Wednesdays With Watson: Faith & Trauma Amy Watson- PTSD Patient-Trauma Survivor
Listening When Your Body Talks: Get Out Of Your Head ft. Lauren Starnes
Ever wondered why your body seems to have a mind of its own, especially after experiencing trauma? Join me as I sit down with Lauren Starnes, a compassionate physician's assistant in psychiatric medicine, to uncover the vital interplay between our physical sensations and mental health. In a revealing conversation, we tackle the often-overlooked language of the body post-trauma, discussing how tuning into these messages not only enhances self-awareness but can also be a matter of survival.
Navigating the intricate paths of self-care, we shatter misconceptions and resonate on the topic's true meaning, especially within religious contexts. I open up about my personal battles living in survival mode and the liberating shift towards balance and intuitive eating, which Lauren affirms with her profound expertise. Together, we emphasize the necessity of hydration, the restful sanctuary of sleep, and even the surprising significance of neck exercises as tools in the healing arsenal. As we lay bare our stories, the episode becomes a testament to the transformative power of embracing a holistic approach to recovery.
As the episode comes to a close, we highlight the importance of community and faith in the healing process. I share my gratitude for the support received during my own journey and preview an earnest dialogue with Dr. Katherine Jackson on the societal stigmas around suicide, promising to be another candid chapter in this ongoing conversation. Whether it's through tears that cleanse or the daily commitment to listen to what our bodies are yearning to convey, this episode serves as an empowering reminder of our capacity for growth and the compassion we all deserve on our path to well-being.
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SEEN KNOWN HEARD LOVED VALUED
Ever wondered why your body seems to have a mind of its own, especially after experiencing trauma? Join me as I sit down with Lauren Starnes, a compassionate physician's assistant in psychiatric medicine, to uncover the vital interplay between our physical sensations and mental health. In a revealing conversation, we tackle the often-overlooked language of the body post-trauma, discussing how tuning into these messages not only enhances self-awareness but can also be a matter of survival.
Navigating the intricate paths of self-care, we shatter misconceptions and resonate on the topic's true meaning, especially within religious contexts. I open up about my personal battles living in survival mode and the liberating shift towards balance and intuitive eating, which Lauren affirms with her profound expertise. Together, we emphasize the necessity of hydration, the restful sanctuary of sleep, and even the surprising significance of neck exercises as tools in the healing arsenal. As we lay bare our stories, the episode becomes a testament to the transformative power of embracing a holistic approach to recovery.
As the episode comes to a close, we highlight the importance of community and faith in the healing process. I share my gratitude for the support received during my own journey and preview an earnest dialogue with Dr. Katherine Jackson on the societal stigmas around suicide, promising to be another candid chapter in this ongoing conversation. Whether it's through tears that cleanse or the daily commitment to listen to what our bodies are yearning to convey, this episode serves as an empowering reminder of our capacity for growth and the compassion we all deserve on our path to well-being.
You ARE:
SEEN KNOWN HEARD LOVED VALUED
We were all created to cry. There is not a human on this planet that was not created to cry. It is one of the first things we do after birth.
Speaker 2:Hey everybody and welcome back to the Wednesdays with Watson podcast. So excited to have you here. If you have landed on this podcast for the first time, please like or follow the podcast. That just helps it come up in the algorithms for more people that need it. It is May of 2024. It is Mental Health Awareness Month and I'm excited to bring you two episodes this month that will focus on mental health awareness.
Speaker 2:This first week, I am bringing to the microphone Lauren Starnes. Lauren is a physician's assistant who graduated from Lincoln Memorial University. She has over 10 years of experience as a PA in psychiatric medicine and she is now working alongside, if you will, the things that she learned from Western medicine and helping us understand how, outside of the medical system or alongside of the medical system, if need be we can implement some things into our lives, including nervous system regulation, which helps increase capacity and helps healing that are so simple. So today we're going to talk about when the body talks, and so many of us who have had trauma are deaf to the signals of things like thirst and hunger and exhaustion and all the things, and so Lauren comes and talks us a little bit about that program. We talk about my experience in working in this program when the body talks, and so let's drop into this conversation with Lauren Starnes.
Speaker 2:Okay, guys, we are here with one of my favorite people and part of team Amy, if I am being honest with you. So we are here today with my friend and the founder of the resilient healer. Her name is Lauren Starnes. Lauren, welcome to the Wednesdays with Watson podcast.
Speaker 1:Hi Amy, it's so good to be here with you.
Speaker 2:So you know, a lot of times on these podcast interviews I get nervous.
Speaker 2:I am not nervous about this one because you are my friend and, as I mentioned, part of team Amy and an integral part, I think and what we're going to talk about today and helping me and on my healing journey, and so I wanted to start the podcast, and you may have expected that I was going to start it this way, but the reason why, besides just the wealth of knowledge that you're going to bring to us today, darren, mental Health Awareness Month in terms of nervous system regulation and just how our bodies hold trauma in general I want to tell the listeners what started me on this journey of paying attention to my nervous system.
Speaker 2:As many of my listeners know, I've been in counseling for a long time, have used very effective trauma treatments like EMDR all very heady stuff, as you and I talk about a lot, a lot of the cerebral stuff. But about a little over a year ago so April was a year I walked into your office because at that time you were working in psychiatry, and you have I think it's 12 years, right? At that time you were working in psychiatry and you have. I think it's 12 years, right, am I right about that?
Speaker 1:And psychiatry Almost like 10.
Speaker 2:Yeah, 10. So a decade, and working in psychology. So you were the physician's assistant to my doctor, dr Grayson. And, by the way, this is a good time for me to mention that anything that Lauren says today is for educational and entertainment purposes only. Please do not implement any of these things that we're going to talk about today without consulting your doctor. But anyway, lauren, back to you.
Speaker 2:I was had been admitted to the hospital. I had was burning the candle on all the ends. I was working 12 hour shifts at the emergency room and school, just plus dealing with my own trauma, which, unfortunately, I have to wake up and and decide to deal with every day. And I remember walking into your office about 15 pounds lighter than I am in this moment when we're talking on this, on this zoom interview, and I sat down and you sat down across from me and you didn't even know anything that was going on and you said, amy, if you don't figure out how to pay attention to what your body is telling you, you're not going to be here. Do you remember that day?
Speaker 1:I do. I remember that day very clearly.
Speaker 2:Can you tell us a little bit about it from your perspective?
