Post Traumatic Growth: Integration & Wholeness

Every human being has trauma.

There is not a quantitative ranking of I'm a one and you're a ten and so what I've been through is lesser than what you've been through.

What you've been through is more than what I've been through.

So what I really want to get to is this.

This is very important.

I know many of you if you've done trauma work you've done the ACEs test.

And ACEs is the Adverse Childhood Experiences Test which you can find online for free.

And what I invite for you here though is to not diagnose or pathologize yourself.

If you get a lot of numbers on this test and you rank yourself out of ten and you say,

I'm a ten on the ACEs score,

I'm so traumatized I must have CPTSD.

By all case and accounts and especially for going through the COVID times,

Most human beings if we looked at the ACEs test or if we looked at any test about trauma,

We'd all rank pretty highly.

But those of us that have been through big T trauma which is Roxanne is still not getting sound is anyone is everyone else getting sound?

Just fill me in if you're still hearing me and seeing me okay.

I can hear okay.

So with ACEs what I invite for ACEs if you've worked with it is that ACEs is from one to ten.

Some of these questions can be very triggering for those of us that have been through these big T trauma.

It can be questions like was one or more attachment figures,

Your mother or father abusive in the house?

Did you go without eating?

Did you have a roof over your head?

And so many people can score a four and above on this ACEs test.

And what happens here is that ACEs while it's a wonderful tool has said anybody above a four generally will show signs of CPTSD which is complex post-traumatic stress disorder.

Now what happens here when we're diagnosed and for those of us that have gone through a lot of therapy,

For those of us that have been on the self-help train for so long,

When somebody tells us that we have CPTSD what happens?

We believe it.

We believe that we are broken.

We believe that something is wrong with us.

We begin to believe that we are not enough,

That there is parts of us that are missing.

And what I invite here when we think about the ACEs score and I hope that this happens one day with ACEs is that we're not only looking at the linear you know one to ten,

We're looking at how that one affects you from one to ten.

So if I have one thing happen to me on the ACEs score,

How much does that one affect my nervous system?

So how can I rank that?

And then the two,

If I have the two,

How can I rank the two?

How does it sit with my nervous system?

Because then we begin to get into resiliency.

And this is why trauma is so confusing.

We might have somebody who has been through rape and sexual abuse and sex trafficking that has a resiliency that allows them to regulate in a powerful way.

But what happens when that person shares their story is that the person who still has an unmetabolized trauma from maybe their father being out of the picture or their mother being out of the picture and there was no abuse you know in this sense,

But that person was absent from their life and they never were able to feel safe in the world.

That person can experience more trauma than the person that has maybe a score of ten on the ACEs while the other person might have a score of one.

So what I invite for you is yes,

And Heather just said this at the bottom here,

Validation is important.

Validation is so important.

And what's even more important in these times is that everyone right now is suffering in some way,

Whether it's isolation,

Whether it's shame,

Whether it's fear,

Whether it's confusion.

We're in a global climate where all of that fear,

All of that darkness and shadow is beginning to well up.

And we're all being faced with our deepest shadows.

They're coming to the surface and so it feels very frightening.

It can feel very confusing.

And what I want to offer for you is to never invalidate your experience because of someone else's and also never invalidate someone else's experience because you may have been through something more challenging.

This is something that I've learned from my past.

I have a score of 10 on the ACEs score.

When I figured that out and when I pathologized myself as broken and as lesser than because I had been through so much darkness and really I saw this test as,

Wow,

I'm going to spend my entire life working through this.

I'm never going to be healed because I've been through so much trauma.

And then when other people had just maybe a one on the scale,

I would think,

You know,

Maybe I wouldn't say it out loud,

But I would think,

It's not that complicated.

Like why are you making this so challenging on yourself?

Like it's not that bad.

And this was toxic.

This was a toxic response to holding space for other people's pain.

And so what I invite for you is first recognizing your own trauma,

What's not metabolized,

What needs to be looked at.

Number two,

Validating yourself and also not making it all about you.

