Healing Evolution With Guest Host Jude Hung

[00:00:02] Hello everybody, welcome to another episode of Thriving Adoptees podcast. Today I'm delighted to be joined by Jude, Jude Hung, and Jude's going to be interviewing me today. Yay. Isn't that cool? Yeah, it's kind of flipped the script. Flipped the script, yeah.

[00:00:19] With Simon Benn today. So I already have a title for today's episode and it is Healing Evolution. Maybe it's Simon's Healing Evolution. One thing you and I have talked about over our time of knowing each other is that journey, like since you started the podcast

[00:00:45] with the focus on Thriving Adoptees and knowing the diamond that we are. You know, you first had to focus on healing, the word healing, and then it's shifted and changed as you've interviewed over 500 people. Not all adoptees but over 500 mostly adoptees.

[00:01:08] And so I want to hear about that. So what did healing originally mean to you? And then what does it mean now? How has that, what's that shift? Oh, that's a big question. Start with what did it originally mean as you started the podcast? What was it?

[00:01:30] So Thriving Adoptees. I came up with a course and it was going to be about Thrive. So trauma, informed healing, hope, obsesive, resilience, identity, getting clear on identity, B, vision through the future, and E, empowering others. So it was,

[00:01:50] you know, I've been thinking about that from both an adoptee perspective and an adopter perspective. So that's where Thrive came from. Okay, so let's say it again but a little slower. So Thrive T is trauma? Yeah, trauma, healing. Healing. Yeah, and hope. Right.

[00:02:10] R, resilience. Resilience. I, identity. Identity. Vision for the future. Vision for the future. And E, empowering others. Awesome. Okay. So that's where I, well that's where my focus for the podcast was Thrive and then for the

[00:02:33] first whatever that was two and a half years it was Thrive and then when I thought well why didn't we just go to town on the healing thing? Right. And we've done that for the last

[00:02:45] eight months and now I talk about, you know, does healing resonate with you because it doesn't resonate with others when we get into it darling? Yeah. But how does it mean for,

[00:02:56] what does it mean for me? I guess I've just become more aware of the things that help us heal, the things that help us thrive. I've become, my language hopefully has become a little bit more fluid and fluent around that. How has it helped me, the podcast,

[00:03:22] so in my own healing evolution I would say middle of last year I thought that I kept on hearing pre-verbal trauma, pre-verbal trauma, you've got to look at pre-verbal trauma and so I'm looking at pre-verbal trauma so I thought yeah okay I'll start looking at

[00:03:41] pre-verbal trauma and so I went back into doing some therapy which I hadn't done for a while and I'm working on somatics at the moment and it is bringing out a lot of

[00:04:03] grief that was hidden really. Yeah. Yeah so you said a lot of good things, thank you. So I'm going to go to healing and awareness first. So you started with this concept of thrive

[00:04:23] and it sounds like it was we thrive if we heal right so focus on the healing. Um no it was just we thrive, we thrive yeah thrive so H was hope obsessed and then it kind

[00:04:40] of became healing obsessed. I see yeah. It's quite fluid. Yeah it could be well yeah. It evolves yeah on purpose. Yeah and then as you pursued your own awareness, your own continued healing and resolving I always love that word resolving our trauma the the pre-verbal

[00:05:06] a lot of people on the show were coming and mentioning pre-verbal trauma so you look into that and you went to a therapist so and then you did somatics were you finding that therapy

[00:05:17] wasn't able to really hit on the pre-verbal? No she stopped, she retired. Ah okay. Right so I was doing I don't know some EMDR type stuff and some somatic stuff she was using different she was using different things different modalities and and the and she said that

[00:05:46] so she told me after a few sessions that she was thinking of retiring but that she wouldn't leave me in the lurch and then she left me in the lurch.

