It's Grief: The Dance of Self Discovery through Trauma and Loss

Join us for a profound conversation with grief and trauma expert, Edy Nathan, as she introduces the concept of "Sexual Grief" and explains how trauma can hold us hostage, impacting our sense of identity, intimacy, and self-worth. With over 20 years in psychotherapy and specialties in EMDR and hypnotherapy, Edy shares her transformative approach to moving from self-loathing to liberation. Through empathy, radical curiosity, and the power of presence, she guides us in learning to “dance with grief.” Whether you’re navigating personal losses or deeper emotional imprints, this episode offers a fresh perspective on healing and empowerment.

#Podcast #EdyNathan #GriefTherapy #TraumaHealing #MentalHealth #SelfDiscovery #Intimacy #SelfLove #Empowerment #Psychotherapy #Mindfulness #HealingJourney


Edy Nathan buy here book on Amazon Check her out on YouTube follow her on Instagram follow her on LinkedIn and on Facebook

Barbie Moreno
www.BarbieMoreno.com
Follow on Instagram 
Facebook
LinkedIn
YouTube

Season 2 
Unraveling the Mind: From Mental Struggles to Inner Strength. 

Transcript

 elcome Edie. Thank you. You coined the term, um, Sexual grief. Sexual grief. Now tell us, what does that mean? So, so, it's a mouthful to say really what it means. So I'm just gonna give an idea of it. Sexual grief I see as a response that's natural to anyone who has experienced a predatory event in their lives. And predatory event can mean anything for anyone. I don't want to define it. What happens as a result of that experience, that event, that event is that the person who experiences it shuts down. And in that shutdown, they kind of, there's a deadening, And that deadening. I have a friend who recently said it's kind of like you're talking to the walking dead. And what you're trying to do is help the walking dead come online again, and be alive again. And so there's that sense of imprisonment within sexual grief within the traumatic imprint, if you will. And the goal of the work is to help people feel less imprisoned by teaching hostage negotiation strategies. And that's, that's really the, the scope of much of the work and, and hostage negotiation strategies have been around for, for quite some time. Chris Voss, who really created those strategies, you know, or feet freeing victims of true hostage hostage takers. But I see that our traumatic imprints hold us hostage. And keep us imprisoned from really harnessing a life that's, that's worth living or a life that we dream about. So traumatic imprints also being, uh, generational? Absolutely. Yeah. Yeah. So before we get started in everything that you have to teach us, cause I know that it's going to be deep and a lot. Everybody does what they do for a reason. What brought you to this work? I moved to New York, 19 years old. I didn't know anybody. I was going to school and I realized that And I moved from Chicago, which is kind of like a little New York, but a little, perhaps a little bit kinder on the soul, but New York had a, had a pulse to it. New York mimicked and mirrored how I felt inside. And, and that was, um, I use terms, by the way, this is for your audience. I use terms that, that. That are familiar to you, and yet I use them in different ways. So, I could say that I'm a survivor, but the term that I prefer to use is survivalist. So I came to New York as a survivalist, having had my own traumatic imprint that started when I was nine. And, I, I always felt like an outlier, and I, I, I, I always felt as if I didn't belong. And what, what I realized is that I had to find some way to belong. So that belonging came in the guise of theater and taking on different roles. And I went to NYU and I was in theater and did a lot of film with the, with the film students and then realized I couldn't really be in that world anymore, that I couldn't. continue to pretend to be someone I wasn't. That I needed to find out who Edie was. And there began, and it was really through also the, the loss of a significant partner in my life who died when I was 27. And there, began kind of my journey into working with grief and from grief realizing that when it was complex for many people and complicated like it was for me hard to get over hard and it's not like you get over grief ever you don't get over that but hard to to move with it to partner with it to dance with it to to make my life count. There was a, uh, an understanding within me that, Oh, you know what, there's other stuff that I never really dealt with. And those were the traumatic imprints that those were the abuses that I, that I lived with, that I went through, um, that encompassed bullying that encompassed sexual abuse and the realization that I needed to really understand the mind, the body, the psyche, the spirit, spirituality, and it all kind of culminated into the work that I do today. And a lot of people, when they think of grief, they specifically think of like, Oh, my grandma passed, my mom passed, my dad passed, something like that. They don't necessarily think of grief as a loss of innocence, a loss of a part of your personality, a loss of your wholeness. Right. And so it's, it's a