Let That Shift Go
Illuminating the Path: Rosie Cataldo's Quest for Trauma Healing and Personal Transformation
Imagine discovering a calling that not only changes your own path but also has the power to transform lives caught in the darkness of trauma. Rosie Cataldo did just that, shifting gears from public affairs to become a fervent advocate for trauma prevention and healing. In an intimate conversation, Rosie shares her journey, a spark ignited by a personal brush with the real and unsettling threat of sex trafficking. She opens up about how life’s difficult transitions, though daunting, can lead to profound personal growth and become a beacon of hope for others.
This episode unveils the delicate interplay of empathy, awareness, and innovative healing techniques that Rosie and others in the field employ to guide survivors towards recovery. We discuss the array of non-traditional methods like breathwork, tapping, and Reiki that soothe the nervous system without re-traumatizing. And for those of us who absorb the emotional weight of our work, we share our personal practices for staying grounded and balanced, emphasizing the importance of self-care in maintaining effectiveness and compassion in the healing professions. Rosie's story and insights serve as powerful reminders of the resilience of the human spirit, and how we can all hold space for healing in the face of life's most harrowing challenges.
Imagine discovering a calling that not only changes your own path but also has the power to transform lives caught in the darkness of trauma. Rosie Cataldo did just that, shifting gears from public affairs to become a fervent advocate for trauma prevention and healing. In an intimate conversation, Rosie shares her journey, a spark ignited by a personal brush with the real and unsettling threat of sex trafficking. She opens up about how life’s difficult transitions, though daunting, can lead to profound personal growth and become a beacon of hope for others.
This episode unveils the delicate interplay of empathy, awareness, and innovative healing techniques that Rosie and others in the field employ to guide survivors towards recovery. We discuss the array of non-traditional methods like breathwork, tapping, and Reiki that soothe the nervous system without re-traumatizing. And for those of us who absorb the emotional weight of our work, we share our personal practices for staying grounded and balanced, emphasizing the importance of self-care in maintaining effectiveness and compassion in the healing professions. Rosie's story and insights serve as powerful reminders of the resilience of the human spirit, and how we can all hold space for healing in the face of life's most harrowing challenges.
Hello and welcome to the Let that Shift Go podcast. I'm Noel.
Speaker 2:And I'm Lena.
Speaker 1:And this is where we talk about the good, the bad and all the shifting between we just talk mad shift, let's get into it.
Speaker 2:Well, hello, and today we have a special guest, rosie Cataldo. We've had her on previously and talking about working with emergency workers or social workers or people in the helping fields and helping people work through trauma, and so we wanted to have her back on today to do another discussion about leaning into the shift. And Rosie and I met quite a while ago at a survivor leadership retreat and that was where we were working with women who had been in situations with sex trafficking and being severely traumatized in some way, workers who had now moved into a position of leadership and leading other women into their own healing, and so we were fortunate enough to meet at that retreat. Together we're together facilitating, yeah, that event. Yeah, that was just. I was just the amazing, amazing story. I didn't really want to get to bring her on and bring her on and talk more about her transformation, transformation, transformation, transformation, transformation, transformation, transformation, transformation, transformation, transformation. Rosie, tell us a little bit more about what you do, because I find that fascinating and hard to explain.
Speaker 3:But we're Thank you for having me, lena Again. It's always such a privilege to spend time with you and, to be really succinct, I work to prevent and to heal trauma, so that that involves doing some prevention education for youth, it involves some interdiction training, specifically on human trafficking, focusing on sex trafficking, and it also includes working with individuals and groups, like you mentioned, advocates and survivor leaders in the healing space. So one on one healing, you know specific to trauma healing and then helping others to learn what I practice, because the results I've seen and witnessed are really remarkable and so I thought it was this what I practice and the modalities I've learned are just too good to keep to myself. So anyone who's interested in learning I'm always happy to share.
Speaker 2:Awesome, thank you, and I wanted you know. What was really fascinating to me in meeting you was really kind of learning more about what brought you into this field, like what were you doing before, what kind of catalyzed your transformation into healing work.
