The Trauma Expert: 7 GENERATIONS Of Trauma Lives In Your Body, This Is How You Break FREE | Dr. Mariel Buqué

Show up as your more healed self. Let people see how you walk and move as a more healed version of yourself. Let them see how you're modeling, how you show up differently and how you no longer feed the cycles you break them.

Welcome to the School of Greatness. My name is Lewis Howes, a former pro athlete turned lifestyle entrepreneur, and each week we bring you an inspiring person or message to to help you discover how to unlock your inner greatness. Thanks for spending some time with me today. Now let the class begin.

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Yeah, absolutely. You know, whenever we're talking about trauma, it's gonna be critical for us to first start with the body. So the very first place where we need to go to is our nervous system, because that's where trauma is primarily situated. So when we do any of the practices that are gonna help settle our nervous system and help us feel more grounded, that's already gonna be the best start that we have toward healing trauma. Then we can actually get into the digging work. What happened to you? What happened before you? What happened around you? What happened that actually left an imprint in your soul that made it so that you experience this tenderness that we call trauma.

Really?

Yeah.

So we should be thinking about body and the nervous system first, not what happened to you at seven years old.

No.

You know, what did your parents say to you that hurt you? We shouldn't be asking those questions first.

That's correct. You know, whenever we're actually approaching a therapy session, typically you sit down and the therapist asks you, well, what happened? Tell me why you're here. Right. And so you start spewing, like, your entire story. But very often, people actually feel traumatized or re. Traumatized or triggered by their own stories and their own trauma narrative.

It causes a heightened nervous system response when you tell the story.

Yes. Because it feels like you're going back there again because you're telling all the little details of everything that happened and trying to get this person, this therapist or a friend or whomever you're recounting to, trying to get them to understand what happened. But your body's also remembering in that moment. And very often what tends to happen is that people then engage in avoidance strategies, like they no longer want to touch the trauma narrative or their own story, or they drop out of therapy because they no longer want to actually engage in the conversation that felt so incredibly dysregulating. Wow.

So the re trauma traumatizing themselves when they talk about the experience in the first time, I guess, Right?

Yeah. Because most people don't know that when they approach their own trauma narrative that it can actually, like, spur up those emotions in them and cause their nervous system to go into that fight, fly, freeze, or fun.

Wow.

Most people are not aware of the fact that just by telling my story, this can happen to me. But if we're actually training folks to engage in their body in a way that helps them to feel more safe, then it allows them to then be able to tell their trauma narrative in a way that actually. In a way where they don't actually need to run away from themselves.

So when we're thinking about a way to heal initially, and we know that we've had some stress, or maybe we're reactive in certain situations, or maybe we feel tightness or just not our fullest, highest self. And we know that there's been some trauma, but we're not sure how to talk about it or how to heal it, what is something we should be thinking about with our bodies to start this process?

Well, the first thing is that we have to befriend our bodies. We have to actually engage in a relationship with our bodies and really tune in. Most of us don't actually take the moments throughout the day to say, how's my body feeling right now? Where do I feel the tension? Where am I experiencing in my body? This external situation. Right. And if we can actually train ourselves to just do body scans for starters. Right. There's so many things that we can do, but for starters, just scanning how we feel in our bodies from head to toe and just getting a sense of how our body is taking in our environments. That's already a really good setup for understanding ourselves better and understanding ourselves when we're juxtaposing ourselves with what's happening outside of ourselves.

So if someone has experienced a level of trauma, but they have no clue, if they've actually got a lot of trauma, a little trauma, or somewhere in between, how can they do a trauma assessment within their body scan to know, oh, this is actually a big thing that I need to address right away, or this is more minor, but I still need to address it. How can they scan?

Well, you know, it's actually much simpler than what one might imagine, because people can actually just remember. Right. Remember what they actually do remember, and then simultaneously try and gauge what's happening in their bodies as they're remembering, as.

They'Re thinking of the story and the scenario.

Exactly.

Are you feeling tightness in your chest or your throat? Are you clenching up or are you sweating?

Right.

It's like, what are these symptoms?

Yeah. And. And typically, some of those symptoms correlate with how the nervous system is actually internalizing the story. We typically get a knot in our stomach, for example. Right. But that's really our nervous system actually shutting down specific functions of the gastrointestinal tract, really. Because we actually don't need that for survival in a moment where we're in survival mode. And so.

So if we feel a knot in our stomach, it's almost like we're in fight or flight mode.

Exactly.

Just thinking about, are Thinking about a story for 30 seconds or a couple of minutes from something that happened 10, 20, 30 years ago, that's fascinating. So something that happened that long ago can continue to harm and hurt you decades in the future until we learn to heal it.

Exactly. It continues to live in the body. It can metabolize in the body then as chronic illness when it goes on unaddressed. And of course, one of the biggest risks and repercussions of it going on unaddressed many times because we just don't know that, that it's there or that it's something that needs to be addressed. But what can happen is also the possibility of transmission into the next generation. So there's a lot of consequence.

Yes. And that transmission is really you leaving a legacy. You know, do you want to leave a legacy of peaceful, harmonious, emotional well being? You know, humans as children or kids that carry your stress responses.

Right.

And kind of your nervous system responses, right?

Yeah, yeah. I always ask parents, like look at your little one and look into their eyes and think for a moment, do I want them to hurt the way that I have hurt? And that usually is enough for a parent to say, you know what, actually I want to break this cycle because I don't want their little heart to then absorb the kinds of traumas that I've absorbed. And for them to then be the adult that has to then be in search of their emotions or in search of healing because they now have an inner child wound.

As an adult, what's the greatest gift a parent can give their child?

The gift of understanding their emotions and understanding how to self affirm. Because when we can actually know what our emotions even are. And what I mean by that is that we have emotions and that they're body centered. Right. Like that we have a really concrete understanding of the full spectrum of our emotions and how they can manifest in our bodies and then how we can actually do something to validate ourselves through the emotional process. I think that's a beautiful gift that parents can give their children. And when parents do that for themselves and their children, it's a beautiful generational gift.

