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In today’s episode, Kandace and Sher have the privilege of interviewing three women who are on a mission to help other women heal from childhood trauma, and current-day trauma. Understanding differentiation will be helpful in accessing the health of your most intimate relationships. Listen in to this insightful conversation from women who are healing from the effects of childhood trauma.
If you have a chance, please rate and review this podcast on your preferred streaming service. Your feedback is extremely valuable and contributes to the success of this podcast.
Email: kandacesher at gmail dot com
TikTok: @processingtraumaoutloud
Facebook: /processingtraumaoutloud
Instagram: processingtraumaoutloud
Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCdXcQkR0sd2f9c8Lo_c_3Og
Sound Engineer: Jeremiah Jones, Audistory, LLC | https://www.facebook.com/YourAudistory/
#trauma #healing #podcast #ptsd #cptsd #differentiation
★ Support this podcast ★
If you have a chance, please rate and review this podcast on your preferred streaming service. Your feedback is extremely valuable and contributes to the success of this podcast.
Email: kandacesher at gmail dot com
TikTok: @processingtraumaoutloud
Facebook: /processingtraumaoutloud
Instagram: processingtraumaoutloud
Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCdXcQkR0sd2f9c8Lo_c_3Og
Sound Engineer: Jeremiah Jones, Audistory, LLC | https://www.facebook.com/YourAudistory/
#trauma #healing #podcast #ptsd #cptsd #differentiation
Creators & Guests
Host
Kandace Rather
Kandace is a woman who courageously and cautiously goes into the depths of healing childhood trauma with those who are ready. She knows the unfortunate experience of being retraumatized in a therapeutic setting, and therefore, seeks to offer a deeply kind and safe space for others to heal. Kandace is committed to stay on the path of doing her own healing work and continues to meet with her Story Work Coach. It’s from this space she invites others to the wonder of living a beautifully compassionate life towards self and others. As you join in to listen to Sher and Kandace process trauma outloud, may it spark your own curiosity on what having a kind witness to your stories of harm can mean for your own healing and the healing of those you love. B.A. in Psychology from Pittsburg State University Certified Traumatic Grief & Loss Care Provider (The MISS Foundation) Apprenticeship in Narrative-Focused Counseling (Twelve Stones Indiana) Completion of Narrative Focused Trauma Care (The Allender Center)
Host
Sher Nyquist
About Our Podcast Sher is a woman committed to an ongoing journey of processing childhood trauma for herself and those she works with, to experience real healing and freedom. She carries her own stories of abuse, emotional abandonment, and harm to her body, soul and spirit. She knows the effects of shame and contempt which silenced her voice and kept her stuck in insecurity, fear and feelings of unworthiness. Understanding how to process trauma has brought healing and freedom for Sher, and for those she works with to heal their deep wounds. She invites you to join her and Kandace, experience your breakthrough aha insights and embrace your beauty and joy as you journey further into your own healing. Completion of Narrative Focused Trauma Care (The Allender Center) Certified Transformational Life and Business Coach (ICF) Certified EFT Tapping Practitioner (IMU)
What is Processing Trauma Out Loud?
Conversations about trauma and healing from two women who are doing the work.
The scars of childhood trauma don’t fade away. The roots go deep. This trauma can wrap tentacles around every aspect of life, pushing and pulling us according to its will. These stories of harm have been hard wired into our brain. Yet, we don’t see the connection of childhood trauma and current day pain because it has been with us as far back as we can recall. We don’t realize this trauma is the source of our struggle to feel peace, joy, and love. Instead, we live with emptiness, loneliness, anxiety and shame.
The wounds of your trauma can be healed. It’s a process and we hope our podcast can help.
You are listening to Processing Trauma Out Loud, conversations about trauma and healing from 2 women who are doing the work.
Speaker 2:Hey, everyone. This is Candice and Cher with processing trauma out loud. And today, Cher and I have a really special episode. Actually, we're gonna have 3 episodes with some women that Cher and I have just come to know and love, not just just through our shared journeys of doing story work and healing from childhood trauma. But more recently, share and I got to hear a webinar that these three ladies hosted.
