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Always Enough, Never Done with Erica Bonham · The Trauma Therapist

0:00
Speaker 1: Welcome to the Trauma Papist podcast. My name is Got Macpherson.
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Speaker 1: I interview incredible people who dedicated their lives to helping
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Speaker 1: those who've been impacted by trauma. Here we go five four, three,
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Speaker 1: two and one, our folks, welcome back to the podcast.
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Speaker 1: Very excited to have us. My guest today, Erica Bonham. Erica, welcome,
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Speaker 1: Thank you so much, guy.
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Speaker 2: I'm so excited to be here, really honored.
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Speaker 1: Awesome, Thank you so. Erica is passionate about walking with
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Speaker 1: clients through the messy, beautiful process of healing and remembering
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Speaker 1: their true nature, which is that they're always and already enough, lovable, worthy,
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Speaker 1: and connected to every living thing on this planet. She's
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Speaker 1: a certified EMDR, clinician, consultant, and trainer, and a licensed
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Speaker 1: professional counselor in the state of Colorado, specializing and serving
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Speaker 1: the LGBTQ plus community, abuse recovery and trauma related to
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Speaker 1: social and racial injustice and spiritual abuse. She's a nationally
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Speaker 1: sought after speaker, creator of multiple online courses, and her
1:00
Speaker 1: book is out titled Always Enough, Never Done Via One
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Speaker 1: Heal You Nervous System, Turn wounds into wisdom and cultivate
1:08
Speaker 1: your inner bad ass. I love that last part. I'm like, yes,
1:12
Speaker 1: let's do it.
1:13
Speaker 2: We all need it.
1:14
Speaker 1: Was like that, we all need it, we all need
1:17
Speaker 1: it before we get going share the listeners. Where you're
1:20
Speaker 1: from originally and where you are.
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Speaker 2: Currently the suburbs of Denver.
1:25
Speaker 3: And then I ran away as fast as my little
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Speaker 3: white suburban leagues could carry me to California, and then
1:30
Speaker 3: traveled around a lot, but landed back here and I
1:34
Speaker 3: am in ourvat out of Colorado, which is kind of
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Speaker 3: in between Denver and Boulder.
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Speaker 1: Okay, how You've got a very interesting bio, a lot
1:49
Speaker 1: going on, very intense. I love it. I mean, to me,
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Speaker 1: it's very inspiring when I see someone like yourself who's
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Speaker 1: doing everything you're doing and writing a book on top
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Speaker 1: of it. I'm like, Daniel, how did all this start
2:03
Speaker 1: for you? How did you get into this? Yeah, man
2:07
Speaker 1: feel and specialization?
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Speaker 3: Well, I think I so I come from I'm an
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Speaker 3: adopted kid, so I think you know, my nervous system
2:15
Speaker 3: was sort of set up from the beginning for some
2:18
Speaker 3: attachment stuff, right, and then the mom that raised me,
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Speaker 3: who was my person, my primary attachment, she was a
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Speaker 3: survivor of childhood sexual abuse, and so I.
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Speaker 2: You know, I think I was.
2:32
Speaker 3: I was a waitress for twenty years, and I would
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Speaker 3: be the person that lots of people, especially women identified folks,
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Speaker 3: I would be the first one that they would tell
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Speaker 3: their abuse histories too, or I would be the first
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Speaker 3: person that they would you know, talk about a rape
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Speaker 3: that or an assault that they had. And so I said,
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Speaker 3: you know, maybe maybe there's something that I need to
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Speaker 3: follow about this, and so on the path I went,
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Speaker 3: you have.
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Speaker 1: This really awesome vibe about you, uh, and it does
3:07
Speaker 1: draw people in like you. I feel it like you
3:09
Speaker 1: can tell you're you're I feel like you're someone people
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Speaker 1: can talk to and you're not going to judge them.
3:19
Speaker 1: Not everyone has that.
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Speaker 2: Oh thank you.
