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What Heals Trauma? with Manuela Mischke-Reeds, LMFT · The Trauma Therapist

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Welcome to the Trauma Therapists podcast. My name is gaming
• 0:03
  Speaker 1: Person and I interview incredible people who share the story
• 0:06
  Speaker 1: of how trauma has shaped their lives. And a big
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  Speaker 1: thank you for sponsoring today's episode goes to my guest
• 0:12
  Speaker 1: and our sponsors. SO five four, three, two and one,
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  Speaker 1: Our folks, welcome back to the podcast. Super excited to
• 0:27
  Speaker 1: have back. Manuela Michiga reads Manuela, welcome.
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  Speaker 2: Back, Thank you, thanks for having me so.
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  Speaker 1: Manuela is an internationally respected sematic psychotherapist, semitic trauma expert,
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  Speaker 1: and educated with over thirty years of clinical and teaching experience.
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  Speaker 1: She's founder of the Hakomi Institute of California and creator
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  Speaker 1: of embody Wise, a platform for embodied learning. She developed
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  Speaker 1: the Innate Sematic Intelligence Trauma Therapy Approach, an advanced training
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  Speaker 1: program for therapists, and co developed the Hakomi Psychedelic Assisted
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  Speaker 1: Therapy training Her books include Trauma Sensitive Movement as well
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  Speaker 1: as Embodied Psychedelic Therapy or a Somatic Guide and Correct
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  Speaker 1: Me if I'm wrong, the latter book that has yet
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  Speaker 1: to come out.
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  Speaker 2: That's coming out in October.
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  Speaker 3: Yeah, okay, okay, and then Astmann book just came out.
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  Speaker 1: Okay, yeah, Okay, so let's give our if we can.
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  Speaker 1: First of all, before we even get go in here,
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  Speaker 1: share with the listeners where you're from originally and where
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  Speaker 1: you are currently.
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  Speaker 3: Well, I currently am based in California, Northern California. That's
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  Speaker 3: where I work in practice, but I really work in
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  Speaker 3: practice all over the place. So I teach internationally and
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  Speaker 3: do trainings. But I'm originally from Germany and Spain, so
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  Speaker 3: I grew up in Europe, was bicultural and bicultural and yeah,
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  Speaker 3: and then my path led me from Europe to Asia
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  Speaker 3: to Australia we're also teach, and then to the United States.
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  Speaker 3: So I consider myself very much a person of the world,
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  Speaker 3: of global world.
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  Speaker 1: Awesome, awesome, all right, Before we get into specifics, I
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  Speaker 1: want to talk about the new book of Coorse and
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  Speaker 1: your work with psychedelics. If we can, let's just keep
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  Speaker 1: our audience kind of a thumbnail sketch of how would
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  Speaker 1: you define what it is you do?
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  Speaker 2: So I wear a couple of hats in my heart.
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  Speaker 3: I'm both a somatic trauma psychotherapist. That's what I've been
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  Speaker 3: doing for over thirty years, working with a very wide
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  Speaker 3: range of clients, all kinds of different traumas and personal
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  Speaker 3: growth as well. I have also a foot in the
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  Speaker 3: kind of psycho spiritual world. I come from drama practices
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  Speaker 3: and embodied practices. I'm a somatic therapist, but I'm also
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  Speaker 3: a somatic educator, so I come from movement therapy, somatic
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  Speaker 3: embodied practices. My new book actually is on trauma sensitive movement,
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  Speaker 3: so how to bring movement techniques into the therapy world,
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  Speaker 3: how into trauma work, because that's a very neglected area,
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  Speaker 3: I think. So that's the new book that just came
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  Speaker 3: out in February. But I wear the head of somatic psychotherapists,
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  Speaker 3: but I do a lot of education, so training of therapists,
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  Speaker 3: training of anybody in the healing field, also coaches, and
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  Speaker 3: right now I'm doing a class and intergenerational trauma for
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  Speaker 3: the general public actually how to work with somatic imprints
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  Speaker 3: and trauma from the past, from the family lineage and
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  Speaker 3: using somatics. So at the heart, what I care most
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  Speaker 3: about really is a transformation through the body, and that's
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  Speaker 3: really what I'm most interested in, especially when trauma has
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  Speaker 3: interrupted that inherent knowledge of our bodies.
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  Speaker 2: That's what I care about most.
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  Speaker 1: Going back just a little bit, when did this desire,
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  Speaker 1: this need, this calling come to you.
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  Speaker 2: We have to go way back.
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  Speaker 1: Just a little bit.
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  Speaker 2: Sure, well, it started with being in the natural world.
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  Speaker 3: Actually with my I'm a little child, I'm dancing in
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  Speaker 3: the wheat fields with my cat, where I discovered that
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  Speaker 3: being in tune with nature, the movement of nature, the
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  Speaker 3: movement of.
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  Speaker 2: The wheat field.
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  Speaker 3: And I was a really little kid, we're talking six seven,
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  Speaker 3: and she was my companion.
