The Organic Intelligence Approach to Healing Trauma, with Steve Hoskinson

In this episode of GUTS, I talk with Steve Hoskinson, founder of Organic Intelligence. Steve is an internationally recognized teacher, author and innovator in Post-Trauma Growth (PTG).

Topics Discussed Include:

• The Polyvagal Theory
• Trauma as physiological states, not just events
• The importance of external awareness and senses
• The role of negativity bias and how to overcome it
• The integration of mind, body, and consciousness in healing
• Mindfulness and trauma
• The churn: understanding stress and trauma
• The duality of experience: mind and consciousness
• Building a foundation of well-being
• Learning to walk: the journey of healing
• The wounded healer
• The shift from trauma focus to well-being
• The importance of external orientation
• Healing through connection and co-regulation
• The role of nature in healing

If you’d like to learn more about Steve, or the courses he offers — including the Organic Intelligence Coach Certification, you can visit his website at: organicintelligence.org/oi-coach-certification/

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ABOUT JOEY
Joey is a certified Teacher of Presence Life Coach, having studied with Eckhart Tolle at The School of Awakening. He has also studied, and practices, Native American spirituality, Buddhism, and the teachings of Ram Dass. Joey has been practicing mindfulness and meditation for many years, and is a long-time student on the subjects of self-care, neuroplasticity, trauma, psychology, spirituality, goals, and relationships.

LEARN MORE
Learn more about Joey, his life coaching practice, or book a complimentary discovery call by visiting his website.

Transcript

Joey Donovan Guido (00:00)
Welcome to the Guts podcast. I'm Joey Donovan-Gaido and today we're gonna be talking all about trauma

with Steve Hoskinson. And Steve is the founder, hello, Steve is the founder of Organic Intelligence he's an internationally recognized teacher, author and innovator in post-trauma growth, which we will be talking about today.

And with that, Steve, welcome to the show.

Steve Hoskinson (00:30)
⁓ Thank you so much. so looking forward to our conversation and just really appreciate the invitation.

Joey Donovan Guido (00:36)
Yeah, let's jump

so for me, like I'm also a big fan of Stephen Porges and the Polyvagal theory. And, you know, learned a lot about, you know, the green, the yellow and the red zones and

feel that like for me and I think for a lot of people what happens is you know we kind of get stuck like in this you fight or flight or in the yellow and the red zones and for me I think a lot of that ties back into a very lengthy span of time where there were financial issues ⁓ from layoffs and things like that where

They dragged on for so long and they were kind of traumatic events, you know?

Steve Hoskinson (01:21)
and sort of feeling like survival level things.

Joey Donovan Guido (01:24)
totally. So I can see that I can, as the observer, I can see this playing out.

That's one of the things that I wanted to kind of dig into today because one of the things I really like about what you do,

how you say like, you you don't got to dig to the root of the trauma.

And I kind of find that too, in listening to people like Ram Dass especially, who was a psychotherapist at one point, you can dig and dig and dig and get to the root or you can just put it down.

Steve Hoskinson (01:55)
Yeah, yeah. I think that's so relevant for some of us. you know, as we're talking, clearly your mindfulness practice has been going for a while and you know, you have a lot of resources, emotional, intellectual, know, lot of resources. And then I'm really concerned right now at

Joey Donovan Guido (01:56)
So.

Mm-hmm.

Steve Hoskinson (02:20)
people with fewer resources, you know, and sometimes it shows up as like you create your own reality. So if you're struggling or suffering, well, it's kind of your fault, you know, and you've got to and that's just I think that's a terrible message to send. You know, people are inundated and just swamped with stress and trauma and distress and anxiety and, you know, all the things.

Joey Donovan Guido (02:38)
I agree.

Steve Hoskinson (02:49)
So yes, if we can get people to a point where they can just set it down and then be in the present, that's something. But I think there are a lot of steps. I know I've had to take a zillion of them to get to this point of even being able to contemplate just, now we can just be. And so I like those approaches, but I just think we're in a different age now.

Joey Donovan Guido (03:13)
Yeah.

Steve Hoskinson (03:18)
think we're on a different day and people don't come with the same sets of resources generally. So I don't think we can preach to everybody as if they have all these resources or can get them if they would set their intentions or do their practice every day or something.

