Ep. 151 Healing Trauma Without Reliving the Past with Kristin Windsor

[00:00:06] I'm Michele Simms and this is The Beauty in the Mess, a community where people who crave a shift in mindset, personal growth, and connection to like-minded people come together to start rewriting their stories. Through engaging, honest, and insightful conversations, the show will help you embrace the mess to recognize the meanings and the lessons it holds and discover its hidden treasures to help you start making a mindset shift. Let's listen, learn, and reclaim who we were meant to be.

[00:00:34] Hi friend, welcome to The Beauty in the Mess. Today's conversation is unlike anything we've explored before, I think. And honestly, it challenged the way I think about trauma, healing, and even the relationship we have with ourselves. My guest today is Kristin Windsor. After experiencing severe childhood trauma, years of abuse, traumatic brain injuries, and more than 100 debilitating health conditions, Kristin found herself at a place where doctors told her there was nothing more they could do.

[00:01:03] But instead of accepting that as the end of her story, she started searching for answers herself. What followed was a deep dive into neuroscience, nervous system regulation, trauma healing, and what she describes as reconnecting with the fragmented parts of ourselves through self-love, embodiment, and presence, without having to constantly relive the trauma. And what's truly incredible is Kristin says she was able to heal not only years of complex trauma and chronic illness, but even seven years of amnesia.

[00:01:32] In this episode, we talk about how trauma affects the brain and body, why traditional healing approaches don't always work, and the connection between emotional wounds and physical symptoms, and how learning to reconnect with yourself can completely change your life. This is one of those conversations that really makes you stop and think. Hi, I'm Michele Simms, your host. I'm just a regular person who, like so many others, has faced my fair share of messes.

[00:01:58] Life hasn't always been neat or easy, but it's taught me a lot, and somewhere along the way I got deeply curious. How do other people make it through their messes and not just survive, but thrive? That started my pursuit. I started searching for stories and wisdom and real strategies, not only for myself, but for anyone looking for a better way forward. Maybe there's a faster way, a softer way, a more human way, and maybe we don't have to figure it all out alone.

[00:02:24] I believe we grow through shared stories, lived wisdom, and the beautiful mess of being human. So welcome to the conversation. I'm so glad you're here. Please join me for episode 151 called Healing Trauma Without Reliving the Past with Kristin Windsor. So without further ado, let's get into it. Hi, Kristin Windsor. Welcome to Beauty in the Mess. I'm so glad to have you with me today. Thanks for having me. I'm looking forward to a delicious conversation. Oh, absolutely.

[00:02:54] Now, I know you've healed yourself from like 100 different diseases as well as very traumatic events. And before we kind of get into how you did that, I was wondering if you could give us some of your background story. Like, how did all of this even happen? I mean, how does one person get 100 different diseases? Yeah, it's very interesting to look at the hindsight because I was able to piece together where certain things started when that was not obvious in the thick of it, right?

[00:03:21] So in my mid-20s was when there was over 100 diagnoses and the doctors were saying, we cannot cure this. At that point, I had seen over 100 doctors in a 10-year period tried all the traditional approaches, including every type of mainstream therapy and every type of psychiatric medication. And they were like, there's nothing more that we can do.

[00:03:46] And so tracing it all back, it started with childhood sexual abuse at age four that I did not know about. Nobody really knew about it besides the abuser. And it wasn't until later in my life I uncovered it. But that suppressed sexual trauma from early life led to a bunch of symptoms that surfaced when I was between ages 12 and 14. And then that led to depression, psychosis, anxiety, insomnia, PTSD-like symptoms.

[00:04:15] And then there were all these coping mechanisms developing to just survive it all. And that's when there was self-harm and alcohol and drug use and these different things. And then that kind of led to this path where there was more trauma. There was more sexual assaults, physical assaults as an adult. And that increased the PTSD and just kind of spiraled. There was bipolar and other things as well. Ultimately, it led to fibromyalgia and full-body chronic pain.

[00:04:44] And then when I was about 24 years old, there were traumatic brain injuries because of relational abuse. And then my brain lost the ability to form new memories for five years. And after that, I had no memory of my entire life. So I had no memory of the story that I'm telling you. And so it was just kind of thing after thing accumulating. And in the thick of that, there was always a desire to understand myself. There was always a quest for answers.

[00:05:11] There was always this search for the holy grail of like what's happening inside of me. And so that took many paths. For a time, it was looking into spirituality or religion to understand the mind, the body, and the soul. And when that failed to have enough answers for me, it was looking into psychology and taking psychology classes in college. And meeting with the therapist and doing all the inner work kind of stuff. Reading self-help books.

[00:05:37] And then deeper mental health research in terms of more neuroscience. And then it was only when I started researching neuroscience when I was about in my mid-20s, 10 years after starting to look for answers, that I started to find answers. And understand there's this deeper world inside of me that traditional mental health psychology, there's a lot of modalities, do not fully understand, do not fully explain.

[00:06:04] And then by teaching myself this kind of deeper understanding of my inner world, I was able to identify the root cause and create healing for myself. That's awesome. I'm just wondering, like, I know from dealing with some health aspects of my own that sometimes you can get overwhelmed. And if you're dealing with all of this that seems to be snowballing, how do you not succumb to that depression or you feel like you're in so deep that you're never going to get out?

