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Healing as a Collective with Claudia VillaCova · The Trauma Therapist

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Speaker 1: Trauma Theverist podcast Plus listeners can listen to episodes early
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Speaker 1: going to Apple Podcasts, searching for the Trauma Theverist podcast
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Speaker 1: and signing up today. Welcome to the Trauma Nevers Podcast,
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Speaker 1: a show about the incredible people dedicated to helping those
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Speaker 1: who experienced trauma. My name is got macpherson, and my
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Speaker 1: mission is to raise awareness of trauma and to inspire
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Speaker 1: each of us to help those around us.
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Speaker 2: You ready to do it?
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Speaker 1: Yeah?
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Speaker 2: All right, here we go.
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Speaker 1: So five for three, two and one, our folks, welcome
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Speaker 1: back to the podcast. I am thrilled to hap us.
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Speaker 1: My guest today Claudia via Kova. Claudia, welcome, Hi.
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Speaker 3: Guy, Thank you hi everyone. It's a pleasure and an
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Speaker 3: honor to be here.
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Speaker 2: Awesome.
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Speaker 1: So, Claudia is a trauma informed, liberation focused somatic clinical
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Speaker 1: therapist and medicine women. Her first teachers and most influential
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Speaker 1: medicine mentors are and still continue to be her grandmothers,
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Speaker 1: Maria del Refugio and Maria Josephina. Claudia culturally grounds her
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Speaker 1: work within the indigenous medicine wheel tradition, while simultaneously weaving
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Speaker 1: in Western psychology and holistic, centromotor and semantic practices to
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Speaker 1: her embodied mental health and ecological wellness work. Claudia, Welcome
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Speaker 1: to the podcast.
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Speaker 3: Thank you. That's a mouthful mouthful.
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Speaker 2: So before we get going here, share with the listeners
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Speaker 2: where you're from originally and where you are currently.
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Speaker 3: Yes. So, I am originally and currently from Chicago, the
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Speaker 3: South side of Chicago. I was born here to parents
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Speaker 3: that had migrated from Mexico, and I'm actually currently in
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Speaker 3: transition to move looking thinking maybe West Coast, but currently
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Speaker 3: I'm still where I was born. I've been here most
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Speaker 3: of my life. There's years that I moved to Mexico,
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Speaker 3: but this is where I'm at now.
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Speaker 2: Awesome, So really interesting background. How the heck did you
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Speaker 2: get into this field?
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Speaker 3: Yes, so it began so my grandmother, my maternal well,
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Speaker 3: both my grandmothers were what we would call today healers
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Speaker 3: or had a sensitivity, which I think it's more cultural.
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Speaker 3: I think back then most indigenous communities had a sense
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Speaker 3: of understanding how to communicate to everything around them. They believed,
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Speaker 3: we believe, I believe everything I don't believe I know
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Speaker 3: is alive and so they had a way of having communication,
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Speaker 3: understanding what went with why, and that it's basic understanding
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Speaker 3: that medicine and poison grow together, there is no separation.
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Speaker 3: And so I grew up in a household where my
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Speaker 3: mother's mother was. The community had recognized her as a
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Speaker 3: medicine woman. They called her curandera. She never claimed this
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Speaker 3: for herself, and so she knew how to use certain
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Speaker 3: herbs for certain ailments. She knew how to do what
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Speaker 3: we call a sobato for imbacho, which is now what
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Speaker 3: I think is unclogging the meridians. I think it's what
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Speaker 3: we would call now. She did uh clean so cleansines
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Speaker 3: like we use now. It often sages used rights to
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Speaker 3: use eggs, she used to water hers, she used all
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Speaker 3: kinds of things. So I grew up around that as
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Speaker 3: a child. We also did dream work, so as as
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Speaker 3: early memories of her sending me down, asking me and
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Speaker 3: talking about dreams and asking me about my dreams and
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Speaker 3: just having so that was my introduction. I could also
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Speaker 3: say that my introduction was even before that. You know,
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Speaker 3: if we want to get wider and go into a cosmological.
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Speaker 2: Splanation, born into this.
