Love & Your Truth

E2: Interview with Jenna Pacelli: Navigating Relationships with Narcissists

• Dr. Sabrina Hadeed • Season 1 • Episode 2

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**Edited since the original aired, to fix audio problems.

E2 - Interview with Jenna Pacelli: Navigating Relationships with Narcissists

Join me and Jenna Pacelli as we delve into the complexities of navigating relationships with narcissistic individuals.

Jenna Pacelli is a trauma specialist and somatic therapist with expertise in the area of narcissism. We discuss the nuances of diagnosing narcissism, and offer insights on healing from narcissistic abuse.

This episode examines the importance of empathy, accountability, and community in overcoming developmental trauma, healing from traumatic relationships and fostering personal growth.

To Connect with Jenna Pacelli, please visit her website at https://www.jennapacelli.com/

Stay connected with Dr. Sabrina Hadeed on Instagram @microdoseyourmarriage

www.microdoseyourmarriage.com

Stay connected with Dr. Sabrina Hadeed on Instagram @dr.sabrinhadeed

Learn more about Dr. Hadeed and the legal psilocybin program for individuals and couples operating in Bend, Oregon on her website:
www.loveandpsychedelics.co

dr--sabrina-hadeed_1_08-09-2024_121711:

Hello and welcome my dear Jenna Pacelli. I'm so, so, so glad that you said yes, to being a guest on the micro dose, your marriage podcast. And I am so delighted because as you know, you're a dear friend and I just love you to pieces, but also because I just deeply respect the wisdom that you, that you hold in the mental health field as a trauma specialist, as a somatic healer.

jenna-pacelli--lmft--sep_1_08-09-2024_121711:

Thank you, Sabrina. I'm so glad to be with you too. I also love you so much and I deeply respect your work as well. There are, you know, I don't say this to be mean to anybody, but there's so few people that I feel comfortable A high standard and as far as clinicians go. And you are one of the few that I. So deeply, you know, respect and know that you will take wonderful care of people. And I just want to name that as well with you. And I'm so happy to be on. So Thank you. I'm, um, I'm excited as well. I'm going to be heading into, uh, you know, I've been in clinical practice for a while, but also for years, but also, starting to step into some more research. And I'm actually right on the. Brink of moving to London, um, in the United Kingdom to go to King's college, London for a neuropsychology research program. So I'm really excited to start to add in more of that research base into what I already know to be true about trauma and narcissism and the way the nervous system works and how do we actually heal that at the root instead of just putting band aids on things. Bringing a more robust evidence based to that. So I'm excited for that too.

dr--sabrina-hadeed_1_08-09-2024_121711:

So great. I am excited for you. I'm proud of you. I do feel a sense of loss, of course, because you'll no longer be local. You will be jet setting and, and gifting London with your amazingness and, and, and, which is great. And also a loss for us. And in the virtual world, we will, we'll, we'll do what we do. get to, you know, stay tuned in to you. one of the things that we focus on here, even though the title of course, microdose your marriage, it's not just about microdosing. It's not just about psychedelics. It's about relationship wellness. you are someone that has been working in the field for a long time as a marriage and family therapist. And as someone that specializes in that intergenerational ripple effect that happens with trauma and Also with healing, Yes.

jenna-pacelli--lmft--sep_1_08-09-2024_121711:

Yes. Yes.

dr--sabrina-hadeed_1_08-09-2024_121711:

healing. Um, so the topic today that I really wanted to hear from you on is this, you know, I think that as we know, mental health terminology and diagnoses and whatnot, trend, there are different trends that we see emerge in the field. And one of the trends right now, um, is, is narcissism, right? A lot of people are excited to talk about it. Maybe haven't. Have the safe space to talk about what it's like to be in relationship with someone that is a narcissist. And I think part of the problem is just like anything that trends, we tend to get, we tend to lose the focus of what is really meets criteria versus what doesn't and why is it important to understand the difference. And so that leads to the question I had for you, which is, you know, how do you differentiate between a person that is maybe what we would call a true narcissist. Versus someone that has features of narcissism, you know, a tendency to default to their own narrow scope of the world and their experience and themselves, but has the capacity to grow and

jenna-pacelli--lmft--sep_1_08-09-2024_121711:

Yes.

