Latest / Giving Pain Purpose with Lyndsay Soprano / The Intersection of Mental Health and Pediatrics

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The Intersection of Mental Health and Pediatrics · Giving Pain Purpose with Lyndsay Soprano

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This is Your Pain Game podcast where we talk about the game of living in
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and with chronic pain and trauma, get into the heart of how to heal.
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I am your host, Lindsay Soprano. On the show, I plan
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on discussing with doctors, chronic pain patients, holistic practitioners, loved ones,
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and anybody that is interested in having their voice heard in the chronic pain and
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trauma world that we live in. So what I find incredibly fascinating is how
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so many things from my childhood have surface in some pretty crazy places in my
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life, but most importantly, how my childhood up into my early adulthood.
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Quite frankly, it's kind of stuck in my body right and it's causing me
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so many health issues. Obviously, those that have listened to the show,
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we know it's physical pain, it's trauma. It's all of these things and
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these terrible traumas and abuse that have happened in the past. Well, all
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of a sudden kind of like bubble up in unexpected places, and then all
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of a sudden they show they're like dark and twisty self and it affects my
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day to day because it makes me feel bad about having a response to something
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that happened a million years ago, something that will pop up that I completely
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forgot about and have a blurred line as to what actually happened, because I
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doubt myself a lot sometimes about things that happened when we were really young,
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and that ends up manifesting itself into in my opinion, and a lot of
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chronic pain and illness issues within myself because I never addressed things that were happening
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because I didn't know that I needed to, And you know, all of
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that resurfacing it. I'm just now beginning to understand it and face it like
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head on, and a lot of that has been because of this show,
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and by talking about these things so vulnerably and so honest with my guests and
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obviously my VIP listeners, of course, you know, it's really shown me
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about how my childhood and my adolescence guided this chronic illnesses that are happening in
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my body. And I want to know what the like, how we can
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fix this within myself, and how we can fix you and some of the
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things that might be going on from your childhood, but also how we might
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be able to step in and help some of our kids, whether they are
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our own or are there our nieces, our nephews or what have you,
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how we can kind of help step in and help in this world with mental
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health and trauma and abuse and physical pain and all these things that we're seeing
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in children starting at such a young age. And as we've talked about before,
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I remember as a little girl, I couldn't sleep and being saw me.
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Since you're nine years old and I'm forty five, now, you know,
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I've been experiencing since I started this show more resentment towards my parents because
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I do not understand how they did not see my behaviors at such a young
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age that we're grounded truly in trauma and not asking questions and not delving deeper
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and to find out what's wrong with my little girl. But I never felt
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safe to talk about anything with my parents either, So it's kind of a
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rub, like I blame them for not asking me questions, but I don't
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think that I felt safe enough to talk to them to give them the answers
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that they may have asked. But who knows, because I'm not nine years
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old anymore, so we will never know. And I'm still struggling with this
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as an adult. Damn it, you know, like Jesus. So let's
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talk about our children, the ones we have, the ones we were,
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the ones we still are today, and how we can be better adults in
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this adulting, fucking world that we live in for ourselves and those also around
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us, no matter what age they are. So let's talk about it.
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So I felt further ado, I'd like to introduce you today to my guest,
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Monica Guardi. Hey, babe, girl, Hey, thanks for being
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here so much, my little popcorn maker. I'm so excited to chat with
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you today to introduce her to you guys. It's a mouthful, guys,
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so get ready. Monica is a pediatric nurse practitioner from Yale University and a
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passionate advocate for developing and implementing systems to improve mental health care access and delivery
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and pediatrics. She's fellowship trained in child and adolescent mental health from Ohio State
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University, as well as trauma stress studies with the Trauma Research Foundation. She
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currently works as a pediatric nurse practitioner here in California and proudly serves as clinical
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faculty at UCLA School of Nursing and recently launched Intersection Rising, a company that
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intersects her lived experiences, rigorous academic training and clinical experience, and general pediatrics,
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pediatric neurology, and mental health. I am exhausted saying all of that.
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Are you exhausted having all of those? And those are just a few
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of her credentials. It's funny because I have such bad imposter syndrome that like,
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I like, who who did that? Yuh yeah, so I like
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completely dissociated from it. Oh my gosh. Well, I'm rolling out the
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red carpet for you and your disassociation the things that are happening around you.
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You're welcome. I'd like to start by talking about what brought you into this
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world of kind of helping children and adolescence and take it from there. I
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mean, I think my biggest flex as like an adult woman now is being
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the woman that I needed at all points during my childhood. Right as a
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little kid, I was shy, you know, I went those periods where
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I wouldn't talk. It's a very kicky kid, really sensitive tags bugged me
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all that sort of stuff. But I always felt like the responsibility of like
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caring for others emotions, right like, and I can just pick it up
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in a room, and I was like, how come no one else is
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picking this up? But I could. And so by the time I hit
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middle school, like my anxiety was just crazy, right, And and so
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I was learning how to mass that and cover that, cope and maldaptive ways.
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And then by the time high school came, right, I had a
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lot of stomach issues and I ran out of high school and I was like,
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I'm not going back my stomachers. And so lots of years and challenge
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and you know, kind of I want to say, getting addicted, but
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like really like I started to have fun with the process of like overcoming,
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right, So it became like this like sick thing of like oh if this
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is hard, I can't do this way I can, right, and just
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starting myself into things. So when I went to college, I started I
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just I found my wings at UCSB. And you know, I didn't grow
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up in a family where anyone's educated. We didn't have anyone go to college
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in your family. Yeah, so that's kind of where it started. But
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you overachieved the hell out of yourself. Yeah. I'm an overachieverer me too,
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And sometimes to my detriment, you know, I mean it's sometimes totally,
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and a lot of that does I think from anxiety. And I like
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how you said about how you made all of these different like adaptations you moved
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and grooved to cover things up and a mass the way that you were feeling.