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  Speaker 2: And I would copy her movements.
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  Speaker 3: I was so fascinated how cats moved through the world,
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  Speaker 3: you know, with such elegant and grace and fluidity, and
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  Speaker 3: so I literally would copy her like my first dance teacher,
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  Speaker 3: and I began to have an experience of feeling very
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  Speaker 3: connected with my environment.
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  Speaker 2: I grew up in a trauma household.
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  Speaker 3: There was a lot of violence and also, you know,
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  Speaker 3: two generations passed, but post Holocaust in Germany. That's why
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  Speaker 3: I grew up in the first early formative years, and
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  Speaker 3: so there was a lot of incess trauma into generational
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  Speaker 3: trauma and violence in my home. And so my moving body,
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  Speaker 3: being in the natural world, being with the animal world,
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  Speaker 3: were my first teachers into back into my somatic resource,
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  Speaker 3: into my own inner wisdom. So that's what started, and
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  Speaker 3: it became then I started to study dance, and I
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  Speaker 3: had wonderful teachers of African dance that also brought that
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  Speaker 3: more tribal psycho spiritual.
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  Speaker 2: Work, ancestral work to me through dance.
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  Speaker 3: So it's really through movement that I began to feel
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  Speaker 3: at home in my body. And then when I later
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  Speaker 3: on began my work with all kinds of trauma clients,
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  Speaker 3: I never forgot that that was my medicine and my thread.
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  Speaker 3: It's also what I think is very powerful in psychedelic work,
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  Speaker 3: you know, bringing movement technique, somatic techniques into that works.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, that's what started. It started in the wheat field.
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  Speaker 1: Thank you for sharing that. There's something as soon as
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  Speaker 1: you started talking about movement, there's something that can almost
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  Speaker 1: feel like the use of movement can almost feel antithetical
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  Speaker 1: to trauma work. I mean a lot of times when
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  Speaker 1: I think of people who have been traumatized. There's not
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  Speaker 1: for everyone, of course, but for many people there can
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  Speaker 1: be a need to avoid the body, yes, right, a
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  Speaker 1: need to just feel so constricted you're asking me to move.
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  Speaker 1: Of course that's not for everybody, but okay, so let's
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  Speaker 1: talk about this movement and movement you said initially you
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  Speaker 1: felt that was kind of an under utilized or research
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  Speaker 1: or area within the trauma field. Why do you say.
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  Speaker 3: That, because I think that we're looking at movement, We're
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  Speaker 3: looking at the body as behavior and responses. We're looking
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  Speaker 3: at the freeze response, We're looking at you know, bracing patterns.
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  Speaker 3: This is all good ways of looking at it. About
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  Speaker 3: what we're not looking at. Even the most frozen body moves.
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  Speaker 3: We move, We move through.
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  Speaker 1: Breath, right, and if we're we have to move.
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  Speaker 3: We have to move, but we might not be conscious
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  Speaker 3: of the movement, we might not be connected with movement,
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  Speaker 3: and movement often is misunderstood as dance, as kind of
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  Speaker 3: leaping through the space or something, and that's not what
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  Speaker 3: it is. We're talking about very intrinsic movements, very inner,
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  Speaker 3: subtle micro movements that can actually unthaw frozen states and
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  Speaker 3: that are very very safe to the most traumatized body.
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  Speaker 3: It's just really misunderstood because we are moving, we're also
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  Speaker 3: choosing to not feel the movements in the body or
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  Speaker 3: feel our sensations in the body. But it's actually that's
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  Speaker 3: exactly the medicine that somebody who is traumatized, especially in
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  Speaker 3: a frozen spectrum, actually needs They need to come into
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  Speaker 3: a relationship with their body in a safe way, in
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  Speaker 3: a very scuffolded way, so that they safely begin to
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  Speaker 3: you know, feel and sense and find them way through.
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  Speaker 3: I'm talking before we even talking about any kind of
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  Speaker 3: discharging of trauma states held memories in the body, that's
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  Speaker 3: all part of it. But what I have found, and
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  Speaker 3: this is where continuum has entered my life. It's been
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  Speaker 3: a very impactful uh teaching in my life. Emily Conrad
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  Speaker 3: and Susan Harper too somatic movement pioneers in this world,
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  Speaker 3: and they have taught me the practice of continuum. I
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  Speaker 3: became a continuum movement teacher, still a continuum teacher, and
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  Speaker 3: I began to experiment with bringing this very intrinsic We're
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  Speaker 3: talking really barely visible on the surface movement and applying
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  Speaker 3: that to when people go into dissociative states. We're talking
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  Speaker 3: a little movement in the neck. You know we're talking.
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  Speaker 1: So let me just stand there for one seconds. Are
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  Speaker 1: you talking about bringing awareness to intentional movement?
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  Speaker 2: No?
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  Speaker 1: No, no, okay.