Speaker 3:Well, prior to being in the counter human trafficking space, I worked. Well, I'm a mom, so my husband, I have three kids young adult kids and a teenager and I had worked with the Federal Reserve Bank our nation central bank in public affairs and they were kind enough to let me work part time from home for 10 years so I could be a lot more available with my kids, and something ignited a shift. There was a series of events that happened in my community. I learned that my friends, toddlers, were pulled into a very sophisticated sex trafficking scheme by their in home nanny, and I learned this six years ago and I really it just shook me to my core. I knew a bit about human trafficking. We had a Super Bowl in our area I live in the Midwest and there was a lot of awareness going on around sex trafficking and how to report it.
Speaker 3:However, I had no idea the market for young children, so that that really shook me and, even though this is not my personal story, it is very personal to me because I know details that you don't have to know.
Speaker 3:But I know details that have really changed the way I look at the world and really have altered how I operate in the world and I went on really a quest for solutions. I really just I had a conversation with I call God, your you know higher power, your creator, and just asked what I could do in this space, because I'm a mom, I'm a civilian, I have certain skills in other areas, but I'm not an investigator, I'm not a lawyer. I thought what could I do? And really I was shown and introduced to so many people through different avenues that I recognized how every one of us has the ability to do something, whether it's teaching, coaching, just being a more active and engaged parent really simple things that you can do to help protect kids in this, in this world, this digitized world that we live in, that we, as adults, did not have to navigate.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that must have been really hard. Here's something like that going on just doors away from you, but that ended up being a big push into this field that it doesn't sound like you were looking for, but it kind of woke this up in you.
Speaker 3:Yes, your spot on, Lena. Yes, it really I say I didn't choose this space, it chose me. But what I although I never wanted to know some of the things that I know I am, I am really privileged to be in the space I am in because, especially on the healing side, I get a front row seat to some miraculous transformations in people, and I never would have arrived to where I am without learning some of these things. So some things that can really crack you open and shatter you for a bit. Really, they are some forces that can push you to uncomfortable places but push you to look for solutions and help. So that's what it did for me. So I like to encourage people to not be not be afraid of some dark spaces, because you all have gifts that can be helpful in different ways.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that speaks to that leaning into that shift, because when something is very I don't know painful, is that it may be leading you to the biggest transformation that you could have ever had, and had that not happened, then you may not have sought these different tools in order to move into your own healing and then help other people find that healing for themselves. So tell me more about what you're doing now, like what your role is. What did this change for you? How did this move you into a different space?
Speaker 3:Well, to start, I began by doing some abuse prevention in schools because I thought, well, if we can prevent sexual abuse, physical abuse, emotional abuse, we could prevent some vulnerabilities that these bad actors or exploiters rely on to trick youth into trusting them. So I was doing that for a handful of years and I was having so much resistance with schools and, granted, we were going through some many other really colossal changes in our society, including the pandemic, so I felt all right, I'm going to go where I can make a difference and I was invited to help out to work alongside a nonprofit called the Noble. They work in the financial sector with banks and financial institutions and law enforcement, and the focus is igniting awareness and prevention tools for recognizing things like exploitative purchase patterns and not just these larger money laundering situations but how the everyday person if they're already a bank examiner or in fraud help tools that they can implement to help deter these crimes. Because they're all monetarily motivated. And although that was really a huge learning experience for me and I loved being with the group, I still had this pull I had been before I joined with them.
Speaker 3:While I was doing abuse prevention, I was taught a trauma release modality and I was practicing it on a variety of people, and I began practicing it on people I know, and I started seeing some huge shifts, from alleviating depression and anxiety to finding joy. After sexual assault to someone who hadn't slept through the night in 10 years. He had complex PTSD to start sleeping through the night and I was just. I didn't have the words to describe what was happening. I thought this is incredible and so then I thought well, these people do know me, I need to. I was second guessing what was going on in front of me, what I was witnessing, and so I began to practice on people I didn't know, and I still was seeing some beautiful shifts in limiting beliefs, in connecting. I happen to have a friend who is a genocide survivor and I do believe that when your awareness increases in a certain area, then other similar situations can come into your field, and that's exactly what happened to me. I did. I was met by another genocide survivor and she didn't sleep through the night and so she asked if I would work with her. And again, another beautiful transformation, and I thought this is just amazing to witness, and I began doing some trainings with survivor advocates and that's how we met. So I feel that I just kept feeling this pull towards the healing space.
