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Regulate and Rewire: Combat The Root Cause of Addiction · The Inner Well Podcast

• TIWP Ep 34 Lynn Turner FINAL: We all contain a space within that when enlivened and nourished will support us with unwavering stability, expansion, and peace of mind. Join us each week as we dive into honest, grounded conversations about transcendental meditation, consciousness, and growth, and what it means to live an integrated life supported by a foundation of creativity and calm. This is the inner world. Hi everyone. Welcome back to the inner well. My name is Megan, and I'm here today with Lynn Turner. So Lynn Turner is one of my students, and I think she's gonna be a very valuable guest to talk to us this month as we're continuing our theme with addiction. You saw in our host episode earlier this month, we've been specifically talking about. dopamine addiction and just it the addictive paradigm in general. And so just to give you guys an idea of who's talking to you this episode, Lynn is a licensed professional counselor. She's a licensed chemical dependency counselor and she is a certified EMDR therapist. And I'll tell you guys, Lynn and I talked a little bit yesterday just to kind of prep a little bit for this interview. And I consider myself fairly well versed in this stuff because I've done a lot of research on it. And she has brought it into a light with some of her verbiage and the way she describes it that I had never even heard before that really resonated on so many levels with me. So I'm really excited for you guys to be able to hear everything that she has to say on this topic of addiction. And Lynn, thank you so much for being with us. Thanks for having me. I'm excited to be here. Yeah, I'm excited to have you. So you guys are going to hear a little bit more about how TM has shown up for Lynn as we move forward, but we have so much to cover. I'd really just like to kind of get into the meat of it. And so one of the questions that I thought I would just start us out with, because I feel like it's a sort of umbrella overarching question is can you just dis to us? the addictive paradigm, how it shows up not only in our physiology, our neurology, you know, what is our psychoemotional reality with it and why do we keep getting stuck in those loops? That's a very good question. and it's so painful for a lot of people who are in recovery and trying to quit. Your your literal logical brain gets hijacked by another part of your brain. And you've done a lot of shows on the dopamine reward seeking, the I think the dopamine disaster podcast you did and the dopamine dumpster diving. I loved all that because it it resonated because a lot of people they want to quit. You know, no one would use substances if your logical brain was driving the bus, right? It's it's expensive, it's bad for you, it it wrecks your family, your job, your health. So no one would do it if it was logical. So there's something else driving that bus. And as an addiction therapist and a trauma therapist, it's my job to kind of figure out what that is and see if I can help the person change their neuropathways, you know, build upon what the good they already have, try to help them with the trauma that might be driving that bus too. And it's really hard because oftentimes they'll have years of sobriety and and they don't even know what. cause them to relapse sometimes. And so it's a lot of dissecting it and trying to figure out what, you know, led them to that relapse. and frankly, they've built this neural pathway that's like a super highway often of using whatever it is. It sometimes it's behavioral addictions, it's sex, it's gambling, it's eating foods, right? And it's not always a substance, but that the more you do something, neurons that fire together, wire together, And you build the super highway in your brain of when I want to feel better, I'm gonna drink or I'm going to go shopping or whatever it is. And I always say the client is like when they're trying to quit, they have a little machete and they're out in the forest trying to build a road. Yeah. Yes. I remember my therapist used to say that too. She is like, It's like you're the cow in the pasture just eating through the grass, trying to creep a pathway. Right. Not not even the machete, right? And so some of the treatments I I've learned like EMDR and IFS and different methods like that help you. It kind of brings on a little bit of a road crew for you to help you build that new neuropathway. But it's much easier to get on the superhighway. Yeah. Right? When you're upset or even happy or you know, feeling awful or you shame comes up or those bad memories come up, it's much easier to just get back on that super highway that you developed. And I think we talked too yesterday a little bit about how they know now that addiction, that reward seeking overpowers your learning from negative experiences. They know this from rat studies that it Just because you've had negative consequences, a DWI, a job loss, a health problem, that isn't as strong as that's reward seeking. Just out of curiosity, so what creates a neurological dependency on that reward seeking that's greater in some individuals than in others? Is it just what what actually activates that addictive paradigm? Because I feel like there's some of us that We have much more of a challenge with it than other people do. And I don't know if that's just reformative upbringing, what we were exposed to, our attachment style, just lack of safety and support that we had in our homes growing up. What does that look like? What creates the variance? I'm gonna say yes to all of that. Also, genetics, there's I know there's different camps on that, but they do know that genetics can some kind sometimes play a role in that. Whereas one person might abuse substances for a long time and be able to walk away. In fact, a lot most people do that abuse substances. They can, you know, pretty easily walk away. whereas some people know. They c you know, they can't just go back to having one or two drinks because maybe they do it for a week or so, but eventually it leads right back to the same level of addiction. So it's it's not fair at