dr--sabrina-hadeed_1_08-09-2024_121711:

and be in better partnership with others.

jenna-pacelli--lmft--sep_1_08-09-2024_121711:

Yes. I love this question. This is a very important question, right? Because yeah, that the buzzword narcissism is, is, It's ubiquitous in the, in the internet. I mean, it's everywhere. And, and I think that, and I'll say with gaslighting too, like there's this kind of this concept to a gaslighting. I think that fits in here as well. It's one of the, one of the things that you can experience when you're in relationship with someone who meets criteria for narcissistic personality disorder, but,, not everybody does. You're right. And that, you know, narcissism in many ways is a spectrum. Yeah. Right. And in the, in there are diagnostic and statistical manual, the thing that you and I, and other clinicians use to diagnose folks with personality disorders and otherwise is, is focused on a certain set of criteria and to meet, right. To meet, you know, diagnostic criteria, you have to meet a certain number. So that's, that's clear. We know that, right. And not everybody meets that those, that criteria. However, what I see in my work, is that there's a, the spectrum. Um, Is connected to emotionally immature people, right? So I work a lot with the adult children of narcissistic parents. And one of the things that I see, and I've got a quiz, I've got a, well, I've got a membership, a healing community and course that I have online that, within that folks can access a checklist of, Of it, you know, basically is my parent narcissistic or is this other person you could kind of interchange any of it with, with any person that you're in relationship with. But, um, that's available for them in terms of how serious is this person? How, or how, how severe is this person's presentation? And I think that that's important. And it can be very validating it can be very validating. And a lot of the exactly a lot of the people that I work with have. Yeah. They end up, I've inadvertently done basically a lot of research into this with the folks that I've worked with, because I've had a lot of people come through whose parents are, it's out of 28, this checklist. And most people that end up working with me are usually in the 22 to 28 range. So their parent is pretty severe and it's been very traumatic for them. And that being said, there's a lot of folks that come to me that have parents in the, Higher teens and early and low twenties as well. And I would say those are kind of more of your emotionally immature parents. Maybe they go to therapy, maybe they, or, you know, again, it could be parent, could be relationship. And if you've been in, if you were raised by somebody who's narcissistic, you're absolutely going to be, you know, have a tendency to, to want date those kinds of date or marry those kinds of people as well. And so, um, you know,

dr--sabrina-hadeed_1_08-09-2024_121711:

to what we know.

jenna-pacelli--lmft--sep_1_08-09-2024_121711:

that's right.

dr--sabrina-hadeed_1_08-09-2024_121711:

mean, for better or worse, right?

jenna-pacelli--lmft--sep_1_08-09-2024_121711:

That's right. That's right.

dr--sabrina-hadeed_1_08-09-2024_121711:

love where we're starting here because what I hear you saying is that the first way you're going to answer the question is that how I differentiate, meaning you, is that I've created, it sounds to me like you've created a checklist, which is a self, I mean, it's a self assessment. Essentially, you ask people to go through this list of 28 questions and depending on the answers, you know, very severe. You know, if they're reporting on a parent that meets like, you know, on the severe spectrum, they're going to, they're going to maybe answer 28 of them. Yes. You know, something like that versus,

jenna-pacelli--lmft--sep_1_08-09-2024_121711:

Yes.

dr--sabrina-hadeed_1_08-09-2024_121711:

that maybe is, is, is checking off 12. And so that's the first point is like taking, doing a self assessment from your lens of, You know, how is this person showing up? What are some of, I'm curious, what we don't need to go over the, the full 28 of course, but what are some of the things, the checklist, you know, how do you,

jenna-pacelli--lmft--sep_1_08-09-2024_121711:

Um, yeah. of the main themes, I'll start with, with a theme, which is there's the, you know, narcissism is inherently an empathy problem. And so you're going to see a Large number of these criteria to be connected to that in some way. So do you feel like you don't know your parent or your partner emotionally? Do you feel like they're criticizing you constantly? Um, is it never good enough? Do they devalue you and others around them, especially when they don't get their way? That's another big sign is I start to make you, you know, if I'm, if I'm narcissistic and I'm talking to you, Sabrina, and I start to say like I, up you know the the I don't like the way you do this and you're a bad person because of the way that you do that. It's this shaming. There's a lot of inherent shaming that comes through as well. Um, because the narcissist, that's right.

