Ritam Studio Podcast With Jonni Pollard and Carla Dimattina

Beyond Traditional Therapy: The Vedic Approach to Healing Trauma

• Jonni Pollard

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Jonni shines light on the foundations of Veda Therapy, a therapeutic approach rooted in Vedic tradition that focuses on liberating people from trauma patterns by reconnecting them with their true nature as knowing beings.

For those interested in experiencing these approaches, try the seven-day free trial on Ritam Studio, join Jonni's weekly group meditation on Thursdays  7pm Australian Eastern Standard Time, or consider attending one of their transformative retreats.


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  • With hundreds of hours of courses and knowledge content to take you ever deeper into understanding and supporting your growth & evolution. 
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Try for free today head to ritam.studio

Speaker 1:

Hi Johnny.

Speaker 2:

Hi Carla, how are you? I know how you are because you're my wife.

Speaker 1:

And we've been with each other all morning.

Speaker 2:

All last 10 years.

Speaker 1:

So our last episode together. You asked me some great questions for me to describe my work, and I'd like to do the same so people can understand your work more deeply, beyond just being not just beyond being a meditation teacher. So all the content on Ritam, what? What's the back, what's the basis of all your content?

Speaker 2:

uh, so many of you know you've heard me talk about this before, particularly in the podcast, when it was one giant that the foundation of all the knowledge I talk about or share is from the Vedic tradition. The word Vedic comes from the word Ved, which is the Sanskrit word or sound expressive of the experience of knowing oneself and reality, not dissimilar to the word ritam. Ritam is the place, the abode in which we can understand ourself. The Ved is a layer in reality that is also expressive of this state of knowingness, and so the Vedic tradition is a tradition dedicated to knowing reality and us being within reality. It implies that it's about knowing self, the origin of self, the source of self, the relationship with other, and to know best how to be in life in relationship, to cause the greatest evolutionary influence.

Speaker 2:

Evolution means to support the progress of change, progressive change, advancing from one state into a more sophisticated state, and this is all that's really happening with us every single day that we are becoming more aware of who we are.

Speaker 2:

And even if we're doing the research in destructive tendencies and behaviors through ignorance and denial and resistance, we are still advancing, believe it or not, and we are just becoming ever closer to understanding how unsustainable all of that is. Now, at some point, when we realize that all of that is unsustainable, all of that is Now, at some point when we realize that all of that is unsustainable, we start taking a more creative position and seeking to advance ourself out of dysfunction, out of misery, out of discomfort, out of pain, into a state of feeling more free and liberated and less bound by things that seem to be not in alignment with who and what we truly are, and this is the state that we describe as karma To transcend the karma, the binding influence of circumstance, relationships that make us feel trapped. Feeling trapped is actually a position in our awareness. It is a position, a posture of our consciousness, and there are certain yes, and that posture in our consciousness is resistant to change.

Speaker 1:

Is that right that that place is?

Speaker 2:

in in certain ways. Yes, yes, it is resisting change. It is maintaining or holding a pattern because it is terrified. We are terrified, or the body is traumatized and cannot let go of the holding pattern that it believes is defending and securing, making safe something that is wounded and very vulnerable, susceptible to danger. And so our holding patterns, from a psychological standpoint, are the narratives that we have to generate to justify a position of defense in order to protect something that has been hurt, that is weak and is vulnerable.

Speaker 2:

It's just an instinctive thing that we do as human beings, and, without the awareness that this is happening, we become trapped, we become bound by this, and so the Vedic worldview and all the Vedic practices, the whole tradition, is dedicated to liberating ourselves from the influence of the past, where we have been ignorant of our deeper nature, and that deeper nature is a state of knowingness imbued with extraordinary intelligence that has the capacity to detect and to implement insight into action. We call this knowledge becoming wisdom, where we are embodied in our knowingness and we are expressive of that knowingness, that intelligence that leads us progressively out of a state of being trapped into a state of being liberated, and this is what it's all about. So that's the foundation of the knowledge that I present in Rittam Studio.

