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Transcript

We’re Talking Radical Self Love with Romy Limenes · The Trauma Therapist

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Welcome to the Trauma Therapist Podcast. My name is Guy McPherson.
• 0:04
  Speaker 1: I interview incredible people who've dedicated their lives to helping
• 0:07
  Speaker 1: those who've been.
• 0:08
  Speaker 2: Impacted by trauma.
• 0:09
  Speaker 1: A big thank you to our sponsors and our guests
• 0:13
  Speaker 1: who are supporting this show.
• 0:14
  Speaker 2: All right, folks, welcome back. Very excited to have my
• 0:19
  Speaker 2: guest today, Rami Limonez. Rami, welcome.
• 0:22
  Speaker 3: Thank you so much, Guy. Good to be here.
• 0:24
  Speaker 2: All right.
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  Speaker 1: Rami is a trauma-informed coach, breathwork facilitator, and author of
• 0:29
  Speaker 1: Broken to Breathful. With more than two decades of experience
• 0:32
  Speaker 1: as a registered nurse, along with her lived experience as
• 0:35
  Speaker 1: a mother and survivor, her work explores nervous system healing, embodiment,
• 0:39
  Speaker 1: and self-connection. Rami supports women navigating hardship and identity disruption
• 0:44
  Speaker 1: through breathwork, grounding practices, workshops, and coaching. Her work is
• 0:49
  Speaker 1: rooted in safety, authenticity, embodiment, and helping people develop a
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  Speaker 1: more sustainable relationship with themselves. All right, Rami, just a
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  Speaker 1: little bit about you before we get going, share with
• 1:00
  Speaker 1: our listeners where you're from originally and where you are currently. Yeah.
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  Speaker 4: So, um, born and raised in the Bay area, San Francisco,
• 1:09
  Speaker 4: Mill Valley, Mendocino, Bolinas, um, split up parents. So multiple,
• 1:15
  Speaker 4: you know, a couple of families, uh, stayed most of
• 1:19
  Speaker 4: my life, went to university in San Francisco, lived there
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  Speaker 4: for most of my adult life. And I worked as
• 1:26
  Speaker 4: a nurse, as you mentioned, in the Bay Area. And
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  Speaker 4: I did have a five-year amazing stint in British Columbia,
• 1:35
  Speaker 4: in Vancouver, a few years ago.
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  Speaker 3: That was amazing. But really, I'm a Bay Area girl. So, yeah.
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  Speaker 2: Awesome. Okay. Know it. Love it well.
• 1:48
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
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  Speaker 2: All right. So how does all this start for you?
• 1:52
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 1:53
  Speaker 2: Well.
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  Speaker 3: So.
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  Speaker 4: Having worked in healthcare, I always was very interested in,
• 2:01
  Speaker 4: in wellness and healing. And I knew that the mind
• 2:07
  Speaker 4: body connection was integral in that personally for me. And
• 2:12
  Speaker 4: it was a big part of my, I would say, uh,
• 2:17
  Speaker 4: kind of mission as a nurse. I really liked to,
• 2:21
  Speaker 4: as best I could empower my patients. through education and
• 2:26
  Speaker 4: information so that they could really be more of an agent,
• 2:31
  Speaker 4: if you will, in their own health and wellness. But
• 2:35
  Speaker 4: it wasn't until my own very profound and prolonged, lots
• 2:41
  Speaker 4: of trauma period of life several years ago, where I
• 2:48
  Speaker 4: really came to this work personally.
• 2:50
  Speaker 2: It led me to.
• 2:54
  Speaker 4: To somatics breath work specifically, because I got to a
• 2:59
  Speaker 4: point where I could feel that the talk therapy that
• 3:05
  Speaker 4: I was doing was yes, helpful. And I was feeling
• 3:09
  Speaker 4: like insight and understanding alone. Wasn't quite moving the needle,
• 3:15
  Speaker 4: if you will, in terms of healing. So I found
• 3:20
  Speaker 4: it personally first. And now it's become my work.
• 3:25
  Speaker 2: Let's take a step back a little bit. What drew
• 3:29
  Speaker 2: you to nursing? You said you, from a very early age,
• 3:32
  Speaker 2: you were into wellness and healing.
• 3:34
  Speaker 1: Why?
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  Speaker 3: What drew me? Yeah.