Joey Donovan Guido (03:18)
Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Yeah, and it's interesting that I totally agree with you when I find that there's that there is kind of almost like this innate guilt built into society like, well, if you if you're struggling with whatever.

whether it's trauma or the stress associated with trauma or something, a trauma that is actually in the midst of forming, right? You my understanding is that trauma isn't the event, it's the replaying of that event over and over after the event is gone and in the past. like, but it's, I think a lot of people come at this from a place of the mind.

Steve Hoskinson (04:19)
Yes. Yes.

Joey Donovan Guido (04:19)
Right? This

plane of existence that is the thinking mind. And one of the things I learned is that, yes, the mind is a great tool. And also, for many people, including myself most of my life, my mind ran the show.

Steve Hoskinson (04:39)
Thank

Me too. Me too. And what a relief to get something else. Like that there is another aspect of being, another aspect of consciousness that can ultimately, I think, embrace mind, embrace the function of mind, can do, you know, like really functional kind of thinking and problem solving and prioritizing and do all the things that minds can do.

Joey Donovan Guido (04:44)
Yeah.

Steve Hoskinson (05:11)
in addition to relating to the constant jukebox of ⁓ blah blah blah that we have going on, you know? And so in the midst of that we're trying to find some kind of center of the cyclone, I guess as Lily would say.

Joey Donovan Guido (05:28)
I like that. That's a good analogy. Because that center is the part of us that isn't the thought, that isn't the emotion, that isn't the drama that we're experiencing, right? It's the eye of the storm, which is that consciousness.

Steve Hoskinson (05:42)
Yes.

Yes.

I enjoy the thing that I've been really interested in lately and I've been looking at some of the Tibetans and their kind of work on consciousness. And I'm just beginning to ⁓ look at this. But ⁓ the notion that we turn from, we try to get to the center of the cyclone and from there we can

somehow be separate from all of the machinations of in the head, you know, to change from that perspective into one where we are still turning. Like there is center and there is the cyclonic, you know, detritus that's out there, the flotsam and jetsam of our conditioning that somehow there is room for

all of that within mind. And that's what I'm really looking for these days. And I think it takes a minute to kind of get there, I don't even know what there is. ⁓ But that's what I'm looking for these days of really moving beyond the dualities of this is good and this is like a distraction or even an obscuration. And the thing I like about what I'm beginning to hear and

places like Dzogchen or Mahamudra is, those things also are reflection of essential nature. That is, those things are not separate from ⁓ essence either. And how can I get to and cultivate the grace that is that realization?

Joey Donovan Guido (07:28)
Mm-hmm.

Yeah, well said. It's interesting also. It's something Ram Dass talks about, and Ram Dass had gone to therapy and was also a therapist. And once he became a spiritual teacher, one of the things he mentioned was that he never ever got rid of any of his neuroses, which is what he called them, know, anxiety, worry, all that stuff.

Steve Hoskinson (08:00)
Yeah.

Joey Donovan Guido (08:03)
and but he started to look at it differently. He didn't look at these things as these huge pillars of things to be ashamed of or to hide or to quote unquote get rid of, which is similar to what you're saying. It was almost like, okay, there they are. Hi, I see you. And I think you're totally onto something there because it's not either or. It's not

Steve Hoskinson (08:12)
Hmm.

Joey Donovan Guido (08:31)
⁓ I'm stuck in egoic practices of mind and thinking and emotion, or I'm in consciousness. It's the marriage of the two. The human being experiences both at the same time.

Steve Hoskinson (08:38)
Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah.

Joey Donovan Guido (08:48)
And it's when we can just be. Sometimes I am really feeling upset about something. And at the same time, I'm observing it and saying, wow, I'm really freaking out right now. And I'm laughing at myself at that higher plane of existence while I'm stuck in an emotion.

Steve Hoskinson (09:04)
I guess.

Yes.

Joey Donovan Guido (09:16)
So to your point, there is room for both. And neither is right and neither is wrong. It's two sides of a coin. The coin is the coin.

Steve Hoskinson (09:19)
year.

