Wounds Are Gifts With Donna Joseph

[00:00:00] Hello everybody, welcome to another episode of the Thriving Adoptees podcast. We've got

[00:00:08] a lovely lady on this afternoon, repeat guest and all-around superstar Donna. How are you

[00:00:15] Donna?

[00:00:16] I'm good, I'm good yeah, I'm really good right now.

[00:00:21] So who better to talk about healing with than the healing adoptee, because that's

[00:00:27] your Facebook name.

[00:00:29] Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[00:00:32] So why did you come up with that moniker? Why did you come up with that? How did you

[00:00:39] come up with that name?

[00:00:44] Now I can answer that in a way that may have been differently answered before. But

[00:00:51] I think the truth is, is that I've been healing all my life. I've been aiming to

[00:00:58] get somewhere all my life. I mean, I just, I just, when I, when I now look back, I

[00:01:05] realise I haven't, as painful as it's been, I haven't stopped actually trying to get

[00:01:13] somewhere. And bearing in mind, I was in this, you know, what's known as the

[00:01:18] Adoption Fog for decades. So, you know, and lots of other things happened as well

[00:01:24] as being adopted as well. So I've been, I've been searching for wholeness. And I

[00:01:31] think healing the word resonates. It's not healed. It's someone came on, what's

[00:01:41] his name? Oh, forgive me for forgetting his name, because it was a great

[00:01:44] interview. He said it's a process. He says he sees it as a process. And as I

[00:01:51] was listening, I was like, yes, it is. It's ongoing. It's, you know, but it

[00:01:58] doesn't mean that you're stuck in a healing as an adoptee. I am aka healing

[00:02:03] adoptee, but I'm healing Donna. You know, the healing adoptee is very much

[00:02:11] within the adoptee community. You know, and it felt right at the time. I look

[00:02:19] at it now sometimes and I wonder, you know, but it is, it's this is and I

[00:02:26] remind myself that there'll be people adoptees, especially reading or watching

[00:02:33] some of my content. It will be the right time for them. You know, it will

[00:02:38] be even though I want to change everything now because I feel

[00:02:41] different now. It's like I'm also learning to just remember that this is

[00:02:47] a journey and a process for everyone. So it doesn't, it's healing. You know,

[00:02:55] it's and it's yeah, so I don't know if that helps.

[00:03:00] So we never get there?

[00:03:04] I think we you know what I'm learning, I'm feeling and thinking is

[00:03:10] it's ongoing, but not in a stuck way. Not in a forever healing. I'm feeling

[00:03:20] really quite differently in 2024. I feel that I'm feeling a quite a special

[00:03:29] connection since I've been doing some work, real work and really feeling

[00:03:36] and it's since I've this all fast tracking a little bit. And I know I've

[00:03:39] shared some of this with you over the six months, this journey. As that's

[00:03:45] occurring, I'm realizing it's, it's healing, but it's healing through

[00:03:55] and finding the light, you know, and I think that healing is, I don't

[00:04:04] know, I'm not there yet, Simon. So I don't want to, you know, kind of

[00:04:10] create what may or may not happen. But it seems to be forever a journey of

[00:04:16] exploration of ourselves, which is never ending, you know, and actually,

[00:04:23] I don't know if you've heard of the headless guy who gets you looking,

[00:04:28] thinking about, you know, really looking into ourselves and it's ongoing.

[00:04:34] It doesn't stop. If you really were to look into us on a cellular level,

[00:04:40] you know, we just don't, we just go on and I think that's, that's

[00:04:45] probably the closest to what I'm feeling when I say healing and that's

[00:04:50] a healing through because we're so conditioned, aren't we? Not only the

[00:04:57] adoption narrative, but I think I'm realizing it's not just the adoption.

[00:05:01] It's everything. We've been separated from ourselves in many ways. And I

[00:05:12] think the journey of healing is bringing that ourselves back together.

[00:05:17] And it's forever. But you know, some people will go much further than

[00:05:22] others. I think adoptees, if we can see it and have that perspective, it's

[00:05:29] it gives us this being adopted has actually given us a perhaps we could

[00:05:33] look at it as an opportunity to go even further on this healing because

[00:05:41] if we can get through this, we're going to be a lot further than a lot

[00:05:45] of people that are just, you know, in a way from some of the complex trauma

[00:05:54] and life that we've, we've been accustomed to, whether we like it or

[00:05:58] not, kind of thing. Does that make sense? Simon? I think I've gone off

[00:06:02] on one but yeah, yeah.

[00:06:04] Yeah, I do expect you. I do expect you to go off on one night.

[00:06:10] Yeah, I do.

[00:06:12] That's why you're here. That's why you're here. So the headless guy,

[00:06:20] the headless guy, there's a link to him. I've forgotten his name too.

[00:06:26] But he's a great guy. And it's an experiential way of exploring who we

[00:06:36] actually are. And I think he says things like, well, we are space.

[00:06:46] We are space for the world. So in that sense, we're the whole, you

[00:06:55] know, we're bigger than the universe. If the universe is within us,

[00:06:59] you know, we're whole. Right? So the headless, that's what he would

[00:07:09] that's what he would say. So he would say that we're whole.

[00:07:13] Right? Richard, Richard, Richard, Richard Lang.

[00:07:16] Richard Lang. Yeah. Richard Lang. So I'll put a link into his

[00:07:23] into his podcast and videos and stuff. And it is very visual, the

[00:07:28] headless way. So I'm not going to try and explain it on an audio

[00:07:34] podcast. He does a pretty good job, though. Actually explained

[00:07:39] he changed a lot of things for me. I'm not really quite ready to go

[00:07:44] into the story of this just yet because I'm still navigating it.

