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What Does It Mean To Heal with With Sara Davidson · The Trauma Therapist

0:00
Speaker 1: Welcome to the Trauma Therapist podcast. My name is Gaming Person.
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Speaker 1: I interview incredible people who've dedicated their lives to helping
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Speaker 1: those who've been impacted by trauma. A big thank you
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Speaker 1: to our sponsors and our guests who are supporting this
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Speaker 1: show five four three two pandemic fifth our folks, welcome
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Speaker 1: back to the podcast. Very excited to have my guest today,
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Speaker 1: Sarah Davidson.
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Speaker 2: Sarah, welcome, Thank you, kindly excited to be here.
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Speaker 1: Awesome. Sarah is a registered psychotherapist, former elite athlete and coach,
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Speaker 1: and the author of Anybody Can Heal, a memoir about
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Speaker 1: trauma resilience in the body's capacity to recover. Drawing on
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Speaker 1: her clinical work and her own story, Sarah Blend's trauma
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Speaker 1: informed and body based approaches, including poly bagel theory and
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Speaker 1: sematic awareness, to help people understand their nervous systems and
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Speaker 1: rebuild self trust. Her athletic background shapes how she thinks
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Speaker 1: about endurance, recovery, and the way the body carries both
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Speaker 1: the strength ands All right, Sarah, before we could going
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Speaker 1: share with our listeners where you're from originally and where
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Speaker 1: you are currently.
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Speaker 3: So Originally originally from Vancouver, BC, Canada and in Toronto.
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Speaker 1: Now, okay, all right, so let's start off here. How
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Speaker 1: did this all begin for you?
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Speaker 2: All? Begin?
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Speaker 3: So, I actually used to be a high school teacher,
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Speaker 3: and kind of in between the years of two thousand
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Speaker 3: and four and twenty ten, I had survived a knife
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Speaker 3: attack while I was doing my practice teaching in South Africa,
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Speaker 3: and then I survived the two thousand and four tsunami
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Speaker 3: on Boxing Day in Southeast Asia while I was on
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Speaker 3: the and then kind of fast forward to twenty ten,
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Speaker 3: while I was actually just finishing my teaching career, I
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Speaker 3: was living in Trinidad when I survived a home invasion
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Speaker 3: and sexual assault that obviously left my world super shattered,
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Speaker 3: with my sense of safety in the world and my body.
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Speaker 3: And uniquely I was in this position I just started
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Speaker 3: my master's in psychotherapy to kind of like pivot to
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Speaker 3: a new career finishing my teaching career, and so I
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Speaker 3: was in this unique position of trying to figure out, like,
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Speaker 3: you know, reading you know, all the coursework and literature
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Speaker 3: on you know, psychotherapy and trauma, and then literally trying
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Speaker 3: to kind of put my life back together. Yeah, and
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Speaker 3: then obviously I thankfully had a long road ahead of me,
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Speaker 3: but a lot of privilege to be able to dive
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Speaker 3: really deep into like intense trauma therapy. So I did
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Speaker 3: like sensorimotor psychotherapy and EMDR narrow feedback, brain spotting, all
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Speaker 3: of the things, and definitely, like you know, moved ahead.
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Speaker 3: Was able to reclaim lots of parts of my life.
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Speaker 3: But I feel like the true pivotal pieces of my
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Speaker 3: healing came a little bit further on when I actually
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Speaker 3: became a psychotherapist.
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Speaker 1: So if we may, first of all, thank you for
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Speaker 1: sharing all that. And damn, I mean come ah, And
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Speaker 1: what was this knife attack? What happened that one?
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Speaker 3: I was doing my practice teaching in South Africa where
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Speaker 3: my we had family members and I was just on
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Speaker 3: the back field with my kids doing track and field
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Speaker 3: and guys broke through the back fence.
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Speaker 2: So that was that was that one.
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Speaker 1: And then and so what what people coming at you
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Speaker 1: with a knife?
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Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean like grabbing me from behind, Oh my god.
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Speaker 3: Yeah, and you know, wanting like whatever kind of jewelry
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Speaker 3: I had on me. It was like a robbery.
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Speaker 1: Wow for sure.
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Speaker 2: Yeah.
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Speaker 1: Wow. So in the bio it said you were an
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Speaker 1: elite athlete and a coach talk a little bit about
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Speaker 1: that experience.