Speaker 1:Yeah, you know, like it's not every day that you have those conversations with patients, right, right, and there have been some big impact moments that I've had with certain patients where you touch this spot or it's like you're gonna die, like let's just have the uncomfortable, you know conversation and bring it in the room. That, like this is not sustainable with life. Yeah, this is not sustainable with life. The choices you're making and the way you're treating your body, you're going to die. And you know, unfortunately, like those are conversations we need to have with people sometimes and it was time for you and I to have that conversation.
Speaker 1:I've known you a number of years and I'd seen you go up and down through a lot of things and I knew you were a resilient and down through a lot of things, and I knew you were a resilient person and I knew you were sliding down into some places where there's a level of getting lost that it's hard to come back from. Yeah, and there were some cascading things that were starting to happen where you were starting to have multiple organ systems that were starting to go offline. Right, it was far beyond just your nervous system being dysregulated and that's scary.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and I'm grateful, like I remember looking at you like a deer in headlights, thinking you know, because I felt like I had done all the not all the work, but I had continued to do work in a counselor's office and that's important. I don't want our listeners to think that we are saying that it's an either or you still need to be doing that work, right. But I remember how that landed for me and I think that, had Dr Grace told me that, I would have looked at him and walked out of there and continued as I were. But I remember looking at you saying, lauren, I don't know how to do that, like my, we call it a nowhere and we're doing, I'm still working with you, but but that was broken. My everything in me was broken. Like there was no signals telling me I just spent five days in the hospital because I had just burned myself out working at the hospital and not taking care of myself. And I remember looking at you thinking, okay, she's serious, because, guys, if you get the opportunity to work with Lauren, she, she is very, very kind and very, very sweet, until she's not like when she wants to get something to you when, when, when there needs to be, but you were kind in that in that moment, but I remember the gravity of it and at that time you yourself were beginning to transition out of traditional Western medicine and to doing your own thing, which was finding what you're doing now, which is called the resilient healer.
Speaker 2:And, guys, we will give you all of the contact information for Lauren at the end of the podcast. But the reason why I asked you to come today is a I just love talking to you, but be that began a journey and you and you, you told me at that point you was like Amy, I'm starting some programs, and the very first program I'm starting is called when the Body Talks, and so I joined that group. It was a group with about six or eight of us, I think, and so what I want us to do today is kind of walk the listeners through what they would experience if they were going to join this program. Because, guys, when I tell you that this has been a game changer for me, when I began to work inside this program called when the Body Talks, it really helped me understand that I needed to work inside this program called when the Body Talks. It really helped me understand that I needed to and this is something I still deal with daily get out of my head and begin to listen to what my body was talking and what my body was saying to me.
Speaker 2:Because, lauren, I wasn't feeling pain. Right, I wasn't feeling anything, I was just going down in flames. And so so we, so I started when the body talks, and so I want you to kind of give us a little elevator pitch for that program first, and then I want to talk about the experience that I had going through that program and how effective it has been for me effective it has been for me?
Speaker 1:Yeah, for sure, and I think kind of part of the elevator pitch is like kind of what you were just saying, though, right, which is there was this spot where your knowing was very off, and so, throughout all this time, as I've been trying to, like, create what is it that I think is most important for people, there's a spot where it's like well, your body has the wisdom, your mind has knowledge, knowledge, but your body has wisdom, and you cannot know things like that with just your mind. And so it's this approach of rebalancing the whole system because, like you said, I'm not saying we're not doing therapy or we're not doing counseling, or we're not getting psychiatric medications when needed, right, I'm not saying we're not doing those things, but there has to be a rebalancing. And if we can take those things, unfortunately let's just go ahead and talk about the negative of all of those things. Counseling, therapy, medication, all that is a focus on our mind. Yeah, it is still putting attention on our mind and it's actually saying, hey, mind, you're broken and you're not doing things. Right, we need to fix you. But we're still not putting any attention on the body, right, we're not putting any attention on all the nerves that run down your spine, run to your organs, run to your musculature, your limbs, all the things that are holding sensation for you, that keep you in the present moment and keep you conscious, right here in your lived reality. We're not putting the attention there. So, while it is still appropriate to apply those techniques, you have to find a way to keep recalibrating the system to really transform and get unstuck. Once your nervous system is dysregulated, like those medications and those kind of things alone, they're still feeding the wrong spot.
Speaker 1:Yes, and so when you came into when the Body Talks, that's a huge part of what was happening was how do we get your wisdom back online? How do we get you to know what's happening? And that's the journey for each person. The other really unique thing that we're doing and when the body talks, is we're spending time on our own mat, because one of the principles that I brought into all of resilient healer everything I teach in resilient healer is based in self healing. It's based in you being the expert, on you and you learning, through guidance and my holding and my support and my teachings, how to heal you in the unique, perfect, individual way that you need to be held Right, so I hold the person and they heal on their own mat is how I say it. Right, we're using yoga-ish principles here.
Speaker 1:But I think that's really different and really key to why it's so transformative is, yet again you're getting to put all of your attention back on yourself. You are not wasting an ounce or drop of energy on anyone else outside of you and yet you are learning in a group. So you're remembering you're not alone. You're getting all the nuggets and all the wisdom of other people Right, just doing therapy and counseling alone, you and one other person that can take you some unique places.
Speaker 1:You need to go inside of yourself, but it can only take you as far as you're able to access and see your own stuff, so all the blind spots don't get touched right. When you're in a group, your blind spots have like these little flashlight moments where it's like ping, ping, ping, ping and all of a sudden you can grow and heal so much more, because the stuff that you wouldn't have just been able to access and bring to the table with a one-on-one somebody else is giving you the blessing of their journey. Their healing journey is shining the light in your shadowy places and helping you find what was blind to you yeah it's like there's there's some just unique things that we like kind of weaved into the whole process.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and I gotta be honest with you and you know we both kind of weaved into the whole process. Yeah, and I got to be honest with you and you know we both kind of laughed or I laughed when you just said about the mat because, listen, here's the deal Most of the people that are going to be attracted to this kind of program right Wanting to get and, by the way, you mentioned rebalancing for some of us we had never been balanced and I want to let that hang there for a second Because for people like me and my listeners mostly my listeners know my story. You know my trauma happened pre verbal and it didn't really stop until I was 35 years old and so I never knew what it was like to have a balanced nervous system, Always, always in my head, because that is how I'm built, always in my head. But so for some of us because I want those of you listening that are like I don't even know what you're talking about, what you're not supposed to feel buzzy all the time. You're not supposed to feel on the on the brink of burnout all the time. That's not the way you're supposed to feel. I thought that was just the price of trauma and I'm here to tell you it is not the price of trauma. But when I walked into, when the body talks, two things one, I had never been regulated, so I didn't even know what that felt like.
