DO THIS Every Day To Heal Trauma WITHOUT Medication (Change Everything) | Dr. Mariel Buque

When we're in a nervous system response and that's, you know, survival mode, you're in a chronic nervous system overhaul, right? So whenever we are in a fight, flight, freeze or fawn, any non essential functions, any non essential, like organ functions, bodily functions, all of that is mildly shut down. And if your cortical brain is not fully functioning in the ways that it, because it's in survival mode, then you're not really going to get into that.

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The School of Greatness.

Really? Yeah.

Please welcome Lewis Howes.

A lot of people are afraid to go back into the stories of their past. They're afraid to face the pain, the traumas that they're aware of, and also to face the things they're unaware of, the generational traumas. Why is it so hard for us to face these past traumas and pains?

It's hard for a number of reasons. I mean, I think that a lot of what makes it hard is that people start feeling really unsafe in their own bodies whenever they're talking about trauma. Trauma is like that area of mental health that we're still a little bit tentative about touching in conversation. And so it makes it so that people don't necessarily want to get into the nitty gritty of, of not only trauma and understanding what trauma is, but also like how trauma impacts their own lives, how trauma transcends down their lineage, how trauma has been a part of their lives. Because people will exist in trauma but then have a tough time even acknowledging that it even is a thing.

So what would you say is the percentage of people that Exist in trauma in us.

Oh, goodness. Well, I mean, I saw not too long ago, like this statistic, I think it can be variable because we gotta acknowledge the fact that some people won't actually acknowledge that they're in trauma or know that they're in trauma. Right? So, but the statistics says somewhere around like 65 or so percent in a lifetime. So we, like someone will. 65% of the population in the US will experience trauma in their lifetime. Some element of trauma. Now you layer in a pandemic, all.

Right, how many people actually face their trauma of the 65%, you know, now.

We'Re talking like really, really tiny numbers, like Little Mountain, because we have to acknowledge that people are also not in the know that they're existing in trauma. People believe that the way that they're experiencing their emotions is status quo.

It's the way it's supposed to be. It's the way I am.

That's all they know. They've never been taught otherwise. What they've seen in their families has been a representation of trauma responses, and it's never been anything unlike what they experience in their day to day. So for them to actually even get to the point of saying, I have trauma in my life, oh, I have something to work on, or I can commit to actually working on this, I don't have to exist in trauma is really unheard of for a lot of people.

What are the levels of trauma? Is it like low level trauma versus a high level trauma? What are the differences and how can we identify, oh, I think I'm experiencing trauma in my body right now?

Well, you know, I think we have to like define trauma. Right? So trauma is basically an acute emotional response to a life event that is extremely stressful. Sometimes that life event is threatening to your physical safety. Sometimes it's threatening to your psychological safety, sometimes both. And so we can understand, okay, this is what trauma is.

It's an emotional response.

It's an emotional response to an event that is extremely stressful.

So it's like. So it's a trigger. You know, it's like if someone says something in your space and you're like, oh, that triggered me. I don't like that feeling. I don't like what they said. I don't like what they did or their actions. There's an event happening in the world. Your response to it is emotionally charged. Is that what I'm hearing you say?

Correct. It's emotionally charged, and it's correct. It's also directly connected to your nervous system. So when people Say I'm triggered. What they're saying is some aspect of my experience is in Fight Flight Freezer Fun. Yes, that's what they're saying. And if I'm in a trauma response, it's your behavioral response to being in Fight, Flight Freezer Fun.

Yeah. You could be reactive or screaming and you'd be like avoiding. Exactly.

The freeze is like dissociating, disconnecting from your environment and really being in that protective like mental space and then collapsing completely.

Is the fawn response or numbing? Right. It's like people do a lot of numbing. Which drugs, alcohol or addictions of any site?

All of it.

Over the last few years, I've really said to myself, I would love to be able to be in the world and look at every event as a neutral event. As there are things happening. I may not like it or agree with it, or I may like it or agree with it. Kind of looking at it as a neutral event and seeing how can I consciously communicate something about the event to get a result. My goal has been in the last few years is to figure out how can I look at the world as events are happening but not letting them affect me emotionally. Yes, I'm going to be affected by things, but not letting me hold me back, let's say from taking action in my life, from being a good partner, my relationships, from taking care of my health. That's been kind of my goal. It's a great goal because I used to grow up feeling very triggered by so many things and then I would be stuck in bed or I wouldn't take action on the things I wanted. Events would consume me, events would hurt me, events would trigger me or people would do those things. If someone would cut me off, I would scream in the car. I would be so triggered. It was like, I have to beat this person or something. And I tell you what, by practicing this, and it's been doing a lot of self reflecting, a lot of therapy and a lot of work on myself by practicing this. The world is neutral mindset. Even though it's not. There's a lot of bad things that are happening. It's allowed me to look at it and say, I don't like this, I don't want this to happen in the world, but I'm not going to let it consume me and hold me back from living a peaceful, harmonious life. And that's been kind of my goal. It's been very challenging, but I've never felt this much peace in my life. I love that for you And I wonder, is that something we should be thinking about or is that ignorant of me and I should be triggered more by all the life's events and all the people that are around me and just be so emotionally charged and reactive as opposed to. Okay, I see this for what it is. How can I respond from a conscious way?

Yeah, I mean, I think that it's a. It's a goal that we should all aim to strive for. Like, I think it's a goal that I definitely share with you. I would. Yeah, absolutely. You know, the only thing that. The caveat there, right, is that because we're human, because we're designed a certain way, it's not very feasible. Exactly. So, you know, and the thing about that design is that anything that actually looks like a potential threat or even catapults you back into time, like actually reminds you of something that has actually already like threatened your existence in some way, your safety in some way, that that's already going to be something that's going to revamp that emotional energy. And so you're not necessarily going to be in that neutral place. We're not meant to be neutral. Just not designed that way.

It's not being neutral. Here's the thing. I tell my girlfriend this, I say I'm always aware. She's like, how did you know this was happening or this was happening? I'm like, because I'm looking and I'm scanning the world for threats. Right. Like it's my natural state to look for threats, but it's trying to not react from a fearful place. So I want to be aware and present of like not just walk around the street and get hit by a car. I want to look around and be aware and reactive, but then come back to a centered place of peace is the goal.

Yeah. And I think a lot of what you're talking about is having there is like this space between when your nervous system says there's a potential.

