Healing from Toxic Relationships: Reclaiming Your Identity After Narcissistic Family Trauma | The Zhen Podcast

Description

Are you feeling trapped in the cycle of toxic relationships, wondering how to reclaim your identity and joy? Join Zhen and Taylor in this enlightening episode of The Zhen Podcast, where they unravel the intricate layers of healing from narcissistic family dynamics and the impact of childhood trauma on our self-perception. Discover the profound truth that you are not inherently broken; rather, you are on a transformative journey toward wholeness and self-love.

Throughout this compelling conversation, Zhen and Taylor emphasize the significance of nurturing a healthy self-relationship as a powerful tool for healing. They delve into the emotional responses that surface when we begin to recognize unhealthy patterns shaped by our upbringing—feelings of inadequacy, anxiety, and the fear of losing our true selves in the process of healing. With insightful discussions on attachment theory and the effects of narcissistic abuse, this episode serves as a beacon of hope for those grappling with mental health challenges, including depression and anxiety, and Toxic Relationships.

As they explore the phases of realization and the journey of self-improvement, Zhen and Taylor share personal anecdotes and practical advice on navigating the complexities of trauma healing. They advocate for a compassionate approach to wellness, encouraging listeners to embrace mindfulness and emotional intelligence as they work toward personal growth. The conversation also touches on the importance of integrating different parts of oneself through practices like shadow work and inner child healing, fostering a deeper understanding of the subconscious mind and the patterns that dictate our relationships.

With a focus on boundary setting and overcoming self-sabotage, this episode offers valuable insights for anyone looking to break free from the chains of toxic relationships and reclaim their sense of purpose. Taylor’s reflections on navigating feelings of inadequacy resonate deeply, providing motivation for those facing the daunting task of healing after heartbreak. The duo emphasizes that while the journey may be challenging, it is ultimately about rediscovering your authentic self and cultivating a life filled with happiness and fulfillment.

Connect with Taylor Simon:

https://taylorstherapyservices.com/

(415) 938-5543

Join us in this transformative episode of The Zhen Podcast as we navigate the path to healing, offering tools and strategies to rewire your brain and foster emotional regulation. Whether you're seeking anxiety relief, exploring therapy options, or simply looking to understand the psychology of your relationships, this episode is a must-listen. Tune in and take the first step toward your healing journey today!