all. But yes, all those other things. Yeah, all those other things play a role too. your upbringing, you know, how chaotic was it in your h your home growing up? Were you neglected? Were you abused? Did you watch domestic violence? Were your parents drinking? Cause that those formative years, you're learning how to be in this world. You're learning how to regulate your nervous system and you learn from your caregivers. And if your caregivers can't regulate their nervous systems, there's what are you supposed to do? Read a book about it when you're One, you know, you can't you're not gonna be taking classes. So you we co-regulate with our children. When they're crying, you pick up the baby, you say they're there, you pat them on the back, you maybe sing a little song and you make them feel safe and calm and they calm down and you take care of their needs. Well, if you don't get that, what does that set you up for? That sets you up for the first time you try alcohol, maybe it's finally you feel calm. Finally you feel maybe you're loved by your group because you're one of the cool gang. You're smoking weed with them and you're accepted and so those things contribute too. it's not always genetics. I think a lot of people fall into that category where it just started early because it was the one thing they could depend on to make them feel better. And of course you build that super highway and it's really hard to get off of it and take a detour and change. So that's I wonder that because I feel like there's so many of us that grew up in dysfunctional households that have just normalized dysregulation. We're high functioning dysregulated nervous systems. And, you know, obviously most people are not gonna start drinking at ten, twelve, thirteen. seven, eight, nine years old. And but when you get into the later part of high school, early part of college, and it's a social thing, everybody's doing it. And then you start, you have your first sub whatever your first overshadowing substance is, whether it's alcohol or drugs or sex or whatever. And then all of a sudden you realize how uncomfortable you've been and it kind of takes you into this space where you feel this the it was interesting, the gentleman that We had an interview with last month, who actually did the documentary on Bill Wilson, who founded AA. He called it an experience of unity, where all of a sudden your mind and your body, everything just kind of comes in sync, and that dysregulation gets overshadowed. It doesn't actually get healed or regulated. It just gets overshadowed. And then all of a sudden you feel high and it feels better. And all of a sudden. That's what starts that neurodependency on it. Isn't that right? Yes, it's so powerful. And then add to that, you know, you're partying with your friends, you're having a blast, you you, you know, you're getting all the girls or all the guys, you're young and attractive. And that can stay with you, you know, 40 years later. Maybe you're seeking that same feeling on some level of connection with other people. But you're really at that point, it's just sad. You're probably not getting it. You know, your your wife and family are mad at you, or your wife divorced you, or your husband divorced you, you've lost your job, you've gotten DWIs, your only friends are these bar friends that really aren't your friends. But you're still seeking that because it was so powerful. Yes. and it wa it was they say often a person with addiction, their solution became their problem. Yes. Or their problem was at one point their solution. And you keep seeking that same feeling. And that's one of the reasons I learned EMDR, because EMDR not only can help with the trauma that maybe you're running from, that you don't want to be thinking about that anymore. So you're using that turns off the noise of the trauma temporarily. Or you know, you have these feeling states that you're seeking that you don't you're not even aware of anymore. Maybe you're lonely. And you start drinking because in the back of your brain there was a time when you were drinking with friends and having a good time. Or maybe you felt cool back when you were smoking weed with your friends and now you have three kids in a minivan and you don't feel cool anymore. You may be driven to want to s to smoke weed again when you're thinking, I don't want to. I've got these three kids. I can't be high. But that that's a driving force. And with EMDR I learned that That's a tool to help people desensitize those powerful experiences, desensitize that trauma so that that noise isn't so loud in your brain anymore. EMDR stands for eye movement, desensitization, and reprocessing. So the part, the eye movement, can be eye movements, it can be taps, it can be tones in your ear. Trauma is encoded differently in your brain than other memories. your brain kind of stores it differently. It all goes into long term memory, but it feels like it's not long term memory. It feels like it's in your short term memory, but it's interesting. Yeah, it's not in your short term memory, but it feels like it because the timestamp is different. Your hippocampus time doesn't timestamp it as past. Your amygdala encodes the memory with vivid pictures, with intense body sensations, smells. Yes. Feelings, emotions of horror or fear are encoded in that. And it's kind of your brain's way of saying, Don't forget this. Your life could depend on this. And even if it's relational trauma, you know, a child is a hundred percent dependent on their caregivers. So they have to figure things out how to survive all this. Yeah. How do I survive? They're not thinking of this consciously, but subconsciously. So things get encoded differently. And that's why traumatic memory, one little thing, can all of a sudden make you feel like you're in a flashback. You're reliving it. And sometimes you're not aware of it. Maybe a an argument with your husband, all of a sudden you're fighting as if you're fighting with your ex husband. Later you'll go, Wow, I you know, that was remis reminiscent of the way I used to deal with my ex. And maybe your current husband's saying, Hey, I'm not your ex. Yeah. And you don't even know you're going into that reaction. But