Trauma: an invisible thread that weaves itself into the tapestry of our lives. Our guest today, Keli Carpenter, is a survivor and a guide, sharing her wisdom on trauma while providing a roadmap to evolving beyond our past narratives.
We discuss the TOSA method—a therapeutic unraveling, and embodied approach to healing. Keli highlights the power of inner stillness attained through meditation. We also explore the transformative power of breath work and somatic inquiry, as an effective means of releasing trauma from the body.. The discussion concludes with a look at the manifestations of trauma and the tools available to address it, including details on upcoming retreats led by Keli. The journey to healing trauma begins within, and there's an abundance of support to guide you through it.
You can find Keli Carpenter at:
Website - https://theothersideofaverage.com
Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/theothersideofaverage/
Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/theothersideofaverage
Youtube - https://www.youtube.com/@TheOtherSideofAverage
Please Follow and Review this podcast if you would like to support the growth of this show. Thank You! :)
If you enjoyed this episode, please consider sharing it with two people you know that might benefit from the information. The more knowledge that people have in their hands, the healthier we can all become. If you would like to see a particular health issue discussed, or know someone who would be a great guest, contact the Open-Minded Healing podcast at openmindedhealing365@gmail.com.
Note: By listening to this podcast, you agree not to use this podcast as medical advice to treat any medical condition in either yourself or others, including but not limited to patients that you are treating. Consult your own physician for any medical issues that you may be having. This entire disclaimer also applies to any guests or contributors to the podcast. Under no circumstances shall Marla Miller, Open-Minded Healing Podcast, any guests or contributors to the podcast, be responsible for damages arising from use of the podcast.
Trauma: an invisible thread that weaves itself into the tapestry of our lives. Our guest today, Keli Carpenter, is a survivor and a guide, sharing her wisdom on trauma while providing a roadmap to evolving beyond our past narratives.
We discuss the TOSA method—a therapeutic unraveling, and embodied approach to healing. Keli highlights the power of inner stillness attained through meditation. We also explore the transformative power of breath work and somatic inquiry, as an effective means of releasing trauma from the body.. The discussion concludes with a look at the manifestations of trauma and the tools available to address it, including details on upcoming retreats led by Keli. The journey to healing trauma begins within, and there's an abundance of support to guide you through it.
You can find Keli Carpenter at:
Website - https://theothersideofaverage.com
Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/theothersideofaverage/
Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/theothersideofaverage
Youtube - https://www.youtube.com/@TheOtherSideofAverage
Please Follow and Review this podcast if you would like to support the growth of this show. Thank You! :)
If you enjoyed this episode, please consider sharing it with two people you know that might benefit from the information. The more knowledge that people have in their hands, the healthier we can all become. If you would like to see a particular health issue discussed, or know someone who would be a great guest, contact the Open-Minded Healing podcast at openmindedhealing365@gmail.com.
Note: By listening to this podcast, you agree not to use this podcast as medical advice to treat any medical condition in either yourself or others, including but not limited to patients that you are treating. Consult your own physician for any medical issues that you may be having. This entire disclaimer also applies to any guests or contributors to the podcast. Under no circumstances shall Marla Miller, Open-Minded Healing Podcast, any guests or contributors to the podcast, be responsible for damages arising from use of the podcast.
Welcome back to Open Minded Healing. Today, my guest, Kelly Carpenter, is going to be talking about how we can break the cycles of pain and heal from past trauma. So, Kelly, before we get into all these steps and specifics, I would like you to share with the listeners, if you don't mind, how you came to have the information you're going to be sharing on trauma. Was it through education or was it through personal experience? Can you elaborate on that? Absolutely and welcome, by the way, I'm sorry, welcome, Kelly.
Speaker 2:Thank you. Thank you for having me. I'm looking forward to being here and having this conversation and hoping that it'll impact someone on their journey. Yeah, so really it certainly was an education, because my journey started very young, as a child, and so most of what I share, or even the steps and the stages, came from my own inquiry, my own healing, my own lived experience. And, yes, I have education and I have certificates and things like that behind me. But really what I share is from lived experience and this inquiry of how do we evolve beyond the story that seems to define us, whether that's the beliefs or the experiences that we keep cycling through over and over again. And mine really started when I was a child, and it started, I guess, even before that.
