Uprooted by PTSD

Hana Kahn, shares her inspiring journey of overcoming severe trauma (including bullying, sexual abuse, domestic violence) and PTSD through innovative healing techniques like Parts Work and Internal Family Systems. Discover how she transformed rock bottom into a thriving career in music and mental health advocacy, offering practical tools for resilience and self-discovery as a Mindset Coach. 

May is Mental Health Awareness Month. Please share this episode. 

Transcript

Kiran Prasad (00:01)
Today's episode contains sensitive material on the topic of mental health, specifically PTSD,

Kiran Prasad (00:08)
with mention of physical abuse and

suicide ideation,

so it may not be suitable for everyone.

Kiran Prasad (00:14)
Information shared is based on personal experiences and it's not meant to replace medical, psychological, or other professional help.

Hana (00:23)
I'm in here. I'm in here and this trauma cannot break me. And

one of the big things that trauma can do, that PTSD can do, is really take your sense of self from you. And so for me, doing the Parts Work has allowed me to come home.

Years and years of suicidal ideation and trauma, to going on a 65 day national tour, getting my music placed in films. Like, things that I would not have ever thought were possible.

Kiran Prasad (01:00)
Hi everyone, I'm Kiran Prasad. Welcome to the Uprooted by Unwanted Change podcast about managing life transitions.

On each episode, we focus on a topic of unwanted change with a story of hope and resilience for navigating through it. Together, we'll discover a community of inspiring individuals and create a system of support for one another.

Kiran Prasad (01:26)
Today's guest is Hana Kahn

Kiran Prasad (01:28)
from Nashville, Tennessee. She's a courageous young woman

Kiran Prasad (01:33)
sharing about her mental health struggles, specifically PTSD, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, and how she found healing. Hana

is a Parts Work coach,

Kiran Prasad (01:44)
and also a musician, She is committed to the idea that everything is possible, from external dreams to internal healing.

Kiran Prasad (01:54)
When PTSD impacted her mental health and brought her to rock bottom, Hana chose to lift herself up and step into a limitless life by connecting with, loving, and healing each part of herself.

Kiran Prasad (02:10)
Now, she helps others do the same.

Kiran Prasad (02:13)
Since 2018, Hana has been speaking about her experience with PTSD, working with organizations like This Is My Brave,

Healthy Women, and the Alliance for Behavioral Health and Social Justice.

Kiran Prasad (02:30)
Her original music is heavily influenced by her struggles and resiliency with powerful pop anthems featured in documentaries and major motion pictures.

Kiran Prasad (02:41)
In 2020, Hana began Mindset Coaching, and more recently, she has become certified in Internal Family Systems and Parts Work as well to further expand

on how we can heal PTSD and find self-love and inner peace. Welcome Hana!

Hana (03:02)
Thank you so much for having me. I'm so excited to be here!

Kiran Prasad (03:05)
⁓ so am I excited to have you here. First of all, I would like us to get to know you a bit more.

How music became such a passion of yours and how you combine that with mental health advocacy work.

Hana (03:21)
Music has been a part of my life forever, so much longer than mental health and PTSD advocacy, which has been important to me for years and years and years. Music, I came out of the womb singing. My mother used to sing to me when she was pregnant with me, and I am so convinced that that was so influential in me just innately having music inside me.

I have always been a very theatrical, dramatic person. So I've been in theater since I was a young kid. And when I was 18, I transitioned more into songwriting and I took that musical theater influence. And I think having the experience that I've had with mental health, it is so beneficial to have that experience with theater and with songwriting because I'm able to really emote in a way that

I've learned to do by learning to step into characters. Now, I'm really able to step into myself. So I've been writing for years and years and years and I've had the incredible opportunity to go on tour. We'll talk about this more as we talk about the mental health and the PTSD. When I was 25, we'll talk about my rock bottom that I hit and how that changed my life. And it was at that point that I said, you know what, I am

tired of this struggling, I'm going to live my dreams. I've always wanted to go on tour. And I went on a 65 day tour by myself around the country. And I have been traveling and singing ever since.

Kiran Prasad (04:52)
Wow, that's all so impressive, this tour! And I love how you said you came out of the womb loving music. And also how great the place you live in Nashville, Tennessee, for those of you who may not know, it's the country music, like capital of the world, isn't it? The hub. although You don't sing country music. I think it's like Broadway pop. you call it.

Hana (05:12)
It is.

