Latest / The Trauma Therapist / What If You’re Not As F***ed Up As You Think You Are? Dr. Adriana Popescu

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What If You’re Not As F***ed Up As You Think You Are? Dr. Adriana Popescu · The Trauma Therapist

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Welcome to the Trauma Therapist Podcast. My name is Guy McPherson.
• 0:04
  Speaker 1: I interview incredible people who've dedicated their lives to helping
• 0:07
  Speaker 1: those who've been impacted by trauma. A big thank you
• 0:11
  Speaker 1: to our sponsors and our guests who are supporting this show.
• 0:14
  Speaker 1: So five, four, three, two, and one. Our folks, welcome
• 0:19
  Speaker 1: back to the podcast. Super excited to have as my
• 0:22
  Speaker 1: guest today, Dr. Adriana Popescu. Adriana, welcome.
• 0:27
  Speaker 2: Thank you so much for having me, Guy.
• 0:28
  Speaker 1: You're welcome. So Dr. Popescu is a clinical psychologist, author, speaker,
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  Speaker 1: podcast host, spiritual counselor, and empowerment coach who's based in
• 0:37
  Speaker 1: San Francisco and practices worldwide. She specializes in treating addictions
• 0:42
  Speaker 1: and trauma and has directed a number of treatment programs
• 0:45
  Speaker 1: in the Bay Area, including Firebird Healing, where she is
• 0:48
  Speaker 1: a founder and CCO, and Avery Lane, where she works
• 0:52
  Speaker 1: as chief clinical officer. She hosts a popular podcast, Kaleidoscope Online, Possibilities,
• 0:58
  Speaker 1: Alternative Perspectives on Mental Health. She's also the author of
• 1:02
  Speaker 1: the book, What If You're Not as F'd Up as
• 1:05
  Speaker 1: You Think You Are, and co-author of four additional books.
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  Speaker 1: With her work, Adriana loves to empower people to release
• 1:13
  Speaker 1: their self-judgments, overcome their imagined limitations, and create a life
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  Speaker 1: of infinite possibilities. All right, Adriana, just a little bit
• 1:20
  Speaker 1: about you. Before we get going, share with the listeners
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  Speaker 1: where you're from originally and where you are currently.
• 1:27
  Speaker 2: Yes, I was actually born in Charleston, West Virginia. And
• 1:31
  Speaker 2: then when my parents got divorced, I moved from there
• 1:35
  Speaker 2: to New York City, Manhattan. So that was quite an
• 1:38
  Speaker 2: abrupt change. And then I just kept making my way west.
• 1:42
  Speaker 2: After college, I lived in Colorado five years and then
• 1:44
  Speaker 2: have been in California now, Bay Area specifically, for over
• 1:49
  Speaker 2: 28 years, I think it's been. Quite a while.
• 1:52
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 1:52
  Speaker 2: Okay.
• 1:53
  Speaker 1: So let's dive in here. How does all this start
• 1:56
  Speaker 1: for you?
• 1:57
  Speaker 2: Yeah. It started through my own journey, like many of us, right?
• 2:01
  Speaker 2: Through my own journey of pain and suffering. After college,
• 2:05
  Speaker 2: when I was living in Colorado, I became really, really sick.
• 2:10
  Speaker 2: And doctors couldn't figure out what was wrong with me.
• 2:13
  Speaker 2: It took them 13 years to give me a correct
• 2:16
  Speaker 2: diagnosis of Lyme disease and chronic fatigue syndrome. And because
• 2:20
  Speaker 2: Western medicine, especially at that time in the 90s, didn't
• 2:24
  Speaker 2: really have a lot to offer me for treatment, I
• 2:26
  Speaker 2: ended up seeking outside of that. I started with chiropractic
• 2:30
  Speaker 2: and then acupuncture and then found my way to different
• 2:33
  Speaker 2: energy healing modalities, like energy psychology. And it's kind of
• 2:38
  Speaker 2: amazing because that was the work that really helped me,
• 2:42
  Speaker 2: especially clearing my own trauma. That was such a huge
• 2:44
  Speaker 2: piece of it. But working with my own stuff, was
• 2:48
  Speaker 2: what allowed my body to get strong enough to be
• 2:51
  Speaker 2: able to fight off these infections. And yeah, I was
• 2:53
  Speaker 2: also doing herbs, homeopathy, different interventions, but it was really
• 2:57
  Speaker 2: like the psychological to spiritual work. It was a spiritual
• 3:01
  Speaker 2: journey for me. That was my awakening. Um, and then
• 3:05
  Speaker 2: I wanted to bring that work to, I was, I
• 3:07
  Speaker 2: had already decided to go to grad school for psychology.
• 3:10
  Speaker 2: I knew I wanted to help people. I'd known that
• 3:12
  Speaker 2: my whole life. My dad was a doctor, but it
• 3:14
  Speaker 2: was my own journey into illness, my spiritual awakening that
• 3:18
  Speaker 2: really prompted me to find these tools that I'm now
• 3:21
  Speaker 2: using with clients.
• 3:22
  Speaker 1: You talked about, um, college. What, what, What were you
• 3:28
  Speaker 1: thinking about studying and what did you eventually study?
• 3:32
  Speaker 2: I thought pre-med. I was naive to think that I
• 3:35
  Speaker 2: wanted to be a psychiatrist, you know, already oriented toward medical.