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I completely identify with that in a lot of different ways. So you
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decided that you wanted to get into into the industry of working in pediatrics and
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adolescence. So how did you get started in that specifically? Was it just
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when you got into college you were like, this is my calling because you're
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an EmPATH like myself. You can see and feel and hear and all.
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I feel like I can feel earthquakes that are happening or about to happen in
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another country. Like I feel like I'm so overly sensitive all of the time.
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It's a full moon thing. Excally feel like, I mean stucked up
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in a vacuum and I'm tired of crazy and retro grade. Okay, if
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mercury is in retsino grade every minute of my life, then mercury is in
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the microwave. So I mean, I don't really and think about it,
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like I guess there wasn't really another option for me, Like I just didn't
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I didn't really know what I was doing. I kind of went to college
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like I didn't you know, Like I didn't know you were so so study
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for the SAT like I didn't know she know what. I just kind of
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like went and figured it out. But there was a position. There was
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a Kegal Autism Center UCSP, and I took a class in they I did
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well in it, and they asked me if I wanted to, like,
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you know, start interning there, and I just started there and fully surely
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started working with kids. And then yeah, So I always thought that I
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would be a clinical psychologist and do research with autism and that sort of thing.
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But I ended up having a mass in my brain when I was any
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one had it out was just a petutary thing. It was okay. But
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in long story, shore, I spent a long time in the hospital,
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about a month, and during this time I just would talk to nurses,
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I would talk to doctors, and I got this crazy, grandiose idea that
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I could go to Yell and study how kids with autism are medically underserved in
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the same way low income kids are and whatnot. And so that's all happened.
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But I can't, you know, it's kind of funny being a pediatric
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MP, because like, I don't even remember going to the doctor when I
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was a kid, Like I don't remember having a strep test once in my
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life or a well visit or anything, so like that you're now that you
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mentioned it, right. I can't say that I went into nursing school thinking
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I knew what I was gonna do, because I had no idea what life
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in a doctor's office looked like, Yeah, no kidding, So maybe a
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little impulse like, yeah, well, I only remember going to the doctor
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for asthma allergies, Like that's the main thing I remember. I remember something
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happening when I was thirteen and my parents taking me to a psychologist and I
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remember her name and what she looked like and all horrible the whole entire experience
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was. And after that, I was like, that was it? Like
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my parents and I just kind of like, well, she doesn't sleep,
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she's kind of grumpy, she's got anxiety. We don't really know what to
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do with thirst. She's kind of out of control. So we'll just see
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if it's like she grows out of it. She's thirteen. It's normal for
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all thirteen year olds. It's still normal at forty five though. You know,
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I think if you're paying attention to the world, you're going to have
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some sort of anxiety and some sort of you know, yeah, sure she's
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are not like I don't know, like I can't diagnose, but maybe our
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sociopath I don't know, thank you. I look forward to exploring that further
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on this show. But not you meet a sociopath. You just like,
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you know, like having emotions and like having reactions, like if you're not
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responding to this world today with any sort of like bankst like, I don't
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know who you are, what's going on. I'm joking. I didn't think
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that you called me a sociopath. Okay, So there might be some people
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that might actually agree with that particular sentiment. Nobody knows. I mean,
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you might have traits, thank you. I think you're pretty crazy yourself,
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young lady. So when you're degree yes, exactly, Okay, So you've
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you've kind of moved and shifted and grooved into what you're doing right now.
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So I don't want to leave out the stuff that you've been doing because that's
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what's led you to your new company, Intersection Rising. So when we were
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talking about the type of work that you do with peeds and with adolescents.
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What are you doing with people that are coming in to see you do?
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How? How has the process work for you? Parents are bringing in their
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kids and then what you know, it's like how are they figuring out that
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they need to bring their child in? And then what are what are you
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doing to help support not only the child but obviously the parents that I feel
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a lot of it tends to be the parents side of issue versus the kids
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though, but you know, tell them, tell them secrets the parents.
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Yeah, No, I mean I work in a general pediatrics office and we
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were doing you know, sick visits, twelve visits, all the like normal
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stuff that you come in or butt rashes, you know, vaccines, blowing
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stema cakes, whatever, and I just started to pick up on a lot
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of these symptoms that these kids were having, these headaches and stuff. It
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was stress related and it was anxiety related, right, And I knew that
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from my from my own history. Right, I've had a fever, God
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almost every day for four years. And you know, I'm married to a
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doctor. Everyone at our wedding was were doctors like it would tale would la
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and all I can ever get is are you sure the thermometer is working?
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Did you get a new one? So infuriating? Yeah, And I think
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that's what's behind all of this right as I'm pissed off, and you know,
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I started reading Bessel vander Folk's work and Bourmonte and just going down that
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rabbit hole of trauma and ele mental trauma. Eventually started studying our diversity more
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but started to make sense and I couldn't. I just couldn't un see it.
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I would see these kids come in and they had been seen by gi
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neurology, right, and any of these wonderful colleagues, but we don't learn
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about trauma, right, And it just so happens that I've lived in experience
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and I can see it and I can feel it, like I can almost
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put myself in those kids. And oftentimes, you know, like if they're
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coming in with dizziness, right, or say they can't sleep, I do
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a parent console last out a little over an hour and we just dig through
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everything and you can see it from very early age and see the sensory stuff,
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the picky eating, like the slow to warm up, like all the
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signs are there, like we're not missing it, right, right, right,
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And oftentimes the parents are thinking like, hey, like something is up,
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something is up, and we're like now, they're you're fine, just
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let's wait it out, just like what happened to your parents, right.
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But the truth is that parents know their kids and we need to follow up
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their intuition. And so I always listen to my patients and if they think
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something is up, I listened to them well. And that's really important,
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that listening part of it and asking questions because they think that's one of the
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things being curious about, like okay, just don't give your kid pepto because
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it's tummy is upset. There's there are reasons why our stomachs get up.
