What's The Point Anyway?
It seems like much of the Western world is lost. The interesting trend over the last few years is that more and more people are working that out.
More people have worked out that endless materialism and chasing things that never actually satisfy us aint it.
So what’s the point of it all, anyway?
What's The Point Anyway?
Episode #30 - How Jessica Ella went from believing there is no point to finding her purpose
A couple of months back I was chatting with a good friend of mine who listens to the show about any guests that I should try to bring on, and her immediate answer was to reach out to Jessica Ella.
I'd never heard about Jess before, despite the fact that she lives locally but after listening to her story I agreed that I needed to chat to her!
She's only in her mid 30's, but may have had the most tumultuous and difficult first 30 years of any one I've ever spoken to. As she said during our chat, there were many times where she wondered whether the answer to what's the point is that there is none. Yet several years ago she underwent a transformative process to deal with the years of trauma and bring herself out the other side of it. Thankfully now, she's living her best version of her life and runs a successful healing practice along with several other things keeping her calendar full.
Just a warning - we do get into some very dark topics in this discussion including rape and significant sexual & emotional abuse.
I highly recommend checking out all of Jess's work via her Instagram and website.
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but just where I often I used to find like I'd wait and hit recording and there's all this like good chat at the beginning that was like you're getting so I'll do some editing do it so you don't so you don't chat to anyone overseas or anything I'm not yet that's it's in the pipeline of interviewing like trauma specialists all over. I'm doing I've put a pause on my podcast at the moment because this year I've just it's just been crazy. just with client work. with clients with like, you're the sixth podcast that I've spoken on and it's only the start of March. So I've been asked to speak on so many other podcasts that I haven't really had time to edit my own. Yeah. And then just like, just, I feel like everything that I've been working towards over the last, you know, however many years has just gone boom all at once. Like I've got a marketing, it's just, it's just hitting. Like I've, I've just got a publicist and yeah, like it's just about to go game busters. And correct me if I'm wrong, did you just get engaged? I did, I did just get engaged. Yeah. adding that into the, well then, and then now you're have to plan a wedding. So that'll be fun. Or you might, or maybe you keep it low key. Right, okay, should be easy then. Margie, what's the, I'm guessing wedding planner doing their own wedding. It's a bit like the chef cooking at home or the builder building their own house, right? yeah, I literally entered a competition that's running at the moment to like win a wedding because I was like that'd be so easy just win it sorted for you. Yeah. Yeah. So what do you want? Like what do you want to do with you? What's your when you said, like you've been working towards everything and it's finally hit what's what's ideal for you? Like what is the life goal? life goal. Life goal, well the reason for the publicist and the reason for everything that's sort of kicking off there is life goal is for me changing the way that people hear from sexual trauma. Mm-hmm. at the moment, the messaging is very like, it's difficult, it's long, you never really heal from it, depending on like the spectrum, I guess. But yeah, the messaging there has always been like, just something that you live with and complex trauma as well, but more specifically sexual trauma. changing the way that people perceive that and getting people to understand that there actually is a way to heal it. And it doesn't have to be something that you just learn to live with, because I think that's a lot of the people. Yeah, or suppress or just run away from but definitely there's like a messaging out there in like generic sort of or mainstream mental health is that kind of You don't need to go back into it. You just kind of learn to live with it and you learn to adapt to it. And it's not true. So I guess the big goal for me is people understanding healing and how healing actually works. my biggest frustration is people coming to me over and over and over saying, I tried this and I tried that. they're spending, they're wasting so much time doing all of these things that they've been told as opposed to fix you. And they're just not deep enough, not powerful enough. Just, yeah, not enough. So especially with people with that more complex trauma. that's kind of the mission. That's where everything's going from a PR perspective is like, it's trying to get people to understand that you can heal. Yeah. Do you think like, is the future for you doing more one-on-one work? Because obviously the challenge with that is you've only got so many hours in the day, or do you want to make it sort of bigger than that and take a step back yourself from being in the weeds? definitely. think, sorry, I think, One-on-one I've been doing for the last five years and I've been most of the time like at the moment I'm booked out for a few months as in like what I can fit in between everything else. I'm booked out a few months ahead and there's 40 plus people there was a few more added the other day on my wait list one-on-one so I'm already almost at capacity and I have been since I started practicing. So the goal there is I have a training that I take people through who want to become like a trauma therapist so that they can actually learn how to process memories correctly, learn how to work with the body with somatics, energetics, subconscious mind and processing memory. So I have a training that I take people through. it's a very one-on-one, very close knit sort of application process. So a lot of people that have done work with me have been like, okay, I want to become a healer therapist as well. So then I take them through this training and then they're able to then help people. So now I can funnel people into those people that I've trained and the goal is to keep training people. And at the moment, there's not that many who specialize in sexual trauma. So the goal is to create like a pool of therapists so that when somebody comes across my account or comes across me wherever they do, if they don't want to be on the wait list to wait however long it's going to be, there's like a group of people that I've trained that actually know what to do because my Yeah. was I couldn't refer people to anybody because nobody was doing what I was doing. I was like, yeah, so it's kind of like that's kind of what I've been setting up in the background so that I can actually have places to send all of these people because it's been forever a problem in my DMS of people saying. I'm at my wits end, I'm suicidal, I'm in a dark hole, I need help right now and I'm like, I'm only one person. So I used to work nights, weekends, like with two little kids when my boys were like one and three, I was just so burnt out just trying to see people as much as I could because everyone was struggling. And I had to get really good at just being like, I totally understand that, but I'm only one person. So that's where the Academy came into play and where I started training people because I was like, okay, this is not sustainable. Yeah. Awesome. Well, thanks so