Latest / Being Different Together / #39 - Is Trauma Really "Stored" in the Body?

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#39 - Is Trauma Really "Stored" in the Body? · Being Different Together

0:08
SPEAKER_03: Welcome to Being Different Together, the podcast for people who want to make the world a better place, but no, they can't do it alone.
0:17
SPEAKER_00: I'm Dr.
0:18
SPEAKER_00: Kelly Brady, acupuncturist, psychotherapist, and certified dialogue therapist.
0:22
SPEAKER_00: And I'm Nissa Hanger, massage therapist, aromatherapist, coach, and real dialogue specialist.
0:29
SPEAKER_00: Together we'll explore how conversations can improve relationships, make work more joyful, and spark healing for ourselves and our communities.
0:37
SPEAKER_00: And listen, we don't shy away from the hard conversations.
0:41
SPEAKER_00: In fact, we welcome them.
0:43
SPEAKER_00: This isn't about being right.
0:45
SPEAKER_00: It's about being different together.
0:56
SPEAKER_04: Hello, hello, everyone.
0:58
SPEAKER_04: Welcome to episode number thirty-nine of being different together.
1:07
SPEAKER_04: And um I think uh might just dive right in to this episode.
1:12
SPEAKER_01: We're diving right in.
1:14
SPEAKER_01: This sounds good.
1:15
SPEAKER_01: We're diving right in.
1:17
SPEAKER_04: Um there's a lot.
1:19
SPEAKER_04: There's diving into the deep end of the pool.
1:22
SPEAKER_04: The deep end of the pool.
1:22
SPEAKER_04: All right, get your shrimp trunks on.
1:25
SPEAKER_01: We we both got that cold and then we got sick, and then we started talking about getting sick.
1:29
SPEAKER_01: Then we had that podcast about being sick, and then in that podcast, you were like, We need to we need to do a whole deep dive into our kitchen table conversations about the body.
1:41
SPEAKER_04: The body.
1:42
SPEAKER_01: We're gonna we're gonna.
1:45
SPEAKER_01: I mean, that's that's that's our show, right?
1:47
SPEAKER_01: I was making this meta comment, like actually in the kitchen about the show, which now I feel well kind of compelled to make.
1:53
SPEAKER_01: I mean, that in essence our show really is like this is shit we would be talking about anyway.
1:58
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, it's it's really the stuff that we're interested in that we would very we'd be very likely to sit and have coffee or tea and talk about in the morning.
2:05
SPEAKER_01: 100% with as much depth as we talk about it on the show.
2:09
SPEAKER_01: That's the thing.
2:09
SPEAKER_01: We're very likely to be like, you know, pulling out the computer, looking at things, talking about things.
2:14
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
2:14
SPEAKER_01: And so uh, you know, we're just like kind of letting the show organically follow our conversation.
2:21
SPEAKER_04: Yes.
2:22
SPEAKER_01: And what's currently really kind of like resonant or interesting to us, and so you know, this idea about the body.
2:29
SPEAKER_01: And in the last episode, you were talking about you know, the you had been influenced by Lohan, and that maybe this was so where do you remember?
2:40
SPEAKER_04: Yeah, all um well, and uh as I started reading about all of this, I was just telling Kelly that I was like, oh, oh, oh, this actually deeply informs the way that I approach my work as a body worker.
2:54
SPEAKER_04: What is this?
2:55
SPEAKER_04: Um yeah, I'm gonna explain that.
3:00
SPEAKER_04: But I didn't even realize that it um it it I encountered um Lowen, Alexander Lowen's work in um bioenergetics, his idea of bioenergetics very early on in my massage career.
3:14
SPEAKER_04: And so it's uh yeah, just I would say deeply informed the way that I approach the body.
3:21
SPEAKER_04: And so there are a couple different things around Lowen's work and bioenergetics that I want to explain before we kind of get into some further details.
3:30
SPEAKER_04: And the way that I uh how I encountered Alexander Lowen's work was through my teacher John McCann in structural energetic therapy, and part of that program um leaned on the teachings of bioenergetics, and we were taught how to do emotional release breath work.
3:51
SPEAKER_04: Now, this was like back in the early 2000s, and I feel like at this point, when I say breath work, people uh have much more context for that sort of uh thing.
4:04
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, and there are multiple breath work practices that are available.
4:06
SPEAKER_01: So yeah, it's become very popular.
4:09
SPEAKER_01: Like that what you learned was one specific type of ther of of assisted therapeutic breath work.
4:13
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah.
4:14
SPEAKER_01: You're you're facilitating the person, they're taking circular deep breaths without pausing um for a period of time, and this kind of you know activates a hypnot palpicker, like more of a hypnagogic kind of state in the person where they have more access to whatever's happening with them emotionally, and then they'll maybe abreact or have a catharsis.
4:33
SPEAKER_01: This is that model, right?
4:35
SPEAKER_04: Yeah, and so how I would explain this to those clients as I understand it, and some of Lowen was a student of a guy named Wilhelm Reich, and that that seems like its own rabbit hole that we could you know go into and dive into, but um, that's part of the the lineage.
4:53
SPEAKER_04: That's part of the lineage if you will.
4:54
SPEAKER_04: We're still working on this cough.
4:56
SPEAKER_01: I hope you don't have to edit out over that.
4:58
SPEAKER_01: I don't know if you want to clap or whatever, but I've I've got a couple good ones coming here.
5:03
SPEAKER_04: So we had a little cough break.
5:04
SPEAKER_04: I don't know how much of that will be edited in or edited out.
5:07
SPEAKER_04: I will do that.
5:08
SPEAKER_01: Um It'd be a fun Easter egg.
5:09
SPEAKER_01: I mean, I was kind of like remarking on the fact that for me, once I if I have a cough and I feel like I'm not supposed to be coughing at that moment, yes, it immediately makes me want to cough more and increases the yeah.
5:22
SPEAKER_04: Yeah, and so I I I feel like I can actually explain that in terms of bioenergetics.
5:26
SPEAKER_04: So how how I learned to explain this work to my clients is that the theory is when we come into this world as baby humans, we have a natural impulse to reach out for love and comfort.
