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 (Gentle Music) Hey, Dr. Mindy here, and welcome to the Live Like a Girl podcast, where I bring you icons, disruptors, educators, scientists, and doctors that show you what can be possible when you love and celebrate the female body you are blessed to live in. Let's dive in.

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 70% of us, that's how many people on this planet will live through at least one traumatic event. Most of us, more than three. And women, we are twice as likely as men to carry that trauma as PTSD. Trauma is not rare. Trauma is human. I know, because I'm one of them. When I was in my late 30s, I almost died. I was on a vacation in Cabo snorkeling, when I swam into a pod of Portuguese Manoar, one of the most toxic creatures in the ocean. Their poison surged through me. My throat began to close. My body went into anaphylactic shock, and I survived.

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 But I did not come back the same.

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 My brain rewired itself for hypervigilance, always scanning, always bracing. My body forgot how to relax. And at the time, I was too busy, young kids, booming practice, to heal what happened to me in the water.

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 Then perimenopause arrived, and everything I buried down came roaring back.

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 The hypervigilance got worse. A new OCD brain kicked in. Insomnia became a constant visitor. And rest? Rest became a place I could no longer reach. Searching for answers, I found a book. I think you know this one. "The Body Keeps the Score" by Dr. Bessel van der Kolk.

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 And it taught me something that changed everything about trauma for me.

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 Trauma doesn't just live in our memories, it lives in our bodies. And our female bodies especially remember it. Maybe for you, it's divorce, a diagnosis, a death. Maybe it's a slow drip of chronic stress,

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 or just the news we swallow every single day. Our bodies take it all in. And menopause has a sneaky way of handing it back to us.

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 I've sat with so many women, exhausted, foggy, in pain, struggling to lose weight, who tell me the same thing. I'm doing everything right, and I still feel horrible. Hormone replacement, antidepressants, sleeping pills, and still I am stuck.

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 So if we're going to talk about how to live like a girl, we've gotta go here. We have to talk about trauma, what it is, how we hold it, and how we finally let it go.

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 Which is why I have brought you Dr. Frank Anderson.

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 Dr. Frank is a Harvard trained psychiatrist and trauma therapist who has spent three decades at the intersection of neuroscience and healing.

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 He studied with Dr. Bessel van der Kolk, and trained for years at his trauma center. His own memoir, "To Be Loved," is the story of walking this path in his own life. He's brilliant, he's funny, and he is deeply kind.

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 Somewhere in this conversation, I believe you're gonna find a missing piece of your own health puzzle. And Frank will hand you the tools. Simple, free tools to release what you're carrying and live life on your terms again. Let's dive in.

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 Dr. Frank Anderson, I first have to say welcome to my podcast studio. It's a lovely place to be. It's really wonderful. Yeah, it's great. It's beautiful to be here in the trees. So something really hit me with you. You are a Harvard trained psychiatrist. Right, and that's not what hit me, but there's a lot done back there. It does not leave me. Everybody talks about it, it's crazy. It's really crazy. And you have years of trauma work with patients and you've worked with Bessel. And what I find really, really fascinating is a statement you made that we can fix trauma in the head, but we're still working our trauma out in our body. So before we jump into anything, I really wanna understand what trauma feels like. Like how would I know if I fixed it in my head, my body's still gonna remind me of that trauma. How do I know that? Well, let me, I'll say it a little bit differently because people think they're fixing it in the head. It's more like that. People talk and process, work it through. Even the stages of trauma healing, there are three stages, safety stabilization, process your trauma, rehabilitation and repair. Bessel was part of creating these three pronged approach. It's not accurate, it doesn't work is what we actually end up finding because processing trauma doesn't actually heal trauma. So does that mean talking to a therapist, like head to head? Doesn't work.

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 That kind of blows the lid off the mental health. That's correct, it really does. And that's why Bessel's book, "The Body Keeps the Score" is a game changer because people, and I learned all these modalities for talking through trauma and they don't work. You need to do an experiential piece of work, something that gets in instead of up here. And I was in psychoanalysis five times a week for 11 years. And I knew all about my trauma, but I was still carrying it in my body. And the way people know it is do you still get triggered? If you get triggered, it's still in there. So this is really interesting. I was talking to a friend this morning who had a lot of trauma growing up and I was telling her I was interviewing you. And I had sent her the other interview we were talking about. And she said what she started to realize in her early 20s was she was reacting to things that seemed simple and she couldn't understand why she was having these strong reactions. That's it? That's it? When it's intense, it's yours. Oh, wow. Okay, and it's really true. People think when they have an intense reaction, it's about the jerk and the stupid idiot and the what you did. But anything intense is activating something within you. When it's intense, it's yours. And that's your clue that something isn't resolved, something isn't healed. And I use the word healing even though it's so overused, I have a very specific view. It's like releasing the energy that you absorbed from the trauma. It's an energy release and it's stored in the body. So when you're having an intense reaction, there's probably 10 or 20% that's about something in the here and now. But oftentimes those intense reactions are the majority of the old wound being reactivated. So would it be fair to say, I'm gonna use an example that a lot of women go through. Yes. I walk into a dark parking lot. Yes. And all of a sudden I'm like on high alert. Maybe I've had a situation where I was mugged or raped or attacked. You got it. And there's a mimicking of that experience that your nervous system is like you're not safe. That's right, yeah. That's exactly right. Because, and sometimes it confuses people because, wait a minute, I was in therapy. I thought this was done. Wait a minute, why am I reacting this way? Right. Right, people don't understand. And that's one of the big missions for me is really processing trauma is not really healing trauma. It really isn't. So if that stuff is still in there, trauma gets encoded in what we call implicit memory. It's unconscious. It's kind of, it gets stored in the body. I just was doing a week worth of psychopharmacology and psychobiology of where how trauma memories get stored. They get stored in the amygdala. They get stored in deeper brain areas and within the body. And if it's not rewired and reworked, it's still in there. It's dormant. And it's susceptible to being triggered and it's susceptible to being activated. And that's your clue that it's still in there. Now let me say something else before we move on because what also is true is that trauma is never permanently healed.