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Like they say, I'm sick to my stomach when something happens, it's not
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because you're actually sick to your stomach. It's something that's stressful or scary or
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whatever it might be that's on the outside that all of a sudden makes your
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stomach turn. And you know that is that's something that I've dealt with for
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very very long time as GI issues. I don't even know the last time
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I've had a good tummy day, you know, and those are few and
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far between and I know for me, I've been able to identify a lot
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of it was trauma based. Something I'll watch, I'll be well, watching
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a movie or something and something. I hate using the word trigger, but
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I'm going to use it for lack of a better term right now. But
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I'll be watching something and it will trigger this emotion in me, whatever it
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is, and it will either immediately go on my gut immediately or my legs
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will flare like my crps stuff as you very well know about. So all
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of a sudden, I'll be like, wait a second, what was that?
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And I'll have to identify with myself what is causing this feeling the sensation
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in my body right now? Am I really did we really? Was there
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something bad with our tacos? Or is there something really bad about what's happening
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in this particular scenario. So listening to our own bodies more and teaching our
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children and those around us like my nieces and nephews, Hey, if you're
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feeling like this, let's talk about what that might be actually coming from.
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You know, it's but if we're not looking for those things and our kids
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and we're just saying, oh yeah, yeah, she's just making up excuses
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to get on a class or she you know, which is what I know.
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That's a lot how we were raising our age brackets because you know,
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they just gave us lawn darts to settle see at ten pm and call it
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a day. Yeah, I mean, the majority of serotonin lives in the
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gut, right, and the Vegas Fair is really fascinating. People think that
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the brain is running the show, but it's really the body running show.
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About eighty to eighty five percent of messages are being sent from the body to
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the brain and only about fifteen to twenty from the brain to the body.
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So the body worked asthmatic experiencing. You know, the body keeps a score,
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and and I know I wish you would stop keeping score. I know,
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not it off. I'm done. This is not a competition. Yeah,
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exactly. You know, but goobor Monte said that, you know,
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the body whispers with the mind can't say. And I've definitely found that to
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be true. And the stronger I have gotten, the more confident I've gotten,
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the more my health has improved. Yeah, and I'm glad that you
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brought up the Vegas nerve. In fact, I'm reading a book of course,
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I am have a couple different Vegas Nerve books that I'm reading right now,
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but one if I'm working with the Vegas Clinic up in Toronto, Canada,
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and I've been going through a slew of testing since November actually of last
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year, kind of get all of these different types of testing from different functional
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doctors that really give a crap about things that we're talking about here, not
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just like, oh, you've got a stomach ache, here, take this
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and talk to me in three months, like legitimate going well, why why
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why are we not being curious as to why these things are happening within our
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bods and in our kids bods and our husbands and our sweeties and whoever's bods,
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you know. And one of the things that I'm finding with the Vegas
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Clinic is that in getting all these tests, i was just diagnosed with hy'm
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disease and I've got coinfections. In relation to that, i have H pylori,
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which is gross. I've got I've got I know, Thank you,
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thank you so very much, thank you. H pilori is not gross.
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Well, it's gross to me, and then thank you that's me. I'm
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a pain in the ass, I know it. So now I've got CRPS,
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lime disease, h Pylori coinfections with all of that, and I have
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a steam bar virus, which I already knew that I had, But I've
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had so many different shingles brooke breakouts in so many, so many years since
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like two thousand and eight, two thousand and nine, I think it's when
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my shingle outbreaks began. And now I'm just having a shingle outbreak underneath my
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skin twenty four hours a day, so I'm on fire every day, which
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we think is CRPS related. But now that we found out this viral load
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that I have with EBV on top of line, we're like, wait a
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second, have we missed this entirely this whole time? And there's an element
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of me that's like, what if I don't actually have CRPS after all of
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this and this was actually lime disease the whole fucking time. So then I
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was like getting kind of angry about Western medicine and about all of the testing
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that I had had prior to all these functional tests and going, how did
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you guys continuously miss this stuff? And so that's where I get pretty pissed
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off at practitioners you know that aren't really looking at the whole party. I'm
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not just the napkins and the paper plates, guys, I'm the guacamole,
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I'm the beans, I'm everything up the party. Yeah, I mean.
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And so the e Epstein bar thing is really really interesting because I was in
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school, like we learned, like, okay, a lot of teenagers get
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this, you know mono. They get sick for a while, it goes
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away, and it just like lays dormant and it doesn't you know, in
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a I don't think this whole idea of that being reactivated like a shingles thing
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people know about. I sure if I'll didn't know about it. And I
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went to an integrative medicine person. They're like, you have Mono, and
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I was like, what do you mean, I bano. They're like,
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look, it's active. And so we would track it on our chart and
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it would it was just like I would be fine and then all of a
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sudden, like I was like a teenager with mono, and then I'd be
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sick for a few weeks and then and it would come and go. And
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we trapped it with my labs and I my IgM and IgG both go up.
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So they were active infections. And you know, when you go down
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the EBB rabbit hole, it's really fascinating because so much autoimmunities, so much
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can answer. And that's all of these things are really really associated with it.
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And I was scared. And I know after the COVID covid is stuff
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there's been some like associations with that too. EBB. Yeah, wow,
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that's great. Just that's the last thing. And I got my two shots.
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But I won't do it anymore for COVID at least. But but I'm
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just not I'm not anti vax. I'm just like, I'm just not into
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it for myself. Yeah, for myself. So if you guys don't want
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to do it, go for it whatever. If you do want to do
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it, go for it. No no harm, no foul. I just
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know that I got really, really sick, and my pain increased and hasn't
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gone down since it. So, I mean there's a couple of things.