Yeah, that's right. The coin is everything really, isn't it? Thank you. And thank you for naming. think that what we're trying to do in organic intelligence is really address the needs of people who, where we lose that observer. To be able to see, I am struggling right now, and to have access to an aspect that is not in the churn, ⁓ that's...

Joey Donovan Guido (09:30)
Yeah.

Steve Hoskinson (09:56)
That is an achievement. think people go from churn to churn in their life and there's not much of an opening. And so we think that we have an access to biologically based tools ⁓ that help reduce the churn. And when the churn, the noise of that churn comes down,

then we may have some options for, you know, something better, a better state of consciousness, a better state of mind, some greater direction, prioritization, being able to follow through with wholesome intentions and so on.

But the churn, I think, is a big issue. And I think current psychology and current therapy and current trauma approaches that are then taking us to the root that you were talking about or trying to dig out the source or even review the event add too much intensity that adds then to the churn.

Joey Donovan Guido (10:46)
Yeah.

Steve Hoskinson (11:10)
And sometimes it works really well. You may know I trained in the somatic world of trauma for 17 years. And so I trained in those approaches that will take the traumatic event and then chunk it down into titrated bits. And we're going to feel the sensation of that and then discharge it. And so that sometimes works. But we take a really different approach because

feel like it's safer to realize something else, to build a foundation of well-being first. And that's where we start. And as it turns out, once you begin to build that foundation, it starts to build itself, and then you can begin to let go of a lot of things, like we've been talking, like just set it all down.

Joey Donovan Guido (12:02)
But this, you know, it's interesting when you talk about the churn because that's one of the things like even in preparing for a podcast, at least from my end, the mind can sometimes start to take over with fear. Like, am I prepared enough? Do I have my questions ready? And, you know, when that churn is in full force,

It's almost like being in the IMAX theater in the front row.

Steve Hoskinson (12:34)
Right? Right? Just immersed in it.

Joey Donovan Guido (12:37)
Right. And we don't realize it's part of the passing parade and it's just a moment and it's just part of a moment. It just happens to be all we can see at that point. And so like for me, it's like getting that taking that step back from what you call the churn being able to say, you know what?

I am not my thoughts and emotions. They are things I experience.

Steve Hoskinson (13:02)
Mmm.

Joey Donovan Guido (13:08)
And I can't remember exactly where I learned this if it was from Eckhart Tolle or Jay Shetty or someone else, but it was something I learned. And for me, was life changing because I always identified myself with my thoughts and emotions.

Steve Hoskinson (13:25)
Yes, yes, yes. We take an approach in a personal resilience and mindfulness course that we call the end of trauma course. And in that, we go through each channel of experience. that we mostly what we've got is the meaning channel or thoughts. But there are loads of other channels. And we use this acronym ISOMA. So there are images, there are bodily sensations.

There's the experience of the outside world through the senses that we call orientation. There are thoughts and feelings. And we take our time each week to go through each of those channels and practice receiving positive states through each of those channels. Because, ⁓ like the fear that you say or trauma, these are simply physiological

biological states. And that's what we work with in organic intelligence. And all of those states are comprised of combinations of images, sensations, orientation, meanings, and affects. And so by getting more choices, like, I might be in my thoughts. What if I were to shift to orientation? Like, what if instead of doing

Joey Donovan Guido (14:46)
Hmm.

Steve Hoskinson (14:48)
Battle on the battleground of cognition, which is where we've been slain, you know, so many times What if we go to another channel altogether? What if I'm in? Orientation I'm just connecting to the environment now different feedback comes in and different states come in because unfortunately negative states are Reinforced by what's called negative reinforcement and the negativity bias has us and so there is a

Joey Donovan Guido (14:55)
Ha

Steve Hoskinson (15:18)
fundamental physiological principle that keeps us stuck on what's wrong and the ability to do what you did which is go, what if I'm not that and what if I can then shift to another channel like orientation or like the ability to shift states then we get the realization over time it's like ⁓ I'm not any of those I'm not that image I'm having I'm not that thought I'm not

the world outside, I'm not the feelings that I'm having. You know, we get more sense of distance from those and strangely also more participation in those. So that's part of our approach to being able to disidentify from our experience by actually experiencing other facets of our experience that are perhaps more relevant to, you know,

Joey Donovan Guido (15:59)
Hmm

Steve Hoskinson (16:16)
being in the here and now.

