48: Beyond the Mind: Rethinking Trauma from the Inside Out with Jenifer Freedy

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Narrator

Hello and welcome to Cherie Lindberg's Elevated Life Academy. Stories of hope and healing. Through raw and heartfelt conversations, we uncover the powerful tools and strategies these individuals use to not only heal themselves, but also inspire those around them. Join us on this incredible journey as we discover the human spirit's remarkable capacity to heal, find hope in the darkest of moments, and ultimately live an elevated life.

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Cherie Lindberg

Welcome to another episode of Elevated Life Academy, and I am your host, Cherie Lindberg. And we have Jenifer Freedy 3D three being here with us today. And I'm excited because this is the first time meeting Jennifer. And I've heard a lot about you from other people, so I really would love to give you an opportunity to introduce yourself to our readers.

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Cherie Lindberg

And let's have this really awesome conversation today about healing.

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Jenifer Freedy

Sounds great.

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Cherie Lindberg

All right, so tell us a little bit about yourself.

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Jenifer Freedy

Well, I'm a psychotherapist. I'm in Canada, in Ontario, Canada, and I have been doing, you know, psychosis therapy with people for, gosh, it's been almost 25 years now. I'm now primarily in private practice. And I would say that, you know, my initial interest in my career pretty early on was trauma and working with people who've been traumatized and actually really kind of learning what that means, because I think a lot of times, you know, we still have the idea of trauma as, you know, like a PTSD, like war vets and car accidents and things like that.

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Jenifer Freedy

But really fascinating to understand the trauma from a more complex lens and what, you know, a lot of difficulties in childhood, different kinds of difficulties can really do to the brain and the nervous system. So I get I'm a little I joke, I'm a little bit of a geek around stuff like that, because I think we're in a stage where we're, we're learning a lot about what trauma really is and how to best treat it with different means.

00;02;17;28 - 00;02;43;04

Jenifer Freedy

I think it's probably what you know, you do your podcast is about is talking about lots of different ways that we work with different things and especially more complex things. So my primary career journey has really been learning more about the intricacies of trauma and the more complex versions of trauma and childhood trauma, and getting to work with a lot of people who have, you know, shared their story with me and helping them kind of do that journey.

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Cherie Lindberg

Yeah, the internet went out for just a bit there. So I want to make sure that what you were saying is that the focus on developmental and in childhood trauma, correct.

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Jenifer Freedy

Is right like that. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. Like complex forms of trauma. You know, people who even in adulthood, you know, have gone through a lot. But primarily you see people with complex and, you know, what we call developmental trauma is that overwhelming events or a lot of overwhelming things that happen during that critical time when the brain is developing, you know, in childhood and adolescence.

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Jenifer Freedy

So and I think this is as much as this is obviously, we talk a lot about this now. I think we're really still in a learning heavy learning curve about it, but we certainly know a lot more about last, you know, ten, 15 years. And that's helped us kind of have a lot of different ways of of working with it.

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Jenifer Freedy

And I just find that really fascinating.

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Cherie Lindberg

Yeah, absolutely. In fact, I listening to I, I really like the shift that's starting to happen where they're talking more and more about central nervous system. Yes.

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Jenifer Freedy

Yes. Exactly. Yes. Yeah. Because I think up until this point, you know, up until a decade or so ago, you know, we still thought about trauma as a mind thing. Yeah. And a cognitive thing and a thought, you know, problem, a negative thoughts and problem behaviors, all of which are a part of it. But I think we get a lot more mileage and a lot more compassion and understanding and effective treatment when we see that trauma really is a nervous system problem, and it really impacts the certain parts of the you know, the low brain and, and, you know, the body and talking therapies and, you know, behavior based therapies and, and cognitive, you know,

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Jenifer Freedy

top left brain therapies help a lot. But they're not the only answer. And so when I work with people who are experiencing complex trauma or what we call developmental childhood trauma, there is a piece that's been missing for them. And so it's really neat to watch how some of these other therapies really help to work with slow brain, the nervous system, the body, and not just the thinking mind or the behaving or behavior reactions.

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Cherie Lindberg

Right? Right. You're getting to more of the rut you're going deeper into and where the imprint occurred. Yeah. That's it. That's right. Thank you. Thank you. So if you can tell us, Jennifer, a little bit about your journey, I love hearing journey stories like how did you get here, what was your story and what did you need to overcome to get to where you're at?

