Latest / Giving Pain Purpose with Lyndsay Soprano / Shadow Work + Influencing Trauma

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Shadow Work + Influencing Trauma · Giving Pain Purpose with Lyndsay Soprano

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This is Your Pain Game podcast where we talk about the game of living in
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and with chronic pain and trauma, getting to the heart of how to heal.
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I am your host, Lindsay Soprano. On the show, I plan
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on discussing with doctors, chronic pain patients, holistic practitioners, loved ones,
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and anybody that is interested in having their voice heard. In the chronic pain
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and trauma world that we live in. There is something that I am incredibly
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familiar with. It would be dark and twisty shadows of my soul. I
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feel like I've lived about twenty five years, or of twenty five different lives
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so far. I'm fucking exhausted, right But in this long, long life
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that I've had, even though I'm forty six, I have been down some
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pretty dark rights and I've been in some pretty dark places. These dark,
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shadowy spots in my world. Sometimes I can get through them without two shakes
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of the lambstale, and other times I get stuck in them and it's really
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hard for me to get out. And by doing this show, I get
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to meet amazing people, not inlike my guests today, but one of the
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things that I've learned about myself is that I'm a control freak and OCD and
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a lot of those behaviors started when I was very very young because I felt
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like I was completely out of control in these dark places, and so I
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wanted to make sure that my environment was clean and organized and detail oriented and
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everything. And I put I passed that on through my life and into my
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career and who I am, and I do the same thing with this show.
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But it's such unhealthy behavior to be controlling like that, right, And
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what I've learning is that we cannot control all that happens to us, but
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we can decide, and this is a quote from my guest, what we
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are going to do with our experiences. So, without further ado, I
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would like to introduce you to my guest today, doctor Elizabeth Bericall from San
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Antonio, Texas. Hi, Darling, Hello Lindsay, good afternoon. How
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are you. Oh? I am doing so much better now that I see
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you. Have had like the tummy ups and I've been all crazy, and
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as soon as I see her, I immediately feel better. So thank you
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for that all of the games. See, Thank you, Lindsey. I'm
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so happy to be here with you. Thank you. Yes, Yes,
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So doctor Bara Hall specializes in women's mental health, overcoming trauma, and empowerment
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of the self, and what we're really going to get into today is shadow
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work. Elizabeth is an EMDR therapist, a certified hypnotherapist and was through her
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work focused on trauma that she began to identify the power of harnessing pain and
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purpose. And as you guys know by now, the show is all about
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giving pain purpose, So it's just a perfect alignment with what we're going to
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talk about today. She holds a PhD in Gender and diversity and is a
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published academic author. All of her studies have taken her all over the world.
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With that international experience has given her exposure to so many different demographics that
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fundamentally gives her the opportunity to understand the depths of all these different various backgrounds
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of people and giving her this unique ability to empathize with and empower her client's
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health. So I'd like to start by talking about you and what you're doing,
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the Barrack Hall method and shadow work and how we can delve into the
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darkness within us and start to heal. Thank you so much. Yeah,
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you know, I don't know lindsay, I believe, you know, my
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travels abroad, I lived, you know, probably a total of about fifteen
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years abroad in Europe. I was in London for about ten years, and
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then I went on to Spain and into Mexico too, And you know,
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I started kind of seeing that everybody kind of was on the same trend,
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right, Like, everybody has something that they have to bring up to the
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surface, regardless of culture, regardless of religion, regardless of ethnicity, gender.
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You know, we all have this underneath shit, lindsay, that we
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have to pull up, you know, to the surface for lack of a
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better world. You know, absolutely I could be way more eloquent than that,
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but you know, the truth is the truth at the end of the
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day, right man. And so you know what that's coined as is that's
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coined the shadow work, you know, this deeper, darker part of our
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psyche, lindsay. You know, the things that we hide from other people,
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from ourselves, you know, that really need to kind of be brought
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forth to the surface. And you know, I'm a firm believer that everybody
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puts on this persona, right, this persona that we learned early on in
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childhood that made us become more lovable or you know, we needed to put
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on this persona to become I guess, you know, more worthy of love
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from our caregivers, Lindsey, and so you know, we developed into these
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patterns without really also showing who we are intricately as people. So yeah,
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that's really what shadow work is. You know, It's one of those things
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where we're always keeping up with the Jones. Is we're always putting on a
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good face, you know, like I feel absolutely terrible today, right,
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you would never guess it because that's what I'm putting on today. I have
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to put it on often. But those places where we get so scared of
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our past, or we get so scared of thoughts that we have about ourselves,
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these narratives that we've created over our years. It's hard to be you
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and be raw and be vulnerable and be open and honest with yourself and others.