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 And that's important for people to know. That's a bummer. Yeah, it isn't a bummer. PTSD, there's no cure for PTSD. There really isn't. However, the good news is I think of it as a spiral. Like you do a piece of work on that date rape in college, for example, and then you elevate energetically because you're not carrying that energy anymore. And you elevate and then you start living life and you're not getting triggered quite in the same way but something else happens in your life 10 years later. And if you've done the prior work,

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 you're reacting at this level, you learn something new, you learn a different dimension. You don't go way back to ground zero. You learn something new, there's a different dimension then you elevate again and then you elevate again. So trauma can get reactivated but when you do the work of healing, it's a different experience. You're not back right to where you were before. But the people that are back there is a sign like, oh, there really is more to do and it's not more talking. It's not more talking. I mean, how is that being received in the mental health world? Like I would think people listening to this would be like, okay, text the therapist and be like, Can I have my money back? Yeah, peace out. Yeah, this is one of the things. Like if you're in the trauma field, you know this and it's getting more and more-- Getting more accepted. More accepted that there's, and there's a lot of different types of therapy that are trauma informed. Okay. Right? And it's one of the things in my new program, I'm integrating different modalities because no one is good. I heard that, you say that. And I think that I really resonated with that because one of the things that I teach with fasting and metabolic health is there's no one fasting length that's for everybody. There's no, I get asked all the time what the fasting and eating windows should be and I'm like, it's what works for you. And people don't like, sometimes don't like that answer. They want the absolute. They want the quick five minute, five second absolute answer and that's not the case. So if we look at mental health, we go, okay, shoot, head to head talk therapy is not working. I gotta fix it in the body. But there's not a tool I can say, here's the tool to fix it. What I hear you saying and what you're creating with your work is a tool box. I wanna educate clients. There's two things I'm doing in this next phase of my work. There's not enough therapists in the world to heal all the trauma. Yes, right. There's just too much trauma. So I'm creating a program for people in general public to learn how to heal on their own and in community and in parents. So we need to do this work outside of therapy and then teach people when they get stuck, when they need to reach out and what to reach out for. Because people don't know, you go to your insurance company, they give you a person, you don't even know what they're trained in. You understand? So that's the first piece is I wanna educate the general public around what is trauma, what is available, what do I need to do, what can I do on my own?

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 The empowered path. How can I do it and how far can I go? Second thing is I'm training clinicians on the integrated path is like, and I'm gonna name, I'm gonna put a bunch of letters together because all these methods have all their letters, right? Of course. It's like EMDR. EMDR, yeah. There you go, right? So eye movement desensitization. I was one of the first people trained in EMDR with Bessel back in 1992.

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 Bilateral stimulation of the right and left side of the brain helps process memories that get stuck and fragmented. And there's something about right and left side of the brain because they have different functions. But that's in the brain. That's a brain thing. EMDR is a brain thing. It's a memory processing tool. There is somatic therapies, sensory experiencing, somatic experiencing and sensory motorcycle therapy. Those are the two body centered therapies and they help people focus on body, focus on your sensation. What do you feel it? Where do you feel it? You do all these experiments. There's incomplete action. Like when you're carrying rage or anger and it never got a chance to move through because you would have been killed, right? So there's a whole body of work that's somatically focused. Where do you feel it? What do you feel it? There's attachment focused therapies. AEDP is one of them. EFT is another one. Those are about the relationship and the connection. And often that's for attachment trauma. When you had those really early traumas without words where connection was necessary for survival, there's attachment focused work. And EFT is the tapping? That's a different EFT. There's emotion focused therapy and Sue Johnson's and EFT is different. That's using acupressure points and that reduces anxiety in a moment to kind of shift somebody's state. And then there's the IFS work, which I've done for years and years and years created the trauma curriculum for IFS. That's the different parts or aspects of our personality that hold different things. Some protect, some carry pain, right? So there's a lot of choices out there. Cognitive behavior therapy, that's where it all started. CBT only works on distorted thinking. Doesn't work on emotions. Doesn't work on attachment or the body. So I'm like, yes, please, all of it, but people don't know what they need when. So what I really wanna teach. So I'm gonna tell you a story about my own path through trauma and it ties into my path through menopause, which we'll talk about in a moment. When I was in my late 30s, I was down in Cabo and I swam into a pile of Portuguese man award. They wrapped around me, stung me and I almost lost my life. I had the full life, I had an NDE full life review and my kids were really little at the time, so it was even more traumatizing. And so I came out of that experience with the question of why didn't I die? And the answer I had for myself is because I needed to stay alive to provide financially for my family. So I became a workaholic. (Laughing) That's a way to not feel.

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 (Laughing) So I'm standing on the shoulders right now the woman who is a complete workaholic and when I closed my clinic to start to write books and have a different life, I thought, I need to go to trauma, I need to do some therapy. So I went to EMDR and I worked with an EMDR therapist, super helpful.

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 I would get moments of like, this feels better, but then I could be retriggered and I didn't feel like I was completely getting myself to a new level of healing. Okay, fast forward to the Palisades fire. I'm in the Palisades fire, I was there that morning, I was running from fire, I was watching things burn and I get out of there and my therapist says to me, "You have a cute PTSD." And I was like, "Great, what do I do with that?" And the only thing I knew to do was to isolate myself because I couldn't take anything else in. So I isolate myself, I write my book and in July we move here and a friend says to me, "Do you wanna come surfing with me?" And I said, "Sure." And I got in the water on July 6th and every day I've been in Santa Cruz, I have been in the water. And about two months in to surfing, which I suck at, I turn to my husband and I'm like, "Something's changing up here. "The thoughts are changing. "Whatever is talking to me is telling me a different story." And I sit here and tell you that surfing saved my life.

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 And it was my therapy. Yes, that's correct. So is that an example of compound, like there was an original big trauma, there was compounding traumas and then I went back into the environment in which I almost died.

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 This is why talk therapy is not the solution. I love what you're saying, Mindy. That is exactly what needs to happen. Do you know Bruce Perry? He's a guy who wrote a book with Oprah. Oh, okay. Anybody who writes a book with Oprah, then it's like, "Baboom." But it's like, what happened to you? Not, "I am bad." It's like, what happened to me? Right, okay. And what he says, and I love that you figured that out on your own. You're talking about a corrective experience.

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 You're taught in the body. Yes, right, because I'm enjoying the process. But each time you're out in the water and you're having a safe, enjoyable experience, you're counteracting the trauma neural networks from the ocean and being stung and from the fires. So we encode trauma in danger. And if we keep reliving it or keep getting triggered, we reinforce the trauma. Interesting. One of the key components, not the only, one of the key components is that corrective experience. Neuroscience calls it disconfirming. Interesting. Every time you go surf and enjoy yourself, you're having a disconfirming experience. Bruce Perry, the reason I brought him up says, "It doesn't work in 50-minute hours in psychotherapy." Yes. He's like-- That cost you thousands of dollars. That cost you thousands of dollars. It's like, it doesn't actually work. He said the whole mental health system is set up on false scaffolding because in fact, you can't do neuroplastic change in 50 minutes once a week. Wow. It doesn't work that way. I love that you're like, every day I'm out there and my nervous system is getting a corrective experience. Counteracting the trauma. Now, I would also venture to say that processing some of those memories in EMDR before set you up to be able to take that in. Because I was waiting for you to say, "I got in the water and I freaked out. "All my trauma came back." The reason it didn't-- Ah, good point. Was because you did the memory processing because it could have very easily brought you right back to Cabo. But it didn't because you did the memory processing. There are components of healing that are really important and talking isn't in there, but processing the memory. I love that you said it, it helped, but it didn't shift it. Right. And that, oh, it's so exciting. That's so aligned. I mean, it's literally like one of the biggest surprises of my life. And I had decided, okay, I'd throw anything at my trauma. I was willing to spend whatever I need to spend. And then I realized I just needed to go into the ocean. That's right. So could we say, and I've heard you talk about your father before. I know you just did a session with Terry Cole, who I love, who just wrote a book on, she told me she's right, she wrote a book on father wound. I was like, "Ah, I need that Mike." I think a lot of people do. Yes, 100%. If I have an experience with my father, and anybody who looks like my father acts like my father, if I come up against that lookalike,

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 is my trauma being, can my trauma be reactivated? Definitely, definitely. Yes, it can. Yeah, right. Yeah, and it does. And I'll tell you a little bit of my experience was like, having this father who was verbally and physically abusive, I ended up kind of seeking out narcissistic people in this attempt to heal by recreating. We find people. Right. We find people who are kind of similar, but our psyche, our wounding says, this is a chance at redemption. This is gonna be better this time it's gonna work out. And that's all in the subconscious. All subconscious. I hate to tell you this, but this is what attraction is. Right. You know this? Yes. Okay. Because I've been studying it, and I'm like, wow, the people you have chosen to have a relationship with, maybe your biggest trigger.

