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Emotions Untapped
Welcome to the Emotions Untapped podcast, the show where we uncover all the information you need to better understand, use and manage your emotions in a positive way. When we understand our thoughts feelings and emotions we not only become more familiar with ourselves but also can foster healthier relationships with others. If you're aim is to relieve stress, communicate effectively and defuse conflict, empathise with others, overcome challenges and overall just have more meaningful relationships, then you've come to the right place. If you are searching for direction and more fulfillment in your life then the Emotions Untapped podcast was made for you. Each week we sit souind with therapists, experts, thought leaders, healers and so many more to bring you the tools and insights you need to start living a more emotionally intelligent life now.
Emotions Untapped
#013 Healing Generational Trauma PART 2: Navigating Depression and PMDD with Compassion
Imagine navigating the stormy seas of emotional health with grace and compassion. In our latest episode, Rachel Abbey opens up about her deeply personal journey through depression and PMDD (Premenstrual Dysphoric Disorder). She enlightens us on the transformative power of understanding and managing these conditions. Hear Rachel's compelling story of how embracing both the highs and lows of life has enriched her healing process, emphasizing that healing is not about fixing what’s broken but about becoming your true self. Find out how focusing on what you desire, inspired by Tony Robbins, can drastically shift your energy toward achieving your goals.
Ever felt beaten down by your inner critic? This episode addresses that internal struggle head-on. Rachel and I unpack various strategies to transform that harsh inner voice into a supportive ally. Drawing on Ed Milet’s advice to name and mock the critic, we contrast it with a gentler approach that sees the critical voice as a wounded part of ourselves. Rachel shares how engaging in a compassionate dialogue with this part can lead to a healthier, more nurturing internal environment. The episode is a treasure trove of insights on self-compassion and the importance of treating ourselves with the same kindness we extend to friends.
This episode also explores the importance of shifting from just surviving to truly living. Rachel discusses the need to embrace life’s challenges instead of trying to conquer them with sheer willpower. Hear how books like "The Power of Vulnerability" by Brené Brown and "The Miracle Morning" have had a profound impact on her mental well-being. Learn about Rachel's upcoming podcast, "In the Nude," where she promises to candidly address the messy reality of the healing process. Join us for an episode filled with valuable insights and inspiration to help you on your emotional health journey.
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You can connect with our community, connect with us on social media and find valuable (FREE) resources on our website www.eqnation.org
Welcome to part two of this awesome interview with Rachel Abbey. If you haven't heard it yet, check out last week's episode where we start this conversation in part one.
Speaker 2:Instead of trying to see yourself as broken and healing yourself. The process of healing is coming into who you are. If you, instead you're like, okay, what's that tree on this path? That's really interesting. I just heard a bird. I've never heard that one before. If you stop and you just start enjoying the pain and the good and the pretty along the process, you're going to remember the hike more. You're going to have a lot more fun on the hike and even if you don't get exactly where you thought you should be getting, maybe you found a different path that was better for you and you have a better view then, like, and it's that shift, it's huge. It's learning how to create that safety wherever you are. Because you are your safety, you're your ride or die. Literally, you're stuck with you for the rest of time, so start prioritizing you.
Speaker 1:Welcome to the Emotions Untapped podcast. I'm your host, livia Lauder. This is the show where we explore the power of emotional intelligence in our personal and professional lives In this community. We dive into conversations with experts and thought leaders from a variety of fields to gain insights, strategies and tools for cultivating emotional intelligence or EQ for short. It gives me so much joy to create this show for you, to bring value and resources to you on your journey. I love your support in helping us create an even bigger impact. Just leave a five-star review and share this episode with a friend so we can continue to help others improve their lives by improving their emotional health. Now hit that subscribe button and let's dive in.
Speaker 1:I do want to shift gears for a minute and talk a little bit about something that you mentioned earlier. You know, so you said you were in when you had that line in the sand moment. You were in, you know a really bad way. You were in a really deep depression there and becoming very vacant. I'd love to talk a little bit more about. You know, once you made that decision that okay, I'm not going to. I'm here now, I'm not going to stay here. Depression you know it's a heavy one and there's different severities, there's different levels of it, and people you know experience that in a different capacity. I'd love to know, you know from an emotional regulation standpoint, what were some of the things and what's kind of the journey that you know you brought yourself through to, you know not being in that deep, dark depression anymore.
