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Send us Fan Mail What if the ceiling on your career, creativity, or relationships isn’t a skill gap—but an unhealed story living in your body? We sit down with Portland therapist Dino Paris, who brings 40 years of trauma work to a deeply human conversation about performance, joy, and the nervous system. Dino started in finance, burned out on meaning, and found his way into counseling where he discovered something simple and profound: when people feel safe and truly seen, healing accelerates a...
What if the ceiling on your career, creativity, or relationships isn’t a skill gap—but an unhealed story living in your body? We sit down with Portland therapist Dino Paris, who brings 40 years of trauma work to a deeply human conversation about performance, joy, and the nervous system. Dino started in finance, burned out on meaning, and found his way into counseling where he discovered something simple and profound: when people feel safe and truly seen, healing accelerates and burnout fades.
We unpack the quiet power of small "t" trauma and neglect—the micro-moments that shape a lifelong identity of “not enough.” Dino maps a clear flow from old wounds to negative beliefs to constrained choices, then shows how to reverse it: release the charge, plant better thoughts, restore calm, and watch the outer world mirror the inner shift. He explains why thought alone can’t settle fight or flight, how breath and pacing create safety, and why building rapport is non-negotiable when emotions surface during bodywork or therapy.
If you’re ready to trade survival for joy and turn old patterns into new capacity, press play. Then share this with someone who needs hope today, subscribe for more grounded, practical healing conversations, and leave a review to tell us what landed most.
Learn more about Dino at https://www.dinoparis.com/
This is Soma Rising: Conversations for a Conscious Future —where health, wealth, love, and purpose flow together on the Golden Path of alignment. Learn more at somatribe.org
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Website: soma-massage.net
Instagram: @somawellness.center or @tabitharmacdonald
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✨ Learn more and sign up online.
Tabitha MacDonald is an Intuitive Coach and Bodyworker committed to helping people overcome pain fast so they can experience the love, success, freedom, and fulfillment they deserve.
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Soma Rising: Conversations for a Conscious Future
Welcome to Soma Rising, the podcast where science meets spirit and healing becomes the art of alignment.
Join Tabitha MacDonald, intuitive coach, bodyworker, and transformation expert, as we explore the path of the heart — the Golden Path — where health, wealth, love, and purpose flow together as one radiant field of creation.
Each episode invites you to release the ego’s grip and rise into the luminous potential of your soul — where love feels safe, intuition leads, freedom is your birthright, and peace is natural.
Through powerful conversations, personal stories, and Superconscious insights, we bridge the worlds of neuroscience, intuition, and energy healing to help you align your body, mind, and soul with your Higher Self.
Whether you’re healing from the past, awakening to your purpose, or learning to live intuitively, Soma Rising is your guide to embodied freedom and conscious evolution.
Because you are love.
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You are the miracle you’ve been waiting for.
✨ The future is the Golden Path — and it begins within you.
💖 #SomaRising #GoldenPath #Healing #Consciousness #Intuition #SelfDiscovery #SoulAlignment #Podcast
SPEAKER_01: Hello and welcome.
Today I am genuinely honored to
introduce someone who has been
quietly doing transformational
work long before trauma became a
buzzword on Instagram.
Our guest today is Dino Paris, a
licensed therapist based in
Portland, Oregon, with over 40
years of clinical experience
helping people navigate trauma,
anxiety, performance pressure,
and the deep internal patterns
that shape our lives.
40 years.
Just pause with that for a
moment.
That's four decades of sitting
across from human beings in
their most vulnerable moments.
Four decades of witnessing
breakdowns that become
breakthroughs.
Four decades of helping people
make sense of pain and then
transform it into power.
And what I love about Dino's
work is that it bridges two
worlds.
On one hand, he is deeply
grounded in the clinical
understanding of trauma and
anxiety, the nervous system,
early childhood conditioning,
attachment patterns, performance
anxiety, and the physiology of
stress.
But on the other hand, he
understands something that many
therapists don't always lean
into the relationship between
performance, identity, and joy.
Because Dino doesn't just work
with trauma survivors, he works
with athletes, he works with
creatives, he works with high
performers, and he helps them
not just cope, he helps them
perform better, create better,
and live better.
And most importantly, find joy
in their success.
Welcome, Dino.
I'm very happy to have you on
the podcast today.
Um, I would love to just like uh
hear a little bit about you.
How did you get into the work
that you do?
That's a big commitment for
years.
Most people can't even stay
married that long.
SPEAKER_00: Well, thanks for the
beautiful introduction and the
deep understanding of what I do.
I really appreciate that.
And yeah, that's a great
question.
So as a trauma therapist, my
entry into this kind of work was
born of trauma.
So I had my own background in
trauma, and my first career was
in the world of finance.
I was a financial counselor.
