Latest / The Trauma Therapist / Episode 723: Soul Matter with Indi Safaddid-Bertarioni

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Episode 723: Soul Matter with Indi Safaddid-Bertarioni · The Trauma Therapist

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Or. Welcome back to the Trauma Favers podcast. My name is Gaming Person.
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My mission is to help trauma therapist be their incredible cells, to be
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human, to be real, not just a clinician. I'm a big believer
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in who we are is more important than what we know, and this requires
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cultivating authenticity, genuineness and vulnerability, and that requires intention. Can learn more
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about my courses and workshops by going to the Trauma Therapist project dot com.
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That's the Trauma Therapist Project dot com. Let's get started, all right,
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five four three two one, our folks, welcome back to the Trauma Theorist
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Podcast. I am very excited to have as my guests today Indie sepadid Or
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Tarry One. Indie, welcome to the podcast. Thank you all right,
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very excited to have you here. So Indie is a daughter, She's a
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sister, a wife, a mama, a friend, a human, but
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you can call her Indie. She lives in Sunny Florida and grew up in
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Northwest Georgia. Her homeland is Costa Rica. She says that becoming a wife
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a mother has transformed her mind, her body, her heart, and her
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soul. Through these transitions, she's discovered that connection is key within herself,
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within others and the world, and she says that's what she needs to do.
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She started a personal blog in twenty twenty two that's expanded to a conversation
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platform. She started a podcast called Soul Modern, an incredible podcast about humanists
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for the relational being, the curious being, and the loving being. She
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has the honor and privilege of having conversations with other humans and has becoming a
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dream come true. And I'll have that of course linked up. Indie,
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Welcome to the podcast. Thank you all right, So I kind of said
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it in the bio, but share with our listeners where you're from originally and
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where you are now. Yeah, definitely. I was born in San Jose,
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Costa Rica to two amazing parents, and they immigrated to the United States
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with you know, three of us in tow I was three years or four
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years old, was a little hazy, and I ended up growing up in
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First we went to Florida, moved up to Georgia because of family connections,
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and that's honestly where I grew up the majority of my life and came down
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to college to Florida and stayed here in Florida sunny South Florida. Okay,
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awesome, awesome, all right, So let's dive in here. How did
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all this come about for you such that we're talking today, I mean,
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such that you were so interested in this idea of soul, of connection,
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of conversation. How did this come about? Well, I've had my fair
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share of you know, what i'd consider trauma that definitely shaped me as a
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individual, and I think is what kind of sparked interest in other suffering,
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if that makes sense. So um, from a young age, you know,
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I was asking kind of bigger questions. I lost my sister when I
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was seven years old. I found her drowning, and that was honestly one
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of the most you know, pivotal points in my life where I was left
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kind of devastated at such a young age, confused, left with so much
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wondering about why, you know, like how why does death happen? And
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from there, I know she was three years old, Yeah, she was
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a little baby, and you know that that is just one of the things
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that kind of shaped my mindset my perspective on the world. And I grew
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up moving a lot, you know, we grew up kind of transplanting as
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immigrants, my parents just trying to make it work, and you know,
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they made some incredible sacrifices. I respect them, I love them. But
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it definitely put, you know, me, as a young person through a
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lot, and I think I took a lot from that, even though it
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was hard, I just was left with this unending curiosity to know. And
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I think I carried that through in my education. I you know, I
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became so excited to learn. I would devour books. I would I love
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nonfiction or fiction at one point, and you know, eventually started just looking
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for more knowledge. I think because of my upbringing, because of those experiences
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that shaped me. Okay, let me. I want to ask you to
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get a little more specific heories. So you said, you know, you
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had experienced traumas that had impacted you, and of course your sister's experience with
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your sister had impacted you. How did it impact you? How did it
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shape you? It broke me a little. I just had this existential question
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of why wasn't it me? I was the older one, you know that
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day I carried it's I think it's natural for, in a sense, like
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a survivor of trauma to wonder, So that experience in particular, outside of
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all the other experiences, was really one of the ones that left me wondering,
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you know, what happened? What went wrong here? And then this
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desire to live out my life differently because of it, you know, I
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lost her. Kind of the aftermath of that incredibly devastating thing that happened to
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our family, you know, was a catalyst for me personally to unfortunately,
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you know, rebel question. Um, it was always this like desire to
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know, you know, why am I here? Like why why was I
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not the one that day? So you're talking to you were seven? Yeah,
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and at what age did this come about for you when you started to
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rebel? When you started to question? Honestly, it started pretty young.
