Episode 151: How We Store Trauma In Our Bodies
In this episode, I’m talking with Sarah Dionne, yoga psychotherapist and founder of Whole Health Collaborative, about getting out of our heads and into our bodies and how we store trauma in our bodies.
For those of us with anxiety, it’s pretty common to go into research mode and ask ourselves: why am I feeling this way? And if you already enjoy thinking, analyzing, and solving problems like me, well, then thinking and researching why you’re anxious is your go-to pattern.
When I was writing my book, The Happier Approach, I learned that my default pattern—researching and asking why—didn’t actually serve me. The solution to my anxiety had nothing to do with the why.
So what’s the solution to anxiety if it isn’t figuring out the why?
Honestly, I was a little disappointed by the answer.
It’s about getting into your body.
Moving from exploring our thoughts and opening up to our bodies is very hard for many of us. We live in our heads. We forget we have bodies. But what happens when our bodies have a lot to tell us about our experiences—and we don’t listen?
In Episode 149, I talked with Nicole Lewis-Keeber about the t-word: trauma.
In this episode, I’m talking with yoga psychotherapist and founder of Whole Health Collaborative, Sarah Dionne all about getting out of our heads and into our bodies and how we store trauma in our bodies.
Listen to the full episode to find out:
Sarah’s unique blend of yoga and therapy and what it means to be a yoga psychotherapist
The false belief that stopping the thoughts will stop the experience
How ignoring our bodies and criticizing ourselves is an act of violence against ourselves
The importance of compassion and how it is key to everything
Resources mentioned:
+ Read the Transcript
Sarah: So compassion is the first step in compassion helps to disperse the anxiety and the stress because compassion is ultimately love. And then I'm creating the energy of love within my body. And that energy of love is very healing. So I'm already in the process of healing it. When I'm practicing compassion.
Nancy: Before we get into this week's episode, I want to do a quick note a couple of weeks ago, my guest Nicole Lewis keeper, and I chatted about the personal development industry. And we used broad generalizations, especially about the coaching industry. So I want to clarify that the key to finding help from a coach or therapist is to be discerning.
There are amazing coaches and therapists out there, and there are crappy coaches and therapists out there. A quality coach or therapist will be certified and we'll be helping you build the skills to listen to you. Trust your gut, listen to your inner wisdom and remember there's no secret formula.
So now on with this week, though, I love my mind. I love thinking, analyzing, solving a problem. When I have anxiety, my default response is to go into research mode. I asked myself why am I feeling this way? And then while writing my book, the happier approach, I realized that I was going about this all wrong.
My default is not serving me the solution to my anxiety. Has nothing to do with the why you're listening to the happier approach, the show that pulls back the curtain on the need to succeed, hustle and achieve at the price of our inner peace in relationships. I'm your host, Nancy Jane Smith.
So what is the solution to anxiety? If it isn't figuring out the why? Honestly, I was a little disappointed by the answer, which is getting into your body, getting out of your mind and getting into your physical body. This is so hard for many of us. We live as if we're walking heads. We forget that we have bodies that have a lot to tell us about our experiences.
All this month, we are looking at our pasts. And more specifically, we are talking about the T word trauma today. I'm talking with Sarah Dion, a yoga therapist and founder of whole health collaborative about getting out of our heads and getting into our bodies and how we store trauma in our bodies. Sarah and I talk about her unique blend of yoga and therapy and what it means to be a yoga psychotherapist.
The false belief that stopping the thoughts will stop the experience, how ignoring our bodies and criticizing ourselves is an act of violence against ourselves and the importance of compassion and how it is key to everything. So this month we are continuing our conversation about trauma. The big T I always feel so powerful saying that.
And specifically today to be, we're going to be talking about trauma and our bodies and I have brought in yoga psychotherapist. Sarah Dionne. Welcome Sarah.
Sarah: Thank you. So happy to be here.
Nancy: I'm so excited to have you here. So tell us about just dive right in what's yoga psychotherapy.
Sarah: So yoga psychotherapy is a blend between traditional methods of psychotherapy and the eight limbs of yoga.
So when I say the eight limbs of yoga, I don't just mean as Asana practice, which is the postures that you get when you go to a yoga class. All of the different pieces of yoga, like meditation, like breath work introspection, blah, blah, blah, like all of that. And I mix that. Psychotherapy. So I'm a licensed psychotherapist and I'm also a certified yoga instructor.
So I've put them, I put them both together.
Nancy: So when someone comes to work with you as a yoga psychotherapist, what are the, what is what could they expect? What's that going to be like?
Sarah: So when someone comes to me, there are coming to me as a psychotherapist. So they're looking for therapy, but they're also looking for a way to include their body, which is what we do together.
So I'm not a yoga instructor, but what I should say is that I'm a yoga instructor, but I don't give yoga classes. That's not what it's about. It's about blending together, the physical experience, and also all those eight limbs with the psychotherapy practice. So oftentimes what I'll do is I'll send people home with homework and they'll go home and practice, maybe a yoga posture at home, and then they'll also have some insight or self discovery work to do.