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  Speaker 3: We're talking about shifting first a reference point of like,
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  Speaker 3: oh I feel stuck and I feel frozen to like,
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  Speaker 3: what's actually happening? As you're feeling the frozen what else
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  Speaker 3: is here? The truth is, there is movement, There is
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  Speaker 3: well being. We're just not connected to it. I call
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  Speaker 3: it poetically the river beneath. There is actually a fluidity
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  Speaker 3: in the body that's existing ours, the Noville fluids. I'm moving,
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  Speaker 3: our heart is pumping. There is actually movement happening in
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  Speaker 3: the body. I'm just not connected to it. So the
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  Speaker 3: first step is connecting to it. Intentional movement means I'm
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  Speaker 3: going to move my arm. So it's before that. It's
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  Speaker 3: saying like, so you feel the frozen pattern and let's
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  Speaker 3: say a tightness in a chest. And then as you
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  Speaker 3: feel the tightness in the chest, what else is here? Well,
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  Speaker 3: I can feel my breath up and down. Now that's movement.
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  Speaker 3: They just don't know it yet, right, they don't have
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  Speaker 3: the language yet. So as you feel the tightness and
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  Speaker 3: this is polarity, by the way, and you feel the
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  Speaker 3: movement of the breath breath, notice that there is a
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  Speaker 3: rhythm to the breath. The body has a primordial rhythm.
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  Speaker 3: There is a rhythm to our body. Yeah, our heart
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  Speaker 3: has a rhythm. Our snowball fluids have a rhythm. Our
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  Speaker 3: cranial sacral has a rhythm. There is a rhythm. It's
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  Speaker 3: expansion and contraction. That is the primal dancer in the body.
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  Speaker 3: When you begin to connect with, ah, there is a
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  Speaker 3: rhythm here, my breath is doing exhale in here, there
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  Speaker 3: is a rhythm. Then the person begins to connect with
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  Speaker 3: something so innate, so deep, and it's actually what I
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  Speaker 3: would call the healing intelligence. And so the person connects
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  Speaker 3: with that rhythm.
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  Speaker 2: And what do they begin next?
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  Speaker 3: They go, ah, they engage the parasympathetic Yeah, the tension
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  Speaker 3: is still there.
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  Speaker 2: I'm afraid, I don't want to feel my body. L la.
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  Speaker 3: It's all what they've kind of created, avoidance pattern, dismissive pattern,
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  Speaker 3: blah blah blah. But then there's also this other experiencing
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  Speaker 3: that's also happening.
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  Speaker 2: So let's go.
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  Speaker 3: Back and forth, which is a common pendulation technique. It's
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  Speaker 3: used in somatic experiencing, other somatic task. Let's go back
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  Speaker 3: between the tension, but then also that rhythm of the breath,
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  Speaker 3: and as you feel that, notice what wants to happen.
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  Speaker 3: The body always wants to heal, always wants to go
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  Speaker 3: towards resolving whatever is in the way, stuckness, blah blah blah,
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  Speaker 3: wants to resolve itself. So once we connect a person
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  Speaker 3: with that kind of rhythm, it's not a big step
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  Speaker 3: than to say, so, see if you can bring a
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  Speaker 3: little bit more capacity to the breath or is there
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  Speaker 3: a movement that goes with it? Well, I feel a
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  Speaker 3: little tickling down my spine.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, and you.
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  Speaker 3: Begin to re educate the person that actually what's happening
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  Speaker 3: is movement. We're constantly in motion externally and internally. There's
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  Speaker 3: always movement.
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  Speaker 1: Interesting, So you're you're inviting them to in a way
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  Speaker 1: bringing an awareness not to kind of intentional movement, like
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  Speaker 1: I said, but to the very state of their human beings.
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  Speaker 2: That's that's right, it's moving.
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  Speaker 1: It which is which? Or is moving? I mean move
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  Speaker 1: them into the office, That's true? Right? Which is which?
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  Speaker 1: Is really interesting? Now is how do you I don't
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  Speaker 1: want to use this term, I'm gonna use it anyway.
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  Speaker 1: How do you how do you encourage them or how
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  Speaker 1: do you how do you invite them to do that?
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  Speaker 1: For someone for someone who might I don't even want
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  Speaker 1: to go there, you know.
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  Speaker 3: Yeah, you always start with where the person is at
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  Speaker 3: and I don't want to go there as fear it's
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  Speaker 3: a barrier, but it's a resistance and that's not a problem.
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  Speaker 3: So we start with what the resistance is. Resistance is
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  Speaker 3: also a movement, by the way, so you don't want
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  Speaker 3: to go there. So a party can use parts language, right,
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  Speaker 3: you can a part of it doesn't want to go there.
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  Speaker 3: So notice there's like a I don't want to Is
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  Speaker 3: that in your mind? Is it in your body? Do
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  Speaker 3: you feel something? I feel like holding embracing you can.
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  Speaker 3: I have gotten people to move that are quote non movers.
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  Speaker 3: I've worked with firefighters, work with people that wouldn't be
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  Speaker 3: in a million year's cart to be moving on the floor,
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  Speaker 3: and I've gotten them there.
