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A Shared Journey of Healing & Transformation with Sean/a Smith and Dr. Kirsten Viola Harrison · The Trauma Therapist

0:00
Speaker 1: Welcome to the Trauma divers podcast. My name is guiming
0:03
Speaker 1: Person and I interview incredible people who share the story
0:06
Speaker 1: of how trauma has shaped their lives. And a big
0:09
Speaker 1: thank you for sponsoring today's episode goes to my guest
0:12
Speaker 1: and our sponsors. So five, four, three, two and one,
0:23
Speaker 1: our folks, welcome back to the podcast. Very excited to
0:26
Speaker 1: have as my guest today, Doctor Kirsten Harrison. Kirsten, welcome,
0:31
Speaker 1: Thank you.
0:32
Speaker 2: I'm so excited to be here.
0:33
Speaker 1: Appreciate that. So. Doctor Kirsten Harrison is a psychologist specializing
0:37
Speaker 1: in trauma, with research experience at UCLA and advanced studies
0:42
Speaker 1: at institutions like Georgetown, Harvard, and Pepperdine, but the greatest
0:46
Speaker 1: education that has come from working directly with survivors of PTSD,
0:50
Speaker 1: DID and near death experiences. Inspired by the resilience, she
0:54
Speaker 1: continues to share her expertise with compassion and purpose, guided
0:58
Speaker 1: by the strength of those he serves. We're gonna be
1:03
Speaker 1: talking about the book today I Shawna, the story of
1:07
Speaker 1: a homeless INTERSECTS woman who inspired a community. We'll get
1:10
Speaker 1: into that a little bit later, but before we do,
1:13
Speaker 1: Kirsten share with the listeners where you're from originally, and
1:16
Speaker 1: where you're I.
1:16
Speaker 2: Am from currently Minnesota and that's where I grew up.
1:21
Speaker 2: And I am currently in La Jolla, California.
1:24
Speaker 1: Nice. Nice, Okay, So let's kind of excuse me if
1:29
Speaker 1: we can back into the book. But how did this
1:34
Speaker 1: interest psychology and trauma specifically start for you?
1:40
Speaker 2: Okay? I would say about forty years ago. I was
1:43
Speaker 2: in relationship with my first husband, and we were in
1:50
Speaker 2: a nice, posh private school, and I went on a
1:52
Speaker 2: date with him and it came out that he had
1:55
Speaker 2: been adopted at five years old after living on the
1:58
Speaker 2: streets in Columbia and lots of abuse, and I, of
2:02
Speaker 2: course had never really dealt with that before, so I
2:05
Speaker 2: became a voracious learner about anything to do with trauma.
2:10
Speaker 2: Out of necessity. He had a lot of complex PTSD,
2:13
Speaker 2: a lot of dissociative symptoms. They didn't make sense to
2:16
Speaker 2: me as a nineteen year old, and so I just
2:20
Speaker 2: I back in the day, we didn't have all of
2:22
Speaker 2: the resources we have now, so you had to go
2:24
Speaker 2: to the backstacks in the medical library and find, you know,
2:27
Speaker 2: whatever you could. And I just started attending a bunch
2:31
Speaker 2: of conferences. I was a student at Georgetown at the time,
2:34
Speaker 2: I switched from languages and linguistics to a psychology major
2:37
Speaker 2: to try to better understand.
2:39
Speaker 1: So just quickly pardon me, but why this intense interest
2:45
Speaker 1: because you were dating this guy.
2:48
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean he became my first husband. But it
2:51
Speaker 2: was also I think my dad had always raised me
2:54
Speaker 2: on books like Anne Frank, Uncle Tom's Cabin, you know,
2:58
Speaker 2: anything to do with trying to understand compassion and victim stories,
3:02
Speaker 2: and so I think it was already in there. And
3:04
Speaker 2: I also, this is a great question, by the way,
3:06
Speaker 2: and I also was raised by parents who were first
3:10
Speaker 2: generation from Europe and they had endured war, and so
3:16
Speaker 2: I think there was a lot of just compelling interest
3:18
Speaker 2: and trying to understand trauma and trauma reactions. And then
3:22
Speaker 2: of course I somehow had a lot of compassion, and
3:26
Speaker 2: it was very disturbing to watch somebody that you really
3:29
Speaker 2: cared about struggle in such a manner. And back then
3:33
Speaker 2: it wasn't as common for people to really understand trauma
3:37
Speaker 2: and their kind of like practice their vernacular. He happened
3:42
Speaker 2: to have a wonderful psychoanalyst, and I became kind of obsessed,
3:45
Speaker 2: and so I then was on the Trans Siberian railroad.