Speaker 2:Yeah. So for me there's a lot of things that have adjusted, but some of it has been comprehension. I have a thing called PMDD. Understanding that helped me. Basically what that is is it's pretty common, not super, super common, but it's you get when you have your cycle right. Everybody's used to PMS. They know what that is. They know what the symptoms look like.
Speaker 2:Pmdd is essentially cycling depression. It's super fun. Pmdd is essentially cycling depression. It's super fun. It comes alongside your ovulation. So basically, I'm very irregular and so I don't every time I have a cycle ovulate. But when I ovulate, I'm really aware of it now that I know what I have, because it is a catastrophic level of difference in my mental health. Right, so that that exists. But separate from that, I had depression and there's lots of different ways that people can handle it and I think that a consulting somebody who's a professional is going to be super helpful for knowing where you are and what that looks like For me.
Speaker 2:I went about the process, maybe not in the best way, but it's the way that helped me. I did therapy but I started off with identifying one. Okay, I don't want that. And I comprehended enough about the idea of I don't want. That means I can't keep looking at it. Somebody once said I think it was Tony Robbins was. I heard him once talk about how he took a driving course like a NASCAR, like racing driving course, and the main thing the guy said was you need to focus where you want to go. You're not allowed to move your head to where you don't want to go. Keep your face focused where he was and he was telling this story about he almost got in a crash and the driver literally like shoved his elbow on his face so he couldn't turn because he kept trying to turn to look at the wall. And he's like if you just don't look at the wall, you won't hit the wall, right. So I'd heard that story. So in my head I was like, okay, I need to stop focusing on, I don't want to be vacant. So what is it I want?
Speaker 2:And I couldn't give a definition for what I wanted for myself. I literally had nothing Not existing is what I wanted, not for myself, right? And I was like I don't want this for my kids. So what do I want for my kids? And I was like I want them to see adulthood as something that can be fun. I want them to see adulthood as something that they can look forward to and that it could be a further exploration of wonder and joy and thriving and enjoyment. I wanted them to see adulthood as an extension of childhood, instead of seeing it like I saw as a child. I saw it as death, death of all hope, death of all good.
Speaker 2:And I, at this point, actively hate the hashtag adulting because it continues that persona and that mentality on adulting, on adulthood. But I don't think it actually has to be mentality on adulting, on adulthood, but I don't think it actually has to be. And so I started there with what do I want for my kids? Right, and if I want that for my kids, the only way my kids are going to live that way, have that is if I'm living that, because I can say a lot of stuff with my mouth, but, as we all know what your parents said, if it didn't match their actions, you didn't care. It was what they did. And so for me, I was like all right, I've got to figure out how to enjoy life. I've got to figure out how to start thriving, I've got to figure out how to find wonder and joy when all I want to do is die. I can laugh at it now. It was not funny at the time and so it was small stair steps.
Speaker 2:I got connected with a multi-level marketing, honestly, and it saved my life. A lot of people have a lot of crap about it and you can have your viewpoints, but for me, it connected me with a group of people who continuously encouraged me to try to invest in myself and that's not a thing that I knew. And it wasn't just invest myself for their business, it was self-care, it was invest in my mind, it was push myself to dream bigger. And yes, of course it was connected to the business and all of those things, but like that literal inundation with a completely different mindset of where my focus could be and opened me up into my direct person. Who signed up with me was a person who was a similar background, had severe CPTSD, and she became a mentor in my healing journey because she would reference hey, I read this book and it was really helpful for me because of um understanding, understanding the perpetuation of the trauma cycles I had as a child in my adult life, right, and so she would give me a book, or she, she gave me a Brene Brown book about, um, vulnerability and grace, and I had heard of Brene Brown before with you know, ted talks or whatever. But I sat down and I read three of her books and her comprehension about how to sit with feelings Like a lot of the times we have these things with ourselves or other people, where we have this like fix it mode we get into, we have this problem, you're having a bad day and you talk to somebody about it and their automatic response is well, did you think about this?
