Ready Set Reiki
Welcome to ReadySetReiki®
A podcast about Reiki and Energy work. From the curious beginning to the seasoned Master Teacher. Welcoming all those who work with energy.
Join Reiki Master Tracy Searight as she guides you on a journey through this landscape of energy work. Each guest offers an in-depth unique perspective sharing their journey, which had 'a profound effect on their healing and development as a person. Come along on this journey and explore all the possibilities of working with energy.
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Tracy Searight is an Educator, Yoga Teacher, Reiki Master, Grandmaster, Sound Practitioner, Author, and Podcaster.
Find her on Feather Sister with Wellness living
offering training in 10 different systems of Reiki
Training in Chair Yoga, Yin Yoga, and Restorative
Ready Set Reiki
Episode # 166 Shadow Work: Healing Attachment Wounds with Dr. Nima Rahmani
What if your strongest triggers were actually gateways to profound healing? Dr. Nima Rahmani takes us on a powerful journey from his days as a successful chiropractor to becoming a specialist in shadow work and relationship transformation – but not before experiencing his own painful wake-up call.
After finding himself trapped in toxic relationship patterns that culminated in a physically abusive incident, Dr. Nima was forced to confront the attachment wounds and self-abandonment cycles driving his behavior. The insights from this personal reckoning now form the foundation of his revolutionary approach to becoming "trigger-proof."
Through vivid storytelling and practical wisdom, Dr. Nima explains how our childhood conditioning teaches us to abandon ourselves for connection, creating unconscious patterns that follow us into adulthood. He challenges common misconceptions about trauma healing, warning that diagnoses can become prisons and that many spiritual practices actually help us avoid feeling difficult emotions rather than processing them.
The conversation explores shadow work – the integration of disowned parts of ourselves – and how our strongest triggers reveal where we're still fragmented. Dr. Nima shares how healing isn't about never getting triggered, but developing the capacity to recognize self-abandonment in the moment and respond from our adult self rather than our wounded inner child.
Whether you're struggling with codependency, finding yourself in repetitive relationship patterns, or simply wanting more emotional freedom, this episode offers a compassionate roadmap toward secure attachment and authentic self-expression. Dr. Nima's forthcoming book "Becoming Trigger-Proof" promises to expand on these transformative concepts when it releases next year.
Dr. Nima Rahmany is a leading expert in shadow work, emotional regulation, and healing attachment wounds. After a successful career as a chiropractor, he left the profession to dive deep into the realm of trauma healing and relationship transformation. Driven by his own journey of overcoming toxic patterns and becoming "trigger-proof," Dr. Nima now helps high achievers, parents, and professionals break free from the cycles of codependency and self-abandonment.
Ready Set Reiki is a journey
From the curious beginner to the Season Master Teacher
All Energy workers of all systems and all levels.
This is Ready Set Reiki, a podcast about Reiki and all energy work, from the curious beginner to the seasoned master teacher, welcoming all systems, all lineages and all levels. Reiki is a journey and not a destination, and on this Ready Set Reiki journey, I refer to myself as a guide rather than a host, as I, too, am traveling, helping, supporting others and learning on this Reiki journey as well. And with that said, I am your guide, tracy C Wright. And this is Ready Set Reiki. Hello, beautiful listeners, tracy C Wright, ready Set Reiki. So today on our journey, so excited to connect with this wonderful, amazing guest.
Speaker 2:Dr Nima Rambani Now is a leading expert in shadow work, something that you know many of us healers definitely have to deal with Emotional regulation, healing attachment wounds and, after a successful career as a chiropractor, he left the profession to dive deep into the realm of trauma healing and relationship transformation. Now he was driven by his own journey of overcoming toxic patterns and becoming trigger-proof. Can't wait to hear about this. Dr Nima now helps high achievers, parents, professionals, break free from the cycles of codependency and self-abandonment. So let's give a warm, ready set Reiki. Welcome to Dr Nima, welcome. It's so good to be here.
Speaker 3:Tracy Reiki. Welcome to Dr Nima. Welcome, it's so good to be here, Tracy. Can't wait to dive into this topic.
Speaker 3:Wonderful, so let's begin our journey together. So I gave the listeners a tiny bit about you, but I know there's a whole lot more to learn. When I was younger, I had my, I was dealing with headaches, and I went to a chiropractor and I had my first chiropractic adjustment and I was like, wow, I want to do that. And so, you know, at the age of 13, I was set, you know, got all the courses, the university, what university I wanted to go to, what chiropractic school? And I just had my path really clearly set. And after I graduated from chiropractic school, I went.
Speaker 3:I saw this man in my first year of chiropractic excuse me, in my first year of chiropractic school. Before I graduated, there was a kind of like an assembly where a speaker was teaching His name is Dr John Demartini and he just blew my mind and I just finished, you know, the session in tears and I turned to my friend next to me sitting next to me, Yvette, one of my classmates. I said I want to learn to do what he just did, which was really to inspire and to help connect me to myself, which was really to inspire and to help connect me to myself with a greater possibility. So when I graduated chiropractic, I went and I was always interested in learning about that intricate kind of reframe our thoughts and perceptions and stories, the narratives that we create to help us align our reality with who we would love to become, with an identity of who we'd love to become. And so I just kept studying that John Demartini's work, Byron Katie's work and I just became hungry to learn how can I learn, how to shift my thoughts and perceptions to help me deal with my childhood anxiety? This was really the big issue that I was working on resolving, and so, as I learned more, I would integrate more into my practice and slowly I just felt inspired.
Speaker 3:After about six, seven years of practice 10 years of practice you start to see patterns in patients. As for chiropractic care, were actually dealing with stress-related disorders, problems that, if you go upstream, had to do with stress, with attachments that were ruptured in their lives, with divorce, grief, loss, past trauma. They're still carrying it and I was seeing on the table the result of unresolved wounding. So I started to put two and two together and create these little workshops in my office called Life Skills for a Stressful World, where I started the process back in 2009 of teaching patients how to become their own medicine. But it wasn't until I got into, you know.