Yeah, it's beautiful. So the first thing I'm hearing you say is kind of the ways to start healing is to first do an assessment of the stories and the memories that hurt you and see how the body reacts or response. What would be the next step after that? We notice a tightness in our stomach, a clenching in our throat, a pain in our chest. What would be the next step to starting that healing process?

Step two is relaxation. Step two is actually going into any kind of practice you choose. Right. But it can be breath work, it can be meditation, it could be Tai chi, it can be yoga. It can be so many that can actually help your body to release some of that tension.

Interesting.

And so what we're doing in that very moment is that we're of course, recognizing that there's a pain that has been there, that has been emotional, that has now a physical manifestation, and that we're also integrating a relaxation, a body relaxation practice to help release that tension, help absolve that tension from the body.

If we never release it, what happens?

It becomes disease. Wow.

So emotional memories turn into physical pain and eventually disease in some way.

Many of the metabolic conditions that we know about, diabetes, for example, cardiac conditions, a lot of those can be mapped back to stressors in life. And there's a lot of studies that have been done around even autoimmune conditions being very deeply connected to stressors and to trauma. And more recently, there's some studies that also have some correlates to certain cancers. So when we start thinking about what the body is telling us, the body, when it's in that state of disease, it's telling us, I don't feel well because I'm not being taken care of emotionally. And that is usually the clue for us to say, oh, I need to slow down when we needed to slow down probably 15, 20 years ago.

Right, right, right. So once we, you know, recall the memories and I guess really reflect on where we're feeling this pain or reaction in our bodies, the third thing I'm hearing you say is to relax through some type of therapeutic process, breath work, meditation, yoga, some type of relaxation process to release it. Right. What would be the next thing? Because a lot of times most people just numb or disassociate the pain. Right. We don't truly feel the pain because it's too painful. And so we'll find ways to numb, distract, disassociate, block the memories to not feel that pain. And that can be just as harmful. Right. Just to numb, block, or disassociate can.

You know, they're protective factors. They're ways that we protect ourselves from the pain that we truly feel and. And especially the depths of our pain. Some of us just don't want to understand how deeply hurt we have been.

How wrong we've been, how wrong we've been, how unfair, unjust, you know, hurtful these things are.

Yeah. And you know, like, in order to self preserve, in order to make it through another day. The mind and the body, they're just brilliant, brilliant. Like machines, they have mechanized a way to actually protect us from ourselves.

Wow.

And so they basically like structured all these coping mechanisms that, albeit harmful or maladaptive or not helpful or not connecting when we're talking about relationships. Right. They can, you know, still help keep you safe for another day. But the alternative to that is to then learn coping skills that actually can be adaptive connecting. And that can actually be the better recipe for not only your ability to stay within healthy relationships with other people, but also for you to experience the type of sustainable and long term mental and physical wellness.

What's the next step after that? Once we start applying some of these self therapeutic experiences, it might be 10 minutes of breath work or some type of release. How do we get to a place of truly healing that wound or that memory? You know, how long does it take of us doing this over and over again? Do we eventually need to process in other ways through talk therapy or more intensified therapies? What's the solution to absolute healing? And is that even a thing?

Well, there isn't really a 100% type of healing that truly exists. I mean, I think that anything that leans in the direction of perfectionism is a myth, including healing. Right. However, there are ways in which we can live a life that is filled with ease and peace more often than not, and a life in which if triggers were ever to present themselves, that they would be just subtle and tolerable and that we can have the actual tools, the sense of empowerment and agency over our own bodies and minds, to actually release that process and move into the next thing that life has for us, rather than being stuck and frozen, which is what tends to happen with trauma.

Sure.

But the next step really is the way that I work is that I integrate a lot of these nervous system restoration practices for a long period of time with folks. And I've done it myself and with my family and with kind of everyone and in the book. But this actually is the lengthier part of the work, the actual grounding.

This can take months or years. It can take months, right?

Yeah, it can, it can. And you know, sometimes I actually like to give it a bit of context. Like for people who feel like, well, let's say, you know, that I want to do this work, but how much am I going to have to do in order to really might be a lot. It might be a lot and that's okay.

And it might feel exhausting and it might feel overwhelming and it Might feel emotional and it might feel, you know, like it's all consuming at times.

Yeah, all of the above.

Yeah.

And. And that's actually. I would even go as far as saying maybe not might, but it will. Right?

Yeah.

That's.

For a period of time.

Yeah, for a period of time. And it is survivable. And if you have the tools to actually help you to settle once things feel like they're getting really heavy, then it's going to make the experience more tolerable.

Right.

And you're not going to feel like you're thrown into the abyss of your, like, deepest, darkest emotions and have no way out. You're like, in a black hole.

Yeah. And there's this. I don't know who's originally said this type of quote or this kind of phrase, but you'll hear people say, you know, what happened to you is not your fault, but it is your responsibility to overcome it, to heal it, to process it, to, you know, realize what it was and not let it consume your life.

Yes.

And I think what you mentioned about, like, higher self, like, learning about our nervous systems so we can work with it to become our best, highest self as most often as possible. Right. Which means having peace and harmony inside of us as frequent as possible, because that is our true nature, peace and harmony. And I think that's what it comes down to. What are you willing to do to create peace and harmony, to actualize your highest self as frequently as you can? It's not about perfection. You're not going to be this Zen person all the time. But that's a beautiful life. Living in peace and harmony, living in suffering and pain and agony, and numbing yourself is not a beautiful life. It's a survival mechanism which is useful for a period of time, but not for all of time. And so we just got to be aware of that. And it's going to take doing some intense, painful work for a period of time for hopefully a lifetime of freedom afterwards.

Exactly. Yeah. And I like to always, like, help people understand that. If you are. Let's say that the work needs to take a period of two years. Let's just say that you need to focus, you need to do nervous system restoration practices each and every day for a period of two years. You need to do journaling and some of the digging work and do talk therapy, and you need to, you know, engaging in, you know, connections with people that help you feel at home. All of that needs to be a part of your process. Those two years when you take into consideration the 40 that you've already lived, that have felt awful, those two years feel like they're really worth it. If you want to live the next 40 feeling more abundant, more peaceful, more grounded, more like you know yourself, your true core self, and more like that core self that is now burgeoning from within you is a reflection of your higher self.