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Cherie Lindberg

Well, one.

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Jenifer Freedy

Of the things that I'm pretty passionate about, if you are going to be somebody who works with people, is you have to do your own work. And, you know, I have really trying to impress on young upcoming therapists or relatively new therapists that it's really great to have a desire to help people and to have an interest in something.

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Jenifer Freedy

But if you are not doing your own inner work, your own understanding and healing your own nervous system, then you know you're probably going to be a little too textbook or a little too technical, and you're not going to be able to bring your, your whole self to that game. So yeah, I mean, I and I was kind of lucky enough that when I did my training, our program was really clear that it was important for you to go into therapy.

00;06;19;00 - 00;06;43;12

Jenifer Freedy

They didn't mandate it, but it was really important to do your own therapy. So I've done a lot of my own therapy work and, you know, sometimes on specific things and sometimes on just more general kinds of understandings of what it means to be human. So when I work with my clients, I'm not just interested in treating whatever sort of disorder they have or whatever symptoms they're dealing with or whatever problem their reactions.

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Jenifer Freedy

I'm also interested in helping them find a sense of who they really are. So here's a here's a little story that I tell my clients that is kind of turned me in the direction of, of also exploring this friends of mine when they had their third child, their third and last child, they invited me to be at his birth.

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Jenifer Freedy

And I don't have children. I have never been a part of that. So this was kind of a new experience for me and my friend, who's a very tiny woman, had this. I mean, her son was almost like he was ten and a half cancer was a big kid, and he came really quick. So she had no option for epidural.

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Jenifer Freedy

She was going through an awful lot of pain, a lot of stress. It was a pretty tough deal. And I mean, I could I could see the stress on her. And then she was almost dissociating at points during his labor and delivery. But as soon as he was born, as soon as he came out, all of that went away.

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Jenifer Freedy

And she was in love and her husband was in love. And the thing that really struck me that night was, we're born being naturally very lovable, and that part of us is already whole and complete. And so in my journey of kind of wanting to go to that level of exploring, it's it's really trying to often reconnect with that parts, that part of our self that we come in with.

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Jenifer Freedy

We kind of hopefully can get connected with when we're going through life and connected enough when we're going through life. And I believe we happen to live with it too. But, you know, in that moment, their son's name is Brady. Brady did not have to prove himself. He didn't have to. We didn't have to learn who he was going to become to see if we were going to love him or not.

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Jenifer Freedy

He didn't have to. You know, they didn't say to the hospital staff, just bring us whatever baby you got in the nursery. They're all blank. We'll just say they wanted him. He had a particular imprint. He had a particular fingerprint, a self that was already intact and whole that his parents could feel. And they wanted him. And so that sort of struck me as the, you know, that part of self that even if you go through really hard things and even if you go through trauma and even if you're trying to figure out, you know, how to sort out some difficult behaviors or past difficulties, that part of you inside is whole and complete.

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Jenifer Freedy

It always matters. It's always deserving. It's it's always unique. You know, even if you live 100 lifetimes, you'll only be this version of you once, and and your footprints on the planet really do change things. And so I think part of helping people with trauma, you really lose a sense of that when we've gone through early trauma. And so it's really kind of including that as part of the treatment picture.

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Jenifer Freedy

But I think, you know, for me, really learning how to also connect with that part of myself. And I think a lot of new therapists probably, you know, think about stuff like this, but to really kind of go in and wonder about the part of you that just is and how you can you can be in that part of you yourself and then how you can help other people find that despite whatever they've gone through, is really important.

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Jenifer Freedy

I think when you and I were doing a little bit of emailing about the podcast, you said it. I think one of the things you said is you, you know, the idea of of hope and, you know, kind of helping people have hope. And I, I really do find that when you can, you know, talk about your own experience of finding not always whole, complete, lovable, mattering part of you and that that never dies, it actually never gets traumatize in my beliefs.

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Jenifer Freedy

And it's still available even decades after you've gone through something. People, even if they can't quite get their head around that or they've been through a lot and that's a tough sell. There's a hope in there that maybe, just maybe, that part that I was born with that mattered right off the bat and was lovable right off the bat and deserved.