3:50
Speaker 2: My dad thought it would be a brilliant graduation gift
3:52
Speaker 2: from high school to have us go on a Transaverionan railroad,
3:57
Speaker 2: which was a three day affair. So in Moscow, the
4:02
Speaker 2: only book I could find that remotely interested me in
4:05
Speaker 2: the bookstore was Sybil Flora Rita Schreiber's you Know Incredible
4:11
Speaker 2: Tone on d ID and I was enraptured. I don't
4:15
Speaker 2: think I remember any of the scenery going past me
4:17
Speaker 2: on the train. So in an interesting twist, so Cornelia
4:24
Speaker 2: Wilbur who was the doctor, the famous doctor who worked
4:27
Speaker 2: with Sybil, was sort of known as the grandmother of
4:31
Speaker 2: the field of MPD multiple personality back in the day.
4:34
Speaker 2: So years later doctor Ralph Allison, who was also known
4:39
Speaker 2: as sort of the grandfather of the field, became my
4:41
Speaker 2: mentor on my dissertation. We had years of conversations about
4:45
Speaker 2: the spiritual aspects of dissative disorders. So it was on
4:53
Speaker 2: the nature of spiritual experiences in your death experiences and
4:58
Speaker 2: dissocative identity disordered individuals. So it is the nature of
5:03
Speaker 2: the overlap. And so people who had had near death
5:05
Speaker 2: experiences obviously report leaving their bodies and seeing the light
5:10
Speaker 2: and having a encounters with guardian angels. A lot of
5:14
Speaker 2: people who struggle with really severe trauma report the same.
5:17
Speaker 2: They said, when I was being abused, a part of
5:19
Speaker 2: me went up and I felt like I was being
5:21
Speaker 2: held on the playground with angels. So I thought, what
5:24
Speaker 2: is the overlap here? Is it really the soul leaving
5:27
Speaker 2: the body? Is it just a psychological thing our brains
5:31
Speaker 2: do when we are in extreme stress? So fascint.
5:36
Speaker 1: Yeah, so did you decide at some point that you
5:43
Speaker 1: this is what you wanted to do, become a therapist
5:45
Speaker 1: or psychologist or what? Oh?
5:47
Speaker 2: Absolutely, I absolutely ditched languages. I mean, I love languages,
5:52
Speaker 2: but I ditched that as a major. I then just
5:54
Speaker 2: went full on. I did sort of segue so in there.
5:59
Speaker 2: My brother died in a very tragic accident when I
6:02
Speaker 2: was twenty two, and so I started shifting from pure
6:06
Speaker 2: trauma studies to more of the spiritual aspects. And I
6:09
Speaker 2: really voraciously read attended conferences on your death experiences, and
6:16
Speaker 2: I started to slowly bridge the gap between the two
6:19
Speaker 2: just out of my own need to understand. And yeah,
6:27
Speaker 2: I think it was sort of a done deal once
6:29
Speaker 2: I first figured out that trauma happens, and that we
6:34
Speaker 2: can really try to be there for somebody. I was sold.
6:38
Speaker 1: So what happened? You go to school, you graduate, Did
6:41
Speaker 1: you go straight for the PhD or doctorate or what? So?
6:45
Speaker 2: I did not. So I decided after my brother's accident
6:48
Speaker 2: that I would do medical studies. So I did a
6:50
Speaker 2: Master's of Biomedical Sciences. I then worked at UCLA doing
6:54
Speaker 2: PTSD work with children with cancer and brain tumors. And
6:59
Speaker 2: then and I went over to PhD in Pepperdine. So
7:04
Speaker 2: I somewhere along the way I decided, well, medical school,
7:08
Speaker 2: that psychiatry is becoming a little bit more medicalized, and
7:12
Speaker 2: managed care was starting to come in. It was changing things.
7:15
Speaker 2: So I thought, it's probably better that I go back
7:17
Speaker 2: and get the doctorate. Okay, And I haven't looked back, and.