Speaker 3:I was married and then divorced, and then going through a series of failed relationships, one after another, about eight or nine, until I finally met this one that really woke me up to a deeper awareness that I wasn't what I wasn't aware of. I started realizing after this relationship became abusive that I was caught in a trauma bond. Now abusive was happening both ways. There was emotional abuse, psychological abuse, and then I became physically abusive in reaction to the dynamic between us. And March 11th 2018 was a moment, a night, that I will never forget. It just became so volatile that I actually physically, with an open hand, slapped her as a result of push and pull and huge volatility. So I had to wake up. It was a huge wake-up call for me to go all right. How did I end up here? How do I make sure that this never happens again?
Speaker 3:And number three, why is it that every relationship that I've ever had has been kind of in this toxic push and pull dynamic? It had never been physically violent, ever, but it was always. You know, I was more kind of like avoiding, running away, hiding Chase, you know, is this cat and mouse game of push and pull. Can I have a secure relationship? That was my question. Number three is it possible for me to break free from this really toxic push and pull, distance or pursuer dynamic and have what I never had before, which was a secure relationship? And so, check, I figured that one out. Number two, number three and once I figured that out, now I'm happily married with a beautiful four-year-old son. At the recording of this it's going to start kindergarten in about a month.
Speaker 3:I thought, okay, number four my karma has to become my dharma, my sacred purpose, my duty to teach people what I most needed.
Speaker 3:And this was where the world of my path to, to getting there from you, avoidant, toxic, trauma-bonded relationship that's codependent to healthy, secure attachment that journey was understanding, somatic experiencing, the polyvagal theory, intense, deep shadow work, somatic work getting out of my head, getting into my body. I realized that all of the personal development work that I was doing was mainly more of a cognitive type of a bypass, rather than to help me avoid feeling, and so I had to learn how to expand my capacity somatically for the sensations of all of the emotions that I was avoiding by using personal development work. And I realize now that most people doing personal development, most people doing therapy, most people in the spiritual kind of realm, are actually either spiritually bypassing or cognitively bypassing, using the work to actually avoid pain. And it was what I discovered. It was only through expanding my capacity for sensation, moving through the pain, that I was able to heal and I say heal not as a past tense but as a ongoing lifestyle and practice, and the concept of becoming trigger-proof was born.
Speaker 2:Right. And sadly, through all the different things, I've learned as well that you have to go through it and if not, you keep repeating those same cycles, which you did as well through your experiences. But in your journey you had enough sense, you know, to stop and say wait a minute, I'm tired of this, I'm tired of the merry-go-round, I want to get off. What can I do to change, what can I do to shift? And and you know one of the things, as a very young teacher, the best advice I ever got for teaching children was if it doesn't work, stop and redirect, and you can really bring that into your own journey that if it's not working, what can you do? It's okay, change directions. So kudos for you for continuing on. And and what a blessing you know now married and have a child, I mean, and that shows you right there, that's the proof, that's the prize, right?
Speaker 3:And it wouldn't have happened unless I experienced an epic wake up call of those proportions. I mean, I'm a chiropractor, here I am. I mean I could sit here and say I was reacting and all this there, I was being pushed and I was being mentally, psychologically abused all of which is true, but the truth of the matter is, how did I get there? I had to really look at myself and take responsibility for how I got there, and when you do that, it's not about blaming them, you. The word blame, and and and fault has to get thrown out the window. And we got to go back and understand the runway that led us to the point where we became the perfect person in that dynamic to heal.
Speaker 3:And once I did that, I'm like, wow, uh. I love guiding people who are ready to heal, let go of that victim narrative and to actually heal so that they can have healthy relationships. Because you can't have a healthy relationship yet, still be entrenched and ensnared and constrained by an identity of your past that you keep referring back to. You've got to be able to get a sense of completion with it. So I love guiding people who are ready to heal through that same path and process.
Speaker 2:Beautiful and I loved how you phrased it the realm of trauma healing, and so this realm of trauma healing and energy work would you say that this energy work found you, or you know you found it.
Speaker 3:The experience that I went through and what I, how I reacted and what I became that's not I always say I was like that's not what I signed up for. Um, you know, my partner and I, we were both doing a lot of personal development. We were running a community. You know she was working in my business and we were both stuck in our heads with our kind of like cognitive work that we had done. We hadn't really gone to the depths of it, but what happened as a result of our unconsciousness I mean the first and foremost, the shame of it was just overwhelming. Like to the point where I didn't think I could even move on. Like I remember I had took selfie videos of myself back in it was around April of 2018 saying I don't think I can ever teach again when people find out how I reacted, how I responded, who I was. Nobody's ever going to hire me again because I had really worked hard to put on this persona of like healer. You know I'm entertaining, I would do rap songs, and so for me to react that way was like an ego death, like I had to realize that I had a mask, I was performing this, this character of Dr Nima. And so, in the journey of like, putting down this tendency to want to be the hero and rescuer of other people, now that I'm publicly being perceived as like the villain, I had to actually stop. I had to drop the mask and find out who the heck I really was. And it wasn't in that, it was in that journey of finding who I was beneath the character that I created to gain external validation, that I realized that, hey wait, I'm not alone. We all have stuff that we feel ashamed about. We all have. When we look back, there's regrets and there's shame of how we reacted to things, how we responded to things, how we've abandoned ourselves for the sake of connection. And so, in my journey of like, transparently sharing exactly where I went through, not as a kind of like a guru, as like somebody who's up on a mountaintop, but as a human being who, who you know, had to integrate a lot of shame that we're all like, we're all one in the same, and so so I didn't sign up for the exact form that I'm speaking about. You know, talking about assault. You know I had to plead guilty in court to that experience. I had to go through the entire thing.