Speaker 2:Did you do this? Well, what about this? Isn't your life pretty good with this, this and this? And they start like fixing it and it just makes you more angry, it makes you more frustrated and it makes you just want to hang up on them and scream at them a little bit. Yeah, it escalates things. Versus if they sat there and they were just like man, that sounds like a really hard day. I'm sorry they don't have to say they felt it before. They're just willing to sit in the uncomfortable just long enough.
Speaker 2:When it happens, your body literally starts to relax and let go of the feeling, and for me, learning about that got me curious and it started leading me to book after book after book where I just followed my curiosity, and for me, my favorite thing about the learning journey is that it is so completely vastly unique and different to each individual. But the best advice I can give anybody is two things Be willing to get curious about yourself, and that means learn what you need and like and want, and that can be uncomfortable and it's, if you're like me, very, very uncomfortable. But part of that getting curious is in order for your life to look different, you have to be willing to get uncomfortable, because being uncomfortable is the only way your life looks different. Comfort gets you the exact same life. So sitting with yourself in that uncomfortable is a part of the process.
Speaker 2:Me, learning how to self-love has been an entire arduous journey that I'm still on. But part of that self-love is being okay with the fact that, hey, rachel, this is hard for you and that's okay. And sitting with myself like I would another person on a bad day and not try to fix it and not try to make it easy and not be like, well, just go buy something, maybe that'll work, shove a candy in it. Instead, just sit with myself in the uncomfortable and say, okay, maybe we won't have it figured out today, but we can try again. So it's getting curious about yourself and then allowing yourself to follow your curiosity wherever it might lead.
Speaker 2:I have read about silly things that don't seem to have any connection, where I got like super interested and integrated into the actual way that emotions are physical things and the science of it, gravity and its effect on the pull towards the center of the earth and how it affects like black holes and stars and like crazy things that seem like they make no sense whatsoever. But I swear each and every one of them there's a reason why I had that curiosity. It connects back to something later. That that is an analogy, that is a connection that my brain was able to hear something that I wasn't able to hear before, because sometimes you can hear something six, seven, eight, nine, 12,000 times, but it takes you being in a different place for you to hear it and actually receive it, and sometimes it takes you comprehending something else, and so getting curious was huge for me. It was a part of that, with self-compassion in it and the inner bully. A lot of times people like to do this thing.
Speaker 2:Ed Milet is an amazing man. For everything I know of him, his podcasts have been extremely helpful for me. But he had a podcast recently where he was talking about how we get stuck in the past, which I completely agree, and the nostalgia of that actually traps us often. But he said one thing that I don't agree with and I've heard lots of people do this. Said one thing that I don't agree with and I've heard lots of people do this, and I understand it, because there's a level that it takes effect and it's an immediate response. But he said name the dummy when he was talking about the inner critic.
Speaker 2:Right, that person in your head is telling you can't do this or giving you excuses. And the reason he says name the dummy is if you sit there and identify that that thing is a parrot in your head. You can train that parrot to say anything. If a parrot turned and you said grab that Snickers bar, that's a car, you're not going to take any weight to it because you know it's just repeating phrases. The bully in your head is just repeating phrases. It doesn't make them true, it doesn't make them real and you disconnecting that statement as hey, this is just because I thought it doesn't mean it's true, just because I thought it doesn't have weight. That I agree with. But when you say name the dummy and you mock that part of your brain, you actually are leaving part of yourself holding that truth, lack of truth. Honestly, you leave yourself, you abandon that person, that part of you who's repeating it.
Speaker 2:And there's a whole science of inter-family medicines you can look into, but the baseline of it is that our body and our mind reacts almost like a family unit in our brain right and when we're in a traumatic situation, sometimes parts of our brains take up mantles that they never wanted to have. The inner bully scientifically through the experience of other people healing their systems almost exclusively wants to encourage you, but it's doing the exact opposite. Encourage you, but it's doing the exact opposite. And when I sat with mine and I said okay, please stop, because I can't and you're really mean, instead of like making fun of it or dismissing it, if I just I just sat and I said okay, listen, I get that you're trying to say the things first because maybe if you say them first it won't hurt as much when somebody else says them. You're trying to protect me and I get it. This isn't needed now I'm not in that situation where I have these people repeating it back to me. I am on my own and I need you to stop being that bully. You've taken up the mantle. You've started saying these things and I know that's not what you want.
