{ "version": "1.0.0", "segments": [ { "speaker": "Speaker 1", "startTime": "12.075", "endTime": "41.415", "body": "Welcome to System Speak, a podcast about Complex Trauma and Dissociation. It's our story, our learning, and the ideas we've been working with as they've unfolded over time. Earlier episodes give context for where we are now, and current episodes may engage more advanced material, harder content, or reference earlier conversations. A few things to remember as you listen. The podcast is education, reflection, and storytelling." }, { "speaker": "Speaker 1", "startTime": "41.495003", "endTime": "65.869995", "body": "It's not therapy, and listening doesn't create a relationship. Although I am a therapist, I am not in that role here, and nothing that I share is individualized clinical advice. Every system, every internal world, all of your own stories are all different and you take up your own shape. What we share about ours won't translate directly to yours. It isn't meant to." }, { "speaker": "Speaker 1", "startTime": "66.065", "endTime": "75.345", "body": "We're all different, and all of our stories matter. As always, take care of yourself during and after listening, and we are so glad you're here." }, { "speaker": "Speaker 2", "startTime": "83.0", "endTime": "119.36", "body": "We have emails today. This one says, we are the coleslaw system. We have been having a hard time since our mom died and are now unhoused and facing many health issues, but are still fighting hard to get back on our feet. We live in our car with our elderly pup, but we did recently start working at a peer support and respite center where we grew up. We are working towards obtaining peer support certification right now and hope to eventually become certified as a death doula and spiritual mentor someday as well." }, { "speaker": "Speaker 2", "startTime": "119.76", "endTime": "156.45999", "body": "We discovered or came out or found out about our own plurality in 2023, a couple of months after our mom died, and almost immediately bought your workbook and perspectives textbook. Your workbook has been so incredibly helpful to us, and we are so grateful for the perspectives textbook as well. We are writing to inquire about how to obtain digital copies of your books in any format. We would like to purchase your latest book as well as a digital copy of the perspectives book if it's possible. I did see on the website that you donate books sometimes." }, { "speaker": "Speaker 2", "startTime": "156.45999", "endTime": "177.25", "body": "How would I apply to become eligible to receive a donated copy? They said, I'm very tight on funds, but your work has been so helpful to us in the past, and we're excited to read Mapping Mirrors. We expect it to be just as eye opening as the others. Thank you for all the work you do and for your podcast. We have found so much help and healing through your vulnerability and willingness to share your journey." }, { "speaker": "Speaker 2", "startTime": "177.25", "endTime": "195.70502", "body": "Many blessings to you. That's a great question. We have not yet made digital copies available at this time. And if you are wanting a copy of the book and are unable to pay for it, you do not have to apply or justify. You just need to let us know when we send it to you." }, { "speaker": "Speaker 2", "startTime": "196.02501", "endTime": "218.04501", "body": "Thank you so much for asking. This one comes from a therapist that says, my client has discovered your podcast and is loving it. I just wanted to thank you for being who you are. That's so sweet. Thank you for telling me." }, { "speaker": "Speaker 2", "startTime": "218.52501", "endTime": "238.45", "body": "I'm really glad it's been helpful. Spruce says, hello. I've been listening to your podcast for years. I stopped for a long time, but I've started listening again. I meant to listen all the way up to current episodes before I sent in my message, but I just heard one of Emma's episodes and really wanted to write to you all right now." }, { "speaker": "Speaker 2", "startTime": "239.65", "endTime": "260.045", "body": "I want to thank you all for all your work and sharing, even just the episodes that I have heard. I don't have DID, but listening to the podcast has always been really good for me and inspiring and helpful. Thank you all. And, also, thank you especially to Emma. I just heard your episode on cycles of anxiety from back of July 2019." }, { "speaker": "Speaker 2", "startTime": "260.72", "endTime": "295.94", "body": "I was so moved and inspired as you spoke about doing things afraid and how you recently made a friend and how that felt so good and genuine and even spiritual. It meant so much to me to hear that episode in particular because I have been realizing how much anxiety I live with and have lived with every day. Hearing about how you did the brave thing and let yourself be strong and vulnerable enough to share something of your story enough to become friends with someone was so huge for me. I want to thank you for being you and for being so brave and awesome. And I have hundreds more episodes left to listen to." }, { "speaker": "Speaker 2", "startTime": "295.94", "endTime": "320.82", "body": "I know you and the rest of your