Speaker 2:And to most of the people that are going to be attracted to this kind of program, has trauma probably empathetic and is second only to the, the four principles that we're going to talk about in the body talks. That was very hard for me. It continues to be hard for me to stay on my mat and not be concerned about some of these people who I would consider friends now, not being worried about them and staying on their mat and paying attention to you. And see, lauren, most people that listen to this podcast, you know, as you know, I'm a Christian and a lot of my listeners are too and we have been taught at least my generation had been taught in some way that when the Bible says, lay down your life, that means like just forget all about yourself, which is exactly opposite of what the gospel preaches and what we're supposed to do. Right, and so for some of us we had never been regulated and I want listeners out there to know what that feels like. That feels like every little thing can set you off, every little thing can make you angry, can make you irritable, all the things. And so I walked in there, kind of the kind of there you know, like yelling at the dog for no reason and that kind of stuff, and these things that the head, the therapy and the stuff that we did in EMDR. Yeah, we reprocessed the trauma. I was exposed to the trauma and it didn't. I wasn't having the PTSD symptoms anymore but, like you said, my body was shutting down. I just spent five days in the hospital. And so it is.
Speaker 2:As you mentioned, it is a group format. We met on Zoom, but let's begin to talk about some of the basic principles. Right, you do to call the polyvagal theory. It is the longest nerve in your body and it affects everything, and so giving that the attention that it needs is important. And so the first one that was huge for me and most of y'all are going to scratch your head going this is not huge for me at all, but maybe it is. But the first one that is huge for me is water hydration. Now, I say water because I choose hydration mainly, but talk to us about why water is going to help set the stage for going in and going deep and finding the tears and touching the pain and all the things that, when the body talks, helps us do.
Speaker 1:So the beginning of when the body talks is about trying to help downregulate your nervous system a little bit to the spot where you can begin to meet your foundational needs. It is impossible to get out of survival mode if you do not know how to meet your foundational needs. And, like you said, like you just kind of brought up, some people have never known this. This is not so like your body has the wisdom of knowing what it needs, but you may not have ever had the lived experience of these things, and so it can be groundbreaking to be like oh, I don't even understand what it means to be thirsty, right, like I'm not sure what that signal feels like. And so the beginning of the journey is learning to lay a solid foundation of meeting your body's needs, of saying it is safe to be here and exist in this body. It is safe, I see you, I hear you, I'm going to take care of the basic things you need, and the place we start is with hydration, for a lot of reasons actually.
Speaker 2:It's the easiest one for one practice.
Speaker 1:It sounds so simple and yet it's a very in-depth practice, partly because it's a very quiet signal. Right, the signal of I'm thirsty is much quieter than I'm in pain, I hurt. It's even quieter than I'm tired, I'm hungry. Right, it is a small, soft voice that says I'm thirsty, I want something to drink. And so, learning how to experience that with your body, it changes everything. It shifts the awareness of your internal lived experience at a huge level. It is the thing we all have to have, period, and it is the thing that gets lost.
Speaker 2:Right. And here's the thing and I just want to interject this for just a second is that from a physiological standpoint? So now we're stepping outside and we're look, we are looking at it from a western medicine standpoint. Your body is under stress, literal stress, when it is not hydrated because it needs fluids, water we're not advocating that. You drink, you know four monster drinks just water, yeah yeah, but.
Speaker 2:But we're also not advocating that you drink just water, but but there. But what you're saying like is like survival mode, because I didn't get thirsty and I still. I bought a Stanley at the beginning of all of this and it's been game changing for me Because, even though I've been through when the body talks, I still don't get that so ever so tender signal that I am thirsty. But in when the body talks, we begin to make it a habit and you gave us some things to help us make that a habit. What are some of those things? For people who are listening and for people that would want to join when the body talks, that you provide for them, yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so it's about practices. Like the whole course is based around learning to have a practice. That's why we talk about getting on the mat and it's to reprogram parts of the nervous system so that the foundation can automate itself, which is kind of what you're talking about, right? It's like hey, get a cup and fill it up. Hey, try making hot tea at night, or try making an adrenal cocktail if you're feeling you know like you need something to amp you up but you want to stay away from caffeine. It's really about exploring and you can. You can always insert like whatever. You probably know which parts of this course like jumped off the most at you. Like I have my ideas, but now keep talking.
Speaker 2:I will absolutely interject, but yeah so it's.
Speaker 1:It's really about trying to reprogram yourself to have the foundations that you may not have gotten as a child, as a young person, that you may not experience, that your body may not feel. And so if having a nice cup helps, you do that. If setting an alarm every hour helps, you do that. Try to keep a log. Like. The number one thing I push people towards at the beginning of their practice is being accountable for writing it down. Write down how many things that you drank that day. Was it water? Was it Gatorade? Was it herbal tea? What was it? Was it coffee? Was it soda? When did you drink it? How much did you drink?
Speaker 1:Learning to really build that awareness is the first step that you have to take in being able to rewire your automation, because the idea is you do want it to be automated. You want to just automatically grab the Stanley and know, hey, I've got my Stanley cup for the day. I am going to take care of this need because my body needs to be hydrated to get out of survival, to have enough hydration for all those organ systems that we were talking about to actually function appropriately, because we're not just looking at the nervous system. The nervous system is what pulls together every other system that makes you function, and so it's about redoing that. But we break it down into really basic steps like hey, do you have a cup that you like to drink out of? What's the first thing that you do every day? I really believe in whatever you do, the first 30 minutes of your day, you're always going to get to right. Everybody gets to the first thing they do every day.
Speaker 2:I want to stop there because that is a freaking mic drop. So say that to me. Say that for them again, because this has been game changing for me. Say that again.
Speaker 1:Okay, this is truth right here, 100% true. You will always get to the first thing you do every day, right?
Speaker 2:And so you have to choose well, right. And for me, like Lauren, I'm on thyroid medication that says on the bottle drink with a full cup of water. Says on the bottle drink with a full cup of water. And before this, before implementing, okay, the first, I'm always going to get to the first thing I do every day. I again back to my Stanley sitting right by my bed. I drink as much as I can before I undo all of that with 45 cups of coffee, which I still need to work on.
Speaker 2:But but I do think that what inside, when the body talks? What you talked about is helpful for this. Because, guys, here's the deal if your body is under physiological stress because you're not hydrated, and it's like a crescendo effect, like Lauren said in your office that day, like my organ systems were shutting down because I wasn't listening to the basic signals that my body was giving. And so hydration and whatever way you choose to do that. Lauren mentioned adrenal gland cocktails and you can Google that and there's a bunch that you can do. Now I did find and this is the thing that I love about working with you Lauren is like here are some suggestions. You know you need to hydrate.