much, Jess, for coming on. A mutual friend, Emily, she listens to my show and we were chatting and I was like, you know, if you think of any good guests, let me know. she's like, you know what, the one person I'd love you to chat to is Jessica Allo. And she's sort of introduced me to your story and I've listened to a bit of your sort of story on other podcasts. So I know a bit about it. I'm guessing a lot of people listening to this are probably hearing about you for the first time. So I'm really keen. I think we might sort of start where you are, then go back and then come back to where you are with your journey, because it's been quite a crazy one. Maybe as the beginning point, you've spoken already a little bit about like sexual trauma and what you're doing and how you are on the other side of it. Where's that got you to in terms of the question, what's the point anyway? How do you view life? now on the other side of being healed from the challenges you've lived with. Yeah, that's such a good question. I'm just gonna quickly close this door because it's like, I don't know if you can hear it, but it's banging. I've got a light here, but it's like... Okay, sorry about that. Yeah, it's funny because what's the point anyway, is really that like sentence to me or that question to me went through my mind so many times when I was in dark place. It was literally like what... Anyway, like it's hopeless, it's pointless, it's never gonna get better. To me now on the other side, what's the point anyway is that, is that you're alive. And I know that that sounds, it sounds small or whatever, but to me, like literally just feeling alive, like getting to feel alive is such a blessing and people take it for granted because if you haven't been through a lot of trauma, you just feel alive anyway and you don't really know the contrast. When your brain has been, you know, when your brain has developed differently and when the parts of your brain that, and it's actually been shown on scans, the parts of your brain that actually allow you to feel alive and to get that little buzz, that little glimmer, that feeling of aliveness actually get shut down when you've been through long-term trauma. You actually can't feel alive. And then coming out the other side of that, the point to me is that just you feel it all. that you feel the aliveness, that you get to feel the ups, the downs, you get to experience and take in everything. And I literally do think now the point of life is to just be in it, like to be fully in it and to just soak it all up. There's no deeper meaning to me than that, than just to be a human and to experience all the humanness. Yeah, awesome. I mean, when I sort of started the podcast and thought about the topics and things I wanted to talk to, one of the drivers was sort of what you said that so many people I think alive now are like, I mean, males, suicide rates is super high and in females, prescription drug rates are super high. We do live in a world where so many people are sort of hurting and struggling and also struggling to answer what's that point. And that's a really dull place to be. So what I've found is that the people that often have the best insights and that we can learn the most from are the ones that have been through those struggles and come out the other side of it. So do you want to talk a little bit about your journey to get there? Cause, and I'd love to get an insight into your brain at the lowest of those points about how you are thinking about that answer and what. what caused you to keep going when it probably would have been really easy not to. Yeah, I think it's a hard one because for me, I feel like it really was something that's hard to describe as in what kept me going. But I guess I'll start at the start as in where I got to that point where I was like, what is the point anyway? I was definitely suicidal without even realizing it, which sounds crazy from a teenager from probably 12 or 13 through until 30s so a lot of big chunk of my life, but for me I guess I probably didn't realize that Everyone didn't feel like that because mental health wasn't really spoken about in the 90s early 2000s It wasn't really a thing So I didn't really even know that it was wrong to not like to think about dying all the time and to want to die into planet and like that so The reason why I guess I was so low Not I guess the reason why I was so low is because from as early as the earliest memories I can remember. about three years old, I started to be sexually abused by my dad, but it wasn't just sexual abuse, it was constant all the way through my childhood. It wasn't just the sexual abuse and this is where people get confused. Definitely that was terrifying and was confusing and created a lot of shame and pain and things like that. But I think more so the fact that he was my father was very confusing because he biologically I'm drawn to him from safety and protection and he's also as well as sexually abusive, very manipulative, very psychological, a lot of mind games, a lot of really messing with my mind from a young age. And when you're in those developmental years, I just didn't know which way it was up. I just was so confused about a lot of the messaging he was giving me about, you know... About you know, I love you and this is why I do this but then also you're naughty and this is why I'm doing this to you and also You know, if you tell anyone I'll kill you and I'll bury you in the backyard, but also I love you so much but also Pedophiles go to jail and they get killed in jail, but also I'm not a pedophile but also it was so confusing I just really didn't know as well as constant criticism like put like I couldn't breathe I couldn't blink I couldn't do anything anything without being picked apart physically, who I was, the way that I was from him. And that psychological kind of torture almost ongoing and that confusion of love and hate and rage. was hit so hard in my left ear when I was about eight years old that I was permanently deaf in that ear. He hit me so hard across the head. It was like abuse coming from every single angle. And then I guess to pop that off. another family member. So my dad molested me all throughout childhood, raped me when I was a little bit older. And another family member of his raped me when I was seven years old. So I lost my virginity very brutally at seven years old. And I That was just another family member. No, it was to a relative, one of his family members. yeah, so that wasn't to him. He did that later on in life. But yeah, that wasn't to him. I believe that this other family member had done that to him when he was a child. I don't have evidence of that, but it does really add up to me. Yeah, yeah, I believe so. I believe. Yeah. so and that family, that side of the family, like we're talking a generation back from that, we're talking Holocaust, we're talking like rape in another country being brought to this country, we're talking jail, we're gangsters, we're talking like really, really bad side of the family, bad stuff. So a lot of trauma that's been passed down and a lot of criminal activity and things like that. So really scary family, but Yeah, so I basically that was kind of the crux of childhood. My mum left my dad when I was about seven. So around that time that I was raped by the other family member and she left here. She had no idea, bless her soul. My mom is most gentle, loving person. She was very traumatized and in her, know, she was very dissociated, didn't really, wasn't noticing a lot of what was going on. My dad was, there was domestic violence. There