dr--sabrina-hadeed_1_08-09-2024_121711:

fault.

jenna-pacelli--lmft--sep_1_08-09-2024_121711:

That's right. It's always someone else's fault. I don't want to look at it. I don't apologize. It's likely that if you're in relationship with a narcissist, you've hardly ever heard any apologies for anything that they've ever, that's right. That's right. It's very damaging. It's very painful. So those are, you know, some of the few pieces, but you'll see like, yeah, it's very painful in that way because it's so, the, the narcissistic person is so deeply empty inside, that they can't look at themselves. It's, it's highly threatening to their psychic structure, to their ego, to be, to be given feedback, to ask, to be asked for an apology for something. Cause that they've done something wrong. And if they've done something wrong, that means that they're They're bad. They hold an inherent belief that they're bad deep, deep down because of their own unhealed developmental trauma. And so that's going to,

dr--sabrina-hadeed_1_08-09-2024_121711:

too scary. Yeah.

jenna-pacelli--lmft--sep_1_08-09-2024_121711:

that's right. That's right. And it's also one of those kind of personality disorder, a large, a really important feature of personality disorder is, is this person willing to go to therapy and do the work and really do the work and stay in the work Not, Oh, I went for a few sessions. I'm done with the work. yeah,

dr--sabrina-hadeed_1_08-09-2024_121711:

so that's a part, the part of the question of, you know, if somebody comes to you, which I know they have, and says like, yeah, guess what, my mom or my dad or whoever, you know, meets almost all of these on the checklist, and they say, so is there hope? what would you say to them?

jenna-pacelli--lmft--sep_1_08-09-2024_121711:

The higher the higher the person is scoring on this on these criteria, the less hope there is for this person to change and it's. For that person to change. That's right. And, and I get that question a lot, especially folks who are earlier on in the work and earlier on in there. Well, or just who are confused because there's so much gaslighting With narcissism. People end up feeling really, really confused. And so they think, is it me? Is it them? And it's not ever just one person in order to be in relationship with somebody who has narcissistic features. We have to be willing to enable them at some level. People don't like to And I will be the first to admit that I've done that. I've been in that position because people who are raised by a narcissistic parent tend to show very high rates of empathy because they had to be so hyper and, uh, you know, and so that, that,

dr--sabrina-hadeed_1_08-09-2024_121711:

sounds me. It sounds similar to those that have, uh, a parent that struggles with substance abuse or a parent that is abusive. You know, a lot of times we see kids come out of that kind of environment and grow into the kind of adult that is a people pleaser, that is also really good at assessing a room, really good at knowing what everybody needs and what they want, because they had to in order to get their needs met and remain

jenna-pacelli--lmft--sep_1_08-09-2024_121711:

right. That's right.

dr--sabrina-hadeed_1_08-09-2024_121711:

I don't want this to get lost because it was really, I think it's really special what you were just attending to, which is basically to say when someone comes to you and they say, is there hope if, if my parent, you know, is a true narcissist, if they meet criteria in all these ways, is there hope and you're, and you're saying, you you're sort of saying I'm of the belief that there's not a lot of them to change, but there's for you. And that part is what I didn't want to have get lost because that's the that is, you know, healing, right? That's intergenerational kind of a your power. And I know you do a lot of work with people on that. Like, how do you untangle from that stance of being a victim? Which, you know, whatever word we give it to victim or survivor or, you know, on the receiving end of it's how do you reclaim your power? Find your voice. Just lean into what you can control versus what you can't, and that's the work I know you're doing.

jenna-pacelli--lmft--sep_1_08-09-2024_121711:

Yes. Such an important theme of victimhood or, you know, in the developmental trauma sphere, we call that child consciousness because children, you know, we could get into another spiritual conversation, but children in this, in this context, we, you know, we know they're not, it's not their fault. Children are not actively choosing this, at least consciously. To be in families like this. And so there is a child consciousness that comes with, and which looks like victimhood That in order for us to step into our adult consciousness, we have to step out of victimhood and into adult consciousness into agency. That's a major major theme in Terms of healing from, uh, developmental trauma that can get really overlooked. And I, you know, and I, Within the work that I do, I, I will often as well, it's actually representative of the larger whole of the population in terms of I will get some folks who were, yes, raised by maybe, let's say, an overt narcissist, but they're a covert narcissist and they come into my work and I can start to see traits in this person and they say that they're willing to do the work and then they don't get what they want and they do something really abusive within, um, The work or to me or my team or something like that. And that's not, I'm not going to tolerate that. And that's been part of like my, my own healing as I would have maybe tolerated something like that. And it's similar to, you know, what we want to see in terms of people taking accountability for themselves and what they allow into their lives. Because there's, there is a small percentage of the population that is truly deeply narcissistic and, and, Everybody else has features, you know, we all have some features depending on, The, the quality of the parents that we had and the health of the parents that we had. And so, in terms of healing ourselves, we do, we do have to look at how am I consciously or unconsciously continuing to allow. abusive, emotionally immature people to stay in my life. And again, depending on the, someone's level of self awareness and self responsibility, they're going to like that statement to varying degrees. You know, that that could be a palatable statement for some people and some that's very unpalatable.

dr--sabrina-hadeed_1_08-09-2024_121711:

and I love that, you know, I love that moment with clients, Jenna. That's what we do, I think, well as. as therapists in this, in this space, which is to, to gauge at any given moment what is coming up for someone. As I ask that, as I call attention to that, that accountability piece, what do I see, what do I notice? What am I hearing? And then ask them, based on what you're noticing, and I know you do that beautifully, you know, when you say like, I'm noticing some somatic response here. Like, do you feel that in your body? What is that about for you? And then from there, you're able to get into some really rich work around. What is so scary, potentially scary about taking accountability? What does accountability mean to you? Because if you are the victim of a narcissistic, primarily narcissistic, narcissistic relationship, your relationship with accountability is going to be skewed. It's going to be through that lens of like, um, if you're taking accountability, that means that you're wrong. That means you're weak. That means, you know, you're bad.

jenna-pacelli--lmft--sep_1_08-09-2024_121711:

Yes.

dr--sabrina-hadeed_1_08-09-2024_121711:

Like insert all those awful limiting beliefs about accountability when we know you and I know that taking accountability and humility can be the most beautiful surrender to then leave room for empathy for self and others and then leaning into, you know, how can I repair? How can I repair? And I know you and I have talked on the side about that, like that, you know, people that really are, are stuck in that rigid way of thinking, maybe because they are true narcissists, they aren't interested in even trying to repair.

jenna-pacelli--lmft--sep_1_08-09-2024_121711:

That's right. That's right. Because it's, there's this unconscious, there's, there's two things that are going on there with that. And with any of us, which is one, there's a major shame problem that is connected to, to developmental trauma, which is essentially my, my, my, my. My upbringing, let's say was chaotic and therefore it must have been my fault. And there's a whole sequence, you know, of based on evolutionary anthropology of why that makes sense for the child's development to, to only see themselves as. The problem they can't, children are not equipped to see their parent as flawed because they need them for survival. So you develop, this is the beginning of the shame problem of I'm really, I'm bad. There's something wrong in the environment that nobody's taking accountability for because my parents emotionally mature narcissistic. So therefore, it's not. It must be me. I must be bad. It must be unlovable. do This all the time because children have their own healthy narcissism that's supposed to be there. And then when that doesn't get resolved, it can turn into more adult pathological narcissism. And then the other, so we've got that going on. We've got the shame problem. And then we've got. The nervous system problem, which is if I'm again, being raised in an environment where no one's helping me regulate myself, I'm never going to learn that skill. So then I grow up into an adult who can't regulate their nervous system or their feelings. And then someone gives me feedback and that's going to feel incredibly threatening because now I'm in a shame response that I can't manage and that feels annihilating for folks. So depending on the severity of their upbringing and the, uh, the, the, the difference, The treatment they endured in their upbringing is going to create the severity of that growing up as well. We're going into adulthood.

dr--sabrina-hadeed_1_08-09-2024_121711:

Yeah, That leads me to a question that I, that I just thought of right now, which is, you know, how do we differentiate between a narcissist, which we're saying that the problem is in empathy. It's an empathy problem. It's also a shame

jenna-pacelli--lmft--sep_1_08-09-2024_121711:

Yes.

dr--sabrina-hadeed_1_08-09-2024_121711:

So how do you differentiate between that and someone that is maybe, um, a sociopath, right? Someone that's antisocial personality disorder.

jenna-pacelli--lmft--sep_1_08-09-2024_121711:

Yes. Yes. Yes.

dr--sabrina-hadeed_1_08-09-2024_121711:

but it's less of an empathy problem and maybe more of an empathy broken.

jenna-pacelli--lmft--sep_1_08-09-2024_121711:

Yes. Well, it's interesting you bring that in because the precursor to antisocial personality disorder is conduct disorder in children, right? And I'm laughing because it's so complicated. Um, and it's So complicated,

dr--sabrina-hadeed_1_08-09-2024_121711:

what kid doesn't have conduct

jenna-pacelli--lmft--sep_1_08-09-2024_121711:

exactly, exactly. exactly. But they're doing, you know, there's really incredible research that's happening, recently around, biomarker brain biomarkers. So what, what, what is the brain of somebody with true conduct disorder look like? And they have lower, Lower, well, they've got higher cortical thickness and they've got increased surface area. sorry, decreased surface area and decreased volume in the brain, which is telling us that there's a wiring issue. There's something that's going on. Um, that's creating something's going on

dr--sabrina-hadeed_1_08-09-2024_121711:

Like a disconnection from what we would consider, like, uniquely human, right? What's uniquely human, our

jenna-pacelli--lmft--sep_1_08-09-2024_121711:

yes,

dr--sabrina-hadeed_1_08-09-2024_121711:

is to feel for the other. That most of us come into the world with this way of being where we are naturally going to feel that, you know, that empathy. Feel pain for someone else, get fired up about, you know,

jenna-pacelli--lmft--sep_1_08-09-2024_121711:

Yes.

dr--sabrina-hadeed_1_08-09-2024_121711:

that isn't our own suffering. But someone who is what we call or what the DSM calls antisocial personality disorder or what the, you know, sort of movies call sociopath is someone that is just completely disconnected from their any ability to have empathy. So shame, I wonder, too, is wouldn't even be a factor. They don't feel shame, perhaps. I don't.

jenna-pacelli--lmft--sep_1_08-09-2024_121711:

Right. And I think the differentiating the kind of differential between narcissistic person and a sociopathic person is the sociopathic person is able to, mirror the emotions of others, whereas the psychopath can't do that. And so there's a, there's a, in, in my understanding of this, it's more the sociopathic person can fake it

dr--sabrina-hadeed_1_08-09-2024_121711:

Yeah, I was going to say

jenna-pacelli--lmft--sep_1_08-09-2024_121711:

I had a professor told in my program. And he said, you know, I said, what happens when you treat someone that's a sociopath? And he said, well, you make them a sociopath.

dr--sabrina-hadeed_1_08-09-2024_121711:

And I was like, Oh, what do you mean? And he said, well,

jenna-pacelli--lmft--sep_1_08-09-2024_121711:

you're teaching them. What's the socially appropriate way to show up. And they're going to do that for their own gain. Yes.

dr--sabrina-hadeed_1_08-09-2024_121711:

in my heart broken a million pieces. I was like, Oh no, I thought we could treat everybody. I thought we could, you know, help, you know, help people heal no matter what. And.

jenna-pacelli--lmft--sep_1_08-09-2024_121711:

Yes. Yes.

dr--sabrina-hadeed_1_08-09-2024_121711:

that have these true, you know, core, um, issues with empathy and inability to feel shame, not, maybe not so much. Yeah.

jenna-pacelli--lmft--sep_1_08-09-2024_121711:

That's right. Right. As opposed to like a narcissistic person who's, you know, I know that there's caught there's, there's conversations on the internet of like, they know what they're doing. That's not my experience that, that there's a lot of unconsciousness with a narcissistic person. It's a deeply, deeply wounded person who, who is inflicting pain on others to avoid it. Looking at themselves. whereas

dr--sabrina-hadeed_1_08-09-2024_121711:

him what Mate meant when he said, ask why the pain,

jenna-pacelli--lmft--sep_1_08-09-2024_121711:

that's right.

dr--sabrina-hadeed_1_08-09-2024_121711:

pain? Yeah.