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Speaker 3: I I you know, I think I had some crappy
3:24
Speaker 3: experiences with therapists when I was a kid, and that actually, I.
3:29
Speaker 2: Think was helpful for me.
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Speaker 3: I had that real Freudian dude experience where I felt
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Speaker 3: very judged and I felt very powered down, and I
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Speaker 3: think that planted a seed in me that I wanted
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Speaker 3: equity in this work, within the therapeutic relationship.
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Speaker 2: And yeah, I I.
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Speaker 3: Yeah, that's just really important to me, is having that
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Speaker 3: equity and that non judgment.
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Speaker 1: So you grow up into this life having these experiences,
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Speaker 1: people are coming to you, talking to you. How does
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Speaker 1: that evolve to such a degree like Okay, this is
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Speaker 1: what I want to do.
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Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean so I again, I was slinging eggs
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Speaker 3: for twenty years, and I was like, I gotta do something.
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Speaker 2: I got to pick something, and so yeah.
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Speaker 3: So I went back to grad school and I was
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Speaker 3: working at a community mental health agency and they had
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Speaker 3: any MDR train or an MDR training come up, and.
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Speaker 1: I wait a minute, sorry starting around, But you went
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Speaker 1: back to school with the idea that you're going to
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Speaker 1: what you know.
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Speaker 2: I was kind of in between.
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Speaker 3: I did the tracks for both school counseling and LPC.
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Speaker 2: And then I really realized that I wanted to be
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Speaker 2: in the deep work. I am not a surface level girl.
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Speaker 3: I wanted to go deep and you can't really do
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Speaker 3: that within the context of school counseling most of the time.
5:00
Speaker 3: And so I pursued, you know, an internship at a
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Speaker 3: community mental health center. Plus, I really I come from
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Speaker 3: a practice of social justice. I was very much involved
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Speaker 3: in immigrant rights in California when I was in school there,
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Speaker 3: and so I wanted to be able to tie social
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Speaker 3: justice work into counseling and so and I wanted to
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Speaker 3: do that deep I am just really passionate and good
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Speaker 3: at going through the deepest and darkest with people while
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Speaker 3: still holding the light, holding joy and holding hope and
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Speaker 3: humor even as we are holding this really deep and
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Speaker 3: dark in brutality of what it means to be How
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Speaker 3: did you how?
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Speaker 1: How did you know? Did you Was that just something
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Speaker 1: you felt you could do? Uh?
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Speaker 3: You know, I think it evolved, right, It evolved over time.
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Speaker 2: And you know, sometimes things just lead you down a.
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Speaker 3: Path and I think I knew on some level, But
6:08
Speaker 3: as I evolved, as I took more trainings, I really
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Speaker 3: started honing in on this is what I am really
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Speaker 3: enjoying and called to do. And when people actually move
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Speaker 3: through a trauma process and they come out the other
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Speaker 3: side and they feel so much different, you can see
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Speaker 3: it in their face, you can see it in their bodies.
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Speaker 3: They start interacting with people in a different way, they
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Speaker 3: start interacting with the world in a different way. That
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Speaker 3: just lights me up, you know, And having modalities.
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Speaker 2: Like we do now that go beyond I have.
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Speaker 3: Love for CBT, but I you know, having these modalities
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Speaker 3: that take us deeper. I'm so grateful for because people
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Speaker 3: get better, you know, people, you know, it doesn't necessarily
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Speaker 3: take the brutality out of what it means to be human.
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Speaker 3: I mean, I'm really feeling that right now in the
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Speaker 3: collective of just the brutality of what it means to
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Speaker 3: be alive right now. I think a lot of people
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Speaker 3: are feeling just that collective fear. And so how do
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Speaker 3: we I think we're being asked as therapists, as humans
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Speaker 3: to what does this mean to hold the brutality of
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Speaker 3: what it means to be alive and to also hold
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Speaker 3: the beauty and everyday beautiful things that still happen that
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Speaker 3: don't make the news.