And then we'll talk more about that, the next session. So a lot of my work is about, we go over things in session, but they have, but it's really about the client becoming their own therapist when they go home. Ah, okay. Practicing this stuff. And then when we come back together, okay, what's happened. What's come up and let's talk about it and let's add something to it so that you can continue growing.
Nancy: So it's using these eight principles, limbs, as you said of yoga combined with traditional talk therapy that they can do at home. The actual practice. It's not like you're sitting in a room and people are doing asanas and you're having them talk about themselves.
Sarah: They could, if that's what they felt they needed.
So I might offer something. If they were doing us and us with me, it's not going to be like a yoga class. We might choose one or two postures to do that would benefit their specific need. Got it. If they if they were someone that was dealing with a lot of tension in the chest because of anxiety, we might do some chest openers, or we might also do something that could explore what's going on with their heart center and why they are having a lot of tension there.
And so yoga posture may help to clarify what the problem is…
Nancy: by helping them get into their bodies and not just live up in their heads, which is where therapy tends to put them. Yes. So it's the blending of both. I love that. I think that's where we need to head as an industry.
Sarah: I agree. I agree. 100%.
Nancy: Which takes us into, as someone who is a therapist and has gone to a lot of therapy, one of the things I really like about therapy is that it's cognitive. It doesn't require me to get into my body. And so as someone who doesn't want to get into my body and really deal with those traumas, that's a positive thing, but it's not really a really allowing me to move forward because I'm I say I, and many of my clients, we ha we live as if we don't have a body.
Sarah: I think that it we can move forward to a point. And then eventually our body is going to ask to be addressed. Okay, so it's going to send us, it's going to start giving us messages that something is off. Something is wrong because we're storing the one, one of the things that's really important for people to understand is that the mind and the body are not connected.
They are one full thing.
Nancy: Ooh, Tell me more on that one.
Sarah: So they, there was no way to fully explore the mind without the body and vice versa. And they are functioning as one. So with the mind is communicating to you through the body. So if I'm having anxiety, I'm having bodily experiences of anxiety.
I'm having gut problems. I'm having chest problems, I'm having throat problems. And that is your mind within your body . So your mind, it's not like it's connected. It's all one big thing with all of these hormones and chemicals, not just to be physical biological, but that is part of it with all of these hormones and chemicals going through our bodies that also cycle into the brain and back down through our body.
So it's not just one, we can't separate it.
Nancy: So even though I've tried (laughter),
So what ends up happening… it's the upset stomach. It's the chronic pain. It's the headaches. It's all of these physical symptoms are showing up and continuing to ignore those by just living in only acknowledging one piece of the mind, body of the body gets us.
Sarah: Yes. Okay. It does get us into trouble because we can start to develop all kinds of physical illnesses and problems that we can't figure out such as fibromyalgia, such as it used to be called chronic fatigue, such as ongoing headaches that just have no explanation, ongoing gastrointestinal problems that have no explanation, just weird chronic pain or adrenal fatigue is another one that one's a pretty common one for anxiety.
There, all these things that start popping up and sometimes doctors will say this is the issue. And let's take care of that. The, let's say it's an ulcer that is formed in the stomach because of ongoing stress. So they may be able to medicate the ulcer, but the ulcer is not the problem.
The problem is the anxiety that caused. But if we're not getting into our bodies, and if we don't, aren't able to discover, then it's the ongoing anxiety that's creating the ulcer. The either we'll have to be taking that medication forever or for the ulcer is going to come back. So if we, but if we are able to connect to our body and discover that, oh, this is anxiety being stored in the gut, how can I work through that anxiety?
How can I experience it? How can I let it go? Then I'm going to be able to get to the root of the problem so that I don't have ulcers anymore.
Nancy: Okay. So I'm someone who has irritable bowel syndrome.
I know when my irritable bowel syndrome is acting up, I'm stressed. Like I know there's a link, but I have a problem then taking that any further. So I might recognize, oh, wow. My irritable bowel syndrome was acting up. Oh yeah. It's because of this stress, but then that's as far as I go.
Sarah: Okay. So what I might suggest in a situation like that is first of all, how can I build compassion and acceptance for myself and compassion for my body for developing this issue?
Because a lot of times we get frustrated with it. And then we're annoyed. And then what does that create? More tension, more stress. Yeah. So step a is compassion. Yep. How do I develop compassion for myself and just allow myself to not feel right now. And then the next is compassion for the fact that I feel disconnected from my body rather than why can't I get connected to my body.
It's I have compassion for myself that I am not connected to my body. So it's
Nancy: compassion for the symptoms and then compassion for the fact that I'm feeling those symptoms.
Sarah: Yes.
Nancy: Okay. I love that. I love that double layer
Sarah: So compassion is the first step in compassion helps to disperse the anxiety and the stress because compassion is ultimately love.
And then I'm creating the energy of love within my body. And that energy of love is very healing. So I'm already in the process of healing it when I'm practicing compassion.
Nancy: Got it. Okay. Love that.