Yeah, that's how

I would describe it because it's so theater influenced. Yeah.

Kiran Prasad (05:21)
Yeah, yeah. So I know you've said you're an open book and nothing's off limits. I appreciate that. But since this is such a sensitive topic and I just don't want you to feel pressured to share anything you're not comfortable with, I want to create a safe space for you. Just want you to know that.

Hana (05:42)
Thank you so much. Thank you for creating that in all of your shows.

Kiran Prasad (05:46)
Thanks. Your life has clearly been uprooted many times by trauma and PTSD. Tell us about that?

Hana (05:56)
So I experienced my first abuse at seven and it was a sexual abuse and then I went on to be bullied in school for several years following that. Ended up having to move towns. It got so bad. And I went into high school incredibly depressed, really having hit

a very rock bottom point that was so different from when I hit it as an adult because I was 13, 14 years old. I did not know how to handle having such intensity of emotion, having been through so much trauma already at such a young age. I made an attempt on my life when I was 14. I was hospitalized for the first time then. And when I was in  hospital,

they at the time, diagnosed me with bipolar disorder. So I started being medicated for bipolar. Anytime I would have any sort of symptom, I was too elevated. I wasn't sleeping. I was upset. I'd go from one emotion to another, to another, to another. Well, it must be the bipolar. As I went on throughout high school, I ended up getting involved with a lot of boys, a lot of men. That was a way that I coped with my trauma.

And I ended up being raped at 17. And it was just after I was a lead in Phantom of the Opera. So I developed this association, ⁓ being myself, being big, performing, that leads to trauma. I stopped performing for a little while and I dropped out of high school. I ended up raped

again by someone else. And that led me into a deeper and deeper spiral and getting involved with not a great community of people. I hit kind of a climax of my trauma when I was 20 and I dated a man who was incredibly abusive to me.

That is definitely the worst my abuse has been. He was in a gang. He was very, very dangerous. He was an addict and he was unfortunately a representation of how much addiction can sometimes eat away at you. He was someone who unfortunately did not find himself able to recover from that addiction and he ended up stealing from me, from my family. He just completely dismantled my life

over the course of our time together, and it culminated in him making an attempt on my life. And so I'd been through all of this trauma up to that point, and I ended up feeling like I had no idea what trauma even was. I had thought these other things were bad, not even kind of in comparison to that. I think that there's nothing quite like this moment that I had where I really surrendered to

I'm not making it through tonight. This is it. This is over. And then I did end up surviving and continued having these depressive, manic depressive symptoms for several years. And it wasn't until my mid twenties that I hit rock bottom, ended up hospitalized at 24, almost 25.

That was where I was really able to turn my life around. That was also when I started seeing a practitioner for Internal Family Systems, which is a therapy modality that basically in my own words surrounds the idea that we all have so many parts of ourselves that kind of split off as we experience trauma in our upbringings. And that doesn't have to be

what people refer to as big T- trauma, like I've experienced. It can be little t-trauma. It can be when you are a kid and your teacher says, you're a bad student and you take that with you for years and years and years. It's those formative experiences that we have as we grow, as we experience what it's like to grow up and or experience severe trauma. In my case, it was very severe. And

Internal Family Systems is the idea that you can take all of those parts and reintegrate them into your inner self. And that's how you can find healing. And when I started Internal Family Systems as a patient, my therapist and psychiatrist said to me I don't think you have bipolar. I think you have PTSD. And

this is not medical advice, I do not know how true this is for other people. I do think that it is often the case that instead of really examining the trauma someone's been through, we as a society are very quick to say, let's put a diagnosis on this that we feel we can clearly understand, know the symptoms of, medicate. And that was what happened to me. And the more I engaged in

IFS, Internal Family Systems, the more I got to know each part of myself, understand each part of myself. I was able to say, ⁓ I actually don't need to engage in this behavior. I actually am becoming aware when I overeat, it's because of this part of me. When I stay up really late, it's because of this part of me. If I start talking to this guy, it's because of this part of me. It's because of this trauma. And I have since gone off of my

mood stabilizers for bipolar, again, not recommending this for anyone else, just my personal experience. I was able to find that actually PTSD is the diagnosis. And that's amazing for me because it is something that's actually possible to recover from, even with everything that I went through.