Yes, right.

And then there's the space where there's mindful thought and conscious thought and then conscious action that happens thereafter. I think that's where you're talking about.

That's what I'm trying to create. That's what I'm looking to create.

That's very, very doable, very feasible for anybody. Even individuals that have undergone trauma and especially generational trauma.

But the psych. It's more of like the psychological threats and the nervous system threats is what I'm hearing you say is what are challenging for a lot of people. It's like Something happens, an event happens, and it triggers our memory. Right? A memory from a traumatic experience.

Yes.

But what if we remove the memory? What would happen then? Would we be reactive and triggered?

Well, you know, I think you're talking about a bit about how we can reconfigure even, like our cellular memory to actually respond less to what could have been triggering in the past. Because we have so many different variations of memory. We have olfactory memory, like the scent memory. There's so many ways in which our senses can produce triggers for us.

Isn't that interesting?

Right.

So we have to sound memory.

Sound memory. Yeah. There's a familiar taste and just like brings you right back into childhood. And you're like, wait, something's. Something's like bringing me back into a place that isn't now. Right. And so we have to talk about the ways in which, you know, you reprogram your mind, you reprogram your nervous system to be steady, to feel like it's in a safe place. Even if a memory gets re triggered by way of any of your senses.

I think a lot of people can relate to this with friends, family members, relatives, you know, where like, something from childhood triggers them as an adult. And they haven't figured out how to either heal the memory of the trauma or just be in the environment with people that triggered them so much as a kid growing up. If someone has a relative or someone that's in their environment, in their space that triggers them so much, how do they not kick them out of their life completely, but also create a boundary so that it doesn't affect them with the words they say, with the actions? They have things like that.

There are different variations of how people do that. And that's why I, like, you know, why I love this work so much, because you can be really creative with a client as to what will work for you. Right. Where can you create some elements of a boundary that can also keep you at close proximity to the people that you love? Because you still want to be.

Yeah. You want to be in their life.

Right. And you want to be able to still be unified in some way, but still preserve your energy. Right. In the psychological world, especially in like, dialectical behavioral therapy, we call environments that still embody some of the trauma responses or the chaos, a strong environment. So you're going back into that strong environment that's like immobile, it's inflexible. The trauma responses are embedded in that environment and have been for generations. People just operate that way at home. Right. So the biggest thing that we have to do is not only to train the nervous system to be able to be well in the strong environment. Right. But to train people to hold on to that, because eventually, even if it's microscopic changes, the environment will shift because you'll be showing up differently in your environment. So the environment is going to shift accordingly.

What are a few strategies someone can do to, I guess, work with their nervous system around people that trigger them?

You're talking about jam. This is my space. This is stuff I love.

You know what I mean? How can they shift so. So that the environment shifts?

And I'll preface it this way. This has to be a daily practice. People have to get into the practice of nervous system regulation on a daily basis, especially if they come from a lineage of trauma or if they've experienced trauma just in their lifetime. And the three practices that I like the most, I like them because they're accessible, because you can do them anywhere, and because they actually work. And the three are like breath work. I think people like the saying take a breath has been so widely popularized. Look at you taking a breath. I love that.

I do it all the time.

I do. That's one of my favorite things that I've been able to acquire as I've kind of undergone my own journey, that now, by default, I do that too. And I think it's throughout the day. Yeah. Because it's almost like your body is taking care of you now. Right. Like, you've done all the work to, like, I gotta take care of this body, I gotta take care of this mind. And now it's by default. And that is building mastery. It's like you have mastery over the task of actually doing deep breaths whenever your body needs it.

As opposed to holding it in all the time. Yeah. Or short breaths or holding it in. It's interesting. Okay, so number one, breath work.

Yeah. And breath work, that is at least for five minutes. So the nervous system needs at least that amount of time to actually catch up. And it's important to value breath work, even though, you know, we have so many, like, ways in which it's been, I think, overdone or people just, like, discount it because it's, you know, it's been talked about so much. But the thing about breath work is that eventually your nervous system can't operate in the stress response and in the breathing response simultaneously.

It has to relax.

It's gonna have to. And so you keep it going until you feel that for trauma survivors, it. You know, it can take a little bit longer because There's a lot of undoing, a lot of decades. Right. And so the breath work is going to be key. One of my other favorites are, like, humming, humming also.

So powerful breathing and humming at the same time. This is what they teach in yoga and, you know, deep meditation practices, a.

Lot of chanting practices, utilizing. Yeah. And the om sound.

Right.

Like, really bringing that out actually triggers the parasympathetic nervous response, which is the part of the nervous system that initiates. It's also called, like, a ventral vagal response, which initiates a relaxation process, arrest and recovery for the nervous system. So it's really essential for people to actually do humming. And the same rule applies. Do it until you feel like, okay, I'm in a steady place. One client, one time did so much of the humming after I prescribed it that they're a horse. But, you know, like, I think, you know, that also is a testament to commitment. Right. Like, if you can commit to it, like, do it and do what works. And the third one that I like is rocking.

Rocking back and forth.

Yeah. Because if you think about the rhythmic element of rocking, it actually, like, is almost like, you know, soothing. Yeah, it's soothing. It's like a baby in the womb, you know, you're like, rocking back and forth.

I naturally rock pretty much my whole life, especially when I'm standing. I've never been good at sitting still or standing still, so I naturally just kind of like rock back and forth when I'm standing because otherwise I'll just. It's hard for me to just stand still.

Yeah, yeah.

So breathing at least five minutes a day. But I think just trying to remind yourself throughout the day to take deep, slow, intentional breaths. Humming and then rocking your body. This could be sitting down, it could be standing. It could be laying down as well.

Yeah. And I think for the busy minds and busy. I'm a busy mind, so I think it works for me to do all three.

Yeah, of course.

Yeah. I just integrate it. I do my own thing. You know, I rock, I breathe, I hum. And it's, you know, it allows me to really integrate the practices to get the full effect and to also, you know, just like, my mind is so preoccupied also with making sure that I'm on the technique, that it adds a bit of mindfulness in there because I'm very present centered.

Yeah, that's good. What's the difference between the traumas that happened to us and the generational trauma that happened to our ancestors?

So the major difference is placed in biology. So there's a Genetic component to intergenerational trauma. And so intergenerational trauma has this way in which there is a genetic transmission that happens from parent to child, really. And so it creates a predisposition to vulnerability to stress.