Sarah: So then the next step would be doing some chakra work. So if we go down into the gut, that's where the solar plexus is and the solar plexus is, that third chakra that's above the, so when I talk about chakras, I'm talking about like an energy system in the body.
You don't have to believe it. Like I tell people that it's not like you have to buy into any kind of new agey stuff. You don't have to, you don't have to even believe that they're called chakras. I don't care. It's just that our gut, you talk about, you get a gut, feeling, your stomach drops.
I have butterflies in my stomach. They're all about the stomach. So something's going on there? I really don't care what you call it. I call it the solar plexus. That is above the belly button and right below the sternum, the once we've clarified that it's, that having compassion, that's the first step.
And now the chakra work on the solar plexus. So I might do some vision. The energy that I have there and what's going on with that energy. A lot of times we'll have images or thoughts in our mind that is actually the energy in our body. That's just presenting itself as images in our mind.
So if we're like, let's say I'm doing that solar plexus work. And I close my eyes, take some deep breaths and I get a color in my head. Maybe I get black, maybe the black pops into my head. What does black mean to me? That color as in like this absence of light, or maybe I get the color green, what does that mean to me?
And what's the feeling that comes with. Great. Okay. Because different colors resonate with different experiences, different memories, different, if I'm having an experience of absence of light that's a pretty difficult experience, right? There's something going on there.
That's pretty hard. So the solar plexus, typically not for everyone, but typically the assign the color of yellow to it. And if we're experiencing some kind of dull color or we're not even able to connect to the energy there, I would suggest that means that we're having a really hard time with our identity and competence.
And we're having a hard time with security in ourselves and also who is my authentic self, because all of that is here. And also the last thing is power. Am I do I have power over my life? So if we can get into the different chakras, which is also part of the yoga practice. That they, we can figure out a lot of things just by understanding that.
And like I said, you don't have to buy into the new age. If you can still connect with your body in this way. Yeah. And if that's not your belief system,
Nancy: but I so in the process of connecting and I can be like, okay, I see a color red it's, whatever color I see. Because a lot of people get caught up in the right or wrong.
It's my color, my answer, what it means to me. But, when you said yellow, that's just like the standard colored that's assigned to that particular chakra.
Sarah: Typically people experience yellow there. And if we can enlarge. Because when we say solar plexus is the sun.
So like the shining light of you.. So if it's another color other than yellow, there may be something else going on. For some reason that you're not experiencing yellow there. That's like that shining self. And why is it not the shining self? Why is it not that powerful sun?
So maybe it's red. And what does red mean to me? Just for me, what comes to mind for me personally, it might be anger might be irritation, like you're feeling annoyed or agitated. For me not, that's not going to mean the same for everybody, right? Yeah. But that doesn't, but why is that present in my identity?
Why is that present in my, that shining light of me? Why am I feeling this red sense of tension? So what that does is it gives us some way to explore. So this is where it branches into psychotherapy
Nancy: I'm with you. Let me pause. Just because what I love about is it gives me a way to, tap into my body.
Yes. By just looking at colors and feelings it's a useful way to tap in because that can be like, oh, what's the color that comes up. And then what's underneath that. So I love that. Just this first part with the compassion. Because this is where I get stuck. Oh yeah.
Sarah: No, I'm I hope that it's a little helpful. I don't know.
Nancy: I would love that just in my like oh yeah. To think of the colors and the feelings that kind of brings it into a more practical than then, oh my gosh, something's really wrong with me. And I'm a total mess.
I'm in all this denial and I have secret things that I don't know that are happening, but just to break that down. Okay. So then once I figure out it's red, it's anger or I'm irritated. Now, what do I do?
Sarah: So that's just the very personal psychotherapy session, right? That person experiences red, we're going to be whatever that's meaning to them.
We're going to be exploring that for them in particular. So maybe they have a relationship that's causing a lot of stress and is very disempowering. Maybe there's, there's just something in their life that's really creating this lack of self-esteem lack of, self-confidence so we can explore that.
And then what do we do about it? So that might be taking action in life because sometimes we have to work from the outside in, so if I'm, if something is causing a feeling of lack of power, what is it and what do I do about it? So can I take action or is this if we go into yoga the act of acceptance..
So if I'm not accepting of the situation and I can't change it, can't, I cannot change it. Then I have to look at acceptance because if I'm not, then I'm going to be residing in resentment and anger. And that is going to go into the solar plexus and other chakras too. It's just that we're talking about that one in particular.
But so like you start to put pieces together. It becomes like a puzzle. So we start with the body, then we start, what's like experience what's going on in the mind. And then also is there traumas back there that are informing this what's happening and we just start putting a person's puzzle together.
Nancy: So can the body. Inform. I know the answer to this, but the body can inform the trauma. So can I recognize, oh, because I'm repeatedly having trouble in my gut or I'm repeatedly having trouble. Maybe there's a trauma I need to be looking at or is it not that simple. That's just making it way too simple.