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Speaker 3: I was born into this, and so as I stumbled
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Speaker 3: through life trying to make sense. I always felt felt
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Speaker 3: like I was a scientist. I just found fascinating how
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Speaker 3: human behavior, human interactions played out. But I also was
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Speaker 3: born with a sensitivity to the spirit world. I have
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Speaker 3: many my daughters. My grandmother had a sensitivity to hearing,
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Speaker 3: seeing things beyond the physical, and so I had also
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Speaker 3: abilities like that. And I think I was trying to
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Speaker 3: make sense of it all without you know, for my grandmother,
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Speaker 3: it was just a way of being. I don't know
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Speaker 3: if she had the ability to explain things to me.
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Speaker 3: I was just her go get this, go get that,
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Speaker 3: and I was helping her. I was just so curious,
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Speaker 3: and so I think I was trying to figure out
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Speaker 3: being in the US, how does that fit? And I
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Speaker 3: didn't understand, you know, going to a school that erased
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Speaker 3: the history, didn't teach the history of this land or
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Speaker 3: my mind, my own history, and being taught in a
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Speaker 3: system or in a classroom that's artificial, you know, you're
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Speaker 3: reading textbook. And then go to Mexico and everything was
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Speaker 3: multi dimensional and it was, you know, the real laboratory.
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Speaker 3: And so I think I, in my quest to understand myself,
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Speaker 3: locate myself. I stumbled upon psychology. I went into law first,
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Speaker 3: and then I went into psychology.
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Speaker 1: Wow, okay, hold on, so the right out of high
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Speaker 1: school you went into law.
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Speaker 3: So I went so meaning I didn't study. I went
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Speaker 3: into a law firm to work as a secretary, became
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Speaker 3: the paralegal and managed to look about ten years was
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Speaker 3: thinking about law school, but I found myself always counseling people.
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Speaker 3: And so then realized we had a case that I
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Speaker 3: won't go into detail that I said, yeah, I can't defend.
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Speaker 3: I cannot do this, not in integrity. And so I
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Speaker 3: had my first born and made a decision to go
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Speaker 3: back to school, and I stumbled. I first did site sociology, philosophy,
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Speaker 3: and then I took my first psyche class and I
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Speaker 3: fell in love and I never stopped.
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Speaker 1: So really interesting. Let me just go back a little bit.
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Speaker 1: Where did this was the law? That job? Was that
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Speaker 1: a job or was there an interest.
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Speaker 2: In the law?
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Speaker 3: No, it was a job. I moved. I grew up
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Speaker 3: with a very traumatic, very violent background my parents. So
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Speaker 3: I knew at nineteen that if I didn't make it out,
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Speaker 3: my spirit would be crushed. And so I moved out.
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Speaker 3: And now I found myself needing a job, and there
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Speaker 3: was the man Raoul via Lobos, who had gone to
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Speaker 3: my high school and talked to us. And I was
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Speaker 3: still moved by what he had to say. You know,
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Speaker 3: it was like one of the few latinos that I
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Speaker 3: was seeing in front of me, and he was missed
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Speaker 3: these to indigenous as well speaking. And I thought, well,
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Speaker 3: whatever he's selling, I want to buy, because this is
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Speaker 3: the first time I feel like a real connection, you know,
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Speaker 3: makes sense. And so I went up to him, and
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Speaker 3: you know, and he was like, oh, great to me.
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Speaker 3: G if you ever needed a job, call me. Here's
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Speaker 3: my card, and I took him there. So I showed
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Speaker 3: up and I convinced him to give me a job.
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Speaker 3: And that was the beginning of my time in law
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Speaker 3: in the law of space.
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Speaker 2: Really interesting.
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Speaker 1: So you grew up born into this sensitivity, this kind
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Speaker 1: of world of wonder, of really intense knowing in a sense,
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Speaker 1: and you just mentioned more recently this this your immediate upbringing,
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Speaker 1: Your immediate childhood was somewhat violent.
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Speaker 3: Yes, so I'm a survivor of domestic violence, you know,
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Speaker 3: which is very common in families that are displaced. Right, So,
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Speaker 3: and you know, we could speak later. It's kind of
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Speaker 3: what my chapters in the book there are displaced as empowered.