Give me an example. What's a common example you see in your practice that is a generational story?

Well, I mean, you know, there are people that will come in and say, you know, ever since I was a child, it was, like, difficult to soothe. And I was, you know, I had, like, this hyperactivity. There's a lot of trauma survivors that also, like, believe that their symptoms coincide with adhd, because there is a lot of overlap in the experience and in the symptomatology. So there's a lot of that. There's, like, people that reflect back to their childhood, and they say, I've always had this experience that felt like I was always anxious. When we dig into the layers and we dig deep, we start noticing. Okay, especially because I do a lot of family tree work and really going down the lineage to know, well, what are some of the trauma responses or what are some of the responses around also inflammatory responses like depression or anxiety or other kind of, like, mental illness kind of experiences that were held in the family. And when we start going down the family line and we start exploring not only their childhood and how they responded in their childhood, what their attachment patterns were in their childhood, but also how perhaps, like, their mother had an inner child wound and their mother's mother had.

An inner child wound, and they never healed it.

Never healed it expressed it as a trauma response. Yelled and screamed in the home, you know, had, like, emotional outbursts. What did that do? That actually created a disruption in the attachment that you could have had, like, in your childhood. It created an insecure attachment. You then went out into the world and experienced bullying, a pandemic, like, all kinds of things. And then that trauma, that trauma, you know, propensity or vulnerability got triggered out. And so now you are continuing the cycle of intergenerational trauma because it was modeled to you genetically. It was passed down. And then, you know, now, is it.

Is it genetic, or is it. Let's say the mother breaks a cycle before she heals her trauma, the generational trauma, before she has her child, she can. And she creates an environment of peace, you know.

Yeah.

Is it the environment or is it the biology, the genetic code that is passed down? Because it's like these environments are kind of passed down. You witness your parents doing it. You just follow the pattern, and you follow the environment. Pattern.

Yeah.

Is that genetic? Is that environment? What is both or it's both.

It's like, you know, for as long as psychology has existed, we've had like theories on nature. Nurture Darwinism also kind of just started that. Right. Like way back when. So nature being like the biological aspects of our experiences and then nurture being the social aspects of our experiences, and intergenerational trauma is really the only trauma that is situated at the intersection of both. So we have the nature side. Yeah. So on the nature side, the genetic expression, we're getting a lot of information from the field of epigenetics, which helps us understand how behavior impacts genesis. And so basically what happens is that let's say a mother, a mother has stress and depression in her life. Let's say that this mother is actually pregnant at five months gestation. So she's pregnant, she has a baby in utero. And because she's at five months gestation, that baby also has all the precursors sex cells that they're going to have for their lifetime, regardless of the whether it's male or female, they already have those. So the mother, she experienced chronic trauma her entire life. And so because that became the status quo, her genes re expressed. So her genes said, okay, this is the way that things are. We are a stressed body. And so because her genes are now saying we are predisposed to stress, that's being handed down to the baby in utero actually at conception.

Wow.

So the baby is conceived into genesis that are predisposed to stress. And because she is already still stressed while she's having this baby, all those stress hormones, namely cortisol, those are being passed down to the baby in utero. And what's happening to the precursor cells, those are also ingesting a lot of that stress environment. So you have three generations in one body genetically being passed down. The stress vulnerability, but also the social piece, the mother stress. She has all her things going on. She's predisposed to trauma. She's got all these things going while she's still pregnant.

Her environment is still stressful.

Yeah, yeah. And so everybody in that lineage of three generations in one body is experiencing stress.

Is it just three generations or is it like every generation that's had it?

Well, you know, like, I mean, I think it's a little bit of a chicken and egg kind of phenomenon when it comes to intergenerational trauma. Right. Like it's like who started it? Right. But I think I illustrate that because it's, I think, a little bit easier to see, like, oh, well, maybe it started with mom. Maybe she was the person that maybe.

She had an extreme trauma and there was a reaction response.

Exactly right. And so now we at least get to see where the genetic line started from the trauma perspective.

When you think about it that way, you're like, man, I'm carrying the weight of multiple generations of trauma in my genes. Like physical weight, actual weight. That could get a little dark and heavy if you really put the emphasis on that. So how do we actually break that cycle once and for all where none of that trauma stays with us and we don't pass it down to our kids?

It definitely has to be a very like, whole system overhaul for most folks. Like, it has to be an integration of holistic practices in our day to day, daily, every single day, like a.

Daily practice, every day.

Can't waver on it because we gotta think about what we're undoing. We're not just undoing the decades of.

Trauma that you experience.

Yeah, you're undoing all the.

You really need to have a rebirth. It's like a spiritual, psychological, emotional, nervous system rebirth, in my opinion. I feel like I've had a couple of them in the last decade. Ten years ago, kind of opening up about my sexual abuse trauma. And then in the last few years just dealing with all relationships in general, like all intimate relationships that I've had. I've never really faced them until a couple years ago. And I feel like I had to re. I had to emotionally, spiritually die in a sense. Psychologically, I guess.

Absolutely. Yeah.

Allow it to burn and then build from the ashes kind of psychologically. And it's a process. I'm not saying I finished it or whatever, but it's like a constant journey of going back to the different stages, childhood healing each stage and integrating that age with my current self. So there's full integration and healing of every different memory from my life. That was a traumatic response. And it's been a beautiful journey that has allowed me to have peace and harmony on the inside, which I never had that until really 10 years ago. I didn't start feeling it, but until a couple years ago when I started feeling more and more peace on the inside, it allows me to again see the world differently. I'm not saying I'm not triggered by things, but allows me to see it and say, okay, this sucks. How can I consciously communicate what I want to change? Not from a reactive, overwhelmed, stressed, traumatic state, which I feel like you can't really get much done from that state.

No, I mean, you can, you know, you can push things down and numb and still operate, you know, fairly well, but you can survive. All of that will come back because you're in survival mode still. Because numbing is still survival mode.

But you're not thriving, you're not creating an abundant life for yourself when you're in a traumatic response, are we?

No, not at all. I mean, I think, you know, abundance comes from being able to get into the depths of your soul. Right. So I love that you're talking about the more like psychospiritual, because that is definitely. I operate from a holistic angle. And so like a lot of the work that I do is very mind, body, spirit. And the spiritual piece is really essential because it's not, you know, just your, your connection to higher power is really just also your connection to yourself. When you're like really disconnected from your true authentic self, you're not living abundantly.