Sarah: I think that we don't want to jump. Because sometimes if we say that okay, I'm having gut issues. So there might be a trauma. Sometimes we can begin to have a lot of fear that we have repressed memories and then we're going to start like, oh my God, what happened to me when I was such and such age?
And that's not good either because maybe nothing happened. So we don't want to jump to conclusions that it is a trauma. Could it be? Maybe, but that's not the first place. I'd go. Okay. The first place I'd go is just let's investigate. Whatever it is, if they do have trauma and. And we know that they have trauma, then we're going to think about, is that playing a role?
Because it likely is.
Nancy: Yeah. Because that repressed memories, idea and trauma, obviously they go hand in hand, but I think for a lot of people, that's why they don't want to touch on trauma because it's going to unearth all these repressed memories, which isn't necessarily the case.
Sarah: No, it depends on the person.
Yeah. Yeah. That's going to be very individualized, that's a very visible thing. And some people are going to unearth repressed memories of just very scary. And as like people don't might not want to do that. And so might avoid but other people are not going to. Sometimes that's frustrating for them as because they might have an unexplained something or other going on. And they know that something happens. But they'll never get that memory. And so that's another level of acceptance. But it's not always going to be any one way.
Nancy: Yeah. It's all individualized. Yeah. That makes sense. So why do you think, I know the majority of my clients, I'm in this world as well, are really uncomfortable with our bodies.
Like we, like I said, we really do live from the shoulders up. Is that some of that is obvious. This is societal, but tell me your thoughts on that.
Sarah: First of all, there's nothing essentially wrong with it. There's it's just that it is what it is and it's just limiting. And it we can do lots of wonderful growth and introspection with the mind.
But, like I said, they are functioning as one, so we're only unearthing piece of a part of it and we're not unearthing the rest. So first of all, if someone wants to stay in their mind, okay. That's totally fine. But if they're still having a lot of problems and it's clear that they're going to have to do something to move forward in their self discovery, then if they don't go into the body, then they're going to be living very limited.
Nancy: Because it's all connected
Sarah: . It's all one thing. It's all one big thing.
Nancy: So just mind blowing. When you, like, when you think about even you correcting on the, it's not connected, it's one thing, because we have all heard the mind body connection. Yeah. There's no such thing, right?
It sounds like there's this little wire that runs between the two, but you're saying, Nope, it's all one big thing. Stop thinking it's a thing. It's a body,
Sarah: it's a body and your brain is part of your body. It's not a separate organ. So is my liver. Am I going to call my liver? Is there a liver body connection?
it's just part of my body. The brain is an organ in the body. The liver is an organ in the body. They're all functioning together as one big thing. It just will be limiting on how far we can grow. If we don't explore the body, I never want to shame anybody and say if they're having a very key ingredient is if I'm not ready to go into the body, then I have compassion for that.
Ah, let me reside with compassion for that. Be where I am and when I'm ready, if. Then I'll explore that. Yeah. But so it's still it's okay.
Nancy: Yeah. It's all. Okay.
Sarah: So that's like the kind of the yoga is all about compassion. Like when you go to a yoga class, they'll talk about it, but if you dive into yoga and the practices of yoga, the essential component is love, acceptance, compassion. Those are the, I should say three essential components, but they're really all one, yeah. So that, that's my basis for everything. And because that is the basis of yoga. So when I come from that. I come to the mat at all angles for all people, even if they're not ready to go into the body, even if that's not where they are, it's still total love, total compassion. That's where you are.
And let's just start there. And if that's where you need to reside. Okay let's find love and compassion for that.
Nancy: Okay. So if I'm like, okay, I want to start exploring my body. Then it is about just doing, how would I start that process?
Sarah: So it depends on the person. Some people can do trauma informed yoga.
Okay. So this there's a place in Boston, but I, depending on where someone is in the country, I don't know there aren't a lot, like it's not a widely practiced thing yet. It's spreading and thought. So someone, if they are near someplace, that practices that there is trauma informed yoga, which is a very basic type of deal.
That walks people through it, low body experiences as they practice very basic postures. So you'll be doing self discovery while you're in the yoga postures. So that's one way if someone has that near them, if someone does not have that near them two good ways would be, first of all, visioning, like we talked about visioning inside the body, getting a touch with the chakra system that really engages the thoughts in the mind, but then it's also bringing it down into the body.
So that's one way, another way is meditation. When I meditate, can I connect with the sensations in my body? So can I feel where I'm having pain and can I bring compassion to the pain that I'm having? So I might focus somewhere like on my, if I'm having a lot of pain in my shoulders. So if I'm in meditation and that's distracting, Bringing my mind there and having compassion for that and being with it, that's coming into my body.
That's all coming into my body and for yoga, that's that mindfulness practice. And there's also a part of yoga called Pratyahara, which is stepping back from the senses. So what I mean by that is that you can be, or in your body in observing the pain, but the pain is not controlling you.
Okay. So it's just there and you can see it , you can feel it, something that's going to really influence you in a negative way. So that is being able to really have compassion for the body and taking a step. It's not disconnecting from the body, but it's being able to see it objectively and having just love.