[00:05:56] As I say what did that bring up for you right here we are adoptees and we can be a little bit prone to feeling abandoned. Yeah well the they she kind of threatened almost threatened

[00:06:15] with with frozen on the video so I'll keep I'll just keep talking um so this people some people might have heard this but um so the the therapist said um as a condition for working

[00:06:30] with me you need to um you need to stop listening to any other podcasts or reading books and stuff like that so um I did right I did that and then she told me she she gave me the started to

[00:06:47] tell me the same instructions again and I just thought well you told me that the other week and I've told you that I've put everything you know put everything else on hold and I'm

[00:06:57] just there for you but I actually felt her in that moment that she was pulling away from me and um that made me scared um yeah yeah that made me scared so I told her that

[00:07:10] that that she was scaring me and to put it in simple terms um and we had a we had a bit of better relationship from that and then she told me a couple of months a couple of weeks later

[00:07:23] okay well I'm thinking of retiring but I um I won't I won't leave you in the lurch and then and then she did like I had a session booked on the 4th of January uh which is my birthday

[00:07:38] this year and on the 3rd of January she texted me said it's been nice working with you but um I'm I'm no longer able to do so and that didn't cause me any upside at all so the

[00:07:53] the threat of her you know resigning me as a counter or offboarding me whatever however you want to call it um ditching me the the thought of her doing that scared me but when

[00:08:05] actually happened when she did um don't um that didn't bother me so I thought oh well I must have learned something in the therapy so that's a good sign right

[00:08:20] it's a good sign it's a good sign so uh you and I know and and you definitely know from interviewing adoptees there are so many avenues now for us to release our trauma and work with people we do have somatics there's EMDR there's EFT there's

[00:08:43] talk therapy uh which have have you tried and which has been the most beneficial for you or has it just been different things in different seasons like what do you know

[00:08:58] I've not done a lot of any of these so I did some talk therapy 10 years ago and I had a melt down in the in the chair which is what you're supposed to do frankly um but that helped me

[00:09:12] that that kick started my um my um search you know my search for my birth mother which was it eventually a healing thing um so I did some talk then I did some EMDR last year with this

[00:09:29] woman that I thought worked at some level and I'm doing the somatic stuff and this level but I would say I've probably done less than 30 30 hours of therapy but I've done probably thousands of hours of being coached or online courses about or you know podcasts about

[00:09:48] consciousness and and yeah I've really gone to town on that the coaching group coaching peer-to-peer networking all this stuff like so and we have that in common as well and you mentioned awareness right consciousness what role has that played in your healing

[00:10:13] and what what and because of that experience what role or importance do you think that holds in our healing as individuals it's the difference makes the difference so the big course the big starting point

[00:10:34] for diving into this sort of stuff was whatever it was 15 years ago 17 years ago I can't remember um and the course was called broadband consciousness so that has been the absolute foundation for me understanding understanding ourselves as consciousness understanding ourselves

[00:11:02] as awareness understanding ourselves as the the screen on which the movie of our life plays out and where all our feelings are coming and going what are they coming and going in they're coming in going in us you know us

[00:11:28] consciousness me awareness you awareness yeah so how does that maybe you can give me a great metaphor or something how does that impact your healing your sense of well-being so the the big take the big moment that I had probably four months after reading the primal wound

[00:11:59] was realizing that who we truly are consciousness is fundamentally unwoundable right so this is the idea that what Dick Schwartz the guy who created internal family systems also known as parts work what consciousness is what Dick Schwartz calls

[00:12:28] the uppercase s self so the trauma the trauma is in the parts the parts are are the parts of are transitory the essence of who we are is continuous and and everlasting and is untouched

[00:12:50] by trauma feelings thoughts events anything so from that point forward would you say that you began I'm going to use my language now with you began a process of differentiating who who you are as that uppercase s cell your essence and knowing your intrinsic worth and

[00:13:21] value right like this unwoundable you and differentiating it out from everything else it's not you including that but the trauma narrative or what I call the trauma bound identity you know because we get so wrapped up in that being us we think it's us right until we have

[00:13:42] this moment this kind of aha light switch moment of well that's not me that's something that happened in the past and it has influenced my life in all these ways and it's it's