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Speaker 3: Yeah, So I soccer was just I kind of played
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Speaker 3: everything I could get my hands on. Soccer ended up
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Speaker 3: being my passions. I went down to the United States
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Speaker 3: on scholarship and played Division one there and then ended
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Speaker 3: up going over to Iceland and playing kind of like
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Speaker 3: in a semi pro league for a little while, and
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Speaker 3: then like got my coaching, so I would coach teams
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Speaker 3: and now like my kind of coach, like my son's
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Speaker 3: hockey team now. And yeah, so.
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Speaker 1: What was the the interest in pivoting or moving into
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Speaker 1: or being pulled into psychotherapy?
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Speaker 3: Truthfully, I got I was a phys ed teacher, which
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Speaker 3: I loved, but just got a bit monotonous. So I
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Speaker 3: kind of tried to figure out what I loved about
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Speaker 3: the teaching, and it was like hanging out with the kids,
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Speaker 3: talking about life, talking about the hard things, and just
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Speaker 3: kind of landed on psychotherapy.
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Speaker 1: Yeah. And so you start, as you said, you know,
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Speaker 1: reading everything and doing the course work. When you started
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Speaker 1: reading about trauma, what was that like for you giving
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Speaker 1: given your past experiences.
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Speaker 3: Definitely, like, you know, lots of reactions in the body
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Speaker 3: to it, for sure. But the further I got from
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Speaker 3: my own therapy. Like I was in a pretty decent place,
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Speaker 3: like I, you know, fully functioning in the world, struggling
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Speaker 3: with a bit of anxiety, and you know, body getting
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Speaker 3: kind of like quote unquote hijacked sometimes from incidences in
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Speaker 3: the everyday world. You know, somebody bumps me from behind,
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Speaker 3: or there's a loud noise, or sometimes some nightmares, but
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Speaker 3: like mostly doing okay. But I had started working with
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Speaker 3: these students at a university in my own private practice,
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Speaker 3: and you know, just like high intensity, lots of pressure
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Speaker 3: on themselves, high anxiety, some with trauma histories, and I
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Speaker 3: was just trying to figure out how I could support
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Speaker 3: them more because I was a newer clinician, and so
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Speaker 3: I really kind of tried to dive into the neuroscience
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Speaker 3: of like I don't know, just like healing and the
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Speaker 3: mechanisms of survival and like what was happening in their body.
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Speaker 3: And I think that's when it kind of clicked for me,
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Speaker 3: Like I really realized, you know, what I had gone through,
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Speaker 3: you know, the whole fight a flight freeze, like what
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Speaker 3: my body had kind of done to keep me safe
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Speaker 3: and it's in its darkest hours literally was not something
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Speaker 3: to be ashamed of or scared of or and it
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Speaker 3: really shifted my I don't know, my thinking to like
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Speaker 3: this thing that I used to dread that would pop
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Speaker 3: up in my body, you know, like maybe anxiety or
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Speaker 3: again all the things that kind of I would struggle
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Speaker 3: with on.
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Speaker 2: A daily to a more like oh wow, like this
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Speaker 2: is how you kept me safe.
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Speaker 3: You were you know, my body is awesome, and sometimes
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Speaker 3: it gets tired and sometimes it still like struggles with
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Speaker 3: you know, anxiety or whatever it was. And you know,
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Speaker 3: it wasn't about moving backwards, you know, or not healing.
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Speaker 3: It was just like this is the here and now
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Speaker 3: and almost like having more compassion for what I had
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Speaker 3: gone through and what and how my body had kept
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Speaker 3: me safe. And that shift kind of when I kind
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Speaker 3: of explained that stuff to the students and you know,
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Speaker 3: the idea of the window of tall Tolwance and kind
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Speaker 3: of really checking in to see what my body needed
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Speaker 3: in those moments to feel safe actually really helped them
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Speaker 3: as well.
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Speaker 1: If we go back just a little bit, when what
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Speaker 1: was your entree into your own personal healing, was that
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Speaker 1: something that came directly in the wake of the last
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Speaker 1: traumatic experience or.
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Speaker 3: Or what Yeah, totally just didn't actually know how to
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Speaker 3: get up and brush my teeth in the morning, like
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Speaker 3: that kind of place.
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Speaker 2: I was in.
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Speaker 3: And so I have a super supportive family and wonderful
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Speaker 3: people in my life. So they kind of rallied and
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Speaker 3: just said, okay, like what, like what do we do
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Speaker 3: in this?
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Speaker 2: You know, when we googled like.
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Speaker 3: Trauma therapist Toronto, and these names popped up, and I
7:42
Speaker 3: kind of started started with a sensory motor psycotherapist and
7:45
Speaker 3: then she kind of you know, passed me along when
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Speaker 3: appropriate to like an EMDR person or this like neuro
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Speaker 3: feedback person. And it was it was intense, It was
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Speaker 3: a lot.