Nancy: Because I think that's the piece. Yeah. For so many of my clients, working with people that have high functioning anxiety, they're pushing, pushing, and the idea of slowing you, just, even the idea of slowing down is going to be painful because that's going to hurt my productivity and I'm not, so the idea of being able, then, that's what I love about what you're saying is that by being the first practice is I'm going to be compassionate.
Or I always say I'm going to be kind to myself, same things by doing that first, then whatever I can, that's the mindfulness practice in another thing.
Sarah: Yeah. Then you can stem from there. Yes. It's the starting point. And throughout the psychotherapy that I, I do and throughout the yoga compassion is always the foundation.
So I start there and then I just bring it with me because I continue forward.
Nancy: And as you're going deeper, it's just compassion.
Sarah: That's just deeper and deeper compassion because once we can get to a point where we're just totally embraced in compassion, we have total self love.
And then we, it's hard for most people even imagine that what is self love? I can't, I don't love myself and I get it. I get it in there . So I get it. It's hard for people to even imagine what that could be like, but when we start from a basis of compassion and continue to build it, eventually, I don't know when for each person, but eventually we can get there.
You can get to a place where, Hey, I'm okay. No matter what,
Nancy: 'because I’m in my body a nd I can navigate from this grounded place. Yeah. I love that. So what got you into the yoga psychotherapy?
Sarah: So I've been in psychotherapy. I got into psychotherapy when I was in, in 2009.
That's when I got into grad school. And before that I was working in the mental health field. Prior to that, I discovered yoga when I was 25. I'm 41 now. So I discovered it when I was 25. And I was dealing with eating disorders and terrible anxiety and also issues that looked a lot like bipolar.
So I was dealing with a lot of stuff at that time in my life, and I discovered yoga. And so I began exploring that I should back up a little bit and say that when I was even younger, when I was like 19. I began exploring spirituality. And what is deeper in life? What is more, I've always been had that kind of interest and what is even out there?
What is all of this, right? What's the point? What's the point of it all. And so then I when I was 25, I got into yoga. When I was going through all of those very difficult things. And yoga brought me deeper into my spirituality and brought me closer to my healing. And then in 2009, I was like, I decided I really wanted to help other people.
And I dove into psychotherapy. However, once I graduated and started really working in the field, what I noticed a lot was how much all of it is in the mind. And I also noticed that a lot of my clients weren't perfect. Ah, okay. So I noticed that people were getting stuck. A lot of people were very stuck.
The people that weren't stuck or the people that had a spiritual practice or some kind of practice in which their whole self was involved. Okay. And they were typically people that, yoga is not the only way. But they would typically someone that were involved in some kind of thing that reconnect, like whether it was running, whether it was yoga, whether it was something that really got them into their body.
Nancy: Okay To build awareness of their body and how they were feeling
Sarah: like Tai Chi They were able to get into their body and feel their body. They were the ones that seem to progress more. Not always, but usually then other people, I noticed that a lot of people stayed the same. And it, there were some people that would progress, but it wasn't like, I was like, there's got to be more. And another thing that I, a lot of people talked about is stability. What will help someone be mentally stable? And I thought, what kind of life is that? That you just get to be stable?
Nancy: That's what I thought. When you said it, I was like, oh
Sarah: . And so when I kept going and kept working in this field and kept seeing that there was, there had to be more, there had to be more. And I kept seeing that we were all, everybody was not everybody, but a lot of people were very much in the mind. And that the trauma work was difficult because we couldn't get into the body.
And all of this trauma was hanging out in their bodies and being in that practice, it was limiting, because of the office space, because of just what the agency would allow. There was just, you were limited. So in two thousands 14, I ha so I went on through this period and I started to grow and I started to change and I started to see that I needed to be something more.
So I got certified as a yoga instructor, I think in like 2013 and began to bring that into the practice. I got certified as a children's yoga instructor. I got certified as the adult yoga instructor. I also started doing things with play therapy for adults and children's Sandtray therapy, like things that were going to get the body involved.
In 2014, I had my daughter and I was thrown into postpartum problems. Like you wouldn't believe like postpartum OCD terrible postpartum anxiety, postpartum depression. It was horrific. And not long after that, about a year after that, I went through what I can only call a spiritual awakening.
And when I went through that, I knew that I had to help people become whole, and I knew that the only way to do that was going to be through embracing the body and mind within practice. I just felt this absolute yearning to help people with that. So I decided to blend the two together and I also founded a little private practice called whole health collaborative.
And it's, that's building, but still in the future, we're going to be including like nutrition and massage therapy and stuff like that. And the body more involved. So I guess all of that stuff informed my absolute belief and combining body with mind and spirituality and therapy.
So I believe that's, what's needed to really embrace total healing. And I, so I guess that's the long story. But I felt, I feel like, that's just how I came around to it
Nancy: because, in therapy. Through the ages and in our, regulations that we have it is very clear no body like it is not something we are taught to include. So in the therapy world, what you're doing, although brilliant is very cutting edge.
