Heal Your Trauma, Change the World with Natalia Rachel

[00:00:00] Erika Behl: How much more is the healing process when you're still kind of exposed to people who may be not interested at all in your healing journey? It's really
[00:00:08] Natalia Rachel: hard to be around people that continue to disrespect or hurt us or make life difficult for us. And in an ideal world, we'd be able to say, see you later.
I'm not dealing with you, but You know, this is a really important point. Sometimes we can't do that. Sometimes life says you're going to need to engage with this person. Uh, but the truth is a lot of people in our world are not trauma informed and are not interested in doing their healing work or showing up as a force of good.
[00:00:39] Erika Behl: Welcome to every moment is a choice. I'm your host, Erika Behl. I invite you to join me as we delve into the lives of inspiring and diverse individuals who navigate life with intention. Living with purpose starts with embracing the power you have in every moment. If you enjoy this episode, don't forget to subscribe.
Today, I am delighted to have Natalia Rachel on the show. Hi, Natalia.
[00:01:05] Natalia Rachel: Hi, thank you for having me.
[00:01:07] Erika Behl: For the listeners, Natalia is a renowned therapist who specializes in trauma recovery and transformation. She's a sought after speaker, a teacher, An author of a deeply personal book called, Why Am I Like This?
And conducts sessions all over the world for legions of people who want to learn more about trauma, being trauma informed. Her interest in trauma isn't just an academic one. Natalia herself learned to break free from trauma, oppression, and hopelessness and build a life full of peace and power. After a heartbreaking 17 years of mental health that misdiagnosis and physical illness that nearly took her life, Natalia went on to study around the world and train as a therapist before working in healthcare administration and organization development.
Her mission is to unearth the things we can't quite put our finger on. Or are too afraid to say. Her work provides a counterpoint to modern leadership norms and an invitation to societal reorganization. That's a massive mission. Welcome.
[00:02:17] Natalia Rachel: Thank you. It does sound a lot of big doesn't
[00:02:19] Erika Behl: it? Oh, I love it. So Natalia, I wanted to ask you because I, I'm approaching this subject of trauma with a lot of curiosity.
and a bit of skepticism. And, and the reason I say skepticism is because it feels like trauma has become this massive buzzword, uh, with all the focus on mental health right now. And one can go on Instagram or TikTok and find about a thousand different people who claim to be talking about trauma. And, and that's why I really wanted to invite someone who is an expert in this field because I, I kind of feel like we need to clear away some of the maybe misinformation or a lot of the, um, kind of, uh, Instagram type of trauma discussion that's going on right now.
How do you feel about that, by the way?
[00:03:20] Natalia Rachel: Love that. You're right. Trauma has become a buzzword, uh, and it's also being weaponized in some places. You know, don't do that. You'll traumatize me. And I think it is really important that we. Get clear on a shared understanding of what trauma is and what trauma isn't.
And also defined our part in the way we heal ourselves and the way we break our cycle, uh, to create systemic change. So I love that you come with a bit of skepticism. Um, I'm also being grounded. So how do you define trauma? My definition of trauma is when a past experience of threat or exclusion that is over is living and breathing in us now, so it alters us, it changes the way we perceive, express, relate and create.
It's largely unconscious and non verbal, it's felt and it shows up as sensations, emotions and relating patterns. Trauma travels through relationships, communities, cultures, families, systems, and just as trauma travels through relationships, so does healing. It's also really important to understand that trauma is not what happened to us in the past.
The way we are changed or altered when we have not processed or metabolized our very difficult experiences. So two people could go through exactly the same thing. And one person may have the resources they need to process and metabolize it and therefore they do not end up with unresolved trauma.
Whereas another person may not have those resources to be able to process and metabolize, so they will go on to hold unresolved trauma and be altered. And the resources that we sort of need in order to process our past experiences, Well, our physical health and mental health and our relational and environmental health.
So it's very multidimensional. Yeah. And, and
[00:05:22] Erika Behl: having, having read your book, uh, Why Am I Like This, which is, uh, an amazing book for anyone to read, even if you're not specifically looking for, um, kind of a immediate recovery or anything. It's just the, the information about trauma is so interesting is that it's multifaceted and there's all these different selves.
that the trauma can manifest itself in. Like you said, it's not just in yourself. It can be in your, your physical self, your, the way you behave, the way you relate to other people. And so I wanted to, to ask if it, if you said that people, people can experience the same event or the same situation, but one people will, one person will come out with, uh, a traumatic response to it.
What is the, what, what is the differentiator there? How can some people seem to, as you said, metabolize these events better than others? I think it's all
[00:06:19] Natalia Rachel: about our level of resource and resilience at the time of and after the trauma. So if we are very physically healthy, very mentally healthy, and we have safe others around us and a safe experience in our greater world, we will likely metabolize that experience.
And go on to be just fine, and it's not trauma, it's something really difficult we've lived through. Um, The relational piece is probably the most important. So the biggest indicator as to whether we will metabolize our trauma, traumatic experiences or not, is our relationship. So if we have a safe other to go to and say, Hey, I'm having a hard time.