Just because you've been through something challenging,

The world does not stop for your grief.

When we've been hurt,

The world does not just stop because something negative has happened to you.

Things are happening to people every single day that are challenging.

And when we're creating interdependent systems and we are working to heal each other,

We have to give space for every single person that shows up at the table.

Now in my own story,

And what I'll relate to here,

Because many of you might be able to relate to this,

Is when I was deep in my triggering and deep in my trauma responses and deep in my victimization,

There was no space for anyone else to sit at the table because I had so much pain that I expected them to hold me and to hold space for me because I had been through so much.

So for those of us that have lost many people to death,

Our partners have died,

We've been sexually abused,

We've been physically abused,

We've been abandoned and rejected,

This is terrible and it brings up a lot of pain.

But also we have to learn to resource ourselves,

To give ourselves what it is that we need.

And then when we go to the community and we ask our intimate partner or our mother or our father or our children or our friends to hold space for us,

We actually see if there's anything that we can also do to hold space for them and we ask permission if we can put that into the space.

And what I mean by this,

And I'm sure many of you will know and exactly feel it,

We all might have that one friend where things are always going wrong and things seem to be falling apart and they've been through a lot so we feel for them,

We empathize and we really love them and we want them to feel better.

But when they come into a space,

They might not even ask us,

They might just dump all of their emotions onto us.

And maybe that day we're a little stressed,

We have our own things going on in our life and that person comes in with their trauma and they immediately project it onto the group or onto the partnership or onto the family and they don't ask permission.

So for those of us that have unintegrated trauma,

Another beautiful step in the healing process is learning to figure out what your needs are and then asking for them in a way that respects other people's time.

If I'm going through a lot of pain and I'm in one of my trauma responses,

Before I go in a manic state to somebody and ask them to support me,

I will meditate,

I will sit with myself,

I will look at my social engagement system,

Which I'll get to in a moment and dive deeper into that.

I will first try to resource myself and still if the anxiety is in my body and I'm just needing to talk to somebody and I'm feeling,

You know,

I'm having some challenges,

Then there are certain people in my social engagement system that I will reach out to.

Now what I have learned that is of great value and I hope that this is an aha moment for some of you is it can't all be on one person,

You know,

And this is something an ex-partner told me.

I was going through a lot of pain,

I was going through kind of a health crisis,

There was a lot of fear coming up for me because I had abandonment stuff,

I didn't feel safe in this situation and he was my lover and my companion,

So I put everything on him.

Everything went on him,

Like any fear,

Any unsafety,

Any unworthiness,

Any of it,

It went on to him and he said,

This can't be a job for one person,

It has to be a job for a tribe and this is such a wonderful piece of advice and this is where the social engagement system comes in,

Meaning when we were tribal and we were together in these bands of people,

There were elders that we would go to when we were fearing death that were closer to death and that understood the bridge there and the transmutation that could happen and we could go to them,

We could sit with them,

We could hear their wisdom.

When we wanted to play,

We could play with the children in the field and when we wanted to laugh,

There were our brothers and sisters that we would specifically go to,

But now we've been sold this false premise in our modern day society that your partner needs to be everything or your mother needs to be everything or your father needs to be everything and it's not realistic.

So a part of our healing process is getting rid of those conditions,

Which is not easy,

They're deeply ingrained,

But knowing,

Okay,

I can't just give it all to my mother,

I can't just give it all to my father,

I can't just give it all to my partner.

I need to first figure out how to get my own needs taken care of by myself,

What I can't take care of by myself,

I have intelligently with emotional literacy mapped out,

Sorry if my dogs make noise,

I have mapped out my social engagement system and know who I go to when I don't feel worthy,

Know who I go to when I'm feeling fearful,

Know who I go to when I'm feeling jealous or angry or depressed because we all have those friends that bring out those parts of us where we're like,

Oh yeah,

I'm safe,

Like I'm good or yeah,

I'm creative and I'm going to get through this or I'm beautiful or I'm worthy.

