← Adult Child
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- [00:00]
Andrea
So tell me if this sounds like you. You're the one holding it all together. You're the reliable one, the helper, the fixer. You're getting it done at work in your relationships, for your family. But inside you're exhausted. Rest feels impossible or even guilt inducing. Asking for help feels unsafe, maybe even a little shameful. Your body is always clenched. You're running on empty, but you can't stop. So here's what no one tells you. That hyper responsibility, that constant over functioning that is one of the most overlooked forms of functional freeze.
- [00:30]
Teresa
We're.
- [00:30]
Andrea
We tend to think freeze looks like shutdown, like doing nothing. But sometimes freeze looks like doing everything. Fixing, helping, performing. All while disconnecting from yourself underneath it all. And here's the thing. You can't think your way out of this mindset. Hacks won't melt this freeze because it's not about mindset. It's your nervous system stuck in survival mode. It's about your body believing it's only safe if you keep doing. And I know plenty of you right now are hardcore relating to everything that I'm saying. Which is why I'm so excited about Breathe to Heal, a six week Somatic breath work core course designed exactly for this. Led by Teresa, a certified somatic breathwork practitioner and a fellow member of our show community, this course will help you reconnect with your body, regulate your nervous system and begin to feel safe enough to rest, slow down and just be and y'all. This is a steal compared to most systematic healing programs out there. We start on Wednesday, May 14th at 8:30pm Eastern. It's all online. It's live on Zoom, so get your damn spot@adultchildpodcast.com breathe to heal. That's breathe with an e at the end or you can see the link in the show notes. Your nervous system has been waiting for this, so please don't leave it hanging. Trauma may live in your body, but healing begins the moment you listen to its story. My name is Andrea and this is Adult Child.
- [01:52]
Irene Lyon
What you holding on to? I just let it all go. What's making you slow now?
- [02:01]
Andrea
Welcome back to Adult Child where we take a deep dive into the impact of growing up in a dysfunctional family. Ahoy my dear. Shit shows. For any new listeners, my name is Andrea. I am a total and complete shit show and I am also an adult child. And if you're wondering what the hell is an adult child, let me tell you, okay? An adult child is somebody who responds to life with self doubt, self blame, or a sense of being wrong or inferior, all as a result of their childhood experiences. Or put another way, an adult child is somebody whose unresolved childhood pain surfaces and plays out in adulthood. And not in a good way. Okay, not in a good way. Usually in a rather painful way. And this is the podcast where we talk about what the hell to do about that in a raw, vulnerable, unfiltered, and at times, humorous way. So welcome aboard, Buckle up. And for anyone who may not know, I am currently on a little hiatus working on the relaunch of this podcast. You could call it Adult Child 2.0, where I will be sharing everything that I have experienced and learned since launching this podcast four years ago. And in the meantime, though, we will be diving into the adult child vault. And boy, do I have a goodie for you today. So today we are diving deep with Irene Lyon. So she is a nervous system specialist. She is a somatic neuroplasticity expert who helps thousands of people all over the world heal their trauma. And, you know, if I were really to sum up this adult child trauma syndrome, I would say that it is nervous system dysfunction, nervous system dysregulation. So whether we are talking about physical changes that occur in the brain as a result of growing up in a state of chronic stress, abuse, and fear, or whether we are talking about emotional flashbacks, whether we're talking about limiting beliefs.
- [04:11]
Irene Lyon
That we hold or.
- [04:12]
Andrea
Or the harmful coping mechanisms that we've been utilizing, it really all comes back to a dysregulated and imbalanced nervous system. And I gotta say that I really did not fully understand this or appreciate this at the time that I did this interview with Irene. I have really been humbled from this last dark night of the soul that I just went through, just how damn important this somatic piece, the somatic healing aspect of this adult child thing really is. And I think that that's, you know, a large part of stuff coming back up for me that I thought that I had worked through. I really had not done the somatic healing at the level that you. It truly does require. It is no joke. It is such a huge component of this. So let's just get on with the damn show already. Okay, but let's first talk about why you, yes, you need to damn the join shit show. My online support community where I host four weekly zoom support groups where you get to connect with others that are doing the damn work to heal, supporting each other while we do it, and having a little fun, having some laughs along the way because Boy, this shit, this healing work is no joke, y'all. And we gotta be able to find the humor and the laughs in this when we can. This is a support system that is at your fingertips in your back pocket, with our app. We also have a ton of sub communities within this community that are targeted to specific struggles or specific interests like shit show, parenting, separation and divorce, childhood sexual abuse, neurodivergent issues. You name it, we got it. I cannot stress how important it is to be a part of the healing community with people who get it, who have felt the same way as you, who have thought the same things that you think, who have done the same things that you do. You will gain insights about yourself through listening to the experience of other people. This is relational trauma. We heal relational trauma in safe relationships. And this is the place where you can do so. So how about you just do it already? Especially you. Yes, you, the person that's been wanting to do it for forever. And I just gotta say, just in the past few days, we've had two people join the community that have been wanting to join for over two years. Yes, for over two years. And if that's just two people in a few days, how many of y'all are out there? I see you. I see you right now. How about you just do it? Time to rip the band aid off. Just rip the thing off. See the link in the show notes. You can quit after a month if you don't like it. Let's just do it already. Okay, next, give me a little follow on the insta on the TikTok at adult child pod. And last but not least, whatever you do, please, please, please give me a five star rating on Apple on Spotify. Thank you. Love you all.
- [07:23]
Teresa
So we have a special guest today. So I refer to myself as the queen of the show, and I'm gonna deem you the queen of the nervous system.
- [07:34]
Irene Lyon
Ah, thank you. You know, I. I've had a few people say that, so I've heard it before.
- [07:41]
Teresa
So right before we started recording, I asked her if she was familiar with the term adult child. And she said she was not in a. In an actual sense. So allow me to.
- [07:49]
Irene Lyon
Please.
- [07:51]
Teresa
So the term was initially adult children of alcoholics.
- [07:56]
Irene Lyon
I see.
- [07:57]
Teresa
And so that came around in the late 70s, early 80s, but it wasn't long after that, like within the next 10 years, they realized that there were other types of dysfunctional families that could also produce an adult child.
- [08:14]
Irene Lyon
Yeah, most of Western society.
- [08:19]
Teresa
Exactly.
- [08:20]
Irene Lyon
Yeah.
- [08:20]
Teresa
So there's like a couple definitions of it. But I think really what it comes down to is just like the. I mean, I would say it's complex ptsd, but it's basically just the way that It's. There's a 12 step program. And the way that they describe it is someone who responds to adult situations with self doubt, self blame, or a sense of being wrong or inferior, all as a result of their childhood.
- [08:46]
Irene Lyon
Yep.
- [08:47]
Teresa
And so I can just tell you my, like, aha. So I. I spent years and years and years and years and years in. In a shitload of pain not realizing that what I experienced in romantic relationships was complex ptsd. Like, no clue. And my first aha. Was somebody I dated for. And I was sober at this point. I was seven years sober at this point.
- [09:12]
Irene Lyon
Sure.
- [09:13]
Teresa
Somebody I dated for less than a month, like ghosted me. And my reaction was as if my husband of 30 years had just.