This is what happened. And we are listened to, we feel seen, heard, welcomed, validated in our experience, perhaps we're able to release in some way, maybe have a good cry or a bit of a vet, um, That person's helping us increase our resource or capacity to metabolize. So if we've got that, we're less likely to hold on to the trauma, but a lot of us don't.
A lot of us don't have safe others to speak to. So when we are sort of trapped or stuck alone with our experiences, we are more likely to go on to become unresolved trauma. Is it
[00:07:34] Erika Behl: mainly things that happen to us in childhood? And you're talking about the parental relationship that impacts that? Or can people develop trauma even in adulthood?
[00:07:47] Natalia Rachel: Trauma can happen at any time in our lives. Developmental trauma or childhood trauma is one specific kind of relational trauma. And it's commonly understood that it can have the most profound impact in the way we develop as a human. So some people consider ages zero to seven developmental years, some consider it zero to 18 and some consider it zero to 25.
So those are our formative years when we're forming. So I, I think the argument is that if the trauma happens during those years, it's more likely to create this. Potentially permanent, though I think everything is impermanent based on my experience, changes inside us and the person that we become, that or we become.
However, we can go through something traumatic at any point in our life. We might be in an abusive relationship. We might be in a really toxic work environment that traumatizes us. We might live through a global pandemic or a war. We might lose a loved one in a really tragic experience. We might lose our job and be homeless.
All of these things. We will cause unresolved trauma if we don't have the resources we need to metabolize those experiences. And I think the more we understand about not only how trauma can happen at any time, but the things that we need to move through difficult experiences so that we are not traumatized, um, the more we will all begin to heal as we go, to heal in daily life and to make space and time we are having a really difficult time.
To reach out for those resources, to be intentional about connecting to the things and the people we need so that we can just keep healing and not do what so many of us do, which is to hold it all inside, hunker down and build a survival self over the top of it. Yeah.
[00:09:38] Erika Behl: Yeah. And that, that leads me to the question in this post COVID world.
Does everybody have some trauma right
[00:09:45] Natalia Rachel: now? Whether we identify as having trauma or not, we are relating with somebody who does. So while I wouldn't say we all have trauma, we are all affected by trauma and we are all part of a modern trauma matrix where it's kind of all ping ponging between us and leaking amongst us and creating this very disconnected dysfunctional world.
Yeah,
[00:10:08] Erika Behl: it feels that way. It certainly feels that way. Um, like I mentioned with all the, the conversations about trauma that are going on right now. So when you, we, before we get into the, the, the healing part of it, and I love the, what you talk about in terms of human catalysts and people who we can turn to and who can support us.
Um. so much. What does trauma, I have to admit, I am such a highly rational person. I usually think my way through things. I rarely feel my way through things. But how does trauma feel, look, you know, manifest, like, tell me about that.
[00:10:47] Natalia Rachel: Trauma is very unique to the individual. It will affect us on many different layers.
Um, one of the layers that may affect is our nervous system. So if we are living in a state of trauma, it is most likely that our nerve system will have miscalibrated. So we won't be able to access. At all or regularly a sense of deep safety, uh, and I guess the, uh, the feeling the felt sense that all as well.
So it's as if we're primed, um, to be keeping ourselves safe to survive and protect. And so that may show up as feeling a sense of anxiety or worry. Or needing to go, go, go, go and hustle and keep doing the next thing, not being able to sit still. But it may also show up on the other end of the spectrum, um, as feeling a little bit apathetic or hopeless or low energy and really not having the resource we need, uh, to live our day to day.
It can show up as voices in our head. And it's a really common thing that not many people speak about, so it can show up as a really shaming voice in our heads that tells us we're not good enough and that everything we do is bad or wrong and we should, should, should, should, should be different. It can show up as emotional volatility.
Uh, reactivity, uh, and getting triggered by people and the world around us can show up as suspicion, um, it can show up as being really shut down and finding it hard to connect. Um, so it can show up in many, many different ways. And usually we will have a very complex amalgamation of many different survival responses that we tend to call our personality.
Or in some cases, a culture. Can
[00:12:32] Erika Behl: someone's entire personality be a trauma
[00:12:35] Natalia Rachel: response? I mean, I don't like to speak in entireties, um, but I think that many of us identify as a self or a personality that is based on complex survival and adaptation, um, responses or reactions. So whenever someone says, I'm just like that.
And they're usually talking about some sort of dysfunctional or disrespectful thing. I just get angry. I just raise my voice. Yeah. I just don't like being with people. I'm just like that. Whenever we say I'm just like that, it's like a really big clue that there's a survival response at play. Um, the truth is that we are evolutionary.
Um, as humans, we are transformative and we are evolving every single day if we so choose. And so the moment we clamp down and say, this is my finite reality, this is who I am.