Speaker 2:You've taken up the mantle, you've started saying these things and I know that's not what you want. And it sounds crazy to have these conversations with yourself. But doing that and I did mine with my therapist I don't have to fight that inner bully anymore. It happens when I'm in my PMDD sometimes, but as a whole, that person now is more like a well, what if? And you can flip the script Instead of leaving part of yourself abandoned with the person who's mocked, because when you do that, you're literally shunning you and it's usually a really hurt part of you that's stuck in this thinking. They're still in this traumatic situation where they have to lash out, and so I respectfully, with complete humility, say, maybe compassion instead of mocking, maybe sit with it and say, hey, this isn't true, I don't need to hear that, let's try something else.
Speaker 1:Um, for me personally, that was a very big shift beautiful really was, you know, an act of like making peace with that part of you? Yeah, hearing it and making peace with it. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and it was definitely. It's definitely, it's definitely a part. It's kind of like. It's like so most people, when you think back to your childhood, you can only think of like really extreme situations, right, like the first time you rode a roller coaster and when you fell out of a tree, right, you have these extreme memories because, how your brain works, it only has so much RAM space to take up, like and take in. So it clears out all the metal, all the like day-to-day stuff that wasn't big but unfortunately for a lot of people, the things that it stores are a lot of negatives.
Speaker 2:And when it stores it, it isn't just storing it like, it's an allegorical, like wisp in the air. It's an actual, physical part of who you are and there is a very real part of you that is stuck in that moment, that that was founded, and so it really is making peace with a part of you. It really is coming to the table and saying, hey, like you would a friend and you're like, I get that you're dating this guy and I get that you don't understand why he's treating you that way, but have you stopped to ask why you keep receiving it? Right, you stop and have that patience with a friend, but it's applying that patience with yourself and having those conversations with a part of yourself, because we're not always aware of everything at the same time, and so it can sound crazy, but it's simply parts of your awareness that are present and other parts that aren't.
Speaker 1:I love that best friend analogy. I actually learned something along those lines quite a long time ago and I have applied it in my life since then and it's simply that it's that voice in your head. If you kind of stop for a second and go hang on the way that I'm talking to myself right now, would I speak that way to my best friend? I can guarantee the answer is no, and if you can just kind of remember that and recycle that thought from time to time, I feel like that process, although uncomfortable and sticky and icky in the beginning, you know, like you said, really being in that uncomfort zone of it. It's the only way that you you know that it gets to be easier and you get to keep practicing it, but it's that's a really good reminder. Like, would I say this to my best friend? If my best friend said this to me, how would I feel? You can kind of go both ways.
Speaker 2:No, exactly, I actually say to my oldest on a regular basis make sure you're talking to yourself how you'd want to have somebody talk to your sister, and um, because it's, it is very true, like it is a test case, like when you start having a thought, to stop and ask that question to yourself and if you're not, then say okay, we're going to adjust. How can I say this in a different way? Because people get like really mad at self-love, or there's this I've heard a couple of different podcasts where people talk about like self-love as this. They are hating on it because self-love has different applications, about how people take it onto themselves. For me, what I comprehend about self-love and self-acceptance are two vastly different things, and what I mean by that is self-love is like I love my kids. They don't have a reason. If you ask me why I love my kids, I'd be like because they're my kids. They didn't come out dropping golden eggs. They didn't come out pristine angels. They didn't come out having something to offer me. They innately because they breathe. I love them, whether they mess up, they're awesome or otherwise. I love them.
Speaker 2:If you have a person in your life, whether it's a sibling or a small person or a spouse, you have that same thing. You have somebody in your life where you just, it doesn't matter what happens, you love them. Now, applying that to yourself, no matter what I do, I'm going to love myself. Now. That isn't the same as self-acceptance. I'm going to love myself Now. That isn't the same as self-acceptance. In the same way that if you have a spouse, a partner, a child and they do something that's outright mean, you don't just go, no, you call it out and you say that's not okay. You just talked to me in a way that was completely disrespectful and I'm not okay with that. It doesn't adjust how much you love them, but it does adjust how your proximity is and how you respond to them.
