Women have so many responsibilities, so much pressure to provide for other people, that when they sit with the question, what do I want? They're I don't know. I don't know what I want, because they're constantly helping other people.
Welcome back to another episode of Uplift For Her, I'm your host, Dr Mallorie Cracroft, and we have a very important episode today and a really great guest we have. Dr Serena Sterling, thanks so much for coming, Serena, it's so nice to have you here. Thank you so much for having me. We are going to dive in and talk a lot about trauma and how it manifests in the body and what to do about it. Does that sound right? Absolutely. Okay, good. I'm going to tell you a little bit about Dr Sterling. So Dr Serena Sterling holds a Master's in international journalism, a doctorate in clinical psychology, and is a certified life coach due to her own experience of overcoming chronic fatigue syndrome and finding ways to alleviate her own chronic pain, Serena learned advanced stress reduction techniques to assist others in overcoming their own health challenges. She uses education, training and experience in clinical psychology to help her clients understand why they're thinking, feeling and behaving in certain ways, and combines that with coaching to help keep people accountable to their goals. Serena has offices in Philadelphia, San Francisco, Portland, Oregon, Seattle, and now lives here in Park City, Utah. So thanks so much for being here. I'm really excited to talk about this. So first, you have kind of a breathtaking story that tells us a little bit about where you're coming from in this work, will you start by just telling us a little bit about yourself and your lived experience as it comes to trauma and illness.
I started out, as you mentioned, I did a master's in journalism in London, and then I landed a job at Spirituality and Health magazine in New York City. And then I believe I was a little bit tired from doing a program overseas and then coming back. But then that fatigue became exacerbated after 911 because I landed that job in August, I would say, August of 2001 I was a little bit late to work on 911 and I was on the subway. The subway was so slow. It's like, should I get out and, like, take a cab or something? But by the time I got to my stop at Wall Street Station. The first tower had already collapsed, and so I think that I probably went into shock while I was below ground, and then when I came up, and it was like a complete white out, I think that the body just kind of goes into survival. And I was just like, Okay, I'm just gonna follow people down the street. Can't see where I'm going. How did my sweater really know what was happening at that point? Right? Not really. I had, like, so I got on at 83rd Street, and around 14th Street, two people got on there. Like, did you hear a plane at the World Trade Center? And I'm trying to read this book on Chinese medicine. I keep reading. You know, you can read a page and not retain anything? Yeah, so I was listening to them all reading, and I was like, nothing big. It was probably like one of those really small planes. But I don't think I put two and two together when I came above ground, and I just, you know, I I saw the second tower collapse. I It was just a very chaotic scene. And I walked home five miles, like, covered in ash. And then after in the days and weeks after that, I just got more and more tired, and I couldn't I couldn't get I couldn't sleep enough. I was sleeping like 15 to 17 hours a day. Oh my gosh. Well, then we had to work from home, because, like all the ash from the buildings came through the vents and just covered the entire office, so we had to work from home, which was not helpful. When you're really tired, you just like, fall asleep on your couch. Yeah, but I would say that eventually I went to see a medical doctor, and he diagnosed me with chronic fatigue syndrome, but then said there's no cure. Learn to cope, stay away from sugar and caffeine. And I was like, that's not an acceptable answer. I can't just keep living with this horrible fatigue. So I had been introduced to a mind body therapy when I was still in college, and at first I was like, I'll just I'll figure it out myself. But I just kept going down like a slippery slope and medicating on my own and realizing that I needed real help, and so I found a doctor who's a chiropractor, and she did the technique, and within the first visit, I walked home three miles, and I hadn't been able to walk more than three blocks without taking a nap. So I was like, Okay, I really like this.
What technique did she do? It's called Mind Body technique.
Yep, it's called neuro emotional technique, which then I became, I learned also when after I went through grad school. But then she was like, after three weeks, and I she gained my trust and everything I thought was feeling a lot better. She was like, you know, to really excel your results, I would like to put you on a like, an elimination diet, plus supplements, plus Homeopathics. And I looked. At the diet, and I started to cry because it was so restrictive. And I was in my 20s, and I was like, What am I supposed to Yeah, but she was like, it was right around Thanksgiving, and she was like, go see your family in Philadelphia, come back. Like, think about it. And I was like, desperate. I was like, I will do anything. It was like, like, a little like, 20 supplements twice a day. But within another three weeks, I was, like, 110% better, and I was so inspired and impressed with the results and like how she was able to, like, turn my life around, that I decided to pursue a doctorate in clinical psychology so that I could learn similar techniques to hers and really help others, like with physical issues that were manifesting as emotional pain.
Gosh, what an incredible story. I'm so glad that you recovered and were able to kind of manage all of that. I have so many questions for you. One of the first ones I have is, how did she know, or how did you know that so much of what you were dealing with was related to the mind body connection, instead of, you know, like any number of other reasons, like vitamin D deficiency or B 12. Obviously there was some lab work involved. But what made her kind of go down that road of, I think you need this mind body approach. I think it was more me that knew that I needed a mind body approach. Because, although in college, my major was English literature, I had to write a thesis, my thesis was more about like using literary books, like Tolstoy and like a fictional paper. It was kind of like looking at how we repress our emotions. So I've always kind of known since I was younger, that I have a hard time expressing myself, and so I felt like everything that happened on 911 was so overwhelming, and I couldn't the night of 911 I couldn't cry. I, like, tried to force myself, and it came out in this weird, like, couldn't remember how to cry. Now, they call it an empath, but I didn't know that I was an empath. I would just look at everyone's like, shock and fear and anger and betrayal of like everything that had happened, and then take that on, and then I would get off at my stop and just feel terrible. And so I just kind of had this huge hunch that, like, I wasn't in a healthy way expressing my emotions. I was just kind of like trying to move on with life without really processing all the emotional distress and trauma that I had experienced, because I think that's often what happens in a really traumatically emotional experience. You just kind of like, shove it to the back and hope that you're like, I'll deal with that later. I was getting a job. I was like, I'll deal with this later, and later becomes your body, yeah. So I reached out to her, and having also had experience with neuro emotional technique when I was in college, I was like, Oh, this could really help bring things to the surface, to like, to release.