with other traumas, it can be the sound of a dumpster being cleaned out, or it could be a smell of cigarette smoke or the tone in someone's voice. All of a sudden you're reactive, your body goes into a sympathetic nervous system, maybe fight or flight. Other people become hypo aroused where they go into freeze mode or collapse. so one thing I was finding out as I was doing EMDR or you know, studying EMDR and getting trained is they tell us don't even start EMDR with someone who cannot self-regulate and stay in the window of tolerance. So the window of toler you need to be able to stay in that window of tolerance so that you can tolerate an EMDR therapy session. Yeah. Because I'm gonna ask you to think about your trauma. And in the meantime, the DR part of EMDR, the desensitization, that's only one phase of EMDR. I have to get you to that point to where you can tolerate that desensitization phase. So I need to keep you. During the during the EMDR process, it and 'cause I've done this, so I know this to be you're actually going back to the trigger memory. And then you're rewiring your nervous system to sustain regulation amidst the trigger. Is that right? Well, what it does is it taxes the working memory. So all this bilateral stimulation, the tapping, the tones, the eye movements. your brain can only process so much at once. So when you bring up a memory, it kind of stays in your working memory for, I don't know, a few hours. And during that time you can mess with it. And that's what all this dual attention is. You you you're thinking of the memory, but you're also moving your eyes. And that taxes the working memory and it takes the sting out of it. Remember those stamps of vivid emotional experience? Yes. It taxes it so that when your brain sends it back to long-term memory, it's dulled it. Interesting. So yeah. So it's not as as vivid as it was. People always tell me, now it seems long ago. So that time stamp too. All of a sudden it seems like, that is in the past. That they'll always say, Well, it seems like I'm seeing it through third person now. Or it seems foggier, or I it's harder to access. Or yeah, it seems like a long time ago. And then the R part of EMDR is reprocessing. Okay. So that's where all the negative beliefs about yourself, like I'm not good enough, or it was my fault. A lot of people feel that even though they were five years old that it was their fault dad was beating them and you know because they were horrible child. You would never say that to another five year old. People still hold that true for themselves because that's how it got encoded. Their child brain decided I'm the reason, I'm the disappointment, I'm not lovable, that's why dad is beating me or whatever was happening. So the R part, you reprocess that. And one of those things that gets reprocessed all of a sudden a person knows logically they're they're safe when the dumpster is being cleaned out their nervous system doesn't so they'll reprocess that and they'll go I'm safe they've known that logically but they didn't feel it in their nervous system and I always give the example of a veteran a veteran comes home from let's say two tours of duty they know it's fourth of July they know there's going to be fireworks right yeah but what happens when the fireworks start? Their nervous system overrides their logical brain and their nervous system tells them you are under attack. You ha better go hide right now and talk about addiction. What's gonna help in that moment? Yes. Drinking a lot, maybe, taking a lot of drugs, disassociating, all the things that are gonna get them out of that feeling. So your logical brain can't override trauma. As much as you know what what needs to change, you just can't logic it out. So often you need some help. And here's where TM comes in. If a person went and did transcendental meditation before they came to me, I would say half to three quarters of our work is done. They're gonna be able to stay in that window of tolerance. Yeah. They know how to regulate their nervous system because they do it twice a day for 20 minutes. A lot of people in addiction. And trauma clients tell me I can't meditate. And I've had that experience before too, where just yep, yep, yep, yep, yep. In my brain, I feel like I can't settle down. but when I took the class from you, this is different. TM is different. There's still the chats going on, especially in my mind. everyone. You're in good company. But I have a lot better experience of even when there's the chats going on in my brain. I like to describe it I the other day I was meditating and I said, This feels like I'm petting the the softest bunny like the softest fur, but it's my nervous system. That's just being soft pet. Yeah. And even with the chats going on, which it'll stop, you know, it'll come back and stop and come back and you'd explain to me that's all okay. That's when I come out of the TM, I am so relaxed. I'm so calm that it does take me that three minutes to just get my nervous system back to where it can handle the world again. Yeah. Yeah. So I the time I did it, I was like, wow, this is really different. This is different than other meditations. I don't like to ask my clients to do anything that I haven't tried as far as nervous system regulation. So I wanted to try it first. I did it for my own trauma and grief, but I wanted to try it first. So I knew what I was recommending. Yeah. And so if they could go get tr learn tr transcendental meditation, they can do the trauma work, whatever it is, if whether it's EMDR or something else, because they can regulate, they can stay in that window of tolerance. Well, and I think one of the other things that I found to be so beneficial when I learned CM and I was working through my own traumas and you know addictive paradigms and everything else is you know when you go to a therapist when you go and you you know listen to binaural beats or you do the EFT or all of these things that you're doing what I found so empowering about the TM is that You don't have to engage anything outside of you in order to achieve that regulated space. It's all happening within your mind-body connection. And so it creates this level of agency in your internal