7:20
Speaker 1: They haven't looked back. All right, let me just remind
7:22
Speaker 1: everyone I'm speaking with doctor Kirsten Viola Harrison. We're talking
7:29
Speaker 1: about the book Shanna, the story of a homeless intersex
7:32
Speaker 1: woman who inspired a community. So, all right, a couple
7:35
Speaker 1: of things here. The title is I sean hyphen a?
7:39
Speaker 1: How is that read? Is it? I? Shawna? No, you're right, Okay, Okay,
7:46
Speaker 1: and for those who maybe aren't familiar with or don't know,
7:50
Speaker 1: but what does it mean to be intersex?
7:54
Speaker 2: So intersex is a biological versus a kind of gender
7:59
Speaker 2: IDENTI the issue. It's a biological born with ambiguous genitalia.
8:04
Speaker 2: It's somehow encoded in your genotype that something doesn't quite match.
8:12
Speaker 2: Where somebody might feel very feminine inside, they might feel
8:16
Speaker 2: very female, yet somehow their hormones were responding differently as
8:21
Speaker 2: they grew, and they grew more male, and then they
8:25
Speaker 2: had this incongruity of am I male? AM my female?
8:29
Speaker 2: I always feel like I have this female inside? So
8:33
Speaker 2: sometimes they were doing gender you know, kind of a
8:37
Speaker 2: surgery to fix this and never told the child, which
8:42
Speaker 2: is horrific, horrific.
8:44
Speaker 1: So, just for my own clarity here and pardon my ignorance,
8:50
Speaker 1: but when you said ambiguous, does that mean that someone
8:53
Speaker 1: might have both characteristics of a male and a female.
8:58
Speaker 2: Absolutely.
8:59
Speaker 1: So.
8:59
Speaker 2: Back in the day, they would call it hermaphrodite if
9:02
Speaker 2: you were completely, you know, sort of both. I think
9:06
Speaker 2: in this day and age it's pretty common. It's almost
9:09
Speaker 2: as common as having red hair as what I've been reading.
9:12
Speaker 2: But I think it's more there's ambiguous, maybe sometimes a
9:18
Speaker 2: vestigial uterus or something going on where you might have
9:21
Speaker 2: more male parts predominantly on the outside. So it's also
9:25
Speaker 2: a really deeply felt sense that something is off. Shauna
9:28
Speaker 2: always tells me, I just feel like my body is
9:30
Speaker 2: changing in a way I don't understand. Something was often confusing.
9:34
Speaker 1: Okay, so let me as we kind of get into
9:41
Speaker 1: the book here, let me read Shawna's bio is short here.
9:48
Speaker 1: So Shauna's bold style and vibrant spirit made her beloved
9:52
Speaker 1: figure in La Jolla, California, despite being unhaled for years.
9:56
Speaker 1: When doctor Kristen Harrison learned shawn a story, she was
10:01
Speaker 1: moved to help their connections, smart to share journey of healing, advocacy,
10:05
Speaker 1: and transformation from life on the streets to co author
10:09
Speaker 1: and national speaker Shawn and now champions intersex rights and
10:13
Speaker 1: dignity for the marginalized. Always grounded in her deep sense
10:16
Speaker 1: of community. So really interesting here, How the heck does
10:21
Speaker 1: this start?
10:23
Speaker 2: So my ex husband at the time was a professional
10:27
Speaker 2: tennis player and had long dreadlocks, and not very many
10:32
Speaker 2: people look sort of like James in my community, And
10:36
Speaker 2: all of a sudden, one day well, he had a
10:41
Speaker 2: big academy called Rossta Tennis. Some people might know that,
10:45
Speaker 2: so he back in the day, Sean was presenting as Sean,
10:51
Speaker 2: but always a fixture at the tennis courts and very tall,
10:54
Speaker 2: six foot five African American. My husband's Max husband at
10:57
Speaker 2: the time is also Trinidadian Americans, so they looked a
11:01
Speaker 2: little bit different, a little bit similar and shared a
11:03
Speaker 2: passion for tennis. Well, and we had just moved here.
11:06
Speaker 2: So one day, all of a sudden, we went to
11:09
Speaker 2: Vaughn's and Sean was now Shauna with Wig and you know,
11:12
Speaker 2: sports Brad. And I was like, oh, I wonder what
11:15
Speaker 2: happened there? And the psychologist in me couldn't sort of
11:19
Speaker 2: let it go because I was like, she seems so exuberant,
11:22
Speaker 2: so vibrant, so positive. What's her secret? What's her story?