Speaker 2:My mother, she was a seeker. She, I think, had her own inquiry, even though she struggled quite a bit. She struggled with her emotional health, or mental health, as we might call it today, and yet she also had that inquiry and at least like a seed of belief or some sort of awareness that we can change our experience. Because she was really struggling, she was able to witness herself as a parent in a really dysfunctional behavior. You know what today would be considered abusive types of behavior. She was in a messy, manipulative divorce when I was just going on six years old and she went to learn TM or Transcendental Meditation. She was seeking help to end her own suffering and so she took me along to learn as well and so I meditated just because I was told to meditate. And, you know, it wasn't until much later in my life where it really understood the impact that it had on me.
Speaker 2:So the work that I do in the world is kind of this combination between really understanding trauma and consciousness from a spiritual standpoint or our evolutionary journey, and kind of where they intersect and overlap. And when I was a teenager it was like I was living Gabor Matei's quote, or I had the awareness of the quote. He's one of my mentors, I studied and his quote is trauma isn't what happens to you, it's what happens inside of you as a result of what happens to you. So it's this place where we're restricted, where we're constricted, where we've forgotten who we really are. If we were to look at our original trauma, it's a disconnect from that wisdom that lives in us. It's a disconnect from God, of your understanding. It's not a religious thing, it's just this innate-ness that lives in all of us and it happens through conditioning, it happens through traumatic experiences, it happens through the generational impact, cultural impact, and it's just where we've lost touch with that part of ourselves when we find ourselves cycling through pain in some capacity. And for me that looked like.
Speaker 2:I remember 13, 14, 15, into 16, being like oh, there was a phrase I used to say and I was like I can only hear myself think for so long and I need to make a change. It's like I had this awareness that I wasn't my thoughts. I could witness my suffering and I knew it as much as I had these bitchy thoughts about my mom, the dysfunction and circumstances that were happening around me. It was actually. I could witness that they had an impact. The circumstances, the dysfunction, the painful experiences had an impact, but really the cause of my strike or my struggle was my inability to integrate it.
Speaker 1:It was my reliving it and my recycling through it that was actually the cause of the struggle, nicole so it's almost like over-identifying either with the dysfunction in your family or a story in your head or the pain of some emotion you experienced, rather than focusing on the fact that you're pinching yourself off from love or from who you truly are on a soul level. Nicole.
Speaker 2:Absolutely. You said it beautifully, nicole.
Speaker 1:Well, it is so interesting, when you view it based on that quote, that it's not what happens to you, because that is true. A lot of people have the exact same thing happened to them and they manage it so differently. Or one brushes it off without much of a thought and the other just sits in it for years. Maybe delve into that a little bit about why that is. Why are some people stuck and some move smoothly through it?
Speaker 2:Nicole, yeah, I think there's so many different layers to it. Ultimately, it is as you mentioned. It's our identification and our attachment to the story, to the pain. Oftentimes I talk about this in terms of consciousness, when we're deeply unconscious, we are what happened to us, life is happening to us, we are a victim of the circumstances and we really believe that as we grow, there's an interplay of so many different factors. It could be just the innate ness of the person, maybe on a soul level. These are some questions. It's not like I'm the absolute answer. My guess is maybe just on a soul level.
Speaker 2:Some of us come in with a particular karmic journey and a certain amount of awareness, the level of support that we have, whether that is from a grandparent or a neighbor, where we've experienced some connection and some true, unconditional lives that touches us in a certain way.
Speaker 2:Whether we've actually just been brought up with some tools myself, with meditation, meditation afforded me when we sit in stillness and we sit in silence and we connect that deeply within, we just are connecting to this innateness within us that allowed me to see I wasn't my story, even though I had a lot of circumstances around me that could have easily kept me trapped and defined by. I think it's a bit of a multi-layered reason why we get trapped, the way that some of us are, and how we arrive through it. And I just wanted to touch on when I was 19, because of this awareness that I had, although I didn't have the support around me and I didn't have the tools other than meditation but we can sit in meditation. Well, first of all, as a teenager, I started to move away from that right, that little bit of rebellious that we do as a teenager.
