Speaker 1: Hi, Catherine.
Speaker 2: Oh hello Chelsea.
Speaker 3: Hi.
Speaker 4: I'm just trying myself in my work ut. It's so
Speaker 4: hot here, so hot. I'm just trying to figure out
Speaker 4: where I'm going to go next because I might have
Speaker 4: to leave before my next guests get here.
Speaker 2: It's too hot. Oh no, Well, were your first guests
Speaker 2: fun at least?
Speaker 1: Mm hmm.
Speaker 5: Yeah.
Speaker 1: No, everyone's been fun.
Speaker 2: We've had a lot of good laughs.
Speaker 4: We've had a lot of good You know, everything's legal
Speaker 4: in Spain, mushrooms, LSD, even cocaine is legal in Spain.
Speaker 4: Cocaine's legal in Canada. Now I've just found out. I'm
Speaker 4: like cocaine. Every time you think cocaine is out of style,
Speaker 4: it makes some sort of comeback.
Speaker 6: I mean I was like, wait, this is like a
Speaker 6: thing again now, and I feel like it's happening all
Speaker 6: over again, although now I'm too afraid to try it
Speaker 6: because of all the additives.
Speaker 4: Well in America that's a thing, fence and all. In
Speaker 4: London and everyone was doing blow, I was like what.
Speaker 4: I was like, people are still doing cocaine here. I
Speaker 4: mean not everybody, but a good portion of people. I
Speaker 4: was like, wait, what about fentanyl. They're like we don't
Speaker 4: have that problem here. I'm like, oh, really, we don't
Speaker 4: have fentanyl here. Only America has up problem because we
Speaker 4: have people like Gronda Santis and Trump to deal with,
Speaker 4: so we need the fentanel.
Speaker 6: I was going to ask, you've spent a lot of
Speaker 6: family time this summer. Do you get sick of being
Speaker 6: around family after a certain amount of time?
Speaker 4: I think of everybody, I mean, I just like to
Speaker 4: I mean, it's better, you know, like post therapy now,
Speaker 4: I know, I'm just better at modulating my moods and
Speaker 4: not freaking out or losing my shit. Like I don't
Speaker 4: really do that anymore, luckily. I mean, I don't want
Speaker 4: to write it off completely because we watch it will
Speaker 4: happen tonight. But I'm pretty good about that. And when
Speaker 4: I want to be alone, I'm just pretty obvious about it.
Speaker 4: I just remove myself from a situation. And I just
Speaker 4: read that book Lessons in Chemistry. That was I keep
Speaker 4: trying to stop reading books so I could just focus
Speaker 4: on writing my book. But then I'm like, fuck, I
Speaker 4: love reading so much, and I feel like every time
Speaker 4: you read something, you gain something for writing. So but
Speaker 4: when I don't have time, like if I'm over people.
Speaker 4: I just go and read my book somewhere. The thing
Speaker 4: that annoys me the most is when you are reading
Speaker 4: a book and someone starts talking to you. It's like,
Speaker 4: what do you think I'm doing? What does this fucking
Speaker 4: look like?
Speaker 6: I'm reading, I'm busy. I'm looking at something else. That
Speaker 6: happens to be quite often. And I won't say who
Speaker 6: it is, but it's definitely the person who lives with me. Yeah,
Speaker 6: it's like, hey, do you want to have a conversation
Speaker 6: right now?
Speaker 4: We got that, We got that very loud and clear.
Speaker 4: I went and got this MRI called like praneuva or something,
Speaker 4: which is like a body MRI to like detect any early,
Speaker 4: like tumors or anything you're It's supposed to be like
Speaker 4: a pre deetection. But once you do it, you open
Speaker 4: yourself up to everything because everyone has nodules or gross
Speaker 4: or like little things. So but my doctor was like, oh,
Speaker 4: I see something in like your L five L six.
Speaker 1: I was like, what's that?
Speaker 4: He's like your neck and I'm like really, He goes, yeah,
Speaker 4: something's off in your neck. I have to order you
Speaker 4: a spinal MRI and see how bad it is. If
Speaker 4: it's something that we need to look at or whatever.
Speaker 4: And as soon as he said that, my neck hasn't
Speaker 4: stopped killing me.
Speaker 1: Oh no, how is that though? Oh it's psychosomatic.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I mean I'm like, oh fuck, now my neck
Speaker 4: is killing me.
Speaker 6: No, okay, So I have to tell you. I I've
Speaker 6: never talked about this with you before, I don't think.
Speaker 6: But my therapist I go to is a sematic pain therapist.
Speaker 6: And I found her about a year ago or a
Speaker 6: year and a half ago. Now, maybe because I was
Speaker 6: having terrible pain in my feet. I had been having
Speaker 6: like really bad plantar fasci iis for like six years,
Speaker 6: and I had had these painful episodes where I just
Speaker 6: had this like terrible pelvic pain and they would come
Speaker 6: and go, and I didn't know what was setting them off.
Speaker 6: And so I started seeing this sematic pain therapist after
Speaker 6: several symptoms told me like, maybe this isn't a physical pain,
Speaker 6: maybe this is something else. Like I would move around
Speaker 6: my body some days my left knee would hurt, some
Speaker 6: days my right knee would hurt. Which if it's structural,
Speaker 6: that's not gonna happen, right, So I can't tell you
Speaker 6: the difference that this therapy has made in my life.
Speaker 6: I no longer have any foot pain. Instead of feeling
Speaker 6: pain when I wake up in the morning, when I
Speaker 6: set my feet on the ground, I feel like, oh,
Speaker 6: I might need to stretch a little bit. It has
Speaker 6: helped me totally reframe all of my pain. My pain
Speaker 6: events when they do happen, they're very, very mild, and
Speaker 6: I can sort of like breathe through them and meditate
Speaker 6: through them, which is something that like surgery to not fix.
Speaker 6: But yeah, it's a lot about people pleasing, a lot
Speaker 6: about stress and this therapy, which really I kept thinking, like,
Speaker 6: what's it going to be, like, are they going to
Speaker 6: give me special meditations that are going to fix all
Speaker 6: these things because it's specifically about pain, But it's just
Speaker 6: really normal therapy where they kind of help you figure
Speaker 6: out all your pain stuff and how to fix your
Speaker 6: stress stuff so that the pain goes away or is
Speaker 6: much reduced or you have a different relationship to it.
Speaker 2: So yeah, that's something I haven't talked about on.
Speaker 1: This before, saying interesting somatic therapist.
Speaker 2: Thematic is body uh huh.
Speaker 6: And the thing about sematic pain, like we used to
Speaker 6: call it psychosomatic pain, it is real pain. It's like
Speaker 6: you're really feeling this pain, but it's sort of your
Speaker 6: brain misinterpreting signals from your body that it thinks are pain,
Speaker 6: but really they're really just sort of like warning signals
Speaker 6: of like maybe you're too tired, maybe you're this I
Speaker 6: had a couple friends who had really bad back pain,
Speaker 6: and they had sort of done similar therapies, and they
Speaker 6: like don't have back pain anymore. Like my one girlfriend says,
Speaker 6: you know, when I start to have like a twinge
Speaker 6: in my back and I feel like a throw my
Speaker 6: back out coming on, I know that I need to
Speaker 6: like sit and rest and journal, you know, in journal
Speaker 6: and like get her stress and stuff out. So I
Speaker 6: went to the La Pain Psychology Center and they helped
Speaker 6: me tremendously.