reality that shows you by experiential knowledge that you alone can regulate your nervous system. And, you know, we still need all of the external tools, you know, to help us move through these journeys. But just that knowledge alone that you have the power to regulate yourself from an internal inside out experience for me was life changing. Yes. You know, it would make all your addiction therapists' jobs much easier if you learned TM and then came in and said, Hey, I think I'd like to desensitize but I would imagine you c you're more the expert that just doing TM can desensitize some of those things 'cause you are staying in a self-regulated state, a safe, calm place all the time. You are. And there's there's a beauty in this practice and the sense that Because of the mind-body connection that's facilitated at that ground state of consciousness, because that is such a significant synchronistic connection, when the body goes to release stress and overload and charge, there's this capacity to release the charge associated with the traumas without actually having to revisit the traumas themselves. And so I feel like there's it's beneficial on both fronts because like what we're doing with the EMDR, being able to actually hold an experience of trauma in your mental awareness and sustain nervous system regulation, that in and of itself teaches the body and the mind that it can actually hold a space of stasis even amidst these challenging memories. And then being able to add the TM as an undercurrent where you're releasing a lot of the charge associated with the overload without having to relive it also helps create a very powerful combination for some of us that deal with complex trauma, PTSD, all of these very dysregulating experiences that When you're stuck in the thick of it, it really doesn't feel like you have any control over it. You can't see a way out and it's still hijacked. Yeah, it becomes very overshadowing. And so I think that just having these tools that allow us to experience a space in ourselves that can sustain our own center of gravity, our own empowerment. you know, keep our executive functioning online, even when we get in these traumatic spaces, all of this really does become just a life-changing experience that only serves to enhance your capacity for experiencing joy and happiness and equanimity and peace and all the things that we long for as in the human experience. And as you were talking, I I thought about another treatment that I use too is I like to weave in IFS into Yes, tell us about that. I love IFS. IFS is internal family systems and it's based on you kind of personify what's all the parts of you that conflict in your brain. We were talking earlier about the logical part and then the traumatized part and then the addicted part. I always say it's like a school bus. And all these parts of you are like the children in the bus. You've got the internal critic telling you you're fat and ugly and stupid and you never do anything right. And often that's an internalized voice from your family, from your dad, your mom, your teacher, your coach, your, you know, the mean girl at school or whoever. we internalize that. we have the wounded inner child. and often you have protector parts that are protecting anyone from getting near that wounded inner child. That's those are the trauma memories, right? That's the shame, that's the I'm not good enough, all those negative cognitions. And those are called manager parts. And they'll often, you know, be the workaholic or the perfectionist. And then you also have firefighters and those can be those can work with the addictive part. There's an addictive part saying, hey, I know what's gonna help us. Let's go get drunk tonight. So the firefighter will come in and it's a manager too. If you get dysregulated, it immediately says, I know how to shut it down, let's get drunk right now, or you know, I want you to start gambling immediately. So where are you in all this? And people get you know, they get hijacked and all these different kids are driving the school bus and you're gonna head straight in for the gutter. Yeah. So in IFS we get to to think about those parts, you know, and the end the conflicts. And what we want them to strive for is to stay in self-energy. Now self-energy is that source of healing. It's our most authentic self. It is your soul, so to speak. So that's the part you excess in transcendental meditation. You get to that part. And I've had so many clients tell me, I don't think I have that part. And I'm like, no, you don't understand. You are that part. Yes. All these other ones are parts. The real you is in there, but it's been buried by layers and layers of trauma, addiction, self esteem issues, shame. So I try to help them get back to that self energy. So that's the part you want driving the bus all the time. You can listen to all these other parts. my addict part is telling me right now that I It's five o'clock, it's time to drink. That doesn't mean you have to let them drive the bus. You're just it you're just aware of it. It d it's not you though. It doesn't have to be you unless you blend with it and then you're letting that part drive the bus. Yeah. And so I get them to be aware, but for a lot of people this is really hard. If you didn't have parents that built you up, if you had parents that cut you down, that beat you, that neglected you, then it's gonna be really hard for you to get back into self energy. So If I could get them to go do TM before coming to me, they're already they're already driving the bus. Maybe during the day they could get hijacked again. When it gets stressful, that's when it becomes tough. But I know at least twice a day they're in self-energy. And when I talk about it in here, they're gonna go, I know what you're talking about. Yeah. I can get into that that self-energy mode. And that's the part that will heal all the other parts. Right. We can't go back in time and change your mom and make her do a better job. We have to heal from the inside out. Right. And transcendental meditation really can take you to that place to where you can heal yourself. You can think about your inner child with compassion. you know how you're in self