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I just you know, I think it was always this nature in me to
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be curious. I was very shy, so I was always the observer in
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a lot of situations. I had a lot of challenges learning English having come
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here and we only spoke Spanish at home. My parents drilled that in us,
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they're like only Spanish at home. You can learn English with other peers
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and you know, people outside of our home, And um, I think
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early on I just wanted to engage and learn and at sometimes that rebellion really
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did come from this deep existential place like why am I here? Why did
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I survive? Why did I have to go through what I went through?
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And it came into this period I think I was, you know, from
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seven, from that that you know, pivotal moment of losing her, suffering
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some sexual abuse as a child, and later on in life, I just
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started being rebellious. I was like, there's something wrong. I don't know
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if it was me, you know, I had so much shame I held
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on. I carried this huge burden of expectation that a lot of times wasn't
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even just my own. You know. My parents were you know, immigrants,
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so they put a lot of pressure on the eldest to perform per se,
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you know. And I know they didn't mean that, but I definitely
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had this very hard like upbringing where I felt like I have to meet their
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demands, I have to meet my own demands. And I started very early,
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you know, wanting to be a perfectionist and then running away from that
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being no, no, no, I want to do this my way,
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or you know, if they said something, I try to do the opposite
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and always fail. Um But even from a very young age, maybe even
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before seven, but I think seven is when I became more aware of the
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world around me and how I interacted with it. And yeah, I was
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a I was a tough kid. Yeah, I appreciate you sharing all that.
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I mean, that's a lot, an incredible burden for a young kid
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to bear at. Was there a point where, at what point in your
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as a young kid, um, was there a point when you said,
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you know what, I need to get some help? Oh? Yeah,
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and thankfull looked like it was UM intervention. Pretty early on, I acted
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out a lot. And you know my mom especially um, you know,
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to share some backstory on her, she she struggled with mental health. Her
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mother struggled for mental health. UM, that experience broker, broker, and
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I showed up for her as best as I could, and then she showed
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up for me and recognized, you need help, we need help. So
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it was churches. It was eventually a therapist, like lines of therapists.
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I can remember just going from a therapist room to another at times in seasons
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where I was struggling, and that really was incredible. I can remember distinctly
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some of those experiences being me like I don't want to be here. I
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don't want to talk to you. I remember once yelling at the therapist.
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I think I was like, ten, I hate you, and she was
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like, okay, she knew it was not personal. But yeah, it
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was a lot of that I did, thankfully in moments of really tough like
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reactions from my end. I remember, you know, others, you know,
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pointing me to help, and that kind of also was that idea of
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like, oh, I don't like therapists, and then I ended up,
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you know, pursuing that. So I'm thankful for those people who showed up
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with this angry, angry girl in that room and just were there, like
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they just sat there and let me take it out on them and my parents.
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They did the best they could under the circumstances with the anger and the
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shame everything I was carrying. So yeah, I think I had to help.
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What did you learn? What are some of your takeaways now having studied
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therapy as the therapist, looking back on your own experiences as a as a
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client in that room, What were some of the things that some of the
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therapists did that maybe helped you, were shifted things for you? Well,
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from where I was more aware you know what was happening. I quickly became,
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like I said, the observer and situations like that where I was like,
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I'm not budging, I'm not going to talk to you or lashing out.
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At some point when they triggered, you know, they found out a
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way to get me to open up was their persistence just showing up. Like
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sometimes I could tell the difference between someone who really wanted to be there and
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others who were just like, I'm getting paid to do this, and you
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know, you could kind of see it behind the glimmer in their eye or
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like their body, you know, mannerisms and body language that they were having
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a hard time. But those that were just there. There's one in particular,
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Missus Higgins, who oh my god. I just I remember resisting it
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so much at first, but that therapeutic relationship was key for me. I
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remember, just I had never cried that much in my life. I was
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never allowed to cry. I never allowed myself to cry. I saw from
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this deep, deep hole in my soul and like, just let it all
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out. And she just sat there and it felt uncomfortable at first. I
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was like, you're just gonna sit here and watch me cry how old we
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were at that point. I was, I think thirteen fourteen, and I
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kept going there until I was like, yeah, fourteen or fifteen, So
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three year relationship. What was it about her that allow that help create that
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relationship? I could sense the love. I could sense she loved loved doing
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that and being there, and towards the end, I knew she loved me
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like she had grown to just care, like she deeply cared about me.