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Jenifer Freedy

I have to earn my keep as a baby. I, you know, is still intact and somewhere in there I find is is, you know, really provides a lot of hope for people.

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Cherie Lindberg

Yeah. That's beautiful. What are some of your methods that you use to help people have hope and help them connect with that lovable part of themselves?

00;11;26;15 - 00;11;53;03

Jenifer Freedy

So there's a couple of therapies that, I mean, there are therapies. They're treatment methods and they're really useful. But to me, they're also they're very human. I think they, you know, the the thing that I think if you're doing really good work with people are really good work with yourself. You're not just using a technique to try and get some outcome that you're really you're you're really looking for who you are, the, the human in you.

00;11;53;06 - 00;12;32;06

Jenifer Freedy

And so there are certain methods that are kind of mainstream. A lot of people use cognitive behavioral therapy and dialectical behavioral therapy and, and, you know, things like that that are so important and so vital. But I think there are other methods that also help people get in touch with these deeper parts of themselves. And it's so interesting because when you use them and you go, you get out of kind of rational thought, you get out of logic based thinking, you get out of behavior change, you know, methods, and you really kind of go and explore these parts of someone and they really kind of almost organically get in touch with them a little bit.

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Jenifer Freedy

So I think methods that really do that well are things like internal family systems therapy or, you know, call parts work therapy. And again, as much as that's a therapy, I also think it's it's very human. So you know what we talk very much so. So when we talk about parts of self we talk about a part of me feels like this, but a part of me can't do this or I mean, we use it in our natural language that when we get really specific about looking at different parts of ourselves and that every part of ourself, even the parts that we are frustrated with or we're at odds with or we hate these parts

00;13;09;08 - 00;13;38;27

Jenifer Freedy

of ourselves, they have a really important purpose. And so when we can get in touch with those parts that have worked really hard to protect us, or they're the parts that carry old raw pain that they just do, they can't. They're unfiltered. They just carry that and also finding the parts of us that are still hopeful, that are still bringing us into therapy or listening to certain podcasts or reading certain books or trying to sort something out.

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Jenifer Freedy

Parts of us that feel, you know, I think for people, parts that feel more core, they become like the core self, the me of me. And is that me still in there? I think, you know, internal family systems therapy or ego state therapy parts work therapy are really, really useful for that. And there's some really neat ways to explore these different parts of yourself where you can kind of get out of that logical head and get into the body of that and get into your body with that and bring up some really cool information.

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Jenifer Freedy

Another one is somatic experiencing therapy or therapies that, you know, really work with the embodied nervous system. And so a lot of times are really oriented to what do I think and how am I behaving and how am I reacting. But a lot of times we're less like connected to when I'm upset with something or I'm confused about something or I'm I'm angry with something, where in my body does the sensation of that sit and how do I orient to that?

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Jenifer Freedy

And particularly how do I do that without judgment or urgency to fix it and make it something to get some result here? And so what's really, really cool and actually brings naturally out that you humanness is when you sit with that in the body, you sit with these things in the body from a sensation perspective and without judgment, and you allow it to just have space and have time and to, you know, be here without judgment.

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Jenifer Freedy

It's so amazing how it begins to unfold parts of your story or parts of yourself, or things that you need that your logical mind may not even be able to access. But this, this Intel or this information comes. Yeah, I call them like the minions in the factory below the neck. You know, where we go down there using these more somatic ways of connecting and talking to ourselves that generates this really cool flow of information that always leaves people saying like, I have no idea where that came from, or I don't know why this seems important, but nonetheless, I'm thinking about this image, or I'm feeling this sensation, or something's moving around and I can

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Jenifer Freedy

feel it in there processing, and I feel different afterward. And so I think the above, the next piece are helpful, right? The top left brain logic, reason, you know, making plans and techniques that help those outcomes. But the below the neck therapies like parts, work therapy and internal family systems, somatic kinds of therapies are really, really helpful too.

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Jenifer Freedy

And I think they help kind of bring the integration together really nicely.

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Cherie Lindberg

Yeah, I've had this conversation with other practitioners in that and I, I listen to what you're saying about the new, the newbies that are coming in and the fact that what we learn often in our grad school and, and so forth. But it sounds like yours was a little bit more evolved. Is that what actually happens in the counseling, that there's some disconnect a little bit in terms of, I mean, I don't know about you, but when I went through grad school, there wasn't somatic therapies, there was no anything about the body.