[00:13:28] Erika Behl: That resonates with me quite deeply because I think that, um, in my own life, I think I have at some points used that excuse, you know, I'm just like that.
I just, I just can't take people who are like that. Or some kind of, I'm, I'm just like that, um, variation. And when I was, something personal sharing, when I was in therapy, my therapist also said, you are choosing to be like that, um, at some level, you know, you, you have a choice not to be like that if you don't want to.
And I think that speaks to a bit of sovereignty, which is something that you're very, um, uh, keen on as well in terms of what it looks like. When you, when you regain some sense of self, uh, from the trauma. I, I also want to ask, like, physically, I, I'm a cancer survivor. Uh, I think in the, the years leading up to my diagnosis, I was, I, I don't know what kind of trauma response it was, but I was definitely not happy.
Um, and probably not dealing with that in the best way. And, and, you know, you can never say for sure what, what caused something, but I, I have a feeling that something contributed to that, uh, physical manifestation. And is that. I mean, tell me more about a physical or a somatic kind of manifestation
[00:15:02] Natalia Rachel: of trauma as well.
Suppressed emotions can cause illness. And that was certainly my story. You know, my trauma showed up in my body. It started in my gut, then it went to my legs and I had nerve damage and was told I wouldn't walk again. And it, while I didn't have cancer, I was being treated with certain cancer protocols because the doctors just had no idea.
So while I would never dare to say that trauma causes cancer, I would dare to say that trauma can make us very, very sick. If it begins to seep into our body, we can come back to the nervous system. So when we are in a state of survival, our nervous system will go into survival mode. Uh, one of three main complex threat responses.
The nervous system is the governing system of our body. And so if it is stuck in survival mode, there will be a knock on effect to other systems, whether they are physical or mental or both, and most commonly it's both, but usually we'll tend to sort of feel it or sense it or latch onto it in one space.
So it might be, I'm. feeling this intense anxiety or these voices in my head, or it might be I've got this pain or this physical manifestation. And I think that we tend to have systems in our body that are more prone to taking on the survival adaptation first. Uh, so for me, it's my nervous system and my connective tissue for other people, it might be their gut.
Some people get terrible chest infections Um, and sinus infections or migraines. So we all have one or two systems, um, that, that are more prone to taking it on. And often it sort of continues to decontextualize and get more and more diffuse. I have worked through my time, um, as a therapist and a clinic administrator with many, many people going through their journey, recovering from cancer, every single one of them.
Um, had something very deep and emotional that required processing. Every single one of them was also living within conditions and dynamics that maybe we're not serving them or even harming them. And so, when I'm working, uh, with somebody that is on that health journey, that's We're often looking at the conditions and dynamics around them and also past trauma.
So we're not looking at the symptoms as much. It's just that people reach out as a result of having symptoms. Most people aren't looking at the structures of their lives or the past that they've walked through. They're very focused on. What am I physically experiencing in the present? When we learn to listen to the body, um, in, in kind of different ways and make sense of symptoms through the somatic pathway, um, we will often find what the root causes are, and then it's all about the question.
Once we identify the root cause, do we have enough capacity and resource to go and address that? And some people. Do some people can process the past or they can change the things in their lives that are maybe contributing to their illness, but many people can't. Um, and, and this is a big truth. Um, some people do not have the capacity to go and process the depth of their childhood trauma, or they don't have the resources in their life to leave a really toxic situation.
So I think always getting really honest about. The depth of magnitude of the problem is really important.
[00:18:28] Erika Behl: It's no shock to me that my oncologist, one of the, one of the things, one of the things as a cancer patient, you go through all this active treatment. Uh, if you pursue the traditional Western, uh, treatment pathway, you finish your active treatment and then the oncologist kind of sets you free and says, okay, now go live your life.
And, and my oncologist said to me, Erika, you know, the one thing you can do, uh, to, to remain healthy. is to remove stress from your life. And she said whatever the situation is, whatever, if it's a job, if it's a relationship, just remove the stress. And, and I, I took that as, um, you know, a, a Western trained doctor telling me this as well, is that she was, uh, informed as well.
And I feel grateful for that. to her for saying that to me, because I think it's made a huge difference. Um, you've talked, you alluded a little bit to your own story. And because I, on this show, I, I really want to focus on the lived experience of my guests as well. And you shared your story, uh, in your book as well.
So I know you're, you're okay to talk about this, but tell us a little bit more about, um, your own story.
[00:19:41] Natalia Rachel: I suppose, you know, I grew up, um, living through a lot of childhood trauma, but back then it was just my normal. I didn't know any different and most people don't know any different when you're young.
That's just life. You know, we're just like that. It's just like this, right? Um, and at 17, my trauma started to speak through my mental health. Um, so I started getting really listless, um, pretty angry. Um, and also depressed and apathetic. Um, I would know this now as a co activation, I was all over the place.
