Speaker 1: Wind Down with Janet Kramer and I'm Heart Radio Podcast.
Speaker 2: This week's Thursday Therapy, we have Karina Killcoin.
Speaker 3: So.
Speaker 2: She is a former trial lawyer who specialized in criminal defense,
Speaker 2: including a complex white collar and civil litigation, but now
Speaker 2: she passionately shares her own personal story of trauma and healing.
Speaker 2: She's got a book out called Rise Above, the story
Speaker 2: Free yourself from past trauma and create the life you want.
Speaker 4: Let's get her on.
Speaker 2: Hi, Hey, Karna, how are you. I'm good, Thank you,
Speaker 2: how are you great? We're excited to have you on.
Speaker 2: We were reading your bio before you came on. I
Speaker 2: was like, oh, like, man, there's just like heavy, heavy, heavy,
Speaker 2: and then obviously your book. I love what you're doing
Speaker 2: now using your past trauma to now create the life
Speaker 2: that you want. And you know you wrote this book,
Speaker 2: and so what we'll to start with, can you fill
Speaker 2: in our audience kind of the cliff notes of your upbringing,
Speaker 2: because it's it's a lot. It's heavy, Yeah, it is.
Speaker 3: So when I was about twelve, my father got sentenced
Speaker 3: to the federal penitentiary and he left behind me and
Speaker 3: my two younger siblings and my mother, who suffered some
Speaker 3: from some mental health issues, including depression, anxiety, and manic episodes.
Speaker 3: And she didn't handle the stress and the pressure very
Speaker 3: well of you know, being left with the kids and responsibility.
Speaker 3: So she and I shifted roles and I started caring
Speaker 3: for her. And we lived in a poverty stricken situation
Speaker 3: after my father was gone, and I really had to
Speaker 3: do a lot to survive, and that included, you know,
Speaker 3: scraunging up change to buy food and asking strangers for
Speaker 3: money to help buy food and pay bills, and we
Speaker 3: would go without hot water and electricity. And I was,
Speaker 3: you know, hell bent on escape, right to get away
Speaker 3: from where I was. And when I was twenty four,
Speaker 3: I graduate law school. Also at that same age, my
Speaker 3: mother died of cancer. And by then she had had
Speaker 3: my last brother, and he was only nine at the time,
Speaker 3: so I adopted him and went on to raise him.
Speaker 4: What kind of cancer did your mom have? Cervical?
Speaker 2: Were you guys by that time? What was y'all's relationship like?
Speaker 3: It wasn't It wasn't healed or repaired in any stretch
Speaker 3: of the imagination. And I was really the one left
Speaker 3: to take care of her. So even on you know,
Speaker 3: her deathbed, it was me caring for her and we had,
Speaker 3: you know, hospice come in. But she passed away in
Speaker 3: my childhood bed, and there was a lot of unresolved issues,
Speaker 3: especially on my end, that she wasn't really willing to
Speaker 3: talk about even then, and it took me a long time,
Speaker 3: you know, decades after she left for me to really
Speaker 3: find forgiveness for her.
Speaker 2: Well, you know, we talk a lot on this podcast
Speaker 2: about our parents and we're all in our forties.
Speaker 4: Well almost, sorry, kat, you got one month.
Speaker 2: So I'm just gonna say, we're all in our forties,
Speaker 2: and it's it's one thing where it's we've had challenging times,
Speaker 2: especially with our moms, where we want them to kind
Speaker 2: of see us and understand, but it's, I don't know,
Speaker 2: it's almost like they don't they didn't do the work
Speaker 2: maybe that or that we've done. So it's hard for
Speaker 2: us to see and be on the same page. So
Speaker 2: how do you go? Okay, I didn't get to say
Speaker 2: these things to my mom, but I'm gonna do differently,
Speaker 2: Like do you have kids?
Speaker 4: You have a fur baby?