11:26
Speaker 2: So one day I noticed she hung out at Vaughn's
11:29
Speaker 2: a lot, and one day I just said, can I
11:30
Speaker 2: buy you a Starbucks? And I pretended. I kind of
11:33
Speaker 2: started getting this sense that maybe she didn't have a
11:37
Speaker 2: lot of resources, so I just sort of pretended to
11:39
Speaker 2: drop a five dollar bill and I said, hey, you know,
11:43
Speaker 2: is this yours? And she said oh, thank you, ma'am.
11:46
Speaker 2: And then we started talking and she was telling me
11:50
Speaker 2: some things about her life. Still never revealed that she
11:53
Speaker 2: had been unhoused for eight years, sleeping on cardboard. I
11:57
Speaker 2: had no idea, so I just started every time I
12:00
Speaker 2: went to Vond's or saw her somewhere, I would just
12:03
Speaker 2: make a conversation. And it became really clear to me
12:06
Speaker 2: that she was beloved in the community, that people just
12:10
Speaker 2: thought she was fun and exciting and interesting. But I also,
12:13
Speaker 2: I think my little spiding senses as a psychologist, knew
12:17
Speaker 2: that there was a lot of mental distress there. So upon,
12:24
Speaker 2: many many years later, I've come to understand what I
12:27
Speaker 2: think she might be suffering from dissociative schizophrenia, which is
12:31
Speaker 2: a concept that Colin Ross tried to introduce. Never made
12:35
Speaker 2: its way into that DSM, however, he wrote a really
12:39
Speaker 2: good book on it. I used to work for doctor
12:41
Speaker 2: Ross at the National Incredible Thinker, Oh my gosh, incredible Thinker,
12:48
Speaker 2: and so had had many interactions with him. Worked for
12:51
Speaker 2: him at the hospital in Torrance that dealt with desistive
12:54
Speaker 2: identity disorder, and I think through many conversations with Shawna,
13:00
Speaker 2: I just became a million percent devoted to trying to
13:05
Speaker 2: make sure that she was getting some help in some resources.
13:09
Speaker 2: I again, I still didn't know she was n house.
13:11
Speaker 2: And then one night, in the pouring rain, there she stood, shivering,
13:16
Speaker 2: ready to take a nice mood walk therapy, which she
13:19
Speaker 2: does every day, walks half a marathon a day as
13:21
Speaker 2: a way to ease her mental distress. And I said,
13:24
Speaker 2: do you have a place to go? And she said no,
13:28
Speaker 2: I don't. And I said, okay, let's get you off
13:32
Speaker 2: the streets. Let's get you into a hotel right now.
13:34
Speaker 2: So long story short, at that hotel came in. You know,
13:37
Speaker 2: it was multiple hotel nights, and then I started selling
13:42
Speaker 2: things out of my closet to afford another hotel room
13:45
Speaker 2: for her another night. Because my my ex husband was
13:48
Speaker 2: not feeling it. He was like, this is too much
13:50
Speaker 2: to take on. We've got a bunch of kids, like,
13:52
Speaker 2: let's not do this. And I just felt compelled. I
13:56
Speaker 2: was like, she needs help. And so I then called
14:01
Speaker 2: the editor in tears of the local newspaper and said,
14:05
Speaker 2: I know you all know Shanna, you know how much
14:07
Speaker 2: it means to the community. We need to start a GoFundMe.
14:09
Speaker 2: We need do something to help, which we did. We
14:12
Speaker 2: got her I think the first round was eleven thousand dollars.
14:18
Speaker 2: Then I got an angel investor and they donated fifteen
14:22
Speaker 2: thousand dollars. So we promptly got her an apartment. So
14:26
Speaker 2: you know, for one year I was helping her every
14:29
Speaker 2: few days, and again just as a friend, not as
14:32
Speaker 2: a psychologist.
14:33
Speaker 1: Well, that's what I want to kind of interject here,
14:36
Speaker 1: so we'd how are you organizing that in your mind
14:41
Speaker 1: because you are a psychologist, you are a professional.
14:44
Speaker 2: Yes, I organize that in the same manner that I.