system have surely been through so much in more recent years and that you have all grown and learned together even more. And I admire and believe in you all. It has been a lot in recent years. And this year, we have not even shared very much personally. We've done some collaborating and some reclaiming and some different pacing with episodes just once a week." }, { "speaker": "Speaker 2", "startTime": "321.3", "endTime": "336.73502", "body": "And all of that is about to change again. They said, thank you for being in the world, all of you. Thank you for sharing something of your lives and experiences so that we on the outside can learn together from you too. I'm so glad you shared. Thank you for sharing." }, { "speaker": "Speaker 2", "startTime": "337.295", "endTime": "356.55002", "body": "I think we all learn from each other, and I really appreciated your email. Thank you for your support. Terry says, thank you for System Speak over these years and also your books. We are all me in there. Some are tired, but they have to wake up and play." }, { "speaker": "Speaker 2", "startTime": "356.87", "endTime": "398.435", "body": "Other responsible career parts just have to retire for the same reason. I so appreciate you, Teri, and thank you for your email and encouragement. Terry also said, I look forward to hearing her voice again, meaning the English teacher who is now the grief teacher. Another human being who continues to be good and trustworthy constant in life is what defines friend. In grief, we cannot be alone with our grief." }, { "speaker": "Speaker 2", "startTime": "398.675", "endTime": "427.315", "body": "We must not run away from our friends even if they are not the cure. They are part of the solution, I think. Thank you for your new podcast episode, Emma, Terry. Thank you so much for the encouragement, Terry. This email says, I was previously in the community but left when things got scripted." }, { "speaker": "Speaker 2", "startTime": "427.72998", "endTime": "443.785", "body": "It didn't match my needs, and it was too hard for me. Is there any update on that process? I would like to know before coming back. Yeah. The reason for this script was because there was a certain pattern happening that felt unsafe." }, { "speaker": "Speaker 2", "startTime": "444.345", "endTime": "476.745", "body": "And I think that the scripts were an overcorrection of that, and I'm really sorry about that. But the people that were really struggling with the purpose of the groups and the intent of the groups are no longer in the community. So there has not been any reason to have any script with the groups other than the recovery group, which as part of recovery culture has its own script. But no, there are no scripts in the other Zooms anymore. We've not needed that, which I really appreciate." }, { "speaker": "Speaker 2", "startTime": "477.065", "endTime": "531.23", "body": "I also have really enjoyed the community differently. There's been a lot of maturing and a lot of growth this year. And the courage and the vulnerability of the people who have really done the work to show up for themselves and each other while also holding space for health of the community and doing the work that that requires individually outside of the community, it has been such a powerful experience. And I'm so, so grateful. And speaking of that, this other email from Anne says, in the mirrors online Substack, there's a subtopic called self soothe before you share." }, { "speaker": "Speaker 2", "startTime": "531.835", "endTime": "571.055", "body": "I'm wondering how to tease out someone regulating for you, co regulating with someone, and attunement. That's an amazing question and really important for any kind of group work, even when it is just peer consultation, peer support, or therapy. And obviously, the systems speak community is not therapy. But in any kind of group dynamics, this can be really important. So how I would answer this is that attunement is your emotional needs being noticed, reflected, and met." }, { "speaker": "Speaker 2", "startTime": "571.53503", "endTime": "583.73004", "body": "So this is not problem solving. This is not fixing. This is not rescuing. This is not anything from those drama triangles. This is not weaponizing capacity against you." }, { "speaker": "Speaker 2", "startTime": "584.05005", "endTime": "639.02997", "body": "There is nothing about power over or doing for or doing to because it is consensual, so it is a doing with. And those dynamics are really important. But in that context, attunement is about your emotional needs being noticed, reflected, and met. So in the example of or the context of the community, we experience attunement with each other when we are holding space for another person who is learning to be seen, and we see them in the struggle, which is different than adding to the struggle or rescuing them to pull them out of the struggle. It is their struggle, and they do that work in therapy." }, { "speaker": "Speaker 2", "startTime": "639.35", "endTime": "727.79", "body": "But in community, we do not have to be alone in our struggles. For someone regulating for you, that would be either a caregiver or a provider like a therapist when it is younger parts, or memory time