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Guest Host Series Donna Jenson interviews, Jackie Humphreys and Amanda Rodriguez · The Trauma Therapist

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Welcome to the Trauma Therapist Podcast. My name is Guy McPherson.
• 0:04
  Speaker 1: I interview incredible people who've dedicated their lives to helping
• 0:07
  Speaker 1: those who've been impacted by trauma. A big thank you
• 0:11
  Speaker 1: to our sponsors and our guests who are supporting this show.
• 0:17
  Speaker 2: I'm Donna Jensen, founder of Time to Tell, and I
• 0:20
  Speaker 2: want to thank Guy for inviting me to take part
• 0:25
  Speaker 2: in this guest host series.
• 0:28
  Speaker 3: Um, And welcome everyone that's tuning in.
• 0:32
  Speaker 2: My guests for this episode are Amanda Rodriguez, who is
• 0:37
  Speaker 2: a professor of occupational therapy.
• 0:40
  Speaker 3: Welcome, Amanda.
• 0:41
  Speaker 4: Thank you.
• 0:42
  Speaker 2: And Jackie Humphries, who is an incest survivor and a
• 0:46
  Speaker 2: trauma therapist.
• 0:48
  Speaker 3: Welcome, Jackie.
• 0:49
  Speaker 2: Thank you.
• 0:50
  Speaker 3: And we're here to.
• 0:51
  Speaker 2: Talk about the Time to Tell podcast, Healing Conversations, where
• 0:57
  Speaker 2: survivors talk about the ways in which they've healed.
• 1:01
  Speaker 3: From their trauma and the impact that's had on their life.
• 1:04
  Speaker 5: What works for them and not worrying about what anyone
• 1:08
  Speaker 5: else has to say that you have to do or
• 1:10
  Speaker 5: it's in these stages or there's this.
• 1:12
  Speaker 2: So we're going to give a little bit of history
• 1:15
  Speaker 2: about each of us. And I'll start by saying... My
• 1:19
  Speaker 2: abuse started when I was seven to the age of 12,
• 1:23
  Speaker 2: although there was physical abuse before the sexual abuse. And
• 1:30
  Speaker 2: it was incest by my father and my mother didn't
• 1:33
  Speaker 2: protect me. And the way it expressed myself specifically in
• 1:40
  Speaker 2: my life was one, I became a very big people pleaser.
• 1:45
  Speaker 2: And when I wasn't people pleasing, I was hiding. So
• 1:50
  Speaker 2: that's really the two big ways that it impacted how
• 1:56
  Speaker 2: I operated in the world before I started my healing.
• 2:01
  Speaker 2: And I started my healing journey in my early 30s,
• 2:05
  Speaker 2: which is 50 years ago. So I've been on this
• 2:09
  Speaker 2: journey a long time and.
• 2:11
  Speaker 3: Happy to be here.
• 2:12
  Speaker 2: And the reason I'm so happy about the Healing Conversation
• 2:21
  Speaker 2: podcast is that I get to heal right along every
• 2:25
  Speaker 2: other survivor that's doing some healing. And talking about it
• 2:30
  Speaker 2: and listening to each other is what it's all about.
• 2:33
  Speaker 3: Definitely. So how about for you, Amanda? All right.
• 2:40
  Speaker 5: Well, thank you again for having me on your show here.
• 2:44
  Speaker 5: My abuse started at the age of 18. I was
• 2:47
  Speaker 5: sexually assaulted. I was raped by an acquaintance. And it
• 2:51
  Speaker 5: had a monumental impact on my life, most notably in
• 2:56
  Speaker 5: the form of a decade-long eating disorder. And so really
• 3:01
  Speaker 5: shrinking myself in so many ways.
• 3:04
  Speaker 4: And I told no one about it. There was immense
• 3:06
  Speaker 4: shame that went with it. My healing journey.