14:50
Speaker 2: It's like anywhere you go, I could constantly be a
14:53
Speaker 2: therapist to anybody, any friend that needs help. I just
14:57
Speaker 2: she's not my client, never has been my client. However,
15:00
Speaker 2: because I have such a long standing background and trauma,
15:04
Speaker 2: I felt like as a coach, I kind of envisioned
15:07
Speaker 2: myself as a coach to her. Informally, I have now
15:10
Speaker 2: supported her for the last nine years. After the GoFundMe
15:13
Speaker 2: money ran out and whatever, it's been my personal mission
15:16
Speaker 2: to sort of make sure she always had housing. I
15:18
Speaker 2: promised her she would never go back on the streets,
15:20
Speaker 2: and she never has and she never will. We just
15:24
Speaker 2: finished a three week trip in Europe. We went through
15:28
Speaker 2: all of the we went to all of the Pride events,
15:30
Speaker 2: we went to euro Pride, Paris Pride. But also being
15:34
Speaker 2: that close to her and you know, kind of like
15:37
Speaker 2: singer every day, I definitely saw the schizophrenia part, really
15:44
Speaker 2: floridly acting up at times. And then one time I
15:49
Speaker 2: sat across from her and I said, Seanna, it must
15:51
Speaker 2: be exhausting to have people all day long telling you
15:55
Speaker 2: that you're not good enough, because she started putting me
15:59
Speaker 2: into her system, which is actually a no, no, you
16:01
Speaker 2: don't want to have that happen. But I think what
16:02
Speaker 2: happens is when you're with somebody long enough, they start
16:06
Speaker 2: to sort of infiltrate the system. So I would hear
16:09
Speaker 2: her say things. I'd say, oh, no, I can't find
16:11
Speaker 2: the train tickets, and she'd say, oh, you know, doc,
16:15
Speaker 2: I told you, And she's looking away, talking to one
16:18
Speaker 2: of her voices, but basically trying to say what she
16:22
Speaker 2: couldn't say to me. So one day when I just
16:24
Speaker 2: looked her deep into her soul and said, this must
16:28
Speaker 2: be exhausting. Everybody's trying their hardest, You're trying your hardest,
16:31
Speaker 2: and yet you're still hearing this, and I felt like
16:34
Speaker 2: her entire being just softened, and she just said it is,
16:38
Speaker 2: and thank you so much for saying that, And it
16:40
Speaker 2: just those moments kind of renew my commitment to make
16:43
Speaker 2: sure that she's always growing, finding ways to express herself.
16:49
Speaker 2: She just got a million views on TikTok.
16:52
Speaker 1: You know she uh getting formal help.
16:59
Speaker 2: Okay, this is where it gets difficult. So understanding dissociative schizophrenia.
17:04
Speaker 2: The parts that are dissociative, which are the protective in
17:07
Speaker 2: her voices, the ones that are very amenable to therapy
17:12
Speaker 2: are the ones that I feel like on the daily
17:14
Speaker 2: I'm working with, coaching with whatever. The biological component of
17:18
Speaker 2: the schizophrenia makes it very difficult at times because the
17:22
Speaker 2: delusions of grandeur kind of make her feel like, well,
17:26
Speaker 2: maybe I don't need help. What are you talking about, Doc,
17:29
Speaker 2: I don't have this. And so that's where it gets
17:31
Speaker 2: really challenging. And that's where I rely a lot on
17:35
Speaker 2: Colin Ross's work and his book and just kind of
17:38
Speaker 2: trying to understand, Let Shanna be Shana. She wants to
17:42
Speaker 2: kind of do life this way or this is.
17:45
Speaker 1: How she is would have been. Does she feel she
17:52
Speaker 1: needs other help?
17:54
Speaker 2: No, okay, And I will say here's the other answer
17:58
Speaker 2: that is very vital and importan and I do write
18:00
Speaker 2: about this in the book, that her family has had,
18:04
Speaker 2: you know, heart disease, things that have happened that have
18:06
Speaker 2: really impacted their health, and her mom and stepdad and
18:11
Speaker 2: biological dad, they all died very young, and cardiac issues
18:15
Speaker 2: were some of it. And so when she realized that
18:19
Speaker 2: medication way back in the day when it was sort
18:21
Speaker 2: of a requirement when you were going to be staying
18:23
Speaker 2: at a halfway house or something was part of the deal,
18:27
Speaker 2: I think she made some sort of like conscious decision,
18:30
Speaker 2: I'm not going to do that to my body. Instead,
18:32
Speaker 2: I'm just going to mood wock therapy out all of
18:35
Speaker 2: my stress in the middle of the night, walk thirteen miles,
18:39
Speaker 2: release it to the air, and then she calms herself down.