• 3:40
  Speaker 2: But I thought a psychiatrist was someone who talked to
• 3:42
  Speaker 2: people about their problems. I didn't want to cut people open.
• 3:45
  Speaker 2: I was willing to go to med school for that.
• 3:47
  Speaker 2: But really what I wanted to do is talk to
• 3:49
  Speaker 2: people and help them with their pain and suffering. Because
• 3:51
  Speaker 2: when I went through some of the traumas I went
• 3:53
  Speaker 2: through as a kid, I had no one. And so
• 3:56
  Speaker 2: I wanted to be that someone. Um, so I started
• 3:59
  Speaker 2: at Dartmouth pre-med, I went all the way through organic
• 4:02
  Speaker 2: chemistry and that was the one that was like, oh
• 4:05
  Speaker 2: my God. And at the same time I did my
• 4:07
  Speaker 2: first internships. I was working, um, I did a psych
• 4:10
  Speaker 2: hospital at, at Dartmouth. I worked on the psych unit
• 4:14
  Speaker 2: and volunteering. And then I had a job working with.
• 4:17
  Speaker 2: in an adolescent group home for adolescent boys. And I
• 4:20
  Speaker 2: realized working in the field for the first time, psychiatrists
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  Speaker 2: don't actually do therapy. They just these days write prescriptions.
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  Speaker 2: I don't want to go through all of that med
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  Speaker 2: school for that. And I hated organic chemistry. And I'm like,
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  Speaker 2: I can't handle four years of stuff like this. So
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  Speaker 2: I rerouted and realized clinical psychology, PhD is what I
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  Speaker 2: wanted and eventually found my way to that. But yeah,
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  Speaker 2: it was initially pre-med that I thought I was going
• 4:48
  Speaker 2: to do.
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  Speaker 1: And a couple of times you have referred to traumas
• 4:52
  Speaker 1: you experienced. Are those things you want to share to
• 4:55
  Speaker 1: a certain degree at all?
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, it's okay. I mean, I think it's,
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  Speaker 2: I went through things that a lot of people do.
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  Speaker 2: First off, I'm first generation American. So my parents actually are,
• 5:06
  Speaker 2: my whole family's Romanian and my parents were children in
• 5:09
  Speaker 2: World War II. So they already were traumatized having dealt with,
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  Speaker 2: Romania actually had you know, went back and forth between
• 5:18
  Speaker 2: access and allied. And so there was like fighting in
• 5:21
  Speaker 2: the streets. The Nazis were, um, uh, in town and
• 5:25
  Speaker 2: it was terrifying for my parents. So I have some,
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  Speaker 2: you know, intergenerational trauma and, they lived in a communist
• 5:32
  Speaker 2: country for 16 years before they could escape and they
• 5:34
  Speaker 2: did escape and they couldn't tell their family members. They
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  Speaker 2: just like disappeared one day. It was really kind of crazy.
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  Speaker 2: And so I have that, um, my parents, you know,
• 5:44
  Speaker 2: living in West Virginia was not very receptive to, to
• 5:47
  Speaker 2: people from other places. I got like made fun of
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  Speaker 2: a lot. Um, there was an incident, there was some
• 5:53
  Speaker 2: sexual abuse that happened. There was, um, my parents went
• 5:57
  Speaker 2: through a very messy at times, violent, uh, divorce. So
• 6:01
  Speaker 2: there was some domestic violence, you know, I've got some
• 6:04
  Speaker 2: aces in there. And then moving from this, you know,
• 6:08
  Speaker 2: rather rural suburban type area to urban area, New York,
• 6:13
  Speaker 2: and it was the 80s. And it was crack central.
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  Speaker 2: And it was very intense. That was really pretty traumatic.
• 6:19
  Speaker 2: And I hated New York when I first got there.
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  Speaker 2: And then my dad died when I was 15. Very quickly,
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  Speaker 2: six months from a cancer diagnosis to dying, him being
• 6:28
  Speaker 2: the doctor. And Who smoked three packs of cigarettes a day.
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  Speaker 2: So there were a lot of things.
• 6:33
  Speaker 1: Let me pause you for a second. So how are
• 6:35
  Speaker 1: you during this time, Adriana, how are you dealing with
• 6:40
  Speaker 1: all these?
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  Speaker 2: I just am. You know, I think I'm remarkably resilient
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  Speaker 2: by nature. I think my parents were remarkably resilient from
• 6:49
  Speaker 2: what they had gone through. So I didn't have peers
• 6:54
  Speaker 2: who had gone through those things. I was usually the
• 6:55
  Speaker 2: first kid that these things happened to, which is how
• 6:58
  Speaker 2: I ended up being of help to them because I
• 7:01
  Speaker 2: kind of knew what the territory was. But I don't know.
• 7:04
  Speaker 2: I was just internally motivated. I liked school. I liked learning.
• 7:08
  Speaker 2: So I put my attention there. I had some things
• 7:11
  Speaker 2: I liked to do, like playing outside. I liked riding
• 7:15
  Speaker 2: my bike. That felt like freedom to me. skiing was
• 7:18
  Speaker 2: really fun. I loved skiing. So I think I had
• 7:21
  Speaker 2: enough enjoyable activities. I had some friends. I usually had
• 7:25
  Speaker 2: one best friend that I had a very close relationship with.