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It's harder to do than anything I've ever had to do. And that's
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what I had to do for this show because I wasn't going to be able
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to have people like you on and say, hey, could you be vulnerable
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and raw and honest with me and have me not do the same. I
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love it, but you know that's what we ask everybody to do, you
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know, in the reality of things, that's really how we maneuver as people
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and say, so, yeah, you're right on. When you have people
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come in to your clinic, can you talk a little bit about what this
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what actually shadow work is. You know, because I am a trauma based
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therapist and because I am certified and EMDR, that's really all I generally see,
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lindsay. You know, people who have it may not always be extreme
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trauma, you know, they're not everybody has this really severe and intense traumatic
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experience. You know, I have people coming in to see me for fender
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benders, right, but for whatever reason, they're stuck in this cyclic space,
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you know, and so whatever I guess at the time that's really bothering
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them is what they're coming to see me for. And you know, if
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we kind of take away so for me, you know, the anxiety,
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the depression, physical pain, insomnia, eating disorders, you know, these
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are all symptoms of something much deeper. Right, These experiences, these old
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childhood patterns and old belief systems that we have held on too that just simply
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do not aligned to who we are. And you know, I'm a big
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believer that trauma does stay absolutely stuck in the body. The body absolutely does
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keep the score. As bessel vander Kok, Yeah, he speaks about that
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in a book and in The Body Keeps the Skirts, an amazing book,
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by the way it is. And you know, at some yeah, at
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some point, you've got to either it's going to arise to the surface and
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you know, manifest in disease or disease, you know, or it's going
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to come out in psychiatric symptoms, emotional symptoms. And so yeah, usually
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by the time people come to see me, Lindsay, they're already at that
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point. So what we do with shadow work is, you know, sometimes
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via E. M. D R or just traditional talk therapy, we're really
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getting to the root of these negative cognitions is what is what we call them,
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you know, these really deep dark feelings I'm not worthy, I'm not
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good enough, I have a loss of control, you know, And it's
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there, that's the core, that's are negative cognitions of what we really think
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about ourselves and how the rest of our actions dictate from our negative core cognitions.
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So you know, there's a lot in there. I feel like,
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you know, I liken it too layers of the cake. You know,
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we have the icing and the sprinkles and everything else up at the top,
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and yeah, it looks really pretty, but you know, the foundation of
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the cake sometimes is cracking, you know, and may not always taste great,
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or sometimes it's too dry, too moist, you know, but there's
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always something there in that foundation. Lindsay that there's always work, and there's
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work for everybody. Listing all of these things, emotional disturbances OCD, eating
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disorder, depression, anxiety, insomnia, chronic illness, ding ding ding ding
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ding ban For me, I'm a disaster. I totally believe in what you're
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talking about in relation to the manifestation of the body keeping the squirrel one hundred
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percent, because I believe wholeheartedly that so many of the things that happened to
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me on the way, and also some of the things that I did,
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I take complete responsibility for being wild as fucking crazy woman, and so by
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irresponsible behavior, you know, on my part, or really bad tragic things
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happening to me as well. It's to the point that now I see the
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error of these narratives that I've had for so many years, the self doubt,
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self esteem issues, unable to sleep, the anxiety, all of that
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stuff. So what do you do with Yeah, what do you do when
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these people like myself come to you and are just like I'm I got to
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a point where I was like, I I legitimately need somebody to help me
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because I can't do this by myself anymore. And that's why I started my
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show, because I'm like, it's by myself, no way, I'm going
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to go all out of the world amazing. Yeah, and you're doing so
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many amazing things, lindsay, thank you so much for doing that, because
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you're so right, you know, so you know what we do in therapy.
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A somebody has to be really ready to embark on shadow work because absolutely,
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lindsay, it is scary as hell, and it's definitely not for everybody.
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Right up up at the front. In our first consultation, I let
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them know, you know, I hate to use the darker side of psychology,
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but it is. You know, it's not exactly positive psychology, and
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it's not exactly mindfulness, which don't get me wrong, I love positive psychology.