different kind of grief than we're normally, you know, Using the word for that people are used to using that word for that's exactly right, and especially during during, you know, the time that we were all, you know, enclosed, because of this virus. It, it, it. It did spur conversations around a different kind of grief, like not knowing who the self is. And I think within the sexual grief effect, that there is a loss of personal identity, there is a loss of social identity, and those losses impede one's ability not only to be a sexual self, but to, to have that, that, that primary drive, the driver, to, to, to Be successful, to finish school, to think straight, to align with another person, to feel close, to feel intimate. And intimate is not just about sex. We have intimacy with our girlfriends and, and with our guy friends. And, and I did not coin this phrase, into me you see, but someone once coined that and it's intimacy, into me you see. And when we are not able to. Have that into me. You see, there is a loss, a big loss. Yes, a big one. Do you think that societies, um, the way they kind of push genders into certain roles and identities would then also be why we experience the sexual grief, the idea that we don't even get to decide, um, who we are, because it's decided for us by our, by at a very early age, you do this, you do that, that's okay for you, you can cry, you can't cry, like all of these different things that we don't even get an opportunity to, um, you know, To develop ourselves anymore. And, and that's such a great question because the expansion of that question can go to our histories and, and, you know, where we all came from. And if we think about, you know, the caveman, and we think about the designated roles, no one told them what their roles were, but they came into those roles as survivors based on strength. based on, you know, one's large body or, or smaller body as in the women. And yet, you know, how did those roles change over time? Because we, our cultures changed because our evolution changed. And so it's a, it's a deep question of what gets assigned and what doesn't get assigned and how we are told who we are. At a young age because of the gender we are born into. with or assign, you know, the assigned gender. I mean, it's, it's, you know, we're born with most are born with genitalia that will designate one's gender and therefore that the assigning of that gender or that gender is, is, is responded to in kind by the parents, parents, whoever those parents happen to be. Now we are also living in a world. For many of us, where there is curiosity about what does it mean to be assigned to have that gender to be born into based on one's genitalia, that gender versus what one feels internally and what is accurate for them as, as, as a, as a being, as a human, as, um, As, as an eye, as how we might identify as binary or non binary, right? And the need to even have a label is kind of silly, right? Like who cares? Like, you know, honestly, like if you, again, I'm very direct. When you come right down to it, why do we even have to label every single little thing? It's again, um, a question that has history to it for sure. Okay. Thank you. Bye. And, um, and yet, you know, as we talk about this, the fathers of our country, um, as opposed to finding another way to, um, um, designate. How they, the implication of what they created and didn't need to be fathers. But, you know, we can also say, and I'm not, I'm not sure of the exact date, but I think it wasn't until 1973 that women were allowed to have credit cards. Right. Yes, I might be off. So by one or two years and I for please forgive me for not being exact. Yeah, and that's a whole nother conversation right without you couldn't do anything without permission, like all of these various different things. And I think that in the you'll, I'm sure you'll go into this, but what happens is, as As people start to evolve and our thought processes evolve, we're still the previous generation is who raised us with their older thought processes. So as we evolve and know that these thought processes are maybe not as healthy as they should be and we don't want to live that way, we're We're still stuck in the experiences that we had with those, the other generations who felt like those things were, you know, very, very valid and very, very important, right? You can go into this when it talks about like disciplining your children. When I was growing up, you used to get beat. You got beat. That's what happened. Now, if you, you know, now we know you don't, you don't hit your children. It causes a lot of trauma in their brain, their life, their experiences. However, now I'm a mother who was beat. And so even though I don't hit my children, I still experience the trauma of understanding like how could you do that to your child? And as I'm sitting here with you right now, the emotions you're feeling come right through. Yeah. So, I, I, I just want you to, I, I, I'm not going to talk around or above the emotions that are in this room right now. Yeah. And the question is, how could you do this to your children? Yeah. So the other part of the sexual grief effect has to do with the