energy. There's eight C's of self energy to know when you're in that state. And it's when you feel calmness. Creativity, connectedness, compassion, confidence, curiosity, courage, and clarity. So after I was already doing IFS before I got trained in TM. And when I got trained in TM, I was like, that's exactly what where I'm going to my self-energy. That's all the I've had all of those experiences when I was in self-energy, it doing TM. I I connect to that. part of myself that can heal the rest of me. And I really strive to get my clients to to do the same. It would, it's going to get them to where they need to go faster. Yeah, absolutely. And I I agree. There is when we were talking about this yesterday and you you were giving me all the seas of self-energy, I had the same thought. I was like, that we call it creative intelligence. And that's exactly what that space that's your most expanded, authentic expression of self. And that's what bubbles up all those seas that bubble up from accessing that space. And I think what's also so beautiful is it creates this self-referential point of expression where, you know, even when you get in your really overshadowed moments, there's a part of you that knows that that's not the whole story. Now there's constantly this space inside you that you know doesn't feel like that. That you know is even if you can't access it in that moment, just knowing it's there makes a difference. And then having that consistent access to it and being able to have the release that comes with it, the expansion that you know really sort of. takes the nervous system out of that contraction as you begin to do it more and more and more, you start to sustain this level of space in your nervous system. And what that allows for eventually is for you to have a relationship with these parts, right? When they start to overshadow you, you can witness them, you can accept them, you can even name them and talk to them. You can have an actual relationship with them. That enables you to integrate them so that they're no longer hijacking you anymore. Right. And the manager parts get a different job. Yeah. So fun. Exactly. Exactly. I in a session I'll o often ask the manager part what it would rather be doing than micromanaging, you know, everything, you know, by doing pr perfectionistic stuff. And always they'll say, Wow, I would rather be spending more time with my kids or taking my a vacation with my husband or you know just relaxing in the sun or doing gardening. So those manager parts are always going to be there, but they're gonna not have to be so hypervigilant, right? To keep you from accessing the the wounds of your trauma or going into shame mode. That's what those manager parts do in IFS. A lot of them protect that inner child that was wounded. So I see this a lot with people with CPTSD. Complex trauma is different than PTSD. It's because it was it came from more chronic long term trauma where you were helpless. Think of a child's pretty helpless. Yeah. A baby is totally helpless. A toddler is pretty helpless. They're dependent on these caregivers to take care of them. And when it doesn't happen, they have to figure things out. So they'll often become hyper vigilant, perfectionistic, or start using substances early on. People take t different should trajectories and how they cope with that long-term trauma of feeling helpless as a child. and it can lead to so much self-esteem issues, affect dysregulation, depression, all kinds of stuff. And I often see it in hand in hand with the addiction piece too, because they built the superhighway that helped them at some point, but it's derailing them almost every time now. It's not really giving them the relief they need. So yeah, transcendental meditation. Yeah, when I first learned, I was like, this is self energy. This is what people need to, like you said, form a relationship with those kids on the bus. I always tell people, they're like, I tell that, you know, inner critic to shut the F up. And I'm like, no, tell it thank you. It's trying to help you. It's really trying to help you. Yeah. It's very misguided. But treat it like a kid on the bus, a bully on the bus. You wouldn't throw him off the bus. Right. You would understand he comes from a very hurt place. You would say, Thank you for trying to help me. Now take a seat. I'm gonna keep driving. And and that forms a relationship, like you said. And it ultimately you'll get to where you can heal that inner child. I work with a lot of people that they hate that inner child. They feel a lot of shame. They wish he had done something different, he or she. and often that child doesn't trust them. I'm like, how does the child feel about you? she's so disappointed in the way I've turned out. She doesn't trust me. She knows I'm gonna go get drunk tonight. So you're right, it it is if you're if you can stay in self-ener energy, you can heal that part of you. You can form a relationship, you can bring up those Cs of, I'm curious, this part is talking to me right now. I feel compassion for that part because I know how she got there. Yes. Yeah. Yeah. And it helps you move from a place of self-love versus self-abandonment. Yes. Or self-loathing. Yeah. Yeah. So I have a couple more questions for you. this is just a point of curiosity and something that we discussed on our host conversation when we were talking about dopamine and a dopamine addiction. And we were discussing how there's studies that show that, you know, when the dopamine addiction gets really deep seated and as you're trying to sustain that consistent reward seeking loop, it eventually stops working and then you move into more of like a pain sector. with that joke. Can you talk about that a little bit? Just the neurology of that? Yes. You start using just to feel normal or to not feel the pain. Yeah. Wh the high's gone. They in I think in A they talk about how you're always chasing the high, but the you never get back that same experience. You you're just using to feel normal at that point. You don't want the shakes in the morning. So you have a drink. Same with A lot of people think that weed isn't addicted, but it is, even especially now. It's a thousand times like ten times