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  Speaker 2: And I think all of that helped. My mom tried,
• 7:31
  Speaker 2: but she was so kind of wrapped up in her
• 7:34
  Speaker 2: own stuff. But I think it was my own internal resilience.
• 7:38
  Speaker 2: I think I just came in this way.
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  Speaker 1: You just came in this way. During this time, were
• 7:44
  Speaker 1: you experiencing the symptoms of Lyme or Chronic fatigue? No. No.
• 7:48
  Speaker 1: When did those start?
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  Speaker 2: After college. So I, after college, I decided to take
• 7:53
  Speaker 2: a year off before grad school. Um, I had some
• 7:56
  Speaker 2: friends whose parents had bought a house in Vail, Colorado.
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  Speaker 2: So I was like, and they're like, do you want
• 8:01
  Speaker 2: to come for the winter? We're going out there, stay
• 8:03
  Speaker 2: for free in a beautiful house on Vail mountain. Yeah,
• 8:05
  Speaker 2: of course. Um, and that, And then I ended up
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  Speaker 2: extending my stay. And it was in that first summer
• 8:11
  Speaker 2: in Vail that I ended up, I was camping. And
• 8:15
  Speaker 2: unbeknownst to me, I had been bitten by a tick.
• 8:17
  Speaker 2: I didn't get the bullseye rash. So they didn't think
• 8:19
  Speaker 2: that that was the thing. But tracking it back, that
• 8:23
  Speaker 2: was when it happened. So it would have been like
• 8:25
  Speaker 2: the first year after graduating college. That was when I
• 8:28
  Speaker 2: was starting to get sick. And it looked like depression.
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  Speaker 2: I mean, yes, it felt like illness, but it also
• 8:34
  Speaker 2: looked like depression. You know, I was I had a
• 8:37
  Speaker 2: hard time motivating myself to want to apply to grad school.
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  Speaker 2: You know, I ended up it took me five years.
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  Speaker 2: I was self-medicating and I was partying a lot. I
• 8:45
  Speaker 2: was trying to, I think, self-medicate with drugs and alcohol
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  Speaker 2: because I was increasingly feeling more depressed and in more pain.
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  Speaker 2: And I started getting allergic to everything in my environment. And,
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  Speaker 2: you know, all these things were happening and I didn't
• 8:58
  Speaker 2: know what it was and I didn't Correct.
• 9:03
  Speaker 1: Me if I'm wrong, but I think I've spoken with
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  Speaker 1: a number of people who've had Lyme and or chronic fatigue,
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  Speaker 1: and these two especially seem notoriously difficult to diagnose.
• 9:17
  Speaker 2: Yes. Yeah. Especially at that time. Remember, this was the mid-90s,
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  Speaker 2: early to mid-90s. And so they barely, they didn't even,
• 9:25
  Speaker 2: I don't even think at that point they thought it
• 9:27
  Speaker 2: was outside of the Northeast. You know, I mean, Lyme,
• 9:30
  Speaker 2: Connecticut is why it's named for. And I was in Colorado.
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  Speaker 2: And at that point, they were not realizing that it
• 9:36
  Speaker 2: had made it that far out. So that was a problem. Eventually,
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  Speaker 2: it was in 2002, 2001, when I came out to
• 9:41
  Speaker 2: California and And there was a classmate in my graduate
• 9:48
  Speaker 2: program who had a Lyme literate doctor, and she suggested
• 9:53
  Speaker 2: I go see him. And that's when he, at that point, knew.
• 9:57
  Speaker 2: he was, I would say these days, we would call
• 9:59
  Speaker 2: him probably more of a functional medicine doctor. And he
• 10:02
  Speaker 2: did some sort of blood work that at that point,
• 10:05
  Speaker 2: they had a test by Igenex. who was able to
• 10:09
  Speaker 2: see that I had the markers for antibodies to Lyme.
• 10:14
  Speaker 2: And that's how we finally got that correct diagnosis. But
• 10:17
  Speaker 2: I had been sick for quite some time leading up
• 10:19
  Speaker 2: to that. They were working with chronic fatigue. It was
• 10:21
  Speaker 2: easy enough to give me that diagnosis, but they didn't
• 10:23
  Speaker 2: get the Lyme and the co-occurring. You know, there's a
• 10:26
  Speaker 2: few other infections you can get with it. That didn't
• 10:28
  Speaker 2: come till later.
• 10:30
  Speaker 1: So you talked about your healing process and the steps
• 10:35
  Speaker 1: that you took yourself. When did those start to come
• 10:38
  Speaker 1: about and how so?
• 10:41
  Speaker 2: So after I got the diagnosis, then I started seeing
• 10:45
  Speaker 2: an acupuncturist. And my acupuncturist had been learning a modality
• 10:50
  Speaker 2: called NET, neuroemotional technique. It was developed by Dr. Scott Walker.