Speaker 1: I can't general no, I just I can't handwrite stuff.
Speaker 1: My answer always.
Speaker 4: If I write a card, a birthday card, my hand
Speaker 4: hurts for an hour after.
Speaker 7: Oh.
Speaker 6: I would argue that you write many journals, they just
Speaker 6: get published as books.
Speaker 1: Well, I type those. I can type. I have no
Speaker 1: problem typing, but I can't i'm writing.
Speaker 4: I'm like, oh, that's why I'm scared to put out
Speaker 4: another book, because I don't want to do that I do.
Speaker 1: Know why I can't sign those books again.
Speaker 4: So many books you have to sign when you have
Speaker 4: a book cover, right, yeah, yeah, yeah, it's like your
Speaker 4: hand on you get carpal tunnel totally.
Speaker 1: I mean I when I go on.
Speaker 4: Book tours and like do book signings you have, I
Speaker 4: literally go in after and.
Speaker 2: Put my hand in an ice c my gosh.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I've got to learn how to sign with.
Speaker 2: My toes or something, or like a stamp.
Speaker 1: Or Bernice needs to fucking chip in.
Speaker 2: She's so lazy.
Speaker 1: Oh, Bernie is my lover. Okay.
Speaker 4: Our next guest is a very well known Canadian physician
Speaker 4: and author. He has written the books When the Body
Speaker 4: Says No, Scattered Minds, and In the Realm of Hungry Ghosts.
Speaker 4: He's also written a book called Hold Onto Your Kids,
Speaker 4: and his most recent book, which has been on the
Speaker 4: New York Times bestseller list for nineteen weeks, is called
Speaker 4: The Myth of Normal.
Speaker 1: Please welcome gadbor mate.
Speaker 4: Hello, oh, hello doctor, good morning, well, good afternoonsh nice
Speaker 4: to meet you.
Speaker 1: I'm Chelsea.
Speaker 3: Is a gobor and I wish you'd row up the
Speaker 3: doctor's stuff.
Speaker 4: Okay, I'm so used to everyone calling me a doctor.
Speaker 4: So I was just projecting and you know, Catherine, my
Speaker 4: co host.
Speaker 3: Hi there, Hi, I can clear a doctor if.
Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, sure, sure whatever. It's very nice to speak
Speaker 4: with you. Thank you for coming on the podcast. I'm
Speaker 4: very much looking forward to asking you some questions and
Speaker 4: having you help some of our callers with their life
Speaker 4: advice and life questions.
Speaker 3: Well if I can, if I can do it, I'll try. So.
Speaker 4: Your new book, which has been on the New York
Speaker 4: Times best seller list, is called The Myth of Normal,
Speaker 4: and your book before that was also a huge success,
Speaker 4: and it is called When the Body Says No, which
Speaker 4: has been brought up on our podcast multiple times.
Speaker 1: So I wanted to talk to you.
Speaker 4: A little bit about the relationship between trauma and ADHD
Speaker 4: and how add and ADHD differentiate with their relationship to trauma.
Speaker 4: If you could speak to that a little bit, I'm
Speaker 4: very curious.
Speaker 3: Sure.
Speaker 8: Well, that's actually my favoritt book which I wrote when
Speaker 8: I was in my mid fifties and just diagnosed freshly
Speaker 8: with attention deficit hyperactive disorder. That book is called Scattered Minds. Now,
Speaker 8: the characteristics of this condition are the people have trouble
Speaker 8: staying focused. They tend to tune out, kind of absu
Speaker 8: mind it a lot. So they tend to lose things,
Speaker 8: forget things, mix up appointments, this kind of stuff, miss
Speaker 8: parts of conversations. They tend to pour impulse control. So
Speaker 8: when they want to do something, even if they know
Speaker 8: it's not so good for them, they tend to do it.
Speaker 3: So people they did the slip very easily into addictions.
Speaker 8: And the hyperactive part is some of them have trouble
Speaker 8: sitting still there restless. They have to move all the time.
Speaker 8: You can see their feet tapping on the floor, their
Speaker 8: thumbs fidgetting on the table. You know, that's the hyperactive part.
Speaker 8: So now, the usual medical view of it, which I
Speaker 8: don't agree with, is that this is the genetic brain
Speaker 8: disorder that passed on for Munde to the next. Now
Speaker 8: I was diagnosed with it, so repove my kids, and
Speaker 8: I don't think it's either a disease of the brain,
Speaker 8: nor do I think it's a genetic So what is
Speaker 8: it actually? And this is where life experience comes into it.
Speaker 8: Tuning out is an actual capacity of the human brain.
Speaker 8: As an example, if I were to stress you right
Speaker 8: now by being rude and appropriate aggressive, you'd have some
Speaker 8: healthy options. You could just hang up on me, say
Speaker 8: heck with you, or you could fight back and tell
Speaker 8: me God, but you're not the right to talk to
Speaker 8: me that way. What if you couldn't either escape or
Speaker 8: fight back, then how would you handle it? I tell
Speaker 8: you how you handle it. When there's a lot of
Speaker 8: stress and a person is helpless, the brain tunes out
Speaker 8: as a defense mechanism. If this happens early in life,
Speaker 8: if the parents are stressed because the relationship troubles, or
Speaker 8: because they're on on result trauma, or because of economic
Speaker 8: stress or racialist stress or whatever stress, the child is
Speaker 8: very sensitive. The infant is very insitive to the parents'
Speaker 8: emotional states. When the parent is stressed, the child is stressed.
Speaker 8: When the infant and the young child is stressed, there's
Speaker 8: not much they can do about it. They tune out.
Speaker 8: There's a defense mechanism they don't do deliberately. And when
Speaker 8: they're doing this when their brain is developing. So how
Speaker 8: the human brain develops is an interaction with the environment.
Speaker 8: And if you look at the studies of human brain development,
Speaker 8: the biggest influence on new chemicals, the secretry the netflix
Speaker 8: of the brain is the emotional.
Speaker 3: Relationship with the adults. If that relationship is stressed, not
Speaker 3: because the parents don't love their kids. It's not because
Speaker 3: they're not trying to do their best, because they themselves
Speaker 3: are stressed. The child is stressed, and what happens is
Speaker 3: that the tuning ug gets wired into the brain and
Speaker 3: then ten years later or fifty years later in my case,
Speaker 3: the person is diagnosed with the so called brain disease
Speaker 3: that they inherited. Now, what happened to me was I
Speaker 3: was a Jewish infant under the Nazis in Hungary in
Speaker 3: the Second World or I don't have to go into
Speaker 3: it here, but you can imagine how stressed it was,
Speaker 3: how stressed my mother was. How did I deal with
Speaker 3: that stress? I tune out. And this is where my
Speaker 3: brain is developing now. My own kids grew up in
Speaker 3: Canada in a loving home, but with a father who
Speaker 3: was a workaholic, add driven personality. And when I was
Speaker 3: at home, I was very often in a bad mood.
Speaker 3: And since I hate to tell you guys this, but
Speaker 3: we always marry somebody at the same level of trauma
Speaker 3: that we're at. It means I met and married a
Speaker 3: woman who was as traumatized as I was not in
Speaker 3: the same way, but to the same degree. So now
Speaker 3: we have two traumatized parents, two young people who remember
Speaker 3: that traumas acting out on each other in a form
Speaker 3: of family conflict, and our kids live in a stressed
Speaker 3: environment so they tune out. So yeah, what was passed
Speaker 3: on here is not DD. What was passed on was
Speaker 3: the stress and the trauma, which is multi generous.