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Speaker 3: My father is a survivor of Jesuit boarding school as
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Speaker 3: well that we used. You know, he was abused and
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Speaker 3: treated in ways that were not humane, never talked or
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Speaker 3: dot with. And then he meets my mother and so
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Speaker 3: there were some things that worked out through their relationship,
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Speaker 3: and I was a witness, and it was not very
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Speaker 3: It was not very It was hard, you know. And
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Speaker 3: I think the thing that saved me was I had
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Speaker 3: three brothers and we just we were tight and we
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Speaker 3: really loved to protect at each other. But in nineteen
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Speaker 3: I knew WHI I was wise enough to know I
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Speaker 3: need to leave this environment and I have the tools
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Speaker 3: to go into the adult world. But I didn't think
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Speaker 3: I had a choice. And so as sensitive as I was,
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Speaker 3: I think I was grabbing from whatever was there to
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Speaker 3: begin to build. And a very young age, I had
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Speaker 3: dreams that were guiding me. I had spirits, you know,
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Speaker 3: I had things that were it gave me a sense
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Speaker 3: of strength and direction that now I can appreciate. I
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Speaker 3: didn't know that's what that was then, and so I
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Speaker 3: just kept moving forward and it would land me in
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Speaker 3: places that doors would open and would give me enough
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Speaker 3: to sustain me and where I needed to be in
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Speaker 3: that moment, And slowly my spiritual which is at the
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Speaker 3: core of everything practice, started to unfold where I needed
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Speaker 3: to go to learn the things I needed to learn
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Speaker 3: to do what I do now, unfolded in a very
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Speaker 3: did you ever read the Tao of Pooh?
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Speaker 2: Yes?
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Speaker 3: Yeah, where you're just kind of like kind of moving around,
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Speaker 3: you know, still not in my body, still not locating myself, dumbfounded,
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Speaker 3: and you keep bumping and stumbling in the right places
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Speaker 3: at the right time, and then you stay there for
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Speaker 3: a while, absorbed, and you don't know. Now I go back,
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Speaker 3: and I can make connect the dots, and I see
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Speaker 3: how brilliant and how fortunate I was that had a
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Speaker 3: deep sense of soul and spirit guiding me. And my
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Speaker 3: ecological sense was always there because I'm indigenous. This is
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Speaker 3: not something I come to learn. This is something that
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Speaker 3: I come to remember and discover and unfold. And so
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Speaker 3: that was the guiding force through all of this in
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Speaker 3: understanding why am I here, what am I doing? Where
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Speaker 3: do I really come from? And why in this historical
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Speaker 3: political time.
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Speaker 2: You mentioned your chapter in the book, tell our listeners
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Speaker 2: what we're talking about here.
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Speaker 3: So the chapter in my book, I call it land
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Speaker 3: back my body as first charritory. And with this movement
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Speaker 3: of land back, I'm sure you've heard in the indigenous
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Speaker 3: communities and this sense of land acknowledgment as a descendant
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Speaker 3: of indigenous peoples whose land was taken by the first
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Speaker 3: colonization that hit Mexico, the Spice Spaniards, and then here
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Speaker 3: in the US as well by the Anglo, by the settlers.
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Speaker 3: There's a sense of your body is connected to the
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Speaker 3: land that you are born, the food that has grown
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Speaker 3: in the land. We're Gumpsinos, we are farmers, right, and
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Speaker 3: so the construction of the body is formed through the
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Speaker 3: food that you eat. It's information, right, It's food is medicine.
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Speaker 3: And so in being displaced and moved, and then the
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Speaker 3: just position of then now you're an immigrant and the
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Speaker 3: land that was before just land that your ancestors moved
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Speaker 3: back and forth and traded, and you're in a foreign language,
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Speaker 3: foreign system. Everything is foreign. Not only are your displaced
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Speaker 3: from land, literally you're displaced from the acknowledgment and the
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Speaker 3: knowledge of your body and trying to yourself and so
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Speaker 3: the chapter is about the journey of reclaiming those two things,
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Speaker 3: both literally, spiritually and metaphysically as well. And so the
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Speaker 3: chapter covers the story of that, about bringing and weaving
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Speaker 3: in my medicine, my culturally, culturally rooted medicine. How I
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Speaker 3: wove a container that included Western psychologists. That's where I
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Speaker 3: have my studies is in clinical psychology right amongst many
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Speaker 3: other things. And so that in claiming first my body
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Speaker 3: as first territory, then I can claim myself, locate myself,
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Speaker 3: and then claim land, meaning I can now understand that