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Speaker 1: What was your immediate reaction to the idea of seeking
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Speaker 1: out and going to seeking out a therapist and going
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Speaker 1: to a therapist? Were you like, yes, bring it on,
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Speaker 1: or no, I can do this by myself.
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Speaker 2: Yeah, good question, I think.
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Speaker 1: Because I'm just guessing. Let me just say, you strike
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Speaker 1: me as someone who's very strong, very strong minded, and
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Speaker 1: this this is not a slight but maybe someone who's
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Speaker 1: like I can do this by myself.
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Speaker 2: Yeah, that's a good question.
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Speaker 3: And you've clearly read me well from the little time
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Speaker 3: we've been talking. Honestly, after the tsunami and the knife
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Speaker 3: attack in South Africa, I was like, oh, this is fine, Like.
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Speaker 2: I'm good, I got nothing.
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Speaker 3: Yeah, and then Trinidad rocked me, like the assault in
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Speaker 3: Trinidad that put me to a place where I actually
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Speaker 3: just couldn't function without.
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Speaker 2: Help, you know.
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Speaker 3: And now the more I know is that we're wired
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Speaker 3: for connection, right, how can we not heal with others?
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Speaker 3: And so I think the best thing I obviously did
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Speaker 3: was go back and do the work. And the more
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Speaker 3: I've learned about like I never would have known about
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Speaker 3: the semantics of my body and the fight flight and
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Speaker 3: freeze and why my body froze in those moments, and
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Speaker 3: how I had shamed for it before, but now I'm
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Speaker 3: actually proud of it, right, Like I wouldn't have had
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Speaker 3: those shifts had I not.
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Speaker 2: Had someone kind of explain those things to me.
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Speaker 1: So, yeah, when you did that started interrupt When when
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Speaker 1: you had that experience with that sematic therapist, were you
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Speaker 1: already in your own studies to become a therapist? Like
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Speaker 1: just okay, So everything was new, very very new.
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Speaker 3: So I didn't really Yeah, so her explaining it to me,
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Speaker 3: I would kind of read it later on, but it
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Speaker 3: was all very very new.
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Speaker 1: And talk a little bit about how that treatment unfolded
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Speaker 1: for you, how the healing unfolded for you.
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Speaker 3: A lot of mine was like, I mean, I hated it.
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Speaker 3: I hated going. I hated the fact that I had
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Speaker 3: to go, but I knew it was what I needed
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Speaker 3: to do. But it wasn't easy work, right, it was exhausting,
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Speaker 3: and you know, I think, I'm sorry, I just lost
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Speaker 3: my train of thought. That's a little trauma, a little
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Speaker 3: trauma moment.
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Speaker 2: Sorry say that again.
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Speaker 1: I'm curious about how the healing and the therapy and
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Speaker 1: the treatment unfolded for you.
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Speaker 3: I think I know for me, a large part was
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Speaker 3: reclaiming things that I felt had kind of been taken,
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Speaker 3: so like my safety in the world, Like how could
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Speaker 3: I reclaim that? How could I kind of recognize what
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Speaker 3: was happening in my body and not.
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Speaker 2: Be afraid of it?
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Speaker 3: How could I travel again, you know, despite the fear
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Speaker 3: or despite the anxiety, but to do it, rewire new
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Speaker 3: experiences and kind of take back the things that I
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Speaker 3: felt had been taken from me. So for me, a
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Speaker 3: lot of the healing was that in that reclaiming and
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Speaker 3: just in the idea that like this is a journey
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Speaker 3: that will last forever, whether I like it or not,
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Speaker 3: and there will be moments that feel like setbacks, but
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Speaker 3: they're not setbacks.
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Speaker 2: They're just part of that journey.
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Speaker 1: At that time, Sarah, were you in a relationship No, no, okay,
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Speaker 1: what was your relationship relationships like with people during this time?
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Speaker 3: You know, like my close close people, best friends I
11:27
Speaker 3: was close with. But you know, I think the usual
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Speaker 3: when we're going through hard things like tend to isolate
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Speaker 3: or I tend to kind of hunger down and not
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Speaker 3: want to talk to anybody, and they would like lovingly,
11:37
Speaker 3: forcefully remind me that they were there and show up.
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Speaker 3: And so I knew I was connected to people, but
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Speaker 3: I was still kind of in my own little world.