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Transcription

Speaker #0
I believe that we are always in and moving towards wholeness, even if there are some breaks in the circuitry. Okay, so I know that's kind of contradictory, but I don't take a lens where people are broken. And so the idea of the self-relationship being the thing that heals, right? It hits on so many levels. Just because my parent didn't show up for me, just because I didn't receive love that felt good and care that was full, does not mean I should never have those things. And so by building the self-relationship, this also has a secondary benefit of building our internal world. This is part of the thing that needs to be refound.
Speaker #1
All right. Welcome back, Taylor. Last week was highly, incredibly insightful. I learned so much about whether I myself has been in a narcissistic relationship. And as well as how to identify if you are in one. And for the listeners who haven't got a chance to listen to that episode, please do go back. It's tons of good insight from people who have lived through this life and also went to school, have the proper education on how to identify, deal with, and walk away from those type of toxic, narcissistic relationships. So, you know, I promised everybody that this week we're going to. put emphasis on how to build a new life after such toxic long period of time in a very traumatizing relationship family system how do we become almost like a new person how do we pursue the joy that we deserve and me as a person you know i am pretty sure that i grew up in a narcissistic family system Where there is always one person, everyone has to evolve their life around this one particular person. And this person's joy, anger, sadness become the whole theme of the family. So much so that if this person is not happy, everyone is just having the worst time of their lives. And I, you know, absorbed a lot of it as a kid. So nowadays, my biggest goal is to say, fuck you, fuck off. don't ever talk to me ever again and I want to get rid of a lot of the misconception on what's a good life, how hard life has to be in order to work for me, as well as how do I not pass on those toxic traits, which I don't have any obviously, but you know, but if anybody who do have those to not pass on to the next generation. Taylor is back who is expert in this subject matter and I have always wondered you know as somebody who walk away or you know they grew up and they leave the household usually at what age do they start to realize maybe some of the ways of living weren't theirs or they didn't really like it but it's like it's like a routine or Something they learned and they kept going until one day everything just seemed like it's not working out for them. Is there like an age where people start to realize that they're living someone else's life?
Speaker #0
You know, I think that there are so many phases that we go through in relationships like this where it may become conscious at some different points. And usually we have been experiencing this for a long time before we realize, right, if this is about a family system, you know, if I'm starting to in my development, think of myself as my own person, just come into consciousness of I am an individual. You know, we're talking somewhere between like six and ten. And so before then, probably I've been having hard experiences, but it's all kind of a wash in the sameness. Then we kind of wake up into consciousness. And that's often where we start to realize, like intuitively, something's maybe not right here. This is when there will be a really explosion of adaptations around people pleasing, caretaking, fixing. Right. This is when it's at the peak aspect of if things aren't OK, then either I need to fix them or maybe it's my fault. I need to take care of my parent. And there may be a phase like that for a while. And then we start to get into late middle school, teenage years, right, where a lot more, well, a lot of energy comes on board. This is where, you know, what is typical to say, oh, hormonal, moody, right, really intense emotions around that age. And so that can be a point where we see anger really come up. And there can actually be this break often. Now, people pleasing may continue, caretaking may continue. But this might be a point where we start to see rebellion. If you don't care about me, I don't care about you, defiance. an actual grab for autonomy and inner power that may really express itself in a lot of different ways. And from there, depending, there may be some other phases. And so, you know, high school, it would be really advanced for someone to be able to say, wow, I have such a self-centered parent. Usually it's my parent is a dick and what the heck, they can't hear me. So often it takes some amount of time and space, right? College in the U.S. is a big time when people move away from home and then there start to be these deeper levels of reflection. But it can also map on to our own self-development, right? Who am I as a person? Does this work for me? You know, there's so much in self-discovery around those different ages. And so it can happen at any of those points with the asterisk of the answer of that also highly depends on how invested we are in the system. A golden child receives so many benefits for... being part of that system, that it may take them much longer, if ever, to realize that something is at play because there's a lot about that experience that's created to lull someone into it. And so the map that I just gave might look a little bit more congruent to someone like a scapegoat or an invisible child more than the golden child. So the role really depends, changes a lot.
Speaker #1
Right. When I was younger, I used to get beat up a lot. and I was being yelled at. And like, I remember whenever, like if I say anything bad, the phrase I always get is that we do this because we care about you. If we don't care about you, we wouldn't have paid so much attention to you. We wouldn't have corrected you. And you don't see me do that to neighbors kid because I don't give a shit about who they are. I give a shit about who you are. That was, I mean, what do you say to that? Like, that's just insane. Like That's such a like a, is that a gaslighting? That's a gaslighting, right? They're changing the reality.
Speaker #0
Right. Well, there's this really, what is, it is my opinion that that's not what love is supposed to feel like. And so there is a shaping of your reality, just like you're saying around these two things are now wired together, pain and love, punishment and love. This is what love feels like. And so There's something, it's like a gaslight, but there's almost something more corrupt, right? Because as this is happening, as you grow up, this is where your neural pathways are wiring together. This is the message that you're getting. Love hurts. This is exactly the kind of message that you and I might unwind over years in therapy just to really learn, right? Wow. If love has always felt like pain, but I don't want to be in pain or this isn't really working for me, then what is love, right? That's a really big you piece of deconstruction right there.
Speaker #1
Let's break down the two. Let's talk about punishment. Before we record it, I share with you, I still struggle with this level of anxiety where when things go really well, I always wonder if something bad is going to happen or some, you know, some complications going to occur. I think it's because two reasons. Number one, I think there might be like a self-worth type of situation where like, do I deserve all good things, right? And I think that in the past, there has been learnings and conditioning where like, you know, my parents keep telling me like, don't get too comfortable, right? Like you should always be on your toes. And I think like we were talking about like your nervous system, kind of your neurons like wire together. and that becomes your entire personality. So I know that there's plenty of people out there who are just waiting for something to go wrong because to a certain degree, they kind of almost believe they should be punished because life shouldn't be as easy. And when things are going the way that are peaceful and joyful, Subconsciously, we might even ourselves create some sort of hurdle to recreate this type of like tense feeling that's inside our body which is a chemical reaction. How do we break away from this type of looping?
Speaker #0
Isn't that one of the most just like real world important questions of this, right? We can be in theory all day, but this is where it actually, you know, this is where the rubber meets the road, is my lived experience. When you share that, a few different things come up that I think are important to that answer. Yes, I really agree with that question of worth, right? To feel like, wow. I deserve because often a childhood like this will create a conscious or unconscious story of a fatal flaw. I'm defective. I'm broken. I'm unlovable. Right. And then once we are moving consciously or unconsciously from that, right, we may seek what feels congruent, what is familiar. And the thing that is familiar is to be in struggle, to be in longing, to be stuck. OK, so there's one thing of nervous system like we've talked about. The nervous system doesn't care about good and bad. They just... it cares about, or even safe and unsafe, it just cares about familiar, unfamiliar. And so there's a way in which there may be this unconscious habit. There's also what I see as a big piece of one. Often the narcissist does not like someone else to shine, right? And so there's a lot of negative experience when we are our own brilliant selves. And there's a lot of reasons why that happens. But once the experience has been, wow, when I get attention, it's actually really harmful, right? The nervous system, again, will make a decision. Wow, it's really not safe for me to shine. It's really not. And so it will keep itself safe by not being exposed to that. Now, when we're in traumatic experience, especially over time, what is natural is to adapt to shorten our emotional range. And that's both good and bad, or like positive experience and negative experience. because we can't just cut off pain without that impacting our ability to feel pleasure. If we could just cut off the pain and keep all the pleasure, heck, we'd all do that. That would be the best option, like if we could. And so there's a way in which our nervous system can be just as uncomfortable holding goodness, pleasure, joy, pride, safety, as it is to be with the harm, the uncertainty, the fear. And so... that's what I see as kind of that parallel process in the emotional range. Those are all things that come up. So those are different places where I might want to go deeper into the work with you, right? Like, well, I might ask you questions like, well, how might you approach this? If you did believe that you were full of worth as a fact, I might ask what part of you really struggles with this and what's it trying to accomplish by keeping you playing small. And I might say, how does your body feel? So much of this learning is stored there. This is from a bottom-up processing, right? It's in the body, not the brain. And so I might say, how can we support your body to discharge its own traumatic memories where it's running its own programming around this that your mind may or may not even be a part of?
Speaker #1
You know, earlier today, I actually recorded another interview with a different therapist. And I think what would be really interesting is that we do like a three-way call. as one of the recording sessions where, I mean, I'm just gonna sit here and drink my tea, but you guys can debate about it. And obviously, her name is Michelle. She's not here to defend herself. I'm paraphrasing, but, you know, I will definitely make the introduction if you are both interested in talking about similar topics. But she and I kind of got into this, like, challenge each other moment where she was like, if you you make a decision to be the best version of yourself and you examine your behaviors and you just have this like ultimate commitment that no matter what happened in the past you will you choose to be the best version of yourself you can swallow in your sadness and the past for five minutes or even longer like say 30 an hour but her whole point is like if you wanted to stand up you can And I was like, No, no, no, no, no, no. First of all, there's value in being sad. Like I was so sad for six years and I learned so much. I sit in my pain to understand who I am, what triggers me and change takes time. And like, I still feel sad sometimes. And I was like, it's so unfair to give people a timeline because we're talking about partners. And it was like, I, if I'm dating somebody who's like, I'm going to give you six months. If you don't get out of this funk, I'm leaving. I was like, if I hear that, fuck off. Like, I'm just going to have to walk away. My whole point here is that I believe change takes time. Maybe not so much time, but we need to give people the space to validate, to be aware first, and then to validate and to observe and to change. What's your thought? Do you think a person, if one day they just want to be the best version of themselves, whatever that means? They can? Or do you think this is actually a long process where you have to rewire your brain, you have to change your blood chemical reaction, you have to almost be in somewhat right environment to be able to make a difference?
Speaker #0
Yeah. So, you know, with the total asterisk that I don't know the full piece that she said and that, you know, I'll just name what comes up for me as I hear it, as you describe it. You know, I feel a little, well, I feel a little sad for the people that I work with when I hear that, because what I project onto that, which I own as mine, because again, I don't totally understand exactly what she said. But I'm like, oh, that almost kind of implies that the people who are stuck are just sort of stuck because they are wallowing or because they haven't made a decision or they haven't committed to their better self. And the people that I'm working with are putting in incredible effort or doing so much. You know, it takes a lot to rebuild our inner world or to build it for the first time. And I just feel. sad that they might hear that and feel like, oh, have I just not decided enough? Have I not just been able to move on enough when that's been so much of the messaging? Now, my interpretation of what she's saying is to take a more cognitive behavioral approach, because what I'm hearing is work with your thoughts and then your behaviors and you can do something else. Now, this is a really, if that is what she means, this is a really, you know, this is an evidence-based way of working with people. It may work. It is not typically the modality that we recommend for narcissistic abuse recovery because the process of thought changing can be very much an echo of gaslighting. You know, some folks who have CPTSD, who have experienced this are like, okay, my parents just gaslit me one way and now my therapist can do it the other way. And so it doesn't really take root. I also find that this doesn't address trauma in the body, which is something that really research is showing somatic therapy is really showing incredible progress right and so to me it doesn't reflect what i've learned around trauma or what i am seeing with my clients i agree with you obviously i
Speaker #1
so i think that's where i had to have a voice for the people who are trying but every time you know i've been through this journey i felt like I lived so many lives because I tried so many different ways, you know, and people always ask me like, what worked for you? And I say, not the one thing, but everything accumulatively, you know, maybe someone says something that really hit me that day. And I was ready, my nervous system is ready taking the information, because I've been thinking about it for a long time, I needed to hear from another person's perspective. And that's where talk therapy has its value, right? And I do have somebody to help me currently, you know, release some of the trauma in my body and to be able to have this awareness. Like when I'm talking to different people, are my shoulders up? How do I, is my heart rate up? Like, you know, it's my, did my voice go up? Like, for example, when we first started recording, I forgot what I said. And I noticed my voice went higher, my pitch went higher and I had to like drop it down. I think it just, some of it. It takes practice. It takes practice in the therapist's office to role play or have a safe space to vent or to have your story being heard. I think a lot of us don't even have the privilege or the opportunity to let our stories to be told. And when we do tell those stories, and this is my biggest beef with a lot of videos on YouTube, it's like... If I hear one more person tell me just to be happy, I will lose it. I can't deal with it. This is what makes people feel so inadequate. Because I'm just not good enough, I guess. If I just think all the good things, maybe I will be the billionaire that I always wanted to be. You know, maybe I will find a relationship that I always wanted, but I just don't really think it's that black and white. And maybe because I'm trying to find reasons why I was so sad for six years and I had to make that a meaning. So I don't know the right answer, but I think it's just so important to hear different aspects. We all come from different backgrounds and we all have different nervous system and everyone heals so differently.
Speaker #0
God, so true. You know, like, you know, I do agree that just acceptance of our experience can be so powerful. So that idea of like, you know what, this happened. And I can accept that and I can still live a really vivid life. I think that that is so valuable. I just worry, you know, it's like, well, when is the time that I decide I'm no longer sad that I don't have parents, even though they're living in here, that I have had to go to this place of very low contact because they simply cannot see or let me in, that there's no way for me to be a person in relationship with them. I'm sorry, but for me and the people that I tend to work with, this is a lifetime grief, right? It's really hard. Like, that's my parent. I am biologically hardwired. I am socially hardwired. And also... I just want a parent. The amount of harm it takes to have a child cut off a parent is tremendous. And I don't know that there's a time where I could, you know, maybe even if I were to project even after my parent passes to be like, you know what, that just doesn't bother me. I want a mom. I want a dad. And, you know, I can't just dissociate that. I can't dissociate. And that's a lot of also you know, self-blame, dissociation, these are two huge ways that people have adapted to being able to deal with what has happened. And so any treatment that encourages more dissociation or just more self-blame, oh, well, I guess I'm not trying hard enough. It's just not going to be where I take things in my therapy room.
Speaker #1
Yeah. So years ago, me and my parents had this argument and then we did you temporarily like pause our relationship and i remember when you know it was from my parents side they were like you know i think that we should just cut ties and i was like bye you know and i didn't grow up with them anyways so i didn't necessarily thought i would have had a as big of like emotional uh impact it was I just thought I was like, okay, well, you know, it's not like I ever lived with you physically. So that's okay. Like, because my whole life is not built around you. Like, I have a whole new life. And I remember I was in a theater with a friend and I went to go get like a Diet Coke or something. And I saw this like mom and daughter walked in. And I just start crying because I realized I don't have parents anymore. And this was years ago. Now we're fine. we're like very close now we worked through but it took like four years i want to say but that moment i was like what's so sad is my parents are alive and i don't have parents exactly what you just said and if you know i'm very lucky obviously we work through our differences and we're tight we're actually really close now because we're open to change and you know validate each other but my point here is that like i cannot even imagine for the people who are going through something similar or even worse, how do you recover back from that? So yeah, I definitely think that there's a value in terms of like, let your body process the pain and think that when after it's processed, it turned into wisdom, but even like the wisdom has to take time to integrate into your body. And that's different. That's a completely different set of process. And that takes time. I don't know if I'm right, but that's my personal life experience.
Speaker #0
I mean, to me, that's so powerful. To me, there's something very psychoanalytic that happens in the sense of it is archetypal to have a mother and a father. This isn't just my mom, my dad. This is something that's repeatable through culture, right? Mother Earth, father, son. These are words that have meaning that indicate to something and that you can see a moment like that. People that have nothing to do with you. but have such a strong reaction, there's something that is built into the symbol of it in our brain. There's something archetypal that lives inside of us in the collective unconscious around what it means to have a parent, because why would that moment have so much meaning if it wasn't so saturated with something from the inside? And so I think that using that kind of archetypal lens, right, using the sense of where the mother is and how we can connect back to that. can also be resources. I'm so grateful that you and your parents have worked through, right? That's ideal outcome, ideal outcome, right? For a lot of people, I'm working with what does mother mean and where else is this experience, right? Because when it's an archetype, it's not just my literal mother, it's motherliness in the world. And that I can find. And for a lot of people I work with, we say, okay, they'll tell me, or even my experience has been, okay. It's not my mom, but I can still have mom-ness in my life, and sometimes that's enough.
Speaker #1
Wow, that's very powerful. That's really, I don't want to use the word sad, that's very unfortunate for a lot of people to not have the type of love that we all deserve due to different circumstances. Let's talk about pain. So I use myself as an example as a recovered sad person or... I don't know. Like, I don't, I think, okay, let's talk about the word recovered. I also just feel like it has such a bad connotation to it. Because I think people throw that word around quite often. Where like, I'm a recovered people pleaser. I'm a recovered, I don't know. I mean, obviously there's a real addiction. I'm not. Saying that's, you know, I'm not minimizing that, but I also just feel like recovered is, it's almost like shaming on the past is right and wrong. It's a lot of, I shouldn't have, but I've done it. So now I am bad, but I'm trying to be a better person. I still think that there is like a level of lack of compassion towards yourself. while using that word. I mean, maybe just when I use that word, I feel that way, but that's just my interpretation. But let's just say that I'm somebody who is still worried that if I were to live a, which I am living, but I'm still worried that, you know, if I be in a stable relationship and have a very peaceful life, life is going to be boring. So I think subconsciously that's blocking me from reaching the full potential of finding this peace. I know how it looks like. I know how close I am to it. But I'm not doing everything I can because I'm worried that this life that in my head, that I imagine is not as good as I thought it was going to be. So for people who are happening through chaos as a child. maybe throughout their entire life now they really value peace but they don't know if it's worth doing the work and they don't know if it's something they actually want how would you help them and like what would you do to not insure them but like make them feel it's worth giving a try mm-hmm mm-hmm
Speaker #0
Okay. So just to orient, by the time someone's having this thought, the thought that you're sharing with me, right? This moment of dilemma, it's such a reflection of so much work that you've already done, right? To have that much insight about, wow, this is where I'm at. This is what I am drawn to. And this is my direction of growth, right? So I just want to name that this is something that happens farther down in the, like farther along in the process. For me, if you had, if you came into my therapy room and you're saying that, I would definitely be inviting some somatic regulation practices around the calm. For a lot of people, the calm is actually the moment before tension builds that leads to abuse, right? Because that's just what is in the cycle of abuse. And so calmness is usually from childhoods like this. That's the waiting period. Something bad is going to happen. I'm just between incidents. And so it can create this kind of. It can be infused with this unsafety. And so, and then the unfamiliarity, which as we named is something that the nervous system, it will choose the known hell over the foreign heaven because that's just how it operates. Okay. It's a prediction making machine. And so to come in, I would want to say, okay, how can we resource? How can you be bring a mindfulness about expanding your container and capacity for peace, for joy, for. A lot of people who've had these really intense childhoods, intensity is the thing that's familiar. So how can I move back into these levels of nuance and delicacy, right? Where it doesn't just have to be like, if I'm not amped. then nothing is happening, right? How do we actually drop in and get some of the flavor of calm? But I might also, just to be realistic, I might be like, okay, you need a little pain, you need a little excitement. What is a safe place that you can do that? Can you bring that into your kink life? Can you bring that into thrilling activities that are safe? You know, this is almost a harm reduction model where I personally am not going to pathologize you for wanting a little excitement. The question is, how can you do that? in a way that does not bring around self-destruction. But there's a lot that's individualized about that. For some people, they want to say, where can I get this energy out in a safe way? And for some people, it's really just about being with the meditation of like, okay, you're with calm. Can you breathe that in? Okay, and what are you noticing? Can you shake out the tension of anticipation? We might do parts work. Who's the part that's anticipating something bad to happen? What's its job in your system? And how might you build a kind of reparenting to that part where you can tell that part? It's okay. Nothing's going to happen. You don't have to worry. We're safe now. We're not then and there. We're here and now. And that you've built so much relationship with this part through inner reparenting that it can say, okay, I trust you and not start driving the bus and doing all of its maladaptive behaviors because it's afraid and doesn't know that you're not back at your childhood home anymore.
Speaker #1
Let's talk about parts of ourselves, because when you first said, you know, there's a part of herself need to either shake off some of the energy. It kind of brought me back to when I used to have my therapy session with this one therapist where she would say, I know that you know this, but I'm going to say the following to the part of you still need to hear this. And I just sit there and I can hear whatever she needs to say. But then I think in the beginning I was like, What? Like, I am hearing you. Like, what part? You know, can you tell us more about parts of ourselves? And why are they not integrated as one?
Speaker #0
Okay. I'm so glad that you asked about this because parts work is one of the primary modalities that I use that I see a ton of success with. The idea of an inner child or an inner critic are parts of ourselves that people... are mostly familiar with, right? That's something that's a little bit more common. What I believe is true, and I don't know if this is true for others, is that actually, we were never really of a mono mind. That's kind of something that is of an illusion, right? Because there's who I am at work, there's who I am here with you, and then there's who I am when I'm just running around my house, right? These are all different, what might be called self-states, right? But you could say different parts of me show up in different places, right? And so when some of this is just natural, non-pathologized. It is also true that the nature of traumatic experience is that the mind is so overwhelmed by what's happening that typically a part is split off that holds the charge and then is dissociated and it becomes a traumatic fragment stuck in the system. Okay, this is how trauma happens. And so it gets stuck there and the rest of the mind moves on. I don't know what to do with you. I'm so overwhelmed. I'm going to put you over here and I'm going to keep it pushing because there's nothing else to do. It's too overwhelming. And so what a big part of parts work is, is, oh, wow, you were really, really scared when that thing happened. You know, people have specific memories often of moments. Oh, when I was 10, my parents got in this kind of fight. Or when I was 13, my friends bullied me in this way. Okay. The idea of parts work is let's go back. let's find those parts within because they're frozen in time. They are running their own programs and their own stories, right? This is the same way. This is another lens of saying, wow, the body has its own story. These dissociated parts may be also, right? Like these are two names for potentially the same thing. So, okay, I've got these parts that are frozen in time. I need to not only discover them, but the parts work allows us to build a relationship to them to start to unburden them from the jobs that they are doing, right? Playing small is an important job that a part of me is reproducing. It's always doing that job. I need to make sure you play small. It's too dangerous for me to shine. And so I build a relationship because usually I go, okay, part, how old are you? Oh, well, I'm 13 because that's when I got really yelled at by my whatever for I won this thing. But then they really they treated me terribly or I was told I was so stupid. And so that's cut off. I need to build that relationship and let it know, hey, you've got a new parent. You finally got the parent that you need who can see you and attune to you. I'm sorry it's not your biological parent, but it is me. And that is a... dependable, secure resource. And so by connecting with these parts and having this better interconnectedness among them, rather than that scared part getting so overwhelmed and feeling isolated that it's in the driver's seat now. 13-year-old me is saying, sabotage, sabotage, sabotage. If I know myself through parts work, I can say, I hear you, that you're feeling unsafe, you want us to sabotage. Don't worry. Because 13-year-old me should not be in charge of the whole system. Adult me should be online. So I can offer comfort. I see how scared you are. And then I can make a decision from my adult self. What do you think about this?
Speaker #1
I mean, this is so fascinating. I don't have any thoughts, but I have one. I mean, I do have thoughts. I have one thought and I have a question. When you were talking, I was like, this is like a Pixar movie. It kind of aligned with some of the idea of the movie Inside Out, where, you know, give a character to each of the emotion. And so while you were talking, I was like, literally have like a cartoonish movie playing in my head, where, you know, they break apart, and the rest of the troupe, like just carried on, and then this person is really lonely and sad. it wants to go back home. Pixar, if you're watching this and want to turn this into an idea, pay me, okay? You can't just steal things from people. Anyways, but you know, it's really fun because this is all roads lead to the authentic version of ourselves. And it's almost like the more parts that break away, the less we're willing to be who we are because we actually don't have that part with us. Would you say the work that we're doing is essentially get those parts back so we can be whole again?
Speaker #0
I mean, OK, in a way, yes, with the asterisks that I believe that we are always in and moving towards wholeness, even if there are some breaks in the circuitry. OK, so I know that's kind of contradictory, but I don't take a lens where people are broken. And so the idea of the self-relationship being the thing that heals, right? It hits on so many levels. Just because my parent didn't show up for me, just because I didn't receive love that felt good and care that was full does not mean I should never have those things. And so by building the self-relationship, this also has a secondary benefit of building our internal world. Okay. This is part of the thing that needs to be re-found, re-connected to. in order to have our own experience, right? Narcissistic families do not encourage us to have an interior, right? We're all in codependence around this person. And so this allows us to know ourself, but it's also, I think, really important to the full picture because I am yet to meet someone while working through the parts work lens with childhood trauma who hasn't had a part that has taken the abuser inside, right? And then there's a lot of self-blame. Oh my God, but I'm so controlling like my parent. you They were mean to me and now I'm mean to other people. It is adaptive to bring the abuser inside in part because then we can better anticipate and thus keep ourselves safer. But what do we do when I'm no longer in relationship with the abuser, but the adaptive part is still there? That feeds into a lot of people's self-blame, self-criticism, perpetuating the gaslight that started. And so this parts work lets us be accepting of our whole self and be more connected. Do we integrate into one? I don't believe so. But I think what we do is discover a core that is what the parts work tradition might call the self, what the holotropic graphian tradition might just call the inner healer, right? The authentic energy. Some people would call this our spiritual energy, whatever that is for you, right? That it's about connecting and letting that be the anchor and leadership in our system rather than these other parts. But until we get in there and we say, who's here? Who's driving the bus? We can't possibly know. And that's why people will say like, oh my God, I totally reacted, but that wasn't me. Oh my God, why did I do that? And then people feel all this shame and guilt for the way that they're responding to life when really it's just a bit chaotic on the inside because the parts do not have a leader. They're all isolated. Imagine trying to run a business where all your employees are separated, no communication and have different goals. Like, good luck. That's going to be stressful.
Speaker #1
I think that kind of shows, like, where the gap in my own healing journey is that I have said this to my other therapist where, um, Sometimes, I mean, I don't know if I still feel this way. Maybe I do. And subconsciously, I believe that I was broken. So I had to go through the therapy sessions to put myself back together. And I think that I had different therapists. And like one of them recently said to me, she was like, you don't do this work because you're broken. You do this work because you're curious what life could look like. And that blew my mind because it made me feel like I'm more in control, right? I'm no longer suffocating and trying to search for the peace. And if I don't find it, then I'm going to be this, you know, inadequate person. And I think that gave me the opportunity to be more free in the journey and know that I have a choice because regardless the way how I choose. I'll be okay. And my follow-up question from what we just talked about is that I do know people who act okay when they are just day-to-day life, but when things get really tough or there's like a situation that's confrontational, they turn into, like you can visibly tell, they turn into like a much younger version of themselves. Is this where they let the, like say 13-year-old start to driving the bus?
Speaker #0
Oh, yeah. And it's always so interesting, not only how you said, like, oh, I can see it. It's really interesting when this actually is happening with really the older, older population, because then you're seeing, you actually see a 70 year old responding as 13. And you can feel 13 in there. You know, it's interesting. There's no real like statute of limitations on these parts. They're like, okay, I turned 50 and they're not there. And so this is happening for people a lot. But it's so great when I've worked with people for a while and they'll come in and they'll be expressing a lot of self-blame and self-criticism. And they've built such a self-knowledge. I can say, who am I talking to right now? What is here? And then they can see it. They can make a connection. They can welcome it. And then they can shift back to their essential energy. It's the most beautiful thing. You know, they come back to their true self and that it's not about, you know, fixing. It's just about being more expressed in the parts that are... we really feel are us rather than just our identifications.
Speaker #1
Right. When you talk to me, whether on camera or off camera, have I exhibited any younger version of self?
Speaker #0
I think that I have, I think that my observation has really just been more of a professional self versus a friendlier self, right? And there's probably like... a more relaxed energy when we're just being friendly and casual. But I have not witnessed any regression. That said, the regression, right, this is something that will come up in the expanded states work or in ketamine work is a treasure because, you know, I work with a lot of Stan Grof's theory, doesn't matter who that is. But the point is, he often believes that we need to get back to the original level of intensity to move charges out of our body. So if I can get someone and they're feeling six, if they're feeling 10 and they're in a session, we can do some really powerful work because we are now back at, I'm sorry, but the scene of the crime. You know what I mean?
Speaker #1
Yeah. Wow.
Speaker #0
This happens a lot when people take teletherapy from their childhood home and they're all of a sudden like...
Speaker #1
What's teletherapy?
Speaker #0
It's like online therapy. Like if people take a virtual session, but they're at their house, you can just see so many of those parts are just so up and activated.
Speaker #1
Okay. Maybe one day. I mean, I'm not like, I'm not scared of it. I don't know. Like, I think I'm just tired of doing therapy. So give me like, let me take a break. And maybe I will like, go back to it. I just I, I'm very interested in this type of therapy. And I do believe like, whenever you say it, like my heart tells me is, is effective. Yeah. It's like, because I'm pretty direct person. People say certain things, I'm like, I don't know what you're talking about. Like, I would say that. When you said the ketamine therapy, where like it takes you back, I felt like my heart came alive. It's almost like there's a thirst for that level of validation. Like you want to be seen again, right? Like, I don't think that like day-to-day life. It gives me or anybody the opportunity to go back to where we were, whether it's joyful or painful. So I can see how that's like such a great tool.
Speaker #0
When you hear that your heart is really curious about something that would feel more complete in that level of being seen, you know, it's a really tender thing. I'm curious what you would want to tell your heart in response.
Speaker #1
I think I'm telling my heart that will do it. Just waiting for the right moment. I don't want it to feel like I am ignoring it too, right? And I think it's an opportunity for me to co-reparent myself. So I think I'm at the stage in my life where whatever that if my heart says I want it, I'll give it to it. Whether it is like a cookie or it is, you know, go out or whatever. I just don't think I no longer live in the world where everything has to be right or wrong. My therapist always say to compare is to lie. And I think is to be able to find works for you. So yeah, if my heart says yes, we'll do it. We'll do it. Maybe like now, right now, but I will remember and I'll for sure give it a try.
Speaker #0
This is exactly how we do parts work, I can tell that there's Probably, well, just that there's either work, intuition, probably both going on just because you've had such a long therapy journey where it's like your heart, right? That sensation, we might say, is a part communicating with you. And when you're able to say, I see you, I want to give you what you want. I'm going to wait for the right moment so we can both have this, but that you're welcoming that and meeting that. That's exactly what we're talking about.
Speaker #1
You know, the reason why I think I'm going to, I will try it is because I feel...
Speaker #0
oh my god lost my thought give me a sec is that a good sign it's always just so interesting right because someone was there and then the self-state switches right and then it's just gone it's like i had a such like an insightful thing
Speaker #1
to say about my healing journey i think it has it's along the lying with. I am just... Oh. Okay, I remembered. I think the reason of the hesitation is because if I were to do this work and it got to a point where I fully release my trauma, then I lose an identity. And I need this identity to feel alive. Right. So it comes down to one of the questions that I think that we might have briefly touched on is a fear of unknown. Like my body wants it and it knows it will liberate me. But I don't know if I'm ready to be liberated because then I can talk about it. Like how is my podcast going to be OK if I know I have no trauma left? Right. Do they really integrate into wisdom? Did I release like too soon? what if like I'm not done with the learnings even though I know fuck like I'm done like I'm so tired like I don't want to do this but you know like so I think there's still like a battle is like me wanting to be the type of person I want to be versus the fear of becoming.
Speaker #0
Wow so understandable you know like In the way that I work, the lens I would use is like the pain is such a core part of what we've been conditioned and shaped around that actually there can be points in the healing journey where once we're at a point of being ready to let go of certain parts of our pain that we identify with, it actually can bring about a bit of an existential crisis. Like it's one thing to say like, oh my God, my whole life is about fixing my family, fixing this relationship. Well, what happens once I've healed that I've built my inner world? Good news, bad news. I have to figure out what my life is about now. Well, what do I care now that it's not just about this pain, trying to get rid of this pain, trying to change people I can't change, right? This is a deep level of the self-discovery, right? Like, okay, I'm authentically back online, but I'm still discovering who I am. Okay. So am I here for beauty? Am I here for greatness. Like what are my true values now that I'm not defined by my trauma. And that's, I'm sorry, it's freaky, right? There's so many ways that we are shedding our skin and parts of us are kind of being let go of. But, you know, the rebirth, it's amazing. 10 out of 10. I invite it every time, but there is no rebirth without death. And we don't have to pretend like that's a fun, comfortable process, you know? And so this idea of like, if I'm not hanging on to the trauma, what am I going to hold on to? Am I just going to be floating out there? It's like, it's a huge negotiation, right? How much do I just accept that this is just humanity and we all get bumps and bruises? And how much do I need to really be? pulling out the roots of these things, right? It's easy to pathologize, but this is my trauma, but this is my trauma. My whole job is my trauma. Listen, our whole personality structure is a trauma response to being alive. We are some of the few animals that are even conscious of the fact that we're going to die. There's just no way for the existential piece to not show up at some point.
Speaker #1
Wow. To conclude, one last question for today. I know that we are All right. doing another one next week is that you know talking about coming back online and some you know we're all part of this journey but people are different progression progress different point of their lives so like how is there a way to distinguish like what we want versus what's like a trauma response and other. It's what we want might be what other people want in life.
Speaker #0
Okay. I'm going to answer and then you'll tell me if I'm understanding your question correctly based on what you hear. To me, what you're inviting is the process of embodiment because there's this aspect of like, well, what do I want? Who am I? Right. And there's a real mind supremacy in our culture here where it's like the mind knows. In fact, the mind loves it. It's like, I'm in the brain. I'm self-aware. I should be in leadership. Okay. How do I know what I want? If I'm trying to figure this out in my mind and all the trauma, I'm just going to basically dissociate. I'm going to have a little spin out. So what I might recommend is beginning that relationship to the body around, well, where do I feel longing and want, right? People often will come in and say, like, I don't even know. I'll be like, how are you today? They're like, I don't even know. Can you ask me a different question? Or, you know, say something like, well, what could maybe help you in this moment? And they're like, I don't even know. Okay, so there's this process of getting reacquainted with our body, all the gaslighting, all the abuse, all the overriding of our nervous system that's had to happen because of the family experience. But I'm sorry, also our culture really encourages us to override our nervous system, that there's this new attunement to just noticing what's inside, right? Mostly we've had to ignore it, suppress it, devalue it, say it doesn't matter. Okay, I think that I want X for dinner, but my... My body is actually just really drawn towards a different thing. And so this idea of reconnecting with our want, our longing, and those signals our body are giving us because we can't just live through our brain. It misses a huge part of the data that we get. We have emotions for a reason. It's not just for the inconvenience. And so that we are reacquainted with that and learn to speak that language of the body and start to be connected with like... Oh, usually I would say yes, because I should, but my body does not want to move forward. And then having an experiment. So what does it feel like to follow my body? And so I tell people, don't have all this pressure. You don't have to create. What life would I be living if I'd never been traumatized? Don't worry about it. Start with the low hanging fruit. Is there 5% more of your life that you could have embodied preference around? Wow. Well, this is just really what I'm feeling like. Not a feeling that comes from your brain. This is where I feel want. And see what happens when we start to engage that feedback loop.
Speaker #1
I don't know why whenever, obviously, I know what my body wants versus what my brain wants. But then I almost choose, not every time, 80% of the time, I still go with my brain in the name of FOMO. Yeah. There is a part of me just feel like this time is not going to be. the same this time it's gonna be the different and something great is gonna come out and uh what if i don't do it like what am i missing out do you think that's FOMO or do you think that's what's familiar and i want to go with that what
Speaker #0
a great question i mean i think there's a way in which it could be both what i'm really hearing in that is the pattern is to um like Thank you. Sorry, the pattern is to ignore my inner signals. And so there's a way in which what I hear is what's familiar is to devalue, ignore or otherwise dissociate from my parts giving me feedback. Right. Like you're getting a sensation. I don't actually want to go. And then you override. Well, that part now feels betrayed because you are not taking care of. I'm sorry. You're now a responsible parent of like 18 different parts. Right. It will ruin your relationship of trust or it will negatively impact the relationship of self-trust if you override too much.
Speaker #1
Well, now I'm stressed and now I have to go eat like twice as much to make myself feel better. Well,
Speaker #0
on our next episode, talk about conversations. That's right.
Speaker #1
Thank you, Taylor. You're awesome. And I can't wait to continue the conversation next week. I just feel like you know, very validated when I talk to you. I think that it's a lot of people out there are suffering in silence and they just, you know, they wake up with anxiety. They don't know why they're always so scared and they just always feel so lonely and empty on the inside. And I feel like a lot of what you said hit up on parts of me that felt, you know, even as much as I know that positive thinking is not going to cut it. But there was not the right vocab or the right way of phrasing it to make it feel alive again. And today I felt very much alive. But thank you so much. And I will see you next week.
Speaker #0
Wonderful. Thank you.
Speaker #1
Thank you so much for being here with me today on the Zen Podcast. If this episode resonated with you, make sure you're subscribed and leave a comment with your biggest takeaway. That's how we grow this community and get these conversations in front of more people who need them. And if somebody came to mind while you're listening, please do make sure to send this episode to them. You can also find me on TikTok, Instagram, YouTube, Apple Podcasts, and Spotify. All linked below. Until next time, stay sharp, stay intentional, and be good.