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  Speaker 4: I knew, I love science and I loved people. And
• 3:42
  Speaker 4: I knew that I wanted to it just, it was
• 3:49
  Speaker 4: sort of a known, I suppose. I just sort of
• 3:53
  Speaker 4: inherently knew that there wasn't a question, you know, I knew,
• 3:56
  Speaker 4: I didn't know it was nursing. In fact, for years,
• 3:59
  Speaker 4: it's interesting because I feel things kind of have gone,
• 4:03
  Speaker 4: have gone full circle. I think initially I was really
• 4:07
  Speaker 4: pulled towards more naturopathic or Eastern holistic health, if you will. Um,
• 4:14
  Speaker 4: you know, for lack of a better term, um, But
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  Speaker 4: I felt nervous about going down that path. I come
• 4:22
  Speaker 4: from a family of lots of poverty in my childhood
• 4:27
  Speaker 4: and I was very focused on the safe route and
• 4:34
  Speaker 4: nursing felt like that for me. And so I went
• 4:38
  Speaker 4: into nursing, I enjoyed nursing, but I did always have
• 4:42
  Speaker 4: this sense, I used to sort of joke that I
• 4:45
  Speaker 4: was an underachiever I always felt like I was sort
• 4:48
  Speaker 4: of living beneath my full potential, if you will. So
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  Speaker 4: it is interesting now that I inadvertently left nursing, and
• 5:00
  Speaker 4: that's the story of trauma that I'm happy to share
• 5:03
  Speaker 4: or not, depending on how this goes.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, well, yeah, to the degree that you feel comfortable,
• 5:12
  Speaker 2: what happened?
• 5:13
  Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah.
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  Speaker 4: So I, four years ago, almost actually in a, in
• 5:18
  Speaker 4: about a week, it'll be exactly four years ago. I was,
• 5:21
  Speaker 4: I was drugged and I was assaulted and then I
• 5:24
  Speaker 4: was criminalized.
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  Speaker 3: I was arrested when I called for help.
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  Speaker 4: I lost my memory for almost eight hours.
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  Speaker 3: I woke up in a hospital.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah.
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  Speaker 4: I was, uh, you know, quite established at this point.
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  Speaker 4: Like I said, you know, at the time I was
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  Speaker 4: working as a director of nursing at a mental health practice.
• 5:44
  Speaker 4: I just launched my own little skincare business. And I
• 5:49
  Speaker 4: was about a year into my divorce. The dust was
• 5:52
  Speaker 4: starting to settle. I was starting to get my bearings again.
• 5:55
  Speaker 4: And I was drugged by... Yeah, in the city that
• 6:00
  Speaker 4: I live, in Petaluma, California, which is a beautiful little
• 6:04
  Speaker 4: adorable spot. I decided to have a late lunch on
• 6:09
  Speaker 4: a whim.
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  Speaker 3: I drove there.
• 6:10
  Speaker 4: Instead of going to swim, it was 3 p.m., on
• 6:13
  Speaker 4: August 31st and I thought I'm going to have a
• 6:15
  Speaker 4: pint of beer first. Something I'd done hundreds of hundreds
• 6:19
  Speaker 4: of times. I was married to a man from Mexico city.
• 6:23
  Speaker 4: So he introduced me to the whole like main meal
• 6:26
  Speaker 4: around three or four. We'd always have a beverage before.
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  Speaker 4: It was sort of just something I didn't think twice about.
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  Speaker 4: I went into a pub right next door. It was
• 6:35
  Speaker 4: a place I didn't know at all. Um, I learned
• 6:39
  Speaker 4: very easily.
• 6:40
  Speaker 3: After the fact.
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  Speaker 4: That the city knew that this place had a, it's
• 6:44
  Speaker 4: now shut down because it had such a criminal pattern.
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  Speaker 4: I believe I was drugged by not a, pardon me,
• 6:56
  Speaker 4: not a patron. I believe it was an inside job.
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  Speaker 4: I don't have proof. But I very easily learned what
• 7:05
  Speaker 4: happened to me. It was obvious from all the signs.
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  Speaker 4: And there was, like I said, a pattern. But I
• 7:11
  Speaker 4: was arrested when I called the police. And I was
• 7:14
  Speaker 4: taken to a trauma-informed hospital. I was badly beaten. The
• 7:18
  Speaker 4: hospital did not rule out rape. They didn't check a
• 7:21
  Speaker 4: blood toxicology. They heavily sedated me and sent me to
• 7:27
  Speaker 4: jail in handcuffs.
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  Speaker 3: And this upended my life as I knew it. It's crazy.
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  Speaker 3: So I wrote a book because... This is just the first.
• 7:36
  Speaker 4: Part of my book, but the story is unbelievable. And
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  Speaker 4: then the level of brokenness that I experienced was earth shattering.
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  Speaker 4: I had worked for two decades in a system that
• 7:50
  Speaker 4: I believed in. And I come from a family with firefighters,
• 7:54
  Speaker 4: a sheriff, another nurse. I had no reason to not
• 7:59
  Speaker 4: trust these systems. And when it came down to this happening,
• 8:04
  Speaker 4: I was actually, um, not only not protected and advocated for,
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  Speaker 4: but I was actually prosecuted and persecuted. And even the
• 8:15
  Speaker 4: board of nursing came after me, which is why I
• 8:17
  Speaker 4: ultimately walked away from my license.
• 8:20
  Speaker 3: So that was the, yeah.