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Speaker 1: So if we jump ahead, can you talk a little
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Speaker 1: bit about if you can, And I know it's not
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Speaker 1: a moment, but when things began toquote unquote click for you,
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Speaker 1: when was there a time where you're like, Okay, I'm
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Speaker 1: starting to feel better.
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Speaker 2: Yeah.
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Speaker 3: I was probably probably just as I was starting my
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Speaker 3: private practice. So three years after like into my masters,
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Speaker 3: three years after the you know, the last assault, definitely
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Speaker 3: feeling better, Like I was kind of dating again, and
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Speaker 3: I was kind of like traveling again. I was off visiting,
12:26
Speaker 3: you know, friends in different parts of the world. So
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Speaker 3: I would say it took me a good three years
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Speaker 3: to kind of feel you know, safe ish in the
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Speaker 3: world and in my body again and connect with people,
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Speaker 3: you know. And then again it was really when I
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Speaker 3: kind of understood, you know, when I kind of dove
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Speaker 3: into the stuff to help the students that I you know,
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Speaker 3: which was a few years after that, I was like, oh,
12:51
Speaker 3: this really makes sense.
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Speaker 1: Now. Let me just remind everyone speaking with Sarah Davidson.
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Speaker 1: Her book is called Anybody Can Heal, So let's talk
13:00
Speaker 1: about this. When did this book? How did this book
13:04
Speaker 1: come about?
13:05
Speaker 2: Well?
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Speaker 3: I feel like people have always said, oh, wow, you've
13:07
Speaker 3: been through so much, you need to write a book,
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Speaker 3: And I was like, God, why would anybody write a
13:11
Speaker 3: book about, you know, this stuff? And truthfully, like people
13:14
Speaker 3: go through really hard things in this world, so it's
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Speaker 3: nothing that other people necessarily haven't also injured. But I
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Speaker 3: think my shift, my mindset shifted when I was like, Wow,
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Speaker 3: I've like had the privilege to have all of this
13:30
Speaker 3: therapy that obviously is not always accessible to others. And
13:34
Speaker 3: I feel like I've kind of got it, Like I
13:36
Speaker 3: still struggle with it, but I feel like I've found
13:40
Speaker 3: myself in a good place. And so I was like,
13:42
Speaker 3: you know, maybe I can write a book that almost
13:46
Speaker 3: take like all the meat and potatoes of everything I
13:48
Speaker 3: learned in therapy and in my life experiences and you know,
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Speaker 3: in my professional experiences, and like, I don't know, package
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Speaker 3: it together for others that kind of don't have the
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Speaker 3: same accessibility. So I put it in this like memoir
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Speaker 3: kind of narrative, easily accessible, easy language too, so that
14:08
Speaker 3: people can kind of read it and be like, oh, wow,
14:10
Speaker 3: this is this is what healing is. Oh this is
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Speaker 3: why my body does this, but but in my own
14:14
Speaker 3: story kind of so to make it easy. And then
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Speaker 3: in the back there are like resources and strategies on
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Speaker 3: that people can kind of look at to like I
14:23
Speaker 3: don't know what to do when then I feel like
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Speaker 3: I'm dissociated or feeling anxious or you know. So there's
14:28
Speaker 3: like really easy, just entry level kind of stuff that
14:31
Speaker 3: people can can look at and actually just want a
14:35
Speaker 3: war too for best mental health memoirs, which is a
14:38
Speaker 3: girl I know.
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Speaker 1: Yeah, so let's talk more about the book. But before
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Speaker 1: we do, I'm curious what were some struggles you personally
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Speaker 1: encountered during your own healing process, own your own therapy process,
14:56
Speaker 1: like the.
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Speaker 3: Hatred for having to be there, like kind of like, oh,
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Speaker 3: I got to go back, I got to go back
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Speaker 3: to therapy.
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Speaker 2: I have to go back to therapy.
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Speaker 3: I have to go back to therapy because these people
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Speaker 3: did this or because.
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Speaker 2: This happened to me.
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Speaker 3: So that was one that I really struggled with because
15:14
Speaker 3: it's exhausting, right, and it costs money and it's not fun.
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Speaker 3: But I kind of like when I reframed it to like, no,
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Speaker 3: this is like my choice that I'm going to go
15:24
Speaker 3: because this is how I'm going to reclaim my life.
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Speaker 2: That I think that that reframe was helpful.