18:42
Speaker 2: And I have to say, exactly, and who can argue.
18:46
Speaker 2: I think her mental illness saved her on the streets.
18:48
Speaker 2: I mean, the mental illness made her wake up every
18:50
Speaker 2: day saying, I wonder what today's going to bring. I
18:52
Speaker 2: know that I'm special and i know that I'll get
18:54
Speaker 2: out of the situation. You know, it had an adaptive.
18:58
Speaker 1: Purpose so how does the book come about?
19:03
Speaker 2: So after the first year and a half, I'd say,
19:06
Speaker 2: of the GoFundMe money, I was like, I had no
19:09
Speaker 2: idea then that I was going to be supporting her
19:11
Speaker 2: for the next ten years. And I said, we need
19:14
Speaker 2: to find some way to help you get your story
19:17
Speaker 2: out because it's so inspiring, your survival story and also
19:21
Speaker 2: about intersex and educating people. And we also need to
19:25
Speaker 2: find a way for you to become sort of self sustaining.
19:29
Speaker 2: And so that part hasn't quite happened yet, but she's
19:34
Speaker 2: on her way. I will say that. We then said, hey,
19:39
Speaker 2: what do we think about that this is in twenty sixteen.
19:42
Speaker 2: What do we think about maybe telling your story writing
19:44
Speaker 2: a book. Well, I was raising three children, my child
19:48
Speaker 2: and then three step kids and Nay one of them
19:51
Speaker 2: had special needs. So I was deep in mommy land,
19:54
Speaker 2: and Shanna was not at all thinking about contributing to
19:57
Speaker 2: writing or doing anything. She was busy reacting, mating to society,
20:01
Speaker 2: learning to trust again, and all of the important things
20:04
Speaker 2: that go along with that. And I think that when
20:07
Speaker 2: COVID hit, we became very serious. It was like, Okay,
20:10
Speaker 2: she decided she wanted to move to Palm Springs a
20:13
Speaker 2: little bit more LGBT friendly. She didn't get harassed as
20:16
Speaker 2: much by tourists, and she felt like maybe she could
20:20
Speaker 2: have some respite in the desert to really start to
20:23
Speaker 2: write and think about her story. So COVID we started
20:27
Speaker 2: in earnest really getting some good work done. And then
20:31
Speaker 2: again after that, you know, I had kids in high
20:34
Speaker 2: school and getting into college and soccer schedules. So we
20:38
Speaker 2: finally finished in the book was released in March of
20:43
Speaker 2: this year, and then in May we started promoting so.
20:47
Speaker 1: Just as an aside, so on the on the continuum
20:54
Speaker 1: of functionality, level of functioning zero, completely high functioning, Where
21:03
Speaker 1: is she?
21:05
Speaker 2: It's a struggle. This is why. This is why, for instance,
21:09
Speaker 2: she's not on the podcast, because she's she's able to.
21:15
Speaker 2: She goes rogue really quickly. She's able to. On our trip,
21:20
Speaker 2: there was a lot of like she'll point a peace
21:21
Speaker 2: sign up people, or she'll stop people, but she's not
21:24
Speaker 2: talking to people outside. It's her own people, and so
21:27
Speaker 2: people get a little bit taken aback. They don't know
21:29
Speaker 2: what she's doing when she stops. And so if she's
21:32
Speaker 2: introduced as somebody who struggles with mental illness, that's perfectly fine. However,
21:36
Speaker 2: most of the time she'll be like, who not me,
21:38
Speaker 2: you know, and so it becomes a little bit difficult
21:42
Speaker 2: when it's in situations like that. I think most people
21:45
Speaker 2: love her exuberance, her personality, but they know that Shawna
21:50
Speaker 2: is just going to do Shauna, and you know, she
21:53
Speaker 2: doesn't have a huge awareness of other people's needs necessarily.