5:43
SPEAKER_04: So you can think of like a kid say, you know, reaching their arms out, they want to be picked up, or if they're upset they need something, they cry, they emote freely over time for a all a whole variety of reasons.
5:58
SPEAKER_04: But I think this is probably a universal thing that happens to most people to varying degrees, to all people to varying degrees, is um a small human reaches out for love and comfort in some instance and is either denied that love or comfort, it is absent, it is not there, you know, nobody comes when they cry, or they are burned, you know, they reach their hand out and their hand is slapped, for example.
6:23
SPEAKER_04: And just as we would we also have the natural impulse to, you know, pull our limbs back.
6:30
SPEAKER_04: If you touch something that's hot, your your arm is going to have an immediate impulse to pull the arm back.
6:36
SPEAKER_04: The muscles get tight and pull everything back, flex, you know, your flexors engage.
6:42
SPEAKER_04: Um, and so over time of reaching out and then recoiling, flexing back, reaching out, flexing back.
6:50
SPEAKER_04: One of the things that Don McCann would say is that the body loves repetition.
6:54
SPEAKER_04: So the more often we consciously or unconsciously tell a muscle to tighten, I'd like to say that muscles are like the most loyal Labrador.
7:04
SPEAKER_04: And it'll be like, oh, oh, you want me to be you want me to be tight?
7:08
SPEAKER_04: You know what?
7:09
SPEAKER_04: I'll just be tight all the time.
7:10
SPEAKER_04: I will be always on and ready for you.
7:13
SPEAKER_04: And so over time, the layers and layers and layers of muscle and tissue or whatever fascia, whatever it is that that that tightness is getting um reinforced in, it starts to create body armor.
7:29
SPEAKER_01: Our body this was Reich's idea, right?
7:31
SPEAKER_01: The body armor, or was it was it Lowen?
7:34
SPEAKER_04: I'm not sure the lineage of that, but but Loan definitely if he if he got a bit on that idea, it became a foundational part of his theory.
7:44
SPEAKER_04: So we create body armor, and we are all walking around with armor on our body, that is, to protect us.
7:52
SPEAKER_04: And what that does is it restricts our uh uh uh I would think of it in terms of restricting freedom of movement as well as freedom of expression.
8:06
SPEAKER_04: And so, which is why, you know, sometimes we can get to a point in time where okay, let's talk about the coughing, for example.
8:13
SPEAKER_04: So, you know, maybe there is some armoring that is in the throat area, and so it it will both restrict, but it will also um create specific conditions.
8:30
SPEAKER_04: So if there is restriction in this area of the throat, let's say, and you go to cough, you have this natural impulse to cough, but part of you is like not wanting to cough.
8:40
SPEAKER_04: This has happened to me a couple times this week in sessions.
8:43
SPEAKER_04: Yeah, nobody wants to be massaged by a coughing massage therapist.
8:46
SPEAKER_04: And so I have literally held back the cough, and then all of these other physiological symptoms happen holding my body.
8:58
SPEAKER_04: Both of my eyes are completely watering because my body is trying to get out this thing.
9:03
SPEAKER_04: Right.
9:04
SPEAKER_04: Um, which that is a distinct physiological um thing.
9:08
SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
9:08
SPEAKER_04: Um, but it also happens in terms of emotional expression.
9:13
SPEAKER_04: And so part of the bioenergetic breath work, so we would charge the body with energy by this circular facilitated coach deep breathing, and that charges up this energy in the body, and then it will break through that body armor and allow the person to move or emote in the ways that they have been holding back.
9:36
SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
9:37
SPEAKER_04: So that's the like general thing.
9:39
SPEAKER_04: The other, the other thing that I had thought about when we were on the podcast before was the way that part of how this works is like it's this, it's how the body looks, the structure of the body, the way we hold ourselves.
9:50
SPEAKER_04: Are we hunched forward, for example?
9:53
SPEAKER_04: Um there is what we feel in the body.
9:56
SPEAKER_04: Right.
9:57
SPEAKER_04: You know, pain here, restriction here, tightness here.
10:01
SPEAKER_04: And then there's also the way we use language.
10:05
SPEAKER_04: Right.
10:06
SPEAKER_04: The way that we use the b body in language, which are clues to what may be going on.
10:12
SPEAKER_04: So it's not like a direct, direct prescriptive.
10:15
SPEAKER_04: Like that guy's such a pain in my neck.
10:17
SPEAKER_04: Exactly.
10:18
SPEAKER_04: There have been many times that I have been working on people's necks, and sometimes I will say, Well, what's the pain in your neck?
10:26
SPEAKER_04: And sometimes they'll go, Oh.
10:29
SPEAKER_04: I have I had one person that was like, This is my dog.
10:32
SPEAKER_04: This is this is my dog that won't go to the bathroom when I need them to go to the bathroom outside.
10:39
SPEAKER_04: I've literally had people tell me that about their shoulder or whatever.
10:43
SPEAKER_04: Sure.
10:44
SPEAKER_01: And so I'm carrying too much, my heart is broken.
10:47
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
10:48
SPEAKER_04: Twist my arm behind my back.
10:50
SPEAKER_04: I need to get this off my chest.
10:51
SPEAKER_01: I need to stand up on my own two feet.
10:53
SPEAKER_01: I hear a lot on my couch when people are talking to me, they'll say, I I need to I need to get this off my chest.
10:59
SPEAKER_04: I need to get this off my chest.
11:01
SPEAKER_04: Right.
11:01
SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
11:02
SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
11:02
SPEAKER_04: Totally.
11:03
SPEAKER_04: And so I'm I'm sick of this.
11:06
SPEAKER_04: Right.
11:06
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
11:07
SPEAKER_02: I hear that a lot.
11:08
SPEAKER_02: I need to bite my tongue.
11:09
SPEAKER_02: Oh my gosh.
11:11
SPEAKER_02: I'm so sick of it.
11:13
SPEAKER_02: Uh huh.
11:14
SPEAKER_02: You know, it's like, yeah.
11:16
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
11:18
SPEAKER_01: Um so, anyways.
11:20
SPEAKER_01: It's interesting because like we usually assume that the psychological experience comes first, and then you know, it's like we borrow the body to describe it, but in what you're talking about, it kind of flips that around a bit.