Speaker 2:But I didn't have the other tools that also help us understand our story and to understand why we've been trapped in a certain way. And so, at 19, I went to an appointment with the counselor and someone that could help me integrate, help me release the story that I knew didn't need to define me, and much of the old clinical therapeutic approach is, as you mentioned we are what happened to us. Right, we are the worst thing we've ever done. We're the worst thing that's ever happened to us. We're broken. And so, actually, when I went into that appointment, what do we do? When we go see someone? We tell our story. This is actually part of our process of healing.
Speaker 2:But she saw me as my story and she was buying into me being a victim, and I was like no again, I didn't know, in the terms that I'm going to share today, as far as the stages we go through. I didn't have that intellectual understanding, but I had the experience of my body of no, I want to validate the wound, I want to honor the pain, but I don't want to be a victim. It's not really. It's not serving me. I had the awareness it's causing me more pain to continue to cycle through.
Speaker 2:That Didn't mean I knew how, but I just knew that this didn't feel right to have someone try to buy into my story. So I went back for a second appointment and then I was like that's not working, that's not the answer. And it was a few years later. But through this continual inquiry of how do we evolve the ender story, how do we really set ourselves free, how do we redefine these things that are defining us and, yeah, so is that that original inquiry. It's mostly lived experience, with a lot of learning that really validated this felt sense and this knowingness that I always experienced, which really came through meditation.
Speaker 1:Yeah, a number of things you said. So one is sometimes it's having some support and I know of some people that have gotten through really tough times with just. Sometimes all it takes is one person who's not even a huge part of your life sometimes. Sometimes it's a random person or a neighbor, other times it might be a close relative or friend, but that can be very powerful. But I do like what you said about meditation, because I think that taps into a power within ourselves, first of all so we're not reliant on anything or anyone outside of us, and also that's something we can always turn to in any moment. You don't have to go seek something or someone out. You can just sit down wherever you are and meditate and find answers and strength within yourself, at any time of day or night.
Speaker 2:And I want to add, later in life that became a transcendent meditation teacher, a betrothed certified meditation teacher, and for a while I was sharing meditation with people, because human beings in general most of their like looking outside of them, searching desperately outside of themselves for something to be the answer. And it's actually us that we're seeking all the time, that innateness, that love, that the deep connection, that wisdom, that voice of truth that lives in everyone. And I would teach people meditation and then they wouldn't meditate. And so part of even more learning was well, what else is needed? What really helped me? Because meditation gave me the ability to see, it gave me the ability to develop that witnessing awareness.
Speaker 2:That wasn't my story, but what else really helped me break the cycle and it was more somatic really, what I call embodied feeling being held to meet some of that pain and to use a compassionate curiosity to unravel these things that we are believing, that we're conditioned to believe, that we've attached meaning to.
Speaker 2:So I really believe that, depending on where we are in our healing, meditation isn't the be all and end all. It obviously will support everyone, no matter where anyone is, but what happens is that, when we sit in that stillness or that silence. What will we tune into? We're going to tune into the pain that we haven't felt. We're going to tune in and we become acutely aware of the amount of thoughts that we've been defined by an attached tooth and unless we're really held in a safe space to actually feel some of those things, we'll just avoid meditation altogether. So obviously it's a tool that I feel is the foundation to everything is to access that stillness within. And yet there's more because, depending on where we are, with the impact that that trauma is had on the inside or that conditioning has had on the inside, more might be needed. Let's just put it that way.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I can understand that. I heard of someone who didn't feel safe meditating by themselves, and they felt safer in a group. I've also heard people saying why would I want to be alone with my thoughts when they've gone through a lot of different traumas? So that does make sense that there's something else in addition that needs to come along with it. So what are those things?
Speaker 2:Yeah, so my business name is the other side of average and that's just because I'm really so average as in the amount of dysfunction that I've experienced in my life, the pain that exists in the world, and I've had my fair share of it, but the tools and the awareness that I've had has allowed me to meet these places on the other side of what we'd be at, the average or the normal out there, thank you. And so the acronym for the other side of average is TOSA, and so oftentimes I talk in the words of TOSA. So I just want to share that. The TOSA method, as I call it, work with three approaches. So the therapeutic approach that needs to share our story, that needs to talk through it, to be seen, to be heard in our story.