Tell us who are the women who you feel like most need to hear your message today, I would
say that women who are struggling with any type of physical complaint, fatigue, headaches, hair loss, joint pain, you know, all sorts of physical complaints that you go to a doctor and they're just like, it's just stress, like, learn to meditate. Like, you know, exercise, go outside. Or here's a prescription for an anti depression medication, the ones where you go and you know that something is off, but the doctors are kind of like, I don't, we can't really find anything, and your labs look fine. But also emotionally, they're just like, they're so stressed, and they like, you know, snap at their partner, or they snap at their kids, and then they, like, get upset with themselves, and they're just like, this. Can't continue. Like, what am I supposed to do? Like, I I go to yoga, I do the things like, but they're not really getting better. Like, there are reasons for that, and a lot of doctors miss it because they don't have the functional or the integrative training. So they just get given a prescription and are told to, like, deal with it. Those are the women. So there's
kind of three different layers you've talked about. Women have these symptoms, right? Can't figure around and if you go to a conventional doctor, then they're often going to say, like, I don't know, or maybe try this medication, right? The next layer down, you go to a functional medicine doctor, and a lot of us them would say, well, you're probably super stressed. You should probably, you should probably take some steps to to lower your stress levels, right? And you're saying even a layer below that is this idea of trauma and repressed emotion is really even more important for for a large number of these women than just like, well, you should probably stop stressing so much. Tell me what your headline message would be to these women, first of all, and then
I'll ask you some questions from there.
Well, I would say one is that you're you're not alone. Many other women feel this way. Also, another message, I would say, you. Is that you can find help, like, there's you're not at a dead end, like you just need to keep finding the right doctor or the right modality to help you, and that oftentimes it's multi layered, like you just said, like sometimes you can't just treat it with one approach. It has to be integrative. And so if you just know that, like, if you get an answer from any sort of healthcare provider, and it's just kind of like here, just do this. Like, that's not enough. There's something else that is underneath that. Just keep searching. It's kind of like the proverbial onion. So you're talking about symptoms stemming in the body from some specific trauma. Is that a fair summary? And so let's talk first about women who know they've had a trauma, but I mean, they they may not know whether they've fully dealt with it or not, but like, they could tell you, I've had some some rough stuff happen in my life. Does anyone who's experienced a trauma in their life, then seek some sort of Mind Body therapy, some sort of therapeutic approach. Or are there some people who have been through trauma who it may not be manifesting in their body?
That's a good question. I would say that if they have had trauma and nothing has manifested in their life, physically, it could show up emotionally, it could show up mentally. It could show up like as a difficulty at work. It's not always going to be you have a trauma, and then a year later, or six months later, you have this physical complaint. So tell us why trauma does this in the body. What's, what's? It seems like there's some missing connections we have. Point A is trauma, and then point B is physical symptoms, fatigue, hair loss, migraines, whatever. What's all that stuff between point A and point B? How is that? We don't have to get too scientific, but how's that happening?
I don't know that I can fully explain that, because I don't I don't know myself, and I don't think that all the experts have been able to explain it either, maybe in like, 40 years, we'll go back and be like, I can't believe these people didn't understand the connection. But it's oftentimes like, everyone comes into this world differently. So, like, I often tell clients, you know, you can have two people experience the same exact motor vehicle accident, and they're going to respond and come out of those and have a different experience based on how you grew up, based on what you were born with. And so one person, they can see the same exact stuff, have the same injuries, but based on how, I mean, like my brother and I are very, very vastly different people. And like he's he might not be as sensitive. He kind of like acted out more as a child, whereas I shut down. And so I feel like you can have a trauma, like a car accident, and then it shows up six months later, or three months later, or you start to feel something, but you're like, Oh, it's nothing. And like, I so many people come up with excuses of like, Oh, I just didn't stretch. I just didn't like, I don't work out, so therefore I have this back pain, right? I bend over it wrong way, and that's what happened. Yeah, yeah. They kind of have that explanation there. So how does someone know if they need to address this trauma or repressed emotion? I think that's when people listening like, well, I have hair loss. Well, I have I have migraines. Like, how do they know if this is a step that they need to be working towards, is, do they first need to know if they've had trauma? Or do most people, you feel like, know already if they've had trauma? That's another really good question. I would say that some people are very aware of like, a major traumatic event in their lives. Or, I remember going to an integrative doctor, like six months ago, and she was like, So what other traumatic events have you had? Like, I listed a few, and she's like, well, actually, that's good enough. That's enough trauma.
Yeah, that.
But so some people are well aware, like, this happened and this happened and this happened. And other people are like, No, I think my life was pretty good, because nothing jumps out at them, but it could be like chronic trauma, chronic stress, like the AC, the ACE, like adverse childhood experiences, and that is chronic over many, many years, and then that person acts out in Different ways without realizing, like, oh, the reason that I went to like, violence, or I went to, like, being so hostile with my partner, or I just ended up, like putting on weight, was because I had all this trauma as a child and never got hurt or seen, or I was like, emotionally neglected as a child, but it was so normal in their Life that they didn't see it as trauma. Yeah.
So is trauma the same thing as repressed emotions? Are those synonymous? Or can you have one without the other?
I think that you can have repressed emotions as a result of trauma, like you can have these major events or major kind of like neglect or even abuse, and that's traumatic. But then there are certain emotions and certain events that really were traumatic that you just decided to repress because they're too emotionally overwhelming.
So maybe let's start moving forward. If you have any tips, if you have someone who has undergone a trauma somewhat recently where it's kind of real time, like this is just happening a car accident or or something terrible. What can they do to try to avoid the trauma of the trauma? You know, the the repressed emotions of the trauma. Is there any advice you can give them, kind of moving forward? How does one make sure that they're processing their emotions appropriately? I would say that it's really helpful to work with a professional, someone who really understands like, how to sit there and create presence and ask the right questions and allow them to emote, and also to take stock of like, how are they feeling? How are they feeling in their bodies? How do they feel in their relationships? Like, how are they feeling at work? And journaling is incredibly there's so many studies about how journaling, like getting your thoughts onto paper and then just being like, I'm done, you know, like at the end of the day, just write about like, oh, that person cut me off, and all of a sudden I was like, crying, and it reminded me of this. I mean, all of those could be really helpful.
Yeah, tell me this is a basic question, but I think it's worth defining what what are repressed emotions? What does that mean?