Speaker 3: I have a fur baby, I have the brother that
Speaker 3: I raised, and my husband has children. So I've been
Speaker 3: I've known him a long time and I've been involved
Speaker 3: in raising them, so I understand that you know the
Speaker 3: mother component. And I will tell you that I think
Speaker 3: some of this you know is generational, right. I think
Speaker 3: you know, at some point, you know my mother, you know,
Speaker 3: she was in this generation where you didn't process and
Speaker 3: you didn't talk about and there was a lot of
Speaker 3: shame about things. So I don't think that they knew
Speaker 3: then what we know now, and I don't think that
Speaker 3: they were as in tune to mental health and healing.
Speaker 3: So I think that's one that's one thing. And I
Speaker 3: would also say that my forgiveness for my mother came
Speaker 3: with age and perspective, but it also came when I
Speaker 3: found compassion for her and I understood her story. So
Speaker 3: you know, I write a lot in the book about
Speaker 3: this idea of multi generational transfer of trauma, right, And
Speaker 3: so when I understood my mother's story that my mother
Speaker 3: was never mothered. My mother's mother abandoned her and she
Speaker 3: was a baby, she didn't know her mother, and her
Speaker 3: father was an alcoholic, and she was raised until she
Speaker 3: was twelve by her grandmother, who spoke no English. So
Speaker 3: my mother had her own story and she didn't rise
Speaker 3: above it. So for me to find forgiveness for her,
Speaker 3: it took me finding compassion and empathy for her and
Speaker 3: understanding that she too had a story. And so for me,
Speaker 3: you know where does it stop? Well, I decided to
Speaker 3: stop this multi generational transfer trauma because you know, when
Speaker 3: I understand where I came from and I understand those
Speaker 3: my people's stories, you know, I choose differently. I choose
Speaker 3: self awareness. I choose self compassion. I choose you know,
Speaker 3: reasoning and judgment and understanding what I had been through.
Speaker 3: On one hand, rights as these are the facts of
Speaker 3: what I've been through, but then also giving myself some
Speaker 3: compassion for how I handled it right and lifting myself
Speaker 3: up out of the shame of you know, what I
Speaker 3: did wasn't shameful as a child asking people for money.
Speaker 3: For a long time, I thought that was so shameful, right,
Speaker 3: And now I have this compassion for myself, and that's
Speaker 3: what really what I tried to teach and be an
Speaker 3: example of to the children that I've been blessed to mother.
Speaker 5: Do you feel like you kind of default back into
Speaker 5: that like survival? I mean, when you're raised with that
Speaker 5: kind of setting, the resilience level that you have is
Speaker 5: like astronomical, and so we I would I share some
Speaker 5: parts of your story a little bit, not nearly to
Speaker 5: the degree, but I wasn't able to say my dad
Speaker 5: and I never had the reckoning before he passed away.
Speaker 5: I don't think that he would ever be able to
Speaker 5: on this side hear what I have to say, truly.
Speaker 5: But I wonder do you find yourself, I know, the
Speaker 5: hard rewiring, like that deep detangling of how you handle
Speaker 5: and like at rest, do you still feel that like
Speaker 5: in survival flight or fight or do you feel like
Speaker 5: you've kind of gotten that settled into like a piece
Speaker 5: of Is there a sense of calmness now or do
Speaker 5: you default back to that.
Speaker 3: I definitely feel a sense of calmness now. But it
Speaker 3: took me a long time. It took me years and
Speaker 3: years of healing. And I call it a journey of
Speaker 3: healing because that's exactly what it was. You know, it
Speaker 3: was like two steps forward and one step back, or
Speaker 3: one step forward two steps back because of what you're
Speaker 3: talking about right when you're a child of trauma in
Speaker 3: that way. And there's actually a really powerful quote and
Speaker 3: one of the books that I cite in my book
Speaker 3: Rise Above the Story, it's a Bruce Perry quote and
Speaker 3: he says that children who are raised in these situations
Speaker 3: are quote incubated in terror. Right. So it's like your
Speaker 3: brain when you're that young doesn't understand what's happening. Your
Speaker 3: full brain doesn't develop till you're in your twenties, right,
Speaker 3: your mid twenties. And I talk a lot about the
Speaker 3: science of healing in my book, and I distill a
Speaker 3: lot of this complex brain science into one chapter in
Speaker 3: the book because it was for me where I shifted
Speaker 3: into healing is when I understood how my brain worked.