Speaker 3:It was me kind of surrendering that, okay, this isn't what I had in mind universal intelligence but I'm going to surrender and I'd like to be used to help others. And so now when people hear my story, they message me saying men and women saying you know, I've you know, I've you know, thank you for your honesty. I've actually been there too, on the receiving end. So I really want to work with you because, you know, I want to help, understand and actually heal. And then on the other one, on the other side, where men and women are reaching out to me saying, yeah, I've become abusive too. I'm so ashamed. And you give me hope that there is a path to healing, that I can go from that toxic dynamic to something healthy, a path to healing that I can go from that toxic dynamic to something healthy. And that's really what I'm here to do is to share my journey. That's quite embarrassing to help other people realize that who you've been in the past does not necessarily have to be who you are in the future.
Speaker 2:Right, right. And here's the part of your healing journey is taking accountability, and that's what you've done. You know you're helping and then taking it a step further by helping others, I mean what do you? Think that right, I always looked at it as every you know saint has a past, every center has a future. So I know they're doing good deeds. I mean something.
Speaker 3:And when. When I did research on this, the people who shine the greatest light have the darkest shadows. Right, they came to that light from this really dark, checkered past, you know so you look at you, look at anyone, you examine their biographies and it'll be very similar. So my mess is my message.
Speaker 2:Sure, sure. I mean you probably think back in time of individuals who walked the surf maybe with the exception of Jesus right that had some kind of thing going on and act like they're this guru, and then, behind the scenes, you hear different stories as well.
Speaker 3:So but you know, I live that. Yeah, I live that.
Speaker 2:And you move forward and you're helping and being of service to others, so well done for that 100%. As you're going through your journey helping others, you have this trigger-proof method. What is some of the misconceptions about your work?
Speaker 3:The biggest misconception about my work? Great question, wow, I love that you asked that. The biggest misconception, which is a distortion of the work, is that the work that I teach is all about blaming victims, right, when you know this is a very sensitive topic where we have in the trauma world, where there are stages of healing, and that first stage is, you know, you become victimized in a moment, right, and there is pain, there's emotional pain, there is this experience of shame that can happen. It's like at first, you're sitting there, you're blaming yourself, right, and what happens is when we start to do therapy, we find groups, support groups, chat rooms, you know forums that then help us create language, create some language that helps us make sense of the situation. We use the term survivor, we use the, you know, especially within the health field, people, would you know, come to me with back pain and say, oh, the doctor says I have osteoarthritis, and so the biggest misconception is the dualistic nature of labels and diagnosis. You know what I'm talking about.
Speaker 3:Yes, I do so when you get a diagnosis like PTSD or trauma survivor oh no, first and foremost, it's super helpful because you have all these symptoms, you're in a lot of pain and you're in so much shame that you think something's wrong with me. It was my fault, I'm to blame. And when you see a therapist or a content creator or some sort of book or something that helps bring language to your situation, no, I'm a survivor, I am a PTSD. I remember I was in a mastermind this one time and this guy was going through a legal battle with one of his clients that sued him for racism.
Speaker 3:And it wasn't racism, he was. Clearly he was an opportunist. He was trying to use that to try to gain resources from him, and it was like a two-year battle. And so, as we were in the mastermind, he was talking about it, he was going through the legal process and he was just down and he was spinning and ruminating over it. I turned to him and I said dude, you have PTSD. And in that moment, when I brought language to what he was going through, it was like a weight was lifted. That happened in February.
Speaker 3:In June we did another mastermind. He was there. He turned to me. He said when you told me that day that I have PTSD and brought a language and understanding to my experience, it was the most liberating thing ever. Yeah, that's great, right, because what happens is when we're in a state of despair and we're in that rumination, we're so overwhelmed with shame that it's almost like we we feel validated when somebody says you have osteoarthritis, you have PTSD, you have OCD and now you have a label for it.
Speaker 3:So initially, there is this incredible moment of oh, I'm not a bad person, it's the thing. Now it's a double-edged sword, isn't it? Because what happens now is now that I have it, especially in 2025, where we have now gotten to a place where we are I don't know how, to. Something weird has happened over the last five years I don't know if you've seen it where we are now pedestalizing these diagnoses and labels as like a badge of something to be super duper proud of.
Speaker 3:Let me state all of my disabilities. I wanna state all of my. I have this, this, this, this, this and this. And what happens is the shadow part of these diagnoses in labels is it becomes an identity that we keep ruminating on. And then we start to view the entire world through this lens and we start to gain validation from it. We start to meet up with other people and go, oh, you have this too, me too. Oh, wow, and one of the things that I noticed was when I was a chiropractor, my office was right above a medical clinic and this guy who was a specialist medical doctor, who specialized in creating a support group for people who had fibromyalgia- have you ever seen patients with that?
Speaker 3:Talk to any practitioner who has dealt with patients who have been diagnosed with fibromyalgia. And so these people would go into these support groups and say, oh, these are my symptoms, oh, you too, me too. And it becomes this little swamp of comparative victimhood where it's like people are competing over who's the victimist. It's like it becomes your identity and now they're trapped by it. So it's this initial release of like oh, I feel validated by it. So it's this initial release of like, oh, I feel validated by this. But now the label becomes a prison. The label becomes a prison where you get PTSD and now you're keeping a symptom diary to help validate the story of the diagnosis that you have.
Speaker 3:And so there's this thing that I've noticed as a chiropractor working in the health field for about 20 years ask any doctor who's been in practice for more than 10 years. They will validate and confirm. What I'm saying is that there's a hidden agenda, and it's hidden and it's unconscious, where, if you're a child and you, the only time that you received validation from parents that were out to lunch, that were completely like, dysregulated, disconnected, the only time was when you got sick or hurt then you've now rewired. You've wired in an unconscious, hidden agenda to use the diagnosis and label for what's called secondary gain. And so when I help people, the people that I help aren't those that are at that kind of like bottom level of despair that are just diagnosed that feel validated by it. The people that I work with have been trapped by the diagnosis for years. Five years later, you're still calling yourself a survivor. I have fibromyalgia, I have PTSD. They wear their disorder like a badge.