We all have those people,

But nowadays and especially with COVID,

We're trapped inside of our houses,

We're isolated and we think my partner is the end all be all,

This person needs to take care of every single need that I have and I don't need to take care of my needs,

They need to do it.

If they love me,

They'd want to do it,

But again,

This is a false illusion.

The TV shows that we watch,

The movies,

The grand gestures that we see,

We have to be realistic.

No human being is perfect,

Your mother's not perfect,

Your father's not perfect,

Your partner is definitely not perfect.

So we need to give people the opportunity to just be flawed and just to be present,

You know,

And not dump all of our story on them.

We need to start asking for permission before we project our emotions onto other people because this is when we have emotion contagion,

As they say in psychology,

Or countertransference where maybe I feel pretty good in my day,

But if you come in and you start to tell me the story of something that really hurt you or this person that let you down,

If I'm not really centered,

I might take that in and I start to think,

Oh my God,

I'm not safe either.

Like,

Wow,

What's happening to her could happen to me or what's happening to him could happen to me and I make it about myself.

And then we have this countertransference that's happened.

And this is dangerous.

So as a global family,

What we can really do to begin to heal each other is to heal ourselves.

And when we want to reach out,

So,

What we really want to do here is when we want to reach out and we want to talk to somebody,

We need to check in with ourselves first.

Why do I want to talk to this person?

Why do I want to reach out?

What is the under the under flowing current of energy right now?

Am I grasping?

Am I needing something from them?

And so what we want instead is to again,

Sit to meditate,

To breathe,

To see where the emotions are coming from,

Where the so-called needs are coming from,

And reach out when we're more centered.

Somebody that I spoke to yesterday,

And this was a really big realization for me again,

This is one of the beauties about this work is that we have to go through it over and over again.

You know,

I'm not healed.

I'm in the process of healing and living the human experience.

As soon as I walk outside my door,

I've got things going on as the external environment,

You know,

Rubs off on me.

And so it's constantly cyclic.

But this woman was talking to me about her relationship with her daughter,

And then not being able to get along and her daughter's grown up now.

And she's wanting to have a relationship with her even though some things happened in their past that were really challenging for the daughter to get past and forgive her mom for.

And I said,

Look,

She doesn't owe you anything.

And you can't expect her to give you anything.

She's just doing her best to live her own life.

And you have hurt her,

You've brought a lot of pain into her life.

So you have to give her time.

I was like,

I know it doesn't feel good,

I say,

But when you reach out to her,

Are you reaching out to her when you feel tender and you have expectations,

And you want something from her?

Or are you reaching out so that you can just unconditionally love her?

Because if you're getting upset that she's villainizing you,

And you've changed and you want her to see that you've changed,

She doesn't owe that to you.

Unfortunately,

Human beings don't.

So when we really when we've made poor choices in our past,

And we're giving space to the people that we've hurt in the past,

We can have expectations.

I mean,

We can but it's gonna lead it's gonna lead to suffering.

All that we can do is give unconditional love and support.

And if that person continues to vilify us,

And they don't see that we've changed,

And they don't allow us the space to connect.

We just let them know I'm here,

I love you.

Whenever you're ready,

I'm not going anywhere.

I will always love you.

And I'm right here with you when you're ready.

And we can send that message once a week in an email until that person is ready to invite us back in their life.

But what we don't want to do is threaten somebody or be punitive and say,

Look,

If you're going to keep vilifying me,

And you're not going to see that I've changed,

Then there,

I don't want you in my life.

Because somebody's pain is valid to them,

Even if it was 10 years ago or 20 years ago.

And this is going to be some of you are going to be on the side that feels like you've been victimized.

Some of you are going to be on the side that you feel that you're the perpetrator.

Both of you are good people.

Everyone is good.

Everyone is good.

People have made poor decisions along their path.

And wouldn't it be beautiful if we could all forgive and we could just walk into the future and love each other?

Yes.

But it takes time.