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Speaker 3: I am a steward of this earth. This land is
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Speaker 3: my responsibility. And my people who had technology, they know
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Speaker 3: how to grow food, food that actually nourishes the body,
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Speaker 3: that actually protects the brain and the nervous system. They
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Speaker 3: were that was taken away from them. This placed Now
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Speaker 3: that's what they That's what they know to do for
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Speaker 3: thousands of years too, in a system that doesn't place
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Speaker 3: them and sort of wants them to go away. So
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Speaker 3: now I'm reclaiming I do know what my body needs
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Speaker 3: to be fed. I don't want to eat food that's artificial,
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Speaker 3: that has chemicals that keeps me now, that keeps me
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Speaker 3: frenetic with you know, head heavy energy. I know better
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Speaker 3: than that. And so that's what this journeys about and
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Speaker 3: understanding and helping us come back to a place where
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Speaker 3: it's simple and we understand the role of food, the
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Speaker 3: role of the earth that we are, the fact that
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Speaker 3: we have access to clean water, clean air, clean food,
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Speaker 3: soil that's fertile. It's actually quite an important, you know,
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Speaker 3: if we want to plan and so and the other
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Speaker 3: component of that is that I'm reclaiming this as as
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Speaker 3: a e comments of a woman, which is wmb y
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Speaker 3: N because the technology I'm bringing forth is helping re
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Speaker 3: establish the sacred mother in her role as birther, as
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Speaker 3: lifegiver to secure and protect that role. And so in
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Speaker 3: activating my own womb with the cosmology and the technology,
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Speaker 3: understand that we are the channels through our bodies we
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Speaker 3: create a human form, a soul, this sense in our womb.
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Speaker 3: We give life to that and birth it. And so
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Speaker 3: those are the things that I'm speaking about and reclaiming
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Speaker 3: helping other bodies reactivate and put their bodies, their nervous
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Speaker 3: systems back online to access not just the five senses,
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Speaker 3: but beyond those senses. Again, we can learn to be
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Speaker 3: in harmony, in an ecological wellness with the whole earth,
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Speaker 3: and understand how to communicate in a way that's cooperative
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Speaker 3: with everything that's alive. That was a mouthful.
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Speaker 1: That was a mouthful. Share with the listeners. The name
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Speaker 1: of that book.
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Speaker 3: Yes, So the.
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Speaker 4: Book itself is called Women Therapists and Healing and it's
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Speaker 4: a compilation of intersectional essays, approaches, and reclamations towards feminist
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Speaker 4: futures and mental health.
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Speaker 3: That's the name of the book. There's several authors, there's uh,
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Speaker 3: it's a few bipoc women of color, but everybody's a therapist.
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Speaker 1: Now, this was together by Susan Pace Bannett. Right, so
15:48
Speaker 1: we've got Christine Forner, she was on Lisa danel Chuck,
15:52
Speaker 1: I had her on Robin Shapiro, Mimi Savage, among others.
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Speaker 2: So you what listening to you talk is, I mean,
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Speaker 2: you just have this.
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Speaker 1: Amazing elemental, foundational, earthen sense about you that obviously you
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Speaker 1: bring into your work. Certainly you're bringing into this chapter.
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Speaker 1: But when you're working with individuals, how are you working now?
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Speaker 2: Are you in private practice or what?
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Speaker 3: So I'm doing private practice, I also do I'm a
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Speaker 3: circle keeper, So I do circles in the community around
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Speaker 3: racial healing. I also do women's circles around room activation
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Speaker 3: understanding what that means. And I do psilocyber and microdos
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Speaker 3: in circles for neural repatterning, rewriting our narrative. That's the
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Speaker 3: programming of how we look at the world and we
16:51
Speaker 3: look at ourselves and then just basically holding space for
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Speaker 3: them to sit with themselves to understand how are they
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Speaker 3: moving and make active choices, you know, to activate a
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Speaker 3: sense of agency and self direction. So those are the
17:08
Speaker 3: things right now besides writing and playing my.
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Speaker 2: Heart so much.
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Speaker 1: What you're talking about, Claudia fuels so necessary in our
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Speaker 1: world right now. I mean, I feel like we are
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Speaker 1: so as a culture, a disconnected from ourselves, from our heart,
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Speaker 1: from our center. Everything you're talking about I feel we need.
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Speaker 3: Yeah, thank you, I appreciate that.
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Speaker 2: Yes, How do you what are you seeing with the
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Speaker 2: people you work with?
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Speaker 3: Why?
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Speaker 2: Why are people coming to work with you?
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Speaker 3: They're disembodied. They don't know how to turn on to
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Speaker 3: they don't know how to be intimate with their bodies,
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Speaker 3: they don't know how to experience pleasure through their bodies.
