Latest / Heal Yourself Podcast / Episode 16: Transforming Pain into Strength

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Episode 16: Transforming Pain into Strength · Heal Yourself Podcast

• 0:03
  Speaker 1: Welcome to the Heal Yourself Podcast, where we dive deep into all things healing.
• 0:08
  Speaker 1: I'm Denise, a speech-language pathologist and a self-love coach for adults and teens.
• 0:15
  Speaker 2: And I'm Kira, a traditional naturopath and functional nutritionist, and we are here to guide you through the transformative process of healing your body, mind and soul.
• 0:25
  Speaker 1: From the latest in functional medicine to nurturing your relationship with yourself, healing trauma and even transforming your money story.
• 0:33
  Speaker 1: We're here to empower you with the knowledge and tools to create lasting change.
• 0:39
  Speaker 2: So, whether you're looking to heal physically, emotionally or spiritually, join us as we explore the many paths to wholeness and wellness.
• 0:46
  Speaker 2: Hey everybody, welcome back to another episode.
• 0:56
  Speaker 2: I am excited because we have a special guest today, and it's not just me.
• 1:00
  Speaker 2: Denise is here with us.
• 1:02
  Speaker 2: I made it so.
• 1:06
  Speaker 2: Today we're talking to Melissa Armstrong, and she has faced a lifetime of trauma and abuse, struggling with mental health issues from a young age, at 18.
• 1:16
  Speaker 2: She experienced the devastating accident and subsequent death of her brother, adding to her existing struggles with anxiety, ptsd and depression.
• 1:26
  Speaker 2: But despite her hardships, melissa has shown incredible resilience and strength in overcoming her challenges and now owns her own business as a trauma-informed functional health coach, helping other women overcome trauma to heal their mind, body and spirit.
• 1:42
  Speaker 2: So, melissa, welcome.
• 1:45
  Speaker 3: Thank you so much for having me here.
• 1:52
  Speaker 2: It's really an honor.
• 1:53
  Speaker 2: Yeah, we were excited to talk to you because, I mean, this is what Denise and I preach all the time too, so I think this is super important for our listeners.
• 1:58
  Speaker 2: Um, I know we don't have all day to talk, because we could easily do that.
• 2:01
  Speaker 2: Will you give us a little bit about your background and how you even started recognizing that trauma was a factor in your health?
• 2:11
  Speaker 3: Yeah, so my story alone takes a lot of time to kind of go over.
• 2:17
  Speaker 3: It's very complex.
• 2:19
  Speaker 3: There was a lot of abuse and trauma when I was a child.
• 2:22
  Speaker 3: My parents were addicted to drugs they were.
• 2:24
  Speaker 3: My dad was really physically abusive, my mom was really emotionally abusive, verbally abusive, emotionally unavailable, and when they divorced when I was six, that kind of just continued.
• 2:36
  Speaker 3: And then there was a series of things that happened in my teenage years, or like adolescence I guess.
• 2:44
  Speaker 3: When I was 15, there was a school shooting at my high school.
• 2:48
  Speaker 3: I was very close with the shooter and then when I was 18, my brother was killed tragically right in front of me.
• 2:54
  Speaker 3: So I share all of the details, like nitty gritty details of all of that on my Facebook page, my Facebook page, my, my Instagram.
• 3:04
  Speaker 3: I have my own podcast.
• 3:06
  Speaker 3: You can go listen to the the the full story, but that's kind of the gist of it.
• 3:10
  Speaker 3: So from the time my brother died when I was 18 and from the time that I was 18 to 24, I attempted suicide multiple times.
• 3:20
  Speaker 3: I was had severe, debilitating panic, anxiety, depression, um, all of the mental health stuff that came along with 18 years of trauma and I started to.
• 3:35
  Speaker 3: I wasn't sleeping, I wasn't eating, I wasn't taking care of myself, um, simultaneously, somehow I managed to get myself through nursing school and, um, when I was in my early twenties, um started to develop a lot of physical symptoms because I had all this emotional baggage that I hadn't dealt with.
• 3:56
  Speaker 3: So it started to manifest.
• 3:57
  Speaker 3: The saying is, if you don't deal with your issues, it rests in your tissues.
• 4:01
  Speaker 3: So that's exactly what was happening to me.
• 4:03
  Speaker 3: I started to develop, like digestive issues, skin issues, migraines, the insomnia you know, mental, physical, who knows Like I was?