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Speaker 1: You know, while you were where was your own healing
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Speaker 1: process in this context, as you were going back to
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Speaker 1: school and so forth, What was that like?
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Speaker 2: Yeah? So I think, you know, I had done a.
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Speaker 3: Little bit of surface level work, and really what kicked
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Speaker 3: my own work into gear. I was in my internship
8:01
Speaker 3: waiting tables forty hours a week still, and then I
8:04
Speaker 3: was pregnant.
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Speaker 2: I was pregnant as well.
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Speaker 1: Oh my god.
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Speaker 3: So I was seven months pregnant when I graduated grad school.
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Speaker 3: And I think my adoption, my nervous system and just
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Speaker 3: this general feeling I'm going to bring a child into
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Speaker 3: the world kind of kicked up some kicked up some
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Speaker 3: unresolved stuff for me. So I found what I would
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Speaker 3: call it my first really excellent therapist when I was
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Speaker 3: pregnant with my first and she was really lovely, really
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Speaker 3: helping me understand that preverbal trauma, attachment wound trauma was real.
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Speaker 3: And I did have some big tea stuff as well,
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Speaker 3: but the death by a thousand paper cuts attachment wounding
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Speaker 3: was what really.
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Speaker 2: Was needed for me.
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Speaker 3: That was the work that was needed for me, And
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Speaker 3: so she was sort of the first. And then I
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Speaker 3: found really really good EMDR therapist and then honestly, Ketymine
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Speaker 3: assisted psychotherapy has been just a game changer for me.
9:08
Speaker 3: I had done so much EMDR and so much IFS
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Speaker 3: work and medicine work really allowed me to kind of
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Speaker 3: go and get my abandoned baby adopted self in a
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Speaker 3: way that I just hadn't been able to contact her before,
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Speaker 3: and that has just stepped me into a different place.
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Speaker 2: I mean, I still have not.
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Speaker 3: Enoughness, and I still have these parts that I carry
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Speaker 3: with me, and now I really appreciate them.
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Speaker 2: Actually, I think those are where my empathy lies.
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Speaker 3: And where the messiness and my ability to hold multiple
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Speaker 3: truths with people live, you know, And so those that
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Speaker 3: was that's been the trajectory. And I still, you know,
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Speaker 3: kind of dabble in some emdr and and and ketamine
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Speaker 3: work as I as I you know, my birth mom
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Speaker 3: died a couple of years ago that I was reconnected with.
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Speaker 3: That was sort of a different layer of things that
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Speaker 3: needed to.
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Speaker 2: Be worked on.
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Speaker 3: So that's my book, right, It's always enough and never done,
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Speaker 3: and we're never there's no such thing as healed land.
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Speaker 3: We're not gonna get on a plane and land, right,
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Speaker 3: We never arrive, and so different layers come up. And
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Speaker 3: the metaphor that I really love is like a kaleidoscope.
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Speaker 2: You know, we're in this iteration right now.
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Speaker 3: We're in this iteration of ourselves personally, You're in this
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Speaker 3: iteration of your relationships. We're in this really precarious iteration
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Speaker 3: and the collective but it it, you know, it's here,
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Speaker 3: and then we're gonna turn and compost and different patterns
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Speaker 3: are gonna go away, and then we're gonna emerge into
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Speaker 3: this next iteration.
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Speaker 1: How did you manage every I mean you've been through
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Speaker 1: a lot of shit. Grant that a lot of us have,
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Speaker 1: but but you have you have, and how did you
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Speaker 1: were I'm guessing there were times where you couldn't keep
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Speaker 1: everything together?
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Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean I think all of us are a
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Speaker 2: mess sometimes, right, you know?
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Speaker 1: Yes, And of course that's.
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Speaker 3: Part of being alive, is falling apart, turning into the
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Speaker 3: the goof phase of the metamorphosis.