Kiran Prasad (12:24)
Wow, that's a lot. I knew a lot of the things you'd experienced, the traumas, but the extent of it, I had no idea. That's unbelievable how you've managed to thrive after all this. It would knock anybody down. Even one of these, facing one of these things. You know, all the sexual abuse, the bullying. And then in high school, I can see how

it's tough enough to be a teenager and all the challenges you face, unsure of yourself and your self-identity, but then, you know, with the depression you were going through in those years,  the attempt on your life, so much, my goodness. That's incredible, your story, how you've managed to come out at the other end and find

And I'm glad you, And thanks for  explaining Internal Family Systems. I wasn't familiar with that. That's new to me. And  the Parts Work as well. I'm sure you'll, you'll talk a little bit more about that. I love that age 24, 25 is when you turned it all around. And it was also sad to hear that

Hana (13:10)
Thank you.

Kiran Prasad (13:31)
you started associating being successful to trauma. You're so talented and  that's what's so sad that you went through that.

What I also would like to know is with all that you went through, how did you begin to feel safe again in your body, in your mind, and even in your environment? Because that's a lot. You went through incredible amounts of trauma.

Hana (13:58)
It is a lot. It was a lot to figure out really how to come back to myself. Parts Work is easily the biggest component of that. Learning myself. I think in a way I never lost my sense of self in that I have been so resilient throughout all of this that I have had to remind myself the whole way, I'm in here. I'm in here and this trauma cannot break me. And

one of the big things that trauma can do, that PTSD can do, is really take your sense of self from you. And so for me, doing the Parts Work has allowed me to come home. I think I will say transparently that in the case of the very toxic relationship that I was in, to put it mildly, he has passed away. And that part of my story, obviously there is a lot

of other stuff to my story. So there's a lot that I've already been sharing for years and years. The domestic violence piece and how much that transformed me and my life, that is so new for me to talk about. I only found out about a year and a half ago that he had passed away. And that led to a new sense of safety for me. I think that particular story, I wouldn't have felt safe talking about if he were still alive. So

that is an external thing that allowed me to feel safer. But it's come down to for me doing that Parts Work, finding myself, and using that as a way to figure out what do I need? What are the self care practices? When I get triggered, what do different parts of me need to calm down, to cope. And showing myself that I'm able to listen to that and I'm able to say, ⁓ I hear that I need this, so I'm going to engage in it. That has reinforced

that I can provide a sense of safety for myself, even if externally I'm not feeling that way.

Kiran Prasad (16:03)
I love that the Parts Work has allowed you, and I love the way you said it, it's allowed you to come home to yourself. That's beautiful. Because, yeah, that was one of the questions I was going to ask about how ⁓ all the trauma that we can face, it can rob us of our identity, our sense of self. Yeah, so you've kind of covered that. I don't know if you want to go into that later a bit more.

And I didn't know it such a short time ago that you heard about that, that he'd passed away. That must must must definitely make you feel a lot safer, especially being able to be open about it now.

You mentioned there was a pivotal moment that got you started on your healing journey. What was that?

Hana (16:49)
So, I'll provide some context for it. When I was 24 years old and nine months, that was when I hit my adulthood rock bottom and was hospitalized. And the reason that that happened is because as a teenager, I had decided I was struggling so much and I knew I wanted to be successful in music. I knew I had a lot to share with my songwriting. And I said, I don't know if I can make it that far, but...

I'm going to give myself until 25 to find success within all of this and then I'll have had an opportunity to live my dreams and then I can end my life. So for me, it was an inevitability that I was going to take my life. It was just kind of a matter of when and at 24 and nine months, I really had to face that I hadn't achieved that success and I hit this sense of

emptiness, of nothingness, of why did I even keep myself here? I kept myself here in order to do all these incredible things and I didn't even do them. That one sense of purpose that I had, it's gone. So that was the first time in seven years that I'd been hospitalized and it completely changed my life. I was put into an isolation unit. They didn't have any beds open when I got there and it was

just four white walls, they put a little hospital cot in the middle of the room. That was all that was there. And they gave me a journal and a pen. And I was there for three days in that room. And at first I was so angry, I was so mad. I went through such a strong cycle of emotions. And eventually those emotions settled because I had nothing to do but be with myself. And I started...

writing and writing and writing. And I realized I've never pictured my life after 25 years old. So I gave myself almost a blank slate. Obviously,  was carrying all of my trauma and my background with me. But when I got out of the hospital and I turned 25, I had this opportunity to completely change my life. And we'll talk about some of the tactical steps that I was able to take from there.