That means that you have an emotional event or memory and instead of dealing with it, you're just like, kind of like, what I described, of like, well, I'll just deal with this later, and then later never comes. And so you that's a way of repressing it, of just being like, I'm not gonna deal I'm not going to deal with it because it's too much. And people do that all the time. And I mean, I still do it in my body still talks to me in terms of, like, Hey, I'm giving you back pain because you didn't realize, like, how emotionally upsetting this issue was. And so people just, I think we are bombarded with so many things in a given day, like we have to go to point A, to point B, to this, to that. Like, we can't always stop and be like, how is this affecting me? And so we just end up repressing it, kind of by default, yeah, just don't give it the time the daylight. So we talked about, sort of, someone has a trauma, and how, what do they do moving forward? Pause right there and tell me, because you use the word to help them emote. What does it look like if we're in that lived experience? What does it look like to process through that and to emote? Because I think that it is pretty basic. But some people, I think, don't, don't know. They don't know how they would like What do you mean? I lived it. I moved on with my life. What do I need to process? There's nothing there to process that bad thing happened to me, and now I had another day. What does that look like to actually process the emotion and to emote?
I feel that it's, it's not only how you grew up in your family, but it's also this societal like, stop crying, move on. You're fine. Kind of message that people have had throughout their lives, of like, you know, it's so much easier to be like, Oh, you injured yourself. Like, how are you doing? How are you feeling? But if someone's, like, actually emoting and crying about something or being really angry, like, everyone's like, Ah, I don't know what to do for you. And so I feel that to actually process something, which happens a lot with therapy, of like, okay, allow yourself to tap into that, sink into that feeling, and just whatever happens, it's okay. So to process and emote would be to really feel that feeling and sit with it and know that it's not going to be there forever. I think that's a big concern, is that, like you start crying is never going to stop. So just, you know, if you have grief, if you have anger, just allow it to be there, and to self soothe, to be like, kind of like the inner child, and be like, What did, what did you need as a child that you didn't get? And to be like, okay, it's okay, honey. I know they're sad. Feel that sadness. It's okay. Like, let it out. Like, that was a really challenging experience to have. Like, what if you can imagine, like your partner or your friend or a parent, if you feel close to those people, like, what would they do for you that you can't feel like you're doing for yourself, and then you kind of like, re parent yourself by doing that for yourself? Yeah, that was actually one of the questions we had on Instagram is, is, how do I learn to re parent myself? So obviously, one of the answers is, you go to a therapist and they help you reparent yourself. They learn how to tune into your needs. I think of where's that gap? Do you want to say anything else about like, what people can start to do just now? Because I think the reparenting with regards to repressed emotion and trauma is important, but also it's just a good skill in general. What advice would you give people, just as a as an ongoing thing, of, how do we learn to to be attentive to our our needs, and to repair it? I would say that it's, it's, I mean, I'm still doing this and learning this myself, and it's kind of like a lifelong ongoing process of something happens. You get upset, instead of just being like, Oh, I'm going to distract. Myself with whatever's on my phone, social media, like a game, or whatever you tell yourself, like it's okay, like it's okay to feel this and to imagine like you as a child, or to imagine like who in your life could really give you the comfort that you want, and then imagine whatever that person could do, to do that for yourself, and to tell yourself, and it's really like a self soothing process of like that was really hard. I understand that you would feel ashamed or try to name the emotion and then just allow yourself like to, like, we say in psychology, like to normalize it like, it's totally normal to have this reaction like and to actually feel it though, rather than put it aside, will help to reparent.
Yeah, there's actually data, I think, showing that like self hug, like you wrap your arms around yourself and squeeze, and there's data to show the physiology responds as if someone else was giving you a hug. And so it is, I mean, quite literal, like you can repent yourself that way of giving yourself something that you needed in that moment of like, okay, I've got you, like, I'm here with you. I also think one of the things you described is sort of that giving a name to it. And I always think of it. I picture it like, I call it lava lamp brain, where your brain is just like, allowing these thoughts to shift and morph and grow and get brighter or darker, and that that is not a very productive brain. Like, we don't feel good when our brain is doing that with our thoughts. It can feel really anxiety provoking. It can feel really overwhelming. But as we kind of try to put a shape to it, like, what is that shape? What am I feeling? What am I thinking? That the brain can become more concrete and say, like, oh, I can deal with that, like I can handle that, whereas before it's like, oh, I don't know what to do, because it's constantly changing. It's a moving target. So to give it a concrete target where you can really say, like, this is what I'm feeling, and it I accept that, like, this is okay for me.
Yeah? And I think it's really hard for a lot of people to actually name the emotion. Yeah, I was challenged by that for a long time. Even therapists would be like, what's that feeling? What's that emotion? And be like, I don't know. I don't feel emotion, right? I'm just numb to it, but I do feel something. So allow yourself to be like, it's okay. This is really overwhelming. Just whatever self soothing messages you can give yourself and you're right and like and to breathe, remember to breathe and but you can do that anywhere. I mean, no one's gonna know what you're doing. And honestly, like, one of the things I like to tell my patients is, you're super smart, like your brain is super smart. I think that have I'm all about therapists and doctors and, you know, getting the support that you need. But also, there's, there's great answers within yourself. We just don't give ourselves the time of day sometimes to even think, like, what do I need right now? And then give it a minute, like, actually listen to yourself and see, I think we are very wise, and a lot of us will come up with answers. But one of my coping mechanisms, one of my defaults, is to say, Who can I ask? Who can I find? Who's going to solve this problem for me, who's going to take this discomfort away from me? And that is not what we want. Like, if I can just pause and say, like, I have the answer. I know the answers in there. I know there's an answer. I'm missing the and just sit with that for a minute. I think that can be really powerful, as opposed to absolutely find a guide. But also, like, trust yourself, know that your brain is going to come to some answers there.
I love that. I so love that because I think that likes we're so we're such, like, a fast, like, kind of society, and so it's kind of like, if I don't get an answer within five seconds, I don't know what it is. I got things to do. I don't have time to wait around for you brain, right? One of the things we talked about before we started recording was one of the things that makes women so different when they're coping with trauma and and sort of processing emotions. Will you? Will you mention that again? Yeah, I think that women, I mean, I know men have a lot of, you know, like, it's hard for them to emote also and to like, show that their softer side. But I think that women have so many responsibilities, so much pressure to provide for other people, that when they sit with the question, what do I want, they they're I don't know. I don't know what I want, because they're constantly helping other people. They have the nurturing and the mother they type approach to, like, helping their kids and their partners and their husbands and whoever it is in their lives or friends, that when you sit to ask yourself, what do I need? What do I desire, especially if you were brought up in, like, more of a narcissistic family where that got overshadowed, then it's really a very, very challenging question to
ask. Yeah, I have no idea what I want.