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Speaker 2: I don't you know, sometimes we just have to.
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Speaker 3: Put one foot in front of the other, and it's
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Speaker 3: you know, what I tell clients is like, you don't
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Speaker 3: have to know the whole way. You don't have to
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Speaker 3: know the whole path, identify the values that light you
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Speaker 3: up right now, and just point your feet in that
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Speaker 3: direction and do the next wise thing. I try not
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Speaker 3: to use the word right.
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Speaker 2: Like, not the next right thing, not the next good.
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Speaker 3: Thing, but just what feels like the next wise kind
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Speaker 3: of hard.
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Speaker 1: How did you get that message?
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Speaker 2: Oh?
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Speaker 3: Man?
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Speaker 2: I wish I could.
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Speaker 3: I think there's lots of just different pieces, different therapists,
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Speaker 3: different uh work.
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Speaker 1: Look, let me let me, let me just stop you
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Speaker 1: for a second. We all know that. Well, I gotta
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Speaker 1: keep going, but not everyone can, not every we all
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Speaker 1: can't Look, here's someone who has this impressive background. You
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Speaker 1: have this uh counseling center, You've written a freaking book,
12:37
Speaker 1: which takes a lot. You know, you've got the Seriously,
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Speaker 1: it's a lot of stuff that you have done, and
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Speaker 1: you look back to a very challenging, you know, childhood.
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Speaker 1: So and I realized it's not just one thing that
12:51
Speaker 1: oh I found this key and this has helped me.
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Speaker 1: But curious with the people who just like let you up.
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Speaker 1: You mentioned that one amazing things.
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Speaker 2: I mean, my mom and my dad too.
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Speaker 3: My dad is likely undiagnosed autistic, and so that was
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Speaker 3: a challenge. He's a very loving person, but he is
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Speaker 3: very supportive. But my mom, even though she struggled with
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Speaker 3: her own unhealed trauma, was she was attuned and she
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Speaker 3: was all empathy. The way that her trauma manifested was
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Speaker 3: she was a caretaker, and so that was really important
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Speaker 3: to me. She taught me that everybody deserves respect, everybody
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Speaker 3: has a story, and so she was She's my main
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Speaker 3: my main person, right. That gave me that message. I
13:41
Speaker 3: have a lot of really beautiful chosen family. My partner
13:45
Speaker 3: is you know, I'm really lucky that I do have
13:48
Speaker 3: such beautiful and supportive people that also value the messiness
13:53
Speaker 3: of human life. And you know, I'm I think, I'm.
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Speaker 3: I'm also just really inspired by a lot of people
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Speaker 3: in the social justice movement that they are up against,
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Speaker 3: you know, those in the LGBTQ community, black and brown
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Speaker 3: people that are up against what feels like impossible situations,
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Speaker 3: and they managed to move through work with joy, move
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Speaker 3: through work with an open heart.
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Speaker 2: And that I think, you.
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Speaker 3: Know, when we feel like we are tapped into something
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Speaker 3: bigger than ourselves, that allows us to point our feet.
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Speaker 2: In that direction.
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Speaker 1: Awesome. Again, I'm speaking with Erica Bonham. Her book is out.
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Speaker 1: It's called Always Enough, Never Done, Volume one. Heal your
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Speaker 1: nervous system, turn wounds into wisdom, and cultivate your inner
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Speaker 1: bad ass. So let's dial into the book here. Why
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Speaker 1: did you write it?
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Speaker 3: You know, I funnily enough as has tender is toxic,
15:00
Speaker 3: religion is for me. This book really did feel like
15:05
Speaker 3: whatever universe or inspired you know, source or whatever wanted
15:12
Speaker 3: me to write this book, it was like coming through me.
15:16
Speaker 3: And I am a spiritual person, but I call myself
15:19
Speaker 3: like dirty.
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Speaker 2: Spiritual, you know, like my feet have to be barefoot
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Speaker 2: in the ground. In my in my spirituality, and it just.
