Transcript: Episode 226
226: Guest: Lisa Danylchuk
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Lisa Danylchuk is an author, licensed psychotherapist and yoga teacher trainer specializing in bringing yoga into trauma treatment. A graduate of UCLA and Harvard University Lisa is the founder of the Center for Yoga and Trauma Recovery in Oakland, California, and creator of the Yoga for Trauma online training program. She has authored three books: Yoga for Trauma Recovery: Theory, Philosophy and Practice; How You Can Heal: A Strength-Based Guide to Trauma Recovery; and Embodied Healing: Using Yoga to Recover from Trauma and Extreme Stress. She was also a contributing editor for Best Practices for Yoga for Veterans published by the Yoga Service Council. She serves as UN committee co-chair for the International Society for the Study of Trauma and Dissociation, was elected to the board in 2017, and has served as Secretary since 2018. A leader in the movement to incorporate yoga into trauma treatment, she has trained yoga and mental health professionals around the world and presents her work internationally. Welcome Lisa Danylchuk.
* Interview begins*
[Note: Interviewer is in bold. Interviewee is in standard font]
So, hello, and my name is Lisa Danylchuk. I'm a licensed Marriage and Family Therapist. And I'm from the San Francisco Bay Area, California. I've also been teaching yoga for a really long time, little over two decades now. And the two in my life—trauma work and psychology, and interpersonal neurobiology, and yoga—just fit so well together. So much so that they, they almost feel like the same thing in my mind a lot of times. So I've come to when I'm talking, teach a lot about yoga for trauma recovery. So it's something I'm really interested in and passionate about. And I'm just looking forward to talking more today and seeing what I can share with you. That's helpful.
Thank you for talking to us about these things. It has been only in the last year that we've talked a lot on the podcast about even recognizing that we live in a body and what that's like for survivors. So I'm excited to talk to you and hear some of your perspective and what we can learn from you. But for starting, can you tell us how you started learning about trauma and dissociation in the first place?
Yeah, so, I think some folks in your audience will probably actually know and be familiar with or friends with my mother. Her name's Lynette Danylchuk. And she ended up gravitating towards and specializing in working with folks with dissociative identity challenges, right. And so I mean, at the time, it was called multiple personality. And when I was very young, I would you know, maybe stay home sick from school and be at my parents office. My dad's also an LMFT, same license as me, and I would meet people who had DID coming and going from the office. Maybe, you know, meet them one day and then the next and hear, obviously, and see the distinct differences but see the same body. And it was it was it confusing, and it completely piqued my curiosity. So I remember meeting someone and, and I don't remember the name, and I would change it anyway. But I met someone one day, that was Mary and the next day, you know, Jocelyn or something. And, and the voice, her voice is very different. She's presented as much younger at almost my age. I wanted to play with her. Like, oh, can we call her. And my parents gave me the “we’ll tell you when you're older,” kind of, “it's complicated” response. And I remember just being like, “oh, no, you'll tell me now,” like, this is really interesting. I've never seen anything like it before. And so I think I learned. And I'm sure, I don't remember them explaining it to me, but I do remember that they they did. And from a young age, I think I just had this context of how humans might respond to stress or adversity or challenge or, you know, in a creative way. And how people can live in a lot of different ways too. So, so that sort of primed me honestly, I think, from a really young age to, to have a sense of what dissociation might look like, sound like, feel like, and then a little bit of the sort of how and why.
And then I developed, you know, through my own life. And my parents were doing their work. And I was never particularly interested in being a therapist, but I always loved helping people. And I ended up, um. And I was always really interested in movement, and dance, and fitness, and all of these things. And so I ended up at UCLA, basically studying psychology in our personal communication, relationships and teaching yoga. And that's around the time, I think it was maybe right after I graduated from college that I started attending ISSTD conferences with my mom. And I had been to a ton of conferences with her too, and as a teenager. So I think there was this always this thread of interest in psychology within me. And then I had this context and the seed planted early, to help me kind of understand trauma and dissociation. And, and then I have, you know, I grew up with my mom, so I wouldn't have any questions I, that would come up, would get answered quickly. And I think really well. So I think I'm really lucky in that right.
And then going through the school system, and I think I went to excellent schools, and I had amazing teachers and professors, but most people didn't really understand dissociation. And I found myself sometimes in the place of being a student, but wanting to explain what I knew, which was challenging. And there was a lot of, um. Sometimes I definitely hit supervisors who were like, “oh, that's, that's not a thing.” Or they didn't, they just didn't know. And so I would be, you know, trying to get support and supervision and, and not really getting it, which was hard. So I think that's just a little bit about how, how this has come into my life. And I think it's remained because I do have this profound interest in psychology and in an embodied psychology. Like how we live in our bodies, and how our choices and our movement and our experiences influence that. But I'm also really passionate about advocating for people who maybe just aren't seen or understood in our world. And so, you know, I've worked with a lot of different marginalized populations throughout my career. And, and I guess I've really come to see this as just an educational, like a missing piece within education. I think that's starting to change, which is really exciting.