[00:07:47] But in so far as my sort of closest relationship outside of myself,

[00:07:55] which is my marriage and recognizing without going into it,

[00:08:02] because you write it's a visual thing, but feeling into recognizing

[00:08:09] my own responsibility in witnessing and feeling my own trauma,

[00:08:17] my own energy. I want to move away from the trauma word and

[00:08:21] perhaps say my own story and the energy that goes with that.

[00:08:25] Each and every day that I'm looking into my partner's eyes.

[00:08:32] And I'm not being negative. I don't be wise enough to know that

[00:08:36] a 30 year marriage is not something to just suddenly start,

[00:08:40] you know, dismissing. But it was extremely what's the word,

[00:08:50] powerful for me to start looking at life that way and seeing myself.

[00:08:55] I mean, it's very much aligned with what you're saying, Simon,

[00:08:57] with the diamond. Like we are whole. We are. And what.

[00:09:04] But the reflection between each other,

[00:09:09] like how much I mean, especially as an adoptee,

[00:09:12] it's like how much we pick up off others to make up who we are ourselves.

[00:09:20] How much we pick up from day one.

[00:09:23] I mean, being a transracial adoptee, being black in a white family.

[00:09:28] I'm picking up absolutely everything.

[00:09:30] My mother's gone and I'm feeding off everybody around me to make up who I am.

[00:09:36] Realizing that made so much sense.

[00:09:41] And then the second thing which I've just touched on was realizing that

[00:09:47] some of the pain that I felt was

[00:09:54] my own pain through someone else's eyes.

[00:09:58] And that was massive.

[00:10:00] Because I was it was almost like recognizing,

[00:10:07] bringing your own trauma back in

[00:10:11] to your life now.

[00:10:15] And what I've realized over the last few weeks is how

[00:10:19] within a relationship,

[00:10:21] a story of its own trauma, if you call it,

[00:10:25] mutates of its own and becomes its own protection.

[00:10:31] And the headless guy

[00:10:35] was like a massive in exposing this for me.

[00:10:40] And maybe it was timing for me because of the journey that I've been on

[00:10:44] with the nervous system and various fascia release and all these other things.

[00:10:47] Maybe if the headless guy had come to me a year ago, I'd have just gone

[00:10:52] you know, not really took it as I did.

[00:10:56] But this year, wow.

[00:10:59] But not only has it changed my perspective, it's actually woken me up

[00:11:03] to being more conscious.

[00:11:07] Of. What I really feel about myself

[00:11:15] when looking into other people's eyes.

[00:11:19] Because. It's massive how much we

[00:11:23] feed off each other.

[00:11:26] And what I love is how he also gets you very cleverly

[00:11:30] to understand that behind those eyes, we are everything.

[00:11:36] Like we are everything.

[00:11:38] And the way he somehow gets that across and got it to me.

[00:11:44] Was phenomenal.

[00:11:46] And it was.

[00:11:48] I'm glad you're going to put a link in because I'm sure

[00:11:51] it will resonate with some of the listeners here, that sort of realization,

[00:11:54] just how lost we are, all of us, not just adoptees, but just.

[00:12:00] Until we look in the mirror.

[00:12:03] And make our own mind up.

[00:12:06] And are able to do that, unless our parents have done it, which they don't.

[00:12:11] We are totally ourselves based on what everybody else has.

[00:12:16] Said or.

[00:12:19] Done.

[00:12:20] You know. So that's massive for a trans racial adoptee

[00:12:25] that's only realizing they're black in a white family and their moms.

[00:12:31] And I suddenly, you know, how much of the how much of we ourselves

[00:12:35] do we make up from that?

[00:12:38] And I'm yet now on a journey of wholeness trying to come through

[00:12:42] and find who I am.

[00:12:44] And I think uncovering the headless.

[00:12:48] Side of things really helps me understand where.

[00:12:52] And how it kind of got corrupted

[00:12:56] in the very beginning for all of us, all of us.

[00:13:00] Auntie Moe, isn't she lovely? Isn't she lovely?

[00:13:03] Am I lovely? Am I lovely? Am I lovely?

[00:13:05] I don't know. I feel lovely. Everyone's telling me I'm lovely.

[00:13:08] I know, you know, you know, and then what our little tiny

[00:13:11] developed brains are having to feed off all this.

[00:13:14] And yet I'm also aware in the last few years how much we adoptees,

[00:13:19] especially our feeling in all of that

[00:13:24] at the same time, like we're just feeling so much hurt already

[00:13:29] and damage without realizing what that is.

[00:13:32] So how much of all of that makes up who we think we are,

[00:13:38] not who we are, who we think we are

[00:13:42] and how much of who we think we are.

[00:13:44] Do we be throughout our lives completely missing

[00:13:51] who we really are, which like Simon, I'm with you on the diamond

[00:13:55] like metaphor, you know, behind these eyes we are.

[00:14:00] It's well, it never ends.

[00:14:04] So. I find this, I find myself saying this quite a lot at the moment,

[00:14:09] but have you seen anything?

[00:14:11] Have you seen this Dick Schwartz stuff, internal family systems?

[00:14:14] Have you come across that?

[00:14:16] Yeah, I have, but not as not not enough for me to just resonate.

[00:14:22] OK, with that with it. Yeah, so

[00:14:27] I think I've just asked the question.

[00:14:29] So Richard Schwartz talk about that.

[00:14:31] It talks about the uppercase S self, the true self.

[00:14:36] Yeah. OK.

[00:14:38] What other people would call my other people might call consciousness

[00:14:43] or what other people might call the non physical self?