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Speaker 3: You know, I was realizing that I was I was
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Speaker 3: repeating myself a lot in session, and I just wanted
15:36
Speaker 3: more people to have access to whatever wisdom I can offer,
15:41
Speaker 3: and I wanted to sort of democratize it. You know,
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Speaker 3: it's expensive to work with therapists, so if I could
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Speaker 3: at least give people some little bit of wisdom.
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Speaker 2: And this is volume one.
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Speaker 3: Volume one is really about individual work, our own shadow stuff,
16:00
Speaker 3: our own individual nervous system. Volume two is going to
16:04
Speaker 3: be more about relational stuff and how our collective unhealed trauma,
16:10
Speaker 3: our collective ancestral trauma manifests in the bigger collective.
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Speaker 2: So it just it kind of wanted to come through me.
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Speaker 1: You know that's you already have Volume two planned out well.
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Speaker 3: Funnily enough, I am a wordy, wordy person, and I
16:29
Speaker 3: wrote it as one book and realized that.
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Speaker 2: I had written a five hundred page book, and I.
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Speaker 3: Was like, nobody wants to read a five hundred page
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Speaker 3: book about trauma.
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Speaker 2: So we're gonna we're gonna split this up into more
16:43
Speaker 2: digestible bits.
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Speaker 3: So Volume two is essentially written, but I need to
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Speaker 3: kind of clean it up and you know, do a
16:53
Speaker 3: summary of what's in volume one for it.
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Speaker 2: But it should be out next to you.
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Speaker 1: So who's it for?
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Speaker 3: I would say it is for anybody who just feels
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Speaker 3: the sense of.
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Speaker 2: Something is missing.
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Speaker 3: So I address big T trauma, but I also address
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Speaker 3: little T trauma, and I would say that the majority
17:12
Speaker 3: of us have. I mean, I think it's traumatic to
17:15
Speaker 3: live in the world sometimes just to be human. And
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Speaker 3: I don't want to minimize what we mean by trauma,
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Speaker 3: but that missing experience of an attuned caregiver, of an
17:29
Speaker 3: attuned community, of an attuned society is a missing experience
17:35
Speaker 3: for most of us, and that causes damage to our
17:39
Speaker 3: nervous system, and it causes us to be organized around
17:42
Speaker 3: self protection.
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Speaker 2: So I would say the book.
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Speaker 3: Is for anybody that feels like they have armor, and
17:51
Speaker 3: even though they know better about themselves, even though they
17:54
Speaker 3: know different about their relationships, it feels like that armor
18:00
Speaker 3: is stuck in a place. And I talk a lot
18:05
Speaker 3: about how we can't self affirmation our way out of trauma.
18:09
Speaker 3: Self affirmation is a good practice, but it's insufficient when
18:13
Speaker 3: it comes to what is really stuck in the lower
18:17
Speaker 3: levels of the brain and in the nervous system and
18:19
Speaker 3: in the body. We have to get to deeper work.
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Speaker 3: And it's it's going to need more than just neurotically
18:27
Speaker 3: repeating I am enough, I am enough, I am enough
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Speaker 3: to ourselves right it We really have to bring in
18:35
Speaker 3: somatic work, deeper work.
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Speaker 2: Look at our look.
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Speaker 3: At the not so pretty things and the not so
18:41
Speaker 3: pretty parts of ourselves. Because if we don't look at
18:46
Speaker 3: our stuff, even if we're the most people pleasing, you know,
18:51
Speaker 3: over responsibility taking person on the planet, we will cause harm.
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Speaker 2: We will either hold.
18:57
Speaker 3: Resentment or will secretly shame blame people, or will be
19:01
Speaker 3: in that martyrie place of.
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Speaker 2: Like, ah, well I don't do it, nobody else will
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Speaker 2: do it.