Speaker 3:I have I'm gluten sensitive, I have celiac, Like it becomes the identity. And once you get to the level where you are sick and tired of being sick and tired, those are the people that I'm ready to work with, that I'm prepared to work with nobody before that. And when I'm helping those people, my job is to help them see the secondary, hidden, unconscious motives of being stuck in the first place. And when I present them this pathway of looking at the illness, the disorder, the label as an unconscious strategy, what am I gaining from this? I get, I get accused of victim blaming. So that's the, that's the biggest misconception, which is that that I have with my work, is that that I'm blaming victims, that I'm saying it's their fault and so it's a total distortion of the work. But part of the job Does that make?
Speaker 2:sense? It does make sense. I actually and it's interesting, you use the example osteoarthritis, because just last month I got diagnosed with that in my hip and it's so interesting. Um, and before you know, before we, we started our journey today. You know, I told you about my sister passing and in the last five years I had my sister pass, my dad pass, my best friend pass, a dog pass and then, on top of all that, having to move to El Paso, texas, and I really wasn't ready to go. And this is when the injury happened to the hip. Like I am a yoga teacher and Reiki master, and I came out here within a month, boom, I had an injury and it was everything became about the hip and I'm like what did I? And I started beating myself. What did I do? Like, no one else in my family has this problem and it's like you need a new hip.
Speaker 2:He, the doctor, said, like you're too young to be in here. Why are you here, like, and I'm like, and then it was this understanding that maybe and it clicked, maybe it's because I've been so hesitant to move forward into my purpose, like I wasn't ready to go here, I wasn't ready to do this here. You need to go teach this and do that. And everything that happened, from the loss of my sister, broke my confidence down and I was resisting. So it would make sense. Right foot forward, right leg was my right side of the body. So it's been trying different modalities sacral work, massages, going to the chiropractor, and I'm not feeling any pain, even though the last month shows, hey, this is exactly what I would.
Speaker 3:That's what I would say to people. That's exactly what I would say to people. People would come in and they'd be like oh doctor says it's osteoarthritis and there's nothing that they can do. And I said, oh, really, lay down on the table. I do an adjustment and they get up. They're like oh, my God that feels so much better. I said, well, if it was osteoarthritis, that adjustment didn't get rid of your osteoarthritis. How come you're feeling better?
Speaker 2:So there's an energetic I mean you know, at different levels there's so many levels. Right At the medical level they're looking at matter, but we're not just matter. We're, you know, yourself and myself are very concerned with is what's going on in the space between the matter. That's where the work is, yeah, and what showed on the x-ray. He said you shouldn't even be able to go down and touch your toes, but I could Do. You know what I'm saying. Like I was able to move, like I walked in.
Speaker 2:fine, it wasn't like stumbling or needing a cane and he said are you feeling any like? I wouldn't know, my body wouldn't know I have it.
Speaker 3:Totally yeah, and that's the that's. The thing is that patients would come in and you know they'd come in for appointments. I would do x-rays and the x-rays are just decrepit.
Speaker 3:And I'm like, are you okay? They're like, yeah, I'm fine. And then patients are like excruciating pain. I do their x-ray and their x-rays were like pristine and I'm like, there's, it's not. It's not about the x-ray, it's not about the diagnosis, right?
Speaker 3:And so this is the double, the double kind of sorted, a double edged sword of the diagnosis.
Speaker 3:On one hand, it helps us to help make sense of it, yet on the other shadow side of the diagnosis is it becomes to the person who has an unconscious motive, it becomes the excuse, it becomes the constraint, it becomes the prison that they're stuck in, right. And then, especially if there's some sort of a financial gain with it, with insurance or whatever, that's why it's a huge red flag whenever. That's why I stopped working with compensation insurance, because I only want to work with people that are concerned with healing, not with those that have an unconscious strategy to stay in the story of the symptoms and the pain and it sounds, sounds very invalidating. Like who would ever? Everybody wants to heal on a conscious level, yes, but there are unconscious parts within our shadow that has a hidden agenda to be sick, and that's a fact. To ask any doctors and you know, you can see it happening and this is where the uh, this is where the. This is where I get criticized the most.
Speaker 2:Right, right. So, chiropractor, coming into this energy work, what has been the biggest challenge you have faced in your now profession?
Speaker 3:The biggest challenge that I face, just with other people or within myself, would you or?
Speaker 2:Either one either one would be a great topic.
Speaker 3:The biggest challenge that I see is that the very thing that people are reaching out to me to heal will be the very thing that stops them. Let me give you an example. Yeah, somebody, somebody comes. Oh, somebody comes in and says you know, I'm a leader, I run a business. I, you know, my leadership is stuck, my business is stuck. At this level I'm not really able to communicate effectively. I fight, I freeze. You know, I go into this freeze response and that's impacting my leadership.
Speaker 3:So we start digging in and we see that there's an unhealed relationship with mother, who's highly narcissistic, and there's enmeshment with his mother and so he has to kind of the only. He doesn't know how to have boundaries with her. There's unclear boundaries, so the only boundaries that he has is through avoidance or hiding, and so what will happen is he'll sign up to work with us and all of a sudden, when he gets triggered, the very thing he's signing up to get triggered by gets triggered and he's not able to communicate directly because his nervous system is in a freeze, and the very thing that he's signing up to to heal becomes the very thing that stops him from proceeding forward. He then gets activated and then he has to retreat. Some, some stories come up and all of a sudden he's like whoa, whoa, whoa, that's too much. I feel overwhelmed, and then I got to run away or I hide where I ghost. So the very thing that stops that, that's stopping them, that they're wanting to heal, is the thing that will stop them.