[00:14:47] What other people might people call spirit?

[00:14:53] And my metaphor for that is the diamond.

[00:14:57] Yeah, that's what we truly are.

[00:15:06] And identity is pretty simple when you see that.

[00:15:11] Yeah, I think our mind,

[00:15:14] I'm so glad that I went on a retreat in 2001

[00:15:19] and discovered that my mind.

[00:15:23] Could be calmed down because I think what gets in the way massively

[00:15:29] again, probably relates to all this feedback

[00:15:32] that we've been building ourselves on as an adoptee.

[00:15:35] So lost inside as well.

[00:15:38] This this feeling, this this mind can get in the way of self.

[00:15:45] The mind and the mind hides, the mind hides,

[00:15:49] hides, hides the ego.

[00:15:52] I think the ego has to have something.

[00:15:55] And I think these parts that have been created,

[00:15:57] I've learnt a lot about resonated a lot with my own parts in the last six months.

[00:16:02] And, you know, they've all got egos in them, these parts.

[00:16:04] They were wanting to get somewhere with this to keep it moving.

[00:16:09] And I think that's that's how it hides the self.

[00:16:13] But but what if there's nowhere to get?

[00:16:15] What if it's a seeing job, isn't it?

[00:16:19] It's seeing what I mean, it's a seeing job.

[00:16:22] It's not a doing job. It's not a going job.

[00:16:23] We don't have to go anywhere.

[00:16:25] We just have to see, see the diamond that's hidden by our trauma,

[00:16:30] see the diamond that's hidden by our mind.

[00:16:33] I think this is the this is the journey.

[00:16:37] That. I would love.

[00:16:41] To be able to find a way to to, you know,

[00:16:46] get that shift, you know, that sort of that.

[00:16:49] It's like I think I said to Sage, you know, we all know Sage.

[00:16:52] It's like a it's like a.

[00:16:55] It's like a hook, right?

[00:16:56] And then they've got it. They're on the way to that.

[00:16:59] But it's a journey because in our head, it's not just our mind.

[00:17:03] It's like all those beliefs, limited beliefs on self

[00:17:07] about ourselves that are so unconscious

[00:17:10] that we don't even know that it's happening.

[00:17:14] We can understand parts and know that there's a protector there.

[00:17:18] But it is so deep, this unconscious

[00:17:23] devalue of self that has occurred, that has so

[00:17:29] hidden that the mind and the ego will and is so good.

[00:17:37] I mean, it took me having five puncture wounds in my leg

[00:17:41] by a dog, I believe now for me to recognise

[00:17:46] how just so far away I was from this,

[00:17:52] even though I've had conversations with you, Simon,

[00:17:55] and I'm on the adopted groups and I've done this and that

[00:17:59] to be faced with how little.

[00:18:03] Seriously. Little

[00:18:07] I valued myself was hidden so deep within me.

[00:18:13] I've been able to mask with my ego and with my mind,

[00:18:20] healing others, putting others like the wounded healer is huge.

[00:18:25] And I respect as well.

[00:18:28] But wow, like that is why I think it's not as easy

[00:18:34] or as straightforward as that is for adoptees or complex.

[00:18:42] You know, child development or trauma from way back is

[00:18:50] because that's why the fog, I think, is quite a good term in my view, really,

[00:18:54] because there is a protection in there,

[00:18:58] really, from the heart when you really do start to explore

[00:19:04] the complexities of, you know,

[00:19:07] realising just how little I.

[00:19:11] Thought of myself.

[00:19:14] Was was was was I thought I'd been through it all with the fog,

[00:19:17] I mean, I quit everything for two years and was down on my knees, but that.

[00:19:23] Last year, last part of last year was.

[00:19:29] I didn't know.

[00:19:31] I did not know, and you can look back at all my journals.

[00:19:35] You can see myself trying to come out, trying to find the answers.

[00:19:41] But unless we realise how little we think of ourselves truthfully,

[00:19:47] honestly, with ourselves, we will not find our diamond.

[00:19:54] That's what I'm starting to believe.

[00:19:56] Oh, God, the connection comes into it for me as well, like massively

[00:20:02] helping me.

[00:20:04] You know, sort of sent to this now for me,

[00:20:08] you know, looking up in the sky, recognising Christ and not overly religious

[00:20:13] at all because I've got my views on that.

[00:20:15] But feeling a connection within.

[00:20:19] Is now really.

[00:20:22] And God guiding me, I think, but I have connection to what

[00:20:28] a connection to myself, to the self that we're talking about.

[00:20:32] But it's almost as if I had to face the value piece, Simon.

[00:20:37] The value piece is massive self worth.

[00:20:44] You can't you can be preaching to a brick wall about the diamond.

[00:20:51] If even if someone's a healer and they're healing others,

[00:20:55] if they're a mask that they've had on since they were whatever decades.

[00:21:02] And they truly underneath that do not value themselves.

[00:21:07] They I don't believe they will get your message or mine.

[00:21:12] Well, they will.

[00:21:13] And they will.

[00:21:14] Like I do. And I did.

[00:21:17] But a lot is now really coming to me

[00:21:21] since I I think.

[00:21:28] Yeah, I'm facing that truth

[00:21:32] about self, you know, it

[00:21:37] just I won't go into it because it's a whole thing on its own.

[00:21:39] But I was I could have been killed and I wasn't thinking about myself.

[00:21:43] I was thinking purely about the dogs, because in the UK,

[00:21:46] those dogs would have been destroyed instantly with what they did.

[00:21:52] And I was faced with having to be told by someone else

[00:21:57] that I was more important than than the dogs.

[00:22:02] And I wasn't thinking about myself at all.

