22.Embodied Self Awakening: Exploring Trauma Healing and the Nervous System with Nityda Gessel

In this episode, I welcome Nityda Gessel, a seasoned yoga teacher, trauma therapist, and somatic therapist with nearly two decades of experience. Nityda, a licensed clinical social worker, discusses her approach to supporting individuals by examining how their past and present manifest in their bodies and using body-based embodiment interventions for healing and evolution. She introduces the Trauma Conscious Yoga Method, a blend of somatic psychotherapy practices and trauma-conscious yoga, and discusses her book, 'Embodied Self Awakening: Somatic Practices for Trauma Healing and Spiritual Evolution.' The conversation delves into the effects of trauma on the body, the importance of community and validation in the healing process, and the concept of embodied self-awakening. Nityda emphasizes the role of the vagus nerve, polyvagal theory, the significance of compassion and community support, and introduces internal family systems therapy as a model for understanding and integrating different parts of oneself towards healing. She encourages embracing the journey of healing as an ongoing process of self-discovery and awakening.

Connect with Nityda:

https://traumaconsciousyoga.com/

https://www.facebook.com/people/The-Trauma-Conscious-Yoga-Institute/100063494533157/?modal=admin_todo_tour

https://www.instagram.com/trauma_conscious_yoga_method/

Resources & Links:

• FREE Top 3 tips to regulate your nervous system Training
• Work with us in therapy or coaching
• Curable: https://getcurable.com/healwithgrace

Connect with Grace:

• Connect on Instagram
• Check out my website

Transcript

[00:00:00] Grace: Hello, and welcome back to the heel with grace podcast. I have a very special guest and I am very excited to have her on. I've been following her for a while. And she, I'm going to let her introduce herself, but basically, this is someone that I followed in the yoga community for a while. And you all know that.

Yoga has been a very important part of my journey. I've been in and out of that world for a while, but I always come back to it. So And we're talking not only about that today, but we're talking about a lot of different things. So anyway, without further ado. Hi, thank you for being here. 

[00:00:36] Nityda: I agree. Thanks for having me.

[00:00:38] Grace: You're welcome. Can you tell us a little bit about yourself and what you brought what brought you into this space? 

[00:00:46] Nityda: Yeah, that's a big question. so my name is Natita Gasel, and at this point, I've been a yoga teacher for close to two decades. I'm a trauma therapist and a somatic therapist. Therapist, so I have a lcsw and my license clinical social worker by trade and the way that I help people is I support them and examining how their path and their presence is showing up in their body and using body based embodiment interventions to support their healing and their evolution.

So, I have a private practice. I run a business called the Trauma Conscious Yoga Institute, where I lead professional trainings for other psychotherapists and yoga teachers, and at this point, people from all different professions come and they get trained in this method that I put together called the Trauma Conscious Yoga Method, which is an integration of somatic psychotherapy practices and trauma conscious yoga.

I am a published author. I wrote the book embodied self awakening somatic practices for trauma healing and spiritual evolution. And I'm a mom of one soon to be a mom of two. 

[00:02:01] Grace: Amazing. And I actually have your book right here. We're going to be talking about it. I absolutely love it. I think that there's so many parts of it that, dive deep into what this, honestly, what this podcast is about is to understand Coming home to yourself when you've gotten really stuck in different places in life and in your body, mental and physical health.

So can you tell us a little bit more about exactly what embodied self awakening means, especially from everything that you just mentioned, right? All the different modalities that you use, give an overview of that, and then we're going to dive into a little bit more specifics. 

[00:02:40] Nityda: Sure, so the, the foundation, the premise of the book is informed by Buddhist psychology and yoga psychology.

So, it's important to know that both within Buddhism and within yoga. There's this idea of the path to awakening and there's this understanding that life itself brings a state of disease and amnesia. So, in other words, we. In a spiritual sense, before we are bored, we may have a deeper connection to our true nature or our purpose or who we are, but by just living in the world and all the conditioning and all the systems that, Coexist in the world, we start to forget who we are.

We start to be led astray and we navigate away from our true nature. We develop different parts of ourselves and we start to identify or really misidentify with our parts instead of who we really are in our true nature. So, embodied self awakening is the pathway, the practice of reconnecting to self who we truly are at our core and the way that we do that is is by going into the body.

It has to be an embodied experience. It can't just be a cerebral experience because the majority of our lived experience is actually held in the body. And below our conscious awareness, so to self awake and to return to a more whole, realistic understanding of who we are, we need to approach and befriend the different parts of us that have taken on burden or experience trauma, and it has to be done again through the body through modalities, such as yoga.

Any type of movement therapy or somatic type of therapy to help us get there. 

[00:04:36] Grace: You explain a lot about how trauma affects the body, like, you've mentioned, and how it can sit and create all different types of disease. Right? A lot of our listeners here are coming are listening to this because they probably have been down the road where they've gone to different types of practitioners, whether that is mental or physical.

lots of different chronic, I call them symptoms because it could be a breadth of all different types of things between pain, fatigue, anxiety, migraines and things like that. And so. By now, starting to understand, okay, there's something deeper going on, right? It's not just some automatic physical level.

So. Can you explain more and speak more about how trauma affects the body, how it could come out in terms of disease, like chronic symptoms? 

[00:05:24] Nityda: Sure, sure. It's a really, it's a big topic. So, you know, I'll start with maybe more of like a. Neuroscience understanding to help people kind of get started. So, you know, we have our prefrontal cortex, right?

Which is like the part of our brain that. Responsible for executive functioning and thinking and planning and organizing and thinking about thinking all of that. and a lot of our day to day, you know, activities are really prefrontal focus. Like, right now, we're using our prefrontal lobe to have this conversation.