Chapters

Understanding Wholeness and Self-Relationship
0sec
Building a New Life After Toxic Relationships
41sec
Phases of Realization in Healing
2min
Gaslighting and Its Impact on Love
6min
Navigating Change and Self-Discovery
15min
Exploring Parts of Ourselves
31min
Distinguishing Wants from Trauma Responses
50min

About The Zhen Podcast

You’re listening to The Zhen Podcast - a show focused on mental health, physical health, relationship health, and the daily practices that support real, lasting change. Each episode features thoughtful conversations with guests who share real-life experiences — from their own journeys to the work they’ve done with clients - offering practical examples of healing, learning, and growth. We explore what actually helps people move forward, whether that comes from science, health, psychology, spirituality, or simple habits that make a meaningful difference. The goal is clarity, self-awareness, and tools you can apply to your own life — now let's begin the conversation Disclaimer: "The information provided in this Podcast Channel (the "Channel") does not, and is not intended to, constitute professional advice; instead, all information, content, and materials available on this Channel are for general informational purposes only. This Channel contains information provided by interviewees and/or links to other third-party websites. Such links are only for the convenience of the reader, user or browser. The views expressed at, or through, this site are those of the individual interviewees in their individual capacities only – not those of the Channel. All liability with respect to actions taken or not taken based on the contents of this Channel are hereby expressly disclaimed. The content on this posting is provided "as is;" no representations are made that the content is error-free."

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About The Zhen Podcast

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Description

Connect with Taylor Simon:

