Latest / Adventures in Adversity: an inspirational podcast / Ep. 40: Tapping into healing with Jackie Durnin, Founder of Hinterland Health Retreat - The Emotional Freedom Technique (EFT) & trauma recovery

Transcript

Ep. 40: Tapping into healing with Jackie Durnin, Founder of Hinterland Health Retreat - The Emotional Freedom Technique (EFT) & trauma recovery · Adventures in Adversity: an inspirational podcast

0:01
All right. Well, welcome back.
0:03
We have yet another episode of the podcast that I actually
0:07
host. I'm still processing that
0:11
adventures and adversity. So for those of you who are new
0:14
to the podcast, we basically talk about overcoming adversity
0:19
in its many forms in life. And I'm so honored to have a
0:23
wonderful guest here today, Jackie, Jackie Dernan, right?
0:27
Correct. Yeah, Vernon, Jackie Dernan, and
0:31
I am going to link to all of the resources that will tell
0:35
everybody all about you. I'm gonna give you a little
0:37
brief introduction, but Jackie, I have never had anyone like you
0:42
on the podcast yet. Someone who is a founder of a
0:47
treatment retreat center, Treatment center in Australia,
0:52
right? I'm going to kind of let you
0:53
give your spiel, but I'm so grateful to have you on because
0:57
I think you offer a really unique perspective as somebody
1:01
who has been through trauma and then somebody who now helps
1:05
other people heal from it. Right?
1:08
Yeah. So thank you for being here.
1:10
Oh, thank you for having me. Yeah, so tell me about yourself.
1:14
Tell me, tell me a little bit about your retreat.
1:18
We'll go all over the place, but tell me about the retreat the
1:21
the, the treatment center you founded and and how that came
1:24
about. So we I've opened a place called
1:28
Hinterland Health Retreat and it's a beautiful property on 30
1:33
acres in the Sunshine Coast hinterland in Queensland, Very,
1:37
very magical land itself, I would say is very, very healing.
1:41
I think it stays part of the journey that we connection to
1:44
nature and I think we live subjectively lives these days
1:48
and we're so go, go, go. And this place really allows you
1:53
to stop and absorb the wonderful energy of that space.
1:59
But how Hinterland came about was a combination of reasons,
2:04
but mainly because I've been on my own journey for probably the
2:07
last 25 years. I was sexually abused as a child
2:12
and it took probably quite a few years.
2:17
There was probably many years that I kind of ignored it and
2:20
was like, that's done and dusted.
2:22
I don't need to deal with that. That's just focus on the future.
2:26
Not realizing that my subconscious was actually taking
2:31
over the driver's seat of my life in certain instances.
2:34
So when once I started getting into relationships, this very
2:38
scared little girl started coming to the forefront.
2:42
If I was in situations with men, not all the time, but
2:47
situations. I've had situations in a
2:49
workplace setting, situations with friends where they may be
2:54
joking, but it felt like they were crossing boundaries.
2:59
So they may be going in to kiss my cheek, but they would kiss my
3:02
mouth and my frozen little girl would pop up and I wouldn't be
3:08
able to speak. I would be in fight or flight
3:12
and I recognized that I needed to go and get help because I
3:18
needed to address this little girl.
3:21
I needed to address what was going on so that the present day
3:24
Jackie could be in control and be in the driver's seat.
3:29
And I suppose on that journey, I tried like you name the therapy.
3:34
I was a woman on a mission. I was like, did talk therapy.
3:37
I was rebirthing, doing past life regressions.
3:42
I did ayahuasca, I did psilocybin, I did lots of body.
3:51
So kinesiology, body talk, like literally you may.
3:55
I'm a therapy ethic. You tell me what I need to do
3:58
and I will do it. So I tried lots of different
4:01
things over the years, probably because I'm busy with work and
4:05
life. Therapy would happen maybe once
4:08
a month, once to every two weeks, so it would take a while.
4:14
I stumbled upon emotional freedom technique, EFT, maybe I
4:20
would say about 1819 years ago now.
4:24
And my lovely bridesmaid said to me, Oh my God you shouldn't hear
4:27
about this technique on depression, anxiety, addiction,
4:31
physical pain. And I thought, what a crock of
4:34
shit as it already. Tried everything.
4:39
That's simple, you know all of these things.
4:42
But out of curiosity and I suppose in a desperate bid to
4:47
fix me because I felt broken, I went on a weekend work up and I
4:52
felt significantly lighter afterwards.
4:55
I felt so much lighter. I thought I'm going to study to
4:58
be a practitioner with 0 intention of being a
5:00
practitioner. I just thought that would be
5:02
surely the only way I could fix me because if I know everything
5:05
about this modality, then be able to see.
5:08
So not taking into account that to become a practitioner, you
5:12
actually have to do sessions on other people to qualify as a
5:15
practitioner. Yes.
5:17
So on that journey of doing working with the people, I would
5:22
experience this situation in each session where I would see
5:25
the light come on in their eyes. That's the way I will describe
5:28
it. It might be the load lightened.
5:33
They had an A moment they I reconnected them to their inner
5:39
power. That's the way I describe it
5:41
because I feel we are all magicians.