Speaker 2:The unraveling, using inquiry to work with the mind and some of the beliefs that we have, the meaning that we've attached to certain things. So working more in that therapeutic approach with the mind and the understanding. Then also the embodied approach, where I'm also a breath work facilitator I train breath work facilitators where we're working with the body. They say the issues are in our tissues, they're held cellularly in the body. So even you know this is why just mindset stuff doesn't work, or just even inquiry doesn't work alone or affirmations, because if it's held in the body we're not getting in there. We might think we're doing all the things we've been told how to visualize or to change our reality here, but until we get into it cellularly it's still going to recreate. So, working also with the embodied approach, working somatically, I really actually feel that we all need to learn how to feel again.
Speaker 1:So what is the somatic way of releasing trauma? Say for you to choose, or yourselves.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I use breath work and it's conscious, connected breath work. It's, like you know, breath work as a practice, as a journey, but also just using it in the sense of presence and our ability to actually go into ourselves and feel the emotions in there, not intellectualize our emotions or think we understand our emotions, but to actually go into our body where emotions are held, and our body is a storehouse of everything that's ever happened to us. So when we learn how to work with the body through that somatic release, through the use of breath work, then we can release some of those. So it's working with the therapeutic approach, the embodied approach, and then what I call the karmic approach, which is that stillness, that spiritual understanding, that innateness, that beingness that lives in all of us, can't be hurt, you know, isn't defined by our experiences, it's never born, it never dies. There's so many different ways that we could speak about it, but to me that's that original traumas are disconnect from that innateness that lives within us. You know, I really believe that in order to heal, like truly set ourselves free, we have to work within all of those realms, that holistic approach to healing, and equally we need to have what I call conscious support. You know, like I, have a number of stories of unconscious support, and one was that story I shared at 19. I consider that unconscious support. That counselor I went to see that saw me as my story. You know, there's enough unhealed healers in the world. There's enough highly educated professionals that can psychoanalyze you, enough to tell you what they think is wrong with you or add labels to it, but that's not healing truly. So you know I talk about the need for conscious support.
Speaker 2:This is something I say often. If people work with me, they probably create me say this at many, many times is that it doesn't matter where we are on our journey. Everyone wants to be held, seen and loved exactly where we are, and sometimes that's in our messiness, sometimes that's in our brilliance and our beauty and our radiance, and you know that even looks different on different days. But someone who truly trusts that ultimately the answer is in you I have to bring up that roomy quote is the wand is where the light enters you, that someone that has done that level of work themselves, on such a deep level, that they trust the pain in you so they can see you there, they can hold you there, they can really truly meet you there and allow the light to emerge from it. That, to me, is really breaking the cycle. Those aspects are truly needed for our freedom, and when I talk about healing, that could be, you know, physically, mentally, emotionally, spiritually it's really all of it. That conscious healing is all of it.
Speaker 1:So maybe you can go back through those what you consider essential ingredients for healing and just give an example again of each thing.
Speaker 2:Yeah, for sure, the Toss-A-Method. I talk about it as a five layer approach and they really are ingredients, as you mentioned. They're really needed to set ourselves free. And even before I go there, I'm just going to add that life is filled with pain. This isn't about, you know, experiencing bliss 24-7 and somehow being free from painful events happening in life. It's not bad. It's that you find a certain peace and a solidness and this innateness to meet the ebbs and flows of life.