Joey Donovan Guido (16:17)
Yeah, I like that a lot. I really do. It's it's just it sounds like a way of practicing mindfulness intentionally. And from what I found, I don't know, you can tell me what what you find with with your clients and with yourself. That kind of starts off as almost like a ⁓ learning to ride a bike or learning to walk. It has to be intentional and kind of like

Steve Hoskinson (16:26)
Yes.

Yeah.

Joey Donovan Guido (16:48)
put yourself in a place to think, okay, like, I'm gonna do this now. And over time, it starts to become just instinctual.

Steve Hoskinson (16:52)
Yes.

Right, right. That's so true. That's so apt. know, the ⁓ metaphor of learning to walk is so apt because it's in there. It's like it's already there. All of the mechanisms are there and we can maybe help it along by, you know, like when my kids were toddlers, I would...

follow around with them. I'd be right behind them as they were trying to like figure out their way in the world and then when they would teeter over just at the edge of like really losing it, I'd come in and just provide that little bit of support so they didn't have that traumatic crash that then would disorganize everything and they kind of have to start over. So they would get like a really safe runway to then take off and did quite well.

So I love the metaphor of learning to walk because we suggest that our own wholeness is there all the time, that orientation connecting to the environment through the senses is inborn within us and too little access, and that this wholeness is messaging us all the time in those other isoma channels.

while the what's wrong attention has us in thought and I'm ruminating and fearful and I'm not prepared and I wish I had and they shouldn't have said and all of that business that's happening. Meanwhile, my hand is on the sides of my cheek as I'm going, oh, all of these thoughts. But if I change my perspective to the sensation channel, I feel my face.

in a loving way. And there is the postcard from home. And all the time, our systems are sending us those postcards, which we miss because our bifocal vision has been hijacked by the negativity bias in what's wrong. And that includes trauma. And that's why think trauma therapy needs to radically be transformed.

Joey Donovan Guido (19:08)
Yeah.

Steve Hoskinson (19:16)
into this perspective based on the notion of getting around that negativity bias.

coming back to our senses.

Joey Donovan Guido (19:27)
Yeah.

And something that came up for me just now was, you know, when we do this, when we quote unquote come to our senses and make that space, it doesn't necessarily mean that that rumination or that fear or whatever goes away.

Steve Hoskinson (19:46)
Yeah, yeah, yeah, brilliant, brilliant, right? It's not a negation, it's an affirmation that then creates the room for me to be with all of it.

Joey Donovan Guido (20:00)
Yep,

yep. Making space for more than just that thing that's right in your face. And yeah, yeah. But a lot of people think that when they do this work, myself included at one point, that, if I just get good enough at it, won't feel that bad stuff anymore. And it's like, yeah, no, that's not how it works.

Steve Hoskinson (20:07)
Yes.

Yeah, yeah,

yeah. You know, there is, I don't know, my experience has been that there was just desperation driving the healing project of Steve. And there was a point where that desperation fell away. So there is something that shifted. Like, I don't know, if you look back on your life and...

I do and I just sort of shake my head, was like, poor Steve, such a wreck, such a mess, know, really. And just like drowning in distress in one way or another and trying this therapy and that therapy and this retreat and just grasping at anything that I could until finally kind of getting traction.

Joey Donovan Guido (20:57)
You

Steve Hoskinson (21:18)
And we just hope that we can get people traction sooner so the suffering can stop sooner and we can get onto the business of leaning into this, how do you call it, learning to walk. Like learning to walk. Thich Nhat Hanh of course said, the miracle is not walking on water, the miracle is being able to walk on the earth. And so if we we just getting back to that.

being able to walk on the earth. That's what we hope to help people get to.

Joey Donovan Guido (21:52)
bit more about yourself and how organic intelligence came to be because it sounds like before it existed you had your own journey that from what I can see really made it possible for you to help others because you went through it yourself.