5:44
We, my business was called your inner power for a reason,
5:48
because I feel like we were all, we're all magicians and we have
5:52
been using our power against ourselves unconsciously.
5:57
So it's a bit like what if I reconnect you to your magic and
6:03
you can start using that power for good.
6:06
So I would experience these situations and sessions and then
6:10
I had was really lucky to be selected as one of those 10
6:16
practitioners. We went to the world's leading
6:18
drug and alcohol rehab in Hawaii called Habilitat.
6:21
And they have it's like a 67% success rate.
6:27
It's a three-year programme, very intense.
6:30
About 85% of their clients are transferred from the prison
6:37
system for drug related offences.
6:39
So it's run quite like an army camp.
6:43
It's very strict and. You.
6:45
Know some of the characters that you could meet would be quite
6:49
and could be quite intimidating, you know, just physically their
6:53
demeanor, you know, tattoos you an episode of law and order you
6:59
know something that. You're like, OK, yeah.
7:03
But what I realized in every session I did was there was a
7:07
little boy or a little girl sitting in front of me who had
7:10
experienced some form of trauma. And trauma doesn't necessarily
7:14
have to be these big events like sexual abuse or, you know, death
7:22
or things like that. Yeah, trauma.
7:24
Could be you moved house when you were young and you lost all
7:30
your friends, or it could be you lost your teddy bear when you
7:33
were four and that was your best friend.
7:36
So on some level that's a death to that child.
7:39
So really letting people process whatever their traumas are.
7:46
And I think after that experience, I came back and I
7:49
had been consulting in digital marketing and I was like, I
7:53
can't version an Excel spreadsheet when I can help
7:57
people. So I started working at health
8:00
retreats and people would come for 10 or 14 or 28 days, you
8:06
know, like intensives for depression and blood addiction.
8:09
And it was a fantastic experience.
8:11
And I, but I think that experience, I started really
8:15
thinking about how I would do this if I was to set up a
8:18
retreat center based on my experience.
8:24
And the thing for me was number one was to create a safe space
8:29
for both practitioners and for clients and really allowing
8:36
people, if you feel safe, you can feel vulnerable, you can let
8:40
go of your stuff. And as somebody who's abused,
8:43
safety is the biggest priority to me.
8:45
And it's something that's built into the fibre of my being
8:47
because I did not feel safe for quite a long period of my life.
8:53
Once I've created a safe place, it's about then making sure that
8:58
we have an amazing team of practitioners who are all on the
9:01
same page. That they're there for the right
9:03
reason, that they're not just doing this as a job, that
9:07
they're doing this because they're in their hearts space.
9:10
This is what they want to do and this is what where they want to
9:13
be. And I'm very lucky to have found
9:15
an amazing team that surrounds me at the retreat and making
9:20
sure we have that combination of medicals, that we have fantastic
9:24
functional medicine doctors. So they will look at your, we do
9:29
extensive bloods, genetic testing, stool samples, hair.
9:33
They work with the natural to really analyze the data and come
9:39
up with a plan so that you're getting nutrient dense food to
9:43
fuel your body while you're going through all this
9:45
processing. You're getting Ivs on site to
9:49
support you physically. There may be herbs or
9:52
supplements that you need. If you need pharmaceutical, we,
9:56
we can look at that, but we try and if we can stay away from
10:00
pharmaceutical, we try and allow the body to do what it needs to
10:03
do, supported by herbs and vitamins and Ivs.
10:09
So this and then how all this came about was I was talking to
10:15
a friend about this vision of me opening and retreat to help
10:20
people and they decided they were going to back me in that
10:25
operation. So it it literally felt like it
10:29
came out of nowhere very quickly and perfectly within the month
10:34
of that initial conversation. So it was quite the roller
10:37
coaster, but that also highlighted to me how this
10:47
interland health has its own energy.
10:52
When you're in, when you're doing what you're meant to be
10:54
doing, it's like a snowball flowing downhill.
10:58
It just gathers speed and starts attracting just the right people
11:03
at the right time. And even clients like we at this
11:09
stage, probably a little bit of SEO, we hadn't started
11:11
advertising, but we've already had clients through the doors.
11:14
And when I asked them how they found us, they just say, oh,
11:17
well, we found you. I can't really remember.
11:19
Maybe it was Google. Yeah.
11:22
So it's, it feels very divinely LED.
11:27
I love that. And now you opened your doors.
11:30
Is it 20 late 2024? Yeah, December.
11:34
Yeah, OK. So.
11:40
See. Can you hear me OK?
11:42
Yeah, you're back. You just popped out for a
11:44
second. Something happened there.
11:46
Yeah. OK.
11:47
That's OK. Well, it's still going.
11:48
It's counting. OK.
11:51
So yeah, so it's, it's kind of you're within the first six
11:54
months, right? Yes, it's congratulations.
11:57
Thank you. It's been quite the journey.
12:00
Lots, lots to learn. Also really exciting to see how
12:08
hinterland unfolds like you know we've got all this amazing
12:12
neurotechnology that we've brought in under one roof
12:15
technology that's not really available outside of the US and
12:18
not available in this combination anywhere in the
12:20
world. We we map all our clients brains
12:26
when they come in because I really am as somebody who's done
12:30
search engine marketing. So all I ever did was look at
12:34
data and I had to analyse clients data and I had to tell
12:37
them what the performance was. Where are the areas for
12:42
opportunity for growth? So I'm all about data.