developmental issues that Sexually traumatic, because if someone is hit or if they have a really bad first sexual experience, that's not predatory in nature, but it affects them in ways that are unexplainable and that failed first sexual experience, let's say. is then taken and spread around the school and is on social media. That does to someone's affect and their ability to enjoy perhaps another sexual experience may absolutely, absolutely affect their ability to feel free. to have a sense of self that's positive. And once again, that brain stem activity that is so necessary and that sense of personal identity, which is so necessary for success and thinking straight gets blasted. and they are held hostage by this in similar way to the memory of how you were hit as you are raising your children is an imprint that you carry you know you don't want to hit your children and yet you know what is the capacity to to help your child see right from wrong and how does your body Experience being the mother you are to the children you have and choosing, making a choice that you're not going to do to them what was done to you. And the, the, the emotional, physical experience that you have in those moments could also be sexual grief. Right. And that's what it is as you're talking. It's grief. It's grief for myself. That's exactly right. Yeah. Yeah. And, and, and what is grief? I see grief as a yearning for something that is missing. So you didn't have an imprint of grief. working through bad behavior in a more positive way. Let's talk about this. Let's understand what's going on here. Maybe it's a cry for help. Maybe it's a cry for attention, or maybe it's a teaching moment that can actually bring parent and child closer together, rather than coming out of fear and ransoming the child's. sense of self as diminished or bad and keeping them kind of locked and done and quiet and silenced. What I've seen and kind of what I, what I actually talk about when I do my speeches and I work with people is that a lot of overachievers, which I was for a very long time, became an overachiever to compensate for all of the things that happened in childhood and your ability to maybe control. If I'm an overachiever, I can control the outcome of things, right? If I have more money, I can control things, all of these various different things. And these all sound like they're tied back again to what you're talking about. Yeah, and I think there's a spectrum there. So you had the wherewithal to become that overachiever. Who knows what got lost along the way. A lot. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Like, what about fun? And what about joy? And what about laughter? And we could just go on and on. The other side of that spectrum is results in the same thing, but it's the underachiever, the person who becomes a drug addict or, or obsesses, becomes obsessional about certain behaviors or the, the, the, the, the person who becomes homeless. And we can, we can see reactivity to the situations that we're now talking about. and the abuses that we're now talking about and it could go on either end of the spectrum. And, and also in the middle. I mean, you know, the middle is, you know, living color and, and everyone will deal, you know, this kind of grief and grief from the loss of a loved one is like your fingerprint. You have fireworks going off in the back of you. Yeah, I don't really know how. That was amazing. And it's like your fingerprint. And it's as individual as you are. No one has the same fingerprint, and no one deals with grief or the sexual grief effect in exactly the same way. So talk to me about and clarify for the listeners. So there's, there's grief and there's sexual grief. Is all grief, sexual grief or only grief that comes from sexual experiences, sexual grief? So great question. I think loss of a loved one does not necessarily mean you're going to experience sexual grief. Not at all. You know, grief is, is, is, is. is grief, sexual grief and sexual, the sexual grief effect is in response to, and it is a natural response. And I say natural because it's like, if we get cut, we say, ouch. So the sexual grief effect and feeling that sense of being imprisoned and stuck, you know, is, is, is what's natural to the sexual grief response, which happens when there's a predatory event that someone has experienced or a developmental. sexually traumatic experience like a really bad first time sexual experience or even being unwanted in the womb and groan. You know, growing up in a family where you knew you were not wanted. Aging, menopause, these are also part of, it's developmental in nature and there can be sexual grief. Because for a woman who goes through menopause and it's not a good experience, she will feel like she's lost some prime, primal sense of herself. Her loss of desire, her loss of her looks, her loss of the body she once knew. And this can bring about. A sexual grief response. I think majority of women, I mean, I think men have their own, but I'm a female, right? Um, experience this all of the time. I mean, we're supposed to quote unquote, look a certain way. I mean, think of the, you know, breast implants, having your body like