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Cherie Lindberg

It was all like you said. Yeah, well, above the neck. Yeah.

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Jenifer Freedy

Yeah. Well, I had some I had some teachers and profs and, and also some of the, you know, the therapies that they recommended for therapists, they recommended for us who actually were probably more, you know, they'd done their own work and I think they were more oriented to that. So I got lucky because it pointed, you know, pointed me in a direction of not just I mean, CBT is still the hot therapy, but I in my long history of doing work with people, it has it it has absolute gifts and it also has its limits.

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Jenifer Freedy

And the kind of the thing that people often say is, you know, I did CBT and it was really, really helpful. And some of those things are still really helpful, but something's still missing. And so it's it I think it is these deeper parts of when you go through something difficult or even when it reaches the level of, you know, trauma, we for sure know that the brain and, and the parts of the brain that go down into the body, which is a thing, also are deeply impacted by overwhelm or lots of, you know, medium sized difficulties or a lot of even sort of small difficulties that continue over time, things that we didn't get

00;18;30;12 - 00;18;56;29

Jenifer Freedy

that we needed also impact the formation of that nervous system. And certainly big traumas are when you're going through that, especially during a time when your brain and nervous system and body are developing your word imprint is really good. They those things imprint on your nervous system. And I wish so badly time and logic and reason and, you know, were the cure all for that.

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Jenifer Freedy

That would be amazing. But humans aren't built that way. And so the nervous system has a real say. So lower parts of the brain and nervous system that have to cope with those early difficulties or those early neglects, they form around those and they often either need processing that's not logic based, or they need to gain a connection to the cells that were supposed to also learn about in childhood.

00;19;22;03 - 00;19;48;01

Jenifer Freedy

That had to go offline because I was going through all this stuff and coping, or my people weren't there to give me what I needed to show me who I really am. And so that has to be developed later on, and we call it developmental catch up. But to do that with logic only or thought processes only, or changes in behaviors as a part of it, but to go down and really seal who you are, almost the way we do work with kids a little bit, where we get, you know, kids are in their bodies.

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Jenifer Freedy

I'm sure you've said this on your podcast before. Kids are always in their bodies. They don't do logic based stuff. So to catch up some of that stuff and to help the nervous system better process some of that old stuff, you have to work with low right brain processes and embodied nervous system processes, too. And I think people like Steven Porges and Steven or Peter Levine, Steven Porges, Pat Ogden, Janina Fisher, Dan Siegel, vassal van der Kolk, all these people really understand that, and they're really starting to make a dent in behaviors, and thoughts and emotions are very important.

00;20;29;25 - 00;20;49;07

Jenifer Freedy

I always say to people now, it used to be the triangle, right? Like behaviors thoughts and, and and emotions. And those are the three we work with. But I really think it's a square. It's body and nervous system behaviors thoughts and emotions. And we've got to include that and work with it that way. And different therapies are needed at different times.

00;20;49;07 - 00;21;11;25

Jenifer Freedy

For those, you know, for those different things. So so yes, I think I got lucky in, in sort of being pointed in that direction. And I really encourage the people I work with to think about there's, you know, like healing from illness. There are different things that you need to do. It's not just one cure. And that's the same when we're becoming human and we're not just healing trauma, but we're also becoming who we are.

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Jenifer Freedy

And so we get into these sort of different ways of doing that.

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Cherie Lindberg

Yeah, yeah. Really beautiful in terms of, you know, your history and working in the field without identifying, can you share a inspiring story that you worked with that you were just like this was, you know, as as a practitioner, we're always helping. We're always inspired by our clients and so forth. And I'm just wondering if you if one particular memory comes to mind for you.

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Jenifer Freedy

I can't sort of identify one particular person at the moment. There's been many. But the thing that I've learned, actually, is that it's often not the thing you think you've been helping, like it's it's, yes, worse therapists and or treatment providers and we're, you know, human experts and all that kind of stuff. So we apply different things with our own humanness as a part of that.

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Jenifer Freedy

But sometimes you think it's a a treatment thing you did or a particular technique or exercise you did or whatever that made a difference for someone. And it's often later where they will tell you, you know, when you notice that I was uncomfortable and you got up to get me a glass of water, or in that moment and I, you know, my nervous system started to get anxious and I was getting chilly.