Speaker 6: You've talked quite a bit about those things that we
Speaker 6: develop as children as coping mechanisms, ADHD being one of them.
Speaker 6: I know that's my situation as well, But how we
Speaker 6: take those into adulthood in ways that don't serve us?
Speaker 6: Can you talk a little bit more about that well.
Speaker 8: So, first of all, the tuning out, which is a
Speaker 8: coping mechanism, gets wired into the brain, so it does
Speaker 8: become a matter of brain physiology. But the deproblem didn't
Speaker 8: start in the brain. It started with how the environment
Speaker 8: acted on the brain. It's difficult in adult life to
Speaker 8: be in relationship with somebody who's about ADHD because the
Speaker 8: poor tension span, the poor impulse control. Sometimes my wife
Speaker 8: would say, you're not listening to me, you know, thinking
Speaker 8: I was not doing it deliberately but actually what would
Speaker 8: actually happening is that, especially when the emotional environment.
Speaker 3: Gets a bit heavy, I tend to tune out.
Speaker 4: Can I ask you a question when you say tune
Speaker 4: out when you're talking about that, are you talking about
Speaker 4: disassociation or is that a separate category?
Speaker 8: Yeah, about this situation simply means disconnecting from the present moment.
Speaker 1: So same thing, the degrees of it.
Speaker 8: So I would say that ADHD is a milder form
Speaker 8: of dissociation, and it's not all the time. When you're
Speaker 8: very interested in something where you're motivated, oh, you can
Speaker 8: pay perfect attention. So partly it's also a matter of motivation,
Speaker 8: emotional safety, comfort, and so on. But the point is,
Speaker 8: if you came to me as a parent with a
Speaker 8: kid with ADHD, what would you rather hear, sir or madam.
Speaker 8: You've got this kid with this genetic brand disease, or
Speaker 8: you've got a kid who probably grew up in a
Speaker 8: stressed environment. Not your fault, you did your best. But
Speaker 8: if you provide the right environment, that kid can develop
Speaker 8: new brain circuits and can grow in very healthy ways.
Speaker 8: So the second message puts more responsibly on the parent,
Speaker 8: not guilt, but responsibility. But at the same time, if
Speaker 8: you're a parent, which would you rather hear?
Speaker 4: Yeah, And that's very helpful, you know, for people to
Speaker 4: be able to know that they can change their behavior
Speaker 4: if they put it, the work towards it, and the
Speaker 4: effort needed.
Speaker 1: What do you think the contribution.
Speaker 4: Of social media and all of that has on add
Speaker 4: and ADHD.
Speaker 8: Well, First of all, let me say something about the
Speaker 8: contribution of social culture in general, because if you look
Speaker 8: at what's happening with bad diagnosis, or i should say,
Speaker 8: any other childhood diagnosis, childhood depression, childhood anxiety, self cutting, bulimia, anorexia,
Speaker 8: childhood soucides, these numbers are going up and up and
Speaker 8: up and up and up here in North America. Now,
Speaker 8: if these are genetic disorders, why would they be going up.
Speaker 8: Genes don't change in a population over ten or fifteen
Speaker 8: or twenty or thirty or fifty years. So if the
Speaker 8: numbers are going up, there's something happening in the culture.
Speaker 8: And what's happening in the culture is that people are
Speaker 8: much more isolated and much more stressed than they used
Speaker 8: to be, and parents are much more isolated and stressed
Speaker 8: that they used to be. Ghost parents are even together,
Speaker 8: but there's a high divorce rate, and there is a
Speaker 8: high rate of depression amongst adults, and that's affecting the children.
Speaker 8: So what I'm saying is that the reason we're seeing
Speaker 8: more and more these childhood disorders is not because they're
Speaker 8: any genetic epidemic, but because the conditions on the region,
Speaker 8: means developed and thrive are less and less available. And
Speaker 8: that's really the essential motif of my most recent book,
Speaker 8: The Myth of Normal.
Speaker 3: The subtitle is the Myth of.
Speaker 8: Normal, Trauma, illness and healing and a toxic culture. And
Speaker 8: I'm basically saying we're living in a toxic culture now.
Speaker 8: Now social media comes into it. How First of all,
Speaker 8: one of the essential needs of children is free play,
Speaker 8: spontaneous play out there in nature. As soon as you
Speaker 8: introduce screens into the kid's life, that's over with. Because
Speaker 8: these things, these devices, normally are they highly addictive. They're
Speaker 8: designed to be addictive. They call it neural marketing. They
Speaker 8: design and to hook in the brains of young kids.
Speaker 8: And if you look at the brains of children who
Speaker 8: are a lot on social media, they don't look normal.
Speaker 8: Circuits that involve thinking and emotional regulation are attenuated or
Speaker 8: not well developed as a result of screen news. Number one.
Speaker 8: Number two, there's the addiction addictive thing. You take a
Speaker 8: kid on social media. If you're a parent and you
Speaker 8: get addicted to social media, you try and get them
Speaker 8: to stop it. I've worked with drug addicts. One of
Speaker 8: my books is on addiction, and I worked with some
Speaker 8: of the most severe drug addicts in North America. Actually
Speaker 8: trying to separate a child who's hooked on their social
Speaker 8: media from their devices. It's like trying to get a
Speaker 8: severely opiate dependent individual off their heroin. They hate you,
Speaker 8: they attack you, they fight back, their hostile they're really upset.
Speaker 8: Why Because they're addicted, and they're respawning, like any addicted person,
Speaker 8: to the threatened deprivation of the addictive preference. Thirdly, a
Speaker 8: lot of parents use social media as a way of
Speaker 8: babysitting their kids. Now, I don't blame them for it.
Speaker 8: Painting was never meant to be as difficult and as
Speaker 8: isolated and as stressed as it is in this culture,
Speaker 8: but the result is that people are no longer relating
Speaker 8: to adults in their lives. How we evolved as human
Speaker 8: beings is we lived in small tribes, but the adults
Speaker 8: were all around us the whole day. No kids can
Speaker 8: spend the whole day relating to each other, which means
Speaker 8: they lose respect for the adults because we tend to
Speaker 8: get our orientation and our guidance from the people that
Speaker 8: we're connecting with. When kids have connected with other kids
Speaker 8: most of the time, they can't care less what the
Speaker 8: adults think, and they start getting obstreperous and resistant, and
Speaker 8: the adults thinking, what's wrong with these kids? Nothing's wrong
Speaker 8: with the kids. What's wrong with the kids is that
Speaker 8: the healthy relationship with adults has been so weekend in
Speaker 8: this culture, the kids are influencing each other. I mean,
Speaker 8: look at all the child influencers out there, immature creatures.
Speaker 8: I don't mean that as a pejority of I just
Speaker 8: mean objectively, they're immature and i having matured yet influencing
Speaker 8: millions of their peers.
Speaker 3: I mean that's a frightening phenomenon.
Speaker 4: Yeah, but with what you said earlier, I mean, you
Speaker 4: can retrain that neural circuitry, right, You can create new
Speaker 4: habits at any time almost, I mean, unless you have
Speaker 4: some other inhibiting factor.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 4: Yeah, So it's not a hopeless situation if you address
Speaker 4: the situation and try to limit.
