Then I was the A plus plus.

I went to medical school.

I was,

I mean,

This,

This is how I channeled that insecurity.

So really like what we're looking at is not the surface we're needing to get beneath the surface and what is driving all of that,

Because it will be the same thing that drives our physical health as what drives our behavior.

So trauma has different levels of expression.

The trauma expresses itself.

Yes.

The behavioral level.

And I often associate that with your thoughts,

Right?

Like you have a thought and you act.

That is one level,

But that is the very superficial level.

Yeah.

The most superficial level,

The level beneath that is the emotional level.

And this is where your body has a feeling,

The F word,

The body has a feeling and there's,

There's these emotions,

Right?

So trauma has that level of expression as well,

The emotional level,

But then underneath that is the biggest and the most important level of expression for trauma,

Which is the actual biology.

And what we're coming to find out is that it's that biology,

It's that bottom most level that drives everything else,

The emotional,

And it drives the psychological.

So that when we're looking at then solutions,

We can't use psychological as solutions because that's not what's driving the problem.

No,

That's just the surface.

It's just the surface.

We've got to go from the bottom and actually work with our cells,

Our tissues,

Our biology,

Where the trauma is stored.

And then guess what?

It will change the emotional and it will change the psychological without effort because that's what's driving all of it,

Including driving then our physical health symptoms,

Conditions,

Chronic conditions,

Diagnoses.

It's that trauma in the body.

Can you explain to us,

Because when you say about attachment,

This sense of safety or not,

So if you do have a highly dysregulated experience,

Especially when you're young,

Can you explain what impact that has on our biological system that then continues?

Because I've just gone down a funny little road of ADHD diagnosis and then early stent loss,

And I'm sure that you have an opinion on all of those,

But can we talk about,

Because I think that until very recently,

My understanding,

And I'm a molecular biologist,

So it's kind of like,

I haven't done it for a long,

Long time,

But my understanding of the impact that my childhood had on me was very much that it was thought to be a psychological problem.

But you're really saying the root cause is the biology.

So what happens in our biology as a result of the issues with attachment and or adverse experiences as well?

I suppose we should probably talk about them as well.

So can you just explain the ACEs end of things as well as the dysregulation?

Yeah,

I mean,

Because it's the mechanism of the ACEs.

And so when we look at these studies that begin in,

I mean,

It began in the 1980s,

It was finally started publishing in the 1990s where women who were in this obesity clinic were being put on this very effective diet that made them lose a hundred pounds over a few months.

Very successful medically.

Very successful medically.

Because of course,

What happened is that as they started to drop the weight,

Guess what surfaced?

All these feelings and emotions that they had been using weight and food in order to not feel.

And through that,

It just opened up Pandora's box in terms of why,

Like what is going on?

And that's when they discovered,

Oh,

The more events that are stressful in a person's childhood,

The more they seem to have these diseases as an adult.

And they started connecting all of these different diseases.

And by now it's every chronic disease.

Every chronic disease has a connection with how stressful was your childhood.

How frustrated do you get when you are surrounded by medical people who are treating the disorders without looking at the trauma?

Does that just make you want to scream?

It made me so,

I'm not sure that,

Yes,

Frustrated is definitely a word,

But the word that's coming up is misaligned.

And it was creating a stress for me to walk into that environment,

Even to be around that,

To have to participate on some level in that,

Because I have to do the billing.

I have to do these things that is part of the system.

And it caused so much stress in me because it was misaligned with who I was becoming and what I was learning that I had to leave the system.

Yeah,

I totally understand that.

I worked in sleep and respiratory medicine.

I was a forensic biologist originally,

But then I went to sleep and respiratory medicine.

My philosophy is we're this mind,

Body,

And soul and everything impacts everything.

And yet I was working in a lab,

I was running a lab,

Running a private medical company where someone would come to us for their sleep slash thoracic issues and then go down the hall and talk to a cardiologist and down the hall and talk to the endocrinologist and down the hall,

But no one was talking to anyone else and no one was talking about lifestyle factors.

And I'm like,

Yeah,

So I opted out as well.

That's my story.

Sorry.

You either have to shut that off or you have to leave because it creates a stress on your body.

Yeah,

Against my value system and being part of it means that you're saying it's okay.

And I'm like,

No,

It's not okay.

So I have to opt out.

Yeah,

Totally get that.

Sorry.

So you were saying about ACEs.