Oh I like to say ever since I
was about 14 years old, and I
was a camp counselor through,
you know, becoming an investment
counselor.
And over the last 40 years, like
you said, um as an emotional
counselor, that I've been a
counselor for a long time.
And um so when I was in finance,
I found that my life started
feeling meaningless.
And I went through a a period of
deep depression and ended up
leaving that career and going on
sort of a vision quest,
traveling, following my uh
creative side, which in in my
upbringing it wasn't really
appropriate to be a creative.
Like that you basically could
either be a doctor, an
accountant, or a lawyer.
SPEAKER_01: Then yeah, not a lot
of creativity.
I tried, you know, that's
professional.
SPEAKER_00: I I didn't really I
tried all those to some extent
and ended up being, you know, a
stockbroker, which it suited my
skill set.
And actually, back in the day,
getting really uh involved in
business and finance and
marketing, I'm really grateful
for it because it helps me in my
business today.
But I was very unhappy and I had
to figure out how to become
happy.
And I've I noticed in my life my
moments where I was happiest, I
was helping other people.
And that's why 40 years of this
doesn't feel hard at all,
because I could wake up in the
morning and not feel great and
then see a client or two and
help them, and it it does bring
me a sense of joy and
fulfillment.
SPEAKER_01: So yeah, I love I
love that.
That's um, I think that was the
hardest part during COVID when I
couldn't go to work because that
was like that was the source of
my joy was helping people.
And it was really hard to not be
able to do that.
I think if you work in this
profession, that does have to
bring you joy if you're gonna
maintain a long career, right?
So I can I can relate.
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, and early in
my career, I would burn out
every so often, you know, just
dealing with the most intense
issues.
But eventually I started finding
very effective ways of working
with people in trauma, including
EMDR, the eye movement
desensitization reprocessing,
and working with polyvagal
theory, creative arts and
narrative.
A lot of the methods are now
recognized scientifically as
really helping people with
trauma.
And so as I learned how to do
those things, I became really
effective in helping people
transform their lives and how
they felt.
And so I stopped burning out
because no matter who showed up
and how bad their trauma was,
um, they were able to release it
and just kind of reboot their
lives and become happy,
fulfilled, calm.
SPEAKER_01: So nice.
SPEAKER_00: You it's amazing how
helping people and being
effective kind of eliminates the
burnout, which was nice.
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I think the
being effective part helps
release a lot of burnout.
Because I see a lot of
therapists, like especially in
the massage industry, where you
know, they're just massaging
people, they're not getting
results, and I'm a results I
we're similar.
I'm a results-oriented
practitioner.
So if I'm not getting results, I
get I get burned out because I'm
like, oh, I came to work to make
the world a better place, not
to, you know, not make a
difference or impact.
So um I think it's a different
thing.
SPEAKER_00: Well, you certainly
do.
SPEAKER_01: No, yeah.
SPEAKER_00: I I've been to your
clinic a lot and it's helped me
a lot.
So you are very effective and I
appreciate everything that you
do.
And thank you.
And and this podcast is really,
I'm sure, impacts a lot of
people that you never even meet.
So that's great.
SPEAKER_01: I every time I ask
the universe for a sign about
the next phase of life, because
I just turned 50, I'll get like
somebody text me right away
who'll be like, Oh, I just
listened to your podcast.
Thank you.
And I'm like, Oh, you're the one
who downloaded it.
SPEAKER_00: What a great
feeling.
SPEAKER_01: I didn't know how
much promotion it would take.
Um, and it's so funny.
You go into a project and you
just don't know how big it's
gonna be until you're in it.
And then you're like, Well, I'm
in it, so I have to keep going.
But um so I really we what we
talked about talking about
today, because I think that for
me personally, I didn't know
that trauma was impacting my
life.
I thought I had handled it.
Like, I don't know if you follow
the Enneagram, but I'm a social
seven.
And so, like, I pretty much
rewrote everything into a
positive, and I was like, nope,
it all happened to make me a
better person and it's my hero's
story.
And then one day I was doing a
trauma course uh to help my
clients better.
And um I like I would not
recommend this, but there was a
meditation they did to unlock
your memories, opened all of
them up at the same time.
It was a very bad day.
So I started taking trauma more
seriously.
Um, and also realized that it
had this massive impact on my
like upper limit success and
like what I thought I could do
or was capable of.
And um I don't even think, I
think our trauma becomes so part
of our story that we don't even
know it's impacting us because
you just don't know because you
have like your, you know.
So what are like some of the
smaller traumas that you think
or I wouldn't even say traumas,
but like the the symptoms that
someone might be experiencing
who has unprocessed trauma?
Like how does it show up in work
and like their love life?
Like those are the two big ones
I always get asked about.
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
So if you think about trauma, I
like looking at it in a very
simplistic way that I find also
accurate.
