Oversharing And Trauma Dumping

Oversharing and trauma dumping are part of our shadows. It's not a comfortable topic to discuss and can feel super tricky to navigate where we do this or are on the receiving end of it. Join Lydia as she explores the ins and outs of these concepts, especially how they apply to everyday life and conversation.

Transcript

Welcome.

I'm going to try this again.

Today's topic is oversharing and trauma dumping.

These are two topics,

Concepts that are just starting now to come into mainstream on social media and into the field of psychology as far as the layman talking about it and into relationship dynamics.

This has existed for as long as humans have existed.

But there's just been more research in these areas and a little more effective evidence based tools of like,

What is this?

Why does it affect us negatively and what do we do about it?

So I'm going to talk first about what is oversharing and what is trauma dumping?

These are both behavior patterns that we have when we're in discussion or talking or engaging with another person.

They're similar and they're different.

So trauma dumping is a form of oversharing.

What's similar between these two things is they usually happen without consent.

So if someone's trauma dumping on me or oversharing in a conversation,

They have not,

They did not first ask if I had the emotional and mental and physical capacity to hold space for them to process whatever they were processing.

Most of the time oversharing and trauma dumping are emotionally charged.

There's an emotional intensity to them.

There's not really any direction they're going in.

It's just someone that continues to go on and on and on and on.

And when you're the listener,

You start getting increasingly stressed.

You're kind of starting to wonder why are they still talking?

Why did we,

Why are we talking about this?

This is so much detail.

I don't really need to know this.

If you're the one oversharing or trauma dumping,

Because I want to say in full honesty,

I have done both of these a lot,

If not most of my life.

So I speak not only from personal experience of being the oversharer and trauma dumper,

But also someone on the receiving end.

When you're,

When we're the ones oversharing and trauma dumping,

It usually is coming from a place of things that have been,

That are not processed.

We have not fully processed yet.

So trauma we have not healed from that still needs a lot of processing and healing from and or just information about a situation,

A person,

An event,

A belief system we have that we don't know how to process maybe on our own.

And so we naturally want to go and connect with humans like our friend or our partner,

Our child,

Our parent.

And what ends up happening is we end up taking over the conversation and just again talking for so long.

And we don't even have any connection to how the other person is feeling so specifically for both of these,

There's a level of not having awareness of our impact on the other person when we're oversharing and trauma dumping.

And there are subconscious patterns that happen in conversation when it for the intent for the unconscious or subconscious intention to release stress or relieve anxiety,

Or again to move through some sort of emotion we don't know how to move through,

And the intention is usually not to connect to someone.

We want someone there,

But it's almost like it doesn't even matter if they're there or not because we're,

We're talking at them,

Rather than with them.

So there's a lack of connection that's happening.

And this is a lack of emotional intelligence,

Essentially,

And not to make any of this feel like blame if you tend to overshare or trauma dump,

And or if you're on the receiving end if like your partner or friend always does it to you it's not to start creating more conflict you always overshare and to create some sort of fight about it but it's more to recognize why it feels bad,

Why it feels bad when I'm the one oversharing,

And why I feel weird or guilty leaving a situation,

Or why it feels bad when someone's trauma dumping onto me or oversharing.

There's a reason it feels bad and one of the main reasons that it feels bad is because we're not connected.

There's not a door for connection,

There's kind of an overriding feeling of the person that's the one talking doesn't really care about the other person.

And I want to say that's not necessarily true because this is a trauma response is the stress pattern we have,

But it is a lack of being emotionally available when I am oversharing and or trauma dumping.

I am not emotionally available to the other person's thoughts or feelings or experiences of how I am impacting them.

For the most part,

Because I am coming to a conversation,

And I need to process something.

And I maybe at the beginning,

I want to say hi and I want to connect with them,

But ultimately my nervous system is just feeling stress and tension and anxiety and I need there to be some sort of release.

And this can happen in all areas in life.

I mean we can use sex for that we can use eating for that we can use so many things in life for that.

And this is one of those things where we use conversation,

And it almost becomes a monologue.

So many times when someone's oversharing or trauma dumping,

No one else is talking,

And it's usually been that way for a quite a considerable amount of time.

So what do we do about these two topics?

First,

Why are we doing it?

I spoke a little bit to that,

But what do we do?

What do I do if I am the one that overshares or trauma dumps?

What is my approach I can take to maybe stop doing it or prevent it?

And or if I'm the one listening or on the receiving end of someone doing it to me a lot,

What can I do if I don't really want to burn a bridge?

If I still want this relationship,

But there's a consistent unspoken boundary that's being crossed,

And it's making me feel worse and worse.

Blaze or Blaise,

I'm not sure how you pronounce your name,

But welcome to the stage.

You're free to share your thoughts or questions.

Thanks so much.

It's Blaze,

Like the fire.

Awesome.

I love it.

Thanks for having me.

Yeah,

No,

I love this topic so much.

And I love that question that you had,

Like,

What can we do to help it feel better when we realize that this is the situation that we're in?

And I think it's a lot about being able to kindly say,

Hey,

It looks like you're really going through something and you're processing some stuff.

I felt like that too.

It must feel and then be able to reflect back to them what they're feeling,

Because it almost gives them like that stop in the middle of the conversation to go,

Oh,

Yeah,

That's what I was talking about.

Have you ever found that?

Yeah,

I mean,

I think,

You know,

We all want validation and empathy.

And I think that's a huge part of it,

And a huge part of like,

Creating an opportunity for connection when someone is going on and on and we might feel uncomfortable is just to acknowledge like,

I see you,

I get it,

You know,

Because like you said,

Sometimes it can almost be a healthy interruption where it disrupts their kind of going spiraling,

And they can come back for an opportunity of connecting back to you and feel validated.

So I love that.

Oh,

For sure.

And I find for me too,

It also gives me a chance,

It's almost like bringing in that breathing space in the conversation,

Because I'll start to feel like,

Oh,

I'm having the panic of realizing this person needs me for something I can't provide.

Like they're really coming at me with all of their stuff and I need to find an out.

And it gives me some comfort to go Okay,

I'm just going to be here for it and all I actually have to do is let them know that I'm seeing and feeling their emotion,

And maybe that's enough.

And I found that to be a really beautiful way to connect or at least bow out.

And it's like that interruption of Hey,

I see you I feel you.

Can this conversation become something more or was that all it needed to be?

And then it's either I will bow out or I'll ask them to elaborate further if they even want something from me,

Because sometimes they don't they just really want to be heard.

Yeah,

And I love that you said you know because sometimes it can be an opportunity to bow out because that's kind of the goes into the question of what do we do like what if I find myself in a situation where I do,

I can share a little bit of empathy but I'm exhausted and this is triggering and I cannot listen anymore.

You know what I mean?

Like,

But I love that what you said is like,

If we can store empathy and validation that allows us to stay connected to our desire to like not hurt the person and like understand.

And that can lead into then us being able to express like a boundary of like,

Wow,

You're going through a lot I,

I can't even imagine how you're feeling.

And I also want to say like I really love you and want to support you and this,

I really can't do this emotionally right now or you know we come up with the words in the moment.

And that's where it can feel tricky.

But that's why this type of conversation is important.

What are the steps that you have done to be able to like show empathy and then bow out of a conversation like what have you been able to articulate verbally that has really helped you?

Usually,

What I try to do is key in on something that they've specifically said,

And either not repeat it back exactly but just use a particular emotional word that they said they were feeling and use it back because it'll catch their attention and be like,

Oh yeah,

You heard what I said.

I often try to ask a question about am I understanding it right.

This is how I felt in a similar situation or this is how I experienced that feeling,

Does that sound the same to you and it introduces a question and it starts to switch tracks a little bit.

And it opens up more room for a conversation rather than just me receiving the dump.

Yes,

And that's been effective.

Yeah,

Like it there has to be an empathetic interruption and I find it best if I really focus in on the emotion of the talk and go wow this is really like a feeling that you're having.

And I don't try to tell them,

Or define what they're feeling I just try to agree with it in a weird way.

Just to be like sure that's what you're feeling like I don't need to tell you what it is or how to deal with it like tell me more about it Am I actually understanding because that's often all I think that these,

These people or myself when I'm the one doing it are looking for,

Because I don't know why I'm doing it if I'm the one trauma dumping I'm just like I'm in distress and I'm really upset and I just want you to hear me.

That's usually where they're at.

Yeah,

I'm just wondering because I've noticed,

Because you know I have been the trauma dumper and the overshare.

And when people ask me questions for me it almost feels like they're interested and they want to know more.