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Speaker 3: And so it's just an invitation to look at the
19:11
Speaker 3: harder things. But the point is not to torture you,
19:16
Speaker 3: you know. The point is to clear the gunk out
19:18
Speaker 3: so that we actually have room for liberation and for
19:23
Speaker 3: pulling both our inner personal lives but also the arc
19:27
Speaker 3: of the collective closer to what I think many humans want,
19:33
Speaker 3: which is more community, values of beauty, values of reciprocity
19:39
Speaker 3: with each other and with the planet, values of equity,
19:43
Speaker 3: values of accountability. I mean, I think a lot of
19:47
Speaker 3: us would like that more of that, and so we
19:51
Speaker 3: got to we got to look at our stuff, We
19:52
Speaker 3: got to look at our shadows.
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Speaker 2: If we're going to do that.
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Speaker 1: Broadly speaking, how did you structure of the book?
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Speaker 3: Yeah, so I start with, you know, kind of just
20:04
Speaker 3: a broad definition of big T trauma, little T trauma,
20:07
Speaker 3: how things are stored in the brain, basic circuitry kind
20:10
Speaker 3: of stuff, and then I pack it full of somatic resources.
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Speaker 3: There's links to videos of me teaching polyvagel exercises.
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Speaker 2: Yeah, I thought it was kind of cool.
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Speaker 3: I put some like you know, QR codes of me
20:27
Speaker 3: to videos of me teaching stuff that is more body based.
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Speaker 3: And because just like when I'm working with clients, I
20:35
Speaker 3: don't want to be diving into shadow work without resourcing,
20:38
Speaker 3: and so that the book is kind of structured in
20:40
Speaker 3: that same way.
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Speaker 2: I want to resource you before we talk.
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Speaker 3: About hard stuff, and then we talk about the hard stuff,
20:48
Speaker 3: how to actually do the hard stuff, and what I
20:52
Speaker 3: call descending pathwork, which is like the down and in
20:56
Speaker 3: looking at the shadow, looking at the pain, looking at
20:59
Speaker 3: the hearts stuff, and then I talk about more what
21:02
Speaker 3: I call a sending pathwork, which is that creativity.
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Speaker 2: What do you want to be instead, who do you
21:08
Speaker 2: want to be in the world?
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Speaker 3: How do you align your nervous system with the values
21:12
Speaker 3: that you want to have now in a real embodied way,
21:17
Speaker 3: and talk about how all this lands in the body
21:20
Speaker 3: and how to you know, we're talking about an infinity
21:23
Speaker 3: sign here, we're talking about you've got to do some
21:26
Speaker 3: shadow work, and then we're and then you're going to
21:29
Speaker 3: do some like creative new identity work, and then you're
21:32
Speaker 3: going to hit a black and you're going to do
21:33
Speaker 3: some more trauma work.
21:35
Speaker 2: And there it is like always enough, never done.
21:40
Speaker 3: And another really important thread throughout the book is that
21:44
Speaker 3: is that what we're talking about here, this both.
21:46
Speaker 2: And right, this non duality.
21:48
Speaker 3: This there you know, the world is brutal and hard
21:53
Speaker 3: and it is beautiful, right. Trauma impacts us and shapes us,
21:59
Speaker 3: and it is not who we are, and we can
22:01
Speaker 3: always find our way back to empowerment and back to
22:06
Speaker 3: our true nature, which is that we are always and
22:09
Speaker 3: already enough, lovable, worthy, and connected to every other living
22:14
Speaker 3: thing on this planet just as we are.
22:17
Speaker 2: That doesn't need to be earned.
22:20
Speaker 1: Obviously, there are a lot of books out there talking
22:24
Speaker 1: about trauma. When you thought about writing this, book, what
22:29
Speaker 1: was what did you want to add in a sense,
22:32
Speaker 1: what you know, was there a perspective you wanted to
22:35
Speaker 1: do use.