was, you know, you can imagine what he's doing to me. You can imagine what he's doing to her. yeah. So she got the courage to leave and from the outside, and this is where it's like really something that people don't understand, but from the outside, he made it look like he was now dad of the year. He made it look like all of a sudden he was stepping up and he was very protective of us. He was always on my mom's back about not doing enough for us and not being good enough. Like he was very always critical of her, but from the outside he made it look like we were having a great time and that he was dad of the year and so Obviously, I didn't tell my mum because the messaging I was getting from my dad was like constantly, I'll kill you. This is where I'm going to bury you in the backyard, just up there. And he'd show me. He'd sometimes, there was one memory that I had of him holding a pillow over my face until I couldn't breathe and then taking it off and holding up. And that was when I was five. So it was pretty deeply ingrained in me. If I tell someone, I will die. And that probably does bring me, I probably skipped a million things like bullying and I was bullied at school. I just really went through it. I was such a strange kid. I had all these weird kind of ticks and things like that because I was just dealing with an overwhelmed nervous system, stress and trauma that I got bullied every day. I struggled with friendships. Like I didn't have anywhere that was really safe. My mom... was my mom was safe but in saying that my my home life there was like my mum met my stepdad very quickly there was five kids in the house and kind of typical 90s house was like just go away and play there wasn't like a lot of you know emotional connection and things like that so I definitely didn't feel like I had a safe place my grandparents lived quite far away in Queensland or on my mum's side and I didn't see my grandparents on my dad's side so I didn't have really any protective factors. Can I just ask, like when you say you didn't have a safe place, how did you have like a normal that you could even compare to? like, did these things feel weird for you or was it like, this is all you've ever known, which now looking at it, you're like, this is complete insanity that a child should live in this or was it like... Were you just like, this world, this whole world is just a weird place and what I'm experiencing just must be more or less the baseline. Or did you realize you're in a totally messed up situation? No, no idea. I thought that it was the same as I thought that everyone just struggled this deeply and I just really thought that this was just how life was and it's funny that you asked that because that's probably been... one of the hardest things as a mother because I see my kids struggle slightly and I think are they traumatized? Is this going to traumatize them? Are they okay? everything and I really don't have like, I often have to say like to a therapist that I work with or even my partner now Gav like, is this normal or is this trauma? And they're like, no, no, everyone's like that. That's fine. That's normal. like, cool, cool. Is this normal? this trauma? No, that's fucked up. You gotta look at that. So like I don't know a lot of the time what is normal. I'm learning over time. I do feel like a bit of an alien trying to work out like, is this human? that human? So I definitely yes, no, I didn't know. I thought that that was just whatever like I got older and then was like, oh, didn't everyone's parents train them for being abducted? Like my dad used to train us all the time. He had machetes and he had balaclavas in his cupboard and we used to put them on and wear them. And we just thought that having guns and weapons around the house was normal. We just thought that. you know, him constantly saying to us, okay, what do you do if someone runs in the house and takes you? And we'll be like, we bite them really hard and we knew what to do. And he was constantly training us. That was keeping me in a state of absolute panic of being taken. But I just thought everyone was trained to do that. Do you think, like, was he doing stuff like that because that was his messed up way of being protective or was that just more psychological manipulation of you? Like, did he actually care if someone abducted you? think he did. I believe and it's speculation because I don't know, haven't spoken for a long time. Five years, five years, yeah more, five years. But from further investigations later on in life, I've discovered that he is involved in things and. quite high level things. And so I do think that there was actually a reality that he was afraid that his children were going to be taken and killed or held hostage or whatever. But then part of my brain also thinks maybe he's a little bit psychotic. He has a lot of trauma. What he was doing wasn't normal, obviously. So I think there could be a little bit of like paranoia and a little bit of actually that is a reality. And I think split down the middle, he loved us and was protective of us. and had so much trauma that he just like, I think I've had trauma. And then I think about what I know the glimpses of what he's been through. And I know that he would definitely have some sort of split personality, some sort of way to cope with what he'd been through. And yeah, I know there were so many signs of love there, which to be honest was the hardest part about the whole healing journey. Like if I take a look. Yeah. hardest part was grieving him because I knew that there was actually love there. I knew that there was love and I was like, yeah. be so much easier to just totally depart from someone that's completely evil with no good in, it's the seemingly good parts that, yeah, must just mess with your brain in terms of trying to process it. Yeah, because the way that I had developed a personality disorder, so I had DID or multiple personality disorder, I just had two and they were really strong. I had on one side, I had good dad and bad dad. And I had these, had good dad was all good and bad dad was all bad. And when bad dad did something, it would get pushed down here and good dad would just take over my mind. And I probably had four or five memories that I'd just replay like my dad's the best, my dad's the best. It's all good. Dad's the best. I love dad. He loves me. And I just kind of repetitively tell myself that so that I could kind of just get through so I could survive because it was like, well, it's not an option to let... bad dad take over my mind because I can't do anything about that because I'll die. So it's like, I'll just let, I'll just focus on good dad. But then the backend of that was that I can, the only way I can describe it was that because I was, I was diagnosed with Stockholm syndrome, which is where people fall in love with their captors essentially. But I'll the way, it felt really relevant because when I cut him out, it was like the worst, most heartbreaking, like it felt like a breakup that I'd never been through. Like I, I was terrified of him killing me and this was when I probably hit that lowest point. I was absolutely terrified that he was coming for me. I to the point where I had a nervous breakdown. I started hearing his voice. coming through the front door, I would run. I ran in a towel out of the shower in the backyard because I heard him there. I was hallucinating because I was so panicked. He was coming to kill me. And then at the exact same time, I'd be crying myself to sleep because I missed him so much and because I wanted him there. Because I felt