Takeaways & Reflections | Holistic Healing Is Possible
SHOW NOTES SUMMARY:
I get really fired up when a podcast guest shares their story of, essentially, their emotional pain being dismissed. Instead of their pain being addressed when seeking help, their symptoms are “addressed.”
If misguided white coats started to flip that around, and look at the bigger picture and set aside the big pharma kickbacks, and become patient-centered, we’d maybe be in a less dire situation when it comes to mental health in the U.S. than we are today.
Both Brianne and Jordan ended up finding holistic means of addressing their grief and trauma. And, they are the perfect examples that it is possible.
What grievers also need to understand is that there is no magic pill. As Brianne shared in her episode (Episode 44), you have to dig through your shit to find your gold. And, as Jordan shared in his (Episode 44), he found that therapy and EMDR were what he needed and has since been off all meds that he was told he needed to be on (since childhood).
Let’s stop pushing the pills and let’s start pushing for patient-centered care and holistic, unharmful ways to help people heal. Grief Recovery and Reiki have been my saving graces.
AN INVITATION:
Have a story of holistic healing of something specific that worked for you? I’d love to hear from you. Or, do you know of any medical studies that have followed medicated children well into adulthood? I’d be interested in hearing about that, too. If you’re a researcher who has dug into this matter, even better – I want you on my podcast. Reach out to me via the links below.
RESOURCES:
- Ep 43 | Brianne Davis
- Ep 44 | Jordan Brodie
- Jordan Brodie / BE YOUR SELFIE BRACELET
- Helping Children With Loss
- Grief Recovery
Hello, and thank you so much for tuning in to grieving voices today. This is Episode 45, takeaways and reflections on episodes 43 with Brianne Davis, and Episode 44, with Jordan Brody. And I can’t believe I’m nearing 50 episodes already, this has been quite the ride. It’s been quite the learning experience as well. And if you’ve been following along since the beginning, which will be a year in June, I thank you for being here. And if you are a new listener, there is a whole lot of content to catch up on amazing stories of overcoming some really difficult and challenging times for people. And what I love about doing this podcast is it exposes me to people of all walks of life who have a very different experience than for me. And it really just helps me open up my perspective. To all the ways grief really touches people and shows up in our lives. And so I thank you for being here and honoring people and their stories by listening to them, it means a lot to me. And I know, it means a lot to the listeners because they just want to help as well. They are sharing their stories because they want to help others and really share the message that there is hope because so many of my guests have found their way out of the depths of grief, no matter how it touched them.
And if you have been listening along, you will notice that the sound quality has greatly improved on my end. It started out good. But the laptop I had the fan noise was just getting horrible. And I had it cleaned and I did all these things that I thought would be would take care of the problem. And I I just had to surrender to the fact that the laptop was indeed not going to give me the quality for this podcast that I wanted. And you know, this podcast does not pay me. I do it out of it’s a labor of love. And I feel like it’s really meaningful. It’s really meaningful to me and it’s meaningful work and so I did replace my laptop and I actually went to the dark side I’ve been PC my entire life and I am now Mac and I have not looked back put it that way. I absolutely love it. And can’t believe I’ve been it took me a long time like I’ve been the last three PCs I’ve had I contemplated getting a Mac and I just I stayed with the PC. It was a fearful jump for me. But yeah, I’m so glad I took the leap it’s yeah, it’s made me become helped me become far more efficient, actually to in editing and all of that. So I hope you appreciate the sound quality as much as I do.
Sex & Love Addiction
Anyway, let’s move on to what I would like to talk about today and that is Brianne and Jordan’s episodes. Brianne had it right in her episode and I used it as a quote graphic because she said you have to dig through your shit to get to your gold, and it’s absolutely true. Going through grief recovery method is a lot like grief mining and Brianne didn’t go through grief recovery. But as you start to dig into one painful aspect of your life, the more you seem to find, and what happens simultaneously is you’re also finding your gold when you do that. And it’s in that process of taking action, and doing something with what you find that you refine what’s painful, into something new. And Brianne had gone through sex and love addicts anonymous because she was really dealing with sex and love addiction. And that helped her when she needed it most. And she said it took her actually quite a few years to get through all 12 steps because it is you know, like alcoholics anonymous, it is a 12 step program. And I had no idea such a thing existed actually, until I virtually met Brianne for my podcast. But as you’ll hear in her conversation, our conversation in Episode 43 her struggles went deeper than being addicted to love. Trauma had left a scar on her heart and, and grief was what was left.
And I think for many who have experienced sexual trauma as a child can relate to Brianne’s story. It’s a theme I’ve seen play out in many conversations I’ve had with people on this podcast, and it’s also more prevalent than people realize. In the US per 2015 data shared by the organization darkness to light whose mission is to end sexual child abuse. One in 10 children will be sexually abused before their 18th birthday, 60% of child abuse victims never tell anyone. And nearly 70% of all reported sexual assaults, including those on adults occur to children 17 and under. I am one in 10. Brianne is one in 10. And sadly, I know others who are also one in 10. Trauma is what happens in grief is what’s left.