And it takes time when somebody has been deeply hurt by your actions to feel safe in your company.

And this is so true.

And what I'll say for my own story is,

You know,

I was estranged from my mother for 14 years before she died.

And I hated my mother.

I said,

I hate her.

I said terrible things about her.

And it wasn't until after her death that I realized she was just a human being with her own dreams that she didn't get to she didn't get to activate in this lifetime.

And this child,

You know,

This child that I was saw her as the hero.

You're my mom.

You're supposed to do this,

This and this.

You're supposed to give me safety.

You're supposed to make me feel worthy,

Make me feel loved.

And it wasn't until after her death that I got to have a good relationship with her because I realized,

Wow,

If I could have just let go of all my expectations,

And if I could have just held space for the fact that she also had her own needs that weren't met,

And if I stopped looking at myself and what I needed,

Maybe there could have been a relationship.

Because when we can begin to accept one another as imperfect,

Our relationships get so lighter.

When I no longer need you to be my hero,

I can just enjoy your interesting-ness.

You know,

I'm just gonna say interesting-ness.

Like when we have a mother that's been pissing us off for 20 years that always takes the space and is the show and,

You know,

Is really big,

And we never feel like we get that from her,

If we can just let go of our expectation that there's ever going to be equanimity here and that she's going to give us space and just find about her what is good.

Oh,

Okay,

So she takes up a lot of space,

But she's always here.

She's reliable.

What is she good at that I can focus on instead of what she's not good at?

And in that moment,

My social engagement system,

I think,

Okay,

I keep going to my mother because she's my mother with this expectation that she's going to let me be seen,

That she's going to give me love,

That she's going to make me feel worthy,

And these are not the needs my mother's going to give me.

Why have I been going here for 20 years to meet these needs that this person is incapable of giving me?

Wait,

In my social engagement system,

My friend Sue or my friend Maria,

Wow,

When I'm with them,

I feel so much love.

I feel I'm so worthy around these people.

When I want to feel worthy,

When I want to feel loved,

When I want to feel seen,

I call Maria or Sue.

When I want someone who's reliable that will be there,

I will call my mother.

This is huge.

And I didn't realize this until the last couple of years in my late 30s.

And so what I'm realizing now is,

Wow,

When we are emotionally literate and know what needs we have when it comes to others,

It's like creating this wonderful map.

You and I've written it out.

I actually have a page that I've written out and I write the needs that I have.

So here's my need of feeling worthy.

Here's my need of feeling beautiful.

Here's my need of feeling safe.

Here's my need of feeling connected.

And under each of those needs,

I have lists of people that I would call or that I would connect with if I needed that.

Here's my need of being humble.

There is a list of people that I know will not bullshit me,

But if I call them,

They will give me the truth.

They will play devil's advocate to everything I say.

I'm going to call them because if I want to be humble,

I'm not going to call the person that makes me feel beautiful and perfect because they're just going to bring me into my little bubble and I'm not going to grow.

I'm going to call the people that are going to challenge me because I want to grow.

So your healing is about the brilliance of how you architect your interpersonal relationships.

If you don't feel safe,

Why are you choosing partnerships with people that you don't feel safe with?

If you don't feel safe and you are an anxious person,

Why do you keep choosing to be in a relationship with somebody that's avoidant,

That doesn't want to talk about their feelings,

That doesn't want to let their walls down?

You know,

It's familiar because maybe you also had avoidant parents and so you think,

Okay,

This is familiar.

My nervous system knows avoidancy,

So I'm going to choose avoidant attachment because that's sexy and that feels good until it doesn't feel good.

And so you have to make choices.

We tend to follow the body's reactions when it comes to intimate relationships and the reality is your limbic system and this primal part of the brain,

You think that you are rationally choosing and that you're full body choosing the people that you're attracted to that you get into relationships with.

But no,

The oldest part of you,

The subconscious part of you remembers that your dad didn't pay attention to you or your mom didn't pay attention to you or they were aloof and you were always trying to figure out how to get their attention and how to love them and how they would give you love.