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Is it mind over matter? I don't know that was what two and a
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half years ago. By now I feel like if it was, my pain
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has not gone down. Let's just put it that way. Okay, So
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you're seeing all these you're seeing these kids in these and these and they're they're
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adults that are supposed to be taking care of them and loving up on and
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that are supposed to be doing this role. What are you seeing in regards
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to response from kids that you treat versus the parents, and how how there's
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a better relationship with the kid and their parents and how they how they achieve
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better results with the work that you do versus another scenario where maybe the parents
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just drop them off, are less involved, maybe are hard to ask questions
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or give are hard to answer the questions that you ask them. Do you
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do you see that the kids the kids are treated differently by you in those
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different scenarios, or do you try to do this. I'm trying to just
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get a good sense of what you're you and the parents are really doing to
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try to address these issues that these poor babies are having. Yeah, you
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know, I always emphasize with the parents because I think I don't I think
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parents are generally trying, right. We all love our kids dearly, and
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you know, we all have our histories and our intergenerational trauma, and it's
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sad because we are repeating them, right, And that's why I started going
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to therapy, and you know, I have my son, and I was
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like, I know, I'm getting too angry and too snappy. Yeah,
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and I'm like annoyed all the time. And it wasn't it was him.
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It wasn't him, It was me, right, And it was I was
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being triggered by things that from my past. Right. So I think the
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parents, you know, when I talk about it like that and give them
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a lot of empathy. For a lot of people, like, you know,
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shame dies when it's spoken in safe spaces. And I don't remember where
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I heard that. I didn't make it up, but it's profound, and
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we'll just present you did. It's very profound Monica, and you know,
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and in Burnet Brown talks about like how there's a difference being shame and guilt
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right, and guilt can be really protective and make us want to do better.
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And so I really focus on like kind of crushing the shame, bringing
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it out right. And then for the kids, you know, an empathetic
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witness, like for the first time in their life, they're being heard maybe
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and they're having a provider that looks at them and they're like, Wow,
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that fucking sucks. That's bullshit. And the kids are like, uh but
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yeah, yeah, you're hearing me, Like no one's ever heard me.
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Everyone's in a gas. Lady made this for like you, like minimizing this
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stuff and like, yeah, talking bullshit and it give you Just see them
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light up and they get this agency right and and you start and then they
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start to see like, hey, maybe I can do something with this and
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maybe this purpose in my pain. The list of your episode, oh thank
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you. Yeah, that was my fifty two weeks episode, my year anniversary
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a couple of weeks ago, and it was yeah, it was giving my
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pain purpose and that's really what this show has turned into for me. So
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that's why I've got people like you here. So okay, so now you're
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moving from you're still working at these different hospitals and facilities and so on and
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so forth, but now you've started your new business, the Intersection Rising.
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Can we talk a little bit about what led you to that decision and what
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that's all about, because it's pretty fascinating. Yeah, I mean I think
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so I was doing mental time I practice, and you know, the program
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continuously evolved and I was it's networking and meeting people and there's this group called
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Orange County Shrinks were just filled with it's awesome, remarkable providers. And you
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know, I was kind of felt like that imposter syndrome of like, oh,
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I'm not a therapist, I'm not like what am I doing in this
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space? Like you know very much a lot of these therapists psychologists so far
22:07
could have been like staying you're on lane, woman, but they didn't.
22:11
They embraced me, right, and it was great because their studies in internal
22:15
medicine actually that show that ninety five percent of referrals from primary care to psych
22:21
never make it. It's like, obviously, what do we tell them?
22:23
Yeah, Paul, like, first of all, these people are hurting.
22:26
It's like, of all, like access to care is here impossible? And
22:30
there it's like, I mean we say call the back of here insurance card,
22:34
or we give them the one therapist that we know and you know in
22:37
the county or whatever, and just give everyone in therapist can't call these people
22:41
back, right, So I was able to make these networks in these connections,
22:45
A lot of them became just close friends and they you know, we
22:49
found out their niches and so you know, when I've got someone for everyone,
22:53
and it's really neat because you know, one therapist that boxes in a
22:57
parking lot with the kid. There's a you know people that do geek therapy
23:03
and play roadblocks with kids, and so you meet them where they are and
23:07
you speak their language. Right, Yeah, I like them meet them where
23:10
they are. That's really neat because I mean, honestly, it's like,
23:12
okay, so where are you today. It's hard to go, Well,
23:15
let's start. Let's start when I was nine, you know, It's like,
23:18
okay, here I am right now. This is what I need today
23:21
to help me feel better through whatever it is that I'm going through, and
23:25
then we can start unpeel these layers and work through some of these that these
23:27
stinky parts of our lives that are still just stinking it up, and we
23:32
can easily let go of some of these things. That's one of the things
23:34
that I'm finding fascinating too about my process of healing my bod is. I
23:38
am finding so many new ways and tactics and approaches to get myself into a
23:45
better mindset and shift how I feel about pain, and shift how I feel
23:49
about my place in the world. Because my idea of who I was going
23:52
to be at forty five years old is not who I am today. Does
23:56
that mean that I'm worse than what I thought I was going to be?
24:00
No, it just means I'm totally not doing what I thought I was going
24:03
to be doing with myself, like not at all. And so I have
24:07
these days where I'm really like bummed out at myself about it, where I'm
24:10
like, God, if you would have just done this, or you would
24:11
have done that, you would have done these things. And so if and
24:14
now that I'm starting to go, wait a second, there's a reason why
24:17
those things didn't occur. And you're glad that those things didn't happen, be
24:22
cause one of them would be like, for example, me not getting pregnant
24:23
with my ex husband, Thank fucking God. Let's just take a moment.
24:29
You would have been in my office every day, every day. I would
24:33
be paying your mortgage. That's it. You wouldn't have to have anybody else.
24:37
And so I'm grateful for those unanswered prayers, you know, I'm grateful
24:40
for those things that those those should have been in my brain and I'm so
24:44
glad that they didn't happen. But there are other places where you know,
24:47
I'm loving not the play in field in some different areas, and setting boundaries
24:49
and all of those things which are great, which I don't think that we
24:52
were really taught how to do all that well, certainly not boundaries and certainly
24:56
not good communications skills. But when you're a little girl, when you're a
24:59
little boy, how how are we supposed to know what kind of boundaries we're
25:02
supposed to put up? You know, we're supposed to be taught those things.