And so it almost feels like an invitation to more oversharing and trauma dumping.

So I'm curious.

You're free to come back on stage because I know there's like three seconds.

Yeah,

No,

I can go into this.

I can go into more vague details because one of the things I want to say about oversharing and trauma dumping is one of the issues one of the reasons it can feel so uncomfortable is because they're going into so much detail.

I can equally empathize empathize with someone who and I'll bring you right back on stage,

I want to finish this thought and not take up your time.

I can equally empathize and feel deeply connected to another person.

If they say something as vague as like,

Man,

I just had a really hard conflict with my boyfriend versus going into the details of the conflict.

So I think one of the strategies that we can learn,

Especially if you're like me and you have been the person to overshare trauma dump.

When you catch yourself,

If you can catch yourself in the middle of it,

You know,

Ideally we're preventing it.

But sometimes I catch myself in the middle of it.

And I just kind of wrap it up and go vague.

And then I give an opportunity for the other person to have a response.

Sometimes they ask a question,

But my goal,

If I'm the person doing it is,

Can I just give less detail because they really don't need to know all this detail and or can I check in with them to see how they're doing emotionally,

Because I do want to connect with them on some level and I'm kind of spinning out a little I'm noticing I have anxiety or this is unprocessed and I didn't actually ask if they were okay with this conversation.

Yeah,

Coming back to what you were saying,

Blaise,

Is sometimes you come into validating a specific emotion they expressed and sometimes that you said that can sometimes lead to pivoting the conversation.

And I was saying how I,

When people ask me questions,

Sometimes my subconscious thinks they want more detail and want to know more so it almost has done the opposite.

I think you have to walk a really fine awareness in these conversations about what's happening so I think the more.

Alright,

So I'll give you some background I was a tattoo artist for a decade so I've heard a lot of overshares.

I know how to handle this.

Yeah.

Yes,

Exactly.

So I'm like,

Yeah,

So people just come in and like just from the get go they'll just out now tell you like all of the details.

You're like,

Whoa,

Okay,

That's a lot so I've learned one to not take it personally I recognize that it's never about me.

It's that they need this opportunity to relieve the pressure they're like a pressure cooker and like finally they have someone who like can't leave so they're going to talk.

But when it is somewhere where I do want to be able to have the exit when I'm like,

Oh,

That's really nice but I have to go I've had to learn how to have that the polite interest and be able to go out without being rude.

And I think it starts with me and I've always come from the empathetic place and I've had to learn to do it with authority.

Is that even a thing to be able to say like I really have compassion.

Yeah,

That's so huge.

Do with authority.

Yeah,

Because I'm like,

With authority like I have to be very clear like I do care about you and I care about what you're saying and I do want to hear more and I actually only have five minutes and I have to leave,

Or I'll just say like it's like when I'm when you're talking with a friend on the phone or something and the conversations going on too long and you start to have that feeling like,

Oh,

Shit,

I just really need to leave.

And I don't want to talk anymore but I don't want to hurt them because they're my friend.

And you have to interrupt and just be like honey I need you to stop like we've been talking for an hour,

We've got to go.

And in those cases I just saying their name,

Often is a great interrupter because people will stop and go,

Huh,

Did you say my name.

Yep.

So if it was you talking to me I'd be like hey Lydia,

And you'd be like,

Well,

I just,

I love hearing what you have to say I have to go in about five minutes.

This is what I heard and it sounds like you're really going through it.

Are you okay,

And then you might take that as permission to keep going and I would just keep bringing it back to like,

Okay,

I hear you do you want me to check in on you later or I just,

I know what my boundary is so I've learned to one not offer more than what I'm actually willing to deliver,

If I don't actually want to talk to you again I don't offer hey do you want to talk.

But if I do,

Then I let you know,

And I'm just like hey it's not that I'm abandoning you forever I do care but I do actually have to go in five minutes and I let you have that so I'm just being clear on what I'm able to offer and what the limit of that is and that,

Like everybody can pretty much respect that you're not being unclear.

Yeah,

I think that's the big mess that can get you in trouble.

I'm glad you brought that in like as a service provider because that's like a whole other strategy,

You know that can be useful and one of the things I found as a massage therapist.

You know because I have my own trauma,

And when it's related to trauma dumping.

Someone can tell me a story and the details hit me hard in some of the anything that resonated in my own life that's not fully processed and it can kind of disrupt my emotional stability for the rest of the day.

I mean ideally,

You know we're all keep we all keep growing so that doesn't happen.

But there's also a level of like,

Yeah,

That wasn't okay,

But it doesn't have to come across as a criticism to them and one of the things I've done as a massage therapist when someone continues to go into detail is like you said,

Have a moment of empathy where they feel heard and validated.

And then,

You know,

With massage there's a lot of like breathing so then I say can you breathe that out,

Can you take a nice deep breath in as you exhale focus on relaxing the tension of this story from your shoulders.

Can you relax,

You breathe into your belly,

Can you breathe into your back and so you know I don't know how many service providers are listening in but there's specific ways because I'm also a massage instructor that we can pivot a conversation where it almost allows the person to come back to the intention of why they were there,

You know,

Tattoo,

Maybe different.

But massage people are coming to relax.

There is a level of connection but then it gives me the ability to,

As they're breathing,

It's actually way better for me to work on people that are able to tune into relaxing versus going into stories that build tension in their body that's not going to help the massage,

You know,

But I love that you bring this up.

Yes.

Yeah,

It's funny because going from tattooing and coaching now as well and I find so much of it is body awareness and teaching people how to be with the emotion and just break the story.

It's the story that's painful,

And to be able to point out to them I said oh you know as you're telling me the story I'll describe what I'm feeling like my shoulders are tensing my body is getting stressed are you feeling that too.

And then they go oh yeah and I said oh well that's just something that's happening in your body.

Let's work it out.

Exactly,

Exactly.

I love that.

And again,

You're free to come back on if you want.

Yeah,

As an embodiment coach and somatic educator myself so much of when I work with clients is,

You know,

It's important to in a coaching relationship but also in a friendship and any sort of relationship.

It doesn't just have to be something we deal with in the moment.

I have been the oversharing trauma dumper in my relationships and I have been on the other side of it and a lot of times my relationships there's a combo both people do both,

You know.

And so it's been really transformative and helpful for people that I really care about and trust to say hey can we talk about like boundaries or like,

I really want to know when you have emotional capacity to let the vent or process through something.

But I don't want to,

I don't want to try to guess and I'm starting to realize that a lot of times you don't and it hits,

It hits my ego when you say you have to go in two minutes because I wouldn't have maybe brought this topic up if I knew you didn't really have time.

And so I've had some of these conversations with,

You know,

People I've dated people I care about family even my parents have like one.

If I'm calling you,

And you don't even have time to like tell me you can't talk,

Just don't pick up.

Because that's the easiest because then if it's important I can just text you.

And then two,

It's my responsibility but also can I ask you if you are having a hard day or already stressed to tell me right away when I get on the phone,

Because I'm one of the,

I'm an extrovert in the in the sense of I love processing my day with someone.

I love processing but I'm one of those people I love processing things out loud,

But I also love doing it with people who want to do it with me,

And I can process with myself,

If I would much rather know as someone who has a tendency sometimes to overshare them,

I'd much rather know that they can't do it,

Rather than me being interrupted when I'm processing something and I'm already feeling vulnerable about emotions,

And then they interrupt,

You know,

So there's,

There's so many perspectives and angles we can take to this but I wanted to throw that in.

I want to give you a few more minutes blaze and then I'm going to bring Kimmy up after you,

But I wanted to know,

You know your thoughts if you've ever had those because when I do coaching.

That's the first conversation we have is,

What are,

What are the expectations we have moving together,

These are,

This is the style of coaching I do.

How does this work for you.

We go into a consent conversation,

You know,

I'm a trauma informed trained coach.

And so I go into understanding that there's a context for that but I also share boundaries around what is Trump,

What do I do as a coach and what don't I do when,

When is there going to be a point where I'm going to refer you out to a therapist.

This is the type of conversation that's going to happen.

So I'm not dropping in,

Like bombs in the middle of our coaching relationship that they were not aware of to begin with so it almost gives them a heads up psychologically to know that there's parameters and there's a structure for us to work together in a way that's going to feel safe that's going to create safety so that I can show up as a coach in full capacity like you said,

You know when you're you can't give someone so you're not going to promise them something you can't give.