What does that even mean? What does that even look like? I think too, that oftentimes women can be people pleasers too, where, if you're looking at like well, but you take those people away if I'm not pleasing my partner, if I'm not pleasing my kids, if I'm not pleasing my mom, if I'm not pleasing my best friend. And like, Well, who am I pleasing? Then? Like, you know, we're looking around like, Who can we? Who do you want me to please? It's like, you I want you to please you. Like, oh no, I don't know what that means. So it is a really interesting skill I think we have to learn is like, to slow down and just to have that space with yourself, of not in a selfish way, like, what do you want? But like, who are you? Who? What do you need? What? What do you want? I think is an acceptable question to ask, yes, and I would also add to then feel okay asking for what you need. Like, using that communication of like, because people aren't mind readers, and knowing like, Okay, I just need you to help out in this way. I can't do it all. I'm going to get exhausted and to be okay asking for help. Yeah,
yeah, I love that.
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So someone would come to me with a symptom, and normally the trauma is not known right away, and so they come to me with depression or anxiety or chronic pain, and then it's kind of like we are both the investigator of like, okay, so this is the issue. What is your history with having this issue? What have you tried before? What's worked, what hasn't worked? One big question I asked them is, so when did this symptom appear? What was going on in your life before, soon after the issue. Because normally that is like we can start to have a little path and find out what was going on and then. So a lot of that is more talking. And then I use these mind body stress reduction techniques to really ask the body for answers, because this was my issue with doing traditional talk therapy. It's really good for a lot of things, but when you have some sort of physical condition and sometimes, like emotional upset as well, the thing that's causing that is getting covered by just talking about it. So I asked the body for answers, and I did this all the time. I would be like, I don't really want to emote. I really don't want to cry in therapy, so I'm just going to be two steps ahead of the therapist and never actually feel anything. And feel like I'm kind of like cognitively, like understanding the process and the and the the problem that I'm presenting here. But when I did these Mind Body therapies, I was like, I was caught off guard, and I cried and I emoted, and that's because the body doesn't lie. The body will be like, this is the issue. Say,
How'd that work out for
I think that's huge. And so I want to re emphasize, well, I want to re emphasize two things, and I want you to keep talking. One of them is that when you're working with a practitioner like yourself and and with a functional medicine practitioner, they are only as effective as as you give them data. And so I think in our conventional mindset, we go to the doctor, we tell them, My ear hurts and they're like, Great antibiotic. Here you go. That is not the course for true and holistic healing. Holistic healing really is about detective work and and I can't be a detective if you don't give me the clues, because I'm not in your body, I don't know how to feel. And I think as people who are dealing with chronic symptoms, this is such an important place to start, is to start asking yourself, like, when did this start? What was going on in my life at that point? What else did I notice? What do I feel? How do I feel if I do this? That work is so valuable to us as practitioners, because if you don't give it to me, I'm gonna have to pull it out of you, and the more that you are aware of your own history and your own physical symptoms, the better I can help you. I think a lot of times women especially, are made to feel crazy or made to feel like whiners like and they will flat out with. Hold symptoms from me because they think that's too many. Like, I've reached my max. I can't tell you about any more of my symptoms, and I have to kind of keep pulling me like anything else, and they'll be like, well, sometimes I can't get out of bed in the morning because I'm too exhausted. Okay, I'd like to know about that. Anything else. Well, sometimes I don't poop for five days. Like, okay, those are things I should know about, you know? So when you're dealing with this type of holistic healing, we want to know everything. We want to know absolutely everything there is to know. The other thing that I wanted to emphasize that you said is that the body doesn't like lying, and it knows if you're lying. And this is so huge, and this is something I've learned in my own practice. When I first started, I recognized the link between stress and the illness of the body. There is a link between the stress of the body. If the body and the mind feel psychologically stressed, it absolutely affects the body. But so I started with like, calming the body down and it's okay. There's no real danger here. This is okay. And I learned real fast, you don't have to work with patients for very long to realize if that's not true. It worsens the scenario. So if you have people who are trying to do meditations or trying to do breath work, and they say, like, I'm calm, I'm at peace, like it won't work, everything in the body rejects it. And I think this is one of the things we see with people who are like, I can't do breath work, I cannot meditate. Like, I get so agitated. And that's a clue that the body actually needs healing, because you try to tell it like we're safe. There's no saber tooth tigers here. We're safe. And the inside of the body is like, yes, there are saber tooth tigers here. Are you kidding? Have you looked outside? And so until we actually heal that trauma and heal that danger, we can't force it into submission, it will react. And I think that's one of the ways that it reacts with physical symptoms, is it says like the world is so dangerous, and you're not even paying attention to me. You're not even acknowledging how dangerous it is. And so it sends up warning flares, which can be headaches or tension or, you know, shoulder pain or other things like that, that that keep it in this sick state. So I just wanted to re emphasize that, that the idea like you cannot lie to your brain, you can try, but you will not win. It knows it's in you. It is literally part of you. So you really have to do the healing by coming to truth with yourself, and that inner truth is actually all we need to heal. We don't have to somehow fix the terrible thing that happened. We need to just live it. We just need to accept it. So I've gone off on a tangent, but I'd love to hear your thoughts
on that. I
think we can say everything's fine, like you're saying, and the doctor, the conventional doctor, will be like, do self care? Take a bubble bath, you know, go out in nature, but, and you're like, kind of like, going on vacation. But if, like, you bring all of that emotional trauma and stress and upheaval with you, it's not going to help anything. You know, you're going to just be like, I'm in a different environment. Now what? And so it is so important to to understand that you can't like you're saying. You can't run away from it, you can't escape it like it's going to catch up with you. And unless you really just allow yourself to sit and accept things and be like, okay, you know what? This is really hard. This is so and I don't know what to do, but I'm going to sit here and just allow it to be here, and I don't have to make it go away. I don't have to just, like, be in it, kind of like they say with meditation, like, allow that thought to just be there and move past you don't make it good or bad,