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Speaker 3: I think like the daily struggles of when I don't know,
15:35
Speaker 3: when I still have a hard day or when I
15:36
Speaker 3: still kind of like my system gets hijacked for I
15:40
Speaker 3: don't know whatever reason again, like someone bumps me from behind,
15:43
Speaker 3: or someone yells out of a car, or there's a
15:45
Speaker 3: bump in the night, you know, or I don't know,
15:49
Speaker 3: getting a massage by a registering massage therapist and all
15:52
Speaker 3: of a sudden, my body just goes ugh, like something
15:55
Speaker 3: feels wrong, right, even though it's not so, there's still
15:58
Speaker 3: like those kind of struggles along the way that feel hard.
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Speaker 2: For sure.
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Speaker 1: You talked about kind of a a a unique moment
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Speaker 1: or an AHA moment, if you will, when you were
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Speaker 1: working with those kids. What talk more about that? What
16:15
Speaker 1: became clearer to you during that experience?
16:18
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's a good question. I think.
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Speaker 3: That sometimes like our bodies have, you know, like they
16:25
Speaker 3: were stressed over school but having similar like anxious fight
16:31
Speaker 3: or flight reactions that I was having, right, not from
16:36
Speaker 3: being stressed over school, but from these like major events
16:39
Speaker 3: in my life.
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Speaker 2: And so I think that was the I was like,
16:43
Speaker 2: what is happening in people's bodies right? Like why you know.
16:46
Speaker 3: They're just stressed about a test, but they're having panic
16:49
Speaker 3: attacks and they're having this high anxiety. And mine's doing
16:51
Speaker 3: this because someone just I don't know, I heard something
16:54
Speaker 3: in the night and all of a sudden, like my
16:56
Speaker 3: system gets flooded, like what is happening here?
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Speaker 2: Right?
16:59
Speaker 3: And how what is our body asking for in those moments?
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Speaker 3: I think that was my like what is it? What
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Speaker 3: does it need to feel safe?
17:06
Speaker 2: Like?
17:07
Speaker 3: How can I tell it that actually it's not under thread?
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Speaker 3: You know, like the tiger is not in the room
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Speaker 3: with me. It was just a bump in the night.
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Speaker 1: Sounds easy, right, so easy? How do you do that?
17:19
Speaker 1: How do you absorb that? How do you take that?
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Speaker 2: In lots of practice? I don't know.
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Speaker 3: I feel like I have my own go tos that
17:29
Speaker 3: I know work really well for me. Silly as it
17:33
Speaker 3: sounds like, I'll like shake out, you know, shake out
17:36
Speaker 3: my limbs, kind of shake it out.
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Speaker 2: A little bit.
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Speaker 3: I'll look around me and look at things I can see,
17:41
Speaker 3: things I can touch. I'll get a you know, a
17:44
Speaker 3: nice cool glass of water. I've even walked down in
17:47
Speaker 3: the middle of the snow with like bare feet on
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Speaker 3: my back deck and just really like, you know, the
17:52
Speaker 3: cold air kind of just brings brings me back down.
17:55
Speaker 3: So anything that kind of just anchors me or orients
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Speaker 3: me to the here and now, you know, I e
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Speaker 3: the tiger is not there.
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Speaker 1: When you said to yourself, I want to write this book,
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Speaker 1: I'm going to write this book, what did you want
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Speaker 1: to get through to the reader? And who is the reader?
18:16
Speaker 1: Who's your audience?
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Speaker 3: In a sense, audience I would say, is kind of
18:21
Speaker 3: anybody that I don't know has experienced trauma that loves
18:25
Speaker 3: somebody that has experienced it. Yeah, anybody that doesn't necessarily
18:32
Speaker 3: have the access to therapy that others have, and also.
18:36
Speaker 1: People who do so all humans basically, is.
18:42
Speaker 2: That much better way of putting it. Definitely all humans.
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Speaker 3: Yeah, I wanted to be I wanted people to know
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Speaker 3: that they're not alone, right, that other people go through
18:51
Speaker 3: really hard things. You know, that healing is not linear,
18:55
Speaker 3: that there are these setbacks, that there are these moments
18:58
Speaker 3: that feel like we've you know, gone back a couple steps,
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Speaker 3: but in fact, it's just this lifelong journey. You know,
19:05
Speaker 3: that we can reclaim joy, and we can reclaim life,
19:08
Speaker 3: and we can live like meaningful lives, you know, alongside
19:12
Speaker 3: of things that have happened to us despite it, you know,
19:16
Speaker 3: and that our bodies are our bodies are awesome. Our
19:19
Speaker 3: bodies do really awesome things to keep us safe. You know,
19:23
Speaker 3: sometimes they work a little too hard and a little
19:25
Speaker 3: too extra, you know, to keep doing it for years.
19:28
Speaker 3: But you know, with some compassion and just understanding of it,
19:33
Speaker 3: you know, it's not the enemy.