Speaker 2:That's not a suggestion, but an adrenal gland cocktail was one of your suggestions, right, and I tried the adrenal gland cocktails and it was a no for me Because because it made my heart race and it did all the other things, some of the other people in our group it was like I could run a after I after I drank an adrenal gland cocktail. But the point, and this first point of when the body talks is we want it to, we Lauren wants it to be, she wants to remove the barriers, and so she provides opportunity for you and by way of that group, and so we spend the whole first month on hydration. We met. You'll have to tell me if it's different now, but I think we met. Did we meet every week or did we meet every other week?
Speaker 1:No, we met every week. So in when the Body Talks we meet every week. That's a weekly group call. Each week there are new like teaching lessons that get put into the group. It's got a private group that you work in and all the guides and material gets put in there. And so we go through hydration, we go through feeding, we go through sleep, we go through movement and we have those as like the four foundational pillars that we're working on. And then we have weekly group calls to talk out like how are those practices going? What are you learning? What do you see what's new for you going? What are you learning? What do you see what's new for you? What's confusing for you? Where are you frustrated? And it's it's something where we're really guiding the whole journey.
Speaker 2:It's a very tight knit like kind of deep dive Right.
Speaker 2:And I found, and I found, as we move into the next one, which is feeding, I found that so there's, there's something that those of us in this profession uh called the window of tolerance. Some people call it capacity, some people call it basically your ability to deal. It is the reason why trauma for one, the same event, traumatic event for one person, may not be traumatic for another person, because this window of tolerance is your nervous system's ability to, to handle, to hold these events Right. And so I found okay. So the first month I was like, okay, got this drinking, I got this, I got my Stanley. I'm getting on the meetings every week saying, hey, I'm good, you know I'm drinking, you know half my body weight and fluids, I'm good.
Speaker 2:Month two comes around, which is where I knew I would struggle. And this is where we, this is where we focus on feeding, right, yeah. So talk to us a little bit about that and how that helps, again with the idea being because we are moving towards a second program that Lauren has called base, where you're beginning to realize the expansion of that nervous system, realize the expansion of that window of tolerance. And so feeding was the next thing which is a struggle for a lot of us on either end of the spectrum. For me, it was actually putting food into my body. For others it's probably putting the wrong food. For some it might be putting too much food. How does proper feeding help us increase our capacity, heal our nervous system, listen to our body so that we can go deep and begin to deal for real with some of our trauma?
Speaker 1:Yeah, so there's some parts that are kind of still similar. Like we start with water because it's about meeting a need, so that your body can start to feel safe, right, and we can turn off survival mode because we've got to get out of survival mode. So feeding yourself is always going to help turn off survival mode. You have sensors all over that are picking up on your blood sugar and when it's too low, your brain runs on sugar, sugar, sugar, only sugar. Everything needs a consistent blood sugar and so when you are not feeding your body, you are not nourishing it and you are not allowing the nervous system to settle and be in a state of safety to turn off the survival and go into conscious presence. So it's always coming back to that.
Speaker 1:But some other unique things that come up with feeding are things like understanding what's a yes and a no, and that's what you kind of talked about, even with the adrenal cocktail. Right, it's. This is a yes for me, this is a no for me, and this is based on my body, this body, the one I live in. It is not based on a diet that was prescribed by some program, board certification. It is based on the lived experience that I'm having and I know these things are a yes and these things are a no.
Speaker 1:These are foods I might have allergies to, these are things that might not be good for me, and you do. You start to learn how do I nourish my body, and part of nourishment is also loving it right, not putting things inside of it that make it feel bad, you know. So it's kind of learning to ride both sides of that, not doing harmful things anymore just because they're convenient or easy or popular, but also really spending the time to take in the nourishment of food and to look at it as wow, this is my body, I get to live in this body and I'm going to feed it well and nourish it well. It's not just the diet approach. The diet approach is also somewhat like mental right, you know.
Speaker 2:Yeah but I, I love, I love your point there. Your tie-in is those of us walking around with the body of trauma dealt with or not in a psycho, psychologist, psychiatrist office.
Speaker 2:We're in survival mode most of the time and I and and that was for somebody who is not dumb, I'm referring to myself fairly well educated that was so mind blowing for me. It was like you were living in survival mode already because of your trauma and now you're doubling down on that because your body is now burning muscle effectively. And I will say we did this when the body talks about a year ago and I was being threatened by doctors at that point. They were talking feeding tubes, they were talking all hospitalization for an eating disorder. They were talking about all the things.
Speaker 1:And those were not exaggerations, right Like that's literally where you were.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I don't think I realize it as much, but to see the look on your face just now was like, but those were the real threats, right? So the second month we talk about feeding and I'm like I'm just not going to be digging this at all because because I just that was an issue for me. It is an issue for me, I should say, and I will say that in those meetings. So now we're in week month two. We're talking about feedings and we get the opportunity, you know, we get the mic for a minute and we get to talk, and I know that when I would talk, I would say you know, I feel like I have this full stomach all the time, like I just had this Thanksgiving dinner and you would say to me, okay, that that that means that that we need to continue to try to to. That's your nervous system, that's your body telling you things that aren't true, and so we need you to make these small steps.
Speaker 2:And for me, it was just these shakes that probably have, you know, all kinds of terrible preservatives in them. You know, I didn't matter at that point, it was about fueling my body, and then I still have some weight to gain, but I've gained 15 pounds. They stopped threatening me with a feeding tube, but, but I never again, having never really had a regulated nervous system and living in a paradigm of if I just work harder, if I just pray harder, if I just this harder, if I just insert the blank, I'm going to be fine. I never paid attention to the vessel that was going to get me to all the, all those things that I wanted to do in terms of helping people and living my life and living above the trauma, and so that was game changing for me. You also provide some tracking and some advice inside when the body talks inside that Facebook group for feeding. What are some of those things that people could expect?
Speaker 1:Yeah, so I mean again, it's going to come back to tracking, like trying to watch things, and then it's going to be very like, intuitively led by each individual. But some of the big categories are what are you noticing? Always makes you feel bad and like trying to help people replace things and trying to help them see like, oh, I have to let that go. It doesn't matter how much this brings me comfort, it's harming my body and the part of me that's being comforted is like it's not the part of me that's the best of me, right, it's an inner child that's a wound that's being comforted. It's a mental idea or mental sensation that's bringing comfort and like really saying, is your body doing okay with that? And it's hard to let go of things that are comforts. You know, food is one of those places where it's socially appropriate to comfort with things, right, it's not like you're boozing and pill popping, you're eating food and so it can be hard to let some of that go. It's also about taking away the mental idea.