[00:06:31] How do you overcome that to even start searching for answers? The interesting thing is I wasn't anywhere near overcoming it while looking for answers. There was the majority of me was just like, I'm done. I give up. And there were a lot of suicide attempts and other choices that were not supporting well-being or healing. And when those didn't work per se, it was like, I want to know.

[00:06:57] There was a curiosity even amidst the depression and the darkness and the wanting to give up. There was a deep curiosity. And I think that curiosity sparked enough in me to want to look for answers. So what did that learning journey look like? I know you said you tried religion and different things, but how did you actually hit on the neuroscience aspect? Yeah. So I was looking at through books at the library like I had done so many times before.

[00:07:27] And I stumbled on a book called Healing the Fragmented Parts of Trauma Survivors or Healing the Fragmented Selves of Trauma Survivors by Janina Fisher. And it had actually just been published like that year, like a few months ago. It was brand new, fresh on the shelf. And it talked about the development of brain hemispheres and how early life trauma disrupts the brain hemispheres from developing. And it talked about all of it in such detail.

[00:07:54] And I'm just reading it like this is exactly what I've been struggling with, like all the things she's describing. But she had this neuroscientific insight that was so different from everything else where it's like, oh, well, it's in your mind. And it's like, well, where does the experience of your mind come from? Like it comes from your brain, your consciousness and your brain. And so by understanding the brain and understanding consciousness, which are two distinct things, we have this deeper insight into what creates our mind.

[00:08:22] And then deeper insight about the nervous system and the five different types of trauma states or stress responses. And from there, I did further research looking into those particular topics and was doing researching YouTube videos and case studies and found a couple online courses on the subject. And just having validation for what I had been struggling with for so long was so empowering that that kind of spurred me into further research.

[00:08:47] So how do you go from learning that perhaps your brain didn't develop in the same way or at the same pace or whatever it was? How do you go from that to actually healing? Yeah, that's a great question. The first step was using the practices in that book by Janine Fisher.

[00:09:07] Sure, it works with internal family systems, but from an even more trauma-informed lens because it talks about dissociative identity disorder and the more intense complex trauma cases. Because sometimes even something like internal family systems doesn't work because there's just so much fragmentation or there's so many different parts. And if the practitioner isn't well versed in that complexity of the inner world, then even a good, solid approach isn't going to work.

[00:09:37] And so by learning about just the deeper level of family systems and just how to work with different parts and how to understand where they're coming from, that was kind of the first step. And then it was like finding practices that match each root cause of the symptoms, right? So working with the vagus nerve was a big part of it and finding practices that target the vagus nerve.

[00:10:01] There's more and more books now than ever about practices of healing the vagus nerve, the power of the vagus nerve. And so that was kind of the first step into the healing process. So did you have a doctor or a counselor or someone working with you or this was all you and the book? This was all me and yeah, and a book. That's where it all began because at that point I had worked with over a hundred doctors in 10 years. Wow.

[00:10:28] And there was such a distrust of people of like, I have come into these offices pouring out my heart and soul, fully surrendered to whatever they're going to tell me to do. Whatever they're going to tell me is true about who I am and what my life is and follow their lead. And it had led to failure after failure in terms of there was no healing. There was no reduction of symptoms. My symptoms kept getting worse. It became completely disabling.

[00:10:54] And then every single doctor is like, I'm sorry, I've used all the tools in my book and nothing is working. Like there's nothing more that I can do to help you. And so there really wasn't the option to work with someone because there wasn't anybody saying, oh, I know what's happening inside of you and I can help you heal it. There was nobody who was availing that to me. And so that was the path of learning to become my own healer. So when did you realize that this was working or, I mean, did you track results? How did you monitor this?

[00:11:23] Yeah, I did track results. I tracked everything and it was especially important for me to track it because of those traumatic brain injuries. My brain wasn't forming memories. So my day-to-day experiences weren't being recorded. There was no autobiographical self to remember what happened the day before or a week before or a month before. And so I started a self-led case study and it was a study on myself. And I created video blogs every single day.

[00:11:52] A lot of it I shared online. I had a Patreon account and people followed my private case study and was doing a lot of the practices I was using to heal myself in their own path. But I have over 3,000 videos saved on my private YouTube channel. And it's all the details of what was going on, what I was experiencing, what I was doing, what I noticed shifting inside of me. And I started noticing profound shifts. And one thing that I learned, which is really helpful, and I would love for it to support anybody listening,

[00:12:23] is it takes about three months of a consistent practice for the healing to be noticeable. And so that's like a huge deal because a lot of times we come in and we're like, oh, well, I've been trying these practices and it's been two weeks or a month or whatever it's been. And I don't feel like it's working. So we give up, right? It's easy to walk away when it's like, I don't see the fruits of my labor. But the thing about planting a seed, you can't go dig up the seed and be like, hey, are you growing yet? Right? That's not going to work.

[00:12:53] It's definitely not going to grow if we keep digging it up again to check on it. The important thing is we plant it with a knowing of what we're doing. And that's where finding the right practice is important. Because if you're doing a practice that is not addressing the root cause, then it might not be the right seed to plant. And it might not grow into the plant we want it to be.

[00:13:13] But if you're planting a seed with confidence, the job is just to give it water and love and the right soil and sunlight and patiently trust that it is digging roots. It's growing deep before it grows up, right? It's growing deep inside of the body, the brain, the nervous system, the neural networks, the unconscious memories before it shows up in our thoughts, our emotions, our behaviors, the way we actually experience life.