Speaker 1:

Okay, so that sounds a lot and you articulate it so well. That is really a gift that you have, and for people to be able to follow such complex sequences and bring it into a way that we can relate to. So this forms the basis of the content you've put onto Ritam Studio and also the therapy process you take someone through to get unbound, to break these patterns. Is that right?

Speaker 2:

Correct. So I refer to my therapy process as Veda therapy, which is a therapeutic process that has at its foundations the understanding that what we are is knowing beings. We're knowing creatures. We know who we are. It is intrinsic in the experience of being human is that we come with knowingness. It's not something we learn, it's just something we learn. It's just something that is. If we don't know ourself, it's only because we have to unlearn caked-on belief systems that obstruct and obscure the experience of knowingness. So Veda therapy is a process of peeling back layers of belief systems from the mind and stress and trauma, peeling it out of the body, pulling it out of the body and for the purpose of exposing what we actually are. The whole process leads to knowingness, Whereas in most models of therapy, particularly clinical models, the framework for treatment is based on a catalog of pathology.

Speaker 2:

Everything is about the condition and diagnosing the condition and treating the condition by trying to manage it offset. But there's no actual model of the self that you are relaying your condition to that would enable you to actually truly heal from the trauma. What are you healing into if you have no model of self, If all we have is a condition and we're trying to resolve that condition. What are we resolving it into? And this, in my opinion, is the gaping hole in most therapeutic models, and it's incredibly obvious to me that the only way to cause healing of trauma is to have practices that first give us direct contact with the experience of the self, which is the meditation piece, and that's what meditation does very effortlessly. And once we've established a sense of self where we're able to witness that we're having an experience that is discordant with a deeper desire, how do we know something's wrong? It's because there is a conflict in preference. I'm experiencing something that is undesirable relative to something that is more deeply desirable, and that is where people suffer. They have an understanding of what they know to be true and what they want, and then there is something that is in direct conflict with it, and the conflict is the conditioned response, as well as the wounding or the damage done by the trauma that an individual has been exposed to.

Speaker 2:

These experiences cause pain and also have a big implication, a big negative impact on our self-perception. If we're exposed to violence, if someone is abusive to us ongoing, if we've been assaulted in some way, it is a violation of a fundamental dimension of our beingness. The dimension that has been violated is one that is so sacred it is sanctified in its sheer existence. Our existence is precious and it is so vulnerable and susceptible, particularly as children, to being damaged and distorted to the extent that we can lose the ability to be in touch with how sacred life is and how special our existence is, how special we are as humans. And it doesn't take much actually to cause somebody to forget this or to at least be in deep conflict about it. And this is essentially the foundation of all trauma.

Speaker 2:

And this is essentially the foundation of all trauma. Is this conflict about whether I am lovable or not, whether I am worthy to experience the life that I desire most or not, and generally, if it's not, it's because it's reinforced by a belief in the mind, within our psyche, that because this thing happened and I was treated this way and because of this, and that that is the evidence that in fact, I'm not somebody that is really that special or important If I was, that wouldn't have happened. We can positively affirm how lovable and wonderful we are, but if we have not addressed the wounding at this primal level, where there is a disconnect from our divine nature and the magnificence and the beauty of who and what we are.

Speaker 2:

We are always going to be susceptible to its influence, governed by it and defending it, inadvertently, subconsciously, it, and defending it inadvertently, subconsciously.

Speaker 2:

And so the therapy process is about peeling back the layers and exposing the core of the wound in a very gentle way and reacquainting the adult psyche with the child psyche, the inner child psyche, and causing a reintegration of the two to become one by a process of the adult self reparenting the child.

Speaker 2:

And it's a big process of exposing the story, becoming really familiar with how the symptoms of the trauma in the behavior and the mentality and the physical, emotional reactions present and developing sufficient awareness to witness and then engage with it, as you would a child that's having a tantrum or a meltdown with kind, loving, compassion and love, ourselves back into alignment and that's at the heart of it, that's the crux of it, and there are many different tools that we utilize in this process to support that experience happening swiftly.