And that sets it up for for really good and I've had very uncomfortable conversations with clients where we've had to navigate this in the middle of our relationship but because there was a precedent at the beginning that this is the type of thing to that we discuss both the client and I were willing to have the comfortable uncomfortable conversation and it built more trust and it built more understanding.

And it was like,

Cool.

You know what I mean,

It was,

It was an opportunity I've seen it with a few clients an opportunity for them to be okay with discomfort because I'm okay going there,

And I'm almost embodying the fact that it's okay to for there to be conflict with someone you trust it's okay like as a coach,

I'm facilitating space for people to know that this is a part of life,

Including it could come up with me,

And that there's nothing wrong with that and in fact it's showing us where there's more opportunity for trust and understanding,

You know.

Yeah,

But yeah,

Oh my goodness now I feel like we're twin spirits here we're doing similar work in the world.

I agree like there's always very clear parameters set at the beginning with whoever I'm working with about what is it that they're coming to coach on,

What are they wanting to get out of the space and how do I work and how are we going to bring up the trauma the blocks whatever it is that's there because I think my own philosophy about coaching is,

It's about teaching people how to be in their discomfort long enough to get to wherever they want to go.

Like you're not coming to a coach because you already have the life figured out you're coming because there's someplace where you get stuck and that is uncomfortable.

And how are we going to navigate you through that and get you past that.

And it's just by nature uncomfortable,

And so we're going to have these conversations and it will be emotional and I always,

I guess I share from experience and I share with my own willingness and how I show up that I'm very willing to get emotional with you,

But I am holding a space when you're emotional that I can be your Comrock.

I'm not going to actually mistake your trauma for mine,

I guess that's the clear conversation.

And I will be clear when we've crossed the line and it is triggering me that I know that that's my stuff.

Yeah.

And that's what I have to say okay at this point this is something I can't help you with because I'm still in the swamp like if I'm still in the swamp and I haven't pulled myself out what makes me think I can help pull you out.

So I do like to be clear at the beginning about what I'm comfortable coaching on and what I'm not.

And if I actually have experience here or if it's so foreign to me like I have no right to try to help you get out of that.

So I think that's really an important boundary to set with anybody no matter who you're working with to just know your lane,

And what you're good at.

Yeah,

And it really training,

I think to get there you know because the coaching is unregulated,

I don't necessarily think that's a bad thing.

But I do think we're all responsible to really understand our scope of practice and to continue to have checks and balances and assessment tools for ourselves to know when we are going out of our lane,

Because that's our responsibility not the clients.

And it makes a huge difference you know my client trust me because of that,

You know,

Because I'm able to be honest about that.

And one of the things I tell my clients the difference between trauma like therapy and coaching is coaching is more about the approach and the how and therapy is more about processing the details.

And so that,

And it's not always the case exactly but it gives a little bit of a framework for them to subconsciously understand how to avoid trauma dumping in our sessions,

You know when when they're starting to get more details than I might,

You know,

Similar to you be like wow that's a lot right.

If you were to feel that somewhere in your body where would you feel that and then we bring it back into the embodied experience and out of the details.

And for the most part my clients are able to do that and that's one of the things like on sales calls that I bet at the beginning,

Can this person follow lead,

You know when they go into it.

Yes,

Can they follow my lead completely keep going back to the details.

If they keep going back.

Then I say maybe this isn't a good fit I think you might need a therapist,

You know,

Because it's not there's nothing wrong with that but it's more where their priority of focuses in their nervous system.

I thank you so much blaze for coming up I'm going to welcome Kimmy to the stage you're free to ask questions you're free to share any of your thoughts or ideas on this topic.

Welcome.

Thank you so much.

How great to be able to,

I've had so much fun today I've had more time than usual to kind of pop in and I get to meet all these new people and yeah,

It's it's a nice day when you have a little bit more freedom and I don't have that.

That's awesome.

So I do have a question so I,

The work that I do is,

Is to help prevent abuse Okay,

But obviously you're going to get people and help parents,

You know,

Teach kids about red flags and other things and that's in adults as well that are coming out of abuse.

So I have a question for you about this whole idea of oversharing and trauma dumping,

And I think this would be a great place to ask it so if you my understanding and I unfortunately had some personal experience with this is that the actual words are often the last step with healing when they finally can share what they're going through is that correct.

I mean it depends,

You know what I mean because people like me.

The first step is the dumping,

Like what night when I have something unprocessed.

I'm not an avoidant person I go straight into it,

But then I tend to wallow and ruminate.

So I can stay stuck in oversharing for years,

You know,

As an exaggeration maybe not.

And what I need when I'm working with a therapist or to move through things is to come back into my body because I've dissociated from my body and I'm in my head.

People that,

You know,

Are more avoidant or repress are like perfectionistic repressors.

They,

The healing for them is to start being able to feel trusting enough to talk,

You know,

And so that's why you know a lot of these strategies we see on social media.

They all come with context because one person,

Making a post saying you have to feel it to move through it.

Yeah.

When I read something like that I'm like,

You know,

In the past I was like but I feel it too much.

I don't need to feel it more,

I need to know what to do about how to feel it I actually need to learn how to repress it in appropriate circumstances,

Because it can take over.

I need to have boundaries,

You know,

Whereas that post is perfect for someone who hasn't felt any feelings and needs to even consider the idea that that might be a strategy that they can start getting familiar with,

You know.

Yeah,

I mean it's like saying you need to forgive them.

There's just so many caveats that people get to healed any way that they feel best healing.

So yeah,

There's wisdom in that.

So do you,

This is,

And I won't tie up a lot of time you probably have a lot of people have questions for you but do you think that,

And I actually did a talk on this here and a couple other places,

And I would love,

I don't know if you've done this before but it might be a really great talk for you and I would love to shoot me a DM somewhere and tell me you're going to do it,

Is,

Do you,

Don't you think that we as a culture should be better prepared,

Not to do what you do or what therapists do,

But better prepared since we know how many people are coming out of traumatic situations from childhood to relationships and so on.

I feel like we do a lot of second wounding to people that are coming out with trauma.

And the list is long of how I believe that we wound people who are carrying the effects of trauma.

Do you ever share or,

You know,

Like publicly,

Just kind of a common lay level,

This is what people should know about how to help people that they love that are coming through these things.

I mean,

Yeah,

One of the reasons I'm doing this talk today is because I have a group coaching program starting on Sunday,

Called radical authenticity and it's a three month program on how to really cultivate emotionally attuned connections with ourselves like in our internal environment in our conversation,

And with others in the general in general life,

You know what I mean like I've trained coaches I've trained therapists I've trained massage therapists to be specific.

But that's a different like group of people like you're talking about compared to like the everyday,

My relationship with my dad or my child or my partner.

And so one of the reasons why this is such an important topic is because at this point we've all collectively gone through it,

Minimum a two year pandemic trauma,

Not including the,

You know,

Human and civil rights traumas that various groups and you know that all of us are dealing with a lot more because the age of information it's there's so much more exposure.

And there's even this question of like,

You know,

I want to be able to expose myself to understand know what's going on so I can face my own shadow,

You know,

Of my own internalized oppressive tendencies from white supremacy and the patriarchy and,

You know,

Various things like that.

But at the same time,

I have to be able to honor my window of capacity and moving through that and really understand that I can get secondary trauma from what I'm exposed to.

So it's this combo where I can and you're free to come back up Kimmy,

Where I have to.

And that's something I can work with a therapist or a coach on of knowing the balance of.

I don't want to go out of my comfort zone and sit with discomfort but at what point is it going to start being a self sabotaging mechanism,

Instead of something that's increasing my integrity.

So there's nuances with that,

Right,

And that's where it comes into this topic of trauma dumping.

Is when we're talking about our traumas,

We don't have an understanding of how the details of our story could cause a secondary trauma to someone listening,

It would be a shock to their nervous system to hear some of what we've gone through.

And there's a lack of awareness of the impact of our story on someone.

And the way to prevent that that I've really tuned into and cultivated myself is can I share a story in a way where it's very vague.

It's enough that someone maybe knows a little bit of what I'm talking about.

But then the focus,

Especially as a coach is more coming to what I learned and coming around to a little bit of the redemption story,

Rather than dropping it on the table and leaving people to leave feeling the horrible effects of what I had gone through,

But I've talked about it so much I'm not I'm almost numb to it at this point,

You know what I mean.

And so there's a,

There's so many nuances of approach,

And that's why I feel like this conversation is so important and you know for any of you listening to the replay or to the live.

These are the types of skills that I facilitate the cultivation of in my group coaching with my embodiment coaching in my somatic education workshops,

Etc.