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 They're familiar because they often have similar wounds, but they have opposite adaptations. And so you think they're gonna help cure yours. Isn't that crazy? Yeah, that's why there's a 50% divorce rate. Right, I was gonna say, would this change divorces? Yes, it will. It's like, let's have similar wounds, but the agreement should be,

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 I'll be with you while you work on yours, and I'll work on mine. Do you wanna make that agreement? That's beautiful. That's what healthy connection is. It's not that we don't have shit in our histories, because we do. Right. But we're wanting the other. And the reason we want this, Mindy, if you think about it from an attachment perspective, kids need parents for survival. Yeah. So the instinct to get it elsewhere is rooted in our histories. So we reach that way, but adults reenact, like here's what ends up happening, and your audience is mostly women. They're gonna be like, yeah, Frank, thank you for speaking for my experience, because I work with so many women around.

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 I want a man. If you're heterosexual, whatever, I want a woman, whatever. The dynamic is that can give me what I needed, right? But what ends up happening for a lot of women is they end up taking care of the little boy in the man. That never healed. And that never healed. And then they're like, I don't wanna take care of another person. That's where sexual desire drops off. I'm attracted to this man, all this promise and hope and potential, and I end up getting a little boy. And then I am the mother to a little boy. I don't wanna have sex with a little boy. Yeah, interesting. So it kills your desire. Fascinating. That's what ends up happening when we're wanting somebody else to heal our wound, to have being burdened by their wound. That happens for men in the same way in the opposite. Do you get that? Yeah, well, I'm just thinking how many people partner up in a trauma response? Yes, most of us. Yeah, exactly. I'm like, wait a second. And they always, in certain religious sex, people say, well, you've gotta go and get some kind of training before you get married. I'm thinking people need to get some agenda for trauma work. My husband and I went to Thailand early on in our relationship before we had kids. And it was fascinating, because in Thailand, you have to go, this is part of the messed up, only the boys have to go to the monastery for two years at 18 years old to learn how to become a man and raise a family. So I was like, brilliant, but why is it only the men? Why don't the women need to go? That's messed up there. But it's a really nice, go and work out your stuff before you raise a family. We don't make people do that. No. And I would love if both, you're 18 years old, go off for two years, work on your stuff, and then partner up, because we don't do that. Yeah, yeah. So a lot of the women that I work with are really trying to lose weight. And fasting to me is one of the most miraculous tools. I'm still watching the ozempic movement, and I'm like, pretty soon people are gonna figure out that fasting does the same thing that ozempic does, it's just free. So, but what I come up against, and a big reason I wanna have someone like you on my podcast, is that when we start to make food changes, when we start to restrict the timing, I'm not even saying restrict, I'm not a calorie counter, I'm just saying let's eat everything within a certain window. What I start to see is everybody's patterns that they've been taught and maybe shamed about start to bubble to the surface. Yes. Where does what you're saying about trauma in the body and somebody trying to make change to lose weight, like can we get stuck in that change because we're just triggered by the trauma that's unresolved? Well, so there's a couple things that I think I hear you saying, so let me say some things and you can unpack it for me if I'm correct. So one of the things is when you start doing intermittent fasting and you're having these longer windows where you're not using food for soothing. Right. Okay. Yes. Then you're like, uh-oh, my main coping mechanism is no longer available. Yep. Okay? So yeah, the stuff's gonna come up because we eat carbohydrates particularly, but not only fats and carbohydrates for soothing. That's right. Right? And that's soothing the trauma that is unresolved. So when you start taking away somebody's main coping mechanism for 12 hours or 16 hours a day, stuff's gonna come up. So they're not using that coping and that soothing. And if you start having metabolic changes, this happens so much with the women that I work with, they actually, their body starts changing.

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 It's threatening as hell. Oh, please talk about that. Because I have this cushion to keep you away. Yes. Dangerous person. Yes. Okay? So that's another thing. Everybody's obsessed with losing weight except when they actually do, they get terrified because they're more sexually vulnerable. Yes. To being attacked. Especially women. Yeah, 100%. So there's a lot that goes into this craze to be thin and then the danger that's associated with it. Wow. Do you see it's both? And I see that I've brought this forward to my following for a while. I just didn't have the context that you have, but I see that. That's really true. There's a point in which people try to lose weight and they sabotage themselves. Or in my clinical practice, I watched women lose 50, 60 pounds only to a year later gain it all back. Yeah, yeah. So if somebody's-- Go ahead. If somebody's resonating with that, how do we help that person? Because they're always gonna be losing weight, gaining weight. Well, so some of it is I'm gaining my weight back. Some of it is I'm gaining my weight back because I'm terrified. Some of it is I'm gaining my weight back because I haven't healed the reason that I had it there in the first place. So there is work to do, right? Right. To, you can't just lose the weight and think your history's gone. Right. It's not. Yes. Right? And so you're gaining it back because you're using your protector again because your trauma was never addressed. Wow. You just eliminated

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 your main coping mechanism without healing your trauma. So if you're gonna really lose weight and then actually keep it off separate from the dietary changes that people make. And boy, carbohydrates are really addictive. They're super addictive. They're so addictive. Well, there's a lot of dopamine and serotonin and even the healthy ones. Holy! Yes, of course they are. It really initiates that in the brain. It totally does, right? And we know that. But if you're gonna lose that weight and when I'm working with somebody who's kind of on a weight loss journey for whatever reason they're on, I'm really tracking when is it okay? When does your system say, "Hey, I'm okay with losing this amount of weight?"

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 And then it starts getting scary. So then let's stop. And then let's do some emotional work. And then let's continue on our journey once we feel safe enough to go to the next level. Do you see what I'm saying? So track that instead of the all at once thing without doing any underlying trauma work, that's not helpful. Or it's really, it's listening because once you stop using your main coping mechanism, we really want people to start listening internally to their, I call it their calm power, strength, wisdom, and intuition. Because we lose intuition and trauma. We lose it because we have to disconnect from ourself in order to survive. Fascinating. You get that? So as you start losing weight and you start not needing your coping mechanism in that way, you have to, in my opinion, start listening internally. What is it saying? What's bubbling up? How do I address it? That internal connection so that you can move forward in a different kind of way. And often it means healing the unresolved trauma that you never dealt with. And can you heal it in, can you ask yourself questions, like go through a self inquiry? Because I'll tell you what fasting healed for me is my mom taught me to be an emotional eater. So every time we had a bad day, you got mother's love with a warm meal. So, and then anytime you didn't feel good, my mom would always say, maybe you need to eat something. And so I think a lot of people resonate with that. So the first day, I'll never forget the first 24 hour fast I did. It was about three o'clock in the afternoon. I was in my practice. It was waiting room packed. It was so many people around and I thought I was gonna die. I was irritable. I was edgy. And I'm like, I need to eat. I need to eat. And I was like, whose voice is that? Yeah. And I realized, oh, that's not my voice because I've done all this research and I know I'm gonna be okay. That's not my voice. That's mom's voice. That's right. And then I started to follow that thread and I started to see, oh, she rewarded me by giving me mother's love and a warm meal and I've linked those two. And for me, I'm curious if this is what you're saying, just being aware of that.