But that for me was really the moment. I had been in a relationship for four years, was living with that partner. We broke up very shortly after I turned 25. So it was this new slate of I am single for the first time. I need to find my own place to live for the first time. I'm 25, I'm alive for the first time. What do I wanna do? What do I wanna be? Who am I?

And that was also right at the beginning of my IFS journey. So the timing of the two just opened up my whole life.

Kiran Prasad (19:50)
Oh wow! And I was wondering why you chose 25. Why did you choose specifically age 25 to say, okay, if I haven't done it by that age, why that particular age?

Hana (20:04)
I think social media has really changed this. At the time, there was this messaging that if you hit that age and you weren't already famous, you were not going to be. That was the age at which you expired if you were not young, and pretty, and hot, and could stand on the red carpet at a young 20s age and already be successful, there was no way that

you could start a career at that age in music, being famous, no way. And so I do think social media has changed that, which is incredible. But at the time, that was where that number came from for me was, well, at that point, I'm gonna be I'm gonna have a shot of it anyway. So I'll give myself that long.

Kiran Prasad (20:50)
Oh okay, yeah, yeah. There is a lot of pressure on young people. There still is. You know, I'm glad you're seeing that lessening a bit on social media. But that's a lot of pressure to put on yourself. ⁓ We're going to move on to now, what were actually some of the most effective tools or

coping mechanisms heal, if you could share some of those?

Hana (21:17)
I love talking about this. This is my favorite thing because this is what transformed my life the most. And this really started when I was 25. So when I was journaling in the hospital, I asked myself the question that we'll talk a bit more about the parts coaching. This is the question that I start every single client with. And it's if I could be, do or have anything in the world, what would that look like? No limitations. And

Kiran Prasad (21:19)
I know.

Mm-hmm.

Hana (21:44)
that is where I recommend people start. And it is shockingly hard for people. Every client that I presented that to actually has some difficulty with it. I recommend daydreaming, giving yourself 15 to 30 minutes, set a timer, grab a pen and paper if you're able, if not type it out, and just give yourself the space, judgment free, to write out anything. And what often happens is you'll have little voices that chime up in your head that say,

well, this isn't possible. This isn't realistic. I wanna be a millionaire and I'm in debt. No way. And it's really important to give yourself a judgment free space just for a little bit. We can come back to what comes up once you've written this vision. Give yourself the space to freely dream, not think about the how, not think about the judgment. That is my number one recommendation of where to start.

Once you have that vision, that's when we can start doing some tactical mindset stuff because I think something that is missing a lot, I'm a very goal-oriented type A person and I think something that's missing a lot in the hustle culture, the goal culture is, well, I have the goal so now I'm gonna go do it and there isn't the space for

okay, but I'm having a lot of resistance come up. I'm having a of parts of me chime in and say this isn't possible. This is what I believe about this and it makes it so much harder to move forward. I don't like the mentality that you just have to fight against yourself. You have to fight against those voices, shove them down, just keep on going. I don't think that that's sustainable. I haven't found it to be. So the next step is

giving yourself the space to see what resistance comes up once you've really clarified what it is that you want. The version of you that you are right now believes different things than the version of you that has all of those things. If you believe, I often go to money as my go-to example because it's so universal. And if you, the millionaire version of you doesn't believe

oh it's so hard to make money. I can't do it. Oh my gosh. Capitalism's ruining my life. So we need to take a look at identifying what are my beliefs now? What are the beliefs of the version of me that has all of those things? And once we have looked at the two, and again, I recommend just really taking the time to write it out. What are my beliefs? What are their beliefs? Now we can take more tactical steps

to shift those beliefs. Okay, what does it look like for me to step into that version of myself? Now we can break down into actual actionable steps, actual small goals that allow us to build to that. And one of the most important questions that I present alongside this is two questions, is it a fact or is it a belief? And

does it have to be true? And what that means is when we take a look at the statements that we tell ourselves, we often interpret what we're saying as fact. Our brains interpret what we're saying as fact. But we often don't take the time to question it. So again, if the belief is, oh I can never make money, it's so hard. Take a second, pause, ask yourself, is that a fact or is it a belief?