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I love absolutely the act of mindfulness. It has its space, yes,
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but again, you know, we've got to really dredge through the mayer,
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right through the shit in order for us to become mindful every day and
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consistently and sustainably mindful and sustainably you know, true positive cognition change has to
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come from kind of sifting through the dirt a little bit, you know,
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in order for us to get to that level. And when we delve into
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shadow work, I'm a strong believer that when we do this type of work,
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Lindsay, there is such a deep connection to the self and a connection
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in turn to others that is unparalleled in any other sort of therapeutic approach in
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my opinion, you know, because it really does focus on the self.
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It focuses in on a lot of internal validation versus the external validations. And
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to me, that's where it's all at, you know. I know it's
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very cliche, but it's really where it's at. It is where it's at,
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because I mean, if we're not getting really in touch with ourselves,
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like as cliche as that is, I need to get in touch with myself.
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Guys. I feel like I'm pretty damn in touch with myself, but
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it has taken me a very long time to be okay with looking at myself
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in the mirror with a lot of the things that have happened, a lot
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of the things that I've done, a lot of the things that I've experienced,
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and go, my parents don't know about ninety percent of my life big
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picture, you know, And like I always told my parents, and like,
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if you listen to this show of mine, you're gonna have fucking questions.
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I mean, a strange jacket and a funny farm is what's gonna happen?
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My poor little mom? And so much of that was ingrained in me
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as a little girl being raised in a very religious home, which was not
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my bag. But the guilt shame that's put on you in religious homes as
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well is part of it. So you automatically start creating hidden people so that
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you know, like it's just something that I did and I didn't know I
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was doing it, And then all of a sudden, I'm in my forties,
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I'm like, what the hell? Absolutely absolutely that need to fit in
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to feel love, to feel worthy to be loved. And yeah, they
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generally start very young, these old patterns. Yeah, all ages. Do
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you work with like teenagers and kids or do do you specialize specifically more in
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women. An adult I specify really in eighteen and older, and about ninety
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percent of my client tell Lindsay is between the ages of about twenty two,
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mid to late thirties. There's something with that generation right there. I believe
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they're way more savvy in you know, kind of getting to the core of
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their emotional well being than someone, say, in my generation. You know,
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I'm in my mid forties, and you know, I believe that there's
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something very special. I also think that, you know, COVID has really
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propelled the aftermath of COVID has really propelled people into this space, like,
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damn, I can't hide my trauma and my past experiences in my old belief
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systems anymore. They're coming out of me now, they're coming out of the
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woodwork, yes or yes, you know yeah, and so yeah, people
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are having to choose now where they go. I'm glad that you brought that
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up, because it's interesting. So much of that generation would you and I
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don't identify with because I'm like, what, like we had pages, but
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yeah, so we came from a place where we didn't have as much information
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at our fingertips. We didn't have access to what we're doing right now.
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I mean we were on dial up when we were in Haulwidge. That ages
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us, my love, it ages us. But I like that this age
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bracket is diving into themselves. But I also do think that they're a little
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bit more self absorbed as well, which I think kind of goes hand in
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hand with it, which is a good thing and a bad thing. But
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and a lot of them are still living with their parents. They're still you
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know, oh my gosh, I couldn't wait to get out. It's like,
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God, I just want to be an adult and be done. Who
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knew that adult team was going to be this fucked up? Yeah, you're
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definitely right. They there's a certain I use the word they're very self aware.
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They have this this deep for the good and for the bad, right
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and I and I hate to use the word tough, but I feel in
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our generation we were raised with a bit of tough love. You know.
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Oh yeah, we got home when the sun was going down. You know,
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our bikes, we rode our bikes still all over the place. And
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you know, we didn't have this fear base the way I think that generation
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does. But yes, so you know, there's differences there, for sure,
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yeah, and that's a fair assessment. I think as well, how
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long do discussions last that you do and how long do you typically treat somebody.