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  Speaker 2: Rami, hang on one second.
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  Speaker 1: So I don't want to spend too much time on this,
• 8:29
  Speaker 1: but you, you get drugged You wake up where?
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  Speaker 3: In the hospital. I was raging. I was screaming.
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  Speaker 4: I mean, I was, my first memory that is conscious
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  Speaker 4: was me ripping my IV out, hurling it against the wall,
• 8:46
  Speaker 4: screaming profanity at the doctor. I don't know how I
• 8:49
  Speaker 4: knew it was the doctor calling him a bad name.
• 8:53
  Speaker 4: And I had a fleeting cognizant thought of, oh my God,
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  Speaker 4: what is happening?
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  Speaker 3: Why are you so angry? And the next moment I
• 9:03
  Speaker 3: was restrained.
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  Speaker 4: And then I learned, I saw they dosed me with
• 9:07
  Speaker 4: way too much medication. And my next memory, I've now
• 9:10
  Speaker 4: figured out the timeline, was a couple of hours later.
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  Speaker 4: I came to and three police officers came into my
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  Speaker 4: room and read me my Miranda rights and told me
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  Speaker 4: that I was under arrest. So they said that I
• 9:24
  Speaker 4: had assaulted somebody. So never in my life had I
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  Speaker 4: ever been involved in any sort of assault altercation ever.
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  Speaker 4: I've never lost time in my life. So I knew
• 9:39
  Speaker 4: in my body that something was off, of course. On
• 9:45
  Speaker 4: day four, four days later, this memory came back and
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  Speaker 4: it was the man who drugged me, I believe, who
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  Speaker 4: I had noticed earlier. He worked at the place. He
• 9:57
  Speaker 4: was actually the owner of the place. And I remembered
• 10:02
  Speaker 4: him staring into my eyes intensely. I had sensed him
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  Speaker 4: come up behind me. And I remember I turned and
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  Speaker 4: he was staring very intensely into my eyes. And my
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  Speaker 4: whole body knew in that moment. I went, oh, my God,
• 10:15
  Speaker 4: he must have been trying to distract me. And I
• 10:18
  Speaker 4: must have been drugged. Then my friend later said, Rami,
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  Speaker 4: he was probably looking at your pupils, probably wondering why
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  Speaker 4: you were still coherent.
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  Speaker 3: I don't know.
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  Speaker 4: Anyway, then I learned there was all these other people
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  Speaker 4: who had been drugged. There was newspaper articles, tons of
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  Speaker 4: reports to the city. And yet I apparently what I
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  Speaker 4: believe happened is that I was taken. I believe I
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  Speaker 4: was taken by a man. And again, I have, this
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  Speaker 4: is all in my book. I learned this through many,
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  Speaker 4: many months, um, private investigator, you know, many months and,
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  Speaker 4: but it didn't matter because I was arrested and that's
• 11:01
  Speaker 4: all that mattered when I, so I learned that I
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  Speaker 4: was the one who called nine one one and another
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  Speaker 4: woman saw me getting assaulted. Apparently I vomited. This is
• 11:11
  Speaker 4: hours later. I don't know where I was. And when
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  Speaker 4: I vomited, people got annoyed, understandably. Knowing me, maybe I
• 11:19
  Speaker 4: said something. I can be mouthy for sure. And apparently
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  Speaker 4: I got assaulted. I mean, I was not apparently. I
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  Speaker 4: was assaulted. I had lacerations, two black eyes. I had
• 11:31
  Speaker 4: marks on my neck. I called 911. They responded to
• 11:35
  Speaker 4: my call. But when they came, the people who assaulted
• 11:39
  Speaker 4: me said that I had started a fight. No video,
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  Speaker 4: no proof.
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  Speaker 3: Didn't matter. They arrested me.
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  Speaker 4: And so I did file complaints, hospital, police department. I
• 11:54
  Speaker 4: did everything I could do. I had no recourse. And
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  Speaker 4: I was dragged through the criminal legal system for about
• 12:01
  Speaker 4: two and a half years. I ended up, yeah, it
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  Speaker 4: was very traumatizing. I was scared. I started telling my
• 12:08
  Speaker 4: story publicly because my own attorneys, I felt, were doing
• 12:12
  Speaker 4: absolutely nothing. They weren't interested in the truth. I feel
• 12:18
  Speaker 4: like they were all working in the same courthouse economy,
• 12:21
  Speaker 4: quite frankly. And so it was really devastating, as you
• 12:26
  Speaker 4: can imagine.
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  Speaker 2: This is in the East Bay.
• 12:29
  Speaker 3: No, this is North Bay.
• 12:30
  Speaker 4: This is north of San Francisco, about 40 minutes.
• 12:34
  Speaker 3: Yeah, no, I know.
