This is the ten percent. Have your pack asked Tom dan Harris, hey, hey, we ve all had hard, even horrible things happen to us, some of us our luckier than others, but nobody goes unscathed here. We talk a lot on the show about how to handle the vexations and vicissitudes of life, but today, even here from somebody who has had way more than her fair share and has endeavoured to use the kind of techniques that we often discuss here, including meditation under some extreme circumstances. She's really battle testing a lot of the techniques that many of us use. Seventy, whose life by her own description, looked good on paper. She was a successful journalist. She's worked on such shows as this,

In life and ninety nine percent invisible- and she was also in a happy relationship, but she was having gaily panic attacks in her office for months. It was at this point that she was diagnosed with complex ptsd, which I will let her describe in detail, but, in short, it is, as she describes it, an under researched under diagnosed condition. In her case, it appears to have been the result of intense and protracted child abuse. After receiving the diagnosis she said about trying to figure out how to live. With her past and the lessons she learned are applicable to all of us. I believe, no matter what our background might be. The result is a new book called what my bow

I know a memoir of healing from complex trauma. Add in this conversation we talk about her remarkably thorough exploration of a whole slew of therapies and meditation styles and wellness modalities. What actually worked for her and how what she found might be relevant to both trauma survivors and to those of us with no history of trauma. We also talk about shame a practice. I have never heard of called counting colors gratitude, which she talks about in a non gooey super practical way. Self love ditto

and we dwell for quite a while on her transformative work with somebody named doktor, Jacob palm, who will in fact be my guest later this week. So it's quite apparent we're gonna, hear from seventy food, the great memoir arrest- and they were in here from the therapist with whom she worked and who, as a really compelling approach to doing life better in all sorts of ways that episode with doktor harm coming up on Wednesday will be the final episode of our mental health. Reboot series: all month, we ve been pairing personal stories with science based experts and we hope you enjoy the series. It was super interesting to do heads out before we dive in here there, frank, very frank discussions in this episode of trauma and abuse, references to addiction and other mental health challenges and multiple curse words, unbelief believed versions, just over on our website and also on the ten percent happier app one more thing before we get started here. Many of us

want to live healthier lives, but keep bumping up against the same obstacles over and over again. The larger culture bombards us with new tapes and hacks and quick fixes all the time to close the gap between who we are and who we want to be. But what, if there were a different way to relate to this gap, that would make you more likely to succeed. Actually what, if you define intrinsic motivations instead of just reacting to stuff the cultures telling you in order to make habit changes that will make you healthier and happier and not send you into a shame spiral. I'll be form healthy habits without taking your own, but unnecessarily we ve taken one of our most pay miller courses over on the ten percent happier app and turned it into a meditation challenge. The healthy habits challenge with stamford psychologist kelly mechanical will help you understand the benefits of self compassion, which sounds gooey, but is evidence based, I assure you the better

if self compassion, when changing your habits and understand why self criticism a go to for most of us is actually counterproductive when you're working toward difficult goals, you'll also learn about them. In some social connection, inhabit, habit, change and how to experience the discomfort that comes with change without reacting to it in our habitual and reflexive ways. The healthy habits challenge kicks off on Monday june thirteenth to join just download the ten percent have app where we get your apps or go visit, ten percent dotcom, that's all one word spelled out. If you already have the app just open it up and follow the instructions to join and if you're not already a ten percent happier subscriber you can join us by starting, retrial. That will give you access to this challenge, along with everything on the app, and I think it's all fantastic so go check it out are that's enough

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and now go to, summa dot c, o slash happier to receive a twenty five dollar credit toward your purchase of the bed plus free shipping in the continental. U s go to assume a dot seo, slash happier, that's th You m a dud c, o slash happier for a twenty five dollar credit. And now a word from our sponsor better help, as we ve mentioned here. Plenty of times burn out is a very real thing for very many of us these days. In fact, it's an issue. I've been working on in my own life for a long time before any like me- you may also have a tendency to work too hard and too long. I continue to work on understanding what is drive for me and how to manage it because the costs are pretty high, both personally and interpersonal. For me, therapies been a key part of doing this work. I can talk to my therapist about the root causes of

and maybe more importantly, how to manage my tendencies day to day better help is customized online there that offers videophone and even live chat sessions with your therapists. So you don't have to see anybody on if you don't want to its much more affordable than in person therapy and you could be matched with a therapist in under forty eight hours are listeners, give ten percent off their first month that better help dotcom, slash happier, that's better help, dotcom, slash, happier, Stephanie fool. Welcome to the show! Thank you so much for having me. Maybe it makes sense to start at the moment got your diagnosis because, as you've written written on paper, it like, like you were doing great, so he just talk a little bit about where you in your life and what you learned when you got this diagnosis. Yeah share. I wise

thirty. I was a producer at this american life. One of the biggest public radio shows out there and I had been a journalist, a successful, journalists for for about a decade- and it was finally catching up to me. Essentially, working you know, fifty to seventy hour weeks for ten years, sort of basing all of my self worth on achievements. All of that trying to sort of be perfect in life as much as I could be in my relationships and my career was really getting to me and I was really burnt out and sort of losing it, especially after the twenty seventeen new cycle, and so I went to my therapist and of being like. I think I'm losing it what's going on and she told me you have complex ptsd, which I had never heard of.