Speaker 2:Because one thing I know for certain is life is filled with pain, but every single obstacle, challenge, painful moment can be used to remember our wholeness underneath it. And so those five layers the first is conscious ownership. It's like a radical responsibility, so, similar to my story, we might have had things that we could truly say that we're a victim of in life. You know, and I'm responsible for my healing Trauma changes us, that's for certain, but how it changes us is a choice ultimately. And that really takes this place of radical responsibility or conscious ownership for our healing, even if we also need to honor the wound and the place where you know there was really wrong that happened. So that's key, because if we continue the blame cycle or, you know, oftentimes I say victim narratives lock in powerlessness.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:So if we really want to reclaim our power, we have to take full responsibility, even if it's just 1% or if it's just about our healing. So that's number one. Number two is conscious learning. So I can learn tools, we might learn theories, we might learn strategies, and the ultimate learning is where we're learning to bring the unconscious conscious, where we're learning to dive into the depths of the messages that are held deep within our psyche, deep within our body, and bring those to the surface.
Speaker 2:You know, sometimes I say life is like a litmus test. We want a sneak peek of what's held in the unconscious aspects of who we are. We just need to look at our lives, because our life mirrors what's going on in the inside. And so when we bring those unconscious parts conscious, the innateness within us or spiritual intelligence, life just has a way of sorting itself out. It's when it's held deep in the unconscious that we are trapped in it and cycling through it. And the second one is that conscious learning, which is kind of a bit of two parts, that ultimate bring the unconscious conscious is that learning. And then it's also we might learn strategies and tools and techniques and processes. And the next is conscious support. I kind of alluded to that a little bit ago Like we really, truly need to be held. If we could have done it all we would have.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and finding that right person that is aware of their own issues and has worked through them, then they can help people.
Speaker 2:And after that is conscious practice and that is what I consider. The three conscious practices are working with that therapeutic approach and body to approach and not karmic approach. Or the mind, body, soul is that full mystic approach and the practices that come with that. So in the tossing method it's really the use of different somatic inquiry processes so that the mind can understand and reframe and release some of its attachment. It's working in the body somatically so that we can start releasing what's held in the body and working with finding that stillness and that silence connected to that deep voice of wisdom within that innateness.
Speaker 2:And then the fifth one is conscious surrender and it looks a little bit different depending on the stage of our own healing journey. You know, ultimately it's surrendering our will, her God's will, or like letting life be our teacher, because we can't control life Right. As I've mentioned, there's ebbs and flows and challenges and things that present themselves. So learning how to live a surrendered life, as in just meeting life and what's right here, with the right support and the right tools that we can use it to know our wholeness, it ultimately looks like trust. Yeah.
Speaker 2:Or just surrender looks like a deep trust, and sometimes that's a trust in our own body, you know, a trust in the breath, a trust in life being our teacher.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I think that's the biggest one is then, at the end, releasing it and trusting that there is something greater beyond yourself out there that is actually on your side and is going to now help you. It's so hard for people to let go of that control.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and for good reason, from the standpoint of the mind, of how to experiences where it wasn't safe to trust, yeah. Experiences where they've had so much pain that, as a child, you know they learned as a strategy to keep themselves safe is to shut down, yeah.
Speaker 1:You know. So how do you address that with someone you're working with, say, they've done all the other things and now they're stuck at that step? How do you help them release that resistance?
Speaker 2:So the other thing about conscious support is that, just as human beings, our nervous systems regulate off of each other, and so someone who is stuck in their head, with maybe a lot of education, and can psych well, analyze or watch the word, Well, some people are very intellectual science based and they can recite things and then this is why it works, this is why it doesn't.
Speaker 1:But that's different, yeah. Than tuning into your body and listening to your instincts.
Speaker 2:Absolutely and having you know, that conscious support, having really taken a deep dive into your own pain. And if you haven't done that, it's just impossible to hold someone else's. And if we all want to be seen, loved and held exactly where we are and there's pain in our body, we need someone that can hold us and that pain, not get stuck there in that process mode and not stuff it down, because neither one is helpful. But actually, how do we really bring that level of presence, that level of safety, to those places that haven't felt safe before?
Speaker 2:And some of it is just our own presence as a facilitator or as a person, a spaceholder, are the work that we've done, and then our skills on top of that, certain tools, certain ways of actually meeting that person and guiding them into their body. But we have to feel safe. So, even though I'm a breath work facilitator and I train facilitators, it's also one of those industries where people can use the breath and say the breath is to be all an end all and bring people into these activated states and bring up so much pain and then someone left this like cracked open and doesn't know what to do with it. So it's just a really delicate balance to create that level of connection and safety and presence between the spaceholder and the person that is needing to work through a different way of their healing.