21:58
Speaker 2: Or when we were traveling, for instance, there wasn't a
22:01
Speaker 2: whole lot of bandwidth to take in all of the
22:04
Speaker 2: social aspects of a situation. So I did tell one
22:08
Speaker 2: of my friends when we got back, I said, it's
22:10
Speaker 2: kind of like traveling with somebody with Alzheimer's. It's like
22:13
Speaker 2: you have to have very specialized care to be able
22:15
Speaker 2: to take somebody along. You have to be able to
22:18
Speaker 2: manage everything and everyone's reactions. But Shanna is the most
22:22
Speaker 2: delightful person you ever meet, and she's the most wise.
22:25
Speaker 2: I cannot imagine people not knowing a little bit of
22:29
Speaker 2: Shanna in their lives. You know, she's a walking spirit
22:32
Speaker 2: in my mind. She's so connected to the transcendent. I
22:35
Speaker 2: have no question.
22:37
Speaker 1: So what is the book about. Let's get specific. What
22:41
Speaker 1: did you want to say in the book.
22:44
Speaker 2: Okay, So we definitely wanted to talk about trauma and resilience,
22:48
Speaker 2: post traumatic thriving, how people deal with mental illness, and
22:52
Speaker 2: how they do have a slippery slope, oftentimes into homelessness
22:57
Speaker 2: or estrangement from family, how to respect the way people's
23:03
Speaker 2: brains work. She's definitely neurodiversion in a certain way, and
23:06
Speaker 2: she has had so many synchronicities that occur around her
23:12
Speaker 2: that it begs people to notice. And she also she's
23:17
Speaker 2: got a teach California teaching license. She has a four
23:19
Speaker 2: year PE degree and before things started to unravel for her,
23:23
Speaker 2: she was an excellent teacher, and so she really wanted
23:26
Speaker 2: to educate people also on intersex and what that means
23:29
Speaker 2: and how confusing it can be if you don't even
23:32
Speaker 2: trust your own biology. So there was just a lot
23:36
Speaker 2: of reasons to kind of tell people you're not alone,
23:39
Speaker 2: you can get through this no matter what it is.
23:40
Speaker 2: Keep hope and keep faith. And also the power of allyeship,
23:45
Speaker 2: what it means to stick by somebody and say, you
23:47
Speaker 2: know what, I can see that they're vulnerable. Let me
23:51
Speaker 2: tap into my resources in the community, and my resources
23:54
Speaker 2: is as a human being to truly show up for somebody.
23:58
Speaker 1: Yeah, anything, and really really interesting and inspiring that that
24:03
Speaker 1: you just added that bit, because that's a whole other
24:05
Speaker 1: aspect to that is your being an ally and an
24:12
Speaker 1: advocate and a friggin amazing human being to do what
24:16
Speaker 1: you did. I mean, let's face it, you know, we
24:18
Speaker 1: all every day you cross, you're welcome. We all encounter
24:22
Speaker 1: people who are on the street and for whatever reason,
24:26
Speaker 1: we don't extend a hand or say let me get
24:29
Speaker 1: you a Starbucks. For many different reasons, we don't do that.
24:34
Speaker 1: But it's like you see this person, you see Shauna,
24:45
Speaker 1: you see into their soul and that in and of
24:49
Speaker 1: itself is really inspiring.
24:53
Speaker 2: Thank you. I feel like we all do though, like
24:57
Speaker 2: why did you get you know, called to this and
25:01
Speaker 2: helping voices?
25:02
Speaker 1: We all not everyone out there is extending a hand
25:06
Speaker 1: to someone on the street saying here, let's get to
25:09
Speaker 1: a Starbuck. So let me give you right, there's many
25:12
Speaker 1: opportunities that we let go for whatever reason. But you know,
25:19
Speaker 1: and again, not everyone's taking it a step further and
25:23
Speaker 1: writing a book.
25:24
Speaker 2: Well that piece, I understand that was quite a challenge
25:28
Speaker 2: managing a family and honoring my word to SHAWNA that
25:31
Speaker 2: we would do this. I think that. And many things
25:36
Speaker 2: happened though along the way where it became very mutual.
25:38
Speaker 2: For instance, I read about this in the book, but
25:40
Speaker 2: I was given an erroneous diagnosis that told me I
25:44
Speaker 2: had a year to live. So I had to make,
25:46
Speaker 2: you know, kind of like closure with my life and
25:49
Speaker 2: my kids and all of these things. This was six
25:50
Speaker 2: years ago, and it ended up being wrong after a
25:53
Speaker 2: long biopsy and whatever they were wrong, I have something.