Speaker 2:Yes, and I think that sometimes people convolute self-love with self-acceptance, because I can fully and completely love myself right here. But that doesn't mean I don't have things I want to change. That doesn't have. And me wanting to change something about myself doesn't mean that I hate myself. It means that I'm like hey, I'm calling myself to a higher level. I love myself right here, but I'm done with talking to myself like I wouldn't my best friend. I'm done with not showing up for myself and being active, like I keep saying it but I keep breaking that promise. I'm not going on that walk that I said it was going to. I love myself, but I just went to the store and bought a thing of Oreos and ate the whole thing. I don't like that Right, and I think that's the disconnect sometimes that people think of self-love Like it means you have to fully embrace every part of every who.
Speaker 2:Who is that true for? Who in your life have talking mean towards me? Or that chewing with their mouth open, I love it? No, there's always something where you're like I love them. I find that annoying, but I love them.
Speaker 2:And that same thing can be true with yourself, and I think that that's why self-love can get a bad name because of the two sides of it the people who are coming and looking at it like no, you should change, like you should improve, yes, but also you can be okay where you are right now.
Speaker 2:It can be both. And then people on the other side who are like but I'm just loving myself where I am, yeah, but you can also call yourself to grow. You can also call yourself to become more. And like you were talking about the uncomfortable. Something that happened in the process of me healing was my new comfort zone is discomfort, and that sounds weird or bad. When you haven't been in discomfort, it sounds like why would you want that? But now it's the safe zone. I know that if I'm continuously, in small ways, making myself uncomfortable, I know that I'm not going to ever stagnate or go backwards, and so it is now a safe place where I'm like okay, I'm uncomfortable with this, I'm going to do it anyway, yeah, and like, isn't that really like the truest form of self-love?
Speaker 1:the truest act of self-love, anyway, is just continually like loving for who we are and who we see ourselves as, and all the flaws, and then, like you said, holding it to a higher standard and being like, well, I love you, but hey, we can be better, we can make those weaknesses strengths and we can make our strengths even stronger, Like, why not, let's go right.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, and acknowledging the process as you go. It's kind of like when you work out at the gym right, you might have goals when it comes to how much you can lift or that you have this number of abs or that you are able to run for this length of time, but the same process you're not going to see the results like immediately, right, and it's going to be uncomfortable when you start the process of whatever exercise you're starting. But part of getting through the muck that like super uncomfortable, like that that you're doing leg days and you can't walk down those stairs so you're just going to is the ability to one keep your eye on where you're wanting to go, right through the pain, through the frustration, through the discomfort. But on top of that, it makes it easier when you start acknowledging okay, my legs hurt, but that's a good hurt, my legs hurt and I did a great job yesterday working out like high five old self, me for loving me now, even if I don't like the results of it. Right, this second, and it's acknowledging the process while you're in it and that's the magic, because I think a lot of times we have this viewpoint of like, like. When I got started literal conversation with my therapist where I was like, okay, I'm very type A point in case of me reading all the books. I literally sat down and I was like, okay, so here's the deal. I can already tell you these 16 different things that are wrong with me and we're going to work on them. And these are the top priority, these top four, because they're the most affecting of my life and I feel like they're going to take this long for each one of them. Right, okay. So what we're going to do is we're going to go really intense.
Speaker 2:Visualize we're in a storm. Okay, I'm on the boat, you're helping me steer the boat and we have two options. I've been skirting this storm and I'm done skirting the storm. My boat keeps about sinking, so we're just going to turn full fledged directly into the heart of the storm so I can cut through this mother trucker and get to the other side and be done. She was very kind. She was like okay, okay, well, let's just start with turning the boat and we'll go from there. You know didn't have the kindness in her heart to say oh, love, the storm is your life and it doesn't stop. So it's about learning how to exist in the storm instead of fighting it. That's the thing. Um, instead, she was just like okay, we're just gonna let you pretend like there's the other side. That happens. We're just gonna she to. She just like let it to this day. So we just want to be in the entire world. But that's like.