[00:13:39] And so the healing is about building those deep roots inside of us before we expect to see the external results. And so when I was in this process, I'd find a practice and I would notice the slightest bit of evidence, right? Like microscopic evidence. The intensity was turned down like 1%, right? It's not like this huge dramatic, oh my God, like I'm free of PTSD, like hurrah. But it was like my life is slightly more tolerable. The voices in my head are a little quieter.

[00:14:08] I'm actually able to taste my food right now. Like little tiny shifts. And so once I found practices that helped at least a little bit, stuck with it, and in three months of using it daily, that's where I could look back and notice very obvious transformation. Like holy cow, so much has happened. But in the thick of that, in the middle of it, it doesn't feel like anything's happening. It doesn't feel like anything's working or anything's changing because it's so small and so gradual.

[00:14:36] I can't even comprehend what the lack of memory, the complexity that had to add to this because trying to heal yourself of anything is a huge ordeal. But then not to even remember what you did the day before. Did you have to go through your notes each day? Did you have to watch your video blog? What did you do to try to build on what you did the day before if you can't remember what you did the day before? Yeah, exactly.

[00:15:02] Well, and it was trippy too because, you know, now I've integrated at least some of the memories that were lost. And I know that even looking at the memories was like full body anxiety. Because imagine seeing a video of yourself in an experience you have no knowledge of saying things that you have no awareness of. And you're like, oh my gosh, it's like some alternate parallel universe where I'm doing stuff I don't know about. That's scary. That is scary. That's like full body terror level of scary.

[00:15:29] And so even attempting to look back at notes, like I see my handwriting in a book I don't remember ever opening. And it's got all these insights that I don't know about. And so there's kind of this deep practice of surrender and saying the me here today has a relationship with the me that was yesterday. Even if they're not the same person, quote unquote, the same person because there wasn't memory continuity.

[00:15:54] And so it was the present moment self having this unique relationship with my past self, which might have been an hour ago or the day before. But I would start describing it as her. And that helped. I was like, oh, she left all these notes for me. That's I really appreciate that. Instead of like, oh my gosh, I don't remember doing this. And so there was a lot of radical reframes in it. And then creating daily rituals that kept me in a state of time when my brain and body didn't understand time.

[00:16:24] So I would have a very specific like two hour morning ritual I would do. And then a specific two hour like breakfast ritual I would do of like meditation and grounded eating. And then like a two hour meditation around lunchtime. And I would just have these windows of this is where I go. This is what I do at that time. And I would have all my stuff needed in that space, whether it was in my truck or in my bedroom or in the yard or like whatever it was at the time. And my office or whatever it was.

[00:16:52] And just have things set up. And yeah, there's notes of this is what you're doing today. And I would just follow this kind of guideline that was made by me for me, even if I didn't remember it. Because I had a good relationship with her, the parts of me I couldn't remember. So how long did it take for the memory to start coming back? I'm assuming that it did. Yeah, it took about five years to start forming new memories when that wasn't happening.

[00:17:17] And then once I was able to do that, it took another three plus years to recover memories from my life. Because that period of starting to remember what happened the day before and stuff like that, starting to feel like I had an autobiographical self that was having a personal experience again, was during the time where my brain blocked out my whole lifetime of memories. And I don't fully understand the neuroscience of why that particular thing was happening.

[00:17:43] But it was a shift from anterograde amnesia to retrograde amnesia, probably due to the traumatic brain injuries and what was particularly damaged in that. And so about five years before I was able to form new memories again, and then another three plus years to remember my life. So I'm assuming you had to heal emotionally too, for whatever reason you were getting yourself in these relationships of abuse, right? At least I'm assuming it was domestic abuse where you got the traumatic brain injury.

[00:18:13] Yeah, there was a emotional healing, I would say was the core of it. The absolute, and this is where we can shift a little to how the healing actually happened and what people can do in day-to-day life that can help them heal from literally anything is the emotional healing. The core of it was having this relationship with parts of myself where I was meeting those unmet emotional needs from the past in the present moment.

[00:18:41] And that was helping to rewire the neural networks, the unconscious memories, the patterns of the nervous system, all of it. Because emotional memories are a big part of what tells our nervous system how to self-regulate, right? Our capacity to feel just calm and grounded and present and focused and to be connected, to feel pleasure, to feel peace, to feel like you have power and self-agency. That comes from that nervous system regulation.

[00:19:10] And when there's trauma, that gets thrown off kilter, right? And the core of the trauma is not feeling seen and loved, not feeling heard and understood, not feeling safe and secure, not feeling support or connection, not feeling respected for who you are or accepted for who you are. And so there's different types of trauma. There's little t traumas and capital T traumas.

[00:19:35] But at the core of trauma is feeling separate from the love that we need to fully thrive. And so when we can have this conscious relationship with parts of our inner self, or as I call it, parts of the inner soul family, then that's how we can fulfill those needs from within. And it creates emotional healing that can heal the past without needing to revisit it. And it can help create that body, mind, soul healing that actually rewires the brain

[00:20:03] and reprograms the body for lasting change. Yeah. Yeah. And that's something I wanted to touch on too, because I know you talk about not having to relive the past. And I know a lot of healing modalities, that's exactly what they seem to do. They make you try to relive the past to heal it. And it almost seems more traumatic because you have to go back through it. And then you have to keep going. I don't like that aspect at all. So the opportunity to not have to relive it and to still heal from it is huge.