[00:14:00] there's a part of it in our nervous system that's still alive in my body right I get triggered and activated and there it is again and I'm seeing through a trauma lens right

[00:14:10] so was at the beginning of you differentiating between these two and what has that journey been so separating me from my feelings separating me from my thoughts that has been the trend for the last 15 17 years right separating me from the voice in my head

[00:14:39] yes and then separating me from my trauma I would say has been the last eight years and it's the it's not it's not just the separation of who we are from our trauma

[00:14:57] it's the knowledge of of what that self is like it's the qualities of that self so the uppercase s self or consciousness or awareness that is free from trauma and free from trauma

[00:15:25] equals peace yes so it's a it's a peaceful oh it's a peaceful open space it's it's space for our for our trauma to be triggered and then and then subside so it's it's it's a

[00:15:52] it's not grabbing it's an open space it is it is a space that is open for our trauma not hard not holding on to our trauma yeah so it's it's it's the it's the space that allows us

[00:16:14] to we're walking along the we're looking we're walking along whatever we're doing we're going through life we're going on a dog walk we're walking down the street we're on the sidewalk whatever you guys call it right and then and there is a there is peace right

[00:16:35] I am peaceful and then I am triggered and then I go back to peace so it's it's the reversion as the reverting to peace um more quickly than I have in the past

[00:16:54] yes it's not it's not it's not falling quite as far it's not falling down for quite as long and it's bouncing back quicker but it's not a place in which I am never triggered it's I'm

[00:17:13] it's about being less bothered about being triggered yeah it happens less often less often and I think when in my experience when I'm because I've had a similar journey when I'm activated in my nervous system and it does it's less often less long right

[00:17:42] because I'm not identifying with that any longer so it moves through my body you know and I'm because of the consciousness piece I'm more of the observer of it right I'm witnessing it happen I know what's happening I feel it in my body

[00:18:01] but it's not who I am and I can be curious about it or I can just kind of let it go you know and I also have my toolbox right of things to do um so I think that it causes

[00:18:16] that consciousness piece almost causes a little bit of like space like you were talking about that openness a buffer it's like because I'm not identifying with it and then spiraling down along it does is that so it it makes trauma less traumatic right so trauma less dramatic

[00:18:37] so I'm last Tuesday your yeah last Tuesday and with the somatic lady somatic experience lady uh Blanche Blanche she's called and she I'm sat in a chair and she's saying you know get comfy in the chair

[00:19:03] and I'm not feeling comfortable in the chair so then I sit down on a different chair a lot closer to the floor and I'm feeling supported by the floor and and then we we dive in we're

[00:19:20] diving into the session and I'm Britain this this big grief stuff is coming up for me loss so I'm I'm stitching together the the loss of my birth mother and the loss of my granddad when

[00:19:39] I was seven um the loss of a chinchilla about 10 years ago and the loss of my no no a bit more than that and the loss of my best friend 24 years ago died in a car crash

[00:19:53] right so I'm stitching all those things together and I'm being overwhelmed by the grief but instead of pushing the grief away and she's encouraging me to bring it in so by bringing it in but you

[00:20:10] know it's like keep your keep your friends what they say keep your friends close but your enemies closer yeah it's like bringing in what grief which would have been normally previously seen as the enemy right and bringing it in I've also been doing I did a grief

[00:20:36] I did a grief course with uh Pamela Karanova as well did that over the last couple of months so I've been looking at grief and not much grief has come up that it's not much has come up

[00:20:52] during that but that that and the somatics combined I think yes brought together for the the thing um brought together I don't think I would have put all those different things

[00:21:10] together so yeah I have no I have a picture right I have a picture of me lying on my bed when I'm seven sobbing and telling my teddy bear that my granddad has died right and then

[00:21:31] I'm and I've got a picture fast forward like 40 years I've got a picture of me taking the call talking to my friend's wife who tells me she is now a widow right I've got a picture of