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  Speaker 2: And the reason is you pick them up, not.
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  Speaker 3: From giving them an exercise, but starting where the awareness
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  Speaker 3: is and then increasing the awareness. Because the movement is there,
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  Speaker 3: you just have to fight it. So as I said,
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  Speaker 3: the movement of the breath is the easiest, but then
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  Speaker 3: even them doing a little head movement or they're twitching
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  Speaker 3: shoulder and it's like, as you're feeling that shoulder, see
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  Speaker 3: if you can just be with the shoulder movement.
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  Speaker 2: Notice that, Oh it's just a twitch up and down.
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  Speaker 3: Yeah, And as you do that, see if you can
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  Speaker 3: do it even smaller, you always make it more durable
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  Speaker 3: by making it smaller.
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  Speaker 2: Where I come from, you don't exaggerate.
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  Speaker 1: Kind of reframing in a sense. Why is this important? Yes,
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  Speaker 1: for trauma work.
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  Speaker 3: Yes, it's hugely important because first of all, people don't
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  Speaker 3: have access to the inherent wisdom of the body.
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  Speaker 2: They are stuck.
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  Speaker 3: And first of all, they're stuck in trauma responses or
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  Speaker 3: five flight freeze, and with that associated belief systems and
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  Speaker 3: then behavior patterns. Right, So they're stuck in these and
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  Speaker 3: they recycle them over and over again because they're based
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  Speaker 3: on survival. That's not thriving. It's great, but it's not
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  Speaker 3: based on on thriving. So when you connect people with
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  Speaker 3: this intelligence, when my experience has been people suddenly go like,
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  Speaker 3: oh my god, it's so tender. I feel such reverence.
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  Speaker 3: I feel like there I am, I'm home. There is
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  Speaker 3: fluidity here. I thought I was all a bundle of stuckness.
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  Speaker 3: People use different language, you know, whatever they're whatever they
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  Speaker 3: or they have an image that goes with it, but
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  Speaker 3: they're connecting with themselves as a continuum of life, because
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  Speaker 3: trauma cuts us off from all kinds of connection, right
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  Speaker 3: from connection with our body, our psyche, our spirit, from
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  Speaker 3: other people the world.
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  Speaker 2: It's a cut off. It's a big, massive disconnection.
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  Speaker 3: When we find pathways into the body and I go, oh,
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  Speaker 3: my god, there's an ease. I have all chronic pain
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  Speaker 3: in my body, but there's this little ease in my neck.
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  Speaker 3: Oh that feels so sweet, and then tears are coming.
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  Speaker 3: You're now connecting them to something so inherent that's them.
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  Speaker 3: That's also beyond any kind of spirituality. It's just them
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  Speaker 3: and their body, the innate knowledge. And when you have
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  Speaker 3: that connection back, then trauma becomes just things to work through,
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  Speaker 3: you know, it's becomes a huge ally because I have this,
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  Speaker 3: it's we can call it a resource, we can call
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  Speaker 3: it resilience, we can put all those names on it.
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  Speaker 3: But it's so inherently something that I have inside my body,
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  Speaker 3: and it's not been lost. And most people think that
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  Speaker 3: in trauma, I've lost connection.
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  Speaker 2: I'm doomed.
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  Speaker 3: I'm this Life is passing by me, right is like
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  Speaker 3: life is overing here, I'm over there.
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  Speaker 2: That's not true. That's a trance.
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  Speaker 3: Actually, trauma makes us believe it out of survival, but
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  Speaker 3: it's not true. We are actually inherently connected always. So
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  Speaker 3: this goes a little psycho virtual here. But when you
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  Speaker 3: have a direct ex of your body as a living intelligence,
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  Speaker 3: like wow, I'm breathing, moving, sensing, billowing, feeling streaming, ooh right.
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  Speaker 2: It's like wow, that's all true.
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  Speaker 3: And then when there is a trauma discharge, it's like yeah,
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  Speaker 3: I can write it because I know there's also this
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  Speaker 3: there and that comes also after being Discharge's like oh
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  Speaker 3: there it is again an opening in my belly is
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  Speaker 3: streaming down into my pelvis. That was so fraud with
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  Speaker 3: trauma memory. So those experiences of the sensing, feeling, sensual body,
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  Speaker 3: which I want to call aros, really errors in the
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  Speaker 3: cleanest sense, a connection back with aeros, because trauma cuts
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  Speaker 3: us off from that cuts vitality errors.
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  Speaker 1: Let me just remind everyone i'm speaking with Manuela Miss
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  Speaker 1: reads her books Trauma Sensitive Movement and also Embodied Psychedelic
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  Speaker 1: Therapy a somatic guide. Wow, I'm just thinking the way
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  Speaker 1: you're speaking. Obviously, we could all traumatized, or I mean
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  Speaker 1: probably we're all traumatized to a certain degree, but we
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  Speaker 1: can all benefit from this, this this incredible awareness. Would
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  Speaker 1: it be okay if we kind of segued into psychedelics
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  Speaker 1: and the new book and how did this interest start
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  Speaker 1: for you?