https://taylorstherapyservices.com/

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Transcription

Speaker #0
I believe that we are always in and moving towards wholeness, even if there are some breaks in the circuitry. Okay, so I know that's kind of contradictory, but I don't take a lens where people are broken. And so the idea of the self-relationship being the thing that heals, right? It hits on so many levels. Just because my parent didn't show up for me, just because I didn't receive love that felt good and care that was full, does not mean I should never have those things. And so by building the self-relationship, this also has a secondary benefit of building our internal world. This is part of the thing that needs to be refound.
Speaker #1
All right. Welcome back, Taylor. Last week was highly, incredibly insightful. I learned so much about whether I myself has been in a narcissistic relationship. And as well as how to identify if you are in one. And for the listeners who haven't got a chance to listen to that episode, please do go back. It's tons of good insight from people who have lived through this life and also went to school, have the proper education on how to identify, deal with, and walk away from those type of toxic, narcissistic relationships. So, you know, I promised everybody that this week we're going to. put emphasis on how to build a new life after such toxic long period of time in a very traumatizing relationship family system how do we become almost like a new person how do we pursue the joy that we deserve and me as a person you know i am pretty sure that i grew up in a narcissistic family system Where there is always one person, everyone has to evolve their life around this one particular person. And this person's joy, anger, sadness become the whole theme of the family. So much so that if this person is not happy, everyone is just having the worst time of their lives. And I, you know, absorbed a lot of it as a kid. So nowadays, my biggest goal is to say, fuck you, fuck off. don't ever talk to me ever again and I want to get rid of a lot of the misconception on what's a good life, how hard life has to be in order to work for me, as well as how do I not pass on those toxic traits, which I don't have any obviously, but you know, but if anybody who do have those to not pass on to the next generation. Taylor is back who is expert in this subject matter and I have always wondered you know as somebody who walk away or you know they grew up and they leave the household usually at what age do they start to realize maybe some of the ways of living weren't theirs or they didn't really like it but it's like it's like a routine or Something they learned and they kept going until one day everything just seemed like it's not working out for them. Is there like an age where people start to realize that they're living someone else's life?
Speaker #0
You know, I think that there are so many phases that we go through in relationships like this where it may become conscious at some different points. And usually we have been experiencing this for a long time before we realize, right, if this is about a family system, you know, if I'm starting to in my development, think of myself as my own person, just come into consciousness of I am an individual. You know, we're talking somewhere between like six and ten. And so before then, probably I've been having hard experiences, but it's all kind of a wash in the sameness. Then we kind of wake up into consciousness. And that's often where we start to realize, like intuitively, something's maybe not right here. This is when there will be a really explosion of adaptations around people pleasing, caretaking, fixing. Right. This is when it's at the peak aspect of if things aren't OK, then either I need to fix them or maybe it's my fault. I need to take care of my parent. And there may be a phase like that for a while. And then we start to get into late middle school, teenage years, right, where a lot more, well, a lot of energy comes on board. This is where, you know, what is typical to say, oh, hormonal, moody, right, really intense emotions around that age. And so that can be a point where we see anger really come up. And there can actually be this break often. Now, people pleasing may continue, caretaking may continue. But this might be a point where we start to see rebellion. If you don't care about me, I don't care about you, defiance. an actual grab for autonomy and inner power that may really express itself in a lot of different ways. And from there, depending, there may be some other phases. And so, you know, high school, it would be really advanced for someone to be able to say, wow, I have such a self-centered parent. Usually it's my parent is a dick and what the heck, they can't hear me. So often it takes some amount of time and space, right? College in the U.S. is a big time when people move away from home and then there start to be these deeper levels of reflection. But it can also map on to our own self-development, right? Who am I as a person? Does this work for me? You know, there's so much in self-discovery around those different ages. And so it can happen at any of those points with the asterisk of the answer of that also highly depends on how invested we are in the system. A golden child receives so many benefits for... being part of that system, that it may take them much longer, if ever, to realize that something is at play because there's a lot about that experience that's created to lull someone into it. And so the map that I just gave might look a little bit more congruent to someone like a scapegoat or an invisible child more than the golden child. So the role really depends, changes a lot.
Speaker #1
Right. When I was younger, I used to get beat up a lot. and I was being yelled at. And like, I remember whenever, like if I say anything bad, the phrase I always get is that we do this because we care about you. If we don't care about you, we wouldn't have paid so much attention to you. We wouldn't have corrected you. And you don't see me do that to neighbors kid because I don't give a shit about who they are. I give a shit about who you are. That was, I mean, what do you say to that? Like, that's just insane. Like That's such a like a, is that a gaslighting? That's a gaslighting, right? They're changing the reality.
Speaker #0
Right. Well, there's this really, what is, it is my opinion that that's not what love is supposed to feel like. And so there is a shaping of your reality, just like you're saying around these two things are now wired together, pain and love, punishment and love. This is what love feels like. And so There's something, it's like a gaslight, but there's almost something more corrupt, right? Because as this is happening, as you grow up, this is where your neural pathways are wiring together. This is the message that you're getting. Love hurts. This is exactly the kind of message that you and I might unwind over years in therapy just to really learn, right? Wow. If love has always felt like pain, but I don't want to be in pain or this isn't really working for me, then what is love, right? That's a really big you piece of deconstruction right there.
Speaker #1
Let's break down the two. Let's talk about punishment. Before we record it, I share with you, I still struggle with this level of anxiety where when things go really well, I always wonder if something bad is going to happen or some, you know, some complications going to occur. I think it's because two reasons. Number one, I think there might be like a self-worth type of situation where like, do I deserve all good things, right? And I think that in the past, there has been learnings and conditioning where like, you know, my parents keep telling me like, don't get too comfortable, right? Like you should always be on your toes. And I think like we were talking about like your nervous system, kind of your neurons like wire together. and that becomes your entire personality. So I know that there's plenty of people out there who are just waiting for something to go wrong because to a certain degree, they kind of almost believe they should be punished because life shouldn't be as easy. And when things are going the way that are peaceful and joyful, Subconsciously, we might even ourselves create some sort of hurdle to recreate this type of like tense feeling that's inside our body which is a chemical reaction. How do we break away from this type of looping?
Speaker #0
Isn't that one of the most just like real world important questions of this, right? We can be in theory all day, but this is where it actually, you know, this is where the rubber meets the road, is my lived experience. When you share that, a few different things come up that I think are important to that answer. Yes, I really agree with that question of worth, right? To feel like, wow. I deserve because often a childhood like this will create a conscious or unconscious story of a fatal flaw. I'm defective. I'm broken. I'm unlovable. Right. And then once we are moving consciously or unconsciously from that, right, we may seek what feels congruent, what is familiar. And the thing that is familiar is to be in struggle, to be in longing, to be stuck. OK, so there's one thing of nervous system like we've talked about. The nervous system doesn't care about good and bad. They just... it cares about, or even safe and unsafe, it just cares about familiar, unfamiliar. And so there's a way in which there may be this unconscious habit. There's also what I see as a big piece of one. Often the narcissist does not like someone else to shine, right? And so there's a lot of negative experience when we are our own brilliant selves. And there's a lot of reasons why that happens. But once the experience has been, wow, when I get attention, it's actually really harmful, right? The nervous system, again, will make a decision. Wow, it's really not safe for me to shine. It's really not. And so it will keep itself safe by not being exposed to that. Now, when we're in traumatic experience, especially over time, what is natural is to adapt to shorten our emotional range. And that's both good and bad, or like positive experience and negative experience. because we can't just cut off pain without that impacting our ability to feel pleasure. If we could just cut off the pain and keep all the pleasure, heck, we'd all do that. That would be the best option, like if we could. And so there's a way in which our nervous system can be just as uncomfortable holding goodness, pleasure, joy, pride, safety, as it is to be with the harm, the uncertainty, the fear. And so... that's what I see as kind of that parallel process in the emotional range. Those are all things that come up. So those are different places where I might want to go deeper into the work with you, right? Like, well, I might ask you questions like, well, how might you approach this? If you did believe that you were full of worth as a fact, I might ask what part of you really struggles with this and what's it trying to accomplish by keeping you playing small. And I might say, how does your body feel? So much of this learning is stored there. This is from a bottom-up processing, right? It's in the body, not the brain. And so I might say, how can we support your body to discharge its own traumatic memories where it's running its own programming around this that your mind may or may not even be a part of?
Speaker #1
You know, earlier today, I actually recorded another interview with a different therapist. And I think what would be really interesting is that we do like a three-way call. as one of the recording sessions where, I mean, I'm just gonna sit here and drink my tea, but you guys can debate about it. And obviously, her name is Michelle. She's not here to defend herself. I'm paraphrasing, but, you know, I will definitely make the introduction if you are both interested in talking about similar topics. But she and I kind of got into this, like, challenge each other moment where she was like, if you you make a decision to be the best version of yourself and you examine your behaviors and you just have this like ultimate commitment that no matter what happened in the past you will you choose to be the best version of yourself you can swallow in your sadness and the past for five minutes or even longer like say 30 an hour but her whole point is like if you wanted to stand up you can And I was like, No, no, no, no, no, no. First of all, there's value in being sad. Like I was so sad for six years and I learned so much. I sit in my pain to understand who I am, what triggers me and change takes time. And like, I still feel sad sometimes. And I was like, it's so unfair to give people a timeline because we're talking about partners. And it was like, I, if I'm dating somebody who's like, I'm going to give you six months. If you don't get out of this funk, I'm leaving. I was like, if I hear that, fuck off. Like, I'm just going to have to walk away. My whole point here is that I believe change takes time. Maybe not so much time, but we need to give people the space to validate, to be aware first, and then to validate and to observe and to change. What's your thought? Do you think a person, if one day they just want to be the best version of themselves, whatever that means? They can? Or do you think this is actually a long process where you have to rewire your brain, you have to change your blood chemical reaction, you have to almost be in somewhat right environment to be able to make a difference?
Speaker #0
Yeah. So, you know, with the total asterisk that I don't know the full piece that she said and that, you know, I'll just name what comes up for me as I hear it, as you describe it. You know, I feel a little, well, I feel a little sad for the people that I work with when I hear that, because what I project onto that, which I own as mine, because again, I don't totally understand exactly what she said. But I'm like, oh, that almost kind of implies that the people who are stuck are just sort of stuck because they are wallowing or because they haven't made a decision or they haven't committed to their better self. And the people that I'm working with are putting in incredible effort or doing so much. You know, it takes a lot to rebuild our inner world or to build it for the first time. And I just feel. sad that they might hear that and feel like, oh, have I just not decided enough? Have I not just been able to move on enough when that's been so much of the messaging? Now, my interpretation of what she's saying is to take a more cognitive behavioral approach, because what I'm hearing is work with your thoughts and then your behaviors and you can do something else. Now, this is a really, if that is what she means, this is a really, you know, this is an evidence-based way of working with people. It may work. It is not typically the modality that we recommend for narcissistic abuse recovery because the process of thought changing can be very much an echo of gaslighting. You know, some folks who have CPTSD, who have experienced this are like, okay, my parents just gaslit me one way and now my therapist can do it the other way. And so it doesn't really take root. I also find that this doesn't address trauma in the body, which is something that really research is showing somatic therapy is really showing incredible progress right and so to me it doesn't reflect what i've learned around trauma or what i am seeing with my clients i agree with you obviously i
Speaker #1
so i think that's where i had to have a voice for the people who are trying but every time you know i've been through this journey i felt like I lived so many lives because I tried so many different ways, you know, and people always ask me like, what worked for you? And I say, not the one thing, but everything accumulatively, you know, maybe someone says something that really hit me that day. And I was ready, my nervous system is ready taking the information, because I've been thinking about it for a long time, I needed to hear from another person's perspective. And that's where talk therapy has its value, right? And I do have somebody to help me currently, you know, release some of the trauma in my body and to be able to have this awareness. Like when I'm talking to different people, are my shoulders up? How do I, is my heart rate up? Like, you know, it's my, did my voice go up? Like, for example, when we first started recording, I forgot what I said. And I noticed my voice went higher, my pitch went higher and I had to like drop it down. I think it just, some of it. It takes practice. It takes practice in the therapist's office to role play or have a safe space to vent or to have your story being heard. I think a lot of us don't even have the privilege or the opportunity to let our stories to be told. And when we do tell those stories, and this is my biggest beef with a lot of videos on YouTube, it's like... If I hear one more person tell me just to be happy, I will lose it. I can't deal with it. This is what makes people feel so inadequate. Because I'm just not good enough, I guess. If I just think all the good things, maybe I will be the billionaire that I always wanted to be. You know, maybe I will find a relationship that I always wanted, but I just don't really think it's that black and white. And maybe because I'm trying to find reasons why I was so sad for six years and I had to make that a meaning. So I don't know the right answer, but I think it's just so important to hear different aspects. We all come from different backgrounds and we all have different nervous system and everyone heals so differently.
Speaker #0
God, so true. You know, like, you know, I do agree that just acceptance of our experience can be so powerful. So that idea of like, you know what, this happened. And I can accept that and I can still live a really vivid life. I think that that is so valuable. I just worry, you know, it's like, well, when is the time that I decide I'm no longer sad that I don't have parents, even though they're living in here, that I have had to go to this place of very low contact because they simply cannot see or let me in, that there's no way for me to be a person in relationship with them. I'm sorry, but for me and the people that I tend to work with, this is a lifetime grief, right? It's really hard. Like, that's my parent. I am biologically hardwired. I am socially hardwired. And also... I just want a parent. The amount of harm it takes to have a child cut off a parent is tremendous. And I don't know that there's a time where I could, you know, maybe even if I were to project even after my parent passes to be like, you know what, that just doesn't bother me. I want a mom. I want a dad. And, you know, I can't just dissociate that. I can't dissociate. And that's a lot of also you know, self-blame, dissociation, these are two huge ways that people have adapted to being able to deal with what has happened. And so any treatment that encourages more dissociation or just more self-blame, oh, well, I guess I'm not trying hard enough. It's just not going to be where I take things in my therapy room.
Speaker #1
Yeah. So years ago, me and my parents had this argument and then we did you temporarily like pause our relationship and i remember when you know it was from my parents side they were like you know i think that we should just cut ties and i was like bye you know and i didn't grow up with them anyways so i didn't necessarily thought i would have had a as big of like emotional uh impact it was I just thought I was like, okay, well, you know, it's not like I ever lived with you physically. So that's okay. Like, because my whole life is not built around you. Like, I have a whole new life. And I remember I was in a theater with a friend and I went to go get like a Diet Coke or something. And I saw this like mom and daughter walked in. And I just start crying because I realized I don't have parents anymore. And this was years ago. Now we're fine. we're like very close now we worked through but it took like four years i want to say but that moment i was like what's so sad is my parents are alive and i don't have parents exactly what you just said and if you know i'm very lucky obviously we work through our differences and we're tight we're actually really close now because we're open to change and you know validate each other but my point here is that like i cannot even imagine for the people who are going through something similar or even worse, how do you recover back from that? So yeah, I definitely think that there's a value in terms of like, let your body process the pain and think that when after it's processed, it turned into wisdom, but even like the wisdom has to take time to integrate into your body. And that's different. That's a completely different set of process. And that takes time. I don't know if I'm right, but that's my personal life experience.
Speaker #0
I mean, to me, that's so powerful. To me, there's something very psychoanalytic that happens in the sense of it is archetypal to have a mother and a father. This isn't just my mom, my dad. This is something that's repeatable through culture, right? Mother Earth, father, son. These are words that have meaning that indicate to something and that you can see a moment like that. People that have nothing to do with you. but have such a strong reaction, there's something that is built into the symbol of it in our brain. There's something archetypal that lives inside of us in the collective unconscious around what it means to have a parent, because why would that moment have so much meaning if it wasn't so saturated with something from the inside? And so I think that using that kind of archetypal lens, right, using the sense of where the mother is and how we can connect back to that. can also be resources. I'm so grateful that you and your parents have worked through, right? That's ideal outcome, ideal outcome, right? For a lot of people, I'm working with what does mother mean and where else is this experience, right? Because when it's an archetype, it's not just my literal mother, it's motherliness in the world. And that I can find. And for a lot of people I work with, we say, okay, they'll tell me, or even my experience has been, okay. It's not my mom, but I can still have mom-ness in my life, and sometimes that's enough.
Speaker #1
Wow, that's very powerful. That's really, I don't want to use the word sad, that's very unfortunate for a lot of people to not have the type of love that we all deserve due to different circumstances. Let's talk about pain. So I use myself as an example as a recovered sad person or... I don't know. Like, I don't, I think, okay, let's talk about the word recovered. I also just feel like it has such a bad connotation to it. Because I think people throw that word around quite often. Where like, I'm a recovered people pleaser. I'm a recovered, I don't know. I mean, obviously there's a real addiction. I'm not. Saying that's, you know, I'm not minimizing that, but I also just feel like recovered is, it's almost like shaming on the past is right and wrong. It's a lot of, I shouldn't have, but I've done it. So now I am bad, but I'm trying to be a better person. I still think that there is like a level of lack of compassion towards yourself. while using that word. I mean, maybe just when I use that word, I feel that way, but that's just my interpretation. But let's just say that I'm somebody who is still worried that if I were to live a, which I am living, but I'm still worried that, you know, if I be in a stable relationship and have a very peaceful life, life is going to be boring. So I think subconsciously that's blocking me from reaching the full potential of finding this peace. I know how it looks like. I know how close I am to it. But I'm not doing everything I can because I'm worried that this life that in my head, that I imagine is not as good as I thought it was going to be. So for people who are happening through chaos as a child. maybe throughout their entire life now they really value peace but they don't know if it's worth doing the work and they don't know if it's something they actually want how would you help them and like what would you do to not insure them but like make them feel it's worth giving a try mm-hmm mm-hmm
Speaker #0
