Healthy Living by Willow Creek Springs
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Healthy Living by Willow Creek Springs
Healthy Living Through Adversity part 1
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What if the difference between adversity and trauma is whether someone helps you carry it? We sit down with Juan, speaking from incarceration with striking clarity, to explore how childhood adversity, attachment, and the simple act of asking for help can rewrite a life. His story moves from suppression and survival to routine, reflection, and repair—offering practical tools anyone can use to feel safer in their own body and steadier in their daily choices.
We unpack the ACE (Adverse Childhood Experiences) framework and why naming your ACE score isn’t about labels—it’s about understanding risk, symptoms, and pathways to healing. Juan explains how trauma is not the event but the internal aftermath: shattered trust, loss of safety, and a nervous system stuck in overdrive. He shares how group work, writing lyrics, exercise, and faith formed a protective rhythm that replaced impulsive reactions with grounded responses. If you’ve ever wondered why “just get over it” never works, this conversation maps the missing steps.
Attachment takes center stage as we break down the four S’s of secure bonding: seen, soothed, safe, and secure. Without them, kids often grow into adults who struggle to trust or regulate emotions. With them, even hard experiences can be processed without becoming lifelong wounds. We talk about what caregivers can do right now—believe the child, name the feelings, create safety—and what adults can practice later if that support never came: self-compassion, co-regulation with trusted people, and steady habits that teach the body it is safe again.
The takeaway is both bracing and hopeful: you can become the caregiver you needed. Start where you are—ask for help, build small daily practices, and choose relationships that protect your healing. If this conversation resonates, share it with someone who might need these words. Subscribe, leave a review to help others find the show, and tell us: what’s one practice that helps you feel safe today?
Intro for podcast
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Well, hello, and welcome to the Healthy Living Podcast. I'm your host, Joe Grumbot. And today we're going to introduce a new theory that we're going to call Healthy Living Through Adversity. And today I've got a special guest famous Juan that is currently incarcerated, and its mission is to make amends to give back in order to repair the harm it's caused and to build a better society by providing practical tools to help people heal. If you face trauma, stress, grief, or systemic barriers, you need to hear this conversation. So, Juan, welcome to the show. How are you doing today?
SPEAKER_01:I'm doing great. Yeah, so uh for me, um it's always been about soul searching, you know, and getting in that place where, you know, I had to seek resources to help me understand like how did I get here? You know, and part of uh how my journey started you know, that landed me in prison was not being able to um reach out for help, you know, and acknowledge that, you know, there was things going on in my life and you know, just things that I've been through that um you know, it it it traumatized me, you know, and as as the saying goes, you know, hurt people hurt people. So um, you know, I really was on that path of just trying to figure out like how how did I end up here, um, how how do I heal if there was ever such a thing at the time I didn't know, but like how could I heal from that and and more importantly, like how um to pay that forward, you know, and help other people on their journey to healing, especially people who have experienced the type of childhood traumas that I have. So I spent a lot of my time in um you know, doing a lot of healthy things like participating in groups, you know, um gaining insight and uh awareness and uh exercising, you know, um going to church. Uh I've I've developed a well-rounded program now. Um writing, I love writing, you know, uh I'm a I'm a lyricist, you know, so I love writing and things like that. That to help me, you know, uh express whatever I'm going through so I don't um suppress it and and then become explosive or you know um in a place where I'm not processing whatever I'm going through in an unhealthy way.
SPEAKER_00:Wow. Well that's that sounds very positive. I I've been working with prisoners for almost 20 years, and uh that's the one thing the guys I've been working with have had in common is they they find a way to to keep their day positive. It's it's real easy to get caught up in negativity in a place like that, but uh you know um you you have the ability to make your own choices to some degree, and it sounds like you're making good ones. You know, today we're gonna talk about the importance of asking for help. Um why don't you uh share a little bit about your thoughts on that?