That's a belief. That is something that you're telling yourself. And what's so empowering about that is that you have the power and the opportunity to write your own script. Does that have to be true? No, it doesn't, which means I get to change it. I get to create a reframe. I get to write my own script, my own affirmations. So affirmations are a huge tool. Identifying

current beliefs and future beliefs are a huge tool. Daydreaming is a huge tool of just letting yourself want anything. And there are additional steps that you can take. Well, what if I don't know what I want? Or these parts are coming up for me. There are absolutely additional steps to add to that. It's not necessarily as easy as one, two, three. And that to me is the most incredible place to be able to have tactics that allow you to start

on your own. I'm working on, in 2026 I'll be releasing a course called the Limitless Life Method that really breaks down each of these steps and what to do when you have these hurdles come up so that people can really take the time to do this on their own. But that is my short-ish version of the steps that people can easily take on their own time to take power back in their lives and really find their authentic selves.

Kiran Prasad (26:58)
⁓ Hana, you've shared so many wonderful techniques. This is going to be great for so many people. Your first one, it really reminded me of something if you could be, do or have anything and allowing yourself to daydream without judgment, judgment-free, because we don't allow ourselves to do that.

And something a life coach did with me, it was so powerful. I'd never allowed myself to do that. It was shortly after I'd got divorced and I was trying to create a new life. She basically said to me, we're gonna to pretend that I'm phoning you, but it's three years from now. And it was very similar to that idea, what you're doing there. And she said, okay, it's like 2029 and hi,

so tell me what is your life like right now? And I would be sharing from a perspective of I have all those things in my life now. It was so powerful to be able to visualize and speak as if it's already happened. Just, as my sister sent me a clip of something this morning, which was also talking about that when we can really feel it in our every fiber that

this is actually happening to us right now. We already have what we want in the future. But it made me think of that to be able to allow ourselves to daydream. Then the where you talked about, what resistance is there trying to determine, you know, what's stopping you and, what are your limited beliefs, limiting beliefs?

What do you want to get to? What version of yourself and shifting those beliefs? And is it fact or is it a belief? ⁓ Turning those around and writing your own script.

But that feeling of it's so empowering what you shared, how we can claim back our power. Because especially when we go through any kind of trauma and particularly with PTSD as well, it's taking back control. Especially with all the things you went through, the domestic violence and everything, we lose our sense of control. ⁓ Yeah,

Hana (29:07)
Exactly, exactly.

Kiran Prasad (29:09)
How do you handle, you mentioned about triggers a little bit earlier. How do you handle triggers now or difficult moments? Are you able to better cope with them?

Hana (29:21)
Yeah, yeah, I definitely am. I think I get triggered a lot less than I used to. Again, I'll come back to Parts Work again and again, as this thing that I stand by is the best thing everyone can do. I now am able to separate from my parts more. So if I get triggered by something, I'm much more able to say, oh, I can step out of this. I understand that this is a part of me, which doesn't make it any less

valid or hard to experience. I might be actively having a panic attack, which hasn't happened in a long time, but it is something that I've experienced in the past. And I am now in a place where even if my body is actively having a response that a part of me needs to have and needs to get through and is so overwhelmed by, there's still a sense of self for me, an awareness that I'm able to maintain of, okay,

I don't feel that I have a full grasp on this right now to be able to say, I'm gonna stop having a panic attack. And I am able to say, that being said, I know that this is not my reality. I know that I am not in danger. I know that I'm not actively struggling with trauma. I'm going to let myself be overwhelmed by this. And I am honestly not sure what perspective IFS would take.

I, like I'm not necessarily recommending that that is what to do, is to just let yourself be overwhelmed. I think a big part of IFS is the idea that we don't want our parts to overwhelm us, that we're listening to them so they don't feel the need to overwhelm us. For me, with everything I've been through, if I get triggered by something, sometimes I just need to let myself sob hysterically or feel really upset or shut down or even if I

overeat which is something I used to struggle with in the past. I'm able it it it I feel triggered for so much less time that I'm able to just kind of allow it to happen and know that I'm gonna come back to myself and navigate the emotions and what happened there afterward.

Kiran Prasad (31:37)
Mm-hmm. You're able to control it better. ⁓ You're triggered for less time, because let's be honest, even when we go through healing, like there's always more healing work to do. And also there's gonna be times when certain things or certain people or something just comes up and can still trigger us. That can still happen. ⁓ When we face major trauma like you did,

and you mentioned you kind of touched on that earlier about identity, you know how it can leave us forever changed. Is there anything more you wanna add to that? That how did it shift your sense of identity, your sense of self? Was there anything else?