jenna-pacelli--lmft--sep_1_08-09-2024_121711:

not, they're not that there's again, there's, I think it's a more of a wiring from what we're seeing again. So there's, they were doing this study was really fascinating. And, um, one of the things that they were. Seeing was that there's slight differences in the child child brain of conduct disorder and adolescent brain conduct disorder. One of the differences is that the adolescent brain has lower volume in the insular cortex and the insular cortex is there to help people track sensation in their bodies and people who can track sensation in their bodies have higher rates of empathy.

dr--sabrina-hadeed_1_08-09-2024_121711:

A

jenna-pacelli--lmft--sep_1_08-09-2024_121711:

So it's really interesting in terms of

dr--sabrina-hadeed_1_08-09-2024_121711:

more attuned someone is to their body, the higher

jenna-pacelli--lmft--sep_1_08-09-2024_121711:

right. Yes,

dr--sabrina-hadeed_1_08-09-2024_121711:

Oh, I love it. That makes

jenna-pacelli--lmft--sep_1_08-09-2024_121711:

Yes.

dr--sabrina-hadeed_1_08-09-2024_121711:

sense intuitively.

jenna-pacelli--lmft--sep_1_08-09-2024_121711:

Yes, right. And so it's so interesting that

dr--sabrina-hadeed_1_08-09-2024_121711:

So

jenna-pacelli--lmft--sep_1_08-09-2024_121711:

kids that have been neglected and not had a lot of affection, attention, attunement are struggle in that arena.

dr--sabrina-hadeed_1_08-09-2024_121711:

Yeah.

jenna-pacelli--lmft--sep_1_08-09-2024_121711:

That's right, as opposed to like the child who's kind of coming in with these conduct disorder features that where it might be more of just a wiring issue as opposed to the, to the, and this is still up for debate out for, you know, in the research, but as opposed to the child who is an adolescent who doesn't have access to themselves because of developmental trauma,

dr--sabrina-hadeed_1_08-09-2024_121711:

Yeah.

jenna-pacelli--lmft--sep_1_08-09-2024_121711:

It's such a powerful reminder, you know, that we just don't have all the answers.

dr--sabrina-hadeed_1_08-09-2024_121711:

That's even a part of the intro to this podcast. I say, well, you

jenna-pacelli--lmft--sep_1_08-09-2024_121711:

Yeah.

dr--sabrina-hadeed_1_08-09-2024_121711:

my expertise and also I don't have all the answers. And so we're going to keep looking and that's what we're doing, you

jenna-pacelli--lmft--sep_1_08-09-2024_121711:

That's right.

dr--sabrina-hadeed_1_08-09-2024_121711:

formal, you know, evidence based research and then also with like, I think what, Dr. James Fadiman is like a microdosing, researcher specialist and he calls it citizen research, right, where we're gathering, you know, qualitative sort of data, self reports of, of what we're, what we're experiencing in the world to better understand ourselves and each other. And it's, it is cool to, to, you know, to, I,

jenna-pacelli--lmft--sep_1_08-09-2024_121711:

I find that it's freeing to acknowledge that we don't have all the answers. You because that's lot to put, and I think we put that pressure on each other and ourselves sometimes.

dr--sabrina-hadeed_1_08-09-2024_121711:

we're supposed to have it all figured out, and we don't. I mean, that's why we update the DSM, right? That's why, and we could have a whole, we could have a whole episode on my feelings about the DSM. I mean,

jenna-pacelli--lmft--sep_1_08-09-2024_121711:

Yes.

dr--sabrina-hadeed_1_08-09-2024_121711:

or worse, it's,

jenna-pacelli--lmft--sep_1_08-09-2024_121711:

Yeah.

dr--sabrina-hadeed_1_08-09-2024_121711:

us. but this idea that we don't have all the answers. And so that, that humble place, you know, that, so let's find them together or do the best we can or know when we may not have the answer to that particular problem. But that doesn't mean there's no hope.

jenna-pacelli--lmft--sep_1_08-09-2024_121711:

That's right.

dr--sabrina-hadeed_1_08-09-2024_121711:

I think that's why, you know, I, we, we both can, can attest to why we do this work, which is that we are just profoundly, deeply hopeful about people's ability to overcome the greatest adversities and traumas

jenna-pacelli--lmft--sep_1_08-09-2024_121711:

Yeah. Mm. hmm.