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  Speaker 3: Well, psychedelics has been part of my life for the
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  Speaker 3: last thirty years along with it because my inquiry has
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  Speaker 3: always been what heals trauma. That's been from my early
• 17:26
  Speaker 3: and I think of the last podcast I talked about
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  Speaker 3: that that's been my guiding post what.
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  Speaker 2: Actually heals trauma?
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  Speaker 3: My own personal journey for where I came from, but
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  Speaker 3: also then with my clients, I was always interested in
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  Speaker 3: what healed it. So I've had a lot of personal
• 17:39
  Speaker 3: experiences with psychedelics thirty years on and then I had
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  Speaker 3: over my career always people come in doing psychedelic integration.
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  Speaker 3: So I've been doing hundreds of sessions of psycholic integration
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  Speaker 3: over the years where people you know, did underground work.
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  Speaker 3: We're traveling into other countries and came back and its
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  Speaker 3: like how do I do this? And has been such
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  Speaker 3: a powerful tool because people come back with some psychedelics
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  Speaker 3: is a lot of nonverbal experience, so it's very hard
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  Speaker 3: to integrate something that you experienced nonverbally.
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  Speaker 2: But somatics movement offers a route to that.
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  Speaker 3: So I got interested because my clients were doing I
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  Speaker 3: was on my own healing path. And then obviously as
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  Speaker 3: it became more knowledge, you know, more Michael Pollan's book
• 18:24
  Speaker 3: and so on, it became more above ground. And I've
• 18:28
  Speaker 3: been doing ketemine work with firefighters in group work, individual
• 18:34
  Speaker 3: work with keademine, and so I got really interested in
• 18:38
  Speaker 3: working with psychedelics because of the trauma, because I saw
• 18:42
  Speaker 3: that certain traumas needed more support, It needed that kind
• 18:46
  Speaker 3: of stepping out of the thinking mind. Even with all
• 18:49
  Speaker 3: my toolkits with movement and somatic techniques that I have.
• 18:53
  Speaker 3: I've written a couple of books on it. But even
• 18:55
  Speaker 3: though there were certain clients that were quote trauma treatment
• 18:58
  Speaker 3: resistant with trauma and they needed an extra help. And
• 19:02
  Speaker 3: I think that psychedelics is such an incredible helper along
• 19:05
  Speaker 3: the way of helping to integrate trauma. So it's not
• 19:11
  Speaker 3: the healing itself, but it's a tool along with it.
• 19:16
  Speaker 1: You said certain traumas could maybe benefit from psychedelics. Are
• 19:21
  Speaker 1: you talking about a type of trauma? Are you talking
• 19:24
  Speaker 1: about maybe certain people or trauma resisting could benefit from
• 19:27
  Speaker 1: the peat.
• 19:28
  Speaker 3: People who are resistant to other treatments, right, what other
• 19:31
  Speaker 3: treatments haven't worked. And then of course veterans, the first responders,
• 19:37
  Speaker 3: helpers a lot, you know that are constantly exposed to
• 19:41
  Speaker 3: trauma over and over again. Where there's a coupling of trauma,
• 19:43
  Speaker 3: so that the difficulty of as you know, I mean,
• 19:46
  Speaker 3: this is your field. What makes trauma so hard is
• 19:49
  Speaker 3: that there's not just one trauma. It couples with intergenerational trauma,
• 19:53
  Speaker 3: collective trauma, then more crisis trauma. I mean, there's like
• 19:56
  Speaker 3: many multiple layers and people who are on the front
• 19:58
  Speaker 3: lines of mental health professionals too, by the way, but
• 20:02
  Speaker 3: people who are on the front lines of trauma, there's
• 20:06
  Speaker 3: like more insult right, more trauma kind of getting accumulated.
• 20:09
  Speaker 3: So I think that psychedelics is a very powerful way
• 20:13
  Speaker 3: to help with those kind of traumas. In particular, I
• 20:15
  Speaker 3: mean there's lots of studies being done right now with veterans,
• 20:18
  Speaker 3: with firefighters, with helping professions, medical prof I mean, there's many,
• 20:24
  Speaker 3: many studies end of life and so on too. That's
• 20:27
  Speaker 3: the different, but there are many studies done. But the
• 20:29
  Speaker 3: idea here is that I think psychedelics can bring the
• 20:34
  Speaker 3: person from the overly vigilant thinking mind into deep experiential work,
• 20:41
  Speaker 3: which often somatic therapists know how to do that, but
• 20:46
  Speaker 3: it helps you to access these non ordinary states in
• 20:49
  Speaker 3: which you can confront more at ease some of the
• 20:52
  Speaker 3: difficult traumas because especially with MDMA, it down regulates the amygdalas,
• 20:57
  Speaker 3: so the fear center is not so activated and the
• 21:00
  Speaker 3: person can actually relate to whatever they have to confront,
• 21:03
  Speaker 3: the deep shame, the moral injury of combat, or whatever
• 21:08
  Speaker 3: it is. They can confront it now. And what has
• 21:10
  Speaker 3: been found is that compassion self compassion arises, and that's
• 21:14
  Speaker 3: been so powerful, and that's often so missing in trauma healing.