Speaker 1:You know, even kind of like what you just said there, which I love because it was so true in the moment, which is I was drinking these shakes, which probably had preservatives, and it's like who cares? Like that, in the moment, that was the most true thing for you. You were like, hey, I can drink this. And it's like then, drink as many as you can every day, like drink them until your body doesn't want them anymore. Trust that it's going to take you where you need it to take you and don't let the judgment or the mental idea that that diet is wrong or bad, or all this programming we get from outside of us that says, well, there is a chemical on that label and you're doing something wrong. Your body just wanted calories and it was okay with the calories in those shakes and I can just have to listen to it and be like I'm going to trust it. I'm going to trust that my body knows what's best for it.
Speaker 2:And you keep saying trust, trust, trust, trust, and I think that that's what we get wrong. That's what my generation gets wrong is we were taught to grind, grind, grind, grind, grind, grind. And then, you know, because of the way we were, generation X was largely unsupervised. All of us are walking around with dysregulated nervous systems and not meeting our needs. And again, guys, physiologically speaking, you can't forget the nervous system part, but physiologically, your body is constantly under stress when you're not feeding it. I did want to bring something up and this doesn't necessarily enter the feeding part, but you said something to me in a meeting the other day in terms of and this is in the context of stop giving your body things that it doesn't like or that makes you feel bad and you brought up the subject of alcohol and I actually asked you to repeat that comment that you said and I think that this might be and you can correct me if I'm wrong anything that we are using to to numb the emotional pain, whatever. What was that comment about alcohol?
Speaker 1:So if we're talking about alcohol and we're looking at the state of our life and like the state of our nervous system, right there is.
Speaker 1:There's a place where we are in so much pain and we are in so much grief and we are experiencing so much fear where alcohol always feels like an up right. It's always an improvement. It's like I got out of that bad place and I got this temporary external relief from the situation. I got this temporary external relief from the situation, but as we go through our healing journey and we learn to experience higher levels of acceptance and neutrality and joy and peace, like as we move into a thriving life, alcohol is always a downgrade, like it, just it can't ever be an upgrade. It doesn't matter how responsibly you use it. It just will always be a loss of consciousness, a loss of sensation, a loss of presence and just a loss of your general connection to yourself. It does not continue. So I understand why so many people utilize their right to consume alcohol, but there's a spot where you just have to accept this is not in my highest and best good and it never will be again, right?
Speaker 2:especially.
Speaker 2:It's really a dysregulated nervous system game oh, it's really a dysregulated nervous system game. I love that, and that's what we're talking about, because if you're a listener who is not interested in getting better, just hit stop, because we're getting ready to head to some more difficult parts of this program. Frankly, I hated the end part of the program, as Lauren knows, but we'll talk about sleep really quickly. That's a big one for people. You mentioned that. You know you're not against psychiatric medications.
Speaker 2:I am on a medication that helps me sleep, because that has always been the issue for me. I do wonder, though, as you and I continue to work together and that's how much I trust Lauren Starnes people is that she is on team Amy. When I graduate and get Dr Watson, you know, if I get a chance to be behind a microphone, it would be thanks to Lauren Starnes, who is part of team Amy, because when you live a life full of trauma, like I have, you need a team of people that are going to help you out, and so so, anyway, I go back to sleep. That has always been a problem for me. I'm really interested, though, because you know one of my goals not because I think there's a problem with being on medication, but one of my goals is to lay my head down on my pillow at night, like what I perceive normal people to be, and go to sleep without the aid of medication.
Speaker 2:So this part of the of when the body talks course for me, I was always kind of relatively silent, because I do get very good sleep because of my medication. However, that was not always true, and that's actually what ended me in the hospital about 15 years ago, because I just wasn't sleeping, because I was having terrible PTSD flashbacks and all the things. There are a lot of reasons why people don't get a lot of rest, though. It's not just the reason why a dysregulated nervous system, I know, but I want to hear you tell us why rest matters when it comes to regulating your nervous system.
Speaker 1:Oh, man. So, like I said so many things, I love these topics because they sound like they're gonna be simple, and then it's like, oh, if you go so many places, one of the key parts of sleep is that it is your rest and recovery mode, right, like we have to live sustainable lives and it is not sustainable to keep going and not give all these organ systems and all these parts of us, and namely our nervous system and even our brain right. This was a body focused course, but, like even our mind, it requires sleep. It requires this time to go under and recover and repair, and that is where we get our resiliency from. Is we have to have these different phases where we're allowing the things that make us sustainable.
Speaker 1:And sleep is a hard one to work with because it has a level of unconsciousness to it, right? Yeah, you cannot. That's the whole point. Is you're going to go unconscious, unconscious and you're going to fall under the slumber of sleep, and so it can be really difficult to try to get your body to get on track with that, and you have to use a lot of monitoring and a lot of tracking.
Speaker 1:You and I have talked on and on and on about our aura rings. I love any kind of tracking device that you're willing to use to help you get data to analyze the places where you can improve your automations around sleep and it kind of this is all kind of tying back in, but it's like what do you do right before bed and what do you do right after bed? This is kind of like the first thing you will always get to, the first thing you do every day what are the things you're doing right before you go to sleep and right as you wake up? That helped to set the stage for having a good relationship to sleep, to having a good relationship to how you go down and relax and feel safe and it's all coming back to safety.
Speaker 2:Right, and people who are listening to this, who have experienced trauma, understand that, because you know, particularly if you're diagnosed with PTSD, by definition your safety has been compromised and so sleep is an issue with a lot of people because of that.
Speaker 2:But but yeah, we we laugh all the time that that we're not sponsored by the Oura Ring, nor do we want to be, but the Oura Ring is not inexpensive.
Speaker 2:However, there are other tracking methods that you can use apps on your phone.