And then my mom took me to the GP and the GP said, Oh, try this anti depression medication. And I had an ab reaction. So it really sent me quite crazy. And so then I was sent to a psychiatrist who on the first visit diagnosed me with bipolar bipolar disorder and gave me a triple cocktail of meds. And he would just leave the meds with his receptionist every month, and I'd pick them up and take them.
And of course it sent me further and further and further away from myself. And through those four years taking those meds, I got into some serious trouble. I really just lost myself. And at the age of 21, my spirit spoke to me and said, this is not who you are, Natalia, um, do something. And so I did, and I checked into a rehab facility, a mental health rehab facility, and I detoxed off all the drugs, which was awful.
Awful. But at the other end of it, I kind of got the big green tick, the big gold star that said, you are normal. Nothing was wrong with you to begin with. Oops. And my family were very angry at the time. Um, but I just, I wanted to put it behind me and go and live my life. So I got a good job, um, started dating the man who became my husband, beautiful home.
And As soon as things sort of started to feel a bit safe, the trauma started to show up through my body. So my body shot started to shut down one system at a time. Um, initially the scariest was my legs cause to be 24 and not able to walk and be told you'll never walk again. is very, very, very scary. And yeah, over 10 years, the system traversed, the illness traversed every system in my body.
And at the depth of the illness, I was on 42 medications a day and having four intravenous treatments a week. The doctors were pretty clear. They had no idea what was happening. They just told me it was degenerative and systemic and that I would probably be dead before I was 40. And they told me if the illness doesn't kill you, the medication will kill you.
And so that was my. And for a time, I believed the doctors who were the authority, right? I was just this poor, sick, terrified girl. And I spent a lot of time alone in the hospital. And I also spent a lot of time smiling and being the best sick person ever and reaching my hand out for lots of gold stars all over the place.
Um, through that time I was fortunate enough to become a mother. I was too sick to carry my children. A very dear friend of mine actually carried both of my children, which is the biggest blessing in the world. Um, but when my son, my second child was a baby, um, it all just got too much to me physically. Um, and I'd sort of had a couple of broken ribs and I went into a full shutdown and I was taken screaming to hospital, not able to use either of my legs in really severe pain.
And I was drugged up. I was given nerve block injections in 10 different places of my body, which actually stops Any sort of sensation running through the nerve system, so it's meant to block pain. But it causes huge, huge bruises and huge swelling. And I was also given ketamine. Which is not the ketamine assisted therapy that you see, um, being marketed all over the place this day.
That's pretty much like hospital grade horse tranquilizer. And the idea is to reset your nervous system. And that was the most scary, awful experience of my life. But during that time, I had this near death experience. And when I sort of came to, again, my spirit spoke to me and said, Get out of this Natalia.
And so I called, um, the nurse, I said, get me a wheelchair. I need to go outside now. I've been in hospital bed for two months. And I said, get me a therapist. I need to talk. Um, and I also said, please book me a healing session. And I got my mom to come and pick me up, you know, get in a wheelchair and go and, and have some healing work done.
And I met this amazing shaman, um, who was a big part of my early healing journey. And I guess, you know, I caught. marginally, physically better, but it wasn't until I processed my trauma and all of the memories of like pretty severe abuse and neglect, but all of a sudden all of my symptoms went away and it was a pretty quick progress.
And there was this moment where I was just like, I'm, I'm done with the medicine. Um, and I'm done with being told I'm going to die. That's not my story. And I think that moment of incredible agency and self emancipation and sovereignty, um, was really, really important for me. And after I healed, there was automatically this line of people out the door that had complex syndromal conditions like me that had no name saying, can you help me?
I've got something similar. And I said, well, I think so, but I better go train. And so that's when I started, um, training in different modalities and working and then went on to open health clinics in Singapore. And now my focus is really on bringing understanding of trauma to a social and systemic place to bring these really complex, not only clinical, but existential and philosophical, um, topics to places where people wouldn't be looking for them and to places where we can really meet them and receive them and take them on board.
[00:26:04] Erika Behl: Thanks for sharing, um, all of your story. I mean, I know you've, you've shared it before, but it's. is to a person first listening to it, it is, it is very intense, um, and, and may resonate with some listeners who are experiencing something like that as well. Uh, so thank you for sharing it because I think it makes, it makes a world of difference to have someone who has actually lived through something like this, um, who's here to talk about it as well.
What I wrote down and what stuck with me, uh, with what you just said was When you decided, that's not my story, what did that feel like? You said it had an effect on the physical symptoms when you started to make that choice almost. What was that, what did that feel like when you were able to make a choice and say, this is not my story.
I deserve something else.
[00:27:01] Natalia Rachel: It was a moment of awakening, um, and a shattering, and I think a reconnection to not only my agency, but my anger, uh, which I think is a really important part of learning to choose differently is to connect to our divine rage. Um, though at the time I wouldn't have been able to call it that.
I had, um, when I was in the hospital, I, I mentioned I had this near death experience and I saw. My children's lives, like a montage without me in there. And I was like, hell no, that is not happening. Um, and I think just that really intense, um, mama energy, protective energy sort of just came out. I was like, yeah, this, this is not going to happen.