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Jenifer Freedy

And without having to ask, you went and got me a blanket.

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Cherie Lindberg

Or.

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Jenifer Freedy

You know, it's these little things, actually, that I think sometimes we can underestimate.

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Cherie Lindberg

The.

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Jenifer Freedy

Little, seemingly little things that we do with people that actually start to provide the grains of hope. Because I think when you've been broken down by life, honestly, it's not the grand gestures and the big techniques and the all the stuff that you can dazzle somebody with, that's helpful. But it's those moments that you show I can be plugged into you.

00;23;18;05 - 00;23;19;15

Cherie Lindberg

On a very.

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Jenifer Freedy

Seemingly micro level. I can I can be able to still see something in you and do something that seems like a small gesture, but it made you feel seen, or it made you feel heard, or it made you feel that you are still able to be understood, which is something that a lot of people don't feel anymore. And it's those little moments where you give them a particular look or you offer them a little something.

00;23;51;17 - 00;24;24;24

Jenifer Freedy

You say, you know, I saw such and such on a podcast this week and it made me think of you. And they always get shock, like, oh, think about me. And between our sessions, yes, very much so. Right. It's these little things that actually, I think the nuances that really keep people in the game and really kind of give them a little bit of evidence that there's something about them that matters that's still online, and there's something inside you that can see that that really keeps them there.

00;24;24;24 - 00;24;47;27

Jenifer Freedy

And I didn't catch this at first. In my early career. I thought it was all of the techniques and things, but it so much of people staying in the game for themselves has been bringing them in. You know, some moments that they like or I used to, you know, offer people a little bit of water and a couple, you know, sticks of dark chocolate.

00;24;48;00 - 00;25;07;23

Jenifer Freedy

A colleague of mine suggested that after a tough session, just simple things, getting them a blanket or seeing an article and thinking they might find this useful and printing it off of them. Those are the things that really matter, and they're not. Things you're taught in school, right? Are the nuances that really do show someone you matter, and you matter to me.

00;25;07;25 - 00;25;32;28

Jenifer Freedy

And I can still see you and you can be remember a bowl. And that's the thing that gives them enough hope, I think, to keep coming and build the foundation to do the bigger work that, you know, really does require them to, to kind of commit. So yeah. So I would say it's those little things and pay and you know, in working with some of the students I supervise, reminding them about those moments, those tiny moments that seem like nothing to you.

00;25;32;29 - 00;25;58;28

Jenifer Freedy

You weren't taught them in school, you know, whatever. But it's that human part that makes them feel like they matter. And if you've been through a lot and you haven't been seen or heard much in your life, a little nuance like that for someone goes a long way. So I would say those are the moments that really, really generate the hope and, and, and really keep people trusting me where you can then really move into doing.

00;25;58;28 - 00;26;22;17

Cherie Lindberg

Work like, well, in, in the field that I'm in, you know, I teach brain spotting and one of the things we talk about is relational attunement. That's what you're describing. And it's like soul to soul. We meet each other's soul. So I totally understand what you're saying. Can you share a little bit about how you work with your folks in terms of the developmental catch up?

00;26;22;20 - 00;26;25;27

Cherie Lindberg

I really find that very interesting. When you said that.

00;26;25;29 - 00;26;47;03

Jenifer Freedy

Yeah. So that's a Janina Fisher term. And I'm I'm a big fan of her. I'm, I'm just in the process of writing a book right now with harbinger, new Harbinger Publishers around helping women who've been through childhood sexual abuse. And one of the one of the sections of the book talks about Janine is model of the structural developmental model.

00;26;47;05 - 00;27;08;11

Jenifer Freedy

And so she talks a lot about developmental up, because when you're doing trauma work with people, you're really kind of doing two things. You're you're doing the processing of all of the horrific trauma and all of the stuff that got sacrificed or, you know, these difficult ways of coping that had to come online to get you through the other pieces.

00;27;08;17 - 00;27;34;11

Jenifer Freedy

Because I'm going through all of this stuff in childhood and because I'm having to use more rudimentary parts of my brain to just be in protection and defense mode all the time and coping mode all the time. And because my adults may not know what I'm going through, so they're not helping me with this. Or perhaps my parents aren't really great on top of this, so I'm not getting the developmental stuff that I need.

