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Episode 753: The Way is Through The Wound with K.J. Ramsey · The Trauma Therapist

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  Or welcome back to the Trauma Therapist Podcast. My name is Gaming Person.
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  My mission is to help trauma therapists be their incredible cells, to be human,
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  to be real, not just a clinician. I'm a big believer in
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  who we are is more important than what we know, and this requires cultivating
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  authenticity, genuineness, and vulnerability, and that requires intention. Can learn more
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  about my courses and workshops by going to the Trauma Therapist project dot com.
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  That's the Trauma Therapist Project dot com. Let's get started five four, three,
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  two and one. Our folks, welcome back to the podcast that very
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  excited to happen, make us today. kJ Ramsey, kJ, welcome,
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  Thank you for having me. You're welcome so. kJ is a trauma informed
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  license professional counselor and author whose work offers space to see every part of our
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  souls and stories as sacred. She holds degrees from Covenant College and Denver Seminary
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  and is the author of three books, The Lord is My Courage, Stepping
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  through the shadows of fear towards the Voice of Love, as well as This
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  Too Shall Last, Finding Grace when Suffering Lingers, and most recently, The
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  Book of Common courage, prayers and poems to find strength in small moments.
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  kJ writes at the intersection of theology, psychology and spiritual formation to God readers
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  and recovering the rhythm of resilience through nervous system regulation and the wonder of communion
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  with God. Awesome, kJ, thanks so much for being here. Welcome.
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  We got a lot of smoke going on there. I light some Polo
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  santo before every therapy session, which I do right here and then with every
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  interview too, just kind of a like transition ritual for me before we could
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  go in here, sharehere our listeners. Where you're from originally and where you
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  are currently. Yeah. I am originally from Michigan. I spent my first
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  seventeen years of life in Michigan outside of Flint, and I live in Denver,
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  Colorado, where I've been for the last decade. Okay, awesome,
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  all right, so let's jump in here. How did you get to this
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  place, this space such that you're writing about and at the intersection of these
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  these topics. Yeah, I I like to talk about all the time that
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  the way is through the wound, the way to wholeness, the way to
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  who we're going to become. And that's the story for me of both being
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  a therapist and being an author and a poet. The way has been through
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  my own wounds as somebody who experienced complex trauma as a childhood a child,
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  as somebody who's experienced religious trauma as a disabled woman. The way to having
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  words to share and a presence to share has been through bearing witness to my
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  own wounds and my own weariness. How did you manage the trauma as as
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  a young kid? How did how did you manage it? How did you
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  deal with it? Did you deal with it? M You know, it's
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  a it's a little hilarious that I am an author because the way that I
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  coped, the way that I found safety as a child, was in books.
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  I I was in a I was surrounded by a lot of chaos and
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  experienced a lot of abuse in my family, and I would just go straight
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  into books. I taught myself how to read at three, and I just
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  always had a book. I always had a book with me. And it
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  was now as a trauma therapist, I know I was really like dissociating into
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  books and able to like block everything for a lot out. But I'm so
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  grateful that I had that safe place to imagine a different story and imagine love
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  and safety and and different kind of consistency. Of course, there was love
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  in my family too, but it was quite complex, So it wasn't It
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  really wasn't until becoming a therapist that I really started to name how much trauma
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  is in my whole story and started to really be honest with myself about my
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  own distress and disregulation as cries for consistency and connection and solidarity. So it's
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  been a long, long process. So between the time when you began to
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  name it and recognize it and the time when you taught yourself to read,
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  did you share what was going on with other people? Did you reach out
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  to a therapist? What? Yeah? I mean As a as a very
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  young kid, I remember silencing myself out of a sense of shame. I
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  remember with some of the nature of the abuse that happened, some sexual abuse.