- [09:23]
Irene Lyon
Yeah, yeah, massive. Like I'm. The world is ending.
- [09:30]
Teresa
Yeah. Like legitimately, like life is not worth living anymore.
- [09:33]
Irene Lyon
Yep.
- [09:34]
Teresa
And so the first aha. Was there's no way that the way that I'm feeling right now could actually be about the situation.
- [09:41]
Irene Lyon
Good for you.
- [09:42]
Teresa
Was. This is a feeling I felt often as a child.
- [09:45]
Irene Lyon
Yeah. Yeah.
- [09:48]
Teresa
I. I always knew that my childhood was less than ideal. Like my mom was an alcoholic, my dad was emotionally unavailable, but I was never physically or sexually abused. So how bad could it truly have been?
- [09:58]
Irene Lyon
You know, that's a common story, I hear. Yep. So it can be pretty bad, if not worse, because there's no, there's no like physical, visible thing that would say I was traumatized.
- [10:13]
Andrea
You have no idea.
- [10:15]
Teresa
And then, because this is something that comes up too with people that are in my community, it's like they feel like because their childhood wasn't that bad, then there's an extra layer of shame. Why am I so fucked up?
- [10:31]
Irene Lyon
You know, if we just look at what the nervous system is, it's. It's not just a bunch of nerves. It is an energetic electric biochemical system field that touches every part of our physiology. But it also influences how we see the world around us and how we take in the world. Humans are different than other mammals. We're mammals, we're animals, but then we're human and that makes it difficult for us. So far, and I'm being very general here, because our higher brain is still. We still don't know where it came from. Right. It's. I mean, I have some ideas, but you know, it has evolved so quickly, so fast, and we, we can override our Physiology just like you know, yogis can change their heart rate through meditation. Like we can also stop the system from working the way it should. But when you have a human come out of mom, right, she's not kid is not like Bambi in the woods, just pops up on the two feet.
- [11:41]
Teresa
Can take care of themselves, knows how.
- [11:43]
Irene Lyon
To do like they have to have some care from the mom, you know. But it's the, the transition, the apprenticeship to that deer being on their own is so fast. Humans, even if, like, Even if you're 20 years old to go back to the adult child thing, you might not be set up to know how to navigate world because it depends on how you are nurtured. And so what's occurring, Andrea, with all the. All these things complex, ptsd, shame, doubt, addiction, mental health problems, physical. You know, I think one of the, the most misunderstood things thing is chronic illness, autoimmune many, if not, I'm gonna, you know, cancers that aren't due to environmental toxins, right. Because that's a different thing. But these occur in the body that are so hard and, and make people so unwell. Those are also connected to not being raised properly because our nervous system needs strong regulation so that the organs inside and the immune function and the gut function, the hormone function and the cardiovascular function and the waste, you know, elimination functions, all the functions that keep us healthy, those are governed by our nervous system. And so if our nervous system is constantly worried about I'm going to die or someone's going to scream at me or I'm going to watch my parents fight or there's no food on the table or whatever it might be, you know, there's like a long list. The little person is going to not a develop well and they're going to think that the world is a dangerous place. And what does a system do when the world is a dangerous place? They find a way to protect. And that either is either through hyper vigilance, what we would call living in an activated, sympathetically driven fight flight state, or we collapse, we shut down, we freeze. And that is what lends itself to the chronic illnesses. It's like you're creating a swamp in your body. There's no flow, there's no oxygen.
- [13:52]
Teresa
So the freeze more. So you're saying, or either response. Okay, both.
- [13:57]
Irene Lyon
So it goes. So there's sort of this hierarchy. Like if there was a threat coming through my window, not that that's going to happen, but you never know. You never know.
- [14:08]
Teresa
There are some balloons that have been.
- [14:10]
Irene Lyon
Flying up there Lately. Right, Right. Yeah. So they're. So let's just say that comes and I see it coming to my window. I might get a bit of a shock, like, right. I'm, like, not going to be interested in this podcast anymore. And I might try. I, like, do I have to worry about, like, you. You assess, is this dangerous? And let's say it just keeps coming through my. And it breaks my glass. I'm going to get the heck out. I'm going to, you know, get the heck out of Dodge. Flee, right? Let's just say I don't have the. I don't have the time to get out of the way if I can't fight this thing and flee. I'm going to. I'm going to. I'm going to be that. To bring the deer back, the deer in the headlights. You know, you're on the dark road in the country and the deer just stops and it literally is frozen. It's not because it's being stupid. It's because it's preserving. It's waiting to be hit by the car. So humans, in many ways, if they grow up in. It doesn't have, like you said, it doesn't have to be violent. It could be cold. That classic, you know, unemotional, stiff British upper lip. You know, something terrible happens, we don't talk about it, we don't feel. We don't process our. Our feelings, whether it's joy or sadness or anger. And so if a kiddo is in that environment, they're just going to be that deer in the headlight, and they're just going to be like, I'm just going to wait to die. But then what happens is that in our system, our society, we're not helping at that level. That kid becomes an adult, and I'm going super fast here. But to generalize. And they're shut down because that's what preserved them in that terrible situation. And under that shutdown is the fight in the flight. This is where people will say, I have anxiety, but I also have depression. It doesn't make sense. And then this is where, if we think about abuse of drugs, alcohol, shopping, exercise, all the things that people get addicted to, they're doing that in an attempt to bring themselves out of shutdown, right? So drugs, some drugs speed you up, some slow you down, right? And usually when someone is playing with this physiology, they do a bit of both. I was in the high sport, like, adrenaline junkie world. I lived in a mountain town for 13 years, like most in Canada, right. I'm In Vancouver.
- [16:43]
Teresa
Yeah, I have a ton of Canadian listeners.
- [16:46]
Irene Lyon
Yeah. So I was in. I lived in Whistler, British Columbia, for 13 years. Grew up on skis, paraglided, mountaineered, flew off of things, dove into things, and I was in functional freeze. And I was always so calm, but it's because my system wasn't. And I wasn't abused. You know, my traumas were different. And so I wasn't verbally abused, I wasn't emotionally abused. None of that. And so this is the other thing. Like, I'm like, it really was a good childhood. Right. But there were other things that put my system into the shutdown response. And it wasn't until I'm 47 now. It wasn't until about three years ago, even after being deep in this work for 15 years, that I was like, holy, I am still working with layers of freeze.
- [17:36]
Teresa
What was that? What was that moment for you? Talk about that. Aha.
- [17:39]
Irene Lyon
And what led to it? One of them was so growing up with sport, I have had so many whiplashes and concussions, bone breaks, surgeries. Like, multiple. Multiple surgeries to fix things. And while I had done so much work and I had shifted, like sleep apnea and panic in the middle of the night, that was another thing that started coming up about six years ago when I had never once in my life, Andrea felt any anxiety. I didn't know what anxiety was.
- [18:13]
Teresa
Must be nice.
- [18:15]
Irene Lyon
Well, until it. Until it comes.
- [18:17]
Teresa
Yeah, exactly.
- [18:18]
Irene Lyon
Right. And I honestly, my husband at one point even brought me to the hospital. He's like, this is weird. Like, I was physically, like, it was like a heart attack. And they're like, you're fine, you're fine.
- [18:29]
Teresa
Panic attack.