12:45
So I was like, how can we make this really about data?
12:48
And I was like, well, what else can we screens?
12:51
We can screen your blood, we can screen your genetics, we can
12:53
screen your stool, we can screen your hair, we can screen your
12:57
brain. So let's screen your brain and
13:00
let's see where it is at the beginning and let's see where it
13:03
is the end. We may even scan it in the
13:06
middle. Depends if we're tweaking the
13:09
program, but you can clearly see if there are, like we've had
13:16
clients recently come in the door and you can see they've
13:19
have what's described as a slow brain.
13:21
So it looks emotionally dysregulated.
13:26
It's a sign of trauma. It's also a sign of exhaustion
13:31
or fatigue. So and then at the end, we can
13:34
see where a slow brain is not. It's not there anymore.
13:38
It's back to a more normal brain, which is super exciting
13:43
for us. We had a veteran come in and we
13:48
saw again, big changes in not just the plasticity of the
13:53
brains. We saw changes in normalization.
13:57
So normalization is where when we scan the brain, we compare it
14:03
to people in your age range and gender and what's considered a
14:09
normal brain. So we saw this massive like 66%
14:15
shift towards normalization with this veteran and in quite a
14:19
short space of time. So it's the way I'm viewing
14:24
Hinterland is it's a constantly evolving space because I don't
14:28
want to be one of these places that it's like, here's our
14:31
formula and this is all we're ever going to do.
14:35
It's like, here's our formula. Now how can we make this better?
14:38
And what else can we add to this mix our what else do we need to
14:42
do to understand depression or anxiety or PTSD or how else can
14:48
I make this journey easier, faster, having gone through it
14:56
myself and the many, many layers that there are?
15:00
What else can I do for people to help them with their trauma?
15:06
I, I think it's fantastic that you're able to see those
15:09
changes, especially I have a really soft spot for veterans
15:13
because it's, I mean, life is hard and then there's better and
15:19
then add that at go to war, go to fight, go anything.
15:22
I mean, it's just, it's, so it's fantastic that you're seeing
15:29
those results because that's, I mean, that's someone's life and
15:33
it changes and then changes their life.
15:35
And then everyone that they interact with, they can recover
15:38
from this trauma, right? Yeah.
15:43
It's, and you mentioned the emotional freedom technique, so
15:49
does that have to do with like the tapping as well on the
15:53
different energy points? Yeah.
15:55
So it's tapping on the radiant points, and for me it kind of
15:58
does three things because when you're tapping with somebody,
16:02
you're talking to them. So by tapping on these points,
16:05
they're energy centers, relaxation centers.
16:08
So on some level it's calming the body.
16:10
The second thing it does is your mind or your brain is sending a
16:15
message down to your body to do a certain emotion.
16:17
So if I say, oh, I want you to think about that memory and it's
16:20
let's say 10 out of 10, there's a message being sent down to
16:24
your body. So by tapping on these points,
16:26
what I'm doing is trying to scramble that message.
16:30
So you'll get to a point of seeing the memory, but not
16:34
having the emotional reaction. So you're, it's not that you're
16:37
emotionally disconnected. We're just processing the memory
16:39
so you can see the picture and not have the response.
16:42
And the third thing is, does is it distracts you because I'm
16:47
tapping on your face or you're tapping on your face if we're
16:49
doing it remotely. So I found it a very, very
16:53
powerful technique and very powerful for me.
16:57
I through my own journey, I would be doing tapping on
17:02
myself, but I found that you have to go to practitioners for
17:08
certain things and I because you won't say things to yourself, if
17:14
that makes sense, like you need a practitioner to call you on
17:19
stuff. Or really I just remember years
17:23
ago we were going through IVF and I had a miscarriage and I
17:27
was tapping on the sadness and you know, I'm not a woman and I
17:32
don't feel good enough. And there was a lot to that, but
17:38
the practitioners really got to a couple of practitioners who
17:41
worked on it and they really said stuff to me about because I
17:46
mischaracterize on the toilet. They said something along the
17:49
lines of I flush my baby down the toilet.
17:51
Now that sounds really horrific, but there was actually a part of
17:55
me that must have resonated with that because I just, it left out
17:59
so much grief for me. And I started, we started
18:02
tapping on that, and I would never have said that to myself.
18:05
No, it's yeah, yeah. What's saying what happening is
18:09
that it doesn't have to be traumatizing or confronting, but
18:13
sometimes you need someone else there to say something to you to
18:17
really get the cut through that you need or whatever.
18:20
Yes. Yes.
18:22
I find it very, very powerful. And what I love about the
18:25
technique is that anybody who comes to me, I can teach them
18:30
how to do it on themselves. And they I can give them a
18:33
personalized script so that when they go home, if they get
18:36
triggered, they can either read the whole script or the elements
18:38
of the script that resonate with them.
18:41
And our you know tagline at the retreat is we love you, but we
18:46
never want to see you again. I saw that on your Instagram.
18:50
I love it. I having worked at places where
18:55
it was just very much a revolving door and you'd see the
18:57
same people back year after year and I was just like, this
19:01
doesn't to me, this isn't success.