00;27;34;13 - 00;27;55;28

Jenifer Freedy

You really work on two tracks of trying to process that old trauma, and also trying to grow the child inside of them that's really stuck at an old developmental level. And so I really like her, her, her structural developmental model, because it lets us look at different parts, like three categories of parts in the person that help us to also grow them up.

00;27;56;00 - 00;28;19;24

Jenifer Freedy

So one is looking at the protector parts that had to really quickly and often come online to help that kid cope. So we all know the fight and the flight. Some of us know the freeze. In Geneva's model, there are two additional. One is the submit that we also sometimes called fun that had to give in to stay safe people please and all of that kind of stuff.

00;28;19;26 - 00;28;40;28

Jenifer Freedy

And then the one called need for cry or need full attach, I call it Please See Me, which is that kid who never got seen or heard or noticed. So in relation to my Brady Brady story, the first thing Brady ever heard from his dad. And I love this story. They you know, they give the baby to Brie.

00;28;41;01 - 00;29;03;17

Jenifer Freedy

They can bring you to his dad. And his dad looks down into Brady's eyes. And he's known this kid for literally 90s. He's been out in the world for 90s. And he says to Brady, Brady, you're such a good boy. And I just love that because already Brady is getting near a ring about who he is, that he is loved.

00;29;03;19 - 00;29;36;20

Jenifer Freedy

He does matter. He is deserving. He is unique. He matters to this family. He is good. Just because, you know, those are things that we want our children to feel inside as a foundation for all the other things that will come to identify me. But that foundation is vital. And I think it's what Janina Fisher just talking about when she talks about these core parts of ourselves that really hold, you know, these truths, these inherent truths about us, that we matter, we exist.

00;29;36;20 - 00;30;03;04

Jenifer Freedy

We're worth seeing. We're worth hearing. We're lovable. We're unique. This world is forever different because we're here. And so if you've gone through trauma and you're in protection mode, coping all the time, and you're adults may be offline, not also mirroring who you really are, you miss that peace too. And so, so yeah, so so helping people get in touch with and actually have some reverence for my protectors that I'm at war with right now.

00;30;03;04 - 00;30;24;04

Jenifer Freedy

I'm always fighting. I'm always running away from things. I'm always frozen or submitting of people pleasing all those parts helped you at a time where you had nothing else, and we're going to honor those parts and recognize what the real deal is. We're going to also get the other parts of you active in online. So your protector don't have to work so hard for you.

00;30;24;06 - 00;30;56;23

Jenifer Freedy

And those sore kids inside that only carry pain don't have to just carry pain anymore. So we're really helping people go in below the neck, down into that factory where these parts of self have been waiting since birth or they're they're whole, but we're learning how to get the, the adults to have a relationship with these parts of themselves, not just to calm them down and get them behaving better or thinking differently, but to really help the person see their inherent goodness as a foundation.

00;30;56;23 - 00;31;25;09

Jenifer Freedy

For now, I, I feel some security inside. I can be curious, not frozen or defended, that I could be curious about who I am, what I like, what matters to me, what my values are, what I don't like, what I want to do, and I can start also getting in touch with an adult self and the prefrontal cortex behind the forehead that carries all of the adult functions and activate that a little bit more.

00;31;25;16 - 00;31;48;27

Jenifer Freedy

So instead of being this hurt child that's just defended with fight, flight, freeze, submit and need for cry, I can actually be who I'm meant to be. Figure out who I am has a foundation of inherent self-love and security as a part of that. And that just opens up me becoming a grown up. I mean, it's how we rear our kids.

00;31;48;27 - 00;32;10;16

Jenifer Freedy

We we we give them lots of nearing and feedback and guidance and direction so that by the time they're 25, they're kind of in a good place to begin to further explore who they are. And so you can do that even if you're 45, the work is processing the trauma and then putting you in touch with all those parts that should have been shown to you all those years ago.

00;32;10;19 - 00;32;31;08

Jenifer Freedy

It's a huge loss to process, but it's the deal. And so we're trying to help you also build that. And I do think that certain therapies do part of that, but I don't think they go far enough to say there's a you inside that we're also seeking here. And she got lost or he got lost a long time ago and rightly so.