• 3:09
  Speaker 5: Started around the age of 27 or 28. So it's
• 3:14
  Speaker 5: been just over a decade of healing. And it has
• 3:17
  Speaker 5: been wonderful. Also happy to be here. Um, and the
• 3:22
  Speaker 5: healing conversations podcast has been great, uh, because I've shared
• 3:26
  Speaker 5: my story, you know, with a select few individuals in
• 3:29
  Speaker 5: my life and I've been more open with it of late.
• 3:32
  Speaker 5: And when you invited me to share my story, I
• 3:35
  Speaker 5: thought this is, this is the time to tell, you know,
• 3:42
  Speaker 5: and it's, it's out there in the world and I've
• 3:47
  Speaker 5: survived and it's okay. And So often something I kept
• 3:53
  Speaker 5: so guarded and so secret and it's like, no, like I'm,
• 3:57
  Speaker 5: I'm just fine. And people know, and it's empowering for
• 4:01
  Speaker 5: myself and for others. And so what a great experience
• 4:03
  Speaker 5: to have.
• 4:03
  Speaker 3: Thank you. Thank you for doing it.
• 4:07
  Speaker 4: We'll keep saying thank you.
• 4:09
  Speaker 6: And for you, Jackie.
• 4:09
  Speaker 4: Thank you.
• 4:10
  Speaker 6: You're welcome.
• 4:11
  Speaker 7: So, I'm an incest survivor by my father. And also
• 4:24
  Speaker 7: both of my parents.
• 4:25
  Speaker 6: Were physically abusive. The abuse started.
• 4:31
  Speaker 7: Around the age of eight with some things happening before that.
• 4:36
  Speaker 7: The sexual abuse. The physical abuse, I think, started pretty young.
• 4:46
  Speaker 3: And how it.
• 4:49
  Speaker 6: Impacted my life pretty globally, I would say.
• 4:56
  Speaker 7: I think one of the major ways is how shame filled.
• 5:03
  Speaker 6: Up all the space inside of me.
• 5:07
  Speaker 7: So I really felt that I was a bad person
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  Speaker 7: to the core.
• 5:13
  Speaker 6: Unworthy, and I did not.
• 5:18
  Speaker 7: expect good things to happen, good people in my life. Um, and, and,
• 5:25
  Speaker 7: and chose bad people in my life. Um, and so.
• 5:29
  Speaker 3: Back then, back then. Oh, yes. Right.
• 5:32
  Speaker 4: Thank you. Yes.
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  Speaker 7: Um, and my healing journey started, um, I was 18
• 5:39
  Speaker 7: and pregnant, uh, with twins and, um, I knew that
• 5:44
  Speaker 7: I wanted to make their lives very different than mine,
• 5:49
  Speaker 7: full of love and value. I wanted them to feel
• 5:55
  Speaker 7: that they mattered. And at the same time, I found
• 5:59
  Speaker 7: the book by Judith Lewis Herman, Father-Daughter Incest, and that
• 6:04
  Speaker 7: really catapulted.
• 6:06
  Speaker 6: Me into my healing journey.
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  Speaker 7: Appearing, being interviewed by you for Healing Conversations. There's so
• 6:17
  Speaker 7: many layers to that because first were the questions and
• 6:21
  Speaker 7: spending time thinking about those questions. It just, you know,
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  Speaker 7: I mean, so I've been healing for a long.
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  Speaker 3: Time, but.
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  Speaker 6: As we've been saying, it's.
• 6:35
  Speaker 3: Ongoing.
• 6:35
  Speaker 7: And so these questions, answering these questions was very powerful.
• 6:39
  Speaker 7: And then just to be in the space.
• 6:42
  Speaker 6: With you with such good attention.
• 6:47
  Speaker 3: And knowing that.
• 6:52
  Speaker 7: Our our stories are going to support other people, other
• 6:58
  Speaker 7: people telling their stories. I mean, it is it is
• 7:01
  Speaker 7: just so it's very personal and it's also a.
• 7:06
  Speaker 3: Community. Oh, definitely.
• 7:09
  Speaker 4: I guess. Activism.