• 21:18
  Speaker 3: It's really hard work for the therapist to help the
• 21:20
  Speaker 3: client to come towards self compassion and self acceptance. So
• 21:24
  Speaker 3: MDMA in particular and also ketamine and other medicines too,
• 21:29
  Speaker 3: but they often are helpful to opening up that self
• 21:31
  Speaker 3: compassion and that is a huge ally on the path
• 21:35
  Speaker 3: of healing. So we know now, you know, one to
• 21:39
  Speaker 3: three initial sessions or one psilocybin session, people have these
• 21:43
  Speaker 3: deep mystical experiences and they feel this connection again with self,
• 21:48
  Speaker 3: with spirit, with life itself. Just when I was talking
• 21:51
  Speaker 3: about the movement. Right when we get that sense of like,
• 21:54
  Speaker 3: oh I am connected. I am not disconnected from my
• 21:58
  Speaker 3: wisdom or in the body. I'm not disconnected in the
• 22:02
  Speaker 3: universe yet I am actually part of it all.
• 22:05
  Speaker 2: That is huge healer right right.
• 22:09
  Speaker 1: Uh? With the book and body psychedelic therapy talk a
• 22:14
  Speaker 1: little bit, Yeah, what your purpose?
• 22:16
  Speaker 2: Yeah purpose?
• 22:18
  Speaker 3: I co wrote that with my friend and colleague, Joshua Sylvey.
• 22:21
  Speaker 3: He's from somatic Experiencing. He's a trainer in semitic experiencing.
• 22:25
  Speaker 3: I'm a Hakomi trainer, also trained in sematic experiencing, and
• 22:29
  Speaker 3: we both obviously share the love for somatic trauma work.
• 22:33
  Speaker 3: And we were actually attending and training together. That's how
• 22:35
  Speaker 3: we met. We had met in other circles before, but
• 22:38
  Speaker 3: we sat in training and we loved it. And we
• 22:41
  Speaker 3: also started going like, wow, the somatic component is missing here.
• 22:45
  Speaker 3: And you know, combined we have like I don't know
• 22:48
  Speaker 3: how many decades of experience together, and we kept having
• 22:51
  Speaker 3: this really spirited.
• 22:52
  Speaker 2: Conversation what would you do here? What would you do here?
• 22:54
  Speaker 2: What did you do here?
• 22:55
  Speaker 3: And we started to go like, wow, somatics is such
• 22:58
  Speaker 3: an incredible health for psychedelic therapists because the non ordinary
• 23:04
  Speaker 3: state comes often with nonverbal states. How do I track
• 23:08
  Speaker 3: the non speaking body when they're going into these deep,
• 23:12
  Speaker 3: deep mystical experiences.
• 23:13
  Speaker 2: How do I read the body? How do I support
• 23:16
  Speaker 2: my client?
• 23:17
  Speaker 3: What are some tools for them to prepare to get
• 23:20
  Speaker 3: more comfortable in the body so they can accept these
• 23:23
  Speaker 3: experiences that really push people into giving up control. Yeah,
• 23:27
  Speaker 3: this is a big one. People are afraid of losing
• 23:30
  Speaker 3: control or dying. Right, This is a very common psychedelic
• 23:33
  Speaker 3: fear that people have. So somatic work can prepare you. Yeah,
• 23:38
  Speaker 3: well you're not alone all of us. Right, but even
• 23:41
  Speaker 3: if you've done a lot of it, every time I
• 23:43
  Speaker 3: go what the ego doesn't like it? So Joshua and
• 23:49
  Speaker 3: I were really thinking about we could from all this
• 23:52
  Speaker 3: experience that we've had. There are so many tools that
• 23:54
  Speaker 3: we could offer, and also in my frame of how
• 23:58
  Speaker 3: to look at psychedelic work work and be helpful in
• 24:02
  Speaker 3: the therapeutic context. So this is for therapeutic context. Obviously,
• 24:05
  Speaker 3: psychedelics has deep roots and indigenous, and I want to
• 24:08
  Speaker 3: acknowledge this technology is rooted in Indigenous and there's so
• 24:12
  Speaker 3: much wisdom and knowledge that we are complete in infancy
• 24:16
  Speaker 3: about So this is no way a replacement or a
• 24:19
  Speaker 3: competition or anything. This is just from our little corner
• 24:22
  Speaker 3: and offering that there are somatic techniques that could help
• 24:27
  Speaker 3: the therapists to prepare the client, to make them accept
• 24:31
  Speaker 3: the experience of fear of losing control. Through breathing techniques,
• 24:37
  Speaker 3: through somatic awareness, through movement techniques, you can actually embrace
• 24:41
  Speaker 3: the experience. So learning how to be with a challenging moment,
• 24:47
  Speaker 3: rehearsing that in preparations for psychedelics, the body will remember
• 24:53
  Speaker 3: it in their session.