Is all of what we're talking about our skill sets.

And so,

You know,

Sometimes we think I just need to know the right word to say or the how.

And I'm like yeah that's important but it can this become a sustainable way you embody a version of yourself and to the other two people that were waiting,

Please come back,

You know,

Because I welcome you onto the stage and I want to have conversations with both of you.

I saw Bella,

And then I someone else so.

Yeah.

So I'm curious to know kind of your thoughts around some of the few things I just said,

Well,

I'll speak quickly because Bella is wonderful.

I'm not going to let her chair but I think that what I would just ask is that this is so good and I'm so grateful that there are people like you out there because I've watched what happens when people don't have a place that's safe.

It's not pretty in there and a lot of pain.

And the only thing I would offer is that one thing I see really lacking,

And I don't know that that group would be a place for it but it seems to me that parents and kids,

You know,

What is it the numbers 33% of high school students are experiencing relationship abuse.

So I do think we should probably look at ways to get it into the younger ages as well.

I don't know if you've ever done 100% Yeah,

I mean,

I have to all three,

All three of my older siblings there's five of us each have a kid and with one of my sisters we talk all the time about this and we're constantly I mean I don't have any kids but I have worked with kids and I,

You know,

They're part of my family,

So to be part of the village,

It's really important to me that I,

I grow and increase my integrity so that I can be a really supportive healthy element as they grow up,

You know,

As an extension of their extended family.

But my sister and I talk all the time about parenting techniques and we're constantly giving each other new profiles that we discover on Instagram for example that's how we mostly connect over this topic and podcasts and they're honestly there is so much amazing info out there there's so many parents and therapists who work with kids and parents that are putting such phenomenal evidence based tools that make a huge difference and helping your child develop emotional intelligence as they grow up know how to regulate their emotions and like,

I mean it's mostly tools for the parents,

Like how do you embody this because you can't just tell your kid to do something they're gonna do it.

They're gonna do what you do,

Not what you say.

Yeah,

Well I thank you so much for letting me come up I'm going to follow you on Instagram and see some of the people that you follow and,

And just learn more this is a very important area to me I think it's very,

Very closely related to what my passion is so thank you for letting me come up and ask.

Yeah,

And you,

You know,

We still have a couple minutes.

The two other people left so the stage.

I'm gonna bring you up.

Don't worry.

I feel bad.

Sorry.

No,

No,

You're good.

You're good.

I wanted to finish,

You know the thoughts with you because it had cut off but yeah I really appreciate you can be for coming up and bringing these questions to awareness because they're so important like you said,

Like how do we,

How do we help someone moving through coming out of abuse,

You know,

And do you have,

You know when you ask that question Do you have advice or tools to share that you've noticed that have been really helpful.

Unfortunately the person that I love that I have that this passion took off with is somebody who was a minor.

And so when I look at that,

I looked at how horrible the re entry into life was that everything felt like it was a rough spot right nobody understood nobody believes nobody was able to have the tools to be able to understand some of the just the things you don't do with someone with trauma,

And,

But,

Including don't try to ask them a million questions How about just be a friend invite them don't make them feel left out because you're uncomfortable just those really simple things that people don't realize just wound,

The person that's already been wounded.

Yeah,

So those are the kinds of things I'm in a very practical level,

There is somebody that I follow that does trauma informed yoga,

That I might send you her information when I connect with you on Instagram and maybe that that would be a nice mix.

Yeah,

I actually,

I've studied with Dr.

Ariel Schwartz,

Who teaches trauma informed yoga she teaches certification she teaches polyvagal yoga she's like phenomenal she's based in Denver and I've taken trainings with her so yeah.

Please send me that info too because I love,

I love building my network to refer my clients to different resources,

You know,

And,

And,

And of course I like being connected to other people in the field.

Well,

Absolutely.

But this has been fantastic I thank you so much for letting me jump in.

I hope they come back.

Yeah.

But you know I want to,

I want to kind of piggyback off what Kimmy was saying.

She spoke to a lot of my personal experience you know I've gone through I'm not going to go into details for the purpose of not trauma dumping in this conversation.

I've gone through a decent amount of complex PTSD severe PTSD and repressed memories coming up as an adult,

I've gone through extreme trauma in my life,

And minor and chronic,

You know,

There's so many different levels of trauma that we can experience and it was so new the times where I was there was secondary wounding was when I would share a repressed memory as an adult that had come up from when I was a kid and the first response by the people that cared about me was,

How do you know this is true,

Tell me what happened what are the details.

And it was almost more traumatic,

Because I had no realization that was going to happen I just needed someone to,

To feel the pain with me of this new realization I had had in my life and not question the reality that I was moving forward.

So I think,

You know,

On that question that you asked,

Again I'm not a licensed therapist I'm an embodiment coach so I speak from personal experience not being a professional health care provider in this,

So please take that as a disclaimer.

And being present when someone's expressing stuff.

And again,

You know,

It's,

It might be a little different when it's a child versus an adult because an adult you,

You're able to maybe more articulate a boundary of like,

Look,

This isn't the best time I really want to support you,

Where you might not be able to say that to a child because they might just take that as a rejection.

So,

You know,

The age of how you're relating to someone really matters.

And there's a lot of nuance to that,

But some really simple tools that we can focus on when someone that we really care about maybe in our family or extended family,

Especially someone of a younger age is going through something to empathize,

You know,

To be.

Can we be in the emotion with them without getting lost in the emotion true empathy is the ability to be with someone in their emotion,

Without losing your own identity or connection to yourself.

You know,

I've,

I've gone to therapy before where the therapist got lost in my story,

And I immediately felt ungrounded and destabilized because they were,

They were no longer someone I could lean on,

And they almost turned into someone I started arguing with,

Because they were,

I could feel they were being triggered they couldn't stay grounded.

And they were trying to pull us both out,

You know,

So,

So really,

Again as an embodiment coach,

I speak to this a lot of.

It's really important that we can stay grounded in our bodies,

And in our spirit and our in our connection to truth while we're holding space for other people.

Loyce welcome to the stage you're free to ask questions share any of your wisdom,

And the floor is yours.

I'm had to get off,

It's not gonna work.

I can hear you.

I don't know.

You can't hear me.

I can hear you now.

Yep.

Okay,

Good,

Good.

I love this topic.

Yeah,

This is what I struggled with when I was a therapist,

Because I was getting secondarily traumatized.

While I was helping everybody else.

Yeah,

And I went to people to help me deal with the trauma,

And they got so cuddly.

They started doing the transference thing on me,

And I was back into that same stuff where nobody's listening to me.

Yeah,

You got cut off a little bit again,

But yeah,

I mean that honestly.

That is so much.

I mean even when I'm sharing.

It's so important I'm so glad you brought that into the conversation.

Because,

You know,

That is one of the reasons that many people feel like they can't go to therapy,

You know,

Right,

One of the reasons that I've struggled with it because you go and you almost feel worse and all you talked about was the details of the story,

And you don't necessarily know what to do.

And one of the cool things about the field of trauma therapy is that so many of the tools are about the body,

About coming back to the body,

Coming back to the breath,

Coming out of the details of the story,

Which is also kind of the techniques,

You know,

As someone who overshares and trauma dumps that I can do to prevent doing conversation where I can come into my body and start giving.

I mean the simplest technique is give less detail.

Like if you're the person that needs to overcare in conversation.

Can you say the same story with less detail,

Someone has much more capacity to hear you.

If they don't,

Because we're living in the age of information,

We're already bombarded with information from every day.

We don't need the details of each other's lives necessarily,

Obviously some of them are different.

Well,

I felt that for me,

It was the self-disclosure that I did as a therapist was only based on a case-by-case basis and will it help not hinder.

Okay,

There's some common,

Most of the clients I deal with were sexually abused teens that were abused as children and adult survivors of childhood sexual abuse that were duly diagnosed with a drug addiction.

So I was constantly bombarded with secondary trauma while I was still healing from mine.

And as I went to,

The first time I ever went to therapy was before I became a therapist.

And it was such a terrible experience.

I talked about it.

So Queen Be Divine show today.

It made me decide I don't want to just be a counselor or program developer or parenting,

Whatever,

Or substance abuse counselor.

I want to be a therapist because nobody deserves to get unraveled and get thrown out in the street.

Yeah.

You know,

So that was my experience.

It was very traumatic.

I checked myself in the mental hospital and they wouldn't even take me.

I had to blackmail them.

Because I'd suffer from PTSD like you did and all the other stuff.