• 7:11
  Speaker 3: Yes. Community activism. Truly.
• 7:14
  Speaker 4: A healing community.
• 7:15
  Speaker 3: A healing community for sure.
• 7:17
  Speaker 8: Yep.
• 7:18
  Speaker 3: Well, thank you. Yeah.
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  Speaker 2: I just want to mention that the questions I worked
• 7:22
  Speaker 2: really long and hard and got lots of people's input
• 7:26
  Speaker 2: and you got them before we did the interview.
• 7:28
  Speaker 3: So you had the questions. Yes.
• 7:31
  Speaker 2: And even though we tend to sometimes go off topic
• 7:33
  Speaker 2: or that was great. But yeah, I'm glad the questions
• 7:38
  Speaker 2: were helpful.
• 7:39
  Speaker 7: Yeah.
• 7:40
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 7:41
  Speaker 4: So.
• 7:42
  Speaker 3: Maybe we should talk a little.
• 7:43
  Speaker 2: Bit about each of our healing journeys would we like
• 7:48
  Speaker 2: to share with each other here.
• 7:51
  Speaker 5: My most important part of my healing was feeling safe
• 7:55
  Speaker 5: in my body again. And so one of the biggest
• 7:58
  Speaker 5: parts of my healing and where healing really sort of
• 8:01
  Speaker 5: rooted itself was I became a long distance runner. And
• 8:05
  Speaker 5: at first it was definitely to stay.
• 8:09
  Speaker 4: Smaller, right?
• 8:10
  Speaker 5: You think about exercising, running for a long time and
• 8:12
  Speaker 5: what that does calorie wise. And then there was this
• 8:16
  Speaker 5: shift in sort of like, I really enjoy this. I
• 8:19
  Speaker 5: want to be able to do it often and for
• 8:21
  Speaker 5: a while. And part of that was actually having to
• 8:24
  Speaker 5: nourish my body. And so the fear of, um, gaining weight,
• 8:30
  Speaker 5: the fear of having feminine curves.
• 8:32
  Speaker 4: That was something I was really trying to avoid. I
• 8:34
  Speaker 4: felt like being a woman made me inherently vulnerable.
• 8:39
  Speaker 5: And so denying myself food was certainly a way to
• 8:43
  Speaker 5: get rid of some curves. Um, but then embracing running
• 8:46
  Speaker 5: and realizing to do this thing that I really loved,
• 8:49
  Speaker 5: I had to take care of myself and, The parallels
• 8:52
  Speaker 5: that can be drawn between, you know, enduring being out
• 8:55
  Speaker 5: for hours running and what that also meant in my life,
• 8:58
  Speaker 5: you know, recovering and healing was like I was putting
• 9:01
  Speaker 5: myself in some really difficult positions and mentally enduring through that.
• 9:05
  Speaker 4: So running was a huge, powerful part of my healing process.
• 9:10
  Speaker 6: I'm just so impressed with your running.
• 9:11
  Speaker 4: I know it slows my mind.
• 9:14
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
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  Speaker 8: Wonderful.
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  Speaker 3: And it's long distance.
• 9:16
  Speaker 2: We're talking through forest.
• 9:20
  Speaker 3: Yes.
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  Speaker 4: For no reason other than wanting to do it. Nobody's
• 9:24
  Speaker 4: chasing me. There's no bears I'm running from. Well, it is. Right.
• 9:28
  Speaker 3: Actually.
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  Speaker 6: Yeah.
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  Speaker 4: Being out there, feeling connected to earth.
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  Speaker 3: Right.
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  Speaker 7: So all, all of those things are very connected to
• 9:36
  Speaker 7: my healing as well. Um, Being connected to nature and
• 9:44
  Speaker 7: later in my healing process, yoga, capoeira, which is a
• 9:51
  Speaker 7: Brazilian dance, martial art form, and a whole host of
• 9:59
  Speaker 7: mindfulness activities.
• 10:00
  Speaker 6: Practices. One of the more recent ones, like in the.