25:04
And anyways, I can go on and on about all these random things
25:07
that I'm thinking about. Well we're talking about this stuff, but I just
25:10
think all of the things up from the past that's happened to us as kids,
25:14
they manifest into you know, they manifest into these chronic illnesses, and
25:18
so now your face with not only do you've got kids that have a tummy
25:22
ache, but how are you going to help get these kids to not end
25:25
up being chronically ill down the road. That's a big responsibility and one that
25:30
I know that you don't take lightly. Yeah, I mean, I think
25:33
the thing is is that, like most like we think that our brain is
25:34
running the show, right, and when we look at medicinely it's kind of
25:37
like okay, cardiac system discipine, but the body is really a bunch of
25:41
levers and pull weeks. Right, everything is connected. And when we explain
25:45
to their kids how their brains develop, where their brain has to be in
25:49
terms of like this safety and this limbic system stuff versus prefrontal cortex, and
25:55
identified their kind of scheme as the stories they tell themselves and like really trade
26:00
staff where those came from. And then they're like, oh shit, right,
26:03
And then we teach them about their nervous system and we find out I'm
26:06
like, so, if you touch a hot stove, can you remove your
26:10
hand? Do you think like, my god, I should remove my hand?
26:11
Or if you used to do it right, if there's a knock on
26:14
the door and the dog bark because the dog think like I got a bark
26:17
because they just do it right. And it's the same thing as if you
26:21
ever slammed the door, like you didn't think like I'm gonna slam this door
26:23
and really piss everyone off. Right now, most of the time people slam
26:26
and they're like shit, they shouldn't have done that. And if I can
26:30
explain these thinks, these nervous system reactions to them or like when these kids
26:33
come in and they're test anxiety and they know the material, but then it's
26:37
just all of a sudden gone from their brain and it's like why right.
26:41
Its like they're splitting in a sandwich with their friend and they hate mustard,
26:45
right, and they're like, I'll like the mustard off instead of just asking
26:48
for no mustard, right, because it's like some major threat like for like
26:56
survival, Like if you ask for no mustard, I'm gonna So we fawn
27:00
right, and in parents, you know, explaining to parents like why you
27:04
know, like when I was kid, it would be like I'm not getting
27:07
out of the car. My stummach curts, and you know, they're like,
27:10
yeah, second, we kick it off with the curb. You're fine.
27:11
I'm like yeah, this' because like froze. Yeah right. And then
27:15
we come home and can spell down. And it's not that they're being bad
27:19
or trying to be bad, but our bodies makes sense and it's doing what
27:22
it's supposed to do. And so I think when we normalize that and explain
27:26
to them, not only are they like not that crazy, like my body
27:32
is doing what I'm supposed to do. Everyone else is crazy, But like
27:37
everybody else is batshit around me. That's what I think. Everyone thinks that
27:41
it's not their fault, it's everyone else's fault. Okay, number and all
27:45
that you do, just point it to somebody else. It's never your fault.
27:48
It's not your victim. Yeah, so you know, and and then
27:52
just teaching them emotions, like you know, I remember my therapist asking me,
27:56
sake, where do you feel that in your body? And I was
27:57
like, what the fuck are you talking about? Like where do I feel
28:00
that in my body? I was like what? Like? Like for me,
28:03
like, I'll clench my I clenched a lot, and so there are
28:07
certain things that will be going on around me, and then I'll notice,
28:10
like, oh my gosh, I am like so clenched down. When are
28:14
my ears are ring? When are my neck muscles are sore? I like
28:17
clenched down so hard? And then I catch myself and I don't know how
28:19
long I've been doing it. And I also hold a lot too, and
28:22
forty five years. I've been locked drawn for forty five years. There are
28:26
a lot of people that would disagree with that statement though the Oh I know
28:32
I had to, but you know, but it's interesting, like what do
28:33
you mean of that sensation in your body? Where do you feel it?
28:37
Like? How is a kid gonna be like? What what does that mean?
28:38
What are you talking about? You know? Yeah? If I ask
28:41
him, I say like, how do you know when you're mad? And
28:42
they're like I don't know. I like, my I don't know, And
28:45
I'm like, well, how do you like? Tired is not an emotion,
28:48
but I'll go there just so for example, and I'm like, how
28:49
do you blow when your body's tired? Because I can get them to be
28:52
like my head is tired, my eyes are tired, like I'm right,
28:55
like, okay, how do you know when you what does it feel like
28:56
when you put your shoulders back? What a shame feel like? Right?
29:00
And then I have this image to say, a pet scan where it shows
29:03
temperatures of different emotions basically and so people can see, you know, like,
29:07
emotions are it's energy, Yes, it is before right energy. Emotion
29:12
is before feelings, and those emotions are there to signal us for something right.
29:18
And so teach these kids like, hey, emotions have purposes, why
29:22
right? Like thank god we have anxiety, Like it's probably saved my life
29:26
a million times. Oh well absolutely, yeah. But the problem with it
29:32
is is, like you know, and if you have a tester, if
29:33
you have something that you should be worried, right, Like you should like
29:37
don't get on public transportation if you have explosive diarrhea, like not it's not
29:41
going to go well, right, it's not right, like you should be
29:45
worried. But the problem is like we automatically go to panic of holy shit,
29:52
and it's like, you know, you've been consticated for two weeks.
29:56
I don't think this public transportation is like the day that, like, you
30:00
know, but it's always this magical thinking of like what if? What if?
30:03
What if? We get stuck in these loops and we ruminate And so
30:07
by telling people what's happening in their body, they can recognize it and be
30:12
like, oh, I know what's happening, and I know what to do
30:15
to get out of this. Yeah, that's really cool because a tool for
30:18
me, especially with my anxiety. And it literally happened to me last night.