• 10:56
  Speaker 2: He's a chiropractor. And he was looking at why do
• 11:00
  Speaker 2: my patients, why do they struggle to hold their adjustments,
• 11:03
  Speaker 2: especially when they are under emotional stress? And so he
• 11:06
  Speaker 2: started studying acupuncture and meridian theory. He was also looking
• 11:11
  Speaker 2: at homeopathy. And so he developed this really elegant system
• 11:15
  Speaker 2: involving manual muscle testing applied to kinesiology to talk directly
• 11:20
  Speaker 2: to the body to see if there are blockages along
• 11:23
  Speaker 2: these meridian pathways. And if so, what are the emotions
• 11:26
  Speaker 2: associated with it? And using the muscle testing to be
• 11:29
  Speaker 2: able to get to the storyline. So with NET, I
• 11:32
  Speaker 2: could see something like, okay, the reason I'm having that,
• 11:37
  Speaker 2: let's say my liver is not functioning very well or
• 11:39
  Speaker 2: my spleen is overtaxed. has something to do with, we
• 11:43
  Speaker 2: might be able to trace it back to that trauma
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  Speaker 2: I experienced as a kid, or it might be my
• 11:48
  Speaker 2: mom's trauma that I took on even from in utero.
• 11:51
  Speaker 2: You know, when they timeline the origins of these things,
• 11:53
  Speaker 2: we look at in conception of birth, you know, first, second,
• 11:58
  Speaker 2: third trimester, we can pinpoint if a traumatic experience happened
• 12:03
  Speaker 2: in in utero and so or you know we can
• 12:06
  Speaker 2: check to see if it's intergenerational and so then i
• 12:08
  Speaker 2: started realizing oh i'm holding part of why my nervous
• 12:12
  Speaker 2: system is so taxed and why my immune system is
• 12:15
  Speaker 2: so taxed is because i have unresolved trauma mine and
• 12:17
  Speaker 2: my family's that i'm carrying in my body and you
• 12:20
  Speaker 2: know at the age of 29 i had the biological
• 12:23
  Speaker 2: markers of a 69.
• 12:24
  Speaker 1: Year old so during this time are you in graduate school.
• 12:30
  Speaker 2: At this point, I had come to California. I had
• 12:33
  Speaker 2: entered ITP, the Institute of Transpersonal Psychology, because while I
• 12:37
  Speaker 2: was in Colorado, I actually went to massage therapy school.
• 12:41
  Speaker 2: I intuitively had this calling to learn more about bodies
• 12:44
  Speaker 2: and energy. Prior to that, I was just up in
• 12:47
  Speaker 2: my head. That's it. I did not know I had
• 12:50
  Speaker 2: a body from the neck down.
• 12:52
  Speaker 1: I went to ITP myself.
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  Speaker 2: Oh, amazing.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah. Awesome. So, all right. So how do things unfold
• 13:02
  Speaker 1: for you during this process?
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  Speaker 2: Oh, gosh.
• 13:06
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 13:06
  Speaker 2: So, right, I'm in school and we're learning about spirituality
• 13:11
  Speaker 2: and I'm engaging in Aikido with Bob Frazier. And I'm
• 13:15
  Speaker 2: really looking at, like, how does my own, how does
• 13:18
  Speaker 2: this illness... Like, why is all of this happening? Like
• 13:21
  Speaker 2: trying to make meaning and sense of it while at
• 13:23
  Speaker 2: the same time trying to heal. One day I was
• 13:26
  Speaker 2: in the student lounge and I saw a flyer for
• 13:29
  Speaker 2: the second annual energy psychology conference in San Diego. And
• 13:34
  Speaker 2: I had to be there. So I just knew it
• 13:36
  Speaker 2: was like synchronistic, even finding ITP. You know, I found
• 13:40
  Speaker 2: ITP because I didn't get into Naropa. I lived a
• 13:42
  Speaker 2: block away from Naropa in Boulder. And I, for whatever reason,
• 13:47
  Speaker 2: didn't get in and couldn't understand that. That door had
• 13:51
  Speaker 2: to close so the ITB door could open and I
• 13:54
  Speaker 2: could come to California. I went to this conference and
• 13:56
  Speaker 2: then my whole universe just blew open because that's when
• 13:59
  Speaker 2: I discovered things like EFT, tapping. And be set free fast,
• 14:03
  Speaker 2: which is a beautiful, not very well-known modality that I
• 14:05
  Speaker 2: ended up writing my dissertation on. And I started using
• 14:09
  Speaker 2: these modalities myself to try to heal all the stuff
• 14:13
  Speaker 2: that was going on in me that was allowing this
• 14:16
  Speaker 2: disease to exist. The shamanic work was really helpful. You know,
• 14:20
  Speaker 2: at ITP, I took a shamanic journeying class. I got
• 14:24
  Speaker 2: a lot out of that. I started understanding the spiritual,
• 14:27
  Speaker 2: like the dark night of the soul and the healer's journey.
• 14:31
  Speaker 2: I felt like it was very much that was what
• 14:33
  Speaker 2: my illness was. So ITP actually and the energy psychology
• 14:37
  Speaker 2: world really supported me in healing so that I could
• 14:44
  Speaker 2: finish grad school and actually get out in the world
• 14:46
  Speaker 2: and and help other people from all that I had
• 14:49
  Speaker 2: learned myself.
• 14:50
  Speaker 1: The physicians or other specialists you were working with, how
• 14:55
  Speaker 1: were they treating you? What wasn't working?
• 15:00
  Speaker 2: The doctor I went to who told me it's not real,
• 15:03
  Speaker 2: it's all in my head. I had systemic candida, where
• 15:07
  Speaker 2: your whole body gets yeast infection, basically. And she told
• 15:11
  Speaker 2: me it's not real. Even my primary care doctor recently
• 15:13
  Speaker 2: told me that's not real and that's not something we treat. Okay.