[00:22:07] Yeah, so it's a it's a it's a you know, it's a big claim.

[00:22:10] It's still going ahead now.

[00:22:12] And I, you know, and now I can recognize in the journey

[00:22:15] I've had to go through to value myself through this whole case

[00:22:20] has been like a huge lesson from God source somewhere south.

[00:22:28] Because when I talk of God,

[00:22:29] I really do consider all of us as a collective.

[00:22:33] You know, it's within its.

[00:22:37] Yeah, yeah.

[00:22:40] Value value self-worth and value, I think is huge to get into where

[00:22:46] where.

[00:22:48] Yeah, where you and I are right now, I feel.

[00:22:54] Well, we can't put a value on something that we don't know.

[00:22:59] We have to we have to identify ourselves before we can put a value on ourselves.

[00:23:03] Surely? Yeah.

[00:23:04] Well, I realize that I when it comes to to sort of like.

[00:23:10] I was forced into a sort of situation

[00:23:11] where I had to think about money and also recognize

[00:23:14] that I really have haven't really got any money as such like.

[00:23:20] Masses of it in the bank, but I have a lot.

[00:23:28] And I've given a lot.

[00:23:30] And I've done a lot.

[00:23:32] In fact, when I was writing out everything I've done,

[00:23:36] I've done a ridiculous amount

[00:23:39] and I realize that it's millions, actually.

[00:23:43] But it's not in the currency of money per se because of my who I am.

[00:23:49] It's in the currency of love.

[00:23:51] So over this period of time, I've had to almost put the question out to you.

[00:23:55] Like, what am I?

[00:23:56] What am I worth to sort of feed off what you know, what am I?

[00:24:00] And it's been quite a staggering thing to recognize all of what you've done

[00:24:05] and this journey that you've been on,

[00:24:08] like putting absolutely everyone else before yourself.

[00:24:12] Likely because I've actually underneath thought very little of myself worthy.

[00:24:20] But I've done so much training, so much learning.

[00:24:24] It's incredible the amount of stuff I've done.

[00:24:28] And yet just took a little piece of myself for myself,

[00:24:32] but then dished the rest out to everybody else.

[00:24:36] So where's the connection?

[00:24:38] Where's the connection between our before I start a photo?

[00:24:44] So the diamond metaphor has its its limitations, right?

[00:24:48] Like any other metaphor and diamond.

[00:24:52] Diamonds value is set by a number of characteristics set by the marketplace.

[00:24:57] So it's set by somebody else.

[00:25:00] So a group of other people.

[00:25:03] Diamond traders, whatever they set.

[00:25:05] Right.

[00:25:06] Well, so our value and it is finite.

[00:25:11] A diamond has a finite value.

[00:25:15] That's that's where the metaphor goes wrong.

[00:25:17] That's where that's the limits to the metaphor.

[00:25:21] Because our worth is infinite.

[00:25:25] Nobody can put a.

[00:25:27] Nobody can put a value on it.

[00:25:31] So how how does our worth?

[00:25:36] Well, first off, do you do you think I'm on the right?

[00:25:39] Do you agree with that?

[00:25:40] Yeah. Well, what I'm yeah.

[00:25:41] What I'm thinking is the question you were asking earlier about healing

[00:25:45] and the ongoing what I was, you know, when I was answering the journey,

[00:25:49] it's like ongoing and like the headless like it's just it's just ongoing.

[00:25:55] I think that's the worthiness is like, you're right.

[00:25:59] It will never cease.

[00:26:01] It will keep going.

[00:26:03] But only if you get it started.

[00:26:07] You know, and I feel that's the piece that that.

[00:26:13] Is is is for me anyway, was was massively missing, actually,

[00:26:19] and in my relationship as well, relationship.

[00:26:25] As well, you know, and the more it's kind of come about,

[00:26:28] the more I'm realizing how, yeah, of course.

[00:26:33] And it's beautiful because I actually do feel like

[00:26:38] I know it's going to get easier now.

[00:26:41] So when I look at the things that have happened recently

[00:26:44] and also not just recently, but actually over the whole of my life,

[00:26:48] it's been very dramatic.

[00:26:50] And traumatic, dramatic events,

[00:26:54] almost like trying to get me to to maybe see this actually.

[00:27:01] You know, it's taken me nearly losing my leg

[00:27:03] and thinking I was going to die in a flood in the last six months

[00:27:06] to realize shit, I need to wake up

[00:27:12] to to myself and this ongoing worthiness,

[00:27:17] this ongoing what you're what I think you're getting at.

[00:27:21] Well, I'm talking about your infinite value.

[00:27:24] OK, yeah.

[00:27:25] So I'm infinite.

[00:27:28] Infinite means you could take infinite in terms of

[00:27:34] that, you know,

[00:27:37] ten thousand pounds, hundred thousand pounds, twenty thousand,

[00:27:40] you know, infinite in terms of in terms of the price of it,

[00:27:45] the worth of it.

[00:27:47] But you could also take infinite in terms of the duration of it.

[00:27:52] You know, it's it's value.

[00:27:54] And I've never really thought about it that way.

[00:27:57] So I'm going to have to give that some thought.

[00:27:59] A question for you.

[00:28:00] What how do you see this?

[00:28:03] How do you see the relationship between our infinite value

[00:28:08] and our bank balances?

[00:28:13] Because there are two different things, right?

[00:28:14] To be honest, I've had to just separate the two completely.

[00:28:18] And it makes perfect sense why I've

[00:28:21] struggled with this thing called money.

[00:28:25] Actually, you know,

[00:28:29] I've never really

[00:28:33] you know, I realize this is probably going off a little bit.