Okay. So just to orient, by the time someone's having this thought, the thought that you're sharing with me, right? This moment of dilemma, it's such a reflection of so much work that you've already done, right? To have that much insight about, wow, this is where I'm at. This is what I am drawn to. And this is my direction of growth, right? So I just want to name that this is something that happens farther down in the, like farther along in the process. For me, if you had, if you came into my therapy room and you're saying that, I would definitely be inviting some somatic regulation practices around the calm. For a lot of people, the calm is actually the moment before tension builds that leads to abuse, right? Because that's just what is in the cycle of abuse. And so calmness is usually from childhoods like this. That's the waiting period. Something bad is going to happen. I'm just between incidents. And so it can create this kind of. It can be infused with this unsafety. And so, and then the unfamiliarity, which as we named is something that the nervous system, it will choose the known hell over the foreign heaven because that's just how it operates. Okay. It's a prediction making machine. And so to come in, I would want to say, okay, how can we resource? How can you be bring a mindfulness about expanding your container and capacity for peace, for joy, for. A lot of people who've had these really intense childhoods, intensity is the thing that's familiar. So how can I move back into these levels of nuance and delicacy, right? Where it doesn't just have to be like, if I'm not amped. then nothing is happening, right? How do we actually drop in and get some of the flavor of calm? But I might also, just to be realistic, I might be like, okay, you need a little pain, you need a little excitement. What is a safe place that you can do that? Can you bring that into your kink life? Can you bring that into thrilling activities that are safe? You know, this is almost a harm reduction model where I personally am not going to pathologize you for wanting a little excitement. The question is, how can you do that? in a way that does not bring around self-destruction. But there's a lot that's individualized about that. For some people, they want to say, where can I get this energy out in a safe way? And for some people, it's really just about being with the meditation of like, okay, you're with calm. Can you breathe that in? Okay, and what are you noticing? Can you shake out the tension of anticipation? We might do parts work. Who's the part that's anticipating something bad to happen? What's its job in your system? And how might you build a kind of reparenting to that part where you can tell that part? It's okay. Nothing's going to happen. You don't have to worry. We're safe now. We're not then and there. We're here and now. And that you've built so much relationship with this part through inner reparenting that it can say, okay, I trust you and not start driving the bus and doing all of its maladaptive behaviors because it's afraid and doesn't know that you're not back at your childhood home anymore.
Speaker #1
Let's talk about parts of ourselves, because when you first said, you know, there's a part of herself need to either shake off some of the energy. It kind of brought me back to when I used to have my therapy session with this one therapist where she would say, I know that you know this, but I'm going to say the following to the part of you still need to hear this. And I just sit there and I can hear whatever she needs to say. But then I think in the beginning I was like, What? Like, I am hearing you. Like, what part? You know, can you tell us more about parts of ourselves? And why are they not integrated as one?
Speaker #0
Okay. I'm so glad that you asked about this because parts work is one of the primary modalities that I use that I see a ton of success with. The idea of an inner child or an inner critic are parts of ourselves that people... are mostly familiar with, right? That's something that's a little bit more common. What I believe is true, and I don't know if this is true for others, is that actually, we were never really of a mono mind. That's kind of something that is of an illusion, right? Because there's who I am at work, there's who I am here with you, and then there's who I am when I'm just running around my house, right? These are all different, what might be called self-states, right? But you could say different parts of me show up in different places, right? And so when some of this is just natural, non-pathologized. It is also true that the nature of traumatic experience is that the mind is so overwhelmed by what's happening that typically a part is split off that holds the charge and then is dissociated and it becomes a traumatic fragment stuck in the system. Okay, this is how trauma happens. And so it gets stuck there and the rest of the mind moves on. I don't know what to do with you. I'm so overwhelmed. I'm going to put you over here and I'm going to keep it pushing because there's nothing else to do. It's too overwhelming. And so what a big part of parts work is, is, oh, wow, you were really, really scared when that thing happened. You know, people have specific memories often of moments. Oh, when I was 10, my parents got in this kind of fight. Or when I was 13, my friends bullied me in this way. Okay. The idea of parts work is let's go back. let's find those parts within because they're frozen in time. They are running their own programs and their own stories, right? This is the same way. This is another lens of saying, wow, the body has its own story. These dissociated parts may be also, right? Like these are two names for potentially the same thing. So, okay, I've got these parts that are frozen in time. I need to not only discover them, but the parts work allows us to build a relationship to them to start to unburden them from the jobs that they are doing, right? Playing small is an important job that a part of me is reproducing. It's always doing that job. I need to make sure you play small. It's too dangerous for me to shine. And so I build a relationship because usually I go, okay, part, how old are you? Oh, well, I'm 13 because that's when I got really yelled at by my whatever for I won this thing. But then they really they treated me terribly or I was told I was so stupid. And so that's cut off. I need to build that relationship and let it know, hey, you've got a new parent. You finally got the parent that you need who can see you and attune to you. I'm sorry it's not your biological parent, but it is me. And that is a... dependable, secure resource. And so by connecting with these parts and having this better interconnectedness among them, rather than that scared part getting so overwhelmed and feeling isolated that it's in the driver's seat now. 13-year-old me is saying, sabotage, sabotage, sabotage. If I know myself through parts work, I can say, I hear you, that you're feeling unsafe, you want us to sabotage. Don't worry. Because 13-year-old me should not be in charge of the whole system. Adult me should be online. So I can offer comfort. I see how scared you are. And then I can make a decision from my adult self. What do you think about this?
Speaker #1
I mean, this is so fascinating. I don't have any thoughts, but I have one. I mean, I do have thoughts. I have one thought and I have a question. When you were talking, I was like, this is like a Pixar movie. It kind of aligned with some of the idea of the movie Inside Out, where, you know, give a character to each of the emotion. And so while you were talking, I was like, literally have like a cartoonish movie playing in my head, where, you know, they break apart, and the rest of the troupe, like just carried on, and then this person is really lonely and sad. it wants to go back home. Pixar, if you're watching this and want to turn this into an idea, pay me, okay? You can't just steal things from people. Anyways, but you know, it's really fun because this is all roads lead to the authentic version of ourselves. And it's almost like the more parts that break away, the less we're willing to be who we are because we actually don't have that part with us. Would you say the work that we're doing is essentially get those parts back so we can be whole again?
Speaker #0
I mean, OK, in a way, yes, with the asterisks that I believe that we are always in and moving towards wholeness, even if there are some breaks in the circuitry. OK, so I know that's kind of contradictory, but I don't take a lens where people are broken. And so the idea of the self-relationship being the thing that heals, right? It hits on so many levels. Just because my parent didn't show up for me, just because I didn't receive love that felt good and care that was full does not mean I should never have those things. And so by building the self-relationship, this also has a secondary benefit of building our internal world. Okay. This is part of the thing that needs to be re-found, re-connected to. in order to have our own experience, right? Narcissistic families do not encourage us to have an interior, right? We're all in codependence around this person. And so this allows us to know ourself, but it's also, I think, really important to the full picture because I am yet to meet someone while working through the parts work lens with childhood trauma who hasn't had a part that has taken the abuser inside, right? And then there's a lot of self-blame. Oh my God, but I'm so controlling like my parent. you They were mean to me and now I'm mean to other people. It is adaptive to bring the abuser inside in part because then we can better anticipate and thus keep ourselves safer. But what do we do when I'm no longer in relationship with the abuser, but the adaptive part is still there? That feeds into a lot of people's self-blame, self-criticism, perpetuating the gaslight that started. And so this parts work lets us be accepting of our whole self and be more connected. Do we integrate into one? I don't believe so. But I think what we do is discover a core that is what the parts work tradition might call the self, what the holotropic graphian tradition might just call the inner healer, right? The authentic energy. Some people would call this our spiritual energy, whatever that is for you, right? That it's about connecting and letting that be the anchor and leadership in our system rather than these other parts. But until we get in there and we say, who's here? Who's driving the bus? We can't possibly know. And that's why people will say like, oh my God, I totally reacted, but that wasn't me. Oh my God, why did I do that? And then people feel all this shame and guilt for the way that they're responding to life when really it's just a bit chaotic on the inside because the parts do not have a leader. They're all isolated. Imagine trying to run a business where all your employees are separated, no communication and have different goals. Like, good luck. That's going to be stressful.
Speaker #1
I think that kind of shows, like, where the gap in my own healing journey is that I have said this to my other therapist where, um, Sometimes, I mean, I don't know if I still feel this way. Maybe I do. And subconsciously, I believe that I was broken. So I had to go through the therapy sessions to put myself back together. And I think that I had different therapists. And like one of them recently said to me, she was like, you don't do this work because you're broken. You do this work because you're curious what life could look like. And that blew my mind because it made me feel like I'm more in control, right? I'm no longer suffocating and trying to search for the peace. And if I don't find it, then I'm going to be this, you know, inadequate person. And I think that gave me the opportunity to be more free in the journey and know that I have a choice because regardless the way how I choose. I'll be okay. And my follow-up question from what we just talked about is that I do know people who act okay when they are just day-to-day life, but when things get really tough or there's like a situation that's confrontational, they turn into, like you can visibly tell, they turn into like a much younger version of themselves. Is this where they let the, like say 13-year-old start to driving the bus?
Speaker #0
Oh, yeah. And it's always so interesting, not only how you said, like, oh, I can see it. It's really interesting when this actually is happening with really the older, older population, because then you're seeing, you actually see a 70 year old responding as 13. And you can feel 13 in there. You know, it's interesting. There's no real like statute of limitations on these parts. They're like, okay, I turned 50 and they're not there. And so this is happening for people a lot. But it's so great when I've worked with people for a while and they'll come in and they'll be expressing a lot of self-blame and self-criticism. And they've built such a self-knowledge. I can say, who am I talking to right now? What is here? And then they can see it. They can make a connection. They can welcome it. And then they can shift back to their essential energy. It's the most beautiful thing. You know, they come back to their true self and that it's not about, you know, fixing. It's just about being more expressed in the parts that are... we really feel are us rather than just our identifications.
Speaker #1
Right. When you talk to me, whether on camera or off camera, have I exhibited any younger version of self?
Speaker #0
I think that I have, I think that my observation has really just been more of a professional self versus a friendlier self, right? And there's probably like... a more relaxed energy when we're just being friendly and casual. But I have not witnessed any regression. That said, the regression, right, this is something that will come up in the expanded states work or in ketamine work is a treasure because, you know, I work with a lot of Stan Grof's theory, doesn't matter who that is. But the point is, he often believes that we need to get back to the original level of intensity to move charges out of our body. So if I can get someone and they're feeling six, if they're feeling 10 and they're in a session, we can do some really powerful work because we are now back at, I'm sorry, but the scene of the crime. You know what I mean?
Speaker #1
Yeah. Wow.
Speaker #0
This happens a lot when people take teletherapy from their childhood home and they're all of a sudden like...
Speaker #1
What's teletherapy?
Speaker #0
It's like online therapy. Like if people take a virtual session, but they're at their house, you can just see so many of those parts are just so up and activated.
Speaker #1
Okay. Maybe one day. I mean, I'm not like, I'm not scared of it. I don't know. Like, I think I'm just tired of doing therapy. So give me like, let me take a break. And maybe I will like, go back to it. I just I, I'm very interested in this type of therapy. And I do believe like, whenever you say it, like my heart tells me is, is effective. Yeah. It's like, because I'm pretty direct person. People say certain things, I'm like, I don't know what you're talking about. Like, I would say that. When you said the ketamine therapy, where like it takes you back, I felt like my heart came alive. It's almost like there's a thirst for that level of validation. Like you want to be seen again, right? Like, I don't think that like day-to-day life. It gives me or anybody the opportunity to go back to where we were, whether it's joyful or painful. So I can see how that's like such a great tool.
Speaker #0
When you hear that your heart is really curious about something that would feel more complete in that level of being seen, you know, it's a really tender thing. I'm curious what you would want to tell your heart in response.
Speaker #1
I think I'm telling my heart that will do it. Just waiting for the right moment. I don't want it to feel like I am ignoring it too, right? And I think it's an opportunity for me to co-reparent myself. So I think I'm at the stage in my life where whatever that if my heart says I want it, I'll give it to it. Whether it is like a cookie or it is, you know, go out or whatever. I just don't think I no longer live in the world where everything has to be right or wrong. My therapist always say to compare is to lie. And I think is to be able to find works for you. So yeah, if my heart says yes, we'll do it. We'll do it. Maybe like now, right now, but I will remember and I'll for sure give it a try.
Speaker #0
This is exactly how we do parts work, I can tell that there's Probably, well, just that there's either work, intuition, probably both going on just because you've had such a long therapy journey where it's like your heart, right? That sensation, we might say, is a part communicating with you. And when you're able to say, I see you, I want to give you what you want. I'm going to wait for the right moment so we can both have this, but that you're welcoming that and meeting that. That's exactly what we're talking about.
Speaker #1
You know, the reason why I think I'm going to, I will try it is because I feel...
Speaker #0
oh my god lost my thought give me a sec is that a good sign it's always just so interesting right because someone was there and then the self-state switches right and then it's just gone it's like i had a such like an insightful thing
Speaker #1
to say about my healing journey i think it has it's along the lying with. I am just... Oh. Okay, I remembered. I think the reason of the hesitation is because if I were to do this work and it got to a point where I fully release my trauma, then I lose an identity. And I need this identity to feel alive. Right. So it comes down to one of the questions that I think that we might have briefly touched on is a fear of unknown. Like my body wants it and it knows it will liberate me. But I don't know if I'm ready to be liberated because then I can talk about it. Like how is my podcast going to be OK if I know I have no trauma left? Right. Do they really integrate into wisdom? Did I release like too soon? what if like I'm not done with the learnings even though I know fuck like I'm done like I'm so tired like I don't want to do this but you know like so I think there's still like a battle is like me wanting to be the type of person I want to be versus the fear of becoming.
Speaker #0
Wow so understandable you know like In the way that I work, the lens I would use is like the pain is such a core part of what we've been conditioned and shaped around that actually there can be points in the healing journey where once we're at a point of being ready to let go of certain parts of our pain that we identify with, it actually can bring about a bit of an existential crisis. Like it's one thing to say like, oh my God, my whole life is about fixing my family, fixing this relationship. Well, what happens once I've healed that I've built my inner world? Good news, bad news. I have to figure out what my life is about now. Well, what do I care now that it's not just about this pain, trying to get rid of this pain, trying to change people I can't change, right? This is a deep level of the self-discovery, right? Like, okay, I'm authentically back online, but I'm still discovering who I am. Okay. So am I here for beauty? Am I here for greatness. Like what are my true values now that I'm not defined by my trauma. And that's, I'm sorry, it's freaky, right? There's so many ways that we are shedding our skin and parts of us are kind of being let go of. But, you know, the rebirth, it's amazing. 10 out of 10. I invite it every time, but there is no rebirth without death. And we don't have to pretend like that's a fun, comfortable process, you know? And so this idea of like, if I'm not hanging on to the trauma, what am I going to hold on to? Am I just going to be floating out there? It's like, it's a huge negotiation, right? How much do I just accept that this is just humanity and we all get bumps and bruises? And how much do I need to really be? pulling out the roots of these things, right? It's easy to pathologize, but this is my trauma, but this is my trauma. My whole job is my trauma. Listen, our whole personality structure is a trauma response to being alive. We are some of the few animals that are even conscious of the fact that we're going to die. There's just no way for the existential piece to not show up at some point.
Speaker #1
Wow. To conclude, one last question for today. I know that we are All right. doing another one next week is that you know talking about coming back online and some you know we're all part of this journey but people are different progression progress different point of their lives so like how is there a way to distinguish like what we want versus what's like a trauma response and other. It's what we want might be what other people want in life.
Speaker #0
Okay. I'm going to answer and then you'll tell me if I'm understanding your question correctly based on what you hear. To me, what you're inviting is the process of embodiment because there's this aspect of like, well, what do I want? Who am I? Right. And there's a real mind supremacy in our culture here where it's like the mind knows. In fact, the mind loves it. It's like, I'm in the brain. I'm self-aware. I should be in leadership. Okay. How do I know what I want? If I'm trying to figure this out in my mind and all the trauma, I'm just going to basically dissociate. I'm going to have a little spin out. So what I might recommend is beginning that relationship to the body around, well, where do I feel longing and want, right? People often will come in and say, like, I don't even know. I'll be like, how are you today? They're like, I don't even know. Can you ask me a different question? Or, you know, say something like, well, what could maybe help you in this moment? And they're like, I don't even know. Okay, so there's this process of getting reacquainted with our body, all the gaslighting, all the abuse, all the overriding of our nervous system that's had to happen because of the family experience. But I'm sorry, also our culture really encourages us to override our nervous system, that there's this new attunement to just noticing what's inside, right? Mostly we've had to ignore it, suppress it, devalue it, say it doesn't matter. Okay, I think that I want X for dinner, but my... My body is actually just really drawn towards a different thing. And so this idea of reconnecting with our want, our longing, and those signals our body are giving us because we can't just live through our brain. It misses a huge part of the data that we get. We have emotions for a reason. It's not just for the inconvenience. And so that we are reacquainted with that and learn to speak that language of the body and start to be connected with like... Oh, usually I would say yes, because I should, but my body does not want to move forward. And then having an experiment. So what does it feel like to follow my body? And so I tell people, don't have all this pressure. You don't have to create. What life would I be living if I'd never been traumatized? Don't worry about it. Start with the low hanging fruit. Is there 5% more of your life that you could have embodied preference around? Wow. Well, this is just really what I'm feeling like. Not a feeling that comes from your brain. This is where I feel want. And see what happens when we start to engage that feedback loop.
Speaker #1
I don't know why whenever, obviously, I know what my body wants versus what my brain wants. But then I almost choose, not every time, 80% of the time, I still go with my brain in the name of FOMO. Yeah. There is a part of me just feel like this time is not going to be. the same this time it's gonna be the different and something great is gonna come out and uh what if i don't do it like what am i missing out do you think that's FOMO or do you think that's what's familiar and i want to go with that what
Speaker #0
a great question i mean i think there's a way in which it could be both what i'm really hearing in that is the pattern is to um like Thank you. Sorry, the pattern is to ignore my inner signals. And so there's a way in which what I hear is what's familiar is to devalue, ignore or otherwise dissociate from my parts giving me feedback. Right. Like you're getting a sensation. I don't actually want to go. And then you override. Well, that part now feels betrayed because you are not taking care of. I'm sorry. You're now a responsible parent of like 18 different parts. Right. It will ruin your relationship of trust or it will negatively impact the relationship of self-trust if you override too much.
Speaker #1
Well, now I'm stressed and now I have to go eat like twice as much to make myself feel better. Well,
Speaker #0
on our next episode, talk about conversations. That's right.
Speaker #1
Thank you, Taylor. You're awesome. And I can't wait to continue the conversation next week. I just feel like you know, very validated when I talk to you. I think that it's a lot of people out there are suffering in silence and they just, you know, they wake up with anxiety. They don't know why they're always so scared and they just always feel so lonely and empty on the inside. And I feel like a lot of what you said hit up on parts of me that felt, you know, even as much as I know that positive thinking is not going to cut it. But there was not the right vocab or the right way of phrasing it to make it feel alive again. And today I felt very much alive. But thank you so much. And I will see you next week.
Speaker #0
Wonderful. Thank you.
Speaker #1
Thank you so much for being here with me today on the Zen Podcast. If this episode resonated with you, make sure you're subscribed and leave a comment with your biggest takeaway. That's how we grow this community and get these conversations in front of more people who need them. And if somebody came to mind while you're listening, please do make sure to send this episode to them. You can also find me on TikTok, Instagram, YouTube, Apple Podcasts, and Spotify. All linked below. Until next time, stay sharp, stay intentional, and be good.