yeah, don't try to do anything with it. So as a coach, then there is in some coaching training approaches. There are some coaches who approach the idea that we need to not try to change our circumstance. We need to change our thoughts around the circumstance, right? We need to paint a different picture. And I think this can be really productive. But how do you find that balance between if we're struggling, how do we know when I need to see it through a different lens and how I need to stop trying to see it through a different lens and just be in it. Does that make sense? Because I think sometimes we can reframe our thinking to say like instead of like. I mean, it's the old growth mentality, right? Of like, well, I don't know how to do it yet. That's really great advice. That's really great change that we need to have happen in our brain, instead of like, well, I don't know how to do anything like, I haven't learned how to do it yet, that reframing of the idea can really help us to perceive it differently and move through it differently. But with trauma, sometimes we don't need to reframe it at all, and sometimes, I think that's what talk therapy can try to do it with good intention, is to say like you've had this bad thing happen to you, but maybe there's a bright side, or maybe, if this wouldn't have happened, if you hadn't had this, or I learned so much from it, will you comment on the difference between like reframing versus that true trauma healing and acknowledgement,
we can reframe everything right? Yeah, and it's sometimes helpful and sometimes not, sometimes not right. And then. The trauma. I think that's why sometimes doing just traditional talk therapy with trauma can re traumatize people, because it has nowhere to go, and you're just talking about the trauma again and again and again, and You're reliving it. And that's why there's things like EMDR or the neuro emotional tech, where you're like, finding the specific emotion from the specific event and really allowing it to come up and out, and then you don't think about it anymore. So I feel like there's, there's a time to reframe. But I think it, it can be deleterious, like, sometimes I can't think of little words. Deleterious is a great word. Think of big words. It's problematic. It's, yeah, it's problematic. If you are trying to reframe something that just needs more of your kind of, like, the self soothing of, like, yeah, you went through that. That sucked, yeah, and I'm sorry that you went through that, versus like, let's try to reframe this so that you see the positive in it. It's kind of like there was no positive, yeah? Like, it made me feel like this. And then eventually you can, like, learn from that and be like, Wow, that was really painful, and I grew from it. Because people often grow during the times of stress, not like joy and excitement, but in that time where it's so close to when it happened, it's not really helpful to be like, well, look on the bright side, yeah,
yeah, it gets into that toxic positivity of like, but things are fine. Things are fine. It's like you need to process your day emotions, like you need to be in that experience. I think one thing that makes people nervous about working through trauma is they're afraid that they are going to need to somehow open it back up, or re experience it. What has been your approach with helping them to identify the trauma. How much do they have to identify about the trauma? Do they need to go into the details of it? Do they need to feel any of it again? Or how are they actually go into the nitty gritty? Because I think we've talked around a lot of it, but like, we want to go from point A, meaning trauma to point B, weaning, no symptoms. What is that actually looking like for them, how much do they actually need to be worried about the discomfort of the process and
opening up that trauma? I
think I go about trauma differently than other therapists, because they are more I remember having a therapist at the end of grad school, and he was like, let's talk about your experience in 911 and I was like, let's not, yeah. I've been like, already dealt with this, yeah. And I feel like, I was like, you know, I think this is more for you than for me, and I feel like I already have my ways of dealing with it. And he was like, I totally, I appreciate that like and so I think that everyone's different. And if, if you feel that your trauma is still affecting you because it's coming up in different ways. Like you may not even be aware of it, but like, if you are still having, you know, emotional distress, emotional outbursts with your family, or something like that at work, it's you know, things are coming up. You could be like, Hmm, I wonder if this has to do with unprocessed emotions from this trauma, whereas, like, I go through it where it's kind of like, it's, there's like, a protocol where I ask the person, okay, this is, like, say you were in a car accident. So this is what happened. Let's go back chronologically and step by step, tell me according to their specific trauma, okay, like, what happened you were, like, you saw the car with the headlights coming in. Like, rate that from a one to a five, a five being the worst one being okay. And then after I have, like, five of those, then I go in with the mind, body stuff, and I say, like, Okay, think about that. I test their muscle. I find out, like, where they're weak, finding the emotion, and I bring it to the surface, and we talk about that and trace it back to an earlier event. A lot of times you get re traumatized in the present from something seemingly completely unrelated from your past, but it's coming up to heal both episodes. So
tell us more about that, because you just flew through that like Mind, Body stuff real quick. What are you doing? What are you actually doing to help people move through these traumas? And are you doing it in person or virtual? Mostly virtual these days. Okay, so how are you doing that? Tell us. Dive in for us. So some of this
is going to sound crazy. We're here for crazy, but so I'm using muscle testing. And so if I was in the room with someone, I would be holding their arm up and pressing to see if it goes weak or strong. And other types of doctors, like naturopaths, like chiropractors, do this, and they often do it to find the subluxation or the imbalance in the body, or that if there is, like, a food or a supplement that works or doesn't work, shows weaker strength, I'm doing it based on, like, the emotions, the events, the memories that someone is thinking about. So it's kind of like, I'll, I'll have them go through a test, like, think about something you really, really love to do, or it's going to be a person, or your dog, or whatever it is, and then their arm goes strong, or it could be something that really upsets you, like. Think about someone you don't like. Think about getting Novocaine at the dentist's office, and your arm goes weak. And so then I have them think about the issue, the trauma that happened, and their arm will typically go weak. And then I'm finding the emotion based on Chinese medicine, organs correspond to different emotions. I find that through the pulse points. And then so say it's like, the wood Oregon, the word wood, wood element. And then I go through a list of emotions, like, anger, resentment, gold, stubborn, emotional, depressed, repress. And then their body, that's where this is so effective, is that their body will respond, whereas if I just ask someone like, are you feeling angry about that, they'll be like, No, I'm fine, I'm good. But your body will be like, yes, and you're really angry about that, yeah. And then we'll talk about what makes you angry about the fact that this drunk driver hit you, you know. And then you can discuss that. And then, like, what's the worst thing about that? And then we trace that back to an earlier time in your life where something wasn't fully processed. You kind of like, make it more into more vague language, of, like, an earlier event where something angered you because you had no control over the event. And then a memory, this is where it's, like, kind of crazy also, like a memory from, like, your entire life just pops up after I'm indexing for time, like, from, you know, birth to 1010, to 20, and then you zero in on a certain age, and then you bring up that emotion, that memory, and by bringing up all of that to the surface, you're able to process it, whereas, like sometimes it's so buried, and you feel like you're fine, you can't think of anything. So that's kind of a little overview of how that all works. And then
what's the next phase to say, Okay, so you've identified some of these emotions that are problematic, and maybe you've linked them to a traumatic memory or to to a root, sort of where they came from. What do you do then?
Then I have them hold the pulse point like so the wood element on the right hand. You hold that as you go back in time to age 14, for example, and think about that experience. And you know, you breathe in and out, you just keep thinking about it until you start to the emotion starts to dissipate.