However, when trauma happens, the prefrontal lobe is. 100 percent offline, we are hijacked by our own nervous system and we go into a state of fight fly active freeze or eventually shut down. And when trauma is happening, it's the 2 lower regions of the brain that are lighting up and that are active. So, the mammalian brain, and then the reptilian brain, or the brain stem.

And so when trauma is not metabolized, when we don't get to complete the cycle, meaning maybe we go into fight or flight, but we don't have the opportunity to actually fight or flee. Then the nervous system hyper arousal can stay activated in the body. Our body has to try to figure out what to do with all of this information, right?

All of this sensory overload, all of this adrenaline, all of these hormones and chemicals. And it doesn't necessarily have a place to put it all right. If we don't get the chance to fight or flee, it gets stuck. And so this can manifest in a number of ways. And usually it manifests in multiple ways. Right when trauma is unlooked at or unresolved because the cycle is incomplete.

It can manifest as physical pain, right? And your focus here is chronic pain. Right, so whenever I hear somebody has chronic pain, I'm always interested to know what type of perhaps trauma and we should probably define trauma at some point. Right? But just to finish the spot, you know, what type of trauma has this person survived?

That maybe it's now manifesting as chronic pain, which is really the body's way of trying to communicate with you that something is left undone. There's something that needs to be attended to and cared for inside. So you can have physical chronic pain and that can even be things like rheumatoid arthritis.

That it can also look like hypertension and high blood pressure and a lot of these physical ailments.also, because we have a very high functioning prefrontal lobe as humans, right? When the prefrontal lobe does eventually come back online, which it does in the aftermath of trauma. We make stories up about our work.

And our sense of belonging and a number of things, so we start to have not only the physical symptoms or ailments, but then there's these more psychological mental narratives we've created. That we tend to really believe are true and it's understandable, but a lot of that can create. Kind of an interior landscape of disease and, unwellness, right?

So that's some of how trauma can can stay afloat within us, even after an event or an experience has inspired. 

[00:08:48] Grace: Yeah, are you when you mentioned about how we well, I don't think you mentioned the word perceived, but in your book, you talk about perception, like, how perceptions shapes our experiences. Is that what you're talking about here?

In terms of trauma. 

[00:09:04] Nityda: Perception is a huge part of it. So maybe I can explain perception. As we explain, let's just kind of make sure we're all on the same page and understanding what trauma is. 

[00:09:14] Grace: Yes, that's what I'm speaking to. Yeah, 

[00:09:17] Nityda: because trauma at this point, I mean, it's, it's wonderful. Like, trauma is so.

mainstream. There's so many professionals from all different fields and influencers on social media and all types of people talking about trauma. and sometimes they're talking about it very well, you know, even not being mental health professionals necessarily, like people are really having these intelligent conversations around trauma.

But let's just make sure we are on the same page. So trauma, first and foremost, trauma is what happens inside of our body. There can be an instigating phase. Event, but it's not the event that is the trauma. The trauma is what we experience within. So there's different types of trauma. Different types of instigating events that can then manifest this trauma within us.

Right? So. There's big T trauma, which I don't really like the term big T, but some folks will recognize that. Right, but this 1 type of instigating event. These are events that are too much too fast and or too soon. Right? So, too much, too fast, too soon for what? Right? Too much, too fast, too soon for your nervous systems, unique ability to cope.

Right? So that's where the perception comes in, because what my nervous system can tolerate. Is different than what your nervous system can tolerate, maybe different than what the person next to us, their nervous system can tolerate, right? Different nervous systems can tolerate a different level of distress before they go into a trauma responsive fight or flight.

Right, so when we look at a stressor or an external event as instigating trauma, we can look at it. It's too much too fast too soon for your particular nervous systems ability to cope. And so the consequences that we go into a responsive fight or flight. And maybe eventually, if we're not able to fight or flee, we go into immobilization or shutdown response.

Right? That's 1 type of trauma, right? Instigated by too much, too fast, too soon. What we've come to understand now, and more recent years is trauma isn't only what happened. It's what we didn't get that we needed. Right? So there's also. It's a little bit harder to pinpoint because now we're not looking at an event.

We're looking at something that didn't happen. Right, so the instigator is too little for too long, but you didn't get or you're not getting currently the love care or resources that you need. To feel safe to feel like you belong to feel like you have community. Right? And all of those things are very important to us as animals as human animals.

So, too much, too fast, too soon, too little for too long. And then the 3rd kind of instigator is that generational trauma trauma that's literally passed down genetically. And or socially, right? There's 2 types of generational trauma, right? There's systemic trauma, for example, like biases that are passed down socially through the generations, right?

Like homophobia, like racism, all of these things. Then there's also literally the genetic material that is passed from birthing person to offspring that we inherit that impacts how we function. And then I just want to add, and the great thing to know is that. We are so plastic, our brains are so malleable that even the genetic trauma, this isn't a life sentence of pain and suffering, right?

There's healing. It's all about what we can do now that we're here to support evolution, to support healing, to support positive change. 

[00:13:12] Grace: Yeah, thank you for saying that last part. It's very needed and helpful. I agree. I think there's a lot of wonderful conversations happening around trauma. And I also hear that it can leave people pretty overwhelmed.

It's like, okay, well, what do we do with this? This is a lot. There's all these different types of trauma that are impacting me and it's overwhelming. So, it can be and. This is why we're here to talk about it and to help give practices. I love that you give actual practices within your book. And I mean, it's what you do.

It's what you teach. Right? So, yeah. So then when we're talking about how these different types of trauma impact our body, impact are not only just physical, mental, spiritual body. You talk about the vagus nerve within that nervous system. So, can you speak to that specifically why you call it the soul nerve?

