Divorce, Fibromyalgia & Healing the Inner Child The Truth About Trauma Recovery
In this interview, host Alex welcomes Dr. Mona Ali, a university professor and founder of Inner Shift Embodied Therapy, to discuss her personal journey from severe chronic illness to holistic trauma healing and how she now helps women navigate post‑divorce recovery. Dr. Ali recounts a 2017 health crisis where doctors warned her of imminent organ failure, prompting her to abandon a life of relentless work and seek deeper healing. She links long‑standing trauma—childhood abuse, multiple divorces, domestic violence—to chronic conditions such as fibromyalgia, migraines, fatigue, burnout, anxiety, perfectionism, and dissociation, emphasizing that 95% of chronic illnesses have trauma roots. The conversation explores how trauma manifests physically and psychologically, the importance of recognizing patterns (e.g., chronic pain, resentment, emptiness, procrastination) as signals for unresolved wounds, and the danger of staying in a victim mindset. Dr. Ali outlines her integrative therapeutic toolbox—somatic therapy, NLP, root‑cause (Kūtro) therapy, breathwork, meditation, hypnosis—and describes practical, gradual steps for reclaiming body awareness, setting boundaries, and rebuilding self‑worth. She stresses small, consistent actions (joyful solo activities, sensory grounding, boundary visualizations) to reconnect with the body before confronting external relationships. Finally, she offers free resources: a “How to Get Unstuck in 4 Steps” ebook, a complimentary consultation, healing circles, and a 5‑day self‑discovery challenge, inviting listeners to explore alternative pathways to thriving beyond mere survival.
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Hello, heroines! This is Alex, and we are back again with another interview, just bringing you resources and knowledge on your journey of recovering and thriving, actually, after divorce or uncoupling. And today I have the lovely Dr. Mona Ali with me to share her story, to share what she does. So let's just get started with the basics. First of all, welcome.
Thank you.
And why don't you share? Yeah, I'm— we're happy to have, to have you here as well. So if you can just share, you know, where you're from and what you do, we'll take it from there.
Of course, happy to do so. Thank you for the space, and thank you for the time, and thank you for the lovely members of your group listening in. My name is Mona Ali. I live in Alberta, Canada. And I work as a university professor. I'm also a founder of Inner Shift Embodied Therapy. I specialize in holistic trauma healing and life transition coaching.
Trauma healing. I love hearing trauma healing because I feel like so much of what we go through in life is because we don't deal with with our own, our own stuff. So tell us a little bit about your story and how you came about doing this work.
Of course, I would be happy to. Allow me to start with asking a question that I usually ask the listeners, that most of the time actually my story resonates when people have a shared story to my story. So my question is for the listeners: how many times have you mustered to say, "I am fine," while most likely every cell in your body is just screaming for help and saying, "No, I am not fine"?
Well, I don't know about our audience, but I can tell you I have.
I have as well for a very long time, and almost every client I worked with, they had as well. You know, pushing through these sleepless nights, painkillers, migraines, gut issues, stress, and convincing ourselves for some time in our life that This is what life is about, you know, this is life. Then until one day your body can force you just to stop if you are not listening in. And this was me in 2017, after years of pushing through pain and multiple breakdowns and multiple chronic illnesses, and I refused to listen and just keep pushing. The doctor's verdict was, "Mona, you must retire before you reach 40." I was 37 at the time. "And bring in home care. Your immune system is shutting down completely. It's attacking your organs without, basically without mercy, and we need to intervene and shut down your immune system just so you can live few years." years more. Basically, the choice was you take the pills, we shut down the immune system, you live few years with care at home with no life, or you don't take the pill and you're, uh, you are facing death just a little bit quicker. This was my choice.
It's amazing, like, how black and white doctors make it, right? When it's anything but black and white.