Speaker 3:I've always been fascinated with healing, from events that happened when I was young to people close to me and some searching for healing, witnessing that and even one of our daughter had a really awful bike accident and really had a broken back and some horrible injuries and seeing her healing and igniting some trauma specialist to work alongside her and some physical therapist that did some amazing work with her. It was another eye opener that, wow, we are really resilient creatures and we are wired for healing. So the seed was planted long ago. It's always been a fascination, and when some things that you're curious about just come into your field and opportunities really are right in front of you without a lot of digging, it's like all right, I need to look at this, and so I feel incredibly blessed to be in this space.
Speaker 3:It's a wonderful balance for me as an empathetic person and a mom, to know the details of the crimes that I know of within organized violence. It's inhumane and, as I mentioned before, I had to. I look at the world in a different way and I don't want to be hyper vigilant all the time. I don't want to be paranoid about who I allow into my space. I want to. I do truly believe the majority of people are good people who want what is best for others. There are just some you know bad apples out there that we can help youth and train youth to watch out for the tricky people and we can back to what I was saying regarding healing.
Speaker 3:It's a beautiful balance for me in knowing what I know and balancing out the beauty and transformation within healing and really it's working with people to get past their limiting beliefs, the lies that they have been told, and a really important message for people is that there is nothing wrong with you, especially people who have been through complex trauma and knowing that you are having a perfectly natural reaction to what has happened to you, and so just in sharing that with clients, that can be right there, a game changer for them, and then working through ways to peel back the layers.
Speaker 3:And when I'm working with people, they don't even have to talk about the experiences they've had. We can work on them in other ways, which is really, really important, because sometimes they're wonderful and beautiful uses for talk therapy, but in situations with severe trauma, we don't want the trauma to re-imprint, and so the ways I work with people, they I don't need to know every detail about what has happened and all the bad stuff which talk therapy focuses on we can focus on the person at the core and get to some of the root causes of these feelings and shift them. So it's really it's really awesome.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so it sounds like what you're saying is like first, this event that happened close to you sparked this need to kind of move into the prevention space. Yes, Really kind of working with trying to prevent things like this from happening again to people, raising awareness. But then from that, you started working with the people who had been affected already and then moving into like well, how do you help them? Right, Not just well, if you weren't able to prevent it, what do you do after? What do you do with people who have been harmed and who are in a traumatic state or suffering from PTSD or complex PTSD? And so that moved you into the healing space. That's from preventative Now you're encompassing this healing aspect.
Speaker 2:And tell me about, like what, what that entails, because I've experienced it with you and it's very powerful and very effective and you're right, it's not something that you can totally understand. I definitely think it works with the energetic body and the nervous system. And can you tell me a little bit more about how you learned about that? How did you move into that space and it became something that you're like well, how this is working and I want to keep you know, continuing to offer this. How did that happen for you?
Speaker 3:Well, I was taught some simple modalities to that are very effective, and that involves some identifying what is weighing you down the most and I'm giving that a number. So let's say it's fear. So just in the hospital setting, if you rate your pain pain on a scale of one to 10. So I ask people to identify what's weighing them down the most and then we give that a rating and we work together to to bring that down to a manageable level in a session and we can have more than one session and it involves some. I invite people to to say if they want a prayer or mantra. I don't inflict my spiritual or religious practices on anyone. I let the person I'm working alongside take the reins. I think that's really important. Just want to hold space for the person. And then we do some some a bit of breath work, which you're an expert in on, and we do some visualization, we do grounding and we do some tapping. So emotional freedom, technique, tapping, and a really important spot where tapping can be very helpful is on the left side of the body, a couple inches below the clavicle, right near the heart, and tapping there and identifying, helping the person name what is weighing them down, taking ownership of that and then acknowledging that they're ready to shift this and whether they want to shift it to the universe, to God, to the creator, to source they name it. And so we work through that with tapping and some breathing and some visualization and nervous system regulation. You can take a person, let's say you're let's say your kiddo is really nervous about, you know, giving a speech in school, and you can. This is a nervous system regulation technique that a trauma specialist taught me and I infuse it into the modality that I use. So you can, let's say, your kiddo is laying down and you can slide your hand under their kidney and so, with the lower back, and then slide your hand under their ankle and you just wait, and if they're in a more calm state it's going to take a minute or two to feel pulsations. If they're keyed up you're going to feel the pulsations a lot quicker. But you just listen for those pulsations, you feel them with your hands and once they dissipate you can move to the other side of the body. So you're taking your nervous system and helping dial down the nervous system of the individual you're working alongside. And when you also incorporate intention prayer mantra, I visualize certain things I'm working on with them in their body and it's very powerful. So that's something you can. I love teaching people tools that they can pull and take away from the work that I do and just incorporate them in different areas. So that's one of them.