[00:20:33] Yes, absolutely. There's a few reasons we don't want to revisit the past to heal. And I'll preface it by saying there's a different thing that can help different people at different stages of the journey. So if someone is revisiting the past and the healing is working, that's great. But the majority of the time it does, like you say, it does more harm than good, where you are reliving the past without actually healing it. And so when we revisit the past, the first thing that happens is

[00:21:01] we're giving our power to something that's no longer present. We're kind of in the present moment saying, in order to live the life I want to live now, I have to go back into a moment that's no longer here. And when we give that power away to a moment that's no longer here, that can cause dysregulation of the nervous system. Because you're telling your nervous system, I can't be present yet. I have to go back and heal the past first. But the first part of healing is being able to be present,

[00:21:30] being able to stay regulated and grounded in the present moment. And so once I realized that I could heal the past just by being present and not needing to dig around, just being in the present moment, teaching my body safety and connection in the now, teaching these parts of me a new way of relating with myself, a new way of having a relationship internally, that shifted everything. Another reason we don't want to revisit the past is because as we reactivate that information,

[00:22:01] if we're not regulated, we can't rewire it. Nothing new can get integrated. And then what happens is the existing information gets bigger, which makes the symptoms get bigger. And so you're like, okay, I'm like baseline, okay, but I want to heal. And then you're bringing up this stuff and then you're dysregulated all the time and you're easily triggered and you're having trouble sleeping and the anxiety is worse. And like all these symptoms get worse. And you're like, but I thought I was healing. And a lot of people will say, well, that's just part of the process,

[00:22:30] but it shouldn't be. If you are becoming more dysregulated, your brain cannot process any of the healing that you're doing, meaning that it's not going to work. It's not going to stick. It's not actually going to change anything long-term. And in the short term, also, you're not doing as well, right? And yeah, there's other reasons, but the goal really of healing is rewiring the patterns that exist right here, right now. Another reason it's not advisable to revisit the past for healing

[00:22:58] is because the memories that create unwanted experiences, like PTSD, for example, are not accessible from the mind. They live in the body. And so even the therapies that try to work with the deeper body, like EMDR, for example, I did EMDR. And there was maybe some level of progress. I'm not going to knock it. If it works for people, that's amazing. But you're still digging into the past. And if you become dysregulated, that new information can't fully integrate.

[00:23:26] And so you can't access the body memories from the mind. You can't do it. It doesn't matter what thing you're using to access it. It lives so deep in the body, your mind can't reach it. So it's really about teaching the body a new way to feel and move that is oriented around love and wholeness. So I heard you mention the core traumas, so to speak. And one example was not feeling connected, right?

[00:23:53] So how can a person who's kind of isolated and not connected make themselves feel connected? How does things like that work? Yeah, that's a great question. There's a lot of different practices, and it's about finding what works best for each individual. But a few examples, just depending on kind of the stage of the journey, is one is practicing just basic mindfulness and meditation is always a good place to start. Because when you can feel connected to the present moment,

[00:24:21] when you can feel connected to the sensations happening in your body right here, right now, when you can feel connected to your breath, when you feel connected to those three things, your breath, the sensations, your body, and the present moment, then you start to restore that connection internally. Another powerful practice is something I call vocal alchemy. Vocal alchemy, it's using the power of your voice to create new pathways in your brain, basically. And it can help heal the unprocessed emotions in the body as well.

[00:24:50] And so that can look like just chanting the vowels, doing A, E, I, O, U at different tones and different volumes. And just using the power of your voice, again, that reconnects you to the sensations in your body, your body in the present moment, and the power of your breath, because you have to inhale to exhale and make that vocal sound. So it's this kind of meditative practice that's reconnecting you with you.

[00:25:19] And by using your voice, you feel your power, right? A lot of times our voice is something that gets taken away when there's trauma. We don't have the power of our voice. We didn't get to say no or to express our needs or to stop it or to speak our truth in an experience. And by using our voice, we start to feel that power that we have inside of us, that sense of self-agency. And then from chanting the vowels of the alphabet sounds kind of thing, there's a lot of other practices that can be done with the voice.

[00:25:48] And those are some of the practices that I usually teach my clients through the vocal alchemy. And it's a way to rebuild the relationship with parts of self and start to fulfill those unmet emotional needs, which is what helps rewire the unconscious memories in the body carrying the core of that trauma. For connection, the best method, the best method is mirror practices. And I have a free 20-minute guided mirror practice that I'll share with the description, little notes for this podcast.

[00:26:18] Free 20-minute guided mirror practice, but eye gazing in mirrors and doing practices that actually reconnect you with you. And again, tend to that relationship with yourself, tend to those unmet emotional needs. That's the most powerful way to restore that connection from within. So it's interesting to me, I'm just throwing out random questions, but if someone feels like they've let go of their trauma, they've forgiven whoever, they've done whatever they feel they need to do,

[00:26:46] but they still have health issues or symptoms. What's the disconnect there? Yeah, it's usually the unprocessed memories in the body, right? The mind might be like, oh yeah, I can look back at the trauma. It doesn't affect me. I can think about those people and I don't feel any anger or sadness or grief. Like I'm okay, I'm high functioning. But then there's still insomnia or disrupted digestion or digestive issues or dysregulated energy where you get chronic fatigue

[00:27:15] or the intense ups and it's hard to focus, ADHD type symptoms. Those are all signs of nervous system dysregulation. But what tells the nervous system how to regulate doesn't actually come from the nervous system directly. It comes from the unconscious memories in the body. So when there's unconscious body memories from past traumas or past experiences of unmet needs, that's what kind of perpetuates the health challenges.