• 4:15
  Speaker 3: I wasn't, I didn't sleep, like at all, really.
• 4:18
  Speaker 3: So I was just kind of in that state of not being well in every sense of the word.
• 4:26
  Speaker 3: And the panic really was one of the worst parts for me.
• 4:34
  Speaker 3: And when I was 24, I had just graduated college, nursing school, I was a new grad nurse, I was working night shift, um, and dealing with still the fallout from my brother's death, and panic was ruled my life, um, the PTSD, really, you know, I couldn't escape it and um would have quite frequent, like daily, you know, panic attacks.
• 5:07
  Speaker 3: And that's when my boyfriend at the time, now husband suggested to me that I he reflected back to me that I just was always stressed.
• 5:19
  Speaker 3: He's like you're, you just never seem to calm down like ever, and I think if you could just manage to calm your mind a little bit, you would feel so much better and maybe you should try meditation.
• 5:33
  Speaker 3: And so, having never tried meditation myself and he had no experience with it either I just thought, like what have I got to lose?
• 5:44
  Speaker 3: And I looked it up online, found Deepak Chopra and Oprah Winfrey used to.
• 5:50
  Speaker 3: Apparently they might still do it.
• 5:51
  Speaker 3: Somebody told me they used to do these 21 day free meditation challenges, and so I there was one either just about to start or had just started like that day it was just kind of serendipitous.
• 6:03
  Speaker 3: I think it was the, you know, I think it was God just making sure that I had the tools that I needed in that moment.
• 6:10
  Speaker 3: And I started meditating and really quickly realized that I could actually feel calm.
• 6:17
  Speaker 3: I had never felt calm in my whole entire life.
• 6:20
  Speaker 3: I was 24 years old, I had.
• 6:22
  Speaker 3: I didn't know what it meant to feel calm, and that was kind of that was the beginning.
• 6:28
  Speaker 3: That was where I realized like, oh my gosh, I can actually feel calm and like, why do I feel calm?
• 6:35
  Speaker 3: And then I started realizing that I could use the tools that I was learning while I was meditating.
• 6:39
  Speaker 3: I was Deepak Chopra and Oprah Winfrey in those, in those challenges they would be repeating this mantra and then I would use it when I was not meditating and actually feel a physical change in my body that would calm me down.
• 7:09
  Speaker 3: So I could do it while I was at work or if I was going to the grocery store and felt anxious.
• 7:12
  Speaker 3: So from there, I just kind of all of a sudden had this epiphany that was like so from there, I just kind of like all of a sudden had this epiphany that was like why is this working?
• 7:21
  Speaker 3: What is meditation?
• 7:22
  Speaker 3: What is somatic work?
• 7:24
  Speaker 3: What is trauma and how is it really impacting?
• 7:28
  Speaker 3: In nursing school they talk about like the whole person holistic, but we really don't, you know, in practical terms, like really have the opportunity to treat the whole person.
• 7:41
  Speaker 3: When you're, when you're working as a nurse in a hospital setting, like you're you're trying to save somebody's life, you're not talking to them about their nutrition and their stress, like, but even in an outpatient setting, it's just it's not, the system's not designed to really support that.
• 7:55
  Speaker 3: So I started researching a bunch of stuff and neuroplasticity and all that just consuming a lot and yeah, kind of the rest is history.
• 8:06
  Speaker 3: That was the beginning ago.
• 8:09
  Speaker 1: Someone said it in one of my workshops.
• 8:11
  Speaker 1: She's like the issues are in your tissues.
• 8:12
  Speaker 2: I was like oh, I love that, and Kira and I, kira, didn't we do the Deepak Chopra 21 day thing one time?
• 8:27
  Speaker 2: Oh yeah, we've done that one in the past.
• 8:28
  Speaker 2: It's a classic.
• 8:29
  Speaker 1: I love that.
• 8:30
  Speaker 1: So, melissa, since you've been through so much and you've learned a lot, what are some tangible tips or some action steps that you recommend for someone maybe starting out or listening to this like oh my goodness, that's me, where can they start?
• 8:51
  Speaker 3: Yeah, that's a great question.
• 8:53
  Speaker 3: I love this question because so many people tell me all the time well, I don't know how to meditate or I don't know what somatic work is and I don't know how to, you know, get there and it's.