Speaker 3: So to your question about you know, what do I
Speaker 3: do and what is my default? My default is now
Speaker 3: it is not fight or flight forever. For a long time,
Speaker 3: for my whole life before this healing, it was for
Speaker 3: sure the default. I even write about that in the book,
Speaker 3: and I called it chicken Little mode, where I would
Speaker 3: go around thinking that everything was bad, something bad was
Speaker 3: going to happen, this guy was going to fall, everything
Speaker 3: was not good. And it took me a long time
Speaker 3: to get out of that mode. And that's all about
Speaker 3: resetting and understanding and developing this self awareness of what
Speaker 3: your brain is doing, but also for me, it was
Speaker 3: like an entire physical, spiritual mental healing. And that's you know,
Speaker 3: all the things that I include in the book, which
Speaker 3: are you know, all the practices I tried, and the
Speaker 3: meditations I did, and the journaling I did, and the
Speaker 3: different modalities of therapy I tried. Right, So it has
Speaker 3: been a long road, but I want people to know
Speaker 3: this who are listening, Like, it is possible to reset
Speaker 3: your default setting? It absolutely is.
Speaker 4: So have you ever heard of Sarah set?
Speaker 3: No?
Speaker 2: Okay, So I'm doing it next week. So I've had
Speaker 2: some past PTSD stuff where it keeps coming up in
Speaker 2: therapy right where my response goes to the fight or flight.
Speaker 2: My therapist, you know, we've done the EMDR, we've done
Speaker 2: all the things, and she's like, I really want you
Speaker 2: to try Sarah set.
Speaker 4: So I'm starting.
Speaker 2: It was supposed to be when the whole winter snowstorm
Speaker 2: thing happened, but I had to reschedule to the following week.
Speaker 2: So basically what it is is you go there and
Speaker 2: it's all about resetting your nervous system right in your brain.
Speaker 2: So it's like your brain can't change unless your brain
Speaker 2: sees itself. So it's you go there, it's every day
Speaker 2: for four days and then you go back. I think
Speaker 2: it's like two weeks after that. But you listen to
Speaker 2: these like waves and they put these things on your
Speaker 2: head essentially, and then your brain sees what the brain
Speaker 2: kind of needs to change. And it's this whole like
Speaker 2: science for changing your brain and helping you know, anxiety
Speaker 2: or depression or those things that where there's a blockage
Speaker 2: in your in your brain. It's like you can't change
Speaker 2: the brain unless your brain sees what's the problem in
Speaker 2: So interest heard of that, But yeah, I'm like I'm
Speaker 2: at this moment, I'll do anything.
Speaker 4: You know what I mean, and like like block me
Speaker 4: up in something and.
Speaker 3: Me too, and and thank you for telling me, because
Speaker 3: I do love to go and try all these things.
Speaker 4: Sorry.
Speaker 2: Uses brain initiated sound to relax the brain and allow
Speaker 2: it to reset, restore harmony, and free the mind from
Speaker 2: a freeze or fight or flight state. So yeah, anyways,
Speaker 2: go ahead.
Speaker 3: Well yeah, I mean it's interesting. It's kind of kind
Speaker 3: of taken like like old school like sound therapy, right
Speaker 3: and all this stuff, and like applying in a different way,
Speaker 3: which is what I was, which was what my point
Speaker 3: was going to be is that I love that there's
Speaker 3: this evolution right of trauma therapy that comes from some
Speaker 3: of these old, you know, merited, you know, old school
Speaker 3: kind of modalities, and then they just kind of keep
Speaker 3: adding on and building on and trying them. And that's
Speaker 3: one of the things that I really talk about in
Speaker 3: the book and I really believe in, is having the
Speaker 3: courage to try things. I feel like healing is kind
Speaker 3: of like a dim sum menu, right, It doesn't have
Speaker 3: to just traditional therapy. It can be a traditional therapy
Speaker 3: for sure has value, but it's also other can be
Speaker 3: other things, and I just think that, you know, having
Speaker 3: the courage to sometimes try those other modalities can be
Speaker 3: really helpful.