Speaker 2:The visual is like we have this like fight this, like I'm going to like will my way out of a bad day, I'm going to will my way out into healed, and we have this perspective of arrival, like it's a hike and we're getting to the top. If you analogize your life like a hike and you're trying to get to healed, when you get to healed, two things are going to happen, one of two things. One, you're then going to be like oh man, I've already arrived. I guess I'm just downhill from here, right? Or the other is you're going to be like I made it here, but now that I'm here, I see there's like a way bigger mountain, Guess, I'm climbing that one. Like you have two perspectives on what it is, but it's about the process of, instead of constant like do you know how defeating that is If you are either side, like if you get to the top and you're like, oh, I guess I just go downhill, that's defeating. Or if you're there and then you're like, man, I have a whole nother one of these things and you're just focused on the top of the next one. Either side of that defeating versus if you. Instead, you're like okay, what's this? That tree on this path? That's really interesting. I just heard a bird. I've never heard that one before.
Speaker 2:If you stop and you just start enjoying the pain and the good and the pretty along the process, you're going to remember the hike more, you're going to have a lot more fun on the hike and even if you don't get exactly where you thought you should be getting, maybe you found a different path that was better for you and you have a better view.
Speaker 2:Then, like, and it's that shift, it's huge for one that like I think, especially the united states, but like everywhere has this like grind, grind until you die, like this vibe about healing, about relationships, about work, about everything.
Speaker 2:They have these jokes about like people where they're like, you know, we just survive until tonight, we just have another day, another four days and then just another week, and they have this like perspective of they're like if I just survive now, and then they stack it onto like surviving all of this. If we just shift it from instead of surviving, I am going to whatever it is I can today, enjoy. I'm going to stop and be like okay, well, I got into a car accident but and that wasn't great, but you know what I got outside and I heard some birds and it helped me calm. That's a good thing. I liked the birds, that was nice and it's hard. You have to retrain your brain, in the same way that you have to retrain from focusing on what I don't want into. Okay, I'm going to start just enjoying today and being like that is the biggest journey and learning lesson of my life. I'm calling it currently.
Speaker 1:Yeah, the stillness, right, like just embracing the stillness and just being letting it be, like simply letting it be. Oh, there's so much value in this conversation. I feel like we could talk for hours. Information really is power and I feel like you have shared so much information with us in this conversation. I appreciate you so much.
Speaker 1:I feel like there's a couple of things I just want to like really quickly point to and just highlight, I think, a running theme in all the kind of stories and shares and perspectives that you spoke with us about today. You know changing your focus I think is a definite you know pattern going on there, that like, instead of focusing on the gap, like look at what we've accomplished, really just you know being present with all that is and not trying to like force our way through and like get to the end. And you know finding the joy in things, really just finding that childlike joy in everyday. You know activities and existing, but definitely you know it really does come down to focus. It's like you described in the beginning.
Speaker 1:You know having the emotional intelligence. It's kind of like making that shift between, okay, so all these things are happening And'm either like ah, like in the chaos of it all, or it's kind of like, oh, okay, or I could look at these things and have awareness around it and go, okay, well, what is this kind of trying to teach me and how can I move through this with grace? And you know it's that. All that is really is like you said. You know, the circumstance is the same and it's really in about how you deal with it.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think healing ultimately comes down to a perspective change, but the main key one in my head is, instead of trying to see yourself as broken and healing yourself, the process of healing is coming into who you are. It's putting off the coping mechanisms that you dealt with and had to do to survive and it's becoming more connected with I am this, what are my innate strengths, what are the things that I'm really good at, and fully embracing who you are. Because when you do that, when you start really just taking off the backpack that you put on because you had to and you start just being you, the entire process becomes a lot less. I think you could just even leave it with less. It becomes a lot less.
Speaker 2:It's just the weight of needing to know and needing to. You have a lot of the answers just being you. We'll be right back after a quick break.
Speaker 1:I hope you're loving the show so far. This podcast is all about bringing value to the collective. You're here because you're looking to gain insights, strategies and tools for cultivating your emotional intelligence. Join our community online, where we share even more valuable resources to help you grow and thrive. Links in the show notes. And hey, we love hearing from you. Share this episode in your stories and tag us at emotionsuntapped. Let us know what your biggest takeaway is from today's show. All right, let's get back to it. That's beautiful. I love that. I love that so much.