• 9:02
  Speaker 3: It's really the first step to healing is awareness.
• 9:08
  Speaker 3: And I feel, like you know, when we were talking prior to the, prior to the podcast, like we were talking about how so many women especially, talking about how so many women especially and particularly mothers, but all women, I think, just in our culture.
• 9:26
  Speaker 3: We are in an age where we are just constantly on the go, we are always moving, there is always sensory input, there's stimulation from, you know, noise and sound and movement and social media, and you know all these different things and we're balancing so much that we spend our entire lives most of the time in our head.
• 9:52
  Speaker 3: We never, like, drop into our body and ask ourselves, like, like, drop into our body and ask ourselves like, how are we feeling physically?
• 10:04
  Speaker 3: So the my recommendation to people, like, very first step, asking yourself, how am I feeling?
• 10:08
  Speaker 3: And that's the super simple, like the simplest way to do that is something called a body scan, so you literally just take a couple seconds, you know if you're the first step.
• 10:20
  Speaker 3: The key is to notice I feel anxious, or I don't, or I feel not good In anything that's negative, not serving you.
• 10:29
  Speaker 3: You don't want to feel that way anymore.
• 10:33
  Speaker 3: Stop and take a deep breath and ask yourself how and where you're feeling that in your body.
• 10:40
  Speaker 3: And ask yourself how and where you're feeling that in your body.
• 10:45
  Speaker 3: Scan your body from top to bottom, head to toe, toe to head, and just ask yourself where am I feeling that?
• 10:49
  Speaker 3: And not with any judgment, not with any intention to like, oh, I have to change this or I shouldn't feel this way.
• 10:56
  Speaker 3: No judgment, Just ask yourself where you feel it, because that is the key to healing.
• 11:03
  Speaker 3: I think, in my opinion, that's the key to healing.
• 11:05
  Speaker 3: The mind body connection is the key to healing and is.
• 11:09
  Speaker 3: You cannot overstate the importance of that connection and that's the first step in reestablishing that connection, because we've just lost it as a society step in reestablishing that connection, because we've just lost it as a society.
• 11:22
  Speaker 2: Agree, completely agree.
• 11:23
  Speaker 2: I've got a question for you, melissa, so you shared quite a bit and I know it's not the whole story.
• 11:33
  Speaker 2: You had some pretty traumatic trauma experiences, right, we talk about little T, big T.
• 11:35
  Speaker 2: Yours were a lot of the big Ts.
• 11:35
  Speaker 2: What about those with the little Ts that just brush them under the rug?
• 11:38
  Speaker 2: Are those going to create health issues too?
• 11:40
  Speaker 2: A thousand?
• 11:42
  Speaker 3: percent I don't love.
• 11:46
  Speaker 3: I know, kara, you and I have talked a lot so you know like I don't love the distinction little T, big T, because I feel like it does just that.
• 11:55
  Speaker 3: It makes people think that the little T's are insignificant or unimportant and it just is completely not the case.
• 12:02
  Speaker 3: For definition, for sake of definition, I guess like I understand why we need to have those distinctions.
• 12:12
  Speaker 3: But little t's are things like being broken up with or having, you know, losing a job or something like that, and really it all boils down to your allostatic load and your ability to cope with those stressors.
• 12:30
  Speaker 3: So allostatic load is the impact on your body from stressors.
• 12:36
  Speaker 3: Stressors, not necessarily emotional stressors can be physical stressors, toxins, toxins in your food, toxins in your air, toxins so the impact that those stressors have on your body.
• 12:48
  Speaker 3: We all have a threshold at which we can no longer sustain homeostasis and balance within our body and whenever you surpass that threshold you are going to have physical symptoms.
• 13:02
  Speaker 3: So somebody who has, you know, one, two, five little T traumas can have just as many physical and mental repercussions as somebody who has one, two or five big teacher on us.
• 13:22
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I think that's an important distinction because, you're right, I'm the little T person, right, like a lot of times it was like, well, I just had these little things happen throughout my life.
• 13:31
  Speaker 2: I didn't have this massive, terrible event that I've been a part of, and so it did get brushed under the rug and I just thought, well, that's not contributing to my health issues and it absolutely can.
• 13:42
  Speaker 3: Mm-hmm, yeah, and that's so common, like so many people think that same thing.