[00:21:49] that but I've not got a picture of five week old Simon saying goodbye to birth mum mum hat I have but I've I've had a big breakdown to breakthrough moment um with her and I didn't really

[00:22:19] I didn't really think that there was much left there but I'm a little I'm a little bit confused now so I don't know I get very upset around this death of this friend this friend Matthew which was 2000 so it's 24 years ago and I think that that's an echo

[00:22:40] I think that that's an echo of grief grief from from pat but it's grief whatever it whatever it is it's still there um so it's coming up and and coming up and we're bringing

[00:22:57] it into it that's the whole and what we resist persists so what we resist persists so this is about bringing it in and that's what the sabbatical lady that's what Blanche

[00:23:08] told me to bring it in you know sit with it yeah sit with it rather than trying to fend it off right yeah yeah I I used to envision like my grief my pain the fear the things that were

[00:23:25] my my nemesis as I call them and I would I'd want to like fight them like fighting off a dragon you know with like a sword and then I learned like you invite your dragon to tea you befriend

[00:23:38] it you know because these are parts of us that need to be seen heard witnessed that that's a conscious piece and and expressed and released right like so that they're not staying stuck

[00:23:53] in our body and um the the grief one for me personally was always so big I thought oh if I let it out I'm just gonna cry forever it felt so big and and two for my infant grief

[00:24:08] I had no mental pictures you know I I've told you before like it was dark and shadowy and it was just this enormous feelings enormous terror and grief and loss and it's interesting because I I feel like it's all gone and then a little piece will come up

[00:24:28] but I have tried more tears than I can count and and so much later now and and so so yeah it's it's an interesting journey for sure um one thing that I know is in your heart

[00:24:47] to do and well let me take it a step back so how has this transition from when you began the podcast with this concept of thriving adoptees and now you have definitely had a shift in your perspective happen through all of these interviews around languaging

[00:25:10] right around story around all these things that we're hitting on what has that shift like how has that impacted you personally well I've realized that um I was far luckier with

[00:25:24] my adoptive parents than a lot of others so yeah can you explain so so yeah well you don't have you don't I didn't have a comparison before um and now I have a comparison I can see that

[00:25:45] I got I got a I got a I got lucky with with my adopted parents a lot luckier than most like yeah yeah that's a good thing to realize and um also I know through doing the podcast

[00:26:07] two things uh have really come through for you and and one is that EP's wanting to to empower others and and guide them in their journeys and lead them and the other is language uh maybe

[00:26:23] you can share a little of your history with language and why why it's so important but you and I've talked about just needing to shift the languaging in our community uh and and kind

[00:26:35] of have a cohesive language and the importance of that can you share a little around that so somebody recommended I saw first off you know leadership isn't creating followers it's creating more leaders I heard that and that I think that really works right so um I saw somebody

[00:27:08] talking about the podcast and saying that they that they like my positive approach well it's only because I know that we're not um our trauma and it and it's only because I know

[00:27:26] that what we focus on gets bigger so if we focus on the when when I focus on the positive I feel better so that's the only reason that I'm not trying to gild the lily it's about being

[00:27:43] intentionally focused on thriving you know the world has become trauma obsessed and as adoptives as adoptees we're trauma we're we're trauma um we don't need to be trauma informed people talk about trauma informed education trauma informed teaching well we're

[00:28:01] trauma experienced right but yeah let's but let's be trauma experienced um but let's be healing obsessed let's be hope obsessed let's focus on growth and transformation um and let and let's move it on you know that I think that's part of the thing about

[00:28:25] because I've had so much coaching coaching is always about the future whereas therapy is about the present or the past one thing that you and I worked on together was growth and transformation and that came through your research around healing

[00:28:46] and shifting that word right because we can become healing obsessed but we're that still keeps us tied to trauma very often right and yet we are always all humans are always growing and evolving right we're always transforming so was that like is that kind of a

[00:29:10] conscious choice of empowerment like coming into right because into growth and transformation it was trying something it was trying something different so somebody said they didn't like the word healing so okay well what what we're going to call it instead so I'm healing is