cut open so that your breasts can be bigger. So you can be considered more attractive. You know, you, if you're not this size, if you don't look this specific way, let's get Botox, let's get fillers, let's get facelifts. And all of that. goes to the history of wanting to be wanted and wanting to be desired, right? That's right. And, you know, that's certainly a body dysmorphia and where that body dysmorphia comes in with everything that you just said, you know, more Botox and, and more eye lifts to the point where some women and men look like, you know, don't even look like they've got eyes anymore or you don't, you don't recognize them anymore. You know, we've got a lot of people, you know, in the limelight who are constantly, you know, getting, getting surgeries to, to make themselves more attractive and also to continue to be in, in the field. Um, so yes, you can absolutely say that there are, At times that body dysmorphia that happens for women and for men, men are not left out of my conversation here, Barbie. And I'll tell you why. Because men are, I think they're lost. They're not getting the attention that they need. And though most of your listeners may be men, if they are with men, to have an understanding that if that relationship, with their partner is not going well, that there may be a sexual grief that he may be experiencing. He may have been neglected. He may have been unwanted. He, and, and the neglect piece is, um, a colleague of mine writes a lot about it. Her name is Ruth Cone and she writes a lot about neglect. I. I don't write about neglect, but I write about the vestiges after neglect after there is neglect, there is the sexual grief response and for men as they age and they're, they're dealing with, again, their physical changes, but also, um, Erectile dysfunction or being on medications that make them gain weight, uh, it is definitely takes a toll on them and their senses of personal identity and also social identity. Right. And I mean, it is very common to make fun of a man's penis size, right? And in a joke, like, oh, he must have a small or he, oh, he's a, you know, a big blah, blah, blah. Like, you know. Yeah, so we do also say it culturally. There are certainly, you know, within certain cultures, there, there's, there are stories of certain things. You know, cultures with men that men, you know, men's genitalia is bigger or more pronounced. And, you know, and we, we go around thinking this, and it's not, I'm not saying it's not true or it is true, but I am saying that when we, when we align our thinking, In that narrow scope, we then attribute a certain, um, expectation from them. Like there's an expectation of, of, of women and how women will be based on hair color, based on body. And it, none of it is true. Right. No, not really, but there's a, there's, we, there's a prescription that's, that's kind of made of this is, you know, this man or this woman based on how they look based on their skin color will act a certain way within a relationship. Um, and. You know, it's, it's, you brought up something so important and relevant. We are, we are raised by women. We are raised by men. By men, we are raised by two women, we are raised by two men, we are raised by single women, and we are raised by single men. I mean, you know, we are, we are raised by grandparents and aunts and uncles, and they come in. With their own ideas of who they are and who these children are, and so these children that are raised by them, the boys are raised to perhaps not to cry, not to be sensitive. You then add perhaps a religious trauma of shame and guilt about pleasure and joy. That is another area where the sexual grief effect and response comes in. What about porn? What about porn? Yeah, what about it? I mean, there's a lot to it, right? Because, one, uh, boys are generally introduced to it. Most girls, at least from my experience, are not generally that introduced to it or shown it at an early age or even very often, right? Well, boys are. Um, and I don't think I personally feel as a female that it then puts the act of intimacy in, into a more sexual physical thing. And then this is where they're learning from. And so then how can they create an intimate moment when what they've been shown is not intimate? It's um, it's tricky, this, this idea of porn, because being, being a sex therapist and working with couples, there are couples who. Share porn it's agreed upon and no one is hurt Then there are these boys who are looking at porn and as they look at it they feel less than and They go into themselves and they feel that they cannot in any way ever be What they see in those in the in those porn movies Mm hmm And then there are those boys and men who, uh, because they have disabilities, have no way for release and no one around them can, will help. So I look at porn in a variety of different ways because I think depending on need, depending on, you know, our boys. perhaps be the ones that have access and are looking at it and think this is what it looks sex and intimacy looks like yeah they're getting mismatched mixed and sometimes horrible messages when there are so many different ways to look at porn and there's so many