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 And then I tell people with fasting all the time, I'm like, it will allow everything to bubble up and you will see your relationship to food so much differently. So can we heal it in the experience? Totally, couple things. When you're aware of that voice,

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 that's energy that's in you that's not yours. Right. Okay, when you say this to my mother's voice, kids absorb their environment. We don't absorb being a victim only, we absorb the energy of the perpetrator.

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 I'm sorry, people are not aware of that. You're not only a victim, you also absorb the perpetrator's energy. Okay, so it happens and people disavow their perpetrator. That's why the other side's the enemy. Wow. Okay. Yeah, and why they can't be around them. And when they can't be around them, but they've split off what's in them also. So when those voice, you're no good, you're worthless, or whatever comes up, you need food for love, whatever it is, you have to be in relationship to it.

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 Learn, is this mine? Is this not mine? Where does this come from? Can I release that? Right. So there's energy that we have that's not ours that we just encode as if it's ours. So that differentiation, is this mine? Isn't this mine? Where does it come from? Super important. Because we take so much on that's not ours. Right. Because of the environment we grew up in. So we internalize that stuff. That's one thing. The second thing is with awareness,

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 I don't even know what the exact number is. It's 90 seconds, the average emotion is 90 seconds. It's something like that. It comes and goes. It comes and goes. So the awareness is like, okay, I can't eat till 6.30 and it's three. Right. Right? People start, it's like going to the emotional gym. That's the way I think about it. In those three hours. In those three hours. Like, can I stay here for two minutes? Yeah. That's it. Just what happens and what ends up happening is people start learning they can tolerate emotion. Because when you had food for love and soothing, you didn't have to tolerate any emotion. Yeah. You reach for a cookie. Or you reach for something. So it gives people expanding their bandwidth. Yes. Right? Yeah. Every time I've had one of those colonoscopies, I've had two, because I'm like in my 60s, right? You're like, oh God, I had, you know, you're like. That's tons of fun. Holy cow, I could do this. Yeah. You're like, but you have to move through those difficult moments. Yes. And so I'm always like, you know, positive stress is useful. Yes. Positive stress is useful. And that's what fasting is. Yes. It's a hormetic stress. Yes, exactly. So people have to be aware. Yeah. And that it's going to take a little bit, a couple minutes, not a lifetime. And sit in that. Yes. Because that's the nugget. That's the goal. So good. I mean, that's what happened to me on that first 24 hour fast, because I was seeing patients. I had to sit in it. That's right. And that's when I sat in it, and I just was like, kept asking myself, what did you, why do you eat? Why are you, what's, and then that's where I, in that three hours, I figured out it was mom, not me. Yes, you learned a lot in that three hours by sitting. I say every moment, we repeat, we repress, or we rise above. Every moment, right? So take those opportunities, and just do one moment. This is the thing that people don't understand. Healing happens in micro, many micro corrective experiences. Interesting. Many micro. Every single day surfing. That's one, one, and it cumulates. It's not the big Hollywood moment that heals trauma. That's not actually how it works. Doesn't work in 50 minutes in a therapy session. So do one, and do two, then do three. Just do one at a time. It is like the AA, like one, it's like one emotion at a time. One moment at a time, and it really does work. You know, you have 30 years of eating for love, but it doesn't take 30 years to undo that pattern. That's beautiful. It really doesn't. I've heard you say that you can do EMDR by going and walking, because you're doing-- I do do EMDR. But I think it was brilliant. I do. If I'm in somewhere where I'm feeling stressed, I'll do it with my feet after doing the EMDR work. So when I heard you say that, I was like, oh my gosh. That's what it is. That is amazing. And when I walk in the forest here, I used to listen to music, and I stopped, and I just listened to my thoughts after I heard you say that. I was like, why don't I just let what comes through and be curious about it? So I'm so happy you're saying that, because it's so true. This is separate from seeing my therapist. I do that kind of work. Up in the canyons, three to four times a week, my husband's kind of funny. He waits and he comes home, he's like, all right, what world problem did you solve?

[00:37:24:23 - 00:38:25:23]
 Because I'm out in nature. Nature is a place where there's a lot of energy that's healing. So nature in and of itself is healing. Bilateral stimulation. It's eye movement, it's hand tapping, it's ear, beep, beep, beep, beep, or it's moving. So I know when I'm hiking or running in the canyons, I'm doing EMDR. I had a lot of physical trauma in my body. This is really activating integration when we're moving. So you can get a lot done when you're doing that kind of EMDR. And the thing that I say too, I want people to know this. We encode, I think about encoding. When we're doing EMDR, we're encoding something. If somebody's having an amazing moment, a corrective experience, encode it. Oh, my therapist taught me this. Yeah, stop and encode it. Okay, say more about this because my therapist said she did this at a Taylor Swift concert.

[00:38:27:05 - 00:40:43:09]
 (Laughing) She was like-- She was having a corrective experience like the rest of the world. She was having such a great time and she was with her kids. And she's like, let's do this right now because this experience is so amazing. We want it into our system. In the body, in the body. We're encoding. So if you have a big aha moment, if you have a corrective relational experience, don't rush on. Stop and encode it. I'm always doing that with my clients. I'm like, wait a minute, what just happened there? I saw you smile. I saw your whole body relax. I just felt so good right there. I'm like, well then let's just encode that. That is brilliant. And so that's building your capacity to be in pleasure, in kindness, in what feels good. Now the reason I'm bringing that up because good is not always good for people. If you know that. Pleasure, good, joy, happiness. For trauma survivors can be terrifying. Because perpetrators sniff out that stuff. So good can feel really dangerous and scary. Because when I'm happy, I'm gonna get killed. When I'm in my power, when I let my guard down, that perpetrator's gonna come after me. You see, so for a lot of women, not only women, those places of power, of feeling strong, of feeling good, we're dangerous once upon a time. So encoding good and positive builds that resource in a way. It's brilliant, it's brilliant. What do you think is going to happen with the GLP-1 users? Because this is something we've talked a lot about on my platform. And one of the things I've read is that the people using food to soothe depression, that GLP-1 or any of the weight loss drugs, they lose that tool. Because they can't even physically eat. And so they're more depressed. And they're stuck facing their traumas. Yeah, it's so complicated. This is gonna be a weird analogy, but I think GLP-1s are just like psychedelics.