• 15:17
  Speaker 2: And then I go to the Chinese medicine doctor and
• 15:19
  Speaker 2: they look at my tongue and they're like, oh, clearly
• 15:21
  Speaker 2: you have this. Right. And so let's give you some
• 15:24
  Speaker 2: herbs and, or maybe we do the cupping or the,
• 15:26
  Speaker 2: you know, the different treatments or we'll do some needles in,
• 15:30
  Speaker 2: in those acupuncture meridians.
• 15:32
  Speaker 1: Like.
• 15:33
  Speaker 2: Western, the Lyme literate doctor was good. He eventually actually
• 15:37
  Speaker 2: found my acupuncturist and they started collaborating on cases together.
• 15:41
  Speaker 2: So he really was very open-minded and he was really
• 15:45
  Speaker 2: into nutrition. So I did a lot of supplements. He
• 15:49
  Speaker 2: supported me with heavy metal chelation and I didn't have
• 15:53
  Speaker 2: to do the IV version. So he did just do
• 15:57
  Speaker 2: some Western, more Western type things that were helpful. But
• 16:01
  Speaker 2: mostly I would say it was the energy work and
• 16:04
  Speaker 2: it was body work and craniosacral. And oh my God, like,
• 16:08
  Speaker 2: you know, I just had a whole team of practitioners
• 16:10
  Speaker 2: working with me who were helping me.
• 16:13
  Speaker 1: Jeez. I mean, it sounds incredible. Were you... Did you
• 16:18
  Speaker 1: feel like you were grasping or desperate to try something?
• 16:23
  Speaker 1: How did you manage to find and work with and
• 16:29
  Speaker 1: utilize all these different modalities?
• 16:32
  Speaker 2: I think it was synchronicity. I mean, I was generally
• 16:35
  Speaker 2: at that point attuned to following my intuition. So when
• 16:39
  Speaker 2: I saw that flyer and I knew I had to
• 16:41
  Speaker 2: be at that conference... And then, you know, once you're
• 16:43
  Speaker 2: in a network of healers, you often will get cross-referred.
• 16:48
  Speaker 2: I ended up finding a chiropractor who also did NET
• 16:54
  Speaker 2: and we started off as trade buddies. And then I
• 16:56
  Speaker 2: started seeing her for a very specific kind of upper
• 17:00
  Speaker 2: cervical NUCCA chiropractic. That was really helpful because I could never,
• 17:03
  Speaker 2: my body could never hold an adjustment that um, with
• 17:06
  Speaker 2: all that was going on with it. So, and then
• 17:08
  Speaker 2: through her, I met another practitioner who, uh, I met
• 17:12
  Speaker 2: a homeopath who I worked with for a while. That
• 17:14
  Speaker 2: was super helpful. And through her, I met a great
• 17:17
  Speaker 2: body worker and, you know, like that it was really
• 17:19
  Speaker 2: through that network of healers, um, that to this day, still,
• 17:24
  Speaker 2: I get a lot of referrals, um, either for my
• 17:27
  Speaker 2: own self or, uh, people referring to me through this network.
• 17:32
  Speaker 1: So at some point I'm imagining you got somewhat better. healed?
• 17:37
  Speaker 2: I would say myself that I healed myself from Lyme
• 17:40
  Speaker 2: disease and I no longer have any symptoms. We maybe
• 17:43
  Speaker 2: say it's in remission, but I don't, I have not
• 17:46
  Speaker 2: had any symptoms in a number of years about, it
• 17:48
  Speaker 2: took a total of about 17 years. Yeah.
• 17:51
  Speaker 1: So, all right. How do things unfold? You go through ITP,
• 17:57
  Speaker 1: you come out, I'm going to start my own practice
• 17:59
  Speaker 1: or what?
• 18:01
  Speaker 2: No, no, I actually started, not at all. I didn't,
• 18:05
  Speaker 2: I really wanted the PhD because I wanted to be
• 18:07
  Speaker 2: able to do different things. I did think at some
• 18:10
  Speaker 2: point I might do research and be affiliated with university,
• 18:13
  Speaker 2: but I was like, once I did the dissertation, I
• 18:15
  Speaker 2: was like, forget it. I'm like, I don't want to
• 18:17
  Speaker 2: do research ever again. But I was working at Catholic
• 18:22
  Speaker 2: Charities in San Jose. So I had my practicum there.
• 18:27
  Speaker 2: And very quickly, I attuned to working with dual diagnosis, right?
• 18:30
  Speaker 2: Co-occurring addiction and mental health. I really liked that population.
• 18:34
  Speaker 2: I had my own experiences from my years of partying.
• 18:38
  Speaker 2: I had a lot of loved ones who had addiction issues.
• 18:42
  Speaker 2: So I felt like I knew the territory and I
• 18:44
  Speaker 2: liked working with those folks. So that sort of became,
• 18:48
  Speaker 2: instead of doing like a really broad, let's work with
• 18:50
  Speaker 2: lots of different populations with practicum and internship, I took
• 18:54
  Speaker 2: the deep dive into that. So I worked at Catholic
• 18:56
  Speaker 2: charities for eight years. I eventually got a paid job.