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You know, that's a great question, Lindsay, because I don't believe
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that therapy is a forever process. Hell no, I think that it's kind
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of very reflective on a bunch of different factors, but mainly the therapist if
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I'm being honest, you know, but I do believe em DR kickstart,
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kickstarts things, you know, to kind of condense therapy. So what I
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found, you know, just in mainstream E m d R another therapist,
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you know, really the procedure is is just straight em DR. We're just
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straight moving through you know, bilateral stimulations and really kind of getting to the
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core of rewiring neural pathways, right. But what I found that was missing
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was that they're not really processing. You know, we're noticing. In EMDR,
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we definitely ask you know, what do you notice? What we'd never
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really ask is how are you processing? You know, So how I like
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to stagger it is I'll do an e m DR session, then we process
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our next session and then so you know, we're really working. I love
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to set goals on a capricorn. So it's about goal setting and like moving
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forward, you know, and routine and consistency and sustainability. So I really
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like to work towards goals with them. And you know, like I said,
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I always ask them upfront, are you ready? Yeah, you know,
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are you ready for this? And some of them say no, And
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that's great, you know, it's it's everybody's personal journey, lindsay. And
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so sessions usually last, like typical sessions fifty minutes. If we're doing em
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DR, that's a pretty hard fifty minute session generally, and you know the
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rule of themb or, I guess the norm for a client with me is
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about seven to twelve sessions. Twelve is really pushing it, but they're general
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suggestible to em DR. They're generally feeling better by the third wow session.
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I've done a MDR once before, once or twice, and it was with
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a previous guest early on in the show, and I had I it was
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a good experience, but I was like the next day I could not pull
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myself out of crying sobbing. I was sick. I felt like I just
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felt like what just happened? And she was so sweet about it. She's
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like you've been throwing shit, lindsay, like you're not. You're gonna feel
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like you're gonna feel like crap, like you're you're getting rid of a lot
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of stuff and you're processing to use your word, which I like a lot.
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Because I did an AMDR session prior to this scal and it I have
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no idea what the hell happened, Like I don't. I don't remember it
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very well. I don't remember it being a positive experience. But with this
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other gal, Lauren, she's great. I had a really good experience,
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but I just didn't know that I was totally going to like not be able
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to be part of society for the next Yeah. Yeah, there's side effects,
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Yeah, for sure, there's always I always give you know, the
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side effects to this type of treatment, you know, and it's precisely that
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you know you're extremely triggered, but you know there's there's caveats to that.
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I really love working in the body, so you know, I utilize EMDR
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to go into our somatics right and kind of feel and notice where that sits,
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where our traumas are sitting. You know a lot of people report my
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women, so many of them report in the throat area, a lot of
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stagnation, a lot of pain sits there, a lot in the chest,
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a lot in the abdomen, you know, and I really work in the
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body and then we kind of move into a memory. So for me,
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it's about into it in my feelings of being intuitive right with that person and
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seeing how far a they want to go, how far they're willing to go,
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and we're having that strong therapeutic alliance for them to tell me to stop
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if we need to stop. Sounds like it's you create a very safe space
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for us to heal in some pretty dark and twisty, sad, shadowy,
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gross, dark, thorny black places. I actually just started doing ketamine infusions
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and they're four hours long for me, and that's a long time to be
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in a k hole and it and I did them won this week and then
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I did four of them back to back the week prior and it was scary,
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specifically on Monday, it was very scary. And I'm still gonna go
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do them because I believe in the value of what it's actually doing for me.
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But I cannot believe how like my doctor was, like lindsay, you
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are trying to heal like a lifetime of trauma in five infusions, like you're
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gonna not feel great, and I didn't and I still don't. I don't
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feel great, you know, And I know it's gotta be because my bod
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is trying to process all of this stuff. I really do feel confident in
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the direction that I'm going, that I've set myself up towards by meeting people
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like yourself, and it's it's it's exciting and I'm happy to look at the
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dark and twisty where I wasn't before. I wasn't ready to face the music,
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not at all. About what ends up happening is when you get so
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ill and so sick, and you live in so much pain, you get
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to that point where you're like, all right, well I'm done doing this
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bs. Yeah, I gotta get to work. Yeah. I hear you.
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I hear you, lindsay, And it's exactly that. It is work.
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It is work. But you know, if you think about it,
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anything good is going to require hard work, you know. And there is
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no easy shortcut to healing emotionally to healing physically. It requires work, and
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it requires a substantial amount of energy, and it requires being very connected to
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the self, and I don't think we can do that unless we're kind of
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really examining our whole self, which includes this shadow, you know which,
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And again it's it's worked via a flashlight and not with a chisel or a
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hammer. You know, it's gentle work. I like that, shining a
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light into the darkness. You know. I think you said something on our
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on our meet and Grid about I'm going after the underbelly of our psyche.