introductions of of different styles and fill in the blanks so if it's two consenting adults and no one is being forced That's one form and maybe it helps them and yet, you know, we've got our boys who are doing this in their coupling or in their new coupling and think this is the way it should be. And that can surely be problematic for them and for whomever they are with. When it feels like it de, um, sensitizes the, again, the intimacy of it, right? So I have a 16 year old daughter and she's in high school. And so, you know, obviously I hear lots of different stories and there's lots of stuff going on and there's a huge, right now, specifically, desensitization of, you know, of intimacy and it's all physical and it's all about the physical and there's, there's people who, and I don't know if this has always happened, you know, I don't, I mean, I'm, you know, 44 years old, but there's, there's teenagers who, and adults who just meet specifically to hook up and have sex and they take the intimacy out of it, but they don't have any intimate relationships, right? It's all about just the physical act of the sex and the release that you get from that. And then for the females, and just to tap onto that, I feel like there is a grief for us because when they're watching these, um, videos or whatever the case may be, and we're sexualized in that way that our body is just a hole to put something in. It's very sad. It is very sad, you're right. Can we take a step back though? Absolutely. Have you been to a restaurant lately and seen two young kids out? Like on a date? Mm hmm. Not really. Yeah, why and If you were to go out and imagine two kids on a date What would you what do you think you would see? I guess I'm not understanding why you're asking the question Because when I see two kids out 16 17 18 22 25 right They're looking at their phones. Oh, yeah. That's kind of what I was wondering. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. Exactly. One another. And so, is it the porn? Or is it also something else that's going on? And it wasn't meant as a trick question, but like, where, where are we coming from? Because they're not making phone calls. They're not even listening to a voice. Where, where are we? You and I would get a sense of someone's mood on how, how their tone of voice was. We would see them, but now everyone's neck and face is in a foam. So where is the intimacy of actually looking into one, one, someone's eyes or smelling them? Right. Like our sense of smell is so powerful and, you know, it kind of, I, I, it begs the question Your daughter may be missing this, and kids in her classrooms may be missing this, that, you know, they're in school, they're, they're looking at the teacher. Phones are, are, are in some schools banned, but chances are they've got them in their backpacks. They're then, you know, they're out of school, they're looking at their phones, they're texting, and that's when they say, oh yeah, I just talked to, it's a text. So, I think the intimacy has got to start somewhere. And, is it the loss of, of, of, of porn? Or, or, somehow saying, you know, These kids shouldn't be watching porn, sure, but how do we, how do we get them to want to actually be in each other's company and look at one another? Yeah, and I think it's two different, in my opinion, it's two different things and the same thing at the same time, right? So it's, there is the subject of, and I'm not saying like porn shouldn't be out there, I'm talking about how it makes, um, how it depicts what, That looks like for people and normalizes it when that's not, you know, generally the case for most people, right? And how, um, it takes all the intimacy out of it. I agree. Phones take the, the, a mass amount of media that these kids and humans consume. The fact that everything is easy. And you can just go on an app, swipe and meet somebody and then not even have to have a conversation, but know that you're going to hook up or whatever the case may be or whatever. I think all of that stuff, the intimacy is removed from it. In general, I would say we have significantly less intimacy. Yes, I would agree. And do they, do they know what intimacy is? Do they know what a soft touch is? Do they know what a prolonged time without picking up the phone feels like? Right. And. Yeah, and then I would say the, the thing that I see with the previous generation, so my generation and the generation before me is because There was so much more, I would say, abuse, right, that did we know what intimacy was, right, because if you were not, if you were not loved in your home, or you were not shown love and intimacy and stuff like that in your home, it doesn't matter if there was phones or not phones, you still don't, don't have that intimacy. The difference is now it seems like the parents aren't, aren't actually involved. Nobody's connected anymore, right? So, It's a big question. I don't, you know, and, and having this conversation is, is so important. It's vital and every, every conversation you have and I have about maybe the, the importance of having parents really pay attention, that it starts with the parents. Mm hmm. It starts with the parents saying, Listen, you