Speaker 3:Another great example, gentleman, is like I'm tired of this codependency, I want to heal this, I'm ready to break this cycle. And so I say, okay, great, I have this event coming up. It's called the Overview Experience. We're going to help you heal this codependency, which is this constant, constant experience of orienting to what your partner's doing, seeing your validation and approval is based on her, her experience, rather than, you know, finding it from within. And I'm ready to heal that. Okay, great. So the event is on Saturday and here's what the times it's like. Oh wait, I planned a date with my girlfriend.
Speaker 3:It's like oh wait I planned a date with my girlfriend and I'm afraid that she's going to get upset if I choose to do this thing to heal myself.
Speaker 3:And it's like, ah, the very thing that you reached out to me to sign up to heal.
Speaker 3:You now get to confront it right away. So, to answer your question, the biggest challenge with my work is helping people see that the very thing that they're signing up to heal will be a test that they get to confront and they either choose to lean in or run away. And the ones that run away because I care so much about people's transformation, because I've gone through it myself when they get confronted and triggered by the exact thing that they signed up to heal, they run away. And to see them not leaning in is probably one of the most challenging parts of my job, because I really, as a coach, I'm really rooting for people. So it's like lean into the discomfort, let her be upset with you for doing something different, which is choosing to heal you, which is there's a huge amount of guilt and shame to choose yourself right, but to do so will involve having to feel the very guilt that you're looking to resolve. So that's probably the most challenging part of my work.
Speaker 2:And that's another example of to go through it. I often tell yoga students that you know it's that asana that you hate the most that you probably need right.
Speaker 3:Isn't it like that? Isn't that the truth?
Speaker 2:I mean hiding, retreating. It doesn't work because the lesson's gonna keep coming. Just get through it right, learn what you need to learn and then just ask the universe. Listen, I'm done.
Speaker 3:Exactly you got it, that's 100%.
Speaker 2:So, as you're out navigating, doing such wonderful work, what are some qualities you look for in a trauma healer or Reiki practitioner, energy worker?
Speaker 3:For a person that's on their on the path to healing.
Speaker 2:Yeah, or even for yourself. Maybe you're interested in healing. What are some qualities that you look for in individuals who do?
Speaker 3:embodiment, uh, the first thing that I look for, um, in any type of leadership now, because of the work that I'd done, I used to follow, uh, practitioners, healers, that were super successful. That level of skill and embodiment is so requires such nuance, such deep inner practice and work and requires an identity of such growth that I, those are, that's the new flex right. Is that do you have? Are you in a healthy relationship, as your competency with your work is amazing. That's the first step. But do you have a partner that really still wants to be with you?
Speaker 3:Because you know trauma healers, you know there's a billion of them out there and especially the ones that have, like, healed from like toxic relationships, abuse they're, they're leading others in healing from trauma bonds and everything is. The question is, are they in healthy relationships themselves? And to get from that place of of going you, of going from that victim stance to overcoming and surviving, is one stage. But to go from that level to I, now have the capacity to contain a healthy relationship. That's a whole new level of rarity, of deep inner work that most people haven't achieved. And so now I don't, I don't, um, I don't listen to people who aren't themselves in a healthy relationship.
Speaker 2:Yeah, makes a lot of sense. I mean, especially as healers, we're going out and we want to help the world, right, we want to put that cape on and let's go save everyone. But this was intended, you know, for you to begin to heal yourself too. And I mentioned about pausing and taking a moment.
Speaker 2:I had a season where the abundance was flowing in clients, students, you name it and it was getting to that point where I was, you know, edging towards that burnout and do you pause and you have the stalling of the clients and the students, because how long are they going to wait around? But it's taking that bold movement to say, listen, I really have to take my own advice here and stop and redirect. And I took, you know, a month off of things and said, no, I got to really do some self-care and work on myself. And you know, and then, as things come up, I mean we're not perfect, things will trigger, you know, trigger-proof, and having the tools, like, okay, I feel the grief coming up, I feel the anger coming up, oh, my goodness, here's the worry, you know, and then using those same tools on yourself to kind of get you to a nice space as well.
Speaker 3:So yeah, there's nothing like an intimate partnership that really mirrors it. I mean, anybody can get up on stage and put on a good show, but you can't put on a show for your child or your partner Like they see right through the show, right. And so I take a look and see does a partner, is their connection magnetic? Because you can't fake it with your intimate partner.
Speaker 3:And so because, you know, in the beginning I was living an outward life out there. That was there was a gap between what I was putting out there and what I was living in my intimate life, because our relationship was an absolute shit show. But I remember feeling that and going all right, I want to be the person whose private life and public life are exactly the same, and so the only way that that can be demonstrated if there is a really solid, secure, intimate partnership and so that's my biggest suggestion to people when you're looking for leaders guides is it really speaks a lot. If their partner still wants to be with them, you know, is there still that attraction with them? Because you can't fake it. You can fake it out there, but you can't fake it with that person, and so that's where I, that's where I look, and I can feel it when I see people with their partners.
Speaker 2:Yeah, like looking at like celebrities, right? I was told very young like don't meet your heroes because you'll be disappointed, right, because of behind the scenes personal things going on. They've been married how many times and not talking to their kids, or have an alcohol problem and they're into drugs. Yeah.
Speaker 3:The celebrities, yeah, the Hollywood movie industry. It's all a mirage, right, and so that's why looking at intimate partnerships is a really good reflection of the truth of who that person is.
Speaker 2:Right. So in the realm of trauma healing, what advice would you give someone who's just entering this profession?