Sarah: I think it's more and more now people are really starting to grasp, the necessity of bringing body into the practice. And the use of yoga is something that's becoming more and more.
It's not super out there yet, but it's not everywhere yet, but it's more and the people from India. And around the world have used yoga for thousands and thousands. I think it's been around for about what they think anyway, about 5,000 years. And they were using that in order to explore themselves and move through issues.
And so we're finally catching on over here,
Nancy: right? Yes.
Sarah: Yeah. We're finally catching on. But I am part of that movement. But there are other people out there that I'm really grateful for that are also no seeing and using strategies to involve, but body, mind, and spirit.
Nancy: Yeah.
Because it is a fascinating when you just when, I just think about how that's such a hard, no, of bringing the body in the therapy room and yet, so freaking important, especially with the idea that it's all one,
Sarah: Because what does that tell you? Yeah, we were going into the therapy room when they say, oh, nobody can't talk like, you can't bring that into the therapy room.
Isn't that disconnecting us even more. Isn't that saying that I shouldn't be involved with this thing that his body is saying that this isn't okay, but my body's not okay. And that I should just be residing in the mind. Isn't that the message it is.
Nancy: That's totally the message. And even, I think that's why I loved your thing about the color.
Because I've totally, in all my years and all my years of therapy have been asked, where do you feel that, where do you feel that sensation? But then, and I'll say, oh, I feel it in my stomach or whatever, but then it's never taken any more than that has ever taken any more than that or B it's I interpreted as a shame.
Because I can't really access it, I don't really know what to do with it. Once they say, where do you feel that? And so then I'm like, oh my gosh, I'm totally disconnected from my body. I don't even know that's there. And then I started spinning off rather than your idea of compassion, with whatever comes up.
Yes. And that's the piece I think we miss is that we're quick to judge because our body isn't, especially, us high productivity people, we buy the lie that we're robots and we need to be able to make this body function better. And so the fact that the body isn't functioning better is because we aren't in control.
And rather than being compassionate to ourselves, we're just going to drive it home.
Sarah: Yes. Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. We're basically running it into the ground. Yes. Our body doesn't like w where our mind is just pushing our body beyond what it was meant to do. And very often that's what we're doing.
And some people can do like these, let's say like I said, it's always very individual because you have some people that can run these, like ultra marathons and for them, they're like, you have to be so dedicated to do something like that, but for them that might not be beyond their scope.
Their particular body structure might be able to handle that. And then you might have other people that just like go and they work late at night. And they work with who knows, maybe that's right for them. But then you have people that are not functioning well anymore and are starting to have health problems that are starting to have there's, they're not happy.
They're not fulfilled. They're tired all the time. Blah, blah, blah. They are doing something that is beyond the limits. And no one likes to hear, I have limitations. No one likes to hear that. They're like, I'm not limited. I'm guess I'm strong. And they are Absolutely strong. But your body is a physical entity.
It's a physical thing that needs, it needs compassion. It needs love, it needs rest. It needs kindness. It needs care. And if we don't take good care of what it's asking, then it's going to start falling apart.
Nancy: Yes. Because rather than, what we have been taught is then you just ignore your body and then you don't have to deal with it.
And that is just creating more and more of a mess.
Sarah: Yes. And if we go into trauma, we're talking more about the connection with the body and trauma. And we've talked about ignoring the body and not wanting to connect with it. And I know that this is probably something that you run into a lot with people is that there's just so much shame connected to the body
Nancy: Yes. Yes. Thank you for bringing that up.
Sarah: Yeah. Yes. Very obviously huge issue for people that have experienced a lot of different types of traumas that their body becomes a source of shame because it stores memories because it stores experiences because it also goes through kind of physical experiences of flashing.
And so, it can get re-traumatized through flashbacks. So hence why would I want to reconnect with my body, right? No, I'm not doing that. And I get that completely because it's scary. I don't want to disrupt it. I don't want to, I just want to leave this thing behind.
That makes total sense to me. Like I get it. I get why that feels. That I get why that feels so important for people to do or not important. I get why that is such an urge for people to leave behind their body. But the problem is that since the trauma is stored in the body, it's just going to keep coming back.
And if we're ignoring it, we're probably going to eventually do something to start numbing the body.
Nancy: Yes, there you go.
Sarah: We're probably going to start doing something to not feel the body, whether that like eating disorders. That's a huge one. Yeah. Any kind of food issue, huge one, any type of addiction and it doesn't necessarily have to be a drug addiction.
It could be shopping. It could be gambling is something where it creeps that adrenaline. I'm not thinking about this totally up here in my adrenaline. Yeah. It's like something to get me out, so I'm not experiencing this thing anymore. And obviously severe anxiety, panic attacks, or we get so caught up in the mind that it, we feel like we're completely disconnected from the body.
It's not that the anxiety is created because we're trying to avoid our brains. The anxiety is the result, according our body. And then oftentimes to cope with the anxiety. Yes. Is when we're putting all that other stuff on top of it to shut the body up and to shut the anxiety up. Yeah,
Nancy: because that is totally what I have found, with me, with a lot of my clients, the idea that it is the unhealthy coping mechanisms we have developed around the anxiety that then we'll do things that will start fighting that those symptoms.