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Speaker 3: It's a very simple like you know, here I am,
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Speaker 3: I'm enjoying this fresh cocau cup of cocau, and I
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Speaker 3: can sensorly feel the pleasure and communicate with this guck
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Speaker 3: out and that this is something all humans can do,
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Speaker 3: and that a lot of humans don't know what I'm
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Speaker 3: talking about. When I say that, it's very sad. They're
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Speaker 3: coming because they're in this. The crack has cracked and
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Speaker 3: they don't know what to do. They don't can see
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Speaker 3: a future, and they want to fix it or get better.
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Speaker 3: And I say, no, it's time to sit with and
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Speaker 3: let because we don't want to create something based on
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Speaker 3: the old stuff. We want to really wait for the
18:36
Speaker 3: new stuff to show up that is going to hold
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Speaker 3: us through. They're coming to me because we need a mythology.
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Speaker 3: They don't know what to hold on to as they
18:43
Speaker 3: transition into a new thing.
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Speaker 2: Wow, So I loved what you said there.
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Speaker 1: The crack is cracked and you want to fix it,
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Speaker 1: and you're like, wait a minute, it's time to sit
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Speaker 1: with say more about that.
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Speaker 3: Yes, it's time to be with you know, we've avoided
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Speaker 3: pain and our inner chaos. We're avoiding the messy. We
19:13
Speaker 3: want to organize everything and give it its place and
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Speaker 3: name everything you know, and we forget that all this
19:18
Speaker 3: comes from a much larger intelligence. And if we just
19:22
Speaker 3: learned to be still and listen first to our heartbeat,
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Speaker 3: first to our pain, another crack, and that crack leads
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Speaker 3: you to what I what it is called. It's not
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Speaker 3: just I call this the sacred hoop. And in that
19:38
Speaker 3: space you are in conversation with the universe herself. And
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Speaker 3: then you become aware that you are bodies. Inside our
19:46
Speaker 3: bodies is the universe and we can we have access
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Speaker 3: to so much. Why would I want to come up
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Speaker 3: with a solution. I know universe is a lot more
19:58
Speaker 3: intelligent than I have. I want to get advice from her. Also,
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Speaker 3: I'm part of a collective and I want to be
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Speaker 3: conscious of what I'm putting out there so that my
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Speaker 3: heart guides me and provides something that is in service
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Speaker 3: and benefits the greater whole. In cooperative with the cooperative spirit,
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Speaker 3: you know.
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Speaker 1: I realize there are different ways you work with different people.
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Speaker 1: But for example, how would you instruct someone to quote
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Speaker 1: unquote sit with you know, to not rush to fix
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Speaker 1: the cracks?
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Speaker 3: So I use basic So I've studied mindfulness techniques. I
20:45
Speaker 3: studied for a long time from descentance from the Yoganan,
20:49
Speaker 3: from Yogananda that we're taught some of his techniques and
20:52
Speaker 3: breath work and body movement things like that. So I
20:54
Speaker 3: do grounded ancient traditions of being able to sit with yourself.
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Speaker 3: I haven't come at three things that they're working with
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Speaker 3: me as a group and individual. One, they must develop
21:04
Speaker 3: a sitting practice and it could start with five minutes.
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Speaker 3: And that means that you commit to a sitting pose
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Speaker 3: and you don't move. You don't have to steal your mind,
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Speaker 3: you don't have to focus on one point. You just
21:15
Speaker 3: have to sit with yourself and not move five minutes.
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Speaker 3: The other two components is I have them to do
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Speaker 3: a timeline of their story. Are they aware of what's
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Speaker 3: their story, what's their life story? And so they have
21:27
Speaker 3: to map it so that they're aware of what are
21:30
Speaker 3: the stories they're carrying that's informing how they look at
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Speaker 3: the world, how they interpret, you know. And then we
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Speaker 3: start to work with which stories need to be released, reworked,
21:44
Speaker 3: and when new stories need to be included. And then
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Speaker 3: I have to keep a journal like a somatic journal,
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Speaker 3: where they're witnessing, no interpretation, no mini making, just noticing
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Speaker 3: the sensations that is showing up for them, introducing them
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Speaker 3: to a different language and maybe symbols. Now, you know,
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Speaker 3: I saw in my meditation today appeared the image of
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Speaker 3: a star or you know, and so just just take
22:12
Speaker 3: taking note, bringing in another way of sensing things that
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Speaker 3: has little, as much as possible, little to do with
22:21
Speaker 3: logic and language, and more to do with the more
22:26
Speaker 3: mysterious unconscious stuff that might show up, so that hopefully
22:32
Speaker 3: conscious and unconscious are now in dialogue.