And it's almost like a flow
chart or a timeline.
And experts now on the nervous
system and experts on the brain
are really starting to see that
just about anything someone
shows up to heal in therapy is
really born of one sort of
trauma or another.
And a good way of thinking about
it is there's what we call big T
trauma, which would be things
like being in a disaster or ha
being abused.
And then there are things like
small tea trauma, which could be
incessant, sort of dirty looks
from your parents, you know,
just anytime you're not doing
something that they think you
ought to be doing, even if it's
like how you're dressed or how
you style your hair, those tiny
little cuts can form an
intricate web of trauma that
sometimes takes more time to
unravel and heal than a one-time
incident like a car accident.
SPEAKER_01: And so Yeah, I
agree.
Can we sit with that one for a
minute?
Because people don't register
those micro traumas, I think, as
much, right?
They just think they it becomes
their identity, like they don't
realize that that can shift.
Um, so those like like you said,
those side glances or a lot of
my clients had narcissistic
parents and um they don't
realize the long-term compact.
Like I well, um, I don't know if
you would agree, but like the
program I'm taking right now
calls it like complex PTSD.
It's that long-term emotional
neglect and abuse that makes you
think that you're less worthy
because of something about you.
SPEAKER_00: So and
interestingly, you brought up
neglect.
I've I've had a lot of clients
who were neglected over these
years, and I don't think a
single one of them came in with
neglect as a presenting problem.
Because the thing about neglect
is if you're a child who's
neglected, you all often become
very resourceful, right?
You play with your Legos or you
study, and a lot of people been
neglected wouldn't even say that
they were neglected.
That comes out throughout the
process of the therapy that
maybe leads to some of the
symptoms.
And you you brought up uh you
know, romance and work.
So on the topic of romance, if
you've been neglected, it
sometimes feels very difficult
to experience and soak in love.
I like to use uh the example of
a sponge that hasn't had water
on it for a long time.
It gets so dried out that even
if you pour water, and in this
in this metaphor, water is like
love, you pour water or love on
this sponge, it takes a while to
soak it in.
And through the process of the
counseling, eventually a little
bit of water starts entering and
spreading, and then you can take
it.
So a lot of people suffer in
romance because they've had
trauma or neglect.
And a big part of the work that
I'll do with someone in a
situation like that is help them
trace back either somatically
through the body, through their
emotions or their memories, to
moments of neglect or trauma.
And as they release them and
heal that, they become more open
and available to receiving love.
So if you look at the flow
chart, it starts with some sort
of trauma, which leads to many
things.
But one of the things that the
trauma leads to is a negative
thinking.
And often it's negative thinking
about themselves.
I'm not lovable, I'm not good
enough.
And that leads to very difficult
feelings like depression,
self-hate, and then that leads
to actions and choices, which
leads to negative outcomes,
which is more trauma, is kind of
the vicious cycle.
And as you start releasing the
trauma, you create what I call a
virtuous cycle.
It's now you're letting go of
the trauma, you're having better
thoughts about yourself, you're
having more pleasant feelings,
and you're able to take action
and connect with others.
And, you know, similar things
happen at work as well that you
asked about, where you might
have an idea that you can only
be so successful in your career,
it's born of trauma.
And as we start releasing that
trauma, you start having a
better narrative and an inner
world in which everything on the
inside is getting healed.
And then your outer world
becomes a reflection of that
more positive inner world, and
you start noticing nicer things
are happening to you as well.
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I very much
agree.
Like if I do a gratitude
breathwork session in the
morning, the world looks
different than if I do a look at
my overwhelming to-do list
session in the morning.
SPEAKER_00: So I love that.
SPEAKER_01: Hugely different.
And it's weird how fast it will
change based on like one small
shift in perspective.
Absolutely.
One day I'll look for
everything, how the world is
happening to me.
The next second, within seconds,
it's how the there's so many
opportunities and how grateful I
am to be able to create what I
want in the world.
And so it's it's it's fast if
you learn the tools, right?
SPEAKER_00: Absolutely.
And you know, one of the things
that I like to tell people is
it's very difficult to get a
negative thought out of our
heads, but it's very easy to put
a positive thought in our head.
You basically write it on a
piece of paper and read it.
And really, a human being can
only have one thought in their
head in a moment.
So I often recommend there's a
list of really good thoughts.
Like one of my favorite thoughts
is this is the best moment of my
life.
I even have it on my alarm to
wake me up in the morning.
It's right there on my phone.
And as soon as I, even if it's
not true, when I say it, the
mind is always listening.
I say it, and then the mind
hears it, and suddenly colors
look more bright, the air just
feels sweeter.
And if people actually realized
the impact of their thoughts and
just putting a good thought in
their head, um, it's it's really
life-changing.