• 10:05
  Speaker 7: Last five years, is mindful self-compassion, which I, you know,
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  Speaker 7: talking about the shame earlier.
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  Speaker 3: It's like the opposite.
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  Speaker 7: It is.
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  Speaker 3: It is absolutely.
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  Speaker 6: It is the counter to shame.
• 10:20
  Speaker 3: But so is speaking to others.
• 10:24
  Speaker 4: Yes.
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  Speaker 7: Telling your story and hearing other people's stories, because I
• 10:29
  Speaker 7: think that was actually really what I needed first.
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  Speaker 3: Other stories.
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  Speaker 6: Other people's stories.
• 10:36
  Speaker 2: Right.
• 10:37
  Speaker 3: So that I then felt like, oh, yeah. Oh, oh, OK.
• 10:42
  Speaker 3: That's that.
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  Speaker 6: That's what happened to me, too.
• 10:45
  Speaker 3: And yeah.
• 10:47
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
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  Speaker 7: And meeting you, Donna, and the work that we've done
• 10:52
  Speaker 7: now for over 30 years, that has been a huge piece,
• 10:58
  Speaker 7: a huge part, especially the connecting to other survivors, hearing stories.
• 11:06
  Speaker 3: Oh, God.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah.
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  Speaker 3: Who knew? Who knew?
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  Speaker 4: How important?
• 11:10
  Speaker 3: I didn't know.
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  Speaker 7: I knew it was going to be good and important
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  Speaker 7: and also really hard.
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  Speaker 6: And I think we all continue to say that it's
• 11:19
  Speaker 6: really hard.
• 11:20
  Speaker 4: It is hard.
• 11:21
  Speaker 6: But yeah. Do you want to say?
• 11:23
  Speaker 2: Well, what I want to say is when my father
• 11:27
  Speaker 2: was harming me. he would always end with you tell
• 11:31
  Speaker 2: anyone and I'll kill you. So that phrase, you tell
• 11:35
  Speaker 2: anyone I'll kill you stayed with me.
• 11:37
  Speaker 3: I mean, it's pretty banished now, but it could even.
• 11:41
  Speaker 8: You know, get a little tweaked up, you know, Ooh,
• 11:45
  Speaker 8: if I say this, you know, so I had to
• 11:49
  Speaker 8: overcome that message, um, And I was in the women's
• 11:54
  Speaker 8: movement and I was running support groups.
• 11:58
  Speaker 3: And then suddenly I had a panic attack.
• 12:02
  Speaker 2: Standing around a man who was drunk, who was the
• 12:06
  Speaker 2: size of my father. And I went to a support
• 12:09
  Speaker 2: group and I said, I couldn't even stay in the store.
• 12:13
  Speaker 2: I had to leave before I got my stuff.
• 12:15
  Speaker 3: And one of the women said, well, why do you
• 12:18
  Speaker 3: think that is? And I said, he reminded me of
• 12:22
  Speaker 3: my father. And it was like, boom. And I just said, whole,
• 12:25
  Speaker 3: you know, there's like all this gunk in me.
• 12:28
  Speaker 2: And I'm, you know, like you, I've gone through lots
• 12:31
  Speaker 2: of different therapies and everything.
• 12:33
  Speaker 3: But I would say the two things for my healing were.
• 12:37
  Speaker 2: One is writing however I can express. So I've written
• 12:43
  Speaker 2: just for myself. I've written a book. I've written a play.
• 12:46
  Speaker 2: I performed the play. But, you know, the first.
• 12:51
  Speaker 3: Decade of my healing, I didn't.
• 12:53
  Speaker 2: Want to know other survivors. It was like all I
• 12:56
  Speaker 2: could do to just hand the mind. I don't want
• 13:00
  Speaker 2: to hear anybody else's story.
• 13:02
  Speaker 3: It's hard enough.
• 13:03
  Speaker 7: Yeah.
• 13:04
  Speaker 2: And then when I finally, you're one of my very
• 13:07
  Speaker 2: first survivor friends. And all those years ago, oh, my God.