[00:28:36] I try and keep it contained, but I hadn't realized until the last year or so

[00:28:39] just how intuitive I am and have always been,

[00:28:43] but have always internalized that as some kind of paranoia

[00:28:48] or some kind of problem with myself.

[00:28:51] So there's a lot of things that are going on with me at the moment

[00:28:54] in the financial side of life that I'm recognizing some really serious

[00:28:59] fraud that's been happening around me that I think intuitively I knew,

[00:29:05] but I always felt like I was the I was sorry,

[00:29:10] the one that was always in fear around finance, always around money.

[00:29:15] Fear, fear, fear.

[00:29:17] But yet I was always giving, giving, giving.

[00:29:19] I would be out in the home with the homeless in Birmingham.

[00:29:22] I would be working in refugees with women suffering from domestic violence,

[00:29:26] doing podcasts for this.

[00:29:27] It wasn't about the money.

[00:29:30] So for me, those two things do not align.

[00:29:32] And the more this world is starting to sort of show itself,

[00:29:37] the more I'm realizing, no, I'm right.

[00:29:39] And the rest of the world is wrong.

[00:29:42] And it has been actually like all my life.

[00:29:46] My adoption was wrong.

[00:29:47] I'm not saying my you know, I've come a kind of from a weird camp in adoption

[00:29:51] because I love my adopted parents.

[00:29:56] But it doesn't make my adoption right.

[00:29:59] It shouldn't have been.

[00:30:02] I wouldn't have had it was upside down.

[00:30:04] Shouldn't have been that way.

[00:30:05] My mom should have been in a house and love and support.

[00:30:10] So this system and that was monetary.

[00:30:12] And I've never ever, I think, really bought

[00:30:16] what I have realized is and what I lost at the end of this year

[00:30:19] was a huge amount of money.

[00:30:21] If you want to call it cash money with

[00:30:25] amazing projects I had with programs,

[00:30:28] I was talking to you about my Learn to Love program.

[00:30:30] I was writing my book.

[00:30:32] I was building my shed on the thing I was doing so much.

[00:30:36] And I think.

[00:30:38] I was so close back then, and I am again now, hopefully,

[00:30:42] to feeling that, you know, monetary thing.

[00:30:46] But the lesson is to realize

[00:30:51] really the importance of this is love currency and it's millions.

[00:30:56] Simon, you are worth millions in that other currency.

[00:31:01] The diamond currency, the love currency, whatever.

[00:31:04] For me, it was love, you know, and what it really started to look at,

[00:31:08] which I've talked a lot over the years as well.

[00:31:10] Love and fear.

[00:31:12] Love and fear, the two things and fear

[00:31:15] has been wrapped up in this financial world

[00:31:19] and I've never really enjoyed it.

[00:31:22] But now things are starting, the truth is starting to show in myself

[00:31:25] that I'm not wrong and I'm not, you know,

[00:31:30] I can have a good partnership with money.

[00:31:33] And it's merged in with love.

[00:31:36] And, yeah, I'm excited about that.

[00:31:39] That's, I think, the ongoing journey of of healing through self-worth.

[00:31:44] You know, the most important

[00:31:49] the most important thing I learned last year about healing.

[00:31:54] Is that on one level will be healing forever.

[00:32:01] Yeah. And on another level, we were never wounded.

[00:32:05] We were never wounded.

[00:32:09] We were never wounded, but we were.

[00:32:15] Depends how you define the we.

[00:32:17] I know. Depends how you define it.

[00:32:20] So how do you define the we?

[00:32:23] Well, it's how do we, sorry, how do I define the we?

[00:32:29] How do you define identity?

[00:32:31] So I'll give you an example.

[00:32:33] My identity, how I define identity is consciousness.

[00:32:37] That's how I define it.

[00:32:38] I don't. I am consciousness.

[00:32:41] I am not the content of which I am aware.

[00:32:47] I am the context in which my thoughts and feelings occur.

[00:32:54] So one word consciousness.

[00:32:57] So how do you define consciousness?

[00:32:59] I, the same, except I would also add.

[00:33:03] I think that.

[00:33:06] Honestly, with.

[00:33:09] With that really is that I'm also aware that.

[00:33:13] My mind.

[00:33:15] Or I might as far as my identity, certainly growing up.

[00:33:25] It was so powerful.

[00:33:27] That it really did be come.

[00:33:31] Who I was at that time and the wound is the wound is, is, is, is, is there.

[00:33:39] And but what you say I am is absolutely, absolutely right.

[00:33:44] And when I look back, even before coming out of the fog, you can see.

[00:33:48] It's like the secret.

[00:33:50] You can see it in there.

[00:33:52] I'm always lifting myself trying to get somewhere.

[00:33:55] And it's there. It is. I am consciousness.

[00:33:58] I am. But the what we're talking about, the wound is the journey.

[00:34:05] I'd not an identity, but a recognition of how.

[00:34:12] We have.

[00:34:14] You know, we've been led to believe really so much that's that's not true.

[00:34:20] And that's OK, because we're now on our way to finding the truth.

[00:34:24] We're not our beliefs, right?

[00:34:27] But we think we are.

[00:34:29] Yes, yes, yes.

[00:34:32] And we yeah.

[00:34:33] And the thing and the thing is, and I think what I've learned

[00:34:36] really is the sensations we feel we feel we are.

[00:34:40] And actually, the healing is in our sensations, I think.

[00:34:42] And if that's so mixed up with feelings of.

[00:34:46] Of belief, of feeling that we are the opposite,

[00:34:49] then we're far away from feeling this truth.