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Speaker 2: Very ah, I mean this, what you're talking about here
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Speaker 2: is brilliant tense.
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Speaker 1: I mean this is you know, it's so easy to
22:46
Speaker 1: say and talk about, you know, sit with yourself.
22:49
Speaker 2: But obviously, as we all know, stuff is going to come.
22:53
Speaker 3: Up that when it does, yes, and work with them
22:57
Speaker 3: when it does, because it does, because it does.
23:01
Speaker 5: What are you noticing in terms of the way individuals
23:08
Speaker 5: people the field is working with trauma now and many
23:14
Speaker 5: people are talking about trauma seems to be much more
23:18
Speaker 5: now in the cultural sphere parlance rather what are you seeing?
23:22
Speaker 2: What are you noticing?
23:25
Speaker 3: Well, I'm noticing that everybody's talking about the nervous system
23:28
Speaker 3: which is good the vagus, nerve, the nervous system, corregulation,
23:33
Speaker 3: regulation and all of that stuff. But what I'm noticing
23:37
Speaker 3: that I want to continue to notice and uplift is
23:41
Speaker 3: the call to do healing as a collective. And so
23:45
Speaker 3: that's where I'm shifting as well. No more one on one.
23:48
Speaker 3: Let's do this share resource. And you know, when I bring,
23:53
Speaker 3: I know how to use my nervous system. So one
23:55
Speaker 3: of the things that I think I bring that's a
23:57
Speaker 3: little different. I don't think I'm the only one doing this,
24:01
Speaker 3: is I am regulating the energy in the room. I
24:04
Speaker 3: know how to hit certain tones in the room, and
24:06
Speaker 3: I have people I have trained to work with me
24:09
Speaker 3: to hold the containers so people can drop down, because
24:12
Speaker 3: really the only thing they need to do is to
24:14
Speaker 3: soften the muscle of soma and not have to go
24:19
Speaker 3: into a story but sound and movement right in a
24:22
Speaker 3: group setting and so that no one's holding. So if
24:25
Speaker 3: you come, if you drop into a pain that's stuck
24:27
Speaker 3: in your body and you're by yourself, that's going to
24:29
Speaker 3: be very painful. But if you're in a room full
24:31
Speaker 3: of people, the nervous system knows to share that and
24:35
Speaker 3: no one seeing that alone, or you become a protagonist
24:39
Speaker 3: or like a psychodrama. So if you take on and
24:43
Speaker 3: you're giving an expression to a pain and you're making
24:47
Speaker 3: sound because I don't encourage sound and movement and shaking,
24:50
Speaker 3: you know, then that cathartically releases it in the other
24:53
Speaker 3: bodies as well. And that's how I'm working it. It
24:57
Speaker 3: feels more efficient and kind. And what is what I'm
25:02
Speaker 3: noticing and what I'm seeing people come back and say,
25:04
Speaker 3: is they were able to move through things that day.
25:07
Speaker 3: Most of people that come to me in therapy for ten, fifteen,
25:09
Speaker 3: twenty years and like, I haven't been able to move
25:11
Speaker 3: this in forever, and it seems so easy. And I
25:14
Speaker 3: don't know if I would say easy, but I think
25:16
Speaker 3: that the thing is how do we get the ego
25:19
Speaker 3: to get out of way and how do we get
25:20
Speaker 3: the body and the soma and the muscle to soften.
25:23
Speaker 3: When we talk about lego, people are trying to let go,
25:27
Speaker 3: but that's not what the lego means. It's really just
25:29
Speaker 3: fashia and muscle right, and then other things start and
25:32
Speaker 3: then you can work with it. And if you're doing
25:33
Speaker 3: it in community, you're not alone that sense of isolation
25:38
Speaker 3: which is a big part of the pain. Word caring
25:41
Speaker 3: seems to just be able to jump out of it,
25:44
Speaker 3: and at least in that moment, you.
25:46
Speaker 2: Know, that aspect seems to mirror so much to the
25:50
Speaker 2: culture right that you were born into, contrasted with what
25:57
Speaker 2: the culture many of us are born into, which is
26:00
Speaker 2: singular alone. Right.