Speaker 2:And we were both just really taken back by the conversation, the specific topics that they addressed, and we knew we wanted to bring it to our listeners share. And so today, I'm just gonna have each one of these ladies introduce themselves, and then I'll go ahead and say this, that this topic that we are going to be addressing today is the topic of differentiation. What it is, what it means, what it looks like, how's how does that play out, you know, even what that looks like developmentally. Yeah. We'll just get started, and I'm gonna go ahead and have each one of you introduce yourself and kinda let people know who you are.
Speaker 2:So I'll just start out with if it's okay, I'm gonna call out on my story work coach, Patria.
Speaker 3:Hi. Just so good to be here. Delighted to see everybody and to be a part of this. Yes. I as Candace said, I'm a story work coach.
Speaker 3:I've been doing this work, this the Allender theory story coaching for, I don't know, 8, 9 years, something like that. And my my background professionally though is clinical nursing, and I did nursing for about 15 plus years. I haven't added them at all together, but really was able to transition to the mental wellness side, and and including recovery from trauma in just some really meaningful ways. So that's what I do full time now. This practice, The Broken and Beautiful, and contract with these two lovely ladies along with some other people that do story work, spiritual direction.
Speaker 3:Janet has introduced herself, but we also have licensed mental health care. And so we just get to work really hard together, but also do some play together. And it's just a real gift to be a part of this team. So
Speaker 2:a little bit about me. Yeah. Thank you, Betriya. Janet, do you wanna go next?
Speaker 4:Sure. I'm Janet. I have been a licensed mental health counselor for the past 3 or 4 years, but have really been working in this field for a couple decades in higher education and in a church setting where I didn't need my license. So I have been in private practice for about 4 years now. And I work primarily with, or my specialty training area is in betrayal trauma.
Speaker 4:So I work a lot with women whose husbands have addictions to pornography affairs, that type of thing. So dealing with a lot of that trauma that's happening right now, but then also it's often touching on trauma that they've had in their past and their childhood. So I do talk a lot about differentiation in my work with my clients.
Speaker 2:Thank you, Janet. Rubina, do you wanna introduce yourself now?
Speaker 5:Sure. My name is Rubina Parker, and I am also a story work coach. I am new to story work, but I've been dealing in the trauma area for a few years now. I'm also trained in trauma healing as an advanced facilitator through the Trauma Healing Institute. And then, of course, I have the certified story work training and also somatic practices, also certified in somatic IFS level 2, and narcissistic abuse recovery.
Speaker 5:I am also a survivor of emotional and psychological abuse, intimate partner. So now I use my lived experiences and my training to help other women just get an understanding of what's going on in the relationship and steps that they can take to bring forth the hope, empowerment, and restoration to themselves.
Speaker 2:Thank you. That I just listening to all of you and then you kinda sharing a little bit of what I I'm excited to hear more, but I'm just I'm realizing, like, we have a gold mine right here of just experience and wisdom and knowledge. And I wanna just thank you so much, each one of you, for taking the time to share over these next few episodes. So, Cher, do you kinda wanna kick us off here with maybe some questions?
Speaker 6:Yes. We heard the webinar several weeks ago that you all did, and you were kind of bringing your voices forward in response to a community wide situation that had taken place. But the the webinar that you did was really on looking at the contrast of what is a healthy relationship versus an unhealthy relationship. And the things that you talked about I felt were just so important and meaningful. And I think a lot of times we just take we take for granted that we all know what a healthy relationship.
Speaker 6:We all know what an unhealthy relationship is, but I think sometimes we can be in an unhealthy relationship and not even know it. So I wonder if we could just take a couple of minutes and talk first about what are some of the hallmarks of a healthy relationship and then what are some of the hallmarks of an unhealthy relationship. And just feel free to to talk and, you know, pass the baton back and forth and let it be conversational and free flowing, but yeah. So yeah. What are you what are your thoughts on those?