[00:27:42] And so the most powerful way I know to heal the body memories is to have these daily practices where you're building that relationship with parts of self and tending to unmet emotional needs. That'll be like the thing I'll always say again and again and come back to. Because the second that those parts of you feel that social connection with yourself, which is most powerfully done in a mirror, but there's other ways to do it as well. And those parts of you feel safe in your body.

[00:28:10] Those parts of you feel seen and heard and loved and accepted and supported and connected. The entire body goes, I can relax now. I'm safe now. It's finally over. I'm finally enough. And that moment is when the unconscious body memories actually get rewired. And when done consistently, daily practices that build on itself, not just a one-time experience with a healer or something, but continuous daily practices,

[00:28:39] that healing accumulates. And that's how I was able to create healing. The majority of those hundred plus health battles were resolved in three years. Like it took a little longer to fully heal my memory and my brain. But those health battles that I'd been struggling with for over a decade, that over a hundred doctors couldn't touch, they didn't even reduce it by like a minuscule fraction, were completely resolved in three years using this method. That's amazing. I have to ask, I know I've had people in the past say for different reasons or whatever,

[00:29:09] but look in the mirror and tell yourself you love yourself or whatever. Why is it so hard for us to look in the mirror and talk to ourselves or try to connect? It's almost like we've been programmed by society not to, or I don't know. It's a weird feeling. Yes. Yes, absolutely. It is a weird feeling. It's a very weird feeling because we are social creatures. We have spent our entire lives looking at the outer world,

[00:29:38] seeing other people, looking in their eyes, hearing their voice and shaping our inner world and our outer reality in relation to those external relationships. But we look in the eyes of other people more than we look in our own eyes. We listen to the voices and the truths of other people more often than we listen to what our own voice has to say, what our own truth is from within. We look at other people's bodies and say, that's what I'm supposed to look like or this and that and that's the standard of appearance

[00:30:07] or X, Y, Z. More often than we look at our own bodies and say, wow, I can't believe I get to live life through this thing. How crazy is that? Oriented decades of our existence, all of our existence, as far as the human knows, based on how we see and interact with other people. So when it comes to seeing and interacting with ourself, that's a whole unknown world. That's terrifying. And another reason it's so scary is not just the unknown or how powerful it is.

[00:30:36] It's because when we look in a mirror, we are not objectively seeing ourselves as we actually exist. We are seeing a navigational projection from our body-mind. So let me break that down real quick. So memories inside of us and the pathways of our brain, we've got trillions of pathways in our brain, we've got a lifetime of memories in our body, right? There's like all this information, like crazy amounts of information. We're such brilliant human creatures.

[00:31:03] That data is not existing to store the past. Well, that's what memories are. They're a category, a library of the past. Neuroscience discovered fairly recently, actually, that memories exist to navigate present and potential moments. And that's why things like phobias developed. If you have a scary experience this one time or a few times or a really intense experience, then it develops this chronic fear that projects such profound anxiety,

[00:31:32] it disrupts how you function. That's because memories aren't storing the past experience of that scary thing that happened. They exist to say, hey, that scary thing might happen again, so you better watch out. And then that's where a phobia develops. And so our memories aren't trying to store the past. They're trying to navigate our life. And so when we experience anything, it's not an objective reality. It's this subjective interpretation based on who we are as individual people. That's why you can have 100 people

[00:32:00] in one room at one event, but they're all going to have a slightly different experience. They're going to pick out a different song that they like when the music is playing, or they're going to pick out a different sentence of what the speaker said that had a personal impact on them. And they're going to notice and respond to their environment in different ways because of the internal structures of their inner world. And so all this data inside of us doesn't exist to store the past, it exists to navigate our life. So when we look in a mirror, we're not just saying, oh, like I see Kristen. And Kristen is as Kristen exists to Michelle.

[00:32:30] When I look in a mirror, I don't see myself the way that Michelle sees me. I see myself the way that Kristen sees me, right? And same for you. And so all of our fears, all of our doubts and insecurities and unprocessed traumas and the moments that we didn't feel seen or we didn't feel safe to feel seen, all the moments that we didn't feel heard or we didn't feel allowed to speak our voice, all the experiences where we didn't feel safe in our bodies or we felt rejected because of some aspect of our bodies or we didn't like

[00:33:00] the sound of our voice or someone made fun of how our voice sounded or all of those experiences get projected unconsciously when we look in a mirror. And that's where it's like, this is uncomfortable. This doesn't feel right. This doesn't feel good. It feels unnatural. Like, I love you. Oh, no, I don't believe that. That doesn't sound right. I'm going to walk away now. We're literally seeing our shadows. We're seeing a reflection of all of our shadows come up through our inner sensations and emotions. So that makes me want to also ask,