Speaker 3:As a profession, is to find a guide and keep going with your own work, because you can't lead people where you haven't been. And so, if you're entering this profession, you can't lead people where you haven't been. And so, if you're entering this profession, be prepared up a mirror to your blind spots of learning skills and tools, to be able to use your triggers as a portal to find parts of you that you haven't really made contact with. And your your work begins when you set out to, when you graduate or whatever, and you set out to do the work that you're doing. So find a guide. I'm constantly personally enrolled in some form of training within myself to refine my methodologies, to keep growing, really because I'm confronted at new levels, and every level that you ascend to you know ascension. There's kind of like a climatization period to your new height, so to really get ready for massive growth and discomfort at every level.
Speaker 2:Right, right. It makes me think of when, years ago, when I was divorcing my husband, you know he would always trigger me just some of the things that he had put me through, and I had decided you know what I'm really tired of constantly being triggered when the phone rings or the text messages come. And I actually changed his name in the phone to teacher because I was looking at it, as these triggers are teaching something. What is it about this that's triggering me so?
Speaker 3:it was tired of being the victim.
Speaker 2:Exactly so. It was the idea that when I saw it teacher breathe, what is he teaching me was I read this text message and that really helped me through that, not to be so angry, you know to reframe.
Speaker 3:It's a very powerful reframe.
Speaker 2:And even today, right before we connected, you know, I was going through a bin and I found some things from the custody and this is years ago now and I looked at it and I was looking through calendars that I had and I put these little affirmations of positivity and prayers and things and I'm like, wow, I went through all that and I don't hate them today. Do you know, I was just like just grown and that was the growth and this calendar was from like 2013, you know, and it was just all the prayers and things. So, yeah, definitely reframing and and and seeing how it is with other people, you really have to work on that. It is a work in progress. Many people come because they see it on TV or that namaste, we're all love and light, but it's that shadow work. It's that deep that you do. So what books do you recommend? A book, Well, my book is coming out next year.
Speaker 3:So what books do you recommend? Book, well, my book is coming out next year, so I'm going to recommend that one. It's called Becoming Trigger Proof a guide to break free from trauma bonds, heal codependency and create secure love. Start the process is by Michael Singer the Untethered Soul. That really helps to start to introduce people to the concept of separating you from the thoughts, that identity that we have, that is constantly going, going, going and then unconsciously living. I'm all for it. Any Eckhart Tolle book A New Earth is fantastic. Books are an amazing guidepost of where to look and the real work is the day-to-day practice. So making sure that you show up, you find a guide and a community that can kind of guide you in towards finding your own knowing, rather than giving you the answers. That's, I'm all for that.
Speaker 2:Beautiful, so do you. What services do you offer? Do you offer classes, events, trainings?
Speaker 3:Yeah, it all begins with an event. One of my signature events is called the overview experience or the trigger proof experience, where I teach people how to take the thing that's conflicting you, triggering you the most, and spread it out over a day and really understand the mechanism of what's happening in your nervous system and using cognitive and somatic tools to rewire that reaction so that you can respond from a place of adulthood, bringing your adult self online. And so all of my offerings are really the teaching of the mastery of becoming trigger-proof, of using our triggers not something to avoid but as a thing to dive into, to find parts of ourselves that we haven't really loved, and using that as the practice. So all of my I have an academy, all of my trainings and events are serving the purpose of teaching people how to expand their capacity for the most challenging triggers in our lives as parents, as lovers, as leaders, and learning how to expand that space between stimulus and response so that you can respond rather than react.
Speaker 3:Clearly, from my own history, that became an important message for me, and so it's really about the mastery of rupture and repair. Right, it's not about perfection my wife and I me as a dad I'm not perfect. It's about look, we're not perfect, but we have the skills once we disconnect, how to repair. So it's really it's an academy of cycle breakers learning how to repair it's repair training.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean I love that you put in the nervous system. People just don't realize how important that is to work on that, especially since COVID I mean the last years.
Speaker 2:I mean we're not realizing what we've endured. I mean just to be like okay, we have this, you know, pandemic, and then all of a sudden, poof, you know, we're back to reality and we're not even sure how this is going to carry on in the next 10 years, 20 years. How is this going to carry on in the next 10 years, 20 years? How is this going to affect our children?
Speaker 3:I mean, yeah, the collective has gone through a massive nervous system dysregulation. You know, during COVID you can't fight, you can't flight, can't run. So, everybody just went into freeze. And so the collective nervous system has gone into dysregulation, and so, without learning how to operate that machinery, unknowingly it's impacting our relationships. It's impacting our leadership.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, I did an event back last year at the college, community college, and it was a chair yoga event and there were so many 19 and 20 year olds with sciatic. They're like I was diagnosed with sciatic, I got this, I got that. I'm just like blown away, like what I mean, and they were had such limited mobility, sitting there, you know, and then that made me think like they with COVID, you know, sitting right in the chair and hunched forward sitting right in the chair and hunched forward, not, not and not working.
Speaker 2:So you're at home, so all of your relational issues bubbled to the surface. It was a great awakening for people.
Speaker 3:And yeah, military neck, yeah never been a um more important time to uh, to really focus on self-healing and so this is what I'm all about.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so it's amazing. I just was like, wow, 19 years old. So where can we find you Interested in a service or session?
Speaker 3:Yeah, at the show notes my team has provided a link that the best place to begin is to find out your attachment style. So when you fill out the, there's a quiz that really helps you identify if you're an anxious attached, if you're avoidant, if you're disorganized or secure. Getting that information of where you are in the beginning is the best place to begin. So now you know exactly where to put your focus and, uh, from there, after you have that attachment style quiz, you can send me an email I'm easy to find All of the links should be on your show notes and send me a DM with any questions or an email. And I'm right there. I'll be able to me and my team will be able to respond within 24 hours.
Speaker 2:Perfect, all right. Well, that ends the first part of our journey. I'm going to guide you into the second part, which are questions from listeners and energy workers, students. So, number one, in your own words, you talk about this, that this is a specialty of yours. What is shadow work?