11:33
SPEAKER_01: You know, so that idea, really, if I was to sort of like summarize what you're saying, it's like the idea is that the defense is that we develop against difficulty in infancy, which is like feeling rejected or hurt or angry or you know, like our needs didn't get met, and so we have this rush of unpleasant feelings.
11:52
SPEAKER_01: Yes.
11:53
SPEAKER_01: Um you know, the the their belief was that, you know, Reich and then Lohan after him who elaborated on it, was that those experiences become like organized somatically.
12:05
SPEAKER_01: They do.
12:06
SPEAKER_01: And so it's habitual breathing and posture and facial expression and movement, right?
12:13
SPEAKER_01: Yes.
12:14
SPEAKER_01: It it all happens like in that place and it and it happens within the system of the body.
12:19
SPEAKER_01: So it it's it's not n necessarily stored in one place.
12:24
SPEAKER_01: I mean, you can see how what we're talking about here predates current thinking around, you know, it's sort of his natural bridge to Van Der Kock's work around the body keeps the score, yeah.
12:36
SPEAKER_01: And our current, you know, kind of ideas um both in scholastic psychology and in pop psychology.
12:43
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
12:44
SPEAKER_01: You know, it's gotten very popular uh in the wellness industry.
12:48
SPEAKER_01: Yes.
12:49
SPEAKER_01: To talk about how trauma is stored in the body.
12:51
SPEAKER_01: Trauma is stored in the body.
12:52
SPEAKER_01: And that with these various techniques you can unleash it somehow or uh work through it or uh uh yeah.
13:02
SPEAKER_01: And and I, you know, I mean I think that that's uh it's a really interesting theory.
13:07
SPEAKER_01: I mean, uh it's something certainly something we could unpack for a long time.
13:10
SPEAKER_01: I think so.
13:10
SPEAKER_01: I think so.
13:11
SPEAKER_01: But that seems to be part of what we're sort of circling around here.
13:15
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
13:16
SPEAKER_04: And how does trauma get stored in the body?
13:19
SPEAKER_04: Is it stored in that place?
13:22
SPEAKER_04: Um I think that that we can easily get into well what I like about where we're going with Lowen's work is it's a little bit more systemic.
13:37
SPEAKER_04: There's a system versus I don't know, when I hear like the trauma stored in the body, I had mentioned before we started that it kind of reminds me a little bit.
13:47
SPEAKER_04: And I mean, yes, like the I I think that we do have experiences that get I don't know what the word to use that's not stored, but I I do think that there is some sort of nuance there.
13:59
SPEAKER_04: There is something that's happening, but it's not some outside thing that's then being put in there for temporary holding.
14:06
SPEAKER_01: Well, maybe remember maybe remembered is a way of saying it.
14:09
SPEAKER_01: I think that's a great verb.
14:11
SPEAKER_01: That's more accurate than stored.
14:13
SPEAKER_01: I mean, like I think about stored and it's almost well, I mean the image actually the word store kind of leads me to a place that might be helpful symbolically to think about it, but this is where I tend to approach trauma w in a different kind of way.
14:25
SPEAKER_01: Um, some some of what Vander Koelk's work has done resonates with me because it it it passes the sniff test of what I know anyway.
14:34
SPEAKER_04: Uh-huh.
14:35
SPEAKER_01: Which is that our our body is just a map.
14:39
SPEAKER_01: It just shows where we've been in our life.
14:42
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
14:44
SPEAKER_01: And it's and the and the unconscious doesn't know the difference between the body and the mind.
14:49
SPEAKER_05: Mm-hmm.
14:50
SPEAKER_01: Like there's no the unconscious is not in there like this.
14:53
SPEAKER_01: I'm thinking this about the body.
14:54
SPEAKER_01: I mean, the unconscious just doing life.
14:56
SPEAKER_01: It's not, it's it's not it doesn't make that distinction.
15:00
SPEAKER_01: And in the same way, there's no distinction made between the mind and the body in traditional Chinese medicine.
15:04
SPEAKER_01: It doesn't even exist.
15:06
SPEAKER_01: Right.
15:06
SPEAKER_01: This is a very Western concept that I think therefore I am.
15:10
SPEAKER_01: This is what this goes back to.
15:12
SPEAKER_01: Yes.
15:13
SPEAKER_01: And, you know, that uh there's this little homunculus, this little dude that somehow sits up in our head that you know we're just like thinking, and that's what makes us who we are.
15:23
SPEAKER_01: And, you know, the unconscious psychologists, Freud et al.
15:27
SPEAKER_01: you know, basically come along and say, no, there's so much more that you're not thinking that makes you who you are.
15:35
SPEAKER_01: They they really turn that around.
15:38
SPEAKER_01: And and I think, you know, o open thinking.
15:42
SPEAKER_04: There's so much more that you're not.
15:44
SPEAKER_04: Not thinking.
15:44
SPEAKER_04: There's so much more going on with you that you just don't know.
15:46
SPEAKER_04: There are parts of you that are not thinking.
15:48
SPEAKER_01: That you just don't know.
15:49
SPEAKER_01: And the body, for me, I mean, part of just kind of in a broad way, part of the way that I think about it without getting too lost in all these different theorists, you know, after everything that I've learned, like kind of what comes together for me.
16:00
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
16:00
SPEAKER_01: Is that the body will just sometimes say what a person isn't saying.
16:05
SPEAKER_01: A hundred percent.
16:07
SPEAKER_01: Yes.
16:09
SPEAKER_01: Yes.
16:10
SPEAKER_01: You know, sometimes the body will just like say what a person isn't, but and it and it might not be like this super one-to-one relationship kind of thing.
16:19
SPEAKER_01: You know, it might not it's not so simplistic.
16:22
SPEAKER_01: Like, for example, um, you know, uh a couple of years ago I had a client who was an assault victim who picked up a sexually transmitted infection during the assault.
16:36
SPEAKER_01: And um, you know, and he uh you know, he came into therapy and was having a recurrence of, you know, of that uh infection.
16:46
SPEAKER_01: It was like a hepatic invasion.