stronger than it was in the eighties or something like that. It's very addictive. But plus it's anything you do on a regular basis builds that super highway of I have to do this to even feel normal today to get through my day. So yeah, and it's not always you don't always feel the high anymore 'cause you do it every day. Well it's so it's like when the reward stops rewarding you, then you start moving into a pain threshold because now you're not getting the hit. Right. But you feel even more pain if you don't use it because you're withdrawing. Your body is withdrawing. Your brain is withdrawing. So you have to use it just to feel kind of normal. But your normal is not normal at all, but it's normal for you. you get sick and tired of feeling sick and tired, but you have to keep using because you'll feel worse if you don't. But yeah, the high is gone. Yeah, and then the pain threshold takes over. And then I think one of the other things that happens is because the nervous system has been so dysregulated, the executive functioning is threatened because of the addictive paradigm. Now we're also just exhausted and we don't have the strength, the reserve to show up for ourselves to pull ourselves out of this hole. Which I also think is where the TM is so beneficial because you know, that deep, deep rest that you get in your practice when you come out after 20 minutes, you feel energized. You feel like you have capacity, you have bandwidth. And now all of a sudden you can show up for yourself to sustain your recovery. You can actually do the things that you need to do to feel better. Like drink some water. Yes. You know? Yes. that may come up for you during TM. You know, something that's good for you. At the end of the session, you'll be like, Wow, I think I need to go drink some water, or I think I maybe need to go outside and, you know, spend some time in nature. Or, you know, maybe I need to just do things like pay my rent and my bills that I haven't been doing because I've been, you know overshadowed high or or sleeping too much. So or get some exercise, eat eat a salad maybe or some fruit. So yes, yeah, it g it gives you instead of staying on that feedback wheel of I'm just getting up and I'm gonna get on that super highway and do the same thing today and drink another twelve pack and and pass out and go to sleep and wake up feeling terrible, you have you do the TM and that starts that machete in the forest. You're starting a new neuropathway. But that is the beginning and then you can add things to it, like the EMDR, like the twelve go to a twelve step meeting. And that was another thing we were going to talk about is is twelve steps. When a lot of people struggle with the higher power part of twelve steps. Because maybe that was part of their trauma was religious trauma or someone that was abusing them used their their belief in God against them. I've seen all kinds of stuff like that. Or maybe they prayed to God when they were little for dad to stop beating them and or molesting them and it didn't happen. So they lost their belief in God. and in twelve steps, seven of the twelve steps mention God or a higher power. And one of them mentions meditation. Step eleven. Prayer and meditation. So it's really hard for them if they don't believe in any of that. Yeah. So I think with meditation with TM I know you you can talk more about this than I can probably on how it relates to spirituality, but I'm sure it's a different it's different for each person on how they make an understanding of it. But for me, I felt more connected spiritually doing TM because it got me to that place where I on the inside where I felt like everything is gonna be just fine. I sh don't need to feel any fear. I will be with my loved ones again on the other side. To me, that's it became so very real. Yeah. Even though I already believed that, sometimes trauma and and grief can take you away from that. So I got reconnected with that and I thought, how great this would be for someone who's just starting AA. Any of that when they tell them, just the doorknob can be your higher power. Well, people aren't gonna buy into that. They're like, No, it's not. Right. So TM could actually help them get to that place where they could make sense of it in their own mind. It doesn't have to match what everybody else believes, but I think it can definitely get you reconnected to whatever your spiritual beliefs are. Absolutely. And I think that's one of the most powerful aspects of, you know, being able to have a spiritual experience with TM in the sense that it is. It's not tied to any dogma. It's not tied to any religious beliefs, expectations. And there's nothing, it's not tied to a story that's given to you, right? It's not tied to something outside of you that you're worshiping. This is all an inner experience. And so having an experience of something that is that. peaceful, expanded, blissful, fulfilling inside of you, it almost leaves you no capacity but to trust that there's something greater than you, whatever that is, however that shows up, however you assign it, but just having the experiential knowledge of it and knowing that it exists inside of you, there just naturally becomes this capacity to have a relationship with the possibility that maybe there's more to life than meets the eye. Yes. And I think that would make it so much easier for someone who's just starting a 12-step program and is feeling like, this isn't for me. They're all religious crazy people. You know, I've heard I've heard it all. Yeah. And you tell them, you can tell them so much. Well just whatever it is in your experience, but maybe they have had no experiences. You know, maybe they've just had a lot of trauma around all that. So I think, yeah, transcendental mes meditation could be that experience for them where they go, This is what that means to me. Yes. This is this is what they're talking about. Exactly. Okay, one final question or maybe two final questions for you. I just want to bring this up because we talked about this yesterday and I thought this was so fascinating. It really resonated a lot with me and I had never heard it described like this. Can you talk a little bit about the prediction