Mm-hmm

... for me.

I grew up...

Um, my parents went through a nine-year divorce process, started when I was in first grade.

It was a lot of chaos and high conflict, paranoia, gaslighting, manipulation, psychological abuse that was happening, and I was the observer of it.

I'm an only child, and I just, you know, was watching it back and forth, back and forth.

And the manipulation, gaslighting, psychological abuse was towards my mom, and as a little girl watching this go down, how I made sense of it was that if you are right, which my dad was masterful at being right, if you are right, then you are safe, and if you're not right, then you are not safe.

Which wound creates the most loneliness?

When we're thinking about the family of origins or sort of trauma or experiences that really shape us, how do the firsts play into

that? That's it, right? And that's why I titled it The Origins of You, right? Like the original time that something happened that set the foundation, the framework, shifts the trajectory of where we're going.

And I know a lot of us don't necessarily have all the memories, right? Sometimes we're like, I don't remember anything in childhood and that's okay.

We can actually work ourselves backwards.

So even if you don't remember the first time something happened, that does not mean that you don't want to or to do this work.

But when we get activated present day, What's happening is we are coming into contact with something that's familiar.

It's really uncommon as adults to have a fully new experience.

Screw

Oh, good God.

Five, six years old.

And I remember, you know, my dad was somebody who was manipulative, and he would gaslight, and he was masterful at the manipulation, and I saw that be so confusing for my mother, who would not be able to track what was going on, and it caused a lot of emotional flooding and paranoia and all that jazz.

And, you know, there w- there's an impact.

Even when something isn't happening directly to you, being in observation, I say a wound forms through experience or through observation.

So even though that wasn't directed at me-

Yeah

... that it mattered, that you feel disappointed or sad or that the grief is there.

Mm-hmm

... and say something like, "Oh, I wanna acknowledge this experience for you.

Like, I wanna just sit down with you and take a moment to see you and to see what you went through, and to just be here with you and listen to you for a moment, 'cause maybe you wanna tell me something about this experience.

Um, but I just wanna sit here with...

I don't need to make it better, right? I don't need to over-function in this space, but I just want to witness what this was like for you.

And I wanna share in the emotion with you, too," right? "I wanna do that in a clean way," right? "But I wanna share in this emotion." That's where the grief is, is to see this younger part of ourself that went through something that was hard.

And sure, we found our way through, but I think that I define healing as moving from survival to choice.

Yeah

So let's talk about this word wounds, because how would you describe the difference between wounds and trauma?

I am glad that the word resonated with you so much.

I was very intentional about using that word.

I think certainly many of us Yeah.

Yeah.

And I also think trauma is one of those things that a lot of people check out of.

To your point, when you're like, I had a pretty good childhood.

me,

Can everyone do this at home too?

Yeah, if they're not driving.

[inhales] And out.

[exhales] And in.And out.

[sighs] And then just stay with your normal breath.

And I want you to visualize one of your favorite places in the world.

Just pick one.

I mean, come on.

Can you speak a little bit more to the book and sort of like how it ties into what you were talking about with your

history? Oh, sure.

Yeah.

You know, obviously my life is a huge part of what prompted the book, but also, gosh, now working with over, you know, it's like over 25,000 hours of seeing individuals, couples and families.

And, no, I don't know that it's so surprising for people to think, okay, yeah, sure, my family affected me.

But I don't know that we necessarily touch it as much as we might need to.

And it's not about staying stuck in the past at all.

too