So my thing is,

Is when you know that you've had trauma and you're sharing your story,

You have to be in the healing process so you can process as you process it.

I mean,

It's kind of like you can't just be there.

So when I because I was an empath and I pick up on people's feelings,

I was able to know what was going on before they even told me anything.

Yet I sit and listen.

I wouldn't even address the issue.

We play games.

And I came up with a form of therapy.

It's called game therapy and where I can teach you how to use different games to learn something about the client without even asking all those questions about the time you get them engaged in a game.

Their defenses go down and then they'll tell you the story.

And you don't have to disclose nothing.

You just have to be there.

I mean,

Really be present,

You know.

And then when I learned that,

Wait a minute,

That's when I figured out,

Wait,

I treat my clients better than me.

And that's when I that's when I had to grow.

That's when I had to know that everything that I was doing to help people,

I had to turn it around and help myself with it because I started breaking down because of the secondary trauma.

So a lot of trauma I had locked in my body was my own that I hadn't unraveled.

OK,

Most of it I had.

But the rest of it was what I suffered when I allowed people to dump on me and not know how to get out of that that that shit.

I must say it like this.

Yeah.

And I you know,

You're welcome to come back onto the stage.

I know the amount of time is only five minutes,

So I totally welcome you back to keep sharing your thoughts.

I,

I really love that you talked about the coming up with the game therapy,

You know,

Because when it comes to like kids,

You know,

That are that have gone through a whole lot and we are maybe the only adult that can support them.

What do we do,

Especially when it feels like secondary trauma hitting us?

And one of the things that I've learned as an embodiment coach,

Not,

You know,

Again,

I am not a licensed therapist myself,

But is when we look at animals and there's a lot of research about animals in the wild and why they don't have PTSD.

And one of the main things is they shake it off like physical movement can be really helpful.

So if if I was working with a kid and they they were sharing a really intense story,

I mean,

And this can work with adults,

Too.

If I'm in like the coach role,

I might say,

Wow,

That's really hitting my body.

And that feels so intense.

Are you open to both of us shaking our arms out and letting all this tension come out of our hands and throwing it into the sun,

Throw it into the sunshine,

Throw it.

You know,

We can make it as creative or playful as we want.

But I love that you talked about game therapy,

About about coming to a game,

Because it allows there to be an opportunity for coming back into connection with someone at our most formative level.

Movement,

Breath,

Touch,

Facial expression are some of our earliest experience of connection,

Connecting to others.

You know,

And so not necessarily touching each other,

But like touching ourselves like,

Oh,

I really feel that I want to place a hand on my heart while I'm listening to you.

That just I feel like I want to just hold so much space and give you a hug,

You know,

Even expressing things like that.

But it's really when we're holding space for someone else in there and we're noticing an impact.

We're feeling the hit,

You know,

In our psyche,

In our emotions.

Maybe it's hitting our own trauma.

That's kind of coming up.

We can we can come into connection with someone in a way where we can still be authentic.

Like I just said,

Like,

Whoa,

That hit me so hard in the gut when you just said that.

How does that feel to you and your body?

And it's an invitation into this connection.

Again,

That I think that was spoken earlier in this conversation of is there a way to pivot where we can pivot into empathy and connection with each other without it continuing to spiral into more trauma dumping and oversharing,

You know?

And again,

So much of this conversation has been brilliant with everyone who's come on stage today.

And it's so important to hear all these experiences and these nuances because this is part of life.

This is part of being a human is this this really big need to connect and community and with each other.

And sometimes it can feel harmful.

Sometimes it can almost be self sabotaging when we connect.

And and what do we do with it,

You know?

And so.

If you are on the receiving end of someone oversharing and trauma dumping,

Like was so brilliantly spoken earlier,

Is one,

You don't have to take it personally,

You know,

And that's that sounds easy,

But it's it's extremely challenging.

I know that because I take things personally very easily in my life.

But having an awareness of this person has a need that's been unmet and they there's enough trust in this situation where they're coming to me for this need.

I don't have the capacity right now to hold this or to do this.

But I also know that they're not in this isn't an intentional manipulation or trying to hurt me.

I might feel hurt or betrayed or even like they stepped over my boundary,

But it might have been a boundary I've never expressed yet.

So it can be an opportunity for me to shift to the relationship dynamics at some point and have a conversation of like,

I really want to support you as a friend or as a parent or as a,

You know,

Whatever our relationship is when the best way I can support you is dot dot dot.

You know,

And so every role that we have in life is very different.

And so,

You know,

This conversation,

Some of the tech tools and techniques can be very appropriate in one situation and maybe not as much in another.

Welcome to the stage.

You're free to share Joshua.

I know you've been listening.

Yeah,

Yeah,

Yeah,

I really,

I really appreciate your voice.

And I really appreciate the subject matter of this talk because,

Oh my God,

Like this is a,

This is a subject I,

I know,

To my own experience,

And I've been watching happen in society.

For a couple,

Like,

When I when the problem kind of when when the when the greater reality of trauma across culture like,

Like I really started to problem solve this in like,

Not only for myself but for other people in like 2015 2016.

When,

And then,

And then COVID happened,

And I was like,

Oh my God,

This is everybody now.

Yeah,

There's no way that like humanity is getting out of this without immense levels of like,

Collective trauma.

Yeah,

I hope I mean,

Yeah,

And just like,

If I will have a couple minutes here but if I'm well you know you can come back on stage.

Yeah,

This is just a trigger warning for everybody like,

I might say stuff that's going to be like,

Ah,

But the reason I,

The reason I disclosed that is just because I know how sensitive like an voice was saying that she was a therapist for a minute.

And that's the position of receiver,

That's the,

That's like the dump truck,

The professional.

Yeah,

Dump receiver.

Yeah,

Yeah,

Like I didn't,

I saw that reality and I didn't,

I didn't want to go down that route.

I'm a,

I'm a teacher by training.

Yeah,

Musician and yeah and actually for me too I've consciously chosen not to be a therapist yet until you know I'm a coach and I have very strong scope of practice and integrity around what could the coaching I do is with people.

And I'm very quick to refer clients to therapists and help them find really good trauma therapists when when stuff,

You know,

But I know,

You know,

Eventually I'll probably get a master's degree in somatic therapy,

But I want to really come into the embodied embodiment of somatic practices myself before I go into academia because it's very intellectual and sure we're going to be learning things in the body but as,

As a massage instructor and yoga teacher and breath facilitator like this really matters and rush.

Um,

May I suggest and invite you to follow a very good friend of my family's her name is Catherine ligot,

And she's a Catherine ligot.

Com.

She's a somatic shadow work trauma practitioner out of the Seattle area.

Awesome.

Yeah,

Feel free to send me a link in like Instagram DMS or whatever I think we're following each other.

Yeah,

L i g g t t.

Com just Catherine with a C.

I'll probably,

I'll try to remember to DM you but you know,

Family life and all that.

Yeah,

You know,

A 60 hour somatic trauma therapy search certification last year and I'm,

I'm currently in another hundred hour certification,

Dramatic stress release.

Yeah.

And so I'm always the person that will continue to increase my training capacity so that like Lo said like,

We're only as good as what we also do.

I mean she didn't say those words but my paraphrase of what she was saying was like,

There came a point that she said she was talking about where she had to start doing what she was,

You know,

Advising to do and the best teachers are what there's a set camera how I wrote down in their day because I'm like trying to wordsmith it's something like the best teachers are the best students.

Yeah,

And you know,

I'm,

I call myself an embodiment coach not only because that's what I,

I do but also because it's an invitation me Can I continue to embody what I teach and what I share,

And if not,

How can I call myself this word so it's almost.

My title is almost an invitation into holding myself accountable,

You know,

It's like walk the walk and you're I mean it's what I said to seven to the architect Jason,

You gotta,

You can't like don't be just somebody who walked who talks the talk walk the walk.

Yep.

Yeah,

And a lot of what I share with clients and in my trainings is the how to do that you know because we taught these can be very abstract topics but they're only as helpful to us as being able to bridge them into our daily life like how do I do it now what can I say today later when my friend starts oversharing with me.

What can I say when I notice I'm trauma dumping on someone so I really love being able to take the abstract and bringing it into the tangible everyday reality of like,

Yeah,

But what do I do right now.

Like this is happening.

Right.

Your thoughts,

Josh.

We have a few more seconds and I'll leave and come back.

Okay.

Okay.

And then I do see.

I see Ryan waiting so after this next five minutes I'm going to bring Brian up to the stage.

Thank you Ryan for your patience.