error? yeah. Yeah. Okay. So a lot of new research into trauma. Some people are calling it it's it's more of a problem in prediction. errors. So a prediction error is where let's say you're going along with your day and you're walking down a path and you've walked this path a million times. So you're predicting that it's going to be a safe path, right? But one day you trip over a big route that has come up, you know. So you change you that was a prediction error. You predicted it would be safe, but here you you know you fail and sprained your ankle. So the next time you're walking on the path, you're going to know that's a possibility. So you try to predict what it's going to be like, but you're looking out for that route. So when someone is traumatized, especially with CPTSD, when it started early on, childhood, we predict how our future's gonna be by the way our past was. Right. We predict how relationships are gonna be by the way our past relationships were. So if you're if you're traumatized, you're going to be predicting that relationships aren't safe if that's what your trauma was. If your mother was neglectful, say maybe women are you know, are not gonna be there for me. all men will abuse me, that kind of thing. Kind of like the logical versus illogical stuff we were talking earlier. Maybe you know that's not logical, but it's been your experience. So for you, it's your truth. Uh-huh. And kind of too, that the whole prediction error is happening. w in addiction, right? That this is gonna be great. I'm gonna drink and I'm gonna feel great again and you don't. It's because you're still predicting something because it happened a few times, that it's gonna happen again. So yeah, it's an interesting concept, but that's often we have errors in our prediction and people come into this office predicting that the relationship with the therapist is going to be bad. That they can't trust me because they've never been able to trust anyone in their past. So maybe that they're gonna get rejected from all their friends. And often they recreate that. It's the whole, you know, prediction. self fulfilling prophecy. Self fulfilling prophecy, yeah. Thank you. Yeah. Yes. Well, and I just I think that this is so interesting for those of us that Maybe have abandonment wounds, stuff like that. And then our attachment styles reflect our abandonment wounds. We tend to be more on the anxious side of the spectrum. And so this whole idea of, you know, you know, the extreme case. he has a call. That means he's gonna abandon me, or she didn't. She said she couldn't go out tonight. That means she doesn't love me. You know, all of these catastrophic thinking. paradigms that we fall into because of our triggers and traumas. I just thought it was so interesting to have that frame of reference just labeling it as a prediction error because it really helps you depersonalize the shame that goes with that experience. You know, consistently always expecting the worst and catastrophic thinking. And then it never turns out or, you know, sometimes it maybe had in the past, but As you start to heal, even if it doesn't turn out the way you want it to, then you can still stay regulated and show up for it. And so you're less self-abandoning. And so your relationship with it changes. But just even having the tools to create a framework where you can understand the neurology behind it. Because I feel like so many of us, even on our healing journey, you know, these. triggers in these traumas, they're a part of us. And it's not like just because we've learned to have a relationship with them that they'll never be there again. And so I feel like people get frustrated with themselves when they've done so much work and they're like, well, how am I still falling back into this? And so I think it's so helpful to have just be able to understand the neurology behind it so that you can depersonalize it. And actually use it as a framework to understand, have a relationship with it, and ultimately accept it from a place of genuine acceptance and not a place of shame or blame or guilt or fear or anything else like that. And shame is the word. I see that so much. Yeah. There's a sense of shame that I can't get this right. I can't do this right. And you're right, if you normalize it by saying, you know, this is this is what happens when someone grows up that what you grew up in. This is what happens. It's normal. Yeah. You know, it's not normal what we think of as normal, but it's normal for a kid that's been abused or neglected, or no someone who was in domestic violence situation for years or human trafficked. This is normal. This is what's happening you to you is normal. Of course you're predict you're have errors in prediction. You're trying to stay safe. Yeah self preservation. Self preservation. And attachment styles you just mentioned, you know, yeah, those come out of CPTSD. They can come out of just PTSD too, but it's you know, if someone just has has pretty good parents and you know, they are treated well and they have one car accident, I get them in and out of here probably five, six sessions often. But if you have CPTSD, I'm probably gonna be seeing you for years. Yeah. Okay. It's just so slow. Because you've got attachment issues, maybe you're insecure or fearful, anxious attachment. Yeah, your relationships are gonna be a disaster probably because you learned early on not to trust anything or to predict that I'm gonna be treated this way. And often you pick people that are gonna treat you poorly because you have very low self-esteem or you feel shame that no one who had their stuff together would want me, right? Why would someone who had a great job and grew up in a great home, why would they want me? This isn't a conscious thought. It's a very subconscious ch choice, but you'll choose someone who you feel like is as broken as you are a little lower, so that you feel a little bit better about yourself. Yeah. And that often ends, you know, it does fulfill your prophecy. And you end up getting abused again, maybe in a different way. Or you get ignored, you pick someone else with insecure attachment or avoidant attachment style. And you often see those people playing this dance. And