• 13:48
  Speaker 3: But really like if what I said before, like what Denise was just mentioning, like if it, if you don't deal with your issues, it rests in your tissues, it doesn't matter what it is Something little can happen, little you know can happen and throw you off.
• 14:06
  Speaker 3: Yeah, it can totally throw you off and it and it's what your response is like.
• 14:12
  Speaker 3: What is your perspective of that experience?
• 14:15
  Speaker 3: The trauma is not the event itself, but it's your response to that event.
• 14:21
  Speaker 3: So if something happens and then suddenly it threatens your safety or your sense of purpose, or your feeling of like where do I fit in in the world?
• 14:33
  Speaker 3: Or your sense of having support from family or friends, or something like, if it threatens your safety or your sense of like having support from family or friends, or something like if it threatens your safety or your identity, you are going to create this narrative in your head and you're going to replay that over and over and over and over again if you don't deal with it and it's going to ultimately manifest into physical symptoms.
• 14:58
  Speaker 1: Melissa, I'm loving all of the points that you're making and I love, you know, the body scan idea.
• 15:04
  Speaker 1: So you know, let's say you know, yes, we do the body scan, and you do feel the emotion.
• 15:12
  Speaker 1: Let's say, in your here, in my stomach, or in my heart or wherever my toes.
• 15:14
  Speaker 1: I don't know what is the next step that you usually recommend after that.
• 15:20
  Speaker 3: Yeah, such a good question.
• 15:21
  Speaker 3: I should have said that from the beginning.
• 15:22
  Speaker 3: Yeah, now what?
• 15:24
  Speaker 3: Um, the next step is just to like, breathe into that area.
• 15:31
  Speaker 3: So, so, key, key point.
• 15:33
  Speaker 3: Uh, so key point awareness, recognizing it, identifying it where quality, quantity, if you can, and then not judging it is a huge piece.
• 15:48
  Speaker 3: So no judgment, you're not allowed.
• 15:50
  Speaker 3: I will not let you be mean to you, it's not happening on my watch.
• 15:54
  Speaker 3: You just notice it, don't judge it, and just breathe into it.
• 16:02
  Speaker 3: See if you can give that area just a little bit of love, just like oh, okay, I'm feeling a little bit tight or, you know, chaotic I tend to.
• 16:12
  Speaker 3: I used to have a lot of anxiety that would manifest in my abdomen and it always felt very chaotic, like, like energy, like kind of moving.
• 16:18
  Speaker 3: Have a lot of anxiety that would manifest in my abdomen and it always felt very chaotic, like, like energy, like kind of moving around a lot, like a big tied up knot, you know, like does it have a color?
• 16:26
  Speaker 3: And then just trying to breathe into that area, just breathe into your abdomen and just take some deep breaths and just repeat a mantra, if you can, if you want, like I am safe or I love myself, that's.
• 16:40
  Speaker 3: That's maybe maybe pushing it too far.
• 16:43
  Speaker 1: I love myself is kind of a hard one to get to, but um, or maybe I love the area like where I feel like, for example, like if someone is feeling a knot in their stomach, like and if you want to send love to that, you know I love you, I'm here for you, et cetera.
• 16:57
  Speaker 1: I love all this.
• 16:58
  Speaker 1: I love all this Such amazing, you know, tangible advice that you can actually do, like today, if you feel whatever emotions you feel.
• 17:09
  Speaker 3: And you can do it anywhere too, Like you can do it anywhere.
• 17:13
  Speaker 3: You're at the grocery store, You're at you know wherever Just be in your body.
• 17:18
  Speaker 2: Yeah, which is huge because you're right, so many of us don't do that and it's been something I've been working on.
• 17:23
  Speaker 2: Um, I've got one more question for you.
• 17:26
  Speaker 2: I know that we know the answer to this, but I'm going to ask it because sometimes our listeners don't.
• 17:32
  Speaker 2: That's why they come to us, right?
• 17:33
  Speaker 2: That's why they go to you.
• 17:34
  Speaker 2: If I have got trauma that needs to be worked through, that's contributing to my health issues, can I just do the body scan and some meditation?
• 17:47
  Speaker 3: Boy, I wish it was that easy.
• 17:48
  Speaker 3: I love that question, kira.
• 17:51
  Speaker 3: That's definitely a super important piece of it doing the body scan, um, doing the meditation, reconnecting your mind and your body but unfortunately, no, it's going to take a lot more work than that.