Yes. And I'm just a big believer that flow and abundance does not come to those who are constantly in suffering or holding on to pain.

Yes.

It comes to those that have peace, who have clarity, who are relaxed, in a more relaxed state. And that may seem like a nice thing to say, but if you're in your 30s and 40s and you got three kids and you've got, you know, responsibilities and job and you're overstressed and you're thinking, I don't have two years of my life, let alone 30 minutes a day to go to the gym. How can I do this work when I have so much responsibilities, when I've got a partner that I'm in a relationship with, I've got kids, I've got bills, I've got all these different weights on top of me. Doing this type of work seems, like, impossible. What do you say to someone like that?

It isn't. It actually is really doable because the work requires for you to bake it into your life. It's not work that is a task apart from the rest of your life.

It is your life.

It is your life.

Yeah.

And, you know, the work can actually. The way that I like to structure the work is to make it very accessible. And the reason why I like to make it accessible to anyone is because I want people to do the work and I want to make it as easy as possible. I've gotten that statement so many times. Well, you know, I'm a mother of three and, you know, they're all really young and how am I going to find the time? I always tell people, Listen, you have 1,000, 440 minutes in the day. If you take five of those minutes and do a breath work practice, you're already ahead of the game. Wow.

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If you do that for an entire year, 365 days. What we know, what neuroscience is telling us is that it takes an approximate 3 to 400 repetitions of a nervous system restoration practice for our body memory to start shifting.

Really.

So if you take those 365 days that year, of those five minutes, you're already doing work that is going to be monumentally effective in you feeling more settled and like your nervous system is actually experiencing a lot of ease and calm that it wasn't experiencing before you did the year.

And how, how much is our partners in an intimate relationship picking up on our nervous system wounds and also our kids picking up just by watching and observing us and being around us, how much do others pick up our pain?

It's almost instantaneous. And especially the people that are closest to us, but especially children, because children are very, very keen on picking up on non verbal cues. We actually, when we're like infants, that's the way that we understand whether or not the world is safe or not. We actually see the facial expression of an adult that's our caregiver. And if the facial expression is one that mirrors safety, calm and ease, then what we interpret that as is the world is safe. I can be calm. If the adult feels preoccupied, angry, right? Like babies pick up on that and their nervous system is also picking up on that. And so it's important for us to actually be more attuned to the ways in which other people also pick up our energy. And perhaps that can offer more motivation for people to actually do the nervous system practices that can actually be helpful for them and their families.

If you know, a parent is watching or listening to this right now and they're thinking, wow, my kids are 5 or 12 or 16 and I'm just starting to realize that maybe I was too reactive based on my nervous system wounds for many years, or maybe we shouldn't have yelled at each other as parents in front of our kids, or we shouldn't have been so reactive in situations that we were explosive and we didn't need to be. And they're starting to realize, okay, this could have some long term effects on kids and they've been living that way for a decade with their kids growing up. What can they instantly tell themselves right now about how they've shown up and what are some actions they can take to start breaking the cycle for themselves and their kids who still have developing minds, who maybe aren't as comfortable talking about emotions yet because they're younger still. How can they start shifting that without thinking, I've ruined my kids lives?

You know, it's important for parents, for anyone really to understand, if I didn't know better, I couldn't do better. So if you didn't know that what you were struggling with was intergenerational trauma because you were exhibiting toxic relationship behaviors that were reflected in your childhood home and you absorbed those as the norm, as a status quo, then you wouldn't know to actually disrupt those and not pass those on or not exhibit those in your home. However, it's important that if you now do know better, that you take action that you decide, okay, I know that there's a different way and I understand that the way that I've been behaving is unhealthy. Let me shift that is already a step in the right direction. When it comes to children, it's important to understand that children can also engage in the healing process.

They can.

Yeah. I mean, there's a lot of age appropriate ways in which we can integrate the work with children. Children can meditate, children can do breath work, children can talk about their emotions. Children can do dance parties with their parents that actually help them to release some of the stress and tension of the day. And all of that can be a large part of what families can do together to actually do some collective healing and engage in age appropriate types of practices that can help their children not only absorb the heal in the moment, but also understand for the long term, for the entirety of their lives that they can do something that can help them to heal.

That's cool. Yeah. Dance party and drawing classes together, just different things. You know, going for a walk out, out in nature.

Yeah.

That's beautiful. What are some. You mentioned these nervous system restoration practices. What are the couple other examples you have for that where we can start healing the nervous system?

The practice that I tend to integrate into my work the most is humming.

Humming.

Humming. Yeah.

It's so calming.

It is very calming. And most people don't know you actually have this tool that you can use whenever and it can Actually help you feel calmer.

Well, humming. I mean, there's so many, you know, there's now science that's backing all this. But this has been the, you know, ancient spiritual leaders have been oming and humming for thousands of years because of the, you know, I think om is like God. Right. It's like you're connecting yourself to God and you're speaking like source, creator, breathing it. And there's chemicals involved, there's dopamine involved, and it's calming. Like this feeling in your heart is starting to like get into a better rhythm.

Right.

So there's all these benefits to this.

Yes. And when we think about it from, you know, just integrating the nervous system perspective into that as well, there is, you know, we have like different branches of the nervous system. And the branch that actually helps us to feel relaxed and calm is the ventral vagal nerve, which is what tends to be stimulated when we om.

When we ohm.

Yes, Interesting. And so. Or when we hum. Right. Like typically, like if I'm doing work with a family and, or with a child, you know, sometimes I'll pick a song that they like and we'll hum the song instead of singing it. And that already is an age appropriate practice that we can do that integrates the practice that we understand is gonna be restorative to their nervous system. But we're not necessarily like shoving mental health.

Just therapy, talk all day.