19:03
Success is if I never see you again and I empower you have the
19:07
most amazing life because you have these tools that are making
19:11
you more resilient. And yes, you'll have your UPS
19:13
and your downs. You just know how to navigate
19:15
them better. So we, that's our goal.
19:19
It's a big goal. Like, I don't know, again, are
19:21
we going to achieve it? But that's where we're aiming
19:23
for. And I think if you have data and
19:26
you have tools where you can do like QE, e.g.
19:29
S and you have a better chance of understanding what's going on
19:33
in the body. And you also have proof of, it's
19:37
not just a case of, oh, I feel better because people can come
19:39
to a retreat and eat nice food and have massages, they feel
19:43
better. But fundamentally, do you have a
19:45
change? Whereas if you can see in black
19:47
and white, their bloods have shifted, their stool sample
19:52
looks different. You can see also their brain
19:55
looks different. That's all pinpointing that
19:58
there has been a change. It's not just hearsay.
20:01
It's not just, oh, actually I feel good.
20:03
I've had some time off work. Such a fantastic approach
20:08
because, and I've actually done a little bit of the tapping I
20:13
did with my therapist. I had done the talk therapy,
20:18
which was great, but then the somatic therapy right of the
20:21
body and the whole nervous system.
20:23
I remember when she first introduced me, she's like, we're
20:25
going to heal your nervous system.
20:27
I'm like, what's this lady talking about?
20:29
Like my nervous system, Like I, I didn't, I had no clue how your
20:36
body holds on to trauma. I just didn't wasn't aware.
20:41
Like I thought I was. I thought it was all here.
20:44
You know, yeah. So we see that with our clients.
20:47
We do trauma release exercises, which are just these very simple
20:53
moves that you do, and it induces your body to shake.
20:58
So if you've ever seen a dog after they've had an accident,
21:01
they will shake the trauma out of their body.
21:03
Really. But we as humans forgotten how
21:05
to do that. So it's a very powerful thing
21:08
that you can again teach a person so that they can learn
21:12
how to shake the trauma out of their bodies.
21:15
And there's been, again I suppose over my journey, many
21:19
different somatic techniques where I found my body doing
21:26
things that I was like, what is going on for releasing things
21:31
that like you say, I thought it was all stored here.
21:35
My body also had a story that it needed to release.
21:39
That's, that's such a good line because it's a, it's those
21:44
involuntary reactions of like when your body goes into that
21:47
fight or flight, right? I mean, I, for me, it'll be like
21:51
seeing somebody in my palms will sweat and then the stomach drop
21:55
in the like a minute. And now, now I have tools.
21:59
I know I I'm like, all right, which one you're going to use
22:01
today? You know, am I the mountain
22:04
today or what are we going to do?
22:05
Are we breathing like, and my husband knows like he's like,
22:09
you're good, you're good. And I'm like, OK, just, you
22:13
know, like just even my kids know that when I'm like taking
22:16
deep breaths. But I didn't have that set of
22:19
tools before, you know, I. Really wouldn't be called at
22:23
school. I just think that it's so
22:26
important that, like, little things like how to communicate
22:30
in a relationship, you know, none of us were taught that or
22:33
into a relationship, just completely blind.
22:36
And then we, you know, work until we once we come out of the
22:40
love bubble and the honeymoon phase is over and we then start
22:44
triggering each other. Yeah.
22:47
Nobody warns you about that. Nobody tells you about it.
22:50
But it's so deeply unconscious and it's going to happen on
22:54
stage. But all we have that's shown to
22:57
us is Hollywood, where it's happily ever after.
23:00
And it's that's not actually the case.
23:03
The case is you're going to be triggered.
23:05
The person's going to trigger you the most as your partner
23:08
because that's the person closest to you.
23:10
And unless you have these tools, you're probably going to start
23:13
tearing each other apart. And I think I went through that
23:18
with my husband. We did go through elements of
23:21
tearing each other apart because we didn't have the communication
23:24
skills. And you know, it sounds silly
23:30
that you need it to get a script to communicate, but sometimes
23:35
you actually need a script to communicate because you can be
23:39
so triggered and your little boy or your little girl is running
23:42
the show. And to get your adult back so
23:46
that you can have the conversation in the present
23:47
moment. Sometimes the script is what's
23:50
required. No.
23:52
And I love what you say about like the inner child.
23:55
We all have that. And it's funny, I've kind of
23:58
thought of triggers now as like if somebody says something to me
24:02
and I have a reaction, there's something like, oh, you hit on
24:05
something. Yeah, versus someone says
24:08
something, I'm like, there's no like you're not, there's no
24:11
wound there. Like you didn't.
24:12
I don't have any insecurity with that.
24:15
But I, I have been in my past like a very reactive person.
24:19
And so now I've been like, oh, I've learned how to respond with
24:22
curiosity, like, oh, OK. But the therapist was like, what
24:25
does it remind you of? What do you need right now?
24:28
And I'm like the time in 3rd grade or, or even just like that
24:32
time at work when that boss said that.
24:33
And then you just like the heart's racing, you know?
24:37
It's crazy. It's so true that I think most
24:41
of us are just on autopilot, like in reactive mode like this
24:45
play and then some react, react, react.