Speaker 3:I have so many thoughts on that. Yeah. Go ahead, Janet. I can feel you thinking.
Speaker 4:Yeah. Yeah. Such a good question, and and I liked what you said, Cher, about how so often we just we think we know what it is, or we think our relationship is fine until all of a sudden we realize it's not. And I think being in a relationship where we are seen, where we're respected, where our voice is heard, where we feel connected, where we feel like we have the freedom to have our own opinions and our own preferences, that we're not being controlled, that we're accepted for who we are, even if we're different from the other person and our beliefs and our preferences, likes, dislikes are different, that we can show up as our whole self, and that's okay, and that's welcomed. So that's just a few thoughts off the top of my head when I think about it.
Speaker 3:I would add to that, all of that. I completely agree. And that that disagreements can be hard, and sometimes even really hard, but they don't cost, you know, I don't have to give up part of myself for peace to come back. I don't have to compromise something of myself for that relationship to stay secure and welcoming of myself even in the disagreement. I would say that's a a big part of healthy, help healthy relationships.
Speaker 5:Yeah. I like that you used the term, you don't have to compromise yourself, Patria, because I think that compromise is, like, something that people say is expected in a relationship. But I am asking the question now, why can't we collaborate instead of compromise? Because compromise means someone's going to have to give something up. Collaboration means let's find a way together that we both get what we want in this relationship.
Speaker 5:So I am now a believer in collaboration over compromise, because we are both looking at each other's wants, needs, and trying to help each other get there. And we're doing it together. So for me now, that's a big deal when it comes to having a healthy relationship. Because then I know this person has my best interest at heart, and that when I do come to this person, my partner with something, I'm not walking on eggshells. I'm not afraid of what the response would be, because I know that if I come to my partner, then I know we're gonna work it out as a collaboration and that, no, I have to give something up again.
Speaker 2:Well and and, Rubina, that makes me think we're not talking here about, are we gonna go eat Mexican or Italian? Right? Right.
Speaker 3:Right.
Speaker 2:And and and so the these are issues what what she I don't believe what she's saying is that there aren't times like, okay. Well, we'll have Mexican this Friday night for our date, and we'll go to Italian because we both like different things. The issues that we're discussing here are those issues where the compromise means that you you are betraying yourself on what you know is good and right and true for you. It would that be is that
Speaker 5:Yes. Yes. That's it exactly. That you don't have to give up a part of yourself in order to be in this relationship. You don't have to abandon yourself in order to be in this relationship.
Speaker 3:It feels like a good segue to what's unhealthy face right there where, like, I can like like Candice and Sabrina are saying, I can compromise. I can say like, I think Janet says in the webinar, she gives this example of I can choose to go to where you want for your birthday because I love you, and I might hate the place that you choose to go for your birthday, but that's different than asking me to do things or be ways that go against my value system or against who what feels right inside my soul. That's a very different thing.
Speaker 2:That's a great segue into when we're looking at an unhealthy relationship, how does what does differentiation look like in in that when we're starting to swim into something moving away from health?
Speaker 5:One of the things I would say is if you feel like you are always the one making the sacrifice, if you feel like you're in a one-sided relationship and sometimes that happens because a person may think, well, if I give this, then my partner will give that. But then the partner never does give that. So you're constantly being the one to give because you're trying to make the relationship work. And while you're doing that, it's it's chipping away at you because your needs are never getting met. Unmet needs are huge to me.
Speaker 5:And if you are constantly pouring out and pouring out and pouring out, your pitcher is going to get dry if someone's not pouring back into you. That is definitely not what you want to be to you should be able to differentiate that you get what you want sometimes too. It should not be a one-sided relationship.