Hana (32:20)
Yeah, something that I want to say to that that I think may not be common to talk about is that I my identity actually didn't change. And I thought it did for a really long time. If you had talked to me a year ago, I would have had a different answer. Because of all the work that I've been able to do on a new level since I found out that my perpetrator passed away, I have come back to myself more and more and what I've

realized is it's so easy to identify with trauma to the extent that we feel like we are our trauma, we are our experiences, they define us. I am this person because I went through this. And I have realized more and more in this past year, actually, I've been myself the whole time, and that trauma took bits and pieces of me and separated them.

And the more that I bring them back together, the more I realize these are things that happened to me. And the way that I coped with them is because of who I am. My resiliency is me. It's not because I went through trauma that I'm so resilient. I have always been a self-loving person. I've always been dramatic. I've always been a singer. I've always wanted to be on stage. I've always had this within myself. So realizing this actually didn't change my identity at all.

I have been, like I said earlier, just coming home to who I am more and more. And I think that that's really, really powerful.

Kiran Prasad (33:56)
That is really And I love what you said about not letting your trauma define you. Some people feel that it's a new version of themselves, basically, after trauma. They'll never be the same person who they were before, but you kind of also say, it's actually coming home to yourself. That's what you're finding.

Looking back, ⁓ what are you most proud of about the person you've now become through your healing? Because you've come such a long way. You've done so much healing work. So what are you most proud of? I'm sure there's lots of things to be proud of.

Hana (34:33)
There are

There're a lot of things. I think ultimately I'll just say again, just coming home to who I am. I am most proud of choosing myself over and over again. That is always the choice I make every day in every struggle, every hard moment that I've had. I have always chosen myself and I am confident that I will continue to do that. I'm definitely most proud of that. And I will add in here because I

haven't actually, I'm realizing, explained the Parts Work coaching and the Mindset Coaching and how all of that started for me. That is also something I'm unbelievably proud of. I recently received a certification in IFS  and Parts Work. And I've been a Mindset Coach since 2020. And what that means is I've taken that step-by-step breakdown that I gave a snippet version of, if I could be, do, or have, all of these things.

I go through that in depth one on one with someone and really help them build that life. And what I realized was missing for me in that is is all of the

We can do all the tactical stuff,

have all of these steps. We can look at, oh this is what I believe then, this is what I believe now, and create incredible transformations. The most incredible transformation happens though when we look at that resistance and we say, what part of me feels that way? We approach ourselves with gentle curiosity and we say, hey, I want to understand myself, I want to understand this. And so I knew that

I was just kind of automatically doing that with Mindset Coaching clients anyway, and I knew that I wanted to really study further and get a certification so that I could really feel able to do that work with people more. And I will clarify if anyone is interested in that and talking with me about it or working with me, I am not a therapist. It is not the same thing. You know a major difference is that in therapy

Kiran Prasad (36:37)
Okay.

Hana (36:42)
you have the space to be in those parts, to feel really upset, to be activated, to be triggered, to talk through it. For me, this is a space for you to come to the table and say, this is what I've experienced since our last session. Let's talk about that resistance. So there is a bit of a difference between the two and it is such valuable, incredible work. So I am so proud of having gotten this certification. I'm so proud of

Kiran Prasad (37:10)
Okay.

Hana (37:13)
this career that I've built and this person that I've built.

Kiran Prasad (37:17)
Yeah, congrats! You should be proud of yourself. Just one thing I wondered if you could clarify a bit more, and it might just be me. I think I've got a better understanding of Parts Work coaching, that side of it. The IFS, Internal Family Systems, if you could clarify a bit more about what that is.

Hana (37:40)
Internal Family Systems specifically?

Kiran Prasad (37:41)
Yeah, and how that,

Yeah, because  I want to kind of differentiate between the two, the Parts Coaching and this.

Hana (37:49)
Sure. So Internal Family Systems is, in my words, is also Parts Work. It is just on a much deeper level. So if you are doing IFS with a therapist, that is when you have the space to really go into those childhood wounds. IFS is healing the actual wound. It is going back to that

origin point that trauma those beliefs whatever it is that you've experienced again whether it's big T-trauma, little t-trauma, whatever it is that you've experienced. It's going back to those wounds, navigating the parts that developed because of those wounds and healing those wounds. And so with the Parts Work coaching I only work with people who feel they have already done a level of healing of their wounds. I am not equipped to, would not

want to work with someone who is actively in the struggle, actively having these symptoms from a wound that they experienced in childhood. So IFS is really the actual core healing work of the wounds. And the Parts Work Coaching is something that every single person has parts, whether you've been through trauma or not, everybody has parts of them. Everybody has limiting beliefs. Everybody...

has a coping skill like I struggled with overeating where the next day they say, why did I do that? I don't get it. And Parts Work is where you figure out, oh let's actually ask that question. Why did I do that? And you examine the reasoning behind that and the part behind that without actually delving into the wound that was the origin of all of this. Does that make sense?