How are you seeing it change?
Yeah, I think, if I just look at maybe colleagues who aren't people I've met through ISSTD. I think people know, the term dissociation is more familiar. I've heard people use it in different settings. Even talking about movement, I was just in a yoga class the other day where the instructor was talking just from anatomical terms, and she was talking about the importance of being able to dissociate movement as well as integrate it, right? And move together and move apart and the different functions and, and connecting to and understanding these different functions. And so, I also really like this sort of theoretical applying what we learn from trauma, dissociation to larger systems. I'm super into that. So I kind of see it everywhere. But that was a really interesting point. And, and I also feel like people are now, even in the yoga world, trauma informed yoga, sort of, maybe over the last decade has become more popular. And then people in that world are starting to learn about dissociation. So for me to like, log into Instagram and see a post of like Kathy Steele's book, which happened a couple years ago. I was just like, “yes! Oh, my God.” This is someone I've known about for a long time, but wasn't really present. You know, there just wasn't an awareness of that. Definitely in the yoga world, or even in you know, I wasn't assigned any of her textbooks or her books in my, in my training. I've read them, but not because they were in my training. So I think there's something happening where awareness is growing. Curiosity is piqued, right? People are a little more open and curious about it. And there's great training opportunities. I mean, obviously, through ISSTD there's a ton. And I just hear people bringing up or talking about dissociation more. Like in the EMDR world, the clinicians who are trained in EMDR, when I did training, there was somebody, the trainer did mention dissociation and spoke to it very briefly in terms of, “okay, we’ve got to do things a little differently if that's what's happening.” But we didn't get a full training on it. And I know now there's a full EMDR and dissociation training that I think is happening now or just finishing. So that's where I kind of see this momentum, right? Growing. And it's exciting to be a part of that too. Because I remember my mom working with people, you know, who are on Medicare or whatever, and having to advocate just like, I want to say, so tirelessly. But I know it impacted her just having to advocate even for her to get reimbursed for the services you had already provided. Because people didn't understand the diagnosis or, you know, insurance companies are pushing back or whatever on the level of care or need. And I feel like that there's hope there, and there's some change happening, and there's some broader education at play. So that's, that's exciting.
It's very exciting. And I think that it's been an exciting time to join ISSTD, and see some of the latest research that's coming out. And see things sort of unfolding as all these different pieces turned out to be more connected even then we knew so that, you know, to use the word integrated, even our clinical practice is becoming more integrated than in the past. How would you describe embodiment to survivors or clinicians that are not yet familiar with that term?
So I think it's simple. There's another term that I think connects to it that I'll share. But I think a simple way to describe embodiment is being connected to sensations and emotions and experiences that are happening in your body right now. That gets really complicated when we start to talk about trauma and memory and things that are still alive right now, that happened before and I think neurological development and brain states and all of that. But I think a simple way to describe embodiment would be exactly that: to just be experiencing what's happening in your body right now. So common embodiment practices, and these don't work for everyone. I've definitely had clients and students who have not liked the most common or popular embodiment practices. So I'll give that caveat for anyone listening. But a really common one might be grounding, right? And I think this is common in yoga. This is super common in trauma therapy, especially if someone's feeling pulled into another memory or another time and space to you know, “can you feel your feet on the floor? Can you press down through your feet? Do you feel your back against the chair or your sit bones,” or, we can kind of use any point on the body to ground and to, to use this, our tactile senses or our feelings of touch, right? Which is nerves. Like that's a message coming through our nerves. So it's connecting to our nervous system. We can use that to build a present moment connection. And I think a lot of folks I've worked with or spoken to about this share, you know, that there was a moment of someone asking them, usually a therapist, or maybe someone in another healing profession, “where do you feel that in your body?” And the person just being like, “I don't understand that question.” Like, “what, what do you mean by that?”
And so the other term I wanted to share is something called interoception, which is really common, more popular in sort of trauma informed yoga. And that's really about tracking what's happening in your body as well. So we could, we could describe embodied experience in that, in those terms to an embodied healing, we could describe in those terms to have, like, really connecting with not just a thought or a memory, but the whole, the whole body experience. And I do want to say that I think all of us are inclined for probably millions of different reasons in different ways. Some of us are more auditory, some are more visual, some are more somatic in this way. So for some people to be like, “yeah, I really get that and I feel the lump in my throat and I feel my butterflies in my stomach and I feel my heart flutter” and like, some people I think, might just have more of a strong sense of this for a number of reasons that don't have to do with trauma and I think it's important we keep that in mind. But there also seems to be this phenomena where when we've experienced something or many things that are very traumatic, and there's a lot of intensity, there's a lot of intense reaction happening in our brains and our bodies, that at some level, our system will decide this is too much. We're going to shut it down or put it away. And at that point, embodiment practices become, I want to say risky. Risky, because there's wisdom in the “let's put this away for later.” And there's wisdom in the “this is too much right now.”