We're going to write a different timeline. And we have.
[00:27:51] Erika Behl: Hello, this is Erica. As a listener to this podcast, you'll know, I love deep conversations. So I wanted to share something special with you. Something that's been a game changer for me. It's called Scenario Cards. Now, these aren't just any cards. Each card is a what if question to help you explore your values, your life, and your choices.
I have been through burnout and a massive personal transformation over the last couple of years, and I've used these cards as journal prompts. They've helped me dive so much deeper into understanding myself and finding my compass. I've also used them to spark some of the most thought provoking discussions I've had with our guests.
So I'm thrilled to share that Scenario Cards has partnered with us to offer you an exclusive discount. By using our custom link, you not only get the amazing cards, but you also support our podcast with your purchase. It's a win win, so why not give it a try? Go to scenariocards. org forward slash Erica.
That's E R I K A. And use the code ERICA10 at checkout to get an extra discount on any of their products. You'll also find all of this information in the episode notes. So go ahead, dig a little deeper, because your purpose is waiting to be discovered. You mentioned something in your book called human catalysts, um, and, and how, how does one find people like that?
If, if you feel you are suffering or if you are making a decision, this is not my story, how do you start to find these people?
[00:29:27] Natalia Rachel: Human catalysts are people who show up and they show you something different. Or they give you a key, um, to open a door that you can walk through, um, often without them. And they may show up for a moment or a short while.
They may stay with you for a long while. Um, sometimes they will just find you, but you have to be sort of ready to listen and to tune in. Um, sometimes we can consciously seek them out. But ideally, when we meet a human catalyst, they will make us feel safe. And resourced and they will open our mind in some way.
They will help us become more available. To look at many of the things, um, that we haven't been able to. The first one in my story, I write about her in the book, The Shaman. She helped me to be with my body while in severe pain. I was used to dissociating, so I would float up to the ceiling and hang out on the ceiling.
You know, or zone out and numb myself to TV, um, or something like that. Or get really busy. I used to bake for hours and hours. So it was not to be with myself, but when she held me, she was a bodywork practitioner. I learned to come to the pain and to weep in the arms of somebody. And so that was really important.
And she was the first of, of many, uh, some of whom I've had been with me a short time. My therapist now is one I've been working with her for seven years and don't plan to stop anytime soon, but she helps me to see.
[00:31:01] Erika Behl: So these can be professionals, but they don't have to be
[00:31:03] Natalia Rachel: professionals. No, you know, sometimes we meet a friend or a colleague and to sit with that person opens something in us or settles something in us.
And so they could be anywhere. And the more we keep an eye out for them and the more we orient towards them. The more we're able to lean into the relational gifts that are available for us and that are actually essential to our healing, we cannot heal alone. So much of our trauma stems from harmful or neglectful dynamics.
So much of our healing, uh, is ignited through safe, supported, nurturing dynamics.
[00:31:46] Erika Behl: I love it. This is so fascinating. So when, when you're moving from. Um, this is not my story. You are seeking out, uh, some, some people, supportive people around you who may start to help you. Um, something I, I wanted to ask you about is, is, is forgiveness a necessary step?
Because if someone else did something to you, do you have to kind of let go of that before you're able to move on in your own sovereignty?
[00:32:19] Natalia Rachel: I don't believe we do. One of the worst things we can do is to try and force. Forgiveness. Organic forgiveness is a very beautiful, freeing thing to suggest to a survivor who has been perpetrated upon that their healing is dependent on it really takes away their sense of agency or sovereignty.
So it is possible to process the past without forgiving. Um, and I always encourage people to let go of the need to forgive because anything that we're forcing or pushing usually is going to, to take us to another contraction or some form of bypass or inauthenticity. What I do commonly see is that, you know, the healing journey goes through layers and spirals.
So it is, it is very common, um, for people to reach a point. In their own sense of peace and their own sense of sovereignty, where their empathy and compassion expands so much that they're able to view the past perpetrator, you know, or villain in the story through different eyes. And often when that happens, when we've reached that point, Forgiveness is a byproduct.
It's not something we have to try to do.
[00:33:37] Erika Behl: So it's like, uh, something that may naturally happen as a course, but it's not a necessary step.
[00:33:43] Natalia Rachel: 100%. I do think self forgiveness is a different thing though. So often, um, when we have been living with trauma for a long time, We have played a part either in perpetuating our own trauma or being part of somebody else's trauma story.
So perhaps we've become a perpetrator or villain in someone else's story. So when we're living in survival, it can take us to behave in ways that are not congruent with our spirit and who we truly are. And so being able to forgive ourselves for how we may have shown up when in survival mode is very, very important.
Um, in my book, I write quite a lot about shame and I also, uh, write there's a chapter called the cage of, um, Self, self loathing and rage or something like that. Um, and I think it's really important that we are able to process how angry we feel. If we are
[00:34:39] Erika Behl: going to, if we are going to recognize that in ourselves and, and self forgive, it's kind of like if you are still around a person, who is, you feel like is causing you trauma.