Speaker 3:And then I did last year I added Reiki to healing sessions. I lost my mom suddenly a year and a half ago and I was fortunate enough to have an amazing mom and I was a bit in shock since she passed away and a friend suggested a Reiki therapist who I went to and it was so transformative for me. I described it like grief is this cat sitting on your chest? And after Reiki it's like the Reiki therapist helped to just take that cat and just shift it to another space and it allowed me to have better focus and I felt like I wasn't floating through the world, like I was present and in my body. And so because of that, because of that, really because of grief, I learned an amazing tool that was so effective for me that I wanted to add it to the practice that I've been using.
Speaker 3:And Reiki is a beautiful tool. It's utilizing pure healing energy and it is another beautiful compliment to the work I'm already doing and I would encourage anybody to try it, to practice it. It's all about if you're open and you're willing and ready to shift and you align with a really good Reiki therapist. I would ask for recommendations from friends in your area. There's some remarkable transformations that can occur. So that's another element I use and I love it.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I love again how, like, a painful experience moved you into another level of healing. It made you seek out another level of healing that sounds like it was already meant to be there. It just there was going to need to be a catalyst for you to seek it, you know, and then to incorporate the modalities into one type of, you know, healing session for people, because I know, you know, for me Reiki it's the same thing. I sought Reiki out probably 20 years ago, in private, you know, at that time I was like I can't tell anybody what I'm doing, and I didn't even know what I was doing. I just knew that I needed relief from depression and racing thoughts and just a heaviness, and that was also something that was. I didn't know why it helped, I just knew it did. And then, you know, you cut to, you know, many years later than I went to learn more about it and be able to offer it as well. And so there is just this you know it's something that you, I think people need to experience, to really kind of hone in on how it helps.
Speaker 2:But I love hearing how you've incorporated that modality into like a somatic therapeutic environment with really, you know, putting the hand on the kidney which is a very somatic experience in itself, because the kidney regulates our nervous system as well and just being able to bring grounding to that from yourself into the other person and it being really important to ground yourself first, yes or moving into.
Speaker 2:You know, doing that with your child or with another person, because if you're dysregulated you need to. You're not going to bring regulation when you're both dysregulated. So that does bring me to my next question, which something that we had talked about in our previous podcast was you know, how do you regulate your own nervous system with work when you're working with others, because many of us who are in the healing field are working with dysregulated people. We then need to come in in a dysregulated state, but, especially if you're working with people with high incidence, high acuity of trauma, like trafficking and abuse and things like that, how do you regulate your own nervous system and stay in a space that's healthy for you without taking on whatever is going on with the person that you're trying to help?
Speaker 3:No, that's a great question and I love talking about different tools. Personally, I have a grounding practice. It's akin to a meditation, but it's about 20 minutes, and I learned it in a course that I took to help so that I don't take on other people's stuff, because when I was first doing practicing these modalities, I would feel a bit of someone's stuff, like their depression or their anxiety, and I thought, oh gosh, this is not sustainable if I can't be present with my family and do this work. So I was so grateful to learn grounding practices and grounding can be different for everybody, but mine's a bit like a meditation. You can incorporate prayer, but I use a specific grounding that involves visualization and drawing up Earth, energy and opening up my crown and kind of mixing the two.