Steve Hoskinson (22:12)
That's so true. that the wounded healer? Right? I mean, that's ⁓ so much a ⁓ theme for us for sure. And take so much of the pressure off. I trained as a psychotherapist and in training as a psychologist. ⁓ And by the way, I didn't complete that training. I ran away and joined the somatic circus. So then began to train in somatic experiencing and other methods.

Joey Donovan Guido (22:34)
Hahaha

Steve Hoskinson (22:42)
That transition was key. That is, I went to graduate school in clinical psychology, went all the way through, and got to the point where it wasn't enough. And so I began exploring Eastern traditions. I began to practice Aikido. I began to do meditation. I found and began to, you know,

sort of delve into the Grgev work and there are many, many traditions that those were the flotation devices I was reaching for ⁓ because I just had felt I was drowning in disorientation and anxiety and distress and procrastination and all the things, you know, and so.

when I began to get traction just by the accumulation of all of those psychotherapists, you know, I just burned through so many psychotherapists, I feel badly for them because they were really good at what they did and I was just immune to the process. I learned a lot, but each of those baby steps incrementally then brought me to, you know, finally being able to get traction when I began to get the somatic.

Joey Donovan Guido (23:48)
You

Steve Hoskinson (24:05)
⁓ element, get the body piece really on board. And so from that I began to realize, ⁓ there is something more even than sensation. There is this intelligence within us that is a wholeness wanting to communicate itself. And so I stopped being trauma focused and really began to look at the well-being that's arising.

from each person in all of their channels of experience and began to reflect those back and then people began to organize. They began to get traction on their own sense of ⁓ wisdom and intelligence.

in this really safer way. When I was working in trauma, we would have people feel their sensations. They would talk about their trauma and then they would feel the sensations of trauma. They would feel tightness in the shoulders, an image of something scary coming to them. And then we would feel that in the body and then it would ⁓ perhaps ⁓ discharge and go away.

What I found was sometimes after the session, people didn't actually get better. Sometimes they actually got worse. And so I realized that something had to change. had lit a fire that rather than just warming the system and then burning out, it became a forest fire. so I set out to discover how to be able to do this safely, how to really...

work with somebody so that the fire is warming and friendly and not really ⁓ going to burn down the house.

Joey Donovan Guido (25:57)
And is this directly related to the post-trauma growth that you do?

Steve Hoskinson (26:01)
Yeah, exactly,

exactly. So we began with ⁓ these channels, image, sensation, orientation, meaning, and affect. We began with beginning to recognize that orientation is one of the preconditions. So it's a bit counterintuitive because it is getting the attention not inside, but outside. As a therapist, I had been trained for helping people

be aware of their emotions and identify their emotions and their feelings, their thoughts, their sensations even, and had been facilitating mindfulness, like from college days, that's back in the previous millennium, and helping them then be inward, this inward, which is necessary at one point. But on the early part of the journey,

We've got to bring the attention into the exterior environment because the brain is doing something really important and needs that information. And it needs the information from the outside because the brain is, and neuroscience is really clear on this, the brain is the predicting brain. It's actually mapping what's out there and getting us ready for what's coming. And so if my...

attention and awareness is all on the inside, it can't get me ready for actually what's really coming. If it's on the inside, the information is all based on the past. So I'm being ⁓ readied for what's happened in the past. And that typically is not, you know, like our favorite place to be. So instead, we just get the mindfulness of the external world and register that.

Joey Donovan Guido (27:47)
Ha ha ha ha.

Steve Hoskinson (27:55)
and then the brain can do its job of predicting like, ⁓ it's a warm sunny day out there or, wow, it's really breezy or there's snow happening out there maybe and it'll begin to create little pre-goose bumps to get you ready. The brain is the predicting brain and orientation as connecting to the environment through the senses is the bridge that helps that happen.

Joey Donovan Guido (28:23)
It's so interesting because this is exactly what I look at. It's from a slightly different angle, but it's that outside world that one gives me more objectivity. Because if it's all internal, like you said, based on the past and being negativity biased, we're remembering the negative. And then there's this, it's like all of sudden this real

Steve Hoskinson (28:38)
Yes.

Joey Donovan Guido (28:51)
dark scene from a movie that doesn't really exist anywhere else but in between our ears. And this awareness or tapping into the external also connects us with nature, with our surroundings, with an energy that is outside of ourselves, with what I would call the universe.