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  I remember having this sense like I can't tell anybody because if our pastor
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  knows, it's my fault, like as a like five year old, thinking
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  that, And so I really swallowed so much of my story and swallow like
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  my own need for comfort. My older brother was very, very, very
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  distregulated all the time and required so much of my parents' attention, and I
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  took on the role of being the good girl who you know, brought them
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  joy instead of pain. So I coped through this hyper vigilance and this hyper
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  performance. And it really wasn't until I truthfully, there's moments maybe me throughout
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  high school that I started to get honest with people, but at that point
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  still had never seen the therapist myself. It wasn't really until I was in
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  college and I started to see my roommates and my friends and meet some of
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  their families and realized, oh, like, the way that I grew up
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  wasn't normal. Every other people's families aren't all like this. Other people don't
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  have these kinds of expectations placed on them. And I started to see a
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  therapist in college. And around that same time is when I got sick with
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  my first autoimmune disease, and so I was concurrently having to face my body
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  asking for help and being suddenly disabled in a way that required me to have
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  help to like there was no way to navigate my days and get what I
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  needed to just have sustenance and like make it around my dorm room without physical
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  help from others. So there was this very quick shift of having to ask
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  for the things that I never thought I was allowed to ask for as a
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  child. And that was really the beginning of a being put on a trajectory
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  of truth telling with myself about what my body has to say and what she
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  deserves and needs. So, yeah, it's been, like I said,
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  a long story, long long story. I noticed that you said that when
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  you were in college there was a moment there where you began to be honest
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  with yourself, and you're almost in the same sentence you said that that was
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  kind of around the first time where your experience you were getting sick. Do
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  you connect those dots in any way, of course, yes, you do.
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  I mean there's in my family on both sides, there's a massive epigenetic
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  where with autoimmune disease, and so it's it's a very complex thing. But
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  now at this juncture in my story, I really believe that my body was
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  processing both my own experience of childhood trauma and I think generations before me of
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  trauma that was not tended to, and that I was being given an opportunity
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  to change the story. And because of the severe disabling nature of my disease.
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  It in a way forced me to choose wholeness. It made it easier
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  in a way to choose wholeness because I was so desperate to be well.
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  And I think there's a grace there. But yeah, I think my body.
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  Really I don't. I don't know that we can nail down how this
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  complex interplay between our physicality and our immune systems and the various genes that we
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  are passed down and the emergence of a new disease, a new disease state.
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  But I think that our bodies tell very fierce truths about the systems in
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  which we live, including our family systems, and the systems of the institutions
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  and which we are embedded, and the broader societal systems. And I think
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  my body was telling some very inconvenient and fierce truths that we are not made
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  to be self sufficient, and that we desert, we are worthy of care
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  and witnessing. And she just asked for it, and she continues to ask
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  for it. How did things unfold for you when you started to see a
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  therapist when you were in college and what was the path towards becoming a therapist
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  like you? How did that start? Yeah, I did not plan on
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  becoming a therapist with the whole like reading young thing. I've always been a
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  nerd and I was working in community development, doing research and training and marketing
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  for a nonprofit. And I again found myself. So this is after college.
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  I found myself in a system that was not well led by somebody who
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  honestly has a lot of narcissistic qualities, and I got sicker. And it
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  was that second time of starting therapy again. At first trying to find someone
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  and I struggled to find someone who I didn't have to explain so much about
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  my daily existence as a woman at the time, I wouldn't have had the
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  label disabled, but as a disabled woman, what my life looks like.