And so I think that's why practices like yoga and EMDR, right, we call EMDR, a power tool in the clinical world. And with EMDR practitioners, it's a power tool for processing trauma. Well, if there's a whole lot of trauma that's sort of held apart for good reason as a strategy, as a coping strategy, if we go in there, especially in an unskillful way with a power tool, that might not be so helpful. And so something even as simple as feeling into your feet, pressing down through your feet, taking a deep breath, can actually be a lot. I think. It can be a big ask. And so I think there's learning now in in the yoga world, and the sort of overlap with somatic therapy and trauma therapy, there's learning that, okay let's make sure that's okay. Let's build some positive resources. Let's not just assume that taking a deep breath is going to feel like such a relief for everyone or that grounding is going to be the thing that's great for everyone. But let's also not forget that we have bodies and we live in them our whole life.
And, and I think when we are in sort of psychology and right, we're wrapped up in textbooks and theories and thoughts and research, we can get kind of lost in mental processes and in the mind, and, and forget, right, even when you look at a traditional therapy session. I know this has evolved over time. But pretty often now both people are sitting in a chair the whole time. And there's this common saying in the yoga world that sitting is the new smoking. Right? This is not the best position for your body. And so it's almost like we can kind of disconnect from our bodies in service of understanding our psychology. And I don't think it has to be that way.
So when we talk about embodied, embodiment and body healing, even somatic practices, I think there's just this invitation to be aware of connecting mind and body. Which, that's a whole other sort of awareness. And noticing all the information. Noticing all the resources. We can have a mental resource, like picturing a place that feels great to us. Or I always give the example of nature because it's such a resource for me. So like, even right now, I can look out my window and see this beautiful autumn tree. The leaves are turning and they're actually, one’s dropping slowly to the ground right now as I talk. And I can watch that and feel really supported and inspired. Right. So that's maybe a mental resource for me to look at it. But then I can also notice how connecting with nature shifts how I feel in my body and sort of lean into that. So I think there's a lot we can, a lot of angles with embodiment, and there's skillful ways to navigate it. Especially when we're talking about complex trauma and dissociation. But overall, I'm just really happy that we're talking about it. I'm happy that a lot of conferences I go to or coordinate now, there's a tension towards thinking and feeling and moving and taking care of all different aspects of ourselves. So I think overall, it's a, it is sort of its own integrative or holistic approach. I think that's happening in a larger way.
I think even talking about it gives us more resources to utilize or increases our awareness. Even what you said in the beginning of that definition about being aware of starting to be pulled back. Like the experience of therapy or with a memory or something, of starting to be pulled back to—you said a memory or another time in place. Without embodiment, you don't even have that framework. And it just feels like a fog. Or the therapist that you're working with. Or if you're the therapist. It comes in entirely different language of just the general question of “where are you going” or “can you stay with me” or things like that. And it's like, “I don't, I don't know. If I knew I wouldn't need therapy. And, and if I could do this, I wouldn't be asking for help.” You know, and, and those kinds of misattunement moments where it's such an experience that it's so hard to communicate and to describe when it's happening, that it makes it hard to talk about in therapy to help fix it or to help bring healing or to help strengthen what would be helpful or good in that moment to, to feel safe or to feel grounded, or to feel regulated, or whatever word you are looking for needing. But when you understand embodiment, it gives you even language to talk about. Because I have never heard someone say the words that you just said, when you said that. I, there, there.
I have had sort of the context, you know. It’s in some of the literature. But specifically, with a therapist that we had in the past, use that orientation to time right, so now time is safe, and talked about memory time. So I've had that distinction. And the listeners on the podcast have that distinction. But that's only about the orientation in time. But you were talking specifically even in space. And I think there are so many people who are so disconnected from their bodies. And when we have struggles or issues with dissociation anyway, that it's so difficult to be connected to the body that I don't think I even knew—even though this sounds crazy, and so funny to talk about now—I don't think I even knew until about a year ago when I interviewed someone who talked about embodiment for the first time, I don't think I even realized that I took up space. Like you can talk about different parts, and you share a body and this kind of thing. But I don't think it was three dimensional for me like that. And I remember, and I in fact, it happened while I was doing a podcast. So it's on the podcast, the moment where I realized like, “these hands are my hands.” And there's, there's something about that literally, literally, fleshes out that space. That we fill space that we have permission to exist in space. That I think is so powerful that we don't even have access to the language for unless we understand embodiment.