[00:29:35] the word that still resonates for many people so yes um but I'm not quite as hung up on the language but what the big realization that I had was eight years ago was that who we truly are is fundamentally unwoundable so if there's no

[00:30:01] wound there's nothing to heal right there's nothing there's nothing wrong with the essence of us and this idea that our essence is hidden and not harmed and they and the thing I came up

[00:30:17] with the the rock paper scissors metaphor you know the idea that we're the rock the scissors in the game rock beats scissors because scissors can't cut rock nobody's denying the trauma I'm just saying the trauma isn't the scissors it's the paper and the paper the the paper

[00:30:54] wins in the game but when we unfurl we and when we unfold the paper to reveal the essence of who we truly are then we see that the paper hasn't harmed our our trauma hasn't helped

[00:31:13] harm the essence of us it has only hidden it we've been we've been concealed in we've been concealed in this we've been sealed by the trauma yeah trauma-bound identity right because we our identity gets bound up with this traumatic event and the

[00:31:35] narratives and the beliefs that become the way we're choosing to move in the world and see ourselves as a result uh you know and honestly if I'm sitting here listening to you you know

[00:31:48] it's like we that little aha and and I've had this before I know this is true but as we cling to that narrative we cause our own prolonged suffering and I do believe that we can grow

[00:32:07] and heal and resolve our trauma with more ease and grace so we're not but we're not choosing I we're when we say we're causing our own trauma that's that's not causing our trauma we're causing our own we're we're prolonging we're prolonging the prolonging well it's not

[00:32:34] not doing that on purpose not on purpose heck no hell no the conditioning the conditioning it's yeah it's become a habit yeah it's our default programming really right because especially in the case of adoption we are children infants uh when this is happening so

[00:32:55] the state of our brain is working in like a hypnotic state and anything between like zero and seven becomes our default unconscious programming and so this is very unconscious this is not

[00:33:10] as you say and so if that consciousness piece is so key right because we're taking what is unconscious making it conscious then we can step into our power we can be empowered and

[00:33:24] change our choices change our patterns and we can choose a path that is filled with more ease and grace and peace like you said you know we can begin to identify more and more with who

[00:33:38] we really are the uppercase self and and make better choices and have less suffering in our lives consciousness identifying as consciousness identifying and today identifying as uppercase s self and if you're interested in this reader then read the book right no bad parts by

[00:34:06] um dick schwarz um we are identifying that way gives us more choices it means we're choosing more of the time not all of the time but more and it's a practice right it's a practice it's been

[00:34:31] a practice for you it's been a practice for me and yeah so that brought back consciousness course that i did and i'll put the links in the show notes right um yeah um the the the there's a

[00:34:46] book on amazon by my by the lady who ran that course with her now husband broadband consciousness course and it's called it's not your fault because you're not choosing right yeah so

[00:35:02] it takes the sting out of it it allows us it allows us to give ourselves more grace so let me put it in you know in really simple terms we use this word this this word is used in a lot

[00:35:19] this phrase is used a lot in society i'm getting in my own way and what's getting in your way well i am no no you're not getting in your own way

[00:35:35] and it's all it's one of these words that's used all the time but it's not true it's just not true it's not you that's get you can't get in your own way have you tried to have

[00:35:45] you tried to do that physically right you're walking down you're walking down the pavement as we would call it the sidewalk as you would call it can you get in your own way right so you

[00:35:59] jump 180 degrees then you jump you can't get in your own ways it's just impossible what is getting in the way is a thought or a belief and you're not your thoughts and you're not

[00:36:13] your beliefs so it's not you getting in your own way it's not us getting in another way it's a thought or it's a belief that is stopping us doing something it's something from our conditioning right yeah something from our programming it's a it's a bit of programming

[00:36:31] it's a bit of conditioning it's a thought it's a belief it's one of those things it's not you it's not us getting in our own ways right we have that judge you know that's like