So you were saying that the women who had higher scores were found to have this link in the obesity clinic and then there's a link to chronic disease.

And now there's been so many other additional studies.

So if you research ACE studies,

Like you see a million and one pop up now where every,

And I do mean every,

Every chronic condition is associated with adverse childhood experiences.

That just blows my mind.

Do you know what?

There's no ACEs or not that I can find.

There's no ACEs that actually talk about the impact in menopause and mental health.

So there's ACEs studies that say your chronic disease risk goes up.

There's information that says if you've got high ACEs,

You're at more risk of major depressive episodes,

Like all of those things.

But there isn't actually anything that talks specifically about menopause slash midlife.

And because my experience has been that,

Yeah,

I've kept all this stuff under the surface by being busy,

Being the good girl and eating my feelings.

They're my drugs of choice.

And all of a sudden I hit 47 and like a Mack truck hit me.

I was like,

What is going on?

I've got this high anxiety,

I've got depression,

I've got all these things happening.

And I'm like,

I'm very,

Very keenly aware that there's big piles of crap under the surface that I haven't dealt with.

So when we talk about the biology of trauma,

Can you explain that a little bit more so that if there's anyone out there that's listening that is like me or was believing that,

You know,

It's all the psychological stuff and then the physical somehow separate,

Which has never made any sense.

What happens in our biology,

Particularly when you've got those,

Let's talk about ongoing stresses.

So yeah,

Like a very dysregulated system.

Yeah.

And I think that that would probably be the best thing for me to do is just define what does a dysregulated system look like on a biology level?

And what happens in the body is it changes the operating system.

And we have three different operating systems in our body.

One operating system is like the cruise control in your car where it's a beautiful day.

Sunroof is open.

Music is on.

We go into the beach.

It's freezing here,

Dr.

Amy.

I think you're going to work,

But you're on time for work.

Right?

Like you're not rushing,

You're not stressed and your car in this sense,

Your body is operating at its best.

Yes.

It can go on gas efficiency,

Fuel efficiency,

Your engine,

Your transmission,

Like everything is operating at its best without effort.

It's just natural because that's the operating system.

But then our body has a stress system.

This is an operating system that turns on whenever there is a threat or a danger or a problem.

If it is just very brief,

Then it might just be a startle,

But not turn into a stress.

But really the stress operating system is in response to something that no,

Like this is a real danger or threat.

Most people are familiar with that operating system,

But they're not familiar with this last operating system.

And this is really where the dysregulation comes in.

Because if we go into a stress operating system,

But then come out of it because we complete it,

Not because we ignore it or distract ourselves,

But we actually complete it.

Then we come back into cruise control and we're good.

No damage done.

No damage done.

I mean,

Yeah,

We'll need to take our car in for its regular maintenance,

But that's just the regular maintenance.

It's not this lasting damage of,

You know,

Like my transmission is back there on the road.

But there is this third operating system.

And this is the operating system that again,

If we were driving a car,

It would be the equivalent of throwing on our emergency brake.

It screeches to a halt.

Everything stops.

When I was in the rocking chair with Miguel,

It was that moment when my heart felt like it stopped and it just then collapsed.

It's that heaviness and that shutting down.

And because it's the operating system for the body,

When the body is in the stress operating mode,

It's revving up our engine.

Our engines are called mitochondria.

They are the factory houses in ourselves for actually making energy.

And so it's revving those engines up and be like,

Come on,

You guys,

You got to make more energy.

We've got to do whatever it is.

Climb this mountain,

Outrun this lion,

Whatever the problem is,

Like we need energy to be able to do this.

And so we rev up the engines.

And there's so much there that I want to go into.

I know.

I'm like,

We need another two minutes.

Then what happens is that if at any moment,

If at any moment that threat feels inescapable,

That is the moment in which our body will throw on the emergency brake and go into this third operating system called the trauma response or the freeze response.

And in that moment,

The message is,

If this is inescapable,

Why am I going to use my energy for this?

Yeah.

It's inescapable.

And so this is where a lot of the trauma,

Trauma,

And I'm using the word now in place of the adverse childhood experiences,

Those weren't just stressors.

Those were traumas because at that time in our life,

Whatever we were experiencing,

It felt inescapable.

We're not an adult.

We can't take care of ourselves.

So we have to attach ourselves to these adults who clearly don't know what they're doing and causing lots of chaos.