Speaker 2:There's one, there's one app on your phone I don't know what it's called, but you literally put the phone near you. I'm not a big fan of that, just because of all the stuff that might be emitting into your brain, but you put the phone near you, where it will pick up movement and stuff like that, so that this particular app is not necessarily going to be great if you're sleeping with somebody or a dog or something like that, but anything that you can do because the aura ring, like we said, is expensive, though the best in my opinion because it tells you how much REM sleep you get, how much deep sleep you get, how much, how much you move during the night, oxygen saturation, what your heart rate was, and it will even tell those of us with deaf bodies though my body is becoming more hearing because it has been aided by when the body talks, but it the the aura ring, will even say yo pretty bad night last night, take extra care today. Yeah, and that means it helps.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it helps you get that signal ahead of time, right when you know you can't't hear it. It's giving you some preventative moments where it's like, oh, I am not in a bad place yet, but I am tracking towards or trending towards a bad place. Yeah, so it teaches you how to rewire yourself and be like oh, this sensation right here, this is actually what's happening right before I go off the ledge, so I can start to pay attention to this.
Speaker 2:Right, and so I I understand those are the people out there listening who have terrible insomnia, and one of the things that I wanted to cover in this podcast and this is a good place to do it that you, overall, say to me often is neutralize all the fears, right, most people have insomnia because they're worried about something or whatever. And you taught me, like I remember I remember telling you, lauren, I'm afraid I'm gonna live in my car and so I'm not sleeping at night because of that. You're like, okay, well, let's go there. And you shared a funny story with me, like how, like I, amy, I literally have a car that I could live on. I've gone there. And so, in terms of sleep, when you have these fears, neutralize them, go there, and we're headed in that direction where you're going to go in deep and touch the feelings in just a second.
Speaker 2:So one last one that could help with sleep that's part of when the body talks is movement, and I want to tell you I've been waiting for this podcast to tell you. So you sent me and Lauren and I work together on a one-on-one now but you sent me this yoga video or this five minute video. That was all neck work or all of it was neck work, and I was like this is Lauren just being cray cray again, you know? And then you texted me and you're like what was that experience like for you? I was like five minutes is a really long time to sit there and just move my neck and my shoulders and all the things. And so then I started to do it and now I'm up to doing that a couple times a day. But I learned why you did that.
Speaker 2:Because those of us who have experienced trauma, particularly pre verbal trauma and this is out of the book when the Body Keeps the Score by Dr van der Kolk when you've experienced early childhood trauma these tendons and ligaments in your neck actually don't form like they're supposed to, and so stretching them to the right, to the left and backwards and forwards gets that trauma stuck out of that part of your neck into your shoulders and back pain Back pain is so common in trauma. This is why movement is important. So thank you for sending that to me. I know you got to be proud of me right now, but talk to them a little bit about how movement is also listening to your body. And for me, when movement became priority, I was tired at the end of the day. So we all have these things that can tell us to stand up and move, and all the things. We all have them. It doesn't have to be an aura ring. You can have an Apple Watch or whatever. Talk to us about that.
Speaker 1:Yeah. So movement is important for a few reasons. First off, we are in ambulating bodies. We are meant to move right. Our bodies were created to move. You absolutely have to move them. They cannot hold still or sit in certain positions Like. You have to move it for it to be functioning and healthy and working right. Your musculature, your ligaments, your tendons, there are all these parts of us and they are there for you to move in dynamic 360 degree directions right and so if you're not moving your body, it keeps it kind of stuck in a lot of fear, in a lot of stuck emotions, in a freeze response. It's not a good thing.
Speaker 1:And, on the flip side, movement is where we also explored conscious movements, which include slow, still, precise, right, and so some of the movement was practicing stillness, which sounds kind of like the opposite of moving. It's not. It's like moving your body into a position where you can then let it be still and you can be conscious with it in that pose, in that position, in that place. Learning to walk slowly and gently, not running place. Learning to walk slowly and gently, not running, not power walking. There's no adrenaline, there's no dopamine high. Can you just walk and be present and can you watch how many things pop in your head and you're like, well, I need to do this or I should speed up and walk faster because I need to get home and I need to get this off the list. And how are you actually moving inside of your body? And then, yeah, taking it a step further and going to something like that neck stretch video.
Speaker 1:There can be a lot of trauma stored in our necks for so many reasons. Like you said you talked about childhood reasons a lot of sexual trauma gets trapped there. A lot of suppressing your voice kind of trauma gets trapped there. A lot of people that start to feel like they can't catch a good breath. We know how breathing impacts our nervous system and our survival. There is so much that can come out of just putting attention on a practice. Around a five minute neck neck yoga video.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and I'll put it in the show notes. I'll put that one particular in the show notes for people.
Speaker 1:Because there's so many places where movement is going to open up sensation and we're trying to get sensation below the neck. That's what we're trying to do. We don't want to just be a mind and a head, we want to keep listening to our body. We want to get those sensations, and you got to move to be able to get all those sensations to come back online no-transcript and and not hurt myself, and so what it does is it gets me out of my head.
Speaker 2:And the other thing that is so you know and I'm doing it as I'm talking to you is stretching and these circular movements. I was at a mental health summit at Liberty University a couple weeks ago and there was a whole class on somatic movement, somatic yoga, and even you can go to YouTube just put into the search bar music for nervous system regulation, and that music is of a certain megahertz, the beats are a certain megahertz, and if you will just get your behind up off your chair for five minutes while you're listening to the music and move your arms in circle, move your neck in circle, move your hips in circle, I have, after this course, I, you know, I feel like my Keurig takes about 20 minutes to make a cup of coffee. It doesn't, it's about 30 seconds but. But I find that even when I'm doing that, that I like I'll stretch down and come back Y'all can't see me because we're on the audio but putting my hands behind my back, all of this stuff telling my body, hey, you're alive, you're used to numbing. You've spent over 50 years of your life numbing, not paying attention to your body, amy Watson, and so let's get up and make priority the first thing that you do every day which, for me, since the body talks for the movement in particular is stretching when I'm making my coffee, stretching when I'm in the shower. When my ring ring back to back to the aura ring for a second, it'll be like yo, you're stressed, you need to figure something out. Pulling up that YouTube channel, because I realized that I'm going to have to work for the rest of my life, as all humans will have to, whether you have trauma or not, especially women. I think I don't have any scientific proof for that, but especially women need to take care and listen to our bodies.
Speaker 2:Like you said, we are made to move, and so you know this made me. I would usually, lauren, by the time I was done with work, I would go in my room, close the shades, make it as dark as possible, watch something completely mindless on my iPad, instead of sitting out in the driveway and watching the sunset over this alligator infested lake across the street from my house. You know, what I'm saying is those decisions that lead us to where we're going next, which was not my favorite part and continues to not be my favorite part of this, and so we spent three months doing this. We spent three months paying attention to hydration, movement, sleep and feeding, and then we began to talk about.