Steve Hoskinson (28:53)
Yes.

Yes.

Yes.

Yes.

Joey Donovan Guido (29:16)
Some would call God or Buddha or whatever, but to me these are all pointing to the same oneness.

Steve Hoskinson (29:25)
Yes, yes. In a really clear, ordinary human fashion. know, it's Charlotte Jocobac, ⁓ sensei in the Zen tradition, wrote a book called Nothing Special. It's just what's there, just normal kind of, or ⁓ regular, usual physical reality. There's the wall, there's the light, there's the tree, you know, it...

helps us get a little accustomed to equanimity, gets us a little accustomed to just here and now. Nothing magical, nothing dreadful, just nor- and that's foundational. And many people, many, many people feel relief because they've been on such a journey of distress. Getting back to neutral is a great relief.

But from there, then we can build toward those areas that you described that are actually quite blissful as well. The realization of our participation in everything in nature and with one another.

Joey Donovan Guido (30:42)
So you mentioned this already about starting from the healing of our biology and how it helps us grow and let go of some of the trauma. Can you dive a little bit more into how that works and how it helps us grow spiritually?

Steve Hoskinson (30:49)
Yes.

yeah, that's, I'd love to ⁓ continue our conversation this way with how we're heading. But it begins with that orientation that sets our system on a more even keel and gives us some foundation of ease. what, my discovery of this was really accidental. I began to use these, this process of orientation in session.

And then I found this weird thing happening, which is people stopped talking so much about their trauma and started talking about and having access to resources. And these resources come up from inside. And so just like I was saying, like, I'd be stressed out. And then in my mind, I'd be going, why did that happen? Why me? Why, you know? And then I realized in sensation channel in this other channel,

Here's my hands on either side of my cheeks just loving me up somehow. So the sensation channel is bringing a reflection of our essence. And the meaning channel is doing its thing. No harm, no foul. So we get used to then doing orientation and in the midst of orientation we begin to find

in the images or in the sensations, sometimes in thoughts and feelings, that there will be another message. And the message is like, you're okay. Like everything is okay right now. And it's not a cognitively mediated thing. It's an actual experience. And it is there alongside all the other stuff. But if I can bring my awareness to orientation,

and the orientation to the enjoyment of these messages of our being, that's what begins to help our system organize. And then that's what begins to create the states that heal us and that are reflections of our already healed being.

Joey Donovan Guido (33:25)
I love that. And that's something that Stephen Poor just talks about too, when he talks about even though we may in actuality be safe, if we don't feel safe, then this healing can't occur, this feeling of safeness or what he'll call the green zone, where we start to kind of come down off the cliff, so to speak.

Steve Hoskinson (33:38)
Yes.

Mm-hmm.

Yes, yes, exactly. And for us it begins with connection to the exterior environment through the senses, which we say is a kind of proxy for the ventral vagal system or social engagement. Portis says the ventral vagal system is social engagement. We broaden that to see that it's engagement with the environment through the senses. And we start there just because

You know, we're often in a clinical setting, we're in a coaching setting, and ⁓ people may not have a really positive experience with other people, and other contact with other people can be scary. And so instead of going, let's do the attachment thing, we're now just gaze into my eyes, you know? know, have so many of our clients that would just hop right out of their bodies and, know, into the atmosphere someplace.

Joey Donovan Guido (34:35)
Yeah.

You

Hahaha

Steve Hoskinson (34:49)
So instead we go just let your eyes go where they want to go and so maybe that's to somebody or maybe that's out the window to the hummingbird to the butterfly to the tree to the clouds Right to the picture on the wall. So we really hand over to the system itself the reigns of guidance toward well-being and knowing that the system wants to walk wants to

inhabit its wholeness, we can trust it over time to come out of the habit of what's wrong, that negativity bias, and begin to cultivate the other, which is the savoring of wholeness and well-being. Safety is not in words.

Joey Donovan Guido (35:37)
Yeah. Would you say your process, which I love, is a form of co-regulation but not just with another person?