- [18:31]
Irene Lyon
So that was. That was about six years ago. And that was the. That was like the. The crack of my. Like, that opened things up. But what started to happen was I started to get chronic pain in my neck, my shoulders, my. My spine. That made no sense. I wasn't doing anything different. But it was all the old shock traumas, all the old concussions. Imagine if you've had a hundred whiplashes and you've never, ever rested your neck. All that tension gets stored. And so I knew I was coming out of these layers of freeze because I had more pain. And in our society, when we feel more pain, and this is different from having, like, an acute, like, femur fracture, like, yeah, go to the hospital. Right. But this was like, I am a totally functioning human being. I have chronic pain for no reason. But it was old stuff. And so that's when I knew because of my of course, experience and work. Oh, man. These are these old shock traumas from when I was 5, when I was 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, all the way into my 30s that I had never felt, never processed. And even like, this week, another layer has come out. And my husband was like. Because he's also a practitioner of this work, he felt my neck. He's like, it feels like cement. I'm like, yep, it was totally pliable and beautiful. And I'm still, you know, I work out, so I'm not debilitated. But it, like, where is this coming from? It's. It's. It's another layer bubbling up. So how people come out of freeze. Well, I'll go back. I would say there's not many humans on this planet whom have lived a westernized life of being perfect, you know, doing all the things many haven't gotten to this layer. These deep layers of letting go of these deep, deep, deep survival responses. It cannot be done with just living. Time doesn't heal this stuff. You actually have to work very diligently at the level. At the level of your nervous system, have to understand the physiology, because if you don't understand the physiology, you might miss a really important moment. And this is where understanding how your system works is important. It goes back to the human thing, because we're not the animal in the wild with social conditioning, we have to really understand what's going on because we can. We can kind of de ourselves out of healing. Like, we can sabotage ourselves. We can use resistance to say, nope, even though I know I should be doing this, it's too uncomfortable. And sometimes that's unconscious. Kind of like. Like what you said about that relationship, and that's kudos to you for actually picking up on this. Can't be because of being with a guy for a month. And most people don't get that, and they live their whole lives until they die.
- [21:26]
Teresa
And that's why I created this podcast, you know, because there's so many people out there who don't. A couple things just came to mind, so. And this is one thing that I wanted to talk with you about. So, like, the stored trauma and, like, limiting beliefs. So, like, I think that, you know, part of. For part of my healing is right. It's.
- [21:46]
Irene Lyon
It's.
- [21:46]
Teresa
It's processing the unprocessed trauma that's, you know, somatically that's in my body, but it's also looking at the faulty beliefs that I came to learn about myself as a result of my childhood. When you talk about the experiences that you had as far as, like, shock trauma, concussions, physical things, is there a limiting belief aspect to that that is also a part of it that needs to be addressed?
- [22:13]
Irene Lyon
Yes. And that belief is. It's in the. You know, we still don't know where the mind is. So it's like it. Maybe it's in the mind, maybe it's in the memory, but it's also in the body. So a weird thing that can happen is if someone, let's just say like myself, had all these shock traumas, surgeries. The other thing that I had was extreme chemical exposure.
- [22:40]
Teresa
What is it? Fluid trauma? Is that what you call it?
- [22:42]
Irene Lyon
Called flu? It. It impacts the fluid, like all the fluids of our cells. But it's. It's something that happens when you're repeatedly exposed to chemicals. It isn't like I smelled bleach one day. It's like I was bathed in chemicals when I was in utero with my mom because she was in chemicals as a veterinary surgeon in tech. She was. She was, as a young woman, sprayed with DDT every week in dorm rooms in Manila in the Philippines. Like, that's intense. Like, that would be illegal now, right. And so her system, you know, in a. In a transgenerational way, was carrying. Because our fat cells carry toxins. Right. And unless you're actively detoxing, you're not getting rid of that. So then I grow in her, and I'm getting exposed to her, you know, and this isn't my mother's fault by any means. She just didn't know. And then she was exposed to chemicals in her job. And then when I was born, I was born into an animal hospital because my parents are both veterinarians. So I was around chemicals. And then as soon as I was old enough to wash the floor or clean the windows or develop X rays, I was inhaling, you know, you didn't wear gloves back then. You know, you were just being constantly imbued with chemicals. So that was a big part of my stuff, which is rare earth, but for people that, like, grew up on farms, a lot of kids back in the day were covered in pesticides, you know, and chemicals for. For fields and all that kind of stuff. So that was my stuff. I've lost the train of thought. But limit.
- [24:22]
Teresa
Like how.
- [24:22]
Irene Lyon
Limiting. Limiting beliefs, right? So there's a weird thing that happens, and I've seen this, and I saw this in myself. If you have had, let's say, an accident or you've been Abused. It can go both ways. That, that insult that memory in the tissues is there. And if you don't work on healing it through moving out the fight, flight, freeze. I'll keep it really simple. The system, in a strange up way, will keep looking for a way to get that out. And so it will get into another accident, it will get into another relationship, it will get into another, blah, blah, blah. And so people will think, I just have bad luck. But then what happens is then you start to. Because of our human brain and how smart we are, we start to talk to ourselves. I'm always clum. I'm clumsy. I'm always, you know, you hear people. I was never good at P.E. you know, physical education. I was always the person that fell. I was always the person that wasn't good at art. I could never do math. Right. And a lot of those things are related to how we were engaged in those moments. And usually if we think about the school system, it's because there was stress and teachers we hated who probably didn't want to be there anyway, right? So there's just this toxic soup that we're raising children in. So if you aren't watching those thoughts and how they're talking to yourself about this accident or about, I'm never good in relationships. I always end up with the, the whatever. Like, so there is, there's a playing with both. But like, the human system is connected with mind and body and environment. And if you're not working with all three, you're going to miss a piece of the puzzle.
- [26:24]
Teresa
So, so for yourself, what do you think were some l. Limiting beliefs that resulted from your accidents?
- [26:30]
Irene Lyon
So a big part of it, big part of it was not realizing I was in. I was in freeze. Because when you're in freeze and you're going 60 kilometers an hour down a ski hill, or you're 10,000ft above sea level in a paraglider, you're not really feeling the potential for problems. You're just, you're, you're not, you're not sensing the actual reality of what's happening. And so you won't feel the, the sign, the intuition that says, hey, hey, slow down. True story. So I was married before my current husband, and this was my world of outdoor adventure. And it was towards the. The beginning where I was learning about the mind body. I was deep into fitness and sport before I got into more mind body stuff.
- [27:30]
Teresa
I love how you say sport, sport, sport.