22:37
Speaker 3: I think what I see missing is I find people
22:40
Speaker 3: land in the two camps. One is either over focused
22:44
Speaker 3: on trauma and it's like you know, staying in the work,
22:48
Speaker 3: and we got to do the work all the time
22:50
Speaker 3: and do the shadow work all the time, and we
22:53
Speaker 3: can kind of get over developed and over identified with
22:57
Speaker 3: the trauma. And then on the other I see like
23:00
Speaker 3: spiritual coaches or you know, positivity junkies that are like,
23:06
Speaker 3: you know, just think positive and raise your vibes and
23:09
Speaker 3: all of that. And I wanted to hold this place
23:15
Speaker 3: of both and that how do we hold that what
23:19
Speaker 3: has happened to us is really hard and even just
23:24
Speaker 3: you know, the ancestral.
23:25
Speaker 2: Trauma piece that we are all carrying, how do we.
23:29
Speaker 3: Really honor that and how do we step into our
23:34
Speaker 3: empowerment and our joy and our beauty as humans? And
23:40
Speaker 3: I think that's the voice that I bring.
23:43
Speaker 2: That might be a little unique.
23:45
Speaker 3: And I also have like a lightness of being around
23:49
Speaker 3: this stuff too, like I can really hold this depth,
23:52
Speaker 3: but I also have an effveescence kind of thing happening too,
23:59
Speaker 3: And that's those.
24:00
Speaker 2: Are my favorite people. You know, My favorite people are
24:03
Speaker 2: the ones that have.
24:03
Speaker 3: Walked some dark nights of the soul and at the
24:09
Speaker 3: end of it, you know, they have this good cry
24:11
Speaker 3: and this deep work and then they crack a joke.
24:13
Speaker 2: You know.
24:14
Speaker 3: That is just my favorite part of being alive is
24:21
Speaker 3: that is the depth and the lightness.
24:25
Speaker 1: When you work with people. I mean, granted, I realize
24:30
Speaker 1: it's going to be different with everyone, but how do
24:35
Speaker 1: you begin to work with someone.
24:37
Speaker 3: Well, you meet them where they are, you know, and
24:41
Speaker 3: you don't try to give perspective too soon or think
24:45
Speaker 3: have them thinking positive or having them go you know,
24:49
Speaker 3: everything happens for a reason. Ugh, no, no, no, no.
24:55
Speaker 1: What do you mean by don't give them perspective too soon?
24:58
Speaker 1: What do you mean? Well?
24:58
Speaker 3: I think often times when people come to us with pain,
25:03
Speaker 3: what they first need is for us to just shut
25:06
Speaker 3: up and pause and listen and attune and have reverence
25:12
Speaker 3: for the pain that they are carrying.
25:16
Speaker 1: You know.
25:16
Speaker 3: It's sort of like if somebody comes to you and yeah,
25:20
Speaker 3: I actually saw this funny illustration that was like this
25:22
Speaker 3: hand reaching out of a lake and it was depicting
25:25
Speaker 3: this person drowning. You know, they're like help, and the
25:28
Speaker 3: person on the edge is like find something to be
25:31
Speaker 3: grateful for. You know that that kind of thing, right, No,
25:36
Speaker 3: they're drowning, they're in pain, and they need you to
25:39
Speaker 3: at least honor that they are drowning, and you need
25:44
Speaker 3: to like throw them a lifeline here. And so it's
25:48
Speaker 3: a tender line of honoring and having reverence for the
25:54
Speaker 3: pain that they have walked, and then just on the
25:57
Speaker 3: edge of that, you can hold the hope and hold
26:03
Speaker 3: the light. And after that, after there's some validation, after
26:07
Speaker 3: there's some attunement, then maybe we can offer and is
26:15
Speaker 3: there an opportunity to practice something different here? Or what
26:19
Speaker 3: is your wisdom calling you forward into? You know, that
26:24
Speaker 3: feels very different than offering such platitudes as well.
26:28
Speaker 2: That which does not kill you makes you stronger, or
26:31
Speaker 2: only rainbows after rain or you know, all of.