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And it's funny because at one point, you know, one of my struggles
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with therapy is like the blurring of the lines, at least for me when
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I was practicing of you know, going from I'm here to support you in
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this time of vulnerability to like I want to be a part of your life
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or I want to you know, extend a helping hands. And she just
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balanced that beautifully. I never felt infringed upon outside of those therapy sessions.
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She never once, you know, betrayed my trust because that was a big
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thing growing up. I felt like anything I said to this therapist was going
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to get back to someone. So there's a lot of fear. There was
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no fear in that room. It was just incredible the amount of love I
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felt you know, in those moments where she was just there. Yeah,
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well that's awesome. So let's jump ahead to your podcast and even the blogs
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things started out. Talk to us about how that came about. I've mentioned,
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you know, becoming a wife and you know, willingly choosing that because
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at one point in my life I was like, I'm never gonna get married.
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That's ridiculous, like jaded about marriage. And I met Angel and things
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change. So that was a huge transition for me. I went from hiding
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a lot. I think I always hid behind my performance in school and activities,
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and I was always afraid to just be myself. So when I married
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Angel, that kind of just went out the window. You know, there
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was this courage within me, within him to just be ourselves and I felt
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seen, I felt known, and that carried on to us, you know,
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deciding to start a family, and it is hard. I just have
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to say, the whole transition period in the last six years has been hard
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for me. I I just felt selfish, like was I supposed to do
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this? Like I wanted something for myself, and it felt, you know,
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in a way I was giving, giving, giving, like willingly of
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course at times consciously, and then other times I'm like, is this what
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I wanted? And I constantly, you know, center myself again and ground
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myself and recognize I do want this and I want to work hard for it.
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You know, I don't think this happened by chance. So it's been
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that transition. I wrote a lot as a kid, and I was nervous
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to ever share with anyone. I was like, I don't know if this
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is any good. And the blog came out of that place of like,
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hey, I think I'm going to share my thoughts with the world, and
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it was scary, and then it transitioned into you know, wanting to have
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a presence out there for others to feel comfortable to do the same. You
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know, when someone finds my blog or happens on anything I put out there,
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I just want them to feel welcome to do the same, to know
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me, and kind of an invitation for me to know them. That's what's
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driving me. I think that's what I found so alluring about the field of
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mental health. And still do you know, I'm passionate about that human peace
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and in this world, like we're just connecting, we're talking, you're listening,
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I'm listening, and we're reflecting on those innermost thoughts. You know,
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we don't just share our thoughts with almost anybody, but I felt comfortable to
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do it. I needed to do it. I felt like I just had
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to start writing. And it evolved into wanting to have a podcast and just
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happenstance finding your workshop here last year and thinking, WHOA like Guy McPherson's doing
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this And I had been listening to your voice for a period of you know,
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since graduate school in twenty sixteen, and I just I went for it,
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And honestly, you inspired me so much. I was like, I
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found this courage within me to do the same thing what Guy has been doing.
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And UM, that's where it's where I'm at, essentially what what i've
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I think, where I came to fruition to do it. I appreciate you
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saying that. You know, when I first when we first talked, and
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when I heard you talk, you had and you have this um just clear
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passion and love for like like you said, needing to connect with people.
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UM. And and you can feel it. And how when you when you
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how do you like put that into a podcast? How do you how?
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What what are your thoughts and doing that? Um? Oh, I think
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I really want I want to just hear stories. That's that's a cultural thing
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maybe and also maybe just a human thing to want to hear stories. Um.
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I like knowing people. I just like meeting them talking to I could
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talk to a stranger anywhere, And the big reason I love traveling is because
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you happen to do that. It feels normal to just talk to random strangers
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sitting next to you on you know, on their way to the next destination.
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I think I've have compassion for people. I just want to know and
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care the way I think I have been known and cared for. I want
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to give it back almost and it's intentional. I think I've recognized, like
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I need to do this, I want to do this, and I will
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do this, So yeah, I need to do it. So there's talk
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more kind of unpack that need to do this. Why do you need to
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do this? I think I feel called to it. There's something so incredible
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about the curious imagination. I used to think like, oh, maybe I'm
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so intuitive or not. I don't want to use the word necessarily just intuitive,
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but I'm so curious for a reason. And from some of the conversations
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over you know, over time with people that matter to me and some of
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the experiences that I've shared or have heard reflected back to me shared with me,
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those narratives are kind of maybe what shaped me and propel me towards this.