- [27:35]
Irene Lyon
And I have friends who work in high performance sport. You know, I'm not opposed to it, you know, should we have Olympics that spend the amount of money? So it sounds. So I don't think sport structured sport. So I was ski touring with my husband then, and we were like on our own Joffrey Peak, if anybody knows where that is. Up from Whistler. I'm on this mountain with my ex, my. My then husband. And there is a part in me that was like, I don't want to go up that. That face. Like we were touring up on our skis. But it was like he. And he was just like, well, I'm going. I'm gonna leave you here. And of course that's not an option because it's freezing and I can't just stay at the camp. I'm like, okay, I'll go. And so we're skinning up or touring up. And then the weather came in. You couldn't see anything. And we had to play it very safe because we were safe. And we skied down close to these rocks. And then when we got to the bottom and the clouds cleared, we had missed an avalanche fall with sizes of chunks of snow, the like big like refrigerators. And there was a part of me, Andrea, when I was skinning up where all I wanted to be was at home doing my laundry. I'm like, this isn't fun. Like, I feel afraid for my life right now. I'm skilled. I can ski. You know, there's no problem. So we get home that night. This is a long day. And at the time I was still living in a house with my. My dad. And he opened up the door and you could see he like he felt like he saw a ghost. I'm getting shivers just thinking about it. Like, hey, he. And he was like, oh my God. You know, my dad, he had heard about the avalanche. Well, he had heard about another scene. Ski patroller who had died that day. And my husband was a ski patroller, is still a ski patroller, so he assumed he didn't know. And that day all these avalanches were going off in that valley. So my system picked up on something at that moment. Like I was starting to un defrost and I was starting to feel that intuition. And it was after that day that I was like, and it's not that ski touring is bad, but. But I have lost people in that world because they don't listen. But the thing is, is if you're frozen, you don't have intuition. It's gone and. Or your. Your choices, you think it's the right thing, but it's actually the wrong thing. It's why we will hear about folks who have been abused, raped. They will get into situations where they are attacked again. And even Peter Levine, who's one of my mentors who founded Somatic Experiencing, he has talk to perpetrators of physical and sexual abuse. And they will say, and I'm kind of paraphrasing, I'm in a bar and I can see a sea of women and I can pick out the one that I can attack. But that's their intuition, seeing the person who's a little more female or, you know, weak, collapsed, just like an animal in the wild who's hunting a whole range of impala, you know, will see the one that has a little bit of a limp or is slower, and they will hone in on that animal that they know they can eat, that they can attack. And so when a human doesn't work on their past traumas, whether it's an accident, whether it's physical abuse, whether it's emotional, verbal, the people who are also in their own survival, stress, playing out their own traumas, can, can abuse and harm those folks. So there's literally that saying, you know, don't walk down the dark alley. Well, sometimes the dark alley is safe, but if you don't have that proper. It's called neuroception. It's an actual term, the perception of safety or danger. Stephen Porges, who developed the polyvagal theory, he coined that term. When you are stuck in fight, flight, freeze, your perception of accurate safety and danger is. Isn't online. And this is why we keep getting into these things over and over again. Since starting this work, I haven't been injured and I, you know, I'm not doing the same kind of crazy stuff, but I still hike, I go to the gym, I walk, I, I've never been in a car accident, Knock on wood, you know, But I know people, Andrea, who have been in car accidents that are exactly the same.
- [32:14]
Teresa
Yeah, it's crazy to think about the repetition compulsion when it comes to, like that, you know, like, it makes sense with like the relationship stuff or like job stuff, but like, physical harm, like, that's 100% well.
- [32:26]
Irene Lyon
And it comes down to the orienting response if you're right. So, like, let's just say to make it more about, say, an accident, because I know there's people who were like, I'm, I'm like, I've been in the same car accident. So let's just say your, your car accident is you get t boned, right? Because you were not paying Attention.
- [32:44]
Teresa
Right.
- [32:44]
Irene Lyon
And it was your fault, for example. I mean, it doesn't have to be your fault, but it can add more stress to it when it was or is. So if you get T bone from the, let's say the left, two things might happen.
- [32:57]
Teresa
You're constantly looking.
- [32:59]
Irene Lyon
You're constantly looking to the left, or.
- [33:01]
Teresa
You don't want to look to the left at all.
- [33:02]
Irene Lyon
You're only going to look to the right because that's where the bad thing came from. And so if you don't work on that after the accident, you will literally have a blind spot to one of those sides. And then what happens? Every time you go into that intersection to turn left or right, you know, in this case, you'd be in the intersection to turn left. In North America, you go into a little bit of a freeze. If you haven't healed the trauma of that accident and you don't have to be hurt. It can just be like a shitty experience. But the, the stress is held in the system. And, and if you're not aware that as soon as you go into an intersection, you get a little frozen and you lose your. Your vision, you lose your hearing. You might not hear the honking horn, you might not hear the rumble of the truck. You dissociate a little bit. And then that's how people get in these accidents over and over again. There's no reason anybody should be hit by a car. It breaks. It breaks my heart when I see cyclists hit at intersections. Usually it's probably their fault. Yeah. Because they're just zooming through stop signs. Right. It's like, dude, look both ways.
- [34:14]
Teresa
No kidding.
- [34:15]
Irene Lyon
Same with, Same with people crossing the street. So many people don't look both ways when they cross the street anymore. And I think a lot of it.
- [34:21]
Teresa
Is in San Francisco. It was horrible. I used to live there.
- [34:24]
Irene Lyon
Oh, it's. It's like that here. Completely. We saw a. A man and his child with a stroller almost get hit by a car the other day because he didn't look. And he went through. He was walking across the sidewalk, and it was a red light. He didn't see the red light. He has his baby. Like that shows how disconnected we are. There's no way a mother bear would ever let her cubs cross the street if there was, you know, I know the odd squirrel and that gets, you know, smoked by a car on the highway. But they're also not as. As calm. You know, they're. They're living in more survival energy. But there's no way there's no reason a human should have these accidents, but it's because we're stuck in this freeze dissociation or we're hyper vigilant to one side and we forget there's a whole other world over there. Well, my.
- [35:14]
Teresa
My version of car accidents was dating alcoholics named Brian, so that was mine.
- [35:19]
Irene Lyon
Really?
- [35:20]
Teresa
Yeah. Yeah, that's my bottom. So, yeah.
- [35:24]
Irene Lyon
Interesting.
- [35:24]
Teresa
My very first episode is called the Tale of Two Brians.
- [35:28]
Irene Lyon
Oh, wow.
- [35:28]
Teresa
So I dated Brian number one at seven years sober. And that was the story that I told you.
- [35:34]
Irene Lyon
Yeah, it was like a week later.
- [35:36]
Teresa
I went to an AA meeting and this woman with over 30 years, she brought up this terminal child. And then I like, went home and read the book and my mind was blown. And I saw her the next week and she was like, that's great that you read it, but I just want you to know that this is going to take you like, years and years and years of like really hard work and therapy to do this. And I was 28 at the time and I was like, no way. Years. I need this fix yesterday, lady.
- [36:03]
Irene Lyon
Yeah.
- [36:03]
Teresa
And so I was like, I'll just take a break for a year. I should be fine.
- [36:09]
Irene Lyon
Yeah.
- [36:09]
Andrea
Enter Brian number two.
- [36:12]
Teresa
The most painful six months of my whole life. Leaving work at 11 in the morning to go pull him out of a bar.
- [36:19]
Irene Lyon
I was nine.
- [36:19]
Teresa
I was nine years sober at this point. And that's when I. Yeah, I mean, it's hilarious now. Now there's. There's just been so many, like, full circle moments. Like, number one messaged me on Instagram about a year into the podc and I had. I mean, he. I hadn't heard from him in five years. And he basically was like, what you're doing is amazing. Like, I've been to rehab twice since we've dated and like, and then a couple. Then last week from. It was right before my hundredth episode and I had her on my podcast. I had a girl reach out to me because after she went on date number two with the Brian number two, and he drank a full bottle of her vodka without her knowing it. And when she confronted him about it, he then was like, yeah, it's a problem. Like, even my ex girlfriend has a podcast about it. And so she's been listening for like the past year and a half and then finally like reached out and told me the story. And so then I had her on the podcast last week because then she realized she was an adult child because he told her about the podcast.