Speaker 1: Well, I was going to ask, so, now that you
Speaker 1: say that you're essentially in a healed spot, do you
Speaker 1: still deal with the trauma of you know, in therapy
Speaker 1: or do you feel like you're kind of past dealing
Speaker 1: with that trauma, like you've kind of gotten past it?
Speaker 1: Or is that something that you think that you'll always
Speaker 1: have to kind of deal with because I know, Danna,
Speaker 1: like you said, you feel like you can't get past it.
Speaker 6: Is it something you ever get past?
Speaker 1: Or are you always kind of dealing with that trauma,
Speaker 1: even if you feel like you've gotten to a healed spot.
Speaker 6: Does that make sense?
Speaker 2: Oh?
Speaker 3: Absolutely, And I wouldn't say that I feel that I'm
Speaker 3: in a healed spot. I feel like I'm in a
Speaker 3: healing spot. And I and I recognize that because there
Speaker 3: are there are always always You can look at them
Speaker 3: as setbacks or you could look at them as opportunities
Speaker 3: to learn more about yourself and uncover another layer. And
Speaker 3: so I would say that for me, there is this
Speaker 3: sense of, you know, most days I feel really good,
Speaker 3: and yes, do I think about those past memories. Of
Speaker 3: course they still pop up, but I find what happens
Speaker 3: for me is is that they don't have the emotional
Speaker 3: charge that they used to. But then I do find
Speaker 3: that there are triggers, right, and also this idea of
Speaker 3: again the self awareness of being aware of typically what
Speaker 3: my triggers are. You know, I still have triggers around
Speaker 3: the sense of like abandonment, right. That was a huge
Speaker 3: story for me in my youth right and all the
Speaker 3: way up until like my early twenties. So you know,
Speaker 3: like when you have these triggers, being aware of what
Speaker 3: they are and backing out of a situation for me
Speaker 3: is kind of what works and processing the feeling and
Speaker 3: understanding where it's coming from, and that yes, I still
Speaker 3: I still go to therapy, and when I do, I
Speaker 3: have a log of what's been bothering me. Right, I'm
Speaker 3: a big proponent of therapy, and I'm a big proponent
Speaker 3: of working your therapy. Right, there's none of this like
Speaker 3: I mean, I'm sure your experience experiences too. Like you
Speaker 3: don't just go in and like then they tell you
Speaker 3: and then you go, oh, yeah, okay, that makes sense.
Speaker 3: I feel good. It's like you are actually healing yourself
Speaker 3: and they are guiding you or offering you something. So
Speaker 3: I'm a big proponent of going into therapy and being
Speaker 3: very honest about what has been going on with me
Speaker 3: and talking through that and then you know, waiting for maybe.
Speaker 6: Like some insight.
Speaker 3: But I go in prepared and I leave knowing that
Speaker 3: I still have work to do when I leave that office.
Speaker 2: What are some of your biggest tips in the book,
Speaker 2: maybe around abandonment or past trauma that people that are
Speaker 2: listening can go, oh, I really want to you know,
Speaker 2: know more about that and dig it more into that
Speaker 2: tip that you give.
Speaker 3: So the book is really a guidebook, right. I wrote
Speaker 3: it because I wrote it in the way I wrote
Speaker 3: it because I felt so overwhelmed at the thought of healing,
Speaker 3: and I didn't know where to start. And I was
Speaker 3: a grown adult with a successful career, and I didn't
Speaker 3: know what to do or where to go or how
Speaker 3: to start. So what I wanted to do in this
Speaker 3: book was create a guidebook. And I broke down really
Speaker 3: what I think these tips are talking about into like
Speaker 3: a three step formula, and that is really like understanding.