And you may not know this, but April was National Child Abuse Prevention Month. And so I feel it’s fitting that the organization I’m choosing to donate to for a portion of the proceeds from my business for the second quarter will go to darkness to light. And if you want to learn more information about them, you can head to www.d2l.org. And I’ll put that in the show notes as well. So free after the second quarter I will be donating to that organization. The first quarter if you did not know I donated to veterans fund the fund the Fisher House in North Dakota, which is where I live there’s a the veterans Fisher House basically, when my dad was sick with cancer back in the late 80s. He was being treated at the VA because he was a Vietnam Veteran. And he had his colon surgery there and all and things and so but as a family we there was nowhere to stay. And so I remember just being there one time, but I you know we it was we were separate I was with, you know, family, friends, a family and things to stay with because for a lot of my childhood because that’s where he received his treatment and care. And so I’m was ecstatic to learn that they’re building this house near the VA facility so that the loved ones and service members and people can stay while they’re receiving treatment together as a family, much like a Ronald McDonald House. This is for veterans. And so I really made a meaningful donation to me, it was meaningful to me, I made that donation for the first quarter. And it felt really good to be able to do that. And so I want to continue to do that. And so and I will continue to do that. So second quarter, it will go to darkness to light which again is a very personal and meaningful mission for me as well.
Trauma As A Child | Sexually Abused As A Child
And so anyway, if and I know that the digging in part isn’t easy, but it is necessary if you want to truly put the past behind you otherwise you might as well be driving while looking in the rearview mirror, as I did for many years, your past is your present until you take action to discharge and change the emotions around what happened to you. And if you need support in doing that, or your child does, please reach out to me. And if you don’t know, I facilitate a helping children with loss program online, in a group setting that in that arms, the adults in the child’s life with knowledge and tools to help the child address and articulate their grief. We are born knowing how to grieve, show and share emotion. It is our surroundings that teach us differently. And when we know better, we can do better. Episode with Brianne knows a lot. There’s a lot more to it than just about the trauma as a child and the sex and love addiction. I mean, the story there is much deeper. And it’s really how we look to the outside how we look outside of ourselves to validate our worth. And she said, you know, if the people in your life bring drama, and don’t show up for you, then there’s a problem. And she that’s when she started to really investigate and dig into, really what was the problem. And she really started to discover what was behind this addiction of needing somebody in her life all the time. And she grew up very confident in her mom, she said that her mom had instilled in her this drive and this, you know, you don’t take no for an answer.
And, and I think this persona that she took on, was kind of her armor to protect herself again, because she had been sexually abused as a child. And so if, I’m the one in control, if I’m in the driver’s seat, then it’s my choice, what happens next. But what I have come to learn for myself is that when we put on this armor, and we, you know, find these coping mechanisms to protect ourselves, in the context of relationships, we really have a false connection with people, we think we’re really deeply connected with people, but we are really hiding parts of ourselves. Because I really think too, you lose a part of yourself as well, like you kind of and you have to shed that old skin just like Brianne talks about she said, I had to shed my old skin, this old persona. And I think it’s really getting back to who she was. Like all of us, like when we experienced trauma, painful, challenging things, grief in our lives. It’s really getting back to who we were before that. But not to go back to that to really become version 2.0 of that a more evolution. I love an evolution of the spirit of who you were before that happened. And I think this is the journey of life, right? This is, this is life, it’s, you know, your shits gonna knock you down, and it’s going to change you, it’s going to morph you into something new. And either we have a choice, either we become malleable and we allow it to work through us and within us or we resist that shit. Like it’s the plague. Like it’s the pandemic, right? Like we, we fight it and we drink away, whatever we’re feeling we drug away whatever we’re feeling.
And unfortunately, that is the answer for for in many cases, too. Let’s just put a pill on it. Let’s put a pill on it. And just, yeah, we’ll address the symptoms, but we’re not going to address the pain. That is the problem I see so much that has been come up in a lot of conversations lately, actually, in a lot of podcast conversations is that this idea and I’ll get to that with Jordan because I get a little bit fired up about it really. But please listen to Brianne’s story because there’s more to it than that. What you may think I think you know, she is a Hollywood star but there’s more to it. We all put our pants on the same way. And that’s really why too I wanted to have her on is that we we’re all human experiencing very human things. And that doesn’t change, where we who we are, where we come from our ethnicity, our spiritual beliefs, religious beliefs, or political beliefs. You know, grief doesn’t care. Grief does not care. And so that’s why I really want to invite anyone, from any background to come on this podcast to share their story. I don’t care where you’re from, what your beliefs are, because we all grieve. And that’s, that’s full stop. You know, full stop. So please listen to her episode, I’m sure there’s something you can glean from her story.