Yes, but I think at this time, Alex, I was really in need to hear this because I started the journey of chronic illnesses since 2007. I started with cancer. Chronic illnesses built up. I was going through doing operations for cancer and then finishing my operation, do recovery, and then go back to work. I was working 7 to 7. I was working weekends. I was just not listening to anything and my body was collapsing and I kept not listening. So I felt at that moment that my body has no choice, but you need to listen or die.
Yeah, that resonates. I have that on a smaller scale and from the perspective that I work, work, work, work, work. Until I get a migraine, and then I'm like, okay, I gotta take a rest, and then I go back, yeah, and then I take a rest. And then, so it's, um, smaller scale, but I know very well what you're going through or what you're describing.
Yeah, exactly. And I, I met so many women who actually did. Now, what I haven't been listening in was a series of emotional wounds that I carried for over 35 years. Since my childhood, things like childhood abuse, then multiple divorces and toxic relationships, domestic violence in marriage. So I lived through it. And on the outside, actually, it is very shiny, you know, a university professor and working in computer science. Actually, before all of the psychotherapy journey, I specialized in computer science. I go to conferences, I do keynote speaking, I travel the world, I lived in 5 continents. So anyone who knows me from the outside thinks like, wow, this is, this is a life. But this is what's happening in the shadows. Now I decided at that moment that this is not how my life is gonna end, that I'm not gonna die in this way. That was a decision I took. And this is when my healing journey started, learning more about all the different, like, how can I heal my body holistically using different techniques? So from somatic therapy, from, I used the neurolinguistic programming, I used the Kūtro root cause therapy, I used a blend And I studied this blend of modalities in psychotherapy just so I can attend to the different wounds that happen on different parts of my life. Fast forward to today, I take no daily pills. I thrive in my work and my health, and I feel that I have unlocked the thriving more than— and I just forgot about surviving. Anymore. This is basically, Alex, what I guide people through today. So I guide them to be able to uncover the emotional weight they have been ignoring, unpack the hidden limiting beliefs that keep them stuck, and heal these root causes of the suffering rather than just masking the pain.
So when you work with women, um, there is a part of it is obviously the physical representation of what's happening, where the trauma, um, you know, uh, Bessel van der Kolk says, you know, the body keeps the score. Yeah. So there's physically, right, the physical representation. What are some other ways in which trauma manifests that people need to really pay attention to as something that needs to be addressed?
That's an excellent question, Alex. I love this question. A few things actually, and they happen to many of us, and I usually tell people that if you find that there is a pattern in any of that, this is your message that there is a trauma that needs resolution. So any type of illness that is chronic is the underlying problem in 95% of the time. Research says it is attached to some childhood trauma or some trauma that is attached to past relationships that has long-standing for a very long time. So this is on the illnesses in the body. Like, these illnesses can even be like migraines, like fatigue, consistent fatigue. I suffered from fibromyalgia, and the research says that almost 85% of women on the planet suffer from fibromyalgia, and they are very attached. The reason, because it has no— fibromyalgia have no— it's a chronic pain, had no cure to date. But the research shows in psychotherapy that it is 95% of the time it is attached to childhood trauma in women. Now, 1 in every 3 women has fibromyalgia. 1 in 6 men can have fibromyalgia. It's like the percentage is huge between the two. We carry a lot of the trauma in our bodies and we learn through the time to actually silence ourself. Now this is part of what I teach my clients to break, like the silence and to have the voice coming out. Because once the voice coming out, you release a lot. Other signs to look for: burnout, like you consistently burn out. You change jobs. I change jobs and I consistently burn out even in every job I take. Stress. That never goes away. Uh, you feel that you are withdrawn from your social life. Um, you feel that you have resent— resentment, um, for any— like, you resent your— some of your family, some of your friends. You have resentment feeling for actions from people constantly. High temper, high anger. Other symptoms you also look for, things like the— you, you feel empty and void inside. Like, you know, when everything looks fine on the surface but something is missing all the time, something is not there, and you don't feel fulfilled in your life or what you do every day. There is a lot more, but usually people come to me when they say I am just tired of how things are and I want to change them. I'm not sure how, I just know that now I need to change things. Also, you, like, I personally found that because I work through childhood trauma and sexual abuse, it is this perfectionism I suffered from perfection. I'm a recovering perfectionist, actually. So perfectionism is a big sign that you have had a big traumatic event in your life and the nervous system is on a threat mode. It is in a high alert. Yes. So these are the things that usually people come with and they say, oh, I am procrastinating. Procrastination is another one. It depends if your trauma is living on a fight or flight or freeze in your body and how it is manifesting. People who are always busy and pretending to be busy all the time, and if they are not pretending, they keep themselves busy all the time just because they don't want to settle in. Settling in will put the nervous system in, uh, in a threat mood. So let me get busy so I'm not thinking about that. That's all symptoms.