30:22
I can't even tell you what it was about, that's how lame it
30:23
was. But something got under my skin, something bugged me, or something
30:27
came up and I just had like massive anxiety. My lower back just like,
30:33
and I never have lower back pain, but my lower back yesterday all
30:36
day was like, what is happening in my lower back? And this morning
30:40
I woke up the same and I'm trying to figure out what it is exactly
30:44
that's bothering me and that's sitting here right now. And I figured it out.
30:48
And then as soon as I figured and I'm not sharing it right now
30:49
because that's for another episode teaser, okay, teaser, but I had to
30:56
like confront myself and ask myself some questions and go, what is it that's
31:00
this? How can I identify? How can I shrink that feeling that it's
31:03
causing? And as soon as I identified it, a lot of the payment
31:06
down and it was something totally stupid. It was like totally dumb that that
31:11
that is how so much of my anxiety brings itself out. It's like,
31:15
oh, it was from that email from that one girl, Like that was
31:18
it? I would you let that totally like derail your evening to write this
31:26
email? Oh my god, I'm frozen. I mean it was just it
31:30
was so stupid, you know, and so much of those little things happen
31:33
that cause us anxiety, that are being pulled from stuff that we don't even
31:37
know where it's coming from either. So you're working so hard within you,
31:41
within your new business for the intersection of mental health, integrative and Western medicine,
31:45
Right, that's what You're trying to pull all these groups to people together,
31:48
these people together, which I think is really really important because one of
31:52
the things that I take from this show and that I like to be able
31:55
to provide my listeners as well as my guests, is I am putting together
31:57
a dream team for myself from meeting people on this show. Not everybody is
32:01
on the dream team. I'm sorry. I love a lot of applications,
32:05
but what it's come down to is I am putting together every single type of
32:08
person I need, and then I'm working together with all of those people.
32:12
So everyone's talking with each other about this instead of these everyone's working on silos
32:17
on what's going on with Lindsay, and nobody's really communicating about well, I
32:22
have her taking this, she's on all of these supplements, she's getting five
32:24
hours. It's like, Oh, she didn't tell me about that party,
32:27
you know. So it's really that that intersection and that integration that you're trying
32:30
to do is really really neat, and I'm proud of you for that because
32:35
it's it's needed, it's needed badly. Yeah, It's like I could not
32:39
do this without mental health professionals, right, Like I kind of am the
32:44
uber driver to them, like I will find them and catch them, the
32:47
kids that fall through the cracks. Right, He's like, you you give
32:51
to kids and then work with them normalized mentalth characters, get them to buy
32:55
in and give them some agency in this process of like what do you want
32:59
to do? What do you want to see? Right, and then give
33:00
them a really nice warm handoff to you know, a therapist or it's like
33:05
oh, just or whatever they need and so much that I you know,
33:08
like face time them on their first visit. I'll be weird. I'll you
33:12
know, group message them like and give them a true handoff and then sign
33:15
release information, dumped that information and then all the therapists know what I teach.
33:20
So these kids are coming in with these skills that they have this language,
33:22
right, awesome, And I would say that, you know, biggest,
33:27
my therapist probably thinks I'm like such a stalker, but like she really
33:29
changed my life, right like really, like I was like sitting there and
33:32
I'm like, I am so sick. I don't know, and she's like,
33:35
oh, it's like like an MBCFST thing, and I was like,
33:37
what's that? What is that? Yeah, well it turns out it chronic
33:42
fritique syndrome and it's real thing. And so it's Epstein Barbers and at these
33:45
things that she knew that I had no idea, and I was like,
33:50
wow, thank you, yell. I have a lot of student loans and
33:52
did not teach me about this, you know, and it's sale, thanks
34:00
for the loads. No, you know, and it's not. I think
34:02
doctors are in you know, providers are really well meaning people, you know,
34:06
like I love them all, great friends. I think we're as a
34:09
system, we're missing the market, right, and I think we need to
34:13
like really scale back. And you know, there's a reason why seventy percent
34:16
of automan conditions are women. We know that only nice people get als or
34:21
melanoma. We know this isn't woo woo science. You know, there's research
34:27
out there, there's tons of evidence, and I just don't like, I
34:30
think it's coming. People are starting to pick up on it, and thanks
34:32
podcasts like this and you know, but it's in the doctor's office. It's
34:37
not enough, and it's it's really sad, you know, because there's a
34:39
lot of medical trauma that happens, a lot of wasted dollars, you know,
34:44
and these poor kids, it's really sad, you know, like they
34:47
go through all these things and think that they have these horrible things wrong with
34:51
them, and they may right, but there's other things that we can do.
34:55
And you know, I want to add last year, I tracked down
35:00
my therapist from when I was fifteen. I met her attracted, we did
35:04
telehealth and I was like, hey, I don't know if you remember me.
35:06
It's in twenty one years and she's like, I do remember you.
35:08
And I was like, well, I figured out what was going on in
35:12
my life, and I'm just curious, like now as an adult, if
35:14
you can tell me what you saw. Oh, And she said, I
35:16
knew you had trauma, but it wasn't the right time to bring it up.