And of course, because bad
thoughts are are largely born of
trauma, as you release the
trauma with the EMDR and other
methods, your your mind, your
body are more susceptible to
taking in those good thoughts.
And so it actually becomes kind
of easy, the healing process,
once you know um how to enter
it.
SPEAKER_01: You know, I think
that's the thing that I have
figured out the most with
clients is they always say to
because I I work with the body
in the pain and I can see, you
know, like migraine patterns and
just things that are like born
from trauma.
And I'm like, but why aren't we
addressing the root cause?
And and most of the time they'll
say, Well, I don't have time for
that.
And I'm like, but it's gonna
make you sick, like it literally
is.
And who has time for that?
So, you know, it's an
interesting selling point with
people.
Like, um, they think that they
don't have time for self-care or
for self-reflection or you know,
working through that stuff.
Um, what do you think is the
biggest hurdle?
Like, why they think it's
because I don't think it's the
time thing.
I think maybe they don't
understand the process or what
are your thoughts on that?
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, that is a
great question.
And what I think is going on
there is the the way to heal
anything, in my opinion, is it
starts with safety.
So if a person feels safe to be
present with something, and then
in the context of that safety in
that container, they can be
present with it, it will heal.
The problem is if a person does
not feel safe, their nervous
system which is always searching
the environment for signs of
danger or safety, will hear a
suggestion like, well, let's
address uh what's the source of
this.
And uh if a person uh hears that
and has a negative experience,
like, well, it's too
overwhelming to address it, or
I've tried that before and it
didn't work, the nervous system
will see that as like a lion
chasing them, wanting them to
eat, and they'll go into perhaps
fight or flight or shutdown, and
they'll be like, No, I can't
look at that.
So the thing, the mistake that I
think a lot of people make is
they try to solve the overactive
nervous system with thought.
But there's a couple of problems
with that.
When we're in fight or flight or
overwhelm, the mind goes to
mush.
We can't really think.
And the other thing is thought
does not heal the nervous
system.
Breathing, moving slowly,
listening to music is what calms
it down.
So as opposed to trying to
intellectualize or logically
explain to someone that we need
to do A, B, or C, if we see it
as they're frightened or they
don't feel safe, and then we do
things to help them feel safe,
like we walk them through
breathing, or we just have them
talk, often that goal is
achieved.
They become more calm and
suddenly they feel safer to
enter a process of release.
I mean, I'm gonna take a guess.
You can tell me as a massage
therapist, as you're working on
a client and they start to
really feel safe and trusting.
Do you ever find that they
sometimes will have an emotional
release right on the table or
they'll start talking about
something that was hard for them
to talk about?
Does that happen on your table
sometimes?
SPEAKER_01: Every every massage
therapist needs to go through
trauma training.
Like I'm just gonna say that as
a blanket statement because we
will get people who won't go see
traditional therapists, and we
do need to know how to walk them
through those moments because
the second their nervous system
settles, they definitely start
talking and they're like, I
don't know why.
I never thought about that.
Or and I'm like, well, because
we're engaged with your body and
we're, you know, bringing you
into your body, and when you're
in your body, your body will
tell you what your mind forgot.
So it's really too, yeah.
I I'm a I'm very big with um
watching people's eye patterns
to know that they're not
dissociating when we're working
on them, and also teaching my
therapists how to identify that
and then keep them present so
that you know, if you do have
someone who has unprocessed
trauma, especially the ones that
don't know, you can keep an eye
and track and make sure that
they're not re-experiencing
something that's not in the
present moment.
And so that's a big part of
education at Soma because um,
especially we because we do a
lot of work with like the jaw
and brain injuries, they can
dissociate really quickly.
And um we don't want them
attaching an old experience with
the experience they're having
right now.
And I think that happens to a
lot of people um more than they
know.
And so um, I I don't know if
that answered your question, but
yeah.
SPEAKER_00: So no, no, yeah,
it's it sounds like you're doing
great work.
And so the line that I would
draw between what you're saying
and the question is whenever you
happen to notice or anyone
happens to notice that someone
seems to be avoiding the source
or getting defensive, the idea
is to have compassion for them,
to interpret it as they probably
need to feel safe, and then do
all those beautiful things that
you know how to do to help them
feel safe.
And then you don't have to
convince them the source will
bubble up and they start
releasing it during your
practice.
Yeah.
I think it's all about feeling
safe and not going into fight or
flight.
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
That that is something that we
train in every time we do a
training and I do them monthly,
is how to build rapport with
people quickly so that they feel
safe.
And we use like uh I studied
NLP, so we use like physical
rapport, you know, verbal
tonality, like the whole system
to create a sense of safety
immediately.
Because I think when you're just
working with people in pain,
like they need to trust you and
feel safe with you so much
faster than like if you were
going to eat outside at a
restaurant, right?