26:02
Speaker 1: We've even lost that, We've gone so far from that.
26:06
Speaker 3: I mean, most of the times when I get people
26:08
Speaker 3: to come, especially European Wane Americans, I just want to
26:12
Speaker 3: hug them for the first three sessions, you know, because
26:15
Speaker 3: there's no touch deprived. They're so tender and warmth deprived,
26:19
Speaker 3: and you could see it. And a lot of it
26:21
Speaker 3: is just that, you know, like oh my goodness, and
26:25
Speaker 3: the sense of to have someone say I have love
26:29
Speaker 3: for you, you know, and it takes a while. You know,
26:32
Speaker 3: it's like, no, it's real, but it's such a foreign
26:34
Speaker 3: concept that only happens if you know someone really well.
26:37
Speaker 3: That love could flow that freely is like, you know,
26:40
Speaker 3: it kind of has this okay community when you're in group,
26:47
Speaker 3: do you feel it? People will say I feel intimacy here,
26:51
Speaker 3: I feel Neil say they feel because I do, I
26:55
Speaker 3: feel like I'm in a womb. Yes, that's intentional. I
26:58
Speaker 3: create a womb, which is why you know I have that.
27:00
Speaker 3: You know, I'm consciously aware about that technology. And I
27:04
Speaker 3: think that's once you know, as you know, right, once
27:08
Speaker 3: you feel safe enough to really say what you've got
27:11
Speaker 3: to say and be and see that you're seeing and
27:15
Speaker 3: witness and maybe some ugly who you think is ugly
27:18
Speaker 3: shows through, and that the eyes that are looking back
27:21
Speaker 3: at you are still seeing you with a loving gaze.
27:24
Speaker 3: That's transformative and to be several to look at you
27:28
Speaker 3: that way. Then you start to think, maybe this inner
27:31
Speaker 3: voice that tells me I don't know what I'm saying
27:33
Speaker 3: or doing is not true.
27:36
Speaker 2: Do you work with just women?
27:39
Speaker 3: No, I don't.
27:40
Speaker 2: Just who inspires you? I mean, aside from your grandmother's
27:46
Speaker 2: right now?
27:47
Speaker 1: Yeah, where do you draw inspiration from personally and in
27:52
Speaker 1: your work?
27:53
Speaker 3: Okay, So I'll go into order. First, the women that
27:57
Speaker 3: have gone before me, literally I speak to them, have
28:00
Speaker 3: a group of women to show up in my dreams.
28:03
Speaker 3: And then nature I live by I live a black
28:06
Speaker 3: Way from Lake Michigan. I go and I dance, and
28:09
Speaker 3: I sing, and I pray to her almost every day,
28:11
Speaker 3: and I swim in her almost every day, even when
28:13
Speaker 3: it's really cold. And then people like I currently work
28:17
Speaker 3: and I'm mentoring under doctor she's in Seattle, Reverend angel
28:25
Speaker 3: iCIO Williams Uh doctor Bio. I can always have trouble
28:31
Speaker 3: pronouncing his last name. He's from Africa, and he's he's
28:34
Speaker 3: speaking languages that I have been afraid to say. It
28:37
Speaker 3: was really great to hear him talk because he's talking
28:40
Speaker 3: about this crack and about the monstrous that's coming out
28:46
Speaker 3: of the crack, you know, and to don't try to
28:48
Speaker 3: like fix it and make it pretty, just be with it,
28:50
Speaker 3: trust it here, listen to it. You know that elders
28:56
Speaker 3: like Pat McCabe. I have three LUs Glara, Ana, Luisa,
29:02
Speaker 3: and oh my goodness, my sister who is closer to me.
29:08
Speaker 3: Her names escape me right now. It's awful that I
29:12
Speaker 3: talked to regularly. They're my checks and balances. And then
29:15
Speaker 3: the other ones that I draw inspiration are my two daughters.
29:19
Speaker 2: Were the people listening, you know, therapists, coaches of all
29:23
Speaker 2: kinds an interest in trauma, certainly, what would you say
29:31
Speaker 2: to them in terms of advice or suggestions about education,
29:39
Speaker 2: learning about how to work with people who've been impacted
29:42
Speaker 2: by trauma.