• 18:06
  Speaker 3: Um, the my perspective is that you know, my business is holistic health, so I'm always looking at the whole person.
• 18:15
  Speaker 3: So, like the somatic work, the nervous system regulation, that's all super important, but so is like self-care in other ways, like making sure you're feeding your body with good quality whole foods, making sure you're getting adequate sleep, adequate hydration, being kind to yourself, like learning to re rewrite the narratives that you're telling yourself.
• 18:41
  Speaker 3: Change your mindset, change the way you're speaking to yourself, because 99% of the people that I come in contact with have this horrible ability to be like super horrible.
• 18:54
  Speaker 3: That's not what I mean to say, this horrible tendency to be really really mean to themselves about even the smallest little things.
• 19:03
  Speaker 3: Well, you shouldn't feel like that and you shouldn't do that, or you seem so stupid there and like they would never speak to somebody else that way.
• 19:10
  Speaker 3: But they're talking to themselves that way, but really like approaching it from every, every perspective.
• 19:17
  Speaker 3: You got to look at all of it.
• 19:18
  Speaker 3: You got to do the deep introspective trauma recovery work with like journaling and somatic work, and you know EMDR if you need it and counseling and um.
• 19:29
  Speaker 3: But it's also so much more than that.
• 19:32
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I know but I want to because sometimes people a journey just like what we always say it's a journey and it's several things and just like with food, it might work with some people, it doesn't work for other people.
• 19:46
  Speaker 1: Same thing with this.
• 19:47
  Speaker 1: You know you got to do what works for you.
• 19:51
  Speaker 2: And trial and error, yeah, yeah.
• 19:53
  Speaker 2: And what makes you?
• 19:54
  Speaker 1: truly happy and there for yourself and I really love how you're putting it, melissa.
• 19:59
  Speaker 1: Like I'm not going to allow you to be mean with yourself.
• 20:01
  Speaker 1: Like you're, you're not mean to other people, you're kind, you're nice, and we always give the example of if your best friend calls you asking for advice, don't cuss her out and be like why are you feeling this way?
• 20:11
  Speaker 1: You know you're there for her.
• 20:13
  Speaker 1: So sometimes we, overly you know her.
• 20:21
  Speaker 1: So sometimes we, overly, you know, judge ourselves and you know label our feelings and or not yeah.
• 20:23
  Speaker 3: And even just like recognize learning to start recognizing that is is a huge accomplishment.
• 20:29
  Speaker 3: Like actually asking yourself how you're talking to yourself, because I've had many clients where I've had conversations like this and I say like, how do you talk to yourself?
• 20:40
  Speaker 3: And they're like oh, I'm, I don't have any negative self-talk, you know.
• 20:44
  Speaker 3: And it's like, as, as things come out, it's like, oh, no, yeah, oh, I'm really terrible to myself.
• 20:50
  Speaker 3: I didn't realize that.
• 20:51
  Speaker 3: So yeah.
• 20:53
  Speaker 2: Unconscious patterns, yeah.
• 20:54
  Speaker 2: Unconscious patterns, yeah.
• 20:55
  Speaker 2: Well, how can people find you, melissa?
• 21:01
  Speaker 3: My website is holistic health by melissacom, and then my Instagram is holistic health by Melissa.
• 21:09
  Speaker 3: Facebook is the same.
• 21:10
  Speaker 3: I have a podcast holistic health with Melissa.
• 21:15
  Speaker 2: Awesome, and this will all be in the show notes for you guys.
• 21:18
  Speaker 2: I feel like this is just the start of a much deeper conversation, right?
• 21:23
  Speaker 2: Like we could keep going on and, on and on, but this would be like a multi-day podcast and maybe we need to come back and explore it from another angle.
• 21:32
  Speaker 2: But this is a great first step for people to realize that trauma does create issues in the tissue.
• 21:38
  Speaker 2: A hundred percent Awesome.
• 21:43
  Speaker 2: Well, thank you for this conversation.
• 21:45
  Speaker 1: Yeah, Thank you so much for joining us.
• 21:46
  Speaker 3: Melissa, absolutely, it was an honor, thank you.
• 21:50
  Speaker 2: All right, guys, you know the drill.
• 21:51
  Speaker 2: We would love it if you subscribe to the podcast, shared it with people that need to hear it and we will see you on the next episode.