Yeah, that's such a powerful realization, right, to take up that space, to fill in that space, to look at your own hands, and live in them. I mean, I think there's just so many different subtleties of experience that, you know, sometimes we, it's hard to even describe them from our own vantage point. And then you think about really understanding what it's, what it feels like for other people. And there's just all kinds of different subtleties that are happening there. But I love that aha moment you described. So powerful.
Well, and developmentally that's supposed to happen so young, right? And so when we talk about developmental trauma, that's part of the disruption, is your development gets disconnected or dissociated from awareness of the body in which you live. Not, not even counting all the other trauma or other things that hurt that body. And when there is neglect or misattunement, all these other things that also deny meeting needs to that body. And so it's hard to remember that you're in space and have a body and can exist in it, when there's been no feedback about it. So how does someone start to get in touch with their body?
I think the first thing I would say is, “slowly.” I think there are often you know, moments where, whether it's in a positive or neutral, usually it's charged, but whether it's a positive, neutral or negative way, there can be like, moments of flooding or awakening. But I think especially with complex trauma and dissociation, just like a very slow and gentle approach is what I've seen help the most. And, and I've seen, you know, people who are very athletic and in their body in that way, right? Training and moving and breathing. I've seen folks like that who are still really struggling with dissociation or with different aspects of it. So I think, one I would, I would sort of, say to people, embodiment is much more about what you feel internally. Going back to that term interoception. Like feeling the sensations that go along with an emotion. Feeling shifts in your nervous system when it picks up a threat. Or when your muscles start to clench or when they release a little. Those are all things that I think happened daily for most of us and can happen really easily in the background. So being with them as they happen—and I love that expression—in now time. Right, being with them now. That can be really powerful. Before we start to, especially as clinicians, sort of be with things, you know, remnants of the older experiences, especially traumatic ones. So a slow approach. Right?
Knowing that it doesn't have to look a certain way. It doesn't mean you're embodied because you're doing triathlons. Although I have also seen, you know, big shifts in, in sort of embodiment that come with, in that kind of embodiment for some folks that come with memory are shifts in states. So taking away any sort of assumption that this is what my embodiment means. I'm going to, you know, do this really graceful yoga practice. Or I don't know. I don't know what assumptions folks who are listening might have. But I think with body stuff, here in the US and all around the world, we can have a lot of like mental projection of what things should look like, instead of the sort of intuitive interoceptive side. So, so the, in terms of moving towards embodiment, like if you are one of those people who said, “What do you mean, what's happening in my body,” or if you have this sense, “I don't feel connected to my body,” I would make it a slow daily curiosity. Right. And then start with things that feel the most comfortable.
We can also, I think, in US culture and also in when we want to resolve something like if we're dealing with our own trauma, or trying to help someone with someone else's, we can get in this place of like, “okay, let's figure it out.” And there's urgency around figuring it out, because everyone wants to feel better. But that sort of slow consistent approach tends to be more helpful and more lasting and more sort of building neurological patterns and habits too. Right. We don't, we don't learn to walk in a day. And yet, kind of once we do it, it fades into the background. And I think we don't learn, like, feeling our feelings in our body in a day either. Kind of speaking to your point earlier about development, there might be some, some pieces that now have space that didn't have space before. And so it's like, making room for a plant to grow. Right and giving it, giving it the conditions that it might need.
So, so a really basic thing that I've worked with, with a lot of folks is tracking things like hunger and thirst. Like, do you know, how do you know you need to eat? How do you know you need to go to the bathroom? How do you know when you really just want to say something? What, what starts telling you that? Do you lean forward a little? Do you kind of start, does, you bring some more attention to your jaw, like the muscles there want to move? Or they don't want to? Or, like, how do you know when something feels good or comfortable? What tells you that? Or when something feels not good? What tells you that?
So those are, I think, those aren't even all the most basic. But those are some of the sort of long term ways we can start to connect and develop this experience and language of, of internal relationship with our bodies and all of its different wisdoms and cues. And I mean, there's a lot of information in there. And we don't want to get flooded and overwhelmed with all of it at once. But we can be curious, and sort of in a slow consistent way start to listen or ask kind of what our body needs too. So, a question I'll come back to in many contexts, but in the context of embodiment to is, “well what does your body need right now?” And I know that can be another big sort of, “I don't know,” confusing question. But it goes back to like, “maybe I'm hungry, or maybe I'm tired. Or maybe I don't want to talk about this right now.” And sometimes we get these cues from a sensation or a thought or an image or a smell or I mean, they can like I said earlier, people's worlds and experiences of the world are all kind of different. And I think we need to honor that. But we can slowly allow for more space for that. Especially if someone's feeling like, “what is this world of embodiment and I'm curious about it.” I think stepping into some of those questions can be a nice way to, to invite that.
What does that look like in a therapy session? What does clinician look for to help or encourage that?