Speaker 4:When we think about differentiation, I often will like on my whiteboard I'll draw circles, but here just imagine 2 circles. So with differentiation, we have the 2 people, their 2 circles, where we sometimes will move closer or further apart within a realm here, when we're getting into unhealthy places is when we're way far apart, which would be really detached and maybe cut off from people, and we don't have any contact. And that would be an extreme. And another extreme would be if we're enmeshed, or sometimes people talk about codependent, you know, where it's just one circle, basically, instead of 2 circles. And so there is some flexibility, there is some movement, like Robina is talking about, or and Patria mentioned too, that we do make some we do make adjustments sometimes, but it's not that we're completely overshadowed by the other person and getting into that place where we don't have a separate identity from the other person.
Speaker 4:We're always thinking about what's gonna be the consequence for me if I say this or if I do this because it doesn't feel safe to do that. I can't have my own opinions. I feel controlled. I don't have freedom.
Speaker 2:Janet, I'm noticing as you're speaking my body starting to feel amped up a little bit, just some low level anxiety. And I'm aware that what you're saying was true for me. You know? As a child, it it's interesting to me that just hearing you talk about that, now that I'm more body aware, I can name that. And so I'm I'm wondering maybe if if one of you wanna talk a little bit about what does it look like for a child to Sharon, I say this all the time.
Speaker 2:There is no perfect parent. It's impossible to be a perfect parent, and that's not even what we're going after. But what is something that looks consistent even if it's, you know, if there's some rupture and repair that a child is not enmeshed or goes into hyper avoidance and independence?
Speaker 6:Well, I like you naming this and I'll I'll give you a second to think about that. I like you naming this because I was I was thinking about the question, what causes us to lean toward the unhealthy? Or what causes us to embrace an unhealthy relationship that we stay in sometimes year after year after year versus recognizing, like, there's something here I don't like and I want something better. And so my thought process as you were speaking was, can we talk about what causes us to become stuck in those unhealthy, you know, relationships? And I think, Candice, you're making the jump.
Speaker 6:Okay. We're taught it from a lot of times we're taught taught it from the very beginning. So I like your question. What what can a parent do to help their child actually learn and experience differentiation? What can that even look like?
Speaker 5:In my childhood, I was the caretaker. I was the oldest girl. So I was the caretaker and everyone in the house knew it. I was gonna take care of everything. I ran the household.
Speaker 5:My mother worked. She was a single parent off and on. But if anything went wrong, it was my fault. So I was the caretaker and the scapegoat of the family. Mhmm.
Speaker 5:That dynamic led me into the marriage I was in. And it wasn't until I was doing story work where it came to the surface where I realized, oh, the story that I brought is feeling like the same way I'm feeling in my marriage. You know, the story of me when I was 9 years old is now connecting to what I'm experiencing in my marriage. And so I think the roles that we play in our childhood, the expectations from our family of origin, that is a huge connector to the type of relationships that we will encounter because it's familiar. Even if it's not something that we consciously want, it's a familiarity that we are accustomed to.
Speaker 5:And in my instance, it didn't look the same. It was vastly different, very in your face in my childhood, very subtle in the marriage. And so sometimes, that's why you can't pick it up because it doesn't look the same, but it's a familiar feeling, and that's what we're drawn to, based on our trauma.
Speaker 2:It it makes me think of some conversations and I have had about that initial when you're starting to wake up, it feels so disruptive. Like, wait a minute. I the with this new information that I'm getting, now I'm having I'm I'm more conscious about the choices that I'm making and why I'm making them. And I think for some people, that's why it's easy to just to go back and stay in the pattern because there's anxiety, at least there was for me, in getting out of the pattern. Once you see, you see.
Speaker 5:Yeah. Once you see, you can't unsee.
Speaker 6:Yeah. And and thank you for sharing that, Rubrina. That, like, I just felt a heartbreak for that 9 year old girl, really. The caretaker and the scapegoat. Wow.
Speaker 6:What a what a heavy, heavy burden.
Speaker 3:And yet I mean, and thank you. I mean, yes, that and yet the nuance that was coming to me too as you were talking, Rubina, is it's all you had. So there is this sense of fulfillment when you can accomplish in a day or a moment or something like that. Like, for me, what was coming to my mind there was to see my dad laugh just meant everything to me. And and that took a lot.