Chapters

Understanding Wholeness and Self-Relationship
0sec
Building a New Life After Toxic Relationships
41sec
Phases of Realization in Healing
2min
Gaslighting and Its Impact on Love
6min
Navigating Change and Self-Discovery
15min
Exploring Parts of Ourselves
31min
Distinguishing Wants from Trauma Responses
50min

About The Zhen Podcast

Hosted on Ausha. See ausha.co/privacy-policy for more information.

About The Zhen Podcast

Hosted on Ausha. See ausha.co/privacy-policy for more information.

Embed

Chapters

Understanding Wholeness and Self-Relationship
0sec
Building a New Life After Toxic Relationships
41sec
Phases of Realization in Healing
2min
Gaslighting and Its Impact on Love
6min
Navigating Change and Self-Discovery
15min
Exploring Parts of Ourselves
31min
Distinguishing Wants from Trauma Responses
50min

About The Zhen Podcast

Hosted on Ausha. See ausha.co/privacy-policy for more information.

About The Zhen Podcast

Hosted on Ausha. See ausha.co/privacy-policy for more information.

Description

Connect with Taylor Simon:

https://taylorstherapyservices.com/

(415) 938-5543

Hosted on Ausha. See ausha.co/privacy-policy for more information.

Transcription

Speaker #0
I believe that we are always in and moving towards wholeness, even if there are some breaks in the circuitry. Okay, so I know that's kind of contradictory, but I don't take a lens where people are broken. And so the idea of the self-relationship being the thing that heals, right? It hits on so many levels. Just because my parent didn't show up for me, just because I didn't receive love that felt good and care that was full, does not mean I should never have those things. And so by building the self-relationship, this also has a secondary benefit of building our internal world. This is part of the thing that needs to be refound.
Speaker #1
All right. Welcome back, Taylor. Last week was highly, incredibly insightful. I learned so much about whether I myself has been in a narcissistic relationship. And as well as how to identify if you are in one. And for the listeners who haven't got a chance to listen to that episode, please do go back. It's tons of good insight from people who have lived through this life and also went to school, have the proper education on how to identify, deal with, and walk away from those type of toxic, narcissistic relationships. So, you know, I promised everybody that this week we're going to. put emphasis on how to build a new life after such toxic long period of time in a very traumatizing relationship family system how do we become almost like a new person how do we pursue the joy that we deserve and me as a person you know i am pretty sure that i grew up in a narcissistic family system Where there is always one person, everyone has to evolve their life around this one particular person. And this person's joy, anger, sadness become the whole theme of the family. So much so that if this person is not happy, everyone is just having the worst time of their lives. And I, you know, absorbed a lot of it as a kid. So nowadays, my biggest goal is to say, fuck you, fuck off. don't ever talk to me ever again and I want to get rid of a lot of the misconception on what's a good life, how hard life has to be in order to work for me, as well as how do I not pass on those toxic traits, which I don't have any obviously, but you know, but if anybody who do have those to not pass on to the next generation. Taylor is back who is expert in this subject matter and I have always wondered you know as somebody who walk away or you know they grew up and they leave the household usually at what age do they start to realize maybe some of the ways of living weren't theirs or they didn't really like it but it's like it's like a routine or Something they learned and they kept going until one day everything just seemed like it's not working out for them. Is there like an age where people start to realize that they're living someone else's life?
Speaker #0
You know, I think that there are so many phases that we go through in relationships like this where it may become conscious at some different points. And usually we have been experiencing this for a long time before we realize, right, if this is about a family system, you know, if I'm starting to in my development, think of myself as my own person, just come into consciousness of I am an individual. You know, we're talking somewhere between like six and ten. And so before then, probably I've been having hard experiences, but it's all kind of a wash in the sameness. Then we kind of wake up into consciousness. And that's often where we start to realize, like intuitively, something's maybe not right here. This is when there will be a really explosion of adaptations around people pleasing, caretaking, fixing. Right. This is when it's at the peak aspect of if things aren't OK, then either I need to fix them or maybe it's my fault. I need to take care of my parent. And there may be a phase like that for a while. And then we start to get into late middle school, teenage years, right, where a lot more, well, a lot of energy comes on board. This is where, you know, what is typical to say, oh, hormonal, moody, right, really intense emotions around that age. And so that can be a point where we see anger really come up. And there can actually be this break often. Now, people pleasing may continue, caretaking may continue. But this might be a point where we start to see rebellion. If you don't care about me, I don't care about you, defiance. an actual grab for autonomy and inner power that may really express itself in a lot of different ways. And from there, depending, there may be some other phases. And so, you know, high school, it would be really advanced for someone to be able to say, wow, I have such a self-centered parent. Usually it's my parent is a dick and what the heck, they can't hear me. So often it takes some amount of time and space, right? College in the U.S. is a big time when people move away from home and then there start to be these deeper levels of reflection. But it can also map on to our own self-development, right? Who am I as a person? Does this work for me? You know, there's so much in self-discovery around those different ages. And so it can happen at any of those points with the asterisk of the answer of that also highly depends on how invested we are in the system. A golden child receives so many benefits for... being part of that system, that it may take them much longer, if ever, to realize that something is at play because there's a lot about that experience that's created to lull someone into it. And so the map that I just gave might look a little bit more congruent to someone like a scapegoat or an invisible child more than the golden child. So the role really depends, changes a lot.
Speaker #1
Right. When I was younger, I used to get beat up a lot. and I was being yelled at. And like, I remember whenever, like if I say anything bad, the phrase I always get is that we do this because we care about you. If we don't care about you, we wouldn't have paid so much attention to you. We wouldn't have corrected you. And you don't see me do that to neighbors kid because I don't give a shit about who they are. I give a shit about who you are. That was, I mean, what do you say to that? Like, that's just insane. Like That's such a like a, is that a gaslighting? That's a gaslighting, right? They're changing the reality.
Speaker #0
Right. Well, there's this really, what is, it is my opinion that that's not what love is supposed to feel like. And so there is a shaping of your reality, just like you're saying around these two things are now wired together, pain and love, punishment and love. This is what love feels like. And so There's something, it's like a gaslight, but there's almost something more corrupt, right? Because as this is happening, as you grow up, this is where your neural pathways are wiring together. This is the message that you're getting. Love hurts. This is exactly the kind of message that you and I might unwind over years in therapy just to really learn, right? Wow. If love has always felt like pain, but I don't want to be in pain or this isn't really working for me, then what is love, right? That's a really big you piece of deconstruction right there.
Speaker #1
Let's break down the two. Let's talk about punishment. Before we record it, I share with you, I still struggle with this level of anxiety where when things go really well, I always wonder if something bad is going to happen or some, you know, some complications going to occur. I think it's because two reasons. Number one, I think there might be like a self-worth type of situation where like, do I deserve all good things, right? And I think that in the past, there has been learnings and conditioning where like, you know, my parents keep telling me like, don't get too comfortable, right? Like you should always be on your toes. And I think like we were talking about like your nervous system, kind of your neurons like wire together. and that becomes your entire personality. So I know that there's plenty of people out there who are just waiting for something to go wrong because to a certain degree, they kind of almost believe they should be punished because life shouldn't be as easy. And when things are going the way that are peaceful and joyful, Subconsciously, we might even ourselves create some sort of hurdle to recreate this type of like tense feeling that's inside our body which is a chemical reaction. How do we break away from this type of looping?
Speaker #0
Isn't that one of the most just like real world important questions of this, right? We can be in theory all day, but this is where it actually, you know, this is where the rubber meets the road, is my lived experience. When you share that, a few different things come up that I think are important to that answer. Yes, I really agree with that question of worth, right? To feel like, wow. I deserve because often a childhood like this will create a conscious or unconscious story of a fatal flaw. I'm defective. I'm broken. I'm unlovable. Right. And then once we are moving consciously or unconsciously from that, right, we may seek what feels congruent, what is familiar. And the thing that is familiar is to be in struggle, to be in longing, to be stuck. OK, so there's one thing of nervous system like we've talked about. The nervous system doesn't care about good and bad. They just... it cares about, or even safe and unsafe, it just cares about familiar, unfamiliar. And so there's a way in which there may be this unconscious habit. There's also what I see as a big piece of one. Often the narcissist does not like someone else to shine, right? And so there's a lot of negative experience when we are our own brilliant selves. And there's a lot of reasons why that happens. But once the experience has been, wow, when I get attention, it's actually really harmful, right? The nervous system, again, will make a decision. Wow, it's really not safe for me to shine. It's really not. And so it will keep itself safe by not being exposed to that. Now, when we're in traumatic experience, especially over time, what is natural is to adapt to shorten our emotional range. And that's both good and bad, or like positive experience and negative experience. because we can't just cut off pain without that impacting our ability to feel pleasure. If we could just cut off the pain and keep all the pleasure, heck, we'd all do that. That would be the best option, like if we could. And so there's a way in which our nervous system can be just as uncomfortable holding goodness, pleasure, joy, pride, safety, as it is to be with the harm, the uncertainty, the fear. And so... that's what I see as kind of that parallel process in the emotional range. Those are all things that come up. So those are different places where I might want to go deeper into the work with you, right? Like, well, I might ask you questions like, well, how might you approach this? If you did believe that you were full of worth as a fact, I might ask what part of you really struggles with this and what's it trying to accomplish by keeping you playing small. And I might say, how does your body feel? So much of this learning is stored there. This is from a bottom-up processing, right? It's in the body, not the brain. And so I might say, how can we support your body to discharge its own traumatic memories where it's running its own programming around this that your mind may or may not even be a part of?
Speaker #1
You know, earlier today, I actually recorded another interview with a different therapist. And I think what would be really interesting is that we do like a three-way call. as one of the recording sessions where, I mean, I'm just gonna sit here and drink my tea, but you guys can debate about it. And obviously, her name is Michelle. She's not here to defend herself. I'm paraphrasing, but, you know, I will definitely make the introduction if you are both interested in talking about similar topics. But she and I kind of got into this, like, challenge each other moment where she was like, if you you make a decision to be the best version of yourself and you examine your behaviors and you just have this like ultimate commitment that no matter what happened in the past you will you choose to be the best version of yourself you can swallow in your sadness and the past for five minutes or even longer like say 30 an hour but her whole point is like if you wanted to stand up you can And I was like, No, no, no, no, no, no. First of all, there's value in being sad. Like I was so sad for six years and I learned so much. I sit in my pain to understand who I am, what triggers me and change takes time. And like, I still feel sad sometimes. And I was like, it's so unfair to give people a timeline because we're talking about partners. And it was like, I, if I'm dating somebody who's like, I'm going to give you six months. If you don't get out of this funk, I'm leaving. I was like, if I hear that, fuck off. Like, I'm just going to have to walk away. My whole point here is that I believe change takes time. Maybe not so much time, but we need to give people the space to validate, to be aware first, and then to validate and to observe and to change. What's your thought? Do you think a person, if one day they just want to be the best version of themselves, whatever that means? They can? Or do you think this is actually a long process where you have to rewire your brain, you have to change your blood chemical reaction, you have to almost be in somewhat right environment to be able to make a difference?
Speaker #0
Yeah. So, you know, with the total asterisk that I don't know the full piece that she said and that, you know, I'll just name what comes up for me as I hear it, as you describe it. You know, I feel a little, well, I feel a little sad for the people that I work with when I hear that, because what I project onto that, which I own as mine, because again, I don't totally understand exactly what she said. But I'm like, oh, that almost kind of implies that the people who are stuck are just sort of stuck because they are wallowing or because they haven't made a decision or they haven't committed to their better self. And the people that I'm working with are putting in incredible effort or doing so much. You know, it takes a lot to rebuild our inner world or to build it for the first time. And I just feel. sad that they might hear that and feel like, oh, have I just not decided enough? Have I not just been able to move on enough when that's been so much of the messaging? Now, my interpretation of what she's saying is to take a more cognitive behavioral approach, because what I'm hearing is work with your thoughts and then your behaviors and you can do something else. Now, this is a really, if that is what she means, this is a really, you know, this is an evidence-based way of working with people. It may work. It is not typically the modality that we recommend for narcissistic abuse recovery because the process of thought changing can be very much an echo of gaslighting. You know, some folks who have CPTSD, who have experienced this are like, okay, my parents just gaslit me one way and now my therapist can do it the other way. And so it doesn't really take root. I also find that this doesn't address trauma in the body, which is something that really research is showing somatic therapy is really showing incredible progress right and so to me it doesn't reflect what i've learned around trauma or what i am seeing with my clients i agree with you obviously i
Speaker #1
so i think that's where i had to have a voice for the people who are trying but every time you know i've been through this journey i felt like I lived so many lives because I tried so many different ways, you know, and people always ask me like, what worked for you? And I say, not the one thing, but everything accumulatively, you know, maybe someone says something that really hit me that day. And I was ready, my nervous system is ready taking the information, because I've been thinking about it for a long time, I needed to hear from another person's perspective. And that's where talk therapy has its value, right? And I do have somebody to help me currently, you know, release some of the trauma in my body and to be able to have this awareness. Like when I'm talking to different people, are my shoulders up? How do I, is my heart rate up? Like, you know, it's my, did my voice go up? Like, for example, when we first started recording, I forgot what I said. And I noticed my voice went higher, my pitch went higher and I had to like drop it down. I think it just, some of it. It takes practice. It takes practice in the therapist's office to role play or have a safe space to vent or to have your story being heard. I think a lot of us don't even have the privilege or the opportunity to let our stories to be told. And when we do tell those stories, and this is my biggest beef with a lot of videos on YouTube, it's like... If I hear one more person tell me just to be happy, I will lose it. I can't deal with it. This is what makes people feel so inadequate. Because I'm just not good enough, I guess. If I just think all the good things, maybe I will be the billionaire that I always wanted to be. You know, maybe I will find a relationship that I always wanted, but I just don't really think it's that black and white. And maybe because I'm trying to find reasons why I was so sad for six years and I had to make that a meaning. So I don't know the right answer, but I think it's just so important to hear different aspects. We all come from different backgrounds and we all have different nervous system and everyone heals so differently.
Speaker #0
God, so true. You know, like, you know, I do agree that just acceptance of our experience can be so powerful. So that idea of like, you know what, this happened. And I can accept that and I can still live a really vivid life. I think that that is so valuable. I just worry, you know, it's like, well, when is the time that I decide I'm no longer sad that I don't have parents, even though they're living in here, that I have had to go to this place of very low contact because they simply cannot see or let me in, that there's no way for me to be a person in relationship with them. I'm sorry, but for me and the people that I tend to work with, this is a lifetime grief, right? It's really hard. Like, that's my parent. I am biologically hardwired. I am socially hardwired. And also... I just want a parent. The amount of harm it takes to have a child cut off a parent is tremendous. And I don't know that there's a time where I could, you know, maybe even if I were to project even after my parent passes to be like, you know what, that just doesn't bother me. I want a mom. I want a dad. And, you know, I can't just dissociate that. I can't dissociate. And that's a lot of also you know, self-blame, dissociation, these are two huge ways that people have adapted to being able to deal with what has happened. And so any treatment that encourages more dissociation or just more self-blame, oh, well, I guess I'm not trying hard enough. It's just not going to be where I take things in my therapy room.
Speaker #1
Yeah. So years ago, me and my parents had this argument and then we did you temporarily like pause our relationship and i remember when you know it was from my parents side they were like you know i think that we should just cut ties and i was like bye you know and i didn't grow up with them anyways so i didn't necessarily thought i would have had a as big of like emotional uh impact it was I just thought I was like, okay, well, you know, it's not like I ever lived with you physically. So that's okay. Like, because my whole life is not built around you. Like, I have a whole new life. And I remember I was in a theater with a friend and I went to go get like a Diet Coke or something. And I saw this like mom and daughter walked in. And I just start crying because I realized I don't have parents anymore. And this was years ago. Now we're fine. we're like very close now we worked through but it took like four years i want to say but that moment i was like what's so sad is my parents are alive and i don't have parents exactly what you just said and if you know i'm very lucky obviously we work through our differences and we're tight we're actually really close now because we're open to change and you know validate each other but my point here is that like i cannot even imagine for the people who are going through something similar or even worse, how do you recover back from that? So yeah, I definitely think that there's a value in terms of like, let your body process the pain and think that when after it's processed, it turned into wisdom, but even like the wisdom has to take time to integrate into your body. And that's different. That's a completely different set of process. And that takes time. I don't know if I'm right, but that's my personal life experience.
Speaker #0
I mean, to me, that's so powerful. To me, there's something very psychoanalytic that happens in the sense of it is archetypal to have a mother and a father. This isn't just my mom, my dad. This is something that's repeatable through culture, right? Mother Earth, father, son. These are words that have meaning that indicate to something and that you can see a moment like that. People that have nothing to do with you. but have such a strong reaction, there's something that is built into the symbol of it in our brain. There's something archetypal that lives inside of us in the collective unconscious around what it means to have a parent, because why would that moment have so much meaning if it wasn't so saturated with something from the inside? And so I think that using that kind of archetypal lens, right, using the sense of where the mother is and how we can connect back to that. can also be resources. I'm so grateful that you and your parents have worked through, right? That's ideal outcome, ideal outcome, right? For a lot of people, I'm working with what does mother mean and where else is this experience, right? Because when it's an archetype, it's not just my literal mother, it's motherliness in the world. And that I can find. And for a lot of people I work with, we say, okay, they'll tell me, or even my experience has been, okay. It's not my mom, but I can still have mom-ness in my life, and sometimes that's enough.
Speaker #1
Wow, that's very powerful. That's really, I don't want to use the word sad, that's very unfortunate for a lot of people to not have the type of love that we all deserve due to different circumstances. Let's talk about pain. So I use myself as an example as a recovered sad person or... I don't know. Like, I don't, I think, okay, let's talk about the word recovered. I also just feel like it has such a bad connotation to it. Because I think people throw that word around quite often. Where like, I'm a recovered people pleaser. I'm a recovered, I don't know. I mean, obviously there's a real addiction. I'm not. Saying that's, you know, I'm not minimizing that, but I also just feel like recovered is, it's almost like shaming on the past is right and wrong. It's a lot of, I shouldn't have, but I've done it. So now I am bad, but I'm trying to be a better person. I still think that there is like a level of lack of compassion towards yourself. while using that word. I mean, maybe just when I use that word, I feel that way, but that's just my interpretation. But let's just say that I'm somebody who is still worried that if I were to live a, which I am living, but I'm still worried that, you know, if I be in a stable relationship and have a very peaceful life, life is going to be boring. So I think subconsciously that's blocking me from reaching the full potential of finding this peace. I know how it looks like. I know how close I am to it. But I'm not doing everything I can because I'm worried that this life that in my head, that I imagine is not as good as I thought it was going to be. So for people who are happening through chaos as a child. maybe throughout their entire life now they really value peace but they don't know if it's worth doing the work and they don't know if it's something they actually want how would you help them and like what would you do to not insure them but like make them feel it's worth giving a try mm-hmm mm-hmm
Speaker #0