Speaker 3: The first one is acknowledging your trauma and the story
Speaker 3: that you've written about yourself because of it. And two
Speaker 3: is the second step is releasing releasing your story. And
Speaker 3: this was like so deep for me, this level of healing,
Speaker 3: because it involved so much. It was like all of
Speaker 3: my old childhood stuff, all that inner child angst I
Speaker 3: had in rage and resentment and anger that I was
Speaker 3: never allowed to express as a child. So it was
Speaker 3: a lot of that. And it was the forgiveness component, right,
Speaker 3: this idea of like forgiving others, which is really really hard,
Speaker 3: but also forgiving myself because if you're a trauma survivor,
Speaker 3: I mean kind of the default of that is, we
Speaker 3: somehow blame ourselves for things that happen. I did that,
Speaker 3: I know for sure, and so I really get into
Speaker 3: some really good ways of how to do that and
Speaker 3: finding you know, connection back with that inner child and
Speaker 3: like really understanding We talked about this earlier, this compassion
Speaker 3: idea too, about like who you're trying to forgive. And
Speaker 3: then the last step is releasing the story. And that's
Speaker 3: all about flipping the script on your story, you know,
Speaker 3: finding some kind of gratitude or a silver lining in
Speaker 3: what happened, which then dovetailed so perfectly for me into
Speaker 3: finding real self love. I mean, if you come from
Speaker 3: a childhood of trauma like I did, and like a
Speaker 3: lot of people out there listening, you're not You're not
Speaker 3: incubated and unconditional love. You don't know what that is.
Speaker 3: You're not you're not nurtured in self esteem or self confidence.
Speaker 3: So figuring out how to get on that path of
Speaker 3: really understanding how to love yourself and what that means
Speaker 3: is you know, a big, a big, a big part
Speaker 3: of healing.
Speaker 2: Can I ask, and I don't know if you talk
Speaker 2: about this in the book or not, but do you
Speaker 2: touch on your relationship with your dad in the book.
Speaker 3: Yes, well, I talk a lot about my reason.
Speaker 4: Is he still with us?
Speaker 3: He is?
Speaker 4: Is he still in jail?
Speaker 2: No? Okay, have you guys been able to talk or
Speaker 2: is there a relationship there?
Speaker 3: There? We had a moment after my mother died where
Speaker 3: we had some conversation about the past, and I've explained
Speaker 3: how I felt and I saw him. It was interesting,
Speaker 3: I had it was easier for me to find compassion
Speaker 3: and forgiveness for my father than it was for my mother.
Speaker 3: But there I would say that there is a lot
Speaker 3: about him, and a lot about a relationship, and a
Speaker 3: lot about who he is and who I am, and
Speaker 3: the toxicity of it all that I choose not to
Speaker 3: have a relationship with him.
Speaker 2: There's something about that incarcerated piece, because I had a
Speaker 2: former abuser that was in jail for eight plus years,
Speaker 2: and there was that weird like, you know, he's there,
Speaker 2: but you can't have a relationship. It was a very
Speaker 2: strange thing. I remember writing him a letter and then
Speaker 2: going like I have to stop this because now this
Speaker 2: is going to be a weird trauma bonding with him
Speaker 2: now in like prison or something.
Speaker 3: So I.
Speaker 2: Never well, I actually I did, but I never saw
Speaker 2: him after he got out, but I did talk to
Speaker 2: him on the phone very briefly. But I just remember
Speaker 2: that being just like awful as well. So I just wondered,
Speaker 2: like how that conversation went.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's so, it's so interesting you talk about that,
Speaker 3: that kind of thick, emotional, you know, realm of around
Speaker 3: the around incarceration. Because I was so ashamed of that, right,
Speaker 3: I would go through my you know, from you know,
Speaker 3: twelve on and I wouldn't tell anybody, right, it was
Speaker 3: so embarrassing to me. And you know, it wasn't until
Speaker 3: years later that I found out that like one in
Speaker 3: five people has had a parent incarcerated.