Kiran Prasad (39:38)
Yeah, yeah, thanks for clarifying. That's a lot clearer now. And I just wondered, we keep mentioning Parts Work and does compartmentalizing things come into this at all? Or it's not to do with that? When people compartmentalize?

Hana (39:51)
It does.

Yeah, it does for me. It's not something that's where I will use the preface of I'm not a therapist so I can't recommend whether someone else does that. For me, I think that used to be an issue because I didn't know how to bring anything back when I compartmentalized it. I would compartmentalize one part so that I could be

in the throes of another part, I could be really, really anxious and I'd compartmentalize my anger and then I wouldn't know how to come back to the anger. So in the past, that wasn't great for me in that it allowed me to continue feeling overwhelmed. Now, it is very helpful. Going back to talking about triggers and being triggered, being able to compartmentalize and say, this was a big thing that triggered me, I'm gonna

set that aside for right now. I know that that's really important to come back to. And then giving myself the space in therapy or journaling with myself or something to bring that back out when I'm in a less triggered place. Compartmentalization now is huge for me and I don't know whether I'd recommend it or not for someone because I know firsthand that that has been detrimental as well in the past.

Kiran Prasad (41:12)
Thanks for mentioning that. I also want to point out to always remember with anything really on these episodes that we share that what works for one person may not work for another. It worked for you. Yeah. And so for someone currently in the middle of their own uprooting, their trauma, what is the one thing you want them to know is possible?

Hana (41:38)
Everything. Everything is possible. Everything is possible. I went from suicidal rock bottom in the hospital, Years and years of suicidal ideation and trauma, to going on a 65 day national tour, getting my music placed in films. Like, things that I would not have ever thought were possible.

Kiran Prasad (41:39)
You

Hana (42:05)
I've created for myself and ultimately that's because healing is possible. So healing and everything. Those are my answers.

Kiran Prasad (42:16)
Oh that's a great answer. Love it. How can listeners, if they wanna reach out, you mention about your coaching that you do and if anybody's interested or just wants to connect with you, how can they do that? Where can they find you?

Hana (42:30)
social media, I'm at We Are Golden Stars. I'm most active on Instagram and TikTok. I do have a YouTube at We Are Golden Stars. My website is wearegoldenstars.com and that has more information on my coaching or you can just send me a DM. I love to talk with people and I do free consultations anytime. If someone just wants to chat and talk things out, I am so here for that.

And my music is under Hana Kahn on any streaming platform, H-A-N-A-K-A-H-N. You can find all of my stuff as we talked about earlier, you mentioned in my bio at the beginning of my intro, I love writing songs that are empowering, that just really encapsulate the journey that I've been through. I have a song called Thrivers, a song called Limitless.

Most recently released a song that was actually about my rock bottom that I think is a really powerful anthem for people who are having a hard time. And I like having a repertoire that allows people to experience such a broad range of emotions.

Kiran Prasad (43:37)
Great, great!. And one other thing, do you offer this internationally online as well?

Hana (43:44)
There are time zone things to figure out. I'm in Central Time here in Nashville, Tennessee, and yes, very much.

Kiran Prasad (43:49)
Great,

Great.

Thank you Hana for joining us today. It's been an incredible honor.

Kiran Prasad (43:56)
You're an amazing young woman and you've shown so much courage in sharing your story today and those strategies for healing they're gonna help so many people.

Kiran Prasad (44:08)
Thank you so much and I'm sure you've helped.

Hana (44:09)
Thank you. Thank you for having

me.

Kiran Prasad (44:12)
I'd also like to thank all of you who tuned in today. If you enjoyed listening to today's episode,

please share this with someone who might benefit from it and join our Uprooted by Unwanted Change Facebook group, which I would love to get some interaction, comments. Also, don't forget to subscribe to keep up with the latest episodes, especially since we're now on a bit of an irregular schedule. So please bear with me. In the midst of chaos and uncertainty, may you find peace and rootedness.