But yet I have to.

So our home,

Our family can feel like an inescapable stress.

And our system goes into that operating system then of,

I'm just going to shut down and just get through.

Except the more time that our body learns to survive that way,

Then it can just kind of stay stuck there and get stuck there.

So then we get to bring in this conversation around a functional freeze and that's what I was in.

I was in a functional freeze for most of my life.

And what that would look like would be,

There were,

Again,

Aspects of my life,

Of my body,

Of my emotions that I didn't want to feel.

I didn't want to talk about them.

I didn't want to feel them.

And I could use all my coping mechanisms that were healthy,

Right?

Like I'm going to go to school.

I'm going to now travel.

I'm going to now adopt.

I'm going to eat healthy.

I'm going to exercise.

I've got all this stuff going on.

And we do that in order to not feel the emptiness and the numbness that comes with that operating system.

And what we actually have to do is stress ourselves out in order to get things done.

And that's how we can recognize that we are actually in a chronic state of this operating system is that my baseline,

Maybe even when I get up,

It's like,

Oh,

I don't want it to be morning yet.

Like I'm already overwhelmed by my day and it hasn't even started.

Can I just pull the covers back over my head?

Can I pretend that my alarm clock didn't go off?

What can I do,

Right?

To avoid my day.

And we actually have to stress ourselves out.

So maybe we wait until the last minute and now I have to rush out of bed.

Right.

And so we get adrenaline.

We can procrastinate with other things.

We can leave late.

And then we're like,

Oh shoot.

Like now I,

Now I really got now I'm definitely not in cruise control.

Right.

Right.

Yeah.

And so we,

We,

We live then between those two states of this kind of,

Ah,

The,

The numbness and the,

The emptiness of that,

That freeze response,

But then the stress of that other operating system so that we can actually get things done in our life.

And we go back and forth between the two.

Sometimes several times all in a day,

Sometimes a person will just,

You know,

Kind of wake up in that freeze response,

Stress themselves out,

Stay up in stress all day long.

And it's not until the end of the day when they just feel like collapsing and doing things mindlessly.

So they turn on a movie or TV or social media,

Grab the chocolate,

Grab the wine,

Grab whatever it is that we can do mindlessly.

Anything that we are doing mindlessly is this trauma in our body.

It's very,

Very familiar,

Very familiar.

It's like you've just described.

And one thing I will say is,

Um,

To me,

When you're talking about the freeze state,

Um,

I've never had,

Or I've never been diagnosed with depression before.

I think I probably have been depressed before,

But that what you're describing is how this depression that has hit me has felt.

It's just like,

Oh,

And I'm like,

I just,

I don't have any more,

Um,

Stress state to kind of drive myself with.

So I've done that for such a long time that it's like,

I've,

And I,

Yeah,

And I'm just truly exhausted.

Like every single one of my 3 billion plus cells feels exhausted.

But really what you're saying is it's,

It's not actually like,

I haven't been in cruise control probably for my entire life,

If I'm honest.

So that's not unusual.

You see people like this all the time,

Right?

All the time.

We are not alone.

Yes.

So,

Well,

I mean,

As you're talking like all the coping mechanisms that you're talking about,

We get congratulated for.

Go to school,

Keep busy.

Aren't you being amazing adopting someone,

Get,

You know,

Eat healthy,

Do like,

Say we Like there's all this congratulations of the,

And one of the,

One of the condition things that I've got from trouble have had from childhood is,

Um,

Caretaking.

So I had a parent that needed me to take care of them.

And so that is,

That was another one of my healthy coping mechanisms,

Which is not healthy at all.

So bad,

So bad for you,

So bad for people that you're overstepping boundaries and sticking your nose into.

So when people are in this stuck state.

So often they'll be told,

Go see a psychologist and talk about things.

Can we just talk about,

I mean,

I'm guessing from what you said before with the levels that when you're dealing with the level,

Which is the,

Yeah,

The psychology,

The behaviors,

The end point,

Obviously that's why,

I mean,

I love psychologists.

I think they've got a very important place in the world.

I've also been to therapy for many years across my life and really have not had any changes in the real root cause.

You talk a little bit about that just from the,

Ah,

This is so many women,

Right?

Like this is,

This is the story of women.

Yes.

Of,

Okay.

I realized that I've got some stuff,

So the solution is therapy.

So let me go talk about it,

But here's what happens when we talk about it.