• 18:59
  Speaker 2: I became a program manager. And so I had a
• 19:01
  Speaker 2: specialty coming out of grad school. I already had my specialty. Um,
• 19:06
  Speaker 2: so that just oriented me towards once I was licensed,
• 19:09
  Speaker 2: getting jobs, um, working in, in rehab programs and actually
• 19:13
  Speaker 2: managing them pretty early on. I was like a director
• 19:16
  Speaker 2: of outpatient services and then a clinical director. And, you know,
• 19:19
  Speaker 2: it just kind of went from there. So, um, Pretty
• 19:23
  Speaker 2: much most of my career has been spent doing that
• 19:26
  Speaker 2: type of agency work. I did move from the public
• 19:29
  Speaker 2: sector into the private sector for profit. So working at
• 19:33
  Speaker 2: higher end, you know, rehabs in the Bay Area. And
• 19:37
  Speaker 2: I only took a five year break. At one point
• 19:38
  Speaker 2: I did get burnt out and I was frustrated with,
• 19:42
  Speaker 2: to be honest, the corporatization of the addiction treatment world.
• 19:46
  Speaker 2: I was working at a company that seemed to be,
• 19:49
  Speaker 2: prioritizing profit over patient care. And I was kind of
• 19:53
  Speaker 2: fed up with the toxic environment. So I took a break.
• 19:56
  Speaker 2: And at that point, I had been building a private
• 19:58
  Speaker 2: practice on the side. And I had enough clients to
• 20:03
  Speaker 2: leave addiction treatment in the rehab world and just do
• 20:06
  Speaker 2: private practice for five years. And that was really isolating.
• 20:09
  Speaker 2: You know, I liked that I had the freedom to
• 20:11
  Speaker 2: do whatever I wanted and I could use my energy
• 20:13
  Speaker 2: psychology stuff. They had some resistance to it at the
• 20:16
  Speaker 2: rehab I was working at. I got to do what
• 20:18
  Speaker 2: I wanted, but it was very isolating. And so I
• 20:20
  Speaker 2: was invited back to a woman I knew who was
• 20:24
  Speaker 2: opening her own rehab program, Camille Hildebrand, who's the CEO
• 20:28
  Speaker 2: now of Avery Lane, where I have now been 10 years.
• 20:32
  Speaker 2: She wanted me to run an energy psychology group there.
• 20:34
  Speaker 2: She was familiar with my work. And then she said,
• 20:36
  Speaker 2: I need an interim clinical director while we're getting started.
• 20:40
  Speaker 2: Could you just fill that role? Well, nine years later,
• 20:43
  Speaker 2: I was still the clinical director. And And because I
• 20:47
  Speaker 2: love the organization and what she's allowed me to create there.
• 20:50
  Speaker 2: I've created a program that is much more holistic. We're
• 20:53
  Speaker 2: doing some really cool stuff. We are treating trauma so
• 20:56
  Speaker 2: early on in the process, which really goes against this,
• 21:00
  Speaker 2: I think, very outdated mentality in addiction treatment, which where
• 21:03
  Speaker 2: they say, don't touch the trauma. for at least six
• 21:07
  Speaker 2: months to a year, you know, until they have six
• 21:09
  Speaker 2: months to a year of sobriety, which is ridiculous because
• 21:11
  Speaker 2: people with PTSD can't get six months to a year
• 21:14
  Speaker 2: sober because of their trauma. So we've been really fortunate
• 21:18
  Speaker 2: to be able to create an amazing program for women
• 21:21
  Speaker 2: that I think has had really tremendous success.
• 21:24
  Speaker 1: Let's talk about the book. What if you're not as
• 21:27
  Speaker 1: effed up as you think you are?
• 21:29
  Speaker 2: How did that come about?
• 21:29
  Speaker 1: Yes.
• 21:31
  Speaker 2: Um, it actually was inspired by this work I was
• 21:33
  Speaker 2: doing with access consciousness, um, which uses questions, right? Questions
• 21:38
  Speaker 2: as a way to open up possibilities. And so I
• 21:41
  Speaker 2: was used to speaking, you know, to clients, even how
• 21:45
  Speaker 2: I orient my podcast. I kind of always start in
• 21:47
  Speaker 2: the show notes with a question. So I like, um,
• 21:51
  Speaker 2: the questions and I was, what I really had found
• 21:53
  Speaker 2: at that point, this was probably about 20 years in
• 21:56
  Speaker 2: working with clients was like the common denominator I see
• 21:59
  Speaker 2: across folks. is this idea that I'm broken, I'm not
• 22:05
  Speaker 2: good enough. It's those limiting beliefs. And my good friend,
• 22:08
  Speaker 2: TJ Woodward, we wrote the conscious recovery stuff together, the
• 22:12
  Speaker 2: workbooks and all that. He called them core false beliefs.
• 22:15
  Speaker 2: And I thought that's such an amazing term because they
• 22:17
  Speaker 2: are fundamentally false. You are not born into this world
• 22:20
  Speaker 2: as a little baby thinking I'm broken, I'm unlovable, I'm
• 22:23
  Speaker 2: not good enough, right? You learn those things. They're fundamentally false,
• 22:27
  Speaker 2: especially if you look spiritually, right? You as a spiritual
• 22:30
  Speaker 2: being are whole and perfect, right? So this idea that
• 22:35
  Speaker 2: we learned lies about ourselves, the subtitle of the book
• 22:38
  Speaker 2: is how we form lies about ourselves and what we
• 22:42
  Speaker 2: can do to change them. So I wanted to create
• 22:44
  Speaker 2: a book that really summarized all my life's work, specifically
• 22:48
  Speaker 2: with the topic of limiting beliefs. So how do they
• 22:51
  Speaker 2: form from our childhood, from our early life experiences? I
• 22:55
  Speaker 2: have a whole chapter on trauma, how trauma can form
• 22:58
  Speaker 2: these beliefs. And then what modalities, so it's kind of
• 23:02
  Speaker 2: like book, workbook, what modalities can we use to change them?