And so when you meet somebody like that that's mysterious and they're sitting in the corner and you don't know what's happening in their inner world,

Your body is like,

Hey,

What's your name?

And we get really excited and we think that this is love,

Like,

Oh,

I'm so drawn to this person.

My body is reacting to them,

But this is your limbic system and acting your body's like subconscious.

And so in those moments now I check in with myself when I feel my body pulled to somebody in attraction,

I step back and I think,

What part of me is attracted to this person?

And if I think about it then and make a list like,

Okay,

What is this person's attachment style if I were to assume?

How do they communicate?

What are their morals?

Are they an integrity?

Like what is their life path?

A lot of times the person that my body is drawn to,

That my body is turned on by is not a person that I'm going to be in a healthy partnership with.

And that doesn't feel good because we want to feel fire.

We want to get excited.

We want fiery connections.

But love is not fire.

Love is subtle.

Love is everywhere and everything.

Love fire is generally very unhealthy and it's perpetuated into our movies,

Into our books.

Everything that we're seeing is like these big powerful crazy codependent relationships that are super,

Super sexy that we think we want the big grand gesture and the drama,

But our nervous systems don't like this.

And you know,

One of the things that I told a friend this year that I really liked,

You know,

They asked,

Are you dating?

And I said,

No,

I'm not dating,

But I'm trying on different nervous systems.

And so that's kind of like now I'm just like,

I'm slowing down.

This is a big part of healing our trauma as well as slowing down lento,

Lento,

Lento.

And it's like getting close to somebody,

Getting to know them a little bit,

Seeing how your nervous system responds to them.

Do you feel safe?

Do you feel seen?

Do you feel acknowledged in this relationship?

The needs that they contribute to the relationship,

Is that enough for you?

This is a big one before you get into a contractual relationship,

Meaning you're choosing to be in that relationship first.

Like does this person give you the needs that,

That you,

That are the most important to you?

If you're somebody with abandonment issues,

This is me using myself as an example.

Safety is huge.

Safety is the number one need for me.

I'm also very,

I'm joyful and playful and excited about life and I'm an adventurer and a traveler and a dancer and radiant.

And so another need I have is play.

Like I want to play,

But safety is first.

So let me tell you,

I will date somebody that I feel safe with way before I will date somebody that I can play with and go on exciting adventures with.

And yes,

Does the exciting adventure one sound more appealing?

Of course,

It's going to be more beautiful for movies.

If I'm going to write stories about it,

Or if I'm going to read a book about it,

Then yeah,

The playful,

The playmate is going to be the most appealing option.

But no,

For my nervous system,

For my health,

For me to do the work that I need to do on the planet and for me to be present and to show up every day in as much health as I can,

It's important that I track myself.

And when those two people show up in my life and I'm like,

Playmate or safety,

Playmate or safety,

Even though the play,

The play need is taken care of,

I choose safety because I know internally that being abandoned as a child brings that up and triggers me.

And so when it's,

When we're not playing anymore,

Me and that playmate,

I might start to feel really unsafe in that relationship if there's not a strong foundation.

And that's way more important to me than playing.

Lots of things.

And you guys are just writing so many things over here.

I wish that I could read and talk at the same time.

The duality of the limbic system and the,

And the cortex is not dual enough for me to read and talk at the same time,

But I'm glad that you're helping each other through these questions over here too.

And I love that you put attached in here from,

From Amir Levine,

Wonderful resources.

I'll go through at the end and read through these,

But I want to say a few more things and then open up for some Q and A.

So if you have any questions that you want me to tap onto,

Feel free to write them into the box here.

Okay.

So you be just asked a question if,

What if you have a sibling who's always blaming and judging and somehow everything is your fault.

I tend to lash out in my mind and if at all I speak to her again,

It gets ugly.

I want to ignore her blame,

But also feels the need to clear things.

So it's interesting that you asked this UB and I'm sure that many of you that dive into a trauma work know Gabor Maté and he just released an amazing movie called the wisdom of trauma.