• 13:13
  Speaker 2: And it's like, what a difference to have survivors to
• 13:18
  Speaker 2: talk to and.
• 13:20
  Speaker 3: Be listened to is huge. Right, right.
• 13:27
  Speaker 2: Those two things of, you know, being creative with my
• 13:30
  Speaker 2: voice and also being in community.
• 13:33
  Speaker 3: Yeah. Yeah.
• 13:39
  Speaker 7: I think the quality of listening that happens with other
• 13:44
  Speaker 7: survivors is so important and unique. And it's, it's in
• 13:51
  Speaker 7: one of these questions here, what would we want people
• 13:52
  Speaker 7: to know? I would say when you are listening, whether
• 13:55
  Speaker 7: you're a therapist or a friend, a family member, you don't,
• 14:02
  Speaker 7: there is nothing to be fixed.
• 14:05
  Speaker 2: Right.
• 14:06
  Speaker 9: There is you, you just be, be with the person. And,
• 14:13
  Speaker 9: and if, if you authentically feel, um, sadness for what
• 14:20
  Speaker 9: has happened.
• 14:20
  Speaker 2: Say that.
• 14:21
  Speaker 3: Yes. Right.
• 14:23
  Speaker 6: You don't, you don't have to pretend that, Oh, well
• 14:26
  Speaker 6: that was in the past. Now it's over.
• 14:28
  Speaker 2: Right.
• 14:29
  Speaker 6: And look at how strong you are.
• 14:30
  Speaker 3: Although we want to go there.
• 14:32
  Speaker 6: We want to notice how strong we are.
• 14:34
  Speaker 3: I want them to shut up about that stuff.
• 14:36
  Speaker 4: I don't need that.
• 14:39
  Speaker 3: Exactly.
• 14:41
  Speaker 6: Exactly. We, we, we, we need to be heard.
• 14:45
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 14:46
  Speaker 2: Yeah. It's interesting because I've gathered over the years that
• 14:49
  Speaker 2: to me, the three most important things you can say
• 14:52
  Speaker 2: to a survivor when they come out to you is one,
• 14:57
  Speaker 2: I'm so sorry that happened to you.
• 14:59
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 15:00
  Speaker 3: That never should have happened.
• 15:02
  Speaker 4: Yes.
• 15:03
  Speaker 3: I believe you.
• 15:04
  Speaker 4: Yes.
• 15:04
  Speaker 3: And it wasn't your fault.
• 15:06
  Speaker 4: Yes.
• 15:07
  Speaker 6: That is like. Yeah, exactly.
• 15:09
  Speaker 3: Yes. You don't have to say another thing.
• 15:11
  Speaker 4: Just those.
• 15:12
  Speaker 3: That's right. Just say that. That's right. You got me
• 15:15
  Speaker 3: for life.
• 15:16
  Speaker 6: Yeah.
• 15:20
  Speaker 3: I mean, I had the most amazing.
• 15:21
  Speaker 2: I lost a lot of my biological family when I
• 15:24
  Speaker 2: came out as a survivor.
• 15:25
  Speaker 3: And my niece's husband. came up to me and this.
• 15:30
  Speaker 2: Is like just five years ago and we're finally re
• 15:35
  Speaker 2: reuniting pieces of the family.
• 15:39
  Speaker 3: And he came up to me and he said, I
• 15:42
  Speaker 3: believe you. And he walked out of the room and
• 15:45
  Speaker 3: I just burst into tears. It was like, he just
• 15:47
  Speaker 3: needed to say that to me. It was like, Oh,
• 15:51
  Speaker 3: what a gift. So anyway.
• 15:54
  Speaker 4: Yeah. Yeah. That sort of speaks to too, how we're
• 15:58
  Speaker 4: constantly healing.
• 15:59
  Speaker 8: Right?
• 15:59
  Speaker 5: And so doing that, the work for so long, and
• 16:02
  Speaker 5: then to have that remark and to have the reaction
• 16:05
  Speaker 5: really exemplifies like we are, this is a constant thing
• 16:09
  Speaker 5: that's happening. There's no, you know, end of the journey.