Speaker 2:

And we've talked about the chain movement system and how complementary it is to the Veda therapy process. And now I think, if you've listened to the last episode that Carla and I did together, where she explicitly unpacks what the chain movement system is, now, with the understanding of what Veda therapy is. You can see very clearly the incredible power of bringing those two modalities together, unlocking what's in the body. It causes the release and the processing of this energy and this trauma to happen much more quickly, with a very clear understanding of what the self is, and being held accountable to that every week in a therapeutic process is a recipe for very rapid transformation into becoming the fullness of yourself.

Speaker 1:

Thanks for breaking that down, Joni. I know you have quite a few clients who are actually therapists themselves and could you share what they find in your process that was missing in their therapy, in the psychology that they've been taught?

Speaker 2:

So at the foundation of my therapy theory is the principle of embodiment. I think that in most models of therapy, a therapist isn't necessarily required to be embodied in a state that the therapy elicits. So it's not a requirement of you to be a therapist, to have been healed by your modality or to have at least done a lot of deep work to the extent that you are able to show up with an open heart and be deeply empathic and compassionate to the experience that your client is experiencing. And, and as a result of steps without intuitively detecting and deeply connecting with the experience of the person you're doing therapy with, you're only going to have access to a certain depth of the trauma. And so that's the first component. And the second component, as I mentioned, is that there isn't a clearly defined model of self.

Speaker 2:

Now, it's one thing to have a model of self, but then what is really required is for that model to be embodied in the therapist, and to me, this is the next evolution of any kind of therapy is that the therapists themselves are deeply embodied in a reconciled state, and it's in their own personal reconciliation that they have a clear pathway within their own awareness for the person they're facilitating the therapy for, and they're able to guide the journey in a far more nuanced way, really detecting incrementally what's needed next, what's needed next, what's needed next to join the dots, to get the momentum that someone would require to really open their hearts and embrace themselves, beyond the terror and the fear and the pain that they feel about doing that. And so effectiveness in therapy, in my opinion, is about this is being an embodied model of the self.

Speaker 1:

So, with that, it requires the participant in therapy, though, to be discerning in choosing the therapist, because, like, if I take my world, for example, like as a, as a movement teacher or, um, a physical therapist, if you wouldn't really go and see a trainer if they were super overweight, that's a very obvious sign that that person is not really doing the stuff themselves or it's not having an effect. That's not a desirable teacher. You know, you're definitely going to look for I look for teachers that are embodied teachers. I'm going beyond what they physically look like, but when you're going to see a therapist, it's hard to detect their mental state, stability or how much they've worked through their own stuff, unless you were able to discern embodiment.

Speaker 2:

It's a tricky little conundrum. You know what is the criteria of determining a therapist. Generally, most people go and see somebody because somebody's referred them and you know if a friend has referred a therapist to you and they said, hey look, they're really good, the chances are they're really good. You know, um, and it's so important that you have a rapport, a sense of connection with the person that you're working with. So if you're looking for a therapist, it's so important that when you meet them, that there is this kind of sense of connection and and and, and that you're being seen and that you're being understood and the space is being held for you to quite easily move into vulnerability.

Speaker 2:

Does that feel easy, or easier than it normally would, because vulnerability is wrought with a sense of fear and danger, but do they assist you in making that feel more easeful is a really good criteria. So you know, trialing a therapist for a couple of sessions is really good, a really important thing to do, and it's okay to say, hey look, I just don't know whether we're a good match. And you know it's unlikely that if the therapist is experienced and you know they're going to be offended by that they're just going to be like okay, great, because they also want to have that sense of rapport too. But this is a really important thing to be looking for, you know, because you can't, you know you can't look at their resume, you can't look at their credentials.

Speaker 1:

So then, what could somebody be looking to experience within themselves that would help them to know that the therapist is doing a good job for them?