like it was like I wanted to run to him because he was all I ever knew, but I also was terrified of him. Yeah. What caused that realization that like, what, pulled you out of Stockholm syndrome? Like how did that process start? so basically it was it was remembering everything that had happened really clearly because I had developed a way to to deal with it. Like I'd have flashbacks and it sounds insane if you don't understand repressed memory, but I would have flashbacks of. of him doing these awful things to me, these disgusting things to me while I was like doing the dishes. And I would just go, and I would think the way that I'd coped with it was to put myself down and to put it onto myself. Because if you think about it, if blame ourselves, then we're in control. If we blame someone else, we're out of control. So the way that I would deal with it would be like, okay, I'd have this memory and then I'd be like, you're disgusting for thinking about that. And I'd blink really hard. and I'd push it down and I'd try to just push it really deep back down. And then those flashbacks over my life got more intense and got bigger and louder to the point where one day I was doing a meditation and I had flashback. And for the first time in my life, I don't know what happened in my brain that day. I'd just come off a massive water fast. I don't know if it was something to do with that, but whatever happened in my brain that day, it just, instead of thinking, you're disgusting for thinking about that and remembering that it was like hold on why the fuck is that happening and I just had this moment where I was like I'm not disgusting for thinking about it it's disgusting that it's happening and it's the smallest narrative shift but all of a sudden my brain just went hold on a minute that shouldn't be happening and prior to that it had just been like my way of just being like it's something's wrong with you something's wrong with you and you can imagine by after doing that for 30 years my self-worth was like this big so there was no I had no self-worth so it was like I just kept taking it just kept taking it like and just kept blaming myself and my relationships and friendships at the time were very reflective of that I just kept getting smaller and smaller and smaller and Yeah, that was basically the way and then the narrative flipped and as soon as the narrative flipped and I was like, wait a minute, why is this happening? And I started seeing all the other flashbacks and I got all the other memories and I started to realize, holy shit, this is not right. It just that that was an unraveling and I then couldn't see him. I was like, I had to cut him out because I was like. abuse still happening at that point in time? No, so this was when I was, I just turned 30. So this was five years ago. So, but in saying that only a few years before that. So I would have been, had my son, my eldest son when I was 25. So. Yeah, 25. So five years before that, like he got drunk on night and I had to pick him up from a Christmas party. And I was driving with this huge pregnant belly and he was putting his hand on my leg trying to touch me while I was driving. So he had no shame. that was, you later. And even that, like that was like my whole body was like, oh my God, like trying to push him away while I'm trying to drive. And I still. was kind of pushing it all down, pushing it all down. Like don't say anything, don't think anything. And it was two years after that actually when I was around 27 that he actually apologized to me. And at the time I didn't, I knew what he was apologizing for, but I also didn't because I was so good dad, good dad, good dad. He actually said to me one day when my son was two and I was out kicking the footy with him and he came out and said, he'd come over to my house and he just looked, really sad and he said to me, I'm really sorry. And I was like, what do mean? He's like, I'm really sorry for everything. And he seemed like he was almost going to cry. And I've never seen him cry my whole life. And I was so uncomfortable. And I was like, oh, don't talk about it. Don't like I just didn't know how to handle it. So I just kind of was like, no, no, no, no, no, like just kind of push the subject to the side. But um, so that was only a few years before everything before I actually ended up cutting him out. Yeah. And how long was that process of healing for you? And then I'm interested now in talking about how your experience was in the healing and how that's led into now what you're doing with the Ruka. Yeah, so it was pretty dark and pretty low. I always think about like, I was ready though. So I've been, I started healing when I was 20 and I started really dealing with that when I was 30. So I'd had 10 years of working through other things with my mom and my stepdad and bullying and other sexual trauma, not from him. And... you know, just I had had a lot of years of kind of learning and I was very obsessed with trauma. So I'd been studying and I'd been doing all of these different certifications, not ever to, I was never going to work in this field, which is so funny. Like I literally spent 10 years as just obsessed with it as like my secret little thing that I did with all the time. And so by the time those memories surfaced, I knew, I knew about the subconscious. I knew so much about trauma. I knew about memories. I knew about energetics. I knew about the nervous system. Like I knew so much. It didn't help me in the first, in the first sort of six months because I don't think anything could have prepared me for it. I literally was being hit with memories every night when I was going to bed. It was just flashbacks, flashbacks, flashbacks. And I went to that lowest point of like, know, normally I'd think about my kids and then I'd be like, you know, you can't do that. You've got to be here for your kids. And I got to this point where literally nothing could, nothing mattered. Like even my kids, was like, they'll be right. Like I just had no emotion, completely not better off without me. Like the world would be better off without me. Like I just, and it was just. I have notes in my phone from that time that I was writing in journals and it was just like, the narrative was like, I just actually can't take another hit. Like I just felt like one more memory and I just, was like, I just can't take anymore. Like I'm so done and I felt exhausted and I just felt. It was just too much stress for one person and I went back and I thought about all these other things that had happened and I'd just come off treatment for Lyme disease so I was still quite physically weak. had two years before that, I'd had a molar pregnancy and I'd had an operation for that. I I just had all this trauma just kind of stuck me up to the point where I was like, it just, and now I really do sympathize. know, people talk about people that are suicidal and they're like, well, you know, like, can't they see like, you know, that things are going to get better. And it's like, no, you actually can't like, no matter how strong you are, you actually can't see the future. Like that's actually something that happens to a traumatized person's brain is that they lose, again, that part that can foresee the future because they're stuck in survival for so long, it just stops getting used. So they actually can't see a future that's better. And at some points I was like, was suicide and dying was the ultimate escape. It was like ultimate freedom. was like, I wouldn't have to wake up tomorrow and do another day. getting up out of bed was like running a marathon and