And do you find that people have to go through this over and over and over, or do they find it to be quite rapid? It's pretty rapid. It's pretty incredible. And do you see the physical resolution of the symptoms as well, pretty rapidly. Yeah, that's why I do it. So can you tell, then, from your bio feedback, from your your pulses and things, can you tell if they still have additional repressed emotions that you kind of need to go off of, or are you going based on symptoms from them, like I still have some fatigue, or I still have some, some other issues, and you're diving deeper then basically,
whatever we can unravel in the time allotted will and then also, like, what the body sometimes like, because we're basing this off of the energetic response of the body, the body will be like, That's all for today. I am beat. I'm done, yeah. And other times, you know, like, the symptom will resolve after one session, it may resolve after 10, but it's not going to be like six months or a year. Tell us
going back a little bit where talk therapy kind of falls short when we're dealing with the actual trauma. Well, I
can think of how this may help to just talk about my experience on 911 of like so I grew up in a family where it was really not encouraged to seek out therapy. It was kind of like, you go to see a therapist if you're really messed up, or you're like, really like, or something like your crazy person. So of course, I'm like, I'm not going to go see a therapist, but I was like, I if I had gone to see a psychologist, and I did. I went to see one psychologist, and she was like, tell me about your experience on 911 I was just like, this happened, and this happened and this happened. Like, yeah, I didn't like about voting at all, yeah. And she was like, and what was that like? And I was like, it wasn't great. But going to see this other doctor, Dr Randazzo, who is like, let me test your muscle and find out, like, what are the emotions you're feeling? And I was like, crying, and I never cry in a therapy session. It was just kind of like, getting right to the root issue of, like, what was making me upset? Like, I would hear a helicopter and be like, Oh my God. Like, which, which way do I run? Like, do I have the appropriate feet, you know, to like, the shoes and like, that's what would come up when I would hear a helicopter, whereas I could never get to that from just talking about, like, Oh, it's scary when I hear a helicopter. I'm not sure why.
Data takes us to a point, and I'm all about data. But also, there are some people who pursue sort of a conventional approach to things, or they're doing the talk therapy and they're not getting better. And I think a lot of the world, we just say, well, oh, well, keep going. You know, keep keep trying. And I think that there are some people where it's like, you got to try something different. And I think when the black and white model isn't working, you know, the really clear cut, like regimented protocol. And like, this is how we heal this. If that's not working, I'm just so grateful there are other modalities where it's like, this might be a great option for you. And sort of, my barometer is, of course, if there's great data for it, I like that. The second sort of measure that I look to look at is the safety of it. If it's harmful, then, then we got to think pretty hard about it, right? We're not going to give chemotherapy to random people to see if maybe it helps stuff. Like, you have to know if something's going to cause you a problem. That it's, it has a really, really good chance of causing more benefit than harm. And then I also think about the cost, if it's, if it's super, super expensive. Like, hey, you could try this modality. It's super safe, it will be $1 million like, Oh, I better have some good data to pay that much. So I think that can help people put things in perspective of saying, like, is it safe, is it reasonably affordable, and is there good data? And we don't always tick every one of those boxes, but I think if it's safe and affordable and not good data, then that's that's pretty easy to try, right? So I don't mind the weird sometimes, I think sometimes people say, like, I don't have any other options, like, I don't know what else you want me to do. So I think it's nice to have an off the beaten path option for someone. So there's
so many different modalities out there, and everything you mentioned is such good sound advice. And I would also say that, like, you have to feel safe with your practitioner. Yeah, I have, especially dealing with trauma, right? Especially just that emotional safety, because I have worked with people who have, you know they're at level advanced with whatever modality they're doing, but I have left sessions mid session and been like, you don't know what you're doing. Yeah, this is making me really uncomfortable, and you can't read me. How can you not read me? Yeah? And have just left because it's just not like, it's not my cup of tea, and it's not helpful. I'm
so glad you said
that, because I do think the trauma world, the trauma treatment world, is a little bit of the Wild West, and I think that trauma is delicate. You know, your body has literally built protective mechanisms and systems around keeping you safe from that trauma and that trauma, the way that I explain trauma to people and adjust this, if you, if you need to, because you're more expert in this, the way that I think about it is, if you saw ice for the very first time, had no idea what ice was, and you went and whoop, slipped on it, fell flat on your back, hurt your back, the next time that's that memory is going to be seared into your limbic system, into your brain to say, like, let's not do that again. But it's messy. It doesn't remember, like, I slipped on the ice. It just takes, like, a snapshot of the of the moment. So maybe there were trees around, or maybe you were with, you know, Bob, or maybe there was music playing, and all of those get jumbled up into that same memory. So in the future, your brain is like, Oh, Bob, bad, you know, like it doesn't always make sense. It just sort of jumbles it up. And especially years later, our body will be reacting to that trauma, to that memory, but in a messy way, it might be reacting to someone who looks like Bob or it might be reacting to the pine tree, and it's like, why are you reacting to that? That has nothing to do with anything, but it's just a messy process. And so to find someone to help you unravel that and say, like, let's, let's dive down deep into the programming of the body a little bit and see where this trigger is coming from, because that's what it is, right? Like, it's this trigger happy, this really sensitive trigger of danger, that it's overreacting, but in unpredictable ways sometimes. And so you want someone who's treating trauma to be able to slowly go back there and unpack it. And I think that, as you mentioned, like, there are some people who say, Tell me about it. What happened. And it is not that simple. It is not for some people. Maybe it is if it's a minimal trauma, or if that person feels guided, feels like, do you know I need to get this off my chest. I really need to talk about this. But if everything in you is like, I'm not ready to go there, I'm not ready to talk about it, I think that a good trauma practitioner should sense that, and should be hold space for that and say, Okay, then let's talk around it, or let's talk about responses, or let's do other approaches, instead of just like, well, you're not going to get better if you don't tell me everything that happened in that moment. So tell me, because you are more expert than I am on this. Tell me your thoughts about all of that, or
any of that. I
mean, I think that's all really wonderful to hear for anyone, whether it seems like, you know, big trauma or little trauma, like it just, I, I would not feel safe or comfortable talking to anyone if they were just like, let's talk about that big trauma you had. Yeah, I just be like, you know? And I feel like I kind of had that sometimes with professional athletes that I worked with about 10 years ago, and I'd be like, Okay, here's the symptom, here's what's coming up. You know, this is a major thing that happened in your life. And they'd be like, I'm tough, I'm cool, I don't need to talk about this. And they'd be like, Let's go it at a different angle. Then, you know. Ever feels safe, even it feels really slowly, then we're going to have to go that way, rather than, like, why would you force someone to talk about something before they're ready? That's just going to, like, make it worse, and they're going to have another trauma to
deal with, right? Right? Yeah. Are there any examples that you can give us more specific examples of like, this inaction, of here is my physical symptom, my very physical symptom, and then we discover, oh, this may be coming from trauma and and processing that can relieve that physical symptom.