[00:33:29] do you believe in kind of like self-affirmations? And to the point of I've always heard your body listens to everything you say. So be careful of what you say because words are very powerful. But if you hear yourself saying positive things about yourself, your body is listening as well as your ears. Do you believe there's truth to that? Yes, I deeply do. But with one caveat, if we are so against what we're trying to affirm,

[00:33:58] our body isn't going to listen. It's got headphones on. It's like, la, la, la, la, la. I can't hear you. So you can say, I am safe. I am loved. I am powerful. I am beautiful. But if there's so many voices in your voice saying, that's not true. You're a liar. You're hideous. You're incompetent. You're incapable. Why don't you shut up now? And your body is so conditioned to receive judgment more than it's conditioned to receive love. It's not going to do a lot. So there is power,

[00:34:28] but we also have to break down why we don't believe those things in the first place and to build a relationship with the parts that are resisting the truth. And so a lot of times it's speaking the affirmations just to trigger the part of you that doesn't believe it and then using a different practice to work with that part and say, why don't you feel like this is true? How can I hear where you're coming from? Where does this stem from? How can I love you? How can I help you

[00:34:57] break down these inner barriers, these walls you've built up so that I can reach your heart so that I can meet your need for love that was not met in the past? Because when a part doesn't feel like they can receive love, there's this wall, right? It was built because of the past trauma. And so before that part can receive love, even from yourself, much less like other people, like truly receive it, you have to break down that wall brick by brick.

[00:35:25] And that can be a fairly tedious process, especially if there's a lot of trauma, which there was in my case. Right. I would make progress with a part and then like this whole other flare up would come and I'd try my affirmations and I'd just feel this anger in my body where I just, like, I mean, it was like turning into the Hulk level of just like, like, I do not believe you. I am mad at you for saying a lie out loud was like kind of the response internally. Wow. So affirmations are powerful.

[00:35:55] Definitely always use them, but don't only just use them. Also use them as a tool to get to know what parts of you are resisting and to kind of trace that in and say, how can I build a relationship with those specific parts to help start breaking down those walls so that my brain and body can receive new information? So is it truly as simple as asking yourself those questions? Like, why is this bothering me or why do I not feel that that's true? That's kind of the beginning.

[00:36:25] How do you ask yourself those questions without going back to the trauma also? Right. So that's a really good question. The questions are a starting point, but they're usually not enough on their own. And that's where I would guide my client, for example, to work with other practices. There's specific journal practices, specific vocal practices, specific breathwork practices, mirror practices, movement practices, also like actually getting more into the body

[00:36:55] and letting your body feel because a lot of times we're very focused on working from the mind. And we, again, that disconnection, that disconnection from presence and sensation and movement and emotional expression in the body. So different movement practices, vocal practices, all of that helps be a catalyst to kind of get into that deeper layer. And then it's not about the trauma, but it's about the beliefs that developed as a result of the trauma and what needs are still not met. So if there was a trauma,

[00:37:25] there's a part, I'll just use myself as an example. There is a trauma, a part of me does not feel seen or loved and has developed a belief that they are not worthy of good things because they are not seen or loved. And so in order to heal the belief of not being worthy of good things, there's a need to create a relationship with that part so I can make them feel seen and loved, not dependent on external relationships or other people or outside scenarios,

[00:37:54] but for that love to be felt from within. And then by healing that unmet need and then rewiring that subsequent belief, it's healing the results of the trauma without needing to revisit it. The trauma is a reference point to understand the unmet needs or the beliefs that have developed, but you don't have to go back and dig into the past to heal it. It's just a reference point. So you have more insight so that you can heal. So is that a learned thing also? Because I think a lot,

[00:38:24] like I said, a lot of these modalities teach you to go back to the trauma. So do you kind of have to learn to redirect in a way? Like, yeah. Yes, yeah. There's definitely an unlearning and a relearning process because in 10 years of my own treatment, I was very used to digging around in the past and re-bringing up the traumas. And so even when I was starting the journey, it was this constant redirecting of like, okay, I'm full body reliving this trauma. There's these images coming up.

[00:38:52] There's these sensations in the body. Therapy would have me do X, Y, Z and I'd look at the narrative and I'd do all the stuff. Instead, I'm going to let this part be heard. And so there was a journal practice they would do of a part of me, and this is one of the practices that I teach my clients as well, is a part of me is remembering this. A part of me is feeling these sensations. A part of me is struggling to be present. A part of me, X, Y, Z, whatever's coming up.

[00:39:21] And then to say what that need is. A part of me needs to feel safe to let go. A part of me needs to feel permission to write a different story than the one my mind is telling me. A part of me needs a safe space where I can just breathe and not need to do anything so I can just feel safe to exist in my body again. A part of me needs deep somatic pressure with a weighted blanket just to feel grounded right now because I'm floating all over the place with association.