16:47
SPEAKER_01: And and then is like sitting on the couch saying, you know, do do you think that the recurrence is kind of maybe why I'm here?
16:55
SPEAKER_01: Like in other words, the patient is like the client was like sort of putting it together.
17:00
SPEAKER_01: Like this and this go together and now I'm here.
17:04
SPEAKER_01: Like like this this infection that I got that I'm always gonna have is something that I'm uh that's always gonna be with me.
17:11
SPEAKER_01: And I'm always gonna be responding to the world with it.
17:14
SPEAKER_01: I can't I can't like you know, I think the thing about this idea that like trauma is being kept score of just the thing that it bothers me about it and I say is that it implies that there's a way to win against trauma.
17:30
SPEAKER_01: And like that there's an end game.
17:33
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
17:34
SPEAKER_01: That someday you just can surgically get rid of it.
17:37
SPEAKER_04: Right.
17:38
SPEAKER_01: If you just do enough breath work and eat enough oatmeal.
17:40
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
17:41
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
17:42
SPEAKER_01: You know, and that's not my experience.
17:44
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
17:44
SPEAKER_01: Working with clients for 30 years or my own experience living in the skin.
17:48
SPEAKER_01: That does not pass the SNF test for me.
17:50
SPEAKER_01: What I have found is that working with those bodily defenses helps me to get underneath so that I can reinteract with and remember and kind of circle around again some of these issues that that n that need to be dealt with maybe not through talking.
18:11
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
18:12
SPEAKER_02: Totally.
18:13
SPEAKER_01: You know, maybe not through talking and maybe not through thinking, you know, like maybe it is through sitting on the meditation cushion while pain rises and uh falls, and then you cry because you can't escape.
18:24
SPEAKER_01: Maybe it is breath work where there's a charge of energy that, you know, goes through the body and then um you know induces kind of a trance like expression of emotion.
18:34
SPEAKER_01: It kind of makes me think about people who are doing trance like dancing, and then they'll start to they'll drop down and start to convulse or speak in tongues or scream or wail or you know, do all these things.
18:46
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
18:47
SPEAKER_01: You know, the ab reactions, right?
18:49
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
18:49
SPEAKER_01: When people you see get the tetanne, they they start, you know, right.
18:53
SPEAKER_04: Yeah, their their hands tense up in a you know, a very unnatural and predictable way.
18:58
SPEAKER_04: It is, it is very predictable.
19:01
SPEAKER_04: That's usually one of the first things that happens.
19:03
SPEAKER_04: And I mean, this is where it's like I really only have theoretical and my own my own theoretical background.
19:10
SPEAKER_04: So I don't know how much of this is like, could we scientifically prove this or whatever?
19:15
SPEAKER_04: But the way that I see it is we've got energy uh emotion is energy in motion.
19:22
SPEAKER_04: I don't know if we've talked about that sort of idea on on the podcast, but in emotions, you know, I think need to be expressed, or they do get stuffed down somewhere in the body, like it's like it needs to go somewhere.
19:37
SPEAKER_04: Yeah, which I understand that starts to sound a little bit like trauma is stored in the body, but I think it's a little bit different.
19:43
SPEAKER_04: And I also think about it in terms of like when we're talking about chronically tightened tissues, like it takes energy to keep the tissues tight.
19:53
SPEAKER_04: Yeah, and so it's like it's almost like it's like a stored battery thing or whatever.
19:57
SPEAKER_01: And so when we see Chinese medicine has a lot to say about that, but I'll uh and so I'm just gonna put a pin in that and go back to it.
20:03
SPEAKER_04: Totally.
20:03
SPEAKER_04: And I'm curious to see like where it aligns or where it's different or whatever.
20:07
SPEAKER_04: Um so we get that we get this cro chronically tightened tissue in the body, and when we start doing this breath work, or or it also can happen in body work in general, like doing deep tissue body work can open up some of those areas so that that energy that's in there can move through.
20:27
SPEAKER_04: And sometimes it is attached to over emotions, sometimes it's attached, you know, people will think of you know, memories will emerge or whatever it is.
20:36
SPEAKER_04: Um, one of the things that was emphasized in my training is we don't really have we it yeah, sure.
20:41
SPEAKER_04: It would be nice to know that this was when your third grade teacher, you know, like yelled at you.
20:48
SPEAKER_04: But you don't need to know that.
20:50
SPEAKER_04: It doesn't really matter.
20:52
SPEAKER_04: The point is getting it out.
20:53
SPEAKER_04: And so then you start to move the body in a way that kind of gets it out.
21:01
SPEAKER_04: I mean I'm like I'm like flicking my flicking my hand to like in that sort of like in the this off body hand.
21:07
SPEAKER_01: In the yogic tradition, there's this idea that you you go through the asanas in order to move um in order to move the winds right through the channels that like you're you're working on moving moving energy through the channels.
21:19
SPEAKER_01: And the final thing that happens in any kind of yoga is like a distribution practice.
21:23
SPEAKER_01: Like you distribute the energy.
21:25
SPEAKER_01: And it's usually like dancing or shaking or um you know what I mean?
21:30
SPEAKER_01: I or sometimes it's just laying a course pose and distributing the energy, but like there there is a distribution that goes on.
21:37
SPEAKER_01: And I think that there's something there's something about you know this this kind of emotional release that you're talking about that that I I put into the category of kind of like a distribute a dist distributive practice.
21:50
SPEAKER_01: It's like it's like moving stagnation through.
21:53
SPEAKER_04: Yes.
21:54
SPEAKER_04: Yeah, there is a stagnation thing.
21:56
SPEAKER_01: So traditional Chinese medicine thinks about the emotions as energy too, and that they run through different.
22:00
SPEAKER_01: Different channels in the body and they affect different organs.
22:02
SPEAKER_01: And it's like if you have actually too much of an emotion can damage that part of your body.
22:08
SPEAKER_01: And also if you don't express enough of that emotion, it can damage that part of your body.
22:11
SPEAKER_01: So there's a harmony.
22:13
SPEAKER_01: And that's that's what I'm kind of getting at in terms of where I think they're they're pointing at the idea that it's stored or it's locked or it's I think that's true, but I also think it's consistently moving in that area.