Speaker 4: But at the real life.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, So at the time though, I didn't understand that, right,
Speaker 3: it's child brain stuff and what you're going through. But
Speaker 3: this idea around what like incarceration, what that means. And
Speaker 3: I remember so many different moments of you know, him
Speaker 3: trying to to call the house, and you know, after
Speaker 3: a while, my mom didn't want to hear it, so
Speaker 3: she'd take the phone off the hook, right, and I
Speaker 3: would think, oh my gosh, like, who's he going to call?
Speaker 3: If he can't call us? It was like even though
Speaker 3: I understood that he did something wrong right, something wrong
Speaker 3: to the effect of like he broke a lawn and
Speaker 3: he had to go to prison, there were still parts
Speaker 3: of me, at even at a young age, that felt
Speaker 3: so much compassion for him, Like I and my dad
Speaker 3: was like, you know, like this strong, physically strong man,
Speaker 3: and and he was, you know, a hard working businessman,
Speaker 3: and he did you know, he checked some boxes that
Speaker 3: were that were you know, that had value and that
Speaker 3: had character and integrity, and then then there were other
Speaker 3: things he did that were so so outrageously wrong. But
Speaker 3: this idea of him being in prison, I remember most
Speaker 3: physically though, when he got out, and I share this
Speaker 3: in the book, that he showed up at our house
Speaker 3: and we hadn't seen him, you know, in a while,
Speaker 3: and my mother was so cold to him, and he
Speaker 3: needed money, like he just needed money, so you know,
Speaker 3: I have nothing, like I just got I have nothing, right,
Speaker 3: and she she didn't even really offer him anything. And
Speaker 3: I remember looking at him and feeling so sad and
Speaker 3: like I wish I had money to give him, because
Speaker 3: to see my father in this position or like he
Speaker 3: had nothing, was so striking to me because I had
Speaker 3: always known my father as somebody who you know, would
Speaker 3: go out in the world, and he was very good
Speaker 3: at making money. He was very shrewd and conniving, and
Speaker 3: I sometimes even called him a hustler. But to see
Speaker 3: him in this, like this state of weakness was just
Speaker 3: so overwhelming to me. And I carried that around with
Speaker 3: me for a long time and it really affected, like,
Speaker 3: as you can imagine my story about money, right, Like,
Speaker 3: when you're raised in a house like that, it's kind
Speaker 3: of interesting about your perspective on money and poverty and
Speaker 3: you know what money gets, and so it's just really
Speaker 3: interesting what his incarceration did to me, you know, mentally
Speaker 3: and emotionally.
Speaker 2: I think it's interesting too how you said you have
Speaker 2: a little bit more forgiveness for your for your dad
Speaker 2: over your mom, and that's just and I sit here
Speaker 2: and I'm like, even though your dad was I know,
Speaker 2: even though your dad had his issues, and you know,
Speaker 2: you have you have a great this is what I know.
Speaker 2: You have a great dad, right, And so at first
Speaker 2: and then I look at mine and I'm kind of
Speaker 2: sitting here like all right, yeah, I at first I
Speaker 2: was very angry, but as I got older and my
Speaker 2: resentment goes towards my mom, and it you know, same
Speaker 2: with you, where I think maybe it started it with
Speaker 2: your dad but then shifted to your mom, and then
Speaker 2: I know you have your resentments, and so it's interesting
Speaker 2: how we're I don't I don't know why, but what
Speaker 2: is that piece? Is it because we're angry that they're
Speaker 2: not the mother that we wanted or expected or or
Speaker 2: should have had or deserved.
Speaker 1: Or another perspective on that is I always blamed my
Speaker 1: mom growing.
Speaker 6: Up because she was obviously.
Speaker 1: As I've gotten older, even though my dad is a
Speaker 1: great man and he's whatever, I can now see where
Speaker 1: he also went wrong. So I don't know if maybe
Speaker 1: it's we just get older and we start to see
Speaker 1: and understand more to where I don't just blame her anymore.
Speaker 4: Well, I wondered that I was like my switch with
Speaker 4: my dad. Yeah, I actually don't blame you.