I love that by the way. 

[00:14:04] Nityda: Yeah, well, I can't take credit for calling it the soul nerve. That was resma minicab. It was both my grandmother's hands, which is just, The most beautiful groundbreaking text, but I recommend everyone read if they haven't read it yet. but he calls it the soul nerve and I really resonated with that.

because, you know, we're, we're about the soul and we're about the spirit here. And that's what the book is about, spiritual evolution and the aftermath of trauma. And so, yeah, I can share a little bit about the vagus nerve. So I do call it the soul nerve in the book. It's commonly called the vagus nerve.

And this will help us get into more of an understanding of, okay, if the prefrontal cortex is offline during trauma, then what is actually online? What's happening? It relates to the vagus nerve, and I'll credit Dr. Stephen Porges here who founded Polyvagal Theory around 1995. He's done a lot of work to help us understand even more, like, the social impacts of this vagus nerve, specifically when trauma is occurring and in the aftermath of trauma.

So the Vegas nerve is the 10th cranial nerve in the body. There are 12 of them and so it's a two branched nerve and it originates at the brainstem. Both branches originated the brainstem. So the brainstem is part of our reptilian brain. It's important to know what the reptilian brain is responsible for.

Right? So, whereas the prefrontal cortex is that higher executive functioning. The reptilian brain is our involuntary responses.that are informed by our motivational drives and instincts. So, in other words, like, I'm hungry, I sense hunger. I need to get food, right? We know that because there's a signal traveling from our body up to Vegas nerve and we just know that we're hungry, right?

Or I'm thirsty. I need water. Right? That's a Vegas nerve cue. Right? I. Since desire, I want to procreate. These are very kind of like foundational. Like, I'm hungry. I'm thirsty. I sense desire, right? Motivational drive and instincts that inform our most fundamental functioning and evolutionary functioning as human beings.

Right. I need food, I need water, right? All of those things. And so, there's two branches of this vagus nerve. So, there's the lower branch, which is the dorsal vagal branch. And you'll hear people refer to this as the brain connection. So, this branch of the vagus nerve originates at the brain stem. Travels down the back of the throat, the esophagus, right?

It's a literal nerve, not just like an energetic thing that we're talking about. It's a literal, literal nerve. It bypasses the lower organs, right? Those that are involved with our digestion. Transcribed And are releasing toxins like our kidneys and things like that. So, stomach, kidneys, gallbladder, small intestine, large intestine, right?

That's the dorsal vagal branch and that branch of the vagus nerve is involved with our immobilization or shutdown response. So, when we are in a state of fight or flight. And we have all these chemicals rushing and we eventually, you know, our body comes to recognize. Okay. I can't get out of this. It goes into shut down.

And at that point, we are. Dorsal vagal dominant, right? There's no prefrontal cortex. Then even the mammalian brain. Is starting to slow down and we're in this shutdown response, which is really like an energy conservation response. Right? Let's start to shut down because we may not make it any further than that.

Right? That's what the body literally thinks.what Dr has found is that there's this other branch of the vagus nerve. That's really interesting that evolved as reptiles evolved into mammals and that's called the ventral vagal branch. So it still originates at the brain stem. But, as opposed to the brain gut connection, this is the face heart connection.

So, from the brain, from the brainstem, the ventral branch connects to the muscles of our face.it connects, again, it goes down the back of our throat and it connects to our heart. So it impacted by our breathing and it also impacts our breathing. It bypasses our lungs and our heart and it also works together with a couple of other nerves that support the tilt of the head and the lean of the shoulders.

And so the ventral branch, this face heart branch supports our social engagement system. This is how we can socially engage with people. Right? Think about how. You're nodding your head, right? How you might lean your head to 1 side if you're really listening, or you might lean your body forward or when you hear someone.

Sharing something hard, you might take a deep breath for them, right? That is all part of our social engagement system. So, because it was kind of like, a little bit of science mumbo jumbo, just to put it in, like, regular real life terms. I like to explain that when people go into dorsal or shut down that immobilization response, what that looks like in real life is immense shame.

Isolation, it can look like suicide. How would he like suicidal ideation, a deep. Cloud of depression, that type of thing, loneliness, lack of belonging. That's what. Immobilization looks like in kind of real life. Right versus ventral is that. Open, right? Not necessarily energetic, but that I feel you, I see you I'm with you type of energy, right?

Right. So, like, it's helping professionals. That's the energy we want to embody. We want to be in the ventral branch when we're with people. I see you. I hear you. I feel you, I can connect with you. It's the space from which empathy and compassion comes.well, maybe I'll just share a little bit more and then I'll see maybe where we're at after that.

So what polyvagal theory has helped us understand is that this social engagement system is vital to who we are as human beings. Even during trauma and even in the aftermath of trauma, we are looking for connection. We are looking for human to human validation. We are involuntarily looking for it, because remember, this is the brainstem.

None of what we experience by way of the vagal nerve is voluntary or conscious. It's all involuntary. So, what we find is that if we are faced with a traumatic situation, right again, trauma is what's happening on the inside. But if there's a traumatic, maybe instigating situation before we go into fight or flight.

We are in that social engagement system space, and we will involuntarily, and in a matter of milliseconds, look around for help and involuntarily show in our body that we need help. You can't help it, right? But show like, you stop breathing, you look like you're in shock, right? So that somebody else, if they're around, can perhaps come help you.

Again, involuntarily, I'm really emphasizing we look for that connection. Right and then a lot of the times we don't get it. So we do go into a trauma response. We then do go into fight or flight, or we then do go into the dorsal. Shut down or shame place, but what we've also found is that co regulation in the aftermath of trauma.