And I say this with the context of in the 21 day journey that I run,

Which is where I started.

Yes.

We have five agreements.

We have five agreements.

This what we're going to talk about is so important.

It is one of those agreements.

We don't tell our story.

And here's why we even know this from brain imaging studies that when we talk about an event from the past,

Our body,

Our brain is having the same reaction as it did back then.

So you have literally just put yourself back into that place that felt either like a high danger or an inescapable danger.

And when we talk about it,

Because we're not addressing the body's experience,

Then we're just stirring things up without being able to bring the healing,

The resolution.

And when I was doing this,

I would go home after therapy sessions and be exhausted.

Yep.

And it would usually last for a couple of days.

Yeah.

Like I would just kind of feel like,

Oh,

Like I don't know.

That was the most amazing therapy session,

Obviously,

Because wow,

Like it really got to me.

Right.

And then I'd be like,

Wait a second.

Like how is that helpful?

Like it's,

I don't see this actually changing.

No.

It's like,

Okay,

Here's the thing.

Perhaps I understand why I do what I do,

But it hasn't changed the fact that I still do what I do.

Yeah.

Yeah,

Yeah,

Exactly.

So what other solutions do we have?

And that's,

I really started leaning into the body work and the biology work because what I found was that as I started the body work,

Which for me meant somatic work,

I first started with somatic experiencing and then I've added a number of other things.

But as I started somatic experiencing,

I would go into this trauma response,

Even in my trainings.

Yep.

I'd be like,

What the heck?

Like what is my body doing?

And I realized,

Oh,

My ceiling effect is my biology.

I can only do so much work.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Say that again.

Your ceiling effect is your biology.

My ceiling effect is my biology.

So the rate limiting factor is your biology and how well,

And that makes so much sense.

How many toxins do I have stored in my body?

How much pesticides,

Chemicals?

What's my mitochondria like?

What are my mitochondria?

Might be on holiday somewhere else.

I'm not really sure.

I think they took a trip.

Let's hope that they're enjoying themselves somewhere.

I don't know.

But yeah,

Like our ceiling effect for trauma work.

Yeah.

Is our biology.

And that's when I started combining the two of them and seeing.

Makes so much sense.

Things happening,

Like my body responding in ways that it just had felt before.

Like I would hit a wall.

And it felt like that.

Like I would hit a wall and my body would be like,

I'm done.

I'd be like,

No,

You're not done.

Like we've got,

We've got no.

Yeah.

All right.

So now let me wait for my body to recover and then let me jump back into it again.

Same thing again.

It would hit a wall.

And so that's when I learned,

Oh no,

Like I've got to be bringing in supporting my biology to actually be able to have a larger capacity for trauma work.

But then in the process I've learned that it's actually also a larger capacity for life.

Yeah.

Well,

Feeling and letting people in.

For joy,

For healing.

For all of that.

Yeah.

All of that.

And then that's when I realized,

Oh,

Like all of life is therapy.

What are you talking about?

I don't go to therapy.

Life is therapy.

If I'm in that place.

But if I'm,

If my body is struggling to get through because of these chronic effects of trauma,

Life will be a trauma.

Life will be a hardship.

It won't be a healing journey because everything will feel overwhelming and hard and inescapable.

Yeah.

Yeah,

Yeah,

Yeah,

Yeah.

Yeah.

And then you bring menopause into the equation,

Right?

Yes.

Well,

Yeah.

Oh my goodness.

So,

So why do you think,

I mean,

I know that this is not your specific area,

But I'm interested because there's obviously a lot of changes to our biology.

Well,

Everything,

Everything.

It's like reverse puberty.

So is it just because that is a biological stressor or a change,

If we don't even have to use the word stressor,

If we don't want that,

This sort of stuff comes to the surface or is it just because like,

I always think it's this combination of zero Fs to give no tolerance for bullshit,

But also no energy in the tank.

Like that's how I've been describing it.

But what,

What do you think might be behind this?

Two things.

One would be that we know that if you're going into menopause with a dysregulated nervous system,

Everything will be harder.

I can,

That is correct.

I'm going to push the yes button.

Yup.

So if we had known earlier,

We could have done some work earlier,

But we didn't.

And so we're here.

So what do we do now?

As we are experiencing these things,

This is actually a window of opportunity to become aware of the work that we need to do and be able to understand how important it is and prioritize it because of how much it's affecting my life.