Speaker 1: The addictive behavior of children on their devices.
Speaker 4: I mean, I saw my friend's four year old son
Speaker 4: throw an iPad at her face when she tried to
Speaker 4: take it away from him, and I thought, oh my god,
Speaker 4: that's an addict that's like taking away. Yeah, so it
Speaker 4: is very disturbing.
Speaker 1: We're going to take a quick break. We'll be right back.
Speaker 4: I know you discuss in your books, all of your books,
Speaker 4: the mind body connection. So when you're talking about retraining
Speaker 4: the neural circuitry, how does.
Speaker 1: The body fall in step with that?
Speaker 8: Again, if you look at how you evolved as human creatures,
Speaker 8: they didn't involve in cities and pavements and isolated apartments.
Speaker 8: Revolved out there in nature, living with other human beings
Speaker 8: in small groups and traveling with them and hunting with
Speaker 8: them and collecting food with them. But there was a
Speaker 8: real sense of community.
Speaker 3: And in Canada, as in the United States, indigenous people
Speaker 3: suffered the most in terms of addictions and suicides and
Speaker 3: autoimmune diseases and domestic violence.
Speaker 8: Why because of what was done to them in Canada
Speaker 8: and in samples the United States, there were this state enforced,
Speaker 8: church run residential schools with an indigenous child as much
Speaker 8: as spoke their own tribal language, they pinned stuck to
Speaker 8: that to discourage them when speak their language. Where they
Speaker 8: were sexually abused, physically abused, they often died, starved, beaten
Speaker 8: as a result of all that multigenational trauma. These people
Speaker 8: have a lot of addictions, a lot of mental health issues,
Speaker 8: a lot of physical health issues. So I'm often asked
Speaker 8: to both of these communities and help with their healing process.
Speaker 8: So that's one reason I go there. They have such wisdom,
Speaker 8: their traditional wisdom is so much more holistic and connected,
Speaker 8: and they see themselves not as isolated individuals, but as
Speaker 8: part of our universe, really very much in their bodies,
Speaker 8: in their natural states, and in their God feelings connected
Speaker 8: to their God feelings. No, one of the things that
Speaker 8: happens in trauma is that people get disconnected from their
Speaker 8: God feelings. Have you ever met the one day old
Speaker 8: baby not connected to their God feelings?
Speaker 3: So something happened, Something happened that is connected to film
Speaker 3: your body. And what happened was that at some point
Speaker 3: you learned that to be accepted by your environment, you
Speaker 3: kind of have to disconnect from yourself. Now that also
Speaker 3: means that healing also happens to the body, and so
Speaker 3: that when you're ignoring, you've got feelings, you're knowing your body.
Speaker 3: That's what you're doing.
Speaker 8: So when I teach people healing modalities, it is very
Speaker 8: much to do with reconnecting with the body.
Speaker 3: Actually being aware of what's in your body, what's in
Speaker 3: your throat, what's in your belly's what's happening in your chest,
Speaker 3: are your muscle's feelings? You know, So be reconnecting with
Speaker 3: the body because of the brain in the mind can't
Speaker 3: be separated. When you're present with your body, you're present
Speaker 3: with your brain as well.
Speaker 6: And you've said when a no comes up for you,
Speaker 6: it's begging to be said, and if you don't say no,
Speaker 6: that the body will do it for you in the
Speaker 6: form of illness. Can you expand on that a little bit?
Speaker 3: Sure? Well, you guys live on where in LA or where?
Speaker 8: Okay, let's say you live in LA and we're friends
Speaker 8: and I fly into LA and Catherine, I call you
Speaker 8: up and I say, can we go for coffee? But
Speaker 8: you don't want to because you has spin up all
Speaker 8: night tending a sick friend or a sick dog or
Speaker 8: a sick child. I don't know, or maybe you just
Speaker 8: don't feel like a period, you know, but you don't
Speaker 8: say no. What's going to be the impact on you
Speaker 8: if you don't say no, If you're in that state,
Speaker 8: you don't say no, you have coffee with me? What's
Speaker 8: going to be impact on you?
Speaker 2: I can already feel that feeling in my stomach.
Speaker 1: I mean I do that all the time. I do
Speaker 1: things I don't feel like doing all the time.
Speaker 3: What is the impact on you?
Speaker 4: I mean I don't know specifically, but I definitely it's
Speaker 4: so hard because that's life.
Speaker 8: You know, so many no notice, that's life as you've
Speaker 8: created it. Okay, now, and you don't say no, will
Speaker 8: you agree that you're more likely to be tired?
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, yes, irritable, more.
Speaker 8: Likely to be irritable, stressed, monetly, a difficulty sleeping, or
Speaker 8: you know, there's going to be some impact. Not only that,
Speaker 8: you're going to be more resentful as well. Now all
Speaker 8: those states are body states. When you don't know how
Speaker 8: to say no, And we can talk about white people
Speaker 8: have such trouble saying no. I totally understand what you're saying,
Speaker 8: but it tells me a certain history I mean, you
Speaker 8: don't know how to say no, and the body sends
Speaker 8: you these messages like whatever fiting in your belly or
Speaker 8: the fatigue of it, and you don't pay attention, it
Speaker 8: might end up saying no in a big way.
Speaker 3: And when I study.
Speaker 8: Chronic illness like autoimmunities, is rumor too, that's writer, it's
Speaker 8: multiple scrosses collidis, these chronic fatigue, pablomy alge, chronic services, examma, asthma,
Speaker 8: I could go on. Typical of the people that develop
Speaker 8: those conditions is that they don't know how to say no,
Speaker 8: so they take on too much stress. Why because they're
Speaker 8: afraid of disappointing the other person, and they think it's
Speaker 8: their responsibility to make other people happy and never to
Speaker 8: let anybody down. And what it's good to be kind,
Speaker 8: it's dangerous to be kind only to others and not
Speaker 8: to yourself. Now, not blaming anybody. These patterns develop in childhood.
Speaker 8: It meant that as a child you were discouraged from
Speaker 8: saying no because you were thought to be nice and
Speaker 8: pleasant and compliant and appeasing people and pleasing people. Or
Speaker 8: maybe your parents were so stressed, maybe they were alcoholics,
Speaker 8: or maybe they were fighting, or maybe they were economically
Speaker 8: overwhelmed and you kind of took on the responsibility or
Speaker 8: making them feel better by meeting their needs and forgetting
Speaker 8: your own.
Speaker 3: So this is not how life has to be. It's
Speaker 3: to be a lot of.
Speaker 8: Children in this society of programmed. Now, if you ask
Speaker 8: the question, and I have a chapter on it in
Speaker 8: a metal normal, why is it that women have eighty
Speaker 8: percent of autommune disease? Why is it of the two
Speaker 8: major genders in this culture, which is the one that's
Speaker 8: acculturated and programmed into pleasing other people, ignoring their own needs,
Speaker 8: repressing their healthy anger, so they always should be nice.
Speaker 8: It's women not to disappoint others and think responsible for
Speaker 8: other people feelings. It's women, And that's why women have
Speaker 8: more auto immun disease because the mind and body being
Speaker 8: inseparable scientifically, when your emotions and your psychic apparatus in
Speaker 8: your brain. By psychic, I mean the emotional appetist in
Speaker 8: your brain is connected to the immune system, to your guts,
Speaker 8: to your heart, to your lungs, to your nervous system.