Right, Right. But we're doing something that can be very health promoting. Now eventually people catch on and they say that made me feel relaxed, that made me feel more at ease, especially when I had all these floating thoughts that just wouldn't go away. And so when these children are then older, they have the tools. And that's what I want for us. I want for us to be able to be the generation of cycle breakers that can build the tools for ourselves and for the next generation. And even if we want to maybe like pass some of that back. My parents are 65 and 71 and I do this stuff with them and they're open and willing and they're Dominican parents, which I would have never thought would do anything that was related to mental health, period. But they're so willing right now after a couple years of talking, talking it through. And it's beautiful to see how they have never really had any kind of like foundational orientation around how they can feel more settled. And now they do, and that in their old age they can actually feel more at ease in their own bodies. It's beautiful.

If someone's in A marriage, and they realize they want to break the cycle and they're willing to do the work themselves, but maybe their partner isn't as open yet and they're, they're realizing like, oh, this person, you know, I want to do this work, I'm healing. But this person's still in a nervous system reactive state and unwilling to break their own cycle. What can they do if they're the only one trying to grow and their partner is not?

That's a really tough situation. And you know, we have to empathize with anyone that is in any kind of environment, particularly a home environment, in which they have to go back to the source of their pain, right? Or back to a place where their safety is compromised in any way. Their sense of psychological safety. I mean. And so you know what? I tend to help people reorganize in terms of their own thinking around this is like, show up as your more healed self. Let people see how you walk and move as a more healed version of yourself. Model for them, whether it's your kids, it's your parents, it's your partner, it's friends, right? Like anyone, let them see how you're modeling how you show up differently and how you no longer feed the cycles, but you break them and then see who is willing to join you in that process, right?

And there may be, you know, months of resistance and challenge where you've got to keep showing up as a healed person or in the process, while someone's reactive or crossing your boundaries, you've got to keep creating those boundaries, which is a challenging thing to do.

It's one of the biggest barriers to people being able to continue their cycle breaking process, which is going into the spaces that, where people have not actually done the work and them feeling like, what am I even doing this for?

Right?

Like, I may as well just like.

You know, let it go and just let it go, play their game. It's so challenging.

It is very challenging. And it's, you know, process that also is going to require that they in essence, like just tolerate the distress. Which is why distress tolerance skills are so important when it comes to trauma based work. Because we have to train the mind and body to tolerate the guilt, tolerate the guilt of being the one that's doing the work and leaving others behind. That sometimes tends to be how people feel about their healing. And so when we're able to reorganize the body and how it's actually internalizing that emotion, it helps them to sit with whatever guilt may still be lingering in a More settled way and not just throwing the towel.

What do you think of all the different traumas that you've worked on at your clinic and worked on with individuals? All the different types of traumas, Abandonment, abuse, neglect, all these different things. Bullying, you know, being cheated on, all these different things. What one is the hardest trauma to overcome that you've seen or takes the longest for people to psychologically wrap their heads around the wounds that they've received. You know, grieve, forgive, own, move on, process. Which one is typically the hardest to overcome?

What I have seen has been the hardest and what I have seen, like people struggle with the most and has taken the most time has been abuse. Childhood abuse.

Specifically them experiencing childhood abuse.

Them experiencing it. Yeah. From a trusted adult, someone who either cared for them or someone who was proximal to them. And the experience of feeling almost kind of like their entire life formation was around that experience, also being a part of it and then having to extract that from all the layers of how it became a part of them is something that can be really, really hard. But also there's people that can live really abundant lives once they start doing the work in that direction.

Yes.

Usually wherever we feel the biggest triggers, that's where the work is. So when we can centralize the work there in that triggered space. Right. It makes it so that we can experience probably the better part of our healing.

I guess in storytelling, mythology, there's there's heroes and there's villains and they have a similar backstory. They've both been abused or abandoned or something happened to them. Right. And the villain uses that pain to hurt others and the hero, you know, works with that pain, transforms it into making sure that others don't have that pain ever again. Right. And I probably had both of those in my life. Of like, I've used the pain to try to be angry at others and like dominate and win in sports. And then I've found transformation and being like, I don't want anyone to feel this pain ever again. And so I think we have a decision at different times of life of like, how are we going to use this trauma or this memory or this, this experience for us? You know, are we going to live it to harm others or to help others and be in service? And I think it's really tricky speaking from experience as an adult mind, trying to understand, you know, your 5, 7, 12, 15 year old self who is sexually abused childhood mind that's still stored inside of you. It's hard to reflect back and recall all those moments. And then think about how you carried that trauma until the adult mind is reflecting on it. Process however many years that is, and all the decisions you've made your entire life, why you've been reactive, relationships you've gotten in, challenges you might have, good that might come from it too. And then learn how to heal that time. It's like, it's kind of a mind, you know, it's a mind mess. You know, it's tricky. And so I think you're, you know, you're probably right in that that's probably a painful one to overcome. I know there's lots of different traumas, but that one's definitely painful. But I know from experience that there is incredible peace and love on the other side if you're willing to do the work. Took me a couple of years to really kind of feel like I could speak about it without having a nervous system response anymore.

Yeah.

But I think also when you realize you can overcome something like that, it gives you a lot of confidence, a lot of poise, a lot of power, a lot of peace and knowing, okay, if I can take on this as a 5, 7, 10 year old, what can I take on as an adult with these tools that you're providing? So I think it's a great, you know, it's a great thing that you're sharing these tools because a lot of adults don't have them still. And I'm still learning as many tools as possible. But why is that so challenging for adult minds to understand sexual abuse or some type of abuse as a child? Why is it hard for adult minds to understand that and overcome it?

Well, because there's been a really pervasive intrusion. You know, like a person feels like they are accessible to people. Like they, like people can hurt them. Right. You know, they're vulnerable and they've remained stuck in that vulnerability.

Yes.

And so the challenge in our adult lives is in the fact that that vulnerability just got carried on and we still feel raw and open and vulnerable and like, tender to the touch. And people can actually hurt us easily. And so that's why very often, like, people also develop the coping mechanisms to try and protect themselves because they don't want to land in a similar situation where they're, you know, then, then there's yet another intrusion, and how will they then survive that? Right. And so it, you know, it, it's, it makes it. I always say, you know, when, when it's doubly hard to actually get through something, the reward would be double.