This is no longer something that I can ignore.

This is no longer something that I can stuff down.

Okay.

So it's again,

Like I got sick.

When I got sick,

It was in my face.

Yes.

It was something that I had to face.

I could no longer ignore it,

Push it off and be like,

Oh,

I know I need to,

But not right now.

It's just not the right time.

And now it's like,

I don't care if it's not the right time.

Like what has to be the right time.

It has to be the right time.

It has to be this.

This is the biggest thing that's now holding me back in areas of my life.

And so in that sense,

If we haven't done the work,

I mean,

Endometriosis and we're experiencing a lot more of the biology stuff,

Like physical symptoms and the emotional stuff,

Which is all related to the physical stuff,

But it's all going to surface because of the hormonal changes and what that does to our neurotransmitters.

And so now maybe again,

Coping mechanisms,

What we were able to use before is coping mechanisms no longer work as well.

It does not work.

And so we're faced with,

Okay,

Like I need to address this dysregulation of my nervous system that's driving this because menopause is not supposed to be that.

It's not supposed to be that.

Yeah.

I keep on talking about,

I feel like this is a really good opportunity to face things that aren't working anymore.

That's what it feels like.

It feels very much to me like,

Okay,

Like you were saying,

When you're sick,

There's no getting away from it.

When you are kind of well and kind of okay,

And probably not very aware of the fact that you were in functional freeze until you actually knew,

Then you can convince yourself that,

You know,

Life is fine.

But when something actually happens,

And I think that this is one of those sliding door moments,

But it certainly feels like that to me.

I feel like,

Okay,

There's an invitation here to look and feel and heal rather than just keep on trying to,

Well,

I can't keep the ball underneath the surface anymore,

You know,

Which is why I really wanted to have this chat.

Let's talk about,

You mentioned the 21 day journey.

I want to talk to people about that because you have a program that helps people to start unwinding all of this.

Let's talk about that.

And also your summit that's coming up because it is very soon.

So I'm very excited about that.

I will be listening in.

Great.

Yeah.

It'll be nice to have you there for the 21 day journey.

I have been,

I want to say surprised,

Even,

Even though that may sound strange that I as the one who designed and created this course,

I am surprised at the results that people get because you know,

I've,

I've pulled together the,

The essential pieces that are needed for an adult to rewire their nervous system and,

And work towards regulation.

Safely opening up the body because we can open up in an unsafe way.

Yes.

So how do we safely open up the body knowing that we need to do this biology work because it will create the ceiling,

But that's not actually where we start.

We start with somatic work because we need to learn how to create the felt sense that we need in order to do the rest of the work.

And those felt senses are safety court.

And then knowing how to do safe expansion and that building of capacity in a safe way.

And most of the people coming through my 21 day journey are women who've been in therapy for years yet they're coming through.

And it's about at the end of week one,

Going into week two when they're like,

Dr.

Amy,

I realized that I've never really felt safe in my body.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Because until you feel it,

You don't even know what it feels like.

So you think maybe,

I don't know.

But then when I lead you through these exercises and you're like that,

If that's,

If that's what safe feels like,

No,

I've never felt that before.

Yeah.

So the whole first week is safety.

The whole second week is this felt sense of support.

And then we do in the tools and the exercises for safe expansion and what people experience are a 26% decrease in daily physical pain.

Yeah.

28% decrease in sleep issues,

28% decrease in GI issues,

30% decrease in anxiety,

30% decrease in depression,

30% increase in energy.

And we haven't even done the biology piece yet technically,

Right?

Because it's all connected.

So it obviously is doing if we're getting these results,

If we're getting these results in just 21 days.

So I get super excited about how,

Like the possibilities and the change that is able to happen in a relatively short amount of time compared to decades.

Yes.

How long we've been living this way in our body.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

When I listened to the podcast episodes where you've got someone who's done the 21 day with you that,

You know,

Speaks one of the ladies,

I can't remember what her name was,

But she's basically said exactly what you said about.

I didn't realize that I've never felt safe in my body.

And I think that like I'm a yoga teacher and I've always done yoga because that's where I felt the most like myself.

And now as I'm sort of thinking about that language,

I'm like,

Maybe that's because yeah,

It's one of the only places that you do.

Yeah.

I feel safe.