[00:36:42] you're doing this you're doing that that that critic and and when we begin to really hook into this belief that we're talking about that begins to fall away as well because we know that it's

[00:36:58] this you know unconscious beliefs and programming and the the beauty of i would say life and the human body is that what is unconscious when we are ready and able to see it so that it can be

[00:37:19] resolved comes to the surface for us to see it and so there's this always kind of that's why i like growth and transformation there's always a continual unfolding of the unconscious coming

[00:37:32] up to be seen right these old stories to be heard you know for me coming out of the fog is one of these unconscious becoming conscious moments that many of us can relate to and

[00:37:45] that moment didn't come until i was ready to handle all of the grief the pain that story so that i could voice it and tell my story and talk to my family and you know about all of these

[00:38:02] dynamics before then i couldn't have handled it if i could have handled it would come up for me to see and you know and so we can go more gently with ourselves and but it's that conscious

[00:38:16] piece that really shifts how we move in the world and how we relate to ourselves and relate to our time yeah yeah so the big one of the big things last year was because i've been talking

[00:38:32] about this fundamentally and woundable stuff and people think i'm nuts right so i will say healing when i when i think of healing i think of two perspectives so psychologically we'll be healing forever but fundamentally we were never wounded so i'm separating

[00:38:52] the stone from the paper in rock paper scissors i'm separating who we are from the trauma that we feel the trauma that's embodied people talk about being embodied and i'm opening the gap

[00:39:14] between who we are and how we feel yeah and i think the languaging piece is really important like if people can really begin to feel into fundamentally unwoundable right their intrinsic

[00:39:34] worth and essence those are the words i was using when you and i first met and i love fundamentally unwoundable it's so strong and clear and you know one of the things that you've worked on and i've worked on is that languaging piece because we know that it

[00:39:55] provides a construct a roadmap it begins to build that a little bit of structure that people can follow i go oh i you know feel into the meaning of it in their own body

[00:40:10] right what does it mean if i'm fundamentally unwoundable and i i really like growth and transformation because healing forever a wound shouldn't be healing forever a wound right like it doesn't do that but growing and transforming that evolving that seems this

[00:40:30] ongoing process right yeah so the the transformation is beyond form right so we're we're saying that we're not our body right we are temporarily this body right well yeah but essentially we are essentially fundamentally you know like that this oh yeah fundamentally

[00:40:56] we're not this body yes i i understand what you're saying sorry yeah yeah but it's one of those things so beyond form and this you know i haven't used it a lot recently but you know

[00:41:05] this idea that we're uh we're not human beings having a spiritual experience with spiritual beings having a human experience right so the spiritual being is the uppercase our self yes the unwoundable bit and the trauma is in the human experiencing so it's depending where

[00:41:24] where we put an identifier right and i was thinking about this last night um it's like so for me it happened in one big bump right fundamentally unwoundable but if that came to me but it might that might not be the way it comes to every people so

[00:41:45] i think there's um i came up with this phrase seeing seeing our own wholeness right seeing our own wholeness and that might start with um somebody us hearing somebody say that we are whole

[00:42:09] right and then we get curious we get curious and we suspect that we may be whole and then we do a bit more digging we listen to dick schwartz or somebody else like that

[00:42:26] we listen to somebody talking about consciousness or listen to the podcast from thriving up to and we and we see we see that we are whole and then after that we might feel whole and then after that we know we're whole so yeah it that that that journey

[00:42:55] me that growth and transformation is about our wholeness but it might happen in fits and starts there might be points along the way yeah and with the whole right that we're whole and that means all of us that means you know the bringing in bringing in the grief

[00:43:24] like i was doing with blotch last year right i'm whole i am bringing i'm bringing the whole of my emotions i'm integrating everything rather than trying to push it away and back to pamela caranova right she her interview with their thriving doctor's podcast

[00:43:45] she talked about 26 years of a 26-year-old relationship with alcohol which was all about numbing so numbing is pushing trauma away pushing it away and when we do that because it feels it feels like we're going to drown in our tears right yeah i i think for