Is incredibly supportive, right? So, even if something. Happens to us that lands in our nervous system as trauma. If we have some type of social connection and validation afterward. That can soft in the blow of the trauma. That will change the way we hold those narratives about ourself, right? We may not develop those faulty narratives about ourself versus if in the aftermath of trauma, we don't have community validation.

Instead, we are invalidated. That creates secondary trauma. 

[00:22:50] Grace: Okay. So I want to back up a little bit in terms of. Where the, the mobilization part of it, you mentioned there can be things like depression isolation. Shame is a big 1, right? I see chronic fatigue and me CFS as 

[00:23:11] Nityda: I 

[00:23:11] Grace: mean, the ultimate form, right?

Your body's completely shutting down to protect itself to go into protection mode and because you can't body can't do anything anymore. And so, when we look at what's underneath that, oftentimes there's a lot of shame. But I hear a lot people say, okay, I understand that trauma impacts the body, but I don't really see.

I don't really understand what kind of traumas in my life. You know, they don't have the big T type of trauma or don't recognize it.So, how would you explain maybe a few more examples of how. People can discover what trauma might be in their life, or what might be underneath the surface of that shame when they don't fully see that.

[00:23:55] Nityda: Yeah, that's a great question. So, 1, we haven't gotten to the healing modalities yet and what they look like and I know we'll get there, but you don't. Have to identify as a trauma survivor, even though I would say we all are, but you don't have to personally identify as that or even like going to therapy or whatever healing modality you're going into having a clear understanding of what your trauma is in order to do the work and we'll see that in a moment when we talk about like the work, what that is, you know, and again, it is tricky.

It is tricky because we. Especially like, I feel like as Westerners, like, we're so evidence based. We need to see things to understand them and have them make sense. And again, the majority of trauma is invisible. It's not what happened. It's what you didn't get. And we also have a lot of cultural confusion about what we really need as human beings because of these systems of oppression, capitalism, patriarchy, all the, all the things.

Right? So. Even the way we're educated, like emotional well being is not the focus of education. It's performance and output. So a lot of us are really confused about what we actually needed. And so I've had a lot of clients. They like my childhood is perfectly fine. Nothing bad happens. Right? But then you talk to people further and.

This may be a person that came to therapy because they really want to be in a long term relationship and all of their romantic relationships just seem to blow up. Right? That's why they're there. They're not there because they identify as a trauma survivor. Right? But then you learn and talking to this person that yes, Physical shelter was provided when you were a kid and you got, you had good food to eat and there was money and all of these things, but you weren't actually shown love and connection unless you achieved something.

So, I'm just thinking about like, you know, when I won this one meet, then I got love, right? Or when I got an A, then I got love. But other than that, right? So, so that is a trauma, right? You're having to prove your worth. You're having to prove you have to perform in a certain way. To be validated and be told that you are lovable, right?

It's unspoken, but it's behavioral. We interpret that, right? Because of our social engagement system. So, now we're in a doubt and we're in relationships where we're trying to prove our worth, prove our worth because we don't think that we're worthy and we're attracting people that are never going to actually see us as worthy because they have their own issues.

Right? But we're not able to see that. So, that's just 1 example and I, and it's hard to, right? It's hard to know sometimes until you get started in the healing work, people have to understand, like, you don't have to know going in. That's what this journey is about. This is a journey of self discovery. You start to discover and uncover more and more once you've begun.

The journey just taking that 1st step and so sometimes the 1st step is. Getting to know the part of us that's getting in the way, right? I don't need therapy or I don't need this, that or the other. Nothing bad really happened to me. I can figure this out on my own. Let's get to know that part of you and where those beliefs are coming from.

[00:27:25] Grace: Yeah, I, a lot of examples too with people coming in to, especially when they're dealing with chronic symptoms, are overfunctioners. And so they've always been praised for being an over functioner mean taking care of everyone else and assisting their own needs. Right? And that's a way we get praised.

That's a way that we get validated instead of understanding how to be validated for ourselves or even just recognizing our emotions. so yeah. Yeah. That's another one I commonly see too. Yeah. 

[00:27:54] Nityda: That's very common, and it's a really good point. And what you're emphasizing there is like the validation piece.

It's so important. Again, so Dr. Porges and a psychotherapist that works closely with him named Deb Dana, they really emphasize that co regulation is a biological imperative. We need community validation. We're wired for it. We do. Like, there's a lot of talk about being able to self validate and validate yourself, and that is very important.

But we really do need community. We are wired for that. Right? And so, yes, people are behaving in the ways that are getting them, you know, praise that are getting. That are bringing them validation and so it's very understandable that we don't want to. Be hard on ourselves or others, or beat ourselves up.

For behaving in these ways, it's how we've learned to experience some glimmer of acceptance. Or validation from others. 

[00:28:51] Grace: Yeah, that community piece is really huge. and I mean, I know along my journey when I started to talk to people that went through similar healing journeys in terms of chronic symptoms or chronic illness.

That's when I started to feel connected, not only because I was just so isolated, I didn't know anyone else that was going through it. I could then not only connect with them, but then also get validation that, oh, they were making some changes. They started healing. Right? They made these changes that I could.

Figure that out for myself and relate. So it's this huge opening, right? We need that. You're right. We're so wired for connection. We have to have that connection. 

[00:29:28] Nityda: And part of what makes things so traumatic for us is that it's traumatic because we are alone. when it happens or we feel like we're alone.

Either we're literally alone or the people that are with us are not there to help us. They don't see us. They're not supporting us. So it feels like we're alone, right? The trauma of being alone, right? So, so yes, that community support Is so incredibly healing, right? And an integral and necessary and sometimes that's the most important thing starting out, right?