That's amazing because it's, you know, I figured the physical symptoms, right, makes complete sense, but I hadn't really considered that chronic stress or anxiety or, you know, things like that would also be symptoms, let's say, of trauma kind of manifesting.
Yeah, and it is important to just to distinguish here. Having anxiety on its own is a natural response for the system. It is when it's happened constantly and it's a pattern, like you feel panicking and anxiety from almost anything, like anything happened, you go in this. This is like your nervous system is exhausted from being in this threat form. And because whatever trauma have happened hasn't been released correctly at the time it has happened. So you lived years accumulating this. So there is a difference between the normal reactions that we have to have and how regular they appear in our life.
Yeah, and thank you for making that distinction because it's true that we all experience stress every day, we all have anxiety every day, but it's when it reaches that critical state of, you know, it's healthy stress and anxiety does this, Right? Because it's situation-specific, whether you have to do a presentation or you have to go talk to the boss or a difficult conversation with your husband or whatever. Right? But when it does this, that's, that's the problem.
Yes, 100%.
So when you think about your personal experience in terms of what you went through with divorce, what would you say the biggest lesson was that, um, that you learned from, from going through that, that you think might help our heroines on their journey?
Um, I love this question. Now, what I learned is that I played a big part in, like, um, playing the victim in my life for a very long time was part of my trauma. Many of us have a secondary gain, like when you, when you live in a relationship where there is domestic violence and your partner is basically abusing you verbally, physically, in whatever way, and you still live in that without standing out for yourself, this is a secondary gain. So there is something that you basically are punishing yourself feeling that I deserve this. This indicates that there is something that have happened in your life way earlier, since probably you were a kid, maybe at school, maybe at home, that have imprinted in you that you are not worthy of good life. So you accept that as a sort of punishment. And you just keep re-imprinting to yourself that, yeah, you know, this is the best I can get. I'm like, yeah, this person shouldn't really treat me well because I don't deserve a well treatment. That was me in part of my life as well. And what I learned is that anytime you feel like the victim, you feel that I'm just, you know, poor me, I am suffering all of this. It is a message that your system is sending you that there is something deeper for you to look for. There is something deeper for you to heal from. Because you are, we all are the best creatures that are created on Earth. We are pure love. This is how we born to be. Now life happened, this happened, but I learned that it is never me. I participate by believing the low self-esteem and the low confidence and the low that I don't deserve. And I learned that every time I am not sure about something, I dig deeper into where this hesitant is coming from, like what happened there. Now, you don't do this on a daily basis because it's exhausting for sure to do it. But especially when something big, when someone is insulting you, basically is like treating you really bad. Why are you listening to this? Which part of you have learned that I am not good enough?
And that this is okay.