before, and so I immediately googled it and learned that complex ptsd is a form of ptsd. That is a bit more complex in that it happens when the trauma occurs. Many many many times over the course of many years, rather than just once, and it's a relational trauma and so chest upon a first google. There wasn't that much information about it, except for a really pathologizing list of symptoms, saying that I was broken, that I would have trouble with relationships that I was quick to anger at a bad temper had tendency towards addiction all of the stuff that just made me feel irreparable. I guess like a bad person, and so that's why I sort of quit my job quit my

wife and I decided to focus entirely on learning more about complex ptsd and trying to heal from it. I want to read you back to you, because there are some moving passages from your book. The list of symptoms is not so much a medical doctor. As it is a biography of my life, the difficulty regulating my emotions, the tendency to over share and trust the wrong people. The dismal self loathing the trouble. I have maintaining relationships, the unhealthy relationship with my abuser, the tendency to be aggressive but unable to tolerate aggression from others. It's all true! It's all me, the more. I read the more every aspect of my person who is reduced to deep diagnostic flaws. I hadn't understood how far the disease has spread. How complete its takeover of my identity was the things I want the things I love the way. I speak my passions, my fears by states my eating habits, the amount of whisky I drink. The way I listen and the things I see everything everything all of it is infected. My traumas, literally pumping through my blood driving every decision in my brain

right. How does it feel it? I haven't read back to it takes me back to a time when my diagnosis seemed like almost a death sentence. I mean it doesn't feel good reading that list of symptoms, it's horrible. Nobody wants to be described not as a full person but as a list of things that are wrong with them that make them freakish kishar abnormal. I can only imagine this is a hard thing to ask me to do said. The you're comfortable. Would it be okay to discuss what the source of the trauma was is yeah, I think complex ptsd is really common and peace survivors of war survivors of domestic abuse mine, is from childhood trauma. Child abuse. My parents were both very physically emotionally and verbally abusive and they both abandoned me leaving me to spend the last couple of years of high school on my own

if I recall your mom left first and then you spent many years largely unhappily with your dad mom left when I was thirteen and my dad left when I was about sixteen year pro about two and a half years and between them. And what was your mind like at this time, with my mind like, I think it was probably in a state of fear and rage all the time being it mostly rage, masking, probably the fear that I had, I think, particularly after my mom and dad left, I have been taught my whole life to just be on edge to sort of encounter the world with knives out right to fight at any given time, because I had literally had to sort of fight for my life as a child, and so that was only and you had interact with the world and especially being on my own at such a young age, I think I

it encountered everyone around me as a potential source of threat and probably was not the nicest or friendliest person back then robot. That's what your parents had taught you to be. That's true, yeah for all the shame that I feel over the things that I did back then. I also have a lot of empathy, admiration and forgiveness for that girl, because I mean she did survive. She used those tools to stay alive, just to say, I'm sorry. This happened to you. It shouldn't happen to anybody and it sucks to suck. Yes, that's true, but it's okay, it's interesting to watching your story, how things play up because you describe journalism, you became the editor in chief of your high school newspaper. I believe at something that's Saved you, it really gave your life's direction, meaning purpose and yet your relationships, as you were going about this work, work,

always the healthiest yeah. I had been taught as a young person through capitalism through my community through my parents, that achievement success. Academic achievement, career achievement of the most important things and a person's worth is tied to those things, and it worked as a young person. As somebody in my twenties, I could have sort of crazy, chaotic, breakups and relationships, and that didn't really matter. Everyone still thought that I really had may shit together, because I had master with this success is achievement. I was basically producing seventy five percent of a national and pr show by the time I was twenty three and so People just saw that they were like, while she really has it together. She's great and

it didn't matter that internally, I was really battling a lot of demons and I think my career became a crutch. It was a way to dissociate and silence those demons. Just okay, open up logic, open up pro tools, get into a new session, and the flow forget about everything else in life. So there you are at age thirty. You had been kicking ass in this career while battling demons, and you get this diagnosis as you describe it, you can quit your life to work on this. What did you try I tried all of the letters I tried the cb andy are I affairs I tried hallucinogenic various guy of hallucinogenic bunch of different their best's meditation mindfulness ashraf ganda breath work. I just I tried everything I could afford and get my hands on at the time. Did