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I think you said something like that. It stood out to me because that's
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so true. And one of the things that like in these Kennymiane infusions,
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for example, that I'm experiencing is my visions or my experience of the of
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the psychedelic is it's like me in the Game of Thrones, and so it's
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very very dark, and it's gray, and it's it's just this very sad,
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almost tragic spot that I was not. I didn't know that that's where
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I was going to go, you know, And so that kind of scared
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me, but then it also made me feel good. And I even spoke
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to my doctor this morning. He's like, Lindsay, being scared is okay
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because you never have experienced the fear that you lived and then and now you're
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just doing it. So now I'm dealing with the fear. I mean,
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it's absolutely some typical Lindsay form. I'm crying and laughing at the same time.
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It's okay, it's beautiful, so beautiful. I love it. It's
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perfection, Lindsay. It's perfection. I love it. I love it.
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I love it. And you know, I'm so glad that you brought that
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up, Lindsay, because that needs to be shared for so long. I
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think that our past experiences, in our old belief systems and the things that
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have transpired not only in childhood, but you know, in as adults,
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in our adolescence as well. You know, we hold on to these feelings
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of fear and sometimes and a panic and of anger and of resentment or whatever,
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these guilt and shame, you know, and we allow this to dictate,
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you know, sometimes the rest of our lives. They show up in
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our decisions, they show up in our jobs, they show up in our
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relationships, Lindsay, you know. So that's why it's so imperative for us
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to just delve into this aspect. And you're doing an amazing thing. Ketamine
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is not easy. I give you props for that. Yeah, it's one
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of the most intense things I've ever done. And I'm a pretty intense person
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as it is, so I'm not surprised that my experience of the infusions would
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be fairly crazy too, because it's just kind of how my brain works as
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well. I mean, I can't keep the wild child totally down, you
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know. I mean, but I'm doing some housekeeping, you know. I'm
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trying to clear out some of these cobwebs because I'm getting more and more sick
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and tired of being sick and tired, you know, And it's going to
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be scary when I'm healthy again. Can you imagine me healthy? Yeah,
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it's you're gonna relearn how to live in in that healthy state, Lindsay,
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or if you even knew, you know, how it was to live in
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that healthy state. You know, you just might have to learn from the
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beginning. And that's a beautiful thing, you know. I'm prepared for that.
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I'm prepared for that. I look at pictures of myself from like a
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decade ago, and I'm just like, God, I don't look anything like
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that anymore, because I've lost so much weight and I'm so atrophied, and
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so the challenges are real, but now it's talking about them and being open
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and honest with people like yourself and my audience and my sweetie Anne, to
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not hide anymore in the shadows and just like lurk there because it's no fun
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to be there. It's not no, it's not fun. You know,
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it's not fun. And you know, it's never too late to start this
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type of work, lindsay. I have women coming in, you know,
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in their seventies that have carried shit with them since they were ten and twelve
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years old, you know, And it's better late than never. But it
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makes me happy to see my young ger girls coming up and saying, you
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know what, I'm ready to deal with this lies. I want to shed
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these chains and I want to move forward and live my biggest and best and
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most purposeful life, you know. And how I can turn this pain into
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my motivation and into my meaning And you know what I can do with these
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past experiences that holds so much of our learning, you know, is in
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the painful moments, Lindsey. You know it's it's it's not the easy shit
25:27
that helps us move forward. It's what's been difficult. For us, you
25:32
know that we can utilize and work with and learn from and move forward with
25:37
that information, you know. Yeah, and our lived experiences, you know.