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  Speaker 4: I mean, the median home price where I live is
• 12:37
  Speaker 4: probably close to a million dollars. This was in a
• 12:42
  Speaker 4: very heavily pedestrian area. very nice part of the community
• 12:46
  Speaker 4: where I live, tons of shops, restaurants. I would have
• 12:51
  Speaker 4: never imagined that this would happen. And then I learned
• 12:58
  Speaker 4: that apparently this is known, even the person who runs
• 13:03
  Speaker 4: the media in two of the local papers, because I
• 13:06
  Speaker 4: reached out to her and she said, oh yeah, I
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  Speaker 4: grew up here. I would never I would never go
• 13:12
  Speaker 4: to any place on Kentucky Street. And she said, everyone
• 13:17
  Speaker 4: knows it's dangerous. And I said, I didn't know. I
• 13:20
  Speaker 4: didn't grow up here. I'd only been living back in
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  Speaker 4: the area for a year. I didn't hang out in
• 13:24
  Speaker 4: those places. So I was completely shamed, blamed, made to
• 13:30
  Speaker 4: be the culprit, made to be this unstable, intoxicated woman,
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  Speaker 4: when in reality, I was drug assaulted, maybe sexually assaulted
• 13:42
  Speaker 4: and then physically assaulted and then criminalized. But what I
• 13:47
  Speaker 4: learned is that this is rampant. I've met so many
• 13:52
  Speaker 4: people that have said, oh yeah, I was drugged. So
• 13:57
  Speaker 4: many people have a story and there's just simply no
• 14:00
  Speaker 4: systems in place to really protect people that are drugged.
• 14:06
  Speaker 1: I'm kind of waiting for the part where you get to,
• 14:11
  Speaker 1: and then I met someone who helped me.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah.
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  Speaker 4: No one, I haven't gotten there yet. Unfortunately, I've been
• 14:17
  Speaker 4: very alone. I will say it's been a very solo, um, journey, um, because,
• 14:24
  Speaker 4: you know, not only the trauma, but then having to
• 14:27
  Speaker 4: rebuild my career.
• 14:28
  Speaker 3: I'm 54.
• 14:30
  Speaker 4: I never imagined that at this stage of my life,
• 14:33
  Speaker 4: I would be starting anew. Fortunately, it is something that
• 14:38
  Speaker 4: I am deeply passionate about, which is now helping women
• 14:43
  Speaker 4: who are navigating their hardest seasons to create safety, to
• 14:50
  Speaker 4: learn to trust themselves again. You know, all these things
• 14:54
  Speaker 4: that basically this trauma exposed to me that I had
• 15:01
  Speaker 4: spent a lifetime sort of very disconnected from myself, if
• 15:05
  Speaker 4: you will. Not that I think trauma has a point
• 15:10
  Speaker 4: or a meaning. I think that it was devastating what
• 15:14
  Speaker 4: happened and it shouldn't have happened. And it also served
• 15:20
  Speaker 4: as a huge flashlight, if you will, into my own
• 15:27
  Speaker 4: just normalized patterns that I had probably started.
• 15:33
  Speaker 3: In my home of.
• 15:36
  Speaker 4: Origin, adapting, putting others' needs first, not trusting my instincts, self-questioning,
• 15:47
  Speaker 4: all these things that came up when I was criminalized.
• 15:51
  Speaker 4: A lot of this was very sort of in an
• 15:57
  Speaker 4: archetypal fashion, if you will, put.
• 16:00
  Speaker 3: In front of me.
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  Speaker 4: And I thought, okay, wow, on a smaller level, I've
• 16:05
  Speaker 4: sort of been doing this for years and, um, yeah,
• 16:10
  Speaker 4: so it, it was a lot and, you know, I'm still,
• 16:13
  Speaker 4: I'm still in it. I'm still, you know, it's been
• 16:16
  Speaker 4: four years. I wrote that book. It was the only
• 16:19
  Speaker 4: way that I knew to both reclaim my voice and
• 16:24
  Speaker 4: also to, to sort of put it someplace because I,
• 16:31
  Speaker 4: I needed to not be so entangled in it, if
• 16:34
  Speaker 4: that makes sense. I needed to honor that it happened,
• 16:40
  Speaker 4: but not be defined by it, to not be marinating
• 16:45
  Speaker 4: in it all the time. And so writing that book
• 16:48
  Speaker 4: somehow allowed me to say, it's in the book, you know,
• 16:52
  Speaker 4: and not have to keep on. And I'm happy to
• 16:55
  Speaker 4: talk about it. That's not my point here. Obviously, I
• 16:58
  Speaker 4: came on here largely to share my story.
• 17:01
  Speaker 3: I'm very.
• 17:04
  Speaker 4: Passionate about continuing to shed light on the way people
• 17:10
  Speaker 4: that are assaulted are so often discredited and.
• 17:15
  Speaker 2: This is, sorry to interrupt, but this is horrific. Yeah. Horrific. Yeah.
• 17:21
  Speaker 2: I can't imagine. I'm so sorry to hear you went
• 17:24
  Speaker 2: through this.