So um rapport building is
something that we go over every
month.
Like so it's it's important to
me that healthcare practitioners
learn about rapport because
that's just important.
So yeah.
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I mean, I
think that's a part of why I had
such a great experience, you
know, just as a patient in your
clinic is everybody knows how to
connect.
And uh yeah, I think that's the
key.
And it sounds like you know a
lot about the nervous system and
apply it.
So that's so helpful.
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I was trained
by a very um amazing massage
therapist who said we we will do
better as a profession.
And so he was very thorough in
how he trained me.
So uh I bring that same.
Uh those same principles to Soma
so that everyone there knows how
to maintain safety for people
when they come in and make them
put them at ease right away
because it's you can't make
progress with someone who
doesn't trust you.
It's just not gonna happen.
So and you know, it's a very
vulnerable thing to to be in any
kind of a treatment room, right?
Like therapy or massage or
acupuncture.
You're taking your worst pain to
someone and asking them to walk
you through it.
Like it's you have to know how
to sit with people in compassion
and grace and without judgment.
And that is a that is a skill I
think that comes with time.
I don't, I don't, you know, and
practice and love and just
bringing love into the work that
you do.
So yeah, it's important.
Uh and I've seen it go awry
where people who don't do it,
and I you see the consequences
of what happens to their their
clients, and it's not good.
So, um, but yeah, I'm a big, big
advocate for safety and the and
the vulnerable things.
Okay, so I wanted to ask you
about EMDR because I don't know
that a lot of people know what
that is, and my business coach
actually has us do EMDR as part
of our entrepreneur program.
And I realized that it was so
helpful when we do it around
business and especially being
seen or heard, you know, things
that are trauma-related that
people don't think of as being
trauma related.
And, you know, even when you you
work with someone who maybe
doesn't ask for a big enough
raise or doesn't know how to
advocate against a boss who's a
bully because they're afraid of
being fired, um, how can
something like what is EMDR,
first of all, and how can it
really make a big difference in
the way someone experiences
success in their chosen career
path?
SPEAKER_00: Yes.
So whether you're talking about
business and you know, going
beyond your glass ceiling, you
know, if you're making 10 grand
a month, you want to make 50
grand a month or whatever your
goal is, um, when I work with
people, I call it um
transformational work,
transformational coaching.
Usually when someone hits up
against an obstacle and they're
struggling to get past it, um, I
believe that it's usually
because they're jammed up inside
somehow that, you know, they
want to make more money, but
they have some sort of a
negative thought pattern,
negative association, or
negative um pattern in their
body that's preventing them.
And in all the years that I've
been helping people with their
performance, whether it's
athletics, business, creativity,
that it's always comes down to
trauma.
And uh EMDR is, in my opinion,
uh it's just miraculous.
If I was drawing a cartoon, I
would say you'd have a picture
of some cave people, and it
would say the discovery of fire
is to technology as the
discovery of EMDR is to uh
raising consciousness and
becoming a being that really is
a magical being.
And so whenever I work with a
client to help them with their
performance, I use a variety of
methods, including somatic
methods.
They may breathe into a part of
their body, trace it back in
time, and a trauma will bubble
up or a collection of trauma.
They might breathe into a
feeling like resentment or
frustration, something holding
them back.
Um and it just seems to always
work.
It traces back to a trauma.
We use the methodology, the
EMDR, which it's a terrible
name.
It stands for eye movement
desensitization reprocessing.
I've taken the unofficial
liberty to change the meaning.
I just call it every memory does
release because it's easier to
remember.
So what happens is we release
the traumatic memory that's
leading to the blockage, and
almost immediately people start
making more money, have better
athletic performance, are able
to find a partner.
I mean, it's it's funny.
I have I have a secret tagline
because I'm a spiritual person
that I don't put on my website,
that there's really only one
thing in life that you can count
on, and that's magic.
So the magic that happens, I
even have this as a reminder.
Someone gave me this box that
has the uh image of a magician,
right?
So there's a certain magic when
a person taps into their innate
healing ability, which I believe
everyone has, an inner genius
and innate healer, they start to
tap into the trauma and release
it.
Magical things happen.
And that works with the EMDR,
that works with a lot of the
polyvagal exercises.
There's also a beautiful
meditation technique called
Ho'oponopono that comes from
Hawaii that I use a lot.
And there's not a whole lot of
time to go into it now, but at
some point I did a whole episode
on it.
SPEAKER_01: I okay, great.
So you understand it was the
first thing I turned to.
Yeah, when it was it was bad for
me.
Um, it was the first thing
somebody introduced me to, and
it literally changed my life.
And the NLP trainer that I
trained with, Matt, um oh,
what's his last name?
Uh doesn't matter.
Uh he's from Hawaii and he
integrates Ha'opono Pono into
everything.