Speaker 1:And I think, just remembering too that you know we talked a lot about like comfort zone and how you mentioned you're kind of you're normal, you're kind of happy place, is like being outside your comfort zone and I think like one thing I just wanted to highlight there is that you know, I think sometimes people that obviously freaks people out because you know the word itself, comfort. Ok, well, I want to be comfortable, like I don't want to be uncomfortable, I don't want to be outside my comfort zone. I think sometimes that gets confused with you know your comfort zone and like being safe, like you can be outside your comfort zone and you're okay, like you're not going to die, like you're still safe, right, and I think that takes a little bit of work to kind of almost like train our nervous system to know that like hey, we're having this new experience and it feels weird, but like we're okay here, like we are good.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think part of the process is learning. Sometimes we view a place as safe right, we have our home is safe or this environment is safe. What the process is of getting like when you start getting to know yourself, when you start healing, when you start becoming more you is you realize that you are the safe. You bring that with you wherever you are, that you can be in this stressful environment. And I do this exercise because I have a really hard time without pulling people's feelings into myself. Right, it's just the visualization of putting myself within a bubble, right, and then I stand inside the bubble and then I paint inside of it with this like lacquer. So it's a very strong bubble and I have a code word that I say and it just reminds me when I'm in a situation and I start not doing that my daughter knows what my code word is, so she can say it to me and I say I have a code word for her to do the same, because she has the same problem. Shocking that my daughter has the same problems I have. You know, poor girl.
Speaker 2:But it's learning how to create that safety wherever you are, because you are your safety, You're your ride or die. Literally, you're stuck with you for the rest of time. So start prioritizing you Like. People have this term selfish because they think of the definition of like choosing my own good at the cost of someone else, and I wish there was an alternative word that existed in english that meant something different. That meant taking care of yourself, and it doesn't have to be at the cost of someone else, because that is necessary for being able to feel safe. The reason you might feel safe in an environment is somebody else is putting your priorities first, so your body's like oh, I don't have to think about like almost dying here, awesome.
Speaker 1:Yes, very well said. I do want to ask you, just because you've read so many books, I'd love to ask if you have any recommended books you'd like to share with us before we kind of move on to any final thoughts, because obviously there's been a lot and if there's any that come to mind that you think would be helpful to the audience, based on or in relation to, you know, some or all of the things that we've talked about today you mentioned Brene Brown or, in relation to you know some or all of the things that we've talked about today.
Speaker 2:You mentioned Brene Brown, so, like Brene Brown's got a lot of different books. The Power of Vulnerability is a. I listen to it in an audio book, but it's a conversation she has with a group of people where they go back and forth about ideas and that was extremely powerful for me, but not immediately like starting off in my healing journey. There's a book called CPTSD. It's literally a part of the title and then it says like the surviving guide or something like that. I'll have to send you the author afterwards because I can't remember his name right now, but that book was extremely for me in healing with my CPTSD. Let's see, oh gosh. There's a book by a Franciscan monk that I read so many different times. I don't like religion but I definitely believe in God and this particular book is going through and talking. It's the furious longing of God and it goes through and it talks about how you don't have to do and be like essentially what we do with our kids, what we do with the people we love, where you love them no matter what they are, and you accept them where they are and you might challenge them to grow in certain areas, but you accept them and love them where they are and it goes through and points out and talks through how. That's how God views us, these different people, and how they view things and how they decide to tell you what you can and cannot do has nothing to do with God. It has to do with them and boxes and control and lack of faith honestly, because the opposite of faith isn't doubt, it's control. But so those are three books that were extremely powerful for me along my healing journey.