I think the first thing is for a clinician to be practicing it, honestly. And many clinicians will. I've had tons of conversations with clinicians where we talk about this. Just noticing. Noticing what happens in our own bodies is super important, right? We could be an individual sessions. So there's two people in the room and two bodies in the room. And we're talking and then something, maybe all of a sudden, something shifts in me. Like I get, I get a feeling of, I'm going to describe it as like, cold, although it might not be temperature cold. Or I get a feeling of, I just get really tired all of a sudden. Or I get really confused all of a sudden. Or slowly over the process of a session or I start to feel sad. Or I start thinking about this person's mother when we're not talking about them. Whatever is happening within me as a therapist is, is relevant to what's happening in the room. And it's not all going to be coming from, or because of the person in front of me, or the people in front of me. But, but it's relevant to what's happening. And it's all relevant to the relationship.
So let's say I come in to the office one day, and this is assuming we're in person, we could take it to Zoom to if we want to complicate everything a little more. But let's just say I show up to a sessions, Zoom or in person. And I'm really tired. Maybe there was a noise last night and I couldn't sleep. I'll tend to just tell someone, “Hey, just so you know, I didn't get a lot of asleep, I’m a little tired. So I just want you to have that context.” Because they're going to be also kind of reading me or curious about my reactions. And my reactions are going to impact them. That's also really helpful for me to know because if I'm tired when I'm going in, then, you know, if I start to get sleepy it may or may not be as a result of the dynamics in the room or in a relationship or within the other person. So I think we as clinicians, especially working with trauma and dissociation, need to, we had to learn out of necessity, to intercept and to use those cues. And Stephen Porges uses the term neuroception, right, to use our own neuroception and to use the cues that are happening in our own bodies to help guide our work together.
So I think the first step is to practice it and model it. And then knowing that everyone's different. And knowing that if you're if you're working with dissociative identity disorder, and there's, or if there's any kind of dissociation, that it just gets sort of infinitely more complex. And I think, I think interesting, too. So you might even have someone you're working with were, different parts or ego states feel different ways about embodiment. And someone who's showing up to therapy, whether or not they've disclosed they're experiencing dissociation might feel, “oh, I really want to try yoga.” And then, you know, they also might not want it. Other parts of them might not want it. So that's a sort of complicating factor.
I always go to and this also connects to trauma informed yoga. I always go back to invitations, right, and choices and options. And, and the sort of starter question of :what would it be like, if we” or “what would it be like if you tried this?” So like, “what would it be like if you leaned back right now?” I know some people you say, “what would it be like if he leaned back,” and they'll lean back right away? And they'll try it out and say, “oh, that feels different in this way.” And some people will say, “well, if I lean back right now, I'll fall backwards off a cliff.” Right? And you go, “okay, so let's not do that.”
So there's potentially so much meaning and so much memory in our bodies that, that I think the curiosity and the exploration first. The sort of embodying interoception and then the curiosity are good first steps. And then the more the more history, the more relationship, the more kind of shared awareness that you have as a client, I think the more you can kind of say, “huh, I want I wonder what would happen if you start up and lean back right now” and that person might know that it's scary or risky, or it doesn't, it's not going to feel comfortable, but they also might want to try it. And they can kind of reconcile that within themselves. I think the way that I'm talking people can get, and I see this a lot, like afraid to move. Right? Like, moving might be so meaningful. And I think it is. Moving is really meaningful. But we're also doing it most of the day. We're moving in some way or another. So before you even invite something, you can just track it and trace it. And you know, you're talking to the daughter of two therapists. So I'm not someone who's going to encourage a therapist to just sit there and say, ”I noticed your shoulders are coming forward. I noticed your head is hurting to the side. I noticed this…” Like, if you go into therapy speak, and the person just feels like they're being observed, I don’t think they're gonna necessarily enjoy that. I'm just speaking from my preference. But if you as a therapist are noticing these things and you can meaningfully integrate them into the conversation, like saying, “you know, I just, I just became aware, like, when you were talking right now that every time we talk about this, you scoot to the left side of the couch, did you notice that?” Like, wow! And then, “do you want to talk about that? Should we explore that right now?” I think things like that can be really powerful.
And I work with a lot of folks who practice yoga in sessions or who have therapists or who have maybe therapist clients, clients who also practice yoga. And so yeah, there are ways to bring different postures, different movement sequences, even into I think a therapeutic session, and take on that sort of somatic aspect. And use it as, use yoga, even use breath, use our gaze or where we're putting our eyes, we can use all of that as a hopefully a tool for self-awareness and self-regulation and embodiment. But I really feel like that's like the, that's like a third, or—I don't know how many numbers I've given out here in my description—third or fourth step. Right, where like, the therapist is embodied first, you're sort of aware of movement in the room, you're tracking it in a not super detached or clinical way, then you're inviting, what would it be like if we moved, and then there's moving. Right. So I guess four steps. And I think, bringing those movements in. If you are doing yoga that requires training. And just you know, what is, what are the yoga shapes look like? And what's the purpose of them? But like, even things like Tai Chi, or just organic movement. You'll see with a lot of somatic psychotherapy training sessions or training videos, something as simple as like, “what would happen if we stood up?” Or “how does it feel to walk around the room.” Like, these are things that a therapist doesn't necessarily need, you know, a 500 hour yoga certificate to do something like that, right?