• 17:25
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 17:26
  Speaker 2: At what point or.
• 17:29
  Speaker 2: Did you come through? At what point did you say, okay,
• 17:34
  Speaker 2: I need to get some help? Yes. Did you say,
• 17:38
  Speaker 2: I need to see someone?
• 17:40
  Speaker 3: Yes, absolutely.
• 17:41
  Speaker 2: What did that look like?
• 17:42
  Speaker 3: Yes, absolutely. It's a great question. It was very pivotal
• 17:45
  Speaker 3: for me as well.
• 17:46
  Speaker 4: About a year, I spent about the first year just
• 17:50
  Speaker 4: really battling the systems.
• 17:52
  Speaker 3: I was so enraged and I was fighting to be heard.
• 17:57
  Speaker 4: I mean, I called so many attorneys, civil rights attorneys,
• 18:00
  Speaker 4: you know, to try to go after the hospital, for example,
• 18:03
  Speaker 4: the police, all these things that I felt completely failed me,
• 18:07
  Speaker 4: you know, and, and I just kept getting no, sorry, no, sorry.
• 18:13
  Speaker 3: And I was spinning.
• 18:16
  Speaker 4: It was really taking a toll on me emotionally and psychologically.
• 18:19
  Speaker 4: And I sort of woke up one day and I went,
• 18:23
  Speaker 4: I can't keep living like this. I'm going to I
• 18:27
  Speaker 4: can't survive. I'm, I'm doing myself more harm. I need
• 18:31
  Speaker 4: to put my energy. My fight needs to go into
• 18:36
  Speaker 4: rebuilding me, rebuilding my inner foundation, my inner home, my inner,
• 18:44
  Speaker 4: you know, I knew, I knew who I am.
• 18:46
  Speaker 3: I'm like, why am I trying.
• 18:48
  Speaker 4: So hard to prove to people that are not interested
• 18:51
  Speaker 4: at all in, in the truth?
• 18:55
  Speaker 3: That's where I was trying to prove. And I thought,
• 18:58
  Speaker 3: you know what, Rami? You know who you are. You
• 19:01
  Speaker 3: know the person you are.
• 19:03
  Speaker 4: Let's shift this. Let's build that person. Let's foster that
• 19:08
  Speaker 4: inner relationship. So that's what was sort of my point.
• 19:11
  Speaker 2: Okay, so what do you do? What do you start
• 19:14
  Speaker 2: to do?
• 19:14
  Speaker 4: So I found, so I was already doing therapy. I
• 19:18
  Speaker 4: was already doing talk therapy. And like I said, I
• 19:20
  Speaker 4: was still It was almost more harmful for me. I
• 19:23
  Speaker 4: would go in and we would talk and I would
• 19:25
  Speaker 4: get more agitated. So that's when I knew in my body,
• 19:30
  Speaker 4: I said, I need something to meet this in my body.
• 19:34
  Speaker 4: And I'd heard about breathwork in my mental health practice
• 19:37
  Speaker 4: where I worked, that it was a very powerful way
• 19:41
  Speaker 4: to meet trauma and to safely sort of start to
• 19:47
  Speaker 4: work with it, to heal it. And so I enrolled
• 19:51
  Speaker 4: in a breathwork program.
• 19:53
  Speaker 3: I did that.
• 19:54
  Speaker 4: It was fine. It wasn't super impactful, but I kept going.
• 19:59
  Speaker 4: I found another program that was a longer program. It
• 20:02
  Speaker 4: was like a two-year program.
• 20:04
  Speaker 1: And I.
• 20:06
  Speaker 4: I went full into that. I didn't have any intention
• 20:09
  Speaker 4: of teaching it. I just knew that that's how I
• 20:11
  Speaker 4: would learn the most if I did it that way.
• 20:15
  Speaker 4: And that changed my life. It was, I think first
• 20:18
  Speaker 4: and foremost, it was a safe community. Every week I'd
• 20:22
  Speaker 4: see the same people for three hours. We would get
• 20:26
  Speaker 4: into our bodies. I would feel feelings. I would start
• 20:29
  Speaker 4: to feel safe again. I, you know, It was just
• 20:33
  Speaker 4: a slow, very tender process of reacquainting myself with me.
• 20:41
  Speaker 4: And so it started with breath work and that stabilized
• 20:46
  Speaker 4: me a lot. That brought me a lot of peace
• 20:50
  Speaker 4: and connection and I could see the silver lining.
• 20:54
  Speaker 3: It gave me a glimpse, if you will.
• 20:56
  Speaker 2: Now, were you working at this time?
• 20:59
  Speaker 3: At this time I was still working.
• 21:01
  Speaker 4: No, I've been very alone. I, yeah, I have two
• 21:06
  Speaker 4: children and that was, yeah, they're, they're now 10 and 13.
• 21:09
  Speaker 3: They super young.