- [37:21]
Irene Lyon
That's so crazy. Things happen for interesting reasons.
- [37:25]
Teresa
Oh, there's so many. Yeah.
- [37:27]
Irene Lyon
Well. And you know the thing, the thing that's interesting is to throw. To go on that thread of addiction.
- [37:37]
Teresa
There when you're done with this.
- [37:38]
Irene Lyon
Yeah. One of my mentors, Steve Hoskinson, I remember he, when I was learning sc, he drew like three columns on. It's not the chalkboard anymore, on whatever he was drawing on. And one was being out of control. So that's one column. One was being in control and then one was being able to let go of control. So if we think about dysregulation and trauma and how that leads to, say, addiction, but we could also say a health problem. That's the system being out of control. Right. It's sick, it's addicted. It's being reckless, right? No, like just out of control. Control would be being good, you know, not. Not going into those addictive.
- [38:25]
Andrea
All right, shit show, ladies. Have you ever had those days where everything just feels so much damn harder than normal and you can't figure out why? I already know the answer to that question is yes. And boy, have I definitely had more than my fair share of those days. And totally get just how frustrating this can be. But recently I've learned that sometimes it's not just stress, lack of sleep, a dysregulated nervous system. It could also be my hormones at play. And that is where Happy Mammoth comes in. They offer a free two minute quiz that can help you uncover the root cause of your hormonal symptoms. It's super easy. Any shit show can do it. Just answer a few questions about what you've been going through and where you're at in life. After taking this quiz, you'll get personalized recommendations to help balance your hormones and start feeling better. So I took this hormone quiz myself. The quiz suggested that my body may be overloaded with estrogen, which is affecting me in all kinds of ways. And one of the recommendations that I got was to start taking Hormone Harmony, which helps with bloating, chronic fatigue, weight gain, mood swings, and more. And after adding it to my routine, I've definitely noticed a difference. Now, taking care of your hormones isn't just about feeling good right now. It's also about investing in our healing journey. And so, by taking this quiz, you'll learn more about your hormone balance, which will allow you to start making small, intentional changes to support you on this healing journey. Whether it's the Hormone Harmony or another Happy Mammoth product, the quiz helps guide you towards solutions that work specifically for you. So if you're ready to start feeling like yourself again. Head over to happy mammoth.com and take their free 2 minute hormone quiz today to find out the ultimate answer to your stubborn hormonal issues. And for a limited time, you can also get 15% off your entire first order with my code adult child at checkout. That's happy mammoth.com and use the code adult child for 15% off today.
- [40:15]
Irene Lyon
Traits. It would also be the person who has to have a supreme routine to stay, to stay well.
- [40:23]
Teresa
Right.
- [40:23]
Irene Lyon
The chronic fatigue, autoimmune, like everything has to be perfect. I can't have a whiff of gluten or else I flare up like all these things. Not that that's the thing, but for some people, the food is how they get their sickness, their illness into check. And that works to a certain degree. But there's still, the system is still in like this clamp down, lockdown. And it's better, but it's not being able to let go of control. And that's where one might say you can have a little bit of fun, but it's not going back into being out of control and in chaos. It's knowing and trusting that your system is going to be fine because you know your limits and you know when what is safe, what isn't safe. And what I found is that when people get into working with their nervous system at this somatic level that I teach, they can move from always being in control to letting go a little bit, which frees up space in the system. Right. And so there's kind of this beautiful trajectory of how we see living in chaos to living in mastery versus being kind of in a state of being still a student and a master is where anything can happen and you're fine, you know, bearing like, you know, being exposed to nuclear fallout. That's. None of us will be fine if that happens. But what about the people who were.
- [41:53]
Teresa
Living on Hawaii when they had that like 45 minutes where they thought the nuclear bomb was coming?
- [41:58]
Irene Lyon
Yeah.
- [41:59]
Teresa
I want to hear how that impacted. Somebody like that must have been traumatizing.
- [42:03]
Irene Lyon
As my husband's son was actually there because he was born. Yeah, he's born in Hawaii and is still there now. And they got the text messages and. Well, here's the thing. It's like any natural disaster. If you have severe dysregulation and you're not able to recenter and just accept what is going on, you will, you will, you, you will very well maybe go into absolute panic or you'll shut down, but There is a story. How bad could it possibly be? He was in his home with his wife. And I forget what happened or how it happened, but the house burned down and he woke up and he. And. And she. And she. He was dead asleep. And she was like, there's a fire. Quick, we need to get out of here. We need to get. And I think they had a kid, like a small kid. She fled. And he's like, oh, it's fine. She'll be fine. She'll. She'll take care of it. And then she came back in and she's like, we gotta go. And he's literally like, dude, it's fine. You'll. My wife is capable. She'll take. And I'm like, what makes someone not able to actually assess that there's true danger? That's deep freeze, the other dead giveaway. And when you listen to his history, it's like, huh, that's probably. He's probably living in that state of dysregulation because no one in their right mind wouldn't get out of bed when you have a small child and your house is burning down. And I think he ended up having to like, climb out of the window. So that. That's an example of how functional freeze and how we can be so disconnected from these things and not even know that there's a problem there. So it's fascinating. It's a fascinating thing. You had a question about addiction?
- [43:55]
Teresa
Well, I have a bunch of questions.
- [43:57]
Irene Lyon
This is where I want to go.
- [43:58]
Teresa
Okay, so. Well, this is where I was thinking. Let me. It might be like a two parter, but so sure. Okay, well, so basically what I didn't realize at the time, and now I do, is that it's a very common experience for people between like five to 10 years sober. They've kind of like dealt with the addiction stuff. And then it's like they're now like the real causes and conditions start to come to the surface. Okay, my question is around because you often hear that like, comes to the surface when it's time to deal with it or when it's like, safe to deal with it. And I know that like the biggest thing as far as like, you know, starting to deal with our trauma, neuroplasticity, all that stuff has to do with like, establishing safety. Is there a level of safety that is already existing if things are coming to the surface? And then my next question, like part two, would be like, how does one create safety within when their external environment, like, is not necessarily safe? And perhaps there's nothing they can do about it.
- [45:14]
Irene Lyon
Yeah, that's a tough one. So I'll go to the first question first. A common thing people will ask me and my team is can I start doing this work? And when I say the work, I mean the work I teach, not breath work or meditation or mindfulness, like the real deep somatic work that is the work of Peter Levine, Kathy Kane and the Feldenkrais work, the like. So it's, it's a trifecta. And I, and I'll say, well, your system has been unsafe since in utero, maybe even before that because of intergenerational traumas. Don't wait until you're safe to start because you, it won't happen. Right. Time will not create. Usually time doesn't create safety. Yeah. It just, it in our day and age, it doesn't, it's not enough. That's why, you know, if it did, then we wouldn't be here having this conversation, right?
- [46:20]
Teresa
Yes, obviously, right. Would have been a few Brian's, you know.