Yes.

And if we want generational abundance and we have to get into the depths of everything that's there, into the, the mud, if you may.

Yeah. And I think if you're, if you're triggered or have a nervous system to a lot of things, you're constantly in a survival mode.

Right? Yeah.

And it's hard to create an abundant. It's hard to dream from a place of survival. It's hard to create something beautiful from that place.

I mean, it makes a lot of sense even like, you know, from a biological perspective. Like when we're in a nervous system response and that's, you know, survival mode. You're in a chronic nervous system overhaul. Right. So our nervous system is designed to actually make it so that whenever we are in a fight, flight, freeze or fawn, any non essential functions, any non essential, like organ functions, bodily functions, our brain, even like the cortical region of our brain, all of that is mildly shut down. So if you're talking about like alchemizing and creativity and like all these things, those things require a lot of cortical, you know, structure, like manifestation of like, you know, all the things that you want, like really requires for you to get into your creative mind. And if your cortical brain is not fully functioning in the ways that it, because it's in survival mode, then you're not really going to get to that actualization.

It's so interesting because I was in a relationship once where it was a couple years of stress. Right. It's all my responsibility. I should have gotten out, but I stayed in and I wanted to make it Work and all these different things. And I remember for like a year before the relationship, I was like, getting ready to create a book, write a book, and I was excited about it. And then in the relationship, I had no energy to create because a lot of it was survival. In this relationship, it was kind of like, come back home. Is she gonna yell at me? And, you know, what are we managing today? What's the stress level? All these different things. And I kept wanting to try to create this book, but I had zero energy or creative thinking to make it happen. And I kept being, like, shaming myself, like, why do I not have the energy for this, this? But I was putting all my energy in kind of survival mode and just make this one environment work out. The moment things ended, it's like I finished the book in a few months. You know, it's like I had all this energy and creativity because I wasn't in that survival mode state. I want to ask you a question about. You mentioned mental health for a moment. What are the main. I guess I don't know all the terminology perfectly. So what are the main mental health challenges that people face today? Is it depression? Is it anxiety? Is it adhd? What are the terminologies of mental health that are prominent today?

Those are primary ones, but actually, depression is, on a worldwide scale, happens to be one of the leading causes of disability, one of the leading causes of just global unwellness. It's very debilitating kind of condition, because it's not just a mental health condition. It's also like a bodily condition. Physically, it's an inflammatory condition. So we know a lot of, you know, I think some of the initial studies that came out that coincided with, you know, psychotropics, like, you know, some of the medications, you know, from like the 80s 90s and all of that, like, helped us to understand some of the ways in which the brain, you know, it operates a certain way to facilitate depression. But we weren't necessarily talking about other studies that were happening which were talking about more of the immunology that's implicated, like, all those. Anything that's inflammatory, that's implicated in depression as well. Diet, that's implicated in depression as well. A lot of so many factors. Yeah, yeah. So many things. So depression is like, big one. But whenever someone comes to me with depression, I always like to look at the full picture. Right. So I look at all your whole life, everything. I look at all those pieces, and depression is one of those mental health conditions that has. There are a number of them, but this One has like a way to identify it and classified as either single episode or multiple episode. When a person is in a single episode, I usually look for an environmental trigger. What happened? What happened. Right. But when there is a multiple episode, I wonder a lot more meaning what?

Relationship, foods, environment, loss of a job.

Yeah.

Divorce.

The small T. Traumas, if you may. Like some of the things that are like your day to day everyday traumas, but nothing that really compromises your safety in any way. But whenever we're talking about multiple episode depression, I get very curious about a person's history, their family history, what happened to them, what happened within their family. And I really start digging because when you're talking about lifelong depression, you've been depressed your entire life. We have to really start wondering, is trauma implicated in your history in some way? And is that what's keeping the undercurrent of depression running?

Depression is the main one you hear.

About anxiety, there's psychosis, which we don't talk a lot about. Psychosis is extreme version of dissociation. There's some genetic loading there too, especially with schizophrenia. There's genetic loading to some extent. With depression and anxiety, there's trauma. Trauma is a whole separate category. You have complex trauma, you have developmental trauma, you have reactive attachment disorder, which is mostly for children. And it's like the very first sign of like, oh, they're acting a certain way. That is different. Maybe something happened.

Something happened. Yeah.

Yeah.

So I'm curious. These, I just want to understand the terminology of these things. So in the term of a mental health illness with depression, adhd, psychosis, would these be considered illnesses? What would these be the terminology?

These, I would say illnesses. Because.

Conditions. What is it?

I know there's, you know, there are a number of us, especially the holistic psychologists of the world, like we look at illness and disorder, you know, just we, we like to not look at it as that. In some ways we like to really kind of like look at the global picture. But if we're talking about the diagnostic of an individual. Yeah, yeah. And really the manual that we as psychologists and psychiatrists have to basically abide by when we're creating diagnostic codes, then, you know, these are considered mental disorders.

Disorders.

Okay, Disorders or illnesses. It's actually, actually the same.

Now is this disorder, is it a symptom?

I hate that word.

I know. Is this.

But that's what it's called.

This disorder, this challenge.

Yeah, yeah.

Is it a symptom or is it a disorder? Is it a symptom of trauma or unresolved healing that causes this disorder. And if we heal the trauma, will we be able to eliminate these symptoms or these disorders?

I think we'll be able to get rid of a lot of stuff, a lot of it, Some of it, as I mentioned, because there is that genetic loading. And we got to think of the genetics that we talked about already we're talking about lineages of genetic loadings. If we start doing the work now, maybe we'll see a lot less of these disorders happening within our families and our communities. So there is a lot that we can do to actually rectify the abundance of mental illness that's out there.

Right.

I believe that there is a lot of the mental illness that exists in the world that has an undercurrent of trauma. And we just haven't talked about that undercurrent or that possibility as much. But I don't know if we'll be able to absolve ourselves of 100% of the mental illness in the world. But I think that we can do a really good job in this generation to break cycles.

Could an individual eliminate these mental health issues on an individual level if they are willing to do the deep healing work? Because essentially, I feel like, correct me if I'm wrong, these are like symptoms of trauma. You didn't grow up depressed. Certain things happened. An event happened, an environment continued to foster the feelings of depression, the state of depression. And if we can heal the memory, the trauma, the event, and reconnect to our purest self, our whole human self, wouldn't those things start to go away?