Speaker 6: I think they did the obvious.
Speaker 1: Yeah, you know, and so it was just so easy
Speaker 1: to just blame me, yeah, and then blame and then like.
Speaker 6: But he was perfect or she was perfect, blah blah blah.
Speaker 1: But then you start seeing, like when you get to
Speaker 1: be an adult, you're like, wait a minute, Like there
Speaker 1: were things.
Speaker 6: There's other things. It's not just them.
Speaker 4: Well that was gonna be.
Speaker 5: My question is is there any insight in this healing
Speaker 5: journey that you can share for specifically? I know, like
Speaker 5: Janna and I feel that like we're very I I
Speaker 5: found my dad once. I can identify that my dad
Speaker 5: was a broken kid that just didn't get loved and
Speaker 5: heard and seen. And for some reason, I he is
Speaker 5: forever like eight years old in my mind now and
Speaker 5: that's where he lives. And I was able to move forward,
Speaker 5: not easily, but like with a lot less heaviness.
Speaker 4: You know, Can we just go back to real fast?
Speaker 2: Remember when my dad came to the wind Down, I
Speaker 2: was like, he will come back in the backstage and
Speaker 2: he will start playing guitar. But he is the eight
Speaker 2: year old little boy that didn't get the love from
Speaker 2: his dad that said, oh, you sound so great on
Speaker 2: the guitar. He literally he will come in after.
Speaker 4: He won't say we.
Speaker 2: Did good, but he'll come in and he'll pick up
Speaker 2: the guitar and he'll start about the guitar will be
Speaker 2: about him because he needs that eight year old little
Speaker 2: boy needs my grandpa Martin's love.
Speaker 4: You know what I mean?
Speaker 5: You literally like she she mapped it out and then
Speaker 5: and then it was like a scene and he entered
Speaker 5: stage right, and I was like, and there he is, okay.
Speaker 4: And now he's playing a song. Yeah, you know what
Speaker 4: I mean.
Speaker 5: Do you think that have you found anything that like
Speaker 5: maybe would be helpful for people that are in all
Speaker 5: of our situations where it's like, why do you think
Speaker 5: we can can we can find the compassion? Maybe for
Speaker 5: the men, say, just because the three of us seem
Speaker 5: to have that in common and not for our mothers.
Speaker 5: Is it that we are the same gender, we know
Speaker 5: the walk, we're doing the work. We feel like, I
Speaker 5: don't know what it is, but I am I'm in
Speaker 5: that right now. I'm in that season of like trying
Speaker 5: to find this deep compassion and like coming up a
Speaker 5: little empty sometimes. If I'm really honest with.
Speaker 3: You, Yeah, well, I will say from my perspective that
Speaker 3: it was more challenging because to me, I felt that
Speaker 3: my mother was supposed to be my protector and I
Speaker 3: put a lot of that on her. And I don't
Speaker 3: know necessarily that that's their overall. I mean, I just
Speaker 3: feel like in my situation in my childhood, it was
Speaker 3: that it was very traditional in that my mother stayed
Speaker 3: home and my father went to work, right, So I
Speaker 3: felt like, oh, my mother's supposed to be there. So
Speaker 3: in my mind as it evolved, I felt like, oh,
Speaker 3: she's supposed to be from what I understand or what
Speaker 3: I know, she's my mom. She's supposed to be protecting me, right,
Speaker 3: And then this I had this massive role reversal with
Speaker 3: her where I was taking care of her at a
Speaker 3: young age and not being cared for or mothered. So
Speaker 3: I think that I feel like for me, what happened
Speaker 3: was I felt so betrayed. Is if I had her
Speaker 3: on this pedestal of what I expected of her and
Speaker 3: she didn't fulfill what I needed of her, And then
Speaker 3: it just evolved into more and more resentment because then
Speaker 3: it was, you know, oh, now she's now she's sick,
Speaker 3: and now she's dying, and now she's going to leave
Speaker 3: me with all this, you know, with more responsibility, and
Speaker 3: I just couldn't find it. I couldn't find any softness
Speaker 3: towards her. And so for me, I think that it
Speaker 3: was just I was so caught up in being so
Speaker 3: angry at her because I really wanted her to protect me.