Speaker 8: When things are disturbed in your emotional apparatus, they're going
Speaker 8: to be disturbed in your immune apparatus as well. I mean,
Speaker 8: you don't know how to say no, which is a
Speaker 8: boundary defense. Your immune system gets confused as well. Now
Speaker 8: that may sound radical to a lot of people who
Speaker 8: are not familiar with what I'm talking about. Certainly most
Speaker 8: of my fellow physicians wouldn't know what the heck I
Speaker 8: was talking about. That's not their fault, and it's not
Speaker 8: because I'm not talking science. I am talking science. It's
Speaker 8: just that the science of mind body unity is still
Speaker 8: not taught in most medical schools. The doctors learned purely
Speaker 8: the physiological fighter things, but not the unity of mind and.
Speaker 4: Body right, which is a much more holistic approach to everything.
Speaker 4: What do you think the correlation is, Well, I think
Speaker 4: I know the answer to this. But between you know,
Speaker 4: trauma losing like a family member. My brother died when
Speaker 4: we were young, and my sister was diagnosed with lupus
Speaker 4: like two and a half years later. My mother was
Speaker 4: diagnosed with cancer two and a half years later, exactly
Speaker 4: at the same time, and that's when we started to
Speaker 4: learn more about what trauma does.
Speaker 1: And how it can cause disease. Can you speak to
Speaker 1: that a little bit.
Speaker 3: First of all, it's striking.
Speaker 8: How many families are similar to yours, where a whole
Speaker 8: lot of supposedly unrelated diseases show up, But they're not
Speaker 8: unrelated if you understand that trauma is at the basis
Speaker 8: of them. And that's the point I keep making in
Speaker 8: the book The Myth of Normal. But on my computer
Speaker 8: I prepared this, I could go show you a photograph
Speaker 8: of a young woman who I met four years ago
Speaker 8: in Britain. Her face was covered with the red rash,
Speaker 8: a butterfly looking rash, and her fingers were white as chalk.
Speaker 8: She had lupas and her fingers were white because they've
Speaker 8: been deprived of blood supply. The arteries had narrowed. She
Speaker 8: came to a lecture I gave in London four years
Speaker 8: ago on when the body says no and a connection
Speaker 8: between stretch, trauma and autom disease light Lupas's. I could
Speaker 8: show the photographs now. Her face is totally normal looking,
Speaker 8: her fingers are pink as anything. She's got no disease
Speaker 8: and she's on no medication. Why Because she learned how
Speaker 8: to say no, She learned start how to start looking
Speaker 8: after herself. She learned to stand up for herself, not
Speaker 8: to live her life to please other people, but to
Speaker 8: get to know her real self that she got disconnected
Speaker 8: from long ago in childhood. And she's healthy as anything,
Speaker 8: And it's not an unusual story. So what happened in
Speaker 8: your family is your sister, I bet it is one
Speaker 8: of these personalities that took on the emotional needs of
Speaker 8: others and ignored her own. Probably didn't know how to
Speaker 8: express anger in any kind of a healthy way, Probably
Speaker 8: had no idea how to say no. Probably that goes
Speaker 8: back to your childhoods and your childhood we should took
Speaker 8: on a certain role in the family. Probably there was
Speaker 8: a lot of stress in your family of origin, and
Speaker 8: you guys are small, So all these different diseases or
Speaker 8: manifestations of trauma and disconnection from the south.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I would say the two people in my family,
Speaker 4: my mother and my sister, had the quietest, the biggest
Speaker 4: people pleasers in our family. I certainly haven't been a
Speaker 4: people pleaser for a long time, even though I still
Speaker 4: continue to do things I don't feel like doing. But yes,
Speaker 4: and how scientifically is that measured? Is there a measure
Speaker 4: for something like that, because, as you're saying, it's kind
Speaker 4: of almost nascent in medicine for most doctors to even
Speaker 4: take the mind body connection seriously, So how does one
Speaker 4: measure that?
Speaker 8: But Chelsea, that's so weird is that none of these
Speaker 8: ideas on you. Jean Mattan Charcot, a French neurologist to
Speaker 8: first describe multiple sclerosis, said that this disease caused by stress.
Speaker 8: A great Canadian, American, British position. Sir William Mosler said
Speaker 8: the same thing about women the elite writers in eighteen ninety.
Speaker 8: In nineteen thirty nine, there was a very famous lecture
Speaker 8: given at Harvard University by a doctor who's still revered
Speaker 8: at Harvard, and this lecture was published in the Journal
Speaker 8: of the Medical American Medical Association, where he said that
Speaker 8: emotional factors are as important in the causation of illness
Speaker 8: as physical ones, and they have to be at least
Speaker 8: as important in treatment. And this article is published in
Speaker 8: Drama Journal of the American Medical Association in nineteen forty
Speaker 8: And to this day, even his member's name, they don't
Speaker 8: remember what he taught.
Speaker 3: They don't teach what he talked.
Speaker 8: Now, in a decade since this famous physician at Harvard
Speaker 8: made that statement, we've had eighty years of research showing
Speaker 8: that it's not that the emotional system in the brain
Speaker 8: is connected to the nervous system or to the immune system.
Speaker 3: They're not connected.
Speaker 8: They're the same system like people who and to look
Speaker 8: after people with Alzheimer's who tend to be women. By
Speaker 8: the way, the caregivers, their chromosomes suffer, their immune system
Speaker 8: is diminished, the more likely to get colds.
Speaker 3: If they get a cold, it's all lasts longer if
Speaker 3: you wound them on the skin, as the test that
Speaker 3: wound will take longer to heal. So the emotional stress
Speaker 3: of caregiving actually diminishes immunity.
Speaker 1: Okay, well, on that note, we're going to take a
Speaker 1: quick break. We'll be right back, and we're going to
Speaker 1: take some callers and we're back.
Speaker 2: We're back.
Speaker 6: So our first color today is Mina. Dear Chelsea, She says,
Speaker 6: a few years ago, my anxiety started taking a toll
Speaker 6: on my relationship and my physical health. After hearing your
Speaker 6: experience with doctor Dan, which is Chelsea's therapist, Dan Seagull.
Speaker 3: Oh the therapist. Oh yes, yes, we're good friends.
Speaker 1: Then I oh good. Good to know.
Speaker 8: As a matter of fact, about five weeks ago, going
Speaker 8: through a very difficult time and guess what I call it?
Speaker 6: Oh wow, well perfect, Mina says, I have embarked on
Speaker 6: EMDR therapy for what my therapist calls complex trauma, and
Speaker 6: I've been facing things I never thought I would have
Speaker 6: to relive so that I can process them in a
Speaker 6: healthy way. That being said, I still really struggle with
Speaker 6: mind body connection. Unless I engage four out of my
Speaker 6: five senses, I simply cannot shut my brain off. So essentially,
Speaker 6: unless I'm listening to exotic flute music while submerged in
Speaker 6: an ice bath with a eucalyptus leaf under my nose,
Speaker 6: It's impossible for me to meditate. Do you have any
Speaker 6: suggestions on forms of meditation or other therapies that engage
Speaker 6: several senses at once, or any other tactics Just listening
Speaker 6: to something doesn't cut it for me. Thank you for everything, Mina.
Speaker 7: Hi, Mina, Hi Chelsea.
Speaker 3: Hi.
Speaker 4: Our special guest today is Gobormate. So I think you
Speaker 4: are going to be in good hands.