19:34
Speaker 1: For sure, and that I think understanding is very powerful, right,
19:38
Speaker 1: because we go through what we have, these symptoms, we
19:43
Speaker 1: experience these these symptoms, which can often be stigmatizing and shaming.
19:47
Speaker 1: But as you said, you know, wow, how amazing that
19:51
Speaker 1: my body was doing that to take care of me.
19:54
Speaker 1: That shift can be very powerful for a lot.
19:56
Speaker 2: Of people, very powerful, very deshaming. Right. For sure.
20:00
Speaker 3: It definitely relinquished a lot of shame for me. You know,
20:05
Speaker 3: sometimes we think we're like, when these things happen, we're
20:07
Speaker 3: like the superhero and we can, like I don't know,
20:09
Speaker 3: beat up somebody or throw a car at somebody, or
20:12
Speaker 3: escape somehow. And sometimes the doing nothing in the freeze
20:16
Speaker 3: is actually the best survival mechanism possible, but it just
20:20
Speaker 3: leaves a lot of It can leave a lot of shame.
20:22
Speaker 2: Right.
20:24
Speaker 1: You mentioned a lot of different treatment modalities. Did they
20:29
Speaker 1: all quote unquote help you did? Were some did some
20:34
Speaker 1: kind of resonate with you more than others? And what
20:37
Speaker 1: about those that did?
20:39
Speaker 2: Yeah?
20:40
Speaker 3: I hard to tell because it was kind of like
20:42
Speaker 3: doing a mishmash of stuff. I think anything that was
20:48
Speaker 3: like body stuff really resonated with me because I was
20:52
Speaker 3: really fighting against like I used to be able to
20:55
Speaker 3: do this just fine, and now like I get this
20:56
Speaker 3: flood of anxiety when I do it.
20:58
Speaker 2: What the heck is happening.
21:00
Speaker 3: So I think for me, anything that was kind of
21:02
Speaker 3: like body awareness or you know, sensory motorcycotherapy is was
21:09
Speaker 3: really helpful because you know, that was about like completing
21:12
Speaker 3: actions that were not that were not you know, able
21:15
Speaker 3: to be completed because of the freeze response or whatever.
21:19
Speaker 2: So I think those were helpful.
21:21
Speaker 3: I mean, did they help that session, I don't know,
21:24
Speaker 3: but I think in like the long, you know, the
21:27
Speaker 3: long journey of it all, it probably did.
21:29
Speaker 1: And in terms of the specific or particular therapists you had,
21:34
Speaker 1: what kind of stands out to you about what they
21:38
Speaker 1: did or didn't you or how they were.
21:44
Speaker 3: That was interesting because the things I learned from them
21:47
Speaker 3: is really what I try to kind of bring it
21:48
Speaker 3: into my practice. And I think at the end of
21:51
Speaker 3: the day, I think when we when we see humans
21:53
Speaker 3: for who they are, when we witness their horrors, when
21:56
Speaker 3: we witness their struggles, like, we can do all the
21:58
Speaker 3: kind of strategies and you know, and all the things,
22:01
Speaker 3: and they're helpful, you know, but that therapeutic relationship and
22:05
Speaker 3: the witnessing somebody's horror and standing with them in that pain,
22:10
Speaker 3: I feel like is the biggest game.
22:11
Speaker 2: Changer for what I've seen.
22:13
Speaker 3: In practice, and I think going back as well, like
22:16
Speaker 3: the things I could tell her that I couldn't tell
22:18
Speaker 3: anybody else in the world because it would horrify them,
22:21
Speaker 3: and she would stand with me in that.
22:25
Speaker 2: And bear my you know, bear witness to it.
22:28
Speaker 3: I think, like, yeah, that was huge, and so that's
22:31
Speaker 3: definitely something I try to It's kind of therapy in
22:34
Speaker 3: a nutshell, right, is like standing with people in their
22:36
Speaker 3: in their hardest moments.
22:38
Speaker 1: But I think you articulated that so beautifully. It's it
22:44
Speaker 1: may be the essence of therapy, but it's certainly not
22:47
Speaker 1: easy to do for a number of reasons. And was
22:51
Speaker 1: what was that like for you to, you know, as
22:55
Speaker 1: someone who maybe initially was like, you know, I could,
22:59
Speaker 1: I could, I don't need that, or I could do
23:01
Speaker 1: that on my own. What was that like for you
23:03
Speaker 1: to share that with someone or to even think that
23:08
Speaker 1: maybe you needed or should share it with someone. Yeah?