So yeah,

I mean,

I guess a question I can ask you because I love.

Yeah,

I love the,

The variety of the experiences we can each bring to the table.

Do you overshare or trauma dump,

And what are ways that you have learned to not do it as much,

Or are you,

Have you been on the receiving end of it and what are ways that you have stayed in connection with someone and like create a deeper connection in a way where you are also able to hold boundaries with them around these two concepts,

Like either heavy and huge question it's such a heavy.

Like,

Answer.

It's too challenging to answer all of those things at once in the time.

And what I can say.

First and foremost,

Is that if you're in that situation.

There is,

There is hope.

There is hope.

There is hope.

Whoa.

In either of those situations.

Do you have any,

Maybe,

Maybe a less heavy.

Do you have any advice in this topic to really helped you,

That's practical for anyone.

Yeah,

So the situation that I found myself in and that probably a lot of people find themselves in is that they have.

They see all these different kinds of therapists,

All these different kinds of people that all want to charge them $150 an hour.

And if this is your reality,

You probably don't have a job that makes an income that can sustain a regular therapist for $150 an hour.

And I was like,

What the fuck do I do,

What do I do,

This is impossible.

And I leaned on kind of my,

The relationships in my upbringing my,

My,

My,

My advocacy group that kind of got me through my brain injury.

And the PTSD in the short term and all that I didn't even know about for 15 years,

And the TBI and all that and like what do you do and once I figured out it was PTSD that I was dealing with 15 years after the fact.

I sell I taught myself how to do emotional freedom technique.

Have you heard of that.

Yep,

Yep,

The EFT the tapping.

Yeah,

It's so good.

It's so good.

And the trick with emotional freedom technique is don't run away from the emotion.

If anything,

Feel it more.

Feel it as much as you're willing to feel it and tap through the exercise and tap through the exercise,

You can go online to go on YouTube.

There's a guy named Brad Yates,

Brad,

His name is not Bradley it's Brad Shaw.

I asked him on my podcast.

I have a podcast at survivors to the number two survivors to thrivers.

Org.

That is really all about how do you democratize these tools for transformation because everybody's fucking stuck in these trauma loops and start my language like I was so stuck in it I didn't know what to do and I was like,

There's all these tools there's let me think about it from well,

Here I want to I want to give one piece for any of you who are listening and maybe I've tried tapping because I do want to say I have felt it too much to the point where the tapping didn't help at the time and then I was too much in the emotion.

So for any of you who have been like me where you feel emotion too much,

And you don't actually need to feel that much to do the tapping totally totally feel it about five or 10% and the tapping is going to really work.

And if you get lost in emotion come back to sensation in your body,

Start wiggling your toes and feel your feet on the ground that's going to bring you right back.

Drink some water because that's going to immediately bring circulation to your prefrontal cortex,

Which is going to help you get out of this limbic overwhelm overwhelm of emotion.

So I wanted to kind of put that in for anyone who's like,

But I did it with a lot of emotion and now it's like you.

Just like just like eating to full eat to like 80% full.

Don't like kill yourself to the point of where you can't eat it you physically,

I'm too stuffed and the guy blows up like in that Monty Python skin.

Catherine Legate taught me a beautiful exercise.

When you're feeling out of your body,

Rub your legs,

Rub your legs and ground the energy through your butt through your legs into your into the ground.

Love that.

I'm,

I'm,

I'm like triple air.

In terms of astrology I'm a sun moon and rising sign are all in air signs.

Yeah.

And so it's really easy for me to get totally out of my body and lose and just go interstellar and another really cool.

Another really cool one to moving your legs like you said,

Yeah,

Putting your hands under super cold water,

Like,

You know,

Go out of because that's very sensory and another one is taking your pointer finger and gently rubbing the palm of your other hand.

Because it's a sensitive area.

That's really effective in a conversation that you can't like leave where you kind of have to literally cannot wait to talk to you again.

I'm so happy that you came on stage today.

I'm going to welcome Ryan to the stage who's a men's wellness advocate for the UK.

Welcome.

You're free to share,

Ask questions and I'm happy to have you be part of this conversation.

The floor is yours.

Hi.

Hi.

I was listening to the conversation you had with Joshua Blackman and we spoke,

I spoke with Joshua yesterday.

And yeah,

It was great conversation but I'm just really keen to learn about you.

Gosh,

You just sound like amazing.

Well,

You know,

I think oversharing is something that I'm guilty of.

And I remember when I had one of my good friends,

You know,

Who I know I've known for a number of years and recognize that I was oversharing but didn't say I was oversharing but said,

You know what,

Maybe you need to see a therapist.

Yep.

And that was the indicator that,

Oh,

Have I just overshared too much?

And I could just sense by the look on their face.

Yeah,

That actually I had overshared.

And then,

In regards to trauma and trauma dumping.

Well,

I did that in the oversharing.

And what was key to the conversation was that I kept repeating myself.

And my friends recognize that actually you're saying the same thing you said three weeks ago.

Interesting.

And this,

That means it's something that is a tape that you're not able to deal with and perhaps it's time to kind of reach out.

Yeah.

It's a team that's so wise of them,

So aware and compassionate.

And empathetic.

Yeah,

Yeah.

And empathetic.

And I think,

You know,

Becoming a wellness advocate just came out of that,

Out of coming out of a sort of a,

You know,

Challenging relationship that I shouldn't have really been in because I wasn't really ready for a relationship.

And I realized that being in the relationship that I was in the past taught me that I wasn't ready.

But what it also highlighted was that there was deep trauma within me.

And when you've got trauma,

You don't even realize half the time that you've got trauma.

Yep.

Yep.

It's so true.

Right?

So I found myself in a situation where I said,

Like,

I'm going to have to figure out what this is all about and started to,

You know,

Connect with a therapist and it's extraordinary.

It was extraordinary.

I started to learn more about myself and why I do things and what was the things that I,

From a child,

That I was carrying into my adulthood,

Which I realized actually that is something I need to look at.

And shadow work is something I'm very,

Very,

You know,

I'm a big pro shadow worker,

Is looking at those things that I've hidden and look at them for what they are.

I don't know what your thoughts are about shadow work.

And if you do,

Do you do it?

And have you done it before?

I,

Well,

I think I have done a lot of shadow work in my life before I even knew what that word was.

But yes,

I am all about it.

I am all about being in the cave.

I mean,

Not staying there.

There's been points where I get lost in the shadow work.

So it's a tricky place to navigate and it's really helpful to have someone who can,

Who has training or who has gone there before to help them move through that,

Which is why also as an embodiment coach,

Because I am so comfortable with it.

It's not something I'm afraid of when it comes up with clients and it's something that I can provide in my coaching that maybe other coaches can't because I fully believe we don't jump into shadow work.

But first we have to cultivate skills of compassion,

Curiosity,

And building ourselves up.

And then that creates a safe space to look at our shadow from.

And many times people get lost in the shadow work or it makes things worse in their life.

But it's simply because they didn't set up a consent based like foundation of safety for themselves to do work from.

Right.

Yeah.

And I think,

You know,

When I do shadow work and I spent a couple of months this year just doing that because I had to get grounded in the things that mattered and then knowing how to release the things that didn't matter to me anymore.

Yep.

Shadow work is tough.

It is.

It's tough.

It's worth it because you make more progress than ever before.

You know,

And being a wellness advocate,

You know,

I get interviewed on radios and all the rest of it.

And it's wonderful for people to sort of look at things I've done,

But I just say that I've walked it.

I've gone through it myself.

So,

You know,

Men who don't know how to talk about their emotions and when they do talk about their emotions,

They do literally dump everything out in one go.

From the people that I speak to,

You know,

Tell me,

You know,

My husband was talking to me and he wouldn't talk to me for five months and then all of a sudden he just dumps everything else on me.

Yeah,

It's an extraordinary thing,

But it's vital that we do the work,

The internal work.

It's so vital.

Right?

Yeah,

And you know,

You're free to come back on stage because there's like two seconds left,

But one of the things I want to say for any of you that are,

You know,

Noticed,

There's that you trauma dump or overshare or there's things that you maybe feel ashamed or guilty of in yourself,

You know.

The word shadow work,

I believe,

Is kind of a word to talk to and then,

You know,

I see you,

Catherine,

Waiting,

So thank you for your patience.

You'll be after Ryan.

Shadow work is the willingness to face our own bullshit,

You know,

Like our own stuff that has been harmed ourselves and others.

But,

And,

And it gets to be on the timing that feels safe,

Where we have the resources and the tools to do it.