Speaker 1:So you can help facilitate that step with someone by, first of all, having a nervous system that is regulated when you're with them so you can sort of transfer that calm energy to them and help regulate their nervous system and deep level of trust that'll build with that calmness. And then, if you help them through breath work, release these extreme emotions or fear or whatever it is you said they need to know what to do with that once it does come up. How are you helping them manage that?
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's a great question. That's with the inquiry. You know, again, it's a little bit of a multi-layered because when you work with all three of those approaches all in one, they really are just layered on each other. So let's say, like things coming up in a breath work session and using some of that somatic inquiry to direct back to the wisdom that lives within, because the answers are always within. So I could tell someone, like that idea of psychoanalyzing oh, that's from your childhood, you're safe.
Speaker 2:Now, for them that just doesn't feel safe. It doesn't matter where it's from or what label we want to put on it. How could we help direct them back to that wisdom? So the moment that there is a challenge or an obstacle or a stickiness in life, the answer exists at the same time that the problem exists. It's just that usually we're so consumed and stuck in that pain that can't see the answers. So having somebody with the skill to help us find those answers within and it's just through certain somatic inquiry processes and that deep level of trust, because literally it's not possible to not have the answers within- what would be an example of someone you were working with?
Speaker 1:Can you work through the process of maybe a specific person and say first you talk to them and you learn what the issue is in their mind?
Speaker 2:Yeah, so let's use that example, because sometimes I'll work with people with somatic inquiry first, or meditation first or breath work first, but let's use what we had talked about with breath work and then, with breath work, something coming up that a memory it could just be, maybe overwhelming feelings that are coming up and I'm sorry.
Speaker 1:can you also explain the breath work process?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I use breath in many different ways. When we're talking about breath work as a conscious, connected breath pattern, there's like wimp-hawth breathing. There's so much it's become quite a big thing these days. Is it the particular pattern of breathing that typically is done with an open mouth, but it's equally done in and out through the nose, or into the nose and out through the mouth, and it's a particular conscious, connected breath. There's no pause at the top and there's no pause at the bottom and we actually breathe in this continuous pattern. And when we breathe in this continuous pattern with our mouth open, I always say it's like we're saying a big yes to life.
Speaker 2:And if we're saying a big yes to life, if we think of breath as that innateness or that universal essence or its creation, its life force moving through us, and if we're saying yes to life, what's going to happen? There's going to be, possibly, things that come up for us to receive and things that come up for us to let go of. What do we need to shed in order to really say yes and move into life in greater capacity? Or what do we need to receive that's going to support us to say yes to life in a greater capacity. So it's this breath pattern that has the ability to really highlight or bring to the surface what's there to be shed or what's there to be received.
Speaker 2:And sometimes what's there to be shed for people doesn't feel very good. Some people can have memories that come up through it that they weren't aware of before, and it's obviously for the purpose of healing, because if it's a rising, it's a rising for a purpose. That is 100% for certain. But how we work with it will determine on whether we're able to really integrate that and use that to remember our wholeness or whether that's going to continue that cycle of pain. And it's really dependent upon the person that's supporting us and their capacities and the work that they've personally done and the additional tools that they have, or that additional support that we have to really help us with, maybe, what arose.
Speaker 1:So if you were still, say, working with the same client and they had, these uncomfortable emotions arise and it means there's something to be worked on, what steps are you taking in that moment, after the breathwork, and something new pops up for them.