That's precisely the goal. So where we started off with psychology and psychiatry is we started off with symptom management. A lot of psychiatry, you know, we're still kind of there a little bit.

Which is like, here's the drug to manage the symptoms.

Band aid.

But that's not healing. Yeah, that's not resolving. That's just managing it precisely. But that doesn't do anything to bring back to wholeness.

Yes.

And integrate the person, integrating the healing.

Right, Exactly. And that's the goal. That's the goal for me. That's the goal in my practice. I want full integration of that person. I want them to see, really see their authentic self. Some people have never even had an opportunity to see, like, who they could be at their true core self because it's been masked by so much of the trauma and the symptomatology that's associated with the trauma, like the depression, anxiety.

And all those things. Yeah. So you believe that people can heal These mental health challenges as well, if.

They integrate full many of them, especially the ones that, you know, because I think we have, like, bipolar disorder and we have, you know, schizophrenia, that have a different mechanism to them. But many of them, absolutely.

But many of the ones that a lot of people are facing, depression, the big ones add, adhd, depression especially. Yeah, right. How important is finding a meaningful purpose in life support you in overcoming feeling depressed or depression?

It's, like so critical. It's. Yeah, 100%. I mean, like, when we're talking about what happens after trauma, meaning making is at the center. It's like one of the biggest things because you have. You have to see your life having some sort of value and that there's meaning associated with your life and with everything that's within your life in order to actually, like, even feel motivated to do the heavy lifting, that is the healing work, to get yourself to the other side. So you have to have meaning in that journey. Meaning making, it's alchemized in that journey. It's created in that journey. Right. But I think at the very least, you have to have hope that meaning making can be possible.

Because what it sounds like to me is a lot of people attach meaning in a more negative, harmful state to events, to words, to actions that happen around them, and therefore, that meaning causes more depression, adhd, or, you know, negative thoughts. All these different things that hurt us. Yeah, but if we created a different meaning around the event or the words or the event, the breakup or the loss of career created a new meaning around it and had a different intention, different purpose moving forward, we wouldn't have those mental challenges as much.

Yeah, I mean, I think people, you know, just haven't been trained to ask themselves the right questions around meaning making. Right.

And so what's the right questions?

Well, the right questions are, you know.

Well, like someone experiences a traumatic event or big T or little T, what questions should we ask?

Yeah, we should be asking, you know, so questions around, well, let's talk about what was learned in that circumstance. That's a really hard question to ask because sometimes people be like, you really? You think that that needed to happen? No, it didn't need to happen.

It did happen.

It happened.

You can't change it.

You can't. That's in your history now. But what can we take from that experience? And it doesn't even need to be the traumatic event itself, but your response, your reaction, what can we take from that to learn how to now create a healing protocol for you? And it's about being able to ask questions that get people thinking outside of the box. Because what happens when you're in a state of trauma is that you're frozen in many ways. Your thoughts are frozen, you start thinking a lot of the same things. It's a lot of protective functions. Your feelings are frozen in time. People constantly feel worry, anxiety, like a lot of things that are, you know, just them being in a protective state. And so if we can start asking questions to free some of that up, that's, that's gonna be like really key. But I like that question, even though, you know, I think it can veer us in different directions. But I'm open to that whenever it comes to work with a client. Right. Because wherever we go, I'm with them, I'm going with you. And we're following that path.

If someone stays committed to their story of meaning, that it was this horrible event and it ruined my life, the divorce, the job loss, the injury, whatever it might be, what happens if they hold on to the meaning in a negative way as opposed to that was a traumatic event. I don't wish it upon anyone. But here's what I learned from it, here's what I gained from it, here's what I'm going to do with it in a positive way. What happens to those?

Well, the way that I interpret that is that that person is one still in a state of fear. They're not ready to really get curious about what other definitions meaning can have in their life. They're just really stuck on the one definition that it tarnished their lives, that it got in the way and they're just stuck there. And so if that's the case, then my role as a clinician or their role as a person that wants to get out of it, hopefully is to work on the fear. You got to work on where is fear trapped? How is the nervous system operating around fear? Where can we free them up in a bodily sense? Because the nervous system requires a lot of that body based work. And so we have to really get curious about that and go in that direction versus, you know, the questions are very mind focused. Right. But we need the body based practices in order to create safety in the.

Body to release also. Right. To release the fear, the pain, the trauma, and reconnect to the safety of your body. Is that right?

Exactly. And so that when a person can feel that there is safety in their body, they can feel that they can actually go into the depths of their minds in a way that doesn't feel scary and existential. Right.

Speaking of fear, I saw somewhere recently, I don't know if this is true, but I saw somewhere recently that we are. That human beings are born with three fears. The fear of loud noises, the fear of falling, and the fear of abandonment. I don't know if that's true, but if it is, we tend to build. Add more fears as time go on. I don't know if that's true, if those are the only three, or we don't have fears at all. But. But it seems like we gather, we collect more fears through childhood and adulthood. Why do you think we gather so many fears and collect them?

Well, I think you're talking about like primary fears, right? Like those feel like primary fears to me. Like they're like what you start off with as a baby, you're going to have that startle response. As a baby, you're going to need to feel deeply connected and attuned to.

A caregiver, otherwise you don't live.

Yeah, basically. Right. And so like, it's basically a fear of losing life or a fear of losing safety. So it makes a lot of sense. But the accumulation of it also makes sense because we operate in mental representations, in categories, basically. So we have specific categories in our minds that are primarily created in our childhood. And then everything else that happens in life, we put in the different categories in the buckets of our minds and they just start accumulating and growing. So if you have a big fear bucket, then you're going to have a lot of fears that are going to come into your life and stay there because your fear bucket is just so enormous.

What's the biggest fear you've had to overcome, the thing that held you back the most?

I think for me, I grew up in poverty. And that for me, the thing about growing up in poverty is that it's not only the fear of do we have enough? It's also that that mental expression, that that narrative stays with you throughout life and it creates that. Now we call it like deficit mentality. Right. Or other kinds of things. Scarcity, mindset, all those things. Right. Like, and so not having enough, not being able to survive in that way is definitely, like, been an enormous fear for me throughout life because I was born into such poverty that I remember with my grandmother, she carried a bucket of water to bring to her home from this tiny little spring. Not having outdoor plumbing, indoor plumbing in the Dominican Republic.