[00:34:55] And sadly, I know because it's a lot of,

[00:34:58] yeah, I think a lot of all of this healing is in our body

[00:35:03] and stored in our.

[00:35:06] I'm totally with you on that.

[00:35:09] Another word for consciousness,

[00:35:12] the word I heard yesterday, which I thought was really good

[00:35:16] was the non physical self.

[00:35:20] So if we say we are consciousness

[00:35:23] or we are awareness or we are spirit,

[00:35:28] we can also say another word for this

[00:35:30] that means the same is the non physical self.

[00:35:36] Separating.

[00:35:39] Who I am as the non physical self

[00:35:42] and the sensations that are in my body.

[00:35:45] Yeah, so I'm feeling.

[00:35:48] It is separating out from.

[00:35:54] Have you heard, I don't know if you've read any about

[00:35:56] ready read any stories about near near death

[00:35:59] experiences or that moment when people lying

[00:36:03] or maybe you've had one of these when you're lying on the hospital bed

[00:36:05] and then you you

[00:36:09] you point your perspective changes.

[00:36:12] Yeah. And you're you're up in the corner

[00:36:15] of the hospital ward.

[00:36:18] You're looking down on yourself.

[00:36:21] So none.

[00:36:22] You it's a non physical self thing.

[00:36:26] Yes, it's it's it's consciousness.

[00:36:29] It's it's not it's what's conscious of the body.

[00:36:33] So, yeah, it's stored all this trauma stuff, as they all say.

[00:36:38] That's what I'm right.

[00:36:39] You know, that's and that's what you know,

[00:36:43] one of the biggest thing, another massive learning from last year.

[00:36:47] Right. You've got to do this.

[00:36:49] You've got to do the somatic act for me.

[00:36:51] I've got to do the somatic work because preverbal trauma.

[00:36:56] I don't have words for preverbal trauma.

[00:36:59] So what's the point of talk therapy when I can't when I have

[00:37:04] for something which I have no memory of, no, no cognition, no words for.

[00:37:10] It's absolutely pointless for me.

[00:37:13] I think it could be it could be quite dangerous as well as well.

[00:37:17] I think with

[00:37:19] with some things, it almost like going back into the

[00:37:23] going back into the pit when actually you can't really remember the details.

[00:37:27] But you can.

[00:37:28] I realize that you sort of you ask certain questions

[00:37:31] and making them up as I was going along, not making them up,

[00:37:35] but just going for one.

[00:37:36] And now I've realized the somatic is so powerful.

[00:37:40] I'm learning just how quite.

[00:37:44] Yes, dangerous is to go to

[00:37:49] to just keep going over it like that, you know,

[00:37:52] because because the feelings in your body are feeling everything

[00:37:55] that's going over in your mind.

[00:37:57] And so that's all going on.

[00:38:00] And without an understanding of those sensations,

[00:38:03] I've done body scans and all sorts over the years as a mindfulness teacher.

[00:38:07] I've, you know, calmed down and did it with your body and done all this stuff.

[00:38:12] But it was only when I really actually directed

[00:38:17] to my story and some parts of my story, which I hadn't

[00:38:23] really done this before that I realized I hadn't gone anywhere near.

[00:38:28] I had not gone anywhere near this

[00:38:32] until earlier this year.

[00:38:34] And that's with the help of Peter Levine, actually.

[00:38:37] And also, I think the analogy that what you just said there about coming up,

[00:38:40] it hasn't happened to me.

[00:38:41] I've heard many of these stories in comas and stuff.

[00:38:45] But I've learned a lot back in December about fascia or fascia,

[00:38:49] however you want to say it, release of old wounds and

[00:38:53] stresses stored in our fascia, which is just underlined under our skin.

[00:39:00] And so I imagine as looking down at that and seeing a whole lump of that,

[00:39:03] like if we didn't have fascia, we wouldn't have all our organs together.

[00:39:07] And it's kind of like that.

[00:39:09] It's all in there.

[00:39:11] It is. It's all stored down there.

[00:39:13] And it's ourselves that are.

[00:39:17] But that's real. I mean, it is there.

[00:39:20] See? So we eat it.

[00:39:25] It is hard, isn't it?

[00:39:28] Because that is those things have happened.

[00:39:32] And somatic work, you're absolutely right.

[00:39:35] I actually think I'm starting to realize, which is exciting,

[00:39:38] that it actually can be quite simple once we get

[00:39:44] a control of our nervous system.

[00:39:47] I think we can start to control somatically

[00:39:52] this house and move on maybe to the next level of healing,

[00:39:56] whatever, or worthiness or whatever.

[00:39:58] But we can move on with momentum.

[00:40:00] I think once we yeah, once we

[00:40:05] realize the simplicity.

[00:40:07] So just to cut in there,

[00:40:09] the Donna mentioned this Peter Levine guy,

[00:40:12] he is one of the somatic gurus basically, isn't he?

[00:40:17] And it's interesting to see him, him and him.

[00:40:20] Dick Schwartz is the Richard Schwartz is the IFS guy,

[00:40:24] the internal family systems guy, talks about the uppercase S self.

[00:40:28] And he would contend and he does contend that the uppercase S

[00:40:33] is intact, untouched,

[00:40:41] intact, untouched, undamaged, unmolested,

[00:40:44] 100% pristine, right?

[00:40:48] So he would, I think he would say,

[00:40:52] I'm putting words into his mouth.

[00:40:54] I think he would say that the trauma is in the parts,

[00:41:00] not in the uppercase S self.

[00:41:03] But we're starting to see on my Facebook feed,

[00:41:06] because obviously I'm into this stuff.

[00:41:08] I'm starting to see Peter Levine with his somatic stuff

[00:41:12] coming together with Dick Schwartz with his IFS stuff.