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  But when I found a therapist who herself had a chronic illness, I felt
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  this relaxation of like, ah, she gets it. I knew by watching
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  her body that she lives like I do. And there was so much I
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  did not have to I didn't have. This wasn't the language that I had
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  at the time, you know, in my early twenties. But I didn't
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  have to retraumatize myself by retelling everything about what my life is like and how
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  I got to that point in order to be loved and witnessed, and seeing
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  her be able to have a career and offer the presence that people need opened
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  up this window of opportunity, of possibility for me that I could I could
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  do that too. And I in my job, I was really wanting to
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  go deeper. We were a poverty alleviation organization, all about helping the poor
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  help themselves, quote unquote, and I wanted I just felt like, I
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  want to get to the poverty underneath everything, the poverty of personhood that we
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  all experience. And so yeah, I ended up becoming a therapist because really
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  of practicality of having to quit my job and wondering am I ever going to
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  be able to have a regular career. I don't think I am, and
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  what can I do? And really that pragmatism propelled me into a vocation that
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  I could not have imagined would be such a perfect fit for who I am
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  and what I love and how I'm wired. And you mentioned more so,
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  you you mentioned the the connection with this woman, this kind of seeing yourself
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  in there and almost being empowered and saying, Okay, maybe I can do
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  this. But was there any sense of well, maybe I can help people
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  too. Absolutely, yes, because I knew and I say that not that
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  you didn't want to do that, but given your own background, your own
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  experience with trauma, was that a conscious thing or not it was it was
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  I was not to the point of being able to name that I experienced a
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  lot of trauma. I probably at that point would have only named And my
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  therapist at the time was it trauma informed. Even though she was very kind
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  and and present, she didn't have language for it at that time either.
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  She probably does now, so much has changed in the last sixteen years.
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  But I did know I was I was young and sick, and that there
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  were other people out there like me, but that we all feel so alone
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  and it's really hard to find each other and to see that, like you're
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  not the only one who's struggling. So yes, you know. My reason
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  to become a therapist was pragmatic for myself, but also a really out of
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  advocacy. I wanted to advocate for people like me who need to access care,
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  but when they go and try to are essentially treated in such a way
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  that they don't want to stay, that it's not safe enough to stay without
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  you know a therapist meaning to act in ways that are offensive or are retraumatizing.
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  That is what happens for a lot of us. And at the time,
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  I only really had a vision for being able to work with people with
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  chronic illnesses. And it really was through further therapy on my own of getting
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  in touch with my story and seeing the the way that my childhood really was
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  traumatic and continues to play an active role in how my nervous system perceives reality
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  that I started to see like, oh, every person that I see pretty
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  much has childhood trauma, and like, are the way that our nervous systems
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  have been shaped by these stories of neglect and harm is part of how we
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  are semanticizing our experiences today, even as I greatly respect the medical field as
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  well. So, yeah, it was it was both pragmatic and a matter
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  of advocacy that led me to become a therapist. All right, let's just
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  pause here for a second to thank our sponsors. All right, we are
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  back. So when you started seeing clients, what was your experience like when
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  you began to work with people you realize I had experienced trauma. Yeah,
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  I think I felt I felt at home in a strange way I have always
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  since the beginning of my career, felt a strange, soothing quality of sitting
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  with someone else who is daring to be honest that they're not okay and that
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  things have happened that are not okay, and instead of I think I was
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  a bit surprised that it felt as that I felt like this is the home
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  where I belong instead of I remember, you know, in training people talking
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  about, oh, it's so hard not to let carry this home with me
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  at the end of the day, or it's hard not to I don't know,
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  like overfunction and overcare. There was just something about the I think the
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  dynamic of having my own severe physical pain and limitations paired with having to be
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  somebody who's in the position of needing care and having to be honest about what
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  my life actually looks like that it is almost a counter balance to the way
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  that we often start out our careers, and that like I couldn't overfunction as
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  much because my body doesn't let me. So there was just this like a
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  solidarity and a soothing experience of seeing people be as honest as I have to
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  be, and seeing that like something of my personhood of letting myself be a
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  whole being with wounds, with needs, with limitations, is inherently healing for
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  the person in front of me. There's just a duality and a parallel process
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  that happens in that experience of presence that immediately felt like home and has only
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  become more home as I've like really learned how to practice this art. But
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  yeah, well, you have an amazing way of articulating your experience. It's
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  it's awesome. Thank you, You're welcome. So talk to us about how
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  the books came about. Yeah, oh gosh, So turns out most people
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  don't love writing papers in college, but I did, and like would I
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  loved like staying up all night and and just working on something and getting onto
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  eppsco host and researching, like looking up citations in different studies and seeing the
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  way that things connect. And so I knew that something about like putting words
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  together I love more than the average person. There's delight there. And so
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  there were two things that led me to start writing publicly and with the goal
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  of writing my first book, just Joy and anger. Joy was the delight,
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  the great wonder, the sense of wonder that I feel in connecting the
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  dots between desparate things that seem desperate, the great joy and just naming things,
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  and then and naming my own experience too, and then anger in seeing
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  the way the world is and seeing the stories that we have had to swallow
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  to survive, and that I don't want us to have to swallow them anymore.