You grew up there?

I was there until I was five.

Yeah.

Yeah. And then I came to the U.S. so, like, you know, I mean, like, you, you see that growing up, right? Like, and there's like that much scarcity that to ever go back to anything like that feels like it can happen at any time.

It's like you don't want to go back there. I remember when I was 20, 23, 24, 25, that range, I was sleeping on my sister's couch, I had no money and I was in student loan debt at the time, living off three credit cards. So 2008, when kind of the economy crashed that time. And I remember thinking like, this is not fun, you know, this is not fun, like eating my sister's leftovers and like not being able to pay for rent and just figuring out how I'm going to get food for the next couple of days, right? Like where's the money going to come from? Now I had a roof over my head, but I wasn't providing for myself, right. It was like my sister was. Even though I'm a 20 something year old man, right. And I remember thinking to myself after I started to make money for, I don't know, probably five years, I remember thinking, I just never want to go back there. So it's still kind of in a survival mode. Even though I had money, like I had enough money in the bank for six months and then a year to like live off of, was still kind of operating off of scarcity and not enough. And I need more to feel safe and secure and I never want to go back to that place. And it's challenging to break that physically, the nervous system and also mentally, psychologically. And just knowing you'll be able to generate and create enough, it's a challenge to break through.

It is the actual logistical challenge. I mean that was there for sure. I had to do a lot to be able to break away from that and to help my family navigate out of, you know, that, that position of working class poverty. Right. Like, but the, the psychological piece that takes serious work. That takes serious work. Right. Because you, you know, like it's about money management. It's about, you know, like things that I may desire and want to purchase, but that's always in the back of my mind, you know. And so like it's like really kind of fighting that you got to learn.

A whole new set of skills. Yeah, I learned with money. It was like, I'm still educating myself today, you know, I'm still learning and teaching myself different things about money. From saving to investing, to tax strategies, to managing it, all these different things. I don't think you ever stop learning. And because I'm learning, I feel more and more confident with it. I feel more and more okay with it. But if I don't understand it, how am I going to feel okay with it?

Yeah.

And most of us were never taught this as kids. You know, we're never taught this. We're not taught this in schools. How to manage money. So. And if we grew up in lower income houses, we probably weren't taught how to manage it either.

Yeah.

So it's like you've really got to self educate yourself on so many areas of life if you didn't learn.

Yeah.

Money, healing relationships, how to deal with failure, all these things. That's why I created the School of Greatness, because it's everything I wish I had when I was growing up.

Yes.

There are some people that I've met who can't remember their childhood.

Super common.

I met this one girl I don't know about 10 years ago. She's like, I don't remember anything before 17. I go, what? It just didn't make sense to me. Right. I know have, you know, I don't remember every year of my childhood and I don't remember everything. But if I can go back to that place or I see a photo. Yeah, I remember this. But when I met someone for the first time and said they didn't remember before 17, I go, that's interesting. I later realized there was a lot of trauma.

Yeah.

So if someone isn't able to recall childhood memories in general and they just have it blocked, is that because of trauma or is that something else?

So trauma can be very much implicated. I mean, like, you know, humans were so variable that, you know, there can be other things. But when it comes to this type of experience that you're talking about and people saying, I don't remember a whole chunk of my life, I don't remember my childhood or. It is incredibly common for trauma survivors, especially individuals that are that have undergone either complex trauma or chronic trauma or just have been in that trauma response in that survival mode for almost a lifetime. And I mean there is a bit of a biological psychological explanation for that. And I think we got to really get into memory and how it operates. Like what is memory? Right. So we have short term memory, we have long term memory and short term memory really operates at this 30 second interval. Anything that isn't encoded into long term memory dissolves with short term memory. You no longer remember it. Now when we're talking about the nervous system, remember we have a dissociative process that dissociative process makes it so that also you're operating only with the essential functions that you need, which means that that memory encoding, that's compromised too. So when you're in constant survival mode and your memory isn't shifting into long term memory, you're not encoding that you can't later retrieve it. So retrieval isn't going to be possible later in life. You're not going to remember what happened when you were 8 years old because it was a compromising of your memory process.

Is there a way to remember things if you've blocked it for so long or is it kind of you lost.

These memories, I mean, you know, especially in childhood, like some of it we're supposed to lose by like pruning away. It's, it's, we're not designed to remember everything. But you know, if memories weren't encoded into long term memory, it's going to be hard to remember them because they're just not there. However, I mean, I think we have to, you know, further break down memory because we have implicit and explicit memory.

What's the difference?

So explicit memory is more of those like, you know, you remember, you know, that childhood girlfriend that you had, right? Like, and like you remember moments about like it's, you remember what you had for breakfast. It's like very concrete conscious details of your memory. Implicit memory is more like sensory memory. So the body still remembers the smell.

The sight, the experience, the music, the touch.

Like we remember in a more implicit way. Right. And so like people when they're talking about not remembering, they're talking about explicit memory, not implicit. Because implicit they're remembering a lot because they're living in that body that's constantly reminding them through triggers that there's a memory there.

Let's say someone is got out. All the things, you know, depression, all the stress, nervous system is broken down, they're just in a low state. All these things, everything triggers them. Right. If you wipe their memory off and they woke up without having the memory, cellular memory or the mental memory of the trauma, the little T, big T, the chronic trauma, all these different things, what would happen? Hypothetical scenario. But if you were able to eliminate these memories, wouldn't you essentially be more positive or have like a more a better outlook on life?

I mean, I think that you, you know, could have more of like what we talked about earlier, that neutrality for sure, right?

You know, just observing it.

Yeah, yeah. You know, like, because everything will be new, right. And so you won't have something that, that actually is attached to emotion. Like an event is not attached to emotion and you know, a scent is not attached to emotion. So you won't have the trigger response. You'll just be looking at something with, with a new set of eyes.

So yes, I just feel like a lot of people doubt themselves and they have a lot of self doubt tied to previous events. Right? I failed. This person made fun of me, I was laughed at, I was bullied, they broke up with me, I lost the job, whatever it is. All these events then attach their self worth, their identity and they doubt themselves because of a series of events. How do we break that so people can learn to believe in themselves more even if they had different events happen that didn't go their way?