So there's so many ways, and I always come back to if the person therapist is, is uncomfortable with that themselves, then the client's probably not going to, probably going to feed off that in some way or another. They're gonna feel that discomfort. So for anyone listening that’s a therapist, and that's “okay, I want to bring more movement in,” I think the way that feels most comfortable and organic for you tends to be the best. And a lot of people ask me like, “Well, how do I shift to not just being in my chair the whole time? Like, it's gonna feel weird for me to stand up? Or do I stand up if they stand up?” And think I mean, I have chairs in my office in a way where I can move them around. I can put a yoga mat down. There does seem to be this like gearshift for a lot of therapists of like, “if I'm, that I might feel uncomfortable,” that therapist might feel uncomfortable moving into that. So tracking your own discomfort there, interocepting it, and even naming it. You know, “hey, I want to try this thing that I think could be helpful for you. It's kind of new for me. Would you be willing. Like does that sound okay?” But just naming that discomfort can also take the sort of pressure or anxiety out of out of the room and out of the experience. So those are my starter recommendations of how to bring some embodiment into the therapeutic process.
I think that being open to noticing is so so important and practicing. You know, even just taking a few pieces of that from the therapy setting to real life can make such a difference. I have a daughter who—my youngest daughter—is medically fragile and has been in the hospital literally for four years. And we have her home now. But one of the things that happened when we came home was we realized we had literally been in this six by six room for four years with her. And there, there were times where she was in such a condition or such a state that we couldn't even make noise in the room. So we couldn't wis, we could only whisper, we couldn't move, we couldn't play music, we couldn't even type. We could not have any stimulation at all trying to keep her heart rate back down and things like that. And so we had focused on her medical trauma, but we hadn't thought about how it impacted our family or my husband and I taking turns in that state. And we recently to- When she was released from the hospital, it was right as the pandemic was happening. And they were like, “get her out of the city, get her out of the city.” And so we actually moved to the country so that our children could be outside because we have to be very strict about quarantine for her, regardless of pandemic or not. And so we wanted to make sure that all the children have plenty of room to run and play because I know enough to know that as little ones, that's where they work out a lot of their trauma. They were all adopted from foster care. But what we learned was it was better for us too in ways that we never expected. And what a difference it was to sit on the front porch at the top of this hill kind of overlooking the valley. And just see that big of a view compared to that tiny little room where we had been so long with her. And what that is like physically and then starting to move in that space. So it's almost like I learned first that I exist in this space that is my body. But then also learning that my body exists in this space in now time that is the world. And going on hikes now and going for a walk every day. And, and, and we have chickens and there are horses and all of these things that are connecting us to the outside world has been a fascinating process.
And I honestly, honestly, and I don't mean this disrespectfully at all to anyone or anyone who's been sick. While I am not grateful for the pandemic. I'm very grateful for the quarantine because it has given me the time and space to explore that very safely without other people. Because they think if it happened at the same time with people it would have been overwhelming. Yeah. But, but, but as a transition, like literally touching a horse, or playing with a chicken, or swinging there—we have this swing over this koi fish pond and on the back porch—and swinging over a waterfall and all the sensations of that just all these different things. Oh my goodness. I live in the world and I kind of love it. And camping with our kids out in the backyard and all of these different things just giving my body positive sensory experiences has been so powerful. I don't even have words yet to describe it or explain it better than that yet.
Oh, I love just listening to you describe all of it. The water… Like swinging over a waterfall cutting the horse petting the chicken I mean I just hearing it. I get my own sort of sense of what that's like or what that would be like. And I get such a sense of expansion and, and joy even and I mean I also… I shared earlier, shared this like love of nature and the outdoors. And feel like beyond even describing our five senses and “okay, my feet are on the floor and I'm looking at a tree and I smell the you know, fall leaves and all of that.” There's, I think there's something even more like subtle right and in yoga we talk about the subtle body or in traditional Chinese medicine, the energy body, I think there's these subtle cues that we get from experiences like that, that feel probably different for everyone. But it just felt such a wave of almost like wonder and awe and expansion and what you described.