Not everybody can self regulate. In the beginning, but having like, a therapeutic relationship or a support group, or even some friends that get you and see you and really validate you and lift you up. Can start to untangle some of those faulty narratives about my worth because I'm alone and nobody gets me and nobody can understand this and all of that.

[00:30:29] Grace: Yeah, just creates that vicious cycle. You just feel worse when you're isolated and there's more shame that happens too. 

[00:30:37] Nityda: Right? 

[00:30:38] Grace: Yeah. Yeah. 100%. So then. Let's lean into talking about parts. Shame is a part, right? These different parts of us that can help or that can create more stuckness within our emotional bodies, our bodies in general.

So what exactly do you mean when we talk about parts? What is that? 

[00:30:58] Nityda: Sure. So, you know, the vagus nerve and understanding and polyvagal theory, it's one system, one way of understanding ourselves as humans and what we need. And how we react when we don't get what we need, whether it's trauma or something else.

Right? And so there's another system that uses a different set of vocabulary. Right? But it's very complimentary to polyvagal theory. It's the system called internal family system therapy. And it was founded by Dick Schwartz, Dr. Richard Schwartz, and I like it. I want to say it was like, in the 80s, like, it is all of this is kind of relatively new, which is really exciting.

Right internal family systems is a really non pathologizing therapeutic model. That supports our understanding that we are all actually multiple. We all have multiplicity of mind. It's very normal to experience like, a tug of war inside because there may be a part of us. That wants to do this and a part of us that wants to do that, or a part of us that's coping this way with life and a part of us is coping that way.

And those 2 ways may not be in harmony with 1 another. Right, and so we have our part. Different aspects of ourself that show up in different ways in our lives that make up our personality, more or less. And then we have our true self, which in IFS we call self. And so IFS is also very much in alignment with.

Yoga and a lot of these Eastern spiritual traditions, like Hinduism, Buddhism, Jainism, because there's this core connection to self or true nature, right? Versus the different parts of us, and I don't want to use the word versus right? Because then it sounds like there's a war and really what we're wanting to do is create harmony inside with our system between ourselves, our true nature and all of our parts.

And so, again, in IFS, internal family systems therapy. It's not abnormal to have parts. We don't believe that we have all these different parts because of trauma. We have all these different parts because there's all these beautiful aspects to who we are at the make of our personality. But when we do experience trauma, certain parts of us.

Well, take on those narratives, for example, right? Or a certain part of us may be the 1 that's burdened with shame. Or 1 certain part of us may be. The part that's plagued with the flashbacks, or the intrusive thoughts or images. And so what that does is it creates. Further polarization inside of us between these parts, and that can manifest as a lot of disease and discomfort physically, mentally, emotionally, spiritually.

So, what we want to do is get all of our parts on the same page, help them get to know 1 another. And we do that by connecting to our true self. And getting to know and befriending these parts of us, rather than judging them or trying to beat them into submission or. Or things of that nature. 

[00:34:16] Grace: Yeah, so then what would that work look like?

Right? And we're talking about doing the work with our parts and parts of ourselves and helping them be more. Helping ourselves see them as more inclusive, right? Instead of shaming or judging. What would that look like? 

[00:34:32] Nityda: Yeah, so. It's important to understand that it's normal. It's typical that our parts will lead our day to day life.

Right? So, let's say that we have a perfectionistic part of us. Right and that part, maybe take the lead a lot because maybe that gets us a lot of praise. Like, we were talking about earlier, the over functioning part and we call that a caretaker, like, constantly taking care of and performing for everyone else, but neglecting self.

Right? And so. Your listeners on this podcast or anybody that goes to therapy or whatever the case may be, usually it's a part what we call a manager part that gets them there, right? It's people's manager parts that have got them here listening to the podcast, which is great. Right? Or it's people's manager parts that get them into therapy.

Right? These are the parts of us that lead our way, like, they want to control. They want to be good. They want to sometimes be perfect. They want to fit. And yeah, these parts of us tend to get us really up in our head versus healing happens inside the body. So, when someone comes to therapy, for example, a lot of it is like, just.

Kind of identifying what some of the parts are. Right. And not even necessarily me as therapist, like naming it, like, that sounds like a perfectionist part. But instead, just kind of reflecting back what I'm hearing. It sounds like for a part of you, it's very important to do things just right. And if they're not done just right, then it's a big problem for that part of you.

Right. or it sounds like for a part of you, you're just saying this part. It's like, no more drinking, no more drinking. We are done. Right. It's just so fed up with how you feel afterward. And yet it sounds like there's another part of you that when 9 o'clock hits, and you're not feeling, you know, you feeling lonely that that bottle is right there waiting for you and it's hard to resist.

Right? So, when someone comes into individual therapy, for example, and I just listen. To what they're saying has brought them there and reflect that back to them. and the nature of part or IFF language. Right but then it's really about getting people on board. Eventually that they have a cell, they have something that's not a part.

Right they have something there's something inside each of us and again this is very much a belief within yoga and Eastern systems and many indigenous traditions right. there's something inside of us that cannot be broken. There's something inside of us that even trauma can't touch or damage. Right?

And that is in poly legal theory. We call it ventral. Right? It's that compassion. Right? So there's something in us. That is wise. That is confident that has the capacity for radical compassion. Right? And that's what as a therapist, I'm trying to help someone access because everybody has it. Everybody has it, because if we can access that.

Then we can be with the different parts of a person, the part that drinks a lot. The part that's a perfectionist, all of those parts. And we can really hear them. And get to know them and help liberate them. But we have to do it from that space of self, because nobody's going to tell you about themselves if they're being judged or criticized or degraded.