22:23
SPEAKER_01: Yes.
22:24
SPEAKER_01: So you know, the idea that what you move it and then what is it transplanted with a beam of light?
22:29
SPEAKER_01: I mean, it's still your body and it's still your body energy there.
22:32
SPEAKER_01: Totally.
22:32
SPEAKER_01: So you have this.
22:33
SPEAKER_01: You're gonna have another emotional knot.
22:35
SPEAKER_01: Yes.
22:36
SPEAKER_01: Like talk about like like talk about it.
22:38
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I don't know where I think it's about.
22:39
SPEAKER_04: I think I've gone into this in in one of our other episodes, but I don't know where.
22:43
SPEAKER_04: Um yeah, I mean, I don't really like the term knot when people say, Oh, I got a lot of knots, or can you get that knot out?
22:49
SPEAKER_01: Like But there's a subjective sense that when I touch my rhomboid in a certain place, it's more tense, and I can feel like I might be able to feel like something that feels like a lump or it's dense.
23:02
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, the tissue feels dense.
23:05
SPEAKER_01: More dense than other tissue.
23:07
SPEAKER_04: And I do sorry.
23:10
SPEAKER_04: It's okay.
23:11
SPEAKER_04: I do tend to find that um they it it tends to be places where muscles overlap, or you've got especially like right around the corner of the scapula and the shoulder, like you just got you got a bunch of stuff all attaching in that area.
23:26
SPEAKER_04: You've got muscles, you've got tendons, you've got all kinds of stuff.
23:30
SPEAKER_04: So of course, when that when that is, let's say, you know, you have a when you sit at your desk, you're stressed out.
23:37
SPEAKER_04: And what happens when I'm stressed out?
23:38
SPEAKER_04: I'm doing it right now.
23:39
SPEAKER_04: Like my shoulders are kind of coming up.
23:41
SPEAKER_04: I'm asking those things to tighten.
23:44
SPEAKER_04: So the more I do that, the more they will just stay tight.
23:47
SPEAKER_04: And when you have things that overlap, you're gonna feel that density increase in that area.
23:54
SPEAKER_04: But there's not an actual knot.
23:56
SPEAKER_04: I'm not untying any sort of muscle fibers.
24:00
SPEAKER_04: And I just I feel like that's implied with the term knot, that there is this thing that we can then remove.
24:06
SPEAKER_04: Whereas, no, the tissue is still going to be there.
24:09
SPEAKER_04: We can change the quality of the tissue.
24:11
SPEAKER_04: I think of it as more in terms of like can we wet and smooth the clay versus let it just, you know, be hard and hardened and all that sort of a thing.
24:22
SPEAKER_01: So yeah, it's well, like if you think for for me, if I think about people that I admire, like who who are the kind of people that I personally want to emulate?
24:32
SPEAKER_01: I like to I want to emulate people who are calm and happy and flexible.
24:38
SPEAKER_04: Yes.
24:38
SPEAKER_01: And peaceful.
24:39
SPEAKER_01: Yes.
24:40
SPEAKER_01: And so what does that mean?
24:41
SPEAKER_01: Like, it's like, well, if something terrible happens, they just don't become an asshole.
24:45
SPEAKER_04: Sure.
24:45
SPEAKER_01: Right.
24:45
SPEAKER_01: They can roll over.
24:46
SPEAKER_01: I mean, it's like people are like, why do you keep doing that yoga?
24:49
SPEAKER_01: And I'm like, so I won't be a jerk.
24:50
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
24:51
SPEAKER_01: I mean, like, I'm a pretty terrible yogi.
24:53
SPEAKER_01: I have a lousy practice, but I keep I keep going with it.
24:57
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, you know, a little bit.
24:58
SPEAKER_01: You know what I mean?
24:59
SPEAKER_01: It's like I keep cracking at it.
25:00
SPEAKER_01: And it's it's not so much that I want to be able to do a backbend one day, because I think it I'm past that.
25:05
SPEAKER_01: I mean, maybe.
25:06
SPEAKER_01: I think if I really actively worked on it for three or four years, I probably could do it.
25:10
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, probably.
25:11
SPEAKER_01: Um, but but don't tell me that's what it's well it's more about it's it's more about that working on the flexibility of the body then helps with the flexibility of the mind.
25:24
SPEAKER_01: A hundred percent.
25:24
SPEAKER_01: And so there is the sniff test for me in psychological health has to do with this flexibility.
25:32
SPEAKER_01: So you know, in other words, like if if I'm walking around and I'm armored and I don't even know I'm armored, I'm armored because I'm afraid.
25:43
SPEAKER_01: Like, why does somebody wear armor?
25:47
SPEAKER_01: A warrior who go who's going into war wears armor.
25:50
SPEAKER_04: Well, yeah, but they think they need protection.
25:52
SPEAKER_04: They think they need protection.
25:53
SPEAKER_04: Because it's not safe.
25:54
SPEAKER_04: Yeah, like it's it's a it's a thing of safety, I think.
25:58
SPEAKER_01: But it's like, but if it's if this is a trauma that happened in infancy, it's like you know, there's like the old saying, right?
26:04
SPEAKER_01: Like the armor is on, but the battle's long over.
26:07
SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
26:07
SPEAKER_04: Mm-hmm.
26:08
SPEAKER_01: Well, and then and then the residual of that then affects your mental flexibility and happiness as well.
26:13
SPEAKER_01: So it's like the arrows point in both directions.
26:15
SPEAKER_04: And I think the arrows point in both directions um temporally as well.
26:20
SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
26:21
SPEAKER_04: So so the the armor is f you know could have been caused by something that happened in the past.
26:29
SPEAKER_04: It is tied to something that happened in the past, but it also deeply influences what happens in the future.
26:35
SPEAKER_04: Because if you're walking around armored, you're gonna interact with the world in a different way than if you were not.
26:42
SPEAKER_04: And so you start to get into almost like self-fulfilling prophecies.
26:46
SPEAKER_04: Totally.
26:46
SPEAKER_04: Um, as well.
26:48
SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
26:48
SPEAKER_04: So and I think that that's part of that relationship between it's like it goes both ways to the past and the future, and it goes both ways between the body and the mind.