25:41
I mean, that's that's where I get content for this. It is
25:45
absolutely mind blowing to me that for every episode I have some crazy ass story
25:49
that aligns with whatever we're talking about. I'm like, what what is wrong
25:53
with me? I'm like an alien? How is this possible that I have
25:56
all of this emotional housekeeping that needs to be taken care of because I just
26:02
never did it. I didn't know I was going to need to. I
26:04
thought we were just going to get through whatever happened to us, and you
26:07
know, we'll just keep on trucking and just pick up and keep on moving
26:11
lens, you know, And same thing with other people that I've gone through
26:15
similar experiences. It's just it's nuts. We don't know how it's going to
26:18
manifest in us. And I think that the importance of jumping in and going
26:23
for it. If you don't feel good right now and you're listening and you
26:26
need to hear this conversation. Delvin, Baby, Delvin, Delvin, Delvin,
26:33
Delvin. I know it's scary, but it really is one of the
26:37
best things that you can do for yourself, you know, and as a
26:41
therapist in this type of work, I mean, don't get me wrong,
26:44
Linds. Yeah, I have my own therapist, you know that. I
26:48
call her. I'm like, hey, you know Kelly, her name is
26:51
Kelly. Kelly. Come on, like, I'm feeling this way, I
26:53
need to delve into my shadow. Okay, Elizabeth, let's go, you
26:56
know. And so, yeah, it's purposeful work, Lindsay. It's purposeful
27:02
work when you go deep into the South. I love waking up and knowing
27:06
that this is what I get to do today with you. You know.
27:08
I had to do a bunch of other crap for like my business and clients
27:11
and stuff. I'll get that done. But this is where I This is
27:14
why I'm here. This is my purpose, you know. I'm giving my
27:18
pain purpose. That is what I'm doing. And I'm so grateful that I
27:22
found this spot. And this is a very safe space for me and for
27:27
you, for any guest that's on the show. I want to make sure
27:30
that anybody and everybody knows that this is a safe and loving place all the
27:34
time, because that's the only way that we fly around here. Absolutely,
27:41
absolutely Lindsay. Yeah, it's important, you know, for people to listen
27:44
to these type of things. Lindsay, these type of podcasts, you know,
27:47
because it's like little seeds that we get to plant, right, and
27:51
they themselves go and water their own gardens and see what grows from that.
27:55
But you know, we do our part in planting that seed to say,
27:59
Okay, well here's something maybe that you had heard or maybe something that you
28:03
contemplated before, but you know, I would now like to fertilize and bring
28:07
to fruition, you know, and here's how you can do it, you
28:11
know. And so or it's possible, or just to even know that it's
28:14
something possible to do is to work on yourself and to feel better. To
28:18
feel better, Lindsey, I can't even wait to feel better, like,
28:23
because now I know that I can do it. Like it's something in finding
28:30
all of these people and building these relationships with people like yourself, and it's
28:36
it's just it's a miracle for me that I am so fortunate to get to
28:41
meet people like yourself. And I had never heard of just shadow work before,
28:47
right, And so to your point, planning that seed, well,
28:51
now we're planning some shadow work into this into the earholes of our listeners right
28:55
now, because oh my gosh, like we're just I find so I learned
29:00
so much by doing this because of getting or educating each other as well on
29:07
therapies that oh my gosh, I haven't heard of that before. That seems
29:11
like something that would work for me, because not everything is going to work
29:12
for everybody. Give me a break, you know, but you got to
29:15
keep trying, because if you don't keep throwing spaghetti at the wall, then
29:18
nothing's ever going to stick, you know, absolutely. I love that,
29:23
and I love that. Yeah, yeah, you're so right, you know,
29:27
and we're so don't get me wrong. I love my CBT therapist.
29:32
Don't hate me out there or you know, my person a therapist. But
29:37
you know, I don't think that everybody is the same clearly, and so
29:41
you know, once one specific hardcore approach isn't going to work across the board.
29:47
So, you know, I do believe therapists have to have they have
29:51
to be a jack of many trades. You know, We've got to kind
29:52
of pull up different cards that are going to work on individual basises, you
29:57
know, just depending on the dynamic. Who they are, their background,
30:00
their trauma. There are culture there, you know, and so I think
30:03
it's the big picture, yeah, for sure, and it's something that is
30:08
I'm going to continue use the word process because it is a process. Don't
30:11
beat yourself up when your first session of something doesn't go this. It's like
30:15
when people decide they want to lose weight, right, and they go to
30:18
the gym and they ate well for one day, and then they go stand
30:21
on a scale. You're like, what do you think you were going to
30:23
lose thirty pounds overnight by doing one good day of eating? You know,
30:26
it's like the guilty day. It's that instant gratification that we're so used to
30:34
being able to get, even more so in our culture now. But yeah,
30:37
you're like, oh god, I feel great. I ate good today,
30:41
you know, and then you're like, but I'm put on two pounds.