So I'll go, I'll stop numbing or I'll stop. I'm going to fight my overeating or I'm going to fight my perfectionism. And then once I start doing that, then the anxiety comes up and I don't have any place. I don't know how to deal with the anxiety because the problem was the perfectionism or the problem I thought was the numbing.
That's just a coping mechanism to what's really underneath there that we haven't figured out until we get that connection built.
Sarah: So if I'm someone some other things that people do cutting or any type of self injury, obviously that's also very anger, a lot of anger towards the body, right?
So all of those definitely ways that people deal with trauma and deal with anxiety and deal with these memories and issues within the body. So I would always recommend to someone first. I'm always talking about,
Nancy: I had someone say to me recently Yeah. I know I'm supposed to be kind to myself. I get it right?
Sarah: Yes. So if I'm someone that is dealing with an eating disorder, whether it's binge eating, that might be it. So if that's me and I'm continuing to binge eat and I'm continuing to numb out the experience of the body, the first thing that I, again, encourage people to do is how do I have compassion for myself, even when I'm binging, even when I'm in, in that addiction or in that behavior?
Because then I can not fight it. So we got to put down the bat. And we can't fight. We have to accept and move beyond. So if I'm able to accept that, I have, if that was someone which I have suffered with binge eating disorder, if I was someone that was dealing with that, the first, the very first thing is to accept that I'm someone that's living with binge eating disorder.
Then I'm someone that's fighting binge eating disorder. I am someone who's living with it. And how I have compassion for me as a person who's living with this. And then as I continue to act out the behavior, I continued to develop compassion towards myself as acting out this behavior, someone that's struggling and that's okay.
Because intrinsically, is there anything wrong with it? There is nothing wrong with it. You can be a binge eater to the moon and back. And is there any, there's nothing wrong with it, right?. We internalized shame about this behavior that has nothing to be ashamed of. Who cares? We care because it causes harm,
Nancy: Yeah. It's not ideal. Like we need to be bringing it out into the air that this is really happening
Sarah: Yeah. It doesn't even matter if it matters in the sense that it's causing us harm. It doesn't matter in the sense of shame. It's not something that is wrong.
Yeah. So compassion shines, like you said, bring that out to the light. Compassion, shines, light on it and says that this, there is nothing wrong with this. Why am I thinking there's something wrong? And then I'm doing something wrong.
Nancy: Yeah. Because from that place, then you can start healing. Not overnight, but it's where you can start dealing with what it is you're dealing with instead of the I'm going through all these hoops of making sure no one else sees that you're binge eating and hiding it from yourself.
Like all the games we'll play in our heads to keep it under wraps. When in that, when it's that idea of let's just honor what's happening.
Sarah: Yes, exactly. Let's just honor what's happening. It is what it is. Obviously that's oversimplifying and if we could all just say it is what it is.
Oh, totally. Yeah. And I wouldn't have jobs. Yeah. So obviously that's oversimplifying. It really is not right or wrong. And that we can live in this kind of space of grace rather than black, white it's, we can live in, like I say, compassion and love for the self. Even if we're doing something that we wish we weren't doing.
And that it can going back to the trauma and how this is all related to trauma the numbing and trying to numb out the shame and the experience of shame in the body. So if we also go back to yoga and the physical experience and connecting to the body, and if we're talking about shame has a very physical presence in the body.
So it's there, it's within you and within your body. So if you're experiencing the thoughts, it's not your thoughts. What is most uncomfortable, what's most uncomfortable is the experience your body goes through because your body starts to do all of this really difficult stuff. It starts to develop all of this.
Like some people have that pit in the stomach or they feel all of this tension and their whole body feels like it's closing up or they feel like they're paralyzed and they can't move. So there that's the body. That's not the mind. So it's not like the thoughts might be perpetuating it, but the whole, but that really uncomfortable experience was my body,
Nancy: yeah.
Sarah: Yeah. So the just stopping the thoughts. Does not mean that my body won't react that way,
Nancy: Say that one again. Because that needs to be heard
Sarah: if I just stopped the thought it does not mean that my body won't react that way. So I was working with a man who had post-traumatic stress from, he was a combat vet.
So obviously a lot of really terrible trauma. And he had very severe PTSD, very severe. And it really interrupted his quality of life. And one of the things that was a trigger for him was the smell of gasoline. Okay. And when he would walk by a gas station, like he had coping skills that he put together, but that's not, let me just talk about what would happen.
Like he would walk by a gas station and he'd smelled a gas. He would not have any thoughts, but it wouldn't be a thought. But his whole body would start to react.. His whole, all like his whole body would enter into a place of fight flight, fight, flight freeze. Without a thought. The thought would come afterwards.
. So the body reacts first a lot of the times. And then the thought would come after, because my body has gone into this fight flight freeze mode, which then brings up all of this physical experience of shame, which then goes up into the mind and creates all this stuff. So just by stopping the thought is not going to necessarily stop this bodily reaction.