26:56
SPEAKER_04: Absolutely.
26:57
SPEAKER_04: The mind's influencing the body, the body's influencing the mind.
27:00
SPEAKER_04: Right.
27:01
SPEAKER_04: And so and so then where are you?
27:03
SPEAKER_04: You're the you're you're in the center of those two um perpendicular lines or something.
27:08
SPEAKER_04: And you're always existing there.
27:10
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, but consciousness of these issues is pretty mind-blowing.
27:13
SPEAKER_01: I mean, like, I I remember starting to learn about this stuff in the 80s during like the new age kind of stuff.
27:19
SPEAKER_01: I mean, maybe I got my first massage in 1987 or something like that, you know, and then somehow my mom and I end up in a new age bookstore.
27:27
SPEAKER_01: You know what I mean?
27:27
SPEAKER_01: And there's uh there I am, you know, smelling incense and looking at crystals and um and there's books by Louise Hay and um Raymond Moody.
27:39
SPEAKER_01: And I'm trying to think of there was another guy who was really popular at that time on Block and his name.
27:44
SPEAKER_01: Wayne Dyer was popular, but I'm thinking of this other guy who was really into a doctor.
27:49
SPEAKER_01: He was a doctor with the beard.
27:51
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, Andrew Wilde.
27:53
SPEAKER_01: He's a different iteration.
27:54
SPEAKER_01: He's he's the the 2000s version of the guy that I was talking about from 1980.
27:59
SPEAKER_01: Um, but that guy was real Larry Dossie, I think was his name.
28:03
SPEAKER_01: He was really into like um, he's the one who started saying, you know, if you pray for people, it actually helps them.
28:08
SPEAKER_01: Meditating actually helps the body.
28:10
SPEAKER_01: This is when we start getting into the idea that the hippie stuff that had come over from Asia, basically, um, could could actually had some relevance.
28:19
SPEAKER_01: It so it gets rebranded into the New Age movement, and then we start studying it.
28:23
SPEAKER_01: Yes.
28:24
SPEAKER_01: Actually, finally, by the 2000s, we have these functional MRIs and we're learning, okay.
28:28
SPEAKER_01: You know, by the way, when you meditate, it really does help the brain and changes the brain, and we can see it.
28:34
SPEAKER_01: And so people are like, oh, now it really that's the thing about uh, you know, our current Western mind.
28:38
SPEAKER_01: It's like we want we want the science.
28:41
SPEAKER_01: We do, we want the science.
28:43
SPEAKER_04: And at least most of us will believe in it.
28:47
SPEAKER_01: Well, it's a changing story, I think, is the thing.
28:50
SPEAKER_01: Like Vanderkolk's in a lot of hot water now because he put together science that didn't make sense.
28:55
SPEAKER_01: And you know, listener, you can you can you can go and research those four points.
28:59
SPEAKER_01: Why why why Vanderkolk is currently under criticism in the scholastic community is because he put together, you know, data in a way that r really made a compelling argument for his story but wasn't accurate.
29:14
SPEAKER_01: He misrepresented data in a couple different places.
29:17
SPEAKER_01: It's pretty important.
29:18
SPEAKER_01: Yes.
29:18
SPEAKER_01: But it still doesn't matter because what he's saying passes the sniff test.
29:23
SPEAKER_01: It's like when he says it out loud, it gives people a metaphor that like I most people, I don't think, even ever read the book, The Body Keeps the Score.
29:31
SPEAKER_01: But I think they understand the concept immediately upon hearing the title.
29:34
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
29:35
SPEAKER_01: Because it's good marketing.
29:37
SPEAKER_01: Well, he hit the archetype.
29:39
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
29:39
SPEAKER_01: He hit it.
29:40
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
29:41
SPEAKER_01: That, you know, like right, like we are having this dreamlike experience of this body.
29:48
SPEAKER_01: And and wow.
29:52
SPEAKER_04: But but I g I I do I I am thinking, I'm now reflecting on this idea of the body keeps the score and that metaphor.
30:00
SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
30:01
SPEAKER_04: Which makes it sound like a game that you can win.
30:05
SPEAKER_04: You can win.
30:05
SPEAKER_04: That's why Americans love it.
30:07
SPEAKER_04: Yes.
30:08
SPEAKER_04: And I think one of the points that you're making is that it's not a game that you can win.
30:14
SPEAKER_04: Yeah, you can't win.
30:16
SPEAKER_04: One time I'm gonna go.
30:17
SPEAKER_04: It's kinda like it's I think it's more, if I may, I think it's more like making art.
30:22
SPEAKER_04: Oh, totally.
30:24
SPEAKER_04: You know, yeah, yeah.
30:25
SPEAKER_04: You can do things and you can make things and you can objectively be like, oh yeah, this is this is working, this isn't.
30:32
SPEAKER_04: But art isn't about winning the way a soccer game is.
30:37
SPEAKER_01: Also, trauma is not something you can get over.
30:40
SPEAKER_04: Uh-huh.
30:41
SPEAKER_01: Like, think about even the metaphor there, get over it.
30:44
SPEAKER_01: Like you just jump over it.
30:45
SPEAKER_04: Uh-huh.
30:45
SPEAKER_01: Just get over it.
30:46
SPEAKER_01: Just get over it.
30:47
SPEAKER_01: Or I've dealt with it.
30:48
SPEAKER_01: I love it when people say that.
30:50
SPEAKER_01: Oh, that happened.
30:50
SPEAKER_01: I dealt with it.
30:51
SPEAKER_01: I dealt with it.
30:53
unknown: Uh-huh.
30:53
SPEAKER_01: I got over it.
30:54
SPEAKER_04: Uh-huh.
30:55
SPEAKER_01: Just like we're going to do it.
30:56
SPEAKER_01: It's done.
30:56
SPEAKER_01: You know?
30:57
SPEAKER_01: It's done.
30:58
SPEAKER_01: I it I don't I think it's done if it doesn't bother you.
31:03
SPEAKER_01: And I think it's done if other people aren't telling you, hey, you know, the other night, um, you totally freaked out when XYZ happened, and you had an enormous emotional reaction to something that shouldn't have caused it.