Right. Even more, it'll be even exponential, right? I think so.

And I think your. Your story, you know, which I know you've spent many years now sharing. And I think that it offers a beautiful moment for all of us to also reflect upon the fact that there is hope about abundance on the other side of healing. Because most of us think, like, when will this ever end? Will I ever heal? And we kind of get stuck in that narrative.

Yes.

Rather than in the narrative of just do the work and trust that there will be abundance on the other side. There will be a steady version of you that is meeting you on the other side.

Yeah. I started the healing journey 10 years ago with this. With the sexual abuse that I experienced as a kid. And I thought that I had healed a lot of it, but I still kept. And I did in certain areas, but I still kept entering relationships that proved otherwise and allowing myself to be kind of cross certain boundaries that I. I didn't want to. Right. Because I didn't have the skills or the courage to be able to stand for the inner child inside of me and what he really needed during certain relationships. So it wasn't until about three years ago when I kind of revisited it again through intimacy. Like, I was able to heal in some areas, but not every area. And that's when it took even more work. It was like an extra couple years. So, you know, I feel like healing is a journey. It doesn't, like, mean, okay, I've done six months of intensive work now I'm good. Like, new things might come up in a couple of years that you have to readdress. And at least that's what's happened for me. But not thinking you've got it all figured out, I think is something we need to have in mind. Be like, okay, I don't know all the answers. Even if I feel better, I'm going to keep working and processing. If we don't learn to heal our inner child as adults, what will happen to us?

Well, we can actually develop the same type of inner child wound in our children. Oh, yeah.

So they don't have to experience the wound. We're just passing it on. Right.

Yeah. And, you know, that comes up, of course, you know, we're talking about intergenerational trauma, having some biological, you know, connections. Right. Like, so there's already a family that perhaps is already from a nervous system perspective, from perhaps an epigenetic perspective, already having tenderness and vulnerabilities that are emotional. And then you have, you know, the possibility of there being, like, misattunement Between a caregiver and their child, the caregiver may be so preoccupied with their own stress and trauma that they miss the social cues that their child is telling them, I need you. And that sense of emotional abandonment, you know, can surface, or an inability to really relate to and connect with others, which is kind of like the. The general foundation of, like, attachment and attachment styles. Right. A lot of those things can start to surface as a result of those initial imprints of the relationships that are primary to us, which are with our caregivers or individuals that are, in essence, taking care of us in the school system, any of the individuals that have proximity. And then, you know, it's going to be really important for us to also understand that whenever we're talking about, like, not wanting that to carry on to the next generation, not wanting that tender little soul in front of us to then experience the pain that we have carried for so long, we have to talk about how we can also heal our own wounds. We need to reparent ourselves while we're also parenting others.

Right.

So it's an intergenerational reparenting.

Something just came up for me as you were saying this, because I think a lot of. I'm not a parent yet, but I get the sense and the feeling that a lot of parents in America today are very protective of their kids. You know, I see this. Maybe it's not everywhere, but I see a lot of that happening. They're more worried about, you know, who they're hanging out with. I hear a lot of parents say, I'm never going to let my kid do sleepovers anymore. You know, I'm taking them out of public school because it doesn't feel safe or whatever it is. Right. They're just more protective as opposed to allowing their children to kind of fumble and learn along the way. And I'm. I'm curious in your perspective from what you've experienced and what you've seen with your clients, your patients, is it worse to allow our children to be, you know, free in the world and be vulnerable to potential harm? Or is it worse to overprotect them and pass on our own traumas and wounds because we keep them so close to our wounded self? A warm dinner, a full table, a peace of mind for every family. That's the holiday we all wish for. The Feeding America Network helps make it possible, not just for one family, but for communities everywhere. Because when we act together, hope grows. Give now, and your impact may be doubled. Visit feedingamerica.org holiday there's saving for retirement.

And then there's living in it. At Fidelity, we can help you make that transition and plan for whatever comes next. With a free personalized income plan, you can view and manage your cash flow across accounts. Plus you'll get investing insights to help you make your savings last ready to take on retirement? Get started@fidelity.com Income planning expenses charged by your investments and other costs and fees associated with trading or transacting in your account. Apply Fidelity Brokerage Services member NYSE sipc. You know, I would say that it is important for us to actually allow them to have some connection to the world that isn't necessarily over protected by us. However, it is going to be really critical for us to as parents or parents to be to also vet the environments that they're a part of. We need to vet the people that are their babysitters and ask them questions that are taboo, that are uncomfortable, that are likely to actually protect our children. Right.

Be uncomfortable with your questioning.

Be uncomfortable with your questioning so that you don't have to live a life of discomfort because you didn't ask the question and properly vet the person and then something would have happened that could have been avoidable. Not always. Right. We can't say that the onus is on parents. The onus is really on people who just aren't protective of the children that they're connected to. But beyond that, vetting process, right. Which is a vetting process that is permissive because you're also allowing the child to be in the world and explore and understand and enjoy the world and fumble and pick themselves back up. And what we know about that process is that that also builds resiliency. Right. And so we need that process in our lives in order to actually be resilient adults. But it's also going to be critical, as I see it specifically as cycle breaking parents, for us to then transition into also being advocates on behalf of our children. We need to also win whatever way is possible, advocate for the systems that they're a part of for them to keep them safe. Right. Like advocate for better safety in schools which you know, as we see in today's world, especially in the US is like really compromised. And you know, also advocate for the laws that hold people accountable when they hurt children. Right. And it's like all of these things that are also systemic are also going to be a part of the process of how we parent forward in a way that's different.

Sure. What about the epigenetic element of this? You know, this is how much of trauma Is genetic versus kind of emotional mirroring and then passing on through just environment, space, emotion, onto another nervous system. Is it a genetic thing that we carry, or is it more of like we're just observing it all day long in these responses?

Well, what we know about intergenerational trauma, it is the only type of trauma that has a bit of both. Right. So it actually can be found at the intersection of our biology, which is all of those, you know, kind of epigenetic factors and our nervous system and really kind of like the structure of our biology, really early on, cellular memory, all of those things, and our psychology, which is, in essence, kind of everything that happens thereafter.