Steve Hoskinson (35:48)
Yes, fully, fully. is relationally contextualized with the coach standing in the position of realizing that they're talking to another whole being. That is, we're not seeing people in terms of their wounds, although we see that. We recognize that within the context of the entirety of their wholeness and that

is deeply co-regulating. When you get somebody there that sees both your woundedness and your transcendence simultaneously, that is deeply deeply healing, deeply co-regulating. And within that arises person's agency and the ability to act more and more from the standpoint of that well-being.

Joey Donovan Guido (36:45)
And with that work, like when someone comes to you in a state...

from a traumatic event or events, they come to you feeling perpetually overwhelmed, stressed, stuck in that feeling of danger or threat. What's some of the first things you work on with them? Is it what you just mentioned? ⁓ Is it breath work? Like what's the first thing that...

Steve Hoskinson (37:07)
Yes.

Joey Donovan Guido (37:23)
I know I'm blanketing things because it might be different for different people, but is there one or two things that seem to work for a large bit of people you work with?

Steve Hoskinson (37:25)
No, that's okay.

Well, it's super that you ask because the thing that we begin with always is attunement, is the relational connection and the communication to the client that they as a person are more important than my ideas of what healing is supposed to be. Like that person is what really matters. And so once we get that established, that's a vehicle.

Then we have a relational vehicle that then we can really collaborate on a plan for how healing might take place and how they can take part in that plan. And in fact, we'll co-develop it. We have these physiologically based tools like orientation, orientation to wholesome pleasure and enjoyment, and all of that then begins to ⁓ be experimented with.

I wouldn't coach a person typically on orientation. Like we would wait and then at one point they look out the window and you see the biology bringing orientation to us. And as they begin to notice that I might join them and enjoy that looking out the window. And then we might take a moment and go, wow, how nice it is that we can take a break from everything and just

be in the here and now by seeing just the breeze and the trees, something like that. And then a new state comes. And then we're beginning to value that state ⁓ because we value those states of, ⁓ you know, like feeling better, not because they are healing in themselves, they're just better, but because...

What we've discovered is that the way our systems, our biology wants to heal from trauma is that it wants to grow its bandwidth and that it grows its bandwidth not by rehearsing what are the layers of all the things that went wrong and all the feelings that I have about those that is negatively valence, but actually the similar intensity, but in a positive valence. There was a, there was a

classic OI session in which I was talking with somebody who had been in the Loma Prieta earthquake and not far from where we are and she had been in her house and her kids were there and and there was this earthquake there was loss of life but what she talked about was how beautiful it was when she moved to Pleasanton, California. Pleasanton as if that's not a clue and so

in Pleasanton and she said, know how it is and you'd be there and there's like in Christmas there'd be like surfing Santa, you know Santa in his trunks out there and she began to tear up. She said this was the beginning of like a better life for me and my kids and so there was the affect, there were the tears and then she said

And you know, I was at home and remember the wall phones? You'd get on the wall phones and there was a train, but it was my train and it would go by and you'd go, wait a minute, hold on, the train's going by. And then the whole, she said the whole house would shake. Right? And so she was describing the same experience of being in the earthquake, all the what's called retrieval cues, but not in a negative way in a uniquely

positive way. Same experience as the earthquake at home with the kids, house shaking, but instead of it being the terrifying version of that, which is the upside down, she gave the version of it that would give her the experience but without all of the negative intensity. And that then grows capacity. That's how our systems want to process what's called trauma, which are these states.

That's how the system wants to integrate those states through that kind of positive valence. And it's completely upside down. It's completely the opposite of what we're generally told to do about trauma and its healing.

Joey Donovan Guido (42:02)
Hmm.

Steve Hoskinson (42:04)
Can you imagine? Can you even imagine? There was another session that is on our videos, and it's where a client was just imagining something. We had been talking about cave paintings. We were talking about ancient humans. She had an interest in this. I think she had a picture of Durga there or something nearby, this Indian goddess. And she began to imagine.