24:48
And then you have an awakening and then you're maybe reacting a
24:52
little and then you're going into more curiosity.
24:55
And then as you get older or you have some therapy, it's more
24:59
than curiosity. When you've come out of the
25:02
temper tantrum, maybe you know, because there's still be times
25:06
for this younger version of you that has a total tantrum and
25:09
throws their toys out of their prom and.
25:11
That is so true. And you need, once you've kind
25:14
of got control of her, it's like, OK, you're not there
25:17
anymore. That's not happening.
25:19
Or whatever you think is going on, it's like, OK, come back to
25:22
the present moment, you know? It's a it's almost like you're
25:26
in a flash. You're in like another
25:28
situation. It's set.
25:30
Wow, that's so true. It is an adult temper tantrum.
25:34
Yes, yeah. But it's your inner child who's
25:37
taken over and taken control of the and that's what you see in
25:40
relationships a lot where the two inner child, it just
25:44
descends down to two kids. And that's what I remember
25:48
hearing that years ago, that you subconsciously attract the
25:51
perfect person into your life. Who knows who subconsciously
25:58
attract the perfect person into your life to heal all your
26:01
wounds, Which is so true because if your partner is the person
26:05
who's going to raise all of this stuff up and out, and
26:10
unfortunately, they may be on the receiving end.
26:12
If you don't realize that that's what's actually happening.
26:16
And I think you see, I've seen in my sessions with clients and
26:20
even in my own journey that you keep it.
26:22
It's like you have an emotional, an emotional imprint.
26:29
And that emotional imprint attracts to you situations in
26:32
your life over and over again. And that emotional imprint in
26:37
the case of me maybe helpless, hopeless and out of control, I
26:40
was attracting these situations into my life.
26:44
And I kept bringing up the same emotional imprint and the same
26:47
emotional reaction. And it's the universe's way to
26:50
say you need to deal with this. And until you deal with this,
26:54
we'll keep attracting these situations.
26:56
So I had abuse. I had a boy that I knew died in
27:01
an accident. It was just all these situations
27:04
where there's a lot of the same. And I've seen time and time
27:09
again in sessions where numerically it's like this
27:14
beautiful mathematical equation. I had a girl come to see me and
27:18
she was, I think she was 36 when I saw her.
27:25
And she was in, let's say, her emotional imprint was helpless,
27:31
hopeless and out of control. Because they're the things that
27:33
I've just there used to be my ones and we were working on what
27:37
was happening then I think her relationship was breaking down.
27:40
She was separating from her partner.
27:43
There's a lot of sadness and overwhelm.
27:45
And I said to her, can I ask what happened to you when you
27:48
were nine years old? So she was 36.
27:51
So I just added the numbers together, three and six.
27:55
And she said nobody's ever asked me that before.
27:58
How did you know? And I just said I'm just asking
28:03
question and she had been abused at 9 and so then we cleared that
28:10
and then I said to her by any chance did anything happen at
28:13
18? So 1 + 8 is 9 and she had been
28:18
raped and she also then had another trauma when she was 27,
28:24
different but similar emotional imprint.
28:27
And it was like these every decade of her life.
28:31
She was probably the the most perfect person who did that, you
28:35
know, like a perfect, but you know, she did it.
28:38
So the mathematical equation crazy.
28:42
I've seen people who might do it here and there and it's, it's
28:49
fascinating to me. It's so it's like you're sending
28:52
this wave of energy out to the universe.
28:55
And until you accept responsibility for that wave of
28:57
energy and go, I actually am going to change that.
29:00
The universe is going to send you these situations for you in
29:04
an effort for you to heal. So it's like, how do we change
29:08
that wave of energy? And the way you do it is by
29:14
doing mind, body spirit therapy. So at Hinterland, we make sure
29:19
that we're doing all three because I think a lot of people
29:22
concentrate on mind. Like you say, they go, it's all
29:25
here. Your body spirit need to be
29:27
addressed too. And if you can address all
29:30
three, then we can actually clear that energetic vibration
29:34
you're sending out. I say in my EFT sessions, EFT is
29:40
like a DJ course. I'm going to teach you that
29:45
you've been a DJ and a nightclub and the tracks you've been
29:48
playing are shit. They're so hot.
29:52
Nobody wants to come to your club.
29:53
You're attracting the wrong people into your club.
29:56
They're really bad. But you actually have a
29:58
container of really good records that are covering cobwebs and
30:02
you've just not played them a lot recently.
30:03
So what I'm going to do is we're going to break these old records
30:07
up so that you can never play them again.
30:09
And then we're going to start practicing these records that
30:11
actually are really good that you have from your past that's
30:14
going to help you create new tracks.
30:17
And soon you'll be like this amazing DJ, right?
30:19
Attracting these amazing people into your club, maybe even
30:23
making Muse, getting Music Awards.
30:26
And everybody laughs, like in the session going, oh, my God.
30:29
And I'm like, yeah, but that's exactly what is happening in
30:32
your life. I know that that is such a
30:39
analogy. It's it's right on, right.
30:42
Yeah. So.
30:44
Almost like when you're in, you know, when you go into an
30:49
elevator or a lift and you hear that really singing music and
30:53
sometimes you don't even hear it.
30:54
That's exactly what you're doing in your life.