Like public speaking training,
hoopono.
Absolutely start everything.
SPEAKER_00: So it helps with
everything.
And I incorporate it into EMDR.
So it's just super powerful and
super simple to do.
I do with my clients and I teach
them how to do it for
themselves.
It helps release negative
emotions.
But the other thing that it
does, it helps people take
responsibility but love
themselves at the same time.
And it even has a helpful impact
if you're trying to help people
around you or help the entire
world.
So it's really powerful.
I'm glad you did an episode on
it.
SPEAKER_01: Oh, yeah.
We play it in the clinic um with
people, especially if they have
a lot, a lot of negative thought
forms.
And like uh I'll play it almost
everywhere I go.
Like, especially if I'm going
somewhere where there's a lot of
denseness, I'll be like, oh, I'm
gonna put the ho'opono pono on
on repeat.
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I mean, I did
a a workshop once at the old
church where I hired a bunch of
musicians and we wrote a hoopono
pono song.
We had this woman, Saida Wright,
who used to sing as a backup
singer with Prince, who's a
Portland native, and was super
powerful.
Yeah, I would I've been toying
with the idea of doing it again
because it was just so powerful.
So it's it's such a great simple
thing.
Yeah.
SPEAKER_01: When I had the idea,
when I first found it, I
thought, oh, we should do a
ho'opono healing circle in the
middle of Portland, like it
needs it.
Absolutely.
Absolutely down there and
ho-opono pono wet.
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I mean, when
I've when I've done workshops
together with uh Judith in our
group who does the sound
healing, she did the sound
healing and I would do the
hooponopono and the together, it
just was very powerful.
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, it is um one
of my favorite tools, and it's
interesting because it's about
forgiveness.
And um, I know like when I
started going to Al Anon, uh,
because my ex-husband had a
drinking problem, um, the people
there were so angry that they
had to pee there, be there
because they were like, it's not
my problem.
Why am I here?
And I was I learned it takes two
to tango, number one.
And number two, it was um
releasing the the anger and
resentment and the the pain
actually releases that from your
life.
Like that person's no longer
longer energetically bound to
your like the the the whatever
wrong they did to you.
So um for me, it was so
powerful.
And in the beginning, because I
had so much trauma, especially
body-based trauma, it was very
hard for me to go, why should I
forgive this person for this
thing they did to me?
And then I realized over time
that I was freeing myself from
the bondage, not them.
And I, you know, I'll leave them
to source.
But for me, it released my like
my entanglement with them.
SPEAKER_00: I love that.
So one of the precepts of
hooponopono is things only exist
in the universe because they
exist in your consciousness.
So it's so radical.
In hooponopono, they teach us to
take 100% responsibility for
everything, obviously for our
actions, even our thoughts and
feelings.
But the part that really blows
people's minds a lot and is is
hard to wrap their brains
around, I think, initially, is
you take responsibility for
everything you hear about.
So if I read something in the
newspaper that a terrible
atrocity happened, even if I had
nothing to do with it, I take
100% responsibility for it.
And at the same time, I love
myself and I value myself.
So it's this sweet spot where
it's like, okay, I take
responsibility for anything bad
that happens in the world, but
then I have something I could do
about it.
I do hope no pono and release
it.
And the idea is it doesn't only
release it from me, but because
the world is in my
consciousness, it helps the
world by me releasing it.
So it's a really great tool to
deal with the world we live in
today, where there's so much
conflict between so many people
and so many wars that a person
can feel helpless and powerless.
And by doing hooponopono, it
could help release a lot of
that.
And the way I like to explain it
is imagine if just for a couple
of minutes, everyone in the
entire world took 100%
responsibility for everything
that was happening and did asked
for forgiveness for every war,
for every cruelty, and that's
all everyone did, uh all war uh
would end immediately.
And uh it's a great method
because often, you know, I work
a lot with people in couples,
often couples hurt each other,
right?
If one person has an affair, and
doing hoaponopono in those
situations, it it one of the big
things that happens is a lot of
people feel like if they did
something wrong to hurt someone
else, that means they're a bad
person.
But in hooponopono, you get to
take 100% responsibility for
doing something bad to hurt
someone, and you get to still
love yourself and value
yourself.
So it creates a safe environment
to actually look at the behavior
and correct it and not do it
again.
Because most people that feel
like doing something bad means
they're a bad person, they'll be
in such denial, they won't look
at it, they'll keep repeating
the pattern.
But if you actually say, Oh my
God, I had an affair, you know,
I hurt my partner, but you could
still love yourself and not hate
yourself as a human and value
yourself, you can actually take
responsibility, make amends, and
do things to prevent you from
having that cycle continue and
you become a better partner.
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I think that
not looking at it creates the
shame.