Right.

Like, after we're formed, after we're born, after, you know, we're out of the womb, There's a lot of interactions that we have with people with systems. Like, all of those interactions then actually create a certain experience, an emotional experience that can trigger a trauma response or perhaps never allow it to surface. And so it's a little bit of both, you know, but the thing about coming from families that they themselves have had any kind of trauma that has been longstanding and has been held in the body and has been held in their behaviors is that typically what tends to happen is that our bodies actually reflect the trauma that we have engaged in, the trauma that our bodies are constantly trying to fight. Right. Like when our bodies are in this nervous system alert and threat response for an extended period of time, it actually can transition the ways in which our genes actually turn on or off, which is the general premise of epigenetics. Whatever is happening in our environment socially is impacting the ways in which our genes are turning on or off. And so what happens at conception is that both parents actually have genetic markers or genetic messaging that actually gets translated to a baby at conception, including, of course, all the physical features and things like that, but also including a lot of these other things that are a part of just the general emotional makeup that a child can be born into.

Wow. So if both parents don't break their intergenerational traumas, they're passing down two different sets of multiple layers of traumas from family history into the child.

Yeah, and it gets really, really layered and complicated because I know it's a lot.

It's like the trauma of every one of your tree. How far back do these traumas link to? Is it like great grandparents or.

They say it's an approximate seven generations.

Seven. Oh, my gosh.

And there's a possibility that it might be 14 based on some newer Studies.

Oh, my. Until you break the cycle. It goes back seven to 14 generations.

Yeah. And it's, you know, when I.

So all the. All the traumas of my, you know, from like 300 years ago then.

Yeah, yeah.

Are passed down to me.

It said that it's about 255 direct histories, including your own living in you.

Oh, my gosh.

Which is why this seems overwhelming. I know, I know. Which is why it's so critical that because it is transferable messaging that is there in our body, it's important that we go back to the body. That's why when we do these talk therapies, they can be good for an extent of the work that needs to be done. Right. But not necessarily for when we're talking about layered trauma. When we're talking about these traumas that have been there for generations and that have these imprints and have these ways of coming up in ways you would never imagine. Right. Sometimes ascent just completely takes you back to two generations.

Oh my gosh.

And that's also been widely studied, you know, in the ways that our senses are actually, you know, they capture memory imprints from generations past. And so all of that is a part of.

Do we have memory imprint. Do we have past lives that we have memory imprints on, like all the things we went through there too, or is it only from our current generations, from our past generations?

Well, it said that, you know, at least we have at least like seven or so possibilities of generations that can actually. Now the studies have only gone as far back as two generations and especially believe in humans. But at the very least, we know that there can be like, for example, a scent that can actually be translated forward. Like I had this one, this one client that I actually, I found that the work with this person was so like just. It felt like it. You know, all of the things that I had been learning about that were research based were now being represented in this person. But the most interesting to me was the fact that he actually had a grandfather who had actually been attacked at a park by some random person who had actually had coffee prior to the attack. And he survived the attack, but then he actually didn't have kids yet, but then he had a daughter, and that daughter actually found the smell of coffee to be repulsive. And then another generation forward, my client actually could not stand the smell of coffee. And so, you know, we started digging through some of those layers and it made a lot of sense through the studies that have been done around, you know, the ways that these, like these Kinds of smells and the ways that we respond to them through the generations are there to almost protect us. Because the smell of coffee is telling. This generation's a family of this family.

Danger.

There's danger. Yeah, yeah. And so you must protect yourself.

Watch out, there's something around here.

Don't go there. There's coffee in the area.

Wow. How the body and the nervous system and the memory can transfer into different cells. Yeah, that's fascinating.

It's a forward planning process that our, our bodies do in order to help us survive as a species.

I mean, I guess if you think about just. Yeah. Evolution, you know, animals evolved their bodies so they could survive the environments. So humans, I guess it makes sense that we evolve our senses so that we can survive our emotional or psychological environments as well.

Precisely. Yeah.

That is fascinating. It seems like the world is very over medicated right now. I'm not saying there's not a need for medication in certain cases, but when it's over medication without applying therapeutic, natural, therapeutic healing remedies. I feel like that's a problem personally, because I don't feel like it's allowing your body to fully heal if you're just constantly on medication. What's your thoughts around trauma healing and medication? When should we take medication? Should we try other therapies first before applying medication? Do we need medication to heal? What's your thoughts on this?

I'm a big proponent of the idea that medication is something that can be used on a temporary basis and mostly when there's crisis involved.

Right. When it's too much to think clearly.

Yeah. Like the person is just in a place that, where they're not reachable. Like we can't pull them out of that state of dissociation or emotional shutdown in order to actually start doing the work. Then medication can be really helpful in just getting through those moments. But you know, medication, I see a bit of like a band aid. Right. Like, you know, just placing the band aid on the wound so that the wound can, you know, like then start to heal and then we rip it off and we allow the wound to then do what it needs to do in order to reform into the skin. Right. Very often we don't take off the band aid.

Right. Or if you're always staying medicated, you're never actually able to do the work.

Exactly. Or people are being medicated without the, what's supposed to be supplements or ancillary work, which is therapy or other kinds of modalities that can actually promote some sort of healing and restructuring of the mind and how a person is taking in their emotional experiences so that they do some learning and then apply different coping skills that then become default and then they don't need the medication.

Yeah. So you never really learn to integrate the lessons unless you're using medication, you're integrating at the same time, then hopefully you can get off the medication because you're doing the work.

Yes.

But if you're taking medication, you're not doing the work and you're not integrating lessons into the body. You're always going to need the medication, I guess, to disassociate it and numb the pain or something, right?

Yeah. Yeah. You're going to be reliant upon it. And you know, there's different kinds of dependencies. Right. And some of the dependencies are very biological, but some are more psychological dependency on medications like I need my meds versus this medication is really helping me to get through this stage of the process so that I can get into this stage of the process.