if it help? I think a lot of it helped a little bit. I think I gained something out of most of the things that I tried. I think the real, lasting impact that has helped the most was my work with doktor home. Ok, let's talk about after army. He is going to be on the show two days from now, so people will be able to listen to this. As a pair who is doctor home doctor home was my therapist dr Jacob hom. He is the director of the center for child trauma and resilience at mount sinai in new york city, and he is an incredible therapist to sort of combines a few different modalities to practice. This form of trauma, treatment that is really about

closely listening and tuning and practising rupture repair therapy, which a sort of practising how to have conflict with people, how to trust other people, how to listen to them better and how to repair whatever conflict may arise. So is the logic there that trauma, especially true child abuse is relational violence and sometimes physical violence and impairs your ability to have healthy relationships as a grown up. So he has his skull is to cut it. Teach you how to have relationships that are fair, In summary, I think so yeah, it's almost re parenting in some ways, complex ptsd is most commonly a result of. are people betraying you letting you down, because unless you're tremendously unlucky most of the time, the way that you would experience, someone

trauma over years is through the hands of other people, and so what he's doing is teaching you to love and be loved. How trust, if you did not experience that form of love as a child? So how does he teach you the what's the modalities for the way that we practiced it, I think, was a bit unique, but essentially I radio produce the whole thing, of course, because that's how my brain talks are recorded every session with him and then immediately after each session. I would go to the cafe downstairs and have the whole thing transcribed and then put it in a Google doc and shared it with him, and we would go through our conversation and comment on it and pick all of the little details in it and give a really close read of exactly what was happening in the session of the times. We miss attuned all the times that I

suddenly change. The subject that I was hiding from him that my voice was sort of flat and dissociated any sort of pointed out. You know here's where maybe you are triggered. Why did you retreat from me here? We're are you here and we could sort of very intimately look at the landscape of it.

conversation and how both him and I interacted and therefore teach me how to listen better, how to a tune better, how to make myself more vulnerable. So there are a couple of terms of our you ve used here. I'd love to get you to say a little bit more about. This is fascinating rupture repair and miss atonement, yeah, so rupture repair is essentially really paying attention to all the raptures in a conversation, and they don't need to be like big fights. Even necessarily ruptures can be something as minutes as mean changing the subject abruptly or my voice going very flat. him saying something to me words clear that I am not really listening room just like I'm, ok or missing. It's fine. I always said it's fine around him and that's he always listen to what I said. I was fine. I was actually not fine and really delving into each of those

choir in what was really happening, trying to get to the bottom of it and repairing not so that we are both really seeing each other fully me making myself and my feelings and what was going on with me more available to him and the same to him from me and asking just all the time like. What's going on, what's really going on in this conversation and ms attuned meant is another way to look at ruptures again at a lot of these little minute ruptures, those are essentially miss. Atonements, like I just wasn't attuned to what he was saying, or he wasn't attuned to what I was saying and I needed to sort of set him straight. That kind of thing ruptures can be bigger, of course, in terms of like actual fight, sir disagreements, but a lifetime's even fights can stem from these little miss atonements. So you said it was a kind of repair of doing it feels a little bit like he was just teaching you how to be a human, which is a guess what parents are supposed to do

well, first and foremost, that's exactly right! Yes, during this whole experience, it felt like I was having these big realizations of. Oh, that's how you listen to people! Oh, that's how you like sit and actually describe what you're feeling, which might sound, really basic to most people but yeah. I was never taught those things. I would argue that, while it may sound basic to most people, first of all, childhood trauma is extremely widespread. Unfortunately, there are lots of people who may need this work, whether they know it or not, and even if you had good enough parents, this kind of being human one or one or what you might call love one or one is something very. Few, if any of us are actually ever taught how to listen, how to be honest about what

we're feeling right now what you might call vulnerability. These all strike me as important life skills that very few of us are getting to that bland for you. I think it's certainly on a spectrum in which, like I'm probably on the farther side, but yes, I do think that these skills are applicable to all of us, and I think that we would communicate so much better and have so much less conflict and would be able to understand and hear each other so much better. If we all tried to learn these skills coming up, Stephanie talks about self love, shame and the power of a simple mindfulness technique called counting colors. That's right after this The there is power in getting together with the people you, love may be getting together with your people, means reconnecting with your childhood friends or watching the game with your college teammates or seeing your new baby meet your best friend's baby for the first time. One thing is clear today

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an easy way to listen to books anytime anywhere, while working out, walking the dog or doing chores right now, I'm listening to atomic habits by james clear put. I picked right off the best sellers list. I found that it's really help to reinforce positive change by keeping up new habits I set for myself at the beginning of the year new members can try audible for free for thirty days and as a member, you can choose one title a month to keep from their entire catalogue, visit, audible, dot com, slash, ten percent or text. Ten per cent of five hundred five hundred- that's audible, dot, com, slash ten percent or text ten per cent of five hundred five hundred don't say more, can you just walk me through some of the more intense and regulatory moments for you in these sessions with doctor, I'm sure I mean we can talk about the punishment moment. I listen to this other incredible session.