. So if we go into the body and you start addressing what's happening there, we start to learn about it. We might not be able to completely get rid of it, but we have compassion for it, acceptance, and we have understanding and know how to cope with it. Then we're going to be able to manage it much more quickly and not enter into those really difficult states of PTSD.
And that has all to do with the body work.
Nancy: Yes. Yeah. Because and my listeners have heard me say this a thousand times, the change, your thoughts drives me crazy. Because it's so much more than that. And we have bought that lie that if I just change my thoughts, everything will be fine.
And if it isn't it is not.
Sarah: No, it isn't. We have to change our innermost beliefs and that's a whole other bag of worms. So in yoga, what we talk about is basically these thoughts that we have over and over and over and over again throughout our lifetime create like kind of pathways in the brain, almost how water runs over a stone and eventually creates this indent.
And that indent is the belief, right? It's really hard for those thoughts to get out of that, in that rut they're in it, because now it's an indent in the stone and the water, or the thoughts are going to want to run down that way. They're going to want to run down that way. And in order to create another path, a lot of work has to happen.
Yeah. Yeah. If we just try to change the thought. What happens is we don't believe it. It's like that's stupid. And we might be trying to like, say I shouldn't believe it. And keeping it to myself. And I'm going to bang my head against the wall and what you don't believe it. And that's useless.
It doesn't matter. You have, there's that samskara, there is that pathway that has been created and it's going to take a lot more than just trying to redirect my thoughts,
Nancy: Yeah, absolutely. Because then it becomes, I'm beating myself up because I should be able to change this thought and what's wrong with me that I can't, and I should be thinking positive.
Maybe I should be more grateful, like all of that.
Sarah: And then it just makes the pathway deeper. Yes,
Nancy: exactly. Yeah.
Sarah: Yeah.
Nancy: Because I was struck when you said. We about the back to the binge eating and the numbing out, and you were like, you know what? You need to put the bat down. I loved that because that's what we do.
But that is such a Western, even I was because I wrote down like cancer. Like we have I'm going to fight this cancer and I'm going to beat it instead of having compassion for the body that's being attacked in this way and how you know, and not coming at it from such a violent perspective,
Sarah: I couldn't agree more.
I couldn't agree more. Why don't we say I'm for healing? Yes.
Nancy: Yeah.
Sarah: I'm against cancer. Why don't we say I'm for love I'm for equality. Why do we say I'm against racism? Why do we like it's always against always, no matter what it is, I'm against it. That's going to create more anger and more violence.
There's no way around it. It's going to and it's also going to create more anger towards our bodies if we're just, nevermind all those big societal issues, to, if we're just talking about our physical body, we're just creating more anger. We're just creating more violence towards the self.
A major part of yoga is the, is non-violence. Nonviolence obviously doesn't mean outward violence towards other people. Whether it's verbal, whether it's physical, but it also means non-violence to the self that I'm treating myself with absolute kindness and without violent or harmful thoughts, violent, not necessarily being like blood and war violent being.
I hate myself. What's wrong with me? I'm so stupid. Those are violent thoughts because I'm hit, I'm beating myself up. I'll be abusing myself. So non-violence says I am for healing. I am for self-compassion. I am for pick your societal issue. And that creates a well of compassion, which then creates the road for healing.
Nancy: Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. And I'm, I just want to leave it there because that is, that's the message that I want people to get, okay. So how could people find out about you or working with you, what you got going on?
Sarah: They can go to my website which is. Whole health collab, We will link to that in the show notes.
Okay. So that, that that link, they can go there. I have a tab there that they can easily message me. There's a message right on the bottom that they can scroll down to. You can even I have a calendar there that you can even schedule your own a free consultation with me..
So I make it super, super easy because I know that it's hard to reach out. And I just want to make it as available as possible. So there's a, you don't even have to message me, go into the schedule and schedule your consultation. A lot of people do want to message me first and I love that. So there is a, there was a form right on the, my, my page.
It says, shoot me a message and just do it right there.
Nancy: Awesome. Great. Cool. We'll have all that information in the show notes so people can get more information about working with you and set up a time, et cetera, et cetera, and get into their bodies. Yes. After this interview with Sarah, I decided to practice skipping my default pattern of asking why I woke up and I felt stressed and I didn't go into my normal litany of all the possible contributors to my stress.
In fact, I didn't have any curiosity about what was behind the stress. I just noticed the stress. I took a couple deep breaths, put my hands on my heart and kept repeating to myself. You're okay. In this moment. You're okay. Right where you are. Then after a few moments I would ask, what could I do to ease the stress, make a cup of tea, go for a walk, call a friend throughout the week.
I practice just giving myself acceptance where I was and curiosity, if anything could be added. And I felt better building this practice allows me to build self loyalty and safety within myself, rather than constantly judging my experience. I can meet myself where I am and unpack whatever feelings or sensations come to the surface.
It was amazingly freeing to not get stuck in justification to not go through the wall.