And I think shame embeds it into
your identity, and then like
it's hard to escape the behavior
because you're so afraid to look
at it because the shame is so
intertwined with it.
And I think what happens for a
lot of people who have abuse,
especially as children, is that
shame is their core like state
of being and they don't even
know it.
And it's um yeah, it was
shocking to me when I figured it
out.
I was like, I don't have shame.
And it was like everything about
your behavior says you are
imprisoned in shame all of the
time.
And I had no, I had no clue.
So because it was just how I
operated, and I didn't feel
ashamed anymore.
I felt happy and I looked happy,
but everything that was blocking
me was this like I'm not worthy
underlying current of
unconscious identity issues.
So it was really interesting.
SPEAKER_00: That's a great
discovery, and it takes a lot of
courage.
And one of the things, well,
shame also underlies a lot of
addiction and running away.
And but the thing that I am so
sort of baffled by or I don't
know, just blown away by is if
you look at shame as something
that's sort of hidden under a
rock and it doesn't get any
sunlight, you don't want to look
at it.
If if there is some slimy
substance under a rock and you
pick the rock up and turn it
over, the sunlight just kind of
heals it.
And it's similar with shame,
once we find a safe way of
opening up and speaking about
our shame, something about that
process already heals it.
It brings it to the light.
But until we do that, it's so
frightening.
And I mean, I would go to I
would say terrifying to reveal
these things.
And then the irony is that once
we finally do, we're like, oh
wow, I didn't realize that was
gonna work.
SPEAKER_01: So yeah, it's it's
very powerful.
Uh just speaking it out loud, I
think, is the first step.
And um, I had uh this one coach
I worked with, and he said, you
can't like um nothing from your
past is under your control, but
like everything from your future
is.
And if you wake up every day and
you remember that, then the past
stops recreating your future.
And that was such great advice.
And um also like I think right
now, especially because the
world is is experiencing kind of
like some pretty major trauma
things coming out that people
are diving deep into.
It can be very triggering for
people who don't who don't have
a handle on their own trauma and
they they might be, I don't
know, you know, about the
Epstein files.
And like I'm really seeing a lot
of people struggling with it
because maybe they haven't
worked through their own trauma
and it is a shadow reflection of
society and what we we don't
look at in our own lives.
And I so that's what I mean.
Like when you said the whole
we're creating everything, we're
part of it, it's like there's
shadows within us that are being
mirrored to us as I think a
world right now.
And, you know, if if you feel
very activated by some of the
stuff that's going on, it's a
good time to reflect in your own
life about the things that
you're not paying attention to.
Um, and like what we're not
paying attention to as a
society, about how we let the
standard of care for people just
go unnoticed while we're you
know more self-absorbed or
consumed with our own stories.
I don't know.
What do you do you have a
thought about that?
SPEAKER_00: Or yeah, I mean, I
agree with everything you're
saying.
And one of the powerful things
within trauma, once you create
safety, is one way of describing
it could be silver lining.
Another way is trauma can be a
portal to very deep ways in
which a person is stretching
their soul.
I don't know if you've heard of
it, but there's a great book by
Carolyn Mace, M Y S S called
Sacred Contracts.
And the whole premise of that
book is that there's a waiting
list to get onto Earth, and that
you're a saint before you come
to Earth, you're a saint when
you leave, flying around the
universe, just cruising.
But one nanosecond on earth, a
soul can learn more, stretch
itself, and fulfill itself than
eons out there.
And according to Carolyn Mace,
we get together with other souls
before we're born, and out of
love, we have these sacred
agreements or contracts to get a
piece of our soul from them.
So often it comes out of trauma.
I mean, I look at my own history
and I say, you know, I had a
very critical mom who um really
had a hard time with anxiety
herself, and um, she was very
negative.
And I feel like somehow I needed
to have that experience to
really dig deep inside of myself
and and learn how to transform,
learn how to create a beacon of
sort of warmth and love and
comfort inside of me.
And before my mom died, I had
this revelation and I was lucky
enough to be able to tell her to
say, you know what, I'm actually
super grateful.
Like for many years, I felt
really wounded and angry about
the way we interacted, the way
you raised me.
But I realized now, because you
were such a fearful person, you
saw the world as a scary place.
Every time you criticized me or
anyone else, I get that that
meant you loved me and you
wanted me to be safe in a cruel
world.
And I had to take that in and
find my own way to transform it
to help fulfill my purpose of
learning how to feel fulfilled
on a very dangerous planet and
help others feel that as well.
And I imagine if I had sort of a
more cheery upbringing, I never
would have discovered this sense
of purpose to help people with
the the work that I do.
I'd probably still be telling
people what stocks to buy.
SPEAKER_01: You know, it's it's
so interesting.
It's hard to walk somebody
through a forest you've never
navigated.