Because for childhood trauma, you may not have to, you obviously, you're probably not living with your parents anymore. You can kind of distance yourself from the source of something that. generate this response within you. But what if it is someone like, uh, an ex spouse that you're co parenting with, who you have to keep interacting with, um, how, how much more is the healing process when you're still kind of exposed to people who may be not interested at all in your healing journey?
[00:35:23] Natalia Rachel: It's really hard to be around people that continue to disrespect or hurt us or make life difficult for us. And in an ideal world, we'd be able to say, see you later. I'm not dealing with you, but you know, this is a really important point. Sometimes we can't do that. Sometimes life says you're going to need to engage with this person.
And so, you know, Having really good boundaries is one thing, and also having a sense of psychological sovereignty, so not taking on whatever they may be projecting on you is really important, and having some kind of safe space or ritualistic way of processing when perhaps you're disrespected or aggressed upon is really very important, but the truth is a lot of people in our world I'm not trauma informed and I'm not interested in doing their healing work or showing up as a force of good.
And probably we're going to be dealing with them in one place or another. Um, and so learning to self care and not take it personally and to distance as much as possible and to move into that way of healing the way of life and daily life is really very important. And all we can do in the end, we can never force anybody to heal.
We can show up embodied, um, as an example of. Humans that we wish to be around.
[00:36:39] Erika Behl: Absolutely. How do we co become a human catalyst? I mean, you said we are sur if we aren't necessarily directly impacted by trauma ourselves, we are surrounded by people who are maybe our coworkers or our friends or family members.
How do we become that human catalyst that they need?
[00:36:58] Natalia Rachel: Yeah, it's usually a very natural byproduct of doing our own healing work. So many of us who are on the healing journey will get to the point where we feel a sense of peace and power and we feel this incredible desire to share and to support others.
So that's the first thing is this intention and this impulse. Um, and it's very common for people to, to get to this place. And usually that's when they might Train as a therapist, or train as a coach, or go into leadership. You know, we want to serve, we want to facilitate. So intention is important, but it's not everything.
Intelligence is also really important. So sometimes even the best intentions don't translate well. And that's why becoming trauma informed is really very important to understand how we can be part of someone's healing journey. Rather than just part of another cycle of harm or oppression or neglect. And this is what I teach in my program.
It can be a really nice starting point to understand the two hallmarks of trauma and how we may counter them throughout interactions. So two of the hallmarks of trauma are oppression, and suppression. So when we are living in a state of trauma, we feel fundamentally oppressed, like we have no agency and no choice.
We will also feel fundamentally locked at the throat and unable to speak our truth, to set boundaries, to ask, to have our needs met, to say no, um, to ask to be cared for. And so as humans who want to heal, once we understand those really two core aspects of someone holding unresolved trauma, we can learn to show up and counter them.
So the antidote to oppression is agency. Every time that we offer someone agency and choice, we are part of relational healing. And when it comes to suppression, the antidote is expression. So, as humans, we want to heal every time we show up. We say, speak your truth. It's welcome here. In whatever way or words we have, we are also offering this relational remedy.
And it can get more and more nuanced and complex. The more you understand about trauma in general and the way it refracts through us in this complex way, um, and the more you understand about a particular person's trauma narrative, What perhaps has happened to them in the past and how a relationship may have harmed them or not been enough for them.
And the more resource we have, the more intention we have, the more intelligence we have, uh, we can show up in really beautiful and nuanced ways. When
[00:39:33] Erika Behl: you mentioned that you have, uh, courses, I mean, I know you teach all over the world, you've, you've taught in the U. S., in Dubai, I think, in, in Singapore, in Europe.
So you're, you're quite global and there's obviously. A wide audience who wants to learn about this. Um, you also, do you also teach a course on trauma informed leadership and do you focus any, any of your resources specifically on
[00:39:57] Natalia Rachel: leaders? My human intelligence leadership program is specifically for leaders or facilitators, and the premise of this is to understand how trauma shows up.
inside ourselves and inside others and to harness relationship as a way for healing. So to harness the relationship as that remedy. And so over the course of four modules, we learned 12 relational intelligence lessons that will empower us to lead. With more peace, more power. And so this is the program that I've been sort of teaching all over.
And also now just sort of launched an online version of it too. And even though it is a leadership program, it does take us deep into our own healing to look at the way we may have been traumatized or the, or the way we may have been part of somebody else's trauma story. So there's quite a bit of shadow work involved.
And I find that Those who come to learn with me, they're really, really, really ready for it. I
[00:41:00] Erika Behl: have, I am not at all shocked that if leaders come into your program thinking like this will be good for the people I lead and then they realize it's good for themselves and they realize all these things about themselves.
Not at all surprised by that. Leaders have a lot of stress and a lot of, uh, you know, unresolved things as well. When I went to your book launch, I think it was last year or something, and you had this, this banner next to you and it had this phrase on it that I loved because I just said, Holy shit. I love that.