• 21:12
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 21:13
  Speaker 4: They, they live half time with my ex-husband who we
• 21:16
  Speaker 4: have a very amicable co-parenting relationship. He's a great dad.
• 21:21
  Speaker 4: So thank God for that. So they would go and
• 21:24
  Speaker 4: I could do me and then they could come back
• 21:27
  Speaker 4: and I could be more, on present with them, but
• 21:31
  Speaker 4: it took a toll on all of us. I mean,
• 21:33
  Speaker 4: my children witnessed what I was living, you know?
• 21:36
  Speaker 1: Um, so what did it look like when you started
• 21:39
  Speaker 1: to say, all right, I want to start helping other
• 21:43
  Speaker 1: people do this. Yeah. Yeah.
• 21:44
  Speaker 3: You know, for me, what? Yes. So it started with
• 21:49
  Speaker 3: the breath work. I just loved the breath work.
• 21:52
  Speaker 4: And the way that I could reach parts that needed
• 21:55
  Speaker 4: my attention in, in me, you know, feelings and, and, um,
• 22:01
  Speaker 4: and I was a tough, I was, I was a
• 22:03
  Speaker 4: slow burn. I was not one of those people who
• 22:06
  Speaker 4: instantly was like, oh my gosh, I had a transformative experience.
• 22:09
  Speaker 3: Not at all. It took me months. I was very armored,
• 22:12
  Speaker 3: I think.
• 22:13
  Speaker 4: And, but when I started having those breakthroughs, I knew
• 22:17
  Speaker 4: that there was something to it. And I thought, wow,
• 22:20
  Speaker 4: this is good stuff, you know? I would love to
• 22:23
  Speaker 4: share this with others.
• 22:25
  Speaker 3: And then, um, just excuse me.
• 22:28
  Speaker 2: When you say breakthroughs, what are you talking about?
• 22:32
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 22:32
  Speaker 4: Um, you know, a lot of it was, I was
• 22:38
  Speaker 4: so shamed through this process and, and it brought up
• 22:43
  Speaker 4: layers of shame of having lived with a lot of self-criticism, self-shame, um, And,
• 22:53
  Speaker 4: and the breath work was able to sort of soften,
• 22:57
  Speaker 4: I think a lot of the layers and allow me
• 23:00
  Speaker 4: to bring in the very intentional self-love. I never knew
• 23:05
  Speaker 4: what that meant before. I'd always heard self-love and I thought, yeah,
• 23:09
  Speaker 4: I think I love myself. But when I was living
• 23:13
  Speaker 4: what I lived, we're talking radical self-love. Just, it was
• 23:18
  Speaker 4: like moment by moment, sometimes like, okay, I've got you
• 23:22
  Speaker 4: like really like reparenting myself.
• 23:25
  Speaker 3: Like I've got you. I love you. I'm with you.
• 23:28
  Speaker 4: You know, it was a lot of like, even if
• 23:31
  Speaker 4: you're no one else has got you, I've got you.
• 23:34
  Speaker 4: It was really just, it always came back to this,
• 23:38
  Speaker 4: this inner, this inner sovereignty for lack of a better
• 23:43
  Speaker 4: word or inner. It was, it was a lot of
• 23:46
  Speaker 4: reparenting quite frankly, you know, and I didn't formally study
• 23:51
  Speaker 4: internal family systems or any of that. But I just,
• 23:55
  Speaker 4: I knew I intuitively knew that it began with safety
• 24:00
  Speaker 4: in my body, which the breathwork allowed me to cultivate
• 24:04
  Speaker 4: slowly and a big healthy dose of self-love just really
• 24:11
  Speaker 4: allowing myself to experience the rage, the anger, the heartache to,
• 24:17
  Speaker 4: to be imperfect, to not know what came next. Yeah,
• 24:22
  Speaker 4: it was, you know, it's very nonlinear. You know, some
• 24:25
  Speaker 4: days would feel really dense and other days I'd feel, wow,
• 24:33
  Speaker 4: I'm really feeling good. You know, I'm making progress. So
• 24:38
  Speaker 4: I just stuck with it. And it wasn't just breathwork.
• 24:41
  Speaker 4: It's been a lot of, I created sort of my
• 24:45
  Speaker 4: own healing system, if you will. I wrote about it
• 24:47
  Speaker 4: in my book. It's also what I coach in, in
• 24:50
  Speaker 4: my program and the beauty was sure.
• 24:54
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 24:56
  Speaker 4: So I, I noticed that I would have really good
• 25:01
  Speaker 4: days and really bad days. And so I started paying attention.
• 25:04
  Speaker 1: Okay.
• 25:05
  Speaker 4: Well, what am I doing on those really good days?
• 25:07
  Speaker 4: And I would say, okay, well, I, I exercised, I
• 25:10
  Speaker 4: moved my body.
• 25:12
  Speaker 2: Okay.