Speaker 1: Oh oh are you so excited? Look at that face?
Speaker 7: Oh yeah, I'm yeah wow, okay, okay, yeah, okay.
Speaker 8: Well hi, Hi, let me just go back to the
Speaker 8: original statement that the anxiety was hard on your relationship.
Speaker 5: Yeah.
Speaker 9: So I wrote this a couple of months ago, and
Speaker 9: since I have written through to Kelsy and Catherine, I've
Speaker 9: started EMDR, Yeah, which has been amazing and incredibly helpful.
Speaker 9: I've been in therapy for a while, but the EMDR
Speaker 9: has also been quite difficult, to be.
Speaker 3: Honest, Yeah, what was difficult about it?
Speaker 9: Honestly, it resurfaced a lot of trauma that I had
Speaker 9: about ten or twelve years ago that I had not
Speaker 9: I mean, I knew was there, but it hadn't really
Speaker 9: come up for me until I sort of want in
Speaker 9: this deep dive. The first couple of times I did
Speaker 9: the reprocessing, I didn't actually notice anything, to be honest,
Speaker 9: I sort of felt a bit like nothing was happening.
Speaker 9: And then I did it a few more times and
Speaker 9: I felt extremely uncomfortable and I didn't sleep well, and
Speaker 9: I started having very vivid dreams and a lot of anxiety.
Speaker 3: All right, And did you tell you a therapist then?
Speaker 7: Yeah, yeah, she's she's aware.
Speaker 3: And when you told you a therapist what happened, she
Speaker 3: said that.
Speaker 7: It was completely normal and part of the process.
Speaker 3: And did you want to continue with that process?
Speaker 7: I have continued.
Speaker 8: Yes, is that because you wanted to continue with it. Yes,
Speaker 8: can you check in with yourself right now? So what's
Speaker 8: happening for you at the present moment?
Speaker 7: A little bit of a pit in the base of
Speaker 7: my stomach.
Speaker 3: Tell me what that feels like? Is that? Okay?
Speaker 9: If I ask you that, Yeah, it's similar to Actually
Speaker 9: it's similar to when I actually do amdr and my
Speaker 9: therapist ask me. She goes, how are you feeling after
Speaker 9: or during? And I always say, oh, I have a
Speaker 9: bit of a like a little pit in my stomach
Speaker 9: and it feels really uncomfortable.
Speaker 8: Okay, so this is a discomfort there. Yeah, can you
Speaker 8: put your attention on that for a moment? Half familiar?
Speaker 3: Is it to you? Is it you? Is it old?
Speaker 5: Very?
Speaker 3: Is it very? Halfway?
Speaker 7: Does it go back my whole life?
Speaker 3: Okay?
Speaker 8: That means they have some difficult news for you. Okay, yeah,
Speaker 8: but it's intended to be helpful. Yeah, your trauma didn't
Speaker 8: start kind of twelve years.
Speaker 3: Ago, No, I know, it goes way back.
Speaker 8: Yeah, Okay, Now, so that's the first point. Okay, an
Speaker 8: your therapy, have you dealt with that long ago stuff
Speaker 8: or not.
Speaker 9: We've done exercises where it's what's the strongest memory and
Speaker 9: what's the earliest memory. And then when I go into
Speaker 9: the earliest memory, I do the reprocessing.
Speaker 3: So hawway have you gone back like four years old?
Speaker 3: Four years old? So it does go back a long way.
Speaker 7: Yeah.
Speaker 8: First of all, what I'm hearing is you've had some
Speaker 8: traumas in childhood that you're still working on right now.
Speaker 9: Yeah.
Speaker 8: That's sometimes when you do the NDR or even talk
Speaker 8: about it, but somebody like me, it brings up these
Speaker 8: physical feelings that are so familiar to you. Yeah, okay,
Speaker 8: and that you know, I agree with your therapist. I
Speaker 8: mean that's going to happen. The method I'd recommend for
Speaker 8: you and actually probably to talk to you about this
Speaker 8: is Dan Seagull's wheel overweareness so familiar with that one,
Speaker 8: I'm not known. It's very simple, a very easy to
Speaker 8: learn mindful awareness.
Speaker 3: Technique, but I think it's way effective because it allows
Speaker 3: you to identify your calm center even as you're having
Speaker 3: these experiences, You're going to find that sort of grounded
Speaker 3: center in the middle of it all that will help
Speaker 3: you get through it.
Speaker 7: Yeah.
Speaker 9: So I get like intense panic, really really intense.
Speaker 3: Panic, and what happens when you get into panic.
Speaker 7: I basically just disassociate.
Speaker 3: But what happens to you high to ventilate, the.
Speaker 9: Shape hyperventilate, I get nauseous, cold sweats, I can't see straight.
Speaker 7: It's a full, just full pedic attack.
Speaker 3: Okay, well, look here's what I have to tell you.
Speaker 8: I cannot, in this short conversation in the context of
Speaker 8: our podcast, really help you as much as i'd want to.
Speaker 8: I'd really have to spend time with you, being your presence,
Speaker 8: talk about some of your stuff, have you experience whatever
Speaker 8: you're going through, be there with you, and then I
Speaker 8: could tell you how it would help you. In this case,
Speaker 8: you're dealing with a tough problem. But sounds like you've
Speaker 8: got some good support. So that's the good news. You
Speaker 8: have good support professionally, and you have good support sounds
Speaker 8: like personally. I cannot solve the problem for you in
Speaker 8: the short I wish I could.
Speaker 4: No, of course not, but I want to jump in
Speaker 4: and just say a couple of things to you. First
Speaker 4: of all, the Wheel of Awareness is a great reference,
Speaker 4: and this is Dan Siegel. He's got tons of books
Speaker 4: that he's written as well.
Speaker 7: It's basically can wait, Chelsea.
Speaker 9: Dan's you're a therapist, right, yeah, yeah, yeah, so you
Speaker 9: guys are why I went into therapy.
Speaker 1: Oh great, love it, love it.
Speaker 4: So it's basically your center, and you are spokes on
Speaker 4: a wheel, and everything that's coming out of you is
Speaker 4: kind of your wheel of awareness.
Speaker 3: Right.
Speaker 4: And it's almost like if you're a plane and you're
Speaker 4: flying over yourself the center of your gravity, you're looking
Speaker 4: down like your emotions are this flying over and this
Speaker 4: is your center. So anything that's happening within you you
Speaker 4: can be an observer of instead of being in reaction
Speaker 4: to it. Right, You don't need to necessarily because when
Speaker 4: you are having these panic attacks, I suspect it's because
Speaker 4: you're trying to escape the feeling that you're having.
Speaker 1: Yeah, right, that pit in your stomach.
Speaker 7: Yeah, it's almost like anxiety about having anxiety exactly.
Speaker 4: So this is something that is going to be very
Speaker 4: helpful to you because it was very helpful to me.
Speaker 4: When you're having such a negative feeling or a feeling
Speaker 4: that is bringing you to a place that you don't
Speaker 4: want to recall, you have the power to sit with
Speaker 4: it instead of trying to push it away and saying
Speaker 4: I don't want to think about this.
Speaker 1: I don't want to think about it.
Speaker 4: You take it in and feel it holy and that
Speaker 4: is the way for it to move through your body
Speaker 4: and also your brain without sending you into a flurry
Speaker 4: and sending you into a panic attack.