going from my computer to just go and do a wee was like it took me like four hours to just get the energy to get up and you know move my body to go to the bathroom like it sounds insane but that is literally everything it felt so so hard and just the grief was insane like i just like I said, all I wanted was to run to my dad, but then I couldn't and I felt like I had nowhere to unpack and yeah, it was very, very low. And one thing that actually really did help me and it's funny, like not funny, but I'm now gonna be donating to them is the Blue Knot Foundation. So they're a foundation that have a helpline and it's for people with complex trauma. Yeah. I called that helpline and the counsellors on there are quite holistic counsellors and I could just no filter tell them exactly where I was at, what I was planning and things like that and just how low I was and they just helped so much. I spoke to them once a week for probably four weeks. Yep. And I've now written a children's book, which we can talk about later, but I'm going to be donating a dollar from every book to the Blue Knot Foundation because I just feel like it's such an under... Yeah, it would be amazing for them to have more staff, ability to help more people because I know they're really under the pump. That really helped me. And then there was just this... I've just always had, and it sounds embarrassing to say it out loud, but I said it to my mom when I was younger. I said, I feel like I'm here for something really big. And I feel like I'm here for something really special. And she was like, I think everyone feels like that. And she's later said to me, no, feel like you actually are. But I just had this, I just had this feeling like, just keep going. Like just this tiny little voice, even when everything in my human was just exhausted and done. I just had this thing that was like, I'm just not giving up. Like there's gotta be a way. And I've been like that with everything in my life. Like I'm always like, no, no, no, there's gotta be a way. There's gotta be a way to make it make sense or a way to make it happen. Like I won't take no for an answer. So I just had this little voice that was just like, just. just try something else, just keep going, just one more thing, just one more thing and kind of got through that dark, that dark period. guess there was a period of time that had to happen because I had to be shown, I guess that he wasn't coming to kill me. It was like, okay, it's been six months and he's still alive. He's probably not going to come and kill me. But then it was like, like was there some hard stuff in terms of attempts by him or once he realized you'd cut and you'd moved away, yeah. There was a lot of, there was like within minutes of me sending him a text message because the advice from the healer I was working with at the time was like, okay, like you are very trauma bonded. You can't do this in person because you're gonna break down. You're gonna feel drawn to him. You're gonna feel sorry for him. She was like. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. So I knew that and I knew that I was predisposed to that and that still felt all of that, but I managed to keep a distance. So I was like, sent him a text message and it literally just said, I remember every single thing that you did to me and I never want to see you again. And it was that simple. And it was within a second, my phone rang and then my phone rang again and then my phone rang again. my brother and sister and mum were with me. My sister's phone rang, my brother's phone rang, everyone's phone started ringing. And then he was like, I know where you are. I need to come and speak to you. And then within, I want to say an hour, everybody that we knew was calling me. He had gotten on the phone and was like, Jess is making up lies. She's a witch. She's hypnotized memories into her own brain. Yeah. like, he just had this whole onslaught of stories, but his biggest fault was that he went out and said, Jess is claiming that I've sexually abused her in her childhood. And I never said that in my text message. Obviously I just said, remember everything. He really shot himself in the foot there. But he went on and then I had family members from his side, I had death threats. I had people saying, you're disgusting what you're doing to your father. I had attacks from all angles. And I say now like, I needed to go through that. And then later on talking about it on social media, then I had a clip that went viral. I had a heap of hate from that. And I was like, I needed all of this to just keep building up this strength and resilience to be able to get to the point where now I can share a message with the world. And I would be comfortable going on TV on anything and not be afraid because I've gone through all of those levels of threats and hate and there's nothing anyone could say that could shake me anymore. And I've heard it all. So it's like that's of self has gotten so strong over time but yeah he really did try to drive me through the mud he tried to talked to my brother and sister who tried to turn anyone that he could against me, which was a really bold move because over time of me speaking up and coming out, I've had a cousin who's also come forward that he's raped her when she was nine and he only had very limited contact with her, but he took his chance with another one of his brothers and then some of my siblings as well. And yeah, it's much bigger than me. Yeah, so there's definitely, he definitely did go on the attack and I think he thought I was going to come after him legally, which definitely was on the cards for a while. But yeah. But, and you have, I'm assuming you haven't seen or spoken to him since that point. Yeah. there was some more. There was no, there was like some more. He attempted to message a couple of times. I got an IVO and then blocked his number and haven't heard from him since. So that was probably in the first few months and then it's just fizzled out and it's been five years. Yeah, from a healing perspective, and obviously now you're in a wonderful place and, you know, compared to the early stages where you were just trying to navigate it, what do think it would do to you if you were in a room with him now? it depends what the room is. If it's a hospital and he's like, it's a safe room. If I'm in a room and yeah, like there's no one that's that's terrifying. But if I also where I'm getting at, is more like the presence of him and being able to look at him and realize who he is and manage your feelings from it rather than being obviously scared about what he might do. Yeah, I think like the thought of being in a room with him, I've definitely, my ideal scenario is that he's like, can hear me and he's in a hospital bed hooked up to something and he's weak and he can't move or anything. And I can actually just say what I want to say because I would do that. I would go and see him in person. Like I would, I'd think that very therapeutic, but I also, yeah, I think. I have seen him, so he lives only not far from me, which is also a bit scary, but he lives about 45 minutes away, 40 minutes. And I've seen him about three or four times. I was walking along the side of the road in Macrae and he's driven past me and we've both sort of looked at each other. And it's happened about five times in the last five years. The first two or three times it triggered me massively. And I was like, there he is, he's alive, he's still here. Like, what if he saw me? What if he's been reminded of me? What if he comes to me and then sends a lot of panic? Mm-hmm. And then