Speaker 2:

Within a very short period of time that the root of what is happening inside of them is exposed. And if the root of what's happening inside of you is exposed within the first couple of sessions, it means that you felt safe enough to open up and that they have sufficient insight to identify the pattern of what's taking place in your life. Having inquired about your story, your history, your past, and then correlating that with present day behavior and the dissatisfying experiences that you're having, they should be able to piece it together. And then the next thing that you're looking for is what are the tools that they're implementing to help you recover? What are the tools that they're implementing to help you recover from ignorance and breaking the habits that you have in upholding the incorrect or the non-true posture? The stand in yourself to see yourself in your truth, your beauty, your power and your responsibility to be all of yourself in this life Is that the rhetoric, is that the encouragement? Is that the accountability that is being laid before you? Because that's what you want. You want to be held accountable. You want somebody that can see who you truly are your truth, your beauty, your power, your intelligence and to hold you accountable to that posture and whenever you kind of slip into old stories and whatever that they compassionately but directly bring it to your attention that you've slipped into some old posture. Let's correct that. Let's get aligned again with the truth. What are we doing here? And an effective therapist can get that happening quite quickly.

Speaker 2:

I mean, I have some people that come to me and say I've been doing therapy for 20 years and in the first three sessions they'll say I never knew that or I never understood that.

Speaker 2:

And it honestly just utterly bewilders me as to how they could have been seeing somebody every week for 20 years and not have discovered something so obvious. And you know this is not, you know, a criticism or a you know a I'm better than them rant. This is just an objectifiable fact that there is models out there that don't have a model of self. And because they don't, there's no connection and correlation with what is being understood about the way things were in the past relative to how we want them to be now and who we truly are as people. If we don't have that model of self, we can just fwaff in the wind for 20 years and not really make much progress. And I mean this is very common and I mean this is very common. People that come to see me quite often have already done a lot of therapy and it's not always the case that that therapy hasn't been helpful. In many cases it has been.

Speaker 1:

I'm not saying all therapists out there, you know all systems are as a subordinate, you know it's helped them and taken them to a certain point to a certain point, and the the depth that you're able to go with people um is because of this extra layer that you're talking about, about the relating to the self yes that allows that depth. You can only go as far as.

Speaker 2:

To the extent that you see your client as a human and not a catalogue of pathology. Because if you're only consumed with trying to identify how to diagnose them, then once you have I think I've diagnosed you, I think I've diagnosed you, I think I have your diagnosis then all you're trying to do is see them through that lens in order to provide them with what you've been trained in of how to manage that diagnosis. And this is a very, very limited model that keeps people very constrained and not moving.

Speaker 1:

And you know. That said, a diagnosis is helpful to a degree if medication is required to break a cycle of something that creates your work to have an impact that it needs to.

Speaker 2:

Absolutely. I'm not anti-diagnosis or anti-medication let's be very clear about that Because in some instances these are very important to assist somebody in managing chronic mental health conditions. However, coming out of the gate with a diagnosis is, for the most part, by and large detrimental if it's shared with the client or the patient, because they immediately identify with that and then you know if they've already got a low self-esteem. They are desperately trying to, you know as to formulate their identity, and if it's been a real struggle for them to discover who they truly are, then when a when a, a doctor, a clinician or therapist goes, well, it's because of of this. This is the problem that you have, this is your condition, this is your illness. They go oh, okay, great.

Speaker 2:

Well, that explains why everything's really difficult and what it does is it actually contributes to them giving up on some level from truly healing, and I have seen too much of that. And it's a real problem in our world at this moment, particularly with, you know, the proliferation of ADHD diagnosis and you know this whole spectrum thing. The spectrum seems to get wider and longer and deeper, you know, with every passing year. You know, always on the spectrum it's got learning disabilities. You know it's all this pathologizing that just is not going to any any length to addressing what's causing these conditions in the first place.