Speaker 3:And I also really am an active person. I've always been active and just have a love for different types of sports. So I love biking, I love cross-training, I love yoga, I love kickboxing, so lots of different things. I do have a boxing bag in my basement, which is super helpful because sometimes the cases that come in are just so disgusting. Then I can visualize the person and take it out there and then that helps me be more present and not show my emotion, have more of a poker face when I'm talking with someone who's sharing all of this. So I'd say those are the biggest ones. But really also connecting, being present with my kids. I'm just so grateful to be a mom and that's one of the most important jobs on the planet and being present with my kids, having fun with them. We love to do hiking and being outside, and we have a pet. We have a dog. Animals are just incredible because they are a source of unconditional love, and I will add that our dog really was very, very tuned in when I learned Reiki. She had always been really close with me, but now she wants to be in every single room when I go in the room and I thought, wow, this is Reiki. Energy Effects animals too, because they're highly intuitive. So I'd say those are the biggest ways.
Speaker 3:And I always ask the same question, lena, to people in your previous space and in nursing, because I know as a flight nurse that's an incredible amount of stress and vicarious trauma, and so people like you and other trauma specialists, psychotherapists, especially people who work within to help people in organized violence I ask them ways that they regulate themselves so within the trauma specialist place, many of them say their connection to their higher power, so using prayer, or one psychotherapist just has a ritual of walking her dogs along the river. That's a very therapeutic tool for her. Another said running, and in talking to a retired Homeland Security investigator whose focus was exploitation, he just said camaraderie and connecting with his colleagues on different cases, and so those are all beautiful ways. I know other in the survivor retreat where we met there was a focus on journaling and also interpreting dreams. So there are many, many, many tools. I have lists of them and it's really exposing yourself to different ways to help regulate yourself and dial down your nervous system in the moment and then ongoing.
Speaker 3:So tools that you can infuse daily, weekly, monthly, I know, since it was a bit of a stressful year, losing my mom and all of the things that came along with wrapping up her estate and moving everything out of her house.
Speaker 3:I noticed driving I had this pain turning my head, I would get this zinger up my neck and I thought, oh my gosh, I'm holding all this stress in my neck. So acupuncture is another phenomenal tool to help relieve stress and acupuncture was another way a survivor really released some deep-seated trauma with acupuncture. She had quite an emotional release after a session. So just stay curious about different ways. I'm always learning new modalities and I'm always happy to talk to people about ways to keep themselves regulated so they can be present with themselves and have longevity in their career. But also just be content and not be a sponge for taking on all of the bad stuff, because even though that can be a focus of our work, we don't want it to be the focus of our life and forget all of the beauty and the good in the world, because there's really just way more of that than not, and so we just want to help our focus.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and there's just there's so many ways and I think that you know there, there's not just one path to being able to find that peaceful state. So I love how you offered so many different options. You know whether in what is grounding for each person can be a little bit different. But sometimes going outside and putting your feet in the dirt, mm, hmm, being with nature, nature itself, is such a regulator to our nervous system. There's a reason why you feel better when you're at the beach, or there's a reason why you feel better when you go for a hike and you're just in the woods. You know there's just something about being in nature, because it's where we come from. And then just really tuning into your breath, like you say, you know doing some breath work.
Speaker 2:I mean, that's one thing that I'm a huge advocate for is just turning into your own nervous system and really meditation right, just sitting in meditation and being able to feel yourself, you know, to just stop with all the rumination or with the noise of everything that's going on and just really being able to tune in to what you're feeling in your body and allowing that to be there and finding ways to come back to center. Because, like you, like me, like many people who who are in the healing space, were very empathetic, very empathic and sometimes, you know, in a naive way, we think that we can take on someone else's pain and in some way that honors us, in some way that actually satisfies our own ego for taking on someone else's pain. But it's not what we're here to do. I love how you I remember in our last conversation you talked about the life raft versus the yes, you can be, be the lifeline, but not the life raft, so just it's.