25:56
Speaker 2: But it wasn't like that. And Shawna every single day
26:00
Speaker 2: sent me positive messages, sent me little trinkets to say,
26:04
Speaker 2: you know, you've got the stop and I just thought, wow,
26:07
Speaker 2: she showed up for me in ways that a lot
26:09
Speaker 2: of people wouldn't. So it's very mutual that if you
26:12
Speaker 2: give out great energy in unexpected ways, that absolutely is
26:16
Speaker 2: always swirling around all of us and comes back in
26:19
Speaker 2: so many wonderful gifts.
26:22
Speaker 1: So all right, look, wow, Kristin, you're incredible. We all are.
26:30
Speaker 2: We all have that, we all are. But when I
26:39
Speaker 2: see my daughter coaching little kids, she's an incredible soccer player,
26:43
Speaker 2: I watch the god aspect of her coming out and
26:46
Speaker 2: I watch that connection, and I wouldn't think to stop
26:49
Speaker 2: and just start kicking the ball with a kid, but
26:51
Speaker 2: she does. So we all have our version of that.
26:54
Speaker 1: We do. And right now on this podcast, as I
26:58
Speaker 1: talk to you, you're in this frame here. You're incredible.
27:04
Speaker 1: You are, and I just want to say that it's
27:07
Speaker 1: just really inspiring and fascinating just from a you know,
27:13
Speaker 1: zoned out view of what this is here. How do
27:19
Speaker 1: people buy the book? How do people learn more about
27:22
Speaker 1: the book and learn more about you?
27:25
Speaker 2: So on my on my website soul wise Solutions dot com,
27:31
Speaker 2: there are links to every part of her story and
27:35
Speaker 2: links to being able to buy the book. There's also
27:37
Speaker 2: Amazon and we were a bestseller for a day in
27:41
Speaker 2: schizophrenia and also very very strong and LGBT rights and
27:47
Speaker 2: human rights and law, which was fascinating to me. And
27:51
Speaker 2: it's all about human rights and social justice, all of it.
27:55
Speaker 2: And also Burns and Noble some of the other booksellers.
28:01
Speaker 1: As we clinic close out here, How has this experience
28:07
Speaker 1: befriending SHAWNA working on the book, How has this shifted
28:12
Speaker 1: your heart, your soul, your work as a psychologist and
28:20
Speaker 1: a human being?
28:22
Speaker 2: I would say it has expanded exponentially my understanding and
28:28
Speaker 2: capacity to just extend so much love and support to
28:32
Speaker 2: so many regardless of situation. And I have completely shifted
28:38
Speaker 2: into more of a life coaching model groups of women
28:40
Speaker 2: that I get inspired, and Shauna has blossomed with the
28:45
Speaker 2: chance to kind of come back to herself, getting out
28:48
Speaker 2: of survival mode, being on the streets, having someone who
28:50
Speaker 2: understands and accepts her as she is and understands her
28:53
Speaker 2: mental struggles to the extent that I can. It's just
28:56
Speaker 2: everything just has become more and more answer so to me,
29:02
Speaker 2: I am just like, take a chance on people. I mean,
29:05
Speaker 2: what do we have to lose, right, and we're all
29:06
Speaker 2: trying to help each other. Just figure it out.
29:09
Speaker 1: Love it, Love it all right, Kirsten. Love to have
29:13
Speaker 1: you back.
29:14
Speaker 2: I would love that.
29:15
Speaker 1: Keep the conversation going. Your absolute freaking inspiring I love it.
29:21
Speaker 1: Thank you for being here, and we'll have everything linked
29:23
Speaker 1: up here at the show notes page at the Trauma
29:25
Speaker 1: Therapist podcast dot com. Again. The book is called Iye
29:28
Speaker 1: Seana of the Story of a Homeless I'm trying to
29:32
Speaker 1: read the book here, I'm sorry.
29:34
Speaker 2: Unless intersects women who inspired a community.
29:37
Speaker 1: Who inspired community?
29:38
Speaker 2: Yes, and she absolutely did.
29:41
Speaker 1: All right, We'll be in touch take care
29:43
Speaker 2: Thank you all right,