30:55
You have this back backing track playing, which is trauma that
31:01
you don't even know is there. And because that's playing,
31:04
you're attracting situations because of that.
31:09
So if we can change the track and change the way you hold that
31:12
track in your mind, maybe even destroy the track and destroy
31:15
all the neural pathways to that track, you have the opportunity
31:20
to create a brand new record and a brand new way of being in the
31:24
universe and a brand new way of like, what are you going to
31:27
attract then? What's, you know, and a lot of
31:30
people are nervous about letting go of their trauma because it's
31:33
like, I don't want that to me again.
31:36
What if you keep the lesson from that trauma and just let go of
31:39
all of the pain and all the emotions you've been holding on
31:43
to? And as I say to my clients, if
31:46
you wouldn't give that pain, sadness, grief, anger, helpless,
31:51
helpless, whatever it is to your son or to your daughter or to a
31:55
family member, why are you holding on to it, not helping
32:00
you in the present moment? So you can keep the lesson, so
32:03
you know that you don't need to go through this again.
32:05
And there's some very valuable lessons there.
32:08
But you don't need to hold on to all the pain that's affecting
32:13
this emotional vibration that you're sending out.
32:15
If that's affecting the present moment, that's affecting how
32:18
you're reacting with your partner, with your friends, in
32:20
the workplace. It's affecting so many areas of
32:23
your life, whether you're conscious of it or not.
32:27
It it becomes that lens through which you, like, interact with
32:30
the world. Yeah, if it's not healed right.
32:33
Yeah. And I have, I've recently
32:36
learned this in the last couple of years, just going through my
32:38
own journey, how important the the body and spiritual pieces
32:44
and having, it's funny when you go through so much, when you go
32:49
through adversity. And I know everyone goes through
32:51
different types of trauma and it's, it's your reaction to an
32:54
event, right? Someone, everyone has different
32:57
responses to different types of events.
33:01
It's amazing to me how when you start to do the work of like
33:04
facing it, like the actual beauty that's on the other side,
33:09
that when you're in it, you think like, Oh, I'm never going
33:11
to feel better. Like there's no way.
33:14
Like it's too, it's too heavy. And then you come out of it or
33:18
like start to and I'm, I think I'm, I'm on a good place, but
33:22
I'm like, whoa, I didn't think life was going to be this good.
33:25
Like you really. You can't imagine when you're in
33:28
it. That's true.
33:30
A lot of clients who are scared of opening Pandora's box, it's
33:36
best for those, right? I'm definitely not going there
33:39
because emotions can be scary for people.
33:42
They can feel out of control because what if I start crying?
33:45
I might never stop. Or what if I release, start
33:48
releasing that anger? I might be able to control it.
33:51
It might just overtake me. But the gift that's on the other
33:56
side of that is so huge and it's you'll just notice such a
34:03
dramatic shift in your body, in your mind, in your being, that
34:08
it's just worth, it's worth the the journey and.
34:14
And I'm glad you say it is. It is hot like it and I'm sure
34:17
you are there for your clients and you see it every day, but
34:22
it's very hard to feel some of the things are like, you know,
34:25
really face it, but the cleanse you feel after like you're
34:30
holding on to it anyway. It's there, right?
34:33
But there's what I'm learning is there's so much research behind
34:40
these techniques and what are some of the things that you're
34:44
here? What do you, what do you hear
34:46
over and over from some of your your patients, your clients that
34:52
might be going through? Is there things that people say
34:56
across a lot of forms of trauma that seem to be like statements
35:00
that you hear over and over? Are there things?
35:03
Is it really depend on what they've gone through?
35:06
I think there's a common denominator when there's trauma
35:11
that they were at fault, so somehow it must be fault.
35:18
It must be something I did that I said something I didn't do, I
35:23
didn't say. So there's, there always seems
35:26
to be a role in trauma where there's, there's guilt that you,
35:32
it was your, your fault in some way, shape or form, I think.
35:39
And if trauma happened over and over again, then there
35:42
definitely can be. I definitely must be.
35:45
And that was the case for me. It happened many times.
35:48
And for me, I, I blamed myself, even though I was a little kid,
35:53
my perception of the event was the events where it must be my,
35:57
it must need my doing. It must be something that I did
35:59
or I didn't do, or I went back there.
36:02
So it must be I went back there. I think that's one thing I'd see
36:08
with a lot of people. And then that underneath that
36:13
there's usually a very sad or scared because even if they
36:20
appear angry, underneath that there's just a very sad little
36:24
child, right, who just wants to be seen, who just wants to be
36:28
heard and who just wants to be validated.
36:32
And I just see that with my clients over and over again that
36:36
they didn't feel seen, heard or validated.
36:41
And in some cases where it's been trauma, they do everything
36:45
in their power to make themselves invisible following
36:49
trauma. So that could take the, I think
36:53
for me, in hindsight, I was very shy.
36:56
Whether I was shy before trauma, I don't know.
36:59
But I, I was excruciatingly shy as a child.
37:02
And then I slowly started coming out of my shell.
37:05
And for others, it may be in the way they dress or I've had
37:11
clients who are tattooed from head to toe in an effort to hide
37:14
themselves when covered in tattoos from head to toe.