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I just want to get it out there, Like anytime there's something special
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to share about someone. It could be silly, you know, it could
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sound like a silly story to them. But I've seen that specific story like
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transform myself. It's impacted me, like just hearing about it and kind of
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keeping like this mental track of Wow, these these people. It's kind of
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creepy, but I keep a list of people I've met and I keep their
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names because their names matter to me. Now I'm like, oh, I'm
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going to think of this person and just you know, remember this, this
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or that keynote about them. I did it when I was a therapist.
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I think it helped me stay organized with what client I was sitting with and
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the interactions, and it carried on into this sounds creepy, but this list
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of people I care about, and I think that's special. I think it
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was done for me at some point to want to do that for other people,
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to just listen. I think I'm very relational. I always happen,
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and I've hidden behind not you know, hidden behind the fear of doing that,
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Like I didn't want to do that. I was like, why am
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I soul? Like why do I care so much about people? I kind
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of wondered where that was coming from. And I finally recognize, you know,
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there's there's something with death in life. When you've seen it, I
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think that changes you, especially if it's someone you loved. Well, that's
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kind of connect to what I want to ask you now, which is when
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you look back to yourself as a seven year old and having that experience and
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jump forward to where you are now and what you're doing, is there a
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connection there? Yeah? What is that? Well? My sister Paula,
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she was three years old and she was the fourth born to my mother,
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and she just could talk to anybody. It was almost annoying because we always
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knew, like if we couldn't find her, she was talking to someone.
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And she was three years old, and I remember that inquisitive nature in her,
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you know, for three years. She left a huge impact in our
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lives. I just it was a hole, a huge hole, and her
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leaving this earth, you know, like her death just it left a whole
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big enough to the grief was overwhelming, you know, in our family,
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people who met her just once were like, what, like she's gone,
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and that funeral was one of the hardest things I've ever been to. And
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it's stuck with me. I think it's stuck with me. It's been something
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that I like mentioned, I've just been so afraid to lose people. I
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think there's this fear in me to like lose someone, a fear of abandonment,
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you know, from different other things that have happened, and that I
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think is key in wanting to know people. I think that has propelled me
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to like just I want to know you, like if I met you.
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I think there's a reason for that, and it's special. I want to
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nurture it. I want to connect with you and even connect you to someone
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else that might connect with you. I want to share your story. I
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want to listen to that story. And it's a sacred space I've experienced as
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someone in the seat per se and that I've I think I've you know,
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managed to host that space for others. And I think it's important that that
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word sacred I mean that that phrase sacred space jumps out to me, because
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that's kind of what I felt when I first talked to you and you started
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talking about this. It was like I felt to myself, my god,
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this woman is like serious about this. She's passionate about this. It's not
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just oh, I'm going to do this, it's like I need to do
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this. And I felt the power of your need to that curiosity and that
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almost that honoring of people's stories. And I think it even resonates for me
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strong or more strongly because it's almost antithetical to our culture now, where we
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were not taking the time to hear people's to engage with people, and yet
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you're creating this amazing space to do just that. Thank you. Yeah,
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I hope. I hope that that's my intention moving forward, is doing just
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that. It's it's hard to see the social narrative at times with others sharing
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their struggles. I've experienced it myself. You know, maybe where you put
22:48
something out there and you feel like it's received with radio silence, but it's
22:52
on the web. It's on like this whatever you know the internet is,
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and there may or may not be some one who resonates with it. But
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when you do it in person or you you know, foster like the garden
23:04
in person with someone, it's beautiful. I just I want to bring that
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out there because I think there has been like a loss of ourselves online versus
23:15
ourselves in person, and it's hard to be authentic at times. In person,
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it's really hard. So imagine behind the screen, like you can obviously
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just say whatever you want, it may or may not hurt or you know,
23:30
be a compassionate thing to share with other people. But that connection,
23:36
like that witness to someone in their story, if they decide to share that,
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that is what is key. Like I hope that that excuse me,
23:44
that is what gets across, you know, if I do share something or
23:47
invite someone into that opportunity. I think that's important and I'm excited to see
23:52
what happens with open authenticity. I've been falling along and seeing the day to
23:56
have their I think in the therapist field there's a lack of community at times,
24:03
like a lack of connection even between therapists. I felt that when at
24:06
least that was my experience when I was in graduate school and deciding whether or
24:11
not to you know, consider licensure. So I hope that can be healing
24:15
for someone. That's my goal is that it can be healing. I think
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I had a lot of self inner work that I needed to do, and
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I'm doing it. It sucks. It really is not fun, but it's
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you know, it's worth it because I think that awareness is key and being
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there for other people. What about it sucks When you say it's the unit
24:38
work sucks? What are you talking about? Specifically? I avoided. I
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avoided and denied there was something more, you know. And I think the
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spectrum of trauma for any person, I think sometimes can be either be like,
24:56
oh, yeah, that happened, and what about it, you know?