• 25:12
  Speaker 3: I did some breath work.
• 25:13
  Speaker 2: Okay.
• 25:13
  Speaker 3: I connected with a good friend.
• 25:15
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 25:16
  Speaker 4: Versus maybe the days when I didn't have a good day.
• 25:18
  Speaker 4: And I would say, oh yeah, I didn't do any
• 25:20
  Speaker 4: of those things as an example. So I started paying
• 25:23
  Speaker 4: attention and I call these lifelines.
• 25:26
  Speaker 3: I gave them a name.
• 25:27
  Speaker 4: I said, wow, these are my lifelines. And I started
• 25:29
  Speaker 4: naming them. I called movement bend. I called breathwork breathe.
• 25:34
  Speaker 4: You know, I kind of, I like language.
• 25:35
  Speaker 3: I like words.
• 25:36
  Speaker 4: So I sort of gave myself the liberty to make
• 25:41
  Speaker 4: them my own. And I knew that if I named them,
• 25:44
  Speaker 4: that I would have a much better chance of leaning
• 25:46
  Speaker 4: into them, if you will. So that was sort of
• 25:49
  Speaker 4: where I began. It was just little by little. I
• 25:51
  Speaker 4: noticed that I would be on a walk and listening
• 25:57
  Speaker 4: to music, and I would start to dance under the
• 26:00
  Speaker 4: trees or something. And of course, I would look first
• 26:03
  Speaker 4: to make sure nobody was around, because I felt a
• 26:05
  Speaker 4: little shy at first.
• 26:07
  Speaker 3: But I would have.
• 26:08
  Speaker 4: Big waves of emotion that would be released. I knew
• 26:13
  Speaker 4: that that was an inroad. I just sensed it. It
• 26:16
  Speaker 4: was a lot of just sort of listening inward, if
• 26:19
  Speaker 4: that makes sense. And so yes, these lifelines, but more importantly,
• 26:25
  Speaker 4: and the program that I now teach, I call it
• 26:27
  Speaker 4: the return practice really. And there's a few parts. The
• 26:31
  Speaker 4: first is root. It's coming back into the body. It's
• 26:35
  Speaker 4: I'm here, you know, maybe it's hands on body. I
• 26:38
  Speaker 4: use my breath, felt sensation. It's really just coming back
• 26:41
  Speaker 4: into the body back into this moment. The next part
• 26:45
  Speaker 4: is reframe. This is where, you know, I say, okay, yes,
• 26:50
  Speaker 4: meet the thought. Don't banish the thought. Don't scorn the thought.
• 26:56
  Speaker 4: A lot of my thoughts were horrible. I wasn't banishing them,
• 26:59
  Speaker 4: but I was meeting them. I was saying, yeah, you
• 27:03
  Speaker 4: deserve to be here. I love you. You're okay. And
• 27:08
  Speaker 4: is there a little bit of space where I can
• 27:11
  Speaker 4: maybe shift And see this in a different way, not
• 27:15
  Speaker 4: to bypass, right? Not to push positivity, but to, for
• 27:21
  Speaker 4: my own sake, because carrying this is, this hurts, right?
• 27:25
  Speaker 3: So shifting.
• 27:27
  Speaker 4: So I call this reframe, right? And then rise is
• 27:29
  Speaker 4: the last part, which is that's sort of just taking
• 27:34
  Speaker 4: the next most aligned action. And sometimes rise can be,
• 27:40
  Speaker 4: I just need to stay in route right now. I
• 27:43
  Speaker 4: just need to stay in feeling my sensations and staying
• 27:50
  Speaker 4: with my breath.
• 27:51
  Speaker 1: That's maybe rise, you know, with this is a program
• 27:54
  Speaker 1: for whom?
• 27:55
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 27:56
  Speaker 4: For women who are living their hardest seasons. So that
• 28:00
  Speaker 4: might look like trauma. It might look like divorce. Trauma
• 28:03
  Speaker 4: is huge.
• 28:04
  Speaker 3: I get that. It's a big umbrella. Divorce can be trauma.
• 28:07
  Speaker 4: Um, you know, um, A big life disruption, professional displacement,
• 28:12
  Speaker 4: loss of a loved one, all of these things.
• 28:15
  Speaker 2: And you do this one-on-one as well as group?
• 28:19
  Speaker 4: I do one-on-one currently. I also teach group classes. I
• 28:24
  Speaker 4: created a movement and embodiment class called Bend and Breathe.