Speaker 3: I wanted her to do more right. I felt like
Speaker 3: she could have done more, and so I held her
Speaker 3: to a different standard than I held my father.
Speaker 4: Yeah, the care teaming piece I gain I too too.
Speaker 2: For sure, to kind of wrap up someone that's listening
Speaker 2: that obviously we all have traumas, and but what's one
Speaker 2: hopeful thing that you want someone to get from this book.
Speaker 3: I would say that number one thing I want people
Speaker 3: to know is that they're not alone in their pain
Speaker 3: or they're suffering. I feel like so many of us
Speaker 3: kind of take it on the chin and we suppress
Speaker 3: the trauma and our story. We don't talk about it,
Speaker 3: we don't want to talk about it. Then we go
Speaker 3: through life distracted, you know, family, this, this, this jobs,
Speaker 3: you know, zoom calls. I feel like I want people
Speaker 3: to know that they're not alone. You know, it's like
Speaker 3: seventy percent of us are going to experience trauma in
Speaker 3: our lifetime. That's a National Council for Mental Well Being statistic.
Speaker 3: I bet it's hired, right. So I want people to
Speaker 3: know they're not alone in that. And two, I want
Speaker 3: them to know that it is never too late to
Speaker 3: do the work right. Like I think a lot of
Speaker 3: people too feel like, well, yeah, I've been carrying this
Speaker 3: around for so long. I really don't know what else
Speaker 3: to do about it. Well, the truth is is that
Speaker 3: you know, nobody really does. It's overwhelming. So again, what
Speaker 3: I really want to do is create take away that
Speaker 3: overwhelm and create a safe space where people feel seen
Speaker 3: and heard and a place where they can express what's
Speaker 3: happened to them. You know, there's a lot of places
Speaker 3: in this book with journal prompts and places to write,
Speaker 3: and I feel like that beginning of kind of like
Speaker 3: unearthing that is so important and valuable. And I will
Speaker 3: say that a big, a big thing I've heard a
Speaker 3: lot too from people, you know who have already read
Speaker 3: the book, is that they do all this stuff and
Speaker 3: I think, wow, you know, now I know what I
Speaker 3: want to talk to my therapist about. You know, therapy
Speaker 3: is expensive and it's hard to get into and then
Speaker 3: you get in there and you're like, I don't know
Speaker 3: if I trust this person. I don't know if I
Speaker 3: want to get into it. You dance around it, you
Speaker 3: talk about your relationships, you talk about your job, but
Speaker 3: you don't really get into the you know, the deep wounds. Yeah,
Speaker 3: I think it's so beautiful that you know, when you
Speaker 3: can go into a therapist and say, wow, okay, it
Speaker 3: was really these two things that happened to me, you know,
Speaker 3: when I was twelve and twenty that kind of had
Speaker 3: put me in this situation where you know, I'm dating
Speaker 3: the same person over and over again, where I'm you know,
Speaker 3: afraid to ask for a raise or you follow my dream,
Speaker 3: or you know, there's all kinds of limiting stories we
Speaker 3: tell ourselves. So it's like understanding what they are. I
Speaker 3: think is so hopeful right to have this self awareness
Speaker 3: of what happened and that there's a space for you
Speaker 3: to heal it.
Speaker 4: Yep, I love that well.
Speaker 2: Karina, thank you so much for coming on everyone, please
Speaker 2: please please go get her. Book is called a Rise
Speaker 2: Above the Story for yourself from past trauma and create
Speaker 2: the life you want because you do not deserve to
Speaker 2: be stuck there.
Speaker 4: You deserve to be free from it and heal and
Speaker 4: have a beautiful life. And Karina, thank you so much
Speaker 4: for sharing your story with us.
Speaker 3: Thank you for having me. I appreciate it.