Speaker 2:Okay, guys, now that you know, now that you've, you're feeling something below the neck a little bit. Let's talk about. And I wish, I wish we were on video. I just wasn't able to make it happen this morning because you wish, I wish we were on video. I just wasn't able to make it happen this morning because you, the way you describe it, where we need to go down and in and, and one of the things that was so powerful for me and when the body talks is, you're like we've got to stop making it about the story oh, yeah, oh for sure you know.
Speaker 1:and so in that next module of when the Body Talks, we've spent time tending to our needs, understanding how to create safety for ourselves, understanding what our body is saying it needs to feel safe. And once we have established safety and understanding our needs, then we go in and we try to find the things that are stuck, that need to come out, not before we establish safety, not before we have a foundation to fall back on or go back to when we need it. So it's very important to learn one part first, but then, yeah, we're going down and in, and so the whole second module is based around crying as a practice and emotional release, and those are general phrases because again, it's going to look different for everyone, yeah, but it's coming back to the principle of your trauma is stored in your tissues, so your body is the faithful servant carrying around everything that terrified you to a point where you could not feel it in the present moment, and it said, hey, I've got this, I'm gonna hold on to it for you until later. And it just keeps doing that and doing that and doing that, and a lot of times when we get stuck in a chronic state of dysregulation and stress. We don't go back in and feel it. And so that old pain, that old trauma, sometimes from decades or like a lifetime ago, is just sitting in there in the tissue of our body and it's just like, yep, I've got that one too. I've got that one too.
Speaker 1:Coming back to the idea of us being sustainable, sustainability says you have to go back in and you have to feel it. And we were all created to cry. There is not a human on this planet that was not created to cry. It is one of the first things we do after birth. We were all created to cry. It is one of the first things we do after birth. We were all created to cry.
Speaker 1:And yet so many of us lose the skill of crying. It's either not fostered in us, or it's shunned in us, or it's programmed out of us and like that's yours, that is your skill. Here's the thing the body does the crying. Crying is not a mental process. You do not sit down and mentally process your way through taking a poop. You trust your body knows how to let that go.
Speaker 1:Wow. You should not try to mentally process your way through how to cry. You should trust that your body was perfectly created to know how to let it go. So if you can trust your body to move excrement and toxins and all that stuff out to booty, you can trust your body to know when to open up, let the crying happen. And crying is a release of tears and mucus right, it is a release of wailing and sounds. It is a release of tears and mucus right, it is a release of wailing and sounds. It is a release of breath. It is a release of all these energies that have been trapped inside of you that are related to pain and hurt and wounds. Right, and we can cry for joy. We can cry for other reasons. We're we're narrowing this one down so we can hold a particular understanding of this skill that has been lost.
Speaker 3:Right.
Speaker 1:And, like you said earlier, in our society, and especially in certain generations, this is really a lost skill, like we did not get this passed down from parents, and it's becoming a problem that we are not remembering the skill and the practice of crying. And it is a body-led practice. There is no mental story. You don't need to remember what happened. You don't need to think up the thing that sparks the tears. It does not need to be a story or a narration or a mind-driven activity at all. Your body knows what to do, it knows how to start, it knows how to stop. Your body will turn off the crying the minute it knows it's at the right spot to be done and the average wave of crying lasts about 90 seconds, like on average. It is not a long process. If it's hanging out longer than that, you're probably crying from your mind or your story. Yeah, probably not crying from just your body letting it go, and sometimes we get scared to start crying because we're worried we won't be able to stop. Your body's got you, yeah.
Speaker 2:And this one, in full disclosure, continues to be the most difficult one for me, Because I am so heady. It is in my head and it's been about the story, it's been about the narrative, but what I found to be true in my work with you both, when the body talks and our one-on-one stuff, is that it does happen Just now, kind of out of I say out of nowhere, but my body is ready for it. I do have to remember, you know, that it's not bad or it's not anything, except for this is the time that this is the kindest thing. This is this allowing myself to be in a situation where the tears come, because I think part of me, Lauren, is afraid of, like, was afraid and sometimes still is. Like we're going down and for some of the, for some of us, that well of pain is deep, deep, deep, deep, and so there's, there's this fear deep, and so there's there's this fear of. You know, when the tears start to come, like, then who am I Right? Like, if I'm not walking around with and this is where I'm, where I want to get to like guys, if you don't have a desire to get better, turn off the podcast, Don't listen to this podcast ever, Because you have to have that desire and I desire to want to get better. I don't want to cry, I don't want, I don't want this practice of crying but but I want to get better, and my body, more importantly, is saying it's time, Like you, don't have to live the rest of your life with all of this buried deep inside of you and what this has done for me. Going back to that window of tolerance if it was two inches before, I feel like it's 24 inches now.
Speaker 2:And so that means now, when, when the daily life stressors come, the dog does something or this does something. I'm not yelling at the dog, I'm just like let's not do that dog. You know I'm not, I'm not walking around. You know, I often think of nervous system dysregulation, as you know. When you not, I'm not walking around, you know, I often think of nervous system dysregulation, as you know, when you're, when you're incredibly dysregulated like you'd, literally you're you're buzzing so much that you would glow in the dark. You know, and I'm finding that, paying attention, being curious, making sure that I'm feeding myself, making sure that I'm hydrating, making sure that I'm sleeping, making sure that I'm moving, making sure that I keep people like you on my team, like Dr Grace on my team, like my counselor on my team, keeping people around me that remind me that I'm valuable and that those tears, while expensive, are so redeeming and so healing. And so, towards the very end of when the body talks, my body woke up and you and I had this experience where I was like I began to react in fear and in anger, and we both understood that, and I want listeners to understand that, if you or somebody you love is constantly operating out of fear and out of anger, I love how you explain that, Lauren, how fear and anger is a shell over what we need to get rid of for tears to occur and so find a healthy outlet to deal with that fear and with that anger. I was telling you the other day on a meeting that I remember one time I was so mad that I took a baseball bat to an orange tree and you're like the actual tree. I'm like, no, the oranges Didn't have the actual tree, just the oranges. But but yeah, if you're unable to cry because I know some of y'all are going to message me and go, I can't cry Right, Then then a program like this and this, this episode has certainly been to highlight Lauren's program, but, more importantly, both of us want everybody that's listening to us to know that you don't have to live in a dysregulated nervous system, you don't have to live in your head, you don't have to have the experience that I had where you walk into a doctor's office and somebody you trust says if you don't change, you're going to die.