35:20
I needed to get you to college. And I had great respect for
35:23
that, right. And so when I see these kids, some of them
35:27
may have horrible, horrible traumas, but like they're still worried about like who's
35:30
vaping in the bathroom and who got invited to this and whatnot, and like
35:34
wait, that's the meeting where we are, right, And trauma therapists they're
35:37
really like not everyone is equipped to deal with trauma, right, I've studied
35:42
it, but I'm not an mp are therapist. I don't do brainspody and
35:44
I don't you know, like there and there are people that are good for
35:47
this, right, that it's the best And if it was my baby,
35:52
they would see the best. And all of my patients are going to see
35:54
the best because we're not going to run the risk of re traumatizing them or
35:58
having a bad experience. It's like when you were younger and which therapist,
36:00
right, And so we just matched them personalities and see kids and it's I
36:06
think just seeing them is healing in itself, right, And that's my therapist
36:09
for me. She wasn't like she's like, wow, that's weird you have
36:13
a fever for that long. It's all like are you incompetent? You don't
36:16
know how to take your temperature? That the moment was broken, So like,
36:23
yeah, it's one of those things that when it comes to and my
36:27
little brain is going, like I mentioned in the very in the opening,
36:30
here this morning or the softernoon this evening whenever you're listening at the beginning of
36:32
this episode, where you know, I all of these like weird like memories
36:38
from when I was younger. I've continuously started to pop up while I'm having
36:43
conversations with people, not unlike just now, while you were talking. There's
36:46
something that just popped up about my step mom that I have not thought about
36:50
since I was probably fourteen years old now, and I'm like, great,
36:53
one more fffing thing to deal with. Sorry about that, Okay, Okay,
37:00
it's okay. No, I'd rather have them start to pop up,
37:01
especially in a place where I'm so much more healthy, to actually approach it
37:06
and look at it and not face it with fear or face it with from
37:09
an anxiety perspective, but face it from a place of strength and a place
37:13
where I feel much better about my mental health and my health is a whole.
37:15
Even though I feel like shit twenty four hours a day, I feel
37:19
better than I certainly felt a year ago. Even though my pain has increased.
37:22
Even though my pain is increased and I found other things that are wrong
37:25
with my body, I actually feel better mentally than I did a year ago
37:30
than two years ago and three years ago and so on, and so I
37:32
find that I'm okay with these sneak attacks that are happening because they are they're
37:38
sneaking up on me like sometimes like let's it's flying by me, and I'm
37:43
like, I can't keep up with them. All of these places that are
37:45
opening up in my heart and my soul and my brain that are kind of
37:47
like we want out now, let us out, Let us out, Let
37:52
us out, and get them out of here, because otherwise they're just sitting
37:53
here and my body keeping score and like we talked abound, we're done with
37:59
this game of keeping store stop it. Yeah, yeah, I mean Trump,
38:04
we remember Trauma's right, because it's like we're like, did that really
38:07
happen? Was that that really? And you don't like kind of realize it
38:10
when like you tell someone and you think it's funny and they're like, oh
38:14
that's not fun. When you're like, oh, sorry, wasn't a joke.
38:17
It wasn't ever a good deal, Suddenly the room is really uncomfortable,
38:22
right, and you've overshared because you don't even know what's bad. You're like,
38:28
wow, people play board games with their families anyway. You know,
38:32
I was doing breathwork with a really awesome breathwork quick practitioner and and I had
38:37
this crazy memory is to repressed trauma come out. And you know when trauma
38:42
comes out, it comes out in layers, right, And it's only going
38:45
to come out as safe when you're safe, and your window of tolerance is
38:50
going to open a little bit by a little bit, right, and back
38:52
from the very beginning said like this is kind of like where I get this
38:54
addicted to like overcoming. So every time I'm like, yeah, yeah,
38:58
like let's go next thing. Yeah, So like do there, because it's
39:01
one step posted a healing for me. I love internal family systems, this
39:06
idea that we have parts and integrating all those parts, right, Like we
39:08
talk about the inner child a lot, but like the inner adolescent is just
39:13
like that needs to be talked about, yeah, because that doesn't inner teenager
39:17
work is hard. Yeah, And I kind of feel like that girl is
39:21
still sitting here at times and she pops up and I'm like, whoa,
39:24
it's like whack a mole. She pops up, and he's like, I'll
39:29
wight the mustard off. It's fine. You know. I do that with
39:32
like food when we're we'll order dinner. This is a total sidebar. But
39:36
when we order like dinner, will go out to eat or whatever. If
39:37
I don't really care for the food or it's not cooked the way that I
39:39
would really like it, I suck it up and I don't. I don't
39:43
send my food back. And Sweetie, yeah, my sweetie is like,
39:45
why don't you send it back? I'm like, because it's not their fault
39:47
that I don't like it, and he goes crazy about it. He just
39:52
drives a nut because he's the first person that's like, yeah, I don't
39:54
like anything about this the FuMB I played. I want it all back.
39:57
And when do you have any idea how much saliva you've you have eating in
40:00
your lifetime? Because of this kind of thing, your food is for sure
40:04
getting spin on. Well that's awkward for the whole table because like you're sitting
40:08
there and like that you're done eating and their food comes out and you're like,
40:12
like you couldn't just eat it, Like, thank you, thanks for
40:15
affirming that feeling that I have because it's about the whole experience. Yes,
40:21
thank you. No, but I do think speaking up is you know that
40:24
I you know I admire people who can do that, and as I get
40:28
stronger, I've been able to more it and it's really really cool finding my
40:32
voice right and some of that imposter syndrome is just stalling down a little bit.
40:37
Yeah, it's really cool. Well, it is cool, and I
40:38
like to see it, and I like to see you're You're changing even since
40:42
when we first met each other. Just the growth that I've even just witnessed
40:45
within you in such a short span of time over the past years since we
40:50
started talking to each other, it's really interesting. And I feel the same
40:52
way about myself. I'm just like, whoa, Especially after my fifty second
40:55
episode came out and it was like I reflected back on the whole entire year
41:00
of doing the show, but also the years that led up to it,
41:04
and it was just it was such a like a peaceful place for me to
41:07
be like, I'm actually like going after this like a badass, you know,
41:10
and thank you the boss. She's the boss. But yeah, I
41:16
know. It's just it's so nice when you can pat yourself on the back
41:21
for even little wins, because there's still positive steps forward in the right direction
41:24
for you to feel better about yourself and feel better about your health and your
41:28
place in the world, and how we can help people like you and parents
41:32
like that that are doing the jobs that they're doing to help our children,
41:36
because my ani adolescents, like you're saying, because it's we're hurting, man,
41:39
we're hurting. Our kids are hurting. It's really sad. It's so
41:44
so sad. And I can go down the whole, you know, slippery
41:46
slope of all the school shootings and what our kids have to go through,
41:50
which we never had to go. I mean, I just that and of
41:52
itself would scared. I wouldn't I wouldn't want to go to school. I'd
41:54
have a stomach ache, I would get right, I would be intentionally bullied.