• 16:12
  Speaker 5: You get a prize at the end of healing. I
• 16:15
  Speaker 5: felt that would be nice. We're constantly, um, sort of evolving.
• 16:22
  Speaker 5: And I think, you know, there's different things that come
• 16:24
  Speaker 5: up that, you know, I think I've healed from in
• 16:27
  Speaker 5: some ways and something.
• 16:28
  Speaker 4: Happens and I go, Ooh, I still got a little
• 16:30
  Speaker 4: bit of work to do.
• 16:31
  Speaker 7: Yeah.
• 16:31
  Speaker 3: Right.
• 16:32
  Speaker 7: Right.
• 16:32
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 16:33
  Speaker 4: Which, you know, as difficult as that is, I like that.
• 16:37
  Speaker 5: I like the idea of, you know, evolving and growing. And, um,
• 16:42
  Speaker 5: I think about healing as sort of giving myself grace
• 16:46
  Speaker 5: in a lot of spaces.
• 16:48
  Speaker 4: And I think a lot of.
• 16:49
  Speaker 5: Times, you know, this idea of healing is like a
• 16:53
  Speaker 5: bigger and better doing new things.
• 16:55
  Speaker 4: And sometimes for me, healing is being able to say,
• 16:57
  Speaker 4: I don't want to do that.
• 16:59
  Speaker 3: I want to do that.
• 17:01
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 17:02
  Speaker 5: And trusting my voice and trusting what I think is
• 17:06
  Speaker 5: right and true. And then, you know, you parallel that
• 17:10
  Speaker 5: to my life experience. And it's like, I didn't, I
• 17:12
  Speaker 5: didn't really have a say in that. And so being
• 17:14
  Speaker 5: able to do what I need to do for myself is,
• 17:19
  Speaker 5: And I feel it often when I feel the pressure
• 17:22
  Speaker 5: from other people to do things. I have this reaction
• 17:25
  Speaker 5: of like, oh, am I being taken advantage of? And
• 17:27
  Speaker 5: I know where that comes from. And so to sit
• 17:30
  Speaker 5: with that and to think, okay, what's really happening here?
• 17:32
  Speaker 5: So that is something that happens regularly. That's a tiny
• 17:36
  Speaker 5: piece of healing, but it is still like so profound
• 17:39
  Speaker 5: how it compounds day to day.
• 17:41
  Speaker 6: Absolutely. I, yeah, having.
• 17:45
  Speaker 7: choice having an agency oh definitely and i do think
• 17:51
  Speaker 7: the acceptance that this is a lifelong process there is
• 17:55
  Speaker 7: no straight line about it it is a circle it
• 17:59
  Speaker 7: is ongoing yeah and we do come back we do
• 18:03
  Speaker 7: come back to those moments because we are different at different.
• 18:06
  Speaker 6: Points in our lives.
• 18:08
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 18:08
  Speaker 6: And we, we come.
• 18:09
  Speaker 7: Back with, um, all the healing we've already done. And
• 18:13
  Speaker 7: then we're, we're moving a little bit and another edge,
• 18:17
  Speaker 7: another refining growth.
• 18:19
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 18:19
  Speaker 4: That's what I think about it.
• 18:22
  Speaker 7: It's a good way to come back around to this,
• 18:24
  Speaker 7: soften these edges a little bit.
• 18:26
  Speaker 5: And, uh, Yet difficult work, but also I think about
• 18:29
  Speaker 5: the alternative for me was you're either going to live
• 18:34
  Speaker 5: or you're going to die.
• 18:35
  Speaker 4: It felt so isolating, so shameful. I told nobody. And
• 18:39
  Speaker 4: to be in that experience alone and to.