Well, I think some of it has to be like a reconfiguration of their self concept. Like it's very self oriented, right? Because like now we're talking about when someone said something to them about their clothes, how now they like, you know, have this like perception of themselves and how they dress that's negative, you know, or ill fitted because of what was said. So now it's become a part of the self, right? So a lot of the work has to be central to the self. Like how do we get you to a place where, you know, you're embodying either a more neutral or more positive sense of self and that your core self isn't, you know, an amalgamation of like all of these negative experiences and how you then translate it and internalize those into how you see yourself and how you see the world?

How do you teach that to someone? What's something someone can do if they're listening or watching and they don't believe in themselves, or they have a series of events that remind them, see, there I go, I'm not good enough for this or I don't deserve this. What can they do to start having a different view of self?

I like the idea of challenging, of challenging thoughts, right? But the thing about challenging thoughts is that the first step is that we have to write down the limiting thoughts that have been there. We have to write down the emotions that have been associated with those limiting thoughts and then we have to challenge those thoughts, like actively challenge them. There's so many of us that are walking around this world not having challenged a lot of those initial ideas that we've created around ourselves, regardless of where they came from. They could have been from a parent who told you, you disappoint me, you're not good enough. Right? And that manifested into a mental representation of themselves as not being good enough. But we have to look at the root and then challenge the root. And then also, like, work on the emotional piece. An emotional piece. I like the work around emotions to be, like, very body centered because emotions are very situated in the body. And so it's a mind practice in that we're writing all these things down, but it's also a body practice.

It's an integration. It is mind and body. You got to integrate it. You can't just be analytical around it. If your body's still reactive, you've got to integrate the two.

Yeah, always.

What do you think holds you back from your highest self right now?

I definitely have had my fair share of imposter syndrome, of wondering if I, you know, if. If I meet the mark, if I've been in spaces where I've been the only person that looks like me. And so it's. It's definitely made me want to.

He looks like you're kind, energetic.

Just so kind, generous. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

I receive all. Great smile.

Thank you.

What do you mean?

I mean, you know, like, I'm. I'm a black Latina, right. I'm from the working class. I've entered a lot of elite spaces, you know, for. For education. You know, I got an Ivy League education for my doctorate, and I was very much, you know, not seeing myself mirrored in a lot of these spaces. So it definitely, like, made me wonder a lot.

You were standing out as we were saying.

I was, yeah. And, you know, it can be very isolated, that experience, you know, and so I think that it makes you wonder, like, do I belong here? Is my voice, you know, welcome? Like that sort of thing. So that definitely has been, you know, it's something that has been a struggle for me, and I think it will forever be, like, something that I know has been there. But I work really, really hard on a daily basis.

So if you're coaching someone else that's in a similar situation, they stand out in their industry. They look different. They don't fit in, I guess. Right. They're not mirrored, as you said.

Yeah.

What would you. How would you coach them? If they said they feel like, I don't know if I belong or I feel like an imposter, what would you. How would you coach them to interpret that differently?

Yeah, I love that question. I would, you know, I would start with the body always. Right. So I would definitely, like, do some imagery exercises, Exercises with them to like, place them in their mind in that space and do some relaxation exercises with them around that. Because that's always my thing.

To get them relaxed first.

Yeah.

To start creating from that space.

Exactly. Like, I want safety.

Yes.

Yeah, always safety. However, I do always want to ask, like, who told you you don't belong? Because that's a question that we're not explicitly asking ourselves. Like, someone said that in the STEM field, like, women aren't, you know, there isn't open spaces for women. Right. Like, something happened there. Right. Who said that women don't belong in stem? And so that's, you know, like, I always want to ask that question. Of course we know some of the answers, but I think societally, you know, like, there's been, like, ways in which we. We've created spaces that have been for specific populations. And so we have. We have to start asking, like, who said that there isn't a space that's open for you? So I think that the reason why I asked that question is because I think that it opens up the mind to really wonder about that. And I think it also offers a little bit of empowerment to the person that's receiving that question. Like, yeah, who told me that I don't belong? And really stepping into that. And I've done that for myself, and it's been incredibly helpful.

Yeah, it's good. What else would you say after asking that question? How else would you coach that person?

I would want them to, you know, like, really do some, like, heavy lifting around the emotional piece. I think that that's always going to be an important aspect of doing work. That's imposter syndrome centered. Right. Because at the heart of it is fear. Right. And so fear of. There's a fear of a lot of things, but, you know, like, fear of belonging is a big one. Like, do I belong? And so if we're talking about fear of belonging, if we're talking about not feeling good enough, a lot of those areas are what we really need to work on. So that's the depth work. Right. The other stuff is a little bit more superficial. It's like, where we start, but then we got to get into the emotion part.

Yeah. Interesting. What has been the thing you're most proud of that you've overcome?

You know, definitely getting to this level of education, I think, is something that I hold a lot of pride around because I worked so hard and I was able to overcome at least, like, the bigger pieces of imposter syndrome around that. And also a lot of things, like, I wasn't taught to operate at this level. Right. And so a lot of it was.

Self Taught at what level?

At this level of education. I'm definitely a first generation in that regard. There's a lot of bureaucracies that you got to learn and know when you're operating in educational spaces that are higher ed in this way. And so the fact that my own, I'm a very intuitive person, so my own intuition helped me to really scan environments in a way that helped me to learn the environment in a very concrete way and then learn to operate within it, but also just be myself. I like bring myself. I say I bring my sauce because I'm like, I'm going to bring my whole Dominican self into whatever space that I'm a part of. And everybody who's around me, you'll have to adjust rather than me adjusting to the environment and reconfiguring myself. So that's been something that I've been really proud of. Just stepping into spaces where I felt like before I don't belong and just proclaiming that I do.

Yeah, that's cool. I love this stuff. You've got, your social media is amazing. You've got a lot of great resources there. You're teaching, you're inspiring, you're entertaining and you're connecting people to this work of healing generational trauma. You've also working on a book right now. You've got a course you're working on that's coming out soon. What is this course going to be teaching people about specifically?

It's going to really get into the depths of trauma and how we heal from trauma through a number of holistic practices. So my hope is that for individuals that are just hoping to really enhance their knowledge of how to really integrate practices that are going to be very helpful in the trauma journey or for healer practitioners that are out there wanting to really enhance their own practice, coaches, whomever. Right. Like, and be trauma informed that this can be a really good hub and center for them to be able to acquire that knowledge.

When is this course coming out and how can we, how can we get access to it?

It's coming out in September and access can be through my website, which is drmarielbuquet.com.