Right? So so that's kind of where we start.

[00:38:18] Grace: So what I'm hearing is that. At the core, there is that self, right that self that is that hopefully we can work to not judging. And that really is that true part of us and the. The different parts of us that are that come online every day to day, or the manager parts, or I don't think we've you've termed this yet, but firefighter parts, right?

They can get. They can drive different types of behavior, right? And it's not like we're trying to get rid of different ones. It's more about getting to know them and understanding the parts coming at it from compassion. Right? Instead of like, oh, I need that part to go away or oh, this 1 drives this horrible bad behavior.

This drives my pain. Right? So I need to get push that 1 away or get rid of it. That's not what I'm hearing. So can you speak to that a little bit more? Because I can just. I can see some people thinking, okay, well, I need to understand those bad parts. Right? 

[00:39:17] Nityda: Exactly. Exactly. Yeah. And let me just start by saying that that was great.

Great. that gives me a good direction to go in. So. I do want to start by emphasizing again that, like, internal family systems is this beautiful, really profound model of psychotherapy. It's the primary model I use with people because it's so. Beautifully effective and gentle. At the same time, but none of it is new.

Right, this idea of self, this idea of befriending aspects of us, all of this is like, indigenous, and when I say indigenous, I don't mean only indigenous to what is now called the United States, I mean, indigenous people from all over the world, from Africa to Asia to cross continentally, right, have always Worked with systems that are very similar to this one.

and we are very vocal about that In IFS, like, this isn't new. There's a lot of mindfulness within this model. There's a lot of even similarities to shamanism that you'll see within some of the healing practices that we do within IFS. So it's not new, it's just that IFS kind of takes it in a particular, I don't like to use the word protocol, but there's like a particular way we go about it in ISS.

So, yeah, because as human beings. We tend to create hierarchies to make sense of things. We like to the prefrontal lobe comes in, we like to organize things. We like to create hierarchies. We like to categorize. Right, then it's very easy to find ourselves in the trap of thinking parts. Good. No parts. Bad self.

Good or these parts. Bad these parts. Good. Right? And so that's why I love the title of, Dr. Schwartz's most recent book at this point that we're doing during the time that we're doing this interview. His most recent book is no bad part. Right there are literally no bad part again. You were born with all of these.

It's understanding that part is not its burden. The burden is being a people pleaser. The burden is the chronic pain this part's carrying or the burden is the shame, but that's not who the part is in their truth. That is something that has come to be because of the trauma. There are no bad parts and so we need to approach parts from self because it's only really self usually that can really wrap its head around that.

That I can talk to this people pleasing part and get to know it. Without having to immediately change it, right? Because in its core, this part is good and self is patient, right? And it knows that in time. What's not real will shed, right? But this part needs to be heard and validated. Right? So, like, I can't go try to get to know my people.

Please are part if I'm fully, you know, in inner critic part mode, because the inner critic is going to. Terrorize that people please their part, right? I need to be installed. Right? So there's no bad parts. And I assess, which does make a different from some other psychotherapy models that do have some similarities is, you know, we're not getting rid of part.

We are helping to unburden part, but we're not trying to get rid of a part. So, what we find is that when we go through a process of unburdening with a particular part. And we really engage with that part. What we're able to hear from is what the part really wants to do. What is it really meant. To do, what role does it want to play for you and your system?

And so, for example, a lot of the times people's parts will share that they'd rather do the exact opposite of what they're doing. So, like, an inner critic, when it's liberated and unburdened, would rather be like an inner coach and help motivate you and root you on, right? Or an anorexic part that's super controlling around food and trying to restrict food actually wants to support you in nourishing yourself with and without food, right?

And so, again, I just want to add 1 little caveat here. Like, we're talking about this in a very cerebral way. And so for listeners, if it's your 1st time hearing about internal family systems, just know, like, when we talk about it in this cerebral cerebral way, it's only going to make so much sense. Because this is a somatic or embodied approach, right?

So it's hard to fully understand something somatic when you're just talking about it using your prefrontal lobe. So, eventually, hopefully people will. Try it. There's meditations out there. I have meditations. There's many meditations available online, to help you get to know your parts in an I. F. S. way.

Right, because parts will tell you things, but you can't, you know, you can't use your prefrontal cortex to get that information or that insight. It's very much intuitive and in the body. 

[00:44:20] Grace: Yeah, it is it's a very, it can be a very meditative process to get to know those parts to really quiet down. We have to be able to have that space and time to be able to listen.

Right, because if we're just talking or thinking all the time, we're not going to be able to actually understand what those parts are trying to tell us, or what they are even right. What are the actual parts? And this goes right in line, actually, with so much of how I don't necessarily call it parts work when we're talking about talking to our symptoms, but it's very similar.

So. Understanding that the pain is not trying to hurt you. It's actually trying to protect you is a way to get to know it a little bit different. Right. So when people go along the healing journey, and they're, they're learning how to kind of rewire how their brain thinks of symptoms, usually when something pops up, like, maybe a headache or a migraine kind of starts to flare, we usually say, okay, let's talk to it and say, you know what?

I hear you. I see you. I don't really need that right now. I'm okay. Right. But I see it and I'm not trying to shame you away. I just. I see you there, thank you for trying to protect me, but I'm going to go on with my day, you know, and it's more of a gentler approach instead of trying to shame the part of us that is kind of keeping us stuck or causing us.

Actual pain, right? So that's what it made me think of. 

[00:45:44] Nityda: Yeah. Yeah. And so when you have some level of awareness, so you gain that awareness of your of your system, different parts of you that show up, like what you're referring to, you will notice that, you know, little narratives from a particular part of you that you do kind of know at this point, you know, are popping in and you're like, okay, you validate it and maybe now is not the time for it, but it's always good to go back and be with that part.