• 28:27
  Speaker 4: It was created out of two of my lifelines. It's
• 28:31
  Speaker 4: really more like bend, breathe, sound, radical self-love, feel. Those
• 28:37
  Speaker 4: are some of my others, but- So basically, everything that
• 28:40
  Speaker 4: I do now was born from my own co-creation. As
• 28:46
  Speaker 4: I was healing, I was also losing my profession. I mean,
• 28:51
  Speaker 4: they were overlapping. So I was cognizant of, okay, what
• 28:55
  Speaker 4: are we going to do now? And so I thought, wow,
• 29:00
  Speaker 4: if I could sort of use myself, if you will,
• 29:04
  Speaker 4: as a prototype and sort of co-create this This way,
• 29:09
  Speaker 4: because I'm a real, I like simple. I'm somebody who's
• 29:12
  Speaker 4: like all about simple because I feel like then you'll
• 29:17
  Speaker 4: reach for it.
• 29:17
  Speaker 3: It's not easy.
• 29:18
  Speaker 4: It's different than easy, but something that's simple and accessible.
• 29:23
  Speaker 4: For me, that's a non-negotiable. And so as I was
• 29:28
  Speaker 4: going through my own hell, I was like, okay, what's working?
• 29:32
  Speaker 4: What's not working?
• 29:34
  Speaker 3: And so I was.
• 29:35
  Speaker 4: Really able to create something that that that works that's
• 29:41
  Speaker 4: powerful and that's also really um personal personalized you know
• 29:46
  Speaker 4: um yeah yeah.
• 29:48
  Speaker 2: Rami what made you believe that you could help other people.
• 30:01
  Speaker 3: You know, some of my biggest.
• 30:06
  Speaker 4: Game changers has been when I've met someone who I
• 30:13
  Speaker 4: see myself in and they're a few steps ahead and
• 30:18
  Speaker 4: they become this amazing mentor to me. I have currently still,
• 30:24
  Speaker 4: I'm always working with one or two people who really
• 30:30
  Speaker 4: reminds me that, that first of all, I see myself
• 30:34
  Speaker 4: in them enough. You know, I can, I can relate.
• 30:37
  Speaker 4: They're relatable. Um, they're not some untouchable perfection. They're, they're human.
• 30:44
  Speaker 3: They're real. They're vulnerable.
• 30:46
  Speaker 4: They share their stories. They've lived it, you know? And
• 30:50
  Speaker 4: so I knew that right there, I've got all that.
• 30:54
  Speaker 4: I have, I have real life experience. I, I, I
• 31:00
  Speaker 4: believe in this because it worked and works for me.
• 31:06
  Speaker 3: And I love people.
• 31:08
  Speaker 4: I'm, I've always been kind of, you know, I'm a
• 31:12
  Speaker 4: very empathetic human. My, my nature is to, to help
• 31:17
  Speaker 4: others feel better, be better. And so it just kind
• 31:21
  Speaker 4: of felt, and it, you know, it's interesting when I
• 31:24
  Speaker 4: coach others and when I teach my classes, I am
• 31:28
  Speaker 4: healed at the same time. It's this amazing reciprocal thing. So,
• 31:33
  Speaker 4: so there is a bit of selfishness in it, I suppose,
• 31:37
  Speaker 4: in that it is healing for me to, to provide
• 31:41
  Speaker 4: that for others.
• 31:42
  Speaker 2: Yeah. It's circular, right? It's a relationship. I am positive.
• 31:50
  Speaker 2: You're an amazing teacher.
• 31:51
  Speaker 1: You have an incredible, And you exude just a very
• 31:57
  Speaker 1: inspirational warmth and humanness about you.
• 32:01
  Speaker 3: Thank you. I appreciate that.
• 32:03
  Speaker 2: Rami, your story is ridiculously crazy.
• 32:08
  Speaker 3: It is.
• 32:09
  Speaker 1: But look, as we kind of wind down here, how
• 32:12
  Speaker 1: do people learn more about you and your coaching and
• 32:14
  Speaker 1: your programs?
• 32:15
  Speaker 2: What's the best way?
• 32:15
  Speaker 3: Yeah, absolutely.
• 32:17
  Speaker 4: So I have a website which will be shared with you,
• 32:19
  Speaker 4: of course. Breathworksimple is the name of my business. Like
• 32:23
  Speaker 4: I said, I like simple. And within the website, I've
• 32:27
  Speaker 4: got all my stuff. Like I said, I have a
• 32:30
  Speaker 4: couple of different offerings. You can get my book there.
• 32:34
  Speaker 4: You can come to, I do ongoing workshops. I teach workshops.
• 32:39
  Speaker 4: I have one this weekend. So I'm very, I'm available.
• 32:43
  Speaker 4: And I am, yeah, happy to connect.
• 32:48
  Speaker 1: Okay. And we'll have all that linked up here at
• 32:50
  Speaker 1: the show notes page at the Trauma Therapist Wonderful.
• 32:55
  Speaker 2: Rami, really appreciate you being here.
• 32:57
  Speaker 1: And sharing your story.
• 33:05
  Speaker 2: Thank you.
• 33:05
  Speaker 3: Thank you. I really appreciate that. Truly.
• 33:08
  Speaker 2: We'll be in touch. All right.
• 33:10
  Speaker 3: Sounds good. Thank you so much, guys.