Speaker 9: And it is a practice, so you get these feelings
Speaker 9: that scares me so much, the idea of sitting with it,
Speaker 9: I know.
Speaker 1: But this is what's going to set you free from
Speaker 1: panic attacks.
Speaker 8: But you know what, you can also listen to Dan
Speaker 8: guiding you through it, so you're not actually as alone
Speaker 8: as you think you are. Yes, there's the one final
Speaker 8: thing I want to say to you. There's nothing wrong
Speaker 8: with you. Okay, you don't have a mental illness. What
Speaker 8: you've got is a perfectly normal response to something. I'm
Speaker 8: normal that happened to you.
Speaker 7: That's really comforting to hear because nobody's phrase.
Speaker 3: It like that.
Speaker 8: Whatever the circumstances were. Whereas the four year old you
Speaker 8: first developed this anxiety, there's two things that can tell
Speaker 8: you you were being hurt and there was nobody there
Speaker 8: to listen to you, to hear you, and to hold you. Yeah,
Speaker 8: and our brains, you know what, Our brains have a
Speaker 8: circuit in it for panic. We actually have a panic circuit.
Speaker 8: Because if an infant is left alone and they're in
Speaker 8: danger or they're lonely, they should panic. And when they panic,
Speaker 8: what did they do? They scream for help? And when
Speaker 8: they scream for help, what should happen? The adults should
Speaker 8: come running. Yeah, in your case, nobody came running exactly. Yeah,
Speaker 8: you were being hurt and.
Speaker 3: There was nobody there to help.
Speaker 8: Your panic is a perfectly normal human response to something
Speaker 8: abnormal that never should have happened, and if it did happen,
Speaker 8: you never should have been alone with it.
Speaker 3: So we had to just really rest in the idea
Speaker 3: that there's nothing wrong with you. That it's uncomfortable, it's scary,
Speaker 3: but there's nothing.
Speaker 4: Wrong with you that is really comforting to hear and
Speaker 4: to give yourself the time I'm to deal with those
Speaker 4: difficult emotions. I know it's said, like you just said,
Speaker 4: it sounds so scary, but if you sit with yourself,
Speaker 4: it's just a feeling and it will pass as long
Speaker 4: as and as soon as you resist it, it persists.
Speaker 4: Right Like we know that as soon as you say no,
Speaker 4: I don't want to feel this way, then that's when
Speaker 4: you start to scramble. That's when you start to panic.
Speaker 4: If you allow it to sit with you and you
Speaker 4: sit there and let it work its way through your body,
Speaker 4: as scary as that may be, it most likely won't
Speaker 4: result in the way it has been resulting for you.
Speaker 9: That's what's so crazy, is like there are times where
Speaker 9: I'll like, let it sit through and I'll be like,
Speaker 9: oh wow, look at that. It passed and I was
Speaker 9: totally fine. And then there are other times where I'm like,
Speaker 9: I'm going to die from this feeling like that. That's overwhelming.
Speaker 3: Yeah. And whenever you have that thought and then and
Speaker 3: may have that pension in you, what you're actually having
Speaker 3: is a memory of childhood. Yeah, that's what's happening. Might
Speaker 3: want to remind yourself if you can. I'm having a
Speaker 3: memory right now. When I say a memory, I mean
Speaker 3: a body memory.
Speaker 7: Yeah, And just to remember like I'm an adult and.
Speaker 4: You're saying exactly, yeah, that's not happening to you anymore.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Yeah, And try not to resist it, like you know
Speaker 1: what I mean.
Speaker 4: I know it's you don't want it, but when it
Speaker 4: comes to go, okay, try a different exercise, try and
Speaker 4: bring it in and say okay.
Speaker 1: Because you've experienced it before, and it will pass.
Speaker 4: Everything passes, and the more control you gain over it,
Speaker 4: the more you minimize this happening to you.
Speaker 8: There's a huge difference, not only that you're an adult
Speaker 8: and you were a child then, but then you had
Speaker 8: no opportunity to ask for help and all you do. Yeah,
Speaker 8: so it'll never be as bad as it was then.
Speaker 5: Okay, yeah, well, thank you, Thank you so so much,
Speaker 5: seriously amazing, You're welcome, good luck to you. Thank you
Speaker 5: guys so much. Thanks me, and take care, take care,
Speaker 5: bye bye bye.
Speaker 6: I love that advice you gave when I had told
Speaker 6: Chelsea beforehand, I had done some work on somatic pain therapy,
Speaker 6: and a lot of it was what's the feeling you're feeling,
Speaker 6: focusing on it, And there is something wild about when
Speaker 6: you focus on the pain, it feels different. It diminishes,
Speaker 6: whether that's emotional pain, whether that's physical pain. But I
Speaker 6: also think for Mina, the fact that she's having this
Speaker 6: anger and this anxiety come up that she's been repressing
Speaker 6: for so long, like that's the work being done.
Speaker 7: You know.
Speaker 6: It's messy and it's sticky, and it affects those around
Speaker 6: us while we're going through it. But I think she's
Speaker 6: really well on her way to healing.
Speaker 8: Look, exactly what I say to people often is you
Speaker 8: can have two kinds of pain. You can have the
Speaker 8: pain of trying to escape into denial, into addictions, into
Speaker 8: addictions they're all about escaping pain, all of them, or
Speaker 8: into relationships, or into mindless watching television or whatever you can.
Speaker 8: You can have and then have the.
Speaker 3: Consequences of those behaviors of eating or whatever, you know,
Speaker 3: Or you can have the pain of discovering the truth.
Speaker 8: You may not have a choice of whether you're gonna
Speaker 8: have a pain or that. It's a question of which
Speaker 8: pain are you gonna do you want? Do you want
Speaker 8: the pain that's going to help you grow, or do
Speaker 8: you want the pain that's going to keep you stuck?
Speaker 8: And one of one of the toxicity, one of the
Speaker 8: poisonous aspects as I concerned of this culture. It's it's
Speaker 8: so much about escaping pain rather than dealing with the
Speaker 8: sources of it.
Speaker 4: It's funny when you talk about that mindlessly watching TV.
Speaker 4: You know a lot of people don't think about that.
Speaker 4: They think, oh, you're relaxing. You know, I've been I've
Speaker 4: done that so many times where I just it's such
Speaker 4: an escapism, I mean, and it's just like any other addiction.
Speaker 4: So yeah, mindlessly watching TV isn't always mindlessly watching TV.
Speaker 3: And when you actually look at the content of it,
Speaker 3: so much of it so bad for people, you know,
Speaker 3: like the violence they watch or the degraded relationships they're ingesting,
Speaker 3: some really toxic stuff.
Speaker 6: Yeah, and they say, you know, our brains can't tell
Speaker 6: the difference between watching something violent on TV and when
Speaker 6: it's happening to us. You know, our brains aren't that
Speaker 6: that evolved. We experience that stress from whatever we're watching
Speaker 6: on television.
Speaker 8: By the way, I'm not saying people should never watch TV,
Speaker 8: nor is it always about to escape, But if you're
Speaker 8: gonna do it, don't do it mindlessly. Right right, I'm
Speaker 8: gonna think half an hour, an hour, an hour, I'm
Speaker 8: totally veg ou so vegio consciously.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's like eating, right, you got to eat mindfully.
Speaker 6: Well, Marion says, this is really a question about dealing
Speaker 6: with trauma as it's happening. I'm forty one and I
Speaker 6: have twin girls who are four and a son who's three,
Speaker 6: practice triplets. I just found out in February that my
Speaker 6: husband has had a girlfriend, and I've begun the divorce process.