Can I ask for you compared to like going back to when,

You know,

Waiting for the butterfly rash and the lupus to turn up so that we can medicate you to now,

Can you describe for us how different you feel in terms of like,

You've gone on this big journey,

You've gone through the McGale experience and you go through your own experience and you're working with people in this,

But how different does life feel if you can just like,

That's a big question.

I know.

I don't even recognize my life.

That's how different it is.

I did not even know the level of aliveness that I could have because I had never experienced it just like never experienced in safety.

Like I didn't even know that this level of aliveness for life was possible and that I wanted it because there was definitely times when I would,

It's like,

No,

Like I don't,

I really don't,

Don't want to feel,

I don't,

I don't want,

Like,

I don't want to feel like this.

I don't want to wake up.

I don't,

I don't want this.

And,

And so to be able to see that this has opened up me to actually be able to be present for people with people,

With myself and not feel the need to distract,

Multitask,

Like I can be fully present and I'm sure that the more work that I do,

I will find a new level of being able to be present for myself,

For people,

But for life.

And what I would be doing before was really avoiding so much,

Avoiding problems until the last minute when I had to deal with it,

Avoiding people until I couldn't avoid them anymore,

Avoiding conversations until,

You know,

That crucial point.

And there was just so much of,

No,

I like,

I don't want to be present for that.

And people,

You know,

I have a YouTube channel and I get so many comments from people about,

I watched an old video of yours and the difference between then and now.

I'm going to go watch.

If that's what it's done for you,

I'm all in.

And,

And as embarrassed as I am about these older YouTube videos,

As embarrassed as I am,

I'm like,

Okay,

I have to keep them up there because that way people can see.

You can see.

That's fantastic.

Fantastic.

I'm still working on,

You know,

Being,

Being,

Being willing to be seen back then.

But you,

I mean,

You,

You see the difference,

You feel the difference,

You hear the difference.

There were even a few videos that I did when I was in the middle of a freeze response and I'm trying to describe like what it feels like right now.

Yeah.

And,

And it's just,

Yeah.

So being able to have people see,

See that difference and,

And,

And then they start to,

To want to want something better for their life.

You've made my heart very happy today.

Thank you.

It's such an honor to speak to,

To,

To someone who is so passionate about what they do and has such a big why like that,

That is the thing that makes me love podcasting and yeah,

Thank you so much.

Final little plug.

I will put all these links in the show notes,

But tell people where they can find you,

But also the summit,

Because I would just went onto your website.

I'm a proud affiliate for your summit and you have this beautiful banner and it's you in the center and all the dudes from trauma,

You know,

Gave a Marte,

You know,

Little people like that.

And I'm just like,

Yeah,

You do Dr.

Amy.

So tell us where we can find you.

Yeah.

Speaking of expansion,

Right?

Speaking of being willing to show up for life,

Never saw that one coming.

I love it.

Never saw that one coming.

I know.

Right.

Like,

And that's where I say,

Like,

I,

I barely recognize my life,

But this is what's possible when you're not weighed down by dysregulation and a lack of capacity for joy.

And because it's not just joy and love and all of those things,

It's like challenging yourself and like that as you're talking.

Yeah,

Exactly.

So of course you are in that company.

That just kind of makes sense to me.

So where do we find you?

We can definitely find your link,

Register through your link for the summit.

They can go to my website,

Find some additional resources.

I have a guide there that would be very helpful on the steps to identify and heal trauma.

I have an assessment in that guide for just like a checklist of things of like,

All right,

Is this something that you have?

Is this something that you know to relate to?

And that way be able to know more of like,

Oh,

Is this me?

Is this my body?

But yeah,

The summit is airing August one through seven and I've got,

Oh my goodness,

Almost 50 speakers,

50 speakers that I have interviewed and it's all on the trauma disease connection and the topics will blow you away in terms of the different tools that we have that we've never maybe known to apply or how to apply those to trauma.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Fine.

Amazing.

Have new solutions,

Have a clear path forward.

Oh,

So good.

So good.

So good.

Dr.

Amy,

You have been absolute joy.

Thank you for sharing my morning slash your afternoon with us.

Go and enjoy that Californian sunshine and thank you so much for the work you do in the world.

And yeah,

We'll put all the,

Everything that we've talked about in the show notes.

Have a beautiful day.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Bye bye.

Thanks so much for listening into today's episode.

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Thank you so much.

I'm Kylie Patchett,

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And have a spectacular day.