Joey Donovan Guido (42:05)
⁓

Steve Hoskinson (42:32)
this scene of going back into the caves, back into the day when there'd be cave art. And she said, there would be these mothers and their children. There was food there. And I would be helping the mothers with the children. She was doing like a Jungian active imagination thing. And where she was part of this group and there was help and the children were there and there was safety there. And she...

realized ultimately that she had been talking about her own sort of birth scenarios and attachment scenarios and the reconnection to the matriarchal lineage. All of this through, you know, like transforming the traumatic recall without even thinking about it first. The healing version of that was presented and that's

how trauma heals. With the right preparation, systems just bring themselves like the next step, like learning to walk. And it's just mind-blowing all the time that the healing of our physiological states is what our system does. Trauma ⁓ is what we make of it, in a way. is, know, that trauma

is a concept and the biology is physiology, it's physiological states. so in order to work with trauma, then we have to see it first as its physiological states and then we begin to understand how the body wants to process it.

Joey Donovan Guido (44:19)
Yeah, totally. It's something I learned from Mark Brady, who was my brain guy. That's what I call him, but he was an expert in cognitive process and the working of the brain. And what I learned from him was about the metabolization of stress. And I didn't know this cognitively, but I knew it in my physiology because I love to go out and walk and run.

Steve Hoskinson (44:37)
Yes.

Mmm.

Joey Donovan Guido (44:49)
And

it's almost what I call taking a shower on the inside and literally leaving some of this trauma and this stress and this fear, sweating it out, so to speak. And I think to your point about one of your points, it's...

Steve Hoskinson (44:54)
Yeah.

Nice, nice.

Joey Donovan Guido (45:14)
getting out of our head. This is a literal example of actually getting out into the world. And we notice what we notice, right? We might notice our footsteps. We might notice the birds. I notice the wind a lot. I have a very interesting relationship with the wind because I used to really not like when it was windy out until I did a meditation on wind in Ireland of all places. And I realized, man, the wind is just...

Steve Hoskinson (45:22)
Right?

Hmm.

Really?

Joey Donovan Guido (45:45)
It's just existing.

Steve Hoskinson (45:47)
Wow. Wow.

Joey Donovan Guido (45:48)
And kind of back to your perception, like my original perception was, let me complain about this. And now it's, ⁓ there's the wind.

Steve Hoskinson (45:55)
Yeah.

It's just existing. It's not that, ooh, the wind. It's just wind. Back to like fundamental reality. And also elemental reality. Like in terms of the elements, wind is a potent force of transformation as well.

Joey Donovan Guido (46:10)
Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

And it goes back to your point about what's going on in the mind and how we're perceiving something instead of or just looking at it and saying, okay, that's just like, that's the wind. that's some fear.

Steve Hoskinson (46:42)
Hmm. Yes. Yes, that's a sensation and then that's that's a fear. That's a thought that's Then there is that that's just wind and from that's just wind there can be so many other possibilities because we're not running in the same channels of what's wrong of The you know the approach avoidance system. It can just be some new Opening it's just wind

Joey Donovan Guido (47:04)
Yes.

Yeah, you just read my mind because when you said that I was thinking about ⁓ aversion and attachment, right? We're not running toward it, we're not pushing it away. We're just noticing it's there. And that's, from what I found, that's where the suffering comes in is when we want to hold on to a good feeling or push away one that we see as negative.

Steve Hoskinson (47:19)
yes

Yeah. ⁓

Yes.

Joey Donovan Guido (47:38)
So on that note, is there anything else you'd like to share before we wrap up?

Steve Hoskinson (47:45)
It's just the enjoyment and appreciation of this time and this for me has also been a gift to be able to share some time with you and the sincerity of your own journey and the support then that you provide to I'm sure countless countless people and including and perhaps most importantly your spouse and your wife this the support that you provide and

and all the ways that your well-being emanates then into your household and then out far even beyond that. So kudos to you for that and gratitude for this time.

Joey Donovan Guido (48:27)
Yeah, thank you. appreciate the kind words and it's been a great gift for me as well to talk with you. And for listeners, if you'd like to learn more about Steve or the courses he offers and he's got some cool ones, including the Organic Intelligence Coach Certification, you can visit his website at organicintelligence.org.

And to get to that coach certification, it's organicintelligence.org backslash OI dash coach dash certification. That'll also be in our show notes for today. And with that, Steve, thank you for being on the show.

Steve Hoskinson (49:10)
It's such a pleasure. May all beings benefit from the work here.