[00:40:44:14 - 00:40:52:14]
 The reason I say that is this. Psychedelic medicine, and I have a lot of friends and colleagues who are doing psychedelic medicine. I did ketamine training, I've done that myself.

[00:40:53:25 - 00:41:35:04]
 There's gonna be over time clarity about which psychedelics are good for what and which psychedelics are not good for what. Do you understand that? Ketamine is very different than MDMA, is very different than psilocybin. Who uses what for what? So we don't know. Right now they're throwing in on everybody. And I think the GLP-1s are exactly the same right now. Everybody's using it for everything. And I think we'll get clear about what things it's actually good for and what things it's not. What people are just using it as a panacea and what people are using it. I was working with somebody recently who was talking about using it for anorexia.

[00:41:36:05 - 00:42:36:05]
 Oh, fascinating. Right? And part of what happened, which is really fascinating, is it cut out the food noise. Yeah, that's what people say. And it wasn't a weight loss tool. Oh my gosh, I cut out the food noise so I don't have to be obsessed about restriction. And it allowed me to make healthier choices. Fascinating. Right? So that's a new, that's like, wow, we would use this for anorexia? That sounds so counterintuitive. But when we learn about, and I'm not suggesting that everybody go do that, but we're gonna learn about what it's good for and what it's not good for, the food noise is a big protector for a lot of people. You're gonna focus on food. This is what OCD, obsessive compulsive disorder, think all the time, you don't feel a damn thing. So when we stop the food noise for some people, it's gonna bring up your trauma. And if you know that going into the experience, you could-- Do the work. Yeah, exactly.

[00:42:37:11 - 00:43:26:09]
 I love the analogy to psychedelics. I'm a huge fan of psychedelics. And actually, the most recent book that I wrote, "Aged Like a Girl," is "Microdosing Menopause." Got it, okay, great. But the publisher wasn't ready for that yet. So they're like, "Can we stay with the like a girls?" So I did put MDMA and psilocybin in there. But what I really found so fascinating about psychedelics, it all started with the 5-HT to a serotonin receptor site. Because my brain was like, wait a second, that serotonin and estradiol stimulates that. So we're losing estradiol, does that mean we're losing serotonin? But psilocybin can go in there. Yeah, that's great. Yeah, I love that. Yeah, I love that you're saying that. So I worked with a guy,

[00:43:27:24 - 00:45:49:27]
 can't remember his name back in Boston, he's no longer working, but he was a neuroendocrinologist. Okay, Andrew Herzog, that's who he was at Harvard. And he was one of the few people that was looking at, back in the day, hormones and neurotransmitters. Right. Right? And I was working with him, I would send a lot of my women patients to them because perimenopause, premenstrual, like there was clearly a hormonal neurotransmitter relationship for women, but nobody really knew what it was. And he was one of the first people to talk to me about, when you're perimenopausal, there's a very strong connection, even between the production of estrogen and serotonin, they're very closely linked, metabolically. So when you start losing your estrogen, you are gonna start losing your serotonin. And postmenopausal women, SSRIs don't work as well. Oh, interesting. They don't, because they don't, yeah, they don't. So that's why we use like a Fexer or well butrin, which are drugs, medicines that work on dopamine, norepinephrine and serotonin, not just serotonin alone. So when we start learning the relationships between hormones and these neurotransmitters, it's a whole different thing for people. And we haven't, the field hasn't grown as much as I think it should, it's better than it was. So I love that you're talking about the relationship between estrogen and serotonin, because there is one, not a lot of people know. It was interesting because when I was researching that book, this was like, I researched the book for over 10 years before I actually got it out into the world. So we weren't talking about EHRT, nobody was really using that. And I was like, oh my God, everybody just needs to microdose psilocybin. And they're gonna have a different experience with their symptoms. But then I started scratching under the surface. And this is what I wanna ask you, is you have with estradiol going away, she stimulated dopamine, serotonin, acetylcholine, oxytocin, BDNF, glutamate. Like, and so all, I call it estrogen's girl gang. They're all vulnerable. So what ends up happening is we sit, we're at 48 and we're depressed, we can't remember and we can't hold on to information.

[00:45:50:27 - 00:46:49:20]
 Oxytocin, we don't feel like we wanna connect with anybody. And so I call it the neurochemical armor comes down. And what I'm really concerned about right now in this menopausal moment is that what these women are being told is just put a patch on it and you're gonna be okay. And what I see is actually this armor comes down and all of a sudden you can truly see yourself. So you can look at depression and you can say, what in my life is not working for me anymore? You can look at serotonin and say, what doesn't bring me joy anymore? You can look at the loss of oxytocin and ask yourself, maybe I need connection in a new way. So when we look at that transformation, I also see these traumas like you can't hold it down anymore. It just fricking oozes out of you. Yes, because all of those chemicals that you were talking about, neurotransmitters and hormones are what is connected to the neurobiology of PTSD and dissociation.

[00:46:51:04 - 00:47:46:24]
 Do you understand? Glutamate, serotonin, oxytocin, all of what you talked about are what is dysregulated in PTSD also. So you're already dysregulated. You're dysregulated and then you've got a buffer with your estrogen and your serotonin if you're on an SSRI pre-menopausely. But when you start going through the transition, what ends up happening is you lose your buffer and you lose everything else. But that's also what is, that like shows your PTSD more raw. Because all of those chemicals are dysregulated in PTSD. So yes, your trauma is gonna bubble up during those times. So that is an opportunity, not only to look at relationships and connection and joy, but to look at the trauma that was underlying that is now physiologically showing up because it was unresolved.