That's the way we should be thinking about it. You know, something you mentioned before, you know, about peace. I'm a big believer. My philosophy in life is we should be thinking about our habits and our behaviors to support us having the most harmony and peace possible. Right. So that when we are in a relaxed state, we can see wider, we can see things clearer, we can make better decisions, we feel better, more calm, we feel more abundant from a peaceful, harmonious state. But I lived most of my life not feeling peaceful. You know, I felt very anxious, very, like, driven to achieve constantly because I felt like I was never enough. And even when I did achieve big things, I still didn't feel like it was good enough. So I had to go after the next thing. Like, I felt like I was in a state of anxiety and constantly needing to create and do more. Like, it felt very anxious. I wasn't able to sleep at night that well for most of my life until I started the healing process. And I. And I realized, and I. And I thought to myself, oh, what I'm doing is working because I'm getting results. Like I'm achieving as an athlete. You know, I have a business that's growing, whatever it might be, I'm able to get things done, but I still didn't feel good. I didn't feel enough and I didn't feel calm. And I think it wasn't until I started to realize, like, oh, I'm in constant mental breakdown and I'm getting results, but I feel like there's no peace that's when I started to realize I've got to dive in and do some emotional healing, some emotional work, some psychological, I guess, therapies to support me and merging the both worlds. How can I accomplish what I want, but also have peace and harmony, knowing that it's not going to be some perfect thing where I never have, you know, discomfort, but how can I have more peace and harmony inside of me? And I think that's the main thing that I try to talk about in. In life as a philosophy. And I love that you talk about this higher self, you know, nervous system. It's like, what does your nervous system's highest self want? It wants to feel calm, it wants to feel relaxed, it wants to feel safe. And I think it's really important to go through your book and assess and ask yourself, where am I allowing myself to fall short here with my nervous system? And if I can heal the nervous system in the body, then I'm going to have a lot more abundance and peace in my life. Is that what I'm picking up with, with everything that you're talking about here?

Absolutely. What you're referencing in reference to the goals that you were achieving was what, in the science of behaviorism, we call positive reinforcement. So you're getting actually reinforced by working. You get reinforced because you get the results, then you work more, and you get the results again. Right? And so the same can actually happen. We can apply the same structured theory, philosophy, method, right? We can apply it into the goal of peace. The more that we engage in the practice of meditation, the more of the neural networks inside of our brain and nervous system that are actually going to start forming around that calm and peace. And the more that our brains, which are neuroplastic, are going to start forming, forming actual brain matter that is organized around peace. So we're going to get reinforcement. It's not going to look the same. It's not going to be that reward that's going to come right away and that we're going to feel like, oh, my goodness, it's all lifted. But we are going to feel better eventually if we continue that process.

That should be the game. Not like, how do I accomplish more and achieve more, make more, but how do I consistently be in a state of peace when something stressful happens in the world or with a person around me? How am I responding? Did I respond in a way that my highest self would be proud of, or did I respond in a way that my wounded self, you know, wants to justify? And I think it's finding Those different types of reward systems, right? Which in a big city like la, just driving anywhere, you can be like triggered just with someone honking at you. Why are they honking at me? So it's, how can you be, how can you reward yourself every day with like, man that I respond in a way my highest self would be proud of that served my nervous system and my body that my inner child would be grateful for.

Right? Yeah. I always say, you know, every single day presents us with an opportunity to break a cycle. All you have to do is take it every single day instead of rolling down your window and screaming out at the person in the other car. There's a choice that can be made every day in your relationship. You have a choice to end, continue that same cycle and pattern and yell back, right. Or integrate a different version of how you can engage in the relationship every day. There is an opportunity in all areas of life.

And it's a dance. How do you make sure you create boundaries so you're not getting walked on, but you're not reacting like a crazy person? All these different things.

It's a dance.

It's a dance. And if someone has been through a breakup in a relationship and they have not yet healed from that breakup or from their entire childhood, what will happen if they don't heal going into a new relationship intimately?

Well, the biggest risk is that they'll repeat the very same patterns that they're used to. I mean, there's this thing called repetition compulsion, which I know you're fairly familiar with. And it is when we in essence repeat the patterns that just feel familiar and that are already pre programmed inside of our minds. We go into every single relationship and the relationships start looking the same with the same patterns, the same beginning, end, and then we go into the next relationship with the same beginning, middle, end. And so it just becomes a cyclical process where we're not actually like doing anything different. We just, we just have different players in our lives. Right. And so whenever we can actually identify, oh, look, that's when I start getting into those codependent qualities. That's the, that's the inherent. That's my thing. Right. Like, you know, I start, let's say.

You know, I feel like I need this attention or whatever it might be.

Yeah, right. Like whatever your brand of it might be. Right. You know, we all have a brand. Right. Like, and that's true. Then people, you know, can actually start noticing their own patterns and then start cutting those patterns. We start cutting at the root when we're aware we cannot heal what we cannot see.

Yeah.

If we have something that we can actually identify as not being aligned with how we want to live a life, then we can identify it, call it out. And then when we see that it's about to creep up, say not. Not anymore.

Not this time.

Yeah. Not going in that direction.

As a, you know, as a trauma expert psychologist, what is the biggest challenge you face today? Scamming has grown into a trillion dollar industry with no signs of slowing down. And with AI scammer exploiting our instinct to trust by using technology to duplicate the voices of people we love, Bitdefender helps protect your family's devices, data and identities from those threats. Choose Bitdefender Premium Security, which includes Scam CoPilot, the first AI powered platform designed to safeguard you against scams in real time. Ready to make your digital Life safer? Visit bitdefender.com and download BitDefender Premium Security. For families, the best B2B marketing gets wasted on the wrong people. So when you want to reach the right professionals, use LinkedIn ads. LinkedIn has grown to a network of over 1 billion professionals, including 130 million decision makers. That's why LinkedIn has the highest B2B ROAs of all online ad networks. Spend $250 on your first campaign on LinkedIn ads and get a free $250 credit for the next one. Just go to LinkedIn.com Lewis that's LinkedIn.com L E W I S Terms and conditions apply. What's the biggest pain or problem that you face personally from your, you know, years of work and experience and education that you've learned, but also teach?