Yes, I would say that one case that I had that was so interesting to me, I added it to my book, and it was about a woman who had, she had this really painful, so, as pain, so, like, so as you know, it's somewhere, like, in your, you know, it's in your abdomen. And she deep inside, deep inside, yes, and it's, it's painful to have worked on and all these doctors. She went to a chiropractor, a physiatrist, an integrative medical doctor, and everyone was like, That's it. That's where your pain is. It's in the psoas, but no one could get it to go away. And I had just started working at this clinic, and she was there, and I was like, how about you? How about you? Like she was one of the receptionists. So I was like, why don't you come to me and I will give you a treatment. So that when patients call and they're like, I don't know if I should work with Serena or someone else, you can really tell them, yeah. So she was like, great. I have this psoas pain. And I was like, great. Let's look at it. And like, within the first session, it was like a half hour session. It turned out that all the psoas pain came down to her boyfriend, and how, like, she knew that she didn't want to stay with him, and she'd been together, she'd been living with him, and she was like, Oh, I know that eventually I'm gonna have to say something. But so she had just been holding this pain in her body as a result of not wanting to hurt him, and as we worked through that, more of looking at the emotions underneath that, and like, what wasn't getting resolved? And so it's not necessarily like that wasn't this major trauma where, like, she was, you know, really neglected or something. It was more of just like, this inevitable thing that she knew she was going to have to do, but she wasn't doing. She was putting it off. And then that affected other things in her life. She, like, didn't want to be in this job all the time. She wanted to do something more with her life. But all of these were just kind of like keeping her stuck. And the more we unwound and resolved that, the more within like, three sessions, the pain went away after five years of having this.
Yeah, that's so cool. I'm going to share my own story, because I what I want to emphasize is, as a con. I am a conventionally trained medical doctor, and I also have functional and integrative training and kind of reiterating what I said before, which is, you you've got to go off the beaten path if you're not getting answers. But I hesitate to say that too openly, because you want to do it safely, and you don't want to waste a ton of money, and you want to have some sort of guide. So I do think that sometimes the body does really weird stuff, and it's really amazing to work with practitioners who understand and feel the body and understand the way this does that. And I experienced this with a somatic coach. Her name is Chelsea Murdoch, and she's lovely, and she had come to me having my my clinic, and I was sort of like, I don't really have time for this, like, I'm busy, I'm healthy, I'm good, I don't have anything wrong with me, you know, I don't have any trauma. And so she was like, let's just do a sample session. And she's like, Do you feel anything? And I was like, No, I feel fine. She was like, anything at all? I was like, Well, I've got this stiff neck. I was breastfeeding at the time, and we got on vacation, and I was like, I slept on my you know, I was, I fell asleep nursing, and so I had this kink in my shoulder, in my neck, but it had been there for like, two or three months at this point. Like it was not, like two days ago. It had, it was not going away. And she was like, well, let's go there. And fast forward to the end of the session. And I was like, sobbing. I was, I was just like from a deep internal place, and this was a virtual call, like she was just talking me through it, and talking about, what does it feel like, and kind of going through the somatic connection. So it wasn't muscle testing, but it was just somatic connection. And it was so crazy to experience, because as I was releasing this emotion, I could literally feel it melting and softening. I mean, it was super stiff. I couldn't turn my head more than I don't know, do you say, like, 75 degrees or, I don't know how to calculate that, but I couldn't turn my head and I could feel it soften, and I could feel it as I'm, like, sobbing in a very embarrassed way. I could feel my chin like I could. I could totally start to improve the mobility of my neck. And had I not experienced it, I would have been like, That's ridiculous, but it was so crazy to experience because she and she the poor girl, like, here I'm the owner of the clinic, and she was experienced, and I'm like, baring my soul to her, and I got done and, like, wiped me in my tears. And was like, I feel amazing. And she was like, Okay.
Yeah, but it really is this legitimate experience
of the body does weird stuff. And I think when the body does weird stuff and we can't find normal answers, then we want to look for safe and supported, but answers that maybe go a little bit off the beaten path. And I think in ways there where I realized there were emotions that they weren't traumatic, they weren't a big deal, but I certainly was not acknowledging them and not processing them and just to feel that complete emotional release. And the the having the physical correlation of it was was really quite crazy, and I wouldn't believe it if I hadn't, hadn't lived it, but there is this connection. I don't think it's magic. I don't think it's like extra power or anything. I think it's literally just the way that our emotions cue certain things in our body, and it does weird stuff. Like, what, what we talked about earlier is, point A is the trauma, and point B is all of these physical symptoms of hair loss and migraines and muscle pain and back pain and, like, what happens between, I don't know, because it does it differently for different people. And for some people it's going to be muscle pain. For some people it's going to be diarrhea. For some people it's going to be lack of sleep. For some people it's going to be migraines. And sometimes, as a doctor, we want that answer, like I want to know every step from A to B, what's between those those things to connect it. And the fact is, sometimes we don't know, but if we can safely and gently start to explore what our body feels like and where we're where we're feeling it, and why we're feeling it, and when it started, and start to process through that in a safe way, I do think that it's a really great modality that can be beneficial for people when they're not finding, you know, the benefit of just talk therapy. Yeah,
it's my crazy story. I love it. I love it because I think so often it feels like all of a sudden we have a new symptom, right? Somehow it just landed there.
So let me explain it. Somehow, you know this
I did that like, it's not like, Oh well, I had this upsetting conversation with someone, or I watched like someone else had this horrible thing happen to them, and we think it's fine, because we now have been, like, desensitized to all this, like violence we watch on the news, you know, we're just like, we're fine. You know, it's fine, but then it's kind of like, well, it just appeared one day. Then why is it so difficult to understand that it can just disappear? And I think that a big message. I would also want to let people know, especially women, is that, like sometimes the social support you have in your life, like your friends, your partner, your family, like sometimes just talking to them can help the pain or symptom start to decrease or even go away completely. Yeah, I think
that's so true.