• 24:54
  Speaker 2: So suddenly you.
• 24:54
  Speaker 3: Can as a therapist, all you can say, remember the
• 24:57
  Speaker 3: breath we practice and they suddenly go and then making
• 25:02
  Speaker 3: because you practiced it, the body remembers. The body doesn't
• 25:05
  Speaker 3: just remember the bad stuff, it also remembers the training.
• 25:08
  Speaker 2: So when you have.
• 25:09
  Speaker 3: Trained certain breaths and movements and practices, all the therapist
• 25:14
  Speaker 3: has to do is either gently remind them or the
• 25:16
  Speaker 3: body remembers it itself because it's not part of them.
• 25:20
  Speaker 3: So preparation. Then there are also tools certain in the
• 25:23
  Speaker 3: different stages of a journey to help people with certain
• 25:27
  Speaker 3: breaths and somatic techniques, and also some very select touch
• 25:31
  Speaker 3: which is a controversial issue and then hugely in integration.
• 25:36
  Speaker 3: So in integration work, you know, coming back like through
• 25:38
  Speaker 3: the sensory channels of remembering a session, not just like, oh,
• 25:42
  Speaker 3: this is what happens, and people want to make meaning
• 25:45
  Speaker 3: right away, and it's often encouraged to actually wait on
• 25:48
  Speaker 3: meaning making and just actually feel and sense and let
• 25:51
  Speaker 3: things settle. You know, what's your responses in the body,
• 25:54
  Speaker 3: what has come up.
• 25:56
  Speaker 2: And then the.
• 25:56
  Speaker 3: Integration to actually work through certain somatic practices remembering in
• 26:02
  Speaker 3: the body and having the meaning making come from the
• 26:06
  Speaker 3: soma up from the bottom up, versus like oh now
• 26:09
  Speaker 3: I saw certain that means ABC. That's just applying such
• 26:14
  Speaker 3: a narrow understanding of mystical experience. So somatic techniques can
• 26:20
  Speaker 3: be such a helper along all those three main stages
• 26:23
  Speaker 3: of psychedelic work, and I think it helps people to
• 26:26
  Speaker 3: integrate deeper. One technique I use a lot is continual movement,
• 26:31
  Speaker 3: especially in both in the preparation and integration. But when
• 26:35
  Speaker 3: you're asking people, as I said earlier, in these little
• 26:37
  Speaker 3: micro movements moving through the body, suddenly they go, oh,
• 26:41
  Speaker 3: an image came back. Oh now I understand why I
• 26:44
  Speaker 3: had a voice from my grandmother talking to me. Because
• 26:47
  Speaker 3: the body brings it back in this nonlinear way. Healing
• 26:51
  Speaker 3: happens nonlinear, right, So we need to amvoy techniques that
• 26:55
  Speaker 3: are non linliar, and so of course we want of
• 26:58
  Speaker 3: them make sense and you can journ, you can do
• 27:00
  Speaker 3: dream work, and you do all that stuff. You's all
• 27:02
  Speaker 3: wonderful techniques, but also often recapturing and really understanding the
• 27:07
  Speaker 3: essence of a psychedelic work needs to come from nonlinear channels.
• 27:11
  Speaker 2: That's what I think. So Somatic is a helpful.
• 27:15
  Speaker 1: The book. Is it for therapists as well?
• 27:17
  Speaker 3: Yes, it's for therapists everybody who's guiding psychedelic work, So
• 27:22
  Speaker 3: I mean it also can be for the general public
• 27:24
  Speaker 3: who's interested, but it's really for people who are helping
• 27:28
  Speaker 3: other people through these kind of processes like that. How too,
• 27:32
  Speaker 3: some ethics. We'll also talk big topic is ethics ethical
• 27:36
  Speaker 3: touch because there's been a lot of injury there, so
• 27:41
  Speaker 3: that's a big component of the book.
• 27:44
  Speaker 1: As we kind of wind down here, I want to
• 27:46
  Speaker 1: ask you a couple more questions, but what kind of programs, teachings,
• 27:52
  Speaker 1: workshops are you offering? Now?
• 27:54
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I teach a lot of embody wise, so we
• 27:58
  Speaker 3: teach a hakomi psychedelic train that's for therapists. I also
• 28:01
  Speaker 3: teach innate somatic intelligence trauma therapy. That's the work that
• 28:05
  Speaker 3: I developed that brings continuum together Hakomi trauma work that
• 28:10
  Speaker 3: really equips therapists to work with this process, the innate
• 28:13
  Speaker 3: somatic intelligence as I was describing, I teach Hakomi trainings
• 28:17
  Speaker 3: all over the place. I also developed in your training
• 28:20
  Speaker 3: with Susan Harper, actually the one of the founders of Continuum,
• 28:23
  Speaker 3: weaving continuum into the therapy process, which is a really
• 28:26
  Speaker 3: wonderful program to using these very innate, subtle movement patterns
• 28:32
  Speaker 3: into therapy process, into psychedelic process, any kind of therapeutic application.