dr--sabrina-hadeed_1_08-09-2024_121711:

Yeah.

jenna-pacelli--lmft--sep_1_08-09-2024_121711:

Yes. I love that. I think like that, that's one of the reasons I keep doing what I'm doing as a clinician. You know, I'm a trauma specialist. I hear like the darkest of humanity like every day. And I, and I love the work and especially the somatic work because I see so much change and so much growth that really lasts for people like years down the line. And so it just feels so rewarding. Um, and that's been my experience of it too, is like, Stuff I couldn't ever heal just talking about it was so important for me to get into my body and

dr--sabrina-hadeed_1_08-09-2024_121711:

Yeah.

jenna-pacelli--lmft--sep_1_08-09-2024_121711:

stop talking,

dr--sabrina-hadeed_1_08-09-2024_121711:

frankly. Get out of your head. Yes. Absolutely. Yeah. it's I Think too, you know one of the things that as I think about you know, be loving someone Who is a narcissist or being in relationship with someone who has features of narcissism? That your work isn't just about boundaries your work isn't just about You know checking in with what you can take accountability for You Your work is also about reconnecting with how you feel,

jenna-pacelli--lmft--sep_1_08-09-2024_121711:

That's right. Absolutely.

dr--sabrina-hadeed_1_08-09-2024_121711:

and want, because if you have been on the receiving end of someone that's, you know, basically telling you, you can't trust your own thoughts or your feelings. You start to believe it like, Oh yeah, well, but I can't trust my thoughts and my feelings. And so I'm not going to listen to this intuition, which sometimes, right, it gets confusing. My intuition, is it really intuition or is it that I'm afraid to do the hard thing?

jenna-pacelli--lmft--sep_1_08-09-2024_121711:

Yeah.

dr--sabrina-hadeed_1_08-09-2024_121711:

But so what you're talking about, what, you know, the work you're doing isn't just about the things I named. It's also about helping people come back home to themselves,

jenna-pacelli--lmft--sep_1_08-09-2024_121711:

Yes.

dr--sabrina-hadeed_1_08-09-2024_121711:

which is, I think also how I describe psychedelic work, right? It's like,

jenna-pacelli--lmft--sep_1_08-09-2024_121711:

Yes.

dr--sabrina-hadeed_1_08-09-2024_121711:

it's coming back home to yourself and somatic work is a must

jenna-pacelli--lmft--sep_1_08-09-2024_121711:

Yes,

dr--sabrina-hadeed_1_08-09-2024_121711:

relationship with our body. How do I feel at any given moment? What's really mine versus someone else's.

jenna-pacelli--lmft--sep_1_08-09-2024_121711:

What's my parents? What's my grandmothers? What's my, you know, there's, we know that the intergenerational trauma lives in the body at least three generations back based on Holocaust survivor research. And in the somatic world, we see anywhere from seven to 12, you know, based on information that we have. So this is real. It's living in our bodies and you know,

dr--sabrina-hadeed_1_08-09-2024_121711:

the way we were taught to treat them. So I'm going to, you know, go, I'm going to shame my shame. Oh my goodness. I can't tell you how many clients I'm like, stop shaming your shame, right? Try not to judge your judgment.

jenna-pacelli--lmft--sep_1_08-09-2024_121711:

Yes.

dr--sabrina-hadeed_1_08-09-2024_121711:

thinking about your thinking about your thinking. It's, it's crazy making it's, it's so decentering and dysregulating and sometimes it becomes as simple as what you're saying. Like let's just find a safe way to get out of our heads

jenna-pacelli--lmft--sep_1_08-09-2024_121711:

Yes.

dr--sabrina-hadeed_1_08-09-2024_121711:

into our bodies.

jenna-pacelli--lmft--sep_1_08-09-2024_121711:

Well, not shaming your shame and that judging your judgment, all of that, that one, the Buddha was talking about that 2, 500 years ago, number one, by the way. Um, and then also, also, uh, and so were the yogis, uh, you know, in India and Nepal, but

dr--sabrina-hadeed_1_08-09-2024_121711:

wisdom, right?

jenna-pacelli--lmft--sep_1_08-09-2024_121711:

ancient wisdom, ancient wisdom. That's right.