Speaker 3:You can do so much just by holding space and listening, and just that alone can be tremendously helpful for people who really don't have others to share yeah, share with. So in in learning how to serve in the trauma healing space, I've also been able to heal parts of myself and strengthen my own constitution and psyche so that I can better serve and not just, like we're talking about, not take on other people's stuff and afford myself longevity in the space. So sharing healing has immeasurable benefits.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I can see how if you had just stopped at moving into prevention which, right is, is extremely powerful and useful and needed but where would that? It would have been like like a you know that wouldn't have been filled, fully filled in. It's like eventually you were going to need to move into the healing space, not just a preventative space, because you were going to need it for yourself. Yes, so how? You know some really painful situations with losing your mom and your dad and having that move you into a place of seeking your own healing and thereby everyone else who comes into contact with you being able to benefit from that because of the modalities you were pushed to learn.
Speaker 3:Yes, I feel the shifts have happened in different ways. You know, 18 years ago I lost my dad and I would say I feel so much closer to my dad now in the non physical, compared to when he was here physically, because of the beautiful signs and so many ways that he shows that he's around not only to me but to our kids. It's such an incredible gift and so I'd say the shift that was a huge shift for me there and a shift in awareness and and being more private about it and worried about what other people might say. And now I really I love talking about those aspects, those elements, the beauty in that, and I would just encourage people, if you've, if someone you've loved deeply has transitioned, be open to signs from them, because we are never separate. So when that, that was a huge shift. And then six years ago, when I found out what happened in my community with the human trafficking scheme, that was another shift like this. I felt like, all right, now I'm going to show you this over here, going to show you this, but don't worry, I'm going to equip you with the people to walk alongside you and teach you and then you know.
Speaker 3:The third one was, you know when my mom transitioned and then the beauty in more healing that I found.
Speaker 3:So it's really just a testament to to everyone listening to yes, life is challenging and no one said it was easy and to not be afraid to do all that you can do to relinquish fear of the unknown, fear of uncertainty and fear of the uncomfortable situations and the challenging situations, because sometimes, in those most challenging situations, those are what truly changes us, what fuels our alchemy into our tapping into our greatest gifts that we can use to transform ourselves and, if we choose, how we can help others in the world today too.
Speaker 3:So I just would I see so much dishing out of fear in a variety of ways. So dial it back and really listen to yourself and listen to what you feel called and pulled to do. If you are in a situation where you're searching, you're on that quest and, regarding healing, the beauty you see in someone's brighter eyes and their newfound joy and their connection to their true, authentic selves is so profound to witness. And you get to witness that, lena, with the beautiful work that you do, and I've get to witness that as well, and I honestly don't have the appropriate language for it, but surreal and beautiful are top of mind, and it's such a privilege to have a front row seat to these miraculous shifts, so I'm just immensely grateful to be a witness. That's what I am. I'm a witness.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's all we need. We need to be in the presence of an empathic witness, empathetic witness, and that's where the biggest healing transformations can happen. Yeah, I think encouraging people that you know on the other side of the fear, on the other side of the pain, is your greatest transformation. And maybe in those moments, asking how what feels like the worst thing that could happen to you could actually be the best thing that could ever happen to you, is to not numb it, not to run from it, but to lead into it and to seek out help or be open to the help that's around you, seen and unseen, and find the place where you can find your healing, because, ultimately, it's not just you who will heal.
Speaker 3:I'm so true, oh, thank you. I am so grateful to have met you. Who would have guessed how our paths would have crossed? Oh, it's such a privilege.
Speaker 2:Tell us, tell us more about how people can find you online or in socials, just letting them know where they can find more information about you or if they have questions.
Speaker 3:Oh, thank you. Yes, I have. Basically, my website is like a business card because because I'm such a niche within a niche, but it's consult Rosie and it's spelled ROS, ie and, yes, that's my real name, so consult Rosie dot com. And I'm also on Instagram and I'm on LinkedIn as a Rosie to Toldo and my last name is spelled C A T, like the word cat.
Speaker 2:Al do. Thank you Rosie, thank you Lena, until the next breath work event for healing modality training that we're going to do together.
Speaker 3:Always brings me joy, to more to come.
Speaker 1:That's been another episode of let that shift go podcast. I'm Noel and I'm Lena.
Speaker 2:Let us know what your questions are and we'd love to use them on a future episode. Or check us out on instant at let that shift go, or visit our website. Serenity cove to macula dot com.