know what? No phones today, you know, we're gonna have family dinner We're gonna I mean I grew up we had dinner at the table 6 6 p. m Every night, you know whether you were hungry or not, unless you had like some event that you were doing, you know, and um How, how can we get the family back together again, because there's missing of the family. And, you know, I use the term family loosely because family can mean something different, but what I'm talking about is a safe space where there's love and where there's care. And it doesn't matter if it's, you know, a parental unit or a grandmother or, you know, an older, an older sibling, it's a place where, where, where you can be. Uh, safe and you have a sense of, of being held and, and that can be intimacy as well. I think where I was, I'm going with this is that because so many people are still unhealed or, and I always say integrate, right? You have to integrate it. I don't like the word healed so much, but you have to integrate your experiences. I'm right there with you. Yeah. It's like, yeah. So integrated. So they haven't integrated their experiences and they haven't come to understand and be okay and accept and, you know, and all of these different things. Yeah. And because we have so many people who are adults, who are raising children, who are teaching children, who are law enforcement, who are every day involved in all of our lives, who are, have not integrated their past. How do we, how do these kids even have a chance? Well, you know, somehow they do because there is another, another part of these kids that are very much into community. very much into fighting for what's right and collaborating. They may not be doing it as individuals, but as groups. And the power of those voices is immeasurable. And it may be that they, they partner a little bit later, but And they find their causes and they gather around those causes in a world now that needs very much their voices. And the funny thing is, is the way that they are going to use their voices on exactly what we've been talking about getting rid of, like, you know, using too much of the social media and the online and all that stuff. So it's like this catch 22, right? Like you want to use it. Yeah, that's right. And it'll be the gathering in the community. I just got chills. Because They have a greater sense of that than, than any generation before us, except, and I'm not, I'm not from the 40s, but, you know, I think that there was a true sense of community in the 40s. I think there was a true sense of community around World War II. I think we've lost that over, over time for a multitude of reasons, and I won't get into that, but, But it's like we are back in a place where there are dangers are in our mists and and part of that has to do with our climate and part of that has to do with so many other things and that that that they are gathering and they are forming communities and and And, and maybe right now sex is a release and they'll use that as a release for their fears because there's a lot of fear out there. And maybe it becomes okay until it's not, until they're wanting more and they're wanting to actually feel the person they're with. And I believe that there's, there's hope in that. How do you help the people that you work with transform? Well, it's up to them. I am a witness, um, and I use a variety of strategies, and I'm going to say strategies, they're tools, uh, so there's not a one pronged approach. Everyone that walks into my office is an individual. and no one experiences their pain in exactly the same way. What I can tell you is that I do see that we become stuck and imprisoned by our pasts and by our, our, our, our pain. And between the 11 phases of grief that I wrote about in my first book, it's grief, and the hostage negotiation strategies that I'm talking about in my yet to be. Published because I'm looking for a publisher for this, this new book, um, that, that those hostage strategies include, um, a radical curiosity. And when people are in the kind of pain that you and I are talking about, the last thing they want to be is curious. And so to have a radical curiosity about what's going on within them and how the hostage taker, which I see as their memory, pop ups, pop ups, pop up memories that come in that take their breath away, or when, when the polyvagal and their nervous systems stop them in their tracks to, to not immediately go into, I've got to, I've got to take flight, but instead I'm, I'm going to, I'm going to Have this this this curiosity. Okay body. What's going on with you? Why are you reacting the way you're reacting? I'm right here with you and let me let me actually breathe let me take in a breath and I work a lot with the body the brain and the emotions and being able to accurately identify Label, if you will, what's going on because sometimes I think labels are important. When I have said to people, God, it feels like you, you're held hostage. It's like they stop, they stop and they go, that's exactly how I feel. And no one's ever used the word hostage with me, but I feel like I'm a hostage. I feel like I can't get out. I feel like something imprisons me and I can't. Put one foot