30:42
How did that happen? You know? Don't give up, everybody,
30:48
don't do it. Keep trying and keep trying, and keep trying and keep
30:51
trying, because that's a purposeful and meaningful life, you know, absolutely.
30:56
And you know, Lindsey, I just had this converse with a good girlfriend
31:00
today. Damn. In mental health and an emotion, I don't even like
31:03
to use mental health and emotional wellbeing. Sometimes it's that, you know,
31:07
we take three steps forward and two steps back, and then we take another
31:11
five steps forward and then four steps back, and sometimes you know, we
31:15
take ten steps back. But it's just this back and forth dance with ourselves,
31:21
right. But as long as we're making a little bit of headway and
31:25
feeling the shifts right, and they're sustainable. And I know, Lindsay,
31:29
and I can tell you I will be working on myself for the rest of
31:32
my life. You know, this is something that is for the rest of
31:34
our lives. And as long as it took for us to get these symptoms
31:40
of anxiety, these panic attacks, this insomnia, these eating disorders, it
31:45
may not take as long to unlearn them, but there's going to be a
31:49
little amount of time to relearn new ways of thinking and new processes for sure.
31:55
Yeah, especially when we're older, because you know, we get that
32:00
our ways and we're used to this and we do this thing and we eat
32:01
the same thing, like how many tacos does ones you need to eat in
32:05
her life? Like come on, And it's just it is a lifelong relationship
32:10
with yourself, you know, So make it a good one, make it
32:15
a very good one. Yeah, at the end of the day, you're
32:19
the only one looking back at yourself, you know, absolutely. You know,
32:23
I have this saying with my clients who just reminded me of it.
32:27
You know, I always tell them, instead of trying to excise our demons,
32:31
right, we need to make friends with our demons. Like and some
32:35
of my religious people are like, oh my god, Elizabeth, you know,
32:37
but but it's true. You know, we're so occupied with, you
32:43
know, repressing and suppressing these parts of us that we hate and that we
32:46
don't like that instead of fighting them, we need to get to know them
32:50
and to make friends with them. And then things shift, and then we
32:53
make that connection to the self because we become our own best friend. We
32:58
become our greatest and best lover, you know. And and so that that
33:01
is true internal validation. Yeah, and it's certainly better than you know,
33:07
having all these external forces determine upon how you feel about yourself like that.
33:12
And we are all we're all guilty of it, you know. I Mean,
33:15
just Instagram on of its own makes everybody feel about them. So I'm
33:22
like, if I see one more fucking picture of a Kardashian, I'm gonna
33:25
blow my brains out, like it's just the filters and the you know,
33:30
all of the stuff. And we have to remember that life doesn't really have
33:35
filters, right. We had to create them. We had to create them
33:38
in order to make us all look and feel a little bit better than we
33:40
are. And we all have those friends that always have the perfect little pictures
33:45
of their family, and then you really know what's going on. Absolutely,
33:51
come on, girl, I saw you yesterday. You do not look like
33:54
this, did you. Guys he slipts sense yesterday? Give me a break.
34:10
So, yeah, I know I've seen those too, those two.
34:15
Yeah, you know, a therapist would think so much and so much behind
34:20
that. You know, it's so funny of those pictures, right, and
34:23
what people portray you know again that persona, that persona, Lindsay you know,
34:29
yeah, that's hilarious. Oh my gosh. Well, we are getting
34:32
close to time here, so I wanted to find out is there anything else
34:36
you'd like to leave our listeners before we kick the can down the road.
34:39
I don't know why I just said that. I'd never say that kicked the
34:42
can down the road? Go with that. I look, you know,
34:46
no, you know, I think other than the fact that everybody deserves the
34:52
opportunity to get to know themselves at a deeper, at a more intrinsic level,
34:58
lindsay, you know, I know that there's a lot of fear.
35:00
Believe me, I was fearful. I am fearful. Damn I am scared
35:04
every time I have to go, you know, speak to my own therapist,
35:07
because I know she's going to ask me hard asked questions. Right,
35:09
But you know, everybody does deserve that opportunity to get to know themselves.
35:15
And it takes work. It takes work, you know, transition and growth.