37:18
You won't come near me because you'll think I'm scary when
37:22
actually some of these people are some of the most sensitive
37:25
people I've ever met in my life. So yeah, I think there are some
37:30
of the things that I've seen time and time again.
37:35
But at the end of the day, we all just want to be loved.
37:37
We want to be seen, we want to be heard, we want to be
37:40
validated. And the amazing breakthrough
37:44
I've seen with people when they are not scared to go there and
37:51
feel what they need to feel and know that it's not going to be
37:55
as big and scary as you think it's going to be.
37:59
You've built it up so much in your mind that it's like, oh,
38:01
this is going to be horrific, but it's never as bad as you
38:04
think it's going to be. Yes.
38:08
You just have to kind of look the dragon in the face and then
38:11
it like it's like you said, the build up of having to go there,
38:16
the fear of feeling it. Tell me more about Hinterland,
38:21
Hinterland Health Retreat, right?
38:22
That's the formal name and you have 8 guests at a time, right?
38:27
Eight people at attorney. We can have up to six at the
38:31
moment and then we're the plan is to grow to 8.
38:34
So yes, the idea is to keep it nice and small.
38:39
I saw and when I worked at other retreats, there could be like 20
38:43
or 30 people. So you could get lost in the
38:45
crowd. And especially when things are
38:48
coming up, people are probably going to go and then want to
38:51
hide. So if there's a smaller group
38:54
when those uncomfortable things are happening and you, you know,
38:57
want to hide or it's like, well, no, we're not going to let you
39:01
because that's why you're here. You're here breakthroughs.
39:05
You're here because you want to feel different.
39:06
And we're going to do it in a nurturing Safeway.
39:10
We're not going to do it in a way that you don't feel safe.
39:14
It's really about creating this very safe cocoon for you to work
39:20
through what you need to work through.
39:22
And some of our clients have described it.
39:24
It's like a family where we are. So it's, it's a home, It's not a
39:29
treatment center. It's we've got some lovely cooks
39:33
to make nourishing food. And it's like being in mom's
39:36
kitchen in a very or grandma's kitchen.
39:40
It's just this very nurturing space to allow you to process
39:45
what you need to process. Yeah.
39:48
And because the people that are coming, coming to you have a
39:53
variety of different trauma, right?
39:55
You deal with PTSD, grief, OCD, addiction, right?
40:01
Or a wide range? Depression.
40:03
Anxiety, yeah, whatever it is that you need to address because
40:10
yeah, the end of the day it's just getting to the root cause.
40:13
What's the emotional foundation behind what it is that you're
40:16
doing in your mind? So if you're doing anxiety in
40:19
your mind or depression, what is the emotional framework behind
40:24
that? So why?
40:26
What's the. And a lot of people, I don't
40:29
know why it's there. And that's what also the
40:33
practitioners are there to do, to ask the right questions, to
40:35
get to the bottom of what's holding in that in place because
40:39
some uncovered for some reason that's a mechanism that you've
40:43
chosen to do. And if we can get to the bottom
40:46
of that, we can understand what's underneath that and take
40:49
that out and create a new foundation for you where you can
40:54
rebuild. Because you're, and it's
40:57
fascinating to me that the nervous system, like I know
41:00
you've talked about like the vagus nerve and like just how
41:03
your nerves actually are connected and eat all of your
41:08
organs. And just how once you learn
41:11
about the nervous system, you can't like Unsee, like you're
41:15
like, Oh, no wonder, like no wonder, you know, but I'm so
41:19
glad that now we're getting that out there, that the somatic
41:23
part. And would you say that like if
41:28
someone listening right now, I mean, obviously everybody has
41:31
all different kinds of adversity and trauma.
41:35
Like what is the first step they can take, you know, in the
41:40
moment that they're having that they're having that really hard
41:43
time? Is it, is it to go to a specific
41:45
tool? Is it to breathe?
41:47
Like, how do you call, How do you advise your clients to calm
41:51
themselves when it's like the storm is raging?
41:56
And I think if it's a raging storm, you're probably best to
41:59
get help in some way, shape or form.
42:01
And that could be just talking to a friend if you have someone
42:05
who's got therapeutic experience reaching out to them.
42:10
But when it's a rage, it's going to be it's going to be more
42:12
challenging for you as an individual to probably rein that
42:17
in. But you always have your breath.
42:20
So taking some deep breaths and it could be just breathing in
42:23
for four, holding for four, breathing out for just box
42:26
breathing. It could be just doing some
42:30
tapping sequences. If you have any experience.
42:33
And I say to my clients, if you don't remember all the points,
42:36
even just tapping on your collarbone or tapping here, that
42:41
might calm it down a little, the rage just a little so that you
42:45
can get to a more logical place in your mind, you know, where
42:50
you can make less reactive decisions.
42:54
Maybe. Yeah.
42:56
And I think, yeah, when it's a rage, it's like, it's not like
43:01
you're going to go, oh, go and meditate because that's people
43:05
will meditate. I can't meditate in this space.
43:08
Too extreme, right? Yeah.
43:10
Someone psychologist did this amazing thing on me once where I
43:15
was experiencing physical pain and they got me a small ice cube
43:22
and put it in my hand and they got me to close it.
43:26
And they said all I want you to do is breathe.