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, so you know, I was in a place, you know, um prior to getting locked up, you know, so I I come to know now about adverse childhood experiences, you know, and and so knowing I tested out for people This call and your telephone number will be monitored and recorded. For people who are not familiar with that, it's a survey uh that was developed in nineteen ninety-four. And uh so it ha it asks you ten questions and it helps you to rate your level of trauma. So uh for more information on that you can go to the Compassion Prison Project and then you can uh you can actually uh you can actually get more information about the uh adverse childhood experiences. And so anyway I have nine out of ten of those aces. So I didn't know this at the time, but with those aces came symptoms of trauma, um, like the loss of self-worth, the loss of trust, loss of sense of safety and um and so that turned over into me using like addiction and things like that to turn down the volume of my pain, right? Um I also experienced uh like developmental traumas like learning disabilities, not being able to process or obtain information, not being able to empathize with people. Um and so a lot of this was it it caused this inner suffering in in short, you know, it caused this inner suffering and this pain that I didn't know how to deal with and I didn't know who to go to, you know, um where I'm from, you don't have mental health services or I I wasn't it wasn't readily available, you know. And so um that's where uh for me it became like just being in a place where uh I felt unsafe, you know, in my own head. You know, I felt unsafe in my own head. Um, I thought, you know, my worldview was, you know, everyone was out to hurt me, I didn't know how to ask for help, I didn't know how to talk about the awful things that happened to me or what the benefit of that would even be. You know, and for the most part I was always taught to just suppress the stuff that I've been through. And so that was my coping mechanism, just kind of suppress it, not deal with it, don't face it and just suffer with it. You know, and so that's why now I'm becoming more of a uh an advocate for people and letting them know that uh they have to they have to they have to uh get in a place where they uh are able to talk about those things and you know knowing how to reach out for help and the importance of reaching out for help.
SPEAKER_00:So do you think that most people or at least a good amount of people that have suffered childhood trauma um deal with it kind of the same way you did? Or do you think that like if people are in a more privileged area where they have services available that they reach out and take them?
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, so there's a difference between childhood trauma and adverse childhood experiences.
SPEAKER_00:Okay.
SPEAKER_01:So um adverse childhood experiences, right, is just uh let's it's it's basically adverse situations, things that adversely affects the child, right? But that doesn't necessarily mean it has to turn into childhood trauma. Right? So you have adverse childhood experiences and then you have what is a traumatizing experience for a child, something that overwhelms the nervous system or the mental. So, um just to make a distinction there, because the importance is to answer your question is um what takes the adverse childhood experiences into something that is traumatic for a child? And generally it is it is it is not having someone there, um, like a caregiver, a parent, a mentor, or someone to actually help the child talk about and process in a healthy way whatever uh experience that they went through. And so for most people who don't have someone who who so, you know, as children when we were left with this awful, you know, whatever happened when like myself I didn't have nobody to go to that I could say, Hey, this happened to me, right? I just bottled it up and well, that became a traumatizing experience. So it crossed the threshold of being an adverse childhood experience because I didn't have someone there to actually help me process it in a healthy way. So the the the question becomes is who does the child have in their life to actually recognize that the child just went through something that was pretty traumatic or could be traumatic and have an adverse effect on them in the future and become traumatizing. Um, so who does that child have that recognize that and say, Hey, I need to get help get this child some help? So for the most part, I believe people are like myself and we're especially, you know, uh this is all new information. So a lot of us were ignorant to the importance of knowing uh about childhood trauma and the need to to get help so we can process it in a healthy way. So I think there are a lot of people who dealt with it exactly like I did and didn't have anybody to turn to and therefore um they they're they were suffering then and I I believe they're still suffering now as a result of of of of that trauma. Like they're still living with those traumas even today.