in the last two years, those last few times I've seen him, it's just been very much like, well, there you go. He's still around. Like no activation, no nightmares, no nothing sort of coming up. So I don't, I feel like there's definitely a lot less fear around him now. Yeah. yeah, but I definitely, and, and like, to be honest, like if he died, I don't think I would grieve him. feel like I've already grieved him. I've already gone through all of those stages of grief. I like went through writing him a letter saying that I loved him and that I forgive him, even if he didn't forgive himself. And then I went through rage of like, why did I do that? Why did I forgive him? And I've gone through all those layers to now I'm just kind of quite neutral about it. It's just like, well, He's a person who suffered greatly, but he still made a choice. He still made a choice to pass that suffering on, which I haven't done to my children. He didn't have that strength in him. He made that choice. But yeah, I feel quite neutral about him now. And even the hospital situation, I do feel like even if I did have that chance in a safe way to say what I wanted to say, I don't really know what I would say because I've done that therapeutically. So in answer of your question, to work through it, I did. You don't feel like you need, there's not more you need to get off your chest. It's sort of, you seem fairly like neutral on it now. Yeah, and that's where like one of the techniques that I teach, which is called a healing conversation actually came from my cousin who I just said like there was a period where I was like I'm going to his house like I'm going to his house I was bold yes and my family was like please no like don't do it don't do it it's it's a bad idea like just it's not safe like please don't do it and my cousin actually said to me why don't you put yourself into like a really deep hypnosis and why don't you play it out like as real time as possible and see what happens and I'm like okay so I imagined that I was like getting my keys jumping in cars driving to his house, I could see myself going down his street, coming up to his front door, knocking on the door. And out loud, I like had my eyes closed and I was in this, you know, deep state. But I was, I was out loud saying to him like, you know, everything, the rage, the sadness, I cried, I got to say everywhere that I wanted. And then I'm pretty sure I imagined that I like beat the shit out of him until he was like, just kept beating him and beating him and making him and I shrunk him down really small. And I just did all of these things in my brain that then I've now gone on to replicate. and use for other people with trauma in real life situations where the person's around and kicking and things like that. We've used that same technique now and it's like one of the most powerful techniques that I use. So I did that and literally two days later I was like, it feels complete. It feels like I don't have anything else I need to say. I started to, yeah. And to be clear, like I still had to work on the memories because that's different. There's like the real time effects and then there's the memories and the memories you're going to keep having flashbacks and they're going to keep affecting you in that there's a belief that was created in a more in one of those memories and there was something that you decided about the world or about yourself so you still have to actually like retrieve that memory and recode it and process it so that it can it can move on and i'm a huge advocate for you have to process every traumatic memory people are like no you don't like you can just regulate your nervous system or you can just whatever but I have many people come to me who've been told that and they're still struggling. So I'm like, okay, we've got it. You've got to process it. Yeah. So that was just a long process in itself. There was hundreds of memories. So just going through each one that was really rearing its head and processing those correctly. then hundreds, thousands of belief work of subconscious beliefs about who I am, about what I deserve, about what life is like, and just going through all of those different layers of of every area of life, of relationships, of love, of sex, of pleasure, of joy, of parenting, of everything, like every category you can imagine was affected by... this long term trauma. So it was a process, I literally, the way that I describe it is like, I literally built a new identity to the point where what happened sometimes blows my mind that it happened to me because it doesn't even feel like it happened anymore. It's like, I tell this story, but it's like, that's crazy. Yeah. Where's it left you Jess in terms of, cause I can imagine this could, you know, anyone in your situation can come out with really negative side effects, but where, where does it leave you with your thoughts around like just men in general and, things like fatherhood and parenting? yeah again big layer I had to work through because you know I went through a divorce a couple of years ago and then there's a lot of fears around leaving your children with a man and I definitely I got to the point I definitely in those when all of the memories were being processed and I was being hit and I was in that sort of whirlwind of six months to a year, I would go to the service station and be like, he looks like a pedophile. And I'd be driving past guys, he's probably a pedophile. Statistically, there's four pedophiles in this room. And I'd just be like, you don't know who it is and you can't trust men. And definitely I had all of these beliefs like. You know, men are terrifying, men let you down, men are evil, men can't control their emotions, men aren't safe, men are manipulative, like everything was all a reflection of my father. And unfortunately, there were, I've got to be careful here because of my current situation, but unfortunately, there were many of those beliefs that were very solidified in my marriage. Hmm. having met Gav two years ago and or just under two years ago and I it was really easy to see what was a projection when I started the relationship with him because he is so not any of those things that he would be like hold on a minute you're putting me in a category here with all other men like and he could really call out when I was triggered in but he would do it in the most loving way like you've been through a lot but like He would kind of just be like, I understand that you'd definitely be feeling this way, but can you see how it's a completely different situation? Or, you know, would kind of help me through those triggers because there were so many. And I think one of the biggest things for me is betrayal because I think when with my dad, it was such a betrayal of trust and there was no foundation of trust built ever. It was like. you don't trust men full stop and so that went into my marriage and then that definitely came in with Gav and he started to be like what can I do to show you? What can I do to help you to trust me? Like asking me a lot of questions about like what do you need from me? What would make you feel better? What makes you feel uneasy? And kind of that's like really healed a lot just in this relationship and became really clear to me how much I was really not hating on men but definitely terrified of them and perceived them as dangerous. Yeah. Where's it left you from like a spiritual perspective? What are you, have you got any sort of religious or spiritual beliefs? Yeah, so I believe in everything. I believe in universe, creator, god, like divine, whatever