Right. At at some point, right, because it was trying to tell you something and and so what we look at in, we look at 3 different types of parts.we have what we call the protectors. Which are managers and firefighters. And then we have the most vulnerable parts, which are the exiles. Right, and so all of these parts are working together, right?

So when when something really hard happens. In our life, we might develop shame, for example, or develop a narrative like I'm worthless. Maybe we experience some type of humiliation. Right? And so any part that. Experience the brunt of that humiliation or that are carrying that narrative of worthlessness or feeling the shame we will unconsciously exile.

We'll push those parts down and we'll push them away from our conscious awareness because we can't function in the world if we're always connected to that feeling of shame or that feeling of worthlessness. Right, and that's when other parts of us will react and take on behaviors like people pleasing care taking, going toward addictive substances, whatever the case may be.

Right and so it's really important to understand. Like you said, all of our parts are either there to protect us from feeling the pain of our exile. Right or sometimes they're there to protect our young exiles from the world. That's very harsh. Right? They're either protecting us, or they are the exile themselves.

Right. And we can have many, many exiles. We have many, many parts, right? Exiles tend to be our youngest, most vulnerable part. And experience the most negative impact of the trauma or whatever the experience was. Right? So it's important to recognize. In that statement, there are no bad part. What we're also saying is that all parts have a good intention, even if it comes out in a really negative way.

Like, now I'm in full blown alcoholism because for the past 20 years, I've learned to cope this way and I can't not drink right. And that's a part of me. That's fueling that behavior. But if you can quiet down the parts inside that have a big problem with that alcoholic part. And really hear from that alcohol drinking part from self, what you'll find is.

A part had a really good intention. It was trying to protect you from feeling that immense shame and that humiliation and X, Y, Z, right? It's so compassion is like, central. To this model, right? Like, having an understanding that there's nothing wrong with us. There's nothing wrong with a particular part of us.

It all makes sense from this parts perspective. And they were actually trying to do you a service. And protect you by adopting this behavior, but it's just not really working that that, you know, they didn't know at the time. That wasn't the best way to actually go about it choosing a bottle of alcohol.

Right? Like, but it was accessible. At the time, and it made sense at the time. 

[00:49:43] Grace: I love that you brought in compassion because I think it also there was something you, you said in the book compassion is the willingness to include it and it's embodied inclusivity. And I think this brings us back to what we're talking about how isolation creates even more suffering.

Right? And we need community. We need people and. Yes, I think we need that compassion from others, but really for ourselves as well. Right? It goes both ways. So, when we're talking about doing the work and going on this healing journey, can you speak a little bit to what you mean by compassion being that embodied inclusivity and how that all works together?

[00:50:23] Nityda: Yeah, yeah, you know, yeah, you know, compassion is, again, it's the willingness to include, which means even though I can see that you're struggling. Even though you have X, Y, Z behaviors, I still see the good in you and you're welcome here, right? Compassion is welcoming, right? You are welcome here, but we, we have this desire to belong and when we don't experience a sense of belonging, it's a trauma.

However, we're not even welcoming all of our own parts. We're not welcoming all of every aspect of ourselves into the circle. So compassion is saying, like, yes, come in, join the circle. You are welcome here. I think about, like. Any type of group therapy, or even like, 12 step program or whatever, right? It's like, everybody come and sit and join the circle.

You are welcome here. We don't know what you've been through yet. You know, we may not never know. We may not ever know what you've been through, but you can join us. Right and again, that's that community piece that is so integral and necessary because rejection, the opposite of that is rejection. And that again, that takes us right back into dorsal shut down in mobilization.

We can't function. Well, when we experience rejection. Our parts get all up in arms about it. We have angry, enraged parts. We have shut down sad parts. Right? Yeah. And so compassion, the embodied inclusivity piece, right? It really again. Compassion isn't something that you can just think and make happen. It has to really come from inside.

And so part of the work is in the beginning, like we were saying, it's Getting to know what blocks your compassion, what blocks your capacity to, you know, really live and embody your full capacity for compassion that you have because you're a human being, right? And there will be parts of us that get in the way of our compassion, right?

Like inner critics and things like that. but it's necessary to have compassion along this journey of healing and awakening because again, We can't really get to know the truth of a part of us or really support that part of us if we're doing it from a judgmental space. And I do think a lot of spiritual bypassing can happen when we try to skip over the self compassion piece, right?

Or even the general compassion for others piece, right? We try to skip over that. We try to go right to the, the, the, the depth of the spiritual teachings, right? But we never actually look at. What wounds we're carrying, what led us to want to go down a path of yoga anyway, or whatever the case may be.so it's really central and foundational and at the core of this, this practice of compassion.

[00:53:29] Grace: Yeah, it's so important. And I find it, I mean, for myself truly, you know, it's, it's always been a part of my healing and inviting that compassion in, and I always know when I'm getting stuck or in a period of. Frustration, or I can't get this right, or that right, or something along those lines, or a symptom pops up here or there often.

I often find that I'm very hard on myself in those times. And there really isn't much room for compassion and that 

[00:54:00] Nityda: right? 

[00:54:00] Grace: And so inviting compassion means that embodied, at least to me, it means that in body, like. Exhale a little bit, and that warms right in my heart that I can invite in, they can kind of soothe my body instead of maybe this kind of tight constriction, like, rigidness that I can feel and then I noticed a lot of people talk about to when we talk about compassion with my clients and in our program.