23:12
Speaker 3: Hard, hard, except that I think I was in such
23:16
Speaker 3: a place where I didn't have a choice because I
23:19
Speaker 3: didn't actually know how to go on, you know, without
23:25
Speaker 3: having it like I didn't, I didn't Actually I was
23:27
Speaker 3: in such a bad place. I didn't know how to
23:29
Speaker 3: kind of just keep living my days. And I think
23:32
Speaker 3: I just felt like that was my only choice was
23:34
Speaker 3: just to like trust in this person, trust in the process,
23:39
Speaker 3: and you know, I obviously didn't on day one, just
23:41
Speaker 3: kind of like you know, share everything, but like, you know,
23:46
Speaker 3: that's therapy, is that the building of trust, right, and
23:48
Speaker 3: the building of trust in that safe space, and eventually
23:51
Speaker 3: obviously we got there.
23:54
Speaker 1: All right. So going back to the book, how did
23:56
Speaker 1: you structure it to give our listeners an idea of
24:00
Speaker 1: what it's like.
24:02
Speaker 3: Yeah, so it's it's super easy to read. It's like
24:05
Speaker 3: you can pick it up.
24:06
Speaker 2: That's it short, kind of in chapters.
24:12
Speaker 3: So there's like, you know, each chapter is like the
24:17
Speaker 3: three kind of events that I've talked about, and then
24:21
Speaker 3: kind of the aftermath of it, the turning point that
24:24
Speaker 3: I talked about in terms of like really understanding what
24:26
Speaker 3: my body had been through and how awesome it was,
24:29
Speaker 3: and like the that literature that I had gone kind
24:31
Speaker 3: of gotten better understanding, and then a kind of like
24:36
Speaker 3: wove neural science, but like in a very like casual
24:40
Speaker 3: conversational tone through it. There's like the birth of my son,
24:44
Speaker 3: because unfortunately that was also super traumatic so there's that
24:50
Speaker 3: in it, and then at the end is like some
24:52
Speaker 3: strategies and stuff, but kind of along the way it
24:55
Speaker 3: again in just a very conversational way, talks about like
24:57
Speaker 3: what I went through, why my body kind of di what.
25:00
Speaker 2: It did, but all in like a story.
25:02
Speaker 3: So it's like very story form, it's very memoir, but
25:05
Speaker 3: you get a lot from it.
25:09
Speaker 1: Five Biba were Best Indie Book Award winners Highlight Top
25:16
Speaker 1: Independent Literature across numerous genres. Wow, how excited he was?
25:23
Speaker 3: That super exciting. It was one of those ones where
25:26
Speaker 3: I got the email and I was like, is this spam?
25:28
Speaker 3: Like and I had to write it back and say,
25:30
Speaker 3: are you this is real?
25:32
Speaker 2: Yeah? It felt good.
25:33
Speaker 3: So it's for the Mental Health Netmoor category and I
25:36
Speaker 3: don't know, it's just cool that people read it and
25:38
Speaker 3: was like, oh, this is an awesome book.
25:40
Speaker 1: That's amazing. Congratulations, Yeah, thank you. Wow. So looking back
25:45
Speaker 1: as we kind of wind down here, first of all,
25:48
Speaker 1: the tsunami, can you just what the hell happened? What
25:52
Speaker 1: was that?
25:52
Speaker 3: Like? That's funny because that's a story I still share
25:55
Speaker 3: with like classes, I still go in and talk like
25:57
Speaker 3: when my friends had their grade five natural desig masters
26:00
Speaker 3: when you know, if they're a teacher. I still go
26:02
Speaker 3: in and talk about that story because everyone's like, WHOA,
26:05
Speaker 3: that's crazy. I was on a little tiny island and
26:09
Speaker 3: called Ko Peepee in Thailand, visiting my best friend who
26:13
Speaker 3: was living there from Singapore, and just we were on
26:18
Speaker 3: the beach and the wave came in and kind of
26:22
Speaker 3: washed us into this restaurant and we were stranded on
26:24
Speaker 3: the island for three days and not a lot of
26:27
Speaker 3: survivors there, and the army kind of finally took us off,
26:31
Speaker 3: and my dad flew over to Bangkok and brought me home,
26:34
Speaker 3: and then I just.
26:36
Speaker 2: Went about every day life because I could do everything
26:42
Speaker 2: right right.
26:43
Speaker 1: Wow. I mean you see the videos of these and
26:48
Speaker 1: it's just like, yeah, what the hell it was.
26:52
Speaker 2: It's crazy footage.