• 28:37
  Speaker 2: So yeah.
• 28:38
  Speaker 3: And I teach also at Embody Lab. I teach at
• 28:40
  Speaker 3: different places, different courses. So yeah.
• 28:45
  Speaker 1: And finally, I mean, you have so much experience. Where
• 28:49
  Speaker 1: do you see trauma education trauma treatment right now in
• 28:58
  Speaker 1: the field when you think of it.
• 29:04
  Speaker 3: Well, I think it's very exciting what's happening. I think
• 29:07
  Speaker 3: there is such a confluence. I think because of psychedelics
• 29:10
  Speaker 3: and so much of the trauma research and then psychedelic
• 29:13
  Speaker 3: rese which there is so much bridging happening the addiction work.
• 29:16
  Speaker 3: I mean I feel like there is such a coming
• 29:17
  Speaker 3: together of the different silos, which that's what I have
• 29:21
  Speaker 3: loved about psychedelic work. I just came back from the
• 29:23
  Speaker 3: MAPS conference, you know, and there was such a wonderful
• 29:27
  Speaker 3: confluence of all these different researchers, therapists, you know, ethicists
• 29:31
  Speaker 3: and activists, everybody. I think that psychedelics is a great integrator,
• 29:37
  Speaker 3: and in trauma work, I think we need to really
• 29:40
  Speaker 3: be open to many different modalities. I'm sad when trauma
• 29:45
  Speaker 3: work is just put into one methodology because I think
• 29:49
  Speaker 3: that's not how we organize as humans. And I'm also
• 29:52
  Speaker 3: said that we don't bring in more than moving body,
• 29:55
  Speaker 3: you know, that it gets to that was still kind
• 29:57
  Speaker 3: of adhering to a model of the body that's somehow
• 30:00
  Speaker 3: fixed or rigid.
• 30:01
  Speaker 2: We are not.
• 30:02
  Speaker 3: We're living, intelligence, challenging organism, and we need to engage
• 30:05
  Speaker 3: it as such. So I hope that with all this research,
• 30:10
  Speaker 3: you know, there's in different modalities coming in, that there
• 30:14
  Speaker 3: is more communication with the different methods and.
• 30:17
  Speaker 2: An openness to integrate.
• 30:18
  Speaker 3: And that's actually one of the reasons Joshua and I
• 30:20
  Speaker 3: wrote the book Here's se and there's Hakomi and other
• 30:23
  Speaker 3: methodologies we played with and we really wanted to bring
• 30:26
  Speaker 3: it together, like we need to have the best of
• 30:29
  Speaker 3: the best coming together for finding our pathways through. That
• 30:33
  Speaker 3: addresses individual trauma, intergeneration in collective trauma, because we're in
• 30:37
  Speaker 3: a very different world now, you know, everybody has the
• 30:41
  Speaker 3: intersection of many, many different trauma. We need to address
• 30:44
  Speaker 3: the individual and the systemic and the therapist needs to
• 30:46
  Speaker 3: be equipped for that, or whoever works with trauma, you know,
• 30:50
  Speaker 3: if you're working with groups or whatever it is. But
• 30:52
  Speaker 3: we no longer can just have one method. That model,
• 30:56
  Speaker 3: I think is out the window. We need to be
• 30:58
  Speaker 3: thinking much more collectively and so stemachally around trauma.
• 31:01
  Speaker 2: So that's my hope.
• 31:03
  Speaker 1: Wow, all right, Manuela, how do people reach you? What's
• 31:06
  Speaker 1: the best way they can reach me?
• 31:07
  Speaker 3: Through embodywise Manuela at embodywise dot com. So that's where
• 31:11
  Speaker 3: I do a lot of the teaching and my website
• 31:13
  Speaker 3: Manuela Mishcreed dot com. That's my personal website. But yeah,
• 31:17
  Speaker 3: the body Wise is where you can find me.
• 31:20
  Speaker 1: Manuela. I remember when I first interviewed you. I remember it,
• 31:24
  Speaker 1: and I remember you use this word human being. This
• 31:29
  Speaker 1: you had me at human being this. I love you.
• 31:32
  Speaker 1: You're incredible. You're welcome back anytime. Thank you, and I
• 31:36
  Speaker 1: love I love the work you do, I love what
• 31:39
  Speaker 1: I appreciate it.
• 31:40
  Speaker 3: Yeah, it's great. More to you, it's amazing. We need
• 31:43
  Speaker 3: to get all this work out. This is where we're at. Yeah,
• 31:46
  Speaker 3: thank you.
• 31:46
  Speaker 1: We'll be in touch so much. All right, take care