• 23:05
  Speaker 2: I have a chapter on CBT, thought distortions, thought records.
• 23:08
  Speaker 2: This is how you do it here. I have a
• 23:10
  Speaker 2: couple of chapters on energy psychology. This is how you
• 23:13
  Speaker 2: might use tapping and some of those principles. And then
• 23:15
  Speaker 2: I had a couple of chapters on access consciousness, which
• 23:18
  Speaker 2: is more about the questions and what's right about you
• 23:21
  Speaker 2: that you're not getting. And what if you're not as
• 23:23
  Speaker 2: effed up as you think you are and moving people
• 23:25
  Speaker 2: through these different tools so they could work on these
• 23:29
  Speaker 2: core limiting beliefs, these false beliefs in whatever manner that
• 23:33
  Speaker 2: pings for them, that they resonate with.
• 23:36
  Speaker 1: That really resonates with me. I have a number of
• 23:40
  Speaker 1: limiting beliefs. When you, When you sat down to write
• 23:46
  Speaker 1: this book, what were your ideas of limiting beliefs? What
• 23:52
  Speaker 1: were your thoughts on how they were treated? How culturally, societally,
• 24:00
  Speaker 1: we look at them and how we look at treatment
• 24:02
  Speaker 1: for them?
• 24:05
  Speaker 2: I think we're programmed by our society. I think there
• 24:09
  Speaker 2: are forces at play that want to control us. And
• 24:12
  Speaker 2: they want to use shame and fear as a primary
• 24:15
  Speaker 2: way to do that. And you can just look at
• 24:17
  Speaker 2: like governments. You can look at organized religion. There's a
• 24:20
  Speaker 2: lot of and that's who a lot oftentimes I was
• 24:24
  Speaker 2: working with folks who had trauma from like some sort
• 24:27
  Speaker 2: of religious background. They grew up in a cult. They
• 24:29
  Speaker 2: grew up in certain groups where there's all this judgment. Right.
• 24:33
  Speaker 2: I mean, even the premise you're born from sin, like
• 24:35
  Speaker 2: you're already doomed from the start. Right. There's a lot
• 24:38
  Speaker 2: of cultural programming. And then, of course, you can see
• 24:41
  Speaker 2: across different cultures where maybe you as an individual, what
• 24:44
  Speaker 2: you want isn't valued. You exist as a representative of
• 24:49
  Speaker 2: our family or of our group.
• 24:51
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 24:51
  Speaker 2: And so you don't get to choose for yourself. You
• 24:54
  Speaker 2: have to live in accordance with how we say you should. Right.
• 24:57
  Speaker 2: So I would see people I was working with and
• 24:59
  Speaker 2: recognizing that these groups and these these cultures were programming
• 25:06
  Speaker 2: babies and children to think that they're messed up, to
• 25:09
  Speaker 2: think there's something wrong with them, to to force them
• 25:11
  Speaker 2: into compliance. Right. And being somewhat rebellious and coming from,
• 25:17
  Speaker 2: you know, parents who rebelled against that, you know, I
• 25:19
  Speaker 2: have that gift from my parents. I was willing to
• 25:21
  Speaker 2: challenge that. And so that's where the empowerment coaching comes in, right? Like,
• 25:26
  Speaker 2: who says you have to be that way? Who says
• 25:28
  Speaker 2: you have to act like that? Where is your choice
• 25:30
  Speaker 2: in this, you know? And working with people around that
• 25:33
  Speaker 2: to really challenge these beliefs. And whether we want to
• 25:36
  Speaker 2: do it with CBT or we want to do it
• 25:38
  Speaker 2: with tapping, I'm less concerned about that. It's more about, like...
• 25:42
  Speaker 2: Stop believing this BS that your society and your world
• 25:47
  Speaker 2: has fed you. And social media is not helping. If
• 25:49
  Speaker 2: you go on social media and you're doom scrolling and
• 25:52
  Speaker 2: you're seeing, oh my God, look at this person. They
• 25:54
  Speaker 2: look amazing and their life looks so perfect. And what's
• 25:57
  Speaker 2: wrong with me? My life's not like that. Everything is
• 25:59
  Speaker 2: sort of in our society is oriented towards this self-judgment.
• 26:04
  Speaker 1: In terms of trauma, obviously each case is different. Everyone
• 26:09
  Speaker 1: is different. What are some ways trauma solidifies limiting beliefs
• 26:16
  Speaker 1: or can solidify or cause a limiting belief?
• 26:20
  Speaker 2: Some people blame themselves for it happening. So it's my
• 26:23
  Speaker 2: fault that this trauma occurred. I see I'm broken. I'm
• 26:28
  Speaker 2: damaged as a result of this trauma. I'll never heal
• 26:31
  Speaker 2: from this. Who would ever love me with this? Um,
• 26:36
  Speaker 2: I'm powerless. I have no control over what happens to me.
• 26:39
  Speaker 2: It's that victim kind of consciousness often comes from trauma.