[00:44:16] adoptees specifically because of when our trauma happened and we invoked the you know survival mechanisms of fight flight freeze and fawn it is so overwhelming to our infant self and body right that that that's why that we need there's so much addiction and and numbing because it's

[00:44:42] if that as an adult it would be heartbreaking and difficult enough for that loss but as a that stage of our growth and development it just fries our systems right like so so i

[00:44:55] think that's why but we don't know how we have we have no idea how i think you know i was thinking thinking a lot about this last couple of weeks right we could because we have no

[00:45:10] conscious memory of it we could our creativity could make that a lot worse than it was we know we're never going to be able to say well i and i i underestimated i overestimated my

[00:45:29] trauma or i underestimated my trauma we're never going to get i don't think we're ever going to get a real a real take on how bad it was for us but for me i have because of the shamanic

[00:45:45] work that i've done and during bft with when or wyler shout out right and that is emotional freedom technique and she was through that able to bring me to the pre-verbal memories and actually even through a hypnosis pre-verbal memories and that i felt terror and i felt like

[00:46:07] i was going to die like so i do have like a reference point to what i felt in my body but i have no visual memory only feeling only emotion like and it's very raw and it's very

[00:46:23] primal and archaic like it's very basic and it took me many sessions to even be able to put words to what i was feeling okay so i've so that's for me that's my experience yeah but

[00:46:37] we don't know we don't know so yeah so let me as you say that now i can see the meltdown in the therapist's chair as the same thing yeah i i froze i froze with terror and then i burnt alive with anger

[00:47:06] so yeah so it was yeah in the therapist chair like 10 years or so ago my body just chilled over that yeah we were we were talking about um so aha moment right you had this aha of fundamentally unwoundable because i'd been studying consciousness like yes like right and

[00:47:31] two hours a day an hour walking you go listening to a podcast listening to stuff about consciousness half an hour in the car every day right for the last yeah 13 years so

[00:47:43] like yeah and and i was gonna say but it still takes time right to because we have to build a relationship with that part of ourselves we have to build building relationship means building connections and the trauma often it buffers our connections right so it takes time

[00:48:00] to know the qualities like you said of our uppercase self and getting to know it and then getting to know it's like oh that piece of me is whole and i love the word fullness

[00:48:12] i use that a lot and you know uh for me personally i feel like my adoptee wound is healed and that i am whole that does not mean that i don't have activations and triggers in my body but the the narrative around that is is done for me

[00:48:32] and um it's about being okay with not feeling okay it's the different there's an acceptance of it all my relationship with it is good i'm whole it's it's like um feeling not okay is like feeling not okay doesn't make me not okay it's the difference between my okayness

[00:48:57] it is separated from my feelings it's like yeah i'm more interested in who i am than how i feel i'm less how i feel i'm not triggered about being triggered i'm not as worried about being worried i'm not as angry about being angry it's like it's more yeah

[00:49:17] more peace it's a full acceptance right of this lived experience as an adoptee for me like i don't feel there's anything left to resolve around it i'm i'm good and i don't think i'm

[00:49:29] fully accepting my feelings i think i'm just not less i'm less bothered about my feelings than i used to be but i don't think i must i don't have any bad feelings and and so that journey is a sensory journey and we're building these connections and so

[00:49:50] what we're working on is a felt sense of safety felt sense of belonging and a felt sense of fullness loving ourselves like and really feeling it in our body that like you talked about the integration part embodying the truth uh chloryssa estes pinnacle estes she wrote women

[00:50:14] who runs with the wolves and there's a story in there that she tells about this woman who goes and finds the bones and she she gathers the bones and she lays them out

[00:50:27] and places them in the right structure and then she sings over the bones she's pulling her soul and singing over the bones a lot of think of like nurture and and care and she sings them

[00:50:43] back to life and you know it's a woman that runs and she runs with this walk and and that's really the journey that we're on and that's what i collected all my bones and my parts