We do not have to jump into our shadow work without feeling safe to go there because sometimes it can feel more disruptive.

So I just want to put that out.

And before I bring Ryan back up on stage,

I don't want to use the five minutes that you have for any of you who are like,

Okay,

But I've gone to therapy and it hasn't worked.

Do you,

Is there any type of therapy that can be really helpful for this type of conversation?

I wanted to throw out a few modalities.

So not many people know that they can ask the therapist that they might work with what type of training they have.

That's really,

It's a really important question when you're going into work with a therapist.

There's a couple modalities that I have learned from therapists in my trainings for trauma being trauma informed as a coach.

One of them is called somatic attachment theory,

And this is for attachment theory,

And it has to do with how our childhood has affected the relationships we're in now.

So therapists that have training in this are phenomenal.

It's really helpful for your relationships.

Another key modality that's amazing that is life changing is called internal family systems.

There's a niche part of this that's called somatic internal family systems and it's specific training.

The somatic just means you stay connected to your body through this process.

Internal family systems is a revolutionary paradigm of how to approach yourself and how to have conversation with your different voices of emotions and narratives and beliefs you have.

Phenomenal and at minimum you can ask your therapist if they have training specific training and trauma because ironically it's crazy to know in the US over 90% of therapists do not have training in trauma,

Which is crazy.

And I learned this from an actual therapist that told me.

But if you ask them,

Do they have training and somatic therapy,

Somatic means connection to the mind and body.

So I just wanted to put that out before I bring Ryan back on stage,

And then I'll invite Catherine up afterwards.

If you want to come back up.

Thank you again for your patience.

I like when there's these types of conversations,

I like putting in different tools that we can use right away.

I love the philosophical and the abstract conversation,

But I also like for people to leave with not just overwhelm of information,

But it's like,

Oh,

This is something I can do today.

This is something I can do and like I can feel an effect.

I can see a result right away.

And so then I won't feel like I don't know how to process this information.

One of the things that I'm really sort of keen on is forest bathing,

Which is just getting out into nature and be barefooted and just be with the trees.

And it might sound very sort of wooey for some people,

Perhaps,

But it's certainly a great way to kind of connect.

Another one that I remember I heard that you mentioned about putting your hands in the cold,

Cold water.

Yes,

That's that's a very powerful one.

Which I do all the time.

And also just shower therapy.

Exactly.

That's,

You know,

And even one of the things I learned,

I grew up in West Africa and we did it more because everything was dusty.

So we had to wash our feet every day before we went to bed.

But I do it now on days where I feel a little more anxious or I'm a little more heady.

I wash my feet in the coldest water possible before bed.

And that immediately brings my awareness back to my body,

Down away from my head.

So out of my thoughts,

It's refreshing.

It's like a little bit exciting of like,

I did it.

And it's just so simple.

And it's part of my night routine.

It takes like 30 seconds,

You know,

And it's a way to take care of my body.

Fantastic.

You know what I mean?

So,

Yeah,

Yeah.

Any of you listening in,

You can start with very,

Very simple practices.

And all of this does relate.

Yes,

It does to oversharing and trauma dumping.

It does.

It literally does.

I mean,

Quick,

Quick,

Quick things to mention is also just listing the things down or journaling things into our into a book or a journal that we and not just any old notebook.

I always tell people to kind of buy something that looks like a treasure treasure book.

Something that's really,

Really special.

And get your best pen and you know you're going to just write the best stuff in there.

However it looks like and however it feels.

Just get it out of yourself and then leave it and then come back and revisit another day with fresh eyes.

Yeah,

That's so important.

Is a great one.

So if it was not the study journaling or doesn't know how to journal.

I just say the first way of journaling is just have a go.

Yep.

Try it out.

Try it out.

One of my clients says they call it brain dumping.

Yes.

They're in moments of a lot of anxiety and it's just too much to be holding in their brain.

They just dump it on paper and maybe they keep it.

Maybe they throw it away.

Maybe they look at it later.

But it's a way to just like release.

And what's so powerful about that is it's a very good way to prevent dumping on someone else.

And when your heart's racing and you know you know your body and you go well my body doesn't feel okay right now.

I've just I just feel out of it.

That's the moment when you need to dump everything onto that piece of paper.

I also think another great one is clearing out your space.

Physically clearing it.

Because I always say declutter your space.

Declutters the mind.

Gives more space.

It gives you more head space when you clear your own space.

And I always think it's a good idea to do that as well.

Because I find that once I've cleared out things I've got a much fresher look on life.

Isn't that amazing?

I have the same experience.

And it's funny because whenever I do it I'm like wait why don't I do this more?

It's amazing.

I can't believe how much more clear I have in my thoughts right now.

This is it.

This is it.

It's more clarity.

And I just had a look.

I just found that you follow me on Instagram.

I just did.

And I follow Dima on Instagram.

And it's yeah it's an important it's a really important tip.

And I also think that you know we've all been through some level of trauma.

It isn't just for certain people.

You know we've all been through a level of trauma.

You know.

And to be human is to have lived through some form of trauma including birth.

Birth can be traumatic you know.

You know.

And yes of course.

I'm sure.

And you know it's also just having sort of those relationships with your parents that perhaps aren't so wonderful and amazing.

And I've not had the most amazing unfortunately I've not had the most amazing relationship with my mother.

Certainly not.

But but you know I still love her dearly and forgiven her enormously.

And we just don't get on and we just can't see eye to eye and that's that's fair enough.

It's just the way things are.

But it's through the therapy I've learned how to be OK with that.

And that's the beauty of therapy.

Yeah.

And you know to follow on that note thank you so much Ryan for coming up on stage.

And yes anyone that comes up please follow them.

Go to his profile follow him following him on Instagram.

I'm so grateful for everything you said all the tools.

And you know one of the beneficial things about that I've learned is in learning to see that my parents were humans you know we're all victims from victims from victims from victims.

We're all victims of victims.

When I started seeing that and started seeing how much my parents did give me in certain ways and I was able to do healing around trauma for my parents.

I now have come into a relationship specific well with both of them individually where because I have embodied a lot of the practices I now teach I can come to my dad or my mom with a sense of deep compassionate neutrality meaning I'm no longer needing to take them personally.

While I can still have very strong boundaries in a way that maintains connection with them I had a boundary conversation with my dad the other day where at the end of the conversation he's like wow I never thought of it that way.

Thank you so much for taking the time I can feel how much you love me by telling me this.

That wasn't a thing that could happen before it was more me reacting to the way he responded etc.

So I want to say that our healing has the potential to really transform relationships we never thought possible,

You know.

Thank you so much for your patience Catherine welcome to the stage your spiritual leader teacher and guide.

So you're free to ask questions you're free to share tips with the audience.

And to share your experience in this topic.

Thank you for bringing me up on stage,

I'm really excited listening to your discussion with different people on this topic.

And it got me thinking,

Of course.

And one of the areas that I have seen,

And let me,

Let me explain,

I am,

I'm not a therapist,

Not at all.

Right.

And so,

Oftentimes,

When I,

Somebody comes to me and they come to me for spiritual guidance.

And I don't mean by that,

That I,

Somebody comes and talks to me and you know like I'm some kind of a medium,

I'm not that I spirit guide them in their spiritual life and,

And hope to broaden their consciousness of who they are.

Yeah,

And so you know it's,

It's,

It's really important that because I find many people come to me after they've been to therapy and they have,

You know,

Really done a lot of the work but there's this lingering belief that they still are not being able to clear themselves up.

So,

What I have noticed is the difference between some people,

And there's always a couple of people who want to continue to tell their story.

Yes,

And,

And they just,

They're just not done talking about it.

And from my point of view,

If,

If they're not willing to open up to possibilities and to what else they are,

You know they're not just that trauma,

Then I have nowhere to go with them,

You know,

They,

They,

They,

They are often,

I think that speaks to your scope of practice,

You know what I mean like as an embodiment coach myself.

It's really important that I understand when I assess whether a client is in a place to do embodiment coaching.

If they're not,

It's not a judgment,

It's more of,

Okay,

We need something else first which is exactly what you're saying like if they're stuck and not able to move beyond their story.

That is good for therapy,

You know,

And good for maybe a different approach,

And they might not have access to be and being able to tune into their spiritual spirituality or spiritual journey so I appreciate you saying that because,

You know,

And I want to say,

When I have been in a place where I couldn't get past my story.

There were two things for me one,

I didn't have the,

I didn't feel validated enough yet in my story.

I didn't feel safe to come into my body.