Just Be Yourself
The running theme through Episode 44, with Jordan Brodie. Really, the message is to be yourself. And for many years, he’s struggled with that. And actually, since we aired his episode, he came out with a bee or selfie bracelet, which I’ll put in the show notes. But Jordan’s life was filled with many challenges of him coming to who he is today where he can truly be himself. And if you spend 10 minutes with him, you know that, who Jordan is, when he’s in private, and is who you get in person, like he is the epitome of authenticity, to me if I’ve ever seen it, but I understand that wasn’t always the case for him. He grew up knowing he was different. He was gay, and his father was very supportive of him. And his, he actually grew up as a child with a deaf parent, they call them coders and struggled with addiction from a very young age. And I talked about this, I had a post on my Instagram about this, because I’ve seen this theme play out several times on this podcast with guests. So part of their story is that they were, you know, put on medication and again, to treat the symptoms, not that not the problem. And I’ve heard this story told differently in various stages of life so many times. And I personally had an experience of this myself when I was struggling with postpartum on top of grief. But that was never addressed. It was, well, let’s just try and fix band aid your symptoms because they’re not fixing the symptoms, really, they’re just band dating the symptoms, band dating, that’s not a word, putting a bandaid on the symptoms. And part of my post was talking about how white coats not all are quick to prescribe a pill rather than truly assess whether that is the most viable and best option for the patient.
And when it comes to children, who obviously don’t have a voice in the in the scenario and aren’t given the choice or option themselves, parents trust that they’re being given all of the information, you know, the impact and the side effects and in the just cause for putting the child on these brain altering medications. And I bring this up because Jordan even said, this was his quote, he said, therapist put me on drugs as an eight year old to treat my symptoms. But they never asked me questions about my emotional pain. And this really gets me riled up because I see this so many times. And for probably, I mean, as many times that this happens to adults, this is happening to children who are seemingly, you know, especially with ADHD, or their trouble child, or they’re causing fights or they’re disrupting the classroom or whatever, but it’s like what’s going on at home? What these are the questions that are so quickly glazed over are why is the child behaving in this way? What has happened to this child that could be contributing to the behavior, how has what has or is happening? impacting the child, and who suffers if this course of action has dire consequences or a poor outcome, right? I could go on and on. But my friends grief in children causes children to behave in much of the same way adults behave, angry outbursts, rage even depressive episodes, isolation struggles with peers, trouble connecting with others, social anxiety, suicidal ideation, which is getting younger and younger, self harm, addictive behaviors, whether it be to substances or not, I mean, it can be addicted to your phone or social media or addicted to.
Child’s Addiction
There’s so many things with children to food, children can become addicted to food, it’s these are not foreign things that we are unaware of, we look at these things like these are adult behaviors, but really, they’re in and really what is adulthood, but childhood reenactment. So things that you resort to as a child very well are things that you were looking to as an adult. So what is often prescribed to cure grief? Because that’s what these children are often experiencing at the root of it, right? Like, just like Jordan, the root of his the issue, the problems that were manifesting in his life and the struggles he was having the root of it was grief. So what’s the cure a pill? No, it’s not. No, it’s not. Please listen to Jordan’s episode and really hear towards the end how he shares that he is no longer on medication. So did all of those previous his previous diagnosis is disappear? Or could he have been misdiagnosed in the first place? Just imagine for a moment how different society would look at grief if it was no longer medicalized, and rather approached it for what it is a normal and natural experience of the heart. Seriously, this really, I get really worked up about this because especially with children’s brains, which are rapidly growing and developing, like, the last thing we should just be so quick to do is to put a pill on it, to which alter, truly alter the personality of the child. And really the brain is what I’ve been starting to dig into the neuroscience of it is how, how our brains actually adapt to our environment, like they develop as a response to our environment.
So imagine now, a medicated child’s brain and how that brain has to adapt and change because of that medication. Now, what are the long term lasting effects of that? What is the long term impact of that? That’s an interesting study I would love to hear about or read about or find is that being studied? I don’t know are they following children who are put on these medications as a young child and into adulthood? A long term study of the impacts of these drugs I would love to know anyone have anything on that? Please share it with me send it to me via email [email protected]. I would love more information on this if someone knows of it. It just occurred to me that maybe there’s a study on this and I’m very fascinated by it. So please share if you know of something. But heading into his teen years, Jordan talked about how on top of the drugs rather, I mean, really on top of the drugs I mean, he started using alcohol to turn off the trauma in his brain so really was what was the medication doing? What was the medication doing it was addressing the symptoms but it was not curing the problem, right? just drives me crazy. And I think many adults can relate to being that teen that started to experiment with drugs and alcohol and and as we shared during the episode is like and he said to it’s like you don’t just because you don’t drink from 10 to two every day doesn’t mean you don’t have a problem. And that was odd. She drank from 10 to two every single day and she died ultimately died of her addiction.