29:44
Speaker 3: Do things one. Start holding circles, call the people in
29:52
Speaker 3: and just open space to share your stories, make food,
29:58
Speaker 3: feed each other, drink warm beverages that don't have caffeine,
30:03
Speaker 3: and just sit with each other. And here the biggest
30:06
Speaker 3: teachers are the ones that we don't even know, that
30:08
Speaker 3: are sitting next to us, our neighbors that we've never
30:10
Speaker 3: even said hello. Every mind person in the world hear
30:14
Speaker 3: those stories. Education wise. Tune into every indigenous elder. That is,
30:21
Speaker 3: we are now coming out and we're sharing all the medicine.
30:24
Speaker 3: Tune into them. Hear what they're saying. Take what you need,
30:30
Speaker 3: Tend to the soil the garden of your mind. Put
30:33
Speaker 3: in the right seats. It now's the time. Water them
30:36
Speaker 3: with your heart, digest it all, process it, feel the pain,
30:41
Speaker 3: and trust yourself. Trust yourself. You are born. We are
30:47
Speaker 3: all born to thrive. And so when we sit and
30:51
Speaker 3: listen to ourselves, we will know what Say yes and
30:54
Speaker 3: then no, and start stop doing what's in know and
30:57
Speaker 3: follow the joy, the arch of our joy and pleasure.
31:01
Speaker 3: That's the religion. Besides of course kindness and love. Follow
31:06
Speaker 3: the pleasure. If it feels good, do it, you know well,
31:10
Speaker 3: no even if it's a bad thing, Eventually you'll realize,
31:12
Speaker 3: oh no, this is not feeling good, this is actually
31:15
Speaker 3: a bad thing. But to learn to be self directed
31:17
Speaker 3: and trust and watch when we're constantly looking out for direction,
31:21
Speaker 3: start to look in for direction. And if we stumble,
31:25
Speaker 3: we stumble, you know. But to do it in community.
31:29
Speaker 3: Keep holding the people in for storytelling. You know, have
31:33
Speaker 3: pot lucks once a week. Invest in your community, right, colleagues, neighbors,
31:39
Speaker 3: the young people, tell them the stories of your life
31:43
Speaker 3: to the young people. My daughter's twenty three and my
31:47
Speaker 3: also into eighteen year old, and have an adopted daughter
31:51
Speaker 3: that literally adopted, she'sn't living with us. And they come
31:54
Speaker 3: and we have stories about sex, about relationship, you know,
31:58
Speaker 3: and they eat it up right. And there was and
32:03
Speaker 3: I've you know, there was a time when my twenty
32:05
Speaker 3: three year old did not want to hear anything that
32:07
Speaker 3: I had to say because you know, it's and I
32:09
Speaker 3: worked on it. And yeah, still sometimes she doesn't want to,
32:12
Speaker 3: you know, But like, how are we opening space for
32:16
Speaker 3: sharing to happen? My biggest advice right now, soften the belly,
32:21
Speaker 3: soft in the heart. Let's just share our stories. I
32:26
Speaker 3: never there's never been a time I meet somebody that
32:29
Speaker 3: I don't walk away like wow, if I listen.
32:33
Speaker 2: Thank you for that awesome. How do people get in
32:37
Speaker 2: touch with you?
32:39
Speaker 3: So I am because I've been doing some plant mess
32:42
Speaker 3: and and you know, had to be a little bit
32:43
Speaker 3: underground when I was trying to merge these to My
32:45
Speaker 3: website's just about to go out, but my business, actually
32:50
Speaker 3: my email is the best way right now, which would
32:53
Speaker 3: be my full name, lad Villa Kova at iCloud. My
32:57
Speaker 3: website should be going up in the next few weeks.
33:01
Speaker 3: On Instagram, I do have a Luna Lunata which is
33:07
Speaker 3: crazy Moon, and I do post up there, but I
33:11
Speaker 3: really haven't had an online presence. I'm just not really
33:16
Speaker 3: starting because of the nature of my work to go
33:19
Speaker 3: out before I felt safe enough to come forward with
33:21
Speaker 3: all the different ways that I was practicing.
33:26
Speaker 2: Audia amazing. You are incredible and I can't wait to
33:30
Speaker 2: have you back here. Thank you so much for.
33:33
Speaker 3: Mag Thank you. I want to know more about you
33:35
Speaker 3: next time on.
33:36
Speaker 2: A you all right, We'll do that. Thank you so much.
33:40
Speaker 3: Thank you. Hetman from s