parts, or in actual literal childhood. Because that's what caregivers are for, is to help regulate before our brains and bodies know how to do that. Now, when we had trauma and deprivation growing up, then it means part of what happens in adulthood is that we do not yet know or have capacity to do that for ourselves and our own systems, which is why we need therapy to help us gain some of those skills that we were really robbed of or violated of or deprived of growing up when we did not get attuned experiences. That being said, it can also be unhealthy outside of the context of an actual caregiver or an actual provider when someone is doing for you what we need to learn to do for ourselves." }, { "speaker": "Speaker 2", "startTime": "728.795", "endTime": "759.81506", "body": "So that is what in recovery language we talk about enabling. Co regulating is that I am tending to myself and my nervous system, and you are also tending to yourself and your nervous system. And so together, our interactions are more regulated. So nothing is getting weaponized against each other. Nothing is we're not being rescued from anything." }, { "speaker": "Speaker 2", "startTime": "763.015", "endTime": "795.375", "body": "The safety and space for things like even compassion for the struggle is held for both myself and yourself. So there's not an othering. So even in our tone, it is a connected tone because we are connected to ourselves and congruent to ourselves. So there's a parallel play that is happening, almost like a dance where we are both breathing. We are both grounded." }, { "speaker": "Speaker 2", "startTime": "795.375", "endTime": "860.45", "body": "We are both regulated prior to interacting with each other or connecting with each other, and then throughout that interaction. So I don't mean to say that that's easy, because, of course, any of us with complex trauma did not learn that growing up. And also, it is something we must learn to have healthy relationships. If we bring dysregulation to our interactions, the interactions will be dysregulated. If we bring regulated self and body to our interactions or pause the interaction so that we can go take the time and space to get regulated first, then our interactions can be healthy." }, { "speaker": "Speaker 2", "startTime": "862.455", "endTime": "902.34", "body": "It's all taking practice, but all of it is part of safety. So, yes, what really happens is this thing where, yes, connection brings healing, and also healing brings connection. Does that make sense? We can circle back to it more if you would like. We got this question." }, { "speaker": "Speaker 2", "startTime": "902.34", "endTime": "922.605", "body": "In the system inclusion back online episode, I heard the term blendy about something related to interactions internally and wondered whether that is distinct from co consciousness. Blending reminds me of IFS language. I'm not sure whether that was intended. I'm seeking clarification. Thank you." }, { "speaker": "Speaker 2", "startTime": "922.765", "endTime": "947.385", "body": "That is a great question, and it makes lots of sense. I did not mean it anything IFS at all. If you're going to use IFS in that way, then you could apply IFS to a single part that has those patterns within them. But then also all the other parts have those patterns within them. So what they say by part and what we say by part are not the same thing." }, { "speaker": "Speaker 2", "startTime": "947.945", "endTime": "1019.91003", "body": "And the blending that I was Blendy is not the same as IFS blending. When I said blendy, I meant something that could be similar to co conscious and also is something different and more, where it's almost like if co consciousness is sharing awareness, this what I meant by blendy was more like too many people trying to get through the door at the same time, but not necessarily aware of what the others are holding. So not yet co consciousness, but some co experiencing maybe. And I know those are some fine lines, and may really only be specific to us and not to other systems. This one says, infanticidal plus suicidal plus connection and healing and hope plus therapy equals life." }, { "speaker": "Speaker 2", "startTime": "1021.19", "endTime": "1058.235", "body": "This episode is now my very favorite above the rest due to the singular impact this information adds to my healing process. Thank you, Emmas, for making this recording available to us while you prepared to make this presentation. Having access to this material as a recording allows me to pace myself by taking breaks while listening. That is one of the most helpful aspects of connecting with this through a podcast. Whereas other conversations in the community about these topics help me immensely, this episode allowed me to send the information directly to my therapist in order to ask them to help me process it." }, { "speaker": "Speaker 2", "startTime": "1058.875", "endTime": "1097.825", "body": "I think good enough therapy for DID, and since getting therapy for therapy trauma and getting an accurate diagnosis saved my life. This episode adds the detail to describe what I need to describe and understand, so that my therapist and I can address these exact topics together. Maybe other