[00:41:16] So they're now starting to look at,

[00:41:19] we're looking at two, the intersection between

[00:41:22] and the relationship between two different,

[00:41:25] let's call them modalities for want of a better word.

[00:41:29] And I think that's really,

[00:41:30] I think that's really interesting.

[00:41:31] So if you want to check out Peter Levine,

[00:41:35] the somatic guy, he's on Amazon.

[00:41:39] And it's something Tiger by the tail or something, is it?

[00:41:42] Yeah.

[00:41:43] And thanks again to Sage,

[00:41:45] because me and her got another adoptee.

[00:41:48] She introduced me to Peter Levine.

[00:41:50] I'd never heard of him.

[00:41:52] And I'm so glad that I read his

[00:41:54] Waking the Tiger it's called.

[00:41:55] I'm so glad I read it.

[00:41:57] It's really not good on audible, sorry, audible,

[00:42:01] but it's really not great.

[00:42:02] And healing trauma is brilliant on audible,

[00:42:05] but you wouldn't know it from the sample.

[00:42:10] And I just think, God, what's going on?

[00:42:11] Because adoptees especially, I think,

[00:42:15] or complex trauma, pre-verbal trauma,

[00:42:18] I love the way he writes

[00:42:21] and the way he reads himself over.

[00:42:24] But you don't get that from audible on the first one.

[00:42:27] And it's such a shame

[00:42:27] because I would not be where I am now

[00:42:30] if I hadn't have found the book

[00:42:32] and the content of it, The Waking the Tiger.

[00:42:35] I read it within two days

[00:42:37] and I'm already practicing a process with a client.

[00:42:40] We're working together now

[00:42:41] and he's having some phenomenal results

[00:42:44] because I'm also seeing people now

[00:42:46] and I've done training on NLP and coaching for years

[00:42:51] and never felt this confident going out.

[00:42:55] And really, but because I'm having such direct

[00:42:58] experience with myself and my nervous system

[00:43:01] and vagus nerve, it's just so easy.

[00:43:04] And I just think, oh my God, I'm an expert.

[00:43:05] I had three decades of conscious awareness

[00:43:08] of how messed up my nervous system was and I hid it.

[00:43:11] So yes, I am a professional.

[00:43:14] I'll put a million letters after my name

[00:43:15] with confidence because of the life,

[00:43:19] and I just think it's wonderful now.

[00:43:20] I think I've just gone off on a tangent.

[00:43:22] Sorry, Simon.

[00:43:27] That's cool.

[00:43:30] So what do you think gets in our way then of healing?

[00:43:35] Ourselves, man.

[00:43:37] Even I can feel it in the house.

[00:43:39] Ourselves.

[00:43:40] I say, ironic.

[00:43:43] Ourselves.

[00:43:44] We are.

[00:43:45] Okay, let me take you back.

[00:43:47] Let me take you back, right?

[00:43:48] Does the uppercase S self get in the way of our healing?

[00:43:58] Well, no, not in the way that you've...

[00:44:01] I think what I'm gauging from the uppercase self S

[00:44:05] is that that's untouchable, isn't it?

[00:44:08] There's an S.

[00:44:09] That's what I'm picking up from the uppercase S.

[00:44:12] It's the true self.

[00:44:14] It's the true self.

[00:44:15] Not a bold S.

[00:44:16] Yeah, yeah, no, it's untouchable.

[00:44:18] And I think that's all part of the unveiling,

[00:44:22] I think, as you get along.

[00:44:23] So I'm sort of realizing now with sort of just not doing,

[00:44:29] effortlessly being.

[00:44:30] And like, yeah, I've done this interview.

[00:44:33] But there's nowhere to get...

[00:44:36] Effortlessly being means there's nowhere to get to though.

[00:44:41] There's always.

[00:44:42] There's always...

[00:44:43] Well, that's why I'm saying that.

[00:44:46] Psychologically, right?

[00:44:47] So I said, I think I said something like,

[00:44:51] on one level we'll be healing forever.

[00:44:53] It's a process.

[00:44:54] Yeah. Yes.

[00:44:55] Yeah, totally with you.

[00:44:57] And on another level, we were never wounded.

[00:45:02] So what I'm saying is that the wound is in our parts.

[00:45:08] The wounds is in our psychology.

[00:45:10] The wounds are in our somatically.

[00:45:12] Our wounds are in somatically.

[00:45:14] They're stored in the body.

[00:45:15] The wounds are in our emotions, right?

[00:45:16] So look at it there.

[00:45:19] That's where we'll be healing forever.

[00:45:23] But at a more profound level of identity,

[00:45:29] our uppercase S self, our true self,

[00:45:32] not our false self, our spirit.

[00:45:35] That has got nowhere to go.

[00:45:43] It was never wounded, so there's no healing.

[00:45:47] No, I think on the...

[00:45:49] This is what, for me, this is what I'm feeling.

[00:45:52] And I love this.

[00:45:53] I think there's transformation in somatic,

[00:45:56] the healing of this.

[00:45:57] I think this is where it is.

[00:45:59] I think that it's transformational.

[00:46:02] There's power.

[00:46:03] So when I'm looking down, I've got this fixed now.

[00:46:06] I'm looking down from the fascia

[00:46:09] and all the wounds and everything.

[00:46:11] It's like we have an opportunity to transform that

[00:46:16] and expand, grow, and become even more of an S.

[00:46:24] Because we're a collective.

[00:46:25] We're all...

[00:46:27] And I think that's why I'm getting so much

[00:46:30] from serving others.

[00:46:31] Again, doing what I've always done,

[00:46:32] but this time it is.