31:17
SPEAKER_01: You know, I mean, I I think things can be done.
31:19
SPEAKER_01: And I think I think we can get to to a point where it's like we're not we're not as reactive.
31:24
SPEAKER_04: I think so too.
31:25
SPEAKER_01: Where like the armor is not pinging because we're on we're we've become more conscious about what our what our triggers are.
31:31
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
31:31
SPEAKER_01: No, I think that we can improve that that theory is a really good one, which is that I think you know, bringing the idea of just that hovering awareness that psychoanalytic theory teaches people to have.
31:41
SPEAKER_01: Like hovering awareness, like being aware of your own mind.
31:44
SPEAKER_01: That's a big part of what happens in analysis, is that the person becomes aware of their own mind.
31:49
SPEAKER_01: Same thing happens in meditation, same thing happens in a yoga practice, same thing happens in the kind of work that you do.
31:53
SPEAKER_01: Person becomes aware in a different kind of way.
31:56
SPEAKER_04: Oh, I didn't know that was hurting until you touched it.
31:58
SPEAKER_04: Exactly.
31:59
SPEAKER_01: Isn't that funny when people say that?
32:00
SPEAKER_01: This they're like, oh my god, my poor back.
32:02
SPEAKER_01: You know what I mean?
32:03
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
32:03
SPEAKER_04: They had no idea.
32:04
SPEAKER_01: No idea that it's even in there throbbing away.
32:06
SPEAKER_04: Here's the other thing about something being done or not.
32:10
SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
32:10
SPEAKER_04: And I do think I I agree with you on all of that, and I think it's also worth mentioning that um uh healing isn't linear.
32:20
SPEAKER_04: So how many times how many times have I thought I was done with XYZ?
32:28
SPEAKER_04: Right.
32:29
SPEAKER_04: And then I hear a freaking song on the radio or I talk to the somebody or whatever, and I am back.
32:40
SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
32:40
SPEAKER_04: So that for me is a very brilliant experience.
32:45
SPEAKER_04: So why do I even think that I can't be done with anything?
32:48
SPEAKER_04: Because it's it's circular.
32:53
SPEAKER_04: Maybe it's a spiral.
32:54
SPEAKER_01: I mean, so you you've talked about it that way.
32:55
SPEAKER_01: And I think if but it but but where I where I think I have some agency is that when I go back to look at it again, each time I go, I'm layering in the new perspectives that I have about it.
33:06
SPEAKER_01: So, you know, I s I'll circle around it again.
33:08
SPEAKER_01: Like a metaphor that I think about in my mind for my own issues is that I think they're kind of like a like a carousel.
33:16
SPEAKER_01: And it's like I'm sitting on a bench and I'm watching a carousel go around.
33:20
SPEAKER_01: Okay.
33:21
SPEAKER_03: Okay.
33:21
SPEAKER_01: And there goes the black stallion, uh-huh, and there goes the seat where the two people sit together, and there goes the unicorn, and there goes the brown palomino, and there goes the black and white zebra, and there goes, and like I know what's on that carousel.
33:34
SPEAKER_01: You know the order.
33:35
SPEAKER_01: Like at the age of 57, I've seen what's on that carousel.
33:40
SPEAKER_01: Now, I'm gonna tell you, there are things still on that carousel that I don't know about.
33:44
SPEAKER_01: Lots of things.
33:44
SPEAKER_01: Uh-huh.
33:45
SPEAKER_01: But they're mine, you know, like that's my personal unconscious.
33:48
SPEAKER_01: And I'm just sitting there watching it.
33:50
SPEAKER_01: That's the job in my life.
33:52
SPEAKER_01: But the more I know, oh, here comes here comes the unicorn.
34:00
SPEAKER_01: Uh-huh.
34:00
SPEAKER_01: I know this part of my psyche, this, you know, my this complex that's that's been activated, right?
34:05
SPEAKER_01: So we talk about lots of different complexes in in analytic psychology.
34:09
SPEAKER_01: But I think, you know, for some people there is kind of like a trauma complex.
34:12
SPEAKER_01: And in that place, that's where a lot of of the more difficult things that have happened over time get stored.
34:17
SPEAKER_01: But um you know, that that's a complex in and of itself, perhaps.
34:22
SPEAKER_01: And I think that that's you know, that's more of a modern or pop psychology way of looking at it.
34:27
SPEAKER_01: That but you know, the analytic way is to say, okay, well, in what context did those dramas happen?
34:33
SPEAKER_01: And then how does that then relate back to the rest of your psyche?
34:37
SPEAKER_01: That they're not just sitting there on their own, not interacting with you, in other words.
34:45
SPEAKER_01: But I mean, I want to say before we're I know we're probably getting ready to wrap it up.
34:49
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I mean, one time many years ago, I went in to see this therapist who was like a mentor of mine named Jane Hollister.
34:54
SPEAKER_05: Mm-hmm.
34:55
SPEAKER_01: I mean, Jane worked until she was 86 seeing clients, and um, she had survived cancer five times.
35:02
SPEAKER_01: She had been married three times.
35:03
SPEAKER_01: She had had over the course of those marriages seven different stepchildren.
35:07
SPEAKER_02: Wow.
35:08
SPEAKER_01: Okay.
35:09
SPEAKER_01: Um she was a recovering alcoholic.
35:11
SPEAKER_01: She would tell you that, by the way.
35:13
SPEAKER_01: I mean, she was a wonder wonderfully spiritual person, incredibly incisive therapeutically.
35:18
SPEAKER_01: And I started working with her when I was in my early twenties, doing holotropic breathwork.
35:21
SPEAKER_01: That's how I got to know.
35:22
SPEAKER_04: Uh-huh.
35:22
SPEAKER_04: Uh-huh.
35:23
SPEAKER_01: And then Which is similar.
35:24
SPEAKER_01: Similar, but it's a different music.
35:27
SPEAKER_01: It's kind of lineage.
35:28
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, it's a different lineage, but it's a very similar kind of idea.
35:30
SPEAKER_01: There's music and there's breathing and there's appreacting.
35:34
SPEAKER_01: Um for sure.
35:36
SPEAKER_01: Catharsis.