Speaker 2:And we're not overstating the importance of a regulated nervous system when we say that, Right, you know. And Dr Diane Langberg, who is one of my favorites, says these are the elements that you need when you talk about dealing with trauma time tears, that you need when you talk about dealing with trauma time tears and telling. Notice she has the tears in the middle before you begin to deal with the narrative, and so this is an incredible program. I'm going to put all of Lauren's information in the show notes. She has done something that is so remarkable and so admirable and, stepping away from her career in medicine to help people understand that this body focused work, body focused trauma work, body focused work period saves lives trauma work body focus work period saves lives.
Speaker 2:Oh sure, that's not hyperbole when I say that it saves lives in more than one way. It helps us to live our lives healthfully, because I got news for all of you guys If you don't pay attention to this stuff, your body's going to start paying attention to you and you're going to end up in the hospital, like I did. You're going to get threatened with things like food feeding tubes. You're going to get threatened with things like being Baker acted. You can't continue to ignore your body, and if you don't feel it right now, if you don't feel anything in your body and then you go, this podcast isn't for me because I don't feel dysregulated. You are our target on this podcast because you should, as a human being, right Lauren, be feeling something regardless.
Speaker 1:You should, yeah, you should always be feeling, you should have sensation and yeah, I mean, that's really just what it kind of came down to. I didn't hate my job in psychiatry, but like it was never going to serve people in the way that I think they need to be served. It's never going to rebalance the bigger system. You know, we've been kind of talking about that with the nervous system, but like our nervous systems are always connected to other people at a societal level, like we're always touched, there's emotional contagion that sets off each other and sets off other things, and there's got to be a balance to the system. It is not that I demonize my psychiatry work or my medicine work or prescriptions or those kinds of things. It's just there's not enough of the balancing and I'm like I need to put my attention and focus here on the balancing of what we need to be bringing back that makes the whole thing work better, because the whole system is getting a little off Right.
Speaker 2:And, in fairness to you, you tried to do both at the same time. I know, every time I saw you oh, yeah, for a while, yeah, every time I saw you and even that day in your office it was like, okay, we can, yeah, I can take your blood pressure and read the PTSD, psl-5, and all the forms that you have to fill out. None of those forms, though. Talk about some of these things. We're looking for the head stuff. I've got the DSM somewhere around here, which we both hate. So, again, not demonizing psychiatry, not demonizing even the DSM, even though we kind of are and for those of you who don't know, that's just this big fat book that gives doctors a way to and to give you a diagnosis and bill insurance companies, but to live a life abundantly and live a life of freedom, these principles of hydration, feeding, rest, movement and just paying attention to what your body is saying to you Like, yeah, that's, that is huge. And if you want to be on the road to healing and people who listen to this podcast do then I would highly recommend. It doesn't matter where you are. I know I have a lot of listeners in New Zealand at the time maybe interesting on that. But it doesn't matter where you are, you can work with Lauren.
Speaker 2:The when the Body Talks is a four month program and very affordable, guys, especially for what it what it does. And so I'm here as a Testament, as as a client of Lauren's, to say that I had something like a hundred episodes of this podcast where I've just talked about trauma, trauma, trauma, trauma, trauma, and we never talked about I mean, I referenced when the body keeps the score by Vander Kalk a bunch, but we never have talked about on this podcast about the importance of taking care of, like you said, below the shoulders. And so I'm going to put all of Lauren's information in the show notes. These groups are held in a container, on a private Facebook group, and so there's prompts and all the things, and so if you are interested, please reach out to her or reach out to me and I will get you in contact with her. But it is, go ahead and give us your contact information.
Speaker 1:It's resilient-healercom. Okay, the website. You can get my phone number, my email, all my stuff off there. Okay, and Lauren also love it.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and she also has a great presence on Instagram, providing some really good contact there, and so I Lauren also love it, yeah, and she also has a great presence on Instagram, providing some really good contact there, and so I will put all of that in the show notes.
Speaker 2:But we are in the middle of mental health, or beginning a mental health awareness month, and I couldn't think of a better way to kick it off than to not talk about mental things but to talk about body things that, in turn, make your head clear, and, lauren, when I tell you that my head, like in my headspace, in terms of my everyday life being more present, being less foggy minded for you know some of the things that happen when you have trauma, that amnesia that you sometimes have, most of that has just been improved, and when it's not, I know, oh, I haven't done one of those four things today, and so so, lauren, thank you for being here. I always give the mic to my guests at the very end, and so parting words to people out there listening is all yours, my friend.
Speaker 1:Perfect. So I would just say that, when it comes to mental health because that is the theme going on here and it is one of the themes of where my work is headed more and more is just, there's a difference between focusing on mental health and putting it all towards the mental diseases we talk about and focusing on mental health in the totality of us, and the best thing I see people do for their mental health is start to incorporate more of their body. It is literally the thing that is going to clear up your mind and make you more mentally healthy.
Speaker 2:to put more attention on both and there are not enough people like you out there helping people do that and so so. So we are so grateful. I'm grateful for it. I'm grateful that you're on team Amy. It might be the only way we get through graduate school, but thank you from the bottom of my heart for your investment in my life and you know I look forward to continued expansion of my own nervous system after you know a lifetime of trauma. You know I want it to be said of me that when people meet me that I'm not interested in telling them about my trauma, but I'm interested in telling them about my healing.
Speaker 2:Somebody said to me the other day you don't ever talk about hi, my name is Amy. Here's my trauma. It's hi, my name is Amy, and here's how my faith has helped me with that, and here is how I have this incredible desire to continue to learn, to help you get better, and so that's what this podcast is for. So thank you for being here today.
Speaker 2:I don't know if you've ever listened to a podcast, but at the end of the podcast I say the same thing to everybody, and I really mean this from the bottom of my heart to everybody that I say this to, but I really mean it to you and I know this. This will speak to your message and your, your mission too. But, lauren Starnes, you are seen, you are known, you are heard, you are loved and you are so valued, and so is every single listener that is listening to this podcast. We will be back here in two weeks with Dr Katherine Jackson. Dr J comes back to the mic and we will be talking about the stigma behind suicide, and so we will see you guys in two weeks.
Speaker 3:Have a great one, you have pulled me out from the depths. You have saved me from certain death. You have shown yourself faithful to me over and over Jesus. So let my life glorify you and teach me to walk beside you. I want to be more like you, so let my life be one marked by you. And when my hope is fading and when worries do assail me, I will remember how you you never failed me. You have pulled me out from the depths. You have saved me from certain death. You have shown yourself faithful to me Over and over Jesus. So let my life glorify you and teach me to walk beside you. And I want to be more like you, so let my life be one marked by you, marked by you, marked by you.