Okay. So just to orient, by the time someone's having this thought, the thought that you're sharing with me, right? This moment of dilemma, it's such a reflection of so much work that you've already done, right? To have that much insight about, wow, this is where I'm at. This is what I am drawn to. And this is my direction of growth, right? So I just want to name that this is something that happens farther down in the, like farther along in the process. For me, if you had, if you came into my therapy room and you're saying that, I would definitely be inviting some somatic regulation practices around the calm. For a lot of people, the calm is actually the moment before tension builds that leads to abuse, right? Because that's just what is in the cycle of abuse. And so calmness is usually from childhoods like this. That's the waiting period. Something bad is going to happen. I'm just between incidents. And so it can create this kind of. It can be infused with this unsafety. And so, and then the unfamiliarity, which as we named is something that the nervous system, it will choose the known hell over the foreign heaven because that's just how it operates. Okay. It's a prediction making machine. And so to come in, I would want to say, okay, how can we resource? How can you be bring a mindfulness about expanding your container and capacity for peace, for joy, for. A lot of people who've had these really intense childhoods, intensity is the thing that's familiar. So how can I move back into these levels of nuance and delicacy, right? Where it doesn't just have to be like, if I'm not amped. then nothing is happening, right? How do we actually drop in and get some of the flavor of calm? But I might also, just to be realistic, I might be like, okay, you need a little pain, you need a little excitement. What is a safe place that you can do that? Can you bring that into your kink life? Can you bring that into thrilling activities that are safe? You know, this is almost a harm reduction model where I personally am not going to pathologize you for wanting a little excitement. The question is, how can you do that? in a way that does not bring around self-destruction. But there's a lot that's individualized about that. For some people, they want to say, where can I get this energy out in a safe way? And for some people, it's really just about being with the meditation of like, okay, you're with calm. Can you breathe that in? Okay, and what are you noticing? Can you shake out the tension of anticipation? We might do parts work. Who's the part that's anticipating something bad to happen? What's its job in your system? And how might you build a kind of reparenting to that part where you can tell that part? It's okay. Nothing's going to happen. You don't have to worry. We're safe now. We're not then and there. We're here and now. And that you've built so much relationship with this part through inner reparenting that it can say, okay, I trust you and not start driving the bus and doing all of its maladaptive behaviors because it's afraid and doesn't know that you're not back at your childhood home anymore.
Speaker #1
Let's talk about parts of ourselves, because when you first said, you know, there's a part of herself need to either shake off some of the energy. It kind of brought me back to when I used to have my therapy session with this one therapist where she would say, I know that you know this, but I'm going to say the following to the part of you still need to hear this. And I just sit there and I can hear whatever she needs to say. But then I think in the beginning I was like, What? Like, I am hearing you. Like, what part? You know, can you tell us more about parts of ourselves? And why are they not integrated as one?
Speaker #0
Okay. I'm so glad that you asked about this because parts work is one of the primary modalities that I use that I see a ton of success with. The idea of an inner child or an inner critic are parts of ourselves that people... are mostly familiar with, right? That's something that's a little bit more common. What I believe is true, and I don't know if this is true for others, is that actually, we were never really of a mono mind. That's kind of something that is of an illusion, right? Because there's who I am at work, there's who I am here with you, and then there's who I am when I'm just running around my house, right? These are all different, what might be called self-states, right? But you could say different parts of me show up in different places, right? And so when some of this is just natural, non-pathologized. It is also true that the nature of traumatic experience is that the mind is so overwhelmed by what's happening that typically a part is split off that holds the charge and then is dissociated and it becomes a traumatic fragment stuck in the system. Okay, this is how trauma happens. And so it gets stuck there and the rest of the mind moves on. I don't know what to do with you. I'm so overwhelmed. I'm going to put you over here and I'm going to keep it pushing because there's nothing else to do. It's too overwhelming. And so what a big part of parts work is, is, oh, wow, you were really, really scared when that thing happened. You know, people have specific memories often of moments. Oh, when I was 10, my parents got in this kind of fight. Or when I was 13, my friends bullied me in this way. Okay. The idea of parts work is let's go back. let's find those parts within because they're frozen in time. They are running their own programs and their own stories, right? This is the same way. This is another lens of saying, wow, the body has its own story. These dissociated parts may be also, right? Like these are two names for potentially the same thing. So, okay, I've got these parts that are frozen in time. I need to not only discover them, but the parts work allows us to build a relationship to them to start to unburden them from the jobs that they are doing, right? Playing small is an important job that a part of me is reproducing. It's always doing that job. I need to make sure you play small. It's too dangerous for me to shine. And so I build a relationship because usually I go, okay, part, how old are you? Oh, well, I'm 13 because that's when I got really yelled at by my whatever for I won this thing. But then they really they treated me terribly or I was told I was so stupid. And so that's cut off. I need to build that relationship and let it know, hey, you've got a new parent. You finally got the parent that you need who can see you and attune to you. I'm sorry it's not your biological parent, but it is me. And that is a... dependable, secure resource. And so by connecting with these parts and having this better interconnectedness among them, rather than that scared part getting so overwhelmed and feeling isolated that it's in the driver's seat now. 13-year-old me is saying, sabotage, sabotage, sabotage. If I know myself through parts work, I can say, I hear you, that you're feeling unsafe, you want us to sabotage. Don't worry. Because 13-year-old me should not be in charge of the whole system. Adult me should be online. So I can offer comfort. I see how scared you are. And then I can make a decision from my adult self. What do you think about this?
Speaker #1
I mean, this is so fascinating. I don't have any thoughts, but I have one. I mean, I do have thoughts. I have one thought and I have a question. When you were talking, I was like, this is like a Pixar movie. It kind of aligned with some of the idea of the movie Inside Out, where, you know, give a character to each of the emotion. And so while you were talking, I was like, literally have like a cartoonish movie playing in my head, where, you know, they break apart, and the rest of the troupe, like just carried on, and then this person is really lonely and sad. it wants to go back home. Pixar, if you're watching this and want to turn this into an idea, pay me, okay? You can't just steal things from people. Anyways, but you know, it's really fun because this is all roads lead to the authentic version of ourselves. And it's almost like the more parts that break away, the less we're willing to be who we are because we actually don't have that part with us. Would you say the work that we're doing is essentially get those parts back so we can be whole again?
Speaker #0
I mean, OK, in a way, yes, with the asterisks that I believe that we are always in and moving towards wholeness, even if there are some breaks in the circuitry. OK, so I know that's kind of contradictory, but I don't take a lens where people are broken. And so the idea of the self-relationship being the thing that heals, right? It hits on so many levels. Just because my parent didn't show up for me, just because I didn't receive love that felt good and care that was full does not mean I should never have those things. And so by building the self-relationship, this also has a secondary benefit of building our internal world. Okay. This is part of the thing that needs to be re-found, re-connected to. in order to have our own experience, right? Narcissistic families do not encourage us to have an interior, right? We're all in codependence around this person. And so this allows us to know ourself, but it's also, I think, really important to the full picture because I am yet to meet someone while working through the parts work lens with childhood trauma who hasn't had a part that has taken the abuser inside, right? And then there's a lot of self-blame. Oh my God, but I'm so controlling like my parent. you They were mean to me and now I'm mean to other people. It is adaptive to bring the abuser inside in part because then we can better anticipate and thus keep ourselves safer. But what do we do when I'm no longer in relationship with the abuser, but the adaptive part is still there? That feeds into a lot of people's self-blame, self-criticism, perpetuating the gaslight that started. And so this parts work lets us be accepting of our whole self and be more connected. Do we integrate into one? I don't believe so. But I think what we do is discover a core that is what the parts work tradition might call the self, what the holotropic graphian tradition might just call the inner healer, right? The authentic energy. Some people would call this our spiritual energy, whatever that is for you, right? That it's about connecting and letting that be the anchor and leadership in our system rather than these other parts. But until we get in there and we say, who's here? Who's driving the bus? We can't possibly know. And that's why people will say like, oh my God, I totally reacted, but that wasn't me. Oh my God, why did I do that? And then people feel all this shame and guilt for the way that they're responding to life when really it's just a bit chaotic on the inside because the parts do not have a leader. They're all isolated. Imagine trying to run a business where all your employees are separated, no communication and have different goals. Like, good luck. That's going to be stressful.
Speaker #1
I think that kind of shows, like, where the gap in my own healing journey is that I have said this to my other therapist where, um, Sometimes, I mean, I don't know if I still feel this way. Maybe I do. And subconsciously, I believe that I was broken. So I had to go through the therapy sessions to put myself back together. And I think that I had different therapists. And like one of them recently said to me, she was like, you don't do this work because you're broken. You do this work because you're curious what life could look like. And that blew my mind because it made me feel like I'm more in control, right? I'm no longer suffocating and trying to search for the peace. And if I don't find it, then I'm going to be this, you know, inadequate person. And I think that gave me the opportunity to be more free in the journey and know that I have a choice because regardless the way how I choose. I'll be okay. And my follow-up question from what we just talked about is that I do know people who act okay when they are just day-to-day life, but when things get really tough or there's like a situation that's confrontational, they turn into, like you can visibly tell, they turn into like a much younger version of themselves. Is this where they let the, like say 13-year-old start to driving the bus?
Speaker #0
Oh, yeah. And it's always so interesting, not only how you said, like, oh, I can see it. It's really interesting when this actually is happening with really the older, older population, because then you're seeing, you actually see a 70 year old responding as 13. And you can feel 13 in there. You know, it's interesting. There's no real like statute of limitations on these parts. They're like, okay, I turned 50 and they're not there. And so this is happening for people a lot. But it's so great when I've worked with people for a while and they'll come in and they'll be expressing a lot of self-blame and self-criticism. And they've built such a self-knowledge. I can say, who am I talking to right now? What is here? And then they can see it. They can make a connection. They can welcome it. And then they can shift back to their essential energy. It's the most beautiful thing. You know, they come back to their true self and that it's not about, you know, fixing. It's just about being more expressed in the parts that are... we really feel are us rather than just our identifications.
Speaker #1
Right. When you talk to me, whether on camera or off camera, have I exhibited any younger version of self?
Speaker #0
I think that I have, I think that my observation has really just been more of a professional self versus a friendlier self, right? And there's probably like... a more relaxed energy when we're just being friendly and casual. But I have not witnessed any regression. That said, the regression, right, this is something that will come up in the expanded states work or in ketamine work is a treasure because, you know, I work with a lot of Stan Grof's theory, doesn't matter who that is. But the point is, he often believes that we need to get back to the original level of intensity to move charges out of our body. So if I can get someone and they're feeling six, if they're feeling 10 and they're in a session, we can do some really powerful work because we are now back at, I'm sorry, but the scene of the crime. You know what I mean?
Speaker #1
Yeah. Wow.
Speaker #0
This happens a lot when people take teletherapy from their childhood home and they're all of a sudden like...
Speaker #1
What's teletherapy?
Speaker #0
It's like online therapy. Like if people take a virtual session, but they're at their house, you can just see so many of those parts are just so up and activated.
Speaker #1
Okay. Maybe one day. I mean, I'm not like, I'm not scared of it. I don't know. Like, I think I'm just tired of doing therapy. So give me like, let me take a break. And maybe I will like, go back to it. I just I, I'm very interested in this type of therapy. And I do believe like, whenever you say it, like my heart tells me is, is effective. Yeah. It's like, because I'm pretty direct person. People say certain things, I'm like, I don't know what you're talking about. Like, I would say that. When you said the ketamine therapy, where like it takes you back, I felt like my heart came alive. It's almost like there's a thirst for that level of validation. Like you want to be seen again, right? Like, I don't think that like day-to-day life. It gives me or anybody the opportunity to go back to where we were, whether it's joyful or painful. So I can see how that's like such a great tool.
Speaker #0
When you hear that your heart is really curious about something that would feel more complete in that level of being seen, you know, it's a really tender thing. I'm curious what you would want to tell your heart in response.
Speaker #1
I think I'm telling my heart that will do it. Just waiting for the right moment. I don't want it to feel like I am ignoring it too, right? And I think it's an opportunity for me to co-reparent myself. So I think I'm at the stage in my life where whatever that if my heart says I want it, I'll give it to it. Whether it is like a cookie or it is, you know, go out or whatever. I just don't think I no longer live in the world where everything has to be right or wrong. My therapist always say to compare is to lie. And I think is to be able to find works for you. So yeah, if my heart says yes, we'll do it. We'll do it. Maybe like now, right now, but I will remember and I'll for sure give it a try.
Speaker #0
This is exactly how we do parts work, I can tell that there's Probably, well, just that there's either work, intuition, probably both going on just because you've had such a long therapy journey where it's like your heart, right? That sensation, we might say, is a part communicating with you. And when you're able to say, I see you, I want to give you what you want. I'm going to wait for the right moment so we can both have this, but that you're welcoming that and meeting that. That's exactly what we're talking about.
Speaker #1
You know, the reason why I think I'm going to, I will try it is because I feel...
Speaker #0
oh my god lost my thought give me a sec is that a good sign it's always just so interesting right because someone was there and then the self-state switches right and then it's just gone it's like i had a such like an insightful thing
Speaker #1
to say about my healing journey i think it has it's along the lying with. I am just... Oh. Okay, I remembered. I think the reason of the hesitation is because if I were to do this work and it got to a point where I fully release my trauma, then I lose an identity. And I need this identity to feel alive. Right. So it comes down to one of the questions that I think that we might have briefly touched on is a fear of unknown. Like my body wants it and it knows it will liberate me. But I don't know if I'm ready to be liberated because then I can talk about it. Like how is my podcast going to be OK if I know I have no trauma left? Right. Do they really integrate into wisdom? Did I release like too soon? what if like I'm not done with the learnings even though I know fuck like I'm done like I'm so tired like I don't want to do this but you know like so I think there's still like a battle is like me wanting to be the type of person I want to be versus the fear of becoming.
Speaker #0
Wow so understandable you know like In the way that I work, the lens I would use is like the pain is such a core part of what we've been conditioned and shaped around that actually there can be points in the healing journey where once we're at a point of being ready to let go of certain parts of our pain that we identify with, it actually can bring about a bit of an existential crisis. Like it's one thing to say like, oh my God, my whole life is about fixing my family, fixing this relationship. Well, what happens once I've healed that I've built my inner world? Good news, bad news. I have to figure out what my life is about now. Well, what do I care now that it's not just about this pain, trying to get rid of this pain, trying to change people I can't change, right? This is a deep level of the self-discovery, right? Like, okay, I'm authentically back online, but I'm still discovering who I am. Okay. So am I here for beauty? Am I here for greatness. Like what are my true values now that I'm not defined by my trauma. And that's, I'm sorry, it's freaky, right? There's so many ways that we are shedding our skin and parts of us are kind of being let go of. But, you know, the rebirth, it's amazing. 10 out of 10. I invite it every time, but there is no rebirth without death. And we don't have to pretend like that's a fun, comfortable process, you know? And so this idea of like, if I'm not hanging on to the trauma, what am I going to hold on to? Am I just going to be floating out there? It's like, it's a huge negotiation, right? How much do I just accept that this is just humanity and we all get bumps and bruises? And how much do I need to really be? pulling out the roots of these things, right? It's easy to pathologize, but this is my trauma, but this is my trauma. My whole job is my trauma. Listen, our whole personality structure is a trauma response to being alive. We are some of the few animals that are even conscious of the fact that we're going to die. There's just no way for the existential piece to not show up at some point.
Speaker #1
Wow. To conclude, one last question for today. I know that we are All right. doing another one next week is that you know talking about coming back online and some you know we're all part of this journey but people are different progression progress different point of their lives so like how is there a way to distinguish like what we want versus what's like a trauma response and other. It's what we want might be what other people want in life.
Speaker #0
Okay. I'm going to answer and then you'll tell me if I'm understanding your question correctly based on what you hear. To me, what you're inviting is the process of embodiment because there's this aspect of like, well, what do I want? Who am I? Right. And there's a real mind supremacy in our culture here where it's like the mind knows. In fact, the mind loves it. It's like, I'm in the brain. I'm self-aware. I should be in leadership. Okay. How do I know what I want? If I'm trying to figure this out in my mind and all the trauma, I'm just going to basically dissociate. I'm going to have a little spin out. So what I might recommend is beginning that relationship to the body around, well, where do I feel longing and want, right? People often will come in and say, like, I don't even know. I'll be like, how are you today? They're like, I don't even know. Can you ask me a different question? Or, you know, say something like, well, what could maybe help you in this moment? And they're like, I don't even know. Okay, so there's this process of getting reacquainted with our body, all the gaslighting, all the abuse, all the overriding of our nervous system that's had to happen because of the family experience. But I'm sorry, also our culture really encourages us to override our nervous system, that there's this new attunement to just noticing what's inside, right? Mostly we've had to ignore it, suppress it, devalue it, say it doesn't matter. Okay, I think that I want X for dinner, but my... My body is actually just really drawn towards a different thing. And so this idea of reconnecting with our want, our longing, and those signals our body are giving us because we can't just live through our brain. It misses a huge part of the data that we get. We have emotions for a reason. It's not just for the inconvenience. And so that we are reacquainted with that and learn to speak that language of the body and start to be connected with like... Oh, usually I would say yes, because I should, but my body does not want to move forward. And then having an experiment. So what does it feel like to follow my body? And so I tell people, don't have all this pressure. You don't have to create. What life would I be living if I'd never been traumatized? Don't worry about it. Start with the low hanging fruit. Is there 5% more of your life that you could have embodied preference around? Wow. Well, this is just really what I'm feeling like. Not a feeling that comes from your brain. This is where I feel want. And see what happens when we start to engage that feedback loop.
Speaker #1
I don't know why whenever, obviously, I know what my body wants versus what my brain wants. But then I almost choose, not every time, 80% of the time, I still go with my brain in the name of FOMO. Yeah. There is a part of me just feel like this time is not going to be. the same this time it's gonna be the different and something great is gonna come out and uh what if i don't do it like what am i missing out do you think that's FOMO or do you think that's what's familiar and i want to go with that what
Speaker #0
a great question i mean i think there's a way in which it could be both what i'm really hearing in that is the pattern is to um like Thank you. Sorry, the pattern is to ignore my inner signals. And so there's a way in which what I hear is what's familiar is to devalue, ignore or otherwise dissociate from my parts giving me feedback. Right. Like you're getting a sensation. I don't actually want to go. And then you override. Well, that part now feels betrayed because you are not taking care of. I'm sorry. You're now a responsible parent of like 18 different parts. Right. It will ruin your relationship of trust or it will negatively impact the relationship of self-trust if you override too much.
Speaker #1
Well, now I'm stressed and now I have to go eat like twice as much to make myself feel better. Well,
Speaker #0
on our next episode, talk about conversations. That's right.
Speaker #1
Thank you, Taylor. You're awesome. And I can't wait to continue the conversation next week. I just feel like you know, very validated when I talk to you. I think that it's a lot of people out there are suffering in silence and they just, you know, they wake up with anxiety. They don't know why they're always so scared and they just always feel so lonely and empty on the inside. And I feel like a lot of what you said hit up on parts of me that felt, you know, even as much as I know that positive thinking is not going to cut it. But there was not the right vocab or the right way of phrasing it to make it feel alive again. And today I felt very much alive. But thank you so much. And I will see you next week.
Speaker #0
Wonderful. Thank you.
Speaker #1
Thank you so much for being here with me today on the Zen Podcast. If this episode resonated with you, make sure you're subscribed and leave a comment with your biggest takeaway. That's how we grow this community and get these conversations in front of more people who need them. And if somebody came to mind while you're listening, please do make sure to send this episode to them. You can also find me on TikTok, Instagram, YouTube, Apple Podcasts, and Spotify. All linked below. Until next time, stay sharp, stay intentional, and be good.