Speaker 3:It just took a lot of watching him and walking on eggshells and being careful and adapting and appeasing. I wanted to put that word out here too, that appeasement. That actually, it gets kind of complicated because it feels good in some ways when you can do that. So getting clarity on this is actually not good for me is sometimes can't happen until adulthood for safety reasons.
Speaker 2:Mhmm.
Speaker 4:Yeah. And I think too, as children, we're doing those things we're we're kind of we're raised in that family system where that's that's normal. So it does feel familiar even if it's not healthy. And I think that's why even sometimes when we see something, it's still kind of we kinda go back and forth for a while too, where we might see something, but it's like, but that's scary. I don't know what that would look like to live that way.
Speaker 4:I'm gonna go back into what feels familiar. And I think we do take those steps. I know that's that was part of my own journey through in different types of situations too with different people of seeing it, but then, oh, that's so much work, you know, to have to break out of this, and going back to what feels comfortable and what feels, in some sense, safe because it's familiar, but it's not the kind of safety that's ultimately healthy for us. So we are trying, I think, as children to to stay safe and to to protect ourselves. And those things work sometimes for us as kids.
Speaker 4:And then as adults, if we're continuing to carry those patterns into our adult relationships, we start realizing, Oh, this is taking too much a toll on me and who I am as a person. I can't keep doing this. I can't keep giving myself up over and over and over for the rest of my life. You know, maybe I could do that to cope, you know, for a number of years in childhood, but that's not sustainable long term.
Speaker 5:I wanna add that, also, as a child, we have imagination. I think you said as a form of escapism, as a form of numbing, and or our favorite TV show that we watch over and over and over again because it's a comfort. And so that's also part of it, the numbing of our feelings and our emotions, not allowing our body to actually feel what's happening because it's too painful, and I'm little, like, what can I do anyway? I don't have power in the situation. And then as you become older, and for instance, for me, I was 55 before I felt my body.
Speaker 5:And once I started feeling my body, I could not go back. Literally, my body was talking to me and feeling like hot on the inside, feeling like prickly needles on the inside. Like, I just couldn't do it. It became unbearable. And so it's the being able to sit in it, in the pain, the confusion, whatever it is, and listen to what your body is saying to you through sensations, through heat, through cold, like just having that ability to sense, notice, and listen, and that is something that can propel you forward.
Speaker 2:What's coming up for me, especially being an 8 on the Enneagram, that I'd like to keep moving and get stuff done, Rubrita, is that my healing began to move forward as I slowed down. Mhmm. And and I, you know, and I know everybody is different in this way, but, like, for, you know, one of my trauma responses was to keep going fast. Right? And and so I know that's different for everyone.
Speaker 5:Mine's the same. Keep going. Stay busy. Don't think.
Speaker 3:I was just gonna add a component to that that mentally, I can keep moving and planning and that sort of numbing through imagination. Although, I would love to talk about the recovery of imagination, but but action, actually moving in action is is cut probably for me particularly what's helped me unfreeze. Because Sabrina's talking about the waking up from freezing. The pins and needles is literally a waking up from freezing. Yeah.
Speaker 3:The freeze response and trauma.
Speaker 6:I wanna ask though one more I wanna go in one more direction before we close this episode, and that is I would like us to talk a little bit about as we are awakening to our bodies and as we are recovering our imagination and as we're starting to realize like, I'm in a relationship and I have a lot of things going on here that don't feel good. We can start to take steps toward healing. We can talk we can start to make steps to see, can we do this relationship in a different kind of a way? One of those steps, and you talked about this on the webinar and that is setting boundaries. Why is setting boundaries what what can that look like, and why is this such an important aspect of a healthy relationship?