- [46:23]
Irene Lyon
Yeah, yeah. I mean that seems obvious, but it's, it's kind of like, you know, I, I, I sometimes nick my fingers when I'm cutting things because I cook a lot and you know, I didn't have to do anything with this, this cut on my thumb other than put a band aid on it and make sure it was clean. And it's totally sealed up. Amazing. So my immune. So it's like it's working. But with this stuff, this isn't just physiological, it's interaction. It's, it's attachment, it's other people. We are supposed to be treated well by our parents. So I'll pose this thing that, that bear that I talked about or that, the deer, if you have a deer here, where are you living in the world and Florida. So are there an alligator? Alligator? No, because they're reptiles or something. Right. So wild animals that are mammals, they are going to raise their young the same here as the States, as Russia. I always use bears because there's bears in the United States, Canada and Russia, for example. There's no, there's no denying that mother bear is going to treat her cubs the same in these three countries because it's written into their DNA. This is where the human brain screws it up. If we didn't have all the conditioning, society, religion, school system, system, systems, industry, domestication, we would also take care of our young exactly the same, no matter where we are on the planet because we would just be in that animal. Mammalian nurture, Right. That's a good word. Yeah. But then human and then. And so. So when you have this situation where there was never safety from the beginning or there wasn't safety before because of war and famine that the parents came from, there is an inherent sense in the cells that is the world is a dangerous place. We're all going to die, and no one is to be trusted. So I have to do it all by myself, and I have to cope via all these things to stay safe. The thing is, is that is not true safety. That's survival. And so the question that you had about safety is we can't cognitively say, I'm safe. Like, I could say, yep, there's no alligators, there's no boogeyman. You know, it's safe in here. But if my system is still living in that old pattern, that old wiring of I have to protect because mom might come in and, like, scream at me, or mom and dad might fight today, like, it just. It's not working. It won't. It. We won't find that safety. So creating safety in the system has to happen very slowly. Just the same way a human isn't going to learn how to walk in a week, they're not going to learn how to talk in a week. We kind of have to go back to that developmental place. If it takes time for a human to learn and master something. So if they didn't get it growing up as adults, we have to layer the learning. I like to say the ABCs and the one, two, threes of reconnecting to self, reconnecting to the environment, and really listening to the body. And that's a whole other conversation, but like working with the organs, that's what we teach our students to do in addition to a whole bunch of stuff. Because the organs, when you're a baby, they are the ones that contract. The kidneys and adrenals pump out. The adrenals pump out cortisol. They pump out chemicals. The gut clenches. Right. When a kid is not scared, what do they say? I have a tummy ache, Right? We have to work with these viscera to reteach the viscera. You don't have to be so freaked out. And that is very different than the mindfulness affirmations that do have a time and a place. They work really well. Like, the power of intention is so much stronger when your system is biologically safe. It's quite incredible. Our psychic abilities just get so much stronger when this system is, like, really revving in a good way. So that's the first part about safety, the second part about being in an environment. You're right. If there is constant threat around us, like physical threat or we're living with a family system still because we have to and they are in their toxicities. If we're living in a war torn zone, which many people do in this world, that is not safe. If someone is in a job that sucks, you know that's going to put them into survival stress. But there are like I have had students who have gotten out of shitty jobs, shitty relationships, bad home environments because they just start, they don't wait till it's perfect. But there comes a point where if you want true deep regulation on board and full like blown out cellular safety, you can't stay in that environment. It's like with food and toxins, like you can clean your body out and be super healthy and not have any chemicals in your environment. But if you're living right next to a power plant that's spewing out toxic smoke, it's going to keep impacting you. Right. Not power plant, but you get it. We know what you mean. A pulp mill. There's lots of those here. So yes, you can start to heal if you're in an, in an unsafe environment. But it also depends, I wouldn't say to someone who is literally in a country where there's bombs going off, I want you to start healing your nervous system. Those people, those people have to be in survival.
- [52:29]
Teresa
Yeah.
- [52:30]
Irene Lyon
And, and that's the part that is like, no, we gotta wait till that's over and then we come in and help. Right. You can't, you know, you can give them tools and such but they're just going to get thrown back into. I think I might die today. Does that make sense?
- [52:46]
Teresa
Absolutely.
- [52:47]
Irene Lyon
Okay.
- [52:49]
Teresa
One of the things that I've heard you talk about is how, you know, not only does one have to believe that they can heal, but they also have to feel worthy and deserving. Deserving of healing.
- [53:06]
Andrea
And there's just so many people that.
- [53:08]
Teresa
Like that belief that we are unworthy and undeserving is just so embedded.
- [53:14]
Irene Lyon
Yeah.
- [53:15]
Teresa
In, in every aspect of our life. And it's like somatically, are there ways to address that faulty belief that we are unworthy of, of healing and recovery?
- [53:28]
Irene Lyon
100%. That comes back to, I mean the fight, flight, freeze. So a big part of feeling that we don't deserve is connected to being toxically shamed. Know it well. You're useless. You're never going to get anywhere. You're an idiot. You know, you spill the glass of milk and you're basically told that you're what all the bad things when it's just an accident. So there's varying degrees of toxic shame, but even the tiniest bit embeds in that little person's system. And so one of the things that we work with at more advanced levels is working with healthy aggression and anger. And so when you're five years old and your father, you know, berates you for not doing something or, or whatever, you know, crying even or, or soiling your, your bed, you know, peed in your bed or something like that.
- [54:30]
Teresa
Soiling.
- [54:31]
Irene Lyon
Soiling. The right. It's the classic, the, the appropriate term.
- [54:36]
Teresa
Spoiling.
- [54:36]
Irene Lyon
Yeah. You. In your bed. You know, what happens in that five year old is they don't have the option to say, well some might, but usually you dad. Like they won't because they have to be good because they know they're dependent on the, on the family. This is why kids will protect. Right. Their parents when they're being abusive.
- [55:02]
Teresa
Yeah. Or believe that it's their fault because it's much safer for us to think that it's our fault.
- [55:07]
Irene Lyon
Exactly. You know how many divorces have happened where it, it is not the kid's thing and yet the kid thinks they've done something wrong. So. But the animal in that little kid wants to say you or hit or run away. You know, and I have heard of some instances where some kids will run away. You know, a, a friend of mine just told me when she was three, she climbed out of her window and went down the street and tried to enroll herself into preschool because she wanted to get out of the house. Like not many. Not many. Yeah. Not many three year olds would do that. Right. And, and so I'm like. So she was fleeing like she was looking for connections. But it off. That doesn't often happen. So. So fast forward to you're 40 years old, you know, you feel that you don't deserve anything and you know that it's been traced back to the fact that you were toxically shamed. There was abuse, adversity. That's where yes, you need to, to know I deserve to be healthy. I deserve to be. Well, like a lot of adults will get chronic illness when they're young because it's a way to get attention. It happens all the time. And so part of, of working with those patterns of collapse in the body that happen with toxic shame, if you're collapsed and you're in that, that shutdown, that freeze you're not going to feel deserving. You're gonna feel like you just. There's just another truck's just gonna roll over me. Just, just roll over me. Right? So you have to build capacity. It goes back to the ABCs. And 1, 2, 3. I can't. And I would never say to someone who came to me, okay, let's work on your healthy aggression today. And they've never done any groundwork. That would be like saying to someone, I want you to pilot this plane. But they have no clue about anything about planes. It's too much too soon. But you have to start with ground school. Can you even feel your body right now? Can you connect to how it feels on the chair? Can you even see the space around you? Can you feel your, your actual physicality? I mean, there's all these, all the things that we would teach, but we want to build capacity so that the person can start to feel their animal self and feel that. That. We could say that roar. That healthy aggression. That part that's like, no, like, this is where boundaries comes in. Right? Setting. Setting terms. Boundaries. Setting boundaries is, is basically healthy aggression. Right? Expressing irritation, I'm frustrated. Like, that is also on the spectrum of anger and healthy aggression. So we need to cultivate foundation and capacity in the system so we can start to feel these biological impulses. And when we start to get that on board, then we, you know, a mother bear to go back, she never will say, I deserve to protect my cubs. She just does it. Right, right. She's not going to think when that, that, that, you know, coyote comes in, do I deserve, do these, do these.