[00:46:36] It's like an effortless.

[00:46:40] And I think it's because the wounds,

[00:46:42] if that's what we wanna label them as,

[00:46:45] actually are our gifts.

[00:46:48] They're our gifts.

[00:46:49] They can help towards the S being...

[00:46:55] Yeah, spreading the S,

[00:46:58] the S figure for everyone else.

[00:47:01] Somebody said this, right?

[00:47:03] The darkness is where the lightness comes in or something.

[00:47:09] The dark...

[00:47:10] Yes.

[00:47:10] Our cracks are where the lightness comes in.

[00:47:15] So yeah, gifts.

[00:47:16] The wounds are our gifts.

[00:47:18] Absolutely.

[00:47:19] And the real meaning of the word transformation

[00:47:27] is beyond form.

[00:47:31] I mean...

[00:47:32] Beyond form.

[00:47:34] Beyond form.

[00:47:35] And then we go back to this,

[00:47:37] the headless thing.

[00:47:39] And the headless,

[00:47:41] the headless way is beyond form.

[00:47:46] It's space.

[00:47:47] Beyond form, we have space.

[00:47:49] Beyond our head.

[00:47:51] You know, as we are headless,

[00:47:54] we are whole and we are space for the world.

[00:47:59] It's beyond form, transform, beyond form.

[00:48:02] Yeah. Space.

[00:48:05] Yeah.

[00:48:06] Context, not content.

[00:48:09] Room, not objects in it, not furniture.

[00:48:15] And for me, the headless,

[00:48:17] not only is that awareness, it's quite phenomenal,

[00:48:24] but realizing what we see actually,

[00:48:30] how much we make up of this view as everything of ourselves.

[00:48:36] But actually when you start to shift your perspective

[00:48:38] with the headlessness,

[00:48:40] you realize there's so much more here.

[00:48:45] I'm doing this with my hands.

[00:48:47] You know, there's so much more space actually

[00:48:49] than we could ever have realized.

[00:48:51] And what's out there is...

[00:48:54] But we're in control of it.

[00:48:56] It just gave me more sort of sense of control

[00:48:58] and awareness and observation.

[00:49:00] And I don't know.

[00:49:06] It really helped.

[00:49:07] I'm glad you're gonna put a link in.

[00:49:08] And I think sometimes when you're trying

[00:49:10] to describe this headless thing,

[00:49:12] it can kind of sound a bit probably crazy,

[00:49:14] but he describes it really well.

[00:49:17] The guy himself, Richard Lang.

[00:49:19] So yeah, I think it shifts a lot into that

[00:49:25] and also what our awareness is with this view

[00:49:29] that we have and the power that we have with that.

[00:49:33] Because everyone's seeing like,

[00:49:34] are they seeing all of that space?

[00:49:36] What are they seeing actually?

[00:49:39] What do they see?

[00:49:40] And you know, it's just fascinating.

[00:49:43] And there's some, I haven't even really gone there.

[00:49:48] But I think it's really important

[00:49:49] with some of the amazing exercises

[00:49:52] that you can do with the mirror

[00:49:53] to really kind of start shifting.

[00:49:56] It's a shift.

[00:49:58] I got it when I went to a retreat in Thailand.

[00:50:00] It was a shift in reality.

[00:50:02] Headlessness is a shift in reality.

[00:50:04] But it's for me, and this healing journey

[00:50:07] is a good one.

[00:50:08] I'm happy for it.

[00:50:10] I'm happy for his being aware of him

[00:50:13] and Peter Levine.

[00:50:15] The view of who we are.

[00:50:17] It's our view of who we are

[00:50:19] rather than a third party view,

[00:50:21] somebody else's view of who we are.

[00:50:24] And that feeds back into what you were talking about,

[00:50:30] other people labeling you

[00:50:33] and you're posting their beliefs on you

[00:50:38] and that stuff.

[00:50:41] So-

[00:50:42] Really just becoming aware of how much of our,

[00:50:46] how much the other person is feeding off how we feel

[00:50:52] and taking responsibility for that.

[00:50:56] Checking in, it's like,

[00:50:58] it's helped me to check in.

[00:51:00] You know, you do that,

[00:51:01] oh, I'm checking in every day.

[00:51:03] You know?

[00:51:03] But actually, am I really?

[00:51:05] Or am I just going through the process

[00:51:06] of checking in every day?

[00:51:08] And the headless is a shift

[00:51:09] that actually really starts getting you

[00:51:11] looking at the perspective is much deeper.

[00:51:13] And, you know, it really is a check-in,

[00:51:16] like on a much deeper, more,

[00:51:22] I don't know,

[00:51:24] required level with others

[00:51:27] because they're feeding back to me as well.

[00:51:31] What, you know, we really are working together in this,

[00:51:34] in this partnership with what we pick up.

[00:51:37] And I've been feeling so much enclosed

[00:51:40] and picking up wrong things with this amazing intuition

[00:51:43] and getting it all flipped up and wrong.

[00:51:48] And I'm learning that as well on this journey

[00:51:50] to not assume I know anything really,

[00:51:56] because I'm just following this intuition

[00:51:59] that's starting to become less fearful

[00:52:02] and pretty damn good actually.

[00:52:07] Brilliant.

[00:52:10] Feels like a good place to bring it in.

[00:52:13] So as always, listeners, links to Donna's socials

[00:52:18] in the show notes.

[00:52:22] Anything else you wanna talk about?

[00:52:24] No, no, that was great.

[00:52:27] That was a good trip.

[00:52:31] Thanks listeners, we'll speak to you again very soon.

[00:52:33] Bye.