had a father and a daughter, and the daughter was asking the father to be more carrying and engage more deeply with her, and he acknowledged that he had made past mistakes, but he kept sort of self modulating and being like I'm the worst in the worst father. This is horrible, and I could see that you didn't help the situation it and help the daughter it didn't help Am I just isolated him more and more and made every one in the room were resentful of him. Quite honestly, he thought that self punishment would fix it, which is, I think, a lot of what we are taught like. If we do something bad, we must be punished and if nobody else is punishing us, we must punish ourselves, and there was this moment where he was able to stop punishing himself and instead turned to his daughter and just be like. I love you, and I want to be here for you and just be totally connected to her, and he was just giving of him

off, and I sort of realise that, like self punishment and their cruel voice that I had going in my head all the time, it wasn't productive at all this whole time. I thought that that voice was trying to make me a better person, but instead it was holding me back from truly being present and giving people what they needed. That was just one of the small moments in my time with him that sort of cracked my skull, open and made me rethink, how I needed to interact with the world just to say that back to you kind of self punishment, the arm such a bad person, a ritual, a basement that we do because in part we may feel it's what the other person wants to see actually is an involution. It gets you further coiled in on yourself. It's more your stories about you and what you ve done.

wrong, etc, etc. It's you you you! Instead of opening up and saying yes, I have remorse for what I have done, but here's how I feel about you, the other person areas at my close. Yes, exactly focusing on the rupture, rather than focusing on the actual repair. What can I do to make this up to you like? How can I show you how much I care about you, rather than turning it in weight and focusing on yourself? That's exactly right. It's funny these, relations, because you just ultimately pop up against and immovable wall of cliche. So here I go, but it seems to me that if love is the oldest cliche, its ober corny sub variant, self love is even more true legally, but it does sound likes self love understood

here not as a kind of empty bromide hurled at you by your spent instructor, but as a ongoing practice of having your own back was really important for you in something you picked up in these sectors. With doktor home. I really learned about how important self love is for taking care of other people. I always thought it some sort of corny yoga instructor thing that makes you feel better when you're stressed out, and it is instead a key ingredient to tuning with other people. It's been shocking, pow centering my feelings and focusing on them more in calming them, and loving myself has allowed me to love other people better like in that instance. You know in that moment of not going into what doktor hum Causa shit spot and going into that self regulation and self punishment. If I have enough self love and respect and understanding for myself, where I'm like, you know what I mess up and it doesn't make me a bad person undressed human than I am able to say

You know what yeah I messed up and move on to the like how we gonna repair this. Instead of going deep down into my like self loathing spiral, even recently I feel like just in conflict with my husband, for example. I found that talking about my feelings more in an argument like you know, I think I'm feeling stressed because of So I think I'm feeling angry or sad or whatever you think it's self centered, but instead it's really clarifying for the other person, because they're not guessing where your their seeing exactly where you're at and they can meet you or your and give you what you need so that you

and then give them what they need. It's like a constant back and forth of giving and receiving and being able to give to yourself. First allows you to have more space to give and receive the whole like cliche of putting on your own oxygen mask first before you can help others, I kind of think about it as spirals. So you use the term shit spot at my friend evelyn aaa talks about the toilet for tax, so you are being mean to yourself, then your mean to other people, because you take it out on them. That makes you feel worse about yourself and then down you go. The opposite is what I call the cheesy upward spiral which, as you have some basic compassion understanding why you ve done whatever you ve done, you're, taking it a little bit easier yourself without being indulgent or writing blank cheques or just excusing everything you ve done, but just kind of having a basic sets of having your own back. As I said before, that improves relationships with other people and because our relationships with other people are the most important very

we'll, probably, and when it comes to human flourishing, our inner, whether improves even further and up you go, and these spirals seem to be perennially available to us and you get to make the call which one do you want to go on? That's exactly right and I think the spiral to is a great metaphor because it really is the shape of what healing looks like in that. It is not linear and it's not like a perfect straight line, but is really more like a spiral and that, like you, who, after slowly get better at it and then mess up again, a better at it again and then mess up again and slowly build yourself. Confidence yourself, love your ability to love others better with each of these mistakes. You said the course of healing is not linear. So, let's play

on that. Can you maybe just give us at least one more example of moments with doktor hom, where you learn things that were breakthrough for you, that you can now apply your life and say you're, not in the groups of complex ptsd, all yeah. I think one other lesson that I learned from him tat was really important was about the importance of feeling your feelings. You ve talked a little bit about this already, but I think in my head, when I thought about what a normal person look back, especially after I was diagnosed us like a normal people, are just there like instagram people, there just happy making muffins and that the happiest the default in other going around floating around their life did. Do Heaven awesome time and I'm the only one who is miserable all the time and then I think in my course of here

and I knew that I was getting better, but I was still sad and depressed. A lot- and I was getting upset at myself all the time for those feelings, because I was like well a healed person, a happy person, a normal person, wouldn't be feeling depressed over whatever about not getting this grant that I applied for or something like that and doktor harm certain normalized, that for me and taught me that some was mentally healthy is actually not happy all the time mental health is being able to feel the full spectrum of emotions that comprise the human experience, because there is value to feeling sadness and grief and there is valued feeling, anger and fear. Fear tells you how to move,