Chapters

Understanding Wholeness and Self-Relationship
0sec
Building a New Life After Toxic Relationships
41sec
Phases of Realization in Healing
2min
Gaslighting and Its Impact on Love
6min
Navigating Change and Self-Discovery
15min
Exploring Parts of Ourselves
31min
Distinguishing Wants from Trauma Responses
50min

About The Zhen Podcast

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About The Zhen Podcast

Hosted on Ausha. See ausha.co/privacy-policy for more information.

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Chapters

Understanding Wholeness and Self-Relationship

Building a New Life After Toxic Relationships

Phases of Realization in Healing

Gaslighting and Its Impact on Love

Navigating Change and Self-Discovery

Exploring Parts of Ourselves

Distinguishing Wants from Trauma Responses

Chapters

Understanding Wholeness and Self-Relationship

Building a New Life After Toxic Relationships

Phases of Realization in Healing

Gaslighting and Its Impact on Love

Navigating Change and Self-Discovery

Exploring Parts of Ourselves

Distinguishing Wants from Trauma Responses

Chapters

Understanding Wholeness and Self-Relationship

Building a New Life After Toxic Relationships

Phases of Realization in Healing

Gaslighting and Its Impact on Love

Navigating Change and Self-Discovery

Exploring Parts of Ourselves

Distinguishing Wants from Trauma Responses

Chapters

Understanding Wholeness and Self-Relationship

Building a New Life After Toxic Relationships

Phases of Realization in Healing

Gaslighting and Its Impact on Love

Navigating Change and Self-Discovery

Exploring Parts of Ourselves

Distinguishing Wants from Trauma Responses