It's, it's really been a fascinating thing. It has been for a variety of reasons. With the pandemic of course, and with politics, and with, with our daughter in palliative care, and, and all of these big things. It has been a very difficult year. And because of quarantine, it has increased isolation, right, which in some ways as a survivor I'm like, “yes.” It's like a free pass like I love it. And it is like my dream come true. But it is not good for me. And it has been, there's been so much regression in so many ways. It's been a real challenge even to continue the podcast or to participate with my children. Like, I've had to work so hard and it's so exhausting.
But one of the most healing moments that helped get me back on board with myself and back into my body, with all of that going on and reorient myself, was actually when we first got the chickens. And I went to the coop one morning to let them out. And because my daughter had had a struggle with something and we needed to get her oxygen, and all of this had taken longer, we were letting the chickens out later than we usually do. And so when I went out there, they were already roosting in their little nests, the hens. And so when I opened the door to let them out they all came out. But they had already laid their eggs. And usually we gather their eggs during the day. And so they're just there, we go pick them up, and it's no big deal. But this morning, because we had been late getting out there, when I reached in to get the eggs, they were still warm, from the chickens from the hens laying on the eggs. And holding that warm egg it was like for the first time, that was really the moment of not just “I have hands and I live in this body,” but it was the first moment that I could feel, or discern or distinguish, the difference between me and the world around me. That it wasn't just a foggy space. But that that had substance to it. And I had substance to me. And that there was a distinction between, like a differentiation between me and the egg that it wasn't the same thing. It wasn't just a dream. It was really it's a thing. And I'm holding it because I'm a thing too. I'm a person in this body in this world holding this warm egg. And it was fascinating. It was fascinating. And it really somehow that energy like from an egg—you talk about energy, right—there was this creation, this life that just poured into me from this egg and filled me with something that was an awakening and in a way that I'm still learning and exploring. But it has absolutely, I feel like it was such a small moment. And yet, it really got me back on track with where I wanted to be with my own healing, and helping my family, and helping other people and re-engage with the world when I had almost fallen out of it.
What a beautiful moment. Powerful, right? Powerful. One thing I'll say, just based on what you were just sharing is, you know, I think our, our, our bodies and our beings are, are always sort of, at some level, we're processing. Like you said, we're processing a lot this year, 2020 pandemic election, all this stuff. And, and I don't think healing happens in a super linear way. Like we'd like it to, like with like a 12 week manualized therapy program, we want it to be like week one, “I felt bad”, week two, “I felt better,” week three, “I felt better”. [Laughter] And I think the more human beings that, right, we just laugh. Yeah, no. Um, so I think recognizing that, that healing is, is nonlinear and is I feel like kind of happening in the background in different ways. A lot of the time. And so even sometimes when we're feeling, quote, unquote, “worse,” or more more challenges coming up like that can actually be taking us, you know, into a deeper understanding. And as therapists obviously we want to help people sort of modulate these things. You don't want to get, you know, like you were describing, so isolated that you decide, “you know what, I'm not going to do my podcast anymore. And I'm going to not talk to anyone ever,” right? So we're are modulating things.
But what I hear in your, in your egg story is there's just this mundane, “Oh, we got to go get to the chickens. We didn't get to the chickens yet. And it's later today because of what was going on.” And then you get this opportunity to hold the egg, to hold the warm egg. Like, we can't plan that. We can't manualize that. Like, and I would guess that that moment is a result too of so much of what's come before it in terms of in terms of the feeling of embodiment that you had. Like I'm sure there, I would guess there are seeds planted before that that sort of prepare you for that. And so I suppose that I'm saying in terms of healing happening in the background, being aware of resources, having a sense that like those moments are there and we can't plan them or forced them. But I think we can be open to them. And we can sort of set ourselves up to, to acknowledge them. To like, I can see someone being in a certain space where, “oh, we got to get the hens and like,” go back and get the eggs and picking up the warm egg and not even noticing that it was warm, right? Or maybe just noticing it for a moment. So, when you describe that moment, I think a lot of people are like, “I want those moments. I want those aha moments.” And, and what I've found is the more we sort of contract around trying to make those moments happen, the harder it is to access them when they're actually happening.
So I hope I'm making sense in saying just like, I think there's a sort of a softening that happens for a lot of us in in like, being in the present moment, quote, unquote. Or feeling what's happening right now, or being or interocepting. And I think some of this is cultural, right? We go against this culture of productivity or busyness, or making things happen. And, and drop instead into a place of, like, receiving that gift of that egg and of that awareness and of that energy. So I think I would just wrap with that, that there are that, that in my experience, healing is so beyond nonlinear, and we are also infinitely complex. But there are also these little moments. And even very mundane or everyday things can can take on new meaning. And that that's important, and, and powerful. And that I don't think any therapist gives that to you. I don't think we we even consciously like, choose it for ourselves. But that I think it can be helpful to just know those things are, are there. I almost feel like they're kind of waiting for us. If that makes any sense.