[00:39:50] To identify those needs and then to rebuild that relationship. I love this part of me. I'm proud of this part of me. I am honored to be in the journey with this part of me. I am so in awe of the creativity, the resilience, the diligence, the persistence that this part of me has to keep going when it feels really hard. Like, I love you. I'm so proud of you. And that's where the I love you and the affirmations or the positive words become more personal. Because when you acknowledge

[00:40:20] what a part of you is going through and you recognize their needs, they trust you more. Meaning they're more likely to believe you. So if you walk into a mirror and you're like, hey, I love you. Okay, well that feels awkward and inauthentic. I'm not sure I trust that, right? But if you walk into a mirror and you're like, hey, I know today's been really tough. I'm so sorry that this thing happened and you just felt this anxiety. I'm so sorry the sun's not out today and you're feeling some seasonal depression. Like, I'm so sorry that food didn't taste as good as whatever it was. You're meeting those parts

[00:40:50] of you where they're at and acknowledging it's a process of self-attunement. And then once there's that connection, they start to trust you. And then, and this is all very subconscious, deeper than what the mind can get to just by thoughts. It's the sensations in your body. And then once that part trusts you, then that's where you acknowledge their needs. And you say, I know that this part of me is only feeling angry because they felt like their power was taken away and they weren't respected in that situation. I know that this part of me

[00:41:19] just feels really sad and lonely because they haven't felt seen and loved or appreciated or celebrated for who they are in a really long time. I know that this part of me is only feeling anxious and overthinking everything because they haven't felt safe in their body in like 15 years. And so by acknowledging those needs and really honoring what those parts are experiencing, you build trust. And then when you say, I love you to that part, they're like, oh, she actually gets me for me.

[00:41:48] She's not just meeting me at the surface and painting some pretty color over all of the stuff that's going wrong, right? It's looking at the stuff that could use some fixing up in the internal house and saying, I love you anyways. I don't need to paint over it with some false illusion of perfection. I get to be here in this practice of unconditional love, unconditional presence where I'm going to be here meeting these parts of me even with all their imperfections, even with all of their traumas and their flaws

[00:42:18] and their hardships and their struggles. I'm still going to meet them and that's where the affirmations start to be believed. I think it's interesting that you use the plural and most of us are used to using the I and me. Yeah. I mean, that's just something you've learned along the way because we all think of ourselves as the whole being and I guess we don't go to the different parts. Exactly. Yeah. It's the practice of parts and when I started to learn it, which was through that book by Janina Fisher originally and then I developed my own method

[00:42:48] of parts work, which is what I now teach my clients. But in the beginning, it's kind of like learning a new language, right? It's a little stumbly. It's a little awkward. You don't know if you're doing it right. It feels very unnatural, but then you kind of pick it up and then instead of saying like, wow, I'm really mad right now. I'm so mad at that person. It's deep breath. A part of me is feeling really mad. Is it maybe because the experience with that person made that part of me feel a little disrespected in the moment? Okay. Yeah. That's the root of the anger. Now we can address the root of the anger

[00:43:17] instead of reacting to the anger. Yeah, that's very interesting. You brought up something else a little bit ago and that was that little nagging voice that we all have or voices. Where does that come from and does the work you do help that go away or maybe suppress a little bit? Yeah, absolutely. The nagging voice, the inner critic, the overthinking, the intrusive thoughts, those are usually the protector parts. The protector parts have this very, very important job

[00:43:46] of bridging worlds between the adult self and the inner child or the kind of externalized present self and the internalized self that is built on your lifetime of experiences starting in early childhood. And so when there's a disruption in that connection, that's where the protector parts get a little hyperactive or have some unhealthy habits or patterns which can come through as coping mechanisms or intense emotions or those unwanted

[00:44:16] thought patterns. And so those are the protector parts being like, I am having a hard time having this healthy bridge between the adult self and the inner child. And so even though it's stemming from the protector parts, it's because of the inner child's unmet needs and the adult self not having full connection with those deeper parts of the body. And so that's why working from the mind usually doesn't heal or change the thoughts, right? If you're like, well, there's a thought in my mind I want to change, you do all this work from the mind through talk therapy

[00:44:46] or mindset or affirmations or whatever it is you're working from the mind. You're like, it just keeps resurfacing. It keeps coming back. And that's because it hasn't gotten to the root cause. The root cause is the unmet emotional needs and the unprocessed sensations stored deep in the body. And that's where that deeper parts work, somatic practices and especially mirror journeys really become transformational. So if we have that negative voice that's telling us that we still have healing to do, I'm taking it. Yes, absolutely. And it's a journey

[00:45:15] of that reconnection we were talking about, right? And so I think that can be kind of relieving though because it's not like, oh, I have this horrible, destructive voice in my head that needs to be slayed, right? It's not like we got to get rid of this annoying, awful voice in our head. It's okay. There's a part of me that feels separate from love and I have the opportunity to reconnect that part of me with love. What a great journey. What a great opportunity to reclaim my power. And I think that radical reframe

[00:45:45] is much more appealing than, oh crap, I have more healing to do. Where's the trauma? Because that's where my brain went. Oh crap, I got more healing to do. Yep, exactly. But I think when it can be an invitation, an invitation into our power, an invitation into deeper presence, an invitation into greater self-love, an invitation to activating more authenticity, creativity, embodiment, and that of course

[00:46:15] leads to more bliss, peace, joy, love, wholeness, empowered freedom. That is a vision that can pull us towards it so we don't have push ourselves towards some goal of like, okay, I got to change this thing I don't like. It's this appealing vision, something that is desired that's so delicious it can pull us towards it. And that makes the journey filled with a lot more ease, a lot more inspiration. It's like, oh yay, I can't wait to show up

[00:46:44] for my healing today instead of, oh man, it's healing again. It never ends. I think it's also a testament to how magnificent the body-mind-spirit connection is that your body is actually trying to tell you things and many times, you know, whether it's health symptoms or the voice or whatever, we ignore what it's telling us and that's how we get into more trouble, I think. Yes, that is truth well spoken and I think if we can reach that radical reframe,