dr--sabrina-hadeed_1_08-09-2024_121711:

longer than modern science is saying we should now trust it. It's like, we've always been able to trust it. We just were taught not to, but yeah.

jenna-pacelli--lmft--sep_1_08-09-2024_121711:

Yeah. But though, like exactly like you said, it's so decentering it's, it's, it's, it's designed those, those mechanisms inside of ourselves are designed to disconnect us from ourselves. And they're also a developmental trauma symptom. And we know, again, there's also research that shows that, that emotional abuse is usually prolonged and consistent over time. And it's just as damaging as physical sexual abuse in childhood. So it's all traumatic. And, you know, a huge part of this is, is that the body is remembering this. So people love to say, you know, kind of the, the. The wisdom or the, what we used to think was that children don't know, they're not going to remember that. Oh, they're just a baby. They're not going to remember that. They don't remember it cognitively because they don't have autobiographical memory. They've got implicit memory. It's like in their body. So that's developmental trauma. It's like, you know, it's people are, there's trauma that happens in utero that, that our bodies remember. There's trauma, you know, pre and perinatal trauma. There's, it's all, it's all real. It all exists. Yes. So Yeah. Um,

dr--sabrina-hadeed_1_08-09-2024_121711:

goodness, we are finally, we meaning like, how do we even define we anymore? Right? Like, the cultural lens here in the US I guess, I don't know. think what we're seeing the trend is to start to incorporate mind, body, spirit to, to start to, this is feels gross to say it, it's finally like legitimized. Even though it's always been, right? Like we, we actually created a problem when we started to separate medical as in physical versus mental and spiritual. We caused that harm. We did that. That's not how we, the origins of us as humans. We, we were, you know, and I believe that, you know, I think that's a part of this work is reconnecting to your, your, your spirit, your body, your, you know, that not just the physical, it's all connected. getting towards the top of the hour, so I want to make sure to leave enough room to hear what you're really most excited about in this next step for yourself. I

jenna-pacelli--lmft--sep_1_08-09-2024_121711:

Mm hmm.

dr--sabrina-hadeed_1_08-09-2024_121711:

most excited about shifting? Graduating. Mm

jenna-pacelli--lmft--sep_1_08-09-2024_121711:

I'm really excited about, um, the healing community that I'm starting. You know, it's like a place that's, uh, affordable for folks and therefore accessible. Cause I know a lot of this work is not typically accessible for people based on time and money. And, you know, like it's just very difficult. And so I'm creating and. Uh, the healing membership for folks to, in a community of people to come together. Cause I've been running groups for a long time, um, around these topics of developmental trauma, healing from narcissistic abuse, healing your body and your nervous system and codependency and all these pieces. It's how to be an adult in a relationship, a thousand things, shadow work, parts work, all, all of it. I'm just kind of putting everything into this and it'll be a place where, You know, people will have access to eventually hundreds and hundreds of videos and it's self led. Um, but then they also have the community aspect and some live classes with me.

dr--sabrina-hadeed_1_08-09-2024_121711:

peer, or whatever, yeah, community, I

jenna-pacelli--lmft--sep_1_08-09-2024_121711:

Community. Yeah.

dr--sabrina-hadeed_1_08-09-2024_121711:

to end on that note because that's something I think you and I both feel strongly about is that we do need, I'd like to see a shift in our, in our mental health field where we're doing less individual, not, we're not going to do away with it. It is important. Mm hmm. Mm.

jenna-pacelli--lmft--sep_1_08-09-2024_121711:

Yes.

dr--sabrina-hadeed_1_08-09-2024_121711:

more of that collective community, we heal in connection. We do not heal in isolation.

jenna-pacelli--lmft--sep_1_08-09-2024_121711:

That's right. That's right.

dr--sabrina-hadeed_1_08-09-2024_121711:

I can't wait to see how it all unfolds and you know, who knows, maybe we'll have you back on after you're deep immersed in London and have a, you know, a little slight accent and you're, and you're even smarter than you are now and, and, and we'll have you back on and see, and see what you're bringing. But thank

jenna-pacelli--lmft--sep_1_08-09-2024_121711:

I would love that. thank you. Thank you. Likewise. I love you too. You're just a delightful human. And I'm so glad to be here and to, you know, all your wonderful questions. I'm so lucky to know you. So thank you for having me.