It's. If they're listening, they're probably laughing a little bit because I think I bring it up every single time. I'm like, how much compassion are you giving yourself today? You know, because it's very apparent what you're not. Because we're so self critical or rigid or constricting our literal actual bodies, you know, so I think that compassion piece is so, so important to talk about because it's often forgotten.

Right, too. It's. About remembering and forgetting and remembering again, right? 

[00:54:55] Nityda: Exactly. Yeah. And I love the piece you shared about that embodied exhalation, right? Because it really is that, like, compassion involves slowing down. It involves pausing, it has to include spaciousness, right? And room to just be without trying to fix or change anything.

You know, and again, and I, as we talk about self self is like the compassionate 1 inside right? And what's important to know about self or compassion, whatever term you want to use. It's agenda list. We're not working with an agenda here, right? There's nothing we have to check off. There's nothing we have to achieve.

There's nothing we have to complete and therefore we can just exist. And let what surfaces surface right and let the work happen as it happens. Hey, and, you know, for for many of us, we've felt like. We were never really allowed to exist as we were, right? People were constantly trying to change us or tell us that we weren't right.

we needed to do this to be right. And so if you, if you work within this model of and again, you're attending to your own part. That have been told that, you know, you're embodying compassion, you're embodying yourself and you're working with a part of you. Right, that maybe was always told that you needed to be different, right?

But you're giving that part just space to exist as it is. You're not trying to change it. Or make it better, right? That alone is incredibly healing. Right? So the work, this type of work, it's very slow, but it's very fast, right? You slow down. You leave space. There's not that same type of agenda. And because of that, so much can actually happen so quickly.

Because you're getting out of your way and it's like a therapist, we're getting out of our client's way, right? If we're not trying to give them a solution or go home and try this, right? It's really like, let's create the space, the container. For you to be for parts to speak. Right and and experience some of that catharsis that just happens when people are allowed to exhale and exist as themselves.

[00:57:26] Grace: That space. It's very important. It can feel slow at the same time. That slowness is very much so needed. It's needed to be able to listen to hear ourselves to hear those parts and to provide that compassion. It's hard. Well, compassion can be given in any. Anyway, but I think in the beginning, it is important to have that slow down to be able to learn how to.

To exhale into it and to lean into it. 

[00:57:55] Nityda: Yeah. Okay. 

[00:57:57] Grace: Yeah. Is there anything around, you know, doing this work that you feel is important to note that we haven't talked about.

[00:58:06] Nityda: Yeah, I, you know, I always say. This is an alignment with what we were just talking about. The journey is the medicine. I'm sure that's written in the book somewhere again. We are coming. From this Western culture, assuming probably most of the listeners live in the West, right? It's very success driven, very fast paced, very evidence based, very, you need to meet metrics and marks and check things off and measure things and.

You know, and so I'm thinking about my beautiful clients who come to therapy and they're already, like, wanting to know what the end goal is, when they're going to see the results, like, all of that. And it's important to recognize that the journey itself is the medicine. There is nowhere you need to be.

There's nowhere you're going to get there is no destination because you're a human being. Right? And we're constantly met with challenge. Right? Hopefully we're also constantly met with community and upliftment and connection. Right this is such a multifaceted life. Right. And if we are so focused on a destination, which would be, that's a part of us that's really focused right on that.

you know, we miss out on the little glimmers of awakening that we experience all the time, little glimmers of freedom and peace and, you know, Enlightenment or whatever you want to call it joy embodiment. Like, there's a moment like that that we experience all the time. But if we're so focused on some particular outcome or being different, then we miss out on that.

So, you know, again, it is a journey of, like, slowing down and being more present. Right. That's really kind of where it starts slowing down and being present. And through that, we can be awake to the subtleties, right? The subtleties and the gifts and the little small miracles that we may, you know, may not consciously see as much if we're in a rush in a hurry to get somewhere.

[01:00:10] Grace: Yeah. Thank you for saying that. That's beautiful and I really, really appreciate all of this information is so so helpful. and as I said, actually, I'm not sure I said this before, but highly recommend your book embodied self awakening. I really, really loved it. and anything I believe that you do that you're putting out there as really wonderful.

So thank you again. And 1 last question that I like to ask all of my guests just as a little. Fun question, what are you loving in your life right now? What's could be anything from like a new recipe to, I don't know, a new healing modality, but anything. 

[01:00:48] Nityda: Yeah, yeah, I'm loving, you know, right now I'm in a time of like.

I would say preparing to nest. I can't say I've actually started nesting yet, but, you know, it's kind of like a familiar space because I'm pregnant with my 2nd child and it's like that space of like, it's a very like energized space, but also 1 that I'm starting to feel the. The slowing down of it, right?

Like, I'm this interview with you is the last interview I'll do before maternity leave. And I'm still so involved in and passionate about the work that I do. Yeah, I know that around the corner, there's this beautiful. New opportunity to awaken more, right? Because when you welcome a new little being. that's been hibernating in your body into the world.

I mean, I think that's 1 of the. That's for me, I would say the greatest teacher. and yeah, I would say my daughter and, you know, even just the process of being pregnant. I'm so grateful for, you know, it's like, it's such a teacher. It's such an opportunity to learn and awaken and grow. So I'm really excited for that.

that's what I'm really leaning into right now. And. You know, I'm still continuing to feel excited about what groups and organizations I want to reach out to, to offer my services to. I really love working with activists and supporting them because they experience so much ongoing trauma. So, I have some of that going on, but also I'm in this space of wrapping up and transitioning, which is really nice.

[01:02:27] Grace: Yeah, well, thank you for coming on here and being the last interview. Appreciate it. 

[01:02:32] Nityda: My pleasure. Yeah, okay, 

[01:02:38] Grace: thank you. 

[01:02:39] Nityda: Thank you.