Speaker 4:Yeah. As I was reflecting on that question from the email you sent earlier about this, I was just thinking about how similar boundaries are to healthy differentiation. So if we are health if we have healthy differentiation, we have healthy boundaries. Typically, if we've gone over into those overlapping circles, into enmeshment, we're having to pull back out. We're having to define, who am I?
Speaker 4:What's mine to carry? What's my responsibility? What are my feelings? What are my emotions? Not the emotions of the other person that I'm so enmeshed with, and so hyper aware of all the time because I have to be careful of their emotions, so you know, the whole walking on eggshells, so that they're not upset with me or whatever.
Speaker 4:So as we start looking at that, it's looking at, but what am I feeling? What are my emotions? Who am I? What's my responsibility? And I think we have to get support if we're in that really enmeshed, especially if we're in somebody in a relationship with somebody who's angry, abusive, controlling, you know, whether they're physically abusive, verbally, emotionally abusive, whatever that looks like, to expect that we're going to get pushed back when we start to pull back and say, But I really don't wanna do this.
Speaker 4:So I think it's so important to have help, you know, support around us. So whether that's healthy friends that can support us and encourage us and say, yes, you're on the right path, or a coach, a therapist, you know, just a mentor, but somebody. We need to have somebody else because it's too hard to do this work on our own. We really have to have have someone else to be there to be our cheerleader and to help us because it's it's hard to start to say, no, I'm not gonna allow this in this relationship anymore, or I'm going to do this differently. And I think to think about when we're setting boundaries, it's not about controlling the other person or getting them to do anything different.
Speaker 4:It's about looking at myself and what am I willing or unwilling to do anymore. And as a result of that, that will impact the other person, but it's not to control them. It's just I'm saying I'm not I'm not going to do this anymore. I'm not gonna play by these rules anymore, basically. So I think, yeah, my biggest thing is we really need support as we do that.
Speaker 4:We need to have at least one other person that's in our corner.
Speaker 3:I grabbed Judith Herman's book, for this conversation. Her this and Judith Herman is kind of a pioneer of trauma. She's a old school, just really good material, but trauma her book, Trauma and Recovery. In the title the chapter titled reconnection, she talks about learning to fight. And I feel that what Janet is describing involves a lot of this, and she's I'm just gonna read a couple sentences.
Speaker 3:She says, taking power in real life situation often involves a conscious choice to face danger. And it can be emotional danger. It can be psychological danger. It doesn't have to be physical danger, but it can be. It can be that.
Speaker 3:But by this stage of recovery, survivors understand that their post traumatic symptoms, most of us have complex PTSD or PTSD, their post traumatic symptoms represent a pathological exaggeration of normal responses to danger. So that's our responsibility to manage. I'm having an overreaction to the danger in front of me sometimes. And only in the sense, not to say that the danger isn't as big as I think it is, but I am stronger than I think I am. And the other thing that really stood out to me was her she has in quotes, I need to learn to say no matter what I lose, I know I have myself.
Speaker 3:I have myself.
Speaker 2:Thank you. Thank you for sharing that. I I feel like we we can end on that, but it I feel like there's so much there. Mhmm. We can actually come back and maybe start off there a little bit because our next episode, we're going to be looking at trauma bonds, toxic bonds, unhealthy bonds, betrayal bonds.
Speaker 2:They're just bonds that are harming us. Thank you for, yeah, just having this discussion in our first episode and look forward to joining you again.
Speaker 1:Thank you for listening to Processing Trauma Out Loud. Make sure to check out the show notes for links to suggested resources and social media. Like, subscribe, and follow to keep up with our weekly content. And if you don't mind, take a moment to rate and review us. Your feedback is extremely valuable and contributes to the success of this podcast.
Speaker 1:One last thing. If you have found this podcast helpful in any way or if you have questions on how to take the next steps on your healing journey, please reach out to us via email at candacecher@gmail.com. That's k a n dacesher@gmail.com. Our sound engineer is Jeremiah Jones of Auto Story LLC. We welcome you to join us for more conversations soon.
Speaker 1:Take care.