if they look at it, often they go, my gosh, that's exactly what it was like growing up. That's how mom and dad were. That's how I was with my mom. Or, you know, they're just recreating their trauma. And some experts say we kind of do that on a subconscious level to try to get it right this time. If I can recreate my childhood trauma, maybe I can Make it work out this time. We don't do it consciously at all. It's I had I can't tell you how many clients that come in here and and during EMDR go, my gosh, I married my dad or I married my mom. It's just, you know, in a different set of circumstances, in a different face. But this is the dynamic I find myself in again. So again, we're just trying to get them off that super highway and build a new neuropathway. And as many tools as you can use to get there, then the quicker you can get there. But number one, I think, is that self learning to self regulate, because I can't do any of these treatments with you if you can't stay in that window of tolerance and not either disassociate and shut down during a session or completely flood and be crying and in panic mode, fight or flight, because you can't toss us talking about what happened to you in the past. So Transcendental meditation, I really realize by doing it myself, can get you to that place to where you can start building that new neuropathway. And it gives you, like I said, a road crew to come help you. Yes. Yes. I agree. I agree. And I think that research has shown that I think it's 97% of what motivates our actions and our external world is driven by our subconscious. mind, not our conscious. So we're literally walking around with three percent agency ultimately. And so when you start getting these tools and these techniques that enhance your experience of your own self-awareness that really foster a connection with self and self-love and self-energy. So you can move from fullness and not lack and start creating paradigms for your life that are not self-abandoning. not self-harming, but more so driven by self love and self actualization, then we just we completely start to change the dynamic of not only how we can be relational with others, but how we can be relational with ourselves, which is such a beautiful thing. Yes. It's it's good number one. I don't think you can be in good relationship to others unless you have one with yourself. I agree. I agree. Well, thank you, Lynn, so much. This was so fascinating. So much good information here. I'm so excited to go back and listen to it again. And I know our audience is gonna love it so much. And so is there anything that you would like to tell our audience? Anything you would like to share with them from maybe some of these people that are in the midst of these addictive paradigms or struggling with C T CPTSD or going through some of these challenging human experiences? Yes, I would say learn transcendental meditation because if that that's starting from the bottom and going up, you know, the bottom up I think is probably way more effective than top down. Top down is starting with your brain, CBT, cognitive behavioral. It's starting at the top, going down. But many people can't go down. Their body willn't safe, right? If you're abused, the body's not safe. You can't trust what's happening in here. You can't settle. You can't drink too much caffeine and go into a full blown panic attack because your body says something's not right, I'm not safe. Yeah. So if you can get that regulated, then you can go up to the brain. You can go back to those places and you will still know that you're safe while you're doing it. So I would say if you're struggling with addiction, trauma, both, even low self esteem, we all have trauma, you know. None of us got through childhood without some scars. Right. So if you start with with the body first and finding that inner well of peace and security. Then if you still are struggling with the other things, find a trauma therapist who does IFS or EMDR or, you know, some of these other things. And then you'll be able to tolerate it. You'll be able to tolerate it, sit through it, heal it, and Find the relief you need and start to build that s new superhighway that's gonna be easier to get on as you go. I love that. I love that whole idea of the working from the bottom up versus the top down. That's what I always say, the inside out versus outside in. And it really does make such a difference. Yes. Okay, well, so our final question that we always love to end this podcast with is what does the inner well mean to you? As a TM practitioner yourself? So the inner well to me it it keeps me in that state of self-energy. Because being a trauma therapist is really hard a lot of time. I've got my own trauma that sometimes gets triggered during a session. that's why I came to you for TM. I had my own trauma that was throwing me off. And so I'm trying to practice what I preach, right? If I can stay. self-regulated myself, I'm better able to co-regulate with my coffee. And they didn't get that from their caregivers. So I need to not be all dysregulated or anxious in here. I need to be calm and that will help them calm. So for me, it's it's personal. It's helped me in my personal life and it's helping me in my professional life to be able to help clients. And you know, we can carry on that way, right? Pass it on. Yeah. So I feel like TM does help you pass it on. I'm much calmer in traffic. I'm calmer in arguments. So it just you get through life much easier if you stay in that self energy. Beautiful. Well, thank you so much, Len. I appreciate you taking the time. Thank you for sharing all of your wisdom with us, all of your information. And it's It's just inspiring to know that there's people out there that genuinely care about the human experience and strive to help others help themselves. Well, Ditto, right back at you. Thank you. And thank you for teaching me how to do this that has been so beneficial to me. Okay, everyone, thank you so much for joining us. we will see you next week. That's a wrap on today's episode of The Inner Well. Please subscribe and leave a review. Your support means the world and helps others find us. 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