Speaker 2:There's been so many different books that, like the Miracle Morning, was really helpful for me in helping know exactly what things are beneficial for me to do in a morning right, Because, like psychologically, there are things there are implications about if you wake up in the morning when you're really sleepy. There's literally so much science that I now know about. If you say affirmations, then you're in this wavelength in your brain when you first wake up, like barely woke up, If you can recall right then to say something like you're beautiful, you're awesome, you are so smart and and I cannot wait to see what you do with today Like any type of positivity that you can say to yourself when you first wake up, your brain is in a place that it's completely mushy is a good way to describe it where you're just like I'll take that in that's truth and it's like so much more powerful than if you try to do it later when your brain's now like an executive mode, where it's like we're going to do this, we're going to do this. So Miracle Morning was really helpful with knowing like okay, when you wake up first thing in the morning and you exercise, you're literally setting your dopamine, your happy brain chemicals, to be higher for the rest of your day, Right, Anyway, so there's science books that like affected so much about what I do, but the ones that really affected my heart and being able to have compassion and sit with myself and be able to just be, would be the Brene Brown Power of Vulnerability, the Furnished Longing of God and I can't remember his name, but I know he's a Franciscan monk and then the CPTSD book. Those were three that were really helpful for me on my journey. Cptsd book those were three that were really helpful for me on my journey. Would not suggest anybody who listens to the CPTSD book please don't continue after you get triggered A lot of times if you're anything like me, you want to power through.
Speaker 2:There's a level of tolerance, especially if you're a CPTSD recovery, and if you get outside of that tolerance and you start feeling really dysregulated, you cannot absorb that information, you cannot heal. And if you get outside of that tolerance and you start feeling really dysregulated, you cannot absorb that information, you cannot heal and it's actually going to make you much worse. So if you get to a place when you're reading this book for me it was literally somewhere between 90 seconds and four minutes I'd have to pause. It took me forever to get through this book because I got triggered so much through so much what I had to say. But it's worth stopping, it's worth calming your body down and it's worth pausing.
Speaker 2:For me it could affect my mood for days and find other things that uplift you. So Ed Milad's been huge in giving me positive things to consider and adjust how I view, because I don't agree with necessarily everything that's on there, but it's very helpful for me to hear something different encourage me. But again, I feel like it's getting curious, getting curious about what it is. What do you have interest in? And then find, like Google it ask somebody in a different group, because you have those curiosities for a reason.
Speaker 1:Dive in and find out why Beautifully said Thank you so much. This has been such an incredible conversation. Rachel love it. Oh my goodness, thank you so, so much. I have goosebumps actually. That was just so powerful. I know everyone listening has gotten so much value from this. Where can people find you if they want more of you?
Speaker 2:Yeah, totally so. I'm on everything for social media, but I'm actually launching a podcast called In the Nude. It's the naked truth of healing. So it's going to be me talking about the raw because it's not pretty the process process. It's really ugly and a lot of times people have these cookie cutter views and it's going to be talking about that. It's murky and the real process that I have gone through. Um, so you can find me there. Anywhere podcasts are, but um, healing, rachel, abby, um, abby spelled abi because that's the only weird part of my name. But I'm everywhere. I'm um on every and if you have any problems or questions about something specific, my DMs are open. If I don't get to you, message me again, because I do get requests and sometimes don't get to them because I don't see them All right Amazing Any final thoughts.
Speaker 2:Give yourself compassion along the process. That's the biggest thing. Sometimes I feel like people have this viewpoint If you beat yourself up it'll go better, or it's habit. There's a cute line I heard once where if beating yourself up would have worked, it would have worked by now. But even more so is the quickest way for you to let go of a feeling, move past something to help somebody else do the same thing, isn't having a solution, isn't having a pretty box, isn't having the to-do list, it isn't any of those like particular things that we really think would be really pretty and nice and clean. It's compassion, it's grace, it's being willing to sit in the uncomfortable and if you can learn to start the process wherever it is you are and build on it, it becomes more natural. But that has been by far the thing that has helped me the most in actually moving through and moving past difficult triggers and difficulties in the healing.
Speaker 1:Beautiful. Well, thank you so much. I appreciate you.
Speaker 2:Yeah, thanks so much for having me on. It was lovely to have a conversation with you.
Speaker 1:That's a wrap on today's episode. I am beyond grateful for your participation in today's conversation. I hope you enjoyed today's guest on the Emotions Untapped podcast. My intention is that the information shared here today has inspired you to deepen your understanding of emotional intelligence and how it can benefit your life. If you have any questions about today's episode, you can DM us on Instagram at emotionsuntapped, and check the show notes for any and all resources mentioned in today's show. You can also reach out to today's guest through the links provided. I'm Livia Lauder. See you next time on Emotions Untapped.