Please watch this.

I feel like the whole planet,

Everyone should watch this.

And so the wisdom of trauma,

There is this beautiful part in the movie where he's sitting on the stage with this woman and this woman is speaking UB kind of to a similar situation,

But she didn't say if it was a sibling,

But she said somebody is just always saying these negative things about her.

And it's really,

It's really frustrating for her.

And Gabor just looks at her and he said,

How would you feel?

Yeah,

Tanya's already got it.

Tanya has already written it over in the,

In the corner,

But he said,

How would you feel if I said that you were a green haired monster?

And she just laughed and she goes,

Well,

I don't know.

And he's like,

Yeah,

What if I called you a green haired monster?

What would,

How would you react to that?

And she was like,

Well,

I know I'm not a green haired monster,

So I wouldn't get upset by that.

And he goes,

So why are you getting upset with the things this person is saying?

And basically the point he's meaning UB and for all of us is the only way that we get reactive when somebody is pointing the finger or blaming us,

Blaming us is because there's a part of us,

Even if it's very small,

That might believe what they're saying has validity to it.

If I know that I'm good,

If I check in with myself every day and I know that I'm coming from good intentions,

I know I'm showing up and then I'm present.

I know I'm moving from a space of love.

You can say whatever you want to me.

You can call me all the terrible names and I'm just going to sit there and I'm going to let you say it because I know that what you're saying has no validity.

And this is what's challenging.

You know,

When we get triggered,

This is something that somebody told me last year and I always mess up this quote,

But he said,

You can't,

You can't be triggered unless the gun is loaded.

Meaning,

Yes,

In this moment,

My sister might say something to me that makes me angry,

But it has nothing to do with her.

It has to do with every other experience for the last 20 years that that's happened in a similar fashion with this person or with people like that,

That frustrates me.

And why does it frustrate me?

Because I still believe something in me is not good.

I still,

I'm still shameful about something.

I still might believe I'm not worthy.

I'm not seen.

I'm not whatever it is that they're blaming me for.

And so what's really important for us again is you wake up every day and you do your best and you're not perfect.

You're going to make mistakes each day,

But you show up every day.

You get on your meditation cushion,

You resource yourself knowing what do I need to do to feel better?

Is it eating well?

Is it drinking water early in the morning?

Is it taking an hour to read a book that,

You know,

Brings out excitement in me?

Is it sitting in silence and not talking to anyone?

Is it going on a walk?

And after I resource myself,

Who do I go to when I have certain emotions certain days?

So if I wake up feeling anxiety,

I do all the things I need to do to resource myself.

And then if it's still there,

Who's the friend that I go to in my social engagement system that's going to be able to have capacity to hold me in that?

And you get really smart about your decisions because what most of us are doing is if I don't feel worthy,

I will pick the person that I feel the least worthy around to go find validation.

And then I'll just validate that I'm not worthy because that person brings out that unworthiness in me and then I stew,

You know,

I just stew in my self-hatred and my self-loathing and I feel bad for myself and I victimize myself.

And a part of your healing is taking accountability.

You get to choose what you do in your life to resource yourself.

You get to choose who you spend your time with.

You get to choose your social engagement system and how you set it up.

And you get to choose how you roll out your day.

So this is our opportunity is to get very intentional with what we're doing.

And I think and the last thing I will say is with time,

You know,

In psychology,

They call this affect tolerance.

With time,

If you resource yourself each day a little bit more and a little bit more and you create a emotionally literate social engagement system,

Meaning you're very wise about who you go to for specific needs to be met,

Your affect tolerance will grow and grow to where,

Yes,

Maybe somebody just triggers the shit out of your abandonment wound or out of your worthiness wound.

But because you've been doing the work every day,

Your affect tolerance gets a little wider,

A little bit wider,

A little bit wider,

A little bit wider.

That way when they poke,

It kind of like sends a ripple,

But you're not so affected by it.