26:33
Speaker 3: Those kind of bypassy things that you know they might
26:38
Speaker 3: have deeper wisdom in them, but I think they've been
26:42
Speaker 3: watered down, and I think they're often used as this
26:45
Speaker 3: way of bypassing the pain that people are really in.
26:50
Speaker 3: And so it's that both and work of really attuning
26:54
Speaker 3: to and validating and resonating with the pain and the
26:58
Speaker 3: parts of ourselves that are really carrying the wounds, as
27:03
Speaker 3: well as the protection and just holding and inviting people
27:09
Speaker 3: to the edge of where.
27:11
Speaker 2: Things might transform and shift.
27:14
Speaker 3: So we start with that, We start with resonating with
27:17
Speaker 3: where they are, validating where how they are, and.
27:20
Speaker 2: Then resourcing them.
27:22
Speaker 3: Here's some practices that might help regulate your nervous system.
27:26
Speaker 3: By the way, regulating your nervous system is not meant
27:29
Speaker 3: to like have you being be able to put up
27:32
Speaker 3: with crappy behavior, right that we are not trying to
27:35
Speaker 3: like just calm you down so that you can put
27:39
Speaker 3: up with oppression or put up with abuse. This is
27:42
Speaker 3: so that you can get back into creative thinking and
27:46
Speaker 3: actually use the best part of your brain to do
27:50
Speaker 3: inspired action, whether that be in your inner personal life,
27:54
Speaker 3: for yourself, within relationships.
27:56
Speaker 2: Or in the larger collective. And then we got to
27:59
Speaker 2: do some work.
28:00
Speaker 3: Then we got to go down and in and look
28:03
Speaker 3: at where the pain is stuck and try to help
28:07
Speaker 3: that shift and repattern.
28:10
Speaker 2: And you know, for me, I work with em d
28:13
Speaker 2: R with parts work.
28:15
Speaker 3: And when when appropriate, I can fold in ketamine assistant
28:19
Speaker 3: psychotherapy and that really that trio, along with polyvagel resources
28:25
Speaker 3: and mindfulness, really seems to be able to help a
28:30
Speaker 3: lot of folks walk through the center of the fire
28:34
Speaker 3: as a metaphor and come out and they're like, WHOA,
28:38
Speaker 3: I feel different about that that happened. I can have
28:43
Speaker 3: awareness that that happened, but I can see that that
28:46
Speaker 3: is not who I am. It's farther away. Now I
28:50
Speaker 3: have more power. Now, I can see where I have power.
28:53
Speaker 3: Now I can I have love and compassion for my
28:56
Speaker 3: younger self and for myself. Now it's just this snatching.
29:00
Speaker 3: You don't even have to force it. It's just this
29:02
Speaker 3: natural thing that happens when we you know, our bodies
29:07
Speaker 3: want to heal. It's like a splinter, you know, our
29:10
Speaker 3: bodies naturally want to push what is no longer serving
29:15
Speaker 3: us out. And then when we heal, we are.
29:19
Speaker 2: More naturally collectively oriented.
29:22
Speaker 3: We are more naturally compassionate towards ourselves and to other people.
29:27
Speaker 3: We are more naturally empowered to be able to hold
29:31
Speaker 3: compassion and really healthy boundaries when it's needed.
29:37
Speaker 1: Love it, Erica, you just outlined I think a beautiful
29:43
Speaker 1: process for working with people who've been impacted. I mean,
29:47
Speaker 1: I especially loved what you said about that initial encounter
29:52
Speaker 1: with someone and being able to resonate in a tune,
29:54
Speaker 1: because I oftentimes think that many people want to get
30:00
Speaker 1: in there and have that perspective or offer that perspective
30:05
Speaker 1: as a way of stopping the bleeding. We have to
30:12
Speaker 1: do something. This is what I'm going to do
32:01
Speaker 3: As