[00:47:47:24 - 00:52:48:15]
 Does that make sense? Oh, it makes so much sense. It was my experience. It's been many women's experience that I hear. It's like, you can't hold it down. A friend of mine says, "Yeah, when we were drugged on estrogen, we can handle it a lot." You got it, that's right. But when estrogen went away, we couldn't handle it. So does serotonin, which is calming. Right. Estrogen goes away, serotonin goes away and then you're left with the neurobiology of PTSD. And so the PTSD can actually reveal itself. So again, I'm gonna go back to this idea of what we were saying before you get married. Perhaps you should understand each other's traumas, have a plan for it. I think menopause is the same thing because I watch so many women that are depressed and anxious and irritable and the gray divorce. So many women leave marriages and I'm standing back and thinking, no, no, there's something different happening here and I think it's rooted in trauma. So fascinating. I'm thinking about the equivalent in men or not because I don't-- Well, andropause is real. Yeah, well, so that's what I'm trying to think. I was just trying to think as you were talking because a lot of women go through this transition and men, testosterone levels certainly do drop, but I don't know enough about neurophysiologically what happens. I mean, muscle tone is gone, sex desire is gone. There's a lot of associated features to testosterone, but I don't think it's an equal. Shift. I think with testosterone, but people always think of it as libido, but it's so much more. It's motivation. So what you start to see in men, when both men and women, as you see that there's just this drive to be motivated goes away. And sometimes that can be like, I'm not motivated to even work on my relationship. So then there becomes that issue. But it's interesting to look at the hormonal changes post-menopausely, perimenopausely. And I don't know the timing. Maybe you know more than I do around when men's testosterone tends to dip. It's probably later than when women go through them. And it's based off of what kind of foods you're eating and all of that as well. But I think that's part of what is complicated in relationships because women are in these places and they're like, oh my goodness, but men are not joining them physiologically. They're not joining them. Yeah, and if when you look at evolutionary physiology, technically a woman, when her reproductive system goes away, she actually moved to a different position in the clan. Whereas a man, he continued to have the same position the whole time. His drive is, he's hitting his stride and he's continuing to go. Yeah. So then if a woman is going through menopause, this is the conversation I wanna change. Help me Frank. It's okay. Because I just am so, I'm sitting there watching the world go, honey, you're depressed. It's because we read this study wrong and we're just gonna put a patch on you and you're gonna be okay. And what I'm over here saying is why are you depressed? What is there? Why are you anxious? Why are you, so many women are rageful. Why are you full of rage? Let's talk about that because your neurochemical armor just came down and gave you a gift. And what we're seeing in the culture is this idea, just put a patch on it and I'll be okay. It's like having another cupcake is what, it's like that. Like, and I think it's important, I love what you're saying and I think it's important to educate women in the way that you're doing. Say, this is gonna happen. Right. Your shit's gonna come up. You have an opportunity here or not. Are you gonna choose to cover it up or are you gonna choose to work on it? Because not everybody is aware that it's gonna happen and not everybody is gonna choose, okay, it's time in my life to work on this. Because I think that's an important decision. Because it happens to you as opposed to choosing to take the opportunity. Do you see what I'm seeing? So I love the way you're educating, like hey, there's an opportunity and the shit's gonna come up. Didn't come up, you suppressed it when you were walking down the aisle, now is another chance it's gonna show up again here. Are you interested in doing the work and doing that deeper dive or are you not or maybe not this year, maybe in six months. So maybe take the replacement hormones until you're ready to do the work. Would be the kind of discussion I'd like to have. So there's an awareness instead of it happening to you when you're maybe not ready to do that work. Right. Right? Or know how to. Or know how to and know what the resources are to do the work. I think it's a little bit like ozempic, what I've seen is a lot of doctors are like, I'm gonna put you on this, it's gonna give you a jumpstart, but then we're gonna work on your diet. You've gotta do that.

[00:52:49:25 - 00:53:13:09]
 Otherwise you're gonna get the muscle wasting and otherwise you're not gonna make any change and as soon as you stop you're gonna gain all your weight. It's the same thing. Take it as an opportunity to then do the work. And not everybody wants, that's one of my passions is, it's possible to heal this. I really want people to know. Like it's not six steps on Instagram.

[00:53:14:26 - 00:53:43:08]
 Sorry. You can't find it in a real, oh my God. You can't find it in a real. I say this all the time, I'm like stop building your health habits around a 90 second real. Yes, it's true. So that's not gonna work. Yeah. Right? And are you here, but it can work. And here's a way to do it. And there is a way to do it. I really want people to know that. I really, that is my, I was kind of, after I wrote my second book, "Transcending Trauma," it was like,

[00:53:44:11 - 00:53:57:23]
 I got a message. I went out for a run. Literally I was like, am I here in voices? It's like, you have to bring trauma healing to the world. And I'm like, me? Are you sure? Like here I am, my life has exploded

[00:53:59:01 - 00:54:21:07]
 in bringing trauma healing to the world. Like that is really my purpose and passion. And it's like, this is possible people. To know, but they have to have the tools and education to know what am I gonna do? How am I gonna do it? When am I gonna do it? So it's like re-empowering. Trauma treatment is a reenactment of trauma.

[00:54:22:08 - 00:54:24:23]
 Okay? Okay. Let me tell you why.

[00:54:26:08 - 00:54:32:15]
 If you have been violated in any kind of way, agency was taken away from you.

[00:54:33:27 - 00:55:48:19]
 It's what relational trauma is. Right. Dysfunctional families, all the thing. And then you're gonna go to a therapist who's gonna tell you what model of therapy you need or how many sessions you need. You're gonna go to the insurance company who's gonna tell you how many you're allowed to have. Oh, the insurance company. You know what I mean? Good old insurance company is really thinking of you. But you go into treatment disempowered and other people are making decisions about your trauma that you were disempowered around. The whole thing is set up in a disempowered way. I wanna empower people. I want me to go into a therapist and say, I'd like six sessions of IFS or 10 sessions of EMDR because I've been educated and I think my wisdom tells me this is what I need. That would be amazing. That's what I really wanna do. We educate people so that the treatment is empowering. The treatment is a corrective experience. As opposed to being not. Yeah. It reminds me, one of the joys I've had in my most in the last couple of years is I've been working with Leigh Ann Rimes. She's become a dear friend. That's so interesting. She just followed me yesterday. Oh, really? Oh, yes. I might have said something about you.

[00:55:50:00 - 00:56:59:24]
 (Laughing) She needs to know you. Okay, that's great. In fact, I will let her know. There you go, it's so funny. She's an amazing human. That's great. And so we had done a lot of work on her gut and then it came around time for her holiday shows. And she got a cold. So for a singer to get a cold, that's like the worst thing possible. Because if you sing with inflamed vocal cords, it can start to really wear those cords down. This woman's been singing since she was 14. So her EENT gave her an antibiotic. And I was like, oh God, no, we've been spending a year fixing your gut. This is gonna-- We're not really destroying it. Yeah, and so what we did was so fascinating. I said, okay, here's what I wanna ask you. Today, do you feel like you should take the antibiotic? And she said, I don't really have a sense I should. I'm like, okay, so for today, we're not gonna take it tomorrow. Let's talk. I love that. And let's see if you need the antibiotic. We did this every day for seven days and the cold went away and she never took it. Beautiful, that's what I'm talking about. Listening to your gut and your intuition because there is wisdom in there. I love that you did that.

[00:57:01:02 - 00:57:43:29]
 That's organically knowing and listening and trusting. I was just like, how are we gonna do this? We just got a whole ear fixing your gut and she doesn't wanna be on it, but I understand how important her vocal cords are. So listen. So it seems like a really appropriate response. So I wanna go back to the toolbox here because I hope in this conversation, people are getting like, oh yeah, connecting a lot of dots. So we've talked a lot about EMDR. I wanna go back to psychedelics because this has probably been the most transformative healing tool for me. And I don't think outside of the water. That's number one. But what has come from psychedelics for me is compassion for myself.

[00:57:45:08 - 00:58:15:26]
 I started to heal a lot of my father wound through psychedelics because I realized what the messages of criticism in my head were his, not mine. That's right, yeah. And so talk to me about, I know each psychedelic does something a little bit different. That's right, that's right. It's hard for people to find therapists, but where do you see psychedelics in this experience? I'm mixed about it in the way, same with GLP ones, same thing. I really am. And I say mixed truly.