How to get out away anger, gives you the motivation to change things. Sadness is key to being able to lake grieve relationships that we treasured and have lost, and once he told me that it was ok to feel all the feelings that a healthy person just feels those feelings, imbalance that no one feeling takes for all the rest, I was able to feel so much less shame about it and then made all the difference that actually did help. My happiness in my joy come out more because I was feeling less suffering in shame over being normal. I think what was really problematic at first was pathology icing. Everything is being this has to be a complex, ptsd response, and not everything was I'm just a human being. We all again is on a spectrum. We all kind of do this to a certain degree. We all have lessons to learn about a communicate better with people I mean your bike asked is all about

penis hand were all struggling to learn how to have a better balance of that. So I think once I stopped shaming myself, for that actually did become so much happier. Sheer shame is in this country next and their lots of ways to understand shame. But in this context it sounds like it. My experience in it sounds like in your experience is supremely unhealthy and I can only imagine how confusing it must have been for you, because you had this seemingly endless list of pathologies, symptom There were on offer to you ve Google. Once you got your diagnosis and then how do you draw the line between that and quota called normal right? I mean one of the symptoms was that I was emotionally unstable How was I to know what emotionally stable looks like I've never seen emotionally stable, and so what it looks like is having all the feelings

not necessarily being owned by them all the time exactly yet. So I get that this really intense back and forth with doktor harm and will hear more from him soon about his technique. I get that these sessions turned in You a kind of repairing mean lining healthy childhood in an office at mount sinai, but are you supported today, by practices that you can do you you listed that you had examined all the letters. I affairs, which is internal family systems, which is a kind of therapy that we talked about here on the show and will put a link to the interview I did with the founder of life ass you about about m d. Are you talked about meditation, my fulness restorative yoga, mindful eating counting colors, acupuncture, sound vibration? Massage is even say one point. The you approached wellness with the same profession, a stick and obsessive tendencies that you brought your job, but so

of these practices are still with you now and helping you in What I would imagine is an ongoing healing process, of course, unable to always be ongoing forever, because once we stop growing we're dead right, so, I think I have kept a lot of these things. I think meditation or mindfulness has been really important, just as a first step, a block in terms of when I feel really really triggered getting to that baseline of getting my prefrontal cortex back on mine and just being able to think of me a bit more clearly, so that's the first up just breathing, counting colors feeling the feeling of air on my palms. I think a lot of the tools that doctor harm has taught me have been super valuable, just in terms of communicating tuning really paying attention how I'm feeling I think I have ass

I kind of food in the book, but it afterward. It is becoming a slightly more important force in my life. Talking to my inner child, a lot as a form of self soothing has been really important and also being held by and relying on my community and gratitude practice mostly for my community has been really key. You settle there, that's probably worth unpacking one by one. So if it's ok, you're disconnect circle back some of those technics you listed because people listening so really my senses that they like to hear about specific techniques. They can use themselves counting colors. You listed that under my phone is your meditation. I actually have never heard of that.

For what is counting colors. So counting colors is like my emergency, stop button when I'm really really off the rails, where I will just start counting red things in the room, and it is just this really visceral easy practice that gets you to pay attention to your surroundings and sort of count like pay attention it. It's like us very simple form of mindfulness, and I have found that actually it does have a significant impact and sort of calming me down and then maybe even calling me down enough to practice other mindfulness practices, yard of zero work, your activating the new were more rational, prefrontal cortex the evolved part of our brain instead

of being owned by the middle of the stress and fear centre and is coming here default mode network. Essentially what shutting off your default moat that work? Can you define that, for folks, the demon the default mode network is so called because if you get put into an mri, it's that part of your brain, that lights up the default part and its basically thinking about the past and the future warring about things, the

in the past coming up with stories about it or worrying about things that are going to happen in the future, and people who are pressed or have complex, ptsd often have overactive default mode networks, and the one thing that's really great at shutting off your default mode network is focusing on the present because it actually just your brain, doesn't have the bandwidth to focus on the past and the present and the future at the same time. And so that's what counting colors does that's. What mindfulness does like mindful eating or focusing on sensations in your body as it gets you to completely just focus on the present and therefore we're sort of short circuits. The default mode network beg you for that. He also mentioned I FS, which you had pooh poohed a little bit in the book, but now has become a larger force in your life as a reference I had the originator of I have as internal family systems on this show. I've never done it myself, although he did do a little bit with me in real time, which was interesting. Can you say more about how it works?