- [58:27]
Teresa
Are they deserving?
- [58:28]
Irene Lyon
Yeah. Are these babies deserving of me Protect? No. And so that's again, where that human brain stops us from that. And so the deserving piece isn't going to pop on like, at the beginning, but it starts to just, it starts to just happen. And this is what can be really hard for people to understand is when your system is regulated and you're not living in that fight, flight, freeze. These things just naturally come out. But so many of us have layer upon layer of, of. I can't do that. I'm not allowed to do that. If I do that, someone, you know, the anger thing. For people that grew up with violence, it's hard for them to, to be okay with expressing even a boundary, because when you did, you might have gotten hurt or you might, might have gotten more abused if you tried to show your aggression. And so it is a, an unwiring, a detaching. And uncoupling of these not just beliefs, but also how the body is waiting for something bad to happen and for protection. I hope I'm making sense.
- [59:39]
Teresa
You make absolute, perfect sense.
- [59:41]
Irene Lyon
Okay.
- [59:44]
Teresa
Another thing that I've heard you talk about is how we have to. We have to not fear our fear. And would you say that this goes along the lines with, like, being willing to sit with our uncomfortable emotions and how does one, like, take baby steps into doing so?
- [60:04]
Irene Lyon
So you're right. We fear is important. But when fear has been coupled with terror and someone who's supposed to be protecting us, like our parents, not doing that, it gets confusing. So we need fear because again, if that thing's coming at me, I'm going to need to, you know, mount a response. So we need that. But what has often occurred in our, in our, again, Western culture is we've become so devoid of feeling our bodies that it's so overwhelming to feel the tightness in the throat, the tightness in the chest. I mean, this is where, you know, overeating and addictions and distraction comes in. It takes us out of our body. So to do baby steps to that, I might not say to someone, I need you to feel it. This is where, like, sitting meditation can be absolutely horrendous. For someone with trauma that store because they don't have any tools, It'd be like, again, saying to someone, I want you to fly this plane, and, oh, by the way, we're already in the air. Have at her like you. You know, that's a silly example, but for someone who's never connected to the environment or consciously, they've never connected to, say, their digestion or the feeling around their heart or they've never even considered what it feels like to breathe. They've never listened to the pressure in their bladder. I have to go pee. What? What do you mean? Right? These, these, these biological impulses, if a person's never felt those, I am not going to ask them to sit with their biggest fear in a still moment. Because often when we feel those fears, we need to move. We need to let what's called a procedural memory maybe come out. Like that feeling of, get off of me. Right? So if that fear is coupled with a fight, we need to act out and move that fight response out. We can't just sit there all Buddha and be peaceful when you want to rip someone's head off, right? And part of the work is actually allowing people and getting them to that point where they're contained and able to play out the Fight and the flight impulses that they never were able to do. Now, this doesn't mean you're going to go out and hurt someone, but it's. It's moving that energy out.
- [62:34]
Teresa
Okay, so you're not condoning violence is what you're trying to say.
- [62:37]
Irene Lyon
Exactly. Okay, don't hurt yourself, don't hurt your kids, don't hurt your animals, and don't hurt your stuff. Right. There's a way to get that. That. That rage.
- [62:48]
Teresa
How do you feel about break rooms? Like those places where you just, like, go and throw plates. No bueno.
- [62:53]
Irene Lyon
It's not gonna. I mean, it could be fun. I mean, it's fun in a Greek restaurant, but, you know, it's not. It's not going to move that deep survival energy out if you're not connect to. Connected to the impulse. This is the problem with these, you know, retreats where they give you a bat, plastic bat, and you hit things in a group. It's not. It's. Yeah, you're. You're hitting. You might feel good because you got your blood going, some endorphins got going. And so people think they've healed their traumas with that, but they haven't. Right. That you have to connect to the pain. You have to connect to that impulse of like, I wanna. I wanna put my father's eyes and bleach and burn the. Out of him. I want to take those hands that abused me and put them into a wood chipper. Like, I'm not saying that that's what a person should do if that comes up. Andrea and I've worked with people where we're literally feeling the. The physical action of how this person would annihilate their perpetrator or their parents, even their child. I've worked with people who have kiddos with special needs. They would never hurt their kids ever, ever. But they feel like they got the short end of the stick and they're tired and they have no break and they're frustrated. And it's like, well, if your animal self could do something, what it would do? What would it do? I'd abandon this kid. That's terrible to say. I'm like, I know you're not going to do that, but, you know, this is like, real work that I've done with parents who love their children. But the animal part is like, I need to get out of here. Right. So. So no. What did you call them? Break rooms?
- [64:46]
Teresa
Yeah, I guess that's, you know, what I'm talking about.
- [64:49]
Irene Lyon
Well, this is also why I see.
- [64:51]
Teresa
It on housewives a lot.
- [64:52]
Irene Lyon
They're always going, I mean, and this is where I, I, I, a lot of people get confused because some real top level people will say, yeah, you just have to do some martial arts, just get some exercise. That'll heal your trauma. No it won't. That's good for your body. But you have to connect to these fight, flight, freeze impulses and match them with the appropriate action. For someone who's had early trauma, they don't need to necessarily shake it out. They need to repair the lack of attunement to themselves in the environment. It's much more subtle. But if someone had a massive accident and they were shooken up, then yeah, maybe they have to shake. But it should never be imposed upon. It needs to come out organically. And that's where I think a lot of people don't want to take the time because it can take years to get to that point.
- [65:46]
Teresa
Guys, hate to break it to you.
- [65:48]
Irene Lyon
Yeah, I mean me with my shock traumas, I've been doing this work consistently since 2005. It's a lot of time, right, to get to this point where these things are starting coming up. But it doesn't mean that I haven't been productive and all those things. It's just the system. I don't think we really understand how much the human system has kept and held on to since let's say we really started to domesticate humans. Which is up for debate when that started, but it's at least 10,000 years ago. We carry a lot and we've become sort of, it's been glamorized to make the healing quick. And the pharmaceutical industry has a lot to do with that. Modern medicine has a lot to do with that. There's nothing wrong with a surgery or a good teeth cleaning. Right. That's very immediate stuff. But this stuff is like, it takes, it's like we're trying to evolve in a different way. And I've been in fitness, nutrition, mind, body, I've been in all these industries and it's always about how can we fast pace this, fast track this. And it, it doesn't happen. Just like you can't fast track human, human baby developing. You can't. And when you try to, you screw them up.