So I find that um when I work
with, especially like uh people,
women, especially who've had
body trauma um when they were
young, uh, because I've worked
through it and healed it, and I
they feel more comfortable with
a guide who understands the
experience that they had.
And so that's what always keeps
me going forward is like that I
know I had to go through things
in order to walk other people on
the journey because uh my soul
was brave enough to say, I'll
take that so I can help the
others.
And I think that that's uh a
powerful way to look at trauma
and actually be able to turn it
into purpose and power.
SPEAKER_00: I agree.
Really powerful.
One of the magical questions
eventually that I like to ask
people once they've done some
trauma work with me, and what I
find is asking ourselves this
question helps us feel elevated,
like on a higher vibration, and
feel better immediately.
It's like, well, when you look
back at your life and you you
see all the trauma that you've
been through, and you look at
all the torture that you've had
and just how terrible it was, is
there any way in which when you
reflect on that, you could see
how it's all that trauma helped
you get more clear on your
purpose in life?
And when people even, even
before answers start coming to
them, just asking that question,
I believe, raises people's
vibration and helps them feel
better.
There's a there's an expression
in Brooklyn where I'm from.
It's not for nothing.
Like once you start to realize I
went through all this trauma,
but it wasn't just this random,
meaningless, useless thing.
It's not for nothing.
There was a purpose.
It's helping me get more clear.
My purpose, I find for myself
and other people, you already
start to feel better knowing
that it wasn't for nothing and
it's helping you get clear.
So I I love it when when people
reflect on that and start
feeling better immediately.
SPEAKER_01: I think that your
that question wakes the soul up.
You know, it's it's like it
activates the soul to go, yeah,
hey, hey, no, we picked this for
a reason.
Sorry, not sorry, but like I
have a joke.
SPEAKER_00: That's a great way
of describing that's a really
great way of describing it.
unknown: Yeah.
SPEAKER_01: Um, well, I I know
we're out of time now, but it
was so nice to have you on
today.
And I think this is such an
important conversation.
And if people want to find you,
if they're in the Portland area
and would like to book an
appointment with you, how would
they do that?
SPEAKER_00: Well, one easy way
is just to go to my website,
dinoparis.com, d-in o
p-ar-i-s.com.
There's a page there with my
phone number, you can call me.
There's a page where you can
have a confidential message sent
to me.
And um, I'm very easy to find.
SPEAKER_01: Thanks.
I'll put it on.
SPEAKER_00: I'm very happy to
hear from people.
And I can I can do therapy with
anyone in the state of Oregon.
They don't have to be in
Portland.
And I can help people with
performance anywhere in the
world.
But as a therapist, I'm only
licensed in the state of Oregon.
And what a pleasure.
Pleasure talking to you.
I really appreciate it.
I feel like I've gotten to know
you a little better too,
personally.
And that's that was really fun.
And I look forward to more
contact with you.
And thanks for doing what you
do.
It's really beautiful and
healing.
SPEAKER_01: Oh, thank you.
Yeah, it's so nice to it's nice
to see how people are bringing
their work into the world and
how we all have our own unique
way of doing it.
And how it's so important to
have a lot of unique people
doing it in a unique way, uh, so
that more people can be served.
So it is not, it's not an easy
path all of the time working in
the healing arts, but it is one
that is so needed right now.
So thank you for all that you do
as well.
And um final question.
I know I didn't send this to you
ahead of time.
SPEAKER_00: No, that's okay.
SPEAKER_01: If you were on a
desert island and you could only
bring one book with you, what
would you bring?
SPEAKER_00: Wow.
What a great question.
One book.
SPEAKER_01: One book to rule
them all.
SPEAKER_00: Wow.
I think I would bring a book
called um.
I'm trying to remember the name
of it.
Oh, it's something it's
something about music.
It's the something about the
mysticism of music by Hasrat
Anayat Khan.
And it it talks about how uh the
mystics in every religion all
agree.
It's it's the it's the regular
religion part where people
fight.
And Hazrat Anayat Khan, he came
here like I think in the early
1900s.
He was a be magnificent
musician.
He was a Sufi.
And he never wrote a book, but
he talked a lot, and people
wrote down everything he said.
And there's such beautiful
depth.
Like every time I read this
book, I get more out of it.
And it's all about the healing
power of sound and music and the
universality of it.
And if I could only bring one
book, I that's the one I would
take.
I would just read it every day
in between swims and eating
coconut and fish.
SPEAKER_01: I love it.
Oh, that's awesome.
Thank you.
I'll have to look at it.
SPEAKER_00: Of course.
SPEAKER_01: Well, thank you so
much for being on today.
And um, I'll put the links to
your bio down below.
Thank you.
And um appreciate you.
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, back at you.
Thank you.
SPEAKER_01: Thanks, everyone.