[00:58:17:20 - 00:58:48:03]
 It's like, do you know Ned Halliwell and John Rady? Do you remember them for ADHD? Back in the day, every single kid, every single college kid and high school kid had ADHD. It was like popular to have ADHD. You know what I mean? So everybody was diagnosed with ADHD and then it was kind of a mess. It was way up those pendulum swung. And there's a pendulum swing with psychedelics right now in a way that I'm cautious about. And everybody wants the pill for the quick fix so they don't have to do the work.

[00:58:49:06 - 00:58:58:20]
 And there's a lot of people trained in psychedelics that actually don't know how to do treatment. I was in a ketamine training and I'm like,

[00:59:00:08 - 00:59:03:00]
 I don't know what it was like. You're a lawyer.

[00:59:04:18 - 01:01:15:01]
 You can take psychedelics but you shouldn't be working with people. Assisting people. You know what I mean? So there is this kind of wild, wild west around who can get trained and bigger the underground world. Because MDMA is not legal. The only one is ketamine right now. Everybody who's doing everything else is underground. I work with a client who's kind of dissociated for 10 years because he did underground MDMA and he got so, they give him a booster dose and another booster dose. He got so shot out in the Netherlands that his whole system shut him down emotionally because it was way too much. Okay, so there are a lot of people that are doing this in the wrong way. Right, yeah, I agree. And it's going to cause trouble that it did way back in the 60s and the 70s where they kind of got rid of it because it was overdone. Is that everybody? Absolutely not. Are there amazing people? Some of my best friends in the world are steeped into the psychedelics world and they're doing it in a thoughtful, creative, mindful way that really helps people. And so for me, we're in the swing right now. I'm a little bit happy and this might piss off the MDMA people that it didn't get FDA approved so quickly. I will tell you as somebody who has done four MDMA journeys, I can understand why. Right, some people have amazing, beautiful experiences. Some people have horribly traumatizing experiences. Also your default mode networks down and whoever's sitting across from you, they can get in there. 100% and there's been untoward things happening to people who are in an altered state. I would agree about that concern. We know that. And that was part of the problem. So there is that happening. And, and, and. There is so much benefit. We haven't had anything like this when it's done well in the right hands to change the field like this has. So I'm excited to let it all settle itself out so that we're using it for people like...

[01:01:16:06 - 01:03:36:01]
 I had two, I had one of each of these experiences in my ketamine. One was, I could just feel it. I would have jumped out the window and killed myself. Whoa. It was so terrifying for me. The first time I did it and I took lozenge and I told them I am sensitive. I'm a super vigilant, sensitive person. They gave me one, it didn't work. Then they gave me another one, it didn't work. Then they gave me a third one and I got shot into. The guy's like, "You fractalized." Congratulations. I'm like, I was gonna die. If I were on the second floor of the building, I was gonna jump out the window had I not had sitters there to help me. Wow. It was horrible. Second time I did it like, "Why the fuck did you do it again, Frank?" is another question for another time, right? But I was seated at the hand of the divine. I found out my purpose in life and it changed my life forever. Like I was lucky, I had both of these experiences. Interesting. Nobody can tell me that doesn't exist. Right. I know and I know I'm one of the pillars to change the world. Yeah. And one of the pillars, not the pillar. And it's so real. Beautiful. In a way that has changed my life in a beautiful way. Mm-hmm. And we just, so I was, had both and we have to get better at sorting out who needs what, when and how much. Right. That's all, I just feel like we need a little bit more time. There needs to be and more protocols. Yes. I see a theme here of like same thing with GLP1s, same things with the HRT. Like we're just like one size fits all, here you go. And we get excited because people are desperate for help and we wanna help them, right? Psychedelics is, I think it's gonna be here to stay and I like, ketamine is an anti-glutamate drug. You talked about glutamate. I talk about glutamate all the time. It's one of the main excitatory neural transmitters in the brain. Decreasing glutamate is a good thing. In the right doses, too much of it causes psychosis. I've treated so many gay guys in K holes because they took too much ketamine and it causes psychosis and you need to treat it with anti-psychotics. And when you can decrease the excitability enough that people do the work they need to do, it's life-changing. The integration sessions, everybody who does the work, you know this, right?

[01:03:37:02 - 01:04:02:03]
 You get a therapeutic effect from the drug itself, whether it's MDMA for six to eight hours or ketamine for three hours or whatever. And then the neuroplasticity, do you know Carter Harris? No, but I know about the neuroplasticity. The neuroplasticity is the window and it lasts differently for each psychedelic. So MDMA, that's why MDMA in the study was every three months.

[01:04:03:05 - 01:05:57:06]
 Because MDMA is a long half-life and so the neuroplasticity window is much longer. So you can do a lot of work, amazing work. Ketamine has a shorter half-life so the neuroplasticity is like two weeks or so, or three weeks. So you take advantage of the effect of the drug and do the work people, do the work, right? That's the beauty of it. Yes. Is the setting, set, attention and the integration session. And when you have the right people helping you, game changer. I list in the interview with you in Bessel, he talked about how hard it is to get new thought into people's minds. And that was when I thought about psychedelics because I was like, in my research on psychedelics, the neuroplasticity is off the charts. And when you look at what a woman going through menopause, the neuroplasticity is going away. This is why I keep coming back to these two done in the right situation is really powerful. The older we get, the more rigid we get. And it's not only, it's in our brains. Because neuroplasticity is less and less and less the older we get. So when you can have a boost of neuroplasticity, take advantage of it because then possibility and option for change is real. Right, right. But it's gotta be done correctly. So do you think that trauma work, if we're coming at it through the perspective of the body, is a daily habit? It should be if it's done correctly. It should be. One of the things about trauma, the work with trauma is the be with instead of in. Okay, say more, I've heard you say this. Be with instead of in. I want people to visit their trauma, not get stuck there. There's a lot of psychotherapy that is like, I'm here because I drink too much. And then you spend the next 40 years talking about your mother.

[01:05:58:08 - 01:06:24:11]
 Sorry, that's not why people come in. They wanna change a behavior. But what oftentimes is most behaviors are rooted in unresolved trauma. So let's go back and visit, not relive it or get stuck there. And the visiting is the capacity to be with the emotion, not in it. Right, okay, love that. You need observing, I feel sorry for that little boy.