Because when we're first like and especially right now when we're triggered in the COVID times and through isolation and we haven't done the work,

Somebody just pokes us a little bit and we're like,

And we immediately react to it.

So we want to build that affect tolerance.

And I think that that is that for today.

So I'm going to read some of your questions and I want to say here as well,

I appreciate you all for being here so much.

And I feel so grateful to have this platform to be doing this work and spreading this message.

If you found this at all beneficial for you,

Please share this page and ask your friends to subscribe,

Come to the free talks,

Share the meditations.

And it's not anything to do with me or the fact that I want you to share me personally,

But I want more people to see this kind of work.

So if it's somebody else,

If it's Gabor Maté or if it's Peter Levine or if it's Bessel Van der Kolk,

If it's any amazing teachers that are teaching and doing work with trauma,

Please share that.

Share the wisdom of trauma,

This amazing movie,

These resources that we have.

And when we have these moments of aha,

I really feel at least for me,

It's a great gift to give to your community,

Because if you relate to it deeply and it plants a seed in you that helps the healing,

It's more than likely going to do that for people in your community.

So the more that we share,

The more that the collective gets to heal.

And we need this right now.

People are suffering.

People feel isolated.

People are in depressive states.

People are in suicidal ideation.

It is a tough time.

And while it is our responsibility to be accountable and to care for ourselves,

We are a global family and we are one.

And so if this helps you help someone else,

Go talk to somebody about this subject,

Open up the space,

Create groups in your hometowns,

Have Zoom calls where you talk about this with like 10 of your friends.

You sit and you talk about your triggers or your trauma responses,

Or you talk about your resources or your social engagement system.

Begin to create a social engagement system through Zoom and begin to create these groups that you could talk to each week or biweekly or monthly.

It's needed.

And I'm telling you,

Even if you think,

Oh,

I don't think anybody would be interested or they would go,

They would.

People need this right now.

They're climbing out of their skin in this isolation to feel connected to one another.

So please,

Please,

Please do your part to create more connection in your communities.

For those of you that have donated,

Thank you.

I can see little donations coming in.

This is all for free and I will show up always on the platform no matter what donation or not donation.

But of course,

All of your donations are greatly accepted and they all go to a good cause and further study for myself.

I'm in two different trauma therapy trainings at the moment and I'm running two trauma programs and I am reading five books at any given time on trauma.

So it all comes back into that space.

So every little bit of donation goes back into the study and to the offerings within trauma and healing integration.

So if you even have a dollar,

I don't know what the smallest amount of donation on Insight Timer is,

But every little bit helps.

And if you've gotten anything from this,

It's that pay it forward.

You know,

We grow in abundance when we give.

So again,

Thank you for those of you that are donating.

And I'm going to try to look through some of these.

There's so many you guys were chatting today.

I love it.

I love seeing all these chats.

How can we best heal from narcissistic abuse?

I'm still feeling drawn to this person to try to find closure,

But I know it will only make me feel worse.

This is a tough one.

This is Terry.

I will try to get into another conversation on this next week.

I feel very connected to this subject and it's very painful because and I don't want to ever,

You know,

Pathologize or diagnose anyone because we all are somewhere on the narcissistic spectrum.

But narcissists are humans as well and they have their own pain and many of them have been through very,

Very challenging things in their life where they have this ego inflation because it's a way of safety for them.

And I think,

You know,

The best way to heal from this type of abuse is space.

So much fucking space.

And I'm good,

Of course,

But so much space.

You know,

In those situations when somebody is very deep on the narcissistic spectrum,

They're very charismatic.

They could tell you everything that you want to hear.

There's a lot of breadcrumbing where they do a grand gesture and you nibble on the little breadcrumb that they give you and you think,

Oh,

It's just going to get better if I stay a little bit longer.

And we stay and we stay and we,

You know,

Pay attention to how you feel around this person.

You know,

In my connection with this subject,

Like how is your body?

I know that when I've gone through this,

I didn't eat.

You know,

I lost a lot of weight.

I didn't sleep.