why why you're finding it to be positively forceful? Now I asked ass is internal family systems. It is essentially kind of recognising your brain has a whole family of people that is helping it function like, for example, my network. My family in, is comprised of like a sort of traffic cop keeps everything in line and keeps me super organised and meets deadlines, and things like that and its also comprised of lake sort of a fire fighter door. Several different firefighters, whose call me down by pushing me to you: have a drink Or work or cry about it to a friend all these different coping mechanisms that allow me to survive as a human being, and I think what I didn't like about it when I was first trying it from a few different people, was that I headed like have conversations with these lake sort of

animated caricatures of these different personalities, and it was just too weird for me, but I think just looking at it in a more like abstract and intellectualize way, has been helpful. Just understanding like ok, this is a coping making that really really helped me in the past and actually did literally helped me survive, and so can I really hate it that much. Can I really like punish myself for diesel thing into this coping mechanism? No, I have to acknowledge the house. It's helped me in the past and even sometimes how these things help me now and then like say. Ok, thank you for your service. Let it go, I'm gonna try something new this time. The obvious the for me at least, to be better to adopting many these really helpful techniques is I just can't get over myself can deal with the cheeses is how forced some of this field, but

having a relationship with your various inner dramatic personae is universal. Sir in them. Clearly, disambiguate ng is massively helpful in clarifying and then being able to treat them warmly when they show up and try to take over. The show is at me in my experience. Incredibly helpful, so I'm glad to hear that it's working for you yeah, I think one of the things that was really good about doctor Hom is, I think, a lot of therapists refuse to like do the work for you essentially they're, like you have to come up with the people, and you have to talk to the people, unlike yeah, I feel so corny talking to these, doesn't I need figures and dr home would be like. I would just ask him like: can you just model it for me, because I can't get my head around this and he would just do it for me. He would talk to the figures for me and I'd be like actually that helps a lot. Thank you, speaking about your home. The other day

listed in your list of practices Eric and of supporting you in your ongoing healing was listening now. That's it have a thing. You know people described themselves as good listeners, etc, etc. But what is a practice that helps you actually list well I mean doing this. Google docs therapy that really taught me what not listening looks like was so helpful. I mean I'm an interviewer right, so I do know how to ask questions and interview and sit there and asked me to show their story. so, those are the great listener, but listening, I think really it wasn't just about questions and answers. It was like this whole body atonement. Almost it was a turning to the way people would avert their eyes, sometimes or tense up or change the subject of these, like my new way. He's in which they gave little clues to actually how they were truly feeling, and I think that are

general way of approaching, that is to o someone. Has this moment of seeming uncomfortable, or someone's eyes shift, and so we move along with them. We let them drive the car, we change the subject with them, or maybe we feel uncomfortable a little bit in ourselves, but we don't quite we sit down and learning how to listen. Better, almost allowed me to pay really close attention to those cues and to inquire about them and actually try and get in front of them and try and actually understand the full truth of everything that was happening in this conversation, which I really done before. I guess my amateur way. The way I am putting this is that feels like maybe the abuse in your childhood drove you in on yourself. Quite stanley provoke you to put up a lot of armor that was blocking your ability to send and receive signals to the other humans in your environment and harm was

getting you to take some armor down and learn how to a tune both yourself and others, so that you can negotiate the world more successfully, and I dont think it was just my childhood. I think that many of us act in this way where were afraid of going truly deep and asking what exactly is happening situation are asking to clarify to commit a communicate on that level. I think that, certainly my childhood, affected, my ability to read social choosing to do that, and it certainly also pushed me to be a people pleaser in that I always wanted to. Let you drive the car, and I, when there would be these little miss attunements. I would assume like. Oh, I must have said something wrong, and I would just apologize all the time over things that I didn't need to apologize for. I still do or make up stories in my head for what was going on them and try to solve them on my own. I think we all kind of do that. A little bit. We write stories about what's going on with other people instead of just asking. What's going on

These skills you learn from harm are skills that all of us need to learn. You I have had more of a he's to learn them because of things that are a thousand percent. Not your fault that happen to you. That should not happen. But this story of yours is wrong. article not only because of what you ve been able to do in the face of deeply should he circumstances, but also because the lessons you ve learned are applicable, I think for the rest of us. You dont get through this life unscathed had think we all have some form of trauma. If we didn't, you actually would be probably much less capable of surviving in this field, because you wouldn't know what to fear. So I think all of us learning these skills again to learn how to better care for each other and ourselves and sort of see the truth of the situation outside of our trauma triggers.