And that says it's okay. And sometimes when I work with my clients in my practice, they don't necessarily come with, "I'm not good enough," but they come with something like, in terms of relationships, that I feel like I'm, you know, my boundaries are violated all the time. I don't have a voice at home. I want to tell him how I feel, but I just really can't. And I just don't want to upset him. And then, you know, over the sessions, it's something like, you know, I have seen my mom, you know, my dad has been treating my mom this way, and I have seen my mom, this is how she survived. Or my mom told me that, you know, you know what, you need to do that, otherwise it will turn into physical violence. So we are the victims for some time because we were younger. But then once you are in a space where you actually wanted to have this conversation with your inner system and you say, thank you so much, you have served me, served me to survive long enough. I am now choose differently and I wanted to approach things in a different way. Come with me on this new journey and you step into it. It doesn't need to be massive steps, but it just need to be gradual enough that you return back home to yourself. That's, that's the journey.
And it's a journey that takes time. You know, it's not something like you said that happens overnight. It's nothing that happens with like big fireworks and the whole— there, it's the little, the little things and the little step that we take where we have the courage to stand up for ourselves. And to speak her truth, really.
Yeah. And with my clients, sometimes it takes— like, it doesn't— so sometimes it takes a start with them that try and find time for yourself. So basically, when, like, try to find something joyful that you really love to do, and in your spare time or in the time that your partner is not around, the kids are not around, you go and do it, you know, go and have a cup of coffee with a book, if this is something that you like, and just enjoy this 1 hour in the day, whatever it is. What we are doing here is that we are bringing the senses, because when you live in trauma for so long, you disassociate from yourself, you disassociate from your body so you can survive. And what we are doing with those simple actions, you basically trying to feel your boundaries in your body again. Again, you go back associating. You feel in the meditation, for instance, when I do meditation with the women I work with, I physically ask them to sit on the floor and create how their boundaries look like around their body, physically put something to say, these are my boundaries. And when you speak to your kids, for instance, let them know that when mommy is in this space, I don't want anyone to step in. The space. So do it in a way that gradually makes sense for you to go back to yourself without fear, to have a taste of what it is like to actually feel my breath in my body, where it is going. When we do the breathwork, or when I do a hypnosis with, with some of my clients, I travel with them in their body so they can start gaining sense of their hands, their feet, the parts that they sometimes they don't like and they don't love parts of the body initially. This inner work does not include that you have to go and step up and say something to somebody. It's just something that you start doing privately so you build this I am here, I am grounded, I know my boundaries, I know where I am, I am in peace in myself before we can build into, okay, let's have a conversation and how this conversation looks like.
You basically learn to take up space again.
Yes, absolutely. I love this. You nailed it. Yes.
Okay, no, that's good, that's good. So anything that you think is important for our heroines to know that we haven't talked about yet before we sign off?
Um, I would just invite two things. First of all, um, I will share just with your group here, I will share a free resource, How to Get Unstuck in 4 Steps. You can do it at your home. And just because today I value so much the invitation from you, Alex, and your community, when you download this ebook, at the end of it, you will have an invitation if it resonates to book a free consultation. I usually have my consultations are paid, but this is my gift to you. This is a free consultation just to talk and see what's going on if you feel you are ready to do that. This is one thing. So the Get Stuck and Unstuck, how to do this, and inside the ebook you will find guided steps. You will find me guide you through what sensation to look for in your body and how to deal with them. And the other thing is, if any of what our discussion brought, brought today, if any of it resonates not necessarily reach out to me. Of course, I would be happy to reach out to you or connect with you, but I would just invite you to explore what else is possible for you outside of, you know, if we don't do a different action, we don't expect a different outcome. Just have the curiosity of what else could happen. If I choose differently or done something different. And also to make it easier for a transition, I hold the healing circles group. As you know, Alex, you are welcome to come in. I'm also holding a free 5-day challenge for self-discovery and reconnection with yourself. We currently in day 2 in this challenge and we running it in a very small group, very intimate group. Basically just a space for you to breathe and exhale and get reconnection. If this is something you would enjoy to do, let Alex know or put in the comments, and I will be happy to invite you as well. Just really any step at your own time will be brilliant to take. Thank you so much for listening in.
Oh, thank you so much for sharing your wisdom and coming over here to just spend some time with us. Um,