43:28
And it started burning in my hand and I was just crying and I
43:32
was just like I just want to let it go.
43:33
And I was like I was saying this hurts please stop.
43:38
And all of the languaging that came out sounded like languaging
43:42
that could have been referring to my abuse.
43:46
And he was like, just breathe, just breathe.
43:48
This will pass, Just breathe. And so I was breathing and
43:52
breathing. And then it came to a point
43:53
there was just a puddle of water in my hands.
43:56
And I had this huge aha moment of, Oh my God, I can just
44:02
breathe even in the when I'm in excruciating pain, whether it's
44:07
pain like here are emotional pain at some stage, the ice cube
44:13
moment, at some stage, the rage or whatever it is, it's going to
44:18
calm down to more accept to a puddle, right?
44:22
And I can from that space, I can do something right.
44:27
And it's about again, it's that whole thing about not being
44:29
reactive that it's also very challenging.
44:33
Tried that experiment many times.
44:34
And if somebody's not looking at me, I'm very tempted to just
44:36
Chuck that ice cube. So I think when it's very
44:42
overwhelming my first instinct would be get help like get some
44:46
ring a friend and don't get to ask for help as.
44:50
I've said this. Before I have done because I've
44:53
been seeing probably many people over the years.
44:56
I've had many interesting experience with practitioners,
44:59
some good, some not so good. Like any profession, there are
45:03
good people, there are not so good people.
45:06
There are people who are projecting their own crap and I
45:11
think only because I was in this field, thankfully I had
45:14
experiences where in Australia you can go to your doctor and
45:19
say I need a mental health plan and that is they'll sign you off
45:23
for 10 sessions to a psychologist, which are paid for
45:28
by the government. Basically they're heavily
45:31
discounted. You might have to pay 10% of the
45:33
price. And I had just been through IVF
45:38
and I had just miscarried twins. And I was quite early on in that
45:43
there was a lot of grief and I went to a doctor, not my normal
45:46
doctor. And I, I said, I'm really
45:48
struggling and I really want a mental health plan because I
45:51
need to talk to someone to, I need to work through this
45:55
because I also knew I needed to go back to IVF to try and get
45:57
pregnant. So I knew that I, for me, I
46:01
needed to work through this. And he said to me, we don't just
46:05
give out mental health plans Willy nilly like.
46:09
And I was like, yeah, but I, this is what's happened.
46:13
And he's like, and I had proceeded for the next 10
46:15
minutes to justify why I should have a mental health plan.
46:19
And I got 1. And when I finally saw the
46:25
psychologist, I explained what happened.
46:26
And they said, oh, we are aware that this doctor does this a
46:29
lot. And I thought, how sad is that,
46:33
that this is something that is available to everyone, but there
46:37
are people kind of like choosing to be the judge and jury on
46:43
whether you should or shouldn't. And then I thought how difficult
46:46
it would be for most people to actually go and ask for help and
46:51
then to be on the receiving end of that.
46:54
And I had a client come to me who had been to this doctor and
46:57
had the same experience. And they, I'm trying to
47:05
remember, I think they didn't get one like a mental health
47:08
plan in that instance. And I'm sure there are lots of
47:10
people who may have met this doctor and didn't get a mental
47:13
health plan and didn't get the help they needed.
47:16
Or if you've been to, I've been to psychologists or counselors
47:22
over the years and they I've come out.
47:28
I think the way to analyse it is if you come out and you feel
47:33
better, so you might feel lighter, you might feel
47:36
exhausted, but you feel some level better.
47:41
It might have been challenging, but if you come out and I had a
47:45
plan, I had a practitioner say to me because of my trauma, I
47:52
wasn't promiscuous as a young girl.
47:54
The last thing I want to do is be sleeping around.
47:57
And he said to me, oh, well, you're definitely going to have
48:00
a midlife crisis and you're going to have an affair because
48:04
you didn't sew your royal oats with his words.
48:07
And I thought I came out and thought, Oh my God, like you
48:12
have no clue who I am. No.
48:14
And there's a, there's an energy that that that person needs to
48:18
feel to be able to probably maybe say things they haven't
48:21
said to anyone their whole life, right?
48:23
Like ever, you know, and no, I'm such all about that because like
48:29
with this podcast to just taking like the shame out of stories
48:34
and you know, we all have stuff, you know, like I don't.
48:39
Everyone has different obstacles they've been through, but I
48:44
found the more and more I talk about it, like you say, think
48:48
just anything that anyone goes through, it's it's built up in
48:50
your mind. And then when you see that
48:52
people react with non judgement, you're like, and then they, I
48:57
mean, you connect through that vulnerability, right?
49:00
Otherwise you're all like surface level, just kind of
49:03
going around hiding our pretending like we're not like,
49:08
you know, it's just, it doesn't work for me anymore.
49:11
I've done that. But I, I've been looking at
49:14
pictures of hinterland health retreat.
49:16
I it's beautiful. It looks like a place that
49:20
anyone would love to go, kind of like heal from, you know, what
49:25
they're going through. So I would love to stay
49:28
connected with you. And I'm going to put in the show
49:31
notes, a link to your website, to your Instagram, to LinkedIn,
49:36
all the things so that everybody knows where to find you.
49:38
Thank you so much and have a lovely weekend.