Addiction on Alcohol
And he also had another relative died of liver failure from alcohol from alcohol. All addiction. But we often don’t think that this you know, every so often, binge drinking is a problem. And I, you know, it’s very common in my state of North Dakota with teens, especially as this weekend warrior, you know, pattern of behavior that starts as in the teen years and really continues into adulthood for many, many people, when there’s not a lot to do what a kids do, you know, go to parties that drinking whatever. And I’m just as guilty of that, and, but for me, there was a lot of grief in my childhood to to my teen years. And I knew someone who was drinking at a very young age and, and really couldn’t even take a shower without having beer in with them in the shower. That’s so young. And again, that’s on that’s, that’s the developing brain yet, that is being exposed to the toxins of alcohol. And it’s like, I think some adults think of this, like, it’s a rite of passage, you know, I did it, they’re gonna probably do it, too. And that’s, I mean, yeah, that’s probably the case. But are you really, this is where we need to really look at the education behind what, what is the impact of alcohol on the brain? Like, how does this change? Like? How does this change the chemistry of the brain? Again, something else I’m just really fascinated by if if our brains develop and grow, too, as a, as a result of our environment, as a result of what we’re putting in our bodies and things like that, so and of trauma, right of trauma, grief, all of that. But he talked about being on these drugs as a young age. And then as he grew older, you know, resorting to alcohol, and, you know, if you are doing these things on the weekend, you know, you’re a weekend warrior, is it where your life is becoming unmanageable? Is Your Life unmanageable when you do this.
And that was me, that was me, I couldn’t function for like two days, I would get so sick. And I realized I had a moment of clarity, just this lightning bolt of clarity. Why do I need this? Why do I do this? And that was a question that I really dug into and journaled on. And I didn’t need it. And if I didn’t need it, then why can’t I go without it? And people might say, Well, I don’t need to drink. Well, then why do you? Why do you? You know, well, it’s to be social. Well, then you call yourself a social drinker, which is what I did, I was a social drinker. And I put that in air quotes, social drinker. But I didn’t know when to stop. And I felt and still feel sometimes I get some social anxiety I get, I don’t feel comfortable in some certain environments. And I feel like I need to, I did feel like I wasn’t comfortable in my own skin, first and foremost. And I felt like I had to do that in order to really let myself relax, and have a good time. Because who I really am at my core, I was kind of literally drowning out with alcohol, because I wasn’t complete. It wasn’t comfortable showing who I really am. And that’s a person who is enjoys deep conversation and really deep connection with one on one with people. And oftentimes, that’s uncomfortable because it brings up stuff for us. But the more I started to address that within myself, the more comfortable I become with other people because the more comfortable I am in my own skin, the more comfortable I can be around people who are in theirs, and maybe uncomfortable in theirs, right?
Having a Radical Self-Love
And so there’s a lot of depth to Jordan’s episode and it really comes down to Jordan having radical self love for himself and really doing what needed to be done in order to tend to his own heart with a lot of therapy, a lot of inner work. He’s lost a lot along the way. It started with his best friend who took him to his first aim. Eating, and ultimately who he had to say goodbye to because he died of an overdose. And a week after we recorded his episode, his brother also died of an overdose, and even expressed concern over his brother during our episode. And so as you listen to his episode, which I hope you do, just energetically send him your love and light, and just really this positive energy towards him for sharing his story. So courageously and bravely for the first time ever, on grieving voices anywhere, actually. And I just see so much love just pouring out of him, for people for humanity. And I think he’s only getting started. He’s just getting started. He’s a beautiful human being. And it was just such an honor to have him on my podcast, I really loved our conversation, so much so that he’s going to come back for a second episode. And kind of like a follow up and an update, where are things now with him?
And how are things going and you know, after losing his brother, too, as well, and just how he’s channeling the grief that he’s been walking through and what he’s doing with that, and how he’s working through it, and, and all of that, being someone who’s a recovering addict to, you know, still having losses that are happening and not falling trap to those old patterns and ways of behavior that really only bring on more, more pain. Yeah, and he even said, traumas cause us to separate ourselves. And they do, they do. And they stack up, they stack up as well. And so it’s doing the inner work that has helped him to stay out of to keep himself really from falling back into that trap.
P.S. I hope you learn something from this episode and If you find it helpful and informative please share it because Sharing is Caring. And If you want to know the Helping With Children Loss Program you can visit my website www.theunleashedheart.com And remember, when you unleash your heart, you unleash your life. Much love.