35:37
SPEAKER_01: Oh, you mean freaking out.
35:38
SPEAKER_01: Freaking out and crying.
35:40
SPEAKER_01: In a safe space.
35:41
SPEAKER_01: I mean, you know, I don't know.
35:42
SPEAKER_01: I found it really helpful.
35:43
SPEAKER_01: I found it really helpful at the time.
35:45
SPEAKER_01: I recommend it.
35:46
SPEAKER_01: I recommend a whole trip of breath work on a uh uh without reservation.
35:50
SPEAKER_01: Um anyway, I got to know her when I was in my twenties and fast forward now, you know.
35:55
SPEAKER_01: I mean, I I w saw her m maybe a month.
35:59
SPEAKER_01: I wouldn't see her often, maybe a couple times a year, but I saw her maybe a month before she died.
36:03
SPEAKER_04: Uh-huh.
36:04
SPEAKER_01: So I you know, she was in my life for 30 some odd years.
36:09
SPEAKER_01: One time I said to her, Jane.
36:15
SPEAKER_01: This trauma.
36:17
SPEAKER_01: Like I was dealing with something very specific that happened in my life.
36:22
SPEAKER_01: And I was like, What you know, what am I gonna do with it?
36:27
SPEAKER_01: What what when is it gonna be over?
36:30
SPEAKER_01: And she just looked at me and she just goes, It's not and it was really the kindest thing anybody's ever said to me in regards to that.
36:42
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
36:42
SPEAKER_01: Not be people have been so kind, like I'm sorry that happened to you, let's work through that, blah, blah, blah, you know, whatever the thing is.
36:48
SPEAKER_01: But just the idea that it's she could be honest with me, that this was gonna be something I would be working with, not against.
36:56
SPEAKER_01: Not through.
36:57
SPEAKER_01: Not getting over it, not keeping score with it.
37:00
SPEAKER_01: You're working not with it.
37:03
SPEAKER_01: You know, not like you know, like I I will achieve I will have achieved some kind of special goodness if I could get to the other side and not react when I smell that specific cologne or whatever it is.
37:15
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
37:15
SPEAKER_01: Um yeah, it was really helpful that it was just like, yeah, it was just like because trauma is the gateway to individuation.
37:25
SPEAKER_01: What we call trauma is the gateway to the suffering that that is required for us to individuate.
37:33
SPEAKER_01: Like we literally can't individuate without it.
37:38
SPEAKER_01: So the Buddha knew this.
37:40
SPEAKER_02: You know, it kind of um you know, no mud, no lotus, right?
37:43
SPEAKER_04: Totally.
37:45
SPEAKER_04: It kind of makes me feel like, okay, well, that's part of the the bodysuit deal that we've all got ourselves into.
37:50
SPEAKER_04: Right.
37:50
SPEAKER_04: Like that's part of why we we are born into these bodies that have the ability to react and be shaped by and then live with trauma.
38:04
SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
38:04
SPEAKER_04: Um that I mean, I say this like with all due respect, but that there's a little bit uh it's it almost makes it feel a little bit purposeful.
38:17
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
38:18
SPEAKER_04: And and and and I don't mean to say this to minimize any like big traumas or whatever, but like a little bit necessary, like for our own evolution to to to grapple with our unique stamp because we all have our own unique stamp of whatever the shit is that we've gone through in this life and will go through also.
38:42
SPEAKER_01: Right.
38:42
SPEAKER_01: I mean, it's like when I had cancer, I I got really s I had to lot had a lot of time to think about new the the new age kind of psychology because I started to think, well, what was I thinking that what what was how did I cause this with my thinking?
38:55
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
38:56
SPEAKER_01: Like I w I was doing I was thinking about it like that like if I if I didn't if I didn't have these thoughts that I have or these unresolved emotions that I have, that I wouldn't that and I realized that that's that was just a very terrible use of that information.
39:08
SPEAKER_01: That that that and that that's yeah, that's just screwy.
39:11
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, and it's magical thinking.
39:13
SPEAKER_01: Yeah and it's a victim blaming.
39:15
SPEAKER_01: It's a victim blaming, and there are some new age people who are in that place.
39:19
SPEAKER_04: I think it's easy to do that with this information.
39:21
SPEAKER_01: To oversimplify it.
39:22
SPEAKER_01: But what I realized for me is that it's it's not that.
39:24
SPEAKER_01: What it is is that it's what I can do is I can use the experience to help teach me about myself now.
39:32
SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
39:34
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
39:34
SPEAKER_01: And that's the same, the same is true of my past.
39:39
unknown: Yeah.
39:39
SPEAKER_01: That I can use my past when it presents itself to teach me about myself now.
39:45
SPEAKER_04: Yes.
39:50
SPEAKER_01: So it's a deep well that we jumped into.
39:52
SPEAKER_01: I mean, I think we're gonna many.
39:54
SPEAKER_04: I would I would love to to do a uh another another.
39:56
SPEAKER_04: Yeah, no, let's just keep going maybe next week.
39:58
SPEAKER_04: We'll find a find another angle because I I let's keep going with it.
40:02
SPEAKER_01: I would love to talk more about um the traditional Chinese medicine ideas.
40:05
SPEAKER_01: Yes, let's do that.
40:06
SPEAKER_01: Emotions and working with emotions and this idea that you brought up about stagnation, it's really really interesting.
40:13
SPEAKER_01: There's a cool um similarity there in the way that we think, and there's some cool differences too.
40:18
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, well, um, which I like.
40:20
SPEAKER_04: You know, well, that's part of uh together.
40:25
SPEAKER_04: Totally.
40:25
SPEAKER_04: We'll see you all next week.
40:27
SPEAKER_04: If you've enjoyed this episode, please, please, please share it with a friend.
40:31
SPEAKER_04: Um and if you have yet to leave us a review, we are accepting reviews on the Apple Podcasts.
40:40
SPEAKER_00: Only five stars, please.
40:42
SPEAKER_00: Other reviews are rejected.
40:47
SPEAKER_04: And thank you all for listening.
40:49
SPEAKER_04: We love you.
40:50
SPEAKER_04: We'll see you next week.
40:52
SPEAKER_04: I'm being different together.