Is critically important after the break stephanie talks about the power of community, how she works gratitude into her daily routine and how she's doing out again here to tell you about a pocket, that seeks to slow down, reflect and turn inward. It's called talk easy and its different kind of weekly interview show host SAM fragoso off space for guests to share how they arrived at the place they are today and express where they hope to go to. He invites actors, writers, activists and musicians to come to the table and speak in ways you probably haven't heard from them before SAM's guests brain from Janelle monae to Margaret atwood to Malcolm Gladwell, to Gloria Steinem. If that sounds eclectic well, that is Design, SAM is driven by a mix of curiosity, compassion and research hawk easy, a place where people sound, like people enjoy talk easy with SAM Fragoso available wherever you get your podcasts

What's up your celine russian, while here and I'm so excited to be hosting a brand new podcast from ten percent happier called more than a feeling which is all about the mysterious world of emotion? Are we think about it? How many emotions do you go through on any given day, and you always understand where they're coming from her, what to do them in the seas we're. Bringing you tons of super interesting stories that ask some pretty thought provoking questions like is jealousy always bad. How do I face my biggest fear are when really more emotional than men, and are you ever too old to be a boy band fan were also get its outdo plenty of emotional experts, including psychologists and therapies, as well as airline pilots musicians and even hairdressers, to help us better. understand our inner world of emotions. I hope you will

going in and listen to more than a feeling. Wherever you get your bad guess, you listed what I wrote you earlier to list a bunch of the skills that are supporting you now, another when you listed was community which again can come off as just one of those things that people say or get communities important bits a truism, but it got to be a truism because its incredibly and urgently true, so, what is community look like for you. Why is it so important when you dont have a family growing up? You have to build your own family. Speaking for myself, I can survive in this world on

my own. That's a hard lesson. I had to learn that I have to trust others and let others be my family to let myself be taken care of right now. My family looks like the chosen family that I built for myself as a child, even two of my best friends. I've had, since I was nine years old, and they understand everything about me and where I come from, and they have this like full view of me and all of my flaws and they accept all of it, and that is an immense prick. that I am grateful for every day. I also have a great network of friends, and I allowed myself to fall into my husband's big, stallion family, which is really really tricky and scary, and hard at first having brothers and sisters and aunts and uncles, and gonna grandma's house once a week, at least in eating scope

with her. It's all really foreign to me, but I have really come to see how valuable it is in terms of being able to ask for hey. Can you guys help me move to like hey? Can somebody watch the cat for us when we go on vacation just an hey? Can you listen to me right now, as I talk about one am struggling with yeah, invest These and other people and having them invest in me, has made me feel so much less freakish and alone and unlovable its validated. The fact that I am a really carrying loving, good person who has a right to exist in this world. I love that one of the things you did after getting your diagnosis in deciding to work on a full time was to go back home to the community, which you grew up. Kid talk a little bit about what you learned doing that yeah. It was important to me to understand my trauma, not just

as a single familial thing, but as a community thing and others dan, like the communal trauma that me and a lot of other children had gone through in San Jose? California worry grew up. I just I seem to remember as a child, a lot of kids being abused in my high school in a lot of kids dealing with a lot of mental illness from their parents at home and in retrospect, looking back on it, I was like well I was in a community of immigrants. I lived in a majority minority city. Can click sixty or seventy? son of my high school was asian and we had a lot of refugees get enemies, refugees, cambodian refugees, people

whose parents had fled the korean war, that chinese cultural revolution poverty, and I just thought how could it be that our parents had survived such whores and then didn't go to therapy and didn't pass it on to us there's gotta be something happening there and I went back to san jose and you know all the way Teachers around me were, like you guys, weren't traumatized, you guys we're good kids. You guys want like the ghetto kids, you know at the high school the gangs and the stabbings. You got perfect grades in europe, in five AP classes you guys are just ambitious and maybe you have helicopter parents, and I was like that, doesn't feel right and then I spoke to the high school. There best- and she told me like- oh no There is a lot of problems happening, others, lake

suicidal ideation everywhere. There's a lot of child abuse. There's a lot of physical abuse, sexual abuse, poverty, psychosis, mental illness that is ignored, essentially because of these high performing students. It's kind of like how I hid my crazy by being on this american life and I realise that The model minority methods, just that a myth, and that there was this giant population of kids who weren't getting the help that they needed who weren't resourced, because the people who are supposed to take care of them could only see their achievements and just to clarify your parents. If memory serves were immigrants who were ethnic chinese from malaysia. Yet the final skill in practice that you listed was gratitude

take gratitude for your community. What is it gratitude practice? Look like for you. My gratitude journal often has two columns. It's all the wonderful things that other people have done for me that day, whether it's just receiving text message from someone being like. How are you to someone making me dinner and a column of ways that I contribute to others in this world as well, because complex ptsd again has all the suffering and teaches you that you're, a bad person and so be able to even just keep track of the fact that hey, I gave advice to this person. Hair listen to this person is going through a break up today and having like hard evidence for that has been really helpful, and sometimes I do it in the journal