in front of the other. I can't learn. I'm in class and all I keep thinking about is I got to get out of here. I got to get out of here. And, and, and, and I don't even know why I'm having that thought, but I'm afraid. And that kind of fear reminds me of when I, experience that predatory event or as, as my good friend and poet, Mary Simmerling talks about is the, the, the, the, the, the, the woman who escaped being raped and taken, but because she escaped, it didn't necessarily feel that she was was a survivalist. Right. But she was. Right. And so we don't identify it as such. And And, you know, it's, it's saying, okay, so there's something deeper going on. So to have the curiosity to sit with someone and say, yes, what you are experiencing is real. It's not fake. And however you got here, let's allow your curiosity to also be met. And this is the second stage with, with an empathy for what's going on. all that your body and your mind and your soul and your spiritual being feel. And then there's developing a rapport. And the last thing we want to do is develop a rapport with the part of us that we hate, or we want to disguise, or we want to mask up. And so it is really about developing just even those primarily three aspects of hostage strategies. Negotiation strategies and then I'm usually not like speechless and I am so that's pretty good. What's making you speechless? I'm absorbing it. Okay. I'm absorbing it. I'm absorbing. Um, the impact of it and the, you know, We just all want to be heard. That's, that's one of the biggest thing. And our body wants to be heard. Yes. Yeah. We want to hear ourselves. Exactly. Exactly. And we don't have a way in when what we are holding is filled with loathing. Mm hmm. And so I talk about the three L's from loathing to liberation to love. And really this work is about getting to love. I recently did a, um, a workshop, a six hour immersion. Uh, it was amazing at Oxford university in England. And in that immersion, I did a lot of psychodrama and role play because how do I help people? I will ask people to do role play with me like one on one or In, in mass as a group. And I had people like in the room with me and also virtually, and we did all of these different kinds of psychodramas and we did mask work. 'cause the masks are, can be so unbelievably compelling when someone starts to write how they feel on a mask. And it takes what's going on inside and it moves it to the mask and then it's not as. painful to hold it because it's on the mask. So anyway, I did, I got group, I broke people up into three groups. One group was the self loathing group. One group was the liberation group and one group was the love group and each group, they, everybody was given the same direction. I want you to come up with a sentence that best represents Loathing, liberation, and love. And then I want you as a group to find how would you move in loathing, in liberation, and in love. Loathing group, they came up with it, and you know, they were scrunched, and they were hiding, and they came up with a beautiful sentence. And, and liberation, it was like, yeah! We're liberated! We got this! Love, they couldn't figure it out. They couldn't come up with a sentence, they couldn't come up with a form, a form of, of body that would work for them. And it made perfect sense because we are, we, we don't know what love is. We have a hard time we aligning with it and figuring it out and saying, oh, this is what it is. Mm-Hmm, or no, it's that, or, well, my mom protected me. That's love, but why didn't she leave? Mm-Hmm. . Or, you know, my dad, my, my, my dad, like he, he, he fed us. Okay. Well, it was spaghetti all of the time. And I don't know why he didn't get food stamps or get more help, but he fed us. Okay. Well, great. So. Um, you know, and, and I, I used, you know, gender just because that's been feedback, but it could, you know, it could certainly be, you know, whoever the parents are or whoever is tending to the, the, the tenderness of a child and their needs that, that what is love? And we often can't identify it. What does love look like to you or feel like? I don't think I've ever been asked that question. Really? Really? I mean, that's a, you asked the question, right? So we would assume that somebody else would ask it to you. I ask it of myself and it changes and it's ever changing. Right. Today. Yeah. So today, love is being at peace with myself. Love is having my voice. and not having it cut off in any way. And love is having the capacity to notice others and say hello. Hmm. I like that. Yeah. Too often we just look past other people, right? Yeah. What does it mean for you? It means So today, right, because everything like you said is changing. Today it looked like sleeping in and letting my husband do the kids in the morning so that I could get a little bit of extra sleep and not feeling guilty over it. It felt like, uh, it looks like taking the morning and doing a routine of meditation and time for myself and making it more about me today than it was over the weekend, which is generally about my kids and all their sports and stuff. And, and it's, it's about being present. Being in the moment, and it's about a