00;32;31;08 - 00;32;55;20

Jenifer Freedy

Nobody was there to mirror. And you're too busy coping with the trauma. So it's it's reclaiming that cells and that's super, super vital. And that also is what gives people hope. Some of the most, some of the sessions where people say, I actually feel like I'm going to get somewhere here, I actually have some hope and they'll use those terms are the ones where we talk about there's a you inside that got lost, but they're there.

00;32;55;22 - 00;33;15;11

Jenifer Freedy

It's just nobody has shown you where they are. So Brady's dad started showing Brady at 90s in who he is. He's already mirroring already. And that's good. We can do that with somebody at 45 who's, you know, trying to process trauma but also seeking out who they really are. And that's piece of the work that I don't know.

00;33;15;11 - 00;33;29;25

Jenifer Freedy

We teach so well in therapy schools just yet. And that's why things trainings like Somatic Experiencing and, you know, eMDR and internal family systems and parts work therapies are so vital to complete the puzzle, you know.

00;33;29;27 - 00;33;53;02

Cherie Lindberg

Yeah, I, I agree with everything that you're saying, and I love hearing this because there's so many people out there that if they have a high a score and that's, you know, adverse experiences of childhood versus childhood experiences, excuse me that it's not positive. Like they're like, oh, my life is kind of, oh, I'm going to die early.

00;33;53;02 - 00;34;07;07

Cherie Lindberg

I'm going to have desire, you know? So knowing what you're sharing, you really want that to get out that there is a lot we can do to support that healing so that what we.

00;34;07;09 - 00;34;25;17

Jenifer Freedy

Can be found, that's right. And if you you know, and if you're doing your healing work in whatever way you're doing that, and you're with somebody who's offering you a piece of the puzzle. So when I talk to my clients, you know, I, I really think about us human beings as a, like as a pie chart in a way.

00;34;25;17 - 00;34;51;19

Jenifer Freedy

You know, there's so many slices of, of pie, so many slices that we have to attend to when we're healing and not to feel overwhelmed by that. But I think sometimes when we go into therapy, work or healing a symptom or a coping mechanism or a problem behavior or a feeling we don't like, or a thought that gets in our way and we kind of stick to a slice or two.

00;34;51;21 - 00;35;10;22

Jenifer Freedy

But this piece of who am I as a human being and and what is my sense of self? Not just what do I like? Not just my identifiers, but those roots that I was born with and people longed for that. And I, you know, I think a phrase that I heard once that I really like is I'm lonely for myself.

00;35;10;22 - 00;35;38;07

Jenifer Freedy

I think a client said that to me once. I'm just really lonely for myself. And I knew what that meant. It didn't mean I'm looking to have this belief about me or this behavior change. Yes, you are, but I'm also there's a part of me from my childhood where I wanted people to see me and hear me and delight in me and be curious about me and be calm and quiet with me and patient with me, and give me space and time.

00;35;38;10 - 00;35;55;09

Jenifer Freedy

And that never happened or that rarely happened. And on top of it, I was also coping with all the other things I was going through. That's a huge loss. And so that's a really big piece of that pie. And I again, I think that's really important to sort of show people because they don't they kind of sense that something's missing.

00;35;55;09 - 00;36;16;06

Jenifer Freedy

They don't know how to name it. And so when you can figure out how to help them name that and get them invested in that, and not because it's therapeutically appropriate, although it is very, very helpful therapeutically, but because it's human and that we're doing that developmental catch up and you're and and and not building that human, but getting you back in touch with that human gut part of you slowly, slowly, slowly.

00;36;16;06 - 00;36;21;18

Jenifer Freedy

It just provides such a nice foundation for the rest of the treatment work that also has to happen.

00;36;21;20 - 00;36;44;20

Cherie Lindberg

Well, I love that word delight. I absolutely, yeah, love that word. And often like, you know, when we work with people that have complex PTSD, that was not part of the puzzle. Some I've even had folks are like, well, what would that look like? What what would that. Yeah, they don't even know what it would would feel like like what the behavior would look like for somebody to delight in them.

00;36;44;25 - 00;36;45;26

Cherie Lindberg

Yeah, right.

00;36;45;28 - 00;37;07;01

Jenifer Freedy

Brady got a beginning training about delight. People delighting in him literally like two minutes into his life. A lot of I mean, it's it's a real sad statement. But it is true that a lot of people don't feel delighted in just delighted in for who they are. It's not even a treatment thing. It's just human until they're in their 40s.