Speaker 2:Yeah, then I would personally go to what I call somatic inquiry process. That's part of the toss-and-methode. It's another five parts to these big experiences that arise, and maybe I'll talk about what those five parts are, because they're really helpful for people. So when we're highly activated, when we're really stuck, when there's something really big in our life for most of us are deeply stressed, it feels like one big ball of mess, right, and it seems all consuming. I know I've had experiences like that, have you had experiences like that? And I'm sure every listener has. But there's actually five parts to that big ball of mess or stress. And so when we start learning the tools to unravel those five parts, that's when we can start using them instead of being enslaved or entrapped by them. And the first is the body. Remember that our issues are in our tissues, right, and our body is a storehouse of everything that's happened to us. So that first place to go to is the body. You know, if had people come to me, one particular person stands out, a doctor that had come to a retreat of mine, and she ended up reaching out to me afterwards and said I just have a really hard time feeling Like I just don't feel. I can intellectualize some of my emotions, but I don't feel. And it only took us four sessions working with the somatic inquiry and working with the body before she actually could feel an emotion. At first it was just everything was up in the head. You know she could intellectualize her emotion. She was aware of the cycle of thoughts that she was trapped in as we really started to work with the body and get deeper into the body. By the fourth session she could actually feel her feet. It sounds so simplistic for those who might be able to tune into their feet right now and wiggle her toes and can feel it. It seems so simple, but some people there's that much pain held in their body that they have a hard time feeling. There's a lot of people that even use physical exercise that seem like people are connected to their body, but it's actually building just more of an armor, and so when we can really get into the body, that's when you have access to the feelings that come through. So that are those five parts.
Speaker 2:The first is the body and really being with sensations. That's number one. As long as we can develop our attunement to physical sensations, like whether that's like my cheeks are feeling flush, my heart rate is a little faster, my toes are tingling, like just sensations in the body are the starting points or that next place to go to. Always it seems so simple, but if we just stayed with that, we had no idea what we're capable of experiencing and being okay with, you know, being able to meet. It was like we're building a container to meet what arises.
Speaker 2:And so that number two is emotions. And we have deeper, truer emotions and we have more surface, reactive type of emotions. You know we have emotions or feelings that are a bit of an emotion and a story wrapped in them, so it's the ability to just keep coming back to the body and where is that emotion and really working with that emotion. I go into this much more in-depth in my courses and different things, just kind of giving the parts to it right now. And the third is the story, or the narrative or the meaning that we've given it. You know, emotions actually only take about 90 seconds to move through our body. When we bring that much presence to it, when we're really held in that safe way, they actually move.
Speaker 2:We're hardwired to go through emotion, so why do we stay trapped in them for a lifetime, for some people 50 years, you know, 20 years harboring these. It's because of the story, the meaning that we've attached to it, that keeps us locked into that cycle. So, you know, starting to unravel the story, really understanding, how old does that feel? You know, with that emotion, you know it's not a voice. What would it want to say? What am I making this mean? There's lots of inquiry that we can use to really start loosening the grip of this attachment. And then the fourth is all of it is in service to a true unmet need from our past in some capacity. So our mental, emotional and behavioral patterns are all in service to a true unmet need. So can you give?
Speaker 1:an example of that.
Speaker 2:Yeah, just yesterday I had a whole bunch of people that were really working with this need as a child, to be seen and really acknowledged for what they were going through. We could be wanting our partners to constantly see ups or fulfill that need or shutting it down. Then all of a sudden our needs aren't important enough. It can come out in many different ways, like when I say all emotional, mental and behavioral patterns are all in service to a need. So we could use some sort of pattern that we're aware of that keeps cycling through. We know there's a sense that it's the same, but it's different people, different places, different circumstances. But there's the sense that, oh, I'm living this again. So we can even work with the pattern, but we're still going to always take it back to the beginning. The body, the emotions, like these five parts are really key, no matter where we are and what we're dealing with. But when we meet that need, when we get really clear, when we take other people off the hook because no one can meet those needs for us, even if as a child, they were true needs that someone else needed to meet for us as an adult, this is part of that.
Speaker 2:First step of the five layer approach. Is that radical responsibility or that conscious ownership? As adults we get to go back and parent. We get to meet those needs for ourselves or ask for them, because we can also ask for them. And when we meet that need, as we take other people off the hook, we feel fulfilled on the inside. That also opened up for experiences on the outside to come towards us in a really loving, fulfilling way that we might have been pushing away with this need. I mean, when you think about it, unmet needs can come out as passive, aggressive behavior, manipulative behavior, needy behavior which is kind of repelling. We even feel repelled by our own. When we're there, when we have gained some awareness, not only do we feel fulfilled on the inside, but when we take other people off the hook, then there's more space for them to move towards us and really meet us.