[00:50:57] so that i could feel whole and i and i poured my soul into it and and uh what's interesting is i knew this story and as i was coming into this felt sense of fullness which was really

[00:51:12] just this spring as you know i i broke my wrist and then once it was all mended right like because the the bone has to mend and weave back together that story came to mind and it

[00:51:26] was like that's what you were doing all these years is you know bringing your pieces back and singing over them and being able to tell this story and bring yourself back to wholeness

[00:51:37] and and love and that's what we're doing and very consciously and i think the conscious piece has made all the difference for me as well because i think before it was kind of like this

[00:51:50] willy-nilly i'm like up in the branches and i'm looking on oh i got to heal this over here and heal this over there and once i got to the roof i could consciously um there's a quote

[00:52:02] about like kissing yourself up like from the roof you know and it's i i kissed all my wounds you know and i loved them all and and uh called it all home and felt i can feel whole now

[00:52:16] you know and i can move on to other things and that's you know the big one of the big learns from last year is that it this is about consciousness um far more about consciousness

[00:52:34] than it is than it is about psychology for me yes absolutely i agree it's about who we are not how we think or how how or how we feel it's it's about who we are the essence is that

[00:52:52] the chi or whatever it is we're getting to know that part of ourselves and that creates such a huge shift in how we interact with reality and view the world and view our wounds

[00:53:09] and so many of us have focused on the psychology and it's not done anything for us we've gone we've looked at we've done the talk therapy and talk therapy can't heal pre-verbal trauma because we don't have words it's yeah it supports us right it's supportive

[00:53:31] but it's a it's a really long road around yeah yeah because i did therapy too i've done all the things i mean if if i'm not you know i would have gone straight i would have gone

[00:53:46] to somatic earlier i think not don't think i know if i'm if i'm but there's not so many smart people around right so i have to drive an hour and a half it's still pretty new when i took

[00:53:58] massage in when i went to school right because i did it for 11 years when i took massage in 2010 somatics was just becoming a thing like they mentioned it in school and they're

[00:54:11] like this is somatic work and you know they and they talked about it and and we spent some time learning a little but it was really kind of almost cutting edge at that point

[00:54:22] and this is 15 years later right so um and it's we're still learning then that's all vander kolt book didn't come out until till 2014 the body keeps the score did not come out so

[00:54:34] it's been out 10 years right yeah yeah i read that when it came out and didn't know i had trauma it's hilarious but um yeah so so all of it was really cutting edge right and and

[00:54:46] it's still it's still in its infancy our understanding because there's a lot of energetic understanding also that around all of this that that we're just starting to hit on and understand so yeah um so where's all this leading you to simon your this this journey that you've been

[00:55:16] on through the podcast because now you're you're teaching well it's to more teaching it's to more sharing and and more thriving hopefully yeah this this all went well well that the way that you hope is your i believe your goal is is impact right like really

[00:55:44] creating an impact of or a ripple of healing and growth and transformation in the adoptee community and constellation in the constellation yeah so adoptees and adopted parents um some podcasters adoption podcasters adoptee podcasters don't want to do stuff with adopted parents

[00:56:06] i'm like why the hell not i agree i think um if we're if our aim is healthy whole that would mean the the relationship dynamics as well and i i don't think

[00:56:26] that unless i think it would need to include all the parts of that triad you know yeah and the adoptee adoption professionals right so i've talked to adoption yes and they don't know what

[00:56:40] coming out coming out to the fog means wow yeah and yeah you know it's something we use all the time and i i think that too because uh with the adopted professionals is wise

[00:56:52] because it's it's kind of like backdoor advocacy right so if we want to create change we have to have these healthy lines of communication and understanding and be able to sit at a table

[00:57:04] together so yeah that's beautiful yeah thank you for all of your work and for inviting me here to chat with you today i appreciate it thank you thank you for answering the call

[00:57:19] yeah thank you listeners we'll speak to you very soon watch out for stuff me and juda are up for a lot of stuff so watch out uh get on event right and see what we do speak to you very soon