26:53
Speaker 3: It's a crazy story, and like truthfully, like that was
26:56
Speaker 3: what twenty one years ago, and I still, you know,
26:59
Speaker 3: when I come out of the ocean, I still like
27:01
Speaker 3: I never just walk with my back to it, you know,
27:04
Speaker 3: when my son's playing in it.
27:05
Speaker 2: Now, I'm just like just aware of the power of.
27:08
Speaker 3: It and you know, not turning my back on it,
27:10
Speaker 3: making sure that like I don't know, you know, just
27:14
Speaker 3: respecting the ocean. Not that I didn't before, and it
27:16
Speaker 3: obviously like the wave just took us by surprise. But
27:19
Speaker 3: it's definitely, you know, I don't get anxious around it,
27:22
Speaker 3: but I'm aware.
27:24
Speaker 1: Chaul, with this work you've done, the experiences you've had.
27:29
Speaker 1: When you walk in to work with a client, what
27:38
Speaker 1: are you bringing in there? What are you kind of
27:42
Speaker 1: embodying in there?
27:45
Speaker 2: Good question.
27:46
Speaker 3: I'm trying to embody just safety, like a grounding, a coregulation,
27:52
Speaker 3: like just like a really you know, trying to keep
27:56
Speaker 3: my system down so that they can kind of do
28:01
Speaker 3: the same, you know, open, non judgmental, you know, all
28:06
Speaker 3: the all the cliche words of therapy, but really trying
28:08
Speaker 3: to really trying.
28:09
Speaker 1: To live it. When you first started as a therapist,
28:15
Speaker 1: were you able to do that? How has that kind
28:17
Speaker 1: of grown for you? That ability to do that?
28:21
Speaker 3: Definitely just awareness, Like I'm a lot more aware. Sometimes
28:24
Speaker 3: I think back and I'm like, oh my gosh, did
28:26
Speaker 3: I say that or did I do that? Or like
28:28
Speaker 3: I could feel my my system in that session, and
28:32
Speaker 3: I wonder if I I wonder if the client.
28:33
Speaker 2: Could feel it?
28:34
Speaker 3: Right, I feel, you know, we have we see supervisors.
28:38
Speaker 3: I've like I go to group supervision regularly, so I
28:40
Speaker 3: think I'm constantly aware of like what my body brings
28:44
Speaker 3: into into session. I try after most sessions to like
28:48
Speaker 3: sounds ridiculous, but like you know, get down and bang
28:52
Speaker 3: out like ten or fifteen push ups and just kind
28:54
Speaker 3: of like, you know, shake it out so that that
28:56
Speaker 3: past energy in that last session is kind of like yeah,
29:01
Speaker 3: released a little bit and like kind of bring myself
29:04
Speaker 3: back down before the start of the next one.
29:08
Speaker 1: Are they what kind of push ups.
29:09
Speaker 2: Are, like a real push up or just anything that's
29:16
Speaker 2: you know, it gets tiring just sitting all day.
29:19
Speaker 1: So I feel like you have this really great quality.
29:25
Speaker 1: You exude a kind of strength that's not an authentic
29:30
Speaker 1: in any way that that is authentic. And I think
29:34
Speaker 1: the way you share your story, your ability to uh
29:40
Speaker 1: what talk about how even in spite of or despite of,
29:47
Speaker 1: or along with being a strong person, having these experiences
29:50
Speaker 1: and understanding how to work through them is a very
29:56
Speaker 1: powerful I think message, you know, yeah, thank you.
30:03
Speaker 3: And it's funny because my idea about strength has changed too, right,
30:07
Speaker 3: Like I used to think I was a strong person
30:09
Speaker 3: who didn't have to feel, and now I think I
30:11
Speaker 3: know I'm this strong person, but it's because I feel.
30:16
Speaker 1: I love that. I love that. All right, how do
30:19
Speaker 1: people learn more about you and pick up this award
30:22
Speaker 1: winning book.
30:23
Speaker 3: It's anywhere our books are sold. It's like Indigo, Amazon.
30:28
Speaker 3: Sarah Davidson dot ca A is my website. You can
30:31
Speaker 3: get it on there. Instagram is anybody can heal the
30:36
Speaker 3: name of the book.
30:39
Speaker 1: Yeah, all right. We'll have all those linked up here
30:42
Speaker 1: at the show notes page at the Trauma Therapist podcast
30:44
Speaker 1: dot com. Sarah, awesome meeting. You love to have you
30:47
Speaker 1: back at later day.
30:48
Speaker 2: So awesome meeting and thank you so much.
30:50
Speaker 1: Take care, take care bye tw