I wasn't able to integrate it in my body yet.

And so stuck kind of in a loop and my nervous system that I wasn't able to move through.

And honestly,

The first one I realized that what I did is I started receiving bodywork,

I started receiving cranial sacral I'm a massage instructor myself.

But I started moving into a space of having someone facilitate safe space for me to just learn how to be in my body,

Not necessarily associated with the story.

And eventually they were able to bridge.

And I was able to start moving through,

You know,

For any of you listening,

You know that feeling of not being safe in your body or feeling stuck in your story.

Sometimes it isn't therapy isn't the right answer at all.

And it might be just start going getting massages or go to a yoga class,

A restorative yoga class where you can just be with your breath and like be with other people in a in a safer space,

You know,

There's so many approaches.

I remember that too.

I can remember that when,

When I couldn't find a place in my body to feel comfortable,

You know,

That just was.

I wanted to be in my head all the time.

I didn't want feelings and I didn't want to be in my body and I wouldn't normally just jump to my head and my thinking,

And my thinking is what I would use to tell me how I felt.

You know,

It was like,

I think I feel.

I had no idea how I felt.

Getting into the body and then finding that sense of I am ready to let this go.

I am prepared.

Even if I don't know how if I don't have a clue how to do that,

But being in a place where I am ready to release this now and and you're absolutely right if people haven't been heard yet if they haven't felt that validation,

Then you're gonna feel lost.

I love.

Thank you so much,

Catherine,

You're free to come back on stage again if you want to continue.

I love your thoughts and everything you're sharing.

You know,

The piece I said on,

You know,

Sometimes we stay stuck in our story because we haven't been validated yet.

This actually brings brings the conversation to I don't know how many of you listening in have heard of Brene Brown.

She's a phenomenal researcher and therapist herself.

She speaks to many of these topics.

She calls oversharing and trauma dumping.

She calls it floodlighting and I through listening to her years ago.

It really helped me to start realizing that both of these patterns are symptoms of being emotionally unavailable.

I have I'm very verbose as you can tell.

Can you tell I like to talk?

I have liked to talk a lot in my life.

I am also an introvert,

Which is interesting extroverted introvert,

I guess.

And I I thought growing up because I talked a lot with another person that meant I was vulnerable and open and emotionally available.

Turns out I was not.

Oversharing and trauma dumping as Brene Brown calls it is floodlighting.

We are dumping so much detail into a conversation that it's almost like you're shining a floodlight into someone's eyes and the only response they can have is to look away.

It is too bright.

It is too much.

It is too much at that time.

It is too intense and what ends up happening from the perspective of me being emotionally unavailable when I am oversharing or trauma dumping is it confirms my bias that I will be abandoned because I floodlight someone.

And if I turn away,

I feel bad that they're not listening or not validating or turning away,

Then my subconscious says see no one wants to listen to you see no one cares see they abandoned you just like everyone else and so it almost perpetuates the spiral of feeling abandoned and or I've had therapists where I like wow this is a lot I think you might need to work with someone else or they just aren't able to work with me which has been frustrating.

So one of the things I want to invite is,

You know,

For any of you that are like me who have overshared or trauma dumped is,

Is,

Is one being concerning about who you truly can process things with,

Because I can go to a stranger and trauma dump and overshare.

And that's not me being vulnerable or discerning,

I have no idea who this person is,

Or I can go to someone who my subconscious knows is going to try to give me unsolicited advice isn't going to listen is going to insult me,

And that I can feel equally abandoned,

But it was my lack of discernment of who I match who I can actually trust to move through something with.

So for any of you who have gone to talk therapy and it hasn't felt like it's worked,

Or you felt stuck or you've worked with a coach or anything where the relationship has ended and you've almost felt worse what I want to say is you're not wrong.

You're not too broken for them they probably were out of their scope of practice and there's another approach that can be happen that can happen for you.

I've felt that way so many times in my life where I've gone to talk therapy,

And I have either overwhelmed the therapist they didn't have the right tools to help me and I walked away feeling like I was too broken for therapy or it didn't work on me or there's something wrong with me.

What I realized through my healing process is none of those were true.

I usually was working with someone who is out of their scope of practice.

And I actually needed a completely different approach than the one we were attempting.

So please know that if therapy hasn't worked for you or if you've had a negative experience with it,

It most likely was related to the person's training not being the right training or approach that you needed to work through your stuff.

I'm so so grateful for this conversation today for all the amazing people that have come up on stage and brought so much variety and perspective to this topic.

For those of you who really appreciated what I've said resonated with this topic and want to learn more want to maybe work with me at some capacity.

I'm starting a three month group coaching program called radical authenticity,

And it's all about coming into deeper connection with yourself and working with evidence based tools and skill sets,

Mixed with in tech mixed with spirituality science and spirituality combined that's going to very effectively from my personal experience working with clients on my education take you through practices and an embodied path into really feeling connected to yourself where you don't lose yourself in connection to others where you can start transforming your relationship with your body with yourself and with your people that are closest to in your life.

So you're free to reach out that's in the link in my bio on Instagram.

And of course,

I always love having a variety of resources and tools you can listen to any of the talks I've done on this platform,

Or any of the other platforms on the link in my bio.

I have a free resource library I'm always putting out meditations and various tools that are completely free.

So it's accessible to everyone.

And then there's different,

You know,

Little workshops and replays and libraries that I have various different offers.

So you're always free to see what I have to connect with me I love collaborating.

I did a podcast with Daryl the other day it was fantastic so I love the idea of any of you that came on stage that want to do a talk together on any of these platforms that's awesome.

Feel free to reach out to me because I love the collab aspect.

And I guess I'm going to recap a little bit for any of you that were like wow that was a lot that was awesome but what do I take away from this.

At one point in my life I was a cognitive skills trainer so I helped,

I was essentially a brain trainer.

So I got trained in ways to help you improve brain function in different areas of your life,

And I worked,

Mostly with youth at risk in the middle school and I had a lot of problems with that age,

But the company that I worked for worked from people anywhere from like four to like 98 years old,

They worked with a lot of people with TBIs,

And that were neuro divergent brain injuries,

Etc.

So it was a cool experience.

And one of the things I like to do at the end of a talk is to invite any of you listening in.

Size and improving working memory.

So working memory is your ability to remember in the present moment what you've been recently learning in the last however much time,

I guess an hour or so,

I don't know how long we've been on,

Maybe two,

Who knows.

Working memory is a little bit different than short term and it's a little bit different than longterm.

So working memory helps you to improve your overall cognitive function in life,

Especially if you're like me and have neurodivergence like ADD,

Et cetera.

So to improve working memory,

One of the questions you can ask yourself at the end of a talk,

Whether it's a YouTube,

Podcast,

Whatever,

Is what are one,

Two or three things that I can take away from this conversation?

And what is one thing of those three that I can implement today or in the next 24 hours?

You don't want it to be more than three because our brain says counts this way,

One,

Two,

Three,

Many.

So more than three kind of goes into the realm of too much information to hold.

It's really helpful to stay maybe at the one or two.

What's one thing or two things you can take away from this conversation and what's one thing that you can implement today or in the next 24 hours?

What this does is it helps you to form stronger neural pathways to any of the neural pathways you've been creating just from things you've been learning today.

And as soon as you can implement a piece of information,

The more quickly it's going to start creating new neural pathways and you're going to be leveraging neuroplasticity.

So it's going to allow your brain to continue to be more and more malleable.

In these types of discussions too,

It's really helpful to stay hydrated because hydration allows there to be greater cognitive function,

Brain function,

And allows you to integrate.

When you drink water,

You can feel the water in your body.

So it's a sensory experience in this.

I so,

So,

So appreciate all of you being on the conversation today,

Whether you were listening,

Whether you were sharing your thoughts or questions,

Like I said,

You're always feel free to reach out on any platform I'm on.

And I feel so grateful and I wish you all well and I want to hold that whatever you desire in your life is possible,

Even if no one else has been able to say yes to that,

But your desires are possible that you're here for a reason that your purpose matters and that you matter.

Thank you so much for listening in.

Reviews

I loved this talk. Thank you to you, Lydia and to those who came on to ask questions and share.
1) I am able to let someone know that I am not in a space to listen to and hold space for their trauma dumping or oversharing. And do it in a way so to validate them and acknowledge their feelings.
2) I also understand that if I am the one oversharing or trauma dumping, it's due to unresolved trauma in me. And I have things to work on.

Thank You Again 💞💕💞

5 stars
I really enjoyed this talk, lots to think about .
Thanks