clients like me and our therapist connect with this information without the words that add this specific understanding. I think I am uniquely lucky to have access to this information, though, since words and understanding add so much value to my healing journey. There is more hope for healing than I believed was possible for me." }, { "speaker": "Speaker 2", "startTime": "1099.31", "endTime": "1117.7151", "body": "Oh my goodness. I don't even have words to add to that. Thank you so much. This one says, I listened to Right to Run this week. It is such a I don't even know what word to use." }, { "speaker": "Speaker 2", "startTime": "1117.7151", "endTime": "1177.625", "body": "They all feel clumsy, brave, vulnerable, fierce episode. I'm so grateful to Emma's for recording it. I was and still am being powerfully impacted by it. It's like it opened up a dimension in me that was always there, even at times talked about, but never understood, respected, or truly seen for what they've done for all of us inside. Emma's in this episode gave me the template by using all of history she has shared of her insiders and their roles after years of hearing John Mark cheering him on, laughing with him, weeping for him, his longing for good things like salsa, his grief over losing the first therapist, respecting his tireless bravery on behalf of others, I will never forget him stepping forward to get Emma's to her first Healing Together conference when others inside were overwhelmed, finally hearing that he was there because of deprivation, to survive deprivation." }, { "speaker": "Speaker 2", "startTime": "1178.5701", "endTime": "1195.7849", "body": "Oh my goodness. I don't even know how I read that without crying. Tears are pouring down my face, and my voice just kept going. They said I was then able to let that question float into my own system just like a puff of a cloud. Who of yous did that for us?" }, { "speaker": "Speaker 2", "startTime": "1196.185", "endTime": "1227.595", "body": "And the answer was immediate. And for the first time, we could feel gratitude and compassion for a part who at times has felt like they have made our life deliberately difficult. I don't know if I could have let the internal question be gentle and compassionate without the example provided through tears in this episode. Thank you for that gift, Emma. Know the consequences of running at 17 are huge, lifelong, and continue to reach out to you in harmful ways, but I'm so glad you did." }, { "speaker": "Speaker 2", "startTime": "1229.3551", "endTime": "1245.0", "body": "Oh my goodness. Oh my goodness. I just have to let that be. This one says, just listening to Cherries and Kiwi, and I wanna take a hot second to say a few things. First, wow." }, { "speaker": "Speaker 2", "startTime": "1245.0", "endTime": "1274.8699", "body": "Thanks for sharing the rare skill of containing so many of the hard complex things inside concepts and narratives that are so clear and accessible. Two, wow, you can't access what's going on inside unless your body is nutritiously fed and slept and had its movement. And third, wow, even those excellent necessary things can't replace checking in with an internal check-in group. They're not add ons. They're prerequisites to internal communication." }, { "speaker": "Speaker 2", "startTime": "1275.59", "endTime": "1291.6749", "body": "And four, wow, the necessity and work of practicing intentionally for learning and experiencing and enacting care. It's all so helpful. Oh my goodness. I'm just glad these episodes made any sense. I'm so glad it's been helpful." }, { "speaker": "Speaker 2", "startTime": "1299.13", "endTime": "1311.815", "body": "This email says, could we have an update on Nathan? That's really funny. I could let him update for himself, but I'll just say that he's doing great. He had his surgery. It was successful." }, { "speaker": "Speaker 2", "startTime": "1312.135", "endTime": "1351.245", "body": "The surgery got what it needed to get of the tumors, and so he is continuing to recover from that, and he's feeling so much better since. So that is great. This one says, MS Substack post today on Juneteenth hit us with a lot of power. How the news of being free, long delayed in reaching the bodies that needed it, resonates beyond its historical moment in profound ways for trauma survivors. How it was explained, somehow even my body heard it." }, { "speaker": "Speaker 2", "startTime": "1352.21", "endTime": "1368.9249", "body": "Oh my goodness. I'm so glad. I so appreciate you all. I appreciate your ongoing support. I appreciate you all still caring for yourselves, showing up for each other, and continuing to build health in our community." }, { "speaker": "Speaker 2", "startTime": "1370.4451", "endTime": "1375.7251", "body": "I'm so, so grateful for the safety that brings for all of us. Thank you for sharing." }, { "speaker": "Speaker 1", "startTime": "1399.875", "endTime": "1422.035", "body": "Thank you so much for listening to us and for all of your support for the podcast, our books, and them being donated to survivors and the community. It means so much to us as we try to create something that's never been done before, not like this. Connection brings healing, and healing brings hope." } ] }