I didn't like myself.

I kind of became a shell of who I was and I felt like I was crazy.

I felt like I was going crazy.

And when this is happening,

We are not in our center.

If you don't feel like you can be in your center with this person,

This is not somebody to spend time with.

Yes,

You might be physically attracted.

Yes,

The sexual connection might be very powerful.

But something that one of my therapist said to me that was huge for my recovery from this space was,

You know,

I was like,

But we had such a connection.

It was so powerful.

I was this was the love of my life.

And she said,

You know why the sex was so good?

And I said,

Why?

And she said,

It's the only time you felt seen or heard or loved,

Isn't it?

And I thought about it.

And I was like,

Oh,

My God.

I was like,

Yeah,

It's the only time that I really felt connected to this person.

And so in my mind,

I had built it up to be something much bigger than it was,

Because this is the one place that felt so powerful.

So really,

For for Terry,

What you're asking,

I would just say,

Are you a good version?

Are you the best version of yourself around this person?

And if not,

It's not worth it.

No matter how appealing it is,

Or how beautiful they are.

It's not worth it.

So space,

Take space.

And when they try to reel you back in,

Take more space.

Like you can love this person,

But love them from further away.

You deserve to be comfortable in your body.

And most people in a relationship with somebody deep on the narcissistic spectrum,

God bless them.

And you know,

I love those people too,

When they're that deep on the spectrum,

And I want for their healing,

But I want for their healing far away from me.

And my nervous system,

It's not worth it's not worth being in connection with them.

And you can't save them.

A lot of us think,

But if I stay and I just love them,

And I have this big open heart that my love is going to heal them.

No,

Somebody else.

They have to heal themselves.

You are not their hero.

They have to be their own hero.

Thank you for that question,

Terry.

All right,

I'm looking at more self care is important.

Yes,

Self care is very important.

The name of the documentary was the wisdom of trauma.

And self care will say for you if you guys are coming out of abusive relationships or mentally abusive,

Physically abusive,

Self abusive,

If you have,

You know,

If you've gone through anorexia or bulimia,

Anything that has been self induced,

Recovery is one step at a time.

Don't make your goals so long.

You know,

Okay,

In a year,

I'm going to be here in two years,

I'm going to be here.

Every single day is a journey.

You know,

This last year,

I was coming out of the dark night of the soul.

And what I had to tell myself eventually to get myself to healing was one step at a time.

And my goal was make yourself a cup of tea that day.

Make yourself a good healthy meal.

That was it.

That was my one goal for the whole day.

That's all that I was trying to accomplish in that day is,

Okay,

Today,

I'm going to make myself a cup of tea.

Tomorrow,

I'm going to make myself a healthy meal.

The next day,

I'm going to go on a five minute walk.

I mean,

Your goals make them small.

Because when we're coming out of those dark nights of the soul,

And we're coming out of very painful relationships,

We can't project into the future.

And so just one step at a time,

Slowly,

Slowly,

Slowly.

All right,

You beautiful people,

I have a call with my yoga students in about 10 minutes.

So I will have to go.

But again,

Thank you for your donations and subscribe and share.

And I will try to do another call next week.

And so if you subscribe,

You should get an update for that coming up.

And for those of you wanting to work deeper into this process and do individual sessions,

I do this work and you can find me through my website,

Which is again,

Echo flow yoga calm.

And these sessions are more resourcing and integrations sessions.

So it's really getting you on the path to how do we self resource?

How do we create inter dependent systems and social engagement systems that provide us with a healthy route to self healing?

And yes,

You can find me at echo flow yoga calm.

And as well for for for free yoga classes and meditations on YouTube,

Just go to echo flow yoga and I've got hundreds of videos up there for yoga and for meditation to just get into your body to get out of your mind and do your best to take care of yourself during this time.

So loving you guys a lot.

And I'm going to head out now and I hope that you have a beautiful day.

And I hope that when you need help,

You know how to ask for it.

And that you also take care of yourselves as much as you can.

See you all very soon.