[00:47:14] reach that deeper awareness of my body is trying to tell me something, this is not a fluke, it's not something wrong with me, it's not some glitch in my system, this is the body's wisdom coming through as a cry for help and that help can always be traced back to reconnecting with love and when we simplify it like that, it makes it much much more approachable instead of like, oh, like I gotta dig into my brain and my body and my past and find what's wrong

[00:47:44] and rewire it and it's like, just take a step back and say, if you can be connected with your breath, with your body, with your being, if you can help parts of you feel the love that they are craving to experience by meeting those needs from within, you are already on the path of healing and your healing is inevitable. That's awesome. So if someone's listening and they're overwhelmed or they're experiencing some of the things we've talked about, what would you say their first step should be? The first step

[00:48:13] is always, I think, to have a daily practice of breath work that combines with meditation and you can do this either outside in nature or inside while eye gazing in a mirror and that's a great foundational place to start when you can practice that conscious breathing, it helps regulate the nervous system, it helps reduce the intensities and it can help give your mind more clarity to take a next step because any next step might be overwhelming

[00:48:43] if your breathing is dysregulated, for example. So I think that's always a really, really good place to start and if you want something a little bit more than just breathing and meditating, you can try my free 20-minute guided mirror practice would be a fun place to start as well. That's awesome. Thank you. And so I want you to take a few minutes and talk about your practice and how you help clients, if you would. Yeah, thank you so much. So with my business, I primarily work with people through my one-on-one healed and whole mentorship

[00:49:13] and that looks like weekly sessions and daily practices. The first step is to treasure map the inner world and so I have what's called a body-mind-soul treasure map and it explores these five layers of the inner world and all of the parts of the adult self, the inner child and the protector parts and it's a way to understand the root cause so we're not just addressing surface symptoms and we do not need to dig into the past to revisit traumas for healing and then based on that deeper

[00:49:42] awareness of what's happening with all the different parts of the inner self, the inner soul family, then I lead clients to create daily practices that really heal and rewire it at the root cause. I mentioned just a couple examples but using the voice, using body movement, using eye gazing and mirror with very specific step-by-step practices helps to rewire the brain and heal the body while reconnecting all of those parts of self with wholeness and the ultimate goal is to build that conscious relationship

[00:50:12] internally with each individual part and how they are within their own unique self and really meet those unmet emotional needs so you actually feel love inside of your body. Feeling love inside of your body is the most powerfully healing and regulating energy you can ever experience and that's how I was able to create so much healing in a relatively short period of time when there was so many complicated things happening and so yeah my one-on-one mentorship weekly sessions daily practices you get to understand every

[00:50:42] layer every part of the inner world and the important thing is I teach people to become their own healers so I'm not just facilitating sessions but I'm really teaching all of the tools needed so people have the power from within to create those shifts in their daily life. That's pretty amazing and I have to say it's been fascinating talking to you today I want to be respectful of your time but it's been awesome. Yeah I really enjoyed it it's such a joy and pleasure. So if people are listening and they say wow I love Kristen I

[00:51:12] want to follow her connect her are you on social media can they connect to you or reach out to you in some way? Yes so you can give me a follow on Instagram shoot me a message be like hey I heard you on the podcast great to connect with you and then I have my website which shares all about my offerings and my primary thing is my one-on-one mentorship I have custom packages to make sure it's a perfect fit for each individual person that comes into my world and then I also have a couple courses and some other things as well and yeah lots of free goodies as well so you

[00:51:41] can explore my Instagram and my website and find some magic to support the healing journey. awesome and I'll definitely put the links in the show notes for people so but I want to thank you today like I said it's been fascinating and I've really enjoyed it so thank you for sharing my yeah I enjoyed it as well thank you for being an amazing hostess and it's been such a pleasure. thank you. Thanks so much have a great rest of your day. You too. Bye-bye. As we wrap up today's episode I just want to say that the conversation with Kristen was

[00:52:10] absolutely fascinating and what really stood out to me is the idea that healing may not be about endlessly revisiting the pain but instead learning how to reconnect with ourselves in a completely different way. I think so many people are walking around carrying things in their bodies their nervous systems and their minds without even realizing how deeply connected it all is and whether you agree with every perspective shared today or not I think there's something powerful in the reminder that healing isn't always linear and

[00:52:39] that sometimes the answers we're searching for start with learning how to listen to ourselves differently. Kristen's story is honestly incredible from surviving unimaginable trauma and years of debilitating health struggles to finding a way to rebuild her life from the inside out and if this episode resonated with you in some way please make sure you share it with someone who needs to hear it today and if you'd like to connect with Kristen explore her work or try some of her free resources that she mentioned during the podcast

[00:53:09] all of her links will be in the show notes as always I thank you for spending your time with us here on the beauty in the mess and remember even in the hardest seasons of life healing growth and hope are still possible as always I hope this episode helps at least one person and with that I hope you have a blessed week my friend thank you for listening to the beauty in the mess if you enjoyed what you heard please share it with a friend

[00:53:38] and if you haven't already please subscribe rate and review this podcast on your favorite pod player if you have any questions or comments any topic ideas you would like to hear about or you think you would be a great guest on the show you can reach me directly at the beauty in the mess dot com thanks for listening