Speaker 3:Yeah, what is shadow work? Yeah, what is shadow work? Shadow work saved my life, and Carl Jung labeled this term where, when we grow up, we were conditioned to believe that certain parts of ourselves are really acceptable.
Speaker 3:You know you'd be a good girl. You know. You know you'd be a good girl. You know, tracy, you'd be a good girl. Pleasant, nice, loves God, whatever it is.
Speaker 3:In your family cultural system you were given the message that these parts of you are good, but your angry part, your needy part, your emotional part, the sad part, the reactive parts, the sexual parts, are bad. And so, in order to fit in, we take those parts of us and then we dismiss them, we suppress them, we hide them, we lock them up in the basement. But that energy of those parts of us doesn't go away. It's there energetically. And so, because it's locked in the basement and that energy is there, it creates a whole weird system within our uh, our psyche and our nervous system. It causes us to fracture and fragment from ourselves. It's called fragmentation. So we break the, the, these parts of us break free and they go into what's called our shadow. And throughout our lives we live kind of normally, but then we encounter experiences where these shadows get triggered.
Speaker 3:So if I have this needy part of me when I was a child that was told, oh, your emotions are too much, I'm like, oh my gosh, this part of me is unacceptable. I will suppress that needy part of me. It goes into the basement, but it doesn't go away. That energy is there and what will happen is I will be unconsciously pulled towards people who display that aspect of me that I'm denying. So I will push away my needy parts and I will become avoidant or detached emotionally Guess what kind of person that I will be attracted to People who are super, duper needy, so that they display the very thing that I'm denying within myself and I'll be triggered by them. I go God, they're so needy I'm and I'm I'm become avoidant because I'm avoiding those needy parts of myself and I can't, I can't get rid of them. So I will what's called project them outwards. So projection is a mechanism that our project what's denied within ourselves so we see it out there.
Speaker 3:So the things that really piss you off the most about other people, in a cosmic twist in which people hate, they can't handle, when they become aware of this is parts of yourself and they say no, no, and that is called the shadow. The shadow is the unwanted, dismissed, denied, repressed, disowned part of you that you dismissed or denied or disowned for protecting yourself to belong, and it shows up and it gets triggered and it kind of activates to help us find those parts to become whole, to what's called integrate them, to face them, to feel them, to bring compassion towards these younger parts of ourselves that we've hated all along, that cause us to split and fracture from ourselves, that gives us anxiety, that gives us feelings of unworthiness. Our shadow is meant to be seen, to be witnessed, to bring compassion to so that we can then become our whole selves. And so, once we find these parts of ourselves, we learn the methodology.
Speaker 3:What I call becoming trigger-proof is the practice of learning how to stop running away from these parts of ourselves, to move towards them, to find them and to bring them home safely, which then causes you to become a more authentic person. You're then able to take off the mask, not so concerned with what other people think of you, because you're you're. You know we're afraid of other people's opinions of us because we're afraid of them reflecting the parts of us that we already can't stand, which is in our shadow. So when you integrate your shadow, other people's opinions of you which colluded with your hatred of those parts of you don't bother you anymore. Which colluded with your hatred of those parts of you don't bother you anymore, so shadow work is your ticket to emotional freedom, safety in your own skin, non-reactivity is really developing an intimate relationship energetically with your shadow.
Speaker 2:Right, and it can be start in childhood and you use that example of being a good girl and that was one of the things through my childhood.
Speaker 3:Girls, don't get angry.
Speaker 2:Right and you keep quiet and children are seen and not heard. And then, as a young adult, I found myself getting triggered. But when I got triggered I yelled you know, and that, as a young parent, I'm like I hate having that was the go to Right and blowing you, blow up, you let everything happen, happen, happen, happen. And something that was so minor blow up and I just didn't like that about myself. And so, going to the healing, doing what I needed to do so I could fix that part, so I wouldn't be so reactionary that I could go from zero to a thousand and like, ah, I just want to stop that. And so, yeah, it takes work. And are we human? Yes, other times, okay, here it comes, but you know what to do to work on it. And then, even when I have a slip, okay, I got to work on it. I thought I was done with this, no way. So, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 3:And we're never done with it. We're never done.
Speaker 2:Yeah, never done with it. It's just a constant thing, because there's going to be moments where your voice isn't heard again. Right, here we go again. And what am I learning? You know teachable moments for sure. So number two how does someone know if they have attachment wounds?
Speaker 3:Yeah, know if they have attachment wounds? Yeah, how do you know? If that you have attachment wounds? Is your experience of how you experience distress within a relationship right? The main attachment wounds?
Speaker 3:There are two of them that are kind of competing with one another. You know there's a part of us that is driven, that has a fear of abandonment. So that's one wound is a fear of abandonment and that fear of abandonment drives our need to connect. And then there's another one on this side called the fear of engulfment, the fear of being consumed by love, by responsibility, by the other person's emotions. Because as a child, you know, you were maybe felt like you were abandoned as a child, emotionally or physically, or you felt like you were engulfed by your mother's overbearingness or responsibility. So this fear of engulfment here drives our need for space. So within us we have tension. This presents a problem for most of us that we haven't really identified is that we have this fear of abandonment that drives our need for connection and this fear of engulfment that drives our need for space has that and unconsciously we attract somebody who triggers and activates this fear of abandonment.
Speaker 3:How do you know that? You have that writing? You know running the show.