00;37;07;03 - 00;37;24;15

Jenifer Freedy

And you can I mean, the sadness of that and when you name that, they get it. You know, when when you name that and you tell them where to be delighted in, in childhood. I mean, to your point, to like that never happened. I don't have a template for that. So you're almost developing a template for you are enough just as you are.

00;37;24;15 - 00;37;46;23

Jenifer Freedy

And we're going to build on that while we're doing some treatment stuff. And it's sort of like we're planting the flowers in this rich soil, but if you don't have the soil, these flowers aren't going to stick. And so people when when you say to them and I often tell my Brady story and Brady knows I tell my Brady story, but I tell that because they kind of get yeah I did not have that.

00;37;46;24 - 00;37;54;22

Jenifer Freedy

And the and it starts to enter open the question of or what what does that look like. Right. And that's where that hope starts to generate a little bit.

00;37;54;23 - 00;37;59;21

Cherie Lindberg

Yeah. And building the template and possibility building exactly.

00;37;59;21 - 00;38;01;24

Jenifer Freedy

Building that template. Absolutely.

00;38;02;00 - 00;38;10;14

Cherie Lindberg

Yeah. Well what a what a rich discussion Jennifer. Is there anything that maybe I haven't asked you that would be good for our listeners to hear?

00;38;10;20 - 00;38;44;27

Jenifer Freedy

I mean, I think we've covered it a lot and it is a good discussion. And I love this is where I like to geek out a little bit because it it brings it brings in the whole I mean, I think this is what we mean by holistic and so I would just say to people that if any of this resonates with you, whether you're a person who's doing the work themselves or you're a clinician or both, and there's something in this that you thought that's interesting or that's that's something, and then investigate that because that's a part.

00;38;44;27 - 00;39;03;26

Jenifer Freedy

You know, I always say parts of us are always listening, right? And their brain circuitry that goes with these parts are, you know, if you got a little hit there, that's a part of you talking. I teach clients how to listen to their parts because they speak a different language. Somatic experiencing talks about how to listen to, you know, the language of the lower right brain or parts inside.

00;39;03;26 - 00;39;15;27

Jenifer Freedy

So if anything hit today even a little bit, that's a part of you saying that I need you to go and maybe we can explore that. So I would probably leave people with that thought, well, that's beautiful.

00;39;15;27 - 00;39;28;06

Cherie Lindberg

Yes. So please, please do share. Because again, I mean, the podcast is about helping and supporting people and learning how to have an elevated life like that. Is the dress.

00;39;28;06 - 00;39;33;14

Jenifer Freedy

Right? And it's not just about what we're doing on the outside world. It's also about who we are inside.

00;39;33;15 - 00;39;35;28

Cherie Lindberg

Well, thank you so much for being our guest today.

00;39;35;28 - 00;39;40;05

Jenifer Freedy

My sincere pleasure. Thanks for having me.

00;39;40;07 - 00;40;17;29

Cherie Lindberg

I hope you enjoyed our podcast with Jenifer Freedy today and how we talked about if you have complex trauma, the healing methods that can help you go deeper, as well as the developmental catch up that folks can do. And pretty much I just want you to hear the message of hope that this deep healing is open to all that seek it, that there are many people on the healing path and that, you know, Jennifer is one of those practitioners that can hold space for that deep healing.

00;40;17;29 - 00;40;40;07

Cherie Lindberg

And thank goodness, you know, we have people all over the world that are doing that work. So if this really piqued your interest and what she was saying, we just invite you to share the Elevator Life podcast with any of your family and friends that you think would benefit or might be interested in the topic. And as always, we're always looking for feedback.

00;40;40;07 - 00;40;54;06

Cherie Lindberg

And what are some topics you know that you're interested in? You can always email me coach at Sherry lindbergh.com and we'd love to hear your feedback. Until next time, thank you so much.

00;40;54;09 - 00;41;13;06

Narrator

Thank you for joining us on another uplifting journey on Cherie Lindberg's Elevated Life Academy. Stories of Hope and healing. If you found resonance or connection with what you've heard today, we encourage you to share this episode and consider becoming a subscriber. Please spread the word so others can live an elevated life.