• 26:43
  Speaker 2: That's typically the stuff we have to work with. And
• 26:45
  Speaker 2: so like when I'm working with folks like treating trauma, first,
• 26:50
  Speaker 2: I feel like we have to deal with the emotional,
• 26:52
  Speaker 2: the physical, what's locked in the body, you know, the,
• 26:55
  Speaker 2: the shock, the horror, all that stuff. And then when
• 26:58
  Speaker 2: the nervous system calms down, um, then we can start
• 27:01
  Speaker 2: working with cognitive challenging and reframing. But first we have
• 27:04
  Speaker 2: to deal with like all the nervous system dysregulation that
• 27:08
  Speaker 2: someone with trauma is experiencing before we can change their
• 27:11
  Speaker 2: limiting beliefs.
• 27:13
  Speaker 1: And you've also got a podcast. Tell us a little
• 27:17
  Speaker 1: bit about the podcast, Kaleidoscope of Possibilities.
• 27:20
  Speaker 2: Yes. Alternative Perspectives on Mental Health. So it's really like
• 27:24
  Speaker 2: it's an interview format like this. I started it right
• 27:27
  Speaker 2: during the pandemic. So we've been going six years now.
• 27:30
  Speaker 2: 140 episodes. And I love to interview experts in our field,
• 27:37
  Speaker 2: maybe mental health or other types of healers, where it
• 27:40
  Speaker 2: is more like traditional healing perspectives or because, you know,
• 27:45
  Speaker 2: in other cultures, they're not looking at things like psychosis
• 27:48
  Speaker 2: the way we're looking at it. Um, or it might
• 27:51
  Speaker 2: be someone who's developed a certain modality. Like I had Dr. Walker,
• 27:54
  Speaker 2: the NAT developer on the podcast, introducing the audience and
• 27:58
  Speaker 2: our fellow professionals to other methods of healing that could
• 28:03
  Speaker 2: be very effective for folks who are suffering, um, spirituality, consciousness,
• 28:08
  Speaker 2: you know, a little bit of the ITP transpersonal stuff
• 28:10
  Speaker 2: makes its way in there as well.
• 28:12
  Speaker 1: Yeah. I love that. I mean, you just have such a, uh,
• 28:15
  Speaker 1: wonderful inspired background. Um, How receptive do you feel therapists
• 28:24
  Speaker 1: in general, mental health clinicians, therapists in general, are now
• 28:28
  Speaker 1: open to these quote-unquote alternative healing methods?
• 28:33
  Speaker 2: I think people working in the field are increasingly more
• 28:37
  Speaker 2: and more, and they're seeking out trainings. I mean, Bessel
• 28:40
  Speaker 2: van der Kolk went a long way in The Body
• 28:43
  Speaker 2: Keeps the Score. And all the people, lots of the
• 28:46
  Speaker 2: people you've had on your podcast actually have really paved
• 28:49
  Speaker 2: the way for us to recognize that trauma is physiological,
• 28:53
  Speaker 2: not just psychological. Polyvagal theory helped out a lot. So
• 28:58
  Speaker 2: I think the receptivity is there for those of us
• 29:00
  Speaker 2: working in the field. I will say things like organizations
• 29:03
  Speaker 2: like the APA have not been supportive and some of
• 29:06
  Speaker 2: the choices they have made have been really kind of
• 29:08
  Speaker 2: horrifying to me. There's a lot of politics and BS
• 29:12
  Speaker 2: going on with that is all I'll say there. But
• 29:15
  Speaker 2: the people, those people I know that work in the
• 29:17
  Speaker 2: field and the newer generations coming into the field, they're open,
• 29:22
  Speaker 2: they're receptive. They want to help clients and they know
• 29:24
  Speaker 2: that traditional talk therapy alone isn't cutting it.
• 29:27
  Speaker 1: Yeah. All right. The book is called What If You're
• 29:30
  Speaker 1: Not As F'd Up As You Think You Are? And
• 29:34
  Speaker 1: the podcast is called?
• 29:38
  Speaker 2: Kaleidoscope of Possibilities.
• 29:39
  Speaker 1: All right.
• 29:40
  Speaker 2: Perspectives on Mental Health. And I have a new book, actually.
• 29:43
  Speaker 2: This is the one that just came out. What if
• 29:45
  Speaker 2: you're not came out a few years ago? This one
• 29:47
  Speaker 2: is EFT for Addiction. So this literally came out 10
• 29:50
  Speaker 2: days ago.
• 29:51
  Speaker 1: Nice. All right.
• 29:53
  Speaker 2: Yes.
• 29:53
  Speaker 1: We'll have all that linked up here at the show
• 29:55
  Speaker 1: notes page at the traumatherapistpodcast.com. Um, Adriana, super inspiring. How
• 30:04
  Speaker 1: do people give us your, um, uh, website and so forth.
• 30:07
  Speaker 1: How do people learn about you?
• 30:10
  Speaker 2: Adriana Popescu.org or firebird-healing.com.
• 30:15
  Speaker 1: Okay. And again, we'll have that link up here at
• 30:17
  Speaker 1: the show notes page at the traumatherapistpodcast.com. Adriana, awesome. Loved, uh,
• 30:22
  Speaker 1: having you on here. Super inspiring. Appreciate you.
• 30:25
  Speaker 2: Thank you so much for having me. It's been great
• 30:27
  Speaker 2: spending this time with you.
• 30:28
  Speaker 1: All right. Take care.