you want to call it. I believe that there is something. But I also believe that we give our power. I believe that we're a part of that. So I don't think that that is separate to us. think that if you think, I think about it in like a quantum physics respect and I think about there's the field and the field doesn't end. You you break anything down to an energetic level. We're made of energy. The field is energy. Everything is energy. And so when people say, you know, the universe did this or the universe did that, or the universe is giving me another lesson or whatever, I always say to people, but you are the universe. I think that like We're giving ourselves the opportunity to grow and we're giving ourselves the opportunity to take a certain path and it's actually not something beyond us. It's around us, but it's also within us. Like we're a part of that. when it comes to, and I have so many clients that say to me like, it's not fair. It's not fair that all of this shit happened to me and it's not fair. why me? And don't get me wrong. I have those days. So in the last six months, I have broken my left ankle. open and I'm pretty sure I've done something to the bone but I'm just not getting that looked at because I can't be bothered with an operation but done something to my right foot two months later then someone rear-ended my car and then four weeks ago I took a medication and went into anaphylactic shock which didn't know I had anaphylaxis and nearly died and I was like what the actual fuck? I've done so much healing work I've done it had a shit life and this is so unfair. Why is all this bad stuff happening to me? And I definitely went into like, this is cooked, like I'm done. Like if I wasn't done as in that low point, but I was like, this is some bullshit. But I very quickly was like. life, just be life and things just happen and let's just get on with it and let's not just go back into this whole why me situation. So I definitely had a couple of days of like, this is really unfair, but I managed to become very self aware now. So it was like, all right, there's no point staying in the victim. There's no point dwelling on that. Let's just move forward. And, you know, I think if I really wanted to like put meaning on it because some of my friends are like you know sometimes things just happen it's not always the universe so but I you know I don't believe that because I think everything everything means something because everything is affected by everything energetically so if I had to really think about it it was like the biggest sign to slow down it was like slow down and you're not slowing down, other foot, slow down, you're not slowing down, okay, and I'm like, take shock. And I still, I was in the ambulance like, I've got a podcast tomorrow. So it took a while to register. Took a while for me to be like, do you know what my biggest learning was from the last six months? It was like, I say that I've got high self-worth and I do in some ways, but I'm not looking after my body. And it was like. you can't say you have high self-worth and also work yourself into the ground. And don't get me wrong, it's passionate work. I'm excited and I love speaking and podcasting and I'm doing cool things, but it's like, still, I'm not, wasn't eating properly. I wasn't drinking enough water. wasn't exercising enough. Like I was not actually looking after my body in the way that somebody who loves themselves would. And so it was like, okay, that's got to come first and then work after that and my kids obviously. And then, yeah, so was like a big, okay, If I actually, if I went into anaphylactic shock and actually died in six months time, what would be my priorities? Okay, well, let's just flip it a little bit because it wasn't in line. Yeah. now in terms of like self kids, fiance now? Yeah, yeah, so I'm working on self first, but I'm like mother, but like my kids just like, you know, I'm always wanting to just. Gab says that I overdo it. Like I'm always activities and taking him out of school to take him on random fun adventures and like giving him days off for a nervous system reset day. And like I'm very like focused on the way that my kids develop and grow and the beliefs they're creating and all of that. But yeah, definitely my like time priorities at the moment has been making sure that I get my things done first, like as in things that make me feel good, like meditation, walking, Pilates, and allocating time between clients and things to actually make food, like proper food and not just snack on shit. definitely priorities now, priorities based off what I was doing was like work this much, and then. It was like the like my friends and family include like all the boys and Gav friends and family and then me over here somewhere and then exercise like way down there. And so it has definitely flipped. And now it's like, okay, the most important thing in life is the kids and Gav. Then all of my family, my immediate family and friends and then business and then yeah. Like that's basically the spread now because I just, I realized that I sacrificing a lot of catch-ups and time with friends and family and things like that for business opportunities. So I actually said to Gab last night with the PR stuff that's about to happen, I was like, I want to make sure that my publicist knows that. I'm not going to be taking on interviews or anything that mean that I can't pick up my kids from school or mean that I have to be messing around any of their calendars and things like that. I think two would agree because I also think that a lot of parents self-sacrifice entirely and then they are actually just showing their kids, you're showing your kids that you don't matter and then they're going to think when they're parents that they don't matter. So I often say to my kids like, Mum's got like, I call them mummy minutes. I just need some mummy minutes or like to do a meditation or whatever. But I'm yeah, getting better at like showing them that I'm doing big things and that you can do both. So I can be a present mum and I can do the things that I want to do in life. Yeah, makes sense. Hey, so Jess, so I'm Christian, but I'll try with this podcast to interview guests with all different worldviews. Cause I think Christians probably as much as anyone are guilty of this, often they can create a bit of an echo chamber and only sort of speak to themselves. So, I mean, I've had on the show basically anyone from Christian to Satanist and everything in between. And that helps, you know, I'm a bit of a sort of theology nerd. I I think about a lot of these things and I think it's really interesting to get different perspectives. I'd love to get your perspective on like evil in the world. How do you think about that with your worldview? How do you explain the existence of evil? Are all men evil? they not? You know, living through what you've lived through. Yeah, it's such an interesting subject. I don't think that evil is... I don't think that the world was created with evil. I don't think that that was something that... I think that there is inherent good. think our souls are pure. And I think that... It's our humanness that gets evil. It's our humanness that, you know, I believe that it's that generational trauma of like evil being passed down, like evil being done to you and you taking on that evil. I think evil to me is like, something's gone wrong in their brain. Something's gone wrong in that they're not, because I believe like we inherently as a baby are born to love. Like we love and we expect love. Like I feel like, Yeah, I don't think