SPEAKER_00:So you think like if a kid is going through uh like you say, an adverse experience um and he's got parents or he's got guardians, but he doesn't think they want to hear about it, or he's afraid to tell them because you know he's gonna get blamed for something or whatnot. Uh a lot of times the kid might not say something, where on the other side of it, maybe the parent or the guardian just thinks everything's okay because the kid never said anything. And maybe the parent guardian isn't that good at expressing that he's there for the kid, but he is, you know. I I wonder how much of a just disconnect causes a lot of these problems.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, you know, that that gets into attachment theory, but uh just to answer your question, you know, as I sit in group, I hear a lot of different stories. You know, for me, I was I was pretty much threatened not to say anything to my my parents. Um I heard uh other men who sh who wanted to uh who actually went and told their parents and they weren't believed and and and and was actually accused of like, you know, um lying about a situation which added like another trauma on top of it. Um and then you had uh other men who told their parents and then their parents kind of like just felt like, hey, just don't say anything because, you know, um just for whatever reason they didn't want whoever the abuser was to get into trouble. Um and yeah, those have uh even further implications when it comes to, you know, the impact of that trauma because now the child has no one uh to even feel like they're gonna be protected. So part of the uh part of the uh dynamics of the child and caregiver relationship is that the child is supposed to feel like their parent or caregiver is gonna protect them. So when the child goes to the the caregiver and say, like, hey, this awful thing happened to me and this person did it, and the paregiver in essence, you know, just um don't do anything about it, it it the child develops that worldview that I'm not important, no one is gonna protect me, I don't matter, and that adds on another component to the the the trauma in and of itself.
SPEAKER_02:Wow, that's uh it it's call and your telephone number will be monitored and recorded.
SPEAKER_00:It's really disheartening to think that the kids are are facing so much uh obstacle that way, you know. It seems like you gotta have that perfect setup where the kid knows they can talk to the guardian or the parent, and the parent is receptive and you know, stands behind the kid, it it seems like that's uh it it's it's it's not the best odds.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, you know, when you when you think about the parent caregiver, and I'll just kind of mention it um briefly here, so an attachment there is four. In order to you have secure attachment, insecure attachments, uh anxious and vivid attachment, and then you have disorganized attachment. The healthy form is the secure attachment, right? And there's four uh S when it comes to secure attachment. That's the uh feeling scene, soothe, safety and security. Um, and so what we're talking about here is is the safety aspect, right? Is is is the the the child who no longer feels like their caregiver is gonna protect them and keep them safe. Um, your the caregiver is the first relationship um that the child will ever have with anyone in this world. Right? And so the relationship that the child has with the caregiver is gonna set the foundation for every relationship after that that the child is gonna have with anyone else. So yeah, when you have this this this this caregiver who is basically in essence neglectful, um, not seeing the child, not soothing the child and protecting the child, um that creates that world view and a lot of us, you know, we we don't feel safe or we don't trust people and we don't really know how that is is is connected to the fact that well I never felt safe, seen or um protected by my uh my own parents. I never felt connected to them or my caregiver. I never felt that connection, I never developed that healthy bond, you know, or learned how to uh even regul they never taught me how to even regulate myself or you know, soothe me so I know like hey, I can go through You have sixty seconds remaining. I can go through challenging things and it's still be okay, you know.
SPEAKER_00:Wow, that's crazy. Well it looks like we got about a minute left, and I think what we're gonna do is just do short episodes like this. So I'll give you uh the your main the remainder of your time to conclude this thought and then we'll start up the next episode um and we'll we'll continue the conversation, but we'll do it as another episode.
SPEAKER_01:Okay. Yeah, so uh at this point uh it's just you know traumatization is not what happened to you, it's what happens inside of you as a result of what happened to you. So whatever care you did not get as a child, or you can be that healthy caregiver for yourself now. So that will be my closing.
SPEAKER_00:I think that's uh that's a that's a great way to look at it. You're opening up a whole lot of uh information here that I'll bet you many of our listeners are scratching their head going, wow, you know, that was me. And uh, you know, I was in a situation where you know my dad was there for me. I knew he, you know, he he cared for me and all that, but I didn't want to tell him about uh everything because I don't I don't think he I don't think he wanted to hear about it. Um unfortunately I didn't have a lot of that kind of adversity in my life, but had I, I don't know how it would have gone. So I can imagine so many kids and so many adults today are looking back going, oh wow, that makes some sense. I think you're uh you're gonna be helping a lot of people through this uh through this platform here. All right, I think we lost him. Uh this is how this goes. When you talk to somebody that's incarcerated, you get about 15 minutes of shot. Um so this has been another episode of the Healthy Living Podcast. So thank all of our listeners uh for make this show possible, and we will see you next time. Oh, you're still there? I thought you got cut off.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah. I just came no, I just came back right now.
SPEAKER_00:Oh you just came back. Okay, perfect. So we're gonna start the next episode and we'll just keep going. Um