Speaker 3:Well, you're constantly preoccupied with what the other person is thinking. You're constantly wondering is this person going to leave me? You start thinking double, triple, thinking into oh my God, what do they mean by their text message? You're second guessing yourself and every single, every argument. You don't have the awareness that I'm going to be okay. It basically feels like death. I'm going to be left by myself, right, and you know attachment wounds when we go through breakups, they're every. Their relational ruptures are painful, but when you have a fear of abandonment, you literally will go into experiences of deep, dark depression, like grief, where you know you are. It's persisting for like six months, one year, two years, right. And so when you're run by the fear of abandonment, you, you know you're being mistreated, but being alone is worse than staying in a shitty situation, right, so that's the fear of abandonment. Now fear of engulfment, when how you know is that you want connection. But the second that things become really intimate and vulnerable, you're like, oh, get me the hell out of here.
Speaker 3:Oh my gosh, you know, or you know, you're chasing, chasing, chasing. But when the chase is over, this is the avoidant. Now the responsibility begins and you're like, oh, oh my gosh, like I'm overwhelmed. She's too needy, he's too needy, I need my space constantly.
Speaker 3:So how do you know you have attachment wounds if you're finding yourself in the same patterns of push and pull dynamics, not necessarily with intimate partnerships, but also even with friendships, and to the point where the anxiety within relationships, friendships, and to the point where the anxiety within relationships overtakes your, you know, your, your sense of peace of mind. And so, because most of us weren't born with unicorn parents, we have parents that have their own attachment wounds, codependency. Most of us have some sort of a refinement, a place, a part of us that can grow a little bit better, and so it's a work in progress. And if you're in business, if you have weaknesses in your business, it's wise to delegate them to other people who are better at it than you, but in relationships, we simply cannot delegate these weaknesses to others. We must work on them if we are to have relationships that feel secure.
Speaker 2:Thank you for that. So your book is going to be coming out next year. Trigger-proof but can you tell us a little bit? What's the, what's the best way that someone can be trigger-proof?
Speaker 3:What I discovered and this is what the entire point of the book is about is the second. This is what I discovered, and nobody I hadn't learned this anywhere, it came to me kind of in a meditation is the moment that you get triggered. Your nervous system unconsciously goes to a childlike state where you abandon yourself Because, as a child, in order for us to feel safe, the kind of the balance of do I choose my authentic self, or which could lead to me having love removed, having love withdrawn, or do I choose attachment? Do I people, please? Do I fawn? Do I uh, kind of defer to whatever you know is wanted or expected of me? In that moment, there's a face off where you're choosing attachment versus authenticity. You are going to choose attachment every time because your survival depends on it.
Speaker 3:So, what I discovered is that we are hardwired to abandon ourself for the sake of attachment, and every time we get triggered we abandon ourselves. And what do I mean by abandoning ourselves? It's, let's say, you show up late to uh, you show up late for an appointment, you and I are out for coffee, coffee meeting, and you show up late and I get triggered and I'm really angry, and so there's like mild irritant versus there is like severe anger and rage that I have. So whenever there is a reaction in a moment that is kind of like exaggerated beyond what the moment calls, then that means there's something historical that's been triggered. And in that moment, because you're late, the question that I get all of my students to ask is what do I make that mean about me, that Tracy is late? Well, I make it mean that I'm not important. The thing is. Is that Tracy is late for?
Speaker 3:whatever reasons the car broke down, is that Tracy is late. For whatever reasons the car broke down, she's got stuff on her mind. It's not because I'm not important, it's because Tracy had stuff going on. I'm the one that made it mean I'm not important. So I'm the one that abandoned myself, just like when I was a child, to be able to connect, to make sure that I was attached and connected. So becoming trigger-proof is the art and neuroscience of using the trigger to find the source of your self-abandonment, where you believed that you're not enough, unworthy, unlovable, and you resolve that self-abandonment internally and integrate with that shadow that just got activated before you communicate to your partner, to the other person, and when you do that, when you take the time to master that skill, the conversation happens. Hey, tracy, you know, thanks for showing up. You came a few minutes late. I made up this story that I'm not important.
Speaker 3:You know what was going on with you, what happened there, ah, okay. Well, here's the thing On future meetings, I'm going to have to make sure that you let me know in advance when something came up, so that you know both of our times can be honored. And see, now I'm talking to you as my adult self, rather than had I not taken the time to integrate. You walk in, I'm like, am I not important to you? And then now you're like getting all defensive. My childlike self has now activated your childlike self, and now we have a conflict of two inner children, two shadows, cl shadows one another rather than adults. Because I took a moment to be able to integrate, and so that is the process of becoming trigger-proof is resolving the self-abandonment that automatically happens because we were conditioned since we were children, and I love teaching it to people who are ready, because when you do this, you become an adult in relationships, and this is how you can have secure relationships.
Speaker 3:Now happen out there, it happens in here.
Speaker 2:Right, beautiful. Well, that was our third question as we were talking. Is there something that you have forgotten or want to share with listeners? The floor is yours.
Speaker 3:Yeah, the only thing that I'd really want to leave you with is this quote that kind of another came to me in a dream was that the highest form of forgiveness is the authentic recognition that everything served you and that there is nothing to forgive. And the goal of the inner work of becoming trigger-proof is really about getting to that place. You may not feel like that's true for you right now, but just know that what's possible on the other side of the inner work is a level of freedom where you don't really get. You get to a place where you have such profound understanding of yourself and the other person that you claimed or you feel who has hurt you, that you don't have to forgive yourself or anyone else to get to a place of understanding. And the highest form of forgiveness, I believe, is the authentic recognition that everything served you and that there is nothing to forgive.
Speaker 2:Beautiful, beautiful you, and that there is nothing to forgive. Beautiful, beautiful. Well, thank you for those very wise words and thank you for taking time out of your very busy schedule to join me on Ready Set Reiki.
Speaker 3:Thank you, great to be here.
Speaker 2:Beautiful. All right, my wonderful listeners, if you'd like your question featured on Ready Set Reiki, reach out to wwwreadysetreikicom. Also, check me out on social media as well. So I hope everyone has an amazing and wonderful day and be on the lookout for the trigger-proof book. Thank you so much and have a Ltd. All Rights Reserved.