• 18:43
  Speaker 5: The way that people treated me unknowingly, of course, was
• 18:46
  Speaker 5: just like, wow, everybody hates me. And so now to
• 18:50
  Speaker 5: be at this place in life where, you know, I
• 18:52
  Speaker 5: encounter obstacles or barriers, but it's like, I've, I've kind
• 18:56
  Speaker 5: of been through the hardest stuff.
• 18:58
  Speaker 4: I think we're going to make it through this.
• 19:00
  Speaker 5: It's not going to be enjoyable all the time, but
• 19:02
  Speaker 5: it will always be worth it.
• 19:03
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 19:04
  Speaker 7: Yeah.
• 19:05
  Speaker 2: For me, the healing is hard, but it's not as
• 19:08
  Speaker 2: hard as what happened to me nor holding it down.
• 19:12
  Speaker 5: Yes.
• 19:12
  Speaker 3: Oh, That was all harder. But the healing is work.
• 19:17
  Speaker 3: There's no question about it.
• 19:19
  Speaker 2: But I also like to talk about what are the
• 19:22
  Speaker 2: payoffs for healing.
• 19:24
  Speaker 3: You know, for me, I.
• 19:27
  Speaker 2: Always think of it, the incest is like this gunk
• 19:31
  Speaker 2: on top of my spirit and heart.
• 19:35
  Speaker 3: And the more I'm able to drain it out.
• 19:38
  Speaker 7: Yeah.
• 19:39
  Speaker 2: The more joy I experience, the more creativity I experience,
• 19:43
  Speaker 2: you know, being creative.
• 19:44
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 19:45
  Speaker 3: And relationships. Oh, my God.
• 19:47
  Speaker 4: Both.
• 19:49
  Speaker 3: The ones I want.
• 19:51
  Speaker 5: And the ones I don't want anymore.
• 19:54
  Speaker 3: Yeah. I don't know. How about for you both? Does
• 19:58
  Speaker 3: any of that resonate with you?
• 20:01
  Speaker 6: Absolutely.
• 20:03
  Speaker 7: I think for me, it's in terms of being able
• 20:07
  Speaker 7: to be present. Being able to be present for those
• 20:12
  Speaker 7: relationships that I do want to.
• 20:14
  Speaker 4: Be present for.
• 20:15
  Speaker 3: That you want to be, yes, yes, yes.
• 20:17
  Speaker 7: More of that, please. And where I know how to
• 20:27
  Speaker 7: soothe my own nervous system so that I can be
• 20:31
  Speaker 7: present as opposed to the hypervigilance.
• 20:34
  Speaker 3: Right.
• 20:35
  Speaker 6: The fight, flight, freeze.
• 20:36
  Speaker 3: Right.
• 20:37
  Speaker 6: I know how to do that.
• 20:38
  Speaker 7: I know how to be in the moment, especially, I mean,
• 20:43
  Speaker 7: so when my now adult children were babies and now
• 20:48
  Speaker 7: I have grandchildren and being just so much joy, joy, joy,
• 20:53
  Speaker 7: joy to be with them. And to feel it, feel
• 20:58
  Speaker 7: it really deep in my body.
• 21:00
  Speaker 3: Right.
• 21:01
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 21:01
  Speaker 3: It's like, for me, it boils down to sometimes just breathing.
• 21:05
  Speaker 6: Yeah.
• 21:06
  Speaker 3: I mean, I feel like I used to breathe from
• 21:09
  Speaker 3: here to here.
• 21:10
  Speaker 2: And then I learned through, you know, yoga and other processes,
• 21:15
  Speaker 2: you know, about really taking deep breaths and holding it
• 21:20
  Speaker 2: and letting it happen.
• 21:21
  Speaker 3: That is like huge.
• 21:22
  Speaker 5: Yeah.
• 21:23
  Speaker 4: Yeah. It is.
• 21:24
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 21:25
  Speaker 4: I liked your visual of the gunk.