It does. It does. And and I can tell you one more story that is an example of it. The podcast, my children know about the podcast in general. The, they have not listened to it. They've been on it a couple of times. They deal with the same thing, like what you're talking about, because I'm a therapist, and so I'm their mom, and they're like, “Oh, I don't want to mom therapists.” But I always say when I have to, you know like, “right now I'm away, I have to do the podcast, you can't interrupt me because it’s sound” and all of this. So you're going to go do this with Papa. So when we're done, I always sort of try to get back with them and reconnect and say, “I learned this” or “I learned that” or whatever. And try to give them one thing, not that they have to implement or need, but for them to feel connected to my time away. That it was still like, they're still invested in and it's still a part of what we're doing as a family. And so Christine Forner—who I adore—has been on the podcast a couple times. And one time, she talked about the cascade of defenses. And she did her Christine Forner thing. And it was fantastic. And so I talked to them about it. And just didn't didn't even think about it more than that. Or whatever, you know, just is one of the usual “this was a podcast today. Here's what I learned.” And then we go on with whatever we're doing.
Well, a couple weeks ago, my youngest son who has autism, and has traditionally screamed for hours and hours a day, for many years, while he has made progress through his own things, and he has struggled so much and we, and we've worked so hard with him and try to be present with him in that and it's so hard. But he just sort of stopped screaming a couple weeks ago. Like just stopped. And no one really said anything because we want him to start screaming again. But we just sort of noticed like, “he stopped screaming. Does anyone know, like he's not screaming.” And so one day, we just sort of like had a cookie party to celebrate he wasn't screaming anymore. Like, he just did it on his own. We couldn't figure out what the deal was. But then the next morning after the cookie party, something happened that normally would have been a trigger for him. I don't remember if someone said something too loud or did something that was just too much for his autism. So it's not necessarily a behavior like it's really a processing issue. It’s not, I don't at all mean that he's a bad kid. He's an amazing kid. But he was obviously struggling. And it was one of those moments where it's almost like the cartoon like you're gonna see the smoke start coming out of the ears. And all of a sudden he looked at me and he slammed his pencil down on the table. And he, he jumped up on his chair, flipped himself over and was hanging upside down off of his chair. And I was like, “What are you doing?” Like I said not in a shaming way but in an “I'm baffled. I don't understand. What, what are you doing? Can you can I help you? Do you need something? What's going on?” He's never done this. Very serious boy. He's never just all of a sudden hung upside down. And I was like, What? What are you doing? And he sat back up. And he looked at me and in a voice as calm as anything said, “I could tell that my defenses were cascading. And I had to fix them and put them back.” And then he just went right back to his homework. Oh, that is priceless. So, So now, like, all my kids run around saying that when they start to get upset or they have big feelings, even if. And we're very clear, “there's not bad feelings,” you know. All of that. I can imagine you had to grow up with anything like that double. But, um, but, you know, we're clear about that the feelings aren't bad feelings, or whatever. But now, anytime someone starts to have any kind of big feelings, even if they're just excited, they're like, “Oh, I need to regulate because my defenses are cascading.” And it's just like a thing that they say now. So, they learned.
Oh I wish everyone knew that. A world that your children are out there, building the next generation where we can just say, “my defenses are cascading.” And, and I want it to be a world where people go, “okay. Of course they are, that's what they do.”
Right, right. But that's all it takes is having. I mean, it's such a simple thing. And I know it's more complicated than that, and a bigger practice than that, and an ongoing learning. But to simply name and understand what's going on. And to be able to feel it and notice it and sit with it is such a powerful change of being able to choose your response to it or what to do with it, as opposed to being lost in it, or not having a choice in how it bubbles over.
Yeah, there's choice in that hanging upside down. Right? And I just go straight to was Christine talking about yoga and inversions? Because we've presented together on this stuff before. But no, it was just the cascade. I mean, there's intuition there, too, right? I need to hang upside down. It's gonna reset me. I mean, that's, I think, the perfect example of what we would call like ‘bottom up resourcing’ in every way, right? Flipping ourselves over. But also listening to your body and saying, “Oh, my body needs to go upside down. And that's going to help.” Right? There's such an intuitive somatic resourcing happening there. I just love that example.
It's so, so much of it's such a powerful thing to realize that you live in a body and that not only can you keep yourself safe, but you also sort of have the power to care for yourself and to respond when there are problems or difficulties, as well as the choice in how to move around in the world. Thank you so much for talking to us.
Yes. Thank you so much for having me. I so appreciate the invitation. I've just enjoyed our conversation.
Thank you.
Thank you so much. It's been great talking to you. And I hope one day we can meet him in person at a conference or something. But those days are a little far out right now. Take care, Emily, thanks again.
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Thank you for joining us with System Speak – a podcast about dissociative identity disorder. You can listen to the podcast on Spotify, Google Play and iTunes, or follow along on our website, www.systemspeak.org. Thanks for listening.