Speaker 2:Then that fifth is we get to receive. In that process we're receiving from that moment, instead of feeling defined by it, we're reclaiming parts of ourselves that we might have shut down, like our innocence, our voice or our sensuality or sexuality so many parts that we get to reclaim and receive. That's a bit of the ways in which I work with that somatic inquiry and to give you a bit of a story from my own life, I have three children and my kids all do this work. They meditate, they do breath work. That's great. They do inquiry. They attend my retreats and I remember when my middle son was about 17 and he had an experience with his brother where he felt disempowered and he felt really impacted by it. They kind of know and knew they'd come to me Mom, can you do that process? Because they know that there's something more to unravel or unearth above it.
Speaker 2:So I go and we kind of tap in and connect again with the body. Is that always that first place to go? So really honoring the sensations that are there, with this feeling of being disempowered, so sensations and experiences. And then working through some of the emotions that were connected, so disempowered and I don't remember the other ones but maybe sad and maybe even frustration, but really working with the layers of emotion. And then in that we connected to a four-year-old self that had a memory of being with a male caregiver that where his needs really weren't met, he wasn't heard he felt really disempowered by, and so we did some work with.
Speaker 2:So this is that ownership we have the ability, even my 17-year-old to go back and hold that little four-year-old and to really see him and honor the needs that weren't met at that time. And after I walked him through this process and it's a very experiential, like it's not an intellectual experience when we start working somatically, it's like we're experiencing it, this place of just transformation on the inside. So we get towards the end and I said to him so what? And it was just so transformational. He felt so empowered and so held. He really met that need on the inside and I said so is there anything that you need to do in reference to this current situation with your brother? Then he just had this grin from ear to ear and he said no, my brother doesn't have my power, you know. It just washed away because it was triggering this old part in him that was coming to the surface.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it was an amazing skill to teach your kids, and especially boys, to teach them how to handle that emotion and not step it down and try and hide it, but to work through it in the moment, before it really gets stuck as soon as it happens. To start working through it is really incredible. Yeah, good job mom. Thanks, that's awesome. Yeah, yeah. To bring in to the world more self-aware people like that that can help themselves and make themselves feel better, and then put out more positive vibes and kindness as a result.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:It's great. Where can people find you if they want to work with you?
Speaker 2:Yeah, at theothersideofaveragecom is my website or on Instagram or Facebook. I'm not on Facebook very much. I must admit that if you actually want to DM me, it's better to do it on Instagram. But both Facebook and Instagram are at the other side of average.
Speaker 1:Do you have anything you want to share with the listeners? Just inspiration or resource?
Speaker 2:There's actually a little mini course that is for sale, but it's on my website and it is about embodying the work and how to break the cycle. I go in much more depth into the toss and method. I go through some processes with some people we even do some breath work. I would give you a coupon code for free, but I didn't prepare that ahead of time. If you have show notes or something, I can get that to you. If people want access to that, just to learn a little bit more than we can do that.
Speaker 1:I'll definitely put it in the show notes so you can give that to me and I'll make sure it gets in there. Do you do retreats or anything like that? Yeah?
Speaker 2:Twice a year, in January and June, and they're called Awakening Through Trauma. The next one is January 19th 2024. It's a five-day immersive retreat where we go deep into somatic work and meditation and breath work and really truly deep, safe holding with quite a container. Yeah.
Speaker 1:That sounds pretty awesome, Very interesting work, especially with the breath work. I always heard about that but I haven't experienced it. Is there any last thing you want to say before we sign off here?
Speaker 2:Well to you much gratitude for all that you're doing. The content on your podcast is really beautiful and such a resource for people and then to listeners. Just that. That innateness is within you. The answers are within and, ultimately, what you're seeking is yourself, that wisdom on the inside, and there is support, the tools available to you for you to access that.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and this is a good place to start at your website. Thank you so much for being here today and sharing this. A lot of people go through trauma, unfortunately, and, like you said, it could be generation to generation or just within your own mind you keep repeating something or in your life you keep repeating something. So to have a better understanding of it through this talk and to have resources they can turn to is great. So thank you so much, thank you.