You know, and it said, heal your trauma, change the world. And I love, even at the beginning of this podcast, we talked about your mission is societal, you know, you are not focusing on a few clients here and there. You want to change the world. And why, why does healing your trauma end up changing the world?
[00:41:50] Natalia Rachel: Just as trauma travels through relationships, so does healing. We so get caught up in wanting to change the other or change the system we're looking outside ourselves. But when we do our healing work, we become an embodied part of the solution. We walk through the world with more peace, more power, more intention.
More intelligence. And we become those human catalysts. We become part of someone's healing story. We learn to share our power. We learn to invite the truth into the room. We learn to set fierce boundaries. We learn to say no, not only to our own harm and oppression, but to seeing others harmed and oppressed.
Absolutely. When we do our, our own healing work, we affect the world around us. Heal your trauma, change the world. I
[00:42:39] Erika Behl: can say I'm quite inspired by that. And I guess going forward, you're, you're saying that, you know, if we're able to heal ourselves, then we become more informed, we can help other people heal.
And that's a kind of, um, a ripple effect. Can we do that? help prevent trauma in the first place? I guess by becoming informed, you're less likely to, uh, cause other people's trauma. But I'm thinking of all the childhood trauma that occurs, is there more resources for parents maybe on how to support their children?
I, I, do you do any work with parents around
[00:43:17] Natalia Rachel: trauma? When I started my career as a therapist, I was working primarily with mothers and babies in pre and post natal. And it would be really interesting when women would come to our clinic that were trying to get pregnant and having a really hard time.
That's how it would start. Maybe they'd be doing IVF and getting acupuncture and, you know, feeling all kinds of emotions. Um, and usually they would come to see me as part of the more holistic team. And they would always be there in developmental trauma that would come up. Um, and it's really powerful. And then they'd go get pregnant, um, and have a beautiful baby.
Um, cause there's this sort of release and recalibrating, um, or it would sometimes happen postnatal. So there'd be a mom coming to see me who, um, you know, had had a healthy baby, but she was having a very intense, um, emotional response afterwards, which commonly is diagnosed as postnatal anxiety or depression, but actually it's a developmental trauma response.
So yeah. The birth passage is a really common time that later trauma can be triggered. And what would happen when I would work with these mothers, you know, there's this incredible healing that happens for the own inner child and this expansion of consciousness and this realization of the incredible power and gifts we have to ensure that our children.
Do not grow up with the same level of trauma or dysfunction or misachievement that we had. And to me, this is a generational thing. And so I, I do believe that more that mothers and fathers understand about trauma, not only their own trauma, but how to be really intentional or conscious in the way they raise their children.
Um, There will be less developmental trauma to deal with for our children when they're adults. Like when I look at my children, sometimes I get very teary because I'm like, Oh, that's how I would have been. I didn't grow up with, with, you know, the kind of parenting that I grew up with. And they're so expressed and free and authentic and able to set boundaries and able to express their needs.
And I think, wow, if we had a generations of humans who were so connected to themselves, probably a lot of the major things that we are dealing with in our generation aren't going to be as relevant. They're probably not going to need to be in therapy trying to sort through all of their dysfunctional relating patterns, um, and self disconnection because they're growing up the resources they need to be exactly who they are rather than some.
Survival, amalgamation,
[00:45:52] Erika Behl: adaptation. Do you think there are, is a need for more resources for parents? I mean, not just newborn parents, but like, Dealing with your kids emotions, you know, how they change over time from preschoolers to school age kids and everything.
[00:46:07] Natalia Rachel: I think there's a lot of resources out there.
You've just got to look for them. I think there's plenty of resources out there and they'd be classed under conscious parenting, mainly. Um, but what there is more of a need for is to support parents. To their own healing journey, because you can read all of the self help stuff you want and all of the very cognitive left brain concepts you want, but if you yourself are getting triggered and yelling at your kid or withholding love from your kid.
You are continuing the cycle of trauma. And if you are holding your own trauma, it is more likely that you will be triggered. And our children can be one of our biggest triggers. Um, it's really normal because they often remind us of ourselves or will be, will be taken back, um, you know, to the way our parents did things with us.
So I think while there are plenty of resources around about conscious parenting, there perhaps are not enough about feeling your own trauma. And the way that trauma can be triggered and leak out in early years as a parent. Sometimes I speak about it as if we've gone through childhood trauma, it's like we're spending so much psychic energy protecting our inner child or inner children, because I think there are many inner children inside us.
And when we have a child unconsciously and existentially, as it should, all of our energy is now focused on this little helpless baby. But it often leaves our inner child or inner children unprotected and freaking out because they're like, Hey, stop looking after me, stop protecting me. And so it's really common that in early years of parenting, both for men and women, a lot of that later trauma comes up and causes a lot of mayhem.
And then we tend to pathologize it and shame ourselves for it. So yes, there should be more resource out there for that.