sometimes I just think about it. Before I go to sleep, I send a lot of. Thank you tax. It really allows me to focus more on the positive and focus on loving and being loved, rather than letting the fear of abandonment take over. That's phenomenal too. I just wanna know wandered on them. Point. You made about being grateful. Not only for other things, other people have done for you or just positive things happening the world, but also grateful for your own acts of generosity. buddhism, many teachers will advise people to sit and contemplate yours le. I l, eyes and agents, sub continental term for ethical conduct or conscious conduct and teachers will sometimes encourage students to

focus on the things they ve done. That are good not as an eco, boosting thing, but just to throw into relief the universal capacity for generosity, yeah and I've read that in some areas of buddhist thought, it's ok to do good things just so can feel good about doing good things there, like yeah sure whatever gets rafts off. You know this is all for humanity feel good about doing good, so I be curious as we get to the end of our time. there- the how you're doing now- I mean you ve gone through this long list of. As you said, all the letters and all the practices that you tried after getting this devastating diagnosis so many years ago you did mention you're married now. So how are you because I mean the diagnosis I would imagine, doesn't go away. Your childhood can't be quote unquote: fixed yeah, I'm still a wacky and imperfect person

Definitely I'm not perfect. By far- and I definitely have my episodes- and I definitely get really sad offloading, but lake these incidents are so much shorter than they used to be. I would have months rash is kind of like I'm thinking, bad person. Now it's like an hour. You know what I mean, because I have these tools to be able to practise self talk and get myself out of these rights more quickly. I definitely mess up all the time in my interactions with other people and I'm sure people gonna, be listening to this. Having me say like this is the way to like not self punishing. This is the way to not apologise, and my husband be like you did that yesterday by again, I think I have a lot less offloading for the times that I must happen. I'm trying my best to put these practices in my head enough over and over and over, so that they'll become more comfortable and easier to do and quicker to reach for the older.

so I'm feeling hopeful just about you, you're on a show called ten percent happier here. So we don't expect perfection fact or suspicious of it towards the end of your book. You talk about the ways in which see ptsd, complex, post, traumatic, stress disorder has been a boon for you and it just to one final time quote you back to you. You say there are two main differences. Now I have hope and I've agency. I know my feelings, no matter how disconsolate they are temporary and know that, regardless of unruly it is, I am the beasts master and at the end of each battle I stand strong and plant by flag, I'm alive. I am proud of joyful still yet. I think the agency has been the key thing all of these tools, the doktor harm gave me that I came on the journey from the meditation. The efforts to the listening they ve given me a form of control over this thing

and I dont have control over it. All the time I mean, none of us have control of much in this world, but I have a little bit more control over the way that I perceive things in the way that I am able to interact with others, and that gives me so much more peace in confidence and joy in this world instead of feeling like a victim of,

the horrible things around me. One final question for me: can you just remind everybody of the name of your book and any other resources you've put out into the world that people might want to access? The name of my book is what my bones know: a memoir of healing from complex trauma. It should be available everywhere and the audiobook actually features real tape from my sessions with doctor hom. So yeah. I think that's pretty much it. I really commend you. You just accomplish so much in deeply sub optimal circumstances and then, when you got this diagnosis, doing all of this work that I think is going to help other people and about it so beautifully. So I commend you and congratulate you. Thanks yeah, I just I really didn't want anyone to feel like I did when I was first diagnosed, I just one

there to be another narrative out there. I ve stories stories male life. I needed to tell a different story than that list of symptoms that I found on the internet. You have succeeded. Thank you. Thank you for your kind words. My pleasure thanks under Stephanie foo. Thank you as well to ever. Who worked so hard on this show: Gabrielle sacrament, DJ, cashmere, justine, davy maria, were tell samuel johnson gent plant and we get our audio engineering from the good folks over at ultra violet audio and will see on Wednesday for a brand new episode, as mentioned, were to be talking to Stephanie staircase doktor jacob harm. I liked him. A lot of these extremely interesting is approach is very, very compelling, so you'll hear all about that from him directly. In a couple days can then make a little ask here. If you like our show- and you want to

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As he was in the monogamy business. She was in the prostitution business criminal convictions all around the country in various states by who was bonnie kneeling and who wanted her dead. Hollywood crime, the execution of Bonnie lee bagley, premiers on June twentieth on apple podcast, amazon, music or wherever you're listening right. Now you can this, an early and had free by subscribing to wonder he plus an apple podcast, born the wondering app hundred. millions of dollars gone some of the richest people on the planet, giant companies, banks conned out of their fortunes by one man. man that many of its own victims college genius a man who knew that a truly great khan is just a story. It was a fairytale for me was a very this one. If you take it and you put it in hollywood movie, I would say bullshit. It was a story that taps into your greed,

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