I still struggle personally with. Personally with the experience of patients having patience.

Yeah, what with some people may not with intimacy with friends, like in life.

More so with family. I'm someone who's like typically really fast in my thinking, fast in my acting and, you know, I'm just like very. I tend to operate on autopilot a lot, but it's actually something that I've been working on for a number of years and I'm still working on really intently. And even next year I want to work on in a way that I hope can really, really make an impact because I want to slow my life down, like really slow it down and really, like, do things that can actually help me to build the patience rather than, you know, just like tone it down, which is what I've been doing. And I think that that's also going to help me build greater compassion, be more Self loving and other loving and have an opportunity to also be more mindful and attuned in the spaces that I occupy, including my space with my family. So all of that, I think, is going to burgeon out of me growing that sense of patience around my life, which is. It's been so hard. It's been so hard.

It has been to be patient, to.

Just be patient with family, with family, with my goals. Yeah. With. If I, if I'm in an intimate relationship with an intimate relationship and where things are going or where they're not going, like, patience is just not. And my family will tell you, they'll, they'll say wonderful things about me. They're so kind. And then they'll say, well, she's not very patient. They'll always say that. So they, they know me well. Right. And I know myself and, and you know, I. It's not a quality that I, I love and I know I can do better. Like, I know it. And so. And I want to do better, which is the key. Right. Like, it's the motivation.

We're very similar. And Martha, my fiance, is like, yeah, you don't really have that much patience. I'm like, but I told you when we started dating that I don't. And so I've told you everything good, bad, in between about me. And I said, hey, do what? I accept this.

And it's all about an evolution. Right. Like, I'm much more patient than I was 10 years ago.

Yeah, of course.

And I, I desire for myself. I really desire this to be better.

Yeah. That's good. Yeah. I'm sure, like, when I have kids, it'll force me to be patient or I'm just going to feel more frustration and pain and like, anger. So it's either like, I suffer or I become patient.

Yeah.

It's like you suffer or be patient.

Yeah. Suffering is temporary, though.

Exactly. It is. I'm so grateful for you. In this book, Break the Cycle, a guide to Healing Inter Generational Trauma. I want everyone to get a copy of this, give it for a friend again. I just truly believe after my last, I guess, 10 years of healing journey, that this is the work we should be doing to better everything else in our life, to better our careers or our professions, our relationships, our health. Everything starts with doing the inner work and healing. And I really believe that on any new chapter of life, if you're entering a new career, a new relationship, a new year of life, you should be reflecting on where do I need to heal first before I enter this new thing or while I'm entering this new chapter, what can I start healing in the process of entering this? And the healing will continue. It's going to be a journey, but it's got to be something you really are attuned to. And I think when you focus on that, like you said, beautiful things will emerge. There might be some pain and sadness and grief for a short period of time, but then on the other side, there is more abundance and peace. And so I'm really excited that this book is out. Break the cycle. I want everyone to get a copy by Dr. Marielle Bouquet. Make sure you check this out. Where can we get this copy? And where's the best place to connect with you?

Thank you for saying that. And the copy of the book can be purchased wherever books are sold. It's everywhere. And also I have it linked on my website, which is drmarielbuquet.com where I'm at is usually LinkedIn. Sometimes, you know.

Are you more on LinkedIn than I said?

I'm more on LinkedIn lately. Oh, wow.

Okay.

I love it there.

It's just your name on LinkedIn.

It's just my name. And I tend to learn a lot there. And it's very invigorating.

That's good.

I love it there. Yeah.

Make sure to follow you over there. Check out your content there.

Thank you.

Break the cycle. Marielle, I'm very grateful for you. I want to acknowledge you for the constant work you're doing to put yourself out there. You know, you worked in a clinic for many years and professor for many years, but now actually being a teacher and an educator to the masses through putting it in a book by teaching content online, I really acknowledge you for bringing this healing work to us. Because again, I think this is what we should all be thinking about. You know, I like talking about health and relationships and money and business, but if you don't have peace in those areas, like, it's not going to be fulfilling and rewarding. So you've got to have healing peace first so that those things can be abundant. So I'm really grateful that you're teaching this and doing this work and doing the research to dive in on how we can heal these things.

Thank you.

And I acknowledge you for the consistency that you have in serving us.

Thank you.

You're welcome. I asked you this question before, but I'm asking these two final questions. This is called the Three Truths. So imagine it's your last day on earth and you only get to leave three lessons behind to the world. You've got to take all of your work with you and everything you create from now until the day you die has to go with you somewhere else. What would those three lessons that you would leave behind be?

It would be if we are not careful, history can repeat itself. So let's be mindful of that and cut the cord where we can that it is important for us to be in healthy relationships with other humans because we are relational beings. So let's continue to foster the relationships that help us feel psychologically safe or build ones if we don't have any. And that even if our life has at any point in time felt like it has been in shambles, there is always something that awaits on the other side if we are willing to not give up and just hold on to hope and maybe like take a couple points of wisdom from the people that have done it before.

Well, that's beautiful. I love that final question. What's your definition of greatness?

My definition of greatness? I just love this question. My definition of greatness is, you know, being able to get back up. I think that's, that's greatness. It's in everyday acts of just getting back up, really tapping into our resilience and into our internal strength, seeing it, the fact that it's really there and then using it to keep going.

I hope today's episode inspired you on your journey towards greatness. Make sure to check out the show notes in the description for a rundown of today's show with all the important links and if you want weekly exclusive bonus episodes with me as well as ad free listening experience. Make sure to subscribe to our Greatness plus channel on Apple Apple Podcast. If you enjoyed this, please share it with a friend over on social media or text a friend. Leave us a review over on Apple Podcast and let me know what you learned over on our social media channels at Lewishouse. I really love hearing the feedback from you and it helps us continue to make the show better. And if you want more inspiration from our world class guests and content to learn how to improve the quality of your life, then make sure to sign up for the Greatness newsletter and get it delivered right to your inbox over@greatness.com newsletter. And if no one has told you today, I want to remind you that you are loved, you are worthy and you matter. And now it's time to go out there and do something great.

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