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Or for me right now, I'm in this space where I'm like,
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oh my goodness, I'd never faced that. Like I just said, it
25:04
happened. I remember sharing times, like at times with someone like this really
25:11
scary piece of information and just watching a reaction and being like, oh,
25:15
that's why I don't tell people that, you know, That's why I don't
25:17
share that. I'm scared to share it. I'm I felt so vulnerable,
25:22
like I just I hate crying. I'm not someone who enjoys crying. But
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that's that inner work has been a lot of crying. It has been a
25:27
lot of anger like that comes up, and I was like, I thought
25:30
that was resolved. Why am I still angry? What's underneath that anger?
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And like exploring that and it's been helping me just prune the bias, prune
25:38
the fears, prune like the triggers for me as a person in relation with
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other people, not just in counseling, but definitely in just connection with people,
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Like I see when I do that, it's hard for me, but
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I know it invites someone else to do it, you know, like,
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oh, you know this is not easy, but if you do it,
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you're going to feel almost free, Like after you're going to feel this whoa
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Like it just changes things. I felt like it's transformed me a little bit,
26:07
going through this growing pain and self awareness process and inner work healing journey,
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and it's been good. But it's hard. I think what you're with
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what you're doing with your podcast, UM Soul Matter, you know, you're
26:25
you're creating a space for people to to share very intensely. And it's obviously
26:33
and I'm sure you know this is gonna be very impactful on you, you
26:37
know, um consumably for me, I wasn't expecting how much I was going
26:45
to be impacted and even challenged to, you know, even be more vulnerable
26:53
and be myself more. I wasn't expecting that, but I think you're even
26:59
more over doing that in your podcast, and I think it's going to be
27:03
really inspiring for the listener and also for yourself to get ready. I'm trying.
27:12
Thank you. So let me just remind everyone I'm speaking with Indie Terryani.
27:19
The podcast is called Soul Matter. Now you also got a group,
27:26
correct? Do you want to talk about that? Yeah? What's going on
27:30
with that? It's new, it's um something I've been working on. I
27:36
think I wanted to coincide them doing Soul Matter soul narrative, and it's really
27:41
an open invitation right now. I want to get specific and just start like
27:47
email listing specific people and being like, hey, do you want to do
27:49
this? But it comes from this place of having done something called story group
27:56
and that changed me, like literally that was the first time ever in a
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church, for example, that I spoke about my feelings and it was welcomed.
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It was this deep, deep dive into like what happened? You know,
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what's going on with you? Let's talk about what your needs are,
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what your desires are. And that's where this is coming from, honestly,
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from an inspiration of working through a lot of my own stuff and wanting to
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do that for others. So it will be small. I think I'm welcoming
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five people at most for now while I grow into it. To host this
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curious space, this open space to just talk. I will be inviting people
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to share specific stories about themselves. And there's no fixing, no fixing allowed,
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No one's allowed to turn into a therapist in those moments, and just
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I want people to feel heard. I want them to feel valued, because
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they do value. They do bring value to this world. So that's what
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that is. It's going to be small, open, open invitation to anyone
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interested. I tried to make contacting me as easy as possible if there's interest
29:00
there, and I do welcome, you know, people of all journeys and
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walks. I think maybe over time it might need to become more specific,
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but I think right now there's just this willingness to just listen and be there,
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and like you mentioned, that might transform me to a little bit.
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It might impact me, of course, it will. Yeah, yeah,
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I think when you're doing something like that, and being as open as you
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are and vulnerable as you are willing to be, you cannot help but be
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impacted by that. So all right, Indie, what's the best way for
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people to get in contact with you to learn about your podcast and Sole Narrative
29:41
your group? Definitely welcome to find me on Facebook or Instagram, my website.
29:48
You know, it all interconnects, so whatever you're more comfortable using,
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you know, you're welcome to use that. The website's there just to you
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know, kind of be the one to go to. So that's so unfortunately
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right now, the domain's not set up, but it's it's accessible through my
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Instagram, my Facebook, and you know, I will respond through any medium
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you decide to reach out, email and I'll have it linked up here on
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the showuts page at the Trauma Das podcast dot com. Once again. In
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these podcast is called Soul Matter and her group it's called Soul Narrative. Awesome,
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super inspiring. Love to have you back. We can keep up to
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date and see how things are going. Thank you so much, it'd be
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amazing. Thank you all right? Did you take care of you too,