42:00
I would be I would put a hair dryer on my forehead and come
42:02
up with a fever, like I would do everything in my mind at the
42:07
thermometer end of the light bubbles, you know, Oh that's right, your
42:09
forehead kind of burn yourself. And it depends which it depends which parent is
42:14
testing you for your fever. Okay, you're like, you have a one
42:16
hundred and fifty degree temperature the hospital or actually not. Our parents are like,
42:23
you'll be fine. Turn on some Jerry Springer and have some seven up
42:30
while you're at it, popping some guns and roses and really get to it.
42:34
Oh my gosh. Yeah. But you know, these A think kids
42:37
of emotional intelligence and you know, is actually quite high, right, and
42:42
we just don't have language for it. And when we give them language,
42:45
we give people power, right, And so I tell the kids like,
42:46
hey, like, if you're mad, what does that mean, I'm not
42:51
allowed to be mad? Right? Like you in trouble? Like being mad
42:53
is you know, you a bad kid? And it's like, well,
42:57
you have an unmet need, you feel threatened or you feel violated. Which
43:00
one is it? Okay, now your parents are pissed at you? Which
43:04
one is it? And then I teach the kids, you know, to
43:07
expand their language so that they can say instead of they say, mom,
43:09
dad, you're always mad at me, I say, get them to say,
43:12
Dad, I feel like you're being critical and that lands so different,
43:15
and the parents are just like, hoh damn in Monica, I paid you
43:17
for that, and you know, yeah, but yeah, it's you know,
43:22
just increasing these voices because we are always talking shit to ourselves. We
43:25
have this loud inner critic, you know, and back, my lovely therapist
43:30
who changed my life. You know, she another time she goes, hey,
43:32
what's your wise voice saying? And I turned my head like a dog.
43:35
I was literally, huh, yeah, She's like, what's your nurturing
43:37
voice say? I was like, huh other way, like a dog,
43:39
it's like a puppy. And I didn't have either of those, right,
43:44
All I had was inner critic. I had them for other people, I
43:46
did not have them for myself. And every now and then I would hear
43:49
a wise voice for myself, and ultimately that voice became my therapist until I
43:54
integrated it into myself. And you know, nurturing voice is still definitely something
43:59
I'm working on, but it's there. It's like a little bit there,
44:01
like in after I've studied all this stuff, right, Like, I'm starting
44:06
to have some compassion for the kid in me that was really just struggling,
44:13
right and trying to do good and trying to care and just put like really
44:15
really alone and hurting and feeling pretty worthless and not having anywhere to go with
44:22
that or the language to say anything, or the resources. So I'm really
44:27
grateful to be able to do that for kids. Now I'm grateful for you
44:30
that you are doing that, because we need more Monicas in this world.
44:37
We can't clone her though, because she is unclonable. Yeah, you might
44:39
have fevers, a stomach egg. Who knows. It's not exactly good now.
44:46
Yeah, it's mostly fevers fatigues. You know. I used to get
44:51
these crazy rashes, but once I found out that I gave myself sphei acacies
44:54
and took gluten in that one way. So say, look at that,
44:57
the little things I miss Luton. Oh man, Hey, but it recks
45:01
havoc on our bod self if you think about it in that way, it's
45:04
like, well, okay, I'm terrified Pisa, and I'm like nopfied bugs
45:13
for sure. Well, is there anything else that you'd like to talk about
45:16
leave our listeners with before we hit the dusty trail here? Yeah? I
45:21
guess like this is my angelic quote, and it's you know, do your
45:24
best until you know better, and then when you know better, do better.
45:29
I like that because it's like, you know, it takes away from
45:31
our failures a little bit, and it's part of the process, and you
45:35
know, I wouldn't be where I am today or doing what I was like
45:37
if I didn't have if I hadn't survived these things and haven't had these experiences,
45:42
this is why. Like it's not my education, right, it's my
45:44
lived experiences. So apologies to my parents and thank you guys. But yeah,
45:52
and you know, I just find you know, it really takes a
45:55
village, and I'm so fortunate to always kind of attach and find adults that
46:00
believed in me and that it kept pushing me and I was like, you're
46:04
okay, You're okay. You know, it would have been nice if someone
46:07
was like, hey, that sucks, but yeah, I think people are
46:09
amazing. I think kids are amazing. I think they can you know,
46:13
I wish that more than anything, that kids could know like, hey,
46:17
you're gonna be okay, you're gonna get through this right, and you'll be
46:20
better for it. And you might have to find your therapist from fifteen.
46:23
You might have to end up trying into a stalker. Compliments of money,
46:29
become a stalker. This is her leaving mess. The message is leaving us.
46:32
But my next episode is how to find as much information on any person
46:37
in thy perness. Gosh, well, thank you so much for your time
46:46
here with us today. I really appreciate it, and I mean we could
46:49
talk forever about this stuff, that's for sure, But thank you for what
46:52
you're doing and how you're doing it, because I think that that and why
46:57
those are all so incredibly important. It's not just like, well, I
46:59
have a degree and I'm just gonna tick the boxes and send you on your
47:01
way, because a lot of us is we've experienced that in our healthcare system.
47:06
So thank you for trying to be one of those pioneers to change it.
47:08
I always feel like a fish kind of swimming upstream, but yeah,
47:14
I found my little pot of fish that swim with me. I love it.
47:16
I love it so very much. Thanks again for having me here.
47:20
Of course, thank you. You are exclusively invited to share this one step
47:23
closer to healing VIP pain journey together. Let's get to the heart of how
47:29
to heal with you by my side. Do you know anyone that is living
47:32
in and with chronic pain? If you do, please send them here,
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Visit us at the Pain Game podcast dot com, and follow us on all
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the socials. Thanks for listening my little VIPs. Catch you on the other side.