- [67:11]
Teresa
Yeah, quantification. Okay, two more questions. I know I don't have you for that much longer.
- [67:17]
Irene Lyon
Yeah.
- [67:17]
Teresa
What about somatic work as it relates to fawning?
- [67:23]
Irene Lyon
So fawn. Yeah, Fawn is just a sophisticated form of freeze. A lot of people this is a while ago. We're like, she doesn't know what she's talking about because she doesn't talk about fawn. Like, no, that's not true. Fawn happens when we're a bit older and we can maneuver ourselves to be more docile, to be more amendable, to be pleasing. So we will fawn when we realize we can't engage in a good way, we can't fight, we can't flight and we know that we can't be completely collapsed because that's not inducive either. But we will then change ourselves to be in relationship. Another part of fawning, and I already mentioned it, is this is often children, they will get sick. That's a form of like biological fawning. They will, they will change their physiology. A perfectly healthy kid will get sick. And they're not doing, they're not doing it consciously but because again our mind is so powerful, it can help us heal, but it can also make us sick. Like mommy takes care of me when I'm always at home in bed, so I'm just going to keep getting sick. That's a form of fawning in our, in our work. So it's a real thing. But it's, but it's not, it's not like a true biological threat response.
- [68:51]
Teresa
Interesting. I didn't realize I'd never heard it described that way.
- [68:55]
Irene Lyon
Yeah, yeah.
- [68:58]
Teresa
So for somebody who's an adult child and they're working on, you know, working through their complex ptsd, two things. One, if they want to learn more about somatic experiencing and somatic healing, what would be like the number one place that you would tell them to start? And then also do you have any like self practice tools that you would recommend?
- [69:24]
Irene Lyon
I got tons of stuff. So I mean my site has everything it, there is a lot there. So just recently we put a page that literally says new here. So if someone is totally new, it's actually a lovely, it's written piece of writing that describes what the nervous system is, why it's important, what happens, all the things. And then in terms of self practice, everything I teach, whether it's through my, my free audio samplers which are on my site to my courses, I have two main programs. They're all there for a person to learn the theory and the practice. And so that is I, I can confidently say now that our bigger curriculum, Smart Body, Smart Mind, it is the, the best online course for healing somatic at the somatic level. Trauma. It's, you know, we've been doing it for six years now. We've run it through 13 times. And it isn't just about vagal retraining. It's not just about learning how to shake things out. It is like a comprehensive curriculum that teaches a person all you need to know about the nervous system, how it works, the deep branches of the sympathetic and parasympathetic gets into toxic shame, healthy aggression, all the things. But then the practices teach you how to work at the organ level, which is so important. And just the other day someone said, you know, I've done four other online courses around somatic healing. And they. They made me worse because they actually didn't teach the accurate pieces around the vagus nerve, which has become so misinformed. There's so much misinformation about the vagus nerve and what it is, and. And it's just. I'm watching these. These disasters happen in the online space, and it's like it's unintentional.
- [71:26]
Teresa
Like they're just misinformed. Or do you think there's some maliciousness?
- [71:30]
Irene Lyon
I don't know. I don't think these people are trying to harm anyone. I think that they. I don't think. I know. They've read a little bit. They've done maybe a weekend workshop, and they're. They're implementing these practices that can help some people. But when you have deeper early trauma and complex ptsd, you're basically working with a system that has no foundation. And so then to put a big stimulus into the system that involves some form of exercise, that usually involves sound and deep, deep reverb in the gut, if the gut isn't ready for that, it can actually flare into some massive troubles. And I know this because I get these messages from people saying, I just did this retraining thing for my vagus nerve. I haven't been able to sleep for two months. And my gut, people sniff that out, like, you have to credentials. So you have to make sure that a person has credentials. Hopefully something like somatic experiencing. Hopefully something like the. The early trauma work that I've been talking about is the work of Kathy Kane and Stephen Terrell. There are other. You know, the thing that's hard with this, Andrea, is there's no school. Yeah. There's no accreditations. Yeah. It's not like medicine. Right. So you have to see the comprehensiveness of it. The other dead giveaway is if they aren't teaching you the theory, you have to learn the theory as a. As a human on this. Like, you can't just do the practices, because each human, because of the fact that we weren't raised by mother bears, we all have different ways of being with our bodies. And so one day you might do one of these exercises and you actually feel pretty good. But then a month later, you might do it and it blows your system out of the water. And then you think, something must be wrong with me, because this worked really well a month ago. That doesn't mean there's something wrong with you. It means that your system's at a different place. So a lot of these, fast track, do these lessons, do these and you're good to go. No, it just, it's. It's. You wouldn't do that with a human baby. Right. I kind of laugh and I say to people, if you have a crying human baby, are you gonna. Are you going to tell them to. To take a deep breath? You can't. You have to connect with them. And my God, there are people now putting their babies in cold baths to try to settle them down. And they're oming at them and putting didgeridoos in front of them. And you watch and they're literally going into shutdown. Yeah. They're going to stop crying because they're afraid. Right. And so you wouldn't do that with a newborn to teach them regulation. So why would you do that with an adult child who never got regulation? And so you need to layer it. You need to layer it. And the other dead giveaway is someone says you're going to be fixed in two months. That's a lie. They can't know that. So those are.
- [74:49]
Teresa
Someone sent me an email the other day asking, what are your credentials? I'm like, I'm just a show with the podcast. Like, none my experience.
- [74:59]
Irene Lyon
Yeah, yeah. If you're. If you're just having conversations and bringing information to people, that's different. Versus being a clinician.
- [75:05]
Teresa
Yeah.
- [75:06]
Irene Lyon
And teaching people exercises. It does drive me a little bonkers when I see influencers, like, offering people meditations. I'm like, I just have a podcast.
- [75:17]
Teresa
And I facilitate support groups. Support groups, so great. I got plenty enough credentials for that. Well, I feel like we just scratched the surface.
- [75:25]
Irene Lyon
Yes.
- [75:26]
Teresa
I'm gonna have to have you back on. There's so many more questions I wanted to ask you, but thank you so much for your time and I'll include all of your in the show notes. Is there anything else that you want to say or promote or whatever?
- [75:38]
Irene Lyon
If you're here listening to this, watching this, there's a. There's a reason yeah, no, there's a reason. And don't wait till you feel better to start because it won't happen unless again, you're in that war torn country and you're in deep survival, which could be, you know, but maybe not. Like, you wouldn't probably be listening to a podcast if you were running for your life right now, but if you are here, able to like, not nod your head and scroll your phone and you have food in the refrigerator and electricity in your house, then you can do this work. And I've done this enough years to know that there are no shortcuts. You can't biohack your nervous system, even though people say you can, you can't. So the deep trauma healing has to be done slowly, with time and with education and practice. It can't just be one or the other. Reading books isn't enough, right? It's got to be actual work. So that would be the final thing I'd say.
- [76:45]
Teresa
Mic drop moment.
- [76:57]
Irene Lyon
Logo. What's making you small now don't let all go what you got to do yet.