[01:06:26:14 - 01:08:33:28]
 I'll tell you this coming up, like I was hit as a baby in the crib. I thought it was because I was caught playing with a Barbie doll at six years old, but that wasn't the case. My dad started hitting me when I was a baby in the crib. So it was like, well, it wasn't because I was gay, right? Had feminine traits. And I, in my healing, was able to hold the sorrow of me feeling sorry for this baby in the way that I couldn't be there for this little baby. It's like you parented yourself. It's the, yeah, and it was just, I couldn't, I didn't cry, most I've ever cried in my whole life. It was just gut-wrenching sorrow, but it was the capacity to be with instead of in. I wasn't the little baby feeling the pain of being hit. But you were-- I was with the baby holding the sorrow. Yeah. You know, and that's what's required. It's not only a corrective experience, it's the sharing the experience too, which is part of what release. Okay, say more on that. So if you have trauma, the part that holds the trauma is gonna hold the experience until it shares it in some way. Not just the story, it shares the thoughts, the feelings, and the physical sensations. With somebody else? Somebody else, either internally or relationally. So my husband is the most healing, relational experience I've had in my life. Okay, so it can happen this way. When somebody's there and attuned and with you and loves you and gets you and sees you, that's healing because you've shared what you've gone through and you feel met. Okay, so the part that holds the trauma has to not be the only holder of it. It's gotta share it. Not just the story, this, this, this. It's the thoughts, the feelings, the physical sensations. And then the corrective experience happens. So that combination,

[01:08:35:28 - 01:10:09:09]
 EMDR has the with component. They say be with it while it's happening, be with it. So it's the being with and you're kinda hold that experience. So those two things are important for trauma healing and release to happen. But yeah, if we use the EMDR example, she did tappers. So I was holding the tappers, think about a situation. So I was with the situation first, but then I expressed it to her. But it was both. You were with it, you weren't in it, you weren't reliving it. Some EMDR, catharsis is what they call it, because they start reliving it, not good. Never want people to relive it. So when you do it correctly, you're with it. So you're with it, so you're with the part that was there in the water. And you're also sharing it with somebody else. So that sharing happened. And it's the experience of it, not just the story. So does that equal like if I'm gonna share an experience with a good friend? Yeah, it could be. Just be like, hey, this came up for me. Yeah, there's a lot of research about women as they get older, how important their girlfriends are. And I would absolutely agree, but I think it's because when we get together, there's this vulnerability that is safe to express when you're with the right friends. Totally. And in that, it's like that in some sense is a version of therapy. It's a version of healing. I had this thought coming up into my head when I wrote "Transcending Trauma." Trauma blocks love, love heals trauma.

[01:10:10:10 - 01:10:16:04]
 And then as I've kind of percolated on that, it's like trauma blocks love and connection.

[01:10:17:06 - 01:11:16:12]
 And it's love and connection that heals trauma. And so that's exactly what we're talking about. That's part of what has happened post pandemic. So much isolation in certain ways because of our not being with people. And we have this like social media connection with tons of loneliness. But what's happening in the world now is people are wanting to be with each other again. Yes. And a very, right? You feel that in a very different way. And it's part of that connection piece, which is very healing. Trauma, often trauma happens in isolation, right? And healing happens in connection. And that could be internally as well as relationally. That's beautiful. So if we were to create a toolbox for the women listening to this right now, if they're like, "Oh, wow, I'm 60 years old. I realized that some of the anxiety I'm feeling may be from my childhood, but I've never done any work before." Where would that woman start?

[01:11:17:18 - 01:12:54:09]
 If you're on your own, I would start journaling to tell you the truth. Yeah, yeah, no. Like really, it's like you've gotta start being with it. Yeah. You gotta start, maybe you go for walks without your music, you know, alone. Spend some time by yourself. Maybe it's 10 minutes a day, you know? So can you do that, right? The internal exploration. That's the first step for me is can you stop and start going in? And there's all different ways to go in. Yeah. And there's great neuroscience on journaling. Yeah, journaling is really great. Yeah. You know, there's a lot of, maybe you journal, maybe you sit with yourself for 10 minutes a day and start allowing what comes up to come up. And then you can start. I have people map out things. I'm like, map out your behaviors. What are your distressing behaviors? Map them out. Do art, like that's an expression that's really therapeutic, right? And then when you map out your behaviors, rank them as to which ones are the most distressing. Yes. Okay, don't work on 10 behaviors. Work on one at a time. And then interestingly enough, when people start journaling, they map out their behaviors, then I want them to start mapping out their traumas because they start seeing a connection between their behaviors and their traumas. And then you can set up a priority for healing. And really one at a time, like this new program that I've created is like,

[01:12:55:11 - 01:16:45:12]
 you wanna work on anger? Work on anger. Don't work on blah, blah, blah, like all of it. You know, like so prioritize it, pick one, do one at a time. It'll bring up a lot of stuff, but it's okay. You do kind of one at a time. And our psyches are set up to stay away from pain. So there's gonna be this, I'm gonna eat, I'm gonna drink, I'm gonna forget to do it. The consistency is so, cause it's a natural like the fire's hot, says the caveman, don't touch the fire. Like we're wired that way. So when the resistance comes up, cause it's going to just stay just 10 minutes. And do what you said earlier, which is sit with the discomfort. Become friends with it, understand it. You don't have to spend the whole day in it. No, small micro doses of corrective experience. Amazing. Well, I could talk to you forever. I have like a thousand more questions, but I really think, what I wanted to accomplish today is this understanding of trauma through this new lens, because this is what I've experienced in my own self. And I haven't been able to put words to it as well as you have. So thank you for your work and please tell Bessel, thank you. I read that book probably 10 times. I go back, I highlight it, I go back to it. It's really a powerful book. Yeah, to put trauma on the map in a way that's so powerful and helpful. And now we're gonna take it to the next level. And so then how do people find you? Cause I know my audience is gonna be like, that guy was amazing, let's go get more of him. Yeah, so I'm on all the things. (Laughing) On all the things. I think probably most active is Instagram. Frank_AndersonMD. My website, which is where my new program is, The Path. I'm super excited about, I really like last week is this new program to start healing in the general public. Amazing. FrankAndersonMD.com. It's my website, newsletter to find all the things. I'm doing a free event next week on couples and trauma. So just sign up for the newsletter and then just kind of be a part of it all. And then I'm on LinkedIn and YouTube. I don't even know what, I don't even know what those, Facebook, I'm sorry. No, I'm the same way, I'm like, I just everywhere. I'm everywhere. I know, I was like, I'll ask Michelle who runs my company. But those are the two that I know about. Well, thank you for your work. And my sense with you is that you're just at the beginning that I know you've been doing this for a while, but this message is so ripe. People are ready for this. And I'm a bridge. This is what I feel. I'll say this last thing, cause I've been in the ivory tower for most of my career. I know all the science, I really do. And I've been in therapy for like too many years, 40 years. Like I know trauma from the inside out. I'm not only an expert, I know it from the inside out. And I'm a big personality so I can share it to the general public. So I do kind of feel like I'm a good person as a bridge to bring that into the world. And I'm excited to do it. I really am, it really is energizing. So I'm happy to be one of the people. Talk about the trauma Avengers, right? I wanna be one of the Avengers. I seem like you guys with like arms crossed and like superhero outfits on. And you say you guys, I'm gonna tweak it a little bit, there's gotta be more women in that group. Because men are, excuse me, fuck things up for a long period of time. And so it's like, it's gotta be women because.

[01:16:46:18 - 01:17:10:15]
 And women have been traumatized by men for centuries. Yes, so that the tide is changing in a way that I think we need to change it. So that Avengers is gonna be a mixed gender group. Amazing, amazing, amazing. Well, thank you. Yeah, thank you. Appreciate you coming to my forest. Beautiful. And spending the afternoon with me. Appreciate you. Thank you.

[01:17:11:19 - 01:17:32:07]
 Thank you so much for joining me in today's episode. I love bringing thoughtful discussions about all things health to you. If you enjoyed it, we'd love to know about it. So please leave us a review, share it with your friends and let me know what your biggest takeaway is. (Soft Music)