Speaker 6: He was my best friend and even though things were hard,
Speaker 6: sometimes I was still so in love with him. But
Speaker 6: cheating was my limit and he knew it. I've been
Speaker 6: reading the book you so highly recommend, Letting Go, which
Speaker 6: is when we talk about a lot on the podcast here,
Speaker 6: and I'm applying the lessons in other areas of my
Speaker 6: life that I was holding on to too tightly. And
Speaker 6: I like the lightness that brings to me. But how
Speaker 6: can I get through a custody battle and still wish
Speaker 6: him well and send him love? Or must I let
Speaker 6: this horrible battle go? I understand how to let go
Speaker 6: of things that are in the rear view mirror, but
Speaker 6: how do you let go of something when it's something
Speaker 6: you can't let go of that you're still in the
Speaker 6: middle of.
Speaker 2: Mirian.
Speaker 3: Well, a bunch of things come up for me.
Speaker 8: First of all, most people when they're being light too,
Speaker 8: they get some sense of something is not quite right.
Speaker 8: This person who I would ask you first, well, before
Speaker 8: you found out about the affair, do you have any
Speaker 8: sense that maybe things go are quite way with this guy?
Speaker 8: Is there some gut feeling that you ignored in yourself.
Speaker 8: Most of the time I asked that question, I don't
Speaker 8: know what her answer would be, but most of the
Speaker 8: time I asked that question, people say, yeah, I had
Speaker 8: the gut thing, but I ignored it. So the betrayal
Speaker 8: wasn't just a partner betraying you. It's also you betraying yourself,
Speaker 8: not that you meant to. Again, I had to do
Speaker 8: with child and conditioning, and unfortunately this scenario I've seen
Speaker 8: too often that small kids come into the family and
Speaker 8: then the big kid can't stand it because mommy and
Speaker 8: all of suddenly isn't available, so he goes in he
Speaker 8: an affair. Because men very often relate to women like
Speaker 8: surrogate mothers as well as partners. So I don't know
Speaker 8: if that's happened here. But here's the point. You probably
Speaker 8: didn't pay attention. Not your fault, it's your program, but
Speaker 8: not pay attention. So when you say you want to
Speaker 8: send them in love and so on, why the hell
Speaker 8: do you want to do that. I mean, if love
Speaker 8: comes up for you, if forgiveness till letting go genuinely
Speaker 8: come up for you, I'm.
Speaker 3: Very happy for you. You be a fear for it.
Speaker 3: But don't force yourself, don't put a trip on yourself.
Speaker 8: This guy was dishonest with you when you had small
Speaker 8: children to look after, when you most needed support, when
Speaker 8: you most needed somebody to be there for you. He
Speaker 8: decided that this is the moment that he's going to
Speaker 8: go and please his own desires. How do you feel
Speaker 8: about that? I hope there's anger for you there. That's
Speaker 8: the healthy response. I'm not saying you should get stuck
Speaker 8: in the anger, but if it's there, for God's sake,
Speaker 8: don't ignore it. And furthermore, it's going to be a
Speaker 8: custody battle, which is really tough on you, and if
Speaker 8: it curse to the courts.
Speaker 3: I tell you what's going to happen in the course.
Speaker 3: His lawyer is going to try and make you look
Speaker 3: like an incompetent mother, because that's what lawyers do. Not
Speaker 3: Maybe it'll be resolved amicably, Maybe they'll mediation. I hope so.
Speaker 8: But in so far as there's a custody battle, you
Speaker 8: really have to look at to your own integrity, your
Speaker 8: own physical and emotion integrity, look at to yourn emotions.
Speaker 8: Don't make it your job to send him love and
Speaker 8: all that kind of stuff. If you get to that
Speaker 8: point by all means, but right now, put the attention
Speaker 8: on taking care of yourself and allowing your stuff to
Speaker 8: feel whatever is there.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I would agree.
Speaker 4: I would say that that book Letting Go by David
Speaker 4: Hawkins is good for I mean, it's very hard to
Speaker 4: apply that book into a situation where you are actively
Speaker 4: in combat with somebody.
Speaker 1: I would echo everything that.
Speaker 4: A boor said, and especially sometimes you have to fight,
Speaker 4: you know what I mean, to get custody of your
Speaker 4: children or to do what's right in a situation, and
Speaker 4: while you're in it, I think the biggest gift you
Speaker 4: can give yourself is to look at your behavior, you know,
Speaker 4: from a level of consciousness, rather than being mired in
Speaker 4: your own behavior and your reactivity, and understand when it's
Speaker 4: necessary for you to react or when it's not. And
Speaker 4: so just kind of it's almost like you're watching over yourself,
Speaker 4: you know, to be very mindful of how you're using
Speaker 4: that energy and what the best use of your time
Speaker 4: within this argument and this divorce and this custody battle is.
Speaker 4: And then once it's over, then you can really work
Speaker 4: on forgiveness and sending love. And I think that is
Speaker 4: a that's something that you cannot push and like fast forward,
Speaker 4: you have to really wait until everything is resolved and
Speaker 4: you're in a position where it's in your past, because
Speaker 4: it's not yet in your past. And I think that
Speaker 4: book is really about letting go of your past, not
Speaker 4: the present necessarily of the past. So while they're great tools,
Speaker 4: don't pressure yourself into applying them in a situation like this,
Speaker 4: because you need your wits about you and.
Speaker 2: You're going to your feelings while you're going through this.
Speaker 4: Absolutely, you don't want to deny yourself what's happening to
Speaker 4: you right now or what's happening with you right now.
Speaker 4: But I wish you well in that and I'm glad
Speaker 4: that you put your foot down and kicked them out
Speaker 4: of the house and are starting divorce proceedings because you
Speaker 4: don't deserve that. Okay, well, that's our episode today. This
Speaker 4: is serious business with Yukabora. Thank you for imparting us
Speaker 4: with your wisdom.
Speaker 3: My pleasure. Thank you, thanks for having me.
Speaker 1: Yes, I'll see you in Canada. Okay, Okay, take care,
Speaker 1: thank you so much, so much.
Speaker 2: Pake sure, bye bye bye bye.
Speaker 1: Okay, guys, we have added more shows to my Little
Speaker 1: Big Bitch Tour.
Speaker 4: I added another second show in Toronto, so I have
Speaker 4: two shows in Toronto now to December seventh, December eighth,
Speaker 4: December ninth, I'm in Ottawa and two new shows at
Speaker 4: December fifteenth. On a Friday, We're doing a seven thirty
Speaker 4: and ten pm show with Kevin Hart and Friends that's
Speaker 4: in Thackerville, Oklahoma. And all my other shows that you
Speaker 4: can buy tickets at Chelseahandler dot com. I'm starting my
Speaker 4: tour backup on September twenty ninth in New York City
Speaker 4: at the Beacon, which is sold out, but the next
Speaker 4: night there are tickets available September thirtieth at the Beacon,
Speaker 4: So for all fall dates, you can go to Chelseamandler
Speaker 4: dot com for tickets.
Speaker 2: And you'll see me.
Speaker 6: If you'd like advice from Chelsea, shoot us an email
Speaker 6: at Dear Chelsea podcast at gmail dot com and be
Speaker 6: sure to include your phone number. Dear Chelsea is edited
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