feeling all of the feelings without Without having to judge them all the time. Yeah, because that judge comes in. Oh, yeah. Yeah Yeah, that's why I loved your word loathing because I don't think I've heard anybody use the word loathing, but it's so accurate So accurate Yeah, I, um, I know, I know though, I know loathing. It visits me more, more times than I would want it to. And it comes in around self doubt, and it comes in, I think, Because of those fragile moments where there was abuse and there was bullying. And when you're young and that tender brain starts to take in that negative stuff, it, those neural pathways get formed. Now, it's not that the new neural pathways can't get formed, but the body continues to remember, and the body continues as Vessel van der Poel, Cook always says is, you know, the body keeps the score and it's true and I can feel it in my body. The difference is, is it doesn't take over the way it once used to. So is it still there? You bet. But can I talk it down? Yeah. And does the judge come in or the critic come in and do they want to, to just say, Oh, it's self loathing time. It's the afternoon for self loathing. Here we are like. Oh god, I really don't want you but that's when in my own work. I must say let's be curious Let's have bodacious curiosity Let's have curiosity with awe Let's have radical curiosity and let's sit in that and so okay, you want to show up? Let uh, uh, uh, i'm ready I'm ready And let's go And then, oh, well, can I have a little bit of empathy? Because empathy, when there's self loathing, it's often, it's nowhere. So, let's, let's define what empathy can look like. Let's define where I'm going to maybe hold it in my body. Maybe it's not in my heart. Maybe it's in my gut. Or maybe it's in my lower back. Maybe it's in where my brain stem is. Right. I think authenticity is another way of the word of the idea of love too. Like when you can authentically show up as you are broken in that moment or not sad in that moment or happy but when you just own how you are right now. That's presence. That's presence. I think you used the word presence. Yeah. I'm gonna latch on to that because I love presence. Yeah. Presence is precious. And How often are we really present? I feel present with you right now. And yet, when you ask a question, and I'm trying to like imagine My best answer in my best self. I'm present and I'm not present because I'm, I'm filtering through my files in my brain. I come back and I'm present. So to be present is precious. And if I'm really present, then the judge doesn't come in. The critic doesn't come in. They have no doorknob. Yeah. Huge. It's huge. Huge. How does somebody work with you, or find you, or learn from you, or just, just stalk you? Ah, yeah, so, um, so my website is a great place to start, ednathan. com, real simple. I'm, I'm on Medium, but more important, I'm on Substack. And Substack is a wonderful way for you to, you know, Just listen to, to, um, read the articles that, that I've written. You can, it's free. It's also, um, there's, you know, you can, you can support me in that as well. Uh, I am going to, at some point start a greater support. Project there. Um, and write to me. I, I actually, I do read my emails and you can write to me, um, through ed1nathan at gmail. com. And I don't know if you have a place where they can go to, to, to kind of find all of this information. It's grief. The dance of self discovery through trauma and losses on Amazon. Um, and I am soon to be going to publish the, it's grief notes to self. And it's a three month journal and it's, it's beautiful. I, I, I love it. And, uh, and so there's a lot of different ways. Um, um, Writing this this new book. The title is still up for grabs. It could be from low from self loathing to liberation to love That's one title. It could be the sexual grief effect. But right now we're looking for a publisher. So I'd love to hear your stories and I'd love to just continue this conversation One of my favorite things about talking to you is that I didn't feel like you have the same spiel every single time. You know, oftentimes on a podcast, you talk to people and they've got like their script and they want to get certain points across and they want to check those off the list. And you know, that's kind of part of it or whatever the case may be, but I love true, authentic conversations. And so I really, really enjoyed having that with you. Thank you. Thank you. And I with you, this was a pleasure to be present. During this conversation. Thank you. Yeah. I usually end with just something that I usually end with. And if I may, I love the Wizard of Oz, and the Wizard of Oz is about empowerment and that Dorothy had those red shoes but she walked through the entire story not knowing the power. And I want everyone in this audience to know you have the power of those red shoes and you have the power to use what you know about yourself to grow and to explore all the different parts of you. Love that very much. I will, I will include all of your contact information in the description and I, I know you will make a difference in the world. So thank you for showing up. Thank you. Thank you so much, and you.