Okay.

Yeah. Click on courses and there I am.

There you are. You have a newsletter too we can subscribe to?

I do, I do. And I actually offer one coping skill each week on my newsletter. Yeah, so one coping skill that people can integrate into their week and then also, you know, all things my world, basically.

That's cool. Very cool. So if we go to Dr.marielle bouquet.com they can get the newsletter, they can find out about the course. See you on social media as well. Instagram's your main thing.

Instagram and TikTok. I like TikTok. It's a lot of fun.

Yeah, it's fun.

Yeah. I like to, you know, like lighten the conversation on trauma a little bit because it is very heavy.

It's heavy. It's dark.

It's very dark.

And a lot of people don't want to face it.

But that's the thing is that if I can open up just a little, you know, a small smidgen of like conversation in there, like people start getting really curious about trauma. And I think that, you know, on TikTok I've been able to do that where I, you know, I infused a little bit of humor and people are like, okay, it's not that scary to talk about. I can do this.

What do you think's gonna happen in the world in the next three to five years if people don't face their traumas?

I think we're gonna see a lot of. It's not just gonna be on the personal end that we'll see the continuation of these generational cycles of trauma. I think it's gonna be that we're gonna continue to institute policies, we're gonna continue to just operate in the world in a way that is driven by a lot of hostility and aggression that is representation of unhealed wounds.

Yes, it's interesting. In 2017 I wrote a book called the Mask of Masculinity, which is about how men can start to heal, can start to drop the masks that trying to protect them from the outside world and reveal themselves, be a little more vulnerable, open up and really just show their authentic self from a healed place, not from a hurt place or defensive place. Because I believe that a lot of the problems that are happening in the world are caused by men who are wearing a mask, who are hurt, who are angry, who are traumatized. And there hasn't been a safe space specifically for men until, I think more recently to start opening up about their traumas. I don't think it's been acceptable for men to talk about these things. And so I'm so glad you're doing this work. I'm so glad there's a lot of people doing this work because I just feel like people need resources to start the healing journey. As my therapist says, it's a journey. It's not a one time event where you're just, I'm healed and it's all better, you know, it's an integration of healing process over time.

Absolutely. Yeah.

But I feel like more people, like you need to be doing this type of work and teaching us how to heal. Because I think if we can all heal, men, specifically speaking from my point of view, it's like, you know, if men can learn to heal and be more loving and authentic, then I think it's just gonna be a lot more harmonious environment in the world in general.

I couldn't agree more.

But I also think that a lot of women need to heal too. There's a lot of traumas that if women can heal too, they can create a safe space for men to be their authentic selves. It's like working together more as opposed to arguing and fighting as much. So that's my intention. That's my mission here.

I love it. I love it. It creates a lot more vulnerability from that place of vulnerability. We can, you know, bridge curiosity, safety. There's so much that comes from that place where the work is done. Vulnerability and courage, you know, takes root, and it creates definitely more of that harmony you're speaking to.

This is the challenge. I just wish people could have conversations consciously, you know, just like, maybe I don't agree with a lot of things that you do or other people do or they don't agree with me, whatever. But to be able to question and like you said. Did you say question or just say challenge the thoughts, challenge the ideas, but not from a aggressive emotional state. Like, if we can question and have a conversation from a place of calm, then it's gonna be able to help us come together more in just a lot of different areas in life. So that's my intention.

Yeah. Starts with the nervous system, though, you know, like, if we're. If we're, like, heavily triggered and, you know, the conversation that we're having is triggering because it's disrupting, you know, whatever is going on in our minds, like. Or it just is challenging us in a way where it's like, pushing us out of our comfort zone.

Yeah. It makes us feel uncomfortable, and we're like, I need to protect myself and whatever. Scream and react and call you an idiot or whatever.

Go straight into fight mode.

But you can't solve anything that way, can you? It's really challenging to have.

You can't be creative and solution oriented in the ways that you would be if you were in more of that neutral state.

I love that.

Yeah.

It's a question I ask everyone at the end. It's called the three truths. So imagine, hypothetically, it's your last day on earth, many years away. You live as long as you want to live, but it's your last day. You know, as always you want to be and you accomplish all your wildest dreams. But for whatever reason, you've got to take all of your work with you you to another place. Your books, your courses, your content. We don't have access anymore, but we have access to three things that you would leave behind with the world. Three lessons or three truths. What would you say are those three truths for you?

They would be that you are not just what happened to you, you are abundant at least so much more. I would let people know that healing is a lot of work. It sucks. It just bends you and twists you into different uncomfortable shapes. But it is incredibly worth it. And that no matter where you are in your healing journey, today is always a good day to start to break the cycle.

Yeah, I want to acknowledge you, Marielle, for your journey, for stepping into this field of practice. You were telling me before about how you had another career in advertising in New York City and then you were volunteering on the weekends and you found more meaning and fulfillment in being of service to helping people with these different challenges in their life. And you said, I'm going to take on eight more years of school and take on this college debt and student loans to follow a mission, a purpose that was more meaningful for you. It's really hard for a lot of people to do. And so I really acknowledge you for listening to your heart, for listening to your truth, for taking that step and continually adding value to so many people in the world by doing the individual practice one on one that you do, the coaching you do by sharing this content on social media, by working on books and courses. I really acknowledge you for stepping into this season of your life, which is adding a lot of value for you and to the world. It's really meaningful to witness and to see you overcome so much to get to where you're at.

Thank you.

I really acknowledge you for that.

Yeah, thank you. I really appreciate that.

Of course, of course.

It's been a journey I treasure and I'm grateful that I'm here and thank you for highlighting my journey.

Of course. Yeah, of course people can follow you. We'll have everything linked up. Your website Dr.marielle bouquet.com social media Dr. Marielle Bouquet, Final question for you. What's your definition of greatness?

Well, greatness to me, you know, it's found in everyday people, the people that alchemize from the ashes, you know, and become cycle breakers very much like you have. And I just think they're the bravest souls on this planet. And that, to me, is really great.

Mario, gracias. Thank you.

Such a pleasure.

Appreciate it.

Thank you. In our culture, we know joy is a superpower. Like, no one will doubt that one. What we need is to resurrect the power of sadness. And the power of it is. Well, as we've said that, it's one of the most powerful ways that we have of connection, connecting with each other, to be able to really share and really open up. Humans are evolutionarily designed to do this, like.