• 21:27
  Speaker 5: And it had me sort of think, yeah, how do I,
• 21:30
  Speaker 5: how do I see my experience? And I, in this moment,
• 21:34
  Speaker 5: literally just remembered, I used to draw these sort of
• 21:36
  Speaker 5: like shadow creatures in my sketchbook. And that's sort of
• 21:40
  Speaker 5: what I think about my trauma as like this big looming, ominous, ambiguous.
• 21:47
  Speaker 4: Shaped creature that was always with me.
• 21:49
  Speaker 5: And if I think now that, you know, uh, it
• 21:53
  Speaker 5: was mine to carry sort of like it came with me.
• 21:55
  Speaker 4: It was my shadow. And I think as I share
• 21:58
  Speaker 4: my story.
• 21:59
  Speaker 5: And I realized it's not mine, it's like, and it
• 22:03
  Speaker 5: becomes less dark and shadowy.
• 22:06
  Speaker 4: It's got some, I can see it a bit clearer,
• 22:08
  Speaker 4: but it's, It's not mine to take care of. It
• 22:11
  Speaker 4: comes with me, but it's just this little thing, right?
• 22:14
  Speaker 4: Like don't, don't pay any mind to it.
• 22:16
  Speaker 5: Like it's not this big, harrowing creature that used to,
• 22:20
  Speaker 5: you know, keep me from doing so.
• 22:21
  Speaker 4: Much because it was lurking always.
• 22:24
  Speaker 3: And now it's shrunk.
• 22:25
  Speaker 6: It's shrunk.
• 22:26
  Speaker 4: It's in color because I've shared my story. It's not,
• 22:30
  Speaker 4: it's not some big, dark, scary thing. Like, yeah, it
• 22:35
  Speaker 4: wasn't a great experience at all.
• 22:36
  Speaker 2: Right.
• 22:37
  Speaker 5: But like, it's, it's not mine it's known as it
• 22:41
  Speaker 5: becomes known it's not something to be afraid of and
• 22:44
  Speaker 5: that happens through having conversations like this where right you
• 22:48
  Speaker 5: know it's this thing that's with me yeah I know
• 22:50
  Speaker 5: it's there but like yeah yeah I got.
• 22:52
  Speaker 8: It under control but we're moving forward still it gets
• 22:55
  Speaker 8: in the way sometimes but yeah.
• 22:57
  Speaker 7: I feel like all of this I just want to
• 23:00
  Speaker 7: say how brave we are how survivors, hello, everyone.
• 23:05
  Speaker 3: No, everyone needs to know that we are so brave to,
• 23:15
  Speaker 3: Just walking through every single day.
• 23:19
  Speaker 6: Exactly.
• 23:20
  Speaker 3: Regardless of how much we have or haven't healed. Exactly.
• 23:25
  Speaker 2: We are so brave to just take it on every day.
• 23:29
  Speaker 4: Absolutely.
• 23:29
  Speaker 3: I love that.
• 23:31
  Speaker 6: Absolutely.
• 23:32
  Speaker 4: Especially how much you have or haven't healed.
• 23:35
  Speaker 5: People are in different stages of this and like taking
• 23:38
  Speaker 5: the next step, even if it's the tiniest step forward,
• 23:42
  Speaker 5: like that is incredible to do because it is so daunting.
• 23:45
  Speaker 6: It's like, we're clapping for you.
• 23:47
  Speaker 5: We are.
• 23:47
  Speaker 4: We are.
• 23:47
  Speaker 5: Yeah.
• 23:48
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 23:48
  Speaker 7: Cheering.
• 23:49
  Speaker 4: Thank you so much.
• 23:57
  Speaker 2: I get, I have such deep respect and gratitude to
• 24:01
  Speaker 2: the two of you for joining me on this journey.
• 24:03
  Speaker 3: I feel like we, you know, we're like three sister cures.
• 24:09
  Speaker 3: Thank you. Thank you for everything.
• 24:16
  Speaker 7: Yeah.
• 24:16
  Speaker 6: This invitation.
• 24:17
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 24:18
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 24:20
  Speaker 2: And I love to leave the audience with one phrase that,
• 24:26
  Speaker 2: telling is healing thank you