Speaker 1:

And to relate that to my work quite often when somebody is given the diagnosis, they'll hold on to that and it keeps them in this victim pattern and doesn't allow them, doesn't liberate them in being able to see a pathway out. It's like I have a condition and I am that and I find it really limiting. When somebody comes in, you know, saying I've got this diagnosis and I can't do x, y and z because that's what affects it, when the body should be able to move in all directions and, um, yeah, this is giving a more tangible body perspective of it than than it is the mind.

Speaker 2:

Um, but yeah, well, I mean, I just to give a tangible perspective of of that in terms of you know, how a diagnosis can really impact somebody and put somebody in a cage. Um, you know a number of clients that have come to me and said, oh, I have a, um, uh, a diagnosis of ADHD, and I go, okay, well, how does that present? Well, you know, I'll start something and then I won't finish it. You know, sometimes it's hard for me to focus and concentrate. Um, you know, I, uh, I change my mind a lot. Um, I find it difficult to sit.

Speaker 2:

Still, I'm like okay, and, and how has that been treated? Oh, well, I'm on some medication, um, and I'm like okay, and in some instances, I through a breakdown of what has been going on with them and correlating it with the trauma of their childhood and the extent to which they do not look after themselves, they don't meditate, they don't eat well, they drink too much, they don't sleep enough, they don't hydrate themselves enough, they don't eat well, they drink too much, they don't sleep enough, they don't hydrate themselves enough, they don't take their shoes off and put their feet in the earth, they don't get enough sunlight. You know, they're a bunch of really basic things they drink way too much coffee, you know. You do a simple lifestyle assessment and then you go okay, I just want you to just do a 15 to 20% change in this, this, this, this, this, this, this and this, and let's just do that for two weeks and let's see if anything changes.

Speaker 2:

And what do you know? Everything changes. And then they introduce meditation, and then they introduce a movement practice, and then they have a discussion with their doctor that they no longer want to be in this medication and then they go through that process of weaning off it and then, before you know it, they have completely transformed. Why? Because they've just addressed the condition of the nervous system and it's not a difficult thing to do and most of the chronic conditions and diseases of our time, a lifestyle, most of them, and the way to address most of these is by just addressing the mind and body in the way in which we, we, we constantly discuss so, johnny, this veda therapy is one-on-one.

Speaker 1:

How have you put this in a way? What can people expect to find on Ritam Studio that provides this therapy?

Speaker 2:

So obviously, the therapy is one-on-one.

Speaker 2:

What is on Ritam Studio is a large catalogue of discourses that provide the conceptual framework and instruction and guidance into how to move into yourself and to start noticing things within yourself, joining dots and reaffirming what you actually already know, but in a sequence that makes it very palatable and understandable and applicable to your daily life.

Speaker 2:

So they're short videos to provide guidance in circumstances and situations and scenarios of things that are happening every day in your life, things that are really relevant across your relationship to yourself, your relationship to everybody else, your aspirations for fulfillment and happiness. All these kinds of things. There's a big catalog there and, as we continue evolving with Retime Studio, we're going to create these shorter microcourses that address really core issues in really really pragmatic, practical ways that enable you to unlock insight and experience around that particular area of your life. And then and there'll be lots of those that we're going to be rolling out over the next 12 months and the the big thing that I would encourage you to do is to actually come on one of our retreats to see it happen over many days, experience the process over many days, because that's when some real magic happens. And, of course, you can engage us to participate in the therapy process. You know if you're out there, you're listening and you're interested in working with either color or I.

Speaker 1:

Although our books are quite full most of the time, we have a wait list and we we welcome anybody that's ready to do the real work to come and join us a great start would be to to get online and start our seven-day free trial, where you can start practicing chain movement, start listening to johnny's discourses and the meditations and and experience it.

Speaker 1:

If you subscribe to our newsletter, we'll keep you updated with um all of our events and retreats yeah, there'll also be links to the podcast links to join Johnny's weekly group meditation, which is at 7pm Thursday evenings, Australian Eastern Standard Time.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, there's lots on offer and it's only going to grow. So we really hope that you come on the journey with us, stay engaged and also let us know if there's something you'd like to hear about from us. We would love to do episodes based on request.