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  And joy and anger compelled me to try to start telling my story publicly.
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  And you know, I started writing in kind of like online publications and
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  started to share little snippets on Instagram. And I really wanted to write.
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  I wanted to write this is you know, very cliches, is what most
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  authors say. But with my first book, This two Shell Last, I
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  wanted to write the book that I wished I could have had when I was
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  twenty years old and sick as hell, and no one around me seemed to
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  be struggling as much as I was, and I fucking didn't know what to
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  do. I felt so alone, and I felt so scared, and I
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  needed a way to see that story reflected in somebody else, but also to
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  start to shed some of the virtual stories that were reinforcing my passivity or my
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  victimhood, to shed that and and and really my work as an author ever
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  since. I think in large part is the it's the work of helping people
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  grieve. That's what shedding is like. Grieve, let go, let go
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  of these things that you think you have to say or do or be to
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  be loved and be allowed to be you like, be as you are today.
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  So that's how I started writing the first book, and I didn't really
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  think like it happened faster than I had anticipated. I thought this was you
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  know, it's really hard to get books published, and it kind of came
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  about faster, and you know, three years. It's been three years since
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  the first book came out, and I can't believe that there's three now.
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  But I am really grateful. I love what I get to do. It's
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  like pure joy. There there's a lot of like really painful moments and it's
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  exhausting, but it's also such joy to help people have words for the parts
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  of their lives that they feel wordless about. Let me just remind everyone I'm
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  speaking with kJ Ramsey. Our most recent book is called The Book of Common
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  Courage, Prayers and Poems to Find Strength in Small Moments. So this was
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  released this year, this book four. Yeah, this book is especially for
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  people who have experienced minimization in Christian spirituality, who have who feel displaced in
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  their faith and who feel like they don't know how to have a faith and
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  be a whole person, and that there's the it's really my permission slip of
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  you. Your whole body, your embodied self, including your distress, are
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  sacred, and you are allowed to bring that whole self into relationship with others
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  and with God. And that maybe the God that we've been given a picture
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  of in so much of white evangelicalism is actually some cruel, tyrant picture that's
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  not actually God, and we can let that God die, to let to
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  let this other God, who is love, who is this the connection between
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  all of us, who who values each person in every form of who they
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  are, That we could discover that God is actually here and cares hears us.
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  That's who the book is really for. I've been really delighted though,
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  to see that, like even some people who don't wouldn't say that they're Christians
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  or aren't exactly in that spot, find the words to be welcoming. That's
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  been really cool. Now, there's a lot of Jesus in here, but
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  it's a lot of pointing out Jesus as a real human being who had a
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  panic attack in the garden of Gethsemite and who had his friends betrayed him,
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  and you know, cried out, my God, my God, why have
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  you forsaken me? Like Jesus who felt abandoned. This is I'm trying to
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  introduce people bull to a different a different guid but really that yourself is somebody
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  who is actually sacred. Wow, I know what kind of whint you down
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  here, and I'd love to bring you back. I'd love to invite you
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  back. Oh, I would love that. Yes, there's so much like
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  modalities and stuff like that that we didn't even talk about. But yeah,
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  and I would really appreciate that. But share with the listeners, kJ,
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  what's the best way for them to get in contact with you. Yeah,
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  the best way to get in contact with me and find my books and all
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  the things is kJ ramsey dot com and I'm on all social media, but
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  especially Instagram. It's my favorite at kJ Ramsey writes, Okay, awesome,
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  I'm gonna be sure to follow you. Well, look, there's a pleasure
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  meeting you and uh, I'm gonna quickly add you to my callback list after
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  I appreciate that kJ. Thank you so much, Thank you all right,
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  by L.