anybody is evil, like born evil. I really don't. I feel like it's passed down through generations. People are treated that way and I think that the evil is... it's something that's been rewound, something that's been crosswired in their brain. Like whether it's sociopath who doesn't have any empathy for other people, they've been programmed that way. They've been designed that way. I mean, there definitely are exceptions to that actually. Like there's people that are seemingly raised in beautiful families and end up becoming serial killers. But But then I also think like, are those the documentaries that we watched on that biased? there like, because from what I know now, like no one would have expected this to be my story. So it's like, well, were they actually being, you know, yeah. And I just think everyone that I know that has had, yeah, anyone that I know that has done something really bad, I know that something bad has happened to them. And I just really do think it is that that passing down of generations of pain. And I think evil is pain. don't think that evil is like something that if they could control it, they would. I think it's like pain that's got out of control and it's coming out of them in really toxic ways. But I think, yeah, if you break down any evil behaviors, there's pain and suffering and yeah. That's kind of the way I think of it. And do you think now anyone can be healed from that? or if they really want to. Like I don't think that you can do, you can't do that without them acknowledging that there is pain and that there is evil in them. I think. some people are so have split that so much and they're so disjointed from that that they can't actually identify it like they can't actually even see that they're evil because they don't have that kind of self-reflection so i think if they're aware of it and they're willing to try absolutely i think that you can heal but i don't think that and i think that the acceptance of that and speaking up to that like i do believe that that that deserves forgiveness. Like I always say to people, if somebody is sorry for what they've done and they're doing everything they can to make amends and to heal and to break that cycle, they deserve forgiveness. But if somebody is doing the same thing, that's just acceptance. You just accept that they are the way that they are. And forgiveness is reserved for those people who make change. I really don't think, like, and I'm obviously, I'm a very loving person and I'm very empathetic. But I do think that, you know, as long as there is like some, yeah, some willingness to work on themselves and to break the cycle and to change and things that they do deserve that forgiveness. Obviously, don't think, I mean, taking a life is like, I don't think that that deserves to be forgiven. don't think there's any reason to take a life. And guess abuse could be seen as taking a life because so many people don't make it out the other side. yeah. Yeah. But even that, like I'd freaking love to see somebody that was like, you know what? I abused this person throughout childhood and they committed suicide and I realized the impact of my actions. And now I'm gonna go out there and get some awareness around about what it's actually like to have these sexual impulses towards a child. And I'm gonna speak publicly about it. And I'm gonna figure out why we have that. I'm gonna help other men to stop that, all women from having those impulses and I'm gonna create change that would be pretty powerful. Yeah. I think but no one's willing to look at that shadow. That's like a big shadow to be to admit to that We have so much fear around what people will think so there's no one that's actually been able to step forward and be like hey This is what I am. This is what caused it. This is what was happening in my brain Let's get some support groups going so that men can come to them without shame So that because at the moment the statistics are it's really high men Yeah. men that are being abused sexually are being abused by other men. So it's a lot of the time more strained that way, which is why I say that. But imagine that, like, imagine if it was like, yeah, you've got a sickness. So come here and we'll help you instead of it being locked away and closed and quiet. Yeah. Yeah. because it's secretive and the issue is, sorry I'm just going off on a full tangent here, but the issue is there was this, so I went to a training in the city like a two day intensive with Bessel van der Kock who wrote The Body Keeps the Score and there was this thing, oh my gosh I probably have it right here. It's almost, I'd want to read it direct because it is so like so insane. I don't want to misquote it because it's it's a bit wordy, but it's um... Here we go. I've like circled it because I was so like what the actual... Yeah, so this is taken from the comprehensive textbook of psychiatry in 1975. So this was someone comes in and they're like I'm being sexually abused by my father, by or by a relative. They'd go to this book and they'd look it up and this is how they would diagnose what to expect. So It says here, there is little agreement about the role of father-daughter incest as a source of serious subsequent psychopathology. The father-daughter liaison satisfies instinctual drives in a setting where mutual alliance with an adult condones the transgression. The act offers an opportunity to test in reality an infantile fantasy whose consequences are found to be gratifying and pleasurable. Such incestuous activity diminishes the subject's chance of psychosis and allows for a better adjustment into the external world. The vast majority of children were none the worse for the experience." I was like, okay, so this is what mainstream psychology, psychiatrists, this was the message. The message was, None the worse. just a fantasy. It's actually better for the fathers because they get to play out this fantasy. It actually limits the father's chance of psychosis. The children were fine. No subsequent issues. It's all good. You should be fine. you later. And so the unconscious message here is that it's okay for fathers. It's okay. It's fine. That's normal. That's a normal urge. That's a normal fantasy. Your child will be fine. Like that is what... has been filtered out and that is what is the unconscious message. And it's kind of, then it's like hush hush. So it's just, it's just, it's wild that that is something that, and I don't know what it says now, but I'm hoping it's changed. But that is, know, and he spoke about that in the training because he was like, it's one of the hardest or the hardest that he's come across things to heal because it is so complicated. And the fact that that was what was being sent out was also mind blowing to him. Yeah. Awesome. Well, Jess, it's been a really, really good chat. It's been a crazy chat, but I appreciate how open and honest you are. And I think you've got so much to share and so much to give. Even though that's maybe, as you say, come at the detriment of you've put yourself last a little bit. So hopefully that changes over the next period of time. Where should, where's the best place to point people to follow you to find out a bit more. Definitely social media like Instagram. My Instagram is Iamjessicaella. My website is jessicaella.com.au and there's all the information is on there for people that want to, yeah, want to heal, want to work on their trauma and things like that. Perfect. Well, thank you very much. Hopefully bump into you down the peninsula sometime. Yeah, definitely. I'll probably see you everywhere now. It works.