I think whatever way we approach it, there's no way. I think what patients want a lot is to have a straight line, right, like I am here, and I would like to get over to point B, and I'd like it to be a real straight course. And the fact is, it is pulling back layers of the onion, because the body is so interconnected that sometimes it is a nutrient deficiency. Sometimes it is lack of sleep. Sometimes it is menopause, you know, sometimes it is stored trauma and stored stress, and so sometimes you do have to go through some different things. And of course, as a doctor, I recommend people do kind of attend to the basics, first of sleep and movement and food and those basics, but especially as an adjunct to those lifestyle modalities to add in emotional support, body processing support, I think, is it can be such a lovely, lovely thing.
I love that, because I also feel like I'm not a one stop shop. I feel like I do the emotions, but there's so much where it's kind of like, well, have you talked to an integrative doctor? Do you had your labs done? Like, do you like? Let's just rule some stuff out. But also, let's support the system beyond just doing the emotional stuff,
yeah, for sure. And I will also put a plug in, you know, from functional medicine, we talk about root cause but, and a lot of people want expensive testing, and they want a lot of diagnosing, but they they sometimes don't see what comes after that. If we diagnose you with something real fancy and and root Kaesie, why? But why did you have that root cause, like Lyme disease or mold toxicity or chronic fatigue syndrome or, you know, long COVID Like, why did you get that and the person next to you didn't get it? Some of it is genetics. Some of it's physical susceptibility, like lack of sleep or menopause or, you know, hormones or abnormal immune system or other things. But some of it really can be the vulnerability that our emotions and our lack of processing can kind of pile on and make us more susceptible to that root cause, which means, this is my point, the repair of that root cause. Yes, I can give you supplements. Yes, I can give you red light. I can do all of those things, but you're not going to get around the trauma if it's in there. And I say that in a really hopeful way, that's where we find the greatest long term resilience in the body, is when we really can address what the programming of the body. Is, and if that's trauma, I am not a believer that that we have to relive it, or that we have to re experience it or really wallow in it, you know. I think it can become a little bit feeling like voyeuristic almost, this feeling of like, Ooh, what happened then? How bad was it? You know? And we really want to avoid that. We really want to say, like, let's, let's, we have to get to some exposure of the trauma to release it. But it, it hopefully should not be a really painful process. It should be more of a release and an acknowledgement. I don't know what your thoughts are on that part. Yeah,
absolutely. I feel like,
like, I like, I said at one point, like, just to re traumatize the body is so unhelpful, and it's not necessary. Like, that happened, and now it's like, hopefully it's in the past, and you can see it in the past. Versus being like, I'm still in it. Like, every time I have to talk about this, I'm still in it, yeah. Versus like, bringing it to the surface, like, kind of looking at it and being like, oh, that happened. And then then I felt this and and kind of, like dissecting it from afar and being like, Okay, what is still up for me, rather than, like, this whole thing is, like, overwhelming. I don't know what to do with it. It's always going to be there, like, having more, you know, having more positivity in ways that you can be like, Okay, this is now. I'm glad that this, you know, is in the past, so that I can, like, deconstructed and not have it, like, be a part of me now it's like parts that are like, leaving my body. Yeah,
yeah, wonderful. I want
to just answer a couple questions really quickly as we wrap up. Are there any other modalities that you want to mention? As people are saying, like, gosh, maybe I should look into this. You mentioned muscle testing. And is it
called IFT? It's n, e, t, neuro, emotional technique, yes.
Okay, so any t and then somatic coaching? Are there any other modalities that people can, sort of Google
look at somatic experiencing? People may have heard that from vessel, vessel van der Kolk, yeah, his seminal work on the potty, the Body Keeps the Score, and a lot of people find results from EMDR and but just like anything, like, if say you like the modality, but you don't like the practitioner, don't feel like you have to stay with that practitioner. Like, find someone else that you feel really safe with, that you can really, you know, emote, and you know, as honest and truthful as you can. Well,
as the last question for you, I'd love for you to give us just sort of a another recap or overview. What would your summary be for women who may be experiencing past trauma or recent trauma, what would be your main summary advice for them? What is the last kind of bit you want to make sure that they hear from you,
I would say you're not alone and that you you are strong and you have you have the ability to find answers and get to the bottom of it and feel better, not only from your support network, even if you feel like you're alone and the people around you don't understand, they won't be able to, you know, just keep reaching out. Sometimes you find you find out who your real friends are. You know, when you're going through something really challenging, but like you said earlier, like the answers are inside. You know, sit down with yourself some really comfortable where you feel, you know, at peace in your home, set a timer for 20 minutes and just go within, write, you know, do some journaling, perhaps, but you have way more knowledge and expertise than any doctor out there. You know. You know, you're no better, yeah, and wait for the answer to come. It's there. So there is support out there for you, and you are also like your your best your own best doctor. Yeah,
I love that. Thank you so much for being here and talking about this important topic. I think the idea of having trauma in in the recent past or in the remote past as a child is so much more rampant than than we recognize and certainly more rampant than it should be. There's some really, I've just been blown away by the number of patients in my practice who have some element of pretty significant trauma. And it is, it is far more significant than I ever recognized in my old practice. Did I ever ask in my old practice? No, I did not. But now that I ask regularly, it's it's out there so much. And so I love what you said earlier about them not feeling alone. It like you're the only person who's dealing with this. You are not alone. And there's so many people dealing with it in silence and sort of carrying this burden around with them, and that is so heavy. So I'm glad that you have shed the light on this, and are continuing to shed the light on this. You've written a wonderful book which was just released with its second
edition. The second edition was released in March of 2024 Yeah. So just
this year when your body speaks and it's decoding the link between emotional trauma and chronic suffering, and where can they where can they
get that book? Buy it? To
my website and I'll sign it for you. Or you can buy it from Amazon. Awesome.
Will you tell us one more time? Where can people find you? What's your website?
My website is my name, dr, Serena sterling.com, wonderful. Anywhere else. I no longer post to social media, but I have a lot of really good posts on there, of like, you know, uncovering your trauma and understanding also how people affect you, like just, you know, some basic things there I did narrate my book this time, so you'll wonderful audio version, awesome.
Thank you so much for being here. Thank you. Thank you so much for tuning in to today's episode. A huge thank you to our guest for sharing their insights and time with us. We are grateful for the incredible support from our sponsors and to all of you listening. We couldn't do this without you. If you enjoyed this episode, please consider subscribing on your favorite platform. You can find us on our website, uplift for her.com, YouTube, Apple podcast, Spotify, or wherever you love to listen. And if you found value here today, please share this episode with someone who would benefit from it. Leave us a comment or give us a review. It really helps us reach more listeners like you. Thank you for being part of our community. Stay tuned for our next episode. This information is for educational purposes only, and not intended to be medical advice. You.