35:20
That is not an easy process, and that's going to happen for the
35:22
rest of our lives, you know. And we really do have a choice
35:28
in everything, and we do have a decision either to work on ourselves or
35:31
to not work on ourselves. But knowing and understanding that when we don't,
35:36
all of the shit that we don't like is going to persist and amplify,
35:39
you know. So yeah, and I think that that's really all I would
35:44
like to say about that. Well, I can't wait to work on some
35:47
shadow work with you, because I think that it would be a really good,
35:51
just because you rattled off seventeen thousand things that I suffer from on the
35:55
daily, Like, oh my god, but I'm not afraid to face the
36:00
shadows and I'm not afraid to go into the dark places. Is it scary?
36:02
Yes? Do you cry? Yes? Do you sob and throw things?
36:07
One hundred percent. I've been known to throw a couple things here and
36:10
there lately because I'm like, I can't handle how much I'm trying to process
36:15
right now. But I'm doing it, you know, And I'm proud to
36:21
say that I'm in a place where I'm I'm doing the work and I'm working
36:24
so hard and it's and it is no easy feet absolutely beautiful. This is
36:30
a tough one. Beautiful. So are you okay? Yeah? Yeah,
36:32
yeah, yeah, I agree, I agree, I agree. But you're
36:37
doing all all the right things. We're both doing all the right things.
36:39
Yep. So where can we find you online? I am on Instagram and
36:45
I am under let's see. My handle is the Bear Call Method v E
36:49
r R O c A L. And my website bear call method dot com.
36:53
And it's a beautiful website with me. Yes, it's a beautiful website.
36:58
It makes you feel dark and twisty, but it also makes you feel
37:01
very hopeful at the same time. Well, because what I liked about it
37:05
is my I can identify with these feelings that your website portrays. And so
37:09
for me going to it was like, oh, this kind of seems like
37:14
my jam you know. Cooloo, Yeah it is, and I think that
37:17
that is part of I'm in marketing, so of course I'm like, oh,
37:19
I want to know what everybody's doing with their marketing, with their businesses.
37:21
But thank you for being here with us today. It has been nothing
37:24
but a joy. And I know you're working on a book and it's not
37:28
it's not out yet, but she's working on a book for shadow. Shadow
37:30
work on a trauma workbook, right, Yes, it's a workbook. It's
37:34
a workbook slash burn journal, you know that I've been working on. And
37:38
yeah, a lot of prompts you know, regarding getting in touch with yourself
37:43
and our shadow, of course, and it's a burn book because you know,
37:47
so many of my clients say, Elizabeth, you know, I love
37:51
to journal, but I'm so scared about, you know, somebody picking up
37:54
this journal and reading all about my trauma. What do I do with it,
37:58
and so I say burn it, so you know it's going to be
38:01
a burn book. I love that so much. It reminds me of what
38:06
does it mean girls? Yeah, yeah, yeah, but I like that
38:12
because I too. I have boxes of journals that I've had since I was
38:15
a little girl, and I'm like, I would hate, like we all
38:20
have that friend that knows where to go in the house if anything happens to
38:22
us, like get rid of all the sex toys, all right, I
38:25
get rid of my journal, like go Burnham. But I'm like, you
38:29
know what, it would probably be more healing for me to just take those
38:32
boxes to the beach and throw them in a fire pit and just set them
38:36
all on fire. Absolutely. Yeah, there's something very cathartic about that,
38:40
actually, and I love that we're cathartic too, So, oh my gosh.
38:44
Well, thank you so much for your time again with us today.
38:45
I really appreciate it. It's always nice to see you, and I love
38:50
how you use my name when you talk to me too. It's very sweet.
38:53
Thank you, Thank you so much. It was such a pleasure being
38:57
here with you. Oh of course, of course, and we'll have you
39:00
back after we do some shadow work. Ooh amazing, can't wait? Sounds
39:04
good. You are exclusively invited to share this, turning your pain and dark
39:08
twisty shadows into a superpower VIP pain journey together. Let's get to the heart
39:14
of how to heal with you by my side. Do you know someone who
39:19
needs to hear this conversation today? Did you need to hear it? Do
39:22
you live in chronic pain? Are you dark and twisty? You know someone
39:25
who? Does? I mean, come on, we all know somebody dark
39:28
and twisty. You certainly know this one. Gray. Welcome to the Pain
39:31
Game Podcast. Let's connect and hear your stories of strength and grit. I
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40:01
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