[00:48:01] Erika Behl: And it certainly doesn't help if we just say, Oh, when I was young, we just. muscled our way through it, you know, when, when I was young.
[00:48:10] Natalia Rachel: That's the same. I'm just like that. It's the same thing.
[00:48:15] Erika Behl: Yes. It's horrible, right? Because I, I find myself saying that to my kids, like, you think you have a bad, you know, uh, that type of excuse
[00:48:23] Natalia Rachel: making for it. Finger wag. It's the shame, right? Um. Yeah. And shame is, shame is one of the most difficult things to metabolize, especially from our parents. Cause we so want to be validated.
[00:48:36] Erika Behl: It's so true. I, we have gone through a lot of the, um, your own story and the, the different kind of healing, uh, catalyzers. I think your, your own self, um, as well as the human catalysts around you. How, what do you think about like the state of the world? Do you think we're getting better at this? I mean, we had an event like COVID, which, which has brought, I think, mental health and this discussion around trauma into the mainstream, like I talked about at the beginning.
So we're taught, we're definitely talking about it more, but do you think we are, we are getting better at this?
[00:49:14] Natalia Rachel: I don't know if you want my pessimistic or optimistic answer. I think it's amazing that we're talking about trauma. When I started in this field, no one was talking about trauma. It was a dirty word.
I had to create trauma clinics without using the word trauma at all and be this Trojan horse because trauma would have made people feel very scared and run away and no one would have come to us. And we're now in a world, like you said, where trauma is on every single Instagram feed. Um, and there are documentaries about it and everyone is talking about it, so that's great.
We need to do more than talk about it. We actually need to heal it. And not only look at it as this thing that's inside ourselves, but look at it in this social and systemic sort of lens. When I look at the world today, and I spend so much time thinking about this world that we've created, it is such a traumatized one.
And it's not only created by the past trauma that we are carrying. It's perpetuated by the systems and the structures of our modern world. And what's very interesting is that we create those systems and structures. So our little traumatized human selves go on and we create these trauma borne systems and structures that then become, I guess, the, the fabric or the framework.
For everything else. So if we look at the framework of capitalism, it propels us into survival. It propels us into polarity, propels us into competition, propels us into war. If we look at the digital disconnected world we live in and the rise of the metaverse, it takes us away from our bodies. It takes us away from our felt sense.
Um, it takes us outside to those dissociative land, where we're not able to tune into those impulses. And perhaps that divine rage that I was talking about that is so much of a requirement to be in our agency. So it keeps us disconnected and disempowered. Um, and then we look to the world of social media or in the media at large, and it takes us towards self deprivation and comparison and competition and shame, never enough.
So the way our world is structured, It's actually keeping us trapped in these cycles of trauma, and in some ways we could say it's making it worse. Many of us now don't have the relational resources we really need in order to thrive. Um, because we're sitting behind a screen all day. So we're not going over to our neighbors for a cup of tea, um, or sitting in women's circles sobbing together.
We're not doing these things anymore. Um, so I think while it's great, we're talking about trauma. We now need to look at reorganizing the structures and systems of our world to shift us out of the trauma, um, and towards societal recalibration.
[00:52:13] Erika Behl: If I were to suggest something for the listeners. That you can make a small step to become a person who somebody can reach out to if they need it, you know, it's maybe if it takes a billion small actions to kind of start changing things, because absolutely, I mean, with 2024 is going to be a big year for many reasons.
I'm an American. There's an election coming up. I'm, I have trauma in advance about that. Not to make light of it, but like there's a lot of things going on and, and I always have the hope that if you make a choice to, I'm, I'm going to be there for somebody today. I'm going to ask somebody if they want to go get a coffee because they've been quiet lately and I want to hear how they're really doing or something like that.
I'm optimistic that there's little things we could all do to become a little bit of a human catalyst for someone.
[00:53:12] Natalia Rachel: I love that. I would also add another one. Which is to learn to say no more frequently. If that's funny, how we need both ends of the spectrum, right? Yes. We need to reach out and connect, but we also need to learn to say no, when something's going to take us more into that sense of survival and overwhelm.
Uh, so what can we say yes to, which is more about connection. What can we say no to, which is more about energy preservation.
[00:53:40] Erika Behl: So I, I also want to mention for any listeners out there, if you're tuning into a podcast about trauma, obviously you're interested in the subject. And I think Natalia is a fantastic resource, uh, to learn about it from her, both her lived experience plus all the research she's done on it.
And if you're listening to this and you do recognize that you need more help, that you are really struggling with something, then please do reach out to some resources. We can even link to some, um, in the show notes. Um, because the, the conversation, you need to have somebody who's ready to, to help you along the way as well.
So um, definitely reach out. Thank you, Natalia, so much for
[00:54:21] Natalia Rachel: being here today. Thanks for such a wonderful conversation.
[00:54:30] Erika Behl: If you enjoyed this episode, don't forget to subscribe.